My family is at the beach— and while it’s not quite the same without my dad— still, the weather is nice, the water is warm, I’ve already played basketball with the boys and pickleball in Avalon, and last night, we were all tired and didn’t go hang out with my cousins, instead we watched The Office, which was a family favorite back in the day, and we reminisced about when comedy was comedy— unlike the new season of The Bear— a show which used to be at least a little bit funny but has gotten more and more depressing with each season.
Trump and Tariffs, Two Stupid Tastes That are Even Stupider Together
The irrationality of Trump's tariff policies cannot be overstated-- the fact that he slapped a 50% tariff on the tiny African nation of Lesotho is case in point . . . ostensibly because Lesotho runs a trade deficit with the USA-- but Lesotho is too poor to buy American products (and even if they did buy American products, they are too tiny a nation to buy very much) but we like to buy lots of diamonds and textiles from them-- so essentially they are being punished by Trump for being small and poor and doing back-breaking labor, but this silliness is nothing compared to what's happening with Brazil: Brazil actually buys more stuff from the USA than it sells, so we are running a trade surplus with Brazil -- hooray!-- this is a place that we export goods to and make money, but nonetheless, Trump is threatening Brazil with high tariffs because he does not like the way the Brazilian judicial system is treating fellow asshole authoritarian Jair Bolsonaro-- who staged his own Jan 6 insurrection (and possible assassination plot) because Bolsonaro felt his election loss was rigged-- sound familiar? . . . so to show solidarity with an abominable guy, Trump jeopardizes a trade relationship that actually benefits the United States . . . WTF?
Busy Like a Hornet?
Earlier this afternoon-- despite the heat-- I geared up-- sweatpants, work boots, sweatshirt, glasses, gloves, and I sprayed this bald-faced hornet's nest that is hanging over the end of my driveway with some wasp and hornet killer spray . . . the spray promised to shoot 27 feet but I don't think it had that kind of range, although I think I did some damage and later on tonight, as apparently, bald-faced hornets are less aggressive when it starts getting dark, I'm going to spray the nest with our garden hose and see if I can knock it loose . . . hopefully most of the hornets are stunned or dead from the spray . . . I will keep you posted (or if you don't hear from me, then I have succumbed to the stings) but mainly I'm impressed at how fast these creatures built this thing-- I swear it wasn't there yesterday.
Africa Hot
Last night, my wife and I scored some free tickets to the Red Bulls game--our friend runs the Rutgers Mandela Washington Fellowship, which brings young African entrepreneurs to Rutgers for business networking and mentoring, but also some social activities--so last night they were all going to a Red Bulls match, they were taking a bus in but my wife and I chose to take the train to Newark and eat at Burke's Tavern, a Newark gastro-pub straight out of Brooklyn... there's some gentrification going on--and Burke's was delicious, especially the braised pork sandwich and beet salad--then we made the mistake of walking over the bridge to Harrison, instead of taking the PATH--this was a mistake because it was absolutely sweltering, jungle-hot outside--it seems New Jersey is moving from a temperate zone to a sub-tropical zone--by the time we reached the stadium, we were drenched with sweat... meanwhile, the African fellows were having no problem with the heat; the game was exciting, the Red Bulls overcame a two-goal deficit and won 5-3... I think so many goals were scored in the second half because the players wore out and couldn't run off the ball--anyway, we ended our day by taking the air-conditioned bus home, which was lovely--because you could nod off and not worry about getting off at your stop--and I'm looking forward to repeating this trip in the fall when the weather is more reasonable (for a person that grew up in a temperate zone, not the tropics).
Irony . . . It's So Ironic
As an English teacher, I'm always looking for examples of irony—and not "Alanis Morissette irony," such as "rain on your wedding day" or a "free ride when you've already paid"—those are examples of bad and good luck, respectively, not irony (although it is brilliant to improperly use a literary device and name the song as such; the song gained much more notoriety than if she had properly used the device; I should write a song called "Imagery" and fill it with abstractions . . . or a song called "Hyperbole" and keep it very understated)—and the trend of Trump-inspired ICE agents wearing masks when they do immigration raids, when the Donald actually posted (about "radical left" protesters) that MASKS WILL NOT BE ALLOWED and authorities should ARREST THE PEOPLE IN FACE MASKS, NOW! is just about perfect in the irony department (and that's not even mentioning the Republican stance towards masking during COVID).
Bad News/Good News
So we found out some bad news and some good news today . . . bad news first, of course: the bad news is that when my son Ian hydroplaned the other night in my wife's car—just down the street from our house—he ran over the curb and smacked into a concrete barrier by the public works building; while he was not injured, my wife's sporty Mazda CX-5 was not so lucky: because the airbags deployed, the car was totaled, and we will be doing some car shopping this summer—but we also found out some good news at the vet today—the weird, strong antibiotics I administered for two weeks (I was supposed to handle them with gloves) cured our dog Lola's UTI and her new expensive food has dissolved all her struvite bladder stones, so she is totally in the clear—a miracle!— and so while it sucks to have to shop for a car, we are lucky that both our dog and our son are healthy.
Back to the Suck
My body is sore from the long car ride home from teh Outer Banks; my brain is sore from the partying on the trip; and New Jersey is a humid jungle (and we are expecting four inches of rain today!) yet despite the post-OBFT blues, I managed to fix a door, lift some weights, and play some basketball with my son today . . . I'm certainly not capable of any advanced thinking, but I'm getting there.
OBFT XXXII
I just completed the long drive home from the Outer Banks, and I can attest that OBFT XXXII did indeed occur in a newly renovated Martha Wood cottage (at least the outside), and beers were drank—though not as many as usual—and at one point the bartender at Tortuga's shamed us into ordering another round, I also took some flak for ordering coffee after I tried to order an espresso martini but was denied, and plenty of seafood and pizza was eaten, music was played, Whit and I finished a pertinent song—which his wife claimed was vain (I'll post it and you can decide)—and we played cornhole and swam (avoiding seaweed and jellyfish at first, then the water improved), and in general a good time was had by all, and now it's time to dry out—thanks Whit, for another great weekend at the beach.
Shallow Thoughts
I am at the beach and my brain is currently generating zero thoughts, other than: those waves sound nice.
Epigram Exposé
First, people said that art imitates life, then Oscar Wilde flipped this idea around and said that more often, life imitates art-- very clever, Oscar-- but I am going to set the record straight, boring though it may be: life typically imitates life, and art typically imitates art, and rarely do the two meet.
Mysteriously Meta-Magical
If you're in the mood for something meta, you could certainly read Moonflower Murders by meta-mystery master Anthony Horowitz . . . or if you're in the mood for something metamagical (and you've already read the Hofstadter collection) you could watch Nathan Fielder's "reality" show The Rehearsal . . . but be warned: you're wife might not like it.
Fireworks Etiquette?
