The Lock Just Keeps Spinning

I sure do like blue skies, clear wide-open blue skies and the wind on my face.  Getting tan.  Getting tan is like taking the outside world into yourself and then shooting it back out.  And all those vitamins and good vibes.  Also I like movies.  I like watching movies in air conditioned rooms while sweat dries on my skin.  I like rice with salt on it, and dogs who smile.

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I’ve been watching a lot of cable news lately, but I don’t necessarily think it’s good for me.  I’ve just become addicted to it, as I’ve been known to become addicted to just about anything from time to time.  I suppose it must just be cable news’ turn.  I mean, there is plenty that I like about it.  It really does inform you, and depending on what you’re watching, you usually learn about stuff you might not otherwise be following, like that shit in Iraq.  CNN is the way to go.  Typically they’re gonna tell you about the stuff that’s important, not just the tabloid stuff.  But regardless, most of it is rot.  You’re better off reading newspapers.  Please read newspapers.  They need you, and it’s still the best thing going.

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I’ve recently come across two different poems about turtles that really floored me.  It makes sense that turtles would make such rich poetic subjects: ugly, slow, and capable of withdrawing entirely into themselves.  They’re just begging for the poetic treatment.  The first is “Turtle” by Kay Ryan.  Watch her read it here, and the text of the poem is here.  The other is “To a Box Turtle” by John Updike.  Watch me read it to you!  Right here:

To a Box Turtle
by John Updike

Size of a small skull, and like a skull segmented,
of pentagons healed and varnished to form a dome,
you almost went unnoticed in the meadow,
among its tall grasses and serrated strawberry leaves
your mottle of amber and umber effective camouflage.

You were making your way through grave distances,
your forefeet just barely extended and as dainty as dried
coelacanth fins, as miniature sea-fans, your black nails
decadent like a Chinese empress’s, and your head
a triangular snake-head, eyes ringed with dull gold.

I pick you up. Your imperious head withdraws.
Your bottom plate, hinged once, presents a No
with its courteous waxed surface, a marquetry
of inlaid squares, fine-grained and tinted
tobacco-brown and the yellow of a pipe smoker’s teeth.

What are you thinking, thus sealed inside yourself?
My hand must have a Smell, a killer’s warmth.
It holds you upside down, aloft, undignified,
your leathery person amazed in the floating dark.
How much pure fear can your wrinkled brain contain?

I put you down. Your tentative, stalk-bending walk
resumes. The manifold jewel of you melts into grass.
Power mowers have been cruel to your race, and creatures
less ornate and unlikely have long gone extinct;
but nature’s tumults pool to form a giant peace.

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You may have noticed, on various and sundry platforms of social media, that I am losing weight (again!).  There will, of course, be a larger blog entry devoted to the subject once I hit a certain milestone, but I wanted to stop officially ignoring it on the blog.  So yes, I am once again losing weight.  If you’re a long-time reader, you may recall we’ve been down this road once before.    I’ll stop short of saying I’m a chronic “weight bouncer”—I’ve only done the up and down once, now going on twice—and I do think I’m going to be able to maintain it this time, seeing as how I actually do enjoy the “lifestyle” one must switch to in order to stop gaining the weight back.  I don’t want to go into too much detail, as the first of the “milestone” blogs on the topic should be coming soon.  But if you’ve noticed that I’m a little more energetic, happy as an idiot, and generally manic lately—this is the main cause.

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I don’t like, any more than you do, the way that things in our culture seem to have gotten so divisive.  Everything appears to be very “black and white” or “us vs. them”…either you agree with me, or I hate you.  All issues divided into two sides—usually liberal and conservative—so that most critical thought is now not required; you just have to know what team you’re on.  I don’t like it any more than you do.

But there seems to be, to most people, a thought that this is a terrible deviation from some Golden Era of American discourse.  That, not long ago now, everyone just kind of got along and accepted divergent opinions and engaged in a spirited and lively debate of the issues, before saying, ah, forget it! and heading out back for a barbeque.  This fever dream is made possible by the fact that nobody actually knows anything about our own history, and is cursed with the widely-held human belief that all things have just recently been much better than they are now.

Things have, of course, never been like that.  We’ve always been a country at one-another’s throats.  That’s because the issues that we disagree about are pretty fucking important and are not trifles.  If the biggest debate in America was chocolate vs. vanilla, I’d say some of us might be overreacting, but we debate about matters of deepest morality, life and death, and core philosophy.  If you’re not passionate about these things, get out of the ring.

The division seems more pronounced now that we’re on the internet all the time.  The biggest factor that plays into that is that we routinely interact with many people who we would previously not have been interacting with.  Before the internet, we just naturally and gradually gravitated to people of like-mind.  Now, we, in small ways, interact with dozens of people “on the other side” daily, which can cause little internet skirmishes which then, in turn, feel larger and more intense than real-world interactions, because we can’t gauge how the other is talking, as well as these skirmishes taking place in front of our 300 or so “friends” and remaining to view long after the words have been said.

The ease with which these divisive interactions can occur has given rise to something even worse than the “cultural division” itself: the everything is hunky-dorey crowd.  This “crowd” includes just about everybody.  We’re all so tired of having these online skirmishes with people with opposing views, almost nobody engages the argument anymore.  Nobody wants to appear “divisive”.  Everyone wants to make sure they are “accepting of other people’s views”.

The bottom line I’m trying to get to is this: I keep an open mind about things like calamari, the official naming of snow storms, and the future of the designated hitter in professional baseball.  But I’m an adult now, and I’ve thought a lot about my core beliefs, and I don’t have an open mind about abortion, gay rights, gun control, or even—yes, even the existence of a higher power.  I know what I think about these things.  Not only that, but having an open mind about these things would make me a man of feeble constitution.

Get rid of your open mind.

 

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WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THIS JOHN SLOAN PAINTING????

 

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If you know me (and I think you do) you know that, obviously, I am a man with a ton of opinions.  Well, one of those opinions is that these things that pop up on social media as “photo challenges” are some of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen.  If you’re not familiar with them: they propose to be “30 day photo challenges” that list a thing you’re supposed to take a picture of once a day for thirty days.  First off, if you need a “challenge” to take interesting pictures of the world around you, you’re not interesting.  Period.  Secondly, the items in these challenges are never even remotely challenging or creative.  It’s like, “Day 1:  Selfie.  Day 2:  Food.  Day 3: Car”.  Really?  You spent time creating this, anonymous internet user?  How dreadful.

So, I thought I’d make an interesting one! Some things here are interpretable, whch, again, makes it interesting.  For instance, “Birth” wouldn’t necessarily be looking for a picture of something being born.  You decide what it means. If anyone actually wants to give this a spin, let me know, I’ll put it into a dedicated blog entry so it’s easier to reference.

Actually Interesting Photo Challenge

Day 1: An animal that you want to take home
Day 2:  Gum
Day 3:  Something Upside-Down
Day 4:  Paint
Day 5:  How you’d like to be perceived
Day 6:  How you feel inside
Day 7:  Something you hate
Day 8:  Birth
Day 9: A chair
Day 10:  The passage of time
Day 11:  Something you love but can’t have
Day 12:  Space, area, void
Day 13:  Underneath
Day 14:  Scar
Day 15:  Home
Day 16:  Your bathtub.
Day 17:  Work
Day 18:  The ground
Day 19: The sky
Day 20: Between the ground and the sky
Day 21:  What you believe
Day 22:  Utensils
Day 23:  Lights
Day 24:  Transportation
Day 25:  Idealized
Day 26:  Action!
Day 27:  Water
Day 28:  Unattainable
Day 29:  Before you were born
Day 30:  Celebrate

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Life, and all that stuff, is sometimes too interesting to bear.  What I mean is, it can be very cyclical, or circular, or appear to be laden with damned meaning.  See, I’m a man who doesn’t believe in much.  I mean, I believe in science, and form and order amidst the chaos, but not in any Fate or creator or grand design.  Just rules and laws that govern the movements and the heat of things, basically.  So when life seems to have plans, folks like me sit up and take notice.  Not because it’s changing the way I think—I have thrown away my open mind—but because coincidence or happenstance on any large sort of scale is just so unlikely.

Take, for instance, a story from my life.  When I first got sober, I was 25 years old.  This was a little over eleven years ago.  I went to live with my mother and her husband in a small town in New Jersey.  This was the first time I’d lived anywhere outside of Central Pennsylvania.  This small town in New Jersey was relatively close to Philadelphia…maybe an hour, I think?  At any rate, it was certainly the closest I’d ever lived to a big city.

Eleven years may not seem like that long ago, but I was inhabiting a very different world back then, and I was also a very different version of me.  I drove a 1983 Ford Escort, named Earl Grey.  This car was a bona fide piece of shit, and it broke down with an alarming regularity (chronic fuel pump issues).  I had no cell phone.  No GPS.  When I wanted to go somewhere I’d never been, I printed out MapQuest directions and read them as I drove.  If I needed to call someone, I found a payphone and retrieved my list of phone numbers, hand-written on a sheet of paper inside my wallet.  It was interesting.  It wasn’t as bad as it sounds.  I drank a lot of Red Bull and wrote poetry almost every waking moment and listened to Pearl Jam like it was my job.

I had a very close friend who I’d been through the addiction wringer with.  She had a similar problem as I did, and we’d gone to the same rehab, and really just been to Hell and back together.  She had landed in a Recovery House in Harrisburg, PA.  After the tumult of the end of our addictions, we now felt very far apart.  Recovery Houses don’t allow you much leeway with visitors and phone calls.  Remember, this is also before everyone was texting and Facebooking (it’s even before MySpace).  I missed her very much.

She did manage to e-mail on occasion, and, ill-advisedly, we planned for her to sneak out one night.  We would meet in Philadelphia.  We were going to walk South Street.

I drove old rickety Earl Grey the hour to South Street, paging through my MapQuest directions.  I drove right past South Street at one point and just decided to park as soon as I could.  I found a spot and hopped out of my car.  As I walked away, I realized I might later have no idea where I had parked.  I got back into the car and grabbed my journal, the sacred notebook where I wrote all my poetry.  I looked around for a landmark and wrote it down, and put the journal in my backpack.

I met up with her and it was glorious.  I treasured being in her company, if only for a night.  I don’t remember what we did on South Street.  I don’t remember what we did at all.  But it stands as one of the more significant nights of my life, on my long road to becoming the current version of me.

A week or so ago, I decided to go back through some of my old journals and see if I had missed anything of value, any pieces of writing I could turn into something good.  I never did get around to it, but I threw the two oldest ones into my backpack, planning to look at them the next time I came to rest in some park.  I promptly forgot about it.

This evening, I was riding my bike through what is now one of my favorite sections of Old City (technically, the neighborhood known as Society Hill).  I love this section for it’s old houses, churches with expansive, historic graveyards, and shade-dappled side alleys.  I came to one of the more significant landmarks to me, the house that Thaddeus Kosciuszko lived in when he lived in Philadelphia.  Kosciuszko is my favorite revolutionary.  I feel deeply connected to him across the vast gulf of time.  The version of me from eleven years ago wasn’t yet even interested in history.  He would have had zero interest in this Polish freedom fighter’s house.  But I certainly do now.

I recalled, tonight, how the last time I was in the house, the park ranger had told me the woman who owned it and rented it to Kosciuszko was buried in the cemetery across the street.  I have spent some time in that cemetery before (American painter Charles Wilson Peale is buried there, and so is George Dallas, who was Vice President under James K. Polk), but I thought I’d wander through again and look for her grave.

It didn’t take me long in there before I had to face the fact that I couldn’t remember her name, and my iPhone’s power was getting too low to make Googling a wise choice, so I decided to leave and ride my bike elsewhere.  But as I stepped onto the sidewalk, the shade of sense memory hit me.  I’d been here many times these past six months, but perhaps never at this time of evening, in this kind of mid-summer air.  Suddenly I wondered it I’d been here before, long before.

I sat my backpack on the ground an hurriedly opened it, finding the oldest journal.  I looked at many pages before I found it, scrawled in my own unmistakable hand:

4th St., across from St. Peters Church

I craned my neck at the cemetery gate above me, and sure enough:  St. Peters.

Sure, maybe no big deal.  So what, this is where I parked that night?  If I moved to the city, it stands to reason I would pass by the place I parked that night, eleven years ago.

But the way that it came to me out of the blue, the way I had that journal on me, which was extraordinarily unlikely, the way I’d never noticed before that this was the place.  It has been long ago enough now that it’s starting to feel like deep past; I felt my younger self there.  I felt her younger self there.  I saw me getting out of my Escort, completely oblivious to Thad Kosciuszko’s house a half block away, not caring, not caring, not caring.  And life is crammed full of these bizarre cycles, these glances-back, these cosmic happenstances.  Like combination locks clicking into place.  But then the lock, it just keeps on spinning.

I sure do like blue skies, clear wide-open blue skies and the wind on my face.  Getting tan.  Getting tan is like taking the outside world into yourself and then shooting it back out.  And all those vitamins and good vibes.  Also I like movies.  I like watching movies in air conditioned rooms while sweat dries on my skin.  I like rice with salt on it, and dogs who smile.

 

 

 

 

You Would Not Survive a Vacation Like This

So.  That was a pretty insane trip home (and lots of other places).  I’m not even sure where to begin.  This may end up being a ridiculously long and disjointed blog entry.  I apologize in advance.  If it ends up not being extremely long and disjointed, I will come back and delete this intro, and you will never read it.

First, I should like to thank my family (Dad, Mom, Sister) for their various forms of hospitality and much-needed displays of unconditional love.  Yay human spirit and the familial bond!  I feel pretty damn good about my family.  You guys rule!  And thank you to all my friends who made me feel as if I never moved away.  I am blessed beyond belief with deep, intense, loyal friendships!  In addition, a big frowny face to those who I had to miss on this trip (most notably, loyal blog reader and renowned Muse, Cory.  Little does she know, my next trip home is going to be so all about her, she will have to call the cops on me. And the truly lovely Mercedes, whom I am unabashedly smitten with.   Also, on-again-off-again blog reader Tiff, who I had *promised* a certain something to…well, next time, ok???).  I was stretched a little thin to do and see everything and everyone I wanted, but it was fairly satisfying nonetheless.

