The Long Way Home

My Favorite Songs of 2011

2012-01-02T12:59:00.000-05:00

A mostly retro edition.

Operation -- Yuck

Dinosaur Jr. meets Goo-era Sonic Youth.

Too Much Midi (Please Forgive Me) -- Ford & Lopatin

Sounds like a long-lost a-side from "Purple Rain." Doesn't really start until 1:46 when the guitar kicks in and the synth line brings the funk. Neon and smoky silhouettes. Call me Mr. Clutch...

Midnight City -- M83

One of the best songs of the past several years. The sax solo at the end is icing on the cake. Reminds me (thematically) of the refrain at the end of "Don't Change" by INXS.

The Roller -- Beady Eye

Instant Karma?

Polish Girl -- Neon Indian

Fun play-along: "name that classic video game sound effect."

Tender Mercy -- Au Palais

"Gothic electro", it's called. I agree.

Baby Missiles -- The War on Drugs

Bright, ramshackle, folksy. Springsteen and Dylan.

Sleep Dealer -- Oneohtrix Point Never

A trippy nightmare of '80s commercials samples. Musical spits and sighs.

Locked -- Four Tet

Constructs itself patiently, layer by layer, then quickly dissolves again.

Locked (TEXT011) by Four Tet

Free Agent -- Simian Ghost

Casio keyboard production values, right down to the sticky cassette tape roll.

My Favorite Albums of 2011

2011-12-28T14:23:00.002-05:00

Lots of synth-pop, and a few that definitely aren't synth-pop.

On The Water -- Future Islands
Moody new romantic synth-pop. The early 80s updated.

Yuck -- Yuck
1991 remade.

Sound Kapital -- Handsome Furs
Synth-pop dance party for weirdos.

True Loves -- Hooray for Earth
Anthemic synth-pop.

Celestial Lineage -- Wolves in the Throne Room
Epic occult metal.

The Whole Love -- Wilco
It's Wilco. There's a jazz organ. Who knows?

Stuart Adamson 4/11/58 - 12/16/01

2011-12-16T09:36:00.000-05:00

Mothman -- Part III

2011-11-22T10:34:00.000-05:00

Our first sight was the Mason County Courthouse. Ashley told us that Chief Cornstalk had been buried on the grounds until they were removed shortly after the courthouse was damaged by a suicide bomber of sorts in 1976 -- a man visiting his wife, held in the jail there on charges of killing their infant daughter, brought along a suitcase full of dynamite and detonated it, killing himself, his wife, the sheriff, and a deputy. An interesting coincidence, but I looked it up later and the sources I've read say the reburial took place in the late '50s.

We continued up Route 62, passing 30th Street (childhood home of Jeff Wamsley and several Mothman eyewitnesses) and the Village Pizza Inn (formerly Tiny's Drive-In, a hotspot in the '60s where many eyewitnesses stopped to talk about their experiences). The part I was most looking forward to was just beginning. We left the city limits and were soon on a decidedly more rural stretch of Route 62, one that stretched out more or less straight toward the north. This was the TNT area. Ashley told us a story that I remembered well: on this very stretch of road, late at night on November 15, 1966, a car with four people was driving over 100 miles per hour in the opposite direction. They had just seen a winged creature with glowing red eyes. It was following them. I couldn't help but glance into the woods on either side of the road and peek up at the sky. The whole bus was doing it.

We turned off onto Potters Creek Road and were soon deep in the woods on a maze of lanes going in every direction. The fact that it was 3 in the afternoon with the sun high overhead brightened the atmosphere, but only a little. Ashley was talking to a couple of guys from Indiana sitting in the front seats about the Men in Black. She said there were three ideas about who or what they were: FBI agents sent to investigate the Mothman and UFO sightings, aliens, or demons. She said she considered the last one to be her favorite, saying it "made the most sense" and mentioning some passages in the Old Testament that may describe such entities. Willing suspension of disbelief, I told myself.

It was almost time to see an igloo. Up until about a week before our tour, the word on the website was that the igloos had been closed by order of the state fire marshall. Ashley elaborated on this by telling us that a local man had been secretly stockpiling explosives in one of them until it accidentally exploded sometime last year. She said most of TNT had been roped off as a result and the entire area made a "no fly zone" for almost a year. Last year's tours couldn't enter the igloos. But the ban had been lifted shortly before this year's festival so we were in luck. We pulled off the side of the road next to a trail leading into the woods. A 15-foot stretch of guardrail blocked cars from driving down the trail. As we got off the bus, the other girl leading the tour stood there with a bucket full of flashlights for us to use inside the igloo.

The igloo appeared to be nothing more than a rusty, graffittied door opening into the brush. If the rest of it was there, we couldn't see it. I quickly realized that there could be igloos all around us but the only way we would know they were there would be to run into them. If the original camouflage from 70 years ago did an effective job, nature and neglect have only improved upon it in the interim. The interior had a noticeable drop in temperature, not unlike a cave. The first thing I noticed was the acoustics -- the usual hollow echo had a shimmering, vibrato effect at the end when you stood in the center of the room. Rusty metal cans lay scattered against the walls. The floor crackled with beer cans, broken glass, and assorted litter and detritus -- the remnants of who knows how many years of camping and carousing. I remember thinking that the layers of garbage underfoot in this one room could serve as an archaeological treasure trove for rural partying dating back who knows how many years. A rather well-done painting of Mothman stood out among the scrawled names and dates that coated the walls. As there was a 6-year-old boy in our group, Ashley had warned us before entering that one of the locals had recently augmented his anatomy in a not-so family friendly sort of way.

We paused outside the entrance to talk. There were two other igloos on down the trail, although neither of them were open. Ashley said the third one gave her the creeps so much that she didn't want to go around it. On a past tour, a woman had told her that she had "a bad feeling" about it. She said that while they were standing outside of it like we were now, the woman saw three ghostly Indians emerge from the woods and slowly walk in circles around the tour group, a look of anger and contempt on their faces.

One of the guys who was sitting behind us on the bus asked if the "Eyes of Mothman" documentary had had any noticeable effect on the number of tourists visiting Point Pleasant. He also gushed about how it was one of the best documentaries he had ever seen. He must not get out much. Ashley's response was that the numbers are increasing; she estimated 90% of the people who attend the Mothman Festival each year are from out of town. As she continued to talk, I began to detect what I surmised to be the politics of Mothman in Point Pleasant: most of the locals don't know much about the TNT area. They know it's there, they just don't know the history. Mothman apparently divides the people of Point Pleasant into two camps: those who like him and those who don't. On one hand are the people like Ashley and her dad. They're marketing the legend for all it's worth, sacrificing a bit of dignity for income in a town that sorely needs income of some sort. On the other are the people who think the whole thing is silly -- the original sightings were the product drug-induced hallucinations or nefarious hoaxes, they say; the people putting on the Mothman Festival are at best clogging up downtown with their ridiculous hootenanny every year. At worst, they're promoting Point Pleasant as laughingstock town full of credulous, superstitious hicks. Somebody asked her about the mothball smell. "Knowing what I know," she said, "it's either some of the visitors trying to have fun, or some of the locals trying to stop it."

We got back on the bus and drove a little more through the maze of roads. We were soon back on Route 26 headed south, back to Point Pleasant. This was the exact route of the first sighting. I saw a long stretch of road running in front of us and thought about how easy it would have been to go 100 here.

So the tour was over. I was a little disappointed, considering we only had one stop. But the people are what make tours. We had a bit of time to kill before church at 5:30, so I decided it would be a good time to try a Mothman pancake. The guy running it was dressed in a chef outfit, accompanied by his wife and two daughters. For $4 I decided to try the "nutty" upgrade (vs. $3.50 for the standard version). Other choices were "fruity", "chocolate", and one or two others I can't remember. It was pure junk food but good. Not as much of a sugar rush as I expected, and where else are you going to get an official Mothman pancake? They even had t-shirts, but I declined. Speaking of t-shirts, it was a good time to visit the merchandise tent. I saw Jeff Wamsley there, sort of moving back and forth behind the scenes. Somebody handed him a book to autograph. This reminded me that I really needed to grab one of his books myself. I had looked at the price on Amazon the night before...a dollar or two cheaper, but why not buy it straight from the source and get an autograph to boot? I picked up the last of the official t-shirts (size small, but it would do) and grabbed a copy of "Mothman: Behind the Red Eyes", the second of Jeff's books and according to Ashley, the better one. $40, and of course at that point Jeff was nowhere to be found. After a few minutes though he came back. I walked over and asked him if he could sign the book for me. He asked who I wanted him to make it out to. "Nobody," I said, thinking it would be less tacky that way. "Do you want me to date it?" he asked. Jeff Wamsley, 9/17/2011.

Last on our agenda was the hayride at 8. Though not billed as a "thrill ride," I couldn't resist watching a video of last year's somebody had posted on youtube. It spoiled things for me a little bit on one hand but on the other convinced me that it was something worthwhile to do. We spent our last hour or so at Tu-Endie-Wei, retracing my steps from 13 years ago with Jeremy, and walking along the riverfront. It was a beautiful late summer evening.

About 7:15, we headed back up toward the TNT area and the Mason County Fairgrounds for the hayride. After we parked and walked toward the crowd, I overheard a woman telling some people that the tickets were sold out. Apparently, we could have bought them at a booth back in town any time during the day. The people she was talking to must have protested a bit, because I heard her assure them good-naturedly that she had indeed been there all day ("with two pee breaks," she said, holding up two fingers and laughing). Oh well. The day had gone well up until that point. And considering the fact that I was already getting a little sleepy, there was the definite silver lining of getting home at least an hour earlier.

As we walked back out to the car, I took one last moment to soak it all in. The sun was setting. There was a pleasant fall crispness in the air. We stood there in the field with the site of the North Power Plant in the distance. I watched as a flock of birds took flight, disappearing into the trees beyond. To our left, the coal plant was still drawing its anvil-shaped cloud in the air, its red warning lights flashing silently against the cloudless twilight sky. I thought of the years. The creature known as the Mothman had existed in my consciousness now for longer than it had existed in anyone's when I first heard about it a good 26 years ago. Point Pleasant, the town that I once assured myself was so far away, was now where I was standing. I was standing at the epicenter of Mothman.

The trip home was unvenetful. It seemed much quicker, as it always does.

Mothman -- Part II

2011-10-05T15:12:00.002-04:00

As part of my pre-trip research, I once again dug out my copy of the venerable "Prophecies." I didn't have time to read the whole thing again but I did re-read the Mothman chapter and skimmed through the rest to jog my memory. I checked Netflix for any recent filmatic releases. Turns out there was a documentary released just last year called "The Eyes of the Mothman." It was to be screened for free on the Saturday night of the festival, but it would be difficult to fit such a large chunk of time into the limited day I would have there, so the night before I left, I streamed it. It is an exhaustive (2 and 1/2 hour) discussion of the Mothman legend, mostly via interviews with witnesses and experts, that could easily have been edited down by half. As far as logic and skepticism go, several of the assertions it makes are downright laughable (particularly the explanations it gives for the vague physical "symptoms" some of the witnesses experienced after their encounters and its dismissal out of hand that the Mothman sightings could be attributed to sandhill cranes -- more on that later). But overall it was a good update for me as I prepared to head up the river.

I had sketched out a rough outline of the day's activities. The only real appointment was the bus tour at 3 (I had made reservations by calling the Mothman Museum on Tuesday and giving them my credit card number). Then there was the hayride at 8. I wasn't too optimistic about a hayride but changed my mind after watching a youtube video of it from last year. It kind of spoiled things, but it showed me that it would be something worthwhile to do. The only problems would be the early departure and late return necessitated by the distance we would have to travel.

Saturday dawned early. No time for breakfast, so we stopped for gas at Kroger in London and picked up some cappuccino and a blueberry scone (yum) at Starbucks. We elected to give up 25 minutes of total trip time and take the scenic route through Eastern Kentucky via the Hal Rogers Parkway. I had never been past Hyden, so it was a unique opportunity for me. Hazard was bigger than I thought. It all looked pretty much the same, not exactly scenic but a nice drive nonetheless. There was an area just past Hazard that struck me as an engineering marvel: huge chunks of land containing who knows how many tons of dirt and rock had been moved by strip mining, the remaining mountains standing noticeably like bookends of what used to be. Almost as ubiquitous as the mountains were the billboards of one Eric Conn, social security lawyer. The yellow backgrounds and smiling images of the dapper Mr. Conn, suit jacket slung debonairly over one shoulder, seemed overdone even before I started to notice some of them prefaced with the tagline "love him or hate him, he gets the job done." This made me wonder why anybody would hate him, at least among those who would see his billboards and consider requesting his services. About the 20th billboard in there was one with a large red and white stamp placed diagonally on one side warning somebody "do not copy this sign." Not sure where that came from either. Another billboard, defaced with black spray-paint, questioned Mr. Conn's sexual orientation. Some people do hate him, apparently.

Our first stop was Fat Patty's in Huntington. I had chosen it as our lunchtime destination thanks to its #1 ranking amongst Huntington restaurants according to both tripadvisor and urbanspoon. It didn't disappoint. The worst thing was deciding which variety of hamburger to order...I counted no fewer than five out of the 19 listed that I would have liked to have tried. Cajun, hot sauce, Mexican, Italian, BBQ...it was like an ethnic hamburger place almost. I settled for the buffalo burger -- blue cheese and wing sauce. The fries were a little odd at first, almost like the oil was old, but they grow on you. Good stuff.

We routed the trusty GPS toward Point Pleasant. Huntington itself is pretty drab and run-down except for Marshall and the big buildings around 5th Avenue and the historic district. We were soon heading north on Ohio Route 7 on a scenic drive along the river. After a while, I noticed the latticework of a bridge up ahead. It was the Silver Memorial. As we pulled onto the bridge ramp, we were treated to a laugh from a bit of a side show going on in front of us. A white van began to slow almost to a stop up ahead, pulling onto the inside shoulder. We were the second or third car back in the line. Someone behind us honked. The van started moving again and the guy driving it hung his head and shoulders out the window, extended his left arm fully, and gave an emphatic one-fingered salute to a car that was impatiently trying to pass him. He continued to drive rather slowly as we crossed the bridge, but I was content to remain behind him so I could get a good look at Point Pleasant coming up on the left. I could see what was probably the Miss Mothman pageant going on down at the riverfront. We were still laughing as we pulled up alongside him at the red light. He looked over at us, scowling.

After some driving around, we found a parking spot close to the action. There were plenty of places to park (all of them free), distance being the only factor. I caught my first glimpse of festival-goers in the parking lot: a group of emo kids with Mothman t-shirts. The epicenter of the festival was the intersection of 4th and Main Streets, near the Mothman statue and the Lowe Hotel. There were the usual t-shirt and funnel cake vendors with tables set up on the sidewalks. What I noticed most of all about the area was the smell -- the typical festival odors of funnel cakes and grilled meats mixed with a very strong dose of mothballs. Yes, mothballs.
We only had a little time left before 3 o'clock and our bus tour. I stood in line to take pictures of Point Pleasant's most famous landmark: the Mothman statue, working into the more or less nonstop parade of people posing in front of it, then walked down to the riverfront to get some shots of the statues of Chief Cornstalk and General Lewis (which both remind me of the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz). We headed up to the small Rtec-type bus and climbed aboard.

It was hot, and we were early. More people packed onto the bus. I remember the guy on the phone at the museum telling me that there were eight other people registered for our tour at the time I called. In the interim that number had apparently doubled; the bus was full. Our tour guide was Ashley Wamsley-Watts, the 27-year-old daughter of Jeff Wamsley, wearer of many hats in Mothman lore: Mothman Museum curator, Mothmanlives.com webmaster, Mothman Festival co-founder, and author of two Mothman books. I recognized him from the documentary and saw him walking near one of the vendor booths as soon as we arrived. I hoped that the guy who likely is the most knowledgeable person on earth about the Mothman phenomena would be our tour guide, but it was not to be. Shortly after a Man in Black had boarded the bus and asked us if we had "seen any strange people around" while pretending to jot down notes on a sketch pad, we departed.

Mothman -- Part I

2011-09-21T13:18:00.002-04:00

I first read about Mothman in a thin little kids' paperback called America's Very Own Monsters by Daniel Cohen. This was sometime in the mid-80s. I must have ordered it from one of those Troll recreational reading book catalogs teachers would give us to order out of during elementary school. We would pick out what we wanted and have mom fill out the order form and give us the money. A few weeks later, when the big box arrived and was plopped on the teacher's desk, Christmas would come early.

Like all of the horror-related miscellania of my early years, I had a love-hate relationship with that book. During the day I reveled in the cool spookiness of all of these "true stories" of monsters and creatures of the shadows: the Demon Cat, Champie, Goatman. But at night I regretted every word of it. The stories floated into and out of my mind as I lay there in the dark. These were America's very own monsters. They were right here. Under my bed, maybe? In the closet? Why did I read that stuff?

One of those monsters stuck in my head more than any other, its story seemingly tailor-made to haunt a kid alone by himself in the bed at night: Mothman. The terrifying image of the monster's red eyes peering through a window made me very cognizant of closing blinds during those days. And the eerie illustration that accompanied that story -- an interior view of the silhouette of a human-like something standing outside a window, big eyes gleaming -- has stuck in my head to this very day.

Mothman's home, I learned, was Point Pleasant, West Virginia. I knew were West Virginia was. It was close to Kentucky. But the fact that it was in another state helped me feel better; the distance insulated. It could keep its monster.

As time went by, my interest in Mothman grew. One day at the Corbin Library I came across a white hardcover book. The Mothman Prophecies, read the spine. I pulled it down, not quite believing my eyes. The illustration on the front confirmed my excitement: a muscular and winged humanoid emerging from behind a tree, the distant silhouettes of two unsuspecting people in the distance. That book soon took up near-permanent residence at my house. Although all of its talk of UFOs and Men in Black was a bit surreal and disjointed for me at that age (in spite of the title, Mothman appears only occasionally, often tangentially), I read and re-read the Mothman chapter over and over until its characters and locations became second nature to me.

Around the same time, I was at my cousin's house reading through a horror anthology comic he had (the style and subject matter remind me of the Creepy horror comics of the 60s and 70s, although I still haven't been able to figure out exactly what it was I was reading) when I came across a story about the murder of an indian chief by settlers in the 18th century. His name was Chief Cornstalk. Two things I remember about that story: one of them was the final illustration. This book always had them as a single-pane drawing, so you had the heightened tension of having to turn the page to see it. There it jumped out at you as effectively as any movie stinger. In this drawing, Cornstalk has just been shot by the settlers. He is sprawled grotesquely on the ground, nearly prostrate and half-supporting his mortally wounded body with his right arm. His left arm points up toward the reader, the twisted index finger aimed straight into your eye. His face is contorted hideously. Above his head, his words in heavily stylized, dripping horror-scrawl proclaim a curse on the land, the people, and their descendants. A horrible, horrible image. The second thing I remember? The place where this happened was Point Pleasant.

Even at 9 years old I could put those two together. Was Mothman a manifestation of Chief Cornstalk's curse? One day while reading The Mothman Prophecies I came across an account of a sighting near the "Chief Cornstalk Hunting Grounds." At this point I was convinced. I considered writing to the book's author, John Keel, and asking him if he had ever thought about such a connection.

Years went by and I stopped reading about the Mothman. I knew the story. I graduated from UK in 1998. A couple of weeks later, my old friend and roommate Jeremy and I decided to celebrate by taking a road trip up to Niagara Falls, crossing over through Canada and back down through Detroit. It would be new territory for us both. As I was planning out our route on DeLorme's Map 'n Go software (this was back when you had to pay for something to do what Google Maps now does a better job of for free), I noticed that the path it suggested took us up through central and northeastern Ohio. What's else is up there to see? I thought. Then it hit me. Point Pleasant.

That trip was to be a bit of a geek pilgraimage for me. Not only would we be making a double-Dead stop: Monroeville, Pennsylvania's Monroeville Mall (filming location of the original epic horror classic, 1978's Dawn of the Dead) along with a search through rural Pennsylvania for the cemetery from Night of the Living Dead (both the 1968 original and the 1990 remake, or either), we would also be stopping in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, epicenter of the events that kept me up many a night over a decade earlier.

