deep fried hot dogs

today's dinner will be a prime goose, to be lovingly presented after two full days of careful preparation, and with all the trimmings that do NOT include yams and cranberry sauce. (i know the pilgrims had to eat such things to survive around here back in the day, but lets face facts and call cranberries and yams what they are, which are barely edible last survival resorts for people who want to think they're ewell gibbons, and not proper food for real people at all. (ewell, i might point out, has long been worm food, despite, i'm sure, the impressive anti-oxident properties of much of his diet, so don't start on me with that crap, either). and butter on EVERYTHING!!!

if the chef's reputation and past achievements are to be any guide, it should be a remarkable meal.

the description of today's feature dish, as to be in its way "like peking duck", has me thinking of other memorable meals that come with crispy coatings. like, for example, yesterday's lunch where it was discovered in my favorite local tavern that they serve, as a "side" no less right there with the fries and onion rings and other staple foods, a $1.50 deep fried hot dog on a grilled bun with, and i wouldn't kid you about something as important as this, honest to goodness sauerkraut. now THAT's what i'm talkin about!

when i was a little boy, mrs. duffy used to run the grill at my grandparent's dairy, (where they used to make the ice cream so rich it pulled like taffy and made your head swim it was so delicious), and she'd always butter up the fixins so that both the roll and the dog within were well-kissed with that ephemeral patina of short order goodness. mmmmmmm. i would wait all week for a shot at one of those dogs, cuz mom boiled ours when we were lucky enough to get them at home, and nobody there thought about the sauerkraut that little oliver twist was yet too timid to pleadingly request, either. yesterdays version did lack the proper open-ended paper dog-holder, otherwise appreciated so you can slide the beauty down, bite by bite, without ever needing to reach for a napkin to deal with the what we're calling patina, which is always meant to stay neatly inside the paper, (though mustard is allowed to be dripped around as may be), but yesterday's process was complicated by the paper presentation which was closed on both ends, requiring one to balance the dog a little up on one end, and squeeze it a little to maintain the proper access, which, if you know anything about grilled rolls, does indeed dampen the perfection just a little bit, since the grilled bun is not supposed to be man-handled in any way that might condense the bread parts and lose the airy contrast to the buttery bits on the outside...

*sigh*

it was still wonderful.

nope, today's goose isn't going to be deep-fried like they do with their turkeys down south, out back in the 55 gallon drum of boiling oil, but i'd never hold that against anyone who is going a full two days into business with a goose just for me and the other thanksgiving orphans with whom it will be my pleasure to give my thanks for a truly good life.

i'm a very lucky man.

my crush

an intimate friend of mine enjoys referring to any of the many women for whom i carry a particular torch as "your crush". i'll make no excuses for the number of women to whom she can refer in this way, but i will say in my own defense that i'm proud of each and every enamoration--after all, overall, they're a very select group of only the most accomplished and remarkable women. (mmm, natalie...)

so, awhile back, when newscenter 5 graduated the estimable ms jacobsen to special reporting and other barbara-walters-esque indulgences, my nightly news love life was thus cast into a situation of great uncertainty. my ultimate confundity wasn't for any lack of channel 5's ongoing efforts to restock the reporting pool with a remarkable array of the most delectable and delicious reporters from which to choose a consolation, (e.g. shiba russell, rhondella richardson, heather kahn, bianca de la garza, mary saladna, and kelly tuthill just for starters), but for their perverse pleasure in making it impossible to choose between the inspiring pinnacles of the profession, (listed here alphabetically so as not to in any way place one ahead of or above the other), ms's liz brunner and heather unruh.


yes, i cannot tell you how many fantasies the two of these consummate professionals have inspired in me, not least for their obvious intelligence and numerous professional accomplishments. (emmys and many other rewards and professional recognition among them). but i won't bother to try to make it sound all professional and proper, because, as you can plainly see from the photos above, there isn't any man i know capable of explaining away such coincidence without it being plainly obvious. they are, in a word, or two, truly beautiful, and there are worse reasons to be compelled to pay attention to the nightly news, though none more motivating.

so, tonight, an amazing thing has happened. ms brunner, through absolutely no fault, omission or comission of her own, has been unceremoniously dropped from the running and back into the pool with the other littler fish, and there isn't a single thing she can do about it. well, perhaps, but i hardly think, now that heather has beaten her to the sartorial punch, there's any belated or similar gesture on her part that will ever look or seem nearly as sincere, or attractive.

heather unruh has taken to wearing glasses as she reads the news.

i'm in love.

i couldn't have predicted my response, nor can i truly understand it, other than to say, at my advanced age and refined appreciation for what is truly beautiful in a beautiful woman, that heather's presence on the news has just elevated itself to iconic stature. not even natalie had the chops to make her reading glasses what heather's full set are. truly beautiful. history in the making. i'd post you a picture of her here, though none seem available to be found, and you're just going to have to tune in to channel 5 tomorrow night at 6 to see it.

it'll be worth it. promise.

sweetest set of peaches

the last couple of days before a holiday are always an interesting mixture of all-at-once and otherwise unanswered phones, and i'm happily finding myself possessed of another free few minutes as well as the inspiration to continue my melvern taylor riff that's no longer about melvern taylor, but that's neither here nor there and totally like me, so please bear with me while i happily digress...

when last we wrote we were enjoying the vicissitudes of the little polka dot bikini, and what might inspire as the sweetest set of peaches on the beaches down at sals-berr-ree. one of the reasons i like the lyric so much is that it puts me in mind of the glorious variety, subliminity and subtlety of the female human breast in a way that i'm not usually inclined to contemplate. you see, shame as it is to admit it, i'm not primarily a breast man...

(on a side note, i wonder if i can properly describe what it is i am, and what it is about the irresistible female form that draws me, since it's not a cultural standard or in any way near the degree and delightful excess of that which is devoted to the female breast. if i said waist it wouldn't necessarily be accurate or complete, nor shoulders, neither, nor neck, nor wrist, nor anything and everything about the well-turned female leg and ankle...)

where was i?

oh--breasts.

so, you see, irony of ironies, after decades of cheerful and not-so-cheerful cohabitation with the relatively breast-less, and a long history of doting upon the otherwise dote-starved dahlias of breast-less-ness, i have found myself betwixt and between a veritable cornucopia (to use a word for the season) of breast-ful-ness--enough to make even the most ardest mamm-o-phile begin to lose their bearings. (i know, because sometimes out in the bars and the restaurants and elsewhere while i'm in the company of the new company i keep, many trying to make conversation can hardly keep their appreciative eyes in their heads, which is wonderfully amusing and flattering to all, but lets try not to get lost again here...) so i recall my favorite film montage from "the wedding crashers", whence vince and luke are shown to be successively bedding the fruits of their pretty deceptions, and i'm continually struck by the remarkable visual treat such things can provide viewers of all ages, genders and orientations, when shown spilling and cascading, one beautiful pair after another, onto conjugal beds with smiles all around. priceless. (which, all of a sudden, i realize might explain why one of my buxom beautiful friends can't figure out what i find that movie so entertaining, immune as she would be as to what all the fuss is about owing to what she enjoys every morning in the mirror and how that must make all the rest of them out there seem so old hat).

where was i?

oh, yeah! peaches!

there is no point in superlatives. "sweetest" has no attraction to me, implying as it might having to choose, and "sweet" would be just the way i would choose to put it.

sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet.

life is good, and i'm a very lucky man.

yup, you know who i'm talking about.

catching up

the biggest sports story of the past week for me hasn't been the non-story about scott boras (who i might suggest we can use as a substitute emotional dart board once dick cheney and his cronies are no longer polluting up our executive branch) and jason varitek, but, rather, the news out of japan that the kobe 9 cruise have drafted a 16 year old high school girl to join them at next spring's training, with a shot to make the pro club. how feminist of me, you might think, but, honestly, it's got much less to do with that than it does the fact that she is inspired in all of her baseball achievements by none other than da man, tim wakefield.

you go, girl.

