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My REM cycle will grow trunks like a mighty oak

   For somewhat obvious reasons that I'm not willing to get into right now, I've been having trouble sleeping lately. This is nothing new. I've had bouts with insomnia since I was a kid. But it's always been about having trouble falling asleep more than being able to stay asleep. Recently, though, I've been finding myself waking up at 3 or 4 every morning. At first I assumed that it was just premature onset of old age. But once I realized that it isn't to pee and already in the throes of a panic attack, I figured I had to do something. Changing my diet and/or exercise regime is clearly not an option, melatonin gives me really weird dreams. So obviously, I resorted to changing what I listen to.

   Up until 25 or so, I fell asleep listening to music every night, and I could use just about anything. It wasn't until I was living with someone did I realize that other people don't find shrieking blues musicians or DJ Shadow to be as soothing as I did. and frankly, it started to wake me up with a start as well, so I just stopped.

   I think I already mentioned this somewhere, but there's a site, You are listening to Los Angeles, that I use a lot when I'm writing or just trying to think. It's a combination of super ambient music and police scanner broadcasts. In spite of the obvious contrast, I've found it to be one of my favorite things online. Lately, even more features have been added and I love it even more. But as much as it soothes me, there is no way I can fall asleep to descriptions -however codified- of homicides and animal abuse. But I still love the idea.

   So I started using an app on my ipod called Ambiance. This is essentially a huge archive of sound clips culled from Freesound.org and sent in by users. Wanna listen to a campfire or crickets or a thunderstorm? done. Tuvan throat singers? done. There's even weirdly specific ones, like "rain on a tent" or "TV through a wall" that are oddly captivating. You can even opt for plain old white noise (though I prefer violet noise for reasons I do not understand)*.

   But as much as I love to sleep listening to these things, I've still had trouble falling asleep to them. It's just boring enough to let my mind race. So, inspired by the site mentioned earlier, I decided to start making my own soundtrack. You see, Ambiance can let you play your music along with the sound effects. So I for the last few months I've been experimenting on what works. One of my favorites is playing Brian Eno's Music for Airports with a clip from a bowling alley. It sounds like that would be torture, but with the levels just right it's just as good as any dream I'd come up with. I've also used an old Smithsonian Jazz Piano box set (my go-to sleep music for years) blended with the sound of rain on corrugated metal. Chopin's nocturnes seem to go well with a bed of white noise, and Elizabeth Cotten's guitar picking blends nicely with the sounds of a typewriter.

   If I was a normal person, I'd probably be content with that. But I had to go the extra mile, so lately I've been collecting samples for what will undoubtedly be my unfinished opus. Yeah, I'm planning on creating a 5+ hour, nonrepeating audio track. I've been collecting audio clips of music boxes and armoniums. Of 17-year cicadas and nightingales. Also a lot of clips of people talking, almost exclusively with received pronunciation. I don't know why, but it helps.

   I have no idea how long this will take me, and I'm pretty sure I'll never stop tinkering with it, but I've been enjoying the process, and I guess that's why any of us have hobbies. I just wish mine resulted in some cool ships in bottles or something.

*I also use Brownian noise, which bears a very clear distinction from the Brown note, which would be infinitely less pleasant.

SVD

  I don't care about Valentine's Day. I never really have. It's not because I've been with someone for the better part of 12 years or that I was particularly lovelorn as a youngster, but just that it's a crock of shit. I'm fortunate that my wife feels pretty much the same way.

  I mean, what type of perverse monster would create a holiday that:
-makes people not involved in a relationship feel lonely
-needs to remind people in a relationship to celebrate their love
-artificially forces couples into new levels of commitment/hyperinflated affection?

  I don't like any holiday that gets people down, and I can't even entertain the notion that people aren't thinking about love (or even sex) often enough. As far as I'm concerned, we should be celebrating Arbor Day with more vigor than this bullshit. At least then people would plan some trees or something.

  If you're with someone who needs a February 14 to say "oh, right. I bet he or she would like some chalky candy and calendar-mandated sex!", you should probably rethink some things. This is hardly a new or unique opinion, but it is sincere nonetheless.

   So I don't know, enjoy the day. Go out and be with friends or spouses or cousins or whatever. Watch a movie not directed by Garry Marshall. or be miserable, for all I care. Just don't be miserable because of the date.

Full disclosure: I am cooking a very nice dinner for my wife tonight, but it has more to do with my butcher having Valentine's Day specials than anything else*. I might not be sappy enough to fall for a fake holiday, but I'll always be a cheapskate at heart. Plus, the fact that I'm sick and all of my head-holes feel packed with gauze means that it wouldn't be romantic if I was wielding a bow & arrow and wearing a diaper. Do you see how ridiculous this is!?

*If anything, I think we'll be celebrating the butcher store, which is one of my favorite places in southern California.

 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.

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).

   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

   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

 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

      I.

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?

  

      V.

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.

      X.

    All these plants,

  yearning towards the

iron fence, looking out, and

    trying to breathe

         the free air.

you might as well skip this one...

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

 

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

Hi-Lo

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

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

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

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

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.

 

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

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

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

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

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.