the internet is way addictive, too

so i'm on that roll you get on when you get on the net...

after the show saturday night i got into a discussion with a local who disagreed with me on the subject of intelligence and dating. i guess not everyone gets why i'm so convinced it's ultimately useless as a combination. sure, i know why it's sometimes nice to have a brighter conversational companion, but experience has proven to me beyond all reasonable (and unreasonable, too) doubt that intelligence and all sorts of other otherwise popular attributes are amply overrated.

see, i've boiled it all down to human connection, and concluded that kindness and care require none of the stuff that we frequently delude ourselves we'd want in another. is he/she kind to you? does he/she do nice things for you? then WHAT ELSE IS THERE???

oh, you're likely already loading the rebuttal cannon with all your dearly-held points about intellectual stimulation and conversation and understanding, but, i'll ask you, so far, in your life, what has it all got you? maybe you're still with your brainy evah-luvin and couldn't be happier, but, if so, i'd ask you next if he/she is kind to you and does nice things for you, too. because you know that if you're happy, they do.

so then we devolved in our interchange to the general availability of "smart" hereabouts, and if you know the local dis-reputation, you might guess where things went next... and, since i know you are rooting for the locals in this discussion as earnestly as i'm always rooting for the locals in *any* discussion, and since i also know you're wondering in the back of your mind how the heck i've concocted any sort of internal thought-process thread to get from they-yah to hee-ya, fear not, because there's an answer to both... see, while enjoying richard thompson so completely thoroughly that i still possess total lyrical recall (well, at least total with sufficient internet assistance, but i sometimes grasp the thread even without) i recalled during the conversation that richard included "the hots for the smarts" in his evening's set, and there were ample choruses of appreciative laughter at all the obscure intellectual references. but you'd have to hear it live to really enjoy it, so hit the live recording link from this page, and head into the file about a quarter of the way, and see if you can't find it. actually, you ought to listen to the whole thing from beginning to end, but i know you're all busy. (yeah, that's right... busy... that's the ticket). "there's more" was my favorite line. but i got the parts about proust and faraday's wheel, and i get why folks are sometimes impressed with other people who get those parts, too. but it's all empty to me in comparison to the kind and generous bits. i won't bore you yet again with my recent life's experience of having one without the other, but i think you can figure out where i'm coming from.

maybe i'm just lucky that all the people who are being so kind and generous to me these days are also, inexplicably considering who they're doing it to and for, smart, too. but i didn't pick 'em and i don't stay with 'em for the smarts. nope, not me. oh, don't get me wrong, i appreciate those parts of them like i appreciate the rest of it, but it's not what makes it work for me.

i'd like to think i'm giving my bit back to them in return, though i know i'm always likely to be in arrears.

but i'll always try.

the internet is way cool

for some reason, since sunday, the blog traffic is through the roof. i know i haven't suddenly become more interesting or readable, so there must be some better explanation...

and here it is.
and here it is again. (click on the link to the "mini review").

apparently, when someone working for a musician (i don't even want to allow myself the fantasy that it might have been the man himself) wants to link some love for the music to their website, they sometimes send that love right back. same for the concert organizers.

how cool is that!

it's not why i write it, but it sure is a kick to think someone cared enough for the writing to give it a hey.

hey!

oh, and something else way cool? the lowell summer music series folks have put the whole show on the net to hear! check out bob martin (the opening act--a local lowell boy) too.

the mighty favog

i believe as an homage to the late, great george carlin, nbc aired the premiere episode of saturday night live (then known as nbc's saturday night) that featured george, along with four of his standup bits, as the host, this past saturday night. (thanks, tivo!!!). while appreciating every memorable morsel of the inestimable mr. carlin, and marveling at the time-warp glimpses of the not ready for prime time players (originally introduced by don pardo, amusingly enough, as the "not for ready" prime time players) i was jolted to recovered memory by the appearance of jim henson, frank oz, and company, or at least their puppet alter egos, in the original land of gorch skit.

i remember scred!!! i remember his affinity for gilda radner, and her incredibly affectionate and thoughtful offer to let him introduce the musical guest the week that his appearance as "aunt bee" in the supposed killer bees' version of the andy griffith show had to be cut from the show. (or so it went). and how classic was the sketch with raquel welch where scred and ploobis and the others are convinced to "get into the trunk" by the mighty the mighty favog (because they weren't welcome on the show anymore, which was literally true) and then favog went on his soliloquy about finally having his chance at solo stardom?

i had completely forgotten the mighty favog, and how much i loved him. *loved him*.

the voice and the character were quite clearly frank oz, and i always found it amazing how a puppeteer could generate so much character and concept from nothing more than a voice and a stone-faced sneer. (it's all the motion the mighty favog had to compete with the over-the-top king ploobis and company). scred was great too, don't get me wrong, but i tuned in every week to hear the wit and wisdom of the mighty favog:

two chickens to get the advice that "it could be worse". how? "it could have cost you four chickens".

perhaps the funniest favog bit (to me, anyway) was charging ploobis one of the last two remaining gligs on the planet, that ploobis was otherwise hoping to get tips on prompting to reproduce because he liked to eat them.

it only lasted one season, (though decades more if you count the in-jokes), but it'll always be funny that in the end the mighty favog offered to bargain with lorne michaels that if he'd rehire them, then favog would call in a personal favor with the beatles, so they'd appear on the show for free.

of course, the beatles never appeared on saturday night live, for free or otherwise, and, see, lorne michaels, what happens if you don't take the advice of the mighty favog???

valerie

"you give me heart attack

oh valerie...

well i'm a-wait, wait, waitin' for valerie"


and i was, and it was worth every moment.

richard thompson lit up the boardinghouse park stage tonight, and what a way to kick off this summer's lowell summer music series. the last time my son and i were there it was to see los lobos, and though the sound was sparer, the music was was every bit as memorable this time around. close to the high point of the evening for me was when richard launched (and there's no better word to describe it) into "i feel so good", and my son started singing along because he had fallen in love with the song from my star spangles cd (dirty bomb, gabba gabba hey) and he recognized it immediately. (get the homage here, and scroll down to select it if it's not the one playing, though don't worry if you like what else you hear there, cuz it's good good good). a singular moment.

the other song i really loved almost the most from tonight was "1952 vincent black lightning" and i wasn't sure which youtube version to pick for the link, but here's one stripped down and clean enough to seem close, and, besides, it seems you can't go wrong with any of 'em, so have at it. "red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme".

but, i have to say it, and i was almost afraid to hope for it, but it was valerie that brought the house down, and everybody to their feet.

mmm, mmm, good.

edited in appreciation for the links from richard thompson's web site as well as the lowell summer music series', to include a link to the actual recorded concert itself so you can hear all the beauty for yourself: hit the link here, and then scroll down to the link to richard's show from the other night. it's wonderful--enjoy!!!

something fascinating (to me) about me and itunes

itunes, courtesy of ticketmaster, has sent me now six "free songs" as rewards for tickets i'm purchasing to see my favorite musicians. (the last pair for the billy bragg show in somerville later this summer). the fascinating part about this, to me, is that i realize that i simply don't care to download them at all.

why not, you ask? after all, they're "free"...

well, no they're not. they're actually infected with apple's insidious itunes drm, and i'm so spoiled by my drm-free amiestreet downloads, and whatever i rip from my cd's and vinyl albums, that i can't for a moment imagine stomaching the headache of having to register each "free" song to each computer and ipod combination, and then dealing with the inevitable consequence that i'll be told repeatedly that i can't transfer what i want to hear onto my various personal music devices, even though it's my music and my personal music devices. nope, there's nothing free about that at all.

if i want some music, i want to be able to hear it wherever i am. that means anywhere on two computers (one work, one personal) and three ipods, (you can never have too many ipods), which multiply to 6 different combinations which happens to exceed by 1 the apple drm limit of 5 that they encode into each digital music file, but even the fact that i'll have to keep entering a password during each download onto the second through fifth combination is too much for me.

well, apple, you can kiss my amiestreet-loyal ass, but please don't mind me if i give away these "free" downloads to somebody else who is silly enough to set themselves up for the headache. raise your hands, readers, if you're ready to declare yourself silly enough. first come, first served. i promise you that you'll end up to regret that you did.

if it's something i want to hear, it's something i'll be disappointed not to be able later to hear. you ought to care about your music that much, too.

more fun in the sun

people don't always "get" why i subscribe to the lowell sun. they are perhaps distracted by the offensive and nonsensical editorial content, or perhaps the seemingly consistent absence of anything they might consider newsworthy. but it's both the truth and its explanation--they just don't get it.

today's feature article is about a "third generation medium and psychic who has worked with animals in person, over the phone, and from e-mailed photos". (yup, OVER THE PHONE, and via email with a hyphen).

when asked which animals are difficult to communicate with, (trailing preposition transcribed verbatim), she answered "i have tried talking to squirrels, but they are tough. they are obsessed with eating and nuts".

i almost spilled my cheerios i was laughing so hard.

the other priceless benefit of a sun subscription is the remarkable thoroughness of their local culture, attraction and event coverage. today i learned more about the national park offerings and a promising new restaurant, as well as the saturday night potluck and martini wrap-up party for the show that's been running over at the western avenue studios, including a live rhythm & blues band in the loading dock, that sounds like a blast. my problem is the conflict with richard thompson over at boardinghouse park...

greatest small city in the world.

the second amendment

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

the former being as passed by the house and senate and the latter being as ratified by the states, the intent of the framers of the constitution related to both cannot be confused:

the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

i find it interesting that well-intended and otherwise english-fluent lawmakers can contort their own understanding of the language to revert (pervert?) perceived emphasis forward to the ablative clause acknowledging well regulated militias. but wishing don't make it so, and the main clause of the sentence is (as it should be!) irrefutable. the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

i also find it unfortunate that lost to most contemporary readers and poorly-read constitutional scholars is the truth about what a "well regulated militia" really is.

militia is, and especially absolutely was in the days of our revolution, the entire body of physically fit civilians (male at the time, though we might interpret that differently these days) capable for military service. it was not a specialized designation, like minutemen, who were selected and drilled separately, or soldiers, who were enlisted formally. militia embodies the peculiar colonial understanding that citizens bear their own personal responsibility to defend themselves against all threats, including those posed by their own government, and everybody was in.

and, since militias are necessary for the security of a free state, therefore, the right of the people to keep and bear arms must not be infringed. [paraphrasing mine].