5 foot nuthin, 114 pounds, (come to think of it, perhaps a more remarkable angle on this story is that she wasn't inspired by mvp dustin pedroia), and all heart. she struck out the side in her tryout session with the club, and i'm hoping that she goes a long and successful way with her ball career. eri yoshida--remember the name.

tim had only the most gracious things to say when asked, ("hope i can see her pitch one day"), and you know he means 'em, because he da man. da man. a quick google of other such things turns up one virne beatrice "jackie" mitchell gilbert (yeah, i know--five names) who once pitched for the double-a chattanooga lookouts and struck out both babe ruth and lou gehrig in succession during an exhibition game back in the day.

here's hoping for at least as much for eri. yeah, the kobe 9 cruise is hardly more than a footnote in any other context, but it's the same field of dreams for eri as any might be. you go as far in life as you earn your way to go, and it's all there for her, same as for wake and anybody else who has the heart to stand in and give it their best.

sad songs

i'm having a little "tonight you belong to me"-based correspondence that's delightfully included various youtube clips of everyone from the originals, (patience and prudence, and what's funnier than a couple of pre-pubescent nymphets singing something to the effect that "i know you don't want to have anything more at all to do with me, but could you please take me down to the beach and deflower me one last time before you go?"), to eddie vedder in front of an audience who are quite amusingly confused on the concept. (though, in their defense, of course, eddie and his duet partner got the rhythm and the harmonies not quite right). and it occurred to me while musing on the true nature of the ironically mature and not-so-wholesome lyrics that there's a vast difference sometimes between the way a song feels and the way its constituent parts might otherwise individually sound. as a matter of fact, come to think of it, many if not most of my all-time favorites are rich with such irony, and it could me misconstrued while reading my transcription of the lyrics that my heart is somehow in a place where it's really not. (or vice versa).

take the parlor trick for lonesome lovers, for example. perhaps not quite as tawdry as "have your no-strings way with me on the beach, please and thank you very much", but it still lilts with a kind of heart-felt emotion that isn't really exactly what it sounds, at least to me.

literally, the whole thing is even more melancholy that the brief snippets i quoted earlier would imply:

i could lie to you
i could tell you things you want to hear
i could hold you close
and never let you go

i could shower you
with promises that sound sincere
but the truth remains
that both of us will know

that our love is just
smoke and mirrors
a parlor trick for lonesome lovers
and darlin'
we ain't foolin'
anyone

you can tell your friends
that everything is fine with us
we can both pretend
that we're so much in love

but when the party ends
and everyone has come and gone
i won't be the one
that you'll be dreamin' of

cause our love is just
smoke and mirrors
a parlor trick for lonesome lovers
and darlin'
we ain't foolin'
anyone

why do we do
things that we do
and who are we doing it for
i know it's true
you know it too
we weren't the best of lovers
let's find ourselves another
fool

cause our love is just
smoke and mirrors
a parlor trick for lonesome lovers
and darlin'
we ain't foolin'
anyone

yeah darlin'
we ain't foolin'
anyone

yet, there is still a choice between reading what you read, or reading what what you want to read, when you read the whole thing put together--"hold you close and never let you go"... "the one that you'll be dreamin' of"... and i promise you that adding the music both makes it sadder and not at all so.

"darlin' we ain't foolin' anyone". ever figure, when you get right down to it, that all this is the truer nature of most any "love" relationship, for instance like you might see in the movies, or endure from getting too close to the cloying and unnatural affections of our most annoying acquaintences?

such are love songs of a different sort, and the kind i like best. no foolin'.

or, if you'd prefer it spelled out exactly how i might mean it if i were speaking for myself:

i'm gonna drink me a bottle full of whiskey (ok, maybe a case a beer instead if it were really me, but, hey poetry gotta meter as well as sometimes rhyme)
i'm gonna sing myself to sleep
i've got a heart full of regrets
a half a pack of cigarettes
and noplace else to be

and in the mornin' if you wanna come-a with me
to a shanty by the sea
a-come along my little honey
cuz we're goin' down ta salisbury (that "sals-berr-REE" and see the part above about meter and rhyme if you're not sure why)

and if it's rainin'
we'll just go drinkin'
til we're both stinkin'
like a brewery
yeah-yeah

and if it's sunshine
sweet little love of mine
we'll have a swingin' time
way down ta sals-berr-ree

and if i had a little bottle with a genie
you know what my first wish would be
i'd be a-lyin' on the sand
where the ocean meet the land
a-little you right next to me

and you could wear a little polka dot bikini
so all the local boys could see
you got the sweetest set a peaches
on the beaches down at sals-berr-ree

and if it's rainin'
we'll just go drinkin'
til we're both stinkin'
like a brewery
yeah-yeah

and if it's sunshine
sweet little love of mine
we'll have a swingin' time
way down ta sals-berr-ree

and if it's rainin'
we'll just go drinkin'
til we're both stinkin'
like a brewery
yeah-yeah

and if it's sunshine
sweet little love of mine
we'll have a swingin' time
way down ta sals-berr-ree

parallel universes

it occurs upon reflection that my recap of saturday night's musical experience is highly subjective. no, not because i have any doubt that anyone who would hear would not love, because there is no way they would not, but because my own growing experience puts me into a somewhat unique place where few people would be.

for example:

melanie driscoll, she of her own musical fame, and you can catch her tuesday night at mickey's if you'd like to hear a taste, spent the evening making the rounds of the crowd with melvern's tip bucket (an amusingly straightforward silver punchbowl of ample dimensions, the dimensions of which, along with the hand-lettered file card taped to the side labeled "TIPS", was, to me, the amusing part, though who ever knows the ultimate intention of any of mtfm's expressions, soon filled with lots o' cash) and a collection (two is a collection, right?) of melvern's latest recordings on cd. ("love songs for losers", which is top-to-bottom grammy-worthy, and i say that without the least intention of irony just because the grammy voters haven't heard it yet, and "fabuloso", which is just as remarkable in its own right, even if it lacks the perfection of the sound soon to be attained on LSFL, for featuring "angel on my shoulder", which is one of my most favorite songs ever). from a distance, someone might have misunderstood my disinterest in the cd's, unknowing as they would be for the fact that i not only own those two, but also "handsome bastard" and "the spider and the barfly", which is why i could sing along happily with "jonatha" though melvern himself self-deprecatingly allowed that, like the new ones for being new, he and the guys might be having memory challenges with it for being old, and was in little need of duplicates.

which brings me to the second difference in the experience, beyond the cd's, for someone having experienced such things multiple times before--which would be the experiences that he or she would highlight as being among the best from among all the best of the evening. i picked "tiny bubbles" and "tonight you belong to me" without a second thought as much because they were so new to me, and, for as much if nothing more than that, wonderful. much like discovering something new about the object of your affections, and feeling that affection all the more acutely because of it.

but i did also notice that melvern's energy for the second set was elevated from the first, and the songs he and the boys played throughout that portion of the evening were made the more memorable for it. i imagine that someone seeing the show for the first time would remember those with an increase in affection, too, and, likely, even more than the intrinsically at risk for camp tiny bubbles possibly lost amidst the other gems heard for the first time. so please take my "review", such as it is, with an ample grain of salt.

if i were to be asked by someone never familiar with melvern taylor and his fabulous meltones, i might think for a moment longer and recall the trumpet parts so deliciously entwined among the rest of the show... that second set... and, after it, even better, the third... and what would have been the penultimate number except for the raucous popular demands for the encore after the planned numbers were over, which would make it in any other way than ordinal the ultimate number... "angel on my shoulder"...

and, yet, once recalled of angel's place to begin "fabuloso", i can't help but recall others from that particular collection, not least "smoke and mirrors", too...

"our love is just / smoke and mirrors / a parlor trick for lonesome lovers / and darling / we ain't fooling / anyone"

it was all good. i think that's the bottom line.

all the best

melvern taylor and his fabulous meltones were once again fabulous on saturday night, to the great amusement of a raucous crowd of both old and young. in fact, the most raucous of the bunch were the oldest, as they banged their tables in the back and cheered heartily for encores after melvern and the boys had raved through three sets of, if you believe melvern in anything he says, everything that they knew how to play. tiny bubbles pleased my companion second-most because she never realized i knew so many of the words, (some of them, though, from the later and more obscure verses, i must admit have been lost to the fog of middle-aged memory), but the highlight of the evening may very well have been "tonight you belong to me". (yes, that "tonight you belong to me", that bernadette peters did so memorably with steve martin in "the jerk", originally recorded by patience and prudence back in '56, and done so well by the four musicians it was our honor to attend on saturday, and recalled with nostalgia by my companion for memories of mom's 45 back in the day).

it was remarkable over the course of the evening to meet someone new in whose eyes i could see reflected exactly what i feel about this music. she was there with her husband on her anniversary (or somewhat thereabouts) and she was beaming and brimming with excitement to have discovered something so rare and so remarkable. why can't the rest of the world yet see it??? have we HEARD how great the songs are? the music? the lyrics? the whole incredible combination of it all? yes, i could see my craziness for it all in her, and i know she's going to do exactly what she's promised, and plead with her brother who works for one of the networks to have a listen and find a way to do SOMETHING to spread the word, or the sound, as they case may be. the boys in the band are more experienced and measured in their enthusiasm, for i'm sure they've heard it all before, but, i swear, somebody, somewhere, somehow, is going to have to hear this all for what it truly is.

wonderful.

and the canadiens had their shoot-out butts whupped by the bruins in between the second and third sets, and there's nothing better than that.

