late and lame

even the tv news is starting to catch on the sheila lebarre story. (saw it this morning on channel 5). only trouble is that they're the proverbial day late and dollar short when it comes to sensation. (basically paraphrasing the same ap story that's running in the lowell paper every day, all they got from yesterday was "vengeance is mine sayeth the lord" scrawled on the walls of a departing tenant's apartment).

c'mon!!!

testimony had her hacking her way into a trailer with an ax just a day earlier!!! where's the editorial judgment!!!

but i guess they figure frantic 911 calls about fatal trolley crashes make better tv than mute video of an oddly bemused middle-aged woman sitting in a courtroom, while a voice-over from the anchor intones that "she stabbed him in the head with cuticle scissors".

but, you know, even the lowell sun realizes that yesterday was pretty thin up in brentwood--from the front page of the local news section, referenced by a full color teaser atop the main front page itself: with a byline of hudson, nh, "police: 2 kittens were slain".

i know it's going to upset some readers, but i kid you not. those "live free or die" folks are some kind of crazy.

jackpot

i know it's from new hampshire and not exactly and immediately local, but we're getting daily updates from sheila lebarre's nut-job i mean double murder trial in the lowell paper, and the accounts are getting crazier and crazier every day. today, from the testimony of one lucky to be alive ex boyfriend, (whose vanity license plate--no lie--was chosen after breaking up with her to read "i'm alive"), we learn that labarre "stabbed him in the head with a pair of cuticle scissors, chased him through a field with a knife, and hacked her way with an ax into a camper he was hiding in during one of their many arguments". (nothing about testicular assaults with nose hair trimmers, but the trial is still going on and we may still get lucky). i'm getting the skeevies just thinking about the fact that i can't help but find this horror and tragedy even remotely entertaining, but how far does someone have to go before realizing a relationship just isn't working out? the poor guy also testified that at one point sheila "caused a scene during a court hearing for an assault charge issued after one of their fights as a way to get the charges dropped ... saying she was playing the system to make sure i get out of jail". i think that's about the time i'd consider homelessness and masturbation as a viable alternative to shacking up on the crazy lady's farm, but i guess everybody makes their own choices in life.

the other fun stories (you didn't think that was all there was, did you?) include a confirmation by police in hampton, nh, that 18 out of the 19 juveniles detained on may 24 after a "drinking party got out of hand" turned out to be lowell natives. (only one of the lowell crew faces disorderly conduct charges, as the rest were simply treated to "protective custody" and a call to their parents). now *that* is a road trip to the beach, eh?

last, but not least, we have the story of the 38-year-old (5'7") homeless guy who is now fingered for the recent unarmed bank heist down the street. just walked in, asked for money, and then took off. "we think he headed to lawrence, but he could very well still be in lowell" say the cops. there's up to $1000 for info leading to an arrest, so check the lowell sun website for the picture, and c'mon down!!!

who's going to sangria's tonight?

confidential information

while we're on a week of rants, here's a good corporate one:

as you can imagine, in a company of upwards towards 50,000 people, there's a fair amount of corporate information that's restricted from wider dissemination. "that information is confidential" is one of the favored expressions as to why. so, as is often my poor judgment to ask, from whom, exactly, do we figure we need to keep this confidence?

with a straight face i've had more than one keeper of the corporate keys explain to me the potential for mischief should one of our competitors happen to get ahold of such sensitive information. and i'm met with nothing but blank stares when i ask, in return, how the calculation for such a possibility figures in comparison to the absolute certainty that it won't be falling into the hands of our own managers in the meantime.

knowledge is power, and we're living in an information age. in the past, when so little actual information was available, and everybody was in the perpetual dark, (think dark ages), i think it might have made sense to hoard the good stuff. but dick cheney's fabricated "treated as top secret/sci" security designation would top the laugher charts if it weren't for how serious such a designation can be in the life of a prisoner denied due process by the coincidence of the location of incarceration. (hello, guantanamo). we do seem to be beset by a scourge of secret-keepers these days. heaven forbid we feel like a free and open playing field for information might be to the benefit of our own superiority. (or do we fear that we are innately inferior?)

so what is the net effect of all this secrecy? as hinted above, one effect is that it GUARANTEES that the folks otherwise on your side have no benefit from it. we won't even get into the possibility/probability that secrecy=malfeasance these days when it comes to sovereign power. (yes, you, mr. olmert). the net effect of all this secrecy is that inside one of the most successful and powerful information organizations on earth, we still treat useful information as too useful for our own people to be entrusted. the irony is, and i know folks there so i know from what i speak, said competitors already have better information on our business than our own middle to lower management has to defend themselves on the field of commercial battle. we're effectively putting a blindfold on our own driver and expecting him to race without crashing into the abutments, lest the guy in the next car figure out where to drive with the two eyes of his own wide open. (lucky for us they're just as obsessed with secrecy, and everybody gets equal opportunity to crash their cars).

news flash to the double top secret probationaires: information wants to be free.

writing is hard

it's taken me three revisions since posting today's original post, and i'm still not satisfied with the results. mark twain (maybe) said that he'd have written a shorter note but he didn't have the time, and i completely understand the sentiment. achieving brevity and clarity is extremely hard for me, especially while i pen these blatherings at un-edited speed between my random work obligations throughout the day. we've already seen where a couple of itchy rants on corpulence can induce people of more than casual acquaintance to express concern for my state of mind, so i have no idea how the hair-trigger topic of lethal law enforcement is going to play, but, well, i write here for myself, so i'm figuring i shouldn't start holding back now.

imagine what it would be like if i'd have been out having a beer in a sports bar last night! ;-)

signs of the apocalypse

dramatic fires, (caught live on helicopter video of course), deadly train crashes, (complete with an endlessly-replayed 911-call and rumored scandal of improper cell phone usage), and gasoline price conspiracy theories as things press $4/gallon for regular (the feds have announced they've been investigating possible tampering for months) are all saturating the news these days. (to give you an idea about how far it's gone, lindsay lohan lining up for a california marriage with mark ronson's sister, complete with smooch photos from p. diddy's yacht including fresh ring-finger bling and visible neck hickies can't even make a murmur in the news here in boston this week).

one story that's got me today is from yesterday evening on the boston common. on a particularly beautiful and breezy spring afternoon, while the common was characteristically packed full of strolling and lolling civilians, (perhaps not as full as when subway fires impacting the two busiest stations in the system sent trainloads of passengers above ground to escape the smoke as earlier in the week, but pretty full nonetheless), police officers chased down and shot a guy with a fake gun.

firearms sober me up in a right awful hurry. i've mentioned my sense of civil duty to license myself and acquire arms for the defense of american liberty (though important to note that i feel the most-likely aggressor and tyrant to be my own federal government and its "department of homeland security" than any other group, including so-called terrorists who statistically pose less a threat to me and my children than getting shot down by over-zealous "law enforcement", but i digress) but don't for a moment mistake where i stand on the subject of weapons of personal destruction. like tnt, they can be argued to be intended and overall-on-the-balance effective for the greater good, but even al nobel would have to admit that it hasn't been an unblemished track record on either side. pulling a pistol with which to deal bodily harm is about an aggressive an act as can be considered in our society, and when its done in the presence of hundreds of innocent bystanders something HAS TO be done about it.

i, of course, know nothing of the true circumstances of the shooting other than that it happened. i'm also, it needs to be said, one of those local police (note that i said local, not federal) supporters who realizes that we push far too much of our personal responsibility for good public order onto the undermanned and underarmed shoulders of our local contabularies, and, like supporting our men and women in arms overseas, believe that we do not nearly enough to support and honor that service to our greater good. the truth is, in the last 12 months, that gun violence on that very same public common has erupted far too many times, with one random bullet even being found lodged in a window of our statehouse. the police need our support to be doing something active about it, and their presence on the common yesterday is to be unequivocally commended.

but, firing guns off in a public park begins to tread on the edge of my unequivocality. i sure hope the situation warranted the extreme response.

by way of context and contrast: my local cops arrested a guy selling heroin for the FIFTH time while out on bail for the previous infractions, and i'm compelled to say i'm completely on the blue side that something has gotta be done to help 'em do their jobs. and when a local nut job flailed a meat cleaver in their direction the other day, i get completely why it was necessary to pull the pistol and do what needed to be done. (true story, courtesy, of course, of my local paper). but i'm seriously apprehensive to know what possessed that guy on boston common yesterday to produce and fire his weapon. heaven forbid any of us are walking with our children nearby to the next flashpoint.

