mad scribblings

A Valentine's Day blast from the past.

2011-02-14T09:45:00.005-06:00

Have I got a box of Valentines Day Chocolates for you! Actually, it's a recycled box. And it's not chocolate. And it doesn't really come in a box. Anyhow, for your amusement, I'm posting here a couple of Valentines Day related essays (manifestos?) I wrote back in 1998. Before I was married. Before I had a proper blog (which I have largely ignored for the past couple years). Before everyone else had a proper blog. I used to write this stuff and email it to everyone on my email list. Here it is, out of context. Enjoy.

XOXO

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

[Feb 10, 1998]

ok...here we go.

take a deep breath, and graciously accept this bouquet of roses from me, off-color and slightly wilted though they might be.

on my drive into work today, i was told that what women want, what they really, really want (spice girls included) are 1K diamond earings from jewelry 3 [2011 Marc is unsure if Jewelry 3 is a store that exists any longer, but let's just say that the modern equivalent of said perfect gift is just about anything from the open hearts collection by Jane Seymour, available at Kay]. is that true ladies? just checking. see, i figure that if i give the right gift to the girl of my dreams, she will ignore my bad hair, crooked and slightly yellow teeth, my lack of washboard abs, my lack of adequate finances, the fact that i sing vaguely off-key, my collection of comic books, and poor self-image and will love me. and they cost only $97. apparently, the beatles were incorrect in assuming that they couldn't buy them love. of course, in the '80's, girls just wanted to have fun, and that was a bit more cost-effective. interesting when you think of the '80's as the decade of excess (and INXS), you wouldn't think economizing was such an issue. i gues cindy lauper was just ahead of her time. a real pioneer, that wacky girl was.

but on to the matters at hand.

in trying to make some sense of this whole valentine's day thing (something i have been trying to do for years, ever since the little tastless heart candy i got from dori bicek, in fourth grade said "hey dude" and the one that phil jones got said "be mine") i have researched the history of this blessed event. i have always felt, or rather, i have always been told, that if you understand the past, you are better prepared for the future.

now, as with all history, particularly history seeped in legend, one encounters the problem of conflicting reports. so i have compiled all the facts at hand, cross referenced them, and then filled in the blanks to try to give you an accurate, reliable, and archeologicaly supported historical reference.

the significance of february 14 dates back to before anybody thought to canonize Valentine (whose identity is in doubt anyway), possibly as far back as the fourth century b.c.. way back then, you see, romans had a lot to offer the world. domination, conquest, funny hats (they still have those, only you have to be a pope to wear them), latin and many, many, many gods. on february 14, one of these gods got a party thrown in her honor. juno, apparently the queen of the roman gods, known most for her support of the female gender in general, and the institution of marriage, specifically. i don't know what this particular shindig involved, but if the women's only parties i have spied on are any indication, i suspect paper hats, toilet paper, and strange party games were involved. what i do know about this day, is that towards the evening, the women, or girls, as the case may be, would write their names on a peice of paper (separate peices of paper, of course) and they would place them in a large shoebox decorated with hearts cut out of construction paper, elmer's glue, and glitter (if they wanted to get really fancy.) the neighborhood boys would then wander by, dressed to impress, collars turned up on their togas and sandles shined up for the occasion, perhaps a bit of sheep lard to hold their hair in place, and they would reach in the box and grab a slip of paper. the young lady whose name they drew would be their partner for the upcoming festivities of the feast of Lupercalia, which began the next day. other historical documents suggest that this young lady was to be the man's companion for the year, after which another lottery would take place. this hardly seems in keeping with the idea of juno as the goddess of marriage, but who is going to argue with ancient romans? a guy with a time machine, maybe.

at this time, i would like to voice my opposition to the "grab bag" method of choosing a date, and possibly a mate. true, those guys too shy to ask a girl to dance don't end up sulking in the olive groves, loathing themselves for their lack of courage. but on the other hand, it seems to take the choice out of the whole thing for the women. and what happens if there is an uneven number between the sexes in that town. this could lead to trouble.

the feast of Lupercalia was apparently a rite of passage for young men, and a festival in worship to the god lupercus, who, if honored properly, would protect flocks, and keep animals and people healthy and fertile. lupurcus really liked singing and dancing, so the romans did that a lot. amidst the singing and the dancing, goats and dogs were sacrificed, and the young men would make straps out of the skins, and they would run around the streets and then lash the women with those straps. apparantly, lupurcus liked that as much as he liked singing and dancing, so he would be pleased and would ensure fertility and easy child delivery to those women who would subject themselves to such behavior. now, something else the romans believed was that on february 14, doves and owls mated. not with each other. with other doves and owls, respectively. so this seemed like a good idea to the romans, so those who were paired in the "lottery" would slip off together and imitate the owls and dove. i suppose that means that they would hoot and coo at each other. i can't imagine what else that would mean.

this sort of thing went on for some time, but eventually, the roman gods fell out of vogue, and policy decisions began to be made by the Christian church, who also had a monopoly on party hats. They did not approve of this festival, but rather than do away with it completly, they dusted off good old saint valentine, and made a big deal out of him.

but i'll get to that tomorrow.

until then,
make love, not war

marc.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

[Feb 11, 1998]

hi, everyone. i hope you are all well. i have a splitting headache. well, not so much splitting as throbbing. have you ever had somebody repeatedly swing a rubber mallet at the inside of your brain? and then your brain bangs against the backs of your eyes? well, that's what i feel like. i have taken some painkillers, and intend to make another score soon, so don't worry about me. i will be comfortably numb soon enough.

of course, the headache didn't exactly help with the drive in. and the rain. visiblity was so bad that i wasn't sure if the vague shapes in front of me were other cars, or if perhaps those red glowing blurs were the eyes of some sort of demonic creatures. running backwards. very fast. it could happen.

and i kept repeating that nursery rhyme over and over in my head "rain, rain, go away..." it's been so long that i don't remember all the words, so that was pretty irritating. but then i began to think of the nature of children's songs, and i realized that they are little more than mantras that children repeat to themselves to conquer their fears. "ring around the rosey" is a little chant that dates back to when the black plague ravaged england. [2011 Marc has actually since heard evidence contradicting this, but as I don't know for sure, I choose to like the black plague story] "the itsy bitsy spider" casts a spider, a truly horrible creature (if you don't think spiders are horrible, rent "kingdom of the spiders" featuring william shatner in a role that will surprise you) as a determined hero. anyway, then i thought about how almost all "adult" songs deal with love in some way or another. and it occurred to me that like children, we sing about what we fear the most, which is, after all, love.

which brings me back to this whole valentine's day thing. (that previous paragraph was somewhat contrived and not very well-written. for that i apologize, but i present my headache as an excuse for all my faults today. )

in case anybody out there was wondering, of the ladies who have responded to my half-asked question, the vote is unanimous. the earrings that jewelry3 (stupid name, by the way) has been shilling are not the way to every woman's heart after all. i guess i have to take them all back. commercials have lied to me yet again. i'm going to have to stop believing everything i hear that happens to have a snappy jingle behind it.

but the real issue here is whatever happened to good old saint valentine. well, here's the deal. i have several versions of his tale that, while similar, are to some degree in conflict. plus, it's not clear if there was more than one valentine.

either way, like cupid, valentine, or valentinius, was a bit of a troublemaker. not so much because he flitted about shooting darts o' love into the hearts of unsuspecting potential lovers, but because the romans didn't much like christians. yet. so valentine was a christian, and as such (unlike many christians today) he was compassionate to his fellow man. woman. whatever. so he used to let the christians hide out at his swingin' bachelor pad when they were on the lam from the romans. to make matters worse, the emperor, one claudius II decided in his lead-poisoning induced madness, that if he abolished the practice of marriage, then he would have more soldiers in his army. without families, these men would have no excuse to not go about killing people. this, of course, seems a bit short-sighted to me. one would think this might lead to an eventual reduction in population, but he was the emperor, and who's to tell him that he has no clothes. well, valentinius, for one. Valentine took it upon himself to marry young couples who had such a desire. needless to say, this landed him in the pokey. the hoosegow. the slammer. the joint. the big house. whatever your favorite jail slang might be.

once in jail, valentine was a model prisoner, and the jailer was impressed with this kind and peaceful man, and would allow his daughter to spend her days with him. see, she was blind, and as such was no good around the house, so she would go to work with dad. always a good place for a young girl, prison. anyway, either they became pals, or valentine fell in love with her. it's unclear. maybe she wasn't so young. maybe there's something about valentine we don't know. anyway, legend has it that the day before he was executed, valentine wrote her a letter in ink that he pressed from violets, and signed it "from your valentine". wich seems odd, because the girl was blind. but, with violet ink, at least she could smell the card. miraculously, thought, when valentine gave her the card, her sight was restored. now. again, the story diverges. either he was executed as scheduled, or the jailer, pissed off that his daughter had fallen in love with this prisoner, clubbed him to death.

that's amore.

but, i tire of the history lesson. suffice it to say that when christians took over, they decided that a feast to the roman gods was a bad idea, so they made a big deal out of valentine and turned the feast of lupercus into Saint Valentine's day.

so for years and years, saint valentine had the honor reserved only for heads of state and rock stars, but probably because of his immense popularity, or because he was jaded by all the relationships gone sour that he was forced to oversee from his little pink room in heaven, he sold out. the catholics wouldn't stand for that, so they dropped him from their calender in 1969.

that's all for today.
more fun valentines facts tomorrow. probably.

later.
marc.

I lied at the end of that post. I did not post any more Valentines facts the next day. There may be some people still waiting for that follow-up post. Get used to disappointment.

XOXO

the return of sketch-of-the-day

2010-09-09T08:29:00.004-06:00

or, how I alienated myself from the other Cub Scout parents.Last night, I attended a parents meeting Cub Scouts. My older son, Ross has been in Cub Scouts for three years, heading into his fourth. Jack is excited to start. Me? I'm a little bit to cynical for most of it, and find some of it to be busy work that, but the kids seem to generally like it. And I like building cars with them to compete in the pine wood derby.

Anyhow, the purpose of this meeting was to split the new kids up into dens, and to attempt to cajole a parent or two into taking on the five-year commitment of being a the den leader. So we all sat around and tried not to make eye contact with the Pack leader. I started to doodle, and eventually the drawing above started to form.

I began to rather obsessively work it, adding on ink in an almost sculptural manner. It's not perfect. I didn't have my preferred drawing tools, and the paper wasn't ideal. But I sort of like it.

The parents seated near me seemed to be pretty okay with it when I declined to take on the role of den leader.

A review of a review...

2010-04-11T09:08:00.004-06:00

A "reviewer" of local plays (read: Guy With a Blog) took it upon himself to review the show I've directed (To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday), and man-oh-man was he offended that we--the community theatre company, the actors, the stagehands, the playwright--forced him to sit through it. Am I upset about a negative review? Not really. I went to art school. I've had numerous paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints critiqued, slammed and praised by qualified professionals whose work I admired as well as by curmudgeons whose best work was long behind them and by fellow students who had very little discernible talent. You have to develop a thick skin, and an ability to accept a critique for what it is -- an opinion -- and if possible, see your work through the eyes of others and use that information (if it's actually useful) to make better work in the future. So a negative review doesn't bother me all that much. But what does bother me is an intentionally snarky review with an agenda, and one that does not take into account the context in which the show is done.

The aforementioned reviewer (GWaB) claims that his intent is to fight "the perception that local/suburban theatre is not as good as 'Chicago' theatre." He intends to achieve this objective in part by warning people about those shows that he feels are not worth the price of admission, because "there's no one out there telling people what shows are worth the personal investment of money and time, and which ones are not." Thank god for blogspot, because otherwise, I would assume he'd have to stand out on the Eisenhower Expressway with a sandwich board, to prevent all those city commuters from coming out to the 'burbs in the event there might be a show that GWaB feel is not up to his mathematical standards.

GWaB has been heavily involved in local theatre for many years, including acting and directing at the very theatre at which my play is running. Might there be a conflict of interest? Not so, says GWaB, for he has disassociated himself from any theatre organization of which he may have been a member and has retired from stage work and directing. He apparently did so last week, when the last show he was in (at another local theatre) closed.

Since I have additional inside information, I should also disclose that GWaB's mission appears to have been inspired specifically because the theatre that's putting on my show doesn't make it a practice to post links to negative reviews of its shows.

Last year, I acted in a show that received an overly harsh review from one of the only sources for reviews of non-City theatre (another GWaB, but I won't call him that, because frankly, it will get confusing). The theatre's publicity staff chose not to post a link. GWaB was incensed. How dare we post only the positive review and not post the negative one? (Why the fuck would we?) Fast forward about 10 months or so, and that same reviewer came out to see our show. He doesn't like the script. He doesn't like our show. Okay. Fair enough. We're not going to link to it. GWaB sent an email to our publicity staff as well as to the webmaster email wondering why we don't. Since I used to be the webmaster for that theatre's web site, and since I've been too lazy to remove the auto-forwarding that sends me those emails, I saw the message. I responded to explain to GWaB that we are not attempting to suppress negative reviews, but we won't promote them. Like with movie posters and commercials. If Peter Travers from Rolling Stone likes your film, you're going to put his name and quote in your ad. If he doesn't, you won't. I would expect that he'd understand this. And his response to my email seemed to me that he conceded it was a valid point. Shortly after, he announced his blog and his intention of making his review of my show his first one.

I am in no way attempting to draw any sort of conclusion about any sort of personal beef between GWaB and myself, since I was first made aware of his weird obsession with getting the "truth" out there around a show I was in, and it comes full circle with his review of my show. At least I don't think it's personal. He was actually personally kind to me regarding that other show.

Enough exposition.

Does GWaB raise any valid points in his criticism? Some. When you get past all the snark and attitude, there is a kernel or two in there that might be useful information, should I choose to direct another show.

And he points out a rather major blunder on my part that had nothing to do with my directing abilities. Something that upon reading it, I was pretty embarrassed about. In my director's note in the program, I opened with the following:

Thank you for coming to see To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday. Like many, I was unfamiliar with this play when it was suggested as one of the possibilities for this season. I had seen the 1996 film version featuring Peter Gallagher and Michelle Pfieffer, and hadn't loved it. But when I read the script, I was interested to see that what didn't work so well in film could work differently on stage. I began to understand why this script was awarded the Oppenheimer Award for best play in 1983. And like you, I took a chance on a little known play.

The publisher of the play touts it as the "Oppenheimer Award Winner." It's been all over the press releases written about this show. Like GWaB, I hadn't heard of the Oppenheimer Award. Unlike GWaB, I didn't look it up. It seems that the Oppenheimer award isn't really all that prestigious. It is an actual award. But not in the same league as, say, the Pulitzer Prize. Okay, GWaB. You got me. I should have done my homework, or at the very least, just removed any reference to an award I knew nothing about. IN MY DIRECTOR'S NOTE.

GWaB spends three paragraphs on this. About 1/3 of his review was written before the play began, as he gleefully mocks the Oppenheimer Award and any reference to it. And then he goes on to rip the script and our production apart.

As a director, I know that ultimately, whatever ends up on stage is my responsibility. Do I acknowledge that I have put up on stage an imperfect work? Absolutely. I knew from the beginning that the production would have flaws. How do I dare put something before an audience with which I am not 100% satisfied? Almost no work of art - painting, film, music, theatre - is perfect. In all my endeavors, I set my bar very high. In art school, I never judged myself against my peers, but rather against the work of the great masters. Did I ever get there? No. I didn't. But I continue to try. I do the same with my theatrical endeavors. However, if I refused to act in a show because I can't do it like Sir Lawrence Olivier, or direct a show like Harold Prince, I would never grow as an artist. And that's why I continue to do it.

Both GWaB and the other reviewer who didn't like the show point out some very valid flaws in the script. Note that there are some people who absolutely LOVE this script. I am not one of them. I think there are some very nice moments in the script, but my tastes run to the macabre and the twisted. This show isn't that. And the general critique that the answers the script provides regarding love, loss and life are too pat is valid. This is a "nice" little show. It isn't one of our great American plays and I would be surprised if it is still being done 100 years from now.

GWaB makes a valid criticism when he says that HE FEELS that our production does not rise above or overcome the weaknesses inherent in the script. That's useful criticism: someone who saw our show wasn't dazzled enough by our collective skills to not notice that the script is imperfect. But when valid criticism is wrapped with the sort of glee evident in GWaB's "review," it loses it's ability to construct, and instead tears down.