I am not as big on manners, etiquette, and calling out rudeness as my wife-- most of the time, breaches of decorum fascinate me more than annoy me-- but even I was at the end of my rope last night at the town fireworks display; my wife and I walked down the street with a couple of camping chairs and sat at the top of the hill overlooking the park-- they shoot off the fireworks from down by the river-- and a group of middle-aged ladies and a guy (and when I saw middled-aged I mean they seemed a little older than us . . . but who the hell knows anymore because we're old too) stood behind us-- very close to our chairs and they started having an insanely annoying and very loud conversation-- which is fine, it's Independence Day and we're celebrating free speech and the first amendment and all that-- but then they continued the conversation once the fireworks began-- but they had to talk even louder and motion even more vociferously, because they had to compete with the explosions-- and their discussion ranged from places they had traveled: Bar Harbor, Arizona, Duluth . . . with no theme-- just basically saying places-- to a long and tangential discussion of the speed of sound-- and they estimated the speed of sound for quite a while, never really getting close to the actual speed (approximately 761 mph/1100 feet per second) and its relation to the speed of light and how you see the fireworks before you hear them-- then they started estimating the distance of the mortars from the viewing area-- on and on and on, non-stop inane dialogue, right in our ears-- and I knew my wife was really getting pissed off and so was the guy standing in front of me-- I thought he was going to turn around and hit them with his cane, he kept giving them the evil eye-- but they didn't notice because they were yapping away-- and his daughter kept trying to calm him down so he didn't commit assault with an ambulatory assistive device-- and then those two finally moved and my wife and I followed suit . . . the loudest lady of the coven said, "YOU'RE GIVING UP THIS GOOD SPOT?" but we did not deign to talk to her and instead walked a bit up the hill and watched the finale with a neighbor and his daughter, with the proper amount of conversation for a firework display-- we said appropriate things like "ooh, that's a nice one" and "wow" and "that's a crowd favorite" and so while I am a proponent of freedom and liberty and do-what-you-want, I will say that these very annoying people were definitely pushing the boundaries of personal space and allowable noise during a visual display.
What's Better Than Dinosaurs? Genetically Engineered Hybrid Dinosaurs!
While I am sick of sequels and reboots and revivals and live-action remakes, there is always a special spot in my heart for dinosaurs (and any giant creature feature) so my wife and I went over to the Rutgers Cinema to see Jurassic World Rebirth today and while the movie is certainly more of the same-- the people who deserve to get eaten get eaten; we are warned not to tamper with mother nature; and science should benefit all of humanity-- there is also wonderful meta-element to the theme . . . in this film, we are in a post-dinosaurian future, where humans have become accustomed and even inured to the existence of these creatures-- and the dinosaurs are not faring well in zoos and parks and such, they are dying of disease and because the air is not oxygen rich enough and so they are really only thriving near the equator-- BUT because people were bored of typical dinosaurs, a lab in the tropics was engineering bizarre and scary genetic hybrid dinosaurs, to increase interest and demand in the creatures and revitalize the industry-- but the lab had a containment breach and was abandoned and this is the island where this cast of characters ends up-- so these genetically engineered dinosaurs, made ostensibly to revive public interest in dinosaurs, also revive public interest in the dinosaur movie-- Jurassic World Rebirth-- because these dinosaurs are even creepier and smarter and more dangerous than actual dinosaurs-- good fun-- and I also like the that the movie opens with monkeys observing dinosaurs and looking like "WTF" and ends with dolphins riding alongside the escape vessel-- the film is saying: THESE are the creatures we should be concerned with, the creatures we have and need to protect-- and we should stop mucking about with creatures that died off tens of millions of years ago.
Let Freedom Explode Loudly All Night
Most of my post-Independence Day was triumphant and celebratory: I returned to full force on the pickleball court, despite my sketchy hamstring and I celebrated my recovery with some beer and tequila at my friend's pool . . . but this celebration was interrupted by a phone call from Ian-- he found our dog panting and shaking in the bathroom and thought she was very sick, so I drove home to check her out but she was simply hiding from the bombs-- there's been fireworks goign off for days and she's losing her mind because of this-- she's getting more anxious about loud noises and she gets older-- and so am I -- last night I woke with a start and asked my wife who was knocking at our bedroom door, which is a scary thing to ask someone who is currently dreaming-- but it was just more fucking fireworks . . . maybe we should celebrate Independence Day with voter registration or a historical reenactment of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence . . . something less loud and more dog-friendly.
Happy Fourth, Goldie Hawn!
The Sugarland Express, Steven Spielberg's theatrical directorial debut, is a fine film to watch on the Fourth of July-- as the movie seems to be set on July 3rd or 4th (because of the parade in Rodrigo) but the actual events that inspired the film did NOT happen during July . . . and the true story is equally as bizarre and compelling as the film: the 1969 kidnapping of Texas State Trooper Kenneth Crone by Robert and Ila Fae Dent . . . the Dents, on the run with the mission to reclaim their child from foster care, led police on a dramatic chase across Texa-- and while Robert Dent is shot to death by an FBI agent and a local Sheriff, Ila Fae Dent did her time and actually regained custody of her child.
Father of the Week!
Tuesday, I had to bring my son Alex a pair of pants so he could participate in his engineering lab (no shorts allowed! Alex said another student who wore shorts had to change into snow pants-- with suspenders-- that was all he had in his car) and today Alex needed me to print out his formula sheet for his fluid dynamics exam and drive it over to him because all the libraries are closed for July 4th weekend and he had no access to a printer-- good thing he goes to Rutgers and lives five minutes away . . . and the moral of the story is: it's great when your kids make you feel needed and you can actually solve the problem quickly and easilty, like when they were little tykes and they needed help getting something off a high shelf or needed a hand with some simple homework-- you rarely get to do that for adult sized children, their problems are usually more in the existential and financial and philosophical vein and much harder to solve in a jiffy.
Sometimes Your (Rather Large) Kid Needs a Pair of Pants
I thought my days of dropping off a fresh pair of pants for a child at school were long over, but my 21-year-old son Alex called me yesterday from Rutgers-Busch Campus and said he wasn't allowed into his engineering lab while wearing shorts, and so I procured a pair of pants from Ian, drove them over to engineering building, tossed them out the car window to him him in the parking lot, and recognized that this parenting shit is probably never going to end.
Trust No One . . . Especially Dave
My new episode of We Defy Augury: "Trust No One: Unreliable Narration in Life and Art" is (loosely) inspired by the novels of Jim Thompson and the Richard Russo essay "In Defense of Omniscience"-- and there is also a film quiz . . . see how you fare.
Jersey's Finest
Good thing it's summer (and I'm not working) because Bruce Springsteen just released "Tracks II: The Lost Albums," which includes 83 songs and 5 hours and 20 minutes of "new" Bruce music—unreleased tracks from 1983 to 2018... I've listened to some, and it seems to be high-quality material, not just a bunch of outtakes and B-sides... I'm especially impressed by the "Philadelphia Sessions"—which Bruce recorded in the early 1990s, after the success of his song "Streets of Philadelphia"—these tracks feature drum loops and synthesizer washes and sound much more modern than most Bruce songs—"Blind Spot" is particularly good... anyway, I hear there are more interesting songs deeper in, so I will slowly dig through and enjoy this treasure trove from the Boss.
To Live and Die in the 80s (wearing very tight blue jeans) in L.A.
My wife and I watched To Live and Die in L.A. last night — it's streaming for free on Amazon Prime and I don't know how we missed this one in the theater; it's from 1985! — directed by William Friedkin (who also directed The French Connection and The Exorcist) it's a fast-paced noir thriller that begins with a rogue U.S. Secret Service agent going on a reckless, unsanctioned mission; Richard Chance — played by a young William Petersen of later CSI fame — lives up to his name, he's a base jumper who drinks and smokes constantly and instead of a G-man suit, he wears a football jersey, a scarf, and tight jeans-- very Don Johnson-- and between all the cigarettes, booze, and tight jeans, I don't know how he chases down the bad guys, but he does; right at the start, a master counterfeiter, played by a very young and unwrinkled Willem Dafoe, kills Chance's partner (with only three days left to retirement! so classic) and Chance pulls his new partner into a seedy underworld of morally bankrupt behavior that may or may not result in justice-- it’s worth watching this film for the credits font and the 80s fashion alone — and the excellent soundtrack by Wang Chung-- but there’s also an epic car chase that actually makes sense in terms of plot, character, and setting . . . I don't know how they pulled off this chase without digital effects — it's masterful; anyway, Roger Ebert gave this film four stars, and it deserves them, it’s cocaine-fueled, artsy violence in a grittier, seedier L.A. that doesn't exist anymore-- every scene is frenetic and full of interesting extras and you’ll half-recognize nearly every main actor, including Jane Leeves (she was "the virgin" in Seinfeld, but she's certainly not that in this film) but be warned — there's some hardcore 80s violence, nudity, profanity, and drinking of Miller High Life.
