The Act of Writing

Glen Campbell--"Words (Bee Gees cover) (mp3)

I've already started grading, or at least commenting on, papers again. It has been very difficult, that writing.

No, not writing. Writing. In the literal sense. As in the physical act of putting a pen tip to paper and moving it around.

It is no surprise that as we age, our bodies unlearn skills that we do not use. The surprise for me is that the act of writing seems to have become one of those skills. While writing may be like riding a bicycle, in this case, that means just as wobbly.

Right now, as I look over the beginning of a comment I've written over on a student paper, I notice several things: the "n" has been written over top of itself twice to make it clear, the "a" isn't all the way closed and looks more like a second "e," there are stems missing all over the place so that, for example, a "u" looks more like a check mark. Trying to make a "z" is laborious. My "ly" looks like the slope of a face and nose pointing right.

Sure, my writing has been deteriorating for years. It happens to all of us. But this time, it almost feels like I've had a stroke or something and am trying to work my way back.

It makes me wonder: what did I not write over the summer? I think, as I look back, that I did not write much of anything. Maybe a note here or a list there, but certainly not a single paragraph and probably not even a full sentence. A couple of bank checks.

As I sit here with my hands back to the more normal activity of typing, they have a kind of tingle to them, a reminder that muscles have not been used for a long time, at least not in these strange muscle formations. The number of times while responding to those student essays that I had to go back to a word to make it right is a little alarming.

I have always thought of myself as a writer. Many of my earliest accomplishments involved making lines and solid blocks of color with crayons, pencil writing inside the triple lines (middle one dashes, not solid) of writing paper, smearing the ink of early Bic ball point pens as my left hand slid over what I had already written. The paragraphs in grade school that seemed to take forever, the essays and stories and poems and notes and tablets filled with ideas or fragments or half-finished thoughts.

Now my hand is unpracticed; now that kind of writing in motion across lines and down pages is pretty much gone. I cannot imagine the circumstances under which I will fill the pages of a notebook with handwritten words again.

Students like to point out their bad handwriting; some will even apologize for it. Increasingly, I now have to explain to students what I have written.

Oh, I will get it back, some of it. The grading, the notes in meetings, the reminders on Post-Its all will help me to re-establish some base level of readability. But it's the loss that is haunting me. On a guitar, by contrast, I can practice and practice and, at least to my ears, get back to where I was with some songs and techniques.

Not so with writing. The signature on my Social Security card, signed when I was a child, is not a signature that I could write today. I can examine it and confirm that I wrote it, can acknowledge that it is part of the evolution of my signature, perhaps the de-evolution, but I cannot return to its precision and flourish no matter how often I write it.

Maybe one day people will not write at all, will only enter words in some different, advanced, technological way onto pads and screens or through the air. And maybe that is fine. But let us acknowledge that something is also lost when we aren't scratching out letters, when the computer swallows every revision we have made as if it never existed. Then our relationship to the words changes, if only semantically, for we are no longer writing, only entering text.

Petit Mal

The Body Says No - The New Pornographers (mp3)
Until I Wake Up - Dishwalla (mp3)

The modern phrase is "absence seizures." They are very brief seizures that often resemble "spacing out." They usually last a matter of seconds, but in more extreme cases can hit closer to a minute. Often these seizures have no outward sign, but sometimes they include a few ticks, like the shaking of a shoulder or stuttered blinking. Often this illness limits itself to childhood and early teen years.

One of the girls on my daughter's soccer team had an absence seizure in the middle of the game. A teammate passed it to her, and Sylvia (not her name) just stood there. Ball rolled right past her. It was totally weird.

So of course myself and a couple of other parents made some quick initial comment like, "Hellooo! Wakey wakey!" And then Sylvia's parents shoved the cold and calm dagger into our consciences with that little reply: "Actually she was having an absence seizure, but she's OK now."

My wife had just bought me a new pair of North Face sandals a couple of weeks ago, and I hadn't yet had the opportunity to savor their taste, so that was my moment to learn they taste kinda tart and sandy.

Sylvia's parents were totally cool about it, which helped. And naturally I tried making up for my ignorant insensitivity by engaging them in a too-long interrogation about it. How long has she suffered with it? (4 years) Will it last? (They hope and expect it to pass by the early teen years) What's the average duration? (About 15 seconds, sometimes as much as 30, and rarely as long as a minute) Is it genetic? (In this case, not from the parents directly) If it doesn't go away...? (Lots of potential problems but nothing they're not prepared to deal with. No driver's license was the quickest response)

The experience haunted me the rest of the day and as I lay in the hotel bed on Saturday night. I got up and read up on it while my girls slept. Having recalled "Bridge of Sighs" main character Lucy struggling with something between a long-form absence seizure and a fugue state, I went back and listened to an NPR interview with Richard Russo and read another interview looking for information.

We all have moments that remind us of our blessings and help put our own problems in perspective.

"Petit mal" means "little illness." This is anything but a small problem. Milk and peanut and grass allergies, or mild vision issues, or other issues with which my family wrestles, suddenly seemed palatable.

When I woke up at 4 a.m., still a little freaked out by it, I wondered if some people have petit mal phases where they just kind of zone out for a fraction of their lives rather than a fraction of a minute. Maybe an inexplicable day or week of behavior that goes counter to everything normal about them.

My mom started smoking cigarettes to cope with the death of my father and the unthinkable stress of having to raise her little son-creature. Maybe those three or four years -- years she has trouble remembering with any clarity -- were her life's own little absence seizure.

