That Guy Joel

Creator Hour!!

2009-03-27T16:17:00.002-04:00

I was all ready to post a long, ranting, fairly unkind opinion piece about "Earth Hour", but Doug Tenappel at Big Hollywood beat me to it, and in a much more positive fashion!

The Earth Hour website calls for us to “Vote Earth,” but I intend to cast my ballot for the other party: Vote Creator! Turn on the lights and show the pagans that illumination, inspiration, capitalism, creativity and sobriety in the face of hysterics is how we conquer our problems.

I'm planning on leaving all my lights on, and then going to a movie!

Geez Oh Man, Yinz Guys!

2009-03-23T15:22:00.003-04:00

I'm hobbling along today, not quite firing on all cylinders. In fact, the coffee I had just made the cylinders which were firing do so more erratically, so that I may be even more unfocused that I would have been if I'd avoided it. This will be my excuse if this posting is less than coherent.

Now that we're past the setup, I can get to the point: I'm tired because I flew home late from Pittsburgh last night!! Yes, not your usual sunny vacation destination, but "Picksburgh, 'n' 'at" has the added benefit of my buddy David.

David and I have been friends for quite a few years now. He showed up at our wedding, despite the fact that he wasn't officially invited. Of course, his brother was in the wedding party, so this was really my bad. But since then he's been a really great and true friend. Despite his numerous attempts to kill me.

Briefly, I've narrowly averted death when David and I:

Went kayaking in Casco Bay and the wind picked up, throwing waves into my little flatwater boat, where I could conceivably have drowned 1/2 mile from shore,
went hiking in the Middlesex Fells Reservation during a blizzard, within sight of Interstate 93,
went hiking up the Cohos Trail in N.H., a singularly remote and primitive trail paved almost entirely in Moose poop, for two nights in the rain,
and surely several other occasions which will be teased out of my memory by intensive therapy and psychotropic drugs.

So I flew out to Pittsburgh this weekend to finally see where David grew up, and has now settled down with his lovely wife, Heather. And how did David try to kill me this time?

Kielbasa!!

We'd talked about me coming out for a visit for a couple of years, and his enticements usually involved cheap food and beer. What can I say, he knows me. But I knew before I left that he would make me earn my grub.

David and Heather picked me up at the airport, three hours later than expected (my original flight to Laguardia was delayed so many times, the nice lady at the counter got me another flight through Regan in Washington - a happy benefit! From the gate and plane, I saw the Washington Monument, Capital Dome, National Cathedral, Pentagon, and Arlington National Cemetery - and I STILL got to Pittsburgh before my original flight got to NY). We went directly to Primanti Brothers for dinner. If you've clicked through the link, you've already realized, to your horror/delight, that the sandwiches come with fries andcole slaw ON THE SANDWICH. The only question left is what meat to include. And I chose cheese with...

Kolbassi. Yeah, that's Kielbasa to us Yankees.

Pittsburgh's ethnic population runs equal parts Italian/German/Polish, so I got a two-fer!

I slept in late because David forgot to reset the guest room clock, which worked out well for him, since he's not really a morning person. Heather went off to visit her sister at college, leaving David and I to explore the city on bikes! I hadn't ridden a bike in two years or so, but it was as easy as remembering to do something that you learned to do once and never forgot despite years of not doing it. If only there were a convenient phrase for this situation...

We went to the Strip District, where trains used to unload all their cargo for the city. It's now lined with ethnic shops and restaurants, and was teeming with people. We parked and walked. I'll never remember the names of all the places we went, and you probably won't know where I'm talking about anyway, so I'll just say it was a lot of fun, and I would have given myself a coronary had I not eaten breakfast beforehand.

Now that I think about it, this really is shaping up in my head to be a post about "What I Ate in Pittsburgh". Maybe a change of tone is in order...

It was wonderful to hang out with David for the first time since his wedding last April. We got caught up quickly and it was like we'd never moved hundreds of miles from each other. It was also nice to be on a bike again, even if it was Heather's cruiser with the upright handle bars and dropped top tube to accommodate my skirt. And while we did go through some sketchy neighborhoods, and nearly couldn't unlock the security cable after hitting the Warhol Museum (Summation: Warhol = awesome; most everyone else = pretentious and predictable), I think I can safely say that my life was never in any serious danger. But I'll get over it.

We rode all over the city: to Point State Park where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers meet to form the Ohio; to Penn Brewery for great German beers, a Pork Schnitzel sandwich and potato pancakes. Later in the evening we drove to the Bloomfield Bridge Tavern, a Polish bar/club, for the Polish Platter, which, I don't think I need to tell you, included Kolbassi. We topped off the night with David's hilarious friend Steve at Nico's Recovery Room, where we drank pitchers of Yuengling in the booth behind the Karaoke mic. There's nothing like being the living backdrop for truly terrible singing. It did make me feel better about my own ability to belt a dulcet tone, especially since I didn't get up to submit it for comparison. All in the name of charity, you understand... My Fred Schneider would have killed.

We went to his church the next day, Hot Metal Bridge Church, which was actually meeting across town, in an unheated Presbyterian church on the steep ridge over the city, known as Mt. Washington. It was wonderful. Despite the lack of heat (it actually felt warmer outside), the place was packed with every shape, size and color of believers. The Bible was preached unashamedly, and we were encouraged to pray for new thoughts as well as discipline for the Word. I was sold the moment he quoted C.S. Lewis, and talked about discussing the allegory in the Chronicles of Narnia with his 7 year old son. I was sincerely blessed by the service, and not only felt at home, but felt like this is what Home will look like someday.

Did I mention that the congregation contains an inordinate number of punks, and is associated with the Christian tattoo shop called In The Blood? Did I mention that one of them runs Bible Fight Club, where they openly debate the really hard questions? Did I mention that there was lunch served downstairs after the service, which included...

Kielbasa?!?!

And no weekend would be complete without some home renovation. The church is helping to repair homes for needy folks, and so David and I went after lunch to do some work on a roof. We only expected to drop by for an hour, but when we showed up, the other team that was there (from another organization) all took off, and it was up to just us to finish nailing down tarpaper.

I'd like to amend an earlier statement: climbing the steep, poorly-secured aluminum ladders to the roof, past close-strung electrical wires, MORE than counts toward life-threatening activity in David's presence. But Steve showed up and we finished in plenty of time to get home, change, and get to the airport in plenty of time to see...

BERNADETTE PETERS ON MY FLIGHT TO JFK!!!!!

She's a little thing, with TONS of curly red hair, and seemed very nice. I say seemed because there was no way I was going to introduce myself after three days without shaving and smelling like I'd worked outside for two hours nailing tarpaper. A girl on her cell phone behind me did, however, and I overheard her telling her friend how gracious she was. You have to appreciate a class act.

Well, I treasured all these memories as I sat at my gate in New York, waiting an extra hour and a half for our plane to even board, before waiting another forty minutes in line to take off. I got home at 1:15 a.m. but it was all worth it. Thank you David and Heather!!

I REGRET NOTHING!!!

Guess What.

2009-02-27T11:53:00.002-05:00

No, it's not a question. It's not even a rhetorical question. I know it's usually phrased "Guess what?", but that's wrong. It's a demand. I'm telling you to guess what I'm going to say. I believe that I have interesting, startling, or shocking news. News about which I believe you don't already know. And I'm telling you to guess what that news is.

No, it has nothing to do with what we are currently, or were just recently, talking about. It might pertain to a previous conversation, which I'm sure you're not thinking about right now, or a subject about which we both have an interest, though that's by no means necessary from my point of view. Or it could be totally out of the blue, which is much more likely, because then it would be really surprising. Ultimately, I'm not going to tell you to guess what I have to say if I think you actually know what I'm going to say. Then you'd be the one relating the exciting news, and what fun would that be?

What I'm really telling you to do, in asking me to tell you my thrilling account, is to tell me that I'm smarter than you, and that you want to be as smart as me by having me teach you what I know. If I were to just blurt out what I know, I run the risk that you didn't want to know it. No, you have to tell me that, no matter what I have to say, you want to hear it. I want you to tell me to tell you what I'm dying to tell you, not because I'm dying to tell you but because you're dying to hear it. I'm demanding, in fact, that you pump me for information that you can't live without.

With this in mind, I'm going to actually ask you a question, for which I believe you are capable of giving me an answer, because I believe you know the answer, and not just because I want to tell you the answer, though that is also true. And here is the question:

Who do you suppose are the kind of people to most often demand that someone else "guess what"?

That's right. Children.

As in, "'Kay, um, know what? 'Kay, um, so, um, this one time..?" in a sing-song-y voice, before launching into an endless story about finding something in their nose. Of course, they are more likely to ask if you "know what" as opposed to demanding that you "guess what", but the child is at least honest about their intentions. They don't want you to guess what they're talking about, so much as have you admit that you have NO IDEA what they're talking about, which implies, to them, that you WOULD LIKE DEARLY TO HEAR WHAT THEY HAVE TO SAY. ABOUT WHAT THEY FOUND IN THEIR NOSE.

And here's a rhetorical question: why would adults want to continue communicating like children?

I think that it's time we, as adults, hold ourselves and each other to a higher level of maturity in our exchanges. I had originally thought that I might offer alternatives to the use of "guess what", but that would imply that you need to be told what those alternatives are.

And you don't. If you've read this far, you're probably an adult, and hopefully, know how to start a conversation with another adult without resorting to "guess what!!"

One suggestion I will offer: if you are confronted by the demand to "guess what", there is an age-appropriate response that should be used to illustrate, to the person demanding, the only level at which a conversation thus begun can logically proceed.

"Chicken butt".

Knock knock...

2009-02-24T13:35:00.005-05:00

Well, it's been a while, hasn't it? My muse went on hiatus some time ago, and she's only now coming back around, giving me the occasional poke in the back, landing a spitball behind my ear, and generally letting me know that she's still there, but isn't interested in hanging out. That's fine, I suppose. I've been busy. Or keeping busy. Anyway...

This will be another one of those occasions where I don't re-start blogging with any great epiphanies, but with a humorous or annoying observation that won't stop buzzing in my ear. Usually I'd be sputtering about the current state of politics but, with all deference to my friends of liberal persuasion who may still be celebrating, the bafflingly absurdist, Bizarro-World situation that's developing speaks for itself.

No, today I want to let my poor reader know my thoughts on a subject of great personal, sociological, and psychological importance, by way of an anecdote...

I was working at Starbucks the other day, and one of my co-workers (or "Partner", as the company refers to us) returned from the bathroom, visibly shaken.

"Doesn't anyone know how to KNOCK ANYMORE?!?!"

"Oh, man, did someone walk in on you?!"

"No, the door was locked (general sigh of relief from all in hearing...) but as soon as I get in there, someone's always rattling the handle!" At which point he makes the universal "rattling-the-handle" hand motions, accompanied by full-body convulsions, denoting the violence of the handle-rattling. "All they have to do is knock!!"

This, of course, being me, is not the first time I've had a discussion regarding occupied-bathroom etiquette. It's just the kind of thing you're not supposed to talk about that I find myself repeatedly talking about. And, of course, being me, I had to be contrary.

I pointed out that it's far preferable to have someone check the handle than knock. A locked bathroom door is as much a psychological barrier as a physical one. It's one of the few instances of real privacy any of us get anymore. When you're behind a locked bathroom door, you're safe. There is little to no danger that someone is going to see you in a state of undress, or worse. You could be doing the Watusi in there and no one is the wiser, though you should always look for wet-floor signage before doing so.

And what happens when someone knocks instead of trying the handle? One of two things:

1) You have to answer. All privacy has suddenly evaporated. You have to all but identify yourself! For all you know, the person on the other side can actually hear if you're sitting down or not. They can hear the tension in your voice, conveying just enough of your emotional state to insist they imagine what's happening in there. You're in one of the most vulnerable states possible, and there is someone demanding that you verbally confirm for them what the locked handle obviously and dispassionately conveys.

Offhand, I can think of a couple of rather satisfying ways to diffuse the situation:

a) Respond with a cheerful "Who is it?" or "Come in!!", or

b) upon exiting, stand in the doorway, barring entrance, and look them in the eye for a full three seconds, deadpan expression. Then quietly say, "It's all yours..."

The other response option is:

2) Ignore the knock in the hope that that the knock-er will realize what kind of position they're putting someone else into. How often is a bathroom door locked with no one in it? But, of course, the person on the other side may assume, because they weren't BRIGHT enough to to come to any other conclusion, that this is, in fact, an EMPTY, LOCKED bathroom.

Now it becomes a race between one of three outcomes:

a) you manage to get out before any other action is taken by the knock-er,

b) the knock-er makes it non-too-subtly known to the waiting line that they're going to find someone who can open the door, and/or

c) the person with the key actually arrives and opens the door, with the waiting line craning behind them to verify that the bathroom was, indeed, EMPTY.

If you yell "OCCUPIED!!" at any point before the door opens, the whole line assuages their own embarrassment by turning to each other and laughing about YOU! THE REASON FOR THEIR EMBARRASSMENT, AND THE ONLY ONE IN A COMPROMISING POSITION!!!

Surely everyone has a similar visceral reaction to this kind of thing. We remember being kids, finally allowed to be by ourselves as we did our embarrassing business, only to have our sanctuary threatened by the insistent pounding on the door by a family member.

"What the hell is going ON in there?!?! WHO IS THAT?!?! What happened, did you fall in?!?!"

You have absolutely no control over the situation. Suddenly, a sibling is broadcasting to the entire neighborhood that they need the bathroom, and you won't get out, and demanding that a parent get involved and DO something about it. And what, exactly, are they going to do? Well, I don't need to tell you: it's entirely possible that they will OPEN THE DOOR, demanding to know what's taking so long, and guaranteeing that in ten years you will find yourself telling this to a therapist and unable to form committed relationships.

So please: unless the door has been locked for an HOUR, during which you've quietly checked the handle several times, there is NO reason to knock.

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

2009-01-02T11:57:00.001-05:00

Hark! the herald angels sing
Glory to the new-born King!
Peace on earth and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!
Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
With th' angelic host proclaim
Christ is born in Bethlehem!
Hark! the herald angels sing
Glory to the new-born King!

Christ, by highest heaven adored;
Christ, the everlasting Lord;
Late in time behold him come,
Offspring of the Virgin's womb.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail the incarnate Deity,
Pleased as man with man to dwell;
Jesus, our Emmanuel!
Hark! the herald angels sing
Glory to the new-born King!

Mild he lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die,
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Risen with healing in his wings,
Light and life to all he brings,
Hail, the Sun of Righteousness!
Hail, the heaven-born Prince of Peace!
Hark! the herald angels sing
Glory to the new-born King!

Come, Desire of nations come,
Fix in us Thy humble home;
Rise, the Woman's conquering Seed,
Bruise in us the Serpent's head.
Adam's likeness now efface:
Stamp Thine image in its place;
Second Adam, from above,
Reinstate us in thy love.
Hark! the herald angels sing
Glory to the new-born King!

New Digs!

2008-12-16T09:10:00.007-05:00

Greetings, readers! Yes, both of you.

I'm writing to you today from my new office space, by which I mean cubicle. I took a position with a different department, in a different building up the street, and started last week.

Please note: Before any of you make obscure references to the movie "Office Space", I won't get them. I saw the movie once, and years ago, and don't remember much of it, so I'll spare you the disappointment of sending me a quote and having me stare blankly at the screen, not responding. Now give back my red stapler.

It's a bittersweet change, as I left a wonderful group of people at my old office, but have gained a smaller but equally wonderful bunch of new co-workers. I've also gained something that makes up for the, ahem, complete LACK of monetary increase that came with the shift: privacy.

I started to think about all the...er, issues surrounding my productivity at my former location (and no, blogging wasn't one of them, thank you very much...), and it was starting to become a rant. Since I do that often enough, I'd like to shake things up a little by providing a simple flow-chart of a few issues around the office, and the method for addressing them, which I'll call "Not In My Job Description!"

While you may not be able to read the issues themselves, the method of address should be pretty clear. Almost any problem could easily be addressed by simply stopping whatever I was actually being paid to do.

My new space is fantastic! My position was just created, and so all of my equipment is brand-new. My cubicle is much larger, and lacks both the massive support post behind my chair and additional computer that sat next to me at my old space (the latter at which worked an intern for my first three months). The new space lacks the prospect of a view of Mt. Washington on a clear day, as there was if I walked into the adjacent conference room, but there is natural and indirect light in a high overhead space.

The first week and a half have been slow, but my lovely co-worker, Tara, (HEY!) who generously recommended me for the job, will be out on maternity leave any minute now, and I'll be on my own until April or so. She assures me that I'm prepared, but then she's a really nice person who says all sorts of nice things which aren't necessarily true. Let's just call her an "idealist" in this case.

Naw, I kid. I'm sure everything will be fine.... gulp.

I'm Too Old For This...

2008-11-14T11:27:00.009-05:00

It's been quite a week.

I worked monday at my office job, directly followed by about 5 hours at Starbucks. I had Tuesday off for Veterans Day, but for some reason felt really motivated to work outside. Thankfully, it was a beautiful day, so I:

blew leaves for about 2 hours and
filled 5 extra-large garbage bags with them. There were more than 5 bags worth in the yard, mind you. That's just what Susan requested for use in her flower beds for the winter. The rest (probably three times again as much) went over the precipice on which our house sits. Then I
tacked Tyvek (registered) sheeting around the outside of the crawlspace under the laundry room so that I could then
move 10 wheelbarrows or so of crushed stone to fill the excavated gap on one side for proper drainage. Unfortunately, it looks like I'll need a couple more yards of the stuff. And in between these, I
did three loads of laundry, and
had supper ready for Susan... if she'd have gotten home at her usual time. However, when I don't tell her when I anticipate her arrival, and she doesn't tell me she's going to be late... well, supper was still good.

So, busy day, and my hands were plenty sore. But Wednesday meant back to work, among other things.

8am - secret interview for new position in different department
9am - returned to office to turn on computer and read about two emails before
9:30 - two elderly volunteers arrived, only to have me tell them I have no space for them to work, and had to send them home. What kind of a jerk am I?? I kept reading emails (way too many) until
11am - another meeting, then back to the office at
12pm - choke down a sandwich while still trying to get through email (I still had unread messages until about)
3pm - anticipating another meeting, I try not to get into any intense projects, but finally at
4pm - the meeting happens and I was offered the new position! Not sure what I'll do yet, but what a great thing to happen just before
4:30 - get in the car to go to Boston to go see my favorite band, The Sea and Cake!!! I'd been waiting for weeks. Their new album is amazing, and I had their whole discography on shuffle on my ipod on the way down. I made great time until
6:25 - when, just after crossing the Zakim Bridge, Route 93 South becomes a parking lot. I crept along in it until
6:45 - when I arrived at Tremont 647, Joy's restaurant, for dinner with Sean, my dear but tragically misguided liberal friend (don't worry, I couldn't get a shot in edgewise as he baselessly insulted my party and candidates... but 'twas all in good fun!). We had a fantastic dinner (Andy's ribs... I may have found my new favorite BBQ item in the whole world) right trough
8:00 - doors open for the show. But I had a Hendricks and tonic in me, and was, therefore, feelin' fine, and not worried when it hit
8:45 - because I knew they wouldn't come on until after the opening band. So I made my way to Cambridge for
9:05 - only to discover that the Sea and Cake go on at
...

10:45.

10:45?!?! This is why rock music is for the young. It's a Wednesday night, for goodness sake!!! Don't these people have jobs to go to?!?! But, of course, they don't have jobs, other than stumbling into class late, wearing their girl/boyfriend's Che tee shirt, latte in hand and third-world-revolutionary hat yanked down over bedhead.

Oof... I was sore already, and I'd only been standing for an hour. However, after a noisy but talented band called Helms, and a rather odd little man who plays a great guitar but sings in a small child's voice, calling himself Death Vessel (no, not kidding) finish up...

The Sea and Cake take the Stage.

The last time I saw them, touring to promote One Bedroom (not my favorite), they played too fast, and seemed a little rusty. They also played the Somerville Theater, and, given the opportunity, Boston fans stay seated, so it was a much different feel. They had a 5th person on stage, playing keyboard. It seemed... off. I know they do things in the studio that can't be replicated live with just the four of them, so it's to be expected that they'd need an extra pair of hands to make it sound like the album. But it still didn't seem right.

Wednesday night they were at the Middle East Downstairs. It's standing room only, and holds a few hundred hipsters with appropriate personal space. Bostonist has an interesting review of the show, though I didn't find Death Vessel nearly as compelling as most others in the room. Oh, and when you get to the part about "older men" in the crowd, I look NOTHING like Sam Prekop. More like Eric Claridge.

My take on the show was much different from the above reviewer. This was the show I'd wanted to see since college, when a group of friends saw them with Tortoise and 5ive Style. They were tight and together and engrossed. They sounded fantastic, even through my old-man ear plugs. This was a band that had been together some 15 years, but acted like this show was the first. I swear they only own one instrument apiece. Sam on a beat-up, old, red Telecaster, Archer on a Silvertone (I think), Eric with a big-ol' Fender, and John behind a simple, beachwood-toned 4-piece kit, sounding like the end of the world.

They played everything. Weekend, Crossing Line, The Biz, Parasol, Sporting Life, Bird and Flag, A Man Who Never Sees a Pretty Girl That He Doesn't Love Her a Little (yeah, I don't care that you haven't heard of any of this stuff. My blog!) I was right up front (somehow) and hate attracting attention (no, really!!), but I shamelessly "rocked out", bouncing my head and drumming the rhythm on my thighs as much to the beat as I could manage. And I couldn't wipe the smile off my face the whole time. This, in sum, was the last show I ever wanted to see. In a good way, though! Not like I would have rather seen any other show than this one, but that, given one final performance to see, I got to see this. I can die now. Thanks, guys.

Although, before I do shuffle off this mortal coil, I would like one more thing. To anyone who finds this post and who was at this show... actually, to the girl who snagged the set list from the stage where Sam was standing: Could you email me that list? Yeah, I'm a total dork, but I want a playlist on my ipod of the songs, in order.

I got back to Joy's place at about 1am (buh...) and collapsed on the couch. The next morning we walked Sophie, got coffee, and then it was back on the road to work.

Gosh! A point-by-point rundown of two days worth of work, plus a personal review of a band that nobody I know has even heard of. Entertaining stuff, to be sure! If you're still reading, heaven help you... you can stop now.

What Now?

2008-11-06T15:39:00.005-05:00

It's the Onion, so it's okay...

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

This, of course, from a guy who's whole EXISTENCE has been about the election, and reasoning against Obama, for two years. Of course, I've still got a hobby complaining on my blog, so I got that going for me.

"So perhaps conservatives don’t have a monopoly on humorless dogmatism."

2008-11-04T12:22:00.011-05:00

To my mind, you HAVE to have a great sense of humor to be a conservative in New England. And this article certainly seems to lend some credence to my assertion.

I don't know what I like most about this article; that the study it talks about was conducted in Boston (there are still some conservatives left there?), that conservatives liked absurdist humor - all humor - even more than liberals, or the exposure of what borders on elitist bigotry among social scientists. This article has it all!!

When defining two types of humor - incongruity-resolution humor (your standard joke) and nonsense humor (think Far Side and Monty Python), Willibald Ruch came to some conclusions, apparently without much actual...what is that thing scientists claim to always be hunting for... oh yeah, evidence. On the former type:

Dr. Ruch and other researchers reported that this humor, with its orderly structure and reinforcement of stereotypes, appealed most to conservatives who shunned ambiguity and complicated new ideas, and who were more repressed and conformist than liberals.

Well, we're off to a rollicking start, aren't we? And on nonsense humor?

This humor was reported to appeal to liberals because of their “openness to ideas” and their tendency to “seek new experiences.”

So far everything checks out just as we're usually told it does. It would seem like a pretty safe bet to run a study on these reports. And hey, whaddaya know, there's a presidential election going on! This would be a great time to reinforce who's against “openness to ideas” and "seeking new experiences". But, of course, as with the best laid plans of mice and social scientists...

They expected conservatives to like traditional jokes...that reinforce racial and gender stereotypes. And because liberals had previously been reported to be more flexible and open to new ideas, the researchers expected them to get a bigger laugh out of unconventional humor...

Indeed, the conservatives did rate the traditional golf and marriage jokes as significantly funnier than the liberals did. But they also gave higher ratings to the absurdist “Deep Thoughts.” In fact, they enjoyed all kinds of humor more.

HUH! I'm as shocked as you! Even better, though:

When we asked our respondents to self-report how funny they are, liberals indicated that they were funnier. This means that liberals are not finding life to be funnier, but they think they are.

I must admit: even as I write this, I'm having trouble supressing titters (a conservative having trouble with supression? The surprises just keep coming!). Helpfully, the article offers a couple of explanations for this...

“Conservatives tend to be happier than liberals in general,” said Dr. Martin, a psychologist at the University of Western Ontario. “A conservative outlook rationalizes social inequality, accepting the world as it is, and making it less of a threat to one’s well-being, whereas a liberal outlook leads to dissatisfaction with the world as it is, and a sense that things need to change before one can be really happy.”

This is what Bill Buckley, that happy warrior, God rest his soul, summarized with "Don't Immanentize the Eschaton". Loosely translated, don't try to create heaven on earth. It doesn't work and just leaves you - and everyone affected by your decisions, however well-intentioned - disappointed. It's not that we don't see problems in the world, we just know that there are tradeoffs to every solution, which are sometimes worse than the problems.

Another possible explanation is that conservatives, or at least the ones in Boston, really aren’t the stiffs they’re made out to be by social scientists. When these scientists analyze conservatives, they can sound like Victorians describing headhunters in Borneo. They try to be objective, but it’s an alien culture.