"i know / with the dawn / that you will be gone / but tonight / you belong to me"

first place, baby

last night the b's won for the 11th time in their last 13 games, and took their well-earned place atop the eastern conference standings. still no love for tim thomas on the all star front, but as long as they keep playing their brand of 4-line hockey, there'll be a different kind of reward for tim at the end of the season.

if you don't watch hockey every night, and haven't since before you were in kindergarten, suffice it to say that most teams struggle to find two productive forward lines, and base their hopes around the extra goals a couple of stars can generate. (most teams only skate three trios of forwards during any particular game). the bruins, on the other hand, though they have the stars too, (marc savard is second in the league in points and assists, for example, and attentive readers already know what an all star is tim thomas), can roll four complete triplets of bone-jarring (milan lucic, who pummeled nick boynton bloody last night when he had the temerity to tug on superman's cape, skates on the top line with savard, for example) and twine-twisting (perennial 20-goal man michael ryder skates the fourth) terrors who demand that other teams roll quality against all of them if there's to be any hope of keeping up. but, as is usually the case, four against two always favors the four, and the bruins' lineup is awfully hard to beat because of that.

nobody in the league knows quite what to make of this kind of balance, either in the all star balloting, or their pursuit of the b's through the standings. i have to admit, in 40+ years of loving this team, i've never seen anything quite like it. (the cup teams of my youth skated 3 lines and saved the spare players for the penalty kill and such like that). i kinda like it. it's the way the pats won three superbowls in four years, and the revs returned to the mls cup final over and over and over again. (would've been nice to win one, but, hey, what can you do). it's the way the sox lineup wears out opposing pitchers (remember when the defending batting title champ, bill mueller, used to hit NINTH?) and the real reason the celts' big 3 were able to take home the trophy this past spring--that bench was phenomenal.

but ice hockey is unique among the ranks of professional sports where your 20th skater is just as important as your 1st, because nobody can stay out on the ice for more than a couple of minutes at a time before their legs turn to lead and they start looking like they're skating in quicksand. only the goalie plays all game, and the most anyone else can usually boast is just over 30% of the game. even the iron men can't even manage to play even half the minutes.

so this here is something special, and i'm already going back through email and reminding all those people who told me i was crazy before the season started that this was a contender in so many words about "who looks crazy now?". sure, there'll likely be a bump or two in this road, but this team is easy to love, and love it i do.

mother of mine

i've tried to be scrupulous here in order to avoid personal details that might leave the innocent unprotected, but this one likely requires stepping once over that line in places, so, please, resist the urge to stalk and talk about 'em, so i won't feel too, too guilty... they are, after all, my family...

"so, tell me about your childhood"

my dad was pretty strict, which carried its own hereditary logic, descended as he was from your classic german primary school teacher with the perennial scowl and her yardstick always at the ready. this led to a fair amount of resistance to that authority among me and my several male siblings, and, in the case of my younger brother, among many other things, a permanent bias as to my father's role as the would-be family scourge, to the exclusion of all other suspects. careful readers here might know that i've grown to see things a little differently.

see, dad was away at work all day whenever we occasionally and inevitably misbehaved, and it occurred to me somewhere in the process of my marriage's dissolution that not everything is as it seems with taciturn distaff taskmistresses. after all, who was it who told him whatever had been deemed worthy of corporal punishment back in the day? how did he gauge the extent of what had been done, and how dire the consequences were thus to be? just like a fresh episode of "cold case", the cynical one (me) sees delicate little feminine fingerprints all over the crime scene, now that it can finally be dusted with the improved modern technology of 20/2o hindsight.

which is all offered to explain my paranoia, to which you are about to be treated:

my brother is going to be a father. no, not the oldest already father of three, or the second oldest already father of two, but the youngest not yet father to any. he's also living 1000 miles away from mom, and an equal number of miles away from the soon-to-be unwed mother of his unborn child, (ah, these classic love triangles), which has had the blessed effect of removing all the maternal tsk tsk'ing from my poor and tawdry case, (a fact which endears my brother and his beautiful beloved to me in a way i cannot even begin to describe), and places it squarely, like crosshairs, on the case of my poor unsuspecting and naively dad-loathing and mom-unsuspecting kid brother. oh, if he would only heed the warnings...

my mom posts (zaps?) a weekly letter to all the children, complete with a personalized postscript penned (keyed?) just for each. on mine this week, after pridefully pointing out that the oldest two and their spouses (both beloved beyond, it would sometimes seem, the actual progeny, much like the case with me and my ex, but i digress) were bringing dishes to the family celebration next week, and perhaps so might i join with my younger and do the same. fair enough! yet, when talking to said younger on the phone a day or two later, it was curiously pointed out that no such invitation or suggestion was contained on the note sent to him.

so here's where my experience tells me to be afraid, be very, very afraid. it would be like her to feel impolitic to burden an important first-time guest with such expectations, and so as to omit it from the note which might get back to said guest and potentially leave an unpleasant impression. (nobody wants to be perceived as unwelcoming!) so, too, would it be like her to feel the norms of polite society requiring of such a gesture from any guest, no matter how first-time or important. so what i see is a train wreck approaching from 1000 miles in two different directions, all converging on everybody feeling unfairly treated, should the guest arrive and be immersed, blind-sided, into the daughter-in-law comparison sweepstakes.

oh, sure, you say, this can't possibly be as i'm painting it. folks would never be so calculating, or, more likely, self-unaware, to allow it to be possible. but, au contraire!

my first, last, and only objective is to lay in enough mom-pleasing supplies to make any houseguest look like a star. flowers. wine. dessert. cider. you name it, i'll have it. and then, when lil bro wheels in from the long, hard road, his evah luvin can select from the cornucopia as much and as many of it as she cares to claim. and then, after that, i'll still give her credit for more, for two very good reasons:

first, i'll not give my mother any grounds on which not to love this woman. this woman is nothing but good to my brother--she makes him happy, and there is nothing greater than that. AND, she will soon bear the latest scion of the family, and this yet unborn babe will undoubtedly become the apple of his or her uncle's eye, and i will defend to the teeth the madonna from whence sprung. i can't tell you how long its been since i've seen my brother this happy.

second, and you'll just have to trust a man with 20 years experience with one of "these", and almost fifty with the other, to tell you the square truth, but it's already done, and mom just doesn't like this woman already. she's pregnant and unmarried, to begin with. divorced to continue. not even planning to wed or even live in the same state as her impregnator to round up the trifecta. (if you doubt me, let me tell you a few stories of what i've been put through since dissolving my marriage, and how, as bloodlessly disapproving as she's been for that, the whole focus whipped around 180 degrees to disapprove of the other). so, though i know it is a fools errand to try to change all of this by playing the houseguest housewarmer game, it will at least give me the fair grounds on which to call bs on the whole affair.

i'm no better, though... sight unseen, i love this woman.

the yankee rebuttal

lest anyone be reading the previous post and drawing some particular socio-economic conclusions, all i can say in my own defense is that a six or seven year old benz with 50k miles is cheaper than a lot of used camrys these days, and well within the budget of a lot of folks willing to make the requisite sacrifices. (e.g. living downtown in an economically-stressed urban area instead of going for lawn and picket fence, etc.) i know a lot of folks aren't in a position to even be afforded such a choice in the first place, but jimmy cliff ("you can get it if you really want") didn't get it wrong. ("but you must try, try and try, try and try--you'll succeed at last"). you just have to be perserverent enough to wait for it. that, and play chicken with the car salesman over the price, and be willing to walk away repeatedly until the economy wrestles his greed to the ground and has him groveling at a price south of a lot of used corollas. cash, as they say, is once again king.

honestly, the one remaining concern, beyond the obvious negative emotional friction to be generated within the divorce relationship, is how living downtown in an economically-stressed urban area requires additional diligence to take care of ones ride. let's just say nobody's going to be intimidated by my street mojo in order to steer clear of messing with it just based on respect. a permanent ($48/mo) parking space in the nearby garage is one option. keeping it elsewhere and just visiting on weekends is another, though, seriously, what sense is that?

like i said, stay tuned...

car shopping

i've been for years caught in a vortex of car emotions. the one i drive was a compromise from the start (inexpensive and practical, but hardly an expression of *me* or my desires) and remains a nagging irritant because of its association to the ex. (basically, she's driving a late model, top-of-the-line suburban comfort vehicle, which, though it wouldn't be my first choice for myself, is still a pretty sweet ride and worth well beyond what mine is, which, when you get right down to it, isn't inconsistent with the rest of the material settlement, but rankles exactly because of that).

