Monday Mornings, You are a Giant Crayfish
If you're feeling extraordinary, proud and special, because you're a human and have such an advanced consciousness, read Carl Safina's new book Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel . . . it will take you down a peg or two: you'll learn that when crayfish were shocked repeatedly, they hid-- and had elevated levels of serotonin-- the same hormone that stressed-out humans possess, and chlordiazepoxide relieved their symptoms . . . a commonly used drug to treat people who are suffering from anxiety; the lowly nematode worm, which only possesses 302 nerve cells, behaves the same way as a human when it has an elevated level of nematocin: it seeks out sex; S.W. Emmons-- a worm scientist-- explains that "just as today's roads and highways may have once been ancient trails, biological systems can retain essential features derived from their origins . . . it is a mistake to consider small invertebrates as primitive."
Diamond in the Instructions
I was channelling Ron Swanson the other night, drinking a scotch on the rocks while assembling a pub table and set of stools for the new and improved Greasetruck Studios, when I ran across this phrase in the instructions for cleaning the table-top . . . sometimes you find poetry in the least likely places: "treat surface with care, surface is resistant to scratches but is not scratch resistant."
It's Raining Metaphors!
New Jersey recently had a long period of extremely hot and dry weather-- no rain for weeks-- and then massive downpours for a couple of days . . . and I'd just like to let The Powers That Be know that this isn't really healthy, extended teetotalling followed by an insane binge, it's much better to have a couple drinks a night (or some rain frequently, but in moderation) rather than abstain for so long and then go on a lunatic bender.
Edgar Allan Poe on Steroids
Kevin P. Keating's novel The Captive Condition is described on the inside cover as the story of "an idyllic Midwestern college town that turns out to be a panorama of depravity and a nexus of horror" and I suppose that's accurate, although Normandy Falls hasn't been idyllic for a long time-- it's the victim of typical Midwestern post-industrial decay, but instead of the reality of opiate addiction, the town has fallen prey to other substances . . . the Gonk's homebrewed "Red Death" and chef Xavier's psychedelic jazar juice-- comprised of many things, but mainly an African carrot and formaldehyde . . . if this sounds absurd, it is . . . the book is a flurry of haunting images and elevated prose, done in the style of Poe and Lovecraft-- almost satirically-- and the nexus of evil is the maintenance section of the local university, presided over by the Gonk, but there's also murders, evil twin children, adulterous professors, ancient experiments gone wrong, possession, automatic writing, outside art, and a one-eyed lost soul of narrator trying to escape the clutches of the town and everything in it; this all leads up to a wild and whirling conclusion; if you're looking for something weird and grotesque, this is the book for you.
Irony Defined
I was telling a crowd of teachers in the English Office this story about how my younger son locked my older son out of the house-- and it was a very hot day-- and my younger son then proceeded to taunt my older son from the comfort of the air-conditioned house-- and my older son got so infuriated that he started violently banging the giant sliding glass door on our porch, and while my younger son got in more trouble for being the instigator, Alex was still in some trouble for totally losing his mind and nearly hospitalizing himself (and possibly doing serious damage to the house) and so I tried to convey this lesson to him: just because it's hot and you're angry, it's no reason to completely lose your temper and go insane . . . because that's exactly what your younger brother wants to happen, and when I got to the moral, everyone in the English Office started laughing, and they weren't laughing with me, they were laughing at me . . . and after a few moments, I realized why . . . I had been losing my temper and going insane all week because of the heat, banging on things and complaining, cursing our building and our administration and global warming, etcetera etcetera . . . and to present this hypocrisy to a crowd of English teachers, in such a perfect juxtaposition, me counseling my son to behave in the exact opposite manner of my own behavior, was such an exemplar of irony that I almost wish I had planned it . . . but I didn't, and the best part of the moment may have been when I realized just what a fool I was (and am and will continue to be).
Moonrise Kingdom > The Life Aquatic
I thought I would hate this movie . . . but I loved it, and I thought it would be cheesy, but it's actually clever and zany and visually engaging, and-- like Madmen-- some of the allure is purely aesthetic, the props and the colors and the two-dimensional nature of the sets, and I know all this sounds ridiculous and absurd and vague and unsubstantiated, but if you watch the movie, you'll know what I mean-- it's a whimsical story and whimsical (almost fey) universe but Harvey Keitel and Ed Norton and Bill Murray and Bruce Willis and Frances McDormand and Tilda Swinton are not whimsical actors, which makes the movie understated and funny instead of mawkish and nostalgic . . . give it a shot, it's a lot better than The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.
The Test 13: Stacey's Songs (Have Got It Goin' On)
This is my favorite episode of The Test so far . . . Stacey devised a musical clip quiz, and to pass, you must identify the songs and artists, and then connect them to an overarching theme; I get the answer and Cunningham doesn't-- she requires an extra clue-- and I revel in this; not only that, there's a new outro montage, and-- as a bonus-- I steal Cunningham's youth; play at home and see if you can get the answer faster than me (probably pretty easy if you know your music) and let me know how you did . . . especially if you fail.
Attention NBC: Free Sitcom Idea!
This sitcom idea is inspired by a comment written by Clarence about my rave review of our new Shark NV500 Rotator vacuum . . . he speculated that 1990 Dave would be dismayed, disappointed and disgusted by the domesticity of 2015 Dave, and he's right, of course: 1990 Dave was a rude, insolent, slightly deranged illogical slob who spurned all responsibility and civility . . . and this is the premise for an amazing sitcom: 1990 Dave travels through a time warp into the future and he has nowhere to stay and no viable skills, so 2015 Dave has to take him in . . . it's a messy, funny, and ultimately endearing show, because 2015 Dave can't kill 1990 Dave-- and 2015 Dave's wife and kids have to put up with 1990 Dave and prevent 1990 Dave from harming himself, because he's destined to eventually stumble into another time warp and return to his own timeline in the past, where he will meet his wife and fulfill his destiny to become a fairly responsible, occasionally awkward, sort of civilized parent and citizen (who occasionally volunteers to vacuum the house . . . and to add another layer to the show, 2015 Dave's wife is strangely attracted to 1990 Dave, though he annoys the shit out of her with his puerile behavior, but she just can't help herself because he is a much better looking version of Dave than 2015 Dave).
Some Kids Need a Visual Aid
I've decided I'm really going to crack down on cell-phone use in my classes this year, and so I read the kids the riot act on the first day of class: I explained that phones are a distraction and an attractive nuisance that the teenage psyche cannot handle-- and I cited the fact that schools that ban phones see an increase in test scores-- and this seems to have had some impact, but I think to really hammer the point home, I need a visual aid, so I'm going to get a little aquarium and fill it with water (and maybe some colored gravel and a piece of coral) and then throw some old cell-phones in there and tell my students that if I confiscate your phone, that's where I put it . . . and, if I get really motivated, I'm going to set up a stooge with an old phone and pretend to confiscate the phone from him or her, and then toss it into the tank . . . if I forget to do this, someone please remind me.
The Test Episode 12: Acting!
Episode 12 of The Test has it all-- except Cunningham, who couldn't make it; some of the highlights include:
1) not one, but two special guests . . . my friend Alec (a performance space designer) and his wife Heather (who runs the business end of Alec's company) join us for a test on film and theater;
2) everyone sings;
3) God beeps himself;
4) I go a little nuts on the musical interlude . . . but rest assured, it does finally end; play along at home, keep score, and realize that we made this one fun and easy only so that we can lure other people onto the show (presidential hopefuls, keep us in mind . . . you could show off your knowledge and visit beautiful New Brunswick, New Jersey, where you might have the privilege of getting assaulted by a group of Rutgers football players).
1) not one, but two special guests . . . my friend Alec (a performance space designer) and his wife Heather (who runs the business end of Alec's company) join us for a test on film and theater;
2) everyone sings;
3) God beeps himself;
4) I go a little nuts on the musical interlude . . . but rest assured, it does finally end; play along at home, keep score, and realize that we made this one fun and easy only so that we can lure other people onto the show (presidential hopefuls, keep us in mind . . . you could show off your knowledge and visit beautiful New Brunswick, New Jersey, where you might have the privilege of getting assaulted by a group of Rutgers football players).
Warning: Very Mundane Stuff
My wife bought a new vacuum, and it works exponentially better than our old vacuum; in fact, when we saw what the new vacuum sucked into the canister from our rugs, we wondered if our old vacuum was sucking up anything . . . our new vacuum is a Shark NV500 Rotator and it's so awesome and sleek that I actually volunteered to vacuum the upstairs carpets, just so I could use it.
Ronald Reagan Needed Barry Goldwater . . . and American Politics Needs Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump
I was having trouble finishing Before the Storm, Rick Perlstein's book about the 1964 Lyndon Johnson/Barry Goldwater election, but Donald Trump renewed my interest; like Goldwater, Trump is a political outsider, and like Goldwater, he is galvanizing an angry conservative minority that feels that no other politician is speaking for them . . . and like Goldwater, if Trump gets nominated, I'm pretty sure he is unelectable and will lose in a landslide . . . but Perlstein-- who is a liberal-- understands the significance of the loss; Goldwater paved the way for Ronald Reagan, and Goldwater paved the way for an organized and radical conservative movement in America . . . to read about a more tactical politician, check out the second book in his historical trilogy (Nixonland) but if you want something that explains what is going on right now in America, read Before the Storm, which is subtitled Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus . . . if you want to read something shorter on the same theme, there's a good article in The Week and I also highly recommend Dan Carlin's podcast, Common Sense . . . his analysis of the first televised GOP debate, "Trumping the Playbook" explains the influence an outsider can have on typical political rhetoric and why we should appreciate and enjoy the waves these folks create, whether or not we are for their policies . . . so I'd like to give a big thanks to Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, for shaking things up and making it real.