And this is what I really came here to say. I have liberal friends and family who are gasping-for-air, fall-down-a-manhole-and-die riots and, charitably, insist I am, too. This study is just a snapshot of 300 folks on the streets of Boston. While it may show some indicators about worldviews and humor, it says much more, I think, about the researchers. And, helpfully, here's what it says!

Could it be that the image of conservatives as humorless, dogmatic neurotics is based more on political bias than sound social science?

Maybe the stereotype of the dour, rigid conservative has more to do with social scientists’ groupthink and wariness of outsiders...

Conservatives often get pegged as being "anti-science" for their skepticism of reports that proffer explanations for data at odds with traditional understanding. But, while seemingly open with their findings, the above researchers, their assumptions, and their bafflement at their own results, are a perfect and glorious example of one of my favorite forms of humor...

Irony.

You just have to laugh!!

I totally wasn't going to vote

2008-10-31T11:26:00.004-04:00

But then that guy from that movie said I should!

The entertainment industry: selflessly educating the drooling masses. How could we ever think without them?

How About A Nice Hot Cup of...

2008-10-17T12:02:00.002-04:00

GROW THE HELL UP!?!?

Just so you're all up to date, our McCain/Palin and Charlie Summers for Congress lawn signs (2 of each; we have a long piece of frontage on Route One) were stolen from in front of our house on Wednesday... while we were WORKING at our JOBS, I feel it should be pointed out. I'm debating putting spares (yes, I have spares, and you can see why) in the windows of our porch, but I may be wearing out Susan's patience for my political outspokenness making us targets. The last thing we need right now is to have to replace windows.

Speaking of which, my stolen car sticker has multiplied into four, (Yes! on 1, Summers for Congress, Susan Collins for Senate, and a new McCain/Palin) but they're taped to the inside! Yeah, it looks kinda low-budget, using scotch tape and all, but my opinions are protected... behind glass.

Just 2 1/2 more weeks...

"Dependence" Has Another Word...

2008-10-16T11:26:00.004-04:00

This is a short, but valuable piece on the concept of "rights", specifically, the rights enshrined in the Constitution, as opposed to the "right" to health care that Obama talked about in the second debate. It reminded me of the oft-quoted P.J. O'Rourke, when he addressed this same subject (among others ) during the Clinton administration:

Health care is too expensive, so the Clinton administration is putting a high-powered corporate lawyer in charge of making it cheaper. (This is what I always do when I want to spend less money -- hire a lawyer from Yale.) If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.

The "cost" of things like "free" health care can't just be measured in monetary terms, however. In case you'd rather not click though to the original article that I was writing about, though you should, here's the kicker:

“Free” health-care costs us something precious, and no less precious for being invisible. Because there’s a word for someone who has their food, housing and care provided for them… for people who owe their existence to someone else.

And that word is “slaves.”

One ticket, non-smoking please...

2008-10-10T15:27:00.002-04:00

I'm a terrible person, and am officially going straight to hell. But, taken in context, maybe you'll be sitting next to me.

I was asked to find photos to be included on the front of a booklet for stroke patients (this was for work, I don't get asked to do these things in my free time...). These would need to be your average stock photos of older folks riding bikes or gardening, a couple swinging a laughing child between them, someone looking confidently toward the ocean's horizon while sipping tea on their deck. The sort of pictures that should let the reader know that the information in this booklet is a source of comfort and confidence, information that they'll find helpful, and will get them on the road to becoming an Asian couple strolling down the beach. Unless they are a black teenage boy, but who am I to crush someone's dream?

I got a link to a stock photo website and started searching under keywords like "confidence", "happy family", "middle aged couple", and such. But, as anyone who's used Google Image Search can attest, the pictures you get aren't always the ones you were searching for. Why would a search for "Flyfishing left-handed Albino Eskimo lawyers" produce a picture of Granny from the Beverly Hillbillies? Beats me. Ask Mr. Drysdale.

So, while many of my search results were pertinent and helpful, several left me scratching my head in wonderment, such as a bum sleeping in a pile of trash, empty whiskey bottle in hand. Others, however, were somewhat closer to the mark, if you leave out "happy", "couple", "confidence", "active", or "alive". How about a ghostly disembodied head, eyes bulging, surrounded by filmy ether, mouth agape with the horror of the damned?

This got me thinking: what if one were to produce a spoof of a helpful medical booklet? It's been done, of course. Try searching for "childrens books that will never get published" or "de-motivational poster" and you'll see what I mean. So, thus inspired, I related my idea to my supervisor, who has a similarly "irreverent" sense of humor. What if the first two pictures were just what you'd expect, something mildly reassuring and carefree, but the third kinda "drove home" the idea that, well, strokes are pretty serious?

He thanks me for the pile of legitimate pictures I've given him to choose from, and says that he'll review them with his boss. But, just for fun...

"Find me one funeral picture to slip in the pile!"

I love this guy.

Minutes later, some co-workers are chatting near my desk as I try desperately not to snicker and gaffaw at my new search results. Eventually, my efforts are fruitless and I'm dying with laughter. My co-workers demand to know what's so funny, and I try to explain...

This.

No, wait! C'mon!! Think about it!! The first picture is a happy older couple riding their bikes on a boardwalk, laughing together. The second is a confident black woman marching into a hopeful future. And the third is this kid slumped over at a grave! WOAH! Didn't see THAT one coming! HILARIOUS!!

...

Yeah, I suck.

You Want Biscotti With That?

2008-10-02T09:50:00.002-04:00

As of last night, I'm officially a Starbucks "Partner". This, for those who don't already know, is the term given to employees, since they are offered stock options and, of course, to build a sense of ownership in the company and store. I had my first training, and there will be many more to come before I'm a certified Barista.

This additional employment came about because I don't have enough to do renovating a house. Kidding! It came about to help pay for oil to heat the mid-renovation house, as well as a timing belt/water pump/fluid flush/tune-up of my car, and 120k mile tune-up of Susan's that happened over the course of a week. That, and Christmas. And birthdays, and all sorts of other things that more money could help procure (like clothes) or stave off (like collection agencies). I'm not terribly serious, of course, in making it look like we're destitute or anything. We're doing just fine. It'll just be nice to do a little finer.

So Starbucks has quite a training regimen! There's a large packet of workbooks for different "modules" which have you complete "activities" so that, as a "partner" you'll be fully prepared to execute the company's "mission" and serve "coffee". Okay, mission really didn't need quotes, but I was on a roll.

Coffee, on the other hand, definitely needs quotes. If you're going to buy a drink at a place where you could take 10 minutes listing the modifications you'd like, and have the person behind the counter quickly deliver it, with a smile, and genuinely wish for you a super day, why would you just get coffee? My personal beverage is a Venti (biggest size) iced nonfat latte (1/2 skim milk, 1/2 espresso), with light ice (1/2 cup of ice instead of full). I then dump 3 Splenda packets in it, because I'm a wuss and I like my drink to taste like ice cream.

Susan is thrilled by the prospect of my new employment, not so much for the money, which is a given, but because... how can I put this gently... she's a junkie. She's taken to adding an extra shot of espresso to whatever she's drinking, including orange soda. I'll be getting a free pound of coffee per week, and I think Susan sees this as a dare. I don't even drink the stuff at home because my office has one of those one-cup Keurig machines and a variety of flavors that's frankly embarrassing... especially since I'm in charge of ordering it. So she's usually on her own in going through our personal supply. She may abandon the travel mug she's currently using and just bring along the coffee maker's thermal caraffe with a straw.

I was pretty excited at the prospect of working at our local Starbucks, since we go in at least once a week, and it's always a very pleasant experience. The feeling of going behind the scenes last night, though, was somewhat unexpected. It's very well laid out for such a small space, and they keep it tidy and workable, don't get me wrong. It's a really well-kept place. I just didn't anticipate memories of the kitchen at Friendly's to come flooding back so quickly. Two and a half years of that during high school and college will leave an impression. But that's my hangup, not theirs.

So, I'm going to have several evenings per week out of the house, and at least one shift per weekend for the forseeable future, which should be good. Keeping busy helps me focus, I think. I may even make better use of my free time to get the kitchen finished before the snow flies! I hope...

Conflicted

2008-09-22T09:26:00.008-04:00

I was all prepared to go off on a tare.

On Friday night, Susan and I went out to dinner in town. When we came out, she glanced at my rear window and gasped.

"Someone tore off your McCain/Palin sticker!"

"Yeah!" I chuckled, thinking, "Wouldn't that be perfect? It's just what you'd expect to happen..." And when she didn't laugh it off, I walked back to the spot where she was still pointing. Most of the sticker was gone, but there was still a good-sized chunk with a ragged tear remaining. It was almost like a taunt, as though the vandal wanted to leave evidence.

I stood, stunned for a moment, and then a big grin spread across my face. Susan knew just what I was thinking.

"Oh, you're thrilled, aren't you?"

"I've been vandalized for my political beliefs!!" I exclaimed. I was actually being oppressed and intimidated! I positively wallowed in my victim status. As we drove home, I got quiet, still grinning.

"You're composing a blog post right now..." Susan said.

"Yeah! I'm thinking of starting with "To the Liberal Fascist Assclown Who Ripped the McCain/Palin Sticker From My Car: thank you for proving everything I'd believed, and providing me with an opportunity to purchase a bigger sticker..." My mind raced with insults and taunts; I would draw comparisons, accuse hypocrisy (a favorite game being "If a Republican Did This..."), and in all ways generally vent my spleen about the philosophical differences between Liberals and Conservatives. I felt great!!

The next morning, I went to church. And wouldn't you know...

The Pastor would just HAVE to quote the Great Commandment, Matthew 22: 34-40.

But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together. One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him,"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?"And He said to him, " 'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' "This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."

I'm no Bible scholar, but I was well aware of this passage.

It's in the automatic signature of my email.

And I put it there specifically as a reminder to myself. I'd like to say it's for occasions such as this, but this sort of thing never really happens to me, so it's really for times when I cruelly mock others in order to puff up my puny chest with self-importance.

So there's that. Blogging a steaming rant would prove more about my own mental and emotional state than it would about the person who tore off my sticker, at whom the rant was aimed. I doubt it would be considered a loving reproach.

This also got me thinking about the vandal themselves. It's possible that they were just a young kid who saw the corner of the sticker turned up and coudln't resist the temptation. Of course, it's more likely that it was an adult who disagreed with my choice of candidate to endorse. And what would they think about a Republican blowing a gasket over having a sticker pulled off their car? If I were them, that's exactly what I would hope for.

Why should I give them that pleasure? They've already defaced my car and made a political statement, simultaneously. They've gotten plenty of pleasure from that, I'm sure. I'd rather not add to it.

And so, I'd like to offer the vandal, should they be reading this (... yeah...), a note of genuine thanks. Thank you for getting me to reflect on my own anger, pride and vanity. Thank you for showing me that tearing a bumper sticker is not the end of the world; I can (and will) get a new one. And thank you for giving me something to write about! Other than home renovation...

What's that? Oh, not too much... I just re-installed the original kitchen drawers cabinet, freshly painted, and leveled/wired/used the dishwasher... all on Saturday morning! I'm sure Susan will have pictures up soon...

A Dubious Distinction...

2008-09-04T09:55:00.002-04:00

Milhouse: The Quiz

Score: 100% (12 out of 12)

As of the time I took the quiz...

This quiz has been taken 539 times with an average score of 61%

Fear and Loathing

2008-09-02T11:34:00.004-04:00

Update:
I'm back on!! No more ham radio transmissions into cyberspace! For now...!

As you probably know, I've been maintaining this blog at two locations - here at Blogger and also on Wordpress. I'd asked, a LONG time ago, which you all preferred. And, almost unanimously, you chose Wordpress - since you keep your own blogs there. But I couldn't give either up. I can't think of anyone who still uses Blogger except me. And I'm not (just) being obstinate; I really prefer Blogger.

It's simple and intuitive. Wordpress, on the other hand, has given me no end of headaches. Uploading and resizing(?!?!) photos, for instance. I just paste them into Blogger. And Wordpress does not allow me to paste in my Project Playlist player, which you really should be listening to, since I have great taste in music, and your favorite band is lame.

I know you esoteric computer-geek types just love working with code and open-source and all that malarkey. But if I'm trying to concentrate on a point I'm making, rarely having to do with computer programming, I don't want to have to suddenly wonder if the line I'm typing is going to extend off the right of the screen, or if only two-thirds of the picture I post is even going to show up!!

Well, I've suddenly started having a problem with my Blogger login. I get an error message that says "The network link was interrupted while negotiating a connection." This only happens when trying to log on at work, so I'm guessing that my ISP filter is no longer allowing blogging on company time. How dare they...

Computer use at home has diminished significantly...for me...as any of you who see Susan's blog and Flickr page, and the volume of material on each, could assume... so the work computer is my primary bullhorn, as it were. And if I can't post something while I'm good and mad, why bother?

I can still access Wordpress from the job...fittingly... so my decision may have been made for me. But how, you may ahsk (a la Tevya, since I just watched Fiddler, and it's still awesome!!), am I writing this?

Well, the intar-tubes am a wonderful contraption. Some lovely person, who is much more adept at the behind-the-scenes of programming than I'll ever hope to be, concocted a widget for my Google home page, by which I can post to Blogger!! It feels like I'm using a ham radio to hijack my way into the web. Only when I save a draft, it disappears into the ether. Always a glitch.

Well, I'm finishing this at home, while I listen to an essay about "What the Flag Means to Me", and this post suddenly seems awfully silly. So... I'm done!

I would… but no.

2008-09-02T11:12:00.001-04:00

I tried watching some of Obama’s acceptance speech last night. I thought it would be a good idea in order to inform myself, so that I could credibly talk about it afterward. I hate the idea of making an argument if there’s any chance I haven’t considered all the potential counter-arguments. It’s all part of not wanting to look stupid, and a lack of self-confidence, which is a subject for a much longer post, which will not be written, so I shouldn’t have brought it up. However, as I sat there, trying to pick apart each sentence, it occured to me:

I’m not being paid to do this.

It’s 10:30 at night. I’m usually in bed by now. But I’m voluntarily watching a speech by a man for whom I have no intention to vote for President, come November. There was nothing he was going to say in this speech that could undo his personal and political history, about which I have very grave concerns. I’d already familiarized myself, on my own time, with all the issues I care about, which lead me to my decission not to vote for this man. And yet, here I was, listening for any obfuscation, redirection, misleading statements, outright falsehoods, unfair comparisons, “gotcha” moments, or anything else…why? Who was this for?

So I changed the channel. Me. Political Junkie Joel. I might have, at one point, used that for the name of this blog. But I changed the channel. I had no actual desire to sit through that speech, so I didn’t. I got a popsicle and watched Frasier.

Some may look at this as evidence that I refuse to seriously think about opposing viewpoints. Some may say (have said) that I’d rather read criticism about the speech later from conservative sources because I can’t think for myself. Still others may say that I watched Frasier because Kelsey Grammer is a Republican. And still more others will have no opinon about my opinion at all, and who did I think was drawing these conclusions about me, anyway? And I suppose there’s some truth to all of that. Which leads me back to my original thought:

I’m not being paid to do this!

I read the analysis of people who’s thoughts and opinions I believe have authority. We all do. There will always be someone who knows more about something than we*. Some people are paid to pick apart speeches. Their profession is to make arguments for or against ideas. They’ve found a way to make a living by writing things people are willing to pay to read.

Oh, sure, anyone who does something for money is automatically assumed to have sold out their humanity for naked greed. Unless you agree with what they do. Right?

If no one wanted to read these opinions, then these people would be out of a job. So they either have to be entertaining or convincing enough that they don’t have to do the legwork (supply your own examples), or they have to spend all their working hours researching and analyzing the issues, and actually know what they’re talking about.

My job does not involve political issues research and analysis. I do that in my spare time. And if I don’t want to watch a speech, but read about it later, then I’m no less well-informed than most.

Besides, Frasier is a hoot! Obama…not so much.

*Okay, I know that looks awkward and pretentious, but I’m pretty sure it’s grammatically correct. And I have been watching Frasier. Susan?

1980's Fashion Redux...Really?!?!

2008-08-22T17:04:00.011-04:00

Wow, I think this is my first commissioned piece! Granted, I'm not being paid to write it, but someone still thought enough about my mad writing skills, yo, to ask that I forthrightly address the latest blight on American society: resurgent fashion from the 1980s.

Let's see how fast I can bang this out. Because it's bothering me that these things even need to be said. I'm getting to be quite the cynical old man, trying not to be surprised by every new example of the barbarian hordes setting fire to all that Western Civilization has built. But even I am taken aback by some of the things our culture embraces or rejects, namely, "florescent clothing" and "any modicum of DECENCY!!!"

This subject is well “above my pay grade” (ahem...though I'm not running for office on it...), I'll be the first to admit. I'm probably the last person who should be asked about fashion trends, or even color/style coordination. Poor Susan, several times a week, will look at me, with all honesty, and a sad, desperate look on her face, and actually ask, "What should I wear?" The dear... she's positively delusional. ME?!?! Why on earth would she think that I would have ANY idea how to put together an outfit. My wardrobe consists of the following:

Weekday: Khakis and a button-up shirt.
Weekend:
Working - Dark blue tee shirt and Dickies jeans.
Goofing - Ringer tee over a long sleeve tee and khakis.
Summer-Weekend-Goofing: exchange khakis for cargo shorts and remove long sleeve tee.

It's a freakin' uniform, and has been pointed out as such by friends. On the plus side, though, it's simple, classic, and utilitarian. None of these things have gone seriously out of fashion since WWII. Well, maybe the cargo shorts, but the advent of cell phones and iPods have cemented their place in the American wardrobe until these things can be surgically implanted in our skulls. Think about it! A USB jack would fit neatly behind the ear...

However, though I may not know much about how to put together a daring fashion statement that actually works, I am about 99% sure that I can spot what DOESN'T work from a mile away. I'm not talking about haut couture items that are never actually worn by humans outside of a controlled scientific/hedonistic environment. I'm referring to everyday clothing, things that folks, real folks... well, I don't know about that... but actual people, are actually wearing. In public.

And nobody should be wearing jelly shoes, florescent accessories, or leggings/skinny jeans. Except in hilarious flashbacks of tragic fashion mistakes on an early-evening-primetime sitcom now in syndication. At 3pm.

Let's look at the offenders each in turn:

Jelly Shoes.

To be more precise, yellow, peeptoe flats. Ugh. I know they're cheap. I know they're not supposed to last a season. But these things will be dingy the moment they're put on, and so will the wearer's feet. Nothing says hygiene like dirty feet. Have you no more self-respect than to put plastic toys on the organs responsible for your very locomotion?!?!

Leggings/skinny jeans:

Let's be blunt: you wear leggings so that you can wear that skirt that's short enough to be a belt, but you'll be less in danger of showing off your lady bits every time you... make any movement whatsoever (though not completely safe, since these will inevitably split in the crotch first); or because you should be wearing pants because it's cold but you don't want to wear tights. No. Wrong. Fail. Ugly. Drive through. And skinny jeans... just... just no, all right? Skinny does not necessarily equal healthy. Ask Iggy Pop or Lou Reed. They wore these damn things, and were not known for their robust physiques. These look like you outgrew your childhood clothes and refuse to send them to some poor pantsless waif via Goodwill. Just... too clingy, dammit!!

I'm overtime, so we'll wrap this up...

Florescent accessories. SIGH... because large accessories were not getting you enough attention, you vain child. Now they must double as signal devices to wayward ships.

These items, and more like them, have been spotted in public. I can only urge my reader (who surely has no proclivities toward these things anyway, as evidenced by the fact that they read the rantings of an aspiring "coot"...) to avoid looking directly at such items, unless it is to catch the eye of the wearer and subsequently look away, slowly shaking your head. If you are, in fact, someone who has drunk the fashion sugar-free Kool-Aid and suddenly come to your senses, don't worry. I'd be happy to hide your florescent accessories in my cargo shorts pockets. THAT'S the kind of guy I am...

Great Dinner

2008-08-20T14:16:00.004-04:00

So, it's come to this. I have lost touch with my blogging muse to such an extent that I'm writing about a meal I made for myself. Ugh, I apologize. Maybe she'll feel so sorry for abandoning me, after reading this dreck, that she'll come storming back. For your sake, dear reader, let's hope.

The renovation continues apace. I've been fully dedicated to the laundry room, at the expense of the kitchen, for the last few weeks. And even then, I was totally burned out and avoiding it for about three weeks. I'd finished the walls, ceiling, and floor, and was now faced with the slowest and most daunting part - the finish work. I liken it to filling your gas tank after pre-paying (does anyone still do this?). The last 10 cents take longer to wring out of the hose than the previous 12 gallons. Each piece of baseboard has to be cut, meticulously fitted and carefully nailed in place. Then the knots in the wood covered in shellac-based paint before everything gets two coats of primer and up to two coats of paint... all at floor level and against finished paint on other surfaces. I wanted all this done before moving in the washer and dryer, for obvious reasons.

However, after three weeks of goofing off, it looked like we'd have to wait another month before we had a working laundry room. This, I decided, was unacceptable. So, on a day when Susan was away, I, all by my lonesome, hauled the dryer up from the basement through the bulkhead over the very steep and narrow stairway I'd built last summer, and into the laundry room by way of a ramp made of a hunk of old chainlink fence. This involved much grunting, swearing, sweating, shoving, and pulling. With no one there to hear it, you'd wonder why I bothered. After attaching the vent hose and directing it at the screen door, I washed everything in my hamper, which included all my pants. You can see why this couldn't wait another month.

This past Saturday, I put in three pieces of baseboard, vented the dryer through the wall (which required cutting a neat little notch out of the baseboard and, Susan's favorite part, putting a hole through the exterior of our house!), hauled the washer in, and sanded/primed/painted the rusty side which would flank the toilet.

Susan was going out to have her laptop worked on by a friend, so I was left to feed only myself that evening. On nights like this, I've tended to try new places, usually looking for good ribs or wings or pizza - things Susan isn't interested in. But I was beat, and didn't feel like trolling around southern Maine in the hopes of accidentally stumbling upon something not disappointing in the next two hours, and it was already 7pm. Then I remembered the ribeye steak in the freezer. Why go out when you can have steak at home?!?!

So I threw together:

Ribeye, medium-well (it's been a while since I grilled steak. I meant it to be medium-rare),

Cucumber and grape tomato salad with cheddar cheese curds and balsamic vinegar, and

Nachos. Yes, nachos. The lone potato in the house was bad, otherwise I would have baked it. I swear. Aw, why am I making excuses to you? You want nachos!

All this was eaten while watching the first half of Fiddler on the Roof, which seems horribly inappropriate, as Tevya's family is too poor to afford any of this, and it was most certainly NOT kosher.

And to top it all off, I finally opened the beer that I'd been waiting months to drink with Susan, but for which we never set aside the opportunity. It was, hard to believe, my first time having this beer, and it surpassed my expectations:

Samuel Smith's Taddy Porter.

It was just perfect. I've been told not to let beer sit too long, or it will spoil, but this was in our fridge for months, and I can't imagine how much better it could have been. Of course, when you pair anything with a steak after a day of renovation, it's bound to be good!

Really, this whole post was a setup to say that I've decided that, whenever possible, I'm going to have Sam Smith beers in the 18.7 ounce Victorian Pint. Why mess with the smaller bottles? It's not like I'm not going to drink the whole thing before it gets warm...

Stay tuned to Susan's blog for renovation updates and pictures! I'll be over here, staring at an unfinished spot and scratching my head.

How to Speak N'Hampsha: addendum

2008-08-13T13:52:00.007-04:00

I feel bad for my extended absence, so I've been rooting around in the vault for some unposted posts. Here's one I found...

When I was in college, I had a roommate, Dave, who was an unabashed, unashamed Yankee. Not the New York variety (who should feel no end of shame. I'm looking at you, Damon!!!), but one of the fast-disappearing (due to poor economies, overtaxation, and Massachusetts-ites buying up the southern areas) breed of native northern New Englanders. Being also a Safety major (yes, there is such a thing, and a good living to be made from it), he was known, when the need arose, to shout "Safety FEHRST, buddy!!" Upon learning of his sister's proclivities toward "Hip Hop" music and culture, and its scene developing around the New Hampshire capitol, he'd mumble "It's Con-cud, not Comp-tun." This gave me no end of joy.

Dave wasn't your garden-variety Yankee, who are normally rough around the edges and prone to obscenity. He was fond of many types of music, and played guitar with a surf-rock trio, which included his future wife and a later roommate of mine. He now, I kid you not, plays euphonium for his town band. Town band!! Euphonium!!

Technically, I'm not a Yankee, myself. My family is almost entirely of French Canadian extraction. Two of my mother's three brothers were born in Canada, and my father's parents were not terribly far removed from the Great White North, either. Yankee is more of an adopted culture. To this end, Dave made me a copy of one of his tapes (yes, cassette tape, and this was before piracy laws, I'm pretty sure...) . It was by a local personality named Fritz Wetherbee, an 11th generation Yankee. He made a short recording called "How to Speak N'Hampsha Like a Native". In it, he details some of the linguistic idiosyncrasies of this dying culture. I was much more thrilled than I should have been to find that my tiny home town was included, though not for flattery:

"Yuppies are everywhere... people have actually been seen joggin' on Swamp Road in Greenfield."

I'd lost the tape some time after college. It wasn't until last summer that I purchased a replacement. I think it's noteworthy that it is now available on CD, and resides on my iPod.

I wanted to add one small item to the lessons on this recording. I'm not entirely sure if it's a Yankee thing, a French Canadian thing, or some third thing I don't know about, but I've noticed it enough to feel that it needs stating:

Retail Business Names - Possessive
When referring to the name of a store, restaurant, or service station, it is customary to use the possessive form.

"Well, I went down to Wal-Mart's and Target's, and even Ikea's, and it just made me miss Ames's".

