Richard Ramirez Died Today of Natural Causes by Sun Kil Moon
Richard Ramirez died today of natural causes. He got amped up on speed and broke into houses, bludgeoned people to death, wrote shit on their skin and left them. They finally got him and he went to San Quentin. His last murder was south of San Francisco. A guy named Peter Pan, from the town of San Mateo. The little girl in the tenderloin was his first, and in the laundry room he took a dollar from her fist. His last free days were at the Bristol Hotel. I was reading “Nightstalker” when I went and rang the bell. The doorman buzzed, said, “You’re just like them all.” He gave me a key and a black cat led me down the hall. I had a flight today from Boston to Cleveland. Got a death in the family, gotta do some grieving. Lost my baby cousin and it’s eating me up. And I’m achin’ real bad and I need a little love. Richard Ramirez died today of natural causes. These things mark time and make us pause and think about when we were kids, scared of taps on the window, what’s under the bed and what’s under the pillow. And the Jim Jones massacre got in our heads and the TV headlines, “Elvis Presley’s Dead”, and the Ayatollah Khomenei hostages and Ronald Reagan dodging bullets. One day I’m gonna stroll through the old neighborhood. Rick Stan’s my age, he still lives with his mom when he’s not in jail from menacing and stalking, writing bad checks and cocaine charges. Mark Denton had such a beautiful smile, always sat on the porch passing the time, and drinking a beer and smoking a pack until one day poor Mark had a heart attack. My friend Ben’s got a good job as an electrician, his sister married the pool shark Jim Evans. And my next door neighbors whom I love so, and they love me too, but they passed long ago. And if you walk just a few blocks down Stahl there’s a house that was the scariest of them all, a cute little palm with a sign “For Sale”. For those Sexton’s kids, life was Hell, and I’m telling the truth and if you don’t believe it, pick up Lowell Cauffiel’s “House of Secrets”. Had to fly from Cleveland to SFO. I got 3 months off until my next show. Gonna spend time with my girl, make a record this summer, fix my kitchen up and hire a plumber. The headlines change so rapidly. Today I came to the studio to work on something pretty, then I saw the news on James Gandolfini while I was eating ramen and drinking green tea. The “Sopranos” guy died at 51. That’s the same age as the guy who’s coming to play drums. I don’t like this getting older stuff, havin’ to pee 50 times a day is bad enough. I got a naggin’ prostate and I got a bad back, and when I fuck too much I feel like I’m gonna have a heart attack. I woke up today, I saw the headlines, an airline crashed and 2 people died, and I’m at a barbecue in San Rafael, and everybody’s drunk and feelin’ pretty well. At 53 years Richard Ramirez died but in ‘83 he was very much alive. He was the scariest killer in the band. He had a pentagram in the center of his hand. And everybody remembers the paranoia when he stalked the suburbs of Southern California and everybody will remember where they were when they finally caught the Night Stalker. And I remember just where I was when Richard Ramirez died of natural causes.
It has now been over a year and a half since we moved to Harrisburg. Like every time I’ve made a large move, it’s been interesting how at first there is a large amount of culture shock, and then just a few weeks or months later, it’s almost like you’ve always lived there. It’s hard to imagine there was a time that I lived in Philadelphia, or Erie, or Carlisle. It’s hard to imagine there was a time when I actually could not imagine moving back to Central Pennsylvania. Did I ever actually move away from here? But also, the first time I lived here, I couldn’t have imagined living in Harrisburg, but now it seems the natural center of this area. Harrisburg gets a bad rap from many people, for those are people who are afraid of it, or have never spent much time in it. Granted, it is a city with its troubles, both financial and otherwise. There are plenty of areas that are downtrodden, poor, and wanting of many of the services that the surrounding areas take for granted. But there is a lot to love here, and plenty of neighborhoods that you can feel safe in, and with nice modern housing. There’s more than enough to do, more than enough beautiful views, and a vibrant arts scene. In fact, there are more things that we have not been able to do than those we have been able to do. And it seems clear to me that the city is still on the move. I know there have been lots of stories over the decades about the revitalization of Harrisburg, but this time it does seem legitimate. The independent music scene, hipster coffee shops, art galleries opening all over the place. Even a vegan coffee shop close to the state capitol building! There’s a lot to love here, and although there are certainly times when I’m riding my bike down a side street here that I miss being right in the middle of traffic on Broad Street in Philadelphia, there’s also something to be said for walking out of my job every night, looking to my right, and seeing the beautiful Capitol Dome less than a mile away, or walking my dog six blocks and being along the Susquehanna River Trail, almost always as the sun sets.
The fact is, the system IS rigged against Trump, in the sense that the media (hold up; did I say the MEDIA?? You hate the media, don’t you? [I’m probably not talking to YOU here, but to about 30 people on my Facebook who bitch more about the media than the atrocities they report on} But what is it you are talking about, when you say “the media”? It’s an institution with hundreds of thousands of outlets, platforms, and systems, and it’s actually one of the best things about our country–one of the things that really DOES keep us free. But see, you gotta do some work, too. You have to sift through some things, figure out what sources you trust, the nuances of how to best receive information from the media, and where and when you receive it. You have to READ things. Hey, quick–who’s your favorite columnist? Don’t have one? How do you HATE the media when you’ve never really consumed it to begin with? Stop being lazy. The American freedom of press truly does set us apart–and I’m not one for “American Exceptionalism”. But yeah–most of the media operates by making a profit, so be careful, and above all READ things. And it does make a difference if it’s printed on paper; it’s harder to trick your eye into only reading the “interesting” stuff or items you already agree with. Just read the news. Hating and callously dismissing “the media” is just active laziness. And memes are not the media. FYI) are not obligated to report on an aspiring despot who would end the American experiment like it was no big deal. The “media”–contrary to what many seem to think–are not obligated to be neutral observers of facts only at all times. They are to report facts, yes–but also interpret them (again, this is where understanding media nuance will serve you well: there ARE places you can go for just fact, and places you can go for opinion, and places you can go for analysis. If you go to one place expecting it to be something it isn’t, you might think it’s corrupt, when in fact you’re just a novice). So yes, the media are biased against Trump because they are reporting on a man who would destroy our nation–and harm the world. And it is not their DUTY to remain neutral. The media IS biased–but not against Trump; they’re biased against evil.
I wasn’t ready for Thom Yorke’s solo album, The Eraser, when it came out in 2006. I was baffled by it, listened to it twice, and put it away–not knowing if it was bad or I was daft. I put it in on a whim today and it turns out I am ready for it.
