The Power Of My Proven System

The Animals

2007-03-01T15:14:00.000-08:00

They pulled a 1000 lb. squid out of a New Zealand sea last week, the largest ever caught. I guess that's good news, maybe, if you're a researcher or a sperm whale or a deep sea diver. But I don't think it's ultimately going to help anyone given where matters are headed. Close observers of the media may have noted a worrying trend last week. Just as many of us working in the humiliating ghetto of 'fringe science' have long predicted, animals are making now moving aggresively against mankind and with a will to total power. Consider the unfolding in rapid succession of the following events:

1)Chimps are now hunting with spears. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6387611.stm

2)Rats are officially running most of the fast food restaraunts in town.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,254026,00.html

And finally, the squid. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070222/ap_on_fe_st/new_zealand_colossal_squid_4

You don't exactly have to be Wooodward and Bernstein to follow this harrowing trail of secrets and lies, people. This is not a drill. We are officially under assault by a consortioum of devious and lethal wildlife and very shortly will be enslaved property of bears, cougars and penguins.

And honestly, what do I care? I can ring my hands like Cassandra and no one is going to rise up to combat this threat. And really, how's it gonna be so much worse when the hogs take over? Let them do their worst. I have other matters to attend to.

Life Is Difficult Enough: A Prosecution

2006-08-09T20:47:00.000-07:00

Life is difficult enough without that can of Natural Light you left in your gym bag exploding. But nature is a cold and apathetic place. You should have known better. You should have known if you left that can in there too long, what given this heat and the weight of your jogging shoes, and your walkman, and your CDs (when will you get an I-Pod, creep?)that sooner or later the jig was going to be up. And then what? Then you've got two inches of stale beer soaking in the bottom of your gym bag. As for the fate of the other contents in your bag, I don't know what to say. Did you leave your gray dress slacks in that bag? Well did you?

You want absolution. You want to be forgiven. Your explanation, as I understand it, goes something like: you forgot you left that can of Natural Light in your bag. It was days ago you put it in there. It just escaped your mind. Very well, lets operate on the premise that all of this is true. Do you really believe that this answers all of the relevant questions raised by this event? Is it actually your stance that forgetfulness is the only important issue here?

A brief change of subject. Pardon the digression. Did you get ketchup on the bed the other night? Yes, on the bed. Don't play dumb, you know the night I'm referring to. You were having a sandwich weren't you? And then you were preparing to lie down, when from across the room you observed an expression of ashen horror on the face of your significant other. And that person said, sounding not cross but shaken: "Why is there ketchup on the bed?" And at that very instant you knew, with accumulating dread, that you were the responsible party.

But did you take responsibility? Most curiously you did not. What was the tone of voice you employed as you unpersuasively feigned amazement: "Oh my God, how did that get there?" And your significant other just sat shaking her head, unwilling to embarrass you further, although that is what you plainly deserved.

But back to the gym bag. It was, you say, a freak accident. And indeed by any typical standard it would certainly seem to be an abnormal occurence. But, then let us get down to brass tacks, shall we? There is something loaded about the turn of phrase "freak accident", is there not? This would seem to imply, I think it can be fairly judged, that you have never had a can of beer explode in your bag before. Or certainly not recently. Definately not twice more in the past six months.

But you have put beer cans in your bag before, haven't you? And those cans have exploded too, didn't they?

I can see from your knitted brow and desperate darting eyes that you are now wondering: "What is my crime? What ill have I caused society? How is it that I have torn at the fabric of the public trust?!"

It seems, in your anxiety, that you have mistaken me for some kind of advocate of a state or municipal court, as someone who prosecutes you now in an official capacity with some kind of insitutional notion of "justice" in mind. But nothing could be further from the truth. I am not interested in sanctions or punishments or retribution for your misdeeds, if you are in fact capable of viewing them as such. I am simply saying: life is hard enough.

New Column/Quartey vs. Forrest on HBO

2006-08-04T09:14:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys, I'm excited to announce the expansion of the Proven System brand (imperious, Napoleonic entity that it is, certain to roll into the Russian wilderness come wintertime next year) to the pages of the L Magazine website beginning next week. There is a brief preview of what to expect on line there now (www.thelmagazine.com) although I guess you guys already know what to expect, having read all of my jokes countless times by now.

In addition, here are some remarks on Saturday night's sterling matchup on HBO between Ike Quartey and Vernon Forrest, two of my favorites:

Saturday 8/5
Madison Square Garden
Ike Quartey (37-2-1, 31 KOs) vs. Vernon Forrest (37-2, 28 KOs)
Television: HBO 10 P.M.

The story lines are bountiful in this intriguing, matchup of stalwart junior middleweight veterans at the Garden. Although Forrest and Quartey have long flown under the radar with respect to the mainstream sporting public, both are well known and respected commodities amongst boxing congniscenti who have witness the two of them engage in some of the most entertaining and significant welterweight confrontations of the past several years.

Former WBA welterweight king Ike 'Bazooka' Quartey remains a virtual unknown in this country, a stark contrast to his native Ghana, where as the youngest of 27 children he ascended to heroic status by winning the title in 1994 and successfully defending it seven times. He remains a veritable dignitary in his home country and is the finest Ghanian to emerge since the legendary featherweight and junior featherweight champ of the 80's and early 90's Azumah Nelson. Possessing a punishing jab and entertaining, aggressive style Quartey's popularity at home is well deserved, his lack of notoriety elsewhere a decided shame.

Quartey is probably best known in the first world for his splendid 1999 battle with a prime Oscar De La Hoya, a disputed, razor thin decision loss in which both competitors exchanged knockdowns and many thought that it was the Ghanian who deserved the decision over the then prime Golden Boy. He followed up this disappointment with a career worst performance in a decision loss to Fernando Vargas and then hung up the gloves for five years, generating the assumption of his having retired for good. But Quartey surprised observers last year, returning with a headlong back into the division elite in 2005 with convincing wins over contenders Verno Phillips and Carols Bojorquez. Will the Bazooka's late career flourish see him finally realize the popularity and earning potential he has long deserved and? That matter will largely be decided on Saturday.

Forrest has, throughout the course of his twelve year career been an enigma of a different sort. Once a decorated amateur, the gifted, smooth boxing tactician gained an only partially deserved reputation early in his career for dispassionate reserve in the ring. Though by no means short on power (as evidenced by 28 knockouts in 37 wins) the soft spoken "Viper” was nevertheless frequently criticized for his failure to prosecute fights in a crowd pleasing fashion and accused of performing down to the level of his competition. All such perceptions were dramatically altered in 2002 when he stunned the then consensus pound for pound best fighter in the world Shane Mosley, drubbing "Sugar" Shane en route to a one sided decision, lifting his WBC 147 pound title in process. When Forrest repeated the feat several months later in nearly as easy a fashion, he was awarded Ring Magazine's “Fighter Of The Year” honors and appeared headed for a long run in amongst the sport's most highly compensated and celebrated elite.

However another unexpected shift in fortune lay in wait. The new champions's stay at the top of the mountain came to an abrupt end in his second defense, when hot headed Nicaraguan lunatic Ricardo Mayorga destroyed Forrest via third round knock, a shocking and brutal defeat that left ling time observers scratching their heads. Forrest then lost a close call in the return, and has since battled back with a couple of routine wins over lightly regarded journey men, thus setting the stage for Saturday night's crossroads encounter.

The stakes could scarcely be higher for these two noble combatants. The winner rapidly elevates himself into the high dollar sweepstakes which is comprised of boxing's best known box office draws: De La Hoya, Mosley, "Winky" Wright and Floyd Mayweather Jr. The loser is likely looking at a protracted downward trajectory. The match up feels like a veritable coin flip with age and other variables potentially coming into play in unknown fashion. I'd hate to have to bet on this fight, but if pressed I guess I would choose an aggressive Quartey by decision.

The Intervention: Part One

2006-07-23T22:01:00.000-07:00

The location was the modest, uncomplicatedly named pub called "Pub". It was downtown next to the ice cream shop. The topic was the intervention. The architects of this great humanitarian enterprise had all come gathered to discuss what recourse was avaialable to them given certain recent, shocking developments. All the arrangements had been seen to. The speeches were written, the time and place had been agreed upon by all the relevant parties, plane tickets had been purchased, accomodations arranged and payed for. A deposit had been made even been made to the caterer. Thirteen individuals from nine seperate states and three foreign countries had all arranged to meet on the appointed date. And then, at the last moment, Jake Herzog had entered rehab. Now what? Cancel the intervention? Hold it anyway? What would be the point, exactly? But if not, what a waste.

If anyone ever needed an intervention, it was definately Jake Herzog. This was not a man likely to take hold of his own spiraling life, not of his volition. Jake had been the proverbial village idiot for as long as anyone could remember. A damned fool, a cowering louse, a lecth, a feisty, untethered drunk. He was not dumb- oh no Jake was really quite brilliant- but brains were not the issue. Self control was the issue. Self control and the lack there of. And finally someone was going to do something about it, before Jake inevitably hurt himself or worse still hurt someone else.

However, the fate of the intervention was struck by a sudden turn. On a Thursday, Mel Jenkins received a late night call from a very despondent sounding Jake Herzog- not an unusual occurence- and preparing himself for the usual rigmarole, the ranting and crying, the drive down to the ATM, the bail bondsman and DT addled trip back home with Jake thrashing in the back seat, Mel Jenkins turned to his wife and shrugged. But almost immediately after the conversation had begun he noticed that something was different. Jake was sad, but coherent. He spoke softly and in well articulated phrases. This was not the drooling loon of so many ruined nights past. In his sober moments Jake could sound almost professorial, the evidence of his estimable intelligence and wit showing pathetically through the thick mold of his ruined promise, like a gourmet meal gone bad. The temptation to scrape away the spoiled parts and salvage Jake Herzog's remaining bounty was constant, palpable. But repeated attempts at this very ubdertaken had proved unsanitary, poor for the constitution. Even still: the intervention.

It occured to Mel Jenkins in that moment that this was the worst thing that Jake Herzog had ever done. Following years of pathologically unconscionable behavior, without ever having provided so much as the remotest inkling of penitence for his reprehensible behavior, Jake Herzog had now suddenly seen the light some forty two hours before the intervention. It occured to Mel at that moment that point that Jake had finally taken it all one step too far. And he knew exactly what he had to do.

Steeling himself, he apodted a mirthful tone and said "Oh come on Jake! Rehab is for quitters! Why don't you take your skirt off, get down to The Trolley and have a couple brews with me? You've never sounded better, buddy. Don't give me this rehab crap..."

On the other end of the line Jake went silent. This was the furst time in many years that a friend, any friend, had addressed him in such collegial tones. He had missed it, nearyly forgotten what it felt lile. And he couldn't understand why it should be occuring now. But Mel's overture was like a siren call. Confronted with what he had thought to be his darkest hour, Jake had suddenly been reached out to. "Perhaps," it occured to him, "I am not as disgracful as I'd imagined..." Almost involuntarily, Jake heard himself accepting Mel's offer.

"Okay, I'll see you there in twenty minutes," Jake muttered, feeling his first rush of self-esteem in the past in several weeks.

Mel Jenkins was determined to get Jake drunk- good and shitfaced- in the hours leading up to the intervention. He realized that this would probably mean that he would be drunk too, and that the two of them showing up together in that state the following morning at the event might be interpreted as a little strange. It might raise eyebrows. But it seemed the only to salvage the proceedings, and he was sure if he could explain to others- if they only knew how close the entire intervention had come to being ruined- that they would fully accept his motivations. Thinking of Jake and his inhumanly high tolerance, his oceanic thirst, he knew this was going to cost a lot of money to keep him out drinking until the morning. On his way to The Trolley, feeling bleary eyed and frequently distracted by a gaping yawn, he stopped by the ATM and withdrew $80. He hoped it would be enough.

As it turned out it was not enough, and some forty five minutes later Mel found himself back in his car, driving the mile down the street to the nearest ATM. The feeling he got in the pit of his stomach when he saw the police lights flash behind him was quite unlike any fear or anxiety he had ever experienced. "Oh my God," he thought to himself, and the sight of his wife's face at the local police precinct flashed before him- bitter, humiliated, concerned- in his mind's eye Mel Jenkins could see her holding six hundred dollar bills and turning it over to central processing. The image was curdling, nauseating. As he saw the flashlight and heard the approach of the police officer slowly clanking heavy steps in heavy boots he wanted to crawl beneath the dash. Pathetically he unwrapped a piece of "Big Red" gum and began chewing concertely, even manically upon it, as though this would somehow magically ameliorate the fact of his having consumed five beers and three shots of tequila in recent short succession. Mel knew this was not the case. He did not believe in witchcraft.

The Thrill Is Back!: Mickelson Botches U.S. Open, 65th at Western Open

2006-06-21T05:34:00.000-07:00

It is, by any measurable standard, a perilous world which we occupy, confronted as we are at every turn with treacherous and worrying developments, most of which involve Phil Mickelson. That Phil Mickelson is my everpresent nemesis is a matter of carefully documented record. I don't like Phil Mickelson, and I have a very strong sense that even though he does not know exactly who I am, Phil Mickelson also does not like me. For one need not always be able to identify their adversary via name or appearance in order to know that he is out there, silently rooting for the forces of darkness to mass on their door, maliciously casting hex and curse in your direction, hour after hour, day after day.

I want to clarify something though, a common misconception, one which I myself am probably in part responsible for giving rise to. I am not angry at Phil Mickelson, as so many apparently mistakenly believe. While it is accurate to say that the very invocation of this lumbering loon of the links, the mere mention of his name, inspires in me an explosion of colorful and varied emotions, I must emphasize that anger is not amongst them. Those who know me best, noting my somewhat untethered emotional state dating back to last summer around the time of his ill gotten victory at the PGA Championship- a state which worsened considerably in April after Lefty's admittedly convincing march through Augusta at the Masters- have speculated that perhaps all of this is more than coincidence. Well okay. Regarding these matters I don't wish to argue, for I am perhaps not the greatest objective arbiter of my own mental condition. I do not think I'm "crazy" as some have been overheard to chucklingly whisper, though I guess in the interests of level reportage you could state that I have been a touch "wound up".

Yes, things have gone well for Mickelson this year, and it has taken a certain toll on me, such is the inverse cause and effect nature of our double life. Where he has been assured of his game, playing confidently and conservatively to his strengths, allowing his natural talent to surface and carry him to victory, eschewing the questionable judgment that has so often undermined him through many a glorious failure, my own behavior has been largely, dramatically in contrast. I have not, metaphorically speaking, kept the ball in the fairway these last several months. You might say I have been spraying it all over the course. My swing plane is a mess. Short game abrupt, impatient. I couldn't hit a putt into a manhole. Candidly, to summarize, I have no idea what I am doing out here on the course. My handicap, once respectable, has now bloated into something obscene, grotesque. I was club champion, and now my membership is nearly revoked.

Okay, fine then. Duly noted. But then as assuredly as the melting of icecaps will soon render us a race of dorsal finned amphibians, so has the tide begun to turn with respect to mine and the Mick's fortunes. Who amongst us was not thrilled to their core by the sight of Mickelson's elegant screwballing of the 18th hole at the US Open, snatching humiliating defeat from the jaws of historic victory with a veritable Abbot and Costello routine of absurd misjudgments? As he approached that final tee, seemingly riding a lightning shaft of invincibility towards his third consecutive major, I felt myself at death's door. My knotting innards told the tale of imminent deep sleep. I made a certain peace with the facts that I was not made for these times- Mickelson times.

But then the folly commenced! And with what hilarity the husky harlequin proceeded. As his boggled gallery of staunch supporters stared on with stuttering astonishment, the villian seemed transported back to those lamented, halcyon days when his genius for creative losing made him the hallmark of many a gleeful Sunday for me. I too was changed back to a happier, previous form. As hook followed shank followed I don't know what that was supposed to be, I could feel the blood returning to my brain and muscles. Longstanding anxities receded. I suddenly recollected the answers to several complex mathematical equations, long since abandoned, forgotten, perhaps willed away- all suddenly accessible to me. The rejuvenation was quite complete. A man in my building- a complete stranger, with handsome olive skin- commented that I looked "lively", and I confess he was quite right.

Postscript:

Last weekend Lefty made his first start since the magnificent humiliation at Winged Foot. Following a stellar 67 on the first day, he proceeded to shoot his way out of the tournament with 74 and 75 on Friday and Saturday respectively, finally finishing in a pathetic tie for 65th. So, is Mickelson in decline? Am I in ascent? These are the key questions which bear monitoring as we approach the seasons last two majors, beginning with the British Open in two weeks. Is it unrealistic to think that he might get caught in one of those pot bunkers during the weekend, score a fourteen on one hole and shoot 90? Am I aiming too high here? Did Beowulf aim too high when he defeated Grendel? Is this thing on???

Mendoza Line/Slow Dazzle Events In NYC This Week, Tour To Follow

2006-06-20T06:05:00.000-07:00

Hey we're playing at the Sine with the great Jennifer O'Connor on Wedensday night and at the Bowery Ballroom with the fantastic Devotchka on Saturday. Then we are off on tour. It's be delightful to see any and all. Hope you're well!

The Friends I'd Shank

2006-06-06T21:35:00.000-07:00

Two opposing premises:

1)Loyal friendship is what makes life worth living and

2)Maximum security prison is no kiddy theme park.

A man can be said to be the sum total of his close companions and confidantes. And yet when you're working for Copper John you better not turn your back on anyone for even a solitary second. Yes, only the strong survive on the inside, but it's nice to have people to share your problems and life changes with as well. How to resolve this difficulty? No one ever wants to be faced with the difficult decision to shank a close freind, that is stab him with a makeshift knife crafted from the scrap metal of a prison-issued boot or shoe. But lets face facts: it happens. That's life. So it's best to know in advance who the friends are that- if pressed into unwelcome action- you'd definately cut.

I keep a list. That helps me. Maybe you don't want to write it down, maybe you just want to keep track in your head. It can be awkward when one of the friends you'd shank indavertently runs across your list and sees his name. I'm forgetful, so I leave my list in obvious places- like on the bulletin board by my bunk. But one day Bill Jeffries was over- we were shooting bull, sipping Pruno- and he saw his name on my list of friends I'd shank (he was actually #1) and I could detect a definate rise in his temperature. He said it was pretty clear to him that things weren't the way he thought they were with us, and that he was going back to the library, and that we were 'done'. And believe me: I felt awful. I sent him a florid apology a couple of days later stuffed in a half full pack of Camels, but nothing came of it. No reply. Which is just as well, because two weeks later I shanked him.

I shanked Rick Monroe-Peterson, who I have always liked, because I caught him touching my foot locker. He was actually just sitting on it, not looking in it or anything, waiting for me to get back from the mess, because he wanted me to get my opinion on who should be the starting front court in our A-yard basketball team. But you can't exactly have guys touching your locker without asking, unless you want every punk in the block stealing your Pruno, which I definately don't want, and so I shanked him. But I didn't kill him, I just gave him a 'smiley'. But it clearly effected our relationship adversely and definately hurt team morale. Honestly, now I feel like a jerk. I'm a hothead! What can I say?

I've always respected Rene 'Cochese' Olivares, and most especially following his legendary ninety day stint in the Hole following the Mardi Gras 2004 lockdown in Block D. He's a nice man with a pleasent, affable way in the company of children and a wife he speaks of often and longingly. All and all a considerate, decent man. Anyway I certainly never expected to shank him. But shank him I did, on a chilly November day last year, after one of his buddies commented on my unkempt beard and tattered jumpsuit. I was naturally going to shank the bastard ruthlessly for this slight, when Rene jumped between us.

"Back away Cochese!" I shouted, "This ain't about us."

But Rene did not back away. In fact he tried to take my shank. I can't really recall what happened after that, but anyone that touches my shank- friend or not- is going to wind up fishing at the wrong end of the barrel. Time just kind of stopped. I could see the sun parting briefly through the clouds over the main wall, and there was a sort of high pitched sound running through my head like a train whistle. The next thing I knew I woke up in the infirmary. I had shanked nineteen guys and a telephone pole before they tazed me down. I felt terrible. I'm not really a violent person. Especially when it come to friends.

A Rotweiler Enters Union Square Station

2006-05-29T22:09:00.000-07:00

Part One

The hound was a big, lumbering, clumsy eighty pounds. Waddling towards you, making every effort to disrupt your path, head bobbing and panting tongue hanging down some unnatural seeming stretch of inches, I suppose he could appear threatening. Anyway this was his habit: with friends and strangers alike, he would make an uninhibited bee line into their personal space and attempt to gently molest them with his tongue. I always admired this about him and wished that I could be similarly bold, similarly unselfconscious. I have never licked a stranger. You have never licked a stranger. It is hard to imagine any circumstance under which this will ever take place. But he licked everyone he met. Every individual he encountered and did not get to taste he considered to be an instance of personal failure and an affront to his specific but refined sense of justice.

Knowing him as I did, his innate good nature and barely present intellect (I am not being uncharitable. He was dumb. I saw him very often approach a roadside curb or step on staircase and contemplate at length what to do next before realizing at last he had to lift his paw in order to continue walking) it became impossible for me to imagine that others saw him as a threat. But with the benefit of hindsight and a certain period of remove from the events of his passing I can now see that it was probably a sensible law that said I could not bring him into the Union Square station and onto the subway. I still, to this day, have never seen an eighty pound rotweiler in a subway car- and probably for good reason. Some people might get scared. Not everyone wants to be licked.

What I still can't understand is why she told me- so explicitly, with such absolute conviction- that I could take him on the subway. I was a very recent arrival to New York City. I'd been there not more than eighteen months- two years at the most. I was unfamiliar with the bafflingly complex public transit system. You might say I avoided the subways- that I would walk a hundred blocks rather than willingly trap myself on one of those fierce subterannean death trolleys. For the longest time I could only marvel at the site of city dwellers, brazenly ambling in barely ordered lines down the concrete steps of the 4,5,6, N, R or L trains into what was almost certain destruction. The alacrity! The concerted hustle and serious intent with which these brave, bizarre folk propelled themselves to their doom. From above ground I could hear the violent grinding and skronking from below- the sound, I presumed, of bones being crushed and reconsituted into some useful city paste. Something city planners used to glue the bridges together. Good for the planners, good for the riders. Profound acts of civic minded duty no doubt. Not for me though- I wanted to live to see twenty seven. I believed that twenty seven might be my year. And in a way it was, though not in the way I was hoping.

Anyway: I didn't know the subways, but she had taken the subway to school every day. Every morning since we arrived she had ridden the 6 down to her graduate school in Tribeca and back up every evening. I bet you she never saw a dog like ours on board any of those trains. Perhaps she was too busy looking at her new boyfriend to even notice the absence of giant dogs on subway platforms. Maybe that was distracting. It's hard to say. Anyway, even after we went our seperate ways, moved out of the East Village apartment we shared together, I still had no idea how to get anywhere. Certainly I had no idea how to get the dog anywhere not achievable on foot. I had an invitation to stay with a friend in Brooklyn- but I didn't know how to get to Brooklyn. With the dog. So, grudgingly, I called her.

"Hey, how am I supposed to get to *****'s house with the dog? He said we could stay, but, I mean, I have no idea how we'll transport ourselves."

"Oh, well that's no big deal," she responded, and I had the strong sense that she was not alone. "Just take the subway. Just take him on the subway!"

"But, I mean are you sure he's allowed? I mean won't I get in trouble? I'm rather afraid of the subway in the first place..."

"Oh no," she reiterated, "It will be fine."

I detected many things in her voice: fatigue, frustration, ennui, a sense of having strained against familiar boundaries and agitants for longer than she could any longer cope with. And yet I could do nothing to relieve this tension. Despite my awareness that she no longer could stand to hear even one word from my mouth, that it was all she could do to wrap up whatever stray ends existed in her accustomed manner of gentile civility, my tone and method were intractable. I knew that if it were possible for me to somehow slightly alter my demeanor, to be less needy, less skittish, more coherent and less rattled- just once- that it would make the visceral process of our estrangement much easier for everyone involved. But I could not or would not do so.

So she said: "People do it all the time! Just take him on the subway. I promise you- it's fine."

Speaking in retrospect of course one could reasonably conjecture as to whether my taking the dog into the Union Square subway station was, in some way, a sentence for wrong doing or the wrath addled fulfillment of a terrible prophecy. Though it is hard to know if she intended it in precisely that way, to punish me, it is definately at least possible that her intentions were punative, as it was a fact that many of her angriest gestures and acts of retribution were similarly cloaked in the garb of seemingly regretted "mistakes".

Such was the case furing the time before cell phones, when I was left "inadvertently" for for a period of seven hours at a frozen road side rest stop some forty miles outside of Petersburg, Virginia during which time countless perils were encountered and narrowly averted including my near dismemberment at the gnashing teeth of roving wolverines and an attempted kidnapping by a dangerous looking group of trogladyte drifters. Had she meant to leave me that day? Or was it really the case that she thought I was asleep in the very back of the van? Upon my retrieval, her tearful apologies and overtures for forgiveness seemed to persuasively suggested the latter. But for all which this portended perhaps I should have been more...aware.

The Union Square subway station is amongst the busiest in Manhattan, a nerve jangling transit hub providing access and connections to eight major subway lines. I don't know how many people pass through there in a given day and I don't care to know. Suffice it to say that it is more than you'd want to have over for a tea party-precise numbers will only be upsetting. I probably should have detected that something was not quite right when the dog and I first descended the stairs on 14th street and were greeted with a variety of expressions from passers-by ranging from shocked, fearful, wildly bemused and utterly agog. Excited by the crowd, the dog fairly lunged in the direction of nearly everyone we passed, with a seeming particular emphasis on business men and those under ten. Straining against his leash, tongue fully and hungrily extended, he had commenced illiciting no shortage of worried glances. But cruscially no one stopped me, no one insisted I abort my mission. And I was headed for a fall. I was cruisin' for a bruisin' as it were.

