indulge me

on the right hand side of the blog page here there's a "links" section. i've moved a few things around today because there's something that just has to be heard to be believed. further down, of course, would be the melvern taylor and populuxe goodies with which you're already intimately familiar, (right?), but right at the top i've moved the amiestreet widget from which you can, at will, resurrect the echoes of the one and only lowell george. (and his partners in crime paul barrere and richie hayward from the sounds of it, and likely kenny gradney way underneath). just push the little "play" triangle and tell me this isn't the most. just tell me. lo-fi, no-fi, it doesn't matter. oh the man could write and play and sing.

a little while later the band had evolved it to this, but i'm blown away with the immediacy of the little stripped down demo. all that money they're wasting on recording equipment these days, and you know it'll never buy what this guy's got.

rock on, lowell

pssst

though melvern isn't advertising it on his website, toad in cambridge is confirming on theirs that melvern taylor and his fabulous meltones will be early-showing it on the 2nd, 16th and 30th of april right there in beautiful downtown porter square--no excuses about work on fridays, since the whole thing wraps up before 30 rock comes on, and you know you're staying up to watch that anyway.

good beer, great tunes, and beautiful people. what could be better?

the secret

apparently, when you arrange to book a show at mickey's on a monday night, when they're not usually open, then the big screen projection tv does NOT have to be on while the music is playing. yeah! and play it did.

arte kenyon brought his crew to the stage to run through the songs from his brand new cd "be a man", and it was good. very good. carl johnson pulled out the resonator to back arte's "red moon in the morning", and the train kept a rollin' right on from there. wayne morgan's harp was sharp. steve esposito's keys were key. rick burgess' fiddle was my-t-fine. jen kearney took a turn at the mic backing up arte for the chorus of "no more crying". and arte's stand-up bass was stand-up and sweet all throughout.

it's great to see musicians playing for themselves as much as for anybody. "why i always end up alone" prompted a post-show discussion about how a simple piece of music can sound like anything you please, from the stones "dead flowers" (as was suggested arte first introduced it to the band) to how it hit the stage last night somewhere between eric clapton channeling danny flowers ("living on tulsa time") and even the only-the-best parts of billy ray cyrus ("achy breaky heart").

the other thing that struck me, apropos of "she's got a thing for me", (arte's self-confessed one happy song, though i think he's winking when he says it), that everybody in this extended family of lowell musicians honestly and earnestly has a thing for each other in a way that few other musical families can match. (right, mssr's fleetwood and mac?) it's a treat to be able to just sit somewhere out in the audience and lean back in the chair and enjoy.

i can't has THAT cheez

it can make the burger, among many other and countless gastronomical delights, and it comes is such a large number of delightful varieties as to always offer something worthwhile. yet, inexplicably, there are people in this world who just don't get it, and i'm not sure if i'll ever be able to figure that out.

for example, take the philly cheese steak--the "original" is supposedly (i could never take it upon myself to order an abomination like it, so i may never know) concocted with the help (sinking curse?) of cheez whiz, while everybody north and east of the connecticut river knows that a real cheese steak proper gets made with mushrooms and provolone...

ahh, provolone. while i was scooping the all organic cage free eggs out of the $50 swiss army egg skillet today, (with mushrooms, of course), and savoring the salivation caused by just looking at the rich silken strands of melted provolone stringing up from the pan, i recalled a question i had been asked just a couple of days ago, at the littleton sub shop regarding my large genoa. "what kind of cheese? american, or..."

PROVOLONE. i never even gave him a chance to finish his sentence. why do they even ask?

it goes on everything that goes between two pieces of bread. yeah, it can usefully be substituted sometimes with a slab of swiss or muenster or other appropriate mild and semi-soft delight, but it can never be topped, so why do they even make american cheese at all??? (we won't even ask about cheez whiz, because i'm sure that it involved a deal with the devil and we'll all be still paying for it on into infinity).

i'm not advocating the use of provolone in all contexts, as there's a cheese for every occasion, but there's no occasion for american cheese, and that's a fact.

the bottom of the sea at the blue mermaid

in my collection of this-song-there, inaugurated by "bowling in billerica" in billerica, and advanced through "salisbury beach" within spitting distance of salisbury beach, i'm happy again to report that i've added "the bottom of the sea" at a bar called the blue mermaid in portsmouth to my list of melvern taylor experiences, and life is good.

at said venue i further had the pleasure of the company of a whole collection of like-minded melvern groupies, one of whom coincidentally shared the name of an old high school classmate of mine, not to mention a piece of a round of harpoon ipa's, i think just cuz i knew the words. (i'll bet if you count the number of free beers you'll get while listening to any other band you'll never match what you'll enjoy at mt&tfm shows, but please be kind not to take too much advantage of us, k?)

she agreed in principle that "bottom of the sea" could very well be melvern's saddest song, (though couldn't speak first-hand for not yet having had kids), on the premise that the rest of us who can't just write and sing such beautiful songs to our sons and daughters because we can are always going to be bereft of something magical and wonderful, much like girls that one might be able to meet on the bottom of the sea.

dave, we missed ya, (and your trumpet fairy-tale princess, too), but johnny and bob and melvern held the fort and it'll be soon enough we can head down to toad and hopefully pay back all the rounds we owe to all our very best new friends, and hear the real deal once again.

brian porker

if the artist is to be believed, graham parker penned his literary alter ego "brian porker" in homage to an airline conversation in which his seatmate insisted on hearing "brian porker" instead of "graham parker", and then graham included him (brian, that is) in a collection of stories entitled "carp fishing on valium" for no better reason other than he could. and let's just say walter mitty enjoys nothing at all on brian, at least if graham's between-songs patter is any indication, and brian's exploits make for quite the show on top of all that.

yes, the best part of my evening spent listening to graham playing his guitar and singing last friday night, was to marvel at how intense and current my appreciation for graham's inimitable and myriad modes of self-expression continues to be, brian porker included. there was a hit or two (or three or four) in there to round out the evening, all warmly received by the crowd, but there were so many new experiences for me that i hardly noticed the familiar ones at all. (ok, i did notice how well he breathed life into "heat treatment", but that's not the point).

hands down my biggest blown-away moment was getting my head around "brain surgery". brian apparently is not always a good boy, (as might be expected for being one of graham's alter egos), and in this particular sonic sonnet he goes completely classic horror movie and croons couplets like "i'd like to bore a hole in your head with a laser beam / then with a scalpel take out the parts that bother me". is it my divorce again, or has graham parker once again found a way to say something that everybody secretly knows is in themselves, even while they also know how badly they'd hate to have to admit it to anyone, perhaps even including themselves. (or is it just me, and my own personal section of the soon-to-be-released dsm-v?) "there's something missing deep in your skull that must be found / i need to perform an exploratory [pronounced by the englishman as 'exploratree'] and poke around". ahh, the joys of experiencing love relationships through the prism of a joyously angry (not) young man...

i'm sure a lot of folks will think askance about my appreciation for lyrics like that, but i really can't feel guilty about loving every single one of these songs. (ask me about brian's foray into auditioning to replace mick jagger, who, in brian's/graham's imagining of the story has been hit by a manhattan bus and left keith richards and the boys bereft of a frontman-slash-mealticket, and prompted our hero--i just can't bring myself to call him an antihero, much like i must always maintain a soft spot for my favorite un-pc t-shirt guy--to write a song called "custom fanny"). (yes, in the english sense of the word).

or, put another way, if i find myself having to stack parentheses upon parentheses in order to try to explain why and how much i love something, then i know that it's something that's just right for me. you all can just roll your eyes and wonder if i'm ever coming back, and, maybe, it might seem like i will... but i won't, not really. graham parker has always been one of my favorites, and he just keeps getting more and more favorite every time i hear him.