(mental note to add kevlar to the automatic assault weapon when stockpiling the potential defense to my civil liberty).

so, wanna know what prompted me to pick this morning's blog title? nope, it's not the cops shooting people down in the park, nor the gas prices nor the train crashes nor the towering infernos all over town. (cry for the lobsters at jg hook). it's the fact that mbta cops have virtually ceased citing people for fare jumping and other platform mischief.

WTF???

i think it's pretty clear, from the result in nyc to all over the country, that strict enforcement of *all* laws leads to better public order and a significant reduction in serious/violent crime. so the boston police are battling above ground against a surge in drug traffic and handgun violence above the very same stations where these transit cops are petitioning to be adjoined to the state police (three guesses which bureaucracy offers higher pay scales, and the first two don't count) while they don't even lift a finger when the handgun-armed above-ground drug dealer of tomorrow begins his disrespect for the law by trashing and stealing from our underfunded public transit system beneath.

yeah, it's a stretch to even imagine causality, but i can't help but wonder anyway.

people get ready

there's a train a comin'

(props to curtis mayfield).

ok, a digression, cuz maybe folks will channel "super fly" (or maybe even "freddie's dead") at the mention, but i've always loved "people get ready"...

anyway...

one of the thinner parts of the fabric here in downtown shangri-lowell has been its local music scene, by which i mean the kind of scene where people who love to play share space with people who love to hear 'em play, and everybody has a good time, as opposed to the kind of scene where people who love to make money playing sell space to people to sit and listen, and the sponsors get fat and happy. (not that there's anything wrong with that). there's trip fiske at the mambo grill every once in awhile, and cover bands at the college bars too, but not the kind of every night something different that you'd love to see in a really happening metropolis.

so there's a train a comin'--friday night it's the record release party for lowell's own melvern taylor and his fabulous meltones at sangria's, and then saturday it's across the aisle's ska-punk at the old worthen attic. look 'em up on myspace if you're curious, and figure that if the kids aren't here, then it's a fair bet that i'm there. cuz it takes both the music and an audience to make magic happen, and i'm here ta tell ya that i'm gonna do my part.

"do whatever steps you want if / you have cleared them with the pontiff"

tom lehrer, a very funny guy at any age, turned 80 this year.

among other timeless, who knows if they're original or borrowed, lines of his worth honoring is: "i know there are people in this world who do not love their fellow man, and i hate people like that".

of course we all do.

in addition to wrath, ("national brotherhood week", of course, but also "send the marines" and "so long mom" and "who's next" and, geez, i think the guy didn't think much of angry nationalism, did he), he also did a great job of running through several of the other seven deadlies in his various melodies, from lust ("smut") to envy ("alma"). "alma, [that would be alma maria schindler mahler gropius werfel], tell us, all modern women are jealous, which of your magical wands, got you gustav and walter and franz?"

to digress just a moment, if you have ever or will ever listen to any of these classics, you'll note a distinctive irreverence for poetic meter and convention, (to wit: rhyming "want if" and "pontiff" as in the post title, and his "vatican rag"), that it's my belief we owe in this english world to none more than the genius who was and forever will be ogden nash, and i just thought i should point that out. (we miss you, ogden...)

anyway...

the seven deadlies...

for picking on (i think) gluttony and sloth, i've been roundly accused (i think) of wrath or something like it. (i'd hate to think i only managed one of the venials for all the concern being sent my way). and it occurs to me, speaking of hating fellow men who don't love theirs, that i finally understand why those early bible thumpers thought it was so important to get those big seven written down. of course, with god's wrath (hey, isn't that an inconsistency???) on their side, they were able to threaten eternal damnation for each transgression, whereas all i've been able to manage is a petulant rant against the way it makes people look, and not a very effective one at that. *sigh*

moral outrage is such big business. i shudder to think of how much wealth is controlled by religion in this world (hey, another one of those inconsistencies!) but the truth is, if history is any guide, if there's an absence of moral imperiousness, there seems to be an intense human need to create it. ("nobody expects the spanish inquisition" is funny because, i think, we all know it's an inevitability in each age, from, in my almost lifetime, mccarthyism to kenneth starrism to "if you aren't with us you're an un-patriot"-ism).

so, really, all i am is human, albeit badly behaved like so many of the rest of 'em, and i guess i'll have to do better. we haven't really ranted here about greed in awhile (though maybe the shots at the soon-to-be-ex start heading in that direction) and there has to be, sooner or later, a discourse on pride so i can make fun of myself a little, but generally i'm (apparently) all-too-satisfied picking on public figures like julie lugo, and anonymous figures like the bartendress with the bad fashion sense, and i should cut it out.

but i will say, while we're quoting so many geniuses of the world, that i'll always appreciate either dorothy parker or alice roosevelt longworth (can't seem to find a definitive answer as to which) who said, "if you can't say anything nice..."

"come sit here by me".

something sweet

just in case you didn't think i still had the happy gene in me...

ed my ups guy just dropped off the latest packages, including my two brand spanking new pairs of kelme premier socks. i used to happily shell out the $15 each at the the brasilian soccer house in east boston, but i grabbed their last pairs a year or two ago, and i've been wandering in the wilderness ever since looking for a connection. ("well i pawned my smith corona / and went to meet my man / he hangs out down on alvarado street / by the pioneer chicken stand").

carmelita, hold me tighter, the soccer.com people have finally seen the light!!!

these are, hands down, the greatest socks ever made. at $10.99 apiece ($9.89 if you're a gold club member, which i proudly am) they are heaven on the podiatric earth. women who will tear limbs from people for the last pair of their favorites at the lingerie shop, i have felt the warmth of your inner fire, and it is good. for years i've been mentioning to my soccer.com salespeople (they take phone orders too) that they should carry kelme premier socks, and who knows how many other addicts have been doing the same. somewhere in this vast cosmos of ours, there is, indeed a god.

who says money can't buy happiness.

counting

martha davis, she the once-acknowledged sexiest housewife in america, (and for all we know she still is), once penned the closing opus of the motels' self-titled debut album, counting, and it's always been one of my all-time favorite songs. "i keep on wishin' / that someone / could tell me /[prodigious pause]/ exactly what i'm doing here".

a lot of folks remember "total control" more clearly, maybe because they heard it on the radio, but they're two halves of the same song, and if you listen to the whole album you can hear the whole picture. so to speak. all i can link to is the latter, though to really understand this one, you'd need to find an mp3 of the former as well. (it's almost 30 years ago, can you believe it).

so, anyway, counting...

one of my favorite elements, second to the arrangement, instrumentation, lyrics, vocals, ok, they're all my favorite, is the enigmatic "sally", who goes from being "out with some man she's met" to "you know sally, she ain't a bit of fun anymore". i have no corroboration other than my own knowledge that it must be so, but i know that sally is martha's alter ego, as surely as jake was my friend's in college, and it's all about everything we all feel when we're alone.

"i seen 'em come / i seen 'em go / some are faster / now some not so..."

"i'd sell my soul for total control"

where was i?

oh... counting...

one of the interesting side benefits of brewing your own beer is that you have an eloquent returnable tabulation of your every self-indulgence. in my case, since the 27th of april when (i think) i bottled the most recent batch, there have been exactly 25 dead soldiers added to their neat little case boxes in the closet. subtracting the 11 consumed by teammates at my soccer game on the 11th, and the six others attributed/estimated to various houseguests over the past few weeks, that would leave eight 22 oz. crime scenes to have been consumed over a period of 31 1/2 days. of course, there needs to be added to those 16 servings (2 to a bottle--what/who do you think i am?) at least as many servings across the street in front of hockey, baseball and basketball games, plus a few extraneous duck farts here and there, plus whatever's been consumed while on the road to wherever...

the way i figure it, i've been averaging close to 2 servings a day for almost a month straight, and when you count up all the days in between where i didn't serve myself anything at all, you have to figure a few times in there i've been well into what the euphemists call "social drinking". nope, nothing extreme, (well, at least not since st patties), but inarguably steady, and, if the expansion against that favored notch in my belt is any indication, a bit too much to be happily and healthily maintained.

yeah, the food is rarely any differently moderated than the brew, and the double-whammy is encroaching on my activity's ability to meaningfully offset it, too.

the part, however, that i've most carefully been counting isn't the glassware or the waistline inches at all. more than one have commented on the meanness of my last series of missives here, and i have to say it's not without precedence in my history of life in proximity to alcohol. nope, i'm not (usually) a mean drunk, but i sure can be a mean sober guy a day or two later. i think it's mostly because the eating and drinking and not exercising puts me off my sleep, but it's a careless scientist who presumes causation from correlation.

though other careful observers, asking where and when that settlement agreement might finally be sent back over for completion, have their own theories about what makes kad barma a snarly boy...

count me heading out for another bike ride before soccer practice tonight. ipod along for the ride this time.