It was cool to finally be in Point Pleasant, that place that was thankfully and so assuredly far away from me when I was a kid. The town itself was modest, sleepy, and a bit run-down. It reminded me of Corbin. There was no outward evidence of the strange events that occurred there thirty years ago. I wondered how many of the people walking down the street had seen Mothman. I wondered how many of them even knew who he was. Jeremy and walked around Tu-Endie-We State Park (site of the Battle of Point Pleasant in 1774, arguably the first battle of the Revolutionary War) and snapped pictures of the park and the Ohio River nearby. I admit that I felt a chill standing next to Chief Cornstalk's grave monument, his ghostly finger pointing up at me through the ages. We had seen all we knew to see. My first (and for all I knew, only) trip to Point Pleasant was over after about 20 minutes. We continued on our way north to search for cemeteries.

I started pharmacy school, the third and final phase of my formal education, that fall. Once again Mothman, and now the streets of Point Pleasant, faded from my consciousness. Years passed.

My fourth year of pharmacy school was a point where I could start to enjoy recreational reading again. One of the books I read then was John Keel's The Mothman Prophecies. This time cover to cover, as an adult. It was still fantastic and still weird. But a sense of skepticism, reinforced by years of education in the sciences, now tempered my reaction to the Mothman stories. It wasn't so much a feeling of creeped-out unease like the accounts used to give me (although it was still present, as I could still easily recall what my 9-year-old self had felt) but more a feeling of "it's really a leap in logic to say that", "is there any evidence for that that isn't just one witness' subjective account?", or at best, simply a willing suspension of disbelief to try to recapture some of that old chill. In 2002 I went to see The Mothman Prophecies as one of the last movies I ever saw at the old theater at the Trademart. I wasn't too impressed. It shared the weak points of the book: too much surreal psycho-horror, not enough Mothman.

My second trip to Point Pleasant happened much more suddenly. One day during one of my down the rabbit hole browsing sessions on wikipedia I had the idea to check up on my old buddy Mothman. It must have been there that I first read about the Mothman Festival. As luck would have it, this was less than a month before it was to be held. I did a bit more research. I counted up my off days. I checked the driving distance to Point Pleasant. About a week before, I checked the weather. The stars were aligned. All systems go.

"Glitch" by Rick Holland and Brian Eno: Nugget de música

2011-04-29T13:36:00.005-04:00

The vocals sound like Kraftwerk.

Brian Eno worked with David Bowie in the 70s.

But it's not very often that a piece of music comes along that feels so dang fresh.

Brian Eno - glitch (taken from Drums Between The Bells) by Warp Records

...or malfunctioning appliances effects sound so tuneful.

Rush: Greensboro, NC 4/2/11

2011-04-06T11:04:00.003-04:00

Because I am dedicated (and the night they were in Louisville I had to work):

There were plenty of empty seats (probably due to the postponement from Friday to Saturday) but thankfully for us it gave plenty of elbow room. The play-through of the entire album of "Moving Pictures" from start to finish was the centerpiece but actually seemed to be only a small part of the show. I was surprised when Geddy introduced a "new song" called "Brought Up To Be" but soon realized it was "BU2B", the b-side to the recently released "Caravan". The overwhelmingly male audience (average early 40s with some teens, pre-teens, and at least one grooving white-hair) seemed polite and sober. Very few of the mouthy drunks you see at most concerts. As an example, the guy sitting in front of me was engrossed in some sort of anime role-playing game on his iPhone during the intermission.

The first and second halves of the show were prefaced with short skit videos (entitled "The History of Rash (sic) Part 2" and "The Real History of Rush Part 9")with the band members playing various characters, Alex as an obese inventor of the titular time machine being the only recurrent character in each episode. The theme was self-deprecating and self-referential humor but with the volume, distortion, and earplugs involved I couldn't understand a fair amount of what was being said.

The opening skit dragged on a bit but soon enough gave way to "The Spirit of Radio" as the opener.

The early setlist was decidedly late-period heavy ("Stick It Out", "Leave That Thing Alone" with the grooving alien things on the video screen, and "Presto" with its poetically wistful black-and-white videos of magicians adding to the sweetness of the closing chorus repeat). They took a break quite early in (Geddy: "because we are very old men...")

The next video intro involved fat Alex and his time machine changing the "Tom Sawyer"-playing band alternately from kids to 70s kimono version to cavemen to chimps to others at random. This eventually led to the real band coming back out with the real "Tom Sawyer." This started the real meat of the concert and my favorite section, with "Freewill", "Marathon", and of course the "Moving Pictures" segment this began. The performance of "The Camera Eye" really opened my eyes (sorry) to the epic nature of the song I hadn't really appreciated before, with the videos of New York and London playing on the video screen as accompaniment to the lyrics. Of course there were fire poofs, fireworks, and an occasional auditory interjection (on "Marathon": "...or a lucky shot [BANG] in the dark"...it's not easy to make people jump in the middle of a loud concert).

Neil really got the crowd going with his "Rhythm Method" solo (has he expanded the jazz section?).

The highlight of the encore was a blistering "La Villa Strangiato".

The last song was "Working Man" finished with a bar or two of the main riff from "Cygnus X-1". There was then one last video of two vaguely familiar actors breaking into the band's dressing room after the show, eating a sandwich sitting on a plate labeled "for Neil Peart ONLY", then getting caught by the band themselves, only to be given a signed double-bass on their way out the door. The allegory seemed to say don't be obsessive, but we're cool guys anyway. I thought this meant a second encore, but then the lights came on.

"Belong" by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: Nugget de música

2011-03-29T10:16:00.002-04:00

Siamese Dream-era Smashing Pumpkins, the song you haven't heard.

Why doesn't Billy make music like this any more?

Actually I know the answer to that.

But when the fuzzy wall of guitars kick in at about 15 seconds, nostalgia kicks in and I am willing to forgive the singer's whiny whisper of a voice and the fact that structurally things drag toward the end.

The Pains of Being Pure At Heart - Belong by Slumberland Records

The Curmudgeon Speaks, or, Why Current Pop Music is Crap

2010-12-30T11:12:00.002-05:00

Since our usual independent eclectic mix radio station has been off the air lately, at work we've had to listen to the Top 40 station. It's usually just background noise, but during the times when I have found myself consciously paying attention to it I've been reminded how much I despise Top 40 music. Cases in point:

That Katy Perry song about fireworks. While her voice was somewhere between mildly irritating and vaguely discomforting before, this song takes its most horrific qualities and condenses them down into a repetitious, syncopated shriek of a chorus that sounds like a yapping pack-a-day chihuahua being given the heimlich. Such songs so ridiculous that I can almost hear her record company handlers snickering about what they can get the public to lap up next.

That one melodramic slog of a tune by that one hipster chick that they always play on VH1. I didn't think people had the attention span for songs like this anymore. Not only is it excruciating to listen to, but if you are unfortunate enough to catch the video you are subjected to a parade of video cliches du jour: everything is in slow motion but they can still lip-sync in perfect time, gratuitous tattoos, synchronized group dancing, stylized fighting-as-choreography, and overwrought middle-school-drama-class acting. Music to slit wrists to.

Finally, the most egregious example of what is wrong with pop music today: the cover of Def Leppard's "Photograph" by some American Idol guy. One of the few songs that, upon hearing, I am compulsively moved to extinguish its source immediately. Made all the worse by the fact that the original is one of the most gnarly examples of 80s Camaro rock ever. It was only recently that I was feeling sufficiently masochistic to listen to this clunker in its entirety. Actually I was doing something I couldn't get away from so I had to. Four minutes of my life I'll never get back. Covers can be respectable or even quite good when a band takes another song and makes it their own, so to speak, interpreting and expressing it through their own filter to create something familiar yet unique. This song is not that. There is no originality, rather a rote, paint-by-numbers "update" of the original right down to the vocal fills. Santana should be ashamed of himself. But what should we expect from a sold-out has-been and another nameless product from a televised popularity contest? Write your own songs, people.

My favorite songs of 2010

2010-12-07T11:32:00.002-05:00

Good year for singles. Albums, not so much.

"Elizabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins Remix)" -- Star Slinger

"Not In Love" -- Crystal Castles ft. Robert Smith

A melding of old and new: modern-day Robert Smith sings over a remixed forgotten 80s new wave song.

"Birthday Boy" -- Drive-By Truckers

I'm sad to admit that I regularly skip half of the songs on this album, which makes their previous discographic nadir (A Blessing and a Curse) seem that much better in comparison. But what continues to make DBT my favorite band is their ability to keep churning out at least one or two bona fide classic songs per album. This, along with "This F*****' Job", is their latest. And Cooley is still one of the coolest dudes on the planet.

"Is This On Me?" -- Elite Gymnastics

"Odessa" -- Caribou

"Meet the Frownies" -- Twin Sister

A vaguely sinister tune reminiscent of those film strips we used to watch in elementary school that made that little "beep" when it was time to advance the frame.

"Round the Moon" -- Summer Camp

Dance, Swedish kids of the early 70s! Dance! Prance! Pout! Also, smoke cigarettes at 14!

SUMMER CAMP - Round the Moon from Paddy Power on Vimeo.

"On Melancholy Hill" -- Gorillaz

Wistfulness, in musical form.

"Lawless Lands" -- The Sword

Yes, the rock has not left us. Starts out slow, teasing, until the second half lets loose a monster chorus.

November 1992: Redneckaphobia

2010-11-28T12:06:00.002-05:00

Academic team is really the only thing I miss about high school. We were The Beast of the Lake Cumberland Academic Conference (us, North Laurel, SW Pulaski, Somerset, Wayne County, Monticello, Lincoln County, etc.) throughout my career, never losing a league game and laying waste to all in our path. Our first real challenge of the year was always Madison Central in the finals of the Regional Governor's Cup.

(My senior year, this game almost led to the first in-game brawl in the history of academic team, but that is a story for another day. Yes, there was almost a fight in the middle of a freaking academic team game. Thug life. I am not making that up).

But all of this was a moot point. To be considered good in the grand scheme of things, you had to be able to play with and beat the Lexington and Louisville schools. The magnet schools. The schools where the kids went whose parents had Ph.D.s, lots of money, and Mensa-level genetics. Otherwise you were just an also-ran from Podunkville, Ky.

My junior year we got a chance to get a taste of state-level competition without the pressure of win-or-go-home State Governor's Cup thanks to the geniuses who came up with the Holiday Bowl, an invitation-only tournament for the state's sixteen best quick recall teams. Like State, it was held at the Executive West in Louisville.

Considering the top-to-bottom level of competition, it was a given that there would be no warm-up -- we would be tossed right into the fire. Our first-round opponent was Louisville Ballard. We didn't know much about them, but the word "Louisville" in their name reflexively made us think of a row of future Rhodes Scholars bound for Yale and Princeton, cracking wry smiles as they backhanded questions about fractals, particle physics, and Gaussian curves. DuPont Manual won the state quick recall title every other year, and they were in the same league.

So the game commenced. We were playing in the chapel. Fingers on hairtrigger, we held our own. I can still remember the surge of adrenaline we had when we looked up at each other at halftime and had the lead.

It was time to switch sides. When we went over to the other table, I saw that the scratch paper the Ballard player had left at my spot had some writing on it. Normally at halftime you wadded your paper up and threw it away. I'm not sure if it was to prevent the other team from looking at it and seeing how much or how little you knew or simply a matter of etiquette to leave them a clean area, but we had always done it under some sort of unwritten rule. So the paper quickly caught my attention.

I read the only thing on it that wasn't crossed out: "I ain't scared of y'all."

I showed the other guys. We all got a little snicker out of it. We're playing in the big time now, guys. Trash talk in an academic team game. These city slickers callin' us hillbillies. The same hillbillies who, incidentally, are currently besting them in a competition that measures knowledge.

You can probably see where this story is going, so I won't prolong the drama any more. We won the game, and with it one of the sweetest victories of my entire career. Not just because it was a Louisville school, but because it was a Louisville school with a superiority complex.

The Ballardians slunk away after the post-game handshakes, dour faces giving insight into the self-refelction that must follow losing to a team you had ridiculed only minutes before as being inherently inferior. We took the liberty of sneaking in some inappropriately loud "skeered" and "y'all"s into our post-game banter.

And yes, I still have that paper. I kept it as a trophy.

How could you do this to me?

2010-10-21T11:51:00.003-04:00

Everybody betrayed me. I'm fed up with this world.

Why Lisa? Why? Why?

O HAI MARK.

Garbage, charmingly anthropomorphized

2010-10-20T12:43:00.003-04:00

...also, Herzog.

"Waterfall" by The Fresh & Onlys: Nugget de música

2010-10-06T10:18:00.003-04:00

Ghostly ramshackle 60s music, vaguely Western.

The climbing-chiming guitar that plays it out is like crack.

Little Dieter Needs to DAHNSE

2010-05-16T10:45:00.004-04:00

I'd always heard that Mike Myers got his inspiration for Dieter from Sprockets, in part, from an impatient waiter in Toronto who would, if you went on for too long, decide that your order was becoming tiresome and leave you and your order incomplete.

I've seen (and enjoyed) several of Werner Herzog's character studies of dreamy eccentrics. But I never heard Dieter's voice so clearly until I watched this:

The pain is exquisite.

Whenever you feel lacking in coolness...

2010-04-04T20:53:00.006-04:00

Simply cast your gaze upon this picture.

The Cool will be absorbed through your retinas, pass through your optic nerves, and saturate your entire body, thereby rocking your entire sphere of influence for several weeks.

Please note that you must use these powers only for good.

Also listened to:

2010-03-13T12:14:00.004-05:00

Broadening my already broad musical horizons with:

So You Ran -- Orion the Hunter.

I'm progressing by regressing, having just bought a turntable. Yes, vinyl records. I'm well on my way to becoming a hipster music snob. And my first record is appropriately obscure, although I'm sure hipsters at the time considered it tripe: little-known Boston offshoot Orion the Hunter, a band I happened upon by chance while looking for records online. The LP has a few decent songs on it, but this one is definitely my favorite. Nice to know that there are some dusty 80s diamonds still left to be found.

Wet Wipe Riddim -- Ginz & Kool Money Kwame.

Ever heard of dubstep or grime? This is it. Trippy wizards in a laserbeam fight.

Rhinestone Eyes -- Gorillaz.

Enjoying the chorus of this song for as long as I can until they're playing it on the PA at Hot Topic and I'm sick of it and disavow ever having heard it before.

Rocket (Richard X One Zero remix) -- Goldfrapp.

80s Stevie Nicks vibe. Thanks for playing.

A Lung -- The Knife.

Oh how I love The Knife. Tuneful. Scary. Weird.

Dust bunny haiku

2010-03-06T12:26:00.003-05:00

hardwood floor: lying visible
whisk of broom approach -
flee!

Analog Memory

2010-03-01T17:23:00.003-05:00

Some things live indefinitely in the dusty recesses of memory.

HBO in the olden days (early- to mid- 80s) used to kill time between the ending of one movie and the beginning of another with a rotating repertoire of short films of varying origin, quality, and subject matter.

I can only remember bits and pieces of some...maybe not enough to ever find them again. But here's one that had enough of an effect on my circa 8-year-old imagination to remind me that it still exists, 25+ years later.

"Facelove" by PS I Love You: Nugget de música

2010-01-25T14:13:00.002-05:00

The video is a Joy Division ripoff, the singer looks like Star Wars Kid, but by heck, when he kicks that Big Muff switch midway through, this song shreds, comma.

The Room (2003): Netflixin 1/4/10

2010-01-09T14:00:00.002-05:00

Why I rented it: I read somewhere that this is one of the worst movies of all time. Count me in.

Verdict: 1.5/10 (execution); 7/10 (entertainment factor). Yep, file under "so bad it's good." I suppose the plot is no worse than what I imagine daytime soap operas get away with on a daily basis. But the what really induces guffaws from this ridiculous movie is the "acting." The writer / director / producer / star has one facial expression (eyes half-closed blankness) and delivers his lines in one tone of voice (vaguely Eastern European monotone), context be danged. Looking like an imitation of Sylvester Stallone imitating Fabio, his roided-out physique (oddly reminiscent of a smoked ham) is showcased grotesquely in the all-too-frequent softcore love scene setpieces. The rest of the cast is only marginally better. Here are some of the characteristics of the bizarre otherworld in which The Room is set:

The movie is set in San Francisco. In case you forget this at any time during viewing, wait approximately three to five minutes for a gratuitous shot of a San Franciscan landmark (Golden Gate, Transamerica Pyramid, Coit Tower, row from Full House) to remind you, whether relevant to the plot or not.

The characters are always surprised to see one another, even if they've been in the same house together for some time. "O HAI, [character name]" is repeated about 50 times during the movie.

The director is obviously not a native-born American, so his interpretations of American culture are a bit odd: "playing football" consists of standing a few feet apart and awkwardly shoving a ball around like a bunch of giggling oafs cavorting through an Alpine meadow in springtime.

Room décor includes framed cutlery.

Odd plot lines are casually introduced then abruptly abandoned. One character's mother nonchalantly announces out of the blue that she has cancer, and (SPOILER, as if it matters) it's never brought up again. The weird man-child neighbor Denny's drug dealer (customer?) suddenly shows up and points a gun to his head.

But anyway, the movie best speaks for itself. Here are a couple of my favorite scenes. They sum up the ethos of this steaming pile of crap quite eloquently:

Slap Chop II: Electric Boogaloo remix

2010-01-04T13:50:00.002-05:00

Autotune used for the forces of good. When I start making remixes in my basement, they will go a little something like this:

Phunky phresh. Love the old lady coda at the end.

My favorite songs of the 2000s

2009-12-31T12:11:00.001-05:00

Applaud my sophisticated tastes! Marvel at my DJ skills! Create your own at home! Some assembly required!

Huzzah!

Avantasia, Avantasia (2001). Bombastic, artsy and nerdy German power-prog. Dio writes Rush lyrics on an album entitled The Metal Opera. Description sufficient.

Avantasia - Avantasia

Prometheus, Covenant (2002). Anthemic, slow-burning Swedish synth-rock. Blurps and surges like hot MAG-MAH.

Prometheus - Covenant

One With the Freaks, The Notwist (2002). Have you ever been understood?

One With The Freaks - The Notw...

Hey Ya, Outkast (2003). A bit embarrassing, considering how overplayed this was. But it's one of the best pop songs I've ever heard and I'm not ashamed to admit it. And this video never gets old:

Songbird, Oasis (2003). Simple, short, sweet.

Songbird - Oasis

The Buford Stick, Drive-By Truckers (2004). Sure it's fanfiction inspired by a 70s rednecksploitation movie. But the swaggering triple-guitar attack on this song just oozes cool. "Hit an embankment doin one-twenty on a straightaway, the Lord works in mysterious ways..."

The Buford Stick - Drive-By Tr...

Love Steals Us from Loneliness, Idlewild (2005). Sure their earlier albums were better as complete works, but this song is pure sonic melancholy bliss. With one of my all-time favorite and remarkably fitting videos. Like a short Antonioni movie...cold, distant beauty met with sarcasm and resolve.

Love Steals Us From Loneliness...

It Generates, Iris (2006). Sounds a lot older than it really is...reminds me of classic Depeche Mode, especially lyrically. Deals with one of my favorite motifs -- fighting against incredible odds, knowing full well that in the end you're going to lose but giving it all you have anyway. Brings to mind Captain Ahab by way of Khan: "...to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee..." I don't think of it in such a sinister tone -- I prefer the valiant Ragnarök of Norse mythology -- but you get my point.

It Generates - Iris

Roscoe, Midlake (2006). Smooth, man, smooth. AM radio down by the lake, in the fall, with the late-day sun filtering through the trees. And weird obtuse lyrics.

Roscoe - Midlake

We Share Our Mother's Health, The Knife (2006). Kicks in like a rusty carnival ride, ends by disintegrating into a puff of smoke. The part in between doesn't translate into English.