(i even taught myself all the chords from brain surgery and wrote down all the lyrics, so i can practice...)

heather unruh update

hi all,

i know you've been curious, so here's the latest recap of heather unruh queries to lead people to this blog site over the past week:

heather unruh photo,
heather unruh eyeglasses,
what is heather unruh birthday [sic]
heather unruh, bathing suit

(you know the list would be neither complete nor credible without a bathing suit inquiry)

AND!!!

just so the rest of the journalists at wcvb can know that they're not all completely forgotten, in the past week some poor soul arrived here as the result of one random "mary saladna hair" query.

you can't make this stuff up. (at least i can't).

fascination

i'll admit it--i'm fascinated by the floodwaters in north dakota. actually, i'm generally fascinated by almost any big, intractible problem that seems simple on its surface to solve, but really isn't, and this is just a perfect example. (i mean, what could be more straightforward than stacking a few sandbags?) so, in the course of enjoying contemplation of fluid dynamics on an epic scale, (not to mention the rarity of circumstances under which it's necessary to send the coast guard to north dakota), i came across a tiny little aside in one of today's news stories which has really raised things to a whole new fascination level for me.

see, most of the major (i.e. epic flood-worthy) rivers in the united states flow to the south. this means that they also coincidentally enjoy a latitudinally-gradual snow melt that runs complementary to their course and the northward arrival of warm weather. sure, they might flood in the spring, but at least they tend to flood in a somewhat gradual and non-castrophic way.

however, in north dakota, and other places party to the lake winnipeg watershed, the exact opposite dynamic is in play. snow melts at the head of the river instead of the foot, with the water involved in which generally finding itself stacking up behind each successive bottleneck of ice still clogging the colder parts downstream. (regardless of how they might look "up" on the map). all on top of this, and if you've taken a moment to google-map peek at the red you've immediately seen how, the incessant looping and bending of that particular river holds endless and extreme opportunity for such melting and bottlenecking.

so here we have the 500 year flood. here we have the army corps of engineers, and our doughty coastguarders, along with every manner of private demolitioner, frantically trying to bust the ice clogs so that the pent up and nigh-onto-biblical flood can be relieved in as controlled a manner as possible, while the inexorable rising tide remains far beyond their power to mitigate. here we have tens of thousands of volunteers, filling and stacking sandbags to heights never before achieved, and still quite possibly short of what will be required to stave off the potentially (likely?) inevitable.

epic.

i'm rooting for the people in this one. i really am. and i'm respecting mother nature to know that, if the people in this one are, indeed, successful, that they'll have done it against almost every possible element arrayed against them. epic. heroic. and all to be repeated again, unless and until someone finds a more complementary way to coexist, rather than compete, with nature.

go bisons, and go fighting sioux. (til the frozen four--then it'll be all hockey east for me).

42

the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy tells us that 42 is the secret of the universe. sandbaggers in fargo north dakota were figuring yesterday that, 42 being bigger than 41, which was to be the originally-predicted high-water mark of the rising red river, 42 was indeed going to be their cosmic lucky number. this morning, after piling enough sandbags to reach that magic height above mean high water, they indeed thought they were going to be in the cosmic clear... however, forecasts today are that the red river may very well not be satisfied with 41, or even 42 for that matter, and that unless someone can figure out how to deal with 43 vertical feet of river, a lot of people are quite likely going to be getting their feet wet before this is over.

first let's all agree that this is tragic beyond most people's imaginations. in 1889, johnstown pennsylvania was literally erased from the map when the south fork dam gave way in the face of half a foot of rain in a 24 hour period, and four square miles of human habitation, and 2200 people, were gone in an instant. perhaps the levees and dikes around fargo won't give way with that same amount of instantaneous force, but it's not hard to imagine the potential for something dire. when i was a boy, a smaller confluence at jonestown, pa got my wires crossed with the similarities in the name. driving with my grandparents to see houses flooded up to their roofs gave me no reason not to believe i was seeing the great flood itself, and not just a tiny echo of the real thing, experienced in the real place almost a hundred years before. i cannot even imagine what it must feel like to realize that the roof is your own, and all that you have, if you're not sitting right beside your family, might very well be lost.

since it's too late to go back and change the stakes, and consider the up-not-out alternatives, we beyond the reaches of the red river should all be grateful that we do not face the peril now facing our fellow humanity. i never really thought that the sandbags might not be enough, or i never could have written that piece yesterday.

today, it seems that fema may be getting their proverbial second chance...

let's all keep a good thought that lessons have been learned, and that the good people from fargo will not have to endure that which was endured by the good people of louisiana and alabama.

second in the universe only to compound interest...

as we've already observed that the most powerful force in the universe is compound interest, and further observing that north dakota state bisons have been observed actively and cheerfully cooperating with university of north dakota fighting sioux in manufacturing sandbags on the floor of the fargodome all week against all the laws of human nature, perhaps we should take a moment to reflect on the second most powerful force in the universe, which, if you haven't been introduced yet, would be good ol' H2O.

years ago, when i first discovered the physics of ice dams, and the stark truth that all northern homeowners need to know, (that water, indeed, can flow uphill), i discovered that there's a lot people don't know and don't respect about water. (like, for example, that freezing water exerts a force greater than 1000--that's ONE THOUSAND--atmospheres, and is more powerful than absolutely anything found in nature, and while they've tried building pipes out of various super-strong materials, even to widths many feet thick, they still haven't found anything to contain it). the other fascinating super-fact i've learned about water is that its refusal to be compressed, (even liquid water resists compression to a degree almost no other substance in the universe can match), and the basic physics of F=MA, lead to equally inevitable results whenever anything or anyone attempt to bottle up increasing quantities of its liquid form, too, which brings us back to the sandbaggers in fargo and elsewhere in the obama-declared disaster area that is north dakota.

flood plains and oceans are nature's ingenious answer to the spacial supremacy of water, which is to say, nature always surrenders and just keeps spreading it out until it has all the space it wants. however, people, generally being quite unnatural, generally refuse to acknowledge what nature has been trying to tell them all along, (ave, katrina), and keep building things that are intended to keep the water out and/or in. but here's the thing... a river being only so wide, the only direction a surplus of water will have to go, if not allowed to flood horizontally, will be to flood vertically, at least until the limit of the levees and the sandbags are reached, at which point see the first point about flood plains and the parenthetical aside about katrina. you can stack as high as you want, but the water will decide where it wants to go.

the only other hope in the equation is the A part, (that is, acceleration), and speeding the water down its course to wherever it wants to go. this week a whole collection of organizations, including, believe it or not, the coast guard, along with the good ol' army corps of engineers, got to play with their explodables, (which, i'm sure, was a lot of fun for a lot of folks), trying to blow up the car-sized chunks of ice which had jumbled up to inhibit the river flow and back up all that super-powered water to volumes which would otherwise overwhelm all the dikes. who knows how successful the effort has been, because the rivers are still rising, but i've got to think that folks might ought to find other ways around these sorts of problems.

one suggestion might be to build up instead of out, so that the water can spread out instead of up. raising a roadway (or a house foundation) a few feet seems a lot more reliable than trying to figure out how many sandbags (the red river is predicted to crest 52 feet above its normal flood-stage course), it might take to keep all that water in place vertically. think about it--a river a hundred yards wide rising 50 feet would only fill a mile-wide flood plain to a depth of 3 feet. it's a choice. the reason we've seen all these catastrophic flood pictures with houses inundated up to their roofs is because we've spent so much effort limiting the "out" dimension, and left the water only with "up" to go. and, you know how water is, no matter what we prefer, it's gonna go.

we've got a choice, ya know?

MFT

awhile back i had the somewhat rare (for me, anyway) experience of appreciating melvern sans dave, and the coincident discovery of melvern's exceptional playing, in addition to his prodigious songwriting, singing, bandleading and other talents. (i'm compelled to point out that the fabulous meltones MAKE melvern's sound, so if you haven't heard dave, you haven't really heard, so don't mistake this as being about anything but clear-eyed compromise).

the distinction is important because saturday's show up at the blue dolphin in portsmouth is for something tongue-in-cheekily called the "melvern taylor trio", (i.e. sans dave, which is perhaps because, as i understand it, his evah-luvin may be leading a middle school production that very same evening, and, as i've met the said evah-luvin, i have absolutely not a moments misunderstanding as to why dave would be there and not bar-bluesing up in portsmouth, but don't let me digress), and i wouldn't want anyone to invest the travel without understanding at least that much. for me, the event is particularly remarkable because the stars are aligning around my 15-year-old's interest to hear the music, along with the blue dolphin's willingness to admit under-agers to their shows with parent accompaniment, so i will look forward to melvern's virtuosity and sharing a little something of interest to me with my progeny. win-win, and we won't worry about the lose part (i.e. the sans dave part) because i'm sure he'll be back with the boys for a show soon enough, and you know i'll be there. we'll also just trust to luck that either my son will love the show as much as i do, or loathe it to that same degree because of how i love it as much as i do, (as teen-aged sons are frequently inclined just because they are teen-aged sons), and then be able to extract his enjoyment out of evening over the course of the next decades of his life teasing me about something (i.e. ukulele music) that old folks ought to be prepared to be teased about. again, win-win.

so, short version: melvern taylor is at the blue dolphin in portsmouth on saturday night after 10pm, and, as always, it's worth the trip.

see ya there!

kids these days

i just saw twilight. i want my two hours back.