This grammatical construction indicates that the place of business to which you are referring belongs to the person or company after whom the place of business is named. Wal-Mart's is the building and business belonging to the Wal-Mart company. This is probably a holdover from a time when places of business really were all named after the proprietor. Of course, this does not keep folks from confusing the possessive and proper forms simultaneously.

"I jus' got back from the Wal-Maht's depahtment sto-ah, in that new plah-zer in Au-behn".

Done Talking About It.

2008-03-31T13:20:00.006-04:00

I had an experience for four months in college from which I've wrung more than 12 years of memories, stories, anecdotes, comparisons, contrasts, nostalgia, reminiscences, reveries, accents, jokes, and one-upsmanship. In the course of a dozen years, I have bored, literally, hundreds of people... or, more likely, a few dozen people hundreds of times. If you knew me for more than a couple of hours, it was likely that you would hear the words that now send chills down the spines of afflicted family and friends whose only sin was feigning interest in the first place, or even just being present at the wrong time:

"When I was in England..."

Even now, there are readers spinning away from their screens, arms wrapped around their knees, rocking uncontrollably and spouting gibberish. NOT AGAIN!! ANYTHING BUT THAT!!

I can only hope to comfort them with the assurance that this is the last time. Unless the subject is absolutely inescapable, such as someone asking me "Say, Joel, did you ever study abroad?" or "Tell me, Joel, what foreign countries have you been to?" or "Just where were you during the majority of the OJ Simpson trial, and why don't you know how to do the Macarena?", then I am not bringing it up. After this, it's ancient history. Really, it's ancient history now, but being the defining experience of my formative years has allowed me to keep from growing up and getting over it. Then I'd be just like everyone else who went to college and traveled abroad. You know, the folks who don't have to talk about it all the time because they've accomplished something other than purchasing a plane ticket.

I spent one semester at the University of Wolverhampton outside of Birmingham. My school had a direct exchange, and this was one of two I could get into with my grades. When asked by students there why I chose Wolverhampton, for heaven's sake, and I'd tell them the other option, they would immediately say "OH!" and nod their heads in understanding.

Here is a list of stuff I've remembered and prattled on endlessly about:

I skipped orientation to stay with a friend I'd met at school who now lived in Brighton. When I got to Wolverhampton I had no idea where I was supposed to go or stay. I imposed on another person I'd met for 5 minutes outside of the Study Abroad office at home, and she took me to campus. I stayed my first night in a temporary room, knowing no one. I finally met the other Americans two days later.
I had a single room with a sink in it. I was next door to the RA, but he didn't know anyone was living in my room for the first two months.
Birmingham is in the industrial area of England, and is not the bucolic countryside you always see in travel ads. It was like going to school in Akron. The accent there is amazingly thick and difficult for me. To say hello, they would say "You alright? How are you?", but it came out "Ye'Roit? Ow am yeh?"
I had hair to my shoulders and a full beard. While there, I shaved on a bet, weeks after the bet was made, when I ran out of money.
We (my American friends and the English who didn't detest us) occasionally went to a local pub where students never went, played darts, and drank a foul, unfiltered cider called Scrumpy.
We (see above) went on a tour to Oxford. I had no idea what I was looking at. I turned down a tour of one of the colleges because it cost a pound, and I would've rather spent it on beer.
I spent a night in Oxford on a separate occasion. After meeting up with H in London (she was on a short trip), we rode back to Oxford together, and she got off the bus early to stay with a friend who went there. At the bus station, I eventually figured out that I'd missed the last train. I had no idea how to find H, so I stayed in a hostel on the outskirts of town that night and the next morning walked the several miles back to the train station in the new boots I'd worn all over London which had given me blisters. Later, I lost the boots. They were Dr. Marten's. I was sad.
I saw the Royal Shakespeare Co. do Taming of the Shrew at Stratford on Avon. As a theater major, and being drunk, I was totally depressed by the amazing performances. I later denounced all similar big productions as "mindless entertainment" after seeing minimalist agitprop theater at school. This informed my elitist rationalizations for avoiding auditions and rejection for years.
I skipped a weekend student trip to Edinburgh because it cost 40 pounds. All my friends who went informed me on their return that the Edinburgh Festival was going on while they were there.
I traveled in Ireland for a week with two other Americans over Easter break. Dublin's hostel was in a bad part of town, and we took a day hike out to a waterfall. Next, from Cork, we went to Blarney Castle and kissed the Blarney Stone. Then we went to Killarney, having been told that there was a festival going on with lots of students, to find that there was no such thing, so we did a day hike in the Gap of Dunloe. That night we walked to the pub in town, and had to crawl in through the window when we got back. We spent a night in Galway, but I don't remember what we did. Our last night in Dublin was spent in a shady B&B because we hadn't called ahead to the hostel.
Also over Easter break, an American friend at Wolverhampton met another American in the south of France. After talking, they realized that they both knew me.
I came home with 40 records in my backpack.
The campus where I lived, Dudley, is no longer part of the University.

I'm sure there's more, but, really, this should do it. Obviously, I loved the experience and it changed my life, despite squandering many opportunities and not keeping in touch with a single person I'd met there. If anyone reading this remembers me, and/or that time, I'd love to hear from you. However, having stretched the legacy of that trip into 40 times the length of the trip itself, it's time to let the stories go.

Abandoned Blog...

2008-03-27T09:42:00.009-04:00

Photo by photosbysusan! on Flickr. Click picture to be taken to original.

Well, not necessarily abandoned. Otherwise, what's this doing here?

I tried to find pictures of tumbleweed, but it just didn't capture the feeling. I like the rundown shack, as it evokes not only the former presence of effort, and even achievement, but also that what was there before reclaims the space. Saplings though the floorboards, and all. I'm sure a thousand blogs have popped up since I last posted... Not that I'm saying they've pushed me out of the way, or are built on the ruins of this space. I think I'm combining two different concepts... How about this: only in rare cases in nature is the ubiquitous axiom "once it's gone it's gone forever" actually true. Nature is far more resilient than the romantic types will admit. Just look at Chernobyl. Irrevocable ruin is more often the case in human society, where, convinced we'll never return to barbarism and/or tyranny, it comes strutting back in a new dress and smelling like utopia. And so, in a short paragraph, I've likened my blogging break to the collapse of Western Civilization. How humble am I?

Sorry to my reader for the hiatus. While it's true that I'd decided to not apologize for my irregular posting, as my blog is my own, and certainly no one is paying me to write (though I'm sure there are some seriously considering paying me not to...and I'll listen to all serious offers!), it wasn't my intention to stop altogether. However, events conspired (due to my own actions, mostly) to squelch both my opportunities and desire to return here. Work is busier, for one - or I'm finally paying attention to how busy it's always been - I'm not on the computer at home, and I haven't had much to share. I'm still not sure that I do, but I thought I'd throw a pebble in the pond anyway.

Hope you're well.

Well, That Settles It

2008-01-22T15:47:00.000-05:00

It's official:

McLean, VA - Senator Fred Thompson today issued the following statement about his campaign for President:

"Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for President of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people."

Fred was my guy. I'd held out hope that he'd catch on. This series of articles was a breath of fresh air to me.

But his announcement of candidacy took too long, and he squandered the built-up anticipation. in the following months, his method of campaigning couldn't hold the electorate's interest. It's a sad loss, but I can only hope that his talents and intellect will be put to use elsewhere for the good of the country.

That being said, I now wholeheartedly endorse the man I believe best embodies the ideals on which this country was founded:

ROMNEY FOR PRESIDENT!

We knew this about me...

2008-01-21T14:22:00.000-05:00

Right?

85% Mitt Romney
85% Fred Thompson
79% Tom Tancredo
76% Mike Huckabee
75% John McCain
58% Ron Paul
55% Rudy Giuliani
38% Bill Richardson
29% Barack Obama
29% Hillary Clinton
28% Joe Biden
27% John Edwards
27% Chris Dodd
15% Mike Gravel
11% Dennis Kucinich

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Sorry, Paperclips. It's not the exact inversion, but pretty close...

Just a qualifier, though: It's pretty clear which way the writers of the quiz want you to answer. Three of the "conservative" answers end with the word "period", for goodness sake. Nice to know that those ostensibly embracing "tolerance" wouldn't stoop to unfairly or inaccurately portraying those with whom they disagree, right? Have a look for yourself.

Sorry for the long stretch between posts, folks. As things are going, it may be a while before I can post anything long or substantive. Hope you're keeping warm!

Stephen King is Cultural

2007-11-27T19:44:00.000-05:00

I enjoyed reading The Dead Zone as a teenager, and I've always wanted to read The Shining, but never got around to it. I may have started "Pet Sematary", but I don't remember. In all the years that Stephen King has inflicted his pulpy supernatural foolishness on us, I never remembered him being a smarmy know-it-all about culture and world affairs. That is, until now. After all, he's been hanging out with John Mellencamp!

Time Magazine has a very enlightening piece about him in its current issue, where we FINALLY get to read where he stands on such issues as waterboarding Jenna Bush (he's for it), Lindsay Lohan (thinks, sardonically, she should be Time's Person of the year with Britney), and the difference between his own missteps in his young career and those of the aforementioned young starlets ("The difference is that Britney is now famous for being famous").

I'd just like to take a moment to analyze some of Mr. King's comments for our edification. The self-proclaimed "news junkie" (which explains volumes, doesn't it?) has a devastating idea to determine whether waterboarding constitutes torture.

"Someone in the Bush family should actually be waterboarded so they could report on it to George. I said [to "the Nightline guy"], I didn't think he would do it, but I suggested Jenna be waterboarded and then she could talk about whether or not she thought it was torture."

Truly, an idea so fiendishly clever - so IRONIC - that it could only spring from the mind of the author of Sleepwalkers. Of course, people usually don't volunteer for torture, which explains why a reporter did. And, last I checked, Jenna's been otherwise occupied teaching kids, in the hell that is Jamaica, rather than plotting the murder of innocents. By the by, did anyone ever suggest bombing Chelsea Clinton from 1000 miles away?

Another item to pique the popular author's interest is the place of Ms. Lohan and Ms. Spears within the cultural landscape.

"I think there ought to be some serious discussion by smart people, really smart people, about whether or not proliferation of things like The Smoking Gun and TMZ and YouTube and the whole celebrity culture is healthy. We've switched from a culture that was interested in manufacturing, economics, politics — trying to play a serious part in the world — to a culture that's really entertainment-based...And the guy says to me — the Nightline guy — I didn't get the guy's name... 'If we didn't cover cultural things, we wouldn't be covering you and The Mist, and promoting the movie.' And I'm like, 'Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan aren't cultural.' They aren't political. They're economic only in the mildest sense of the word. In fact, if I had to pick somebody, some celebrity who has had some impact this year, some sort of echo in the larger American life, I would say Hannah Montana... But Britney? Britney Spears is just trailer trash."

He's the whole package, huh? Charming and charitable. Don't you love when folks, with a bee in their bonnet about some "low" aspect of society they find unappealing, pronounce that "really smart people" ought to let us know whether this or that cultural phenomenon is "healthy"? It's like saying "I want Mom and Dad to make the other kids stop doing that, for their own good!" Oh, sure, we could decide for OURSELVES what we want to consume, and encourage others to be thoughtful as well, but a ruling by an "authority" would give permission to justify any corrective measures the complainer deemed appropriate. You simply can't count on the unwashed masses to know what's good for them.

It's also a little hard to take complaints about "celebrity culture" from a guy making pronouncements on politics and society, whose only reason for being interviewed in the first place is that he's got a horror movie out. But I just love his reaction when this is pointed out to him by the "Nightline guy". Contrasting his own artistic significance to that of B.S. and L.L., he astutely notes that they "aren't cultural. They aren't political." Truly, Mr. King's societal contributions give him significant cultural and political weight to make such sociological judgments. Just look at his latest work, a play developed with The Artist Formerly Known as Cougar:

"It's called Ghost Brothers of Darkland County. It's a musical."

Ooh, sounds scary!! Ghosts, who are Brothers, from a county with Dark in the name! And A MUSICAL!! TERRIFYING, SUBTLE GENIUS!!! Do tell us more!

"[Mellencamp] had bought a place in Indiana by a lake, and he said that the person had told him the place was haunted... [Apparently], there was some kind of tragedy that involved two brothers and a girl in the fifties — one of the brothers shot the other one apparently in some kind of a drunken game. Killed him. So the other brother and the girl jumped in the car to take the kid to the hospital... They ran into a tree and they were both killed. So apparently the ghosts haunted the place. So John asked me, 'Do you think we could turn this into a play?'"

How could you NOT turn this into a play!?!?! What are your prospects of opening in New York?!?!

"It probably will. We're a bit radioactive, because it has a subtext about homosexuality and it's set in the fifties so they bandy about a lot of pejorative words that were common coinage back then. But, Tennessee Williams got away with it."

What courage!! An unflinching portrayal of bigoted America...50 years ago. Rehashing issues that actual playwrights tackled...50 years ago. Gosh, how will they EVER get a play like this produced in New York, dealing with homosexuality and using pejorative words? The theater world will never go for that!

"...common coinage back then", indeed.

Lets leave being a smarmy know-it-all to the people who do it best: bloggers.

Cars Make Me Happy

2007-11-14T12:06:00.000-05:00

I watched Transformers with Aaron a couple of weeks ago (Kristin was there, too, but I'm not sure to what extent she "watched" with us) on their humongous TV.

Let me just start out by stating the obvious: This movie is not a think piece. It's not a meditation on the possibilities of life in outer space, the nature of consciousness, or the future Hollywood moneymaking potential of a guy named Shia (though, if Keanu is any indication, it's pretty solid). This movie is a big, dumb, pandering, noisy commercial for a line of General Motors concept cars. It's a live-action version of a poorly-animated cartoon designed for no other purpose that to advertise a line of toys. The plot is silly, the dialogue is much worse, there are extraneous plots and characters everywhere, and the very idea that humans could mount even a token resistance to shape-shifting robots with no apparent power source, lightning speed, and the kinds of weaponry that the U.S. military is always accused of having, but regrettably doesn't, should be an insult to any sentient being. It seems pretty clear that Michael Bay wants to make movies that drunk children with ADD have no problem following. And since I was, at the time, fully identifying with the first part of that equation, thanks to our attempts at a pitcher of mojitos, I freakin' loved it! Both Aaron and I did. We whooped and yelled and giggled through the whole thing! And, other than a bottle of rum, the reasons should be obvious:

Cars. And. Robots.

Awesome cars that turn into humongous robots that fight each other and then turn into awesome cars again. ROBOTS!! CARS!! CARS AND ROBOTS!! AND EXPLOSIONS AND MISSILES AND FLYING AND ROBOTS AND AWESOME CARS!!!! WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE!?!?!?! There were some moderately attractive girls in there, too, one of whom even had an Australian accent. BUT WHO CARES!?!?! CARS AND ROBOTS!!!!

Robots have always made me happy. This is nothing new for boys... well, straight ones anyway. It's a power fantasy for adolescent males who are all-too-aware of their pathetic limitations. (Oh, I'm sure there will be some snarky types out there who will read suppressed homoerotic longings in a fascination with uber-masculine machinery and its substitution for a lack of sexual potency. These folks need to stop making every human action and/or desire into an excuse to think about their genitals. Really, guys. It's kind of tired.) Robots represent many of the qualities that boys hope to emulate in manhood: strength, reason, logic, ingenuity, constancy, efficiency, and the ability to stuff bullies into their own lockers.

However, I've only recently come to the realization that I love cars, which utterly baffles Susan, as she's had to endure a nonstop litany about them for years. Everything about them seems fantastic, almost magical. They are such complex and beautiful, yet compact, utilitarian objects. I could write for pages about their virtues, but it would seem silly to do so after so much, and so much better, has already been written. So here's a short list, in a couple of categories, of cars that I think are just spiffy:

Classics

1964 Chevrolet Chevelle
This was the original family car on Bewitched. Apparently GM was a big sponsor of the show, and the Stevens family became something of a showcase for the latest models (a tradition obnoxiously carried over to Heros - I mean, "Nissan presents Heros by Nissan"), though we've only gotten through the first season of Bewitched on DVD, so I can't comment on any other models the lovely Elizabeth Montgomery (quite a model, herself! Reaown!!) could be seen driving.

1955 Chevrolet Nomad
I have a soft spot for wagons. We had a big one when I was a kid, and you had to call the "way-back" to sit in the cargo area. Try and let your kids do that now! The Nomad reminds me of that definition of a classic car, the '57 Chevy Bel Air, only like a big, clunky hatchback. Not as good for sneaking friends into the drive-in as the trunk of a Continental, but sure carried your surfboard.

1967 Shelby Cobra
Woof. I know close to nothing about this car, but it's unique, large, looks small, and has a monster muscle car engine in it. I've rarely seen a roof on one, which is interesting in itself. This car was designed to be topless, so to speak. And it's all curves, so, also, to speak... I'll stop now.

Porsche 356 Speedster
The precursor to the 911s and Carraras, it looks like there should be a wind-up key sticking out of the trunk. It's such a simple, aerodynamic shape, beautifully executed. Sure, it kind of looks like a shell-toed sneaker, but it's shiny!

Redesigns/Rebirths

2006 Toyota FJ Cruiser
How awesome is this thing?!?! A redesign of the Jeep ripoff of the 70's, they brought back all the bold lines and circular details. I drove my cousin's, and it's not just for show. This is the real off-roading thing. Retro and capable.

2007 Mini Cooper
Supposedly one of the least reliable cars on the road (and that's saying something, especially in Maine, with all the Volvos and Saabs around, though it is made by BMW, thus completing the mid-range-Euro-money-pit trifecta), it's still a wonderful reinterpretation of the old British classic econobox. Sporty, tiny, zippy, and cute as the dickens.

2008 Chevrolet Camaro
Featured prominently in Transformers as the protagonist's guardian/wingman (tedious...), it's one of the better muscle-car redesigns, if a little late, considering the new Charger and Mustang.

2007 Jeep Wrangler
Aw, Heck YEAH!! I love that Jeep has gotten even MORE ballsy and outdoorsy. If your car can climb a mountain, but your friends can't see you because they won't sit in the back because they don't have enough room, what's the point? Four doors, bigger fenders, downright angular lines. Looks like it's carved from a block.

Just Awesome

2007 Pontiac Solstice
Oh, baby. Love the honeycomb grill and rounded nose. Kind of reminds me of the Cobra. I've been pretty dissatisfied with most roadster designs as of late (Mazda Miata, Audi TT, Porsche Boxter), as they're all kind of uninspired. Can you believe this thing is a Pontiac?!? I think the last innovative thing they did was the Fiero. Yikes. This also showed up in Transformers, though mostly in its hip-hop-spouting robot form. Word.

2007 Ford Super Duty
Looks like a freakin' train. They should really equip it with a steam whistle to complete the package.

Hummer H2
If the Super Duty didn't remove any shred of enviro-philic credibility I may have had, this one surely will. The object of more venomous hatred and target of more vandalism/firebombs/destruction by smug, hybrid-driving, world-bank-protesting, Starbucks-window-shattering, "anarchy" advocating, Hot Topic shopping eco-terrorists than anything else on the road. It is the very symbol of excessive consumption by the upper-middle class... How awesome is this thing?!?! Every line indicates power rumbling beneath the surface. The short, wide nose; steep windshield, granite-block-like body; stark chrome details; the Frankenstein's Monster of Suburbia.

Audi S8
To end on a more refined note, I leave you with the only current Volkswagen-derived car I would drive if I had a spare 100k - I owned a number of VWs before my Honda conversion, and they all betrayed me. It didn't help that they were all more than 12 years old when I bought them... But THIS lovely machine is... is just... oh, mercy. Huge. Powerful. Elegant. Refined. This car is like the Golden Rectangle of automobiles; there is no pretense, no flash. Just perfect lines and proportions. Oh, and a 5.2-liter, Lamborghini-derived, 450 horsepower V-10.

Mercy...

Any favorites of your own? I'd love to hear about it! And I know H may take exception to the Volvo reference, as her own lovely car served her capably for many years, so she's invited first to put me in my place.

And remember, kids: Christmas is coming!

Perspective

2007-10-29T20:45:00.000-04:00

You'd think that a bucolic New England state would be an unlikely place to gain national attention regarding large moral issues, if only considering its relatively small population. But, at the same time, everyone thinks only their family is the "weird" one, so it's a safe assumption (if there is such a thing) that things are weird all over. With that in mind, I don't have much of a problem projecting small-scale issues onto the larger population. This is what people who are more informed than me call "statistical sampling" or "painting with a broad brush" or "lazy research".

Maine has made it into the headlines recently, and not just for low lobster prices and the latest Mardens commercial (to all of our friends "from away": yes, these are really played on TV, and yes, a thriving salvage and surplus industry is painfully indicative of the state of Maine's economy). No, instead the Portland School Committee voted to make available both birth control pills and the "morning after pill" to the attendees of King Middle School in Portland. Maybe you heard about it?

I won't go into all the problems this presents, other than the following glorious contradiction:
a) It's illegal in Maine for children under 14 to have sex, and
b) "Under state law, reproductive health, mental health and substance abuse issues [including contraceptive prescriptions] are confidential between medical provider and patient, regardless of the patient’s age."

And so, we have a situation where as long as the child told the nurse they were illegally sexually active, it's not only illegal for the nurse to reveal that information, but they are now enabled to provide prescription drugs for its continuance. Gone, it would seem, are the days when you went to the nurse's office with a broken arm and were offered a cough drop.

Okay, one last jab. I used the NYT article for the paper's generally-accepted authority in news reporting, and found that:
a) supporters of the plan are parents and the medical types who would implement it,
b) this has been done for years, in lots of places, enumerated in detail, so it's precedent, and
c) detractors are a 13-year-old girl (what would she know, she's just a dumb kid!), and, you guessed it, Republicans and Catholics.

And the award for Biggest Understatement in a Headline goes to the NYT for: Not All Are Pleased at Plan to Offer Birth Control at Maine Middle School! Presumably, without the objections of a 13-year-old girl, opportunistic Republicans and hypocritical child-molesting priests - who, ironically, would benefit from such a plan - then All would be pleased at a plan to offer powerful hormonal drugs to prepubescent children without their parents' knowledge!

I could sputter and stammer for pages about what this article reveals, but, lucky you, that's not my ultimate point.

Shortly after this story broke, another Maine school showed up in the Lewiston Sun Journal. Though the AP wire didn't seem to pick it up, Fark.com did, and I daresay its got a similarly-sized readership, to say nothing of bias and degree of accuracy. Three Auburn high school students - a girl and two boys - were sent home for coming to school wearing goth makeup.

So, not to use too broad a brush, high-schoolers are disciplined for inappropriate makeup, and middle-schoolers are given RU486 for illegal sex?

I have to credit Susan for pointing out, if nothing else, the lack of perspective that seems to plague Maine's, and, no doubt, many other, public schools. When did we decide public schools (including colleges) should be policing kids' every behavior except the important ones, in which case they should act as enablers? One conclusion I draw is that those running public education want to spare children from the natural consequences of inappropriate behavior (with the exception of venereal diseases, at least), and create consequences for behaviors which have none, other than future embarrassment and the scorn of jocks (though not always!).

I can certainly understand that people want what they believe is in children's best interests. But being afraid to address difficult issues, like underage sex and irresponsible parenting, does not make taking parents out of the decision-making process and handing it to government employees with pharmaceuticals a viable alternative. I'm terrified when sentiments like the following are made by parents who believe they're engaged in their children's upbringing:

“I think it’s a great idea,” said Cathleen Allen, whose son is enrolled at King. “Someone is finally advocating for these students to take care of themselves.”

While it may have been intended to read "Someone is finally encouraging children to take better care OF themselves", considering the present state of parental responsibility, its incremental outsourcing to anyone other than the parents, and our complete unwillingness to attempt to curb dangerous behavior with anything other than talk or drugs, a more accurate interpretation might be: "Someone is finally making the legal case for these children to care FOR themselves."

BBRRRAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIINNNNNSSSS...

2007-10-24T14:43:00.001-04:00

As in, I'm suffering from a lack thereof, prompting feelings of zombie-ness, leading to the above lament/request. And, while such undead sentiments are appropriate for Halloween (or Reformation Day, for those who are so inclined, as I should be, but that's another and much longer post that will never happen), they are less so in the realm of employment and/or productivity.

I don't even know why I'd write about it. Obviously, writing takes some time and thought (though you'll no doubt question that assertion if you've been a regular reader of THIS space...), and, as stated/lamented/indicated by the title, mine's not up to snuff at the moment.

I've struggled through the last few days of work, thrashing away at various projects and tasks, but not seeming to either finish any of them, nor get a handle on a way to do so. I just CAN'T THINK!!

And so, lucky you, I suppose I'm using this space to pull the metaphorical starter-cord on my concentration. And, to carry out this lawnmower-based metaphor, I'm not sure whether the problem is lack of fuel, spark, oil, or that I'm inside watching Antiques Roadshow with a beer and putting off mowing the lawn until it's almost dark and yelling upstairs to Susan "Oh, MAN, ARE YOU SEEING THIS?!?!" about a 100 year old lawnmower or somesuch.

And, to make a point so obvious that it was the first thing you thought of when you noticed that I'd written: while I'm writing about not being able to concentrate on work, I'm not concentrating on work.

Just sayin'...

Childish Things?

2007-09-28T12:39:00.000-04:00

I won't go into what we've been doing, since Susan already has. I have no new burning issues to address, nor humorous ideas on which to elaborate endlessly. Ours is a fairly quiet life.

