the whole life

i've lived too much of mine in a bifurcated state to ever contemplate such a two-headed compromise ever again. one for all. all for one. all or nothing.

it's a wonderful thing for me to be living whole again. except for the necessary compromise stemming from the impressionable and minor ages of my children, (fast fading as a concern as the years pass, but for now a real one, so, no, they didn't accompany me to the bar last weekend), i'm pleased to be free to allow any tangent of my life to intersect with any other. for example, if somebody doesn't like the fact that i'm going out to play soccer tonight with the boys, and then likely have a few pitchers of beer after, they can take their disappointment down the road to wherever they might feel more comfortable, cuz it's not on me to worry about how *they* feel. (what a concept--too bad i missed the point about 18 1/2 years ago...)

in some cases, this still presents a certain conceptual challenge, as keeping track of what i mean by "friend" can be somewhat complex and confusing, not least to said friends, but for my part i've got it all straight and everybody who cares to know can ask me whatever they like and i'll tell them. (yes, i entertain a variety of female houseguests, and male, for that matter, though the premise of the sleeping arrangements in such cases is a bit less salacious, and, no, that's not likely to change for the foreseeable future, if ever, and, lest you worry about me and the dangers of such a lifestyle by my use of the word variety, i don't really mean much more than the bare etymological minimum to qualify for use of the term, though, still, i do understand that "more than one" is more than most people seem to be able to comprehend, let alone stand for, so there you have it). the sensible rule of thumb i maintain is that there are a select number of people in my life to whom i owe more than i can ever explain or express, and it would be extremely small of me and profoundly faithless to sacrifice even the smallest bit of those relationships, or the carnal pleasures of a certain special few thereof, to anyone else's myopic addiction to the concept of monogamy or their selfish obsession to want "more" of me. i am as i am. that i can tell, it works for some, and so i can count myself among the luckiest of people in the world.

anyway, this all came up again this past weekend with an old friend for whom the general conditions weren't in and of themselves alarming or impossible to imagine, but for whom the "whole" problem would work in reverse. see, and i guess there is no free lunch, it's true that as soon as certain people step off the white bread suburban social expectation bandwagon, their entire social structure stands to fight them at every turn. one can suggest to them that the structure might be the thing in need of changing, but, lets face it, it's easier to change the one tire than the entire rest of the car, so it's all just whistling in the dark. they have their idea of "whole", and i have mine.

and so, happily, i look forward once again to a new year defined by the limitless affection of those who would remain comfortable with me as i am, as i am with them as they are. in some cases, (yes, more than one), this will extend to intimacies that should remain unmentioned. trust me, even without the details, it's a beautiful thing. and, i think, if you spend any time at all with me, you can figure those out for yourself, and i hope you can be happy for me for them, as i would/will be/am for you in however you've found best fit to arrange your own life.

if it can be whole, i'm guessing it's likely to be good.

it's working for me, anyway.

"you just had to be there"

ever plan an evening out knowing full in advance that every story you will ever tell of the evening to come will almost certainly need to end with the disclaimer that "i guess you just had to be there"?

this new years eve, with the snow swirling and all possibilities, i know what i want to do to ring in the new year. it won't be perfect like last year's st patties day weekend was, cuz i won't have my full contingent of intimate crime partners with whom to enjoy all of it, but it'll still be something, i'm sure, so that's ok. and i'm cajoling the necessary posse of provocateurs and party animals so that we're fully armed to make the most of it nevertheless.

this wednesday night, the final night of 2008, and the eve of the new year, i will be setting out for cappy's copper kettle on central street so i can catch jc and his golden oldies along with all my very best downtown lowell friends. oh, yeah, it's campy. yup, it's kitschy. not to mention completely cringe-worthy. and oh so much fun.

i will insist that all those in attendance with video-capable cell phones record a little of it for you, because i know, otherwise, you'll never believe it when i try to tell you.

catching up

i neglected to mention last weekend the saturday night show over at the old court. the headline set was by a local outfit knows as "roll the tanks", and i was quite favorably impressed. the evening started outside, in line with one of the band members' mother, trying to plead with the bouncer to let her in so she could catch the show. there was no mistaking that she had to be *somebody's* mother, (hell, she was almost as old as I am, though i'm sure not quite), so it did seem kinda cold that he gave her a hard time about it, given that everybody else trying to get in looked barely of age, and you gotta figure somebody her age wasn't going to be trying to get in to start something, so what's the harm, but i'm glad to say that both she and i made it upstairs in time for the marquee set, so all's well that ends well.

the place was absolutely packed, so you can't fault the bouncers completely for trying to keep a lid on things. the bar upstairs only pours guinness out of a tap, so that was ok too. among the other many good things to the evening was a raucous set by "los wundertwins del rap", who, while it's not usually my first choice in bar entertainment, never failed to please. (the crowd loved 'em, too). the top of the bill was, as i mentioned, "roll the tanks", and they grabbed things by the throat from the get-go, and never let up. i loved it. opening up was a rousing cover of the kinks "father christmas", which was right on, followed by a string of great original punk anthems, (if you go to their myspace page, the first one up, "police me", is as good an introduction as ever), all wrapped up by a boldly belligerent cover of the beatles "why don't we do it in the road" that caught the violence of a certain kind of sex perfectly right, and the perfect way to wind up the evening's bar entertainment.

i have no idea what mom thought, but the rest of us LOVED it.

first place

my brother asked me awhile back if i recalled any other point in time when the bruins, patriots and celtics simultaneously achieved first place in the standings, and I had to admit, other than a potential lucky coincidence a little over 20 years ago, (i don't have the means to either prove or disprove the possibility, but it's there), no, i couldn't recall anything like it. the celts waned as the bruins rose in the early 70's, and then vice versa into the 80's, and we all know the pats were an object lesson in futility for almost their entire first 40 years of existence.

it's fair to say that these are the salad days of boston sports fandom. i still muster my polite allegiance to the green, and you know i love my pats, (today i'm breaking out the steve neal jersey and heading out to the bar across the street because it's an experience that MUST be shared), but the wonder of this time in my life to me is the resurgence of the bruins to something that hasn't been seen around here since 1972. yup, it still may prove to be a tease, but i'm going all the way with milan lucic and the boys in black, and getting misty-eyed and oh-so-nostalgic in the process.

maybe that's where my life took its turn... (maybe that's why i hate the flyers so much, though never as much as the canadiens, and that's as it should be). i'm experiencing my life these days as a resumed consciousness, as if a coma or some sort of benign amnesia has swallowed the last 20 years of my life, but i know i'm better now. i should have kept up with the music, and i should never have lost sight of the value of heartfelt care and an honest effort, to go with a pedal to the metal insatiable drive for the goal, and aren't hockey players the most pure of all?

look for me--i'll be the only person in the bar asking the 'tender for a tv to watch the puck drop for the b's and thrashers at 5, even though the steve neal jersey on my back and every other mothers son (and daughter) in the bar will be rabid for both the ravens and the jets to go down, and hardly aware it's happening.

fine times, indeed.

funny ha ha

a local blogger and the editor of the local newspaper have ensured my merry christmas, and i have no reason not to expect a happy new year. the two have been sniping back and forth for what seems like forever over the ones inability to stomach the others politics, and the others insistence, like kids on a playground, to retort with reasoned arguments like "i know you are, but what am i?" now, if i could only remember which was which...