"smart money"

the biggest crock going on wall street is the concept of "smart money". i suppose, in one sense, it's not so far off in relative terms, since when the sheep start to panic sell (or binge buy), lots of folks who have seen it all before are always there to grab the bargains and sell the crap and take all the money, as far as that passes for "smart". but the real euphemism ought to be "insider money" (arrayed in the market against the "stupid money", so you can see how lopsided the contest is likely to be), and there ought to be a warning label (scratch-and-sniff to be fully appropriate) about how the insider money is always going to lie and steal in order to cheat you out of your fair share.

however!

unlike losing your money at a casino, where the house truly IS smarter than you, the good news about going into the market against insiders, liars and thieves is that they're not always terribly smart, nor even aware of you and your tiny portfolio, and they're actually quite easily manipulated themselves, if you're patient and thoughtful enough to find the opportunities.

take our recent discussions about citi and aig: in the process of fleecing the foolhardy who sold sold sold as their investments tanked tanked tanked, the greedy, lying, thieving robber barons kept riding the profit merry-go-round down down down to the point of silliness. 33 cents a share for an institution that any fool could see the government was never going to let fail? i'm quite sure the only reason they kept letting the price keep falling is that they knew there were still rubes panicked enough to want to get out at any cost, so why not keep waiting on the sidelines for the bottom to show up, and simply make that much more money when it was finally time to buy in?

now i'm not recommending trying to guess when the fat, greedy, lying, cheating cats are going to decide the bottom is reached, because that's where the idiots and the day traders get handed their margin calls. but i am suggesting that you can watch the shenanigans from the sideline and pretty much tell when the worst is over. (i.e. when the bank is finally forced to admit that they're actually running at a profit, so as not to deserve any more pork barrel handouts anymore, or when the "insurance" company cum hedge fund points out how far the losing positions have been unwound to much the same effect). so you miss the first 50% gains, (the pure profit of the purloiners, which should be another rant for another time and something for consideration for criminal charges), but you do catch the uphill-running tiger by its tail in time enough to stay for a nice profitable little ride. (like i said, i'm already safely out of citi and aig for the full amount of my original investment, and i'm sitting pretty with beaucoup shares of both, set aside to offset the burden of the taxation that will be necessary to have allowed their resurrection in the first place).

so the real suggestion is this: aig at a buck was a bargain. (it's not so bad at a buck fifty, either). there are a lot of folks in this country who could afford to take a flyer on 100 shares of it. (so why didn't/don't they???). the fact that today's market will dip at the start means that anybody and everybody can get in and grab some on the down-tick. no excuses.

somebody ought to be teaching the real world to kids in school, including how to balance a checkbook, how to calculate compound interest, and how to understand financial statements and equity markets to the extent of being able to recognize a stone cold bargain when it presents itself. the object is not to get rich or make a killing, (for that you need to become a lying, cheating thieving insider), but to get yourself of the equity side of capitalism before the interest and taxes side shows up to take all your lunch and retirement money. trust me, if you work for a living, you WILL be gouged and taxed (yes, cheated) out of a large portion of the fruits of your labors, in order to enrich the privileged few. the key is to get your feet into both boats, so to speak, and enrich yourself to a similar extent as you're getting fleeced, so it all ends up even.

rule #1: compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe. (maybe albert einstein actually said it, like is commonly attributed, or maybe he didn't, but that doesn't mean it's not true). compound interest IS the most powerful force in the universe. so get on the right side of it. save. (think of it as "pay yourself first"). never pay interest (or buy insurance) on anything not absolutely required. (it's hard to buy a house without a mortgage, and they get you with compulsory coverage on your car, too, so consider the fact that you're already losing big before you even get started). don't borrow or insure anything else except your health. no outstanding credit card balances. no service contracts. NOTHING. if you're already in debt, pay it off before you buy anything else. no new tv's. no new cars. no fancy dinners out. this is economic war, and you're losing. get back in the game.

rule #2: owners win. renting your living space can make sense in certain short-term conditions. it absolutely can be cheaper than burying yourself in debt in a bad real estate market. but there's a reason people become landlords, and that's because they make more in profit than it costs to own, and, guess what, you're the one footing that bill. goes double for equities. there's a reason businesses sell you tv's and cars and stuff. they make a profit. if you're buying that stuff, better make sure you're cut in for your share of the profit, or somebody else will be very glad that you're enriching them on both ends.

rule #3: republicrats are the enemy. yes, i know, many readers will urgently prefer to argue that it's really the democrats (or republicans) who are the enemy. only trouble is, the rest of the readers will urgently prefer to argue that it's really the republicans (or the democrats) who are the enemy. and guess what--they're both so wrong that it gives me ulcers just to think about it. repeat after me: republicrats are the enemy. the senate banking committee has been run by one or the other since we've all been born, and this mess is not because one or the other wasn't running it since we've all been born. think about it, and review the campaign contributions from aig and citi and all the rest of the worst of the worst. they've contributed lavishly to BOTH, because they know that as long as the two of them are kicking the committee chairmanships back and forth to each other like little cash-stuffed footballs, that the money train is going to keep on chugging and chugging for them and their graft-besotted pocket politicos. and that's what they want. status quo. republicrat hegemony over all the perks and pork. so STOP it. rip up your voter registration/affiliation and tell city hall you want a new one that says you're UNENROLLED. because otherwise they use you as a proxy down in washington (and over on beacon hill) to keep the never-ending debate about coke vs pepsi, i mean, republicrat vs republicrat, going non-stop so that no other competitors or ideas can ever wedge their way into the discussion. yeah, some will try to whine that the preponderance of democrats in boston makes being a republican somehow less offensive here in this state, but that's such a load of crap that i don't even know where to start. mitt romney chose his affiliation for the same reason that you need to stop yours. it's corrupt. period.

there WILL be a quiz.

bottom feeding

citibank is trading over $3 today, up from less than a buck two weeks ago. aig is pushing $1.50, up from 33 cents. if you had been conservative, and waited and bought the day AFTER citi and b of a announced running the first two months of 2009 at a profit, you'd still be up over 100% on each, been able to sell half your holdings today to recoup your entire original investment--and you'd still be sitting in the market with who knows how many free shares of previously-trainwrecked financial services stock. considering that your taxes will be vastly inflated over the next several decades in order to pay for the resurgence of these two securities, it's not a bad hedge, if i do say so myself. (and i do say so myself, since i can today pat myself on the back for having done exactly this over the past week and a half).

buy when everybody else is selling, and then hold. that's my motto. (nstar is still going gangbusters since its nadir a couple years back, complete with dividends). if only i were making buffett-sized market bets, i might actually be getting somewhere...

peer pressure

yesterday morning while playing soccer i experienced a coincidence of the sharpest point of someone else's flailed elbow against the boniest (i.e. thinnest-skinned) protrusion of the bridge of my nose. as skin stretched over bone is wont to do when thusly struck, there was a spontaneous split of some depth, though minimal width and only moderate blood. a few damp paper towels cleaned up the latter, and the convenience of the former enabled employment of a small adhesive in place of attention from any medical professionals, and that, as they say, was that.

it occurred to me while peering at the bone of the bridge of my nose in the bathroom mirror immediately following the incident, that some might recommend suturing as a potential treatment. however, just as immediately, i calculated that the width of the injury could likely accommodate little more than a single stitch, (two at the absolute most), and and i could only imagine the conversations i would have to have later about it--potentiall having to use the singular. "yeah, it was so bad i had to have a stitch put in". ugh.

peer pressure is a fascinating thing. it doesn't even have to be real, (in fact, it's most effective regardless of whether or not it's real), in order to completely run our behavior. (sports injuries are a guy thing, in case you can't relate in this one specific circumstance). the thoughts running through my head immediately after went to hockey players getting teeth knocked out and gashes inside and outside of their mouth repaired with a few dozen sutures in the locker room and then coming back out to finish the game, and i knew that, even IF this little trifle would be suited for such things, i'd be too embarrassed to ever consider it as a treatment option. slap a strip of tape across it 'til it stops bleeding and that's that.

it's not even bruised to the point that you could even guess what had happened. just a little redness and puffiness around a little zip of a crease. (yup, i'm even a little disappointed...)

juries of ones peers

a-rod is once again on the unfortunate side of our scandal-sotted tabloid press, this time for showing up among the client list of eliot spitzer's social secretariat. tsk tsk and all that.

