Hot Dog Fingers

2012-01-27T23:41:00.000-05:00

The cat, playing in the yard. I know this is the most boring of boring, but for me it's like seeing a newborn thrown into the Pacific Ocean, so here you go.

I woke up early this morning and saw this through the curtains. It's one of those occasions where I wish the picture could have contained just 10% of the beauty I saw. Still, it came out okay.

2012-01-23T14:45:00.000-05:00

I posted this on Twitter a few days ago, but not many of you follow me on Twitter. Also, this might be the most insane panel from the most insane issue of a comic book that I've ever read.

From The Defenders: Tournament of Heroes #1 (Marvel, 1978, republished last week).

2012-01-22T18:31:00.000-05:00

   So, I've started writing up my thoughts and comparisons of Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (I know, right?) a couple of times now and I keep losing interest. Sorry about that.

But this happened...

   About once or twice a week I go on these little Fruitthievery™ expeditions where I walk around for a few hours collecting fruit. What one Paul f. Tompkins bit calls "migrant worker fantasy camp". At this point, you can call me cheap and you wouldn't be wrong. You can buy oranges for practically nothing just about anywhere out here. But there's benefits other than the six bucks I might've saved.

   For one, the best tasting fruit is stolen fruit, ask anyone. Despite the name, though, Fruitthievery™ is primarily taken from public or college lands that encourage people to help themselves. Even though what I'm doing is completely legal there's something about walking around on private property and harvesting fruit that gives it a sinister feel. and that always tastes better than something you bought in a store. Or ,in the case of many southern Californians, a freeway off-ramp.

   Another benefit is that the town we live in has fruit trees everywhere. The above map, taken from Fallen Fruit*, shows a small corridor on the college campuses nearby and what grows where, or what did. Sadly, a lot of construction has rendered this map nearly unusable. Still, there's plenty of other sources and I like to find them on my own just by walking around. Ever since a particularly intense night during college** I've made it a point to be able to recognize any spot on the ground within 2-3 miles of where I live. That sounds easy, but you'd be amazed at how many people take stuff like that for granted. Even if you walk a lot, you might not make it down certain alleys or through patches of trees. I try to as much as I can. Which means sometimes you find yourself potentially trespassing or walking through an elementary school by yourself like a weirdo, and it's times like those helps to be carrying a sack of grapefruit.

   Today, for instance, I found myself crouching in some bushes on an all girl's college campus.

   Let me back up a little bit. The campus is part of a much larger combined campus, so it's not like I was like hanging from a tree with binoculars in a convent or Themyscira or something. Still, it doesn't make me any less self-aware of what I'm doing or how I'm doing it. So yeah, I found a tangerine tree (which I haven't seen as many of) and it was ripe and plentiful with fruit. So I sort of half-climbed it and started filling up the bag I had wrapped around my shoulder. Normally it takes me no more than 2 minutes to get what I need, but tangerines are different in that I like to eat and juice them. Oranges and grapefruits I always juice. So I took my time up there.

   Of course, when I had gone up the tree, there was nobody really around. What I realized was that in the 5 minutes I had climbed into it, the surrounding area filled up with a bunch of people. There was some sort of event going on that people were gathering for, and while I'm sure they saw movement in the tree, I'm assuming they thought it was a squirrel or something not a grown-ass man. And I started panicking.

   What if they never disperse and I'm up here all day!? (Okay, I definitely didn't think the word "disperse"). But at some point I realized that I had to get out of there, embarrassment be damned. So I dropped myself down out of the branch I was standing on.

   Or at least I meant to. What actually happened is that my shoe was sort of wedged in a forked branch and so while most of my body dropped down three feet or so, my foot rose up to slightly above waist level. It was about as comfortable as you can imagine. Also, since my "drop" didn't go as well as hoped, I had to keep holding on to the tree to keep balanced. Which made a lot more noise than I would've thought. Instead of feeling awkward in front of a few people, I ended up looking awkward in front of a significantly larger crowd.

   After some clumsy maneuvering I managed to free my foot, pick up my bag of tangerines (which had begun to spill on to the ground did I not mention that?), and half mumble before walking off briskly. All in all, I got a whole bunch of tangerines, a weekly supply of oranges, some kumquats and some limes.

I'm not sure if I should start buying my fruit or touch up on my tree-climbing skills.


*Check that site to see if there's a map for your neighborhood!
**I don't think I've told this story here. I also don't think I ever will. It involves me getting lost and taking an entire neighborhood's Sunday morning papers. Ask me about it in person sometime.

New Post

2012-01-16T20:15:00.002-05:00

I need to start writing again. This, some fiction, anything. I need to start flexing that muscle again. One of the things I have the most trouble with writing is not mimicking whatever it is that I'm reading or hearing lately. Then before I know it, I'm aping Justified while writing two astronauts talking. I'm not sure if this means I have no consistent stories to tell or that I have no consistent voice of my own.
It doesn't matter, because I'm terrified that if I start trying to really take on something serious, the anxiety and self-doubt that has become so engrained in my professional life will seep into whatever I'm writing. Then it'll echo back on to me and I'll be trapped in some sort of negative feedback loop. The thing I was working on, the thing about Mars, sort of just slipped back into the quagmire that is my brain floor. But I'm thinking of something (tentative title The Fattest Spy) that maybe can get me started again. I'll keep you updated. Maybe. Probably not.

Anyway, yeah I'm still here. I hope to be posting again soon

My day, by the numbers:
1 bowl of cereal (Cheerios)
1 large cup of coffee (light cream, light sugar)
1 small glass of orange juice
2.2 job applications completed and sent
between 3-5 miles walked
300 situps
100 pushups
2 college lectures listened to (Espionage and Covert Operations: A Global History and Ben Franklin and the World of the Enlightenment)
1 podcast listened to (NBA Today)
3 songs listened to ("Soul Shake" by Peggy Scott & Jo Jo Benson; "Don't Know You at All" - Blood Feathers; "Unheard Music" by Elastica with Stephen Malkmus)
3 short phone calls made
.6 Meatball sandwiches*
1 large salad*
1 handful gummi candy*
1 shot espresso*
1 magazine read (New Yorker)*
2-3 hours television played, half watched (???)*

*tentative

I feel like I'm preparing for something, but I have no idea what that is. Maybe that's a good sign

Poetry I wrote on April Fools Day, 1999

2011-09-07T12:16:00.000-04:00

I'm sort of all over the place and don't have all that much to say lately, but I figured I'd share something anyway. This is a sampling of writing I did in college, and it sorta depresses me that as corny as some of it is, it's better than I could come up with now. Anyway, I think the purpose of this assignment was to emulate Wallace Stevens, which I completely did not do. Anyway, here it is.

I promise I'm not going to just start posting crap from my college years, but I got sick of seeing that last post at the top of the page and I found this while searching for some writing samples for something. Hope everyone is well.

A schizophrenic views the outdoor gardens

Trees residing in a small park.

Please do not disturb them

or tap on the glass.

Trees, after all

need their rest.

II.

No tire swings or birdhouses here,

and the lack of squirrels

is almost disquieting

III.

Electrical outlet!

poking out of the soil

next to the azaleas

like some deformed root.

IV.

Which of these lucky shrubs is

moved to the inside gardens for

the winter? Which are

grown back every year?

Across the street,

a tree reaches into the sky

like a ragged claw

with laughing children in

its clutches.

VI.

In the background,

the cathedral leans towards

the sun

looking for some water.

VII.

The English Oaks of

my childhood don't

seem as at home here,

without my house to dwarf.

VIII.

The only sound,

whirlwinds of dead leaves

crackle by

in jittery conversation.

IX.

Nameplates with nothing

to label

act as gravestones

for the weaker shrubbery.

All these plants,

yearning towards the

iron fence, looking out, and

trying to breathe

the free air.

you might as well skip this one...

2011-08-17T13:45:00.000-04:00

Hello all,

I'd normally take the time here to apologize for my radio silence and offer a weak excuse before getting down to what I had already planned to write about. I'm not going to do that today, because I don't really need some of those details on the internet at the moment. All I will say is that we had a lovely vacation that was somewhat tempered by some shitty news from back home. As a result we barely got to spend any time in Philly (one of the main reasons I booked a longer trip than normal), but I did get to loadup on La Columbe, so there's that.

Anyway, I don't want to get to into heavy stuff right now, so I figured I'd offer up my schedule for the day, since I apparently have nothing else to write about*. It might offer some insight into what I've been up to as well as why I've been so horrendously overdue on returning several phone calls. See? It's not just the internet I blow off.

Anyway, today we slept in until 8:30, which is a rarity in itself. After coffee, I run Carrie up to her work while I return back here, make myself a bowl of cereal and search/apply for whatever jobs I think I could be suitable for.This can take anywhere between 2-5 hours. Today, there isn't much new stuff, so just check on the status of some stuff and see if I've heard anything.

Sometime aroud 10:30, I head to Project A**, where today I'm going to be sitting in a vault by myself and sorting through the personal archives of a semi-legenday nutjob who might have saved every scrap of paper he ever said a hand on. Essentially, I'm sorting through this stuff and trying to get it into a working order for a grant proposal I'm working on. It's a hot, dusty job, but fascinating nonetheless. I get to see a history unfold as I work on this stuff, the life's work of a fanatically religious naturalist and see images that people might not have laid eyes on since 1920. It's one of the things I like the most about this field I've found myself in.

While I'm doing this, I'll be alternating back and forth between listening to an audio recording of Elmore Leonard's The Moonshine War and a playlist I created the other night called "FROBERG!", which consists entirely of Drive Like Jehu/Hot Snakes/Obits songs.

I'll work on this stuff until about 5 or so*** and then head home, where Carrie and I will probably make dinner before she has band practice. At 7, I will begin work on Project B. Project B is archival work, and something I've been engaged in for roughly 21 months. I'm hoping to have it wrapped in the next 5 days or so, so you can imagine my eagerness to get it over with. Hopefully this will take me through to about midnight, where I will close my computer, watch the dumbest thing I can find on Netflix, and talk shit with Carrie about how the Eagles will beat the Steelers tomorrow night.

If I'm lucky, I'll get to read the copy of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Vol III): Century #2 - 1969 that I picked up last week. It's been sitting on my nightstand taunting me, but I need to make sure I give it the attention it's due. The same could be said for Noir Afloat, which it's sitting on top of since I last opened it a week ago.

So that's the day I have planned. Try not to get too excited by it. When Project B wraps up, I'm hoping to be able to resume semi-regular posts here, but my concern is that by then Project A will have mushroomed into something scary. We'll see!

My apologies to anyone I didn't get to see back East, and to everyone I haven't been in touch with since returning. There's just a lot of pressure for me to take care of some things here, and I owe you more than a shitty text message saying I miss you.

I hope all is well, and I'll be in touch soon one way or another.

*except our trip to Forest Lawn a few months ago, my mindblowingly good steak taco recipe, the recent discovery of a ghost town nearby, and whatever else I'm forgetting...

**Sadly, I am not visiting the set of a 20 year old Jackie Chan movie, but I wish I was just to see Yuen Biao.

***lunch today: granola bar, some licorice, water

Hamburger Cake

2011-07-31T15:05:00.000-04:00

homemade hot dogs and sausages, chilled beer, and probably the nicest thing that anyone has ever done for my birthday.

Hi-Lo

2011-07-30T13:42:00.001-04:00

1. "Getting Ready for Christmas Day" - Paul Simon
2. "Eleven" - Thao & Mirah
3. "Down the road" - The A-Cads
4. "Baby Let Me Take You Home" - The Twilights
5. "Whatevering" - Coma Cinema
6. "Jealous Guy" - Donny Hathaway
7. "The Aay Jays Theme" - the Aay Jays
8. "Ra Ra Roo" - The Stewart Brothers
9. "I Don't Know" - Lantern
10. "Axel Rose" - Art Brut
11. "Shack Up" - Banbarra
12. "Soul Raga" - Mehrpouya
13. "When I Paint My Masterpiece" - The Band
14. "Byrdesdale Spa FC" - Porcelain on Porcelain
15. "I Wanna Do It (feat. Heidi Alexander)" - Earth Girl Helen Brown
16. "Soul & Sunshine" - Harvey & the Phenomenals
17. "Eh Bien Mon Ami" - Orchestre African Fiesta
18. "Light Love" - Free Energy
19. "GB City" - Bass Drum of Death
20. "Mighty Agabo (Max Tannone remix)" - Ghostface Killa
21. "Bloodstains on the Wall" - Honeyboy
22. "It's Not Easy" - Ofege

Download here 1:20:06

2011-07-19T12:34:00.000-04:00

My apologies for the radio silence lately, I've had a few things come up. Namely:

1) I had the apt to myself (and the cat) over the week, which ensured that I was going to work and watch a bunch of horrible movies and bad reality TV (Pawn Stars, namely) and generally not think about writing anything.

2. Our car might have died on my way home last night.

3. I have a really, really big interview tomorrow that I've been preparing a presentation tomorrow. Wish me luck.

I will resume semiregular posting tomorrow afternoon, and in the meantime go check out some more awesome google maps screenshots.

3 facts about me today, 7/5/11

2011-07-05T19:05:00.001-04:00

1. I am completely exhausted. Yesterday was long and fun and a little drunk but mostly it was damned hot. It was nice to see a parade, though. I haven't seen a 4th of July parade in what has to be a decade, and it was nice to find myself sitting in a friend's lawn and waving to other friends in the parade. Sure, we were probably the most obnoxious group of spectators there (my "show us the birth certificate" calls certainly didn't help anything), but it was still pleasant.

2. In less than 2 hours, I'm expected to go to softball practice, and it just dawned on my tyoday that I signed up for this forgetting that the only thing I dislike more than hot weather is having to exercise in it.

3. blah blah Casey Anthony blah Florida blah blah swamp people.

Usually, I'd have something interesting to post here but after waking up to find over 1500 new items to read in my Google Reader, I dumped ALL of them to save myself the trouble. Later tonight I'm planning on writing up a description of Carrie and I's visit to Forest Lawn cemetary over the weekend.

3 facts about me today, 6/28/11

2011-06-28T12:56:00.000-04:00

1. So there's an update on my previous post. As I mentioned, I'm weeding all of these amazing books to be removed from a library, which I'd be lying if I said wasn't the worst part of the job. A lot of these books Are not only being weeded, but a lot of them are somewhat dated and will probably just get chucked in the end. Usually these are technology or current affairs texts. Case in point, yesterday I was working my way through a chunk of books largely devoted to military science and history. While I admit a fondness for this subject area (I can idly thumb through a book about swords any day), it was the section about nuclear armaments in the Cold War that caught my attention. It seems that in the mid-80s, Cold War hysteria reached the library in force. I probably discarded some 35 books on the subject. One of them was so great, though, with all of these vintage graphics and charts explaining the history of the ICBMs and there's even a cutaway picture of a Soviet 9K52 Luna portable missile complex (comedy nerds might remember this as the giant truck/missile thing from the ending of Spies Like Us). It was the sort of book I knew would get junked and also that I had to have. So I went home, found it for $0.98 on Amazon, and bought it. This is a process I find both liberating and rewarding, but it's going to get me into a lot of trouble. Last night I ordered 4 books spotted on just one short shift of work. I'm afraid to see what happens when we start hitting the areas of knowledge I'm really fascinated by.

2. As much as I enjoy the Pod F. Tompkast and Stop Podcasting Yourself, Paul F. Tompkins as a guest on SPY is one of my favorite things in the world. If not for that most recent episode, there's half a chance I'd be a smear on a freeway in Orange County right now.

3. I'm sure a lot of you have seen this by now, but there was some footage making the internet rounds last week of an SUV plowing through a 7-11 (and one of its employees). It's pretty horrifying to see, especially when two people jump out of the car and nonchalantly walk away before the driver takes off. When it came up last week on one of the Spanish-language news channels, I assumed it had taken place in either Southern California or Mexico. But it happened in Yeadon, PA, which I found to be a little disheartening. Then 2 minutes later I picked up a newspaper and read first about some monster killing a Golden Retriever less than a mile from my home and then something in Sacramento I cannot even being myself to repeat. So now I'm just depressed for all of us. For the next week, I can't bring myself to read any of these stories that have taken place in this country. Even Florida. Can we get on that somehow?