We Share Our Mothers' Health (...

Indian Summer, Manic Street Preachers (2007). Sounds like the title. Pair this with "Roscoe" above for a double-feature of wistfulness.

Indian Summer - Manic Street P...

The Escapist, The Streets (2008). Another example of a good song on multiple levels, including an excellent video. Evokes thoughts of two activities that are near and dear to my heart: cycling and traveling. Persistence, exploration, solitude, beauty, self-reliance, escape. "I'll not feel no fear, 'cause I'm not really here. I'm nowhere near."

My favorite albums of the 2000s

2009-12-26T12:54:00.001-05:00

In no particular order...

Dopethrone, Electric Wizard, 2000. The wizard is smoking something on the cover...they don't call it stoner metal for nothing. Incredibly heavy.

WARNING: this record is one of them "heavy metal" ones your mommy always warned you about. It talks about smoking dope and worshipping Satan. I am not kidding. You probably can't understand the words, but that's just how they seep insidiously into your subconscious mind without you knowing it. Flee now.

Dopethrone - Electric Wizard

Machina / The Machines of God, Smashing Pumpkins, 2000. I remember being mildly disappointed in this record when it first came out. It started to get stale pretty quickly, and most of the songs sounded processed within an inch of their lives. Funny how the Corgan / "Pumpkins" records released in the interim have made it sound so much better in retrospect.

Machina / The Machines Of God ...

Everything You Thought Was Right Was Wrong Today, Slobberbone, 2000. They went downhill fast with their subsequent records...this one is them at their peak.

Everything You Thought Was Rig...

Original Pirate Material, The Streets, 2002. The novelty of heavily-accented British rap gives way to the realization that this stuff is actually more than that and not bad. Garage, they call it. That's GAIR-ij. As thematically dissimilar to the tired old "girls, money, and Bentleys" of American hip-hop as René Descartes is to Dr. Phil.

Original Pirate Material - The...

Southern Rock Opera, Drive-By Truckers, 2002. On my all-time list, so of course it's here. Blew me away the first time I heard it and hasn't gotten old to this day. Tuneful, powerful, epic double album about what it means to be a "Southerner" (depicted most directly in "The Southern Thing", but much more eloquently in the record as a whole) as told through the rise and fall of a fictional rock band.

Southern Rock Opera - Drive-By...

Magnolia Electric Co., Songs: Ohia, 2003. Listen to this weepy album late at night on a dark country road and ghosts will float out of your speakers.

The Magnolia Electric Co. - So...

Mary Star of the Sea, Zwan, 2003. Mostly disrespected. Mostly very good.

(Sorry, no samples available).

Decoration Day, Drive-By Truckers, 2003. Hate to double-dip, but I do have a second-favorite DBT record. And it's too good not to include. Their darkest album, and the peak of Jason Isbell's tenure with the band -- "Outfit" and the title track are the two best songs he's ever written. And "My Sweet Annette" holds the distinction of being the first DBT song I ever heard.

Decoration Day - Drive-By Truc...

Wrath, Iris, 2006. Anthemic, slighty-retro synth-rock, plain and simple. Top-to-bottom awesome.

Wrath - Iris

Silent Shout, The Knife, 2006. Deep Cuts is an excellent album, but this one is The Knife at their best. Trippy scary plastic beats and skiddly screeches.

Silent Shout - The Knife

Zoysia, The Bottle Rockets, 2006. Thinking man's roots rock. Life and politics in small-town USA.

Zoysia - The Bottle Rockets

Age of Winters, The Sword, 2006. Call it poseur metal if you want, but this is good stuff. Honorable mention: the track "How Heavy This Axe." Not on this record, but I would be remiss not to mention it and the sheer coolness of the title.

Age of Winters - The Sword

Boys and Girls in America, The Hold Steady, 2006. Big, manic, and earnest. Horn section and all.

Boys And Girls In America - Th...

The Trials of Van Occupanther, Midlake, 2006. The lost Fleetwood Mac album from 1978. Mellow.

Trials Of Van Occupanther - Mi...

Untrue, Burial, 2007. Smoky, haunted dubstep.

Untrue - Burial

My favorite albums of 2009

2009-12-12T11:42:00.001-05:00

2009: crap year for music.

Not much going on, I'm afraid. Not to say there wasn't any good stuff put out for the hungry masses...just more of a case of quality over quantity.

So few of them, these ARE in order.

1. Fever Ray, Fever Ray. Solo project by the singer from The Knife sounds like, guess what...The Knife! This is not a bad thing. Just a bit more laid-back sounding than her other band. And like The Knife, many songs have a vague tropical vibe to them. "Triangle Walks" kind of tastes like Miami Vice.

Best songs: Seven, Triangle Walks (Rex the Dog remix).

Fever Ray - Fever Ray

Triangle Walks (Rex The Dog Remix Radio Edit) - Fever Ray

2. Journal for Plague Lovers, Manic Street Preachers. Crunchy yet melodic tunes garnished with vintage grunge lyrics. Turns out this album was created in part by using the band's vanished bassist's old notebooks.

Best songs: Peeled Apples, Virginia State Epileptic Colony

Journal For Plague Lovers - Ma...

3. The Blue Record, Baroness. It's a metal album, but a grab-bag of one that is hard to pin down stylistically. Also, it is on this list, so it is good.

Best songs: Ogeechee Hymnal, The Sweetest Curse

Blue Record - Baroness

The Chase Vault Homepage 8/3/99 - 10/26/09

2009-11-21T09:43:00.002-05:00

The last guestbook entry:

Thursday 05/07/2009 6:39:32am
Name: zac efron
E-Mail: zacefron@optus.us
Homepage Title:
Homepage URL:
Referred By: Just Surfed In
Location: hollywood
Comments: hi did you see 17 again

Answer: no. Significance: little.

RIP to my first significant creation on the Intrawebs.

Created from scratch, straight HTML, yo. No cut and paste EZ Page Creator biz-niss.

50,000+ hits over 10 years.

Cited as a reference on Wikipedia.

Yahoo has killed geocities, and with it, millions of little voices from internet history past. Some are no doubt happy to see the bad animated GIFs, poorly contrasting wallpapers, and Britney webring pages be put out of their misery, but the whole place had a definite nostalgia value. Some people (myself included) created webpages and quickly forgot about them, creating circa late-90s time capsules that floated down through time and space, waiting to be discovered. All gone now.

The Chase Vault Homepage still lives, albeit chopped into its individual files and stuffed in a folder on my desktop. One day it will live again. I just can't bear to put it up on Tripod.

Freaking. Awesome.

2009-11-15T10:28:00.003-05:00

KILLA SCIENCE REMIX, FOOLS!!!!

"Untrust Us" by Crystal Castles: Nugget de música

2009-10-10T11:21:00.004-04:00

Your Commodore 64 is haunted by yodeling ghosts who are into WorldBeat. They're having a dance party.

Untrust Us - Crystal Castles

To the edge of space, using common household items

2009-09-26T10:56:00.003-04:00

Well, maybe not things you have sitting around your house right now, but things the average person could procure without too much trouble, thanks to the resources made available by the world-wide interwebs and the matryoshka doll-inization of technology.

Submitted for your approval, a group of guys from Canada and Japan use a weather balloon to lift a Canon HD camcorder to the edge of space, over 20 miles up, tracking it with an attached GPS.

It takes 3 hours and 6 minutes to reach altitude of 107,145 feet, at which point the balloon membrane succumbs to the ideal gas law and pops. Next comes 49 minutes of near-freefall in which the rig is slowed only by the friction of the thin air and a tangled parachute, finally reuniting with Mother Earth 89 miles downrange after nearly four hours aloft.

Here's the video, but please let me warn you that there was no camera stabilization mechanism used. So if you're susceptible to motion sickness or have recently eaten dinner, beware.

Detailed text account by project members here.

My favorite part of the video is how the sounds of civilization slowly fade as the camera climbs higher and higher, until there is nothing but the cold, dark silence of near-vacuum.

Also note the changing perspective of the TV tower in the distance as the camera pans over it each time.

Freedom of Choice

2009-08-10T11:36:00.003-04:00

Fact: I spend way too much time on the internet. Wikipedia shoulders a large part of the blame for this. I can spend literally hours on that site. Here's how it works: curious by nature, something pops into my head. I go to Wikipedia and look it up. While reading, I think of something else. I look it up. This repeats again and again until I am reading about something far removed from my original target and much time has passed.

What's wrong with this? Nothing, other than the opportunity cost of other things I could have been doing with the time. Arrows for my future Jeopardy quiver, I tell myself. But it does bring to mind this pit-of-the-stomach feeling I used to sometimes get when I was in college and went to the library. It was hard to describe, but in essence was this: so many books...I wish I could read them all. Then a slight pang of disappointment to know that I never could.

I remember reading an article in The Atlantic not too long ago about a problem of modern society: choice overload. Give a person too many options and instead of being grateful for the opportunity he gets frustrated. Hundreds of TV channels. A world wide web full containing almost the sum total of human history. Millions of books on every subject imaginable. This looks interesting, but how about this? This looks like the best, but if I pick it, what will I be missing instead?

In ancient Rome

There was a poem

About a dog

Who found two bones

He picked at one

He licked the other

He went in circles

He dropped dead

--"Freedom of Choice", by Devo

Most people dismiss Devo as kitschy, dated 80s New Wave weirdos. But there is a notable pervading philosophy in their lyrics: much of what we term progress in modern society is actually dehumanizing and degrading us..."de-evolution." This song sums up that philosophy better than any I've heard. Freedom of choice can be both liberating and imprisoning.

Russian Ark (2002): Netflixin 7/8/09

2009-07-22T14:13:00.003-04:00

Why I rented it: It's a movie about the Hermitage Museum, the massive collection of art in St. Petersburg, Russia that made quite an impression on me when I was there in May.

Verdict: 8/10. I don't usually like movies that don't have much of a plot, and actually having recently visited many of the rooms and works shown in the movie gave me an a priori kinship with it all, but this is one of those movies that sticks in your head for a long time after you've seen it. Artsy and strange as heck, and you're sure to be lost if you don't have a pretty good background in classical art and Russian history, as, in a subtlety that is the antithesis of the sledgehammer that is modern American moviemaking, the film takes it as a given that the viewer will know who the characters are without any introduction whatsoever as it shifts randomly through various historical eras. And oh yeah, the movie's claim to fame is that it consists of a single continuous 96-minute shot. The camera is never turned off until the movie ends. I'm a sucker for good endings, and the ending, quite honestly, is one of the hauntingly greatest I've ever seen. Art appreciation at its finest and most eloquent.

Glenn Beck, history, and political science

2009-06-11T16:46:00.004-04:00

As I've said earlier, I've always been interested in the science of propaganda. Whether subtle or overt, a little hobby of mine has been to spot and deconstruct it. But what is alarming to me is the trend over the past ten to fifteen years of the mixing of news and entertainment. It is now common for purported "news" organizations to not only pick and choose what they report, but to mix in a generous amount of editorializing along with it. This is usually done so insidiously that it is difficult for a viewer who is not paying attention to tell where the facts end and the opinion begins. I think most people, deep down, realize this, but still end up aligning themselves with the news source that offers them the most ideological reinforcement. The end result is that they don't really learn anything new, they just feel better about what they already believed to begin with.

I was a bit surprised when the only American television station available on the ship's satellite during my recent trip to Northern Europe was Fox News. Thanks to the time zone shift, I had a lot of exposure to shows otherwise outside of my normal tv-watching schedule, most notably Glenn Beck's. On one show (and again recently in the wake of the Neo-Nazi shooting at the Holocaust Museum in Washington) he managed to depict Hitler as a Leftist(!) on par with Lenin and Stalin through a rather disingenuous illustration of the political spectrum. His was one consisting of just one axis: governmental control over society. And while I'm sure his basic intent was to convince his audience that the contemporary Democratic Party finds its ideological brethren in history's worst dictators, the graph is prima facie correct. But those in his audience with a basic understanding of political science no doubt recognized that his graph was midleading thanks to its use of only one axis, that of governmental control.

So were Nazis leftists? The short answer is kind of yes, kind of no. They really don't fall into any clear categorization within the left/right political system as we presently define it, having elements of both.

But I submit that it would be foolhearty to categorize a group known for its vehement opposition to Communism, homosexuality, labor unions, and "decadent modern art", along with its support for "pure and ancient Aryan culture" as socially liberal.

A more accurate assessment would split Beck's authoritarian / anarchist axis into two perpindicular ones -- one for social authority and the other for economic authority. Doing so illustrates the major gap in ideology that actually existed between Stalin and Hitler, mortal enemies during World War II. Yes, they were both dictators, so they match up closely on the social authoritarian end of the spectrum. But where they differed was in economic ideas: Hitler was much more of a capitalist (and thus much further to the right) than Stalin, a communist.

It's interesting to see where current US and world political figures rank on the expanded scale...and, despite popular conceptions, how similar they actually are, tending to cluster in the "authoritarian right" quadrant. For the whole story, see the political compass.

For those interested, I personally fall into the left libertarian-leaning quadrant, most closely aligning with Gandhi, and completely opposite most of the aforementioned contemporary politicians. I would say that's pretty accurate.

Old music made new

2009-06-05T11:10:00.003-04:00

I've listened to the new U2 album enough now to have formed a decent opinion. Pretty dang good, in spite of what most people have said. Don't judge the entire record on the basis of the first single, "Get on Your Boots" -- it may have the aggressive sound they were looking for but is actually one of the weaker songs on the album. The second single, "Magnificent", is a much better choice. Even if the record does fall off a little bit toward the end, there are no bad songs on it; some are very good. And that first part of the chorus on "Stand Up Comedy"...high point of the record.

Stand Up Comedy - U2

The verdict is still out on the new Depeche Mode ("Sounds of the Universe"). It was recorded with synthesizers of early-80s vintage...some have said it clinks and clanks like a Commodore 64. I agree, and that isn't bad. I listened to it for the first time somewhere over the North Atlantic at 3am, which had to have helped as far as atmosphere goes. I've heard it's a grower. "Fragile Tension" is without a doubt the best song on the record..."In Sympathy" is a respectable second.

Fragile Tension - Depeche Mode

Notes from the road

2009-05-22T10:04:00.005-04:00

Odds and ends on topics not quite congealed enough to constitute an entire post:

Scandinavia, even in early May, is freaking cold, gray, and dreary. I can see how the place has spawned so many death metal bands and existentialist philosophers. It's a coping mechanism against the heavy iron hand of existence.

To someone who rarely needs an alarm clock and finds it hard to sleep in even if I stay up late, jet lag is a curse. Few things are more miserable than feeling your brain suddenly mucking through tar in the middle of the afternoon or waking up starving at 4 in the morning.

Also from the "it's all clear to me now" department: if the famous Russian brides you hear about are anything like the real Russian women you see by the hundreds in St. Petersburg, maybe it's not such a bad idea after all.

A clear daytime flight back can give you a bonus itenerary. Thanks to excellent weather on the return flight, I was able to see the snowy mountains of central Norway, oil derricks in the North Sea, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and millions of North Atlantic icebergs that looked close enough together to walk across. It was sort of scary when the pilot came over the intercom to tell us that we could look out and see the uncommon sight of Iceland below when we were in fact over the Faroe Islands. I was left thinking that we were either much higher than I thought or that global warming had melted the last of Iceland's eponymous ice. We did manage to find our way back home, thankfully.

I love to travel, and cruises are one of the easiest and most relaxing ways to see places it would otherwise be difficult logistically to see. But I'm learning that I like to travel much more than I like to cruise. It comes down to authentic vs. fake. Authentic is planning things yourself, seeing what you want to see, and moving at your own pace. It's finding your own food. It's knowing, seeing, feeling where you are. It's how to say you've really been somewhere, not just seen it. Fake is going on overpriced tours loaded with one-foot-in-the-grave geezers festooned with fanny packs and Hawaiian shirts who move at a pace rivaling snot on a frozen doorknob and always seem to be shuffling about aimlessly two feet in front of you every time you want to get somewhere. Fake is a crew who seem to not want to be there yet feel compelled by their superiors to shoot you a tepid "hello, sir" along with an empty smile any time you get within 15 feet of them. Call me a curmudgeon, but I find these fake overtures of "courtesy" to be an irritant. If I say hi to you, it's because I'm glad to see you. If I smile at you, it's because I am happy. Tossing out a fake hello to strangers, smiling, and pretending to be interested in how they spent their day is not being polite. It's filling the air with white noise. It's a gaudy plastic flamingo in the yard of sociability. I read somewhere that most British people find the American cultural compulsion to sing out "have a nice day!" left and right to people we barely even know to be cutesy and silly. I tend to agree. Being rude is not ignoring others...being rude is imposing on others. Being polite is being sincere.

By the way, this is in no way a knock on the thousands of thoroughly alright and decent Southeast Asian and Eastern European people who are just trying to make a living while seeing the world and dealing with spoiled, elderly Americans on the cruise ships. They do what they're told.

/soapbox.

Matryoshka dolls I bought in St. Petersburg, depicting various Soyuzmultfilm characters. Soyuzmultfilm was a Soviet animation company of the 60s, 70s, and early 80s that produced some of the most imaginative, exotic, and often creepy non-kiddie cartoons and stop-motion shorts I've ever seen. Each a little Faberge Egg.

They strike me as slightly darker versions of the educational / cultural shows our teachers would show us on KET / PBS back in my elementary school days of the mid-80s.

If interested, here's

imaginative,

exotic,

Cabaret | Viral | SPIKE.com

and creepy.

TintMasters?

2009-04-21T14:49:00.005-04:00

Tinted Windows, nascent supergroup.

Members:

James Iha (underappreciated guitarist / songwriter) Smashing Pumpkins: +5
The oblivious dude from Cheap Trick (drummer): +2
Some guy from Fountains of Wayne (bass): +1
One of the Hanson girls (vocals): -10

Sounds more like Fountains of Wayne than anything, but listening to this song gives me a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach that in some alternate universe I could inadvertently be listening to something my nightmares tell me the Jonas Brothers sound like.

Worth it for the vintage Pumpkins mini-solo at 1:58, I tell myself.

My Chase Vault page has been updated

2009-04-15T19:28:00.002-04:00

Interested parties may wish to drop by my Chase Vault page, as I have recently been toiling 'round the clock to upload some new pictures and old video.

It was one of the first webpages I created, and the oldest one still in operation. Also the most popular, averaging 10 hits a day with a total of 34,000 visits and counting.

Plus I made it from scratch. Old school HTML code writing.

Did I mention it's SCARY? For full effect, dim the lights and put on some dour music before clicking.

Drive-By Truckers at The Dame 3/26/09

2009-03-27T13:45:00.004-04:00

Scheduling problems with work almost kept me from seeing this one. It was originally set for a day I was off but had to work the next day...staying up until the wee hours isn't wise ahead of putting in a 13-hour shift. This all became a moot point after one of the band members got sick, resulting in the postponement of that and several other dates. Unfortunately the rescheduled date was one I had to work, but since I didn't have to work the next day I was able to do some switching around to free it up.

Then came getting tickets. With the original show sold out and those tickets still being honored for the new date, it wasn't looking good in spite of my own scheduling success. After checking online two or three times a day for a week or so, they finally put some up which I promptly pounced on.

I didn't have high hopes for the opening act (Don Chambers and Goat) after skimming over some of their stuff on their myspace page. I ended up being pleasantly surprised. Lots of bluesy stomp-rock. Even if it all sounded sort of the same I kind of liked it. Their stuff definitely sounds better live. Any band with a comically grimacing drummer who uses a wooden stepladder with hubcaps tied to it as part of his drum kit gets originality points too.

All in all a good show with a nice setlist, although I was hoping for at least one song off the next album. I took a few pictures -- blurry, thanks to the dim red lighting -- nothing really worth posting. And no video, deciding instead just to focus on the music this time.

As usual, the crowd provided entertainment of their own. The requisite mouthy drunk (you know, the one who elbows his way to the front so he can scream at the opening band "you guys &*@#$ RUUUUULE!!!!" and "I @*%$ LOOOOOVE you guys!!!" only to then use equivalent enthusiasm to curse their continued presence on the stage after they've played more than three songs) made his appearance early on and was gone by 10 minutes into the Truckers' set.

