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!
Saturday, December 31, 2011
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.
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