Steam

2011-06-24T14:36:00.000-04:00

Part of my job consists of weeding the print collection a relatively large community college library. As electronic books and databases become the norm for research practices, the print collections of most libraries is being drastically reduced. I understand this, and there are long-term cost savings, but at the end of the day it still means that a bunch of books are getting thrown out. Of course, a lot of the time these books are outdated and somewhat useless (see, computer science manuals) or too specific for a community college (veterinary medicine is not a huge topic here). But sometimes, it's just an old book that not many people check out. At the moment, I'm looking at a book called The Power of Steam: An Illustrated History of the World's Steam Age. It's a thirty-year old book that's long since been out of print and not specific to a subject taught here. And it hasn't been checked out since 1997. So I am forced to recommend it to be junked.

But here's why this bothers me so much.

This book is amazing. Never mind that I don't care about a lot of the specifics of the development of the steam engine, though it confirms that it was invented by James Watt (thanks, The Simpsons!). The book also explores the social and practical impacts of it (which is way more in my wheelhouse) and features so many awesome pictures I don't know where to start with it. There are oil paintings of a steamboat drag race, photographs of the Industrial Age's foot soldiers toiling in assembly lines and engineers caked with oil and grime. There's a wood engraving of an engine on Tokyo's Negishi Line from 1872*! There are lithographs of the first trial run of the London Underground (between Paddington and Farringdon in 1863), and a race in 1866 between a steam engine and a pack of dogs!

Sure, this the sort of thing a dork like me loves, and I hardly had time to explore the text itself. But if I can be so engaged by this book, couldn't someone who actually cares about engineering or history get even more out of it? This is my biggest problem with the eagerness of so many libraries to dump their print collection. I never would've searched in a computer for this book in a million years. The only reason I found it was because I stumbled across it while going through the shelves.

*Strangely enough, we were at a train museum a few weeks ago and saw an electric trolley that ran on that exact line at around 1910. I won't get into why we were there or why that excited me, but it should probably confirm what you think you know about me; namely that I am a 6 year-old at heart.

2011-06-24T14:26:00.000-04:00

Cohen placed the book with publishers in England and America who requested a shorter length, so he cut the book in half. He wrote "anyone with an ear will know I've torn apart orchestras to arrive at my straight, melodic line."

3 facts about me today 6/24/11

2011-06-24T14:24:00.000-04:00

1. It's 11:12 AM and I have already spilled two separate cups of coffee on myself.

2. Right now, the only thing I've listened to (aside from a few podcasts) is Fucked Up's David Comes to Life, which might be the best album I've heard in 4 years. It's got a lot of things that I should dislike about it in theory, not the least of which being that it's a narrative concept album. My track record with these is spotty at best, despite some of my favorite songs of all time come from albums like this. My problem is that they invariably go off the rails in a serious way. Sometimes they make a movie out of it, which might help to fill in a lot of the blanks (Quadrophenia) or it might help to illustrate how poorly thought out the third act is (Tommy). Even Songs From the Capeman (shut up, I stand by a lot of those songs) loses track of its voice a couple times, and that's about as straightforward as it gets.
But David Comes to Life feels different for me, perhaps because I'm not trying to follow the plot. Or because the music has so much energy (those guitars!) that I can't be bothered. Maybe because the lyrics paint enough of a picture that I can just consider the songs vignettes and ignore the larger picture. Maybe I just love driving and listening to it. Regardless, it is amazing.

3. The NBA draft is over, which means that until late fall, the only sport I really need to think about is the Phillies. The exception, however, is going to be the U.S./Mexico soccer game taking place in Pasadena tomorrow. It's the final match of the gold cup, and watching the semis has somehow endeared this whole tournament to me, not to mention the sheer insanity of what's gonna happen at the Rose Bowl tomorrow.

4 (Bonus!). We finally finished season 1 of Treme last night, and I still have very, very mixed feelings about it.

3 facts about me today 6/19/11

2011-06-19T16:55:00.000-04:00

1. I'm fresh from one of the most relaxing (and rewarding) mini-vacations ever, which is strange. I've never imagined myself as Desert Folk. In fact, as someone who has watched horror movies for the better part of his life, Desert Folk scare me only slightly less than Mountain Folk and Swamp Folk on the grand scale of creepy desolate weirdos. They live in the closest thing to a wasteland I can think of, with only rattlesnakes and coyotes (2 syllables) for company. The cultural norms and and legal standards of the nation seemingly vanish with the water vapor, replaced with the mysterious, unwritten code of DESERT LAW. DESERT LAW, it seems, is a lot like the law of the jungle, but with allowances for things like crystal meth and the living mummies that inhabit Palm Springs.
But weirdly enough, we had a great time out there. Not that I could live there permanently, but there's something refreshing about being out there, with pure spring water coming out of the taps and the massive San Gorgonio Wind Farm. The wind farm is one of the saving graces of the trip. Instead of seeing nothing but brush and corpses for miles, the different sizes, shapes, and speeds of wind turbine provide an almost hypnotic landscape I can only compare to an ocean. Also, it gets so hot there this time of year that everyone just kinda siestas in the afternoons, which I'm clearly a fan of. In all, Desert Folk ain't so bad (some of 'em, anyway), and there are surprising advantage to living out there. I'd describe the trip in greater detail, but it was a) a personal vacation, and b) it would ruin a lot of my next pic dump. But keep an eye out.

2. Once again, my hair is getting embarrassingly long. Right now my 2 options are to comb it super-tight with product for work or to slap on a baseball hat. Part of me wants to grow it out a little (not mullet length, but floppy), but then I remember that in 2 months, it's gonna be too hot to think around here so maybe I'll just chop it. Stay tuned!

3. Clarence Clemons died last night, and while I'm certainly not the only one thinking about this on Father's Day (see Will's similar thoughts here), it's a loss. I've written enough about my father and I's shared love of Springsteen here, so I don't want to bore you with that. Clearly, the band will never be the same. The Big Man was an essential piece of the E Street Band and, like Danny Federici, he is irreplaceable. Sadly, those two were also the most unique pieces of the band, and among the most identifiable musicians I can think of, but so different. Danny's accordion (particularly on "Wild Billy's Circus Story") and organ are ornamentation that fills in the empty spots of the records, painting the rest of the picture. Clarence's sax, on the other hand, just grabs the reins of the song and takes off. Late last night I was listening to one of my favorite recordings of all time, with the guys in Bryn Mawr, PA playing at the Main Point in 1975. It's a super early concert by band standards, and there's plenty of things still being worked out onstage (including the prototype for what later became "Thunder Road"). It's an amazing show, but at some point during "Rosalita" that night, Clarence not only took over the song, but he sent it careening in an entirely new direction, forgetting Bruce's please for love and instead strapping it into a roller coaster. the jaunt resolves itself a few minutes later when Clarence and Bruce start tapping out a call-and-response with sax and guitar, and things right themselves cosmically. It's a thing of beauty.

Go ahead, give it a listen.

There's a great old story about David Sanborn when he was the hottest of the hot shit studio horn men, he was asked by some producer or artist if he could play a song more like Clarence. He thought for a minute, and replied that yes, he could, but in order to do so, the lights in the studio would have to be turned way down, in order to provide mood. They accommodated this wish, and started again, but Sanborn stopped them again, and asked that the lights be turned down even more. They did this, and then a third time Sanborn asked for the lights to be turned down yet again. They did this and started the track once more. They played the song through but when the sax parts came up, there was nothing from silence coming form the darkened booth. When they stopped the track and turned up the lights to see what had happened, Sanborn was gone.

Sure, the veracity of this story is highly suspect, and I'm sure that even if it was true, nobody's gonna admit it. But it's a fitting story to this man, who was introduced in a fantastic way every time he took the stage with Springsteen. He was larger than life in a lot of ways, and while I can't replicate most of Bruce's stories, I can at least repeat one I heard secondhand.

Happy Father's Day to every great dad out there. If I could, I'd send each of you a ridiculous tie and a warm handshake. Keep doing what you're doing.

3 facts about me today 6/14/11

2011-06-15T01:16:00.000-04:00

I missed doing this last night. I'm not trying to say this is something I plan on (or will end up) doing every single night, but I'm gonna try to keep it somewhat consistent).

1. I'm trying to make this a little short because tomorrow Carrie and I are going for a tiny vacation out near Palm Springs and we've promised each other that we won't bring computers. This is a pretty big statement, considering we both spend at least 10 hours a day or so working on them. I'm actually pretty excited. I'm bringing a fresh order of books to read and reread (Duane Swierczynski's Fun & Games and Greg Rucka's first two Queen & Country novels -- the first is new and I'm revisiting the second two). I'm really excited and plan on do a lot of reading by the pool with beer. You know, to keep hydrated in the desert lest some coyotes decide to have their way with my unconscious body. What? I heard they do that now.

2. I've been picking up a lot of snails lately. Have I mentioned this here? Every time it rains here, hundreds of snails end up on the sidewalks. I feel like that's happened everywhere, but here on the edge of the desert (where we still get rain), this is magnified a hundred times. Normally I wouldn't notice, but sometime after I accidentally stepped on my tenth snail I had a change of heart. The crunching sound alone is revolting and causes me to freak out, and so now I try to chuck 'em into some bushes to slow them down. They still gross me out and I hate touching them, but at least I don't have snails on my conscience. or on my shoes, I guess. Which is just as nice.

3. I forgot to call my mom on her birthday last week, which makes me feel just about as terrible as you would think. The thing is, I had a note on my nightstand to remind me, and I still didn't remember. I'm hoping that by writing this out now, I'll remember to call my grandmother tomorrow for hers. There are like 20 friends and family members with June birthdays, but that's no excuse. My excuse is that I never remember them. The only birthday I remember consistently is my grandfather's, and that's only because it's the same as mine, which I'd forget if Carrie didn't remind me. Yeah, I'm a crappy person. But also birthdays sort of stop after 18, right? excepting round numbers?

on an off note, does anyone have anything to say regarding Pandora vs. Rdio? I know I'm super late on these, but I spent like 4 hours working yesterday while listening to a Louis Jordan channel yesterday that has me rethinking my dislike of streaming/cloud audio. Is one of these services clearly superior to the other? Should I just be waiting for Spotify before paying for either? The last one one is the likeliest candidate at the moment.

3 facts about me today 6/12/11

2011-06-13T00:00:00.000-04:00

1. The NBA playoffs have come to an end. Obviously this isn't a fact about me, but it was a satisfying end to one of the best NBA postseason I've ever had the fortune of watching. I've been thoroughly entertained by the past 9 months of basketball, but I'm happy it's done. Now I'll have more time to devote to work and following Phillies games.

2. So, our cat has been involved in this long-term psychological operation on some birds near out balcony for the past few days. I assume that they have a nest nearby or something, although I haven't seen it. But they will flap around just outside of our balcony, squawking up a storm and trying to scare of Fergus, who just sits there staring at them with something resembling a grin on his face. I'm not even making this up! I think he basically just goes out there to antagonize them, despite being the scarediest cat I've ever seen.
The thing is, these birds are really pissed off, and when I go out on the balcony to see what's happening, they're about eye level with me and so I run away screaming. Fergus is relatively safe behind the bars of the railing, but I'm still uneasy about it, so I go out there and chase off the birds a couple times a day. Usually I throw a grapefruit at them.
Ours is a home with a lot of grapefruit. Especially right now, when they're in season and friends drop off whole bags of them, which we always happily accept. But if I have to throw something at some birds (or in some cases, a relatively large stray cat orgy in the parking lot of the vet outside of our window), I don't want it to be hard enough to break anything, or for it to just become litter. So I fire a grapefruit at them. It works, but now there's grapefruits all over the lawn by our balcony and so our neighbors probably think something crazy's going on. Nice.

3. I was up at 4:35 this morning researching the etymology of the word "filibuster", and trying to see if there's a "crownstone" from the Mason Dixon Line that's still intact that I might be able to visit when I'm back East this Summer (I think there is!). This, along with stops at a few restaurants, is what I'm most looking forward to on that trip.

okay, I'm done for the night. Hope everyone has a stellar week.

3 facts about me today 6/11/11

2011-06-12T02:49:00.000-04:00

1. I had to go to Target twice in one day and I'm super ashamed of it. Even more, I'm angry because the stupid Target brand mineral water is TERRIBLE.

2. In the past 4 days, I've seen 5 bands perform featuring people I know. Basically, I'm hiding out at home right now because a friend's band is playing at the bar next door and I'm just overloaded on live music right now. Thus, I am home unable to decide whether I want to watch an MST3K movie or WWII in HD.

3. This morning I was awoken -as I am most saturdays- by a band playing the Harley dealership also next door. Without fail, they play a lot of Sabbath and Steppenwolf covers but now they've incorporated "White Rabbit" into the set and it is seriously affecting me. I've always disliked that song, but it's now been upgraded to outright hatred.

3 facts about me today; 6/10/11

2011-06-10T14:02:00.001-04:00

Okay, this is gonna be a new feature on here to try to get me to write more. Mostly, it's the thought that by posting 3 current facts about myself is both narcissistic and short enough that it shouldn't be as daunting as when I park my ass in front of my laptop for 2 hours and rant about M&Ms or something. Let's hope it works!

1. From when Carrie got on a plane late on Sunday night until yesterday evening, I ate nothing but sandwiches. There was a slight amount of controversy when I introduced the "Swedish Fish Sandwich", but after review from the all-sandwich diet committee, it was ruled that the SFS did, in fact, qualify as a sandwich provided that the top and bottom fishes were of the same color/flavor. The streak ended last night when I made myself some short ribs. They were delicious.

2. I've been listening to a lot of Forge Your Own Chains: Heavy Psychedelic Ballads & Dirges 1968-1974, and last night I fell asleep in the tub listening to Donny Hathaway. Also, a collection of Pakistani pop music that constantly makes me feel like I'm in that scene in The Wire where the Greek is shutting closing up shop in Baltimore for the time being.

3. I saw X-Men: First Class and loved it. There were a few things (and 1.5 characters) that bugged me, but overall I really enjoyed it. Probably in my 5 favorite superhero movies ever, and certainly the best movie I've seen in a theater all year. In all fairness, I think Thor is the only other movie I've seen in the theater this year. Man, I'm a loser.

2011-05-20T23:15:00.001-04:00

Friday, May 20
7:54 PM

It is Friday night, and I am home alone since Carrie left for band practice. It's dark in hour living room, and I'm playing a combination of ambient music and the Los Angeles police band at a particularly embarrassing volume. I'd be curious to see what my neighbors must be thinking about now. I had two beers with dinner and am thinking about using the last of the bourbon on the shelf to make myself a cocktail.

I don't really have anything interesting to post. I mean, I probably do somewhere, but the last several ideas I've had have been preempted by stuff I've read or seen or heard about, which is a shitty excuse not to write, I know. But sometimes any excuse is a good one.

Maybe I've exhausted all of the episodes of Justified I was catching up on. Maybe I'm just bored. Maybe, after reading about a pending apocalypse all day, I didn't want the last post on this site to be about a freeway exchange. It probably doesn't matter.

-rest of this post deleted out of common sense/rapture joke fatigue. I've spent too much time on the computer today and I need to get the hell away from it.

I'll try to think and post something up before the end of the weekend.

In the meantime, try not to get too bummed if you're not one of the people floating off into the sky. I'll still be here with you.

2011-04-29T15:12:00.000-04:00

A photo of a particularly bad part of my commute to work. Total commute comes to something like 40.4 miles each way. On Wednesday, the round trip took me almost 4 hours.

I realiz that these pictures aren't hard to come by, that I probably could've used Google Earth to get something very similar (or of my entire drive), but that's not as fun as browsing some weird site and coming across a picture of one of your most groan-inducing weekly moments (often when running late for work).

original can be located here.

