The Fat Pen

With the fat pen writing is so easy —
Your slop sure style threatens to run off the page.
As if the quality of it all is too much joy to handle,
infusing these fingers intoxicantly
and then threatening again to drive
off the side of the paper
in a wanton act of irresponsible drunkenness.
But you jerk back just in time
to begin anew the second-by-second struggle
to stay between the lines.
Regardless of its recklessness,
just holding the fat pen is pure smile —
You don’t want to stop, rather let the sentence run on endlessly
to keep those digits buzzing toward
their end-of-run finish.
Will they lose all and careen off the surface?
Or win this stupor’d battle and make it
to that final stopping
point.

Times can't be that bad

I was driving east on 440 yesterday when I passed this vehicle. I've seen houses being transported before and other structures, almost always it's because they have some inherent value and need to be preserved instead of bulldozed. For the life of me though, I can't figure out what someone would want to save this thing, unless the economy is doing even worse than I thought.

One for the road

A former co-worker of mine has ended his own blog, one year to the date after he started it. It was always his goal to get back into the writing process, and then get a graduate degree in creative writing. He’s gone through the applications process and will likely soon be heading off to school somewhere.

His blog was pretty popular among a small group of friends and acquaintances, myself included. It was because of his encouragement that I began my own blog, much for the same reasons -- to encourage me to write more. The new journalism job will probably make creative writing harder, rather than easier, because I’ll be writing all the time, and not in a creative writing format (although it certainly requires some creativity to keep it fresh). But I’ll make the effort regardless, because creative writing is my goal.

So this blog will continue, even if his will not. I hope to post less lengthy thoughts and generate more poems or show more photographs in the future.

He’ll be removing his blog from cyberspace shortly, and I wanted to respond to some questions he put in his second-to-last post regarding the nature of his blog and blogging in general.

Some answers for you, CrazyJohn:

How did your persona-as-commentator differ from the "real you"? Did you feel like you were more honest when writing here than your normally are in your life?

I think and write in stream-of-consciousness. But until people get to know you, you have to tamp that down, because they think you’re crazy. So when I first meet people, I’ll often guard how much I let slip out. But in blogworld, you can say what you like, in any old artistic or ridiculous fashion, and as long as it is interesting and different, they tend to appreciate it. I have been more myself writing and commenting on blogs than I have been in a long time.

What should we do with our time now that we can't read/write here anymore?

We should pursue our dreams, as you are.

Any other blogs/websites we should transfer our attention to?

If you live in Raleigh, you ought to catch a cable access show of Monkeytime TV once in a while. I watched it years ago when I lived there, and even ran into the offbeat creator of it outside a bar one night. He came out with a friend, and looked askance at me because I was staring at him. And I said: “Hey, you’re Monkeytime TV,” and he was shocked, because he thought only his friends watched it. He has a Web page, which I have a link to on the right.

In the age of disintegrating communities, did this blog-space feel like a community?

More so than anything I’ve felt in a long time. I shall miss it, but I think we all can get trapped in places and need to be given the proverbial kick in the behind to get moving on again. I totally respect your end-of-blogdom.

Any remaining secrets you want to reveal before the opportunity has past?

I tell everyone I’m a writer, but writing is torturous for me. I want to do it, but my mind refuses. Only the smallest poems or shortest articles come out fluidly, the rest are a chophouse process. My blogs, written in one long breath, are an exception. So instead of me trying to control them, to mash them into a square circle or whatnot, I just let them out as they come and run with it. Perhaps, doing so will help me figure out some control in the future.

If there's fellow-commentators you haven't met in person, did their personalities come through in their writing?

Tough to say. Most of us act differently in different situations regardless; if we’re asked to speak publicly we may come off differently than in a gathering of friends. The blogosphere provides a whole new forum for people to express themselves, and so they may have for the first time in their lives opened up, or they may have been bugged out by the whole throw-some-words-onto-the-net process, or they may have found themselves watching what they say so as not to offend, or otherwise. In the blogosphere, people cannot learn much about you that you don’t want them to know, so in many ways, it’s a less than honest appraisal. But who cares? I liked the community of CrazyJohn, and I shall miss it.

What will you miss the most about this blog community?

The author’s commentary of the life outside his window.

Do you regret saying anything in one of your comments?

I regret not saying things when I couldn’t make up my mind how to respond. My brain is still processing how to answer your question to describe ourselves (as commentators to your blog) so you can feature us on a separate page. What should I say? How should I say it? Which part of me shall represent me the best? I never did come up with an answer for that.

Does participating in a blog-community make us geeks?

Only participating in it would. Unless you’re geographically isolated (or somehow trapped inside your house), you ought to have some interaction with the breathing world for balance. If a solar flare knocked out all our communications tomorrow, who among us could adjust to the real world while we awaited for things to be replaced? Could you pick up a Frisbee and toss it? Could you make friends with your neighbors? Could you find work that doesn’t involve technology? Would we all end up in the library or bar?

Coming to the post-blog party on Saturday, January 20, here in Chapel Hill?

It was a nice time. My second blog party in a year, only this time I had something to say to the other attendees. It was a strange experience, meeting people you’ve only “met” through reading their observations on someone else’s blog.

That's all. Any other messages you want to pass on to all of us?

Not today.

No, this blog is not yet dead

I just finished the hardest working week of my life. Perhaps there were harder ones, but if so I can’t remember them. But going from worklessness and high levels of stress worrying about having no money and no job, to working 10 to 12 hours a day and experiencing the heavy daily stress about whether I can cut it as a journalist once again when I haven’t picked up a reporter’s notebook in five years took its toll on me this week.

I interviewed for the job the Friday before this. I was offered the job that night. I started work Monday, two days to deadline. By Wednesday, I’d barely had enough time to learn how to work a digital camera (I still don’t know how to program it manually, or turn the flash on or off) or figure out the distasteful Mac software, but I had tracked down enough information for four news articles and pen a follow-up to a wrestling match.