Kids Trick You Into Thinking They Are Civilized
After a productive morning of podcasting, Stacey, Cunningham, my wife, Alex, Ian and I went out for Mexican food-- and Stacey treated the boys to a ride to the restaurant in her new Jeep (with the top down) and the ladies were very impressed with our boys' behavior at the restaurant . . . and when Alex and Ian were finished with lunch, they asked if they could walk home, which they occasionally do instead of sitting and waiting for the check-- it's four or five blocks, so if Cat and I have driven, we usually arrive at home around the same time-- and after the kids left, Stacey said, "they're just like regular people!" and we agreed and we were very happy with our children . . . BUT . . . and this is the update for Stacey and Cunningham-- they are NOT like real people, even though they occasionally fool us into thinking they are . . . when we arrived home, we heard screaming and a loud banging noise coming from the backyard, and quickly surmised that it was Alex, banging on the giant glass sliding door-- I raced around the side of the house and told him to stop and he explained that Ian had locked him out of the house (and chained the front door) and then taunted him from the comfort of the air-conditioning and Alex totally lost his mind and came close to shattering a very very expensive window and probably hospitalizing himself . . . moments later, Ian's friend showed up and Ian had the awkward task of sending him home, since he was in so much trouble, and then we sent Alex over to Ian's friend's house to explain what happened, and Ian had to stay home, miserable and alone, and face the consequences of his actions.
There Are Good Dogs and There are Bad Dogs
The Hand That Feeds You opens with a scene so grisly and disturbing that the rest of the book hangs under its shadow . . . and the fact that dogs might be responsible-- and good dogs at that-- makes it even worse . . . but this is one of those psychological thrillers where nothing is at it seems, and I highly recommend it if you are looking for one last fast summer read; even the author-- A.J. Rich-- is a facade for something more complicated . . . I learned the story in this New York Times review: the name is a pseudonym, and the book was collaboratively written by acclaimed short-story writer Amy Hempel and her friend, novelist Jill Ciment . . . that's the "A" and the "J" in the pseudonym, and the name "Rich" is in honor of their friend Katherine Russell Rich, who had an idea for a thriller based on what happened with a man she had been dating who proposed to her . . . she grew suspicious of him, paid someone to hack his e-mail, and she found out that he had several other lives-- he was living with another woman, and seeing several others on the side . . . so she broke up with him and started a novel with a similarly deceptive sociopath as the main character, but never got past the first chapter, she died of breast cancer soon after . . . so Amy Hempel and Jill Ciment took the ball and ran with it, and the result is a crisp, taut, disturbing story that may or may not be something dog lovers would enjoy, but the lesson is this, which the band Camper van Beethoven pointed out many years ago: there are good guys and there are bad guys/ and there are crooks and criminals/ and there are doctors and there are lawyers/ and there are folks like you and me . . . and the same goes for dogs.
This Test Sort of Goes To 11
On the 11th Episode of The Test, Stacey does NOT quiz us on our knowledge of This is Spinal Tap . . . instead, she focuses on current events, which are not my area of expertise (at one point in the show, I can't think of anything recent and bring up a related event that happened 112 years ago) but Cunningham and I survive . . . and even get a few right; follow this link and you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes . . . play along, score yourself, and get ready for the next episode where we have not one but TWO guests.
No Need to Worry, I Have Them All
If you're wondering where your extension cords went, apparently they attained autonomy and migrated into my junk room, where they've been hiding out behind the cabinets and in the storage bins (I found 23 unused extension cords in there . . . 23!)
One Summer, Two Stephen King Books
It's been a long time since I read two Stephen King books in one summer-- maybe thirty years-- but Finders Keepers is even better than Joyland . . . it's a compelling thriller, and at the heart of it resides a Salinger-esque writer who is King's antithesis: a well-reviewed artist scared to damage his legacy, scrawling away but afraid to publish . . . things do slow down a bit in the middle of the book, but press on, the ending will make you sweat: eight Moleskine notebooks out of ten.
Giant Apes, White Whales, Cheeky Monkeys, and a Can of Worms
It took two nights for my family and I to make it through Peter Jackson's epic 2005 remake of King Kong and-- despite the three hour running time-- everyone loved it . . . my kids loved the action, my wife loved the romance (especially the ice-sliding scene) and I loved how much the film reminded me of my favorite novel: Moby Dick . . . like Moby Dick, the story is too long, more of an adventure than a narrative, and both Kong and The White Whale are inscrutable violent natural forces-- a yin and yang of black and white, ocean and jungle . . . these creatures have nothing to do with idealistic environmentalism . . . let's save the dolphins and the panda bears . . . Kong and The Leviathan are far too frightening and primitive for that kind of sentiment, but at the heart of both animals is something deeply emotional and intelligent-- they are not monsters-- and because of this, they are both doomed . . . they go down fighting (and though Moby Dick breaks the Pequod in half and drags Ahab to his death, he is full of harpoons, wounded and hunted by man . . . he doesn't die at the end of the novel, but we all know what happened to the rest of his kin) and both King Kong and Moby Dick are stories of love and obsession . . . Carl Denham (Jack Black) has the same monomania for film and spectacle as Ahab does for the White Whale . . . both these creatures would be fine if left alone, but humans open the can of worms (or the barrel of monkeys, lots of metaphors here) and monkeys must meddle, it is in our nature, and then when we stare into the eye of the Other and call it monstrous, we have to wonder: who is the real monster?
Aleppo Causes Me Cognitive Dissonance
I'm having a hard time reconciling what I remember about Aleppo and what I have been reading about the city recently; an article in The Week called "Life Under the Caliphate" describes the some of the things happening in the region, which is mainly under control of ISIS:
1) unIslamic activities-- smoking, listening to music, wearing hair gel-- are punished by flogging, execution, and amputation;
2) there is video footage of gay men being thrown off tall buildings to their deaths;
3) Jews and Christians are given the choice to convert or die;
4) public executions and floggings happen nearly every day;
5) an ISIS pamphlet from Aleppo lists some crimes and punishments . . . drinking alcohol is 80 lashes, as is slander, spying for infidels and renouncing Islam both result in death;
6) women may marry at age 9 and should be married by age 16, and they must wear two heavy robes to conceal their figure . . .
and so I went back to the email updates that I sent from when I lived in Syria (200-2003) and looked at some of my recollections from our various trips to the city and surrounding regions;
1) we wandered through the Dead Cities, abandoned Byzantine olive-oil towns in the hills just outside of the city;
2) we watched Embassy folk collect ancient pottery shards at various tells and middens;
3) we stayed at the Baron Hotel-- the spooky but notable spot where Agathie Christie wrote "Murder on the Orient Express"-- drinking beer at the bar is right out of The Shining (but apparently, the place is closed down now):
4) our Syrian friend Yara told us tales of covered women in Aleppo that openly took lesbian lovers and I wrote a treatment for an erotic Syrian film:
the taciturn husband warns his wife not to leave the house for any reason, and then goes to play backgammon with his friends . . . a woman covered in black from head to toe shows up at the door, and the lady of the house invites her in for tea . . . she lifts her veil and gives her host a long concupiscent look . . . soon enough she’s shedding her robe, and there’s nothing underneath . . .
5) we ate-- notably at the Beit Sissi-- drank, wandered the city and the region, were mobbed by Syrian children who treated us like rock stars, took tours with our favorite guide in the Middle East-- Jihad-- and generally felt like we were on vacation . . . Aleppo always seemed a little less oppressive and a little more Western than Damascus, a little more like Turkey . . . but apparently those days are gone, and I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this (I also read that ISIS beheaded the antiquities expert for Palmyra-- the spectacular Roman city in the Syrian desert-- because he refused to reveal where valuable artifacts were hidden . . . ISIS considers preserving ancient artifacts "akin to idol worship and punishable by death" and when they say that, apparently they aren't kidding . . . if you've got a strong stomach, you can watch ISIS sponsored beheadings all day on the internet, even some done by children . . . this really diminishes my concern over my basement beer fridge, which has lost it's ability to chill beer-- though the freezer is still fully operational-- at first I thought it was a crisis, but then I read about this stuff, and now it doesn't seem all that significant).
1) unIslamic activities-- smoking, listening to music, wearing hair gel-- are punished by flogging, execution, and amputation;
2) there is video footage of gay men being thrown off tall buildings to their deaths;
3) Jews and Christians are given the choice to convert or die;
4) public executions and floggings happen nearly every day;
5) an ISIS pamphlet from Aleppo lists some crimes and punishments . . . drinking alcohol is 80 lashes, as is slander, spying for infidels and renouncing Islam both result in death;
6) women may marry at age 9 and should be married by age 16, and they must wear two heavy robes to conceal their figure . . .
and so I went back to the email updates that I sent from when I lived in Syria (200-2003) and looked at some of my recollections from our various trips to the city and surrounding regions;
1) we wandered through the Dead Cities, abandoned Byzantine olive-oil towns in the hills just outside of the city;
2) we watched Embassy folk collect ancient pottery shards at various tells and middens;
3) we stayed at the Baron Hotel-- the spooky but notable spot where Agathie Christie wrote "Murder on the Orient Express"-- drinking beer at the bar is right out of The Shining (but apparently, the place is closed down now):
4) our Syrian friend Yara told us tales of covered women in Aleppo that openly took lesbian lovers and I wrote a treatment for an erotic Syrian film:
the taciturn husband warns his wife not to leave the house for any reason, and then goes to play backgammon with his friends . . . a woman covered in black from head to toe shows up at the door, and the lady of the house invites her in for tea . . . she lifts her veil and gives her host a long concupiscent look . . . soon enough she’s shedding her robe, and there’s nothing underneath . . .