Gone With the Wind

2011-04-28T21:54:00.001-04:00

Last night I watched Gone With the Wind. Actually, I read comic books and half paid attention and half complained while Carrie watched it. I had never seen it before, mostly because I've never had much desire to. From the story's content to its fans to the era in which it was filmed, it never held much for me to be excited about. to be honest, I think it's way more of a crime that I've never seen Casablanca than my not caring about Gone With the Wind, and my feelings haven't changed since last night.

Let's ignore the fact that the movie is 11 hours long and absurdly racist*, and what I took away from that movie is that everyone is crazy and horrible or stupid and horrible. I mean just the sort of people I would absolutely not be able to sit in the same room as. Not that I could afford to, but still. I don't know why people don't talk about that. Probably because it's just a movie, and when you think about it, movies rarely feature characters that act like normal people. Hell, why pay for that? Pretty much all the best movies have a characters that would make you crawl out of your skin had you encountered them in real life.

Normal people.

It's a concept I think about a lot, because as a person who considers himself to be somewhat normal, I feel like there aren't many of us. Think of how many times you encounter people on the street or in a restaurant or bar or something and they do something that counts as anything from weird to psychotic. Maybe that number is inflated since you're not going to remember the potentially normal people that you happen to encounter without incident. It's a lot easier to remember the guy who smells like a Grendel pooped in his pants and threatened you with a ladder than the person who quietly smiled back at you on the street.

Fair enough.

But still, there are an inordinate amount of people that just strike me as... I don't know, incapable of social interaction? People that will tell you disturbingly intimate details moments after meeting them, or who seems to have a "drunk/accusatory" switch in their brain or something. You know these people.

But what I'm always left wondering about is how they don't understand that people will find this behavior unsettling at best. Where is this behavior learned?

Last night, I mentioned that the movie should have at least one character who twenty minutes in says "alright, you all are nuts. I'm outta here!". And then for the rest of the night I was thinking about this. Maybe that's where this stuff comes from! Maybe if you obsess over movies like this enough, you start to think that all sorts of behavior is acceptable when it is absolutely not. "If I want my life to be more like the movies, then I should act like they do in movies" is not the worst logic I've ever heard. But it's pretty close.

But if movies could have this effect on people, what is the internet going to do with us? Just make us mean, entitled, and embittered? No thanks. It worries me that we spend less time interacting with one another than ever before, since it will only increase the influence of things like TV and the internet on how we conduct ourselves in public. But it's to the point now where I'm wondering where "normal" people come from, or at least how they're created. I probably spend more time by myself than anyone I know, and even when I'm in public I frequently am wearing headphones**, but somehow I can manage to hold a conversation without snapping off the disclosure switch in my brain and throwing it into a nearby fire. Maybe it's listening to podcasts. Maybe it's because I never had "Teen Mom"*** to watch on TV.

I'm lucky. I have a wife who is my best friend and carries more or less the same social beliefs that I do. Same goes for our roommate and friends (however scattered across the country as they may be). Since moving to California, my efforts to make friends out here have been pretty varied, and there have been more than a few instances where I've considered jumping out a second-story window or pulling a fire alarm to get out of the rest of an evening. I would probably lose my goddamn mind if I was single. Loneliness I can handle, but spending quasi-intimate time with near strangers is a special hell that I couldn't handle. "How do I come from the same universe as these monsters?". One thing is for sure, I would not be afraid to bring stink and/or smoke bombs to smash on the floor and use as a quick exit.

I don't know. God knows I've creeped enough folks out in my day. Maybe my version of normal is just people who suppress all of their weird shit rather than letting it breathe. Maybe you at home reading this has never encountered the guy on public transportation who insists on telling you about his "bitch wife" or the lady at the bar who spends 40 minutes berating anyone that doesn't agree that her dog is the cutest thing they've ever seen****.

So clearly I don't have a point. Except that Gone With the Wind is terrible and racist*****.

I guess the next time you're feeling frustrated with how nobody just seems like a normal person anymore, you should write a lengthy, incoherent piece about it for awhile before realizing that you're complaining because not everyone acts the same. Then, think about it for about 10 minutes, wondering if you should just delete it like the last weird piece you wrote. Then delete it.

That's what I would do if I were you. But I'm me, so I'll ignore that last sentence.

If you're reading this, though, and you know me, it means that I probably know you too, and that at least once a day, I will be working or talking with someone who acts in a way completely alien or disarming to you. and I will be thinking to myself if this is a crazy thing or if they were drunk or raised by a bear or all three, I'll think of you YES, YOU reading this and think about how lucky I am to have the people in my life that I do. You are one of the people that sort of grease the wheels of existence for me, insulate my life from... the collective life. You're scattered across the globe, and some of you I probably haven't spoken to in years. Yet you're still in my mind and am as baffled as I am, which is a welcome sort of validation. Keep it up, and I'll try to do the same!

*Seriously, what was that about? I have enough trouble understanding why people love this movie without that shit. It turned a long, boring movie into a long, offensive AND boring movie. Can we remove this (and Birth of a Nation!) from our national archives, please? Or at least from those absurd AFI lists...
**I have gotten shit consistently since middle school for wearing headphones all the time from friends and teachers alike. Now everyone does it and I'm the one complaining that nobody talks anymore.
***I know that the title of the show should be in italics (episodes go in quotations) but I'm still trying to convince myself that it isn't a real thing.
****both real.
*****Seriously, I might have paid actual attention to 2 hours of the movie, which is barely half of it, so I might've missed some really touching shit where Scarlett whined and slapped more people.

2011-04-12T17:54:00.001-04:00

Fredd Ott's Sneeze

The earliest surviving piece of copyrighted film.

It took 5 days to film. It required a machine the size of a refrigerator to view and takes up about a billionth of my hard drive.

"The star is Fred Ott, an Edison employee known to his fellow workers in the laboratory for his comic sneezing and other gags."

comic sneezing?

pic dump 4/11

2011-04-11T16:25:00.001-04:00

Graffiti in San Francisco

Monster fire truck

Boojum tree. Taken because I like saying "Boojum" (name taken from a Lewis Carroll poem)

From James Jean exhibit "Rebus"

Truck I was stuck behind on a freeway for over an hour. Those are mattresses.

Not surprisingly, they were pulled over. They acted like the cop was insane for doing so, and were pissed when he told them that they couldn't drive home.

The Bradbury building, one of the most gorgeous pieces of architecture I've ever seen. You might remember it as J.F. Sebastian's home in Blade Runner. It's a little hard to see in these pictures, but the things on the sides of the first picture and in the background of the second are hand wrought steel elevators. It's hard to do the building justice with my crappy cell phone pictures, but check out some better ones here.

A converted theater across the street. These are really common for downtown LA, and often overlooked in the grand scheme, considering how beautiful they can be.

Victorian mansion estate in Redlands, CA.

Weiner cactus

and weirdly related are these three pictures. I remember when I became old enough to notice used condoms in the street. It always (and continues to) freak me out because A) it's disgusting and B) how the hell did they get there. After awhile I figured out that lots of people have sex in cars, often professionally, and it's easy enough to throw it out the window when done. Gross and littery, but still an explanation.

Currently, I live across the street from a 24 hour "adult superstore". It's a thriving business, judging by the number of people who almost run me over when flying out of their parking lot hoping to not be seen. What I can't for the life of me understand is how many of these people are buying sex toys and throwing the packaging out the window on the way home. I get why they are popular. But are people using these in the car? while driving?

I don't care that there's a porn store across the street. There are like 5 of them within a mile of my house. There's also a stripper clothing store, several organized crime fronts, 35 tattoo parlors, 5 liquor stores, a trucker academy, a Harley dealership, and a hookah lounge. I don't care about any of these, in fact I kinda like the smutty character it lends to the immediate area.

But for fuck's sake, can we not throw this stuff in the street? For one thing, it's like super industrial non-biodegradable plastic. For another, one has the words "Extra veiny dong" written on it, which perplexes me in ways unfathomable. Enjoy sex toys responsibly, people. and the their packaging.

Tamanend

2011-04-07T18:25:00.000-04:00

Tamanend, leader of the Lenni-Lenape. Name later bastardized to Tammany (as in Hall). A man for whom I was woefully ignorant (despite growing up on his land) until quite recently, and driving past the above statue with regularity.

Weirdly, I can talk for hours about Tomochichi, though. One of my favorite names/bridges ever.

More flotsam

2011-04-07T18:16:00.000-04:00

My review for Asterios Polyp. (OGN = Original Graphic Novel):

I make no secret of my love of comics and graphic novels. Trying to legitimize them as a respected form of art on the internet in 2010 is probably akin to justify movies in the mid-50s, but for some reason I will always feel that the medium is undercut by the notion at large that they are mindless and sensational. Of course, many of them are. I probably tend to prefer the sensationalistic (though not without artistry) tendencies of the superhero genre more than the subtle storytelling of the OGN (original graphic novel). But I remain an avid fan of both and a staunch defender of the merits of both. Unfortunately, the mainstream will always be harder to legitimize, and at the cost of the latter.

After I recently gave one comic book (Jason Aaron's amazing Scalped) five stars, my sister (hey, T) sent me an email that consisted of one word: "really?" Granted, that particular collection had an unfortunate name, but it remains a powerful work and one that I was amazed with. Overall, the experience made me wonder if I should start putting more effort into explaining the ratings I give sequential art, both the bad and the good, the mainstream and the OGN, if only to solidify my opinions to myself, if not to others.

David Mazzucchelli was the artist on one of my favorite Batman stories ever, Year One. Now I'm discovering that he is the sole creator (yes, even lettering!) of one of my favorite OGNs. Asterios Polyp is the kind of book that I would give to almost anyone I know, a true endeavor of creative storytelling coupled with talent and soul. I bristled at some of the storytelling, but only in a way that made me somewhat embarrassed of doing so by the end, as if I hadn't been paying attention the entire time. It is a book that takes advantage of the medium and is greater than the sum of its parts.

As I mentioned earlier, this is the sort of book I would give to just about anyone, especially someone doubting the potential of a graphic novel in delivering a great story. Unfortunately, it's also the sort of book that 95% of the people I gave it to would never read. Still, that 5% might be worth it.

I could've sworn I wrote a really good review for I Kill Giants, but I can't find it right now. Hopefully I'll fix that in the next few days.

Speaking of magic...

2011-04-07T18:13:00.000-04:00

My review for Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites:

One of the pull quotes on the back of this book (from the amazing Eric Powell, creator of The Goon) begins with so "I never thought I'd feel this way about anything with talking dogs in it..." which is a good place to start. This is a book about talking animals. Who are friends and solve mysteries together. Spooky, supernatural mysteries.

That sets the bar pretty low, right? Sure it does. But this isn't an All Dogs go to Heaven. There are no stoned teenagers in a van. What you get here instead is an engaging, funny, and sometimes heartbreaking tale of a band of friends (or at least neighbors) handle the unexplained as if affects their neighborhood. the characters are distinct and developed, and each story unfolds with a complexity that belies the whole talking-dog aspect of the book. And there is Jill Thompson's art, a watercolor style that fits the story and characters like a glove. As with most of the comics I like, I wouldn't recommend this for children, but I think that mystery and pet lovers alike would really enjoy this book. I ask you to go ahead and prove me wrong, if you get the chance to pick this volume up. I dare you. Go out on a limb and try something new, and I bet you'll like it.

Strange Magic

2011-04-07T18:08:00.000-04:00

   One of my new obsessions is Joe Hill's amazing comic Locke & Key, the trades of which I've been devouring lately. Eventually, I'll get around to writing up those books for Goodreads and repost here, which is something I've been meaning to do for awhile*.The book is fantastic, but I'm not necessarily going to talk about it today. However, there's a concept within the book that's been on my mind lately. In the story, there is magic. It is old and powerful magic, and so far, it is completely unknown by the adults of the series, even the ones that dabbled in it as youths.

   This isn't a groundbreaking idea. Going back to Peter Pan (and probably earlier), the idea has been raised that if magic were real, it would only be understood or appreciated by children whose minds have not been closed by... well, prolonged existence, I guess. I think this is a natural concurrence, really.

   I feel like my childhood was riddled with this, the magic of everyday life. The night I swear I saw a ghost in a rocking chair in the top window of an abandoned house. The power of a ghost story**, an out-of-body experience... these are things that I swear all happened to me before my teenage years. There was the time I went to Europe with my grandparents at age 8, and I returned with sore, hacked-up fingers. I thought for some reason that if I left fingernail clippings all over the streets and alleys of Italy then a piece of me would remain there and imbue me the wisdom and artistry of the ages. Now, it sounds like a pretty childish and disgusting habit, but you have to think that many, many superstitions have been started by less.

   There were two places in Maryland that I was terrified of. One was an old motorcycle clubhouse that hadn't been occupied in over a decade, the other was a cluster of trees around a streetlight. These were places I was certain were haunted, or at least held the power in my mind to be haunted. Nothing ever happened there, as far as I knew, although maybe some of my siblings tried to convince me otherwise. I don't know what it was, but I would fall into a catatonic state before willingly walking through these places. Weirdly, the giant abandoned hotel down the street was more or less fine with me. But a cluster of trees.... whoo, boy.

   Obviously, things didn't stay that way. The juju of the world is replaced by cold, dry logic. Gradually, the places I was terrified of became the type of places I would venture on dares from myself and others. It was somehow a part of the maturation process. Go to the places you once feared, and once you're not murdered there, a piece of magic withers away from your mind.

   I remember the first time I worked up the nerve to check out the old clubhouse, and the worst of my fears were confirmed when I saw someone had spray painted a pentagram on one of the walls. There has been foul business here. There were sacrifices of children and unholy ceremonies in my minds eye. It wasn't until later that I realized that it was a certainty that these were put there by kids not much older than myself, and with the intent of frightening kids like me. In fact, I'd put even money on the culprit being one of my brothers, trying to secure a place where they could smoke cigarettes without me finding them.

   There's a reason that teenagers love to spraypaint that shit. Pentagrams, 3 sixes. Swastikas. These symbols all have a power unlike anything else we know. It isn't until you're older that you realize that they are just lines and mean sweet fuck all. 99% of the time you see these things, it's a dumb kid trying to evoke a gutteral response from anyone that sees them. Unfortunately, it still works for a lot of people. Remember in the 80s, there was that massive fear of devil worshipers. the story of the West Memphis Three is pretty indicative of the paranoia associated with this stuff, which now we all look at as kind of silly more than anything. I feel sorry for devil worshipers at this point, since all they can really evoke from me is a rolling of the eyes.

   Nowadays, I miss that feeling. I think that I, more than just about anyone, fought the dissipation of magic from my brain. My reading habits (consisting largely of sci-fi, fantasy, comic books, mythologies, and occult manuals) probably helped with that quite a bit. But time goes on, magic grows stale and abandons our imaginations to more material pursuits. The Wonder of the world is replaced with a much different (and scarier) kind of fear.

The more I've been thinking about this the more I've been upset. I want nothing more than the ability to continue being amazed and enchanted by the world around us. I want one day to hear my child speak and not dismiss their magic as childish nonsense. So I started raking my brain for the magic in my life, and how I perceive it. and I realized, that I never really abandoned the concept, nor did it abandon me.

There remains magic in music for me. Not in the same way I saw it as a child, where members of KISS might abduct me in my sleep, or how Jim Morrison was some kind of stupid shaman. It is more subtle than that. When I was driving the other day, one of my favorite songs, "The E Street Shuffle" came on. Not the funky album version, but the shuffling, slow version that Springsteen and the band did live. Bruce tells a story, this one about Clarence Clemons and how they met. It's a long story, and a funny one. But it ends with Bruce cowering in the doorway of a closed shop, hiding from Clarence, who he thinks is out to get him. The giant man extends his hand and, this is where Springsteen's voice is practically a whisper:

Sparks fly on E Street when the boy prophets walk it handsome and hot

and I almost had to pull the car over. I can hear, feel the magic in those words. I've probably heard that song two thousand times in my life, and no matter how many times I might've glossed over that line, it still has that power over me. It was there the whole time. Ditto for the beginning of the Velvet Underground's "Heroin", which I was certain I never wanted to hear again until this morning when it floored me by complete surprise.