Two nights ago, I got to meet Jon Krakauer, an author who is currently among America’s top 3 or 4 nonfiction authors. I’ve admittedly only read two of Jon’s books–“Into the Wild” being his most famous book and a work that has touched my life very deeply. In it, Krakauer tells the story of Christopher McCandless, who left a very comfprtable and promising life, wandered the country with little to no money and no contact with anyone for over a year, eventually hiking into the Alaskan wilderness where he would eventually die. Chris’s story is complex and multi-layered–it can’t be reduced to one single element. When I was at very low points in my life–still drinking and in deep depressions–Chris’s decision to disappear and walk into the wild until he died appealed to me. Later, sober and happy, other elements of Chris’s philosophy and his journey resonated with me. Here is an excerpt from a letter he wrote to a man he met on his sojourn across the country. The man–who had been deeply affected by a month or so he spent with Chris–received the postcard after Chris died:
“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” –Christopher McCandless
While it was McCandless whose story has so impacted me, Krakauer’s decision to tell it, and the respect he gave the story, resonated. In the many years since “Into the Wild” was published, Chris’s story has become of major import to a growing legion of people who find something inspiring about him, and Krakauer does not shy away from his role as a steward of the story. It was an intense honor to meet him.
The sun goes up, the sun goes down. The wind begins to whistle through branches now bare with late months. The sky grays, the wind grays, everywhere color mutes, curls into itself. Even the insects look at you with worry.
“What if you slept, and what if in your sleep you dreamed, and what if in your dreams you went to a perfect garden and there you plucked a strange and beautiful flower, and what if when you awoke you had the flower in your hand? Ah, what then?”
I’ve been wanting to write a blog post lately but unsure of what I was going to write about. You know, one of those entries where I just talk about a few things that have been on my mind. A “topical” entry. But as I sit down to write this I am SUPER tired and am convinced that any such entry I compose at the moment will be fairly boring. Yet here I am anyway, typing. Guess what? Here’s a very random list of some things I like: Red velvet cake. Felix Mendelssohn. The US Postal Service. Those presidential quarters. Coke Zero. Messenger bags. The Jane Jacobs school of city planning. Post-it notes. Howard the Duck. Backscratchers. Snuggies. Blueberry juice. Free verse poetry from 1930-present. High-end earbuds. ALF. Snowy owls. TIME magazine. Ansel Adams. Salted peanuts. “Magnolia”. Death Cab For Cutie. The abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike tunnels. James Buchanan. Salt. Pajama pants. Cheers. The history of Arctic exploration. Mousepads. Index cards. Futons. John Sloan. Red pandas. Major League Baseball. John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry. Quantum entanglement. Granola. Summer. “Fight Club”. Journals. Shoegaze rock. Hiking the Pennsylvania Appalachians. Three-on-three hockey. 180-gram vinyl records. Super long showers. Strong iced coffee. The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. Fancy socks. Washington, DC. Basenjis. The history of Molokai, Hawaii. Mirrorballs. The New York Times. Chukka boots. Brut cologne. Crispy tofu. Peregrine falcons. Heat. Popcorn. Rivers. Diet Dr. Pepper, and generic versions of such. Oscar Wilde. Boxer briefs. Throw pillows. The Little League World Series. Ephemera. Road ID. “The Tree of Life”. Big Band music. Pinball. Antique shopping. Christmas. Real maple syrup. Planet Fitness. The American Revolution. Groupon. Ten minute naps. The “ashcan” painters. Funyuns. Globes. Presque Isle State Park. Cabinet cards. The Donner Party (whatever, it’s interesting!). Bluetooth audio. Utilitarianism. Elephant Ears (the plant). The Reading Terminal Market. Jane Kenyon. The Large Hadron Collider. Amazon Prime. Oceans. Archaeology magazine. Large plastic drinking cups. Band of Horses. Upper Deck Hockey cards. Comic book stores. Maintaining an elevated target heart rate for over half an hour. Pandora Radio. Grape Hyacinths. Riding my bike. Q-tips. Funiculars. Mad Men. Post-rock. Muesli. Independence Hall. The Golden Girls. Soy milk. Postage stamps. The Brandywine Valley. Historical markers. Swimming. NPR. Conan O’Brien. Being a Democrat. Playgrounds. To name a few.
It is lately the generally accepted wisdom of the masses that one should not covet material items too much and you should spend your excess money on having experiences. At least, this seems to be the generally accepted wisdom of my Facebook feed. And I think I do fairly well with that; while there are certainly items I not only want but crave, I also spend a lot of my life having pretty great experiences.
All that being said, there remain some persistent bigger-ticket items that just call my name like a siren at sea, and I won’t deny it! Perhaps it is an illness of our consumerist society, but dammit, there’s some stuff I want! I thought it might be fun to put them here in a blog. Please note this is just a fun exercise for me and not a veiled Christmas list. As an adult I have never taken any joy in making out a list of things for people to buy me. Some of these things have been bouncing around in my head as items I want for YEARS; I thought it might be therapeutic to get them out in the open.
In no particular order:
–OK, maybe in a SLIGHT order, just because this is definitely number one: Neil Young’s Mirrorball on vinyl. It’s not my favorite album but it contains my favorite song. Used would be fine but what I salivate over is the idea of a new, factory-sealed copy. New copies on eBay generally go for about $100.
–I’m dying for a high-quality Philadelphia Flyers zip hoodie that goes light on the orange (but still has orange) and is heavy enough to wear for all but the coldest winter months. Turns out all those criterion result in an expensive item. Basically, I’m talking about this. This would give me hoodies for all four Philly sports teams, but I don’t want to rush it and get a cheap version. Hence, I’ve been sitting on this desire for almost two years. I mean, who has $70 bucks for a hoodie?
–OK, I admit I have some fairly expensive interests. I’ve been dying to get my hands on some first printings of collections of Philip Larkin poetry. Now, this is a pretty specific area to deal in. I am in no way talking about books actually called Collected Poems. I am talking about the individual collections of poems AS THEY WERE PUBLISHED. I would only be interested in them if they were FIRST PRINTINGS, which would mean they are hardcovers, usually being shipped from the UK somewhere, published in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. These titles would be: The Less Deceived (1955, generally sell on eBay for $60-$150), The Whitsun Weddings (1964, goes for about $150), High Windows (1974, $90-$180. This is the most desirable one). There are some lesser collections: The North Ship being the most notable. I do have a second printing copy of The North Ship, for which I paid $55 in a moment of weakness some years ago.
–I really want a pair of high quality Bose earbuds. Please note earbuds, not headphones. I like the crazy colors, too. Specifically these. I will never have the cojones to shell out the money for these.
–You might not guess it to look at me, but I love shoes. It’s just that the shoes I love, which are very specific stylistically, can usually be bought very cheaply at many local retailers. But it turns out, there are expensive versions of the shoes I like (apparently they are Chukkas), and I will never, ever be paying for them. But look at them. Look how pretty they are.
–I don’t often feel a need to add many DVDs to my collection nowadays, although I will still add one here and there as I see more movies I fall in love with or as classics become available. However, there is only one movie that I feel is causing a gap in my collection by its absence. That movie is They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? and it has been out of print on DVD for so long that new copies are very scarce. Here look at this: a new copy of the DVD (not Blu Ray) on Amazon costs $100. You can see at that same Amazon page that used copies start at $20, but those are listed in acceptable condition. I certainly do not mind used copies of DVDs but I balk at acceptable. Some second-party sellers are offering New copies for $50. Worth it but of course I can’t spend that on a single-disc, non-special edition DVD, no matter how badly I might want it.