In the floor space in front of the turnstiles I stopped to inspect a large table on which a man was selling cheap paperback books. For reasons I still cannot fully explain, I picked up a copy of a book with the title "101 Ways To Please Your Black Man", and began flipping through it. An odd manuever, to be certain. When I saw "black man" was I subconciously thinking of the dog? Surely, despite the fetching patch of white fur on his chest, he was the closest I'd come to 'having' a black man. Or maybe events had simply overtaken me, and I could now expect in the wake of such significant life changes concurrent evolutions in my appetites for literature and other worldly experiences. Whatever the reason, I found myself paging animatedly through this collection of detailed and vibrantly pornographic pictures and descriptions many of which in my relative state of innocence I could scarcely comprehend. I did this with a kind of fevered bewilderment- I did not know precisely what it was I was looking for, but I was determined to thoroughly search each page until I discovered it. Several of the diagrams in the book- I could not help but notice- seemed to strain credulity with regard to the capabilites of human anatomy. Notwithstanding the title, many of the acts did not look pleasurable at all. Some other things simply didn't even seem possible- upon reaching page thirty six, where two no doubt tenderly affected lovers were said to be engaging in the "Ferris Wheel Strut"- I had to turn the book sideways in order to even identify anything recognizably human on the page. Still I lingered. The inspection lasted perhaps ten or twelve minutes. The dog jerked impatiently on his leash and his wet and swaying tongue lashed a small girl being pushed in a stroller who then commenced to cry. The child's caretaker stopped briefly and regarded me with an expression of unalloyed violence and loathing and then hurried past. The proprietor of the book stand glowered nastily in my direction as if to second her opinion. The attention was unwelcome. I decided to move along.

I would have thought, it seemed sensible to me, that if there were an issue with me bringing the dog onto the subway that the woman in the token booth might as well have bothered to mention it to me. I know she saw the dog, because in a bold an unexpected display of verve, the hound, happily stimulated by the sights, sounds and smells of late rush hour, lifted his front paws high up in the air and onto the token booth, where he made lingering eye contact with the pitiless and sour MTA employee. Her reaction conveyed nothing. She looked exactly as irritated and contemptous of me had been the case before the dog revealed himself.

The Patent Office

2006-05-29T21:44:00.000-07:00

Dear Henry,

I swear I have so many ideas I should just save everyone a lot of trouble and move in right next door to the patent office. This way, when I am struck by a grand inspiration, one with global implications and the possibility to transform the lives of tens of thousands if not millions, which happens to me perhaps ninety to a hundred times a day, then I will not have to walk down the stairs and take the subway to the patent office. My own constitution is quite like the American constitution: delicate and wobbly, ragged with the passage of time, clearly in need of amending in key areas. But, fundamentally it survives on the strength of a certain genius in it's original manufacture. The checks check, the balances balance. I shudder in the wind, I lean, but I don't topple over. Still all of these trips to the patent office are killing me.

I think the receptionist at the patent office has a crush on me. Every time I walk into the the patent office- maybe six times a day- she always notices me. The other afternoon I was hauling in this enormous model I had constructed, the blueprint for a device which could be used to turn tin foil into rocket fuel. Or I guess you could say it was a pepperoni. But one for which I had found an astoundingly novel use. Yes, so I was carrying the long sausage to the "New Inventions" desk I passed the receptionist (she is called Rhonda)and it was unmistakable that she looked at me significantly. Although she was speaking animatedly on the telephone at this time- to Patent Office security as it turns out- I believe she was simulataneously attempting to peer into my soul. "I'm sorry," I called out to Rhonda as they were escorting me towards the exits, "I haven't got time for such quaint romantic overtures!" I said this with the greatest degree of sensitivity a man in my constantly preoccupied state can muster, though I suspect she was quite badly wounded by this rejection, as she hid her face and did not even respond as I was hurried through the doors.

As I've remarked to you many times in our previous letters, he who is the inventor and constructor of the modern marvels that have reduced our Earth to a ticking time bomb has very little energy to devote to the vagaries of new romance. That our's is a lonely profession is inarguable. Dangerous as well. The vast resorvoir of nerve that is required to drive a golf cart at maximum speed into a twelve foot high stack of pancakes and hot cross buns is not easily come by. And yet how else to test the **** device, still the only known cure for (unnamed medical condition).

Who are the real daredevils, Donald? The men who fall out of trees for Hollywood movies and walk around blind and concussed, dallying with vixens and mugging for papparazzi- you consider that daring? That is not daring! What is daring is the inventor, who, sleeves rolled up and to his shoulders and affixed upon his cranium an antique Stetson hat repeatedly throws himself off the branches of a high tree top until such time as he is sobbing uncontrollably or has been struck with a bolt of inspiration, or a bolt of lightning, or both.

Celebrity does not interest me, and if in fact it did would I not be constantly shouting from the highest mountaintop my status as the man who first discovered and cured the traumatic recognized medical condition known as Restless Leg Syndrome? Of course that which is generally now given as the "cure"- a debilitating perscription medication roughly on par with a capsule sized lobotomy- differs significantly from my original solution to the problem which involved a privately concocted balm and an industrial forklift.

As you may have detected, I am an inventor of many stripes, but the healing and treatment of others is a matter of particular emphasis to me. I am one who believes that doctors and so called "medical professionals" are currently in the midst of purposefully over-medicating our society at a time when nearly every illness can be much more effectively treated and even cured by an invention. For example, while contracting rickets at sea last year, I was able to determine through rigorous trial and error that the best possible method for arresting the deterioration of bone and cartilage involves the employment of clothes pins in tandem with an egg beater and the (sometimes difficult to obtain) assistance of a porpoise. But upon my return to land, do you suppose I was able to obtain a medical patent for this historic breakthrough, following eleven painful hours of standing in line on crutches? No. I was deprived, owing to the vocal opposition of a so called "physician" who claimed my findings had "no therapeutic merit" and held the poytential to cause "serious harm".

Sometimes though, in darker moments, I wonder if it is not the inventing I like at all, but the patents. Of the several thousand blueprints and prototypes I have submitted throughout the years, I am dissapointed to say that none of them have as yet recieved patent protection from the Federal Government. This bull headed obstinance in the face of my work has not deterred it's pace in the slightest but rather quickened it considerably. Just yesterday I was able to fashion from common household cleaning agents a face cream which completely erases the effects of aging. Even more exciting, save for a rather acute burning sensation, the massive inflammation of my tonsils and a piercing ringing in my ears, I have yet to detect even a single dilitorious side effect. I cannot wait to apply it you on your next visit, which I hope will come soon (I noticed you have yet to respond to my overture to airlift in my special experimental craft- don't worry- I am insured against fatality).

Warmest Overtures,

Professor J. Goldsly Woodpipe

P.S. Thank you for organizing the surprise party! It was so wonderful to have all of my friends and family present so unexpectedly. And the original theme with which you christened the proceedings- "an intervention"- very clever. Is that your invention?
(Patent Pending)

Horse Racing Is Barbaric

2006-05-20T20:35:00.000-07:00

I was correct the first time, two weeks ago, when I informed friends that I did not want to watch the Kentuck Derby because I was deathly afraid of seeing a horse get hurt. That was after last year's Preakness Stakes where I saw Afleet Alex nearly tumble head over heels before watching him somehow right himself and gallop off to victory. I didn't find that exhilirating heroic, I thought it was terrifying and sad. After that I decided I didn't need to see anymore. I'm not exactly the sort of individual who is emotionally in a position to see a horse being harmed. We all recall what happened to Nietzsche.

However after expressing my concerns, laughing assurances abounded, I was told that no such thing was remotely likely, that the horses liked to run and that the chances of anything going dramatically wrong were infintesimal. So, today I dutifully broke my moratorium and turned on the Preakness again, just in time to watch 3 to 5 favorite Barboro almost immediately pull up lame with a life threatening multiple fracture to his back right leg. It appears that odds are he will have to be put down. What a sucktastic sport. I don't remotely mind, and in fact profoundly enjoy, the site of overgrown men running full speed into each other in a brutal dance of crippling arthritic savagery. Similiarly, when carefully matched and well refereed, the spectacle of two gloved pugilists attempting to concuss one another with a combination of skill, will, and guile is very much my idea of an extremely excellent viewing experience. But Jesus, these are horses. They aren't highly compensated atheletes, they don't know what the hell is going on. The site of watching a spooked Barboro run prematurely through the gates before suffering what is very likely a life ending injury just to make the gambling wheels turn and turn today is not my idea of quality sports entertainment. For God's sake, if you want to bet that bad then go the casino...

The Burdens Of The Chore Champion

2006-04-28T10:52:00.000-07:00

Paul is not Chore Champion- I am- but sometimes I wonder if his personality and tempermant might be better suited to this honorable position than my own. He is, after all, gregarious, charming, open with the public. I am brooding, introverted. I don't like children. When a child approaches I get knots in my gut. I always think: what dread malady is this knee high germ bag carrying? What aches and spots am I going to wake up with tomorrow?

I guess that sounds crazy- who in the hell would not want to be Chore Champion? But I have to tell you that this extraordinary mantle is sometimes draining in ways I can scarcely articulate. People righly associate the Chore Champion with certain virtues: responsibilty, dignity, industry, fairness, and above all cleanliness. Traits that I fully embody, and tend to inspire in others. But still, I mean, it's not like I want to be that way all the time. Sometimes I just want to 'chill' (as the children like to say, when they are not busy spreading some exotic strain of bird flu). Lifestyle is an issue. Scrutiny can be vexing.

But before I go any further, allow me to refresh your recollections as to how I became Chore Champion in the first place.

The prestigious title of Chore Champion dates back to 1998 when Margaret was having trouble motivating Paul and I to do anything around the house. I don't want to say we were lazy, but it's like sometimes you just don't want to engage in certain activites. Like for instance, after you go to all the trouble of cooking dinner, you don't exactly feel like doing dishes. It's not exactly the first thing that comes to mind. Or another thing is like when you don't feel like picking up all the stuff on the ground in your room, because it's basically just a fucking pain in the ass. Can anyone really dispute this? These are not really abstract questions or arguable points. I'm just saying it like it is.

So anyway, one day Margaret commited to paper all of the different things we were supposed to help out with around the house. She made a kind of a hybrid chart/graph. It listed things like: vacuuming, window washing and mopping. There were categories for both the indoors and the outdoors. Raking leaves was a suggested enterprise. Some chores were treacherous, if not out and out deadly: what superhuman lungs are invulnerable to the choking ravages of several thick inches of dust collected on old encyclopedias? Who couldn't fall off the roof and into life as a permanent invalid while cleaning the gutters?

But Paul and I are, at heart, gladiators. Margaret had written on top of the chart, in bold pink and red: "Whoever finishes first is Chore Champion!" Obviously such a declaration could not help but bring about a seismic paradigm shift in our outlook. At the moment of first registering the open eligibility of this title, Paul and I completely took leave of our senses, all pretense of cordiality was immediately dispensed with, and an air of simmering, heavy loathing settled down around us like a thick July smog.

Yes, Paul and I are like the Monitor and the Marrimac- legendary rivals, and no love lost between the two of us. A lot of people jump to the conclusion that just because we lived together for those eleven uniterrupted years, rarely leaving each other's company for more than a couple hours, that the two of us must get along famously. In fact nothing could be further from the truth. Actually we chose to live together simply because it is only the visceral nature of our yin-yang rivalry which brings out the best in one another. Our battle is a constant, undending barrage, with both parties refusing to cease fire for even a moment until the other is deep in the bottom of the sea. When Margaret first uttered those legendary words in tandem-"Chore Champion"- she could not have known the extent of the dark fury she was unleashing inside of us. Or at least it seems doubtful that she would have guessed that these dictates would continue to resonate many years after she casually suggested that the two of us not be together "in that way" any longer. ("In which way??" I responded, always a little slow on the uptake. Around this time I noticed the moving van out front. "Hey Margaret, why are they only taking your things? Are we going somewhere?").

So after that it was just Paul and living together. One might be forgiven for making the assumption that this would effectively represent the end of the Chore Challenge. And it's true that for about thirty six months we completely forgot it existed. I guess you could say I was a little "down" for a few years, and Paul was himself...unwell. He had a cold for most of 2003 and 2004. Or at least, he had a lot of medicine around. The entire period has about a gauzy, hazy sense of unreality. The premises got a little unruly. It was a touch messy. Some might say unsanitary. There were mice and other vermin. One time Paul, in the midst of adeep and vivid hallucination, felt certain that a giant roach hovering near his bed, pincers waving wildly in the direction of his face. I tried and tried to persuade him that the "roach" was actually our neighbor ***NAME DELETED AT THE INSISTENCE OF OUR LAWYERS***, who had come by harmlessly to borrow a coffee filter. But the episode effected Paul badly. Soon he could not resist the impulse to lash out, thrash and squash anything that "scurried" too close to him.

There were children living across the hall. To this I principally attribute whatever shortfalls may have occured in our lifestyles at that time. It is only a hunch, but I believe those capering rapscallions may have infected us with some kind of viral anti-immunity agent which sapped not just our collective physical strength and sanity, but also the very instinct and will to survive. These children were always playing in the stairwell. Nice children, but full of germs and made a tremendous commotion. Paul, who is typically tremendous with children, a veritable "Big Brother" to any and all, uncharacteristically did not take well to these particular youths. He would call them "The Bugs" and cower when he heard there tiny footsteps racing by. "Oh!" he would whimper, "The Bugs are just outside! Please tell them to let me be! I am so afraid of their master."

Fear of insects aside, it became surprisingly easy, even comfortable, to conjure the grim specter of death at all times. Friends would come to the door, baring packages of fruit, first aid, self help books. They would knock and Paul and I would wordlessly turn to one another and exchange an expression that said: "Here comes death." But death did not arrive. And when death does not arrive, it becomes necessary to make other plans.

“Well should we revive the Chore Challenge?” Paul then said to me one late night (he actually groaned it more than said it) and I was startled from my dark reverie long enough to heed the trumpet call of imminent warfare. Looking around the premises it was pretty obvious that there were chores enough to make a champion. For one thing, there was a thick film and grime of an unspecified character coating the floor and surfaces stretching in every direction. Another thing was the garbage- quite a bit of it had not been taken out. I guess none it had been taken out, really. Instead most of it had been placed in a closet. Some of it had just been left in the kitchen. This despite a growing collective suspicion that it might be the garbage that was attracting flies.

One time our friend Autumn came over and said, "Boys, this is revolting! This place is littered with trash! You have flies! For God sake, you're going to die."

Paul loves to argue. "Yes," he said, "We are going to die. But no, it's not the trash that's attracting the flies. It's just warm out."

But he was wrong. It was the trash. We found that out when we took it all outside and nearly all of the flies disappeared. The labor was about evenly split, but Paul pulled a trick on me, a canny one. When only a handful of bags were left, he proposed a break in the the action, a "truce" and handed me a few dollars to run down the street and get us some tall beers. I took the bait and ambled on down to the Deli Max, with refreshment on my mind. But this was a Pearl Harbor job, a small scale Tet Offensive, designed to crush morale and set the stage for no holds barred combat.When I got back I was greeted by the site of Paul on the street, by the dumpster. He was glowering and gesturing with both hands around his waist, pantomiming the wearing of a belt. A championship belt. After I'd gone, he had surreptitiously taken the remaining bags down, thus guarenteeing himself the first points of the new Chore Challenge. I was understandably irate, but as much with myself than with him. A rookie mistake. I drained my bottle and threw it in the trash can. In the moonlight, Paul looked imperious, triumphal.

"Maybe you should get really fat," Paul suggested to me, and I nodded, turned it over in my mind, pondered the advantages of taking such an action. We were discussing ways for me to maybe win Margaret back. "Something to really startle her," Paul continued, "maybe if you were just to grow inexplicably into this enormously fat person..." He trailed off. It was getting late. We were two and a half weeks into the Chore Challenge and the entire place still looked disgusting. This fact could not help but give us pause. How had we been living?! Or were we just not good at chores??

I have a feeling that we're going to be screwed by history- our generation. All the news is bad, all the news is depressing. We are witness to the general, gradual degredation of the human spirit. Power is concentrated in the hands of an increasingly small, cynical and self-serving oligarchy whose business it is (quite literally) to defile anything worthy of preservation, to trample the noblest values of political and spiritual philosophy. And yet- and yet!- we will in all likelihood be deprived the agreeable catharsis of eventual apocalypse. That honor will most likely go to our grandchildren or their's. I can totally see why Margaret wanted that child so bad! This movie sucks and we only get to see the middle! Don't you wonder how it ends? At least though I am Chore Champion.

Bedlam Wednesday In DC, Ensuing Pandemonioum In NYC Sunday

2006-04-25T09:40:00.000-07:00

Hi Folks,

We are all piling into that burgundy van tomorrow and driving down to our nation's capital where the unsuspecting DC9 club will vainly attempt to prevent the voltage generated from reverberating all throughout Northwest, through Adams Morgan, into Alexandria, and all the way into Paul's childhood home in Mclean, Va, where it is certain to cause all manner of structural damage.

As though this weren't enough, on sunday the Mendoza Line will be visiting the elegant surroundings of Joe's Pub in Manhattan with our friend's the Victoria Lucas. Shannon excepted, this is about the first time any of us have been allowed unchaperoned in any place where Richard Thompson might play, so someone's probably leaving in handcuffs.

Typically (and regrattably) this was scheduled the same night as the great Naysayer and Jennifer O'Connor at the Sine, which needless to say also comes highly, highly recommended. Hope you're all well!

Thanks,

Timothy

Texas Leaguer: A Baseball Memoir

2006-04-20T20:50:00.000-07:00

***As I try to finish preparing material for the long past date Mendoza Line EP, to be recorded for the most part this weekend, I have been woefully neglectful of my writing. But I thought I would post this item from the trove, first conceived several years ago, and now a key plot device in the also long past date novel.***
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Texas Leaguer: A Baseball Memoir

I remember my rookie year, we all went down to Sarasota for spring training. Casey Stengal, Joe Dimaggio, Whitey Ford, they were all there. I was twenty-one years old, fresh off the farm in Lubbock, Texas, and yet here I was on the field with all of these legendary figures! It was overwhelming. Eddie Lopat and Vic Raschi, two of the veteran Yankee pitchers really had it out for rookies. When they threw batting practice they were supposed to just lob the ball up over the plate so that we could get a good crack at it. Except, when it was me or Jerry Coleman or one of the other first year guys, they'd rear back and sling it right at our ribs! Then, if they hit one of us, they'd just hoot and grin and carry on, while we waited for a stretcher. I had no idea what was going on, but after a week or so I sure was steamed! Finally I decided to ask Allie Reynolds about it. He said, "Ah, don't sweat it Connie. That's just what you get for coming to spring training when you're a rookie. Those guys will lay off you once the season starts." The funny thing was that after the season started, Vic and Eddie did lay off the other tenderfoots, but they just kept right on working me over! The next year at spring training, they didn't throw at the new rookies, they just kept concentrating on me. Sometimes when I was at bat during a game, they'd heave balls at me from the dugout. Once Eddie invited me over for a barbeque and then let his wife and kids throw things at me. Not just baseballs either. Shoes, flatware, anything they could think of. Eventually after my fourth season, I walked up to Eddie and Vic after a game one day and asked, "Why is it you guys is always bustin' up my ribs?" Vic glared at me and said "'Cause we keep missing your head, rook". I never did figure out why I was taking such a lashing, but you always did your part for the team, and that's just what it meant to be a Yankee.

One thing you never did was impede, cajole or harass Joe Dimaggio in any way. If Joe called for a ball in center field, then it was his, even if it was 20 feet behind the plate. One time I was playing second base and Ted Klusewski hit a little infield pop up. I heard Dimaggio call for it, but even still I was right under it, so I made the play. After the game, Joe found me in the locker room and said to me in a grave tone of voice, "If that ever happens again, I'll make you sorry." The next day it happened again and he force fed me my glove.

A lot of people ask me how I got my nickname. Actually, it was because one of my main duties with the team was to provide the rest of the guys with ice for their drinks. Like say, if we were having cocktails on the train, or something, then I'd get the ice. Or if Tommy Henrich wanted a soda or iced tea between innings, well then, I'd get the ice. After the decisive game of our World Series victory in 1949, Manager Stengal decided that the champagne wasn't cold enough and fined me a thousand dollars. Anyway, the guys would say "Scupper, get me some ice!". But after awhile that just seemed like too much trouble, so they began looking over at me and yelling "Ice!"...so that was my name.

The team president in those days was George Weiss, one of the greediest, most heartless men I ever knew. Take once back in 1955, when Yogi Berra, coming off an MVP season, asked to be paid in hats. Instead of money, he wanted a different cap for each of our 154 games, and he wanted to keep them all. Now some of the guys on the team thought this was a little funny, but I figured I knew what Yogi was up to. One afternoon I said to him, "You're gonna save them lids, and them sell them as collector's items, ain't you Yogi?" But he just shook his head no. "Then what you gonna do with all them covers, Yogi?" I asked. "Hey, Ice, just shut up about the god damned hats, would you?!" he answered. Anyhow, George Weiss decided it was too expensive to pay Yogi in hats, and ended paying him in shin pads.

When Mickey Mantle joined the Yankees in 1950, things were tense between him and Joe Dimaggio. You see, Joe was the aging idol, already widely acknowledged as one of the best ever to play the game. And Mickey, well he was a brash, hot shot kid on his way to superstardom. Together, they were like oil and water staging a Indian strap fight. They were always competing. Once on the train from Boston to Washington they got into a squabble over who could eat more bread sandwiches, which made Joe furious. The situation became heated, and eventually they decided to hold a contest. They sat across from each other in the dining car, stuffing their faces silly with sour dough, rye, pumpernickel, any kind of bread you can imagine! We all gathered around to watch, and some of us made bets. I think most of the guys were rooting for Joe, but I was hoping Mickey would pull it out, mostly because Dimaggio was always setting my pants on fire when I was in the shower. Anyhow, the two of them went at it for hours. They started at 11 am and by midnight they were still going strong. Mickey, who didn't like crust, had started piling his on the floor at the beginning and now the stack was as tall as Phil Rizzuto! Manager Stengal, who never got involved in arguments between players, walked in at one point and said, "I don't know what you boys are trying to prove, but this is really revolting." We all turned in around one, but the next morning we found out that Mickey was the winner and Dimaggio would be on the injured list for a month. Nobody said anything then, but quietly we realized that the torch of team leadership had been passed.

The trouble with players today is that they are paid not to try. Do you realize that some players today make over a trillion dollars a year? My salary for my rookie season was a six pack of domestic beer and some broken sea shells. Nowadays, guys aren't expected to be tough. Once we were playing the Brooklyn Dodgers in an exhibition game at Ebbets Field, and I was filling in at shortstop. In the third inning felt a shooting pain in my right arm, and had to play the rest of the game on my knees. Afterwards, I had the team doctor look me over. He took some X-rays and the next day informed me that my heart had exploded. I was to miss the entire season. When Manager Stengal heard that, he said "Oh, looks like Little Lord Fauntelroy here needs a vacation!" Hank Bauer, who was one tough son of a gun, took me aside and said "If you go on the injured list for this, I'll carve a "C" into your chest...for coward!" The guys razzed me mercilessly , and eventually I decided to go that year anyhow. I played twenty nine games lying down at second base, and committed a hundred and four errors. After the season, George Weiss told me he couldn't afford my salary and paid me in shin pads.

When I told the guys in the locker room that I was retiring, I distinctly recall a brief hush, followed by the sound of Billy Martin opening a pack of gum. Babe Herman handed me a tattered batting glove and asked me to dispose of it on the way out. Walt Dropo gave me a playful kiss on the forehead and then- as per tradition- stomped on my foot, breaking it in two places. Manager Stengal, and I'll never forget this, walked over to me and said in his gruff way "Ice, in the seventy three years I've been involved with big league baseball I have never known a player to keep his uniform as consistently well pressed as you." When I think of that time now, I recognize what it meant to be a Yankee. Being a Yankee meant wearing the pinstripes, the same pin stripes that Babe Ruth and Lou Gherig wore, only a little better- a nicer fabric. The stripes could make you look heavy- especially if you were like me- with unusually large jowls. But you didn't mind, because you were a Yankee and you were in New York, and New York was the place to be. New York had everything in those days, all the best movies and theater, and the cabs, the tall buildings. I did occasionally experience trouble rounding up a really quality cut of roast beef, but all things being equal it was still worth it anyway, and that was just "taking one for the team".

Bar-B-Ques

2006-04-13T22:08:00.000-07:00

Bar-B-Ques: A good way, according to many, to get together and celebrate the warm weather in a wholesome and even delicious environment. And who am I to argue, save for the obvious dangers posed by the open flame, the scratchy canvas bag (for racing), the errantly thrown softball, which when connecting with the unprotected temple of an unsuspecting bystander is a sure formula for a wobbly concussion and perhaps lasting head trauma. I don't really care either way. I haven't got a horse in this race, so to speak. I am neither advocate nor opponent to this ritual mainstay of the blossoming Spring.

But look: lets be reasonable. If we don't cut this shit out someone's going to get seriously hurt. We can't have all of this capering around a giant charcoal grill without expecting casulaties of a grim and grisly nature. Think of it this way: a man dumps a bag of charcoal into something like a steel drum on a tripod. Then he pours a can of lighter fluid on top of it. Then (this is where it gets unbelievable) he intentionally ignites this WMD and fans it into a colossal flame. And what happens next to this unhinged agent of sheer lunacy? Is he arrested and charged with war crimes? Not at all! To the contrary, everyone claps and then he gets a plate of raw meat and cooks outdoors as though the assembled guests comprised a standing army in some dead winter forest at the Russian front.

There should be a law that every Bar-B-Que grill comes with a terrifying death's head painted on it's lid. Maybe the horrifying image of a grinning, lifeless human skull atop this semi-sphere would deter these maniacs from taking their lives and those of their neighbors into their mad hands.

I have to laugh when I think of the reckless tomfool who endeavors to play badminton without the full regulation padded uniform and helmet. I have to laugh, because if I didn't laugh I'd cry. Imagine one ill timed blast of the shuttlecock- just one- and before you know it your guest and gallant competitor is wrapped in a horse blanket and the cover up has commenced in earnest. Oh they'll be no Senate career for you now, my friend. You'll be lucky to make it across the border.