Henry Hyde had an affair when he was 41. Maybe his "youthful indiscretion" was his own little absence seizure.

No, I don't really believe that. But isn't it pretty to think so.

In recent days, every time I've found myself gazing into the distance, distracted from the world around me by a thought or a feeling, I wonder what it must be like to have no choice in the matter. To have something outside of yourself push your pause button while the world continues moving, and you merely disappear from time for a short span.

I'm not a control freak about much in this chaotic life, but that thought frightens me half to death.

Can Conservatives Rock?

"Out on the road today, I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac,

A little voice inside my head said, 'Don't look back, you can never look back.'"

I hate to be petty and exclusive about something as important as music, but my answer to the question of my title is a clear "No." The reality is that the primary voices in music for the last 50 years are all liberal voices. They are the voices of many races, many countries, many perspectives. They are the voices of poor neighborhoods and desperation, drug experimentation and sexuality, challenge and change. If Walt Whitman were around in the late 20th century, he would have been a rock musician.

Of course, that is the grand sweep I am talking about, not the counter-argument of a tired, drugged-out Elvis embracing Richard Nixon or a whacked-out Ted Nugent who would like to hunt all of us with his bow and arrow. Certainly there are rockers who tend toward the dark side of the Force. But they lose their authenticity when that happens.

The voices of rock music, blues, folk music, rap and hip-hip are the voices that represent the grand America that exists out there beyond the white, wealthy, church-controlled status quo Americans who have always gotten mad about anything that challenges their exclusive control of our country. In the 60's they'd have been threatened, in the 70's they'd have been outraged.

But at some point past the '70s, as their corporations got more and more control of popular music, they thought it was finally safe to embrace it.

The drift from the disco of the late '70s to the synth-pop that followed made the varieties of "rock" accessible to all the conservatives who had been shut out. That is the failure of the 80's as a decade of music. It had no rebellion attached to it, and so all the little Reaganites joined our party. Now, three decades later, any little Neo-Con thinks he and she can crank tunes in his and her car that run counter to every fiber of his and her political being and, in doing so, share in the culture he and she so abhor.

If you have right-wing friends who think that they can tap into the vibes of rock 'n roll or rap, Dylan or Dido, they are simply lying to themselves. It makes me sad. And it scares me.

See, whether or not you think music is in decline (I don't, I just think it has changed), the players have not changed a bit. The people who are singing the songs today are the same outcasts, gays, fornicators, drug users, bi-racial, tri-racial people that have always done the singing. In short, everyday Americans like you and me.

To join in that, you have to join in the many, many Americas that are out there. You have no choice. If you can't do that, you have no business listening. Not in my book.

Oh, yeah, and, pissed off as I am at the conservatives in America right now, I won't even concede country music to them. Nothing except the corporate-bullshit country music that either a) tries to create a past that never existed or b) tries to tap into some bland, patriotic values. The real country music of then or now has nothing to do with either of those themes. It has always been about lost love, the road, the plight of people trying to get by and doing what they have to do.

It's kind of obvious, really. A conservative outlook and music do not mix. A conservative outlook and art do not mix. A conservative outlook and a popular culture of food, film, television, and style do not mix. If they did, we'd all be listening to Perry Como, hanging Thomas Kincaid paintings in our homes, eating casseroles, and still watching Andy Griffith.

I fear, when people are willing to travel to hear a far right-wing television personality speak at the Washington Monument, that the liberal voices are facing a setback in this country. I fear the backlash against having a black president that seems to be coming to fruition. I fear the ignorance.

But then I remember the music, and I remember that conservatives don't rock. They don't rap, they don't protest in song, and they don't move us with a sexy rhythm or tell the truth about what it takes to try to live a life. And then I think, maybe, just maybe, it will be okay.

Underthings

My daughter has a friend named Pookie (name changed). Pookie is a wonderful girl, a good friend, and numerous other good things, but her recent claim to fame is that she located and purchased the perfect bra.

I don't know much about those kinds of things, so I really don't know how she did it. Dumb luck or careful searching, examination, and testing of the top-rated bras in America? I really can't answer that.

What I do know is that her bra was the talk for days, as in "Pookie had on the most beautiful bra" and "Let's go to Victoria's Secret and see if we can find Pookie's bra." What I do know is that when we were down in Atlanta a couple of weekends ago, my daughter visited to Victoria's Secret down there, couldn't find it, asked about it, and was outraged with the saleswoman would not go into the back to see if they had any. It must be quite a bra.

The additional, perhaps major, mystification for me, and I'm assuming for the other males reading this is, where did everyone see Pookie's bra? It's not like my daughter and her friends hang out in locker rooms at the Y or shower together or anything else. And not only my daughter knew about it. My wife and my other daughter were equally praiseful. Other friends who came over, too.

And that's where I get even more confused. No man has ever asked me where I got my underwear. I have never asked any man, either. I don't think I even knew to want to.

The perfect bra, I assume, is the union of freedom and form, of femininity and function. Why wouldn't women want to share their wisdom, their discoveries on the subject.

But men lack that kind of freedom. We cannot say to each other, "Hey, Bruce, I really like the way those grippers fit you. Where did you get them?"

Bruce: "I got them at Target. They were on sale. If you're thinking about going out to get some, let me know and I'll ride along. I can point out to you which ones fit me the best. They also have a great selection of both white and patterned."

"Cool, thanks."

And then a few weeks later, Bruce: "Wow, I see you took my advice. Those are so right for you."

"Yeah, I'm really proud of them. And they're so comfortable."