I was in my customary position down front on Cooley's side. The Dame has a rail a couple of feet in front of the stage proper, but that didn't stop a small trickle of people from ducking under it and standing right next to the stage as the show went on. A couple of women were the first to go, gyrating the same out-of-left-field booty dance regardless of what was being played. Cooley was undeterred, stepping right out on the edge in front of them during solos. As time went on and the Pabst Blue Ribbon began to work its magic, their booty dancing morphed into rubbing their hands up and down his legs every time he came close. He didn't seem to mind, though, and thankfully they still had the presence of mind to keep their hands below his knees and off his guitar.

During the next-to-last song of the encore ("Zip City"), I suddenly felt a determined pushing behind me. For a second I thought a mosh pit had broken out. Thankfully it was just one guy who decided he wanted to occupy the same space I was in, precedence and the laws of physics be danged. Considering that I had made a beeline for and occupied that very spot from the moment I got in the door a good three hours ago, I moved not one inch. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him standing in awkward stalemate, tantalizingly close to the destination he had up until that point approached through pushing who knows how many people from who knows how far back. I could see him glancing over at me, then beyond to the small patch of open space between me and the person to my right. He said something, which through the din of the music and my earplugs I interpreted as a greeting, and I returned it in kind, throwing in a look that reiterated the fact that he wasn't going to be gaining any ground at my expense. So I spent the next song and a half in exactly the same spot I had spent the ones before. Only with the outstretched arm of my new neighbor excitedly thrusting the rock horns gesture across a good chunk of my field of view. But that's all part of the experience. I had fun.

Quotes of the night:

(While standing in line outside)
Someone driving down the street: "Whoooooo!!! Who's playing?"
Someone in line: "Your mother!"

(Late in the show)
Cooley: "Wha y'all wanna hear?"
Crowd: "Blahbluhblahbluhblah..."
Cooley [already strumming the next song]: "Alright we'll play that one then."

The Animated Bayeux Tapestry

2009-03-18T12:44:00.004-04:00

The first English comic strip becomes, well, the first cartoon representation of the first English comic strip I could find on Youtube.

Sure, it's oversimplified and only uses the second half of the work, but it's a good summary. Plus it has music, moves, and does away with that pesky Latin.

Watch it once for a lesson on Medieval history. Watch it twice for the Warcraft II remix.

It amazes me that one of the most important events in English history hasn't gotten the Big Bad Jerry Bruckheimer Historical Epic Movie treatment yet. Not that that's a bad thing.

Yo Dawg, I Herd You Like Mace, or Today's Ride 3/9/09

2009-03-10T15:01:00.003-04:00

Route: 41.1 miles, Levi Jackson loop.

Weather: Partly cloudy, 67 degrees, 5 mph wind.

Performance: Average speed 14.4 mph, time 3:03:19. Average HR 148 bpm. Average power 116 watts, maximum power 732 watts. Work 1194 kJ.

Motionbased.com link: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/7765458

Comment: Good day for an easy early-season ride at an easy early-season pace. And for macing punk dogs. Yes, I was ready this time. The line was drawn in my head...if a given canine met two out of the following three criteria, he was getting a faceful:

1. Is he within 18 inches of a body part?
2. Is he large enough to reach my foot at the top of my pedal stroke?
3. Is he acting in an aggressive manner? (Many do, but after a while you just get this gut feeling which ones are having a good time and which ones may try something).

And of course nothing happened. Sort of anticlimactic. Mile after mile, house after house, the most faithful of family members were either preoccupied or otherwise invisible.

But about halfway through my ride I passed one house on a hill that never lets me down. It's home to a large, white, shaggy-haired dog that sort of looks like a St. Bernard, only slightly smaller. And one or two other tag-along mutts of similar aggressiveness.

Down they came like bats out of Hades.

And out came my trusty can of Halt!. The same can that, in over 3,000 miles, I had heretofore only fired once in anger. But the unfortunate event of early last month has put an end to those days, I'm afraid, forever.

In a split second, all three of my criteria were met. Out came a stream of ruddy-orange liquid fire in a beeline for two lucky dogs' headlights. And my aim was true. Each of them stopped dead in his tracks, blinking.

Just as the satisfaction in my newfound power was beginning to wane, I found myself approaching another notorious dog-house. This one has a particularly outgoing German Shepherd as head of the welcoming party...a dog with such a primeval hatred of bikes that, if he comes at you from the side, won't hesitate one bit in sacrificing his body to smack into your back wheel so hard that it makes you fishtail. This would be a true test of my defense mechanism.

And out he came in a full-on sprint, companion in tow. Spray in hand. Criteria met. Stream engaged.

What followed was not quite the result I had hoped for or had seen minutes earlier. They paused briefly, but were so crazed that the assault continued. Thankfully though, they live on a flat stretch of ground, so outrunning them isn't a problem. And outrun them I did.

So my battle plan is simple Pavlovian conditioning. I aim to be the instrument of implementation for this cold, hard equation:

bike + chase = pain

No matter how much fun it is, no matter how instinctual it is, no matter how much you want to impress that hott yellow pomeranian down the street. Chase a bike and you will hurt.

And maybe I need to go bear strength on that German Shepherd.

The Pinocchio Paradox

2009-03-01T18:59:00.003-05:00

With thanks to Epimenides of Knossos and Digg.

"Heartbeats" by The Knife: Nugget de música

2009-02-27T15:13:00.006-05:00

Say kids, have you ever retired to your drawing-room, late in the evening, cursing the stars that circa-1983-era Depeche Mode wasn't peppier? I haven't. But if you have, consider this song your gift from heaven! Huzzah!

And the video matches the music as well as any I've ever seen. Groovy times, footloose and fancy free.

80s synthpop lives!

Dealing with bites (worse than barks)

2009-02-23T08:38:00.006-05:00

Today I learned that you can buy bear Mace. It's like human Mace but stronger. "The strongest EPA approved animal repellant rating (2.0% Capsaicinoids)" the website gushes breathlessly, trailing zero for added impressiveness. It has "an extreme blast range of 35 feet!" It also costs 45 bucks plus shipping.

So with riding season a bit over a month away, I am faced with the dilemma of how best to fend off canine interlopers. Here are a few of the methods I've considered:

Ultrasonics. Think an electronic dog whistle. These things are supposed to emit a high-frequency squeal that dogs find unpleasant. So unpleasant that they will be frozen in their tracks with confusion. And if you're lucky they'll flee in terror. Or so the ads say. Something tells me they're an awkward pound of dead weight.

Cattle prods. These would definitely work. The major problem, however, would be misadventure by unintentional activation. Even a split second of current caused by, say, a bump in the road while in the middle of a 40-mph descent would send a person to biking Valhalla.

Dog biscuits. I read about this trick on a cycling forum, then remembered that I had used it to good effect with Toby. No doubt the kindest defense. Just drop a couple on the ground as a distraction. The problem is that once the chase is joined a lot of dogs will stop for nothing else in the world short of brute force, giving or taking.

Squirting water bottles. Another forum tip. Again I doubt the effectiveness of a spritz of electrolyte drink stopping a snarling dog. Plus my water bottles don't squirt...they more or less dribble. And I need my liquid for more important things, like drinking.

My freaking foot. The good thing about bike shoes is that they're made to be stiff, not only in the sole but on the sides as well. And they have cleats on the bottom. This makes them weapons. Drawbacks are that you have to unclip from the pedal first, which takes time and also dramatically reduces the rate at which you can pedal on and escape. This is one method I have put into practice in situ, most notably on my neighbor's dog -- one of the few that has actually gotten close enough to put its teeth on my person. A solid thwop to her skull and she hasn't so much as made one step toward me since.

Some sort of sharp-tipped medieval jousting-type implement. It's a thought.

A .40 caliber Glock. It's ok to admit that this was the first thing that popped into your head. It would definitely do the job. It may also come in handy when I'm riding amongst the shacks and cars-on-blocks of the Meth Lab Backcountry. But discharging a firearm in an area where there is an aggressive moving-target animal, asphalt, houses, and the shooter on a bike isn't the safest scenario. Some people treat their dogs like their kids -- little angels who can do no wrong. If they're after you it's because you were antagonizing them. Poor little Killer, he wouldn't bite nobody!

I love dogs. I really do. And I place the blame for attacks on irresponsible owners. But none of this matters when the dog looks up, sees you, and primeval instinct kicks in.

So when a pack of dogs comes sprinting toward me, yapping and yelping like I'm a giant slab of bacon, I have only a couple of seconds to decide what to do. Fight or flight? Out of every 500 dogs that decide to chase me, 499 will end up doing nothing but making a lot of noise. But how about this one? By the way, he's about six inches away now. From this position it would take all of three-quarters of a second for my leg to be on the business end of a canine's canines.

Pedal on and ignore him or attack preemptively? I've been bitten three times. The rabies waiting period is not fun. After this last incident, I'm leaning toward preemptive.

The Fall (2006): Netflixin 2/18/09

2009-02-19T11:42:00.004-05:00

Why I rented it: It just slowly marched to the top of my queue. Sometimes I forget why or when I added certain movies. I was probably on one of my fortnightly avant-garde kicks.

Verdict: 7.5/10. I enjoy visual flourishes in movies as much as anybody. They are, after all, a visual medium. But like everything else in life that produces money, there is a tendency by those in production roles to think that if a little bit is good, a lot is better. I think that too many movies in the past 10 years have relied too much on too many cartoonish-looking CGI. An example: I haven't seen all of The Golden Compass, but the parts I have seen in passing remind me more of Shrek than I'm sure the filmmakers intended. You know there's a problem when you're more convinced by ancient stop-motion and rubber-latex effects than by state-of-the-art CGI razzmatazz. At least latex and corn syrup are real.

The Fall is a movie that should serve as an example of balance. First and foremost, it's a visual treat of set design and cinematography. Eye candy reminiscent of the garish colors of The Fifth Element and the impish darkness of The City of Lost Children. But the style is implemented with restraint. It's reported (and I guess we should believe) that it was made with absolutely zero computer imagery, which is a surprise considering what I've just said. Also it's directed by the guy who made REM's infamous "Losing My Religion" video -- a fact that turned itself into such an insidious visual earworm that I couldn't stop noticing similarities in look and feel between the two. Sorry if I spread it to you just now.

There's a story, too, and it's ok. Occasionally brilliant (except for the non-ending), but in general just ok. And it's allowed to be if the rest of the movie makes up for it.

One day in the future, technology will advance far enough that movies will be made completely on computers. There will no longer be any need for physical components like actors or sets. That time is far away. And even when it does come, imagination, as it always has been, will be one thing that can't be replaced.

A dog tries to eat my leg, or Today's Ride 2/9/09

2009-02-09T20:04:00.007-05:00

Route: 18.4 miles, West Corbin - reverse Collier Hill loop.

Weather: Mostly cloudy, 66 degrees, 10 mph wind.

Performance: average speed 13.5 mph, time 50:32. Average HR 147 bpm. Average power 125 watts, maximum power 850 watts. Work 380 kJ.

Motionbased.com link: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/7598316

Comment: With excellent weather, especially for this time of year, there was no way I could stay inside today. A great day for a leisurely ride. Heck, I even happened upon an unmarked state trooper as he pulled over a member of the "we own the road" Grays 4-Wheeler Gang. All was right with the world.

Sometimes I think about how a single decision we make can once and forever change everything that comes after. Sort of like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, only you can't go back and choose the other way if you don't like the outcome. It's kind of scary to think about how being 30 seconds earlier for work one day could mean that you are in the intersection at the exact time a semi comes plowing through. Or that deciding to go to Sav-a-Lot instead of Wal-Mart to buy your groceries one day means that you will run into a friend you hadn't seen in years and would otherwise never see again.

My bike rides are kind of like that. I usually have a route idea and mileage goal in mind before I set out, but sometimes I wing it. Like today. As this was only my second ride of the year, I decided to play it by ear and ride for as long as my early-season legs could take me.

About halfway through the ride, I decided the full-on Woodbine Loop was a bit much. But I still had enough in my tank that I didn't want to head straight home...a scenic return route would do. So I headed for the Collier Hill reverse.

I've put, over the past few years, a good 5000 miles on my bike. I've been chased by probably about that many dogs. And I'm happy to say that, except for a handful of instances, I've been able to outrun them. But, as this incident showed, man's best friend has the advantage over a cyclist climbing up a hill at 10 miles an hour.

So as my February legs were climbing, a dog came scampering my way from my right. A decent-sized mutt with a medium build but an ominously broad head. I pedaled on just as I have thousands of times before.

I looked down just as he made a definite grab for my foot.

Great. I pedaled harder and gave a couple of stern "hey"s as I sized him up. Unfortunately for me, he was tall enough to be able to reach my leg even if I kept it at the top of my pedal stroke. My only hope was that I would outrun him or he would give up.

But he wasn't done. All I could do was keep pedaling and wait for the next attack.

I felt something on my lower right leg that I can best describe as a cross between a tug and a pinch. Not violent -- the rest of my leg didn't react as if it was being pulled at all. Just a nip. More heys and more pedaling.

The dog was still trotting alongside. Still not ready to call it off. I began to weave toward him and away again, hoping to use my size to my advantage. Finally he receded behind me.

I glanced down at my leg just as my heart rate monitor screeched at me to calm down. I could see a dark area on the outside, not unlike a grease mark you would get on the inside of your leg from rubbing against the chain. I reached down to feel it. I brought my fingers back, hoping with some irrational hope that they would indeed be black with grease. They were wet with blood.

At this point I was pretty ticked off. I made a slow turn, ready to head back and give this guy's owner a piece of my mind. But with no owner in sight and Fido showing renewed agitation at my approach, I stopped. I would have to fight this battle another day.

A couple of hours later I was at the doctor's office getting my overdue tetanus booster. The dog is now tied up, and although his owner's exact whereabouts are (supposedly) unknown, the next-of-kin have assured me that they will keep an eye on him for the next couple of weeks. My neat little half-circle of tooth marks will probably be sore tomorrow.

My last severe dog run-in led to my buying a can of pepper spray. Maybe the legacy of this one will be the handlebar holster.

The culprit in quarantine.

The aftermath (DISTURBING IMAGE WARNING)

In Praise of Cha

2009-02-05T16:01:00.002-05:00

The first time I tried tea I thought I was going to die.

I was about five or six years old and was over at one of my friends' grandmother's house. I remember being thirsty. I remember asking her for something to drink. She told me there was some pop in the refrigerator.

I remember a big glass jar -- a jug, really -- on the top shelf of the refrigerator. It was filled with a cola-colored liquid that I identified as Pepsi. Yum. Time for a refreshing swig.

I thought I was going to puke. Tea. Accckkk.

The best way to describe the taste in my mind was that it was like taking a glassful of Pepsi and adding a bunch of ice cubes and a pinch of hay then letting it sit out for a day or two. Watered down, rancid, and flat. In the years that followed, this traumatic memory served one purpose in my mind: I don't like tea.

Then came my trip to China. We took a tour of Shanghai that included Yuyuan Garden. The Gardens are in the middle of one of the biggest cities on earth but still feel like a park should feel. They're almost 500 years old and are laid out in a way that conjures up images of "traditional" Chinese style: streams of koi, rocks, ornate buildings, and lots of stone lions and dragons. Smack dab in the middle of the park, atop stilts standing in a pond, there's a tea house.

I went inside and took a look around while we were waiting for everybody to catch up. Ancient Chinese guys were scattered throughout the room, many sitting in dark wooden booths along the walls. They looked very contemplative sitting there with their tiny porcelain cups. A couple were smoking pipes. The entire room had a character that fit the occupants: sage and weathered. In the middle of the room was a counter, a bar of sorts. Behind the attendants there was, floor to ceiling, the biggest assortment of multicolored tins I had ever seen. Every conceivable variety of tea must have been represented there, I thought. My then-current knowledge, the sum total of which was "sweet" and "unsweet", was forever changed. Something in my mind told me that I should try some of this.

But imagine my situation: I knew nothing about tea. The tins, though visually appealing and enticing, may as well have been labeled in Chinese, which of course they were. Plus I don't speak Chinese. So I figured I would hold that thought.

As you get older, your tastes change, and I like to think of myself as adventurous when it comes to trying new foods, a sharp contrast from my extremely finicky elementary school days. So once I got back to the ship I whipped up some Darjeeling from a teabag in the cafeteria and resolved to approach it with an open mind. And as I expected, it wasn't half bad.

The rest of the story is a bit of a blur: what started with me ordering a few small tins of green tea has developed into my spending entirely too much money on pretentious imported leaves and exotic brewing vessels. Just the other day I ordered some 2007 organic Tai Ping Hou Kui at almost a dollar a gram. I prepare it gong fu style in a jade porcelain gaiwan. It is good.

I have flipped.

I get a Facebook

2009-02-04T17:27:00.002-05:00

I am no longer an online social networking Luddite. After years of resistance, I have finally created a Facebook page.

Why? For years, this blog has been my main online presence and focus. And I plan to keep it so. But I would like to expand my readership while checking out what other people are doing. Facebook seems like the best way to do that.

I also considered Myspace, and as I'm writing this, I have a prototype page ready to go. But after trying out Facebook, its fate is uncertain. Myspace's music player is nice but Facebook seems to be more "meat and potatoes" -- emphasis on text and content rather than pages that look like overdone flash-and-clash mutant junkyards hit by tornadoes. But a lot of people I know are either on one site or the other.

Anyway, if you're reading this on Facebook, please visit my blog directly as there seem to be some features that don't fully translate over to the Facebook interface.

Sitting at the table

2009-02-04T15:01:00.003-05:00

I went to Lexington the other day to take the Mensa Admissions Test. It's something I've always wanted to do since I first took a mock-up IQ test that I bought at the bookstore when I was a teenager. I had always been under the impression that you had to schedule a one-on-one session with a psychologist to take the bona fide test. To some extent this is true...the Mensa Test no longer gives you a raw IQ score due to complaints from psychologists that, as it is not administered under certified criteria, doing so would produce uncertifiable results. The test simply tells you whether you scored in the top 2% of the population. I figured it was as good a time as any, so off I went.

There were seven other people besides myself there to participate. All were male except for one female. Ages ranged from 14 to probably about 55, although most were college-aged or slightly older. You would expect such a gathering of geeks to produce some memorable (if not particularly engrossing) conversations, and yes, there were a few, like a rather heated debate over whether the infamous #2 pencil is harder than an HB pencil, whatever that is (short answer: it varies). This was the first test I had taken since my Pharmacy Boards (somehow six years ago), so these discussions added to the sense of nostalgia for me. These guys and the things they were saying were just like the guys I had known in high school and college. Simultaneously annoying and entertaining. One casually tossed out his ACT score (35) with no prodding whatsoever and for no particular reason other than to, I assume, pre-emptively one-up everyone in the audience who scored less. He went on to tell a story about some bouncer in Boston who has an IQ of 400 and "gets wasted every night." He seemed a bit let down when our only response was one big collective blank stare. I bet this is like the conversations bodybuilders have about how much they can bench-press.

So the test itself? Actually there were two: a 50-question Wonderlic Personnel Test and the Mensa Admissions Test (about 150 questions divided into 7 sections). You only have to "pass" one to get into Mensa. The Wonderlic was geared more toward speed, the questions getting progressively more difficult as you go on. My mind wasn't quite as crisp as I would have liked (waking up at 7am does that to me) and I didn't finish it, having to make wild guesses on five or so toward the end. The Mensa Test was a bit better, since time wasn't as much of an issue and it was divided up into ~20 question bite-sized chunks with short breaks in between in which to catch your breath.

Several sections consisted of nothing more than groups of pictures, one asking you to pick out the one that most matched the others and another giving you two objects paired in some way and asking you to choose one that most matched a separate picture in the same way. I had read where they also offer a "culture-neutral" test, and after seeing these I can see why. One that jumps out at me was a group of pictures of a guy dressed like Confucius, a Junk, and a paper lantern. It was followed by a shark, a lamb, a panda, and a cat. It took me a moment to figure out that they wanted objects associated with China and marked the panda. Questions like this test applied intelligence...you have to have a basic knowledge of Chinese culture to get it.

