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


it's spring, damnit.

I'm still on this...

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lens of a video game, but still!), but got emotionally wrapped up in the story of the Fukushima 50 and once they were withdrawn I was drowsy and a little sick from what I hope is allergies.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...

   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

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?

*******

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

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?

*

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

**

**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.

***

***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.

****

****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.

*****

*****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.

******

******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

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

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...

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

Spotted on 9/11/10 in Monrovia, CA.

Many more after the jump

We Kinda Saw It Coming

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:

The Mongolian Death Worm

Because seriously, what else were you gonna read today?

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

Mildred B. Soule, 1916-2010

   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 neighbors, 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

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

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