My Zany Itinerary

Let me just show you the zaniness of where I’ve been the last week and a half.  I am going to include tomorrow, as I go to Pittsburgh tomorrow for a work seminar.  Here’s where I was, for the most part, the last ten days:

3/25: Erie, PA/ Carlisle, PA
3/26: Carlisle, PA/ Asbury Pary, NJ
3/27: Mantua, NJ
3/28: Brooklyn, NY/ Newark, NJ
3/29: Manhattan, NY/ Mantua, NJ
3/30: Mantua, NJ/ Carlisle, PA
3/31: Carlisle, PA
4/1: Carlisle, PA
4/2: Carlisle, PA/ Erie, PA
4/3: Erie, PA
4/4: Pittsburgh, PA
4/5: Pittsburgh, PA/ Erie, PA

And I aint even tired yet.  Bring. It. On.

My Newville Tour

Early on in my trip, I had a little extra time to kill early in the morning, and I drove into Newville (the small town I grew up in) and walked around the town for the first time in many years (I have been there plenty as of late, but not actually walked around).  I took some pictures of major landmarks in my life, also making sure to get a few pictures of some of the places that have played large parts in some of my blog entries.  Here is a bit of a pictorial tour of Newville:

My first house, 66 Big Spring Avenue. My bedroom was the top two windows on the right of the picture.

The big enchilada….the childhood home.  Most famously portrayed in this blog entry right here.

I have been trying to upload the famous picture of my mother and I admiring my grandmother’s garden, but I am having some trouble, so here is a link to that picture on Facebook. And here is a picture of that back yard area today:

One of my most popular blog entries ever was “The Fruit that Ate Itself“, about me being bullied in a local church yard.  I snapped some pics of that area in current day:

The church yard itself.

The line of trees is where the dreaded swingset and slide had been.

The Senior Center where the "fight" ended. Those are the bushes I flew through in the climactic moment.

If you’ve read my blog entry “Down the Rabbit Hole“, you may be interested to see this cellar door on one of my childhood neighbor’s homes:

OK, so just a few more pics here, but not related to any previous blog, just some Seth-historic stuff:

The very spot where I got on a school bus for the very first time.

This was my corner when I was a crossign guard.

Friendies

I had almost too much fun with friendies to try to sum things up here.  I’ll hit some highlights:

I surprised Kate with my presence not once but twice, and she lost.  her.  shit. each time.  First, Michael and I surprised her at her house:

It was also on this visit that this picture of Michael happened:

A few days later, I was strolling through Carlisle wasting a few minutes before picking up another friend, when I came across Kate and her family at the local eatery The Green Room.  As I was leaving them I took this pic of Kate, her husband Matt, and their son Dylan:

Let me just take this moment to say, as I was strolling around Carlisle that night, I was struck by just how freaking cool of a town it is.  Those of you who still live there, please do not take it for granted.  First, it is totally adorable.  And such a great pedestrian town!  And for a relatively small town in central Pennsylvania, it is arts-friendly.  Open mic nights, free music, poetry readings, public displays of photography, and on and on, are quite common.  The area known as the square and the surrounding blocks are humming with a vibrant intellectual life (not to mention some fantastic cuisine).  Please partake of what the gem of a town has to offer!

My brief time with Burke was spent in some fairly intense conversation that may, in fact, make me think about my life differently.  Oh, and Johnny Depp is a fucking sellout.

I spent some truly hilarious time with Jenny.  Jenny is quickly becoming a Major Friend.  (if her name is unfamiliar to you, this was the last woman to be an “official girlfriend”…and if my hunch is true– that I am a lifetime bachelor– she may go down in the history books as the last woman to be an official Seth girlfriend…what a distinction!).  Anyway, I sure do love this woman.  She has the special ability to make me laugh until I am worried about my health…without saying anything. She has a non-verbal humor akin to Kramer.  She can just look at me and I lose my shit.  Here we are, loving life:

Of course, you know I saw Michael, and it resulted in a moment of hilarity that I am pretty sure you “had to be there” for, but we decided that Merle Haggard had at one point recorded the “classic” song “You’re Gonna Make Daddy Fart (and Momma Aint Gonna Be Happy)”.  I still laugh when I type that.

Mary and I had one helluva time trying to find parking in downtown Harrisburg—notable because it’s usually not THAT hard.  Sure, those few blocks in the very center of town are tough, but we were unable to find ANY spots on the street ANYWHERE.  When we finally did park (in a garage) we ended up just hanging around Strawberry Square , when in fact we had intended to go to the Susquehanna Art Museum. I’m still not sure in the least how this distraction occurred, but we had a blast.  But the major news from this venture is that Mary has OK’d some photographs of herself!  You may or may not know that pictures of Mary are quite rare.  She just hates pictures of herself, and of course I love taking pictures of people, so this is a friction.  Plus, she really is one of the most exquisite women in existence, so I always feel as though the world in general is being deprived of some joy by the absence of Mary pictures.  When I take a Mary picture, I have to show her, wheneupon she then either insists on immediate deletion, OKs the picture for my own personal collection but not anyone else’s eyes, or (the most rare) OKs a picture for online distribution.  So here, lucky world, are 4 new Mary pictures:

That's the back of Mary's head in the lower right.

Staying at Dad’s

It is with much chagrin that I realize I did not take a single picture of my papa and me on this trip. *sad face*  Nonetheless, I must say, spending time with my dad just gets more and more pleasant as the two of us age.  It never stops surprising me how we continue to grow into friends (while he retains his essential papa-ness).  He is one cool dude and we somehow never run out of things to talk about.

This also marked the first time in recent memory that I have stayed at Dad’s for multiple days without my sister also being there.  In this sense it was entirely unique.  The last time I stayed at my dad’s by myself for more than one night was way back when I was still drinking and on-again, off-again living there.  So this was new, and really, really great.  In a lot of ways, it felt like a true homecoming, learning how that house and I interact when I’m a grown-up, and sober, and left all alone with it.  Turns out we get along just fine.  And I sleep magnificently in my old bedroom.  But it’s tough getting used to that shower again.

Hey Rosetta!

I’m gonna really have to shrink down the Hey Rosetta! story, or I’ll be here all day.  So, in summary:

Here are pictures from Paul and I’s show in Asbury Park, NJ.  It was a fantastic time, both Paul-wise (Paul, thanks for helping me see that not all my close friends have to be women!) and band-wise.  Really, one of the more satisfying concert-going experiences I’ve had.

Then, I made an audible call and went to see them by myself twice more over the next three days, in New York City (more on NYC later).  Long story short, I ended up basically knowing the band.  But they started talking to me. I suppose when you are a band that is really famous and successful in Canada, and then you come to the states and are playing bars where most of the people are ignoring you, and there is a short fat guy with gray hair jumping around and screaming your lyrics, when he shows up to your NEXT show in a different state, it is worth taking note.  So as I was taking this picture of the chalk board advertising their show in Brooklyn, a few of the band members were walking out of the bar and saw me and introduced themselves.

Because shows like this entail a lot of waiting around (if you insist, like I do, on front row) in small bars with no “backstage” area for bands, as well as lots of changing-out of gear between bands (not to mention trips to very small bathrooms), the two shows in New York would prove extremely fertile ground for me talking to the band.  This went way beyond my previous “thank you, your music has meant so much to me” that I’ve been able to give other bands.  This was basically a getting-to-know-you situation.  Specifically cellist Romesh Thavanathan, lead guitarist Adam Hogan, and violinist Kinley Dowling spoke quite a bit to me and I was definitely on a first-name basis with them by the end of my second New York show, and I’d had a chance to speak to every member of this six-piece band.  Certainly, this was fairly incredible, but also….in some ways, not as great as you’d think.  Parts of this experience were awkward.  I may blog more about this at some point, just because it was pretty intriguing (ever have your favorite band watch you as they are playing?)  But don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.  It was an amazing experience.  Here is a video I took of “Red Song” at Union Hall in Park Slope, Brooklyn, followed by a few select pictures of the New York shows:

I also managed to snag handwritten setlists off the stage two of the three nights.  Here are scans of the setlists:

So now, for the benefit of probably just myself and maybe Paul, here is some Hey Rosetta! setlist discussion:  on the first setlist shown, Bandages was skipped.  On the second shown (from my thrid concert, Manhattan) ‘Bandages’ and ‘Red Heart’ were swapped in position (as were the two songs where a swap is indicated, ‘Yer Spring’ and ‘Welcome’…and talk about a way to open a show!  “Lions For Scottie” into “Welcome”!)  Here are all three setlists for shows I went to this tour:

Asbury Park, NJ

1.  New Goodbye
2.  Yer Spring
3.  New Glass
4.  Bricks
5.  Another Pilot
6.  There’s an Arc
7.  Seeds
8.  Red Heart

Brooklyn, NY
(reconstructed via this photograph)

1.  New Goodbye
2.  Yer Spring
3.  New Glass
4.  Bricks
5.  Another Pilot
6.  There’s an Arc
7.  Welcome
8.  Red Song
9.  We Made a Pact
10.  Seeds
11.  Red Heart
12. A Thousand Suns*

*’Bandages’ is on the setlist in the 12 spot, but ‘A Thousand Suns’ was played.

Manhattan, NY

1.  Lions For Scottie
2.  Welcome
3.  Yer Spring
4.  New Glass
5.  Yer Fall
6.  There’s an Arc
7.  I’ve Been Asleep For a Long, Long Time
8.  Holy Shit
9.  New Sum
10.  Seeds
11.  New Goodbye

Encore:

1.  Bandages
2.  Red Heart

And now, for the record, the sum total of Hey Rosetta! songs I’ve seen, including the two acoustic shows I saw last year:

1.  Red Heart–5 times
2.  Bricks–4 times
3.  I’ve Been Asleep For a Long, Long Time–3 times
4.  Lions for Scottie–3 times
5.  Bandages–3 times
6.  New Goodbye–3 times
7.  Yer Spring–3 times
8.  New Glass–3 times
9.  There’s an Arc–3 times
10.  Seeds–3 times
11.  Seventeen–2 times
12.  Red Song–2 times
13.  We Made a Pact–2 times
14.  Another Pilot–2 times
15.  Welcome–2 times
16.  A Thousand Suns–1 time
17.  Yer Fall–1 time
18.  Holy Shit–1 time
19.  New Sum–1 time

Mom’s/ Sisters

So my mom now lives with my sister, which makes visiting everybody much easier!  It was quite nice to see everybody all at once!  In the same breath, however, I must admit it made me feel as though I did a poor job of paying ample attention to everyone.  When you are seeing a gaggle of loved ones all at once for the first time in a long time, it can be a strain to give equal time.  I think specifically of the nephews, who I love uncontrollably but whom I was not able to give the sort of attention they are accustomed to receiving from me.  When it came down to it, my mom and my sister were the center of my focus (not to mention the antics of Pumpkin Latte).  Don’t get me wrong, I had a lovely time!  I guess I’m just feeling some guilt, cause those boys worked up a good amount of anticipation for my arrival and I almost certainly dissapointed.  That being said, the time with Momma and Sis was marvelous. LOTS of laughs, and a new momma/ son tradition: I claim her and I are going to do the Jumble together, and then I end up freaking out over how amazing she is at it, while I add absolutely nothing to the process (she really is amazing at the Jumble).  Also, I “T”d my sister, which always rules.  A brief but incredibly heartwarming time.  Some select pics:

Sister and Pumpkin Latte, as she was taking their picture

Sis, Me, Mom

New York

The New York trip is another thing I shall have to gloss over, or I’ll be writing this blog entry until next week.  I did what I typically do: I drive right into the city, pay a thousand dollars to park, and just walk around.  I usually have very little plan other than one or two fairly simple goals.  This trip’s goals: see sunrise from inside Central Park, and buy a New York Times from a newsstand and read the whole thing from inside a midtown Manhattan Starbucks during the morning commute hours.  I’m not sure why I wanted to do these things, but once the goals were in my mind, I could not seem to let them go.  I accomplished both, and although being in Central Park during sunrise was magical, it was not easy to get any great pictures of the event, due to the vast amount of:

a) Tall trees, and
b) skyscrapers

These things blocked the view of the actual sunrise rather effectively, but feeling the world come alive from within the park was quite joyous.  Here is the best picture I got of the sunrise:

I spent almost two hours in the Starbucks, enjoying my latte and an incredible issue of the NYT.  I suppose for a moment I felt as hip as I’ve always suspected I am.  It was a quality time.

I spent the rest of the day wandering around, taking pictures, eating, even napping briefly in the tranquil section of Central Park known as the Woodlands.  I also visited, for the first time, the Central Park Zoo, which was a lovely treat.  Here is some video I took of the Sea Lions being fed (and putting on a little show) followed by some pictures:

Sunset, Brooklyn

Me in Central Park

Some Things I Learned

1.  8 months is not long enough to forget how to get around (but it IS long enough to cause some occasional navigation confusion)

2.  When you are a single man in your 30s who moves away from everyone he knows and doesn’t visit home for 8 months, a surprising amount of people from all demographics will just straight-up ask you about your sex life.  This is fodder for an entire blog entry at some point that will be in the form of a “rant”.  FYI, nobody need worry about my sex life, mkay?

3.  You may think where you live is boring, but leave it for a little while and then come back; you may just find it’s really cool.

4.  There are really hot ladies everywhere.

5.  Don’t tell people you got fat.  You may think it will make your fatness less awkward, but it makes it moreso.

6.  Things change.  Buildings get knocked down, businesses change their name, streets get re-directed.  Accept these things as a natural course of existence. (reminds me of a Hey Rosetta! song:  “The schools that we went to have all been closed./ And all of my teachers are dead, I suppose.”)

7.  You can walk further than you think you can.

8.  If you move and your sports allegiances change a little bit, you can just kinda keep that to yourself on your first few visits home.

9.  As you leave places you have stayed for just a day or two, remember to gather all your various “chargers”.  We have a lot of chargers in this day and age.

10.  Family and friends really are the best things in the world, even if saying so sounds cheesy and cliche.  Fuck it, it’s true!

I Almost Forgot…

Today is my 8 year sobriety anniversary!  The original purpose of this vacation was for me to have off and see my loved ones leading up to the big day.  (I just have to complete my anniversary tradition of watching “Dark Days” on the anniversary itself)  So…yay me!  But also…yay you!  Thanks everybody for putting up with my horribleness when I was horrible, and then helping me live such a satisfying and fantastic life in my sobriety!  What a treat, to be able to celebrate the week leading up to it in the way I did.  And how neat is it that I almost forgot today was the day???  That must mean life is pretty good.  I love you, everybody!

