The Pope of Chilitown

Selections from "the list of nicknames Chris Berman will almost certainly use when mentioning Seattle Seahawk 1st round pick Russell Okung"

2010-04-24T19:31:00.006+02:00

Okung Fu fighting
Okung pao chicken
Iron Okung

Okunga din
Okung on Eileen
Okungry like the wolf
Okunger strike
Okung all ye faithful
Okunga Galunga
Okung and the restless
Okungry hungry hippo
Budapest, Okungary

Some random thoughts

2010-04-20T04:25:00.003+02:00

What we need is something like craiglist, only without all the surprise trannies. That Craig's got some kooky friends.

Remember that conversation they had in Stand By Me about Goofy? I think it's time we have that same talk about Joakim Noah.

I can't be the only person who thought someone had hacked a website and added gobblygook nonsense as the top trending search phrase when I read that volcano name.

In the immortal words of the great Lloyd Dobler: Bavarian Dutch-style pretzels.

Once more with feeling

2010-04-19T01:07:00.002+02:00

The last entry I wrote for this blog was when my grandma had a stroke; that was July 2008. Since then, predictably, a lot has changed. The main change is that I've moved from Seattle to New York.

I had imagined that when I last wrote that entry, it would be the final one for The Pope of Chilitown blog. I felt it had run its course, and if I ever came back to blogging I would just choose another blog title and start over. I even chose a few names, Simpsons-based just like The Pope of Chilitown: Some Magic Animal, and Quality Side.

So why resurrect this blog now, after almost two years? For an answer, I'll turn to another Simpsons' reference: I'm a lazy, lazy man.

So here I am. The main reason I'm trying to get blogging again is because I've been studying Web marketing, SEO, etc., for professional development, and having a blog is a good way to practice some things. I really need to build my own website, but... see above.

So we'll see. My old practice was to write epic posts every few weeks/months. Now, I'm going to try to post shorter entries, but more often. Some things I will almost certainly post about include sports, movies, television, music... random links and videos and maybe some books or something. We shall see.

grandma bob

2008-07-17T22:02:00.000+02:00

I'm not entirely sure how to approach this blog entry. The thing is, my grandma Wickman had a stroke last week and is in hospice now, resting with her family around her. Grandma Bob (as my brother and I dubbed her in order to differentiate between her and grandma Toby) was and continues to be one of the smartest people I've ever known and fiercely independent. We will miss her dearly, but I feel confident she is at peace with her life and I feel incredibly lucky to get to spend this time with her.
While this obviously been the encompassing aspect of my week, I'm not entirely sure how to approach it in this venue. I do want to give some sort of an update about my life, and this is my life right now. But so often this blog is (to put it mildly) irreverent.
One of the things I discovered this week is that more of my family reads the blog than I imagined. Aunts and uncles and whatnot. And I do tend to drop some f-bombs and douche-bombs. Even though I write this in the knowledge that my mom reads it, it's a bit disconcerting when other random people who I don't necessarily want to know the sordid details of my existence casually reference the blog. Like my aunt cracking a joke about my face kersplat.
That has been the most rewarding (if that's the right word) aspect of this entire experience. I can't remember the last time the entire family was together like this. A little background: this is my mom's mother, not my dad's (who I'm staying with). While my dad's mom has two children (my dad and my developmentally disabled aunt) and two grandchildren (me and Glenn), my mom's mom has 17 direct line descendents and most of them have been around for some period of time this past week. When I was young, we were all together a lot of the time. And the relative ages of everyone leads to a lot of interesting interactions. For example: my brother is as close in age to our youngest uncle as he is to me, and he is much older than any of the other grandkids.
Rather than lapse into the countless memories I've been rehashing this week, I just want to focus on what's been happening recently. Although the stroke was massive, grandma has retained her personality and ability to communicate. It's impossible to overstate how reassuring this has been. She was able to decide for herself that she wanted her feeding tube removed, and that she wanted to go to hospice instead of staying the hospital. She has been responsive when people visit, and retained her wry wit and whip smarts. She's mostly sleeping, of course, but just being able to tell her we love her and have her reply in kind is wonderful.
I'd also like to give a warm and sincere thank you to the Evergreen Hospital Hospice Center. It's a beautiful and peaceful place, with lots of wonderful and supportive people. I can't describe how much of a privilege it's been to be there with everyone.
I am doing alright, in general. Emotionally exhausted of course, and the days are running together. But I feel great peace between me and grandma, and am secure we've said what we need to say to each other. She is and will always be an inspiration.

busy

2008-07-06T21:53:00.002+02:00

Been trying to find the time to get a quick word out here, but I've just been crazy busy. Very content with the shape of the path, but it's a full schedule.
The biggest story is truly surreal: last Tuesday I went to a trivia night at a bar on Capitol Hill with a couple new friends; they set up this group that plans to visit and review every bar and club on Capitol Hill by the end of the summer. So this particular evening we're sitting there, rocking the trivia casbah, when Alex (instigator and blogger of the group) gets a phone call. Long story short; a friend of theirs works at Canlis (the fanciest restaurant in Seattle) and can get us into an impromptu, free jazz show... featuring Wynton Marsalis.
No really.
So we all jet to our respective homes, put on some nice threads, and meet back at Canlis at 11:30. At midnight Wynton Marsalis walks in with a good sized crew and they proceed to jam until 2:30am.
I had never been inside Canlis before. It looked like Hugh Hefner's study. Well, I've never been in Hugh Hefner's study before, either. But Canlis definitely had the 1960's pleasure lounge feel.
I would say more, but I mean... what else needs to be said? Definitely among the most surreal experiences of my life. Wynton was absolutely and predictably amazing. Perhaps oddest about the entire night: I can find no mention of this show anywhere on the Interwebs. Just that Wyn (we're on a monosyllabic basis now) canceled his show at Benaroya earlier in the night.
So that was Tuesday; here's what the rest of last week's schedule has looked like:
Monday: 2.5 hour yoga/meditation class. Meet a buddy in town for the night for a few drinks. In bed around 2am.
Tuesday: Hit the gym, hang out with some friends in Belltown, walk up Capitol Hill, trivia for a few hours, sprint around town in time to get to Canlis to see Wynton Freaking Marsalis. In bed around 3am.
Wednesday: Somatic movement class. Check out a bi-monthly ecstatic dance night in Interbay (more on this in a moment). In bed by midnight.
Thursday: Meet a buddy in town for the weekend and another good old friend. Go lawn bowling at Greenlake (they have an immaculately manicured lawn, really a treat). Have a late dinner (sunset at 10pm) before taking a bus up Capitol Hill to check out a dancehall reggae night at the War Room club. Cab home, go by the 24 hour doughnut shop, play board games and eat doughnuts until falling asleep on the couch around 4am watching 6 String Samurai. Still haven't seen that frickin' movie to the end.
Friday: Independence Day. More lawn bowling. Toss the Frisbee around. End up at a rooftop party in Belltown from which you can both the Forth of Julivar's and the Lake Union fireworks. As always, Lake Union show blows Forth of Juliver's out of the water. I kept expecting a full scale replica of Mount Rushmore to appear in red, white, and blue in the sky. Very impressive. Finish the night dancing to 80's music at a bar around the corner. End up retiring with a few people afterwards and, before you know it, in bed (again) at around 4am.
So there you have it. I am the type of person who is usually in bed by midnight. This has been an insane week. And yes, I did go to work this week, too. I think that's a valid excuse for the belated blog entry.
Just to return to the Wednesday night ecstatic dance event for a moment; I've been keeping my eyes out for a good ecstatic dance night since I returned to Seattle. I tried a few, but they involved people putting on CD compilations and charging you $10 to dance in the space. Totally fine, but really not what I'm looking for. The big thing, for me, is to have a live DJ laying down tracks. Someone who can interact with the energy in the room and change the flow of the music according to what kind of feedback they're getting. It's just not the same the have a pre-defined list of tracks.
(Quick note: the things that generally set apart what is called "ecstatic dance" from a normal club night are an earlier start and finish and a lack of a bar. The idea is to use the dance to achieve a sort of inebriation, to reach a different level of consciousness.)
So this night is exactly what I've been looking for. Decent DJs, and only $5.
Guess I'll just leave it at that for now. Hopefully things will settle down enough that I can get in another entry before too much time passes, but I wouldn't hold my breath. So until next time... Pope out!

Bits and baubles

2008-06-16T00:29:00.002+02:00

I found myself in the awkward position of getting annoyed at other drivers on the freeway yesterday while I was having a conversation using my Douchetooth headset. That's always been one of my rules: if you're driving while talking on the cellphone, you absolutely forfeit all your rights of indignation with other drivers. I don't care if someone crosses the center line and swerves back and forth across all the lanes of oncoming traffic waving a bottle of Jack Daniels out the window while doing rails of cocaine off a hooker's breasts. If you're on the phone, you can't complain.

The thing about the Douchetooth is that it's actually more dangerous to use while driving than just having the cell phone up to your ear. Studies have shown (and I've read them; I actually did a presentation in a class a few years back about how it should be illegal to talk on the phone while driving) that the dangerous thing about it isn't that your hand is engaged and blocking the view; it's that your mind is engaged and you don't do things like moving your eyes or turning your head. They call it the tunnel-vision effect. And the Douchetooth doesn't alleviate that effect; it just gives you a false sense of security. It's like driving an SUV; you think you're safer when you're really not, so you end up driving even less safely than you would have otherwise.

So yeah, that was me. Having a conversation on the phone and getting angry at the guy who cut to the front of the line for the exit lane that was backed up. Big day for Jerod.

The face is almost completely healed. The government did foreclose on the lease to my moustache farm, but it's all for the best. A word to the wise; don't ever try to do anything ironic using your face as the medium. If you really believe in the moustache (or decide to give yourself a mullet for Halloween like my buddy Billy a few years back), you gotta just own it. It can't be this snarky, post-modern statement or something. To paraphrase Raising Arizona, they gotta name for people like that: asshat. Not a pretty name, is it, Hi?

In any case. I didn't own the 'stache, I didn't really believe in it, so I was that asshat. And when I strapped on the headset I was the douchebag asshat. Not a comfortable hat, lemme tell ya.

Here's a haiku I wrote while jogging around the park today.

I'm done trying to
Run while sucking in my gut
It's just not much fun

More Pope Culture

2008-06-06T19:50:00.010+02:00

I had totally forgotten how good a movie The Bourne Supremacy is. I watched it again the other night and was totally blown away. The scene where Marie (aka Lola) dies, and he is giving her mouth to mouth underwater, and then has to let her float away, and she slowly fades into the water... and then when he kicks that guy's ass with a rolled up magazine??? Seriously, wtf? That was awesome! And getting Brian Cox to replace Chris Cooper's insane CIA guy? Brilliant. Solid and entertaining all the way through.
A brief word on the NBA finals: bleh. Lakers-Celtics? Really? I'm having nightmares from my youth. They all involve too-tight shorts and bad haircuts. Of course, with the influx of European players in today's NBA, I predict the resurrection of the famous blonde afro-mullet. It's inevitable.

I wasn't sure who I was going to root for before I started watching the first game, but once I gave it even a little thought it became obvious. To break it down:
Ex-Sonic factor: Ray Allen, one of my top-5 all time Supes... or Vlad Radmonovich, the asshat who is such a prima donna he got kicked off the Serbian Olympic basketball team even though he's by far their best player, because he couldn't get along with anybody.
Superstar factor: Generally likeable team player Kevin Garnett... or brooding rapist Kobe Bryant. Also: Kobe is so unliked that he doesn't even have a nickname and had to make one up for himself. He calls himself "Black Mamba."* No really.
I also just realized that "Paul Pierce" totally sounds like a porn star name. Add in Sam Cassell's "I have giant testicles" dance** and it's really no contest. I think the Lakers will win in six, but I'll be rooting for the Celts.
By the way, what world did I wake up in when suddenly the Celtics have zero white players on their roster??? This was always the big joke, right? They regularly threw up a complete and totally competitive whitewash*** in the '80s. Boston is infamous for being one of the most racist sports cities in the country. And now not only do they not have any white players, but the coach is black, too? I'm not complaining, mind you. It just kind of blows my mind.
Face update: now that the swelling has gone almost completely down on my upper lip, I'm realizing how totally skeevy the chipped incisor looks. I smile and it's hellllo Bubba. Open this beer bottle with your teeth, would ya? So I'm gonna have to get that fixed.
*Chalk one more up in the "professional athlete's nicknames that are actually what they call their own penises" column. Your top five, in reverse order: 5. The Splendid Splinter. 4. Big Smooth. 3. The Big Unit. 2. The Chicoutimi Cucumber. 1. Magic Johnson.
**

***A "whitewash" is when a team plays white guys at all five positions. The '88 NBA champion Celtics regularly had a lineup of Bird, McHale, Walton, Ainge, and the guy who always died on the alien planet in Star Trek.

Big day

2008-05-31T23:21:00.004+02:00

I mailed off the last few items for my application for grad school! Whoop whoop! I'm gonna celebrate by not crashing a bike on my face. As my buddy Eric put it, "it's good to set achievable goals."
In other face news, I've decided to become a moustache farmer. The visible wounds are right in the Hitler zone, so I figured I needed to make some facial hair decisions until I am able to shave my whole face again. For whatever reason I decided to celebrate my inner 70's porn star and grow the 'stache. I'm also letting the soul patch grow back; for whatever reason, it's significantly wider than it was the many years I had one. I've been shaving it for about three years now, but before that it was probably over a decade that I'd had at least the patch and sideburns. I'm sure the regular shaving is why the patch has spread.
Last bit of face-related ephemera: I regained the ability to whistle a few days ago. Momentous.
Finally, just a (much belated) thought on the whole Myanmar thing: does anyone else find it downright hilarious (in an incredibly offensive way) that the Bush administration has come down so hard on the government of Myanmar for their mishandling of the official response to a natural disaster? And their unwillingness to allow foreign aid workers into the country to help? I mean... whaaaaaaa??? It doesn't matter that you're right! New Orleans is STILL fucked up, and you're giving some other country shit about how they responded to a catastrophic disaster?!? Go eat a bowl of dicks. Seriously.
Speaking of New Orleans, there's a new ride they have there called "The Katrina." You drink a hurricane and get blown behind a dumpster.
Whaaaaaaaat? Still too soon?
And now I will distract you from that terribleness with a bit of Get Your War On:

What's really funny about this is that my gram doesn't trust answering machines. She's down with the digital clocks though.

My face! My valuable face!*

2008-05-28T22:30:00.003+02:00

Is there some kind of protocol for what you write when you haven't made a blog entry in months and months? Is it better to acknowledge the fact, give some lame excuse, and then launch in? Or just start writing and pretend like you haven't been AWOL for so long that only the two people who have you on their RSS feed have any idea you've made a new entry?
As should be obvious, I've chosen the middle path, whereby you discuss the potential discussion. So what's the lame excuse, you may ask? Well I'll tell ya; I haven't had internet at my gram's place since I've been back in the northwest. I can hear it now; "Pope, why not just go hang out in a coffeehouse, or a bar? Have a cuppa or a fermented beverage and get your write on?" The answer, of course, is that I'm not a douchebag.
But here's the thing; I've finally found the sweet spot from which I can poach the neighbor's unsecured wireless. So now I can actually post stuff from home. Sure, I have to climb the tree in the corner of the backyard, hang upside down from a very specific branch, and hold the computer at arm's length to get it to work. But as they say, beggars can't be... is it "choosers" or "choosy"? I've always said, "choosers," but I know I've heard it both ways. Hold on, I'll go check... just a quick run to the magic tree should do it...
Seems like the interwebs are undeclared. There are just as many choosers and choosy-ers. Not to mention some "begers." I even found a yahoo! answers page that asked this exact question. Jeez, my faith in the world is severely shaken; I mean, if you can't trust something you read on the interwebs, what can you trust?
I guess now is the time to actually discuss something of consequence in my life, eh? There are two things I will mention at this point, one from the beginning of last week, and one from the end. The one from the beginning I can gloss over for now: I took the GREs on Monday. By far the biggest step in my application for graduate school. I'm applying to the UW's Master of Science in Technical Communication for this coming fall. And, after months and months of alternating between psyching myself up and out, I finally took the test. And I did fine, definitely well enough for my purposes. I still haven't gotten back my writing scores (the only non-automated section of the test), but I was most confident in that section for the split second before I got my verbal and math scores back.
The second thing makes for a better story. And, additionally, I can't really remember much of what happened before this event. Hence the glossing over of the GREs. It's not that I don't want to talk about it; it's just that, for reasons that will become apparent, the details have become, shall we say, a bit hazy.
So it's Saturday. The first day of Memorial Day weekend. Absolutely gorgeous in Seattle. Sunny and warm, upper 70's. I spent the morning and afternoon getting stuff done around the house: some cleaning, a bit of writing, yoga, meditation, reading. I watched a movie. (Primer, excellent, $7,000 budget, highly recommended.) Then, early afternoon, I set out to my buddy Rob's house to play some music and barbeque.
I get there around 2:30 and start to set up my drum kit. And—and this is key—I cracked a beer. A Lagunita's IPA. If you're a hophead like me, there is no better beer. If you're not, well, you probably think it tastes like a skunk's ass. But whatever. The important part to remember is that it's not yet three in the afternoon and I'm cracking my first beer.
So I set up the drums, and we play for several hours, taking breaks to go hang out in the sun. A few buddies are coming over later to bbq, so we're just kind of snacking (also an important point). Literally two tons of fun.
Can you see where this is going? Perhaps not. But this is the moment of truth, the grand foreshadowing, like that shot of the cook in Hunt for Red October. But in this movie it's instead a shot of Jerod hopping on Robbie's spare bicycle so we can ride over to his neighborhood bar for an hour or two before the boys show up.
Now you can see where this is going, right? We're not quite there yet though. I made it to the bar just fine. And what a bar it was; they had good beer on tap (IPA, natch), a big rack of records behind the bar (Stones, Cash, Social D... just good solid rock n' roll. I'm a big fan of all kinds of music. I love reggae, hip hop, jazz, various kinds of pop, you name it. But when I'm drinking in a bar on a Saturday night? Sheeet, man, throw some muthafuckin rock n' ROLL on that beyatch, right?), and a huge deck out back with a ping pong table. So we drink beers and play pong for a couple hours, the boys meet us there, and we (finally) decide to head back to Rob's to have some dinner.
By now it's 8pm. So that's five and half hours of fairly solid drinking, and fairly solid not-eating. And yes, there is that voice way, way, waaaay in the back of my head. What do you want to call it? Conscious? Common sense? Ego? Whatever it is, it's screaming so loud that even under all that beer I can still hear it. But here's the thing (and I'm not telling you anything you don't know): beer does funny things to a man. My new name for it is "Id juice." Because it just unleashed that silly, stupid beast from under all the eons of socialization that go into creating a 21st century human being and makes you say to yourself, "hey, there's no freaking way I would drive a car right now... but you know, what if we just took away half the wheels and all the years of German and/or Japanese engineering that go in to maintaining a healthy barrier between you and the concrete? Is that something you'd be interested in rolling down the street?" And beerbeast he nod.
So I mashed my face into the sidewalk. Literally, I mean... I have really no other injuries to the rest of my body besides my mouth. Actually, that's not entirely true; I have just enough other injuries** to kind of recreate what happened. I thought I had it figured out; a few raspberries on my left hand and a fairly significant bruise on my left shoulder made me think I'd fallen off the left side of the bike, landed on my lips, and then a split second later my shoulder and hand glanced off the ground. But here's the thing; my right fricking knee is hurting me now, too! WTF??? I can't for the life of me figure out how my left shoulder and right knee both got hurt.
Okay, I think I just figured it out. I think I just rag-dolled it over the handle bars and landed face-shoulder-hand-knee. Because hey, you know... free dummy. Or maybe it was one of those occasions when you're drunk and just decide to take a nap in "that place." You know that place. It's wherever you happen to be at that moment everything just shuts down. I know a couple guys who took a dirt nap along side of the Burke Gilman Trail for about three hours once. And another buddy who fell asleep with his big toe on the throwing line of a dart board when he passed out mid-throw. So it's entirely possible I just got partway into my flight and decided, "hey, you know... this is pretty comfy. I think I'll just catch a bit of shuteye..."
The first thing I remember when my alarm went off—the part of the alarm is being played by a large piece of rock—was a couple wide-eyed kids running towards me. "Hey man, are you alright?" one of them asks. I actually laughed at that point. Took off my shirt, pressed it to my face. Said, "I dunno kid, you tell me. Am I?" He shook his head.
Lucky for me my buddy Joe was driving past right at that moment (he'd shown up the bar late and only had one beer) and drove me back to Rob's. When I got out of the car, there were a couple more kids riding bikes in the street. I took the shirt away from my face and said, "this is what happens when you don't wear a helmet!" (I neglected to mention the beers.) It totally worked, too; they were like, "that happened because you weren't wearing a helmet???" "Yeah man, totally. You should always wear a helmet. Like, even when you're eating breakfast or pooping. You just can't be too careful."
At this point I'm seriously worried I'm going to vomit. And as the famous showtune goes, if you have gaping mouth wounds, you should really, really try to avoid getting vomit in them. But you have to remember that all I've consumed at this point is a couple handfuls of cheetos, half a dozen beers, and a tall boy of my own face blood. (I felt like an alchy vampire. As my buddy Ryan put it: "Ahh'll haaaave ah blaaaah-dy Maaaah-ry." (That's "I'll have a bloody mary" in a dracula voice.))
I managed to chew it back. I passed out for several hours in Rob's spare bedroom (we checked for concussions first) and then got a ride home from Joe. And, truly, I'm incredibly lucky; one small chip from a tooth, the aforementioned huge gash, and a bunch of road rash. No full on broken teeth, no shattered cheek bones. Everything seems to be healing okay. And I have the kind of lips that middle-aged women pay considerable amounts of money for. So I got that going for me...
Which is nice.
*We also would have accepted "New Look for Luke."
**Minor so far, but these things have a way of popping up more and more the farther you get from a crash of this sort. You know how it is; you're so focused on the major injuries—the cracked ribs, or the broken clavicle, or the huge gaping split on the inside of your upper lip with all the fat hanging out—that you barely notice the other seemingly minor aches and pains. And then a few days or a week later you start to notice some weird pain in your back or shoulder or knee... and that's the injury that's still giving you shit a year later.

over the river and through the woods

2008-02-19T17:31:00.003+01:00

You know, I had a sneaking suspicion that even this year, after all that's happened in the recent past, the democrats would still find some way to fuck it up. You think, "there's no way they could screw this up! Republicans' cache is at an all-time low! They're beset with controversies of every stripe! Even being as useless and spineless as the dems are, they still took over both houses in 2006!" And yet... they appear to be finding a way to fuck it all up. This battle for the nomination is going to destroy this party and, while I have no problem with destruction of the democratic party in general, if it means we get John "neck skin" McCain instead of Barack Obama in the White House, well...
But whatever. I think it's amazing that the best the Republican party can muster for potential nominees is one of the Bobs from Office Space (Mitt got his start as an "efficiency consultant"); a right wing nut job Southern Baptist minister who knows nothing about the world outside of Arkansas; and my grandpa. And I love my grandpa... but he thinks my name is Susan.
But that's a topic for another day. For now, I'll focus on personal events. As most of you probably know, I have recently moved back to Seattle. The immediate impetus was some family stuff I wanted to be around to help deal with; ergo, I'm living with my grandma and aunt in Mountlake Terrace for the time being. I am sleeping in the room my dad grew up in. All I can say is, I'm glad they changed the sheets.
What else. When I first got here, there were literally dozens of antique hand cranks lining all the walls of the room. My grandpa collected them. My dad has been talking about getting rid of them for 12 years. I put half of them in a big box and stuck it in the garage. I only moved the ones that were precariously stuck to a crappy old bookshelf that is suspended DIRECTLY ABOVE THE BED by a couple L-joints.
Let's review: a couple L-joints; six inch wide, one inch thick, eight foot long piece of pine (by now totally bowed because of all the antique hand cranks that were stuck on it); DIRECTLY ABOVE THE BED. Not to go all Dennis Miller on y'all, but it was like the frickin' hand cranks of Damocles up in here.
So it's real interesting living here, as I'm sure you can imagine. I'm still trying to figure out my role, exactly. So far it's been a lot of "fixing stuff that's not broken." My grandmother is one of those people whose first instinct is to throw something away if it doesn't work as she expects it to. She was all set to throw away an alarm clock because it didn't go off two mornings in a row... until I explained that someone had set the alarm to go off in the evening instead of the morning. And then there was the travel mug that had the wrong lid on it. I like to think that I'm doing my part to minimize land fill waste.
And I'm living with cable again, for the first time in about a year and a half... I'm one of those people who doesn't miss cable when I don't have it (except Independent Film Channel, but nobody gets that anyway) but watches it when I do. So it's a curse. The problem here is that the television is always on, so it's hard to avoid if I'm home. But I won't lie; I often hang out in the other room and watch the second television. But that's not the point; the point is that my grandma and aunt watch a lot of tv, and Food Network is the only channel we even remotely overlap on (they usually watch Hallmark). So earlier tonight there was this show about a competition where the chefs had to create a sculpture out of sugar; all different kinds of sugar. For the purposes of this story, the important thing to know is that one form of sugar they had to work in was blown sugar. I'm not entirely sure what that means because I didn't stick around to find out. I assume it's a similar process to blown glass or something. Regardless. This one guy has an idea to make zoo animals out of blown sugar, and I swear on everything that is holy to me he said the following line: "I've never blown a giraffe before. I'm interested in its head and long neck."
I have absolutely nothing to add.

Two Little Stevies and an Ugly Betty

2007-12-02T08:14:00.000+01:00

First of all. If anyone ever wondered (or had forgotten) how great Sesame Street used to be, check this link out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ul7X5js1vE.

(That kid in the red shirt, up there at the top of the steps? My new hero. That woulda been me.)

(That's the best thing about Stevie; he always looks like he's having two tons of fun. What a guy.)

(Anyone else remember those old public service announcements Stevie did about drunk driving? His line was, "before I'd let a drunk person drive me home, I'd drive myself." Oh hell no. I mean, I may be pissed... but at least I have frickin' sight! Am I right? But then Stevie is like 7 ft. tall. Kind of intimidating.)

(And while you're on that page, click on the "Stevie drum solo" link over there in the right nav pane.)

(In other news, that guy wearing the blue condom on his head is playing my guitar.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8JcWD1rHVo

Can there be any argument that The E Street Band is the absolutely coolest band of all time? I mean, you have Bruce. Nobody has aged as well as Bruce. Gotta be the coolest guy on the planet. And then there's Max Weinberg, Conan's band leader... and of course Clarence Clemons, pretty much the only rock sax player who actually improves his band (not a huge fan of the rock sax thing)... and then, if that's not enough... Little Freakin' Steven??? Silvio himself??? Oh yeah, and Nils Lofgren, just as a throw in. He played piano on "After the Gold Rush" when he was 17. So he's got that going for him... which is nice.