What I do have is a new toy. I got the new (3rd generation, for you Apple folks) silver 8G iPod Nano with Video for my birthday. Actually, Susan told you that, too. And then she did again. It's hard to surprise readers with news when my wife blogs at least twice a week. But I don't care, because I love gadgets (which, along with my love of interesting tools and cars, firmly establishes me as a "guy", despite evidence to the contrary...), and I want to talk about it!!

This is an upgrade from my 4G Mini with the LCD screen, which I STILL LOVE!! It's my first, was an incredibly generous gift from my whole family for Christmas a few years ago, and was actually more expensive than my new one. It's faithfully provided years of music enjoyment, and I even replaced the battery a couple of months ago when it would no longer play for more than an hour.

The Mini has a really cool aluminum body and enough space to keep a respectable amount of music on. Honestly, I felt like after 1000 songs I'd just forget what was on there and be overwhelmed. But I filled it, and had to trim out songs I was always skipping in order to put on new ones. It forced me to be more selective with my music, and helped me admit that I didn't actually like some of the bands I thought I should like because I'm insecure and just want to be one of the cool kids. I'm keeping it, and maybe will make it the default car player. But the new one...

It's so freakin' cool. I remember gasping when I saw it online in a story about the unveiling of the new iPod line (as well as thoroughly enjoying the collective conniption fit thrown by people who waited in line for a week to shell out $600 for an iPhone the moment it was available, only to see the price slashed by $200 weeks later) (also, I gasp a lot at gadgets and new cars. And tools. I'm a guy. Keep repeating...). It's smaller, thinner, has twice the memory, a bigger screen with color in high resolution, longer play and shorter charge times, and I can include the album art! I don't have much interest in the video aspect, though the TV commercial has a great video. I might get just that one. The only real drawback is the back, which is mirror-reflective chrome or somesuch, and scratches if you look at it wrong (I read it described, in fittingly Joelesque fashion, as "scratchtastic") and tends to display my huge, greasy fingerprints in high relief. Otherwise, it's perfect. Oh, and the front is the same silver color as the Mini.

Once again, my parents and sister went in on it. I didn't really think anyone was going to get it for me, as it was a lot of money for a birthday present and I already had an iPod, so I felt free to tell Joy that I thought it was just awesome, and all the reasons why, and, jokingly, I swear (wipe that smirk off your face, smartass!!), said that if she had absolutely no idea what to get me, then... It's not my fault the thing came out just in time for Birthday Season!!! I'M NOT MADE OF STONE!!!

This tale of generosity and child-like delight has an unfortunate twist (would it be a TGJ story without one?). Apple has made it so that transferal of music is only one-way: computer to Pod. Obviously, this is to reduce incidences of piracy, but I've used a program before that allows the music to transfer back to a computer, for those of us WITHOUT a hundred-gazillion terabytes of memory for playing Transcendent Disemboweler XVI and storing a music library. I downloaded a new freeware program, plugged in the Mini, and promptly erased the data tags to all but two albums so that it has no more memory space, but only sees two albums. Nice. So I've begun the process of RE-LOADING all my music onto the computer and then into the Nano. Eventually, I'll figure out how to SUCCESSFULLY transfer stuff back for the Mini.

In the mean time, I can once again evaluate my musical selections and determine which are worthy of Nano storage and cover art association. Gosh, my life is so tough.

An Apology

2007-09-10T19:24:00.000-04:00

As I sat in my car on my lunch break (not a regular habit...), listening to music, a wonderful song played. "There's Too Much Love", by Belle and Sebastian. You should be listening to it right now. It reminded me of a time and place and a couple of girls, and impressed upon me the need to offer an apology.

My friend Kim had an extra ticket to see Belle and Sebastian at the Orpheum Theater in Boston a couple of years ago for their Dear Catastrophe Waitress tour. I'd listened to them intermittently since college and had never gotten the chance to see them live. Amy had introduced me to If You're Feeling Sinister, with songs like "Stars of Track and Field" and "Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying". I'd heard there were, like, a dozen people on stage, which wouldn't seem surprising if you knew their music, with the lush strings, guitars and piano. The opportunity, and company, was too good to pass up.

Kim and I sat in one of the balconies, looking down on the stage from what seemed a great height. These setups always give me vertigo, because as soon as you stand up it seems that the rake of the seats plummets below you. One false move could send you tumbling a hundred feet before you hit a chair. You want to press your back to the stairs, as if on a building ledge, and keep looking straight out at the ornate proscenium. The ceiling is much closer than anything that gilded and embossed and horizontal should be, and it only impresses upon you further how little there would be to reach out for if you fell. So staying seated seemed like the right thing to do.

The opening act was an unusual one, to say the least. They're called Rasputina, and they are a trio of two cellos and a drummer. They're a steam-punk, consumptive-Victorian-style group who specialize in corsets and warbling, creepy, haunted original pieces like "My Little Shirtwaist Fire", about child laborers trapped in a textile factory inferno. Yikes. However, they're also fond of renditions of "classical" pieces as well. One such piece began with a galloping rhythm, bows bouncing off strings, then sliding into a sinister minor half-step that seemed a little too familiar. We turned to each other in still-dawning disbelief, and voices around us muttered "oh, no WAY!" under their breaths. Before we knew it the distortion-pedal strings were roaring through Heart's Barracuda. You should be listening to that, too.

Not exactly what you'd expect to open a show by a twee pop orchestra from Scotland, but it worked. What I expected even less, though, was the effect the audience would have on the band. As a typical Boston crowd, we were seated when the opportunity presented itself. The venues that I'd attended seemed to be outfitted for a certain mode of listening. The Middle East Club in Cambridge has a small upstairs room, a large downstairs, and a corner in the restaurant, depending on the size, sound, and nature of the act/crowd who came to see them. The Paradise on Commonwealth was bigger, and The Avalon on Lansdowne bigger still, but they're all standing-room only. When you finally got to see your band at the Somerville or Orpheum Theaters, the seating seemed to indicate a space for acts that you really went to listen to, not for bouncing around and headbanging. These were for sophisticated acts, for grown-ups.

So when two girls in their early twenties popped up several rows in front of us as the second song started, Kim and I were having none of it. They were just selfishly blocking the view, and we bellowed "SID'DOWN!!" almost as soon as they'd reached full height. They did, but soon could contain themselves no longer, and dancing in their seats proved insufficient. "SID'DOWN!!" we yelled again, and one of them half-heartedly turned, on her way back to her seat, and frustratedly shot back a "Get UP...!" to us before slouching down in defeat.

It was a great show, but even the singer had to admit that our seatedness freaked him out, and he was going to dance, himself, if that was okay with us. We cheered him on and he threw his whispy frame about with joyful abandon. But we, being the dutiful, reserved New Englanders, let him have all the fun. We were there to bask in the band's glorious presence and let the waves of pop perfection wash over us.

The song in the car at lunch today reminded me of that show, but I hadn't let the lyrics intrude on that memory until today.

I could dance all night like I'm a soul boy
But I know I'd rather drag myself across the dance floor
I feel like dancing on my own
Where no one knows me, and where I
Can cause offence just by the way I look

I don't know what a soul boy is, exactly, but those girls knew what the rest of the verse was all about. What would have been so bad, aside from the backache and fatigue later, with letting go and grooving our stodgy butts around? It must be hard to get all your friends together to play fun, bouncing, joyous music, only to have the audience prefer an academic appreciation to a physical one. Those girls, who clearly had no intention of hogging the view for themselves, just wanted to do with the live music, in the very presence of their beloved band, what they'd done with their CDs in their bedrooms. Dance. And it's to them that I offer my apology. I'm sorry, girls. You were right. It was we who should have gotten up and loved the band back.

We Canneh BLOG, Cahp'n!!

2007-08-30T11:20:00.000-04:00

Okay, I really have no good excuse for not writing recently, though I do for the near future: Our computer is down, again, with a problem that was ostensibly fixed when we shipped it out for repairs less than six months ago. I blame melamine in the cheap Chinese mother boards they're using (is there anything that melamine isn't used in?). They'll be fixing it again, and for free, considering what the first repairs cost! Ugh, it was half as much as a new desktop!

Actually, it seems like everything is deciding to break at once, though I certainly can't blame them for doing so. I inherited a lot of tools and such when we got the house, but they weren't exactly new at the time. The lawnmower would cost more to fix than replace (you know it's bad when your 80-year-old neighbor asks "Well, where'd you get THAT old thing?!?! Geez, how old IS that, anyway?!?"). We'll need the chainsaw when we have a couple of trees taken out this winter, and it hasn't been run in 10 years or so. And the generator needs a tune-up, as gas is poured into the tank and just continues through the air filter to the floor. I shouldn't complain, as I'm extremely fortunate to even have things like a chainsaw and generator to fix. I did fairly well without them (though that generator would have come in handy this spring...), but I just keep thinking of things that I could do if they were working.

So, that being said, the only computer I have access to at the moment is at work. So...um...gotta go!

Going to Boston this weekend!!!! Seeing friends and my sister and our high school friends and getting BBQ and going to Trader Joes and maybe buying awesome beer and imsoexcitedicanhardlystandit!!!!!

Okay. Have a great weekend, everybody!!

A Humble Reply

2007-08-14T22:16:00.000-04:00

Dear Tally,

We'd like to extend our thanks for your prompt and detailed response to our question regarding your feline-ness. It was proposed partly in jest, but, as we feared, may have been taken too literally. Cats, as your experience has no doubt taught you, are not terribly adept at humor.

As eldest, I'll speak for both Poppy and me in offering a rebuttal, of sorts. We certainly acknowledge your "dogness"; your size alone is proof of that. The Maine Coon, our largest representative, is diminutive by comparison. However, while your species is beyond doubt, we feel that cats have attained advantages in our relations with our human counterparts from which dogs could greatly benefit. I shall make use of your "dogness" list to illustrate:

1. I go potty outside

While there are some of our own kind who make use of the outdoors for elimination purposes, Poppy and I have the benefit of a designated location within the home. This offers privacy, safety and hygiene, and we have arranged with a cohabitationist (hereafter known as Joel) to have the area cleaned daily.

2. I like biscuits and have been known to roll over for them

We also enjoy the occasional treat, and have been known, on occasion, to...ahem...make our desires known though body language, though we will deny any unbecoming behavior if questioned later. However, by periodically turning down less appetizing morsels, Joel will offer rarer delicacies in the future. We suggest that you try this yourself to improve the caliber of biscuits you are offered.

3. I don’t scratch furniture *for fun*

Unlike dogs, cats need to keep claws in fighting trim. The prospect of harassment by people presents a greater health hazard due to our disadvantaged size. Being denied unprocessed wood, in the form of trees, on which to sharpen them, we make use of what is at hand. Noting that you added the modifier "for fun", presumably attributing this motivation to our behavior, we can't help but wonder, for what more acceptable reason you scratch furniture.

4. I don’t eat plants (inside) *for fun*

Once again, denied access to the out-of-doors, we make use of those dietary supplements at hand. Our confinement, while appreciated for the security it provides, limits access to the natural world and its various benefits. And, in contrast, we, as a species, are not particularly known for such activities as uprooting meticulously-kept plantings in order to bury...well, it matters not what. Suffice to say, one may not want to disparage another's ideas of "fun", for fear of bringing scrutiny upon one's own.

5. I like to ride in cars

I will gladly accept the mantle of "scaredy" if it keeps me from riding in one of those awful things, let alone putting my head out of its window.

6. I don’t play with string

Would a rope pull-toy count?

7. I am man’s best friend, and Steinbeck even wrote about it

Here is where our methods differ most starkly, I believe. Dogs offer, in most cases, unconditional affection. Cats, on the other hand, offer something different, but no less valuable: a challenge. We reserve our affection, making our people earn it. We may train them for weeks, even months, to offer us choice meats, crawl around on the floor after us, in the desperate hope that we might deign to allow a stroke down our back. These behavior modification techniques may seem unnecessarily cruel and manipulative, but our people surely treasure us all the more when we crawl into a lap to fall asleep, showing them unequivocally how safe we feel in their presence.

8. I don’t sit on things people are trying to read

Let's just call that "helping to set priorities".

9. I don’t climb things I am not supposed to [often]

While it might be amusing to see you perched on top of a cabinet (to say nothing of watching its attainment!), this distinction between us is more physiological than behavioral. We are arboreal, by nature, and most comfortable in high places. Human dwellings are dreadfully insufficient in this respect, and, frankly, the abject groveling that we require from their inhabitants would be warranted for this reason alone. I've heard legends of houses built with narrow, elevated paths for their feline residents, but don't expect to see this development in my own home. We have an agreement with Joel and Susan: as long as they are not present, we are allowed on any surface in the house. However, please don't try to verify this arrangement with them, for the sheer embarrassment at their permissiveness will demand that they deny it.

10. I don’t think I am better than everyone else, well maybe chihuahuas, no, on second thought, they’re cool too.

I shall overlook the implied slight in this observation, if only to avoid the awkwardness of pointing out the arrogance of one's protestations of modesty. Instead, I'll submit that what is often mistaken as haughty detachment in cats is, in actuality, an humble deference to those personalities more gregarious than our own. We are not seekers of attention, normally, but prefer the quiet corner from which to observe the jovial antics of our canine brethren. Perhaps we protest too effusively when encouraged to join in play, but it is merely out of reluctance to steal the spotlight that we so obviously deserve...er...to detract from the lovable capering!...goodness, does it ever end, this bouncing around and whining and yapping, and if that mutt crouches down in front of me ONE MORE TIME...ahem, excuse me. It's late. I should close.

In conclusion, I hope that we've reached a mutual understanding of each other's habits and peculiarities. And, since we share the love of a good nap, I shall avail myself of one immediately. Take good care of your people and your new home, and Dogspeed in your exploration of the wilderness that surrounds them. I don't care for it, myself.

Your Friend,

Daisy

p.s. - Hi, I'm Poppy!! What's in the pantry? Hey, what's that? What's under there? Who are you? You smell different, why? Hey, what's that? What was that noise? Ooh, that smells good! HEY! (runs off)

Almost Famous?

2007-08-14T12:02:00.000-04:00

This is a post about another blog post linking to a previous post about a news article. Got it?

I noticed a record number of views on my Wordpress blog on 8/10 (56 - how sad is that?), and discovered that my post called "Trapped Miners? What About Cleaner Coal?!?!" was referenced by a New York Times blog.

The relevant paragraph with the link read: "Meanwhile, some bloggers of a more conservative bent are sticking up for some of Mr. Murray’s views and lambasting his liberal antagonists and the media coverage, though not always leaping to defend the man himself."

I didn't actually stick up for Mr. Murray's views, but rather focused on yet another example in a fatiguing parade of "unbiased news", as well as political opportunism and finger-wagging condescension that, had it been perpetrated by a Republican, would have been the top story for a week and drawn demands for censure in congress.

At first I thought, "WOAH!!! I GOT REFERENCED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES!!!" which quickly turned into "Huh, for the New York Times, 56 views is pretty lousy!" and then, "Well, it's just an NYT blog, there must be a hundred of those." and finally "Gosh, just two views on Sunday, huh? Well, party's over." See how fast I did that? Fame to bupkis in four sentences.

Was that my 15 minutes? No camera time at all? No calls from Mark Steyn to chat over a steak?

Ah, well. Check back later for a letter from our cats.

Trapped Miners? What About Cleaner Coal?!?!

2007-08-10T09:58:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I've written anything political...

By day three of the Utah coal mine collapse (and as of this writing), we don't yet know whether the miners are alive or dead. We don't know the reason for the collapse. We do, however, know where the mine owner stands on the only issue that matters: Global Warming.

While the headline on the ABCNEWS.com article page itself reads: "Mine Owner Faces Old Foes After Collapse", what the browser banner proclaims is "Utah Mine Owner Opposed Safety Measures, Refutes Global Warming".

Maybe I'll just rewrite that headline for them: "Capitalist, Climate Change Heretic, Knowingly Endangers Workers." If you look at the obligatory "crazy guy" picture included with the article (who says AP has an agenda?), add a handlebar mustache, and use photoshop to drop the fingers down from the eyes so they look like they're curling the ends maniacally, you've got the gist of the article.

In getting through the first two pages, you'd assume that the mine is a deathtrap, what with the owner's resistance to unionizing his employees and the crippling costs leading to a mine shutdow...er...enhanced safety at lower cost that would ensue, but you have to get to page three to discover:

Despite criticism from the union and hundreds of safety complaints filed with the federal government, experts said the mine had received fewer complaints than most mines of the same size across the country.

I wonder how many of those same-sized mines with more complaints are organized by the union making these criticisms? It appears that ABC does not, as they helpfully omit such info.

Within the first few paragraphs of the article, we're told,

Murray, a former miner who survived two accidents on the job before mortgaging his home to found his company, has in the past taken on politicians pushing for more stringent safety measures, the environmental lobby and labor unions."

In the aftermath of Monday's collapse at Crandall Canyon mine in Emery County, Utah, some of those old foes, including a U.S. senator, have offered new rebukes."

"Instead of actively fighting those working for cleaner coal, the one thing Murray should now focus on is workers' safety. That should be his only priority," Boxer told ABCNEWS.com.

And why is Senator Boxer talking about "cleaner coal", while helpfully setting Mr. Murray's priorities for him, in the middle of a rescue operation? Because, "'The science of global warming is suspect,' Murray told the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works in June... At the hearing, Murray had a heated exchange with Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., over clean coal technology."

So according to this article, the first thing Senator Boxer does when hearing about a mine collapse, where the state of the miners lives is still unsure, is to use the opportunity to get the last word in on an argument over "clean coal technology" with the mine owner.

To hell with the emotions of the miners' families. There are political points to be won, by Senator Boxer, the AP, and ABC news, for whom this is not the first instance of "advocacy journalism" in the service of the environmental cause.

Apparently, one can avoid the labels "insensitive" and "ghoulish opportunist" so long as one's exploitation of tragedy is in the service of a just cause, however unrelated.

SAMMICHES!!!!

2007-08-03T13:25:00.000-04:00

Oh, fair reader(s - a guy can dream...)!! It's already August 3 and I've been caught unawares!!

August is National Sandwich Month!!
(Follow this link for an hilarious discussion thread, re: the above link, on Fark.com. WARNING: It might be a little...ribald, shall we say, so those with delicate sensibilities may want to skip around....)

Yes, from John Montagu to Miracle Max to Joey Tribbiani, who doesn't love a good sandwich? You know I sure do! But just what MAKES a sandwich, you ask? Folks around the world have many ideas about what constitutes said culinary concoction. My instinct is to say that if you can wrap it in baked grains and pick it up without getting ingredients all over your hands, it's a sandwich. But then there are the un-pick-up-able open-faced thanksgiving turkey/stuffing/cranberry/mashed-potato/gravy concoctions, to say nothing of your oilier focaccia-based treats, as well as pizza or sausage in a roll.

But I'd rather not waste precious web space (and reader patience) with quibbling about definitions. I'll leave that to you with the poll at the end. I'd much rather discuss favorite examples to get an overall feeling of the form! And so, ON TO THE OFFENDERS!!!

Pulled Pork - Simple on the plate, but time-intensive. I've discovered spice packets, a la McCormick, with a slow-cooker recipe on the back! This stuff is just amazing. I prefer the North Carolina style (I think), with the vinegar-based sauce, such as they make at Blue Ribbon BBQ in Mass. Not swimming in thick sauce, and with a tart/sweet taste. Good on a bulkie with a scoop of cole slaw right on it for cool/crunchy texture.

Fresh Turkey Sub - Served warm, The Original Pat's in Dorchester makes this with roasted turkey, herbed stuffing and cranberry sauce. Thanksgiving in a roll. I, of course, order a side of mashed potatoes and gravy to complete the experience.

Turkey Club - See a pattern forming? Big Sky Bread in Portland does three thin slices of lightly toasted farmhouse white bread, mayo, fresh turkey, bacon, lettuce and tomato. I'm sure they must have other sandwiches there, but really, why would I care?

Friendly's Western Barbecue Burger - Have mercy!! Fried onion strings, bbq sauce, cheddar cheese ... and I'll stop there so as not to unduly humiliate myself. Great with the waffle fries and an iced tea.

Steak Bomb - Desrosier's, a Freeport staple since the 1920's, makes the steakiest, gooiest steak 'n' cheese EVAR. It's a very rare occasion, usually after a full day of outdoor chores involving small gas engines and/or safety equipment, on which I'll allow myself to subject my circulatory system to this beast.

Common Ground Salmon Sandwich - There's another place in Dorchester called the Common Ground (a Hobbit-like establishment run by the Twelve Tribes church, with the most lacquered driftwood and tacked leather furnishings this side of Middle Earth) that carried a special I just happened to get on a random day off midweek. Fresh grilled salmon, dill mayo, sharp cheddar cheese, tomatoes and sprouts on warm homemade bread. All-natural and homemade everything. I've dreamed of that sandwich for years. I may never get it again, since it's in Dorchester and they're closed on evenings and weekends. They may even have disappeared, like Brigadoon, into the mists of hippy anachronism. But I'll remember that sandwich...

East Coast Grill's "Cuban Reuben" ... Pressed with House Smoked Sliced Brisket, Curtido, Jack Cheese & Chipotle Aioli, served with Spicy Latin Fries & Pickles" Woof. This is a modification of the Cuban sandwich, which usually gets ham, cheese, roast pork, pickles and mustard, pressed and toasted. You have to love a sandwich with two kinds of pork!

Wow. I didn't even cover sausages, gyros, pitas, burritos... I'll leave that to you. Take the survey and then tell me about your favorite sandwich...or sandwiches, in the comments. Good Eatin'!!!

more attwiigs.com...

I Can Die Now

2007-07-30T22:32:00.001-04:00

"Who better to write a review of The Simpsons Movie than you, their single-biggest freaking fan?!?!" - Susan, my lovely, if hyperbole-prone, wife.

We did indeed see The Simpsons Movie this weekend, as you probably all supposed we would. Susan and I caught a 4:00 p.m. showing on opening day (yes, it was a Friday, but we went from my company outing, on what was probably the hottest day of the year so far, and there's only so much time you can spend on the driving range or playing mini-golf in the blazing sunshine on the opening day of the movie that they've been promising they'd make for, like, A FREAKIN' DECADE), and, frankly, I would like to know why the parking lot of a movie theater was full at midday on a Friday. Why weren't these people working? And no, I feel no shame in asking that question because I just told you that I came from my company outing. Keep up!!

In the air-conditioned, stadium-seated darkness of late afternoon, we finally got to see the 87 minutes we'd been promised for so long. I remember rumors during college that they were working on a live-action movie version (I also remember talk of a live-action Fat Albert at the time, but the characters were supposed to be played by foul-mouthed and frightening gangsta'-types, presumably to update the junkyard/ghetto locales of the original cartoon. Needless to say, Dr. Cosby would never let something like that happen. Bless him.) which would have been just too grotesque. Later, it was to keep its animated format, but it was continuously pushed back until I finally gave up on the very idea. Looking back on that waiting period now, and considering how long it takes them to cough up each subsequent season on DVD, I'm surprised they only took 20 years for a movie.

Now, I realize that you are all on tenterhooks, anxiously awaiting my benediction or condemnation of the aforementioned cinematic effort. I, who have plagued you all with endless quotes from the TV show for years, drawing mind-numbing parallels to storylines from every conceivable situation, be it actual, theoretical, or non-sequiturial (it's a word now. It is. Don't shake your head.) "What will Joel say about it," you're asking, "what could possibly live up to twenty years of hype? Is it doomed from the outset? Will this film, after all this time, finally SHUT JOEL UP!?!?"

I'm not sure.

Yes, yes, anguished groans aside, I'm still trying to decide what I think of the whole thing. I can tell you all this, though. It's really funny!! Susan reminded me that I laughed out loud through most of it - because, in my dotage, I need reminding of my own actions. There are some wonderful sight gags that just seem to go on forever, like Bart's naked skateboard ride to Krustyburger. But there are also the pregnant pauses and silent facial expressions that are, in my mind, some of the bravest and funniest moments for their willingness to trust the audience with subtlety. Remember subtlety? Do you remember the last time a TV producer didn't treat you like an idiot? But I digress.

There are also heartbreaking moments that actually had Susan and I choked up, such as those dealing with Bart's need for a stable father, and Marge's struggle to continue overlooking Homer's selfishness. Now, I'm only going to note here our culture's continued treatment of men, as I once heard it so succinctly put, as either derelict, delinquent, drunk, or dangerous, and spare you all by not making an entire post about it. Instead, I'll point out the wonderfully surprising thing about these storylines, which is that Homer's faults and failings are directly contrasted with Ned, whose patient, loving, understanding presence and fatherly example are a startlingly unironic portrait of a Godly man. The writers seemed to decide, at least for this short time, to let go of the faint-hearted, cowering prude that we normally find on TV, and make Ned, imperfect though he is, the kind of man that the goth-type fellow movie attendee/fanatic I spoke to in the hall afterward felt compelled to praise before anything else. Of all the great and hilarious moments in this so-very-long-awaited movie, this young man in the Nu-Metal tee shirt really wanted to tell me what a wonderful dad he thought Ned was. I have to agree, and am blissfully encouraged in doing so.

As regards the Environmental plot (a potential sticking-point with me, you can imagine), it's silly enough to be unrealistic and non-allegorical, so it's not the finger-wagging sermon it could have been. There are all sorts of political messages to be drawn, but they are so intertwined and equal opportunity between the left and right that it's easy to let them slip under the radar and not draw contemporary parallels. I can't tell you how happy that makes me. I didn't feel bad allowing myself to enjoy the movie. Usually I'd feel like a sucker, my inner critic shrieking that I'm a fool to let my defenses down. I'll tentatively admit, without giving up my convictions, that I truly enjoyed the story.