what occurs to me this morning is, however, that we're being awfully quick to judge someone whose circumstances most of us can't really know, and as much as any sox fan'll tell you all about the scourge of all things a-rod, it's entirely possible that we're the ones being a bit ill-behaved. yup, he's perhaps guilty of a crime, and that'll be for the county prosecutors to figure out, but the rest of it is quite likely a very good example of why our founders saw fit to make an important distinction about juries of ones peers.

let's face it: very few of us are a-rod's peer, and i'm not even talking about his prodigious baseball talent. i mean, how many people do you personally know who are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, possessed of a greek sculptor's ideal of a physique, (no snickers about steroids, please), and are in the prime of their sexual lives? shame on a-rod, of course, for his divorce, and all he may have done in contribution toward it, but there arises an interesting social challenge out of such difficulties that a healthy person of healthy appetites just might find a a trifle complicated by the coincidence of wealth and attractive personal appearance.

digressing a moment to muse on the exigencies of running a professional sports franchise these days, and having to worry about the personal habits of your team full of prodigiously rich boys of possibly unlimited appetite and potentially limited intellect, one is struck by the likely quantity and quality of indoctrination that would necessary in order to moderate their behavior. i'd be willing to bet that the yankees, as an organization, despite frequent appearance of their employees among the ny scandal sheets, or, perhaps most likely because of them, would have one of the most impressive of such behavior modification programs on the planet, and that a-rod has likely endured more such brainwashing than even most raised-lutheran folks.

so, imagine: you're told to be wary of skirts offering "gifts" to the point of physical aversion. there's the usual concerns for personal hygiene, of course, but also, as any student of de-facto-professional college athletics will tell you, there's baby mamas and posse (or is entourage the word these days?) malefactors and all sorts of unscrupulous procurers of all sorts of disreputable substances, (right, a-rod?), and no end to the trouble you can get into when you leave yourself open to relying on the poeple you might meet while out on the town for your friendships. so, of course, it's eminently reasonable to remain tight among your long-term acquaintences for the camaraderie, and more at a loss regarding the more physical longings you may have. and then somebody tells you about this person they know...

what's the going rate among spitzers spiffies? ten grand a night? twenty? who even knows. but what i do know is that alex rodriguez could blow his nose with hundred dollar bills and still think it just as relatively economic as kleenex, and drop 20 G's on a night out every single night of the week and still not compromise his standard of living one little bit.

so, you tell me: roll the dice on a very-likely substance-challenged, all for the cash and in-a-heartbeat baby mama behind every "hi alex", or enjoy a nice, discreet, (only illegal if you get caught), companion who will keep you safe from the ire of your employers and their boot camp drill sergeants and their thousand little rules on personal behavior with "the public"? i gotta figure, despite the illegality and the tabloid shame he's now enduring owing to our own bad behavior and related lack of empathy, that a-rod still made a better decision in this situation than a lot of his peers ever could or would. (mindy mccready, anyone?)

alarmed

troopers of the missouri state highway patrol have recently and officially been advised to pay specific attention to motorists displaying political support for ron paul, chuck baldwin and/or bob barr. (republican, constitution party and libertarian candidates for president in 2008). signatories on the memo include missouri governor, jay nixon.

glenn beck of fox news (of all places) had this astute observation:

"the democrats have taught us not to trust the republicans. the republicans have taught us not to trust the democrats, and so we didn't. and then we realized, [have we yet???] oh, my gosh, they're both lying to us. they don't actually stand for a single principle."

equating support for a political candidate with "domestic terrorism" is chilling to me. glenn beck's quote above is followed by a question: "so now what happens?"

you tell me.

zack and miri make a pretty forgettable movie

last night, with a couple hours to kill before the 10pm game, i filled up on a little fluff of a movie by kevin smith called "zack and miri make a porno". of course, if you originally noticed this film nationally advertised, or on sale at wal-mart, you might have seen the title "zack and miri", and been poorly prepared for the half-hearted attempts at ribaldry, as in, hardly pornography, but definitely not erotica, either.

kevin smith is one of those people for whom i reserve a healthy benefit of all doubts. (recalling the free pass i maintain for a local t-shirt savant, but that's a story for in-person, so ask me later). clerks was good enough to earn the distinction all by itself, and his "silent bob" character is pure genius in absolutely everything in which its appeared, but if you haven't seen dogma then shut your browser window right down and go out and rent one of the most inspired movies ever made and you'll understand me completely. (we love you, george carlin). (i'll happily see 1000 dogs as back-payment for each minute of that film...)

so i was willing to ignore the criticisms (you'll never see anything worth seeing if you wait for critics to agree on anything anyway) and download via my tivo (the greatest way to rent movies yet invented) the little trifle, and i fired it up over some dinner and while the bruins got recorded. (gotta have something to watch while winding down from a soccer game that doesn't end 'til 11pm). well, the movie wasn't quite as disappointing as the bruins last night, so there's that. but the nagging regret when all is filmed and done is, hard to believe that i'm saying it, that elizabeth banks is as beautiful as she is. you can't help but realize that the whole inspired cast (traci lords, for one) deserves better than a cliche to round out their overall absence of one, (jason mewes is jaw-droppingly unbelievable, for example), but we're given hollywood when we ought to be given more-more-more of seth rogan (as the most lovable of un-lovables) and the rest of kevin's band of merries. don't get me wrong, i loved elizabeth in "role models" (another fluff of a movie) and i think casting her as laura in "dubya" is inspired, but you *know* the part is just wrong looking that way, as hard as elizabeth tries to crass it up with the rest of 'em.

so i'm forgetting it already, but i'm reminded that i haven't seen dogma in awhile, so there's that...

my theory is that kevin is just showing off that a sense of humor trumps everything else when getting the girl. (when you get that jennifer schwalbach, kevin's real-life wife, plays the high school reunion bitch that gets the full brunt of seth rogan on the way in, the whole movie starts to get very surreal).

do lunch

tuesday the 24th down at cafe aiello--11 am if you feel like being an earlybird, though later works just fine, too--you can lunch with some very interesting people, if you're willing to overlook the fact that i might be there, too. (you heard it here, not here, first).

give a heads-up if you're a chess player, and i'll bring my set.

outrage

lawrence b. wilkerson, ex-chief of staff to then-secretary of state colin powell, has has avowed via the internet, and now the associated press that as few as two dozen of the remaining 240 gitmo detainees are actual terrorists, while the other TWO HUNDRED PLUS are, and have always been, innocent men, collected by mistake, and then detained these past SEVEN YEARS to avoid the appearance of executive (i.e. rumsfeld's and cheney's) mismanagement.

i am sickened, but not surprised.

per the ap:

"in his posting for the washington note blog, wilkerson wrote that "u.s. leadership became aware of this lack of proper vetting very early on and, thus, of the reality that many of the detainees were innocent of any substantial wrongdoing, had little intelligence value, and should be immediately released. former defense secretary donald rumsfeld and vice president dick cheney fought efforts to address the situation, wilkerson said, because 'to have admitted this reality would have been a black mark on their leadership.' "

instead, dick cheney has been publically casting black marks upon obama's moral decision to release the detainees who have always been innocent men. wilkerson's take:

"to have a former vice president fearmongering like this is really, really dangerous".

i am sickened, but not surprised.

grief

grief is a troublesome emotion, that can grip us in a chokehold from behind without warning, and leave us rudderless and bereft--or it can just flit by, a hair's breadth out of conscious reach, even while we know we ought to be feeling it more acutely. luckily, we hold funerals as much for the living as for those who have died, and that allows all of us to participate, regardless of which way the grief devil has taken us. this week, as most will know, liam neeson and vanessa redgrave will be burying their vital, beautiful and beloved forty-five year old wife and daughter, while two boys, just 12 and 13 years old, will now have to face life forevermore without their mother. it's a tragedy, and a reminder of life's fragility, though how many of us will know the depth of the private grief of those who have lost so dearly?

almost lost amidst the headlines over the weekend is the story of a 14 year old harvard girl who was killed in a tragic instant, when a tree supporting the hammock onto which she and her mother had playfully fallen only moments before, toppled onto both of them. i cannot even imagine the grief contained in a mother's screams for help, to be pinned beneath the very bane of ones only daughter, bleeding silently beside, while having to live the agony of each passing second before that help can arrive, knowing the truth as much as refusing to believe it fully... ever... and what of every passing second from that moment forward, for the rest of her life, and the life of her husband and only son? the moment that i realized that i knew them all was like a rock in my gut, thrown there with brutal and callous force...