"well regulated" thus remains the final anachronistic phrase within the amendment, and a bit of historical diligence can confirm that "regulated" meant and means, in this context, "trained and/or drilled". "regulators" pop up often in the stories of historical citizen uprisings, and the word shares the same root: "regulators" were the armed and drilled citizenry who would take the field in defense of their popular cause, most frequently to the consternation of the government who would otherwise oppress them. lots of folks wish it wouldn't be so, including george washington as he so callously commanded that shays rebellion be crushed, but the fact is that our constitution demands that this be so.

because, here's the thing: the "well regulated militia" from the ablative phrase, and the "people" from the main clause, ARE THE SAME. though the second amendment did not spell out the requirement for practice in quite the same way, it very clearly demanded the availability of un-infringed arms with which to defend the security of the free state.

so i applaud today the supreme court's very clear defense of our right as free people to keep and bear arms. i respect the city of washington d.c.'s interest to save its innocent citizenry from the scourge of arms used in commission of crime, but the "patriot" act and all other crimes committed by the current administration against sovereign nations and its own citizens must not be allowed to stand without means of armed dissent. some other compromise must be found.

the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

maybe later this week i'll write something about the swiss who, i believe, have this whole well regulated militia thing down in much better order than we do, and, after that, recount my ongoing experience in gaining my own firearms license and place in the well regulated militia line, but this will have to suffice for today.

i know a lot of people fear the misuse of firearms, and, believe me, i'm absolutely one of them. but this is bigger than that. it's our nation, and it's our way of life, and we're at dire risk of losing both if we don't reconnect with the rights and responsibilities of living as truly free people. it means violence, (it was jefferson himself who observed that "the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants"), and it means vigilance. and it means bearing arms.

wake da man

who is the ace of the boston red sox pitching staff?

beckett is 7-5 with an era most of the way to 4. (3.73, but still a fair nominee).

dice k hasn't pitched since may. (i know some of you want to say you saw him last week, but, seriously, 6H, 3BB, and 7ER in 1.0 IP???)

and we all love lester and masterson, but these are babies. buccholz too.

so here's my answer:

wake da man.

since working out his mechanics in seattle at the end of may, he's given up only 10 earned runs in 43 rock solid, inning-eating, bullpen rescuing frames. (beckett's given up 9 runs in 33 innings over the same span). yeah, he's only 5-5 on the year, but as the team reels under the weight of the current epidemic of injuries and implosions, (12 players to the DL already this year, and don't get me started on mr. error-per-rbi julie lugo), there's one guy who is clearly carrying more than his expected share of the load.

at the plate, props to mr. j.d. drew, and what a month it's being. (since the beginning of june, with manny batting behind him, he's knocked out 10 HR's, 23 RBI, scored 23 runs, raised his average 25 points, and even stolen a base). but from the mound, you gotta take your hat off to the one and only and 41 years young mr. timothy stephen wakefield.

outgassing and outclassing would-be fireballer randy johnson 6 k's to 5, wake got 'em into the 8th last night with a clean sheet, giving up just 2 hits and a walk in seven scintillating innings. pap did have to bail hansen out of a bases loaded kerfuffle for the last out in the 9th, but the 5-0 victory, and the rubber game of the series between division leaders, was all wake's.

da man.

can you believe what you can't see?

they scored first, and they equalized late, just as they've always done in this tournament, but amidst technical failures which denied the world live sight of much of the end of this match, we've been told that the turks have finally succumbed to fate and the inexorable crush of final time, 2-3, against the germans today at st. jakob's park.

the overwhelming feeling is of doubt, that it can't possibly be over. the team which has held a lead for an historically unprecedented and mere 9 minutes all the way into a semi-final match in a major international competition, (their grand total counting today is 15, out of well over 400), has defied odds, injuries, suspensions and incredible scoreboard adversity to literally define this year's euro championship. and yet, as it seems to always be, it's not enough to best the workman-like germans at their traditional, soul-suffocating and ultimately excellent game.

and give all due credit to the germans--when their keeper turned out to be turning in one of the most embarrassing big-game matches in their team's history, they calmly and adroitly generated the necessary tying goal in a scant six minutes, as if they could do it at will. then it was back to the grindstone, and outwaiting and outlasting the turks until late into the second half, when they put away what is usually their winner in the 79th minute... with only 11 to go...

but you know this story, and you know these turks. within 4 minutes of the precipice of elimination, "the lifeguard" (what a nickname) semih şentürk touched home a brilliant pass out of a brilliant run from the corner by defender sabri sarıoğlu, and it all was knotted even and heading into turkish, i mean extra, time. incredible. unprecedented. epic.

the most dejected of the germans had to be philipp lahm, who had been beaten by sarıoğlu to produce the tying goal. but in what can only now be described as quintessential turkish fashion, lahm ran in at the other end from 40 yards out, using only a 1-2 touch from hitzlsperger to spring himself free inside the box, and slammed home a striker's volley into the back of the net past the futile wave of overmatched rüştü reçber. honestly, reçber had gifted miroslav klose the go-ahead goal ten minutes before, and one can only wonder how this match would have concluded, if only volkan demirel had kept his cool and not earned a crushing two-game suspension at the very end of the opening round. we might still be watching this match go on forever--the team that can't be beaten against the team that just can't lose.

well, these turks proved something, and gave us a lot more. hats off, and a wonder about trees falling in proverbial swiss forests. they told me it's true, but somewhere in the back of my most joyful soccer imagination there are still turks running the pitch in basel, unwilling to ever say uncle.

tebrikler, türkiye, and glückwünsche, deutschland.

the $200 week

saturday i'm on for the drive to and from the summer camp in maine, and then all next week it'll be back and forth to littleton from lowell twice a day while the ex is away, and the beach to be treated like day camp for the other one that didn't clear the summer camp waiting list. i'm estimating the better part of 1000 miles all told, which, at around 20 miles per $4 gallon, will end up costing me about $200 in gasoline alone. for one week. (that used to be two entire months-worth, before dubya failed to heed the chris rock school of pancake-based foreign policy).

i've always remembered bob newhart's routine where he described as a kid translating everything into ice cream cone equivalents, and, upon getting one particularly large bill, feeling like he'd been run over by the good humor truck. well, for me this summer it's baseball, and i'm here to tell you that just getting from here to there and back again for one week is going to add up to more than an entire season of lowell spinners tickets, even if i could get to every game. since i can't get to every one, my best guess is that next week's gasoline bill is going to exceed baseball, beer AND a hot dog for every one of the games i'll have the chance to get to. for an entire summer. whoosh, right down the drain.

but fear not, baseball fans, i'm not going to let poverty stand in the way of truth, justice and the american way. it'll cost me in other areas where i'll be forced to cut back, (like political contributions, for example), but a man has to have priorities, and i have mine.

always first for the kids. next to the bank for the mortgage, and the ex for the alimony. then food. and proudly then for the local arts and sports that make my home town the greatest little city in which to live anywhere in the world. (and anyone who knows me these days knows that i'm not joking when i say that).

some day my kids will be able to drive, and then i'm going to sell my car.

faux patriotism

confused friends of mine are forwarding emails exhorting all "patriotic americans" to fear barack obama's middle name, much in the same way they sent me terrified emails four years ago that somehow a DECORATED WAR VETERAN was more of a fawning coward to terrorists than a known draft-dodger with a coke habit. i can't even begin to describe the anger and frustration that the future of my country is to be voted upon by faux patriots like these.

the lex gabinia and lex manilia happen to be the oldest historical precedents to the "patriot" act that i can cite from memory, but i'm quite sure there are many older ones, just as i'm quite sure that there are many newer ones, too. (adams' alien and sedition act being just one american example). consolidating executive power in the face of propagandized "terrorist" threat (or substitute words like "jewish" if you're a national socialist, or "communist" is you're a mccarthyite and you'll get the picture) is one of the oldest political dodges in the book, and it's frankly terrifying that it still works so well today. we have people seriously debating the implications of LAPEL PINS, while the national debt, gas prices, interest rates, stock market devaluations, real estate plunges, etc. ad infinitum all collide upon the heads of what used to be a middle class here in this country. wtf. (i like how chris rock recently put it, that if he were to invade ihop, the price of pancakes in his house would be going down, not up).