*exhale*

since i've been three years old (and likely well before that, but that's only how far back i can remember) i've been in love with cars. i had a benz 280se cabriolet matchbox that's always stuck with me, (cream color, though later in life i've gravitated toward the silver blue with a dark blue top), and if i had a hundred grand between the sofa cushions there wouldn't be a moment's hesitation as to what i would buy. but i don't have a hundred grand between the sofa cushions, and it's up to me to make sure the next compromise is one that suits me, and not anybody else.

so where does one start?

one of the first and most obvious places is behind the wheel of my own car, on the highways and by-ways of my travels: in no particular order, i've noticed and been curious about all sorts of vehicles. i once owned a 4wd pickup (toyota) and i absolutely loved being able to go anywhere and over anything. toyota fj's are perhaps a bit too large and heavy on the gas consumption, but there's a powerful lure to the thought of being able to toss a mountain bike or skis or a kayak on the roof of something and just go. if they were smaller and cheaper, i'd be sorely tempted. jeeps are along this idea, but too noisy and likewise on gas, and with the added ignomy of suffering from what most us cars seem to suffer from these days, which would be a frustrating lack of quality and reliability. as you continue down the slippery compromise slope, you even encounter things like 4wd subaru wagons, one of which, btw, i saw being driven by one of my local heroes last night around the streets of downtown lowell, which caused the full emotional truth to hit me like a ton of mill city bricks--there's no way i belong (emotionally speaking) in a little nonsense like that, as practical and sensible as it seems. (that enduring and disillusioning image is the impetus behind this whole post, btw).

wagons as a class are an interesting study, as they have clearly evolved from my best childhood friend's mother's vista cruiser, towards things like dodge's hemi-powered 425-horse magnum opus. (come to think of it, i do recall you could get vista cruisers with the old 455 v8, so maybe not such a long evolution after all). room for skis inside, which is nice, and there's nothing wrong with a little get up and go, even if it keeps the gas mileage south of 20 while you're getting up and going with it. hmmm... of course, there's the next compromise, which hatches the back of your basic 4dr sedan and pretends it's a wagon. mazda's little mx3 number has caught my eye more than once out there on the road... who knows where this might stop, though it's quite possible it stops squarely upon the mini cooper wagonback, which, except for being a pleasure to look at, really just comes down to one big "why?". the right car has to be somewhere back in the other direction--if i wanted a rocket sled go-kart, i'd just have 'em take the top off and be done with it. (back to those convertibles).

speaking of convertibles...

i want one. it'd be the worst possible thing to drive into the driveway of the ex, stirring as it inevitably will the jealous and destructive impulse to take everything that is meaningful and enjoyable to me away, (heaven forbid i should have anything with which to be happy while there is still *more* for her to have), but the thought is irresistible even so. the racks for the bikes and skis would simply need to go on the trunk. (funny even to call the little glove box of a space back there a trunk--beyond the convertible top, there's really not much you can fit back there in any of 'em). the classic benz is impractical, of course, either way, (the consequences of a lack of an electronic ignition may be lost on a lot of folks, but i still have both my plug and my point gappers in my toolbox to remind me that that's one home to which i would really rather not go), but there are other newer models that aren't out of the realm of reason.

2-seaters i'll pass upon out of respect for having three kids, and often more than one passenger. don't get me wrong, i have adored the 2-seat roadster from the moment i first laid longing eyes on a triumph spitfire, (the dream of which was dashed while working at a garage as a teenager, and getting a chance to test-drive one after a tune-up, and reluctantly learning that tall people with long legs don't always fit well inside your classic british roadsters), but there's dreaming and there's driving, and you have to respect reality. (recent ford thunderbirds do look nice, but there's that american car/quality thing again).

which brings us to one particular used car dealer down the street from the drum hill rotary...

most choices for auto emporiums are either new cars or crap. new is pretty straightforward--you pay big money to a dealer for something that hopefully won't break down for a couple of years, and the choices are all there on the tv to see between the beer ads. as for the other alternative, maybe crap is a hard word, but you're basically left to choose from all the dull choices among the expressed bad judgment of the marketplace that bought new before you. (basically, lots of tauruses and corollas, and who needs that). however, just down a bit from the drum hill rotary, there's one outfit that does it a different way, and stocks the cars that catch your eye, from bentleys to bmw's. hmmm...

m3's and other 3-series rag-tops are very nice, even if a bit small in the back, though not completely comfortable in the front, either. (see the discussion on smaller british motorcars above, and consider that there was a fair amount of emigration and immigration between england and germany in the past several hundred years, even if the germans seemed to have retained 100% of whatever part of the gene pool relate to reliability). the "compromise" (that's not really a compromise at all) is quickly found among the benz' on the lot, and a guy can really stretch both his legs and his imagination behind the wheel of a c-class cabriolet.

for starters, it's the logical heir to the 280se cabriolet that started this whole reverie. for more, given the present depression, the price gets more and more reasonable each week that the dealer doesn't sell a single other car because we're all too shell-shocked from watching our retirement savings disintegrate to even think about buying another car. true, it requires premium gasoline, but the other beauty of depression is that it causes the price of commodities, like gas, to plummet like a rock. v-6... nicely powered... pretty, too.

and the top comes down.

maybe it's a holdover from teenage fascination with tops coming down on other objects of primal lust. maybe it's that human beings were born to be free and in direct commune with nature wherever and whenever possible. maybe it's just because i want one.

any way you look at it, there's a terrible tug of war going on among my emotions and my practicality, and somewhere, somehow, it's going to have to resolve itself.

stay tuned.

til you can't stand it anymore, and then still more

tsn.ca (the #1 place for nhl coverage) publishes a weekly set of "power rankings" for players using a fascinating set of statistical algorithms that are specifically designed to value the impact that individual players have on the game, and in a way that allows players from different positions to be compared against each other, as well as among those who happen to share the same position.

for example, the wing named alex from washington who is not named ovechkin (alexander semin) who is leading the league in goals and plus/minus rating, is rated #1 in the league with a score of over 100. second is center evgeni malkin, who leads the league in assists and powerplay points with 98.34. shea weber, a defenseman, with not nearly their goal-scoring and assisting output, enjoys sixth place for his other less-obvious contributions. (though his 8 goals and 10 assists don't hurt).

but, backing up a little bit, who might you think is ranked by tsn.ca to be third most powerful player of them all on the outcome of his games in the entire league?

alex ovechkin, who is generally regarded as the best player in the league? (nope, he's fourth). marian hossa, who has shown up in detroit and found nothing but net since he's been there? (nope, he's fifth).

#3 on the overall tsn.ca player rankings is none other than boston's own tim thomas. (97.87). he's ahead of ovechkin and hossa and ALL the other goalies. and he's STILL not on the nhl allstar ballot.

take a look at the goalie rankings. thomas is further ahead of #2 (the west's niklas backstrom) than backstrom is ahead of the next two (the west's roberto luongo and, in fourth place, thomas' closest allstar competition, the east's henrik lundqvist).

i have no idea how this happens, that the best statistical goaltender, by goals-against average, save percentage, AND tsn's more rigorous calculations, can be relegated to write-in status, even though his team is in first place in their division, has only lost a single game in their last 10, and unanimously points to him as the best example of their success. the leading vote-getter, the habs' carey price, just got shelled for SIX when he played the bruins the other day.

it's going to be a LONG time before i get off this soapbox, i tell you.

tim t, you da man.

it's not bragging if...

ok, it's bragging.

here's how lucky i am: by forgoing the mistakes of my past, and refusing to value anything above kindness, i've lucked into a whole different and better class of friendships. some cook for me. some, massage. others reward just by tagging along when i feel like a night out at the ball park. (or the hockey arena, as the season may be). some just play music for me, along with everyone else who cares to sit and listen. (doesn't have to be just for me to be just right for me).

i'm quite sure i don't yet repay these kindnesses as i ought, but i'm thinking about them every day. i don't worry at all anymore about repayments in kind, not least reason for which are my shortcomings in the kitchen, but, rather, repayments in higher value. after all, people who cook might prefer tastier favors, and people who massage might have better ideas about how to take advantage of a table. i'm sure i'm still not ever going to be even in the grand karmic scheme of things, but at least i've figured out how better to try to keep up.

makes me a hard man to tempt with anything other than simple pleasures.

i'll let you be in my dream if you let me be in yours

this one is going to be difficult to keep from swerving pointlessly towards the salacious and sensational, but let me give it a try:

one of the advantages of divorce is the opportunity at long last to be free from compromise in your personal life--kinda like the proverbial kid in a candy store, only better, because it's sex. (oops, ok, back to more polite talk). and i think i've hinted here on occasion as to how relatively attractive the divorcing single male seems to be as he approaches 50 with hair, teeth, job and car all intact, alimony notwithstanding, at least among single women of similar age, most of whom have apparently been too long without much of all of the above. (geez, this isn't easy to keep out of the blue prose...) so this week in my inbox i received a trifecta of sorta innocent, but sorta not, emails, from a trio of women, all of whom put me in mind of nothing so much as darrell hammond, as bill clinton, answering seth meyers' question as to whether or not sarah palin is prepared to be vice-president: "look, sometimes women will be uncomfortable doing something at first".

i'm really trying to keep things clean here, honest...