it's the knowing that hurts--knowing the life, and those whose lives are closest to it. last year, a 12 year old girl i know well lost her father, and i couldn't stop the tears when they came. in those moments, she's my daughter, as i'm now that 14 year old harvard girl's father, as i am also, in a small way, same to natasha's two boys. i will try to look for the sun today, and hold vigil until it can be returned to those of us who survive. until then, on this cloudiest of days, the rain is not unwelcome.

rip

economic fairness

playing on a "volunteer" soccer team with a bunch of (pushing-50-year-old) guys offers experience with a lot of things in addition to the game itself. for one thing, it shows that beer isn't the (only?) reason a lot of guys (and gals) are fat these days. (we drink it after every game, and have been since we've been free of any coaching that would tell us otherwise, and if i do say so myself, we're in better shape than most everybody else who doesn't, so pay attention to the latter half of "eat less, move around more" if you're looking for tips on healthy living).

speaking of coaching, the other thing i've had to ponder recently is how a collection of age-defying (age-denying?) alpha guys can all manage to get along and divvy up the wealth (playing minutes and positions) without any sort of management/government structure in place to control it. clearly, some of the guys are better than others, and contribute more to the overall success of the endeavor, and so are preferred by all to be rewarded accordingly. (with consensus opportunity to man key and favorite positions for as long as stamina allows, which is as much currency of the soccer-team-realm as anything, since there's never a shortage of beer). but, interestingly enough, that reward remains hardly in proportion to the contribution--things always tend to drift that much closer to parity, i think owing to overall communal preference that everyone has a chance to contribute and enjoy the game, in addition to the "stars" themselves also preferring a happy team to drink with after the game.

which has me thinking about how our economy works, and how broken its become. AIG executives would be the obnoxious fat guy (thankfully, we don't have any on our team) who insists on playing midfield for 90 minutes even while he proves with every touch that he has no business on the field. in the soccer world, those guys are the sent permanently to the sidelines, as opposed to being rewarded with more time (our allegory for money), and when they get pissy and threaten to quit, everybody's just as happy because nobody wants to ever drink with them afterwards anyway.

so why do we, as a country and as a society, have such a hard time achieving this sort of self-regulated sanity???

i think it's because we've lost our devotion to fairness. i think the founding revolutionary principals of us all being created equal used to drive an awful lot more energy into leveling the playing field, or at least it seems that way, and surely it ought to be more that way. unfairness, as in economic thievery, and, yes, i do mean you, executives of AIG who put greed ahead of competence, alongside Bernie Madoff who was only slightly more bald-faced about his avarice, is something against which we should be at least as rabid in our opposition as we hold ourselves against other attacks on our way of life. who, after all, has done more to harm you and your family, if "you" were the statistical average american? no, it wouldn't be osama by a country mile. it's the wall street robber barons who have thrown millions into penury, and their congressional complicitors who are shocked, shocked to find bonus compensation going on in here. (ever check to match the number of congresspeople railing against AIG bonuses who have refused to vote to stop their own pay raises?)

so why can't we let these institutions fail, even if it costs us a few years privation as a communal investment towards a better team (country, society) when its all said and done? and, while we're at it, vote out the whole lot of 'em who fell asleep at the oversight switch.

just don't whine to me about this being one party or the others fault, ok? the bailout was dubya's gang's baby to start with, and all the rest of this by Obama's gang is just irrefutible proof that they're ALL corrupt and/or corruptible.

is sears still where america shops?

i don't know if time has passed me by on this one, but i was just down at the local sears appliance center to buy myself a new range. (the old one seems incapable, no matter how high the oven is set, of getting its job done, so there you have it). maybe the with-it and hip (nods to smashmouth) are trolling best buy and various web sites for their deals, (well, truth be told, so was i), but the right combination of selection, price and service is still to be had at the old dowager, and they've once again earned my business. (the new washer/dryer is still going great, tyvm).

there's a bit of inconvenience to their policy on power cords, (you have to buy the cord separately, or else install things yourself), owing (so they say) to the variability of 220v plug configurations, (four prongs, or three), but its easy enough to check behind the old unit, (three in my case), and bite the bullet on the extra otherwise-unnecessary trip to the store. (you can either buy both and return the excess afterwards, or come back an extra time to select the right cord before the installers show up--your choice).

i'm looking forward to the smooth ceramic cook-top, and to the enclosed lower oven element, (no snarks please on the frequency with which i use, let alone mop up in, my oven), and to having dinner within a reasonable time of starting to prepare it. i took a pass on the "power element" feature, which was promised to boil water faster than you can say "mmmm, ramen", and the "warming zone" which seems to be for cooks who can cook more than four things at once, as well as the "warming drawer", which seems to be fore folks who can cook even more than that. (though self clean--check). i did find it amusing that beige is called "bisque" these days, observing that i now know that not all roux is blonde, nor pureed shellfish of predictable color, but if that's what they need to call it, then who am i to argue. it'll match the countertops and the fridge, which, along with the dishwasher, is likely the next thing about which i'll be talking to my friends at sears at whatever point.

what did you do to stimulate today?

how to run a business

you may have noticed i've been pretty stoked about my new car--it's fast, it's fun, and it fits the way i live. what may not be readily apparent in all this automotive bliss is how pleased i also am with the choice i made in where to buy it.

i could fill a few pages with all the silliness i endured elsewhere, but i think it's clearer just to tell you about the way i've been treated at the high-line motor group on westford street in lowell, on the way out towards the drum hill rotary. first of all, there was no end to the number of test drives i was offered, nor variety of rides in which to take them, even to models well outside my price range just so i could appreciate the quality of that in which i was interested. they were proud of their cars, and showed it. second of all, when it came to prices, there was no ambiguity about where things were negotiable and where they weren't, and they were directly engaged with me at the price *I* wanted to pay right from the start. yup, the deal they promised right up front was the one that i got, and then some. third of all, there's all the little things that let you know that your business is truly appreciated, like dealer-cost deals on a car cover and additional accessories bought after the fact, and then some pretty big things on an emotional level, like an amazing detail job on my old car which i had brought in for service that made it look and feel like a second new car as part of the bargain. (the guy doing the job was so dedicated to the quality of his work that he threw in touch-up paint on the various accumulated scratches so it would look its best).

tell ron in service and john in sales that i sent you. and say hi to greg, vicky, evan, and everybody else there who will be taking care of you. they'll drive you to and from when you leave your car for service. offer you fresh pastries from olympos bakery when they've got 'em. let you sit in their service waiting area with the big screen tv and comfy couches so you'll forget you were supposed to be somewhere else. they'll get you accessories on your old car for cost, test drives of amazing rides just for the asking, and a great deal on a new one if that's what you want, (at-cost accessories, of course), or just a respectful conversation if you aren't yet ready to decide. they'll refer you to the best AND the cheapest auto lock specialists in town if you need extra keys, (lowell lock and key, hiya guys), and make sure when you drive off their lot you are smiling and forgetting every other bad experience you've ever had.

high-line motor group. remember the name.

one last thing...

to the artiste who fashioned out of my 48-year-old wreck of a body the feeling and empowerment of invincibility last wednesday, inducing me into playing four games in three days, several of which against guys 15 years younger than me, (though none fitter or faster after the artiste was through with her masterpiece), i say,

do it again.

i always want more.

everything in its place

prior to treating myself to JK&TLO last night, i was treated to a wonderful new mexican restaurant in east boston, called angela's cafe. (131 lexington street, don't miss it). the food was wonderful. delightful. deft. delicious. subtle. sublime. so, so good. the indescribably delicious guacamole would have fed a table of six, and i skipped dessert just so i could keep at it after i was done with the rest of my meal, including the most wonderful plate of shrimp cilantro i think there's ever been. my table-mate's mole was incredible, too, (remember to ask for the dark meat chicken!) and the whole meal was just perfect. the service. the ambience. the whole thing. highly recommended.

which occurs to me to say because it's not easily found, nor easily reached, and i started out by parking my beautiful new (to me) car beneath its beautiful new custom-fitted cover in its very own (heated garage) parking space and walking to and from via the airport T stop. (not everybody does such things, and its really too bad). but warming me against the mid-march chill was the thought that my car was where it belonged, and i was where i belonged, which was out in the world with someone who is kind to me and good, and not concerning either of ourselves overmuch with the where and the why.

life is good.

chemistry

one of the fascinating advantages of getting to know groups of musicians more consistently than just from one or two of their static pieces of vinyl (or bits of bytes as things are these days) is that you really begin to understand personality and chemistry, and appreciate the music all the more for it. jen kearney and yahuba garcia, for example, seem born to play together, and every piece they play together is an audible joy. and i've never seen carl johnson not make more than the sum of every part, regardless of with whom he's playing, and last night was no exception.

but i'm scratching my head this morning to try to put words to the missing pieces from last nights GREAT show at the lizard lounge, where jen kearney and her lost onion held forth with aplomb and esprit. the visually obvious answer is the pete maclean and vinnie briguglio weren't there, and it was with them that i first appreciated and embraced the band's sound. which isn't to say that the musicians occupying those spots last night weren't talented and remarkable and "all that"... they were. it's just...

i guess, when you've heard something especially wonderful, you need to know that the moment itself is priceless, because it never comes around quite that way ever again.

of course, the good news is that we get to learn a whole new language of wonderful each time a new collection of talent assembles itself together for our entertainment.

mental note to self--need to learn WHO was playing that sax last night. WOW. and the new rhythm section, too.

