Sweet Dreams Are Probably Not Made Of This

Last Wednesday night, when I checked on my children to make sure they were tucked into bed, doing some reading before lights out, I found my younger son reading a large age-inappropriate biology text . . . and he was studying-up on vampire bats -- there was a photo of a vampire bat sucking on the teat of a cow and several repulsive close-ups of squashed vespertilion faces and pointy vespertilion incisors -- and so I gave him a kiss on the forehead and made a quick exit . . . I don't need to look at stuff like that before bed . . . and then I crossed the hall to check on my other son, and he was reading a book called Gross Body Facts and he told me he was looking for the chapter about "stinky armpits" and I pretended  to be proud of his curiosity and inquisitive disposition, and then beat feet out of his room as well . . . and I am happy to report that neither child had a nightmare . . . nor did I (but my children never have nightmares . . . even after catching giant spiders and then reading books about giant spiders . . . which makes me wonder if they are actually part spider; that would explain a lot).

That Look . . . You Know, That Look . . .

I am sure all of you are familiar with the sensation of getting "that look" from someone who passes you by in the hallway at work . . . that look that says: hey, there's something off about you, but I'm too polite to say what it is, and so you'll just have to interpret this look and figure it out . . . so you inspect your nose for boogers, make sure your fly is zipped, and ensure that you don't have semen in your hair (a.k.a.  "There's Something About Mary Syndrome") . . . but when I received "that look" last Tuesday morning from a colleague, it was directed at my chest and so I was able to dismiss the usual suspects and instead assumed that I had a stain on my shirt . . . and when I looked down, I did see an odd "U" shaped stain on the right breast of my burgundy golf shirt . . . but upon further inspection, this turned out to be stitching-- I was wearing my shirt inside-out . . . and neither my wife nor several other teachers noticed this, and if it wasn't for "a look" from a random dude, I would have taught first period wearing my shirt in this ridiculous manner (because once you start teaching with your shirt on inside-out, there's no turning back . . . because though it's embarrassing if your students tell their parents that their teacher wore his shirt inside out, you don't get fired for doing that, but if a student goes home and tells his parents that their teacher took his shirt off in class -- whatever the reason -- you are getting the axe).

The First Rule About Fight Club Is You Do NOT Blog About Fight Club

Read any article about how to write a successful blog and the first tip will be something like this: STAY ON TOPIC or CHOOSE A UNIQUE TOPIC or DECIDE WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO BLOG ABOUT . . . and perhaps that is why Sentence of Dave is not particularly successful, because the Topic is "Dave" and that's not very specific . . . but there are certain areas where Sentence of Dave excels -- according to the Blogger Statistics-- and so here are the most popular searches that lead to this godforsaken corner of the internet: trigonometry, peccary, Chatham Bars Inn, balls, emo, Andrew Strong, giant wasp, and . . . drum roll please . . . elephantitis.

You Never Know How Big A House Is From The Outside

After my son Ian surprised me with his ability to read a rather difficult book out loud, he explained, "My head is little, but my brain is big."

Horror and Meta-Horror All Wrapped Into One Movie

The Cabin in the Woods is the horror movie you've seen a million times before, except that it's not . . . so don't be fooled by the B+ actors and B+ plot . . . this movie turns out to be what The Hunger Games should have been; it's in the same satirical genre as Scream, but I liked it better, mainly because of two memorable scenes: one shows what happens when a confluence of elevators arrive at a particular floor-- a confluence of elevators full of an astounding bestiary-- and the other juxtaposes a celebration of technicians and hilly-billy zombie beatdown in a ironic cinematic kaleidoscope; nine mermen out of ten.

Anticlimactic Clinking

My wife was in a "I'm-going-to-get-a-lot-of-shit-done" mood over the four day Rosh Hashanah weekend . . . and in the midst of getting lots of shit done, she decided to take our two big jars of change to Stop and Shop; they have a CoinStar machine there and if you choose to get a Stop and Shop gift card, then you don't have to pay the 9% counting fee . . . you receive one hundred percent credit for the change you dump in the machine, an admittedly good deal, but this defeats the purpose of a change jar -- which is supposed to be "mad money" to be used for something frivolous (such as a pet monkey or the world's largest chocolate bar) -- to spend it on food . . . especially mundane grocery store food disappointed me (perhaps if we spent it on some kind of exotic food, like a dozen century eggs, then I would have approved) and so to make the event slightly more exciting, we all guessed how much money the jars contained: Alex said fifty dollars, Ian said sixty, I guessed two hundred and twenty dollars and Catherine -- ever the optimist -- estimated three hundred and seventy five . . . but when my wife returned from the store, she said that the machine was broken, and she couldn't cash in the change, and I am regarding this as an omen, and hoping that we will get to use the money for something more fun . . . perhaps I will finally get this (and if you don't think the title of this post is a great name for an indie band consisting of two nerdy percussionists, then you are a fool and I pity you).

How To Not Read George R.R. Martin

So I am still on extended leave from the new George R.R. Martin book, A Dance With Dragons-- I am three hundred pages in but I keep picking up other entertaining titles that keep me from Westeros . . . the latest is a four hundred page thriller by Gillian Flynn (who is far cuter than George R.R. Martin . . . I know this because when my eyes get tired, I invariably open to the back flap of library boks and look at the author . . . and I'm aways amazed when someone cute has written a book, because you'd think they'd have better things to do) and I read this rather thick novel, called Gone Girl, in two days-- partly because of a quad pull, but mainly because it's a true literary page-turner; the book is detailed and realistically written; the narrators have sharp, witty, and unreliable voices; the chapters are short and always significant; the prose is perfectly written; and the plot is preposterous . . . you know the twists are coming, but they are difficult to predict in their entirety, and in the end, despite its realism, the book is good macabre fun: ten Punch and Judy dolls out of ten.

Dreamy Coincidence

I was up early reading Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep, and I was reading the chapter entitled "Sleep On It," which detailed the research on how our brain often solves problems creatively while we are sleeping . . . there were anecdotes about Jack Nicklaus realizing his grip was off in his sleep, Albert Szent-Gyorgi figuring out how to isolate vitamin C in a dream, August Kekule dreaming of a snake with its tail in its mouth and relating this to the structure of benzene, Paul McCartney waking in a girlfriend's bed with the entire melody of "Yesterday" in his head, and -- of course -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge rising from an opium induced nap with the poem "Kubla Khan" in his brain (though he was interrupted by a visitor while he was transcribing his masterpiece and forgot the ending) and just as I finished this chapter-- coincidentally (or miraculously . . . that's for you to decide) my son Ian stumbled down the stairs, half-asleep, and mumbled: "I had an awesome dream . . . I have an idea for art" and he grabbed a piece of paper and drew a many-headed hydra-like beast, and he did this even before he went to the bathroom, the urge to draw what he had just seen was so strong . . . and the moral is, of course, if you need a good idea, take a nap.

Possum Week

I was walking my dog early in the morning-- before sunrise-- and it was foggy, moonless, and still; suddenly he lunged at a gray cat on the sidewalk . . . I was able to yank him away before he got too close-- but this cat reacted oddly, instead of arching its back and hissing, the cat collapsed into a lifeless lump, and upon closer inspection, I realized it was not a cat, but a possum, and it was actually playing possum . . . I had the urge to kick it, to see it come back to life, but I couldn't get any closer because my dog was going bananas . . . so later that day I told the tale to my kids, who were fascinated with this odd marsupial that lives among us, and then two days later-- miraculously-- when my wife and children were visiting "Field Station Dinosaurs," a leafy park in Seacaucus filled with animatronic dinosaurs (I couldn't go because of my stupid pulled quad muscle) my son Ian was selected to "play possum" during a live action dinosaur show; according to my wife, the MC asked for a volunteer who knew how to "play possum" and Ian raised his hand and he was chosen to come on stage . . . and when the MC asked him to "play dead," my wife said Ian closed his eyes and stiffly fell over backward and then never moved, despite the investigations of a giant T. Rex . . . and though Ian claims he wasn't scared at all, my wife has her doubts (and, if you look at the above photo of Ian being nuzzled by the T. Rex, that thing is damned scary).

