Readers, let me tell you

2005-06-16T12:41:00.000-07:00

for UTB

Kerplow

2005-05-10T18:35:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in the yard, minding my own business, eating more than a single-serving of Safeway Cinnamon Graham Crackers, when, kerplow, a crash, the sound of bouncing metal and maybe broken glass.

A kid driving by our house hit a parked Jeep, knocked his own bumper clear off and scattered auto parts into the street. He's unhurt, but freaked.

I had looked at the Jeep not ten minutes before. It was for sale, and much more expensive than I would have guessed. It was in good shape, a convertible, and it's still in remarkable shape given the number of parts of the kid's SUV that are in the street.

And now I hear a siren.

Best of the Big Island

2005-04-17T18:40:00.000-07:00

With my time on the Big Island now quite definitively limited, I've been thinking about the best establishments it has to offer. Not surprisingly, they're mostly places to eat. They are not in the tour books.

1. Garden Snack Club, Hilo. The Garden Snack Club is ostensibly a Thai restaurant, though "Thai" is an understatement and "restaurant" an overstatement. It is a hole in the wall, maybe 15' by 10', with an electric wok for a kitchen and a tiny window that looks out on a van parking lot. It's not a dive, though -- there are houseplants and Asian chairs and embroidered table cloths, and incongrously, a terrifyingly massive for-sale television that literally takes up most of one wall. The waitstaff consists of one beatifically calm and slow-moving hippie waitress per night, and owner-chef Tina cooks every dish, two at a time, on her tiny counter. It's not the place to go if you're in a hurry. But why hurry? The food is outrageously good. Favorites include a Thai tofu tortilla-pizza covered in about three pounds of some sort of wildly-addictive cheese, peanut-sauce drenched rice noodles (declared "too intense" by Aidan), beautiful fresh veggie salads, and mango sticky rice. Two entrees will run you thirteen bucks and will be more than two of you can eat. The patrons are happy laidback hippie types. And it's BYOB. And it has homemade ice cream. Magnifique.

2. Kawamoto Store, Hilo. Kawamoto closes each day when it runs out of food, sometime right around noon. They've got pretty ridiculous sushi, a rice and seaweed roll covering tuna drenched in sugar, plus 15 or so other variations of fried sugary meat. It's the peak of local (note: not the same as Hawaiian) cuisine. You can order bentos (lunch in a box), costing from $2.50 to $6.00. You just go up and say "I'd like a $4.50 bento, please," and they put in the right amount of food. I like pretending I know exactly what's in a $3 bento and ordering it with supreme confidence. I was quite disappointed to see, last time I was there, the explanations for each one printed up on a menu. It shot a hole in my theory that the incredibly numerous and busy countergirls use a hive mind to figure out how many rice balls to dish out.

3. Bamboo Garden, Hilo. The Bamboo Garden is a bar that's always crowded with locals, though you can't tell, since they're hidden in high-backed brown booths. A after you fruitlessly look for a place to seat yourslf, a massive but genial Hawaiian guy finds you a spot. There's no menu, no beers on tap, and you shouldn't try to order any kind of complicated mixed drink. But the patrons are there to sing karaoke in Japanese and make crazy side-bets when Hawaii football games are on, the Coors Lite is cheap and cold, and best of all they deliver you a staggering plate of pupus with nearly any purchase. If you like free, fried, and unidentifiable meat smothered in thick gravy, this is the place for you.

4. Na'alehu Fruit Stand, Na'alehu. Na'alehu is in the southern-most settlement in the United States, and it's really remote and empty and (I suspect) drug-ridden. We always stop at the Fruit Stand on the way to the nearby Green Sand Beach. It's not really a stand, though it is a big, dusty, wood-panelled room, sort of old-west style. The cakes, cookies, and sandwiches are great, and they now pipe in East Coast NPR on satellite radio. My favorite thing, though, is how empty it is. They have a little bit of decent but quickly-aging fruit, some tofu, maybe three loaves of bread and a bag of chips, their baked goods, and a couple of sodas. That's about it. And I don't think it's ever fully stocked. Probably the least on-hand inventory of any store I've ever been to.

5. Hilo Surplus Store, Hilo. The Surplus store, on the other hand, has an absurd amount of stock on hand. Camouflage, weapons, camping gear, packs, spiked boots, scale-model replica bazookas, bandannas. Obviously, stuff is spilling out into the aisles and you need to sort of forge your own path. A not-so-fine layer of dust coating everything adds to the ambience. This place should be run by a wild-eyed, bushy-bearded white man, but no, the proprietress is a nice little Asian lady.

6. Sauces Propane, Honoka'a. I don't even know what this place is actually called, but they have a big sign out front that says SAUCES PROPANE. They sell sauces, propane, used kayaks, shockingly high-end kitchen appliances, lawnmowers, and yummy ahi jerky. Their dog is very old, is missing a leg, and growls at strangers. It's also perched on an extremely steep hill. Awesome.

Last Night, Or So I'm Told

2005-04-12T11:07:00.000-07:00

We saw the movie Sin City last night. It was absurdly violent, seemingly neverending, and visually stunning. Lots of eye candy for me (Jessica Alba and a very naked Carla Gugino) and for Eisa (Bruce Willis? She likes Bruce Willis?). All in all, an uncommonly memorable film experience. Or so I'm told.

According to Eisa, she got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom (this part of her story, anyway, is completely plausible). Upon her return, I said, "You wouldn't make it."

"What?" she asked, knowing I was still asleep. "Where wouldn't I make it?"

"Sin City," I said. "Sin City."

Eisa laughed, both at the time and this morning when she got to tell me about it. I have no recollection of either the dream or the conversation, but I wish I did. I'm sure I was having some sort of violent and sexy film-noir adventure, and I'm also pretty sure I won't have one of those today.

Testing the New Picture Upload Utility

2005-03-11T21:35:00.000-08:00

It Does Snow in Hawaii

That seems to work.

We Need A New Word

2005-03-11T21:01:00.000-08:00

We need a new word that means "his or her". I'm tired about talking about a person in the abstract and struggling to find a possessive pronoun. To wit:

"A nurse can't go to the hospital canteen without someone commenting on [insert new word here] outfit."

See my problem? Some people like to solve this condundrum by just picking a gender. In these politically correct times, it seems like writers choose the gender that breaks the stereotype about their subject. In the answer above, they'd put "him" in; when writing about doctors or programmers or people in general, lots of writers stick "her" in. Every time I read that, I stop thinking about the writer's point in to ponder how [insert new word here] gender-labelling decision was made. "One's" works in some contexts, but I shun "one's" and anyone who uses it. It reeks of awkward and inappropriate formality. I'll use "their" if I'm not being careful, but I don't think you can just introduce a plural willy-nilly. "His or her," though a mouthful, actually might work the best.

But I'm not going to settle for whatever happens to work the best right now. Language evolves constantly. If "doh" is in the OED thanks to Homer Simpson, can't I just have this little pronoun? I say yes, and I'm going to do the English language a service by inventing it right here. Acronyms seem to be turning into words all the time (perhaps I'll SCUBA tomorrow)...let's see...Singular Possessive, Gender Neutral. SPONG, or spong. Jackpot!

I hereby declare that spong is a new gender-neutral possessive pronoun, accepted for use in all English communication, written or otherwise.

Me and the Children

2005-03-06T13:28:00.000-08:00

It's been a weekend for new infant and toddler friends.

Episode 1: Our front yard, Friday afternoon. Frank, Srita, and her daughter Kailani come over after work on Friday for a picnic and a swim. Kailani starts out too afraid to give me a hug or even a high-five, but the ice starts to break when I get her a guava juice from the fridge. After eating and badmintoning, we go down to the water. The adults start talking to a prospective neighbor, Kailani comes over to me. I learn she's not four, she's four-and-a-half. She picks up a big pile of dried seed pods and brings them over to where we're sitting on the rocks. She shows me that if you rub the seeds on the lava rock, they'll start to fray. I profess to be interested, and rub some seeds on the rocks myself. This is very fun, and soon we're planting seeds right in the lava rock. Then Kailani tells me that she's my kitty and starts crawling all over the lava rock. She hides and finds seeds and tells me to call for her. I'm flattered by the attention, but I soon claim a need to go the bathroom and I return to the yard. In due course, everyone else comes back up from the water, and Kailani beelines right for where I'm sitting playing guitar. She picks some grass for me and informs me that we're going to play "Farmer". She picks grass, I pretend to eat it, she picks more, we go to sleep, we get up the next day, become horses, gallop around, and pick some more grass. The game ends when Srita says it's time to leave, and not even promises of more Farmer and another picnic will raise Kailani's spirits.

Episode 2: Episode 2 is the best. We'll do it last.

Episode 3: Carvalho Park, Hilo, Saturday afternoon. Nanea Wong-Yuen's first birthday luau. We arrive late, and with gifts more appropriate for a five-year-old than a one-year-old. There are approximately 200 people at this party, thrown by Nanea's parents, Eisa's family friends. We're immediately welcomed by the hosts, then we dive into the buffet. Kalua pork, sushi, chicken, desserts, mmmmm. After eating and contracting someone to come trim our coconut trees, we're out of things to do. We sit down near a baby stroller that's being pushed around by a small child. The child gives us a flower then runs off, leaving us with a pudgy little Japanese baby. I proceed to make funny faces at the baby for the next 30 minutes, inducing toothless smiles and overall-soaking drool. The baby is adorable, all unblinking stare and top pony-tail. She especially likes it when I turn my head so far to the side that it's almost upside down. Her dad comes by and reclaims her, maybe a little worried for the baby's safety. On the way out of the party, I play three-on-three basketball in barefeet, much to the chagrin of my soles.

Episode 2, revisted: Bayfront Park, Hilo, Saturday midday, Eisa's cousin Koa Colton's u-14 soccer game. After a scorching first half of watching from the bleachers in the sun, we move to a more removed but shady spot for the second half. I smile at a three-year-old girl next to us when I sit down. She smiles back and then tries to hide under her blanket, even though it's lying flat on the ground. I turn my attention to the game. A few minutes later, Eisa elbows me and tells me to look to my right. The little girl has been standing there for a few minutes, trying to get my attention. She's holding a bouquet of clover and grass out to me, freshly ripped from the ground. She gives it to me, and then runs away. I don't know what to do, so I take it and smile and ask her name and hold onto it after she runs away.

It might be the first time I've ever received flowers from a girl.

High Tide, Part II

2004-12-15T12:57:00.000-08:00

I'm inside now, but I can feel the ground shake when the waves crash on the rocks. Yikes. And it's not even that big here.

High Tide

2004-12-15T09:56:00.000-08:00

The tide is wending its way up the path to our front yard. It's as high as I've ever seen it, something that's probably related to the 40' swells on the North Shore of Oahu today. I went down for a dip this morning and it was another world. The tide obscured the shore I'm familiar with and the water was opaque with dirt and grass and other drifters displaced by the water's extreme incursion. My slippers even got dislodged from their post high up on a rock, though I found them both. And a school of little fish jumped out of the water, twice, right in front of me.

My Protestant-American Experience

2004-12-10T07:15:00.000-08:00

Last week in Hilo I did something heretofore unimaginable. Eisa and I went, on a Saturday morning, with all our Coke-guzzling American counterparts, to that veritable retail cornucopia: Wal-Mart. We did not go in search of white bread or Twizzlers or Bounty, no. We went to get a Christmas Tree.

