Dave vs. The Looming Specter of his Mortality

I was in a lousy mood last week. January really dragged-- lots of gray and damp weather. No joyful snowfall. The park is a muddy goose-shit filled swamp. The ticks haven't even gone dormant. And I was scheduled for an MRI on my shoulder on Friday. I expected bad news, as the doctor suspected a tear in either a rotator cuff injury or a labral tear. A rotator cuff injury would require serious PT and a labral tear would most likely need surgery.

My shoulder has been injured since the summer. I hurt it during a tennis match, screwing around with a topspin one-handed backhand. I can't get any juice on my serve (and I can't chuck a football with any velocity either). This shoulder injury (and my impending 50th birthday) have been really weighing on me. I'm not ready to hang up my racket yet. Beating my kids is too much fun-- and I've only got a few years left where I'll be able to do that (consistently). Or perhaps my run is over-- my shoulder burnt out-- and I won't get a chance to fade away.

I played indoor soccer well last Sunday, which should have bolstered my spirits-- but when I was crossing the ball, I caught the lip of a gym door with my toe-- and while I didn't hurt myself enough to stop playing, my ankle and knees were sore for days. I felt really old all week (until I drank too much Thursday night . . . oddly, Friday morning my knees were no longer sore).

I'm no dummy, so I started preparing for the worst a couple weeks ago. There's only one way to fight the looming specter of mortality: keep busy. My first project was to use my left hand as much as possible. Brushing my teeth, driving, pulling the wet laundry out of the washer, etc. I even started shooting darts left-handed-- which actually works fine unless I'm trying to hit the bullseye-- and I played tennis left-handed a couple times with my son Ian. My groundstrokes are pretty much the same-- I could always hit a decent lefty forehand and a lefty two-handed backhand is similar to a righty forehand-- but learning to serve lefthanded is a bitch. I went down to the park and practiced and I felt like a spaz. This article inspired me to keep at it. My left shoulder still has a lot of gas left in the tank, but I'll need a lot of mental fortitude to develop the fine motor skills necessary to play well lefty.

I've been preparing in several other ways for my impending midlife crisis. I don't want to resort to the typical shit: prostitutes, alcoholism, drag-racing, and dog-fighting, so I've implemented a preemptive strike on my mid-life crisis.

Project #1:

I've switched my DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) from a PC to an iMac. I'm using Logic now instead of Cakewalk Sonar. I'm watching tutorial videos at the gym and learning a lot. I still don't know what I'm doing with Smart Tempo and Flex-Time, but I'm trying. Learning the new platform is keeping me off the streets and keeping my brain away from early onset dementia.

Project #2:

I'm reading some big books. I normally value quantity over quantity (aside form War and Peace, Brothers Karamazov, and Infinite Jest). I'm barrelling through Uncle Tom's Cabin-- it's gripping-- and then I've got Tom Jones queued up on my Kindle.

In meatspace, I'm reading this absurd book.

This is mainly to irritate my fellow Philosophy teacher Stacey-- I've claimed that once I finish the book, she's not allowed to teach the class any long (unless she refers to me as The Philosophical Overlord). When I know Stacey's about to come into the office, I like to put my feet up, read something obtuse aloud, and brandish my new knowledge. A.C. Grayling is actually pretty entertaining-- for a philosopher-- although I skimmed the section on Empedocles.

Project #3:

Apparently, Google Play Music is going extinct. I've already been through this once with Rdio.

Remember Rdio?

No?

Serendipitously, my buddy Whitney just gave me a gift voucher for Spotify, so I've switched over. It's great, but I'm transferring playlists and massaging the algorithm-- so I'm spending a lot of time "hearting" songs and putting them on various playlists. I'm impressed with what Spotify spits out once you spend a little time on it. This project is not keeping me off the streets-- I use Spotify while I'm walking and driving-- so I'm working hard not to screw around with it while I'm driving and to look up once in a while when I'm crossing the street.