"I like the way they've designed that seam, too, don't you? It's much easier to pee."

"Much. Even one-handed."


OR


"Man, I really like your Sponge Bob boxers. They look like they give you a lot of room to move."

"They sure do. Do you want to try them on?"

"No, thanks, Carl. I'm going to go get some of my own."

"You won't be sorry. Ask Scott. He has some, too. I saw them when we were dressing after tennis. He also complimented how airy they are, even while they're stylish."

"No gapping?"

"Nope."

"Then I'll be able to wear them when I go out to get the newspaper on Sunday mornings."

While I wish women success in their quest for the perfect bra, I might be a little bit jealous. Clearly, men, we live in very different worlds, ours being very restrictive for fear of being ridiculed, while our females are free to frolic and flaunt their frilly things with their friends and no one will give it a second thought. Where did we go wrong?

Anatomy of a Road Trip

Grateful Dead--"On The Road Again (live)" (mp3)

PURPOSE: to drive some of my daughter's things, primarily a large, won't-quite-fit-in-the-car couch back to college.

LENGTH: 1,076 miles in 27 hours, 17 minutes (including a night's sleep).

ROUTE: Chattanooga, Tennessee to Knoxville, Tennessee to Lexington, Kentucky to Cincinnati, Ohio to Gambier, Ohio.

SOUNDTRACK: 187 songs with the Ipod set on "shuffle," starting with the Stones' "All Down The Line" and ending with LCD Soundsystem's "All My Friends." But, the Ipod always surprises you, and some unexpected pleasures along the way included a solo bootleg version of Springsteen's "Racing In The Streets" (I'd forgotten what a great song that is), the always-uplifting "Mtn Cat" by the Sheds, and a Gillian Welch cover of John Hartford's "In Tall Buildings" that brought tears to my eyes and made me wonder what the hell I am doing.

FOOD: a small bag of Smartfood, a Chik-Fil-A combo #1, a Tim Horton's honey-dipped cruller and coffee, a Tim Horton's ham and swiss sandwich combo, a regular size Gold Star chili (4-way with beans), a Steak 'N Shake combo #1.

HIGHLIGHTS: The brief times I spent with my daughter. When I envisioned driving back to college with her, I forgot about the fact that we would be in two cars, mine filled with the large couch. Still, the moments in Chik-Fil-A and Tim Horton's are worth the trip.

LOWLIGHTS: When my daughter cut her departure from a gas station to close and scraped most of the side of her still pretty new car.

A night at a Knight's Inn, arguably the most godawful hotel chain in America. My wife and I spent the second night of our honeymoon in one, something she has never let me forget. But, my daughter and I did escape that dump with no bites despite being in one of the most bedbug-infested cities in America.

ACCIDENTS/SLOWDOWNS: 1

INCIDENTS OF ROAD RAGE:

--flipped off a trucker who swung into fast lane in front of me and proceeded to ride alongside the truck he was supposed to pass for 10 minutes

--held down horn for over a minute (I counted) when a car cut in front of me at the I-75/I-24 split.

--multiple close "cut ins" in front of cars going too slow in fast lane that I had to go around.

--regular and indiscriminate use of the word "cock."

PERSONAL DISCOVERIES: I spent all of 15 minutes at my destination, Kenyon College, and so the drive became mostly just about the driving, not the excitement of getting somewhere, not the chance to enjoy the various beauties of this great land of ours, not the shared memories of the road. Just the driving. At some point, the Ipod gets boring, the seat position gets boring, the chewing of leftover ice in a cup gets boring, the glances into other cars as you pass gets boring, the Right Wing bumper stickers get boring, the giant white cross erected next to the adult superstore gets boring, even the occasional yellowish goop from a collision with a bug gets boring, singing aloud gets boring, phone calls get boring, breaking the law by texting gets boring, even the pleasures of being able to fart with impugnity get boring. And so you race, race, race to get home, and when you get home, everyone is gone shopping and you walk around the house wondering what to do now that you're done.

Addicted to The Midnight Hour

The Midnight Hour - The Commitments (mp3)

For a brief while I felt a little guilty about my late nights of self-enforced solitude in the confines of my own home.

"Nothing good happens after midnight," one friend is fond of saying. She mostly means her child(ren). She also kinda sorta means adults, too. But she doesn't say it out loud because she doesn't want to sound as judgmental about it as she actually is.

Another friend puts it differently: "When I'm up alone after 11 p.m., I find myself doing a lot of things that aren't ultimately all that healthy."

For the record, as I type these very words, it's 12:27 a.m. I am not at present touching myself, nor have I at any point in the current 24-hour cycle. I am not looking at inappropriate pictures or reading inappropriate things. I am not communicating with anyone the former Elin Woods would find cause to beat in my windshield with a golf club, nor am I engaged in any form of high-stakes illegal betting. I'm neither manufacturing nor participating in any sort or kind of illegal substances.

It's 12:31 a.m., and I'm doing nothing all that terribly wrong.

That's not always the case, mind you. No sense in getting into which particular options might, on occasion, land on my late-night radar screen, you cheeky monkeys you. I just ain't no cherub, is what I'm sayin'.

At times, I have been incredibly conflicted about all this. About my almost chemical dependence on nocturnal independence. About the fact that, no matter how late my wife stays up to be by my side and experience late-night life with me, I must stay up another one or two hours later.

It has helped to learn I'm not alone. There's millions of us out there. I recently had the opportunity to hear my boss express, almost word for word, the very explanation I myself have for this need. He, too, it would seem, suffers from this affliction, this addiction, this need to have solitude prior to slumber.