Friday I spent all day at a town retreat where town leaders set their priorities for what they’re going to do for the rest of the year. You know, passing bonds and building sidewalks and lighting football fields all that. I knew maybe two people going into the meeting, and those I’d only met earlier this week. And I was familiar with only two of the (minor) issues discussed the whole, 8-hour day. I felt like Neo, being hooked up to the loading program to learn a year’s worth of Jujitsu training in a minute. Only, instead of martial arts and weapons tactics, I jacked into my brain the history of paving town roads; and the total number, volume and availability of water hookups to present and future town citizens; and the cost per square foot to add drainage to a city block. Stuff like that. A year’s planning worth. With no background knowledge. I took it all in, but I’m kinda worried about neural seepage. Better start writing it down today before there’s permanent damage, eh Johnny-just-Johnny?

I’m not complaining, not really, just tired. Exhausted. I haven’t gotten online for more than a minute all week. So, if I haven’t been blogging, it’s not because I’m giving up. No matter how much I get plugged back into the machine, I never want to wholly give up my creativity to a job again. I definitely will keep the blog going -- even if it kills me.

So, no this blog is not yet dead. Just really, really tired.

Time to go back to bed.

Rest in Pieces

I just took apart my Quantum battery. It didn’t seem to be working, so I thought: maybe if I disassemble it and peer at its working parts, I’ll be able to discern what’s malfunctioning, and possibly fix it. Yeah, right.

I had to go through my camera gear this weekend because I accepted a new job on Friday night -- only six hours after I interviewed for it. What turnaround time! As I’ll be returning to my former life as a newspaperman, I figured I ought to dust off all that old equipment and get it into working order. Of course, we’ll be using digital cameras on the job, but my commute takes me through some 20 miles of the coverage area, so having an extra camera available to use -- digital or not -- is a good idea. This way, if aliens land in the middle of the night and bring Elvis back, I won’t be able to send my editor the images instantaneously (I have neither a digital camera or cell phone), but I will be able to record a photo for posterity on good old fashioned film.

I expect I’ll eventually buy a digital camera system, or perhaps an older digital Nikon which lets me use my existing lenses and equipment (the newest line of Nikons won’t work with pre-digital equipment). But until then, I intend to keep my FM2, film, lenses, and flash around just in case.

That’s where the Quantum battery comes in. Though, cumbersome, the rechargeable battery pack I used to clip to my waist during photo shoots was an essential part of my equipment. This thing allowed me to take flash photos up to 50 or 60 feet away with a quick reset. I bought it for $75 used from the now defunct University Camera in Durham right after I moved here. I don’t know how long a new Quantum of that type was expected to last, but the used model I purchased survived thousands of flashes (maybe tens of thousands). It’s especially useful when you need a lot of flash (nighttime) and you need to take multiple shots (weddings, sporting events). So if I ever upgrade to some serious new digital equipment, I’ll probably get another one.

I’ll have to, after “fixing” the old one.

Dinner at Bluto's

A friend of mine invited me to a poker game this weekend. He did the inviting in December, to give people plenty of time to respond. I didn’t respond right away though, for several reasons: I was up for a job that would involve work on nights and weekends, and money has been so tight lately (yes, even more so than my usual bare bones budget) that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to go even if I was available. As it turns out, that nighttime job was offered to me, which I didn’t take because I was a shoo-in for another job with better working conditions. I soon learned the relative value of the phrase “shoo-in,” however, as well as the value of the idea that the second interview is just a formality and nothing could possibly go wrong to hurt your chances. So, suddenly, I was out of two jobs -- one which I had turned down for the other, the proverbial bird in the bush.

When I’m not making any money, I have a hard time justifying the expense of it, including the cost of putting fuel in the tank of my SUV -- not the most economical vehicle to have even in fat years. But I decided to go anyway because those games never do get too expensive (I’ve played “home games” where $75 is dropped without a thought -- usually my $75). This game tops out at around $40, on a second buy-in, if you are unfortunate enough to lose your first $20 off the bat. It happens.

So my buddy, let’s call him Bluto, will sometimes grill before a game. Food before poker is a good idea if one is going to be doing any drinking. Drunk men don’t win poker games, nor do they make good drivers. My wife asked me to find out if I’d be eating at Bluto’s and I said I wasn’t sure, and she said it would be good because we have no food and no money for food in the house.

He is cooking out, so I’ll have dinner tonight. I guess Beth will eat some apples or cottage cheese. I know, it sounds brutal, but she actually likes cottage cheese as a meal. Not my cup of tea, you know. Of course, even though she’s got some years on me, I’ll probably die first. At the funeral, I picture her being expected to say some words, which she hates (being expected to, not speaking in general) and her quipping that if only I’d taken her advice on the cottage cheese and other healthy meat alternatives, I might have made it to 60. Just so you don’t the wrong idea about Beth, she’s not that type of person who Vegetarian Bible-bashes you to change your lifestyle. Instead she makes small, informed recommendations, which I usually follow, and lets me decide what is best for myself. And in return, I respect her choices, which, since she’s smarter than me on so many levels, may be the most intelligent thing I do.

As it turns out, we will be able to afford to go grocery shopping on Sunday, as I was offered a different job than the other two yesterday evening. I’ll be hitting the bricks again as a reporter for The Wake Weekly in Wake Forest; a burgeoning town north of Raleigh, not the university bearing the town’s name. That’s some 200 miles from here.

But even if I hadn’t had this turn of good luck, and was still broke come Sunday (meaning I hadn’t “cleaned up” at the poker table), I still would have been all right. When one doesn’t have a whole lot of money, one really does look forward to the smaller pleasures in life. In this case, a good grilled meal, some ale to wash it down, a circle of pals, and a friendly game on a warm Saturday night in January.