5) we ate-- notably at the Beit Sissi-- drank, wandered the city and the region, were mobbed by Syrian children who treated us like rock stars, took tours with our favorite guide in the Middle East-- Jihad-- and generally felt like we were on vacation . . . Aleppo always seemed a little less oppressive and a little more Western than Damascus, a little more like Turkey . . . but apparently those days are gone, and I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this (I also read that ISIS beheaded the antiquities expert for Palmyra-- the spectacular Roman city in the Syrian desert-- because he refused to reveal where valuable artifacts were hidden . . . ISIS considers preserving ancient artifacts "akin to idol worship and punishable by death" and when they say that, apparently they aren't kidding . . . if you've got a strong stomach, you can watch ISIS sponsored beheadings all day on the internet, even some done by children . . . this really diminishes my concern over my basement beer fridge, which has lost it's ability to chill beer-- though the freezer is still fully operational-- at first I thought it was a crisis, but then I read about this stuff, and now it doesn't seem all that significant).
This Picture Is NOT Photoshopped (I don't even know how to use Photoshop)
While I was walking the dog in Donaldson Park, I saw in the distance a small tree, floating horizontally, levitating five feet above the ground, and then, after an awestruck moment, I realized that it was not completely defying gravity, but instead balanced on a slender slice of trunk . . . upon closer inspection, I could tell that the split was the work of termites, but my main thought was: I've got to get one of my children under this thing and snap a photo before it topples over . . . and while I may have put my son Ian in some degree of mortal danger, it was obviously well worth it.
Heavy Stuff in Small Packages
Guest editor John Jeremiah Sullivan chooses some heavy stuff for The Best American Essays of 2014; tales of sexual abuse, miscarriage in Mongolia, alienating illnesses, foreign deaths, candid sexual promiscuity and obsessive contemplation (even of joy) dominate the collection, but there are two "lighter" essays and both are worth reading:
1) "The Old Man at Burning Man" by Wells Tower, which describes a trip the narrator and his dying father take to the bizarre post-apocalyptic festival out in The Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada;
2) "Slickheads" by Lawrence Jackson, a description of a Baltimore gang war in the '80's between the Woodlawn slickheads and the Oxford preps . . . the language in this one is wild, inventive and colorful-- "yeah, they was popping and breaking, helicopter and all that, but that shit is for tourists"-- and there are lots of nicknames-- Pretty Ricky, Knuckles, Meechee, Charm Sawyer (and, if you listened to Serial, then you'll appreciate the references to Leakin Park).
1) "The Old Man at Burning Man" by Wells Tower, which describes a trip the narrator and his dying father take to the bizarre post-apocalyptic festival out in The Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada;
2) "Slickheads" by Lawrence Jackson, a description of a Baltimore gang war in the '80's between the Woodlawn slickheads and the Oxford preps . . . the language in this one is wild, inventive and colorful-- "yeah, they was popping and breaking, helicopter and all that, but that shit is for tourists"-- and there are lots of nicknames-- Pretty Ricky, Knuckles, Meechee, Charm Sawyer (and, if you listened to Serial, then you'll appreciate the references to Leakin Park).
Tchotchke Overload
We had a spectacularly sunny week in Sea Isle City this year; four families shared a five bedroom house with a beautiful view of the ocean-- and while the house itself was perfectly situated and also of new construction, our only complaint was with the interior: it was overloaded with tchotchkes . . . brass mermaid on the counter, wooden Italian man holding a pizza amidst various sized pottery, giant model ships, bowls of glass balls, a wooden canoe on the dining room table, strange ornaments on the toilets, little chairs on the landing, loads of throw pillows, etcetera . . . and everything was BIG . . . big couches and big chairs and a huge table on the porch that you could barely walk around and big wooden beds that couldn't be moved, something between Pottery Barn and Vermont farmhouse, and so all the kids slept up in the master bedroom, and the two little guys slept in a four corner poster bed-- ridiculous-- but none of this mattered, we only broke a couple of things and we'll probably get the deposit back, the only thing that was actually dangerous was a giant wooden mirror leaning against the wall at the foot of the stairs (there's a picture of it above) and when I saw it, I immediately put it behind a chair in the corner so that someone wouldn't put their arm through it, or worse-- so it wouldn't topple over and kill someone (one of the kids on the trip has CP and walks with sticks and occasionally leans on furniture for balance, so this thing was a hazard) and right after I put it behind a chair, the owner came in to check things out from the previous week and I thought he said he was going to do something with the mirror-- like remove it-- but we left to go to the beach and he put it back in its original location, so we had to move it again . . . I think in a situation like this, the owner has created an attractive nuisance of a house, and the deposit should be reversed and we should receive some money for making sure his giant Harry Potter mirror of Erised and his wooden boat collection and his various gewgaws didn't get destroyed.
The Yin and Yang of Soccer
In honor of Sunday, the most holy day, which has been deemed both The Day of Soccer (both travel and pick-up) and the Day of American Football, I will bequeath the internet a sporting thesis; soccer presents a perfect yin and yang of speed and deception, a player with a dearth of one can compensate with an abundance of the other-- when I was young I got away with lots of speed and a modicum of skill, but now that I'm old and slow, I need to add an element of trickery to every move I make-- and while other sports require these elements in some amount, it's not a perfect balance; basketball inordinately rewards height and this throws off the equation, and football prizes size and strength as well as speed (in fact, with enough size and strength, there's no need for deception . . . this is most blatantly illustrated by the fact that soccer players "dive" when they are fouled, while football players run forward for yardage-- whether they are being face-masked or not) and it is this simple balance of skills that makes soccer the most accessible game in the world and why there are infinite variations in how to train and play.
A Good Summer (So Far)
Summer is my least favorite season-- too hot and sunny-- but I shouldn't complain . . . as there are only two requirements for having a good summer if you live on the East Coast:
1) you don't contract Lyme's Disease;
2) you don't mistakenly wade into a patch of poison ivy;
the rest is bonus, the beach trips and the pool barbecues, the hiking and the tennis, the paddle-boarding and the garden plot . . . you can't do any of these if you're bedridden, on antibiotics, and oozing pus.
1) you don't contract Lyme's Disease;
2) you don't mistakenly wade into a patch of poison ivy;
the rest is bonus, the beach trips and the pool barbecues, the hiking and the tennis, the paddle-boarding and the garden plot . . . you can't do any of these if you're bedridden, on antibiotics, and oozing pus.
This One Almost Goes to Eleven
I'm especially proud of this new episode of The Test because I edited the entire thing on vacation on my ancient MacBook Pro laptop . . . I made a template with all the bits and pieces: the intro, the outro, the intermission and voice of God music; then I used some Garage Band effects to create the voice of God-- and I'm sure my fellow beach house residents thought I was insane, talking in the voice of God to a computer-- but I got it done: the episode is a bit spooky, because I use my clairvoyant powers to read Cunningham's mind and to predict Stacey's imminent demise, but I promise that you will learn the secret information that will enable you to date Cunningham . . . or at least meet her on a Tinder booty call.
Favelas and Futebol at the Copa
Juliana Barbassa's book Dancing With the Devil in the City of God: Rio de Janeiro on the Brink is a frustrating and fascinating tour of Brazil's most celebrated city . . . you journey from the beautiful but polluted beaches to the lucrative but labyrinthine real-estate system to the seediest of brothels-- "at a place called Vanessa's Bar, the prices were posted on the wall, starting at $15 dollars for 15 minutes of straight-up oral or vaginal sex with protection"-- Barbassa details the history of the favelas (made famous in the awesome film City of God) and the slow improvements, including the firefights between police and gangs -- especially the Red Command-- and the UPP, police units stationed inside the shanty towns . . . and the current dilemma: the ongoing battle between the residents of the favelas and the city, which is preparing for the 2016 Olympics and attempting to raze many of the shantytowns; the Olympic Park is moving out into the far western suburbs of the city and there are caimans on the golf course and terrible sanitation and sewage problems, but Brazil managed to get it together for the World Cup, and Barbassa has faith that they will figure this one out as well; her chapter on living on Brazil during the cup is fantastic, especially her description of the awful 7-1 semi-final loss to Germany; she sat with her relatives and cousins and watched "dumbfounded" as the players came forward; team captain David Luiz spoke for all of them when he said, "I'm sorry everyone, I just wanted to give my people something to be happy about," and that is the theme of the book: the Brazilians are an emotional society that wants to live in the moment and be happy, partying on the beach, drinking beer in the street, dancing in costume to the samba during Carnival, but they are also realizing that to take a major place on the world stage takes planning and foresight, and they are slowly, with lots of bumps and hiccups, learning to do that as well; the book is excellent and really makes you appreciate living in America, which may not be the most efficient, most environmentally pristine country, but it sure beats the byzantine corruption, pollution, and class stagnation that Brazil is trying to overcome . . . the book ends on a hopeful note, and I think all the world is rooting for Rio to get cleaned up and do a fantastic job hosting the Olympics (except, perhaps, for the Uruguayans, who still relish their upset victory over Brazil in the 1950 World Cup in Rio and are angry that no one ever considers them for hosting major world events).
Another Trip to Sea Isle, Another LeCompt Show . . .