actually, i've had the opportunity to listen to and respect the former, and, to me, (in most cases), he's been thoughtful, respectful of history, and respectful of other men's opinions. why he can't help himself from responding to gutter-journalistic back-biting (to wit: something about "bitter local bloggers, including an elected official whose family lives at the public trough") is beyond me. i think someone wise once advised against such with the admonition to "never get into an argument with an idiot lest someone unfamiliar be unable to tell the difference". (something i think more folks should try to remember).

mind you, i haven't met nor heard the latter in any public discourse other than his (strange) opinions on the op-ed page, and i use the word strange since his recent column linked above cited cheerfully a statistic that most reasonable people would find alarming: one sixth (less than 17%) of us read newspapers, while the newspaper association of america's own stats document readerships of over 75% of the adult population as recently as 1970, and, yeah, that's apples and oranges cuz mr. editor's figure was (i think/hope) for total population, but i think you can do some reasonable math and conclude that a lot of folks don't prefer to support their local editors, nor their associated papers, like they used to...

to digress a bit, my work takes me, among other placess, intimately close to the inner workings of major financial institutions, and the stats outlining the decline of the banking industry are similarly eye-popping. the percentage of wealth once kept in traditional banks was historically staggering, and impossible to reconcile with the shrinking numbers now found in the industry. (since '70 i'm going to guess it's gone from a newspaper-similar three quarters down to something south of one quarter, just like the papers).

what this all tells to me, other than a lot of bankers and newspaper editors needing to take a certain amount of personal responsibility for the precipitous declines in their businesses, and their remarkable dinasaur-like inability to stay ahead of changes in demographics and related buying habits, is that the world is changing. it doesn't tell me i have to develop personal vendettas against people who are just telling me the truth.

i subscribe to my local paper (as those who follow my ramblings here might recall) and i have very specific reasons for doing so, which i'll get into in a bit. i get my international news from places like the bbc online and the economist, and much if not most of my national news from there as well. i follow a couple of web aggregations of newspaper content (one of my favorites is the newseum collection of 545 newspaper front pages from 58 countries all in one place) and i indulge my crush on liz brunner and heather unruh with a bit of newscenter five from time to time, too. (ok, it's actually mostly a crush on harvey leonard for the best weather report in town, but, shhh, don't tell anyone).

90% of the aforementioned, as you might guess, is online, simply because i can't afford to buy (and waste) the amount of paper that would be required to consume it any other way. ironically, the only piece of journalism that i buy every day, and happily read from a tangible paper source, is the highly comical and often editorially ludicrous lowell sun. i don't read it for the international news, and i don't read it for the national news, and i certainly don't read it hoping to find much in terms of sensible editorial content. (cal thomas reminds me of nothing so much as something that should be off the funny pages, except that he's rarely funny and almost never accompanied by cartoon drawings, which is too bad, because i think they might improve his readability). and, yeah, that's gutter-journalistic backbiting, alright, and, yeah, i'm guilty...

so do you think that cal thomas should write a screed back at me? or are we all clear on the concept that it would only boost my readership and web-cred, (whatever that is), while at the same time relegating him to even fewer local rags who might be strange enough to prioritize his often-inane ramblings?

oh well, the good news is that neither dick nor jim seem to be interested in using their better judgment, so we're all most likely to be able to enjoy the little jr high parking lot soap opera throughout the course of the coming year, and that's great as far as i'm concerned. the world needs a little more levity these days.

oh, and i almost forgot...

why am i one of the elite (one out of six sounds elitish, doesn't it?) who subscribes to and reads the lowell sun each and every day?

because it contains information that is important to me, and which i cannot get from almost any other source, and certainly not aggregated together in one place. oh, it has its shortcomings, believe you me, and every penny they spend wasting column inches on jim c or cal t makes my eyeballs hurt in ways i cannot even begin to describe. but they sponsor blogs like audio floss and gourmet gal, and get all the local sports scores, (where else would i have learned last year that i could just walk down to the tsongas and get to see a state regional basketball final between my local high school's heros and central catholic of lawrence's that would be one of the best basketball games me and my kids have ever seen?), and cover galleries and concert venues and restaurants and everything else that makes lowell the single greatest small city in all the world, all for pennies a day, and all just for me. i get to cheer on my local constabulary, which is one of the finest in the world, (and the commissionerships in boston and new york are just two testimonials for that), and learn about everything they're doing to keep our streets safe and well-ordered. i get to find out all the things i've yet to discover, as in, how just yesterday i clipped a piece describing the availability of new york's metropolitan opera over at the showcase cinema, which is going to give me opportunity, for just a few bucks, to take my mother to see something that, prior to this would have cost thousands once you add up the travel, lodging and tickets to the met in person, for just $22 apiece.

i think what dick and jim are arguing about is so much of a red herring you do just need to laugh. jim's business acumen is, indeed, well-described by the continuing implosion of his readership, and taking that personally just shows him to be that much more of a horse's you-know-what. and dick, by entering into a disagreement with such, has merely plugged himself firmly into that level, too. i don't know what that makes me, by taking the even lower road of poking anonymous fun, but i guess we can all agree that it's what we've chosen to write about, so there you have it.

enjoy your local paper, and do, please, seek other sources too, cuz they really don't pay these people enough to always be accurate, fair or even reasonable. the math is almost always wrong these days, (and please lets all not get started on the globe, times, post or other outfits with budgets that ought to give them the ability to do better), and we always should be getting out our calculators and our reasonable intellects and challenging each and every thing we read. but when it comes time to read about the things *I* care about, i'll always need a local paper, and though i'm sincerely hoping a better one comes along, i'm ok if one doesn't and i have to keep doing it the way i'm doing it now.

eartha kitt

eartha observed recently on stage that "i used to have a lot of fun with this song... [long, long broadway pause]... and then madonna sang it". (BINGO).

she was talking about "santa baby", and, oh, was she one of a kind. (youtube can let you listen to the original version of that particular song, which i highly recommend over all the others, or you can choose a peek at the inimitable woman herself singing/vamping a version with some tv friends which isn't as good, but it's still good). you can forget madonna, kylie minogue, and all the others who wanna be, cuz they're just embarrassing themselves. is it so hard to understand it's not a pout, it's the woman herself?

chuck lorre, or one of his writers, this season on the season opener of "the big bang theory", had a little fun at halle berry's expense with a great line: "she's like my fourth favorite catwoman". his best character, sheldon cooper phd, then recites the list: "julie newmar, michelle pfeiffer, eartha kitt and then her". (his friend howard then says, "what about lee meriweather?" so sheldon amends himself: "julie newmar, michelle pfeiffer, eartha kitt, lee meriweather..." and so it goes). i immediately had a serious problem with chuck and/or his writiers, because nobody who's seen them all could possibly place eartha anywhere other than first. (i'm hoping someday to be able to make that point more forcefully in person, just cuz). eartha kitt WAS catwoman. and every other character she's ever poured herself into like a sable coat. you know, the one she was asking santa about...