i have no doubt, that if one of the original american patriots, who EARNED the right to call themselves that, were to happen upon our current circumstances, the first perceived-foreign power against which they would resolutely bear arms is the current administration in charge of our own federal government, along with their political party backers. they wouldn't care a whit for the "democrats", either, (who aren't, really, and their own candidate nomination process "superdelegates" is plenty of proof on that score), and they'd be raising their banner in defense of fair representation and due process for guantanamo detainees just as surely as they would have for those incarcerated at abu ghraib. they wouldn't be confused about lapel pins or middle names or anything else but solidarity against familiar tyrannies, and they sure as hell wouldn't be wasting the blood of their best and their brightest upon others' soil when theirs was in such disarray.

this coming election it would appear it's once again sulla and pompey and faux patriotism against reason. my country is indeed at war, but only with its worst self. i say defend the constitution. i say vote for someone who respects it, no matter what he's wearing.

missed it by that much

the very first television program i ever fell in love with was get smart, and you know how you never forget your first love. (back in the day we were rationed to 30 minutes a week, so i can proudly say i was faithful, too). and i'm not unrealistic about never being able to go home again, nor holding out unreasonable expectations for anything that is, let's face it, necessary to be funny in largest part for going for the lowest brow possible and available. but please take this all with a mel brooks and buck henry-sized grain of nostalgic salt, and realize that anything short of don adams was going to have to come up a little bit short, and there's no shame to have "missed it by that much".

the most rewarding bits, to me, were the shamelessly nostalgic ones, though the greatest shame may be that 90% of today's movie-goers are simply not old enough to get all of them. (e.g. "the craw", scrawled in chalk, got me and almost nobody else in the place going, and, if you have to ask, you won't think it's funny, or else your name is probably "lefty"). one of the youtube comments i ran across while finding the link at the top of this piece was something to the effect that "i used to love watching this on nick at night when i was a kid". yikes!

a couple of gags that i missed were "AHHH, such-and-such... 99, what's such-and-such?", "thanks, i needed that", and, of course, "i asked you not to tell me that", but i got to enjoy the cone of silence and "would you believe..." and a bunch of the others, so i'm not complaining about those, specifically. perhaps most troubling to me were the thematic departures, like no bit about his having a cover as a greeting card salesman, (nor, while being the target of too many botched assassination attempts, having to explain to the landlord that he had switched to selling insurance). one of the biggest misses was siegfried not being just as maxwell smart as, well, maxwell smart. (shtarker was MUCH more satisfying, as was patrick warburton as hymie). one could say that the terrence stamp was wasted in the part, but i think it's much more accurate to say that the part was wasted on terrence stamp, because terrence stamp just isn't bernie kopell where it counts. (nice to see ya, bernie, btw). c'mon, people!!! it's KAOS, after all!

yes, all in all, alan arkin was probably the best of the whole bunch, and steve carell has to get a lot of credit for taking things as far as he did. the rock was great, ESPECIALLY stapling the paper to larabee's head, and the whole plot amply forgettable, even if a bit too plausible to have been exactly right. the gadgets weren't ridiculous enough, (though the swiss army crossbow with the darts connected via spider thread that's really hard to come by because you have to milk the spiders individually was in the right direction), and the gags a bit too many minutes between to be in the right spirit.

what it's done is inspire me to look for the dvd's of the original series, and that, when all is said and done, isn't such a bad thing.

oh, that and go shopping for a sunbeam tiger.

RIP, George Carlin

among my many most-treasured accumulations of recorded entertainment, right beside the music of led zeppelin, little feat, elvis costello, warren zevon, etc. etc. etc., are the collected recordings of two of this era's greatest artists (i wouldn't say comedians, though they are both clearly that, because, basically, neither of them care to bother to tell jokes, though they can, and with the best of them) who most truly pique our minds and our funny bones by doing something at once simpler and yet more profound than almost everyone else around them trying to make people laugh: they simply tell the truth.

the first is bill cosby, and i dare you to name another entertainer who has done a tenth of what he has done for the good humor of america and the world without uttering so much as a single cuss word or off-color phrase. every time i hear another comic swear on stage, i hear laziness and the comedic equivalent of a bad rock band turning things up "to eleven" to cover up the mediocrity. yeah, it's funny, just like eleven can sound right in the right hands, but it's a short cut, and a cheap one at that. try to be funny without it--i don't know if there are but a handful of people on the planet who'd be capable. bill cosby is one of them.

the other is george carlin. yes, he of the inimitable and hysterical seven words you can never say on television, (you still can't decades later), and the profanity-laced tirades against all that is fucked up (nods, george) in this world and with it's people, but underneath it all such a keen observer of language and human nature that, if we aren't careful, and we never can be when he's telling it like it is, we're laughing so hard at ourselves that we can't hardly see straight. i think george never said it or them loudly enough, but isn't it remarkable and ridiculous that the very fact that they tried to censor his seven words ensured that generations of appreciative fans can all recite them verbatim. (i can). oh, the things we lose when we try to hold onto them too tightly.

i'm sobered and saddened that george has passed. i'm undoubtedly going to spend hours and hours over the next few days with the ipod earphones in, (you can get most all his stuff on the cheap from amiestreet), and i'm going to resolve to tell the truth in his honor on as many occasions as "the man", or ourselves, or, indeed, myself, has need to hear it.

RIP, George

you are what you underwear

"what if you get in a car accident" has always been one of my favorite pieces of underwear admonishment. it's amazing how intrigued we are with other people's.

i went from tighty-whities to boxers when sperm counts became breakfast table conversation, and i haven't gone back, even since the urologist made all that other stuff moot. it had never occurred to me that i ought to have not taken someone else's (i.e. mom's) point of view without sufficient personal experimentation from which to base an informed personal opinion, and i also have to admit that the boxers weren't solely my decision at the time, either. but we live, we learn and we grow into our underwear choices, even while we're never quite completely clear of others' opinions about it. (yup, boxers).

i've made myself swear this wasn't going to be a place for dirty laundry, underwear or no, but the other day i ran across a couple of thongs while i was pressed into service locating the little competitor's soccer socks, and i just about started laughing out loud. i could hear it already: "dad, what's so funny?" and it was all i could do to stifle, but it's too much to let go unmentioned here, so here it goes.

see, she was so adamantly opposed to even the IDEA of them, that seeing a couple of used pair in the hamper is funnier than i think i can find words to express. pushing 50, and wouldn't be caught dead in any while i was around, but somehow now on that cutting edge once the truth of undesirability starts to sink in. (wonder if there's a brazilian under there too? LOL)

if anyone happens to see a little old schoolteacher banged up on the side of the road in her suv, you'd be well advised to allow for just about anything.

lightning strikes for the third time, and counting

if i hadn't seen it, i wouldn't have believed it.

118 minutes gone--the full 90, a full 15 minute overtime period, plus essentially all but the final 2 of the 2nd and final overtime period, and the croatians got the miracle they had been striving for all game. a mis-defended cross, and a goal. (i can only imagine how many minutes the spanish guys held that GOOOOLLLLLL!!! when it went in). it was a bolt from the blue for the blue side, and the red and white checked and bedecked fans were in delirium. turkey, they of the earlier miracles against the swiss and the czechs, were surely done.

and then rüştü reçber, the goalie who had too-early vacated the spot exploited by the croats to take their lead, had one last prayer to take from 20 yards his side of midfield. he struck the ball as far as his strength could muster, and time stood still. the ball floated to ground, and semih şentürk didn't hesitate. through two defenders only a split second too late to close off the chance, he struck it into the back of the net to earn the tie, and send his team on to the penalty kick shootout where only one outcome for these thrice-blessed turks seemed possible.

unbelievable.

the germans aren't disappointed, since they're neither superstitious, nor missed of the fact that four of the turks have earned suspensions that will be enforced during their upcoming match, including the turks' best player and their best goaltender. how, possibly, can this team in red hope to win another game???

these miracles keep getting harder and harder to believe, but i guess that's what makes them miracles. lets just say few non-turks will be betting against the germans, but no one will be counting on any result that isn't accompanied by a final whistle, either.

i love this game.

first day of summer

lelacheur park last night was great. perfect sunshine, perfect temperature, comfortable breezes, real beer, real ballpark food, and, wouldn't you know it, baseball. they guarantee there's never a game for which you can't get a standing room ticket, and standing room at lelacheur means closer to the field than many $85 tickets at fenway, with a wide, open concourse and a convenient rail on which to rest your concessions. (four bucks--best value in town). the view beyond the fences includes the merrimack, aiken street bridge, copious greenery, and inside the park you have all the best of this very small city, too. it's remarkable.

my favorites were the two elderly southeast asian (it would appear) ladies who were escorted all the way to their seats by one of the ushers. they couldn't have grown up with the game, nor did it appear they were regulars at the park, but there they were, with happy expressions and cotton candy, making their way carefully down the steps to their seats. you have to say it's a beautiful game that can attract the entire spectrum of the community, and there were indeed everyone from little leaguers to appreciative old soccer players throughout the park. a small slice of heaven, and a perfect way to spend the eve of the first day of summer.

