For what it's worth, and that's not much, not much to me even, less to you, Carne Adobado burrito naps are one of life's simplest pleasures, superior in every way to all other nap producing activities: the headache inducing six-pack nap, the sticky leg, just had sex nap, the still at work sleeping in the lunch room nap, etc. In fact, the only nap better than the Adobado nap is the screen door open, California "rainstorm" nap. You know the one, when it gets really cold, like down to 50, brrrr.
I came home today from our minimum day at school and stopped with the boy at a local dive food Mexican restaurant. The place isn't much for decor, sitting with a commanding view of Inglewood and Artesia Bolevards, not that anyone would ever really want to command such a view. We sat away from the windows. The lad, knowing very little about the magical properties of Adobado, and lacking the proper adult supervision he has sorely missed for his whole life, ordered the "rolled tacos", which he was surprised to find look a lot like taquitos--dumbass (that's a direct quote from yours truly, though if you know me, you know that). My burrito was for more wonderful, no beans, no rice, just marinated pork, a tiny bit of guacamole and a generous amount of pico de gallo. I ate quickly, avoiding the view, imagining I was in a sleepy village of Quernavaca, protecting the locals from Eli Wallach. The sad consequence of eating quickly is that you finish quickly, but the boy was done with the Mexican equivalent of Van DeKamps frozen fish sticks anyway and the gas fumes were starting to get to me, besides, I knew what would follow.
I drove home, hung my keys in the place my wife has forced me to do such things and headed up stairs. The old cat, who my wife is convinced is dying, though he has been this way for years, was sleeping on my pillow. I gently lifted him, so as not to wake him from his 30 hours of sleep, and threw him across the room. I don't know if cats always land on their feet, but they do always wake up when you throw them, which isn't a bad skill. Don't worry, he's back on my pillow now, as I write this, continuing to die. Anywho, I put my back down next to the bed and fell into my pillow, face first. Exactly one and a half hours later, I awakened. I am thankful for that nap, for Adobado, for the boy, his brother, the wife who makes me hang my keys in a place I can find them, and even for the cat who will probably make it another year or two before he does die on my pillow. I will bury him in one of my pillow cases so he will stay warm forever.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Monday, October 15, 2012
They Say This President is a Bad Mother--Shut Your Mouth
This time tomorrow all the pundits will be talking about how Barrack "Shaft" Obama mopped the floor with his magic underwear touting, dressage lovin', car elevator using piece of Republican shit opponent. President Shaft was fucking with Mittens in the first debate, but the "rope-a-dope" stops tomorrow. If not, I'm moving to Canada.
Saturday, October 13, 2012
In which there's no accounting for taste
It's true. I have a good friend with whom I agree on the most important parts of life: women, whiskey and war, though we disagree on many of the small things. He likes baseball, singularly the worst sport ever imagined or played and I like football. He likes Scotch, the oakier the better--yuck, why not chew on a log soaked in grain alcohol (same thing). These petty differences have provided endless semi-, or wholly drunken conversational material and I'm thankful for that, but there's a line.
When somebody openly disses Anton Karras' brilliant zither soundtrack from Carol Reed's amazing 1949 film The Third Man, it reveals a basic lack of understanding or art and beauty, if not the universe itself, that requires a response. My friend and I agree that the film is a classic. The scene when Joseph Cotton's Holly Martin meets Orson Welles' Harry Lime for the first time in the eastern section of Vienna, when the two ride an enormous Ferris wheel in a nearly empty amusement park, when Lime explains that people are basically insects and killing a few here or there, even if they are children, isn't likely to disturb the universe, is one of the most balanced and beautiful moments in all of film--it's a textbook. The scene, like all the entire movie, is framed by the amazing Karas' soundtrack that I eluded to earlier.
The zither does have a distinct sound, an Austrian sound. The instrument has 20 some odd strings depending on what kind it is, and has a history dating back to King David. Karras played his like a gypsy angel. The soundtrack for the film is a musical version of its most disturbing image, a midnight balloon man, wandering the shadowy post war streets of Vienna, eerily happy, cheerful and dreadfully out of place. The presence of said balloon man has never ceased to blow my mind in The Third Man, nor has the music. Yes, it repetitious, but not unnecessarily so. The music creates a wild opposition to one of the bleakest noir films ever made. It lends the film a creepy quality not unlike the one created in Charles Laughton's Night of the Hunter, which gives us Robert Mitchum as a serial killing preacher who is fond of singing "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" while he hunts children down. In both cases, the music makes the movies. The Third Man would not have been the same movie without the zither. I have never shown the film without a student commenting on it and I doubt I ever will be able to. The original theatrical trailer for the film was correct in stating, "you'll be in a dither over the zither." Watch the film and tell me if I'm wrong.
When somebody openly disses Anton Karras' brilliant zither soundtrack from Carol Reed's amazing 1949 film The Third Man, it reveals a basic lack of understanding or art and beauty, if not the universe itself, that requires a response. My friend and I agree that the film is a classic. The scene when Joseph Cotton's Holly Martin meets Orson Welles' Harry Lime for the first time in the eastern section of Vienna, when the two ride an enormous Ferris wheel in a nearly empty amusement park, when Lime explains that people are basically insects and killing a few here or there, even if they are children, isn't likely to disturb the universe, is one of the most balanced and beautiful moments in all of film--it's a textbook. The scene, like all the entire movie, is framed by the amazing Karas' soundtrack that I eluded to earlier.
The zither does have a distinct sound, an Austrian sound. The instrument has 20 some odd strings depending on what kind it is, and has a history dating back to King David. Karras played his like a gypsy angel. The soundtrack for the film is a musical version of its most disturbing image, a midnight balloon man, wandering the shadowy post war streets of Vienna, eerily happy, cheerful and dreadfully out of place. The presence of said balloon man has never ceased to blow my mind in The Third Man, nor has the music. Yes, it repetitious, but not unnecessarily so. The music creates a wild opposition to one of the bleakest noir films ever made. It lends the film a creepy quality not unlike the one created in Charles Laughton's Night of the Hunter, which gives us Robert Mitchum as a serial killing preacher who is fond of singing "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" while he hunts children down. In both cases, the music makes the movies. The Third Man would not have been the same movie without the zither. I have never shown the film without a student commenting on it and I doubt I ever will be able to. The original theatrical trailer for the film was correct in stating, "you'll be in a dither over the zither." Watch the film and tell me if I'm wrong.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Endeavor, Please
Everyone looks up. We have since the first slimy creature looked out of its crowded, muddy pool of stagnant water and said, "I wish there was a way I could walk onto that beach." Looking up is what we descendants of that evolutionary link do best. In the words of the immortal Coen Brothers, "It's [Our] whole goddamn raison d'itre." As I young child, I would look into the blue, suburban sky of Newbury Park and wonder at it. Wonder at its depth, its form, its blue. I would spin in circle, arms extended grabbing a street sign and look up until I fell over. Up is limitless--limitless. We don't know its beginning or ending, nor even our own position in it. It is what we see every day when we are tired of looking down, when we have felt enough of the gravity of our planet, our lives.
I would walk the two miles home each day from Sequoia Elementary school, alone most days during the whole of my 7th grade year. I was too afraid to ride my bike as I had been a late bloomer bikewise and didn't think much of my skills (the next year, I went over the handle bars while looking at Kelly Clancy walk, but I digress). I would walk home, alone with my head facing up, not from happiness, or haughtiness, but because my life was shit, because I needed to look up and see any possibility of a life beyond that moment, and I did. I saw planes, birds, trees, clouds; you've seen it, you know. And in 1978, we saw rockets, and we saw Space Shuttles. We had been fed a steady diet of Jetsons, Battlestar Gallactica and even Alf, so we knew that a life in the sky was surely in our future. The moon landing changed the world, but TV gave us pictures. The Space Shuttles made for the best of these.
I saw a launch of a shuttle in 1983. I was in Merrit Island, Florida at the national "Teen Missions" training facility. I was heading to Norway, the land of Munch and Ibsen, to build a church and spread the Good News. The Jim and Tammy Baker types who ran the "camp" (we slept in tents and bathed in an alligator filled lake (really)), decided that we had enough time between doing the biblical verses obstacle course and our afternoon meal next to the palm trees with the coral snakes on them to drive the 3 miles down and watch a shuttle launch. I was tired that day, having cleared a fallen tree with a hatchet and wheelbarrow, and filthy in a way that only a Nordic type, who sweats when he wakes up, could be in the middle of a Florida swamp in summer. So we got on a school bus and went to the launch.
I wasn't ready for the smoke, for the size of the exhaust trails that covered most of the sky I had so long observed. I was struck by the scope of things, and scope always impresses. If you can make something bigger than a bus fly into space, your bound to impress and that's the thing. The Space Shuttle, if it didn't outright scare the Russians and Chinese, couldn't have failed to impress them with our ability to see beyond the limitations that were our birthrights. Almost two years later, I drove out to the desert with Mary Duggan to Andrews Air Base to watch the shuttle land. Mary is a nun now, but she wasn't then. We parked her car and watched that thing drop from fucking heaven onto the middle of the California dessert and I cried.
We are a nation of people who look up. Perhaps we are rowing backwards, Mr. Fitzgerald, but we wouldn't know--we're looking up. It may have been the Challenger that I take off or land, but I honestly can't remember that as much as I can watching with 7 other boy/men as we sat in Germany in the Army , watching Armed Forces TV cover the death of the crew and explosion of the Shuttle. While the Challenger disaster was a horrible event, even then, perhaps especially then, I couldn't feel bad for the astronauts. They were flying into space, going places we may never have meant to go because we do not accept limitations easily. And if God has made us, then he better like competition, because we will not be stopped, not by Global Warming, not by overcrowding, not by anything because we still have the ability to look up.
I took my students out to the football field yesterday to try and catch a glimpse of the Space Shuttle Endeavour's final flight to its new home. We got fleeting glimpses of the Shuttle Carrier 747 and its extra-Terrestrial cargo through the smog as it flew over L.A. landmarks in the distance and that was it. I drove home with my oldest son, who was trying his best to not be interested in the Shuttle, or anything, and there it was. In front of my window, 400 feet off the ground above Aviation Blvd., the Shuttle Endeavour flew by and I said something vulgar. The child told me to calm down, but I couldn't. I have seen three of these things in the air and that makes the sky watching worth it. I was 12 again, unsure of myself and not very happy, but hopeful. That anyone should ever have looked up and thought, "I will go there", is all you need to know of the future. Yes the shuttle is gone, but I'm glad to be part of a species who made one. There will be another shuttle, or likely something better. Our story is not done, and the sky is limitless.
I would walk the two miles home each day from Sequoia Elementary school, alone most days during the whole of my 7th grade year. I was too afraid to ride my bike as I had been a late bloomer bikewise and didn't think much of my skills (the next year, I went over the handle bars while looking at Kelly Clancy walk, but I digress). I would walk home, alone with my head facing up, not from happiness, or haughtiness, but because my life was shit, because I needed to look up and see any possibility of a life beyond that moment, and I did. I saw planes, birds, trees, clouds; you've seen it, you know. And in 1978, we saw rockets, and we saw Space Shuttles. We had been fed a steady diet of Jetsons, Battlestar Gallactica and even Alf, so we knew that a life in the sky was surely in our future. The moon landing changed the world, but TV gave us pictures. The Space Shuttles made for the best of these.