There was also the expected vocabulary / verbal analogies section (new word learned: propinquity = proximity). And a tedious but surprisingly enjoyable coin-counting section that I'm sure I aced because it reminded me so much of work. This section gives you a 20-line chart with columns labeled "cents", "nickels", "dimes", "quarters", and "half dollars." Each row has a series of numbers under each column, telling you how many coins of each. The questions would give you an amount..."47 cents" for example, followed by four row choices. You then had to scan the rows and mentally add up the money to find which choice was correct. For some reason, this quick "scanning and adding" routine reminded me of checking stacks of prescriptions at 5pm on a Monday. I suppose six years of that has re-wired my brain. I also suppose it's sad that there is so much skill overlap between a rote task like counting coins and doing a job that I spent eight years of my life in training for.

The final section was unlike any I had seen in any of the practice tests I had taken, and it kind of worried me: short-term memory / recall. Just as work has adjusted my neurons for quick bursts of robotic accuracy, it has also taught me to ignore background noise...anything not prudent to the task at hand, which includes 95% of the questions, phone calls, crying babies, computer problems, insurance issues, and impatient customer noises going on at any given time. So when the proctor busted out his almost comically ornate 3-minute story at the beginning of the session, I gave it my undivided attention, even though I had no idea what questions would be asked about it later. After we had all had ample time to forget it all while taking the rest of the test, it was time to see what we remembered. Again cultural un-neutrality came into play (to my benefit), since the story was about something I already knew about: ancient Greek theater. I think I did well even though some of the questions were rote detail recall (directions, numbers, etc.).

So then it was time to patiently wait the ascribed "5 to 10 business days" to receive my results. When the envelope finally arrived, I had another flashback to my college years: thick or thin envelope?

Kind of thick. Just not thick enough to settle it without opening it.

My eyes stopped at the big "congratulations." I was in.

Attempt #2

2009-01-27T10:56:00.005-05:00

My loyal readers (or those familiar with archival post search) will remember this post, in which I outlined my plan of action toward getting on Jeopardy. Although I think I did reasonably well on the test, they never called, which stank.

I didn't think much else about it until I saw a guy from Lexington on the show a month or two ago. He worked for the Herald-Leader and wrote a few columns detailing the more technical aspects of his appearance. Like me, his first contact with the show was via the online test. But what he said about his "callback" really caught my attention: he had almost missed it thanks to his spam filter. His e-mail identified the invitation to come to a real-life audition as junk and was ready to delete it until he noticed it at the last minute. So they didn't call him after all, they e-mailed him.

Now I'm not saying that I missed my invitation. The selection process is, after all, largely random, and I have heard of people indeed being called on the telephone. But, thanks to the wonders of caller ID and the dogged tenacity of those infernal telemarketers, I never answer my phone unless I recognize who it is. And until a few months ago my Hotmail account was set to automatically delete e-mails it interpreted as spam.

Needless to say, I have now amended my junk mail filtering process and check it regularly for things I might actually want. And as luck would have it, Jeopardy has another online test scheduled for tonight that I've been eyeing with an enlightened mind ever since I read those Herald-Leader stories.

So here we go for Jeopardy Attempt Mark Two. They limit you to one a year. Updates to follow...

"Breadfan" by Budgie: Nugget de música

2009-01-21T15:51:00.007-05:00

I'm experimenting with a new widget that will let you, my gentle reader, experience for yourself some proverbial sonic diamonds in the rough. It is my sincere hope that, in so doing, I can open your ears to musical experiences beyond your wildest imagination. I intend on making this a weekly event, and as I am sure all of you will be waiting patiently, please do not send me irate letters wondering where the next one is if I'm a bit behind. Also, I pray thee, please note that although I wholeheartedly endorse the selection that plays first, I cannot in any way endorse what may come afterwards. In fact, I may find it abhorrent. Please keep these facts in mind.

Anyway, this week's selection is from an early-70s British metal band named Budgie. Yes, it's a rather lame name, and unless you're a music scholar or old you've probably never heard of them. But I hope you'll agree with me that this is one fine tune. It makes me think of skulls, leather, and ape hanger handlebars. This, my peeps, is the proper way to rip off Led Zeppelin.

Press play now.

Breadfan - Budgie

I've also gone back to my older posts where I've referred to music and added the link so you can hear for yourself.

Ye Olde Medieval Storey

2009-01-21T14:00:00.004-05:00

The first time I heard about the Bayeux Tapestry I was in Fourth Grade. In the hullabaloo surrounding the appearance of Halley's Comet, its famous depiction of "they marvel at the star" showed up in newspapers, books, and posters. It was cool to think about how this object we could go outisde and see in the sky was the same that had been taken as an omen of doom over 900 years earlier.

It was only later, in high school, when I started to learn more about 1066 and the Battle of Hastings that I was able to contextualize the Tapestry as more than just some ancient image. It's my current historical object of fascination. One of these days I would love to see it with my own eyes.

Until then, I made my own. There's no deep historical or philosophical meaning...it's a depiction of an old Latin joke. You don't have to understand Latin to get it, although it does make it funnier. If you don't get it, just try reading it out loud. If you so much as chortle audibly, you are a nerd.

Drive-By Morality

2009-01-17T16:48:00.005-05:00

What does God want? Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?

--Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange, Part II, Chapter 3

One of my favorite bike routes rolls through farmland that is typically rural Kentucky -- verdant hills, black wood-plank fences, cow pastures. I don't remember exactly when, but in the past year or so this sign appeared along the way, redolent of cheery pastels belying its staid message:

It's perched on the side of a relatively short but steep hill that I like to attack aggressively, so its themes of death and punishment are tangible to me both figuratively and literally as I gasp past. I sometimes expect to look up and see standing in front of me that final, stark image of the hooded Reaper himself -- grim scythe in hand, a single skeletal finger beckoning me, slowly, as I inexorably draw closer. If that day comes, you won't be reading about it here, but rest assured it was a pretty dang poetic image to go out on.

I've written before about how riding out into the middle of nowhere allows the mind to slip away from the tedium of day-to-day life and instead drift toward the esoteric. I appreciate a sign like this, not only because its author saw fit to fashion it free of the overtly mangled grammar and haphazard punctuation that is far too commonly passed off as English around here, but because it makes the reader think.

Although I'm sure some would say in so doing you miss the crux (pun intended) of the matter, let's set aside the theological implications of the message (which involve faith and thus can be, and have been, argued endlessly for eons) and instead approach it from a more rational philosophical standpoint. When I read this sign, I think about operant conditioning. Reward and punishment. Right and wrong. To me, the fundamental question this sign and ones like it raise is this: should you do good because doing good is the right thing to do, or should you do good because you will be punished if you don't?

Taken at face value, the sign doesn't convey the message that following Jesus brings you closer to God, leads you to help the less fortunate, or makes you a better person. In fact, it doesn't really say anything about Jesus. It just wants to "remind" you that if you don't follow Jesus, something terrible will happen to you.

Emblematic of the author's method is his choice for the sign's largest word. But which is the better method for convincing people to come around to your way of thinking? Join me because I'm right, or join me because bad things will happen if you don't?

And beyond all of this, does true and pure altruism really exist? Is the philanthropist who donates millions to a charitable foundation doing so out of the goodness of his heart, or because he knows they will name their new building after him? Is the anonymous donor doing his part to feed the world's hungry, or is he in effect bribing God now for an anticipated reward to paid later in heaven?

What does it say about the quality of a person's character if his good deeds are done under the guise of selflessly helping others, but, deep down in his heart of hearts, he's really only doing it to help himself? Is any good deed lessened if the person doing it expects a reward, even if the reward is simple satisfaction?

Maybe our best deeds are the ones we don't even realize we're doing.

Son of Rambow (2007): Netflixin 1/12/09

2009-01-16T11:39:00.000-05:00

Why I rented it: Bored kids in the 80s make movies with a video camera. I did that.
Verdict: 6.5/10. Not bad, but just kind of good. A bit hokey toward the end, plus too much of that whole romanticized "kids act and talk as adults see them" stuff rather than kids as they really are. It also relies too often on the nostalgia bludgeon of "Hey, remember this (insert painfully obvious 80s song that everybody can recognize)? If not, don't worry, we'll find a way to shoehorn another one into the movie within the next five minutes whether appropriate or not becuase we don't want you to forget that this movie is about the freaking 80s!!!" But maybe I'm being too harsh. Like I said, the movie's subject matter is near to my own heart, and there are parts where they get it right, like in random cool things like the flying dog and the slightly scary French exchange student Prince clone named Didier. All in all, a great idea incompletely executed.

The Greatest of All Time shows us, his adoring fans, once again why he is thusly dubbed

2009-01-12T12:47:00.004-05:00

Those little interviews sideline reporters do with professional athletes are usually an exercise in speaking without saying anything. String together a few sentences about coming to play, executing, giving credit to the other team, then pepper them with a generous amount of "you know"s, and you can pretty much write your own at home. Cliched and completely disposable. But when I read this one from Rickey Henderson in the paper this morning I nearly spat my chocolate milk across the room:

A reporter once asked Henderson about the late Ken Caminiti’s assertion that 50 percent of the players in baseball were on steroids, to which Henderson replied, "Well, Rickey’s not one of them, so that’s 49 percent right there.""

Aside from the inherant awesomeness that comes from referring to oneself in the third person, The Greatest's mastery of statistics is a light in the black we all must diligently seek. An angel in heaven died when he retired.

Parallel lines

2009-01-02T22:51:00.005-05:00

From the department of odd coincidences (is there any other kind?) -- I read this post from Patterson Hood on the Drive-By Truckers website today:

I'll...mention a few simple pleasures that made this year special.

"Man On Wire" (movie) - An incredible film that pushed all my buttons. Maybe it's my fear of heights, my obsession with skyscrapers, my fascination with the crazy artistic temperament and a criminal disposition but this one had it all for me. Probably my favorite movie I saw all year....

Hmm.

My favorite songs of 2008

2008-12-29T09:19:00.004-05:00

1. Kim & Jessie (M83) -- Shimmering, soaring shoegaze electronica with a French accent. It also twinkles.

Kim & Jessie - M83

2. I'm Outta Time (Oasis) -- This is what latter-day Oasis has morphed into, for better or worse: their best songs are now melancholy knife-in-the-heart ballads. Usually sung by Noel. This one isn't, so there's your present-to-past connection. Really kicks in around the Lennon sample, but unfortunately fades away shortly thereafter.

Im Outta Time - Oasis

3. The Righteous Path (Drive-By Truckers) -- Seldom do I pay much attention to lyrics...this song is an exception. Sums up the Good Fight of Life and the fine line between success and failure better than any I've ever heard. The music's good too.

The Righteous Path - Drive-By Truckers

4. Blind (Hercules and Love Affair) -- This one teleported into my life from 1979. Now it won't leave. I can't believe I like this crap.

Blind (Full Album Version) - Hercules And Love Affair

5. The Rip (Portishead) -- Soft and spooky early, then halfway through, when that vocal note, suspended in midair, is gradually swallowed along with the rest of the song by that Casio keyboard bassline slowly materializing out of the fog, the song goes to another plane. Gorgeous.

The Rip (Current TV 04/08) - Portishead

6. Tyrants (Black Mountain) -- The best 70s prog metal epic from 2008.

Tyrants - Black Mountain

7. A Ghost to Most (Drive-By Truckers) -- The only song on this list I've heard live, twice, four feet away from the guy who wrote it. Would it be "punny" to use the word "haunting" to describe a song about a metaphorical "ghost"? Even if it has the word "britches" in it? What if I use "quotation marks"?

A Ghost To Most - Drive-By Truckers

My favorite albums of 2008

2008-12-21T15:47:00.002-05:00

1. Brighter Than Creation's Dark, Drive-By Truckers. Another gothic roots-rock epic from the current greatest rock band in the world. Best songs: "3 Dimes Down", "The Righteous Path", "A Ghost to Most"

2. Third, Portishead. An eerie, spooky, after-midnight fog of clinks, clanks, and hums. Best songs: "Silence", "The Rip", "We Carry On"

3. Mudcrutch, Mudcrutch. Tom Petty side project of laid-back country-rock. Best songs: "Scare Easy", "Lover of the Bayou", "Crystal River"

4. Dig Out Your Soul, Oasis. Thankfully it isn't bad. It's actually pretty dang good. Best songs: "I'm Outta Time", "Falling Down", "Waiting for the Rapture"

5. In the Future, Black Mountain. What would happen if Black Sabbath and late-60s Jefferson Airplane got together, indulged in various illicit substances, channelled Caress of Steel / 2112 -era Rush, and loaded the songs with doom riffs hewn from barbed wire and incense. Good times. Best songs: "Tyrants", "Wucan", "Bright Lights"

6. April, Sun Kil Moon. Arcane, ethereal, ghostly yet melodic music best listened to late at night. Best songs: "Tonight the Sky", "Moorestown", "Lost Verses"

Cycling year in review, 2008

2008-12-16T20:09:00.003-05:00

Season start: 2/3/08
Season midpoint: 7/23/08
Season end: 11/3/08
Rides: 47
Total distance: 2676 km (1663 miles)
Average miles per ride: 35.4
Longest ride: 119.6 km (74.3 miles), 9/8
Fastest ride: 16.7 mph over 39.5 miles, 9/3
Fastest speed: 41.7 mph (heading south near Laurel / Knox County line on 1803) 9/8
Steepest ride: 4,482 vertical feet climbed, 7/23 (Rockcastle River ride)

Total distance good for second all-time (1741 miles in 2005), and is almost double last year's total (847 miles, thanks to the knee tendonitis). Not bad, considering my aversion to riding in the cold this year compared to years past.

Unfortunately this was the first year in several that I didn't ride in either the Tour de London (work) or the Red River Rally (vacation).

This year's rides, compared to years past, were fewer in number, longer in distance, and were probably as a result slower, although I haven't crunched those numbers. I set a new personal single-ride record in distance (74.3 miles vs. 71.6 miles on 8/14/06). It wasn't a lot further, but the average speed for this year's effort was significantly higher (16.2 mph vs. 15.3 mph), so I'm happy. Experience helps you feel out your physical and mental efficiencies.

My chief aim for next year is to make significant progress toward my biggest goal, a century. Certainly attainable, but I will have to find a way to carry another water bottle or two.

Season's highlight: new distance record
Season's most chilling fact: The Tour de France is a good 32% longer than my entire year's distance, and they do it in three weeks.
Season's lowlight: the dog wanting me to give it a hand on 8/6
Season's worst pun: see above

Man on Wire (2008): Netflixin 12/14/08

2008-12-15T10:45:00.003-05:00

Why I rented it: I read about it in the paper back in the summer when it came out and thought it sounded interesting, but never got a chance to go to Lexington to see it. After noticing it on several critics' year-end best-of lists, rented it the day the dvd came out.

Verdict: 8/10. Bad things first: the non-linear story structure (flashbacks are often so subtle that they go on for several minutes before you realize they're flashbacks; characters appear in medias res, then are re-introduced later) and occasionally thick French accents make the story sometimes hard to follow.

Otherwise, a beautiful, beautiful movie. Innovation, drive, performance art, and the human spirit. Once again (see Amélie), a French movie that, based on its subject manner, my cynical self should consider silly ends up opening my eyes to the simple beauty of a man on a wire.

Freedom fries my patoot.

300 (2006): Netflixin 12/6/08

2008-12-06T22:58:00.005-05:00

Why I rented it: I remember studying the Peloponnesian War in the 9th grade. A bittersweet unit as Athens was always my favorite -- the brains to Sparta's brawn. But before that was Thermopylae. So, how's about an enjoyable sword-and-sandals epic that as a bonus helps us review the history of Ancient Greece? Yes?

Verdict: 3/10. There's a point near the beginning of the DVD commentary that is very telling about this movie. One of the film's creators tells how they came up with the titles score, one of those emotive Enya-sounding vocal mood pieces that I first remember from Braveheart but now seems to be the ubiquitous accompaniment to every slow-mo serious scene in every movie made since. He confirms something I've always assumed...those exotic lyrics are nothing more than nonsense, chosen simply for the way they sound. Kind of like this movie.

Sure, it looks great. It's based on a graphic novel (that's sophisticate for "comic book") and it shows. Style in loads. But gratuitously slow splattering blood gobs, severed body parts, and a bazillion shots of spears going through torsos can only carry a movie so far. After a while, the video-game fight scenes get tedious. And there's nothing to fall back on...the Spartans are supposed to be fighting for their glorious nation, but the audience is expected to accept this a priori. No background, character development, or dialogue to help you along. Just epic theatre accents grunting and growling hollow phrases as interludes between killing sessions.

As for getting some history with my entertainment, I find it a bit odd that an Iron Maiden song is more historically accurate than an almost two-hour-long movie.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008): Netflixin 12/5/08

2008-12-05T17:19:00.004-05:00

Why I rented it: I needed some intellectual stimulation. Don't laugh.

Verdict: 5/10 (technical); 1/10 (content). I originally wasn't going to write an entry on this movie, as the impressions I got after seeing it were less about the movie itself and more about the ideas it expressed. But it's been sticking in my mind the past few days.

As a movie, it's ok. A fairly well put-together documentary. Cinematography, animated interludes, all of that. Ben Stein staring down Darwin's statue is probably the visual high point. Both for him and me.

But for those actually interested in a big meaty plate of reason, it's about as filling as a fluffy ball of cotton candy.

Now is not the time for me to write an exhaustive dissertation on creationism, intelligent design, and evolution. This is a movie review on a blog. But I WILL hit some high points about what science is and isn't.

I sort of expected this movie to be a primer on what intelligent design (ID) is. But after watching it, I feel no more informed about ID than I ever was. They never really talk about it. Instead, the film is dedicated to presenting the cases of a handful of scientists whose work, to varying degrees, was in some way sympathetic to intelligent design and were ostensibly "expelled" from their posts as a result. The stage is set like this: open-minded, innovative, persecuted little guys versus the monolithic, mean-spirited, snobbish institution of science (cue timpani roll). Through the wonders of editing and the flexibility of the visual medium, most of the real scientists come off like arrogant snakes slithering down dark hallways while the ID guys are just regular ol' honest-to-goodness folk like you and me.

People with even basic capabilities in critical thought should be able to see this movie's punches coming a mile away. But it's a sure-fire way to throw a monkey wrench in the gears of thought of anybody else.

Up until this point, the movie is simply half-baked. I'm having fun picking out the logical fallacies. But then, Stein shows us that Godwin's Law applies even to intellectually dishonest ID documentaries. The Holocaust, it seems, wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for Darwin. Yes, Darwin, in publishing On the Origin of Species and putting forward the idea of natural selection (presented in part with a passage from The Descent of Man edited down so much that it loses its original meaning), gave Hitler all of his ideas about Aryan superiority. I love Roger Ebert's icily succinct reaction to this argument:

(Stein) takes a field trip to visit one "result" of Darwinism: Nazi concentration camps. "As a Jew," he says, "I wanted to see for myself." We see footage of gaunt, skeletal prisoners. Pathetic children. A mound of naked Jewish corpses. "It's difficult to describe how it felt to walk through such a haunting place," he says. Oh, go ahead, Ben Stein. Describe. It filled you with hatred for Charles Darwin and his followers, who represent the overwhelming majority of educated people in every nation on earth. It is not difficult for me to describe how you made me feel by exploiting the deaths of millions of Jews in support of your argument for a peripheral Christian belief. It fills me with contempt.

So I suppose the basic tenet of ID is this: nature is too complicated to have developed through evolution or some other independent process. Therefore, an Intelligent Designer (who is usually implied to be but isn't explicitly defined as God) must have played a part in it. Stein can make his movie, and since you can't disprove him, he's right. This is, of course, to use the term for a logical fallacy, an "argument from ignorance"...using a "God of the gaps" as a catch-all to explain anything that doesn't have a definitive scientific explanation. Fine for religion. Not fine for science.