–I love using the Roku to stream entertainment to my television. In fact, we already own two of them. However, in our new home, our wifi is terrible and it is a problem we don’t seem able to solve (we have been relegated to streaming Netflix via our Blu-Ray player, which is Ethernet cabled). The thing is, I love Rokus, and the ROKU 3 has an Ethernet port. Would this be an item of great excess? Yes. But I neeeeeeeeed it.
–My art book collection would basically be complete (for now) with the addition of a HIGH QUALITY, comprehensive, hardback book on Henri Rousseau. I’m having trouble finding one to link to online, but the kind I’m thinking of is generally not cheaper than $60. Failing that, I would settle for a framed print of The Dream (no smaller than 32×24) or The Snake Charmer(preferably 40×30).
See, I don’t ask for much! I also like experiences!
I’m finding that when one becomes a vegetarian, it’s fairly tempting to not tell anyone at all. Few things in my life have encountered such unexpected pushback. It seems like saying I’m a vegetarian somehow sounds to most people like you are saying I’ve decided that you shouldn’t eat meat either. People get really pissed just because *I” have decided not to eat meat.
But it also seems a tad unlike me to let such a monumental decision pass by unmentioned or unexplored. I have no intention of proselytizing on the topic, but I refuse to act like it’s not a part of me–no matter how sensitive it might make you feel.
Now for the elephant in the room: my girlfriend (she’s a lot more to me than that word implies, but she’s not my wife, so our culture doesn’t provide us with an ample word for our relationship. ‘Partner’ is nice but comes with its own baggage) Karla is an extremely passionate vegetarian. A big part of my hesitancy to announce myself as vegetarian are the inevitable insinuations that I was simply doing it because she somehow badgered me into it or that I was in some way forced into it. I assure you nothing could be further from the truth. Firstly, Karla is not that sort of woman, and secondly, I am not that sort of man. Karla made it clear from the start that this was something that was extremely important to her, but that she would never actually ask me to do it.
With that being said, being around someone who feels so passionate about something so often can make issues become your own issues. As I said, I won’t go on too long about it. I’m still very new to the scene but obviously there are many, many ins-and-outs and things to be known and whatnot–mainly the horrors of factory farming and our nation’s broken foodborne illness codes. But it boils down to very basic things for me:
1. I don’t want to hurt things (people like to argue with this but, again, I’m not asking you to not eat meat, so really, no need for debate here).
2. The idea that I’m eating the flesh of a dead creature now seems to me a little weird, a little gross, and maybe even a little barbaric.
3. The last dozen times I’ve been sick I am fairly certain can be attributed to meat.
4. Meat tastes pretty good, but really. C’mon. Lots of other stuff is good too. You’d be surprised how easy it is to live without it.
1. Weather! During the last month or so, as the average temperature was dipping into the teens and single digits, I found my weight harder to manage (this phenomenon is far from unheard-of). I found it harder to motivate myself to work out, was often craving more food and worse food, and often couldn’t even ride my bike to work like I normally do. My goal weight is 150–which I have achieved and am currently staying at, but for a few weeks I lingered in the 155 area as the temperatures made life almost impossible. Now this week we get a warm-up into the 50s and 60s and within days I’m back to waking up at 149. Isn’t that wild??? The weather and temperature affects everything. Oftentimes, even as these things are occurring to us and affecting us, we don’t truly realize the size of the impact they have. I’m excited to be escaping the winter with my weight loss intact; I feel as though I almost lost my grip on it there for a minute (and for the record, I’m at my goal weight but not my goal body; the plan being to keep adding muscle mass while losing more fat–almost all belly, now–while staying at about 150. Yeah, it’s kind of a bold plan, but it’s the only plan I have).
2. I just heard that some “Breaking Bad” fans are frequently throwing pizzas on the roof of the house the show was filmed at. And apparently an elderly couple lives in the house, and they have lived there for 30 years. I know none of them are going to read this, but still: you gotta stop that.
3. Today my mother and I planned on going up into the observation tower that is atop City Hall here in Philadelphia. However, when we arrived at the office to purchase tickets, we were told the observation tower was closed that day, due to flooding! Now, I grant you, it had rained quite a bit the night before, but how in the world does an observation tower, which is one of the highest points in the city, get flooded?! Now sure, I can think of some plausible explanations, but still. Annoying. But here is a nice picture we managed to take during a perfect leisurely stroll on a gorgeous afternoon near Rittenhouse Square:
1. I seem to have become obsessed with eating oat and oat-related products. It’s no big secret that I’ve been on a big oatmeal kick on and off for a few years now (although the kick has now been “on” for about 8 months and shows no signs of slowing) but I recently starting branching out into even bigger and better oat products. I discovered Muesli and, in a trick almost nobody saw coming, I actually put it on my oatmeal. I also eat it dry, right out of the bag. In addition, I now buy granola, of all kinds. I also have been known, like the sly fox I am, to put that on my oatmeal. Then yesterday I found this new hot cereal, “brown rice farina hot cereal”, which my genius girlfriend immediately identified over the phone as being “basically a gluten-free form of Cream-of-Wheat”. I haven’t had it yet, but it looks delicious, and I look forward to throwing some other form of grains on top of it.
2. I have been playing an awful lot of this hip new app game, Trivia Crack (yeah, do I hate that it’s named after a crippling and deadly addictive drug? I sure do), which is just a trivia game you can play with your friends. It’s mostly horrible and is a huge time waster, but yes, it IS highly addictive. Now, any time one plays a trivia game, one is bound to have complaints about the nature of the questions eventually. Even the best version of Trivial Pursuit eventually shows a weakness of some kind. But can I just say, I am sick to death of Harry Potter questions. Seriously, I get it, it actually is a pretty big event in our culture. One should have at least a small passing knowledge of Harry Potter. But it seems as though this app wants us to have approximately one-eighth of our general knowledge of human beings to revolve around Harry Potter. It’s kinda sorta a little enraging.
3. How is it that every winter I refuse to acknowledge how badly I need to moisturize myself until winter is half over? Granted, it wasn’t something I ever had to think about as a younger man, but now it’s pretty evident. Sometime at the beginning of December I start to notice the skin on my arms getting ashy, and then a few weeks later some spots of my skin actually begin to hurt. At this point, I know my skin has become dramatically dry and is in need of moisture, and yet I soldier on, taking long, hot showers–often two a day–and spending plenty of time outdoors. I have plenty of lotion that I simply ignore. Then, usually sometime mid-January, it gets to the point I can no longer ignore it, and I break down and just lotion the whole body up. And EVERY YEAR, I just freakin’ love this. It feel like a new man! And every year, I say to myself, ‘Geez, why weren’t you doing this all along? Next year, we’re gonna start moisturizing right away!’ And yet, here I am, having just moisturized for the first time last night. It has seriously affected my whole day, in a positive way! I feel incredible!