The point that GWaB misses entirely is that we are engaged in "community theatre." I do theatre because I love it and enjoy it. I have SOME training, both in acting and directing, but I am not a professional. And this show is not presented as a professional production. The actors in the show all have varying backgrounds, skill and experience levels. We all behave as professionally as we can, and attempt to deliver the most professional product of which we are capable. Each actor in the show is giving what he/she has, to his/her level of ability. And I'm directing to my ability. Throughout I have seen enormous growth from those with less experience. There are people on that stage that are stretching beyond their comfort zones. GWaB would say, I think, that the audience doesn't care about that stuff. But I care. I'm very pleased with the work these actors have done.

Now that the show has been running for three weeks, and I've been able to sit back and watch it as an audience member several times, there are probably some things I would change. I'm not surprised by this. It happens in all my artistic endeavors. I critique my own work, too. I always have. But I'm not embarrassed about the work we did, and the show we have, warts and all.

GWaB ends his "review" by putting a price sticker on what he feels the show is worth. His whole hook is "is the show worth the price of admission?". In his intro to his blog, GWaB states that he's putting "his" price on the ticket because... you know... for your $18 you can get a lot of DVD rentals from the Redbox (ignoring fully the economies of producing a show, of which GWaB is fully aware). But GWaB gives the show an arbitrary price tag, with no indication of how he got to that price. I think it's fair to suggest that a show is, or isn't the price of admission, but to put an arbitrary price tag on it just ads to the overall snarkiness evident throughout.

I wish GWaB had liked our show. I really do. I want everyone to like it. But that's how it goes. Many people have liked the show. Some have not. On the other hand, GWaB took it upon himself to target our production as his virgin review. He suggests that people should ask him to come review their shows. He'll do it on his dime. Bully for him. We did not extend a personal invitation to him. Not because I was afraid of what he might say, but because had my suspicions of how he'd say it.

Jack Daniels: Scientist

2008-02-29T13:28:00.004-06:00

despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage.
-Smashing Pumpkins "Bullet with Butterfly Wings"

Again, I appear to have missed my calling. I came across a story today about some "research" done in Japan on the effects of alcohol, and whether or not one can actually drown one's sorrows.

So here's how they tested this:

The researchers, led by pharmacology professor Norio Matsuki, gave mild shocks to lab rats to condition them to fear. As a result, the rats would freeze in terror and curl up the moment they were put in their cages.

Researchers then immediately injected the rats with ethanol or saline.

Let me parse this a little bit. First, we have to consider from whose perspective should we consider the shocks "mild". Mild to humans (which can be at worst, uncomfortable, often beneficial, and in some cases pleasurable)? Because I'm not sure if a shock considered "mild" for a rat would condition a rat to fear and "freeze in terror and curl up" when it was put in it's cage. But I'm no expert on rats. So maybe it would. Or perhaps rats are particularly wary of needles, so the part that really scares them is the injection. That would explain the need to inject the saline in the control group. Because...what's the point of the saline?

Okay. So, experiment performed, here's what my scientist friends observed:

The researchers found that rats with alcohol in their veins froze up for longer, with the fear on average lasting two weeks, compared with rats that did not receive injections.

And the brilliant conclusion:

If we apply this study to humans, the memories they are trying to get rid of will remain strongly, even if they drink alcohol to try to forget an event they dislike and be in a merry mood for the moment...The following day, they won't remember the merriness that they felt.

Now, I've been performing experiments on myself involving various concentrations of alcohol derived from myriad sources for almost 20 years. I feel that my research has been pretty complete. I have used alcohol derived from grapes, mixtures of various grains, sugar, potatoes, and the occasional desert plant. I have avoided injections, preferring to ingest the chemicals orally.

While my research is ongoing, I feel that I can with confidence report the following observations:

Consumption of alcohol in large quantities changes the subject's perception of the intensity of a "mild" electrical shock.
Consumption of alcohol in large quantities eliminates the terror one feels when a "strong" electrical shock is administered. It's best to consume the alcohol BEFORE the administration of any stimulus that might lead to unpleasant memories.
Alcohol cannot erase memories created prior to its consumption when ingested in quantities that can be processed safely by the human body. Research in this area is ongoing.
Regular alcohol consumption over an extended period of time can interfere with one's ability to create new memories. One could extrapolate from here and determine that if one expects a future consisting of less-than-ideal circumstances, it's a good idea to drink early and often to avoid the the long term effects of the memories those circumstances might generate.
Memories created while consuming alcohol often lack detail and clarity. They cannot be trusted or used as evidence. Photographs taken of subjects of these experiments can be a useful tool for documentation, but can also be digitally altered. Don't believe everything you see.
The above two points are the key to avoiding the creation of additional unpleasant memories. The advantage to using the second method is that one is often heroic in the memories that are created during the consumption of alcohol. (Note: This is only effective is all persons who share the memory are also participating in the experiment.)

Now, I haven't written my findings up in some sort of sciencey format and published them in the journal "Neuropsychopharmacology" like my Japanese counterparts. But I'm willing to bet that my research has a lot more to do with the effects of alcohol on humans than theirs does. And the "merriness" that one feels...well...that's really the point, isn't it?

Stupid scientists.

lunch

2008-02-26T13:01:00.003-06:00

i'm sick today. not feeling well with some variation of whatever virus is floating around at present. I can't breathe too deeply, because when i do, it sets off a coughing fit. And looking at things hurts my eyes a little bit. Generally, I'm a bit uncomfortable.

But i'm at work. Why? because I don't have any sick days. That's the big downside of being a freelancer: no sick days. And I need the money, so I soldier on. The one thing I had to look forward to today--my only small pleasure--was lunch. And even that has let me down.

To begin with, I grabbed a frozen something out of the freezer on my way to the car. I was unsure what it was, but I assumed it would be a part of a meal that Polly had put in the freezer for this very purpose. Turns out I was wrong. Nope. Just some random sauce. Would have tasted great if there was a chicken breast and some rice to go with it.

Not to worry! There's a full service cafeteria in the building. They have a large variety of reasonably priced food, prepared on site that is usually somewhere between edible and good. Sometimes even very good. Looking over today's specials, I noticed with interest that the chefs had highlighted a gyros plate (had it before--passable, but not great), a "deep-dish vegetarian pizza" and a taco salad type thing in a tortilla bowl. I wasn't sure what was special about the pizza, as they usually have it there, but perhaps it's because this one didn't have any meat on it. I got in line for the taco-salad thing, but watching an actual Mexican ladle some melted Velveeta into this bowl-thing sort of made me sad and a little bit sick.

So I decided to try the pizza.

Here's the part where I should have followed my own instincts. The pizza didn't look good. It did smell good, but it didn't appear to have much in the way of toppings. I convinced myself that there had to be more to it than there appeared to be. I've seen people eating the pizza here. There must be something to it.

Nope. It was basically a lump of mushy just barely cooked and not very tasty "pizza" dough with an embarrasingly small amount of cheese on top. The sauce was, at best, an afterthought.

So...my lunch sucked.

On the other hand, it could have been worse. I happened to be reading the following article about Cheesebugers in a Can.

Hey...what's in your bag? Wanna trade?

ow.

2008-02-07T12:21:00.000-06:00

here i am again. apologizing for my inattention to you, my blogfriend.

this is a short post...mostly because of the shooting pain I feel when typing. it seems that whatever ailment I have in my right arm--likely tendonitis--has been exacerbated by whatever movements I use to shovel snow. And I've been shoveling a lot of snow lately. I don't think it's normal for my pinky and ring finger to be both numb and in pain. Oh well.

felt like a bit of jerk yesterday. a client of mine from Tennessee contacted me regarding a project i'm working on, and he let me know that they were a bit wet, but still standing. I replied with a vague statement about how much snow we're getting in Chicago. After hitting "send," it occurred to me how silly it was to compare a little snow storm with the massive devastation brought on by all the tornadoes down south. we can be dumb sometimes.

on an amusing note: I walked into work today behind a young woman who works on my floor. I don't know her, but I've seen her around. She's a stereotypical pseudo-flower child. There's about 2 inches or more of slush all over the pavement. She was wearing her Birkenstocks. To be fair, they weren't open toed Birkenstocks, and she was wearing socks, but there is no way her feet stayed dry between her vehicle and the building. I don't understand being so committed to one's lifestyle that one is willing to suffer wet, uncomfortable socks for the rest of the day. I'm just funny that way.

sketch of the day...on steroids

2007-12-28T09:20:00.001-06:00

I Hate Hamlet poster, originally uploaded by basest.

Hi there. It's been a little while...and I have some things about which to write. However, I haven't really had time to actually write. Christmas. Work. These things get in the way.

And then I realized yesterday that I was WAY behind on a poster Illustration I need to do for a theatrical production opening at the end of January.

Here's the ink illustration that I completed last night. The tones were done in photoshop. I will be coloring it tonight or tomorrow with watercolor and qouache.

Corporate Haiku

2007-12-18T08:40:00.000-06:00

large, black rectangle
I report to work today
elevator up

Oh! Possum!

2007-12-13T15:56:00.000-06:00

or, what I did last night...

[a word of warning before we get into this: there are two photos at the bottom of this post. they are a bit graphic. you've been warned.]

I'm concerned about the opossum population in my area. In particular, the rabid opossums. Okay, here's the deal. I had an exceptionally vivid dream last night in which an opossum attacked my son Jack. It's jaws clamped down on his face, and I had to heroically pry the animal's jaw apart.

The beast was determined to attack anew, so I was forced to continue to spread the jaw apart until I was able to snap it's lower jaw off completely. It was very grotesque.

My psyche is a very strange place.

I don't know why I was thinking about opossums, though--I haven't seen one in quite some time. Where I live now, I've seen foxes, coyotes, skunks...no opossums. Probably because there aren't many trees. I think they like trees. I used to see them on occasion around the house in which I grew up, especially once the woods behind the house was destroyed to make way for the 6 lane highway that was put through it. Once we had a mother and her six babies nest beneath our stoop. It used to hiss at me from the small tree next to the front door when I would exit the house.

I like opossums, though. They're odd looking...kind of ugly, actually. But I think that whole "playing dead" thing is kind of funny. So even if I had any desire to pry ANY animal's jaws apart, I don't have a particularly strong one to harm an opossum in that way.

It did make me think of the saddest photos I've ever shot. I happened to be in a photography class at the time. Our assignment was "texture." I was driving around looking for textures to shoot. I'd already done the usual peeling paint and aged concrete. I was looking for something more unusual, and I noticed some roadkill.

I shot these to photos with cars whizzing by in both directions--the opossum was lying in the middle of the road. Poor little thing. It still makes me a little sad.

opossum roadkill 1, originally uploaded by basest.

it's not you...it's me

2007-12-11T15:11:00.000-06:00

Dear Blog,

I know I've been a bit distant lately, but don't take it personally. It has nothing to do with you. You haven't done anything wrong, and my feelings for you haven't changed. I've just had a lot on my mind.

The holidays are a very busy time. They are for me, anyhow. And to tell you the truth, I'd rather not make a half-assed attempt to write to you. I want you to know that you are worthy of my BEST. I don't want to tease you with only a little bit of attention and leave you unsatisfied.

I haven't been spending any time with my sketchbook, either, so don't start with that. You know that whenever I do, I always tell you, and show you what we've done. And to tell you the truth, you haven't been very supportive of that. You hardly say a word when I show you my drawings.

Look...I have to go. I don't really have time for this right now.

This.

An argument. Your jealousy.

Okay. Okay. Maybe jealousy is a strong word. Let's just drop it. I promise, we'll talk about this later.

...when I can give you the attention you deserve.

okay?

I'm really looking forward to discussing our feelings. I love you.

All I want for Christmas is for my body to hold together just a little while longer...

2007-11-29T12:45:00.000-06:00

As I arrived home yesterday evening, my oldest child (Ross, 6yrs old) burst into the garage. He could barely contain himself. I couldn't hear him--the windows were up, and the only sound that would leak through anyhow was the sound of the engine reverberating off the various surfaces in the garage. But I could tell that he was shouting something. Once I finally gathered my things and extricated myself from the vehicle, I could finally understand what all the excitement was about.

He had a loose tooth.

This is huge. A big milestone. It's his first, and while he was an early teether, most of his friends have lost at least one tooth already. His contemporaries look like they belong at a convention of Tennessee mountain folk. When I see a group of them together, I have to fight the urge to pass out banjos, washboards and jugs. Not even the fact that he's one of the few kids his age anywhere with a silver tooth (he calls it his "bling") has dulled his ache to start losing teeth.

And I guess that's the big difference between being young and getting old. I'm pretty content to have all my body parts stay more or less attached. In fact, I'd be pretty alarmed if they didn't.

a true fax

2007-11-21T12:44:00.001-06:00

a true fax, originally uploaded by basest.

Let me start by saying that while I continue to be a little bit skeptical about the benefits of the slogans and platitudes that my current pseudoemployer displays to motivate it's workers, it is generally a decent place to work. I've had no complaints thus far. (Give me time, I'm sure I'll come up with something...)

Not everybody is as pleased with Office Max as I am. Much to my amusement, I found the above fax transmission that had somehow ended up at the fax machine on my floor.

I don't know how it ended up there. I don't believe there are customer service people on my floor.

And I don't really know what happened to this person to make them so angry. What kind of speech could Office Max possibly try to be silencing?

I do know that someone with access to a fax machine at the offices of Pacific Gas and Electric is very angry. I hope he has a better day tomorrow.

girlsketch_111907

2007-11-20T14:07:00.001-06:00

girlsketch_111907, originally uploaded by basest.

Don't have much to say today...or much time to write the many words I normally use to say so little. So here's a little sketch I whipped off in a minute or two.

I liked the energy of the drawing. Unfortunately, when I was finished, I realized her head wasn't properly attached to her body. I fixed it in the scan.

I'm interested in Truth in art...but sometimes you have to massage the truth a little bit to make it palatable.

today's report from the workplace

2007-11-16T14:36:00.000-06:00

My status as an employee of the Company where I work is a little bit strange. I am not a true employee, as my paychecks come from a placement service, not the Large Office Supply Corporation where I work. This has its advantages and disadvantages. The biggest disadvantage is that I can't be sure whether or not I will have a job from week to week, or even day to day. A smaller inconvenience is that I am not allowed directly into the building, but rather have to login to a security computer every day and print out a new identification card that says "VISITOR", clearly signifying to anyone who might care to look at my badge that I don't genuinely belong. (I suppose this is a step up from high school, where my fellow students didn't need any sort of identification. They assumed that I didn't belong.)

The upside to this is that even though I otherwise function as a full-time employee, I feel free to park my car in the spaces reserved for visitors. It's the perk I give myself as a pseudoemployee.

This morning, the gentleman in front of me was having some difficulty logging in as a visitor. As it happens, he wasn't a freelancer like me... more of an actual "visitor". Visiting. And it had been some time since his last visit, so his information was no longer active in the database. If I saved any time by parking in the visitor spaces this morning, I lost it because I was waiting for this guy to be processed.

This gave me some time to glance around the building some. I actually like the building, but find some aspects of it unsettling. It's five floors, not including the basement, which houses the cafeteria. The office spaces are all centered around an atrium, so there is a lot of open space in the building. There's also a hole cut out of the lobby floor to expose parts of the eating area of the cafeteria. This creates a strange sense of space that I'm sure the architects designed to make the interior of the building even larger than it is, but in me manages to induce a slight sense of vertigo. I avoid walking to close to the edge of the walkway. Even though there's a 40inch glass wall to keep me safe, I imagine myself plummeting to my death and really spoiling someone's lunch.

The Company sends mixed messages to it's employees in the form of slogans applied in large vinyl appliqué letters applied to various glass surfaces throughout the building. From my side of the building, I can see the tagline "passionate | innovative | fun" repeated in a friendly font along a whimsical curvy path. This is on the windows on the third floor. If my work area was located on the other side of the office, the direction from which I was looking this morning, standing by the security station, I would get a completely different message.

Those on the South side of the building enjoy a different kind of inspiration. If your perspective finds you facing north, you will read five different phrases:

focus & discipline
sense of urgency
think company & customer first
teamwork & trust
integrity & accountability

Instead of following a curved path in a light typeface, these messages are bold and straight. Less friendly. At least they're lower case, otherwise, it would be a really aggressive use of type.

So today I count myself lucky that while I work I'm reminded to be passionate, innovative and fun. Or...at worst, to work on my enilpicsid & sucof.

art therapy

2007-11-05T10:47:00.001-06:00

Over the weekend, I spent a good portion of time coaxing the likeness of a dead man and his wife out of a charcoal pencil. I happen to be able to somewhat accurately render people's portraits in a variety of media--charcoal, oil paint, watercolor. I can't recall when I discovered this skill, but I have reasonably good portraits dating back to high school. Actually, I have a pretty nice piece that I drew of my grandfather who died when I was in 8th grade. I'm better now...but for that age, I wasn't bad.