Project #4

So I was all depressed Thursday, because of the MRI on Friday. I drank too much and stayed out too late, and by the time I raced out of school and got to University Orthopedics, I was groggy and tired and hungry. They had a cooking show on in the waiting room. Guy Fieri ate various kinds of barbecued meats. By the time they called me, I was salivating.

They took me in, I put my valuables in a locker, and the guy told me the machine was a little loud. He handed me a pair of earphones. I lay on the sliding bed, my shoulder in the cup, and he slid me in. He gave me a little emergency switch and told me if I had any problem, to press it. I wondered why. Until I got in there.

I'm not sure if being tired and hungover was bane or blessing. The top of the cylinder was an inch or two from my nose. And the machine was LOUD. Not a little loud. SUPER-LOUD! Science-fiction loud. Weird grinding and banging and revving noises. And the music in the headphones was awful. Cheesy piano, occasionally interrupted by ads. Yuck. I didn't press the little button (or move at all) but I wanted to. Twenty-five minutes later, I was out and on my way to talk to the doctor.

While I waited, I could see the inside of my shoulder on the desktop. Looked fine to me.

Turns out I was right. Sort of. Fairly good news. No labral tear, no serious rotator cuff injury. Some arthritis, some bone cysts, and some swelling. Routine stuff. I didn't even need PT. I just had to do a bunch of exercises. And the doctor said I could play tennis! Right-handed! He said it might hurt a bit, and we could try a cortisone shot-- but I wasn't going to rupture anything. I would just be sore. If I really hurt it, I would know it.

This made me happy enough to get back to a project I've been putting on hold. I need a new tennis racket, an arm friendly one. If my right shoulder still hurts with the new racket, then I may still pursue playing left-handed. But I don't have to. I went to the gym today and did a bunch of shoulder exercises and I'm sore as hell. But I've eluded the looming specter another day.

I also think I need to make a doctor's appointment-- the appointment you make when you turn fifty-- and I think this is the appointment when the doctor will stick his finger up my ass.

Can't they just stick my ass in the MRI machine?

What Did People Do Before the Internet? Play Pinochle?

I'm not sure if I would have made it through David Mitchell's novel Cloud Atlas if it wasn't for the articulate plot summaries at EditorialEyes Book Blog . . . the book consists of six nested stories, and the main character in each story has some connection to the next narrative -- and the chronology runs from an 1850's Melvillean journal to a post-apocalyptic tale set in the far future; the stories themselves would be inventive enough on their own, but the fragmented chain structure and the inventive language in each tale makes the book both masterful and possibly mastubatory . . . it is challenging reading, but with the help of the internet, I had no trouble connecting the dots . . . and this has been the theme of my summer -- I finished Infinite Jest, but I certainly had some very necessary help from the web, and I am watching Breaking Bad in real time and I needed some information from the digital superhighway to explain what happened at the end of episode 11 (Confessions) . . . and while I have never claimed to be the most astute reader or viewer, I am wondering if this is a sea change in how we read and watch . . . I don't remember having to seek to much aid when I read things in high school, college and through my twenties, and I certainly never had to ask anyone for help in explaining Melrose Place (although I did purchase and use a guide when I read Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow) but perhaps now the mark of a profound and complex piece of art is that you need to seek other sources and perspectives to understand it . . . and just so there is no misunderstanding, I want to assure you that Sentence of Dave will never help you in that regard, in fact, you'll leave here more bewildered than when you entered.

After You Finish Infinite Jest, You Should Read Chuck Klosterman

I have already pointed out here that while I love to read Chuck Klosterman, he annoys me a bit, because he is such a clear, engaging and relatable writer (for folks of my generation) that his thoughts immediately become my own -- and then I wonder why I didn't think of these things first and clearly articulate them in writing before Klosterman did . . . but, of course, he is a professional and has time to read The Starr Report and books on Hitler, and he has time to rewatch Airplane! and meditate on Kareem Abdul Jabbar and he puts this thinking to good use (along with his comprehensive musical knowledge) in order to write about villains, in his new book I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling With Villians (Real and Imagined) which only took me a day and a half to read (same as his last book) and is the perfect book to read after struggling for two months on Infinite Jest (though I feel like David Foster Wallace and Chuck Klosterman would have got along smashingly), and not only is the book very clever, but it's also very funny . . . after much thoughtful discourse on Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, Kenneth Starr, and Sharon Stone . . . Klosterman then describes Slick Willie like this: "He's the kind of man you could trust to lead the world, but not to drive your wife to the airport."