Not only does “White Winter Hymnal” by Fleet Foxes remind me of winter, it is about winter; or at the very least, it involves a memory that takes place in winter.
I listened to this song, and the album it is on, very frequently during the first winter I spent in Erie (a very unique time for me, here are lots of entries about it). This song will always evoke, in my mind, the images, smells, and feel of driving the pot-hole filled Erie streets in the dead of winter, with ice and snow filling my wheel wells, and a particular afternoon where I drove to a cemetery which sidles a bluff overlooking Lake Erie, and while this song played in the background, I looked out over the vast, frozen lake, and felt sorrow as well as joy.
The song’s simple lyrics go thusly:
“I was following the pack
all swallowed in their coats
with scarves of red tied round their throats
to keep their little heads
from falling in the snow,
and I turned round and there you go!
And, Michael, you would fall,
and turn the white snow red as
strawberries in the summertime.”
1. Am I, potentially, the only person in America who said to themselves this morning, “Looks like it’s time to buy some more blank CDs!”?
2. What do you think it would take to get this zany country of ours to do away with this whole “move the clocks back” thing? Everyone hates it, and even those who have a full understanding of why we do it, even they don’t understand why we do it! In a country that seems to be waking up from centuries of backward thinking (yay gay marriage! yay legal pot even though I don’t personally smoke it! yay even bigots hate Westboro Baptist!) you’d think we could find a way out of this dark-at-noon bullcrap.
3. Those of you who are aware of the trend of men wearing fancy socks, I’d like to get your thoughts on it. Part of me really wants to jump on that train and thinks it is very much me, and the other part of me thinks that is the opposite of me and that I should be very opposed to it. And please, suggestions like you should do whatever you feel like are pretty pointless since I just told you I’m conflicted!
4. I’m getting sick of dust. I mean, when will dust just give up? Aint nobody got time for that!
5. Who knew there was an abandoned section of Asbury Park, New Jersey, that seems to border on “ghost town” status??? Not me, and I’ve freakin’ BEEN to Asbury Park! Brian, why didn’t you ever tell me about this? Geez Louise, this is right down my alley! (thanks to the lovely Karla for filling me in!)
6. Boy howdy, do I ever freakin’ love the holidays. I’ve blogged about this before, but I just don’t understand people’s hatred of the holiday’s “starting early”. Oh, what’s that, you’d rather not begin feeling a kinship with your fellow man too early in the season? Too soon for warm nostalgia, quality 50s music (that’s basically what our Christmas songs are, but mostly, as songs, they’re REALLY GOOD), eye-popping decorations, and a general air of joviality? What is wrong with you people?? Stop harshing my groove.
1. It should be noted that, a mere two days ago, I did in fact participate in two sack races at a picnic. That’s right, on some occasions, folks are still doing sack races. But the important part: I totally owned my competition both times. I won by landslides. I say this to gloat. Because it is a rare moment indeed in my life when I find myself vanquishing opponents in any physical competition whatsoever–including leisure sports like pool and bowling. So yeah. Apparently I rule at sack racing. However, it should also be duly noted that even now, 48 hours later, my lower abs hurt like crazy! And I have been working my abs in workouts for a few weeks, so it’s not just from using unused muscles…there is something about sack races that MURDERS the abs, but especially, like…the very bottom ones. I’m a scientist.
2. You know who reads a lot? Homeless people. I’m not making some tasteless joke here, I’m serious. At least in Philadelphia, whenever I see homeless people, I would say 50% of the time, they are reading something, and not always a newspaper, but often books. I hear what some of you are about to say: They sure have plenty of free time to read! Well sure, and I’m not sure what my point is with this, but it seemed like an observation worth making. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
3. So there are these two bands I like (don’t stop reading yet, this isn’t actually about the bands). The bands are The War on Drugs and Sun Kil Moon. Both bands are fairly recent discoveries for me. Over the past month, a very odd “feud” has developed between these bands (who, while both “indie” bands, are not bands that would typically be grouped together or thought of at the same time). The were both playing the same festival, on different stages, at the same time, and apparently War on Drugs’ sound was drowning out the sound of Sun Kil Moon. Now, Sun Kil Moon is basically one guy, Mark Kozelek, a very outspoken eccentric who often makes waves in the indie community. Kozelek writes great songs, then gets other folks to play them with him and calls that band Sun Kil Moon. The War on Drugs is just a band. Anyway, so War on Drugs is too loud for Mark Kolezek and he gets pissed at them, for some reason, and he says something like this onstage: “This next song is called ‘The War on Drugs Can Suck My Fucking Cock”. Now, to make a really long story somewhat short: the indie music press loves feuds (who doesn’t?) and reported on this idiotic stage banter promptly, and Kozelek being the guy he is, he just kept making the problem worse and being extremely mean to War on Drugs for months now; for their part, War on Drugs has stayed mostly silent, seeing as they did truly nothing. Sun Kil Moon went as far as to release, last week a song called “War on Drugs: Suck My Cock”. You can read very interesting reporting from the feud as it went down here, or here, or here.
ANYWAY, here is what I want to talk about: the very first time I read that story, I winced at Kozelek’s choice of words. Suck my cock, while a slam I may have directed at many a male friend of mine over the years, is not a way I would choose to talk to today. I don’t want to say I am evolved or enlightened, but I think it would be fair to say I am certainly MORE evolved or enlightened about this topic than I used to be. The topic, as far as I can generally state it, is men using subtle violence and aggression in every day life to perpetuate the patriarchal society we’ve all come to inhabit; even as women gain a more visible foothold toward equality, men still casually sit with their legs wide open on trains, depriving women of proper legroom (your cock isn’t that big, guys), we use terms associated with the female anatomy to mean negative things (what does it mean when you so viciously call another person a pussy as if it is the last thing on earth you’d like to be?). Men gawk at women as they walk past on the street as though nobody can tell–or that nobody should care. And men like Mark Kozelek–ostensibly a very artistic, extremely intelligent man who skirts the edges of our culture in a way that one would assume means he’d be more enlightened–uses the language of male aggression to another man; the suggestion of this language goes deep (NO PUN FREAKIN’ INTENDED) and does more than hint at a latent hatred for homosexuality, not to even begin exploring what a mean-spirited “suck my cock” says about the speaker’s opinion about the women who, one would assume, have done so to him willingly.
Look, I know this line of thought seems “out there” to some people, maybe a little too new-agey. Being a male in today’s culture isn’t easy. We still want to treat women nice and be chivalrous, but it’s tough to do that and play the equality game. I get that. We’re not always going to be perfect at it; ours is a culture in the middle of change, and it’s tough to keep up with that as individuals. But really, at core, it’s easy. Treat everyone correctly, and realize that language is also action. The things couched in what you say are real and have meaning, not just academically, but to your listeners. Realize that your actions in public, even if they seem benign–looking, where you sit or stand, things you say within earshot–can still reek of male supremacy. Go ahead and hold the door open for your sweetheart (unless she’s told you to bugger off with that shit), but make sure you’re both standing beside each other at the Starbucks register. Don’t be a fucking asshole. What are your thoughts?