imagine a black woman during the sixties with the balls to tell lady bird johnson herself, at the white house no less: "you send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. they rebel in the street. they don't want to go to school because they're going to be snatched off from their mothers to be shot in vietnam". (she got herself blacklisted but good for that one, along with several long-running cia and fbi investigations, all of which found her "foul-mouthed and promiscuous"--now there's a woman i could fall in love with). i hope more than a few of 'em were good and agape when she won the role of the fairy godmother in rogers and hammerstein's "cinderella"...

so it's with sadness that i recall i was just the other night calling with the crowd for her song to be played, though nobody had the nerve to try to pull off the vocals. (melvern, even while professing a lack of memory, got to it right quick on his ukulele, and how amazing a talent is that, though nobody would pick up the dare).

first among catwomen, and without peer in song, eartha, we'll miss you.

missing you for the holidays

being a divorced parent rather exacerbates the condition, but the general feeling of wanting to feel friends and relatives closer at this time of year is something everyone seems to know. having to share the time of three people for whom the world would not seem too much to me, i know well the ache of compromise and patience. it just keeps going when you start to add all the other special people for whom a few days simply cannot hold all.

with some over the past year i've established a sort of rhythm, not unlike that related to my children, and it's always nice to be able to anticipate for weeks the all-too-short time that i can spend with them. i fear they sometimes might find me monotonous, as the condensation of time does lead to a certain repetition of activities, but, what can i say, when you love doing a particular thing or things with someone, and you don't see them every day, that/those thing(s) seems to come up more frequently when you're together. it's just the way it is.

so for those with whom i'm not right now, and, as i'm frequently found to say, you know who you are, please know that i'm missing you for the holidays, and looking forward to when tide and time bring you back to me.

eddie is santa, why melvern f***ing taylor, and only in lowell

yes, indeed, only in lowell.

last night tex macnamara (with his bucking broncos) emceed the first annual tex-mas eve christmas show over at the worthen, to benefit the merrimack valley food bank. the musical guest list was too long and too varied from the posters to try to recreate it in its entirety here, (beer also having deleterious effect on a guy's memory), so suffice it to say that a bigger and better lineup has rarely if ever seen a stage in a long, long, long time.

highlights of the show included every guitar solo from broncos ace eddie lyons, whose resemblance so motivated the crowd that it took at one point to chanting "eddie is santa, eddie is santa" to the great joy of all. (because, if you were fortunate enough to be sitting close enough to get a good listen to all of them, eddie's turns were all just like christmas). there was also my personal "what did we learn today moment", when melvern taylor breezed in from his earlier gig up the coast and took complete charge of the room, wondering aloud, if we had all been singing f***in christmas songs all f***in night, how was it that nobody had f***in played rudolf the f***in red nosed reindeer??? (answering for once and for all why it is that the crowds are always cheering "melvern f***in taylor" every time he plays around town).

in my virtual christmas stocking from the night were a fistful of hockey tickets from the charity auction, cds from the broncos and the meltones, and a purloined poster of the evening, courtesy of my evah luvin rock n roll date and partner in crime extraordinaire, who always sees to it that i have everything i've ever dreamed. you know those old guys with the original woodstock posters under glass who said they were there? last night, in shangri-lowell, down at the old worthen, i was one of the lucky ones.

merry christmas, lowell!!!

innumeracy

from the pet peeve department:

in maryland today, a bunch of motorists were trapped in their cars by a water main break which sent torrents of frigid water pouring across a road. (the 20 degree temperatures must not have helped, either).

all this is interesting and fine, except until you read the AP report of the incident, and note that "officials said 135 million gallons of water per minute were gushing out at one point."

as seth meyers and amy poehler are often amused to say--"REALLY?!?"

for example, the entire city of new york uses 1350 million gallons of water in a day throughout their system, according to one 2004 source. so what this ap hack is trying to say is that in one minute through this one five and a half foot pipe somewhere in maryland, almost two and a half hours-worth of new york city's total consumption was being flushed.

REALLY?!?

what scares me the most is not that one hack is innumerate to the point of idiocy, it's that 99% of this hack's readership is likely to swallow a ridiculous figure like that without even thinking. (we won't even think about the implications were those official figures officially related to said hack, in which case then we're into a whole 'nuther level of scary i definitely don't want to think about).

scary.

oh, and one last thing...

the job title of the armed services member who enthusiastically yet perhaps not so well-advisedly tackled junior seau on the sidelines of yesterday's pats/cards blowout is, and i kid you not, "intelligence specialist".

the (not so) melancholy waltz

at one point during the melvern taylor and his fabulous meltones show over at toad in cambridge this past saturday night, one particularly enthusiastic (if alcohol consumption might be any indicator) crowd member had to lean over and inquire with some stridency as to how, exactly, it was that i came by knowing the words. (she apparently knew them all, too, or had, once, before the alcohol took over and, among other things, caused her to knock over my water glass and require the bar clean-up crew to be in attendance, but that's another part of the story that can wait for another time). it occurred to me that nobody had to ask that question about the groupies at a beatles show circa 1965, but i was still left with the conundrum as to why the difference.

you see, if you haven't seen them before, melvern taylor and his fabulous meltones are, in a word, fabulous, and it continues to baffle all who see them why stardom and shea stadium do not yet await. (well, we know why not about shea stadium, but tearing something down never erases it completely, as can be witnessed by the continuing loyalty to the dutton street car wash, but, again, that can be another story for another time). i think that i'm crossed of a particular line about them, because "love songs for losers" is not only part of my own personal collection, but also a large part of the christmas gifts i'm giving out this year. speaking of which, i've got to try to run down the man himself this evening about getting ahold of one last copy, because the person with whom i enjoyed last saturday's show absolutely must have one too, and you know how i am about gifts ON THE DAY...

the show that engendered that standard and love-struck response in the newly initiated was, as usual, fabulous. it was sandwiched around some tasty licks by tex macnamara and his bucking broncos, and, we asked, but bob nash didn't get double scale for having backed both ensembles during the evening. the most remarkable thing i'm finding about all of these shows is how they delve as deep into the back catalog as they never fail to turn up something new and marvelous at the same time. "betty lou", not to mention "hello, marylou", and the newest jewel in the ouvre, "melancholy waltz", which is particularly marvelous because it finds another spot in the show to feature that indescribable and indescribably poignant trumpet that i've grown to love as much as any other part of the sound. (she's apparently stage-shy, if you can believe that about that kind of talent, so we'll choose to leave the innocent nameless, though you know i'd rather have the horn tooted, so to speak).