Mission Accomplished! (Sort of . . .)

I finally did it . . . on my third try, I finished David Foster Wallace's epic post-modern masterpiece, Infinite Jest . . . but I'm not sure that I actually understood it . . . from my perspective, the book takes a rather clinical look at addiction in it's myriad and nefarious forms . . . but it is also a wicked satire on popular culture and entertainment, AND -- I've done some reading (so not only do you have to wade through the 1000 plus pages of text and footnotes, but you also have to read a bunch of on-line essays once you're through, to make sense of the rather inconclusive ending . . . which becomes more conclusive when you re-read the first chapter again, because the first chapter takes place after the action in the novel) there is an obtuse plot about Quebecois separatists and a terroristically addictive piece of entertainment created by Hal Incandenza's auteur father that has fallen into the wrong hands; anyway, I am glad (Year of Glad) I read it, and I am also glad that I finished it before My Year of the Adult Depends Undergarment, and I also highly recommend reading it on a Kindle, because it is easier to navigate the endnotes (and you can look up some of the recondite terminology, although much of it isn't in a normal dictionary and requires the OED or a medical dictionary).

Summer To-Do Review

Summer break is winding down here in New Jersey, and so it's time to check-in on my Summer To-do List  . . . I did not brush-up on my Spanish while walking the dog, but I did listen to a bunch of Richard Pryor albums and learn how to download podcasts from iTunes, so I'm calling that one a wash . . . I've made some progress recording my album, and decided to tone down the effects and the reverb, so that's a victory . . . I moved the arbor vitae and Leyland cypress from the back property line to the side of the house, and gave the extras to my friend Dom, and the trees are doing well so I'm quite proud of that . . . I did not instal a fence on the back property line, but my wife got a bunch of estimates and got a really good price from one company, so that's a major success for me, because I avoided all the work on that project and it's going to get done, and in a professional fashion . . . I got some shelving units and organized the sporting goods in the study, attended the twentieth annual Outer Banks Fishing Trip, and I have nearly finished Infinite Jest, but I certainly haven't gotten my body fat percentage down to 12% -- in fact, I was nearly two hundred pounds when I got back from the Outer Banks Fishing Trip, so I need to do some serious exercise -- and I did not get new lenses for my glasses or restring my tennis racket . . . and while there is still time to complete these tasks, there's part of me that doesn't want to, because, as David Foster Wallace points out in Infinite Jest, "anhedonia's often associated with the crises that afflict extremely goal-oriented people who reach a certain age having achieved all or more than they'd hoped for," and David Foster Wallace achieved quite a bit on his To-Do list at a very young age and then went and committed suicide, so they guy has some credibility in this department, so perhaps I'll save a few things on my list for next summer (even though not getting new lenses for my glasses is getting rather dangerous).

This Time I Am Determined to Finish!

I am moonlighting (or daylighting, as David Foster Wallace calls it) a bit on Infinite Jest . . . and I know the last time I did this I ended up quitting the novel -- but it's four years later and I have learned my lesson, this time I am committed, but I just need a little break to read Brett Martin's new book with this double-coloned mouthful of a title: Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution: From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad . . . his thesis is that TV has entered a "third Golden Age" and that these new high quality cable shows are like nothing before -- they are neither episodic nor mini-series -- instead they resemble Victorian serialized fiction, like Dickens, and because of this format, they are much more beholden to the writers and creators -- rather than the actors and producers -- than any TV before, and these writer/creator folks happen to be moody, flawed, ambitious and brilliant men, and this personality type reflected in the "heroes" of these shows . . . characters such as Vic Mackey and Walter White and Don Draper and Tony Soprano and Jimmy McNulty.