When I was younger, most of my subjects had been alive when I drew them. Often they were girls to whom I was trying to ingratiate myself. (They were flattered, but I rarely achieved my intended objective.)

Around this time of year in 1999, I quickly drew a portrait of Polly's dad for use on the memorial folder at his wake/funeral. This turned out to be a good marketing move. That drawing has led to a fair amount of portrait commissions. I haven't exactly kept track of it, but I'm pretty certain that I have sold more portraits than any other kind of art. Not that I've really focused on selling my art.

While I have been commissioned to do a fair amount of live people--children, engagement portraits, that sort of thing--I have also drawn probably more than my share of dead people. I don't mind. It's nice that I can do it, and those left behind often appreciate it. It has lead to the occasional awkward exchange. I can think of at least one family member who liked the memorial portrait I had done of one relative or other that he wanted to be sure that when he shuffled off this mortal coil, I was ready to capture his likeness. I don't think I have to work from his actual corpse. I think it's probably okay to use a photo.

Which begs the question: is it a life drawing or a still life? Not a bad name for an exhibition of these death portraits...something to consider.

Speaking of exhibits, recently I entered a not-so-recent painting into a local art show. I felt a bit fraudulent, because my artistic output has mostly been limited to random sketches, some illustrations for theatre posters and the occasional portrait commission. The piece I entered was done in 2000. However, the requirements for the show was that the artist resided in the Fox Valley area, the work was ready to hang and it hadn't been entered in this same show in previous years. Age didn't matter. I presume the Mona Lisa could have been entered, if the Louvre was inclined to loan it out. And if Leonardo DaVinci's remains had been exhumed and moved to Aurora.

The show is called "Vicinity 2007" and the theme is that all the artists live within some radius of the gallery. I entered in the show for a couple reasons. There were five monetary prizes, one for $1000 and four for $250. Those would have been nice, but I really didn't expect to win. (And I would have really thought myself a fraud if I had won, since the work was so old. Still would have cashed the check, though.) The real reason was to pad my resume. I want to get in the habit of making art work and exhibiting it, and I wanted more juried shows to name check for that purpose.

About a year and a half ago, I did a solo exhibit of my work. All of it was old work. It was my intent that it would be the last time this stuff was shown, and I would start to make new work. I called the show "Cobwebs" and promised myself that I would take this opportunity to dust off my creativity and start to make new work. My hope was to have built up a large enough body of work to do another solo exhibit of new work within a year.

I broke that promise.

So feeling like a bit of a failure, I attended the opening reception for the Vicinity show yesterday. It was a bit of an odd experience, but would have been odder if I had more invested emotionally in it. I went with Polly and her mother, and we took the three kids along. I wasn't crazy about the idea of taking the kids along. Polly didn't think it would be a big deal. Nothing that happened at the exhibit change either of our opinions. Our kids are relatively well behaved (with the exception of Rosalie, who at 2 has taken the idea of the terrible twos to heart). No scenes were made. No art was ripped off the walls. Ultimately, I wasn't able to relax and focus on the event and look at the art and hang around anonymously near my painting and listen to other people's comments about it because I was more focused on what the kids were doing. So I guess it's just a matter of opinion. That said, I did enjoy talking to Ross (my six-year old) about the art. I just would rather have done it when the gallery was less occupied.

I didn't win any prizes. Not even an honorable mention. I don't know if I would have known before the event whether or not my work had been awarded. Even so: while I would have felt a fraud had I won anything, and didn't expect to win a little part of me was disappointed. I guess I'm just a little bit human.

(The piece I entered in the exhibit is below...it's a portrait of my uncle and grandmother from a photo taken when they were in Cuba, juxtaposed with political iconography. There was a theme running through my work about 7 years ago that dealt with some of those ideas.)

santos de la revolución 2000, originally uploaded by basest.

another day, another drawing

2007-11-03T05:39:00.001-06:00

creepy-old-man, originally uploaded by basest.

All is quiet on the western front...or whichever front upon which I happen to be. Instead, I present you with yet another quick sketch I did at work. This time, I wasn't even waiting for my computer to do anything...I was just...

waiting.

I was sort of playing with using lines to create the illustion of drapery in the guy's cloak (frock, habit, whatever he's wearing). I think I was successful in some parts.

sketch of the day

2007-11-02T08:26:00.001-06:00

snow-beach, originally uploaded by basest.

nothing really to say about this. just a random sketch done at work while waiting for a really giant file to save. I wasn't even doing anything to the file, just saving it in two variable press-ready formats. The whole process took me about 1 1/2 hours. The sketch didn't take that long. I'm slow...but not that slow.

Phoctober

2007-10-30T23:01:00.000-06:00

okay...
So here's the deal. Maht over at the Moontopples blog took some really nice photos in late september and thought that he'd commit to doing a photo post every day in the month of October. He called it "Phoctober" because it sounded vaguely dirty. He invited anyone who wanted to participate to join in the Phoctober festivities, and to let him know, and he'd link back to those who joined in the fun.

He even linked back to my birth control test post without me asking him to do so. Awfully nice of him to do so, since I had intended to participate, and kept putting it off.

Last night, I went through some of the photos I took throughout the month of october, intending to do one big Phoctober post that sort of chronicled my month in visual terms. Most of the photos I took were of weather phenomena. There were some foggy morning shots, as well as some beautiful sunrises that looked like Maxfield Parrish had painted the sky above my house. And then there were the photographs I took of my son Ross the day he had an angry confrontation with some pavement.

Apparently one of his friends was tugging on Ross' shirt and let go. Ross tumbled forward and hit the ground, resulting in some nasty looking abrasions.

We weren't super concerned about this...kids will get hurt. I don't really like it when the kids get hurt. But I do like to take photos of their injuries, if they are particularly notable. I'm just weird that way.

As I was deciding which photos to run for my Phoctober post, I had some difficulty deciding how to crop the photo of Ross' injury. It was interesting to me to see how the photo changed depending on how I chose to frame it. This quickly became more fascinating to me than the various weather phenomena I photographed. The photos are at turns sad...chilling...defiant...confrontational.

I'm curious how each photo affects you, blogreader. Let me know what you think. Does each one affect you differently? Or am I just a bit mad?

Just remember: no children were intentionally harmed in the posting of this blog.

East of Scranton

2007-10-30T10:23:00.001-06:00

I'm at work.

I've been at work since 8:30. Okay...more like 8:37, and by the time I checked in through security and got up to my "cubicle" on the 4th floor, it was closer to 8:45. It's 9:35 now. Do you want to know how much work I've done?

none

not one bit

This wouldn't be a problem if I wasn't freelancing. I want to appear to be valuable to this company so that they keep me.

But it's been a while since I wrote about work, so you may be confused. You may recall that the last time I wrote about work, I was working on the catalog for a medical supply company. At the time, I called it a short-term assignment. I think when I wrote that, I believed short-term meant 1-2 weeks. I was wrong. I suspect that if I had been happy with the hourly rate there, I would still be working there. When I finally found better paying and more interesting work through a different placement service, I was told repeatedly that I would be welcome back any time. Unlike my former employer, these people seemed to think that I was actually a valuable asset to a company. Then again, they weren't paying me as much...

Anyhow, I got the chance to leave that job for a more interesting one that was closer to home and paid better. It was supposed to be a week, with the possibility for extension. They were a packaging design company. I worked on a bag of Easter Eggs for Tootsie Roll (coming to a WalMart near you this spring) and some boxes for solar path lighting. My favourite was the color changing ones. You can get these lights that are ugly enough during the day, but at night, they harness the power of the sun that they've been soaking up all day to create a disco-esque atmosphere of light that changes from blue to green to red and back again. Groovy!

So that job went on for a week, and they were really happy with me. And I really liked it there. The commute was reasonable, and the work was almost fun. By Wednesday, I was told that they wanted to keep me, probably for six more months. On Friday, I was told that they wouldn't need me the following week, but if I could return on the week after that, then they'd need me for six more months. My representative from my placement service called me on my way home and told me that they wanted to know if I'd be willing to work for a little bit less, if they could guarantee a longer term assignment. I said I had to think about it.

This is the problem with working for a small company. Their budgets are too tight. A large corporation where one can become faceless is starting to look good, if I want to make a decent living.

By Tuesday of the following week, I was talking to a variety of reps from the same agency about three different jobs. Technically, I was still in the mix to come back for the packaging job, but they seemed really interested in getting a better deal. And they couldn't commit to bringing me back when they had agreed to do so. The big project that they wanted me for was taking a little bit longer to get started. It was a bad omen, anyhow, when I heard who the client was, as they were also a client of my previous employer--one of the projects that I was accused of mismanaging when I was fired. (It was my boss' client. He was on vacation during a crucial point in the project. This was my fault, apparently).

Anyhow, it appears that since I was such a hit at my first assignment for this particular placement service, the reps actually tried to get me placed elsewhere. On Thursday of that week, at 9am, I found myself navigating the byzantine security procedures of the corporate headquarters of Office Max.

Once I was photographed, fingerprinted and frisked, I was given a visitor pass and allowed to wait in the designated waiting area. A woman sat opposite me with two large road cases--I told her that I had chosen to travel light that day. It got a laugh. When I was single, it would have been a nice opening to conversation with this desirable specimen of the opposite sex. When I was single, I would probably not have been able to get the words out. Funny how easy it is to speak with people when there's nothing at stake. Two quick sketches later, I was greeted by a guy about my age who introduced himself as "not Eugene." Eugene was the guy to whom I was supposed to report. I soon discovered that one doesn't get to speak to Eugene for very long. He runs around a lot and attends many meetings. I don't envy his job.

On the way up to the fourth floor, "not Eugene" told me his name was actually Scott Swan. We made a little small talk about traffic and he showed me to my work area. In the first paragraph, I referred to my "cubicle". I put it in quotation marks, as I have again here. The reason is that they seem to have run out of space, and so I'm really sort of just out in an open area. It's a bit weird. Better than a broom closet, though. And I have a really nice view out some really big windows.

Scott told me that he didn't know what I'd be working on, but that Dwight, who was in a meeting but would be out shortly would be responsible for giving me work.

That's right. I work for an office supply company, and one of the guys who I work for is called Dwight. If you don't watch the US version of The Office, this might mean nothing to you, but if you do, you will understand why I am amused every time I think of this.

Dwight's last name is Darling. I began to worry that I did not have an appropriate name to work here, but it turns out that so far, Scott and Dwight are the only two alliterative names that I have encountered here at Office Max.

So anyhow, Dwight took me around and showed me examples of what the creative department did at Office Max, and then threw a little assignment at me.

I've been working for a long time in situations that require extremely quick turnaround. I think Dwight didn't expect me to finish as quickly as I did. I now know that he was impressed with my speed and thought the end result was good. But for the first few couple days, I was sort of left to flounder. I like to distinguish myself quickly as a valuable asset. It wasn't until the middle of the second week that I began to understand that I was allowed to take more time with things. Not that I need it.

Which is why I find myself sitting here getting paid to write my blog. Oh wait...looks like someone has something for me. Off to earn my keep.

Forgive me, blogger, for I have sinned...

2007-10-24T11:50:00.000-06:00

...it's been 26 days since my last posting.

Many things can be ignored or otherwise neglected for a period of 26 days with few to no consequences. Unpaid bills might pile up, but you don't go into collections until at least 3 months. The lawn might begin to look untidy, and one's personal appearance might as well.

But there are a few things in one's life that if left neglected, can lead to somewhat dire circumstances. For instance, one's children. Or fish. Either of these could die if ignored for such an extended length of time.

One's spouse or significant other would probably not die of neglect, assuming she (or he) was capable of caring for herself. On the other hand, she might not be there when you come back. And she might be upset about the kids.

And I suppose that a sexually active woman might notice if she missed her period by 26 days. It might motivate her to drive to the local pharmacy or grocery store and purchase a pregnancy test.

I happened to drive up to the liquor entrance to the Woodman's Grocery Story near my home and saw a curiously shaped object on the ground in the parking lot as I exited my car. I knew instantly what this thing was. I've seen at least three of them in my lifetime.

Curious, I approached. Closer inspection confirmed my suspicion. It was a home pregnancy test, and it had been used. I was thankful that the results side was exposed. I wasn't looking forward to touching an object that I was certain had been in contact with someone else's urine. But I also knew that my curiousity would not be satisfied unless I was able to share in the joy or despair of the human being with whom I was now connected in this unusual way.

The photo is terrible. It's taken with my cellphone's camera. However, what is clear is the line that indicates that the test was positive. For my new friend, whoever/wherever she may be, I hope that postive is a good thing.

I wonder if she'll name it after me?

fútbol americano

2007-09-28T22:11:00.000-06:00

About once a year, I have the honor of being Polly's late father's cousin's cold weather date to a Chicago Bears football game. (For my international readers, that's the game played with a brown oblong ball that is mostly carried in the players' hands. Only one or two people on the field actually strike the ball with their feet. You may have heard of this bizarre sport--it's quite a big deal here in the USA.) Bill has held season tickets for quite some time, and his seats are quite good. First row, 23rd yard line. It's a pretty good way to see a football game.

(The photo above should give you some idea of how good these seats are--somehow I thought a photo of people taking photographs would be more clever than it turned out to be. Oh well...)

While many cities in areas prone to sub-zero temperatures have built enclosed domes in which to play this sporting event, Chicago has not chosen to do so. In fact, the stadium was recently renovated and instead of putting a dome on top, they created this odd structure that looks as if a large toilet bowl seat had been installed on top of the classic architecture they were trying to retain. It's pretty damned ugly, but you'll have to take my word for it. I tried to find a good photo of it, but it's late, I'm tired, and I didn't find anything immediately.

Normally, I am wrapped in many layers of clothing, including several military-issue garments designed to keep soldiers warm in Siberia. By halftime, I can barely feel my fingers and have to remind myself that I once had toes.

It so happened, however, that Bill was going to be out of the country, and would miss last Sunday's game. Since it was going to be Polly's birthday on Monday, he gave us his tickets for the game. So for the first time in several years, I was going to enjoy watching a football game without glancing around to see if there might not be a large drunken fan around that might not mind too much if I were to slice open his belly and crawl inside for warmth in the 4th quarter.

People who know me know that I'm not really much of a sports fan. I don't plan my life around the big game...I don't spend a lot of time knowing who all the players are...I don't get depressed when my team loses, or riot when they win (yeah..they seem to do that in Chicago). I do really enjoy going to the game, though. I much prefer the experience of watching the game live at the stadium over seeing it on TV. Even in obscenely cold temperatures.

But no matter how much of a fan I am, I am not prone to wearing to the game any sort clothing that identifies me as an aficionado of any given team. I'm more apt to wear that stuff when I'm NOT at the game. I don't know why...I've done that for years. Even when it's not sports related. If I go see a band I like and am wearing a t-shirt, I usually choose one that has another band's name on it. Or something that isn't music related. It's part of my well practiced pose.

While I knew that Polly was going to wear a replica of Walter Payton's jersey I didn't realize that she would find it odd that instead of Bear's blue and orange, I would opt for my charcoal grey t-shirt with a skull and crossbones printed on it. In Polly's defense, she spent a fair amount of time in high school as a Pom and so only finds it natural that one's attire is critical in showing support for one's team. Polly's mother, who was a little bitter that we were going to the game and she wasn't, shared Polly's opinion regarding my attire, but I was fairly certain that the Bears wouldn't mind terribly if I wasn't dressed for their success, as I would be outnumbered by those who weren't as self conscious as I.

When we got to the game and finally took our seats, I somewhat smugly pointed out that the gentleman seated next to Polly had also opted not to dress in Bears drag. Any solidarity I felt with this fellow quickly dissolved once the game began.

But first: the national anthem, Latino-style!

Apparently September 15 to October 15 is National Hispanic Heritage Month. This is news to me. I didn't get the memo--and I'm a card-carrying Hispanic. (Actually, none of the cards I carry have anything to do with being Hispanic. But some Hispanics actually DO carry a card in this country because of their alien origins...but most don't. So maybe "card carrying Hispanic" is a poor choice of words.)

I'm a little confused why we Hispanics don't get the whole month of September or the whole month of October, instead of this weird hybrid month. But...I guess I shouldn't complain. At least we get a full 30 days. Black people only get 28 for Black History Month.