errors to rbi update

apologies for earlier (potential) misinformation, but it turns out error statistics are fiendishly difficult to acquire and compare. wouldn't you know it but modern-era standards are remarkably different from those of the earlier part of the 20th century, and stuart's 29 isn't even close to the top mark. (i think i came across it in a modern-sox-only discussion, and failed to understand the context, as i often do). billy shindle had 119 in 1890, so that'll give you a quick idea of the order of magnitude of the disparity.

also interesting is to note that the top mark by decade is steadily decreasing. al brancato had 61 in '41, but roy smalley could only manage 51 in '50. by '64 dick allen was down to 41, but that seems to have stabilized the modern-era high-water ballpark. robin yount had 44 in '75, and rafael ramirez had a mere 39 in '83 before jose offerman (gotta love those sox shortstops) returned things to 42 in '92. all that's been mustered in the aughts is jose valentin's 36 in the millennial year, but, as you've read here, i'm bullish on julie making a run at the title.

so here's the scoop on rbi:

brancato only managed 49 rbi in '41, so he makes the hall of error/rbi shame.
smalley had 85 in '50.
allen had 91 in '64.
yount had 52 in '75.
ramirez had 58 in '83.
offerman had 30 in '92, making him the most recent poster boy for error/rbi shame.
valentin had 92 in '00.

now this list isn't comprehensive, because i only picked out the top error producer and error-producing season of each decade, but at least it's a start.

julie lugo quite possibly won't match valentin's error total for the 2000's, but his anemic rbi total will stand extremely tall in the analysis.

theo, we're still waiting for you to do the right thing, and send this dead horse of a shortstop season to the appropriate glue factory in time to field a competitor for the playoffs. you know it's your glaring weakness, and even more glaring than everybody's injuries (through which the kids still find a way to win).

but, yeah, i'm disappointed we're not in historical territory here... cuz it sure feels like it.

because i know you were watching the sox instead

awhile back, sweden looked confident against the greeks, and every bit the measure of the spanish, who were lucky to score two minutes into stoppage time to earn the division-clinching win. but yesterday those swedes were nowhere near the class of the too-young-to-know-they-shouldn't russians, and it turns out the representatives to the knockout rounds from the lands of page's and plant's ice and snow are to be the sons of mother russia.

their first match was a 4-1 embarrassment to the class-of-the-division spaniards, and their next a tentative but fairly-gained 1-0 win over the hapless and overmatched greeks. but their third was scintillating display of both skill and exuberance, where they seemed to come into their creative own, of which they'll need every ounce if they're to make a game of it with the dutch on saturday.

i think that's the best part of euro 2008 for me: in addition to those sides, like the portuguese and the spanish, whose class is long overdue for success, there are always those teams, like turkey and russia, who show up too naive to know any better, and who play such beautiful and inspired football that you can't help but fall in love with their longest of chances.

the germans are teutonic, and the italians histrionic, and croatia overdue for their first let-down. which only leaves the dutch, whose dominance is indisputable, and history proven, yet who still inspire like an underdog because of their flair and joy on the field.

so i have five "favorites" out of the eight in the field, and an asterisk next to germany because, well, the forebears were from there. i'm thinking i can't lose.

for those keeping score

with his 15th rbi of the season last night (in a 2-run game no less!) julie's "hitting" took the lead by one over his "fielding", 15 to 14. when i have more time i'm going to scour the almanac for historical precedents, so we can all know the true (and i'm thinking historic) nature of the competition.

i love baseball.

quick cursory update: the major league record for errors in a season is 29, held by dick stuart of our very own boston red sox. (back in 1963). so far, through 74 games, julie lugo is on pace with 14. by way of contrast, mr. stuart also amassed 118 rbi. i still say an everyday player coming close to matching errors with rbi is unprecedented, and when i have time i'm going to find out for sure.

history in the making. i'm sure of it.

groep van de dood

i enjoyed watching the celts win big last night, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't the only game worth watching yesterday. while the dutch second-stringers were turning away the star-crossed romanians, (imagine being good enough to run full time with both the french and the italians, but then having to go home because your third opening round challenge was a team like this year's dutch), the french and the italians were pouring their hearts out on the pitch in zurich. freed from the inexcusable (i'd have said inexplicable, but we've covered that, i think) officiating oppression of their previous matches, the italians won a well-deserved penalty and then enjoyed the rest of the match with an extra player because the infraction was simultaneously deemed worthy of a red card expulsion. i don't much care for their diving, whining and whinging play, but my hat is off to the azzuri today because they earned it.

the french, for their part, didn't bow their heads or ever quit, even when they went down the second goal. thierry henri had several good looks at goal, and he only nearly missed his chances to do the improbable, while karim benzema was, in my opinion, the man of the match except for luca toni's heroics behind the french defense. (i very much like that the premier french players are now becoming more and more arabic, as i think it bodes well as one small step towards the mixing of cultures and the healing of our torn planet).

but, as i mentioned before, the best part of the match is that i could enjoy one or the other being shown the tournament door. give me the spirited dutch, and the exuberant portuguese, and the finely-skilled spaniards any time. the turks are inspiring, the croats are resolute, and the germans, though just glad to be into the next round, are always tough. time for sweden and russia to decide who the last entrant will be. for my part, having seen what they can do, i'm not going to be foolish enough to doubt that the italians, for all their histrionics, are for real. a tremendous group of eight it will be, and a reminder why, though certain south american sides can be championship-brilliant, and the africans, asians and north americans ever-improving and overdue for success, its europe that still defines the standard for this truly international sport.

every one of the knockout-round matches over the four days starting tomorrow are worth finding a chance to watch. (not to mention today's between sweden and russia to decide the final spot in the second round). best if shared with someone with ties to the countries involved, but inspiring even without. i'm dusting off my espana jersey to be ready for the match against the italians, and i'm looking forward to sharing the spirit of the portuguese, even if i might maintain my soft spot for the germans out of genetic solidarity tomorrow. (though i have to say the portuguese have been my favorites since their fans welcomed me into their club to watch the matches four years ago, and i'd never be rooting *against* them).

i'd love to see a mediterranean-heavy round of four: spain, portugal, turkey, and, by all means, the dutch. but if the germans or the croats or the italians or the northland team (russia or sweden) that's fortunate enough to make it, make it, then that's ok, too.

did you see the us pummel barbados the other day? oh, to be playing against teams like these europeans for the world cup in two years!!!

conflicts

calendars are as unforgiving as any human invention--you can only be in one place at a time. mine is outright overflowing these days, and it's always interesting to note how the options strike me, and then how my choices strike those affected or involved. (or not).

if it were as simple as setting the priorities in your tivo season pass manager, then it wouldn't be nearly so complicated. kids #1, and so forth, and then whichever is highest on the list for any given moment takes precedence. but it's not so simple, and it's sometimes fiendishly complicated. today, for one example, and in no particular order, i've got my daughter's spring concert, two high-pressure and deadline-critical work projects, promised resolution of mom & dad's computer troubles, my favorite masseuse, the condo board of trustees meeting, the lowell spinners opening day, the france vs. italy diving competition (and happily rooting for the romanians to make it all moot), the sox at philly, and the celts at home. i'm sure i've forgotten a few things, like managing the disappointment of those not making the initial cut of the top 10, but there's a limit to how much space there is in that little calendar box, and within the 24 hours allotted by convention to any particular day.

well, tivo is going to help me with at least a couple of the (televised) sporting events, and my own productivity (no comments about where i'm getting the time to be blogging this) with a couple more, but the spinners and the condo board and at least one friend who would have otherwise enjoyed some of my time are going to have to bow to the absolute and irrefutable power of the calendar. that's just the way it is.

this summer, between the spinners (we won't even count the sox), and the lowell summer concerts, and the soccer pickup games, i think i'm already booked for well over three quarters of the days right up front, even before i get started portioning out the other stuff like taking a canal boat tour, a street car trolley tour, a national park exhibit tour, etc. etc. etc. the good news is that many more important things, like the kids, and friends, and time for myself, can be combined with that first list of things, and everything can be made even better. but, frequently, i'm sure there'll be an unfortunate compromise that will need to be decided based on everything from overall life importance to situational mitigations that are as fluid as the merrimack flowing always just down the street. (geez, i'd forgotten about comedy nights at the worthen, flicks at the pollard library, fishing trips with the vermonters, and about six more things that may or may not have to do with what a single man prefers to do with some of his summer nights...)

one thing i CAN predict with certainty is that i'll be very sensitive to others' criticisms of the choices and compromises that will be necessary for me to make. i know it's human nature to be disappointed when things aren't the way we'd prefer them, but there's only one person who ought to have anything to say about their own calendar, and that's the person to whom the calendar belongs. if you don't like the way i'm arranging mine, i'd like to politely and respectfully suggest you amend yours so that your disappointments can become less frequent. cuz i really like it when people are happy to be on mine, and not so much when they aren't that they're not.

i got conflicts, ya know?

secret messages

my family thinks i'm a whole lot smarter than i am.

yesterday, while indulging my father his day, my sister, accompanied by her daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter, (the second great-grandchild), was trying to get a dvd of family videos from africa (including those of the first great-grandchild who is now living in brazzaville, which i think is way cool because that's where humphrey and claude heard there was a free french garrison with whom to join after they were forced to flee casablanca for observing that "major strasser has been shot--round up the usual suspects", but i digress), to play on dad's dvd player in the living room. unfortunately for them, until i arrived, no one seemed to have been able to get past the most rudimentary of button pushes, and they were having no luck at all.