It was Sunday night and we were on vacation in Sea Isle City, so-- of course-- we were at the required LeCompt show, and while we were taking a break outside on the beach behind the Springfield Inn, checking out the newly constructed dune, and we saw something glittering and it was Mike LeCompt's sequined shirt: he stumbled through the sand and right up to us and said, "Whatever you're doing, I'd like to do it too" and after he regaled us with stories of whiskey, meth, and recovery and his tour of various seaside jails, and we all reminisced about old shows and his old band members, we realized that if we didn't nudge him back to the bar, there would be no second set, so Connell said "We've got to get back inside to see the band" and that reminded LeCompt that he had to go play, and then Connell requested that he play "Born to Run" to open the second set and he also requested that I should sing the "1, 2, 3, 4!" bit, which I was hoping to never do again because then people high five me for the rest of the night for my ability to count, but there was no escaping it and so I got shoved to the front, and LeCompt swung the microphone in my direction and I must be getting old, because I was a little slow on my delivery . . . the whole thing smacked of The Holy Grail . . . I only got to three before he yanked the mike stand back so he could power through the final verse; this might be the fourth time I've done the 1, 2, 3, 4! so it would be fitting if it was the last, but history tends to repeat itself at LeCompt shows, so who knows (and as a side note, this is the first LeCompt show I made it through without breaking down and buying some chewing tobacco during one of the endless breaks between sets, so I felt much better Monday morning though I was a bit grouchy during the show . . . especially when Lynn poured beer on my head) because I was jonesing for nicotine, it's hard for me to stay awake past ten without it, but I am using LeCompt as my inspiration and trying to completely quit; a big thanks to Dom for some diligent record-keeping during the show; because of his hard work, we have a fairly complete set list:
1) These Eyes (The Guess Who);
2) California Dreaming (The Mamas & The Papas);
3) Heart of the Matter (Don Henley);
4) Find a Reason to Believe (Rod Stewart);
5) Forever Young (Rod Stewart);
6) A Cat Stevens song;
7) Angie;
8) Ruby Tuesday;
9) Levon (Elton John);
10) Come Sail Away (Styx);
11) Piano Man;
12) Italian Restaurant;
13) Born to Run;
14) Suffragette City;
15) Behind Blue Eyes;
16) Bargain;
17) You're So Vain (Carly Simon);
18) Thunder Road;
19) What is and What Should Never Be;
20) Ramble On;
21) Here I Go Again (Whitesnake);
22) Thinking Out Loud (Ed Sheran);
23) Bill the Kid (Billy Joel);
24) Easy (Lionel Richie);
25) Brandy (Looking Glass);
26) Dancing in the Moonlight (Van Morrison);
27) Heroes (David Bowie);
28) Young Americans (David Bowie);
29) Suspicious Minds.
1) These Eyes (The Guess Who);
2) California Dreaming (The Mamas & The Papas);
3) Heart of the Matter (Don Henley);
4) Find a Reason to Believe (Rod Stewart);
5) Forever Young (Rod Stewart);
6) A Cat Stevens song;
7) Angie;
8) Ruby Tuesday;
9) Levon (Elton John);
10) Come Sail Away (Styx);
11) Piano Man;
12) Italian Restaurant;
13) Born to Run;
14) Suffragette City;
15) Behind Blue Eyes;
16) Bargain;
17) You're So Vain (Carly Simon);
18) Thunder Road;
19) What is and What Should Never Be;
20) Ramble On;
21) Here I Go Again (Whitesnake);
22) Thinking Out Loud (Ed Sheran);
23) Bill the Kid (Billy Joel);
24) Easy (Lionel Richie);
25) Brandy (Looking Glass);
26) Dancing in the Moonlight (Van Morrison);
27) Heroes (David Bowie);
28) Young Americans (David Bowie);
29) Suspicious Minds.
This Sentence is about . . . Something
I listened to Harlan Coben on Freakonomics last week, in an episode called "How to Create Suspense" and he was so engaging that I decided to read one of his books . . . it took me three days to plow through Tell No One and I'm proud to say that I learned absolutely nothing, the book is pure plot and as-billed: it is very suspenseful . . . during the Freakonomics interview, Coben explains one of his methods: "if a person's dead, they're dead; I'm just trying to solve the crime . . . but if a person's missing, you have hope" and that's the main way he generates suspense in this novel, but he also alternates between first and third person narration, which limits the amount of information you receive into a very cautious flow, a drip from a spigot . . . and, as a topper, he's got Eric Wu wandering around, a dude from North Korea who endured some kind of harrowing childhood and now lives only to use his giant hands to torture humans until they break; aside from Wu, most of the characters are fairly stereotypical, but the book moves so fast, and the scenes are so vividly drawn, that it doesn't really matter, the purpose is to make you keep turning the page (or poking the edge of your Kindle screen) and the book serves its purpose well.
All Apologies
To the young lovers cuddling on the lifeguard stand and the lady combing the beach for shells and the the man driving the sand sweeper, I apologize for the view you had to endure: me striding out of the ocean in sheer gray spandex . . . after my morning run, I stripped down and took a swim; so if you're in Sea Isle City this week, and you like to head to the beach in early AM for some peace and serenity, then I suggest you stay north of 45th Street.
The Long Goodbye
I am cleaning out my side room so I can expand Greasetruck Studios, but getting rid of the piles and piles of books I've acquired over the years is extremely difficult . . . the books I've read and don't remember are easy to part with, and I'm keeping the best books by my favorite authors, but it's hard to get rid of all the trade paperbacks-- even though I know I'll never read them, the numerous Philip K. Dick and Elmore Leonard and Clifford Simak novels-- but the font is too small and pages are yellowed and my kids will never touch them and I've got a Kindle . . . and it's also hard to get rid of the books that I bought but never read, the testament to my literary failures, but I didn't pick up The History of the Vikings for the last ten years, and it's been sitting there in plain sight, so I don't think I'm ever going to read it (the same goes for Bleak House and Finnegan's Wake . . . but I've still got aspirations for Nostromo).
Tragedy of the Commons (and Consciousness)
If you want to listen to something scary and frustrating, Planet Money 640: The Bottom of the Well is the one for you . . . or you could just enjoy my stream of consciousness recap: so there's no water in the well and pistachios and almonds take a shitload of water to grow, a gallon per nut . . . a gallon per nut! . . . but if I drill a very very deep well I can tap the rapidly diminishing aquifer and water my pistachio trees, even though the townsfolk in Porterville can no longer access fresh water from their wells, even though their taps have run dry . . . but that's not my problem, I see the irony, that they have to visit portable showers and sinks at a temporary water station, while they can actually see the lush farmland to the south of them, acres of pistachio and walnut and almond trees, but this is a boon for me, because the demand for pistachios and almonds is through the roof, and the supply is small, because they require so much water and India and China are going to buy them from someone and, honestly, if I don't dig a deep well and suck up that aquifer, then my neighbor is going to do it-- and he's a douche-- or the banks and the hedge funds will do it-- because this is an arbitrage situation, and you've got to take advantage while you can, and the aquifer should last another fifty years or so, and by that time I'll be retired and living in Florida or the Pine Barrens, where there is plenty of water, and you know what, it might start raining at any time, there's no law against it, so no reason for me not to make some money while the making is good, because if it's not me, it's going to be somebody else and then my grandkids can get the hell out of here, before the Mad Max scenario that some scientists envision comes to fruition . . . that would be wild.
Game of Thrones and The Peltzman Effect
While listening to an old episode of Freakonomics, I learned about The Peltzman Effect, which asserts that when things become safer, we compensate by taking more risks-- and while the theory has never been proven exactly as Peltzman stated it, that safety features and regulations are completely useless and even counterproductive, there is no question that the effect is real, just not as powerful as Peltzman envisioned; The Peltzman Effect certainly rears its ugly head in American football: helmets became safer and more shock resistant, and so players started using their head to initiate tackles (you don't see rugby players doing this very often) and though there are less fractured skulls, there are more concussions and brain trauma; you can also see the Peltzman Effect at work in Game of Thrones . . . two incidents come to mind, both having to do with heavy armour and the perceived safety that it affords;
1) when Bronn defeats Ser Varis Egan in Tyrion's first trial by combat; Bronn is wearing light leather armour and Ser Vardis has on heavy plate mail and carries a giant shield; Bronn takes few risks and generally keeps out of range-- he lets Ser Vardis exhaust himself with risky swings of his giant sword, and then carefully pokes and slices at him until he falls apart;
2) when Oberyn nearly kills The Mountain in Tyrion's second trial by combat; again Oberyn wears a light leather outfit and dances out of range, taking few risks with his long-handled spear, and if he wouldn't have let his guard down during his vengeful celebration, then he would have survived the battle instead of dying in the grossest manner possible . . . Kids in the Hall style!
Another Time, Picnic!
I know people are on vacation and someone out there is planning a picnic, but it's still nice to have a rainy day once in a while . . . when else are you going to watch Highlander with your kids?
I Need to Read Something With Jokes
The Last Coyote is the fourth book in Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch series, and it is a dark and existential one-- think True Detectives without the cute ending; Bosch is on involuntary stress leave because he assaulted his lieutenant, and so he has time to delve into the details of his wretched past . . . his mother was a working girl and Harry was taken from her by child services and placed in a youth home, and though his mother had plans to straighten out and regain custody, before that could happen she was strangled-- and the case was treated oddly, brushed aside and never solved . . . it reeked of corruption and foul play; at the start of this novel, Bosch finally decides that his life's mission is to look into it, though his police psychologist warns him against this course of action because she feels it will do him more harm than good-- but Harry Bosch takes advice from no man (or woman) and what he finds isn't pretty; Bosch is especially grouchy and irascible in this one (for good reason) and I think I need a break from him, I need to read something like Bossypants or Me Talk Pretty One Day, to restore my good spirits.
The Test Has a Logo!
Our podcast has a new home on Podbean, and Stacey designed an awesome logo . . . so play along, keep score, and listen for special guests-- TJ, Jerry, and God . . . also, Stacey and Cunningham mimic my judginess (and I consider it flattery).
The Infinite Picture Skit!
During my epic adventure last Saturday, at the Bond Street Bar and Grill in Asbury Park, a group of good-natured folks at a table near the shuffleboard game asked my friend Alec if he could kindly take their picture . . . and he did such a good job of it that I told him, "Alec! You've got to get in the picture!" and so he handed me the camera and ran over and got in the frame and I took a picture of the group along with Alec . . . now if Connell picked up on this and ran over from his end of the shuffleboard table and said, "Dave! You've got to get in the picture!" and he took a picture of the group with both Alec and me, and then we had forty or fifty more friends available and they kept doing this ad infinitum . . . well, you get the idea-- now somebody get out there and organize this and then show me the pictures and the video.
Free Apps!