4. As much as Mark Kozelek has pissed me off with his War on Drugs feud, his song (as Sun Kil Moon) “Richard Ramirez Died Today of Natural Causes” off this year’s new album Benji, is one of the best songs I’ve heard, not just this year, but in years:
5. I like a lot of stuff. I think I have made that fairly clear over the years. And most people know that I love backscratchers. But nobody has ever bought me a really good backscratcher. #justsayin
Have you ever filled a big cup up about halfway with a carbonated beverage, and when you go to take a drink of it, you can’t really breathe? What’s the scientific process going on here? Is the inside of the cup all filled with carbon dioxide?
Since I buy a lot of music on vinyl that I already own in another format, I keep ending up with a lot of “download cards”–these little guys that come in the vinyl records that also let you download a free version of the album–basically a way to try to convince you to spend money on music in any form at all. Anyway, for awhile I tried to match up these cards with friends I thought might enjoy the specific music the most, but it’s gotten difficult. If you legitimately think you might enjoy discovering new music that is the kind of music I like, let me know, the first person to say so just automatically gets all my download cards from here on out.
It seems about every six months, some bigot from the middle of nowhere says something atrocious, gets fired from his high profile job, and all the other bigots start freaking out about the First Amendment. Now, I know I’m not the first to point this out, so I’ll be brief: the First Amendment protects your speech (and not even all of it!) from the government. Not from companies. And the thing is, the people who want the jobs of these rich hate-mongers saved are the same exact people who are always the first to try to get a waitress fired for next to no reason. Yeah, let’s keep the job of the rich bigot who definitely doesn’t care about you—because the Constitution!—but let’s fire our actual brethren who are down in the trenches with us because your steak was burnt. I can only imagine what you’d want if that waitress said something you didn’t like!
I’m currently obsessed with the Kay Ryan poem, “The Niagara River”. Watch the video below to see me tell you why:
The Niagara River
As though
the river were
a floor, we position
our table and chairs
upon it, eat, and
have conversation.
As it moves along,
we notice–as
calmly as though
dining room paintings
were being replaced–
the changing scenes
along the shore. We
do know, we do
know this is the
Niagara River, but
it is hard to remember
what that means.
It’s kind of difficult to rate your senses, isn’t it? I was just sitting here thinking, gee, smell has to be the best sense! But then I thought, oh there is no way smell can compete with touch! But then I remembered sight. And on and on. Senses rule!
I’m getting tired of cutting my hair. Does this really just have to keep happening? I mean it’s every couple weeks, for, like, life. I mean, I get it, body. You’re good at growing hair on my head and, increasingly, everywhere else. We’re all very impressed. But consider your point proven.
1. Nothing says “I’m a boring person” quite like posting pictures of your alcoholic beverage to Facebook. Seriously. You went out to a bar or club and you think the interesting thing that is supposed to happen is the drink itself? Uninteresting, repetitive pictures of the person you’re with, or even another selfie, are more interesting than a beverage in a glass. We’ve got the whole internet, and you want us to look at a beverage.
2. I’ve brought this up before, but I just have to keep digging at this one. Why are there two kinds of screws and screw drivers, ie flat head and Philips head? I’m not over here like, meh, there should only be one kind! I am confident there are very good reasons for there being multiple kinds of screws, but I just for the life of me can’t figure out what those reasons are. Anyone with any insight, please comment!
3. War is terrible, but man, for a nation so young, we’ve had two very interesting wars! I’ll be damned if the Revolution and the Civil War aren’t two of the most amazing stories ever told.
4. With Philip Seymour Hoffman dead, the greatest actor of this generation (ie the generation currently the correct age to play the most interesting parts in the kind of films that get made the majority of the time) is James Franco. Discuss.
5. I get pretty tired of taking the trash out. I mean, we really just have to keep doing this?
6. Look at this picture of my dad and sister on vacation in Brigantine, NJ in 1980. What’s not to love about this picture? I want to sit on a porch listening to that radio, wearing those socks, next to a child dressed like that:
7. I recently asked a few friends of mine which baseball team they would like, if they had only to consider the teams uniforms/ colors and logo. Where you grew up and your previous loyalty should be not considered. I got a few interesting answers—Billhanna said the Astros, which was a damned good answer. My answer? The Marlins or Blue Jays.
8. Gabriel Garcia Marquez died this week. He is one of my (and many others’) favorite novelists. His most famous book is “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, which I love, but my favorite book of his is “Love in the Time of Cholera”, a book about a man who is obsessed/in love with one woman for his whole life, and dedicates his whole life to being with her. It sounds creepy, and at times, it is, but what I love so much about it is that it is the only work of art in any medium that I have ever encountered that treats the obsessive side of love with the tender and insightful kind of care that most people reserve for “romantic” love. It is a game-changer of a book. Here is the first sentence from that book: “It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.”
9. I understand you didn’t ask for my postcard or letter in the mail, and I understand, in this day and age, you’re not really sure how to respond to such antiquities. I really don’t care too much. Ideally you’d send a letter back, but I’m not expecting that. You can ignore it. That’s fine, you didn’t ask for it. You can text me a response, which is the main thing people do, and that’s fine, if a bit gaudy. But please, please…don’t post a picture of it on Facebook.