my first attempts were likewise futile, until i picked up the scrap of paper neatly placed atop the dvd player. the diagram was clear: the dvd player was linked in series through the input and output ports of the vcr, and then into the television. the instructions were equally precise and concise: turn on the dvd player and the tv, then turn on the vcr and switch it to "L1", et voila. (mom and dad really don't watch all that many dvd's).

so they now think i am brilliant, while no amount of telling them i simply read the directions will discourage them from this opinion. you see, the handwriting on the instructions was mine. i hadn't remembered writing them until i saw it, and i hadn't remembered doing anything that they implied i'd done in order to make things work the first time. i just wrote them down because i knew i'd never remember, and put them in a place where i'd be likely to run across them again when i'd need them. the real genius of the system is that my parents are so intimidated by the electronics, that they'd never dare to even displace a scrap of paper, lest it disrupt the entire system. (i guess they'd be right about that).

the part of all this i like best is the feeling that there is someone very sage and knowledgeable on my side, and passing to me the secrets of the universe at precisely the moments when i need them most. a lot of people idealize their spouses (or potential future spouses) to be that for them, but as you know this is not my lot in life, and neither is it all that likely for anyone else if statistics and anecdotes are to be believed. (but, by all means, hope for yours, and know that i am hoping that you find them, too).

yes, finding someone whose sole interest is your best is a very precious thing in life. i think i just discovered yesterday the most important and first place to start.

it's great to have a friend.

happy father's day.

türkiye!!!

not to be intimidated by a goal to the swiss, or even TWO to the much more difficult czechs, the turkish national team pulled off a comeback for the ages this afternoon, and punched their ticket to the round of 8. it was epic. the czech goaltender is generally regarded as the best in the world. their 6'7" striker holds the czech national all-time record for goals scored, and had been having his way all game long. and there was 75 minutes gone in a 90 minute match, and only the most improbable of hopes.

but turkey had previously scored two goals within the last three minutes to draw their last match with the czechs, and never quit. never said die. never stopped pouring forward down the right flank and sending cross after cross towards the goal. finally, they were rewarded. a face-saver to begin at the 75th minute, but still down 1 with soon only those same last three minutes to go in the match, and elimination from the tournament looming as surely as the rain falling on their hopes...

then the amazing--a ball that the czech keeper would catch 99 times out of 100, or maybe 999 out of 1000, and it fell directly to the feet of the hero of the turk's improbable earlier comeback against the swiss, and it was all even. at that moment, if nothing would change, to be decided by penalties, but within 120 seconds, there it was again, played forward against the exhausted czech defenders, and right at the feet of that same nihat kahveci, with 20 yards to go towards goal... a crossing volley... past the keeper's outstretched anguish, and against the far upper corner of the crossbar, and slamming emphatically to the turf, beyond the goal line and every last czech hope.

epic.

if you were to meet a turk tonight or tomorrow, pat them on the back and tell them you know how it feels for your team to come back against insurmountable odds, and that the day is their day. you won't meet a happier person all week.

tebrikler.

four to two

no, i'm not predicting celtics in six (though i think that sounds most likely). i received this week yet another email from a forty-something woman who would be mine, or, more accurately, would have me be hers, that expressed in so many words that "i can't do this", when "this" wasn't even yet being begun to be done.

i wrote awhile back about how life is upside down these days, but this is getting ridiculous. four in six months. and i'm not even counting all those who offered to help pick out kitchen supplies who decided not to write to me directly about their disappointments. it's really hard to fathom. this one has known me for over 20 years, and found herself single in time to find me single and propose that we share a concert or two in the park over the summer. fair enough! i love concerts in the park! so then she writes that she's busy for the next three or four weeks, but that july 11th or 12th sounds promising, and i reply that the 12th is maybe with the kids, but who knows about the 11th and lets see. her reply was fairly direct, and presumed to pack the picnic pending my confirmation, an offer to which i found myself unable to respond to immediately for being out being mission of burma-ized, until yesterday, by which time i had already received the "i can't do this" email describing the wrenching anguish of my refusal to commit.

whuh???

we haven't even so much as spoken on the phone in YEARS!!! (i'm not lying about this, because, as i've said before, some of this stuff you just can't make up).

two ways i know i'm not crazy, or, perhaps more accurately, that whether or not i'm crazy that these four women have been way past me in being total nut jobs for a long time, and the first is that i'm still negotiating a divorce settlement which is itself proof that the last thing i've been proved to be in the last 20 years is reliable, and here they are projecting me to be all that and a dozen roses afterwards. the other way is the two beautiful friends who are valiantly holding the short end of the 4-2 score while simply being two of the sweetest, most thoughtful and thoughtfully indulgent friends i've had since even before my separation. (see previous comments on reliability).

why is that so hard for (apparently) two-thirds of my-contemporary womenkind to understand? treat me nicely, don't expect more than i am, and watch me melt and grow into my devotion. it's simple. i'm wired by 47 years of feminine manipulation to do nothing less. (which is to say, when you've crawled through the desert, you'll forever know how to appreciate a good glass of water). i'm not in a position to be much more than present for their indulgences, but that doesn't cause even a moment's hesitation in their indulgence.

maybe this is bragging, but i need to ask if anyone of my female readers can sense the subtle (not!) differences between 1) regular massages, 2) a freezer full of the tastiest calzones and ziti and italian sausages you've ever reheated, 3) invitations out to see bands like mission of burma and pleasant accompaniment to see bands like the dropkick murphys, (three guesses who are likeliest to get all the spare invites to the lowell summer music series), 4) a sparkling clean apartment with spare laundry always done and folded, and 5) i can't even go into the rest of beautiful things i enjoy of them for a personal desire to keep things at least somewhat presentable here, and 6) the complete lack of all of those things preceding an email that basically says "i'm not getting enough from you". (nope, and you're not likely to ever, either). i know all the guys who are reading this are going to have no trouble voting a big male thumbs up for 1 through 4, while giving an even bigger male something up for number 5 because that's the way we are, while raspberrying down anything that even remotely resembles number 6. this isn't rocket science--it's "dumb as a box of hammers" testosterone talking. (haven't you always loved jill sobule's i kissed a girl?). 1-5 good. 6 not so much.

it's really very simple. you want my best? just rub my belly and scratch between my ears because if you do i'll be totally unable to do anything else but give it to you.

generations

spanish media, referenced in a bbc news story currently among their top headlines, have reported that two spanish children (12 and 13) have been admitted to a mental health institution to treat their addiction to their mobile phones. i'm not even laughing. (ok, maybe just a little).

forgetting for a moment that "when i was your age" my parents treated my would-be addictions to just about anything with a dual regimen of groundings and confiscations, it's fascinating to wonder what kind of a world we've created, where coping skills can be undermined by something with a battery. don't kids do drugs anymore???

the sad truth is that toffler nailed it almost 40 years ago. as adults, all generations have warmly embraced the technologies that have been invented as they went along, (anybody remember when we used typewriters and pay phones?), and trusted to the resilience of their children to learn to cope with a world in which the absence of such things is completely unknown. you and i, if we weren't born yesterday, were taught we had to work for what was worthwhile, but, then again, everything that we owned didn't come with a remote, either. (even the ceiling fans in my brother's new place have remotes). now kids can press buttons without any clue as to true cause and effect (just text me, k?) and they're doing it, as has every generation before them, without any meaningful parental supervision at all. (right, your parents were different).

personally, i'm impressed with how few spanish kids are taking the institutional break. i can't even imagine what jr high school would have been like with unlimited note-passing, and it's not hard to see why there are those who will be overwhelmed by the onrushing onslaught of technology, progress and our coincident cultural sluggishness to develop protocols for managing both.

but, seriously, grounding and confiscation, people. let's not lose sight of two of our history's best parental technologies while we're being dazzled by all the rest.

julie, julie, julie

of course it was part of a 9-2 blowout win, but i just wanted to take a moment to observe julie lugo's first rbi since may 22nd. with thanks to gordon edes of the globe for the stats, referenced from baseball-reference.com, julie's been to the plate with 79 different runners in scoring position this year. i won't rehash the gidp sob-story, but i will note his batting average in such situations continues to languish well below the mendoza line. (.154). oh, and did i mention that he capped the game with his 13th error of the season, which, if you're keeping track, kept him only one shy of his rbi total for the year?

any bets on which number ends up higher? i can't say that i know for sure, but i'm guessing that no everyday player in the history of major league baseball has ever matched rbi's with errors for an entire season, and i'd say, if anybody's gonna make a run at setting that should-be unbreakable record, we shouldn't be betting against our man julie. some guys hit, some guys field, and some guys do both. only an extremely unique player does neither.

and props to the globe editorial staff for the big headline about all this on page e3. looks like somebody is trying to put the heat on theo to fix this before the mid-season trading deadline, and it's something that's long overdue, big contract or no. there are, after all, a couple of NL teams batting their pitchers who have scored more runs than the sox this season, and it'd be pretty tough looking forward to at least 3 games in an NL park with either youk or papi on the bench (if the sox should be so fortunate to earn a return trip to the series) and 2 just-about guaranteed outs back-to-back in the lineup.

c'mon, theo--do the right thing.