Everyone is designing a phone app these days, so if you want in on the action, here are a few of my ideas:
1) dog to Spanish translator;
2) body hair maintenance scheduler . . . it's a little stick figure and various areas light up when it's time to trim-- ear, nose, beard, nether regions, etcetera;
3) an alphabetic communicator, so that you can send a message of written words to a friend without having to speak, and then (perhaps) your friend could reply back to you with a written reply, and this would all appear on the phone screen . . . this one seems the most promising of my ideas.
1) dog to Spanish translator;
2) body hair maintenance scheduler . . . it's a little stick figure and various areas light up when it's time to trim-- ear, nose, beard, nether regions, etcetera;
3) an alphabetic communicator, so that you can send a message of written words to a friend without having to speak, and then (perhaps) your friend could reply back to you with a written reply, and this would all appear on the phone screen . . . this one seems the most promising of my ideas.
They Alive, Dammit! It's a Miracle!
If you haven't seen the Netflix original Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, then the plot is a hard pill to swallow-- Kimmy and three other women were held captive underground for fifteen years by a lunatic doomsday cult preacher, and when they were finally rescued, Kimmy made her way to New York City on a wing and a prayer and ends up living in a basement apartment with an out-of-work flamboyantly gay African American actor named Titus Andromedon-- but the theme song, perhaps the catchiest since "Cheers," explains all this visually and persuasively; I would suggest starting with episode ten, "Kimmy's in a Love Triangle," because Dean Norris (Hank Shrader in Breaking Bad) makes a cameo as Le Loup, a "straight coach," who counsels gay actors to act like a heterosexual dudes, so they get get more acting roles . . . the scenarios he devises are absurd and spot-on (and you'll find out why straight men don't drink from straws).
I'll Do It Her Way . . . Grudgingly
My wife was oppressing my creativity the other day; she was being very critical of how I put away the silverware --my method, which is a matter of personal expression, a stylistic choice-- NOT laziness-- is I chuck all the stuff in the drawer, real fast, I don't worry about dedicating particular slots for spoons or forks or knives . . . I came to the conclusion that this is the correct technique (even though that's how I've always done it) while reading A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder . . . but my wife didn't want to hear my theories on when you should NOT organize something in a top-down fashion, though it's easy enough to find what you need when you need it; I think silverware falls into this category, it's a pain-in-the-ass to get all the different cutlery into the correct slots, but it's easy enough visually to find what you need when you open the drawer, even if it's a disorganized mess, because the slots are shallow and the different items are visually discernible with minimum effort (I use this same method in my clothing drawers) but despite the fact that we live in Frank Sinatra's state of origin, after I listened to her threats and ultimatums, I've decided to leave this one alone and I'm going to do it her way.
Warning: Blood and Irony Ahead!
I was opening a box of band-aids in order to tend to all the cuts on my toes (from when I dropped a bottle of beer at the Ween show and some glass got into my sandals and I didn't realize it until later in the evening, when I looked down and noticed that my right foot was all red) and the band-aid box lid gave me a mean little paper cut, right on the cuticle, and so I had to use one of the band-aids from the box to staunch the blood from a cut caused by that selfsame box . . . and this leads me to believe that I am too old to attend rock concerts without sustaining injury.
Notes to Self After a Day of Complete Idiocy
When the sun rose on Saturday morning, I was feeling good about myself and the new day dawning . . . after breakfast I went and played some tennis with my son Ian and our guest Carl-- a ten year old boy from the Bronx who had stayed at our house the past week (my wife arranged this through the Fresh Air Fund, and Carl had never been to New Jersey, so we took him to the beach, to the pool, on a train, to an art museum, etcetera . . . it was exhausting because he had never been to any of these places, but he had a great time and it may have opened my own kids' eyes a little bit to how lucky they have it) and now it was time to take Carl back to the Fresh Air Fund office, which was in Manhattan (3rd Ave) and I volunteered to do this because then I was ditching my family and going to meet Connell and Alec in Asbury Park to see The Dean Ween Group, and as I walked out the door my wife said, "Don't forget to get gas" but-- son of a bitch-- I forgot and didn't remember until I was stuck in traffic inside the Lincoln Tunnel-- and this made me a bit anxious and claustrophobic, but I could see plenty of gas stations on the GPS map on the other side of the tunnel, and once we made it through, I tried to find one, but no luck . . . and then I was in downtown Manhattan on Saturday and the traffic was insane and there were a lot of people and tourists and construction, and I kept making my way towards the little gas symbols on the GPS and inevitably, when I got there, it was a construction site or a plaza or outdoor seating for a restaurant-- and I knew my GPS thing was out of date, but you need a doctorate in computer science to update it-- so I finally called my wife, who has a smartphone-- and told her I was going to run out of gas in Manhattan and I desperately needed her help, and she tried to help me, but every gas station she called was closed, or just a service station-- and during this sequence of calls to my wife, she said that I went through the five stages of grief, denial that there were no gas stations in Manhattan, anger that a city full of cars had no gas to run on, bargaining . . . that if I could just get to the office and drop-off Carl, then I could walk for gas, depression-- she said at one point I was "inconsolable," stuck in traffic between construction and parked cars and close to tears-- because what happens if you run out of gas in a spot like that? do they shoot you for being so stupid?-- and finally, acceptance, I was owning it, I was going to run out of gas in Manhattan and block up some traffic . . . but, luckily, this didn't happen and I got Carl to the office, told them my dilemma and listened to everyone lament the fact that there are no gas stations in Manhattan because of real estate prices, and then I ran on fumes to the one station by the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel, drove home, packed my bag and guitar for an overnight stay in Asbury and went to meet my friends, and we went out and drank too much and then went to the Ween show and I dropped a beer bottle and the glass cut up my toes-- which I didn't realize until I went to the bathroom-- and then when we made it back to Connell's mom's condo, I realized that I had lost my wallet, and it was too late to go back to The Stone Pony and try to find it, so I ate some frozen pizza and went to bed, and I had to hang around until noon the next day, when The Stone Pony box office opened, and then I lucked out again-- they had my wallet . . . so quite a day, and all the bad things that happened were totally my fault, and I'm lucky things weren't much worse . . . here are my notes for the future:
1) there no gas stations in downtown Manhattan;
2) I will never drive a car in Manhattan again . . . I can't handle it;
3) I should listen to my wife;
4) if you are trying to get tickets early at The Stone Pony, and there is an Italian woman picking out t-shirts, you might be waiting a LONG time . . . this woman tried on so many shirts that we thought we were on a reality show -- and the girl working the counter was so angry with the Italian woman that she was mean to us too, when we said we just wanted three tickets she said, "Not until I'm finished with her" and glared at us . . . so this lady may have been picking out t-shirts twenty minutes previous to us getting there, and after fifteen more minutes, when her seven year old son, who was sitting patiently on a stool next to his dad, coughed or cleared his throat or made some sound, she chastised him back into compliance and he shrank back into himself (my kids would have trashed the place six times over) and then once she finally got the shirts in the colors she wanted, she got into an argument over the price . . . it was surreal;
5) don't carry too much stuff in your pockets -- i.e. hardshell sunglass case-- because when you leave the bar it will feel like you have your wallet, when you really left it behind;
6) do NOT wear sandals to a concert, especially if you're going to drop a bottle of beer-- which I did . . . I was passing up to Alec, who was right by the stage, and i thought he grabbed it, but he didn't . . . and glass must have gotten into my sandals and then everyone was stomping around and the glass got shoved into my toes and I didn't notice until i went to the bathroom and it was gross-- I'm lucky i didn't get an infection . . . this is similar to what John and I learned at The Cult concert in 1990 in Hampton Coliseum . . . Ian Asbury threw his tambourine into the crowd and there was a melee for it and John and I each had a hand on it and some other dude stuck his arm (which was encased in denim) through the hole and then John's face turned pale and then I felt sick and we looked at our hands and they were all bloody, cut by the razor sharp metal shaker discs, and John had to get stitches;
7) the key to Skeeball might be the bank shot.
1) there no gas stations in downtown Manhattan;
2) I will never drive a car in Manhattan again . . . I can't handle it;
3) I should listen to my wife;
4) if you are trying to get tickets early at The Stone Pony, and there is an Italian woman picking out t-shirts, you might be waiting a LONG time . . . this woman tried on so many shirts that we thought we were on a reality show -- and the girl working the counter was so angry with the Italian woman that she was mean to us too, when we said we just wanted three tickets she said, "Not until I'm finished with her" and glared at us . . . so this lady may have been picking out t-shirts twenty minutes previous to us getting there, and after fifteen more minutes, when her seven year old son, who was sitting patiently on a stool next to his dad, coughed or cleared his throat or made some sound, she chastised him back into compliance and he shrank back into himself (my kids would have trashed the place six times over) and then once she finally got the shirts in the colors she wanted, she got into an argument over the price . . . it was surreal;
5) don't carry too much stuff in your pockets -- i.e. hardshell sunglass case-- because when you leave the bar it will feel like you have your wallet, when you really left it behind;
6) do NOT wear sandals to a concert, especially if you're going to drop a bottle of beer-- which I did . . . I was passing up to Alec, who was right by the stage, and i thought he grabbed it, but he didn't . . . and glass must have gotten into my sandals and then everyone was stomping around and the glass got shoved into my toes and I didn't notice until i went to the bathroom and it was gross-- I'm lucky i didn't get an infection . . . this is similar to what John and I learned at The Cult concert in 1990 in Hampton Coliseum . . . Ian Asbury threw his tambourine into the crowd and there was a melee for it and John and I each had a hand on it and some other dude stuck his arm (which was encased in denim) through the hole and then John's face turned pale and then I felt sick and we looked at our hands and they were all bloody, cut by the razor sharp metal shaker discs, and John had to get stitches;
7) the key to Skeeball might be the bank shot.
More Dreams!