Some things I like include, but are not limited to:
Dreams about dinosaurs. Gel pens. When fog actually rolls. Itches you can scratch. Falsetto. Twine. Cheesy films about the struggle for civil rights. Pepperoni pizza. A Prairie Home Companion. Long, slow things that almost hurt. Pointillist paintings. My own long shadow dancing in front of me on dying summer afternoons. Loud guitars. White-out. Bobbleheads. Bubble baths in the dark. My own horrible Jimmy Stewart impression. Musty smell of books and basements. Gallagher smashing watermelons. The pop and hiss of old vinyl records, and the absence of the pop and hiss on new vinyl records. Things that just barely tickle. American cheese. Cheddar cheese. New socks. Neil Young. When lightning strikes again and again and again really fast but far away. Plays by Luigi Pirandello. Socially brazen stray cats. Funiculars. Regional history. Keith Olberman. Those Easter Island statues. Pandora Radio. Russian nesting dolls. Cola. When pimples pop themselves. Early Streisand films. O Canada. Major League Baseball’s National League rules. Women wearing fingerless gloves, or who put their thumbs through self-made holes in their hoodie sleeves. Also women who wear shower caps. The charming and endearing music of Henry Mancini. Cheese crackers. The moment when you know you’re dreaming, but you’re still dreaming. Lightning bugs. Unexpectedly making a roomful of people laugh. Backscratchers. Dave Eggers. French kissing. A good game of hide-and-seek. Hanging things on walls. Sporks. The New York Times. Lava lamps. Peeing when you had to pee so bad. Those pull-down ladders that let you into crawl-space attics. Polaroids. Campfires. Q-tips. Shoe horns, although I’ve never used one. Snuggies. Drum solos. Red Bull. Sweating. Owls. Notebooks. The WWII poetry of Randall Jarrell. Text messages. Blistex medicated lip ointment. Umpires who scream every single strike call, all game long, and point emphatically. Secondhand clothing. Airplanes. The Revolutionary War. Summer, as hot as possible. The United States Postal Service. Protein shakes. Riding my bike. Skylines. What people in the past thought the future was going to be like. Kate Winslet. The Appalachians. Discover magazine. Recently stained wood. Looking up television commercials from my childhood on YouTube. Coffee. Those station wagons with wood paneling. Anderson Cooper. Pictures of my parents when they were children. The Beatles. Salt. The Philadelphia concert venue The Electric Factory. Hotel rooms, and showers in hotel rooms. Cleveland. The moment when you know they are bringing your food to the table. Multi-colored thumb tacks. The Philadelphia 76ers. Brita filtered water. 80s movies about small, strange monsters. When you can see the clouds overhead moving so fast, so fast. Pennsylvania. The free purple-ink pens that Planet Fitness gives out. President Obama. Flannel. Escalators. 24 (the TV show). Yogurt-covered pretzels. “Boyshorts”. Dueling pianos. Postcards, both current and vintage. The Johnstown Flood. Big League Chew. Those moments when you understand life is just life and enjoy a slice of peace. Aaron Burr. Skinnydipping. Hiking. The moment the lights go down in a movie theater. Black and white photography. The ACLU. Advil. Instant mashed potatoes. People playing instruments on the street for money. The Golden Girls. Pistachio-flavored anything. The film scores of Hans Zimmer. Craft stores. Meatloaf. Roku. The Philadelphia Inquirer. Vermeer. Putting lotion on my feet. My mother’s lasagna. The Erie Seawolves. The ocean. I’ve never been to the Cape of Good Hope, but I like it. Netflix. Elephants. The Fourth of July. Kitchen-cut green beans. Snapchat. Early-to-mid-90s Marvel Comics. The Christmas music of Mariah Carey. Ten minute naps. Deep dark secrets. Mall food courts. Actually just malls in general. FORA.tv. Stoppage time. Planned Parenthood. Post-its. Mirror Balls. Women wearing anklets or makeup with glitter in it. Amusement parks, even though I don’t ride rides. Sundae bars. Waking up four hours before your alarm is set to go off and contentedly drifting back to sleep. Stretching. The best poem I’ve ever read and imagine I ever will read, “Aubade” by Philip Larkin. Sugar plums. Newville, Pennsylvania, and its “Fountain Festival”. The Mullica Hill Amish Farmer’s Market, of South Jersey. Gremlins, one and two. Moments when I think I might have it all figured out.
Back of card. Postmarked on June 14th, 1910, in Cape Vincent, NY, being sent to Limerick, NY:
Dear little Nephew:
have been thinking of you all day so I am sending you a card. I hope that you are enjoying your birthday and wish you “many happy returns of the day”. With love from Aunt Beatrice.
Faithful readers of my blog may remember a short while ago when I came across a very curious letter to a banana at my place of employment. Well, a similar thing happened to me today. As I was walking out the door, I glanced at the stand we keep some of our retail merchandise on just to see if it was placed well and looking good. As I was looking, something underneath one of the travel mugs caught my eye. It was a small envelope. I picked it up and tucked it in my pocket. This is the envelope:
I opened it on the street, eager to see what zaniness I had found this time. Inside was a card. The outside of the card looks like this:
This is the inside of the card:
Interesting, right? You’ll see there is a website on there. This appears to be part of some kind of movement. This is the website written inside the card.
1. Animals are funky, am I right? I mean, giraffes, hippos, fucking walruses. I mean, what the heck?!
2. Why are street festivals so entertaining and fun? I mean honestly, most of the time, the things occurring at street festivals are only moderately enjoyable, at best (if there were a funnel cake truck set up on a street corner on a normal day, but not part of a street festival, I dare say a majority of people would walk past it), but when a street is closed off and we give the festival a fun name or theme, people flock to it in droves.
3. It’s surprisingly easy to forget about the fact that somebody you know has a very unfortunate last name. I know people with last names like Graves, Tomb, Fish, Hair, and Noseworthy. (sorry if any of you are reading this) The first time you meet them or get introduced to them, it strikes you as perhaps odd, and you may think, wow, that last name sucks, but in no time at all, you’ve forgotten the real-world meaning of their name, and it is just…their name.
4. What is going on with baseball umpires this season? Until now, they’ve been pillars of self-control and poise, almost like they possessed some kind of super-human ability to not inject themselves personally into the sometimes incredibly monumental events they are a part of. Now all of a sudden, this season, it’s like an umpire reality show going on. What the heck?
5. A few days ago, I went in to work on an opening shift (I don’t use the name of my employer online, but I work for a very famous international chain of coffeehouses). I entered the building at about 5am, turned on all the lights, and walked through the “bar” area (that’s behind the counter) to see how the close had gone the night before. My gaze swept past the front counter where we sell pastries and assorted other goodies, and I noticed a piece of paper of some kind sitting in the basket of bananas. I approached it. It was very unusual. It was a small envelope with just the word “Banana” written on it. This is the envelope:
I opened it to find a carefully folded piece of paper, with what appeared to be a handwritten poem addressed to the banana. Before I show you the poem, I’ll skip to the end of the story: that afternoon, the guy who had closed the night before came in, and I asked him what was up with the envelope. His response: “Some girl came in, who I’d never seen before (read: not a “regular”) and handed it to me and asked me if I’d give it to the bananas. She said I could read it if I wanted to, but if I did, I had to read it aloud to the bananas. I left it here cause I figured you’d get a kick out of it.”
Dear Banana,
I am sorry…we may have to split ways.
You’re delicious and nutritious but as far as
most of us can tell, produced in a world that is
fictitious.
I’ve been asking for a very long time,
why can’t you just grow in my backyard?
Why do you have to travel so far?
Please don’t take offense. I hope you understand,
it’s not you, it’s my foes.
Oh this is too hard, I hope I am making sense,
it would have been awful for me to live at
your expense.
This is a real article from yesterday’s South Jersey Times. Every time I read it, I laugh out loud, at almost every paragraph. The actual event was probably not that funny, but the way the writer chose to word things just kills me.
For the last few months, I’ve been slowly trodding through Ron Chernow’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of George Washington, Washington: A Life. I love biographies, especially “life” biographies (meaning books that trace a person’s life from beginning to end, as opposed to some biographies that focus on a specific time in a person’s life, like the very hip Doris Kearns Goodwin book Team of Rivals ) because full-life biographies not only allow you to see the amazing or substantial things that person did, but also allow you to see how their life, like just about everyone’s life, is kinda sorta like yours, no matter when they lived or what they did.
George Washington’s life was certainly very different than mine, at least as far as its “plot” is concerned. But in many ways, it was very similar. He had obsessions, failures, doubts, triumphs. Women he could never get, purchases he could never make, expecations he wrestled with, and the insidious pallor of mortality. Reading Chernow’s biography–widely considered the most accurate yet written–is really making the man come alive for me, and I’m finding this book to be not only very informative, but quite surprisingly emotional.