And, in truth, I write this not merely because I'm awake at 1 a.m., but because circumstances around people I know have just yesterday served to remind me that we all carry burdens and mysteries that even our best friends can rarely fathom unless it's written to them in big 50-font print.  That whole "quiet desperation" thing is just flat-out universal, my friends, and if you don't know you're quietly desperate, just hang out a little longer, and it'll come to you.

My mother, my wife, and several other women I know and respect seem to savor and prefer the early-morning solitude. I don't mean to make this a gender issue, because I know a few guys who prefer the 5 a.m. wake-up to the 1 a.m. bedtime, but for me the inclination does divide largely along gender lines... yet I think the product and the motive is ultimately the same. My mom, my wife, theyt wake up and greet a happier day if they earn just a few minutes, maybe a half an hour, where they can gather themselves without the burden of other duties, without the distraction of obligation to something other than just waking themselves up.

For me, I need the right to put myself to sleep. To sing my own lullaby. To watch or listen to or play whatever I need to get my mind calmed down. And I just can't seem to do any of that very well with other people around. (Unless I'm really good 'n' drunk. Which is hardly a kind of practice I want to make too terribly regular. Certainly not more regular than it already is, thankee very much.)

I love -- no, I need -- the Midnight Hour. Sometimes it comes at midnight, but not always. The Midnight Hour isn't a moment on the clock. It's a tipping point in the caverns of your being that tells you to call it a night, that in fact begs and ultimately demands you to do so.

Just you and I.

Written under the precise level of intoxication required to think a post using the words "I" and "me" almost 500 times would somehow express something larger than merely an unhealthy obsession with the author's own sense of self-awesomeness.

Another Reminder Why I Don't Get Old People

Take Control - Weezer (mp3)
Time to Check My Eyelids for Holes - Stereophonics (mp3)

I'm in our church choir. Sunday mornings, our choir processes.

There's not a thing about processing I find very appealing. I don't like the word. I don't like the idea of walking down the middle of the church with a choir book in my hand trying to sing and pay attention to where I'm walking and have all these people looking at me and keeping time with the director way up at the front of the church.

For someone such as I, an untrained and amateurish soul with a voice made for a large choir (as in, it sounds better when buried underneath dozens of other voices), there's just too damn much going on during a processional. The worst part of all is knowing that my voice can be identified quite clearly as I walk past people. There goes Billy, missing the beat again. He's as off-beat as Steve Martin listening to the blues.

This past Sunday, we processed as usual, and I'm making my way up into the back row of seats where all the men now collect when I hear this ominous thud, almost as if one of the pipes from the pipe organ had collapsed on someone. I look over to my right (I sit on the far right side if you're facing the front of the church, which is to say I'm looking at the left side of the front. Or something), and there's five or six blue robes huddled like they're getting ready to call Circle Right Option A Z Post Delta on Three or something*.

* -- sorry. It's football season.

As it happens, one of the many many many elderly folks in our choir fell on their way up the steps. And when I say "many many many," what I mean is that the median age of our choir is 95. What I mean is that, of the 24 regular members, and of the 35 or so total members, I am at 38 the second-youngest human. The third-youngest is almost 50. There's only five or six others below 60. The rest are, like, so old that they probably still use the word "colored" in ways that have nothing to do with crayons.

The spill in question was nasty. Fella tripped on his robe and ended up scraping a huge chunk off his right forearm as well as bruising up several areas of his face and getting several small cuts. His robe got all bloodied. Five different choir members had to leave the choir to tend to him, which represented a full quarter of the day's take.

It kinda makes me an asshole, but I knew this was going to happen. If Vegas had allowed it, I would have staked my entire life's earnings on one of our older members taking a nasty dive during the processional. It would be like placing a bet on the chance it might possibly rain in the next year. Were I a better person, I would have said something. I would have asked aloud, "Why are we processing with so many old old old people? Isn't this unsafe?" But there's always a back story...

You see, our previous choir director, who left being completely despised by 4/5 of the elderly folks in our church and in our choir, ended that great tradition when he came. They thought he ended it because he was a big ol' self-centered know-it-all closeted frosted-tips-lovin' choir director who had to assert his authority over them. In truth, he ended the tradition because he knew someone was going to get themselves hurt.

The old people, all of 'em, almost to a person, are the very people who went apeshit in demanding that we process. Now here's an even better part. Two of the most curmudgeonly old choir members who demanded the Return of the Processional (the new novel by JRR Tolkein!) ended up quitting the choir two weeks later because -- wait for it! -- that's right, they couldn't process safely.

Do you realize what I'm telling you, people?? Old people can be so damned stubborn that they'd rather be right from the sidelines than to be wrong and stay in the game. In fact, I'm pretty sure they'd take the same bet as I would, that one of 'em was doomed to get hurt. But by God, if that's the cost of maintaining a tradition, then that's the G-D cost, and that's the way it is, and that's that, so bugger off and let me die already in some traditional freakin' way!

Point is, saying something was pointless. So I was left to just ride out the processional storm out and wait for someone to fall and hurt themselves and hope it wasn't serious like a broken hip or worse.

And that's what happened, thank God. A fall. Bruises and superficial wounds. No broken hips. And a vote, coming Wednesday night, that the practice of processing into the choir loft on Sunday mornings be postponed until further notice. A vote I know will pass because I had the votes locked up before we even left the choir loft on Sunday morning.

The Worst Cut Is The Deepest

Want to know what the worst thing you can say to somebody else is? Here goes: "You kinda suck."