each of the three unilaterally expressed an interest in me since i became single awhile back. each were quick to stand by the "i'd never" card when presented with the full no-compromise situation, that includes, if i can remain polite enough to say, enough bold facts to make most any roman blush. no compromise. honest. i wasn't kidding. and, truthfully, besides being supremely happy with my situation as it stands, offering the unvarnished truth to the otherwise-hopeful is meant to serve not as an invitation, but as an extremely convenient antidote to having to have too much to do with unsolicited attention, which is a nice perk for your average just-divorcing guy who really ought not to have too much to do with sensitive female emotions in the first place. (there's a judge in cambridge who agrees). i like my life just the way it is.

and everybody's happy, right?

well, ok, the threesome were sadly disappointed that someone appearing to them to be so appropriate for their attentions wasn't going to be "polite society" about how he entertains such things in his private life, but at least nobody was confused about where they stood at the toga party. "we can still be friends" always cracks me up, but, i think, from this episode, i'm beginning to realize that what this really means is "i'm going to go out and try exactly what i told you i would never consider with somebody else, and then send you an email about it later so we can hook up, or at least you can reassure me that i'm not what i know my mother would say i am for having done it..."

look, i'm the last one to be seeking for advice on modesty, or even on how to be immodest for that matter. it's all personal preference, and your results *will* vary. you know i'm pleased to hear anyone has shacked up with the object of their wildest affections, but i'm really not affected personally unless folks are showing up naked with pizza and beer and telling me it's on. the rest is just a long tug of war with that little nagging voice inside their heads that says "you shouldn't", when everything in my life has proven to me that "shouldn't" is what other people tell people so that they can't be any less miserable than they are. and, trust me, i've had enough of that to last me three lifetimes, and i'm not likely to be silly enough to go back and start the mistake all over again with someone who isn't clear about who they are and what they want.

put another way--i have the equivalent of my very own personal naked beer and pizza delivery service all worked out in my personal life, tyvm. actually, it's better even than that, since beer and pizza and even garden-variety nakedness really is just the tip of the self-actualized iceberg among the single and satisfied set, and offering such wouldn't even get you in line for tickets. but, by all means, you go right ahead and keep believing that asking the same question over again with slightly different wording is going to somehow miraculously change the answer.

i also received this week a different kind of email, from bon amie of the most intimate and appreciated kind. not full of "what if" or "almost", but even in just a handful of words, redolent with the full scent of naked honesty, as well as a complete lack of pretense or condition. adorable, and, so, adored. i absolutely cannot tell you what was hinted in the writing, and most certainly not about which that inspires the writing, but i can tell you i don't ever expect to hear about anything to be dreamed that can't be dreamt of with me, and that's just the way i like it.

funny how that works...

it's official

kudos to seth meyers for delivering *the* line of the new political era during this past saturday night's snl weekend update (wish i had youtube to link you but nbc isn't so much fun about such things): "it's official--for the next four years, it will be pronounced 'new-clee-yer' "

speaking about "new-clee-yer", did you know that there are five nuclear reactors located in the state of massachusetts? (six if you count the fact that, like sarah palin and the russians, we can see seabrook from plum island). four of them are in plymouth, rowe, cambridge and worcester--the pilgrim and (now-decommissioned) yankee powerplants, along with the on-campus MIT and WPI research reactors. can you name and/or locate the fifth?

wait for it...

you can guess if you've been paying attention...

yep, that's right...

the fifth and fun-sized nuclear reactor to be found in the state of massachusetts can be located among the scenic merrimack riverside campus of the university of massachusetts, lowell.

really. the francis college of engineering at umass lowell is a leader in the fields of both solar and nuclear engineering, and the applied physics department does, indeed, sport its very own operational and operating nuclear reactor. (don't worry, they switched to low-enriched uranium awhile back, so nothing weapons-grade any more). if you'd like to take a peek, google-map 203 riverside street in lowell, go to maximum zoom, and then click on "satellite". the reactor shell will be in your lower right-hand corner, or close by in that direction, depending on your browser resolution. (you can't miss it--it's the big white-domed cylinder thing with the jersey barriers all around it, i guess just in case somebody wants to take a run at it in their ford taurus).

all joking aside, it turns out that the school overall is recognized as an "intensive doctoral/research facility" by the carnegie foundation, and enjoys a category one ranking from the american association of university professors. it's one of the few public universities where you can pursue a degree in meteorology, and there's a good/new nanotechnology program funded by the john adams innovation institute. they've got internationally-recognized programs in vlsi (the science of how intel and those folks get all those transistors onto those little chips) and plastics, too. oh! and don't forget the baseball research center in the school of mechanical engineering, which is the official certification center for both the ncaa and major league baseball.

you learn something new every day, eh

and continued again

you know, a guy can only be in so many places at once...

last night at the mullins center, just one night removed from vanquishing #1 bu, the minutemen of umass amherst were, in turn, shut out by the doughty riverhawks of umass lowell, who had just themselves the night before blown out #6 unh 8-3, by a score of 2-0.

senior nick monroe, who had gone 45 games without a point, had assists in both uml games. it's also worth noting that umass amherst had successfully killed off 30 consecutive penalty situations before uml put the game out of reach with their second goal.

uml! uml! uml!

lowell exceptionalism continued

the riverhawks put a right good beating on the penmen of southern new hampshire (how's that for a lame nickname) and took their playoff match 2-0 yesterday. onward and upward!

reminds me of back in the day when my team won the ncaa division 3 title--what the crowds are lacking in number they're making up for in enthusiasm, and it's great to watch the players taste that very same thrill of victory. go riverhawks!

remarkable how this lowell team is built out of whomever shows up to play and still gets it done. our squad years ago included ringers from europe and south america, which kinda made things a little bit easier for us. (private "money" schools who maintain their reputation among the monied elite from such places kinda have a leg up on the recruiting side, and some day i'll tell you how these kids used to collect parking tickets like they were baseball cards and hang them from their rear view mirrors like trophies, knowing that dad was going to pay for them all at the end of the semester). i don't mean to take anything away from what was accomplished more than 25 years ago, but this here bunch right here, right now is pretty special, and that's looks very good on them. it's an easy team to love.

lowell exceptionalism

the umass lowell field hockey team goes for its second ncaa division 2 national title in 4 years tomorrow at 1pm in bloomsburg, pa. scoring twice in the semifinal win yesterday over bentley (always a pleasure to hear for any babson grad) was sophomore sammy macy of tewksbury, ("tooksbree" for you foreigners), while sophomore defender jaime hadley of chelmsford ("chemsf'd") added an assist. it's the fourth time in the last six years umass lowell has met bloomsburg in the finals. (we have one, they have two, so the law of averages is on our side here).

oh, and by the way, the umass lowell hockey team snapped out of its recent frustrations against nationally ranked teams (recounted here recently) by pasting the sixth-ranked wildcats of unh by a score of 8-3 last night at the tsongas arena. kory falite ("bilaricker") netted a hat trick, and #2 is pleased to report there were 2 1/2 fights to go along with the festivities, too. ("dad, what's a misconduct?")

also of note is yesterday's ncaa division 2, 3-2, soccer win, aided by jhony valencia's ("lowl") 82nd minute game-winning goal, over #5 malloy u. the riverhawks take on #1 southern new hampshire ("cow hampshuh") today at 1pm in manchester--see you there!

how i know i'm not a democrat part 2

this is too rich: remember the "africa is a country" smear against palin? msnbc has been so adamant about their coverage of the coverage of it, that they've gleefully revealed the "mccain staffer" source for foxnews' reporting of the remarks--a guy by the name of "martin eisenstadt". can you guess? "martin eisenstadt" isn't actually a mccain staffer. (bad enough). nope, he's not the source for the foxnews report, either. worse is that, for msnbc and every "liberal" who refuses to respect or believe any point of view other than their own, "martin eisenstadt" is actually the borat-esque alter ego of would-be web gadfly eitan gorlin, who parodies political bloviators on websites like www.hardinginstitute.org and www.eisenstadtgroup.com. and msnbc bought the bs wholesale, and so, consequently, did everybody who both refuses to think for themselves, as well as does their refusing to think from the left side of the political aisle and verbatim off keith olbermann and the rest of the yahoos at msnbc. am i the only one who sees this as every bit the bookend to the caricatures over at foxnews, and their zombie-like "fair and balanced" addicts? have we all lost our minds?

sources, people!!!

obama is meeting with mccain and another top congressional republican who doesn't believe that rahm emanuel is the fifth horseman, and i couldn't be more pleased. hopefully, the rest of the country will wake up in time.

ca-rey

les quebecois may have been stuffing the nhl all star ballot box, but last night on causeway street they couldn't do a thing to help their boy carey stop the boston bruins from stuffing their vaunted nets full of frozen rubber. it was music to my ears to hear the garden faithful serenading the hapless hab goaltender ("ca-rey, ca-rey") but more lilting still was the chin music tattooed by milan lucic onto mike komisarek's 10 centime head. don't ask me how a putz from long island gets mixed up in the greatest rivalry in professional ice hockey, but he's wanted a piece of lucic since last year's playoff series, and tonight he got all he could ask for, and more--right down to his knees in the middle of the ice. enjoy.

actually, the title of this entry ought to be mi-lan, when you get right down to it. bruins fans have been waiting a very long time for this guy, and the vigil for the ghost of jumbo joe has officially turned into a welcome home party for the new future of the franchise, here today, and pounding a hapless hab on a center ice near you.

merci beaucoup, vancouver, for sharing yet another of your toughest and best. you gotta believe that cam neely, up in the management box, was smiling last night to know that the tradition is in good hands.