"i keep on wishin'..."

team

it's always too bad when west coast trips leave only tv news highlights and related newspaper accounts of the latest (mis)adventures of the olde towne team, because the context can become lost and we're at risk for mistaking the greater truth, but...

apparently from the accounts of last night's game, somewhere in the fifth inning our little friend julie decided to take it upon himself to argue a non-swing call by the third base umpire during a previous inning. (at least i think that was what he was doing--one can never tell when certain wound-too-tight dominicans, as opposed to the happier a la 499 manny and papi ortiz kind of dominicans, have their panties in a wad, but more on julian taverez in a sec). forget that the catcher and the pitcher and the third basemen all had better vantage points to the play and that none of them seemed compelled to make a hissy fit out of it, but our boi julie just had to have his tantrum and get tossed. on the one hand, it's the kind of thing us alex cora fans would applaud happening more often, but, on the other, doesn't it really make you scratch your head and say "what the f*** is this guy doing on our team???".

the cynics amongst us will note that julie was already 0h fer two in the game, and two fer eleven on the road trip, not to mention having accumulated his major league baseball-leading twelfth error of the season on sunday, and just having committed his who-knows-how-manyth inning-ending grounded-into-double-play only moments before during last night's game. (ok, i do know how many, and it's 7, which would put him on pace for 20+ for the season, which isn't quite yet jim rice territory, but in terms of gidp's per opportunity, i swear to god this guy is on pace to smash whatever record of that sort there might be to break at this point, simply because the #9 hitter only has so many guys on base to try to get doubled off). a quick check confirms julie is barely managing a .224 batting average when men are on base, though that drops to .182 when they're in scoring position, so it's not like he prioritizes getting doubled off over simply finding ways not to drive people in, so at least there's that. oh, i could go on and on and on and on...

but i also wanted to acknowledge julian tavarez being picked up by the milwaukee brewers who, apparently, haven't tired of giving ex-sox batting practice pitchers a handout. (yes, that's referring to you, mr. gagne). i really like the brewers--i have no idea what to do about this but try to keep from crying for them in my not-from-milwaukee beer. though, looking through the past few seasons of derrick turnbow's stats, i can see that at least they're gunning for consistency among their bullpen staff and their replacements... (ironic, but i absolutely LOVED the way julian carried the sox last season while all the starting arms were down with injuries, and so i will always have a soft spot for his crazy little 10 cent head regardless of how many times he decompensates on a ball field, despite what teasing about him here might otherwise suggest).

the good teams are the ones without guys like julie on them. that much i know.

there, that's better

it always feels better after you've done something about it, whether it be sitting in traffic, retorting to a bully, or putting your lazily prodigious appetite on notice with an hour and a half on the bike. (20 miles, and i'm satisfied with that). i've said it before, and i'll say it again: the merrimack river is a hidden jewel. on my tour downriver today i noted numerous scenic overlooks, with and without restaurants, a plethora of boats just waiting for summer on the river, and even an intrepid seaplane, the owner of which surely must know he or she lives amidst heaven on earth. mental notes included my need for a modest, earth-friendly water conveyance of some kind (canoe, i think) and a budget that can afford dining out every once in awhile. (some things may have to wait).

storage of the canoe might be tricky, though i'm imagining if i finagled a parking space within the building here i might find a way to suspend one above the hypothetical new car, and wouldn't that be sweet. (remind me to pick up a lottery ticket).

ok, back to work.

for the young 'uns in the audience

reading that last one over again it occurs to me that i'm marginalizing my potential audience by assuming it's all sliding down the back side of some hill. that may very well be the case, but i'm also here to tell the smirking "youth" that could hypothetically be out there and reading this that your generation(s) don't have a whole lot to feel smug about. ("muffin top" hadn't been invented when i was a 20-something, ya know).

"super-size me" described the habits of the young as much as the old, and a quick review of what's on offer down on the street in the later hours of the weekend confirms a disturbing truth, regardless of its age, or, perhaps, even more troubling *because* of its age. there was a bartender in a little local joint that shall remain nameless last night, dispensing the crying receptacles while our beloved celtics were going down to an ignominious wire-to-wire defeat. she had on all the cliches, from the faux frosted but obviously underneath all-too-brunette hair, to the short shorts and skin-tight tee that squeezed out the nascent will-be cellulite below, and the bulging over-the-muffin-top belly between (that doesn't even disappear when you look at her side-saddle water wings from behind) and the earliest buds of the bingo wings and neck wattle above. (when you know what you're looking for, it's amazing what you can see). sure, she was young, and that remains comely even while it's a little too much fat to go with the baby, but, wow, what a trajectory she must be tracing. i think, fit as i am, i've been running about a pound a year for a couple of decades. but from where she's standing, there's going to be a whole lot of never-coming-back that is going to be its own version of stunning before she hits 30. and there's nothing pretty about that.

another patroness had the most ridiculous pair of surgically augmented (but nevertheless fascinating and impressive) hooters i've seen in a long time, though i hardly think she's old enough to have graduated from college. her waist, on display as it was, just like her cleavage, though with far less allure, was without definition even while it was defined fore and aft by ink and no mistake about her sexual promiscuity. she was heading out for a smoke when i caught my glimpse, and the leather of her skin was already apparent, even with, or, perhaps, especially because of, the surfeit of make-up. bet she spent the weekend at the beach...

my personal favorite was the could-have-been salma hayek, whose face was so exquisitely beautiful that you almost didn't notice she was wearing a dress most aptly described as a smock, with that empire "waist? what waist" look doing what it's never intended to do, which is, not hide even a smidgen of the lack of one, even though it was clearly and desperately intended to do it. she was kissing a pudgy big-armed guy of indeterminate age whose jawline whiskers were active in their own attempt to define something that simply wasn't to be defined. (which would be, beneath the puffiness of too many pitchers of beer, any sort of a jawline).

yeah, i'm being ferociously unfair, and profoundly hypocritical given my own decline, but the point i'm hoping/trying to make is that 30 years ago those sorts of appearances were simply too rare to resist commenting upon, even then. no, women didn't dress the way they do now, and certainly didn't seem as promiscuous as they're advertising themselves to be these days, but i'm wondering this morning if that's because it's just about the only way for them to hope to get any, what with what they're putting out there.

if you think 50 looks bad today, just wait til you see what you and your cohort are working on.

old enough to be

adulthood, viewed from sufficiently previous, seems to the average youth as one vast tract of dotage and decline. i think this impression clouds our perceptions and judgments far longer than we might otherwise consider, but by the time 50 starts to appear on the proximate horizon, and we're right there in the mathematical middle of it, some subtle distinctions do become apparent.

first is that some people "our age" just don't seem to age well. we know this from any number of symptoms and presumed causes, from the leathery rhino hide that follows an excess of sun and cigarettes, (frequently abetted by a surfeit of alcohol, and don't you just cringe the hardest when the wrinkles settle most prominently upon the lips), to the wattles of flesh that hang so pendulously from beneath the arms whenever they're raised. ("bingo wings" never fails to crack me up). of course, the most inexorable of age-related scourges has to be the thickening combination of inactivity and caloric overindulgence, that stamps itself like a corpulent plague upon almost everybody these days, or so it would seem. add unwanted hair loss, unwanted hair gain, and all the sagging, graying and decaying you can't possibly miss, even with the bad rugs and bad dye jobs and bad plastic surgery heaped upon it to try to deny it and cover it all up, and you have a perfect recipe for nightmares and nausea.

and, yet, we, the aging generations of america, all losing our eyesight and our hearing and our tastebuds and sense of smell, growing numb to the world around us and its effects upon our bodies, still think we and all our friends look good. we read a list as is contained in the previous paragraph, and we tick off the elements of which we believe we are either innocent or free. "well, at least i've never had plastic surgery", as if somehow that changes something about us. ever look at a 40-something woman from above? (easier if you're taller). gray roots. ever consider a 40-something guy's ears and nose? (yeah, not as easy with all that hair starting to grow out of 'em). it's not a pretty picture.

so what am i really saying here? do i hate myself? or just everybody i know?