The internet has become a reliable source for the free flow of copious vital information, grasped from the ether and relayed into our living rooms and libraries at warp speed. Thus it is surprising that the many documented tragedies which have occured at Bar-B-Ques are not recorded on any particular website. This may be because this information is being suppressed by the powerful Bar-B-Que lobby, or perhaps because there is just too much carnage to compile, or maybe no one cares. Whatever the explanation for this disgraceful oversight I have every intention of cashing in on it with an elaborate telemarketing scam. But that is a matter for another time.

A close and reliable friend informs me that many Bar-B-Ques take place pool side. Great idea! Why don't you all just tie yourselves in a sack and drown yourselves like cats? Why do you all want to die this much? Is your life that bad?

I reiterate that I am not taking sides. On the topic of Bar-B-Ques I am agnostic. Fair and balanced. My only goal is reportage of the most objective kind, designed to help you draw your own conclusions regarding this doom laden spectacle, this second Viet Nam, these Bar-B-Ques.

Judas Top Disciple/Mickelson Triumphs In Augusta

2006-04-09T18:52:00.000-07:00

It was a big week for two of my favorite long time nemisises Phil Mickelson and Judas Iscariot. Mickelson practically ruined my weekend by making matters look only too easy on the final day of the Masters, playing nearly flawless golf to finish two strokes ahead of a sterling field of stars and past champions. It really wasn't even that close. From the first hole of the last round, that damned galout was by far the best player on the course, playing with calm, steely resolve, sensible shotmaking and cold blooded, nerveless putting. I waited and waited to see Lefty finally meltdown and make the triple bogey that would cost him his second green jacket, and it just never happened. I am very disappointed. This now makes two consecutive victories in majors for Big Phil, a longstanding target of derision from the Proven System. And by any unbiased, candid assessment, I can see no reason to expect this to stop anytime soon. At the relatively advanced athletic age of thrirty five the man has evidently harnessed his admittedly awesome talent and looks better than any player on tour, including (I am cringing as I type this) Tiger. Those gilded, halcyon days when Mickelson could always be counted on to come up hilariously ham handed in a big spot now seem to be sadly behind us forever. No telling how many prestigious titles this genial pinhead is going to win if he continues to insist on not playing like a complete spaz with a tournament on the line. Demoralizing.

In other news, in what can only be termed a real surprise twist, new historical documents appear to indicate that Judas Iscariot, long held as one of history's greatest and most disgraceful traitors, was actually the best and truest disciple to Jesus Christ. Now I'm not a Christian, or a religious person, but still it has always been my general feeling that regardless of one's view of divinity it was still pretty dicey stuff for Judas to sell out Jesus to the Romans for thirty silver pieces. Even factoring in inflation, this hardly seems like enough to turn your friend over to centurians. But no! Apparently Judas was only reluctantly following orders. Imagine how Judas must have felt when Jesus insisted that he betray him, promising in the same breath that he would be "cursed by the generations" for doing so. I would imagine- and of course I can only conjecture- but my guess is that the guy must have been very irritated. What would you do in that situation if you were Judas? Hire a publicist? Get out in front of the story? Vacation on your ranch and hope the whole thing blows over? No one wants to be "cursed by the generations". That just doesn't look good on a resume.

Dinner

2006-04-03T22:10:00.000-07:00

I asked her, with not an insignificant amount of dread, whether any man- a man she had dated, a former lover- had ever, as a romantic gesture or one of simple kindness, prepared her an elegant dinner. Before I even inquired, I knew two important things about the outcome of this line of questioning. First, if the answer was yes then I was going to become tremendously depressed. Second, I knew that answer could not be no.

"Oh are you kidding me?" she enthused wildly, a brief second after the query had been posed, "Oh many, many times. Many meals." She was positively glowing at the recollection. As anticipated, I was disturbed. Who were these delicatassen dandies who cooked meals for women- for my woman- and elegant no less, with several side dishes and hours of preparation time. "Oh yeah," she was still carrying on, "A guy takes the time to make you dinner and you always put out..."

Always?! Every time? I seethed at the thought of these culinary conquistadors, these courtly lovers. I conjectured: What is the "main ingredient" to their endless success in the blood sport of amorous coupling? I roiled at my rivals. And do you think it is only dinner that you need to fear from them, these Kitchen Casanovas? Not at all: for populated amongst the Supper Savants is many a Lunchtime Lothario or Baron of Breakfast.

"But what did they make for you?" I persisted, against my better judgment, determined to mine the very depths of this full course fiasco.

"Oh!" she responded rhapsodically, and then as if it made all of these sense in the world: "you know, whatever. When I was in college I dated a grad student named Steve. He was wonderful. He made me a Cornish game hen."

Try as I might I could no longer hold back the rising tide of indignation.

"No, I do not know!" I riposted, in full voice, betraying bewilderment. "A man named Steve makes you a hen and then you are his for life?! A sworn devotee of his pseudo-chef shenanigans?"

(At this time she observed me with a furrowed brow and genuine expression of befuddlement, and it was necessary for me to take stock of whether in my heightened emotional state I had taken perhaps one liberty too many with my colorful verbiage, and indeed ceased to make any literal sense. However, by way of defense, I entreat you to consider my position: this was a great deal to take in all at once. "Many meals". "Hen". "Steve". "Putting Out".)

Fortunately it is the case where I am concerned that the calm does not preceed the storm but in fact follows it: where once I had raged, very shortly I summoned a mild and composed air, and was able to to continue my prosecution of the "dinner matter" with accustomed surgical rationality.

"You realize," I began, now smiling happily, my visage the cool reflection of embodied confidence, "that this dinner stunt is no great feat at all? I mean, it does not take Houdini to bake a bird. No Copernicus is neccessary to stir a sauce. In fact you may wish to know that I could very easily prepare you a dinner which would far exceed all others in your previous experience."

I don't know why, but to her this was humorous. A rat-tat-tat guffawing blistered my eardrums like a cap pistol.

"You?!" her tone was incredulous. She addressed me as I imagined she might one in the final stages of dimensia. "You could no more cook a meal than captain a cruise ship! You can't open a can of clams without causing yourself some grave injury!"

I was naturally crestfallen with her uncharitable assessment of my virtues. While there was some truth to the statement that the sharp edged can opener has, on occasion, proved a dangerous implement of self-immolation in my hands, so was it also the case that provided the proper incentive (say outdueling some self styled hero of the hot plate) I could quickly conjure the razor sharp senses of a feral coyote. With my full attention trained on a meal time challenge, there can be little doubt as to the delectable nature of the finished product. But now, lest we forget, my spirits had been doubly despoiled, my reputation two times ruined. I was left absolutely no choice but to open a second front on this increasingly bilious battlefield.

"I most certainly could captain a cruise ship!" I loudly disclaimed, and quite rightly, for many of my fondest childhood memories involve summer vacations overseeing a modest but seatested paddleboat across the choppy waters of a miniature but formidable lake in a Northern state well known for it's waterways. I was now being underestimated in arenas I had long considered to comprise the very vanguard of my expertise. While I might accurately be judged to have a ways to travel in the kitchen, no one (not even her) could accurately call into question my status as a Sultan of the Seas.

I suppose my paramour recognized that she had finally gone too far in her crass assessment of my competence, for very shortly the manipulative mynx was on the defensive, proffering every kind of mitigating, conciliatory gesture she could muster by way of apology. Or perhaps she was not apologizing- curiously phrases like "heat stroke delirious" and "dangerous fantasist" continued emiting from her lips- but regardless for the first time since the beginning of this ugly impasse, I sensed a palpable turning of the advantage to my favor. Conversely in her suddenly shifty gaze, I now noticed hesitancy, trepidation. What could generously be termed a failed gambit- the attempt at labeling me as unseaworthy- now lay splintered at her feet like a flimsy shack in a high plains windstorm. Flustered by the sudden change in fortunes, I could sense her anxiety to escape checkmate. In vain, her eyes darted back and forth, no doubt in search of some Deus Ex Machina to carry her away from certain mental domination.

(Further clarification: in case you are wondering, it is not my habit- or at least my choice- to mentally "dominate" a loved one. However, it would be less than forthcoming for me to deny that the ability to do so is not periodically useful. In the right- or wrong- hands, debating skills are like weapons grade plutonium. Every once and awhile you detonate a big one just to prove you can- but it has always been my position to spare the innocent whenever possible.)

Truly I had trapped and flumoxed my beloved, and she was now floundering, reeling this way and that in wake of her maritime mistake. But given her proven pedigree as a fighter (she has fists of like cinderblocks- don't ask me how I know) it came as little surprise to me when she refused to easily capitulate. Thus commenced a fruitless assualt on my credentials. "You call that a lake?!" she began, with trademark histrionic amazement. "That is not a lake. That is not a pond. I'm not sure it's even a creek. It's like a bit of high grass and swamp water."

Immediately I was put in mind of the ugliest, most blighted tactics of a high stakes political campaign. Diminish achievement. Dismiss heroism. Slash and burn. Unwilling (actually consitutionally unable, if truth be told) to get down in the gutter with my shining light, I opted instead for the high road and reminded her of the time before we were dating when I had observed her consume several too many margaritas at a mutual friend's barbeque before making exuberant, if tuneless, expression of her long repressed affection for Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl". Later (I further jogged her recollections)she had attempted kiss her best friend Shiela's husband Rodrigo, and had succeeded in kissing an uninvited interloper named Brent, very publicly, God knows how many times and what else. Predictably our little stroll down memory lane had a disquieting effect on my treasured one, and for a long moment neither of us spoke.

The silence loomed like a Zeppelin- it hovered in the air between us, heavy and gaseous, highly volatile and libel to explode at a moment's notice. Despite the electric tension I maintained an expression of the purest stoicism which served only to contribute to the escalating rage of my soul mate. I could see she was getting angrier and angrier (now a cartoonish shade of red, and could it be actual steam from her ears?! No, it's an illusion...) but I could not begin to understand why. For it was, after all, she who had made all of the major transgressions- mocking my cooking, making sport of my maritime industry, submitting to meal after meal with man after man dating back lifetimes and eons. What an appetite on this girl! How well fed she has kept herself!! But did I say these things aloud? I kept them too myself.

Instead it was she who punctured the silence, smashed through to the emergency alarm, seemed to imitate it with her voice, at once unnaturally shrill and reedy: "Do you want to know what your problem is?!" she began, giving no indication I had any real choice in the matter.

But just then we were interrupted by our waiter. Tall and stately, he carefully handed us our menus and prepared to tell us about the specials. Before doing so he made a slight bow, and annunciating clearly in a gravelly, masculine voice stated, "I'll be your server tonight. My name is Steve."

I Demand Resignations!

2006-03-31T21:08:00.000-08:00

Who is running my life? What group of incompetents planned this fiasco? Did they know anything about what they were getting into? I'm pissed. I want accountability. I demand resignations.

Who are these cockeyed dunces, these bruised brained architects of my so called "career"? Let them face their accuser manfully. I want to ask them something: did you not think a "career" should bring about any money? Or stability? Or prestige? Were these not the sorts of things you coterie of geniuses discussed before launching me wholesale down this peyote trail of ludicrus bullshit? Was I perhaps some kind of a lab rat to you? I can see the planning now: "Maybe he should be some kind of a writer- a songwriter! And we could have him write a novel packed with gibberish!" Well gentlemen, from the bottom of my heart, I do not send you my gratitude.

Who is in charge of my urges? Because it is sure as fuck not me. I would like the name, number and all official paperwork on the individual who has completely untethered every last bit of restraint from my body and mind so that my general habit is to careen senselessly from vice to vice, pausing only briefly to check in on arena football scores. Then I would like that person to tender their resignation. Whoever is in control of my urges has done a vigorous disservice not only to me, but to all of mankind. The time has come to turn over the reins to someone who can actually keep me within some modicum of control. Like the unraveling Iraq, my raging, warring Id is best overseen by a cruel and tyrannical dictactor.

Some of you will accuse me of playing "the blame game". Some of my opponents will try and tell you that it is only in hindsight, with the benefit of thirty two and a half years of perspective, that I am now retroactively questioning the strategies of those mad puppeteers who pull the strings in my frantically unhinged existence. But this is far from the case. More true: I have suspected that something was very fucked up for years. As early as 1987, when I could not pass an eighth grade math test despite the benefit of a calculator and the answer key, I called out to any who would listen: "For God's sake, we are listing! Someone put this ship on course!" But no one did repair the vessel. And now, dear friends, way are too far out at a rocky sea. From that neglectful Naval officer who did not heed the rescue warning, I demand a resignation.

Lord knows it's not an easy thing running my life. I certainly know I wouldn't want to have to do it. But the extent of the challenge is no excuse for failure. Winning the Cold War wasn't easy either. I believe this operation is going to require a new brain trust before this story becomes one long Bay Of Pigs.

The Mendoza Line opening for The Silos and The Minus 5 Tonight

2006-03-28T07:03:00.000-08:00

Hey Everybody,

In yet another historic overturning of conventional
wisdom, the ML has just returned from a two week US
tour with a sufficent number of firing synapses and
fully functioning limbs to open for the great Silos
and the indispensibly wonderful Minus 5 at the Mercury
Lounge tonight. Any individual not yet familiar with
the work of the M5's Scott McCaughey: prepare to
boggle over the songwriting, stage craft and lithe
physical gymnastics of this personal hero and
inarguable legend of contemporary music. Hope you're
all well.

Best,
Timothy

Harrowing Tales From The Sea

2006-03-03T10:17:00.000-08:00

Everybody knows that stepping foot in the ocean is basically a suicidal act, and that no one is in there very long before some combination of salt and sea life devours every inch of your flesh, before shrimp and sea horses use your bones and marrow to clean their teeth. There are reasons that such animals are in the sea and not on land. The sea is like nature's own maximum security penitentiary: all of the most violent, sadistic offenders are kept there to form gangs and make war on themselves. But if you think you can just walk in off the street (or the land as it were) and mingle with the population- well it was great knowing you. Have a nice, watery funeral.

I knew an oceanic explorer who had his leg chewed off by an eel. Apparently the shrieking could be heard for nautical miles. When they finally found him, washed up on shore and covered in barnicles, he could only muster a few oddly chosen phrases: "penny saved, penny earned" and "e pluribus unum". Then he went into shock. Of course by the time of his physical recovery it had become evident that he was insane. On his wooden leg he had carved in lobsters, clams, and coral. He filed for divorce from his wife on the grounds that she was an octopus. Later he was legally barred from changing his will in such a manner that his children inherited only seaweed. This is not the saddest story of the ocean either.

A child fell off a yacht and was raised by crabs. This may strike you as peculiar, and in fact it isn't very common: there are only a handful of documented cases of people being escorted from youth to adulthood by crustaceouns. Anyway, the child adapted to his surroundings and grew pincers and a hard shell. That is why, after capturing him in his very own net some thirty years later, his own father failed to recognize the now fully grown crab-child. The sea is a place which rends family apart. So a seafarer drinks his sorrows away with brine.

The clown fish- that demented harlequin of the seven oceans- approached a scuba diver and transfixed him with his convivial colors and antics. The diver began convulsing with laughter as the silly flounder darted this way and that in a crazy quilt of outrageous capering. Then a dolphin stealthily attacked from behind and with one collosal wallop dislodged the scuba man's air hose. In the sea, he who laughs last meets death.

It is the evolutionary imperative of penguins, seals and walruses to venture off their rocks and safe high perches into the ocean from time to time seeking sustenance and cool relief from the sun. Or maybe they just fall in. Either way, they're making a terible mistake. Many a sea lion has met a glum fate at the hands of a horseshoe crab while merely attempting to briefly gather a belly full of plankton. Don't take plankton lightly either: deviously it erodes the body from the inside.

I know you think you wish you had gills, and they can come in handy in a dunking tank, but if you think this will save you from the efficent attack of a jelly fish than you've been loading up on too much nicotine gum again. A trivia question: from how many yards away can a normal sized jelly fish incapacitate an average sized man with it's electric sting? Answer: don't find out. Stay out of the ocean.

Something About Dora

2006-02-24T09:34:00.000-08:00

Dora did not get on the bus, but merely brought her bags to the next door and used her own money to check into a charmless, dreary Bayswater hotel. She had planned on being observed seeming to get on a bus, allowing her to stay within a reasonable proximity of her band mates with out being bothered. It was a bad way to spend money-her own money, forty pounds a night- and she resented it. But the alternatives were simply too mortifying to accept. Now she settled into her small room and laid out her four heavy bags on the twin sized mattress in front of her. It was a grubby little room and which didn't look like it had been attended to in some time. Accumulated dust on the furniture and dirt collected between the tiles of the porcelain bathroom floor attested to that. A single, aging lamp let off a dull yellow glow which provided too little light to even unpack by properly. She would only be there for two nights, so there wasn't any point really. Outside the rain drizzled oppressively. Dora consulted her itinerary and, realizing she had an hour to herself, lay down on the grubby mattress and sighed.

Three days late. She waited for her period like Pozzo and Lucky. She waited and waited and it never came. Would a man ever know what it was to wish he would commence to bleed in torrents? Could Richard Sultane ever feasibly wrap his head around this notion? She had seen him cut his finger backstage on a Kippers Light once, attempting some elaborate trick to pry off the cap on a oak bench without the aid of a bottle opener. How churlish and girlish his reaction had been to the sight of his bleeding hand. He blamed everyone- Dora, the bench, the brewery- and equally begged everyone for help and medical attention with his tiny wound. Later he wrapped it in a huge bandage and played the show grimacing and growling like a war hero, intoxicated with his own perceived demonstration of machismo. How was it that men were this shamefully weak? This was an imponderable.

Frankie had been very sweet, but the presents he kept sending were absolutely horrifying. Two key chains made of deer bones, a recipe for mutton chops, and a picture of him dressed in a long black kimono. Not exactly the stuff dreams were made. “Why does it have to be him?” this thought turned endlessly over in her mind. Dora wished she had been so reckless some other time, with some other man. She had, later during that some tour, been somewhat reckless with Mick O'Callahan's dobro player, but logic and intuition told her that this man was not the one responsible for her late arriving period. Too bad. He so excelled at the dobro.

Dora thought she would write a letter to her father. She knew that he was back home in North Carolina, that he was thinking of her. There relationship was an ongoing challenge, but an affectionate one. When her mother was still alive, following the divorce, but before the cancer, Dora and her father had hardly spoken at all. But this estrangement had not taken place from lack of love or anger. It was just resignation. Dora and her father had made one another so sad for so long it finally seemed like the only humane thing for one to let the other be. The illness of Dora's mother had been an unending ordeal. Psychologically and financially broken by the divorce following twenty two years of mainly ceaseless misery, Mrs. Hargrove-Turner had taken it upon herself to quickly finish the only project she had been working on steadily since her early 20's: death by gin and tonic. By the time her long untreated stomach cancer was diagnosed as terminal, Dora's mother had wasted away to an unsightly bag of straining bones and musculature. Her skin- once porcelain, enviable- now turned a ghastly shade of yellow. It was the yellowness more than the emaciation which so disturbed Dora in her company. They gave her morphine constantly for the pain, and the hospice workers surrounded her night and day, in the small two room apartment which Dora's mother had rented for the purpose of dying in. As the morphine accumulated in her system, Dora's mother began to a greater and greater extent to lose her grip on reality. Soon fantastical and nonsensical thoughts far outnumbered the lucid ones. When she could talk- when her mouth was not too bereft of saliva, or her head too tired to lift- Dora's mother very rarely said anything which made any sense. But she would not die. For eleven interminable months, Dora drove every Friday after class let out five hours to see her mother and stayed with her until 10 P.M. on Sunday. The she would drive home and get up for class the following morning at 6. Hegel and Kant.

What might those two have made of the unfortunate waste her mother's life? There had been only too much promise: intellect, beauty, spirit, energy, humor and compassion. Dora's mother had pulled herself up from the deepest poverty in southern Alabama, put herself through a prestigious state school in North Carolina on scholarship, earned a PHD in romance languages, married Dora's aristocrat gather, and borne him two beautiful children. She had conducted a life of extraordinary achievement and unexpected trajectory. But she hated herself. And she couldn't wait to die.

Two weeks before her death, Dora's mother, altered to the point of derangement by morphine and pain, became at once very composed and lucid, and told Dora a story about she and her father. It was July, 1977 and Dora was two. They had left her with grandparents for a few days and traveled to New York City for fun and relaxation. In happier times this was a common occurrence. The two of them went to an off Broadway theater to see a performance of Chekov's “The Cherry Orchard”. Both were tremendous fans of the Russian playwright. Midway through the second act, all of the lights in the tiny theater suddenly went dim. There was at first a commotion and then a hush. The performers were heard to whisper and then shuffle off stage. For several minutes no one seemed to know what to do. There was not even enough light to safely get up and leave the premises. A low murmur gradually grew to a sizable din as friends spoke amongst themselves, and then to the strangers seated, next to them and eventually to the person in the rows in front. Finally, after perhaps fifteen minutes, the actors reappeared on stage, each holding a candle and proceeded by this low light to finish the end of the act. They then informed the rapt audience of the city wide black out and the need to evacuate. All during the retelling of this event Dora cried and cried, for she could tell that it was amongst her mother's happiest memories, and wondered why it had all had to end so badly. She cried for her parent's marriage, for her ruined childhood, for her mother's interminable terminal illness and because she would be dead any day now. That was the summer of 1996. No blackout.

Dr. Vester And The Snack Machine Part One

2006-02-11T09:26:00.000-08:00

For eight consecutive days the Professor approached the hotel's head of “Guest Services” and asked why his suggestions for new snacks had not been heeded. The suggestion box itself was now stuffed full and straining. Dr. Vester had filled it with several lengthy memorandums concerning sweeping changes for all over the hotel. He asked for a lecture podium in his room. He requested an overhead slide machine in the lobby. But mainly he just asked, again and again, for a wider selection of snacks. Finally, nearing the end of his tether, the guest services provider invented a lie.

“It's the machine,” he said, “it will only dispense certain things. Only the snacks we have in there now.”

The prevarication seemed to stop the professor cold. His face flushed slightly and he ran his hand through his thinning gray hair. He mumbled sympathetically.

“Hmmm. So I see. Well then I guess you can't help it.”

Relieved, guest services nodded appreciatively. He shrugged his shoulders and held his hands upward. “Can't help it,” he reiterated, “A damned shame.”

“Damned shame,” agreed Dr. Vester soberly, “Nothing you can do about it.” He then added cryptically, under his breath, “But maybe I can.”

“What?” said the startled employee.

But the professor had already started back to his room.

At 4:30 am the following morning a bellicose ruckus was heard emitting from the vending area. A man was speaking, horsely, to an unspecified second party.

“What it is it with you?” yelled Dr. Vester, clutching a steaming thermos. “Why can't you be good to others?”

The two dim lights contained at the top of the machine hummed softly, but otherwise it was mute in the face of it's interrogator.

“Now see here,” the professor continued, undaunted, “I am a snacker. Each of us have our place in this world. The absence of civility you demonstrate is unconscionable.”

But the snack machine did not respond. Dr. Vester could not help but esteem with the eerie calm evinced by his adversary in the midst of this rhetorical onslaught. Obviously the machine was savvy, demonstrating as it did a working knowledge of the sorts of techniques preferred Asian diplomats and businessmen during high stakes negotiations. Impressed but not intimidated, the professor elected himself to take a silent approach. He considered himself likewise to be a master of subliminal cues.

The two warring entities stared wordlessly at one another for a long time. Dr. Vester assumed a posture of stoicism, betraying no emotion and fixing a gimlet like stare on some “Fiddle Faddle”. Not to be outdone, the machine did not deviate from it's routine: humming, glowing, flashing a red light which read .75 which indicated the price of any purchase. Otherwise not a word was spoken between the parties, no communication of any kind, for perhaps two hours. The only action of any sort occurred when another guest came up behind Dr. Vester intending to use the machine. But the professor was easily able to ward this interloper off by raising his arms like a crossing guard and mouthing a silent “NO” to the would be patron. Finally a few hours after that, it was left to Dr. Vester to break the stalemate.

“See here again,” he entreated, “I need to go instruct a class. But I do not consider this issue to be resolved. I will be back in the morning, and we will no doubt wish to revisit our differences again.”

As promised, the following morning he was back, this time with notes.

He was having trouble holding his coffee in one hand and his notes in the other, and under his breath chastely cursed the absence of a podium for him to rest either upon. Instead he placed his thermos on the ice machine. Then, clearing his throat, he read directly to the snack machine from his index cards:

“Brethren, I beseech you. Think now of the irony of our situation! Is it not funny that you are here, plugged into the wall, and I am here plugged into this coffee?!!”

In order to lighten the atmosphere, Dr. Vester had elected to start with a joke. This was actually more of a humorous observation than a standard punch line, but he had still thought it to be awfully witty. As such, he was somewhat disappointed that the machine didn't laugh. Still he soldiered on:

“No, but seriously. We are at a difficult time in our collective history. We both have needs and find that they are unfulfilled. I have a need for snacks. I don't know what you need (is it coins?) but I'm sure it is something attainable. We have tried working against each other, and you see where the results have landed us. Perhaps now the time has come to work together.”

These last words Dr. Vester spoke with a genteel flourish designed to foster an atmosphere of trust, or at least tolerance, between the divided constituencies. However, conscious of the mistakes made by FDR at the Yalta Conference, he was also determined not to concede too much.

Photo Shoot

2006-02-07T09:34:00.000-08:00

By a large, oval shaped man made pond in Hyde Park, Dora observed some mallard ducks. She leaned precariously over the railing to get a better view, and thinking she might be offering bread, several swam towards her in tandem, the loud din of their splashing and quacking drew Warren's attention away from the impending photo shoot.

“What are you doing to those birds Dora?” he inquired with suspicion. “they are going positively mad.”