(along with last night's highlight, they'll be re-playing this one for a good long time, too).

go bruins!

yer killin me

tonight in downtown lowell we have:

1) independant film night at the pollard
2) the grand opening party at the beer works
3) pats/jets on every tv screen in every bar in the city
4) bruins/habs on every other tv screen in every bar in the city
5) the party down the hall at shangri-lowell, which is where you know i'll be, except for when i'm snuck back up the hall to watch the bruins, because that'd be better than causing a ruckus over control of the remote and ruining someone else's party.

not to worry, i've ensured that ample supplies of my home brew are available at either end of the hall, so i'll never be more than a few feet away from another cold one.

can't live here and not remain at mortal risk for the dreaded "over-schedule". (like next tuesday, for example, when jen kearney graces the urban village art series at the national park visitors center, melvern taylor plays with jon nolan at mickey's, the indoor soccer team has it's usual tuesday game, the condo board meets, and everybody, of course, ends up at the old court for the after-party).

life is good.

tim thomas again

anyone watching last night's 'hawks/b's game who was originally unclear on the tim thomas concept got exhibit A on why the b's are in first place atop the northeast division standings, and why tim thomas is arguably the top netminder in the league. (ok, luongo's recent 3-game shutout streak was pretty impressive, but tt's gaa is almost half a goal better, and his save % is significantly higher, too, all those shutout hours notwithstanding). in fact, of regular nhl netminders, nobody has better stats than tim thomas. nobody.

so here's the thing that's got me this morning: the nhl.com all star ballot for the eastern conference lists 10 nominations for goalie. a couple, namely marty brodeur of the devils, and rick dipietro of the islanders, are out with season-ending injuries. others, like vesa toskala of the maple leafs, marty biron of the flyers, and kari lehtonen of the thrashers, have such abysmal stats that you won't even find them in the league's top 40. (actually, lehtonen and biron aren't even in the top 50, and i should point out that there are only 30 teams). and then you have tim thomas, who is TOPS in the league in gaa and sv% and is backstopping a division leader, and who ISN'T EVEN ON THE BALLOT.

wtf???

i know there aren't many who care, but for those who do, here's where to go to write in your outrage: http://fanballoting.nhl.com. thomas is currently running third in the voting, ahead of eight of the other pretenders, so i know there are others out there who, like me, are willing to put in the extra effort to see extra effort rewarded. but, not for nothing, the conspiracy theorist in me can't help but point out that the habs' carey price is running away with the balloting with far inferior stats, and tonight's tilt against the habs is going to be one of the great games of the season to put all to rights. (not to mention putting me at serious odds with pats fans over control of the remote).

six months of the year, you da man, tim t.

disney dad

apparently, among a certain subset of divorced women, there is an epithet for just about everything, including their frustration that primary custody doesn't necessarily ensure primary affection among the children. (my other personal favorite is "whorefriend", standing as it does for the supreme contradiction between their disinterest and their jealousy, but i digress). to wit: not satisfied with marginalizing their ex by both time and space, they're further spurred to denigrate whatever efforts can be made to make the most of what remains with aspersions of mammon.

"disney dad".

i had to laugh about it while chowing down on pepperoni calzone at sammy's yesterday after the lowell devils game, because it wasn't the hockey tickets or the hot dogs and soda at the game or even the extra cheese afterwards that'll stick with #2: for all his faults, dad is still able to explain the historical and tacticial subtleties of hockey fist-fighting, and there's nothing in mom's hopeful arsenal that's ever going to be able to displace that. cap the evening with an engineer's discussion on the how-to physics of door-pennying, and you have the perfect recipe for inevitable maternal consternation.

life is good.

honest, your honor, i just had a long lunch

i've heard my share of euphemisms for oenific over-exuberance in my time, as i'm sure have you, but this is too good not to pass along:

apparently, in explanation as to why an australian rugby player might have tossed the then-18-month-old queen elizabeth into the air like a football during an official "meet and greet" back in 1928, the expression "the player apparently had a long lunch" seems to meet fleet street muster.

we can all use our imaginations.

not to worry, the squad manager at the time reassured the then-princess's governess that the [unfortunately] unnamed player had the surest hands on the team, and never dropped a ball.

:-)

oops

back in august, the danes reported that the us may have lost a nuclear device under the ice in greenland. not a whole lot was made of it at the time, though now the bbc has invested the extra effort necessary to confirm that the original report is true. (you can even see declassified us government video documenting the search for the device accompanying the story). the pentagon has, of course, declined to comment on the investigation...

armistice day

"the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month"--somebody back in 1918 certainly had a sense for the poetic.

90 years have passed, and "the eleventh hour" remains a curious expression, implying as it does a struggle unfinished, while those celebrating the armistice in the compiegne forest recognized only an end. (apologies to those killed in russia and turkey consequent to the cessation in the west, as wars often have this unfortunate reluctance to actually end). we here in the us have, of course, papered over the specifics and "positioned" a day of remembrance for all veterans, which isn't necessarily unjust, just unfortunately lost of its complete history and significance.

for the record, the last western european casualty of ww1 wasn't necessarily that canadian guy, price, who made it all the way until 10:58am. they say an american named gunther (how's that for irony) had to be shot down by german troops at 10:59 as he inexplicably took it upon himself to charge their position a minute before things were to be officially over. yet, lest anybody be tempted to feel exclusively melancholy for these particular men, it's important to note that over 11,000 soldiers were also killed on that last day, even while their commanding officers knew of the impending armistice--essentially because, as isn't as unusual as it should be, certain overzealous pinheads in epaulets too often find it easy to spend other people's lives on their pet mistakes (nods to john kerry). here's one particularly macabre example: american major general william m. wright found it necessary to order the assault of the nearby town of stenay on the morning of november 11th, 1918, because he judged his troops in need of the bathing facilities there. (300 americans were to become casualties, and an unknown number of germans for his bizarre rationale).

a german lieutenant named tomas is perhaps the most poignant example of our need for the remembrance of armistice day: he was gunned down by american troops *after* the armistice was signed, as he attempted to explain the process of his unit's abandonment of their position.

shoot first, ask questions later has a long history in this country. here's hoping we can once again properly remember the human consequences of our belligerence.

national pride

natalie maines spoke her mind, (in 2003, that she was ashamed that the president responsible for the war in iraq was from her home state), and there were legion trying to run the dixie chicks out of country music for it. (funny, that within five years, 4 out of 5 americans would be polled to essentially agree).

michelle obama spoke hers, (last spring, suggesting she was once again proud of her country for the first time in her adult life), and immediately there were wide and vociferous calls for her husband's candidacy to be sunk because of it. (yet, when you do the math, her adult life essentially began at the close of the reagan administration, and if i understand the right-wing punditry clearly enough, that's not such a rare or unreasonable point of view).

so over the weekend i had the displeasure to read some extremely blunt and petty comments to the editor of the local paper to the effect that these readers were no longer proud to be americans owing to the results of the recent election.

first point: both natalie and michelle made very clear mention of their pride related to the actions of their country, not the essence of their nationality, and there's a huge distinction to be made about that. (or, put another way, i'm not proud of the unnecessary roughness penalty that essentially cost my patriots a win over indiannapolis the other day, but i'm damn proud to be a pats fan even so).

second point: both natalie and michelle didn't say anything that their detractors don't also believe. (as mentioned above, 4 out of 5 voters disapproved of bush by the time this past election rolled around, including copious quantities of republicans, and a lot of these republicans are also very outspoken about their nostalgia for the reagan era, when they recall things used to be good for the party and the country).

the lesson would appear to be to take care in characterizing ones patriotism. never say "ashamed". always choose comparatives like "more", as in , "i've never been more proud". and always, always, always, respect john mccain's better example: "my president". but i still go back to every quote i've ever read that reaffirms the truth that opposition to ones government is very often the very essence of patriotism.

i'm proud we can all disagree.

the direction you're headed

friday night the umass lowell riverhawks were within a couple hundred seconds of making national (hockey) headlines. then they gave up three goals in three minutes and spit the bit. when i bought my ticket to their game against vermont at the tsongas arena box office last night, i kinda knew what that might mean. (3-1 vt... ouch).