Immobile Dave Is Useless

Over the four day weekend, I was laid up because of a pulled quadricep muscle, and this gave me time to reflect on my life . . . and I realized that the only good I do on this earth is contingent on me being ambulatory: I am not wise enough to teach from a chair, so I try to be animated for my students; my coaching skills rely on modeling-- I play with the kids to show them how to do it; and my chores around the house consist of things such as walking the dog, teaching the kids tennis, taking the kids for bike rides, taking the dog for bike rides, carrying the laundry baskets up and down the stairs, and watering the garden . . . so when I can't walk, I am a major detriment at home, at work, and on the field . . . and so if I ever come up permanently lame, I guess it would be best to take me out back and treat me like Old Yeller.

Dave Pays For His Stupidity

So after spending eighteen hours last weekend at a travel soccer tournament, and then coaching five days of eighth grade boys try-outs, two travel practices, and one travel soccer game, I decided a fun way to relax on Sunday morning would be to go over to the turf field and play some pick-up soccer . . . and, of course, I snapped a muscle in my fucking quad: why didn't I take a walk? or go roller-blading? or take a ride on my stand-up paddleboard? or a bike ride? am I that stupid?

Coach Dave Executes the Best Play of the Day

Though my U-8 travel soccer team took a beating at the hands of a deeper, more experienced Bloomfield soccer squad on Saturday, there was one exceptional play made by a Vulture: but it didn't happen during the course of the game . . . it happened during the car ride home, I was driving and my son Ian and his friend Jesus were wrestling in the back seat of the mini-van, but despite this distraction, when I went to exit the Parkway (Exit 130) and I noticed a massive pile-up of traffic for the Southbound lane, I instead took the Northbound lane . . . so like a good soccer player, I found the open lane and went North to go South . . . and so I drove up Route 1 North away from Highland Park, but into open space, turned by the Woodbridge Mall, caught Woodbridge Avenue and had a traffic free drive the rest of the way home (though when I told my wife about this amazing and creative play into open space, she reminded me that if I had gone one more exit to 129, then I could have caught Woodbridge Avenue there, as we had done many times before . . . but this is irrelevant, because in the heat of the game it's hard to remember things like that, and you just need to appreciate my brilliant move in the context of that particular car ride).

Evite Etiquette

Dear Abby . . . when you reply to a party invitation on Evite, shouldn't you make a clever comment? -- for instance, if someone goes through the trouble of naming their pig roast "There Will Be Pork," then shouldn't you reply with something funny that acknowledges this allusion, such as "we will drink your porkshake!" --- or, as my friend Tim suggests, is this quick-witted wordplay pretentious, annoying and gauche?

Loathsome Logic

My seven year old son Ian-- who should be old enough to know better-- picked up a whistle he found on the ground at last weekend's soccer tournament and immediately put it in his mouth and started blowing it . . . and so I told him that he shouldn't put things that he finds on the ground in his mouth and I tried to scare him straight by describing the snot-mouthed disease-ridden hobo that was using the whistle just before he stuck it between his lips, but this didn't faze him, and after a moment of discussion with his brother Alex, the two of them decided that no one was more disgusting then they were, and so the real problem was not with them . . . it was with whoever used the whistle next . . . because they were the grossest people on earth and so no one should put anything in their mouth once they had.

The Purpose of Old Friends

When you're selectively remembering how excellent your musical tastes were back in high school and college-- how you listened to The Clash and My Bloody Valentine and De La Soul . . . how you were the first to get into Appetite for Destruction and Shake Your Moneymaker and Louder Than Love and and Paul's Boutique . . . when you are reminiscing about the times you saw Soundgarden and Jane's Addiction and Guns N Roses and The Feelies and R.E.M. -- your old friends are there to remind you about that Judas Priest mixed tape you made for them.

Karen Thompson Walker Uses The Word "Miracle" In a Different Manner Than I Use The Word "Miracle"

Karen Thompson Walker's new novel The Age of Miracles portrays an unusually delicate and precise apocalypse, and her narrator is equally delicate and precise in her explanation of this odd and slow way for all things familiar to end; to explain: the earth's rotation begins to decay, and the days and nights gradually grow longer-- wreaking havoc with both the middle school bell schedule and the earth's magnetic field . . . hierarchies change at the bus stop and people revise their circadian rhythms . . . or some people do (they keep clock time) while a minority refuse and try to adjust to the much longer days and nights-- and I read this book to take a break from George R.R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire," a series which spans thousands and thousands of pages and claims that "winter is coming"-- but if you want winter to actually come-- and summer too-- all in the same day, then read this book: ten beached whales out of ten.

Get It Straight

I'm not bald, I am balding-- it is true that I don't have as much hair on my head as I used to have, but I still have some hair . . . it's a process (also, I'm not old, I'm getting older).

My Miracle Is More Miraculous Than Your Miracle

At our first department meeting, Liz told a story about a "miracle" where she was stranded at an airport with her baby, and she was stressed out and lonely, and for some reason she was thinking about a certain wonderful person named Audrey and-- miraculously-- there Audrey was, sent by God to relieve her loneliness and to give her a much needed break from caring for her baby . . . but this sounds more like a coincidence than a miracle, unlike what happened in my class on Monday: I was making the kids think analogously about how having romantic relationship with a human is similar to having a relationship with a book . . . the students had written down questions they might ask themselves before they decided to "get busy with" a romantic interest and we were assessing the continuum of queries, which started light  (do they make me laugh?) and ranged to the profound (would I die for him?) and it was easy enough to wax metaphorically about liking a book that had some humor, or being monogamous with a book, or liking a book with a cute cover, relatable subject matter, an attractive font, and that new book smell . . . but when it came to speaking of art you would die for, I hit a brick wall-- my only example was if one was a complete fanatic for the author or piece of art, and then I made the natural leap to Mr. C., my friend who loves the TV show Battlestar Galactica, loves it so much that he has purchased many, many props from the show-- including a chair from the military conference room, several uniforms, and loads of other bric-a-brac that appeared on camera in the various starships and planets of the Galactica universe-- and moments after I explained this (and my classroom door was closed) and remember, I wasn't thinking about Mr. C., I was talking about him in front of many other witnesses-- so moments after this analogous example, Mr. C. himself walked through my classroom door, and if that wasn't coincidence enough, he was holding a funky microphone covered in blood . . . and he immediately explained that he had made a "new acquisition" and that he had just purchased the microphone that was used just before the "slaughter in the Quorum" in the episode "Blood on the Scales" and so I was able to point to this man and say, "Here is the man that might die for a work of art" and Mr. C. acknowledged that he would take a "heavy wound" for Battlestar Galactica and if Liz is going to call meeting up with Audrey in a strange airport a miracle, when she was only thinking about her, then I am calling this a bona fide super-miracle, because I was actually talking about Mr. C. just before he walked in, and he was holding just the prop necessary to complete my analogy.

New To Me . . .

My friend Rachel told me that her property was " a skosh less than half and acre" and I said, "A what?" but apparently a "skosh" is a real word . . . it is a unit of measurement and it means a smidgen . . . and while I have never seen this word in print, people assure me that it is used in conversation quite often . . . but not with the people I converse with . . . and while I am glad I learned a new word, I much prefer saying "just shy," as in "Dammit! That ball was just shy of hitting me in the testicles! Watch where your kicking!" and if anyone has the testicles to say "a tad," as in "maybe you should drink a tad less beer" then I will punch them in the face.

Some Life Decisions Are Easy to Make

I couldn't decide if I wanted one fried egg or two fried eggs for breakfast, but when I opened the carton . . . there was only one egg left.