“I'm just looking!” she answered defensively, though secretly Dora wondered if she hadn't done something to drive the ducks into a state of delirium. They were flapping and fluttering now in an ever more violent fashion, the quacking acquiring a vigorous and demanding tone. Attracted by the commotion, two large gray geese flew in to inspect the action, leading to a confrontation between them and a single swan who was diving near by for minnows. Soon the sound of birds in various states of excitation, anxiety and anger combined to fill the air with a threatening din, stray feathers were everywhere, and a young mother worriedly shielded her child and shepherded him away from what had five minutes previous seemed a pastoral and bucolic setting. Dora surveyed the pandemonium and smiled contentedly. Something about birds in a panic invested her with a sense of well being.

Standing some ways away amidst some poplar trees, the photographer was not amused. It was late afternoon on a blustery January day and he had been summoned from his home in Cricklebush at the last minute to photograph an American band he'd never heard of. The location was hackneyed and posed logistical problems, and the hour promised poor lighting and questionable results. The shoot had originally been scheduled for that morning with a different photographer, but a change had been necessitated rearranging after Richard became lost at the Kings Cross tube station and inadvertently rode the full hour to Wembley. The “London Challenger” had needed the pictures this very evening to make deadline. Now the Yanks in question were cutting up and playing with birds rather than taking the shoot seriously.

“Bloody knackered...” thought the lens man as he observed his subjects, two tousle haired weirdos and an attractive woman now covered in feathers. In the best of all possible worlds she would clean herself off before matters progressed further, but lamented, we live in sour times. It would take all of his skill and acumen to salvage this situation.

Removing from his large leather bag an impressive looking high speed zoom lens camera and several rolls of film, the cameraman motioned in the direction of Dora, gesturing for her to approach. At this Warren, Richard and Dora all began moving forward.

“No!” yelled the cameraman, and began waving Richard and Warren back, at which point all three began retreating in tandem.

“Oh pants!” the photographer now cursed under his breath, and taking stock of the fading light grabbed his head and grimaced.

“Right then,” he said, summoning a pleasant tone, “lets all gather please.”

The band members huddled around, accompanied by Kate, the bleary eyed, pony tailed publicist from the Moonshiner London office, a cheerful, stylish 30-something spinster who had spent roughly the last seven years worth of evenings in her neighborhood pub. She was nevertheless highly competent at her job, and though possessing only the faintest grasp of who The Early Returns were or what recommended their music, had arranged for several high profile mentions of the band in advance of their local appearance and subsequent UK tour.

Now the band gazed quizzically at the cameraman, shivering in the stiff wind, their collective countenance blank and absent of guile. Of the three Dora was the only one who was remotely comfortable having her picture taken, and indeed was photogenic, almost invariably glamorous and appealing on film no matter the circumstance. In direct contrast stood Richard, of whom not a single handsome picture existed. While it was a commonly stated phenomenon that the camera “loved” some people and and not others, rarely was it observed that the camera seemed so virulently angry at an individual as it evidently was with Richard Sultane. Considerable and even heroic efforts at capturing his image in an even remotely flattering fashion in had come to naught. Seasoned and expert photographers had been retained to take publicity photos. They had been handsomely compensated, used every trick and tool in their service, and nevertheless found Richard's features horribly distorted and distended in the finished product. It seemed a difficulty without recourse.

“Okay,” began the photographer, “what I am thinking for this shoot is, we have Dora- it's Dora right?- right, we have Dora stand over here by herself.”

He pointed in the direction of a wooden railing a short distance away.

“Then,” he pointed out the boys, “we'll have you two stand back there, over by the shrubs.”

He indicated a row of bushes roughly fifty yards behind the railing.

“That way,” he continued pleasantly, “Dora, you will be here front and center and then the guys will be back there...looming. It will be sort of ominous. Do you see what I'm saying?”

The boys stared blankly at the photographer. Only Dora offered a response, “Yes, I think that might be ominous. Very, very ominous.”

Kate then interjected cheerfully, “Right then, but if those two are standing all the way back there, I mean, that's quite far. We won't be able to see them at all then, will we?”

The lens man frowned. “Well, I mean, we'll be able to see them, only they will be more like shadows. You know, ominous.”

Kate raised her carefully plucked eyebrows and shrugged, “Errrm, I suppose if they don't mind...Seems to me that it is usually best to actually appear in one's shots, but tisn't up to me, now, is it?”

Warren, now freezing cold and completely without interest in the proceedings, became exclusively concerned with expediting matters. He could think of few things of lesser consequence then where he was to stand when having his picture taken. He would happily stand in an open grave if it meant he could go inside and smoke. Hoping to speed things along, he now volunteered, “This is a great idea. I definitely think it will be ominous if Richard and I stand by that bush. Lets go Richard.”

But Richard was feeling defiant. Tensions between he and Dora had been running high since an incident on the plane trip over during which Richard had repeatedly insisted upon placing several magazines in the pouch space in front of Dora's seat, and then later attempted to claim her vegetarian meal for himself. She had eventually summoned a flight attendant and asked to change seats, claiming the man next to her was a harassing stranger.

It was, however, apparent to everyone involved that the difficulty between them had deeper roots than just pouch space. When Richard had discovered the news concerning Dora's visit to Frankie Porschte's tour bus, he had reacted badly, with a facile jealousy made worse by the fact of his trying to hide it. Had he simply confessed to complex and possessive feelings towards Dora and jealous and disdainful ones towards Frankie he might have seemed sympathetic. Instead he embarked upon a strange campaign of petty and inscrutable slights towards Dora which merely made him appear insane. For her part, Dora conveyed few details of her encounter with Frankie, careful not to betray any of the the secrets he had disclosed to her. There had, in the final analysis, been many. She was aware that certain assumptions had been made about what had gone on in the tour bus, and that not all of the assumptions were true. Still it was neither her style nor her inclination to disabuse anyone of anything. All of them, Richard especially, were entitled to believe exactly what they wanted to believe, go as far as their, arrested, demented imaginations would take them. Richard especially would no doubt invent the sickest possible interpretation of the events as he imagined them.

“I don't see why Dora should be in front!” Richard now caterwauled, “she isn't the leader. Why should we be following her? I don't want think I want to be ominous. Why should I?”

“Because close up you're grotesque.” Warren said, “every picture we've ever taken of you looks like you have just been recently disfigured. Don't you understand that?”

This made everyone uncomfortable. It was the sort of truism that was widely accepted but never supposed to be spoken aloud. Richard rubbed his jaw, chastened. To onlookers, even frequent ones, the casual cruelty with which he and Warren periodically treated one another was always a source of wonderment.

“Oh MY!” Kate lilted, breaking the awkward silence. “I'm QUITE sure that isn't so! Why I think Richard is rather fetching myself.” She said this, though thinking back on the pictures she had seen in their press kit, she remembered observing that there appeared to be a gargoyle in the band.

“Well, I guess in that case...” Richard trailed off and walked forlornly towards the appointed area. Everyone took their places and frowned. A cold wind blew up and and the birds squawked loudly in the distance.

Kahn

2006-01-29T22:46:00.000-08:00

Outside the hostel, they took aggrieved stock of their rough treatment by the front desk clerk.

“You know what this is reminiscent of?” Warren muttered ruefully. “you do know who she is like, right?”

“I do,” said Richard, and furrowed his brow.

Both men grimaced at the recollection, though neither actually came out and said the word “Kahn”.

The Pakistani doorman, standing a full and severe six foot two, with black twist of hair combed over his balding dome and the mirthless coal black eyes of a hangman, had caused no shortage of difficulty for the two when they had first come to the island Manhattan. An unusual state of affairs had led them to occupy for some months the upscale, empty apartment of a well to do aunt of Richard's Mercer and 4th street (she had gone to the tropics, met and married a playboy aristocrat, become embroiled in a tense murder and extradition debacle). Here, amongst highly payed professionals from every stripe of New York society, the two fit in badly. Fellow tenants recoiled from the sight of the two, as though encountering conras ina kitchen cupboard.

It was Kahn (or “Mr. Kahn” as he was alternatively known) a man of tremendous currency and influence at 315 Mercer, who led the charge against them. On the occasion when the boys moved their things into the building they had, according to custom, introduced themselves to Kahn and his staff.

“You two are the gays?” Kahn offered, in his deep accent, by way of further introduction. Richard's relatives had, perhaps understandably, believed Warren and Richard to be lovers and explained to the building manager that the “couple” would be moving in to look after her things.

“Us?” responded Warren, moderately taken aback. “No, we're not the gays. You must be thinking of two other men who live together.”

But Kahn looked skeptical, annoyed. In his native Jalalabad such evasions were a commonplace necessity in the gay community in order to avoid persecution. As a proud and free thinking immigrant, Kahn disliked the notion of homophobic shame and prejudice having traveled westward to his adopted home city.

“No!” he retorted, tersely. “You are the gays.” With a majestic sweep of his hand, he indicated the entire beautifully appointed lobby. “We don't have a problem here.”

“Hey,” Warren shrugged, “we don't have a problem either. I'm just saying...”

But Kahn was irate. In what felt like an ominous gesture, Kahn he took Richard's hand and shook it vigorously, angrily, as if expecting to jerk a prize out of him. Warren's hand, by contrast, he accepted limply and with great reluctance, as though it were slathered in some unseemly ointment. He then wiped it off thoroughly with a monogrammed handkerchief.

Things did not improve when Richard, seeking a set of his aunt's antique sterling silver serving spoons, a family heirloom which he had carelessly misplaced, wandered down to the basement which was supposed to house the building's “lost and found”. There he saw, or thought he saw, Kahn doing engaging in a most unsettling behavior. Returning chagrined to the apartment Richard sat and pondered what he had witnessed.

“Did you get that silver?” Warren inquired, leaning out the window smoking. It was pouring rain outside, as it had been for several consecutive days. Water seeped through the screen and accumulated on the sill and on Warren's sweater, although he seemed oblivious to both occurrences.

“No. I don't even think the 'lost and found' is down there. But I did see something.”

“You did not get the spoons," Through the screened in window, Warren exhaled a long plume of smoke into the East Village afternoon. A gust of wind blew a small torrent onto the living room floor. "But you did see something?”

“I think I did. You know Kahn Junior?”

“Of course,” Warren rejoined irritably.

Kahn Junior was an assistant door and maintenance man who worked in the building under Kahn's supervision. White haired, Irish, elderly, the likelihood that he was in any way related to Kahn seemed extravagantly remote. Why the boys had taken to calling him “Kahn Junior” was anyone's guess.

“Well,” continued Richard, “I think I saw Kahn... ah... beating Kahn Junior. With a wire coat hanger.”

“Jesus. That's awful. Do you know why?”

“I have no idea. He just kept whacking him and whacking him and yelling 'I'm the doorman! I'm the doorman!' It was terrible. But the especially odd thing is, a couple of minutes later I saw the two of them up in the lobby, chatting very amiably as though nothing at all had occurred.”

“Well, that is not good. We're in real trouble here. This building is an absolute freak show. We better plan on laying low. Kahn is going to be pulling some crazy shit on us, I fear.” Warren extinguished his cigarette. His clothes and the surrounding floor we're completely soaked.

He rubbed his face, thick with several days growth of beard. Staring wistfully at the gloomy weather outside, he reckoned that he had better do something about it. Both Richard and Warren emphatically believed that rain, snow and other major weather related incidents could either be brought about or stopped depending on how they elected to manage their facial hair. Six straight days of rain meant it was time to shave.

“The other peculiar thing,” Richard continued, now speaking as much to himself as to Warren who was leaning over the wash basin, wrangling with his beard, “Is that when I enter the building, Kahn refuses to acknowledge any familiarity with me. Every time I walk into the lobby he just gazes at me blankly and says 'which apartment are you visiting?' This makes me very tense.”

Warren was now unable to respond, too distracted by his efforts at shaving, which were typically degenerating into a full scale bloodbath. He was laboring intensively and painfully with a twenty pack of bargain brand disposable “Shavers” which he had procured the previous day at a dollar store in China Town. It had seemed like a good deal. He didn't know why on the package they were called “Shavers” and not “Razors”, but he couldn't imagine the difference was anything particularly important. But as it turned out, “Shavers” had either a very dull blade, or no blade at all. This, he now reckoned, was probably why they were so cheap. With roughly half of his beard gone, Warren's face looked like it had been attacked by a mongoose. He was nicked and cut in numerous places and was trying to stench the significant flow of blood with a torn paper towel. Of the twenty “Shavers” in the pack, he had already used twelve.

Unaware of the grim scene unfolding a few feet away, Richard continued to fret over Kahn. “I don't believe for a second that he doesn't remember me. No one is that forgetful. I must have walked in nine times yesterday.”

Novella Exceprt II: The Tour Bus

2006-01-19T07:32:00.000-08:00

This basically makes absolutely no sense without the hundred pages which preceed it, but I guess that's the amusing thing about excerpts and blogs...
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The Tour Bus 12:30 a.m.

Almost immediately upon arriving in Frankie's tour bus, Dora felt sorry for having taken up his offer. The mysterious thing about the vehicle, Dora thought, was that although parked and at a stand still, with the engine off, and no one but herself and Frankie aboard, it seemed to be rocking as though in motion. This she did not take to be a good sign. Touring in such a monstrosity struck her as inconceivable, like utter overkill- it seemed to her that there was room enough for an army platoon. There was an upstairs and downstairs section, implements of entertainment and debauchery were everywhere to be seen. Situated by a reclining chair, Dora noticed a very large bong which reached nearly from the floor to the ceiling of the back room of the bus. She attempted to imagine how it could be used at all, but could not conjure a mental picture of the bong being implemented. Everything felt comically out sized and she felt small. Reaching from a liquor cabinet Frankie handed her a rum cocktail of his some kind- she hated rum, but gratefully accepted the offering if only to obliterate her surroundings. Frankie removed a freshly fat joint from his flannel shirt pocket, and offered it to Dora, who massively inhaled. Frankie was startled at the sight of her heedless, head long leap into his roiling bacchanal. He had anticipated something different from Dora: perhaps fear, even a slight degree of intimidation. But no. As to the occasional tawdry circumstance, Dora was no stranger. She made no pretension of having been born yesterday, and during her younger days had frequently been in the company of musicians in a non-musical environment.

In some ways this had proved her impetus and inroad into songwriting.
Getting to know these boys intimately, whom she had worshiped from a far as a concert goer and fan, Dora found them to be almost uniformly needy, self-conscious, often intellectually bereft. Although she had always enjoyed singing, and knew she was good at it, it had never really occurred to her to write or perform her own material. This was the primary positive consequence of her love affairs with musicians, that she had been so utterly disabused of any notion that they were an impressive ilk. Viewed from afar they had seemed as young Gods. Up close there was scarcely anything less intimidating. Still this did not prepare her for the suddenness with which Frankie announced “I want to show you something!” and undid his tremendous belt buckle.

“I'm too old for this,” thought Dora, and began to think of ways to politely extricate herself from the situation. But her own impulse to protest could not work as fast as Frankie worked his own trousers, and as he began kissing her she realized that at that moment, she just didn't care. While Frankie gripped and manhandled her, firmly but not forcefully pushing her onto one of the long benches which lay behind them, she felt curiously and pleasantly absent from the entire unfolding events. At that moment her thoughts had turned to her living arrangements in New York, and her infuriating endearing roommate Vince.

When she moved to New York it was not easy for Dora to find an apartment, and she had ended up moving in with a man named Vince who she had known in high school, when she was a freshman and he was a senior. Now he was a successful attorney working on Wall Street and lived by the theater district in midtown. Knowing veritably nothing about the geography of the city and even less about the logistics required in securing a lease of her own, it had seemed to Dora a grand and fortuitous offer when Vince had mentioned having “extra room” and offered to have her move in. But it all turned out so strange. It seemed that by “extra room” Vince didn't literally mean he had an extra room. Instead when she arrived it turned out that the apartment was a one room studio and he had purchased bunk beds for the two of them to sleep in. There was nothing at all romantic implied by this, Vince was a decent, sweet natured man with a serious girlfriend in Iceland. He was simply trying to be helpful. Nevertheless, as if beyond the control of both parties, a certain older brother-younger sister dynamic evolved between Vince and Dora, and as they would lay a wake at night she would disclose information to him about the various men she was dating, and he would invariably take a dim, cautious view of each one she described.

“Oh Dora!” he would commonly protest in his low, rumbling southern accent, “that guy's not a good enough for you!”

Once she had briefly and ill advisedly taken up with a married man, and Vince's feelings of disapproval over the circumstances had proved so forceful that a contentious quiet had settled in all around the premises. She had even brought the scoundrel over for briefly on the way to a movie and lord knows what else, causing Vince to storm out glowering and projecting menace and disdain. After that no words had been exchanged of any kind were exchanged between the Vince and Dora for three consecutive weeks.

Finally, at 2 a.m. one night Vince had stumbled in from a long night of drinking with colleagues and college pals and collapsed noisily on his lower bunk. Dora was asleep and was growing accustomed to no longer saying good night to her bunk mate. But now, slurring his words, he bellowed:

“It's not a moral thing, Dora. I don't care that the god damn jerk is married. I just can't abide seeing anyone hurt you.”

“Well Vince,” she had responded sleepily but with a certain air of conviction, “I am a grown woman, and it's really not up to you who I elect to spend my time with.”

The next morning, however, she broke the affair off.

Still it remained a persistently odd situation. If she was staying out all night, speaning the night with a boyfriend she felt the need to call and at least leave a message. In these instances Dora hoped that Vince wouldn't answer, lest she be subjected to a minor inquisition. “Oh? Not going to make it home? Okay. And who are you with? Having fun? Okay I guess I'll see you tomorrow...”

Bringing a man home with her was, needless to say, completely out of the question. The more so following one historically mortifying misunderstanding where in, thinking Vince was away on vacation, she had been in the upper bunk with a performer from a local comedy troupe when he had unexpectedly crashed in through the door of the apartment carrying two large sandwiches and yelling: “Suprise Dora! I've got roast beef!”

Meanwhile Frankie, in a considerable heaving lather and enjoying what he presumed must be display of masterful romantic prowess, could nevertheless not quite help but noticing that Dora, lying unclothed and bemused beneath him, seemed not to really to be paying very much attention to their interlude. This fact struck slightly at his pride and presuming he must be misapprehending the circumstance, sought a degree of reassurance.

“Is that good?” he wheezed, “Is that good for you Miss Dora?”

Dora remembered where she was and felt like laughing aloud, not from a lack of enjoyment, but just at the ridiculousness of th entire situation. Knowing however that strong men, stronger than Frankie Porchst, had been permanently scarred by a stray chuckle at such a moment, she humanely resisted the urge.

It did occur to her at that moment that maybe something had slipped her mind. But it was not until several minutes later, after it was really too late, that either she or Frankie thought to ask certain relevant questions about birth control.

Now it was too late. Now it was terribly awkward. In the tour bus, in intimate proximity to one another, both parties at once seemed to recognize at once that the topic needed to be broached- for their mutual peace of mind- but neither could seem to find an entry point into the discussion. Dora thought back to an article she had once read, a profile of Frankie, where in he had insisted that following the death of his wife, that there would be “no spawn”. In his concerted view, life was exponentially too unbearable to even consider playing any role in the continuation of the species. Furthermore, he hoped for everyone's sake that all mankind would soon be extinct, leaving the world to “buzzards and bats and roaches and rats”. Frankie had also said, Dora thought she recalled, that he was “leaving nothing to chance”.

But Frankie had left it too chance. Despite his rigorous convictions he had not proved brave enough to go through with the surgery. He made it all the way through the consultations, but in the final analysis unable to sign off on the willful shearing of his vas deferens. Deferens!The very word itself chilled his core. Too close to the satchel. For all of his barrel house bluster, Frankie was something of a coward when it came to pain. He hoped that Dora was on the pill- presumed she must be- prayed silently that this was the case.

A month earlier though Dora had ceased taken her birth control pills, having tired of the various side effects she with which she had come to associate them: mood swings, nausea, weight gain, dizziness. At the time she had not envisioned behaving quite so recklessly. Had she envisioned it she might instead have doubled her dosage.

So it was that as she stood and dressed, both she and Frankie wondered, but neither spoke. Frankie reclined and fretfully lit a large joint. He began humming an old hillbilly song about a ball and chain. Outside the tour bus, Dora was dimly aware that the commotion created by the evening's events had scarcely abated. Angry and confused voices, sirens, milling and chattering. She pondered to herself how she might exit the bus without anyone noticing.

You Really Can't Break Up With A House Cat

2006-01-14T11:39:00.000-08:00

If my house cat was a girlfriend, I would just break up with him.

"Mushka," I would say, "I care about you very much. But this just isn't working out. You are too needy, you cling to me constantly, you bite my ankles and whine. I haven't slept in six weeks, because you cannot stand the site of me when I am not scratching, rubbing or otherwise caressing you. This is painful, but I really just can't see a future for the two of us."

But you really can't break up with a house cat. I tried, and he just looked at me with his patented adoring gaze. I put him on the foot of the bed, and he crawled back up. I placed him on the floor and he excitedly leapt onto the mattress again. I locked him out of the bedroom and he began maniacally scratching at the door, pawing madly away like a perpetual motion machine for fifteen excruciating minutes. When I finally let him back in, in order to cease the unendurable clatter, he immediately made a bee line for me and dived with a cork screw like half turn directly into my rib cage, where he commenced purring like a steam engine. I believe he thought we were having a tearful reunion.

You can't really pen an open letter to a house cat explaining where things went wrong. You can do it, but it is unlikely to bring about the desired effect. The most likely result of reading aloud a lengthy epostle to an overstuffed, black and white mottled domesticated feline is simply more confusion on the part of both paries. I don't know what I'm going to do. You can't really issue a house cat a restraining order...

A Couple Of Words About The End Of The Redskins Season

Given the brutal, savage logic of the the NFL playoff system, it is difficult to lament too terribly the Redskins divisional playoff loss at Seattle yesterday. Difficult yes, but not impossible. Thus I am in a nearly catatonic state of despair. The frustrating thing about yesterday's game was seeing how tirelessly the Redskin's punishing defense competed, how they repeatedly schemed and strove and otherwised imposed their will upon the Seahawks highly ranked offense and yet were so infrequently complimented by the struggling offense. This has been the case for much of the year. Though plainly strides were made on the offensive side of the ball during Coach Gibbs second year back, it is pretty evident that they remain a couple weapons short if a championship level passing game. Any sort of compliment at receiver to the remarkable Santana Moss would seem to portend a potentially (more) massive year for this startlingly sure handed speed merchant. At quarterback, Mark Brunell is brave and crafty, and throws a good deep ball. But at this point in his career he completely lacks the ability to make plays with his legs which turned out to be a key factor in yesterday's loss. Much as I like him, it is not completely clear to me that he is a Super Bowl type player at this point.

None of this is to diminish the considerable achievements of the Redskins season. Two years in, having inherited a bad team and a chaotic franchise, Coach Gibbs is now 17-17 overall and 1-1 in the post season. He seems largely to have replaced the "me first", high salaried players who characterized the Turner/Spurrier eras and has seemingly set the table for a very good run the next few years. Now is I could just stop sobbing...

Excerpts From Novella Part One

2006-01-11T08:24:00.000-08:00

Here is a randomly chosen excerpt from our novella project, which I like to think of as a cross between a screwball comedy and a cry for help:

Maximimum Life: An Account Of The First Dates Of Warren And Emily

1)On their first date Warren and Emily had gone together to the coin laundromat where she had assisted him in overcoming his long standing phobia concerning the “triple loader”. Later she had employed brilliant inductive logic and reasoning to scientifically disproved his theory about the extreme dangers posed by cordoury pants. Finally they had gone to a bar just down the street from her apartment, located in a slightly sketchy neighborhood. There Warren was confronted by a roughneck who called him a vaguely foreign sounding name and falsely accused him of stealing some quarters off the side of the pool table. They had departed hastily after this confrontation, at Warren's urging. Though his comportment under duress was somewhat less than manful, Emily had nevertheless found herself oddly compelled by the extremity of Warren's awkwardness. Dates with more standard issue “desirable” men had of late left her cold.

2)On their second date an attempt was made to exchange a scarf which had been given to Emily for her birthday by a great aunt at the Nordstrom's department store in midtown. As a romantic outing this was in many ways ill conceived , bringing together as it did a sort of crazy quilt comprising many of Warren's phobias and general severe difficulties with urban dwelling: subways, crowds, stores, salespeople, commercial products, panhandlers and especially revolving doors. It was the case that in the course of his lifetime Warren had never one time passed through a revolving door without incident. The unique challenge posed by their manic twirling and whirling struck at the very nerve center of his delicate constitution, and once inside he would often fall, become trapped between compartments by some stray strand of baggage or backpack or simply lapse into a panicked state and turn around and around for a long, hot minute of fevered mortification. Approaching the dread glass carousal he was consumed with grim thoughts and impulses- perhaps most disturbing of all was the notion to gently nudge over the geriatric man walking directly in front of he and Emily, causing a blockage by spinning portal's entryway, thus buying valuable time for him to slip unnoticed into the roiling throngs and away from his would be paramour forever. Away from this Emily, she who's company he enjoyed, but who seemed to be relish placing him in the most unmanageable situations. The dastardly impulse was quelled however, and to his great surprise she took him by the hand and ushered him through the twisting Hell's gate and onto the premises without incident.

Once inside Warren felt possessed of a greater sense of self assurance than was customarily the case during his rare visits to the great corporate killing floors of Manhattan. He looked fleetingly askance at the normal worrisome totems that tended to jangle and grate: the mannequins, panties and shoe horns. The security tags affixed to every swath of clothing, which reminded him of the tracking devices attached to the ears and legs of wild animals by purportedly well meaning scientists, so that he imagined whenever he purchased anything at such a outlet that the device was never really removed and that he was always being studied and tracked. (In fact this was not so far from the truth: somewhere a great computer was making a voluminous record of all of his purchases, then sending him corresponding solicitations through the e-mail, the majority of which appeared to question his masculinity at the most barbaric level and caused him to wince with embarrassment.) There was, however, a certain Zen calm and purposefulness to Emily which Warren found dulled the edge of his paranoid scrutiny. She laughed sympathetically at his observations, seemed to enjoy them, but did not appear non-plussed by the heaping helpings of ”deep reality” which flowed compulsively from his lips in the midst of such stressful excursions. Instead she moved easily, pleasingly in the crowd, navigating a path to the “returns” department, appraising the cashmere scarf at a hundred dollar value and exchanging it (rather fancifully Warren thought) for two mysterious face creams alleged to open or close pores or enlarge them (this last thing made him think of “Gulliver's Travels”, of the Brobdignagians) or something helpful and at least not dangerous.