Euro2008 first games update

portugal is loaded, and looking good. spain left a few russians running diagonally at their back early, but was convincing nonetheless. (nice 'trick, david). germany just wins, then stumbles, baby, but you know better to count them out, and the dutch--what can you say about the dutch--they put a pasting on those diving eye-talians, and look ready to take on all comers from the groep van de dood. those four may be my picks deep into the next rounds, but i'm not counting out the polish or the romanians, (or the croats now that they've shown they can make michael ballack look positively pitiful), and i'm giving the swedes a sideways glance for being second in a potentially weak group and likely untested until they could be the blonde horse. but the big game coming up is the final match in group a between the one-wins, czechs and turks. a HUGE turkish delight comeback vs the tournament punching-bag swiss (gonna be interesting to see whether the austrians can match the swiss' one goal in the contest to see who can be the weakest host nation in decades) has set up the match of the tournament so far. quite possibly a spring-board game for either team, so keep an eye.

did i mention that the diving eye-talians got the full dutch treat? i just LOVE it when good football is rewarded on the pitch.

nba vs nfl vs mlb vs nhl vs fifa vs wwf

tim donaghy dimed the nba the moment he was caught doing the feloniously unpardonable, and david stern cannot dissemble and disingenuously smile fast enough to keep clear of the fetid stench. own a particularly profitable and/or important nba franchise? (important being defined in many ways including the employment of particularly marketable player/personalities) then just ring the commish's office, cuz you can get your games called pretty much any way that you want. tim knows it. and you and i know it too, if we watch the games with even the slightest amount of interest. it's one of the reasons--actually, i take that back--it's THE reason i care relatively little for following the teams and working up undue emotion for the nba championship, even while i can't help but enjoy the theater of boston/la, over-produced and faux as it clearly is.

yeah, nba basketball is, to my impression, the worst of the worst. three steps to the basket, hand over the top on the dribble, you name it, there isn't a rule in the book that isn't broken with full complicity of the referees during each and every minute of each and every nba game. why fans are happy to finance such a farce is beyond me, (i haven't paid for an nba ticket in decades, though, yeah, i've let friendship induce me into accepting free ones from time to time), but it'd be nice if tim donaghy's final contribution to the game wasn't a vig. it's really a ridiculous game these days, and it has been for decades.

actually, it's remarkable how easily sport in general lends itself to cheating, and becoming both a travesty and a caricature of itself. what constitutes holding in the nfl? a high strike in mlb? obstruction in the nhl? a foul of any sort in any fifa-sanctioned contest? i'd say it's purely ones ability to be on the right side of a biased and manipulatable referee, and as such, possessed of one of the most important and valuable sports skills that's ever been. the nba just happens to be particularly mephitic, even though not particularly unique.

i will say, to their credit, mlb has always put the sanctity of the umpires above every other power in the game. it's as if they realized, right from the start of calling balls and strikes all those hundred plus years ago, that if there was any power to rival it on the diamond or in the dugout or in the commissioners office, that all hope for fairness would be irretrievably lost. so you can't even *argue* balls and strikes, even if you disagree with them. all that whining you see going on in the nba? if it were baseball, there wouldn't be a player left on the court to finish the game. (and, the way things are right now, i'm not sure how much we'd be losing in that transaction). what's left in baseball is an oddly unique historical bargain between the players and umpires of today that the traditions of the game be maintained as faithfully as every individual has the power to be, even if those traditions extend to stolen signs, corked bats, and doctored baseballs. just like in the nhl, (also to be lauded for their traditions), there's a whole protocol towards calling out the other guys for doing what is inevitable that they will do, which is, as we've all known all along, break the rules. like when zim missed his chance to call out bucky's bogus bat, the rules are clear on the finality of the 78 sox/yanks playoff game result, cheated to achieve or no. the ball cleared the monster--game over. good nhl guys save their challenge for strategic moments, as when jaromir jagr has been repeatedly penalized for carrying an over-zealous curve on his, um, hockey stick. it's part of the game, and that, ironically, makes it better, even if not perfect. if only the gerbil was half so aware...

at least the wwf folks hand us an honest sport, in contrast, in the sense that they make no pretense of there not being a script behind it all. just a wink, because they know we prefer our entertainment in a blissful state of suspended disbelief.

free wi-fi

i'm this moment happily ensconced within the air-conditioned wi-fi umbrella at the tampa international airport. among the many other advantages enjoyed by travelers here, there are security personnel who actually secure things (the gi-normous tubes of crest and coppertone that happily and ignorantly soared past the screen at logan wound up in the trash bin here straight-away) and internet access that's fast, reliable and *free*--it's a pleasure to drop my cash on virgin bloody marys and conch fritters at the casa bacardi instead.

the move was sweltering but straightforward, and the sunset in clearwater worth the trip. (as was the seafood platter at frenchy's). it's a thorough treat to have the kind of life and circumstances that allow for such things. except for a little airport background noise during my contributions to the day's conference calls, there wouldn't be any way to know i wasn't in an office somewhere toiling with a suit on, instead of in florida wearing sandals and a t-shirt. you can keep the strip malls and the flat franchise landscape, and i'll my promise that i won't be choosing to retire here, but it's not a bad place to be for a couple of days in june, especially while the weather is just as tropical up boston way.

see ya at mob at the paradise tomorrow. (from zero to three times in a month--you'd think it was my favorite club). saturday'll be mom and dad's 50th, and then 8am will dawn the season's denouement in west roxbury on sunday, where we can finish anywhere from first to fourth depending on fate and fortune.

life is good.

the baby boom

lots has been written about the boomer generation, and much implies that i'm supposed to be at the tail end of a fading demographic bulge. like an anaconda digesting a volkswagen, all the accompanying graphs graphically illustrate the procreative explosion sparked by the millions of servicemen coming home in '46, right through the precipitous decline in '65 upon the arrival of the birth control pill.

but i'm here to tell you that misses something, and a collective someone, important.

1960 sits on a cultural fault line that becomes very hard for me to describe to almost everyone who is anything more than a few months on either side of it. owing (i think) to older siblings, i experienced via proxy much of what came before, and if no one in your family ever had a draft number, i'm not sure i can explain it any better than that. what you were doing when kennedy was shot is one thing. (*the* kennedy was shot--no way bobby qualifies for this). a lot of folks who came later will wonder if the shared national shock and grief over lennon might approximate, but if you can't tell me what you were doing the day that sgt peppers came out, then i promise you considering the impact of lennon for you is like a blind person trying to consider color. (imagine).

so i think the pundits are wrong if they are distracted by the demographics, and even those random pieces of cultural trivia, and there are any number of flourishes all around us to illustrate to us why. the generation that is unique is indeed mine, yes, but mine is not the '46 to '64 collective procreative indiscretion. (the now-infirm dylan fans who would share memories of kruschev and kennedy and want to tell you all about it notwithstanding).

see, those other folks had sex in the mud (at woodstock and most anywhere else), and they did recreational hallucinogenics, and all their best seemed used up once they won our liberation from vietnam and cornered nixon into resignation. (not inconsiderable feats). they're old now, and hard of hearing, and their music is more trivia question than topical, even given the nightmarish similiarities to the present war. (i get to say so, because i was there for both--how's that for arrogant).

snuck in behind the big figures are a hidden cadre of my immediate peers who saw what came before, and stuck around to shape what came after. we weren't doing it when it all began, but we were there to savor the echoes and after-effects of free love before the age of aids changed that, too. we sat together in elementary school and watched the moon landings on the big black and white tv's, and can't really remember the atomic air raid drills that had older kids hiding beneath their desks, but it's there in the back of our minds just the same. yep, we lived in a time where political and social succession was indeed at the point of a gun, and when music still lived and breathed, though it was almost killed by a falling disco ball only a few years later, and, luckily, we were able to save it. our single most remarkable achievement is that our children still know the words to our music forty years later, and in the history of the world, i'm not sure this has ever happened before in quite this same way.

so what got me onto this particular tangent this morning are the tables for the over the hill soccer league. there are 11 divisions for "over 50", which, if your math is working, include most of those who would be counted among the twenty years of "boomers". in comparison, there are 15 division needed to serve those who were born before '68 but after '58, and that number of divisions has been growing steadily every year (3 more had to be added this season alone) and i know, without any better reason than i know, that the peak will only occur exactly when the "boom" was supposed to be over.

see, the *real* boom was '60 to '70, and i know it just as surely as i know that those born after '68 are able today to muster only 10 divisions in total. THAT's the tail (tale) of an anaconda, my friends. things aren't defined by mere numbers, or by hackneyed copywriters for major media looking to cash in on vast amounts of disposable retirement income among those already suscribing to aarp journal. we of my ilk can't take credit for the revolution--the "boomers" all made sure we were never told we couldn't, and they deserve at least some of that credit--or be counted as most numerous among it. to our detriment, it can also be pointed out that somehow we failed to energize those who would come next, and someone, somewhere, is going to have to figure out the responsibility for that. but our women will actually become president, (you can quote me on that), and our men insist to be on the field in numbers not seen before or since.

i, for one, think that's remarkable, just like the music. when some kid confuses me with a "boomer", i feel a sort of moral disquiet that they'll never know the difference, but i get over it. every time a riff gets sampled, i know there's somebody listening.