I Am a Good Person (But It's a Struggle)

So in the interest of being a good person, I decided to clean up my classroom a bit before the start of this year-- I took a number of American Literature text books that had been sitting in a corner of my room for several years back to the common book room so other teachers could use them and I also found a stack of misplaced World History textbooks on the windowsill (my room is used like a terminal for packages in the summer, so all kinds of strange stuff ends up there) and I found a history teacher and asked him what I should do with the books, and he told me that they were certainly needed and he asked if I could bring them across the school to the history office-- and in the interest of being a good person, I complied and returned the books . . . the next day was the first day of classes, and after I finished teaching my last period and was cleaning up and getting ready to go coach, a harried woman hustled into my room and when I asked her if she needed anything, she said that she was a new history teacher and they had her in five different rooms and that my room was one of them-- which surprised me, because usually my room is empty last period-- and then she surprised me again when she said, "I can't find my text books" because I realized that, in the interest of being a good person, I had totally screwed over this green and rather frantic new teacher . . . those text books that I returned to the history office were hers . . . and so there was a moment when I had to decide if I was really going to be a good person, and confess my crime-- and although I didn't want to because then I was going to have to retrieve the books and it was hot as all hell and I had a million things to do--  but the lady seemed nice and she was in five different rooms . . . so in the interest of being a good person, I told her that I was the culprit, and offered to track the books down and bring them back to her-- which I did (and I met an old student who is now teaching math in the high school and she helped me bring the books back, so it turned out to be more fun than I thought) and now I can honestly say that I am a good person (for now).

A Canine Analogy

Peeing on public property is a dog's version of graffiti . . . but, of course, dog's are working in the realm of the olfactory instead of the visual; perhaps this could be Banksy's next project.

For George R.R. Martin Fans Only

Tysha is Tyrion's Rosebud.

Breakfast Food Woes

I'm not sure which task is more difficult . . . peeling a boiled egg or breaking apart an English muffin.

Does This Count As Fair Use?

For the first time in my life, I used our granite mortar and pestle (it is quite heavy, and so I balanced it on top of our panini maker so I didn't have to squish my panini manually).

Not For Those With Two Weeks of Vacation Time

All you folks with full time jobs probably don't want to hear this, nor will you believe it, but nothing is worse than the end-of-the-summer-holy-shit-I've-got-to-go-back-to-work anxiety stomachache . . . it's an awful feeling (but not so awful that I would choose to work in the summer . . . God bless the agrarian calendar) and my stomachache was compounded by the fact that a tooth of mine cracked off at the crown, and so on the same day that I return to work, I will also visit the dentist for some kind of procedure which I can only imagine to be horrific . . . and the worst part is I can't even whinge about all this because it falls on deaf ears, since most people have been working all summer long and have no sympathy.

Wrestling for a Greased Watermelon is Laborious

Last year on Labor Day weekend, I learned that "wrestling for a greased watermelon with buff lifeguards" is not the theme of an adult film, it is an event at our family swim club-- and this year I learned that last year's melee was rather tame because the watermelon broke open after one round; this year we played best of three and I am proud to say that I scored the first point, hefting the watermelon over the side of the pool from distance . . . but there is plenty that went on in this scrum that I'm not proud of-- ankle grabbing, the dunking of minors, pleading with the almighty that I might be allowed to return to the surface, attempting to drown my friends and neighbors, occasional cowardice, and a general sense of bewilderment that I have never felt in any other sport (besides cricket) . . . a petroleum jelly coated watermelon behaves very strangely in water-- someone said it is neutrally buoyant, so it goes in whatever direction you push it-- up, down, sideways, or all three-- and apparently, you can see where it is from the sidelines, so there is lots of cheering and screaming, and when my tall friend John, from Team 1 (my team!) spiked the melon over the side and broke it, cementing both our victory and the end of the battle, everyone was exhausted and relieved, and I am positive that the event was far more exciting than an Olympic water polo match.

Unpacking VERY Slowly (A Follow Up To Yesterday's Stupid Question)

After a vacation, instead of unpacking one's luggage, is it acceptable to leave the piece of luggage on the bedroom floor and simply take clothes out of the piece of luggage until it is empty?

Probably Not As Long As I Left It Up There

How many days after you return from vacation are you allowed to leave the big sack full of beach stuff attached to the roof of the car?

Breaking Meta-News!

The New York Times claims that 1/3 of all "consumer" reviews of books and other products found on the Internet are fabricated, whether by marketers or the retailers themselves, or by friends of the seller, or even companies that you can hire to write positive reviews.

Glad That's Over With

I finished the fourth George R.R. Martin book in his epic A Song of Ice and Fire series, and all I can say about A Feast For Crows is that I survived it (unlike most of the characters) and I hope the next one is an easier read.

I'm Actually Black And I'm Proud

Hustle and Flow is the ghetto version of The Commitments.

Cow or Cat?

As we were walking home from The Dish Cafe, my son Ian spied a strange creature posing on a stoop-- and so he asked, "Is that a cow or a cat?"-- though the thing was most certainly a cat, but his question was reasonable because it was a hairless cat-- and spotted like a cow-- and not only was it hairless but it was also very saggy (much saggier than this hairless Sphinx cat in the picture) and apparently (this is news to me!) there are a number of hairless house cats, each one uglier than the next.

OBFT XIX

The 19th Annual Outer Banks Fishing Trip went off without a hitch, and a big thanks to Whitney for putting us up and putting up with us for this many years . . . here are a few things that I vaguely remember from OBFT XIX: 1) driving with a hangover while Whitney participated in a 90 minute conference call for work . . . very boring and oppressive, especially when Whitney had a bout of flatulence, and would not allow me to roll down the windows because he needed to hear 2) an innovative and scary ride home from Tortuga's for Jerry and me, thanks to Cliff 3) Whitney and I reigning for five hours in a row at corn-hole 4) waiting too long at Tortuga's and never getting to order lunch 5) cornbread and beef brisket at Taylor's Barbeque , which is just outside fo Salisbury Maryland 6) back to back pork bbq sandwiches at Southland and Pigman's, within a two hour window 7) napping on the ferry to Cape May 8) getting "shushed" at the bar 9) the best water in a long time (but no waves, I had to wait until I got up to Sea Isle City for that) 10) Bruce's fantastic joke, which cannot be repeated, even on the internet.

A Man With A Beard Is More Of A Man Than Me (But That's Not Saying Much)

I don't know how men with beards got over the IT ITCHES! hump.

Alfred Hitchcock Was Right!

A presumptuous seagull swooped down and yanked a Blueberry Belvita Breakfast Biscuit right out of Lynn's hand while she was chatting with Dom on the beach, and this is a frightening development in avian intelligence, because once all the other birds learn that humans wandering around with food in their hands are fair game, we are going to starve to death (or I guess we could just eat indoors, but you can't make a horror movie about being forced to bring your kids off the beach and eat lunch inside . . . even though that is a horrible process).

LeCompt Plays Best Set Ever!

Every trip to Sea Isle City includes a night listening to LeCompt-- the hardest working bar band in the world-- and they outdid themselves last Sunday evening: they played an entire set of Who songs, from the obscure to the epic . . . these are the ones I remember: The Real Me, Cut My Hair, 5:15, Love Reign O'er Me, Doctor Jimmy, Baba O'Riley, Getting in Tune, However Much I Booze . . . but I am sure there were others . . . the band has inspired me to go back and listen to The Who By Numbers.