Hello Humans!
Now that we've entered the AI revolution, it's highly improbable that anyone other than my good friends will end up in the godforsaken corner of the internet-- there's no reason to follow a trail of digital breadcrumbs to a weird space like this, as Google now provides a linkless AI answer to any query-- the internet is becoming more like Walmart and less like a digital version of the Route 1 Flea Market and while this is convenient, it's also sad-- because there are amazing human stories of resilience and perseverance out in the world . . . I've been writing this blog with a pulled hamstring, which now seems to be recovered enough for me to play pickleball tomorrow-- I tested it out at the gym today with a variety of sprints and starts and stops, and now I'm writing this blog, tired and sweaty and a bit sore, something AI will never be able to claim . . . unless it sometimes feels its heatsink getting hotter and hotter and impairing its computing abilities?
First Day of Summer!
I managed to shake off the cobwebs this morning (after yesterday's long day of celebratory drinking) and Cat and I hiked up Baldpate Mountain in the unseasonably cool weather and then walked across the bridge from Lambertville to New Hope and had lunch at the Ferry Market-- New Hope has really cleaned up its act (and gentrified-- it's no longer full of head shops and junk stores) since we last visited.
School's Out Forever . . . or at least for a while.
Another end of the school year . . . and another end of the school year mural-- and goodbye to Jess-- the centerpiece to this mural-- a great boss who got totally screwed over by our district.
Entrepreneurial Kids Are the Worst
Nothing turns my stomach more than happening upon a cute little kid running a ramshackle lemonade stand-- a moment before, I had no desire to purchase lemonade-- lemonade wasn't even in my consciousness-- in fact, most of the time, I'm trying to avoid anything equivalent to lemonade, any kind of artificially sweetened drink loaded with high fructose corn syrup-- and now suddenly, because we live in a capitalist economy that encourages this kind of thing, I feel guilty about NOT purchasing a sugary drink I didn't want to begin with, from an unlicensed, uninspected, ungraded drink stand that's in violation of multiple health codes and child labor laws-- I hate to be the bad guy here, but the local police force needs to make an example of one of these ambitious little lawbreakers and toss them-- and their parents-- in the clink.
Heat is Relative
It's 100 degrees today in New Jersey-- as hot as it gets-- and when I got in my car to leave the school parking lot, I burned my hands on the steering wheel . . . but it's going to be 114 degrees in Phoenix next week-- that seems incomprehensibly hot . . . do you have to turn your car on and let the A/C run for a while before you can actually drive-- or do people in Phoenix wear sylish leather driving gloves?
Il Gattopardo
The Leopard is the best novel by a Sicilian I have ever read . . . it is also the only novel by a Sicilian that I have ever read, I think-- which is shameful because my grandfather was from Sicily . . . anyway, it's never to late to start learning-- and this novel by Sicilian writer Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa detail the social and political changes in Sicily during the Risorgimento, and Garabaldi's expedition to unify Sicily with the rest of Italy-- and it really gets into what living in a hot, desolate, drought-ridden, volcanic, craggy and isolated place like Sicily does to the character of one's citizens and it certainly makes me want to visit (but I know not to go in against any Sicilians, especially when death is on the line).
Severed (from the Humidity)
My wife and I visited Bell Works in Holmdel today-- the mixed-use facility built within the old Bell Labs building and the site where some of the show Severance was filmed-- and while we were not severed from our consciousness when we entered the vast and beautifully designed indoor space, we were severed from the disgusting humid weather . . . the air-conditioning in the massive atrium is top-notch (and there were people doing laps and walking dogs in there, enjoying the cool air) and on the way home we stopped at the Source Brewery for a beer and Delicious Orchards for some bread and cheese, a decent way to kill a very hot and muggy Sunday afternoon.
Wax On, Wax Off
I just applied Musher's Secret paw wax on my dog's little feet-- this stuff helps protect your dog's paw pads when it's extremely cold, and the combination of salt and ice can make the pavement and sidewalk feel like it is below freezing-- and it also helps when the weather gets unreasonably hot, which is happening right now in New Jersey-- I just walked her and it was damned hot and apparently in the next several days it's going to get more than ten degrees hotter than this hotness, which will be godamned hot.
Karaoke in the Daylight is Weird
Another school year, another end-of-the-year party . . . and a new addition in the diversions-- besides cornhole, this year there was also karoake . . . yikes . . . and the party was comprised mainly of history, English, and gym teachers-- not the music department-- and I got bullied into singing a song with very few lyrics: "Don't Come Around Here No More" . . . which is more awkward to sing than a song with a lot of lyrics-- because there's not much to do during the music (unless you can dance, which . . . nope).
The Humidity Shaving Paraphernalia Paradox
The world is a complicated place: when it's very humid, it's more difficult to shave with an electric razor, but it's easier to shave with a metal disposable razor (I know of what I speak-- it's incredibly humid here for Juneteenth in Jersey, and I just shaved my head with an electric razor and my face with a disposable metal razor).
This Is Why People Are Stabbing Themselves with GLPs
This morning, I listened to this entire Derek Thompson podcast about the importance of avoiding ultra-processed sugary foods, and I swore to myself that I would stop consuming these items and then, this afternoon, when I stumbled on some chocolate/walnut/caramel/cookie/cranberry confection in the fridge that my mom got for me for Father's Day, I inhaled it without reflection. . . so starting NOW.
A Watched Pot Never Sprouts
Even More Thoughts on the Serendipitous Miracle of Creativity
My new episode of We Defy Augury-- "Weezer, Creativity, and the Nullity of Identity"-- is loosely inspired by the SNL Weezer sketch, Jonah Lehrer's article "Groupthink", Song Exploder episode 70: Weezer "Summer Elaine and Drunk Dory," the Atlantic article "Is This the Worst-Ever Era of American Pop Culture?" by Spencer Kornhaber and a bunch of other stuff . . . check it out if you're looking for inspiration and the ideas behind good ideas.
Feels Like Belfast in November Today
A bittersweet, cold, and rainy Father's Day-- the first one without my dad around-- but I certainly made good use of my gift: I read nearly half of Hang On, St. Christopher . . . it's the eighth novel in Adrian McKinty's Sean Duffy series, which is set during The Troubles in Northern Ireland . . . and I've enjoyed every one-- a perfect read for a damp wet day.
At Least It's A Rainy Day . . .
Even though I went to the gym and lifted some weights this morning, that wasn't enough exercise to quell my stir craziness-- this strained hamstring is really cramping my style-- I need to walk around at high speed several times a day or I get really grouchy and right now I can only shuffle along forwards or I feel it (although I can walk backwards fairly well) but at least I have Departmen Q to look forward to . . . if you're not watching this show, start now!