AND, and i'm not sure if i can feel any credit for having begged about it, but they played it--"bowling in billerica", which has to be the single most brilliant song i have ever heard not recorded anywhere that i can find. bandmembers swear innocence, (i haven't questioned the artist himself), but i'll maintain that it's not possible melvern had *nothing* else in mind when he penned the ode to "america's favorite family sport", even though it remains clearly as one of the most thoughtfully innocent paeans to rites of passage and peri-puberty that you'll hear anywhere. if you missed the show, as usual, you missed something special.

i had the tunes on in the car all day today, leftover on the ipod from ferrying home saturday night's date so she could hear more, and at a couple of spots i almost had to cry to hear dave livingston playing the guitar. every time i hear them, i hear something new.

nothing melancholy about that in the least.

meet the new...

there's are special someones in my life for whom easy adjectives do not exist. "my friend" hardly satisfies, but it remains my most frequent fall-back, since i can think of no higher tribute. (those of us recently divorced have learned the pejorative connotation of most other terms of temporal and temporary endearment, so we hardly think of them as highly as others might). least satisfying of all that "my friend" might not convey the depth of the emotion and the very special nature of things, but you've read the stuff here, so you know the challenge, and the challenged...

which is all neither here nor there, except that the introductions to friends old and new at the melvern taylor and his fabulous meltones show this past saturday night at toad in cambridge included an ironic "my friend so-and-so" that is the same as the "my friend so-and-so" that they've coincidentally been offered under different circumstances and companionship at prior shows, and it's struck me as both potentially amusing (to me, anyway, if not those possibly confused by the coincidence) and, yes, confusing.

why it is that people can't find words to deal with other people having a full and varied life is part of the riddle of civilization. "my ex" is easy. there will always be only one of those. "my friend", i'm hoping, will never pose so easy a dilemma.

christmas style

different people have different christmas styles. parents, for example, and mothers especially, are often cornered into being the ones to give the infamous "gift" of underwear. aunts tend to get all sorts of really cute baby clothes while the babies are little, and uncles come into their own when the little darlings graduate into becoming little rascals, and can enjoy a good raucous video game, or even, as was the specialty of one of my brothers back in the day, toy drum sets and trumpets and the like. fathers, while married, tend to be a bit more conservative than might otherwise be, while under the spousal thumb, but once the divorce has taken the shackles off, they can immediately promote themselves into becoming everything that even uncles wouldn't dare to be, and it can be a wonderful thing.

i'm still a bit practical in my impracticality, so #1 gets a GPS, but in my defense it can also double as a road trip and party-attendance enabler, so there's that. (and, trust me, there's a bunch of video and board games for "the family", too). #2 will get something suitable for pursuing his newfound enthusiasm for hockey fights (and hockey), and #3 will have, in addition to jewelry, cuz that's what dads do for daughters, some nice stuff for the room that enables her small electronics fetish. none of it would have been deemed a high priority by mom, but that's the best part.

harder are the choices for friends, special friends, and then those who remain without categorization or equal. i had to laugh cruising through the pheasant lane mall today that there's a pub style store, complete with tin signs extolling the virtues of everything from budweiser (at fifteen cents a bottle, which seems particularly apropos) to jack daniels, which would have been as good a place as any to buy some things for my condo, but there wasn't time nor room in the budget for such extravangances (oh, but how tempting was the $30 autographed picture of tim thomas at the sports memorabilia place) so i kept to my mission. i can't really reveal any of the other stuff which ended up in the basket, because you never know who might be reading, and if there's one thing a guy knows about christmas, it's that nobody is to open anything until the day arrives.

none of that christmas eve nonsense, cuz that's my style.

have a merry, everyone!

german vacations

this business morning for the first time since i don't know when my email inbox held no messages from the old country. a friend of mine inquired if this just meant the inbox would be that much more overflowing once they all get back from their weihnachtstag holiday in a couple of weeks, but i was happy to tell them that, no, there would be no crush of make-up work to compensate for all the time off. germans are not, as can generally be observed in most things, like americans.

one irony about corporate financial belt-tightening is that employee vacation time is even more important to have consumed, as such diminishes on the balance sheet the nasty accrued liability for all that future pay. what a concept--improve the business by slacking off right when things get critical. the americans (myself included, as participation on a call tomorrow even though i'm supposed to be off will show) among us all take these enforced breaks as merely bookkeeping contrivances, and make no allowances when planning for project completions and other commitments, but when we're engaged with the germans on these projects, the delivery dates and all intervening efforts are put off at their insistence, and there's nothing much to be done about it but to do as the holy romans do. (bad medieval-era pun, sorry).

so this evening i will set my microsoft outlook (ack, i hate microsoft) "out of office assistant" to "out of the office", and mentally check out for two-full-and-plus self-indulgent weeks. sure, i'll dial in for a few minutes tomorrow if it becomes absolutely necessary, but when they attempt to dole out the "to-do's" on the call, there won't be an eyelash batted when i say, "but i won't get to that until sometime during the first full week of january when i get back from vacation".

because everybody around here knows that "vacation" isn't an english word, but a curious pronunciation of the german concept that requires a complete and total break.

it's one of my favorite new things. (you *are* planning to join me at the worthen next tuesday, aren't you?)

gracenotes

when you press the little button to submit your shiny new cd to your sacred altar of itunes, that it might grace your growing collection with the addition of your latest musical affections, its often a surprise to see what you get back. for many, i'm sure, it's rarely something they have to think about, if at all. the slick ripping of the audio tracks into the burgeoning borg collective is clockworkly accompanied by the track names, just as it was meant to be...

and yet, i'm sure for others, as it is for me, the process is sometimes curiously imperfect. artist names are spelled inconsistently between albums... song title spellings are garbled... (web 2.0 in the mortal flesh). the illusion of "automatic" revealed for the gremlins that always lurk within...

if this were all it was, it could be dismissed as the simple reflection of the universal human condition. but it's not--not exactly.

"not found".

as if all music must have a home, or a birth parent, or something that certifies its existence.

i tossed off the coincidence of this when ripping the digitized versions of my many vinyl loves as the technical necessity of analog while heuristics have yet to be perfected, but lately it's become the standard response to my already-digital auditory supplications, and i'm beginning to realize it's not a reflection of something obviously universal at all, but the hidden universal truth that we're all members of our own oft-obscure tribes, and to find ourselves and our true family is often a long, imperfect, hit-or-miss road to travel. and the point isn't *ex*clusion, but *in*clusion.

does anyone else in the world treasure the same self-produced expressions i've found to have meaning in my unique and personal life? gracenotes says "no", or, maybe, "not yet", and i'm honored and humbled to think that i've discovered something unique and wonderful in the world, perhaps before or at least at the same time as anyone else, and it's my honor and humble pleasure to be part of the carrying of the first torch...

i'm reminded of being reminded of "my crush", and there's a new facet to it today. yep, on thursday there'll be a little torch-carrying going on, and maybe it'll be me and maybe it'll be me plus a collection of a few others of my tribe who feel it the same way, or maybe it'll be all of us and the first evening where the whole rest of the world starts to see it, too. but that's hardly important. it always takes someone to be the first to raise a flag. yet unlike the perversion of "love" that others (yeah, i know, not you) seem to insist upon, where a flag is to mark territory off limits to everyone else, i'm seeing that flag and that torch as invitations for as many others as can see to join. why would i want to be the only one who loves something, or someone? certainly, my being alone in a feeling is never again going to stop me from feeling it. if no one else in the world ever discovers this cd that's playing in my ears, it can never stop the emotion it gives me, and feeds me, and nourishes me for what it represents, as the honest expression of an individual who is putting it out there to give and to feed and to nourish, if for nobody else, than for just themselves.

and i get it.

so what

the tradition of team sport requires that individual action be met with coordinated response. e.g. any pitcher throwing a little too far inside can expect something just as far inside (or maybe a little more) during his next at-bat. in the american league, of course, it'll have to be his best-hitting teammate, but, either way somebody's got to take that second pitch.