The blog post where I mention everyone I know who already has an existing “tag” on my blog, so I can tag them again and insert a useful or ridiculous link to them.

1.  Oh hi, billhanna.  I see you ‘liked’ goatees on Facebook yesterday.  Our adversarial relationship about facial hair will continue to the grave.  THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

  2.  Anyone who knows Tasha, check out the link, she just got a radical new haircut!  I love it!

3.  I have quite few friends who are talented musicians—one of them is the great Bootney Lee (real name Ryan Straub).  I double-dare you to click on the link and check his music out.

4.  Guess who I’m going to see next month, as the three of us meet up in central New York for a Hey Rosetta! show???  Well that would be none other than my life-long buddies Paul and Davey!  (he’s Chris Davey, but we call him Davey).  This is going to be exceptional as it’s been a few years since we were together, all 3 of us.  And did I mention it’s a Hey Rosetta show???  I still haven’t seen them live–the shows I was supposed to go to awhile back had to be skipped because life is like that.  I am uber pumped for this!

5.  It has been way too long since I tagged my friend Amanda.  I mean that just like it sounds, too. 

6.  You know who rules?  My mom!  She just quit smoking!!! Raise the roof!

7.  I’m still tickled pink about the Doctor Strange drinking glass that Tony Magni gave me as a going away present when I moved to Erie.  Thanks Tony! 

8.  My friend Denise has a very under-appreciated photo blog.  Click to link to check it out!!!  She’s way talented!

9.  The lovely Sarah P. has just had a baby! Huzzah!  She doesn’t have any sort of online presence so I’ve linked to a picture of Big Ben, which is in England, which is where I met her!

10.  My dad is one cool mofo.  What’s my evidence?  Every single day I become more and more like him, and I am most definitely one cool mofo.  Dad, we are some cool dudes!

11.  I tag Ron all  the damn time, I aint saying anything about him!

12.  Big days for my buddy Burke, who has just started going back to school while also remaining a steadfast David Hasselhoff fan.  Kudos, wanker!

13.  I could probably talk about Mary all day, but I’m pretty sure she’d friend-disown me.  She dislikes scrutiny.

14.  My dear, dear friend Michael (that’s a lady named Michael) sent me the most lovely letter in the mail yesterday.  She sure is a freaking great friend!!  It was quite touching, it brought a tear to my eye.  Everyone should have a friend like Michael!

15.  California buddy Kyle is finally off the unemployment and working at a bank!!! Yay Kyle!  Now:  no more excuses for sneaking into movies, you heathen!

16.  My freaking cool-as-shit sister just got a job working at a law firm!  What what!  Dellingers can do anything!!!  Click the link to read her badass blog!

17.  Also in the world of talented musician friends of mine:  Duane, who records under the name DreamlandNoise.  Click the link for just a small sampling of his superb “space funk”.

18.  What to say about my girl Cory? She recently moved back to central PA, like, RIGHT after I left it.  *frown face*  She’s just the shiznit in every way, and is quite a talented artist.  I’ve linked to some of her art but you might not be able to see it if you’re not FB friends with her.  Which would be your loss.

Elliotsburg, Perry County, Pennsylvania

OK here’s where we’re going to start:

High above the ground, you see mostly green.  Textbook examples of rolling hills, spotty groves of trees, country-style roads that meander in ways which make no surface sense. The blue Appalachians rise, meekly, like the rolled blanket of a sleeping giant, in the periphery.  Amidst all the green, houses are almost invisible; they are rare, at any rate, in this farm country. Most of the land is divided into grand swaths meant for corn, cows, or waiting for corn or cows.  Outcroppings of non-farm dwellings are grouped into ‘towns’ of 6 or 7 houses, skirting pastureland.  As we descend from our perch in the sky, one such tiny outcroppings of houses comes clearer into view: Elliotsburg.  The town exists on one street, for about half a mile. The handful of dwellings are mostly white, about a hundred years old, and absolutely quaint.  From a hundred yards above the town, you can see that all the inhabitants are blessed with large back yards, usable front lawns, ample loose-stone driveways.  Everyone’s lawn is as green and lush as a newly opened golf course.  Sheds as big as barns, in shoddy, Termited disrepair, dot every-other back yard like fire hydrants in a drought city.

            Descend even further with me now, narrowing our view to this one particular house, whose address I forget, if ever I knew it.  We are looking at, from 50 yards above it, a one-story ranch house—white—with a large, almost one acre backyard.  At the rear of the yard sits a dilapidated barn, brown with age and water-logged.  An exuberant blue spruce dominates the smallish front lawn, and the slow rise of Appalachian foot hills can be seen just beyond the wooden fence which marks the back end of the house’s property.

            Now if we drop even further, you can see some details, which may or may not matter to you.  The red front door (never used; this is one of those ‘side door only’ houses), the wrought-iron hand-rails leading up the four side steps; the peeling paint everywhere, the lush lawn ravaged by dandelions upon close inspection.  Hover by the aluminum white side door as I open it for you.

            Inside, we see a house that is the picture of domestic normalcy.  The side door opens into a medium-sized kitchen, with a double sink, an eggshell dishwasher, bread on the counter.  The fridge is marked by homey magnets and drawings done by a very young child.  The patterned linoleum of the floor is straight out of Good Housekeeping.

            If we float on through the kitchen, we come to the living room, with it’s blue carpet, it’s entertainment center housing a modest-sized television, VCR, and one of the world’s best stereos.  Two not-cheap couches hug the walls, and a never-used recliner perches in an inconvenient corner—another American case of having more stuff than space.  The glass coffee table is unclassy and out-of-place, yet in it’s barbarism, it’s statement within the room is succinct.

            Turning at a right angle, almost going back into the kitchen, we run into two bedrooms.  The master bedroom sports a large, almost luxury bed, a quality, almost-antique highboy (which I would later personally burn on a pile of trash), a small television, a bureau with an oversized mirrors. The only thing interesting to ever happen in this room, methinks, are things I was never privy to.

            The other bedroom—considerably smaller—seems unoccupied.  Blankets lay heaped in a corner, an open package of disposable diapers sits in the center of the room.  It is unfurnished and smells like baby wipes and tobacco.

            One thing that has been very noticeable and out-of-place to you since we entered the building is that a rock band is distinctly playing in the basement of the house.  Not a CD of a rock band, but a real, live one.  On the upper floor here, it is difficult to discern what exactly they are playing, or if they are any good, but the true concussive feeling of actual drums being pounded and a real man singing into a microphone is unmistakable.  We turn from the bedrooms and float back through the kitchen, almost back out the side door, but we stop just before leaving, making a left turn, and we are facing a brown, varnished wooden door.  I will open it for you.

            The rock music now blares into our faces, the fullness of it’s sound raising our blood pressure.  Float with me, will you, down these rickety, wooden basement stairs?

            The basement is dark.  It runs the length of the house but is lit by only one small, practically useless lamp in a faraway corner as well as Christmas lights which are strung up the whole way around the room, all year round.  Tapestries line the walls, as well as occasional egg-crate mattresses, for sound-proofing.  Music equipment takes up the entire center of the room: multiple amps, guitars and guitar stands, a keyboard, a drum kit as well as piecemeal percussion instruments, mic stands, a small mixing board, pedals galore, and stuff I never understood.  Mixed in with these musical items are small ‘artsy’ artifacts, like a lava lamp, a Buddha bust, incense holders.  The basement, now like always, smells distinctly of damp must and incense.

            Four men are playing rock music—not typical rock music, but a dim, almost evil rock music, that meanders frequently from the pre-written songs into extended, intense jams which often sound like a slow ride into Hell.  They are talented men but destined for day jobs.

            Let us briefly turn away from the band, back toward the stairs we just came down.  You will see that, to the left of the stairs in a darkened corner sits an old ratty couch with an all-but-destroyed coffee table in front of it. Let us hover in closer to it.  Ah, yes, there I am.  I am sitting on the couch, smoking a cigarette and drinking gin-and-coke, watching the band with much interest.  My unshaved face looks like gold divots have been pasted haphazardly to it.  I have on that patterned gray flannel; it feels like I wore that for years.  I’m wearing my gray derby hat, too.  Backwards, like I usually did.  This basement is my bedroom, and this couch is my bed.   

            I’ve been living in this band’s practice quarters for quite some time now, as well as accompanying them to local bars, helping carry the equipment, sitting through bands I didn’t give a shit about to watch ‘my’ band play.  And even though watching them practice is, to me, what watching television is like to other people (there is no television or even radio in my basement bedroom), I still eagerly watch them as though a very special private performance were being put on for me.  Sleeping isn’t a problem; I can drink myself to sleep even if a band is playing in my bedroom.

            Oh my.  I remember this moment!  Look, the singer is taking a break to go call his girlfriend, but the band continues jamming.  They’re just in a nice, quiet little groove, the bass throbbing in slow-time, the guitar in a sort of fuzz repeat, the drummer noodling along with the bass line. 

            I had been waiting for months for an opportunity like this.  I wanted to show the band that I was a creative fellow.  See, during their jams, I often made up impromptu lyrics to them in my head which I felt were a bit better than anything the lead singer came up with. It wasn’t that I thought I could be the band’s singer, by any means, but simply a desire to be accepted as a fellow artist.

            Watch me get up from the couch and walk to the lead singer’s microphone.  I stand there for a few brief moments, taking in the music, trying to feel what it is ‘about’.  The three band members don’t notice that I’m standing there yet; the bass and guitar player have their eyes closed, and the drummer is hidden behind his drums.  Then I open my mouth, and in my regular speaking voice I say:

            “You see that tree over there?”  I pause for four measures of the music, then: “I’m gonna chop it down.”

            A quick glance around will reveal that the bass player’s eyes are still closed, but the guitar player is looking at me with a sincere look of disgust.  I walk away from the mic stand slowly, nonchalantly, as though it had just been a minor lark.  But I don’t return to the couch, I walk up the stairs, outside, to walk around the countryside a bit.  I had never been so embarrassed in all my life.

Erie Journal, 5/15

I know, I know, I can hear what you’re saying, fearless, intrepid readers:  how dare I give you such exhaustive detail of all the activity leading up to the move and then abandon you for DAYS as the event unfolds?  It must have been like the cruelest of television season-ending cliffhangers!  Well, eff you.  Life got in the way of blogging.

(I don’t know why the Erie Journals have a tone of distaste for you, the loyal reader.  I swear, I love you.  It’s just the tone these entries seem to want to take!)

Anyway, as usual, I’m gonna have to skim over some details because just too much has happened since I posted last.  You saw the picture entries of the move itself, and I would like to once again thank Burke, Paul, Liz and Michael for helping me move. Also, thanks go to Mom and Mary for helping me clean, Dad for letting me crash at his house at a very crucial and odd moment for me, Duane for his last minute computer help, and probably somebody else who helped and I’m forgetting and I’m sorry I’m forgetting you.  I truly do have some amazing friends and family!

Long story short, the move was difficult.  It essentially went off as I had planned—and believe it or not, I consider myself something of a good planner—but what I never considered during my planning was that there was very little time for me to sleep, recover, and be sane.  And despite that, I would have made it work if it hadn’t for some godawful reason taken Michael and I eight hours to drive back from Erie after unloading all my stuff into my new apartment.  It was like we drove into some sort of black hole/time warp/weird thing.  I just kept driving that U-Haul, pointing forward and pressing the gas, and it was like nothing was happening…

So anyway, that drive forced me to change my plans a tad, and instead of ending up here in Erie Thursday morning, I rolled in here around 10:30 Thursday night.  So yeah, the plan had to be altered.  Still.  I claim this as a triumph in my life, as I single-handedly planned all of it.  This is not an attempt to be egotistical here folks.  Those that have known me since my teen years will know this is just a monumental achievement!

I’ll tell you what was friggen strange was walking into this apartment in Erie Thursday night.  It was dark.  A thunderstorm had just passed through.  The world was chilly but not cold, and becalmed, and silent with a hint of breeze.  I’d just been here, in this apartment the day before, but that had been in blazing sunlight, with one of my best friends, doing heavy, sweaty work and grunting and counting to three and lifting.  So now I approach the front door for the first time ever in darkness, and I am all alone, and I am not going “home” that night, and it is quiet everywhere as my brand new key jingles in the lock and I open the unfamiliar door and the room is pitch black and all I can smell is fresh paint and the afterscent of rain and I get lucky guessing where the light switch is and the overhead light pops on and there in the midst of all this unfamiliarity is, quite all of a sudden, the entirety of my belongings, sitting in a massive disarray, exactly how Michael and I had left them just a little over 24 hours before.

I know that may sound like a NOT great experience, but that is only because I’ve failed as a narrator.  Yes, it was surreal, and perhaps somber and disquieitng, but also rather thrilling, not like a roller coaster but my own personal fun house—my life as a hall of mirrors.  If, in 24 hours, one’s life can become so utterly different (and yet, so entirely the same), it makes you question just what it is that defines your life.  Oddly, during those first few moments inside the apartment door, it became clear to me that stuff does, in fact, play a role in my identity, but thankfully, just not a very large one. It was a relief to feel the sensation flush through me from head to toe that the truly important element in this equation was me, no matter which TV was sitting in the corner (though I loved the fact that it was my TV).

The first few minutes after entering the apartment were a flurry of activity, marked by one observation and two activities.  The observation was complete silence.  No television, no radio, not even any incoming text messages, and no neighbors making noise of any kind.  In such an unfamliar setting, I really did need something.  And so my first two activities were:  getting the TV hooked up to the DVD player (cable and internet wouldn’t come till the next day) and—actually the very first order of business—getting some blinds up on the two street-facing living room windows.  As I said, it was night time and the windows are facing the residential street and the only light I had to work with at this point was the bright overhead light, so I felt very, very exposed.  I had actually anticipated this and had even brought two cheapy Wal-Mart vinyl mini-blinds up with me right away.  I had never in my life put up a blind of any kind, so less than two minutes after entering the apartment, I was opening and attempting to figure out these blinds.  It is perhaps of note that the apartment is FULL of stuff, so I have very little room to work.  As a reminder, here was how Michael and I left the living room:

The day before, right before Michael and I left, I measured the windows in anticipation of the blinds, and stopped by Wal-Mart immediately before leaving for Erie that afternoon, to buy the blinds.  Well folks, turns out I’m not a champ at measuring.  Luckily, I over-measured, so the blinds I bought were too long by about two inches.  I did not see this as a problem.  Believe it or not, I have a toolbox, and in that toolbox is a saw.  So less than ten minutes after getting there, I’ve got these vinyl mini-blinds sitting on those white Gonella bread boxes you see in the picture above and I am sawing one inch off both sides.  (mind you, I am just sawing the bar across the top, not the actual blinds.  I’m  not a maniac!).  Amazingly, this worked like a charm and I very quickly had privacy, at least from the street side of the apartment (and only when in the living room).