Just for the accordian: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5PoIrcyd34

Spent turkey-day in Spokane, as previously covered. Great times. Lots of good food and company. My first night in town, Thanksgiving proper, me, Eric, and two of their friends/neighbors (and now my friends), Ian and Jed, stayed up til 3am drinking beer and playing Rock Band.

For those of you who haven't heard of this wonderful, terrible thing: it's like that video game phenomenon "Guitar Hero," except instead of only a single player option with Rock Band you get the four player, honest to god, holy crap we're a real BAND option. Fake drums, two guitars (one for bass), and a microphone. It's like super karaoke. Now, I have never, ever been a video game geek. I'm all sorts of other types of geek, but I never got bit by the video game bug. But this Rock Band... my goodness is it fun. And we all bought into our respective roles, too. Eric was the singer, and he was throwing his head back and wailing... Jed was lead guitar, and he was doing his best Keith Richards impression... Ian and I were the rhythm section, laid back and solid... we called ourselves AA, and the "groupies" (who left early without us noticing) were dubbed "The 12 steps."

God we're dorks.

But yeah, a great time. Unfortunately, I caught a cold right before leaving, and then all the congestion was rocket-launched into my brain on the flight home. It didn't help that my flight out of Seattle was delayed five hours, of course. I'm a lot better now, but my ears are still completely clogged. My head feels like it's packed in cotton wool.

And now I have to admit to something I'm not proud of. But damn it, in the immortal words of Woody Allen (right before he married his daughter): "the heart wants what it wants."

I love "Ugly Betty."

Yes, that's right. The tv show. The biggest chick show this side of Grey's Anatomy. But it's so great! Really funny and ironic and self-aware. And there are a bunch of gay characters on the show, and it's not even a thing; they don't treat it like it's a big deal or anything. So that's cool, too. But honestly, it's really really good.

(I can hear it now: Jerod moves to San Francisco, "the city of brotherly love," and suddenly he's into hippie dancing and the gayest show on t.v. All I can is, save it.)

Random randomness

2007-11-21T05:13:00.000+01:00

This is funny; I've now seen this guy in three different news articles about obesity. The first time I saw him I thought he actually had something specific to do with the article proper; like he was quoted in it, maybe. Now I see that he's just a piece of morbid obesity clip-art. The literal poster-boy.

Here's something interesting: an incoming freshman basketball player at the University of Arizona is named Jerryd Bayless. Some of you have probably heard my mini-rant about how many different ways my name has been spelled in my life—by teachers, people on the phone, new acquaintances, etc.—but it's never, EVER been spelled with a y. So that's cool.

In other news: we're only one year away from incoming freshman at universities having been born in the 90's. Just in case you weren't feeling old enough before...

I saw both The Darjeeling Lmt and No Country for Old Men last week. I need to see Darjeeling again, but I liked it—about as much as I ever like Wes Anderson movies the first time I see them, which is honestly not much. As I stated before, it's a scientific fact that Wes Anderson movies get better upon multiple viewings—when they showed Royal Tennenbaums to lab rats, on the first viewing they were chasing each other around, drinking from the drip bottle, eating pellets... but by the fourth showing, over half of the rats were crying when Richie slits his wrists. True story.

No Country, well... all I can say is "meh." It seems like everyone is so geeked up that the Coens didn't make an unmitigated crapfest for the first time in years that they're willing to overlook the fact that the movie A) completely falls apart in the last half hour, and B) is completely predicated on a patently unbelievable scenario. Beautifully filmed though.

Played tennis twice and ultimate Frisbee once over a four day period. And yes, I am still sore. Thanks for asking. But it was all worth it, mwhahahaha! I'd do it all again! Especially the Frisbee. God damn it I loves me some Frisbee! It was a perfect group, too; everyone hustling and trying hard, but nobody crazy competitive or aggressive or anything. None of those "sweep the leg, Johnny," types, who undercut you on high throws after you score a point or two. So that's nice.

What else is exciting is that I am leaving for Spokane on Thursday! Can't wait to see everyone. I just realized that I'm going to have to pack warm clothes; when it's sunny and 70 in mid-November, it's easy to forget what the weather in Washington is like. I'm honestly not sure where I'm going to put everything...

much afoot

2007-11-17T02:28:00.001+01:00

I've been spending quite a bit of time on craigslist recently; it's an addictive habit, as I'm sure many of you can attest to. So far I've found two tennis partners (played for the first time in over a year on Thursday, and I'm playing again on Sunday); an ultimate Frisbee game (tomorrow morning, yeah!); and a poker game (Sunday evening, TX hold'em tourney). So I'm defining activities I want to participate in and finding people and groups to do them with. So far, so good...

Work is also going really well, on all fronts; we finally found a viable replacement for me for my caretaker gig, I am going to do a training shift on Wednesday and then (god willing) I'm done. I will most likely pick up a couple shifts in December since a lot of people are going to be gone during the holidays, but I am finished with the regularly scheduled shifts.

This is a good transition for me; Aurora (the woman I work for) and I have become good friends over the past six months I've worked with her, and I think it will be a lot easier for us to develop our friendship if we're not in an employer/employee relationship. The dynamic has already shifted, in the last few shifts I worked.

As a result, I'm going to pick up an extra shift at the tutoring job and be able to get insurance again as a result. So positive changes all around.

Tutoring is going well, I like the kids, I like the company, I like my coworkers, I like my schedule... all in all it's the perfect gig for me right now.

I'm right at the beginning of a very busy, social month and a half, and I couldn't be more excited about it. My bff Vanessa visited last weekend, we had a blast and explored my new neighborhood a lot more. She helped me clean out a bunch of unnecessary crap from my room, too. It looks and feels a lot better now. We also saw The Darjeeling Lmt., which is very good; I definitely need to see it again, as it's a scientifically proven fact that Wes Anderson movies get better and better the more times you see them. But I did like it. And now "No Country for Old Men" has come out, to outstanding reviews... I'm almost too excited. It can't possibly be as good as I've built it up to be... can it?

Next up is Thanksgiving in Spokompton with my favorite family, the Tubbs... flying out on turkey day proper (six days? Really?), coming home on Sunday. Then, Glenn comes to town on December 14^th for four days (I convinced him he needed to check out the Cornell Box exhibit at SF MOMA, we're both pretty geeked about it), and then I'm going home for xmas. I'm flying on the holiday proper again, and staying through January 3^rd. It's the perfect mix of visitors and visiting. Good times.

Oh yeah, and keep your eye out for issue 2 of Conscious Dancer! It will be coming out in late November/early December. I have an article about a really cool and interesting Bay Area band called Gamelan X in this issue. Please visit our website at consciousdancer.com for more information...

fall back

2007-11-04T19:19:00.001+01:00

Can I just say this? Daylight Savings always messes with me. Like, always. Every time. I do prefer the "fall back" portion, generally, because it's usually better to gain time than to lose it. But "spring forward" is good, too, because, well... it's spring, right?

Those distinctions mean less when you live in middle California, though. Because fall is actually really sunny and beautiful, generally. I hear the pattern will be fog-rain-sun (honk-fog-punch), but so far it's been fog-rain-sun-sun-sun. So that's nice. Whenever I get homesick for Seattle I remind myself that it's the beginning of November... or "the bad times" as we call them in the Pacific Northwest.

In other news, I've moved again. Yes, yes, yes, go ahead and make your adult ADD jokes. God knows I've made them all myself. I'm now living in Oakland, the murder capital of the country! Actually, that's not quite true; now that New Orleans has gone third world I think they've taken the mantle. And I do have a hard time believing that Oakland is worse than Detroit or Houston... but that's what they tell me.

Important note: like any city, there are okay parts and the you-don't-want-to-ever-find-yourself-here parts. I'm living in what has been roundly described as the best neighborhood in Oakland. And so far everything has supported that view. I am about a mile and a half from Lake Merritt, which as far as I can tell is pretty much exactly the same as Green Lake. About 3.5 miles in circumference, jogging/walking path around the outside, etc. Only this lake has an added bonus: bird sanctuary in the middle! Yeah! Yesterday I walked around the Lake and saw what I thought was a crane or a heron but have now identified as a "great egret." And it was pretty great. Wading around a bunch of huge seagulls and occasionally doing that cool "spear a fish with its beak" thing. And I saw a flock of cormorants fishing, and a bunch of other cool smaller stuff. I think I might've seen some pelicans, too. Turns out this is the oldest National wildlife refuge in the country. So that's pretty cool.

What else is happening... still working all the jobs for the time being. I'm more comfortable tutoring now, but it is still intimidating in a way. When I first started, I could just study and read all the time and feel like I was preparing and getting better whenever I started to feel anxious. Now, I'm at a point where pretty much the only way I'm going to get better is to just do it. Which has both good and less good points. On the good side, my time outside of work is more my own, to fill with what I want; on the less good side, it's harder to deal with the nervousness if I can't just plop down and study for a while.

I don't think it's just the job that is making me anxious, though; it's just a convenient thing to project the anxiety onto. The move, of course, has left me unsettled, as well as the fact that I really haven't been down here that long. It feels like forever sometimes, but I've only really been gone for eight months.

My brain trip for the day: one year ago I had just moved into my own room in Barcelona.

Librarians, Guns, and Money

2007-10-16T20:19:00.001+02:00

So this is some great news: Laura Bush is going to the Middle East this month to promote... are you ready? Treatment of breast cancer!

Isn't that just the grooviest? Cause we all know how high on the list breast cancer is of the things that might kill a woman living in the Middle East right now. I have a feeling that a lot women in Iraq or Lebanon would be pleased as punch to live long enough to have the privilege to die of breast cancer.

Mrs. Bush should maybe try promoting "treatment of getting blowed to bits by an IED*." Or perhaps "treatment of getting shot at your daughter's wedding by American paramilitary troops."

The best part is that this trip is an attempt by the Bushes to "improve their image in the Arab world." They're sending in the big guns! When all else fails, call in the librarians!

I hear the next goodwill tour is going to feature Lynn Cheney in East Africa, talking about the medical concerns associated with obesity.

*"What's the difference between an IUD and an IED?"

"One kills Chinese babies; the other kills Iraqi babies!"

We also would have accepted, "Whoa, catch me having sex with your daughter again."

-cough.

baseball, sandwiches, and dancing

2007-10-07T20:31:00.001+02:00

I remember vividly my 22^nd birthday; specifically, telling everyone how excited I was to be a palindrome, how it had been 10 years and a day since I'd been one but I hadn't really appreciated it when I was 11. And, of course, how after that year, I wouldn't one again until I turned 33.

It's everything I'd hoped it would be.

I had a nice birthday (Friday was the exact day). Thursday I went to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; they had an installation from an artist I'd read about in the New Yorker several months ago, and was intrigued by: Olafur Eliasson. But I had completely forgotten that he had a show in SF before Thursday night. It was a retrospective of his work, encompassing the 15 years I think. Very, very cool. Lots of interactive stuff and beautifully recreated indoor natural phenomena.

The birthday proper was very low key, which is a good thing. I made my favorite sandwich for both lunch and dinner (fried tofu, avocado, tomato, lettuce, carrot). I had salt and pepper ridged Kettle chips. I listened to the baseball playoffs. I took a nap. And, to top it all off, I went dancing. A perfect way to end a nice day.

Movie news: did anyone else know that the Coen Bros' next movie is an adaptation of a Cormac McCarthy book??? And, if so, WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU TELL ME??? I can't imagine being more excited for a movie than I am for this. I thought I was excited for Darjeeling Limited... but it turns out that was just the illusion of excitement compared to "No Country for Old Men." This is supposedly a return to form for the Coens: working with their own script, the combination of hilarity and violence... I literally can't wait.

Otherwise, things are good. The new job is kicking my ass somewhat, but it's okay. I go through the "I can't do this"s sometimes, but I'm just trying to commit as many hours outside the job as possible to get ramped up. And I'm learning a lot, so that's good.

Oh yeah, and I'm moving! I found a crazy place in Oakland: it's a converted warehouse with five other people. The room is small and dark, but it's super cheap and everyone tells me it's in the best neighborhood in Oakland. And it's month to month, so if it doesn't work out I can always move again (every few months seems to be the pattern these days). I just decided I needed to get closer to the cities, where the action is. We'll see how it all works out.

all the news that's fit to pope

2007-09-19T21:00:00.000+02:00

So much to talk about... this is what happens when you only blog twice a month, right?

(I actually do that in my journal, too. Chastise myself for not writing enough, that is. Every time I miss a few days/weeks/months, the first entry back invariably starts "wow, look how long it's been since I've written!" Old habits, as they say, die hard...)

Where to begin. I guess with weekend trips I've taken recently. (I'll take weekend trips I've taken recently for $200, Alex!)

Two weekends ago I finally made my long-awaited (2-3 months) return trip to Yosemite. It was awesome; my great friend Thea happened to be in town that weekend, so we got up at 5am (after staying up til 3am, first in the city and then at my house, hanging out and packing), drove 7 hours (which includes two wrong turns and an hour and a half drive to our trailhead once we got into the park itself), and then hiked 8 miles in to our base camp. Over a mountain. Well, very big hill at least.

Actually, now that I think about it, it was the opposite of "over a mountain." It was down one side of a big hill, and then up another. So through a valley I guess is what you'd call that. And no, I'm not going to go back and edit that so it just says "under a valley" instead of "over a mountain." What fun would that be?

So. Day 2. We plan the "Half Dome Hike," one of the signature hikes of Yosemite. Half dome is the picture you've most likely seen of Yosemite if you've only seen pictures. People come from all over the world to do this hike. And from all over the world they came on that day, as well...

It was an extremely popular hike. (Read: crowded as hell.) (Oooh, I like that use of "as hell"! I have always wondered about using the "as hell" preposition for everything; I myself have been known to say things like "cold as hell," which makes no sense at all. Maybe "cold as Eskimo hell" or something... but hell is generally portrayed as kinda hot. So it was my assertion that "hot as hell" or "evil as hell" or some such thing would be appropriate, but not much else... but "crowded as hell"? Yeah, I like that. Good social commentary there.) The hike itself isn't that burly until the very end... and we skipped that part. Not because it was burly, but because it was so freaking crowded. The final ¼ mile or so is a nearly vertical scale up the backside of Half Dome. There is a railing, and wooden steps every five feet or so. On this day, it was ass-to-face the whole way up, and a ½ hour-45 minute wait to even start the ascent. And it was already midday (we slept in after our epic journey the day before), so we wanted to make sure we got back to camp before sunset. We did, and got to go swimming in the mountain-fed river as reward. Sweeeet...

The other reason we came back down at that point was because Thea got stung by a yellowjacket. At the base of the final ascent of Half Dome. On her inner thigh. As far from the car as we could possibly be... which means she had to hike back out 10+ miles with a really painful sting in the worst possible place for hiking it could be. Did I mention that Thea is a superbadass? Cause she is.

Anyways, there's a good "Jerod is an eeediot" story that goes along with this trip, too. They always warn you about bears at Yosemite, of course. They're all over. It's bear-crowded as bear-hell up in there. So you can't leave food unattended at all (those old Yogi Bear cartoons ain't lying... though that's set in Yellowstone I guess). Little mice and birds will actually swoop in if you leave food unattended for more than a few seconds, but it's the bears you've gotta worry about if you leave food out of bear lockers overnight.

Or, for example, in your car for three days.

The funny thing is, we were totally obsessed with not leaving food in the truck. We had brought literally 3x as much food as we needed, so we were trying to figure out how to not leave it in the car, but not have to carry it in with us, but also not have to throw it all away. We ended up giving away as much as we could (we had cookies) and then carrying in way too much. But for some reason (we're maintaining it was the lack of sleep) we both left food in the truck. Not only food: fruit. I left two bananas, Thea left an apple. I remember with amusement the extreme disconnect going on in my brain. On the one hand I was running around repeating to myself, "can't leave food, can't leave food..." while on the other I must've looked at the bananas literally a dozen times, sitting there under the front seat, and thinking, "those'll suuuuure be tasty on Sunday..." The lesson, as always... I'm an idiot.

But it all turned out okay. Truck fine. Lesson learned. The lesson that you don't leave food in your car at Yosemite, that is. I already knew I was an idiot. The only consolation was that we both did it. If only one of us had it might have gotten ugly.

Okay, how about recent weekend trips for $400!

Last weekend was a big dance/activism festival north on 101 called EarthDance. I saw some amazing music: The Coup, Lyrics Born, Don Carlos (founding member of Black Uhuru), some really good d.j. music... ver' ver' nice. Lots of dancing. Met some cool people. All in all a good time for all.

Finally, normal weekday life: I got another job! Yep, that's right... I guess that puts it at five now? Including that silly one I haven't done anything for yet. But the new one is exciting; I'm tutoring English. It will start with just some SAT test prep for high schoolers, but eventually will turn into tutoring kids of all ages in whatever they need. There's even some basic curriculum building stuff I'll get to do. I just started this week, so I'll give an update once I've settled in a bit more.

Otherwise just pushing along. New challenges and opportunities popping up every day. Just trying to keep up.

I was going to give a shout-out to the state of Seattle football, too, but then both the Huskies and Hawks lost this weekend. The Huskies is understandable; they're still looking solid, and that Locker kid is pretty dope... but the Hawks losing to the freakin' Cardinals??? Bleah. And so much for the Mariners... oh well. At least our franchise rookie didn't go down with a career-threatening knee injury... sucks for Portland. I actually do feel bad for them, I have always like the Blazers, especially once they changed divisions... and now they have both Brandon Roy and Martell Webster and all, it's hard not to be a fan if you're from the PNW... hopefully Oden will come back strong. But, in the meantime... viva Kevin Durant and his own personal Scottie Pippen, Jeff Green! Pope out!

Hot damn, that was a good rant!

2007-09-03T02:35:00.000+02:00

Sometimes I like to see how far I can take something, you know? But yeah, that was a fine one.

I figured I'd better hop back on here and actually talk about my life for a few paragraphs, just in case anyone is still actually reading this thing.

So what is going on... spent half of August traveling in the northlands, that was great. First and last weekends in Southern Oregon staying with my friends Duward and Julie. They are hosts of the finest ilk, and that's a fact. Both times I arrived hot and sweaty after driving 7 hours, and was greeted by a tall glass of good beer from their kegerator and a delicious meal. How's that for hello? And the first weekend was a blast, Duward and I kayaked down the Rogue River with a big rafting group of people with developmental disabilities and their caretakers. Two tons of fun.

Then I went surfing with my buddy Joe, my first day in Seattle and then one of my last days, too. (I'm just this moment noticing the weird bookend quality of the trip). I've gone surfing once since getting back here, too, and actually bought my own wetsuit. I stood up three times on both my second and third trips. I've hooked up with a guy down here who's surfed all over the area, a good friend of Billy's who I hung out with several times a few years back when they visited Seattle. Last weekend, after going dancing on Friday night, I went over to his house and hung out by the pool with him and his girlfriend and Billy and a couple of their friends, drinking Tanqueray and tonic and bbq-ing; then stayed in their guest room that night; went surfing on Sunday; and then feasted on the most delicious oysters I've ever had in my life in the little town where we surfed. Not a bad weekend, eh?

The middle of the trip was defined mostly by hanging out with Glenn and Noreen; first at our folks' place on the Kitsap Peninsula, and then in Seattle most of the second week. As always, great times. Not really anyone I'd rather spend time with, when it comes down to it.

By the last weekend I was in a good spot; I was having a great time and could easily have stayed through at least the end of the month, but I was also ready to be home and have my own space and not be living out of my truck. Always nice when you could happily go either way. Also nice was that I had just enough grounding events happen during the trip to keep me from really getting burned out. Surfing is, as the cliché goes, quite Zen. And the rafting was a good energy burn, too. And I got to work with my yoga teacher in Seattle twice, too, which was really positive. She has a lot of background in dance, and she's just starting to bring that back into her lessons, which is a pretty perfect synchronicity to my own current situation, of course...

Oh yeah! Issue One of Conscious Dancer is officially printed. You can check out the .pdf here: http://www.consciousdancer.com. Give it a peep, any and all feedback is appreciated. I'm trying to get a presence going in the Seattle area, so any story ideas or anything else are welcome. Also, if anyone knows a good space in the city that might be willing to stack a pile of mags in their place, please let me know.

Otherwise, things are good. I am looking for another job or two, which will bring the grand total to 4, or 5, or 6, depending on how many I get and how many of my current jobs actually count. (I still haven't done anything for that essay writing service. My soul remains unsoiled.) I'm going to Yosemite again this weekend, really excited about that.

I guess that's about it... I was going to go on a rant about the Mariners, but I just don't have the energy. Suffice to say I feel like Michael Corleone at the end of Godfather III... "just when I think I'm out... they PULLLLL ME BACK IN!" God damn them.

...and then I skipped August

2007-09-02T07:58:00.000+02:00

So I was watching Factotum the other night. Good movie; Matt Dillion as the Chuck Bukowski alter ego Henry Chinaski, Lili Taylor, Marisa Tomei. Funny and interesting, even if Dillion seemed to be doing his best Mr. Blonde imitation. But the Chinaski character said an interesting thing at one point; basically, it was that he had all these words inside of him, that had to come out; it wasn't a choice, it was a necessity, like he'd explode if he didn't let them out. I'd read that before, wherever Bukowski wrote it first, and it really resonated with me. Probably not why'd you think, though. What occurred to me is that I generally feel the exact opposite of that sentiment. Most of the stuff I really care about is impossible to put down in words. Often I'll sit down to write and will just feel sort of this sucking void, and every word I try to get down sucks a little more out of me. Maybe it's like those stories about aboriginals who are scared to death of having their pictures taken, because it takes a bit of their soul and solidifies and traps it. I dunno. But I do know that, for the most part, words do a sort of disservice to my strongest sentiments. Imagine those times you've shared an extremely deep and spiritual experience with someone; could be as simple as a sunset, or as complicated as simultaneous orgasm. Have you tried to talk about it, and just had nothing to say? And then looked into their eyes, and known that nothing had to be said, that nothing could be said, that it was pointless to even try?

Anyways. Maybe this is just an extended excuse for why it's been so long since my last entry.

But yeah, Factotum. Fine movie. I've seen a lot of good movies recently; I can't actually recall one I've watched in the past few months that's been a disappointment, with the notable exception of The Simpsons. I know, I blogged about it awhile back and was generally positive, but in hindsight it kinda pisses me off. The first 20 minutes or so is good and funny. Solid like the show has been the past few seasons, certainly not as good as its heyday but still some decent laughs. But the last hour plus pretty much sucked. You can see James L. "Spanglish" Brooks's fingerprints all over it. Very maudlin and saccharine. Not all that funny either.

But Superbad? Holy crap, that movie's funnier than dick! And I just watched The Bourne Ultimatum, which was really really good too. The lines that I think define each movie:

Superbad: "well Jules, the funny thing about my back is that it's located on my cock!"

B.U.: "Sir, he drove off the roof..."

Both earned solid 4s on NetFlix. My biggest bitch about NetFlix has always been the lack of ½ star choices when rating movies; there is a big, big difference between 2.5 and 3 stars, just as there is a big difference between 4 and 4.5 stars. Well, that was my biggest beef about NetFlix. Now it's this stupid "community" thing. I log on one day and discover that all my "friends" have been replaced with a "community," which encompasses basically everyone and their dumbass dogs. I mean really; why the FUCK do I care about what Joe Dickballs in Topeka, who shares a 45% movie match with me (almost definitely based on the movies I watched while stoned or drunk or both), has to say about Wild Hogs??? Here's a clue, NetFlix... FUCK OFF!!! EAT A BOWL OF DICKS!!!! AND ONCE YOU'VE POLISHED OFF THAT BOWL OF DICKS, GIVE ME MY GODDAMN FRIENDS BACK!!!!

Actually, I'm going to throw it to my brother for this one. And I quote (from an email he sent me): "'Friends' was changed to 'community'. I don't like it as much - it has all this info I don't want. Including some guy's list of 'French classiques,' which includes three movies by Louis Bunuel, who is Spanish."

So there you go. Joe Dickballs loves French movies made by Spanish directors. I think we call all sleep easier tonight, eh?

Got one in before August

2007-07-30T02:56:00.000+02:00

It's not that there hasn't been a lot going on. It's just that there hasn't been a whole lot new going on. Everything is just progressing at a normal rate. And, I wasn't doing any work on the computer for several weeks there, so I got out of the habit of writing. Part of my process is all the other stuff I do daily on the computer; if I work on the computer, the rest just falls in line behind. But I don't think this break has been a bad thing; less time in front of the screen is generally positive, I think.

So what is going on... still working in Berkeley as an in-house assistant. Aurora and I get along very well. We entertain each other, which is always a big plus. And I'm really just cooking and cleaning, and then any other little projects that need to be done when I'm there. Thursday night I hung some new bead curtains, for example.

That's another development; I'm cooking all the time now. Both Aspen and I really dig cooking, and all three of us enjoy eating what is cooked, so it's just the perfect situation to practice and learn and develop my chops. It's so much easier to experiment and try new stuff when you're cooking for multiple people; the food is gone quicker so you can try something different, and with somebody else also cooking all the time it's easy to find inspiration and also not feel pressured. Aspen and I have gotten better at complementing each other's dishes, for example, both in the same meal and over the course of days.

But, as I was saying, the job and my own home-cooking really work well together. I also get inspired by what Aurora has me cook for her, and bring home little techniques that I develop when I'm at work. And, as I practice at home, cooking at work gets even easier.

I'm using a cookbook my mom got for both me and my brother several years ago, called "How to Cook Everything." That title is not an overstatement, nor is it conceited; it really is a cookbook that outlines every basic aspect of cooking. The author, Mark Bittman, is an amazing cook and a great writer (he's the NY Times food guy; not the restaurant critic, but the "how to" guy). His philosophy is easy to describe: start with the best ingredients, don't do much to them, and you'll be fine. The idea that you really can make delicious food at home more quickly, easily, and cheaply than any processed, canned, or frozen dish you could find in the store. The more I use his cookbook, the easier everything becomes. It's not even just that I'm getting better at it; it's that every recipe is quick and easy and delicious. I keep expecting to find one of those complicated, do-four-things-at-once recipes, but they're just not there. Truly a marvelous book.

Speaking of books; I read the new Harry Potter over the course of 24 hours last weekend. It broke down as about 8 hours of sleep; 10 hours Deathly Hallows; and 6 hours for everything else (eating and bathroom breaks is really about it). I think it's the best one of the seven, myself. I won't give away anything just in case, but I was also pleased that several of my predictions were correct.

And, yesterday, I saw the Simpsons movie. Some will wonder how I was able to wait two days... it's good, obviously not as good as the best of the shows, but still a solid 80 minutes of entertainment. I'd say 3-4 really deep gut laughs, and another 8-10 solid chuckles. What was weird was the near total absence of secondary characters; there were the five Simpsons, and the villain... besides those six, really only Flanders and a pig got much face time at all beyond what amounted to cameos. Still, it delivered what was expected and, in the end, it was The Simpsons, after all.