We Don't Need No Stinking Bags

As I was walking off the beach, my wife yelled to me to bring back her "bag from the house" and the only bag I could find back at the house was a cute little pink and purple striped hand bag-- rectangular in shape, with a thin handle that stretched across the top of the bag-- so I grabbed that and then made my way to the 7-11 to get some coffee, and a guy spotted my Spotswood soccer shirt and asked if I went there and I so I gave him a brief history of my coaching career-- forgetting that I was flinging this little bag around every time I made a hand motion-- and then when I brought the bag up to the counter at the 7-11, the young dude at the counter said, "Cute purse" and I laughed and then he said, "You've got to be confident in your manhood to carry around a bag like that," and I said, "That's me, all man" and then when I left the place, I said to my friend Connell: "What  if that really was my bag? That guy was making a pretty big assumption?" but I guess I didn't look fabulous enough to be carrying that thing around . . . and then we went back to the crew at the beach and I told my funny story and my wife said, "I didn't say 'bag,' I said 'badge' . . . my beach badge."

Some Decisions Make Themselves

So when the dim sum cart comes to your table at the new China Bowl, and your choices are fried chicken feet, tripe buns, or shrimp dumplings, which do you choose?

An Evil Mountain by Any Other Name

One of the excellent things about having children is that you have an excuse to revisit great movies . . . our family has just started the Lord of the Rings saga, and one of the things that makes me chuckle is that amid all the high fantasy diction-- the Elvish and Old English and Germanic derivatives-- Aragorn and Mordor and Bara-dur and Balrog and The Council of Elrond-- amidst all this gibberish is the much more pragmatic sounding "Mount Doom" . . . it's possibly the only place name in the series that doesn't require a doctorate in language studies to decipher (of course, Tolkien did give it several other names, including Amar Amarth and Orodruin, which makes me believe he was not very successful with the fairer sex).

Ask Not What You Can Do For Your Country, Ask When You Can Take A Nap

I guess it's okay for a President to be a tee-totaller-- although I know I would need a beer or seven after a long day of diplomacy at the G8 Summit-- but the fact that Mitt Romney doesn't drink coffee precludes him from the top spot in The White House, in my book, because how do you make it through something like the Cuban Missile Crisis without a little caffeine?

Pros and Cons of My New Minivan

The pro: you can carpool with another family that has a minivan and all the kids can travel in one vehicle; the con: you can carpool with another family that has a minivan and all the kids can travel in one vehicle . . . a vehicle that you might possibly be driving.

Does It Suck For Louie If He Doesn't Know It Sucks?

The end of season two of Louis CK's brilliant and eponymous show Louie is the most painful illustration of dramatic irony (Wave to me! . . . I'll wait for you!) since Oedipus Rex.

You'll Sleep When You're Dead (Or After You Put Your Dog Down)

On the mornings that our children sleep until eight, our dog wakes us up at six.

Can Anyone Recommend Some Light Reading?

I finished Ioan Grillo's book El Narco, which is a portrait of the Mexican drug cartels and the damage they have wrought in both their home country and our own; it works like this: the United States provides many of the guns for the drug warfare . . . and of course we provide the insatiable need for illegal drugs (especially New York City) and the Mexicans-- who used to be middlemen smugglers for Columbian cocaine, until the Miami Vice squad made it too tough to come through Florida-- have taken over as the main producers, shippers, smugglers, and distributors . . . and moved into many other organized crime rackets such as shakedowns, protection money, and kidnapping . . . and because the stakes are so high and there is so much money involved and there are so many poor folk willing to risk it all, things have gotten incredibly brutal, both as the drug gangs fight each other, and as they fight the often corrupt police for a slice of the pie . . . the violence is heinous and terroristic and the trade is global and difficult to trace-- as the drug lords rely on lots of freelance help for assassinations and transport and smuggling and raw materials-- and while good intelligence can help to bring down big players, there is always someone else ready to step in and make the big money, if only for a limited time (the days of Pablo Escobar are over) and Grillo makes the typical case for legalization of drugs-- at least marijuana, but also perhaps cocaine, heroin, crystal meth, and whatever else is coming across the border-- because that is the only way to limit the power of these very organized paramilitary economic insurrectionists who are essentially psychotic . . . there was a time in the '70's when it looked like legalization would happen, but then we "just said no," but perhaps it's time to review drug possession policy again-- considering the mounting death toll and the fact that some of the cartel drug violence violence is creeping across the border (but not much because the Mexicans know what is good for business) may lead to a viable debate about drug legalization . . . anyway, the book is a good read if you want to know the ins and outs of this atrocious situation just South of us: nine Zetas out of ten.

There Was A Kangaroo In My Living Room

Much of what we think about global warming is anecdotal-- it's been hotter than ever this summer . . . it never snows anymore . . . we never had this many jellyfish when I was a kid-- and I have another story for this file: my son Ian found a baby lizard in our living room . . . a Northern Fence lizard, to be precise, and technically this lizard's range does extend up to Central New Jersey, but I've only seen these down in South Jersey, in the Pine Barrens-- until last week, of course, and so now I am waiting for the armadillos to arrive.

The American Dream Is Just That

It turns out that Arthur Miller and F. Scott Fitzgerald were right, there is no "American Dream" . . . if you want your children to have a better chance at climbing the ladder of success, the best thing you can do for them is to pack up and move to Norway . . . the Organization for Economic C-Operation and Development found that the U.S. is well below "Denmark, Australia, Norway, Finland, Canada, Sweden, Germany, and Spain in terms of how freely citizens move up and down the social ladder" and, the developed world, only in Italy and Great Britain is the correlation between what your parents earn and what you earn greater . . . this could be true in America because of the differences in education or because the rungs on our economic ladder are so far apart (and getting farther apart) but the real point is that Elizabeth Warren and Obama's sentiment "that you didn't build that," is true . . . but it's not true because our country's infrastructure helped you to get where you are, it's because your mommy and daddy did.

Dog Days Of Dopiness

I'm into the stage of summer where I probably need to go back to work again; I've lost focus and become a bit lazy . . . I had trouble peeling myself off a lounge chair at the pool the other day, though I was really hot, and barely found the strength to slip into the pool . . . and my reading habits are reflecting this-- I keep switching between three books, one called Lego: A Love Story, a totally frivolous account of how Jonathan Bender gets back into building Lego creations as an adult; another called El Narco, which details the drug war in Mexico and seems like something I should be informed about (but also seems very distant from my life) and a third called It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How The American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism, which also seems like something I should be informed about, and should be able to relate to my students as the election season heats up, but it's really complicated . . . and my students still seem pretty abstract at this point, so I'll probably end up ditching all these books and completing The Ripliad.

Porkocrite

For a guy that claims he doesn't eat pork, I eat a lot of pork (in fact, I may eat a fair amount of pork as compared to a person who actually eats pork).

Barely A Splurge

One of the many horrible things I've learned from Ioan Grillo's book El Narco: Inside Mexico's Criminal Insurgency is that the going rate for an assassination in Juarez is 1000 pesos; Grillo was so flabbergasted by this figure that he checked it with several sources . . . and that's the deal, all it costs to hire a teenage sicario is eighty-five US dollars; this makes sense when you look at the statistics: "120,000 of Juarez youngsters aged thirteen to twenty-four-- or forty five percent of the total-- were not enrolled in any education nor had any formal employment," and so snuffing out someone who crossed you doesn't even warrant a second thought, when life is so cheap that you can hire a hitman and still get change back from a C note.

What Would You Think Of This Guy?

I stepped into my time machine on Tuesday and found my old roller-blades . . . and luckily I've got still got it (it being '90's style) and not only that, but while I was sashaying through the park on my new-old blades, I was singing the lyrics to Madonna's "Borderline," which I just learned on the guitar . . . and while I'm not a terribly judgmental person, I know what I would have thought if I saw this version of me glide by.

You Are What You Run

I went out and did some sprints instead of taking a jog, because Olympic sprinters look much more bad-ass than Olympic distance runners (the distance runners have big alien-like heads and their bodies look fetal).

The Weird Stuff

My son Ian asked me: "What is the weirdest thing you've ever seen?" and I should have said "you" but, alas . . . esprit d'escalier . . . instead I answered, "Recently?" and reminded him of this incident, and then my wife and I got to talking about the all time weirdest thing we ever saw, and we decided it was the whole "oryx in the bathroom in the middle of the Syrian desert practical joke," which I explain near the end of this speech and won't retell here because I think most of you have heard the story.