After that it was the TV, and the couch, as my chair were all entirely buried underneath God-knows-what and I was definitely craving a sit-down.  As you can guess by looking at the pic of the living room above, getting the couch to in any reasonable way face a television would require some finagling.  But I managed it very quickly.  I had procured a few movies from the Redbox in Carlisle before leaving for Erie, and I quickly had the new DeNiro flick “Everybody’s Fine” playing, and I was laying on the couch, and I was just gonna watch a few minutes and then get up and start the long, arduous process of getting the apartment in order because after all, I didn’t really have to sleep at any reasonable time and obviously I had no plans in the near future and then…I was sound asleep.  I woke up at 10am the next morning feeling like a million very, very confused bucks.  And then the work began.

As this is a fairly long entry already, I’m going to end here for now so as to not tire you out, Fearless Reader.  Since everything I’m saying is in the past, it’s not really of the essence to tell it all now, so I’ll bring us up to the present day in an entry tomorrow.  Thanks for reading, shitbirds!

Erie Journal, 5/9

Odd feelings abound.  The apartment gets more and more sparse (and the boxes pile up).  I say more and more goodbyes to people, so many goodbyes I am sick of saying goodbye.  I drive down certain roads for the last time in a long time, realize there’s people I haven’t been able to see, restaurants I haven’t eaten at, hikes not yet taken.

And yet.  And yet things aren’t as sad as they should be.  Perhaps I’m growing cold in my old age.  Or perhaps it’s just that one can only feel these things fully, deeply, intensely so many times in their lives.  I’ve already moved away (when I moved to New Jersey in 2003), and lord knows I’ve moved from apartment to apartment plenty of times.  Perhaps as we go through events like this in life, we build up coping mechanisms for future times, to the point that even wrenching life events can begin to seem rote and ordinary.  My vote is still out on whether this is good or bad.

Or, it could just be the fashion in which this move has happened so far that prevents me from feeling any profound sadness.  It’s been somewhat rushed, filled with long workdays followed by an hour or two of packing.  Then, after only 3 days off work, I’ll be moving (Weds. the 12th).  If, in fact, any great sadness is to beset me, it probably hasn’t had any room to do so yet.

Regardless, this lack of sadness has got me feeling just as strange as actual sadness might make me feel—which is as nonsensical as it sounds.  Things will probably settle into some semblance of emotional correctness after I’m firmly anchored in Erie.

As far as the more practical concerns of the move go, the apartment is now about 85% packed.  Only my DVDs, toiletries and wall art remain, with a few odds and ends I can’t pack yet (like alarm clocks, lamps, trash bags).  BFF Mary has just left, after helping me clean my kitchen, which at this point really shouldn’t need any more work.  Mom is coming over tomorrow (well, technically today at this point) and she is going to help me further, though at this point I’m not sure what we’ll do.  I hate to say it but we might have to clean my bathroom!  Then Tuesday afternoon/evening I’ll be loading up a U-Haul (I have yet to assemble my team of helpers, though…maybe YOU would like to help?), and then Wednesday morning other BFF Michael and I will be actually driving the U-Haul to Erie and unloading it.  We will also be driving said U-haul back home that very day, as I’ll have some last-minute cleaning left to do at the apartment here in Carlisle.  I’ll be sleeping at Dad’s house Wednesday night, cleaning the apartment Thursday and then driving to Erie Thursday and then…um…staying there!  That is the grand plan, at any rate, though I am always open to plans changing.  I am quite flexible.  Not physically, of course, but emotionally I am like a freakin’ gymnast!

Erie Journal, 4/25

Spending, perhaps, the last few hours on this couch in this apartment with my BFF Mary.  Oh, the great times we’ve had in this living room!  Am sad for maybe the first time.  Though I won’t miss her making me watch “Medium” and Cartoon Network.  It’s dawning on me that someday soon, this will actually be someone else’s apartment.  That’s effed up.

Highlights of my 7th Anniversary

1.  Michael and I in the woods:

“Jellyroll Jellyfish, Private Investigator”

and

“A bird in the bush is worth two in the hand.”

2.  This picture:

3.  My dad and I met pretty much the most awesome dog ever while walking across the Dickinson campus.  That dog has been making me smile all day!

4.  Dad bought me a blockbuster at the Hamilton.  I love blockbusters!!!!

5.  Mary smelled so good, something happened to me.

6.  “Alice in Wonderland” is so bad, I can finally completely write-off Tim Burton as a filmmaker.

7.  I got a little sunburnt.  I love being a little sunburnt.

8.  Chinese buffet.

9.  80 degrees.

10.  Yeah pretty much best day ever.

Is this racist?

Mary and I saw these chocolate “gangsta” bunnies for sale at Wal-Mart and couldn’t help but wonder if there was a racist element to them, though we really weren’t sure.  Notice the ‘bling’ and the gang sign that the male bunny is sporting.  (I thought I got one male and one female in the pic of the actual chocolate, but it’s just two males.  The female is fairly unadorned, but sports a candy necklace).

Seth’s Favorites of 2009: Movies

Other favorites of 2009:

Documentaries
Music
Concerts
Magazines
Poetry
Television

Well, it is finally time to announce my favorite movies of 2009.  I have to do it today, because the Oscar nominations get announced tomorrow and I don’t want to be affected by that.

There are alot of movies I wish I’d gotten to see before making this list.  They include:  “Crazy Heart”, “A Single Man”, “The Last Station”, “The Messenger” and “The Lovely Bones”, among others.  Even without having seen those, I still was unable to narrow my list down to 10 (I don’t know how those real critics do it!)—and remember, this is without any documentaries!

Stay tuned after the list for a brief list of I don’t understand why everyone loved these movies movies, as well as a run-down of every movie I saw in theaters this year.  Without further ado, my list:

15.  Lymelife

A nice melding of Ang Lee’s “The Ice Storm” and David Green’s “Snow Angels”, it would be easy to dismiss “Lymelife” as just another tart exploration of the American Dream gone bad.  And that’s what it is, but I really am a sucker for this sub-genre.

14.  Sunshine Cleaning

Three cheers for great roles for women, please!  Funny, heartbreaking, multi-faceted, important roles for women!

13.  Precious

I’ll tell ya, you gotta work really hard to make me identify with an obese, inner-city illiterate black girl.  But “Precious” manages it.  Quite a few times throughout the movie, I thought to myself–I’ve been there.  Quite an accomplishment considering, in the literal sense, I’d been nowhere near there at all.  Major kudos for using the micro to show the macro.

12.  An Education

A lot of attention is being heaped on Carey Mulligan’s performance—and it IS great—but being mostly ignored is Peter Sarsgaard, who has the ungratifying role of the conflicted rogue.  Unexpectedly, I ended up feeling as bad for him as I did for Mulligan.  Here’s a good Sarsgaard clip.  Watch how he acts with his face:

11.  Up in the Air

George Clooney.  Jason Reitman.  Jason Bateman.  Sam Eliot.  Zack Galifinakis.  Vera Farmiga.  Danny McBride.  Anna Kendrick.  OK?

10.  In the Loop

Read my full length review.

9.  Away We Go

It would be possible to watch “Away We Go” and think that nothing much happens.  And, to an extent, you’d be right.  It’s a quiet little movie about the simple complexities of a romance—and part of the fun of watching it quietly unfold is the knowledge that the people behind the film are not who you’d have expected to make “Away We Go” (Sam Mendes and Dave Eggers), and that makes it all the more surprising in it’s simplicity.

8.  Inglourious Basterds

Tarantino.  Nazis.  Fake history.  Long dialogue patches followed by bursts of action and violence.  Tasty.

7.  Drag me to Hell

I know, I know—not exactly typical year-end best-of list  material.  But I can’t remember the last time I saw a horror movie that so perfectly balanced it’s tone, and knew precisely what it wanted to be.  And the final scene—and the look on Justin Long’s face—won’t be leaving me any time soon.  Harrowing, yet slightly…funny.  (on purpose)

6.  The Road

I read the book.  I loved it.  Then Mary read the book and hated it (for stylistic purposes, not plot).  She convinced me.  Now the book annoys me, too.  But I still had great affection for the plot (plus Nick Cave  did the soundtrack!), so I still eagerly attended the film.  And it is amazing.  Visually, aurally, emotionally, performancely.  (<—haha)  A tender, sweeping mini-epic.  Watch some clips.

5.  A Serious Man

The Coen brothers’ latest effort had me on unsure footing for most of the film.  Was this good?  What was this about?  Was this a rejected episode of Freaks and Geeks? Then, the final two sequences (about 4 minutes of film) happened, the credits rolled, and I was left, jaw agape, until the theater lights came up.  Those two sequences retroactively inform the entire film preceeding it in a way that is the indie drama equivalent to the twist ending of The Sixth Sense. Spellbinding.

4.  The Hurt Locker

Read my full-length review.

3.  Goodbye Solo

As far as I’m concerned, this is the overlooked movie of the year.  No one famous is attached to it, and not much happens—though what does happen, I really shouldn’t say.  The main conceit of the film is, of itself, a considerable spoiler (and yes, this film has a release date in 2008, but it didn’t commercially release until 2009).  If I were a member of the Academy (why aren’t I?), Red West and Souleymane Sy Savane would both be up for Best Actor awards.  I implore you to watch it if the opportunity ever presents itself.

2.  (500) Days of Summer

I avoided this one for quite some time.  I thought it looked like Garden State but even quirkier (note:  I like Garden State).  When I finally Netflixed it after it’s DVD release, I was blown away.  This is pretty much the ultimate “relationship” movie. It’s not cynical, but it is realistic; Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson, this is not.  And yet, it is a romantic comedy, just not for idiots.  I felt, in turns, uplifted, dispirited, entertained, joyous, reassured, and knowing.  It’s still an idealized version of a real romance, which is a lot better than an unreal version of an idealized romance.  Once of the first movies I felt compelled to buy on BluRay at full price.

1.  Where the Wild Things Are

Pretty much a game-changer for me.  Now definitely my favorite movie, period.  I really didn’t know movies could be like this, could affect me like this, could be so many different things all at the same time.  It’s a polarizing movie—lots of people feel just like me, while an equal amount are just kinda like…”Meh.”  Of course, it’s got to be that way.  Nothing can hit everyone the same way (and thank goodness, or the world would have stopped the week WtWA was released, for I was a damned mess.) Also, please note that novelist Dave Eggers also wrote this screenplay (in addition to “Away We Go”), so he’d damn well better get recognized for something at this year’s Oscars. Watch the clip:

I Don’t Understand Why Everyone Loved These Movies

1.  District 9—seriously, what are you guys watching?  This movie is baaaad. It even has a serious—SERIOUS and GLARING—problem with it’s narrative style (switches from first to third person).  And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  Bad.

2.  Avatar—it’s not horrible, but then again, it’s really nothing special.  The story is a mish-mash rehash of countless other movies (I could predict the plot without trying, and it hit it’s action beats so predictably, 10 people got up to pee at the same time in the theater I was in), the special effects really aren’t that great, and all the alien-language subtitles are in puke yellow Papyrus font.

3.  Julie and Julia—everyone is just loving the shit out of Meryl Streep’s portrayal of Julia Childs, but I found it so impressionist and comical I took the DVD out after 45 minutes.

Movies I Saw in the Theater

My buddy Kyle has been doing this thing for the past few years where he keeps track of every movie he sees in the theater, what the date was, where he saw it, and whether he give sit a thumb up or a thumb down.  See Kyle’s 2009 theater movies here.  This is another exercise like my 100 Favorite Bands where, you’re right—you have no compelling reason to care about this list, but I, naturally, find it quite compelling, and if you are a heavy theater-goer as I am, I think you’d find doing this quite interesting (and I’d love to read yours next year!)  It’s interesting to see the trends (time periods where I favored certain theaters), and you ‘ll even see I go through times when I like to go see movies I know will be bad.  Sometimes, I just like being in a movie theater!!  These are just for calendar year 2009, so some of my above 15 Favorite movies, which I saw in early 2010, won’t see light of day until next year’s list.  In a few instances, I forgot to record the date, so I left it blank rather than hazard a guess.  Here it is:

