My son and his friend Gary have a hypothesis: if you connect something in class to Seinfeld, your teacher will love you-- and it's generally been true for the two of them throughout high school; they also both love Curb Your Enthusiasm and they've been brainstorming possible Covid episodes-- Larry commenting on someone's below the nose mask-wearing; Larry avoiding someone who sneezed; Larry having to forego contact tracing because he's covering for one of Jeff's adulterous escapades; Larry getting kicked out by Susie for not wearing a mask . . . or perhaps for wearing a mask; Larry staring someone down who he thinks is lying about being vaccinated, etc.
Two Decent Movies You Probably Haven't Seen . . .
If you're sick of committing to another TV show (or get in trouble if you watch the "family" show when all members of the family are not present, e.g. Ted Lasso) here are a couple of highly-rated movies buried on Amazon Prime and Netflix:
1) Blow the Man Down . . . a taut, slightly ironic thriller reminiscent of the Coen Brothers' classic Fargo, but set Downeast in Maine, this one has some superb acting, predominantly by a cast of women that covers every age bracket;
No One Ever Told Me This Shit
Our washing machine stopped spinning last week and we couldn't figure out why, but a jovial Hispanic appliance wizard solved the problem in 10 minutes-- for $150 . . . so that's $900 an hour, no wonder he was so sanguine-- after calling our machine "a piece of junk," he used a screwdriver to pry open the front panel and my wife and I actually screamed "ahhhgh!" in unison-- and we meant: holy shit! this is where all the socks went!-- so apparently if you wash socks and underwear in a mixed load with a lot of water, they float to the top and spill out over the tub and impede the motor-- to her embarrassment and chagrin, Catherine's thong was wrapped around the tub and a drive belt-- so once we removed all the socks and underwear, the washer could spin again-- and easy fix-- and the jovial appliance wizard told us something I never heard: we should wash socks and underwear separately, with very little water-- how did I make it 51 years without learning that?
75% Doesn't Cut It
Three out of four times I use the sink, I remember that we have no sink-head on the hose-- our head clogged and died a week ago and we are waiting for a new one from Grohe-- so you have to be VERY careful with the amount of water pressure you use and you have to hold the hose while you rinse dishes . . . if you forget this, you will suffer from some weird property of hydrodynamics; the sink hose turns into a fire hose and shoots a strong stream of water directly at your stomach and crotch, utterly soaking you and the kitchen floor and cabinet-- and while I have often remembered to grip the hose and use the water carefully, there are enough times when I forget (like two minutes ago or last night) and I absolutely soak myself, to my family's delight.
Summer of Dying Things
Our Honda CR-V, our dishwasher, our sink head, our front porch railings, two of our bikes, and now the spin cycle on our washing machine . . . all these things have died this summer (but our buddy Joe rebuilt the front porch, with vinyl railings, so it will last; I replaced our dishwasher and I'm working on the sink hose and sink head; Catherine got a new bike and I'm waiting out the shortage but we've yet to buy a car or get the washer to work . . . this stuff needs to be in order when school starts!)
What Happens to Those Final Girls After the Movie Ends?
The new Grady Hendrix horror novel, The Final Girl Support Group, is both more surreal and meta than his previous novels but also more profound and serious-- the conceit of this fictional world is that the events depicted in the classic slasher flicks of the '80s and '90s actually happened-- Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc-- and then the stories were bought by film studios and made into movie franchises-- but the actual girls who survived these horrific events exist long after the slasher genre's popularity-- and these "final girls" have to deal with the trauma of their own lives, and the trauma of seeing their stories used as a disposable art form with (mostly) disposable women being murdered by monstrous men . . . and the book is also a thriller, with plot twists and wild violence and an unreliable narrator and interesting characters, but it's also a take on the objectification of women and the veneration of violence . . . nine axe-splintered doors out of ten.
All Kinds of Emotions, All Kinds of Screens
Last night our family went and saw Hasan Minhaj at the new NBPAC theater in New Brunswick-- he did ninety minutes of stand-up and storytelling, accompanied by some pertinent images and video on the big screen-- while the show was very funny, it was also sincere and confessional-- he described how obsessed he became with going after autocrats (after this incident when he criticized Saudi Arabia after the Khashoggi killing) because of the social media notoriety and how this eventually endangered his family and made him change his ways (somewhat) and there were also a lot of inside jokes directed at the almost entirely Indian audience-- he knew his crowd-- and then we went home and watched an especially emotional episode of Friday Night Lights . . . Riggins quits drinking and has a great game, Smash blows it with the recruiter, Saracen asks Coach's daughter out on a date, and Jason Street wheels himself out on the field at Homecoming . . . so we saw it all last night, in a variety of mediums.
Youth
This week at soccer we alternated three-hour practices with two-hour practices and despite this massive caloric expenditure, my younger son Ian gained seven pounds and grew an inch-- he's now the same height as me (or, as my wife claims, a shade taller-- so now I'm the third tallest person in our family of four).
Pool Tip
If you don't want to get water in your eyes when you're swimming laps, get some open water goggles-- they work much better than regular swim goggles.
Eat This Food!
Crumbly chorizo, delicious al pastor pork, tender carne asada, loaded sopes, thick fluffy gorditas, superb chicken mole, and a variety of tasty tamales . . . if you're anywhere near Highland Park, try the new authentic Mexican place, La Casita!