That's right. Right there, contained in those three little words (or four, if you're in a proper but harsh mood) rests the ultimate insult for the 21st Century. Gone are the "Fuck you," "Screw you," "Blow me," and "Eat me" from days of yore. Quite simply, they have lost their potency, both from overuse and from range of use, as in sometimes said jokingly or, at least, semi-seriously.

It doesn't seem right, does it? I mean, look at the statement. It's not unequivocal. It's not direct. It's not something that anyone, I'm guessing, has ever yelled at the top of his or her lungs.

But, then, that is the point. When you say "You kinda suck" to someone, you are not saying it in the heat of the moment. You cannot claim later that you didn't really mean it because it was simply fueled by passion.

Nope. "You kinda suck" is a calm, carefully-considered, precisely-worded assessment. Of you, you being the receiver.

There is only one way to say "You kinda suck." Coldly, even if can you keep your voice level.

OK, I know you have questions. Let me answer them.

Question #1: How can "you kinda suck" be worse than, for example, "you suck"? That is a wonderful question, You. But think about it. It is precisely because of the pulling back, because of the measured nature of the statement that it hits home so hard. The speaker has clearly tried to take something off of his fastball, but that only means that he has slipped it by you unexpectedly. You were set up. Yeah, that's not so bad, you think. Everybody has a bad day. Wait a second.

Okay, maybe there is another way to say it. Sadly.

Question #2: Is there a kind of resignation to this insult? Yessiree, there is. Good insight, You. "You kinda suck" implies that, up until this point, the jury was still out. Up until this point, there was still hope. Up until this point, I/you/he/she wasn't going to say anything, but finally had to. And that underlying reluctance hits like a hammer.

Question #3: So what? Well, for one thing, the expression is everywhere these days, but it's rarely aimed directly at anyone. It's often used in the 3rd person, behind the back. Or it's used as a quick mini-review of anything from a movie to a video game to a gadget. But, even in those contexts, it's the kiss of death. Why would you want to do anything that "kinda sucks"? There are too many other options in the modern world.

It takes less of leap than a flu jumping from animal to human, though, for that hipster expression to set its sights on another human in a direct conversation. And then, you've got troubles, because a) it's pretty hard to take back and b) I fear that it identifies a condition in another person that is not fixable.

So, that's why it's on my mind. A casual comment, a reverse of "awesome," that just floats around out there and, all of a sudden, it's in my mind, and I've thought it about another person. That kinda sucks.

Frantic Friday

Just a quick post to say HAPPY FRIDAY! ...Aaaaand to let you know that I've been having a major brain fart... ehem, errr.... a lapse in mental organization! I can't seem to finalize my post on what it is I've been wrapped up in lately, too many things to consider and incorporate, ARGH!

My mind tends to overwhelm me on a daily basis, you see I must have a constant design and decorating ticker scrolling through my brain nonstop (like the one that rolls across the bottom of your tv while watching the news because apparently there's just too much happening that they need to bombard you with verbal and written news!? yeah, like that ticker)! Most days my mind is racing with design/decorating/craft/blog ideas and my fingers just can't do the typing and clicking fast enough to keep up! Sometimes I wish I could scream "ENOUGH" and the little creative elves in my mind would just take a break and give me some time to organize one thought. Uh oh, did I just reveal a little bit of my craziness? Oh well, that must be what keeps me going! :) But seriously, does this ever happen to you? Does your mind work faster than your physical ability (or willingness) to act on those thoughts and ideas? I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a bit lazy, so I get bombarded with so many plans and to-do's that I have trouble keeping up from time to time.

Speaking of plans, this weekend is going to be a hectic craft and family filled extravaganza, more so than last weekend, because my aunt is hosting a craft party at her house. I'll be focused on helping my mom create a vertical garden for her patio out of an old trellis and painting a few things that need a fresh new look, I'll definitely have posts next week to share those projects with you. Oh, and I never did eat Thai last weekend, one thing led to another and it got too late and since our favorite restaurant is on the other side of town, we ordered take-out instead. Fortunately the weekend is here again, but this time my boyfriend's mother and brother have invited us to join them for Thai (ever since we took them to eat there they have been obsessed like us!), so Thai will definitely be filling my belly TOMORROW NIGHT! Can't wait! Yay! Tom-Kha-Gai soup, Chicken Pad Thai and Massaman Curry Chicken (oh my)! *DROOL* ;P

So hang tight my bohemians, I'll be back soon with my post on what has been occupying my mind and my time these days... Want a hint? It has to do with some aspect of what's in the picture above!

Have a wonderful weekend!

xoxo


(Image via Flickr)

Open Letter to God's Crappy Spokesmen

With God On Our Side - Buddy Miller (mp3)

The text located on the blog linked here -- and numerous others -- was sent to me via email by Johnnie Carter, MD, a man I don't think I know. Originally I was going to respond directly to Dr. Johnnie Carter, but I decided instead to make it an open letter to many stupid people all at once.

Here's one of my favorite segments:

Bottom line: my America is vastly different from Obama's, and I have a higher obligation to my Country and my GOD to do what is Right!

For eight (8) years, the Liberals in our Society, led by numerous entertainers who would have no platform and no real credibility but for their celebrity status, have attacked President Bush, his family, and his spiritual beliefs!

Here's another:

They have made every effort to remove the name of GOD or Jesus Christ from our Society !

They have challenged capital punishment, the right to bear firearms, and the most basic principles of our criminal code !