funny how our minds incline us to keep doing whatever it is that we're doing whenever we can't figure out why the bad things are happening to us. make two proper clears during crunch time on friday, and, i swear, the 'hawks would have kicked catamount ass all the way back to montpelier last night. miss the lesson, and good things can't happen, no matter how much you hope and expect them to be different.

by way of another example, a couple of weeks ago i was having a football discussion with a coworker of mine regarding his 49-er fetish, vis a vis their 21-30 come-uppance at the hands of the ne patriots. he was all on about "you guys were lucky, blah, blah, blah" and it was ultimately of no use to try to point out to him that the game was far more lopsided than he was allowing himself to believe. (though you know i tried). i suggested to him, by way of proof, to watch how his boys might play the following week at philadelphia, since, if my theory was correct, then they, like him, unaware of how and why they couldn't win the previous week, couldn't help but get beat a second time. (we forget, except for last year when they won so many by blowouts, that belichick's patriots are the masters of the 3-point drubbing, and never cluing in their opposition as to why they might be on the short end of the score stick). sure enough, the once-hopeful niners not only choked against philly the next week, (26-40), but for good measure they've even gone as far as to extend their losing streak to four straight. i tell you, mind-set is half of it, and having a clue as to what is going on is the other.

don't believe me? of the pats 5 victims this season:

week 1: kc lost to the pats by 7 points--week 2, they lost to oakland by 15, 23-8.
week 2: nyt lost to the pats by 9--week 3, they lost to sd by 19, 48-29.
week 5: sf lost to the pats by 9--week 6, they lost to phi by 14, 40-26.
week 7: den lost to the pats by 34--week 9, they lost to mia by only 9, 26-17, but had a bye in there to get their heads back on straight.
week 8: stl lost to the pats by 7--week 9, they lost to ari by 21, 34-13.

yeah, i know, using bill belichick's victory style as a proxy for being beaten in a bewildering way is hardly scientific, but i swear to you there's something to it.

next time you notice a confusing pattern regarding something you don't like, (bad bosses, unsatisfying jobs, money troubles, disappointing relationships, etc.) try assuming that it's something *you* are doing that's causing it. (i know, i know, it couldn't possibly be). just humor me. then change what you're doing and the choices you're making, and see if the results aren't better than when you continued to swear to yourself that it's just your bad luck and it's all somebody or thing else's fault.

shoulda woulda coulda

carter hutton of the umass lowell riverhawks carried a 1.26 gaa and .947 save percentage (i know, .947 isn't a percentage, it's a ratio, and 94.7 would be the percentage, but bear with me here, i'm just going along with the common usage) into last night's contest with boston university, and came up huge time after time to send his boys strong into the third period with their well-earned 3-2 lead well intact. of course, it wouldn't be for me to say that the bu boys' overzealous thuggery carried once too many times into the crease, but for whatever reason we won't speak about hutton came up lame and not out for the third period, and it was down to freshman tj massie and 20 minutes to glory.

10 minutes in, bu showed the first glimmers of their mettle when they tied the big game and sent things careening towards a tight finish. with 5 to go, the riverhawks answered again, took the lead, and it was huge. 4-3 against the third-ranked program in the country. the tsongas arena was rockin'.

so here's where it all comes un-done...

a couple of poor clearing attempts and a bang-bang 4th bu goal with just over 3 to go. then some more poor clearing attempts and a heartbreaking 5th. then, the coup de grace, tucked inside the post with less than one second on the clock, 6-4 terriers.

you want to know how it would have played out had hutton been there for 60 minutes. you'd want to know what could have happened would the refs have seen the cheap shot that led to the matching minors late in the 3rd and left bu with the three skaters they deserved, instead of the four they used to wrestle back the tide of the game. but, mostly, you got to see what the 3rd-ranked program in the country can do against anything less than the best you've got.

vermont comes in next, and here's expecting that the A game is back on the ice, because this is a very, very good team.

telephone spam

just got an automated call from somewhere in florida with an important message related to the interest rate on my account. apparently, if i were to have pressed 1, i would have been redirected to an account specialist who could help me with lowering my rate.

unlucky for them, i'm not elderly enough (yet) to be willing to trade conversation for financial exploitation, but it made me wonder how many people would have to hit the button for them to consider the investment in the spam campaign worthwhile. i'm guessing it's a pretty low number, and that we're all going to start receiving a whole bunch more calls like this, and that, pretty soon, we're going to be offered (for a fee, of course) a phone spam filter by our local telephone service provider so we can stay ahead of the pestering.

ain't technology grand?

updated to cite a research study that found that email spammers can turn a profit at a response rate of just one response per 12.5 million.

simpler things

of course, not everything with me these days is quite so high-minded. last night i tripped on down to the tsongas arena for a little ice hockey, at which two fights broke out, much to the pleasure of myself and my philadelphian seat mate. (the philadelphia phantoms were playing the lowell devils, and our common ground while we vehemently disagreed vis a vis bruins/flyers was that everybody can dislike the devils). he got the center ice tickets free for touring their "luxury suites", which are basically little cinderblock rooms with tables covered with paper tablecloths and take-out pizza slices, and the beer was good, along with the aforementioned frozen fisticuffs. (josh gratton being involved in both, and not as clearly winning either as you'd think, though my philadelphian friend, of course, disagreed). the other high point of the evening was catcalling mercilously at the refs who so totally blew an obvious offsides call, then further botched the travesty by sending a third phantom to the penalty box for the ensuing desperate grab from behind, (the second being put there only moments earlier for slashing or some such mayhem, and the first being josh gratton and his famous fists), along with a fourth, steve downie, who, as best we could tell, got a 2 minute minor for being unsportsmanlike PLUS a 10 minute misconduct simply for something that he must have said to the referee in the process of protesting the original screw-up of the offsides call, which made us desperately want to know what possibly could have been muttered in such a quick pass by the ref so as to get himself so grievously penalized, because it must have been GOOD, but i am, of course, digressing... the comedy then furthered itself when, after the first pair of penalties expired, a skater was allowed to take the ice to make it 4-on-4, even though the 4-on-3 situation should have continued because there were still more guys in the box waiting to start serving their sentences. (it's a hockey thing--you're never penalized down to fewer than 3 skaters, so the extra penalties just keep stacking up like planes over logan on a rainy day). then we enjoyed another 10 minutes of judicial chaos so that the monkeys in the stripes could sort the correct number of skaters out, while we tried as valiantly as we could to help them by shouting admonitions over the glass from our center ice seats, though i'm not sure they were paying attention by that point. ;-) a wonderful hockey time was had by all.

but the part of the evening that really hit home with me was watching my friend's face flicker with beer-soaked realization while we were talking about the petty unfairnesses of spousal disapproval over hockey attendance and other life trivia. of course she was being ridiculous, and there was no argument from me about that, but i mentioned that one thing i had learned the hard way from my failed marriage was that criticisms and resentments over *stuff* were quite often, at least in my limited experience, proven to be manifestations of a simple feeling of spousal abandonment, and sometimes what is being requested isn't a leaf-free gutter or a night home instead of out, but an affirmation and reassurance. us guys are so quick to focus on fixing things, and the right and the wrong of who and when, that we're prone to forget that what is so often desired from us is an emotionally protective shoulder. (we'll get to the part about having that emotionally protective shoulder often rejected another time).

it's quite remarkable how, even when we're able to achieve that flicker, that those of us who are old enough and experienced enough to know better still can't really explain it in any way that someone who isn't old enough or experienced enough to know better will easily understand.

me, i'm just thankful for my nights out with friends, and the blessings to know, as with kafka's the prisoner, the secrets behind so many of my special crimes. i'm sure there are others, so if you're ever out at a hockey game with me and i say something silly, don't hesitate to give me the clue.

what i've learned by the rude bridge that arched the flood

i've written previously of the enduring hold that the events of 1775 continue to exert over me. (go no further than to consider that one of my coping mechanisms through the worst days of my marriage/divorce was doggedly insisting on driving the battle road through lexington and concord to and from work each and every day, even extending to the acton militia's line of march to the field above the old north bridge and a respectful nod to davis', hosmer's and hayward's stone on my way by.) i find in words by and about these men who first gave their lives as patriots to this great nation of ours an amazing wellspring of inspiration, and humility for all my shortcomings.

spoke the reverend james t woodbury at the dedication of davis' monument on october 29th, 1851, almost exactly 157 years ago: "at old north bridge, about nine o'clock in the forenoon, on the memorable 19th of april, 1775, king george's troops met these men, and, after receiving their first fire, fled. and the flight still continues--the flight of kings before the people."

there is no doubt in my mind that james woodbury, as well as the heroes he eulogizes, would instantly recognize in the current federal administration, those kings to be driven in flight before the people. this "patriot" act that enables arbitrary searches and seizures, and imprisonment without due process or appearance before ones accusers, is the very tissue of the beast once thought bested by the best of our american patriotism. if i were to ask one thing of the new obama administration, it would be to repeal this ugliness before any other act. these are our very ideals at stake, and, as franklin warned us, "people willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both".