I saw a launch of a shuttle in 1983. I was in Merrit Island, Florida at the national "Teen Missions" training facility. I was heading to Norway, the land of Munch and Ibsen, to build a church and spread the Good News. The Jim and Tammy Baker types who ran the "camp" (we slept in tents and bathed in an alligator filled lake (really)), decided that we had enough time between doing the biblical verses obstacle course and our afternoon meal next to the palm trees with the coral snakes on them to drive the 3 miles down and watch a shuttle launch. I was tired that day, having cleared a fallen tree with a hatchet and wheelbarrow, and filthy in a way that only a Nordic type, who sweats when he wakes up, could be in the middle of a Florida swamp in summer. So we got on a school bus and went to the launch.
I wasn't ready for the smoke, for the size of the exhaust trails that covered most of the sky I had so long observed. I was struck by the scope of things, and scope always impresses. If you can make something bigger than a bus fly into space, your bound to impress and that's the thing. The Space Shuttle, if it didn't outright scare the Russians and Chinese, couldn't have failed to impress them with our ability to see beyond the limitations that were our birthrights. Almost two years later, I drove out to the desert with Mary Duggan to Andrews Air Base to watch the shuttle land. Mary is a nun now, but she wasn't then. We parked her car and watched that thing drop from fucking heaven onto the middle of the California dessert and I cried.
We are a nation of people who look up. Perhaps we are rowing backwards, Mr. Fitzgerald, but we wouldn't know--we're looking up. It may have been the Challenger that I take off or land, but I honestly can't remember that as much as I can watching with 7 other boy/men as we sat in Germany in the Army , watching Armed Forces TV cover the death of the crew and explosion of the Shuttle. While the Challenger disaster was a horrible event, even then, perhaps especially then, I couldn't feel bad for the astronauts. They were flying into space, going places we may never have meant to go because we do not accept limitations easily. And if God has made us, then he better like competition, because we will not be stopped, not by Global Warming, not by overcrowding, not by anything because we still have the ability to look up.
I took my students out to the football field yesterday to try and catch a glimpse of the Space Shuttle Endeavour's final flight to its new home. We got fleeting glimpses of the Shuttle Carrier 747 and its extra-Terrestrial cargo through the smog as it flew over L.A. landmarks in the distance and that was it. I drove home with my oldest son, who was trying his best to not be interested in the Shuttle, or anything, and there it was. In front of my window, 400 feet off the ground above Aviation Blvd., the Shuttle Endeavour flew by and I said something vulgar. The child told me to calm down, but I couldn't. I have seen three of these things in the air and that makes the sky watching worth it. I was 12 again, unsure of myself and not very happy, but hopeful. That anyone should ever have looked up and thought, "I will go there", is all you need to know of the future. Yes the shuttle is gone, but I'm glad to be part of a species who made one. There will be another shuttle, or likely something better. Our story is not done, and the sky is limitless.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
20 years
20 years, a quarter of a good long life. That's how long, as of today, I have been teaching, in some capacity or another, English, such as I know it. I have had breaks here and there, other jobs I can't remember or chose not to, but it's been 20 years since I started with adult ESL classes in Pacoima, CA. I had no business taking that job, no training in dealing with limited English speakers, no working knowledge of Spanish and no real sense of what the fuck I was supposed to be doing, but it didn't matter. The "school", whose name I have long since forgotten for good reason, was a diploma mill that thrived on scamming the migrant population into taking 6 hour a day immersion classes in English and paying for it with Pell Grants from the U.S. Government. The guy who ran the school new it was bullshit. He was hiring fresh college grads, paying us to read sentences in English to people who were illiterate in Spanish, a Harold Ramis scene from Stripes. I worked a double shift, teaching 12 hours a day, 5 days a week for $12 an hour. Fortunately, I knew how to drink.
My second gig was better, teaching freshman English at Wayne State University in Detroit. I was 25, and many of my students were older than me. My first classes were in Old Main hall, which had not been refurbished since it was built in the late 19th century. Come November, it got cold in the shit hole of a room I was in, the broken windows letting in blasts of the coming cold that I would learn could, in fact, get much fucking worse. Still, I had fun. In the winter semester (that's what they call the spring semester in the cold hell that is Michigan) I taught two classes and picked up two sections of writing at the Center for Creative Studies, a nearby art college, meaning I was working full time while taking PhD classes. The first day of the semester, the ambient temperature was 10 below zero with wind gusts blowing 30 to 40 below. My eyelashes froze shut walking down the street and, in an attempt to thaw with my fingers, I inadvertently put my car keys in my mouth as I walked down the street--they froze to my tongue. So I walked down the street, unable to see, with my keys dangling from my mouth. God hated me, but he had his reasons.
My first wife and I left Detroit after 3 years, and I can honestly say I missed it. I had friends there, the kind you don't replace. We moved to Mountain View, CA where I took a day job in a local post production facility dubbing tapes. At night, I drove across the bay to Fremont's Ohlone College where I taught Freshman Comp to students who, I am wholly convinced, have yet to graduate from college. We only lasted a year in Mountain View, with no support from friends or family, deciding to move back to L.A. where we had both. We lived with my mother-in-law and I took a job in a post production house in West L.A., "working" on my dissertation at night.
Broadcast Standards was the worst place I ever worked. My boss was a tyrant and his wife, who was the second half of the two headed monster, wasn't much better. My first wife got pregnant again, by me she says, and I thought it was time to shift gears. I heard that LAUSD would hire people with degrees and give them credentials while they worked in the district, so I leapt. I took a job at Jefferson High School on Hooper and MLK in South Central L.A.. I had been in the Army and thought I could handle it. I was right, but LAUSD had a way of wearing on you. My first week of class, I had a student drop his pants to the floor and walk around showing his package to everyone in the room. He left, but things didn't get much better. I took one day off of work when my younger son was born and in my absence a student stood on my desk and tagged the blackboard behind it. When I asked what happened the next day, the kids told me the sub couldn't handle it and walked out. I left that job after 3 years during which time: two of my students were shot, one was stabbed through the eye and two were rapped (on campus). I loved the students at Jefferson. I took them to Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro for a field trip. It was 10 miles away, but most had never been. I took them to the Zoo, to the Autrey Museum, to the library downtown and each time there eyes got bigger, their world broader. I would have stayed but for the death and the rape and the sadness. I still feel guilty for leaving, but I did.
A decade ago, I came to Peninsula High School and settled in. My first wife left me in November of my first year, so it wasn't all easy going. Still, I survived, made some of the best friends I have ever had, or will have and grew to love the school. Now, 10 years later, I find myself in front of a new group of American Literature students again and I have to get it up again. The job is great, despite the budget cuts, the petty annoyances, the over zealous parents, all of it. I stood today in front of 181 new and excited kids, who are depending on us to educate them, make their lives better and we will. I have the best job in the world. 20 years of slogging through bureaucratic bullshit, pecuniary difficulties, self-doubt and brief, but shinning, successes have not yet made me too tired to want September to come--for which I am truly grateful.
My second gig was better, teaching freshman English at Wayne State University in Detroit. I was 25, and many of my students were older than me. My first classes were in Old Main hall, which had not been refurbished since it was built in the late 19th century. Come November, it got cold in the shit hole of a room I was in, the broken windows letting in blasts of the coming cold that I would learn could, in fact, get much fucking worse. Still, I had fun. In the winter semester (that's what they call the spring semester in the cold hell that is Michigan) I taught two classes and picked up two sections of writing at the Center for Creative Studies, a nearby art college, meaning I was working full time while taking PhD classes. The first day of the semester, the ambient temperature was 10 below zero with wind gusts blowing 30 to 40 below. My eyelashes froze shut walking down the street and, in an attempt to thaw with my fingers, I inadvertently put my car keys in my mouth as I walked down the street--they froze to my tongue. So I walked down the street, unable to see, with my keys dangling from my mouth. God hated me, but he had his reasons.
My first wife and I left Detroit after 3 years, and I can honestly say I missed it. I had friends there, the kind you don't replace. We moved to Mountain View, CA where I took a day job in a local post production facility dubbing tapes. At night, I drove across the bay to Fremont's Ohlone College where I taught Freshman Comp to students who, I am wholly convinced, have yet to graduate from college. We only lasted a year in Mountain View, with no support from friends or family, deciding to move back to L.A. where we had both. We lived with my mother-in-law and I took a job in a post production house in West L.A., "working" on my dissertation at night.
Broadcast Standards was the worst place I ever worked. My boss was a tyrant and his wife, who was the second half of the two headed monster, wasn't much better. My first wife got pregnant again, by me she says, and I thought it was time to shift gears. I heard that LAUSD would hire people with degrees and give them credentials while they worked in the district, so I leapt. I took a job at Jefferson High School on Hooper and MLK in South Central L.A.. I had been in the Army and thought I could handle it. I was right, but LAUSD had a way of wearing on you. My first week of class, I had a student drop his pants to the floor and walk around showing his package to everyone in the room. He left, but things didn't get much better. I took one day off of work when my younger son was born and in my absence a student stood on my desk and tagged the blackboard behind it. When I asked what happened the next day, the kids told me the sub couldn't handle it and walked out. I left that job after 3 years during which time: two of my students were shot, one was stabbed through the eye and two were rapped (on campus). I loved the students at Jefferson. I took them to Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro for a field trip. It was 10 miles away, but most had never been. I took them to the Zoo, to the Autrey Museum, to the library downtown and each time there eyes got bigger, their world broader. I would have stayed but for the death and the rape and the sadness. I still feel guilty for leaving, but I did.
A decade ago, I came to Peninsula High School and settled in. My first wife left me in November of my first year, so it wasn't all easy going. Still, I survived, made some of the best friends I have ever had, or will have and grew to love the school. Now, 10 years later, I find myself in front of a new group of American Literature students again and I have to get it up again. The job is great, despite the budget cuts, the petty annoyances, the over zealous parents, all of it. I stood today in front of 181 new and excited kids, who are depending on us to educate them, make their lives better and we will. I have the best job in the world. 20 years of slogging through bureaucratic bullshit, pecuniary difficulties, self-doubt and brief, but shinning, successes have not yet made me too tired to want September to come--for which I am truly grateful.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Newsroom
I figured out the deal with Aaron Sorkin's new HBO Series last night whilst watching it On Demand, it's just liberal porn. That is to say that in each episode there are 2 or 3 minutes of interesting shit (let's call it "the facial" for the sake of the metaphor) surrounded by the worst acting and writing any show has ever mustered, really. In fact, I have seen more compelling love stories play out in actual porn films. Yes, I agree with the views of the show, but the pretense and smuggery of Sorkin's masturbatory politics are too much to tolerate.