When You're Around Dave, The Learning Never Ends
Even though it's nearly summer and senior cut day, I actually taught a high school kid something today-- at bathroom duty, of all places . . . she didn't have her ID because she was coming from PE class and so she had to give me her ID number in order to check in and she recited it like this:
"one, four . . . triple five . . . one three"
and this was too many numbers and did not work, but then she clarified:
"I said that wrong-- just three-- I meant there was just one number three"
and so I told her that the generally acceptable way to give someone a long string of numbers was to do it in groups of three, and when she returned from the bathroom, she did just that, and we were both very pleased.
V/M (C/P) = $$$
Going to the vet is like going to the auto mechanic: cars and animals can't talk (unless perhaps your pet is a parrot with an extensive medical vocabulary?) and because they can't tell you what's wrong, you have to rely on this intermediary, and you hope the intermediary is an expert and understands the problems with the car/pet-- but you never know for sure . . . the only thing you do know for sure when you visit the auto mechanic or the vet is that it's going to be expensive.
Gone Fishin'
They say a bad day fishing is better than a good day at work, and a good day fishing is certainly better than a bad day at work . . . or something to that effect, anyway, Ian and I had a medium day fishing and a great day on the boat-- perfect weather and we caught numerous fish, pretty much every time we dropped the bait into the water, but most were slightly short of the requisite 12 and a half inches-- Ian caught a couple of keepers (and the mate gave us a bunch of extra sea bass filets) and I learned to grab the sea bass by the mouth, not the head, when removing the hook and I also nearly reinjured my healing hamstring when I slipped on a bucket of raw clams, but I was able to catch myself before I wiped out (and even though I showered and washed my hands, my fingers still smell like raw clams and sea bass).
Dave Goes on the IR
I pulled my hamstring this morning playing basketball-- it was kind of tight last week, so I sort of rested it . . . but not really-- and now I'm paying for it-- but I guess this is what you can expect when you play full court basketball at 6:30 in the morning on a humid day.
The Best Way to Teach Hamlet is NOT to Finish
I covered an extraordinary amount of Hamlet in my first two classes today-- the nunnery scene; the play-within-the-play; MY play-within-the-play-within-the-class; Hamlet's advice to the players . . . along with my acting stunt that mirrors his advice; and finally-- the Zefferelli-directed Oedipal Mel Gibson/Glen Close incestuous bedroom scene-- it was utterly exhausting but I'm trying to finish the play before the end of the year . . . alas, best laid plans: during my last period class we had an endless lockdown (because of a "swatting" incident at the elementary school across the road) and because of the delay, I didn't get very much done at all . . . and it was fine . . . because it's the end of the year with the seniors and it's Hamlet-- and who loves a delay more than Hamlet?
Zunis and Hippies and Navahos . . . and Murder
If I learned one thing from reading Tony Hillerman's mystery novel Dance Hall of the Dead-- and I learned a lot of things, about archaeology and Zuni and Navaho beliefs and Folsom Man and fluted arrowheads and the various jurisdictions in New Mexico-- but the one takeaway is this: don't mess with the Zuni kachina Shalako mask ritual or Shuwalitsi might get you.
Nice Job Seth . . . Now Just Keep Doing It Until You Are Old
If you haven't seen Seth Rogen's show The Studio yet, watch it-- it's fucking great-- and episode six, "The Pediatric Oncologist," achieves Curb Your Enthusiasm-level awkward humor-- looks like Larry David is passing the baton to Seth Rogen (and since Curb ran-- intermittently-- from 1999 to 2024, Rogen should aspire to make The Studio for the next 25 years).
No Ass Tattoos . . .
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Unfortunately, my wife and I did not read yesterday's comments so we celebrated our 25th Anniversary in a fairly traditional manner-- we caught the train to Newark, took the PATH to Jersey City, walked along the Hudson and took in the views of the city, and then sat outside and ate at Battelo-- which was delicious (prosciutto wrapped zeppoles!) while we watched the yachts, ferries, and sailboats navigate the river . . . then we walked our way through Jersey City-- which is a vey different place than it was thirty years ago-- gentrification!-- got back on the PATH and, of course, missed our connecting train in Newark Penn Station-- which is a disorganized shitshow and has NOT gentrified one bit-- you'd think they'd sync the PATH and the Jersey Transit train, but even though we sprinted up and down several staircases to get to the track, we still missed it by a minute, so then we had to wait in the very very hot waiting area-- not even a trickle of A/C-- because there were no benches up near the actual track (and everything smelled like urine) and so while Cat and I are big proponents of public transportation, I can see why everyone in America is driving everywhere-- our train system is a shitshow-- so thirty minutes later, we caught the next train to New Brunswick, and we ended up sitting in a very old train car with very little A/C) but I did get to hear a delightful, Lebowski-esque conversation between two old Jewish ladies sitting behind us:
Do you swim on Shabbos?
Yes, I swim on Shabbos.
Got to Catch the Train!
No time for a complete sentence, the wife and I are off to Jersey City to celebrate our
Dumb But True
While America's "A Horse With No Name" is one of the sillier songs to survive the early 70s, I must concur, now that the weather has shifted here-- and this is something I always forget-- that "the heat was hot."
Twenty-Five Years for Dave and Cat!
Today is the twenty-fifth anniversary of our wild wedding (I ended up taking a forced swim in the Lawrence Brook, thanks to my fraternity brothers and high school buddies) and an incredible journey with my beloved wife-- we traveled the world, educated the masses, raised a couple of children, refurbished a kitchen, fought a stubborn racoon in the attic, and we maintained our good looks and our even better sense of humor . . . I can't wait to see what the future brings!
The Me Detonate a Bomb Generation
If you've forgotten-- or are not familiar-- with the spate of terroristic bombings that beset the United States in the early 1970s and instead you think of the 70s as an age of disco, drugs, and glam rock, then you are suffering from a case of misinformation or rose-tinted nostalgia and need to read the Bryan Burrough book Days of Rage: America's Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence . . . I don't remember any of this, but apparently I was born into a political maelstrom of protest against racism and the Vietnam War.
See You in 25 Years?
A good run for the New York Knickerbockers, including a solid 4-2 victory over the reigning champs, the Celtics, but the Pacers' pace proved to be too much for them-- so there's always next year (or, judging by the last time the Knicks went deep into the play-offs, there's always 2050 . . . and I might still be alive then!)
Embrace the Absurdity
I played indoor pickleball this morning at an open play and ended up paired with a fairly skilled but very surly man named Sergei-- we were winning games, but he was far more concerned with telling me all kinds of things about where I should be and what shots I should and shouldn't take-- I think he forgot we were planning giant ping-pong with a wiffleball.
Should Have Known Better
Last night I met my friends and my son Alex at Tavern on George to watch the Knicks defeat the Pacers-- which was very fun-- but I had committed to 6:30 AM basketball, so I dragged myself out of bed and played hoops this morning, which was not so fun (until I made the last two shots to win the final game-- and that's all you remember anyway) and the lesson is: I will not combine alcohol and early morning athletics again any time soon, as that is a young man's game.