If I can't swing being a professional dog-walker when I retire, perhaps I will be an impersonal trainer, and inspire people to keep in shape through detachment: I don't really care if you do those sit-ups, because I'm watching this golf match on TV and not paying attention to you one bit . . . in fact, your fitness level doesn't interest me in the least, I'm much more concerned with myself, but I've read that doing the plank might be good for your core . . . but whatever, your choice, what do I care if you get in shape?
You've Got to Have Dreams
When I retire, I'm going to augment my pension by being a professional dog-walker!
Personal Inspection
I took the van over to the DMV on Route 130 to get it inspected, and I got to ride in the passenger seat while the guys did their stuff . . . I also got to see them tentatively push aside the piece of honeycomb sitting on our dashboard, blocking the inspection sticker; the guy said to me, "There's no bees in there, right?" and I said, "I hope not" and, of course, there were no bees in it, because it was several months old . . . my son Ian handed it to me after a hike-- because kids pick up everything-- and asked if he could bring it home, and I stuck it there and it became a decorative item, hexagonal compartment visible through the windshield, and we never thought much of it until this moment at the DMV.
More Nostalgic Reading
Stephen King's recent novel Joyland is a little book with some big scenes-- it takes place in 1973, at a haunted amusement park and there is some sleuthing as well as some spookiness; think Scooby Doo meets Something Wicked This Way Comes . . . and if it wasn't for those meddling summer employees, he would have gotten away with it . . . you also learn lots of "carny" lingo (such as "wearing the fur") and the ins and outs of running a low budget amusement park: two scaly thumbs up.
Live Vicariously Through Dave!
For all of you folks that have to work in the summer, here's a quick recap of my family beach vacation in Sea Isle City:
1) for several days, hundreds and hundreds of dolphins-- several pods?-- swam southward along the shore; at one point they were so close to the beach that the lifeguards had to pull everyone from the water . . . my father insisted they were porpoises but I took my cousin's paddleboard out to get a very close look, and they were definitely dolphins;
2) the AC broke in our condo, and it took five days to fix, so we spent a lot of time on the beach;
3) the day we took a break from the beach, we went to Stone Harbor and saw Ant-Man and-- shockingly-- it was very entertaining . . . Paul Rudd is charming and the special-effects and humor are somewhere between Honey I Shrunk the Kids and Iron Man . . . and nearly as entertaining as the film was the massive leak in the roof during the movie-- a huge thunderstorm rolled in during the opening minutes and all the people on the left side of the theater got soaked and there was a flood down the center aisle which we had to wade through when we left;
4) we really enjoyed eating at Hank Sauce, the restaurant named after the super-excellent hot sauce-- the pork tacos and the fish tacos were both excellent (and the sauce is the best);
5) I did not enjoy the lack of AC and wifi at Red White & Brew Coffee Shop;
6) while I was travelling from the Outer Banks to Sea Isle City-- twelve hours or cars, trains, taxis and buses-- Catherine and the boys saw a fisherman pull in a shark and a large stingray;
7) I nearly cried while carrying my cousin's paddleboard back to their beach house . . . that thing is heavy!
1) for several days, hundreds and hundreds of dolphins-- several pods?-- swam southward along the shore; at one point they were so close to the beach that the lifeguards had to pull everyone from the water . . . my father insisted they were porpoises but I took my cousin's paddleboard out to get a very close look, and they were definitely dolphins;
2) the AC broke in our condo, and it took five days to fix, so we spent a lot of time on the beach;
3) the day we took a break from the beach, we went to Stone Harbor and saw Ant-Man and-- shockingly-- it was very entertaining . . . Paul Rudd is charming and the special-effects and humor are somewhere between Honey I Shrunk the Kids and Iron Man . . . and nearly as entertaining as the film was the massive leak in the roof during the movie-- a huge thunderstorm rolled in during the opening minutes and all the people on the left side of the theater got soaked and there was a flood down the center aisle which we had to wade through when we left;
4) we really enjoyed eating at Hank Sauce, the restaurant named after the super-excellent hot sauce-- the pork tacos and the fish tacos were both excellent (and the sauce is the best);
5) I did not enjoy the lack of AC and wifi at Red White & Brew Coffee Shop;
6) while I was travelling from the Outer Banks to Sea Isle City-- twelve hours or cars, trains, taxis and buses-- Catherine and the boys saw a fisherman pull in a shark and a large stingray;
7) I nearly cried while carrying my cousin's paddleboard back to their beach house . . . that thing is heavy!
Looking Through My Mechanic's Son's Eyes
One of the most important things in modern life is to know of a good car mechanic, which I do . . . but he's getting older . . . luckily, his son is taking over the business; when my wife and I dropped off the Subaru the other morning we met the heir-apparent and then when my wife picked up the car later in the day, she got to hear-- secondhand from his dad-- the son's impression of our drop-off; apparently the youngster was amused by the fact that:
1) I didn't know how to work my phone and my wife showed me that if you hit the volume button it turns the ringer on;
2) I didn't understand why my wife was hanging around, I thought she was on her way to work, but she was there to give me a ride back home;
3) I chastised my wife for nearly hitting her brother's truck when she backed out of the driveway and she pointed out that she didn't hit his car and that the two dents in the car were both my fault.
1) I didn't know how to work my phone and my wife showed me that if you hit the volume button it turns the ringer on;
2) I didn't understand why my wife was hanging around, I thought she was on her way to work, but she was there to give me a ride back home;
3) I chastised my wife for nearly hitting her brother's truck when she backed out of the driveway and she pointed out that she didn't hit his car and that the two dents in the car were both my fault.
Kurt Vonnegut Holds Up
When I was in middle school and high school, my two favorite authors were Kurt Vonnegut and Stephen King-- I read everything they wrote; but a few years ago, I tried to re-read The Stand and I found it dated and kind of cheesy (though I did love King's more recent novel 11/22/63) and I read less and less fiction these days anyway-- except crime fiction about murder and drug lords and torture-- but I was screwing around with my Kindle and somehow 'borrowed" Breakfast of Champions for free, and I devoured it in the same way teenage Dave must have done . . . the book is super-meta, extremely profane (with liberal use of the N-word) and very funny; Vonnegut's ironically detached view from outer space on art, the environment, character, free will, and income inequality are as modern (post-modern?) as anything written today; here are two passages that I highlighted:
1) "I used to be a conservationist. I used to weep and wail about people shooting bald eagles with automatic shotguns from helicopters and all that, but I gave it up. There's a river in Cleveland which is so polluted that it catches fire about once a year; that used to make me sick, but I laugh about it now . . . I realized," said Trout, "that God wasn't conservationist, so for anyone else to be one was sacrilegious and a waste of time. You ever see one of His volcanoes or tornadoes or tidal waves? Anybody ever tell you about the Ice Ages he arranges every half-million years? How about Dutch Elm disease?"
2) Because of the peculiar laws in that part of the planet, Rockefeller was allowed to own vast areas of the Earth's surface, and the petroleum and other valuable minerals under the surface , as well. He owned or controlled more of the planet than many nations. This had been his destiny since infancy. He was born into that cockamamie proprietorship.
Save $$$$ with Statistics
Diligent readers may remember the risk assessment I did about the tree limb hanging precipitously over my back yard . . . when I first saw the limb, I thought: I'd better call a tree guy, because that thing is going to kill someone when it comes down . . . but then I did some back-of-the-envelope calculation and realized that I should have thought: I don't need to call a tree guy because it's highly unlikely that that thing will kill someone when it comes down and it turns out that in this instance, the math was right . . . the limb fell during our vacation and killed nothing, it didn't even harm the lawn, so a little bit of logical thinking saved me some cash (though I must admit, that I did try some crazy shit before we left for the beach . . . I attached a rope to an arrow and tried to shoot it over the limb with my son Alex's bow and I punted a variety of balls at the limb, but the arrow couldn't pull the rope all the way up and though I got some punts in the vicinity, the only result was a stuck ball, and then I duct-taped a rope to a rock and started whirling it around but thought better of it, because the branch was very very high up in the tree and I realized all I was going to do was break some windows).
The Test 5: Everyone Fails
Stacey administers a test on acronyms, abbreviations and nicknames and we all do quite poorly-- including, ironically, Stacey; so give it a shot and good luck-- you're going to need it . . . also, listen up for a new character (and if you want to hear the sad sad story of how I tried to be a hipster douchebag while completing the audio editing for this episode, head on over to Gheorghe: The Blog).
Funny? Or Not So Funny? You Be the Judge . . .
I had a wonderful student last year in Composition class who was smart and outgoing and engaged and curious and generally wonderful to be around, and she really liked my class and respected my opinion (and let me know this in no uncertain terms) so I was a bit disappointed when she didn't follow my sage advice on a certain matter, but I'll let you be the judge; at the end of every school day this girl delivered the afternoon announcements over the intercom, and I would often kid her about her style, which always started very enthusiastic, but sometimes became less so when she got bogged down in the mundane details . . . the change of location of the robotics club, etcetera, etcetera . . . and as senior year ground to a close, she realized she was going to make her last afternoon announcement of her career, and she wanted to go out with something special and I suggested that after she delivered her last bit of afternoon information, she say, "This is Michelle X signing off, it was a pleasure and I'd also like you to know that I'm a talking parrot . . . SQUAWK!" and while she found this moderately amusing, she didn't think it was as hysterically funny as I thought it was and when I told some other teachers about this idea they questioned my sanity and my sense of humor, but my high school is huge and while two thousand kids had heard her voice every afternoon, the vast majority of them had never seen her face, so I think this would have been perfect and very funny finale to her disembodied voice, but since she didn't do it, we'll never know . . . unless I luck out and teach the voice of the afternoon announcements next year, because I will start my campaign early-- in September-- and by June this person will realize just how funny the final announcement could be . . . SQUAWK!
Dave Loves Chick lit! So? What Are YOU Going to Do About It?