The best part of the last episode is when a younger producer punches a monitor on which Rush Limbaugh is seen doing his normal schtick. This might have been the stupidest and least convincing moment of TV in the last 30 years. I remember moments of West Wing that came close to being this idiotic, but not quite. Besides, the shows were fundamentally different. The West Wing was a counter-narrative to the Bush Administration. It followed the events of the day fairly closely and imagined what a reasonable President might do. Newsroom is revisionist history. It takes us back four years and attempts to show what things might have been like if we only had a free and skilled press. Sorkin is right to see the American media for the failed, prostituted servant of the rich it has become, but his inability to be so self-congratulatory gets in the way.
So it's liberal porn. You can watch it for 10 minutes, get your leftie rocks off and move on. Like actual porn though, it gets old. You start to think that maybe if you weren't watching porn all the time, you might get laid. Newsroom won't win over any hearts or minds, and it won't change the media process. In the real TV news world, even Al Gore will fire Keith Olberman. In any case, as cheesy as it is, True Blood is better written and more interesting than Newsroom.
The best part of the last episode is when a younger producer punches a monitor on which Rush Limbaugh is seen doing his normal schtick. This might have been the stupidest and least convincing moment of TV in the last 30 years. I remember moments of West Wing that came close to being this idiotic, but not quite. Besides, the shows were fundamentally different. The West Wing was a counter-narrative to the Bush Administration. It followed the events of the day fairly closely and imagined what a reasonable President might do. Newsroom is revisionist history. It takes us back four years and attempts to show what things might have been like if we only had a free and skilled press. Sorkin is right to see the American media for the failed, prostituted servant of the rich it has become, but his inability to be so self-congratulatory gets in the way.
So it's liberal porn. You can watch it for 10 minutes, get your leftie rocks off and move on. Like actual porn though, it gets old. You start to think that maybe if you weren't watching porn all the time, you might get laid. Newsroom won't win over any hearts or minds, and it won't change the media process. In the real TV news world, even Al Gore will fire Keith Olberman. In any case, as cheesy as it is, True Blood is better written and more interesting than Newsroom.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Holden Caufield meets Peter Pan
If you haven't seen Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom yet, and have no plans to do so, you're probably not a very good person. Watching this movie was like looking at an old 110 photograph picture cube. If you remember the acrylic photo cubes containing muted pictures of women with big hair in pastel mini dresses or boys in scouting gear or men with crew cuts and short sleeve dress shirts, then the first five minutes of Anderson's latest, best film will move you to tears.
The film is quirky (not that I would expect less from the thinking man's Tim Burton) but unrelentingly beautiful and perfectly nostalgic. Not nostalgic in a smarmy way that idealizes the past, but nostalgic for the look and feel of a time when we were young, when love was the fiercest and a kiss was everything. The film works as a visual reenactment of e.e. Cummings "Anyone lived in a pretty how town", with Sam and Suzy, the film's love struck pre-teens, as Anyone and No one. And like Cummings poetry and world, Anderson's is one where the magic and the beauty are all too human. There are no aliens here, no ghosts, no chocolate factories, only deeply flawed people in a nearly real world.
It's my 45th birthday as I write this and I can't help feeling a bit old, out of sorts. That I can still go to a movie and leave with tears in my eyes is testament to the power of the medium. That movies like Moonrise are still being made and that people go to see them suggests that we are not as doomed as the local news suggests. There have been people who have criticized the mild sexuality between the two young actors, and others who feel that the affair between Mrs. Bishop and Capt. Sharp should have been resolved. The truth is that kids on the cusp of adulthood do explore sex and people do have affairs and, to the film's credit, it doesn't really matter. The sex wasn't the story; it never really is. I would live, have lived, in Moonrise Kingdom for 45 years and it's nice to see that other people know how to get there. Thanks for making me feel 12 for a night Mr. Anderson.
The film is quirky (not that I would expect less from the thinking man's Tim Burton) but unrelentingly beautiful and perfectly nostalgic. Not nostalgic in a smarmy way that idealizes the past, but nostalgic for the look and feel of a time when we were young, when love was the fiercest and a kiss was everything. The film works as a visual reenactment of e.e. Cummings "Anyone lived in a pretty how town", with Sam and Suzy, the film's love struck pre-teens, as Anyone and No one. And like Cummings poetry and world, Anderson's is one where the magic and the beauty are all too human. There are no aliens here, no ghosts, no chocolate factories, only deeply flawed people in a nearly real world.
It's my 45th birthday as I write this and I can't help feeling a bit old, out of sorts. That I can still go to a movie and leave with tears in my eyes is testament to the power of the medium. That movies like Moonrise are still being made and that people go to see them suggests that we are not as doomed as the local news suggests. There have been people who have criticized the mild sexuality between the two young actors, and others who feel that the affair between Mrs. Bishop and Capt. Sharp should have been resolved. The truth is that kids on the cusp of adulthood do explore sex and people do have affairs and, to the film's credit, it doesn't really matter. The sex wasn't the story; it never really is. I would live, have lived, in Moonrise Kingdom for 45 years and it's nice to see that other people know how to get there. Thanks for making me feel 12 for a night Mr. Anderson.
Monday, July 9, 2012
4th of July
I warned my colleagues when, at our end of the year luncheon, they gave me the money that they had kindly collected for me as a thank you for being on the bargaining team and settling a new teacher contract, warned them that I would just blow it on liquor and cigarettes, warned them that I couldn't be trusted with that sort of windfall, but they gave it to me anyway. So I left the school year thinking that it hadn't been as bad as it was, though my back, which seized up sometime in late May and only now feels nearly better, said otherwise. In any case, the year was over and I was on my way to a summer full of short trips and long drinks, which brings me to Walla Walla and the Fourth of July.
Normally, one wouldn't think of going to the ass end of Washington state for fun, a hundred miles from nowhere, in the middle of the Palouse, God's wheat field. But it is my kind of fun, the kind that involves seeing my oldest friend, getting to know his kids who are now old enough to get to know, taking my kids to a place they otherwise would likely never go and settling into some serious visiting, drinking and fireworks. As if to sweeten the pot, Allegiant Airlines (they give low cost, low expectation a new name) now flies directly from LAX to Pasco, WA twice a week for a stupidly cheap price, so we didn't even have to drive for two days to get there, which brought the wife on board.
So I sat last Monday, packing for the trip, thinking about how it would be as I am want to do. As it turns out, I had more time than usual to think about the trip seeing as how our flight was delayed for 3 hours on account of the rubber band breaking in Allegiant's one good plane. I did mention it was cheap. The delay did have a bright side as it gave me a chance to do my second favorite activity in life, get the mail. It was a banner day for mail, too as I got a package from Amazon and I hadn't ordered anything. In the box were two CDs containing the greatest hits and other songs of Tom T. Hall, but no explanation of who sent them. This gave me a mystery to ponder as I waited for our flight, made arrangements to still get my rental car, even though we wouldn't be getting into Pasco before most of Eastern Washington had long gone to bed. In any case, it all worked out. The boys and the wife were patient for the most part, with 12 asking fewer questions than he normally does and 15 laying off the snark for an hour or two. The ex drove us all to the airport and we were on our way to nowhere with smiles on our faces.
True to their word, there was a woman waiting just for me at the National Car Rental counter when we got into Pasco somewhere near midnight. She informed me that my friend had been by earlier in the day to make sure they wouldn't leave, and that he must be a good friend. The gentleman with her said they didn't have that compact car I had ordered and that I'd have to be upgraded to a Dodge Avenger, which he described as a significant step up. I knew they wouldn't have that compact as they never do, but how could I have dreamed that there would be a Dodge Avenger in my future. Those of you who don't know the Avenger (if you don't it's because you don't travel much, don't rent cars as nobody ever bought a Dodge Avenger off a lot) should know that it's singularly the worst designed car in a rich history of poorly designed Chrysler products. It's as if somebody actively thought, "how can we block every single line of sight that a driver might have?" So I drove the 50 miles to Walla Walla in the dark of night, not able to see much of anything anyway and praying we didn't hit a dear.
The next morning, the 3rd, we woke early and went to breakfast at a local, high-end breakfast joint. I had the corned beef hash, and I can't think of a better meal that I have ever had. After breakfast, which I used the first of the faculty gift money to pay for, we were off to buy fireworks. We have fireworks in L.A., but not like these. I didn't really know what the hell I was buying when we got to the stand outside of town. I just pointed and bought things by name. The boys did their share of picking and somewhere around the $200 mark, I figured enough had been done. We went back to my buddy's house and he picked up his kids and we visited for the rest of the long afternoon that a northern town affords. R had to play a softball game that night, so we stayed at home with his girlfriend and his two kids. I insisted on lighting off a few fireworks that night, much to my wife's chagrin, not to mention the visible anger and passive aggressive suggestions from some of R's neighbors that this was the 3rd of July and that people from L.A. shouldn't be up here blowing shit up in God's country, disturbing the peace. One of my favorite things to do is to go to a friend's house, far from home, piss off his neighbors and leave, so I could deal with it, but the wife rightly pointed out that we should save some of the fireworks for the 4th and for a time when R could see them. Besides I was being a bit of a hog with the lighting of said arsenal anyway, so we called it a night.
I got up on the 4th and took a long walk through Walla Walla, which isn't easy to do without seeing the same thing twice. I walked in the early morning, down the tree lined, wide streets of that bucolic burg and I could see why people live there. I commenced to thinking about my childhood and the days when I would walk for miles, by myself through the streets of Santa Barbara or Newbury Park, thinking about what I would be more than what I had been. When I got back to the house, we made a big breakfast of eggs and bacon for the kids and got ready to wait for dark to fall so that we could get down to business. To kill time, we went to the central park in Walla Walla for the 4th of July carnival. We had ourselves a sausage made with Walla Walla sweet onions and listened to the local brass band play Sousa. I bought a new tie die shirt from a local vendor and the kids got souvenirs. We ran into R's ex, which was the singular melancholy moment of the trip, but so it goes. After an hour we had had enough and headed back to the house so R could make his appropriately famous Pork in Verde and we could all have a Whiskey smash or two. Somewhere around 4, I asked R for directions to that fireworks stand as I began to worry that we didn't have enough left for the night.
I got the kids in the car and away we went. The guy at the fireworks stand laughed when he saw us coming and threw in a few freebies on account of the $300 I had now spent. R's girlfriend had asked if I was aware that we were literally blowing up money and I said yes. Truth is, it wasn't my money anyway, which made it easier to do. In any case, I would have done it anyway. We got back, ate more pork than anyone probably should and went for a swim at one of R's neighbors' house. As we swam in the cold pool (I even tried to throw the boys in the water) I got to thinking that I should honor the wife's suggestion and let the boys do more of the fireworks. I am still learning to listen The ox is slow, but the earth is patient. J said he had some friends coming to his house to blow up some ordinance they had procured for a local Indian reservation and I suggested we combine their stuff with ours and have ourselves a proper celebration of our freedom, so we did.