I've Got a Perfect Puzzle For You
Until I listened to Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History episode "Nooks and Crannies"—which is about the legality surrounding trade secrets, particularly the recipe for Thomas's English Muffins—I never contemplated a serious moral dilemma from my youth: were the original Oompa-Loompas slave labor? . . . in the first edition of the book, the one I read, Roald Dahl described the Oompa-Loompas as a tribe of African Pygmy people whom Willy Wonka shipped to England to work forever in his factory--protecting his valuable trade secrets, which were previously being stolen by corporate spies-- and the Oompa-Loompas worked in exchange for cocoa beans . . . so this set-up sounds super sketchy . . . Wonka claims that the Oompa-Loompa's country of origin was a horrible place and the Oompa-Loompas were vulnerable to predators such as the Snozzwangers and Wangdoodles and so they are better off working in his factory but at the very least this sounds colonialist and certainly Wonka is breaking numerous labor laws and the worst case scenario is that the Oompa-Loompas have been taken against their will and detained indefinitely, without passport, currency, or any way to return home and have no choice but to work for cocoa beans.
Pure Innocent Fun
Ira Madison's collection of pop culture essays, Pure Innocent Fun, is the elder millennial Black gay man's dishier version of Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs-- a book that Madison says inspired him-- and while Klosterman is around my age and evrything he writes about resonates with me, Ira Madison-- who is 39-- came of age in a slightly different pop culture environment and I was not familiar with all pop culture touchstones-- according to Madison, Gen Xers watched Beavis and Butthead while Madison connected with Daria . . . we do both love Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but for Madison, Buffy is a bad-ass bitch who is also in a secret club-- which he related to as a closeted gay Black man at a very white and preppy high school in Milwaukee . . . Madison is also a fan of soap operas-- which I never watched-- and the film Soapdish, which I remember loving but I haven't seen it in a long time . . . and he has inspired me to watch the movie Bring It On, which he claims "might seem to be a frivolous cheerleading movie" but it is "one of the only good films about cultural appropriation that’s ever been made and most certainly one of the best films about race in America"-- I hope this is true because I love a good sports movie . . . we shall see.
Something Happened
When I was young, you specified the thing you were listening to, watching, or reading: I'm reading the new Stephen King book; I'm listening to the new God Lives Underwater album; I'm watching Melrose Place . . . but now I people often mention the platform they are using instead of the specific content: I'm watching Netflix/YouTube/TikTok, I'm listening to Spotify, I'm going to sit down and read my Kindle-- I'm sure Marshall McLuhan would have a field day with this trend-- the delivery method and the algorithm are more important than the content; we don't own content any more-- we just breeze though it, separate from everyone else and because of media fragmentation, no one is watching/reading/listening to the same thing . . . and I find this is a little sad and scary.
"very rough trail through boulder field"
Catherine and I took a hike in the John Witherspoon Woods this morning-- a patch of land we'd never visited -- and we entered from the north, off Stuart Road, which was a bit hairy-- there's no real parking lot and you have to scramble and climb through a boulder field and past Devil's Cave, before you hit discernable trails-- and while it's quite beautiful inside the woods . . . there's a lovely stream and an old lake--they restored the stone dams from the 1800s-- it's also a bit of a maze-- I had to use the compass app on my phone to avoid a Blair Witch situation-- and there's also quite a bit of poison ivy-- but we eventually made it back to the car and went to the The Tiger's Tale in Montgomery for beers and sandwiches-- an excellent little pub, if you're in the vicinity.
Dave Gives it the Ol' Viticulture Try
Over two decades ago, Calvin Trillin explained that in a blind taste test, most people can't tell the difference between red and white wine, and this is true for me-- I am certainly no super-taster, nor do I have a particularly sensitive nose (except when it comes to my wife's deer repellent spray-- that shit makes me gag) so I really tried to channel this knowledge last night and drink a glass of Bread and Butter chardonnay (which I purchased by accident at Costco, it was lurking in a case of pinot noir) but I could not do it-- and so maybe visual clues do produce flavors, and a deep dark red color makes my brain taste one thing and light golden urine-like color makes my brain taste another.
At Least It Wasn't a Heart Attack . . . Ack ack
Apparently, pianoman Billy Joel has canceled all his upcoming concerts because of "normal pressure hydrocephalus," which I believe (though I am not a doctor) may have been caused by the shrill and annoying synthesizer sound in his song "Pressure"-- and due to the symptoms of the disease: general sensory malfunctions and confusion-- Joel obviously doesn't want to get up on stage and perform . . . because he might forget the words and sound like Leslie Knope in this fantastic video-- let's all hope for a speedy recovery (but I'm certainly fine if he puts "We Didn't Start the Fire" on the shelf-- too many lyrics to perform with hydrocephalic pressure and it's also a really irritating song).
Dave Does NOT Use This Concept and Suffers For It
A couple of days ago in the comments my friend Rob coined the term "psychic hedge"-- but this might not be the best name for this concept (which is to bet AGAINST the team you are rooting for so that you win either way . . . if your team wins, you are excited and happy but if your team loses, then at least you gain some cash-- so either outcome, you win something) but apparently when you google the term "psychic hedge" you get results for two unrelated topics:
1) hedge witches? and magical hedge barriers?
2) using your psychic abilities to enhance your gambling acumen
so perhaps we should call this practice of betting against the team you are rooting for a "psychological hedge" or an "emotional hedge" and then the next step is to determine exactly how much money you need to bet in order to offset your rooting interests-- this is a relative proposition, of course, and depends on how rich you are and how ardent of a fan you are . . . or you could just go the Seinfeld route and bet $182 against your team and then see how you feel if you gain this amount . . . although I'm not sure there's any amount of money that could offset the Knicks epic collapse last night-- they blew a 14 point lead with three minutes left and lost in overtime . . . I definitely put in more than $182 of emotions and fanaticism, and I was not smart enough to place a very large psychological hedge bet to counterbalance my disappointment.
Good Ideas . . . What the Fuck?
My new episode of We Defy Augury philosophical, literary, and musical meditation on creativity and good ideas; the working title is "The Serendipitous Miracle of Creativity: Part 1" and my thoughts are (loosely) inspired by Jonah Lehrer's article "Groupthink," Plutarch's "The Ship of Theseus Dilemma," and Steven Johnson's book Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation . . . the topic got too long and unwieldy for one episode, so hopefully I will finish part two sometime soon.
Just Turning on a Giants Game is a Gamble
After listening to Michael Lewis talk about fandom and sports gambling-- he was on Armchair Expert and he's doing a season of his own podcast on this topic-- I am convinced that the irrationality of sports fanaticism and the way the sports gambling companies have preyed on this irrationality, which mainly resides in the hearts and brains of young men, and how these sports gambling behemoths have leveraged these emotions in an unethical manner to make boatloads of cash, designing sites and promotions to incentivize the stupidest bets and literally banning anyone who shows skill, rationality, and competence-- and, like the old time tobacco manufacturers, figuring out how to hook them when they're young-- I now believe that just watching a game and rooting for your team is enough of an emotional gamble-- there's no reason to put any money on the line because you're already emotionally invested on an outcome you can't control and probably won't go the way you want, so why lose money too?
The Creeping Jenny Controversy
Creeping Jenny, otherwise known as Moneywort, is an herbaceous, semi-evergreen perennial from Eurasia that was introduced in North America in the 1700s, and apparently it is good ground cover for shady, damp areas-- so I bought a few plants for three dollars apiece from Lowe's-- but I did not realize until after I purchased these plants that some folks on the internet have very strong feelings about Lysimachia nummularia (a.k.a. Creeping Jenny) and believe it is "ground cancer" . . . and this plant is also on the Massachusetts Prohibited Plant List, which means that you can't buy, sell, or propogate this plant in Massachusetts-- it is regarded as an invasive species that grows incredibly fast-- so while I'm preparing for the worst-- and I took some photos of these rather innocuous looking yellow sprouts in case my yard is soon overwhelmed-- I highly doubt that they can spread THAT fast . . . if these plants have been around since 1739 wouldn't they have already spread and covered every available surface of our nation by now?