Now, my family is Jewish, and though I'm rather hostile towards religion, if I'm going to make any symbolic tips of the hat to organized religion (or even unorganized spirituality), they're going to be things like menorahs and matzoh (I like the ones with onion and sea salt). But there I was in everyone's favorite Christmas-spirit megastore, comparing tree stands, looking for lights, and trying to choose between Norfolk Pine and Douglas Fir.

We got one, and though my search for appropriate Jew-naments went unfulfilled, I like the piney smell in our house and I like the lights. Eisa said I couldn't call it a Jesus Tree (though why should I have to use his last name to talk about the tree), but I was fine with that.

But then, news that perhaps this was not the prototypical Protestant-American experience. Hilo ran out of Christmas trees, almost three weeks before the big day, and they weren't going to get any more. No express boats from the Pacific Northwest were en route. Turns out our little spindly green friend was one of the last of his kind, and a shortage is neither typically Wal-Mart nor typically American.

Editing

2004-12-01T15:52:00.000-08:00

You must edit. You must. But if the first draft is crap, the whole thing will be crap, no way 'round it.

Celebrity Sightings

2004-11-29T17:59:00.000-08:00

A week in LA, and two celebrities seen. The minor one: Stewart Copeland, the drummer for the Police and collaborator with Trey Anastasio in Oysterhead, seen twice, at a horse-y dance acrobatics show in Santa Monica and then riding a bike with his family on the pier the next day. The major one: Jude Law, at a restaurant in Beverly Hills, seen with a guy with huge dreads and two other unassuming-looking dudes. I've got pictures of him on my phone, though I won't post them here unless my deal with US Weekly falls through.

Six-Hour Sunset

2004-11-29T12:51:00.000-08:00

Travel west by plane in the late afternoon, especially over water, and you'll be gifted with a spectacular sight. The sun setting, for hours. Gradually it slips away into night, and all your rolling back the clock can't stop it. But you had six hours of sunset, and you turned the fleeting into the lasting.

A Sampling of My Yahoo Buddies' IM Status Messages from the Day After

2004-11-03T11:42:00.000-08:00

"America the Ignorant"
"Red Sox pass curse to America"
"At least my Halliburton stock is up"
"All it means is we get the police state a little sooner"
"At lunch, call my cell"
"America: coming soon to a country near you"
"Red is the new asshat"
"Red is the new I'm moving to France" (mine)
"Moving to Canada"
"Moving to Canada"
"Moving to Canada"
"Moving to Canada"
"Moving to Canada"
"Moving to New Zealand"
"Moving to Canada"
"Fuck" (also mine)
"Double Fuck"

and my personal favorite,

"Quintuple re-disillusioned"

The Morning After

2004-11-03T11:21:00.000-08:00

Assuming

2004-11-02T13:31:00.000-08:00

I've instant messaged with a few friends today that I haven't talked to in a while, and it's remarkable that without ever having discussed politics before, we each assume that the other person is supporting Kerry, and we're right. In some ways it makes me feel warm, both because it's an easy solidarity and because it gladdens me to think that everyone I know agrees with me about what's right and what's wrong here. That doesn't happen much -- I'm really quite the contrarian. On the other hand, it makes me uneasy to think of the other 50% of the country, the unwashed masses covering the red states and even (by land area) most of the blue states. What are they talking about today? Are they worried that if their guy loses we'll lose our resolve in Iraq, whatever that means, and we won't be winning there anymore? Are they worried that they'll be forced to be gay? What do they like about this guy?

Today Is the Day

2004-11-02T09:23:00.000-08:00

Let's win this motherfucking election. It's time for them to go. Well past time.

Amazoniscient

2004-10-28T21:52:00.000-07:00

Amazon.com is starting to creep me out. Its recommendations for me are too good. Am I so predictable? Am I so easily categorizable that they can guess both my most recent and my likely next media purchases? I don't think so. I think they're in my head and I want them out.

I log on to Amazon to check something or other and they show a set of recommendations, just for me, as they do for you, I'm sure. Except mine are eerily prescient. Today, for example, it recommended a CD I bought a few months ago, Transatlanticism by Death Cab For Cutie. It claimed it did so because I bought The Office DVD for Eisa last year, but that seems a little farfetched, doesn't it? I told Amazon I already owned that one, forcing it to regenerate my custom front-page store. It popped up another CD I bought this year. I told it I had that one, and it proceeded to list three more added to my collection in the past six months. I read about a band called Arcade Fire the other day; Amazon claims it's recommending it to me because I bought Baseball Prospectus 2004. Sure, sure it is.

I can't be that transparent. Is it so likely that just because I like listening to the Beta Band I like reading John Stewart and watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? Amazon is evidence that maybe it is, but I prefer to think that they're spying on me, maybe paying Eisa for information.

Because there it was, plain as day. My cell phone's been broken for a couple of days, and I finally decided to replace it. I went on the internet to look at deals, chanced upon Amazon, and what should they have right on top but a cell phone. Just for me, it said. They know too much.

Back to the Mainland

2004-10-01T12:14:00.000-07:00

Back to the mainland today, for a whirlwind tour of four cities in ten days, culminating with a wedding on Martha's Vineyard. Do you know how hard it is to get from the Vineyard to Hilo in 24 hours? No matter, we're going to try next week.

I wonder if I'll be cold if it drops into the fifties? I wonder if the big city will intimidate me? I wonder if my stomach will be able to jump back into the restaurant every day mode of eating? I wonder if I'll have any opportunity to practice diving? These questions, and more, will be answered in due course.

My Canine Moment

2004-09-29T23:30:00.000-07:00

I acted like a dog today. Our car has no air conditioning and features convenient protective guards on the door frames that are designed to keep the rain out if you're driving with the windows down. Well, they also keep the air out all the time. So it was hot. So I stuck my head out the passenger's side window, far enough out to get a breeze. And my visor blew off, obviously. We pulled over and I jogged back to get it. I put it on and returned to the car, determined to act more human.

At least I wasn't panting or wagging my tail.

Achievement

2004-09-24T22:11:00.000-07:00

Readers, I did something today that you learned how to do when you were six, but that I'd never done before. I'd always been embarrassed that I couldn't do it and scared that I would hurt myself trying. Yes, I dove. Into water. Without belly-flopping. And it was easy and it felt good.

Unreal

2004-09-23T11:02:00.000-07:00

I came outside to do some work this morning. I plopped down at our picnic table, under a canopy tent, and a few minutes later it started to rain. Well, now it is POURING. And I'm sitting outside with my laptop, dry for now. POURING. Wireless internet is cool.

Answering My Own Question

2004-09-22T16:25:00.000-07:00

This article by head conservative Grover Norquist answers my question about why so many people support Bush, and Christ is it scary.

News Flash: Rock Stars Like Kerry

2004-09-22T16:00:00.000-07:00

Rolling Stone asked a bunch of rock stars what they thought about the election, and no surprise, all of them are supporting Kerry. Some of them had interesting/funny things to say, though.

Jeff Tweedy, Wilco: "When people ask why this election is so close, I can't explain it. It's like trying to figure out how Billy Ray Cyrus sold 10 million records." I'm with you, Jeff. Both are inexplicable. How can there be FIFTY MILLION people who like Bush? It blows my mind. I know there are supposed to be two Americas and all that, but how can people make decisions so differently?

John (formerly Cougar) Mellencamp: "The polarization caused by this election is not good for anyone. I played "Pink Houses" at an Indianapolis Colts game recently, and people booed. This is in Indiana! I've never been booed there in my life." If Johnny Cougar is getting heckled in Indiana, civil war can't be far behind. It's like Sen. Douglas getting pelted with rotten apples in Virginia in 1859. Or something.

Bob Weir, Grateful Dead: "Ralph Nader is the most arrogant and narcissistic guy I've ever met. I had a meeting with him in the early Nineties. I was jazzed going into the meeting, and I was disgusted leaving. I don't think I've ever met a bigger asshole. If he hadn't run in the last election, we wouldn't be in Iraq and thousands of people wouldn't have died needlessly. And still he's well pleased to go in and be the spoiler again!" Nader is a puzzle. He's not getting the press this time, but he's still out there, and he still could leach off 2% of the vote in a bunch of states. I tend to agree with most things I've heard him say in the past couple of years, and I don't think what he says is that far out into outer space, but I think all rational people need to understand that it's time to unite behind a single non-evil candidate.

The Uneasy Truce

2004-09-20T12:15:00.000-07:00

For nearly a month, we had peace. I didn't menace them and they didn't menace me. When I saw one under the hammock outside, it didn't touch me, and I let it go to the grass in peace. When there was one in the car on Friday night, it scuttled under the seat and out of sight, and we let it go. We even got in the car and took it into town. But this is too much; a bridge that cannot be uncrossed, a wound that cannot be uncut, a stone that cannot be unthrown. They've come into the house. Three of them now. They're large, they're fast, and they're Raid-resistant. How large, you ask? About the size of the infrared mouse your right hand is resting on. How fast? Quick-twitch reflexes that would put a cat to shame. How Raid-resistant? Spray them and watch them wave their antennae at you in mocking glee.

Yes, the cockroaches have come inside. It's time to put away my fear, swallow my girlish squeals of horror that seem to erupt every time I see one. The uneasy truce is over.

Recreational Limitiations

2004-09-16T16:43:00.000-07:00

Readers, we have quite the array of recreational games here at the Gray-Colton estate, Lalakea, Hilo, nearly all inherited from the previous tenants (Eisa's family). We have outdoor pool and ping-pong, the latter a homemade and hand-painted but surprisingly true-bouncing affair. We have bocce ball and golf clubs. We have frisbees and basketballs and tennis rackets. We're in the market for a badminton set. We have the ocean for swimming and meeting local characters. We have a cabinet full of fishing reels, snorkels, and boogie boards, though I haven't used any of those yet (and frankly, they intimidate me). It's a fantastic chance to play in the sun and get a little exercise.

[BREAKING NEWS -- biting red and crawling on my laptop screen. I can't remove it without mashing it into the screen or risking an irritating itch. More later.]

So anyway, I'm doing a fair amount of playing silly games outside, and I've noticed a disturbing trend. Now, I was never much of an athlete. In basketball, I was famous for being told by the coach "Jeff, you'd best not dribble" after the team had elected me to lead them out of the lockerroom, with a ball, for warmups. My other basketball innovation was the shoulder-shot, a shot where I tried to take the ball back behind my shoulder before shooting it, even though at 76 3/4 inches I should be able to shoot over most anyone. I have further graceful exploits that I won't get into here (I made my nose crooked by hitting it with a tennis racket; I can't squat down without falling over, etc.), but I like playing sports, and with a little persistence I can generally hold my own and have a lot of fun.

But now something terribly frustrating is happening. I start out playing the game, whatever game it is, decently well, at least by my standards. Let's make this specific and talk about golf, because golf is a great example if you're going to talk about something annoying -- I've played twice and been to the driving range once since I've been in Hawaii. So in golf, "decently well" for me means hitting the ball straight and in the air two or three consecutive times. Both times I played, I started out doing that. I hit the ball straight, if not far, and even chipped rather effectively, if not terribly accurately. Putting felt natural, and I was having fun. But then, around the fourth hole, both rounds, things went to hell. Shanks, whiffs, tops, hitting it off the toe, the heel, chipping over the green, losing balls, you name it. For the last fourteen holes -- and that's a long time -- I couldn't do anything. I went from passable novice to never touched a golf club before, and I did it in a couple of holes, and when I went bad I stayed bad. This happened both times I played golf, and at the range.