So, besides consuming children's media, what else have I been up to ... planning for my trip home, getting really excited about it. I always try to keep myself from overly focusing on trips until about a week before I'm leaving... and then I start to geek out. So that's right now. Here's my itinerary:

Leave Friday, arrive at Grant's Pass, OR to visit my friends Duward and Julie.

Saturday, go on a low-key river rafting trip with Duward and a bunch of developmentally disabled people and their supervisors. Duward is a social worker and he used to work with DD folks, so he volunteers on this trip every year. It happens to coincide with my visit this year, so I get to tag along too.

Sunday, drive the rest of the way to Seattle (actually Bellevue) and stay at my buddy Joe's.

Monday, we go to Westport to take surfing classes and drink beer. In that order for Joe; in the opposite order for me.

Tuesday we get back to the Seattle area, and I'm going to go out for dinner/drinks somewhere in the city. I'm pretty sure it's either going to be the Elysian on Cap Hill or the People's Pub in Ballard. Anyone who wants to come out should get at me on Tuesday and find out where we're gonna be.

Wednesday, over to the peninsula to my folks' new house. Last time I was there they had just moved in, so I'm excited to see what's happened. And, Glenn and Noreen are coming in that evening, too. Dad's been gathering lots of wild Puget Sound seafood for the occasion, and mom still has dozens of bottles of good wine to consume... I predict a blowout of epic proportions. And by blowout, I'm referring to the waistband of our pants, of course.

Saturday I'm going back over the water for a wedding, and then I'm staying in the city pretty much until I leave the following Sunday. No specific plans mapped out yet; lots of peops to see, of course, and at least a full day on Whidbey to see my uncle, aunt, and cousins, and to devour Penn Cove Mussels. Otherwise, just want to chill with the old-school for awhile, hit some of my favorite Seattle joints and get my vacation on. Again, get at me if you want to participate.

Housekeeping

2007-07-10T07:33:00.001+02:00

It has been called to my attention that I mistakenly attributed "Octopus's Garden" to Paul. I totally know that Ringo was the mastermind behind that one. I have changed it for posterity to what I really meant: "Yellow Submarine."

Another reason Ringo's the best: "Act Naturally." (And yes I know that Buck Owen wrote and recorded the song originally. Save it.)

Another reason Paul's a jerk: "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," specifically that he wouldn't let George have a third song on Abbey Road (which would have been "All Things Must Pass") and insisted that little nothing song be included instead. Diggedy ding dong DICK.

One more thing about the crap-fest that is "Closer," that I wanted to mention but then forgot: this is the movie that originally had a full-frontal Natalie Portman scene. Mike Nichols, the director (a grand old—emphasis on OLD—man of American stage and cinema... this guy directed "The Graduate," for Christ's sake), is a father figure to Miss Portman, so she agreed to film the scene in question. Then he decided not to use it... which would be a worthy sentiment, if I didn't believe in my heart that he kept a copy for himself for, shall we say, less than noble purposes. But you have to admire his style, I guess; make a film about terrible people being terrible, using and abusing each other in matters of sex and love... and then mirror those people in real life. Bravo, Mike! Method directing at its best!

Pope-culture reviews

2007-07-07T04:33:00.001+02:00

I've been listening to the Beatles again lately, for the first time in awhile; the other day I busted out Sergeant Pepper's, and today I listened to most of Help! in my truck. I was reminded of how Help! really exemplifies more than any other album just how big of bastards John and Paul really were. John's signature track is "You're Gonna Lose that Girl," summed up by the line "I'll make a point of taking her away from you." Not because he loves her, or cares really... but just to prove a point. This is the big disconnect with John; the same guy who wrote "Imagine" also wrote this song? The guy who penned "Dear Prudence" and "Julia" also wrote "Run for Your Life"???

I think this is what makes John such a fascinating character... well, this and his amazing super-genius, of course. But the "total self-doubt combined with arrogance combined with deep, deep love for humanity and peace" thing is pretty compelling.

And then there's Paul. "Another Girl" seems to be a perfect little microcosm of this guy's frat-boy assholery. Which seems to be a pretty fair representation of the guy, at least during the Beatles years. For me, the defining anecdote of Paul's offhand, screw-off genius is "Come and Get It." They needed a hit from another band on the Apple label, so Paul whips this song off in an afternoon, plays all the instruments recording a demo for it so Badfinger can just copy it... and it goes to the top of the charts.

This is the same guy who wouldn't let Ringo play drums on "Back in the USSR" because he couldn't get it right (according to Paul). But damn, again; superduper-genius.

But anyways. "Another Girl." Really encompasses that whole aspect of his character. Completely, utterly confident that he's the best-looking, most talented guy in the room. And, even worse, being absolutely correct in that assessment, and not afraid to take advantage of it to screw other people over. What a dick.

I've gone through every Beatle over the years as my favorite. When I was really young, like until I was 10 maybe, I was a Paul guy. I'm not proud of it. But he was left-handed like me, and wrote songs like "When I'm 64" and "Yellow Submarine." Soon I switched to John, stuck with him into my 20s... went through the spiritual George phase for the latter half of the 20s... and for the past several years I've become more and more firmly a Ringo guy. Not only is he the most underrated concussionist of all time (as any drummer will tell you), he was also the glue that held the band together. And he was by all accounts the biggest stoner in a band full of stoners. Even more than Paul, who was once busted in an airport with like multiple kilos of weed.

Do I have anything more to report at the moment? Watched the movie "Closer" last night. Part of my "watch everything Clive Owen's ever done" project. (If you haven't watched "Children of Men" yet, do yourself a favor and rent it, like, right now. Go ahead, I'll wait.) But "Closer" ate a bowl of dicks. On one level I think the Jude Law character hit a bit too close to home for my comfort... but then, I totally identified with Miles from "Sideways" and still love the movie, love Miles, etc. I figured it out; in my opinion, "Sideways" is about the moment in a person's life when he figures something really profound out, starts believing in himself, decides to embrace life a little more, etc. My brother and I will debate this until we die, but I think we're both right. Miles hits rock bottom, as my brother states; there is no direction but up from that moment, as I state.

I could go on about it, but I won't. The pertinent point is that I totally identify with Miles, all his messed-up neuroses and everything else, but I really believe he grows and changes during the course of the movie. And that's what is interesting to me in a movie. But there is no growth or change in "Closer." Everyone is fucked up and depressed and terrible to each other at the beginning; everyone is fucked up and depressed and terrible at the end. It's just a snapshot of how fucked up and depressed and terrible we all are. Great. I mean... even if it's true, even it's an accurate representation of how some people treat each other... why should I care, or want to watch it for two hours? I wish I had more hands, so I could give this movie four thumbs down. The milk's gone bad!

So nothing of a personal nature to report at this time I guess. Just commentary on some of the popular culture I've been consuming lately. Oh yeah, on that front, one more desuggestion: "John from Cincinnati" really, really blows. I read a great review of it, though; basically said that, when someone is actually a genuine artist, they're going to fail sometimes, and fail spectacularly some of those times, just because they're trying new stuff and pushing their own artistic boundaries and whatnot. So in a perverse way "John from Sucksinnati" is actually a validation of David Milch the artist. So I guess that's cool. Still not worth my 45 minutes a week. Or a steaming pile, for that matter.

Even so, it begs the question: what the heck is HBO thinking??? I mean, we're never really gonna know what happened with the forth season of Deadwood. But you've gotta imagine that HBO had something to do with getting it axed. But they obviously also give Milch carte-blanche to create any piece of crap that comes out of him... hence letting him make "John from Sucks-my-brown-eye-nati" (nice) and then debuting it after the final episode of one of the most influential, popular series in television history. So why couldn't they just give Milch what he wanted for the last season of Deadwood?

So in summary--John and Paul: unmitigated genius-bastards (gene-tards). "Sideways": a positive affirmation of self-growth and fuzzy bunnies (and anyone--cough, Glenn, cough--who wants to say otherwise should just get his own god-damn blog). "Closer" and "John from Sucks-my-Cinncinnati-bowtie": gaaaaaaaaawd-awful. Pope out!

SFSA*

2007-07-02T00:23:00.000+02:00

*That stands for "Seriously Freaky Shit Alert." Don't say I didn't warn ya.

Well, so much for that goal. So now I have to say, "hopefully the last two gaps between blog entries prove to be the exception rather than the rule." In fairness to myself, it's been a hectic couple of weeks. Not only trying to incorporate two new jobs into my schedule, and still make time for all my other projects and goals... but I've been super busy on other fronts since the last time I added an entry here.

First of all, I had my very first visitors from up north! Completely unexpectedly, my uncle Rob and cousin Sophia rolled through town the Friday before last. They were on their way to a really cool, week-long summer camp at Stanford that Sophia attended. Rob drove her down, and then he was going to spend the week camping in Yosemite. So I got to spend most of Friday, all day Saturday, and then Sunday morning with them. Then on Wednesday, I drove into Yosemite and met Rob, and we hung out and hiked around until Friday afternoon. It's beautiful down there; I'm already planning my next trip. I have from Thursday afternoon until Tuesday morning free and clear every week, so my plan is to roll out one Thursday afternoon, camp out for the night, get up early and get a backwoods pass, and then hike the 35 or so miles of the John Muir trail from Friday-Sunday. Head back out early Sunday evening or Monday morning. Anyone who has the time and inclination sometime this summer to take a 4-5 day trip into Yosemite let me know.

In addition to these fun activities, last Sunday I went to the Pride Festival in SF. Jesus God. I missed the parade, but did get talked into attended a BDSM demonstration. They'd cordoned off a city street for about half a block and had a variety of shows going on.

WARNING: WHAT FOLLOWS IS OF AN EXTREMELY ADULT NATURE AND SHOULD NOT BE READ BY ANYONE OF A SENSITIVE DISPOSITION. OR MY MOM.

I'm reminded of the scene in The Usual Suspects (can you believe that movie is 12 years old?!!), when all the guys are in the holding cell together for the first time, when McManus and Fenster first float the idea of doing a job together. The line I have in mind is when Fenster says, "I had a man's finger up my asshole tonight." Of course, Hockney's reply, "is it Friday already?" is a classic comeback. But the reason I'm reminded of that scene is specifically because of Fenster's line. Only in this case, it would be, "I had a man's arm up to his elbow up my asshole tonight."

No really.

Chalk that one up to "something I never imagined I'd see in person." My new friend that I made that day, Jose (who came over with the one friend I made in Davis, Maggie) hypothesized that the fister had lost his keys somewhere in the intestinal tract of the fistee. I thought that he'd either lost, or found, a watch.

Here's the thing; that was arguably not even the most shocking interaction on display in this particular arena. Though it was probably the most jaw-dropping spectacle, I personally was more shocked by the (ahem) "consciously-induced-and-accepted penis and testicle trauma" going on about 10 feet away from my seat. Those in the scene call it something else, of course (it rhymes with "talk and fall borture"). But, in a decided example of "throwing a damp sponge on a wild-fire," I've decided to clean it up a bit.

In addition to those two demonstrations, we got a blindfolded guy with his arms tied above his head getting whipped bloody; some very large lesbians punching each other in the chest as hard as possible; caning; and something going on in one corner that I couldn't quite figure out before we left the scene.

So there you go. My new city.

The funny thing is, seeing all that happening in the middle of the street (as I said, they'd enclosed it with fences and tarps, but still, it was the middle of the freakin street) made me feel oddly safe. I think it's the sense that everyone can feel free to be anything they could possibly want to be, and not have to worry about getting hassled for it. I can't imagine being compelled to do anything nearly as crazy as trussing myself up in a sling and letting another man root around in my lower digestive tract like he was a gardener and I was his prize-winning vegetable patch... so how could I possibly worry about expressing myself honestly and openly? I actually read a great quote from Steve Earle about this very thing the other day; he was born and raised in TX, and now lives in Greenwich Village. I don't remember the exact line, but it was something like, "I want to be able to walk out my front door and see an interracial, same-sex couple walking down the street holding hands. It makes me feel safe."

And finally: I've figured out when I'm going to be coming home; 10 days-2 weeks something during the first 2-3 weeks of August. Right around the corner. Plan accordingly.

Happy summer!

2007-06-22T01:58:00.000+02:00

So Christmas is obviously the Christian response to the winter solstice... and Easter to the spring equinox... does that make Father's Day some sort of weird co-opted summer solstice celebration? Something to do with the patriarchy maybe? And where does that leave us for the autumnal equinox? Columbus Day? The celebration of the death and dying part of the grand cycle? Frankly I'm a bit confused.

I did my part for the war effort today. Filled up my tank at "USA Gas." $45, and that's a bargain these days! "Only" $3.15/gallon. I mean, I'm not an old man, but I clearly, clearly remember gas being under a buck a gallon. Not that I'm complaining, really, because the hike in the gas prices is at least in part energizing the alternative fuel revolution. Still. As always, sucks to be poor. I wonder how much it would cost to feed an Iraqi family for a day... You gotta figure $45 would feed a pretty good-sized group over there. Do you think it costs more to kill one Iraqi, or feed a whole family?

Oh well. Throw my 45 bucks on the pile. Maybe I can inscribe a tiny message on the head of the bolt that I paid for. I can find solace in my apology when the warhead my bolt is screwed into is dropped on a hospital.

So much is going on! I have two, count'em TWO, new jobs. I'm working as a copy/content editor on a brand-new start-up magazine about dance and movement. I'm getting in on the ground floor, I'm really the first editor they've hired so I'm getting to do a lot of fun stuff I never would have had the chance to do before. I'm editing some of the pieces they've collected, and am also conceptualizing a sort of revisionist style guide. Guerrilla grammar, if you will. I've decided to throw myself into it as a writing project, devote some of my own time to it, as well. I'll tell you more about it as it develops.

My second job is real mellow and simple; just helping out this activist/historian/author/poet in her home. She just had a stroke, so the point is to do all the household types of tasks so she can just focus on her work. Cooking, cleaning, stuff like that. It's only two days a week, and it's in Berkeley, so it gets me out of the house and into a more vibrant part of the area. I finish there at 1, and then have the rest of the afternoon to bum around Berkeley, or jump on the BART into SF or something.

So things are lining up. The schedule is starting to take shape. I'm excited to see how things progress over the summer. And, it's a priority to write more, to post to the blog a few times a week, so hopefully the gap from my last entry til now will prove to be the exception rather than the rule. We'll see...

Sunday morning yard-blog

2007-06-10T20:06:00.000+02:00

Sitting out in the backyard, typing on my laptop on a sunny Sunday morning. Light breeze blowing off the Bay, Boros is at my feet, just chillin'... to quote the Supersuckers, "it's gooooood livin'."

I can't imagine what this is like for Boros. He's always been content enough with a decent-sized balcony, and now he's got this whole new world available. I've even taken to letting him hang out in the yard without direct supervision; I just occasionally check on him from the window, and if I can't spot him I'll go make sure he hasn't wandered too far. He's usually just hanging out in the underbrush. And if I'm out here with him, he often sits where he is now, between my feet; I think it's all just overwhelming for him sometimes, and he feels safer there. Like when I was a little kid and would attach myself to my dad's leg when we were in a public place.

There are also three baby chickens who live here, they have to stay inside now because a couple of the first ones got picked off by predators as soon as my housemates turned their backs... now we're letting them grow big enough in a contained setting before transitioning them to their own coop in the corner. Boros is obviously fascinated by them, but so far he's shown very little of the hunting instinct. I don't think it's that he doesn't have it; he will sometimes "stalk" them, approach their cage really slowly, close to the ground, etc. But the way his brain works is that all the other non-cerebellum parts have to compensate for his motor-skills disfunction, so whenever he has to "multi-task" he gets even less coordinated. The other parts of his brain have to take care of their normal routines, and his cerebellum is left on its own. Something like that moron co-worker we've all had to deal with; everyone else has to work to help them with their regular day-to-day tasks, but when a big project comes in and nobody has time to help, they are exposed. That's Boros's cerebellum.

Finally feel settled in here; got the big recliner I inherited from the kids I subleased the Davis place from, set that up in the corner of my "office," so now I have a nice reading nook (more like napping station) set up. I'll post some pictures of the whole place in the next week or two, just to give an idea of where I live. But I feel comfortable here.

I'm going in this week to check out the Shambhala meditation center in Berkeley; Monday I'm going to a Zen archery practice (how cool is that?), and Wednesday night there is a yoga group that meets before sitting meditation. I'm excited to ramp up my practice some more.

Oh yeah, here's another cool thing; about ¼ mile from the house there is this ginormous park, it must be hundreds of acres... I was checking it out on a map, and you can literally walk out the door to my house, up the street, and then through this park all the way to the UC Berkeley campus some 10 miles away. I walked around in there for awhile last week, it's all rolling hills and trees up this way... amazing views of the Bay and San Francisco. I'm excited to go exploring some more.

Otherwise, just trying to settle in and get a good schedule going. Applying for more and more jobs, the right one is just around the corner. I can feel it. I've refined my "perfect job"; part-time, East Bay, preferably Berkeley. I've applied for a couple interesting paid internships, too: small publishing companies, Web and print, putting out political-action publications. Green living, helping the homeless, etc. Sounds promising, no? I will, of course, keep you posted.

Cat puke, The Arcade Fire, and me

2007-06-05T03:12:00.001+02:00

Don't you hate it when a woman has writing on her shirt, and then catches you reading that writing and gives you the stink-eye cause she thinks you're ogling her breasts? I mean seriously, if you don't want guys staring at your boobies don't put words there! Human eyes are drawn to words, it's just how the brain works. It's like when somebody has a "honk if you love _____" bumper sticker and then flips you the bird when you honk cause you love ____. C'mon, wtf? If you can't keep track of the shit you have printed all over your clothes and cars and everything else, don't blame me for reading and following directions.

I'm officially staying in the Bay area now. Boros is loving it; I take him outside to explore for awhile every day, sometimes he gets overwhelmed and runs like a crazy thing back inside, but he's digging it. He has a new ritual, in fact; eat as much grass as possible during the day, and then vomit it all out on the floor at night. Last night was especially interesting; he was hanging out with me on my bed when all of the sudden he jumped down and ran into the hallway (good boy). I could tell he was gonna be sick cause his stomach was doing that pumping thing (you know what I mean). But since it was just a bunch of grass in there, kinda pokey and stringy, he started jumping around like a bug and wiggling backwards, like he was trying to escape something rather than the other way around. I am always one who will defend cat intelligence, but it's kind of hard to do when they act so surprised coughing up or vomiting something they themselves consumed; have you ever noticed how surprised a cat looks when spitting up a hairball? I always say, "you spend hours a day licking your fur-covered body... and now you're surprised that you've got a ball of fur lodged in your gut???" Same sort of thing.

I'm also loving the new place; interestingly enough, it's a lot quieter and more calm than the Davis place. You tell most anybody that you're leaving Davis for the Bay area, they're gonna assume (and rightly so) that the pace is about the pick up pretty dramatically. But I'm basically leaving an off-campus dorm for a house in the suburbs; it's quiet at night, and far fewer people walking around during the day. I like it.

I've been to two shows in the Bay area in the past week; last Wednesday was Manu Chao at the Civic Center in downtown San Francisco. It was in the SoMa district, which stands for "south of Market street" in case you were wondering. Makes me think the new developers in Ballard are Northern Californians, because of that inane "NoMa" campaign; one of the development groups is naming all their condos north of Market NoMa, trying to create a new hip neighborhood... give it up guys. Seriously.

But anyways. Manu Chao on Wednesday, and then Saturday was Arcade Fire at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley. Both were good shows, but not nearly as good as I'd hoped. There is a different energy down here that I'm still trying to find an access point into. There are only 300,000 or so more people in San Fran than Seattle, but they're jammed into 1/3 the physical space. That's the best way to describe how the concerts were; extremely crowded, not enough room to get any sort of groove going without somebody knocking into you or something.

Another thing about Arcade Fire; the lead singer told this story about trying to shoot hoops in the UC gym, but some guys were playing full-court and he got into an argument with them cause he wanted to shoot by himself and didn't want to play with them... and the way he told the story, he made it out like he was the victim, and the guy he got into an argument with was an asshole! I mean, the dude probably was an asshole, but still. You walk into a gym and a bunch of guys are playing full court, you don't start bugging them to switch to half-court because you want to shoot by yourself! It doesn't work that way! Maybe in Canadia, Mr. Arcade-Fire-lead-singer, but not in the U.S. of A. Go find a hoop outside somewhere or something. I mean, everyone was cheering him when he told the story, booing the "asshole jocks" who wouldn't let him shoot hoops (not "you can't play with us," but "we're not going to switch to half-court because you want to play by yourself"), and I'm sitting there thinking, "hey, wait a god damned minute here! You're in the wrong there, buddy!"

Overall, it was a fun night and a solid show. Last Arcade Fire show of this tour, so that's cool. I realized, however, that when I want to dance my ass off, what I really want is a nice funky groove. Arcade Fire is many things, most of them good, but none of them funky or groovy. When they really, really get going, really get their energy up, the best way I can describe it is "spastic." Extremely high energy and intense and passionate, no doubt about it. But instead of settling into some butt-bouncin' groovaliciousness, they all just start acting like they're watching one of those short-attention-span Japanese tv shows that caused all those people to have seizures.

My good old Seattle buddy Billy came out to the show, too; he heard one of the guys playing a French horn and commented, "hey, that guy's playing a Freedom horn!" I replied, "well, that's appropriate... they are Freedom Canadians!" Cause they're from Montreal and all. Cough.

I think I'm gonna leave it at that for now. Watch this week for my definitive review of the "Davis Experience." Until then, stay safe and always make sure you're wearing clean drawers. Pope out!

Go west, young pope

2007-06-01T06:52:00.000+02:00

Have you ever met a new cat or dog, at someone's house or even just out on the street, and they look at you all funny, cause they can smell your cat or dog, as if to say, "you know, you look just like this hairless foodbag that I live with, but damned if you don't smell like a cat. You're the oddest lookin' feline I ever did-dun see."

I get that a lot.

Of special importance to Boros: I have heard from two different sources within the past week two facts:

1. Boros's condition is known as "Cerebellar Hypoplasia."

2. More often than not, cats with this condition are put to sleep as kittens.

Now... most of you know me. And if you haven't met Boros, you've heard about him. When I found out that most cats with his condition are put down, you can imagine my shock and horror. But, really, in the end I feel at least as sorry for the people who didn't get to experience having a kitty with special needs in their life. Cause it most definitely is their loss.

Okay, now we need to lighten the mood a bit. So get ready for THIS:

http://www.catfamily.com/chkittyclub/pages/cat_family/
-needs_home-/index.html#willow

Big news: I'm moving. Yes, yes, you all knew that. But what you didn't know is that I've decided to move to the Bay Area. I found a nice house in which to rent a room on the Bay, about 20 miles outside San Francisco proper. 10 miles north of Berkeley, less than 4 miles from the nearest BART station. In the end, there just wasn't any work in the Davis/Sacramento area. And, of course... muthafuckin San Francisco y'all! I'm sure it will be a lot easier to come visit me this way.

This has all happened in the past few weeks, and I found out that I got the room on Monday... and tomorrow will be our first night in the new place. So it's all happening really quickly. It's a good spot; I can get two rooms and my own bathroom for less than it would cost to get a small studio in SF, and there's a big enclosed yard for Boros. I keep telling him how much he's gonna love it, but he's kind of preoccupied seeing as how this will be his fifth move since last October.

I think Snar has your mullet

2007-05-28T00:00:00.001+02:00

One of the most fascinating and beautiful things about language is how you can sometimes hear a phrase that you are 96.4% certain has never been uttered in the history of the world. A certain string of words that has most likely never been put in that order before, but that makes perfect sense in the context it was uttered in.

The title to this post is one such example of this phenomenon.

To give you the full background on this story requires us to travel.... BACKWARD IN TIME-IME-IME-IME... come with me, if you will, to Tuesday, May 15^th.

I was instant messaging with my good old buddy Billy; he and I met our freshmen year at University and immediately recognized a kindred spirit of the first degree. And, of course, by kindred spirit, I mean, "completely insane person in whom I see reflected my own insanity." This is the guy on whose knee I broke my nose in 1995, when he pretended to slam my head into his knee and I pretended to let him. He's been living in SF for the past six years or so, but I still hadn't made it over to see him since I'd moved down here.

So Billy and I are chatting online. This used to be a fairly regular occurrence, but it was the first time we'd both been online at the same time in months. (That's coincidence #1, for those of you scoring at home; it will become more significant later in the story.) Our conversation lags for awhile, as IM conversations tend to do, and then Billy pops back up again to tell me that our friend Duward is going to be in town.

Quick background within the background: Duward went to high school with Billy; Billy and I graduated in 1993 and met at UW that year; and the following year Duward graduated and came to UW. He and Billy were roommates at the beginning of the '94-95 school year, and I lived down the hall. Duward and I became fast friends, and ended up roommates for the last half of that year and the whole next year. He's one of those friends that I can not see for years and then, when we do end up in the same place, it's just like it always was.

So. Back to our story. Billy says, "Duward is going to be in town this weekend." I, of course, assume he means San Francisco; but no. He means Davis. His wife's best friend is going to vet school at UC Davis, and they're going to be in town visiting her. Weird coincidence #2: I'm in Davis for less than two months, and a good old friend who I haven't seen in years happens to be coming to, not just the area, but the actual tiny town where I've landed.

So they come in on Friday, and I hang out with them—Duward, his wife Julie, her best friend Maggie, her boyfriend Peter—on Friday night and then, on a whim, go into San Fran the following day for a bbq at their friends' place in the city.

So the bbq was great fun, and it turned out to be a precursor to the city-wide tradition, to be taking place the day after, called "Bay to Breakers" (or "beta blockers," as we called it). Bay to Breakers is what you would call a freak parade. Literally thousands of people get up super early, put on costumes, and walk 9 miles from the Bay to the ocean. I don't suppose I need to mention that there is copious drinking involved (our friends had nine—NINE!!!—kegs chained up at various points throughout the route), but I do think it bears mentioning that all laws against consuming alcohol in public seem to go out the window, at least on this particular day.

Our little group (Duward, Julie, Maggie, and me) didn't stick around for the parade, so we were still lounging in half-sleep mode while everyone else was getting ready on Sunday morning. Another old college buddy who went to high school with Billy and Duward, Flavius, was lagging behind the rest of the Bay to Breaker marchers. He had brought a mullet wig to wear during the march, and he couldn't find it. He was just standing in the middle of the room, looking over and over again in the same three places (allowing me to break out one of the best Simpsons' lines ever: "ya gotta help me! I've tried nuthin' and I'm all out of ideas!"). Eventually we determine that the mullet wig is indeed gone... but in its place is a different wig that was brought by a guy named "Snar." So somebody (it's unclear at this point who actually said it first) turns to Flavius and says, "I think Snar has your mullet."

And yes, I did just tell a story that prominently featured people named "Duward," Flavius," and "Snar." Which, I think, makes the whole thing even better.

links n' stuff

2007-05-18T18:20:00.000+02:00

Spending a lot of time these days looking for housing and applying for jobs; once those two issues are settled, I will definitely feel more settled, as well. I've found several good leads on both fronts; I'm actually about to leave to check out a house with an available room. I will keep you updated, of course.