Groovy
My wife (far left) and my cousins just before they went out to "Boogie Nights" at the Tropicana in Atlantic City, which I assume has a 70s vibe . . . but they look quite reminiscent of the get-ups me and my fraternity brothers would buy at the local thrift shop, for our beloved 70s parties back in college (my favorite purchase was a denim jumpsuit with a zipper that started at the collar and went all the way down to my crotch . . . so it was essentially a giant fly).
Time to Prep
No time to write a sentence, as I need to continue brainstorming ideas for a Netflix pilot-- Monmouth County is about to become the new Hollywood.
Che Cazzo?
Perhaps you have not experienced the surreal absurdist joys of the animated "Italian brainrot" characters and perhaps you are better off not going down this very stupid road, but perhaps, in these troubling times, Italian brainrot is exactly what the children need (and, of course, the high school students introduced me to this-- but I guess it's more than high school kids enjoying this silliness, as the latest episode of Hard Fork also features a segment on this comedic trend) and while you might think this is the end of civilization as we know it, you should remember that the youth always wants to adopt language and humor that the previous generation does not understand . . .
Exhibit A: Mr. Hankey
Exhibit B: Beavis and Butthead
Exhibit C: Strange Brew . . . hoser.
THIS Is Where You Get a Break From the Smelly Teenagers?
Due to a damp and rainy week, the English Office-- the place where my colleagues eat, hang out, swap stories about the youth, and escape the pungent odors of teen spirit-- today our office smelled, as Hamlet might put it: "rank and gross in nature" or as I put it: like sweaty mildewed socks.
Boy's Life
Horror and mystery writer Robert R. McCammon's 1991 novel Boy's Life is something weird and different and special and I highly recommend it if you're looking for a sprawling tale to get lost in . . . the book is set in the 1960s and has Southern Gothic elements, a sprinkling of magical realism, a murder mystery, and an eccentric cast of characters in a small town in Alabama-- but it's really a coming-of-age story and the end of innocence in America: Southern charm and the Civil Rights movement butt heads and the narrator tries to maintain his childlike innocence in a world determined to screw with him and his emotions in every way feasible-- plus there's a rampant dinosaur.
Del is One Funky Homosapien
Yesterday's sentence was a bit grim-- we're really feeling the effects of technology at my job, and it's casting a dark cloud over everything digital-- but today, inspired by this Rob Harvilla podcast, I started going through Del the Funky Homosapien's back catalog on Spotify and I must say, it's nice to have just about every album every recorded-- though digitally flattened and compressed-- at your digital beck-and-call.
What's Happening in Those Other Timelines?
Sometimes-- like when my wife and I are walking on the sidewalk on Easton Avenue in New Brunswick and we almost get knocked over by a dude on a little electric motor scooter puttering along, staring at his phone-- I think we are in the dumbest technological timeline . . . we've harnessed all these vast technological powers and we use them for predatory sports gambling apps, crypto meme coins, space tourism, social media, isolated echo chamber polarization conspiracy mongering, floating sea homes for societal drop-outs, and cheating on homework . . . meanwhile there seems to be no no incredible and exciting systemic changes on the horizon (not even a lane in city for motierized vehicles, so they have to weave along on the sidewalk and occasionally veer into traffic).
Check ME Out!
This morning, while I was in the produce aisle at ShopRite, doing the grocery shopping so my wife could relax on Mother's Day, I overheard several women chatting, and they were wondering why the hell they were grocery shopping instead of their husbands-- and I almost said something to them but then thought better of it.
If You Trace a Pair of Shoes, They Look Like a Pair of Testicles
If you ask twenty-one fifth-graders to trace their shadows on the school playground blacktop-- as my wife's colleague did-- then you might end up with twenty-one drawings that look vaguely phallic-- which is troublesome if all the parents are coming to school for the Spring Concert (which they were).
Stay in Your Seat
Sinners is worth seeing in the movie theater, mainly because of one particular musical scene-- and the bulk of the film is a highly entertaining genre mash-up . . . though the final horror sequence is a bit forced, but the best scene happens after the final credits start to roll, so even though the runtime is long, be patient and watch the ending, it's worth it.
Nothing is More Annoying Than a Semi-Super-Power
I'm listening to the new Revisionist History podcast about face blindness, which got me curious-- am I a "super-recognizer"-- I certainly think I'm quite good at recognizing faces-- as a teacher, you need this skill-- and so I took a couple of online tests and what I learned is that while I'm probably not a "super-recognizer," I am quite a bit above average at recognizing faces, according to the two tests I took-- and this makes perfect sense, because I think I'm a super-recognizer, especially when my wife and I are watching TV and I always think I've seen every actor is some other show-- and most of the time I am right, but sometimes I am wrong (and I annoy my wife with this half-assed superpower every time I go down this rabbit hole).
It Is Act Five!
We started Hamlet today in my senior classes, and I taught them a few basic things about Shakespeare and his works, including the fact that all Shakespeare plays have five acts-- and that all the good stuff happens in Act Five . . . and one student asked if it was Act Five of the school year yet and I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations in my head (so my consciousness was the envelope?) and then I said, "Yes, it is Act Five!"
Prophetic Fallacy
I am teaching my sophomores The Great Gatsby and today we acted out scenes from Chapter Five-- the section when Nick arranges for Gatsby to meet with Daisy at Nick's little house for tea, the first time they've seen each other in five years-- and at first Gatsby and Daisy are awkward and embarrassed, while it is raining-- but then: pathetic fallacy alert!-- then the old chemistry comes back and the sun, empathetic to their emotions-- starts to shine (which is a fallacy, the weather does not give a shit about your emotions) so I made sure to have a student play the weather in that scene-- and he's a tall kid so he loomed over the other two actors, it was fantastic-- and then the natural world reflected the book; I stayed up to late last night watching the Knicks' epic comeback against Boston, then dragged myself out of bed for 6:30 AM basketball-- and it was a dark and rainy gloomy day and I was tired and hungry and had a headache from the humidity-- but I went to acupuncture after school, which usually loosens me up and when I got out of acupunture, lo and behind! the sun was shining, and there was a cool breeze, and I was able to sit on the deck in the sun and read my thoroughly joyful and entertaining book (Boy's Life by Robert R. McCammon) so perhaps the pathetic fallacy is not a complete fallacy, it's just selective and relative-- the weather is always expressing someone's emotions, it just might not be yours.
First Period Epiphany
This morning we were discussing the ornithologist Richard O. Prum's text about Darwin's oft-ignored theory of sexual selection and its radical consequences, and I realized that Gatsby is the ultimate bowerbird-- his absurd mansion across the Manhasset Bay from Tom and Daisy's house-- so situated to attract her attention, is the ultimate mating gesture . . . and perhaps if he had a real job and had to worry about survival a bit more, he wouldn't have had the time and energy to enter this realm of ornamental extravagance.
More Celebrating My Dad's Life
Yesterday was the second iteration of my dad's Celebration of Life . . . we had an incredible turnout-- Father Tom, my cousin Greg, and a few of my dad's old friends (and of course, me, my brother and my kids) spoke and reminisced and said wonderful things about my dad-- and though it was something of a somber occasion, my college and high school buddies brought some joy to the weekend (plus we saw a band at Pino's that opened with Sugar's "Hoover Dam," a favorite and quite a rarity).
The Kentuck Derby Gets Political
Thoughts inspired by my buddy Rob: Sovereignty defeats Journalism . . . appropriate, timely, and poignant.