Anyhow, at Soldier Field, the way that Hispanic Heritage month was observed is that they have a bunch of signage around the place declaring that we were going to watch "fútbol americano" and there was a large group of Hispanic young people out on the field with special t-shirts on. I imagine that perhaps they showed the game on Spanish TV, and had that soccer announcer guy yell TouchDOOOOOOOOOOOOWN whenever a team scored. But the real treat was that they trotted Gloria Estefan up to sing the National Anthem. I guess J-Lo was busy. But Gloria is Cuban, like me (except she actually lived there for a while) so It was nice to see one of my people get some attention, I guess. I tried to sing her hit "Conga" to the tune of the Star Spangled Banner, but it was very difficult to do.

Her performance of the song wasn't really great. I didn't expect it to be, i guess. It was pitched way low, as I expect that if Gloria ever had it in her to hit the high notes, she doesn't any longer. However, as she approached the part of the song that goes "and the rocket's red glare" they set off a bunch of pyro (always a crowd pleaser) and at the very end of the tune, as people began to cheer and applaud and sort of mix up their feelings of patriotism and team spirit with the beer they had undoubtedly been drinking for several hours leading up to the game into some sort of jingoistic stew, a couple of actual F-15 fighter planes buzzed the stadium. Everyone was dumbstruck. And it actually was pretty cool.

The coin was tossed, the ball was kicked and the game was underway. One of the aspects of watching a football game at the stadium is that you get to hear commentary from all the football experts seated around you. Each one of these guys has their own opinion of how the game should be played, and they are certain that by expressing their opinion as loudly and as often as possible, it will serve to enhance the game viewing experience of all those within earshot. Mostly, I find these people equal parts annoying and amusing.

None compared to the guy sitting next to Polly. Do you remember the guy I mentioned earlier? The one who, like I, was not adequately dressed to express his fanaticism? This guy proved to be a great source of amusement to Polly and me. As if to make up for his lack of proper attire, he threw himself into the game with a zeal usually reserved for those fans who paint their half naked bodies in blue and orange greasepaint.

Perhaps inspired by his striped shirt, he began to referee the games from his seat, demonstrating the signals that he believed the refs should call. I didn't have the heart to tell him that refs wear vertical stripes...not horizontal.

It was pretty clear to us that one of his primary objectives was to get on TV. I suspect that it was perhaps a sad attempt to impress his students. (Somehow he had communicated to Polly that he was a middle school English teacher. I began to mutter corrections to his grammatical errors under my breath.)

The Bears did not play a particularly inspired game, but they had a couple good moments in the first half. Eventually they scored a touchdown. Referee/English teacher guy held up his hand for a high five. I stared at it for a moment, unsure if I wanted to make this sort of connection with him. There was such desperation in his eyes...the pain of unreturned high-fives past, but a glint of hope that maybe this time someone would celebrate with him. In the end, I gave him the high five he was looking for, wondering if I had committed to future co-celebration. I thought perhaps I would avoid eye contact should the Bears score another touchdown.

I never had to make that decision, as the Bears played miserably after that. My English teacher friend took to chanting the name of the third string quarterback, Kyle Orton. Whenever he tired of that, he would explain to anyone who would listen--mostly himeself--that Orton had a great record and didn't make mistakes and so on. A guy behind him interrupted to tell him that Kyle Orton's dad had called and thanked him for his support.

As the game wore on, and the Bears lost their will to fight, my very own personal referee became less animated. He could do nothing more to help the team.

He left sometime before the game ended. Polly and I stuck it out to the bitter end. By that time, there were more Dallas Cowboys jerseys surrounding us than Bears. I guess Polly and I are more devoted to the team.

try the veal...

2007-09-28T11:40:00.001-06:00

On Monday, I took a drive through the sleepy little town of Bolingbrook on my lunch hour. It's a town with which I'm mostly unfamiliar. And I could probably have remained ignorant of various features for the rest of my life and felt okay about it. But it was Polly's birthday, and I had as yet neglected to buy her a gift.

I have many excuses for my procrastination--some of them even sound valid: I was out of money...my work schedule made it impossible...there was an earthquake...a terrible flood...locusts. But that's for Polly to hold over my head for the rest of our lives together.

Anyhow, as I was driving through this unfamiliar burg, I noticed the set of signs above, and quickly took a photo with my telephone. [That statment sound absurd, by the way.] I still don't know much about Bolingbrook...but I would suggest that if you ever go to eat at Branmor's, you stick to the steak or the chops...because it isn't clear to me where the seafood is coming from.

turning water into wine...

2007-09-20T12:06:00.000-06:00

I have this tube of toothpaste in the bag that I carry with me to work. It used to be in my desk drawer, when I had a permanent desk and a permanent drawer. At that time, it was accompanied by a toothbrush as well, but I don't think the toothbrush made it into the box when I hastily packed up my possessions after I was let go.

After lunch, my mouth was feeling rather gamey, so I used some toothpaste on a finger to attempt to brush. There's nothing special or fancy about this toothpaste. Just a small tube of Crest "Regular" that my dentist gave me the last time I went in for a checkup. Regular Crest is robin's egg blue.

Imagine my surprise when I spit into the sink to find that the frothy stuff coming from my mouth was not blue. It was pink. I was momentarily horrified, thinking that it was perhaps blood. And then I thought that I might have developed the rather uninteresting super-power to turn blue object into red ones with my mutant saliva. I imagined running around licking blue things to turn them red to confuse evil-doers.

And then I remembered that the drink sitting on my desk was a violent shade of red. I was somewhat relieved, more because I couldn't come up with a good super-hero name for a guy who licks blue things to turn them red than because of the possibility of spontaneous bleeding in the mouth.

I wonder if the person who has replaced me at my old desk has used my toothbrush.

a dish best served...tepid?

2007-09-14T11:46:00.000-06:00

So I got a little bit of revenge on my former employer. This requires a little bit of explanation. There's this podcast I listen to out of England called Punky! Radio. It's a punk/chat show that plays all sorts of new (and the occasional old) punk music, as well as some related sub genres that might be of interest to the fans of punk. But in addition to the music, there's the wacky chat between Paul B. Edwards and Tony Hearn. It's a lot of silly fun, as they crack each other up and tell each other stories about their drunken exploits, make fun of Emos and generally blather on.

One of their regular features is one in which listeners are asked to nominate someone in their lives who has wronged them, or is generally just sort of a jerk, and if Paul and Tony agree, they will declare for all the world to hear, that said person "Izzatwat" (is a twat).

So, anyhow, I encourage you all to listen to the most recent episode of Punky!, as you will get the pleasure of hearing my former boss declared a twat for all the world to hear. So it's not really revenge, I guess, since I could pretty much assume that he doesn't really know that all of Punky's listeners think he's a twat..but it makes me giggle.

the bad samaritan

2007-09-07T11:49:00.000-06:00

As I was driving to work this morning, running a bit late, I noticed a man walking down the street with a gas can in his hand. By the time I realized what I was looking at, I was past him, but I still could have stopped and offered him a lift. I don't know when he had started walking...where his vehicle had run out of fuel. But I did know that headed in the direction he was going, he had a ways to go before he reached a gas station.

I really should have turned around and offered him a ride, because the guilt over the whole thing is consuming me. If our positions were reversed, I would have really wanted someone to offer me a ride. And I have been known to offer rides to strangers in similar straits. As I continued down the road, indecision kept me from pulling a U-turn and driving back to offer assistance. I wasn't that late.

When I finally arrived at the gas station, I realized just how long a walk this guy had in front of him. I felt worse.

I hope a better person that I am today picked him up. Maybe it was a very attractive woman, and they could hit it off and maybe he'll decide not to even go back to his car, but continue on with her wherever it is she's going today. They'll have a happy life together and have beautiful children. One of their children might discover a cure for cancer.

Yeah. I feel better now.

Mustachioed!

2007-09-06T11:10:00.000-06:00

or, Another way in which I don't measure up...

Much to my amusement, I discovered today that there exists an institute dedicated to "protecting the rights of, and fighting discrimination against, mustached Americans by promoting the growth, care, and culture of the mustache." The American Mustache Institute has a snappy logo, a website and (I presume) a headquarters of some sort. They participate in mustache-awareness events, such as their recent " 'Stache Bash '07", compile mustache related news stories, honor mustachioed celebrities, and provide financial support to charities. They do seem to have a bit of a sense of humour about the whole thing, which is nice.

Alas, it is a club that I do not believe I could join. The fact is, I am incapable of growing a significant mustache. Mind you, I don't have any burning desire to wear a mustache. In fact, I have a couple nice theatrical ones that I could always spirit gum to my upper lip if the need should arise. However, whenever I allow my own facial hair to grow--on occasion it was required of me for a theatrical endeavor, sometimes I've just let it grow to see what would happen, and most often, i was just too lazy to shave--the result is less than impressive.

As a young boy on the cusp of puberty, a mustache seemed to me an outward expression of my approaching manhood. If I could grow a mustache, people would understand that I was growing in other ways. Besides, it was the early-mid '80's. Magnum P.I. was still on, and Tom Selleck was considered desirable. I'm not sure anyone really noticed my facial hair. There are some bad photos floating around (assuming I didn't destroy them all) in which I look a bit like Joseph Gribble from King of the Hill (with poofier hair). Eventually, I realized how bad this looked, and took to shaving regularly. At the time, regularly meant once a week.

I was about 18 when I complained to my brother's then-girlfriend that I hated to shave, and wished I could do it less often (I was up to about three times a week at that point). She suggested I wax my mustache, as it would do a better job than a razor, and would last longer between treatments. I had to let my facial hair grow as the burns on my upper lip healed. I never tried that again.

Once I could shave again, I did it very regularly for the next few years. And then I was cast as Rosencrantz in a college production of Hamlet. All the men in the cast were instructed to allow their facial hair to grow. By the time the production opened some months later (it was an abnormally long production cycle from casting to opening night), there were varying thicknesses and lengths of beards and mustaches. I was one of the oldest cast members, however, I had to use makeup to enhance my beard for the show. (I have a photo from that time...I'll try to dig it up and post it.) A year or so later, I faced a similar situation when I played Mordred in Camelot, and again a couple years later as Dogberry in Much Ado about Nothing. The only saving grace during that period of time in my life was that it was during the grunge era, and there was a LOT of bad facial hair around.

Somewhere in this period of time, I also took to shaving my head every so often. This was when I was playing in a couple bands, and for some reason, a lot of bass players seemed to have shaved heads and wore goatees. This isn't why I shaved my head (I really just liked it). But Maht (of MoonTopples fame) joked that all the bands we liked had bald bass players with goatees, and I would tell him that I could deliver a bald bass player, but couldn't do much about the goatee.

Currently, I grow facial hair quickly enough that I really ought to shave every day, but I still only do it every other day. If I feel like it. I will let it go for a few days if I'm feeling particularly lazy. However, it is clear to me that while my facial hair does grow a little bit fuller than it did 13 years or so ago when I did Hamlet, there are still some significant gaps that haven't filled in.

For me to achieve mustache success on the level of a Tom Selleck or Salvador Dali, I will have to rely on my glue-on one. Perhaps I could even wear it to the next 'Stache Bash and do a little reconnaissance...

Diversity is the Spice of Life

2007-09-01T00:30:00.000-06:00

Hello blogreader. Welcome back. Hopefully the handful of regulars haven't deserted me. My abstract, digital love for you is your reward. Since my last post I have traveled across the country in search of Peace and Love, created a piece of art and had fun doing it, been honored for my contribution to the population, witnessed (via just about every media outlet) the transformation of a celebutante into--momentarily--a real human being, visited a pig farm in a too-brief flirtation with rock stardom (sort of) and spent my first night in a girl's dorm. It's every bit as thrilling as it sounds.

...That's what I was going to write to you, way back in semi-early July. I had all sorts of plans to fill you in on my adventures. I had stories to tell. The world was ripe with topics--glistening, low-hanging fruit for me to pick and share with you.

And then...

...I was fired. Canned. Let go. Asked to leave. Given a pink slip. Discharged. That last one's my favourite. It's what the Illinois Department of Employment Security calls it. Sounds like an unpleasant secretion associated with some sort of disease common to women of ill repute. And sailors.

So anyhow, for the first time in my life, I involuntarily lost my job. I would have felt worse about it if I had liked the job at all. I had worked there almost three years--I started on July 30 of 2004. I was fired on July 10. I'll spare you the details of that day...they're really mostly dull, as the job had been, for the most part. I was at lunch, working at my desk on a side project, and my boss asked if we could talk in his office for a minute. It took him less than a minute to let me know why I was there.

I disagree with his assessment of my skills, abilities and work ethic, as he laid it out for me. Any reviews of my work prior to this have been essentially positive. Even when he had criticism for me, or asked me to improve in some area, he told me that I was "the best person he's had in my postion." But, somehow, on this particular day, he felt the need to tell me that I worked poorly with others, my work was "slapdash" and "not very creative", and that the sales people were unmotivated to pursue the creative work from their clients because they didn't have confidence that I could deliver.

He also told me that he felt there was no point in asking me to improve, because knowing what he knows about me, he didn't think that I would try to work on those issues.

He is, apparently, a very insightful person.

Anyhow, I respectfully informed him that I belived he was wrong, and that I had been set up to fail. But in the end, I told him that I suppose he should do what he felt he had to do. And then I packed up my things and left, before anyone else came back from lunch.

So, what followed next was several weeks of unemployment. I filed an unemployment insurance claim. I sent a bunch of resumés out. I spent some time updating my portfolio website. I went on a few job interviews. I don't really like job interviews. I have a hard time conveying to people just how awesome my talent and skills truly are, due to equal parts humility and social awkwardness. None of the interviews have panned out.

So, I've listed with four different placement agencies. Finally, one of those agencies did get me work. This short-term assignment doesn't pay as well as I need it to, but it pays better than unemployment insurance does. The downside is I actually have to go to work.

It isn't all bad. At least there's stuff to laugh at. In fact, I find a lot of humour at my current assignment. It's a company that sells medical supplies and equipment. I'm helping layout the catalog. Most of this involves copying information from the old catalog, and pasting it into the correct page of the new catalog. If a dolphin had opposable thumbs, it could probably do the work. Except the computer would probably be destroyed by the water. And the dolphin might get electrocuted. So they hired me. And I get to read descriptions of medical products like "It's the helmet that kids and adults love to wear!" So I laugh cruelly at the misfortune of the models who have to pretend to be disabled or retarded for the catalog (I hope they aren't really disabled...then I'd feel bad about the laughing). And then I start to think of how lucky I am that my three children are healthy and intellegent and have no special needs.

So I need something new to laugh at. Fortunately, like any large company, the people in the HR department need to do something to keep themselves occupied between processing new hires and chastising employees caught in the broom closet together. So they have to take up "initiatives." In my experience, HR "initiatives" tend to take the shape of some sort of seminar, followed up by some sort of signage posted in common areas of the office to reinforce whatever topic was covered in the seminar. The image below is of a poster that I found in the cafeteria. I liked it so much, I hunted it down online, so that you could have a nice image for your viewing pleasure.

Go on...click on it, so you can get a better view. I'll wait.

I'm not sure I get the "diner" theme. I mean...I understand it in the context of diversity "feeding" the competitive edge. But is it suggesting that we should consider those who are different than us our adversaries? Oh well...they probably covered it in the seminar.

I'm also not sure what we're supposed to make of the guy behind the counter who is leacherously oogling the balding fellow. I suppose he's supposed to represent gay people. I wonder why he's in the position of serving the others. Is this a subtle prejudice on the part of the poster's designer? And why isn't he looking at the black guy. Of the two men on the "straight" side of the counter, I think all my gay friends would choose black fellow instead. He's appears to be in better shape. Plus, it would add another layer of diversity to the poster if the suggestion of interracial romance were introduced.

There was another poster in the series. It depicted a similar set of multi-culti people sitting in a booth at the diner, as if some kids from those Benetton ads in the '80's had grown up, gone to work at the same company, and then went to lunch at the same diner. It was called "Diversity is the Spice of Life." I didn't like it as well, but I did like the description that was there to coax the HR representative to purcase it:

Hang this poster in your facility to remind employees that when differences are accepted and valued, discrimination decreases and productivity increases.

I'm not sure how you measure that, but there was a 15 day/100% satisfaction, money-back guarantee. I don't know if they were thinking that somehow you could measure a decrease in discrimination and a subsequent productivity increase in as little as 15 days. But if I was an HR person, I'd want my money back.

Hail to the Chief

2007-07-21T05:37:00.000-06:00

This just in:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Vice President Dick Cheney is assuming the powers of the presidency for the second time in five years while President Bush undergoes a medical procedure.