3)The third date between Warren and Emily was not really a date at all, but a trip to the doctor. Aged 31, Warren had not been to see a physician of any kind for just over eleven years. In the interim he had suffered through and ignored many dangerous maladies including but not limited to dizziness, rapid changes in body temperature, unexplained pain in a phantom “third arm” and a steady hacking cough the result of his heavy consumption of tobacco. That he held in disdain his own physical condition was beyond dispute. In fact he behaved as if enraged by his physiology, driven to acts of private, personal sedition against his own well being by the mere notion of possessing a body. In physicians he put little stock, often citing the fate of Prince Andrew from “War And Peace” as evidence that they mainly did more harm than good. During a famous, impromptu speech given on a Brooklyn roof top one 4th of July, following the fireworks and nine martinis, he had laid out his full philosophy on the issue:

“No man has ever been healed by a doctor!” He had stated waving a large bag of corn chips threateningly in the direction of the several alarmed attendees, “And no medicine will ever replace a balanced diet of well chosen snacks in the pursuit of a Maximum Life!”

The speech had been an important one for Warren, linking as it did for the first time two of the major tenants which comprised what he liked to call his “mature philosophy”. As inventor (patent pending) of the “Constellation Of Snacks” he had taken the time to write several letters to the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control recommending that it be adopted as the natural, ingenious successor to the scientifically outdated “Food Pyramid”. Aggravatingly none of these correspondences, the last of which he had even taken the time to decorate with a galaxy of bright stick on stars, had so much as generated a form letter response. This failure he attributed to beaurocratic red tape, alarming in an instance of such pressing public interest.

Still more fundamental to Warren Jorgenson's world view was his concept of Maximum Life. This was best described (in his pamphlet by the same name) as: “Doing what you want to do. Because you have to do it. All the time!” Warren liked to brag that at one point he had achieved a streak of doing not one single thing he didn't feel like doing for an uninterrupted span of fourteen month. This was no exaggeration, but it was also plain to see that the rigors of Maximum Life had begun to take their toll. Blessed by good genes and a curious dignity sometimes evident in the tramps and indigents of a chantey town, Warren had somehow remained strangely handsome while plowing through his own personal Kilaminjaro of cigarettes, Kippers Ale, Dr. Bold soda and levels one through nineteen of the vaunted snack chart. But not without consequences (and no one had ever claimed that Maximum Life came without them). He could rarely finish a sentence without a loud series of painful coughs emitting from his hostage lungs and the five floor walk up to Emily's apartment was enough to leave him wheezing and faint. There was, it could no longer be argued, hidden behind an unkempt bushel of hair, a lump growing on his neck. It had started out small, barely noticeable, but now it was the size of a crab apple. Upon inspecting it Emily had become tremendously afraid. Meeting him by the junk shop where he liked to rummage for old records and broken guitars, she had promised to take him for crab cakes and instead brought him to her general practitioner.

“This deception is outrageous!” he had protested in the waiting room, “Emily, you have taken too great advantage of my guileless good nature. You knew I could not resist those cakes. By all rights I should immediately leave here immediately and take several of these magazines with me as compensation for the unprecedented hijacking of my afternoon.” Warren was forever collecting stacks of used and outdated periodicals.

She persuaded him to stay and submit to the examination. The general practitioner recoiled at the site of the lump on Warren's neck, feared the worst, required every last modicum of restraint he had learned during his two year residency in a San Jose burn ward not to shout aloud: “What the fuck is that thing?” However Emily, Warren, and the doctor were all three happily startled to learn that the growth posed no particular health risk at all. It required draining of fluid but no invasive surgery. The draining was scheduled for the following week, and though Warren had absolutely zero intention of keeping this appointment he could not help but feel somewhat touched by Emily's concern for him.

Notes From The Beginning Of 2006

2006-01-02T20:55:00.000-08:00

Redskins Win Fifth Straight, Qualify For Post-Season For The First Time Since 1999

It was a very uncomfortbale experience watching the first 57 minutes of the Redskins playoff clinching triumph in Phildelphia, until Sean Taylor finally broke the game open by returning a Koy Detmer fumble for a touchdown and a 31-20 victory. This triumph concluded an unlikely five game winning streak which has now compelled the Skins to heights hardly forseeable during the the three game losing streak which dropped their record to 5-6. In the interests of a full and honest disclosure, I did not think we would win that game when it was 17-7 Eagles and our defense looked utterly befuddled and undermanned at every turn. I wanted to crawl into a hole. I wanted to curse the Lord's year 2006 until the heavens came crashing down around me and ground my consciousness into the merciful black. If I were coaching the team, I would probably have pulled them off the field and forfeited.

But that is why I'm not a professional football coach, let alone a Hall Of Famer like Joe Gibbs. What poise, composure and resiliency this tough team has shown in making their 2005/06 campaign such a startling success!

Of course, it is too soon to say what kind of year 2006 will be. As with any calander renewal, there is every reason to believe that all activity will cease in the next 12 months. There is a good chance that mankind will finally invent it's ultimate doom mechanism and be swept under in a massive tide of disease and toxin. Vegas oddsmakers have set the line for pandemic catastophe in the year 2006 at about 8 to 5 against. It would be a sensible impulse to get in early on this generous offer, before the number trends down towards even odds.

However, there do appear to be some modest indications that not everything will be morbidly terrible. The indictment of Jack Abramoff, a human being so staggeringly absent of redeeming qualities that it strains credulity, is at least suggestive that the wheels of justice are in motion someplace. One imagines the "wheels of justice" stuck in a snowbank, spinning and whirring madly, attempting to break loose from the thick sludge of corruption which is the residue and water product of Tom DeLay's America.

A Final word on the topic of bread:

Nobody does the right thing 100% of the time, and every once in a while it is possible that in a fog of confusion, some food that does not OFFICIALLY belong to you gets consumed. I cannot possible be the first person ever to have become disoriented and consumed a random loaf of bread, can I? Certainly if this is as transgressive an act as apparently has been revealed to me someone should tell Paul, who has long been known to immediately eat any bread in a seventy five foot radius simply on principle. This is an informal survey.

Befuddling Redskins Control Their Own Destiny!

2005-12-28T21:15:00.000-08:00

I have been away. Doing things. You might say it is as though I have been in a trance. Anyway, amongst the developments in my absence: the Redskins win four straight and are one win away from a trip to the playoffs. Woody Allen has apparently released a fantastic movie. Mike Tenerowicz is enagaged to a woman. Dazzling developments one and all portending an apocalyptic but exciting 2006.

It's Never Going To Work Out: Just Stop Being Friends

2005-12-21T10:26:00.000-08:00

Who are you kidding? It's never going to work out. Do not attempt to compromise. Any effort at mediation is completely useless. Discussing things will only make it worse. Just stop being friends.

For instance: say you're going to split a rueben sandwich, and then your so called compadre changes his or her mind and wants pastrami on a kaiser role. They have a word for that in the Navy: skullduggery. Cut your losses, brother, this damage will never be undone.

Some things you can forgive, but certain transgressions are simply too much to bear. Say you were to wear a red pullover cardigan to the bridal shower of your cousin's mariachi teacher. Then say your closest companion from childhood arrives in what is nearly the precise same garment. Now a friendship has turned into a blood feud which will last for generations. No one involved will be spared the lash of it's ever spiraling venom. A hundred years of chaos later, when the constable has finally locked all of the familial descendants in a subterranean dungeon in order to bring a close to the terrible bloodbath which has ensued in the wake of "The Insult Of The Sweater", the honor of all involved will be safely assured.

But, you ask, what if my friend and I both share an interest in rare bats? Isn't that something worth preserving our friendship over?! It's up to you, but if you want my advice I'd say: not on your life. Go watch bats by yourself. It's hardly going to matter on the day of the swarm. They'll be nothing left but bones. Bones!

For God's sake who's going to care about your little sewing circle then?

I have been accused of having a bleak view of human nature. But if that's the case, then why do I spend so much time praising golfers? I also love songs about circuses and enjoy the sound of jingling. Does that sound like a grizzled old cynic to you?

The reality is really the opposite: I love my fellow man too much. All around us there exists the opportunity for great things. We as humans are capable of wonderous deeds and acts of staggering, boundless compassion. All too frequently we fall short of this vast, even unlimited, potential. And that is why I will never, ever forgive you.

Canada Agrees To Conditionally Surrender To The Mendoza Line

2005-12-19T20:27:00.000-08:00

The chattering class of so called "experts", those slaves to conventional wisdom who compared the Mendoza Line's mid December invasion of Canada to Pickett's Charge, Napoleon's Russian campaign and various other lethal military misadventures are now scratching their heads and wondering how to backtrack their way out of this one. Following a series of gashing triumphs set against blustery winter weather episodes, the majority of Canada is now officially a province of Misra records. We cannot accept all of the credit ourslves: Toronto was overrun and colonized by the native Great Lake Swimmers. Anyway, I have no idea what Misra will choose to do with this territory: it is wild, untamed and rich in natural resources. Perhaps it could be used to house the burgeoning mail order empire.

This Heat Is Draining! I'm Going To Canada...

2005-12-13T08:28:00.000-08:00

It's been so hot out in New York these past few days that I have been reduced to a sluggish, feverish shell of my former self. After a balmy high of 32 degrees on sunday, highs pushed their way to a soaring, scorching 28 yesterday. I can no longer take the swelter and am headed to Toronto tomorrow, where the high yesterday was a far more managable 10 degrees. We've never played in Canada so I am naturally curious and excited to see how long I end up incarcerated for. There is no telling how well we'll be received- particularly when you consider that there is nothing so utterly hilarious planned as, say, a gut busting note for note reworking of a popular 80's heavy metal act. Who thinks of this stuff?! Tough to compete with that sort of ingenuity. Plus there are so many fantastic blogs in the world! Or, I mean, on the internet. I swear, how could you ever choose just one? God, blogs are the best. Okay wish us luck...

Sweet Jesus- Is That A Sasquatch?!!

2005-12-08T21:43:00.000-08:00

Oh shit- what is that thing? Is that a sasquatch? It's coming right towards me. It is barreling down on top of me. Man it's been downright frigid out lately but I wasn't exactly expecting this. That thing is covered in a tangled mess of fur. And it's got fangs. Boys, I think I'm fucked here. Be so good as to say my goodbyes for me, because I am about to get living crap kicked out of me by a snowman.

Okay, sasquatch, okay. Easy now. Lets see if we can't work this out. What is it that you came for, Yeti? Is it food you want? Or valuables? Now you're rubbing against my leg. Is that what you do before you snap it off like the delicate, thin branches of a willow tree?

Big Foot, why are you rolling on the ground? I have no idea how to interpret your serpentine movements. I take it this is some kind of blood ritual performed in the Himilaya's before the commission of an act of unspeakable violence? Your tail waves so casrelessly, so gingerly, in stark contrast to the flaying and tearing that will no doubt be taking place just a few short moments from now.

That rumbling emitting from your insides is terrifying! Please stop making that sound!! Desist in this interminable licking of your paws and belly and just end me already, fiend! I swear, this horrible wait is worse than the pain itself could ever be.

Yeti, I see you mincing past me in the direction of that bowl. What's in there that has so captivated your attention? It seems to be a liquid substance of some kind. Is that milk?! A little beverage before dinner, I gather?

Now I see you sharpening up your claws like ginsu knives, preparing to imminently kabob me. That's it: arch your back, stretch out and get ready to destroy. Wait a minute, why are you all curled up? Are you taking a nap?! Sasquatch???

Letters To A Young Blimp Operator: Part One

2005-12-05T18:09:00.000-08:00

Young Man:

I received your letter dated */* seeking my counsel with regard to the profession which I have reached the very pinnacle of, and the one to which you now aspire: blimp operating. You have chosen well in your ambitions, and for this reason and others I sense that you are a thoughtful and perhaps even a visioniary individual. Heed my words carefully and you might one day see what I have seen, including but not limited to women's beach volleyball live from the sandy dunes of Venice Beach.

Of course there are some drawbacks to being a blimp operator. Remember that when you drive a blimp most people don't want to hear about your problems. Rampant professional jealousy is unavoidable in this line of work. I have found that a great many contemporaries of mine see it as somehow distasteful that the overwhelming majority of my time is spent hovering above high profile sporting events while sipping from fruit punch wine coolers and listening to the recorded lectures of Deepak Chopra on my flight deck head gear. To these naysayers I would pose the following questions: how did you get my number and are you aware of my capacity to strike like a hedgehog?

You are wondering, young sir, if there is a great deal of skill involved in flying a blimp. I guess that depends. I myself was able to accomplish this task with next to no training at all, although my first and third flights did result in a crash landing at the Orca pool in "Sea World". It is a fairly marvelous piece of providence that neither myself nor a single animal was harmed in the midst of these unavoidable incidents. Regrettably my First Mate Leonard can now be easily distinguished by the two tire sized bite marks located on his lower back, and his paralyzing fear of flippers. But no great undertaking comes without sacrifice.

How does a blimp really work? Is it more like a baloon or a plane? How the hell should I know? I didn't get into this business just to have the opportunity to describe fundemental aerodynamic principles to brain addled hobbyists. If you want to know that sort of thing then get protracter and enroll in MIT with the other prissy bean counters. A blimpman doesn't concern himself over how he gets in the air: he just wants to know where he's going to crash. And most of the time that's pretty much unknowable anyway. I basically just try to avoid landing on the stadium.

END PART ONE

Mendoza Line Show Friday

2005-11-29T08:50:00.000-08:00

I went outside to do my laundry, dragging the heavy bag with considerable difficulty. En route I passed a man in the process of dismembering a gigantic fish. He had a table laid out in front of a local bodega and was skillfully filleting the creature with a collection of sharp knives. A small crowd had gathered and was watching admiringly. I have no idea what kind of fish it was, but it was huge. It must have been two and a half feet long and very thick. This was quite a spectacle.

I went back up to the apartment and then back down by which time the fish had been cut into several large portions and a scale was placed on the table and a sizable line had formed with people waiting to buy a hunk of this sea life. The entire scene caught me off guard. First of all, since when is it legal, sanitary or in any way acceptable to perform this kind of fish and butcher act on a crowded Brooklyn street corner? And secondly, who would have ever expected that this could represent a viable, and even thriving business model?! If this is any sort of indication I should very rapidly retire from music and start pulling things out of the Atlantic Ocean and hacking them up on the stairs outside my apartment building. This is evidently the misplaced formula for vast personal gain which has elluded me these many days...

But anyway, who cares about this stuff? We're all just trying to get along in life. No sense in getting bogged down in pettiness. Anyway, we'll be playing tomorrow at the Knitting Factory Tap Room with our friends Mascott tomorrow. This should be not less than eventful and promises to bring about the presence of many colorful characters in the same room with all of the attendant consequences and developments. Like General Pickett, we will not settle for anything less than total victory.

Come To Think Of It I DON'T Like Football

2005-11-27T19:23:00.000-08:00

Now that the second half of the Redskins' season has commenced with three exotic, excruciating defeats culminating in today's horrifying, back breaking home loss to San Diego, I was suprised by the revelation that I absolutely hate football. I say this as an individual currently too engrossed in the pivotal clash between 2-8 stlawarts the Jets and Saints to actually construct a lucid sentence, but seriously, I'm really aggrieved. So many hours invested and all I ever receive in return are pangs of acute suffering when some crazy bullshit renders assunder all I long for in this hollow existence, which is a semi-serious play off run.

There's a lot of better things than this I could be thinking about all night, every night. For instance: jam. Now there's a very delicious thing that I almost never eat or think of at all. Maybe I should concentrate on it more. True, there was the one incident in 1989, but for the most part jellies, jams and preservatives have brought me nothing but contentment through the years.

I could have taken up bat watching. Bats are, essentially, rats with wings. As I reflect on it, I guess that's probably why I didn't do it. What a dreadful sounding creature. I don't imagine anyone could watch them for long before the flesh rending commences in earnest. Still, knowing what I know now, this is likely preferable to watching the last three Redskins' games.

I have warned before and will now speak again about the vexing menace of an ascendant Eli Manning. Like the Redskins, the Giants suffered a goofy overtime loss at Seattle yesterday, but not before my very own eyes Manning, for about fifth time this year, willed his team downfield for a tying two point conversion in the final minutes of the game. The Giants should have won- typically reliable Jay Feeley missed two makeable field goals which would have done the trick- anyway I am beginning to fear the worst about Eli. Initially I thought he might just be laudibly calm under pressure. Now I think he might be a witch.

Returned From Athens, Headed To In-Store

2005-11-21T15:24:00.000-08:00

Roughly ten nights ago, I was awoken by the resonant howl of P.J. Deppler. I knew from years of experience that he was deeply in the midst of one of his madly protracted fever dreams. It was just after 4 a.m. and I was in the next room, behind a thick closed door, but I could still hear him clear as day: "Come on!" he loudly exhorted lord only knows who: "CHUG IT!".

Lying in the darkness, staring at the ceiling, I was left to ponder the obvious: chug what? Was this a nightmare, fantasy or premonition? Later I was to come to understand that this Deppler's proclamtion was all of these things and more. This was the first of six nights night in Athens.

We had traveled down to play a show, and more broadly to accustom ourselves to performing the songs from the new Mendoza Line CD "Full Of Light And Full Of Fire" live. Obviously one does not undertake such a daunting challenge lightly and it was only with the gravest reservations that we proceeded at all. Many prognosticators and professional worriers had warned against the potentially catastrophic combination of the Classic City during a Georgia Bulldogs gameday and a barely rehearsed Mendoza Line, and after all they could not be fully faulted or called unreasonable for their concerns. No, very shortly after arriving it was quite apparent that nothing less than the fragrant scent of death was in the air.

"I don't care!" said Philip McArdle. "What have we got to lose?!"

Excepting the occasional private, contemplative moment, that is the way with him. He is a man well known a robust and rousing sense of personal conviction, a fact underscored by his enviable appearance and talent. We call him "The Renaissance Man" and it is often quietly stated when he departs from any given gathering: "There goes the best who has ever been..."

So sufficently bolstered by this rousing pep talk, we effectively attacked from all angles charging with pitchforks and muskets and more or less completely dismantled that helpless town entirely. It is not possible at the moment to say all of the things which transpired in Athens, not until the court records are unsealed, but suffice it to say that we all have a great deal to be thankful for.

Today we will be playing at the Sound Fix records in Williamsburg, which I have never been to, but understand is very nice. Updates to follow...

Dimes

2005-11-13T20:43:00.000-08:00

Eighteen of the nineteen major subway lines in New York City were operating this weekend with service disruptions. I know this because I attempted to ride on perhaps fifteen of them. It was not easy getting around, but I managed. I waited a long time for a lot of trains, and it gave me time for quiet reflection and introspection. Not quiet exactly, for this mostly took place over the deafening din of terrifying tools clanging with brutal muscular efficiency against the subway tracks. Late last night, as I was attempting to make my way home from lord I know not what, this ear splitting urban orchestra was combined with the sonorous wails of a particularly mad looking, dangerously teetering meth head. No: my time on the trains this weekend was not peaceful in the traditional sense which one might associate with the Cloisters in Central Park. I am pretty sure there are certain high tones which I will never be able to hear again. But yes, I did some thinking. And that's always valuable.

I needed to buy a new subway card. I walked over to the card vending machine, which I always employ instead of buying them from the ticket window, because I don't believe in speaking to men in booths. I find it immoral. There was a sign on each of the machines which read: "No Cash, ATM Cards or Credit Cards accepted". I thought this was damned odd. I couldn't think of another way to pay. I thought you might have just as well written that the machines were "Out Of Order", but that's not what they said so maybe I was missing something. I went to the man in the booth, asked him for a six dollar card and handed him a ten. It seemed to me that he looked a little angry. I figured it was probably my imagination, except then a few seconds later he reached through the plexi-glass panel to hand me my change and I was shocked to see in his hand roughly thirty dimes. I'd never seen so many dimes in one place. I nearly fainted.

When I regained my composure, I stared the man in the eye. I said, in a fashion designed to convey maximum gravity: "Hey, this is a lot of dimes." He made no verbal reply, but did grimace sourly in a manner which put to rest any lingering doubt that a mistake had been made. No, he intended for me to have these dimes. What a terrible way to start an evening, loaded down to the point of lopsidedness by the world's worst monetary denomination. At that point I should have read the tea leaves and just gone home. But I don't read tea leaves. I consider it immoral.

I heard a story from a reliable source about running into the former teen star of a popular blue collar situation family comedy from the 80's. This woman, now in her late 20's or perhaps early 30's was incoherently drunk, but also on a crusade to wipe out smoking. She was taking cigarettes from people's hands and breaking them in half, then renumerating them with coins worth two Euros. Implausible as this sounds, I actually saw one of these coins and bit into it just to make sure it was genuine. This ended up being a little more painful than I had expected, but that is the sort of lengths I will go to in order to investigate such truth claims.

But back to dimes. What are we going to do about this virulent nuisance? How is the citizenry to protect itself from the constant indignities brought about by this little bitch of a coin? Should we abolish coins, or perhaps currency altogether? I say lets not get ahead of ourselves. Currency can be extremely useful, especially in the traffic of exotic animals. I would propose the following three step solution as an alternative:

1)Increase The Size

Make dimes the size of dinner plates. I would also suggest they be porcelain, or maybe slate. Dimes should be heavy, like a discuss. As it stand they are too dainty, like tiddlywinks. It's just foolish.

2)Replace FDR

Don't get me wrong: Franklin Roosevelt was a very fine president, and I'm nothing if not a died in the wool New Deal Democrat. However politics aside, putting this man on the dime is simply nothing less than an invitation to madness. Everyone now knows that FDR was a liflelong polio sufferer, confined to a wheelchair. So how is he supposed to defend himself against anything so malevolent and abusive as the dime? What is needed to combat the dime is not a great statesman, but a large one. I am thinking Warren G. Harding, or perhaps even Taft.

3)Increase It's Value

I don't care what anyone says, a dime should be worth more than ten cents. I'm not sure how much it should be worth, but a rough estimate would be maybe around two dollars. In any case, a dime should be worth at least as much as a quarter. Some folks might suggest this would render the quarter obsolete, but what do I care? Let them get a lobbyist.

I don't know. Not every problem has a solution and maybe I'm just a feckless dreamer. I have definately spent most of the morning drinking cold medicine. Yet I persist hoping that we can do something bold and enterprising in order to improve upon this aggravating impasse. Penny for your thoughts?

Redskins-Bucs Preview: What Next?

2005-11-11T21:51:00.000-08:00

Prediction:
Redskins 19 Bucaneers 16

Game Notes

Following a ludicrusly late evening Okkervil River show last night, nuanced gamed day analysis seems very hard to conjure at this moment. Given the many pressing and imperative matters now facing this nation and world it is with a sense of weird and almost obscene transgression that I devoted fully three quarters of my day, each day, this past week contemplating the ongoing perplex of the Redskins 2005 campaign. That isn't to say I didn't do anything else. What I'm saying is that I did it carelessly. I did it heedlessly and without attention to detail, my mind vibrantly awash in images of safety Ryan Clark's game clinching interception of Eagle's quarterback Donovan McNabb last week near our own goal line. It is hard not to feel for the heroic McNabb, a player of remarkable skill and character who somehow seemingly remains underappreciated in NFL circles. I don't know what more is wanted from the man- he plays hurt, plays brilliantly, gracefully carries the mantle of team leadership while assidiously taking the high road in this entire ludicrus Terrel Owens imbroglio. I would take this player on my team anytime.

Such sympathies do not dilute the jubilation which comes from breaking a seven game losing streak to Philadelphia while rasing our record to 5-3 and our playoff chances to above reasonable. Any way you look at it, the first half of the season has been as entertaining as it was weird. I cannot recollect quite the last time we encountered such a rogues gallery of unexected outcomes: blowout wins and losses, victorious miracle comebacks and ones that came up just short, big plays, strange bounces, roster controversies. It has been a delightfully Shakesperian nine weeks. Not the sort Shakesperian tragedy that Norv Turner used to cook up for us every year (the 1996 collapse from 7-1 to 9-7 was sutrely his "Hamlet"), but more like a comic romp. "A Mid-Autumn's Afternoon Dream", something like that. Spirits seem palpably high in the Redskins locker room these days and though the team is far from bullet proofthey seem clearly in position to contend for a spot in the playoffs. Speaking for long time fans who have suffered every manner of staggering indignation dating back to 1993, we will happily sign for the state of the team at this moment.

Off then to Tampa to face the 5-3 Bucaneers tomorrow in a game rife with every manner of implication for the NFC postseason race. It has been a bit of a roller coaster for the Bucs as well- a 5-1 start seemed to portend a return to conference eltie status following two years in rebuilding exile. But then quarterback Brien Griese went down to injury and the last two weeks have been nightmarish losses for Gruden and Co. How they managed to lose to San Francisco two weeks ago continues to elude me. I did not see the game, did not see highlights, and the published accounts left me confused. It seems that somehow they maanged to allow a game winning drive to fourth string QB and erstwhile rodeo king Cody Pickett in his first ever extended NFL action. For all I know Cody Pickett may turn out to be a great player. Maybe he is the next Joe Montana, he certainly has the same kind of "can't make this stuff up" name and bio to fit the bill. Still, that's a terrible loss for a team with playoff aspirations.

Last week they were badly beaten up at home by their division rivlas the Carolina Panthers. This game I did see the highlights of, and it looked ugly. The Panthers are sort of a frightening group. They remind me of a prison gang. I don't think I want to tangle with them. But that's a matter for a different time.

One senses that the outcome of sunday's game will mainly reflect the learning curve of current Bucs startign QB Chris Simms, son of the very fine NFL star Phil Simms, and a young man who fairly or not has earned a reputation for not playing up to his talent level. As a highly touted prospect at the University of Texas he failed to deliver a promised national championship, and now in his first two NFL starts he has not performed impressively. I am concerned that this could be the week that the light goes on for him. Lets hope not. I have already suffered a lifetime's worth of abuses at the hands of the Simms family. 6-3 seems within reach, and who knows what after that?