27 still looks good to 47. it still looks familiar, (it really wasn't all that long ago), and it still tantalizes despite the "old enough to be your..." comment that will become inevitable if one pushes the conversation even a little bit. but forget cougars and "distinguished", you know that 90% of the young 'uns would sooner hurl than be able to keep their supper down if presented with such a situation in a public context. (in view of all their friends--we all know that all sorts of other skeevy stuff is not unknown to happen behind closed doors, so lets not pretend too much in that direction, either, but i'm just sayin').

i think the disconnect is not between ourselves and the world, but it's between ourselves and our self. we rationalize the declines of those around us as some sort of mitigation for our own, and we pump ourselves up with excuses for why a piece of clothing no longer fitting isn't a warning. and we eat like we always have, (sometimes worse), and we take that last flight of stairs off without an apology because our knees hurt or our backs are a little balky, and, besides, we just don't feel like it. we can always take it another time.

yeah.

right.

i don't know about you, but i want to be the 47 year old on whom the 27 year olds don't have to feign disinterest. (didn't say i was, or that i expected to be, i'm just acknowledging that i want to be, that's all). i think we'd all like to be that. just not enough to put down that second glass of whatever, and get up off whatever it is we're sitting on and move around a little.

well, today, as fit as i am, i'm admitting here that i'm not. i sent away for the bathroom scale, because i'm empirical and it helps me to know cause and effect, and i'm going to find some way to make a difference within myself. years and years of trying to be a better person, it's about time i gave my better person a little present of vitality and longevity. cue the eye rolls, because i already play soccer and don't look nearly so far gone as many of my contemporaries, but i'm not going to be satisfied until some 27 year old (some FIT 27 year old, as i've gotta say the present generation of 'em worries me not just a little bit) pronounces me confused with 35.

yup, 35. i'm figuring 8 years is within the ballpark for unashamed booty calls, so there's that, but mostly i'm just using that as a goal whose realization is never going to be the point. by the time i put the time in to approximating 35, i'll be north of 55 and lucky to be dreaming about 40. and so it will go. 'cuz it's not the number that matters, when all is said and done. it's can i vault the 10 flights 2 at a time and still be there with my kids or my companion(s) when i reach the top? will i be living a life worth living when i'm living it towards the far end of this adult spectrum?

i dare you to take an honest review of your closet. (your clothes don't shrink or lie). your bathroom mirror. (you may need your glasses for this one). your decisions when it comes to standing or sitting, walking or riding, or reaching for that last bite or swallow of whatever. and if that doesn't work for you, then just walk up to the next 27 year old you meet in a bar and watch their expression carefully as you engage them in conversation. don't give yourself the free pass if they're alone and they're coincidentally tuned into your sexual indiscretion. (that goes for you too, guys). check out the side glances to and from their friends while you're there. they should tell you a lot. if you can hear them.

meanwhile...

life isn't all horror and hypocrites. (well, horror, anyway...)

seems that mitt romney has just closed on a home in la jolla, ca, because, among other things, "his wife, ann, spends a good deal of time there riding horses". (i couldn't make this stuff up--that's a direct quote from romney's official spokesperson, eric fehrnstrom). i guess we're not to believe his visit to mccain's this weekend had anything to do with the republican vice presidential nomination, nor his pending domicile in ca to have anything to do with arnie's term limit expiring in 2010.

ya gotta love politics.

the infliction of cruelty

"the infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists--that's why they invented hell". --bertrand russell.

torture gets its share of press these days, and philip gourevitch and errol morris have raised some fascinating questions about our impressions of it in their recent book and film on abu ghraib. (the crowning irony of which is that the iconic image of the scandal was posed for a joke and is specifically unrepresentative of what really went on--for example, the prisoner was clothed--while the most troubling images were never photographed, nor, it would seem in the public discourse, missed). in a farce worthy of nazi prison camp excuses of "just followed" orders, no one above the rank of corporal has ever been taken to task, let alone brought to justice, though all necessary evidence of command culpability is readily available through investigation transcripts and other sources. (and we all know the name of the commander in chief).

it astounds me that we speak in terms of moral superiority while we export "freedom" to the rest of the world. among other shames, we are the only nation in that world to have intentionally dropped an atomic weapon on civilians to coerce a military/political result. (i guess its only terrorism if it's piecemeal). fifty years ago this july we will mark the anniversary of the arrest and conviction of a married couple for the simple crime of having the audacity to be married. (a marriage between a man and a woman, no less, though, because of perceptions of race it was deemed felonious owing to the marriage's affront to "the peace and dignity of the commonwealth" of virginia). as recently as forty years ago we were systematically denying both voting rights and access to education to entire swaths of our own citizens. even today we cheerfully maintain state-sanctioned taking of life without regard to mental faculty (capital punishment against the incompetent is restricted only in 18 out of 50 states), warrant-less searches and charge-less incarceration (patriot act and don't get me started about guantanamo), and the straight-faced assertion of executive privilege to interpret torture as being "legal" if it occurs outside of the territorial boundaries of the us and against "enemy combatants" who are defined as such at the complete whim of the us armed forces, without judicial review or legal recourse of any kind.

exhale.

and...

name another country in which institutional slavery has been the recognized and sanctioned law of the land more recently than our own.

i'm not much on the bible or the zealots who thump it (read the book of numbers some day if you'd like to find proper sanctioned tactics for genocide, and take note when they mention midianites and sparing the virgins to "keep alive for yourselves" along with the livestock as spoils of war) but i think the book got that "log in your own eye" part just about right.

memorial day

a general was in the news the other day decrying our country's missing patriotism, citing, among other things, the consensus lack of financial support for the war (despite spending only 4% of our GDP these days, as opposed to 9% for the vietnam war, to 14% for the korean war, and something into the 30's for wwII) and a galling disrespect for the ultimate sacrifice being paid by our men and women at arms.

in case he or anyone else is confused, i can tell you all where it started.

early on in this process, the current administration did two somewhat related things. first, in an insulting irony to our constitution and its bill of rights, and to all those who fought and died to create and preserve it, a "patriot act" was installed which denied civil liberties to any citizen deemed by the government to be suspect (suspicion to be determined by same said government) in any activity even remotely related to terrorism. second, alongside this fetid echo of adams' shameful alien and sedition act, the administration and its supporting political party (and all their related idealogues) incited the populace to brand as "unpatriotic" any questioning of the necessity or prosecution of this policy. this is up to and including restrictions on the press, and a careful management of information related to the war, including (and here's where i can barely control my seething anger) the representation, photographic or otherwise, of the flag-draped caskets being returned from the theater of war. (how rich a term for such a terrible thing).

to those who have given their lives in honor, it should be the least we can do--to honor that sacrifice with reflection and renewed commitment to the cause for which they have died. if an administration is unsure that we can maintain our "patriotism" in full view of this sacrifice, then i say this administration has already eloquently answered the damning question, of whether or not they believe this to be a "just" war. it simply cannot be.

this memorial day, i should think it our solemn duty as americans to demand a photograph of each and every casket, and to answer in our own hearts if we do enough to honor that sacrifice.

condominium

"condominium" was constructed out of latin components to describe shared living space, and the word is pretty straightforward for that purpose. however, the legal application of the term, and our social expectations for it, are often at cross purposes.

on the one hand, the legal aspects are actually somewhat clear. "owners" own interest in the shared bits, and though they control and "own" their private living spaces, they are connected by a legal agreement that subjects things to the interests and whims of the overall group, as decided by vote according to proportional shares of original ownership. kinda like shareholders voting at the annual corporate meeting, where shares are the individual units, weighted by original value. your home is not, exactly, your castle, but you can at least have something to say about it with your neighbors.

on the other hand, owing to that "not your castle" bit, the social aspects are relatively murky. first of all, noise and decoration and odor and vibration all extend beyond the boundaries of individual living spaces, and where your right to party and your neighbor's right to sleep intersect, things are always going to be, to phrase it politely, entertaining. but, second of all, and lets use the setting of condo fees as one example, it's hard to reach a unanimous consensus of opinion on how things should be maintained. is the collective interest to take on the characteristics of a slum lord so we can all live as cheaply as possible regardless of appearances or convenience, or will fees be assessed and collected as if it's a why-pay-less country club instead?

a friend described a recent conflict at another condominium in another town where a decision to require safety repairs to individual units (to mitigate risk to other units, not to mention to avoid fines by local regulators) has hit one particular resident particularly hard. simply put, and not meaning to digress back to yesterday's rant on gasoline, food and mortgage inflation, the cost of the repairs would potentially result in that resident's losing their home. whether or not that is the unvarnished truth, the decision of the condo board to assess fines for continued delays absolutely will. (the fines are draconian).