in ice hockey, among many other timeless traditions, you don't rough up an opponent's goaltender, run at their best scorer, or do a thousand other little things that some players (often collectively referred to as "pests" in order to be able to talk about them on television) do. well, sean avery, late of the dallas stars, ran afoul of the natural consequence to this eye-for-an-eye collective justice, as his teammates recently refused to continue to put up with the constant flak that his bad unilateral behavior generates, and had him fired. (his "sloppy seconds" quip would have been funnier if it hadn't been cowardly and conveniently expressed via a tv reporter).

it's too bad for westerners recently deceased after staying at that mumbai hotel that this sort of behavior isn't limited just to the well-regulated world of team sport. geo dubya bush, geopolitical "pest" extraordinaire, has done more to propagate the terrorist equivalent of high and tight fastballs than any other american, living or dead. to hear him bragging that his administration has seen no further terrorist atrocities on american soil since 9-11 is like an AL pitcher bragging on his beanball game, and it profoundly insults the memory of the hundreds of thousands dead elsewhere in the pursuit of that selfish safety. (not forgetting what franklin had to say for the craven pursuit of safety at the expense of liberty, either).

i simply don't know what to say to the families of those killed over the past years in madrid, and london, and mumbai, and countless other cities in iraq and afghanistan and elsewhere, other than to say that we can all feel better that the twenty-second amendment, if not this recent presidential election, has finally put this guy off the team.

the other shoe

lost amidst the outrage and exaltation over the tossing of a couple of shoes was an aside during a subsequent press interview (with abc's martha raddatz) where geo dubya bush, when reminded about the fact that al qaeda did not, in fact, have a presence in iraq until *after* our invasion enabled it, answered "so what?"

so what???

that time of year

for those keeping score, i just received another one of *those* emails... (this one citing a "twinge").

the holidays are apparently a scary time for the uncoupled.

walking the proverbial mile

the iraqi reporter wrestled to the ground and "frog marched" (dontcha just love the BBC?) from the press conference where he saw fit to toss his two shoes worth into the geopolitical discussion had simple words to say while doing it: (translated courtesy of the BBC report) "this is a farewell kiss, you dog. this is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in iraq".

to be completely civil, i might have preferred his disobedience to be delivered without the personal insult. ("you dog" certainly didn't add to the intelligence of his discourse). but the rest of the sentiment i find today to be profoundly moving. it's what a civilly disobedient red-blooded american protester might have chosen to do, if only they were afforded the opportunity to do it. on top of that, it was ostensibly an act of profound bravery, observing as have many civil rights watch groups about the propensity for iraqi "justice" to be accompanied by torture and worse, and it's something of which to maintain respect.

if somebody had done to my country what geo dubya bush has done to iraq, i should think throwing my shoes would be the least of my gestures, hoping as we all should for somebody to at least try to walk that proverbial mile in someone else's before presuming to take the irreversible and tragically bloody course of military action.

yeah, saddam was an evil man, but so is much of what has been wrought to achieve his downfall. are iraqi's better off today than five years ago? there are at least one pair of stocking feet who would say not.

your mother

lost perhaps on zealous shoe-tossing arabic journalists is that most americans, and most certainly the vacuously giggling and soon-not-to-be president geo dubya bush, simply don't get the insult.

it's a pity, too, cuz there'll be a lot of encouraged islamacists youtubing it over the next few days.

just when snl goes on holiday hiatus, too. i'm guessing the next jon stewart is going to have to be a must-watch.

yankee calendars

every year around this time the shop carousels become bursting with brightly illustrated calendars for the upcoming new year. all this is well-timed, since we are rapidly approaching the useful end of our present ones, and it's clear we'll need replacements. (do not ask about the consequences to the newly divorced of missing an appointment that in any way inconveniences the ex). and then we turn over the price tags and cringe to imagine whatever there could be about a dozen pages of glossy paper that could possibly need $12.95 to finance.

you know the drill. some time into january the prices will start dropping, to the point where soon the same collection of ansel adams photographs, or georgia o'keeffe watercolors, or whatever have you, will be pennies on the dollar.

so i have a business plan to create the perfect yankee stocking stuffer: a one-month yankee-special calendar, featuring just january, intended to tide the parsimonious over just long enough until they can hit the sale racks in a few weeks and get a proper one.

a secret

an asterisk right up front because perfection and most recipes cannot be guaranteed, neither can any hockey team win every game, but one of the methods to impress friends with how much one does is to be careful about the mix of what one does. for example, not every musical experience need be accompanied by beer, and middle school concerts headlined by ones favorite musician are an excellent case in point. (and may i offer the word "scintillating" in description of the five piece star turn to open last night's show).

furthermore, related to the party man's throat condition recently promulgated here, i can happily report that a careful and caring (i'd say professional, but it's so much more than that) manipulation of all the appropriate areas does wonders for sinuses and all the other related ENT physiology. (massage--it's not just for backs, and you should be getting your own regularly if you possibly can). today feels kinda like if i were a video game character that's just run across one of those little flashing icons that confers immunity for a period of time from all the various threats and ills flying in from all directions. (can you hear the cheerful theme music and see the little effervescent globe shimmering all around me right now?) it's a good thing too, provided my perceived invulnerability can manage a 36 hour duration, since tonight is my annual soccer "banquet", which is a banquet in an opposite though equally distant way that coors "banquet beer" is beer, which is to say, while there will be no coors nor a whole lot of food of any mention anywhere in sight, there will be copious (there is no adjective that actually describes a great briton's portion of such things, but hopefully you get the picture) real beer all around, which will be neither of small portion nor of mean quality.

so, the secret is how, after the massage and the concert yesterday, i retired to my shangri-lowell sanctuary with a sammy's calzone (mmmmm, cheeeeeese) and a sierra nevada, and sat in uplifting peace while i watched my b's "live", courtesy of tivo, with one of my favorite people in the whole world. (much like enabling me for things like duck fat poutine, if you do whats been done to my sinuses and my other body parts then you go straight to the kad barma hall of fame, and though there's no primacy of place in such a place, there is no end of appreciation and adoration for such).

mercifully for hall of fame members and others, based on the likelihood of alcohol-fueled snoring among other annoyances subsequent to this evening's festivities, i'll be retiring alone tonight, and looking forward to the fact that i have tomorrow OFF from work, so i can sleep in as late as i want, and get up as slowly as i want, and wistfully regret the passing of my immunity for as long as i want, before heading round to pick up the weekend's houseguest(s) around what for most folks would be the supper hour, though for me tomorrow we'll just consider it brunch.

life is good.

poutine

like many other passions of mine (see recent post on the subject of deep friend hot dogs as a side dish at the worthen house) its very hard for me to explain just how wonderful poutine really is. most people have to ask what, exactly, it is, (as i did my very first time), but when they hear the simplest answer, which is basically "fries with cheese and gravy", they groan because they can only envision soggy, grease-soaked blandness as matches their individual experiences with fries, cheese and gravy at most (average) restaurants. but they couldn't be more mistaken.

what is missed as a basis for such conclusions is that french canadien farmers tend to understand lipids in a way possibly only surpassed by their french french forebears, and when they go about assembling dishes based on such ephemera, they're neither willy-nilly nor careless about it. cheese curd, for example, isn't cheese, and the proper recipe for poutine is very particular about the distinction. likewise, there are choices to be made about the consistency and preparation of the potatoes, (consulting with, i'm sure, their english new brunswickian neighbors for their expertise), and if you've ever compared gravy out of a can with what can come off a stove at home under the right conditions, you'll understand that there's a huge range of possibilities for that as well. good poutine is neither greasy nor bland. (yeah, it may be a little bit soggy, but that, i think, is part of the point).