On the job front: I actually have a couple jobs at the moment, but neither of them are consistent enough for my tastes; I would prefer to have some thing or things that I could count on from week to week to pay the bills, and then be able to use the sporadic work I do for WASSER to pad my bank account.

What's that you say? What's your second job??? Well. I've been a bit loathe to bring it up. I applied for it on sort of a whim, got it quickly, and have yet to actually do anything for it. On the plus side, it's a writing gig. On the minus side, well... it's a bit, shall we say, morally questionable. No, I'm not working on ad campaigns for Big Oil, or planting apologist propaganda for the NRA in chat rooms... but I am writing "custom essays" for college students. Or I will be, if I ever take a project. The company's official stance is that they (we, I guess... sigh) write these essays "only for research purposes." Uh-huh. In my defense, this type of writing is probably the one I'm best at, I actually really enjoy writing essays like this, and it's good practice. When I'm a famous author this will be my equivalent of David Mamet writing for Penthouse Forum.

Speaking of the NRA, thought this was interesting:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6665285.stm

See, this is what happens in a country where an isolated teenager with a history of mental illness can't just get his hands on semi-automatic handguns; I think we can all agree that, while six kids stabbed and two dead is a horrible tragedy, 30 dead and countless more injured is far, far worse. But hey, for all anyone knew he was buying those guns to shoot water rats...

Some more writing news: I published a little piece in an online community called Helium: http://www.helium.com/tm/322490/walter-isaacsons-biography-albert.

Helium seems to be a cross between wikipedia and American Idol. People write articles about the same topic, and then other members vote on which are the best. There's some revenue-sharing in there eventually, or so they say. As you can see, nobody has stepped up to challenge The Pope on that new Einstein bio.

I'm planning to write some more on this site, just for practice and to see where it goes. I'll send links.

And finally; if you haven't seen this kid yet, I highly recommend it:

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=ronaldjenkees

This guy is a hero on so many levels. You see him, and you listen to him talk, and you want to laugh and cry all at once—if you're like me, you're expecting him to break out the "dueling banjos" riff on his casio. But then he starts playing, and you're like, "holy crap! He's good!" I predict that the people who will most appreciate this kid are my good buddy Capn. Surly, and my Uncle Homer.

Another benefit is that, if you check out his Rocky riffs, you can also re-watch the almost unbelievably homo-erotic training montage from Rocky III. I can't decide what my favorite part is: when they're working on Stallion's footwork in front of the mirror, only Apollo's behind him and he keeps nervously glancing over his shoulder; Apollo's Dark Side of the Moon tank-top and "oh-ho-ho ho... very nice"s; the ending, where they honest-to-god frolic in the surf together and share the most awkward hug in cinematic history... seriously, what's not to love?

Stimuland

2007-05-15T19:11:00.001+02:00

I just returned from a trip to The Happiest Place on Earth; yes, that's right, I went to Disneyland! Or, as Beth calls it, "Stimuland."

I hadn't been in going on 20 years... but four of my favorite people were taking a trip, including a pair of six year old twin boys making their first visit, and seeing as I'm now an hour plane-ride away from Anaheim, I couldn't miss the opportunity.

First off, I'll just say that those guys are rakin' it in. I mean, jesus god. It costs $60 for a one day pass to either park (California Adventure opened in the 90's), or you can get into both parks for two days for $60 a day. And once you're inside, everything is dear; $10 burgers and fries. $20 hats and mouse ears. $12 pictures of you making your little kid face on Space Mountain. And it goes on like this...

That being said, I wouldn't have missed it. Not for all the bananas in a monkey-house. I hadn't seen my boys for almost a year, and I needed a fix. It was an utter joy to spend time with them. Just walking around the park in the sun, with one or the other of them on my shoulders, talkin' about life... those kids are some deep philosophers, lemme tell ya.

And their parents are okay too. Beth likes to tease Eric and I because we always "laugh like a couple of little girls" when we hang out. But we got Beth going pretty good a few times, too... we all amuse and entertain each other. I think that's about the best thing you can ask for in a friend.

The running gag of the trip involved a simple variation on the term "100% Angus Beef." Look at it again and I'm pretty sure you'll be able to figure it out. There's actually a standing bet among the three of us; whoever goes into a restaurant and says something to this effect will win: "Yes, I have been reading some articles about the best kind of beef being this so-called '100% anus beef'... tell me, do you use only anus beef in your hamburgers?"

You're free to use that one, by the way.

So on my way to the hotel to meet everyone, the driver had the "all 80s" station playing, and the Go-Gos came on. Oddly enough, one of the original L.A. punk rock bands... and I thought to myself, "self, if I could have only one band playing as I drove down a southern California freeway... it would be Jane's Addiction. But if I could have two bands playing... Jane's Addiction and Van Halen. But, self, if there were three, if I could have three... it would probably be the Doors. But four? Definitely Jane's, VH, the Doors, and the Go-Gos. Or maybe X." At this point some of you are undoubtedly wondering where Red Hot Chili Peppers fit on the list. Well. In my humble opinion, Red Hot Chili Peppers can eat a bowl of dicks. But maybe that's just me.

Since the boys were constantly asking for a detailed list of favorite to least favorite rides, here's my final count:

1. Mali-boomer (aka "The Vomit Comet"). This one is simple, straightforward, and elegant. No fuss, no muss. You sit down in the seat, your legs dangling; you lower the shoulder harness, which includes a sneeze-guard/vomit interceptor; you buckle a strap that goes from the seat to the shoulder harness; and then they shoot you straight up about 100 feet, and then drop you. At the top of the ride you experience a legitimate weightless moment. Gotta say, I love that moment. I think my next thing is gonna have to be bungee-jumping.

2. California Screamin'. The closest thing at either park to a real, bona-fide roller coaster. You go from 0-80 in about 2 seconds to start, there are a couple good drops, and a full loop-de-loop. Nice.

3. Space Mountain. 'Nuff said. The picture that B&E bought of the four of them on the ride is classic; it could be the ad campaign.

Pi: I have to add this one here, because it's a very special-case scenario and most likely never repeatable. This slot represents the trip all of us took together down the Grizzly River ride, which is a big circular raft you sit in and sometimes you get a little wet. On this one particular occasion, however, Beth got as wet as is humanly possible without actually jumping into a body of water. I mean, literally soaked to the bone. If you could have seen the expression on her face... the best part was, it got her once, and completely soaked half of her. And then, somehow, the water came over the top from the completely opposite direction and soaked the other half. And then there was a third immersion, just for good measure. Oh how we laughed. My goodness.

4. Soarin' Over California. Very cool immersive IMAX film that takes you... well, soaring over California. All the different areas of my new home state. This is the ride that includes the famed "smellivision."

5. That Muppet Show Thing. Don't remember what this one was called exactly, but it involved muppets. And it was in 3D. Now that I think of it, it might have been called "Muppets in 3D." Genius!

6. Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Don't know how many of you remember this one with much detail, but you actually end up in hell. No effin' ess. The last scene in the ride is in hell. The devil is there, and he's laughing at you... and it's honest-to-god hotter in that part of the ride than it is in the other parts. Genuinely creepy.

7-15. All the other non-descript, non-offensive rides that didn't quite register on either end of the scale for me; these include Pirates of the Caribbean (they've added Capn. Jack in two places now, otherwise it's exactly the same); the Buzz Lightyear ride, which is just a moving video game where you shoot at targets w/ a low-range laser tag shooter; Thunder Mountain Railroad, the mini-roller coaster—I guess Banksy, the mysterious British guerrilla/graffiti artist, planted an inflatable sex doll dressed up like a Guantanamo inmate in this ride last fall. Needless to say, it would have shot to #1 on the list in that scenario.

16. Snow White. This one is blatant false advertising. Worse than "Stoner's Pot Palace," the garden statuary shop. You go into the ride, and you see Snow White... for a minute... and all the forest creatures love her... and from that point on it's all about the witch. Snow White literally NEVER makes another appearance. You think she shows up at the end? Wrong. The last scene is the dwarves chasing the witch up the cliff, and I think she tries to flatten them with a boulder... there's certainly no resolution at this point... and then you go through the last door and there's a big sign that says "And they lived happily ever after."

Seriously. WTF. That ride honestly offended me.

17. Indiana Jones and the Wrenched Back. The Disneyland folks seem to put their "bigger kid rides" into one of two categories: there are the ones that go fast around corners (Mountains Space and Thunder) and take you up high and drop you (Maliboomer, CA Screamin')... and then there are the ones that just jerk you around, start and stop quickly, etc. This one and the Twilight Zone Electrocution Elevator are the prime examples of this second type of ride. Needless to say, I am firmly in the camp of the first type. This one just left me feeling slightly queasy with a sore back and neck.

Here we are. The literal nadir of the trip. The bottom of the barrel. And who would've thought, after all that, it would end up being...

18. The Ferris Wheel.

This ain't no ordinary Ferris wheel though. This one has its cars on a big oval track, so when the wheel rotates the car swings back and forth. You actually end up facing almost straight down a few times. And you're not strapped in! This one made me the queasiest by far, and poor Beth almost lost her lunch completely. Here's the clue; this is the only ride that has barf bags. So obviously we aren't the only ones. This one received bonus negative points because we had to wait in line for an hour to get on it. Each car fits at least 6 people comfortably, but they weren't packing in people from different groups. Like, they didn't stick three groups of two in a single car; each group got their own car. And, since they have to load you in, move the wheel one click, load in the next group, etc... it takes inordinately longer for the line to move. On the one hand, I can understand; you don't want to be barfed on by someone you don't know. On the other hand, this ride was 100% anus beef certified. The worst part was that they made you go around twice; once to load up the ride, and then one full turn for good measure. So you've made it through the whole rotation and chewed it back... and then it doesn't stop. It's like the last scene in Mr. Toad.

Final thought: watch for Eric's upcoming guide book to Disneyland. He's working hard to create an algorithm that will plot the relative benefits of each ride... only taking into account the length of time you have to wait. So, for instance, Space Mountain is a solid 94 if you don't have to wait more than five minutes... but it sinks about ten points with each additional 15 minutes you have to wait. If you have to wait an hour, you're suddenly looking at a D+ ride. It's a concept whose time has come, I believe.

Sunday night whazzup

2007-05-07T07:35:00.000+02:00

(To be pronounced: "Huh-wazzup.")

Okay, by now you've all probably figured out; Boros is my only social outlet at this point. Just kidding! No really.

(...is he joking?)

(...)

Seriously though, Boros; good kid. I came home the other evening and he was all sketched out, I couldn't figure out why... antsy, hiding behind stuff, etc. Couldn't figure it out.

Then the apartment above me erupts.

Seriously, they went bat shit; floor-stompin', teeth-rattlin', the works.

Boros goes all flat; like all four of his legs come out from under him in four different directions. Then he kinda slinks to the bedroom... some of you know exactly what I'm talkin' 'bout. When his ass-swerve is way more pronounced 'cause he's trying to stay close to the ground and be all steathy-like? Yeah, that.

Anyways. I look around, mouth slightly agape... "what the hell is going on??? Wait a minute... I recognize that sound... that's the call of DRUNKEN SPORTS FANS!!!"

Yup. I'd totally forgotten about the Warriors-Mavs game.

(Note to everyone who has no idea what I'm talking about: biggest upset in NBA playoff history. Team from San Francisco. Hadn't been to the playoffs in over a decade.)

(And no, I didn't go up there and do a beer bong. Frankly, I'm offended you would even suggest it.)

(Or any other kind of bong for that matter. Jerk.)

So yeah, everyone was flipping out, so I checked the score... sure enough, Warriors closing the series out. Good times all around. Well, except for David Hasselhoff.

(Anyone? Anyone? High five!)

Speaking of The Hoff... y'all see him totally wasted in the doorway of his hotel room's bathroom the other day? Man. What a spectacle. We're living in an age where everyone's absolute worst moment is recorded and broadcast for all the world to judge. (See: Michael Richards, Alec Baldwin, the Star Wars Kid...) Scary times.

Seriously though, check this out: http://www.ifilm.com/video/2829004?ns=1

I mean... spot on, right? I won't say anything more than that lest someone is reading ahead and I ruin it. But that shit's off the hook. He's a dead ringer.

In other news, there's a Japanese game show that seems to be like Star Search, only instead of singing/dancing/telling jokes, the people are competing to see who can do a better impression of American movie cliches. And it's also kinda like The Gong Show.

Did I already say, "Scary times"? Well forgive me for repeating myself: SCARY MUTHAFUCKIN TIMES!!!" I mean really. Jesus t.f. Christ.

Speaking of scary times: we got France.

This is the French equivilent of G.W. beating Jimmy Carter. Which I guess would mean Jean-Marie Le Pen is Ross Perot...

Watched both episodes of the Simpsons tonight, and the new Family Guy. I must say, solid all around. I was really getting worried about the Simpsons, but they've totally rallied in the past few seasons. They hit the wall and bounced back, like they always do.

Two weeks til the 400^th episode.

And a movie! I forgot all about that. There's still a movie coming out this summer, right?

Sweeeeet...

Anyways. Decided I really don't want to live in Sacramento. Exploring living with other people in Davis. Viable... definitely viable.

New Sac City

2007-05-05T06:14:00.000+02:00

After almost five weeks, I finally made my first visit to Sacramento today. It's not that I haven't left Davis yet; I have been down to Visalia to visit Jen, and gone to the coast with her and her parents... and I guess I've driven through Sacramento on several occasions. But never actually stopped in to check it out. Never had much of a reason to, frankly... but today I had to go pick up some new camping supplies at REI that I'd ordered online (free shipping if you have stuff sent to the store instead of to your home), so I figured I'd use the opportunity to check out the city. Or, in this case, "the shitty."

No really. Now I know why its nickname is "The Sac."

Okay, it wasn't that bad, not totally. The Midtown part is actually fine. Here's my dilemma: I'd really like to stay in Davis, but the cost of one-bedroom apartments here is exorbitant. Not SF exorbitant, but way overpriced none-the-less. The thing is, they've got UC Davis students by the balls, because they have to live here; there's really no choice. So they can jack up the price of housing all they want, and nobody can say boo.

I, on the other hand, do have a choice. Since I don't go to school at UCD, I don't technically have to live here. And so, I say 'boo.' 'Boo,' I say... 'BOOOOO'... So the foray into Sac was also an opportunity to check out where I would (and, more importantly, where I would no way in hell) live.

As I said, Midtown Sac is alright. It has that generic downtown feel; lots of restaurants, cafes, lots of green... seemed pretty clean... all in all, I could live there, and there are much more affordable options there than here.

The next step was to check out some non-Midtown areas. I had been told by everyone I talked to (literally: EVERYONE) that, were I to live in Sac, I would only want to live in Midtown and nowhere else. But I'd found an interesting ad on Craig's List, so I figured I'd drive by and see what it was like.

Oh my.

The way I guess I'd explain it is that, if Midtown is something like downtown Ballard or the Wallingford/Fremont corridor, than the place I ended up was like some of the skeevier parts of Rainier Valley or Lake Shitty. You know, that part just north of Northgate? Yeah, like that. Dirty and rundown. Car farms. No frickin' way.

So, now I know. It narrows down the options quite a bit; now I'm looking at either 1) Midtown Sac, or 2) living with people I don't know in Davis. Both come with their own pros and cons, of course. But, all in all, both are fine options.

New resolution: I'm going to try to include at least one Boros-related anecdote in every blog entry. I'm sure most of you are almost as interested in his antics as mine and, as they say, I aims to please. So, in that vein...

I figured it out. Boros doesn't move like a cat; this we all know. Here's the kicker: he moves like a bear. He's a mini-bear. Sort of like a mini-bar, but with only the appearance of being full of alcohol.

What else... oh yeah, I wanted to talk about my neighbors for a minute. For the most part fine; I've certainly had worse. But recently it appears the kids directly upstairs from me have adopted a Clydesdale. Seriously, something's running around up there that shakes my cabinets. And they pick the weirdest times for carpentry projects; they'll be pounding on shit at like 3am. I can only assume that they get really stoned and then decide they're gonna make a walk-in hookah or something. You know, like me and my friends used to do in college...

-cough-

And the neighbors to one side... again, good kids... they had a party the other weekend and came over to tell me about it during the week, said to let them know if it got too loud, to come over for a margarita if I wanted, etc. Nice guys. But... they like to play music. Nothing intrinsically wrong with that, right? Left. Every time they get going, I just want to walk over there, knock on the door, and yell, "YOU CAN'T SING!" It's sad, really. And honestly, I of all people would have NO PROBLEM with it... except they insist on amplifying themselves. So they can't sing, and they're doing it through microphones. In a huge apartment complex with paper-thin walls. Seriously, doesn't that just invite critique? Why else would you do that if you didn't want feedback? And my feedback is, "you sound like my retarded cat's poop smells. Cover that voice with some sand and try something else."

It wouldn't be so bad if the one kid didn't constantly switch into a falsetto. No really. And they try to harmonize... but all they're doing is singing the same note, one or more octaves apart. Hence the falsetto... god I'm an asshole. But I'm at my wit's end here, people! I mean, jesus god, I haven't even mentioned the hand drum yet...

Please keep in mind that this rant on the patheticness of somebody else is coming from somebody sitting at home alone on a Friday night ranting about his neighbors and blogging about his cat. The proverbial grain of salt.

Back from the Dead

2007-05-02T22:02:00.000+02:00

So what's it been, about three months? Feels like it's about time to get something down here again. I kind of liked the idea of letting the whole "Barcelona experience" exist on its own for awhile, but I feel like it's time to put out a bit of an update. Of course, by now everyone's stopped checking back to see if I added anything... so only the two people or so who both had me on RSS feed, but haven't taken me out due to criminal neglect, will even know that I've added something.

In that regard then, since I'm pretty sure almost nobody will read this, I offer the following:

Hell damn fart! Crap crap crap! Baby elephant trunks up your butt!!!

And now, as they say... on with our show...

If somebody had told me, one year ago today, that one year from now (then) I would be: a) living in California, after b) spending four months in Spain, I would have... well honestly, I would have been pretty excited. Those are both things I would have wanted to do for a long time now (then).

So by now most of you know all about Spain. If you don't, I suggest you catch up with some light reading of the previous three dozen or so blog entries below. But California? Probably a lot of you (non-existent) readers know that I've moved to Davis, 20 miles west of Sacramento and 70 miles east of the Bay. The short answer: I've lived my whole life in Seattle and needed to get away. Try something different for awhile. This was a decision I made while in Spain, and, after much research, I settled on the Sacramento/Davis answer.

And, of course, there is a girl involved (isn't there always?). I got back together with my girlfriend from back home after I returned from Spain; she was moving back to her ancestral home of Visalia, CA (recently named #7 in the "most polluted U.S. cities" survey). We both determined that I shouldn't move down there with her, but instead should stake a claim up north and await her arrival, while she dealt with some family stuff. Which I do. Eagerly. Await her arrival I mean.

So here I am. I still work for the same company that I did, both before and after Spain. My fearless associate Boros is with me, weird as ever. Turns out that he likes tofu. Go figure. I'm working from home on random projects while very slowly working towards getting paid to write in some capacity.

With that in mind, this blog will henceforth be a "what's going on with Jerod" sort of thing. Like one of those group emails people used to send, detailing events and whatnot. I know it seems like that was all this ever was... but there was also a healthy mix of stuff more in the style of "humorist essay." I'm still planning to write stuff like that, but instead of self-publishing it here I'm going to try to submit it to publications for fun and profit. 'Cause those places won't accept pre-published work, blogs included. I will keep you updated (here) as things develop (otherwhere).

Onward and upward, brave pilgrims!

A Fair and Balanced Look at The Trip

2007-01-22T15:42:00.000+01:00

A couple things to add to yesterday's epic blog entry (definitely the longest on record in the annals of The Pope of Chilitown):

1. After reviewing the piece, I realize that making fun of Glenn for eating Flaka Jaimies while not taking my own share of "credit" for eating that vile mass of grossness behind the FJs in the picture is the very epitome of the pot calling the kettle a consumer of disgusting foodstuffs. Yes, those are potatas bravas; yes, that is indeed a pile of mayonnaise glopped on top of fried potatoes; and yes, perhaps the hardest to admit (as much to myself as to you)... those are my hands in the picture, holding a fork poised over the patatas, ready to dig in. (Quick side note: Glenn insisted on taking pictures of every meal we ate. We had to wait a couple minutes after our food was served for him to get the perfect shot. Just thought it needed to be mentioned...)

Anyways, I've always been a fan of mayo and all its evil kin; I generally avoid it, but I do like to dip my potato products in it. But I know how it looks. Though I must say, the fact that the FJs are sitting in a pool in their own neon-orange secretions is pretty disturbing. And if you're wondering about the pink tinge to the potatas sauce (and I know you are), it's not straight mayo; it's sort of a whipped mayo with some hot sauce in it. Finally, we didn't eat the entire pile of mayo; there is photo evidence of this fact, when we took an FJ and sat it up in the remainder of the mayo. Like a cross-section of John Madden's aorta.

Vincent: ...you know what they put on French Fries in Holland? Jules: What? Vincent: Mayonnaise. Jules: God DAMN! Vincent: I seen'em do it. And I don't mean a little bit on the side of the plate, neither; they fuckin' drown'em in it. Jules: Uuccch!

Oh yeah, that reminds me of another joke we made about the FJs: when the waitress put the plate down on the table, I pulled it in front of me and said, "Hey Glenn, what part of the pig did you get?" This was a favorite joke of our grandpa's, involving his two recurring Swedish characters, Sven and Ollie (he's a full-blooded Swede). They get off the boat in New York and immediately go in search of the street vender selling hot dogs, because they were told to eat one as soon as they could. So they get their hot dogs, and Ollie turns to Sven and says, "hey Sven, what part of the dog did you get?"

Finally... in the interest of full disclosure, there is another story I feel I must share. I honestly forgot about it during the course of writing The Trip, but was reminded of it when I walked up to the top of the park next to Park Guell later yesterday afternoon. I fear Glenn and Noreen would accuse me of revisionism is I didn't tell the story, so here goes.

We were walking to the top of Park Guell, and took a break about halfway to look around. Remember, this is the second day. They have only begun to suspect that I don't really speak Spanish. So I gesture towards this pointy thing way off on a hill in the distance and start to expound about it being Tibidabu (the Church Thing from earlier blog entries). This old man standing close to us is listening, and has obviously gleaned two things from my English explantation: me signaling towards this pointy thing on the hill in the distance, and the word "Tibidabu." He walks up to us and says something to the effect that it isn't in fact Tibidabu, that Tibidabu is around behind the hill we're standing on. We can't in fact see Tibidabu at this point. I ask him, "okay, well, what's that thing then?" My second mistake. He looks at it, shrugs his shoulders, and says, "antennae grande."

Here's my big gripe about the Spanish language: there are so many words that don't sound anything like their English equivalent. But "antennae" is the exact same frickin' word! It couldn't have been "radidamente"? Something, ANYTHING, but "antennae"??? Because if it was anything else I could have saved face and played it off: "oh yeah, he says that's some other big church... c'mon, let's get outta here..." But nope. No hiding what "antennae grande" means. We had a laugh over that one, lemme tell you. And by we, of course, I mean Glenn and Noreen. They were very nice about it, though; they only razzed me until the end of the next day or so. Of course, it's quite possible that all the beer had something to do with that...

I'd like to say, in my defense, that Antennae Grande is in fact the self-same Son of Church Thing I mention in the previous posts about my quest for Tibidabu. You know, how I was looking at Tibidabu/Church Thing, and trying to walk to it, and also saw this other Church Type Thing even further away? That I was going to try to walk to at a later time? Yeah, turns out that's Antennae Grande. Shut up. My point is, I obviously associate CT and AG with each other, which clearly explains why I would confuse the two of them. Clearly.

And not that it really matters, but the fact that Tibidabu was obscured at that point added to the confusion. If I'd seen both CT and AG, I would have clearly been able to identify CT as Tibidabu.

Clearly.

The Trip

2007-01-21T13:50:00.000+01:00

Well. I think I am recovered enough from The Trip to try to reflect upon it.

I will continue to refer to the episode as The Trip, which encompasses several aspects of the journey of last week:

1. Literal: My brother Glenn and his wife Noreen, visiting me, Jerod, in Barcelona.

2. Slang: The surreal quality to the entire experience.

3. Literal: Stumbling around Barcelona in a food and alcohol induced stupor, bumping into walls and tripping over curbs, dogs, etc.

I will try to present this day by day. I can't promise things will end up in the right order, but hopefully most pertinent and/or entertaining events will be covered.

Wednesday: already covered in the previous post, but here is a picture of the fabled, fierce, loathsome beast:

Thanks to Noreen for sending this picture! Check out her photo-journal of The Trip.

Thursday: we walked up to Park Guell, which is the big spot on top of the (guffaw) "mountain" in the upper part of the city. Gaudi lived in a house up there for a long part of his life and designed an entire pavilion. Even though their hotel was fairly close to the park, it is still a long uphill hike to get there, and then we went off-road to get to the highest point. By the time we exited we were parched and tired. I think at this point we went down to Sagrada Familia to check out more Gaudi (the huge church in the middle of town that he's most famous for), and then had a quick beer and bite in a bar in the 'hood. Glenn, defying all expectation, had an egg and potato sandwich instead of pork.

At this point, things get a bit fuzzy. I am almost positive we went downtown. Yes, yes, I'm sure of it. We walked around on the waterfront, just chillin' and taking in the sights of Barcelona on a Thursday night. We ended up at two different bars this night, each about as different as they could possibly be:

Bar 1: the local Catalonians' hangout. We walked in and the only people inside were a group of older gentlemen and a few ladies, drinking beer and playing dominoes in the back. We ordered some food and drinks, and just relaxed for awhile.

Turns out there was a floorshow. This one Catalonian gentleman was quite intoxicated and clearly upset about something. He stormed away from the group at the table and went to the bar to settle up his tab. There was an exchange between him and the bartender, during which he would occasionally throw his head to the side to curse out the group at the table behind him. He ended up throwing his money at the bartender and cursing him out too, for good measure.

This was obviously a semi-annual occasion. Everyone pretty much ignored him, though sometimes one person or another would taunt him in one of those dismissive, sing-songy voices. As he was finally leaving, they all actually serenaded him, with what I imagine amounts to the Catalan version of "na-na-na-na-hey-hey-hey-goodbye." He was throwing the devil horns all around the bar, which is the equivalent to him flipping the bird to the bar in the states. Really, it was quite entertaining. Glenn was determined to go back over the weekend, but we never did make it.

We ended up at the second bar on accident. We were going to just head to the metro station and then home, but by some trick of the light I accidentally lead us all the way down to the water (a good four blocks too far). It's not as bone-headed as it sounds, there really are some extenuating circumstances... but still. I won't make excuses. Movin' on to...

Bar 2: Irish bar! Guinness on tap! Good times!