But, lo! It wasn't only golf. It happened at ping-pong, where I rallying around I felt natural and smooth, and even beat Aidan in the first game. Then I started losing to some ladies who shall remain nameless, but really aren't very good table-tennis playerettes. Then I played Aidan again, and got skunked. And it didn't feel natural anymore -- I couldn't hit the table, couldn't serve. The same thing even happened to me, can you believe it, in bocce. By the third game the other day, I couldn't get within a menehune-length of the damn target ball.

So forgive the boring litany of evidence of my recent athletic struggles (I even got a little bored writing it), but there is an interesting phenomenon at work here that I want to understand. How is it that after warm-up and practice, and before I can get tired (ping-pong? bocce ball? they do not make you tired), my small amount of skill can disintegrate so quickly. Other people warm up, I freeze up. Other people learn to repeat their successful moves, I drive them out of my brain with great gusto. I want to understand this; it's plaguing my stress-free existence. Okay, it's not really plaguing it at all, but I'm pretty curious.

[BREAKING NEWS UPDATE -- biting red ant squished, no damage to squishing finger or monitor. Heavy damage sustained by ant.]

If We Talk

2004-09-16T16:16:00.000-07:00

If we talk while I'm here in Hawaii, and I hope we do, please don't expect any news. Reflection, I got plenty of that. News, not so much. And I'm pretty happy with that state of affairs.

Lost -- Addendum

2004-09-14T14:36:00.000-07:00

The tiny plot of land from my last post was even tinier than I thought, given that we found a well-travelled path that goes right through it, effectively from my house to the beach I was trying to reach.

Better news is that swimming at that beach yesterday we came within three feet of two honu, or Hawaiian Sea Turtles (thanks to Stacie H. for the diagram). They're very big.

Lost

2004-09-07T20:33:00.000-07:00

Labor Day was a lazy day for us in Hilo, so Eisa, Aidan, June and I decided to take an evening stroll. June knew about a small waterfront park less than a half mile down the road. It was not obviously marked, and none of us had been there before, but it was a lovely jaunt. We started by stealing some lilikoi from the neighbor's driveway. Aidan taught me how to crack the skin open, and we sucked down the tart little seeds as we walked. The park was small, but had a nice easy path through the jungle out to the water. We climbed around on the rocky shore, and saw a sea turtle, an eel, and some sea slugs. We could also see, just a couple hundred yards away, Four Mile Beach, its parking lot chock full of holiday BBQers. We decided to scramble down to the beach, and then take the short walk back home along the road.

Sadly, we ran out of shore pretty quickly. Surprisingly dense jungle pressed right up to the water. We waded across some short and shallow channels, thinking that each one would let us stroll unmolested to the beach. Aidan was wearing a swimsuit and flip-flops, but the rest of us were wearing normal stay-dry clothes, and I was smart enough to bring my wallet. I have legendarily bad balance, so I went last, at one point tossing my shoes and my wallet across to dry June, so that they didn't have to make their way across the slippery channel with me. We crossed a few times, each fording a little deeper and longer than the last. In one little channel, an enormous tortoise swam by right after I'd crossed. Eventually, 100 yards from safety, we ran out of real estate. Aidan easily swam across to the beach, and ate passion fruit while he watched us struggle to figure out what to do. June tried to wade across on slippery rocks, and ended up soaked up to the neck. Eisa thought she saw a better wading lane, but she ended up just as wet, in white clothes to boot. I didn't want to swim, and I was tired of awkwardly stepping across slippery rocks, so I backtracked a couple of steps and convinced myself I saw a rough path through the jungle. The "path" ended in 10 feet, but once a scrambled over a dense patch, I ran into a dry stream bed. I was following it when I heard Eisa call out from the water. "I'm fine," I called back. "Making good progress".

The stream bed didn't last long, and soon I was slogging through dense jungle. I didn't think I could be far from either the road or the beach park, so I pressed on. It only, as is obvious to me only now, got thicker and darker. There were thick vines so tough that I had no chance of breaking through them, forcing me to climb over or slither under. There were plants with leaves as big as my torso, completely obscuring the roots or sharp lava rock or muddy mess below. There were hills. There were dense bamboo patches and dense ginger patches. And it was getting dark.

I should point I was in a pretty tiny jungle, in a city, an eighth of a mile from a beach with hundreds of people on it and a half-mile from our house. I had one brief moment of panic -- what if I get lost? -- but I swallowed that with a recitation of how safe I actually was. I kept my sense of direction pretty well, and knew I was drifiting away from Four Mile. I sucked it up, and veered back right through the thickest patch yet. Under a block of vines. Over a fallen tree, but under a dense leaf canopy. And then...light. And after that...Aidan's voice, presumably from outside the jungle. And I was out, twenty minutes after I plunged in. Sweaty, filthy, exhilarated, and out.

We met up with Eisa and June just down the road, where they had gone on a suspicion about where I might emerge into the clear. Eisa said she had been calling my name for ten minutes, but I only heard her once -- scary how fierce the jungle is. I joked that the headline in the paper the next day could be "Illinois Man Declared Lost In Half-Acre Jungle", and I was quite pleased that I hadn't required rescue. Jungle, you'll have to wait for another time to claim me. Plus, next time I go for a new walk along the ocean, I'm going to leave my options open and leave my wallet behind.

I Get It

2004-09-02T23:39:00.000-07:00

I was hungry after dinner, so I had a Clif Bar, an energy bar. The word "organic" is in the ingredients nine times.

Cockroaches

2004-09-01T14:32:00.000-07:00

I am really quite afraid of bugs. Eisa had a playmate when she got into the shower last night -- a large roach that flew at her when she pulled the shower curtain back. Large roaches are bad enough, but large flying roaches are unholy, proof that the armageddon is near and that good has lost its battle with evil.

I thought of this because I'm sitting outside working on something and I large bug lands on the picnic table right next to my laptop. Am I scared? No, because it's a nice bright green bug. I actually tried to get a little closer to it to see if it was camouflaging itself as a leaf, but I scared it away. This begs two (2) questions.

1. Why am I afraid of roaches? They're not going to hurt me anymore than this cute green guy could?

2. Why do roaches have to be black and shiny and slimy-looking and so, so revolting?

We have geckos in the house, too. They really chirp loudly.

Front Yard

2004-08-31T14:11:00.000-07:00

I can sit in my front yard (shirt on this time), and I'm fifty yards fromt he ocean. The tide is out right now, so the spring-fed lagoon we swim in, protected by a grass-covered rock outcropping, is cold, less brackish than usual, and low. My gauge of the tide is a rock pile most of the way out to our little natural breakwater. At the highest tides, the tip of the pile is just covered by water. Right now, I can see a good two or three feet of the pile. Out beyond the rock pile is an arm of land, all sharp lava rock, that connects to the shore a few houses to my right. Out at the end of the spit today are a half-dozen fishermen, casting into the warm open water. If I stare long enough I might even see fish jumping, though maybe that's just the blue water sparkling.

Tuesday

2004-08-31T12:19:00.000-07:00

I got sunburned yesterday. I've got pretty sweet pink coverage on my shoulders, my upper arms, my chest, but strangely only a stripe down the middle of my belly. The left and right sides of my belly were curiously shaded by my pectoral muscles.

Hilo Weather

2004-08-31T12:15:00.000-07:00

For Monday, August 30th

2004 -- High 86, Low 69
Averages -- High 84, Low 69
Records -- High 88, Low 65

um

I'm Moving To Hawaii Tomorrow

2004-08-18T08:49:00.000-07:00

I'm moving to Hawaii tomorrow. I think I'll need to cultivate a look for while I'm there. I'm going to need to be quite thin, and rather languid, though I should be fit enough that with one look you think "this island dude may be languid now but he could spring into action at any time." To accomplish this I'm going to need to maintain a pretty consistent level of stubble, just enough to cover my square and important chin. My hair will be short, well-groomed but unkempt. I'm not going to wear anything but white button-down shirts. Some will be short-sleeve, though I'll also wear some long-sleeve ones and just roll those sleeves right up. You'll find me with two or three shirt buttons undone, or maybe even the whole lot of them, as if I was doing something relaxed and yet still awesome when you came up and I just pulled this white cotton button-down island shirt on to meet you on the lanai. I think I'll be wearing something around my neck, something woven and natural and extremely significant. Obviously I'll only wear flip-flops, though if I need to go to town or schlep a kayak or a crate of mangoes, I'll strap on some gym shoes with no socks. Yeah, that's what I'll do. Glad that's been straightened out.

Pics

2004-08-18T08:27:00.000-07:00

I went to Alaska with my friend Abe and posted a bunch of pictures on the internet. You can look at them here.

Techno

2004-07-27T19:52:00.000-07:00

I like about a half-dozen techno songs:

Chemical Brothers, "Where Do I Begin" and "Dream On"
Royksopp, "So Easy" and "Eple"
David Holmes, "69 Police"
Air, "Alone in Kyoto"

That's really about all, though I sure like them a lot. Now I just need to find an artist or a dude with a Mac who sounds like these songs do all the time. Electronic, but not just noise. Bluesy, but still obviously synthetic. Readers, I'll let you know when I find it.

Teresa Heinz-Kerry

2004-07-27T19:49:00.000-07:00

It's great that she speaks five languages and owns all the ketchup she surveys, but I don't want to hear any politician's spouse in any political forum, ever.

It Must Be Destiny

2004-06-10T06:13:00.000-07:00

Readers, by now you know that I have some ambition to be a writer, though I have little idea of how to get there. Well, I began my new "career" on Tuesday in Starbucks with a notebook and a pen. I got an iced tea with a gift certificate that was a retirement present and sat down in an easy chair. I was no more than 6 lines and ten minutes in to a ditty about a Latino man on his porch in the summer heat with a bible listening to window air conditioners buzz all around him when the young woman in the easy chair next to me said, "excuse me."

"Yes?" I said.

"Are you a writer?"

I paused, trying to figure out how to answer appropriately. "Occasionally," I managed.

Milestone Update

2004-06-02T18:07:00.000-07:00

A week into retirement, and no writing yet. My excuses are good enough that I don't feel guilty at all: traveling to rural Ohio for a wedding and then coming home to my parents' house for a few days where I have no computer of my very own and they have prehistoric internet access. I have been doing some reading, though. A couple of weeks ago I bought issue 11 of McSweeney's and I've been learning about a new way to write short fiction. Every single one of the stories is shocking. Most of them are shocking in some kind of sexual way. Most of them don't bother to introduce their characters, sometimes not even bothering to name them. And most importantly, none of them have any resolution. None. No happy ending, no sad ending, no ending at all. You could call them episodic, maybe they're snapshots, maybe that's how all short fiction is, maybe that's how good short fiction is, maybe that fits how life is -- no clean beginnings or endings. I'm not sure I like it in my reading (though I know that I like McSweeney's for it's leather-bound cover and thick Icelandic paper). It is however, something I could do in my writing. You need one idea, and you don't need to be able to tie it to anything or to take it, proverbially, home. Writing that way could be some sort of educated professional choice for the folks at McSweeney's; for me it could be a nice little cop out. Stay tuned.

Yowzee

2004-06-02T18:04:00.000-07:00

I listened to The Strokes' first album again today. Man, is it good. Gadzooks.