my first plate of poutine was over hockey and beers at the loose moose in toronto. (i'm sure all the french canadians in the audience are blanching at the thought, though not for the beer and hockey parts). i'll never forget it for being my first, as i'm sure many of you have fond memories of firsts that are in no proportion to the better that you may know now. it's the beauty of firsts.

but it's the quality of the NEXT one that really counts. mine is going to be goo-oo-ood.

pursuing the geometric bliss of simple pleasures

the web presents an amazing collection of readily-accessible information of amazing value and variety, and, yet, there would seem to be nothing to it that can possibly compare to the awe-inspiring brilliance of humanity, and its sublime superpower of "that reminds me".

case in point: on melvern f. taylor's website, it's a piece of cake to learn that he and the boys are playing an evening show up in portland, maine, on friday, january 16th. anyone currently residing in beautiful downtown lowell, massachusetts might otherwise read of such a thing with a wistful shrug, and that would be that. i mean, really, who drives 2 hours to see a band one can otherwise see with a 2 minute walk? (recent 45 minute trips to cambridge, worcester, and portsmouth otherwise being made necessary by the infrequency of the local performances, but no life can be perfect). of course you know the answer to the question is me, but here's where the wonders of the web, combined with the wonders of humanity, intersect:

it's also easy to learn, if you might ever know where to look, that duck fat restaurant in portland, me, serves an honest to deep-fried-in-duck-fat goodness plate of gen-yoo-wine french canadian poutine. (with cheese curd and not melted cheese, which, like the creme fraiche and not melted cheese on a prime board of flamkuchen, is not to be underestimated). i can't take credit for knowing anything about this, or even where to look, except for a flash of "that reminds me" brilliance enjoyed by a very special friend of mine (find me a source for duck-fat-fried potatoes smothered in cheese curd and gravy and that's the very least of the wonderful things i'll have to say about you) and their subsequent generosity to share the intelligence.

so, putting 2 and 2 together, or ukulele music and heart attack on a plate as it were, you can see how the simple pleasures in life augment each other as they add up. or, more accurately, though 2 and 2 make 4 either way, the next 2, which might well be a charming downtown portland hotel that's walking distance from all this beauty, would make 8 in the geometric progression by which these things naturally combine. (then put the right companion(s) in the room with you, and you're already at 16 or 32 and counting).

so who can say no to this?

not me.

who's in?

always now

"some of the happiest sounding sad songs i've ever written", (with nary a ukulele in sight), sums right up my very latest lowell musical appreciation--peter lavender's "never now"

is it my divorce, or does:

"we're hard pressed to feelin'
it's now or never--
'fraid to think it might be never now"

remind an enlightened one (ok, maybe just an experienced one) of nothing but the blissful freedom from a relationship that never should have been? nope, i can't feel anything but the happy part, even throughout the wistfulness and full experience that forty-something brings to any kid just playing the music that makes 'im feel good. and feeling good is what i get every time i cue up the collection. i get the idea that peter was feeling the same way, putting the collection together with sir bob and the other music wonks hanging around wonka. amazing that life lets people do such things, and the rest of us to be able to listen along after the fact.

i mention the ukulele because it was melvern himself, just moments after i came by the disc, who pointed out the natural musical law of "front-loading the record", and his opinion (shared i should add) that peter seems to delight in flaunting it. (pots and kettles for sure on this one). "and i knew right then beyond the shadow of a doubt / your mother had gotten to you again" alone would make me love the entire record, and it's worth noting that you have to wait for #8 out of 10 before you get to enjoy that particular nugget amidst all the others. (though, in peter's defense, as goes double in melvern's, when you have the wealth of material, it's not easy to figure out which ought to be going first...)

but, besides generally happy, the only other thing i can feel is wonderous that you can walk into a bar down here in shangri-lowell, and get handed such gems just for being there. where else in the world does this happen? i mean, where else in the world does such talent just walk up to you from the cobblestones, share a beer, and the ultimate truth, that viet thai is, indeed, the best place to get your noodles downtown? (asterisks for those present opining that the southeast asian may very well be, too, whose names we'll have to withhold to protect the innocent and stop this whole thing from devolving into nothing but a name-dropping extravaganza, but you know who you are).

the rub of hockey

monday nights i'm always tivoing the big bang theory (cuz it's the greatest show on television) and heroes (cuz it's what my kids watch and i like to keep up with the discussions, which, even though they aren't quite superman vs batman, never fail to entertain) so whenever there's also a bruins game on i'm forced to make some hard choices. lucky for me, the choices aren't really that hard, since there are dozens of establishments within walking distance that are happy to cater to my need for beer and sports television, but i do have one thing to say about such things...

wtf has happened to people around here???

when i was a kid, courtesy of bobby orr, not even eight consecutive championships and an impossible dream could win the bumper sticker battle around town. (jesus saves, but esposito scores on the rebound). there was no red sox nation, don't even make me laugh by asking about the patsies, and larry legend was still wearing his short pants around an unknown elementary school somewhere in indiana. sure, the celts and bill russell and red auerbach and john havlicek were something, but it was something always somewhat less than captain johnny bucyk's big bad bruins. maybe the red sox had a special place in our hearts, but that place was from april to (hopefully) october, and not the other way around. when the weather cooled, the ardor always heated up for the real men in town. and every tv set in the area had a uhf antenna the nanosecond that they announced they were moving the b's telecasts to tv38. (i missed don earle the moment they ran him out of town to philly for being a bit, um, shall we say, candid on the air, and i miss fred cusik and johnny peirson, too).

so what has happened to the hub of hockey??? last night when i arrived at the establishment of my choice, every tv set in the bar had some flavor of football on it, and, yeah, i do understand that mnf is a cultural constant in this country and will likely have to be on *one* of them, but, seriously, WTF??? all of them?????

this year's bruins are something. wherever i am, there's going to be at least one tv set tuned right in. the bartenders of downtown lowell are quickly figuring that out.

the gauntlet

gantlet/gauntlet is an example of so many uniquely english situations where, depending on how you look at it, there is no right answer. i'm a gauntlet guy, so the rest of you gantlet folks can just go pound sand. ;-)

ok, now that we have the *important* stuff out of the way...

my throat is a little sore this morning, and my brain a little slower, (e.g. i replied to an email yesterday with a story that i was quickly informed by my correspondent had already been told "once or twice", which i know is the classic symptom of age and alcohol-related dementia, so there you have that), and it's interesting to contemplate where i've been in the last stretch of days. (jen kearney at the lizard lounge, melvern taylor at the press room, both jen AND melvern at mickey's, not to mention friends' birthday parties, a couple of soccer games complete with pitchers of beer after, and who knows what else i've already forgotten...)