The Song List

As a mental challenge, I am trying to memorize the chords and lyrics to 100 songs on the guitar, and, for easy reference I am going to keep the running count here on the blog; here is the list so far . . .

1)  Space Oddity (David Bowie)
2)  You Don't Know How It Feels (Tom Petty)
3)  Carmelita (Warren Zevon)
4)  Time After Time (Cyndi Lauper)
5)  Loving Cup  (The Rolling Stones)
6)  King Of Carrot Flowers (Neutral Milk Hotel)
7)  Ramblin' Man (The Allman Brothers)
8)  Dead Flowers (The Rolling Stones)
9)  The Cave (Mumford & Sons)
10) Heavy Metal Drummer (Wilco)
11) Hang Fire (The Rolling Stones)
12) Rich Girl (Hall and Oates)
13) Life During Wartime (The Talking Heads)
14) Eye of Fatima (Camper Van Beethoven)
15) Cripple Creek (The Band)
16) Lodi (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
17) Five Years (David Bowie)
18) Every Rose Has Its Thorn (Poison)
19) Borderline (Madonna)
20) Delia's Gone (Johnny Cash)
21) Holland 1945 (Neutral Milk Hotel)
22) Bad Things (Jace Everett)
23) Bananas and Blow (Ween)
24) Thunder Road (Bruce Springsteen)

Netflix Loves The Olympics

Using only anecdotal evidence (my Netflix viewing habits) I am guessing that Netflix is saving a boatload of money on postage right now, as people are watching the Olympics and not churning through mail order blu-ray discs, and I am wondering if there is some way to take advantage of this in the market and if some clever investor capitalized on the world's love of Olympic Sport (and people really do love Olympic Sport, you can even cajole people into watching synchronized diving, as long as there's the Olympic stamp of approval).

Pros of a Hangover

I'm not sure if this applies to everyone, but nothing inspires me to tackle mundane tasks more than a hangover-- last Friday, after a late night at the pub, I knocked off an entire "honey-do" list-- including dismantling a bomb-proof wheelchair ramp, hanging four framed pictures that had to be clustered together, making some phone calls, unloading the dishwasher, procuring some items at Home Depot, fixing a sink spigot, and cleaning out some crates-- and I still had time to bike with the dog and give my kids a tennis lesson . . . and that was all before noon; I attribute this paradox to several causes:

1) when I have a hangover, my brain functions just well enough to do the tedious tasks that otherwise drive me crazy;

2) when I have a hangover, I'm not particularly inclined to write sentences, play the guitar, start working on my novel, film a Lego movie, animate a cartoon, or any of the other myriad artistic pursuits and hobbies that generally occupy my mind;

3) atonement . . . I feel better about my debauchery if I get some stuff done;

4) my wife: I have trained to her to understand that a late night of drinking will actually increase my production around the house, and so she encourages me to go out and drink.

Water Polo is Boring

There's a good reason the summer Olympics only come round every four years . . . it takes that long to forget how tedious a water polo match is (and yes, I understand that they are tremendously fit and yes I understand that it takes great skill to do anything while treading water, but it's a horrible game-- they swim down the pool with the ball, toss it around the perimeter a bit to show that they can, and then someone whips it at the goal . . . rinse, lather, repeat ad nauseam . . . I humbly suggest adding jet-skis and hungry sharks to the mix).

My Son Ian Should Go Into Politics

Unlike my son Alex-- who has an opinion about everything-- my son Ian holds his cards close to his chest, and so it was a rare moment last week when he revealed his position without any prompting: we were riding in the car, listening to the radio, and he said to me, "Dad, I don't like static."

You Look Sorta Famous

We had an excellent trip to the city on Tuesday . . . we found some stuff in the Met that I've never seen before (mainly in the aboriginal art exhibits-- big scary head-dresses and ritual boats) but if you bring your kids to climb inside Tomas Saraceno's interactive sci-fi fun house sculpture "Cloud City," which is installed on the roof, then be forewarned-- to participate, kids have to be ten years old and 48 inches tall-- and though my kids gamely lied about their age, my son Ian (who just turned seven and is definitely forty-eight inches, on the nose) was just shy of the counter-top, which the museum staff claimed was forty-eight inches tall . . . but they were definitely skeptical about his age; I find this ridiculous, that a kid who has gone on every roller-coaster at Knoebels and conquered Disney's The Tower of Terror without a whimper wasn't allowed to wander around in a mirrored steel sculpture, but-- on the other hand-- there were a lot of old people inside "Cloud City," murmuring things like "it's disorienting, but not terribly organic, like the city itself," and so maybe it isn't the place for my children, who got into a dust up on the rooftop pavilion over an apple . . . anyway, from the Met we hiked down to the Central Park Zoo, which was quite impressive for a small zoo-- especially the sea lion show-- and then, as we trekked diagonally across the park, on our way to Columbus Circle, stopping at playgrounds as we went, we had a celebrity sighting . . . but it took a while to identify the celebrity . . . at first I thought it was Ellen Barkin, but my wife disagreed, and then I remembered it was the woman from the David Lynch movies who also had a small role in Jurassic Park III and a famous dad, but it took another fifteen minutes to remember her name: Laura Dern!

This Book Will Give You A Stomach Ache (But In A Good Way)

Chad Harbach's novel The Art of Fielding begins as an inspirational under-dog baseball story-- I was especially entertained by the aphoristic writing of the fictitious (but suspiciously resembling Ozzie Smith) short-stop Luis Aparicio in his meditative and eponymous tome The Art of Fielding . . . Aparacio writes like a mix between Gabriella Garcia Marquez and Confucius, and though he is highly abstract, he has supreme influence over the books most enigmatic character-- literal, monosyllabic, and taciturn phenom short-stop Henry Skrimshander . . . but the book takes a dark turn, and I think it will seem even darker for sporting fanatics, as the super-talented, super-dedicated, super-underdog Henry develops a case of the baseball "yips," the strange tic that afflicted Mackey Sasser and Chuck Knoblauch . . . and so other characters in the book make terrible choices-- which I could deal with, we all do it-- but I had a very hard time reading about Henry's disintegration . . . it literally hurt to read about the errors he commits . . . we all dream to have the kind of talent Henry possesses and it's brutally hard to watch it implode: ten PowerBoost shakes out of ten.

A Musical Mid-Year Resolution

In order to stave off early onset Alzheimers, I have decided to memorize one hundred songs on the guitar-- more on this over at Gheorghe: The Blog-- and to kick off the challenge, I played three songs at the local open mike in Highland Park; I was very nervous-- playing in front of strangers is totally different than playing songs to high school students in class (high school students are very encouraging when I pull out my guitar, as they know that if I'm playing a song, then they won't be writing an essay) but I made it through all the chord changes of Bowie's "Space Oddity"-- though I didn't sing very loud-- and then a fast version of Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" and finally a louder and more confident rendition of Tom Petty's "You Don't Know How It Feels" . . . and while at times I felt out of my league-- there were some very accomplished musicians there (including a guy who played Radiohead on a cello and some very good jazz players and some folks who could really sing) but getting to follow a flamboyant dude with a mustache who sang show-tunes helped my confidence a bit . . . and since the purpose of playing music is to attract chicks, I definitely accomplished my mission, as I acquired some cute back-up singers (none of whom is my wife!) who have promised to sway and harmonize along to Cyndi Lauper at next month's show . . . and I have also started to learn Madonna's "Borderline" so I can use them on that song too . . . as I want a shitload of people to go up there with me, it's far better that way (and thanks to my buddy Connell, who came and tapped on the skins while I played . . . though he's not a drummer . . . he went up there with me just to gave me some accompaniment).