When J's friends showed up with mortars and large rockets, I got to worrying that we were going to get arrested and I felt that we had inferior products. This was before I unwrapped the box labeled "Fear No Evil", which contained 6, five piece mortar shells that put everything else we did to shame. So we blew up $300 worth of the best fireworks I have ever seen. The boys took turn lighting Roman Candles, rockets, mortar shells and fountains. We laughed and applauded and drank and smiled, our own version of the Twilight Zone "kick the can" episode. For one night, I was the same age as my children. We were of like mind, had found something we could all simultaneously agree on--blowing shit up is fun. As each shell went off and I looked at R with his girl and his kids, my wife and my kids and the perfect strangers who we shared our night, our fireworks and our beer with, I became more aware of how lucky I am, how good life can be, how much I am succeeding in making the most of my time.
The next day, we went to the public pool in adjacent Milton Freewater, OR for a day of sun and splash. It was the perfect end to a perfect week. I miss R already, but I am happy that we spent some time in his neck of the woods, got to know his family better and helped them make some memories too. The life of a teacher may not involve as much luxury, or glamour as one might want, but I wouldn't trade these trips I take with my family to see friends in the forgotten corners of the country for anything.
We got home Friday night late and went to sleep for two days. I spoke to my father on the fourth and he asked if I got the CD's he sent, so mystery solved. I put the disks into iTunes and listened to my dad's favorite song, "Old dogs, children and watermelon wine" and it all made sense. My song might be "Fireworks, children and whiskey with friends" but it's the same song. I am my father's son as mine are mine.
Normally, one wouldn't think of going to the ass end of Washington state for fun, a hundred miles from nowhere, in the middle of the Palouse, God's wheat field. But it is my kind of fun, the kind that involves seeing my oldest friend, getting to know his kids who are now old enough to get to know, taking my kids to a place they otherwise would likely never go and settling into some serious visiting, drinking and fireworks. As if to sweeten the pot, Allegiant Airlines (they give low cost, low expectation a new name) now flies directly from LAX to Pasco, WA twice a week for a stupidly cheap price, so we didn't even have to drive for two days to get there, which brought the wife on board.
So I sat last Monday, packing for the trip, thinking about how it would be as I am want to do. As it turns out, I had more time than usual to think about the trip seeing as how our flight was delayed for 3 hours on account of the rubber band breaking in Allegiant's one good plane. I did mention it was cheap. The delay did have a bright side as it gave me a chance to do my second favorite activity in life, get the mail. It was a banner day for mail, too as I got a package from Amazon and I hadn't ordered anything. In the box were two CDs containing the greatest hits and other songs of Tom T. Hall, but no explanation of who sent them. This gave me a mystery to ponder as I waited for our flight, made arrangements to still get my rental car, even though we wouldn't be getting into Pasco before most of Eastern Washington had long gone to bed. In any case, it all worked out. The boys and the wife were patient for the most part, with 12 asking fewer questions than he normally does and 15 laying off the snark for an hour or two. The ex drove us all to the airport and we were on our way to nowhere with smiles on our faces.
True to their word, there was a woman waiting just for me at the National Car Rental counter when we got into Pasco somewhere near midnight. She informed me that my friend had been by earlier in the day to make sure they wouldn't leave, and that he must be a good friend. The gentleman with her said they didn't have that compact car I had ordered and that I'd have to be upgraded to a Dodge Avenger, which he described as a significant step up. I knew they wouldn't have that compact as they never do, but how could I have dreamed that there would be a Dodge Avenger in my future. Those of you who don't know the Avenger (if you don't it's because you don't travel much, don't rent cars as nobody ever bought a Dodge Avenger off a lot) should know that it's singularly the worst designed car in a rich history of poorly designed Chrysler products. It's as if somebody actively thought, "how can we block every single line of sight that a driver might have?" So I drove the 50 miles to Walla Walla in the dark of night, not able to see much of anything anyway and praying we didn't hit a dear.
The next morning, the 3rd, we woke early and went to breakfast at a local, high-end breakfast joint. I had the corned beef hash, and I can't think of a better meal that I have ever had. After breakfast, which I used the first of the faculty gift money to pay for, we were off to buy fireworks. We have fireworks in L.A., but not like these. I didn't really know what the hell I was buying when we got to the stand outside of town. I just pointed and bought things by name. The boys did their share of picking and somewhere around the $200 mark, I figured enough had been done. We went back to my buddy's house and he picked up his kids and we visited for the rest of the long afternoon that a northern town affords. R had to play a softball game that night, so we stayed at home with his girlfriend and his two kids. I insisted on lighting off a few fireworks that night, much to my wife's chagrin, not to mention the visible anger and passive aggressive suggestions from some of R's neighbors that this was the 3rd of July and that people from L.A. shouldn't be up here blowing shit up in God's country, disturbing the peace. One of my favorite things to do is to go to a friend's house, far from home, piss off his neighbors and leave, so I could deal with it, but the wife rightly pointed out that we should save some of the fireworks for the 4th and for a time when R could see them. Besides I was being a bit of a hog with the lighting of said arsenal anyway, so we called it a night.
I got up on the 4th and took a long walk through Walla Walla, which isn't easy to do without seeing the same thing twice. I walked in the early morning, down the tree lined, wide streets of that bucolic burg and I could see why people live there. I commenced to thinking about my childhood and the days when I would walk for miles, by myself through the streets of Santa Barbara or Newbury Park, thinking about what I would be more than what I had been. When I got back to the house, we made a big breakfast of eggs and bacon for the kids and got ready to wait for dark to fall so that we could get down to business. To kill time, we went to the central park in Walla Walla for the 4th of July carnival. We had ourselves a sausage made with Walla Walla sweet onions and listened to the local brass band play Sousa. I bought a new tie die shirt from a local vendor and the kids got souvenirs. We ran into R's ex, which was the singular melancholy moment of the trip, but so it goes. After an hour we had had enough and headed back to the house so R could make his appropriately famous Pork in Verde and we could all have a Whiskey smash or two. Somewhere around 4, I asked R for directions to that fireworks stand as I began to worry that we didn't have enough left for the night.
I got the kids in the car and away we went. The guy at the fireworks stand laughed when he saw us coming and threw in a few freebies on account of the $300 I had now spent. R's girlfriend had asked if I was aware that we were literally blowing up money and I said yes. Truth is, it wasn't my money anyway, which made it easier to do. In any case, I would have done it anyway. We got back, ate more pork than anyone probably should and went for a swim at one of R's neighbors' house. As we swam in the cold pool (I even tried to throw the boys in the water) I got to thinking that I should honor the wife's suggestion and let the boys do more of the fireworks. I am still learning to listen The ox is slow, but the earth is patient. J said he had some friends coming to his house to blow up some ordinance they had procured for a local Indian reservation and I suggested we combine their stuff with ours and have ourselves a proper celebration of our freedom, so we did.
When J's friends showed up with mortars and large rockets, I got to worrying that we were going to get arrested and I felt that we had inferior products. This was before I unwrapped the box labeled "Fear No Evil", which contained 6, five piece mortar shells that put everything else we did to shame. So we blew up $300 worth of the best fireworks I have ever seen. The boys took turn lighting Roman Candles, rockets, mortar shells and fountains. We laughed and applauded and drank and smiled, our own version of the Twilight Zone "kick the can" episode. For one night, I was the same age as my children. We were of like mind, had found something we could all simultaneously agree on--blowing shit up is fun. As each shell went off and I looked at R with his girl and his kids, my wife and my kids and the perfect strangers who we shared our night, our fireworks and our beer with, I became more aware of how lucky I am, how good life can be, how much I am succeeding in making the most of my time.
The next day, we went to the public pool in adjacent Milton Freewater, OR for a day of sun and splash. It was the perfect end to a perfect week. I miss R already, but I am happy that we spent some time in his neck of the woods, got to know his family better and helped them make some memories too. The life of a teacher may not involve as much luxury, or glamour as one might want, but I wouldn't trade these trips I take with my family to see friends in the forgotten corners of the country for anything.
We got home Friday night late and went to sleep for two days. I spoke to my father on the fourth and he asked if I got the CD's he sent, so mystery solved. I put the disks into iTunes and listened to my dad's favorite song, "Old dogs, children and watermelon wine" and it all made sense. My song might be "Fireworks, children and whiskey with friends" but it's the same song. I am my father's son as mine are mine.
Friday, June 29, 2012
The Grapevine of Wrath
Alice Melville lived in a one room shack at the ass end of an onion field in Bakersfield, CA for forty years, or the entire second half of her life. In any case, it's the only house I ever knew "Granny" Melville to have. My father, mother, brother and I would drive out from the coast, over the Grapevine, down the hill and switch to the 99 headed for Bakersfield. The shack wasn't quite in Bakersfield, so technically is would have to be listed in real estate ads as "Bakersfield adjacent" (L.A. joke). Somewhere a few miles out of town, we would pull off the highway and take a service road a mile or so to a dirt road and on to the shack, which if memory serves could be seen from the highway.
Anyway, it hadn't always been that way for "Granny". She wasn't really my great-grandmother, having been my grandmother's aunt and taking in Marge when her father left for Africa, South America, the world. Alice's family was said to have come from money in Ireland, leaving from Cork was fashionable and expensive. How she came to be in Bakersfield only the Mormons know for sure, but she did in the 1920's. She married a wealthy man and together they owned and operated a hotel, servicing travelers on their way north from L.A. or south from nothing. According to family legend, Alice even had an affair with Charlie Chaplin who stopped one night on his way to film The Gold Rush in Lake Tahoe, a story that has always been a source of pride in our family. In any case, the Depression hit and they lost the hotel, lost the money and her husband lost his life. Alice was left to herself. Over the next decade or so, she slowly sold off the property that surrounded "the big house" that she still owned. Eventually, she couldn't afford to keep that so she sold it on the condition that she would be allowed to stay in the servants' quarters on the farm, or, if you prefer, the aforementioned shack. And that's where she lived from the late 30's until the time that I would go to see her as a young boy in the 70's.
Shack might be too generous a description of the corragated tin and one inch boards that looked straight out of a Dorothea Lange picture. We would go see her three or four times a year, driving the two hours there and back with my father, who as a peddler drove for a living, at the wheel. The place itself was an 8' by 8' square with two "rooms" and a porch, which is where Granny Melville sat listening to Gene Autry's Angels play baseball on the radio, rocking in her chair, drinking pint bottles of Lucky Lager in the heat of Baker's Hell. We would arrive and naturally have to use the bathroom, an outhouse with no light and no septic tank located around back of the shack. Those were the fastest trips to the bathroom of my life. We would then go "in", though I'm not sure all of us truly fit in the shack. The front room had a chair and a wood buring stove, which served to heat the place and as an oven. She had a cast iron skillet and a tea kettle, but not much else. There was electrictiy, but no running water. She had an old refridgerator full of beer and other food. The back room, the smaller of the two, contained a twin metal bed with an old mattress on top and a small dresser where she kept the ancient floral print dresses she would wear. There were newspapers against the walls along the floor to keep the wind from coming through the visible cracks.