Maybe I am wealthy after all.

First Post of 2007!

While sitting in front of the TV (that’s an idiot box, for you luddites) watching a Seinfeld marathon, I brainstormed resolutions for 2007. “Why pick the same things you always pick?” I asked myself. “Why carry over resolutions from a previous year?” That just stresses you out. “Instead,” I thought, “why not choose resolutions that you’ll enjoy attempting, that you may actually accomplish?”

1. Drink the rest of the beer in my beer fridge. That may sound like an easy task -- and it could be, seeing as I’m still unemployed I do have the time -- but you never know. Every time I get around to deciding to do some “cleaning,” something happens and more beer makes its way into the fridge. It’s like a magic beer refrigerator in a way. Except that it’s not free magic -- the suds cost money which, even when I’m virtually broke, seems to find its way into my pocket and then my hand and then the hand of the sales clerk.

Now, a beer fridge is a nice thing to have. Beth and I think it’s an attractive selling point for the house, at least for the man, or the dad, or whomever who works his way through the upstairs, looking at all the rooms in that disinterested, male kind of way, follows the real estate agent (often female) and his wife downstairs and into the basement, which is set up pretty decently as a workshop area. There’s the cabinets against the inner wall with a hard ply board nailed to the top for working, plus we have a workbench, half a dozen saws and mauling instruments in the corner, some rakes and a giant shovel which I hauled out of the shed this fall because it does a great job shoveling leaves. Yes, we had that many leaves. So he walks in and immediately perks up. “Ah!” he thinks, “that’s more like it.

Then, oh gloriously then, they all turn left into what the former owners used as a spare bedroom, and see a full-sized pool table done in red felt, a cricket dart board on the wall, boom box, backgammon board, and there, next to the couch, a mini-fridge. “I wonder if…” he thinks to himself, and opens the little door to reveal yes, as many beers as a man can jam into a mini-fridge. Now of course, people buying the home might just turn that room right back into a kid’s bedroom, but, like the TV show “Sell This House” reveals, people have an easier time imagining how much they’ll enjoy a place if you help them out visually. Plus, if they want it, the pool table goes with the sale. No extra charge.

But the beer ought to be fresh, though the guy can’t possibly know whether it is or not, and so it needs constant replacing. Problem is, whenever I have guests over, even knowing in advance that they will most undoubtedly bring beer (as they always have), I still panic at the last second and go out and buy a couple six packs. Then, the guest or guests come, all bearing sixes of their own. Some of said sixes get consumed, and the remainders crowd up the fridge. I’ll have one or two while playing darts or pool, but I usually only drink in company, so after a while, all those beers start to go stale. So, my New Year’s Resolution numero uno is to go through the entire lot, drinking what I can and chucking what is absolutely intolerable. Meaning the horribly stale beer, any skunked bottles and all the Natural Lights.

Empty fridge, here you come!

2. Sell my first country song. Some years ago I was sitting in a brew pub (that I no longer go to because I hate every selection they have) with two friends (who are no longer my friends for reasons I’d prefer not to go into) and we were joking about the hilarity of those “working man” country songs that seem to always involve romantic breakups and pickup trucks, when I started to sing my own make-it-up-on-the-spot lyric about how my dog ran away with my wife. I can’t recall just how the tune went, but it was pretty darn good. Or it seemed that way at the time. Of course, we were in a bar, drinking.

This afternoon, while the wife and I were engaged in a forced absence from our humble abode so complete strangers could walk through the rooms of the house peering into cabinets and commenting on the state of the paint job, we were sitting outside a Remington Grill (temps hit 62 degrees today) reading the paper and being subjected to the most God-awful series of jarring and discordant notes and vocalizations that anyone should ever have to hear. It was the latest -- and who knows, maybe the greatest -- in country music. While I sat there, trying not to gag, I thought to myself: “I could write music that bad.” So, maybe I will.

Well, that’s the list.

I’ve only come up with the two so far, but I welcome one and all to feel free to make some suggestions of their own. Be nice. Or not nice. To quote a tunester comic from Chapel Hill who once wrote a song about being sexually molested by Ronald McDonald (set to the tune of Charlie Daniels’ Uneasy Rider): “It’s the same difference -- makes no difference to me.”

Last Post of the Year!

This is my last post of the year. Look forward to next year in which I expect to be blogging more often.

The madness War

Saw an article today about an economist who estimates the total cost of the war in Iraq, financially speaking, will probably end up somewhere around $2.2 trillion. Staggering, isn't it?

Anyways, it reminded me of a poem I wrote, back when I worked in the type of place that actually had cubicles. The Borgish feeling of just being one of many was exacerbated by me placing plastic army men around my cube around the start of the war and by the fact that at the time, my project was depression (had to write about it) and, at that time at least, I was the only person working on the subject, leaving me virtually no one to talk to about my work. So, an escalating war, immersion into the realm of depression, and no one but four gray cube walls within arms reach to speak to, and little green men pointing their weapons at me from shelves and from behind stacks of paper really put me in a state of pseudo psychosis. From whence I wrote the following:

The madness War

The military buildup
is threatening my cubedom.
The rigid charging soldiers
with their arms upraised
may break my concentration.
In green and beige
they chatter into their radios —
the static hurts my ears.
Those little green men keep
marching around in my head.
they go round and round and round and round
until I Fall Down.
I guess it’s what I deserve
for getting stuck between gears.
Why can’t I get any peace?

Year of the Dog

With all the warm weather we’ve been having lately here in the sunshine state, this Christmas holiday is really looking up. Rain is predicted for a day or two, but overall for the past few weeks, it’s just been gorgeous. That said, I’m really looking forward to the passing of the holidays and the introduction to a new year. I know it’s such an arbitrary thing, our measurement of the passage of time -- January 1st is really just another day -- but I think any kind of fresh start, even an imaginary one, would do me some good.