so here's the rub: the other owners are liable for the public fines to be levied if the repairs are not completed by their neighbor. it's completely unfair for them to be forced into that position by their neighbor's refusal (or inability) to complete them. but there's an emotional question related to the punitive private fines levied by the condo board as to whether or not that's a "neighborly" thing to do to a poor neighbor. on the one hand, laws and finance are pretty clear that this last holdout is a scumbag who doesn't give two shakes about their neighbors. (the repairs are to mitigate a substantial risk of fire if they aren't completed, and are subject to non-compliance fines by the city where the condo is located). on the other hand, it's a pretty cold day in may should a gang of folks conspire to essentially evict someone with whom they share a dwelling.

solomon might have had a plan to deal with this sort of thing, but i don't know about the rest of us. my first question is why, when the problem was first discovered, and the required resolution decided, the owner crying poverty didn't bring their concerns to the board immediately. i'd like to think some additional discussions might have developed an alternative solution, or at least something the poor neighbor could live with. but i guess i'm the hard-hearted kind who starts to lose patience when the crocodile tears are produced at the 11th hour, when there is no longer any wiggle room with the local fire guys over the public fines for non-compliance.

put another way: i really care about you. right up until you prove that you don't care about me.

kinda like marriage and divorce, when you think about it--only condo units aren't separated quite so easily...

the score

celtics 1, pistons 0
justin masterson 1, mlb 0
line in the sand 1, people who "win" in a divorce 0.

hard to get overly excited when all you've done is hold on a bit tighter to what you'd like to think is already yours, but i just wanted to have it acknowledged somewhere that my latest marital equivalent to the cuban missle crisis happily resulted in little more than kruschev's banged high heel and a quiet murmur of grudging conciliation. there's a couple of petty conditions to be added (i guess to remind me of who likes to think she's in charge) as an offset for the "compromise", but, seriously, where's it going to get anybody to start contesting every little thing. (yeah, i know...)

at $50 for the last tank of gas, it's hard to get excited about anything these days. even without a commute to work, my gasoline bill is still larger than anything else in my month save my mortgage. i have no idea how people are expected to ignore the rising prices of food and petrol, not to mention their sub-prime mortgage debts, but i think it's pretty clear to see that there's been more damage inflicted on this country by the current administration over the past eight years than by all the "terrorists" in the world combined.

simplify.

something personal

a busy day from a sports perspective, but i thought i'd treat myself to one last personal rant before i go:

she's getting more than half the assets. she's getting more than half my take-home pay. she's getting everything guaranteed for the next dozen years, including the latitude to make her own private and personal salary (as much as she pleases) with whom she needn't share a dime, and now she's decided that the gravy train shouldn't be allowed to end even then, because, "what if i need more for my retirement?"

what, indeed.

as if i'm going to be in better comparative shape by then, starting with less and taking home less while racing time against an industry that prefers not to employ people of advancing age.

the good news for anyone left in my corner through all this who is sick to death of having to bite their tongues while i roll over and over and over is that this one isn't going to be let to fly. there's the "blood from a stone" thing, and there's also the fact that i'd rather get screwed by a judge and have someone towards whom to misdirect blame for the rest of my life than to have only myself and my misguided generosity to complain about. now i'm not saying you ought to encourage me to get bitter and vituperative, because nobody wants to live their life in that perpetual frame of mind, but i am saying you should feel good about your tongue-biting, because sometimes the message does get through.

al franken had it soooooo right.

bloviate

i personally believe that the unique and essential english-language americanism, "bloviate", was specifically coined to describe the characteristic emissions among members of the united states senate. all that wiki and blogosphere supposition about warren g. harding is just a smoke screen.

arlen specter of pennsylvania has had a hair across his puckered little ass since his iggles were rudely manhandled by the new england patriots in superbowl xlii. spygate has been his little obsession since the moment eric mangini let the genie out of the videotaped bottle, and he is never (it would seem) in public talking about anything else. forget that the taping allegations never mentioned the eagles in the first place, nor were in the least true (even according to their original source, the boston herald) about shenanigans related to the superbowl, nor have they been substantiated by one mr. matt walsh, the supposed center of the tempest.

however, rather than conserve national attention for any of the issues one might choose from when offering feedback on his web site, (go look it up, you can't even find a way to select anything remotely related to NFL malfeasance--you can pick agriculture, children, defense, education, energy/environment, foreign relations, health, emergency response, housing, judiciary, labor, social security, taxes, transportation, veterans or welfare, but nothing related to antitrust protection of major american sports leagues), the honorable [sic] senator specter seems to feel himself entitled to quixoticize any ridiculous topic he likes, while restricting his constituents from having their own opinions on the matter.

so what is today in the news? tim donaghy, once a referee in the national basketball association, has told investigators pursuing an nba betting scandal, that relationships between officials, coaches and players in the nba have definitively "affected the outcomes of games". he's fingered other officials who gamble on games, as well as identified a referee who passed on confidential information to an unidentified coach. this gun is definitely smoking.

yet, when i go search the world wide web for statements from the honorable [sic] senator specter, i'm coming up with a big, fat nothing.

why, mr. specter, are you so quiet on acknowledged cheating, while obsessed like a rutting dog on screwing the patriot pooch?

bloviation. there's nothing like it.

current sox with a shot at the hall

a number of these are going to be *extremely* subjective, so perhaps it'll be best to separate the guys headed on a track there, from the others who are far more speculative. but last night's no-hitter got me thinking about what we're looking at here when we're looking at the current edition of our beloved boston red sox, and it's pretty hard not to get excited about the possibilities.

first of all, the way i see it, manny is already there. pushing the all-time record for grand slams, not to mention #500 (even though he's taking his sweet time getting there), manny is remarkable for consistency and excellence. his *worst* full season in the majors he had 20 homers, 88 rbi, and 8 assists FROM LEFT FIELD. he's a career .313 hitter with a .409 OBP and an awesome .591 slugging pct. among guys having played 2000 games, give or take, manny is seventh in all time OPS behind guys like ruth, williams, gehrig and foxx, and one of the other two guys ahead of him is a likely juicer. (yes, you, mr. bonds). he's a world series MVP, and lets just say the hall was made for guys like manny.

big papi has a pretty good argument, too, though he'd be completely unprecedented as a pure DH. building a case for being the most clutch hitter in the history of the game, (check the all-time stats for walkoff homers for example), papi's all-time slugging pct bests hank aaron's, and puts him in the top two-dozen all-time.

josh becket is on the track--a postseason era of 1.73 (including 3 complete games) and a world series ring will do that for a young guy.

and now for the kids:

these are all guys who its ridiculous to even say "hall", except they're so good, and so young, and playing together on a team that has all the potential in the world to dominate the league for a decade, that you can't help but dream.

kevin youkilis holds the record for errorless games at 1b, and he's no slouch at 3rd, either. combine that with steadily improving hitting skills that are trending toward that magic 1.000 ops, and you have an intriguing candidate with a long career ahead of him hitting in fenway park.

dustin pedroia already locked down rookie of the year last year, and he is at the top of the league hitting charts in almost every available category save home runs this. (hits, bases, avg, obp, you name it). his fielding is stellar, and there's no end to the up-side here.

jacoby ellsbury is on pace for rookie of the year this year, and he's not even playing every day yet. until he was caught stealing the other day, he was within a couple of the all-time consecutive record to start a career. he'll score a boatload of runs at the top of this lineup, and a few more plays like the one last night to save john lester's no-hitter, and he'll have everyone's attention in the field as well.

and about that jon lester. who doesn't love a cancer survivor who returns to the big leagues and throws a no-hitter. young, and good, and the whole world is his oyster today.

so then you can't forget clay buchholz. his no-hitter last year was the most recent to mr. lester's, and only the third in a rookie pitchers first or second game in the history of the league. oh, yeah, and there was that sparkling put-out of miguel tejada on a career-highlight play at second by one mr. dustin pedroia that ensured it...

so eight guys on one team... wouldn't that be something--but don't finish counting your prospects until you remember the answer to this morning's trivia question, and consider a switch-hitting team-captain catcher (already possessed of a couple of world series rings) who is the bedrock on the team for the twenty-first century. history is being made here in boston, and we're all privileged to have lived to see it.

trivia

ok, this one is going to be situationally a piece of cake, but i just have to ask it:

name the major league catcher who has caught more no-hitters than any other. (4).

how it is

after manny batted in the seventh, tito brought in crisp to patrol center field for the top of the eighth, sliding ellsbury, (he of the play of the night robbing jose guillen of a base hit on a line drive to center in the fourth), into left. says all you need to know about terry that he'd leave lugo in the lineup in case a couple guys got on and there might be another at-bat coming in the bottom of the eighth. but it says a lot more about all things lugo that after that chance to hit was past, and when nesn didn't cut away to a commercial between the top and the bottom of the eighth, and the cameras caught the sight of alex cora coming out of the dugout to take his place at short for the ninth, that the entire bar stood and cheered like the cavalry was finally there.