Milestone, Part II

2004-05-27T15:06:00.000-07:00

Phish broke up this week, or at least announced that they would following this summer's tour. I've been to twenty-two (I think) Phish shows. Probably fourteen of them were amazing experiences, nights when the music kept me dancing, sober, in my dirty Birks, long after the last note sounded. I'm going to be in Alaska for the whole summer tour, and I'm sad I'm going to miss the boys this time around.

Milestone

2004-05-27T14:55:00.000-07:00

I quit my job today. I had been a project manager for an IT consulting company. It was a good job: high pay, a good company that tried to minimize your normal working nonsense, and I was good at it. I was young for what I did, and I had no real training, but I found a niche in middle management that the smartest of the smart either had been promoted through or had been smart enough not to get involved in the first place. As a result, I stood out, at least at my little company in my little corner of the world.

Why did I quit? Everyone needs a job, and this was pretty good as far as jobs go, certainly much better than the jobs of the poor suckers at the clients I worked with, people who slaved away for Major UK Retailers or Large Insurers. I don't need a job, though. I've got enough lucre stashed away to keep me in food and and shelter and the occasional new bauble, at least for a while. So why give all my energy to something which, at least for me, is really a gimmick to keep me occupied and challenged? It's an easy choice, right? But what if there's nothing else planned after that? Is it still easy?

I fixed the no plans problem with an event, a moment, an epiphany one day a couple of months ago. It was at brunch with Eisa. She was in the restroom. Sitting at the booth waiting for her to come back or our yuppie Japanese eggs to come, sipping what was, in retrospect, one coffee over my limit, I decided that this, what you're reading, was enough. No, not that I would quit my job to work on an unread blog, but that I would quit work to write. Three hours a day. Legitimate attempts to get published writing about sports or rock, and illegitimate attempts to generate ideas for fiction by blogging or journaling.

The life change got a lot easier to explain a day or so after the decision. I got a call from my oldest friend offering a road trip to Alaska for the summer and soon after Eisa and I decided to try (or retry, in her case) life in Hilo. It's much easier to tell Bill Programmer from the office that you're leaving your job to move to Hawaii than it is to tell him that you're leaving to write, but no you really haven't ever done that before, and no you don't really have any ideas. And in my mind, retirement has sort of become about moving to Hawaii, but that's not what it is. That's a place to be, a way to have adventures and to keep myself and my girl excited and exciting, but leaving my job wasn't for that. It was for, or more exactly because of, the fact that at brunch in early April, hopped up on expensive coffee, I decided that three hours of writing per day, even without any discernable ideas to follow, was enough.

Was I right? I think so. Am I worried that I'm going to waste a singular opportunity? Yes. I haven't written much in those two months. Excuses that I was still fully employed did apply, but I've had time. I spent this Sunday flipping between Die Hard II and Exiled: A Law and Order Movie, didn't write a word, and couldn't even summon the will to sit up straight on the couch, though my fingers did feverishly work the clicker. Will I do that in Hawaii? Will I spend the rainy days with digital cable? Will I get discouraged when heavenly prose doesn't flow from my fingers in the first week? There's a chance, but that's my challenge.

Cosby Kid Found, Different than You Remembered

2004-05-17T17:31:00.000-07:00

I was flipping channels at home, waiting for dinnertime to roll around, and I came across the Motown 45 special. This lady was singing Stevie Wonder, and it turns out she used to be little Olivia on the Cosby Show. My goodness. It brings up the point, though: if we can have Motown 45, why can't we have Cosby 20? They could do one of their songs that they all lip synched together, we could reminisce about when Denise made Theo that yellow shirt, and we could learn about the cast members 20 years down the road. I wonder what Vanessa and Rudy are doing? Was anyone less likely to have a post-Cosby career than Vanessa, or more likely than Theo? How come he isn't a star?

We've Got Visuals

2004-05-12T18:46:00.000-07:00

Jeff looking cool in Hampi. Also, even though you can't see this, it's Jeff testing a Blogger photo utility.

Also note new permalinks, and a new way to store comments. Sadly, the old comments seem to be gone. You two (or maybe even four) readers should repost those post haste.

Office Errata

2004-05-10T14:15:00.000-07:00

I like how work e-mails tagged with "!", indicating a high level of importance, are almost never the important ones.

Friday at the Ritz

2004-05-07T13:55:00.000-07:00

Buzzing with the hip-hop stylings of Prefuse 73 (courtesy of my co-worker Wadsbone), a chicken panini, and a large coffee, here’s what’s on my mind as I let a Friday afternoon pass by with the free wireless at the Ritz Coffeehouse on a particularly bleak stretch of Ashland Ave., Chicago:

How is it that I can become a fan of a band after one song? See “Fight Test”, Flaming Lips, which I adore but for which I have yet to find a worthy successor for the Flaming Lips playlist in my mind. See “Bubblehouse”, MMW, which is hooky and funks the house down and your mom will like it the first time she hears it, yet is nowhere near as avant garde or abstract or challenging as anything else I’ve ever heard from them. Funny then, that I avowedly “like” these bands, not just these songs. I’d love to see the Lips, even though I have little patience for Pilot Can or any of their other old stuff, and I’ve seen MMW a couple of times and thrilled to an excited listen of “Bubblehouse” and a lukewarm listen to the rest of Shack-Man just last night (though track 6 has some pretty fine moments). I suppose I can look at this with either the half-empty or the half-full glasses on. Empty: I’m always looking for something new to like, but I do that because I want to get the zing that comes with being enthusiastic about some carefully-selected thing to my own stash of zing so I can take it out and impress those closest to me with how much zing I have. Full: I’m always looking for something new to like, because being enthusiastic about something is the funnest way to be.

I don’t understand how people in the city give their dogs a decent life, and I tend to try to impress this on my canine-coveting city friends quite zealously, perhaps overzealously. You’re never home, I say. It’s a lot of work, I say. You’ll have to walk it all the time, every day, even when it’s cold out, and that’s really a lot of responsibility. Are you sure you’re ready?, I say. Eisa thinks my attitude is silly, and she’s likely right. I’m not sure why I react so strongly, why I try to impart upon my friends how binding the contract they’re entering is into when they let themselves dream about adopting that cute little schnauzer-terrier mix at the local puppy pound. We had dogs when I was a kid, and I have nothing but fond memories of them, but don’t think that I’m speaking from experience when I warn of stern doggie responsibilities. I observed my parents walking and shoveling up after Rollie and cute little George and big ol’ Spencer, but I was never responsible and almost never even had to help. I suppose I just don’t like the idea of Rollie II sitting in an apartment in the city from 9:00 to 5:30 every day, sleeping and trying not to chew the carpet or to pee, supposedly happy because s/he has a bladder trained to go into sleep mode during daylight hours. Of course, I’ve never stirred worrying about children left alone after school, or even dogs facing sure extinction if left unadopted at the Humane Society for another week. But, goshnabbit, none of my friends and neighbors should be party to making a dog’s life lonely. I won’t stand idly by and let that happen.

The police officer across the street frisking the kid in the baggy jeans and the hoody is short. She’s old. She’s very fat. I can see her large (really large) and droopy bosoms heaving with exertion after a slow, slow walk across the street. They look like huge balloons anchored to her belly. Not only can’t she see her feet, she can’t see her gun or her pepper spray at her belt, and I’m pretty sure when she gets into the squad car, she won’t be able to see over the dashboard. I wonder if she can see anything; her gray hair is coming loose from under her policeman’s cap and blowing all over her face. The cap looks too big for her head regardless. It’s off-kilter and must be covering part of the field of view her left eye should be providing her. This woman does not deter putative criminals with her physical presence. I wonder what her strengths as an officer are? Can she, using English, Spanish, or Polish, talk a lunatic with a gun into peacefully turning himself in? Does her obese and waddling exterior make the kids outside the high school she keeps talking to feel at ease and more likely to collaborate with the police in some sort of community watch scheme? Maybe she’s an amazing shot with that pistol, some kind of police sniper: she can’t move quickly, but crane her up into the right spot and she can live off her own body mass for days and won’t ever miss the gangsters coming out of their hideout. Maybe it’s Bring-Your-Elderly-Relative-To-Work-Day at the local precinct, but why would they give her such a real looking fake gun? Mysteries never cease. Our paths will cross again someday, Officer Old 'n' Pudgy. I’ll learn your story yet.

Posturing

2004-05-07T10:23:00.000-07:00

Playing hooky from work today, Readers, folding laundry in front of Donald Rumsfeld's hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee:

I've never been ablae to stand Senator Joe Lieberman. I don't have any particularly good reason; I couldn't say a lot about his platform. Maybe it's the fact that he's a Jew who talks about his religion often and obvious enough to make someone in Jerry Falwell's choir pleased. More likely, it's something about the way he speaks. His haltering deep voice, every word connected by an "uh" just seems to make my skin crawl. But no matter. Each senator gets 10 minutes on Rumsfeld and the generals in front of the cameras. Lieberman spent the first 8 minutes of his speaking about about American morality and duty and the honor of our soldiers. Of course he brought up September 11, even taking the time to cite the death toll. He had time for a couple minutes of questions. The next senator, Sessions (R) from Alabama, took a good portion of his ime to talk about the bounty purportedly offered by Al Qaeda for Rumsfeld's murder. Is this standard procedure? Senators, this is not a campaign moment, or even a partisan moment. You have a limited amount of time,a nd you need to use it to make information public. Your opinions, your take on our wars with brown people all around the world, are not germane. You're embarassing me. Shut up and ask your questions.

Alaska Did You Know

2004-05-07T08:43:00.000-07:00

Readers, I suppose I should have known this, but my intrepid travel companion informed me that there really aren't any roads or trails in the National Parks in Alaska. I did a little looking myself. Take Denali, home of famous Mt. McKinley, and approximately the size of West Virginia. There's a road, called Parks Road, cuts through about three miles of the park, and then there's another road that goes 15 miles in. After that, you can take a shuttle another 50 miles in. That's it. No roads, no trails, just mountains and caribou. Wild. We have no idea what we're getting ourselves into, no idea at all. That's what's so exciting aobut it. Now if I only had more confidence in my '97 Subaru.

At Least My Business Casual Attire Remained Jelly-Free

2004-05-03T08:59:00.000-07:00

It took me 20 seconds to eat that Krispy Kreme jelly doughnut. How did I decide to do that to my health for 20 seconds of enjoyment? Of course I'd do it again.

Site Problems

2004-05-02T09:03:00.000-07:00

For some reason, this site no longer works from Netscape/Mozilla. The index page can't be viewed from just http://jdg.blogspot.com, but http://jdg.blogspot.com/index.html will load. Still seems to work with IE or Safari, though. It's not the template -- I swapped out all my changes for a vanilla template and I got the same behavior. This is beyond me to fix.

Dirty Quarter

2004-05-01T09:57:00.000-07:00

I have a dirty quarter in my pocket. It's coated with some sort of black schmutz. I'll take 23 clean cents for it. Let me know.

