Rainy Round Trip

Yesterday, we had an away match against JFK (Iselin) who slaughtered us 5-0 last time-- and we were scheduled to have four matches this week, so I told my players to treat the match like a practice and just work on one thing-- hitting backhand winners, drop shots, big first serves, whatever-- because I didn't want them to get worn out in a match we couldn't win-- my son Ian was playing an excellent player, maybe the best in our division (and the seven or eight seed in the county) so I made a point to not watch him because I tend to make faces that annoy him when he hits dopey shots-- and when I passed him by in the second set (which he was losing) all I said was "have fun, you're first serve looks great" and then I found out from the other coach that Ian had WON the first set 6-4 and meanwhile our third singles won because JFK was missing a player and second singles was doing well (doubles were getting smacked) and Ian lost the second set 6-3 (but he had never taken a set off this kid before) and then in the third Ian took the lead-- he was crushing his first serve-- so he was up 5-4 -- but he eventually lost 7-5 . . . he ran out of serves-- but still, a great outing for him-- first singles is no joke-- so he was very sore today for North Brunswick-- a match we could win-- but we took a ride over to my hometown and while it wasn't raining in Highland Park, it was raining in North Brunswick-- so we pulled up, I got out and chatted with the coach for a minute, and then we turned around and headed home . . . very annoying but you can't play tennis in the rain-- so now we have four matches in a row next week.

Hey Books . . . Stop Trying to be 100 gecs

I can't get a break lately with the mystery books I've been reading lately-- I'm done skewering books on my podcast (If Books Could Kill does a better job and I just want to read things that are smart-- I don't have the time and energy to debunk idiotic stuff) but I keep reading mysteries that turn into weird shitty sci-fi/horror/paranormal adventures (notably The Quiet Boy and The House Across the Lake) and not only is Adam Hamdy's The Other Side of Night a mystery gone wrong (that starts with typical mystery tropes, a tough female cop, dismissed from her job because no one witnessed a chase gone wrong-- but it wasn't her fault-- and she gets involved in a weird case because of a cryptic note in a library book, a possible suicide -- or possible death by misadventure, as they say in England-- and an abandoned child with a secret) but then turns into a shitty sci-fi novel with time travel and a total misunderstanding of the "block universe" theory-- the narrator, a physicist, writes "I embrace the block theory of the universe, because if time doesn't pass, if all moments exist simultaneously, my son and his love are out there right now, somewhere in the gathered multitude of moments"-- but obviously the author is NOT a physicist and normally I wouldn't have thought much of this sentence, just chalked it up to sci-fi mumbo jumbo, but I have been serendipitously listening to  the new Sam Harris episode, which  features a REAL physicist-- Tim Maudlin-- who explains some misunderstandings about this block universe theory- and the fact that time still passes within this theory and within this four dimensional space of the block-- all four dimensions means is that you need four coordinate points to locate an event-- the outlier being time-- and so I'm going to implore these genre writers to stop treating books like 100 gecs songs-- songs can mix genres easier than books because songs are shorter and you have less time to think about what's happening-- but if you have a moment to contemplate, then going from realistic crime fiction to ridiculous oversimplified time travel and sci-fi appears very silly and absurd.

Monday is the Day You Forget Shit

I keep a big push-broom in my car so that before tennis matches, I can sweep water and/or tree catkins (green fuzzy pollen shit) and samaras (helicopters) off the court-- I had to sweep quite a bit of tree debris today and then I put the broom in the corner and promptly forgot about it-- but one of the friendly adults who always plays on the courts once the match is finished reminded me to take the broom home and I thanked him for the reminder, and then in the midst of cleaning up all the other tennis equipment, I forgot the broom and I had to drive back to the park-- and then when I got home for the second time I noticed that my son Alex's glasses had arrived -- and his dorm is back in that direction but still, I'm not driving out there again.

gecs!