Bush planned to hand over authority to Cheney on Saturday before the president goes under anesthesia to receive a routine colonoscopy - a test to look for potential cancer. The same routine was followed when Bush underwent a colonoscopy in 2002.

The news story went on to report that our resident governmental Dick is going to be at his home in Maryland, about 45 miles east of Washington D.C. That seems like a bit too much information for our secure, undisclosed VP. I imagine him spending the few hours of his Presidency trying out the oval office: signing a few bills, adjusting the height of the desk chair, putting the pens in the correct drawer, and cleaning the cracker crumbs out of the keyboard. Maybe planning a new war.

Anyhow, I think it's a significant step for W to consider the possibility that he might not be fit to lead with a camera up his ass. If only he'd realize that it's even more difficult to do it with his entire head up there.

8 random factoids

2007-07-20T20:20:00.000-06:00

Hi...it's been a while since I've written...all sorts of reasons for that. I fully intend to go back and explain what I've been up to...but at the moment, a good enough reason to return is that I've been tagged. My blogfriend Anna MR who writes the blog "Future of My Past" has imposed upon me to share with whoever is bored enough to read them, 8 random factoids about myself. I, in turn, am strangely compelled to do it. I guess I fascinate myself just a little bit.

Here are the "Rules". There's no blogpolice out there to monitor whether you've broken a rule...so there's no real reason to actually follow them. But here they are, nonetheless.

1. Let others know who tagged you.
2. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
3. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
4. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged.

Okay...so the rules are out of the way. On to the factoids.

1.) Anna started with something about her languages...so I'll jump on that particular train. Unfortunately, I speak fewer languanges than she does. In addition to English, I speak Spanish fluently (a product of growning up with Cuban parents and grandparents). I don't write it terribly well, but I can read it, understand it and mostly speak it. I can't really tell jokes in Spanish, or otherwise be at all witty, so I tend not to speak it all that much. I also have an excellent command of high school level French. I supposed if I was dropped into the middle of the French countryside, I probably wouldn't starve. And I could enquire where the post office was, if I happened to be in need of stamps. Actually, in my second year of French studies (which was actually my third year in high school) I participated in some sort of contest and placed second in the state of Illinois. To this day, I have no idea whether or not that is actually impressive, but I like to pretend that it is.

2.) Speaking of French--and high school--I only cut class two times when I was in school. On both occassions, I had gone out to lunch, it was a nice day, so I just stayed out. I actually liked French class...so, I guess in retrospect, it would have made more sense to cut a class I didn't like. I wasn't much of a rebel.

3.) Let's stay with high school for while. (It's like therapy.) I really didn't much care for high school. I tried to get involved with theatre while I was in high school. It didn't work out so well. The "friends" I made in the single play I was involved with turned out to be phony friends. So I walked away from theatre...in fact, became a little bit hostile towards it, until college, when I took a theatre class to meet women. That worked out a bit better.

4.) I know from personal experience that wearing a fencing mask when hung over is extremely unpleasant.

5.) I raced BMX bikes when I was younger. I wasn't very good at it, as my sense of self-preservation was probably stronger than that of my fellow racers. I was pretty good at reparing my own bicycle, though. I used to take it completely apart and rebuild it every winter. I'm not entirely sure why...just seemed like a good thing to do, I guess.

6.) My other attempt at any sort of sports was in the fourth grade. I joined the park district football teams. We were the Lombard Falcons. Our color was purple (Lombard, IL is, after all, the "Lilac Village"). It was the first year that we were "Falcons" and wore purple, however. We practiced in the uniforms from the previous year, and they were burghandy. We had previously been the "Redskins." Or at least that's how I remember it. I also remember that the loudest, angriest coach was the quarterback's dad. He seemed very proud of his son, but also somewhat verbally abusive to him. I didn't go back the next year.

7.) My very first crush was on Linda Carter, as Wonder Woman. I still love her deeply and truly.

8.) I used to spend a lot of time in school daydreaming about what would happen if gravity stopped working properly, or shifted 90 degrees. I would concoct escape plans and scenarious in which, as the only prepared one in class, I could be sure to rescue the girl I liked best and she would look upon me as her hero. Unfortunately, gravity never cooperated.

Okay. I'm done. And I've decided to let this die here. Sorry Anna. Basically, if I try to come up with 8 people who write blogs that know I exist, I might come up short, and I find that a little depressing. Or something.

So here's what I say. If you read this...consider yourself tagged. It's actually a bit of a challenge coming up with 8 things that people might find interesting. Or that you might find interesting about yourself. Or just 8 things that you haven't written about--or that you don't want to write about at a later date, and don't want to give up too much. Or maybe I'm just tired.

good night.

6 years ago today

2007-05-31T11:20:00.000-06:00

At 5 am, I woke up in a hospital room. I believe they called it a birthing suite. A doctor came in to root around in my wife's vagina. She administered some drugs and caused her water to break. After she left, I made some comment about how that should have been really titillating...but disappointingly, was not.

Throughout the day, as nurses came in to test Polly's blood pressure. Sometimes to
draw blood. And to do some relatively unpleasant things to her. I remember one of the nurses was particularly bad, and could do nothing right. I checked and re-checked my cameras while this was going on. I was pretty much useless.

Time was marked by the beeping of the various machines, and the occasional visits from the doctors and nurses. And the occasional contraction. The kid wasn't coming out. The phrase "c-section" was mentioned. Polly was no longer allowed food or drink of any sort to prepare for what seemed to be the inevitable operation.

Around 4 or 5 pm, it was decided that I wouldn't miss much if I drove home to feed the dog and take a shower. When I returned to the hospital, Polly told me that my sister-in-law had called to let me know that my mother had died. She was looking forward to seeing my son. We just missed her.

Sometime around 8pm, they finally took Polly into surgery. I put on an ill-fitting outfit of disposable scrubs, some paper booties and a cap that looked like a jellyfish sitting atop my head. I vainly tried to adjust the angle of the cap to make it more flattering.

When the nurses thought I had had plenty of time to change, they came in to take me to another room. More waiting. More thinking.

Finally, I was allowed into the operating room. The anesthesiologist was there, ensuring that she wasn't in too much pain. He seemed nice. He and I established a good rapport, and together we mocked Polly a little bit. She was convinced she couldn't breath, and I gently
reminded her that if she was talking, she was probably breathing. I could see him smiling behind his mask.

It's possible that he was also smiling because he knew what we would eventually have to pay for his services.

At one point, I peaked over the screen to check on the doctors' progress. (I was shy then...at subsequent childbirths, I have spent more time observing the operation. I've always said that you aren't close to someone until you've seen her uterus pulled from her abdomen and stitched back up.) As this was my first experience with childbirth, and a c-section in particular, I was astonished by how difficult it was to pry this baby from my wife's body. It's rather violent, really. One little nurse was up on a stool pushing into her belly like it was a big pillow. I didn't know you could treat somebody like that and have them survive. I guess I can understand why you hurt for a few days later...

They finally freed the child (we hadn't decided on a name yet) from his prison of flesh, cleaned him up and brought him over. They handed him to me. I had no idea what to do with this thing. I had never handled a baby that small. I was terrified. Terrified, too, because I was responsible for it for the next 18+ years. Fortunately, I didn't have too much time to dwell on this. Some comedy ensued as I tried to hold the child close to Polly, who couldn't move her arms to hold or touch the child. And then a nurse, probably sensing my discomfort, whisked the child away for more of whatever it is that they do.

We all went back to recovery, just in time for the nurse's shift to change. The outgoing shift thought the incoming shift would take care of us, and the incoming shift thought the outgoing shift had done it.

So...we waited. We talked about names.

Polly wanted to call him Roscoe James, after her great-grandfather and her father, and since I'd
already lost the battle to call him "Johnny Cash" and we couldn't get buy-in from all interested parties on "Declan", we agreed.

Once the nursing staff had figured out that we'd be better of in a room, we were able to leave recovery. My mother in law and brother in law were waiting..and worrying. It had been hours, and they were convinced that something had gone horribly awry.

They took a quick look at Ross. Satisfied that he seemed healthy and had no obvious defects, they went home.

At this point, I think I went back home, too. But I don't remember. Maybe I spent that night at the hospital. I'll have to ask Polly.

I do remember that it was one of the weirdest days of my life.

what's the white stuff in bird poop?

2007-05-25T12:15:00.000-06:00

That is also bird poop.

This Monday, we're headed into Memorial Day weekend in the U.S.. In case you don't know (and even some Americans don't know...) this holiday commemorates U.S. men and women who have died in military service to their country. This is usually observed by travel, barbecues, picnics, drunk driving and perhaps a parade or two. International Mr. Leather is a convention/gathering/whatever of leather and other fetishists that occurs in Chicago every year over Memorial Day weekend. That's just an interesting factoid. I've never attended.

Historically, I have observed Memorial Day by having some sort of personal tragedy: heartbreak, an injury or just a bad time. This went on for several consecutive years during my twenties. Eventually, I learned to avoid any memorial day festivities. I have successfully dodged the curse for several years.

However, after lunch, as I was wandering from my car back into my office, I was struck on the back of the neck by some bird poop. If it had been a sniper's bullet, I'd be dead. Mostly, I'm annoyed and a little disgusted, and I can't help but wonder if it isn't an ill omen for the upcoming weekend.

Congratulations, Cole Porter

2007-05-22T11:19:00.000-06:00

Would somebody explain to me how Eric Estrada got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame before Cole Porter did? It seems that today that long overdue honor was bestowed upon the songwriter who brought us "I've Got You Under My Skin", "Night and Day", "I Get a Kick Out of You" and myriad other songs that have become part of the Great American Songbook. Did everyone just assume he had a star already?

Whether or not you are a fan, Cole Porter's contribution to music, theatre and movies is huge. I don't really know what politics are involved in getting a star on the walk of fame. Maybe the stars have to pay for it. If so...could I get one? What would it cost?

The first time I laid eyes on my wife (she wasn't my wife yet...) , she was performing in "Red, Hot and Cole", a revue of Porter's music that sort of told his life story. The director was a friend, so I went to check out his show, but made the mistake of going alone. It was dinner theatre. I sat at a large table with a family who I did not know. Drinks were relatively inexpensive, and I took advantage of that. I think by the end of the show, the family I was seated with had become a little bit afraid of me. I didn't meet Polly that night. That came later.

Our daughter is named "Rosalie" after her great-great aunt Rosalie, who in turn is named after a Cole Porter song of the same name. The song comes from a film called (redundantly enough) "Rosalie" featuring Eleanor Powell and Nelson Eddy. Eleanor Powell plays Rosalie, a student at Vassar who also happens to be a princess from the European kingdom of Romanza. Never heard of Romanza? Neither had I, until I saw this priceless gem of a tract on foreign policy. Ray Bolger is fun (warming up for his role as scarecrow still two years away) as Nelson Eddy's best friend/wingman and his soon to be Wizard of Oz cast mate, Frank Morgan (the Wizard) hams it up as the King of Romanza.

Yes, it's as bad as you can imagine...but Eleanor Powell was one hell of a dancer, so there are some nice sequences...and it's a fun kind of bad. And hey...they can't ALL be winners. Just look at Cole Porter. Erik Estrada beat him to the Walk of Fame.

ouch

2007-05-16T12:02:00.000-06:00

So yesterday I was trying to make my way through the shop at work. We're very busy right now, and stuff is all over the place, so any attempt at point-to-point navigation is quickly thwarted by some sort of obstacle.

I came across the following in my path:

This particular obstacle wasn't terribly tall or wide. There was a large crate on one side and some half-manufactured piece of something on the other side. It would have taken several seconds for me to find an unobstructed path. Seemed to me that the choice was simple.

And so, I leaped. It wasn't a mighty leap. It was a well-calculated leap. Just enough energy spent to get me over the obstacle and to the other side. At some point mid-leap, I got a different perspective on my obstacle. But it was too late.

My trajectory was set. I hardly had time to recognize the impending disaster. My left heel struck the edge of the skid that was poking out, that I had not been able to see from the other side of the object.

I now have a sprained ankle. It hurts. I'll take your pity NOW!!!

PS. Please send Vicodin.

sketch o' the day...mother's day edition

2007-05-14T22:39:00.000-06:00

Today's sketch o' the day--an irregular feature here at mad scribblings--comes to you courtesy of the Hallmark Corporation and the notion of Mother's Day in general. As has become something of a tradition, I got up early with the boys and I facilitated them in making some cards for their mother and grandmother.

I don't know if tradition is the right word. It's pretty much just what happens due to a combination of procrastination and an attempt to keep them occupied and quiet so Polly can sleep.

So the boys worked on their cards. Neither one has yet to demonstrate any innate skill in the visual arts, but they love to try...and they do have active imaginations. So maybe one day their talent will emerge and they can make the decision not to have a respectable career as a doctor or lawyer or even a podiatrist and instead make all the wrong choices and end up a failure on a dead-end career path like their dad.

While they worked, I attempted to draw them...turns out the little boogers are moving targets. Very difficult to draw. After a few failed attempts, I did arrive a a pretty decent likeness of Jack.

Paris Hilton is creeping me out.

2007-05-10T11:30:00.000-06:00

I'm very sorry and from now on I'm going to pay complete attention to everything.
-Paris Hilton

So for the last week, the young and hapless Miss Hilton has resurfaced in the media for a new bit of notoriety. She apparently hadn't realized that he driver's license was suspended--a fairly common thing when one is convicted of alcohol-related reckless driving. But you can't blame her...she has people who read for her. Anyhow, she was sentenced last Friday to 45 days in county jail for violating her probation.

I, for one, am a big fan of prison exploitation films. I recommend she shoot "the Simple Life" from there. She'd gain at least one viewer.

But prison fantasy scenarios aside, the thing that has amused and terrifed me most about the Hilton situation is the statment she made to the judge as part of her plea for clemency. She's "going to pay complete attention to everything." I, for one, believe her. I'm fairly certain I saw her peering in through my bedroom windows last night. Creepy.

Creepier, still because my bedroom is on the second floor. Does she carry a ladder around? Or has she developed the power of independant flight along with her new ominpresence? How far can this go? I don't know if the world is ready for an omnipotent Paris Hilton.

Of course, if there was an ominipotent/omnipresent Paris Hilton, perhaps I could have called on her to clear up a little traffic situation this morning that made me late for work. Some doofus driving a flatbad towtruck had stopped his truck in my side of a 2 lane road. He managed to stop the truck just short of a busy T-intersection, so there was a lot of oncoming traffic, so it was very difficult to go around this guy.

What was particularly curious was that they had a motorcycle up on the flat bed, and there were two hipster-type guys up there checking it out. They weren't your usual towtruck driver types. I don't know what they were doing...they weren't moving the truck...that's all that mattered to me. I suppose the truck may have been broken down. But that doesn't explain why both the guys were up there.

It really started my day off badly. Where the hell were you, Paris? I don't think she would have stood for such an affront to her commute.

where you at?

2007-05-02T11:17:00.000-06:00

I have no idea how many people read my blog. I have a few regular readers, some who leave a comment now and again (and I read their blogs, too, almost regularly). And I know Polly reads my blog, but I suspect she's just checking up on me. Anyhow, I might have more regular readers if I would write more consistently. I've made promises to myself to do it. I want to start doing a regular "sketch of the day" feature. Mostly, I find myself too busy or inspired, and sometimes just too damned tired to do it. But I do keep promising that I will...I'm only promising myself, though. I'd feel bad about it if I promised you, blogreader, and didn't deliver. But at this point, I've broken enough promises to myself that I just sort of expect it. I don't find myself to be too trustworthy.

Here's something kind of fun...head over to The MoonTopples Blog and try your hand at short fiction. The "Great Big Awesome (short) Fiction Contest #2" or GBA(s)FC #2, is Maht's second outing hosting a short fiction contest. The first one was fun, and there were a lot of good stories. I took a stab at one. You can read it here. As you can see...there was at least one mediocre story. I don't know if I'll try to write something this time. I'm going to try...but I'm a little bit busy these days.

Because....

I'm in a play. Sort of. I've been trying to decide how to pimp this thing...because...well...I'm not really acting. But...I think it's going to be a good play. And the lead actor is very good...which is important, because it's mostly a one-woman show.

Okay...here's what happened. A director I worked with a lot in college had retired, and wanted to start up a new theatre ensemble. He called me up and asked me to help out with his first production with the new company. The show involves a lot of monologues by the lead character, and two other actors flit in and out of the action playing multiple characters. And there are two stagehands who move set pieces and hand props to the actors as the show progresses. I am one of those stagehands. Occasionally, we interact with the actors. But it isn't really acting. A well trained monkey could probably do what I'm doing in this show. (I'm less prone to fling my feces at the audience, though.)