Stream of Consciousness
My buddy Whitney just arrived, so I figured I'd give him a crack at the sentence, so I asked him for something quotable to write, and he said, "Let me think about that while I urinate"-- but then he did come through with some interesting information a bit later: he taught me to pour a Guiness out of the can and into the cold mug quickly, not slowly and then the head dissipates-- a method unlike how you pour any other kind of beer.
Note to Self: They Are Called Samaras and I Hate Them
Every spring, I am shocked by the amount of maple tree helicopter whiriligig things that accumulate in my backyard and on my porch and, consequently, in my home-- either I track them in on my shoes or they slip in because we keep the sliding glass door open most of the time (we have a magnetic screen, which keeps the bugs out and allows the dog free reign of the porch and yard) and every year I am also shocked that there is a technical name for these whirligig helicopter thingies: samaras-- but I guess they eventually disappear-- where the fuck do they go?-- and I eventually forget the name for them . . . until spring inevitably returns.
The Old Man Speaks His Mind
I decided today, while I was trying to teach the children, that I kind of wish this whole internet thing . . . the digital revolution, AI, Google searches, cell phones, personal computing devices, all of it . . . that maybe we'd all be better off if it never happened-- while there's more information available than ever, I think it's made the children scatter-brained and ignorant and I think we were all smarter when we were reading books, magazines, and newspapers-- but, unfortunately, I can't turn back the clock so I'm probably just going to be grouchy until I retire.
Roofman!
It's probably best to listen to the Criminal podcast "The Roofman" parts 1 and 2, which tells the story of Jeffrey Manchester, the notoriously clever (and polite) rooftop-entry robber who finally gets captured, but escapes prison, and then lives inside a Toys 'R 'Us and abandoned electronics store next to the Toys 'R' Us for months and months . . . it's a story too good to be true, but listen to the real story before the film version comes out and overly romanticizes it all-- the film stars Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst-- so you know what's going to happen between those two . . . I'm sure the story is better told by Phoebe Judge's measured and neutral narration.
The Animals are Acting Like Animals
Yesterday, I was walking the dog in the park, along the treeline, and an old dude with a white beard approached me and said I shouldn't continue in the direction I was headed because there was a rabid skunk over there-- it was reeling and stumbling and out in the daytime and definitely ill . . . meanwhile, at school, most mornings this spring, an angry male robin who lives in the courtyard bordering my room alights on the windowsill near my desk and attacks his reflection in the window, often disrupting the learning with his incessant pecking on the window-- and apparently this is quite common, a territorial maneuver instinctually designed to fend off other male rivals-- and sometimes birds do this to side-view car mirrors and break the glass-- but even though I've explained this to my Creative Writing class, they are kind souls and think the bird is asking to come inside and they want to let him in and feed him, an idea which I have rejected soundly . . . but I did offer a student the option of sitting outside in the courtyard near the window and attending class that way, because I would love to see the bird attack this silly little sophomore.
This Novel Has Got It All!
If you're a sucker for dinosaurs and charismatic megafauna, and you are curious about the legal and political ramifications of time travel, then Clifford D. Simak's sci-fi novel Mastodonia is the book for you.
She's Back (and Fuggier Than Ever)
A couple of weather-related observations:
1) this year, many of my high school students have terrible allergies-- the worst I've seen in my many years teaching . . . even though the weather was beautiful all week, we couldn't really walk very far outside before kids started sneezing and itching and coughing and getting bright red eyes-- not sure if this is a new thing because this generation of kids never goes outside . . . right now it's purely anecdotal evidence;
2) after a prolonged absence, the star of New Jersey weather is back, your hostess with the dampness . . . Mrs. Moist Humidity has returned and taken center stage, as she always does-- and I always forget over the winter just what it's like when it gets soupy and clammy and my feet get so sticky that I won't even attempt to put socks on . . . yuck . . . but perhaps the humidity will impede all the pollen from floating around and my students won't be sneezing as much this week.
An Old Dave Learns New Tricks
I've learned three new things recently:
1) my wife taught me about this weekly workout schedule, and I've adopted it and it seems to be working-- my knee doesn't hurt, and I'm always sore, so those are good signs;
2) I listened to a podcast about the power of NEAT-- NEAT stands for non-exercise activity thermogenesis and basically encompasses all the random walking, standing, fidgeting, and daily movement you do and apparently this makes a HUGE difference in how many calories you burn during the day-- plus, if you take a fifteen minute stroll after you eat a meal, you really lower your glucose and blood sugar levels-- so I've implemented both these strategies and I've actually lost a few pounds (without going on Ozempic, which is what it seems like everyone is doing-- but I really like my big round butt, so I'm not messing with that shit)
3) AND I learned something else today, and I came up with this out of the blue in the middle of teaching-- so here's the scenario: sometimes I have the projector on but I want kids to write stuff on the whiteboard so instead of having whatever Canvas announcements I have projected, I just want whiteness-- I don't want to shut off the projector because it takes a while to turn it back on-- so I search up a white background on Google and I project that version of whiteness and then the kids can write on the whiteboard and their writing is not obscured by the projection-- because it's white-- but today I had an epiphany, and instead of searching up a white picture, which is always weird and has borders, instead of doing that, I chose a little bit of white space that was already on the screen and I used my fingers on my touchscreen and I just kept expanding that white space until the projector was just projecting all this expanded whiteness onto the board-- and then I made the students tell me I was brilliant . . . but the real question is: will I remember to do this the next time I want to project whiteness?
D.P. Phone Home
So yesterday I believed that my crappy-Android-phone fell out of my pants pocket and was lying prone on the pavement in the high school parking lot, most likely run over by automobiles multiple times-- and once I realized this, when I got home from school, I decided not to drive back to the school and rescue my phone from this fate because
1) I hate driving
2) my phone is an ancient piece of shit
3) pickleball--
so I figured I would leave it to whatever fate befell it and then when I got to school today, I would see if someone picked it up and turned it in or if it was still intact on the ground near my parking spot-- but when I used Find My Android this morning, Google no longer reported my phone being in the school parking lot but instead just outside my house . . . weird . . . and so I thought maybe it fell out of my car when I got home-- and this would explain why the podcast played all the way home yesterday-- so I set my phone to ring and then went outside and it turned out my phone was not outside my car, but inside it-- it fell down under the driver seat-- and while I swore I looked in the car yesterday, I guess I didn't look in this spot and I also think I should get a different colored phone case (mine is black) because it blends in with the interior of my car and the main thing about this stupid incident is I won't be getting on iPhone anytime soon so for the foreseeable future my wife will have to deal with all the GIFs in the basketball group chat.
What Comes Around Phones Around
I confiscated a student's phone today, which is always an ordeal, but it's the fourth quarter, and at this point, they should know better-- and then when I got home from work, I couldn't find my phone-- but I knew it was either in the house or in the car because I listened to a podcast on the way home . . . but when I used Find My Android, the computer reported that my phone was still in the East Brunswick High School parking lot . . . which was weird but I guess my car downloaded the podcast and played it even though my phone fell out of my pocket-- and it definitely fell out of my pocket because I had it in this weird little phone pocket in my work pants-- usually I wear cargo pants that have velcro sealed pockets but I have this one pair of Dickie's pants with a weird little open pocket and this morning, I was going to put my wallet in it this little pocket but I was like: "my wallet's going to fall out of this stupid pocket" and so I put my phone in the stupid pocket, because I don't care about my cheap-piece-of-shit-Android-phone and it turns out I made a good decision . . . and I didn't feel like driving back to school and searching for my phone because I had a pickleball commitment so I'll find out tomorrow if my phone is intact and in the parking lot, or crushed in the parking lot, or in the school office-- and if it's crushed or lost, then perhaps I will get an iPhone so I can join the AM basketball group chat and my wife won't have to get so many stupid GIFs from all my basketball buddies.