They have attacked one of the most fundamental of all Freedoms, the right of free speech!

Dear Stupid People, a.k.a., Drs. Johnnie Carter, Charles Stanley, and David Barton, and the other stupid people who read more than five words you wrote without turning green from infectious puke,

I respect that you have (in theory) earned some kind of doctoral degree, but I don't respect your right to annoy me via my business email with a bunch of ugliness cloaked under the illusion that you have any notion about God or what He wants. Your hypocrisy and the smugness with which you seem to espouse beliefs that even claim to originate from the same Bible I've studied has vastly more in common with the Pharisees and Sadducees whom Jesus decried than it does with His disciples or followers.

(FACT: You can't say Sadducees without saying "SAD.")

You introduce your spew by listing those things you don't share with President Obama. NEWS FLASH: You don't "share" anything with anyone because your particular brand of absurd Christianity imparts absolutely zero value on sharing. (Note: Sharing stupid opinions doesn't count.)

You are a fearmonger. You are a hatemonger. You are far too full of yourself to have much room for a higher power. God's priorities, I'm quite certain, are not in the order of (1) Death Penalty, (2) Firearms, and (3) Free Speech (from what corner of your sphincter, exactly, did you pull this one by the way?)

I don't know how you got my email address, but I politely request that you never again send me anything of this nature. I can handle untold numbers of political emails, but when you dare to have the audacity to speak for the God I worship, and when you dare to suggest God would be more horrified by your precious tax burden than he would with war, violence, and poverty, then you have far overstepped your bounds.

It's a shame you didn't work on Basil Marceaux's campaign. It's not too late to throw him on the ticket with Palin in '12.

Sincerely,
Billy

Written with God's full support and encouragement. As far as you know.

Diners, Drive-Ins, and No-Talent Ass Clowns

The Byrds--"Truck Stop Girl" (mp3)

Provocative title aside, I have nothing personal against Guy Fieri. He seems like a nice enough guy, might even be fun to hang out with, with his lots of energy and enthusiasm for whatever his current endeavor seems to be. And I know some of you are big fans.

But I keep having this dream where I'm sitting at a table with him, about to eat, when he suddenly reaches across the table, grabs my sandwich, waits for the camera to zoom in on him, takes a huge bite of it, looks at me and the camera simultaneously, chews with gusto and exclaims, "Now that is a sandwich!"

And there it is. Not that I mind sharing a sandwich in my dreams. But, you see, Guy, I already knew it was a sandwich, suspected it was quite a sandwich, or I wouldn't have ordered it in the first place. And so did the person who made it.

Guy Fieri is a shill, a shyster, a middleman that America does not need. Certainly, he is not the only one. But at the moment, he is the most visible of a disturbing trend--a kind of redundancy of validation.

Here are two major problems with Guy Fieri and his ilk. And I'm talking about everyone from Rachel Ray to that guy who travels around the country trying to eat the ridiculously huge or the rididculously hot foods of America on Man Vs. Food. Like Guy Fieri, they all want to become brands. Obviously, Rachel Ray already is one.

But here's what that means. Guy comes into a town where his research assistants have drummed up some local place that has a dish or two that they're known for and proud of. They contact the establishment, indicate that Guy wants to do a segment on their _______ . What is the restaurant to do? Even if they think Guy is some kind of bozo who's going to come in and mug for the camera, they can't say no. Who would? Who wants to be the place that turned Guy Fieri down. So, they play the game, probably have to advertise in advance to ensure that there will be a great crowd then when Guy and the Cameras (rock band name, anyone?) burst on the scene. All so that Guy can come in and give them the "Guy Fieri Chomp Of Approval."

SIDEBAR: I mean, do you really want to be making your famous tamales with your crew of handicapped orphans for a church picnic and have Bobby Flay show up for a throwdown where he's going to make goat cheese and wild boar tamales in hand-ground masa wrapped in organic corn husks and steamed in virgin apple cider?

So, problem one. These people deem it their duty to "legitimize" foods that were already legitimate. By virtue of their singling you out and visiting you, all of a sudden, your humble little restaurant matters. All of a sudden, your onion rings are bigger, crispier, and crunch than they have ever been, all because they've been blown up TV-sized and are entering Guy Fieri's ample mouth. See, it's a brand. They aren't just the best onion rings in town, they now have the Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives Seal of Approval.

Which leads to the second problem. The Guy (pun intended) will brand anything without discernment. He may travel out to the Iowa State Fair to bite into your pork tenderloin sandwich, but he'll also throw that same over-the-top energy into the latest offerings at T.G.I. Friday's. And, at that split second when the Guy Fieri brand treats a Friday's cheese stick machine-made in a corporate food factory in Montclair, New Jersy as the same food orgasm he experiences at a po-boy shack, he's done. At least, in my book. Zero credibility.

You cannot have it both ways, Mr. Fieri. Either you are like Jan and Michael Stern, who created the concept of Roadfood and who somehow craft a jointly-reverent prose to promulgate its ephemeral qualities to readers, or you are a moneygrabber who knows that your time as a "celebrity" will be brief and so you must expose yourself anywhere andeverywhere that suits your financial purpose--even as host of a game show.

While not a huge fan of the celebrity chef concept, I do acknowledge that those men and women are incredibly talented. But celebrity eaters? I can do that myself.

We are a franchised nation. We take comfort in seeing the same stores and restaurants repeated every few miles. But, there was also a joy in being able to discover a local place that did things differently, perhaps better than, those ol' reliable chains. There was a joy in venturing out. Now, talentless middlemen are, in a sense, franchising even the Mom 'n Pops. Now all of those places become Guy's places and people will go to them because they have been pre-selected and certified on televisions in the safety of their living rooms.