These trips meant the world to her, though I'm not sure she ever said so. She was a hard woman and not to be messed with. When we would go out, my brother and I would play in the dirt, or with the cats, but you didn't mess with Granny. My dad would restock her beer and then we would take her out to town for Chinese food, which she loved. We would come back and stay for an hour or two catching up. She would show my mom and dad her latest letter from a President, this one from Jimmy Carter. She had letters from every American President going back to Hoover. Then, in the late afternoon heat of a Bakersfield day, we would get back in the car, wave goodbye and leave her sitting on her porch, rocking, sweating and faintly smiling.
Once, after one such visit, we went to see my dad's Uncle Duke and Aunt Madge in neighboring Oildale. Duke and Madge were Okies like my grandfather and had settled there in the 30's. Duke had a Model A Truck that was fully restored and he took my brother and I for a ride. He had a tree in his back yard that grew 5 different kinds of fruit, a Steinbeckian man if ever one existed. I couldn't help but think of Granny Melville at Duke's house, wondering how such splendor could be so close to such poverty.
Eventually, Alice grew too old of body and mind to fight off the efforts of various concerned family members to move her off the land and to a real house with water and everything. In her mid 80's she went to live with my grandmother in Santa Barbara, but she was never the same. I won't pretend that to know what life lessons I learned from spending time with her, or what cosmic significance her life story entails, but I think of her from time to time. That she was the matriarch of this white trash family of my mother's side makes perfect sense. Knowing that family as I have come to helps to understand why she would choose to live in that shitbox in Bakersfield for as long as she did. I last saw her in Cottage Hospital, around the corner from my grandmother's house. She was dying and didn't know who I was, or any of us for that matter. In her mind, she was rocking in her chair, listening to baseball, drinking a pint bottle of the bad stuff and minding her own fucking business.
Anyway, it hadn't always been that way for "Granny". She wasn't really my great-grandmother, having been my grandmother's aunt and taking in Marge when her father left for Africa, South America, the world. Alice's family was said to have come from money in Ireland, leaving from Cork was fashionable and expensive. How she came to be in Bakersfield only the Mormons know for sure, but she did in the 1920's. She married a wealthy man and together they owned and operated a hotel, servicing travelers on their way north from L.A. or south from nothing. According to family legend, Alice even had an affair with Charlie Chaplin who stopped one night on his way to film The Gold Rush in Lake Tahoe, a story that has always been a source of pride in our family. In any case, the Depression hit and they lost the hotel, lost the money and her husband lost his life. Alice was left to herself. Over the next decade or so, she slowly sold off the property that surrounded "the big house" that she still owned. Eventually, she couldn't afford to keep that so she sold it on the condition that she would be allowed to stay in the servants' quarters on the farm, or, if you prefer, the aforementioned shack. And that's where she lived from the late 30's until the time that I would go to see her as a young boy in the 70's.
Shack might be too generous a description of the corragated tin and one inch boards that looked straight out of a Dorothea Lange picture. We would go see her three or four times a year, driving the two hours there and back with my father, who as a peddler drove for a living, at the wheel. The place itself was an 8' by 8' square with two "rooms" and a porch, which is where Granny Melville sat listening to Gene Autry's Angels play baseball on the radio, rocking in her chair, drinking pint bottles of Lucky Lager in the heat of Baker's Hell. We would arrive and naturally have to use the bathroom, an outhouse with no light and no septic tank located around back of the shack. Those were the fastest trips to the bathroom of my life. We would then go "in", though I'm not sure all of us truly fit in the shack. The front room had a chair and a wood buring stove, which served to heat the place and as an oven. She had a cast iron skillet and a tea kettle, but not much else. There was electrictiy, but no running water. She had an old refridgerator full of beer and other food. The back room, the smaller of the two, contained a twin metal bed with an old mattress on top and a small dresser where she kept the ancient floral print dresses she would wear. There were newspapers against the walls along the floor to keep the wind from coming through the visible cracks.
These trips meant the world to her, though I'm not sure she ever said so. She was a hard woman and not to be messed with. When we would go out, my brother and I would play in the dirt, or with the cats, but you didn't mess with Granny. My dad would restock her beer and then we would take her out to town for Chinese food, which she loved. We would come back and stay for an hour or two catching up. She would show my mom and dad her latest letter from a President, this one from Jimmy Carter. She had letters from every American President going back to Hoover. Then, in the late afternoon heat of a Bakersfield day, we would get back in the car, wave goodbye and leave her sitting on her porch, rocking, sweating and faintly smiling.
Once, after one such visit, we went to see my dad's Uncle Duke and Aunt Madge in neighboring Oildale. Duke and Madge were Okies like my grandfather and had settled there in the 30's. Duke had a Model A Truck that was fully restored and he took my brother and I for a ride. He had a tree in his back yard that grew 5 different kinds of fruit, a Steinbeckian man if ever one existed. I couldn't help but think of Granny Melville at Duke's house, wondering how such splendor could be so close to such poverty.
Eventually, Alice grew too old of body and mind to fight off the efforts of various concerned family members to move her off the land and to a real house with water and everything. In her mid 80's she went to live with my grandmother in Santa Barbara, but she was never the same. I won't pretend that to know what life lessons I learned from spending time with her, or what cosmic significance her life story entails, but I think of her from time to time. That she was the matriarch of this white trash family of my mother's side makes perfect sense. Knowing that family as I have come to helps to understand why she would choose to live in that shitbox in Bakersfield for as long as she did. I last saw her in Cottage Hospital, around the corner from my grandmother's house. She was dying and didn't know who I was, or any of us for that matter. In her mind, she was rocking in her chair, listening to baseball, drinking a pint bottle of the bad stuff and minding her own fucking business.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Spring Break
That my last blog post, no that anyone noticed, was 4 months ago should serve as some indication as to how my year is going. I haven't wanted to write, and nobody would have wanted to read the whiny, venomous diatribes I would have shit out. Yeah, it's been that kind of year. My union duties have become increasingly demanding while my growing understanding that I will not benefit personally, or professionally from pissing my employer and the parents of my community off gets bigger every day--so it goes.
I would have done the bargaining team anyway, even if I had known what I now do. You are either the person who refuses to eat another mouthful of shit, or you're not. Don't get me wrong; I'm no hero. I have eaten mountains of shit at my current job and mountain ranges of shit in my life, but you reach a certain age, say 44 for argument's sake, and you decide that's it, no more. I've lost my taste for pleasing people, making everyone happy, making everyone like me, and it's all coming out a bit too fast and furious at times. I need a change, a reset of my attitude towards job, wife, kids (oh man), it all, which is why I decided to head to Las Vegas with my schools robotics club as a chaperon for my Spring Break.
If you know me, the word "chaperon" surely troubles you. Fear not, I can keep it together. This is the anti-Fear and Loathing trip. I'll have the nerdiest kids on our campus, staying at the lovely Circus Circus, and I'll make a short documentary about their tournament. In many ways, I'm the perfect guy for the job as I have never been a fan of Vegas anyway. I love all the shit that happens in Vegas, but I don't want it to be sanctioned. I prefer going to places where walking down the street, piss drunk and naked at 2 in the morning is a crime. That makes me feel like a rebel, like I flaunt the authority. Doing it in Vegas is a fucking chore. Everyone who goes to Vegas feels compelled, even obliged to get epically stupid, take "e" and dry hump Mike Tyson's tiger. Not me man, I like to watch and that's just what I'll do this week.
I would have done the bargaining team anyway, even if I had known what I now do. You are either the person who refuses to eat another mouthful of shit, or you're not. Don't get me wrong; I'm no hero. I have eaten mountains of shit at my current job and mountain ranges of shit in my life, but you reach a certain age, say 44 for argument's sake, and you decide that's it, no more. I've lost my taste for pleasing people, making everyone happy, making everyone like me, and it's all coming out a bit too fast and furious at times. I need a change, a reset of my attitude towards job, wife, kids (oh man), it all, which is why I decided to head to Las Vegas with my schools robotics club as a chaperon for my Spring Break.
If you know me, the word "chaperon" surely troubles you. Fear not, I can keep it together. This is the anti-Fear and Loathing trip. I'll have the nerdiest kids on our campus, staying at the lovely Circus Circus, and I'll make a short documentary about their tournament. In many ways, I'm the perfect guy for the job as I have never been a fan of Vegas anyway. I love all the shit that happens in Vegas, but I don't want it to be sanctioned. I prefer going to places where walking down the street, piss drunk and naked at 2 in the morning is a crime. That makes me feel like a rebel, like I flaunt the authority. Doing it in Vegas is a fucking chore. Everyone who goes to Vegas feels compelled, even obliged to get epically stupid, take "e" and dry hump Mike Tyson's tiger. Not me man, I like to watch and that's just what I'll do this week.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
The New Year
A toast to all for the new year:
To my students past and present, I have the best job in the world because of you. I actually get excited when I go back to work. I love watching you grow and change and I want to be at your weddings.
To Robert, who told me to go see Hugo in 3D. Yes it made me cry, almost throughout. It also made me believe in the power of art, reminded me that there is beauty. If we are a dying planet, we are going out in style. There are a thousand other things to say. Thanks for being friend.
To Kris, who should have said no, but probably didn't out of friendship and a sense of duty that is rarer and rarer. I will not let you down.
To Brad and Natalie, what a great end to a hard few years. Here's to many more!
To Sean and Carol, I think I love you both more than ever. You only get one family and you're lucky if you happen to like them. You have handled the hardest of years with dignity and grace and I have learned from you.
To Kate and John, How did we get so lucky? For all the fun times, we thank you.
To Jeffrey and Alisa, I may have married Julie, but I gained a brother and sister. I have spent my life being adopted by other people's families. Thanks for taking me in.
To Robert and Michael, I have spent considerable time trying to forget the past. Thank you for reminding me of the good friends and good times.
To Hilary, There is life after divorce. For me, it has been better. I wish the same for you.
To the Boys, You won't read this, but can you ever know how much I love you. Parental love is expressed in a variety of ways. Remember that I care when I get mad.
To My Wife, There is nothing better than being understood, accepted--it is the essence of love. The fireworks are wonderful and the butterflies grand, but coming home to somebody you can talk to, somebody you want to be with is worth a thousand grand finales. My life would be far worse without you and you make me want to try to be a better person.
To All, Happy New Year! Even years are always better than odd. Here's to 2012!
To my students past and present, I have the best job in the world because of you. I actually get excited when I go back to work. I love watching you grow and change and I want to be at your weddings.
To Robert, who told me to go see Hugo in 3D. Yes it made me cry, almost throughout. It also made me believe in the power of art, reminded me that there is beauty. If we are a dying planet, we are going out in style. There are a thousand other things to say. Thanks for being friend.
To Kris, who should have said no, but probably didn't out of friendship and a sense of duty that is rarer and rarer. I will not let you down.
To Brad and Natalie, what a great end to a hard few years. Here's to many more!
To Sean and Carol, I think I love you both more than ever. You only get one family and you're lucky if you happen to like them. You have handled the hardest of years with dignity and grace and I have learned from you.