In all, the movie didn't feel like it was trying to incorporate every single aspect of the series, but rather act as an extended episode. It's not the first time that the entire town was imperiled, nor that Homer saves the day (after instigating the events from which the town needs saving, naturally), but it was a terrifically animated, brilliantly written and beautifully executed movie involving the town we feel like we've known most of our lives. It's not the ultimate wrap-up to an historically long series. It's just the...

Best. Episode. Ever.

Fifteen Years

2007-07-20T23:47:00.000-04:00

Well, it happened. I went to my 15-year High School Reunion last weekend. I realized at some point - and took great pleasure in pointing it out to thunderstruck former classmates - that we were celebrating a milestone that was longer than the entire time we spent in school to begin with.

And, to be perfectly honest, I think we looked pretty good!! I don't know that I expected a bunch of broken-down, world-weary middle-agers exactly, but you never know how harshly the world will treat you once you start making your own way. To say nothing of having kids! They'll put the fear of God in you. They certainly have in me, and I don't even have any!! Many came with their offspring, and a handsome lot they were. I can't wait for the pictures to be posted on the reunion web site.

While my sister's class has yet to celebrate a single reunion (though they're planning one for next year), this makes the third for the ConVal class of '92. They've each had a very different feel to them (picture goes wavy, harp strumming in the background...):

The 5-year: I went with Heather and Amy, and I felt pretty cool. I'd just finished school and was planning to move to Boston in the fall. Amy and Heather had come from NYC, so we were just three cosmopolitan badasses (okay, two badasses and a country bumpkin aspiring to badassness ) ready to hold our own against the flood of not-always happy memories from our recent childhoods. For my part, I don't think I'd spoken to more than five people from our class since graduation, and since I'd had a girlfriend up until then, it may have been the same five as during high school. (After all, when you have a significant other, what do you need friends for? Ugh.) I had visions of old grudges resurfacing, old cliques reforming to intimidate the same unfortunate social outsiders, awkwardly avoiding old acquaintances, and generally a final smack to the head before we went our separate ways, never to be seen again.

But, to my wonderful surprise, I got hearty greetings from just about everyone! Folks with whom I'd never had more than passing words in the hall were glad to see me, and I them. My theory at the time, borne mostly out of insecurity, was that college had given a lot of former big fish the big pond treatment, and we all longed for the comfort of familiar faces and relationships, even if they hadn't been perfect. Whatever the reason, it was really nice to see everyone again.

The 10-year: Heather called to make sure that I had no illusions about skipping out, and we arranged to meet at Harlow's for a bracer (or three) before the semi-formal dinner event. This one felt like it was going to be a big deal, there being a real committee convened to find our scattered number, which further cemented the now-we're-adults-and-we're-past-the-clique-thing sentiment, as they comprised a broad strata of backgrounds and current situations. Unfortunately, it may have been this very we're-past-the-past idea that got me more wound-up than the last time. We were supposed to be established by now, with jobs and spouses and homes and, in a few cases, children; and all this was going to be on display...or not.

I felt pretty good about my situation, actually: married to my best girl Susan, working for Harvard, just became caretakers of a cool old house, arrived in a new CR-V, and we were showing up with with Heather and her fantastic guy (now husband) Jeff. So why did I need to "take the edge off" with a couple of beers beforehand? I talked with a bunch of people, met spouses, and caught up a little, but I felt hurried, tense, and unfocused. I was too slow in processing the presence of, and changes in, the first person, before I was suddenly trying to place the next. Poor Susan had a terrible cold that night (being the weekend of Thanksgiving, and the punishing New England weather it entailed), and so I took her home just after dinner was finished.

The 15-year: I'd almost forgotten that it was time for another one when Heather brought it up (I say "almost" because due to a... ahem... "non-traditional" college career, I finished in 5 years and am now receiving notices for college and high school reunions at the same time). It was to be a b.y.o.meat BBQ at McDowell Dam on a Sunday afternoon. At this point, we'd been in Maine for just over a year and a half, having left our cushy life in Boston for a family house, and I'd been struggling with the changes in lifestyle, surroundings, jobs (I was on my second since the move), and, well, everything. However, there were two events in quick succession that got me raring to see the old gang.

My Dad called to let me know that a friend from elementary school, Mark, and his wife Missy, ConVal '94, lived close by, and I immediately called him at Susan's urging. We invited them and their kids over to a bonfire at our house. It totally threw me. I last remembered him from sometime in early high school, when we used to take his old Subaru to the local mountain for night skiing after classes. Our parents had been friends and we, along with Joy and his Sister Sunny, all but grew up together. We lost touch (did I mention that I had a girlfriend ?), and suddenly, so many years later, we're living 5 miles apart, 160 miles from where we grew up. They are restoring a beautiful old farm house, just like his parents used to, and he talks about the projects that he and his 6-year-old son (who looks so much like he did at that age) have been tackling. I suddenly saw so much of our parents in us, and it was a very proud and humbling feeling.

Then the weekend before reunion, Joy got married. We spent three breakneck days in Boston, and the reception was filled with family and family friends that have known me from birth, and about whom Susan has heard endless stories. Everywhere I turned, a new old face was beaming at me, the grown-up little boy that they all knew I'd be someday, so much like my dad. Having moved to Susan's home town, we were surrounded by her extended family, and I was usually the one waiting to have names put to faces and trying to remember all the things she'd told me about each person since we started dating. Now it was her turn to make the associations and close the gaps, while I was flooded with both the old feelings of childhood and the feeling that I was saying, with each successive greeting, "Hi, I'm adult Joel!" Gosh, do all Gen-X-ers wait until their mid-thirties to accept adulthood, or is it just me?

After seeing Mark again, and Joy's reception, I couldn't wait to see my class! And the event itself was wonderful. This was the reunion that I'd always hoped for. Natural, relaxed, and happy for each other's company. Heather and I were, once again, two peas in a pod, being the only two grownups with the reunion shirts on (me in a ringer and her in the fetching 3/4-sleeve). When it wasn't raining sideways (as it did 5 times that afternoon, by my count), everyone looked how I remembered them. Everyone, that is, except me! I actually got to surprise Jamie and Jen, who didn't recognize me at first. When I laughed at Jen's shocked realization, she said "Oh, you laugh just like your dad!" Jen and I have known each other since before we began school, and after all this time she remembers how my dad laughs. How great is that?

There were too many fantastic moments to recount here, and I've already gone on too long. I just wanted to relate to those I saw that day, if they're reading this, how thrilled I was to see them again, and how grateful I am to count them as friends. For those who couldn't make it, we'll see you at the 20th!

Harry Potter Spoiler!!

2007-07-20T10:21:00.000-04:00

I know how it ends!!!

The Butler did it!!!!

And thus ends Joel's shameless ploy to increase blog traffic through Google searches. Stay tuned for the latest Lindsay Lohan news!!

As for me, tomorrow is for clams.

Spacin' LiveEarth for a Wedding

2007-07-09T13:42:00.000-04:00

Oh, MAN!!

Did I miss it?!?! It's not Saturday yet, right?!? Aw, CRAP, I spaced the date again!!! I was TOTALLY PSYCHED to get loaded and save the earth!! I had it all planned out: sit on my can all day and watch multi-millionaire supermodels, "artists", and "activists" fly around the world in private jets and hector the drooling masses (ie, everyone else) into downloading their music from iTunes (Al Gore, Apple board member) instead of buying petro-death CDs, dude!! I just hope that whoever's already killed Mother Gaia a little bit with a Carbon Deathbringer (CD, geddit?!? Oh, dude, I ROKK!!) at least drops some mad cheddar for carbon offsets (score 'em from Gore, bra!! He'll totally hook you up !!!). And totally buy a Prius!! Man, those things can do, like a hundred !! But don't say your dad was a Veep to get out of getting busted for your stash. The friggin' cops are onto that one...

So, instead of doing my part to drag AmeriKKKa back down to acceptable economic status, I was in Boston for my sister's wedding and related events. Susan and I are exhausted. We left the house on Friday morning at about 7am to make the ceremony at Cambridge City Hall at 11. After the wedding itself (short and very sweet - theJOP did a very nice job) and a zillion pictures, we changed and went to lunch with both families at Cambridge Brewing Company where we shared a "tower" of Hefe-Weizen. Seth and his brother Aaron are a riot when they get going. At several points, they were reduced to just staring at each other, silently, in utter disbelief of the other's ability to be such a jackass. Back to the B&B to shower and change again for the evening's dinner for out-of-town guests. This was a fantastic buffet at Elephant Walk. We sat at the most boisterous table, I'm proud to say, thanks to the combination of a number of childhood and college friends, as well as former roommates. As usual, I was one of the few men at the table, and we easily drowned out Seth's high school buddies.

Saturday morning Dad and I helped schlep beverages and linens to the Cyclorama, where the real party was going to happen that night. It was mighty muggy, and we worked up a sweat, which was actually nice. I hadn't gotten to do much for Joy and Seth up to this point, so it was nice to be needed and feel productive. Susan woke up with a whopper headache, and so she and Mom skipped a much anticipated pedicure and we all went to a late lunch at Picco, just around the corner from the Cyclorama, which was really great and leisurely. This also made the second day in a row that I had beer with lunch.

No wedding is complete without running into people you haven't seen in 20 years, and I ran into plenty of them. We'd been in the building for a good hour before we reached our seats to put down our bags. We didn't move ten feet without another "This is Your Life" moment. It's certainly been the summer for it.

As the party wore on, Joy asked me to take Sophie home because...holy crap...Melissa's two girls (6 and 3) wore her out. She was panting and nearly shaking from exhaustion when she got in the car, and quickly fell asleep. This was good for Susan and me, as the band was really loud and we needed a break. When we got back, dad looked like he was just getting started. "We'rerockin ' 'till midnight!!!" he said as he bounced over to us, all grins. Susan and I, who are old, were ready to collapse. After Seth and Joy were hoisted overhead for thehorah (with the Drunk Stuntmen playing Hava Nagila - a tear-worthy moment for the brother of the bride) and a rendition of "Achilles Last Stand", the band slumped into a long, slow number to get everyone to want to go home, and so we did. Then up for brunch in the morning, and back to Maine.

I'm tired even as I write this, so it's back to work for me. Hope all of your Independence Day weekends were full of flags, food, friends, family, fair winds, and foam.

Oh, and if you want to drop Joy a line of congratulation, send it here !

That's better...

2007-07-05T15:26:00.001-04:00

Hey, there I am!! The avatar generator is a little inconsistent. I couldn't find the glasses the first time. Now the raised eyebrows really capture that eager-to-please desperation I was going for. And I just had to replace the Isotopes mascot with "the source of - and solution to - all of life's problems", covering a body style befitting its frequent enjoyment.

I'm not even going to TRY to do the Springfield background like H and J. I have just enough computer skills to inflict this blog upon you poor folks. Maybe sometime in the near future, I might get around to an actual post, rather than simultaneous attempts at vanity and self-deprecation.

Joy's wedding is this weekend in Boston. I'm feeling a little nervous (once again, note facial expression at right), as it's going to be a three-day extravaganza, but I have only the most tenuous idea of what's involved. I discovered today that I'll be helping to pick up and deliver large quantities of - fittingly - beer and wine, and it's going to be in the 80's and Boston-humid. I think that the sooner I get into go-where-and-do/wear-what-I'm-told mode, the happier I'll be. Just enjoy the ride, and don't ask too many questions. Gosh, Susan should be THRILLED by my utter lack of initiative, eh?

Next weekend is my 15th high school reunion. Apparently, registration has been a little light, so if you're ConVal Class of '92 and it's not the 10th yet, GET GOING!!! We'll be there, and isn't that reason enough to... hey, come back!! It'll be fun!! No, really, I'll just eat my hot dog quietly over here!

A Springfielder?

2007-07-03T21:20:00.001-04:00

Well, that's as close as it gets. Actually, I think it looks more like Dave Foley. I'd like to thank H for allowing me to completely waste my evening. And, fan that I am, I didn't realize that the tee shirt design was for the Springfield Isotopes until she mentioned it. I was remembering him from the filmstrip that the first incarnation of Smithers (who was black, incidentally) showed the elementary school kids on their field trip to the plant in Season 1. Really, I should have used the Duff can design. Anyway, there I am...kinda.

This...

2007-06-22T16:21:00.000-04:00

THIS, THIS is why I don’t go out for plays very often…well, and the time commitment. The last weeks leading up to performances are brutal.

Apparently, some Australian not only wrote, but was awarded a prize of $20,000.00 for, a play he likes to call “Osama, My Hero”. I’m just going to step aside and let the amazing James Lileks have the floor…

Loved this entry at Tim Blair’s site, but of course I love them all. He’s discussing a play called “Osama, My Hero,” which is a brave piece of dissent that forces us to confront our preconceptions. Or would, if anyone in the audience didn’t already share the author’s preconceptions about other people’s preconceptions.

The play is described as “provocative.” Naturally. There's no finer word in the modern artist’s lexicon. That’s the role of art: to resist the affirmation of societal confidence, because it leads to things like war and big cars and bigger houses incul-del-sac burbs where pot-bellied yobs have an entire room for their NASCAR cap collection. This cannot stand; the center must not hold. That rough beast isn ’t going to birth itself, you know; we have to rip it out, saddle it up and ride all the way to Bethlehem so we can get on with whatever comes next. And whatever it might be it has to be better than this, because THIS is television-as-anesthesia, food packed in tinfoil, guns in all the wrong hands (citizens and soldiers, neither of whom can be trusted) and a general willful refusal of everyone else to understand that this is possibly the nadir of human civilization right here, and if they’d stop enjoying their life for one – single – second for a change, they’d realize it. Over here, look at us! We are provoking you! Come and give us a grant, or we shall be forced to provoke you again with a play in which the Pope wears a suit made out of wet fresh placentas and goose-steps around the stage singingLili Marlene!

As Blair notes, a play that makes fun of the other side would be provocative, but it would never enter their minds to do a play about a kid who’s head gets lopped off because he declaresSalman Rushdie his hero. On some level they realize that the backlash would be dangerous, but they’ve laid a nice thick moist layer of rationalization over the worries: the nutters may be nuttery, but the people who oppose them are doing so for the wrong reasons, and that’s the real threat. It’s a long way from “Our Town” and “Ah, Wilderness.” And well it should be, because “Our Town” was built on a toxic waste dump and the wilderness was cut down to print TV Guides and Wall Street Journals, man.

My first play in Boston was a production of an Absurdist French play from the turn of the last century called Ubu Roi. Looking back on it now, I should have known enough to research it before auditioning. A quick read-through makes this once-scandalous play seem harmless enough. But, of course, what point would there be in performing a quaint, silly, antiquated play? Its themes have to speak to a current audience. And apparently, the theme that seemed most worthy of the audience’s attention was “smut”. The director decided, well after rehearsals had begun, and without intimations to the cast beforehand, that the only reason to do this play was to offend/titillate the audience.

At first it was funny, mostly because it was juvenile. There was a vomit take that was hilarious, involving some green paint and a mustard bottle hidden in a sleeve. There was an older couple simulating…ahem…“marital consummation” (fully clothed, thank goodness) in all sorts of ridiculous positions. There were comically brutal battle scenes and blood everywhere.

But anybody can do that, so why would they? Who’d come to see it? It’s a college theater class exercise. What college theater doesn’t have is NUDITY (well, it didn’t used to…). Suddenly, half-way into rehearsals, we’re being told that the “orgy” scene – which is supposed to consist of offstage noises of a feast, according to the script – would now involve a writhing pile of semi-naked people appearing on live video played on the stage. Thankfully, everyone kept their clothes on, but I made sure to stay out of the pile anyway. For the first time, I was in a play that I didn't want my family or friends to see (though Dad still complains about having to sit through Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya". Geez , Dad, not every new play I'm in has to be an opportunity to tell me what torture it was to sit through "Vanya"! But I digress...)

I could say that this isn’t what I’d signed on for, but then I really hadn’t thought to ask what I was signing on for when I got to Boston. I decided then that there were two types of popular theater: One was unionized, and had to pay strict rates to its actors/stagehands/tech people. Anyone who’s seen what Equity actors make per week will quickly realize the kind of overhead that goes into a stage production. The only way to be profitable enough to pay so many people such exorbitant rates is to produce only guaranteed hits. This explains the prevalence of huge new musicals ("Lion King", "Phantom"), musical revivals ("Oklahoma!", "Annie") and 20+ years of "Cats".

The other theater was the non-union, independent theater. Here is where the real experimentation is done, where new plays develop. However, the unemployment rate for actors is astronomical, so you’ve got potential for tons of independent theater going on. How do you know which plays to patronize? Easy: the more vulgar and shocking, the more “interesting” and “provocative”, the more popular. There are the odd small productions of family-friendly successes, like Blue Man Group, but mostly you get stuff like "Osama, My Hero".

Obviously, this was too reductive, and I now know of quite a lot of quality, independent theater, but it didn't feel that way fresh out of college and browsing the classifieds in the Phoenix for open auditions. Their proximity to phone sex and escort ads was telling. In the years since, I've done many pieces of which I am honored and humbled to have been a part. But I remain wary of people who want to "force us to confront our preconceptions". It's their own preconceptions that worry me.

UPDATE: What's in a name, Dakota?

2007-05-17T19:48:00.001-04:00

Allow me, for a moment, to set up a scenario that seems all but an ancient legend: When a man and woman are married, and decide to express their love for each other by conceiving a child (is anyone still with me at this point?), they are partaking in a sacred gift from God which, while binding the couple to each other, binds them to the entire human family through its continuation and propagation. And how do they mark the occasion of this miracle of connectedness? They give the precious fruit of their loins a ridiculous name.

I've about had it with baby names. Susan often brings up the ludicrousness of needing a license to drive, but needing nothing other than the will, a willing partner, and several (hopefully private) moments to have a baby. And not only do many people seem tragi-comically insufficient to the task of raising the little monster, let alone impressing upon it the importance of self-control and manners, they have to afflict it with the nomenclatural equivalent of a drunken tattoo.

This seems to plague more girls than boys. I imagine this is because women have been fantasizing about the name they wish they'd been given since they were six. Recall the episode of Sex and the City when Charlotte becomes enraged at a friend's naming of her own child a name that Charlotte made up when she was little. Boys get good, familiar, proper names because every father knows the fate of a boy with an unusual, effeminate, or made up name. It's the stuff of nightmares. Oh, sure, the abuse and ridicule could spur them on to great accomplishments later in life (I worked at a prestigious school with a seemingly disproportionate number of students with unfortunate monikers). But at some point the child will realize that their name is borne out of nothing more than their parents' vanity. And when confronted by this resentment for a lifetime of social hardship, what is the parents' likely reaction? Offence, hurt feelings, and dismay at their unappreciative child. It's all about them, which is why the kid got the terrible name to begin with.

These regrettable names come in many forms, and from many motivations/inspirations, so they're a little difficult to categorize. We seem to have gotten to a point where no convention is too sacred to be manipulated, mangled, or just thrown out. No combination of the following silly/trendy name guidelines is out of bounds. However, the bases for most of these names, as I see it, come from the following:

1. Last Names as First Names – If it's a first name that ends in -son, it's a last name. Harrison, Jackson, Johnson. Names beginning with Mc or Mac are particularly pretentious. I'm surprised O'Malley hasn't cropped up. Thatcher, Taylor, Cooper, Smith, Mason, or any other medieval trades masquerading as a first name are also obnoxious. This phenomenon appears to affect boys more often (with the exception of Mackenzie, which is used for either), probably because the dad is pretentiously trying to impart gravity and manliness to his mewling, vomiting, incontinent, screaming mess with a mommy fixation.

2. City/State/Geographical Location/Feature – How many more girls named Madison do we have to tolerate before we get to ship them all there? Rachel, on Friends, fancied Sequoia, as did, no doubt, every other chick watching that episode. Dakota, Florida, Montana, Brooke (I know, different spelling, see "Creative Spelling" below), Fern, Brooklyn, etc. While America fits into this category, I'm going to make an exception for righteous cutie America Ferrera, and for the sake of patriotism, which seems to be in rather short supply these days, unlike girls named Madison.

3. Combination Names – This is an infrequently used but no less annoying method of naming one's progeny. Just take two favorite aunts and massacre their names to make a single monstrous hybrid. Below are some quotes of actual requests for advice on combined names :

"PLS help i need a name for my new born but it must be a combination of the names NESTER & VALENCIA"
"plss.... i want to have a name for my two months due baby.. its MUST be a combination of Julius and Sheryl.... or this name.... Moan and Jr.. PLEASE i really NEED it..... A.S.A.P......."
"i want a combanation of Harsha and Urvashi."
"pls help i need a name for my new born, but it must be a combination of the names thabo and Helen"

While I can appreciate the desire to memorialize a loved one with the naming of your child, I believe that a combination of two names is more often a ploy by the parents to be asked about which relatives' memories were soiled with this bastardization. Otherwise, it'll be assumed that it's something they just plain made up, which leads us to our next category…

4. Just Plain Made Up – Jadin. Jaiden. Jayden. Jaedyn. No matter how you spell it, it's a monument to your inability to think like an adult. You are not blessing your child with uniqueness. You're secretly trying to imbue your child with magical powers. And not only that, you are cursing them to a lifetime of people believing they named themselves in order to avoid mediocrity without actually having to accomplish something. John & Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison (note the LAST name of this last name): all great and accomplished people without the benefit of magical names. Show me someone with a name that was clearly made up out of whole cloth who is accomplished outside of a grievance organization or college professorship in Oppressed Group Studies.

5. Creative Spelling – The "Jaieydyieyn" example above works well for this subset, and serves to show that combinations of misguided naming opportunities are manifold. This method is common for parents who want their little girls to grow up to be strong, confident, independent strippers. Kymbarlie, Syndi, Lawryn, Gynafyr…all topless, all the time!! Substitute a couple of letters and you exponentially increase your daughter's chances of seeking validation through the approval of Natie-Lite-soaked frat boys.

Other honorable mentions –

Virtue Names – Unless you are ready to raise your child to embody the virtue you've named them, this is just an easy opportunity for irony. See: Chastity Bono.
Trendy/Pretty/Overused Names – Ugh. Just look at the Social Security Baby Names web site. The top 100 are a treasure trove of candidates for the title "Precious Princess." Emily, Isabella, Abigail, Ashley, Alyssa, Brianna… Then of course there is the actual name Princess. Honestly. What little girl starting middle school, trying to fit in and avoid cruel adolescent scrutiny, is going to thank her parents for that?
Names Which Must Have Seemed Hysterical When Mom and Dad Were High - You hear about kids with names like Robin Hood, Dick Sweat, etc. Names that Bart might use when prank-calling Moe's Tavern: Jacque Strap, Amanda Huggankiss, Hugh Jass... They may have kept their kid from becoming a mass murderer, if only to avoid the publiciy, but they've just as surely cursed it to a similar lifestyle.
Awesome Names that Only Work If You're Famous - Penn Gilette's daughter is named Moxie Crimefighter, and I once heard of a Basketball player from Africa whose mother, enamoured with English words, named him Scientific Maps. I wish my name was Scientific Maps!

The ultimate danger in all this is that the child will eventually believe that they are, in fact, exceptional or unique by the very fact of an unusual, unspellable or unpronounceable name. We have a word for people like this. Narcissists. And studies bear out that we're raising the most narcissistic generation of insufferable, entitled, spoiled-rotten-brats to ever blight our fair Republic. And that includes hippies!

My current feeling is that there are many good names to be found from the turn of the 20th century; names that are just starting to regain popularity among the few hipsters who are non-carbon-footprint-friendly enough to breed. Alice, Augusta, Henry, Hazel, Martin, Victor, etc. A hip local blogger, named Soule Mama, has three little ones named Calvin, Ezra, and Adelaide. Lovely! Somewhat obscure, but recognizable. There are also the Biblical names that are neither overused (Jesus, any Gospel writer, Michael, Jacob, Jeremiah, Rebecca) nor comically obscure (Melchizedek , Cleophas, Mahershalalhashbaz - no kidding!); names like Jedediah, Isaac, Esther, Ruth, and Asa. And what about family names, and names from one's cultural or national heritage?

The idea with which I'd like to close is simply this: aren't there enough wonderful names out there, with wonderful histories and meanings and derivations, without our trying to chuck it all for the sake of "uniqueness"? It's said that there is nothing new under the sun. Just look around and you'll find there's plenty already under the sun that's wonderful enough.

UPDATE!! - Uncannily, I discover that I'm not the only one thinking about our horrible naming habits these days! Apparently, people are...ugh, to even write it down seems like endorsement... HIRING CONSULTANTS TO NAME THEIR CHILDREN FOR THEM. Which, I suppose, wouldn't be all bad if the parents would butt-the-heck-out of the process entirely. I'd actually feel great about these people not only voluntarily relinquishing their foregone abuse of responsibility, BUT ALSO giving some "professional" ridiculous amounts of money. It's so coastal crazy, don'tcha think? Sadly, they usually provide a list of offenders to the hired brain, and so we'll still get choices like D'aw-Shayne or Harvest. And don't count our numerological options! Or, to put it another way: Please DO!!

One of my heros, Thomas Sowell, provides us with some simple insight.

Sorry, folks!

2007-05-11T14:53:00.000-04:00

Having reread the previous post several times, it suddenly dawns on me…

BORING!

Are we sufficiently updated on 8 hours of Joel’s Saturday yet?

BORING!!

SHEESH! You’d expect my next post to be about insulation or patching holes in my basement walls…oh, right.

BOOOOOOOOORIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!!

Well, how about this? I got a new job!! I start on the 29th, finishing up my current temp position on the 25th. I’m very sad to leave such a wonderful office with such great, supportive, friendly people, but conditions for staying never came together. I got an unexpected and bittersweet reaction from many of my co-workers.

Me: I have some news…

Them: (excited for me) Oh?!?

Me: I took a job offer!