that's just how it is.

way to go, jon lester. cancer survivor, first lefty to pitch a no-hitter for the sox since mel parnell in '56, and only the 15th in the history of the franchise, (cy young, babe ruth and dutch leonard each had two). there's no better way to spend a monday evening in may.

going home again

i have an invitation to join friends to see mission of burma next month. for those unfamiliar, mob were the ones to pen the quintessential punk anthem "that's when i reach for my revolver", and they literally lent definition to the boston music scene when it was (once) the greatest in the nation. (it remains one of my favorite songs of all time). however, if you'll also recall, on a somewhat related note, jon butcher axis returned to the bull run in shirley last year, and i was thrilled to have a chance to go. so why am i not so unequivocal this time?

i have a hard time expressing my musical tastes. it was pointed out in conversation that it's extremely odd that last week would have been my actual first steps inside the paradise rock club (spare me the sanctimony about my affected preference for the nom de guerre "paradise rock club", or i'll start referring to it as "the dise" like they do on their web site) and those incredulous were quick to start listing all the amazing, seminal and memorable bands to have lit that stage. yeah, warren zevon played there. but, see, (and this is the part that i have trouble elucidating), when i preferred warren he wasn't at whatever stages in his convoluted "career" that would have led him to play there. same for most all the acts i love. it's just not harpers ferry. nor the orpheum. nor chet's last call, bunratty's, the rat, ed burke's, or a host of other music venues where the sweat from the performance is real and pours right off the band onto its reverberating sea of participation.

to put it crudely, i see the paradise as a poser's venue. (no coincidence that sting and the police were proffered as example in the discussion), and without the real rush of the essence of rock and roll. i'd rather mosh the floor of the old cape cod colliseum (elvis costello was transcendent there back in the day) than try to figure out what's just simply not right about the paradise. the motels even made axis work, so it's not like i'm sure it wasn't done over and over in my absence back in the day. but it's not me.

maybe it's a little ocd, and maybe its a little sour grapes, but mostly i'd say it's a gut feeling that mob won't be able to do what the dropkick murphys do every show, which is, namely, put one on. it's an interesting coincidence that this morning's lowell sun breaks the news about the murphys (joined by the mighty mighty bosstones) playing lelacheur park here in lowell this coming july. now THAT's a twin bill!!!

so i'll continue to wrestle with my conscience and my constrained entertainment budget and try to figure out what i'm going to do. what i can say is that the murphys tickets are a foregone conclusion. and i'm looking forward to dicky barrett singing it with pride: "i like noise that's why i'm living where i am i like the noise and confusion of a traffic jam i like the sound of a jet while its shaking my dwelling i like raging, rampaging and screaming and yelling sound of a fire engine headed for a fire emotions so high they can't get any higher going out of control in an out of hand crowd i like noise and its gotta be loud"

cue the horns.

revolver

my first recollection of the existence of this film was from an old saturday night live weekend update bit. (tina fey goofed on guy ritchie, suggesting that madonna would have a small part in it as "the woman who ruins the film"). i laughed, of course, at the time, prescient as it was of "swept away", but didn't find opportunity to catch it in the theaters before it disappeared from my awareness, until yesterday evening.

you'll note that neither the sox nor celts were on last night (which would have otherwise compelled a visit to my favorite remote-toting bartender) so i had my first chance to sit in and entertain myself in a long time. the good news is that madge remained nowhere in sight, and the better news is that revolver acquitted itself as one of the best film experiences i've had in a very long time.

first of all, let me disclaim that it's not the crowd-pleasing, character-based romp that are snatch and lock stock and two smoking barrels, and it never bothers with the fun-park thrill ride devices that make ritchie's ten minute contribution to "the driver" series ("the star") so worthwhile. it hardly maintains a pretense at a logical, linear plot. but it's a marvel, and i found it even better the second time through. (that's the beauty of staying in by yourself to watch a movie, when you can cue it up and go through it a second time without any complaints from anyone else). i loved every moment of it.

here's my viewer's tip: don't become a slave to the logical / narrative thread--just keep thinking. some might compare it to fight club, pulp fiction, and no country for old men, and they certainly wouldn't be without context for their comparison. i'd be fascinated to hear what you think.

what you see

on the soccer pitch, we have an interesting expression, used in support of teammates who are collecting control of the ball in the open field: "what you see". (verbal shorthand for "don't worry about looking around for trouble--your only obstacle is the guy(s) in front of you in plain sight"). the interesting thing about it to me this morning is that it would seem to be redundant to the apparently irresistible human impulse to ignore what we can't. they're likely going to react only to what they see anyway. but warn again we will, because we'd like to believe better about our teammates.

so, in the most recent "technology review" magazine, there's a fascinating piece on TBI (traumatic brain injury) and our soldiers in harms way overseas. (http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/20571/). (registration is free and instant, so no excuse not to read the link people ;-). the first part that struck me was how standard battlefield triage, based on our own human over-reliance on things visible, places soldiers with (likely) significant brain injury and vulnerability for more substantial damage right back into the line of fire. naturally, often, the people most eager to do it are the soldiers themselves, who look at their own whole arms and legs and feel nothing but their duty to ignore the headaches and the unsteadiness on their feet and to get right back out there with their comrades. pretty sobering.

the second part that struck me is how our 21st century battlefield medical technology is saving the lives of so many who, in previous conflicts, would have died, who then have to face the challenge of trying to recover from injuries largely hitherto unknown, and certainly not well understood, even by today's doctors. who knew that the shock wave associated with an improvised explosion possibly does more damage inside the skull than the physical projectiles and other body-slamming traumas that accompany it?

"concussion" thus becomes an umbrella term with very little specific meaning. sometimes it's the result of the bruising of the brain, mushing around inside the skull. sometimes (and even at the same time) it's something more insidious, lasting and frightening for its propensity to alter personality, as well as many other physical and cognitive abilities. but how would we know, because you can't tell at all by looking at somebody fresh from yet another roadside bombing.

which brings me to the third thing that struck me, which has so often struck me over the last four or five years that i'm again doing my silent scream, that this administration, arguably helped into office by overt disrespect for the purple heart, and forever whinging that we should "support our troops", by deed does more to disrespect and marginalize and ignore the damage to them than any other in the history of this country, including the one which sent thousands over the trench parapets in wwI. (how's THAT for a sentence). the un-armored humvees and the walter reed scandal are just the tips of that iceberg. (don't get me started that we're not even allowed to honor the flag-draped coffins coming home).

i vote we take some of those billions we allow to flow via corruption into the morasses that we've created to the lasting detriment of the peoples of those countries in which we are an occupying power and try to understand what we are doing to the very best of our nation. THAT would be supporting our troops. THAT would be something i'd like to see.

backwards

i know why the watched pot never boils--we're too busy lifting the lid every few seconds to check on how it's coming along inside, and we keep letting all the heat out. recall that einstein surmised that compound interest was the single strongest force in the universe. it all takes time.

so why are we always so impatient, and prone to sabotage ourselves and our investments, whether financial, emotional, or otherwise, when simply waiting it all out would guarantee ourselves exactly what we've hoped? ironically enough, i think it's our deeply-instilled fears of exactly what we've hoped. dylan voiced it all when he observed that "when you got nothing, you got nothin' to lose". that's the only state we can possibly know that contains no fear. everything else can be lost. or never won. either way, it's terrifying.

another way to look at it, however, is that loss is the only condition in the win/lose sweepstakes that's actually finite. everything else is pure up-side. so we're basically in this world playing with the house's money, yet we're far more terrified of going bust than we are of going anywhere else. i think that's backwards.

belated

i'm late to bragging on the girls team from saturday, but better than never, as they say. i had a chance to run their practice alone on wednesday, and focused on a couple of things that couldn't have turned out better for them in their game, so it was especially rewarding to see them succeed so well. the defining moment took place during a scrimmage against a boys team on wednesday, when saturday's star got that light bulb in her eyes about managing her position on the field. she carried it over exactly to the game, and was beaming in a way that can't help but lighten any heart just to see it. the key, as in life, is opportunity cost, and remaining patient in the right place for the good things to happen. with this achievement as a building block, i'm anticipating nothing but glory for the rest of their season. success, like happiness, is contagious.

i'm also pleased and proud to have seen my daughter preserve the shutout, and to have shared her joy after the game. by nature, she is compelled to put herself in that most-difficult of positions, to be the last with a chance before tragedy strikes in the guise of an opposing goal. but, also by her beautiful nature, she's harder on herself than anyone should ever be, as if she alone has let down the entire team should things go against. no matter how much i try to emphasize the *team* nature of the sport, and the defensive responsibility for 90% of all goals ever scored, she still carries the weight of the world for every ball that she allows to cross her line. and it's heartbreaking. yet, on saturday, the sky cleared for more than just the weather, and an instantaneous reflex save kept a sure goal at bay, and raised a roar from her teammates and the crowd that i wish to imagine will stay with her for many years.

first to the ball, hard on the ball, head up--words to live by.