james hunter

there's music and then there's music, and there are shows and then there are shows, and i was privileged last night to be reminded of the distinctions of both. the herald was effusive in its praise, and yet failed to do the depth and breadth of it justice. for an aural glimpse, you might go to jameshuntermusic.com (click on "music", and then again on "bonus tracks", and then start right at the top with "baby don't do it", and then take my word for the fact that he and the band have grown in their inhabitation of the song to the point where what i heard last night isn't even remotely captured by what's on the web site, even while it's hinted at and just fine in its own way) and have yourself a ball--but it won't begin to approximate being there. prefer video? he's got his new single on youtube, and the live snippets are same lineup and stage set that was used last night. close, but, as any rock and roller (r&b'er, jazzer, or music lover of any kind) knows, there's nothing like just being there.

i consider myself every day a lucky guy.

the marzilli update

the count is now up to five confirmed, with a sixth observed by a city bus driver to have been grabbed by the arm and yet to be identified. the cops do indeed have video to surveille, and the mclean mental hospital in belmont is one bed more crowded today while marzilli promises that his "statehouse staff will continue to respond to the needs of constituents within the district until the end of my term". (no mention of his concern that said response might not include actually being able to vote on their behalf within the state senate to which he was otherwise elected).

this is such great stuff.

would it be un-pc of me to point out that his wife has become one of the greatest walking ironies/jokes of our political world since mrs. eliot spitzer was called down to bail out the guv-nah a few weeks back? nah, on second thought, forget silda--here we have an otherwise serious and dedicated feminist (with the haircut to prove it) who's been propping up the career of what turns out to be a serious and dedicated misogynist for decades, and who is now forced to stand mute in front of the cameras while the reporters get to ask if martin walsh "completely denies the allegations" too. (martin walsh being the name of marzilli's state senate associate who, as far as we know, was nowhere near downtown lowell the other day, even while j.j. was gettin' his freak on and telling the lowell cops that that was who he was, really, right before he was chased on foot into the leo a. roy parking garage and cornered into tears and giving up his real name that "my life is over"). yeah, that's what *I'D* say if i was completely innocent of all allegations, too.

Euro2008

it all starts tomorrow, and it's hard to explain to folks who have been off the boat for too many generations what it all means. but you know i'll try.

working with europeans is far more nuanced and interesting than the red-state blue-state bilateral nonsense we have going on here. for americans, its little more than north/south, boston/ny, east coast/west coast, texas/not texas, or any two extremes that we think we have going on. but in europe, mother europe, EVERYBODY has a characterization, and a role to play in any conflict.

the english are hooligans, though not good enough to qualify in this particular tournament, and to play the game that they always whine about having invented. (just had to get that bit in there, even though it's irrelevant). the french are effete, while the germans are humorless and expect to win every game on penalties, and the dutch are always stoned and hanging out with prostitutes. (ok, that last bit is just what we americans think, but it's too good a cliche to pass up). actually the dutch are known most for their quiet, steady hatred of the germans, which makes them friendly to almost everybody else on the continent, which is ironic, because, of all the other countries in europe, the dutch speak more and better german than anybody else not from germany, and that even includes the swiss. (ok, that last bit might have been a slight exaggeration--but not much).

the belgians (also not good enough to qualify) are considered by other europeans to be what we americans were always told was characteristic of the polish, who are actually considered very respectable folk by everyone else who has overrun their country to and from their various wars, while the italians are all known to be foul-simulating criminals who can't even figure out how to take out their own garbage. (yes, i'm talking about the neapolitans with that bit). the spaniards and greeks smoke more cigarettes than anyone else in europe can believe is possible, (and that's saying a lot), while the russians are all drunks with bad tempers who inexplicably can sober up just long enough to kick everybody's asses in chess, though not soccer.

you can look here to understand why the austrians and the swiss will never be a threat to win any international soccer competition, let alone qualify, (lucky for them they get free invitations to this one for being the hosts), and the portuguese like wine so much they'll even drink their own. to round out the field, the turkish are recognized to be universally swarthy and hot-tempered, while the swedes are their characteristic opposite, (with better looking women), the czechs play hockey and are not slovaks, while the croats don't play hockey and aren't serbs, and the romanians all go to find work everywhere else in the world but their own country, kinda like the turks, only without the back hair.

whew, i think i've managed to offend just about everybody, which is half what this tournament is about, when it's not about the shared and studied european opinion that all americans are idiots, an opinion not disproven by this particular blog post, and i admit it.

for americans looking to catch up on the lingo, "el grupo del muerte" is the group that contains three top-tier soccer powers all vying for one of only two available spots in the second round. this year its the netherlands with france and italy. its kinda like hillary and barack having to face each other before getting to beat up on john "president putin of germany" mccain, only with three-for-two instead of two-for-one, and no mulligan for the consolation veep-ship. (just consider romania kinda like john edwards only not quite so well-coiffed, and you'll get the picture on the rest of the field).

there'll be much much more on this as it develops, (i just ordered up the augmented cable package so i can watch all the games), so don't worry if this much hasn't been enough. ;-)

great caesar's ghost

one of the greatest rewards for rooting around for my music on amiestreet.com is running across nuggets like "live at berkner hall" by great caesar's ghost (with g.e. smith). the allman brothers and grateful dead covers kinda give away those aspects of their sound, but it's more than that, too. by the time i experienced their cover of holly's cover of the bo diddley beat, not fadeaway, i knew i had to have it. (the fact that it was free seemed almost wrong, and if you're quick, you can get it that way too, and that's part of the joy that is amiestreet).

there's a great american tradition of jam band rock and roll, encompassing passions of mine like little feat and the band, (not coincidental, i figure, that g.e. smith would have played with dylan, too), and the sound is as uniquely *here* as any concept of "jazz" that otherwise gets all the international attention. country music? bah. THIS is americana to me.

[don't forget the --- bop, --- bop, --- bop bop]

i'm a-gonna tell you how it's gonna be
you're gonna give-a your love to me
i wanna love you night and day
you know my love-a not fade away
a well you know my love-a not fade away

my love is bigger than a cadillac
i try to show it and you drive a-me back
your love for me just got to be real
for you to know-a just how i feel
a love for real and not fade away

i'm a-gonna tell you how it's gonna be
a-you're gonna give-a your love to me
a love to last a-more than one day
a love is love and not fade away
a love is love and not fade away


not fade away, indeed.

btw, did you know (i didn't) that g.e. smith was originally married to gilda radner? that he was the guitar guy for hall and oates? that he co-wrote the theme song for wayne's world? (yeah, you did know he was the snl bandleader for 10 years). that he toured for several years with bob dylan?

it's amazing what you hyperlink to on the web once you get started.

all the front page news that's fit to print

it just keeps getting better and better--after my little chuckle over the bild shenanigans, i heard the friendly slap of my morning paper on the doorstep, and opened the door to find still yet more stuff that you just can't make up:

seems that massachusetts state senator james marzilli, fresh from his exhoneration (for lack of evidence) from accusations of a sexual assault on his home streets of arlington this past april 6th, took his show on the road to beautiful downtown lowell yesterday, and found himself put up in the very accommodating lowell city jail after (allegedly) groping a woman on a public street bench. better yet, said bench was at the corner of middle street, only one over from headquarters here at shangri-lowell, and the foot chase took him down market street, where he had originally attempted to use a false name when confronted by police, and then right past the front steps of my very building, and into the leo a. roy parking garage where he was finally apprehended when the ruse didn't work and he had to try to run for it. though his mouthpiece was characteristically bombastic in his defense, ("he completely and totally denies any of the allegations--they're completely ridiculous, and he will start fighting them tomorrow morning in lowell district court", though no word yet on whether or not marzilli plans to use his nom-de-grope when addressing the judge), it should be pointed out that the majority of downtown lowell here is well-covered by rooftop security cameras, and i expect that we should be seeing video by 11.

you just can't make any of this stuff up.

for their part, the massachusetts republican party immediately issued a statement that, though "senator marzilli is entitled to his day in court", "these are very serious charges and if they are true he should resign".

well, duh, but i was scouring their press release to see if they had anything to say about bruce barclay, (republican county commissioner from cumberland, pa, who videotaped hundreds of sexual encounters, including many with male escorts, using cameras hidden throughout his monroe township home), matthew joseph elliott, (former aide to the mittsters presidential nomination attempt who was recently convicted of sexual exploitation of a child), robert mckee, (republican delegate from western maryland who resigned, after police confiscated two computers, videotapes and printed material in a child pornography investigation, not only his congressional seat but also his directorship of big brothers big sisters of washington county), daniel dean thompson, (a utah retailer of "family friendly" dvds, which, as you may know, are the hollywood products with the dirty bits cut out of them, who was arrested and booked for sexual abuse and unlawful sexual activity with a 14-year old), and derek walker, (former eagle scout and hopeful gop nominee for a congressional seat from north-central pennsylvania, who was charged with felony burglary for breaking into his ex-girlfriend's home and using his cell phone to record video of her in an intimate moment with her new boyfriend).

apparently we're still waiting on those comments...