I read two articles in the “Business” and “Lifestyle” sections of the daily newspaper yesterday which really caught my eye. The first pointed to the increase in lavish gifts Wall Street bankers, brokers, and pork barrel traders were buying for their loved ones this year -- apparently it’s been a really good year for them. We’re talking about $50,000 diamond rings, $1 million worth of private jet travel, $7,000 mink coats, $5,000 necklaces, $20,000 facelifts, $15,000 hair, makeup and wardrobe makeovers, stuff like that. This story warmed my heart. It’s nice to know some folks really are benefiting from the economy.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a new trend is catching on. In an effort to live more environmentally friendly lives, groups of people living in or about San Francisco vowed to spend no money for the entirety of 2006 on new purchases, excepting food, the bare necessities for health and safety, and underwear. Everything else was bought used or not bought at all. Apparently, this is a movement designed, presumably, to help reduce the average American’s eco-footprint on the world. The “Compact” movement has spread around the country, eliciting both progressive delight and spite from those who see these groups as out to destroy America.

A “compact” lifestyle has such a nice ring to it. I think I’ll start using it to describe my way of life. Just think, my very way of daily living has been on the cusp of a new eco-movement, possibly a green revolution.

And all this time I’ve simply referred to it as being broke.

I can’t say for certain, but I think all of my friends, lovers, and family members would agree that it would be nice if in this new year I could quit living an enforced sub-compact lifestyle and return to something a bit more normalized. Bad enough that Benjamin, Jacob, and Ryan went without presents from Uncle Dave this year, but even my attempt at an economical Christmas card has failed. I sent out a link to an online e-card, which has apparently been removed from the server. So instead of Santa and his deer singing a cheery Christmas Song, my message to folks was:

503 Service Unavailable
Apache/ProXad Server at badaboo.free.fr Port 80.

Perhaps I can follow it up with a 403 Unable to connect to the localhost Happy New Year message.

I was born in the Year of the Dog so I hoped that this would be my year. It hasn’t been, but I’ve been feeling a lot more like myself lately than I have been in years, so maybe that old dog just took his time getting around to me. Maybe the server error is just a final note to a bad tune, and I can get on to a better life starting today. I guess that’s how I’m going to think of it, because being depressed is no fun for me and this time of year ought to be fun.

Things are going to be better from here on out. Million-dollar Christmas gifts I can do without, but a voluntary sub-compact lifestyle would be heartily welcomed. By this time next year I expect I’ll either be mailing classic children’s books to my nephews, or mailing brand new ones to publishers.

It’s time to get to work.

I Stand Corrected

In an earlier post, I claimed that the childhood nickname my parents called me by was Bumbalardee and was named after a Sesame Street cartoon that I loved, featuring a poor child’s birthday party with rats as guests. While I’m convinced that such a cartoon or puppet piece was performed, I must humbly apologize for the story of Bumbalardee itself. My mother recently wrote the following letter to me:

The name Bumbleardy (my spelling) is, indeed, from an old Sesame Street bit but it had nothing to do with rats. The number nine was the subject of the animated piece. Bumbleardy was turning nine and invited a bunch of pigs to his birthday party. They showed up early while his mother was out and behaved quite piggishly, more or less trashing the place. Bumbleardy, however, remained at ease in the midst of the commotion. We nicknamed you for him, not because of the piggish party, but because you were always so comfortable around animals. A favorite photo, from a trip to the African Safari in Hamilton, captures you at about two surrounded by taller petting zoo animals, donkeys and such, barely visible but totally relaxed.

Sure enough, when I did a Google search for the name Bumbleardy, it popped right up as Bumble Ardy. Not only was there a cartoon with the pigs and number nine, it was done by none other than Maurice Sendak, the author most well known for creating Where the Wild Things Are. Apparently, he has put the cartoon into book form this year.

So, I humbly ask for forgiveness from both my parents, Mr. Sendak and the folks over at Sesame Street for my faux pas.

Happy Christmahanukwanza!

Trying to recover my former style of writing poetry (consisting of odd subjects, humorous expressions and non-living things turned inside-out) I put pen to paper the other day and this is what came out. Not my best work, but 'tis certainly the season.

Sip a draught of beer,
Or any available cheer.
Kick back your heels and rest,
There is no cause for stress:
Is there another time of year
Like Christmas to the New Year,
Where politics are cast aside?
Or should be; this is a time to bide
Others’ faults, oddities and beliefs,
Not a time for the giving of grief.
Bad spirits, sour grapes,
Comments about old drapes,
Begone! to the rest of the year
(Where forgotten, I fear
Is Christ’s mass and Christ’s word
And Christ’s name is used as a sword).
Would it that he could rise once again
And teach us to be, year-round, civil men.

All my references are humans

I stumbled across these online and couldn't resist.

Ode to Coke

I was going to write about successfully quitting my Coke habit, which is to say, stopping my habit of drinking the corn-syrup cola called Coke, or at least stopping my habit of drinking it every day as opposed to just when I go out to eat, which, if one is aware of my financial status, is not often.

I got addicted to Coke working at the newspaper. I didn’t need it during the day. Hell, usually, I was so busy during the day I didn’t have time to drink anything, except during lunch. My newspaper days were chock full of phone calls and short drives to school events and businesses and intersections to take photos of tree-sized logs that had come off the back of those log trucks -- you know the ones, with the little red flag hanging off the back on logs that look like they could fall off at any time? -- and had crush some poor soul’s Navigator.

So I was busy busy busy all the time and didn’t even have the time to think of caffeination. But production days always went on forever. We’d finish writing and editing the copy, drive down to our production office in Fuquay-Varina (that’s actually the town’s name. Dumb, isn’t it? I lived there for about a year at one point. The difference is there they had a 24-hour open Harris Teeter. Louisburg closes at 11) to lay it all out on the computers there (with the ads already done there -- otherwise the whole operation could have been done at my desk), scan in all the relevant photos (think pre-digital cameras) and all that jazz.