Open Letter To Khan: Let Bygones Be Bygones

2005-11-08T10:45:00.000-08:00

Khan, why can't we put our differences behind us? You have been a chimera to me ever since I moved into this city. I know you hate me- don't even try to deny it. More than that you have made a full commitment to bringing about my total destruction. You have sworn a blood oath to undermine my interests at every turn, and have gone about tearing me down like a shed: shingle by shingle, board by board. I entreat you now to cease this miscreant campaign against me. Khan, let bygones be bygones.

Stop and examine the circumstances which precipitated your grudge. How was I supposed to realize that the man I argued with was your son Khan Junior? For one thing he looks a lot older than you. For another, you are Middle Eastern and he is Irish. I guess I sealed my fate the time I referred to your other son Fitz as a "clutz" and a "dunce". Please remember the context: he had just inadvertently pushed a sixty gallon aquarium out my 12th story window. It's a wonder no one was killed. I lashed out because I was anxious.

You are an excellent doorman, Khan. Think of what that word means: "doorman". You literally manage the entrance to my building. No one gets in and no one gets out without your say so. One time you overheard me complaining to a friend that "riff raff" sometimes gets into the building. I recognize now that this was a grave affront, but I still do not believe it justified placing a live eel in my bath tub.

I don't trifle with your romantic affairs, Khan. Might you extend me the same courtesy? Do you think I am unaware of your attempts at setting Khan Junior up with my significant other? She might appreciate the gift baskets, delivered to her apartment nightly and stuffed with carnations and dried meat, but I most assuredly do not. The other evening at the corner bar, the one we all frequent, Fitz loudly complimented her on her "abs". It was quite embarassing, at least for me (she did not seem embarassed, I don't know why). However, when I attempted to intervene I was met with a thick sheath of caustic barbs. I am tired of being on the business end of Fitz's lacerating tongue. Kahn: call off the dogs.

I am sorry I identified as false your claims of being a qualified, licensed sex therapist. I was at that time unaware of the important work which is routinely done in that field, and I guess I didn't believe you could also be a doorman. Now you have elected to make my ignorance a crucible. Accept my apology and move on.

Maybe there is some favor I can do for you, some service I can perform? Would you like tickets to see the MetroStars? They can be procured. You are a man who is well known to value his own appearance. Perhaps two free days at the "Devon's Healing Spa and Retreat" in Astoria would incentivize you to stop the carnage?

Khan, I am serious. I cannot go on like this any longer. There is a time for war, and one for reconciliation. Please let me know what steps are required to clean the slate. It is cold out here. I need to get into my apartment.

The Open Bar

2005-11-02T20:30:00.000-08:00

We had six seperate tables each with a different kind of food. There was the "Carving Station" with beef and lamb, the "Sushi Station" with both vegetarian and non-vegetarian choices. We had the "Mediterranian Station" loaded with hot and cold pastas and a marinara clam sauce. For a blue collar touch there was the "New York Station" which featured mini hamburgers and cheeseburgers, mini hot dogs, mini rueben sandwiches, kinshes, french fries, ketchup, mustard and relish. The seafood and raw bar had chilled jumbo shrimp, market oysters, lobster, crab legs and chilled mussels. Finally for dessert: the Chocolate Table. White chocolate rasberry fondue, and cubed poundcake, fresh fruit berries, biscotti, marshmallows, pretezel rods, and meringues. It was, by any standard, an extraordinary banquet, evoking the very height of Roman splendor. Surveying the feast before us I must confess I began to have second thoughts: maybe we should have invited guests.

The open bar was unbelievable. I cannot begin to describe all of the things it was stocked with. In additon to vintage wine, sake and imported beer there was enough liquor to fill the Hudson: vodka, rum, single malt scotch, bourbon, tequila, and gin and vermouth just to start with. In retrospect I'm not sure how we thought two people were going to drink all that. Believe me, we tried, and the results were...mixed. We were saving the champagne for last the end of the evening but somehow it just didn't sound good anymore.

The band as amazing. To see six musicians so versatile and so in sync with one another was nothing short of inspirational. There is nothing these guys could not play: reggae, blues, salsa, show tunes, R & B, you name it. We danced many dances- perhaps somewhat fewer than we might of had we not been quite so stuffed. The good thing was, since we were the only ones present, there was no concern about running into anyone else on the dance floor. I mean, I guess that was a good thing.

The toasts approached perfection. Stemwinding dissertations full of sentiment and good humor, I believe these were some of the most beautiful words I have ever heard uttered. And that was just my toast. Jed made a toast too, and I guess that was pretty good. But mine was really out of this world. I don't think it is too great an exagerration to invoke the Gettysburg Address. This was like to Gettysburg Address of two man stag parties.

Since you weren't there you want some kind of excerpt. I guess I can give you a little taste. Here goes:

"I think I first met Jed around the time we both turned drinking age- yeah it was around sixth grade alright. I guess you could say of the two of us he was the more feminine. In fact he was pretty sissy with his wine coolers and argyle socks. I recall that once some street toughs were meancing him with a beam and I had to come save him. Afterwards he cried and spilled 'Hi-C' on his white jeans. Not too cool, Jed, not too cool! Later there was girls- I mean at least there was for some of us. I'm afraid Jed didn't get the memo. Or maybe he did, but anyway this guy couldn't get a date in a west Texas cat house! Believe me, we tried..."

Difficult as it may be to imagine, it got better from there. By the end, Jed and I were not on speaking terms. He had left the room. Unfortunately that left no one to actually toast with, but it was worth it. I had completely demolished his self esteem. And the night was still young.

By the time the party broke up, Jed and I were back on good terms. That's the way it's always been with us- even when I do some small thing to transgress against his womanly feelings we always get things patched up before long. We sang a few Billy Joel songs and I got particualrly misty during the part of "We Didn't Start The Fire" when it goes "what else do I have to say?!" It seemed so true. After my toast I knew I'd said it all.

Jed tried asking one of the female caterers to dance, but she declined. I gave him a pretty hard time about that, and like a nancy boy he said he wanted to go home. We still has the hall rented for another two hours, so I knew I was going to make the most of it. I swear, it's like no one out there knows how to have a good time!

The Psychic's Lament

2005-11-02T10:36:00.000-08:00

All of the time I am haunted by feverish premonitions. The other day I was struck by the sudden clairvoyant insight that I would soon win a raffle, but that the "big prize" would in fact cause me a great deal of embrassament at border crossings. How much mortification can really could really stem from a paper-mache donkey? Do you really want to know the answer to that question?

Why am I possessor of this occult like gift? What am I to do with it? A great burden of responsibility comes with the ability to forsee the events which will befall us. This is a hellish moral limbo. Should I mention to the Redskins' coaching staff the special wrinkles their competitors have in store for them before a game, or would that too greatly disturb the competitive balance? I never asked to be the principle arbiter of mankind's destiny! This is far more ambitious than anything I had in mind for my life. I don't even want to go scuba diving.

You people think David Copperfield is a magician? David Copperfield is a poncey fraud. This man can tell you nothing about our collective destiny. You like David Blaine?! Ridiculous. He sits in a box for four weeks. That's not a trick! That's a vacation. A lot of people pay a travel agent considerable sums to set something like that up. Now we're going to give him the Nobel Prize?

I must confess that I do not enjoy the company of other mediums and mind readers. It is a very competitive environment. Dinner and drinks devolve intolerably towards three hours of everyone attempting to channel everyone else's orders: "I intuit that you are leaning towards the shrimp fajitas- beware!" or "Go ahead and order the pie, you know you'll be falling into that volcano soon anyway..."

A lot of people mistakenly believe that the potential for vast financial gain is afforded to me by my gift. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. A twenty dollar bill feels like a hundred pound weight to me. if I don't get rid of it within fifteen minutes I need hernia surgery. Voices from the spirit world are constantly admonishing me to divest myself of all material wealth, if it is in fact the "spirit world" and not her previous address in Breezewood, Pennsylvania which my ex-wife is calling from.

For reasons which I guess are perfectly understandable, a lot of people ask me about the future. I'm a psychic, not a fortune teller- it's different. Still, regarding the future my advice is this: don't go. As a destination spot it is highly overrated. Loud, crowded and very rarely worth the money. You'd be far better off in Antigua.

At the end of the day, no one wants to hear bad news. When the oracle Cassandra repeatedly warned of a tragic end to the Trojan War, Priam locked her in a citadel in order to avoid upsetting the populace. Something very similiar once happened to me at "Applebees". Despite my vigorous protestations I was unable to stop the overflow of a soft serve ice cream machine- one man's suit was ruined and in the resultant chaos a college aged server was placed on two weeks probationary status. I have lived with the guilt ever since. Such is the weary tune I sing: "The Psychic's Lament".

Giants 36 Redskins 0/ Pete Hoffman Engaged

2005-10-31T20:31:00.000-08:00

Three quarters of the way through one of the truly astonishing displays of professional football incomptence I have ever witnessed in my twenty five years of hard core fandom, Pete Hoffman turned to his deeply lovely and charming girlfriend Lauren Stein and proposed marriage. A devoted Giants fan, Lauren was outfitted in her blue Tiki Barber jersey and had generally been soaking in the aura of this historic drubbing of the Redskins who were so thoroughly and vigorously outmanned in every facet of play that the game itself had long ceased to be a comptetiton and had instead segued seemlessly into an extended wake for beloved Giants owner Wellington Mara who died last week at the age of 89. This was a very strange situation for Pete and I to find ourselves in, roughly equivalent to that of two strenously unwanted party crashers at a snake handlers revival. Standing at an unmistakable 6'4" and garbed in a contrarian burgundy Redskins jersey, Pete (and myself by proximity) had begun to attract attention from the frothing sea of Giants fans around us: taunting cat calls, ambigious hand gestures and derisive out of key versions of the Skins venerable fight song were now accumulating like so much fluttering debris.

"What can you do..." I muttered with resignation, peering at the strange faces around me now showering us with creative abuses. I could not detect any way to turn the sitaution to our advantage. It was, after all, completely mortifying. We had tramped out to enemy turf at the Meadowlands to root against the home team on an emotional day in that proud franchise's history and in turn been rewarded by failure from the Redskins on a jaw slackening level. "May as well just soak it in," I thought, as a ten year old child jeeringly referred to me by a name he could only have learned from an advanced medical dictionary. Like Cole Porter says, I figured it was just one of those things.

But that is the thing about Pete Hoffman. It is often admiringly said of the man that he will not never so much as make a cup of tea without a battle strategem. For him victory is premium and he is never out of the match. So it was at the lowest moment he seized the initiative and put these raging barbarians back on their heels. At 36-0, following a brutal sack of Reskins backup quarterback Patrick Ramsey, the crowd driven antagonism was reaching a fevered crescendo. There was a television timeout and I was day dreaming about an early exit. That is when Pete removed the ring from his jacket pocket. Turning to me he nodded meaningfully and handed over his digital camera. Two seats over, no doubt distracted by the intoxicating thrall of total victory, Lauren had no idea what was coming.

For three rows behind us an audible murmuring could be heard. A profoundly addled man with an unhealthy affection for Jeremy Shockey was heard to utter to his companion: "Dude, I think this Redskins guy is about to propose to that chick!" Word of this spread rapidly and in a matter of seconds most of the attention of Section 110 had been captured. From a sociological perspective it was quite interesting: one could veritably hear the wheels grinding in the minds of those around us. Was the hot woman in the Tiki Barber jersey really going to marry one of the nerds in Redskins colors?! And if so, what was the appropriate reaction to this development? Congratulations? A full scale riot?

In any event, the dynamic shift was palpable. Though the proposal did not result in any points for the Redskins, Lauren's acceptance clearly gave us the look of champions. In what can only be characterized as an astronomically unlikely upset of the odds, in both the case of Pete Hoffman and myself a phenomenal woman has agreed to marry us. Anyone who doubts the extreme unlikeliness of this outcome need only to consult our 9th grade yearbook, if in fact you have the consitution to tolerate those disturbing images. Or perhaps just rent "The Goonies". In summation it was an especially heartening privelage to be present for this joyous blowout loss to Eli Manning and company.

A few brief notes about the on field action itself:

I have not read anything about the game since sunday- I don't need to, I saw the game with my own eyes from the fourteenth row. I am aware in only too detailed a fashion as to what happened, from the Giants opening play from scrimmage where Tiki Barber ran around the left edge for sixty yards to Ladell Betts fumbling the second half kick off for the Redskins to everything else in between: missed tackles, dropped passes, poor pass protection, mysterious interceptions, etc ad infinitum.

I cannot think of a time when a Joe Gibbs coached team lost by 36 points. I remember that Ditka's Bears throttled us in their 1985 Super Bowl year and that it was something like 45-10. That is the closest I can think of to anything like this happening to one of his teams. What does it mean? It is very difficult to say.

In retrospect, given the extreme emotion generated by the Mara passing and factoring in the Skins ludicrusly easy walkover victory against the 49ers at home two weeks ago, perhaps this was a predictable outcome. More than any other major team sport football seems to be a game dictated by emotion, and on this day all of it emanated from the Giants sidelines. They played with a determined edge reminiscent of their best teams from the Parcell's era. They were fast, disciplined and executed a well thought out game plan. I think on this day they would have beaten any team in the league. And they are good. They have good players all over the field and especially on offense. Coughlin is an excellent coach who has remade the team in his second year as rugged, efficient group reminsicent of his old Jaguars. These guys are going to be a problem.

Redskins-Giants Preview

2005-10-28T20:35:00.000-07:00

Prediction:
Redskins 21 Giants 17

Game Notes:

Concerned citizens nervously observed the rather disturbing spector of a poised looking Eli Manning engineering high stakes, last minute touchdown drives each of the last two weeks, first on the road against Dallas and then Sunday against Denver at Giant's Stadium (note: fans of the New York Giants are not considered citizens of the Proven System. They may apply for work related visas, but these are likely to be granted only after every consideration is given to fans of the Arizona Cardinals.) I myself twitched involuntarily while watching young Eli nonchalantly step several yards back in the pocket before lofting the game winning pass in the middle of the end zone to Amani Toomer with less than ten seconds remainging. It was a frankly ludicrus play which Manning made appear startlingly routine. I sighed deeply at the conclusion of this game, and decided it was cocktail hour. I stared contemplatively into my glass, and pondered the dissonant notion that I might end up having to watch this irritating late game nonsense for the next ten years. Having previously persuaded myself that Eli as aprofessional would come to nothing more than a pale shadow of his older brother, I have now week by week been forced to revise down my optimism.

There is still time for this train to be derailed. I have a vision for how this might occur and the process begins on sunday, when Peter Hoffman and I will be attending our first Redskins game in person since the season opener in 2003. What is the significance you ask, relative to Eli Manning, of the two of us attending this game in person? Well suffice it to say that no two single individuals have ever proven more routinely effective at bringing about the demolition of would be promising careers. Yes, it's true: we are gifted with the reverse Midas touch. Let us hope that our patented hex, usually applied forcefully to friends, colleagues and loved ones, also may be extended to quarterbacking's vexing royal family.

The Manning's are by all accounts good and decent people, and both Peyton and Eli have come across in interviews as studious, respectful and reasonably likeable public figures. That said, let us not mince words: these people are becoming a menace. We cannot have these tall men with their histrionic finger pointing and their arcing spirals raining forty touchdowns a year on this league indefinately. At a certain point we are compelled to fight back. With the Colts undefeated and the Giants 4-2 and improving, things could very shortly get out of hand. Like a virulent mutating virus, we must now arrest Eli Manning before he metastisizes. That is why Pete and I are going to do our part in person.

No league seems to provide as many confounding surprises on a year to year basis as the NFL and this frequently has the effect of rendering many "expert commentators" preposterously off base in their prognostications. I have since early childhood enjoyed Paul "Dr. Z" Zimmerman's football writing in "Sports Illustrated" even as the noted Redskin hater routinely incensed me all thorugh the 80's by endlessly low balling the teams prospects. This year's "SI Pro Football Preview" was like old times with Dr. Z cheefully predicting a 4-12 campaign for the Redskins and me wondering how so little respect could be afforded to Hall Of Fame head coach Joe Gibbs?! It felt good to be driven to the brink of a psychotic episode in this exact familiar way, and having now, six games into the season reached the predicted four win bench mark I feel justified in having spent those many hours composing that ranting letter to Dr. Z in my head. I did not actually send this letter but now I wish I had. I believe Dr. Z would have been obligated to write me back with a florid apology. I would have framed it.

Several of the Redskins key off seasons moves, in particular the trade of Laveranues Coles for Santana Moss and the decisions to allow key defensive cogs Fred Smoot and Antonio Pierce to depart via free agency were widely and almost universally derided as full scale lunacy. Six weeks into the season observe how this "madness" has sorted itself out: Moss is leading the NFL in receiving, Coles is struggling in a moribund Jets offense, Pierce starts for the second worst defense in the league, and Smoot's biggest contribution to the woefully underperforming Vikings is captaining the "sex boat" which threatens to become the year's most mortifying sports controversy. I point this out not to gloat- no sports franchise in recent history has made such a regular has of high profile off season chicanery as the Redskins, and so one could easily concede that the skepticism was justified. Still, coupled with the teams fast start I beleive it is now time to acknowledge that under Gibbs the culture of the Redskins is now officially changed for the better.

As recently as last December, had you attempted to advertise the notion of a Mark Brunell-Eli Manning pairing as a matchup between two of the NFL's hottest quarterbacks, any compassionate person would have seen to it that you were hospitalized. The last time the Redskins and Giants played on December 5th of last year Brunnel was buried deep on the Skins bench while Gregg Williams and company tortured and barraged Eli (making his third start) with exotic blitzes and coverage looks. The 31-7 result was satisfying in the way that hitting a tree stump with a bat can be satisfying. Presumably on sunday the stump will be fighting back. This should make pounding it into submission all the more delightful.

Indictment-Go-Round

2005-10-24T20:14:00.000-07:00

Strange days in American political life as a jaded nation, too routinely abused and scorned by it's own leadership to summon the remotest indignation, stands by in a state of placid bemusement waiting to see which of the major criminals who control our government will be first to be indicted in the matter of Valerie Wilson/Plame and the leak which destroyed her career as a CIA operative. One can easily conjure in the mind's eye a gameshow sized wheel spinning: will it land on Lewis Libby, Karl Rove, or "low level staffer"? Perhaps a trifecta. A New York Times article published last night points as never before to the complicity of Vice President Cheney himself, suggesting that things could soon end up getting a little hot for Steely Dick in his current undisclosed location. Certainly there will be some cause for celebration when the indictments finally do come down- depending upon who is named and the nature of the charges against them this may in fact set a new high water mark for vigorous schaudenfreud here at the "Proven System". There seems to be a natural, visceral sense of accomplishment when bullies are made to pay a price for their misdeeds, and these men are bullies in the classic sense. Webster's defines a bully as: 1)a blustering, quarellsome, overbearing person who habitually badgers and intimidates smaller or weaker people (paging Mr. Rove) 2)a man hired to do violence ("here is your 'retirement bonus' Mr. Cheney!") 3) a pimp or procurer (how much time do we have?)

Still somehow the environment surrounding indictment-go-round is less convivial then I might have hoped for or expected. It is imposible to seperate the leak story from the larger context of it's part in the rush to war in Iraq, a war which seems in constant competition with itself to produce more and more depressing stories. Strange reporting in the New York Daily News yesterday by Tom Defrank characterized the President as frustrated and irritable over the ceaseless carnage and anonymously qouted staffers who referring to the President's sense of dread over the prospect of losing Rove, should he be forced to resign. These are not the sorts of things that sets one's mind at ease. It is nice to see bad men receive their comeuppance, but indictments don't change the fact of this presidency as a morbid failure with terrible across the boards consequences for far too many people.

The violent blowback which is certain to follow the indictments, with it's hackneyed, non-sensical accusations of a "politcally motivated witchhunt", dessiminated faithfully by Limbaugh, Hannity, Fox News and there ilk, will no doubt have the desired deadening effect on many in the general public who have conditioned themselves, B.F Skinner-like, to tune out their attentions immediately upon the utterance of certain phrases by political pundits. Then we will probably have several terror warnings. Back in Iraq, little of substance will have changed, and the President will likely still feel irritable. There is something so vexing about having set into motion the constant loss of innocent life!

One day after the death of Rosa Parks thoughts turn to the civil rights movement, LBJ, and the Great Society and ponders how it is exactly we got these guys running the country? Certainly LBJ fit the mold of a bully too, a cruel and brutal man willing and capable of every manner of crippling and brutal political gamesmanship. One cheerfully speculates as to what Johnson would have done to a petty hack like Rove- certain unmentionable images come to mind involving cattle parts, fishing line and a map of the newly redisctricted Texas.

And yet even a cursory examination of LBJ's presidential agenda reveals an ambitious, forward looking, positive vision for the future of our country during an era of indescribable tumult and upheavel. If it is true that frustrations abounded and eventually drove him from public life, it also must be stated that LBJ employed his particular talent for knee capping and arm twisting to set into motion valuable reforms and innovations at considerable political risk. Weighed against the no holds barred money and power grab that passes for an agenda in this administration the contrast can scarcely seem more stark. Perhaps this suggests that arrogance, bullying and perhaps even a certain degree of madness are not necessarily bad traits in those who would lead the free world, but taken in tandem with the avarice and short sightedness of the Rove/Cheney crowd, the toxicity burns the eyes and burdons the senses. Let us hope that when this wheel stops spinning that it helps to clear the air- it's getting hard to breathe in here.

What's REALLY Important?

2005-10-21T22:05:00.000-07:00

I received a message from my associate C. Newman, a man not known for pulling his punches. Still, even by his usual standards the manic, insane urgency of this missive set me on edge. The subject heading fairly screamed:THIS EVENING

Then the body of the lettter read as follows:

TIM

What're you doing tonight? Come out and drink. Shannon as well, of
course. I have an eye on bringing along Jessi and friend Jim to this
excellent bar, "(Name Delted At Lawyer's Request)," which is in the area of (Popular Brooklyn Neighborhood). Located where **** Street runs into **** Street.
Perhaps arriving around 9:30/10pm. Light up that wicked cell phone of
yours and give us a call 9*7-*7*-****. If I don't hear from you, I
warn you, I might call you - surely you don't want that. C

Newman is a good man with a good heart, but one gets to know the warning signs when the engine is running a little hot, and upon receiving this and I immediately went home and barricaded the door. I turned out all of the lights and went inside the walk in closet, fashioning a "fort" from large cushions and hard cover books. I encouraged Shannon to join me, issuing the sternest possible warning regarding "Tropical Depression Newman", the typhoon now bearing down upon us. She was heedless, refusing to turn off a "20/20" broadcast regarding discrimination against transexuals in the postal service. I pleaded with her, but her affection for John Stossel seemingly knows no bounds.

"Shannon!" I begged, "GET IN THE FORT! It's all coming down tonight!"

"Give me a break..." she murmured, in the chosen parlance of her hero/paramour Stossel.

As it turns out we narrowly averted disaster. The phone did not ring, the door was not broken down, and no one, so far as I'm aware, was harmed during Clint's raging mood storm last evening. Still one cannot really go through such a close call as that without experiencing layered consequences. As I sit here today, it is with a renewed sense of appreciation for all which is important to me in a moral, spiritual and ethical sense during this purpose driven life. I recognize now that each waking moment is an opportunity to invest this existance with a meaning beyond the trivial, the selfish, or that which is sensually gratifying.

Anyway, do you guys like caramel apples? Oh my God, they're so delicious.

Many people understandably have grave reservations about any food which is "dipped" into another food and then consumed- in certain societies this is considered to be an act of deep peversion. (I'm uncertain of the Vatican's current view of this practice, but one senses that the well of tolerance probably does not run deep. Truth be told, I am a bit of a traditionalist myself: it has long been my stated belief that the ordering of any single sandwich containing more than one type of meat is evidence of a weak and compromised character.

But to everything there is a season, and sometimes the season arrives when you should submerge fruit in a hot, brown sugar paste. I recall fondly my first experience with this delectable autumn treat: my mother had brought me to a "Harvest Pageant" at Old Smith's Mill several miles out of town. It was a festive environment, complete with pumpkin patches, cider drinks and Colonial recreations. But the best part was the caramel apples. As soon as I saw them being prepared, my eyes became as big as saucers, and I commenced stuttering in a manner some mistakenly interpreted as profane. I couldn't have just one apple, and sensing my effusiveness, my mother acting against her better judgment purchased me a second. The next morning I turned 28. It a marvelous experience, the memory of which I treasure to this day.

Of course there are many other wonderful sweets and treats in the world for all of us to enjoy: candy corn, circus peanuts, gummy hogs all hold a special place in my heart, as I'm sure they do in yours. But seriously, what's really important? If you're answer to that question is "candy corn", maybe you'd better have a little gut check time like I did.

I Have A Cell Phone

2005-10-17T08:17:00.000-07:00

Like a lot of people, I enjoy entertaining myself with the notion of thirty of my closest companions engaging themselves in a no holds barred, bi-gendered "Battle Royale" style wrestling match. The last person remaining in the ring is declared the victor and is the recipient of an extravagantly jeweled title belt I have created for them with "Best Friend" written across the front in large, encrusted sapphires and emeralds. The vanquished are then ranked according to the valor and ingenuity they have demonstrated in defeat. During a lavish post match ceremony, special consideration is given to those who were badly injured or variously anguished while competing for my friendship. Medals may be given out to the crippled, the crafty, the speedy, and the vigorous. A special "Sportsmanship Award" is named for those who assisted the plight of those weaker and less able to fend for themselves during the melee. But of course there is a downside to all of this too: should you confer a lack of honor upon yourself in battle by dint of cowardice or excessive cunning, then you are made to don the "Wreath Of Shame", fashioned from azalea leaves and poison oak, and are carried from the building on a yellow rickshaw amidst a hail of raucous booing and scattered debris.