I have no problem with ID. If you believe it, that's ok with me. But for Pete's sake, people, IT IS NOT SCIENCE. It is religion. Please stop trying to pass it off as such. Science involves things that can be proven through systematic observation and experimentation. To this day, no article on ID has been published in any peer-reviewed scientific journal. Not one. Please stop contributing to our country's already woeful state of science education and literacy by muddying the waters with something that shouldn't even be there in the first place.

As for Ben Stein's admonitions to "teach the controversy", there is about as much controversy about evolution in modern science as there is about astrology or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. What is so hard to understand about this? School = science. Sunday school = intelligent design. The end.

The rest of Ebert's excellent essay on this movie can be found here.

The Aristocrats (2005): Netflixin 11/22/08

2008-11-22T10:31:00.004-05:00

Why I rented it: I had never heard the joke before. It must be a doozy, right?

Verdict: 2/10. Thanks to this movie, I can now proudly boast to my friends that I've heard it 100 times! And it's soooo hilarious! Ha! Ha! Ha! See, the fact that I find it funny makes me cool, in some sort of insider hipster sophisticated way! Cooler than all of you guys! Ha! Ha! Ha! I get it!

American Psycho

eBay.ca

2008-11-09T14:43:00.004-05:00

I use the ol' eBay from time to time. It's a great place to find things you can't find anywhere else...the velvet Elvis that has a place of honor on the wall in my bathroom comes to mind. You can also buy, I've heard, haunted paintings (ghost included) and doritos shaped like Jesus.

But where I really like eBay is how you can use it to unload your old junk. No matter what you have, somebody, somewhere wants to buy it. It's like putting your item in a yard sale the whole world can see.

Therein lies a slight problem. But before I go on, please allow me to offer this disclaimer:

I have no problem with Canada or Canadians. I like Canada. I've visited several times. It's a beautiful place. The people are nice. Without Canada there would be no Rush. Or Marie-Pier Houle from Météomedia.

Ok, we go on. Canadians are at a disadvantage when it comes to eBay. Yes, there is an eBay.ca, but a country with almost 1/10th the population of the United States just can't produce the sheer volume of shrunken head windchimes or Yoda toilet paper rolls that we do. So, naturally, they browse the American site to find what they're looking for.

But shipping to Canada involves customs and higher shipping costs. Couple this with the fact that I'm perfectly happy with the size of the American market being able to produce a satisfactory auction price, and you'll see why I don't offer shipping to Canada. It's a hassle I feel I don't need to be bothered with.

During my first couple of auctions as a seller, I got several questions from Canadians asking me if I would ship to Canada and if so how much would it be, to which I politely declined. Having learned my lesson from this, I began putting "US bidders only, please" (or some permutation thereof) in the footnotes of all of my item descriptions.

This cut down on the number of questions I would get, but didn't eliminate them entirely. I considered putting the "only" in block caps / bold / italics or adding "please don't ask", but, in the interest of being an inviting seller, wanted to avoid any semblance of being rude in my listings.

So my approach has been to respond to inquiries from Canadian buyers as they come, as politely and firmly as possible. Here's a recent exchange I had with one such customer:

"Will you ship to Canada if buyer pays shipping? Transaction would be completed in US dollars via PayPal. Thanks. - [name withheld]"

This was the third e-mail inquiry I had received from a Canadian buyer about this item. I try to make my item descriptions as detailed as possible, so they can get a little verbose. So these people either don't see the "US bidders only, please" or think they can talk me out of it. I sent a reply to him similar to the one I had sent the others:

"I'm sorry but I can't ship to Canada...it wouldn't be fair to other bidders since I mention this in the item listing."

And that was that. But what happened next was unusual. He wrote again a few minutes later:

"So much for an open market on ebay - I'll buy from someone who does. Good luck, you probably lost $$ on your auction. - [name withheld]"

The 15 year old in me wanted to fire back a sarcastic rebuttal. But I bit my tongue.

Oh well. Here's the reply I wrote, if only in my head:

"So much for expecting people to be able to read plain English - now go find someone who is willing to sell a person with zero feedback and zero reading comprehension skills a $1700 item. I'll do just fine without your bid, thank you. And good luck, eh?"

Ok, that last part was excessive. Sorry.

Reasons why AC/DC's "For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)" is awesome:

2008-11-02T20:08:00.006-05:00

1. The title references something cool and ancient (gladiators) and something cool and modern (rock'n), consecutively.

2. The title has a parenthetical segment.

3. The song is good.

4. The song is structured as to build energy gradually, going from a slow simmer to exploding in your face in just over four minutes.

5. The live version has freaking cannons in it.

For Those About To Rock (We Salute You) - AC/DC

Performance (1970): Netflixin 10/29/08

2008-10-29T23:33:00.004-04:00

Why I rented it: The eternal wisdom of the Netflix suggestion machine. I had never heard of this movie before.

Verdict: 7/10. Never underestimate the unadulterated coolness of a London in the Swinging 60s art film. Superficially a gangster-meets-artsy-rock-star piece, but the real beauty is the psilocybin-induced haze of quick edits, androgyny, spontaneuous musical numbers, a slightly annoying gamine, cockney accents, free love, and Mick Jagger dancing with a fluorescent light bulb. Sure it has pretentious written all over it. But I liked it.

Dark City: Director's Cut (1998): Netflixin 10/25/08

2008-10-25T22:10:00.003-04:00

Why I rented it: I remember being intrigued when I first heard about this movie when it came out. The image of the gaunt, pale bald guys in black trenchcoats levitating from building to building did it for me. I also remember seeing the movie and being ultimately disappointed. Too many bald guys in black trenchcoats. All style and no substance.

Verdict: 7/10. Maybe it's the years in between, but I am leaning toward what I call the Blade Runner effect. A movie is released in a watered-down form for mass appeal...needless, intrusive expository content is added while meaty character development is excised. When you do this to a movie that is its theme, all you're left with is empty glitz. Thankfully, like the Blade Runner Director's Cut, this new version of Dark City unfurls its themes gradually, subtly, allowing the viewer to partake of it on his own without being force-fed. This "new" film will no doubt stick in my mind for much longer than the old one did.

Wizards (1977): Netflixin 10/20/08

2008-10-21T15:21:00.004-04:00

Why I rented it: I grew up on late-70s and early-80s sci-fi/fantasy, so it will always have a special place in my heart.

Verdict: 5/10. Low-budget and it shows. Weak story and characters...kind of reminded me of Heavy Metal, taking away the rock soundtrack but keeping the clothes on the nubile ladies. Where the film does excel, though, is in the still-frame expository interludes that show up every so often. With their ornate artwork and sad, wistful narration, they ooze the atmosphere of musty old storybooks lost for years in dark attics.

Alexander Nevsky (1938): Netflixin 10/5/08

2008-10-06T20:27:00.005-04:00

Why I rented it: Propaganda = fun.

Verdict: 6/10. As propaganda is specific to time and place, this would have had more of the soul-stirring effect it was meant to have if I were a Happy Soviet Proletariatian from the pre-WWII era. Being that I'm not doesn't mean that it doesn't have standalone artistic merit, though. The cinematography often looks like propaganda posters brought to life...heroes gazing gloriously into the distance, gigantic armies massing on windswept plains. But good propaganda not only romanticizes the heroes, it demonizes the enemy. Here we have the invading German soldiers, helmeted and anonymous, controlled by a group of knights with a case of permanent lockjaw and eye squint and a couple of downright creepy vulture-looking priests. A good portion of their non-warring time is spent robed, holding crosses aloft, and listening to sinister organ music. So you get double the Kopeks for your propaganda Ruble: not only are the Germans bad, but so is their scary Christianity. Then to top it all off you can play "Spot the Revisionist History" in the allegory of Stalin = Nevsky and the Germans = well, some things never change.

Little Dieter Needs to Sk8!

2008-09-28T15:17:00.004-04:00

Your random Eurotrash for the day: watch and be awed.

And when it ends, know that this was just the warmup.

Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam (1986): Netflixin 9/7/08

2008-09-07T20:40:00.005-04:00

Why I rented it: The late, great Jim Varney.
Verdict: 5/10. The entire movie is basically an excuse for Mr. Varney to play a bunch of weird characters, some funnier than others but all pretty good. Auntie Nelda is classic. Oh yeah, there is a (pretty bad) plot, but it's only there to kill time between character appearances. A demo-worthy time capsule of 80s clothing, music, and special effects. Coming just before the seemingly endless string of Ernest movies, this was Varney's first movie of his own. And while I've always considered Ernest Goes to Camp to be the ne plus ultra of Mr. Varney's œuvre, this movie has enough flashes of dark, impish humor to make it worthy on its own.

8/6/08 Today's Ride -- or, a leaping dog makes a play for my hand and defcon 2 ensues

2008-08-06T20:47:00.004-04:00

Route: 30.42 miles, West Knox and East Corbin loop.

Weather: Mostly cloudy, 88 degrees, 6 mph wind.

Performance: average speed 15.7 mph, time 1:56:11. Average HR 139 bpm. Average power 144 watts, maximum power 899 watts (new record). Work 999 kJ.

Motionbased.com link: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6448995

Comment: This ride was notable for the fact that for only the second time ever, a dog made an effort to bite me somewhere other than my feet. The chilling details follow:

As I made my way south on 830 near its intersection with 1810, I spotted a pack of five or six dogs lounging in somebody's yard. I caught the attention of one and with a yap the chase was on. I slowed as they scattered across the road ahead of me, a medium-sized black and white boxer mix positioning himself directly in front of my bike, forcing me to come to a near stop. He sidestepped me as a started to pedal again and came alongside.

The next thing your humble narrator knows, this dog is stabilizing himself with a paw in my side, moving his open mouth toward my right hand. Yep, the sucker's airborne. My "hey"s, which up until that point had been at the level of a mild scolding, increased significantly in volume and tempo.

Again he was in the air. By this point I was gaining speed but was slightly miffed. I had just bought some new leather riding gloves and wasn't too thrilled that this guy was trying to get a taste. Plus, he was trying to bite me. So I reached into my back pocket for my can of Halt. I had bought it just for this purpose. I aimed, and for the first time ever, fired.

I had long dreamed of this moment. Teaching some sucka dog a lesson through his eyes. The satisfying yelp to follow, then no more worries the next time I chose this route. Liquid justice.

But out came a pathetic trickle. The image that will be forever stuck in my head from my first valiant defense of my person will be a rather surprised looking dog, five feet away, with a line of drops of bright orange liquid suspended in front of his face. Three feet away. No yelp, or reaction at all for that matter.

But by then I was gone.

But the pump is now primed, punks.

Amélie (2001): Netflixin 6/15/08

2008-06-16T19:25:00.004-04:00

Why I rented it: I just got back from Québec and am in a French mood (notice how many times I've used the é already! Très bien! Both directions, tee hee!) Occasionally I'm in the mood for an artsy foreign movie. It's by the guy who made The City of Lost Children and Delicatessen. According to Netflix's persistent reminders for the past six+ months, it's a movie I'll LOVE!
Verdict: 8/10. Maybe I did (lower-case) love it. Time will tell. Impish is a good word for the movie...quirky, dark humor like Jeunet's other movies, this time set in an at least somewhat real world. Great cinematography, beautiful soundtrack, especially la Valse d'Amélie. Amélie is sometimes too cute for the movie's own good, but the more I watched it the more I realized that that's the point. It's a movie that dares you to hold on to your cynicism. Sweet, winsome, and poignant.

No Country for Old Men (2007): Netflixin 5/15/08

2008-05-15T09:45:00.004-04:00

Why I rented it: Lots of background static about this one a while back. Won the Oscar for Best Picture, so people I may or may not agree with think it's good. Raising Arizona (by the same guys) is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen.
Verdict: 8.5 / 10. It's always fun to listen to extended philosophical dialogue sequences between rednecks with ridiculous accents who use words like "linear" and "immobile" as much as they use double negatives and psychopaths with existential streaks who operate like Terminators. This movie is also dang depressing and nihilistic. It sticks in your head. That's a good movie to me.

I Am Not Making This Stuff Up

2008-05-14T15:10:00.005-04:00

SETTING: An idyllic workshop, the early days of Spring.

Wisps of fine birch sawdust twitter ephemerally in the late afternoon breeze. In the background plays Number Five of Brahms' Eleven Chorale Preludes for Organ (Opus 122, Schmücke dich, o Liebe Seele). A coterie of dilettantes has assembled to partake in the erudite fortnightly dispensations of our signsmith.

"Dear friends," he begins. "Thank you for accompanying me as I unveil my latest placard.

"As you may recall, during our gathering last month I waxed philosophical on Sortes Virgilanae, a sort of divinatory bibliomancy by which one endeavors to predict future events through careful study of passages of Virgil's Aeneid.

"Ah yes, Mademoiselle DuChamps. You will no doubt be pleased when I tell you that my new French translation is proceeding quite well, in spite of the intrinsic difficulties of transposing the cadence of dactylic hexameter in First Century BC Latin epic poetry onto modern Gallo-Rhaetian-derived languages.

But, as, to borrow an apellation applied to our bard by many post-Renaissance scholars, the "Swan of Mantua" himself once wrote in Book III of the Ecologues: Latet anguis in herba. A snake lurks in the grass.

"So who among you needs his or her lawn mowned?"

Ivrythang mus go!

2008-05-11T11:55:00.007-04:00

Spotted this one while out riding yesterday:

I don't know about you, but I'm a sucker for a closing ellipsis. It makes me tingle with anticipation.

Juno (2007): Netflixin 5/6/08

2008-05-06T16:02:00.005-04:00

Ok, just for kicks n' giggles, I'm going to start putting blurbs about movies I get via Netflix on here. Not drawn-out critical reviews, since there are plenty of them around if you want them. No, just a sentence or two. Your humble blog author's opinions.

Ok, first one:

Why I rented it: It played at the Kentucky Theater for weeks on end. Supposedly edgy, underground, all of that.
Verdict: 7.5 / 10. Better than average, but probably works better as a story than as a movie. The witty repartee is amusing, but it sounds too much like what old people in MTV boardrooms think teenagers talk like. Edgy content: this movie mentions Sonic Youth and Dario Argento. Also, thick Canadian accents are fun.

Drive-By Truckers, Newport, KY 3-16-08

2008-03-17T12:34:00.007-04:00

Random notes on Sunday night's Drive-By Truckers show at Southgate House in Newport...

Con: lucky me was fortunate enough to have the mouthy-est drunk in the whole place standing right next to me. Maybe standing isn't the right word. He was sometimes leaning on me, yelling in my ear, and otherwise just being a general thorn in my side.

Pro: he was only present for the opening act (The Whigs) as the same blood-alcohol level that caused him to shout expletive-laden admonitions at bloodcurdling volumes at the band (and swipe one of their shirts off the stage) also, in one incredibly fortuitous twist of fate, caused him to climb up on the stage, stumble down the backstage steps, and finally get dragged out the door on his back by security.

I came better prepared for archiving this time, packing three flash memory cards for the camera and reading up on how to do video. I considered bringing my HD camcorder but didn't want to lug it around, not to mention its relatively poor low-light results. A couple of other people did bring theirs though, so maybe they'll share.

The setlist was quite a bit different from the Louisville show...it was great to hear "One of These Days" and a cover of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' "Rebels."

Regular readers (or those willing to read the archives) are well-aware of my affinity for "Zip City." I purposefully didn't record video of it...all attention was focused on my ears. It sort of reminds me of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. You can look but you can't take pictures. Recording it doesn't do it justice.

My spot was slightly improved from the Louisville show. I was again in front of Cooley but more toward the center. Nothing between me and the stage this time.

My location paid off, as I got to shake hands with Cooley, Shonna, and EZB, in that order, after the encore.

Here's a link to my pictures (of Louisville and Newport).

I'm currently uploading my videos to Youtube (6 in total). Here's "One Of These Days"...you can find links to the others on my Youtube channel.

Please to enjoy!

How I Spent My Saturday Night

2008-03-05T11:16:00.004-05:00

The Drive-By Truckers, current titleholder of My Favorite Band, played at Headliner's in Louisville Saturday night. I was there as well.

The biggest difference between seeing a famous arena rock band versus a less-famous rock band is the intimacy of the venue. Instead of packing binoculars to catch a glimpse from the nosebleed section you have nothing but about 5 feet of air and smoke separating you from the band. Such was the case Saturday night, as I got there early enough to stake out my spot right at the foot of the stage.

This also meant that my head was about two feet from some humongoid speakers. Thankfully I had the foresight to bring earplugs or the world would no doubt still sound like my head was under water.

After the spirited and slightly enjoyable music of the opening act of The Felice Brothers (I've never heard of them either), the Truckers came out about 10:30. You can listen to a band for years so that you know their songs up and down, but it's always surreal that first time you see them right in front of you with your own eyes.

All of a sudden, an arm's length away, right in front of my face, was Cooley's left knee. The left knee of the guy who wrote Zip City. One of The Greatest Songs of All Times.

Here's your "my-eye's view" of the first song, "That Man I Shot", off of Brighter Than Creation's Dark. The audio is not the best, but it's about the thoughts of a soldier in Iraq who shot a man who may or may not have been a civilian. Lyrics here. The anonymity and depersonalization of war.

Yes, this is from that very show that very night. The guy who filmed this must have been standing just to my left.

You can see a slideshow of some of the pictures I took in the right margin of this page.

Study confirms what I've known all along

2008-03-04T23:02:00.001-05:00

Excellent Reuters story I read today on Yahoo (direct link).

Love that last quote.

Tue Mar 4, 4:02 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Want a sugar pill to work really well? Charge more for it.

A study published on Tuesday shows the well-known "placebo effect" works even better if the dummy pill costs more.

Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at Duke University in North Carolina, and colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tested 82 volunteers.

All got a light electric shock and were offered what they were told was a painkiller.

Half were given a brochure describing the pill as a newly approved painkiller that cost $2.50 per dose and half were given a brochure describing it as marked down to 10 cents.

Writing in a letter to the Journal of the American Medical Association, Ariely and colleagues said the effects were unexpectedly strong.

Eighty-five percent of volunteers who thought they were getting a $2.50 pill said they felt less pain after taking it, compared with 61 percent of those who thought they were getting a discounted drug.

The results fit with other studies that show charging more for something makes people value it more. But Ariely said the combination with the placebo effect was especially interesting.
"The placebo effect is one of the most fascinating, least harnessed forces in the universe," Ariely said in a statement.

The word placebo comes from the Latin word for "I shall please." Placebos, or sugar pills, are routinely used in trials of new drugs to see if they really work.

"How do we give people cheaper medication, or a generic, without them thinking it won't work?" Ariely asked.

(Reporting by Maggie Fox, editing by Will Dunham)

Spring 1996 -- A tacky rubber clinic

2008-02-16T12:24:00.002-05:00

In recognition of my ongoing renaissance in the game of filthy sidespin and cobra-like reflexes, a tale from the ping pong archives:

College was when I first got into the game. I guess it was the multitude of tables everywhere you went. My friend Ulysses had grown up as a military brat, skipping around the Pacific rim in his early days, and thus had a decent foundation. His most notable habit was playing in the Chinese penhold style -- index finger and thumb encircling the handle where it meets the blade and the entire paddle being held "upside down" with no real forehand or backhand -- just twisting the wrist side to side to adjust to ball location. He had his own paddle as well. I was suffering from tennis withdrawal and was happy to take up what looked to be a smaller-scale, indoor version of that sport.

Ulysses and I sparred regularly, mostly on the glossy but beat-up green table at the Blazer Hall food court. We recruited some interested (albeit less fanatical) guys from the dorm for an informal league, complete with stat compilations and occasional tournaments. As our skills increased, our rallies became longer and more frenetic, often drawing the attention of passers-by and people sitting at the tables enjoying their hot wings from KFC. The highlight of these audience interaction sessions was a pick-up game with a grocery-shopping Tony Delk* (accompanied by Walter McCarty), who you may recognize as having big careers in another sport.

Apparently we also drew the attention of somebody else.