Well, that whole process always took all night -- longer because due to a scheduling conflict with the actual Fuquay newspaper (whose production offices we shared since we were part of the same chain) we would have to wait until they got done with their work first. There weren’t enough computers to go around. So after working eight hours, writing and editing, and answering the damn phone, we then had to drive to Fuquay (about 15 minutes) start production at 5 p.m. or later. So, to stay awake and aware (one of my duties was to proof the whole deal -- my editor was dsylexic and couldn’t be coutned on to cacth all the mitsakes) I discovered that caffeine was my very best friend. And to get that steady flow of pep, I would sip from a can of Coke all night until we were finished. That usually meant anywhere from 3 to 6 Cokes a night.

Later, when I worked as a proofreader for an agency in Durham, I found my attention would shift as well, unless I was constantly infused with caffeine. Coffee highs were too bell curved, plus I really don’t like coffee, and it gets cold. So I did the same thing. I’d usually consume about 3 or 4 16-ounce cokes a day there. So I got in the habit of chain Coking -- pouring it into a glass with ice, and sipping it out through a straw (to save my teeth), pouring more in when the glass would get to be half-empty.

Since I left that job, I’ve been steadily drinking Coke, adding to my waistline and compounding my heartburn and probably doing no good for my overall constitution. Until about two and a half weeks ago. I just decided to quit (or at least quit drinking it daily) and so I quit. I’m back to drinking Coke only as a treat. I drink more iced tea now, but that’s not really addictive, especially since the stuff I’m drinking doesn’t taste very good. And water. I drink a lot more water. I still treat myself when we go out to eat -- which, considering we often end up in the burg of Wake Forest, which seems to be totally shut down on Sundays, the day we shop for groceries, we more than not end up at Applebee’s, which only serves Pepsi products. I drink it, but it’s just not the same thing.

So, as I was saying, I was going to write about kicking the habit, but then I realized that some fellow bloggers like this guy or this girl might not like it so much, seeing as they are both addicted to the heavier stuff -- tobacco, I mean. You do know that nicotine is as addictive as heroin or cocaine, don’t you? So I thought, since they seem to always be blogging about trying to quit or being off cigs for 3 days or 6 months now, that quitting smoking must be really hard and so writing about quitting drinking Coke, or at least, learning to drink Coke in moderation, might seem a little offensive to say the least.

So I’ve decided not to blog about it.

Instead, I’ll just post the dedication I wrote to the drink I was an addict of for so long:

Ode -- to Coke

Sugar.
Water.
Syrup.
Color.
I willingly open my arteries to your sugar rush.
Sip.
Hold --
then you slide down over my tongue,
past my cracked teeth;
pouring pure sugarcane satisfaction
into me.

No dessert can rival,
no sweetener can match
the pure-pleasure,
open-addiction,
ecstasy-driven
lust
I derive
for
that in-credible,
un-challenged,
un-equaled,
one and only,
one
of
a
kind --
Coke.

Yum.

Cool Factor 10

The AlterNet has a list of the Top 10 or so YouTube vids viewed online. There's some amazing stuff in there, much of it performed by Generation Next. A lot of talent these kids have these days that would never have gotten noticed except for on corporatized TV shows like American Idol.

The first two I'd already seen or don't care about. The Quick Change video has got a cool factor of about 9, even if you figure out the trick. The Pachelbel guitar boy is awesome, the rocker girls make you want to be back in school; and the urban ninja dude makes the mall look exciting.

The rest are just so-so. The soccer thing would be amazing if I thought it was definitely not faked. And if you haven't yet seen the movie Napoleon Dynamite -- don't watch the last one if you don't want to ruin it.

Years ago I was sitting at an outdoors table at a restaurant in Buffalo and I saw this little black kid riding his bike across the street. He was going through a parking lot and suddenly turned the handlebars the wrong way and went right over the top. He landed in a roll and came up unscathed. I was amazed. He rode off, but about 10 minutes later here he comes and does the same thing. It was a stunt move that he had taught to himself.

That's what the ninja guy and the other YouTubers remind me of. Nobody paid them to just be cool; they just are. Which reminds me of a story my pops told me once. He and his brother (my cool uncle Dave, who died a few years ago of a heart attack), who was several years younger than my dad, Jim, were always fighting when they were kids. So, after one contentious battle, when Jim got the best of my uncle, Dave hatched a plan to get his brother back that must have taken weeks to implement. Every day when he got home from school, Dave put a ladder up against the house and practiced jumping off of it, going up a rung each day or so.

He got to the point where he could jump from about the height of, say, a second-story bedroom window. Then, the next day he picked a fight with Jim, claiming he was stronger or tougher or whatnot and when my pops challenged him, Dave bet him he couldn't jump out of the bedroom window. So Jim said, sure, you first, and Dave threw open the window, climbed out and jumped, hitting the ground just right to avoid injuring himself. Not to be outdone, Jim jumped too, with the expected result of hurting his ankle in the process.

Now, my dad's a pretty cool guy -- he looks so smooth with a cigar clenched between his teeth, and he outclasses me on anything physical -- he used to get up at 5 a.m. to jog a couple miles before work every day, and he still holds his own in racquetball against anyone who isn't a total athlete. Plus, he is of the old school fixit dads who make great homeowners because there is hardly a repair job they can't handle. So he's definitely got a high coolness factor.

But nobody was as cool as my uncle Dave. Dave, with his deep, soothing and magical voice; Dave, whose childhood antics later developed into a love for garage rock; Dave, who always had the latest gagets and pinball machines for his kids (and nieces and nephews!) to play with. Dave, whose band members (that he was managing) played Amazing Grace on the sax at his funeral and whose family held up lighters in tribute.