Them: (hurt, disappointed, feigning praise) Oh… well, that’s…news…

After a “less-than-ideal” separation from my previous job and several months of unemployment and rejections, it feels really good to be appreciated. My new office will be right downtown with garage parking! Sure, it’s a cubicle with no windows, and I’ve got to break in a whole new office, but I’ll officially rejoin the ranks of the wage-slaving, 8-to-4:30ing, rat-racing, hamster-wheeling, Sisyphean, benefits-receiving, poverty-staving, economy-building, America-greatening, spirit-embiggening workforce!!

Had some laughs, killed some time…

2007-05-07T15:16:00.000-04:00

Congrats to the person who caught the Simpsons reference in the title. If you can identify it with a comment, I promise not to make it the subject of my next post!

Actually, the title inaccurately encapsulates our trip to Boston this past weekend. We’re exhausted! Since Susan was also there, and no doubt wants the opportunity to blog about it, I’ll let her tell her side, as well as about our time together. And so, without further adieu, here’s what I did with myself on Saturday while she was in a meeting.

I started out in the morning at about 8:15 and drove to Medford to see the Brooks Estate where we were caretakers for 2 ½ years. We’d seen a video on the Tufts website (thanks H!) about the grad student who was the current caretaker about 6 months ago, and we were surprised to note that this was not one of the couple who took the job from us. Meaning the last couple didn’t last a year! This was vindication for Susan, since she was continually frustrated that no one understood what a DRAG it could be up there sometimes. Well, I just wanted to drop in and quietly have a look around. I missed the Spring Spruce-Up by an hour, where volunteers descend and throw away whatever leftover garbage didn’t get chucked the year before, as well as cutting back this year’s encroachment of sumac and bittersweet vines. I didn’t want to get roped into it with my few hours available.

I walked around the house, noticing that these vines had been pulled up, and those were growing back in, and the lawn needed mowing. I also noticed that all of the beautiful copper downspouts for the gutters had been ripped off the building. Because copper brings a good price now and people are SAVAGES!!! I recommend horse-whippings, follwed by a Barbara Streisand marathon and copper polish in the wounds.

When I came around the back of the house, I startled what I thought was a dog. However, it looked decidedly undomesticated. Pointy ears and nose, bushy tail…coyote, about 25 feet away. It jumped up and woofed at me, then trotted away calmly but purposefully. I stood still and waited for it to keep going, but when I rounded the corner it was waiting there, looking at me. It woofed a couple more times (quiet and light, not a bark), and kept going. It came back a couple of times as I made my way back to the driveway, but eventually trotted off into the woods. I’m guessing it has a den near the house. Susan speculated that the rampant rabbit and woodchuck population from a year ago was probably no longer so thriving. Circle of life!

I moved on to Harvard Square, by my old bike route, and got a great parking space…because it was 9:15 a.m. and nothing was opened. I walked to the Garage and Starbucks and got a coffee and breakfast sandwich. I don’t think they quite have the hang of the latter yet, as they placed a piping hot microwaved sandwich directly into a paper bag without a piece of wax paper. The bag got more melted cheese than I did, and it had just about slid apart, but it was tasty!

I had planned to see Joy and walk Sophie with her, but she had a raging cough and nearly no voice. I went to their place, where Seth was tilling in the flower bed, and we hung around in their back yard, sipping limeade, as Sophie lost her mind that Uncle Joel was there. I have scratches and dirty pants to prove it. Animals and kids love me. I chalk up Sophie’s affection to the fact that I shriek and squeal at her when she first catches sight of me and bolts. She loves that. However, getting her to calm down afterward is another thing. It usually takes Joy placing a finger under her (Sophie’s) corrective collar. It’s like a switch, and she settles right down. Then we all piled into their car for a trip to Home Depot for flowers and soil. It was kind of busy, as thought, perhaps, everyone else in the metro area was thinking the same thing on a warm Saturday in May. HUH!! Go figure.

I drove out to B.U. to pick up Sean, my old pal from Park Street, working on his Master’s in Espresso Royal Cafe. Not that he’s getting his degree by writing a thesis about a coffee shop. No, he was writing it WHILE IN a coffee shop! Oh, I had you going! We went to Blue Ribbon Bar-B-Que in Arlington for lunch, consisting of a Pulled Pork sandwich for him, and a Kansas City Burnt Ends sandwich for me. Oh, the slow-cookedness!! The sauce-ocity!! The meat-itude!!! Since he doesn’t have a car, and it would be a mighty long bus ride, he gets out there about as often as I do. I heard him cooing “I love you!” over his sandwich several times. At least I hope he was talking to the sandwich. He was awfully appreciative…and then there was that smooch when I dropped him off…

Well, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I hastily made my way to Newbury Street. After finding a PRIMO parking spot right at the top of the street, I walked the short distance to the flagship Newbury Comics store (read: Mecca) to stand, gaping, in front of mile-long racks of used CDs and new vinyl records, racking my brain, trying to remember what music I listen to. After finally deciding that I must not actually listen to music, but just like spending money on expensive plastic discs to use as drink coasters, I left, befuddled. Surely this was not me. I couldn’t leave empty-handed. I never had before! Then I caught the strains of Latin Ska wafting on the breeze. El Matador by Los Fabulosos Cadillacs thumped and rattled from the basement location of a CD Spins store, and I followed it in, like Bugs Bunny, head cradled in the misty scent of carrots, seductively drawn to the old overturned apple crate propped up on a stick.

“Recent Arrival” bins are where it’s at! Smaller selection, wider variety, and easily scanable. I snagged 4 CDs and brought them to the front. The proprietor looked at them and said “Oh, you have to go back!” I assumed he was kidding, and pointed out the price tag on just the Depeche Mode compilation. But no, he reminded me that when you buy five, the cheapest one is free! This should have been great, except that it had taken me 30 minutes to find those four. It took even longer to pick a 5th. I have terrible luck buying music I haven’t previewed. It’s usually disappointing, and I feel ripped off, so I rarely get anything I don’t already know. Chatting for several minutes with Susan later helped me recall several discs that I’d been talking about wanting for MONTHS. We made another music run the next day, but I’ll let her talk about that.

That’s the last of my day alone in Boston. Not too shabby, if I say so myself. Next time I may actually bring my bike, since Boston is a very different place on a bike, and I miss that one, too.

Food Issues

2007-05-01T21:15:00.000-04:00

I have food issues:

People who smack their lips when they eat should be made to drink all their meals through a straw…I would be more than happy to help facilitate this.
People who just plain eat with their mouths open must be made to eat nothing but boiling hot soup.
People who TALK with their CHEEKS JAMMED FULL OF BREAD AND LITERALLY CHEW THROUGH A CONVERSATION must be drowned. In giblet gravy.
Upon entering a restaurant, some folks turn into 3-year-olds: demanding, petulant, picky, squeamish, prissy little girls prone to tantrums and verbal abuse. Prescription: make them work at Friendly's for the early dinner shifts and Sunday lunch. Perhaps waiting on actual children will remind them of their own mealtime behavior. But I doubt it.
A Starbucks order that takes more than 3 modifications/seconds to place automatically makes you a chick. I am a great big chick. Venti, nonfat, no foam, sugar-free cinnamon dolce latte. Chick.
I'll eat just about anything, but I don't like cherries, coconut, or marzipan. I once received, for my birthday, a chocolate cake, mixed throughout with shredded coconut, soaked in cherry juice, and covered in marzipan frosting. I'm not kidding. And I ate it to be polite.
Going to a restaurant, for me, is less about getting a great meal than it is about not getting ripped off. I try to determine the best food to price to caloric intake ratio. This is due to my overly-developed "Sucker Instinct" about which I'll blog in the future. Oh, and gluttony.
Our cats love chicken. I feed it to them so they'll love me. I'm going to make a great dad someday.
I like bologna and I'm unashamed.
Different people have different ideas of "comfort food". Mine usually consists of some form of casserole: meat, veggies and starch held together with a cream-soup-based binder and topped with a flaky/mashed potato crust. But virtually any food can be magically transformed into my favorite food with the addition of cheese. Melted American cheese, to be exact. It goes with just about anything! Open faced sandwiches, pasta, leftover pork fried rice, duck l'orange... I've even had "pizza maki". Oh, sure, it probably wasn't American melted over the top, but what kind would YOU use on maki, smarty-pants? I thought so.

Oh, did I say fun?

2007-04-23T12:35:00.001-04:00

Just when you think you’re ready for it…

We learned our lesson after the last outage. We filled the tub, three buckets and three jugs of water for the bathroom. We had candles and wood and matches on hand. The Nor’Easter wouldn’t catch us off guard this time!

But (and there’s always a but, huh?), this was a rain storm. Rain, like all liquids, finds the path of least resistance to the lowest point. This, on our property, isn’t the marsh 30 feet lower than, and behind, the house, which was now more of an actual pond. It is, in fact, our basement. With the electricity out, the sump pump is just a hunk of rusting metal in a hole in the floor.
So, I find myself in the dark basement, headlamp dimly illuminating the ever deepening pool of Nor’Easter which savagely mocks our meager preparations upstairs. The sound of running water echoes loudly off the granite block walls. I find four spots where the water isn’t just running down the wall but clearing the floor like spigots under pressure.

Now, this part is pretty cool. I remembered a can of quick-dry mortar somewhere in the house. My dad’s voice came to me… something about a product that can plug a hole even while water runs through it… and I found it! I mixed some up, waited for it to start getting warm, indicating that it would soon set, and jammed it into a hole with my palm. And as I knelt in the freezing water (quickly pouring into my boots) for three to five minutes, the mortar set and the water stopped!! Not entirely, mind you, but I could work with this.

Another hole was in a far corner, under old, moldy shelving, and I had to lie on my side on a board, supported by rusting paint cans, to reach it. I followed the continuing splashing sound to find the third hole behind some old boards which were up off the floor to keep them dry (HA!). Each spot was tighter than the next. There was only one that I couldn’t reach, behind the water pump, fittingly. This was where the most water gushed in, right where the wall met the floor. I tried three times to stanch it, but, while the mortar set quite nicely where water flowed out, it didn’t set when actually under water.

Now I had to figure out how to get all this water flowing back out. I tried siphoning it out with a hose, after replacing two leaky connectors, but couldn’t keep pressure over 30 feet to get the outside end lower than the sump hole. I got a hand bilge pump at L.L. Bean (still open in a storm, of course!), and duct-taped it to the hose, but again, not enough pressure. I hit two hardware stores looking for a rotary pump, which, of course, no one carries except EVERY VILLAGE IN AFRICA!! I even bought a battery-powered boat bilge pump from a marina. I took out the car battery, brought it to the basement, and hooked it to the pump with jumper cables. I fastened the hose, brought the other end outside, and got …nothing. Say it with me now…not enough pressure.

Stray pieces of cordwood and a Rubbermaid tub floated by in the gentle current as I finally admitted what I had to do. In the dim light of a headlamp, jeans soaked to the waste and in a tee shirt, I shoved a 5-gallon pail into the sump hole, filled it, hauled it up the bulkhead stairs and dumped it out. In an Obi Wan Kenobi moment, I felt a disturbance in the Force as though a million voices cried out at once in laughter. “Hey there, smart guy! Great idea!! That shouldn’t take too long!” Being the not-so-smart guy that the above implies, it took me an hour of this before I was overruled by my back and arms. I dragged my soaking carcass upstairs, changed, and slumped onto the couch. And I realized: “Gosh, it’s really nice and dry up here! And even pretty warm (says the guy in his boxers in a 56 degree house). Why didn’t I just stay up here all day?!?!”

Yep. Smart guy. The day after the rain stopped, the water started going down by itself! I didn’t stop to think that a basement that porous might let out water as easily as it let it in. The day after that, the electricity came back and the sump pump cleared out the rest. A week later, the temps will be nearly 80 and we’re having fire warnings. For all my efforts, I didn’t manage to accomplish anything that wasn’t going to happen on it’s own in a day or so.

I’ve lived in New England my entire life, and I still haven’t internalized what every local kid can repeat from his great-great-great-grandfather. “You don’t like the weather? Wait a minute, it’ll change.”

Double-Dare to Dream

2007-04-11T15:13:00.000-04:00

So, my lovely wife seems to have rather extravagant taste in clothing. Like her mother before her, she can instantly pick out the most expensive item in any store. Well, two can play at that game.

Spring is struggling to be upon us, and with that in mind, a young man’s thoughts turn to… home improvement. We’ve been blessed with a lovely old home, an enormous garage, 12 acres of woods, and an old building with the potential for yielding a good amount of old – possibly valuable – wood. However, without the right tools, these blessings tend to feel more like burdens. Gosh I sure could use...

Our CRV has lots of room in the back when you fold down the seats. I even managed to fit the snowblower back there, with some careful finagling. But just think of how much MORE material (garbage, furniture, hardware, building materials) I could transport with this baby! Trips to the “Transfer Station” (dump) would be positively pleasant. And finally emptying the garage of some old bedroom furniture would free up space for…

WOAH YEAH!!! Oh, the things I could build and store and organize! I have a building on the property out of which I’d like to harvest some wood before it falls down. A lumber rack would be handy! It would also be nice to have the woodworking tools accessible so that I could turn this wood into something usable.

Now I feel greedy even contemplating something for weekend fun. But what the heck…

Whether you’re going to the grocery store or just making your friends jealous, a quick trip to Boston could be a whole lot quicker in this. Add all Boston Acoustic speakers and an iPod compatible stereo/DVD player and I’d never get out. Now if I could just find a drive-thru barbeque place… Well, staying in it overnight does seem a little silly. But not as silly as this!

As long as the CRV has a trialer hitch now... Think of the savings on hotel bills! No sleeping on the ground, it has cabinets, running water and a little gas stove... you're still using the woods as a bathroom, but... isn't this thing awesome!?!?

I believe I've finally induced that desired cringe in my wife's lovely countenance, so I can wrap this up. Just remember, we all have to adhere to the limits of reason, be they in clothing or choice of lodgings.

Indoor Camping

2007-04-10T15:24:00.000-04:00

How dull does my life have to be for me to get excited by a power outage?

When the humidifier and lights started switching on and off at 4:00 a.m., I didn’t think they’d stay off. We hadn’t had a prolonged outage in a while, and the trees near the lines had just gotten a rather, ahem, aggressive trim. But, as I tossed and turned in the profound dark and quiet, I suspected that this was the real thing. I’d already set my phone alarm to get me up at 5:00 to clear the driveway, so I ended up getting an earlier start. I got outside to find nearly a foot of somewhat heavy, wet snow. By the light of my headlamp, I shoveled my way to the garage, opened the door with the emergency cord, and fired up the snow-blower.

Honestly, I can think of worse ways to spend a dark, quiet morning. I was actually enjoying myself out there, warm in my boots and jacket, clearing even paths in the driveway. I have my method down, but it was still over an hour later when I went back into the house, and I hadn’t cleared out the mailbox. I can tell that the state plow trucks have a couple more passes to make before they’ve reached the edge of the road and I’m responsible for the rest.

Susan stayed home, expecting that work would be closed, since this was the worst snow storm we’d had this year, and they’d closed twice for smaller ones. It wasn’t, of course, since most of the non-exempt personnel can “work from home”, forcing the staff assistants to either risk their lives to cover the phones or sacrifice one of their precious few vacation days. I’m glad she did, both for her safety and because I could take her car with the all-wheel-drive to work. I was actually early, having not showered, and spent the day, grubby, calling home to find that the power still wasn’t on, Susan was bored to tears and trapped in the house (as she can’t drive the other car, which is manual), and the indoor temp was steadily dropping, despite the fact that she’d started a fire. We hadn’t filled any water bottles or buckets the night before for flushing the toilet. The bucketfuls of snow that I’d brought in were taking their sweet time to melt and yielding less than enough water to brush your teeth. Despite the fact that we cook with propane, Susan couldn’t even open the fridge or freezer, and was subsisting on Girl Scout Cookies and mixed nuts.

When she finally asked me, at 3:30, to come home early, I got a funny feeling in my chest. My wife was trapped in a cold house with little food and less water, and she was saying she needed me. No, she wasn’t going to die or anything, and I knew that an hour either way wasn’t going to make much difference. But, all the same, my wife, the woman I promised to love and protect, needed me. And I felt that charge of purpose push me. Even now it’s difficult to write about. It was just the urge to be a hero that all young boys put on when they’re feeling powerless and unimportant; the desire to be a big man, to take control of a situation. It’s all, at base, a selfish, narcissistic impulse. But I was still needed. And it still focused my desire to act, to come to the aid of my wife.

I left as soon as we hung up. I stopped at Wal-Mart (God bless that store!) for 10 gallon jugs of water and a case of drinking water. I brought them home, we flushed the toilet, I brought up and filled the wood box for the fireplace, Susan boiled some pasta, and we got our first hot meal of the day. It reminded me of the first hot meal I got on my most recent overnight camping trip. After walking straight uphill half the day in a downpour, I couldn’t believe that it was possible to produce such amazing food so far from home. It was just instant oat meal with dried fruit, but it was the best thing I’d ever eaten. Well, the best after the blueberry donut I got after a college party once, but that’s really not an appropriate story for a family blog…

Anyway, awesome pasta.

Then, Aunt Alice and Uncle Lew, ONCE AGAIN, rescued our sorry butts by providing them with showers. And like the food, they were the best hot showers EVER! Everything looks better after a hot shower. Especially skin and hair. We went home renewed, and, to be honest, it was starting to feel…fun. We were being resourceful. I know how pathetic it sounds to claim resourcefulness when you can still cook with gas and buy water, but, other than the outdoor shower we used for a week while renovating the bathroom, we haven’t had the need to get out of our comfortable, convenient rut.

Well, after about 32 hours the power came back on. We were relieved. So much so that, on a Friday night, we had showers and were in bed by 9pm. Slight inconvenience can really take it out of you.

Let's get caught up...

2007-02-27T10:44:00.000-05:00

I'll dispense with the apologies and get right into it. Not that I remember what's been happening for the last three months, but it should come back to me as I write.

To be blunt, the reason I haven't written in a while is because I've been unemployed. I'm sure everyone reading this already knew about that. I couldn’t write because I should be looking for a job. And what was I going to write about other than not having a job?

Oh, sure, I tried to stay productive at first. I stripped, resurfaced and painted the walls in our dining room (see pics here ), and secured part of the ceiling upstairs with a thousand screws and plaster buttons. I thought “I might as well get some things done around here while I’ve got some downtime.” And then two weeks turned into a month, and it got harder to stay motivated. By the time two months rolled around, I’d begun wondering, again, why I thought a theater degree was such a good idea.

It’s not that I’m just too picky about what kind of job I get, it’s that I need to pay the bills. I’d like to calmly sit down the next person who says “well, the cost of living is so much less there” and quietly throttle them. You can get more house for the money than inside 128 around Boston. That’s it. Everything else is as, or more, expensive. The taxes are, actually, the highest in the country. The only thing drastically lower is the income. I’m sure I’ve said it before, but I took a 25% pay cut and more than doubled my workload with my first job up here. My wife is making less money than she has in 10 years. So paying the bills got a lot harder since we inherited a mortgage in Maine.

Well, anywho, the holidays came and went (see previous post) and we finally got snow. Usually, my feeling is that a proper New England winter means being locked in ice from early December through early March, but it was hard to get mad a the Saturday in January when it nearly hit 70. I can’t remember what we did that day, but Sunday was in the mid-fifties, and we went out to beautiful Popham Beach to fly my kite . We only go to Popham in the off-season, but it’s never warm enough to stand in a stiff wind just to get a piece of nylon to stay in the air. It was fantastic.

I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to get to use the gift certificate to Sunday River ski area that Susan gave me for Christmas. But an early-week snowstorm seemed like a perfect opportunity to avoid the crowds of poor employed masses on the weekend. I was just thinking about inviting Aaron to go when he called me with the same idea! We’ve got a connection… Since Aaron hadn’t skied more than 5 or 6 times before, and since I hadn’t skied at all in a couple of years, we decided that we could get the most of the place by just taking the trails that crossed from one side of the ski area to the other. Seeing as how it covers eight mountains, we were fairly happy with this plan. We shouldn’t have waited until 1pm for lunch, though. I brought some homemade haddock chowder and we bought fries, soaking them in so much malt vinegar that the bottom fell out of the serving cups. After that mess, we could only manage one more circuit before calling it a day. I’m pretty sure I got wind burn. Aw, poor me.

David, Melissa, and Emma came to stay with us three weeks ago. It was a great visit, and involved what is now officially a tradition: going to Popham in February. Not the most hospitable place to spend the day, but you get the place to yourself…nearly. Apparently, other parents also think it’s cute to take their kids to play in the sand and snow. Who’d’ve thunk it? Both times we’ve gone – making it a “tradition” – have been at low tide, so David and I can get out to the large rock off shore. There was more snow and ice this year, but we still scrambled to the top, where I called Susan, down on the beach, to say “Guess where I am?!?!” at the top of my lungs. I think I could see her lips moving as she responded. From there we went to Wiscasett for Treats (goodies and wine store) and Rock, Paper, Scissors (snooty stationary, handbags, toys, etc.). The next morning we went to church together, which was really nice. We don’t know the people in the congregation too well yet, so it was great to have friends with us.

Anyway, I’m unemployed, so enough of the fun! I finally got smart (a.k.a., discouraged enough) and started looking for temp agencies. Unemployment wouldn’t cover our expenses, as it was only 75% of the inadequate amount I was making previously (I won’t even get into my internal conflict over accepting money from a government-agency-run program, though keeping in mind that my former employer was paying for it softened the blow), and our savings were dwindling fast. After several three-hour interview sessions with various agencies, testing my computer and typing abilities, asking me “what kind of work” I was looking for (correct answer: “Millionaire”), and then listening to the deafening silence of the phone in the weeks following, I finally went to an interview where they handed me an assignment right away! I’m currently covering for a woman on maternity leave for 8-12 weeks, and the money, while not ideal, is better than unemployment benefits from Papa Baldacci.

I was starting on a Tuesday, so Monday I drove out to the location to get acquainted with the route and parking. Then I noticed the engine temp in the car. It was spiked out in the red. I tried to drive home after I’d parked and let it cool for a while, but I only got as far as a parking lot by a building under renovation facing open water. Just to sum up: outside temp in the teens with a stiff wind coming off…the OCEAN, undrivable car, and no one to ask where I was, exactly, so I could tell AAA where to find me. Oh, and I would need this car tomorrow to start my new job, as it was in exactly the opposite direction from Susan’s route to work. But that’s okay! The mechanic can fix our 14-year-old car with 200k+ miles and we’ll be back to a normal routine in a couple of days, right?

“Ooooh, doesn’t sound promising!” do you say?

The diagnosis came back: cracked head. Up to $3000 to fix, and no guarantee of it not happening again. So Susan’s first car, “Sean”, which had served us so admirably for so many years, finally gave out. I sadly pulled all our belongings out and am currently looking to sell it for parts. No, I’m not interested in it sitting on our property for the next decade, rotting away, waiting until it’s decrepit enough for me to PAY someone to haul it away. Aside from the stereotype this embodies, I don’t think we could stand to see Sean like that.

This still left us without a second car. After a minor meltdown in the kitchen before work, Susan’s AMAZING Aunt and Uncle came to our rescue and lent us one of theirs until we could find our own. Thank you THANK YOU THANK YOU Aunt Alice and Uncle Lew!!! God gives us challenges to help us better appreciate the help he gives. It scares me, but it’s supposed to.

We took Friday night (formerly “Date Night”, now “Mac-N-Cheez Nite”…could be worse, eh?) to map out our strategy: We’d found five cars that looked good - based on mileage, age, color, transmission, and price - at five dealerships (all in New Hampshire, of course). We’d make a loop, starting with our favorite in Kingston (home of All-The-RV-Dealerships-Ever) when they open at 8am, and end up in Hooksett. Having not taken into account that every four-lane road along the border with Massachusetts on a Saturday would be a parking lot, and that one of them is actually the road AROUND ROCKINGHAM PARK AND MALL, we only got as far as the third car by Noon, and determined that we liked the first one and JUST WANTED TO GO FREAKING HOME.

It’s a nice one, though: a 2001 Honda Civic EX with about 98k miles (“Just broken in”) for $600 more than the second car – piece of crap – and $1400 less than the third - nice, and a year newer, but same miles, some chipped paint, and creepy salesman. It’s also blue, so except for the moon roof, manual transmission, and updated styling, it looks just like Sean. And in keeping with our Irish-named-car theme, we’re calling her Molly. We’re picking her up after work tonight. I’ll have to drive her home, as Susan has only driven manual a couple of times, but we’ll get her up to speed soon enough - Susan, not Molly. Although…

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand…that brings us to right now. If you’ve read to this point, I’ll reward you by ending.

My troubles with NASCAR

2007-01-08T15:16:00.000-05:00

There is a running gag surrounding me which involves NASCAR. Well, not really a running gag so much as a taunt originating from our cousin Matt. Let's have some background, shall we?

A few years ago, I sat waiting for an IMAX film to start at the Omni Theater in Boston (it ended up being about sky-diving thrill-seekers and Leonardo Da Vinci's ideas on flight. You wouldn't think something like that would be boring and pretentious and sucky, right? Well, you'd be wrong.). So after Leonard Nemoy warms up the speakers and gets everyone pumped, we see a trailer for the then-new NASCAR IMAX film. I'm not a real big fan of racing, myself, but I have to admit that when we got a tire's-eye view of 900-horsepower cars screaming past us at 200 miles an hour on a wraparound screen, it was mighty impressive. So much so that I swore I was going to see this movie. Well, we moved away and I missed the showing, but Aaron and Kristin had the DVD, and so I borrowed it, only dimly holding onto that original anticipation and leaving the movie on a shelf until the opportune moment (i.e., when Susan's not home).