People like to make fun of Rachel Ray, but, really, Guy Fieri is no different. In fact, he's simply stolen her original idea of going into a city, finding the cheap, out-of-the-way places and eating well for less than $25/day. He's just put his own name and brand on it.

Portrait of the Artist as a Hairdresser

Saint John - Cold War Kids (mp3)
Lives Like Mine - Mike Hale (mp3)

Last week I broke up from my previous hair stylist -- I didn't call, didn't even leave her a note -- and aimed to find one closer to my new home. I walked into a nearby franchise joint right after work, and the only woman there greeted me, and our blind hair date had begun.

She sat me down and started running her fingers through my hair. She said my hair was unusually thick. (My blind hair dates always say this.) But then it got weird.

"Your eyes are really close together on your face," she said. Admittedly, I flinched at that one. I've always known this -- when I remove my glasses, I look a little bit too much like a mole -- and it's definitely one of those observations you'd rather not someone say aloud as if they were reading a newspaper headline.

"Don't worry honey," she said. "You look fine." She was trying to soften the blow. But the "fine" in this quote was not, like, "fiiiiiine." It was more like How was work? Fine. That kind. Dismissive. As if she didn't have time to deal with my self-esteem issues.

Then she said I had a hidden cowlick on the back right side of my hair. Would you believe no one has ever told me that? I only knew about the two cowlicks at the top of my forehead. How many cowlicks are up there, lurking, about which I am still unaware??

Then she said that the right side of my head was my good side. The side without the back cowlick. She said that side of my hair "naturally wants to be the way it should." Those were her words. The cowlick side was fighting itself, she said. Some kind of war on hair terror is being waged on the left side of my skull.

And all of this was said to me before she even whipped out the scissors.

She dry cut my hair. Never used one ounce of water. She never snipped straight across the hair. She would take out little strands here and there in an intentionally jagged manner. She kept explaining that all those traditional methods of hairstyling -- straight cuts, wet hair, thinning shears -- were lazy ways of mechanizing what is supposed to be about finding a natural look. What I didn't say in response was that I kind of thought the natural look was to not get a haircut at all. But whatevs.

Point is, she provided me a haircut unlike any other I've ever received. I can't confidently say it was the best haircut ever; only the most unique and invigorating.

Haircut As Transcendent Yoda-like Experience.

The only word more misunderstood than "artist" is the word "non-conformist."

Our lemming culture has been so well-taught that at least every other person hears the word "non-conformist" and thinks of that God-forsaken Robert Frost poem, "The Road Not Taken." As if Robert Frost invented the very notion of non-conformity.

Nevermind that his poem has jack squat to do with non-conformity, because it doesn't. If you read the poem carefully, he says the paths are all but the same. One has been treaded upon slightly more. Damn poem is about choices, about the permanence and irreversibility of choices, not about non-conformity.

If he'd wanted to write a poem celebrating non-conformists, the narrator would have pissed on both paths and made off into the pathless woods to create a new path all his own. But that would be stupid. There's thorns and poison oak and snakes and all sorts of unknown crap awaiting you on the unmarked path. Which is why non-conformity is usually overrated.

Same thing seems true about Artists. We glorify them. We make Artists ("artistes" if you will) out to be blessed by the gods with vision, or talent, or whatever. But an amazing number of the greatest artistes -- writers, painters, musicians -- are insufferable human beings, fighting a variety of demons in their head, often drowning themselves in one vice or another, and frequently engaging in what can mildly be described as misogynistic or misanthropic behavior.

If you removed from the list of Great Artistes those who beat or abused lovers, intentionally killed themselves or drugged themselves into the grave, or generally held an openly hostile view of their fellow man and woman, you easily remove more than half of my favorite artists.

I spend my life walking paths that are slightly worse for wear, and I spend my days wondering what my life might have been like had I taken those other paths, the ones that were for all intents and purposes identical.  Artists walk the unmarked paths with the poison ivy, the thorns, the snakes, the mystery.

I look forward to my next encounter with this hair artist. Damn she's weird.

The Last Day of Summer

Yep, in my world, yesterday was the last day of summer. School doesn't actually start for another week, but today starts the official activities that precede that beginning--meetings, talks before parents, opening dinners, mixers, in-services.

While it's true that summer keeps getting shorter and that, on our school calendar, this one only lasted about 2 1/2 months, it has also felt, to me, like a very long summer. I think I timed this one about right, extending the time off by splitting my three weeks of vacation in between Fridays off (I can't say enough about the mental benefits of the 4-day work week) and one large block of time down in Florida. That is what made the summer feel longer, and better.

So, yes, I'd call it a successful summer, in spite of overwatering my tomatoes early and condemning them to a quick death due to leaf rot, in spite of the incessant heat wave that has enveloped this city, in spite of the closing of the New York Diner, and in spite of the crunchy char-dog I took a bite of at the Strut before I hurled it to the ground, a pleasure I put off for too long and paid the price for.

Without further ado, here are the highlights and lowlights of the summer:


THE LOWS

1. The break-in at our house in mid-June. It is an event which still reverberates in the collective consciousness of our family. I can see it in the attention to the double and triple-locking of doors. It comes rushing back any time there is a noise during the night or even a knock at the door, or when I go outside at night to see if the extra lights we installed are still working. For me, I am still not comfortable sleeping upstairs; I want to be somewhere where I can hear whatever I need to hear. But, no, no gun.