I assume this is a pretty common fantasy. No one has ever specifically told me that this is something they think about, but i imagine everyone must. Anyway what I'm trying to say is that I have a cell phone now.

I guess most people got a cell phone awhile ago, but it wasn't really something which appealed to me. I don't like talking on the phone very much, and will often go to considerable lengths to avoid it. What sort of lengths? Well, sometimes when I spot a pay phone, I drive out of state. Is that weird? I'm not really that familiar with other people's habits.

The problem with speaking on the phone versus interacting entirely via e-mail is that it is much easier for the person you are conversing with, otherwise known as your "adversary", to surprise you with shocking, unforeseen strategems. For instance, I can specifically recall one instance when I was talking cheerfully to an individual on the telephone about the lesser lights of method acting, when all at once they asked me if i wouldn't mind going to the store. I was caught flat footed and ended up twenty minutes later at the "Food Co." with a cart full of brown eggs and liqour. Had this same discussion taken place over the e-mail, it would have afforded me the option of shutting down the computer and driving out of state.

I was once party to a vibrant romance with a young woman with whom I never exchanged a single spoken word. Everytime it was necessary to convey the details of a date or my views on a matter of worldy importance, I would excuse myself and find some cloistered environment on which to compose a hand written note. For this precise purpose, I had procured a particularly fine stationery from the "Office Max" which was double plied with a texture pleasing to the touch. Although the relationship did not last, I still have the stationery. I think the lesson here is obvious.

The only thing I wanted- my only real condition for having a cell phone- was that I be issued a number with very few, and preferably no 7's. Everyone knows what trouble 7's can be, crooked little bastards that they are. I can't stand to look at them. So it would naturally only to stand to reason that the grifting gangster who sold me this thing would then cheerfully state something very much like the following:

"Here is your new phone number! **7-707-**77."

When I heard that I freaked out.

"Wait a minute!" I exclaimed, thrusting the device back towards the counter, "I don't want this anymore. Not with that revolting sequence of digits. It reads like the mathematical formula for human despair!"

"Ha, my friend!" he chuckled in his regionally mysterious accent. "I'm afraid this is impossible. Once you have been issued the number it is your's for the length of your contract."

I had not been aware of any "contract".

Bird Flu? I Don't Think So, Thanks...

2005-10-10T21:44:00.000-07:00

In case there was any confusion on this point, I do not want any part of this "bird flu" I keep hearing mentioned in the papers every day. By no means am I claiming to be a medical expert, but it just doesn't sound good. Say you were to visit your doctor with various symptoms, perhaps a congestion headache and "the sniffles". Then say he was to turn to you and report very solemnly: "I regret to inform you that you have contracted the bird flu..."

Well that couldn't possibly be the sort of outcome you were looking for.

"Wait Doctor," you might reply, "Are you certain it isn't just a common cold?!"

"No, I'm sure," The Doctor replies calmly, although you notice he is now wearing a surgical mask and backing deliberately towards the nearest exit. "It's the bird flu alright.

"Here- take these!" he exclaims while roughly tossing the brochures for several local funeral homes in your direction and then bolting unceremoniously from the premises. Seconds later, as you are gathering these documents from the floor, three large men in HAZMAT coverings and NASA space suits bust into the examining room and carry you off to the quarantine wing of the hospital, which they have recently taken to referring to in their private dialogues as "The Nest".

No thanks, charming as all of that sounds, I think i'll pass.

If I have to contract a dread illness- I mean if it has to be that way- I don't want to get it from a bird. Why should I? I don't have anything against birds, but neither do I exactly spend a lot of time commiserating with them. If you were to tell me: "Good sir, you'll be dead in 60 days from the Cat Flu..." Well that would obviously be a setback, but at least I'd have some way of comprehending it. While I don't think anyone present is interested in broaching the intimate details of my private affairs, lets just say I do know some cats. I was recently in contact with two such felines- lets call them, for the purposes of our discussion, Waylan and Maggie- and yes, I can confirm that I have not having been feeling quite myself ever since. So it is probable that I have a little touch of the Cat Flu. Perhaps by next time I will have learned some greater resistance to Waylon's fulsome advances.

They say that in the worst case scenario as many as 1.9 million Americans could die during a Bird Flu epidemic. Holy fuck. What kind of birds are we talking about here?! They sound very toxic- I bet they are the sort with antlers and vicious gorilla's teeth. I had always figured that some sort of wildlife generated health crisis was likely to occur eventully, but I had always figured the likely source to be something more like hyenas or Karl Rove.

Once again, by virtue of our ingnorant and abusive attitudes towards nature, man has placed himself on the brink of an incalcuable catastrophe. And I'm just speaking of the new season of "Joey". Who knows how bad this fucking bird thing could get? Not an especially pleasent matter to consider, particularly over my normal Sunday evening meal of Cornish game hens and penicillin. It would seem that Emily Dickinson was wrong: hope is NOT the thing with feathers. The thing with feathers is what I am hoping not to see...

Fearful Conjecture: What If There IS An After Life?!

2005-10-06T21:16:00.000-07:00

I am not typically what one considers to be a "Man of God", and in fact, owing to one circumstance or another, it so happens that I am pretty much banned from every church and religious based institution across the eastern seaboard regardless of denomination or demographic. How it is that this came to pass is a topic for a different time- lets just suffice it to say that my longshoreman's appetite for gruff talk and even rougher action has not always sat well with the sort of authorities that make the rules in Steepletown. I'm cool with that. They do their thing and I do mine.

Still, like most people I like to think of myself as having a spiritual component to my being. That is why I would never say goodbye to a friend while standing on a bridge. Why risk it? Although i am reasonably hopeful that all which awaits us following death is a harrowing, bleak and cold state of eternal nothingness, there is truly no way we can know this for certain. It seems that all of us in our way are hoping and longing for a time when all activity shall cease and no car alarm will ever again disturb our endless, soulless internment- but what if there is something else? Terrible as it is to try and get one's mind around, it is possible that the presence of other entities could persist in annoying us even after we are dead.

I recognize that my cyncism will strike some as dissonant, even disturbing. Certain of you are probably, as we speak, exclaiming something along the lines "Oh Christ: we may have to do shit after we're dead?". Perhaps some of these people will even elect to read no further. To those individuals, I wish only that I could offer a reassuring smile, a sympathetic hug and the acknowledgement that it is my fondest and most cherished hope that we as a species will soon discover that the fearful notion of life after death is nothing but wholly fraudulent frightmare, designed to chill and thrill and instill the creeps in us and nothing more. Believe me: I identify only too well with the deep seeded anxities of those who cannot wait for the clock to run out so that they can peacefully disintegrate into the cold earth without ever again having to watch another episode of "Coach". We are, after all, in this together, for the next four or five decades up until the point at which hopefully none of us will ever suffer through another conscious moment again.

But we are veering now into dangerously emotional terrian. Let us instead consider this problem in a sober and scientific manner. If, God forbid, there is an after life, what form might it take? Here is one man's analysis of a few common views:

Heaven

Websters defines Heaven as: An eternal state of communion with God; everlasting bliss. Any of the places in or beyond the sky conceived of as domains of divine beings in various religions.

Obviously this sounds completely terrible. No one could possibly want to exist under such circumstances. "Everlasting Bliss"? I can think of nothing less managable. The last time I experienced "bliss" of any kind was followed by a seeimgly endless succession of regrettable phone calls to my former associate Lucy who the following day responded by filing for a zero tolerance restraining order. Does that sound like "heaven" to you? I should say it does not. As for a communion with God, well I suppose that wouldn't be too bad, depending on what sort of portions he consumes. If there is a sufficient amount of dumplings to go around then I guess everyone would be happy enough, but if this is anything like "eternal communion" with my Uncle Jack Biggands then I would plan on bringing your own snacks or else crying yourself to sleep amidst piercing pangs of starvation.

Hell

Hell is known to some as: "The abode of condemned souls and devils in some religions; the place of eternal punishment for the wicked after death, presided over by Satan." If this is true, it must be very big- I would say bigger than Philadelphia. I wonder if they have a "Kinkos"? Many people are very sensitive about being termed "wicked" and construe it as an insult. I myself have always thought of it in more neutral terms, as neither a slur nor a compliment, like when someone calls you a "molester". You can choose to get bent out of shape about it, or you can just relax and play it like it lays. Similarly, when people talk to me about the terrible, unimaginable suffering that I will soon be experiencing at the thorned and distorted hands of Bealzubub, well I just figure that's just something that might happen later- so what? Am I supposed to lay back in this wading pool of gin and wait night and day for the crushing wheel of karma to ground my every bone to dust and cinder? If you're going to spend all of your time worrying anyway, you may as well just fill your pool with Cisco.

Reincarnation or The Rebirth Of The Soul In Another Body

This one sounds completely terrible too. Can you imagine the aggravation? What if you were reborn into the body of a carnival barker? Everyone would find you so unsavory. Even your own parent's might ask that you came by less frequently. Coversely, if you came back a rodeo clown the embarrassment would be enormous. All of that mincing and dancing in front live cattle, while all manner of backwoods goons shout gibberish and clap along to the percussive rhythms of one concussive hoofbeat after another falling like hail upon your painted harlequin's head? Ugh. I don't even like thinking about it. Lets move on.

Cryogenic Freezing

I'm not even sure if this qualifies as a variant of after life per se, but it certainly is disturbing. The entire notion of having one's head removed post-mortem and placed in a freezer does not make for very good conversation over zuchinni wings and zuchinni poppers during cocktail hour. I guess the obvious thing to ask is: what else is in the freezer? "Hot Pockets"? It's extremely weird to think of being re-animated. For one thing this would seem to presuppose the notion of having been animated in the first place which was definately not the case with my former associate Lucy. I say without exagerration that the woman is bloodless and heartless- this would be rather like attempting to breathe life into driftwood. Ultimately, I think if I were going to have any single part of me frozen I would not choose my head which I have always thought was a little too oblong to really merit keeping around for any extended period of time following my demise. Were we to have a discussion about how best to preserve my strapping, athletic shoulders- well that might be something I could get into.

So, in summation, what have we learned? Clearly we have much to fear from life after death, but if such a thing exists than it is better to be prepared and accustomed to all which may befall us. To end on a word of comfort: surely there is no cruel philosopher or theologian who would ever suggest the existence of life after the after life. Some things are simply too terrible to consider.

Handicapping DeLay's Political Prospects In Jail

2005-10-04T21:05:00.000-07:00

Now that the President is finally drinking again, Dick Cheney has returned to the hospital in order to have the oil can re-applied to his alleged heart and Tom DeLay is headed inextricably down the road towards life on a central Texas chain gang it would seem we could actually get down to the serious business of discussing football season in earnest. Make no mistake- Redskins football remains the bedrock essence of my "Proven System" and we are going to get it covered. Still I am left with a few lingering impressions from the week's events which i feel duty obliged to address:

Tom DeLay won't need Jack Abramoff to arrange his all expenses paid stay at the Grey Bar Motel, but I do have a feeling he will fair pretty well in the clink, and maybe even grow to love it. With his fearful exterminator's countenance and particularly brutal talent for organizational fervor, it seems a stone cold certainty that the disgraced former statesman will command respect amongst the prison population. It is, in fact, quite easy to imagine that once incarcerated, a meteoric rise to prominence could be in store for Rep. DeLay. Such an ascendancy might begin with his rapidly establishing a chairmanship of "The Yard", followed by a sweeping rise to Majority Leader of "The Hole" and then finally, following the mysterious "shiving" of a number of would be challengers, a full return to glory as Speaker of Cell Block D.

While trafficking in the exchange of cigarettes, fermented apple juice or "sissies" with other prisoners in return for money, privilages and assistance in his various campaigns is in all likelihood strictly forbidden by the warden and prison authorities, anyone who has witnessed the dexterity with which the erstwhile Hammer has operated the past decade on Capitol Hill is aware that this is not the sort of man to be easily constrained by any such common rules and conventions.

But how far can DeLay go? Once in charge there is little question that keeping order will not be easy. Obviously he will come to see the occasional full scale lockdown or race riot as an inevitable sidelight to his prison governance- a nuisance to be sure- but if managed properly such incidents could also prove useful as an occasional needed shock to the status quo. Still the question remains: without the full co-operation of a solid majority of inmates, will DeLay be able to realize the revolutionary changes which he no doubt aspires to bring about in his assigned penitentiary?

It will not be easy. A man of Rep. DeLays potent political skills will quickly recognize that it requires more than intimidation to bring together meth heads, petty crooks, fraudulent schemers, car jackers, nun beaters, "gang bangers" and various multiple violent felons of every make and description in common cause against those who would backslide against his forward looking agenda. Each of these constituent groups will need something in return for their assistance, and DeLay's ability to deliver the goods with regards to their sundry revolting cravings will prove pivotal in his efforts to consolidate power. Once behind bars, the Hammer's vaunted skills as a rainmaker will be put to the test in as never before.

Maybe he could use Abramoff after all, and hopefully he'll be seeing him soon.

Tom DeLay Is A Hardened Criminal

2005-10-03T17:49:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows that Tom DeLay is a savage grifter, a malevolent and vindictive abuser of the rules of governance, flaunting cruelly and conspicously his disdain for all that is within the frame work of common and reasoned decency as he goes about the business of remaking the United States congress in his own bullying image. It is, in fact, the very nature of his hatred and malice towards the underpinnings of decency which is the essence of his revolting but inarguabe appeal. By appearances sake no ones cares less about the public's view of his own rampant and horrific actions than Rep. Tom DeLay.

There is something very pleasent about the kind of man whom says: "Yes, I am bad: I am bad for you, I am bad for the country, and bad for all those who do not gratify my immediate my financial and ego driven interests. However, I will never state this in so many words."

When one hears this kind of talk they are inevitably impressed. Impressed because it requires something special- something special that none of us possess. All of us who attend the "Proven System" workshop are congenital confessors of our misdeeds. Any act taken solely to improve our own lot at the expense of others- and clearly these instances do occur- is immediately confessed to and poured over in a guilt addled festival of suffering designed to mitigate ill considered behavior by means of frantic admission. That is why we have as yet failed to attain high office. Clearly DeLay has commenced the inevitable begginings of his fall from the highest corridors of power down towrds what will be an inevitably miserable, shameful ending- never in my experience has an individual seemed so fated in the manner of ancient Greek prophecy to reach a disgraceful culmination to his public life.

Nevertheless it will cheer me considerably to watch hour after hour and talk show after talk show where DeLay endless obfuscates, adveres his complete ignorance of any wrong doing, proclaims himself victim of a witch hunt, and fantasizes again and again about his return to a leadership position. This man is such an awful specimen of genie, it is very amusing watching him finally back in the bottle, trying so hard to get back out just to wreak a little more hell.

"War On Marriage" Conceded: "War On Children" To Commence

2005-09-27T21:24:00.000-07:00

Gentlemen: thank you for coming. It is so good to be with all of you, to feel again the warm glow of your companionship here against the frozen back drop of these last days of our historic struggle. Many of you who embarked upon this journey with us are now dead- and by dead I mean married. Were you coerced into your demise? Is it the case that you were you "murdered"? It is not. Instead you leapt joyfully to your graves and pulled shut the coffin lid, excitedly emptying the last remaining stores of life force from your lungs and reclining leisurely into the enveloping ember of your tomb. It was very courageous, my friends, how you rushed to be by the side of your future bride when she told you it was time to go downtown and pick out flowers! What a savage fight you made of it! What toughness you displayed in our battle against matrimony while you buttoned your cuff links and put on your dainty vest and boutonniere, and strolled placidly- no contentedly- down the aisle towards destruction!

No friends, let us not mince words. It was not our opponents who won the "War On Marriage": it was you who lost it. And although I was amongst the very last to desert my post- swingly wildly and forcefully with all of my will and might against the encroaching forces of legally recognized union- it now transpires that I also will be taking a wife. Oh how the two of us will mince merrily down the wedding path in just a few short weeks, at which time I will offically lay down my lengthy saber, remove my sombrero and spurs, and declare the war surrendered. Many amongst the teeming throngs that evening will shed a tear, but not all for the same reason. Some will be moved by feelings of romantic fervor, while others will be saddened because they observe how I have turned into a pussy. Stop your weeping I say! That war is behind us, and the new one is upon us.

Gentlemen! This next war is one we cannot afford to lose! We cannot afford it, because we don't make enough money. That is right brother, I am speaking of the ultimate struggle, the final endgame. It is time now to declare our "War On Children".

I hear your low murmuring. "What kind of lunatic," some of you are whispering, "declares a war on children?" Well, in response allow me to state unequivically: I do not in any way condone harm coming to children. The focus of our war is not in harming children, but in seeing that they do not get in the way of our hobbies and leisure time. If you have a wife and have the two of you have not had children, then I implore you: go no further. Together we have the power to see to it that not one of us childless husbands begins a family. Let us work together to make that dream a reality.

As for those of you that DO have children well...this is somewhat difficult. I am going to make a suggestion which might seem a little off putting at first, but I hope you will give it some strong consideration and not dismiss it out of hand. After you have given it some thought I feel quite certain that you will agree it is the right thing to do: take your children to an orphanage.

Many people, when they hear the word "orphanage", conjure all manner of negative connotations. They think of Dickens and gruel and the dangerously unstable headmaster with his hump and cane brutalizing tots and teens with one savage barb and chore after the next. Well, that is not the kind of orphanage I am suggesting you bring your children to. I am not the cruel and sadistic man so many of my enemies rejoice in portraying me as. They will have you believe that the "War On Children" is somehow something to be ashamed of. Don't accept their lies, and take you children somewhere nice and drop them off and don't come back. When it is their birthday they will be happy if you send them some candy corn.

Now who is with me?!

Johnny And Sonya Engaged: Are We Losing The War On Marriage?!

2005-09-25T19:23:00.000-07:00

It's funny- back when I first declared the "War On Marriage" most people understood this to mean that I MYSELF would not be getting married, at least not of my of volition, or anytime soon. I guess that is understandable enough, I was (and am)a firebrand, and many of us briefly believed that owing to our collected efforts that the institution of marriage would shortly be decimated and left in a smoldering ashen wake. Countless existing documents and internal memos from the difficult early days of that noble struggle confirm my deep passion for the cause- please examine this one dated 1 April 2003 from the radical American Book Congress site:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Briefing On The War On Marriage
Special From Our Own Correspondent
Submitted By Timothy Bracy, 01 April 2003 | 1705 53
814 Manhattan Ave.

bad news- the War On Marriage is meeting more
resistance than originally expected. advanced
intelligence had indicated to us that basically
everyone hated marriage and that if we could simply
marshall a serious military presence near churches and
city halls the world over that marriage would be
destroyed within a matter of days. it appears now that
we may have miscalculated. apparently some people who
are married actually LIKE being married and others who
are planning to become married are doing so by choice
and not because of coersion by heavily armed "death
squads" as we had previously conjectured.

that stated, we are by no means giving up on the
stated objectives of the War On Marriage. we maintain
that marriage is immoral, illegal and a violation of
the freedoms granted to us by our forefathers- some of
whom were married themselves. i want to take a moment
to commend those who are currently in the middle of
the combat and honor their bravery in defense of our
liberty- i am speaking specifically of Paul and I.
thank you gentlemen, your sacrifice will not be soon
forgotten.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What I did not know then- what I COULD NOT have known- was that a woman would actually take a romantic interest in me. This development was astonishing, without precedent and necessarily changed the landscape. Although I had immediately informed Shannon McArdle that I was dead set against the dangerous and malevolent bourgeouis bondage of marriage, she had then quickly responded with her desire to GET married, at which point I promptly and unhesitatingly proposed. At that point, some involved in the struggle declared me 'traitorous', 'a sprinting dog' and requested that I be stripped of my high rank and epaulettes, and then taken to the garden and sprayed with a hose. Yes, it was proposed that I be given the hose, but as it happens I was spared and the hose was given instead to Richard "Burnside "Project" Jankovic who shrieked girlishly when the cold water contacted his notoriously tender skin- a horribly sad display of cowardice which flattered no one involved. But all of this is just ancient history- no sense in rehashing it here.

Anyway, I was at a party last night to celebrate the 30th birthday of noted and widely admired man about town Johnny North. At a certain point, as is the custom in certain cultures, a cake was brought out to acknowledge the anniverary of his birth. Johnny received the cake without argument(again the custom) and then turned to his utterly delightful girlfriend Sonya Kolowrat and proposed marriage. Well, she accepted this overture and everyone rejoiced. They are a lovely couple and the entire notion of their being together in this way is a tremendous and charming and much needed development in the tawdry midst of this blighted, hellish world. Like everyone else, I could not be more thrilled by this news. It is remarkably fantastic.

But nevertheless I ask you people: ARE WE LOSING THE WAR ON MARRIAGE? Sometimes I wonder if it is a bad sign that so many of the founders of the original movement are now engaged, married, or pleading with someone to please, PLEASE consider being their wife. It may not be a good sign. I will be attending another ceremony this weekend when Mendoza Line drummer Sean Fogarty will be making it official with the great and lovely filmmaker Enid Zentalis. Again: not much of debate here from the Fogarty perspective. As was the case in my circumstance, there is no explaining what this extraordionary woman is doing with this emotionally troubled percussionist, a man who dresses only in soiled overalls and speaks almost entirely in the muttering, harsh vulgarities of a lifelong boxcar hobo. Obviously he has to act before she regains her senses, and beleive me, he is, as we speak. counting the very minutes and seconds in anticipation of getting this done.

But now J. North is off the table too. We're running a little short of manpower, I'm afraid. Is it theoretically possible that we have somehow mismanaged our strategy?

Subtraction By Subtraction

2005-09-22T03:29:00.000-07:00

I am off for mandatory bachelor related sports activity for the next couple days in DC, events which promise to be legendary, and which I will fully disclose upon my return, but allow me to leave you with these couple thoughts.

1)I remember reading several years ago a remark by Bill James that the hallmark of a bad sports franchise is that they blame their best player for the failures. Has ever there been a more clear instance of this phenomenon than in the case of Randy Moss and the Minnesota Vikings? Moss may be a pain, I've never really gotten a handle on his true personality version reputation/persona, but regardless: would you trade Jerry Rice in his prime and consider it an upgrade?! That is essentially what the Vikings have done to themselves in this odd instance of alleged "addition by subtraction". So far, so good, guys! I am sure the Bengals last week were simply quaking with fear at the prospect of having to face a less demonstrative receiving core minus Moss. "Oh no!" they seemed to be saying, "How WILL we cover low key, team first Nate Burleson?!" I would say that Mike Tice is overmatched in that locker room in a way that Dennis Green never was.

2)Pointed out by the Washington Post this morning: the Redskins under Coach Gibbs are 5-2 in their last seven games, with both losses coming by a mere field goal.

But Are The Redskins GOOD?

2005-09-21T07:45:00.000-07:00

First things first: yes, it is true that I failed file a story yesterday for "My Proven System" concerning the Monday night classic in Texas Stadium. That I possessed a full medical clearace for my absence, and had spent the better part of the day alternately weeping and shivering from the jolting chill of ecstasy which accompanied this most amazing of Redskins triumphs was apprently of no consequence to the editors of this page, who sternly and repeatedly admonished me for my absence and are apparently debating whether or not to reimburse me for my not inconsiderable expenses from monday night, when I was forced to watch the game from an undisclosed location some distance from my home.

Some of you will no doubt wish to ridicule me for my delicate constitution while others might recognize and laud what is a true artistic tempermant- a man who simply CANNOT work in these instances of extreme emotional sensitivity, when games are decided by late touchdowns, fourth down plays are converted, defensive stands pick up the slack for poor special teams play, and all of the other events which can drive a man to near bi-polar extremes. If you think about it, it really is amazing that I can even write about this TODAY. But here I am, asking the all of the right questions about the implications of Monday night, just like the Grand Inquisitor. So lets dive in.

Are The Redskins Actually GOOD?

Now 2-0 and halfway to the four win total predicted for them this season by Sports Illustrated's known long time Redskin hater Dr. Z, it is suddenly fair to ask this question. I think the answer is no, they are not good, but they are improving. The defense remains miles beyond the offense, which notwithstanding the late game theatrics on Monday remains curiously anemic into Gibbs second year. To what is this deficiency attributable? It is very hard to say, the constant shuffling of personnel is of course one key, and my working knowledge of X's and O's is probably not adequate to conjecture in a truly technical way, but I have watched enough NFL football to know that it is at least POSSIBLE for an offense to go from zero to sixty in a seeming instant. Many forget the seemingly endless touchdown drought that the Ravens endured during there Super Bowl season a few years back- I think it was something like four games at one point. Abetted by a truly top flight defense, that team was able to tinker enough to put points on the board and ride their not inconsiderable assets to a championship. I don't mean to imply that the Redskins have that sort of potential, but my intuition is that the offense may have finally turned a corner and can be counted on for between 17 and 24 points per game, which will give them a chance to win a lot of games.

Is Mark Brunell The Answer At Quarterback?

I think it is pretty clear that over the long term, meaning into next season, he is not. This appears to be Jason Campbell's team, and there it seems likely given Brunell's age and recent injury history that we will see the rookie sooner rather than later. That said, watching Brunell the other evening it became easier to understand Gibbs reasoning for starting the veteran over tough, likable but limited Patrick Ramsey. For instance: is there any scenario in which one can imagine Ramsey scrambling for 25 yards on third and 27 in the early stages of the comeback? It is much easier to imagine Ramsey staying in the pocket, holding on to the ball too long, and taking a game ending sack. I think this is what Gibbs is thinking. Clearly well beyond his best years, Brunell was at least once inarguably a great NFL quarterback. Gibbs sees flashes of this past emerge in practice and thinks that even a small degree of vintage Brunell gives the team a better chance to win games than waiting through Ramsey's rather interminable learning curve. Monday night he was right.

Why Was Coach Gibbs So Happy?!

To long time observers of the Redskins, perhaps even more flabbergasting than the victory itself the other night was the absolutely uninhibited, and very nearly UNHINGED demonstration of joy from Coach Gibbs following the victory. For a man of his remarkable achievements in sports (three Super Bowl victories, two NasCar championships)the very nearly crazed expression of relief and happiness on his face, following a week two victory over a non-playoff team in a game which by all rights should have been lost, left many a Skins fan, long accustomed to Gibbs' intractable self-deflating stoicism, utterly slack jawed with disbelief.