There is magic in The Exorcist, when that ghoulish face appears. I know it is a special effect in a film, but that has never stopped me from shuddering when I see it. There is magic in every single episode of Pushing Daisies that drips with a charm that distills in me a nostalgia for things I've never known.

There is magic in The Stand, when we are introduced to Randall Flagg***, and in the narrator's home (a crumbling, waterlogged hotel) in Amnesiascope.

As I've mentioned before, there is magic in so many comic books I don't know where to start.

Though fiction, these things all come from someplace very real. Stephen King has admitted that his inspiration for Walter Flagg, one of the greatest villains ever created, came Symbionese Liberation Army leader (and Patty Hearst kidnapper) Donald DeFreeze. DeFreeze was a prison escapee who convinced people to do horrible things for him in the name of justice. Horrible, but absolutely magic. Same could be said for Charles Manson or Wayne Coyne (probably not a fair comparison, but I needed good and evil, you see).

In my rambling, incoherent way, I guess I'm just trying to remind you that there is magic out there. It's not Harry Potter or satanists, but it's in the minds of you and your loved ones, and creators, and in the atmosphere at large. the next time you get a feeling, instead of listening to the adult voice in your head or to rationality, try to just go with it. Make a note of it. Tell somebody else about it. Use it to wonder at the world around us. I know it feels naive, and perhaps stupid, even. But it makes things a hell of a lot more enjoyable. Don't preoccupy yourself with life, preoccupy yourself with living.

*So I've been pretty negligent with my Goodreads account, largely because I am always reading either too much or too little. One of my hobbies lately though has been to write up graphic novels and comics, since I feel they could use a bit more legitimization. I've done a couple, and I plan to do more. Unfortunately, most of these "reviews" are just diatribes about legitimization of comic books. Anyway, maybe I'll post a few after this post.

**query: Have I told my Tockwogh Hermit ghost story story here? If not I will fix that.

2011-04-05T15:06:00.001-04:00

As a kid, I think my parents tried to do what they could to make sure that there were always educational books and toys around the house for the benefit of my siblings and I. There was a 25+ year subscription of National Geographic, which remaine largely untouched in our loft* for several decades until we moved. There was Changing Bodies, Changing Lives, which was somewhat sarcastically presented to me by my brothers when I was like 9 (two years after they gave me a preemptive, unsolicited birds vs. bees talk, and maybe 23.8 months after my dad figured out that somebody had taught me the term rimjob). There were trivia books (my favorite) and keyboards and globes and all sorts of stuff. Whether or not they had any effect on us I cannot attest to. I mean, I'm sure the results varied, but I don't think rolling the globe off the top of our roof a couple dozen times taught me much about geography...
But there was a few books that I devoured, and would re-read every couple of weeks. These were largely American history texts I've long since forgotten the names of. I'd pore over these, remembering specifics about Civil War battles and where the Presidents were born. I'd stare at pictures of the A-bomb tests and woodcuts of the Crispus Attucks shooting. I probably learned more from those books than anything else before 7th grade. There was another book that I distinctly remember showing how Samoas are made. But in spite of these amazing things, my favorite of these books was actually a science book, which is odd because I've probably never liked science as much before or since.

But this one was special. for one thing, it had one of the coolest covers ever:

Our Universe

Seriously, what's not to love about that? Crazy-ass rocket ship? check. Massive, impossible-in-outer-space flames? CHECK. I think I still love this cover, and I'm sure it's the reason I ever picked it up. In fact, I think it's pretty telling that I gravitated towards a science book largely because it had a very science fiction-y cover.

Even though I learned a good bit of physics and astronomy from these books, the real reasons I loved this book were two features. One was that on the title page for every planet, there was a great illustration of the Roman god that the planet was named for, as well as some text explaining why the choice fits. I can still picture all of these quite clearly, although searching the internet has yielded few results.

As a kid steeped in Greek and Roman mythology, this was right up my alley. I wish I could find the Pluto and Saturn ones, both of which probably haunted my dreams well into my twenties.

But there was also something else. and that was a tiny section towards the back, where aliens were discussed, and several theoretical life forms were proposed, based on the environment of their respective planets:

This was the section, the 4-6 pages in the book that I would read over and over. I loved the idea of this, creating these aliens but with at least some basis for their appearance and behaviors. These seemed like things that could be. In retrospect, this was probably my first exposure to science fiction outside of Star Wars or The Black Hole, and it probably had a more positive impact on me than anything else at that age. Maybe it stimulated my imagination, or made me want to learn more about the other planets. Maybe it provided me with a desire to hallucinate. I don't know, and don't plan to. But it was something I lodged deep into my mind and never forgot.

   None of this is that interesting, I know. What is interesting is that I always thought I was one of few that read this book. It wasn't until much later, early into my relationship with Carrie that I made a passing mention to "stovebellies" that she bolted upright and screamed "You read that book, too?"

   It turns out she grew up with the same book. Since then, we've encountered at least a half-dozen people who also grew up with this book in their houses. and what's more, all of them thought they were the only ones that read it. Usually, with something that shared amongst a generation, there's some sort of reference made to it within popular culture or something that sort of cements it in our public identity. We realize that this is material that is sharing a collective brainspace, and from there we might discuss its impact on us.

   But I guess no Family Guy writers ever had this book as a kid. But looking aounf online, it's definitely more of a widespread phenomenon than either Carrie or I ever thought ten years ago.

   I guess what I'm wondering about is if there are still books like that in kids' hands. Or even those same books. There was no reason to have this book around (I thought it came with our subscription, but apparently not), and I was flipping through it long before I was old enough to understand most of it, but it still had that impact on me. I guess they bought it for my older siblings, but as far as I know they never picked it up. Their loss, but it was supremely fortunate for me.

   It concerns me when I see how age-specific some of the books out there are. In the library, there's pretty much an astronomy book geared for every age between 4 and 15. I understand the reasons behind it, but why not just get one that's way advanced. Hell, I probably couldn't even read when I first picked it up, but the pictures were enough to get me to want to understand it. Sometimes it can't hurt to aim impossible high.

   I still buy books like this whenever I see them. Hell, I still learn from books like this all the time (a few months ago, I bought a small set of Time-Life books about Jacques Cousteau, and I'm still loving them). I look forward to having a little critter to show these to, and maybe I'll even know enough to help explain them to him or her by then.

So yeah, aim high. It's only going to help instill curiosity in a tiny person, and hopefully within you as well. Hell, you might even be able to use it to chat up an attractive member of the opposite sex.

*I grew up in a converted barn. Read this as "attic" and not "small apt. with high ceilings"

Departure Style

2011-03-27T23:16:00.002-04:00

1. intro
2. "The Bridge" - Jean Grae (prod by RJD2)
3. "The Love You Left Behind" - Syl Johnson
4. "Cease and Persist" - El Ten Eleven
5. "Tuesday" - Grass Widow
6. Don't Step on a Man When he's Down" - Don Covay
7. "When I Was a Flood" - Electric Owls
8. "Just Test" - Bayard Lancaster
9. "Luck's Run Out" - Little Fish
10. "I'd Rather Be Blind, Crippled, and Crazy" - O.V. Wright
11. "Mom and Dad" - Middle Brother
12. "Walk Away" - Rachel Goodrich
13. "Nuclear Ambition, pt. 2" - Man's Gin
14. "You're Not the Only One" - Black Pistol Fire
15. "Old Beirut" - Lynn Taitt & the Jets
16. "Fredericks" - Tom & Fredericks
17. "Piranhas Club" (live at SXSW) - Man Man
18. "Just Walkin' in the Rain" - The Prisonaires
19. "Dance the Night Away" - Colleen Green
20. "Reasons to Quit" - Phosphorescent

link

Civic Whinnying

2011-03-23T19:26:00.000-04:00

I feel like I write this post every couple of years. The reason I feel like that is because I'm certain I do. What happens is that someone puts out an article, essentially questioning the intelligence of the average American. It will cite examples of one in 5 people can't identify Abraham Lincoln or think that Judge Joe Brown serves on the Supreme Court or something.

This time it was Newsweek. They interviewed 1000 members of the U.S. citizenry and found that:

29 % couldn’t name the vice president.
73 % couldn’t identify a reason why we fought the Cold War.
44%were unable to define the Bill of Rights.
6% Don't know the date of Independence Day.

and then it goes into some more specifics before listing how bad our country's knowledge of world (or even American) events compare to those of other nations.

and I (with I presume everyone else) then get a little depressed and blame the educational system or MTV or something.The article cites a study which found that since before World War II our civic knowledge decreases annually at an average of just under 1%, which I found pretty appalling. Not the number, really, but the overall trend.

I figure those numbers were never all that great to start with. I mean, by the end of the 18th century, I'm sure there was a sizable faction of the populace who couldn't be bothered to give a shit about that sort of thing. "We paid your damn taxes, now leave me alone and get off my lawn." We as a nation were hurdling ourselves into more useful pursuits. Industry. Agriculture. Wood lathing. Legislatin'. drinking.

But now is not the now of twenty years ago. We have information. VAST amounts of information constantly at our fingertips, now. I can learn more in 78 hours in front of a computer nowadays than the entirety of what I took away from college. So how could our civic knowledge not be improving? Maybe we're replacing the pursuits we turned to so long ago with celebrity news and fluff.

and don't get me wrong, because I'm as guilty as anyone of this. I know an alarming amount of information about the casts of the Twilight movies and Glee, which is insane because I haven't seen ten seconds of either.

Anyway, reading these studies always get me wondering how I would do, especially since I seem to be so upset by people not knowing them. So I went and took a few online practice tests. I scored a 92, 96, and a 94%. For some reason, I really raw a blank on Woodrow Wilson.

So then, because I'm an idiot, I decided to take the Canadian citizenship tes t and got something like 8 40% scores in a row. I think something might've sunk in, though because I just took one and got an 80%. Nice!

But at the end of the day, who cares? Is being able to name the Vice President going to make you a better person, or feed your kids at night? of course not. This is *luxury* knowledge that we don't need to survive or make a living, but it's damned advisable to have.

What pisses me off though is that there are so many people (on every side of the political spectrum) who are wailing that it is time to take the country "back", or claiming to be "true Americans", or so their t-shirts tell me. But when our civic knowledge is that much in the shitter, isn't it fair to assume that a lot of these people might not be able to pass a citizenship exam for the nation they claim to represent? If people have to learn this shit on top of our crazy-ass language, culture, and food serving sizes then I think it's only fair that we all do to.
Right?

So I guess the moral of this story is don't call anyone else out on their shit if you don't know it yourself.

I'm not all that smart. I mean, I do okay, but I'm not smart smart. I live with a smart person and I know that there's stuff in her brain I won't ever comprehend. and I'm okay with that. Tom Scharpling says he isn't smart, but he's "crafty; like Bugs Bunny". I'm not even that. But I'm curious as all hell and I will look up pretty much any question that pops into my brain. I guess it's kind of fortunate that I want to do that for a living...

update: In a spur of the moment Supreme Court Justice test, I just completely blanked on Elena Kagen

2011-03-16T15:58:00.002-04:00

also, I need to redesign this site if I'm gonna keep this up.

it's spring, damnit.

I'm still on this...

2011-03-16T15:57:00.000-04:00

i am.

I sat down to write up something on the duality of good and evil last night (seriously! well, as told through the lens of a video game, but still!), but got emotionally wrapped up in the story of the Fukushima 50 and once they were withdrawn I was drowsy and a little sick from what I hope is allergies.

So my next few days are busy. We're going to be going to the Sixers/Clippers game tonight, renting a car early tomorrow morning, then driving to San Francisco to see my brother for a few days before driving back home, then going straight into LA for a James Jean art exhibit, dinner, and the Paul F. Tompkins show. Sunday I have to work all day. But Sunday night, assuming I haven't passed out from exhaustion, I'll be able to get it all down then.

right?

a guy can hope.

Also, I've just begun putting together the most ambitious mix I've made since the demise of the cassette.

And I'm in the process of hooking up this site to my RSS feed (so that I can broadcast things here from there), but it's more confusing than I thought so it'll take a bit. But yeah, get ready to be annoyed with the amount of posts here.

until then, GO SIXERS.

PS have you been reading Paul F. Tompkins' American Idol recaps or Tom Scharpling's Celebrity Apprentice recaps? If not, you should get over there and do it, they're amazing. I don't watch either show and I'm enjoying them...

2011-03-11T15:59:00.000-05:00

I get into the library today to discover that I'm working on the Earthquake section today, which is a little sad.

The book on the right though is an amazing 1907 account of the recent earthquake's effect on California wilderness. This is the kind of nerd stuff that gets me super excited, these old bound manuscripts and stuff. I just wish that little barcode wasn't on the outside cover like that...

Apologies in advance for this

2011-03-10T12:45:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning, I began writing a post and it fell further and further by the wayside as the day went on, thanks to the deadly combination of work, exhaustion, Angry Birds, and Netflix Instant. It wasn't a particularly profound post (don't hold your breath for those), but I'm making a serious effort to keep up with this thing, and it was something. Here are some bullet points from my aborted post:

-This Charlie Sheen thing is out of control. I don't wanna talk about it, and I'm sick of reading about it. But the thing I find the most strange is that this has all happened before. We knew 15 years ago that he had drug/alcohol/hooker issues, and he was for the most part vilified. So does it just take dickish catch phrases and unfettered arrogance to make it work for the public? Or just a hit TV show? Why does Mike Huckabee attack a consistenty reasonable Natalie Portman for only being engaged when she's pregnant and not him? I don't give a shit what he does and with who, really, as long as his kids have nothing to do with it. But when someone with his proclivities is insisting on having custody of his children, then by all means we should be firing away at him.

Okay, that's it. I'm sorry to even bring that up, especially since the cycle appears to have run its course for the most part. But there's my weeks-late analysis of the whole thing. Also, for all his bluster and arrogance, I bet Rip Torn -at 78- could still mop the floor with him.

-The other overriding point is that you should be thankful I almost never forward/post/tweet the petitions and stuff I go through every day. It usually annoys me when other people do it to me, so I'm trying to keep that courtesy.

That's it!

Up next: Netflix as a political barometer?

*******

2011-03-03T13:20:00.003-05:00

When I was a kid, for a while I was obsessed with S.E. Hinton's books. Her books were great, and at a time when I hated most of what I read in school, something attracted me to her work, which probably felt to me as punk rock as anything I'd ever read. There was a whole continuity she'd created, filled with inequality and smartass kids and drunk adults. It felt like a world much closer to real life than the dumb Red Badge of Courage ever presented to me.
One of her books, probably one considered to be for older kids, was That Was Then, This is Now. You might remember the movie, which had Emelio Estevez and... Craig Scheffer? Something like that. Anyway, the book revolves around these teenagers growing up and falling into drugs and love and crime or something. But in it there's a kid who is obsessed with M&Ms. He holds his face up to the open bags to look at them*.
Less surprisingly, he falls into a bad way with drugs and eventually goes missing or something. Look, it's been over 20 years since I read that book (which is not the one I mentioned at the beginning of the main post, in case you were wondering). But ever since then I think I have a buried association in my mind connecting M&Ms and drugs. Stay in school, kids.

*Not surprisingly, he is called M&M. Whether or not this had any bearing on a young Marshall Mathers III is beyond my ken**.

**Footnote within a footnote's footnote! I can't keep up with all of this.

M&M

2011-03-03T13:20:00.002-05:00

FIRST, I would like to apologize to anyone subscribing to this site in an RSS feed, because I'm sure it looks like I'm losing my shit live on the internet, and I'm not. I get really frustrated with the inability to add footnotes to my posts, so I've made an attempt at hyperlinking them. I'm sure I've done a shoddy job of it, but it was an experiment so I'm okay with shoddy. Besides, it's taken up more than enough of my feeble brain just to keep track of this stuff...