To Kate and John, How did we get so lucky? For all the fun times, we thank you.
To Jeffrey and Alisa, I may have married Julie, but I gained a brother and sister. I have spent my life being adopted by other people's families. Thanks for taking me in.
To Robert and Michael, I have spent considerable time trying to forget the past. Thank you for reminding me of the good friends and good times.
To Hilary, There is life after divorce. For me, it has been better. I wish the same for you.
To the Boys, You won't read this, but can you ever know how much I love you. Parental love is expressed in a variety of ways. Remember that I care when I get mad.
To My Wife, There is nothing better than being understood, accepted--it is the essence of love. The fireworks are wonderful and the butterflies grand, but coming home to somebody you can talk to, somebody you want to be with is worth a thousand grand finales. My life would be far worse without you and you make me want to try to be a better person.
To All, Happy New Year! Even years are always better than odd. Here's to 2012!
Friday, December 23, 2011
Men of a Certain Age
You reach a certain age and things don't make much sense anymore. You've heard similar things from enough of your friends and know, at your core, that you are not alone, the knowing of which does nothing to assuage your pain, fear, ennui, whatever the fuck it is that you can't put your finger on. There are phases in your life that have corresponded, roughly to the literary works you have poured over, memorized.
Phase 1, Tolkien:
In the Tolkien age, men believe in everything that is good and holy. At this age, you enlisted in the Army, believed, absolutely, in God and women. It was an age of somewhat reckless abandon, tempered by a sense of duty and country that only a young man can possess. You failed, on rare occasion, but considered your failures a test of your will, knowing that things were likely to improve, that you would accomplish those things you set out to: writing that novel, winning that girl, destroying the ring of evil, etc. You knew too that the world was in tune with your mission. Wizards and midgets would be there to assist you on your path; magic was real. This phase ended for you, as it does for most, in heartbreak. This phase lasts from 14 to 20 (longer for the mentally infirmed).
Phase 2, Hunter S. Thompson:
There is a phase in every reasonable man's life, when he loses his shit, takes to drinking and smoking too much, beating random people up, getting beat up by the wrong random people, puking in cars, elevators, buses, parks, too many bathrooms to remember. This phase invariably begins with the death of true love, the kind that you believed in during Phase 1, the Princess Bride variety--bullshit. During Phase 2, you put as much energy and fuel into your absolute belief that life is pain as you did into the good times of Phase 1. This phase lasts from 20 to 26.5 for the average man, though some never emerge.
Phase 3, Vonnegut:
Also known as the "so it goes" phase, Phase 3 involves an acceptance of things as they are, a lowering of expectations, a renewed sense of purpose to accomplish something, anything that will rise above the ephemera. Like Billy Pilgrim, you grow detached, obtuse at times, though your Phase 2 training has provided you with the capacity to always look like you're having a good time, which is not always a lie after all. It is in the Vonnegut phase, which lasts from 26 to 36 roughly, that you develop reasonable, if perhaps lofty, career expectations. You envision a life of worth, substance. The phase could very well be called the Fitzgerald phase too, though you're not much of a Gatsby (who was stuck in Phase 1). It may be, in the end, that all who get stuck in Phase 1 end up face first in a bloody pool, though you're not certain of this. You likely marry in Phase 3, though it's not a great time to do so for the above mentioned, "low expectations", reasons. If you do marry, and marry another Phase 3'er, it won't end well. Phase 3 invariably ends with a mild but persistent nagging, a sense that there must be more, an unwillingness to accept with quiet humility, your insignificance.
Phase 4, E.A. Robinson's "Miniver Cheevy"
You reach a point in your life, it could just as well be called the Network Phase, when you are mad as hell and unwilling to take it anymore. What you are mad at is hard to define, though there are no shortage of suspects. The post office is high on your list and this is telling. You begin to think that there is a universal conspiracy against your happiness, though you rationally know this can't be the case, because you also know, at the end of the day, that you are not important enough to warrant a conspiracy. You have more things during this period of your life, more money, newer cars, more computational capacity in your home than existed in the entire world 50 years ago, shit, more in your pocket. Though the more you have, the less it matters. Perhaps it's enough that you're not Richard Cory, but being Miniver is bad enough. You know that thinking about it makes it worse, which naturally makes you think about it, and there's the rub.
Phase 5:
To be determined
Phase 1, Tolkien:
In the Tolkien age, men believe in everything that is good and holy. At this age, you enlisted in the Army, believed, absolutely, in God and women. It was an age of somewhat reckless abandon, tempered by a sense of duty and country that only a young man can possess. You failed, on rare occasion, but considered your failures a test of your will, knowing that things were likely to improve, that you would accomplish those things you set out to: writing that novel, winning that girl, destroying the ring of evil, etc. You knew too that the world was in tune with your mission. Wizards and midgets would be there to assist you on your path; magic was real. This phase ended for you, as it does for most, in heartbreak. This phase lasts from 14 to 20 (longer for the mentally infirmed).
Phase 2, Hunter S. Thompson:
There is a phase in every reasonable man's life, when he loses his shit, takes to drinking and smoking too much, beating random people up, getting beat up by the wrong random people, puking in cars, elevators, buses, parks, too many bathrooms to remember. This phase invariably begins with the death of true love, the kind that you believed in during Phase 1, the Princess Bride variety--bullshit. During Phase 2, you put as much energy and fuel into your absolute belief that life is pain as you did into the good times of Phase 1. This phase lasts from 20 to 26.5 for the average man, though some never emerge.
Phase 3, Vonnegut:
Also known as the "so it goes" phase, Phase 3 involves an acceptance of things as they are, a lowering of expectations, a renewed sense of purpose to accomplish something, anything that will rise above the ephemera. Like Billy Pilgrim, you grow detached, obtuse at times, though your Phase 2 training has provided you with the capacity to always look like you're having a good time, which is not always a lie after all. It is in the Vonnegut phase, which lasts from 26 to 36 roughly, that you develop reasonable, if perhaps lofty, career expectations. You envision a life of worth, substance. The phase could very well be called the Fitzgerald phase too, though you're not much of a Gatsby (who was stuck in Phase 1). It may be, in the end, that all who get stuck in Phase 1 end up face first in a bloody pool, though you're not certain of this. You likely marry in Phase 3, though it's not a great time to do so for the above mentioned, "low expectations", reasons. If you do marry, and marry another Phase 3'er, it won't end well. Phase 3 invariably ends with a mild but persistent nagging, a sense that there must be more, an unwillingness to accept with quiet humility, your insignificance.
Phase 4, E.A. Robinson's "Miniver Cheevy"
You reach a point in your life, it could just as well be called the Network Phase, when you are mad as hell and unwilling to take it anymore. What you are mad at is hard to define, though there are no shortage of suspects. The post office is high on your list and this is telling. You begin to think that there is a universal conspiracy against your happiness, though you rationally know this can't be the case, because you also know, at the end of the day, that you are not important enough to warrant a conspiracy. You have more things during this period of your life, more money, newer cars, more computational capacity in your home than existed in the entire world 50 years ago, shit, more in your pocket. Though the more you have, the less it matters. Perhaps it's enough that you're not Richard Cory, but being Miniver is bad enough. You know that thinking about it makes it worse, which naturally makes you think about it, and there's the rub.
Phase 5:
To be determined
Friday, November 4, 2011
Willet Rye
There is something more holy, more wondrous, more bitchin than a good Manhattan, the kind a friend of mine makes (always better than I can) so well that I'm convinced my wife wants to sleep with him, and I would let her--they're that good. Still, I digress, there is something better than a good Manhattan, Willet Rye on the rocks in a buckettt. I don't normally resort to that "repeated letter for emphasis" shit, but I had to here. I am sitting, as I write this, in a sweatsuit, with the window wide open on the first rainy day of the year, watching college football I don't care about and drinking whiskey I can't afford. The wife and kids have given me the day off, an evening to myself and I am grateful for their sacrifice.
It has been a shitty month, in a shitty year, or two. My paycheck has gone down for three years in a row. The house, as of today, is worth $200,000 less than it was four years ago, and everyone, even the nice good ones, is pissed at work. Pissed at the kids, pissed at me, pissed at God, pissed. There is a near total breakdown of government at all levels in our country. One side unwilling to do anything because the President is black, if not liberal or progressive and the other side too afraid to be what they fucking claim to be. That was not a good decade, the "zero's". I'm tired, a bit melancholic, middle-aged, and starting to wonder if this is it. Alright that's bullshit, I know this is it. This is all we will have, will be, and we'd better make the best of it. Which brings me back to Willet.
115 proof, small batch Rye Whiskey is the Crack of alcohols. One sip and you're on that wax encased glass tit for the ride, and the ride is smooth. Whiskey has always been a man's drink. It tastes like straight gasoline the first time you drink it, but gets better with age--yours and its. You develop a taste for the stuff because you know, below the belt, in your man eggs, that it's right. Your father drank it, his father made it, and it's your birthright/responsibility to drink it and enjoy it. So you work it, 10, 20 years. You mix it at first with 7up, though you discover that this is for pussies, so you move to the Manhattan, The Old Fashioned and so forth. At some point, the time is different for everyone, you find yourself pouring a three finger bucket of the stuff, on ice (you don't need to be a fucking cowboy), and lifting it to your mouth, smelling, tasting in addition to drinking. Then you need better shit, because you can taste it; it won't be mixed, or even fucking stored, with 7up. You know, because you can't go back, that you are ready to spend $35 on a bottle of Rye and not think too much about it. You know too, that it will be around for a month, you won't be drinking it all tonight and puking it all over Howard Miller's driveway (sorry Howard, did I ever say that?) So here's to you Willet family. May good bless you and your magical grains. The rain has stopped and my glass is empty.
It has been a shitty month, in a shitty year, or two. My paycheck has gone down for three years in a row. The house, as of today, is worth $200,000 less than it was four years ago, and everyone, even the nice good ones, is pissed at work. Pissed at the kids, pissed at me, pissed at God, pissed. There is a near total breakdown of government at all levels in our country. One side unwilling to do anything because the President is black, if not liberal or progressive and the other side too afraid to be what they fucking claim to be. That was not a good decade, the "zero's". I'm tired, a bit melancholic, middle-aged, and starting to wonder if this is it. Alright that's bullshit, I know this is it. This is all we will have, will be, and we'd better make the best of it. Which brings me back to Willet.