Sea Isle in a Weekend
Saturday morning, my older son Alex and I drove down to Sea Isle City to try to pack in a mini-vacation before high school soccer went into full swing (Ian couldn't come because he had too many jobs to do and Catherine is down there now) and the plan was to crash with our friends Saturday and Sunday night and then get up at 5:45 AM and drive back home for the timed mile at 9 AM-- these were ambitious plans that made me a bit nervous, but we managed it; we got in two days of beach and alcoholic beverages and skimboarding and skateboarding and boogie-boarding and cornhole and spikeball and impromptu musical jamming and the Tike Bar and LouDogs and Mike's Dog, etcetera and then got up early Monday and made it home for an epic 3-hour practice-- Alex survived the mile, he ran a 6:11 and the goal is to be under 6:15 and Ian-- who never runs unless he's playing a sport, ran an inspired 6:03 . . . but he did not do Sea Isle in a weekend, which may have helped his time (and Alex was out late for the first time with Dom and Nick, who are now college kids, so the times they are a'changing).
People Have Always Been Idiots . . .
Susan Wise Bauer's The History of the Medieval World is a massive and comprehensive chronological overview of recorded history "from the conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade" and my main takeaways, amidst the many names, empires, governances and betrayals-- enough to put Game of Thrones to shame-- is that people were just as absurd back then as they are today: Theodosius tried to keep the Roman Empire united in 380 but all folks were concerned about was the Arian vs. the Nicene take on the divinity of Christ-- it rivalled Monty Python-- the bishop Gregory of Nyssa complained in a sermon that if you asked for some change from a "cloak salesman" they just want to bend your ear about whether the Father is greater and the son is subject to him, etc, etc, so even then people were concerned with ridiculous political and religious abstractions instead of the matter at hand . . . and I also learned that in the larger Roman cities, chariot racing was like stock car racing-- you rooted for a team, not an individual driver-- and the sponsors of that team, which were broken into symbolic colors: red, white, blue and green-- and these boosters-- like soccer hooligans-- hated each other with great zeal, which led to riots and great violence-- 3000 blues wre killed in a 501 AD riot in Constantinople over some chariot race results . . . and this was not uncommon.
Dave Heroically Drives 7.4 Miles (Round Trip)
I had to borrow my neighbor's car today to make it on time for my bloodwork appointment at LabCorp this morning-- another requirement of my turning-50-physical-- and not only do I get dizzy when I think about giving blood, but I was also fasting-- so I'm proud to say I did not crash, dent or otherwise damage the loaner.
Heat Related Memory Loss Miracle!
Folks reported they were on my face yesterday when I left the workshop, but I searched the car and the house and everywhere else high and low and my new Zenni specs were nowhere to be found-- until I checked the pocket of the sports bag and there they were! but why there? Why . . .
Middle School Kids Don't Need Nice Things
I actually did some work today-- the college writing team met up at the middle school, zoomed with our Rutgers liaison, and then planned out the year-- but my main concern was not pedagogical, my main concern was that the middle school has INCREDIBLE air-conditioning, it was so cold in there we had to take a walk outside . . . and this is absurd-- why do skinny little middle-school kids doing earth science need such excellent climate control while the larger high school kids doing AP Physics have to endure the heat (and the heat is coming, yuck).
My Sternum Hurts (But Our Dished Are Clean)
Yesterday, I removed a dead dishwasher and installed a new one-- and it works!-- but my sternum hurts (the same thing that happened to me when I surfed a bunch in Costa Rica) from lying on my stomach fiddling with plumbing and drainage hoses and hot water spigots . . . anyway, we're trying to get back to the same amount of possessions we had before bad luck and the pandemic supply chain screwed us over . . . but used car prices are still through the roof and there is still a bike shortage, so while we're back to saving water and doing less dishwashing related labor, we're still not back to normal transportation-wise.
More Bang for Your Butt?
I got my fifty-year-old physical this week and the doctor was really pushing the colonoscopy-- I asked him about pooping in a box but he said that's not as reliable and you have to do it every year-- while a colonoscopy is good for ten years and because of the prep, it is a "complete reset for your colon"-- yuck-- and then he drew some pictures that made me dizzy and said that of any procedure, the colonoscopy is "the most bang for your buck" and then-- and he was trying to be optimistic, but I found it disturbing-- he said, "we like to start them now at 45, so you get one at 45, 55, 65, 75 . . . and then you're done" . . . so four colonoscopies and then you get to die!
Ouch (Momentarily)
Just before my son and I were about to play tennis, a wasp (or a yellowjacket?) stung my ring finger-- and it really hurt-- but just for a minute and then it totally went away (and wasps don't leave their stingers behind) and I think this pain and suffering inspired me to hit some excellent forehands.
New (Old) Music
I rerecorded an old song of mine with my new DAW (Logic) and my new AI mastering software (Ozone) and the AI drummer that comes with Logic and the result is pretty good-- I wish I could find the old version to play them side-by-side, but I'm positive the end result wasn't as crisp and couldn't played as loud without distortion-- while I'm definitely down on most pop-technology, especially Facebook and Twitter, it's a great time for audio-- whether podcasts, your own music, or the stuff your friends make and immediately post (and you don't have to LOOK at audio, which is the best thing about it).
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