The Great Northwest

2004-05-01T09:09:00.000-07:00

I'm going to embark on a drive to Alaska, and back, in a couple of weeks with my old friend Abe in my '97 Subaru. 6 weeks, 8,000 miles, a 4-day ferry ride through the glaciers and fjords on Canada's west coast, impossible numbers of mosquitos, impossible numbers of black flies, enough caribou sightings to make caribou herds seem boring, enough bear sightings to make ravenous man-eating bears seem boring, 21 hours of consecutive daylight, traversal of every road in the Yukon Territory, lots of retirees in motor homes along the way who help us with camping and auto maintenance stuff we don't know how to do. Maybe they'll let us use the flush toilets in their RVs, and cook us pancake breakfasts. I don't think we're going to be able to sleep normal hours since it will never be dark. We're going to be 1500 miles north of where Insomnia was filmed, and we're going to be there close to the summer solstice.

It beats writing life insurance call center software, or more exactly getting brought in to do so slightly better than someone else could do it.

Travel

2004-02-26T07:40:00.000-08:00

I have been to 34 states. Hooray for me!

I Didn't Know They Were Asking

2004-02-25T09:06:00.000-08:00

Heard on NPR this morning, out of the mouth of a Missouri state senator (I'm paraphrasing): "If we allow same-sex marriages, how are we going to answer the polygamists when they come asking?". Solid question, Senator. Way to hone on on what's really important to your constituents: stamping out the rampaging plague that is polygamy and polygyny in the lower Midwest. I can't believe what our elected officials spend their time talking about. I don't expect to agree with them, but they continue to disappoint me with their lack of concern for the dignity of their offices and our institutions. Please only talk about things that are important, ladies and gentlemen. If any two or six people want to get married, don't waste your precious and expensive time talking about it.

Working for the Man

2004-02-24T05:55:00.000-08:00

I've been rather amazed about the size and scope and bureaucracy of the Large Insurer I've been working for for the last couple of months. The kinds of things they have people do:

--They have an ergonomics department who you can call if your desk chair is making your back ache.

--They have periodic "Jeans Days" but you still have to wear dress shoes and a collared shirt. Someone's job is to make up the rules for what is acceptable to wear on Jeans Day.

--They have several bus routes to take employees between buildings on their campus.

--They have a fountain in the lobby, and someone is employed to come in and clean it.

Not to mention the fact that corporate officers are near-celebrities, that many events and venues in the area and nationally are branded with the corporate name, etc. Not insulated in my boutique consulting firm anymore, Toto.

New Classics Among the Dreck at the Funky Buddha

2004-02-08T11:44:00.000-08:00

I was at a night club last night, my once-in-three-years get-dressed-up-in sleek-black-clothes and pay-double-what-I-should -for-drinks nocturnal adventure. My friends and I ended up waiting for an hour in 20-degree temperatures to get in, leading Eisa to utter the pertinent-yet-unanswerable question "Why do people do this every night?". I didn't have an answer, except to say that we wouldn't be back for three years, so we didn't need to figure it out. Still, we had fun when we got inside, people-watching clubgoers in tight clothes, sipping whiskey on the rocks, and bopping our heads to low-quality hip-pop, a mix of top-40 club songs and uninteresting rap music. I predicted that Beyonce's "Crazy in Love" would come on, and I was right. Let me get something straight: even though most of the music last night it the supposedly hip Funky Buddha was disappointingly boring, I love this song. It has outrageous horn flourishes, a catchy-sexy "Uh-oh-uh-oh" phrase, and all sorts of energy. Forgetting about genres and what kind of music I listen to and say I like, I think that this song is a classic in our midst, something that will be remembered and replayed and enjoyed for decades. Like "She Loves You" or "Stayin Alive" or "Billie Jean", "Crazy in Love"is going to stay around. So that got me to thinking, what other songs are classics in our midst? What do I really mean by classic? Is it just a song I like? I think I define it this way: a true classic is a song that will be respected and loved for years a song whose timelessness will transcend temporary conceptions of style and popularity. Of course, that's something that's impossible to judge about the present day, but I like to speculate. Others that come to mind: Eminem, "Lose Yourself", Norah Jones. "Don't know Why". These pop songs, works that became enormous hits and sold lots of CD singles to teenagers (and full albums to everybody else) deserved their acclaim. It's nice when songs are popular for a reason.

Readers, what else from the last couple of years was a classic the minute it hit the airwaves?

Is this legal?

2004-01-13T13:08:00.000-08:00

Kids these days. If only I had a spare bedroom, and wasn't in a committed, devoted relationship.

------------------------------------------------------

Two 20/yo fem twins looking to move in with fun city guy.

Hiatus

2004-01-13T10:46:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted since well before I I left for Hawaii on Dec 20th, partly because there's s much to to tell from that trip. So here goes:

Eisa wonderful time dolphins kayak swimming drugged-out hippie towns toothless man named Mongoose hacky-sack new t-shirts hard to come home.

Red Dawn

2003-12-15T06:03:00.000-08:00

They named the capture Saddam mission Operation Red Dawn. Um, the name is taken. Way to sound ridiculous to a generation of Americans who were of silly action-movie watching age in 1984.

Saddam Coverage

2003-12-14T18:38:00.000-08:00

We caught Saddam today. He was hiding in a hole near a farm, a literal hole, and I've read alternately that he had a pistol or a couple of AK-47s down there with him. The news coverage today seems to be too focused today on one part of the story, though: that Saddam went down without a fight. I heard Dan Rather call him a "coward", I heard that part of the story repeatedly stressed on CNN and ABC. Maybe I watched too much news today, but I couldn't help but think that that spin on the capture made all of our "independent" news outlets seem like PR fronts for the government. Your leader cared more for his skin than for your cause, they seemed to be telling the Middle East. He wasn't even a good enough Moslem to welcome his own martyrdom, so relax with the insurgencies and give us a chance. I realize that Saddam's lack of resistance was one of the sole "known" facts of the story in its initial few hours, but I can't get away from the fact that it was overstressed. A much more fascinating story is the face-to-face between Saddam and Iraqis on the governing council, but that received oodles less coverage. More fascinating to speculate about was the intelligence that got us to Saddam's little hole; but no, descriptions of his cowardice, something difficult at best to judge from such distance, dominated the day.

Public Radio Today, Media Magnate Tomorrow

2003-12-12T17:45:00.000-08:00

My friend Matt, a burgeoning sportswriter, is going to be on NPR for something he wrote (scroll down to 11/21/03). Congrats. Cool to see him figuring out what he wants to do and doing it.

New Almost-Obsessions

2003-12-12T17:42:00.000-08:00

1. Friendster. I spent all day browsing through my network of 10,000 friends of friends. I'm not looking for anyone to date. I don't want any new buddies to play polo with or start a band, so I'm not sure what I do. But I sort of want to look at it now. Add me as your friend, please. For some reason, I'm counting on it.

2. Poker. I resisted for years, but I finally consented to a casino Hold 'Em lesson over Thanksgiving, and the online floodgates are open. I'm up $38, which pretty much means I'm a superstar ready to quit my job and start to dominate the professional online poker scene.

Why can't my friends get me hooked on something that gets me in better shape or makes the world a better place? I should stop now, and go outside, but it's 9 degrees out and I think I'll just play a few hands.

Referral

2003-12-04T11:02:00.000-08:00

This search is how one Reader got to this site. "Slutty teens with fingernails"???? Man alive.

Thanksgiving Travel

2003-12-01T14:06:00.000-08:00

Observations from on the road between Ann Arbor and Chicago on the Sunday after Thanksgiving:

A man, alone in his SUV and stuck in traffic, reading by his dome light at the wheel. It was a big textbook-looking thing.

A chemical plant, lit up top to bottom. Steaming, glistening smokestacks, lined with bright lights every ten feet all the way up. It looked like science fiction.

A Radiohead concert on the radio that, in cahoots with a rest-stop Diet Coke, saved me from falling asleep at the wheel and drifiting side-to-side too much in my lane.

A Subaru with new tires is so much less scary to drive than a Subaru with six-year-old tires. Now maybe I should see about that recall notice from a couple of years back.

Michigan-OSU

2003-11-24T07:53:00.000-08:00

My beloved Wolverines trounced the Buckeyes on Saturday in an exhilarating and stragely validating college football triumph. The second best part of the day was how a bunch of my friends came over in a long progression, each one bringing food. We had muffins, coffee cake, baby carrots, celery sticks, mini frosted donuts, beer, mashed potatoes, fried chicken, and popcorn, all spread out on my coffee table. Pretty nice way to spend a Saturday early afternoon.

Experimental Noise After Dark

2003-11-22T08:02:00.000-08:00

The (Richard Nickle) Transaction Ensemble/Ed Reardon, 3030 Cortland, Chicago, 11/21/03.

Reardon came on first. He went up to the front of the little room, where my five friends and I made up two-thirds of the audience, sprawled over long wooden pews. He introduced himself: "Hi, I'm Ed Reardon, I know some of you but not most of you." (The unknowns were me and my friends). "I hope you're not too bored." Ed's performance was solo instrumental Moog keyboard, distorted and fuzzy. He did something almost melodic with the feedback coursing through his amps, and that gave his playing a pretty compelling undertone. It was interesting "music" but there wasn't a lot of variety, and the noise in the feedback was as melodic as it got. Eisa tried to bop her head to it at one point and failed because there was nothing to bop to . After 15 minutes or so, Ed left his fuzzy noises behind and tried to shatter our eardrums with som high-pitched thrumming. The guy two pews in front of us put his scarf in his ears, and later when congratulating Ed, appended "...except for the part where you tried to kill me" after Ed had passed out of earshot.

The main act came on next. I was there because my friend Jason was playing bass. The six-piece band ambled up to the front of the room. We were in a cool space in a remote neighborgood in an old church with red walls and a disco ball and soft lighting and a liberal liquor policy. Jason started playing a bass riff, and eventually the others joine in, we stopped talking, and the show was on. The bandleader clicked on a vido projector, which put some fuzzy images up on the wall behind the band. The band faced the screen, not out towards us in our pews, and we all watched as the blurrly slides changed into black-and-white closeups of architectural details -- cornices and gables and other things I don't know the words for. Lots of zooming in and out. The music started out with a funky chilled-out composed piece, where a nice counterpoint between the bass and one of the guitars underlay some trombone and trumpet squawking. It (de)volved from there. The lead guitarist chimed in with some avant-garde Ken Vandermark style loud and discordant phrases. I may have dozed off during some of that, but the beat came back, and it ended on a high note.

Was it the best event I ever attended? No. Was it fun to go to a little room in a terrifying neighborhood and hear weird music played by funny new people, yes. I'm not so busy that I would have spent my 10 PM to 12 AM hours any better way. The pop music in the car on the way home was seriously refreshing, though.

Sweet Lou

2003-11-20T15:44:00.000-08:00

Everyone has a favorite athlete, a childhood hero. Mine was Lou Whitaker, number 1, second baseman for the Detroit Tigers for the first nineteen years of my life. I had a collection of Lou baseball cards, in their own special book, I had the Starting Lineup Action Figure (doll), I would have been Lou for Halloween once but it didn't fit on the back of my little imitation jersey on my little juvenile back, so my mom sewed Chet Lemon's name on instead. Lou was a good fielder and an above-average hitter, but his best trait was that he sustained his production for a very, very long time, and all with one team, my team. He got a little big towards the end of his career, and after retirement he dropped out of the public eye to hang out with his younguns in a small town somewhere in the South. His career came up in the news every now and then -- when someone passed some record that he and Alan Trammell set, when his Hall of Fame candidacy ended in his first year of eligibility -- but there weren't ever any stories about his present, so I without any information, I'd idly picture him getting bigger and bigger on a front porch somewhere. He's surfaced, though, the latest in the Tigers' attempt to stave off historic levels of failure by bringing back local stars from the 1980s as coaches. Lou will be an instructor for now, and I'm warmed to see him back on the diamond, which is the only place your childhood heroes belong. Haven't seen him yet, but I'd still wager that he's had enough front porch time to render his old uniform useless.