115 proof, small batch Rye Whiskey is the Crack of alcohols. One sip and you're on that wax encased glass tit for the ride, and the ride is smooth. Whiskey has always been a man's drink. It tastes like straight gasoline the first time you drink it, but gets better with age--yours and its. You develop a taste for the stuff because you know, below the belt, in your man eggs, that it's right. Your father drank it, his father made it, and it's your birthright/responsibility to drink it and enjoy it. So you work it, 10, 20 years. You mix it at first with 7up, though you discover that this is for pussies, so you move to the Manhattan, The Old Fashioned and so forth. At some point, the time is different for everyone, you find yourself pouring a three finger bucket of the stuff, on ice (you don't need to be a fucking cowboy), and lifting it to your mouth, smelling, tasting in addition to drinking. Then you need better shit, because you can taste it; it won't be mixed, or even fucking stored, with 7up. You know, because you can't go back, that you are ready to spend $35 on a bottle of Rye and not think too much about it. You know too, that it will be around for a month, you won't be drinking it all tonight and puking it all over Howard Miller's driveway (sorry Howard, did I ever say that?) So here's to you Willet family. May good bless you and your magical grains. The rain has stopped and my glass is empty.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
The Weight
Losing 25 pounds in three weeks(ish) is revelatory. I know I'll probably gain a fair amount of it back, but I now weigh 199 pounds, a size I haven't been since 1987, the year I got out of the army. I started the diet in part to support my wife who was doing it too, but mostly because I needed a change. For the last few weeks and change, I haven't had a drink, haven't eaten very much and haven't gone out at all. The difference is remarkable.
When you get to be a certain age, say 44, you start to believe that the changes you notice in your life, physically, mentally are mostly due to age, and they probably are. But many of the small issues that were cropping up in my life, occasional high blood pressure, lethargy, gut, have gone away with the weight. I'm not a new man, haven't turned a corner, will not be pulling a dingy full of people from Alcatraz to the San Franciscon shore anytime soon, but I do feel better, more alive, happier.
Now, I know that this won't last, that I will probably revert to being the fatter, happier, drunker me soon. In the meantime, I can't recognize the man in the mirror, but he looks good.
When you get to be a certain age, say 44, you start to believe that the changes you notice in your life, physically, mentally are mostly due to age, and they probably are. But many of the small issues that were cropping up in my life, occasional high blood pressure, lethargy, gut, have gone away with the weight. I'm not a new man, haven't turned a corner, will not be pulling a dingy full of people from Alcatraz to the San Franciscon shore anytime soon, but I do feel better, more alive, happier.
Now, I know that this won't last, that I will probably revert to being the fatter, happier, drunker me soon. In the meantime, I can't recognize the man in the mirror, but he looks good.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Showdown at the Pearly Gates
There's a fight in heaven tonight over who gets in first, if at all--A CEO of a gadet company or an NFL Owner. One a tyrannical, son-of-a-bitch who ran his company like a concentration camp and screwed over every partner he ever had, and the other Al Davis. Yeah, I said it. Steve Jobs was an asshole.
The endless ass kissing that has followed Jobs' death is enough to make me want to buy a Zune, if i could find one. And isn't that the point? I could find a Zune, but Apple's product is so dominant that it wouldn't be worth the money. The company that Jobs designed is the biggest monopoly in corporate history, which is admittedly not Jobs fault so much as it is proof of his genius. So why hate the guy? It's the comparisons to Henry Ford that I have the biggest issue with. Ford knew what planned obsolescence was, but he didn't push it to the ridiculous heights that Jobs did. The endless need to own the latest Apple, made in China, piece of shit is the issue. Every fucking time a new Apple product comes out you know it will be replaced in a year. You know that the company making it has more cash on hand than the U.S. government and you know that people in shit hole factories in China are being exploited to make the product, which, I readily admit, is amazing. It's not that Jobs wasn't a genius, or that his product is inferior, it's that he didn't have a heart. He didn't give his money away, as Bill Gates is busy doing. He was hard on his employees and he cared more about the bottom line than is decent. Yes, his inventions have changed the world, but so has his corporate model, which will be imitated to our detriment as a nation and as a planet. I want to champion the guy who invents some shit that will last a decade and was made in America. Yeah, I know that nobody makes anything in our country, which might be why we are nearly dead. It is time to start asking more of our geniuses, of ourselves. How much cooler would Jobs' legacy be if he had been just a little more conscientious, like Al Davis?
The endless ass kissing that has followed Jobs' death is enough to make me want to buy a Zune, if i could find one. And isn't that the point? I could find a Zune, but Apple's product is so dominant that it wouldn't be worth the money. The company that Jobs designed is the biggest monopoly in corporate history, which is admittedly not Jobs fault so much as it is proof of his genius. So why hate the guy? It's the comparisons to Henry Ford that I have the biggest issue with. Ford knew what planned obsolescence was, but he didn't push it to the ridiculous heights that Jobs did. The endless need to own the latest Apple, made in China, piece of shit is the issue. Every fucking time a new Apple product comes out you know it will be replaced in a year. You know that the company making it has more cash on hand than the U.S. government and you know that people in shit hole factories in China are being exploited to make the product, which, I readily admit, is amazing. It's not that Jobs wasn't a genius, or that his product is inferior, it's that he didn't have a heart. He didn't give his money away, as Bill Gates is busy doing. He was hard on his employees and he cared more about the bottom line than is decent. Yes, his inventions have changed the world, but so has his corporate model, which will be imitated to our detriment as a nation and as a planet. I want to champion the guy who invents some shit that will last a decade and was made in America. Yeah, I know that nobody makes anything in our country, which might be why we are nearly dead. It is time to start asking more of our geniuses, of ourselves. How much cooler would Jobs' legacy be if he had been just a little more conscientious, like Al Davis?
Sunday, October 2, 2011
The Ride
T.S. Eliot had it wrong--September, not April, is the cruelest month. The shitstorm that is my life for the 9 month of the year, between the kids going back to school, myself going back to school, my wife going back to school, is as demoralizing as it is debilitating. I has never been easy, but for the last five years, I have had an annual reason to get over the pity party, my friend Kris.
Five years ago, when Kris was diagnosed with MS, I didn't know what to think. After doing some research into the disease, I got worried. Fortunately, Kris's response to medicine has been great thus far and his symptoms haven't progressed, but neither Kris, his family or friends wanted to sit around and do nothing to help. As luck would have it, or so I thought before my first journey, MS sponsors an annual bike ride in the Ventura to Santa Barbara vicinity. So, we did what we thought was right. Kris bought a bike, asked me and several others to come along and we haven't looked back. 5 years and three bikes later, I'm still going on "the ride" with Kris and his ageless father, Ron. Each year, I have felt a little more like a biker, a little less like a scared, out of shape friend who's in over his head. I have had an annual reason to stay in reasonable shape, something anyone who knows me knows I need. I have become closer with each passing year to a friend who ranks among my favorite people. I have become more connected to Kris's family, who I look forward to seeing every year. It has become an annual holiday, a day of action, national "getoffyourassandhelpafriendday". Yesterday, as I rode with Kris and Ron and Julius and Faye and the always happy Mike, I thought of how lucky I am, to be able to help a friend, to be able to climb a mountain on a bike and to do it with my lovely wife and not to shabby children as my road crew.
When I was in the second grade, my teacher, Mrs. Shimatsu, gave me a certificate at the end of the year: "Most likely to be happy-go-lucky". In retrospect, she was probably insulting me as I hadn't exactly been an academic star in her class, but it didn't seem to bother me. Whatever her reasons, she had it right. My life has had its share of ups and downs, but I still feel lucky. Lucky to have friends I want to help, lucky to have kids I still like, lucky to have a wife who actually likes me. Thanks for another great year, Kris. Some of my best memories have come on "the ride", at the Hollywood Bowl, at Karaoke. You're one of the best and I'm proud to be on your team.
Five years ago, when Kris was diagnosed with MS, I didn't know what to think. After doing some research into the disease, I got worried. Fortunately, Kris's response to medicine has been great thus far and his symptoms haven't progressed, but neither Kris, his family or friends wanted to sit around and do nothing to help. As luck would have it, or so I thought before my first journey, MS sponsors an annual bike ride in the Ventura to Santa Barbara vicinity. So, we did what we thought was right. Kris bought a bike, asked me and several others to come along and we haven't looked back. 5 years and three bikes later, I'm still going on "the ride" with Kris and his ageless father, Ron. Each year, I have felt a little more like a biker, a little less like a scared, out of shape friend who's in over his head. I have had an annual reason to stay in reasonable shape, something anyone who knows me knows I need. I have become closer with each passing year to a friend who ranks among my favorite people. I have become more connected to Kris's family, who I look forward to seeing every year. It has become an annual holiday, a day of action, national "getoffyourassandhelpafriendday". Yesterday, as I rode with Kris and Ron and Julius and Faye and the always happy Mike, I thought of how lucky I am, to be able to help a friend, to be able to climb a mountain on a bike and to do it with my lovely wife and not to shabby children as my road crew.
When I was in the second grade, my teacher, Mrs. Shimatsu, gave me a certificate at the end of the year: "Most likely to be happy-go-lucky". In retrospect, she was probably insulting me as I hadn't exactly been an academic star in her class, but it didn't seem to bother me. Whatever her reasons, she had it right. My life has had its share of ups and downs, but I still feel lucky. Lucky to have friends I want to help, lucky to have kids I still like, lucky to have a wife who actually likes me. Thanks for another great year, Kris. Some of my best memories have come on "the ride", at the Hollywood Bowl, at Karaoke. You're one of the best and I'm proud to be on your team.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Winehouse
It wasn't hard to predict this day, but it doesn't make it any sadder. Watching Amy Winehouse die has taken 4 or 5 years, but we all knew it was coming. "Rehab" says everything you need to know about the situation, not that it works anyways and maybe that's the point of the song. Winehouse had it bad, like a lot of people I know; she couldn't stop. Lord knows what was eating her, though I suspect it was the usual. There is a deeper sense of decay and inevitable doom in England than there is in the U.S. Decades of decline, politically, economically, and socially have reduced Britania to a bit of an afterthought. We are 50 years away from that point in our trajectory--we burned faster and brighter. And, while it may be a bit of a stretch to say that Winehouse died because England has lost its mojo, I think there's a connection. The popular music of England, while amazing to listen to, is not terribly happy. Consider one of Winehouse's contemporaries, Lily Allen. Allen writes stuff that is hard to distinguish from Winehouse's in content, though the music is more upbeat. Or consider Guy Ritchie's films, especially the terrible Rock-n-Rolla. This isn't a complete list of all popular British media, but, from a Yankee perspective, it's indicative of a country with a drug and alcohol problem.
Maybe that's it in the end. England is a drunken, drugged out, hooligan of a country, at least in certain economic circles and I'm sure we are too. Maybe its western culture in general, but it does seem like there are too many people around now who are in profound pain. I don't think Winehouse was suicidal, nor do I think so of any addict for that matter, but that is the end of things for her kind. Perhaps we should spend more time looking at why there is so much pain, dissatisfaction and lack of interest in contemporary Western life, than in wondering why Amy Winehouse, Lindsay Lohan, etc. can't stop the madness.
Maybe that's it in the end. England is a drunken, drugged out, hooligan of a country, at least in certain economic circles and I'm sure we are too. Maybe its western culture in general, but it does seem like there are too many people around now who are in profound pain. I don't think Winehouse was suicidal, nor do I think so of any addict for that matter, but that is the end of things for her kind. Perhaps we should spend more time looking at why there is so much pain, dissatisfaction and lack of interest in contemporary Western life, than in wondering why Amy Winehouse, Lindsay Lohan, etc. can't stop the madness.