I'd totally forgotten about it until Matt, Keri, and Madeline were over for the evening. I walked into the living room to find Matt staring down at the movie case, sputtering in disbelief.

"NAS-? Wait, NASC-?!? Aw, MAN!!" He shook his head and wandered off, muttering something to the effect that he just couldn't BELIEVE I had a NASCAR DVD, and his image of me was totally blown. Matt's from Ohio, so I'm guessing he's a bit closer to this sort of thing than I am, so I'm trying to understand his dismay. Poor Matt...

This was not, however, the last I was to hear of it. Why, just this Christmas, I received several items relating to this theme. Specifically: a NASCAR Pez dispenser; a toy car with matching hood-shaped magnet emblazoned with the number 1, signature of the driver (Martin Truex, Jr.), and insignia of the sponsor, Bass Pro Shops (complete with leaping bass); and, finally, a plush hamster in a racing outfit, holding a steering wheel, "representing" car #16 and driver, Greg Biffle (I sincerely wish I were making some of this up...), and which, when its foot is pressed, sings and dances to that pre-Van Halen, Sammy Hagar classic, "I Can't Drive 55".

Matt looked on with an expression that seemed to say "My buddy Joel, here, just LOOOOOOVES NASCAR!! Don'tcha, Joel?!?!"

Ha ha. Well, I watched the movie, and it was really pretty cool. Especially the behind-the-scenes garage footage. And I loved Talladega Nights. I still can't fathom the cult of personality around these drivers, though. It seems a bit more intense than that which surrounds other atheletes, doesn't it? Well, except for some of the bigger attention-whores. I don't need to name names. Just think Basket/Foot/Baseball and the last player's jersey you saw some 10-year-old wearing.

Perhaps the funniest result of all this was when we got together with Heather, Jeff, Amy and Erin while at my parent's place. I was trying to explain these presents to Heather, I think.

"Yeah, it's a hood magnet that says Pro Bass Shops."

"Wait, a what?"

I repeated myself several times, trying to find the clearest way to explain that the matchbox car came with a car-hood-shaped magnet with the same picture as on the car's hood. It didn't make any sense. Was the car's hood also a magnet? Did the car come with two hoods and one was a magnet? What the heck was I talking about?

Suddenly, Amy, who's just coming into the conversation and can't quite make out the "Pro Bass Shops" part of the description, says something like, "What is this now? Probe Ass Shops?" The expression on her face seemed to indicate quizzical alarm at just what we were up to in Maine these days.

As you may recall, it really said Bass Pro Shops. I'm going to stick with Amy's version. After all, I don't really know enough about NASCAR to be familiar with things like sponsorship. I'm sure Matt can get me up to speed on the details of America's biggest spectator sport. After all, he seems to have no trouble acquiring licensed merchandise. Perhaps it's true that we often give what we wish to receive?

The Play That I Am In

2006-11-09T08:58:00.000-05:00

I've got three more performances, so I thought you all might like to know what it's about!

Wilder's comedy 'Skin of Our Teeth' coming to Schaeffer stage
The major autumn production of the Bates College theater department is Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Skin of Our Teeth, a groundbreaking comedy about the resilience of the human spirit in troubled times.

Performances take place at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Nov. 3, 4, 10 and 11, and at 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 5 and 12, in Schaeffer Theatre, 305 College St. Tickets cost $6 for general admission and $3 for Bates faculty and staff, senior citizens and non-Bates students. For reservations or more information, please call the Schaeffer box office at 207-786-6161 or visit the online box office at: https://transact.bates.edu/boxoffice/.

Martin Andrucki, Dana Professor of Theater, directs the Bates production of this play by the author of Our Town. Premiered in 1942, at the cusp of the Depression and World War II, The Skin of Our Teeth is a reminder that we are always experiencing dark times -- and surviving.

The story of the Antrobus family's struggles to prevail through a series of great disasters, the play "at every moment is happening in two places at once," Andrucki explains. "It's always New Jersey in 1942" -- but it's also, by turns, the onset of the Ice Age, the eve of Noah's flood and the aftermath of some nameless universal war.

"Just as each act is a composite of past and present," Andrucki adds, "each character is several archetypes rolled into one." Mr. Antrobus, for instance, is Adam and Everyman, and the inventor of the wheel, the alphabet and the brewing of beer. Eve to his Adam, Mrs. Antrobus preserves domestic order, protects her children ferociously and finds time along the way to invent the apron and frying in oil.

The Skin of Our Teeth is timely. Between terrorism, the war in Iraq, concerns about Iran and North Korea, environmental issues and other worries, "we live in a doomsaying moment," Andrucki notes. "What better time to produce a play about ice, flood and battle that also offers a constantly renewed vision of hope and survival?"

Even with World War II at America's doorstep, "Wilder was able to summon the hope and courage to write a play about the human capacity to triumph over adversity," the director says. For the students in the production, the piece is valuable not just because it offers many diverse and meaty roles, but because "it reminds them that history has always been frightening and dangerous."

"It's also a genial, funny and entirely delightful American comedy."

The cast includes Alexandra Hughes, a senior from Boston, as Mrs. Antrobus; Samuel Leichter, a junior from Wallingford, Pa., as Mr. Antrobus; Jacob Lewis, a sophomore from Katonah, N.Y., as Henry Antrobus; Meaghan Reynolds, a senior from Rochester, N.H., as Sabina; and Lana Smithner, a first-year student from Waterville, as Gladys Antrobus.

Other Bates faculty involved in the production are B. Christine McDowell, who is designing scenery and costumes, and Michael Reidy, who is designing the lighting. The Bates production will have the energy and atmosphere of what Andrucki calls a "historical carnival." The cast is large and active, there are lots of costume changes, and even the sets themselves will be dynamic.

"The Antrobus house will remind many people of the doll houses of their youth," says Andrucki. "And everything -- walls, floors, ramps -- is designed to move, to collapse and reassemble itself before our eyes. Just like civilization itself."
- Office of Communications and Media Relations
Copywrite ©2007 Bates College. All rights reserved

How Cool is My Sister?

2006-11-02T14:26:00.000-05:00

She is just this frickin' cool...
How do I love this? Let me count the ways:
1. Traditional swallow design - It's old-timey and sailor-like.
2. It references New Hampshire
3. It covers both wrists
4. It's patriotic
5. Okay, there is no 5, but it's still really cool.

She's got a number of others, some of which she's looking to cover up with something else. Susan has one that she greatly regrets, but I'll let her address that either through comment or on her own blog. I have none, mostly because I could never decide what to get nor where to get it. I may have settled on something, but I'll write about that if/when it happens.

And speaking of visually arresting compositions (were we?), Susan has taken some wonderful pictures with her new digital camera. They're at her Flickr page here. Have a look and leave a comment!

Sunkist Diet Orange CRACK!

2006-10-18T14:42:00.000-04:00

I thought it would just be a summer thing. We got some Diet Sunkist on a whim. “MAN! I really want an orange soda!” I would say. Its orangey goodness was so refreshing in the hot weather.

That was more than a year ago.

Pausing to let the throat-pickiness pass, Susan ghasped, looked at the can, then at me, and exclaimed “I swear, they put CRACK IN THIS STUFF!!”

It’s a Diet, orangey monkey on our backs. We tried switching off to root beer or Fresca, but every night at supper it’s the same. “Could you bring me a Sunkist?”

“I’m sorry, sweetie, we’re out. How about a Fresca?”

Enraged silence.

“YOU bought the Fresca because YOU WANTED IT!! I didn’t drink all that Sunkist! And now it’s GONE!!!”

Awkward pause.

“So…water?”

Update

2006-10-18T11:30:00.000-04:00

Howdy!

It seems that I was more plugged into the news cycle than I thought. Last week I pointed out a couple of articles that I noticed regarding man’s impact on the earth, and the various proposed solutions (population control, economic restrictions/penalties, extraterrestrial re-education camps, etc.) from those seemingly more concerned with the state of the environment than that of humanity. Thanks so much to Heather for her informed and level-headed responses (much more so than my own usually are).

Well, as the population in the U.S. reached 300 million this week, some other articles started popping up, such as this one from my favorite columnist Mark Steyn. He’s a “demographics bore” and points out that the west (with the exception of America) is literally committing suicide by refusing to reproduce at a replacement rate. However, these populations are being replaced by cultures not so sympathetic to our own. Cultures that are not so “liberal” toward women and homosexuals, for instance. He’s an incredibly funny read, though the subject matter is awfully dire.

Then Jonah Goldberg of National Review takes up the subject with this piece, extolling the virtues of population growth coupled with economic productivity, such as we have here. Be sure to take note of the characters he points out who subscribed not just to population control, but the control of specific populations.

This quote got me thinking:

You could move the entire world population inside medium-sized homes and they’d all fit inside Texas, yielding a population density similar to that of Paris.

A similar point is made in P.J. O’Rourke’s All the Trouble in the World, where he compares poor countries seen to be overpopulated with comparable areas in the U.S. with much denser population and affluent residents. Some more about that in this fantastic article from Wired Magazine.

I’ve come to believe a number of things since espousing conservatism:

America is unique in history in the freedom it protects and the prosperity it both generates and spreads throughout the world.
This freedom and prosperity are a direct result of the respect for humanity inherent in our culture, the culture of Western Civilization. While it’s track record isn’t flawless, it’s proved far better than any other.
Free, advanced societies, cultures, and economies produce more than can be consumed, at a cheaper cost, and with fewer resources because efficiency is cost-effective. Tyrannies, not overpopulation, cause poverty, waste and starvation.

All said, I’ve found these articles much more encouraging than last week’s reading. Hope you enjoy the links!

Save the Earth, or Just Eradicate Humanity?

2006-10-12T12:53:00.000-04:00

Warning: Environmentalist rant ahead.

(Of course, I don’t really believe it’s a rant. I sometimes come across things in my online meanderings and feel the need to a) call attention to them, and b) write them down somewhere in order to remember them.)

As many of you have come to know, I have a beef with some environmentalists (no pun intended, but welcomed nevertheless). It seems to me that the most vocal are not always as interested in “saving the planet” as they are in punishing humanity. It hardly matters what man does; we are guilty of endless atrocities by the very virtue of our existence. Wherever we go, we leave our “footprint”, and we’re assured that the ground beneath it is forever corrupted. Some see any man-made changes at all to the environment as nothing short of raping and murdering the once-pristine flesh of our temporal mother.

Frequent complaints about the suffering of the teeming masses being the fault of the privileged few and their over-consumption are a distraction and dishonest classism. If we were all equally wealthy, we’d be accused of consuming more resources than we should, and if we were all as equally poor as the proposed solution of Socialism would have us, we’d stand guilty of the inefficient use of resources that affluent societies overcome. The key term in this complaint is “teeming masses”. Love of wild areas and non-human life has degenerated into disdain for humanity. If there were just fewer people, the earth would recover to its original, unchanging, utopian past. One proposed solution is to let these masses starve off until their numbers can be supported by their local environment (and who do you suppose gets to decide how much of their environment should be allotted to that support? Hint: who decides whether to drill for oil in ANWR, the people who live there and would benefit, or people who’ve never been there but know what’s good for us?).

What caught my attention today was an article that imagines what would happen if the earth were suddenly devoid of humanity. It purports to detail the changes that would occur without mankind’s continued input, including the decaying of present structures and discontinued assistance to endangered species. What I found interesting were the author’s standard suppositions of long recovery times, if recovery were assumed at all, placed alongside actual examples of areas that man had vacated and was no longer influencing.

At the extreme, some ecosystems may never return to the way they were before humans interfered, because they have become locked into a new “stable state” that resists returning to the original. In Hawaii, for example, introduced grasses now generate frequent wildfires that would prevent native forests from re-establishing themselves even if given free rein, says David Wilcove, a conservation biologist at Princeton University.

Not have prevented, but would. Contrast this with an actual example:

The area around Chernobyl has revealed just how fast nature can bounce back. “I really expected to see a nuclear desert there,” says Chesser. “I was quite surprised. When you enter into the exclusion zone, it’s a very thriving ecosystem.”

This is just 20 years after a nuclear meltdown and ratiation spewing for 200 miles. It was assumed, from the dire predictions about Chernobyl 20 years ago (tens of thousands of deaths, significantly downgraded since then), that nothing would ever grow there again.

But that’s not the point. A humanity-free world is only right and just, no matter how you get it.

Imagine that all the people on Earth - all 6.5 billion of us and counting - could be spirited away tomorrow, transported to a re-education camp in a far-off galaxy. (Let’s not invoke the mother of all plagues to wipe us out, if only to avoid complications from all the corpses). (italics mine)

Yes, those pesky corpses would be a bother. The author is not only kind enough to spare our lives, he imagines a CAMP for us where we get to be re-educated!! How benevolent.

I once received an article published in Grist Magazine, emailed to me by a friend, that alleged Evangelical Christians were not just unconcerned with the state of the earth, but were actively destroying it in order to force the return of Christ. Of course, the only thing worse than humanity is Christian humanity. There is curiously little curiosity from these same folks about those who have actually stated that this is their intention.

And then today, Grist Magazine rears its ugly, hateful head again. Simple skepticism of climate change (which is primarily driven by man, like the glaciers and the rotation of the sun) should be reason enough to jail dissenters like war criminals. While this view doesn’t really touch on the anti-humanity within environmentalism that I’ve been harping on, it does give you a peek into the mindset of the movement. If imprisonment, re-education camps, and starvation of populations are all options for solving theoretical environmental problems, what isn’t an option?

Don’t go Citgo

2006-09-26T15:35:00.000-04:00

Citgo used to be a partially American corporation. It is now wholly-owned by the government of Venezuela. And, in light of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez’s revolutionary past, his courting of relationships with Syria, Iran, and Fidel Castro, among others, and his performance at the U.N. last week, I’m officially boycotting Citgo gas stations. I would obviously encourage anyone who feels similarly to do the same. I also found out that our home heating oil and propane company, Dead River Company, buys absolutely none of their product from Citgo.

UPDATE! 7-Eleven Dropping Venezuela-Backed Citgo.

Timing!

2006-09-18T12:23:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite jokes is one that I always mess up. It’s supposed to go:

Me: Hey, ask me what the secret of comedy is!

You: What’s the sec-

Me: TIMING!!

It actually goes more like this…

Me: Hey, ask me what the secret of comedy is.

You: What’s the sec-

Me: COMEDY!! Aw, CRAP! I meant…oh, MAN, forget it…No, wait, do it again! Aw, but I already…geez!!

What should be an hilarious one-liner is now only funny because I look, once again, like an idiot.

That anecdote has nothing to do with the following update, except for the fact that I have lousy timing.

I thought I’d planned it all out. I finally hammered down some time in which I could use some quickly-accumulating-too-much-and-if-I-don’t-use-them-I’ll-lose them vacation days. I’d take Fridays in September and then a couple of weeks in November, the latter for actual vacation with Susan around our anniversary (no bugs, no crowds, and no actual activities that are still happening since Maine is, at that point, battening down the hatches in anticipation of arctic conditions), and the former for work around the house that I’m not getting done on the weekends. Home deterioration doesn’t wait for me to forget how painful bathroom renovation was; it continues apace!

I’ve actually gotten quite a bit done in the couple of Fridays I’ve spent at home: basement-cleaning, bathroom-venting, furniture-painting, limb-pruning, and dump-running to name but a few tasks completed. It looked like I’d start to feel like I was getting caught up. And then it happened.

The call of the Thea-tre!!

Bates, along with seemingly half the colleges in the U.S. at the moment, is staging The Skin of our Teeth by Thornton Wilder, of Our Town fame (nod to my Peterborough peeps for our endurance of that precious burg’s never-ending self-love affair surrounding the play, as the geography of the town itself surrounds the purely fictional Grovers Corners). I got an email about auditions, and everyone’s greatest fear was realized – casting open to students, faculty, STAFF, and community. Hey, wait…

I’M STAFF!!!

So I showed up to auditions, feeling like the creepy adult joining in on the kids’ fun, without thinking about, you guessed it, timing. I got a couple small speaking parts, only to realize afterward that rehearsals would be every weekday evening until the beginning of November. Now, even on my Fridays “off”, I have to stop my project, clean up, shower, and drive the 40 minutes to campus, essentially shaving at least two hours off my productive time at home. Performance dates will include Nov. 3-4 and 10-12. Oh, and did I mention? Our anniversary is on the 11^th. And it’s a Saturday this year!!! Susan is not amused.

So, if you’re planning to be up in our neck of the woods on the aforementioned dates, I’ll be appearing as Moses, an Atlantic City Chair-Pusher, and one of the Hours in the Bates College production of Lousy Timing: Why Joel Needs to Update His Doggone Date Book Occasionally! It’s sure to be a head-scratcher. And if you see Susan, wish her a Happy Anniversary, but try to steer her clear of any potentially projectile-like vegetables lying around the lobby before the show.

Random Summer Observation

2006-07-31T08:40:00.000-04:00

So, uh...what's the deal with "Bass Fishing" boats?

Living in New England, or anywhere with a reedy body of water, I assume, you'll see (usually) pickup trucks hauling around what look like small speedboats. They have the integrated steering wheel, the 800 horse outboard engine on the back, a shallow profile, and a blinding metallic-fleck paint job. They look like mini versions of the cigarette boats made popular on Miami Vice. I can't picture these things going less than 60 knots (that's nautical talk for "real fast") across a calm lake or river, the slightest ripple sending them sailing into the air, perhaps towing Fonzie in his motorcycle jacket.

But when you look closer, you'll notice a tiny electric motor bolted to the front end, within reach of a high seat over the bow (in the case pictured, it's stowed on the deck behind). This setup is ideal for creeping into shallow water, choked with weeds, where bass are typically found, and casting from overhead for minimal entanglements.

This odd juxtaposition leads to the obvious question: Why are these speedboats the preferred vessels for bass fishing? These are actually called "Bass Fishing Boats". Oh sure, you get some variations that aren't quite as impressive, but for the most part, these things look as though you're going for the speed record (or at least like you're making up for some, let's say, "shortcomings"...). Who's looking to snag a fish at breakneck speed?

Susan faceciously suggested that maybe bass "are just really fast", but I've got another theory. I think that a bunch of guys got together, many years ago, and decided to put one over on their wives. They thought, "these women have no interest in fishing, and therefore no knowledge of the requirements. If we told them that bass only bite on a hook baited with bratwurst, how would they know any better? So, if we all keep our stories straight, we can call these superboats we're all gunning for 'bass boats' and they're none the wiser!!" And, as long as these men were out of their wives' hair for the morning, and they're thought to be doing something at least minimally productive (catching dinner?) and not just zipping up and down the lake while half in the bag, what's the problem?

Wait a minute. What am I doing? Why would I want to ruin these mens' fun by p0inting out the obviously unneccesary qualities of their boats? I may want one of these someday! Enh. More than likely I'll be pushing for a convertable or something. And if it's cute enough (but not too cute, of course), I'll try to make it Susan's idea...

Credit Where Credit is Due

2006-07-13T12:50:00.000-04:00

Each year Susan and I try to get to the Yarmouth Clam Festival for some…what? Yes, I said Clam Festival…right, Yarmouth Clam Festival. So anyway we…no, I’m not kidding, Yarmouth Clam Festival. That’s right…I…you don’t have to take my word for it, look it up online! Geez…

So anywho, each year we try to get to the YCF, and…yes, that stands for Yarmouth Clam Festival. Look, if you can’t stop being incredulous, I’m going to start talking about records or something, and nobody wants that, do they?!?! Fine then. As I was saying…

We go, or try to go, every year, and it’s a blast. Tons of craft booths, firemen’s muster, carnival rides, a church flea market, so many…Oh, all right, FINE. It’s all about the fair food for me, OKAY!?!? Hand-cut fries, Italian sausage, lemonade, pulled pork, and FRIED CLAMS!!! TONS OF FRIED CLAMS!!! I abstain almost all year so that I can gorge on clams for the weekend without making myself sick. I even wait until this one weekend to get the AMAZING fried clams at the Harraseeket Lunch and Lobster.

Note to Pebble, if she’s reading this: These are not clam strips. These are the full-bellied, donut-batter-dipped, buried-in-the-mud-this-morning, succulent morsels that so upset you on a previous occasion. I’ll admit that, if you’re not ready for them, they can be a challenge. It’s difficult to prepare for this particular combination of flavor and texture, but once you’re hooked, it’s all over. Oddly enough, it might be best to start with steamers. Yes, they’re not protected by fried-doughy goodness, but there’s nothing like a fresh steamed clam, pulled from its shell, and SWIMMNG IN DRAWN BUTTER!! It’s definitely not the horror that is raw oyster on the half-shell (which, to me, looks for all the world like a…well, this is a family program, so let’s just say Dr. Johnny Fever got fired for saying it on the air before landing his gig at WKRP…in Cincinnati, yes.), but it’s more juicy and flavorful than deep-fried clam strips. Ooh. I’m a little hungry now.

(As an aside, I just spelled Cincinnati right on the first try. No small feat.)

Well, last year, as Susan and I perused the tee shirt selection at the official Yarmouth Clam Festival merchandise booth, we got to talking to some of the actual organizers of the event! Well, you know there are people behind an extravaganza like this, but you don’t actually expect to meet them, let alone have them sell you a tee shirt! This was rather exciting, and as we picked out that year’s official shirt for me and a pewter clam pin for Susan, I said something about the festival needing a slogan, or somesuch, and suggested, “It’s Clamtastic!” This is my regular method of slogan concoction; take the subject and add the appropriate suffix, such as –azing, -tastic, -alicious, -o-rama, etc.

They really seemed to think this was funny, which validated my comedic flailings for the moment, and they even said something like “We’ll have to use that!” or something.

Well.

Susan was poring through the local free paper some weeks ago, as is her wont on a weekend afternoon, and from the living room I hear:

“HOLY…CRAP!!! JOEL!!!”

And there it was, in black and white, stashed amongst the events of the Clam Festival weekend schedule. The new event.

When she first pointed it out, I didn’t even remember that I’d said it. But slowly, my lawyers assure me, it all came back. The conversation of just the previous summer. The appreciative laughter and humorous banter. But this couldn’t be right. I’d gotten no phone calls, no email, no notice of any kind. And yet, here it was. My joke. On the official Clam Festival schedule. This could only lead to one thing:

Restitution.

I just want what’s coming to me.

Here’s the deal: I’m a reasonable guy. I wouldn’t like to see anyone lose, oh, say, a thriving festival business over a little something like this. I won’t call on my dawgs at Joe Bornstein. I could be persuaded to believe that maybe these fine people just didn’t have my contact information (though readily available online!), or, for the sake of argument, my name. But, in return for this magnanimity on my part, I have a simple request, which can be summed up in a five-word sentence fragment:

Free. Fair. Food. For. Life.

Yes, this might include some of the more expensive items, such as, let’s say…clams, for instance; lobster, fried dough…And yes, this might mean that the Yarmouth Ski Club, the First Universalist Church, or Amvet’s Post #2 lose some “much needed” fundraising income at their booths. But, to be sure, I’m only one man! How much could I, reasonably, be expected to consume in a single weekend? A single, highly-anticipated, diet-breaking, batter-dipped and deep-fried weekend?

And what, my counsel would like me to ask, would be the alternative?

There’s a bird on me…

2006-06-30T12:23:00.000-04:00

So, my sister and I have a subject of comedic connection that never fails to crack us up. One of us could spout the most non-sequetorial (it’s a word, look it up) of lines, and the other will either join in with the next line, say a more well-known line from the same piece, or just collapse into fits of laughter. What is this connection?

Sesame Street!!

Sure, we watched it as kids, but we rediscovered it in early high-school. All the incidental sketches came flooding back to our memories. Many of these jokes were as much for adults as for kids.

“Better use a wide shot, we don’t want to blow it…the picture, not the nose.”
Kirmit, aside to “cameraman” before Muppet News Flash interview with Pinocchio.

And then there were the short cartoons and live-action films accompanied by the brilliantly clever music and lyrics of Joe Rapposo. Songs like “It’s A Lovely Eleven Morning!”

Woman signing: “I saw/ eleven cows sleeping ‘midst/ the buttercups I said/ “How’s the cottage cheese!”/ and they said,”

Cows: “Aw, dry up!”

Classic.

Of course, as with anything good, somebody decided to “update” the theme song, certain segments and characters, a trend not unnoticed by aging and childhood-obsessed Gen-Xers. And no, I am not impressed with all of these changes or new sketches. Some are great, though.

The Count: “They call me the Count because I love to count things!”

Guy Smiley: “And they call me Guy Smiley because they wouldn’t let me use Bernie Liederkranz!”

Well, all this reminiscing came about recently because of Susan’s tickled glee at the sight of chickens along our commuting route. “CHICKENS!! TEE HEE!!!” she’ll shriek, ever-so-adorably. This reminded me of the Sesame Street song “Which Came First: The Chicken or the Egg”, which accompanied film of chickens laying eggs. The song is hysterically funny, and I was disappointed that, as is usually the case, Susan had no idea what I was talking about. So I told her “I’ll find an MP3 of it online this morning and will send it to you.” Well, true to my word, I did. I found a ton more at http://members.tripod.com/tiny_dancer/index2.html. There are sound files and some videos (though a number of videos have been taken down). Anyone have a favorite they’d like to submit? I love too many to list, but one that I sent Joy recently was “There’s a Bird On Me.”

Enjoy!

Is Global Warming to blame for my burned bacon?!?!

2006-06-22T12:11:00.000-04:00

As you may have guessed, this posting is political (or environmental, if the two can be seen as separate anymore). Obviously, for those not interested, you can just skip this one and wait for my next entry, which should be more personal in nature. I should have it ready any time now...