So what? . . . so Dave loves chick lit . . . so he's read three Liane Moriarty novels about Australian moms . . . does that make him any less of a man? . . . does it mean he still won't kick your ass? . . . don't bet on it . . . and so what if he got a little weepy at the end of What Alice Forgot . . . you'd cry too . . . if you read more chick lit . . . loser . . . anyway, What Alice Forgot, is a time-travel story masquerading as an amnesia incident, and it is, by turns, funny, intense, moving, nostalgic, and inspirational . . . here are two passages that I liked:
1) I'd be at work, where people respected my opinions," said Nick . . . "And then I'd come home and it was like I was the village idiot . . . I'd pack the dishwasher the wrong way . . . I'd pick out the wrong clothes for the children . . . I stopped offering to help . . . it wasn't worth the criticism";
2) I knew there is nothing more patronizing to an Infertile than to hear a new mother complaining, as if that will make you feel better for not having your own baby . . . it's like telling a blind person, "Oh, sure, you get to see mountains and sunsets, but there's also rubbish dumps and pollution! Terrible!"
Shallow Thought #6
Since the advent of the smart-phone, there has been a spike in people stepping in dog-shit.
What's Better Than One Serial Killer?
Two serial killers, obviously-- The Dollmaker and The Follower-- and though Michael Connelly's third Hieronymous "Harry" Bosch novel was written back in 1994, The Concrete Blonde still feels relevant today because of the lurking theme under the double menace of the killers: unauthorized use of force by authority; Bosch shot The Dollmaker in the line of duty four years before the novel begins, and story opens with him being sued by the Dollmaker's widow for being a vigilante-- he shot the purported killer while he was naked and reaching for something under his pillow, which turned out to be a toupee, not a gun, and while there was a preponderance of evidence linking the suspect to the case; the plaintiff's attorney, Honey Chandler, brings up Rodney King and the noted corruption and civil rights abuses in the L.A.P.D. and meanwhile, the killings continue, making everyone-- including Bosch-- wonder if he got the wrong guy; while the book eventually veers away from this heavy stuff into more procedural law and the usual hot pursuit, with the requisite twists and turns (and plenty of pornography and violence) this is no lightweight beach read . . . so far it is my favorite of all the Connelly novels, and so I'd like to thank Joyce Carol Oates again for recommending him (you can say "you're welcome" in the comments, Joyce).
OBFT XXII
Another fantastic Outer Banks Fishing Trip on the books . . . thanks again to Whit and the Martha Wood and everyone else involved; here are a few things that happened and some notes for OBFT XXIII:
1) Paci wore an Apple watch and used Uber to get us a ride back from Tortuga's . . . I don't know if those two things are related;
2) Jerry and T.J. shoved Dave in the back of Jerry's coupe, but then humored him by allowing him to quiz them for The Test;
3) everyone agreed that The Border Station is far better pit-stop than Southland;
4) best water ever . . . and this year Whitney lost his sunglasses in it;
5) Bruce did NOT have a new joke, but we reminisced over some old jokes;
6) we wished we had a spreadsheet of what happened on each trip so we could reminisce more accurately;
7) we did not get eaten by a shark, but Squirrel did fall down the stairs, reminding us that it's far more likely and dangerous to get hurt on the stairs than it is to lose a limb to a great white;
and some notes for next year . . .
8) next year I will DRIVE . . . I had to get from Kill Devil Hills to Sea Isle City on Sunday and it took me twelve hours . . . rode with Coby and Joe and Paci to Norfolk Airport, then to Richmond, then with Joe to DC-- where I learned a lot of cool stuff about his job-- then I caught a train from DC to Philly, then a cab to the bus station-- which was chaotic and reminded me of Syrian transport hubs-- then a Greyhound Casino Bus to Atlantic City, where Catherine had to fight through traffic to pick me up . . . and I missed every possible convenient time for every train and bus . . . and my guitar had quite an adventure and the case probably needs to be sterilized;
9) we need to bring a hammer to pound some of the protruding deck nails;
10) we need to get Whit a gift . . . new corn-hole bags;
11) the walk home on the beach from Tortuga's was excellent, but would have been even better if we had spandex and bathing suits so that we could jump in the water occasionally and then continue walking (without chafing) so we need to pack them and change in the restroom before we leave, which will make for a hysterical scene . . . especially if we all go in together;
12) we need to order entrees as appetizers at Tortuga's so everyone can have a bite of Coco Loco Chicken and the Bajan Burger;
13) Whitney can make up for poor performance on the corn-hole court if he dishes out songs from his iPod for the "movie soundtrack game," and while Marls is quite good, it would be nice if in the future Whitney plays something from "Ghostbusters";
14) if some older fraternity brothers are going to swing by, they need to do it earlier, when everyone is more coherent (preferably at 11:30 at Tortuga's, the last moment of clarity of the day for most);
15) while we were swimming in the best water ever, a few of us did our impressions of getting attacked by a shark-- this was awesome and needs to be an official OBFT event, I think if we promote it on social media, we could pull a decent crowd.
1) Paci wore an Apple watch and used Uber to get us a ride back from Tortuga's . . . I don't know if those two things are related;
2) Jerry and T.J. shoved Dave in the back of Jerry's coupe, but then humored him by allowing him to quiz them for The Test;
3) everyone agreed that The Border Station is far better pit-stop than Southland;
4) best water ever . . . and this year Whitney lost his sunglasses in it;
5) Bruce did NOT have a new joke, but we reminisced over some old jokes;
6) we wished we had a spreadsheet of what happened on each trip so we could reminisce more accurately;
7) we did not get eaten by a shark, but Squirrel did fall down the stairs, reminding us that it's far more likely and dangerous to get hurt on the stairs than it is to lose a limb to a great white;
and some notes for next year . . .
8) next year I will DRIVE . . . I had to get from Kill Devil Hills to Sea Isle City on Sunday and it took me twelve hours . . . rode with Coby and Joe and Paci to Norfolk Airport, then to Richmond, then with Joe to DC-- where I learned a lot of cool stuff about his job-- then I caught a train from DC to Philly, then a cab to the bus station-- which was chaotic and reminded me of Syrian transport hubs-- then a Greyhound Casino Bus to Atlantic City, where Catherine had to fight through traffic to pick me up . . . and I missed every possible convenient time for every train and bus . . . and my guitar had quite an adventure and the case probably needs to be sterilized;
9) we need to bring a hammer to pound some of the protruding deck nails;
10) we need to get Whit a gift . . . new corn-hole bags;
11) the walk home on the beach from Tortuga's was excellent, but would have been even better if we had spandex and bathing suits so that we could jump in the water occasionally and then continue walking (without chafing) so we need to pack them and change in the restroom before we leave, which will make for a hysterical scene . . . especially if we all go in together;
12) we need to order entrees as appetizers at Tortuga's so everyone can have a bite of Coco Loco Chicken and the Bajan Burger;
13) Whitney can make up for poor performance on the corn-hole court if he dishes out songs from his iPod for the "movie soundtrack game," and while Marls is quite good, it would be nice if in the future Whitney plays something from "Ghostbusters";
14) if some older fraternity brothers are going to swing by, they need to do it earlier, when everyone is more coherent (preferably at 11:30 at Tortuga's, the last moment of clarity of the day for most);
15) while we were swimming in the best water ever, a few of us did our impressions of getting attacked by a shark-- this was awesome and needs to be an official OBFT event, I think if we promote it on social media, we could pull a decent crowd.
Shallow Thought #5 (Toga! Toga! Toga!)
In ancient Greece, every party was a toga party . . . and I know this is weak, even as a shallow thought, but I'm still recovering from OBFT XXII.
Smart and Tasty Mollusk Creates Ethical Dilemma
I didn't finish Sy Montgomery's book The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness . . . it was well-written and fascinating, but too much octopus and not enough consciousness; I will think twice before ordering this brainy cephalopod at the Greek restaurant near my house, though they make it just right; these creatures are smart, playful, spirited, and clever . . . and they can recognize people and treat them very differently, depending how comfortable they are and how much they "like" them (the only rationalization for eating them is that they don't live very long-- three years or so-- but I'm not sure if that's a logical reason, because dogs don't live all that long and we don't eat them when they turn nine).
Shallow Thoughts #4
Polo would be more like soccer if the horses were autonomous and didn't have people riding on top of them, directing them where to go.
Shallow Thoughts #3
Soccer would be more like horse-racing if all the players had little monkeys perched on their necks and the monkeys whipped the players in order to make them run faster.
The Test: Episode 4 . . . Take It and Get All Sweaty!
This is my favorite episode of The Test so far; Cunningham, Stacye and I revisit "number sense" and things get fairly absurd . . . there's yelling and judgement and perspiration and anxiety . . . and it's all generated by seven simple questions; so give this one your best shot and see if it makes you as "sweaty and nervous" as it does Stacey.
Shallow Thoughts #2
Sometimes I eat so much at lunch that I feel like I won't be able to eat dinner, but when dinner finally rolls around, I'm hungry again.
Shallow Thoughts
If you find an old snorkel at the beach, you can use it as a backscratcher (even if its pink).
Hey Jazz Dogs! It's The War and Peace of Dope War Books!
Once again, while my family was enjoying the sun and sand, I read about drug wars and torture: The Cartel is part two of Don Winslow's magnum opus on the Mexican drug trade; when I reviewed The Power of the Dog (part one), I described Winslow's writing as "Ellroy-esque," and now, on the back cover, Ellroy himself pays Winslow the highest of compliments . . . he calls the novel "The War and Peace of dope-war books" and then he goes on to say, "it's got the jazz dog feel of a shot of pure meth!" and while that quotation is certainly Ellroy-esque . . . and I'm not sure what a "jazz dog" is, I highly recommend this book (though you should read Power of the Dog first) and while I admit that it's an undertaking, it is worth it-- there's plenty of action and there's even a map, so that finally --after reading five or six books about the Mexican drug wars-- I am starting to understand the how the cartography and the politics fit together . . . and at least it's a real map of actual Mexican states, not a fictional map, like at the start of Lord of the Rings . . . so that when reality mirrors fiction and the real person after whom Adan Barrerra is modeled: "El Chapo" Guzman, escapes once again, you know where he is headed to hide-out (Sinaloa) and while I am always suspect of fiction that requires a map, Game of Thrones has made me change my tune on this rule of thumb, and I am always grateful when non-fiction includes a map because I am spatially challenged.