There are a whole lot of island transplants in Barca. Lots of Brits and Irish. Lots of British and Irish bars. This one was full of people having fun. We had a couple rounds of Guinness, and then... it's almost too terrible to recount...

Jello shots. Yes, that's right. It was like I was in 8^th grade again. I mean, seriously, wtf? What kind of Irish bar worth its salt breaks out motherfuckin' jello shots on a Thursday night??? Turns out it was the owner's birthday. You'd think that would just entail IVs of Jamison or something... that probably happened later.

The best part was when the bartender set his entire tray of shots down at our table because he didn't want to carry them anymore. Glenn and I just looked at each other, shrugged in that way when brothers resign themselves to their collective fate, and did our best to address the situation. (Noreen was off at the bar chatting with some of the regulars.) It's actually kind of touching when you think about it: brothers, back to back, facing a bar full of enemies determined to ruin their night... in this case, it was in the form of a dozen vodka-infused shot glasses of jello.

Friday: a blur. I think we went to the Picasso museum and had a traditional Catalonian-meal at the oldest restaurant in Barca (second oldest in Spain). Big piles of seafood and cannelloni for starters, I had a delicious salmon steak with potatoes for the main meal. I believe Noreen had lamb and Glenn had the beef. Glenn and I drank the first wine of The Trip.

The Picasso museum was fine, they had a fun exhibit about the influence of the circus on Picasso. The evolution of the charlatans in his painting, how they mirrored his own evolution as an artist, etc. The museum doesn't have any of the pieces people would generally think about when considering Picasso, but it has a ton of his earlier works (he grew up in Catalonia).

Friday night, I honestly don't remember. I think we tried to go see a movie but nothing was playing we much wanted to see, and they won't let you into the theater after the movie starts. Seriously, it's like going to a symphony in the states; even if you're five minutes late they'll turn you away. In the end, I'm pretty sure we just went home sort of early to get our sleep for the weekend (G&N were still dazed from the jetlag and hadn't been sleeping much).

The weekend? Lots of food, wandering around town, seeing museums; I didn't participate in all of the activities of the weekend. Honestly, I was still recovering from Thursday night. Here's the thing; I really haven't been doing any of these sorts of things while I've been here. I've been over this ground some before; I haven't been drinking or eating out hardly at all, been meditating and writing and studying and walking around town during the day, in the sunshine, rather than at night. I would say that might be the nicest thing about this town, especially in the winter; it's easy to choose a nocturnal lifestyle, sleeping all day and going out all night, but it's equally easy to choose the opposite. Spending as much time as possible in the daytime sun, which necessitates going to bed at a semi-reasonable hour since the sun sets between 4-5 for a lot of December and January. I had been doing the latter for most of my trip; suddenly switching was like jumping into a mountain lake. Ultimately refreshing, but a shock to the system.

I know at one point we discovered the cuppa chocolate. This was truly an amazing discovery. It's real, delicious, homemade chocolate melted into a cup. Nothing like what you picture when you imagine "hot chocolate." And I'm sure that everyone reading this is completely familiar with what I'm talking about, but it was revelatory to me. One of the prime moments during the trip when I said to G&N, "I am really glad you guys came at the end of my trip rather than at the beginning." Cause if they'd come earlier, well... let's just say I would most likely be approaching two bills at this point.

Jesus, what else happened over the weekend?

At some point we decided that Glenn needed to buy an entire leg of ham. One of those enormous haunches you see hanging in restaurants and meatoriams ("carneceria" in Spanish). We were going to dress it up like a baby so Glenn could carry it around town with him and smuggle it onto the plane home. I envisioned something out of Midnight Express; Glenn with 20 pounds of pork duct-taped to his body, trying to get past the dogs at the airport. Are they trained well enough to ignore the deliciousness? Would they let him pass because he didn't smell like drugs? Seriously, it's a suspense thriller waiting to happen.

Uhhhh, lesse... oh yeah! The sampling of the greatest sandwich in the world. That might have been Friday actually. Glenn had read about this sandwich in an article written by our favorite cookbook author, Mark Bittman. (Yes, we have a favorite cookbook author. Shut up.) The reason I think it might have been Friday that we went is that I can't imagine Glenn being able to wait any longer to try it. But it could well have been Saturday.

In any case, Glenn thinks he might have had a Monte Cristo in 2003 that was better, but that the flauta d'ibéric definitely makes his top three (as long as we're not considering hotdogs as sandwiches in the debate). I wish I were making up any part of that previous sentence.

For my money, a fine sandwich. I had two bites and it was quite nice. The bread especially is great; we went back later and I had a cheese sandwich on the flute, which I enjoyed even more.

There is a famous market off La Rambla (turn west at the Dunkin' Doughnuts) that we hung out in a couple times. We had lunch there once, I remember that... friend artichoke, some fish, eggs...

The thing is, when you're in any sort of food-store with Glenn, you have to be very careful. You can't turn your back for a second, or else, poof! He's gone. We contemplated one of the kid-leashes for him at one point, after losing him for fifteen minutes, only to find him with his face pressed against the glass of the artisan cheese display.

How can I describe this? Glenn is, at heart, a connoisseur. He devours films, books, art... and food and drink. And cross-sections of all of these; books and films about food and drink, for example. And he is also an anthropologist of sorts; when he discovered something new, he gets kind of obsessed until he has a chance to sample it. This can take the form of a new soul-food joint in Chicago, or a piece of fruit he saw from afar in a huge open-air Barcelonian market.

It tasted like a grape, by the way.

Monday night was highlighted by a really great jazz show called WTF (which stands for exactly what you think it does). It was really cheap to get in, and the drinks were really, really expensive. Cheap bottle of beer, 5 euro. Shot of liquor, 9 euro. But the music was great and the space was very cool; mostly people sat on the floor, but there was room for about 30 people to sit in some pews that were set up along one wall. If you're ever in Barca on a Monday night and are looking for something fun, I would highly recommended checking it out (just google "wtf barcelona"). It starts and ends early, too, so you can go out after if you are so inclined.

Tuesday was the official "trying to fit in everything that we wanted to do but hadn't gotten around to yet because the week flew past" day. We started out going to a museum we had wanted to check out that was having an exhibit about the Republican Spring, a worker's movement in the 1930s, pre-Franco. When Noreen went off to check out another museum, Glenn and I took a return trip to Montjuic to try to get to the elusive cactus gardens.

Remember when I said Glenn tends to obsess about new stuff when he gets his mind set on something? The cactus garden is the prime example. He saw a reference to it on Saturday I think, and then mentioned it enough that Noreen and I teased him about it at every opportunity. Every time we'd get slightly lost, one of us would make the "oh jeez, he's trying to steer us to the cactus garden" joke.

Turns out it was closed for renovations. So we hopped the fence and skulked around inside like a couple of clumsy ninjas for awhile and then headed back to La Rambla to meet Noreen. We got there early and decided to have a beer (big surprise, I know), thereby fulfilling another of Glenn's life's goals; sipping an enormous beer while sitting on La Rambla.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention: Glenn and I shared a bottle of wine with lunch and then drank some weird fruity liqueur things at this store that sells goods made by local nuns. Two things: 1) yes, local nuns. 2) I mean "fruity" in every sense of the word.

This is important only because, after drinking beers all night (since it was their last night in town), I thought back dizzily to that bottle of wine and (especially) those fruity liqueurs. I had a moment where I wanted to give myself a handmade tattoo on my forearm, Memento-style: "never, ever drink fruity liqueurs mid-day if you're planning to sit in an Irish bar all night." The Trip ended as it began: sitting in an Irish bar drinking Guinness. Only this time we had enormous stacks of chocolate and a huge bag of candied fruit (don't ask, and don't ask). Just in case the sugar from all the alcohol wasn't enough for a proper hangover the next day.

Suffice to say Wednesday was interesting. It would have been fine, but I had to write my horoscopes. Really, all day to write 3-4 pages of content shouldn't be a problem. But when the computer screen is all wobbly and you don't regain your equilibrium until late in the evening, well, it's not as easy as it sounds.

And that's all I'm going to say about that.

Art thou bored? Snap into a flaka jaimie!

2007-01-11T09:03:00.000+01:00

Wanted to just send the latest and greatest really quick...

1) Finally went and saw Madrid. What a great town! I loved it. Even though I was only there for one afternoon and evening, I am definitely planning to go back. Not on this trip, but definitely within the next couple years. It has a completely different feel than Barca that I'd really like to explore. I'll try to spend more time explaining it later.

2) Return date set, and it's really close: beginning of February. Three weeks! I've been here over three months now, it's amazing how quickly the time has flown past. Sad to be leaving but also content that it's the right time. The energies are pulling me home, to figure out the next great adventure. So I'll be seeing a lot of you soon...

3) Just wanted to say real quick that the flight from Madrid to Barcelona was the most beautiful one I've ever taken. I love those little short-hop flights; an hour or two on the plane, feel like you just sat down then it's time to disembark in a new place, etc. On the flight to Madrid I had an aisle seat so I couldn't admire the view, but the flight back I got a window and it was amazing. I just gazed out the window the whole time. Taking off out of foggy Madrid, bursting out into the sun above the clouds and the watching the clouds from above, a few mountain peaks cropping out in the distance and the tops of clouds looking a vast snowfield you could walk on...the clouds dispersing over Spanish countryside colors I've never seen before, like an enormous abstract-geometrical piece of art...coming in over Barca, seeing the port and Montjuic overlooking the water, feeling that familiar sense of being home that I'd only ever felt with Seattle before...banking way out over the Mediterranean, down into the airport, over old farmsteads and dilapidated barns...

AND I fulfilled a nearly lifelong dream of mine. When I was quite young, probably 11 or 12, I read about the fact that all rainbows are circular, but given the angle of the light as it is refracted through the water molecules, if you're on the ground the horizon always gets in the way and cuts the rainbow in half. So the only way you can see a full, 360 degree rainbow is to see it from above. Whenever I'm on a plane on a sunny day over clouds, I try to keep a lookout for one... and on the flight back from Madrid I saw TWO. The first one I wasn't even looking for; I was just admiring the view and caught it for about three seconds. It felt like a mirage, I wasn't even sure if it was just a trick of the plastic window I was peering through. But the second one, the one I was watching for, lasted about ten seconds and was much clearer. It was really quite lovely, and completely surreal. Mostly because I've been quietly hoping for the moment for 20 years.

So yeah, all in all the most beautiful plane ride I've ever taken.

And finally...

4) Glenn and Noreen are in town! My brother and sister-in-law, two of my favorite people in the world. They got in yesterday afternoon, I met them at the airport, we went and dropped off their stuff at the hotel and then just hung around their neighborhood for the evening. It was two tons of fun. They are staying in a place about a mile from my apartment, and really close to a lot of cool places (I'll keep track of everything we do and write up a description next week).

The highlights of the evening:

a) Figuring out how to say "we would like your finest food stuffed with your second finest food" in Spanish ("querríamos su más fino de alimento estar llenado con su alimento segundo más fino.")

b) The first running gag we've got is Glenn's pork obsession. That boy loves him some pork. So we go to a bar for a snack and a drink, and are picking out some tasty morsels... I order us potatas bravas, which are the local pub far standard (basically fried potatoes covered in a mayonnaise sauce)... and Glenn points at these truly disgusting looking little sausage things. He claims he thought "they were some kind of roll"... but Noreen and I know better. So he gets his plate of mess, and Noreen and I start digging into the potatoes... and Glenn looks at us, and then down at his sausage platter... and asks me, "so you're not going to have any of this?"

Let's get one thing straight here: I haven't been eating meat for about two months now. I went over this territory before; it's not a moral decision or anything, just haven't felt the urge. And I've told Glenn this on many occasions; "you guys have to come, really, but just know that I won't be participating in your porkfest." I made it really clear that I would try certain dishes with meat on those occasions we went out, or if it was really special or something... but not very much and certainly not some wiggly little fried sausage things. But here's the best part...

Noreen asks Glenn how they are. He pauses, chews thoughtfully (really giving it some thought), and says, "they're like really really good Slim Jims." So that was pretty funny. I termed them "Jaimie Delgados," but Noreen knew a Mexican slang term for "skinny": "flaka." So we figured that "flaka jaimies" was a far better phrase for Glenn's snack.

still shinin'

2007-01-05T11:30:00.000+01:00

Man, you turn around and it's been a week and a half since you're added any content to your blog. Time flies etc...

So against all odds and history, even for here, the sun is still out and shining pretty much every day. It's in the low 60s if you're in the sun. Everyone I've talked to is completely blown away by the weather; it is NOT the norm here for winter. It's obviously a great big wonderful present for me from the universe...either that or global warming...

What... is... going... on... I've been here three months now! The trip is officially winding down. I will have to return home soon, to reclaim my cats before they would have to move into a house with my highly-allergic dad and our cat-chasin' dog...officially this deadline is the end of February, but I need to get home a fair bit before that, of course, to give myself enough time to figure out what comes next. I'll keep you posted.

Went for a walk the other day and stumbled across the river that skirts along the outer edge of the city... they don't make it easy to get to, as far as I can tell. I am planning to go check it out again, at a different part. I was doing my usual route to the Mediterranean, but once I got down there I turned right instead of left and just kept walking. Eventually got to the place where the river meets the sea. There were a lot of fishermen. I tried to walk along the river back up into town, but there are a lot of fences and freeways out that way so I kept running into blocks. Finally just turned back towards the city center and resolved to return again later.

Jeez, just realized that I haven't even said happy new year! HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY! 2006, we hardly knew ye... I hope everyone had a (mostly) safe and (exceedingly) wonderful holiday season, and I wish you all the very best for 2007.

Peace in the Middle East.

Just checkin' in...

2006-12-27T09:45:00.000+01:00

First of all, a huge RIP to the best of the best, Mr. Jimmy-Jams James Brown. A sad day in music history.

That being said...tell me this isn't pretty eerie: do you remember the last time a great, legendary African American performer died? Two years ago, Ray Charles? At age 73, same as James...

And who died w/in a week of Ray? Ronald Reagan, age 93 (he was sixty-freakin'-nine when he was elected president!)...and who just died today? Yup, that's right. Gerald Ford. 93 years old.

The best we can hope for now is some combination of 50-cent and Dubya, am I right?

Language update: I think I have progressed to the point of a small child...or a really really smart dog. I say this because, when I'm out walking around the city, I can often understand the elderly (who usually speak slower than their descendents) when they chat w/ their grandkids or dogs.

I mean, don't get me wrong; I'm not at the level of one of those super-smart four year olds or something. No, the kids I'm on par with will most likely end up in that 1^st grade classroom behind the furnace, with construction paper taped over the window in the door. I haven't seen any short-buses on the roads here, but if there are... then the kids I am at the same level of verbal understanding with would definitely be riding them.

At the same time, that's one hella clever dog I'm comparing myself to. That's like some Lassie or Rin Tin Tin kinda smart dog.

Speaking of dogs...did I mention that this city is a dog city? Just about everyone here seems to have at least one dog. Sometimes they are the big mamma-jammas, but for the most part it's those little ankle-biters. I always feel bad for them; it's such a big busy city and, even more than usual, these little guys just seem freaked out all the time. Hell, I understand how they feel.

Question: is there anything more uncomfortable-looking than a dog being forced to take a crap in the middle of the sidewalk? You can just see the look on their face: "I've been trying to hold this in until we at least got to some grass so I could hide it somewhat...but I can'ts holds it no mores!" You know they're thinking: "damn it! Every predator and prey within 10 miles of here now knows exactly where we are...and what I ate for damn breakfast! We're totally screwed!" They even fruitlessly try to scrape some sidewalk up with their back paws to try to bury their shame. Then, when their owner picks up the pile with a plastic baggy, the dog looks somewhat relieved (no pun intended): "Ah, good idea! If we take it with us, we'll at least confuse them some! Cause what loony-bin asshat would PICK UP AND CARRY HIS OWN FECES WITH HIM??? Smart master. Very smart."

Went out for a long walk yesterday, not aware of the fact that Catalonians also get the day after Christmas off...and it was a nice sunny day to boot...so people were EVERYWHERE. But it was cool, everyone seemed to be in a good mood. And I saw what I think is the coolest street performer I've ever witnessed. The genre of street performance that is most popular here is the "fake statue": people dress up as some sort of statue and usually, just, well, they usually just stand as still as possible. Statue-imitatin'. But yesterday people were pulling out all the stops. I saw a really cool Don Quixote and Sancho Panza team. They were actually interacting with the audience too. But the definite winner of the derby was the woman who was dressed up like a tree.

First of all, she was standing up on some kind of platform, so she was probably 8 feet tall. And her dress was made out of some kind of foam-rubber looking material, painted up brown and green, so it really looked like a trunk. And she was wearing this crazy headpiece, with branches and leaves all over it...and, I swear to god, she had dreadlocks running down the back that reached the ground. No kidding. I mean, it's possible they were just attached to the headpiece or whatever...but I don't think so. And there's no way she had 8 frickin' foot dreadlock-extensions. No, I think this woman really did just have 8 foot dreads. And if you know how dreads are formed, that's about 20 feet of undreaded hair. You know, come to think of it, it just doesn't seem possible. They would have broken off or something, and she certainly didn't look 70 years old (which is about how long it would take to farm dreads that long). Okay, you've really turned me around on this one; she was just going for the mossy look and they were attached to the headpiece.

In any case, it was really cool. She was just standing there, playing with one of those crystal orbs; you know the kind, where people roll them all up and down their arms and whatever? So she was going for some sort of tree-nymph look. And, of course, I didn't have my camera with me. Sorry...

Happy Pagan Winter Festival of Rebirth Day!

2006-12-22T11:50:00.000+01:00

An interesting phenomenon here that I haven't noticed in other cities (quite possibly because I avoid public places like the plague around Christmas) is what I've taken to calling "Las Santas Mugrientas": The Filthy Santas. These are random street people who sit on the sidewalk, dressed in full-on Santa regalia, and are just dirty as hell. Their suits are dirty, their faces, hands...personalities...this one guy, the prototypical example, has a beard...only it's gray and scraggly and gross. I'd like to think he was going for the "I got sooty coming down the chimney" look, but... I imagine him telling the little children to "come sit on Santa's lap and tell him what you want for Christmas" and shudder.
This makes it all the more clear why it's the Three Wise Men who bring gifts to children at Christmastime here. Cause if someone were to catch even a glimpse of a Filthy Santa at an impressionable age...jeez-o-man. I, for one, would be saying to myself, "wait a damn minute here...this motherfucker is going to be coming down my chimney in the middle of the night? Eatin' my cookies? Oh hell no." It would scare the crap out of me.
Oh yeah, happy solstice everyone! I actually get way more excited for solstice these days than Christmas...especially in Seattle. Days gettin' longer again...oh yeah...
Had an interesting solstice-related experience this week. On Sunday, I decided that I wanted to spend some more time this week in study; specifically religious/spiritual studies. Reading books of scripture, doing some research into the background of certain religions, etc. So on Monday I sit down to read this packet of Buddhist tracts that I've had for several years, but have never read beyond a page of mantras that I would occasionally use to augment my practice. So I'm reading through this packet, and it says that solstices and equinoxes are especially powerful energy days for meditation and spiritual study. I crinkle my brow for a moment...wait, when's the solstice? Having pretty much checked out of the Christmas Derby this year, it took me a minute to realize, holy crap! It's gotta be this Thursday or Friday, right? Yup, it's today.
So to recap: I had already decided to focus more on my spiritual studies this week. And then the first thing I read tells me that the week will culminate in a day of heightened spiritual energy. Pretty neat huh?
So I thumbed through the Tao De Ching again, read The Gospel of Thomas (one of the Apocryphal books of Christianity, very different from the accepted scripture and really cool), and have now set out to read parts of the New Testament. I figure it's Jesus's birthday...might as well check out his biography for once.
Some interesting research I've been doing is about the "historical Jesus" question. In my opinion, he's a mythic character designed to represent each person's individual path to enlightenment. Whether or not he was a real person is immaterial to me; he's a metaphor. There is a whole lot of material written about this topic of course; I won't go into all the details, arguments, etc. Suffice to say it's a pretty compelling argument, as far as I'm concerned.
So I'm reading some essays written by literalist Christians...and they have to run themselves in these circles trying to prove that the bible is history, when the straightest line is mystic. One guy says "the only possible explanation for how Jesus's life so completely mirrors Jacob's is that Jesus was Jacob reincarnated!" The next guy: "the fact that Joshua and Jesus are so eerily similar proves without a doubt that God is real and the bible is his literal message! How else could their life stories match up so closely otherwise?" Uhhhh...here's a theory guys; what if the guys who wrote the New Testament actually READ THE OLD TESTAMENT??? And maybe used some of the same imagery for their updated stories, because people were already familiar with them, etc.? No? Not possible?
Sorry, I'm not trying to be elitist or condescending, really I'm not. I have a lot of my own blind spots and assumed truths: wearing pants in public for example. I'm pretty well stuck on that one. And I'm definitely not mocking people who believe in God, are religious, etc., because it should be pretty obvious that I am myself committed to my own spiritual development...and part of that is accepting all the bat-shit loony ways other people want to express their beliefs. That being said...these fundies, man...they scare me more than Filthy Santa.
Anyways, that's where I am: sitting in Barcelona on the solstice reading The Book of Matthew. How 'bout you? What's going on for Christmas?

'sappenin'...

2006-12-17T11:23:00.000+01:00

A bit of backstory; before I left for my trip, I downloaded almost 200 GB of media from my buddy Aaron onto an external hard drive. Movies, tv shows, music, audio books...the works. So there's all this unconsumed stuff I've had with me the whole time, and I've barely cracked the cover of any of it. Most central to this morning's story is that there is a whole bunch of jazz music that I haven't listened to yet.

So this morning I'm chillin', reading some news, having a bit of breakfast, and I throw on the headphones to drown out the incessant din of any number of neighbors living their lives. And I decide to try something new... this jazz guitarist called "Mahavishnu." I won't go into the details of why he's called that or anything; but I had done a bit of research and decided to give it a try. I didn't get very far into it...it's okay so far. Just enough like Grant Green/Jimmy Smith to make me say, "okay...yeah, I can dig it..." but juuuust enough like ELP to make me say, "oh hell no." So the jury's still out.

Here's the point: the opening note of one song sparked "No Surprises" to pop into my head. And I immediately thought, "holy crap, that's what I need to be listening to right now! OK Computer!!!" I had to dig out the hard drive and hook it up to my laptop, but it's worth it. Ahhhhh...

So I know what a lot of you are thinking right now. "Ah damn, is he really gonna do it? Is he really gonna be the 10 million and 2^nd shoegazer who writes the loving homage to OK Computer?" The short answer is no. Not right now at least. Suffice to say, I am not someone who would argue with those people who place it squarely at the top of the all-time-greatest-album list. But that's been done, what? 10,000,001 times before, right? So I'll leave it alone...for now.

Not sure why I felt compelled to bring that up. But I thought you should know.

It's funny; I had a whole, regular, "here's the haps" blog all lined up for yesterday. But then I got tagged and ended up writing that whole long thing...plus something for Crazy Melvin about baseball...and was all written out by the time it was over. So the regular blog had to wait...and it will still have to wait cause I'm leaving. Not that I had to tell you that of course...

Okay, so now it's tomorrow. That's today, for those of you reading of course...but most likely not the same today as me. Even if it is the same today (Sunday), you are most likely asleep as I write this (2am PST). Ah time. Gotta love it...

Something I've been meaning to do for awhile now: give a big shout-out to my home-skillet Dave "Capn' Surly" Hogan, an amazing photographer. I've added a link to his online photo collection in my links section. I highly recommend you go check it out, he's really really good and should be doing it for a living.

More random news:

One day last week I was down at the shore and heard these two little Spanish kids running around singing, "hey, ho! Let's go! Hey, ho! Let's go!" It took me a second to recognize it, but then..."holy crap! Those kids are singing the Ramones!" I hoped against hope that they'd break into the rest of the song...but nope, just Hey ho let's go over and over. Still pretty cool.

Been a good week all around. I'm kind of sick at the moment, but that's to be expected: I see people sniffling and coughing and sneezing everywhere I go, and what with the new climate, new diet, new everything, really, it is to be expected that my body would freak out a bit.

Don't you love it when you discover something new and amazingly cool after months and months in a place? I went up to the top of this other big "mountain" (guffaw) the other day; I think it's probably the coolest place I've been yet. But, it's also the newest cool place I've been, so it's hard to be completely objective at this point. One of the things that was really neat about it was that, from up there, I could see the other vantage points from which I've surveyed the city over the past few months. I could remember vividly looking out towards the hill I was standing on and wondering what it would look like standing over there, looking towards the hill I was on...and then I found my way up there. Also, there are several museums at various elevations on the hill, including a military museum at the very top of the hill. It's housed in an old medieval fortress, right on a bluff overlooking the water. So you could stand at the edge of one of the castle walls, look out over the Sea, and imagine hordes of Moors landing their boats on the beach and swarming up the cliffs. Frightening and amazing.

5 things

2006-12-15T13:45:00.000+01:00

Okay, so...my new blog buddy, Justin, has "tagged" me in a game of virtual...well, tag. I'll let him explain it:

So there's this really great game going around the" internets". Whats this game? Well you write 5 things about yourself the general public doesn't know about you and then you tag someone.

Make sure all body parts are securely inside the vehicle, here we go...

1. Random music-related facts about Jerod you might not know: I play the drums and guitar. My first band was called "Hooked On Phonics." The first "real" band I was in was called "Captain Puget," and our one and only "album" was called "Stupid Like a Fox." My most recent project was nameless, but the idea that was most seriously considered was "Well Worth the Dig." It's a line from a poem attributed to the Marquis de Sade, that we found in the movie "Quills" starring Geoffrey Rush as the notorious French nobleman. The poem was about necrophilia...I'll leave the rest to your imagination.

2. Random literature-related facts about Jerod you might not know: I majored in creative writing in college and had four poems published before my 23^rd birthday. Then I stopped writing poetry. So there you go. A fact that also could also fit into #1 is that I've rewritten the lyrics to "No Woman No Cry" in an homage to the Flintstones called "No Wilma No Cry." If there is enough interest I might just post the lyric on Crazy Melvin. Oh who am I kidding, I'll post'em there anyways.

3. Random movie-related facts about Jerod you might not know: "Good Will Hunting" is one of my all-time favorite movies. I always cry at the end of "Pieces of April." (Breaks my heart that Tom Cruise's fruity little club got to Katie Holmes.) In college I appeared in a ½ hour vignette called "Dojo Dogs" as Naked Ninja, wearing only a black mask and a long, greasy, black wig-codpiece. The movie included two gratuitous ass shots. And some naked snow angels. I was prepared to go Full Monty, but for the sake of the R rating I demurred.

4. Random pet-related facts about Jerod you might not know: I have three pets: a dog and two cats. The dog's name is Baxter, a name that was inherited from the breeders from whom we bought the dog, and to which I was vehemently opposed. First, because the only Baxter people know is Meredith Baxter-Birney, Elyse Keaton on "Family Ties." And what self-respecting dog needs that hanging around his neck like an albatross? And second, I am convinced that, if you walk out into a park and start yelling "Baxter," everyone will think you're yelling "Bastard." Which now that I think of it is actually pretty cool. Okay, strike that second gripe about the name; in fact, I'll commit to this right now: my next dog will be called "Hover Clucker." It's settled.