1.  Slumdog Millionaire, Cinema Center of Camp Hill, thumbs up
2.  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Carlisle Regal, thumbs up
3.  Happy-Go-Lucky, Carlisle Independent, thumbs down
4.  Valkyrie, Carlisle Regal, thumbs up
5.  Defiance, Carlisle Regal, thumbs…eh…down, if I have to make a decision
5. Let the Right One In, (1/28), Carlisle Independent, thumbs up
6.  Milk, (2/1),   Cinema Center of Camp Hill, thumbs up
7.  Frost/Nixon, (2/1), Cinema Center of Camp Hill, thumbs down
8.  The Reader, (2/2), Harrisburg Midtown, thumbs up
9.  The Wrestler, (2/8) Harrisburg Regal (Hoyts), thumbs up
10.  Friday the 13th (2009 version), (2/16), Carlisle Regal, thumbs down
11.  The International, (2/26), Carlisle Regal, thumbs up
12.  Watchmen, Carlisle Regal, thumbs up
13.  Wolverine, Colonial Park 4, thumbs up
14.  Star Trek, (5/12), Cinema Center of Camp Hill, thumbs up
15.  Terminator Salvation, (5/28), Cinema Center of Camp Hill, thumbs down
16.  Forbidden Lie$, (5/28), Carlisle Independent, thumbs up
17.  Night at the Museum 2, (6/1), Cinema Center of Camp Hill, thumbs down
18.  Drag me to Hell, (6/4), Carlisle Regal, thumbs up
19.  Land of the Lost, (6/14), Colonial Park 4, thumbs down
20.  Bruno, (6/24), Colonial Park 4, thumbs down initially, recently changed to thumbs up
21.  Year One, (7/20), Cinema Center of Camp Hill, thumbs down
22.  Public Enemies, (7/27), Carlisle Regal, thumbs up
23.  Funny People, (8/13), Cinema Center of Camp Hill, thumbs down
24.  GI Joe, (8/16), Carlisle Regal, thumbs waaay down
25.  Inglourious Basterds, (8/24), Carlisle Regal, thumbs up
26.  The Hurt Locker, (9/17), Carlisle Independent, thumbs up
27.  Zombieland, (10/3), Carlisle Regal, thumbs up
28.  Il Divo, (10/4), Carlisle Independent, thumbs up
29.  In the Loop, (10/10), Carlisle Independent, thumbs up
30.  Surrogates, (10/13), Carlisle Regal, thumbs up
31.  Where the Wild Things Are, (10/19), Cinema Center of Camp Hill, thumbs up
32.  Where the Wild Things Are, (10/20), Cinema Center of Camp Hill, thumbs up
33.  Capitalism: A Love Story, (10/25), Harrisburg Midtown, thumbs up
34.  Where the Wild Things Are, (10/26), Cinema Center of Camp Hill, thumbs up
35.  The Stepfather, (10/26), Carlisle Regal, thumbs down
36.  Where the Wild Things Are, (10/28), Carlisle Regal, thumbs up
37.  Paranormal Activity, (10/28), Carlisle Regal, thumbs up
38.  The Fourth Kind, (11/9), Flagship Cinemas Mechanicsburg, thumbs down
39.  The Box, (11/9), Flagship Cinemas Mechanicsburg, thumbs down
40.  A Serious Man, (11/10), Harrisburg Midtown, thumbs up
41.  Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, (11/13), Cinema Center of Camp Hill, thumbs up
42.  Old Dogs, (12/8), Carlisle Regal, thumbs down
43.  Invictus, (12/19), Carlisle Regal, thumbs down
44.  The Road, (12/24), Harrisburg Regal (Hoyts), thumbs up
45.  Avatar (12/25), Carlisle Regal, thumbs down

Our Day With Dave

Today, Mary and I went to New York to see the David Letterman show live and in person!  And it was awesome!  I’m not going to bog you all down with too many details, so I’ll just hit some of the main stuff:

Me in line outside the Ed Sullivan Theater, Mary's head behind me

There was some waiting in line, but in actuality, not as much as I’d expected.  Mary and I showed up outside the Ed Sullivan Theater at the appointed time–1pm–waited through various ID checks and other checkpoints–and by 1:45 were given our tickets and told to be back in front of the theater by 2:45pm.  We then meandered around Broadway for an hour and made it back to our appointed line at out appointed time.  As we waited in line, some Late Show dudes–probably interns–came out to joke around with us and tell us the “rules”.  The rules were thus:  no photography, cell phones off, clap and laugh alot, and, strangely, no “woo”ing.  You know that sound you make most frequently

Mary enjoying a frozen beverage outside the Ed Sullivan Theater

when you are in a crowd and you are cheering…. “woooooo!”  Yes, well apparently, the mics in the Ed Sullivan Theater don’t like that.

So, by 3pm we were ushered into the theater.  Unfortunately, we ended up getting seats in the balcony, which would greatly decrease our chances of being seen on television, but really, there isn’t a bad seat in the theater.  It is MUCH smaller than it appears to be on TV.  Even up in the balcony, we were no less than 30 yards from Dave, and even closer to the band and Paul Shaffer.

One of our tickets, which we unfortunately were not allowed to keep

Interesting tidbit:  Dave infamously keeps the Ed Sullivan Theater quite chilly, but I was perfectly comfortable the whole time, not cold at all.

It was truly surreal seeing the set in person.  I just couldn’t get over how much smaller it seemed in person.  For instance, when you’re watching on TV it seems like Dave and Paul are really far apart, but really it’s no more than two people on opposite sides of a living room, and the audience is right up on Dave.  Everything is just much more condensed than it looks on TV.

We weren’t in our seats for more than five minutes when warm-up comedian Eddie Brill came out to “warm us up”.  He was a funny guy, but I was honestly surprised by how brief it was.  He really just kinda talked to us for 3 or 4 minutes (though it truly was funny stuff), then we watched a “classic clip” from the show, probably a few years old, where Dave messes with people at a Taco Bell.  This is the clip:

We were all laughing our asses off.

Then Eddie Brill introduced the announcer, Allen Caulter, who just sorta ran into the theater and then quickly out of our sight-line, and then he announced the band one-by-one (except Paul).  The band then proceeded to play a horn-heavy rendition of The Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar”.  After about five minutes of this, Eddie Brill announces Paul Shaffer, who comes out to thunderous applause and joins the band, who have now moved on to an instrumental version of some other song I couldn’t quite identify. After a few more minutes of that, Brill quite suddenly announces Dave, who actually sprints into the theater (notably, without his suit jacket on) and runs the whole way across the set.  Then he gets a mic and talks to us for about 4 minutes, very funny off-the-cuff stuff about how groggy and weird he feels after the weekend and how one of these days a weekend isn’t going to “get away from” him.  Then he says he’s gotta go, he walks behind the set, and immediately the band starts playing the theme song and Allen Caulter begins his introduction to the show, and then moments after he disappeared, Dave is introduced and re-appears, this time with his suit jacket on.

I don’t know if the monologue was an especially funny monologue, or if being there in person makes everything funnier, but Mary and I were laughing our asses off!  Then after the monologue, Dave and Paul proceeded to have a very funny give-and-take about the usage of the word “douche” on network television.  We were cracking up!!!

During commercial breaks, the band played a long version of a song, while about 8 guys crowded around Dave’s desk, for Lord-knows-what purpose.  Dave took his jacket off almost every break, and would often get up and walk around and talk to his staffers (while Dave was walking around, the crowd of men remained around his desk).  I was also surprised to see that warm-up comedian Eddie Brill seems to play a large role in the show–throughout the show he stood directly in Dave’s eyeline (under the spiral staircase, if you’re familiar with the set) and was often the only man in the crowd of men around the desk that Dave seemed to be talking to.

I did see Biff Henderson briefly right after we took our seats…he was wandering around the set as Brill did his warm-up, but I never saw him after that.

I found it really strange when guests started coming on.  Like, all of a sudden, Sharon Stone is in the room.  WHAT?!  I didn’t feel star-struck per se, just weird. By that point, it kinda felt like we were just haning out with Dave and Paul, and now here’s Sharon Stone?? Bi.  Zarre.

I found it interesting that through most of the commercial break with Sharon Stone, Dave mostly ignored her and looked at the copy of the New York Times he had used during the douche discussion earlier.  They only started to chat moments before they came back from break.   Dave then showed the cover of a French magazine that Sharon Stone appears on topless.  I just saw it on the broadcast and they of course blurred out her tit, but rest assured, it was clear as day to us in the audience!

I also thought Sharon Stone was a bit cold and bitchy.

Seth Myers was funny and him and Dave seemed to have a nice report.  Seeing this in person kind of pointed out to me how truly brief these interviews are.  No sooner was Seth Myers there than he was gone–4, 5 minutes?  And how long do you suppose he spent getting ready for that?  But I really did enjoy his interview, him and Dave were making Mary and I crack up again.

In the break between Myers and the musical act (Wyclef Jean featuring Cindy Lauper), stage hands miraculously pushed out a whole musical set-up for them in less than 4 minutes.  Wyclef appeared early on and actually did some jammy vocals with the CBS Orchestra (that’s what Paul calls his band), which I thought was pretty neat.  Cindy showed up a little later and her appearance got a decent round of applause.  During this time, a camera cruised by us (though this footage would later be shown earlier in the show).  The footage is used as background while Allen Caulter announces the guests coming up later in the week.  Mary and I tried our hardest to get on that camera, but alas, it was not to be.  :(

They came back from break and Wyclef and Cindy played their song, which I thought was “OK” but Mary liked it.  Now that I’ve seen it again on the broadcast, I think it is a stupid song.  But it was unique entertainment, for sure.

Mere moments after the recording of the show ended, Dave grabbed a mic, thanked us for being a good audience, and bid us adieu, and less than 3 minutes later, we were outside again.  The show airs for an hour, and we spent just about an hour and 15 minutes inside the studio.  They really don’t fuck around!  They got us in and out lickety split!

It was a serious amount of fun.  I can see getting addicted to attending television shows.  It’s a strange, unique form of entertainment, and a cool look “behind the curtain”.  If you’ve ever wondered anything about what goes on at shows, or The Late Show in particular, and I didn;t address it here, feel free to ask in a comment!

Seth’s Favorites of 2009: Concerts

Other favorites of 2009:

Magazines
Poetry
Television

I made it to a few less concerts in 2009 than I do in most years, mostly due to my decision to see less bands multiple times.  Despite the fact that I ended up missing epic, once-in-a-lifetime Pearl Jam shows, I stand by this decision.  It allowed me the time and finances to see more unique bands in more distant locales, resulting in not just some incredible shows, but fantastic all-around experiences.  My only big regret of the year is missing Kings of Leon on their first big arena tour; although I’ve seen them once before (opening for Pearl Jam in ’08), I’d have loved to see them on a grand scale.  Without further ado:

5.  LIVE, New Jersey

I saw two consecutive LIVE shows in New Jersey with a slew of awesome people, including my sister, Ron, Billhanna, and Bootney Lee Pharnsworth.  (half of you were supposed to come to one of these shows with me, but you are bad, bad people who all bitched out at the last moment).  I’ve seen LIVE lots of times now–I’m not even sure how many–but it never, ever stops being awesome.  Both shows this year were identical setlists, though they both had great energy, and the band pulled out a few hum-dinger rarities (“Gas Hed Goes West”, “The Distance”) as well as playing scorching versions of old favorites like “Lakini’s Juice” and “I, Alone”.  But the biggest deal, at least to my sister and I, were the opener and closer for each show.  Opener=”Purifier”.  Closer=“White, Discussion”.

Here are the final, amazing moments to the version of “White, Discussion” myself, Adrienne, and Ron saw the first night at the Starland Ballroom:

4.  Silversun Pickups, Virginia

My first time seeing this band, one of the more recent additions to my “favorite bands” list, and the show did not disappoint at all!!!  I had front row and was able to make pretty steady eye contact with lead singer Brian Aubert and bassist Nikki Monninger, as they played, basically, every single one of my favorite songs, essentially in the order I’d have asked for them to be played.  I mean, c’mon,they opened with “Growing Old is Getting Old”–mind-blowing!  A very tight, rehearsed band.

No YouTube exists of the the show I was at, but here’s a video from another show where they opened with “Growing Old”.  It’s a song that requires some patience to really get to the payoff:

3.  Seven Mary Three, Reading, PA

There is a huge blog entry about this show here.  There’s not much more I can say about it that isn’t already there.  I should just say that although it was clearly an amazing experience for me, concert-wise, nothing could possibly come close to touching the experiences I had with the #1 and 2 entries here.

2.  Man Man, Washington D.C.

There is also a pre-existing entry for this concert here.  But allow me to just re-iterate that I have never seen anything quite like this show.  I have never felt so compelled to move, never felt so much energy in a room that my skin shimmered with the excitement, never smiled so big and wide for so long after a show.  If you ever get a chance, you MUST see these guys.  There’s no YouTube from our show, but watch this anyway:

1.  Explosions in the Sky, Central Park, New York

Mary and I had a fantastic (yet I must say, truly adventurous) time getting to and seeing this show.  (original blog viewable here)  When I think back to this show, I still feel a spiritual uplifting, a true movement of my soul–whatever you think that means.  This sort of feeling is what seeing live music is all about for me, and it happens all too infrequently.  Do yourself a favor if you have an extra 20 minutes:  listen to this song here, and then watch the YouTube video below.  Once again, this is a band that requires patience, but your patience will pay incredible dividends.

Here’s the same song again, but from the Central Park show Mary and I were at.  The first video I posted has such superior audio and visuals I couldn’t in good conscience post only the Central Park video:

Cold Clothes interview, Part One

The following is intended as a fun writing exercise for myself.  If you’ve been reading my blogs from the very beginning, you’ll remember I did something quite like this about 7 years ago on my very first OpenDiary blog.  This is going to be a “fake interview” with a somewhat fictionalized version of myself, which is being conducted by an entirely fictional small arts magazine called Cold Clothes. If you read the old OpenDiary one, rest assured, this is a completely new edition of this.  You’ll see I have tagged the entry as both “memoir” and “fiction”–and that’s why it is so fun for me!  I am playing in a semi-real world (specifically a semi-real Carlisle) and with a version of me that both is and isn’t me, and there will be no cues for what is fiction and what is memoir. And put up with the early conversation about “art”–it’s just to make the reason for the interview believable.

Cold Clothes brings you Part One of it’s planned 12-part interview with Pennsylvania bohemian Seth Dellinger.  As our magazine has only a circulation of about 231, we are “simul-publishing” the interviews on our website–www.coldclothes.com–as well as Dellinger’s blog, Notes from the Fire.  And since we are a very irresponsible and erratic publication, we make no projections as to the frequency of the installments.  Now, Cold Clothes managing editor Rufus Paisleyface’s Part One of the interview:

I first meet Seth Dellinger at an outside table at his favorite Carlisle coffee house, the Courthouse Commons.  It’s an early autumn day, but Dellinger doesn’t seem to know it yet: it’s jacket weather, but he’s still sporting just

Dellinger outside the Courthouse Commons coffee shop in Carlisle, Pennsylvania

a t-shirt and shorts.  A few times throughout our conversation, he appears to regret this wardrobe decision.  He orders a tall caramel latte.

Cold Clothes: So, here we are, on a sunny afternoon at an outdoor coffee shop, and you appear to have quit smoking?

Seth Dellinger: Yep.  And yeah, if this isn’t the perfect time and place for a smoke, what is, eh?  But I had to quit, you know?

CC: Why?  Lots of your peers haven’t seemed to give it up yet.

SD: I think smoking always seemed to effect me physically a little more than most people.  I had a diminished lung capacity almost immediately after picking up the habit.  I’d be laying in bed and I could feel my heart beating in my head.  I mean, here I am, a 31-year-old guy who’s been away from drugs and alcohol for years now, who likes to be physically active and moving around and doing things, and I’m feeling my heartbeat in my head.  I didn’t like that.