So I’ve been gone for some time. I apologize, which I believe I’ve done in my last four-dozen posts. Things are improved since my last frantic, since deleted post. Instead of working 3 no-pay jobs, I’m getting paid for 2 of my 5 jobs. Closed from the ranks of unemployed I now find myself simply underemployed, affording my time enough to post again. Not that I’ve been quiet. Between twitter and the awesome, rotting husk of google buzz, I remain pretty active online. But still, this is my pet, and I have neglected her. My writing muscles dry and atrophy. I could fill out a job application blindfolded and spinning, but I doubt I could give you more than a few pages worth of an idea before giving up or getting distracted by something else. I’ve removed myself from equipment, communications, and occupation to sit down and work up some sort of transmission from my brain. This sounds refreshing when I type it out, but as I type this up in a work processor I’m still sitting on an uncomfortable couch that reeks of BO farts in a coffee shop. So instead of whining I will start. Recent ideas I’ve had for posts (that were never written) include the dark side of Springsteen hits, my thoughts on the Keith Richards biography*, the really fucked up book that many of us read in elementary or middle school, my time at Kanye West’s Tweet Academy, and recent book reviews*. But none of those things are on the docket for the day. Today I’m thinking about…

M&Ms.

I’m pretty much hooked on pretzel M&Ms. They’re amazing. I’ve never really liked the original M&Ms. I’d usually go for a Reese’s Pieces if I was looking in that neighborhood of the candy world. But the peanut M&M is on to something. The almond M&M was also a short-lived blessing. But the pretzel M&M is a pretty much perfect candy. Note: Wikipedia tells me that they’re bringing back the crispy M&M in 2011. BOSS.

But this is not the point. I’ve been thinking about just how unique my (and quite probably your) specific generation’s lot in life is in just about every possible way. And generation is a stupid word, used frequently enough out of convenience and generality, but then that’s probably what this is, so why not use it, right?

Generations in this country have typically been defined by wars, or the results of them. Vietnam was a new type of war, and look how that jilted society at the time. Now, we’ve got 2 wars going on and half of us couldn’t give a shit because things are getting scary enough here. What does that say about us and our mindset?

And what about the internet? Surely that will define us in some way. Especially since my specific age group is the last in America who didn’t have the internet until they were adults. 15 years later and it has changed pretty much the way most of us do everything. I work sometimes with 19 year-old kids who have no idea what it’s like to use a phone book or a card catalog or hand write notes. or Blow the dust out of a Nintendo cartridge or use a pen to spool tape back into a cassette after it was eaten?. Remember when identity theft seemed like some exotic crime reserved for episodes of Knight Rider?

And it’s not just the conceptual aspect of how much this technology has permeated our lives, but the physical as well. Think about the difference between the amount of time the average person spent sitting in front of a computer screen has increased in the past 20 years. Or how much better the average typing speed has gotten? Our bodies are probably already physically adapting to this type of lifestyle. The children born today will already be nudged evolutionarily in a direction more suited to this. Such is life.**

But what aside from wars or technology define us? That pretty much feels like everything, and not in a slight sense, either. I mean everything***. Still, though, there’s stuff like child predators and peanut, which have always existed to an extent but not like they do today. The death lurch of rotary phones. Red M&Ms.

You thought I forgot about the M&M thing, didn’t you? Well SHUT UP I did not. Just a little sidetracked is all.

They didn’t make Red M&Ms when I was a kid. There was some sort of cancer scare over a red dye used in many foods at the time (but interestingly not in M&Ms****). It never bothered anyone that they were gone, apparently, or that the same dye in question continued to be an ingredient for virtually every other candy in America, it was just a fact of life.*****

Sometime in high school or something they came back, and I remember being excited about it, like it was something we’d been waiting for our whole lives. Which in my case was. But the crazy thing is that I just learned very recently that they were only outlawed in 1976. For some reason I thought like only people that were 100 years old remembered red M&Ms. But now, it was very specific to an eleven year period. I feel like they came back when I was late in high school, but it looks like they were back before I even entered middle school. A short window probably to anyone not in the throes of adolescence at the time.

Also, don’t forget that there used to be tan M&Ms. Has anyone EVER requested tan food?

As I said, generations are bullshit. The Berlin Wall or the Challenger explosion doesn’t define who I am any more than it does my parents. 9/11 changed life for every single American, not just people in their early 20s. I doubt that June 6, 2001****** is the BC/AD moment for many other people. These moments are define us just as much as we define them. The Tiger Woods thing from a couple of years ago probably had as much impact on some people as Altamont had on others. So why not center who I am with the absence of red M&Ms from the American marketplace? As a child in that time, this had enough of an impact on me*******. As a fan of cheap candy, it continues to. And who better than to throw my lot in with than the cheap candy fans?

*

2011-03-03T13:06:00.002-05:00

*this will be done if it takes me a year. I promise.

**

2011-03-03T13:05:00.001-05:00

**until, of course, when the apocalypse happens. Then they’ll be far, far less adapted to survive without the cushy padding of a technological infrastructure. THAT, my friends, is when we take back the planet from our adapted hellspawn.

***

2011-03-03T13:03:00.003-05:00

***If a caveman from 1990 showed up at my doorstep a la South Park and asked me to update him on what happened since he was frozen, I’d probably just say “war and the internet” and he’d be like “oh, that’s it?” Then it would take me 10 months to explain exactly what that means.

****

2011-03-03T13:00:00.000-05:00

****Though it is less than exciting to note that M&Ms still use a dye which is banned in much of Europe and not recommended for children.

*****

2011-03-03T12:58:00.001-05:00

*****Remember how green M&Ms made you horny? What the shit was that about? Is that just a byproduct of outlawing alcohol for teenagers or something? How did that even make sense? I forget, I think brown ones had some sort of effect on people, too. Ridiculous. Presumably, the tan ones made you really, really boring.

******

2011-03-03T12:56:00.000-05:00

******Game 1 of the NBA Finals, in which I watched the Sixers beat the Lakers in LA at my favorite bar of all time with my favorite person of all time.

Another pic dump without any real content

2010-12-13T14:35:00.000-05:00

Sunset from Route 66.You can almost make out the "classic" McDonalds on the right.

This next bunch of photos is from the Hermit Falls trail in the Angeles National Forest. We went there on Sat. on our way to Pasadena for pizza, and had a nice time. This is part of a continuing series where Carrie and I get out to see more of California. It was like 75 degrees out tghe other day and we wanted to get some air. Or course, the next day it was 80 and neither of us had much time to do anything outdoors.

Anyway, one of the highlights of the hike were these little cabins (or "Ewok Villages" according to Carrie). They're pretty far down the trail (about a mile or so) and not really that accessible. Despite fantasizing about living in one of these, I'm pretty sure the inaccessability -combined with gawking hikers like us- would have me going insane within a week or two.

One of the best parts of this hike is that it's in a predominantly shady little gorge in a mtn range, so it doesn't look much like the southern California where we live (think much less green). So this felt like a little oasis almost.

The falls themselves are surrounded by these little pools in rock that look so deep and cold that the water is practically black.

This is from a campus where I was interviewing a few weeks ago. I just like that it looks like a baby UN (Not unlike the Ben Franklin Parkway in Philly).

If I start with a sunset, I might as well finish with a sunrise. Taken from our bedroom window.

Pic Dump 11/16

2010-11-16T20:02:00.000-05:00

Giant ant on the side of a museum in Orange County

Meats/Cheeses at the Side Door

Beer samplers at The Side Door

Outside Acerogami in Pomona. I just like the way it looks like the giant sculpture mounted on the front of the bar looks like it's shooting out of the back of that pickup.

Mattress and Graffiti I pass every other day on my way to the library. It looks like a brand new mattress and I can only hope that one enterprising homeless person sleeps here. I often spot empty plastic fifths of vodka in the street around here.

Although it's also just outside of the gate to a trucker academy, so who knows.

Roscoe's. The butter seen at the top is about half of what I scraped off those waffles.

Fisherman on the Santa Monica pier

My new favorite breakfast of all time: Ratatouille Omelette.

The sweater I bought for my Slick Rick costume.

Corona Del Mar

Fergus, tongue out.

There was a big fuss over a school bond or something that they were trying to pass in Claremont on election day. They had a protest one day and I saw this professional sign-holder in the middle of it and actually had to turn around to get a better picture. It still makes me laugh.

Triceratops backpack in garbage

Western Bento!!!

I found those (and the following, more disturbing) photos in a book at the library. I recommend browsing your local library from time to time.

Doesn't this look like a smiley face?

It's not.

These were on sale for $60. I didn't get them, but really thought about it.

Also part of my walk to the library, not far from the aforementioned trucker academy. You can imagine how nice this is.

From Library II. I just think it's a funny title.

Oddly, they're taking bets on this.

Part of a monkey shrine we saw at Artswalk

Yeah, text or something on its way...

2010-11-08T13:46:00.001-05:00

I already feel like an asshole for posting that, honestly. It's hard to have something dominate your thoughts for half a year and then try to verbalize it without sounding desperate.

I'll try to make it up soon, I promise.

Pic Dump 9/14

2010-09-14T16:19:00.002-04:00


Spotted on 9/11/10 in Monrovia, CA. Many more after the jump

Dale Bros. Brewery!

Still life with cat, owls.

Buddha in rear of Norton Simon museum, Pasadena, CA.

Not as many kicks to be had on Route 66 as there once were.

Shotty pic of Honus Honus from Man Man falling on stage.

Night time at FYF

Beer line

Titus Andronicus SLAYING it. My favorite show of the day.

I did not get to meet Mike Epps

I know what you're thinking: "MY fire protection service just doesn't ROCK enough"

Unhappy, losing Padres fans. The lady in the middle (above the flag, in the visor) got into a very loud confrontation with the drunk guys next to me. I happily remained out of it until she started attacking Philadelphia as a city, calling it filthy an classless. That's when my big mouth started working.

my thumb, the rest of our section at PetCo park. I'd say the overall makeup of the crowd was like 40% Phillies fans. Weird.

Glad to see that people are still buying (or perhaps stealing) CDs

The fax machine across the street. I have literally had to wade through smut in order to fax out job applications. Class-ee.

That's all I got here. I never got any pictures of the Dodgers game we attended (or of my impromptu, terrifying lap around Dodger's stadium wearing a Phils hat). It's probably for the best.

We Kinda Saw It Coming

2010-09-06T03:48:00.002-04:00

This is a mix that I've been making for over two months. In early July, I'd compiled what I thought was a pretty good mix until I listened to it a few times and then realized that it wasn't, and that I was already tired of like half of them. So after some repurposing and continued digging, I came up with the following:

1. O'Coured
2. "Laura and Marty" - The Screaming Females

3. "B.I.G. E.G.O." - Wise Blood

4. "I'm So Tall" - Queastion feat. Bun B & Talib Kweli

5. "Hopewell" - Common Prayer

6. "Half Ton Load" - Icarus Himself

7. "Schoolbuses are for Children" - Grant Hart

8. jacuzzi

9. "Seeing is Believing" - The Superimposers

10. "Can I Get a Witness" - Blinky

11. "Rude Romantique" - Makeup Monsters

12. "Angela Surf City" - The Walkmen

13. lamb!

14. "I'm Yours, You're Mine" - Mable John and Marvin Gaye

15. "Glorylight and Christie" - Cotton Jones

16. "Caterpillar Girl" - Lou Barlow and his Missingmen

17. "Nobodies" - TV Torso

18. "Brave Man's Death" - J. Roddy Walston and the Business

19. saved

Here.

The Mongolian Death Worm

2010-08-05T17:54:00.000-04:00

Because seriously, what else were you gonna read today?

completely unrelated picture found while image-searching "Mongolian death worm":

Mildred B. Soule, 1916-2010

2010-07-27T14:50:00.001-04:00

   Last week was among the worst that I can remember for a number of reasons, and its opening salvo was the death of my grandmother. Before I get into this, I don't want to make this sound sad. It's not. She was 94 years old and, though sharper than most I know at a third of her age, she was ready for it. I am grateful that her family and friends were given the time they had with her, and I am happy that she may now rest. This isn't a dirge or anything, just a way to process what I'm thinking.

   My grandmother, to anyone that met her in the last 20 years, could easily consider her a prototype for Lucille Bluth; a stubborn, sharp-witted, heavy drinking, old-school socialite who was remarkably quick for her age. She would regularly wound family members with unintentional quips and could let fly with some frighteningly dated comments*. I don't say these things to denigrate her memory, but to define her better as a person. She was widowed relatively young in her life (and again much later) and long before I knew her, she was traveling the world. For most of my life, that's how I thought of her. She worked as a travel agent and lived by herself in an old lady house on Long Island and did old lady things. It was a beautiful house, and I remember being allowed to touch about 4 things in it.

   We would visit a few times a year, and I remember she had cable, which seemed so extravagant in 1982. I remember her calling all of my siblings insane because we would go there for a week and I was the only one who went outside. Everyone else watched copious amounts of MTV, the boys falling in love with Martha Quinn and the girls watching it because, well, it was MTV. If I wasn't so freaked out by the dwarves in the "Safety Dance" video, I probably would've been right there with them.It was in a nice suburb, and I remember loving the prospect of having new yards and parks to explore. Every time we visited it was like moving without the hassle of having to make new friends.I like to think I climbed new hills and let my imagination soar or whatever, but in reality I'm sure I just sat on a bench and read somewhere.

   It's funny, because I started writing this with something else completely in my mind, but, but this one memory just unpacked itself in my brain, and I'd be foolish not to document it now while it's here. This is from later, when my siblings were old enough to want to (or be able to) get out of these visits to New York, and so I would be the one kid left to go with my parents. In retrospect, I have no idea what the rest of the kids were doing, but they were old enough for it to be no good. But I digress.

   I read a lot as a kid. I'd pretty much read anything, from album liner notes to sporting goods catalogs to whatever I was allowed to check out of the library. This included pretty much anything, but specifically by just grabbing whatever was on the new shelves. It's not the best approach, but nobody was going to complain, because I was a kid reading on his own, right? As a result, I read a lot of standard kid books, including most of the Judy Blume catalog. Yes, you probably see where this is going. In the autumn of 1987, I brought a book called Just as Long as We're Together** with me to Manhasset on one of these visits. I'm not sure if I read the whole thing there or what, but I remember walking back to my grandmother's house from the park and asking her what a period was. My parents weren't there, off visiting some of my mom's high school friends or something, and my grandmother went white as a sheet. So yeah, my grandmother then was tasked with the chore of explaining menstruation to her 9 year-old grandson. I wish I remembered it more clearly, but it stands as a rambling mess of awkward followed by shoving my towards my mom when she got home. I can't say I blame her for that, it's probably what I would've done, too.

But what really has had me rethinking my grandmother's life as of late was finding out when I was in my early 20s that she was a lawyer. This was a complete shock to me, and something I had never even considered. She had been a part-time travel agent for all the time I'd known her, and it was pretty shocking to me. Even more shocking to me when put into the context of the time. For the sake of argument, let's consider the world of Mad Men. Normally, I'd try to avoid including a reference to a TV show while eulogizing my dead grandmother***, but this is apt. Watching that show, it's amazing to see what kind of shit women had to put up with in 1960 suburban New York. It's incredible when juxtaposed with the climate today. Then I remember that in 1960 my grandmother was in her mid 40s and had passed the bar in 1943 and my head reels at what she must have been put through. The amount of determination and sheer willpower that must have taken is more than I can imagine. I'd be impress if I inherited a sliver of that. She was an amazing lady.

In any case, I'm thinking of her now as I look at my cat sleeping on a rug that she made for me when I was a baby. It has a picture of a Peter Cottontail on it and it's one of the only things I still own from age 2. It's remained a valued possession for all this time, and even moreso now. In fact, I might have to yank that cat right off of it. I'll try to attach a picture of it to this site later.

My reasons for writing this dumb and unflattering attempt of a eulogy are twofold. For one thing, we aren't going to be having a memorial for her until late September, and I wanted to get some of my thoughts down now while they were fresh. Second, when I was looking around for an obituary online, it was disturbing to realize that aside from one written up by a local funeral home and a lovely tribute written up by one of my mother's neighbor s, there wasn't one. I don't expect my 94-year old grandmother to have much of a web presence, but it's kind of sick when you think about the complete absence of one. If this is what's supposed to pass for posterity, if we're supposed to forgo written documents and burial plots in an effort to reduce our planetary footprints, shouldn't we at least make an effort to remember our loved ones? It pains me when my grandparents tell me about how all their friends are dead, but it's also a plain fact of life, I guess. What isn't fair is that they rarely have anywhere to talk about them, remember them. It would probably take like 1% of the internet to set up a database that could host every obituary that was ever written.

