True (but boring) Confessions #1

I haven't done a crossword puzzle in a LONG time.

Two Moving Rocks Are Better Than One

Two new songs from The World's Second Greatest Rock Band . . . one about community college and the other about not getting to have a midlife crisis; lyrics and more over at Gheorghe: The Blog, of course.

Psychiatric Tales Are More Fun If There Are Pictures

Darryl Cunnigham's eleven graphic stories about mental illness -- simply titled Psychiatric Tales -- is a terse and powerful reminder that we are not in control of our own brains, and that mental illness is just that  . . . an illness that is often beyond the control of our willpower and consciousness; the late great Mitch Hedberg said: "Alcoholism is a disease, but it's the only one that you can get yelled at for having," and you can substitute any of the disorders from the book in that sentence and get the same result . . . a quick read and worth checking out.

Obviously

It's more fun to brush up on Richard Pryor, then it is to brush up on Espanol (and I'm understanding a lot more of the content).

Is This Genius or a Flaw?

We are coming to the end of the BBC series Top of the Lake and some bad stuff is going down in the New Zealand bush, but the show takes place in such a breathtaking setting -- snow-covered rocky mountains surrounding a deepwater mountain lake, that I'm often just looking at the scenery and thinking: I'd really like to go on vacation in New Zealand instead of being concerned for the people in peril on the show . . . and so I am wondering if this is a flaw in the show, or if it's done purposefully, in order to create some weird paradoxical friction in the audience, some detachment from the characters, some sensation of their puniness in the landscape.

I Wish I Thought of This

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

Gas is Funny

I was listening to the news on NPR, and when Soterios Johnson explained that the NYPD released some harmless gas into the subway system it made me laugh out loud in my car, which is pretty juvenile for a 43 year old man.

My Summer To-Do List

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

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

2) record an album,

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

4) install a fence on the back property line,

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

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

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

8) strengthen my core,

9) get new lenses for my glasses,

10) restring my tennis racket,

11) finish Infinite Jest,

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

14) get over my triscadecaphobia.

Would You Rather (a Transcript of the Dumbest Dialogue Ever Held by Cognizant, Literate Human Beings)

We are eating dinner, and my eight year old son Ian says to me: "Would you rather get baked in an oven or eaten by a donut?" and, idiotically, I answer him . . . the rest of the conversation goes down like this: "Eaten by a donut? . . . yes, eaten by a donut, instead of you eating the donut, the donut gets revenge and eats you . . . well, I definitely don't want to be baked in an oven, so eaten by a donut . . . me too, eaten by a donut, you might live ten seconds more of your life in its stomach . . . wait, how big is this donut? . . . as big as our house, so even if it eats you, you might still be alive in its stomach . . . okay, then definitely eaten by a donut."

Elisabeth Moss Is Not a Kiwi

I am enjoying Top of the Lake, a moody crime-drama set in the wilds of New Zealand -- the tone and structure of the series is similar to The Killing . . . a troubled female detective obsessively investigates one crime over the course of an entire season, and while there is some comic relief . . . Holly Hunter plays a bizarre empowered wild-woman named GJ and the small town folk of Glenorchy are creepy and amusing, but what really threw me for a loop is that Elisabeth Moss -- who plays Peggy Olson on Madmen -- is not a New Zealander, she's only pretending to be a New Zealander . . . and she fooled me (for more on this, watch the video . . . Sir Ian explains it quite well).

Learning Spanish Is Good For Your Head

One of my summer projects is to brush up on my Espanol, so I am listening to the Pimsleur Spanish course as much as possible -- because learning a second language is good for your brain, and can stave off dementia . . .  and not only is it good for your brain, but it is also good for your head; I was cleaning up after our bbq, and had to put some chairs into the crawl space -- and inevitably, no matter how much I think I am crouching, I bang my head on the low door frame when I am exiting the crawl space, and this time was no different -- I banged my head, harder than usual, but it didn't hurt . . . and then I realized why: I was wearing my old school giant headphones, so I could listen to the Pimsleur Spanish course while I worked, and my headphones are made of thick plastic, sothey protected my head from the bump . . . they protected mi cabeza from the bump . . . and I staved off a little bit of dementia.

Save Your Money AND Eat Well . . .

If you're in the New Brunswick area and want a good meal, you don't need to drop a butt-wad of cash at The Frog and the Peach . . . if you are actually in New Brunswick proper, then my two favorite places are Cafe La Terrassa: delicious Latin American food, ambiance, and reasonable prices (and it's BYOB) and Costa Chica: festive chairs, authentic Mexican (get the tacos al pastor) and pizza . . . and if you are closer to Edison, then try Taqueria La Juquilita on Woodbridge Avenue -- it looks like a little grocery mart -- this place is also authentic Mexican -- the chicken mole is awesome and the chorizo and pork tacos are also fantastic -- get the the tacos "al mano" in the homemade corn tortillas . . . I really want these places to be successful, so please patronize them!

It's Easy To Be Like Dave

To be the most interesting person in the room, you need to have previously spent a good deal of time NOT being the most interesting person in the room (but to be the biggest tool in the room -- my specialty -- you need no previous experience).