My cats are not technically named after Boris and Natasha from "The Bullwinkle Show." Boris's name is actually spelled "Boros" and is short for "Oroboros Charlie Babbit." Oroboros is that mythical snake-eating-its-tail icon, which was cropping up in my life when I first got Boros...and he also enjoyed chasing his tail as a kitten. "Charlie Babbit" is the name of the character from "Flowers For Algernon." Boros is brain-damaged, you see. He's my little special-needs kitty...wait, scratch that. He's my little "kitty with special-needs." We talk in creature-first language on this blog; he's a kitty first and special-needs second. Not vice versa.

Anyhoo, Boros's back end don't work so well. He's wildly entertaining and not the least bit daunted by the challenges he faces. The best metaphors I've come up with for his particular condition are: 1) a firetruck, with one fireman in front driving the main truck and another needed in back to steer the rear, which sometimes will fly around seemingly out of control when the truck turns a corner too fast or something. 2) One of those two-person horse costumes, where the person in the haunch-half can't see what's going on and just has to follow the head and forefeet part of the costume. 3) A stegosaurus. Just cause it supposedly had a second brain at the base of its tail since the one up front wasn't enough.

I had Boros for two years before I got Natasha. She is, in fact, named after Natasha Fatale. I got her, and was walking around trying to figure out what to name her. I kept saying in my head, "Boros and...Boros and..." when the obvious hit me. It really fits her well, too. When she was young she was dubbed "Naughty" because she was a little troublemaker. But as she's gotten older she's become quite possibly the sweetest little creature I've ever encountered. A near -perfect example of the love-bug -girl-kitty.

And yes, I am "that single guy who lives with two cats." I'm not gay though. Really. So just shut up! Alright, that's enough, I'll lick everyone in the whole joint, bring it on! One at a time or all at once, it don't make no difference to me!!!

Seriously though, just because I happen to have two cats doesn't mean that I like...

Okay, real quick aside here: specifically for my mom, but also for anyone else of a semi-sensitive nature (grandmothers, conservative politicians, the "real" pope, etc.). I am about to make an extremely crude and offensive comment here. I want to warn you right now that, if you don't want to read this terrible, terrible thing I'm about to write, you should seriously skip over the next paragraph. Honest-to-god, no joke. And if you don't heed my warnings and read on, and are shocked and appalled, and turn red to the tips of your ears at work, well...you can't say I didn't warn you and I don't want to hear about it. I will even add some nice, calming pictures above and below the offending paragraph so your eyes don't "accidentally" wander across the phrase in question.

Okay, where was I? Ah yes, here we go: (ahem): just because I happen to have two cats doesn't mean that I like to have balls on my chin.

One more note about Boros (that also sort of fits into #1 in its way): a couple years ago, when that terrible Justin Timberlake song was made into a McDonalds' commercial and was being played all the time, I co-opted it and applied it to Boros. Of important note for this anecdote is the fact that one of Boros's nicknames is "Bubba." So I'd be sitting there petting him, and I'd sing, "buh-buh-buh-buh-buh...I'm rubbin' him."

5) Random geek-related facts about Jerod you might not know: I love grammar. I enjoy doing math in my head. (Which actually comes in handy, especially here: I can convert Celsius to Fahrenheit, kilograms to pounds...you name it.) I'm a 21^st level ninja-cowboy-astronaut with a million hitpoints and maximum charisma. I mostly eat beans.

So there you go. Five Jerod-related categories of facts that you might not have known. Most of you probably knew at least several; but I would be very very surprised if any of you knew them all.

Okay, now to tag some peops of my own...I guess I'll hit my boys Eric T. and James Z. from Crazy Melvin...Tara from Terra's Playground...and Admiral Zing for good measure.

Word.

Take two

2006-12-10T11:09:00.000+01:00

Well. What a week. The universe surely will conspire to keep you humble, won't it? Man. I won't go into all the details, but suffice to say; some humbling experiences this week. Language-oriented, spatially-oriented...

Okay, I'll explain some. First of all; yesterday I set out again on a trek to reach CT (Churchy Thing). I made a concerted effort to pay closer attention this time to where I was, where I was going, where I'd been, etc. And at one point in the trip, I finally figured out the mystery of what the hell happened on Monday. Let's just say that, on Monday, had I continued walking another ½ mile or so from the point where I decided to turn around and head back, I would have blown my little mind. It's definitely for the best that I didn't; it was hard enough on my ego when I just thought I'd stumbled around the city and ended up on the back-side of the park on the hill. By yesterday I'd gotten over it enough to be able to face the sad, ugly truth; I was truly, truly, nowhere close to where I thought I was. And let's just leave it at that for now. I was able to laugh at myself though. So that's good.

Enough of that! Let's talk about the expedition proper! It was a good walk. I got much closer to CT, close enough to realize a) it's much farther away that it seems, and it seems pretty far, and b) I don't think you can really walk up there. I'm pretty sure you have to take a bus, or drive, or something. The road is not a walking path.

But I got pretty close; at my closest point, I realized that there's some sort of amusement park up there. SWEET! I saw the tops of several rides: Ferris wheel, a kiddy roller coaster of some sort, that sort of thing. Honestly? I think I got close enough. I have been satiated. Oh yeah, also: I think the actual CT is some sort of hospital. So there you go.

But the walk was nice, and actually included a fair bit of honest-to-god off-roading. That was a lot of fun. I winded my way up the hill that I would have to traverse to reach CT, and right near the top I went straight up this overgrown trail through trees and tall grass to a false pinnacle. I'd guess it was 100 feet, pretty steep. I'd say that was the highlight of the walk, but I figured out the layout of the city a bit more, too. I had been thinking that the city was rimmed by hills, but it turns out (I think) that the hills form a sort of semi-circle in the middle of the city, of which Parc Guell (the "mountain" (snicker) from which I originally saw CT) is one of several. And I figured out a more direct route from the vantage point I reached at the end of yesterday's trip, so in the future I will probably use that as the first leg of a different walk I make to parts unknown.

What else...it finally rained here last week. That was good. (And yes, I can hear most of you laughing...that bitter, mirthless laugh of the Seattlite in December.) But it was nice to have the rain; the city actually smelled kinda good for a few hours...

But, it's sunny again now, so I'm going to go for a walk. Not sure where, though I imagine I'll meander down towards the water (cause the city slopes that way...you know).

**********

Okay, I have to say it; you know that last line, the parenthetical aside directly above? I know that should be the end of this post. I feel it very strongly. But I can't help myself. Because that line is from the same Simpsons episode as "The Pope of Chilitown." So if you didn't believe me before, you can believe me now; much as Hebrews believe that the entire universe is contained in the Torah...so to do I believe the same about that episode of the Simpsons.

That is all.

glory be

2006-12-07T16:31:00.000+01:00

Sometimes, if you are really paying attention, the universe will provide you with gifts of delight and wonder when you least expect them. Today, as I was walking downtown, I happened to look up and see a sign. It was for a store called "Felices Fiestas," the happy party store. Only at the exact moment I looked up, there was a tree trunk in my line of vision that blocked out the L and the I...that's right, there was a Feces Fiesta going on in downtown Barcelona today.
Wish you coulda been there.

dummer

2006-12-04T14:43:00.000+01:00

Well now, what's going on? Sunday was quite successful. I finally got down to making hummus, and it turned out real well. I hand-ground the sesame seeds with a mortar and pestle (yeah!), made tahini, mashed the chick peas gradually into the mix, added the lemon juice, gradually added olive oil, some water so it wasn't so chalky, minced garlic, salt, pepper, and cumin. The whole process took less than an hour, and I have a ton of it.

It's been getting damn cold here the past week, like wake-you-up-at-5am-because-of-your-nosesickle kind of cold...but the last few days have been fabulous again. Sunny and warm. Long walks around town in a t-shirt weather. I could even have gotten away with shorts, if not for the fact that the sun goes down early so it's easier to get caught out when it starts to get colder...

And then today...what can be said about today. Another "Jerod is a dork" story. (What is it about Mondays? Last Monday was the fire alarm debacle.) This one, quite honestly, smarts. And not just because I slightly tweaked my ankle walking down a dirt path. I don't even want to talk about it, but in the interest of scientific accuracy I will eat (another) slice of humble pie and tell it like it is.

So I mentioned I wanted to walk up to the churchy-thing on the distant hill, right? Okay, today I decided, at about 10am, to go for it. Packed a lunch, threw my stuff in the backpack, and set out. My plan was to first travel to the spot I had first noticed the CT (churchy thing), get a general direction, and then make my way there as directly as possible. The problem is, between the two hills is still a big bustling city. It seems from the top of the hill that it's more residential, that the buildings might not be quite so tall and, therefore, that it'd be easier to orient to the CT as I went.

WRONG! Once you get down off the hill it's basically the same as anywhere else I've been in the city, and I gradually lost my bearings...long story short, I ended up (several hours later) ascending the back side of Parc Guell...which is the park from which I first espied the CT. I mean, I knew I'd backtracked; at one point I was getting tired and discouraged and, rather than get completely lost (off the map, I might add), I doubled back in hopes of finding my way to higher ground and finding the scent again. Well, I did that...only I completely doubled back and ended up making a big U. At least it was the opposite end of a fairly large park...oh who am I kidding. When I got partway up the hill and realized where I was I shook my head in that way that can only mean "damn. I'm an idiot."

Otherwise, there isn't a whole ton to report...I'm living. I've found my way into a great routine, one that fills every hour I'm awake with interesting activities. But most of the days are similarly filled, and so any report of them would end up being redundant. The days turn into weeks, and now the weeks have even begun to turn into months. I've been here almost eight weeks! And eleven more in front of me. I'm excited to see where it all ends up, but I'm equally excited to experience each individual day. To watch the slow benefits of each day build up into noticeable effects at the end of the week, the month, etc. Soon to be the end of the year...yeesh. 2007? Really? I feel like I missed a year somewhere in there.

Where do you want to go?!?

2006-11-27T17:47:00.000+01:00

So how was everyone's four day weekend? For me, obviously, it's a misnomer, as I just put the finishing touches on the eighth week of my ongoing weekend. It reminds me of one of my all time favorite song lyrics, from the classic "Gimme the Finger" by Black Sheep: "And everyday is Saturday my friend. Go to sleep, wake up, yo! It's Saturday again!" That's my life right now. So go ahead...gimme the finger.

Anyways, last time we spoke I think I was just checking in on Thanksgiving morning. That afternoon, I walked up to the big park on top of the "mountain" (snicker) from where you can see the whole city. First, the negatives (and this is the last time I'll mention it): this is one smoggy city. Holy man. It's like L.A., in that it's a big, bustling, industrialized metropolis and it never rains. It's the trade-off to having sunny days with temperatures in the lower-mid 70s at the end of November. But you don't really notice it until you're up above the city, looking down across it, and it's almost difficult to see the Mediterranean.

Anyways, it was very pleasant up there, and I sat in the sun and studied Spanish for awhile. I had pasta for Thanksgiving dinner, with a bunch of these delicious mushrooms they pick in the forests around the city, and a green salad. The only traditional American thing I did was watch some of the football games on my computer. It's funny; I was explaining to Oisin why there were football games on, how it was a tradition in the States to have a couple games on Thanksgiving to watch after the meal or whatever, and he found it very odd that we'd have sporting events on tv on the second most important holiday of the year. Then I had to explain that there were always basketball games and college football on Christmas, too.

Friday: I decided I needed to ramp up my walking. To go on a really long walk. Double digit miles. So I picked out a nice circuitous loop down to the water, farther west than I usually go, and along the original Roman road that cuts through the middle of the city. The thing is, usually I assiduously avoid going out in public on the day after Thanksgiving, for fear of accidentally stepping between the last Tickle Me-Cabbage Patch-Playstation-whatsamajigger and a ravenous hoard of soccer moms and getting trampled to death. But this year, I was able to stroll throughout the city, into the main shopping district even, with nary a problem. No more people on the streets than usual. Add to that the beautiful weather, and it was a pretty cool day.

The "weekend" (snicker) was chill; Saturday I didn't really do much, and then on Sunday I ended up at Parc Guell again. Not on purpose, really; it's a big park, and I set out just for a walk but ended up at the edge of the park, in a completely different part. I was at a vantage point from which you could see in all directions, and I figured out a couple more long walks I'm going to check out in the coming weeks. The one I'm really excited about is to the top of this other hill, way off in the distance, with some kind of church-type thing perched up there. I say "church-type thing" because it's impossible to tell whether something is a church from a distance. All the old buildings look like churches. Many of the old hospitals have spires, for instance. So it could very well be a grocery store for all I know. I will file a detailed report once I've completed the hike.

Today was funny; a good day overall, and lots of adventure. Oisin recommended I check for the odd groceries I want at this huge American-style grocery store called "Corte Ingles"; specifically he said I could most likely find Tahini there, which I need to make hummus. So I walk over to the store, and it's a six story department store with an enormous grocery store in the bottom. Now, let me tell you something about me right here: I love grocery stores. I love to walk through each aisle and figure out where stuff is, make sure I do an inventory so I know what my options are...just get acquainted with them. Especially when I move into a new place. It helps me get oriented in my new surroundings to know where I can what. So you can imagine my reaction when I entered this enormous grocery store that held the promise of all the things I had been missing from home. And it did not disappoint.

They didn't have tahini (try explaining that in a foreign language: "uhh...it's a...cream...made from sesame seeds...toasted...), but they did have toasted sesame seeds so we're in business there. In addition, they had refried AND black beans (neither of which I've seen anywhere else in the city), tofu, and they had gluten-free products, too. So that's exciting. C'mon, admit it, it's exciting! No? Just me? Fine then.

Anyway, I buy my stuff, and I'm getting ready to leave, when I realize I have no idea how to get back out. When I first got there, you see, I went all the way to the top floor of the department store trying to find the grocery before I figured out it was in the basement (shut up), so once I finally found the grocery there was no way to retrace my steps back to the outside world. The first exit I encountered was very clearly an emergency exit; the little guy running for the door was on fire. Just kidding. But it was very clearly marked, regardless. So I moved on...and the next exit I found had no such markings on it. There were two doors propped open leading out, and then another door with little speedy dude on it. I swear to god, nowhere on this door did it say anything resembling "emergencia" or anything remotely like it. I know this because I checked very carefully, fearful of setting off an alarm. So what do you think happened when I pushed the door open, hmmmm?

(Wait for it...waaaait for it....)

Yeah, you're right. Alarm central. Sucks! So this woman comes running out, and she's babbling like a cartoon character in this high-pitched voice. I'm sure it was along the lines of "what is wrong with you, you silly man! Can't you tell that this completely unmarked door is a fire escape?" I stare at her blankly, quietly panicking on the inside. I may have even peed a little. Anyways, suddenly she stops, and is just looking at me. Expectantly. Like she just asked me something. I maintain the blank stare, as I have absolutely no idea what "BIH BIH BIH BIH BIH!!!!" means, in any language. (I swear to god, she sounded like Beaker, Dr. Bunson Honeydew's lab assistant on The Muppet Show.) Finally she says, impatiently, "adonde vas?!?"

ADONDE VAS!!! Of course! "To where do you want to go!" I totally understood that!!! Suddenly I'm very excited. We're communicating, she and I! I try to give her a hug, but she's in no mood to fraternize. So now, picture it: Jerod, still panicky, nervous, excited...

So I try to say, "outside." Fuera. That's an easy one. But the thing you have to remember is that I have absolutely no confidence in my language abilities. What almost invariably happens is I'll be in a position where I want to say something, but when the time comes my brain will get a bad cases of the dars. As in "daaaaar...." And then when I walk away I will inevitably throw together a sentence in my head that is exactly what I should have said. See, I'm definitely getting better; but without the confidence ("me falta seguridad" is how you describe it) it's worthless in real-world situations. Okay, back to the story... you're still with me, right? Fire alarm, "Adonde vas," etc.?

So I say "fuerte." Which means "strong." You know, like a fort? Fuerte?

At this point, we're going to try a little guided meditation. Imagine you're working in a crappy American mall in some random US city, and you hear the emergency exit go off, and come running, and it's some dumb kid with a kind of wild look in his eyes, staring around blankly. And you say something to him like, "what the hell, man, what were you doing? Where are you trying to go???" And he just gapes at you. There might even be a faint scent of urine. "Great," you think. "I always get the live ones." So then you repeat yourself, nice and slowly, carefully enunciating each syllable..."where are you try ing to go." And he blurts out, "dah...stronnguh!"

So yeah. That was me today. Shut up.

On the plus side, I did get all my exciting new groceries. After I got home and put them away, I decided I had to go find a nice quiet place somewhere, to sit and read in the sun for awhile. There's another park in the same basic area as Park Guell; it's the same set-up, paths leading up the hill to the top from where you can see the whole city, but it's smaller and a lot less crowded. Perfect.

So I get to the top, and sit for awhile and read, and then I'm coming back down a different way than I went up. And there's this little dog-leg off the main path to a nice view, so I walk down to have a look...and it leads right to this 50 ft. cliff. No warning, no signs, no railing...just cliff. But it's still cool, you know? Big cliff in the middle of the park? So I walk right to the edge and look over, admiring the fall, when what do I spy right at the edge of the cliff, just sitting in the grass? It's a 5 euro bill! Sweet! Don't know if you have been following the conversion rate lately, but that's like a hundred bucks anymore. Nothing to scoff at.

Real quick in closing: here's one more reason (I believe it's the definitive one, in fact) why the grammar checker in Microsoft Word sucks. In that very first sentence of this entry, way back there at the top (go ahead, have a look. I'll wait), it says "how was everyone's." I keep the grammar check on because it will often give me a perverse pleasure to see how messed its suggestions are. But this is the most messed up I've yet encountered. I right click on the phrase and it offers, "Everyone was's." No shit. And I always imagine the grammar check is like one of those really annoying people who constantly corrects everyone when their spoken language and slang don't match officially accepted rules of written language...so in this case, it would say, "ahem. I believe you mean, 'how everyone was's four day weekend.'"

Wait, let me check this...I do still have this set to English, right? Not some screwed-up "this language follows none of the accepted rules of any written dialect" setting? Nope, still English.

So there you go.

Real nice

2006-11-24T09:53:00.000+01:00

Okay, this is great and it's free and it helps people and trees and animals and everything else.
The Hunger Site
You just click on that big ol' button there in the middle of the page and it donates some money to organizations that provide food to underpriviledged people all over the place. For reals. That's it. You can do it every day, too.
There are six sites tabbed on that page; each one provides a different service that you can support by clicking the respective big ol' buttons in the middle of the pages.
Also, that comic strip I mentioned a few entries ago? Get Your War On? Well, dude has two books out, and all the author royalties go to a mine-sweeping team in Afghanistan.
In my opinion, this is the best thing going. Ruthless, hilarious, angry as hell, filthy, progressive, passionate...it's got it all. Great idea for Christmas gifts, no? Great idea of Christmas gifts YES. For instance, grandma would love these jazzy little numbers:

So there you go. Two good causes. Word.

Update

2006-11-23T10:06:00.000+01:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! It will probably come as a big surprise that it's not quite as important a holiday here as it is back home. I think the general consensus, if it comes up at all, is that they should have just let us all starve that first winter.

Some of you may have noticed that the frequency of blog entries here has decreased.

Okay probably not.

Regardless. I have still been writing. I have posted several things to Crazy Melvin this week. And I'm still writing horoscopes. Both are linked in the sidebar.

Oh yeah, came up with a little turn-of-phrase while writing horoscopes yesterday that I'm quite happy with: second-hand stress. See, it's like second-hand smoke, it's bad for your health even if you're just around people who are stress-monkeys! Nice, huh?

I expect my propers (if not royalties) if you find yourself using that one.

Inward turn

2006-11-17T15:11:00.000+01:00

I have definitely been moving in some different directions recently. I made a conscious decision over the weekend to really focus on eating well and exercising more; I had been doing well, but I wanted to really kick some ass this week. Build momentum for a couple weeks, then revisit goals and clarify what I want for the last few months of my visit.

That being said, I don't have a whole lot to report. I've been walking a lot still, gone jogging a few times, and have greatly simplified my diet.

I've really been moving inward more and more lately. I've started meditating again, for the first time in awhile, and it's affected the way I look at a lot of things. When I eat now, for example, I make sure to chew my food really well and focus on what I'm consuming. As a result I've been able to eat a lot less and still feel full. Additionally, since I've resumed meditating I have had no interest in eating meat. It hasn't been a conscious decision; after eating the last piece of pork I just stopped. For the past several days I've actually gone almost completely vegan...there is probably some eggs in the pasta I've been eating but that's it. Again, I haven't made any decision; never once felt like I shouldn't eat meat, like there was something wrong with it or whatever. It just didn't appeal to me. So I've been eating a lot of rice and beans, pasta, lots of fruit and vegetables. But again, since I've been concentrating on efficient consumption, it hasn't been a problem to get all the nourishment I need.

So where am I going with this. Not sure. I'm just trusting my instincts right now. The time will come when a nice slab of pork or chicken will sound good, but for now I'm riding the wave. Anyone know where you buy tofu in Barcelona?

This inward turn is of course not helping my language acquisition project. I'm sure the two are intricately intertwined; I am intimidated to get out there and talk to people, so I compensate by becoming completely introverted. At the same time, I go through phases like this all the time: I am honestly in general a quite solitary person. And after the social hurricane that was my life this past year, culminating in the month before leaving Seattle, I think I just needed a break. Ironically, I came to the party capital of Europe to get it.

Of course, the biggest difference between living somewhere and vacationing somewhere is the money factor. If you've got a week or two somewhere and then are returning home to your job, you can afford to live it up. You can go out every night and hit all the attractions in the city. But if you're living there, especially if you're not working much like me, you notice how expensive it is to go out to the bars and restaurants and clubs.

Honestly though, I've very content with where I am right now. I am living simply, cooking my own food every meal and eating well, working on various projects I now have time to pursue, and slowly but surely learning Spanish. (More slowly than surely, but still. I'm progressing.) And I am getting to know the physical city pretty well, too. I have been adding a couple streets a week to my memory banks. That's how I think of getting to know Barcelona; how many streets could I find my way home from if I were dropped somewhere on it at random? Since I've been living in my own place, approaching four weeks now, I am up to about eight. Not counting all the little side streets in my neighborhood, of course.

What else is happening. I think I'm going to go check out some Flamenco music at the school of jazz tonight. They have a nice club where the students can perform, they have an open mike jam session once a week, but I've never checked out the Flamenco. Figure it's about time to see the traditional local music though.

I went down to the Mediterranean again yesterday. I'm drawn there at least once a week. It reminds me of home and is a nice long walk to boot. Yesterday I was sitting on the beach when the sun came through the clouds and lit everything up, water glistening and sand sparkling...and I was struck by the beauty of pigeons, that phosphorescent gleam of their neck feathers, as I watched a couple walk around on the beach. Really, what it reminds me of is the colors of oil on top of a puddle of water after the first rain in awhile. I like that metaphor, as well, because both images are ones that many people find disgusting or at least unappealing. I think this is because both remind us of our transgressions as a species, our appalling waste and disregard for the planet...people hate pigeons because they eat garbage. Well, they would eat other things, but they've adapted to living among humans and can survive well because we generate so frickin' much garbage. Imagine where we'd be without pigeons and rats and seagulls and raccoons and all the other scavengers...we'd be up to our asses in our own waste if there wasn't an entire group of animals that came along and cleaned up after us.

Sorry to get on my soapbox. Suffice to say, I think pigeons are lovely. I have a sweet, sad crow story, too, but I'll save that for another day.

What John Kerry shoulda said

2006-11-13T10:49:00.000+01:00

I was reminded by a recent post on Crazy Melvin of this completely amazing online comic strip called Get Your War On. As you can see, it starts waaaay back when, in the days of John Ashcroft...see, this guy was outraged even before we invaded Iraq!

Appendix to TPoCNBSGtCW

2006-11-12T12:58:00.000+01:00

In looking over my no-b.s. guide to city walkin', I realize that it could easily be interpreted that I am saying I'm such a badass you could drop me in the middle of a strange city with a map and I'd be able to find my way to a defined destination. Actually, my intention was to say the exact opposite of that; that I'm the kind of person who can look at a map and figure out a place to walk, and then end up going in the exact opposite direction because I am confused by the layout of the map. My point isn't that I'm hyper-oriented; rather, it's that any idiot, even one with no discernable sense of direction, can make it work with the proper tools and preparation.

Additionally, I neglected to mention the fourth means of transport available in Barcelona (and the rest of Europe, as I've been told): scooters. Man, these things are everywhere. I see them as sort of a combination of the traits we attribute to bicyclists and pedestrians in the states: like bikes they'll shoot up the side of cars stopped at traffic signals or stuck in congestion, and also like bikes they have no compunction about jumping up onto the sidewalk if the streets are completely blocked. Also, you can't walk down the street without going past dozens of scooters (and honest-to-dog motorcycles to boot) parked on the edge of the sidewalk. But like pedestrians, you see literally every kind of person riding a motorbike down the street. No sooner will you catch a guy in a three-piece suit zooming by when a 16 year old hippie kid with dreadlocks will almost run you down on the sidewalk.

Finally (and this is the last one), I forgot to mention the eternal bane of city walkers the world over: the slow-moving urban groups who insist on walking three abreast on the sidewalk and are completely oblivious to the fact that they're an impassible convoy of wide-assery. Jesus god these people drive me nuts. Let me say right up front, I have no problem with old people going for walks down the street. I don't think, as Homer reads in his Ross Perot pamphlet, that they should be "isolated and studied, so it can be determined what nutrients they have that might be extracted for our personal use." I am in fact generally touched when I see a little old couple shuffling down the street arm in arm. But when there are three or more of them, standing in a group or weaving slightly in a line on the sidewalk, and I have to step out into the street or re-enact the Donald O'Conner wall-climb from the "Make'em Laugh" number in "Singin' in the Rain," well... let's just say that I get a little steamed. Same goes for stroller-pushers, bored teenagers, businessmen...okay, ESPECIALLY businessmen, because I always imagine that what is going through their smug little heads is that they're better than everyone else, they make more money, and so therefore they can take up as much of the sidewalk as they want. That's when the donkey punch comes in.

What else is going on...oh, finally got my haircut. I was approaching, ironically enough, the mullet-by-inaction...that involuntary mullet you get by not getting your hair cut in a timely fashion. Shows you what fear will get you in this world: I was so nervous of getting an accidental mullet at the barbershop that I was farming an accidental mullet anyways. In the end, I just had Oisin use his barber clippers and razored the whole damn thing. Not bald, mind you, but as short as my hair's been since...well, since whenever, I think. The top is the longest attachment on the clippers, the sides and back one shorter. I have pictures, don't worry. And I haven't forgotten about that photo-journal, either. Should be coming soon...