Monday, June 20, 2011
We Meet Kris Kristofferson
Is there anything better than meeting a personal hero? It's a rhetorical question, so don't bother answering as you and I all know the answer. So it goes that this Saturday the wife and I got to meet Kris Krisfuckinstofferson at the Johnny Cash Music Festival in Ventura. I saw the flier a few weeks ago and thought it would make for a fun day, and it did.
I've seen Kris (he's my friend now) perform before at UCLA's Royce Hall. Steve Earl warmed up for him and then KK played for 3 hours non-stop, just him and the guitar, every song he ever wrote, which is a lot of songs. That show was cool, even if a bit long. He played "Moment of Forever" towards the end, a song he wrote with another guy I know, Danny Timms. Timms was in a band with a colleague of mine and they played our wedding. I told this to Kris on Saturday in the 30 seconds I had to say everything I have ever wanted to say to him. This is what I got out:
Me: "Mr. Kristofferson, Danny Timms played "Moment of Forever" at our wedding, can we have a picture?"
Kris: "Sure"
Me: "Thanks, I'm a high school English teacher and I teach William Blake every year"
Kris: "I can't figure out cameras today"
Me: "Can I make a request? Would you play "Junkie and a Juicehead"? It's pure poetry"
Kris: "They only gave me 30 minutes, so we'll see"
Me: "Thanks"
That was it. My wife got the picture, from her Iphone (that's what confused Kris) and the whole thing was over. I stood stunned for a couple of minutes, then the tears started. Those of you who know me are not moved by this; I've been known to cry during television commercials, but I was moved. The William Blake thing was a bit of a fib as I haven't taught Songs of Innocence and Experience for four years, but I wanted to say something that would reveal my profound knowledge of KK's life. So he went into the gated area and we went back to get another beer and a good spot for the performance, which was a good thing.
Kris came on a stage and fiddled with his guitar for a few seconds (there was feedback) and then he tried to sing over the sound of the car races happening a quarter mile away. Now I know it's mildly sacrilegious to say so, but the man could never sing anyway. This isn't as damning a claim as it may appear. The list of singer songwriters who I love, who can't really sing isn't that short: Dylan, Todd Snider, Tom Waits (though in his case, it's intentional), etc. Alright, maybe it is short, but it's not unheard of. In any case, KK tried to sing over the cars and the feedback and a crowd that was talking a lot, and what do you think he played. For his second song, for the first time in a long time, "Junkie and a Juicehead" made the list. This song has five or six of the greatest lines in lyrical history in it:
"So I drank the whole thing over, puttin one and two together and it added up to more of what I didn't want to be"
"He says every empty bottle is his private crystal ball, where he stares into the future finding nothin there at all"
Check it out below and call me a liar if it's not as perfect as I claim.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZU359hdM1w
So he plays the song, not well, missing some of the lyrics, looking unsure, and he finishes, saying: "I wasn't gonna play that song today but somebody out there requested it" And my wife screams, "It was us" and I scream "thank you", and the tears roll again. He finishes with "Moment of Forever" and all I can do is hug my wife, kiss the back of her head and thank God I'm here right now, today.
In the end, that's mostly what I took away from the day--my wife is awesome. Who else would get this excited about meeting a guy my parents' age whose name doesn't even register for most people our age? Who would stand for an hour with me at the back of a warehouse because I'm convinced that that's where Kris will be coming in? Who else would go to this show with me, knowing me, understanding that they will be selling beer? It's been a lucky week, decade, perhaps even life. My second grade teacher, Mrs. Shimizu, gave me a certificate at the end of the year naming me "most likely to be happy-go-lucky" and I have no idea how she knew, but she was dead on.
I've seen Kris (he's my friend now) perform before at UCLA's Royce Hall. Steve Earl warmed up for him and then KK played for 3 hours non-stop, just him and the guitar, every song he ever wrote, which is a lot of songs. That show was cool, even if a bit long. He played "Moment of Forever" towards the end, a song he wrote with another guy I know, Danny Timms. Timms was in a band with a colleague of mine and they played our wedding. I told this to Kris on Saturday in the 30 seconds I had to say everything I have ever wanted to say to him. This is what I got out:
Me: "Mr. Kristofferson, Danny Timms played "Moment of Forever" at our wedding, can we have a picture?"
Kris: "Sure"
Me: "Thanks, I'm a high school English teacher and I teach William Blake every year"
Kris: "I can't figure out cameras today"
Me: "Can I make a request? Would you play "Junkie and a Juicehead"? It's pure poetry"
Kris: "They only gave me 30 minutes, so we'll see"
Me: "Thanks"
That was it. My wife got the picture, from her Iphone (that's what confused Kris) and the whole thing was over. I stood stunned for a couple of minutes, then the tears started. Those of you who know me are not moved by this; I've been known to cry during television commercials, but I was moved. The William Blake thing was a bit of a fib as I haven't taught Songs of Innocence and Experience for four years, but I wanted to say something that would reveal my profound knowledge of KK's life. So he went into the gated area and we went back to get another beer and a good spot for the performance, which was a good thing.
Kris came on a stage and fiddled with his guitar for a few seconds (there was feedback) and then he tried to sing over the sound of the car races happening a quarter mile away. Now I know it's mildly sacrilegious to say so, but the man could never sing anyway. This isn't as damning a claim as it may appear. The list of singer songwriters who I love, who can't really sing isn't that short: Dylan, Todd Snider, Tom Waits (though in his case, it's intentional), etc. Alright, maybe it is short, but it's not unheard of. In any case, KK tried to sing over the cars and the feedback and a crowd that was talking a lot, and what do you think he played. For his second song, for the first time in a long time, "Junkie and a Juicehead" made the list. This song has five or six of the greatest lines in lyrical history in it:
"So I drank the whole thing over, puttin one and two together and it added up to more of what I didn't want to be"
"He says every empty bottle is his private crystal ball, where he stares into the future finding nothin there at all"
Check it out below and call me a liar if it's not as perfect as I claim.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZU359hdM1w
So he plays the song, not well, missing some of the lyrics, looking unsure, and he finishes, saying: "I wasn't gonna play that song today but somebody out there requested it" And my wife screams, "It was us" and I scream "thank you", and the tears roll again. He finishes with "Moment of Forever" and all I can do is hug my wife, kiss the back of her head and thank God I'm here right now, today.
In the end, that's mostly what I took away from the day--my wife is awesome. Who else would get this excited about meeting a guy my parents' age whose name doesn't even register for most people our age? Who would stand for an hour with me at the back of a warehouse because I'm convinced that that's where Kris will be coming in? Who else would go to this show with me, knowing me, understanding that they will be selling beer? It's been a lucky week, decade, perhaps even life. My second grade teacher, Mrs. Shimizu, gave me a certificate at the end of the year naming me "most likely to be happy-go-lucky" and I have no idea how she knew, but she was dead on.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
The Rapture
I get one or two epiphanies a year, moments of higher brain function than my normal high school teaching slog requires, coming almost always at the end of a semester or on a break from the grind when my mind is otherwise unoccupied. Epiphany is a strange thing, equal parts inspiration and ephemera, but I had to share this:
End of the world movies and stories are not the self-fulfilling prophecies of a species lucid enough to know it's killing itself and the planet, but too drunk to care. Rather, they are a very perverse kind of wish, a certain desire to have every trapping of modern life, the cars, the toys, the clothes, the food, the shit, without quite so many people. That's how fucked up we are as a species. We know it's the cars that are killing us, so we rationalize that if there were simply fewer of us, we could all drive Hummers. Think about it for a second, all the disaster movies (from Zombieland to The Road, the comic to the tragic) have this thing is common--not everyone dies. This was the most absurd part of I Am Legend, the part that made it so much less appealing than Omega Man. The later ends with mother and son survivors finding a "safe-town", complete with white church steeple, suburban streets and plenty of gun and ammo. The message is clear--there was nothing wrong with the way we were living, there were just too many of us.
Disaster films suggest that all we really need to do is find some way of killing off 99% of the world's population, after which, we can go back to eating bacon and watching Shrek. Sure it's a heavy price to pay for the 99%, but they'll either go quickly, or turn to zombies and wouldn't we really rather be dead at that point anyway? Fuck population control, sustainable energy, cleaning up the rivers and lakes, getting rid of nuclear waste, what we really need is a bad mutant virus to escape from a secret government lab. Sure, there will be the unpleasant period of time when we are eating each other and cooking babies, but it will pass and there will be a family, complete with dog, who live in the woods to take us in. Then we can start all over.
This shit we feed ourselves is not some masochistic, self-flagellation we have imposed on ourselves; it's our escape plan. Deep in our American psyche lie buried a simple thought: the freeways and the planes and the "food" we eat would all be fine if there were far fewer drivers, fliers and buffet lines. God forbid we should examine whether in fact we are living the good life. It's far easier to imagine, long for, a hundred different calamities that could do for us what we are too fat, too stupid and too lazy to do for ourselves. At the end of the day, what we see in disaster movies is what we truly want--99 out of 100 of our fellow earthlings to die. It beats giving up the Lexus.
End of the world movies and stories are not the self-fulfilling prophecies of a species lucid enough to know it's killing itself and the planet, but too drunk to care. Rather, they are a very perverse kind of wish, a certain desire to have every trapping of modern life, the cars, the toys, the clothes, the food, the shit, without quite so many people. That's how fucked up we are as a species. We know it's the cars that are killing us, so we rationalize that if there were simply fewer of us, we could all drive Hummers. Think about it for a second, all the disaster movies (from Zombieland to The Road, the comic to the tragic) have this thing is common--not everyone dies. This was the most absurd part of I Am Legend, the part that made it so much less appealing than Omega Man. The later ends with mother and son survivors finding a "safe-town", complete with white church steeple, suburban streets and plenty of gun and ammo. The message is clear--there was nothing wrong with the way we were living, there were just too many of us.
Disaster films suggest that all we really need to do is find some way of killing off 99% of the world's population, after which, we can go back to eating bacon and watching Shrek. Sure it's a heavy price to pay for the 99%, but they'll either go quickly, or turn to zombies and wouldn't we really rather be dead at that point anyway? Fuck population control, sustainable energy, cleaning up the rivers and lakes, getting rid of nuclear waste, what we really need is a bad mutant virus to escape from a secret government lab. Sure, there will be the unpleasant period of time when we are eating each other and cooking babies, but it will pass and there will be a family, complete with dog, who live in the woods to take us in. Then we can start all over.
This shit we feed ourselves is not some masochistic, self-flagellation we have imposed on ourselves; it's our escape plan. Deep in our American psyche lie buried a simple thought: the freeways and the planes and the "food" we eat would all be fine if there were far fewer drivers, fliers and buffet lines. God forbid we should examine whether in fact we are living the good life. It's far easier to imagine, long for, a hundred different calamities that could do for us what we are too fat, too stupid and too lazy to do for ourselves. At the end of the day, what we see in disaster movies is what we truly want--99 out of 100 of our fellow earthlings to die. It beats giving up the Lexus.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
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