I'd like to see more than that, but at least it's a start.

footnotes after the jump

*I don't mean dated in a racist way, but in a "your colored friend has such beautiful skin!" way. There is a notable difference.

**I had completely forgotten about this book, and a quick google search of "chartreuse macbeth judy blume" came up with a title (and the book!) right quick.

***"But Cotton," you say, "what about the second paragraph of this very post?" and I acquiesce.

2010-07-25T17:00:00.000-04:00

Place Masena, Nice c.1911 (a/k/a nightmare come to life)

(from The Golden Summer: The Edwardian photographs of Horace W. Nicholls)

2010-07-25T16:38:00.000-04:00

Early morning wash after walking from London to Epsom. Derby Day, 1906

(from The Golden Summer: The Edwardian photographs of Horace W. Nicholls)

Pic Dump - July 19, 2010

2010-07-19T20:37:00.001-04:00

Perplexingly written in the margin of the library's copy of the Good Will Hunting screenplay. There was no other notation found in this copy.

2010-07-19T20:27:00.000-04:00

ANIMALS

Have you forgotten what we were like then
when we were still first rate
and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth
      
it's no use worrying about Time
but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves
and turned some sharp corners
      
the whole pasture looked like our meal
we didn't need speedometers
we could manage cocktails out of ice and water
      
I wouldn't want to be faster
or greener than now if you were with me O you
were the best of all my days

-Frank O'Hara, 1950

before I forget...

2010-07-19T04:15:00.001-04:00

my favorite excerpt from the Moyers book I was talking about 10 minutes ago, and the reason I checked it out of the library:

Benjamin Franklin made a grand entrance to the convention today. He arrived swaying in a sedan chair carried on poles by four husky convicts from the Walnut Street Jail. It's a dramatic vehicle, the first one ever seen in America, and Dr. Franklin uses it to cushion his body. It keeps the cobbled streets from stirring up his gout. But the shrewd old politician knows the value of commanding some public attention as well.

- Bill Moyers, Report From Philadelphia

What.The.Fuck?

I MUST verify that this is true. This is too good to be true, right? Is it possible that one of our founding fathers was hedonismbot? I'm freaking out over this information.

My wikipedia history

2010-07-19T03:59:00.001-04:00

As an apology for that last post, here's a worse one: My wikipedia history of the past 48 hours or so. I'd link them, but that'd take forever. But it's a nice little peep into how I spent my weekend:

Joshua Harto, The Dark Knight, Hello Mary Lou: Prim Night II, Psycho Cop, Friday the 13th (1980 film), Pumpkinhead (film), Basket Case (film), Mujeres Asesinas (Mexico), Mujeres Asesinas (Argentina), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Nubbins, Neurodegeneration, List of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre Characters, Sombrero, Texas Ranger Division, L.M. Kit Carson, Powaqquatsi, Category: Golan-Globus films, Lou Gehrig Memorial Award, Paul Molitor, Silver Slugger Award, Category: Living People, Shimenawa, Moun Tsukuba, Emishi, Chi McBride, New Zealand National Rugby Team, Pushing Daisies, Shoe Tossing, Watcher in the Water, Dionte Christmas, Gregg Foreman, Tav Falco, Toni Basil, Rcky Ross (drug trafficker), Giant Hogweed, Hogweed, Noxious Weed, Stock Route, Sumac, Glechoma hederacea, St. John's Word, Weed, Gunga Din, Kenny (2006 film), Shrike (comics), Amygdala (comics)Wong Fei-Hung, Hei hu quan, Dragon Kung Fu, Five Animals, Leopard Blow, Lady Shiva,

Yeah, so there's actually a pretty good account of what I've been reading about, not counting the books I have out of the library at the moment (3 photography books about war journalists, modern Russian, Edwardian England, a book about Cold War politics, and a Bill Moyers book about the signing of the Constitution that I can't even find a review for).

I assume you're reading this because you're bored at work. And now the internet has managed to bore you as well. I apologize. Maybe one of those topics might interest you. If so, go check it out! I read some interesting wikis. Or, go look at some awesome MRI's of food. In fact, go for the latter.

This blog is like the mental equivalent of ipecac for me. What comes up might be interesting, but more than likely it's a jumbled, disgusting mess of what I've eaten over the past few days.

I'll be back in a few days with some good stuff, I promise.

The Saw is Family. Horrible, disgusting family.

2010-07-19T03:36:00.001-04:00

At the moment, I'm watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. I have no good reason why, other than when Dennis Hopper died, I put it in my Netflix instant queue, and it's been sitting there ever since. Of course, nobody in their right mind wants to watch this movie with me. Hell, I don't want to watch it. But right now Carrie is in the throes of thesis hell in the other room and Jose is holed up in his room, so I can take this chance to watch a movie that nobody wants to watch.

Which leads to me sitting here, agog at the sheer insanity of this movie. As many of you know, I enjoy a horror movie. I don't go to conventions, and I haven't seen almost any of the remakes, but I do consistently own fake blood and probably would include 4 zombie movies in my top 20 of all time if you asked me right now*. But when I was a kid, I was terrified of horror movies. I remember my brothers making me watch Nightmare on Elm Street 2 when I was a kid and being aghast for WEEKS. My brothers, of course, thought it was hilarious, but the joke was on them when I began waking them up every night at 3 AM asking what they'd to if a murderer broke in the house**. I remember crying during the opening library scene of Ghostbusters when I saw it in the theater***. But every week my family would go and rent a movie from the Rite Aid down the street from my house**** and I would just sit in the horror section staring at the display boxes. It was the same unsettling curiosity I held for KISS posters, a band that my aforementioned brothers convinced me was comprised of serial killers. In retrospect, I was kind of a stupid kid if I thought a serial killer would dress up as a kitty cat.

Update: There have been 2(!) chainsaws to the groin in this movie, which is not over yet, despite my lengthy ramblings.

So yeah, by age 8 I was intimately familiar with the covers and stills of some of the worst horror movies ever made. Maybe I was subconsciously trying to conquer my fears. Maybe it was the seeds of a dumb interest that would manifest around 7th grade. I wish I could say I preferred the more high-brow movies, but it was the slasher flicks that delivered the most satisfying images on the box. Plus, there's something to be said for a good slasher movie poster*****

Which brings me to Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. The poster was one of those that I constantly looked at. For one thing, it was a mirror of The Breakast Club poster. Also, it's like a family who are 80% walking corpses. and Leatherface is wearing a suit! People freak out about how smooth Patrick Bateman was in American Psycho, but look at how damned cool Leatherface looks with a tie and carnation in his lapel!

But this movie... holy shit. It's not so much as bad, but a disgusting exercise in splatter humor. In Roger Ebert's review of the original, he said something to the effect of "this is a well-made and effective movie, but I can't imagine for the life of me why anyone would ever want to make it". I can, because it's one of the scariest movies ever made. Special effects or jerky camera cuts in the world have yet to create a scarier movie in my eyes.

But this sequel... holy shit. It's actually grueling. Remember how that first Matrix movie was interesting, like scratching an itch you didn't know you had? Then you saw the second one, and it was like someone taken a belt sander to that itch and even the remnants of those nerve endings were long gone? The TMC sequel was like that, but with gasoline and fire ants. There are funny parts, sure, though most of the attempts at humor are more unsettling than anything. And the "scary" parts are more disgusting than scary. But I think the most disturbing part about this movie is that it wasn't hijacked by the studio or whatever, this is the same director of the first one. How the fuck does that happen? Also, how does Tobe Hooper go from Poltergeist to this mess in 3 years? Yikes.

So now the movie is over, and I'm thinking about watching Carnival of Souls just to purge what I just saw from my mind. Also, that I basically wrote for over an hour about horror movies when I sat down with a much different topic in mind. Chalk it up to my short attention span, or that I wrote this while watching a movie featuring at least ten chainsaws throughout, and once again, I've subjected you to to rambling nonsense, which I apologize for. The fact is I sat to write about something very serious and a little personal, but felt so sick over thinking about it that I started watching this shit to take my mind off things and it snowballed from there. I'll write the real update in a day or two. and hey, look at it this way. I might have just wasted a couple of minutes of your time. Okay, I definitely did. But there's good odds that I just saved you a good 90 additional minutes wasted on that movie. Or not. A few minutes ago, Carrie asked me what sort of person does this movie appeal to, and my response was "the kind of person who was an alcoholic Cannibal Corpse fan in high school". and I stick by that.

*Predictably, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later, and Shaun of the Dead, in no particular order.

**My brother Rob's response one night: "Well, then I guess we're all gonna die in our sleep. Go back to bed". I do not like to dwell on the psychological ramifications this statement might have had on my impressionable young mind.

***Again, I don't like to consider how this might have affected recent educational and occupational decisions of mine.

****I swear this was a thing, a Rite Aid renting videos, but my adult brain cannot comprehend the concept of someone renting The Exterminator from the same place they buy makeup, even if Target does that now.

*****I still think the original Friday the 13th poster is one of the best ever, and Prom Night 2 is no slouch. These asterisks are getting tired, no? Google needs to get with the damned superscript already. Or I should move this thing like I vowed to do like a year ago.

2010-07-15T12:07:00.000-04:00

After submitting 7 samples, it turns out I write like:
Dan Brown, Margeret Atwood, Stephen King, David Foster Wallace, William Gibson, William Gibson, and Raymond Chandler.

(Yes, I got William Gibson twice. I've only read one of his books, which bored me to sleep).

Of course, this was just using the posts from this site that I came up with in the past year or so and none of the fiction I almost never write anymore (new updates there, though!)

Still, I have no idea what this says about me, other than I probably shouldn't trust a web site to analyze my writing.

Zoe Strauss is shooting the Oil Spill.

2010-07-09T18:59:00.000-04:00

...and it's pretty amazing.

Good for Philadelphia Weekly for helping her out.

2010-06-30T15:58:00.001-04:00

Party Down just got canceled. I'm not sure how it would've fared with Adam Scott moving to Parks & Rec, but still sad to see it go. But, I guess at this point with me, cancellation is pretty much the true mark of a top-tier comedy show. I can't think of any that weren't canceled (Mr. Show, Arrested Development, Home Movies) or beset by tragedy or cast turnover enough to force cancellation (Newsradio), so I guess it's something of a validation. Still, what a great show. If you haven't seen it, I can't recommend it enough.

Also from Twitter

2010-06-29T16:10:00.000-04:00

I had a very surreal dream last night that my dad was teaching me how to drive a motorcycle. Nevermind that I sort of already know how, or that he's been dead for over 3 years, it was nice. I don't have dreams like that very often, and I remember them even fewer and further between. Sometimes I think about how that folder in my brain is more or less closed. Aside from the occasional story from one of his friends or an older relative, there isn't anything else I'm going to experience with my dad to pad that up. A dream like the one I had is like some little appendix to that folder, it it's nice because it means I get to pull it out of my file cabinet of a brain, dust it off, and page through it fondly. I've had the luck to do that twice in a few hours last night; the dream came just a few hours after my sister told me a story from last summer that was downright chilling. Not in a malevolent sort of way, but in those "LIFE AFTER DEATH!(?)" ways that might cause you to look over your shoulder late at night without realizing it. It's not a story I feel comfortable publishing on the internet, because technically it's my neice's, but ask me nicely and maybe I'll tell it in person.

But back to the motorcycle. My dad never had a motorcycle. Aside from a picture on my grandmother's wall back home, I've never seen him on one. In that picture, he's on some little dirtbike, in St. John's or St. Bart's or one of those places that I've lumped into a liturgical micronesia in my geographically challenged brain. He looks happy and healthy, and it's always been a favorite of mine, and more than likely the inspiration of my dream.

Anyway, my dad never had a motorcycle. He did, however, prolong his life significantly when some anonymous motorcyclist* with an organ donor card crashed and died, giving him a liver to replace his diseased one. I've thanked that guy a thousand times, and once considered tracking down any family that may have survived him to show them that his death wasn't entirely in vain. (Donate your organs, people).

This morning, I remembered the dream suddenly and blurted it out to Carrie over breakfast before it could slip back into my subconscious, and she reminded me where his liver came from. Then, she remarked "maybe he wants you to ride a motorcycle because he's after your liver".

This is the kind of thing that probably anyone else would find unsettling, or even ghoulish, and understandably so. But it made me laugh and I bet it would've made my dad laugh if he heard it. It was also a pretty fucking great reminder of how lucky I am.

I wanted to post that picture of my dad on the bike, but to be honest I'm not even sure if it survived the move from my grandmother's house. Maybe I'll find it someday.

*weird, right? I feel like "biker" might not be appropriate, either. I mean, they can't all be Hell's Angels or Malcolm Forbes.

Are you kidding me?

2010-06-29T15:51:00.001-04:00

I put this up on Twitter a few days ago, but it's dumb enough that I had to repeat it here.

What's the opposite of dry?

2010-06-29T15:48:00.000-04:00

What's the opposite of dry?

I don't mean desert dry, or dry martini, or any of that. I mean that reserved, understated dry. The one that so many writers appear to have married their favorite characters to. It's a characteristic that has been trounced through decades of apemanship, and one that feels like it would be fun to write. Everyone wants to be aloof and cool.

But what's the opposite of that? Sensational? Dramatic? Clingy? Huggy? I feel like that's too strong, like the results of a grab bag search of words that one with a dry, caustic wit would lob as an insult to someone they don't like. They're also words some of which could be applied to almost anyone I know at some time or another, myself included. How can you have so much presence with one side of this coin, and a complete void on the other? Why does that bother me so much?

Maybe I'm not smart enough to be coy. Maybe it's more indicative of my reading habits than the fictional world at large. Maybe I don't drink enough to have the deadened feelings of these characters.

That's another thing. It's always described how people drink to dull the pain of something or to use as the emotional Neosporin to prevent infection of the emotional scarring of some trauma or another. Has that EVER worked? Maybe I'm not doing it right. I don't think I'd want to. There's probably pills for that.

Anyway, I'm hoping that this doesn't come off like some weird cry for help or frustration, because it really isn't, it's just me assessing my reading habits and wondering why I can't think of an antonymous description of the characters I encounter so often. Maybe you have an idea.

*weird footnote, if you start to google dry, the first recommendation it goes to is "dry socket". What the fuck is wrong with you, world?

**other potential topics for this post: my feelings on the reissue of Exile on Main Street, Me and Douglas Coupland: Are we cool again?, my feelings on long-abandoned military battery installments (not as geeky as it sounds), and SPIES: Me and my cold war obsession as of late. Hopefully one of these will be up by the end of the week.

2010-06-25T19:51:00.001-04:00

Failure is too exhausting to bother repeating

Wikipedia fun: Tarantella

2010-06-25T00:39:00.000-04:00

During ancient times in the area around the Greek colony of Taranta in southern Italy, a type of poisonous spider was so prevalent that it took the name Lycosa tarantula. Its venom caused a hysterical condition known as Tarantism, the symptoms of which were an irresistible need for a wild and rapid whirling motion bringing the victim to the point of exhaustion, also known as Tarantulism. For long time, the local population believed that the only way to suppress the symptoms and to cure the bite was by using a very rhythmic and fast music. The music played for the cure became known as Tarantella.

I love that the medieval cure for a tarantula bite was dancing. It's something, how completely and utterly stupid most antique medical practices were. Except leeches. That's the one thing we always give them credit for.
This all comes as a result of my semiannual researching of the dancing plagues and manias that cropped up all over Europe in the middle ages. I was also looking into whirling dervishes, which means I might have some sort of weird obsession with dancing going on. It's worth pointing out that I rarely dance, and when I do it probably looks a lot more like the dancing described above than the ballroom dancing I took in 6th grade.