CC: Does any part of you feel that as a drug and alcohol free non-smoker, your validity as an artist has been breached?  A lot of creative types hang their hats on the guttural experience of “use”.

SD: (laughs) So true. Certainly one doesn’t need to have ever used any drugs or mind-altering substances of any kind to make quality art, but I do think you need a sizeable well of life experience to be any good as a creator, and the folks who have always shied away from substances tend to be the same people who shirk a lot of life experiences, although this is certainly not always the case.  Let me say that again: this is certainly not always the case.  And yeah, sure, at first I worried I’d be called a “sellout” or, worse, a “straightedge”, but then I just thought, you know, I’m totally clean because I used things so much I had to stop or die, which is more badass than most of these smokers and drinkers can say.  I’m still badass.

CC: Has if affected your creativity?

SD: Not really.  Now, as before, I’ve not completed any major work that was at all worthwhile (laughs).  But I actually find myself writing a lot more, but the quality downgrades at the same rate as the volume of output, so in the end, I have the same amount of usable material.  I did have to postpone getting together with Duane (Miller) to work on an album we’ve been kicking around for a year now.  I found I wasn’t ready for collaborative work without a smoke yet.  I’m very comfortable writing at home in my own apartment in front of my computer, but the thought of kicking ideas around in Duane’s studio without a cigarette kind of terrified me.

CC: I was under the impression you’d been doing collaborative work with Rothman Hogar very recently?

SD: Well, yeah, but that’s all correspondence work.  Rothman (ed. note: Hogar is Dellinger’s frequent “best friend” and occasionally his “nemesis” artistically.  The two have a long, storied friendship which both are hesitant to talk about.) is currently a writer-in-residence at a university in Norway, and we’re collaborating on a screenplay via e-mail, so it’s still basically solo work because I’m alone while I’m doing it.

CC: Has Rothman’s absence changed the nature of the artistic life here in Carlisle?

SD: Only in the sense that a friend’s absence changes the dynamic of that group of friends.  Since Carlisle’s rise to prominence in the East Coast art scene, there’ve been plenty of personnel changes around here, but the core group remains the same and the general aesthetic remains the same.

CC: OK, now that we’re talking about it, take us back and tell us about the “rise of Carlisle”.  How did it happen?

SD: I’m sure you know that’s not the softball question it appears to be.  There are a few differing versions of how it happened.  Personally, my memory of the first national art media coverage was when Mary (Simpson) and I wrote and produced a play at the Cubiculo Theater here in town that built a slow media following: first the local papers, then the regionals, then the niche national publications, until finally it got a blurb mention in The Atlantic.

CC: That play was Conceited Eagle.

SD: Yep.  Eagle still largely pays my rent, too.  After it’s blurb in The Atlantic, a few regional theaters asked if they could put on a production of it.  Every year it circles a little further out.  This year they’re doing it in Fargo, Kennebunkport, and Denver.  It’ll never make me rich.  It doesn’t even pay the utilities.  Coneited Eagle exactly pays the rent, more or less.

CC: Do you harbor any hopes it will ever go “big time”?

SD: What, Broadway?  Yeah, it’ll probably make Broadway some day, and it’ll play for 18 shows and star someone unusual, like DMX.  I probably won’t like it.

CC: So what made Carlisle become a hotbed of artistic work, rather than this just being the unlikely story of an independently produced play?

SD: It’s almost impossible to say how these things happen.  There were just a lot of us in the right place at the right time.  Some folks interviewed Mary and I about the play a few times, and we mentioned a couple of friends we had–visual artists, musicians, writers, etc–and occasionally they went and interviewed those friends of ours, and people started getting into their stuff and interviewing them, and it was one big cycle.

CC: How famous do you think you can all get?  Could this become a cultural phenomenon?

SD: No way.  The Carlisle scene is bound to stay culty, for a couple reasons.  First, none of us are really pop artists.  I’m mainly poetry.  Rothman writes everything but it’s all very avante garde.  Mary’s a painter.  Jarly (Marlston) is a sculptor.  Duane plays space funk.  Tony (Magni) draws wads of meat.  I mean, c’mon.  The kids are never gonna flock here!

CC: Ryan (Straub) plays some fairly accessible singer-songwritery music.

SD: haha, true, but we’ve been trying to talk him out of it.

CC: How important is it for art to be accessible?

SD: That all depends how accessible you want it to be.  If you’re going for something you want everyone to understand and enjoy, and you end up making something daft, dense, or confusing, then I’d say you’ve certainly failed.  But it doesn’t have to be simple to be accessible.  Charlie Kaufman makes movies lots of people love, including myself.  They’re never going to make a hundred million dollars, but there are lots of fans.  I think it’s just about making what you set out to make, making it play on the level you wanted it to.

CC: Can you give me an example of a time you think that translation has failed?

SD: Sure.  I think Jonathan Franzen’s much beloved novel The Corrections is a failure in that vein.  He seems to want to be writing a really complex, codified novel like Pynchon, but he ends up writing it like a Grisham book.  It was an Oprah book back before Oprah started picking surprisingly good books.  It reads really strange because you can literally see Franzen trying to be dense but it comes off as populist.  It’s like beating off with a limp dick.

CC: So, back to the Carlisle movement: how important is the “group” aspect here?  Would any of you be successful without the group?

SD: We’re not the Beats, if that’s what you mean.  For the most part we participate in different mediums, we have different outlooks, are at very different spots in life.  Mostly, what we create does share a certain tone, a base idea of grit, or the grime of life, but we’re also not afraid to uplift.  You’d be hard pressed to find a photograph with more than three of us in it at any given moment.  I’d love to play up the idea of a group, or movement, because people love that story, but really it’s more like a loose group of friends who are all creative types.

CC: How many of you have been able to quit your jobs?

SD: Most.  But we quit our jobs with the trade-off of living uncomfortably.  We’re not rich.  We’re barely living off of what we do.  Remember, you’re interviewing me for Cold Clothes, not Rolling Stone! (chuckles)  A few of them still labor for their money.  Jarly still works (for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation).  There’s not a big market for original sculpture right now, but I always say, a decade from now, that guy’s gonna be so rich he won’t even remember where Carlisle is!

CC: OK, maybe we’ve got ahead of ourselves.  Let’s go back before Carlisle.  Tell me about growing up in Newville, a small town about 20 miles from here.

SD: Newville is a very idyllic, perfect little shithole of a town.  It was an ideal town for a boy to grow up in.

CC: haha…um, explain?

SD: It had that quintessential “small town” feeling, that sort of close-knit Thornton Wilder thing that makes you feel comfy and safe and free to ride your bike alone all over town at a very young age, but at the same time, it’s a shithole.  It had seen it’s best days.  It had abandoned factories, forgotten corners of the town where the streets quite literally had no name, drainage ditches full of standing water, back alleys with weeds growing through the pavement.  But despite all this, I never found anything sad about it.  My childhood eyes saw all this blight as a great story.  I loved thinking about Newville’s past, what it had been like as a boom town, what those men in tall hats from the black-and-white photographs would think if they could see it now.  It filled me with a deep sense of time very early in life.

CC: How did your family end up in Newville?

SD: Well my grandma and grandpa Cohick–that’s my mom’s side–lived in the area.  My mom grew up on their farm in Oakville, an even smaller town a little further out.  I suppose at some point in time they sold the farm and moved to Newville.  I know Gram worked for the dress factory in town that was shuttered right around the time I was born.  After my parents were married they must have moved to Newville to be closer to them, although I don’t know those details for sure.  Isn’t it strange the questions you never even think of asking your parents?  Dad’s family was from closer to the river (the Susquehanna), the Mechanicsburg, Wormleysburg-type area.  It’s odd to think about, because my parents are divorced now, and Mom left the area, but Dad still lives in Newville, a place he’s not actually from.  It’s weird how life moves you around.

CC: And here you are, living in Carlisle.

SD: Well yes, but there’s not really a difference between living in Carlisle and living in Newville, geographically.  It’s like the difference between living in Chelsea and living in Greenwich Village.  And I suppose there’s barely a difference between where my dad’s parents raised him and where he ended up.  It’s all south-central Pennsylvania.  But I think it’s just neat how life picks you up, moves you around, and sets you down.  Sometimes it’s a lot more dramatic than Mechanicsburg to Newville.

CC: Did you enjoy your childhood?

SD: Listen friend, if you didn’t enjoy your childhood, you weren’t trying.  I fucking loved it!  I mean, sure, there’s plenty of sadness in childhood.  In fact, about half the poems I wrote in 2004 were trying to figure out why childhood seems so sad.  My childhood certainly wasn’t more sad than anyone else’s–in fact, it was probably happier–but I think as children we just haven’t learned how to deal with the truths of the world yet, and we’re very tuned in to the way things feel.  The passage of time feels quite acute to a child.  Boredom feels very acute.  Unfairness, not getting what you want, not feeling loved at every moment–these things take a lot of years to get used to.  And thank goodness we do get used to them, thank goodness childhood doesn’t last forver, because until you get your emotions and reactions under control in the early teens, you’re essentially useless.  But anyway, despite and maybe because of this deep sense of feeling, childhood is an amazing, magical time.  It’s this same “blank slate” idea that makes us so emotionally sensitive which also makes the world an extraordinary place to a child.  “Puddle-wonderful”, as Cummings called it.  Try as I might in my adult life, I’ve never been able to acheive the kind of free-form imaginitive play I had as a kid.  And that’s the thing:  I do try. I mean, I live by myself, I don’t have a job, I’m single and no kids.  Some nights, when I’m home, there’s nothing to watch, I’m sick of the book I’m reading, and I don’t feel like writing.  I look around my apartment and think, I should play.  And why shouldn’t I?  There shouldn’t be anything wrong with a grown-up playing.  So I turn everything off, make my hands into guns, or my golf bag into a dragon, or any number of things, and I give it a go.  But it never works.  My hands become hands again way too quickly, and the golf bag always looks much too much like a golf bag, and I just end up putting on a Radiohead album and pretending I’m a rock star, which is play to an extent, but it’s totally useless grown-up play.  It’s more about commerce and culture and self-glorification than childhood play.  I always remember this essay I wrote in 12th Grade english class about childhood play, and how my teenage life was really missing my childhood play.  That essay is still one of my favorite things I’ve ever written, because in it, I described childhood play in such a luscious, compelling, chunky way.  I could never write about childhood play like that nowadays.  It’s like my 18-year-old self was still tenuously connected to my childhood self.  I still had a visceral notion of what it had been like.  Not so anymore.  Nope, nowadays remembering childhood is like watching a movie through a bedsheet.  I can’t imagine what it’s like when you get older still; it must be like that childhood happened to somebody else entirely.

CC: Were you a social child?

SD: Reluctantly.  Which is another way of saying “no”, I guess.  I was pretty much terrified of people I didn’t know.  In fact, I was more scared of kids I didn’t know than I was of strange adults.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I had friends, but it was a long process for me to feel comfortable with them.   I had much more fun playing by myself, controlling all the plot points and characters.  But most of it comes down to fear.  I was one of the most scared kids around.

CC: You were scared of other children?

SD: Absolutely.  In both the theoretical and the very concrete sense.  Theoretically, I was afraid no one was going to like me, that I wouldn’t be understood, that I’d be ridiculed.  Concretely, I was literally afraid other kids would end up beating the shit out of me.  I’m not sure if this just came from being a short kid or not, if maybe it came from somewhere deeper, but it wasn’t until perhaps the age of 14 that I stopped worrying everyone wanted to hurt me.  It had nothing to do with my home life: my parents were not violent or physical.  I got spanked a handful of times, very civilly, very by-the-book.  Sometimes I think I just got born with a “scared” gene, and it’s been the major story of my life, overcoming it.

CC: Did you get in many fights as a kid?

Dellinger, age approx. 2 years, admiring one of his grandfather's sweet potatoes.

SD: No.  One or two, really, though the one was very, very terrifying.  It was this kid Shawn Wilson.  He was one of the baddest ass kids in Newville.  Like, you did not fuck with Shawn Wilson, even at the age of seven.  And I was in this church yard one day, this church yard that was a few blocks from our house on Big Spring Avenue.  I used to go there to play all the time.  They had some swings, a really big lush lawn, and even a small topiary maze.  Of course now, as an adult, it looks like a shrub-lined walkway, but at six, seven, eight years old, it was a topiary maze.  I was there playing by myself, and Shawn Wilson shows up.  At first, he played with me, but then for some reason he pushed me to the ground, got on top of me, wouldn’t let me up.  Of course, I cried immediately, did a kid version of pleading with him, but my fear just fed his aggression.  So he got a bit sadistic on me.  He let me up, but he wouldn’t let me leave.  I’d try to walk toward my house, and he’d run in front of me, knock me down again.  It turned quite epic.  I remember, what seemed like hours into this ordeal, I managed to escape, finally getting onto the sidewalk, y’know, that sign of civilization, and having this immense feeling of relief wash over me.  I felt like I had barely survived with my life.  That’s a moment from my childhood I remember with precision clarity, that feeling.  It’s poignancy is not diminished because I was so young at the time.  I felt like my life had been spared.  That’s a heavy feeling for a kid.  I ran the two blocks home and breathlessly told my mother the story.  She was a substitute teacher at the time, so was often home during the day.  I breathlessly recounted my ordeal.  She was concerned, of course, and very motherly to me, but must have been unconvinced of the epic severity.  I remember wondering why she wasn’t calling the police and giving me some secret grown-up medicine and calling the local news.  And the few times I’ve recounted this story to people over the years, I’ve gotten the same reaction. You see, you can’t ever actually make someone feel how you felt.  It is important to remember this when making art, too.  You can only get them really, really close, and then only if they’ve felt something similar before as well.  I will always be disappointed by anyone’s reception of this story, because I still get worked up thinking about it, over twenty years later.  I probably shouldn’t tell it anymore.  Oh, and Shawn Wilson?  He’s dead now.  A few years back, car accident.

CC: So now you’re the only one who remembers.

SD: Yep.  I’m the only person with the memory of that childhood fight.  And I like it that way.  Shawn Wilson may have grown up to be a different sort of man than the evil bastard who held me hostage in that church parking lot, but I’m still happy to not share anything with him, not even a memory.