Knoebels vs. Disney Revisited

Another nice thing about Knoebels Amusement Resort is that, unlike Disneyworld, the folks that run the place don't try to teach you anything . . . aside from: getting dizzy and wet is fun!

Tough Triples

I always thought sorting out sanguine, consanguine, and sanguinary was the toughest task in the English language, but it might be equally difficult to distinguish between baccala, baklava, and balaclava . . . how many can you properly define?

Dave Conquers 80% of the Ripliad!

At the start of Patricia Highsmith's fourth Tom Ripley novel (The Boy Who Followed Ripley) our asexual Gatsby of murderers has settled down comfortably in Belle Ombre, his French estate, with his native wife Heloise . . . but he soon acquires a protege-- an American runaway teen who confesses that he murdered his wealthy father-- and Ripley actually attempts to coach and counsel the boy, who not only feels guilt over the murder but is also lovelorn, but in the end Ripley isn't particularly successful-- you'll have to read the book to see why-- and while this isn't as much of a page turner as the others in the series, there is a wonderful tour of the gay bars of West Berlin, their flamboyance heightened by the looming presence of the Wall, and my favorite moment of the novel is when Ripley feigns sleep on a plane so he can pretend to stretch and trip an unruly American boy who is running amok in the aisle . . . the passenger across the way sees through Ripley's ruse and nods subtly at him in approval of the elegant method he used to exact his punishment: eight wheelchairs out of ten.

I Hold My Tongue

Whenever someone tells me they are going to do some home-brewing, I never say what I'm really thinking-- because I once did some home-brewing myself and I know the satisfaction of getting drunk on something you made in your own basement . . . but it is a lot of work and it smells pretty bad and you make a big mess and you're probably going to have quite a bit of sediment at the bottom of your bottle, and so what I'm really thinking is when someone tells me this is: have you been to the beer store lately?

My Wife Says Funny Stuff (But I'm Not Sure If She's Trying To Be Funny)

My wife coined another magnificently warped verbal permutation last night, when we were discussing the funny-but-don't-get-attached-because-it-was-cancelled-after-one-season sitcom Better Off Ted:

"She's perfect as the boss . . . what's her name? Lamborghini Del Rossi? Mercedes Del Rossi?"

Another Summer, Another LeCompt Show at The Springfield

We are beginning to take the brilliant cheesiness of LeCompt and his fantastic band for granted, because we've heard most of what they do-- but they usually throw in at least one new tune per set . . . this time it was David Bowie's "Five Years," a song that I love . . . but he had too much reverb on his voice and it was hard to understand the lyrics and no one in the bar knew what song he was singing, but he was certainly enjoying it, inserting his own lyrics into the mix-- he sang something about The Springfield (which my wife realized is the Jersey Shore's equivalent of The Corner Tavern . . . same color scheme) using his best Bowie voice . . . a good song to follow "Starman" and "I've Seen All Good People," and a welcome break from the six Paul McCartney songs he played to start the set.

Note To Self (About Stand-Up Paddleboarding)

Do not go stand-up paddleboarding after running several miles barefoot in the sand and then playing a game of beach soccer with young children . . . though I aim to be "the man of steel," it turns out that if I had a superpower, it would be "legs of gelatin."

Knoebels > Disneyworld

Another ringing endorsement for Knoebels Amusement Park, and that's impressive-- considering that I hate amusement parks-- but a day at Knoebels costs a tenth of a day at Disney . . . there's no admission fee; plenty of trees; free parking; excellent, inexpensive food-- I highly recommend the pulled pork enchilada . . . not only is the meat tender and delicious, but they also give it a quick dip in the deep fryer to ensure tastiness; at Knoebels there's no claustrophobic feeling that you've got to stay and get your money's worth; they have several great wooden roller coasters; there are no people in costume . . . aside from the locals; and, finally, they have The Looper-- an ancient ride which became our children's passion: once they figured out how to spin themselves upside-down, they begged to ride it over and over . . . Ian and Nicky claim to have "looped" it sixty-four times . . . though I wonder if their counting abilities suffered due to the circumstances.

A Man Must Negotiate

Perhaps part of the reason cars are so over-priced at the dealer is because the dealers know that people come in expecting to negotiate and won't feel good unless they cut a significant amount off the sticker . . . and while I am not usually one for haggling (I was notoriously bad at it when I lived in the Middle East . . . I always seemed to end up purchasing two items instead of one) I was determined to get a good price on a minivan-- so I did my homework, made my phone-calles, visited dealerships and went through all that "let me go talk to my manager" negotiating, and then, after I got them down, I walked out-- because you've got to walk out . . . I told them I was a teacher with plenty of free time, and that this was my "summer project," to shop for a minivan, and that I was in "no hurry" . . . and by this time I had gotten the 21,995 dollar sticker price down to 17,000 -- but without the Toyota certified used car warranty-- but then I made some calls to far-flung Toyota dealerships and found a van with only 26,000 miles on it and got them down to 16,500 with the certification . . . and I found this too good to be true for a 2008 van . . . and it was, the information on the web page didn't match the CarFax, and so I called them, and they realized it was a typo . . . but before they changed the web page, I called the local Toyota dealership, made them pull up the page with the typo, told them the deal that Autoland Toyota offered me, and had them match it . . . and then I raced over there and bought the van before they realized that I had used a specious advertisement . . . but they were quite happy for my business, so I'm wondering if I could have got them even lower . . . but it doesn't matter, I got them low enough that I felt heroically macho in my haggling-- that I felt like I got one over on them and got a good deal, and that's all that matters, right?

It's Not Like I'm Letting My Seven Year Old Smoke Cigarettes

Last week, while I was biking with my dog, a woman in jogging attire, with a poorly behaved poodle, yelled to me, "You know, that's the worst thing you can do for your dog!" and so I circled my bike several times and politely listened to her explanation--she said she had a veterinarian friend who claims running along with a bike is bad for a dog's hips and that dogs need to stop frequently when they run and then she finished her lecture by challenging me to "look it up!" and I assured her that I would . . . though I know my dog and he loves biking with me and never has any trouble keeping up, but I humored her and "looked it up!" and there is nothing on the internet about how biking with a dog is bad for your dog (there are considerations, of course . . . your dog should be medium sized, you should avoid pavement when you can, and you should make sure your dog enjoys biking and can keep up . . . which my dog does easily because he can run . . . he begs me to take him out every morning) but this is all besides the point, the real issue here is why some people believe they can just yell out their opinions to a passerby . . .  I know how I should have reacted to this woman-- whose poodle was going bananas, yanking her around and rearing up, while my dog obediently followed my tightly circling bike as I listened to her lambaste me . . . after she said, "That's the worst thing that you can do for your dog," then I should have said to her,"The worst thing? If you think that's the worst thing you can do to a dog, then I have two words for you . . ." and then I should have said, "Michael Vick" or "bear-baiting" or "Vietnamese restaurant" but, of course, this "jerk store" theorizing is what the French call "the wit of the staircase," of which I have plenty, but in real time, I am a witless coward.

Voracious Packing

Now that I own a minivan, packing for the beach is an episode in gluttony, nothing is too big or useless to bring . . . it's like eating without a care in the world about what you're consuming, as your belly is so cavernous that you'll never feel engorged and your body so huge that you could never get fat.

Yet Another Miraculous Coincidence (With Noodles)

I mentioned Noodle Gourmet-- the hole-in-the-wall Hong Kong style noodle joint on Easton Avenue in New Brunswick that I often frequent for lunch with my father, brother, and children-- to a Taiwanese acquaintance, and she gave it high marks, and said that I should order the den dien dong shing and I said, "What?" and she said, "the dong ding dienty den den shin" and after several repetitions of this farcical dialogue (my friend Connell tried the reverse approach-- he told her, "Describe me to the people that work there, so that when I go in, they'll know to give it to me") she finally wrote the name of the dish in Chinese on a scrap of paper, which I put in my wallet . . . and the next day, I met my father and brother for lunch there, and my brother was ahead of me in line and he pulled out a little scrap of paper with some Chinese characters on it-- he wanted to order mini-rice cakes with seafood and that dish is not on the English menu, so he got a Chinese co-worker to write down the order, and after he presented his little piece of paper, and then I stepped forward and presented mine, which was for a noodle dish slathered in minced pork and hot peppers-- totally delicious-- and while this may not rank among the most profound miraculous coincidences in my life-- it was pretty funny, and both dishes were astonishingly delicious . . . and Noodle Gourmet could avoid such silliness if they simply translated all these secret dishes in English.