The Pope of Chilitown's no-b.s. guide to city walkin'

2006-11-10T12:29:00.000+01:00

I've always loved to walk. It's my favorite form of travel. I've never been one for bikes; I tend to zone out most of the time, and things come at you too quickly when you're riding a bike. I need more time to react. Walking is the perfect speed for me; I'm able to do some of my best thinking, and don't have to worry about getting smashed by a car or having to stop so suddenly I end up skidding along the concrete. I definitely have a profound respect for bicyclists, mostly because they seem to be universally despised, by pedestrians, drivers, and, I can only assume, other bicyclists. They're in the way of impatient car drivers, and are constantly nearly clipped by side mirrors as cars speed around them on the road. Ride on the sidewalk, and pedestrians dramatically jump out of the way and give them surprised and angry glares. There's no winning, and that's what I admire about them. The attitude is one of near-sneering arrogance, a me against the world kind of view that I think takes a lot of balls to pull off.

Not being that ballsy I instead walk. It's sometimes tough, because I do some of my best "writing" while I'm walking, too. I get a good internal narration going and find myself coming up with long passages as I stroll from one place to another. The problem is that it's nearly impossible to record any of these narratives. I tried taking a tape recorder with me for awhile, but people tend to look at you funny if you walk down the street talking to yourself. I suppose I could set it up so that it looks like a cell phone, and I could be one of those guys who walk down the street constantly carrying on a conversation on his phone. So my options are: 1) crazy guy, or 2) asshole. In the end, I'd rather just hope for the best and assume I'll remember at least some semblance of what I was thinking about by the time I get to my destination and can jot down a few ideas.

Which brings me to the actual topic of this composition: what should you bring with you if you want to get to know a city by walking over as many square feet of it as possible. Personally, I'm kind of a minimalist. All I really need is a pair of comfortable shoes and a map. I will have had to prepare before leaving the house for this to work, of course; google-maps actually has a great map of Barcelona, so I check where I'm going before leaving and map out the best route to get there from home. If I've done this, and marked some important places on the physical map I'll be traveling with, really that's all I need. It is never all that I take, of course...I guess how I'll put it is, comfy shoes and a map are the two most essential items to take.

Only slightly less essential is your metro pass or enough money to buy a ticket (singles or passes available in vending machines in any station). No matter how lost you get, you're never far from a metro station. And once you get underground, you can get anywhere you want in the entire city for the cost of a single ticket. There are multiple maps of the entire metro system in every station, so as long as you know which stop is closest to your home (crucial info), you're set. The most you'll have to transfer is twice.

The next step down is, in my opinion, the first level of convenience items. Things you can definitely get by without but which will make your life a lot easier and more comfortable if you have them. Some people will tell you that a mobile phone is mandatory, and I understand the logic. Personally, being the proverbial stranger in a strange land, there's rarely anybody I have to meet or anywhere I have to get at any particular time. So a cell phone isn't on my personal list anywhere. In Seattle, sure. Here, not so much.

It's a good idea to have a timepiece of some sort, which of course the mobile doubles as. But again, for me time is even less of the essence here than back home, so I often find myself in the middle of the city before I realize I've left my clock at home. Yes, clock. I don't have a watch or anything. I have a battery-powered analog clock that I keep in the bathroom to make sure I brush my teeth for two minutes. I try to remember to bring it with me, but generally I forget.

Anyways, back to the list. The items I like to bring with me for comfort and convenience are as follows:

1) Warm clothes. A sweatshirt or jacket and a warm hat at least. You never know when you'll find yourself staying out all night.
2) Money. At least enough to grab a sandwich and a beer or glass of wine if you find a nice little café you'd like to sit in for awhile. And enough for a cab is nice, too, in case you have a huge dinner with friends and a couple drinks and it's getting late and you're feeling exceptionally sleepy and/or lazy and indulgent.
3) Reading material for that aforementioned nice little café.
4) A bottle of water. I generally prefer it to be about half full, so it's lighter. I actually don't drink that much water while I'm traveling, I invariably would rather be thirsty than have to pee for the last hour of a walk. But it's great to have if you end staying out later than you expected, or it's hotter than you imagined. Not to mention if you end up vomiting in the middle of the street and need something to wash your mouth out with.
5) Food. Maybe a sandwich, a couple carrots and an orange, some nuts...anything you can snack on if you don't want to stop at one of those nice little cafes, but would rather save your money and keep moving. Just sitting for a few minutes on a park bench, consuming some calories and having a sip of water, and you're as good as new.
6) Paper and pencil or pen. I have a little book that I bring with me, which has interesting words and phrases that I write down so I can remember them for later; ideas for writing that I jot down when I stop to sit for a minute; the phone numbers of the two people I know in Barcelona in case I get hit by a bus and someone needs to be contacted (just kidding mom, that doesn't happen. Sit down, please. And while we're here, it wasn't me who vomited in the street. It was Dustin. And it wasn't because he was drunk, he was genuinely sick).

What else...it's cool to have some of that hand-sanitation gel. That way, when you stop and sit on a park bench to have a snack before continuing your walk, you can disinfect your filthy hands before handling the food you're about to stick in your mouth. And it's cool to have a camera with you for when you invariably stumble upon something new and interesting that your friends and family back home would love to see. Of course, you almost only stumble upon these things when you've left the camera at home. Actually bringing the camera decreases the odds of seeing anything photo-worthy by roughly a third, so sometimes you're better off leaving it at home and then just describing the midget riding the elephant while juggling two chainsaws and a bumblebee in 1,000 words.

Of course, by now many of you will have noticed the one thing I haven't yet mentioned that overarches all the other items if you're a hard-core pedestrian: a reliable backpack. This is the main reason I'm a minimalist. The fewer things you have to carry on your back for a five mile walk the better. This is a well known fact to hikers and backwoods campers, of course. As well as anyone who traveled somewhere for longer than about two weeks. Packing light is essential.

So there you have it. Don't say I never gave you anything. Who's got your back? Good ol' uncle Pope of Chilitown, that's who.

In other news: I wrote up a reaction at Crazy Melvin to the recent elections in the States. Go check it out if you have a minute.

Thanks to everyone who has stuck with this thing so far! Your continued support and encouragement mean a lot to me.

Cheap wine and pillowcases

2006-11-06T10:59:00.000+01:00

First of all, let me just say this: if anyone tells you that you can't get bad wine in Spain, you can tell them that your ol' uncle Jerod said they could go suck an egg. 'Cause that's what this wine I bought the other day tastes like. Old eggs. Skuuuuuun-kee. Whew. It's making my eyes water just thinking about it. It actually made poor Oisin have to go lie down for awhile. He drank a little bit and then was staring intently at the glass, holding it up to the light, etc. He says, "you know, if the wine stains the glass it means they've used a powder." Duhhhh...wha??? "If the wine stains the glass"??? Yup, sure enough. The wine stained the glass.
It wasn't like I bought the super-ass cheapo wine, either, it was about the same price as all the other wine I've bought here. I mean, very cheap, yeah, 3-4 Euros, but I know for a fact you can get decent wine here for that much. The obvious question is, why would you make powdered wine when it's so cheap to make decent wine. The answer is equally obvious: never underestimate the power of greed. Or the powder of greed in this case, I guess.
Another difference here that I've neglected to mention so far: the pillowcases. They have an ingenious and, imho, far superior format for pillowcases. To whit: they're open on both sides. That's right, it's a cylindrical tube with no seams on the ends. It might seem odd at first, but think about it; why do you need one side closed up? This way, you can make the case tight enough to cling to the pillow, and once you get it started you can just reach in the other side and pull it through! Works great.
So what else is going on...I went for a long walk on Saturday, down to the beach and then along the shoreline for a couple miles. It's a fun walk, and the water was lovely. It was overcast for the most part, but the sun broke through a couple times for some beautiful vistas.
On my way back I thought of a good metaphor for trying to learn how to speak a new language: it's akin to trying to write an email or letter to someone, only you don't have all the letters available on the keyboard. Like a little kid had picked off some of the keys or something. So you have all these thoughts in your head that you'd like the express, but you don't have access to some of the most basic building-blocks of communication.
For example, let's pick a random sentence that anyone could imagine saying or hearing or reading in an email: "I'm going to go to the grocery store to grab some beers and snacks for the football game, want me to get anything for you?"
Now imagine, if you will, that you're trying to write that on a keyboard, but you're missing three simple, but essential, vowels: a, i, and u. Here's what I came up with:
"Me go to the store for beer n' food for to see tv foot-globe contest. Want me get some for too?"

Crazy Melvin

2006-11-05T07:56:00.000+01:00

Hey check it out; I've started contributing to a group blog:
http://www.crazymelvin.com
It was put together by my buddy Eric; he's also the master of its domain. If you know what I mean.
We came up with the name Crazy Melvin several months ago while I was visiting Eric, his wife Beth, and their twin boys Sam and Holden in Spokane. It's from a Sesame Street episode with dancing pencils (I was convinced for years and years that they were bananas). It was always one of my favorite Sesame Street episodes, something I'd cite when making my point that Sesame Street is actually really funny, even now, even as adults. The premise: three pencils, in a row, dancing to rumba music. It really is a lot funnier if you can act it out, of course, but the purpose is to teach kids about first and last. And to have first and last you have to have middle, right? Well in this case, middle is...that's right, it's CRAZY MELVIN!!! Ha-cha!
I wish I could find a link to a video of the scene, but it seems to be the one thing not available on the interweb. Sure, I can get 1.3 millions videos of [incredibly offensive and disgusting sexual act described in lurid detail deleted] but no Crazy Melvin??? W.T.F.
Here's a picture; it's grainier than that video of Bigfoot walking through the forest, but it's the best I can offer:

So there you go. Check it out when you have a moment. It's also linked in the sidebar over there->
I will continue to post in both locations.

Viewing pleasures

2006-11-03T12:05:00.000+01:00

Not to beat this whole Kerry thing into the ground...but was I the only one who was hoping he'd say something like, "I apologize to all the fine servicemen and women serving in Iraq who were too stupid to understand that I was making a joke"?

Just watched "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" last night. Pretty good, and the unexpected addition of Vince Vaughn made it even more saucily tasty. Seriously, do you think Brad's kinda pissed off at Vince? Or does Vince have to pretend to hate Brad when Jen's watching Access Hollywood and they're talking about Brangelina adopting kids again, but secretly Vince understands? But I digress. The movie: You could easily see how Brangelina could fall in love during the filming, its chemistry was apparent. I went in with very few expectations, which is always the best way to enjoy an action movie I think. But by the end I found myself actually getting fairly excited when they set up the final showdown in the Costco. Turned out to be fairly anti-climactic. I thought the earlier scenes in their house—beginning with their face-off with each other and then culminating in their teaming up against the other hitmen—and on the freeway, with them taking out the three cars in the minivan, were both more exciting and original. And the one line that actually made me chuckle: “These doors really are convenient!” I never really got into the whole comedic premise of the movie—the juxtaposition of their marriage with their careers—but that was a good line. And when Adam Brody asks from the back seat, “who are you people???” right after they’ve kidnapped him. That was a nice touch, too; good to see Adam Brody expanding his repertoire. Switching from the wise-cracking Jewish high school kid to the wise-cracking Jewish hitman...he really stretched his chops on that one. Soon enough we'll see such favorites as "wise-cracking Jewish host of his own late-night infomercial" and "wise-cracking Jewish upper-left square."

On that same topic: Doug Liman, the director. Also directed "The Bourne Identity," which I knew. What I didn’t know: he directed the first season of The OC, which explains the presence of Brody (as well as the prime-secondary-but-non-speaking role given to the woman doctor from House MD). AND Liman directed Swingers! I did not know that. Explains Vince Vaughn though, right?

What else have I watched since I got here...Oisin actually has an enormous movie collection, he downloads them all, so I have a whole bunch to choose from. Watched “Catch Me if You Can,” surprisingly good. And I haven’t yet gotten all the way through "King Kong." I really enjoyed the first hour of that one, then the second hour...wow. What can you say about the second hour? I was all with it during the big fight between Kong and the raptors (who have obviously replaced T-Rex as the go-to scary-ass dinosaurs). But then, when all the guys fell down into that pit...and there was that extended scene fighting off all the huge bugs? Mother of God. I seriously could not handle that. The one-armed dude getting eating by the worms? Oh hell no. But just all the enormous spiders and locusts and centipedes, Jesus T.F. Christ. After “Lord of the Rings” I guess I kinda forgot Peter Jackson’s MO early in his career. All those zombie movies and “Meet the Feebles” and whatnot receded nicely into the background, replaced by ginormous set-pieces and amazing actions sequences. I have to hand it to him, he’s still the gross-out king. I guess he didn’t want anyone to forget that.

As I said, I still haven’t watched the third hour. Or the forth. Or however many more hours this longass frickin' movie has. But I will at some point.

Other than that, I rewatched “40 Year Old Virgin,” which is right there at the top of my “funniest movies of all time” list. Okay, since you asked, here’s the list: “40 Year Old Virgin”; “South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut”; “Office Space”; “Team America”; "Pulp Fiction"; “This Is Spinal Tap”; “Raising Arizona”; the scenes in “So I Married an Axe Murderer” with his family; uhhhh...I know I'm forgetting something here. Ah well.

Otherwise I’ve watched a couple American movies in Spanish for “studying purposes”: Unforgiven (still impressive in any language) and “Sweet and Lowdown,” which definitely loses something in translation, just because Sean Penn’s vocal performance is so great. And it’s funny to see Woody Allen not sound like Woody Allen.

I totally gave up on Lost. Could not get into it. It says something about my interest that I got fairly close to the end of season 1 and still did not care what happened next. I finally gave up completely when they returned to one of Jack’s back-stories. I can’t stand Jack. And that whole love-triangle with him and the bad dude and the chick, whatshername...oh yeah, Kate. Fuck. That. Noise. I know it’s necessary for a network tv show and whatever. But no thanks, not with my 42 minutes.

And what about that whole torture thing? Yeah right, everything’s going to be cool in the school after the Iraqi guy shoves sharp sticks under bad dude’s fingernails! And don’t tell me they dealt with it by sending Iraqi guy off for a few episodes, having him be tortured, etc. That’s all well and good from a karmic angle, I guess...but a couple episodes later, after I.G. returns, they’re actually making jokes about it! I remember at some point Jack saying something to Kate about the sexual tension between her and bad dude; something like, “last time you did that, you ended up making out with him.” And she responded with something like, “yeah, well, that’s because torturing him didn’t work!” And then he kinda smiled and shook his head, like in a sitcom when the husband mouths off about dinner and the wife responds with something about how bad he is in the sack. Hello??? We’re talking about torture here, people!

Wow, that rant got out of control in a biiiig hurry. Anyone still with me? Hellooo...

In commemoration of the two year anniversary of the anti-christ stealing his second election

2006-11-02T09:59:00.000+01:00

So this whole John Kerry flap. Notwithstanding the fact that what he said is exactly correct...does anyone now doubt that he’s a secret Republican? I mean really. Could he have chosen a more muddled, wrong-spirited way to say something? Not to mention the timing. The one thing the Dems had going for them was the war. That’s it. (Well, the pedophiles and overt racists in Florida helped too. But you know what I mean.) And now the GOP has this stupid sound-bite to play over and over, distracting attention from the real issues about the war...seriously, Kerry is a Republican.

But back to what he said. It’s no secret that the armed forces are peopled by the poor and under-educated. Well, strike that: the people who are on the front lines fighting the actual hand-to-hand (for lack of a better phrase) are the poor and undereducated. There are of course others, working the computers, listening to chatter in Arabic and monitoring web sites, or else they’re making $10G a month as private contractors. But isn’t it a pretty well-known fact that the vast majority of the people who actually make up the armed forces are there because they’re poor and undereducated? Isn’t that the whole point? That’s how they sell the fucking program, for god’s sakes! "Need to learn a marketable skill? Can't afford college? We can help!"

Of course, nobody likes to be overtly told they’re stupid trash, especially by a Senator from New England. But whatever. Anyone who thinks the Democrats are going to save this country, fix the problem in Iraq, stop recruiting poor people into the armed forces...well, I respectfully disagree. As my esteemed brother likes to say, the Democratic party is where social movements go to die. Nope, what we need is a complete overhaul. I for one nominate Bill and Melinda Gates as the new presidents of everything.

What else is going on. Ah, this is fun:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6105412.stm

More good news for alcoholics! Here’s the line that really gets me:

“They discovered the mice given resveratrol alongside their food...showed decreased glucose levels, healthier hearts and liver tissue, and better motor function compared with the mice on the same diet but without the supplement.”

So now drinking is good for your liver? And motor functions, for god’s sakes? So, like, you should be able to drink a bunch of red wine and, say, go for a drive or something? I believe the appropriate phrase is "tell it to the judge."

It’s been a quiet week. Sunday a bunch of us went to Park Guell, that big park on the “mountain” (snicker) in the middle of town. It hasn’t rained here in awhile so the air quality sucks, but you could still see the whole city stretched out on all sides. I took some hazy pictures. It was a nice hike up the “mountain” (guffaw), and there was a lot Gaudi sculptures up there, too. I know, big surprise, huh? Gaudi in Barcelona??? No WAY. If I may paraphrase the great Jonathan Richman, Gaudi loved color and he let it show. His sculptures have twice the colors other sculptures have. Anyone know the etymology of the word “gaudy”? I think it might derive from “Gaudi.”

Actually, there's a rumor/urban legend that Gaudi was color-blind, and only did his best work at the end of his career with a young apprentice...check out the crazy lizard at Park Guell and it's not hard to believe.

Watched the Champions League futbol match between Chelsea and Barcelona the other night, that was fun. As you may recall, this was the first match-up I attended the week I got here, too. Chelsea won that one in London, and the rematch was here. A very important game for many reasons. Exceedingly chippy. The ref lost control early. Good times. There were some amazing plays, though, including the prettiest goal you're ever likely to see. It gets better every time I watch it.

Anyways, the game ended in a draw when Drogba equalized in the sixth minute of extra time. That's a helluva lot, by the way. And then the ref inexplicably called time at the 5:19 mark. Very odd. So, what this means is that, since I got here, FC Barca has lost twice and drawn at home to their two biggest rivals, Chelsea and Real Madrid. A little secret: I'm rooting against Barca. I mean, if I moved to Boston I wouldn't suddenly become a Red Sox fan, right? I'm funny like that. I will almost invariably go against the popular opinion. I'm sure if I moved to London instead I'd now be rooting for Barca. But seeing as how I'm here, I naturally tend towards the side that nobody in the room is rooting for. I am actually beginning to like Chelsea...the Russian mafia ties are just the icing on the cake. They're like an all-star team.

Yesterday was a bank holiday here. I tell ya, if you think it sucks when you can’t go the bank in the states on bank holidays...imagine if you couldn’t go the grocery store. Or anywhere else for that matter. It’s actually kind of refreshing, to tell the truth. Not quite so materialistic; the need to buy anything you want at any time you want. Not that they’re not getting the idea, of course. I went for a wander yesterday and most everywhere was closed...but I’m sure if I went to some of the bigger shopping malls I could have gotten a cell phone and a Big Mac. You know what? Damn. I walked by a Burger King the other day and completely forgot to check if they had a Royale con Queso. I’ll do some research and get back to you on that one.

Hahaha, check it out:

[Middle English gaudi, gaud, prank, trick, possibly from Old French gaudie, merriment.]

Gaudy really does derive from Gaudi. Suh-weeeeet...

Getting lost and watching cars

2006-10-28T20:38:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was interesting. I went out for a short stroll, just wanting to do some shopping, and ended up going for about a four mile walk. How, you might ask? Well, I’ll tell you. Even if it ends up being a humbling story (nothing wrong with being humbled, right?).

Remember when I first got here, took a wrong turn, and ended up walking halfway to France? Well, I did it again yesterday. As in, the exact same walk. All of the stores were closed when I set out (accidentally leaving in the middle of siesta), so I decided to just walk in a different direction than I’d gone last week and explore another part of the neighborhood. I walked around long enough for siesta to end, and did some shopping in a newly-reopened grocery store. When I came out of the store I was completely disoriented, and usually in those situations I just set out walking confidently, so I appear to the outside world that I know what I’m doing. In the end, I probably added a good two miles to my walk, and ended up in the exact same place I got lost last week. Good times. But really, I enjoy long walks and this certainly qualified. That’s what I keep telling myself at least. It’s really quite funny, getting lost in the exact same place twice, even though I started from two locations roughly 1.5 miles from each other.

Today was interesting, too. I planned to go explore a huge park on the northern edge of town, one from which you can see the whole city spread out before you, but when I woke up, Oisin (new roommate/landlord) informed me that we had plans. He had acquired some tickets to the Formula 1 racetrack outside town, and invited me for an afternoon of watching cars drive in circles. Turns out it’s a two day affair: today was the warm-up, and tomorrow is the actual race (series of races actually). I’m not going to go tomorrow, but today was actually a lot of fun and a completely new experience. We drove out to the track and walked around to different vantage points over the course of the afternoon, watching four different races of consistently more impressive cars.

It started with the kind of racing cars that you wouldn’t notice on the street (except for all the decals of course). Just souped-up street cars. Then, it was souped-up street cars, only with spoilers and blowers. Finally, we saw the things-de-resistance; Formula 2000 (one step down from Formula 1, I learned today) cars. The ones that look like rockets. God almighty. If you’ve ever watched these things on tv (I rarely have), you always hear the announcers talking about how loud it is, how they can’t hear the questions of the studio hosts, etc. Well lemme tell you. Dem mofos is LOUD. Ell-Oh-You-Dee god damned loud. And fast. Wow. They seriously fly. I’m not the kind of person who gets geeked out by cars, by any stretch of the imagination. But seeing these things in person, I have to admit feeling a weird gut-excitement, like going to the circus when I was a little kid. It was a lot of fun.

So now it’s Saturday night, and I was thinking of going out but I just had an enormous dinner (fried potatoes with chicken and vegetables) and several glasses of wine. And I really did walk around a lot today. So I’m tired, content, and have plans to go check out that park tomorrow anyways, so...I’m just going to stay in tonight, rewatch "The 40 Year Old Virgin" on the laptop, and get up early-ish tomorrow so I can study for a few hours before heading out to the park. As I’ve said many times before, one of the best things about living in, rather than just traveling through, a foreign city is the lack of urgency. I know I can relax tonight and be content with what I’ve done today, rather than thinking I need to fit in as much as I possibly can in every spare hour. Much more my speed.

In closing: I have an exciting new game for everyone. It's called "drink half a bottle of wine and then hang your newly-laundered clothing on clothlines suspended over a 30 foot drop." Seriously, it's a lot of fun. It's like an old atari video game. Burgermaster or something.

The mouthwash here tastes like fruit punch

2006-10-26T10:43:00.000+02:00

Other than that, so far not a whole ton is different. There are little things of course: I had an interesting experience with a kilo scale the other day, for a couple hours I thought I’d gained ten pounds. And of course you don’t have to worry about getting shot, which is a big if abstract difference (in my world at least).

It’s not that Barcelona isn’t completely different than Seattle of course. This early in the game, though, before I’ve really gotten to know the city well, things aren’t nearly as alien as you might think. Sad as it seems, modern cities aren’t that different the world over, as far as I can tell. Walking down one of the super-developed city streets here, I can zone out and almost believe I’m in the states. One of those cities where everyone speaks Spanish, of course. But still.

I fear it’s the spread of American capitalism that’s causing this destruction of uniqueness. One of things I’ve noticed since I’ve been here is that one of the most common activities is to go out to the bar after work and complain about how much you hate your job. And a lot of people have to work too many hours. And they don’t get long enough breaks.

Okay, here’s a huge difference that I haven’t personally experienced, just talked about with residents: People here only have to pay something like 8% of their income in taxes. And the benefits are all state-sponsored. Free medical, dental, they take care of you when you retire, etc. And it only takes about three seconds to figure out how that can work here but not at home: the military-industrial complex. Not that we didn’t already know it, but doesn’t it give you the warm-fuzzies to be so blatantly reminded that we pay from 1/4 to a 1/3 of our income to allow amazingly rich men to enjoy unspeakable profits by waging wars all over the world? And not just obvious wars like the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan; the cultural wars that convince people in Spain that they have to get up at 7am and work 12 hours a day. And eat at McDonalds of course.

What else...oh yeah, the food is much cheaper here. It doesn’t cost much to eat pretty well if you don’t go out (and the perceived difference is heightened by the conversion rate; even though I know it’s worth more, I still unconsciously think of a Euro as a buck when I see the prices of things). And the real estate business is very different, too, at least from Seattle. It’s almost impossibly expensive to buy an apartment in the city, most of the people who own homes have had them in the family for decades. And it’s not super expensive per month to rent an apartment...except that you have to sign a five year lease, put down a monster payment up front, and buy all your own appliances. Dustin had to buy a refrigerator and a washing machine when he moved into his place. In Seattle we’d complain if we had to come up w/ first, last, and a damage deposit (maybe 3 grand)...well, here you have to have like 10G Euros to rent your own place, even if a two-bedroom apartment is only 650E/month or so.

I guess all this is my point. When I say something like “things aren’t that different here,” I’m not being pessimistic. Maybe I haven’t fully taken advantage of being in a new city yet, of course. What I’m saying is, all the cities I’ve been in are different in some big and some small ways, but they’re also the same in some fundamental ways. Of COURSE there are parts of this city that are truly old in a way I’ve never encountered. Of COURSE the people speak a different language and perceive the world in a completely different way. But then again, just like everywhere else I’ve been, there are some happy, friendly people and some surly unhappy people. There are people walking dogs and kids spazzing out in schoolyards.

Of course, I've left out the one big thing that separates cities from each other all over the world: weather. It's still nice and sunny and warm here. It occurs to me every so often that I've successfully escaped Seattle winter. Maybe my head will explode without the enforced hibernation, I don't know. But it will definitely be interesting to find out.

One last big difference: the little guy on the exit signs is in a way bigger hurry here than he is at home. Seems significant.

A room of one's own

2006-10-23T11:27:00.000+02:00

Just completed a long and productive weekend. Saturday Dustin and I went out in the early afternoon to check out a room for rent. It’s in the same neighborhood as D and Esther live, San Andreu; it’s where I wanted to live when I first got here, but then I changed my focus to some areas closer to the main downtown...so of course this room turned out to be pretty much perfect for me. It’s owned by a 29 year old Irishman named Oisin (pronounced "O-sheen") who has lived in Barca for 17 years. He speaks English perfectly but still has an Irish accent. And he knows where to get good beer, too, which is a big deal here (most places only have crap Spanish beer). It’s nice and quiet, and he works during the day so I have the place to myself right now. And it’s close to two metro lines, one of which goes directly to the beach. It’s a good set up.