Trophy

2003-11-20T15:31:00.000-08:00

Microsoft gave me a trophy today for really nothing in particular. It may be my first trophy since I won the Emerson Elementary spelling bee in 1988.

This Actually Happened

2003-11-06T11:57:00.000-08:00

An interview with WHDH, Boston:

Q: I'm going to break from this line of questioning and ask you the question that Time Magazine poses today. Do you feel you're losing your mojo?
Rumsfeld: I haven't seen that, but no, I really don't.

Scary

2003-11-04T16:51:00.000-08:00

Rs, I went to a party Halloween night. All that day I was a big grump about the whole costume thing. I said I'd go as "Guy Who Didn't Have a Costume" or "Computer Programmer" or something else that let me wear jeans and my used blue t-shirt all night. I did a decent job of convincing myself that that would be more fun. Costumes were too much trouble for someone as busy and as important as me. That evening, though, I got to Eisa's house and my attitude changed. She was going as a doctor, which was cool enough, but it required preparation and props I wouldn't be able to acquire in the three or so hours before the party. A succession of creative, impromptu, no-work costume ideas by Eisa and her friends got me pretty excited about Halloween for the first time since I was 9 years old. First was "Lori", a codename we'll use to protect her reputation. She stole a costume idea from her co-worker. I think that's completely within the rules of costume conduct, especially if you've got separate spheres of partying/trick-or-treating. Another of "Lori's" co-workers, by the way, was the guy who actually went home with the ball Steve Bartman deflected away from Moises Alou in Game 6 of the NLCS. "Lori" wore all black, somehow affixed the number 8 to her torso in white, and dispensed fortunes. She was a Magic 8-Ball. Classic. Easy. I can do that, I said, and it sure will be more fun than being costumeless. I started casting about Eisa's apartment for clever Halloween ideas. Next, though, was "Jen"' who came in with a tiara and a wand she'd had from some event a long time ago. She was planning, I think, to go as a slutty princess, but we came up with the idea fo making a sash and going as a beauty queen from somewhere remote. They eventually made her a blue checked sash and wrote "Miss Western Michigan" or something in sparkling paint on it, which went stunningly with the white dress and the beauty pageant wave. Another solid idea. Next up: "Amanda Jonas". She decided to go as a baker, to clip kitchen utensils onto an apron, carray a mixing bowl full of candy, and rap people's knuckles with a wooden spoon. I suggested she spatter flour on her face, and though we never actually did that, it was a big hit costume anyway.

Then there was me. A few bad ideas circulated. Dress in black and be Neo. I called Abe, and he suggested wearing a purple stocking cap, carrying some Dannon, and being a purple-headed yogurt slinger. I wasn't in the mood to be that risque, though. Finally, for some reason, Eisa brought out some curtains she'd had stowed up in her closet. They were filmy and white, and bound to a light wooden curtain rod. She suggested I wear one and be a window, and that was good, but the curtain sort of looked like a sheet, and so I thought...bed! I'll be a bed for Halloween. It was terrific. We used ribbon to hook the curtain to my neck. The curtain rod was perpendicular to my body, about shoulder height. Eisa then used twenty feet of industrial strength tape to strap a pillow to the back of my shoulders, and, lo and behold, I was bed, all tucked in with my head peeking out above the sheet. I was a bit unwieldy; a wooden stick made my shoulders twice as wide as they normally are, and if I turned quickly, I risked de-eyeing someone, but it was worth it. At the party, sadly, I got more quizzical glances than exclamations of "Dude! That's a cool bed!" but that's okay, some people can't deal with my kind of creativity. The first Halloween I didn't sulk for in 15 years was a pretty solid success. And I didn't even spill any beer on Eisa's curtains.

Tonight It Will Happen

2003-11-04T15:25:00.000-08:00

I'm going to do it. Tonight. Exercise. On purpose. Wearing gym clothes. For at least 30 min. It's only been a year, I think it's time.

The Perils of Frequent Flying, a Horror Story

2003-10-23T15:30:00.000-07:00

Readers, I was on United flight 1101 last night from Cleveland to Chicago, in seat 13D. Let me tell you, that's a prime route and a prime seat. Or so I thought.

The first thing I noticed was when the fingernails touched my shoulder, or more accurately wrapped around my shoulder, from behind me and to my right. From 14E. I could feel the fingernails touch my shoulder individually (touch-touch-touch-touch) even though she only lightly gripped my shoulder. Something was very wrong. "Are those seats taken?" queried the just-gravelly-enough-to-be-startling voice from 14E, as a couple of the nails left my shoulder to point to empty 13E and 13F next to me. "Not yet," I replied. She thanked me, and the nails left my shoulder. My seat bounced back and down as she grabbed the back of my seat to brace herself while she unwedged her enormous girth from her assigned seat. I got up and moved into the aisle to let her pass. She was splendidly large, so big you could lose her head in the folds of her sweater-suit as it struggled to cover her outsized torso. She raised the seat arm between 13E and 13F, and sat down in 13F and half of 13E. I sat, too. We took off, and I waited for the man to bring me my tomato juice and snuck glances at the nails that had disturbed my shoulder a few moments before. They were so long that they had developed a curvature of their own, far sharper than anything imposed on them by the living flesh of her fingers and hands. They were all themed a dark gray, and every second enormous fingernail was solidly painted. But oh, the ones in the middle. Some were marbled, painted with winding white veins on dark gray like some sort of finger-borne edifice. Some had texture -- clusters of silver and white and blue beads shining like treasures on the dark gray background. I was horrified, but I was transfixed. I followed them as they impaled the buttons on her miniature and grimy travel Yahtzee, as they cut into her hands as she gripped her 7-up. I watched as the reading light prismed through the 7-up bubbles and off the ice, and I recoiled as it danced off the baubles on her crookedly and artificially extended pinky finger. Turbulence, indeed.

About Blogging

2003-10-21T17:04:00.000-07:00

Readers, a web research company says that we're not alone. In fact, there are 4,120,000 blogs set up on services like my cherished host, Blogger.com. The average blogger, it seems, is a twelve-year-old girl.

The site admits that there are some limitations with their methods; they've gathered most of their data from sites pre-teens are likely to use (they're free and easy and don't require you to run a webserver). Still, I'm happy to be part of the adolescent blogging revolution. No, I'm happy to be at its vanguard.

The Tigers are in the 2003 Playoffs

2003-10-17T16:04:00.000-07:00

I hope I don't alienate my core audience of my girlfriend and my mom, but Readers, I'm a sports nut, even if I've seldom expounded on it here. The baseball playoffs that we're in the middle of right now are some of the most exciting sports I've seen in years. I'm still a Tigers fan, though, and the Tigers flirted with the worst record in the history of baseball this year, winning five out of their last six to cap off the season at a solid 43-119. Why think about the Tigers in the middle of all this excitement about real teams? Well, my Bengals have contributed more than their share of players to the eight playoff sides, even though they just finished their tenth consecutive losing season. I count 15, plus a manager, enough for a whole team if the starters can pitch deep into games. Of course, it's a really bad team, but here's how it would shape up:

C Paul Bako, Chicago. Bako came up through the Tigers' farm system and was the backup catcher in 1998. He's the Cubs backup now, and struck out a lot in important at bats at the end of Cubs games. He bats right-handed, which is good, because we need him to platoon with....
C John Flaherty, New York. Flaherty's a lefty. He's also terrible, and backs up Posada now. Well, he's not terrible. He used to get a lot of playing time for the D-Rays, and he kept Toby Hall in the minors for a couple of years.
1B Robert Fick, Atlanta. Fick can be our emergency third catcher, should something happens to the other two luminaries. He was a catcher in the Detroit farm system, and was a symbol of misplaced hope for a while after he hit a grand slam in the last game at Tiger Stadium, a mere few weeks after coming to the majors. We let him go this past off season, using the strategy that since we had too many first basemen and designated hitters we needed to let the best of them go. Fick had a nice season for the Bravos, platooning with 45-year old Julio Franco, and keeping his average above .300 all season. He made a move that will really catapult him in to stardom in this postseason: smacking Cubs 1B Eric Karros in the face while he was trying to beat out an infield single. The Braves benched him for that, and I wouldn't be shocked if he gets cut.
2B Damian Jackson, Boston. Jackson came to Detroit on as part of the Tigers-Padres horrible players exchange program, which has been sending players like Andujar Cedeno and this team's own Chris Gomez back and forth at a terrific rate since a father and son duo started GM'ing the two franchises in the early 1990s. Jackson was a Tigers second basemen in 2002, batting .270 and contributing some shaky defense, sloppy baserunning, and a bad attitude to the that year's aging and hopeless team. He's a star now, too. His forehead cracking Johnny Damon's face in the ALDS as they converged on a pop fly was played and replayed from enough angles that no one watching that game will ever forget it. The most tasteful part was when Jackson, still woozy, started jawing with A's fans while Damon was being carted off on a stretcher. (Johnny's fine, too).
SS Chris Gomez, Minnesota. I didn't know he played for Minnesota, either. I guess he backs up triple-machine Christian Guzman. He's a bad, bad player.
3B Juan Encarnacion, Florida. No, Juan doesn't play third. He's got a right-fielder's arm, though, and we need a third baseman on this squad, so he'll have to do. Encarnacion was the best Tigers prospect since the Travis Fryman-Milt Cuyler (lifetime .237/.305/.326) duo in 1990. He's a five-tool player. One awesome thing about him is that as a rookie he had to go on the disabled list because his teeth were so painful and decayed that he had to have multiple surgeries to correct or replace them. Not sure why we let him go; he should continue to have 20-20 seasons with a low batting average and no walks for a long, long time.
LF Billy McMillon, Oakland. McMillon bounced around the minors for a long time before he got his shot in the minors. He could always hit, and Philadelphia gave him his first chance in 1997. He hit a little with the Tigers in his brief time with them in 2000 and 2001, too. Now he's part of the A's OF rotation, outhitting the atrocious Terrence Long whenever they give him an opportunity.
CF Gabe Kapler, Boston. Kapler was another big prospect, one of three from the Tigers' farm system on this team. More of a right-fielder, though he can do center in a pinch, and did after Jackson took out Damon in the ALDS. That's loyalty! Good job, guys! He left Detroit in 1999 when we brought Proven Star and Malcontent Juan Gonzalez in for the first season in Comerica Park. We gave up two budding stars in that trade, Kapler and Justin Thompson, who never pitched again, and two unknowns who have been quite good, Frank Catalanotto and Francisco Cordero. We also got Old Expensive Sore Back Middle Reliever Danny Patterson in the trade. Juan, of course, stunk for a year, turned down $145 million, and left the team.
RF Karim Garcia, New York. Garcia was a failed Dodgers prospect long before he came to Detroit. Not sure why he's in the mix for the Yankees right-field job now. He's got a little bit of power and a talent for baiting Pedro Martinez and beating up Fenway groundskeepers.
DH Ruben Sierra, New York. Yes, Ruben Sierra played for Detroit. The same Ruben Sierra who was a sure-fire Hall-of-Famer for the Rangers in 1986; the same one who was traded for Jose Canseco in 1992. He played for the Tigers in '96 for a couple of months, acquired straight-up for Big Cecil Fielder in a deadline deal. He left as a free agent that year, disappeared for a while, and then had an out-of-nowhere fantastic season for Seattle in 2001. Never quite turned into Clemente, though.
SP David Wells, New York. The true star of this team. If we're going to contend, we may need him to pitch every third day. He's been an All-Star, thrown a perfect game, won 20 games, won a handful of World Serieses, been traded for Roger Clemens, and overcame obesity and gout. He's still going at 40-something. To think, I remember him as a goofy middle reliever for Toronto in 1988. We traded him away for CJ Nitkowski, who never was very good, but had a website.
SP Mark Redman, Florida. I always liked Redman. Tigers got him in 2001, when he was injured, a year after his breakout rookie season, for Todd Jones. I thought it was a great trade. For real. We traded him away this offseason for three minor leaguers, which might work out. This team is excited to have him as its number two. He did bat .016 this year, though, which will hurt us in those NL parks.
SP Jeff Weaver, New York. Ahh, Weaver. Too upset to talk about you. You should be great. We traded you away at 25, though we did get a lot for you. You should be winning 22 games per year for the Yanks now, but you have a 6.00 ERA and they can't trust you. You're flaky, too, you punk.
SP Steve Sparks, Oakland. The knuckleballer. We'll need him after Weaver gives up 7 in 3 innings. Tigers released him in the middle of this year, I think mostly for his sanity. He was a good innings eater for Milwaukee, Anaheim, and the Tigers. He's a postseason star now, too. He pitched in the ALDS game four against Boston when Tim Hudson had to leave in the second, and he didn't embarrass himself.
CL Todd Jones, Boston. Jones got traded for Redman, as mentioned above. He was third all-time on the Tigers' save list before that, and got himself a nice fat contract when we had hopes of being decent in 1999. We sold Jones high, and that was a rare victory. He's struggled since, but he won't have many leads to save here, so no worries.
Manager Felipe Alou, San Francisco. I have a feeling we're going to need Felipe's savvy in-game management skills in these playoffs. The bench coach to his third-step-grandcousin-in-law, former Tiger Manager Felipe Alou (I think they're related), he managed a lot of good players for Les Expos, and then after they got sold away, managed some teams cobbled together a lot like this one.