I've done this before, for the same director...but that show was Kafka's The Trial, and I and my fellow "propmaster" were there as an ominous presence to enhance the paranoid tone of the piece. And at the end, we got to execute the lead. I don't get to kill anyone this time. But I do get to pretend to play violin.

So it's weird for me to talk it up...I think it's going to be a good show...I think the actors involved (those who have lines) are very good. But I feel like I have to explain it too much. So anyway...that's why I'm extra busy these days. That's what I'm up to. If you want to read more about the show, which is called Scrambled Eggs, click here.

the word for today, and madonna of walmart

2007-04-27T14:16:00.000-06:00

a word that's floating around in my head today:

fetid

I really like that word, and rarely get a chance to use it. The problem, of course, if that if one has occasion to use it, it's often when encountering some sort of unpleasant or foul situation.

So I'm sort of ambivalent about it.

Speaking of unpleasant situations, I had to stop by the local Walmart today. I'm not a big fan of Walmart, for a variety of reasons, but sometimes it's the most convenient place to make a quick stop and pick something up. Anyhow, my two boys are obsessed with the products I use for my personal hygiene. They want to use my deodorant. They'd shave if I let them. (not sure what they'd shave...) They want to use my mouthwash. So they have this mouthwash for kids that I've bought for them, and they love using it and it's good for their teeth and all that...but it ran out, so I needed to get more. Every store seems to be out of it. Which is what brought me to Walmart.

Walmart didn't have it either. But it did provide me the most amusing visual I've had all day.

As I was wandering out empty-handed, there was this older gentleman. Who am I kidding. He may have been a gentleman...I have no idea about whether he is particularly courteous or chivalrous, or if he is a man of good social position, or if he is of noble birth--all definitions of "gentleman". I was calling him a gentleman to be polite. But this particular Walmart is out in Dekalb, IL (the town where I work). The town is growing, and is home to a rather large university...but it is still very much a farming community. If there's a wind blowing, I can smell manure when I get out of my car in the morning.

So, I'm going to go out on a limb, and call this guy a "feller." Because, basically, he had that look. Kind of an old guy...a little grizzled. An expansive belly. He seemed pleasant enough. Anyhow, this feller is sitting there, talking up a woman who may have been there with him, or may have just been someone he had just met. He's wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. And underneath the flannel shirt is a Madonna t-shirt. I think it was from the "Music" tour, because she was wearing a cowboy hat...she seemed to favor that particular headgear during that period.

And what I liked so much about seeing that is the guy--the feller--didn't in any way seem to be the sort of person who might be a Madonna fan. It's more likely that he picked up the shirt at the local Salvation Army down the road. But I'm going to imagine that he didn't...I'm going to pretend that he went to go see Madonna. That he really digs her music. And that he dropped $25 on that shirt at the merch table and put it on right away over whatever shirt he happened to be wearing at the time.

yeah...I like that.

A heckuva job...or, I want to work for George W. Bush

2007-04-24T10:56:00.000-06:00

I don't want to get too political here. I'm really writing about my job. The thing is, I don't really care for my job. I don't like what I do. I just happen to, I think, do it well. And there are people willing to pay me to do it. There are not too many people willing to pay me to paint self-indulgent pictures of whatever might strike my fancy, or to play my bass, or act in plays or drink mojitos by the pool. These are all things I would rather do than go to work every day. I'd also rather play with my kids, read books, learn to play the piano and watch movies. In fact, it's very easy for me to come up with a list of things I'd rather do than my job. Right now, I'm writing in the blog, rather than do my job.

I happen to be the Art Director of a trade show display company. Art Director sounds like a nice title. In this context, it doesn't mean much. Technically, if there was much "art" to direct, I would direct it. But that's not the case. When I first came to work here, I was asked what I wanted my title to be. I thought Art Director sounded more impressive than "Graphics Manager" so I had them put that on my business cards. Often, when speaking with clients or vendors on the phone, I tell them I'm the Graphics Manager. It's more descriptive of what I really do...and it seems to put them at ease. They must be intimidated by "Art Director".

Anyhow, I think I do a pretty good job...because I have to. I'm willing to bet that if my administrative technique was on par with some of the men who have held jobs that are, in the greater scheme of things, much more important than mine is, I wouldn't even have the stinky soul-sucking job that I do have.

Michael Brown botches the rescue/recovery efforts in New Orleans. He's doing a "heck of a job." Donald Rumsfeld spends much of the Iraq war with his head in the sand (American sand, of course..the sand in Iraq is dangerous!), completely out of touch with reality. He has "made the world safer" and his reforms "will enhance the security of the American people for decades to come." Alberto Gonzales' piss-poor performance in front of Congress a few days ago in which he apparently couldn't recall his own damn name has increased the President's confidence in him.

Damn.

I do a good job every week. Nobody gets killed. Nobody loses property. Nobody gets tortured. All I get is a paycheck. W, if you need someone to fill just about any position...I'm pretty sure you know where to find me. I could use a little raise, and I'm willing to bet that I could do a pretty good job (acceptable to you, anyhow) and still have time to drink mojitos. I'll even tear up the picture of you and your "enhancement" that I drew.

...does whatever Bono can

2007-04-20T10:43:00.000-06:00

I am officially terrified.

Bono and the Edge from U2 and Julie Taymor are teaming up to create a Spider-Man musical on Broadway.

I love U2.
I have a very soft spot in my heart for Spider-Man.
Julie Taymor has created some very visually arresting theatre.

Why does this frighten me so?

I guess I need to start planning another trip to New York.

it's about time!

2007-04-20T10:02:00.000-06:00

Congratulations to Erik Estrada on his long-overdue receipt of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. You may know him from such roles as Officer Frank "Ponch" Poncherello on TV's CHiP's and infomercials for the Psychic Friends network. Or, if you are like me, this fellow (pictured at right) has plagued you for your entire life.

Lemme 'splain.

I am of Cuban descent. I was born in the US, but my parents were part an early wave of immigration from Cuba, shortly after Fidel Castro wrested control from the previous corrupt, but US-backed government. But that's another story for another day...we're here to talk about Erik Estrada.

Anyhow, my parents did a pretty good job of assimilating to American culture. Sort of. They decided to become productive members of society, unlike some Cubans who sit around in Little Havana down in Miami, sipping coffee and waiting for the day when Fidel dies and they can finally return to reclaim the homes they left. You can get some good food down there, though...

Anyhow, I never felt terribly Cuban. Even though I grew up in a WASPy neighborhood in the suburbs, I never felt 100% American. I don't know that it's possible. My family was just a little bit different than those of my neighbors. And I knew how to speak two languages, which is pretty damned UnAmerican!

And at some point during my childhood, my family chose to worship with other people whose backgrounds were similar. Since there isn't a huge exclusively Cuban community in the suburbs of Chicago, we ended up in a church that was very mixed among many Hispanic groups. A few Cubans, a disproportionately low number of Mexicans, some Guatamalans, Ecuadorians...the list goes on. There did happen to be a large number of Puerto Ricans.

That church was pretty wild...and in retrospect, I'm not so sure how I feel about that. It wasn't snake-handling wild...but there were "healings" and "exorcisms" and a lot of things that I can't be 100% sure weren't simply some sort of form of mass hysteria.

Something else that the people at the church were really hysterical about--the teenage girls, anyway--was Erik Estrada. He was the bee's knees...the cat's pajamas. He was sexy and PUERTO RICAN!

And in addition to being Puerto Rican, his first film was "The Cross and The Switchblade" which was a movie dramatizing the story of a young white preacher from Indiana who goes to live among the street gangs of New York, sort of like Jane Goodall and the chimps. This movie was a big hit with the evangelical crowd. Violent as it was, every so often the church would screen it. Sometimes it would be in English. Sometimes, it would be the really atrocious Spanish overdub. But every time, the girls would get the treat of seeing Erik Estrada in his boxers. Attendance among the young Puerto Rican girls would spike whenever the film was shown.

And so it was that at an early age, I was subjected to the notion that the masculine ideal to which I should aspire was Erik Estrada. I'm still trying to reach that goal. As he ages, it becomes somewhat more attainable. I think I'll go for the fat, reality-show version...I can probably achieve that. I don't have the hair for it, though.

If you want to visit Mr. Estrada's star, you can find it at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard between Sycamore & Orange on the North side of Hollywood Boulevard.

just sitting here....

2007-04-15T11:19:00.000-06:00

...hunched over my laptop, on the edge of the bed. It's a nice height for a bed. It's much shorter than the bed I share with my wife. That bed requires at least one sherpa to guide me up to the summit each night. And my feet dangle when I sit on the bed. The bed at home is large enough to accommodate Polly and I, as well as our brood of 3 and (not necessarily with my consent) one dog.

I can sit on this bed with my feet on the ground. My knees make a nice table for my laptop.

It's been a long weekend of driving, painting, pulling up carpet and assorted other activities associated with helping my brother in law get his house ready to sell so he can move into a different home with his brand new fiancée. I'm tired as hell...beat. I'd feel a lot better if I wasn't actually sick. At least my back seems to be functioning again.

It's quiet here. Polly (the former Miss Street) and Amanda (the soon to be Mrs. Street) have run off to the store for some decorating-type things. Area rugs, I think. Jim, my brother in law is far enough away that I only hear small sounds of some activity for which I am not required. I was finishing getting dressed. I thought it was time to finally put my socks on this morning. So far I've managed to get one sock on.

And now I'm just sitting here...

and so it goes...

2007-04-12T04:13:00.000-06:00

A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.
Kurt Vonnegut, Sirens of Titan

I woke up too early this morning. I had slept on the couch. Often in situation comedies, men find themselves sleeping on the couch because of arguments they have had with their spouses. It is a cliché locale for banishment. This was not the case for me.

I don't much care for my couch. It was purchased new to fill an available space when we moved into our home two and a half years ago, and it quickly became clear that the couch was not going to last very long. It's a bad couch. The cushions don't stay on the couch very well. They slide around and quickly get out of shape. It began to get threadbare within just a few weeks of its arrival. And so on.

Ironically, the couch bears some responsibility for the reason I ended up sleeping on it. I was carrying my son Jack two mornings ago. As I leaned over to drop him onto the couch, something snapped. Or pinched. One of the millions of nerves in this amazing body I live in was affected in just the right way to create the sensation of having been punched reasonably hard in the middle of the left side of my back.

That night, I had a difficult time sleeping in our bed, so I chose to sleep on the couch last night instead. It was a little bit better. I slept more consistently, but still woke up earlier than I had intended to and in more pain than before I went to bed in the first place.

So I got up to get a drink of water and like any reasonable person with an unreasonable addiction, I checked my email. I found it to be somewhat unfulfilling, so I hit the news sites to see what had happened while I was sleeping. Sadly, I learned that it was reported that Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday.

I was turned on to Vonnegut many years ago by my friend Maht, and quickly consumed many of his works. He quickly became one of my favourite authors. He's an incredibly deep thinker who often presented his ideas in a deceptively simple form. Vonnegut also had a cameo role, appearing as himself in the Rodney Dangerfield film "Back to School."

Like my last post about Sol LeWitt (I have to stop writing about people dying--I'm in danger of getting into some kind of rut), I'm not going to attempt to analyze Vonnegut. It's been done. I could probably babble on at length about how great he was--what an amazing body of work he left and all that. I might even be able to write intelligently about his work. But I think his work stands for itself, so here's a link to an essay he wrote about three years ago regarding the current state of the world. It's called "Cold Turkey." It's really great. Read it.

One of the things I really liked about Kurt Vonnegut was that he would occasionally embellish his novels with simple line drawings. Later in life, Vonnegut extended this to creating artworks that were made into lithographs. The drawings on this page are all by Vonnegut. I always wanted to buy one of his prints...never could afford one. I doubt that's going to be any easier now. There's probably a few novels out there that I haven't read yet. Maybe I'll go buy one and read it.

R.I.P. Sol LeWitt

2007-04-10T13:50:00.000-06:00

In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.
– Sol LeWitt, "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art", Artforum, June 1967.

Sol LeWitt died over the weekend. He was a pioneer in the conceptual art movement. His writings on the subject served as the foundation for a lot of interesting thought regarding art and the importance of the artist's hand in the work. Many people who have given his work a lot more thought than I have have written about him, so I won't spend too much time trying to analyze his contribution to art and the importance of his work. The truth is, I'm not much of a fan.

LeWitt posited that it was the concept that was paramount in a work of art, and the artists hand was irrelevant. He would write detailed instructions describing the execution of a piece and his assistants would execute it. In fact, he believed that anyone could execute one of his works, if they followed the directions. Pretty cerebral stuff.

Of course, I hate this idea. My own work is all about my hand making the images. The stray marks, the accidents and the translation from my minds eye to the paper or canvas are what thrills me about art making. The frustration that comes from my inability to produce the image I imagine and the joy of creating something better than I had expected are all part of the process.

But I think the moves that LeWitt made were interesting ones, and I admire that he followed his theories to their logical conclusion. And his theories, and those of other eminent conceptual artists challenged me during my time in art school. It made me consider the work that I was doing, and informed that work.

In 1969, Sol LeWitt published his "Sentences on Conceptual Art." Here they are for your reading pleasure. Some interesting stuff...

Conceptual artists are mystics rather than rationalists. They leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach.
Rational judgements repeat rational judgements.
Irrational judgements lead to new experience.
Formal art is essentially rational.
Irrational thoughts should be followed absolutely and logically.
If the artist changes his mind midway through the execution of the piece he compromises the result and repeats past results.
The artist's will is secondary to the process he initiates from idea to completion. His willfulness may only be ego.
When words such as painting and sculpture are used, they connote a whole tradition and imply a consequent acceptance of this tradition, thus placing limitations on the artist who would be reluctant to make art that goes beyond the limitations.
The concept and idea are different. The former implies a general direction while the latter is the component. Ideas implement the concept.
Ideas can be works of art; they are in a chain of development that may eventually find some form. All ideas need not be made physical.
Ideas do not necessarily proceed in logical order. They may set one off in unexpected directions, but an idea must necessarily be completed in the mind before the next one is formed.
For each work of art that becomes physical there are many variations that do not.
A work of art may be understood as a conductor from the artist's mind to the viewer's. But it may never reach the viewer, or it may never leave the artist's mind.
The words of one artist to another may induce an idea chain, if they share the same concept.
Since no form is intrinsically superior to another, the artist may use any form, from an expression of words (written or spoken) to physical reality, equally.
If words are used, and they proceed from ideas about art, then they are art and not literature; numbers are not mathematics.
All ideas are art if they are concerned with art and fall within the conventions of art.
One usually understands the art of the past by applying the convention of the present, thus misunderstanding the art of the past.
The conventions of art are altered by works of art.
Successful art changes our understanding of the conventions by altering our perceptions.
Perception of ideas leads to new ideas.
The artist cannot imagine his art, and cannot perceive it until it is complete.
The artist may misperceive (understand it differently from the artist) a work of art but still be set off in his own chain of thought by that misconstrual.
Perception is subjective.
The artist may not necessarily understand his own art. His perception is neither better nor worse than that of others.
An artist may perceive the art of others better than his own.
The concept of a work of art may involve the matter of the piece or the process in which it is made.
Once the idea of the piece is established in the artist's mind and the final form is decided, the process is carried out blindly. There are many side effects that the artist cannot imagine. These may be used as ideas for new works.
The process is mechanical and should not be tampered with. It should run its course.
There are many elements involved in a work of art. The most important are the most obvious.
If an artist uses the same form in a group of works, and changes the material, one would assume the artist's concept involved the material.
Banal ideas cannot be rescued by beautiful execution.
It is difficult to bungle a good idea.
When an artist learns his craft too well he makes slick art.
These sentences comment on art, but are not art.

Donald Trump wants me!

2007-04-05T11:37:00.000-06:00

I was very excited to look through my mail one day recently to find an invitation from Donald Trump. It seems that Mr. Trump wants me to join him--well, his representatives, actually--at the Creating Wealth Summit, a "once in a lifetime financial conference" where I can educate myself in a variety of wealth increasing topics. If you want to read the full text of this amazing opportunity, you can click on the image of the invitation at right. It's just too amazing for me to try to describe it in my own words.

My excitement increased as I read the invitation. This could be my opportunity to pull myself out of debt and live the lifestyle I was meant to live. Visions of gold-lamé curtains and trophy wives dancing in my head, I called the phone number on the ticket to see if I could get more information.