They Blew Up the Chicken Man in Albuquerque Last Season

My wife and I finally finished Season 4 of Breaking Bad, and the parting shot of the poisonous Lily of the Valley plant in Walt's yard has finally convinced me that Bryan Cranston's no longer playing a cancer-ridden, drug dealing version of the snide and mild-mannered dad from Malcolm in the middle . . . he's a bad dude, perhaps morally worse than Nancy Botwin of Weeds . . . but I'm still rooting for him, perhaps because he started out as a high school teacher and he gives me inspiration on how I might be able to escape the clutches of the bell schedule.

Instead of Web- Surfing, They Should Call It Web-Driving

Ask someone if they are an above-average driver and they will almost definitely say yes-- and that's why it's difficult to ride shotgun, as you can't watch someone else drive without criticizing them-- and the same is true for web-searching; it's really hard to watch someone Google for information because they're not typing in the terms that you would type into the search bar, and they're not clicking on the sites you would click on, and they're not scrolling to and reading the stuff you would scroll to and read . . . my wife got so fed up with watching me search for a dog-boarding place that she went in the other room, got the lap-top, sat down next to me, and beat me to the information we were looking for.

A Circuitous Journey

A few weeks ago, I picked up the new Geoff Dyer book at my local library-- and because I really like Dyer's writing, I wasn't disconcerted by the fact that the book claimed to be about unlocking the mysteries of a Russian science-fiction film called Stalker, which I had never seen-- nor even heard of-- because I assumed that Dyer would simply be using the film as a springboard for his trademark digressions (as he did in his "biography" of D.H. Lawrence-- Out of Sheer Rage-- which you can find in the BIO section of the library, but the book never actually becomes a biography of Lawrence, and instead is a treatise on procrastination) but this recent book, which is called Zona: A Book About A Film About A Journey To A Room, is actually about what it is billed as being about, the film Stalker, directed by the renowned Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky . . . so I took the book back to the library and spoke to a friend of mine, a film buff, and he told me I had to watch Stalker before I read the book, but that it wasn't going to be easy . . . and he was right, it wasn't an easy viewing, and this may be because I am certainly no film buff . . . I came to movies rather late in life and I have a limited attention span . . . and so it took me days to watch Stalker, which is nearly three hours and famous for its interminably long shots where relatively little happens-- and while I am glad I watched it, as it is compelling, ambiguous, profound, and beautifully filmed story-- and the journey of Stalker, Writer, and Professor is both archetypal and unforgettable-- especially the last scene-- while I admit all this is true, I think I came to this film too late in my life to really appreciate it, and Dyer explains this phenomena in the book: he explains that he saw Stalker when he was twenty-four and in a phase when he was doing a lot of LSD, and he became obsessed with the film, in a way that doesn't happen once you hit thirty or forty . . . he explains the sad fact that you probably won't see the film you consider to be the "greatest" after the age of thirty, and definitely not after the age of forty-- your ability to have your perceptions altered, your ability to respond to art with maximum focus and obsession, this declines with age . . . and so I am stuck with the films of the '90's as my benchmark movies: Goodfellas and The Big Lebowski and Fargo and Reservoir Dogs and the documentaries of Erroll Morris . . . not that a few films from my early thirties haven't snuck into my pantheon . . . Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Adaptation . . . but most of my films are light-weights compared to the greats-- fast-paced post-modern fun, as opposed to profound aesthetic journeys, and there is probably not much I can do about it . . . and funny thing, I actually reading about Stalker more than I enjoyed watching it . . . so I am guessing I will never become a cinephile. 

I Come To The End of Two Significant Nineteen Year Relationships on the Same Day

My mother-in-law passed away last night after a long battle with cancer-- and while it was very sad, she went on her own terms, peacefully, at home (she lives with us) and surrounded by family . . . and I can honestly say that our relationship defied the typical, as I got along quite well with her for the past nineteen years: she lived with us for seven of those years and took care of our children for much of that time, she was a vital woman and I have no regrets about electing to have my mother-in-law live in the same house as me . . . and as my mother-in-law was gradually losing consciousness, I was buying a used car-- more on my fantastic negotiating skills in a future sentence-- because my weather-beaten and ancient 1993 Jeep Cherokee was also near the end of its time . . . but the "Deathbox" managed one final ride down Route 130, to the Toyota dealership, where it immediately ceased working-- I couldn't get it started so the sales lady could take it for a test drive, and it took a team of people to jump start it and move it out of the main lot-- they gave me 100$ of pity money for the "trade-in," perhaps in deference to the many years of excellent service this car provided me (and all the material it has provided for this blog) . . . and so, in one of life's profound, mysterious, and miraculous coincidences, two outstanding nineteen year relationships ended on the same day yesterday, and my life will be very different from here on out.

A Fan's Notes on A Fan's Notes

Frederick Exley's fictional memoir A Fan's Notes is The Catcher in the Rye for sporting types . . . Exley is a grown-up Holden Caulfield, and that's not very pretty-- he's alienated, can't "run with the herd," and the only thing that gives his life meaning is drinking and New York Giants football-- especially Frank Gifford-- and though he moves in and out of asylums, fights, womanizes, and generally despises himself and his fellow man, spending alternate periods of frantic energy and stupefying malaise, in the end-- like Holden-- at the end of this wild journey, he ends up missing all the fringe dwelling characters with which he shared booze and adventures . . . I don't recommend this book for women, especially since they will get an even worse view of men than they already have, but if you are a sportsmen who likes to drink, and you're concerned with your age and the mark you've made on the world, then I think this is hard to read without thinking: there by the grace of God go I. 

Camping Is More Fun If You Stay In a Hotel With Air-Conditioning

There is a feeling of triumph for a father when he brings his children back from a camping trip, alive and uninjured (but, ironically, despite the fact that we braved campfires, sleeping together in a tent, Alex adjusting to his tooth-spacer . . . he ate lots of ice cream . . . repeated rides on the Looper at Knoebels, bug collecting on a giant mosquito ridden hill, a treacherous hike across a monstrously huge and sun baked spider infested boulder field, an escaped fugitive, and slippery paths along a waterfall, despite the fact that we survived all this and more without injury . . . once we got home and went to the pool, within fifteen minutes, Alex got stung on the stomach by a bee).

Hey Lolailo! Do You Really Need To Be That Specific?

The Lolailo Sangria label provides some concise and definitive instructions on when to use their "refreshing wine product with natural fruit flavors," their recommendation is that it "is a perfect beverage for relaxing with friends, family, and all social get-togethers," and while I appreciate their advice, I would also like to use their product when I sit in a dark room, sullen and alone, and play jazz chords on my guitar . . . but I guess I'll have to buy a different bottle of wine for that occasion.

Little Black Rubber Pellets Must Multiply Like Tribbles

If everyone that plays on the artificial turf field brings home as many black little rubber pellets in their shoes as I bring home, then how are there any black little rubber pellets left on the field?

Winter is NOT Coming

It hasn't snowed around here since Halloween.

Pink Floyd Should Have Robbed Banks

While I can bring to mind the countenance of any member of The Beatles or The Who or The Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin, when a friend challenged me to produce the face of Roger Waters or David Gilmour in my mind's eye, I couldn't do it, despite the fact that I think Pink Floyd is the best band of the bunch.