2010-06-22T00:01:00.000-04:00

haha, Donnie Darko:

What the heck are people talking about when they say this movie is boring. If you are into flashy plotless un thoughtfull [sic] movies that america loves to pump out, yeah I would say don't watch this movie. I like an array of movies and I felt that this movie was a nice mix of American Beauty style dialogue with a great twist. Deffinately much better than 1 star??? There are some great lines in this movie that had me laughing. The music soundtrack had some great songs in it that were even choreographed to segments of the movie. Well shot, especially for a budget of half a million dollars. Its about a kid who has a link between his future and his present. Discovers accidentally through his connection with a dark suited bunny who trys to save him. Patrick Swayze plays a great creepy role that all too well suits him. All in all I would say this is almost a five star but I gave it a 5 becuase it deserves more than a 4. This is original

(84 out of 95 members found this review helpful)
(really?)

2010-06-21T23:16:00.000-04:00

So, I've been kicking around the idea of starting a new blog, not one to replace this, because despite my utter lack of posting since finishing grad school (that's right, I'm DONE), I will always have something dumb to post and a need for a place to post it.

This potential new one would be a chronicle of the horrifically stupid restaurant reviews I've encountered on Yelp. I'm sure we've all seen these, and I'm not sure if you might get as annoyed reading these as I do (patent pending). But I'm hoping to get that going sooner than later. My problem is mostly that it'll be mostly based on restaurants that I've been to, since those are the pages that I tend to visit and it's hard to figure out how stupid someone is being about a place until you've seen it.

huh.

Now I'm rethinking this whole idea.

While I retool this, though, I'm also thinking about doing the same thing for stupid movie reviews I've seen on Netflix. Tonight we were talking about Cocoon: The Return and I wanted to see if Steve "The Gute" Guttenberg was around for that. What I found was this:

This was like watching the first one; same script, same mood, same old people acting silly. I liked the first better, but maybe because I saw it when I was young. There was a LOT of language in this one, so dont be fooled by the age 9+ rating. I was tired of the cussing out of the mouths of senior citizens by half-way through. Ok, not the F-bomb, but still offensive to me.

To summarize, this person was "young" when the first one came out, so probably not far from me in age. But they were offended by the language in the second one? I'm sure that if you get Wilford Brimley worked up, the guy will curse a blue streak. But Don Ameche reprising an Oscar-winning role? Interesting... I might have to make better use of this. Okay, get ready for the unveiling of dumb Netflix reviews. And Maybe Yelp ones.

Sometimes It Gets Easier

2010-05-26T19:55:00.004-04:00

Sometimes It Gets Easier
1.There might not be any grownups around...
2. "The Mighty Sparrow" - Ted Leo & the Pharmacists
3. "So So Alone" - The Reruns
4. "Speaking My Mind" - Ticonderoga
5. Take that, dinosaur!
6. "The Do Wop" - LL Cool J
7. "All For the Best" - Thom Yorke
8. "Kicked to the Curb" - Crusaders for Real Hip-Hop
9. Just how big is this thing?
10. "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum" - Daniel, Fred & Julie
11. "Stay Zombie Stay" - Elvis Perkins in Dearland
12."Peace In the Valley" - Rev. Lonnie Farris
13. "Go Home" - Mr. David Viner
14. Words fail me
15. "Hold On" - Chris Andrews
16. "Prowler 2" (feat. Jean Grae, Jay Electronica, Joell Ortiz & Mos Def) - Ski Beatz
17. "When Did You Leave Heaven?" - Johnny "Guitar" Watson
18. "The Road of Love" - Clarence Carter
19. "Strawberries and Cream" (Mathematics remix feat. Inspectah Deck & The RZA) - Ghostface Killah
20. "People, I Wish You Could See" - Lee Dorsey
21. Film at 11
22. "Walking in Los Angeles" - Kate Micucci

download here

So yeah, I'm sorry this isn't any sort of substantial update or anything, but it is almost certainly the first mix I've ever made that features both a gospel standard and sex rhymes. So there's that. As school winds down, I'm hoping to enact some big changes around here (including the previously threatened name change), so hopefully some big a-doins will transpire.

This mix is almost unrecognizable compared to the one I had in mind a few weeks ago. Originally, there were a bunch of really old songs that I may have already put on mixes, two separate They Might Be Giants songs, most of the Titus Andronicus album, and some cheeseball pop music. In the end, I had to whittle it down considerably, that stuff is what had to go. Anyway, I hope you like it. H

2010-05-20T06:49:00.000-04:00

It's 3:25 AM, but I wanted to write something after yesterday (or the day before), in which the Flyers won, the Sixers drew the second pick in the 2010 NBA draft, and for the first time since I was 2 years old, Arlen Specter will no longer be a Senator from Pennsylvania. I was trying to write a paper while most of it happened, but they remain pretty great for me in more ways than one. But for this post, I'll focus on the last one.

I have been registered on the left since I was 18, the Democratic party for about half of that time. Since I come from a long line of Republicans, I've never been stupid about it, and I've always maintained that I agree more with the GOP on some issues than I do with the liberals. Well, up until a few years ago when the GOP went all batshit. Apparently Specter did to, but I digress. He was the kind of guy who would stand his ground if he felt strongly about something, and that I admire above all. I've agreed with him a lot more than most of his former party, and I've never felt terrible about him representing me (unlike his old colleague Santorum).

One of the things that you can't deny about Sen. Arlen Specter is that he has worked his ass off for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He got us funding, he pushed initiatives, he twisted arms to get what he wanted. I don't know if I'd ever call him likable, but I can't think of a likable Senator, especially one that I'd want representing me. Truth is he was kind of a bastard, but that was his appeal.

Sure, he was kind of a bonehead sometimes. His famous magic bullet theory still boggles the mind, and I'll never understand what the hell he was thinking when he went after the NFL a couple of years ago. But he was sure as hell dependable, and that's what I'd like to think of his legacy: "dependable, tenacious, brought in $"

Of course, I can't complain about Sestak, either. I had the pleasure of meeting him when he first ran for congressman and he had my vote almost immediately. He's proven to be a standup guy and I've been proud to have voted for him in every possible election until this one. I wish him a long and storied career as a United States Senator, and I look forward to questioning his motives in the future. But for now, I have to get up in 4 hours and change and start working on a new project (just a few more weeks, people. Then I will hopefully be ALL OVER this thing). But for now, before dawn creeps in, I'd like to thank Arlen Specter for being our guy for almost my entire lifetime. I wish you Sestak coulda bumped Casey out and ou coulda stayed, but the timing was off. In lieu of that, just know that your work will never be forgotten.

2010-05-06T06:35:00.000-04:00

11:11 PM, Wednesday night

This is my setup as I sat down to write a paper. Visible are laptop, notebook, texts, coffee, water, vodka...

... paper towels, cat treats, and... plants vs. zombies.

I'm not much further into writing this paper than I was when I took this picture over 4 hours ago. But, I've got a lot more of the background in.

Also in the back of my mind, another mix on the way. Hopefully it'll be done in a week or two. Expect some sex rap and a 14 minute rock jam. No, seriously.

Stay tuned, there's still life in this site yet!

2010-04-24T07:10:00.000-04:00

It's 3:56 AM right now, and I'm wrapping up the tasks that I gave myself when I woke up: "you're not going to bed until this stuff is all done". and I did.Unfortunately, I will be doing the same thing (with even less sleep) tomorrow night.

Ah, but now. Right now, I am sitting here with an expensive-in-California Dogfish Head 60 Minute Ale, the serenity of the middle of the night. I've been listening to Ennio Morricone and Richard Hawley for the past couple of hours and it's put me in the sort of mood that is content but excited. The cat wakes up every hour or so, has a quick bite, and then stares at me for 5 minutes before yawning and going back to bed. Carrie is asleep on the couch in front of an episode of Blue Planet. One of those minutes where you look around and everything has stopped moving, and you are left with the feeling that take everything in and just maybe get everything all figured out for once.

Instead, I will eat a plum and go to bed.

Cellphone photo dump: San Francisco

2010-04-10T21:40:00.002-04:00

Japanese Tea Garden in the Park

Some kind of church for Cylons, I think.

This mail lady keeps an A&W in the mailbox!

More Tea Garden

Albino alligator! If you're wondering, YES, I did call him Whitey.

Apparently the reason they're so rare is because they last like 2 seconds in the wild. Kinda takes the excitement out of the whole thing. They're rare because they're so poorly adapted. Stupid pigments.

The California Academy of Sciences

Francis Scott Key Memorial (seen in last photo)

Japantown

Bindi Irwin

2010-04-10T20:10:00.000-04:00

One of the nicest things I've read all week

2010-03-30T13:07:00.000-04:00

I love it when comedians do stuff like this.

2010-03-19T05:16:00.000-04:00

I might've told this story before.

When I was in college, I took a political rhetoric class. Aside from the fact that I needed the credit, I took it upon a recommendation. I'd heard great things about this professor, so I signed up for it.
As it turned out, it was worth it. The professor a former speechwriter, the kind of guy who'd gotten several people that you've heard of elected, he always looked like he'd just stepped off a jet with a whiskey in his hand. Wearing dark sunglasses indoors, during the day like he belonged in them.
He'd gotten several people who we've all heard of elected. He was a grizzled vet of the old school political machine. He taught me a lot of great things, and probably a cynicism that I'll carry for life.

But the lecture of his that I remember the most, of all the insanity and unusually forthcoming admittance of drug abuse, there was a recollection that I will die with. It was during the Cuban missile crisis, and he was sure that he could count his final hours on both hands. Nuclear contamination was imminent, and he was certain he wasn't going to spend his last hours like a fool.

He moved his mattress and girlfriend to the basement of his apartment building at the time, along with "a lid and a case of whiskey". He said that they spend two weeks down there, drinking tap water from the sink next to the washer (which surely would've been toxic) and otherwise getting loaded.

Not surprisingly, It always freaked me out. Even worse was that he made a point to mention that almost everyone in the class had grown up under a greater threat of nuclear annihilation than he was then. There's nothing worse than being reminded you never really caught on to from your childhood...

As with every great teacher I've had in my life, I eventually lost touch with him. I remember going to a surprisingly popular bar with him the next semester and being a little alarmed at his behavior with a few of my former classmates.

Sometimes I think about getting in touch with these old teachers of mine that taught me so much. So much to observe, ignore, repeat... I'd like to see what they have for me now at 31. Would I even listen? It is folly to put former role models under the light of harsh scrutiny, and a terrible reward for those expecting results.

But it's strange. Because I have never been able to forget it. Even worse, I have had a song associated with that story since the day I heard it. Not just a song, but a song I'd known for years. A song I'd previously cherished as a soundtrack of my formative years; "After the Gold Rush" by Neil Young.

This is a song I could point back to forever. I refer to exhibit A*. But for some reason, the thought of "lying in a burned out basement" conjured up -to my romantic eyes- the notion of lying in a filthy underground shithole trying to convince myself that it was the end of days. It just made sense.

and so now I sit here, thinking about the severity of the situation and how I'd react (like you'd do otherwise!?) and I'm disturbingly okay with the notion of burying myself for weeks and letting the world letting it figure it out for its own self.

But of course I could never do that. I mean shit, I should be used to it by now, right?

*This is a mixtape made by one of my brothers, sisters or friends (I haven't been able to figure out who), one that was worn ragged over several years of driving to Maryland and back. Sons that I remember from it include:
7 Cure songs
"Kiss Me Deadly" - Generation X
"Wild Child" - Iggy Pop
"Heat of the Moment" - Asia
"The Weight" - The Band
"Young Americans" - David Bowie
"Pulling Mussels (from the Shell)"
"Dancin' With Myself" - Billy Idol
"Make Me Smile" - Chicago
and others. I'm actually really trying to remember what else.

2010-03-08T15:23:00.000-05:00

Ballroom, Hellingly Hospital

There's really nothing more awesome than an abandoned insane asylum, other than one that's called Hellingly.

Here's some more pics.

1.5 rainbows

2010-03-07T19:19:00.000-05:00

Cellphone photo dump 5

2010-03-03T13:45:00.000-05:00

Catula. I have no idea of this pic is upside down, which it appears to be:

From the Post-It show at GR2:

Obviously, the well is running a little bit dry now. Or not, the rest are museum placards, the bloody Santa exhibit at MOCA, and some pictures of the cat.

Cellphone photo dump 4

2010-03-03T13:33:00.001-05:00

Yeah, because I have the mind of a child.

Seriously, though, can you imagine reading this to your child at bedtime and trying to disguise your laughter/horror?

Cellphone photo dump 3

2010-03-03T04:31:00.000-05:00

Books that had a dramatic impact on me as a child that I just rediscovered:

Anansi was always one of my favorites as a kid. I remember talking with all the other kids about which one of his sons we wanted to be. Not surprisingly, I always wanted to be Stone Thrower.

Thinking back on it, so did everyone else.

Cellphone photo dump 2

2010-03-03T04:22:00.000-05:00

Energy drinks. For your boner.

Cellphone photo dump 1

2010-03-03T04:16:00.000-05:00

found something I thought I'd posted ages ago. This is from about a month ago, spotted in a little exhibit in the Getty Research Institute. It's about launching cats. No shit:

Oh, it gets better:

if you look at the bottom there:

Yes. That's a cat with something like a 16th century rocket strapped to its back. There's also a bird at the top.

I have a whole stack of fun images I need to post, but I also need to get this whole thing moved to a new address. I've more or less got everything figured out but the name, so if anyone's got any clever suggestions, I'm all ears. Everything I've tried is either taken or creepy and ominous-sounding, and I'm trying to avoid that.

Anyway, more to come.

No Snow in Hollywood

2010-02-20T20:27:00.016-05:00

Remember how I was gonna make all these big changes after post 1000? Well, I'm at 1,005 right now (though this program counts drafts, so I'm almost certainly still below that), and I still haven't changed anything.

It isn't like I haven't thought about it. and I'm still planing on changing the title and location of this whole thing sooner than later, but I've just been busy as hell wrapping up grad school and trying to maintain a life and everything to really implement most of these changes. But I'm working on it. A dear friend just found a veritable tinmine in the form of old stories and writings of mine, and as I was reading through them last night, I realized that I really should be writing more. I though I would be cringing all through these, but they were better than I remembered. Well, a lot was still crap, but there were ideas there that I really should play around with some more. Perhaps I'll post some of that here. First, I should probably get through my school stuff, since I'm not taking loans out on the premise of finishing decade-old short stories of mine.

HOWEVER.

This morning, I finally put together that mix I've been talking about. I've had most of this thing settled for at least a month, but it really finally rounded out in the past week. We cover three languages here, with a lot of wailing soul and some lighter stuff spread throughout.

The title comes from a Frank O'Hara poem, which is in the middle here. You can delete it if you want (the sound quality is terrible), but give it least a listen. Anyway, it's more of a lamentation than a boast about the lack of snow in California. The cover photo is something I found on riotclitshave some time back. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it:

No Snow in Hollywood

1. Intro

2. "Big Kids Don't Play" - Grand Puba

3. "Be Love, Be Wild" - We All Have Hooks For Hands

4. "Don't Haunt This Place" - The Rural Alberta Advantage

5. "New Religion" - Bad Weather California

6. "You're Wondering Now" - Andy & Joe

7. "Solaar in the Country" - DJ Zebra

8. I Don't Care

9. "Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again" - The Angels

10. "Hold You Back" - JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound

11. "Cry To Me" - Betty Harris

12. Lana Turner Has Collapsed - Frank O'Hara

13. "A Mother's Love" - Earl King

14. "Cancion Para Mi Padre" - Sally Timms

15. "Nobody" - Larry Williams & Johnny Watson

16. "Know What I Mean" - Freeway & Jake One

17. That's the Thing about Chinese Death Stars...

18. "I Don't Want to Party (Party) - Philadelphia Grand Jury

19. "Jackie Wood" - Box Elders

20. "Need Your Love" - Michael & the Mumbles

21. "Bow Down and Die" - The Almighty Defenders

22. "C'mon" - The Soft Pack

22. "There Goes a Girl" - Johnny Truitt

23. Give some back

Edit: somebody has now reported this page TWICE for violation of the DMCA, so I've taken down the link. I'd ask that the offended party contact me and I'll gladly remove the offending material instead of them complaining to Google.