Like the ninja dude, and definitely that guitar kid, I’d say my uncle was easily a Cool Factor 10.

Three aliens walk into a bar...

Three Petterbine aliens and a human being named Jason are sitting in a snoosis joint on the inner cusp of Saturn's rings. "What do the Kek Comet, NGC 4214 cluster, Doradus Cloud, and the Cordites on the 15th moon of Pekus Prime have in common?" one of the aliens quips.

The Petterbines are renowned galaxy-wide for their humor, so Jason pricks up his ears.

"I dunno, what?" "Yes, what?" the other two ask.

"None of them is planet earth."

The aliens break out into spasms of guffawing laughter, pounding the table and falling off their chairs. The human looks from one to another in puzzlement.

"I don't get it," he says.

Who Likes Short-Shorts?

I'm very fond of short stories. I like to read them, and when I'm feeling confident, write them as well. But there's real fun in writing limited-length short stories, which are referred to as short short stories. Or, if they're very short, they're sometimes called short short short stories. Arguably one of the best short short stories is Appointment in Samarra:

"A merchant in Baghdad sent his servant to the market. The servant returned, trembling and frightened. The servant told the merchant, 'I was jostled in the market, turned around, and saw Death.

'Death made a threatening gesture, and I fled in terror. May I please borrow your horse? I can leave Baghdad and ride to Samarra, where Death will not find me.'

The master lent his horse to the servant, who rode away, to Samarra.

Later the merchant went to the market, and saw Death in the crowd. 'Why did you threaten my servant?' He asked.

Death replied,'I did not threaten your servant. It was merely that I was surprised to see him here in Baghdad, for I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.'"

A bookstore whose newsletter I subscribe to recently sent me a list of 6-word-long short shorts published by Wired.com for some Sci-Fi contest. One complaint I've heard is that many are actually more like headlines or titles than stories. But there are some gems:

Longed for him. Got him. Shit.
- Margaret Atwood

Weeping, Bush misheard Cheney’s deathbed advice.
- Gregory Maguire

Leia: "Baby's yours." Luke: "Bad news…"
- Steven Meretzky

The best of the six-word short shorts -- the one that inspired all the rest -- comes from the man who only wrote a single, one-act play in his entire life (which my friends and I performed while under the influence, some years ago), the man who took it upon himself to go U-Boat hunting off the Gulf of Mexico in a fishing craft during WWII, the man whose arguably best short story is being eradicated by global warming, Ernest Hemingway, wrote this:

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

Isn't that sumthin?

The reason I bring it up is I was looking for material I'd written creatively to show potential employers when I ran across a 64-word short-short I wrote for my own "Get a Life" writer's club, which has since gone defunct, been reborn, gone defunct again, and been reborn again, albeit with only a few remaining writers left to participate. These ones came from a title prompt of "The eyes have it":

Stella led her guests into the gloomy library. Shelves held jars of preserves, reminders of her husband’s glory days.
“Exquisite!” a vampire exclaimed, lifting a jar containing two withered hands.
“Yes,” Stella mused, “my husband was quite the… collector.”
“What is your favorite of Dr. Frankenstein’s collection?” another asked.
“Most people like the brains, but as for me,” she paused, “the eyes have it.”

--Angela Erwin


That sound. It hits my stomach before it hits my ears. It doesn’t register for a few minutes. But when I see the bright blood seeping into the asphalt, I know. Who could do something like that? Throw a kid into oncoming traffic. I look around for the answer, my gaze resting on two black orbs, and I find it. The eyes have it.

--Christine Gordon


The eyes have it — that heart-wrenching, pleading look. Twenty-three folk from outside town whose homes had washed away with the flood stood against the wall. Mayor Phelps had the deciding vote. Annex the community and help them rebuild? The cost might break the back of his tiny town. He stared long and hard into those eyes — then raised his hand. “The ayes have it.”

--David Leone

Fell free to deposit a 6-word or 64-word short short on the comments page.

Bumbalardee and the Tunnel Rat

I attended a moderately small college run by Jesuit priests in Buffalo NY. It was only a few blocks’ walk from the family home on Summit Ave., which was nice, as was the tuition, which, me being a son of a faculty member, was free. Anyways, even though it was located on Main Street in the middle of the city, it was still a somewhat cloistered environment. It was a largely middle class black community and the student body was largely white, suburban, or white, countryside. So there wasn’t a lot of mixing going on with the neighborhood folks. Since quite a few students were from downstate, I guess the term is, and lived on campus, and because it was kind of a catholicky place, the overall atmosphere was, well, kind of conservative.

So, I had this small fish in a small pond experience that came to mind recently after a long time. A guy named David Eliot e-mailed me about my blog, which he happened across during a “vanity search” on Google, and mentioned that he has already, at the age of 34, published two independent newspapers. Publishing my own rag is a sort of a dream of mine, though I’m not locked in on it, I would have a ball. I even recently drew up plans for an indie entertainment newsmag, but I gave up because I figured (A) it likely wouldn’t make any money and (B) that I had no seed money to get it going.

So, I was lamenting my launch pad status, when a friend reminded me that I did put out two issues of a really small independent newspaper when I was still in school. Crazy that I forgot that. It was called The Tunnel Rat, named for the system of tunnels that connected much of the Canisius College campus while I was a student. The tunnels are still there; only the campus has really grown, so “much” probably doesn’t apply any longer. Most of the student activity clubs were in those tunnels, beneath the student center, and I spent a good portion of my 5 college years living the life of a tunnel rat.

I’ve always identified with rats, inasmuch as I think they’re really cool animals, albeit frightening to find taking the lid off one’s garbage can (happened to my mother once). My father’s nickname for me as a child was Bumbalardee. This came from a Sesame Street cartoon where a really poor kid who has no friends instead invites the tenement’s rats to his birthday party. I scarcely remember it, but my folks claim that I loved it as a kid. So, naming my “underground” newspaper The Tunnel Rat had extra meaning for me.