Last night, my wife and I, my son Alex, and his girlfriend Eva made a foray into the heart of Brooklyn-- to the Avant Gardner concert/warehouse/event space in Bushwick-- to see 100 gecs . . . because of the awful weather, we drove in and we hit some traffic on the way there (and we took a route through Staten Island I've never driven-- kind of nuts in the rain, especially because there were these DOT trucks with crazy flashing lights, sirens, and hypnotic symbols that were weirder and more stimulating than the light show at the concert . . . I need to contact someone about these fucking things) but we made it, parked in a strange little lot with an entertaining old and slow-moving attendant-- Mr. Green-- who my wife had a long conversation with in his little attendant shack while the rest of us stood in the rain-- apparently Mr. Green has nine kids and usually one of them runs the lot at night but she was sick so he was doing it-- and then we walked through some sort of warehouse district to the venue and there was a fair bit of line waiting and pat-downs and a futuristic bracelet that you linked to your credit card so you could get beers and such without using cash; the interior of the warehouse was expansive and gritty-- exposed beams and boards and brick-- and the crowd was a wide-ranging, gender-fluid whimsically dressed and pierced group-- very fun to people watch-- but the opening band: Machine Girl . . . two dudes who play insanely loud industrial punk rock (it doesn't sound like that on Spotify!) was a bit beyond my noise tolerance (luckily we brought some earplugs) and then the gecs came on and pretty much played every good song from their first two albums, plus a few others-- their songs are short so they crammed them all in, at an even faster pace than the recorded versions-- I was a bit disappointed in the fact that they rarely played guitars (a couple times) and used a lot of loops and computer recordings but my son pointed out that their sounds are so weird that if they tried to reproduce them live it would get muddy and sound awful-- and they did sound crisp and clear and really fun and fantastic and Laura Les put on quite a show, between her insanely autotuned singing and her silly banter, while Dylan Brady wore his giant wizard hat and played keyboards and weird synth drums and synched computer parts and occasionally sang-- we didn't get out of there until midnight, but the ride home was much faster than the ride there . . . a good night and probably something that won't happen very often: we went to see a band in a really hip space that both my son, my wife, me, and my son's girlfriend all enjoyed-- quite the miracle.

The Mysteries of Your Musical Taste . . . Part Two!

 

It's finally up . . . Part Two of my epic investigation of musical taste-- my thoughts are (loosely) based on This is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You by Susan Rogers and Ogi Ogas and Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction by Derek Thompson-- and I weave in loads of musical (and comedy sketch) clips and try to examine how our aesthetics tastes are formed (and possibly the futility of thinking they mean anything all that special).

Put Your Money Where Your Feet Is

Yesterday, my son Ian's feet were all messed up from the previous day's tennis match-- blisters and couple of toenails that looked like they were ready to rip off, so I told him he needed to cut his toenails or they were going to get worse but he said he was too tired and that he would do it in the morning and I said, "No way you're doing that before school . . . I'll bet you ten dollars you don't cut them" and he accepted the bet and-- surprisingly, he cut them-- so I paid out the bet but I told him this was the last time I was paying him to cut his toenails . . . I really hope that's true.

Tomorrow Morning is Double Convergence Friday!

While I'm not happy about the impending rainstorm (and accompanying blustery winds) that's going to make this weekend a washout (and make it difficult to get to the 100 gecs concert in Brooklyn) I am happy that I finally finished part II of my musical taste podcast-- if my podcast site goes back up any time soon, I'll put it online-- and I'm also happy that we've reached Friday in my Year-as-a-Week metaphor . . . tomorrow morning will be the convergence.

Tennis Etc.

So much tennis . . . and some Hamlet and some persuasive speeches in Public Speaking-- and a trip to the vet for Lola's exotic UTI-- hopefully the special urinalysis culture will give us the specific bacteria in her bladder that is causing the infection . . . but summer is coming.