Under the Bleachers and Instant Replays

2003-10-17T12:26:00.000-07:00

My friend Josh started a sports blog called Under the Bleachers. I think it'll be pretty cool. I'm going to post to it sometimes, too, since I have this fountaining well of creativity that simply cannot be stopped up or even temporarily restained.

While I'm plugging friend's sites, aspiring sports journalist and noted humorist Matt has a very cool sports writing site at Instant-Replays.com. To all those Readers out there who are sports publishing moguls, give this young man a job. For that matter, all those Readers out there who are rock publishing moguls, give me a job.

Much to my....

2003-10-13T19:53:00.000-07:00

Readers, my hotel in Cleveland is on Chagrin Road. That does not bode well for this little business trip.

The man next to me on the plane worked for Paterno Wineries. The woman behind us sold Sour Patch Kids, presumably in bulk. Business traveler limbo on a little 40-seater from O'Hare to Cleveland. Eerie.

Axl

2003-10-13T13:24:00.000-07:00

I saw Mike Gordon, the bass player for Phish, in concert fronting his own band on Friday night. I expected to post a review for this site about that show. It was decent -- it peaked with some country funk in the first few minutes before devolving into straight country and smooth jazz. There was a woman whose instrument was tap dance (mics in the floor beneath her feet). Another woman in the band, a flute player, seemed entirely mauve. No matter what color light she was in, her shiny skirt, her sweater, and her mass of thin braids always looked mauve. Even her face was mauve. I don't know how she did it. There was also some sweet tromboning and pedal steel playing. But at the show, I was thinking about how I didn't want to write about it. No, I wanted to write about Guns 'n' Roses' video for "Paradise City". There's a brief shot in that video, right at the beginning, in black and white. It's before the song really starts, still in the part where the bass drum and the high hat are alternating through the intro. There's a shot of Axl Rose, decked out in some sort of carabinieri hat, walking into a concert venue looking remarkably sober and clean. He's got a tag around his neck, and he holds it up to the camera so we can all read that he has "Access All Areas". Then he gives a yessir nod with a twinkle in his eye that speaks all you need to know about the areas he'll access before the night is over, and that's it. Yes, that's what I wanted to write about, the twinkle in his 1987 eye.

Sea Change

2003-10-13T08:08:00.000-07:00

Readers, Sea Change by Beck sure is an amazing album. It used to depress me, but I now I just think it's beautiful.

46th Place

2003-10-09T13:35:00.000-07:00

Readers, the results are in from our California brethren, and Mark Valdez is perplexed about the lack of the community musical theater response in the Davis area:

"With 100% of the precincts now reporting, it now appears I got 1499 votes! 46th place in a field of 135: about 1/3 from the top. Ballot placement helped - I was third on the ballot list in LA County, and I got about 500 votes there. The Hispanic name no doubt helped. Plus maybe a video that played on cable access channels in the LA area. Yolo County, where I do musical theater, was not as productive as I had hoped: 16 votes, if I'm not mistaken. I need to look into the matter more deeply and see what happened."

Books

2003-10-04T09:03:00.000-07:00

Readers, on the left side of this page, there's a little panel that shows the books I'm reading. I feel like I need to justify the fact that I'm reading a book called "Ship of Magic". But no. You'll get no such satisfaction from me. I'm clearly too secure for that. It's laudable that I don't just put books I think I should be reading up there, isn't it? So what if it looks like a romance novel and is something I would have ripped through when I was nine years old. I'm still an intellectual, right?

I'd love to find a similar blog plugin that would let me show current albums. I could maybe write one, but my JavaScript isn't so hot.

Ten Years Gone

2003-10-04T08:12:00.000-07:00

Dan Bern, Martyrs', Chicago, 10/3/2003

Last night, I realized that time passes, even for quirky young folk singers. They get bored with their old stuff, they change their tone, they get older, they move on. Dan Bern's great masterpiece, the self-titled album that will never not be a staple of my listening rotation, was released ten years ago. I've seen Dan a half dozen times in that span, and sadly the first couple shows were the best; acoustic, solo, irreverent, hilarious, and based on outrageously good material. A couple shows where he seemed stoned and lost followed, but I kept showing up every time he came through town. That loyalty was rewarded last year, when Dan strolled into Chicago with a backing band, The International Jewish Banking Conspiracy (cool name), and rocked up both his old standbys and some energetic new songs.

This time around, there was no band and there were no old standbys. Dan's been, he says, hanging out in a warehouse in New Mexico for six months, writing soft folk songs on a teardrop-shaped electric guitar. Those songs were the focal point of the show. Martyrs' was subdued and quiet, as if the crowd knew what to expect, or at least knew not to expect a greatest hits set. We stood respectfully and listened. I think some of the new songs were pretty decent, but they all shared the same subdued tone and only twelve hours later are blending together in my head. One had a neat minor chord progression that reminded me of a modern Chili Peppers' radio hit. Another one that got a big laugh referred to "Jerusalem" from his first album, the part where he sings about his love for olives. It went something like this, though I've definitely messed up the meter and even the rhyming:

"I used to sing about olives/People would bring me lots
Then I started to sing about weed/The green stuff magically appeared
Now I'm singing about pussy, pussy, pussy, pussy, pussy, pussy, pussy, pussy."

He also sang to us about how he was through with love and about how his first ten days in office went when he was elected president. It was a scattered effort, but oh-so-earnest, punctuated by heartfelt thanks to the audience for sticking with him as he tried out his new stuff ("I know this isn't exactly 'Marilyn Monroe'"). His entreaties were completely successful -- there weren't many first-timers there and we were all happy to be asked to give him a break.

The best part of the night came when Dan introduced a "hymn" and said he hoped we'd all share the gospel on the subway and on our voicemail messages. It went "Bush must be defeated" over and over and over, and rhymed that with "his supporters unseated," "the Rose Garden weeded," "his evil depleted," etc etc etc. It was energetic and hilarious and fantastic, exactly what we'd all come there to see, and I was warmed by seeing Dan stand up and belt something out with his eyes sparkling.

The last song of the night was called "Sammy's Bat", about religion and sacred cows more than it was about baseball. I'll close this post with the words that Dan closed that song and the show. In typical Dan rambling fashion, it was the only reference to Mr. Sosa in the song:

"Sometimes you play by the rules/
And sometimes you gotta cork your bat."

Stage Fright

2003-10-03T08:46:00.000-07:00

I understand that there are a few more Readers these days. I'm mildly ecstatic that my adventures in India were enjoyable to my friends and family, and maybe even to a stranger or two. Could be the start of my publishing empire. Of course, now that I've gotten some nice feedback, I stopped writing. Hopefully it's not because of the feedback. I'll assume it's because trips to Minnesota don't have the same inspirational value as trips to Bangalore. Hopefully this weekend's rock shows loosen me up, so to speak.

Globalism

2003-09-22T21:52:00.000-07:00

Someone's cell phone in the office here in Bangalore keeps ringing, and the annoying tone lodged into my head and stayed there until I realized what it was from: that song by Nelly and the chick from Destiny's Child that goes "No matter what I do, I'm crazy over you, even when I'm with my boo, all I think about is you." What's a boo? I'm glad we're exporting all the right stuff, and that people are listening.

Update: It just rang again. I'm now wildly accusing people in the office of having a terrible ringtone.

Attacked

2003-09-20T23:23:00.000-07:00

Rs, I was attacked in broad daylight yesterday. I can still feel the chafing on my forearms where their little fingers scrabbled for purchase.

I was walking with three colleagues in Bangalore, and we decided to go to Cobben Park to look at some big imposing government buildings. They were okay -- one of them had the quote "Government work is God's work" inscribed in big gold letters high up its facade, and I liked that. We then wandered through the park, which was a typically Indian hodgepodge of nice trees and carefully tended gardens and unkempt muddy paths and rotting garbage and people sleeping and socializing on benches and screaming traffic. You get the picture (actually, you probably can't, but I can't describe it to you any better). At one point, a band of five or six children ran up to us shouting "English! English!" They began by holding hands and kissing the arms of a couple members of their group, and then they turned to me. Before I knew it, I had two small dirty children on each arm and a couple wrapped around each leg. It started out funny, and I lifted up my arms to give them a ride. That only sent them into a more of a frenzy. The whole time, another child, slightly older, kept telling me calmly, "10 rupees", as if, if I gave him some cash, he could banish the rest of them. I wasn't willing, or even able to get to my wallet, however, and before long it got to be less funny, as the kids wouldn't let go. I didn't want to hurt them, but whichever part of my body I extracted left another part exposed and vulnerable. The kids weren't responding to "No!" or "Come on now" or "Enough!" as I hoped they might. My friends were looking on with increasing sympathy, but were equally helpless. I slogged forward. This went on until we passed a car that had an Indian guy sitting in it. He said something to the kids, and they let us go. I'd like to know what he told them -- or was he the ringleader and felt it was simply time to move on to other prey? A narrow escape. A harrowing few minutes.

Unfortunate Misunderstanding.

2003-09-20T23:08:00.000-07:00

Readers, Phish's Mike Gordon got cleared of child endangerment charges on Friday. Phew.