One day, in the middle of one of our many epic tit-for-tats, a couple of guys walked quietly up and sat down. One of them, a guy with glasses and shaggy brown hair, was carrying a small pouch. He sat down, and, in a process that reminded me of peeling the layers off of an onion, winnowed his pouch down to a paddle case, then a plastic bag, and finally a paddle. He took out a cloth and polished it. I glanced at Ulysses and could tell he was thinking the same thing as I was. It was a mixture of mirth and, yes, fear. The way he was treating his paddle reminded me of the way people treat their firearms. He obviously meant business. At the break, he asked if he could have the next game.

I was first. The ball headed his way. He poked it back nonchalantly...effortlessly. We continued until he was warm. Ok, he's definitely not a novice. But I've played before too. This should be fun. Challenging, maybe, but fun.

So the game started. I served first, but I would soon be on the receiving end, Apollo Creed - Ivan Drago style. He took a wide swing and brushed up on the ball as he hit it. The shot that headed my way reminded me of a lob in tennis.

Is this a joke?

I stood back and waited for the ball to hit. New guy or not, I was going to make him taste this one.

This is how we play.

What happened next seemed to defy all laws of physics that I had known up until that point.

The lazy lob, upon being reintroduced to a solid surface, shot out at me with a fierce kick and a much lower angle. I missed it completely.

I didn't know it at the time, but I had just been introduced to a previously unencountered dimension of table tennis -- spin. Ulysses, for all his skill, played with a bare-wood paddle. Every ball he hit, and consequently, most of the shots I had seen in my playing career up to that point, was as flat as a board.

I did adapt, somewhat. That is to say, I actually started to make contact with some of those freaky shots. But then came my introduction to the secondary rub of the double-edged sword that is hitting back a heavy topspin shot. All of my returns went way long. And the ones that by some small miracle stayed on the table inevitably came back anyway, since, well, the guy was pretty good. He was picking balls up off of his shoelaces and sending them back with the same heavy juice. Soon enough the carnage was over. Exasperated, I ceded the table to Ulysses.

More of the same. Although I didn't know it at the time, I think Uly was able to handle him a bit better since the flipside of not being able to create spin with a rubberless paddle is that it is less affected by incoming spin from your opponent. But it's a testament to this guy's skill that he was able to force so many errors even against a paddle that's just about as frictionless as they get.

So our hard lesson was learned. The new guy thanked us for the game. We humbly thanked him back, taken down more than one notch. His friend came back, and I saw him ask how it went. The new guy cracked a slight grin and shook his head.

We never saw that guy again. I remember hearing from somebody that he had a coach and and been invited to try out for the Olympic team. Maybe true, maybe not.

Our confidence came back soon enough. Even if that was real table tennis, we still liked our little games better, humble as they were.

*In answer to the inevitable question from my curious readers, Delk's table tennis style can best be described as a close-to-the-table chopper. He was better than I thought. But yes, we could have taken him.

Addendum, 5/11/08: Web designers, take note -- put the words "rubber clinic", "filthy", and "tacky" in your text and you'll get lots of traffic.

And people here based on a search for the above keywords, um, sorry to disappoint you. This story was about ping-pong.

Johann Hölzel 2/19/57 - 2/6/98

2008-02-06T23:47:00.001-05:00

Muß ich den sterben, um zu leben?

--Out of the Dark

A Ghost to Most

2008-01-05T17:53:00.001-05:00

Fret not, loyal readers. I haven't left you.

I'm no one's fanboy. But there are some things that I want to share with you.

My current favorite gothic* southern rock band, The Drive-By Truckers, have a new record coming out later this month. And if the rest of it is as good as the first song I heard off of it, "A Ghost to Most," it will be dang good.

Their last record was A Blessing and a Curse. While it did have some good songs (the title track, "Daylight," and the classic "Gravity's Gone"), it just didn't have that listen-to-for-days-on-end-and-never-get-tired-of vibe that all good records (and all Truckers records up until that point) have.

So back to "Ghost." It's a Cooley track, and like most of his others is a mid-tempo slow burn of wistful coolness. The opening bars remind me of "One of These Days," which given a lesser song would be derivative. Here the word is "inspired."

Here's the link. Click on the song title in the player in the upper right-hand corner.

*That's gothic in a musical and thematic sense, not the period clothing and Doom Cookies sense.

And no, I still wouldn't be caught dead listening to pop-country radio.

ADDENDUM, 2-2-08: On a recent check of the myspace page, "A Ghost to Most" was gone. "3 Dimes Down" is a good substitute..."The Righteous Path" is nice as well. Excellent lyrics.

How You Remind Me, Indeed...

2007-10-23T11:02:00.001-04:00

Over 25? Have taste? Abhor generic music? Think all Nickelback songs sound like they were grown in a petri dish by creepy old dudes in white coats?

Auditory proof.

We were speaking of belief; beliefs and conditioning

2007-10-23T10:40:00.000-04:00

"All belief possibly could be said to be the result of some conditioning. Thus, the study of history is simply the study of one system of beliefs deposing another, and so on and so on and so on...

A psychologically tested belief of our time is that the central nervous system, which feeds its impulses directly to the brain, the conscious and subconscious, is unable to discern between the real and the vividly imagined experience. If there is a difference, and most of us believe there is.

Am I being clear? For to examine these concepts requires tremendous energy and discipline.

To allow the unknown to occur and to occur requires clarity. And where there is clarity there is no choice. And where there is choice, there is misery.

But then, why should anyone listen to me? Why should I speak, since I know nothing?"

--The Swami, "Head", 1968

1998: A Spinal Tap moment

2007-10-09T19:29:00.001-04:00

The life of a college student is to enjoy the simple things of life...things normal citizens take for granted. Air conditioning. Pay for your work. Cooked food. One of my simple pleasures was fast food beyond the played-out old KFC in Blazer Hall. I would save up my cashflow so I could splurge on Taco Bell for dinner on Thursdays.

Occasionally my posse and I would make a weekend stop at the Nicholasville Road Bell for a little fun time. Hey, they had a jukebox. As was my custom in those days, my order invariably included a Meximelt with no pico. This request, humble as it was, turned out to be a curveball for unsuspecting Taco Bell cashiers, who would scan their keypad furtively looking for that elusive "no pico" button. As I said before, this was my custom, so in spite of my upside-down perspective a byproduct of my consistency was my involuntarily learning where this button was.

So here I was, Friday night, and this poor guy with a 70s mustache and a too-cool-for-school black mullet was looking for the no pico button. And looking. And looking. Patient me was looking as well. Finally after a good 30 seconds I could take it no more and pointed toward the object of his quest.

"Don't touch my register," came the reply and accompanying backhanded swat. He mumbled it under his breath and didn't look up, so it took me a second to realize that it was really happening.

"I wasn't touching it, I was just pointing at it," I said. I wasn't going to touch it. I was just pointing at it. Can I look at it?

I must have really teed this guy off. I looked up later to see him still stewing behind the register, taking short paces back and forth, scowling. The manager would walk over occasionally and say something to him.

I had no desire to die, so I left as soon as we were finished. I'm not sure what happened to that guy. I didn't see him there any more.

Your daily gelotherapy

2007-09-29T12:52:00.002-04:00

Life can sometimes be too serious and boring. We all know this.

Then something like this comes along.

And this.

And this.

Short but sweet.

And finally this (R-rated, mind ye kiddies!).

An ode to Heavy Pettin', the best 80s pop-metal band you've never heard of

2007-09-20T23:15:00.002-04:00

If I may ask you one thing, gentle reader, it's that you please overlook the Spinal Tap-ness of that name for the duration of this essay. It really is their name.

Thanks.

Yes, Heavy Pettin' was a good band, one of the few to actually get better with each album. Some have called them Scotland's answer to Def Leppard, and their singer sometimes does something similar to that David Lee Roth yeeeooowwww thing. But anyone who has discovered them knows that they have their own unique virtues, foremost among them the ability to rokk out with extreme prejudice.

I mean, their lead guitarist is named Punky Mendoza for Pete's sake.

Lettin' Loose, 1983: "Love on the Run" has a killer intro and wicked ricochet guitar effects that threaten to make your ears bleed and your head explode. "In and Out of Love" is just killer. Featured lyric: "I met a girl about five foot two / long blonde hair, eyes of blue / I wanted her to be mine all mine / she said 'another place and another time.'"

Rock Ain't Dead, 1985: And these guys prove it. The cover has them in soft focus, striving valiantly into the distance, holding high the red and yellow banner of all that is metal. For those about to rock, indeed. If the title track saves rock and roll, the #2 track, "Sole Survivor," propels it back into the stratosphere. Plus your girlfriend loves "Dream Time." Trust me on that one.

Big Bang, 1989: The legendary "unreleased" final album. The band had competed unsuccessfully in the 1987 Eurovision Song Contest with "Romeo", and this album has the feel of a more pop-oriented direction. Which isn't a bad thing. This is smooth, cool 80s power balladry at its finest. From the crunchy "Born to Burn" to the soaring "Heaven Scent" and the smoky synths-and-sax outro in the aforementioned "Romeo", it's all good. Dang good. Heavy Pettin' good, folks. Listen to this album on a cool summer night, with the windows down.

They don't make 'em like this anymore.

Love On The Run - Heavy Pettin

In And Out Of Love - Heavy Pettin

9/19/07 Today's Ride -- Power Up

2007-09-20T17:43:00.001-04:00

Route: 28.48 miles, short Woodbine loop.

Weather: Sunny, 84 degrees, 4 mph wind.

Performance: average speed 16.6 mph, time 1:42:52. Average HR 149 bpm. Average power 166 watts, maximum power 771 watts. Work 1028 kJ.

Motionbased.com link: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/4001647

Comment: Dropout problems with my PowerTap hub fixed, I headed out with long-distance aspirations. My legs suggested otherwise. Not bad for my first ride in almost two weeks, though. Ambling around in downtown Corbin on the way back no doubt dropped my average speed significantly. Highway 6 in Woodbine is an excellent place for long, straight flats. There is also this place on the right by a junkyward where somebody has thrown a pair of shoes and a large piece of fabric into the phone wires.

Tour de Nothin'

2007-09-08T20:18:00.001-04:00

My streak is over. The Tour de London was today and I was, you guessed it, working. So my (un)stated (but thought of a couple of times) goal of competing in every TdL in recorded history ends just as it was getting started.

It's not that this was a surprise...when I first decided that I was ready to test my tender knee it was already late May and I knew then that I would have to work hard to get into race shape in just 3 months. So by the time I got my big yellow "remember to register" pamphlet in the mail last month and still hadn't gone out to the course since last year's race I started to think ahead to next year.

On the bright side, my new power meter is an excellent training tool and has already (statistically at least) driven me to where I'm knocking on the door of Category 5 racing status. Give me a year with it and I should improve immensely. I've also been checking out those indoor trainers that you can hook up to your tv and ride simulated Tour de France stages. Do Alp D'Huez all winter and those Kentucky hills will feel like bumps in the road.

Rockin' in the Free World

2007-08-14T15:14:00.001-04:00

I had to do a double take when I first heard who the Nibroc organizers had signed to play at this year's hootenanny: Starship and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts. Although both are a good 20-25 years past their prime, they were both nationally known in their day, so I had of course heard of them. The same couldn't be said for past years' attendees. As a matter of fact I can't name any of them. They may have been in the same tier, but I think they were country acts, so don't ask me. Anyway I'm not sure whether the appearance of these two bands says more about the Nibroc or less about them.

Of course I had to work Friday night when Starship played. Or let me rephrase that: Starship Featuring Mickey Thomas. Here's where it gets confusing. As if the various incarnations of Jefferson Airplane / Jefferson Starship / Starship et al. dating back to the 60s weren't complicated enough, here we have the latter-day reunion groups. Please allow me to illustrate:

Jefferson Airplane, 1965-1973. The classic 60s psychedelic rock band, with Marty Balin, Paul Kantner, and Grace Slick.

Jefferson Starship, 1974-1984. Updated name. Balin and Slick leave in the late 70s. Mickey Thomas joins, and Slick returns.

Starship, 1984-1991. Forced to drop "Jefferson" by Kantner. The golden age of pop for the band. "We Built This City", "Sara", "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now."

Jefferson Starship: The Next Generation (I am not kidding), 1992-present. Paul Kantner, occasionally Marty Balin, and others.

and, of course,

Starship Featuring Mickey Thomas, 1991 - present. Mickey Thomas and some other guys.

So no, Grace Slick wasn't there. Apparently she's retired from singing and now does art. I didn't envision seeing her in Corbin anyway for some reason. One of my earliest MTV memories was being really creeped out by her in this video. I still wish I could have gone, though, considering I did pony up $20 for Over the Edge, Mickey's recent Italian-produced effort featuring a couple of decent songs with a couple of the guys from Journey.

But I did get the chance to drop in on Joan Jett. Lots and lots of other people did too.

The opening band was The October, a sort-of-local 80s-New Wave-inspired power pop indie band. I got a little impatient with their long set, but in spite of myself many of the tunes grew on me. They have sort of a shimmering, melodic melancholy to their music. Their name and their origin sort of sum up their sound.

But the guys in The October and their stylish coiffeurs didn't suit everybody in attendance...soon calls of "git off the stage!" shot sporadically out of the crowd and, after one final call from the stage for "you guys over in the Value Pawn Shop area" to show more enthusiasm, they were done. The lead singer milled through the crowd afterward selling t-shirts and their latest cd.

Then Joan Jett came out and rocked pretty good. It wasn't very loud, but she played all her well-known stuff and seemingly about half of her new album. The crowd seemed to enjoy it, even though the subject matter in songs such as "A.C.D.C." and "Androgynous" no doubt made the more perceptive parents in the audience wish they had left the kiddies at home.

I moved closer to the stage for the encore, which featured songs less well-known but louder and with more tremolo virtuosity by the spiky-mohawked lead guitarist.

A small crowd gathered behind the barricade near the dressing trailers after the show. After some time, JJ emerged and got right into the waiting van, much to the chagrin of the assembled autograph-seekers. Fortunately for the fans, though, the van had to back right through the crowd to get out of town. Soon enough JJ had rolled down her window and was signing for the more pushy and fleet-footed people present.

Yes, that's her.

Bad timing, sorry. But that's her, I promise.

After a couple of minutes of slow acceleration, the van was gone.

I'm not holding my breath for next year, but who knows?

NIBROC 2027...

ON THE MAIN STAGE, SATURDAY NIGHT, AUGUST 7th...

NICKELBACK!

Not too much of a stretch, I'd say...

8/4/07 Today's Ride -- Hot Hot Heat

2007-08-04T22:02:00.001-04:00

Route: 26.91 miles, Levi Jackson loop.

Weather: Mostly sunny and hazy, 91 degrees, 4 mph wind.

Performance: average speed 15.7 mph, time 1:42:36. Average HR 142 bpm.

Motionbased.com link: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/3551730

Comment: My loyal readers (you know who you are) have no doubt been missing the trials and travails of my "Today's Ride" posts. Truth being told, I have been riding, albeit in a limited and boring way ever since I shredded something in my left knee doing Gran Tourismo last year. That nagging tight and tender sensation would creep up at some point during every ride since. After completing the Tour de London all hopped up on 4 Advil, I decided to give the ol' legs a rest. All was well until, while scaling the ridiculously vertical steps of the Great Wall in November, I felt the same sensation. That made me a bit worried. I eased back into riding gingerly in May, all being well on 7-milers. Then, when I tried to add a little distance (a whopping 10 miles), there was that sick old feeling again. Not wanting to miss the whole summer, I remembered that I had read somewhere to raise your seat should you encounter pain in the front of your knee. I did it, and lo, the tightness vanished. I've still been cautious.

So I've been rehabbing since then. Nothing exciting. Today I wanted to increase the distance some more, and chose my good old Levi Jackson loop as a good route. The only problem was it was dang hot. Not just warm, sticky hot. Dog days hot. You build up to riding in that kind of heat. You don't do it a couple of months after getting back on the bike.

Unfortunately I didn't consider that fact before I left. By mile 10 or so I was ready to go back. My legs were beginning to feel like rubber. My temporary lapse of insanity didn't block my foresight to bring a bottle of HEED for liquid refreshment, though. It kept me going.

Now I know you're hungry for another "redneck heckler sighting". I can't provide on this outing since everyone seemed to be uncharacteristically respectful to random strangers on bicycles this day. I will, however, share with you a summary of the Q & A I had with some guy who walked by while I was taking a breather on the bench in front of the Levi Jackson pool. He was fascinated by my ride. Some of his queries and observations included, verbatim:

Did you get that at Wal-Mart?
(Did) it (cost) more than a Schwinn?
That thing ain't got no spokes!

and, finally,

How much was that thing?

He was soon distracted by a girl in a bikini walking to her car and I made my getaway.

Things I'm hearing

2007-08-03T17:48:00.001-04:00

Say what you want about Zeitgeist being a Smashing Pumpkins album in name only due to the personnel involved, but any Billy Corgan side project that can produce the 3:15+ section of "Starz" is worth more than pretty much anything else out there.

Novelty breeds contempt?

2007-07-16T21:45:00.001-04:00

Observation:

The same dog that doesn't bat an eye at passing cars or even motorcycles will nearly decapitate itself with its chained leash when a person rides by on a bike.

The Greatest Videos of All Time

2007-03-30T12:46:00.001-04:00

The most difficult aspect of making a list like this is the difficulty in separating the song from the video. There are some great songs with so-so videos and totally garbage songs with excellent videos. I will freely admit that if there is a song that I don't like, the chances of me ever actually watching its video from beginning to end are virtually nil, no matter how good said video may actually be. So this list is by no means perfect. But aren't all "best of" lists subjective by definition?

And what makes a "great video"? To me, they need not follow the song lyrics literally. Most of them stand on their own as visual vignettes with or without the music. Their style and feel augment the song such that it gives texture to the music.

Oh yeah, and this list changes from day to day. Not literally. In my head.

Forever Young, Alphaville, 1984 -- Overlook the dated euro-80s costuming and posturing, consider the lyrics, and you have a hauntingly poetic vision of life and the passage of time.

Walking in My Shoes, Depeche Mode, 1993 -- Atmospheric Bosch-ian weirdness in another classic Mode-Corbijn collabo.

Ashes to Ashes, David Bowie, 1980 -- Years ahead of its time...ripped off by virtually every artsy 80s video to come after, and by some even to this day.

Savin' Me, Nickelback, 2006 -- Although I am loathe to call the generic, sludgy mope-rock of Nickelback the "greatest" anything (save maybe poster child for the sorry state of mid-00s rock), this is a video that actually has a concept beyond the tired synchronized dance moves and gratuitous "lookee" CGI that are so prevalent in videos from said era. A Twilight Zone rip-off, but intriguing nonetheless.

Girlfriend, Avril Lavigne, 2007 -- Relax. This time I am kidding.

Rockit, Herbie Hancock, 1983 -- Dang this was cool when I was 7. Still is, actually. In a retro-futuristic way.

Bittersweet Symphony, The Verve, 1997 -- At first it's kind of funny. Then it's kind of painful. Then it's a study of steadfast individuality in the face of the rigidity of the external world. Ultimately, it's this: whose job is it to get out of whose way, anyway?

Ocean Breathes Salty, Modest Mouse, 2006 -- Speaking of bittersweet, this video always makes me sort of sad. You know what I mean, if you were ever lonely as a kid and / or had a big imagination. Or not. The ending is the clincher.

Cherub Rock, Smashing Pumpkins, 1993 -- Not much happens in this video. It's just the band playing in some forest in the rain. But the way it's presented -- acid colors, stuttering frames, strobe lights, shadows -- make this the most perfect visual representation-to-music match I've ever seen. If you could distill wall of sound fuzzy guitars from the air and make them visible, they would look like this.

Summer 1988

2007-03-16T11:28:00.001-04:00

My biggest vice when I was a kid was video games. I played every day. I took every report card to Pepperoni's Playhouse and they gave me a cupful of tokens. I made video game doodles at school. I got $20 for my 11th birthday and promptly blew it all on Ghosts and Goblins. Such was my obsession.