It’s hot outside. You have no climate science training. It’s hot because of:

a) Global Warming

b) Regional Warming

c) Ozone Depletion

d) Global Cooling

e) Backside of Mini Ice Age

f) Climate Change

g) Al Gore is talking again

h) 500-pound bomb dropped on reclusive neighbor

i) Summer

If you answered anything other than “i”, but especially if you answered “a-f” ABC News would like to hear from you. You see, your daily observations of the weather are now legitimate Global Warming evidence! Don’t worry if you answered “b”, “d” or “e”; those emails will be carefully noted and tossed into the garbage. Isn’t it wonderful how a “legitimate news organization” can lend immediate credibility to any unproven theory that helps them keep their audience from switching to “So You Think You Can Dance”?

I know, I know. Even if there isn’t consensus from scientists, even if some ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland are increasing and deepening as others shrink, even if Kyoto wouldn’t make a lick of difference, even if there is no way of proving that anything we’re doing is having any affect on the global climate: The “Climate Change” awareness movement still serves a purpose. It helps us to change our perceptions about our role in the world. It shows us that humanity is the scourge of the earth, and that it must be stopped.

Just read Ishmael (Matt, you knew this was coming…). Even if we’re a successful species now, our continued progress is like calling a cardboard box falling over a cliff “an airplane in flight”. It’s bound to crash when we can’t feed our exploding numbers anymore. Our sending of food and aid overseas just encourages poor people to keep spreading over a land that can’t support them.

The solution: let them die off until their numbers are small enough to be sustained by the natural resources in their immediate area. Hey, tough but fair, right? What’s the alternative?

Well, gee, I suppose, um, an alternative could be to help them…find ways to feed themselves?? Get education, reform corrupt governments, engage in the economy, generate wealth, improve and refine farming techniques, become a part of free civilization? Any of these sound more appealing than the elite and enlightened holing up and letting the poor, faceless masses starve to death?

Developed countries occupy less space, produce more food than they can eat on less land than they ever have, clean up the air and water, and don't need to cut down forests the way they once did to generate energy. Rather than being the biggest drain, free, capitalist economies have been the greatest boon to their environments.

Global warming hysteria is based largely on speculative computer modeling, selective measurements of local weather changes, and general dismay that the earth won't stay exactly as it was when we remember it most fondly. We're only told the ominous predictions because they serve to deminish humanity more than saying "we don't know all the forces that cause climate change and can't determine what impact our activities are having, good or bad".

I felt that ABC's request required a response.

June 22, 2006
TO: ABC News

RE: Global Warming Affecting Your Life?

To solicit stories of the effects of global warming on daily life from the general public shows a reprehensible disregard for science and common sense. Most people have no scientific knowledge regarding even local climates before their lifetimes, and only conjectural awareness of general weather conditions during their parents’ and grandparents’ lives. This is akin to asking a butterfly, with a year-long lifespan, to speculate on the future of the earth as the first snowflakes fall. Knowing that most Americans derive their perceptions of the global climate from the media (who provide little to no forum for those actual scientists whose actual field of study is the earth’s climate and who have reached conclusions that differ with those of failed presidential candidates with no scientific training and a “documentary” to promote), what is really being asked for are examples from individuals on how well they’ve absorbed climate change hysteria and projected it onto their own lives. This is yet another instance of news organizations creating the story to generate an emotional response rather than reporting on actual facts or events. To keep the public misinformed about science’s lack of knowledge regarding climate change and humanity’s impact (or lack thereof) on it shows, at best, a propensity for ratings groveling through shameless sensationalism. At worst it reveals a complicity with the international movement (though perhaps above no more than “useful idiot” status) of “environmental” organizations whose goal is to decimate the economies of the worlds most stable and prosperous countries, through utterly misguided measures such as the Kyoto Protocol, for the heinous crime of improving the lives of that earthly virus known as humanity.

Snippets...

2006-06-06T21:03:00.000-04:00

In the mode of one of my favorite columnists, Jay Nordlinger (yeah, funny name, but no worse than CoCo Crisp), I just wanted to write a couple of quick updates:

Reunion at - I'm working it this weekend, and it looks to be pretty draining. This is part of the reason for the brief post (Sorry, Paperclips, for the lack of communication lately. I'll respond soon!) However, I'm chiefly in charge of assisting the Class of 1941 with their reunion activities. All 3 of them. That's right, it's their 65th Reunion. I should live so long.
Camping - We went to a lovely spot right on the water over Memorial Day Weekend with Todd and Pebble. Great time, minus looming Poison Ivy, unleashed dogs, drunks, and teetering stairs to the shore. But we cooked over open fire, had beautiful weather, slept great, kayaked, yakked, and drank good beer. Shortly after coming home, Susan was online looking at camping equipment. In her words, "It didn't suck." WOO HOO!!
Boston - Ah, love that dirty water! Got to see my sister (the best!), David in from Picksburgh 'n' 'at, Tara and Alex from Cali (though moving back soon!) and Sean and Katie. We stayed out until 2, nursing beers and not wanting to leave. It was really nice to see everyone. My PEEPS!! I also picked up some BBQ and beer, and a vodka that I haven't seen in years.
We chatted briefly about movies, and Munich came up. I haven't seen it, but I've read enough about it to know what it's about, and to know that I don't want to legitimize it's message with my money. Same for a number of other films. I've been reassured by friends that they are "good films" and "well done", but this isn't enough. Films that purport to deliver a message have a responsibility to be truthful with that message. There are too many films that are clearly hoping we'll just take them at their word. Syriana, Good Night and Good Luck, Crash, The Day After Tomorrow, The Da Vinci Code, A Inconvenient Truth... Whether they're supposed to be fiction or accidentally fit that description is irrelevant. The filmmakers have an idea to convey, and entertaining fiction is the best way to do it, whether it's right or not.

Huh. I thought I had more. Well, if I come up with anything else, I'll be sure to let you know. After the weekend, of course. Got to keep after those octagenarians, bless them!

Repub: Do do do do do do do, Cam-e-ra Phone!

2006-05-23T15:53:00.000-04:00

The final in a series of postings from my mirror blog on Friendster, this one from 2006.05.22. In the future, I may republish some "Classic" That Guy Joel pieces, but strictly for the purpose of using the term "Classic."

Hey, kids! Uncle Joel got a cool gadget. It's a mobile phone with a camera! Boy, he must be the first guy to have one of those! Okay, he isn't. But he thought it might be nice to let you all see some of the pictures he's taken with it.

This was taken at a beautiful little village called Five Islands, way down on a peninsula in Maine. I think the middle and left islands are two of the titular five (yes, I'm uncomfortable with the word titular as well, but what are you gonna do?). You can't see the lovely houses on them, but they're there, and we did quite a bit of drooling and jealous cursing.

This is Todd and Pebble, our great friends who came up to visit and kindly allowed us to drive them all over creation for the day while we pretended to be locals. They may have bought it. We kept saying things like "Oh, THERE'S my boat, silly me, I must have forgotten it out here the last time I was at my ISLAND HOME just beyond it!" There's a lobster pound and seafood shack on the pier behind and to their left, which smelled fantastic. From there, we went on to...

Popham Beach! As one of the few nice sandy beaches in Maine, it's very popular. But not in May in 50 degree weather with a stiff wind. We had it mostly to ourselves, barring the hippies playing guitar and smoking "oregano".
The waves came in from two directions around a large rock outcropping, so they'd crash together, sometimes forming a ridge that threw up spray and raced toward shore.

Here's my sweetie staring out to sea beyond those rocks I mentioned above. During low tide, you can walk out to them, and our friend David and I did just that this winter (yes, it was frickin' freezing). Pebble said "I can't believe you can walk all the way out there!" as the waves crashed onto shore a few feet from where we were standing, to which I replied, "Well, at low tide, you can just...well, walk all the way out there." This has been "Deep Thoughts"...

Here's Susan again, enjoying the brief heaven on earth that is lilacs. Gosh, she's a cutie. I think I'll keep her.

So there's a recent sampling. I'll include more as they're available. Smell the lilacs!

Repub: Pain-/Help-ful

2006-05-23T15:52:00.000-04:00

Another in a series of postings from my mirror blog on Friendster, this one from 2006.05.22.

I had a thought (LOOKOUT!!) about adulthood recently (TOO LATE!). Susan and I were talking about people with certain annoying habits (I’m being non-specific here not for the benefit of those about whom we were talking, but rather not to invite too much reflection by others on my own annoying habits. But I’m getting to one of those…YES, I KNOW there are far more than one, but I have LIMITED SPACE IN WHICH TO WRITE and a FRAGILE EGO. You all know what they are, anyway, and I’m making a different point. I haven’t even left the parentheses yet and I can’t stop thinking about them. My annoying habits, not the parentheses…) WHEW, it was getting muggy in there.

Anywho, we were discussing how children will (or at least used to) be corrected by their parents or peer pressure when they did something that was undesirable, or even unappealing. This is (was) as it should be. Kids need input and boundaries, and, hopefully, when they grow up, they will have retained those corrections. Nobody, as far as I know, or WANT to know, still wears diapers beyond…what is it these days, 2 years? I’ve never changed one so I’m not sure, and no, I will NOT submit myself to that responsibility just so those of you reading this with young children can chuckle at my ineptitude and dry-heaving. You had ‘em, you can change ‘em. I’ll figure it out when we have our own. And no, we will NOT be having them soon. Have you seen our house?!?! We’re lucky it hasn’t been condemned, and we just have two cats! But the sub-point to the point to which I will eventually get is: There are things we don’t do in our society. Make potty in our pants, for one (I’d like to hope this is universal, but you never know…). And we don’t do them because we were told by someone that they were not good to do. To say nothing of cleaning bills.

There seem, however, to be people who either did not receive correction about certain behaviors when they were young, or picked them up beyond a certain point and now it’s too late. Why is it too late? This is the other sub-point: Because adults do not suffer correction well, nor are other adults inclined to take upon themselves the unpleasant task of correction of their peers. Unpleasant because, well…how much do YOU like being corrected? We’re adults, for goodness sake! We make choices based on thoughtful consideration, not just willy-nilly! We’ve earned the right not to be questioned about our behaviors! Or so it goes. I suppose it’s pride. It certainly is in my case. Undermine a person’s pride and there’s no telling what kind of reaction you’ll get, though there’s a good chance it’ll be bad.

Of course, we will take correction from certain people and/or at certain times. Occasionally we’ll develop friendships so deep and mutually enriching that to receive correction from such a friend is proof of their care for our well being and for the impression of ourselves we create in others by our actions. And then there are the deep relationships of family which are often subject to exactly the opposite feeling because of past corrections, which now may be seen as an attempt to emotionally dominate or undermine one’s confidence. In other words, it’s about who tells you what when.

Susan said to me some days ago, “If you were as active about your faith as you are about politics…” I don’t know how or if she finished that sentence, but the point was made. I’ve let politics take the place of religion in my life. I say religion as opposed to faith because my pursuit of political analysis has become a daily ritual the way the practice of my faith should be. It’s not much of a faith if there’s never any application of it. This is a terrible place to be and thing to admit, but if Susan was brave enough to risk the wrath of my injured pride, then I owe her an honest admission. I’ve started praying about it, as I should have done all along, and I trust that God will provide the help and heart that I need. He always has. Please pray for me as well.

Originally my point was going to be that I’ve bored just about everyone with my political rants for a while now, but haven’t gotten much feedback, either positive or negative. I think I can safely assume that, almost any time anyone disagreed with me or just didn’t want to hear it, they politely refrained from comment. And, no news being good news, I continued to prattle on, oblivious to the polite silence. Well, I’d like to apologize to those long-suffering readers and friends who’ve endured it in loving patience for so long.

My name is Joel, and I’m an annoyingly vocal “political enthusiast”.

I’m still unashamedly conservative, but I’m a Christian first, and that should inform my interactions, to which I should be paying enough attention to know when I’ve gone on too long. And, looking at the amount of writing above, it won’t be easy.

Repub: Just a Little More...

2006-05-23T15:50:00.000-04:00

Another in a series of postings from my mirror blog on Friendster, this one from 2006.04.13.

As if anyone who knows me needs to be told, I’m a supporter of the wars in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and on Terror. I believe in my heart that our President declared war (with the bipartisan approval of Congress) for the right reasons and with much painful soul-searching, and that it has been fought as best it could be, with honorable bravery and sacrifice by our soldiers in the field and our leaders at home.

I realize that there are disagreements, made in good faith, on how the war has been fought, and whether the cost, human or otherwise, has been justified. I hope that I'd be the first to support anyone's right to question the actions of our elected officials or even to dissent. But I’m deeply troubled by assertions that we entered these conflicts for nefarious purposes, reasons other than our own security and for the freedom of millions who lived under tyranny until we acted, because those other reasons (Oil, American imperialism, war-profiteering, electoral benefits, etc.) have never held up under even a cursory level of scrutiny. And yet they are repeated, endlessly and ubiquitously. It frustrates me to listen to the paranoid fever-dreams of the mainstream media (claiming impartiality, of course), members of our government, and even former Presidents, and to know that there are people who give their hateful, unfounded rhetoric credence, because if a lie is repeated often enough, it’s assumed to be true. It’s also hard not to conclude that, had this war been executed by our previous President, the reaction might have been entirely different.

Below are a couple of notes from National Review’s “The Week” section that spoke to my current feelings about the war and the state of the middle-east in general.

Abdul Rahman, the Afghan convert to Christianity who was not a poster child for interfaith dialogue in his native country, has been granted asylum in Italy. Rahman was on trial for apostasy, a crime under sharia law. After the United States and other NATO countries made it clear that they did not sacrifice their blood and treasure to underwrite the judicial murder of Christians, the Afghans released Rahman on technicalities. The religious climate in Afghanistan is not quite so dire as this narrative makes it appear, since many Afghan leaders struck poses on Rahman’s case for political gain. Still, the fact that there is political gain in barbarism is a black mark against the Muslim world. Yet things are better in Afghanistan than they were under the Taliban, when Rahman would have been both executed and unknown. May the seeds of freedom not fall on stony ground.
Gripped by principle, four Christian peace activists traveled to Iraq to protest the war, up close and personal. For their trouble, they were abducted last November and held hostage by a gang of terrorist thugs. Tom Fox, the only American among the four, was tortured, handcuffed, and shot execution-style before having his corpse dumped in a trash heap. After that outrage, American soldiers received intelligence as to where the rest of the hostages were being held. They quickly staged a rescue mission, finding the three remaining pacifists in an abandoned building — saved by the very military force they had come to protest. We should celebrate these hostages’ survival, even as we recognize the fatal naiveté of their pacifism. There is no true peace to be made with dictators and terrorists; there is only appeasement or victory. If we cannot muster the courage to fight the monsters of this world, our future promises nothing but death or enslavement — the peace of the dungeon, or of the grave.
Jimmy Carter has charged President Bush with many shortcomings and crimes, but he recently came up with a new one — new to us, at least. Of our efforts in Iraq, he said, “It was an unjust war.” That is a weighty charge: an unjust war. Unjust for whom? For the Americans, who have had their security enhanced by the removal of a regime determined to cause them harm? For the Iraqis, who lived under one of the most oppressive regimes in memory? Carter has always claimed to be a human-rights champion. All right: Saddam specialized in children’s prisons, “rape rooms,” torture chambers. In the cutting out of tongues for dissent, the placing of men in industrial shredders, the chemical-gassing of troublesome communities. You can call the war ill-advised, or unrealistic, or poorly executed; but you should blush to call it unjust. Has the ex-president — who so loves human rights — ever said a word about the positive effects of removing the Taliban and Saddam Hussein? Or does he hate George Bush and the Republican party more than he loves human rights?

Repub: Checking In

2006-05-23T15:41:00.001-04:00

Another in a series of postings from my mirror blog on Friendster, this one from 2006.04.11.

No, not into the Betty Ford Clinic, you sillies! Though to look at our most recent beer purchase (um, about 3 1/2 cases...but it's all stuff you can't really get here, and we were in Boston for the weekend!) you might think so. No, this is just a quick update on the state of affairs in the Richard household.

New windows! We had 22 windows replaced in the house. That’s every one in the insulated part, which excludes the sun porch, pantry, back hall and shed. Who’d have thought there were so many? The agent that we worked with said it was the most complex window order he’d ever done. We figured whoever built the house had a mess of odd windows and just slapped a house together around them. I’ll post some pictures when we scan them.

Job: Going well. I’ll be traveling for work for the second time, going to Providence, R.I. for the National Day of Service, with which Bates involves more than 300 alums across the country. It coincides with “Earth Day,” incidentally. I’ll be doing my part to celebrate by helping to build an inexpensive, man-made structure of what I’m sure are many unrecylcled/unrecyclable, non-green materials, dedicating yet more potential “green space” to housing members of the “population bomb.” Jimmy Carter’s pet charity sounds kinda non-earth groovy when you put it like that, eh? That’s fine, I think the world in general benefited more from the era I’ll be celebrating instead on Industrial Revolution Day!

What I really wanted to do with this update was link to some recent reading about environmental/global-warming scaremongering and the almost total lack of causational data, but then I just did.

Update: Another article today (4/12), explaining why we don't get to hear scientists with differing views.

Repub: What to do?

2006-05-23T15:41:00.000-04:00

Another in a series of postings from my mirror blog on Friendster, this one from 2006.03.31.

I came across some fantastic articles this week.

American Dhimmitude by Mark Kirkorian in the March 30^th edition of National Review Online. I followed the links within the article, and I urge you to do the same. He also links to another article:

Facing Down A Culture Where They Talk Like Crazies, by Mark Steyn in Jewish World Review. And today I found:

When Cynicism Meets Fanaticism: Critiquing the critique of the war in Iraq, by Victor Davis Hanson in the March 31 NRO.

I was going to add some analysis of my own, but finally decided against it. If these three men, of whom Mark Steyn and Victor Davis Hanson may write some of the most lucid and thought-provoking articles I've ever read, haven't made their cases, then there's nothing I can add.

Repub: The Defining Album

2006-05-23T15:40:00.000-04:00

Another in a series of postings from my mirror blog on Friendster, this one from 2006.03.15.

“Oh, boy,” you might be thinking, “here we go on a tour of Joel’s record collection. He’s gonna try to get us into The Sea and Cake again. Swell.” Well, you should all be so lucky! I’ve got some real gems, and, besides, you’ll never know the wonder of the Brazilian-jazz-inspired post-rock noodling of Chicago’s most brilliant and underrated band! And NO, they DON’T SOUND LIKE FREAKIN’ PHISH!!! Instead, I’d like to focus on just one album, recorded much earlier than those of TSaC. Devo’s Freedom of Choice. This is where it all started for me.

My dad received this album from a friend for Christmas in 1980, the year it came out. I’m almost totally positive it was meant as a joke. “They’ve got dog bowls on their heads!” I seem to remember my dad’s friend, Mike, the giver of this hilarious gift, saying. They put it on Mike’s Hi-Fi system (one of those monolithic pieces of furniture with a burlap front concealing a record-player, a backlit, analogue-dial stereo tuner, 8-track deck, speakers, and about a zillion vacuum tubes) for amusing background noise while the adults adjourned to the kitchen to chew the fat and have some beers. As usual, Joy and I were left in the living room to animate the menagerie of stuffed animals that followed us everywhere, getting them into adventures for the sole purpose of rescuing them, proving what great friends/owners/heros we were. (You can imagine, then, my dismay upon finding most of them, years later, in the “free” shack at the local dump. But that’s for another post. And probably a number of therapy sessions.)

As we played, so did the record. “What is this?” I thought. It was awfully strange music for the time. I was used to “Shake Your Booty” and “Let ‘Em In” by Wings, and even they were fairly confusing radio fare for a seven-year-old. But this was downright odd. No horn section, no warbling vocals, no danceable beat (or none that I’D ever thought to dance to). Who’s booty shook to this? What did it mean? What are those hats about?

This album haunted me. I often snuck it out of my dad’s collection, late at night (okay, before bedtime on the weekends, when my regular TV programs weren’t on) and played it, in poor lighting, on one of the portable mini-suitcase turntables that Joy and I received on another Christmas. Unlike those 45’s of children’s songs and 50’s do-wop classics we already had, this album’s edges rotated outside the confines of the player’s case, seemingly stretching the capabilities of the tone arm and platter, let alone the tiny, built-in mono speaker, now hidden beneath the slow, ominously-turning disc. We’d occasionally speed it up to 45 and giggle at the squeaking voices and synthesizers, but this may have been done to dispel the unnerving nature of the music itself.

It kind of scared me. It lacked the fun melodies of the music on the radio, and was full of odd time signatures and minor chords, if chords at all. This music felt foreboding, like Halloween music from the future, the soundtrack to a movie where robots are chasing you through a forest of aluminum Christmas trees, like a Tom Baker era Dr. Who episode writ large. But I kept coming back to it, like the ghost story you can’t get tired of hearing. It was thrilling.

When I discovered classic rock, and started aspiring to hang out with the kind of guys which that music demanded, Freedom of Choice was my secret shame. How could I admit that I liked a band who’s default genre also contained the likes of Culture Club and Kajagoogoo? You know, weirdos? My one attempt to share it with the long-haired, denim-jacketed warriors who now tolerated my toadying presence proved uncomfortable at best. At my humble request, they pulled Iron Maiden out of the “ghetto blaster” (I’m sure the only ghetto that came to the mind of a kid from southern New Hampshire in those days was the set of “Good Times”) to be replaced by a poorly-dubbed tape, emitting the electronic blips and non-bloodcurdling vocals of a bunch of guys from Ohio, fronted by someone with the last name Mothersbaugh. I just barely recovered my tape and scurried back to the front of the bus amid stunned silence, opportunistic smirks, and incredulous grunts, before questions regarding my as-yet non-existent sexuality started. They, mercifully, forgot my indiscretion, and I didn’t volunteer any musical insights again.

Eventually, I embraced my dork-music leanings among a loving and understanding community of friends. However, I’m sure that, had I been told, on the occasion of it’s first hearing, that some 26 years later I would purchase a compact disc of the same album to put on my iPod, prompting me to write a weblog entry about it’s profound effect on me and my future musical taste, I might have said “You’re me, 26 years later? How are the stuffed animals? You still have them, right?”

Republish: The Pimp Fund…please give generously.

2006-05-23T15:34:00.000-04:00

Here's a piece that I wrote a while back. I'm going to start reprinting my Friendster Blog articles here as well, in the hopes that I'll eventually switch over here entirely. Enjoy!

An usher will be available before the showing of our feature to collect any donations you’d like to make. Pimps (or Sex Work Director/Facilitators) are truly one of America’s most misunderstood and victimized classes of citizens. When b****s be talkin’ s**t, but you’ve got to stay paid, you begin to realize that “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp”.

Jon Stewart, I feel, really hit the nail on the head when noting, after the aforementioned song won the Oscar for Best New Song, “I think it just got a little easier in here for a pimp!” And how. Let’s look at some ways in which Hollywood has decided to pimp their ideas to a public which, largely, didn’t go see their “message films” this year:

Brokeback Mountain: Homosexuality and Adultery. Remember, it was “society” which tore their lives apart for refusing to acknowledge their “love”, not they themselves, for lack of self-control or commitment to marriage vows that they, presumably, voluntarily made. For a more edifying and, I daresay, realistic movie about alienation, temptation, and heroism, see The Incredibles.

Crash: Bigotry. Are we to believe that this impossibly contrived set of events teases out an accurate representation of racial hatred in present-day Los Angeles and, by extension, as Hollywood writers know little-to-nothing outside of L.A., of the rest of America? If you have to be this manipulative to make your argument, it probably doesn’t hold water. See In America instead.

Good Night and Good Luck: McCarthyism. It’s been said better here, here, and here. Oh, the dauntless bravery of George Clooney! Tackling liberal ghosts, 50 years dead! Read Treason instead.

Syriana: Big Oil, Big Government, Terrorism: A hopelessly convoluted plot to illustrate how…wait for it…Big Oil and Corrupt America run everything in order to line the pockets of a few. Again, hasn’t this been done a few too many times already? See progress in Iraq and Afghanistan instead (and yes, there is progress, despite what we’re usually being fed).

Munich: Anti-Semitism, Moral Relativism. We’re to believe that the Palestinian murderers who butchered unarmed and helpless Israeli athletes are morally equivalent to the Mossad agents committed to tracking them down and exacting justice. See The Great Raid instead.

So, while Hollywood took the time and effort to congratulate themselves on their superior morality, condescending to Americans about how horrible we are in "the darkness of mens hearts" (from one of the acceptance speeches) they, ahem, forgot to congratulate, or even thank, those responsible for defending their right and ability to condescend.

Department of Redundancy Department

2006-02-24T14:37:00.000-05:00

I'm dusting off this old blog in order to shift out of my Friendster location. Friendster isn't doing much for me these days. It's gotten me in touch with a couple of people with whom I'd lost said touch, and it's always nice to have friends, but only those with Friendster profiles can view the blog. The fact that I've deprived the non-friendster community of my wit and wisdom for this long is simply merciful...I mean criminal!...No, I mean merciful.

Maybe this shift won't work. It's like when I updated the cell phone numbers to reflect our move to the great north woods. In my attempt to aleviate locals of the burdens of a long-distance call, I've taken away the phone number at which I could be reached by all my friends for the past four years. So now no one calls, and the rollover minutes become a running tally of the time I'm not spending talking to friends. But then the cell phone doesn't really work at the house (of course), so it all evens out... I think.

2005-06-27T15:33:00.000-04:00

And we'll put the aviary over here...

Hey, it's That guy Joel? What's with that guy?

2005-06-27T11:00:00.000-04:00

Several minutes after meeting someone, I usually get "Oh, my gosh. You totally remind me of this guy...". I'm never quite sure how to respond. Am I someone's doppleganger? Am I just one of a number of pod-Joel-types roaming the countryside? Well, anyway, I'm that guy Joel who reminds you of that other guy. Totally.