OH!

one last thing...

cole degenova has this woman playing bass in his band... all fire and spark and deeply RIGHT... laying down grooves that are so sublime i found myself over and over again waking up as each song ended that i hadn't bothered to listen to anything else. SO good. and it occurs to me that not learning jen's bandmates' names is completely on me, because she, the consummate showwoman, is always graciously letting us know who they all are, and i'm ashamed i haven't shown my appreciation more sincerely by actually taking them to heart last night... but cole, on the other hand... not once. and i was eagerly waiting for him to. that bass... SO good. i want to learn who she is. so i can keep an ear and an eye out for wherever she might be playing again.

SO good.

and, so, we once again have our reason for why they invented the internet: claire finley.

i'm a fan.

coke vs pepsi re-redux

reasons for ridiculing republicans have been so numerous these past 8 to 10 years, that it's hardly necessary to pile on further these days. (though it's sorely tempting over limbaugh's bloviating about wanting his chief executive to fail--oh, how the "patriotic" have fallen...)

but the most proximate danger now rears its head not from the right, but from the left of the coke vs pepsi aisle, and so does the need for lampooning, lambasting, and lamenting:

house majority leader nancy pelosi has actively defended automatic congressional pay raises by refusing to call a vote to stop them. harry reid, on the other hand, in the other chamber, is a bit more politically adroit, as he's allowed dueling proposals to allow everybody to vote for something, while guaranteeing that nothing will have a prayer of passage. and so we, the people, remain screwed by both of them, and the republicrat nation for which they stand. face it--we're no better off now than we were back when the other side of that sorry coin was on top a few years ago, and i'm here to tell you that it's not going to get any better for all the republican efforts to whip us into a frenzy to flip it back again, that's for sure.

see, people, that's the problem--while "they" have us backing one side vs the other, whichever side that may be, they have us completely hornswoggled from noticing that they're BOTH what's wrong with this country. or, more clearly put--=if you're calling yourself one or the other, i'm calling you both stupid and guilty of aiding and abetting criminals.

think for yourself. vote for yourself. and throw out everything with a "D" or an "R" beside it, because it's poison.

three strikes yer out

the local credit union, jean d'arc, managed to get some decent buzz from various corners, but, i'm sorry, they're not going to get any from me, nor my business.

yes, i know, the patriot act (unconstitutionally, i might add, but that's a discussion for a longer time), inconveniences us all, but this discredit union takes it all just that much further, and, as winston liked to say, it's a collection of things up with which i will not put.

closed wednesday afternoons. (strike 1). unwilling to open accounts for children without ID's in addition to birth certificates, (know any 12 year olds with their own ID beyond a birth certificate?). (strike 2). refusing to open an account for me despite my presenting a valid drivers license updated with my correct and current address, a valid passport, a valise-full of valid credit cards, and a checkbook also sporting my correct and current address. (strike 3). (even my pollard memorial library card wouldn't do it--they wanted a current utility bill, too, which, it should be pointed out, is not something i'm in the habit of carrying with me while out walking about).

apparently, they don't want my business, nor that of my family, and that's convenient, because i have absolutely no interest now in giving it to them. i know this is all going to be welcome news down the street, where the net of my current bonus payment is going to be deposited, and i should tell you it's not an insignificant amount. yes, this all may appear in conflict with my recent zen meditation on the subject of bureaucracy, but don't mistake my righteous indignation and ensuing personal boycott to imply incivility on my part, or any lack of respect for their right to put excessive conditions upon my business. they can do as they please, and so can i.

enterprise bank, we love you.

capital punishment

i've said it before, and i'll say it again--we execute the wrong people here in the u s of a.

actually, if you want my opinion, the state taking of human life is about the most heinous incivility i can imagine, and i'm not advocating its use for any crime, terrorists included,

HOWEVER!!!

if we're going to be killing people, either as retribution or a deterrent, then i believe we need to start with the right bunch. nope, not oj, and not a whole lot of other violent sociopaths currently cluttering up our death rows. oh, not that they don't perhaps deserve something epic for their crimes, but, truth be told, they've never been as much of a threat to you and me (the editorial you and me which means society at large) as the white collar criminals who regularly skate free with piles and piles of their ill-gotten gains. (and osama is just a larger-scale oj, and the math doesn't change for me).

bernie madoff, for one, has done more to damage your life and mine, and those of most of those who will, in the next generation, become criminals from the ensuing privation, than any killer of innocents that you can name. yes, each child killed is a tragedy, AND THAT'S THE POINT. think about it--50 BILLION DOLLARS--and figure out how many otherwise potentially successful human beings will otherwise be sentenced to failed economic lives, fall from societal grace, and end up beating their children in their alcoholic or methamphetaminic rages into becoming the very sociopaths who will maintain the capacity to kill a child long into our future.

people who cold-bloodedly enrich themselves at the expense of the entire civilization which coddles them are the worst sociopaths of all. that bernie and his family are sitting on tens of millions after what he's done (he's admitted it, i'm not jumping the gun here) is an incredible affront to all that is right in this world, and i, for one, would like to see every last nickel of it confiscated and given back to those from which it was stolen, right before they pull out the tourniquet. ok, so maybe we don't have to kill him, but i say anything short of turning him loose at the port authority bus station over on 8th avenue without a cent or a home or even a change of clothes, to bum change for coffee for a living, is as great a crime on our part as the jury of his peers as was his crime in the first place to steal as much from us as he did.

ocd like me

a couple of big work projects and a new (well, new to me) automobile have me wired up lately, and it's fascinating to note how my internal coping mechanisms automatically engage. for example, if you're really paying close and careful attention, you might notice how i've rearranged my key ring once again to optimize access and minimize weight and bulk--car keys demoted to auxilliary attachments so i can get in everywhere regardless of how i got there. (same theory behind the new/extra garage entry remote for the new wheels). lots of people might just keep adding keys to the ring until they hardly remember what each one is for, but if you're ocd like me, you know that can never do. infrequently-needed keys, like to the folks' place, sit in the rack by the door where they belong. a lifetime's inconvenience tripping over that latchkey in my hand every time i want to open a door is certainly more effort than the quick trip home to get the key in the not-even-sure occasion that i might need it. (besides, chances are i'll be at home when i learn i'll need it anyway, and i can just grab it on my way out). now, all i need to do is figure out if any enterprising ocd engineers have ever given thought to a universal key fob that could work two different automobiles from the same dongle...

bureaucracy -- the short form

it occurs that my indulging myself my full rambles doesn't reward those kind enough to pay any attention at all to what i write, so here's the readers digest version, and a free ticket to ignore the longer post which precedes:

bureaucracies are often anthropomorphosized by people to infer intent, but the short answer is that they exist only to perpetuate themselves, while nominally going through the motions of the purpose for which they were created, and they really care nothing at all about us one way or another. people who are inclined to fight them, much like others who might be inclined to "fight" terrorism, just don't get it. "you can't fight city hall" is kinda like observing that it takes two to tango. the bureaucracy isn't fighting you, even though it may be winning. it's just doing what it does.

i took the zen high road path of least resistance today, and got through just fine. i even met some very pleasant people along the way, with whom my interactions weren't marred by any bad humor on my part that might otherwise have occurred had i not been on my zen high road path of least resistance. bonus for me.

and, best of all, i've received a clean bureaucratic bill of health which leaves me fully free to indulge myself as i please automotively and otherwise. yes, there are things over which one must not "go along to get along", and when they arise, you know i'll be the first one to take up the cudgel. but, until then, happy queueing.