The crackhouse for my addiction was the good ol' L & M Quickstop just down the road. They kept an endless cycle of cabinets, bringing in a new one every few months whenever my friends and I would complete them (often) or give up (rarely). Double Dragon. Superman. Altered Beast. Choplifter. (The infamous) Ghosts and Goblins. Double Dragon II. Guerrilla War. Karnov. Mat Mania. 1942. Punch-Out. In the early days they had Donkey Kong and Galaga...one time somebody broke in overnight, cracking open the quarter buckets in the process. I spent hours there the next day getting free games by hitting the exposed coin toggle...so long that, considering the snow and cold weather that day, I was in no small amount of trouble when I finally made it back home.

It was during one of my countless runs to the store on my bike that I got myself into some trouble. There was a kid named Bobby who lived down the other end of the street from me. He was my age or maybe a year older, but he was big for his age and carried a scowl that matched his temper. Definitely more of an acquaintance than a friend, considering that he went to a different school and I didn't see him very much except for chance meetings out on my bike. Bobby was known to be a little imposing.

So I was on my way to play whatever the current game was. It took me about 1 minute to get to the store from my house on my bike, thanks to the mostly downhill route. The final descent was the steepest. A sensation as close to flying as a 12 year old can get.

So I was picking up speed, my pocketful of quarters eagerly awaiting their fate. There, about 300 feet ahead, was Bobby on his bike. He was stopped in the road when I saw him, positioned perpindicular to my path. It took me an extra half second to see him thanks to my mental state. I moved over to the right to pass him. He looked to his left, saw me coming, and took a couple of steps back, placing his back wheel squarely in my way. What does he want? I thought. I wasn't sure exactly what I should do at that moment. My momentary indecision turned to annoyance. What a punk. Does he think he owns this road? If he wants to talk to me he can get out of the way and wave me down like a normal person.

By that moment the time for thinking was over. My front tire made contact with his back wheel at a high rate of speed. There was a crash, but it wasn't me. A slight wobble, then the sound of crashing metal on asphalt somewhere behind. I didn't look back.

As my quarter supply dwindled, my thoughts gradually returned to the real world, and real world consequences. I started to get a gooey feeling in the pit of my stomach when I thought about having to go back home, crawling slowly uphill, past the very scene of the crime. Images of a road-burned 12 year old who was already well into puberty and a head taller than me made me realize that this time physics wouldn't be my ally. But it was all for naught. He was nowhere to be found. No blood on the pavement, either.

Many more trips to the store would follow that summer. Each corner turned on the route had me furtively scanning the road ahead for any sign of Bobby. And with each deserted road came a sigh of relief.

Part of the mythos of Ghosts and Goblins was the $500 reward. Supposedly, the designers had made the game so impossibly difficult that they had offered a $500 reward to anyone who could complete it. I required more hairline reflexes than I or any of my friends could muster. We didn't honestly think the $500 was anything we could ever hope to win, but that didn't stop us from feeding it the complete contents of our piggy banks and not batting an eye. Even if any one of us had won, he probably would have rapidly inserted the entire 2000 quarters into another game within 10 days.

But there was one guy we did think had a chance. An older guy, probably in his 30s, who possessed what we judged to be superhuman video game prowess. He could play Double Dragon all day on one quarter. Altered Beast was so boring to him any more that he didn't even bother. He could bend spoons with his mind. His name was Tom.

Before I ever saw the legend with my own eyes I saw the mark of his skill: the initials KAT at the top of every high score list of every game L & M Quick Stop ever had, there like a flag atop Everest. I surmised that I was ever in his presence I would do everything I could to convince him to take me as his disciple, residing in his secret mountain hideway until I mastered the hand-eye coordination of a cobra. Then I would live out the rest of my days not only on the $500, but also on the other prizes I would win on all the other games mortals were foolish enough to dub "impossible."

Such were my aspirations. But I had more pressing issues to worry about, namely getting back home for dinner. So I started the climb home. As I neared the turnoff for my road, what I saw made my blood run cold. There, cruising toward me from the other end of the street, was a group of about 3 kids on bikes. Upon seeing me, they spread out, covering the whole road. The one in the middle was taller than the others. He was scowling. Bobby.

"I knew I was going to have to kick somebody's (butt) today," I heard. Sorry dude, you're too late. I'm almost home. And I'm not going that way. I made the right turn onto my road, which is thankfully followed by a quick downhill. I lived to fight another day.

But something stayed in my mind as I sat down to my mashed potatoes: you can't do this all summer. You should be able to go to the store and back without having to worry about altercations. And you definitely can't run from this guy every time you see him.

The day of reckoning finally came, as I knew it would, on a sunny August day in 1988. I was on my way to the store. I was picking up speed when I saw Bobby on his bike heading in my direction. He stopped. I stopped. To be honest, I don't remember much of what we said. I do remember shaking his hand and telling him that we needed to let bygones be bygones. I also remember that I didn't have to worry any more about going to the store from then on.

March 2005: Juan Carlos Gutiérrez, el bufón de Chile

2007-02-26T15:37:00.001-05:00

The somewhat creepy South Pacific flava of our Easter Island trip drawing to a close, my usual international travel partner (dad) and I were enduring stop #1 amongst the cold steel-and-glass girders of Santiago Airport, patiently awaiting the plane that would take us on to Dallas and the good ol' U S and A. It has always been a relief to me to finally make it to the airport, security cleared and nothing else to do but wait.

So I sat down and relaxed, trying one last time to osmotically acquire some Spanish through the, I'm sure, hilarious episode of "Brujas" playing on the airport LCD tv. "Brujas" apparently is, or was, the thing in Chile, judging from how every tv I laid eyes on during that trip was either showing it or a commercial for it.

Dad took a seat in a less crowded area of the room. A couple of seats over was a mustachioed guy with glasses. Little did I now that this nondescript dude and his opinions would soon become the stuff of family lore.

I lost myself in thought and didn't pay any attention to dad until I got up for a restroom break. As I walked past him I saw that he was having a conversation with the guy sitting next to him. Dad likes to do that, strike up conversations with strangers when we travel.

Suddenly I got the joke. Earlier in the week, when we landed in Santiago on the way down, the lady at the customs booth had, after looking at my passport and nudging her partner, looked me in the eye and pronounced my name somewhat salaciously as "Hassan." I looked at her and smiled faintly, not sure whether to take it as a compliment or an insult. Right then, on tv, my differently-pronounced namesake was having his name whispered rapturously by a female "Brujas" castmember as soft-focus passion ensued.

Across the room I could see dad getting more animated. This guy must really be getting his goat. When he enters wide-eye-and-gesticulating-forcefully-mode you know something's up. I chuckled to myself and turned back to the tv. Politics always come up.

It was only later that I learned what had gotten him so worked up. The guy he was talking to was a native Chilean who lived part of the year in Vancouver. He liked to rile up Americans in his spare time. I'm not sure exactly how the conversation went, but apparently the guy, whose name was Juan Carlos, said Americans were a group of belligerent troublemakers who forced their will on all the other nations of the world. Not only that, dad related, but each one of us is directly responsible for it. "You," Juan Carlos had told him, "were part of the plot President Nixon hatched to have President Allende assasinated. You, you, you." That was where all the finger pointing came in. By the Doctrine of Juan Carlos, we, as American citizens, are complicit to all the pain and suffering our government inflicts upon our global brethren. That was the gist of their conversation, anyway.

Finally boarding time rolled around. Our group was called and we got up to get on the plane and the 8 hours of confinement that went with it. I handed the guy at the counter my ticket. He paused, then flipped it over and looked at the back.

"Sir, do you have your boarding pass?"

Umm, that's all I have. What else do I need?

"This is your ticket. You need a boarding pass."

By this time dad was up there too. He had the same things that I had. He didn't have a boarding pass either. Knowing how worked up he would always get at the mere thought of anything blocking us from arriving at the airport less than three hours ahead of our scheduled departure, I knew this would not be good. His eyes were already as wide as saucers.

"Here's our tickets. This is our plane. Can't you let us get on?" he said tersely.

"I can't sir. Not without a boarding pass. You haven't paid the departure tax."

The bridgeway was empty except for us. The plane was scheduled to leave in five minutes.

Ok, I thought. Simple enough. Apparently the people on Easter Island had forgotten to issue us boarding passes for Santiago. Let's just pay the departure tax now and be done with it.

Four minutes.

Dad had the same idea. "Here's my credit card. Just put it on this." After some hesitation, they agreed. One of the guys disappeared with the card.

Three minutes.

"Where is he?" Dad seethed, his face red. "If he has to go all the way back to the ticket counter, we're gonna miss the plane." I could see the helplessness in his eyes.

Two minutes.

Down the hall, first the footsteps. The guy was coming back.

"Ok," dad said with more than a hint of sarcasm. "Can we get on the plane now?"

I walked on ahead, down the jetway, hoping at the end would be the plane and not empty space. I glanced back to see where dad was.

He had his backpack off, a look of frustration on his face. A couple of security guards had stopped him halfway down the ramp and were rifling through his things. I caught his glance and shrugged my shoulders.

"Go ahead," he said, shrugging back.

Needless to say I was one of the last ones on the plane. I was informed by one of the flight attendants, rather impatiently, that we would leave as soon as all passengers were in their seats with their seatbelts fastened. I promptly complied, relieved that I had made it. As I was sitting down, I saw dad walking down the aisle. He had made it, after all.

To this day, dad contends that Juan Carlos had something to do with all that.

I was in the window seat. The whirlwind that had surrounded our boarding was just beginning to fade. I looked over to see who was sitting next to me in the aisle seat.

It was none other than Juan Carlos, social conscience of the Chilean nation.

He greeted me jovially, remembering me from earlier.

"Your father, I like him. He is a good man."

Ok...

We shot the breeze for a while. He seemed like an affable enough guy. He asked what I did for a living.

"I'm a pharmacist."

"Good profession," he nodded. "You know what I like to do sometimes? I enjoy some good marijuana." He pronounced this slowly, wrapping his tongue around it and processing it in such thick Spanish inflection that the word itself became foreign.

"Hmm," I said. "That's nice." I wasn't taking the bait.

He told me I needed to do everything I could "to get Bush out of there." Nope.

We talked on and on, well past Peru and into Ecuador. He ordered a miniature bottle of wine with his dinner and our conversation turned to the finer things in life: wine, good food, women. He may have been about 60 but he had the enthusiastic spirit of a guy half his age. We talked and laughed on into the night. After a lull in the conversation I looked over and ol' Juan Carlos had tuckered out.

When morning came, the flight attendants passed out the customs declaration cards. I glanced over and saw Juan Carlos take out his passport.

DOMINION OF CANADA. JUAN CARLOS GUTIERREZ.

Before long we were on the ground in Dallas. I saw Juan Carlos ahead of me, suitcase in tow, turn left into the human river of DFW.

Then he was gone.

June 1994

2007-02-08T10:37:00.001-05:00

During my high school days there wasn't a whole lot to do that didn't result in an undesirable update to one's criminal record. "Whaddya wanna do?" was asked so frequently that you think we could have created the answer that never existed.

Thankfully there were sports. Those weekends and summers consisted of tennis, backyard baseball, basketball, and mini golf. Epic battles, shots and hits that became part of our collective mythology. When we had conquered one game, we set out to work on another. Eventually the time came for us to try a new, more blue-blood pursuit.

Real golf.

I'm not sure who first sprang this idea. One of our clique used to amuse himself but whacking golf balls into the woods behind his house. It sounded like a fun enough diversion...the only problem was that it cost like 20 bucks to play a round at this little podunk course close to the house. A pretty good chunk of change. But we all came up with it.

So with one set of clubs for four guys, we headed out to the clubhouse. A handful of middle-aged guys in golf shirts and Titleist hats were spread out across to room, lounging, smoking cigarettes, and shooting the breeze. They looked up at as warily. The owner took our money and directed us toward our golf carts, instructing us firmly to "stay on the paths."

On the first tee we all took our cuts. My problem was purging the mechanics of my baseball swing from my mind, something I can't quite do even to this day. As a result I missed the ball completely 50% of the time, put wicked topspin on it 30%, or sliced/hooked it 15%. Do the math and you'll see why I found that I could just throw the ball and get much better results in shorter time to boot. The other guys weren't much better. The good thing was that once we got on the green we could hold our own thanks to our mini skills.

As you could probably guess we lost a lot of balls this way. Luckily for me one of my hobbies in earlier times was combing the cow fields and creeks that bordered another golf course for wayward balls. I made pretty respectable money selling them (back?) to the golfers as they passed by. But I couldn't sell them all, so I had tapped into my supply for this outing. The other guys didn't have such a reserve. They also didn't have the disposable income to buy new ones. Therein lay fate.

The other guys had found an elegant, albeit dishonest, way to circumvent their shortcoming. You could either pay $2.00 for a sleeve of three balls that would last maybe two holes if you were lucky or you could pay 75 cents for a small bucket of balls from the driving range. You can probably guess which one they chose.

So we played on. We had a blast thanks to the fact that we actually got better toward the end. I was still throwing the ball off the tee for the most part so I had about three balls left by the time we got back to the clubhouse to turn in our cart.

The atmosphere in the clubhouse this time had changed. It was as if all the air had been sucked out of the place. Any doubts we had about its origin were erased when we saw the owner standing there to meet us, face ruddy, eyes bulging.

"Have you boys been playing with range balls?"

Umm...uhhh...

His anger was increasing by the second.

"That's what I thought. I don't know why I even bother. You kids rip me off every chance you get. Why do you want to do things like that? Range balls are for the driving range! You don't play with range balls!"

The middle-aged men stood around us too, no longer lounging. Sullen and stern looks all. I guess they were there to catch us if we tried to make a run for it. We should have known he would have sent somebody out to spy on us. A gang of teenage boys given free reign over two golf carts and the whole golf course? Not a chance.

Then it was time to give each of us the treatment individually. He practically sprinted the six feet over to me when my time came. An indistinguishable rant into my face about my morals and motivations followed.

"I wasn't using range balls," I declared simply. "Oh yeah, you never do anything," came the sarcastic reply, as if he had known me all my life. "What's that in your pocket? Give me those!"

He had seen the bulge in my pocket where my remaining supply was. I complied as if in slow motion. He immediately took the balls over to the counter and dumped them into his "for sale" bucket.

So we left. That was the first and last time we played golf.

Step #1

2007-01-25T11:23:00.001-05:00

Last night I took the first concrete step toward something that has been in various areas of my mind since 1985: being a contestant on Jeopardy. Mom called me the other night and said she had seen a blurb about an online contestant test and that I should look into it.

I remember back in high school at the height of my academic team career when I used to long for fewer stodgy academic-type questions like "compute the slope of a line through the points A (4,-2) and B (-1,8) in slope-intercept form" and more Jeopardy-type questions like "this famous 20th-century nickname is the Argentinian equivalent of 'y'know?' or 'hey, you.'" But always hanging over my head like a vulture was the finality of this: you only get one chance to be on the show. Tough opponents? Too bad. Unlucky categories? Too bad. Feeling sick that day? Too bad. So I set about doing my best to afford myself every possible advantage I could before I took my shot.

Trying out for the teen or college tournament was not good. Even if the you won the whole thing, the prize money wouldn't be equal to what you could win in a few games on the regular show. Plus you should pick the time of your life when your brain is most full of information...although academic team did a lot for that in high school, I thought I would only get better. So I told myself that right out of college would be the best time.

But after college came pharmacy school. Even throughout college I felt my general knowledge base slowly leaching out of my head as I took more and more specialized courses. I countered this by watching the show as much as possible and feeding my appetite for exotic reading. So after pharmacy school was over I found myself with the opportunity to seriously pursue my goal, reasonably well-stocked brain still intact.

Following the "every advantage" mantra is seeing the show in person at least once NOT as a contestant. This is something I learned in college (both didactically and experientially): if you want to do well on a test, do everything you can to simulate the conditions of said test while studying: do it at the same time of day as the test will be, with the same time constraints, even in the same room if possible. Any emotional or cognitive resources should be spent on recall, not on the novelty or nervousness of the situation.

I first hatched the audience idea last year...unfortunately work and scheduling constraints haven't allowed me to follow through on a trip to Culver City yet. That's why I was hesitant to take the test...before I know it I could get the call for my first trip, with the game on the line. My game.

So I took the test last night. I had practiced a bit with some sample tests I had found online, and this one seemed easier. There were a few questions that exposed my lingering weaknesses in fine arts, specifically poetry and black and white movies, but only one from the dreaded "I've never heard of that before in my life" category. The ones I missed were ones I once knew but couldn't remember, or should have known, so I'm not worried. I can recover those with a few weeks of study. I went into this test pretty much cold, with only some minor studying over the past week or so. I can turn it up much more.

So I wait for the call. The test concluded with a short paragraph about how there were so many participants that a "random selection process" would be employed to determine who gets invited to auditions. Even though they didn't mention this as a factor, I figure my demographic characteristics will help me: I'm not one of those middle-aged white male lawyers who once seemed to appear every other day on the show.

So I wait.

And study.

And look for audience tickets.

The All-Time Coolest Song Intros of All-Time, Ever

2006-12-03T20:29:00.002-05:00

8. Something About You, Boston, "Boston"

Something About You - Boston

7. The Next Right Moment, Ric Ocasek, "Troublizing"

The Next Right Moment - Ric Ocasek

6. Perfect Situation (Album version), Weezer, "Make Believe"

Perfect Situation - Weezer

5. Believe, Dig, "Dig"

believe - Dig

4. The End is the Beginning is the End, The Smashing Pumpkins, "Batman & Robin OST"

3. Some Might Say, Oasis, "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?"

Some Might Say - Oasis

2. Panama, Van Halen, "1984"

Panama (Album Version) - Van Halen

1. Guardian, Fates Warning, "Awaken the Guardian"

Guardian - Fates Warning

Musings on the nocebo response

2006-09-26T15:39:00.000-04:00

Allergy [al-er-jee] noun: an abnormal reaction of the body to a previously encountered allergen introduced by inhalation, ingestion, injection, or skin contact, often manifested by itchy eyes, runny nose, wheezing, skin rash, or diarrhea (dictionary.com)

"I'm not sure I can take that. I'm allergic to pretty much everything." Statements like this are fairly commonplace in my pharmacy. They usually come from middle-aged or elderly women dropping off a prescription for something they've never taken before. True allergies, however, are not so commonplace. It is estimated that around 5% of all drug treatments will result in a true allergic reaction. Penicillin allergy, for example, perhaps the most prevalent and well-known of medication allergies, affects about 10% of patients. Codeine is another commonly cited allergy amongst patients (albeit frequently for dishonest purposes, but that's another post). But these are commonly used drugs...wouldn't you expect people to report allergies to these agents since there's a greater chance of them having been presicribed them sometime in their lifetimes?

For comparison, around 15% of all treatments will result in an adverse effect, i.e. a side effect. The problem is the layperson's definition of allergy. It is used in a colloquial sense as a blanket definition to cover any sort of undesired reaction to a drug. Aspirin hurt your stomach? I'm allergic to it. Benadryl dry your mouth out? I'm allergic to it. Lortab make you nauseated? I'm allergic to it (ok, so I've never heard that one before, but you get my drift).

Let's look at this mathematically: given that the probability of true allergy to any given medication is 5%, what is the probability of a patient being allergic to (let's be conservative at first) three different medications?

5/100 * 5/100 * 5/100 = 0.000125, or 1/8000, or about 1 person in the city of Corbin

Four?

5/100 * 5/100 * 5/100 * 5/100 = 1/160,000, or about 0.8 people in Laurel, Knox, and Whitley Counties combined

How about five?

5/100 ^ 5 = 1/3,200,000, or about 1.2 people in the entire state of Kentucky

Given the 2006 US population of 299,360,879, how many medications must the most allergic person in the country avoid?

(It's between six and seven. I'm sure your eyes are glazing over at all the numbers already).

So...

The next time that lady with the laundry list of 7 or 8 drugs that she's "allergic" to walks into the pharmacy, I'll be sure to stand a safe distance away so that I'm not struck by lightning. Or ask her to buy me a lottery ticket.