Tunes

2003-09-17T03:19:00.000-07:00

I'm listening to music for the first time since I got here. Phishcast streaming over the web, 7/1/99 Antioch, TN. Pretty hot stuff. My laptop died, stranding all my illegal but sweet MP3s.

I'm very excited about the concert weekend I have coming up when I get back to the US, as well. I recommend both acts to all Readers out there.

Dan Bern, Martyrs', Chicago, 10/3. Dan is a new Dylan, my personal favorite new Dylan. He has songs that talk about eating nothing but olives, his big balls, how we should all flame out like Jimmy Dean, and somehow manages to be poignant with all of them. Nice, weepy, moving, irreverant, folky fun.

The Polyphonic Spree, The Empty Bottle, Chicago, 10/4. I'm a bit worried about this show. The Spree have been in a VW ad; the whole world has been exposed to their freaky cult-like ways, and should be mobbing the Ukrainian Village's trendiest nerd-glasses night spot. I'm still excited. A nine-member singing and dancing chorus, a harp, a theremin, 3 keyboardists, several drummers and guitarists, amazing levels of exuberance, and of course, all the Kool-Aid you can stomach.

I Love Soccer Writing

2003-09-16T22:19:00.000-07:00

You would never see anything like this in an NFL article.

"Zidane provided a flash of inspiration when he ran with intent at the terrified Marseille defence and unleashed a 30-yard drive which swerved from left to right and just missed the right post, with Vedran Runje in the visitors' goal desperately throwing himself to his left but looking unlikely to have stopped the ball had it gone the other side of the stanchion."

Stanchion? Terrified? With intent? I like that better than I like the tame output our folksy pundits.

Go Blue

2003-09-14T23:20:00.000-07:00

Thirty-eight to what?

Hampi

2003-09-13T04:43:00.000-07:00

Readers, the time has come to regale both of you with a tale of travel and adventure. I've been wanting to post about the trip for a week now, but never seem to make it back to the office after dinner to write due to the lethargic combination of a full stomach, a head cold, and/or bouts of India tummy. Well, now it's Saturday afternoon, and my stomach is full with lovely Cheese Masala Dosa, but I feel more or less healthy for the first time in a week. So, figurative pen in hand, it's time to assuage your thirst for my travelogue.

I arrived in India after midnight last Friday, slept at my nice Western-style hotel. and went in to work. I was only slightly dazed in the office all day. I'd known before I arrived that all the whiteys in the office and a number of the locals were taking a weekend trip to Hampi, an old ruined fort city. It was an overnight train away. I sure liked the idea of two straight nights in a bed, but I also knew that I'd be lonely in the city on the weekend without any other expats, and that I might miss something great. You're only young once, I suppose, so I went. We hopped on the train about 10 PM, and I had a ticket, but no berth in the sleeping car. Manoj, one of my nine travelling companions and the man who would take care of us during the trip, assured me that everything would be fine, that we'd just bribe the conductor to get me on the train. Which he did, although in the end, I'm not even sure he ended up paying anything. During the weekend, we met or heard about a bunch of Manoj's "uncles", who could get us discounts or tours or plane tickets or anything else. It's good to have a mover and shaker on your side. My mover and shaker had gotten us tickets in Sleeper Class on the Hampi Link Express, a mere 8-hour journey. Mind you, I'd just gotten in from a 30-hour door-to-door Chicago-Bangalore trip the night before, but remember, Only Young Once^TM. Most of my experience on the train was dominated by the latrines: my resolve to avoid them, the way they made the stations smell, the way they made the coaches smell, and, of course, the sticky brown stuff on the floor. The latrines are sort of amazing in the literal sense of the word. There are two in each car, Western Style (with a toilet-shaped apparatus covering the open hole in the floor through which you can see the tracks) and Indian Style (which has places for your feet around an open hole and rails on the wall for you to hold onto as you lean back and dangle your jewels). Man do they make the stations smell awful bad, though, for reasons I'm sure you can gather. Aside from the pissoirs, the appointments on the train were shockingly comfortable. Each compartment, or bogie, in the train car had eight padded benches, stacked three high. We had no sheets of course, but settled in without too much trouble, using tomorrow's sweatshirts as pillows. I had a top berth, which had almost enough vertical space to let me sit up, and which placed mere inches from our set of three enormous black fans that jutted out of the ceiling incongruously. Andy and I spent the first hour so just giggling about being on an overnight train through rural India, crowded into a reeking car with 70 people, and enjoying it.

The train was an "express", but evidently wasn't as express as some other trains, because it stopped often and tarried at each station or spot in the middle of nowhere when it did. At each stop boys would run onto the train selling food or coffee, running back and forth through the cars and yelling "coffeecoffeechaicoffeecoffee" loudly and nasally. I probably slept 4 hours, and woke up refreshed enough. We spent the last couple hours watching the sunrise and looking out on the fields of apparently nothing plowed by skinny men and skinny oxen pulling carts, the occasional rocky peak, and people waking up and brushing teeth and washing clothes. At the very end of the ride, I talked with a man who once was a Java programmer and now sells insurance in Hospet, the town where we disembarked.

We went to the hotel to clean up and have some dosas. The hotel was spare, but clean enough. Its main eccentricity was the bathroom, which had a shower head peeking out of the wall, and no suggestion of the idea that you might want to segregate shower from throne from sink. (I can't help it -- I think a lot about bathrooms in this country. They can be very important). Our group was some odd mixture of exhausted and quiet and goofy and energetic -- four or five of my co-worker companions seemed like kids even to me, still in my first and only youth, and they helped keep the trip fun by mocking each other or throwing firsbees or demanding ice cream. After a dosa, the ten of us piled into a car and drove the 10 miles to Hampi. Hampi is a World Heritage Site, and I won't eb able to do it justice here, so I won't try. It's an enormous ruined city with a small contemporary village still in it. It has enormous active temples, and miles and miles of ruined markets, temples, palaces, etc. ornately decorated and housing big-ass Shivas and Vishnus and friends. The setting is what makes it so remarkable. It's completely surrounded by five rocky hills entirely made up of big smooth tan boulders. There's a river through the middle, trickiling picturesquely over the same rocks. Look here for some visuals from my trusty Sony. Each one of the sites, of course, though quiet enough, had some crazy beggar or craftsman or cleaning lady who seemed to live there, and would smile at us or chide us or try to sell us something. Lots of cows with garishly painted and bejewelled horns, too. We had an amazing guide, who told stories I didn't quite catch, but took care of us for two days, taking us to the best sites and restaurants and ladies who hack the tops off of fresh cococuts with machetes and give youi a straw to drink out the juice. The first day we walked around a temple, walked up a mountain to look at and reach another old and magnificent city below, got in these tiny little hemispheric wicker boats and were paddled around the river, rented bikes, shipped them across the same river in the same boats, pedalled for a couple of miles, climbed a mountain to see the aptly named Monkey Temple (there were a lot of monkeys) and climbed, rode, ferried, and walked back. I was toast, I was wet toast, I was wet toast that had been violated by a broken bicycle seat, but it was quite an experience. Dinner, a beer, and then exhausted, extensive sleep followed.

The next day was much of the same, though we rode the car from site to site rather than take the more exhausting forms of transport. I even got to ride on the guide's scooter for a couple of the legs. An ice cream sundae, and then the train back. This time I got a berth well away from the rest of my group, and Readers, if you take anything away from this tale, know this: do not get a berth in a sleeper car in India that's just behind the latrines. The smell, especially when we stopped, was overwhelming. I could taste the urine in the air. I can still taste the urine in the air. So much urine. That, and I learned first hand about a noxious ritual everyone on the train seemed to enjoy as soon as they woke up: a deep, wet, loud throat clear and a nice juicy spit into a "sink" that I couldn't see but could sure hear. Somehow, though, I slept, and slept deeply if not for long. "Coffeecoffeechaicoffeechai".

Back to work the next day, Monday. Back in Bangalore, which felt eerily normal and sane. 72 hours in India, and I was in. No gradual feeling-out period this time. India and I were all over each other.

Cool Band Names That Have Come Up Lately

2003-09-12T08:23:00.000-07:00

60% Ginger Soda
Real-Life Hot Lesbian Couple

Formatting

2003-09-12T04:31:00.000-07:00

Sorry some of the formatting looks funny. Blogger added titles, so my old posts without titles are poorly spaced.

Hee Sop

2003-09-12T04:22:00.000-07:00

Readers, Bangalore seems quite taken with my Hee Sop Choi #19 Cubs t-shirt. Not sure you can blame them, really. It's sky blue and it lights up the night. I bet they like it at the heavy metal pub tonight, too.

Risk

2003-09-10T05:22:00.000-07:00

I'm in India, and I've caught a cold, as has my friend Ian. So he went out to the store today and bought some decongestant, which cost Rs13 for 10 pills, or about 28 cents. The only catch is that they contain phenylpropanolamine hydrochloride, which has been known to cause hemorrhagic stroke. But mostly in girls. And not very often. I'm sure it will be fine. My nose is really stuffy. The stuff seems to work.

Holy Fuck

2003-09-04T22:04:00.000-07:00

I'm in India.

2003-08-25T14:13:00.000-07:00

Visibility

Readers, my new place needs some window treatments. My room is beautiful and well-lit and could even be considered quite the love nest. There are however, three large windows that provide great viewing access from the kitchen, and another couple that expose me and my guests to the outside. My favorite part is how when my head is on my pillow, it's three feet from a neighbor's patio.

2003-08-24T07:27:00.000-07:00

Moving

Last entry from Hoyne. Last home DSL for what I imagine will be months (stupid Earthlink). I may develop the shakes.

2003-08-23T04:58:00.000-07:00

Waking Up

The air conditioner was loud, so turning the music up so we could hear it over the hummmmm made the room seem quieter.

2003-08-17T20:13:00.000-07:00

One Letter, and Other Assorted Sunday Night Notes

Readers, I like how "self-referential" (like this or any other blog) and "self-reverential" (like this or any other blog) are one letter apart.

This is a neat site. I've been told by someone wise that I belong to a burgeoning subculture of people obsessed with lists and this caters to that nicely. My first website, in fact, displayed my favorite two-hundred classic rock songs. It had blinking text, and generated a shocking amount of comment considering it was a 16-year-old's musing on the Doors and the relative greatness of Eric Clapton's various bands.

This blog is now one of 3,083,324,652 sites indexed by and searchable on Google. It took surprisingly long, but I've made it. A rabid fan following is sure to come next. I've warned Blogger about the likely increased load. Thanks to everyone who made this possible.

I might ditch the whole "Readers" theme. It really isn't funny.

I'm slightly sad that everyone at my company has happily interlinked blogs, but none of them link to mine. Then again, their blogs are about computer programming and the best way to structure software teams and other stuff like that. Mine is self-ref(v)erential. I write to it in hopes of spitting out a clever, well constructed sentence, I think. Occasionally I do, and I'm proud.

Narrator: Tyler, you are by far the most interesting single-serving friend I've ever met... see I have this thing: everything on a plane is single-serving--
Tyler Durden: Oh I get it, it's very clever.
Narrator: Thank you.
Tyler Durden: How's that working out for you?
Narrator: What?
Tyler Durden: Being clever.
Narrator: Great.
Tyler Durden: Keep it up then.

2003-08-14T10:44:00.000-07:00

Wump

Mike Gordon's new site is hilariously odd.

A wump happens when you pound the strings while moving the left hand perpendiagonally