Too Much to Bear

Because of some sort of copyright infringement, my high school had to remove the bear logo from their stadium turf field-- they hadn't paid to use it, so they had the field redone with a new original bear logo but now the bear is gigantic, off center, and far too realistic for a field logo . . . Coach Mckibbin says the bear looks great . . . if you're in a plane flying over the stadium . . . but even from a plane, it still wouldn't look like a logo, it has too many details, several shades of brown, a wide open red gullet-- while I'm not a graphic designer, in my humble opinion, this is a shit show (and who am I kidding . . . I'm not humble and this is not an opinion, it's fact).

From . . . Where Do They Come From?

A long day-- got up early to chip away at the new podcast episode, away tennis match in Metuchen, Catherine took the dog to the vet because she's got yet another UTI-- but we still had time to whip up a Hello Fresh meal and watch the season one finale of From . . . and it's scary and awesome-- we can't wait to check out season two.

Tracy Morgan . . . Back from the Dead

Over a decade ago, my wife and I saw Tracy Morgan perform his very profane, very insane brand of comedy at the State Theater-- the performance was underwhelming and downright weird at times; two years later, Morgan was in a limo that was struck by a Walmart truck and Morgan nearly died (another passenger, a fellow comedian, did die) but he survived, collected 90 million in damages, and returned to stand-up with a decent and celebratory Netflix special . . . Saturday night, my wife and I went to see him in a much smaller venue-- The Stress Factory in New Brunswick and he was much more entertaining-- his joes were too raunchy to transcribe here (but he did do 15 minutes on having sexual intercourse with very old women) and the crowd was either laughing hysterically, looking at each other as if to say "can we laugh at this" or doing both things simultaneously-- anyway, the house was packed, beyond sold out-- they crammed seats in every nook and cranny-- and obvioulsy Morgan is doing this because he loves doing stand-up (or sit-down . . . as he had to take frequent breaks-- he needed help to get on stage . . . unless that was a James Brown act) because he's got enough Walmart settlement money to retire . . . I don't think I'd see him again, but I'm glad he's back on his feet, making sexist, racist, politically incorrect non-sequiturs again-- actually living the life of 30 Rock's Tracy Jordan in reality.

Friday!

I went to school for five days in a row this week, but-- oddly-- I did not reach total enlightenment (nor were any prizes awarded).

My Turn!

 My kids like to take turns . . . getting in trouble (euphemistically known as experiential learning).

English Department Defeats Google . . . In Bed?

The other day I was racking my brain because I knew there was some situation where you insert the phrase "in bed" at the end of a sentence, for humorous effect, but I couldn't remember when you did this (and I was kind of mixing it up with Michael Scott's catch phrase "that's what she said") and I Googled it and it didn't come up so I thought I was losing my mind and that maybe I fabricated this idea and it was not a thing in the reality of our known universe but during lunch I asked my fellow English teachers and they said this was what you did with the little nugget of wisdom inside a fortune cookie and I was like "yes!" and I have no idea where this tradition originates but that's what I was thinking about-- "you will never hesitate to tackle the most difficult problems . . . in bed."

TV . . . It's What's On TV

Catherine and Ian were resistant to watching a new show-- they wanted to forge ahead with Money Heist (which is good, bit it's five million episodes so I wanted some variety) but I reminded them that in the old days you might watch a different show every day of the week and my wife conceded that point (although Ian didn't know what we were talking about) and so we started TWO shows-- both seems similar:  The Society and From . . . both shows are about being trapped in a town, both shows are creepy, and both shows are compelling-- I like From  a little better-- we ended up watching two episodes-- the pilot is pretty amazing-- and I think they will both provide a nice diversion from the infinite money heist.

The Raider Bird

A few hiccups today-- no Ian at first singles (got in some trouble at school) and Jakob was very late (Patrick retrieved him) but we still managed a 5-0 win over my alma mater, North Brunswick.

Your Musical Taste . . . Part One!