.857

alex cora redeemed an otherwise frustrating game and went 3-4 in place of the disoriented mr. lugo. somebody should have reminded tito that knuckleballs don't dance so well inside a dome, though i suppose you couldn't prove that by mr. kevin "whoops" cash and his multiple passed balls... time to start the letter writing campaign and the call-in blitz to the talk radio shows. alex cora for veep, secretary of the defense, and starting shortstop for this year's boston red sox.

ALEX!!!

wake's pitching, and alex cora is playing short. my dream game. call the bartender at the dubliner and ask 'em to put you through to the fan boy if you need to get in touch with me for the next 3 or 4 hours.

live, from westford, it's saturday night

the rain has blown itself out to sea, and the stage is set for an interesting experiment in biorhythmic science. me and the boys are taking the field, not on our usual sunday morning, but on a once-in-a-waxing-crescent-flower-moon evening in may so that mothers day and a wedding (what kind of a soccer player schedules his wedding on a game day???) can transpire without competition the next day. fair enough--i always thought i play much better not so early in the morning, so now's my chance to test the theory and prove the hypothesis. the other part of the good news is that beer after can be all it can be. (did i mention the after-party at my house?)


*this* is living.

the art of passivity

passive/aggressive gets a (rightfully) bad name, and aggressive/aggressive came to me naturally, but nobody ever explained to me the effectiveness of passive/passive, nor when best to use it.

one of the idiosyncracies of amiestreet.com is that people can select you as a "friend", even while you don't choose to reciprocate. on the one hand, this increases the influence of your recommendations, (they receive yours, because you're their "friend", but you don't need to be bothered with theirs, because they're not yours), but, on the other, it does lead to some interesting interpersonal situations. my least favorite is the ability to "notify" your friends (that would be friends that you've "friended" to yourself, regardless of their reciprocation) about bands you think they should check out. it's kinda like spam, only not just kinda. another one that i find amusing this morning is the interesting propensity people seem to have to project obligation onto those they have self-identified as ought. ("you're my best friend" has to be one of the most classic p/a sayings of all time).

one such misguided amiestreet denizen (and would-be musician) became offended last night that my prodigious number of recommendations for others' music (you accumulate "REC's" based on how much you spend, which you can then dispense towards music you find worthy, which also has the corollary benefit of earning you even more to spend if the music you REC turns out to be popular and thus increased in price, so, as you can imagine, i've had plenty to hand out) and none for their own. "some kind of friend you are!" or something like that. i had to laugh. they weren't *my* friend...

her music was pretty lousy, too. "garage rock" was the self-applied genre, but the vocals were warbly (and rather bad) patti smith-style punk, only without the personality of patti smith and much more of the off-pitch ear pain you might associate with someone who couldn't be bothered to pay attention to their own vocal monitors, which is ironic, since otherwise she's obviously much more significantly self-obsessed... the punch line was that the third of her three songs was a "remix" which basically meant her bad vocals dubbed over the top of a synthetic rhythm section--and here i thought the essence of a garage rock band was the over-loud set of drums that required rehearsing in the garage in the first place...

so, as you might imagine if you knew me when, my first inclination is to write back a snide rejoinder that pokes fun of her self-obsession. and then i realize that the only likely consequence from that would be more notes from her snarking back at me, and who wants to read that? so i take my deep zen breath and realize that passive/passive is a tremendously effective way to get what i want, which is no more notes from her. (her promise because of my lack of audio love).

this all is a prodigious digression from anything even remotely interesting to you, i know, but the punch line to all this is that my ex gave me the news last night at the hs concert that more was required from me in terms of excruciating financial documentation and detail. cue snarling "i've already given you all that stuff once" rejoinder, until the p/p zen master caught the thread of the plot in time to stop it from running off its rails. yup, i'm going to spend hours again today assembling credit card statements and checking account statements and retirement plan statements and an exhaustive list of all my daily expenditures for the past many months. lots of my friends are going to rail against the invasion of my privacy, not to mention the gratuitous abuse of my patience and good nature, but my p/p better self is secure in the realization that the consequences of all other reactions are far worse than just sitting down at the desk and getting it done. maybe the result is more money out of my pocket, and wouldn't it have been better to fight it, tooth and nail, every step of the way? 'cept, then, who would i be dealing with day in and day out for the next six months (or six years) until the fight could finally be settled?

the beauty of "nothing left to lose" is that it's freedom, as bob once told us all years ago. i'm going to be with people i care about this weekend, and no other kind. i kinda like that as a consequence, don't you?

contemplation

a close friend noted that i've been contemplative lately, and i couldn't disagree. (and you know how i otherwise love to disagree). there was a hint of concern there, which i attributed to the contemplations displacing the recently-frequent expressions of satisfaction and happiness, which, there being only so many thoughts one can squeeze into a sentence in any given moment, isn't hard to understand. from my contemplative perspective, it made perfect sense.

i still live amidst countless moments of great joy, simply walking in my neighborhood. a new neighbor and i had beers and requisite piles of deep-fried bar food this past sunday while watching the celts at our favorite neighborhood joint in the company of a brother and sister who had grown up right here in shangri-lowell. it's worth noting that my neighbor is saying "shangri-lowell" now, too, while our table-mates weren't able to be so unabashedly ecstatic and proud just for the privilege to be here. after they left, my neighbor and i had to muse on why that might be so, because neither of us could really understand it. he has my *identical* enthusiasm for this town, and lists *all* the same reasons. the neighborhoods, the ball park, the restaurants, the feeling of now that permeates the potential...

it's very hard, it would appear from both observation and personal experience, for most people/us to feel happy. one hint of this is that they're/we're tuned into expressions of it from others to the point where it feels like they're/we're highly sensitive to the sounds of blooms coming off of roses, as if, it would seem, (contemplative editorializing now), to feel ok that they're/we're kinda nonplussed, themselves/ourselves, too. apologies for all the slashes, which i know many of my more-literate readers abhor, but, honestly, it's hard to know how to write it because it's hard to know which way is right.

i'm happy. i'm divorcing a woman who is profoundly unhappy, and i'm involved with any number of friends going through personal/professional/financial difficulties (sorry for the slashes again) that cause them to feel unhappy, too. i feel their pain, because i've known it all first-hand at so many points in my life that it's become part of me, even when it's not. but it's hard for the contemplative, happy man to do what he knows he must do (which is *not* to try to fix things for others, because that only makes things worse in the end) while he feels so strongly in his bones and in the fiber of his very being that he knows happiness and where to find it.

i would have said "how to find it", but, honestly, as they say in real estate, it's "location, location, location". nope, i'm not insisting that only people who live in lowell can be happy, but i am saying that i'm convinced that finding your place in life is the first key. my neighbor understands it the same way, and i'm not saying that just because he's here with me right in the heart of shangri-lowell. we build our edens of social networks, and social capital, one brick at a time. i think to myself, if people were smart, they'd also study the science of opportunity cost, so they'd realize that every choice they make to allow something to stay in their life is causing something better to be held at distance. but we all cling to the familiar and wonder why we are unhappy...

i think we need to have faith that if we are happy, happiness will continue to be attracted to us in our lives. lucky for us, too, that this is really the way it seems to work. in my contemplative way, i realize that my greatest charity will be towards those whose lives are burdened with real problems, to help lessen those burdens so they can begin their own virtuous circles of happiness and redemption. i'm torn by my own limitations of means, and the sobering realization that example is the best i can do, in case anyone is able to follow. but that's not such a bad thing, either, because i get to be happy while i'm doing it.

life

"the meaning of" always fascinates people, but i'm happy just to be amazed by it. it's sad to experience the passing of one, and inexplicable how we can be so callous over the passing of many. i'm accepting of mortality, both mine and others, and i'm hopeful never to be so jaded as to miss the value of each and every.

i've always thought myself to be one never overly attached, nor overly grieving, and, yet, when i consider loss in my life, whether a grandparent, a friend or a small pet, i can't help but be sobered by the sadness and finality of it, and my own emotional reaction.

a friend of my daughter's lost her father recently, and i couldn't help myself from feeling, even while others closer to him were more composed. maybe that's the secret... when it's too close, it's too much to face, and so we force it down to where we cannot know we feel it. but i'm sure that we do. noteworthy that i've not cried in that same way over the dissolution of my marriage, though it's far more significant to my life and those about whom i care most...

flip a coin--i'm either happy, or it's too close to let on.

tears

i cried today: for the gerbil that died this morning; for warren zevon's life and times; for being alone; for not knowing how to build the life i want with my children; for no earthly reason.

i feel a preference not to share it this way, but i'm humbled by the passing of a life as i held its last breaths in my palm, and i need it to be honored in some better way than alone. it will be hard to tell my daughter...