2. Guidestar. com. This annual kick-in-the-nuts was a little different this year because I avoided going to the page myself, but its salient highlights were shared with me by eager others. Some would rather not know. Some accept it as the way things are. I suppose I'd rather know. This year it hurt, because it reported on a year in which there was no money for raises. Oh, really.

3. A broken air conditioner in my car. It broke on the way to Florida. I took it like a man, sucking on large cups of ice cubes all the way down. Then we snuck out of Florida during a thunderstorm and used an overcast evening and driving through the night to make the trip tolerable. Tolerable. But now, on a daily basis, there are moments when I'm sitting in traffic in a car that, even with the windows down, has heated up to 120 degrees. I suppose I should get it fixed, if I had the money. See #2.


THE HIGHS

1. World Cup Soccer. This was the unexpected pleasure of the early weeks of summer, and things seemed a bit emptier once it was gone. Getting up early to watch games, seeing my daughter interested in the first sporting events in her life while learning players and lingo and even discussing strategy with a coach, being part of the collective American experiences at the Tremont Tavern, packing into a sports bar in Charleston for America's final game, crying, nay, weeping over Germany's elimination, cheering on the filthy Dutch at the end--I was very happy to be a part of it. And I can't wait for the next one.

2. My daughter's 21st birthday. Both seeing her joy at reaching this milestone and getting to put on a celebration for her made for one of the summer's better nights. As someone who likes to think that he can express love through cooking, this night was an attempt to do just that, and having friends there to share in that experience and to assist me made it memorable. And, of course, cooking paella outdoors on a grill is a primal experience not to be missed.

3. Charleston and New Orleans. The two are seen as somehow bookends of Southern culture, almost competitors. And while both may still have echoes of the Old South, in many ways they couldn't be more different. Charleston is charming and coherent; New Orleans is casual and slack and contains so many conflicting layers of history that almost every block is a different New Orleans. I had not been to Charleston before. I will be back. But, New Orleans has my heart. And taking my younger daughter and a group of her friends down there and showing it to them helped me to see it once again with fresh eyes.

4. The Play. I spent the better part of two weeks in Florida writing a play, or part of one. It's not one that you're likely to read, because it would probably get me fired, people being touchy the way they are. I sent a first draft to a friend who critiqued it pretty hard, and that knocked me off my game for awhile, but I plunged into Act II and revived myself with the challenge of trying to manage a conversation with six characters and trying to get them to sound different from one another, an endeavor both intellectually stimulating and physically exhausting.

I enjoy all of the seasons, but I will have a hard time letting this summer go, will undoubtedly do my best to extend it in whatever ways possible. I hope yours was memorable, too. Onward.

The Beatles: Lyrical Art and Graffiti

The Beatles by Richard Avedon

Hello all, I know I've been missing in action this week and I'm sorry! To be honest I just haven't had the juice for it... you know, I've been wrapped up in life. Does that ever happen to you? I'm positive the answer must be yes because I firmly believe all human beings are the same deep down. With the world we live in today it's easy to get overwhelmed and carried away, there's a barrage of digital information at our fingertips, thousands of channels and crazy things happening in the world every day. Also, there's that thing called WORK! Yeah, work can drain me mentally and take away my desire to blog, grrr.

Anyway, today is Thursday and I am back! Hooray it's Thursday and tomorrow is Friday wheeeee! So, what have I been up to while wrapped up in life's little treasures? That's a question I will answer in my next post. For now I hope you will all enjoy this post on various images I have collected from the web, the common theme being the amazing and wonderful group The Beatles. I love their music and all of the art and other forms of self expression it inspires, it's truly indicative of the everlasting impact The Beatles have had on societies throughout the world!

Since this post is all about them, I started things off with my favorite piece of The Beatles art, the psychedelic portrait titled in their name by Richard Avedon (above). What's not to love about all of those funky poses and psychedelic colors?? Besides, you know I love this art because I have it in my art den at home! Take a look:


What's that I hear? You love The Beatles too and want this art in your home!? You could print them out like I did and [impatiently] frame them (they don't look too polished up close!), or you can go bigger and better (and probably really expensive and do this (as seen in my brief post last Monday):


Either way it will look good, I was just too impatient and I wanted my own Richard Avedon trippy Beatles art too much to wait! Hey, it suits me just fine for now, but perhaps one day I will get a bigger version!

Anyway, as you will see, the following images are a montage photography, graffiti and artwork which in some way represent The Beatles and their music, "All you need is love" seems to be the most popular lyric used, but I really love this first one... I couldn't agree with The Beatles more, you got to be free!

By the way, if you enjoy this post, which I hope you do, you may also be interested in checking out one of my past posts on Psychedelic Rock Concert Posters!

xoxo

This is the actual sign and gate for Strawberry Field in Liverpool, England....

...covered in graffiti from all of the Beatles lovers around the world :)....

I really like this one....

".....but I'm not the only one... I hope some day you'll join us, and the world will be as one!"

I really love this lyric.... couldn't be more true!
"The love you take is equal to the love you make"

I wanna live in a Yellow Submarine, a Yellow Submarine.... I'm lovin' this art and the metal heart peace sign too...

This funky piece is a paper cutout art by Pinky Vision....

These pieces below are by an artist named Chepita and I found them on Flickr.......

And last, you might remember these images which I have featured in past posts....

Also featured in [this post]

Also featured in [this post]


((All images via Google image search, WeHeartIt, Vi.sualize.us and Flickr)