bureaucracy

had me a full day of it today, starting with my insurance agent, followed by the registry of motor vehicles and capped off with lowell city hall. didn't get to the irs, dor or dep, which perhaps would have been the advanced course, but those three will do for now. i guess i'm feeling philosophical today, (apparently), so rather than resisting it i was in the frame of mind to be bemused by it all, and had a few thoughts:

first off, it is clear to me that fear of bureaucracy, though not perhaps unreasonable, can be a very disadvantageous thing. much of my bureaucratic excercise today was the direct result of my car dealer's paperwork guy being too intimidated by the threat of the bureaucratic unknown to have been effective on my behalf last friday. see, my insurance agent, bless her heart, was very clear about the forms and how to fill them, (rmv-1 to swap plates to the new car, and rmv-3 to swap registrations on the old one so as to get new plates for it), and the paperwork guy was all "i got it boss", but, of course, he didn't have it at all, and all i ended up with at 5pm on a friday with all bureaucracies closed was one set of plates for a convertible car, and nothing for the de facto slush sled. good news was that saturday's and sunday's weather made convertible driving something you dream about, but the bad news was that first thing this morning, as the snow flew, i was one set of plates short from where i needed to be. so, off to see the wizard's desk clerks...

second off, there's a certain amount of pragmatism necessary to get what you want without an unreasonable amount of effort when dealing with bureaucracies. who knows if the seven-day-rule actually allowed me the lattitude, but knowing i was properly insured to be driving both cars, and adhering to the spirit of the law, if not it's bureaucratic letter, i actually jumped the bureaucratic gun this morning (shh, don't tell anyone) by swapping the old plates *back* to the designated dirtmobile for my drive to the insurance company and the registry so as to get the proper plates for it. nobody asked, and i didn't tell. the insurance agency was getting a slow start because of the snow, and though my usual agent was out for a couple of days, they soon found a suitable fill-in who could print me the right form, fill it out correctly and apply the right stamp, and then give me the needed signature. one down.

so further reason to reflect on pragmatism was encountered at the rmv, where i met in line a guy i know well whose reputation precedes him with almost every bureaucracy there is. his disobedience isn't always as civil as might be, but i guess that's part of the fun for him. (i like him, as you might imagine). every rule is a battleground to him, and every salvo from the bureaucracy a clarion call to war. today it was something to do with a license reinstatement owing to some fines not paid over some point of conscientious objection, and we had a right enjoyable conversation over things while i waited for my number to come up at the registration window. no idea how he fared after i left, but i'm sure it would have been interesting to see. his suggestion to me about that dep matter to which i alluded earlier was fight, fight, fight, but i knew that, though it might have been right for him, it's no longer right for me to put confrontation at the top of my bureaucratic agenda, least of all with an entrenched and well-bureaucratically-armed bureaucracy like the dep. the phrase "path of least resistance" can sometimes be used by some people as a pejorative, but to me it's the highest compliment, and my highest bureaucratic calling. if i can get out of something more easily by kowtowing to it, then that's my prerogative. the dep will get no fight from me today.

i also, as a complete aside, ran into another old friend who i had not seen for a couple of years until zipping by him in my convertible on my way to my next errand on saturday afternoon. i dearly wanted to stop that day, but knew i had a daughter counting on me to be otherwise prompt, so i left chance to fate, or fate to chance, as the case may be, and passed along. so it was with great joy that i found him standing right next to me in line at the rmv long enough to catch up on his comings and goings (brasil, martha's vineyard and all places in between) and share enough info on upcoming soccer opportunities so that it's sure we'll get a chance to catch up more fully some sunny afternoon very soon. a very nice serendipitous treat.

so, back to the bureaucracy...

my new plates in hand, and all paperwork properly filed, i affixed the right tags to the right vehicles and even got back home in time to pass along the next set of company bureaucratic electronic paperwork waiting for me in my inbox. (ahh, the temporal conveniences of virtual toil). my next stop was to feed the meter again, (not supposed to park in the building lot here during a snow event), and head up the street to share a cuppa and a little lunch with more friends new and old at a newly-reopened coffee shop around the corner. (i know what i said about not concerning myself about "smart" when arranging my time and acqaintences these days, but i have to say, when the stars align by otherwise coincidence, i'm still able to appreciate thoughtful people saying thoughtful things). so appreciative was i that i stepped myself right into the last chapter of todays stories about bureaucracies, by running a few minutes over on my parking meter and picking myself up a $15 present from the city's parking enforcement bureau.

it occurred to me, observing the street full of empty spaces, that the lion's share of the rationale for metered parking was completely absent today in the snow, but a bureaucracy exists to do the task for which it was created and nothing else, so the enforcer on the street tagged my car and passed the record up the electronic chain to the collector's office in city hall, and i was thus ensared in their web. forget that i'm being punished for patronizing the local businesses for which the city runs its parking enforcement--it's someone's job to tag cars, and someone else's job to collect the fines, and fighting it is only going to cost me oodles more in time and aggravation than it's worth. i laughed off the ludicrosity of it all, and trudged over to city hall so as to stand in line for 20 minutes so that the one overworked clerk could get to my case and issue me the all-important receipt. all too funny, except i was out yet another ounce of flesh for no useful purpose, and i'm gonna have to stock up again so as to be able to afford beer after soccer tomorrow night.

because, all said and done, that's what it's all about. the bureaucracy doesn't care about me, but *I* care about me, and i'm legal to drive without encumbrances to my favorite soccer venue tomorrow night, and have a run and a round (or two) with the boys. (thanks to the neighbor who referred me to that blood alcohol estimation web site so that i know that a couple beers in a couple hours isn't going to run me afoul with the police bureaucracy on my way home).

just counting the days til it's convertible weather again, and relishing my state of bureaucratic grace.

sunblock

the mirror this morning tells me that i have some sunblocking to do--march, schmarch, my winter pallor is no match for drop-top driving.

gonna have to put that in the budget, right alongside oil and tires...

where have i been part whatever

new car. convertible top. sunshine. see ya.

photos will have to wait until i get around to it. short answer is that i made a heck of a purchase. (even the salt puddles splashing up from the road here and there can't diminish the joy). i'm a lucky, lucky guy.

open your eyes

being captivated by music has its joys, enhanced whenever you close your eyes and the sound in your ears comes to full life, but life is not complete without "one, two, three, four, five, senses working overtime". (yes, all the world is football-shaped, and props to andy partridge for articulating it all).

saturday night, down at the UTEC center in beautiful downtown lowell, massachusetts, jim higgins is screening the premier of his eagerly-awaited "nether world--a modern fairy tale". you can check out the promo at flyingorb.com, or even get a glimpse of some other shorts using his amazing stop-motion film technique at jameshigginsphotography.com. (just click "films" and enjoy). among the countless enthralling elements for me is the inimitable mise en scene contributed by the greatest small city in the universe, and the undisputed (among forty-something divorcees in my particular situation anyway) best place on earth.

see you there

heather unruh glasses melvern taylor and all the rest of the attention-grabbing keywords

hey all you gabba gabba heys out there, check this s*** out!!!!

courtesy of the very busy web widget factory over there at amiestreet.com, we now have a soundtrack for the soundtrack. just take a gander over to the right hand sidebar over there, and note that somewhere down your page you will now see three square album images overlaid by some handy-dandy audio controls that'll let you select and play any of the tasty biscuits contained therein!

if you're looking for recommendations, which i know that you aren't, because you're all so very eager to listen to each and every song in their entirety and exact order, but, hypothetically, if you were...

fast forward love songs for losers (the first album there) to track #7, "two bottles of beer". just for fun. #11 salisbury beach is a hoot too. of course, you seriously can't go wrong with any of 'em. every single one of 'em is a gem.

then, on the second album there, fabuloso, do not pass go and do not continue on to anything else until you've checked out #1, "angel on my shoulder". of course, after you pick yourself back up offa da floor for how amazing it is, you might trip on down to #3 and prepare yourself to be amazed even further. imagine while you're being amazed a bus load of catholic middle school kids singing in unison because they've been taught the words by their catholic middle school music teacher, who's soon to be on the carpet with the nuns about the whole thing. "where did all the daydreams go / i only know that they're gone / it's just another of the things i've lost / and now i mind my manners when i'm talkin' to the boss"...

last and never least, there's the soundtrack to my incredible journey through hell and back (divorce) for which, if it hadn't been there for me, i don't know where i'd be today--populuxe's "deep in an american evening". there's the vertigo-induction opus to open it all, daphne, that's highly recommended... and #5 "in my house"... but they're all amazing. rob shapiro, where are you, because your fans are ready for act 4!!!!