"high-functioning"

it's curious to me that, like many other professional labels, "high-functioning" doesn't really have immediately to do with the absolute meaning of either word, as much as relative to society's otherwise expectations. if you're a high-functioning drunk, for example, we're hardly talking about more than holding a steady job and maintaining social relationships. (i know a few of such, and, come to think of it, maybe it's preferring the colloquial meaning of the word "high" in the phrase...) not so complementary a term, but useful, nonetheless.

so i contemplate my foibles and think to myself that "high-functioning" must be my subconscious mantra. reading of warren's excess, and the staggering quantity of pills and booze and hard drugs ingested into his system each and every day for decades, and considering the prolific body of work produced even so, it's impossible not to be daunted by ones own physical limitations and realize that simply maintaining consciousness under those circumstances is a feat of which few might be capable. i'm the one thinking to myself that just the two beers i had yesterday were more than i ought. and i'm proud that i'm lucid (relatively speaking) and possessed of that bi-monthly paycheck that keeps kith and kin in groceries and digital music downloads.

yes, i'm high-functioning, and obsessively so. aside from procrastinating my morning's labors for das herr, (it's not yet 7am, after all, and i've got that for a valid excuse), it's all about answering the bell for me. somewhere in my list of priorities, i WILL hurt someone i love / who loves me, and that's clear enough from past experience, and i WILL make time for moments of self-indulgence that will likely also hurt someone i love / who loves me, but my rationale will remain intact (hopefully) that it's all ok because i got to all the "important" stuff. my checkbook will be balanced, my condo fees paid on time, and someone looking not-too-closely at things from arms length will have to conclude that i'm doing ok.

so, am i?

warren's son, jordan, came to love his father, (i should think it necessary in light of his voluntary porn-cleaning responsibilities), so there is always hope for everyone. i'm not yet doing as well as i'd wish for my children, but i'm doing and that's something. and there's the not-insignificant matter of my emotionally-traumatic divorce and its effect on the woman i once promised not to do any of this to, but, as many are quick to remind me, (and i believe), it can't be my responsibility for that (and her) anymore. who was it that advised truth to oneself?

what i think i'm really stuck on is my relationships with women. i've had many. i have many. that's not likely to change. they seem to be possessed of a limitless capacity to understand/forgive, (ex spouse prominently excepted), for which i am sincerely grateful, but i think i've yet to become high-functioning when it comes to understanding that, having faith in that, and depending on that. (are understanding and faith mutually exclusive? hmmm...)

could they be counted upon, i wonder, to clean out the collection of themselves? (it is, after all, my one intractable vice--women). i realize from the divorce that it would have been easier to have been alcoholic or physically abusive than to have been unfaithful. perhaps that's why it's taking me some time to become comfortable with my appetites, because i've been conditioned to expect the hammer where i'm only receiving now (again?) loving touches. still not perfect, since the world is predicated on at least the appearance of monogamy, but "high-functioning" is, after all, a relative term.

"mr. zevon has gone with the great beaver"

i'm reading "i'll sleep when i'm dead--the dirty life and times of warren zevon", which is a collection of remembrances compiled by crystal zevon that defy description. it's an unflinching outpouring of the literally-amazing, without a blink or a blush or an attempt to sugar-coat, moralize or sanitize any of it. (e.g. "jordan zevon:[warren's son, about the night warren died] 'after everyone left, i got to clean out the porn. that was my job. that's what we discussed, dad and me ... if he passed away, i was supposed to go in there and get out the porn. the thing was, i thought it was going to be, you know, x-rated vidoes that you rented or bought in one of those sex shops on melrose. but they were videos--it was porn of him. and women. he made them himself.' " no words to describe the man who could know what he would be asking of his son...

i don't consider myself a candle to warren's bonfire of the vanities, but there's a kinship that I feel with his OCD and his unintended cruelties and his limitless capacity for self-indulgence. i'm far too repressed to have porn of myself, though it's fair to say warren's sexual appetites were not out of proportion to what mine have been. "drugs and wine and flattering light / you must try it again until you get it right / maybe you'll end up with someone different every night".

many, including the one to whom this was originally written, likely know me better than i let on to myself (a thought which pleases me) though i don't imagine anyone possesses a full picture, nor wants to, as far as that goes. (we all cherish our preferred pictures of those we care about). as i explained, i'm not sure where this is all headed (this, being life) but it's pretty clear we're all going to end up in need of an obit sooner or later.

carl hiaasen was chosen to write the foreword to crystal's compendium, and of all the epitaphs available from warren's compleat dirty life and times, he chose the italicized script from some cards that were printed by warren's road manager and handed out after a particularly raucous new orleans show, to explain the center-of-attention's absence. "mr. zevon has gone with the great beaver". in his own self-awareness of death, warren entitled his farewell collection "the wind", (possibly in thoughts of hastening down one), but i like better the title chosen by his son, jordan, to mark the collection of homages contributed by his friends after his death, taken from a piece of advice warren proferred at the behest of david letterman on one of his shows: "enjoy every sandwich".

i'm not afforded the luxury of such unfettered enjoyment for the fullness of life while the divorce evolves, i guess, by choice as much as anything else. i don't spend nearly the time i wish with my children, nor my friends, though, as one dear friend observed the other day, i choose solitude in my troubled moments as a matter of reflex, which can also influence the mix.

i guess i imagine i possess the introversion gene that warren lacked, that compels me to wait to be sought, as opposed to actively going out in pursuit of adulation. (or, better put, just "love"). to the consternation of those who might, i will always turn it and them away, and there's no getting what they (you) want, either. but here i am, just the same, and convinced to myself of being open to sharing. where are you? (you is a wonderful word, obscuring, as it often does, the author's choice of singular or plural).

i need to do more writing...

the shark tank

just because i'm not in the mood for anything heavy this morning, and for the fact that i'm sure you've been missing hearing the updates...

joe thornton dished a blind and brilliant pass to milan michalek, down two goals in the final period of what could have been the final game of their series against dallas, and their season. one. then jeremy roenick, perhaps the oldest man in hockey, found brian campbell for an inspiring tying goal. two. then, finally, in overtime, to put the cap on the evening, joe pavelski atoned in a small way for his giveaway the other night, and sent the home town fans into a frenzy for having lived to fight another day.

3-2 sharks, who are now only down 3-2 in the series. one in dallas, and, then, if fortune smiles, the ultimate contest back in san jose.

go joe!

go sharks!

holding on to what we've got

the umass lowell scholar for peace, whose daughter was murdered by a mob in south africa fifteen years ago, is coincidentally living across the atrium from me here in shangri-lowell. just two days ago and a literal stones throw from here, a 29 year old man was shot to death in an apartment in front of four children in no less of a tragedy, even if his own mother was no longer alive to feel it. in boston, just yesterday afternoon, someone dear to me was knocked to the ground, unconscious, and robbed of her purse, along with her rightful sense of security, even if she was lucky enough to have been spared worse.

funny how we can always imagine how it could be worse...

but it occurs to me that we lose a piece of our humanity every time we are not outraged it isn't better. linda biehl travels with one of the men who confessed slaying her innocent daughter, and they speak about peace, and a better way to be. i sit here, cocooned in my apartment, rationalizing reasons for being unable to do more...

why didn't someone say something when a woman was beaten and robbed in front of them on the street? we all must know, for we were all there, in one form or another.

"put the oxygen mask on yourself before helping others" isn't an invitation to sit idly by.

he says to himself...

glasgow tiki shakers

first of all, ya gotta give it to folks who know how to pick a band name.

then ya amp the echo to eleven, slap the skins, (and only hit the brass on the end of the fill), and dial up the reverb til the sound is just right.

just add bikinis, tiki torches, and a cooler-full.

http://www.rickshawrecords.com/glasgow/glasgow.htm

and, of course

http://amiestreet.com/artist/68511