I only put out two very short (a few pages each) issues, mainly because I couldn’t afford the printing costs. It caused a bit of a stir, this being a small, conservative pond school. How conservative, you ask? During my first senior year, I had a goatee going, not because I liked beards (I didn’t then), but because I had been too lazy to shave. A whole plethora of people and school administrators strongly suggested to me that growing a beard was wrong and that I’d better shave it. I’m serious! Try living in a small town sometime (or perhaps, Greensboro) and you’ll likely run into that same kind of attitude.

I promised them all I would shave it off, as soon as I could go a week without getting nagged about it. It took until Christmas break.

So anyways, to make a short story far too long to read to the end, I decided to publish my own paper not because I felt some kind of need to stir up trouble, but because I had just finished reading this cool book my sister Nicki had given to me (upon the promise that I not mention she did so to mom and dad) and I wanted to quote it in an op/ed piece for the Griffin, the college paper I was an editor at. But they wouldn’t let me use all the swearwords, which I thought were essential to the quote, as it knocked the press itself, so I created an entire publication so I could put the quote there.

It’s the scene in the book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, in which, high on acid and other stuff, Raoul and his attorney pal are checking into a hotel when in Raoul’s eyes, everybody starts turning into reptiles and chewing each other to bits. Raoul exclaims to his attorney:

‘”But what about our room? And the golf shoes? We're right in the middle of a fucking reptile zoo! And somebody's giving booze to the goddamn things! It won't be long before they tear us to shreds. Jesus, look at the floor! Have you ever seen so much blood? How many have they killed already?’

“That’s the press table,’ he said.”

So I threw the essay with that quote, a one sentence entertainment review by my childhood friend Jeff Burnett, a nostalgic look back at record players by another friend, and a short story done up Mike Hammer-style about a campus police detective wannabe titled “Diary of a Dick.”

I played on an ongoing controversy with the English Department by doctoring up a group photo of them for the 2nd issue; I penciled-in satanic symbols and Led Zeppelin onto their shirts and books and ran it on the front to show how bad they were. I understand they got quite a kick out of it. (I’d show an image from the issues, except that I found out what is wrong with my scanner -- it’s busted. So, no scanned-in images from me until I get a new one. You know, when we have money again.)

A year later, my buddy Eric published a final issue of The Tunnel Rat on his own, causing much more strife, in part because he and I stood out on the corner and handed the issues to kids coming in, and in part because it was a lot racier and more fun and addressed ongoing controversies better than I ever did. If any student remembers The Tunnel Rat, it’s Eric’s issue that he remembers, I’m sure. For example, he played on the health ministry’s decision to excise contraception information from a campus magazine by including a dotted-line condom that students could cut-out and glue together before engaging in sex.

That one perturbed no small number of people -- self-important students and administrators alike -- who actually believed that if no mention was ever made of sexual activity, then by God the students wouldn’t engage in it! I’ve seen these kinds of attitudes persist during school board meetings, church socials, and of course, at the federal level, in just about everything Moral Majority types go on about.

So just today I was wondering if I might be able to find a reference to The Tunnel Rat, -- it being one of the few a vanity searches I’ve never conducted -- perhaps in some guy’s web page reflecting on his school days.

Nope. The only mention I found is so small as to make it a sort of a found poem. It’s mentioned, for some obscure reason, in the root directory of the campus computer mainframe. This is the whole of it:

Tunnel Rat - Lampoon
Publication – totally anonymous (Bootlegged)
File: 21/0

I guess if I want people to remember me for something unique and wonderful, I’m going to have to try something new.

Shutterbug

I miss photography.

At first I let it go because photography played such a big part of my job. I got so sick of carrying a camera around (I carried it to every assignment) that I didn’t want to be bothered with it in my off time, and moreover I didn’t want to think in frames during that time. One of my favorite movies is a piece starring Joe Pesci called “The Public Eye,” in which he plays a Weegee type of shutterbug who lives off the New York City police radio and contracts his work out to area newspapers. Two things make this film excellent, and the storyline and plot aren’t them. It’s his portrayal of the consummate newshound -- who isn’t afraid of anything -- or rather is terrified of everything, but ignores it for the sake of the picture. The scene in the Italian mob restaurant is priceless, because it is the type of event that every news photog dreams of; catching the daily violence as it happens. But what makes this movie a film is how it shows how he doesn’t just take pictures, but sees all the life around him in frames. You ever see those budding film school directors walking around with that finder thingy and putting it up to their eye all the time? It’s like that, only without the thingy. This film completely captures both the feeling and the effect it has on the photographer.

I was recruited right out of college by the yearbook rep to be a partner in his photography business; he liked my candids so much. Dave had a debilitating condition from a stroke and knew he’d need more and more help as time went on. But I turned him down. I had been a photographer for all of my 5 college years, and had only gotten into writing for the paper’s op/ed and features later, and only started news writing in my last two years. But I felt two things that made me not want to take that excellent opportunity. There was that energy of youth that made me want to take my talent and run with it: perhaps to become the consummate journalist, perhaps something else. The position would primarily have been taking group shots and portraits at local high schools and doing some of their homecoming dances and football games and such as well. But just starting out and jumping right into high school was a very distasteful concept to me at the time. Even considering my situation today, I’m still glad I turned that job down. I could see then how, 10, 20, 30 years later, I’d still be doing the same thing. It was an appalling vision. The other thing was that feeling of living photography. I made a conscious decision to go into news and not photography upon leaving school. I knew that, were I to become I professional photographer, I would have to eat, drink, and breathe photography. A photographer is never off duty, you see. If he doesn’t take his camera everywhere he goes, and misses a great shot, he’ll always rue it. And if he takes it everywhere he goes, it becomes an anchor, dragging the spirit of the moment right out of his soul.