The call was picked up immediately by a recorded message by "the Donald" himself. This really lent an air of credibility to the whole endeavor. His disembodied voice asked me if I was ready to "think big and live large" and then encouraged me to hold on for a "registration specialist." Wow...a specialist. This really IS a big deal!

The specialist did not tell me her name when she came on the line. She was all business, and immediately wanted my information to register for attendance to the event. As a "specialist", she probably had very good reasons for not offering her name which I just didn't understand. But she seemed otherwise pleasant enough, so I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. And I'm going to call her Specialist Ivanka (in honor of Mr. Trump's daughter). Our conversation went something like this:

Specialist Ivanka: Hello, may I register you for attendance at the Creating Wealth Seminar?

Me: Um...actually, I have a few questions, first. Do you think you could answer them for me?

Specialist Ivanka: Sure, I'll do my best.

She's so professional!

Me: This is truly an amazing opportunity...is there really no charge for this?

Specialist Ivanka: The seminar is completely free.

Me: So...they aren't going to ask me to sign up for anything, or buy anything at any point?

Specialist Ivanka: Well, at the end, you can buy books and tapes, but there's nothing to sign.

Me: Why is Mr. Trump doing this?

Specialist Ivanka: He's part of an organization trying to promote wealth, The Creating Wealth Seminar.

She plays it pretty close to the chest...

Me: Well...um...by going to this seminar, am I entering into some sort of partnership with Mr. Trump?

Specialist Ivanka: ...

Me: I mean...you know...if I want to?

I thought maybe she thought I was trying to trap her with the whole "obligation" thing...

Specialist Ivanka: ...no...it's not really...well...it's just a seminar so you can learn things to help you increase your own wealth.

Me: Hmmm....okay. That's too bad. Okay, then...can I speak with Mr. Trump?

Specialist Ivanka: um...I don't think that...uh...no. You can't.

Me: Why not?

Specialist Ivanka: I don't get to speak with him.

Me: Yes, but he invited ME to come to his seminar--not you. He's not going to be there, so I thought I'd just pick his brain a little bit on the phone. You don't think he'd want to talk to me? He sent me this invitation. There's gold ink on it.

Specialist Ivanka: Look, I just work at a place answering phones and taking registrations...I don't really even work directly for Donald Trump.

Me: Oh. I guess I had it figured all wrong. Thanks anyway. You have a nice day.

Specialist Ivanka: You too, sir.

And that was it. I hung up the phone, a little bit disillusioned. I don't know how much training one needs to be a Registration Specialist for Donald Trump. Or one of his subsidiaries. Or some telemarketing company he's hired. Or some telemarketing company that some middle manager in some branch of Trump's empire hired.

She'll always be "Specialist Ivanka" to me, but she really wasn't all that special. And as disappointed as I was in her, I'm even more disappointed in my mail. I would imagine that something that carries a postage stamp--a symbol of our federal government--should carry more weight. After all, it's the federal government!!! If they can't be trusted...oh...wait. Never mind. I think I see my mistake.

My final disappointment came when I found out that my mother-in-law received the same invitation...and then two days later, her dead father also received the mailing.

7 year itch

2007-03-31T05:47:00.000-06:00

On April 1 of this year (that's tomorrow for me...likely today or perhaps yesterday for you) I will celebrate my seventh wedding anniversary. Seven years seems like a long time. There are very few things I've done for seven years in a row. I went to college for 8 years. (Actually, I went to college for 8 years, then took a two year break and worked in the "real" world, and then REALLY went to college for 2 more years to finish my degree. And I want to figure out how to do 2 more years of college before I'm too rediculously old.) I did hold the same job for seven years...but that was during my 8 year stint in college, so I don't know that it counts. And I worked for a comic book store, so it really doesn't count.

But none of that really has to do with seven years of marriage. Much of the seven years of our marriage seems to have just slipped by without me noticing. I think the whole 9-5 thing really makes one's life a blur. That's why I'm opposed to it. It isn't rare to be opposed to something that's a life sentence.

Actually, a lot has happened in the last seven years. I got married. I finally earned my BFA. We had a son. My mother died. We had to give up a dog. We got another dog and immediately broke its foot. Terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Our country went to war over this. I got a full-time job. Polly gave up teaching to stay home with Ross. My Grandmother died. We did a major home addition. We gave up our cat to the family who had kept her during our construction (the girls had become too attached). I tested to become a firefighter. I took a polygraph exam as part of the process. I was told that I lied (I didn't). We had another son. Our country started another war (I'm not sure why). We needed a new house. I got a new job. We moved. We had a daughter (a surprise, courtesy of the Durex® Corporation). I had a vasectomy (no more surprises!). I directed a play.

I'm sure there's more that happened, but at this particular moment, my boys have walked into the room and are doing their best to distract me. You see why I normally blog at work. Somehow it's less distracting.

Anyhow, there's a play called "The Seven Year Itch." The plot is about Richard Sherman, a guy whose company is about to publish a book of the same title, which claims that a significant number of men have extramarital affairs after seven years of marriage. He's paranoid about falling into this trap but for some reason, he sends his wife and son off to Maine for the summer. He meets a young TV model and invites her down for a drink. As he begins to entertain notions of seducing her, he also becomes paranoid that his wife is carrying on with their neighbor in Maine. The play was turned into a movie featuring Marilyn Monroe. The iconic image of Marilyn standing above a subway grate as wind from a train passing underneath causes her dress to blow up around her is from this film. It the play, Sherman and the Girl become intimate. In the movie, it's all in his imagination.

I don't know if such a thing as a "Seven Year Itch" actually exists--if there's ever been any academic study to prove that there's any magic about that number. In my quick search on the internet (where I find all my marital aids) I could find nothing that didn't specifically reference the play and movie. It appears that all the "research" which points to there being such a thing is done to prove whether or not the premise upon which the fictional script stands is accurate. Apparently, the image Marilyn's skirt blowing up over her head become so ingrained in our collective unconcience that this hypothetical has become fact.

That's a pretty interesting comment on the power of imagery.

sketch of the day

2007-03-29T12:23:00.000-06:00

In case anyone has wondered where I've been...I've been too busy to write. Normally, I write on my lunch hour at work, but I've been working through lunch this whole week, so have not had a chance to do it.

The other downside of being so busy is that I'm likely working at the computer a lot. When I do this I start to have problems with my right wrist. At times it's numb, and other times it's intensely painful. Either way, it's pretty unpleasant. So I was considering blogging last night, but I just didn't feel like typing.

The good news is that an image popped into my head, and I decided to draw it. This is to me a good thing...it's been a while since I've had that sort of thing happen. So I'm glad about that. And drawing uses the muscles in my hands differently than typing and clicking does, so it didn't hurt. So...for your viewing pleasure:

Yeah...okay...it's a little odd. But I like it. I'm thinking about either adding a word balloon, or maybe a caption of some sort. "Executive Privilege"or something like that...I dunno. I welcome your thoughts on that. I'm thinking of making a t-shirt out of it, if cafe press doesn't find it too obscene.

i don't mean the french!

2007-03-23T14:30:00.000-06:00

When I arrived home from a particularly exhausting day at work, I noticed a frog on my driveway. It didn't look much like the frog image I have posted here. This frog is rather exotic and doesn't live in Illinois. I believe it's more of the South American variety. You're welcome to correct me if I'm wrong.

The frog on my driveway was probably of the more common green variety found all over the midwest. I say probably because it was difficult to tell, as it was not so much a frog as a smear that looked like it was probably a frog.

It had apparently been run over. I didn't photograph it; even if I had, I probably wouldn't have posted a photo of it. I don't know that you, my gentle readers, are interested in that sort of grotesquery. (I don't know that "grotesquery" is a word, but I like it. If you like it too, please use it, but you must send me a nickel every time you use it.)

Don't feel bad for whatever pain the frog might have felt when it was run over. I found out later that it was dead prior to its flattening when my wife mentioned to me that our son Ross had noticed that the frog had been run over and exclaimed, "Mom, you ruined a perfectly good dead frog."

fun with clip art

2007-03-21T20:28:00.000-06:00

I'm in the process of designing a poster for a local community theatre's production of Oklahoma!. I've never actually seen a production of Oklahoma!. I have had two close calls, though. My high school's drama department did it when I was a student there. I had a friend or two in the cast. Of particular note, I recall my biology-class buddy, Dominic deBellis was in the show. He had a really great voice. Too clean for rock, though, as was painfully evident when my brother and I had him come out to sing for us in our first attempt to form a band. He was the best musician among us...but even then we knew that it just wasn't right. He wanted to sing Don't Stand so Close to Me by the Police...that was pretty cool. But anyhow, I knew Dom was in Oklahoma! because he told me, and because we were herded into Biester Auditorium (the big one!) for a "preview" in lieu of class one day. It didn't convince me to buy a ticket. I think I was still a bit sore from my first brush with the drama club. It was cliquier than I would have imagined; I learned that the hard way. It really turned me off to theatre for a while.

The next opportunity I had to watch Oklahoma! was on a PBS presentation of the London revival of the show, starring Hugh Jackman as Curly. This happened to come on the TV in the hospital room while my wife was recovering from the birth of our second child. After the opening number, the doctor came in to tell us that Jack was having some breathing difficulties and had turned blue and they were checking him into the NICU. While I would probably have been content to keep watching the show, my wife was in no mood to do so at that point. (Bear in mind, before you judge me, that there was NOTHING we could do and NOTHING they would tell us...but I knew better than to argue with a woman whose hormones were all a-twitter.) So I missed another opportunity to watch a show that I probably wouldn't like much.

In all honesty, if I had a burning desire to ever see Oklahoma!, I'm sure I could have tracked it down and seen it at some point between my sophomore year of high school and now. What I know about the show tells me that I probably wouldn't care that much for it. I will watch and enjoy just about any genre of play, if it's well done, but I prefer muscials that are little bit surreal or bloody or otherwise edgy. I hated the whole notion of musicals until I saw Sweeney Todd and understood that as long as there is killing and cannibalism I was willing to accept that the actors might occassionally break into song. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I did perform in Camelot once...possibly the squarest of square musicals. But I played Mordred, the villain, and had a lot of fun. And thankfully, I didn't have to watch the show...because it really isn't the kind of show I would ordinarily like.) I'll probably end up seeing the production for which I am designing the poster, and thus will end my unintentional lifelong boycott of Oklahoma!. Maybe I'll only watch the parts that I haven't seen already...

By the way, I have visited the state of Oklahoma. My good friend Brent, one of the best guitarists I've had the pleasure of playing with, moved there and we drove down for a visit. But that's irrelevant.

So, I'm designing this poster with only the vaguest notion of the plot of the play. I know that it involves a conflict between cowboys and farmers. There is also a beautiful morning made more so because the grass is as high as an elephant's eye...but that may just be hyperbole. The first step in designing the poster is to flip through my trusty book of clip art. I'm not a big fan of using clip art, but often it's a starting point. I don't really expect to find much that helps...but I look up "cowboy" in the index anyway. As I scanned down the page of alphabetical listings, I was somewhat taken aback as the word "constipation" caught my eye.

That's right...somebody took it upon himself to create a graphical representation of constipation. I had to look.

Yep. I guess that's constipation. And now I know that if I am ever in need of clip art showing a guy desperately trying to poop, I have it. I'm going to see if I can get a contract with the good people who make Metamucil.

things I learned in high school

2007-03-19T08:37:00.000-06:00

Last night I found myself watching a human interest story on the news about the Chicago Barn Dance Company. I have no recollection of how I ended up watching the story...or for that matter the news. It was on the FOX network, and while I usually don't get my news from the television, I certainly never get it from FOX. It was probably happened that whatever program I was watching on my Tivo finished and the rum & coke I was drinking lulled me into a sense of complacency. The woman doing the report had chosen to wear a pair of ridiculous-looking cowboy boots. She appeared to be the only person there wearing anything resembling activity-appropriate footwear--most were wearing gym shoes. I wonder if she felt stupid once she got there. She joined in on the fun and interviewed some of the regulars. She made a point to explain the difference between barn dancing and square dancing (something to do with the number of partners, and who you get to dance with). Really, what I found most interesting about her report was that she had either expensed the purchase of those boots, or had raided the wardrobe at the studio and got "lucky".

Not that I think there's anything inherently wrong with barn dancing or square dancing and using that as a vehicle for social interaction. It's just not my bag. But it did remind me of the month or so that I spent in gym class--I believe it was my freshman year--when we were taught, en masse, to square dance. There's a bit of general "wisdom" out there that insists that a large percentage of the information we're forced to "learn" in high school is mostly irrelevant as it pertains to every day life. I've forgotten vast amounts of information on which I know I was tested--and passed...probably with a better-than-average grade. I suppose very little of the knowledge I gained in high school has come in handy. But the truth is, from time to time, I find myself having to recall some random bit of information. The nice thing about high school is that there is no alchoholic haze surrounding that area of my memory, so I can trust that information to be mostly accurate. If I can remember it, I can trust it. Facts are a little bit more suspect if they were learned during my college years. But I can say with 100% certainty that I have yet to call up on the memory of my square dancing unit for any reason whatsoever.

Even if my kids have to endure square dance instruction when they go to high school, (Are they still doing it? Was it some weird localized thing only at my high school?) there's no way I'll be able to help them with their homework.

To this day, I'm not sure why we were subjected to this particular humiliation during our high school experience. I imagine that it was one of those things that had been in the curriculum for years, and so remained. There have been movements dedicated to making the square dance the offical folk dance of the United States of America, but thus far it has not been made official. it wasn't until 1990 that the square dance was made the official dance of Illinois, ance I was out of high school by then.

Perhaps the idea began with an attempt to create a situation that would encourage social interaction between the sexes in a controlled environment. That seems to be the purpose of the Chicago Barn Dance Company. You get to meet people of the opposite sex in a completely non-sexy enviromnent...none of the pesky arousal that can sometimes be the result of ballroom dancing. As a boy developing into a man, believe me that in high school, just about everything could be construed as arousing. Square dancing was not.

The image I've included in today's blog is a drawing of an "allemande". I like this drawing. The guy looks a little creepy...the woman looks a little mannish. It's odd. The "allemande" is one of the calls in square dancing. I don't recall exactly what it involved...some sort of turn...but then, most of square dancing seemed to involve some sort of turn. The word "allemande" comes from the French for "German". Apparently this was some sort of German dance that somehow was translated into the square dance. If you spell it "a le main", it's also French that describes how the move is done. Those wacky French. Doing nothing, but describing it all with their "words". (Full disclosure forces me to admit that I am proudly 1/8 French.)

So anyhow, the one thing I remember from square dancing was that one was encouraged to "allemande left" or "walk like a german to the left". It's interesting that around this time, the Bangels were encouraging me to walk like an Egyptian.

The Egyptians won out. I remember more about that song than I do about square dancing.

Oh, and by the way, I certainly didn't get any dates out of the whole square dancing thing. Maybe if they had timed it better with my sex education classes.

Beware the Ides of March

2007-03-15T11:24:00.000-06:00

Just west of Chicago lies the suburb of Berwyn, home to the world's largest laundromat and "Spindle", a sculpture featured in the movie Wayne's World. It can best be described as a stack of cars on a large skewer. A Car-Kabob, if you will. If you grew up in the Chicago area, you very likely watched a sf/horrow show called "Svengoolie" then "Son of Svengoolie" which featured it's titular comic host cracking wise about the gem they happened to be screening that night. One of their running gags was to repeatedly utter "BERWYN" with dismay. To this day, I can't hear the name of that town without repeating it in the same tone. Berwyn is also the location of FitzGerald's, a music house that is most notable for hosting the open mic night where one of my former bands, map of july, first played to an audience. Maht, lead singer, lyricist and cofounder has written a partial history of the band at his blog. The chapter that includes our appearance at FitzGerald's can be found here.

And Berwyn is also notable for one of it's native sons. Jim Peterik, founder of the band "The Ides of March" is a Berwynian. Maybe they played at FitzGeralds... The Ides of March is probably best known for the song "Vehicle" which was released in 1970. The band was on an extended hiatus (kind of like map of july...maybe it's the Berwyn connection) between 1973 and 1990. Peterik took the opportunity during that time to co-found the band Survivor and bring us such timeless classics as "Eye of the Tiger", "The Search is Over" and "I Can't Hold Back." You may recall that in my second post, I mentioned playing in a "band" that covered "Eye of the Tiger." Wheels within wheels...

In 1990, at the behest of the city of Berwyn, the Ides reformed for Berwyn's Summerfest. The concert was well attended. Sensing an opportunity to cash in on nostalgia...sorry...to recreate the magic...the band has been touring ever since. I presume they close the show every night with "Vehicle". I can't imagine it any other way.