Who's Pipe Burst?
Yesterday, I had to return to teaching, but my wife's school had the day off . . . although it was not much of a day off for her-- she had to wait around for both Steve the Appliance Doctor AND the Rob and Keith the plumbers-- and while Steve the Appliance Doctor healed our fridge's drain blockage without too much trouble, the plumbing job-- which involved replacing a leaky portion of our main sewage line-- was a bit trickier . . . apparently they couldn't find the main water shut-off and so I was receiving texts about this at work during lunch and frantically trying to remember which valve shut off all the water but then my wife texted me that something was wrong with the washer and that seemed strange, but maybe the shut-off valve was behind the washer?-- but something was stripped back there and it was a problem-- so now I was very concerned that we'd also need a new washer/dryer combination, which was expensive and very very difficult to get into our basement-- and when I got home, my wife tried to explain all the different things that were done to our house and appliances, and all the things that needed to be done to our house and appliances, but I was very tired from my first day teaching and kind of spaced out and our conversation turned into a home-owner's version of the Abbott and Costello bit "who's on first?" . . . I kept asking if they found the shut off valve and my wife kept saying something about the washer and the little closet and I was like "behind the washer?" and she was like "not THE washer, a washer" and I was like "what?" and then she said "I never said THE washer . . . I said a washer was stripped" and I went back to her text messages and she actually DID say "something with the washer is stripped" and I misintepreted this message and thought there was something wrong with our washer/dryer but it was actually the other kind of washer, a small flat metal ring, in the main water shut-off . . . so now they're going to have to shut the water off at the street juncture so they can fix this stripped washer in the main water shut off valve, which is not nearly as funny as the "who's on first?" routine.
Dave's New Favorite Bible Story!
Though I once read the entire Bible-- back when my wife and I lived in Syria and were visiting many of the sites mentioned in the Good Book-- I must have skimmed over the story of Elisha and the bears, which a student mentioned today in class in regards to my shaved (mainly) bald head . . . so to summarize, in 2 Kings 2:23-2, the prophet Elisha is minding his own business, heading to Bethel and some small boys (or, more likely, young men) jeer at him and his bald head and tell him to go up to Heaven like Elijah and begone, and Elisha curses these young men in the name of the Lord and in a flash, two she-bears emerge from the woods and maul forty-two of the boys . . . and as a high school teacher of annoying teenagers, who often ask, "Did you ever have hair?" this is now my favorite Bible story and while I understand there is separation of Chruch and State, I think I can teach this particular story because the East Brunswick mascot is a bear and perhaps this bear is interested in protecting bald men from ridicule.
How Many Timed Would You Hold an Embalmed Hand That Summons the Dead?
We are back in Jersey, after a good trip to the Poconos: we watched the Scranton Penguins blank the Cleveland Monsters and everyone agreed that hockey is far better live and up close than on TV (the puck is airborne a surprising amount, whcih often cannot be discerned when you're watching on a two-dimensional screen) and then we burned the remaineder of the firewood and made s'mores . . . also, the night before we watched the requisite horror movie that you must watch when staying at a cabin in the woods, and though it was hard to find one that Layla hadn't seen-- she's quite the horror-movie aficionado-- the Netflix algorithm recommended Talk to Me and we all agreed that it's a winner, with all the classic horror tropes, a fast-paced plot, an embalmed hand that summons the dead, and plenty of bad bad decisions that lead to awful consequences-- but kids will be kids and if they possess an embalmed hand that summons the dead, they're probably going to screw around with it until some bad happens.
Everyone Loves a Waterfall . . . and Hockey?
Today, we hiked the Shades Creek side of Bear Creek Preserve, which featured more waterfalls, a rickety log bridge-- which we finally coerced Lola to walk across, after she dove into the cold, fast-running stream-- and a lovely path (Yellow) along the rocky shore of Shades Creek . . . and the rocks are quite slippery, as I found out the hard way-- and then we stopped atop the Francis E. Walter dam-- quite a structure-- and now we are headed to see the Wilkes Barre/Scranton Penguins, an AHL minor league professional hockey team-- and I am assuming it will be just like the movie Slapshot.
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| Wipeout! |
Everybody Loves a Waterfall
Thursday morning, Catherine, Ian, Layla, Lola, and I headed to an Airbnb cabin in the Poconos-- fairly far north near White Haven, amid the state game lands-- and while the cabin is quite impressive-- high ceilings, incredible post and beam construction, lovely wrap around decks-- it's also one of those Airbnbs where the people that own the place also live there quite a bit, so it's got a lot of junk and decorations and things under construction outside and food in the fridge and freezer and all that . . . it's old school Airbnb-- you're using someone else's home-- but there's a pool table and a foosball table and a firepit, and there's corn and carrots downstairs with which you feed the very tame deer-- they eat out of your hand!-- and we've made good use of these amenities and we also did some excellent hiking today around the corner in the Bear Creek Preserve (though we did not see any bears but we did find a waterfall) and then we walked up Buttermilk Falls, which still has ice on the trail, and for lunch we went to ButcherBobs BBQ, which was incredibly delicious and highly recommended and, as a bonus, judging by her molasses-thick accent, I guessed what state the nice older lady who served us was from . . . I knew it was too thick to be Virginia or the Carolinas, so I figured Georgia, and I was correct.
Engimatic Riddles Wrapped in Paradoxical Bullshit
This morning, I asked my Google Home speaker what the temperature was in Highland Park and it told me the temperature in Highland Park, Illinois-- 43 degrees-- but I live in Highland Park, New Jersey so I asked it for the temperature in Highland Park, New Jersey and I also reminded the speaker that Highland Park, New Jersey is the place where both I reside and the place where the speaker resides-- and it told me the temperature-- 43 degrees-- and I was like "wtf?" and so I checked my phone and apparently, this morning it was 43 degrees in BOTH Highland Park, New Jersey and Highland Park, Illinois . . . so dumb . . . and last night, and this happens quite often, I sat on the afghan on the couch-- and this really annoys my wife, she can't understand why I would sit on the blanket-- she thinks that's both uncomfortable and idiotic-- because then when she wants the blanket, I'm sitting on it and it's a process to for me to get off it, especially if I'm all splayed out watching TV . . . but last night, I sat on the other blanket, not the one my wife was using, and then it got unseasably cold and I wanted to use the blanket-- but I was sitting on it and it was really annoying to get it out from under me, so now I get it.
No Way, El Rey
If you're looking for some wild, hard-boiled crime fiction, where regular old psychopaths figure out how to navigate this lonely planet as best they know how, then check out Jim Thompson-- otherwise known as "The Dime-Store Dostoevsky"-- I read my first two Jim Thompson novels a few weeks ago: Pop. 1280 and The Getaway and I am a changed man, ready to do whatever is necessary to survive and thrive-- just like Nick Corey, the shaper-than-he-seems sherriff of Pottsville-- and if my schemes and ruses don't work out, then I'm ready to go on the lam, like Doc McCoy and Carol . . . although I hope I don't end up bankrupt and betrayed in the kingdom of El Rey (this mythical criminal sanctuary is also alluded to in the film Dusk to Dawn).
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