The Test Outro: We Had a Good Time (Until We Didn't)
The Test . . . Episode 3!
We tighten things up on Episode Three of The Test . . . the introduction is shorter, the theme song is clearer, and we cut to the chase faster; Young Cunningham creates and administers a quiz about the two things for which she feels a profound love: TV and technology . . . i.e. phones and shows, and Stacey and I flail a bit with our answers-- and on the one question I actually know, I make the mistake of letting Stacey answer first . . . and she knows too . . . very annoying . . . I also claim that I am "crushing it" at one point, but that's patently false . . . anyway, give it a listen, pass it on to your friends, don't be afraid to play (and fail) at home, and be on the look-out for Episode 4, in which Stacey gets all anxious and sweaty.
L'esprit de la voie des genoux?
The French say l'esprit de l'escalier-- which translates as "the wit of the staircase" and refers to when you think of the perfect retort after the argument has ended, when you are on your way up the stairs-- and sometimes this is a good thing . . . that you don't think of the most pointed, cutting thing to say (e.g. George Costanza: Well, I had sex with your wife!) because the perfect retort, while satisfying, can also make some waves . . . so, when I was about to swim a few laps in the unoccupied heated outdoor pool up at the Cape, and the old coot and his octogenarian wife chastised me for unhooking the floating safety rope that divides the deep end from the shallow end because-- get this-- the pool inspector might walk in at any time and there were children around (none in the pool environs, but they did have a point, there were children in the vicinity, just not at the pool) I didn't say anything witty or even clever, I simply said, "sorry" and placed the line on the concrete and swam my laps (unimpeded) and tried to ignore the old bat's last line, delivered from her chaise lounge: "that's what they all say" and as I swam off my anger (while thinking of all kinds of perfect retorts about the sadness of their existence and how ironic it was that they were so cautious now that they had so little time left and how swimming laps might be a way to prolong their miserable lives) and by the time I surfaced for air, my dad had mollified them and we put the safety rope back in place and I left, saved from an altercation by "the wit of the lap lane."
This Is How I Roll (and Spill)
If you spill a bunch of coffee on your shirt on the way to the gym, even if you're a minute from your house, you don't turn the car around, you just carry on (or at least that's how I do it)
Welcome to Welcome to Nightvale
Reputable people kept telling me to listen to the podcast Welcome to Night Vale, but I kept thinking: do I really need to start following the news cycle of a fictional town? when I have enough trouble keeping straight what's happening on the actual Earth? why would I need more news? fictitious news? it's hard enough to find time to listen to Planet Money and Dan Carlin and Radiolab and Freakonomics . . . but I now that I've listened to the show, I realize these thoughts were idiotic; Welcome to Night Vale is fantastic and spooky and visceral and poetically hysterical, like Stephen King meets NPR meets Jack Handy, set in a haunted desert version of Winesburg, Ohio . . . with a little bit of the Parks & Rec Pawnee vs. Eagleton rivalry -- except that it's The Night Vale Scorpions vs. The Desert Bluffs Cacti . . . and my kids love the show as much as me, so fuck the real news cycle, especially when the headlines are simply to fill the space: "No Evidence of Shooting at Washington Navy Yard Despite Lockdown" . . . we're following indescribable shapes and hooded figures and the perfect hair of Carlos the scientist.
Spring Cleaning = Explosive Diarrhea
The Great Island Trail, which is just west of Wellfleet, leads to one of the most scenic spots on Cape Cod . . . high dunes divide Wellfleet Harbor from Cape Cod Bay, and once you cross over, especially if it is low tide, the barren beaches and tide pools extend for miles-- all the way to Jeremy Point-- and while we were wading south towards the point, Alex and Ian netted various sea life (and put them in a bucket and pitted them against each other . . . the hermit crabs fought each other over a shell and the shrimp acted as the audience on their "channel" of violence, as they called the bucket) and we met a lovely older couple who were digging large clams and we got to talking and the old lady said to me, "do you like sushi?" and I said "sure" and she then opened one of these fist-sized quahogs, which were much too big to slurp down raw (they were to be used for clam strips and chowder) and cleaned it out and gave me "the eye," which is the muscle that the clams uses to hold its shell together-- it was shaped like a scallop and tasted something like a scallop, delicious and salty and fresh, and then she said something about how this always gives her a "spring cleaning," but I didn't understand the euphemism, and then she offered me another one, which I ate, and then she said, "I don't eat them out here because they give you a spring cleaning and it's too far from the house if I have to go" and I realized that when she said "spring cleaning" she actually meant "explosive diarrhea" and this made me a little nervous because we were quite far from civilization and we certainly didn't pack any toilet paper, but my stomach held up just fine (and I even managed to lug four big rocks back to the car, for my rock wall).
There's No Emoticon For This One . . .
After my father sent his burrito back for the second time (because it wasn't hot enough) and asked for more sour cream, even though we already had two little bowls of it, I looked at the waitress and tried to convey this with my glance: I'm sorry you're going through this hassle and thank you for humoring my dad and even though I seem to be a part of this family, I might be adopted or something, so don't hold it against me . . . and look -- my son is eating tamales with mole sauce! so we know what's good! and I tried to explain to my dad that you can only make a burrito so hot because you've got to wrap all the fillings in a tortilla, but I don't think he heard me and he's really not familiar with Mexican food . . . and all this makes me wonder if I'm going to get like that when I get old, confused and befuddled by the unfamiliar-- because, truth be told-- I'm not adopted, and if that's where I'm headed, then please just laugh at my absurd senior citizen requests and repetitions, instead of spitting in my food . . . muchas gracias and she seemed to understand me, to completely comprehend all the nuances of my glance, which makes me wonder if she has this experience often (which would make sense, considering she works at an authentic Mexican place in a non-Spanish speaking location).
A Good Book To Read in Winter (in Norway)
Jo Nesbo's Norwegian thriller The Son starts dark and gets darker . . . you travel with an incarcerated, nearly broken, drug addicted, oddly mystical son bent on finding out the truth about his father and avenging his death, and not only does the son escape from prison, but he also escapes the clutches of heroin addiction; he travels through a maze of byzantine corruption that I gave up trying to comprehend, and I had to skim the last hundred pages, to find out what happens . . . the book definitely had me in its grip for a while, but then I lost patience, probably because of the good weather; I think if I read it in the dead of winter, in Norway, then I would have hung in until the end, but the good weather makes it tough to focus-- everyone is at the pool and there is beer to drink-- this is why I always teach Hamlet in January . . . you can only do ghost stories when it gets dark at 5 PM.
1967: Year of Contrast
A fact thanks to Dan Carlin's podcast Common Sense: the Summer of Love was also The Long Hot Summer of 1967 . . . so if you were hanging out in San Francisco at the time, you were probably doing drugs and participating in an orgy, but if you happened to be in Newark New Jersey, you were probably looting and rioting.
Droning About Drones
Don't worry, this isn't going to become a niche blog about RC quadcopters, but I would like to report that just after my son Alex's drone broke beyond repair, my younger son Ian received his drone from Amazon, the Hubsan X4-- a highly rated little gadget-- and it flew properly exactly one time before he broke a propellor . . . and once he attached the replacement propellor (included) the drone lost its balance, and now, within moments of take-off, it immediately flips and crashes (could be the trim) and my friend Alec broke it down for me this way: "you can either buy ten 50 dollar drones or one 400 dollar drone, it's your choice" and obviously we are on the fifty dollar route, but there is one other road you can take, and it's awful: you can buy a $1500 RC helicopter, learn to do incredible tricks with it, and then decapitate yourself in front of your friends . . . I thought this was an urban legend, but apparently it really happened; while headline is bordering on comical . . . Toy Helicopter Slices Off Top of Man's Head . . . the result is real and I'm not going to lie: I showed the article to my children in an attempt to discourage them from pursuing this whole RC drone/copter thing and then I ended the lesson on the frustrations and dangers of drones with one of my many brilliant aphorisms . . . "go outside and play ball . . . a ball always works."
A Drone Miracle
My son Alex was determined to fix his broken quadcopter drone, so he ordered a tiny two dollar motor from China, waited a month for it to arrive, then unscrewed a million tiny screws to get the drone body apart, replaced the broken motor-- with some help from his father-- and finally, had a complete meltdown when he attempted to get it airborne and found out that in order for it to fly, two of the drone propellers have to spin clockwise and two of them have to spin counterclockwise-- but, because of the way he hooked up the wires, he had three motors spinning clockwise . . . which pushed one side of the drone back into the ground, but-- I'll give him credit-- he opened the thing up again and switched the wires (which I thought might work) and it reversed the direction of the propeller and the drone lifted off for a moment, and then the battery died and then the wire connected to the battery ripped out and we tried to unsuccessfully fix that and then I told him to go outside and play with a ball because I couldn't take anymore . . . but then mom found the spare battery ( a minor miracle) and Alex charged it and hooked it up and -- miraculously-- it worked . . . and he got two days of enjoyment out of it before he crashed it and broke another motor, and now he has decided to give up on drones (a miracle in itself).
Podcast of Dave! And Stacey! And Cunningham!
For a full description, head over to Gheorghe: The Blog, or-- if you're brave-- just dive in and listen; but Stacey, Young Cunningham and I have recorded a podcast: it's called The Test and the theme is epistemology . . . and we've got background music and questions and debate and a theme song and an audio montage (which is probably far too long and self-indulgent) and you can play at home, but you can't study; we are planning on having guests in the future, so if you want to be on the show, tell us.
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