CC: What else were you scared of as a kid?

SD: Just about everything.  I was scared of moving things, very much.  Motorcycles, horses, trains, amusements park rides.  I still won’t ride amusement park rides or horses.  I still haven’t conquered everything!  But yeah, fast things.  Bugs, snakes, the sky, night time.  Death was a big one.  I thought about death a lot.  My grandparents.  Rain.  You name it.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t unable to leave the house, or quivering like an idiot any time I was in public.  I’m sure there are plenty of people who had as fearful childhoods as I did.  I learned how to act through most of it.  Sure, I was still scared shitless when our parents would take my sister and I to, say, the Newville Fair, but I gradually learned how to hide it.  Well, hide it the best I could.  It was still no secret to those around me that I was mostly terrified.  But the acting is a skill I’ve really refined in my adult life.  While the fear is mostly gone from me, I now use it to disguise foul moods, sadness, worry.  I could be afraid I’m dying and hide it from everybody for a long period.

CC: Were you creative as a child?

SD: Sure.  But I never had one of those big moments you hear a lot of people talk about.  You know, I knew the moment I opened “Where the Sidewalk Ends” that I was going to be a writer or My parents rented “E.T.” and I knew in the first ten minutes I was going to be a film director. No, I never saw art that compartmentalized, and I still don’t, or at least, I try not to.  As a kid, I just knew I liked things that used that creative part of the brain, that idea that you can laugh or cry or sweat because of things that aren’t really there, or aren’t actually happening.  I was always drawn to that, and to the depth of emotion you can allow yourself to feel at these things.  I was always amazed by those depths.  Also, I remember losing my breath a little bit the first time I saw those little lights along the aisle floors in a movie theater.  That looked like real-world magic to me.

The Seth Dellinger interview from Cold Clothes will be continued!

Seth Reacts to the Emmys

The Emmys were last night, and though I didn’t get to watch them and I don’t watch most of the major winners, but a few of my horses were in the race, and thought I’d just bounce some feelings off my blog here:

“30 Rock” is still deserving of the Comedy Series win, but I can’t wait until “How I Met Your Mother” starts getting some golden statues.  It’s the best 3-camera sitcom in a decade.

Three of my favorite shows were nom’d for drama–“Lost”, “Big Love”, and “Dexter”, as well as one of Mary’s favorite shows, “Damages”, only to be trumped once again by “Mad Men”.  I think this just means I should probably watch “Mad Men”.

Huzzah for “Grey Garden”‘s two wins!  This made-for-television movie was outstanding and I would probably be on a plane to somewhere to hurt someone if it hadn’t been recognized.  However–and this is a big however–FUCK them Emmy voters for giving the acting statue to Jessica Lange instead of Drew Barrymore.  Barrymore had a much harder job in “Grey Gardens” and actually did her job better than Lange.  Guess people still want to go with the safe vote.

It would have been nice to see Jim Parsons win for “The Big Bang Theory”.  Alec Baldwin has won enough shit in his lifetime.

Call me crazy, but I still root for Julia Louis-Dreyfus every time I’m able, and not just because of Seinfeld.  Have you seen “The New Adventures of Old Christine”?  It’s a good show!!  And has anyone ever even seen this “Untied States of Tara” show that Toni Collette won for?

Fuck the Lead Actress in a Drama category entirely, since not a single of the amazing women from “Lost” were even nominated.

JON CRYER wins for “Two and a Half Men”, are you fuckign kidding me?????!! EVERYONE knows that show is an unfunny piece of douche written for the lowest common denominator (and acted that way, too).  And Cryer wins over Neil Patrick Harris from “How I Met Your Mother”, two worthy “30 Rock”ers, and Rainn Wilson from “The Office”????  Poo-poo!

Michael Emerson wins for “Lost”!!!!!  Thank goodness someone’s still paying attention to how good this show is!  And especially Emerson–it’s nice to see the exact actor who deserved it more than the rest to actually get it.

The Supporting Actress in a Drama Series:  I only watch one of the shows nominated, and it won, and it was “24”, the show that awards have forgotten!  Yay for Cherry Jones, who just does a passable job of playing the nation’s first female president on the show, but I’m thrilled she won anyway!

I wish Jeanne Tripplehorn would have won her supporting statue for “Grey Gardens”, even though she’s barely in it, but you know she’s never going to nominated for “Big Love”!  However, Shohreh Aghdashloo did win it for some movie I’ve never heard of, but she used to be in “24”, so it’s all good!

Of all years, how did “Saturday Night Live” not win the variety category this year?  I love Jon Stewart as much as anyone else, but c’mon!  SNL was swingin’ this year!!  They influenced public thought more than any other non-news show, in my opinion.

“Intervention” wins over “Mythbusters” and “Antiques Road Show”=just plainly ridiculous.

Blogging the Night Away

Last night, my friend Kyle got drunk on rum, watched movies, and fucked around on the internet, blogging his thoughts on what he was seeing/doing.  It looked like marvelous self-indulgent fun, so of course I’m doing it now! (except I’ll be drinking generic diet Dr. Pepper and various coffee products instead of rum!)

Tonight is a “Seth-time” night–I shut out the outside world and treat my apartment and everything in it like an amusement park.  It’s not very often I get to fully enjoy all this crap I’ve got in here!  Most of you will not be the least bit interested by this blog post, so I apologize in advance, but it’s gonna be fun for me, so take a flying leap!  Also, I’ll be editing it throughout the night and adding to it, so check back!

7:30pm: I’m halfway through “Citizen Ruth”, the first movie by Alexander Payne (of “Election”, “About Schmidt” and “Sideways” fame).  Kyle himself chose this movie for me by randomly picking a number (237) and then I counted to that number in my personal DVD collection.  “Citizen Ruth” is a dark comedy about the hilarious issues of abortion, addiction, the religious right, and moral certitude.  I know, hilarious, right?!  But it IS, somehow, and also very, very issue oriented.  I haven’t watched it for probably a year, and am now reminded of why I bought it.  As a rule, I very much dislike Laura Dern (what with her association with David Lynch), but in “Citizen Ruth”, Dern does an AMAZING job portraying this very tortured woman (she’s addicted to huffing paint) who’s had 4 kids taken from her and is being pressured to abort her current fetus, when she becomes a national poster woman for anti-abortion…and then the poster woman for choice…and back and forth and back and forth, all the while Dern continues to skirt the line between intense emotion and light-heartedness…as much as I dislike her, she deserved an Oscar nom for this.

Here’s a scene from the movie that perfectly illustrates how it is played both tragic and comic simultaneously:

7:45pm: Cracking open the first Diet Dr. Thunder (wal-mart brand) of the night.  I really do love this shit.  I don’t buy it for economic reasons.  I actually prefer it to the real deal now.  I have cans tonight, but I usually have 2 liters.  Wal-Mart was actually OUT of the 2 liters last night!

7:47pm: Ruth Stoops (Laura Dern) who is about to enter an abortion clinic but is waiting for some protesters to leave, just said “I wish I could take a dump.”

8:02pm: Just took the trash out.  Why do I always insist in doing this in just my socks, when I know full well that the stone parking lot hurts my feet?  I’ve always had very sensitive feet.

8:04pm: Just cracked open the newest Time magazine.  What is this stuff about New Jersey residents protesting Gaddafi?  This seems weird.  I’m gonna get to the bottom of this.

8:07pm: The anti-abortion woman who is attempting to win Ruth to their position just accused Ruth of being addicted to “smelling drugs”.

8:12pm: Perusing the latest TV Guide (that’s right, I get TV Guide) to see if I want to put on the TV or another movie after “Citizen Ruth” is over.  PBS’s History Detectives is looking pretty good.  Anyone ever seen that show?  It’s sooooooo intriguing!  But that is really the only thing coming on a 9:00 that seems worth my time.

8:14pm: Oh man!!!  Burt Reynolds makes his hilarious entry into “Citizen Ruth”!  Gotta love this character!

8:35pm: Just read about this curious phenomenon in Time:  Putpockets.

8:36pm: Flirting on Facebook.

8:54pm: Eating a can of Hormel chili.  Interesting story about me and chili:  about 2 years ago, my friend Mary and I were eating at the restaurant Chili’s.  I was very, very hungry, and was talking about having an appetizer of some kind, at which point Mary says I might as well have some chili, since I always eat chili.  I was astounded!  Sure, I’ve eaten chili in my life, but I’ve never been a chili “fan”, or, as far as I can remember, ever eaten chili in front of Mary before that moment.  I protested, but she insisted that I always ate chili.  Well, wouldn’t you know it, almost immediately after that night, I DID become a big fan of chili, and now I usually have one or two cans in my apartment at all times.  This, of course, always looks to Mary as though she were right all along!  I can in no way convince her that I was not a chili fan before that night!  Also: on my second can of Diet Dr. Thunder.

9:00pm: I’ve opted to watch History Detectives.

9:13pm: That chili was delish!!  And this episode of History Detectives is boring!  (enough WWII already, History Detectives!).  I’m going to step out of the apartment briefly to take some pictures of Carlisle at night.

10:00pm: Back from taking pictures.  Didn’t get a lot of good shots, but I should have: it’s “big trash day”, when people can put couches and refrigerators and all kinds of big stuff out on the sidewalk to be taken away.  However, my limited-ability camera made capturing anything great very difficult.  here are my favorites:

10:16pm: It is apparently impossible to not have these words snake around the pictures.  No matter how hard I try, they won’t simply appear BELOW the pictures.  Consider that my rant for the evening.  Now:  I’m well aware of how this sounds, but I’m now going to put on my vinyl copy of Godspeed You Black Emperor’s album Yanqui U.X.O., light some incense, and read some poetry.  This is going to rule.  Looks like the poet of the night is…Robert Creeley, who rules. Also, when the song “Motherfucker=Redeemer” plays, I am going to play air guitar on a golf club (which I guess is actually golf club guitar) during the 10-minute crescendo.

10:27pm: Texting Joni, who just sprained her wrist.

10:34pm: Internet and cable TV go down, not changing my plans at all, but preventing me from keeping you all updated for a second!

10:44pm: Play air guitar on a golf club, as promised, during the crescendo to “Motherfucker=Redeemer”.  If you have a spare 20 minutes and some patience, you can listen to the song here.  But that is only part one of the song.

11:25pm: Am astounded by one of these Creeley poems I must have always missed:

The Answer
by Robert Creeley

Will we speak to each other
making the grass bend as if
a wind were before us, will our

way be graceful, as
substantial as the movement
of something moving so gently.

We break things in pieces like
walls we break ourselves into
hearing them fall just to hear it.

11:33pm: Making a marshamallow latte.  There’s no actual marshmallows involved; I have marshmallow Torani syrup.  It’s just like a caramel latte except it tastes like marshmallow.  It’s fantastic!  And it sucks typing marshmallow that many times!  Also, smoking another one of these cigars I bought for the birth of Paul’s daughter…uh-oh.  Am I starting to like cigars?

11:48pm: Texting Sarah about music, and still texting Joni, but now about waffles.  Putting Radiohead’s Kid A on the turntable.  This is one of my only vinyls where I can notice the difference in sound quality on the vinyl.

Midnight: Holy shit, “National Anthem” on Kid A is making me move!  Currently dancing around my living room, singing into a golf club…keep moving the needle back again and again…this song has got me stuck in it’s groove!

12:20am: I’ve made a commitment to essentially stage a fake concert here in my living room to the entire Kid A album.  I’m getting sweaty and this latte isn’t helping!  “Idioteque” is blowing my mind and it’s getting difficult to not make the record skip!

12:54: Marshmallow latte #2.  I might not go to bed tonight.  Been awhile since I saw a sunrise…hmmmm…???  I’m gonna let Pandora radio play my Post-Rock station and read some of the Stephen King book I started today, Lisey’s Story.

1:10am: I’ve tried starting this King book a few times now over the last six months, and I just cannot get into it.  Is it, perhaps, that this is the one millionth book King has written about a writer?  This is feeling a bit worn to me.  Plus, the last King book I read before this one, Duma Key (which was about a PAINTER!) felt exactly like this book at the beginning; it seems I’m reading the same book twice–and Duma Key was barely scary at all!  I’m afraid to let myself spend that long (these are loooooong books) on a non-scary, mediocre book again.  But I shall try.  Back to the book!

1:35am: Am totally ambushed by a MySpace Instant Message (that’s right, I was on MySpace!) by one of my friends who insists they have a hilarious YouTube video to show me.  I relent, and they are right, it is hilarious!  See for yourself:

1:38am: E-mailing back and forth with Joni trying to decide on what her new hairstyle will be…I vote for number 1 or number 4.  I think number 1 will be especially amazing on her…it fits her face perfectly.  Do you think I can utilize every single one of my existing blog tags in this single entry?  Probably not, but the tags are getting ridiculous!

1:45am: I just gave Kyle and opportunity to select my next movie for me through the random number system again, but he dropped the ball and signed off Facebook, and Mary jumped at the chance.  She chose number 267 (weird, since earlier Kyle chose 237), and that movie is “Dragonslayer”!  Badass.  This is an old-school movie about…well…killing dragons, back when special effects were still mainly stop-motion and models.  But that doesn’t take away from this movie at all.  It is still VERY creepy in places.  This is another one I haven’t seen in a long time.  Makes me remember my childhood.  For some reason it seems I watched this alot when I was little.  I remember it influencing my “play”…it really sparked my imagination!

1:54am: Bowl of Boo Berry cereal and a diet Dr. Thunder.

2:13am: Between Mary and Kyle, I am having my ass Facebooked off!  Also wondering whatever happened to Peter MacNicol’s film career?  He’s the bomb in “Dragonslayer”, and then he was in…”Sophie’s Choice”, I believe?…I suppose he’s had some success in TV though.  Oh man, MacNicol is entering the dragon’s cave for the first time…this is so tense!

2:50am: Oh man I forgot about this little monster that jumps out of the hole in the cave!  It scared the crap out of me!  It’s a fierce baby dragon!

2:55am: All the lights out and some incense going for the big fight scene.  I might pee my pants!

3:02am: OMG there’s that fucking dragon.  That fucking dragon is popping up right behind Peter MacNicol…you can see it’s reflection in the pool of water.  Now you can see the steam from it’s breath!  This dragon ain’t nothing to fuck with!