One of George Washington’s best friends was French general Marquis de Lafayette (Gilbert to his pals), one of if not the largest French figure of the American Revolution. Layfayette was 25 years younger than Washington–he was only 19 years old when he came to our young nation to help us win our independence, and at first, Washington played the role of a mentor to the young Frenchman. But by war’s end–a war that certainly had to be one of the most emotional and amazing experiences in the history of mankind, and the participants were far from unaware of its immense magnitute—Washington and Lafayette had become great friends and equals. A portrait of Lafayette hung in Washington’s parlor in Mount Vernon.
I tell you all this so I can put in here a passage I just read that moved me to tears. It felt odd to be moved to tears by a biography of George Washington, but this is why I love history so much. There were real people doing extraordinary things.
After all the incredible things these men had been through together in the war, there was a time of relative tranquility, before Washington knew he would become president, when he was looking forward to just farming his land in Virginia and resting. Lafayette visited him for an extended stay, but eventually, it came time for him to go back to France. This almost certainly meant the two close friends would never see each other again. Ocean crossings were no small deal in those days. Washington rode half the way from Virginia to Philadelphia (where he’d be sailing from) with Lafayette, and somewhere along the road, the two men said goodbye.
A short while later, back at Mount Vernon, Washington wrote Lafayette a letter (they never would see each other again, by the way). The portion of the letter that moved me so is as follows:
In the moment of our seperation upon the road, as I traveled and every hour since, I felt all that love, respect, and attachment for you with which length of years, close connection, and your merits have inspired me. I often asked myself, as our carriages distended, whether that was the last sight I should ever have of you? And though I wished to say no, my fears answered yes. I called to mind the days of my youth and found they had long since fled to return no more; that I was now descending the hill I had been 52 years climbing; and that though I was blessed with a good constitution, I was of a short-lived family and might soon expect to be entombed in the dreary mansions of my fathers. These things darkened the shades and gave a gloom to the picture, consequently to my prospects of seeing you again. Know, my friend, that I have loved you true, and my life stands altered for it. But I will not repine—I have had my day.
Posted in Snippet with tags humor, sex on September 8, 2012 by sethdellinger
1. Putting on a Second Coat of Paint
2. Taking the 6am Flight to Sydney
3. Re-enacting the Signing of the Treaty of Versailles
4. Jaming the Toast
5. Betting on the Jumping Frog
6. Putting Salt on the Snail
7. Editing a Microsoft Word Document
8. Duck Duck Goose Gossage
9. Inflating the Blimp
10. Throwing Pincher Bugs on the Campfire
11. Dunking the Ccino
12. Running Down to First and Feeling Something Burst
13. Burning Down the Nightclub
14. Voting for Pedro
15. Chimmying the Changa
The dual concert of two of my favorite bands, Band of Horses and My Morning Jacket, is in two days, and even though I have exactly zero friends who are fans of both these bands (I know a few people who *kinda like* each one but no superfans), I have to get a few things out into the public sphere here. I’ve been following both band’s setlists on this tour (here are Band of Horses’ and here are My Morning Jacket’s), and both bands are mixing up their setlists more than any band I’ve ever seen short of Pearl Jam, and I dare say that if they had PJ’s depth of catalogue, it would be even more extensive than Pearl Jam. Band of Horses (BoH) and My Morning Jacket (MMJ) are mixing up their openers and closers a lot more than Pearl Jam ever has.
So, although my so-called friend Kyle once mercilessly mocked me in a blog entry of his for making entries like this, I feel compelled to put my wish list for both bands here, as well as my predictions for what will open and close each band’s sets. Even though none of you are fans, if I am right or I get my wishlists, at least I can point back to this and say I did it! And if I don’t, nobody will care, so it’s really win-win for me.
Band of Horses
Opener prediction: Am I a Good Man
Closer prediction: The Funeral
Top 3 wishlist:
–Evening Kitchen
–Compliments
–No One’s Gonna Love You More Than I Do
My Morning Jacket
–Opener prediction: War Begun
–Closer prediction: Steam Engine
Top 3 wishlist:
–O is the One that is Real
–Steam Engine (anywhere in the setlist will do)
–It’s About Twilight Now
And here is a sweet video of MMJ playing “Dancefloors” at Red Rocks a little over a week ago:
Last night, I called my friend Kyle to try to help him with a phone problem he was having. The first call unexpectedly went to voicemail, and I thought I’d leave him an interesting one. Using something like a cartoonish gangster 50s-era Brooklyn accent, I went on a long, stream-of-consciousness tirade that made almost no sense. I’m certain it wasn’t comedy gold—perhaps just a little interesting. But it got funny when Kyle e-mailed me a little later saying that Google Voice had transcribed the message, or at least, what it THOUGHT it had heard. I suppose the program was confused by the accent and the speed at which I spoke. The transcription is below. It is amazing just HOW wrong it is. I said almost none of these words. (interestingly, I didn’t even say the names it uses! I think the only name I said was Frank). The only words I recognize as having used are Frank, Pickles, Key, and Meet. Thanks, Google Voice, for a great laugh!
Bill, Wayne Anderson. Here there buddy there, but I’m lying Towers guy. They’re, weighing fishermen. Frank this a number that is exactly the other day and I was walking around the world of Pickles and i was like in the building another. The because of the been fickle. Look, I don’t know from the close. What I’m trying to sell used. I don’t have the key it in the comment tonight. Alright, I can meet today without the key. You know I don’t know where you live. I don’t know what I mean. I don’t know what the story. I don’t know whether golf balls well, but I don’t know if you knew and I. If you wanna. I had to go out to the possibly work with Chef and you wanted to add. I will come to your house and I will be Vicky, alright, do a complete and clear one alright. Bye bye.
I guess it’s been awhile since I updated everyone on the status of my diet. And I’m sure you are all just dying to know how it’s going.
When last I left you, I had just made it to 150 pounds—ten pounds shy of my goal of 140. And, interestingly, that is exactly where I still am.
Now, I suppose in some undeniable ways, this is a setback. But I quite honestly don’t feel like it is. Out of the gates, I just went at an unbelievable pace. It required a level of obsession and single-mindedness that even I could not sustain. The diet was too extreme and the exercise regimen too punishing. I’m glad I did it like that, so that I could get to this more comfortable point and then settle in here, but there’s just no way I could keep that up.