New episode of We Defy Augury up and streaming . . . "The Mysteries of Your Musical Taste: Part 1" . . .  the premise of this one is thoughts (loosely) based on This is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You by Susan Rogers and Ogi Ogas and Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction by Derek Thompson, but I included so many examples and clips-- Glenn Gould, Little Richard, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Billy Joel, Vulfpeck, Rage Against the Machine, The Shaggs, Steely Dan, Lightnin' Hopkins, Ornette Coleman, Herbie Hancock, The Crystal Method, The Flaming Lips, Pavement, Johnny Cash, Sonic Youth, Adele, Tom Petty, Jason Aldean, Bob Dylan, The Chemical Brothers, The Wu Tang Clan, Hamilton, and N.W.A.-- that I had to stretch it into two episodes.

Talk to the Bus Driver: He Might Be Famous

On the way to tennis matches, I always make a point to chat with the van driver-- because I'm sitting shotgun and it would be rude just to stare at my phone-- and the conversation is usually the standard drivel-- which is annoying but tolerable-- but today was different: our driver was a large fairly corpulent black dude who looked to be my age, and on the way to the match we got to chatting about punk rock venues in the New Brunswick, indie bands from back in the day, the industrial band Ministry, and other related nostalgia-- then our team played the hottest tennis match ever (in April-- record-setting heat) and we beat Sayreville 4-1 . . . Ian lost to another dinker but the rest of the team came through-- and then on the way home the bus driver and I chatted about the ruins of Amboy Cinema and the great movies of 1999 and we got on the topic of superhero movies and comic books and he mentioned Luke Cage and then he mentioned that the guy who played Luke Cage-- Mike Colter-- actually played him in a movie and I was like "what?" and he said, "I'm famous" and it turns out that he was not fucking with me, our van driver was indeed famous; his name is Daryle Lamont Jenkins and he's a political activist who is credited with pioneering the technique of "doxing" bad actors-- he goes after neo-Nazis and he is a proud leader of the Antifa and Mike Colter (Luke Cage) played him in a film called Skin . . . so the moral here is: normally when you talk to the bus driver, it's going to be about traffic and property taxes and car maintenance, but once in a while, you'll run into something completely different . . . so go ahead and roll the dice (the other thing I learned on this ride is that one of our tennis players is on the Highland Park Board of Health . . . he informed us that a particular restaurant did not have permits).

So Much For Spring

Hottest April tennis practice in history . . . but we played a fun game to make the points go quickly: tiebreaker to 7, you get one serve-- so you are hitting a second serve-- but returner has three shots to win the point-- if the server can get it back in play three times, the server wins the point-- very fun and taught kids to engineer and win points quickly, with a hard deep return or a drop shot, or get to the net and finish . . . hopefully this will pay off tomorrow when we play in the 90 degree heat.

Free to Die Whenever We Damned Please

The new Plain English podcast dives into a depressing question: "Why do Americans die so much younger than people in any other rich country?" and the answer is multi-faceted, but it can be boiled down to:

1) a proliferation of guns;

2) a proliferation of dangerous drugs- mainly opioids and fentanyl-- that lead to an incredible number of overdoses;

3) a proliferation of big cars, which we drive faster and more than people in other rich nations;

4) a proliferation of health and medical issues: our diet, unequal distribution of healthcare,  the fact that we drive more and walk less, which leads to poor health outcomes (aside from things we focus on, like prostate cancer)

5) the American attitude and character-- which can make us more creative and interesting and rich, but can also make us defend the proliferation of assault rifles, the right to drink giant Big Gulps, the right to not get vaccinated, the right to drive giant heavy deadly gas-guzzling cars, the right to live wherever we want and commute as long and far as we want, the right to do drugs, the right to NOT be filmed by traffic safety cameras, and the right to not provide a safety net for many of the workers in our nation . . . which provides cheap labor which is great for capitalism and may help us be the leading innovators in the world but may also help us be the best at dying as well.