3:23am: So ends “Dragonslayer”…so glad Mary picked that one!  And it seems that now just about everyone is asleep…and yet I am wide awake, perhaps owing to my marshmallow lattes.  I’m going to go cut my hair.

3:37am: Mid-cut:

3:45am: Haircut complete.  That’s right, I can give myself a haircut in under ten minutes!  Finished haircut:

Yes, it's true, I look like ass here. I blame it on my overhead flourescent light.

3:55am: Next up, I’m going to rock out a little bit more…I had so much fun earlier jumping around my living room!  This time, it’s gonna be Modest Mouse’s We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. Then after that, it’s been decided (by Kyle again, by random number) that I’ll be watching the film “Matchstick Men.”  OK…let the Modest Mouse begin!

4:32am: Nobody can sing like Isaac Brock, lead singer of Modest Mouse.  Now, I’m not saying he’s a good singer–far from it.  In fact, most of the time, he barely sings at all.  It’s more a an in-key snarl.  But nobody else does it. Alot of the time, he actually laughs the words.  he laugh-sings words!  WTF?  It’s amazing and crazy.  Totally sweaty from jumping around my living room pretending to be Isaac Brock.

4:44am: I have elected to skip “Matchstick Men”, as “Needful Things” is on Starz, and I’ve not seen it before.  Also, I have elected to watch this movie while laying down in an attempt to sleep eventually, even though I am not tired yet, and I don’t have to be up for anything tomorrow, now seems as good a time as any to hit the reset button, although I’ll probably become engrossed in the movie and be up until 6 anyway.  I hope somebody out there got some form of entertainment out of the endless blog.  Good night.

Are We All Big Brother?

A few days ago, I quite accidentally, and with no little surprise, saw myself on YouTube.  I was wasting a few minutes before bed by looking up video of concerts I had been to, because watching video from a show you were at is both very fun, and very surreal.  I looked up footage from the Presidents of the United States of America show I attended a few months back, in Lancaster, with my friend Mary.  We had been in the front row, so the last thing I expected to see was us.  Well. lo and behold, the only video from that show was taken from behind the stage, and Mary and I are quite visible up front.  Here is the video.  Mary and I are pretty much directly in front of the lead singer, Chris Balew.  She’s the one with the blonde hair, pulled up, wearing a blue semi-V-neck top.  I’m next to her, quite obviously unimpressed with the show.

The shock of seeing this got me to thinking: how many places was I visible on the internet, without even knowing about it?

This is a more difficult search to undertake than you think.  I started with concerts and events, as it is a specific place and time which can be pinpointed and searched for, and where video and photographs were almost certianly being taken.  However, my penchant for being in the front row disqualifies me for most YouTube concert videos, which are normally taken by people behind the front row, focusing on the act.  The Presidents show was quite a fluke.

However, I did hit minor pay dirt when searching for images from the recent Explosions in the Sky concert Mary and I attended in Central Park.  Here is a picture from a website called Brooklyn Vegan.  Mary can be seen on the far right of the photograph; she’s out of focus, but it’s definitely her.  I was to her left, so I’m not in the picture, although you can see my white t-shirt and half of my head.

What is amazing is, if you go to the full article on Brooklyn Vegan, which is here, and page down and look at all the photos there, you’ll see it’s kinda amazing that Mary and I are not visible in a clear-as-day, professional photograph on that website.  There are photos of just about everyone in the front row except for us.  And how many of those people know their pictures are there?   Sure, this has always happened, to an extent, with background photos in newspapers and other print media, but with the explosion of content which is the internet, it must be happening alot more often, and people probably know about it alot less.

I found one more image of myself (and once again, Mary) during my admittedly short-lived search. Here is a photo collage of Constantines, who were the opening band for Explosions in the Sky.  Mary and I can first be seen in the fifth photo.  I am the last front-row spectator able to be seen before the rest are obscured by a keyboard; I’m wearing a white t-shirt.  Mary can be seen to my right, once again recognizable by her blonde hair.  Once you’ve gotten a bearing for where we are, we can be seen a handful of more times throughout the collage.

Now, these are, of course, small, almost unnoticable examples.  If I had shown you that Constantines video collage, you would not have known I was there.  But, where else am I on the internet that I’m not thinking to look?  Was someone taking pictures at the Newville Fountain Festival last month–the small-town, blip-on-the-radar event that the world doesn’t care about?  Maybe they were, and maybe my face is emblazoned on some website of an artist who specializes in photographs of small town celebrations.  Or someone just taking pictures on the street.  Or maybe someone was taking pictures of airport departures the last time I got off an airplane.  And there are almost certainly more of me at concerts; I got exhausted looking after only half an hour, and there’s a whole lotta internet out there.

The question is, do I care?  Or should I care? And should you care?

I have no idea.  What do you think?

Whatever There Is

Wake up at 8.  Drive for hours.  Sunny.  XM Radio and Red Bull, menthol cigarettes.  Her, black and blue sheer pants, hair up, speaking over the wind from the windows.  Park in New Jersey, train into Manhattan.  That rushing air from nowhere in the tunnels.  Panhandlers.  Pretty girls. Men in suits.  The East Village.  Coconut Milk bubble tea.  Slow shadows over the pavement.  Spotty cell reception.  I sweat into my t-shirt, a drop falls off my nose.  Subway.  Suddenly air-conditioned.  Uptown Manhattan.  The horns, the bustle.  Central Park.  A Pepsi from a street vendor; her, a Snapple.  Find Summerstage but walk past, searching for a bathroom.  Fountains.  Statues.  Rickshaws.  Horses.  I sweat into my t-shirt, a drop falls off my nose.  Use a bathroom by a tunnel.  Take pictures.  Only one of her–all she’ll allow.  Back toward Summerstage.  Place ourselves in long line, in a cattle chute.  Sun hides.  A bowling ball in the sky.   A flash.  The sky opens, a thunderstorm.  Us, no umbrella, no cover.  At first, this is refreshing.  I like rain; I am not scared of water.  Over time, however, this philosophy changes.  T-shirt and corduroy pants, soaked through like a sunk washcloth.  Shoes, filled with water.  Not just squishing: filled.  Wet is everywhere.  Her pants body-clung, hair disarray.  I like it though she doesn’t believe me.  Line moves, we enter Summerstage.  Rain constant. Astroturf flooring like a thin full sponge.  Somehow we find front row, stage right.  Sheets of water, mini-Niagras, cascade off the roof of the stage, make puddle-pits five feet in front of us.  We cannot speak through the rain.  People dressed in black fill in behind us.  We are allowed to smoke but it is hard.  A security guard gives her a free cup of coffee when he sees her shivering, goosebumps.  I am happy for her but I am cold too.  An hour passes.  A smartly-dressed, attractive hipster twentysomething brunette walks onto stage, takes a microphone.  “Rain or Shine!”, she yells.  Crowd cheers.  But I do not cheer.  First opening act–Castanets–comes out to play.  Horrible. Not even music.  We consider leaving once or twice.  Actually angry at this band.  Torrential rain plus terrible music. We stay.  Castanets finishes.  Rain stops.  Solitary patch of clear blue sky.  Second opening band–Constantines–plays. My ears and eventually my heart likes them very much.  Big pumping rises.  Low heartfelt falls.  Authentic.  On their last song, sun peeks out, catching on leaves behind the stage like hints of a Promised Land.  Cheesy to say but that’s how it felt.  Clothes still soaked, feet miserable, but happy now.  I don’t smoke weed but I smell someone else smoking it and it makes me glad.  Annoying but endearing security guard (of the free coffee fame) chats us up, insists Pennsylvania is six hours from New York.  Explosions in the Sky come out.  It is dusk.  The sky is blue, clear, tiny islands of white clouds drifting over the blue.  “Yasmin the Light” opens the show.  The rising chords.  The flurried hand movements over shiny guitars.  The booming, March Militaire thwack of the drums.  And then into another song, and then into another song, rarely pausing between, a constant rise and fall, an uplift, a pull-back, a wordless sentiment perfectly stated.  Whatever there is within me stirs (I hadn’t noticed how long it’d been stilled)–whatever it is connected to reaches out.  I heave, I shudder, I leak by the light of it’s touch.  What a relief to feel it still move, to upturn my streambed rocks, to get a crawfish to rise, to see it sparkle in the light of my clear-blue day.

Presidents of the United States of America concert/ Centralia

Oh geez.  I’ve had a long but very nice two days!  I’m exhausted so I’ll just be able to give the bare details:

Yesterday I had to work dayshift, so I had to do the usual 3am wake-up.  Worked until 3:30, managed to get to Mary’s (way out in the middle of Perry County) and then to Lancaster (if you’re from PA and you take into account I work in York and live in Carlisle, you’ll know what kind of odyssey I’m talking about).  We were in Lancaster for a show by the band Presidents of the United States of America (90s band famous for the songs “Lump” and “Peaches”).  We arrived what I thought was an hour before doors opened–but ti turned out doors didn’t open until 8 o’clock, whereas I was under the impression it was 7.  Oh well.  It was a very nice night out and we had a fine time just hanging out on the sidewalk there in Lancaster outside the Chameleon Club.  When we finally got in, we managed to grab front row spots, which at this point in my concert-going career, I all-but demand.

Long story short:  there were two opening bands.  The first, a local band called Slimfit, are telented musicians who wrote songs I don’t particularly care for and have a lot of work to do on their stage presence.  Nonetheless, the last 2 songs they played had very satisfying instrumental cresendoes that rocked me the fuck out, despite their obviously rehearsed and silly on-stage antics.

The second opener, Oppenheimer, was nothing short of amazing.  They’re a two-peice from Ireland who somehow manage to actually play the drums, two keyboards, and a guitar.  Their songs are intense, creative, and quirky without being worthless.  Also they gave a shout-out to Twin Peaks and used an air horn.  Check them out:  http://www.myspace.com/oppenheimer

Then the Presidents came out.  Now, I like this band, but I am not passionate about them.  I really, really liked their first album back in the day when I was first getting into rock music, and I think that (self-titled) album is still pretty dang good.  But the subsequent albums have been very hit-or-miss for me.  So I’d be lying if I said I was overly-enthused for the entire show; at times it wavered toward boredom for me (but damn if that crowd wasn’t banana sandwich for that band!  There’s a lot more hardcore Presidents fans than I’d have imagined!); that being said, there were parts of the show that made me damn-near giddy.  The setlist:

Main Set:

Lunatic to Love
Kitty
Volcano
Dune Buggy
Ladybug
Boll Weevil
Back Porch
Lump
Bad Times
Tiki God
Flame Is Fire
Nuthin’ But Love
Mixed Up Sonofabitch
Shreds of Boa
Ghosts Are Everywhere
Mach 5
Peaches
Kick Out the Jams

Encore:

Video Killed the Radio Star
Body
We’re Not Gonna Make It

“Kitty” as the second song waskiller.  Lots of improv, audience participation, very energetic.  Also, one of my fave PUSA tunes (PUSA being the preferred acronym for the band, despite it’s vague sexual undertone).

“Boll Weevil” is a song I’ve always been indifferent about but it owns in the live setting.

“Back Porch” was astonishing.  The arrangement was very different from the studio version, very extended.  About 8 minutes long (I checked my cell phone’s clock).  It was at this point that Chris Ballew (lead singer) first stepped onto the metal barrier right in front of me.  I have never seen this happen before.  Frankly, it was very dangerous, but very cool. The dude was not standing on the stage, he was standing on top of the metal barrier.  Directly in front of me, as I was stage center-right, which is Chris’ side. He leaned out over the audience and was actually hovering over me.  He repeated this feat a few more times throughout the show.

“Lump” ruled as much as you would think it would.

Apparently the songs between “Bad Times” and “Mixed Up Sonofabitch” were extreme rarities that we were all very fortunate to see, but I had never heard them in my life, and I thought they were “OK”.

“Ghosts are Everywhere” is the only song off the new album that I’m really into, and I was very pleased to see it live.

“Peaches” was spectacular.  Heavier than studio, and once again a very extended version.  Chris on the metal rail again (I have a picture of him over top of me during ‘Peaches’ on both my MySpace and Facebook accounts.)  Loved it.

“Kick Out the Jams”=perfect main set closer.  Actually, it should have been the show ender.

“Video Killed the Radio Star” is an unnecessary cover.  Sounded just like the original and didn’t have that “PUSA” sound.  A curiosity, at best.

“We’re Not Gonna Make It” is a rockin’ tune live, but should have been switched in position with “Kick Out the Jams”.

On the way out, I got a great Presidents show poster signed by all members of the band, for ten dollars.

Since Mary and I parked a few blocks away from the Chameleon Club, we drove away without hitting any traffic.  Stopped at a Sheetz for delicious food.  I had her home around 1am, and I got home around 1:30.  After shower and unwinding, I got to be around 3am–24 hours after waking up (an event that happens much too often to this 31-year-old).

My alarm went off 4 hours later at 7am.  My friend Amanda and I were going to Centralia today and needed an early start to make the most of this beautiful Sunday.  If you don’t know what Centralia is, may I suggest this informative primer before you continue with this blog entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania

I’ve been meaning to go to Centralia for a long time, but it just hadn’t been working out.  Finally, I was able to go.  Long story short:  what none of the literature tells you is that on hot, dry days, there is almost no smoke or steam visible from the ground (although apparently the stench of sulphur never leaves the air).  The most surprising thing about the town is your ability to drive right past it without noticing.  After all the hoopla built up around it, you almost expect a hazy spectre to hang over the place, or some palpable pall of mystery.  The fact is,  it’s very much a normal-looking place until you realize all the open spaceyou’re seeing are vacant lots where houses once stood.  Again, this experience may have been different if the usual smoke had been coming out of the ground.  However, once Amanda and I were able to find the closed section of highway, things got much more interesting. Vacant highway+dying woods+lots of graffiti+smoking chasm in the highway+strange trash strewn about=cool and freaky.  Very eerie.  See my MySpace or Facebook pics.  Also, we explored many side roads and dirt roads and back paths that actually contained the true eerieness of Centralia.  Trash strewn everywhere, sulfur stench, utter silence, dirt roads leading nowhere, the occasional fellow wandering curiosity-seeker who also had no idea what the hell was going on, and just plain odd things (see my pic of the wig in a tree) and one could finally start to see how this place inspired the video game and (surpringly half-good film) Silent Hill.

I am really fucking exhausted and very sunburned.