Anyway, if you would like to check the mix out, just email me and I will sent you novelty replica files that may sound uncannily like the mix.

edit: I just realized that the last track was on my last mix. Whoops. I still really like it, for what it's worth.

Shackleton's Whiskey: FOUND

2010-02-11T00:55:00.000-05:00

So, three crates of Whiskey (and two bottles of Brandy) have been discovered beneath the floorboards of Ernest Shackleton's hut in Antarctica. You might remember when I wrote about Shackleton's ship (from a different one of his three attempts at reaching the North Pole) being frozen in the ice.
Interestingly, one of the big pluses from this find is that the company that originally made the whiskey is hoping to be able to reverse-engineer the recipe they used 100 years ago, which was apparently lost. Huh.

Anyway, that'd be a sweet birthday present, right?

2010-02-10T12:19:00.000-05:00

via English Russia

2010-01-27T22:53:00.000-05:00

Howard Zinn is dead.

I just found this out, fittingly enough, as I was watching the State of the Union address.

It wasn't unexpected -the man was 87 and lost his wife 2 years ago- but still, it hits hard. The man served his country in WWII, he marched for civil rights and taught at Spelman, and he wrote some of the most important history texts ever written.

If you're unfamiliar with the man's work, go to his site and read an essay or two, go to youtube and watch a lecture. Or check out Democracy Now tomorrow, where I'm sure there will be a tribute in the morning. There's also a movie version of A People's History that'll be out on DVD in February.

We've lost a heavyweight today, take a moment to remember him.

The Third Man

2010-01-04T16:28:00.000-05:00

One of the more productive things I got to do over the trip home was get some reading done. A lot of it has been a massive book about basketball, augmented with magazines, comics (I re-read We3, and it still sucks the air out of my chest), and the annotated screenplay to The Third Man. It's a movie I'd seen a couple years ago, but had for the most part forgotten, so I was happy to read through it on the flights to and from California.

One of the more impressive of the story's many, many impressive qualities is the way that the story so fittingly describes an time and a place -namely postwar Vienna- so perfectly. The confusion and disconcordance of having one city ruled by four different allied powers, most of whom not sharing a language with each other, let alone the people they are set to govern/protect. The stoic optimism of a war-scarred populace, eager to move on from the conflict but living in system that won't let them... it's a rare thing to me, to get that sort of sense from any type of work, let alone a book and a film. I honestly don't know how they do it. Part of me suspects that it's a talent that eludes even the best of storytellers. Part of me is certain that it's more a result of my place and time. Does living in America in 2009 (yeah, I know) have a flavor that could be expressed? I could write in a story about economic peril and the hopes of a black president, but in fifty years from now, would someone read that and think "that's exactly what it was like!" Or would I have to include some veiled Rihanna reference?

Obviously, it's more than pop culture. While we (meaning, I) love to think that popular culture goes a way towards defining the greater culture, it far more often than not means sweet fuck all. With the exception of post-9/11 media, I can't really think of anything that snapshots specific American culture after the Cold War*. Perhaps it's because we as Americans have such a diverse climate of economic and social stations that it's nearly impossible to connect them without the benefit of several decades of distance to provide hindsight. It might be that most Americans tend to project their experiences and backgrounds onto the country, effectively ignoring everyone else. Maybe it's the apathy of the suburban MTV generation that has shifted our attitude to that of a vapid shrug (it's a cliche, I know, but not an unfair one). I have no idea. But as I was thinking about this, I was convinced that the most common way to get a picture of our country at any given moment is to show it in or immediately following tragedy**. It sounds dramatic, but maybe that's the only time we'll be able to look around and agree about what's going on. Or at least that's the closest we get to it.

But I digress. I want to write about The Third Man. Because it's one of those movies that holds up so damned well. I'm not one of those classic film nerds that can't watch anything made in America after the mid-70s. I will talk loads of shit about Avatar, and yet I avoid most foreign films on the grounds that they're depressing for the sake of being depressing, and I will prefer color to black & white. I don't consider myself an erudite scholar of film, but I like to think I know what I like. and I love The Third Man. I could rail on about the framework or the advancements in cinematography, but it'd be 100% bullshit lifted from other places, ass opposed to the 50% bullshit that I'm just making up. In order for me to even notice things like that, it has to be so spectacularly good or bad that my attention is taken from the dialogue, acting, and overall theme. So I don't notice that when I'm watching The Third Man. I notice the more obvious things: the Karas soundtrack, which I put on a mix at some point in college and baffled even myself with, The zither fluttering along through the scenes, almost ditzy when juxtaposed against the story. There's the drunken petulance of protagonist Holly Martins, a European caricature of an American if there ever was one***, even if the character was supposed to be Canadian****. There's the opportunists, fops, and schemers that show up throughout the story, and the distance of the Austrians, who don't want anything to do with anything that isn't getting their lives back on track. This is classic noir, and still it stands as more than just a detective story. Oh, and there's Orson Welles. He was already the major filmmaker of the world, and he had just turned his back on Hollywood. He was just the actor here, but he improvised one of the best movie lines in history (he later said he stole it from somewhere else) like it was nothing.

I don't want to get into the story too much, because there are turns and revelations that still amaze me (even if one of the biggest ones is given away by the movie poster/DVD cover). But I would recommend checking it out. You can watch it on Netflix ad the moment, and you can probably pick up a (non-Criterion) copy for pretty cheap since it's in the public domain. But I'd suggest checking out the book or screenplay first. It won't take up much of your time (I read most of it on the worst plane ride ever), and it really is worth it. Afterwards, check out the movie, and tell me I'm wrong about this. Tell me you don't get a feeling for postwar Vienna, despite the fact that it serves mostly as a backdrop for the story.

Anyway, that's just what I'm feeling on it.

* of course, this isn't entirely true. Wall Street probably did a great job of defining the mid-late 80s for a lot of people, despite the fact that there's no mention of the decline of American industry, the dumbest fashion sense in history, and the historic rise/acceptance of rap music. Philadelphia might also carry a distinct resonance, while Forrest Gump will always serve to remind us how fucking dumb and self-servingly nostalgic we can be.
** the other might be comedy. Of course, this is not always the case, but it's a lot easier to gain insight towards the culture of a time and place by what jokes can and can't be made and the way that they are made. Of course, 85% of American comedy disproves this entirely.
*** I still laugh every time he intentionally gets Calloway's name wrong.
**** what non-hockey playing Canadian shows up in another country and takes a swing at a cop first thing off the plane? There are Canadians that don't play hockey, right?

2010-01-04T02:05:00.000-05:00

I know I said I'd post a mix before the year's end, but I haven't. It's about half done, though. In the meantime, I've got loads of emails to get back to (including ones to every one of my friends, who I didn't get to hang out with while I was home), insane family bullshit to address, and classes that start tomorrow.

I'm not saying don't hold your breath, but seriously, don't hold your breath.

2010-01-04T02:03:00.000-05:00

So, here's a story. Tonight, Carrie and I decided to go out to dinner. After spending New Year's Eve in and the next 2 days sick and in bed, we felt we were owed as much. So we did what we usually do. Spend an hour trying to decide where to go for dinner and then eventually settle on the cheapest place. Tonight, it was a Mexican place down the street we rarely frequent.

I should've known something was up as soon as we walked in there. The place is huge. In addition to the outdoor deck (it was warm enough to have diners this evening), there's a labyrinth of indoor rooms and bars at this place. All of them were empty. Eventually, we came across an out-of-the-way reception desk. As we were seated, I was horrified to realize that there was only one other table occupied in the entire restaurant.

This is an issue with me. While I can appreciate being the only people in a movie theater or a plane or something, I don't like the undue attention of being the only patrons of a store. Put in this position, I don't dare leave because of my innate need to support any non-chain business that isn't terrible. So I just sit there, nervously staring at the entrance in hopes that the place will fill up by the time the meal is over. But oh, it gets worse. There was a musician.

If being the only diners in a restaurant gives me a mild panic attack, then being the only diners in a restaurant with live musicians fucking terrifies me. Are we supposed to act like this is a personal concert? Should we clap? Stare at him? Ignore him? I'm profoundly uncomfortable in situations like these, and usually it's pretty obvious.

Still. I can be magnanimous. I can eating a meal without freaking out. After all, we brought some cash to tip him wit.... shit. The money we had left over from the farmer's market that morning was sitting at home on the table. Making matters infinitely worse was that this guy was amazing. and elderly. and playing solo. I don't know what it is. If this guy was playing on the street, or Dave Matthews songs, I wouldn't even think twice of walking past. But I was watching him play with more passion than just about every live show I've ever seen (and paid for). If this guy was from Brooklyn and singing in English, he'd be on the cover of magazines. But instead I was watching this old guy playing by himself in an empty restaurant and it was too much. I felt like we were taking advantage of this guy, and it was only fair to compensate him. I know you might be thinking "but he's paid by the restaurant". I don't know if this is true. and if it is, it wasn't enough. After all, we were tipping the waiter, and he wasn't even that good a waiter.

I tried to put it out of my mind. I thought if I could convince myself that he was singing some really lewd filth, I wouldn't feel obligated to tip him. I thought maybe he'd give up at the realization that he was only playing to two people, and poor-looking ones at that. But no. He kept playing, sounding better with each song. It was torture, beautiful torture. So we decided that we had to tip him. So I got up, nodded to the host as I walked towards the bathroom, and then bolted out the front door towards the nearest business that would give me cash back.

I don't know what the people at the Trader Joe's made of me, running in through their doors and scanning the aisles before grabbing a Toblerone. They probably thought I was a lunatic. When I went to pay for them, the clerk said "Looks like someone's new year's resolution is to eat more candy!" She smiled, and I probably should've just nodded and smiled back. Instead, with my heart pounding through my chest I huffed "no time to explain", got my cash back, and sprinted back to the restaurant. The guy was still playing the same song when I sat down*. I slipped Carrie the money and she tipped him at the next break. If I tried, the singer might have notice that I was a) out of breath, or b) suddenly had a giant Toblerone in my pocket.

The next song, he played a cover of "Sounds of Silence". I swear this was for our benefit, since before that his set consisted of traditional Mexican songs, but it might've just been that place in the rotation. I'm usually not big on this sort of thing, the zany cover**, but I swear this guy killed it. He was amazing, and I can't swear it wasn't the palpitations or the cold medicine, but I was almost moved to tears.

It was far from the cheapest meal we could've had (In n' Out), but that was still the best $5 I've spent in years.

*I know it's depressing that I was winded after some four minutes of running but, to be fair, I haven't been to the gym in almost a month and I had just downed a taco, an enchilada, and a plate of beans and rice. We're all lucky that my being winded was the worst of it.
**anyone who has visited this site for over a year or so can probably find hundreds of pieces of evidence contradicting this. Well keep yer trap shut.

2009-12-20T16:09:00.000-05:00

Got in to Philly this morning off of the redeye, and it took me until the baggage claim before some girl scolded me for talking about her (I wasn't). The I went home and shovelled snow. That's right, you think the West Coast has softened this guy up? NO WAY! Lack of sleep, jet lag be damned. I'm in this!

(this is my way of saying posts will be sparse, what with lack of internet and time. I'm sure you're all there with me).

2009-12-16T21:15:00.001-05:00

Sorry for the small blackout, I just wrapped up my finals and really just didn't want to spend any more time in front of a computer than I already had to for the past few days. Which really just means I've been outside a bunch, trying to take advantage of California weather before heading back East on Sunday. Spent a couple hours walking around a college campus and generally just catching up on existence when I found a giant papier-mache milk jug rotting on the side of the road. Without a holie big enough to crawl into it, had no other option left but to take some pictures of it.

In internet news, how effing cute (and a little disgusting) is this?

2009-12-13T14:53:00.000-05:00

yeah...

2009-12-04T17:19:00.001-05:00

Missing: granny in rocking chair.

2009-12-03T17:55:00.000-05:00

I'm watching (well, listening to) this Iverson press conference in Philly right now, and I'm seeing a guy with tears in his eyes describing what the Philly fans mean to him. While I respect that, and probably even believe it, it's still an even that brings up some mixed feelings for me.

I should preface this by saying that Iverson means a lot to me as a Sixers fan. The man has arguably* sparked more interest in the team -my favorite team- more than any other player in history, and as a fan I owe him that. I can't think of a player that threw himself into the game as hard as he did for the better part of a decade, and he took us to the finals. So please don't mistake what I'm about to say as hatred of Iverson.

I was against him coming back. I think I still am. His leaving was tumultuous at best, and we're still getting over the ramifications of building a team around him before he left. We have a bunch of young players now that need to learn the game in their own way, and I think Iverson could damage that in a way that could never be fixed. There's also the off-court drama associated with Iverson. I've had four people send me the "practice!?" clip in the past week, and it's not like I needed reminding the first time. I think Iverson will sell a shitload of tickets, but in the long run bringing him back might be detrimental to the young talent.

But watching this press conference... watching him picking up that uniform -the uni that he should've been wearing in his first run here- and seeing his smile when he did it... I can't help but feel a little hopeful. It might be the desperation of a horrified fan who has seen his favorite team in shambles all season following the coaching style of a lunatic. I might be grasping at whatever optimism I can pull out of the situation. But there's also something else, something that I forgot about a while back.

This is Allen Iverson.

This is a guy who in the past has thrived on defying odds and proving people wrong. This might be the last stop in the league after dropping lower and lower on the the ladder, but he might just be able to rejuvenate this team and smack some sense into them. And if we're really lucky, he might just get Eddie Jordan fired. It's a longshot, but it's still the best shot I, as a fan, can have at the moment.

Sure, there's a strong chance I'll be eating these words (not literally) in a few months, but for now I'm kind of excited. the way I see it, the team can't possibly get worse than they've been so far, so let's give him the shot.

*with apologies to Charles, Julius and Wilt

How did I miss this?

2009-12-03T17:16:00.001-05:00

Sarah Palin attributed a quote to the infamous UCLA Basketball coach John Wooden in her book, which is strange enough. What is laughably insane is that the quote:

"Our land is everything to us...I will tell you one of the things we remember on our land. We remember our grandfathers paid for it -- with their lives."

Is not John Wooden's (you mean basketball coaches don't often talk about how their fathers died for their land?), it does however belong to one native American activist John Wooden Legs.

I'm sick of Palin, and I'm even more sick of everyone attacking her, if only because it makes her fans even crazier and more self-righteous. But this is without a doubt one of the dumbest things I've ever seen. I'm sure she had nothing to do with it (at all, including selecting the quote), you would think that anyone publishing a book that's set to be scrutinized as this one would be smart enough to hire a fact checker to see if this was on the level.

2009-12-03T16:49:00.002-05:00

also, I have to admit I never knew that reindeer were this cute.

Oooooh fish shoes!

2009-12-03T16:44:00.000-05:00

I want them.

(via Illusion360)

Hoagie dreams

2009-12-01T14:48:00.000-05:00

I don't know who tipped the little bugger off, but my subconsciousness is now aware that I'm going to be back in PA pretty soon. I had a frighteningly intense dream last night about my favorite sandwich. I actually woke up with my mouth watering. This can only means that dreams about Sarcone's, pizza, and maybe a cheese steak are forthcoming.

I've been pretty wound up lately, with Carrie sporting some sort of H1N1 action lately, and my finals in full swing. I don't see this dying down before next friday, but I should have some more time to post here next week. Going to Conan on Tuesday, so that should be nice.

In the meantime, Paul F. Tompkins' new album came out today. It is hilarious, and you should buy it, here or over on iTunes.

Death by water + children

2009-12-01T14:38:00.000-05:00

via Shorpy

[post deleted]

2009-11-27T06:58:00.000-05:00

This was waaaay too depressing for Thanksgiving, and I'm not in the mood to bring everyone down.

All I can say is that despite hating on him for the bulk of his career, Shaq is a fucking stand-up guy.

So instead, I'm up at 4 AM the morning after the holiday watching war movies and reading comics, because at least there's a bad guy in those.

But let it be known that any whining I encounter in the coming weeks will be met with a sharp rebuke. I hate not having cable news sometimes, since I hear about these stories until too late to really write on them.

Does this mean that I can't post on any depressing stories until January? Fucking holidays.