So I got the newspaper job at The Apex Herald (and later at the Wake Weekly), in large part because of my photography skill, which as far as candids are concerned, is excellent. That, and as the publisher (his name was Biff) told me at the time, because I “could put a sentence together.” So, for about 5 years, I took photos with nearly every story, and many non-stories (kids on the playground, car wrecks, that kind of stuff). Like a maroon, I didn’t save most of them, as the film didn’t belong to me and I never had free time to make enlargements.

Today, I was raking leaves (oh, how many of them there are!), and noticed a giant grasshopper on the screen door. They’ve been really big this year, which is cool, because you can see their faces and antennae and everything. I grabbed my FM2 and my 70-210 zoom (a Vivitar Series One, one of the first lenses I ever bought; think 1988) which has a macro capability. Problem is, with the macro, the incoming light is reduced, and so you need either more light, or a slower shutter speed. Plus, at macro, the focal plane is cut down to centimeters, making staying in focus very difficult. It was getting late, and so I was forced to slow the shutter speed down to about 1/60th of a second. I was shooting T-max B&W, on which I splurged recently and bought a couple rolls. You know you’re poor when 4 rolls of film seems an outrageous expense. So I took a few shots, but on only one was I still enough, I think. Anyways, I was frustrated because I have clearly let my sedentary life weaken my arm and wrist muscles to the point where I can’t sit absolutely still for 10 minutes waiting for the perfect shot. So, I figure I’ll do two things. I’m going to start exercising more, and take more pictures. One of these days, I’d like to watch The Public Eye again. It’s an excellent film.

When I figure out what’s wrong with my scanner (currently suffering a communication breakdown with my PC), I’ll put some more of my better photos on the blog.

Insomniac Theatre

One thing about persistent unemployment is how easy it is to have one’s schedule get all messed up. I’m kind of a night person anyways, so staying up really late just gets all that much easier if one is intent on getting all the way through a good book, or stuck in the middle of a marathon game of Civilization.

The problem is it’s much easier to get stuck into an awake at night and asleep during the day routine than it is to get unstuck. I can’t force myself to sleep if I’m not tired and there’s few exertions I can do at night to make myself tired that won’t wake up the sleeping party of the house. Basement activities are heard right above in the bedroom, so I can’t just get drunk and play pool or darts all night while listening to music. And this being autumn, and our house being situated on an acre of deciduous trees, there is certainly no shortage of leaves to be raked up -- a very exhausting activity -- but one can’t rake in the pitch of night.

So I end up sitting, as I said, at the computer or the TV, or reading on the couch, and while I do eventually get tired, usually that occurs between the hours of 6 and 10 a.m. Often I’ll tell myself to simply get through the next day. Eight o'clock would do, but I rarely make it to eight. So I sleep from noon to midnight, or 4 to 2 a.m. and then start the whole beastly process all over again.

I’d have to say one of the only things that helps me pass the time so well is the preponderance of decent serials to watch on early morning TV. If I didn’t have those I’m sure I would be quite out of my mind by now. Have you ever seen the tripe that comes on early in the a.m.? It’s no good turning to CNN or other news channels; they seem intent on exhibiting the most trite and insipid casts of happy morning people talking about TomKat’s wedding -- they actually use that expression, TomKat -- and other such exciting world events.

But lucky enough for me, the folks at TNT have decided that there are just enough lost souls out there with naught better to do than watch TV all night and early in the morning to play contiguous episodes of Angel and Charmed. Buffy is on FX, I have recently discovered, but that show is a lot harder to watch. They all have a lot of soap opera elements to them, which is barely tolerable to me. But Angel, which is a show about a brooding vampire hell-bent on destroying all the elements of evil in Los Angeles (think Blade without the guns and swords), is far less soapy, or is soapy in a much more supernatural way. People’s loves are lost not because they got a better job and moved to Seattle, but because they were taken by a great horned daemon into the hell of upside down sinners. Much more dramatic and imaginative, I think.

I’ve pretty much gotten to see the entire rise and fall of the vampire called Angel. By the way, the final episode of that show -- in which he and his cohorts all go out fighting the forces of evil in a prelude to the apocalypse -- is pretty awesome. Nothing like ending on a high note.

Buffy and Charmed center around primarily female casts, which seems to lend itself to far more discussions about why their Saturday night dates never work out and far fewer about what to do when the end of the world gets here. I think Angel, a Buffy spin off, must have been created to give the male fans of Buffy a way to regain their sanity. Likewise, Charmed, which I must admit initially attracted me because I had a thing for Alyssa Milano, was cool because of the supernatural sets and effects and the writers and directors’ love of soft pedal comedy. The show incorporated the gamut of myths and legends ever envisioned and dropped them all down onto the three sisters’ heads in a San Francisco setting. One of the coolest things to happen on that show was when Milano’s character Phoebe fell in love with a daemon called the Source, i.e., the source of all evil. Any evangelical Christian who had rationalized his viewing up until that point was thereby dismissed. But the female leads themselves were really annoying. There was no end of whining about love lives and such and when they brought a baby into the mixture it was all she wrote.

Buffy was all that coupled with a high school setting. Think Saved by the Bell with the occasional human sacrifice. If it were more like the movie version -- with a Pee Wee Herman vamp that refuses to die -- or something like Idle Hands, I could have taken it better. But then, the cast would have all died early and the series couldn’t have run until its high school heroes were getting gray hair.

But criticisms aside, at least I had them to watch during my all night Insomniac Theatre. It could be a whole lot worse. Maybe I’ll get lucky and the Sci-Fi channel will drop the all night infomercials and run the entire Dr. Who series from its inception. That, or a job and a workday schedule would be nice.