most folks who run into me at more than one of these things in a short span of time, or hear the tales of some of the rest, take the time to comment on my social ubiquity, and i generally scratch my head to wonder why everybody doesn't take opportunity to live their life this way. well, i guess i know why, and the finite nature of personal finance and brain cells are two of the easier to suggest, but it still doesn't explain why most folks don't even make the first step off their couch. i mean, i'm not criticising folks for those times when making no step off ones couch is totally appropriate, like my sunday yesterday in front of the comeback kids, aka this year's new england patriots, but, seriously, it's totally different when the couch is your *last* resort after five straight nights of out instead of your first.

this springs to mind since tomorrow night there's soccer and music again, (melanie driscoll at mickey's), followed by more and better music the next night, (my favorite woman in the world's middle school concert, and, sorry, melanie, for the second billing but i'm sure you understand), followed by the soccer team christmas celebration on thursday, which i will insist will count for two all by itself, but that's what you get when you fill a soccer team with english, irish and scottish players and then toss a couple of frat boy yanks into the pile... i can't even begin to imagine the weekend, though it will be moderated somewhat by the fact that i'll be hitting the hockey circuit with the teenage (i.e. not drinking eligible) progeny and at least somewhat circumspect about everything as a consequence.

warren zevon used to promise that he'd sleep when he was dead, (you go, warren), and i totally understand the sentiment. after all, what's it being saved for? you'll note that some of my activity is not totally unhealthy, (soccer before beer, ole), and i'm leaving out some of the best parts which are personal but do include massage and vegetables in addition to certain other unspecified aerobic activities, and they've always said that music is good for the brain, so there's that, too.

melvern and the boys will be at toad on the 20th, and the whole lowell music scene (it would appear) will be at the worthen on the 23rd, so put 'em on your calendar and get ready to lace up your party shoes. as proven this past saturday night i'm not above making my own friends when i get there, but it's always nice when you can bring your own to the party as well.

so there--not only do i run 'em, but i throw 'em down, too. see you soon!

drunk describing

folks are always admonished not to be drunk driving. (wise policy). they're also advised to be cautious about the drunk dialing. (makes sense, too). but what about drunken descriptions of delightful dins? i'm taking my dare here, and here you go:

somewhere in the engineering plans for the cosmos i'm sure there's an explanation to how and why random events aren't really random. take for instance a passing comment offered at a bar in another state about the possibility for certain musicians to show up and play something on a subsequent night... it's not like the person offering the hint had been planning to pass along the intel when they started out on their evening, nor was it any thought of mine before or during that (first) evening of sonic bliss to have any concern at all for the morning, afternoon, or evening after. and yet...

jen and carl played first, and they were wonderful. they even treated us to "what is and what should never be" on top of "dr. feelgood", and there are no better jen&carl covers than that, unless of course it might be "let love rule", but let's not be greedy here... WONDERFUL.

then melvern taylor and two thirds of his fabulous meltones hit the stage (dave and dave's wife of the incomparable trumpet parts must have been home doing the mr. albee and his missus thing, which, i'm happy to say, was also one of the songs offered during the set, so in addition to some fabulous music we had to do without some of the incomparable guitar parts, but melvern did both his and dave's parts on his uke and that was a treat well worth the sacrifice to finally hear because it was so-o-o good, and, man, i gotta say, all that self-deprecating bs to the contrary, melvern sure can play, and dave and bob are pretty awesome in their own right, and dave especially when he can swing his bass a little, like he did last night at the press room and again tonight, but not at the previous show i caught at nicks because the stage at nicks is about as big as the back seat of a volkswagen, but it's a charming place nonetheless, and where was i?)

i don't mean to imply by a differential in column inches that there's any way to compare or contrast mt&tfm and jk&tlo, only that the alcohol creates run-on sentences in a way that just accelerates the longer you blog, so, jen and carl, next time i'll cover you guys second and then you'll get all the space, though you'd probably wish you were covered first so you could avoid the embarrassment of the semi-lucid ramblings...

AND

while i'm still of a mind to remember...

another local guy, peter lavender, was generous enough to offer a copy of his latest cd and point me to the music blog he upkeeps for the lowell sun, (audio floss), and i'm planning to spin into my druken sleep/stupor with his stuff amped into my earbuds in just a moment, so stay tuned for an update sometime later (when i come to) which will further describe the vicissitudes of serendipity and why it is that lowell is the single greatest place on earth.

i'm a lucky lucky guy.

more seasonal observations

when you get your milk fresh from the guy who gets it fresh from the cow, you buy your way into a whole wonderful world of delicious subtlety that is sadly and completely lost on everybody else.

first of all, if you buy your generic jugs o' milk from generic supermarket chains and their generic checkout people who can barely make change, you know you're buying industrialized product made by industrialized cooperatives in much the same way that anheuser busch industrializes their beer. it's still milk, and that's not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, but it's not MILK, in just the same way that budweiser may do in a pinch when you're out at a ballpark that doesn't know or have any better, but nobody is going to confuse such with a properly made IPA. (longhammer at lelacheur ROCKS). yes, you may not be able to tell the difference in your milk anymore if you've drunk too much of the generic stuff and nothing else over time, but, trust me, the difference is still there.

so careful readers will recall that shangri-lowell is blessed with a local shaw farms distributor, and the ephemeral essence of all-natural, straight-from-the-cow, honest to goodness, milk. some who were not raised on nothing but such nectar of the gods and who are given to trust my judgment on such things even might even be tempted to assume that that's all there is--sine qua non--and that there can be no more. in a way, you wouldn't be wrong, but...

it's a well-known axiom in the dairy business that grass-fed cows yield the sweetest milk, and the first spring grass makes for--hands-down--the sweetest. up here in four-season country, when they put the herd on winter rations that are, unfortunately, a bit heavier on the hay, things can get, shall we say, a bit less spring-time. i can't help but notice that such perfection has been tempered among my morning cheerios recently--it's december, after all--and though there is nothing better to have on ones cheerios each and every day, it must be acknowledged that there can be no *perfect* magic again until spring time.

it's the one drawback to the winter season i've ever found.

one of my many favorite times of year

this morning i had the pleasant fortune to be up with the sun. literally. it rises over the hills of belvidere and streams straight into my windows in an inimitable, remarkable and wonderful way for the next few weeks, and i couldn't be happier.

summer sunshine is up and dazzling within minutes, vertical and bright white. winter sunshine, on the other hand, takes its sweet and wonderful time, horizontal, golden and warm.

there's a way it paints the walls here that you just have to see to understand. there's nothing like it.

the latest

courtesy of mahoneys too in tewksbury (would that be tooksbury?) i've acquired today the latest denizen of shangri-lowell--a very robust 2 1/2 foot norwalk pine, complete with its own clay pot finished in just the right kind of rustic style to go with the surrounding decor. ironically, the little darling is putting me in the short-term market for, of all things, a box of rocks, but that's just so that the pine's inner pot will sit suitably high in its outer one, to maximize the visible greenery. either way, it's just short of perfect for holiday decoration (its one single drawback being the lack of a traditional conical shape) and, in addition to the aforementioned box of rocks, will only need some thoughtfully-chosen ornaments for the new annual tradition.

like any other addition here, it does set off quite a domino effect. (first the rocks, or maybe some colorful marbles instead, then the ornaments, but also a spritzer because the little scamp likes itself moist, and, who knows, maybe some miracle-gro or some such other in the spring when the new growing season arrives upon us, and, not least among all, a nice black clay base tray to complement the main pot and match the black painted iron pipe next to...)