Better To Get It All Over On The Same Night

My wife and I are lucky that our children are fantastic sleepers, rarely waking up in the night-- and though this occasionally results in a wet bed, it's worth it because we never lose any sleep-- but Thursday night both our children had nightmares: Ian dreamed that our dog Sirius had an evil twin, that attacked him, and Alex dreamed about being hypnotized by tiny bugs . . . and, unfortunately for Alex, he had his nightmare after Ian, and so when he came to crawl into our bed and escape the tiny mesmeric bugs, he found his little brother there, and had to retreat back to his room and battle them.

It's Not Just Me

Before this year's graduation ceremony, while I was milling around with the other educators, I posed this Final Jeopardy! question and then we got on the subject of the capital of Canada . . . and apparently, nobody knows the capital of Canada-- teachers, administrators, students . . . they were all stumped; I also asked this at a July 4th get together and my favorite answer was: "What? Canada has no capital!"

More Danger!

The cougars are coming . . . but what happened to the killer bees?

Danger!

Never, ever ever eat home-made sausage, because once you do, you will never be able to go back to the store bought stuff . . . and so now I guess I need to get a meat grinder, a sausage press, and some motivation to stuff pork into little tubes.

Six Pounds of You Isn't You

Researchers have recently mapped 99 percent of the approximately 10,000 types of microbes that populate our bodies . . . 100 trillion bacteria, weighing six pounds, and while this isn't as sexy as discovering the Higgs-Boson in the Large Hadron Collider, it probably has more siginificance to our everyday lives: our unique microbiome assists in the digestion of food, trains our immune system, and protects us from harmful bacteria . . . and bacterial imbalances have been shown to cause obesity, mood disorders, and obesity . . . bacteria can even cause specific behaviors in mice and rats-- toxoplasmosis gondii is spread from cats to mice and rats, and makes rats and mice less afraid of cats, so that they are easier prey . . . and I love this because it's something else to blame, if you get sick or have about of toxic flatulence or simply act whacky, then it might not be you causing this . . . it might be your bacteria (and soon enough, we will have a legal clause for this . . . instead of the "insanity defense," we will have the "bacterial defense").

Bonus Post For Dog Lovers At G:TB!

If you dig dogs, then head over to Gheorghe: The Blog for a special "Summer Dave" pet post that also includes original photography, shot by yours truly.

I am 60% Through the Ripliad . . . How Far Are You?

I just finished the third novel in Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley series . . . Ripley's Game is more of the same as far as the talented Tom Ripley is concerned-- he handles murder with as much aplomb as anyone in the literary canon-- but Highsmith introduces another character, a man corrupted by Tom Ripley's games-- his situation reminds me of Jonathan Pryce's role in Glengarry Glen Ross (and, coincidentally, the character's name is Jonathan) and so you get the interesting juxtaposition of a man well-versed in the art of murder and a man still wet behind the ears in the ins and outs of homicide . . . and then throw in his French Catholic wife and you've got another excellent novel: nine garrotes out of ten.

Physics Exclusive at G:TB!

Science buffs are probably aware that physicists at CERN glimpsed the elusive Higgs Boson yesterday, but you might not know that I scored an exclusive interview with the long sought after particle, which you can read over at Gheorghe: The Blog.

Will This Happen Someday Soon?

At the end of a day at the pool, not only do I not want to have to tell my kids to take a shower, but once I get them in there, doing what they're supposed to be doing, then I also don't want to have to go back into the locker room, fifteen minutes later, and tell them to stop wasting water and get the hell out of there.

Iberian Unity

 Catherine and I made another soccer pilgrimage to The Madrid and Lisbon Bar and Restaurant, and we learned a few things that I'd like to note for the future: 1) Portuguese folks will root for Spain when they play Italy . . . so I guess the Iberian Peninsula hangs together against outsiders 2) the bartender has incredibly distracting cleavage, so you have to stay focused on the game or you might miss a goal 3) the sangria, the clams casino and the garlic shrimp are amazing . . . the calamari not so much-- perhaps that's something you should only order in an Italian place 4) if Spain wins, then apparently drunk driving laws are suspended in Newark for the day . . . despite the insane heat, everybody was out in the streets, honking their horns and waving their red and yellow flags (although we did see a few dejected Italy fans here and there).

Is This Really Better Than Dead Air?

I wouldn't want to be a soccer announcer because there is a lot of space to fill . . . check out The Simpsons take on this in the above clip . . . but maybe the announcers should allow a few moments of silence, instead of saying vapid things like this-- and remember, Spain was coming off far less rest than Portugal-- and so, "Spain's fatigue may or may not have an effect on the outcome of this game."

Plumbing The Depths of Irony

So if you find yourself at the Plumbing Supply Store (because Home Depot doesn't carry any parts for one piece toilets) and you ask for a gasket and flapper for an American Standard toilet and the old man behind the counter asks, "Which one?" and you say, "Aren't they all the same . . . I mean, they're called American Standard," then you are setting the old man up for some excellent plumbing humor, as I found out when he said, "That's what they call themselves, but they don't mean it . . . did you bring the broken parts?" and I had to admit-- sheepishly-- that I did not, and the actual plumbers behind me in line were all laughing now at my naivete in trusting a brand name . . . but the old guy did come through in the clutch, with the right part, and now we have a working toilet again, but it has cost me my plumbing innocence and my faith in advertising.

Miracles On Top of More Miracles

All week, I had the nagging feeling that I was missing something-- but I couldn't put my finger on what it was-- and then Thursday morning when I went to the track, to do some intervals, I noticed a pair of blue Crocs near the soccer net and I realized what it was I had been missing, the lacuna in my life, for days and days-- my blue Crocs!-- I had worn them to soccer Sunday morning, changed into my cleats, and then left them there . . . and they were still there, unharmed-- four days later! a miracle!-- so maybe everything does happen for a reason, and the reason I went running Thursday morning was so I could be reunited with my hideously ugly blue Crocs and now the universe is back in order (aside from all that stuff in the middle East).

Yet Another Miracle

In preparation for summer, Catherine depilated my back and shoulder hair with Veet hair removal cream and then I used my beard trimmer to tame my chest and leg hair, and now-- miracle of all miracles-- I can dry myself off with just one towel (instead of the usual three towel routine that I used to practice).

Bomp Chukka Bomp . . . A Bicycle?

 The music in the Canadian documentary series How It's Made is decidedly pornographic sounding, and-- oddly-- this fits the content of this wonderfully mindless "educational" show . . . as there is no end to the thrusting, riveting, pounding, compressing, and generally pneumatic action that goes into the manufacture of the featured articles . . . and the camera lingers on these activities for an extensively graphic and gratuitous amount of time, so that you can truly enjoy the rhythm and the motion of the machines, while you zone out to the cheesy techno riffs and beats.

You Get The Ads You Deserve

The final lesson in Michael J. Sandel's book What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets is that although a "fire hydrant with a KFC logo still delivers water to douse the flames" and "children can learn math by counting Tootsie Rolls" and fans still root for their home team in Bank of America Stadium, that doesn't mean that markets don't leave their mark . . . when ads appear in schools they undermine the purpose of education: critical thinking; when a person gets a tattooed body ad it demeans them; product placement corrupts the integrity of art . . . when everything is for sale it leads to the "skyboxification" of American life . . . we live and work and play in separate realms and this is not good for democracy . . . and so I am discontinuing my line of tampons with Sentence of Dave emblazoned on the penetrator, and instead I will try to allow my sentences to penetrate people's consciousness the old fashioned way.

Spearguns Aren't As Dangerous As You Think!

If you were wondering if it's okay to allow your children to play with spearguns, the answer is: go for it! . . . because even if your kid shoots himself right through the skull, he very may well survive, as Yasser Lopez did . . . so don't deny your children the fun and good times of spear-fishing . . . and I am definitely going to give my parents a piece of my mind, because every Christmas I put a spear-gun on the top of my list, and Santa never delivered one.