I Wish I Thought of This

My friend Adam passed along this list of "28 "Favorite" Books That Are Huge Red Flags" and I find it accurate, funny, and applicable; I am suspicious of any adult who advertises their "favorite" anything, and while I have sworn to finish Infinite Jest this summer, I'm not going to let anyone see me reading it, because that's just pretentious and annoying (like this blog).

My Summer To-Do List

Here are some of the things I want to accomplish this summer -- and I think if I complete half of them, I'll be quite proud:

1) Brush up on my Spanish while walking the dog,

2) record an album,

3) move the arbor vitae from the back property line to the side property line,

4) install a fence on the back property line,

5) plant some screening shrubs or bamboo in decorative containers on the back property line,

6) get some steel or wire shelving units and organize the sporting goods in the study,

7) get my body fat percentage down to 12%,

8) strengthen my core,

9) get new lenses for my glasses,

10) restring my tennis racket,

11) finish Infinite Jest,

12) attend the 20th Annual Outer Banks Fishing Trip,

14) get over my triscadecaphobia.

R.I.P. Celebrity Hailing From Edison

We were discussing the death of Brittany Murphy in the English office the other day-- she was raised in Edison, New Jersey-- and the impact a celebrity's death has on people, and I decided that there is no particular celebrity, no matter how much I appreciate their art, that would make me sincerely grieve if they kicked it-- unless I happened to be friends with them (and I am not friends with any celebrities) and while I might pre-emptively miss the future films, music, paintings, cartoons, and/or books they were going to produce, but usually, if I already like a celebrity, their best years are behind them (and, as I wrote earlier, it might actually pique my interest in them: David Foster Wallace's suicide didn't make me sad, but it did make me read 680 pages of Infinite Jest).

I'm Sure I'll Pick It Back Up . . . or Maybe Not

I needed to take a break from the sardonic wit of Infinite Jest, lest I hang myself like the author did last year, and so I started (and finished, I raced through it, ha) Christopher McDougall's Born to Run: it is the exact opposite of David Foster Wallace's post-modern masterpiece . . . it is non-fiction, it is inspirational, it is clearly written, it is mainly about the Tarahumara, a tribe of Indians isolated in Mexico's trackless Copper Canyons who are notorious as fantastic distant runners, but it is more philospohical than anything else, and I would highly recommend it, especially if you are mired in the self-reflexive meta-futility of post-modern art, as the ideas in Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen will allow you to mentally transcend your body, instead of dwelling on its slow decay.

8/19/2009

62% of the way through Infinite Jest, which is set in the near future, when each year has its own corporate sponsor (Year of the Depend Undergarments, Year of Dairy Products from the American Heartland, Year of Glad) and there is a revolutionary new meta-treatment for cancer, the doctors feed the cancer lots of processed food products, encourage the cancer cells to smoke cigarettes and consume loads of Diet Soda, and voila, the cancer gets cancer and dies . . . but the treatment doesn't work on AIDS, because AIDS is a meta-disease . . . and I'm getting sick of reading meta-fiction: I may have to take a break and read something else-- something short and easy-- before I finish.

Infinite Rest

It's sick, but I've had David Foster Wallace's lengthy tour de force novel Infinite Jest lying around my house for years and years, and I've started it once or twice, but it's daunting, both in style and size (1000 pages plus end notes) but I've become more motivated to read it since he committed suicide last year-- I'm not sure why, but that's the fact-- and now I'm 43% of the way through (easy to compute because it's out of a 1000 pages) and once you get into the groove, kind of like Gravity's Rainbow, the book is a lot of fun: I just finished the tale of Eric Clipperton, the junior tennis player who played all his matches with a Glock 9mm pressed to his temple and threatened immediate suicide if he ever lost a match . . . the kids always let him win.