A Sentence in Which I Make Too Many Comparisons

John O'Hara's novel Appointment in Samarra is a classic that is actually fun to read -- it contains the dry humor and tragic inevitability of Madmen . . . Julian English especially reminds me of Pete Campbell; it has the drinking and parties and class commentary of The Great Gatsby, but without Fitzgerald's flowery and pretentious prose; it has drunken and picaresque adventures reminiscent of Jerome "Corky" Corcoran from Joyce Carol Oates' excellent novel What I Lived For . . . and while most of these folks need to follow Robert Littell's advice for young men and learn how to drink, that would remove the plot and conflict from all of these works of fiction . . . and while you can run from your appointment in Samarra, you can't hide -- like the dentist, the Grim Reaper will have his due . . . and like I am due for a cleaning, and that receptionist just keeps calling and calling, so too will Death, and just when you think you have avoided him, he shows up at your door, whether you live in Manhattan or West Egg or Gibbsville.

Sometimes Watching an Incident is Worse than Experiencing It

The morning after the end-of-the-year party at Kristyna's house, my son Ian told his older brother Alex that he had a great time, except for "the incident," which is a rather euphemistic way to describe misstepping while getting onto a diving board, flipping over the board, and landing face first on the concrete -- and this incident happened five minutes into the party, but even though Ian scraped off a good deal of the skin on his cheek and eye-brow and reopened a previous bump-scab on his head, this didn't slow him down at all . . . but I wish I hadn't seen it happen, because I think I was more shaken-up than he was (this fits into my theory that childbirth is much more difficult for someone watching the whole ordeal, i.e. the dad).

It's Called Independence Day For a Reason

I love skipping parades . . . I hate skipping and I hate parades, but I love skipping parades.

Dave's Not Here

Dave's not here, man, he's vacationing on the Cape, wearing Nantucket Red shorts and listening to Vampire Weekend, when he could be home listening to Cheech and Chong, the bastard.

Candlepin Bowling vs. Ten Pin Bowling

You'll have to head over to Gheorghe: The Blog for your Daily Dose of Dave . . . I list the 27,000 reasons that candlepin bowling is better than traditional ten-pin bowling, and I also swear a serious sporting oath . . . check it out.

Brain Freeze

The human memory is a black box, we know things go in it, we know that we can sometimes retrieve what we know -- sometimes we know we know something, but we can't retrieve it at the moment, sometimes we forget things completely, and sometimes we forget things temporarily, and then they return to the surface of our consciousness spontaneously at a later time -- for instance, you'd think that if two kids came into your classroom, politely asked you if you had ever seen a "baby-freeze," and then when you said "no," they made sure of this (you've never seen one on MTV or YouTube? I didn't bother to tell them that I hadn't watched MTV since the mid-'90's . . . the days of The Real World and Beavis and Butthead) and then asked if you'd like to see a "baby-freeze" and then -- when you said, "sure," they broke down into two frozen and contorted positions -- creating a strange tableau . . . one kid with his face on the ground, propped on his arms, his legs in the air, the other kid with his arms propped on the desk and the rest of his body floating frozen in the air -- and they held this pose for twenty seconds or so, and then unfroze themselves, thanked me and went on their way . . . and this all happened at 7:15 AM and then I taught three classes in a row -- three different classes -- which erases my brain of just about everything, and so I never told anyone what happened, and I didn't even remember what happened until several days ago, when I was walking back from a lovely lunch with my wife in Chatham -- without the kids -- and the image came back to me, but I wondered if I had the term right: "baby freeze" and it turns out that's what it's called and I've provided an image or two so you can see it, and if you want to learn, there are plenty of YouTube tutorials . . . but it's harder than it looks (and it looks hard).

I Get Paddled Several Ways (All Deservingly)

Two hours into our ride to Cape Cod, I realized that I had packed my inflatable stand-up paddle-board, but had forgotten the paddle -- and this made me very angry, as I knew I would pay an arm and a leg on the Cape if I had to buy one (I even contemplated using Amazon overnight shipping) but luckily there was a kayak and paddle-board rental place down the street from my cousin's house in Chatham, at the town landing on the Oyster River . . . my Uncle Mike explained how to get there and then warned me about John, the long-winded local who ran the place, and his warning was accurate: not only did I have to pay fifty dollars to rent a paddle for the week, but I also had to listen to an hour of anecdotes while standing in the fog at the dock before I could take the paddle; I heard about his first wife, his divorce, the tax rate, the worth of his two story underground house, his family history, his life on the water, his retirement at forty-four from the "water taxi" business, the chipped windshield on his new pick-up, the dent on the side of his new pick-up, and a particularly long story about how he threw a beer can at Harry Connick junior because he was driving by the Oyster River town landing too fast in his fancy speedboat, creating a wake in a "no wake zone," and then how he drove over to Harry Connick's house (which is on the Oyster Pond) and made his way onto the property -- scaring Connick's kids (who had just seen him throw a beer can at their dad) -- and found Connick in the yard, thrust his hand into his gut (at this point, John the rental guy thrust his hand into my gut and I had no idea what was going on) and said to Harry Connick: "Harry, I'm a big enough man to apologize" and was looking for a hand-shake . . . and he said Connick shook his hand but was not a big enough man to apologize for driving his fancy speedboat too fast in the "no wake zone" but he did say that now every time Connick passes John's rental dock at the town landing, he waves at John (probably because he considers him slightly insane and doesn't want him stalking him) and then -- Thank God -- his cell-phone rang, because I had no idea how to end this interaction, but this afforded me time to escape, and I must say, this was a great lesson for me, paying for the paddle with time, money, and awkwardness  -- my motto with packing used to be "don't worry, if we forget something, we'll buy it, we're on vacation" but from this day forward, I will pack much more carefully.