when original sin came to eden

biblical stories are so often allegory for so many things we encounter in real life, and the eden myth is no exception.

last night in shangri-lowell, just around the corner from shangri-lowell, i stepped into the proverbial garden and was treated to the sublime talents of two of lowell's best--peter lavender singing and strumming a bunch of his original gems, accompanied by carl johnson and all of his inimitable and estimable talents on lead guitar. (sitting at the same table with the songwriting object of several of peter's best was pretty neat, too). it was one of those things that other people who don't have such things all the time in their very own neighborhood just can't begin to imagine. wonderful.

but the snake was there too.

i have no idea what the proprietor(s) of mickey's are thinking. on the one hand, they're attracting some pretty amazing talent to their singer/songwriter nights, not to mention the various cd release and other musical specialties they have in their little space. (i've been going out to experience live music in bars and clubs in boston and hereabouts since the seventies, and i've seen everything from aerosmith to j geils to the cars to aimee mann, to name just a few of the pop chart toppers, in that kind and size of space, and i like to think i've grown to appreciate what truly good truly is). on the other hand, they continue to insist that they keep that ri-donk-ulous big screen projection tv on during every single minute of every single set.

WTF?

i've never been in a place before that didn't turn off the jukebox as well as all their nearby tv's whenever a performer is playing live. sure, they might have one on in a corner over the bar away from the music for folks that prefer, but nothing 10 feet wide just a couple of feet away from the goods. never. and for good reason.

first and least of all, it's rude to the patrons. some who might want to watch the tv (could happen) would undoubtedly be distracted by the music. others who are there for the music (aren't we all?) certainly don't want to have to put up with the distraction of the tv.

but here's the evil: these are some remarkably talented people who practice and write and perform and altogether work extremely hard to be able to put on a good performance. and they do it in this space for free, and for the good of the business that might host them, and without expectation for anything more than the chance to connect with an audience. and what do they get for all their diligence and generosity and trouble and art?

a ten foot projection screen tv showing a fifteen year old rerun of the abc miniseries "the stand".

WTF?

i've always been complimentary towards all the businesses in downtown lowell that do the best they can for all of us who appreciate them each and every day. but this is different. this is wrong. this is counter to everything that this place means to me, and i'm at a crossroads with it. i'm just not sure i can go back in there as long as this persists.

a lot of you might not feel as strongly, and that's your prerogative, but i'm telling you that this is something, as winston churchill once said, up with which i will not put.

it's music or tv. not both. or i'm going to keep driving to cambridge and portsmouth and worcester and portland and even billerica to follow my favorite lowell musicians. and to the worthen, and to the old court, and to wherever they let them play here the way the music was intended: up loud and without disrespect and distractions.

i'm gonna make a stink about it next time i'm walking by mickey's, and it sure would be nice if you would too. the music thanks you.

spam and other acts of terrorism

spammers, like terrorists, have changed our world as much for how we've responded to them as for anything they've ever done. this morning i'm facing the frustration of knowing that my emails to would-be fantasy baseball league-mates are going awol upon the ubiquity of their better-intentioned spam folders, and it occurs to me that unintended consequences are downright fascinating.

'53's "the war of the worlds" has stuck with me not just for how unsatisfying "and then the martians just died" is as a plot conclusion. we sent the army and the air force and the marines as we were getting our highly-evolved asses kicked but good, and then, right when we knew all would be lost, the little green men succumbed to the common cold. (or something like that). it's been fascinating to me to reflect since then that anti-virus-spyware-spam software does for our computer networks much what t-cells have done for our immune systems against any potential martian banes. no, not always perfect, and run amok we suffer allergies and other inconveniences just as surely as we lose worthwhile emails to the limbo of our spam folders, but, for the most part, its a pretty liveable balance between utopia and where we really live.

i just wish people would better realize that the illusion of security is worthless, while the price of a better life is always more-thoughtful vigilance and care. the way i see it, nobody listened to harry markopolos because they figured the sec was running well enough. (tragic that a lot of those people who were figuring the sec was running well enough were the ones not putting forth the effort for which they were theoretically getting paid to ensure that the sec was running well enough). folks queuing up like sheep to have their 3 oz. cosmetics bottles examined through their little quart-sized ziploc bags aren't inclined to think twice about their government being complicit in the (often accidental--i'm not claiming malice) atrocities being committed these days in gaza and iraq and afghanistan against the next generation of ied'ers. (afghani civilian casualties at the hands of us forces exceed those attributable to the taliban, and that's a fact). and those of you/us running y/our little spam-proof online empires are most often far too lazy to monitor and tweak spam settings to connect with worthwhile correspondence. (those folks signed up to participate in the fantasy baseball league, but i'm soon going to need to shut 'em out because we've got to get started on our draft process, and we've got to know how many teams or else nobody can stats-geek out and play).

franklin had it right: those who choose security over liberty deserve neither. in this case, wake up and check your spam folder once in awhile. but, while we're tangentially near the topics, you might also just say no to prophylactic antibiotics (darwin wasn't wrong, even if just to note how god managed to create everything in the universe) and, by god and all that is right in this world, insist that your government adhere to its principles and not those of lenin and machiavelli.

shotgun

jr. walker and the all stars are one of those berry gordy produced wunderkinds that, in my opinion, made motown records what it really was. of course, there'll be those folks at cocktail parties and other places where motown might come up in nostalgic conversation who will insist to you about folks like the supremes, but you just tell 'em for me that they've been distracted by pop trifles at the expense of something far better, and they hardly know what they've missed. (all votes yes on aretha acknowledged, though--sometimes the charts aren't wrong).

which is all to say that i just put jr walker's '65 album, shotgun, onto the turntable and through the mixer, and i still can't believe how amazing it sounds. i mean, who wails quite like that? remember foreigner? remember how every record of theirs that you have kicking around your closet occurred to you at some point or other that it really kinda sucked, (and if you or i never hear "cold as ice" ever again we'll still think it's too soon), except for that one song that you still think of when you think of them--"urgent"... it's the sax solo, isn't it. (autry dewalt mixon, jr. aka jr. walker, yes indeed it is). ok, maybe it's thomas dolby's synth, too, but it doesn't go anywhere without the sax at the break, and that's a fact.

i am going to have me one heck of a kick-ass ipod when i get done, yessirree.

"if you think education is expensive, try ignorance"

bumper sticker platitudes aside, even with the recently-decided $1500 fee increase to UMass Lowell students courtesy of the UMass board of trustees, it will still cost state residents less than $12,000 a year in tuition and fees to receive one of the best public college educations available anywhere in the world. That's less than $1000 a month over the course of each year, or, if you were to have to borrow the full $40,000 to get your degree without bothering to pay for it as you go, it would still cost less than $1000 a month to make the payments on a 10 year note to pay it all off while you're enjoying the anticipated benefits of your fine education in all your future take-home pay.

note that i didn't anywhere here mention the need to bother ones parents to get involved in this educational enterprise or the payments thereof. yeah, some kids will enjoy some parental largesse, and that's great for them, (maybe, but maybe not considering that sometimes those who are subsidized too easily are too often too lazy to actually learn anything while at college), but from those of us who did it all ourselves, trust us, it's something that you can make up your mind to do, if you have a mind to do it. uncle sam (via the armed services and other programs) is there to offer assistance, and my home town even offered PILOT (payments in lieu of taxes) money to residents to the schools there, which was something of which i took advantage. others go for academic and athletic and needs-based scholarships. there's no end to the alternatives.

what isn't an alternative (for me anyway) is deciding that $1500 is the difference between attending and not attending school for financial reasons.

i'm somewhat of a hypocrite as i'm providing each of mine with educational seed money that more than covers the cost of a UMass education without or with the fee increase. (the luxury of which was put aside courtesy of my educationally-enhanced earning potential). i likely will be unable to do as much for graduate school or even the fuller expenses of a private or out-of-state undergraduate education, but, honestly, i don't worry one little bit about that. (see suggestions above that having to work for an education is highly correlated to actually learning something from it).

the key not being discussed so much is the economic opportunity for students to find work in order to pay for their education. when that starts to disappear, so does the option to attend school for many. and $1500 isn't the difference there--it's the first $9500 that the students are already shouldering. i'd suggest we spend more time worrying about that side of things, than how many beers the kids won't be able to drink while they're sacrificing to earn something worth earning.