"they can't even take penalties"

recently, an english tourist won £750 from his travel company for placing him at a greek resort filled with germans. (his main complaint being that the activities in the greek holiday destination weren't organized in english).

wow.

and i used to think that americans were the ugly ones.

but have no fear. the germans have stood up to defend themselves, and bild (who said that tabloids weren't honorable press) has helpfully printed a list of holiday destinations for germans that are unlikely to contain any/many english. the main points of their story, in addition to english propensities for bad cuisine, binge drinking and absent fashion sense (bild's online story is illustrated by one particularly hysterical-yet-gruesome photograph of a pair of sunburnt and topless english women), are made with the ultimate insult, printed clearly in english at the top of the piece: "dear tommies, you don't want to be on holiday with us? no problem. we'll play football without you this summer" (nods to england's failure to qualify for the upcoming european championship). later on in the article the bild-sters dig even deeper to make a snide comment that "they can't even take penalties". (nods to the recent euro club championship in which chelsea choked on an easy win when john terry slipped and hit the post on what would have otherwise been an easy winner from the penalty spot, or maybe they were referring to beckham's penalty miss that ousted england from the last european championships in 2004...)

for my soccer-challenged readership, i can perhaps translate the beckham thing by suggesting you try to imagine kobe bryant tossing the would-be-winning free throw clear over the backboard instead. (here's hoping).

you just can't make this stuff up.

prepared

i'm not sure if i consider myself prepared as i would the boy scouts or the marines...

aluminum-tipped studs--16mm at the back, 13mm for the front, (i so rarely get to enjoy my "soft ground" setup), freshly laundered kit including my brand-spanking new kelme premier socks, all ready for obliteration, and a fresh body-by-a total body massage to put me in fine form to compete against the old guys who are undoubtedly still creaky from sunday's tilt. i simply cannot wait.

6pm. high noon for the slower set. i'm going to be sorely disappointed if they cancel this again.

185.2

30 years ago i weighed 155 pounds, and this morning, on my new whiz-bang, clear plexi, high-tech digital scale, i'm checking in at 185.2, and it occurs to me that though the new number in a macro sense represents a steady pound-a-year pace, it's really rather odd that the market comprised of people who are expected to buy bathroom scales is judged to prefer such silly precision. .2? really?

first of all, those obsessive and compulsive as myself are all wondering what the heck is going on, that our lovely 16-ounces-to-the-pound avoirdupois system is being oddly mangled with metric-style decimals. second of all, it seems rather silly that i or anyone else stepping on a bathroom scale would need to know the distinction between ourselves and ourselves newly shed of our t-shirt and shorts, or, and, c'mon now, you've all done it, relieved via one or two particular natural bodily functions before stepping on the scale. that can't possibly be the point.

i'm a "you can only manage what you can measure" kinda guy, and though notches on the belt and/or waist sizes of the most comfortable levis in the store just don't seem to be precise enough for my preference, i still feel like tenths of a pound are simply ridiculous unless you are a house cat. just for grins i'm going to step on it before and after wednesday night's soccer game. bet i can lose at least 5.6 before heading out for a beer. (and that i'll be 185.3 in the morning).

aren't you happy it's so easy for me to be entertained?

webendipity

a moment of silence for ellas otha bates, aka ellas mcdaniel, aka bo diddley. 'til he figured out ya had to whale on a guitar like it was a drum, there wasn't anything could even be remotely described as rock and roll. a giant, and a genius, and a gently wonderful man.

so, completely by prescient coincidence, i was in conversation with a bona fide musician (not to be confused with a rock & rollah, or especially anything or anybody like me) this past weekend, and the conversation got around to the subject of mojo nixon. (long story that meandered on its way from t-bone burnett's production of robert plant and alison krauss, who will undoubtedly and very shortly become the first beneficiaries of me actually buying a retail CD in what amounts to YEARS, but let's try to keep to the thread, here).

anyway, the moment i heard the news of bo's passing, i thought immediately of mojo's paean to the single chord ("the story of one chord") and how bo could do more with one than most guys could do with a closet-full. so i went out on the net to see if i could find a version to offer here, and ran across instead something truly inspiring featuring mojo nixon and jello biafra from last year at the continental club in austin, tx. (best i can tell, the evening was entitled "mojo mayhem", and how can you resist a headline like that, along with the included, in addition to the esteemed mssr. biafra, new duncan imperials). anyway, if you close your eyes the first time through, or minimize the window, or otherwise hear with your ears and not your eyes, you'll be purely blown away by how much these guys (still) ROCK. but, not having had the benefit of the hint myself, having run across is serendipitously (or webendipitously as it were), i had the eerie experience of encountering the guy who is unmistakably the latest incarnation of elvis/mojo in the center of the stage, and saying to myself, yup, now THERE's a guy who's been drinking with me jesus for a couple of solid decades. but, WOW, it's all still there to hear.

and it's all good, and purely from the well of mr. diddley, who got his inspiration from john lee hooker, he of the one bourbon, one scotch, and one beer school of nightlife, who stood on the shoulders of other giants i'm sure, back long before i have awareness to realize. so anyone wishing to pick up the discourse on why not the paradise (like a dog with a rag, ain't i) should just take a tour through mojo's video legacy on youtube (haven't found a dud yet) and tell me you can't tell the difference between a show and a SHOW. and we haven't even gotten to bo, yet.

so take a tour, on me. hey, bo did-dley. who do ya love?

ps, do NOT quit on the bo did-dley link until you see donny osmond handing the solo over to lita ford, and then reflect on everybody else you saw on that stage happy just to be on it with mr. diddley, and how, with a band that size, and that unlikely to have had any time to rehearse as a group, that they were all so versed and familiar and INSPIRED by bo's music that they sounded as tight as any you've ever heard. i have no idea who managed the sound and the mix for the video, but that in itself is genius enough. yup, john entwhistle, greg allman, max weinberg, (i'm doing this all from memory), tom scott, frankie avalon, stanley clarke, joe walsh, clarence clemons, and too many others to recognize or mention, all sounding like one. amazing. (i swear that's bonnie raitt dancing in the front row, too).

hats off, bo.

wow.

central air

for weeks (months, actually, if you count the very warm weather in april) i've been living with open windows. it's a beautiful thing, even if the spring pollen will leave itself all over everything and require a little extra effort to keep things looking well-tended. (to which i should digress a moment to observe that, now that i'm no longer living in close proximity to cats, i've had zero allergic reaction to pollen this spring, and one has to wonder why one person would subject another they're supposed to care about to that sort of thing for decades, and while said other person wouldn't object to it, but that's another story for another time).

where were we?

ahh, yes, open windows...

this past weekend we've started to cross the line into the occasional new england summer swelter, where even seventies can feel a bit close, when the humidity gets high enough. and then it hit me... i've got central air conditioning!

now i'm not saying i'm looking forward to hermetically sealing myself into a little box for the summer, because i'm not, and i won't. (as a matter of fact, with the humidity passed again today, i'm back to the open windows with hopes of not having to close them in the same way i have hopes every day of not having to use my car). but when the sticky, hot line gets crossed, there's something decadently luxurious about being able to say to yourself, gee, i think seventies sound better than eighties for me right now, and lets wring a little of that moisture out of the air so we can breathe again while we're at it, shall we?

i can hear all the environmentalists in the audience already starting to groan at the sentiment, but i have to ask 'em, what with my walls being surrounded on five out of six sides by other energy-efficient living spaces and not the climactic crapshoot that would have been nature only now is suburban sprawl, how long they think i'd have to run the central air to catch up to the carbon dioxide emissions of their gas-belching two-cycle lawnmower alone? (not to mention their cars for all their trips to places to which folks like me can walk, etc. etc. etc.). that snifty little (or not so little) hybrid suv sure feels good, but it's true that one could drive a hummer for a goodly long time before the environmental impact added back up to the global-warming body punch contributed by the chemicals in that mutha-big battery. but you'd have to think about it to get it.

so i guess this is all to say that i don't think folks think for themselves all that often. i know i went for decades without it, and as much as i loved those cats, (zipper, i miss you most of all), it's pretty clear to me now that i shouldn't have been sharing my living space with them for all those years. funny what we'll do for the mirage of love...

i think i'll go open some windows.

electric avenue

one of the wonders of nature that i've had the privilege to have seen among my 47 years is the always-exhilarating sight of reveling humanity happily spilled out into the boulevard in celebration of nothing more significant than saturday night. you know what i'm talking about--the bars are closing, and the youth and would-be youthful aren't quite ready to go home just yet, or, perhaps, give up on the chance that they might meet one last stranger who might make their night, or, at least, hear the right rumor of the next stop that will keep the party going into the a-bit-less-than-wee hours, and everyone is all just happy to be alive.

a boston friend of mine years ago would refer to the tradition on boylston street as "the mill", (he was a bit jaded), but i think the calgonians got it closer when they spontaneously began referring to their main party junction (11th avenue) as "electric avenue" in the late 80's. (nods to eddy grant and the winter olympics who got it started, and to the stampede that keeps it going). in chicago it's rush street, in memphis, beale, and new orleans and its bourbon street are so far the epitome of the concept that i'm not even sure how to give words to do them justice.

having feasted on the GREAT bar-band ska/punk of across the aisle (and rekindled my affectionate relationship with pbr's in the 16 oz. red, white and blue can) and consequently become completely unaware of the hour, i found myself last night strolling up market street in beautiful downtown lowell at just the perfect moment--when hope and enthusiasm meet the warm summer night air, and the lights and the luminaries simply can't be described or contained.

to the seemingly endless joys that are my hometown, add market street among the list of the great night places that i'm glad to have been. everyone will roll their eyes when i tell them, (so few get "shangri-lowell"), but this here is every bit as vibrant as you'd ever want a street like it to be.