Of course I really have no idea what was going on there, but my own personal pet theory is that this profoundly uncharacteristic public demonstration of euphoria had principally to do with beating Bill Parcells. In the best of times, with his best teams, Gibbs has always struggled terribly against Parcells. In repeated contests between these coaching titans, Parcells has dominated, winning nine of the last eleven and has frequently out coached and game planned his counterpart. I can't think of another coach in the NFL who can make the claim of having consistently outperformed Gibbs on the sidelines- others have beaten him with superior personnel, good luck or a gimmick, but no other to my mind has demonstrably out thought him. Monday night Gibbs got one back, finally finding a weakness in the always formidable Parcells defensive scheme and hanging a painful loss on the Tuna. I am always wary of statistics like these, but apparently in games where a Parcells team lead by 10 points or more in the fourth quarter his career coaching record was something like 72-0. Comebacks like this against Bill Parcells simply fo not happen. Utterly astonishing.

REDSKINS SHOCK COWBOYS WITH TWO LATE TOUCHDOWNS IN DALLAS...DEVELOPING...

2005-09-20T08:53:00.000-07:00

Owing to matters related both to football and to the wounded fluttering duck nature of his personal/professional life our normal correspondant is too emotionally overcome at this time to write about the shocking developments of Washington's 14-13 come from behind triumph in Texas, and instead has been ordered by health care professionals to lie motionless in a dark room for at least the next several hours...

We hope to being you his impressions later this evening, or failing that, to replace him with someone more stable and accountable...Thank you in advance for your understanding...

The Editorial Staff Of "My Proven System"

I Am Commencing Leonard Cohen's Career Next Month

2005-09-19T06:53:00.000-07:00

I'll be turning 32 at the on September 30th, at which time I announce the full and official commencement of my career. There is a very obvious reason for this, which is that Leonard Cohen released HIS first record when he was 32. I've had designs on Leonard Cohen's career for a very long time, often thinking that he has done things in precisely the correct way: consistently individual and striving for new heights, favoring longevity over the fashions of the day, appearing on "Miami Vice". I like to think this is more or less the precise manner in which I would have conducted myself given his talent (I am not making a claim on Cohen's talent, this essay is purely aspirational) and circumstances. What then, you may be asking, have I been doing for the past several years? Well, lets just say I've been refining my craft. I have every intention of making steadily more interesting music as I get older. I am conscious of possessing infinitely more tools, more perspective, more experience to draw upon. This view however stands in direct contrast to one of the extreme peculiarities about the culture of popular music, specifically the seeming presupposition in many quarters that a songwriter will be doing his or her best work when they are young, in their 20's.

I guess this is best understood as a question of context: since it's inception rock and roll has held a deep association with youth culture, and beginning with the endlessly poignant example of Elvis Presley I guess held up it's greatest idols as sort of bottled icons of energetic, youthful splendor. Anyway, none of this has ever been of any interest to me. The holdovers from the early days of rock and roll seem utterly insane. Dick Clark, the self styled "world's oldest teenager", mincing around every New Year's Eve, acting out in his dotage- would anyone like to know this man? I mean, maybe he is a perfectly normal indivdual minus the lunatic persona, but the notion that anyone would actually choose to be the "world's oldest teenager"...this sounds not like a laurel but like some kind of terrible Kafkan curse.

I recollect sveral years ago watching the once formidably great Everly Brother's slogging through an oldies circuit show at an outdoor amphi-theatre, grudgingly plowing through "Wake Up Little Suzy" like it was community service, twenty five minutes on stage and off to pick up their check. Thought to myself: this is not a desirable fate. I don't begrudge the Everly Brothers anything, but as an artist, I don't think it can be very pleasent to have all of your notable professional accomplishments take place when you are very young and then be forced to sing ghost like for your supper thirty five years on.

Seriously, does anyone actually do ANYTHING better when they are in their 20's? Lord knows when I was 22 I couldn't figure out how to get the mail without a map and guided sattelite system. Flagrant incompetence of every different kind raged through out these years for me. In relationships I was selfish and antagonisitc, and I was infinitely a worse writer. I mean it strikes me that there is very little preferable about being young. Even professional athletes routinely thrive into their 40's these days.

There are of course celebrated instances of precocious youth making important contributions to the arts in the Rimbaud mold, but I have always felt very suspicious of this paradigm. It strikes me that the preoccupation with youth and novelty in music is principally driven by the ancillary forces of industry: managers, label A & R, publicists, etc trying to establish their own credentials in the music world by making claims on having "discovered" notable new artists. That's fine, I guess, but it also sets into motion a culture of disposabilty, where in the same youthful "saviors" of popular music are dismissed following their fifteen minutes of fame, and the perhaps recycled ten years after that if there seems to be in their case some market for nostalgia. I am not sure who is well served by all of this, but I feel pretty certain it isn't artists and it isn't music fans.

Anyway, there are bigger problems in the world, it's nothing to lose sleep about. But I personally am delighted to be getting older and endlessly pleased to have Leonard Cohen out there to model my ambitions upon.

On Second Thought This Novel Is A Train Wreck

2005-09-16T20:56:00.000-07:00

A second, more sober assessment of my novel at this point has yielded the disturbing revelation that I have absolutely no idea what I am doing. There seem to be funny things, promising directions, but the pressing need for a qualified editor could essentially not be more plain. How people manage to write quality book after quality book is an absolute wonder to me. Perhaps I should consider enrolling in a writing program.

Shannon Does Not Believe I Have A Blog

2005-09-15T21:08:00.000-07:00

Shannon does not believe I actually have a Blog. It is totally ridiculous. Why would I lie about something so dumb?! There are too many important things in life to obfuscate over- this is certainly not a point upon which I feel the need to mislead her or anyone else.

I am not a pathological liar and fantasist. I wouldn't say I always tell the complete and total truth about everything(is there even a standard for something like "total truth"?) but on this point I want to be absolutely clear. No hedging, no exagerrations, no "lies of ommission". My message is unequivocal. Shannon: I DO have a Blog.

Often we are in the living room- she is watching her favorite violent crime programs and I am looking at the computer. Shortly I will chuckle too myself, and glancing up from the TV she will inquire: "What? What is so funny?" She does not really like unsanctioned laughing during her murder dramas. So I will say, "Oh it's nothing, just a comment someone made on my Blog."

Then she turns stern. Shannon speaks to me firmly, as though she were instructing me to awaken from a hypnotic state. I know from her tone of voice that she wants me to "get real". She says to me:

"Tim, you don't HAVE a Blog."

I am aware of what she believes. Shannon thinks I am just typing arbitrary into the word processor and then calling it a "Blog". She thinks there is no way in hell that I have any idea how to post anything on the internet. And, in fairness, this is not an entirely unreasonable conjecture: I am not noted for a high degree of competency with regard to technical matters and it is a little known fact that my previous attempts at "Blogging" are widely considered by experts to be the most likely explanation for the city wide black out of 2003.

So yes, I acknowledge that mistakes were made. There have been a lot of improvements since then, and that's why I now have my own Blog. Interestingly, I have also just been issued my PGA Tour card for 2006. If all goes as planned, I will be making my debut at the Greater Milwuakee Open. Potential sponsors: please feel free to contact me here at "The Power Of My Proven System".

Reflections On Having Completed Something

2005-09-15T07:42:00.000-07:00

Oh well, yes it is very true that upon the achievement of a given task that one might then spiral into a vibrant depression, becoming tempestous and inconsolable around the apartment, garnering the knitted brow scrutiny of one's fiance and cats.

"But do cats have brows?!" you are wondering. Look, I don't know. These cats seem to. These cats are very judgmental.

So we did complete the new Mendoza Line album "Full Of Light And Full Of Fire"- it will be relased in the U.S. on November 22nd and in other territories variously after that. I am robustly partial to the album, think it is quite good, and that is no doubt a fearful sign for any commercial prospects we might be entertaining, given my unparalelled, savant-like track record for enjoying those items in life least likely ever to fall into fashion. I am not too worried about this though, I hope it sells a lot of copies and maybe I will be mad if it doesn't, but for the time being I am not kept up nights worrying over it.

It is, however, fairly disturbing to me to be finished with something. The strangeness of this phenomenon never ceases to suprise me. There is excitement and anticipation but also apprehension when one begins something like recording an album: I imagine it is a bit like standing at the base of a large dune and preparing to climb up to the top of it, if you enjoy that kind of thing (I myself will take the long route to avoid any proximity to "dunes"). Anyway, it's the same thing with recording an album- all of that sand is absolutely horrible, but then you've already taken the advance- amazingly it has already been spent on Xima- so what the hell else are you going to do? You've got to get to the top somehow.

The middle portion of the recording enterprise is, at least for me, pretty pleasent but fraught with a strong sense of urgency to reach a conclusion. And this is what I find to be so queer: first I cannot wait to be done, then i feel very unnerved and upset when I actually am.

By far I am not the first to remark upon this peculiarity of the creative process- it is seemingly common as a weed- but anyway one can reasonably ponder what are the appropriate steps towards waylaying the anxiety. I must be constantly occupied, or else I will end up incarcerated. Not from any violent acts, but instead owing to some misapprehension of the law which will lead me to the wrong place at the wrong time, where I will be forcefully prosecuted by regional authorities. This is a well known fact amongst anyone who has ever been my friend. I am never but one or two casual missteps from a lengthy term in the county lock up.

Given this state of affairs. I am now turning my attentions to the second Slow Dazzle release, upon which some progress has already been made. Also I have resumed full scale efforts on my novel, somewhat neglected while finishing the Mendoza Line album. A cursory review of the first hundred pages reveals the profound length and depth of the vacation I had taken from my senses while authoring it this past winter, but I think this is a good thing, it is as cheerfully insane as such a Quixotic enterprise would seem to require. I shall shortly see if I can return to that place, or if my passport to lunacy is temporarily expired.

My Excuses

2005-09-14T19:47:00.000-07:00

I have neglected My Proven Systen for a few days now, it's true. I don't feel good about having done this, it is totally reprehensible, but on the plus side I have an uncommonly large number of adequate excuses. To wit:

1)I was, for a few days, in attendance at the magnificent Future Of Music Coalition policy summit in Washington DC. I cannot and will not even attempt to describe what an excellent state of affairs I found the entire thing to be, but suffice it to say that every manner of colorful character was encountered, all kinds of nuanced and enlightened discussion took place and I cannot wait for next year, assuming the 'beanbag incident' is not held against me and I am allowed to come back.

2)It is very hard to write about either the Redskins or my fantasy team at the moment. Lets just say that both entities are in a decided state of flux and definitive statements may be best left aside for the time being when those familiar with the situation can get a better handle on just what in the hell is going on.

3)I have been reading Saul Bellow's book "Humboldt's Gift", evdiently based partially on the aithor's relationship with the crazed poet Delmore Schwartz, and have been too delighted to put it down.

In any case, I fun is now over, and I will now commence to return to this grim reportage on a daily basis, at least through friday.

Norv Can't Coach/Cold Comfort From Hunter Thompson

2005-09-09T07:24:00.000-07:00

I closely observed Norv Turner coaching the Washington Redskins for seven seasons. During that persiod he had, I believe, three full years with a winning record including a 10-6 campaign in 1999/2000 which included his loan playoff victory over the Lions and a close call against the Bucaneers in the divisional playoffs. That was the closest he ever got to a significant triumph in DC, and I will not bother to recount for you the many asinine and silly dramas, screw ups, winning streaks, losing streaks and veritable full fledged chaos which made up a significant portion of what I like to think of as the franchise's manic depressive years (beginning with Joe Gibbs shocking departure following the 1992 campaign, and ending, hopefully, with his equally shocking return last year). Anyway, Redskins fans know precisely of what I speak, only too well.

Turner is by all accounts a nice man, and I don't mean to assail him personally, but watching the Raiders/Patriots game last night, I was just reminded that he really is an awful NFL head coach. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen some variation of the strange game that was played last night: the Raiders jump out impressively with a lightning quick touchdown drive to begin the game, in the course of the evening get a 72 yard TD pass to Randy Moss, a blocked punt which nearly goes for a TD, a blocked extra point and a big game from hot/cold QB Kerry Collins and STILL manage to be rolled up by the confident, disciplined Pats by a comfortable 30-20 margin.

This is textbook Norv. All manner of crazy shit happens in the game, it's fun to watch, but the team is heavily penalized, outschemed on defense, worn down by the end of the game and managed to do a lot of good things and still lose. They have talented players all over the field, players who put up fine statistics and it all looks good, but seems to result in a .500 and below result most years. Maybe I'm wrong and Norv will take this peculiar, talented Raiders team to the playoffs this year, but you could mark me down as shocked if it were to happen.

For those of us who have cast about like sissies attempting to put a somewhat less troubling face on the suicide of the great American writer Hunter Thompson earlier this year, the following sad item from today's Washington Post does little to bolster this effort:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/08/AR2005090801993.html

Jeez, Dr. Thompson, we all feel a little down after the Super Bowl, but is this not taking things a little far?!

NFL Kickoff Tonight!/Possible House Arrest/Ireland-France Results

2005-09-08T07:53:00.000-07:00

The Patriots and Raiders, two teams that I could not feel less attachment to, are getting ready to kickoff the NFL 2005/2006 campaign this evening. Even despite despite my lack of allegiances, I am about to vacation from my senses completely. I am so excited I feel uncertain of what to do with myself. It seems that a wise course of action might involve placing myself under house arrest until what amounts to a total loss of impulse control passes and I can harmlessly be trusted to enjoy a night of pro football without the heavy consequences which always threaten to derail my hard won reputation as a solid citizen in good standing with all major instituions.

On a sour sporting note, the well known musical aesthete and close friend to this site and it's related entities Derek Keough instructed me to keep an eye on his native Irish national team in their key World Cup qualifier against France the other day. I did so and was disappointed to see that Ireland had lost a hard fought 1-0 scrap, dropping them to fourth place in their group, and likely eliminating them from contention in next year's event. Regrettable news, here is hoping that Derek has emerged from the subsequent emotional spiral reasonably unscathed.

Jim Lampley and Max Kellerman on Bush and New Orleans

2005-09-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

Just as one tends not to think first of Bert Randolph Sugar as a source for nuanced insights into complex matters of public policy, neither does it seem that sportscaster Jim Lampley would be the first person one would think of to provide a withering, Swiftian political commentary directed at the incompetent and jarringly glib response of the Bush administration to the disaster in New Orleans. So I was pleasently suprised yesterday when my brother pointed me in the direction of this item, which I feel speaks volumes:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-lampley/10-katrina-items-of-which_b_6886.html

I had actually heard one other time that Lampley was something of a ferocious liberal activist, but the (entirely merited) venom expressed in this piece was a bit startling just the same. As a long time and heavily committed boxing enthusiast I am very familiar with Lampley's work calling fights on HBO. He calls a good fight, is professional and well researched, and generally navigates his way through the frankly bizarre and digressive ramblings of color analyst Larry Merchant as well as can be expected. I gather that Merchant is some kind of boxing world insitution (I mean, I guess?!) but I wish they would put him out to pasture. Just about anyone else is better to listen to during one of these broadcasts- the great trainer Emmanuel Stewart is always a fascinating analyst- but also I prefer Roy Jones Jr., Teddy Atlas, even George Foreman who also makes very little sense but at least has competed in the ring at the highest possible level. I seriously never know what Merchant is talking about.

Speaking of boxing commentators and politics, I understand that Max Kellerman now has a nightly segment on Tucker Carlson's floundering MSNBC "The Situation". I have yet to see this, but Kellerman makes a point of mentioning this fact each evening on his hour long ESPN 1050 radio program in New York. Owing to my boxing fandom I have always been somewhat unnaturally disposed to Kellerman. He is about the same age as i am, and I grew to love his effusive advocacy of the marginalized sport on ESPN 2's "Friday Night Fights". Although his ego seems to have grown proportianately to his fame, and perhaps beyond that, I still enjoy Kellerman and find him to be a bright and largely genial figure who is unquestionably knowledgable about sports, and who is also well read and opinionated on any number of topics. He also offered a harsh, common sense critique to the Katrina aftermath on his program last night, and his evident extreme displeasure with the loss of life and suffering was a welcome sidelight to the discussion of the Yankee's starting pitching.

Barbara Bush On Marketplace

2005-09-06T06:31:00.000-07:00

Here are some thought on the aftermath in New Orleans from Barbara Bush, practically welling with compassion, from yesterday's "Marketplace":

"Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we're going to move to Houston."

Then she added: "What I’m hearing is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."

You know, at this point I have no idea what to say. If the events surrounding the miserable fate of these poor people fails to convey the true priorities of the selfish oligarchs who have taken full throttle hold of our government then perhaps we have passed a point of no return.

This is really not about political ideaology for me. My personal politics certainly are in the mold of a traditional liberal Democrat, but like many I have been sufficently underwhelmed by the seeming inability of the Democratic party to mount any meaningful opposition to the deeply disturbing trend lines of the last several years that party identification has sort of taken a back seat for the time being.

At this point, I would just like to see a leadership emerge in this country that manages to get over the bar of personal decency. That obviously is a subjective term and means a lot of different things to a lot of different constituent groups, but I really cannot imagine that anyone could possibly be at ease with thousands of our citizens drowning in the streets. So if that means (for instance) voting for John McCain for president, a person who I disagree with on countless issues but consider to be a genuinely principled man, then I am prepared to do that.

Kanye West/The Resumption Of Inane Bullshit

2005-09-03T10:16:00.000-07:00

I did not watch NBC's hurricane relief telethon last night but saw footage of Kanye West's off script remarks regarding the media's coverage of the disaster and the President's response to it. West stated, amongst other things which needed to be said, that President Bush does not care about black people. I guess my specific feeling is that President Bush does not discriminate in this way in particular, and rather that he is utterly calloused to the concerns care of ANY people not directly related to the coterie of millionaires and billionaires who lifted him quite ludicrusly to the highest office in the land, so that he might carry water for their various sinister interests. Anyway, it's sort of half dozen to the other and one can easily understand Mr. West's perspective on the matter.

Currently lacking any further insight into the horrifying situation in New Orleans, and that is supposing that I had any in the first place, I suppose I will now resume with the normal sort of prattling on about sports. It is a really exciting sports week ahead of us and I regret that the terrible suffering visited upon many of our citizens necessarily mitigates the enjoyment of the otherwise exciting launch of football season.

My University of Georgia Bulldogs opened at home today as seven point favorites against Boise State, who were hotly tipped as a very live underdog. This struck me as pretty ludicrus from the begining and UGA promptly rolled BSU out of Athens 48-13 in a game which was not as competitive as the score would indicate. Georgia quarterback D.J. Shockley, who waited paitiently for three years for the frankly overrated but servicable David Greene to vacate the job, promptly threw for five touchdowns and ran for another, demonstrating an athletic run/pass dimension which the immobile Greene never possessed. So far so good...

Tragedy In New Orleans Mounts/Thee Olde Trip To Jerusalem

2005-09-02T08:38:00.000-07:00

It is difficult not to be utterly flabbergasted at the massive failures of leadership evidently at work in this unfolding tragedy in the great American city of New Orleans. How it is that the federal government is so utterly unprepared to assist the tens of thousands of suffering people in desperate need of relief following this catastrophe is in many ways more disturbing than whatever oversights allowed 9/11 to occur. How is it possible that we are deficient in resources and planning in this homeland security related issue? How can it be that 8,000 reservists who would be present to promote peace and rebuilding in New Orleans at this moment are instead in Iraq, assigned a Kafkan mission which essentially amounts to: "don't get killed"? As the Crescent City devolves into anarchy, disturbing echoes of Bagdhad's rioting and looting now remind us of the taxing burden placed upon the Iraqi people following our ill planned and irresponsible invasion.

It would appear that what we have on our hands is yet another instance of what the Mekons ruefully refer to as "Thee Olde Trip to Jerusalem". Everything old is new again, once again the poorest in society are made to suffer the horrendous consequences of the greed and cruelty of the ruling class. Same old shit, just a different century.

Remarks from my brother Mike, who is a lot smarter than me:

"What can you say about New Orleans? It's the culmination of the disasterous Bush administration - not enough resources to protect the homeland, no interest in helping the 100,000 citizens who lack private transportation, it's just a complete failure of leadership. But is it a surprise? It's the heart of their agenda -- their people "get theirs" - development, tax cuts, etc - and who cares about everyone else? Today will be interesting...seems like we're on the verge of a real revolt down there..."

Anyway, this is a very, very sad time. Here is hoping that, as was the case in other times in history of this nation, that great leaders are around the corner, waiting to lead us out of this vacuum and back towards some of the values and principles which can inspire pride in an idealist on a better, less disheartening day than today.

Tough Days In The News

2005-09-01T08:07:00.000-07:00

As I too gradually get my mind around the scale of the tragedy which is now unfolding in New Orleans, it seems inappropriate to deal in any way with the standard inane bullshit that is the stock and trade of My Proven System.

My father used the term Biblical to characterize the catastrophe, and Biblical seems right- especially since, as ever, it appears that it will be the poorest and least fortunate who suffer the most. This is so sad. I just shake my head at this stuff and don't know what to think.

Also, how do SEVEN HUNDRED people get stampeded to death in Iraq? It is the sort of event which conjures mental images too terrible to hold on to. Every single day I wonder what in the world we have done in that country. This absolutely feels like a case study in the terrible consequences of a bohemoth world power operating with a leadership vacuum. Tough couple days in the news...

Publicity Photos/FMC Policy Conference

2005-08-31T07:25:00.000-07:00

There are many, many worse things in the world than having to have one's picture taken, one need only look at the terrible headlines today to recognize this, and so please accept my apology in advance for even expressing the following anxiety, but: I immensely dislike having band related publicity photos taken.

However with the pending release of the new Mendoza Line album, Misra Records CEO Phil Waldorf had mandated a new round, and he is not a man to be trifled with. I am not a photogenic individual- in fact there is something unnatural about my assualt on the camera lens. I am quite certain I am the sort of individual Fellini must have had in mind while photographing "8 1/2".

Ms. McArdle, by contrast, shows up quite elegantly on film. She should really be in these pictures alone, and so I am trying to think of ways to get out of the entire mess. My general practice in such situations of fleeing the tri-state area without explanation is perhaps an inappropriate course of resolution for a 31 year old man. All of this is subject to intense rumination, which I intend to begin next week upon the gathering of my scattered wits.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

The 2005 Future Of Music Coalition Policy Conference, featuring vital and thought provoking panel discussions concerning matters of principle and fairness in the music industry, some great performances, as well as snacks, and presumably cocktails.

http://www.futureofmusic.org/events/summit05/schedule.cfm

Lions-Rams Observed/Remarks On Playing Pittsburgh

2005-08-30T06:58:00.000-07:00

Somewhat inadvertently I caught the majority of the Rams 37-13 throttling of the Lions on MNF last night. If one accepts the oft stated premise that a team's third preseason game amounts to a "dress rehearsel" before dialing things down and preparing for the opener, then I sincerely must wonder if the Lions are the worst team in football. In particular the Lions first team offense seemed to be utterly astounded and baffled by every wrinkle that the Rams defense- hardly known for it's formidable personell or complex scheme- threw at them. What is particularly perplexing is that the Lion's offense would appear, at least on paper, to be loaded with weapons. Kevin Jones and Roy Williams seem like can't miss stars, Charlie Rodgers and Mike Williams at least food for thouught for any defensive coordinater. I guess the available evidence strongly suggests that Joey Harrington is a very terrible NFL quarterback. I don't mean to pick on him- I've always kind of liked Harrington really. He seems like a nice guy, and certainly he had no time to throw last night. I think the problem goes deeper than that though. The several times I have seen him play in the pros, he never quite looks composed or even happy to be on the field to me.

The utterly delightful Margaret White, an extraordinary musician who is sometimes shangheid to play in Slow Dazzle and has played with countless fantastic acts such as Mascott, Belle and Sebastion, Cat Power and Portastatic recently pointed out to me that Pittsburgh is THE number one place to go on tour in the event that one is looking for a weird time. I suppose the down side of this is that if you are NOT looking for a weird time, well, you are probably likely to find one anyway. Margaret compellingly refers to this experience as being "Pittsburghed", and while I will not do her the disservice of attempting to recount her anecdotes regarding the phenomenon, suffice it to say that this is a very real thing. We have played some really tiny shows there and opened a big show for Neko Case, but regardless of venue or turn out, it has never been less than a fog of confusion.

Astonishing Overturning Of The Odds/Hangover Averted/Tour Summary Commenced

2005-08-29T07:16:00.000-07:00

In what may only be termed a historic upset of conventional wisdom I have, following the debauched frenzy of last night's activites, awoken fully at the peek of my powers. Anyone fortunate enough to enjoy this entry will quickly recognize that my prose style is completely in tact. This is a completely startling development-I had as much as conceded a state of full incapacity until at least this time tomorrow- and I now feel uncertain as to how best to employ my evident functionality. I guess I will proceed then with my planned activity for tomorrow, which was a beginning summary of recent Slow Dazzle dates in the midwest. These are intended not as a full rendering of the facts as such, but merely a partial overview, intended for the record, to prove my actual presence at these events.

Philadelphia- The Khyber

We played again with Charles Bissel from the Wrens. This had taken place a few times with the Mendoza Line last autumn- just him and a guitar- totally astonishing results. Charles is a very nice man, I always look forward to chatting with him, but it seems pretty clear that he is tangled up in the Black Arts. Nobody should be able to manage these sorts of sounds with just one instrument. I worry about him, because if he IS some kind of warlock, then of course he is subject to all manner of miserable destinies. There is always a day of reckoning for every enchanter- probably he will fall into a volcano someday or something.

But he is absolutely brilliant. I'm not saying I know from where he derived his talent, I'm just suggesting that to witness it with your own eyes is to arrive at deep and unsavory suspicions. Does not the Wrens story vontain some paralell to that of Robert Johnson?

Okay, we'll have to pick this up later, i'm feeling a bit dizzy...