suggestions for decorations warmly appreciated, as will lists of whatever you might delight to find for yourself beneath. can't promise anything, since we're close to the year-opening financial gauntlet to be run by the alimony beholden, but i think it will be very nice to be able to think of all my favorite people by leaving for them there a little something to open on or around the holidays. (hmmm... maybe a nice fuzzy red and green blanket to place beneath the whole production would be festive, too...)

one of the things making me smile most about the whole thing is looking forward to indulging those among my readership (you know who you are) who have a thing for vacuum cleaners, since my new little friend is undoubtedly going to lose a few needles now and again, and there should always now be opportunity for those so inclined to clean up a little.

life is good.

to tree or not to tree?

that is the question. whether 'tis nobler in the mind to track needles all over the building on the way in and out, or (ack) else put up something faux that'll take up space in the closet for a year...

i hate fake trees. there's a kitschy white one in the window of the local haute culture bistro which was pointed out as consistent with certain metrosexual style, and which serves as a pretty compelling reason never to go that far inside my own place for any reason. even the green ones bother.

a natural one would require investment in a stand, some effort to acquire, transport and lug up six floors for a limited engagement after which it will be required to lug back down six floors and locate a suitable disposal site, and starting from scratch on ornamentation. (none came with me in the settlement, what can i say). but the absence of one seems a mite cheerless, especially when there might be kids over.

something small would be ideal... anyone know where one gets apartment-sized conifers these days?

settling in

it's soon to be 12 months in my new digs, and a few things are becoming clear:

i like my kids. name anybody else for whom the "c" word (compromise) would be made over my home decor, and, if you don't believe me, check out the animal print partition/curtain at the top of the stairs. (except i actually kinda like it, too). they're part of my space, and an inseparable part of me, and i like it for sure. (slapshot is waiting on the tivo for the next opportunity to popcorn out).

i like to play soccer. over the winter, i may have as many as four games each week to choose from, though sunday mornings and tuesday nights will be my main diversions. (thursday evenings, too, if things prove enjoyable up in tyngsborough). i like coaching the kids, too.

i like to play and listen to music. my home conservatory has evolved from just a trusty yamaha acoustic (now entrusted to the next generation) to a glossy new black gretsch electromatic and all the trimmings in between, from ukes, to amps, to tab charts, tuners and no end to possible diversions. (we won't even mention the 3 ipods and ever-burgeoning music library with which to play and sing along). just ask me about melvern taylor.

i like to enjoy good food and beer. from portuguese to vietnamese to thai, pub and all sorts of pizza styles, i'm out all over the downtown on a regular basis--and you know how i feel about the deep fried hot dogs. the closet has countless cases of home brew in various stages of empty on the way to my next brewing trip, and the fridge sports leftovers from all over eastern massachusetts. (i think i'm beginning to figure out where that last 10 lbs came from).

i like sex. ('nuff said).

i like having a wide range of good friends, for whom how people treat each other is more important than anything else, and with whom i can pursue soccer, music, food, beer, sex (when appropriate) and whatever else strikes our fancy, like afternoon games down at the ballpark, or hockey over at the arena, or a cruise through the local galleries on a saturday afternoon, or jen kearney at the lizard lounge on thursday, or melvern taylor at the press room up in portsmouth on friday...

it's been a very good year.

muscle memory

lets put this frankly: i am not now going to be, nor have i ever in the past been, confused with a real musician. true, i was incarcerated once upon a piano bench for an hour a week as a child, though, not only didn't it take, but it also left me with a profound antagonism towards the whole "muscle memory" process and quite beyond the hope of any sort of musical salvation. if only someone had thought to teach me to play something i actually enjoyed, as opposed to the drivel they parse out in those keyboard primers...

then somewhere amidst the drunken haze of my idyllic college weekends, i discovered that certain (i.e. liberated) musicians were truly free to play whatever they pleased, and not just what the instructor (mom, in my case, so you can just go figure) ordered. who knew! though there were a fair number of us who used to spend a lot of those wee hours clambering into line with our favorite lps so that e.b. could plug in his strat and let us share in his pleasure to play along, there were fewer of us who took the initiative a few years later to buy a used acoustic and pretend for ourselves. retiring sometimes as i do amidst the drunken haze of my idyllic middle-aged weekends, i can faithfully assure all who may have missed it of how much fun it is to let the noodling take one and ones inebriated self where it will. (in the privacy of ones own place to save embarrassment and the imposition on others, naturally). i even rigged a couple of guitar hangers beside the bed so as never to have to stagger too far for a fix.

being as i am never satisfied, (just ask the ex), and how enough is never, the bedroom acoustic has more recently propogated itself into a veritable collection of self-indulgences. there's the original electric hanging alongside it, (a cheap Peavey strat-knockoff that's really ultimately good for very little), and the newer electric (a beautiful if i do say so myself black gretsch electromatic hollow body with a bigsby tailpiece and a charming little fender tube amp to go with) down in the living room, (oh, yeah, there is that tasty little peavey amp unit there too, with the reverb and aptly monickered saturation knobs right there on the box, which lets one go up to eleven when one needs), and, piece de la ultime resistance, an all-mahogany kala tenor uke kept lovingly inside its very own hygromatically-controlled environment/slash/case so as not to suffer when the dry heat comes up this winter. (the hilo uke on the hanger in the living room is not much more than a toy, though still fun for being so easy to reach).

yes, all of it is way outside proper proportion to whatever muscle memory could possibly make sing without causing cringes all around, but i think that is exactly the point. my enjoyment has been increasing (leaping) in direct proportion to the quality of what i'm putting into it, and that means both the means (i'm loving the gretsch, and absolutely ADORING the kala) and the motivation. (see drunken haze above, but also how to keep ones fingers occupied while otherwise being motivated to use them to toss mill bricks at tv screens as ones pats commence to fumbling four out of nine touches in the third quarter). there are even copious web sites with sheet music and tabulatures and karaoke-esque play-alongs to keep one going when one is hungry for a taste of something new. ("tonight you belong to me", "crazy", "walkin' after midnight", "brown-eyed girl" and "blitzkrieg bop" being the most recent, and, i think, after seeing the lyrics written down all plain as day like that, i'm pretty much set on what joey and deedee and the rest of the boys were really saying back then, which isn't anything much at all to do with b.s. gangland and/or rock show mayhem like everybody was originally terrified and/or thrilled about to hear, so it's pretty funny like all the rest of their stuff turns out to be when you finally get it, and, yeah, pretty much funnier that it's taken me 32 years to be decided on how i'm going to take it, but, hey, that's the joy of a great song). "they're pilin' in the back seat, generatin' steam heat, pulsing to the back beat--blitzkrieg bop!"

who doesn't love a song like that?

so the joy i have to report this morning is probably impossible to convey via written word in the first place, but i'm going to try anyway: somewhere between rhythm and lead there are fills that flesh out a great song and help (in my mind, anyway) distinguish a proper player from a strummer. brown eyed girl has always been one of those songs that stands brilliant witness to the concept for me, and i'm not saying it won't sound completely broken and impossible for anyone else but me to hear it when i try, but i now have my first experience beyond the border of utter harmonic uselessness, and i'm hooked. (yet again).

"down in the hollow, playing a new game"...

"blitzkrieg bop"