Please don’t misunderstand me: I am still, like, all about fitness. I still go to the gym five times a week, sometimes more, depending on if I get out on my bike much, which I often count as a workout if I go hard enough on the bike. I’m still eating about a thousand times more healthy than I did from 2003-2011. But I do allow myself a reasonable caloric intake now, and have had a couple stretches of all-out “off the wagon” eating (not binges, just ending up at the wrong restaurants two days in a row) which I quickly correct; my experience with substance addiction recovery comes in handy when I fall off the wagon—I’m already very familiar with my psyche’s tendency to reason with itself thusly: well, you’ve already fucked up, you might as well just keep going. Just like I eventually found out that this thinking with alcohol or cigarettes would end up taking me down the black hole, I know this thinking with food will make me fat again. And while I may have this belly for a long time, to varying degrees, I swear, I am never going to be that fat again. I’m not trying to get married, be in magazines, or pick up one-night stands, but I prefer to be able to tie my shoes without falling over and being out of breath. Also, almost more than anything (perhaps unreasonably) I really hate the double chin. So, any of you who might see me in the immediate future, you will not be seeing “skinny” Seth, but you will definitely not be seeing “fat” Seth.
In addition, another of the major reasons I’m not shedding the pounds as quickly is I have really thrown myself full-on into weight training. Like, the kind of lifting designed to gain mass. Stretching back to my teen years, this has always been the kind of “working out” I most enjoy. I like how it makes me feel physically, I like how it makes me feel psychologically. I like seeing the results, and I like planning out the strategy of the whole thing (which day you’ll do which muscle groups, how long to wait until you go back to a muscle group, what to eat after a workout, etc). So, while the belly is still hanging around, if I were to take my shirt off and suck my belly in, you’d be all like, Dang, Seth, if you had any formal training or even the most remote inclination toward physical violence, you’d totally Steven Segal my ass right now, wouldn’t you? Because above the belly, I am fucking stacked.
2. Questions
Do you own stuff or does stuff own you? Why are we afraid to ask for help? What have you left behind? How important is it that you are liked? Are you openly admitting your addictions? Is there a cause you would actually die for? How much of our lives do we imagine? How do you find calm in a hectic world? What is beautiful about life? Are you thanking the right people? When was the last time you did something for the first time? Who is the most loyal person you know? What was the last thing fear stopped you from doing? What are you a product of? What makes you relevant?
3. Oil Creek State Park
4. Speak For Yourself
There’s a common punchline on Facebook, or on other platforms where people might be referring to Facebook and our generally lived-online lives: folks claiming everybody is living much more boring lives than they pretend to live online. There is always some meme floating around or someone cracking wise about “yeah, like their lives are as interesting as they say they are!” Well speak for yourself, Buttafuoco. The ones throwing that unoriginal nugget around are probably the bored ones, waiting to see their favorite television commercial. Believe it or not—and you probably won’t—but (to my standards, at least) I actually live a more interesting life than I present online. I worry about clogging people’s newsfeeds, I struggle with the idea that what I find interesting others might find boring, and most ironically, I think if I documented every thing I actually do, folks would probably start to suspect I’m lying about it. (you may claim I have more fun because I’ve moved somewhere that I feel like a tourist, but I’m confident if you went back to old Facebook posts of mine in Carlisle, you’d find the same guy).
But I don’t bring this up just to point out that I personally am really enjoying life (well, maybe that is why I brought it up; our own motives are sometimes hidden from us) but rather, to highlight the uncontrolled cynicism that online life breeds. Granted, I’ve been known to throw around my own share of cynicism, but I try to reserve it for artists or cultural movements I deem unworthy of praise (a cultural guardianship that some of us actually take seriously, despite how it makes us look like pompous jackasses. We’re taking one for the team). The wide sweeping cynicism that life in general sucks and is boring and wherever you happen to live, well, there’s just nothing to do there, so hopefully everyone else is just as damned bored as I am…well, I just kinda hate that kind of cynicism. There’s nothing I can do about it. I just wanted to point out that it sucks. (is it ironic to say cynicism sucks?)
5. wtf
Sports history seems to have largely forgotten Mike Schmidt. Wtf?
7. Sometimes When We Touch, the Honesty’s Too Much
You may have noticed, for good or ill, a slightly more…honest…tone to my blog lately (and you will notice even more of it in The Rub and Tug Capital of the World, a little booky-wook you are about to get in the mail from me, if you haven’t got it yet). I do apologize if this more straightforward approach has stepped on anyone’s toes or generally made me seem like an asshole. Apart from the fact that I actually am an asshole, I also had gotten bored and a little frustrated trying to censor everything I wanted to say by first thinking of everyone who might be reading it and trying to figure out if they might think I am talking about them or calling their lifestyle or hobbies or commercial-watching into question. It is way too hard to think about all of those things and still write anything interesting. And I humbly think I have some unique and important things to say, most of which I always feel compelled to not say. Well, I’m just gonna start saying it. Allow me to take this little moment to say, I don’t ever write about people I know in veiled references. If I’m bitching about “people”, well, that’s really what I’m talking about: people in general. If there’s something you do that I just can’t stand, you either already know I can’t stand it, or it’s something I can’t stand about hundreds of people, so I am most assuredly not writing about you. OK. Disclaimer over.
Today is my ninth sobriety anniversary. Rather than write some dramatic celebratory entry (a quick perusal of the Notes reveals surprisingly that I haven’t done this for a few years, but it was a big tradition for me back on the MySpace blog, so it feels like I still do it every year), I thought I’d share with you a little bit of my own private tradition. I have two basic traditions on the anniversary: 1: eat a meal with my dad at the Carlisle restaurant The Hamilton, which, unfortunately, is postponed while I’m living in Erie, 2: I watch the documentary “Dark Days“.
“Dark Days” is a documentary by filmmaker Marc Singer. Singer has only made this one film, but it’s impact is so grand, he’s still a rather sizeable celebrity to those of us who follow the genre. The film follows a group of homeless addicts who live in abandoned subway tunnels underneath New York City.
Now, granted, I am an alcoholic from suburban Pennsylvania who, essentially, got scared straight when I almost had to spend one night in a homeless shelter, but the people in this movie, and the life it shows, have always seemed eerily close to my heart; you can argue that I have been nowhere near these people, but I know different: I am these people, even now. I narrowly escaped it and watching things like “Dark Days” is what I need to do to remind myself, whether it is ten years sober or 30, that I have been at and over the same precipice, and that every day is a miraculous blessing.
I implore you to explore the clips of the film I’ve embedded below. Not only is it an amazing story that is prime viewing for folks in recovery, it is a masterwork of the documentary form. One must consider what Singer had to go through to make his film (after spending tons of time becoming part of the underground community and convincing them to let him film them, he then actually trained many of them to operate the filming equipment with him. A major hurdle was, of course, getting the stuff down there. Once the movie made a profit, Marc successfully used the money to get most of the addicts out of the ground and on to their feet. Some of them are successfully sober mini-celebrities, to this day).
The first clip is the first ten minutes of the film. To me, just an absolute film-making marvel. I’ve included some random clips after that. If there’s a list of things that “keep my life saved”, then “Dark Days” is definitely on it.
More proof that the New York Times is better than your newspaper: the lead-in to their article on the winners of the stupid-huge lottery thing that just happened:
“What is $640 million divided by three? More math than jackpot winners in Illinois, Kansas and Maryland will ever have to do again.”
Notes From the Fire 