our better heroes understand that the struggle will never be over, and they have never mistaken any victory to be final. jefferson said it well: "the tree of liberty must be refreshed, from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants".

the most inspirational moment in american politics for me continues to be the orderly transition of power from one administration to the next. the second most is believing in the patriotism of our ideals, and the true potential for what lincoln rightly called "the last, best hope of earth".

patriotism

samuel johnson once observed that "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel", and being still astounded that a decorated war veteran could have been smeared over such a thing four years ago, i have never doubted the truth of those words.

many of the "conservative" opinions i've read over the past 36 hours cite the importance of respecting and honoring john mccain's military service, both as a matter of shared national patriotism, as well as an important reason to have supported his candidacy. (hear, hear).

of these "patriots", i might also ask where such sentiment might have been four years ago for john kerry, but, instead, i'll point to yet another reason i think john mccain deserves national recognition and our enduring respect:

never once did john mccain allow patriotism, or military service, to be raised as a campaign issue.

for his part, back in june, now-president-elect obama rebuked wesley clark's crass exploitation of such things by quoting mark twain and offering this:

"patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. we may hope that our leaders and our government stand up for our ideals, and there are many times in our history when that's occurred. but when our laws, our leaders or our government are out of alignment with our ideals, then the dissent of ordinary americans may prove to be one of the truest expressions of patriotism".

i'm profoundly sorry that 2000 didn't see us with a choice between a younger, less-compromised john mccain, and a fairly-heard al gore. i'm quite sure we'd be in a different place right now either way, and profoundly better for it. right now, as the wags over at the onion put it, all we've done so far is see that a black man has been given the worst job in america.

here's hoping that patriots of all hues are ready to stand together and get to work helping our president in digging us out of this mess.

the real america

of all the things said in this past election in need of rebuke and rebuttal, sarah palin's misanthropic mis-characterization that there might be some separate class of "real americans" has to rank among the most very deserving.

a real american wouldn't say that. a spouse of a modern-day secessionist might, of course, but a real american wouldn't.

here's a little trivia for you:

just for fun, i pulled the most recent federal tax collection vs. expenditures by state i could find, (2005), and did a quick thumbnail correlation to the outcome of last night's presidential results. (you can find the spending per dollar of tax collected here).

the #1 and #2 welfare states in the country are new mexico and mississippi, each receiving over $2 in federal spending for every $1 they contribute in federal taxes. (one for obama, and one for mccain). the next half dozen freeloaders, alaska, louisiana, north dakota, alabama, south dakota and kentucky, each receiving more than a buck fifty on the dollar, are all mccain states. go figure.

at the other end of the spectrum, in order of their extent of both paying their own way, as well as those of the welfare freeloaders, are new jersey, nevada, connecticut, new hampshire, minnesota, illinios, delaware, california, new york, colorado, massachusetts, wisconsin, washington, michican and oregon. all obama. in fact, you have to go all the way to the 16th state in the list, texas, at .94, before you can find a single mccain majority.

makes sense to me: real americans believe in paying their own way. palin's "real americans" certainly do. obama's real americans do too.

the exhiliration of active democracy

it's great to feel energy at the polling place. i'm thinking to myself that a landslide one way or the other could be a very unfortunate thing--for once, i feel, the populace really understands how much their votes count, and they're all, blue, red and the other, eager to see it so. it would be nice to think we could all wake up tomorrow and feel good about the process, even if our guy wound up a few votes short, though i do agree with some that there's an unsettling bitterness about the left's frustrations from the past two elections that's hard to reconcile with a certain concept of patriotism. (yes, i understand that at least one of those elections was concluded under dubious circumstances, and there might be much for which to remain frustrated, but that's my point). i have to take my hat off to al gore for his ultimate devotion to country above all, and giving his supporters a better example to perhaps one day follow. i just hope, should the right prove more gracious in defeat, that credit won't be withheld for their magnanimity. (though, if there's any sort of backlash against obama for anything other than his ultimate performance in office, i'll be one red hot american, i can promise you that).

but there's more to this election, as always, than presidential politics.

to my surprise, i had a very visceral reaction to question 1 on the massachusetts ballot, over the potential repeal of the state income tax. if you know me well enough to have heard, felt or seen my fiscal conservatism, i'm sure you can see why, heading into the election, it was not an objectionable fantasy for me to imagine state lawmakers denied their pork barrel full of tax money to be squandered. however, when standing in front of the ballot with my black sharpie in hand, the full depth of the question's ostensible irresponsibility struck me in the gut. i could only envision cities starved of state support while their wealthier suburbs sit fat and irresponsible on their "i've got mine" asses, and i knew that an abrupt change of course, much like jerking the steering wheel on a speeding car on an icy road, could only end badly. i'll stand for lower taxes and smaller government most any time, but not this way. sorry, barbara.

as for the pot smokers in the audience, i do have to admit the thought of turning recreational drug use into a moneymaker, via fines, instead of a huge financial drain on law enforcement and the state corrections system, seems an attractive, pragmatic choice. i'm thinking it might have been better if they hadn't chosen such a generous quantity for the ultimate line, (for starters, you might translate between pot and beer and just think about how far $250 would go at your local packie in terms of cases), but its not such a bad thing to put the focus on illegal distribution, rather than casual consumption. yeah, yeah, you can't have one without the other, but, seriously, folks, it's expensive to incarcerate pot heads, and we're unlikely to be better off for being overzealous about it.

as for the cute little greyhounds and keeping the state safe for paramutuel wagering, well, it would seem that a state with a state-sanctioned lottery might have better places to start cleaning up the gambling ethics of its population.

the local and likely state rep's campaign party is across the street tonight, so i think i might be tempted to see how such things go.

fun with appliances

all the best intentions to repair rather than replace last week were recently trumped by the fact that laying out a third of brand new value on what's likely to be a temporary fix on a 20 year old setup doesn't make much fiscal sense. yep, the repair guy confirmed a burned out motor on the dryer--so, strike one. the next step was reviewing the purchase options in search of the right combination of size, capacity, efficiency and price, and noticing that the bricks and mortar alternative over at the sears appliance store in chelmsford was going to be essentially the same price as ordering up stuff online, and there's everything to like about their delivery and repair services on top of carrying all the better brands at competitive prices--so, so far, so good. yet strike two was learning today upon delivery that the venting setup on the stacked apartment-style units isn't really suitable for the small space in my laundry room, and it likely didn't help the longevity of the old dryer motor, either. so here's the pitch--refusing the delivery of the combo unit gives opportunity to indulge on the generosity of the store clerk who has now ordered me up a whiz-bang "energy star" front-loader with a stackable and separate dryer unit to go on top, giving me the best of all possible worlds, and (hopefully) successful installation too. all i have to do is wait until this coming saturday for delivery, and smile to myself about the bachelor wisdom to have purchased plenty of spare undies so that laundry can be once every couple of weeks without batting an eye.

anybody want to come over and watch the soapy, sudsy soccer stuff get tumbled clean? i used to love watching the clothes go around in my grandparent's house, where the washer and dryer were right there in the kitchen... i can still hear the sound of the "all done" bell, and feel the warmth of fresh clothes right out of the dryer on a cool fall day.

i hate to wait, but waiting for something good is actually not so bad. (the new larger massage table should be here in a little bit, too).

omfg

do not just read the highlights--click on the links to the audio recordings, too. if this isn't both the funniest as well as the scariest part of your halloween, then you need to get out more. even tina fey on her best day couldn't top this, and i'm sure she'd have to admit it, too.

regarding tuesday, the last line of the ap story says it all.

rocknrolla

one of the finer pleasures of children as they age is trading in their cinematic pabulum for something more than a bit more satisfying. saw rocknrolla last night with #2 and thoroughly enjoyed every convoluted minute of it. to all those who fail to fully appreciate ritchie, and who might complain that we've seen it all before, i will only point out that i see your invincible russian, (snatch's was classic) and raise you to two. (hands down the audience-pleasing scene of the night, and i'm going to go back to see it all again just for that). the bit about the words on the cigarette pack was brilliant, by the way, in case you weren't paying attention, and fully worthy of the best of revolver, and something for the ages. i did find the crayfish bit a huge step backwards from the pigs in snatch, though, so hopefully we'll get better next time when the wild bunch go on their next spree.

and tell me that the hopelessly hysterical thandie newton dance scene wasn't the most eloquent expression of spousal disaffection you've ever seen in your entire life.

treat

just in case you missed it yesterday--the sox exercised their ($4m) option to pitch tim wakefield for the '09 season. he's the sox 3rd all time in w's, 2nd all time in k's, and 1st all time in kad barma fandom and appreciation.

da man!