So Beware. The Ides of March. Coming soon to an outdoor village festival near you. Again.

TANG for Victory!

2007-03-13T22:54:00.000-06:00

Another post that's a bit past it's freshness date...

"If we are approached over orange juice by the Syrians or the Iranians to discuss an Iraq-related issue that is germaine to this topic: a stable, secure, peaceful, democratic Iraq, we are not going to turn and walk away."

The above statement was made last Friday by one of the US diplomats on his way to a conference in Bagdad over last weekend. The objective of the conference, I believe is to find a multilateral solution to the security solution (rhymes with bluster-muck) in Iraq. In addition to the US and the other permanent members of the UN Security Council, Turkey, Iran, Syria were also to attend.

Sounds like a fun time.

The key to the above quote is the bit about orange juice. It's a curious thing to say. I believe it's meant to imply that no formal discussion was planned, but if Iran were to...i dunno...send over the guys from Turkey to the US table to break the ice, then maybe the US delegate might be convinced to awkwardly ask the Iranians to dance later on...if they feel like it. But I think that the US delegation is missing out on a golden opportunity here to flex some good old American muscle.

I like orange juice. It can be very tasty, and has a lot of good vitamins and stuff that can keep one healthy. But no orange-flavored breakfast drink better expresses American superiority than Tang. If you don't know what Tang is, it's a powdered orange drink high in vitamin C. According to Wikipedia, Tang was "initially intended as a breakfast drink, but sales were poor until NASA began using it on Gemini flights in 1965. For a decade it was associated with the U.S. manned spaceflight program by many consumers." Growing up, I was always envious of those kids who had Tang at their homes. For some reason, my mother never bought it, so I felt a bit deprived. She must have thought that orange juice could cut it, so I didn't get to drink what astronauts drank. Who know if my life would have turned out differently if I had had access to Tang. As an adult, I occassionally buy Tang, and I've tried to impress upon my children the significance and tastiness of this drink. If they like it, I have an excuse to buy it. Enough about me...

Like a member of the national guard on his third tour of duty, let's return to Iraq, and my fellow Americans at their breakfast table. If the Iranians or Syrians were to sidle up to the table and try to strike up a conversation, the US delegate could offer them a glass of orange juice and be considered, at best, polite. Conversely, if the delegate were to offer a cold, freshly stirred glass of Tang, he would be making a statement. Offering Tang to a foreign dignitary reminds said dignitary that the USA has a (mostly) successful space program. We have traveled to the moon and planted a flag there. Every once in a while, we break free of the restraints of gravity that most nations must succumb to and we circle the planet. Why? Because we can. Because it's there.

And because we have...

...really...

...big...

...rockets!!

America...Fuck yeah!

I'm certain that the Syrians would be so overwhelmed that they will do as the W famously said with his mouth full at the G8 summit last year, and "...stop doing this shit and it's over." I'd bet good money that he was drinking Tang at that meal.

R.I.P. Captain America

2007-03-13T12:00:00.000-06:00

I started to write this post last week, but a busy workweek and insane weekend prevented me from actually finishing. So...here it is. A little less timely that I had hoped.

Captain America is dead. He was felled by a sniper's bullet. And it's a good thing.

I haven't really followed comics--especially super hero comics--in years. Apparently some sort of civil war between the superpowered beings has sprung up over whether or not they need to "register" themselves with the government. Cap believed that it infringed on his civil rights and refused. His death raises the stakes in the overarching storyline that is going on across all the Marvel Comics.

The cynic in me says that he had a high enough profile that his "death" would make the evening news. That sort of publicity is good for comics. Unless things have changed radically since I managed a comic book store (DON'T JUDGE ME!), sales on his comic book were never all that great. So killing him doesn't have the same ramifications as killing Spider-Man or Wolverine would. So it's a solid business decision. I do admire Marvel's choice not to publicize his demise before the book was released. That means stores did not over-buy to meet inflated demand (see: the Death of Superman). That's good for comic collectors.

I was never much of a Captain America fan...he wasn't conflicted enough to make the character interesting, and after more than 50 years, most of the stories were a bit of a retread. But it was nice to know that he was there...a figure to step in every so often and provide a moral center--a voice of reason to the other super heroes. Cap was an idealist who believed and lived out what were supposedly "American" ideals. Life. Liberty. Pursuit of Justice. Equality. Apple Pie. I know that if feels like that isn't really representative of America at the moment. At a time when liberty is increasingly at risk, perhaps it is appropriate to kill Captain America. But maybe it isn't such a good thing.

rescue me! - epilogue

2007-03-08T09:27:00.000-06:00

Whew! That was a close one!

It turns out that my car started easily with a set of jumper cables and a very tiny bit of knowledge (i.e., how to connect the damned things--which is one of the few automotive-related tasks I can actually perform). I thought I'd just drive to work and hope that the car starts at the end of the day, but my mother-in-law insisted that I take the car to our mechanic just in case.

So we did.

And then he told me that I should drive the car to work and give the battery a chance to charge up so that we can be more certain what the problem really is. I thought it would feel good to be right, but it really didn't. It was nice to change up my my morning a little bit.

After my initial panic wore off, I looked around the car and realized that I wasn't as bad off as I thought. I had a bottle of water. I had my Wonder-Woman lunchbox which contained 2 cokes and leftovers from last night's dinner. The meal was mostly rice, so it would have been a real mess to eat. Desperate times...

I also happened to have my copy of Palm Sunday by Kurt Vonnegut in the car. I really love this book. Mine happens to be a 1st edition, but I suspect even later editions are just as enjoyable to read. Even if things got really desperate, I don't think could have brought myself to burn it for warmth (this is the problem with first editions). I think I would have just read it until I fell asleep and then drifted away peacefully. It would have been a nice way to go.

rescue me!

2007-03-08T07:53:00.000-06:00

As i write this, I am sitting in my car outside the health club, waiting for my Mother-in-Law to come rescue me from the dead husk that is my car. I don't know how long it will take.

I am vulnerable and helpless. I don't really know much about fixing cars, and even if I did, there's not much I could do, as I am sans tools.

My only connection to the outside world is my cellphone, which has a dying battery, and my computer, which is connected to the internet via the health club's open wireless connection.

I'm not really sure why one of the amenities of this particular club is a free internet connection. I'll ponder that later...if I ever get out of this predicament. Eventually the battery in the computer will drain. I suspect my car's problem may be related to the battery as well. Powerlessness seems to be defining my day.

I have been unable to reach my mechanic in person...I left a message on his machine, but that has only served to reinforce my suspicion that salvation will come to late, and my demise is inevitable.

Tell my wife I love her. Tell my kid's I'm sorry they had to grow up without....

wait. There she is. It's going to be okay.

groove vs. rut

2007-03-05T13:26:00.000-06:00

Have you ever noticed that it isn't such a bad thing to get in a groove, but you should avoid at all costs being in a rut? These two words are relatively similar, but their differences in connotation are pretty vast. A groove can guide you, while a rut restrains you.

It certainly helps that in music, a groove is definitely a positve thing. LPs have grooves, within which you would defintely want your needle to remain. And that rhythmic interplay between the bass player and the drummer is a groove. (I have no idea if these two musical notions are related.) Years ago, Madonna encouraged the "Boy" to whom she was singing to "get into the groove" so that he might prove his love to her. If he did so properly, he could live out his fantasies with her. The groove could guide you to your reward. Guy Ritchie could probably provide more information on this. I suppose a host of others could as well. At this point I will refrain from any further discussion of Madonna's groove.

John Mellencamp (or was it Cougar?) also had some things to say on the subject of "groovin' "--an activity that I suppose has somethign to do with getting into the groove. In his song "Cherry Bomb", he waxes nostalgic about a time in his youth:

That's when a sport was a sport
And groovin' was groovin'
and dancin meant everything
We were young and we were improvin'

I can't argue with that. I don't really don't think it means anything, though--and maybe that's all the meaning it's supposed to have. What I'm really interested in, though is whether he chose the word "groovin' " to rhyme with "improvin' " or if it was the opposite.

Probably the most ubiquitous form of groove is perhaps epitomized by the Simon and Garfunkel song "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feeling Groovy)". Or perhaps even better defined by Bruce Campell as Ash in The Evil Dead whereupon strapping a chainsaw to his bloody stump of a wrist, he utters the word "Groovy!". Either way, the word "groovy" seems to imply that the winds of fate have set you upon an irrevocable course, but the expected result is a pleasant one that will lead to peace of mind. (note: If you are wondering how I can relate a trippy-hippy Simon and Garfunkel song to The Evil Dead, just remember: I went to art school. I can relate just about anything to anything.)

Overall, the definitions of groove and the words and phrases to which it has given birth are all pretty positive. And then there's "rut."

I believe rut's problem lies entirely in its sound. Groovy is blessed with "OOH!" in the middle. It just sounds like more fun. Looking at the etymology of each word, rut certainly has the advantage. Groove gets its meaning in Middle English from a Dutch word for furrow or pit, which is related to "Grave". That's hardly pleasant. On the other other hand, rut comes from Old French for "route". What could be more pleasant than a path, except for a path defined by some nice, tasteful shrubbery? It seems that rut has more in common with the benign and gentle guidance of fate implied by groove than groove does.

And let's not forget that other definition of rut. Derived from an Old French word which meant "to roar", the second definition of rut simply implies doing it like they do on the Discovery Channel. And is that so wrong?

So I guess it really all depends on how you look at it. Being in a rut may not be so bad.

Being in a rut may not be so bad.

Being in a rut may not be so bad.

Being in a rut may not be so bad.

Being in a rut may not be so bad.

Duran Duran's Rio:a study in context and juxtaposition

2007-02-21T08:12:00.000-06:00

This is a really long post. my apologies. I'll try to make most of them a bit shorter

I remember exactly why I became interested in Duran Duran. In 1984 I was in 8th grade, and Dori Bicek was the coolest girl in class. Bear in mind, this was a very small class of about 17 kids at First Baptist Christian School in Downers Grove, Illinois. It was certainly a small ecosystem...but we had our cliques, and she was definitely the top Heather. At the time, she seemed so damned cool. She was confident and worldly (Remember: Baptist school. She probably wasn't that worldly.), and she was really into Duran Duran. For Dori's sake, I sincerely hope that she somehow remained cool when she entered High School. I have no way of knowing. I never saw her again. Most of the kids who went on to public school went to either Downers Grove North (The Trojans) or Downers Grove South (The Mustangs). I didn't live in Downers Grove. I was a couple towns over in Lombard, so I went to Glenbard East and was, presumably, a Ram. Most of the Rams--the ones who wore uniforms, anyway--didn't much care for me.

There was one get-together of the FBCS class of '84 a couple years after we graduated. I couldn't make it--I was playing a gig with my band "Hazzard". It turned out to be our only gig. It was our drummer's little sister's middle school graduation party. We played "I Won't Forget You, Baby" and "Every Rose Has It's Thorn" by Poison, "Love Bites" by Def Leppard, "Never Say Goodbye" by Bon Jovi, "The Eye of the Tiger" by Survior, a crappy instrumental piece we wrote to showcase our "soloing" skills (it would only have been crappier if we had attempted to put lyrics to it) and inexplicably, "Blueberry Hill".

But I digress. The point is, I had priorities. And this crappy band that played songs I didn't even really care for playing for some giggly girl and her giggly friends was more important than going to see friends that I had gone to school with from 2nd to 8th grade, and hadn't seen since. I. Was. That. Committed. To. My. Art.

So I phoned it in. Not my performance with the band. My attendance to the party. I called to say I couldn't make it because I had this really important gig, and we were totally rocking Franklin Park. And then I sat and watched Pink Floyd's "The Wall" on MTV and had my mind blown. I remember these little details.

While I never saw Dori Bicek again, I did continue to have some appreciation for Duran Duran. They sort of became an entry-level drug for me into the world of European pop, which ultimately led to me learning about some other bands that I like a lot more, and continue to like to this day. And a bit later, when my tastes had matured some, I did sort of like the Wedding Album (1993) for it's own merit. But I don't think I would consider myself a Duran Duran fan.

About six months ago, I was driving home from work with the radio on. Normally, I hate listening to music on the radio. I hate to be force fed music by corporations. But the NPR station refused to come in any longer--my "automatic" antenna on my aging car only raises itself 1/3 of the way--so I clicked over to a more powerful station. In this case, it was one of those "we play anything" type stations. A song or two in, Duran Duran's "Rio" came over the airwaves. I'll admit to having liked this song at one time. But for some reason, possibly because of the way my stereo sounds, or was equalized at the time, or maybe because the windows were open, I was able to hear the lyrics very clearly. And so I listened...and was horrified. Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised. But the lyrics to Rio are really, really bad. And I began to hate the song, and every time it has come up in conversation (a surprising amount of times for a 24 year old song) I've taken the opportunity to vent about this terrible song that deceived me for many years.

Flash forward to this morning. I was using the elliptical machine at my health club in my ongoing attempt to curb the effects of a mouse-jockey lifestyle. This is a pretty new club and they have all the snazziest equipment. Each of the cardio-type machines (treadmills, stair climbers, ellipticals, stationary bikes, etc.) has its own TV screen which displays any of the local cable channels and a variety of music video channels which may or may not be licensed specifically to health clubs. It's possible that the music videos are just cable channels that I don't get, but there don't seem to be any commercials, so I doubt that's the case. Most mornings, I begin my time on the elliptical machine watching the tail end of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode on FX. When that's over, I click up to one of the video channels--whichever one is playing something I sort of like--and surf between the various channels if a video I don't care for is played. For some reason I don't recall, I settled on the "80's Pop" channel this morning. I think the last chorus of "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves was playing. Awful video, but the song saved my life once on a road trip through Kansas once. (I'm not going to explain that at this time.) The next video that came on was Rio, and I discovered how wrong I had been about this song.

The first thing that struck me was how good the bass line is. I attribute this to the fact that I was listening to the song through my iPod earbuds, and so was able to listen to it with the intended balance. But seriously...it's a pretty good bassline. And while the subject matter of the video is itself a bit silly--painted women writhing about on a boat that Simon LeBon and the boys appear to be sailing--it was visually interesting enough at 7AM for me keep the video on. So I was enjoying the really good bass line and the visuals, and I hardly noticed the vocals. And that's when it struck me. This song is not intended to be listened to without the video to accompany it. When I heard it on the radio, the context was wrong, and so I hated the song. Juxtaposed with the video, the song becomes so much more than it is without it.

In every way, it is a perfect example of the style over substance that is typical of 80's pop music. In fact, the painted women writhing around on the deck for our pleasure, as well that of the members of Duran Duran are the epitome of 80's style. They look like paintings by Patrick Nagel. (Incedentally, Patrick Nagel, or someone who drew a lot like him did the cover the Rio album. I had forgotten that until I started to poke around Duran Duran's website while writing this.) Videos originally functioned as commercials to sell records. I think that this video exists to celebrate a decade and its excesses.

Perhaps it is best if the function of top 100 music is to speak only of surface. Most attempts at substance are really sort of substandard. Remember "We Are the World." Listen to the lyrics of that piece of tripe. When a song that really does have something to say comes along, it is only made more substantial by comparison. This point was driven home when the next video to play was Suzanne Vega's "Luka". Great song. Not a great video.

But Rio does have a pretty great bassline.

This is my first post

2007-02-14T11:01:00.000-06:00

and so it begins...

My friend Maht asked me a little while ago why I don't blog. He told me that he considered me a "proto-blogger" because before blogging was so easy and everyone was doing it, I was writing odd little manifestos on whatever subject happened to amuse me or annoy me on any given day, and sending them via email to anyone who wouldn't block my messages. It was a bit lo-tech, but it helped me pass time at the dreary, creativity sapping corporate job I happened to hold at the time. And I didn't know there was a better way out there. Anyhow, it amused me, and apparently amused my friends.

When I quit that job in January of 1999 and went back to school for a couple years, I was much too busy (and NOT in front of a computer) to write, so I dropped it. But I did miss it. And I've been waiting for an excuse, or a push to jump in. And I consider myself pushed.

What will I write about? I don't know...probably more of the same sort of semi-mad ramblings that I am prone to write. I may post a drawing or a quick sketch on those days that I don't feel like putting words together. Eventually, I hope to get back to school to pursue my Masters in Fine Arts degree. And when I do, I'm sure that I will probably chronicle that a bit. Art school is rife with source material for a curmudgeon such as I. I'll probably also use this space to chronicle my grand experiment in generosity, too. More on that later.

For now...I hope you are as amused by me as I am.