After renting the room, we went down to the beach to meet some friends and ended up staying out all night. We saw some good student jazz at a local club at the music school, had a nice late dinner (a platter of about six different kinds of pork, some sardine-like fish in vinegar, and the tradional bread of Catalan, baguette rubbed w/ olive oil, garlic, and mashed tomato), then ended the night at a different bar. I was excited, they had Chimay there, a good Belgian-style beer. It was the first good beer I’d had since arriving. I switched to wine for the most part, at least when drinking at home, so I’m not complaining or anything (not too vehemently at least). I stayed w/ D and E on Saturday night (Sunday morning is more like it) because we never got around to moving my stuff, and then yesterday when we got up and around we took everything over here and dropped it off.

We walked back to D’s place and picked up a delicious lunch of roast chicken and potatoes, had lunch w/ Esther and their friend Nicolas, and then played a couple games of Carcassonne (I won the first one and Esther won the second). By then we were all sleepy and happy (and a couple other dwarves: Dustin was sneezy and I was dopey, for example), so I grabbed a few last things that were still at their place and headed home. I did a quick run around the neighborhood looking for a mini-mart (the only places open on Sunday night where you can buy groceries), bought a frozen pizza, some beer, and yogurt (to bide me over this morning before I went shopping for real), and then came back to relax in my new place for the first time.

Last night was the FC Barcelona-Real Madrid soccer match, I was hoping to watch that but it wasn’t on free television. To watch matches in a bar you have to get there at least an hour early (especially one this significant, it’s akin to a Red Sox-Yankees game except they only play a few times a year), and by the time I figured out the game wasn’t on, it was too late. I was tired anyways, and I’ve discovered an online service that streams a bunch of channels (international for here) for free. So I was able to watch some futbol Americano instead. All the early games start around 6pm Sunday night here. I cooked the pizza (very tasty, actually better than US frozen pizzas I think), drank a few beers (surprisingly good, I got the standard Spanish lager only w/ lemon juice added; it makes it a lot better), and then went to bed early.

And now here I am. Monday morning, in my own place for the first time, and ready for the next thing. I have been breaking this entire experience into more manageable chunks: first chunk was finishing work and moving out of my apartment; second was living in Edmonds, seeing everyone, birthday, last minute preparations for the trip; third was the trip itself; forth was staying w/ D and E, getting my legs under me, figuring out where I wanted to live and looking for my own place...and now this is the fifth chunk.

It’s funny, most of the rooms I called about (okay Dustin called) were already full, no matter how quickly we got on it. Either that or nobody answered. The ad for this place had been up for awhile, but O’sheen said nobody had really called about. It’s very odd, but I’m taking it as a good sign that this is indeed my place.

Okay, I’m off to explore the hood and do some shopping. More soon.

Ciao.

More random observations about Barcalona

2006-10-20T10:58:00.000+02:00

Like in Seattle, there are pigeons here. Unlike in Seattle, there are no Laundromats. Or clothes dryers for that matter. For someone coming from a damp climate, this is completely and utterly alien to me. Everyone has a washer, but then just hang their clothes up outside to dry. Dustin and Esther have about half a dozen different ways to hang up wet clothes: there are the crisscrossing clotheslines on both verandas, the portable stand that you can whip out if it starts raining or you have a lot of clothes, the set up by which you can extend a series of metal rods from an apparatus in the shower (my personal favorite)...it’s pretty amazing.

I was reminded when I went to the Barca-Chelsea match the other night that the drinking age here is like 9. Okay, maybe it’s 18. But as a 32 year old American, it sure felt like there were a bunch of toddlers hanging out in the bar. Pretty disconcerting. It hadn’t really come up before because when we’ve gone out we’ve traveled to the city center, and as I said before this neighborhood (Sant Andreu) has more families. Lots of teenagers and grandparents. Anyways, it felt like I was watching the match at a daycare, only the kids could drink beer and smoke.

Dustin explains the insanity associated with trying to find a room in Barca: there are roughly 50 million people in Spain, and two major city centers. Let's do the math: that's 1/6th the population of the US (18%)...and what, 1/100th (1%) the number of cities? So all the kids who live in the country stream to Madrid and Barca in droves every day, looking for places to stay. Some of them live in apartments owned by their grandparents and make money renting out the spare rooms for a fat profit. Buying is not an option (unless you have E300,000 lying around for a two bedroom flat). I'll probably end up in the Barcelona equivilent to Burien.

Final thought: these Spaniards have a different word for freakin’ everything.

Ciao.

The Haps

2006-10-18T17:16:00.000+02:00

I’ve been playing this new game quite a bit since I got here called Carcassonne. It’s this map building game in which you draw pieces out of a bag, one at a time, and then place them on a growing map. You can build cities and roads, and once you have two ends to the road or enclose a city you can score points based on the length of the road or size of the city. You have to have placed the most pieces to score points. Anyways, it turns out I’m pretty good at this game. I won the first time I played and have now won seven out of eight times. Dustin is even actually trying now, and I’m still knocking him around. Good times.

So, this weekend, I went out for a walk on my own to try to get to know the city better. I brought a map and some water, and had planned out a way to try to get to the Mediterranean. I won’t bore you with too many details. Suffice to say I set off walking the wrong way down the street I had determined would take me in the general direction of the water (south). So I was basically walking to France. In any case, it was a nice walk and that was really the point. And I did get a better feel for the neighborhood. Especially once I oriented myself enough to figure out I wasn’t actually on the map anymore...but I digress. The point is, on my walk I discovered a big athletic complex, with an Olympic sized track, basketball courts, and various other cool things. I went back today to try to figure out how to get onto the jogging track and discovered it’s actually a gym. Instead of trying to figure out how to join, I thought it made more sense to just run laps around the outside of the entire complex. I decided to consider it 1/3 of a mile (even thought it’s probably more like a ½ mile) and ran six laps. It was great to get a good jog in. AND I didn’t get lost once. I walked straight to it, and straight back (along a different route no less).

I’m basically trying to settle into a good routine around here. We’re not going out all the time; a big part of that is trying to save money since there is very little inflow at the moment, but it’s also that I want to get to know Barcelona in a different way than that. I was in Europe in 2001, and even though I loved it I got really tired because we were running around so much, trying to fit in everything. Well, I also got tired because I was with my dad and brother and we started drinking at 10am every day. Regardless, I decided then that, when I came back here, I wanted to do it this way. To actually move into a city and get to know it as more of a resident than a traveler. To find all the equivalent things here that I love in Seattle; all the great little secret restaurants, the grocery stores where you can get the best stuff, how to use the mass transit system effectively...not to say that I also don’t want to know where to go to dance and drink, of course. But it’s a small aspect of a much larger goal.

I've started the process of looking for my own place; D and I are going to check out a nice spot tomorrow, about a mile away from here. It's pretty expensive but it looks really nice, and I've always been willing to spend a bit more for the right place. Besides, I guess it's a Manhattan-style free-for-all when it comes to housing here; you basically have to show up at the appointment with a big wad of cash in your pocket and be ready to throw it down at that moment, or else the person breathing down your neck will. We'll see...

Gonna go watch the big futbol match tonight, Barca vs. Chelsea. A huge match-up, even w/out Peter Cech (who got his head broke in a recent match). We’re going to go out to a bar w/ a couple of Dustin’s friends, I’m excited to check it out.

Ciao.

Random thoughts from and about Barca

2006-10-16T14:42:00.000+02:00

One thing real quick; I want to assure everyone that just because I'm keeping this blog, it doesn't mean I won't respond to emails or comments posted to the blog. For those of you who received the big bad group email, my point wasn't that the only way you could keep up with me was through my blog, so don't bother trying any personal correspondence; I was actually trying to reassure everyone that I wouldn't be sending out only group emails, that you could follow my adventures by checking out the blog but also, please, feel free to get at me. I will definitely write back. Anyhoo, on to some observations...

I’ve been drinking the tap water here, which I think is a good way to get to know a city. You are actually consuming the water of the place, rather than bottled water that is the same everywhere. Of course, when I get intestinal parasites you call say “I told you so.”

***

I really need to get my hair cut, but I’m a bit reticent to go into a barbershop and try to explain what I want. In the states, I always start out with, “short on the sides and in the back, slightly longer on top.” What makes me nervous is the proliferation of mullets here. The Euro-mullet is in full effect in Barca. There are the fashion femullets, the crew-mullet, the ever popular soccer mullet...basically, enough mullets around that I would be nervous going into a barbershop and muddling my way through anything that even remotely sounded like “short on the blahblahblah and longer in the yaddayadda.” I am afraid I would walk out with “el negocio en la frente, el fiesta en la espalda.” Never a good thing.

***

Of all the differences between Barca and Seattle, or any other US city I’ve visited for that matter, the hardest to get used to is the store hours. The idea of going out at any time to get something you need isn’t an option. You can’t get hungry at 1am and make a run to the 24-hour grocery store, for example. And siesta messes with me, too, because you either have to go shopping in the morning or the early evening. Everything closes during the day except the Muslim or Korean stores, generally. And those are the equivalent of 7-11s, you wouldn’t go there to do any actual shopping. (I just asked Dustin, "so, are there any places that are open 24/7?" He responds, "yeah, there are some." "Like, stores or whatever?" "Oh no, nothing like that...some bars maybe..." So there you go.)

Here’s a perfect example of the difference: you rent a video from the local video store (which is the only one you can get a membership at). Not only did you have to go there expressly at a specific time to ensure they are open, but the next day you have to also go back at a specific time to return the video...BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY HAND THE VIDEO TO THE CLERK TO RETURN THE VIDEO. Seriously, wtf? There are no slots in the doors to slip your movie into if you happen to drop by when they’re closed (say, all day Sunday and Monday or from 2-5 the rest of the week).

***

Anyone tries to tell me I’m not living in the coolest-ass city in the world, I’m gonna drop this on’em:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_of_Aragon

Are you kidding me? “The Crown of Aragon”??? I love this place!

Speaking of Lord of the Rings, I’ve been binge-watching Lost for the past few days, a couple episodes a night before going to sleep. (I'm still staying up til 3-4am...I can't tell if it's the jet lag or just that I'm on vacation.) Why, when people were trying to sell me on the show, did nobody ever say, “oh yeah, and it’s got Merry from LotR…?” I would've checked it out months ago had I known. That’ll be one of the first things I tell people if they ask about the show now.

Ciao.

Fun in the sun

2006-10-13T20:55:00.000+02:00

Happy Friday the 13^th everyone.

My buddy Jamie loaned me his backup digital camera for the trip, and I’ve actually been doing a good job of taking pictures. Unfortunately, either I forgot to get or I have misplaced the cable I need to attach the cam to my computer. I’ll get a new one asap, but for the time being my entries will be sans photos.

Where to start. Since I have so much time here, I haven’t felt compelled to try to fit everything in at once. Tuesday and Wednesday were spent mostly catching up with Dustin and wandering around the neighborhood. We live in Sant Andreu, a neighborhood that everyone says is on the outskirts of the town, far from the city center. I like it out here, though. Coming from the states, a 10 minute cab ride or 20 minutes on the train isn’t far at all. It’s much quieter out here, too; more families, and the feel of more permanent residents. Not that the city center isn’t great, it is; it’s just that I’d rather be able to come and go as I want, and have the place where I live more like this. I’m planning to look for my own place in this hood, as well.

Some of the best things so far:

1. The food of course; this town’s all about cured pork and seafood. That’s a little bit of okay with me. There are lots of great little markets everywhere, in the traditional model--a meat shop, a fruit and vegetable shop, a bread shop--and everything’s fresh and local.
2. Dustin and Esther. D and I haven’t lived in the same town for a long long time, so it’s a pretty special occasion just for that reason. And meeting his fiancé Esther is very cool too. It’s perfect, she’s learning English while I’m learning Castilian. We can almost barely communicate. But it’s great fun of course, Dustin is exhausted from trying to translate two sentences at the same time but he’s been undyingly patient. He’s gonna get pissed off one of these days, I know it.
3. The terrace. La terrace. They have a top floor apartment with an enormous sunny terrace, 15x20 feet or so. Lots of beautiful plants, and a view overlooking the huge square across the street. I’m sorry I can’t post any pictures yet, I’ll put together a nice photo montage once I get the right cable.
Anyways, I went out and bought some mostly adequate equivalent of a yoga mat and used it today to practice on the terrace in the sun. For some reason the makers of this mat coated both sides with a slippery, plastic, sprayed-on substance. Thereby negating the entire purpose of the yoga mat, as far as I can tell. Ah well. But it’s fine, it works better than the stone terrace floor, and I know I’ll get garroted by my friends and family if I complain too loudly about the weird plastic crap the Spanish spray on their yoga mats, which makes it tougher to practice my yoga on the sunny Barcelonian terrace. In any case, I plan to spend a lot of time out there. Which brings me to...
4. The weather. Ahhh. It’s been mostly sunny and warm, with a nice pleasant breeze. I’ve been going out in shorts and t-shirts. It rained on and off from Wednesday evening through yesterday night, starting with a beautiful big lighting storm and culminating with us downtown getting soaked when it rained the hardest. It wasn’t a cold rain, though. It was nice. It will get colder of course, but not that much colder.

All sorts of things are in process. I met Marc, one of D’s friends, last night downtown. He’s a jogger, so I’m going to start running with him soon. He is also pretty new in town, so he’s going to give me some info about his language tutor. I hope to start working with her or someone else she can recommend early next week, for a couple sessions a week to start. The language thing is going alright, I have found myself going brain-dead whenever somebody speaks to me in Castilian but it’s getting better. And it’s really interesting in Barcelona because a lot of the signs are in Catalan. Which can get kind of confusing. It will most likely get worse as I actually learn Castilian, because then I will have the opportunity to be mislead by the signs. For now, I can’t speak anything so it’s a-okay.

I wish I could show you a picture of this funky apartment, there’s this deathtrap of an entryway with three levels; you step into the apartment, then have to step up one stair to get to this sort of small landing that encloses the area immediately around the front door. Once you’re on the landing (second level), you can either step down to the right to the bedrooms, bathroom, and kitchen (this is on the same level as the area immediately around the front door), or up to the left into the living room (which leads out onto the terrace). So I’m staying in the living room. First night here, I wake up at 6am (9pm to me) and stumble off to the bathroom. Suddenly, the ground falls out from under me, not once but twice. I kind of lurch around, running into stuff and trying to right myself while having to continually step up, down, and sideways. I couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to break my ankle or smash my head open on my first night in Barcelona.

Guess that’s it for now. I’m going to have the place to myself this weekend (D and E are visiting her parents outside of town), so I’m sure I’ll have some interesting stories.

How are you supposed to end a blog entry that’s more letter-like, anyways? I guess I should come up with a standard sign-off. For now, I’ll just say...

Ciao.

Barcelona

2006-10-11T14:15:00.000+02:00

Well. Since my last entry began something like, "I haven't written in this thing for a month," I guess I'm doubling the time between entries every time. Expect another update sometime in February.

Anyways, I'm here. In Barcelona. I'm visiting my very good friend and host Dustin. I do not speak Spanish.

One of the first things I learned here was that you don't call it "Spanish." Barcelona is in the Catalan region, which has its own language and everything. Calling Castillian, the language of all Latin American countries (besides Brazil of course), "Spanish" to a Catalan is something like calling U.S. English "American" to somebody from Mexico. They generally won't get upset about it, but your life will be easier in small ways if you make the effort.
I had an uneventful trip, from Seattle-Philly-Frankfurt-Barcelona. I will add some more content about the trip and first few days here later in the week. For now, I just want to add something short and get this thing going again.

Much, much more to come.

Google, me, and the Doodletown Pipers

2006-07-12T18:49:00.000+02:00

Been almost a month since I've added anything here; I've been crazy busy with work, finishing school, etc... Well, not "finishing school." I didn't just have my debutante ball and am now learning how to be a real lady. "Finishing" in this case is a verb. Well, a gerund actually. Yeah! That education wasn't wasted!

Anyways, I've also been journaling more lately, which for those of you who didn't read my previous post about this topic simply means that I've been too lazy to really craft anything I'd be willing to share with the world and have just been writing mundane stuff.

I'm also working on a supersecret project with a buddy... well, okay, I'm actually waiting for him to complete the framework for the project and will then begin contributing to it. But that's for another time.

Really, what I wanted to write about here real quick is this: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22the+pope+of+chilitown%22. If you google "the pope of chilitown" my blog is the first thing to pop up! I don't know what that means, but it's pretty dope anyways. Thanks to all my invisible friends who made this possible! (What's really interesting is that the second entry on the google search is the blog I wrote about the Francis Coppola/Gene Hackman movie "The Conversation." What the hey?)

The best thing about The Simpsons in general, and about the particular episode in which "The Pope of Chilitown" appears, is the eternal quotability. This episode, the one with the chili cookoff, Homer's peyote trip, and Johnny Cash as the the spirit coyote, contains an almost endless supply of one-liners for just about any occasion. For example, I also populated my Google Pages web site with lines from this episode, and there was an appropriate one for just about everything. The best fit relates to my horoscope writing: "Don't quit your day job," which is what Homer says to Chief Wiggum after coating his mouth with wax and eating six Guatamalan Insanity Peppers (grown in the jungle primeval by the inmates of a Guatamalan insane asylum). But this episode also has such classics as: "I hear he carved it himself...from a bigger spoon..."; "so I says to Mabel, I says..."; "less artsy, more fartsy"; "maybe I do, son...maybe I do..."; "...his ears if we're lucky..."; and, the always appropriate... "oh sure, everything's bad if you remember it..."

And of course, "The Pope of Chilitown." Sigh.

Pixies "covers"

2006-06-16T01:26:00.000+02:00

This is awesome:
http://pottymouth.org/mcpt/
This guy does Pixies' songs in the style of other bands. Some of them are eerily accurate. My favorites are Jimi doing Vamos (including the "you fucking die" part... genius) and the Beach Boys doing Levitate Me.
I always appreciate people who can recreate different styles of music well; it's one of the reasons I like Ween so much, or did back in the day at least (I fell out of touch with the boys after the country album). It makes me wonder how much time this guy spent on these tracks; if he could just whip them out quickly, or if there was some major study involved. I tend to think it's the former; he just knows how to sing like Jimi, or create the right keyboard sounds for the Beach Boys...
It's the little touches, I think, that make them work so well. Small vocal mannerisms of the different groups, almost indistinguishable in of themselves, but so completely necessary to create the proper effect. Good stuff.

blog vs. journal

2006-06-08T06:48:00.000+02:00

Finally finished my certificate program; Thursday was the last class and I turned in one final project, and then Saturday afternoon I sent off the final, final project. It feels good, I still haven't adjusted to the idea that I don't really have to do anything when I get home from work. I've been relaxing, reading what I want, watching more movies... it's been nice.

I've also been trying to write more now that school is out; I've found myself writing in my journal more than anything for the blog, though. It's an interesting dynamic writing for a journal vs. writing for a blog. I didn't really think it would be all that different before I started blogging; it had always been my impression that blogs were just online journals for most people. I've journalled on and off for most of my life (okay more off), and figured it wouldn't be that different.

What I have realized is that, for me, a blog is what I always wanted my journal to be like. I wanted to write about books and movies and philosophy and things. Most of the time, my journal is the most mundane writing imaginable. I write about what I ate in the course of a day, for example. Keeping track of my diet, my workout schedule, silly little things that happened to me...nothing that would be of interest to others. I always think of the great artists who have their journals published posthumously; it's as if they're writing with the knowledge that one day other people will be reading their entries. They just know that they're going to be famous enough that their journals will be published and people will want to read them.

This is the metaphor that drives my blog now. Writing a pseudo-journal, with the knowledge that anyone can read it at any given time. You don't have to be famous anymore to be a read author. (That's not a typo for "real author" by the way.) So I write my blog with that knowledge... and, of course, with the added knowledge that my mom will be reading it, too. That's one of the really big differences between blogging and journaling; it's like writing in a prescribed poetic form, a sonnet or a haiku. There are certain places you just can not go. When you know your mom will be reading, it definitely narrows your focus onto appropriate topics. And appropriate language, of course.

Which of course raises the question of watcher and watched, which I've discussed before. This cult of celebrity we've created, specifically with reality tv shows, is the perfect example. To imagine that the "stars" of reality tv act just as they would in their regular lives, when they don't think they're being observed, is absurd. They are acting as much as any actor on any other show or movie. And then, the next logical step in this progression is to consider how we, in our own lives, act around other people. When we're at work, or in a bar with our friends. We are all wearing masks and acting out roles.

It's also hard for me, because I'm a much more auditory/word person than visual, and I think the internet as a medium is way more geared to the visual. I try to spice up my entries with some interesting pictures, but that's definitely the hierarchy; the visuals are just there to keep my blog from looking like a sea of grey type. Obviously the people at Blogger have considered this in their own design choices, too, which is nice. This is something I learned in my last class this spring; when you're production editing a document, you have to keep in mind the visual accessibility. Even if the graphics you choose are just there to break up the text and allow a place for the readers' eyes to rest, you should still include them. And there it is; full circle complete. I guess I'm finished.

them monkeys

2006-05-16T02:26:00.000+02:00

Like many language controversies, the 'singular they' is much older than most people imagine.

"There's not a man I meet but doth salute me / As if I were their well-acquainted friend..."
—William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors, Act IV, Scene 3

This is but one example from the body of work of literature; it seems to be a fairly recent, and a very American, development to decry those who choose this option to solve their gendered pronoun issues, but that isn't what I want to talk about.

First of all, I believe whole-heartedly in Chomskyan grammar; that language is an organic entity unto itself, that it evolves on its own in ways that are not necessarily controlled by humans, and that it exists in a symbiotic relationship with people. I also agree more with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis than with its detractors: that language at the very least helps up define and understand our world. I personally am inclined to believe an even stronger version of this idea, that in many ways language defines us and how we look at the world, and (most importantly in this context) how we define ourselves in relation to other people.

So. If language evolves... and in many ways shapes how we define ourselves and the structures of our inter-personal relationships... it makes the singular-they much more than a simple question of grammar. It becomes one of gender equality.

As is probably apparent by now, I am completely in the camp of the singular-they. What I love about the ideas of language as an organic entity and a defining energy is that it can evolve to help people overcome inherent biases by allowing us more ways to express ourselves and our relationships. English doesn't have an accepted gender-neutral singular pronoun? As it evolves it can incorporate one. Rather than the terribly awkward "he or she" or the unpronounceable s/he, why not a simple 'they'?

I can hear you now; you're saying, "okay, that's all well and good... but how does it fit in with the story of the hundredth monkey, hmmmm?"

Glad you asked.

For those you who aren't familiar with the idea, it's a simple parable about the power of the collective unconscious to foster change in the world. There is an archipelago, on which lives a species of monkey. They subsist primarily on root vegetables they dig out of the inland forest. One day, a monkey on one of the islands has taken a tuber to the edge of the water for some reason and accidentally drops it in. She picks it up and discovers, low and behold! It's waaaay tastier without all that dirt and grit all over it. Her brother notices her discovery and quickly learns to wash his own food. Soon the whole family, and then the whole tribe on the island, is washing their own food off before eating.

Here's the clever part; say there are 99 monkeys on that island. Suddenly, a monkey on a neighboring island carries his own potato out to the surf and drops it in. He's the hundredth monkey; the one who somehow caught on to the energy of new knowledge simply by his lifetime membership in the collective unconsciousness. Soon enough, all the monkeys on all the islands are washing their food. One discovers that, if you drop a potato in the hot springs in the mountainous regions of the island and leave it there for awhile, it becomes softer and easier to chew. Another monkey puts some of the hot water in a coconut shell and adds the potato to that, along with a little sea brine and carrots. Bam! All the monkeys are making soup. One discovers how tasty those little lizards are, the really annoying ones that are all over the place on the islands and keep you awake half the night, and soon enough all the monkeys are adding lizard meat to their stews. Soon one of the monkeys has their own show on Food Network.

But I digress. Really, the whole reason I bring up the story of the hundredth monkey at all is to do my part to spread the seeds of the singular-they. Every ounce of psychic energy added to the collective soup is significant; by writing this blog and sending it off into the Interweb (an organic form of information in its own right, with the power to influence both language and the collective more quickly than any force ever before), I add my own small voice to the growing din clamoring for the acceptance of the singular-they when English 2.0 is finally released.

Dracula

2006-05-14T23:10:00.000+02:00

I just watched this old Roman Polanski vampire movie from 1967, The Fearless Vampire Killers, Or Pardon Me, but Your Teeth Are in my Neck; Polanski wrote, directed, and also was the costar. He pops up in his other movies of course, but for this one he actually was a central role. In many ways it was a heartbreaking movie, only because he pines for, pursues, and attempts to rescue a character played by Sharon Tate... even in the movie his love for her is apparent. It adds a whole new level to the movie, which is at its heart a slapstick comic satire of the vampire genre in general, and specifically of the "vampire hunter" character.

More interesting to me, however, is the way this movie works in comparison to other entries in the body of vampire literature and movies. I wouldn't call myself a connoisseur of the genre, not even an enthusiast really... I've read a couple of the books, and seen some of the movies. I definitely appreciate the Dracula novel, and Coppola's take on it, as well.

What I really liked about The Fearless Vampire Killers is how it drew out some of the sexual themes of the vampire myth, especially the homosexual energy that pervades the archetypal symbolism but is conspicuously absent in much of the body of work (Neil Jordan's Interview with the Vampire being an obvious exception). I think there's been something of a reinterpretation of the myths in the last few decades, or maybe an emphasis on different facets of the myth.

In Tod Browning's original classic movie, for example, the "monster hiding behind the façade of bourgeois respectability" is central. Coppola returns the primacy of the love story and the erotic energy of the vampire; he also has a lot of FEMALE homoeroticism, of course, but (in my opinion) Stoker's novel is much more interested in the male homosexuality than the female.

Writing when he was, of course, this theme and the images he used to pursue it were well cloaked. It was in some later analyses of the text that people really started to delve into what he was exploring. One significant example in the story is when Lucy is dying, and requires constant blood transfusions; the men all take turns giving her their plasma. She has become a conduit through which all of these men can share their vital bodily fluids.

Another way Stoker explored the theme was in the very way he under-emphasized it; it gains significance in its absence. The perfect example is the respective deaths of Lucy and Count Vlad. When the boys kill the vampire Lucy, it takes over three pages and is described in gruesome detail. The last third of the book loses all its energy as they pursue Dracula over land and water.They finally catch up to him, and the ultimate death plays out like this:

"But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan's great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat. Whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris's bowie knife plunged into the heart."

That's it. The whole book builds to this moment, and it takes 36 words to complete.

The significance of this curious decision becomes clear when viewed through the spectrum of the Victorian era, and what you could and could not get away with writing about. It was bad enough to describe the graphic penetration of a woman by a man... but of a man penetrating another man? No way. So Stoker glosses over the one and, if anything, OVER describes the other.

The other interpretation of this fact in a sexual light is to see what a female vampire represents: a strong sexual woman who is fully aware of, and in control of, her powers. This archetype is one that comes back again and again throughout the history of literature, and is always perceived as a threat to the patriarchy. It reached one of its apexes in the Victorian era.

"...Lucy's eyes in form and color, but Lucy's eyes unclean and full of hell fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew...Had she then to be killed, I could have done it with savage delight. As she looked, her eyes blazed with unholy light, and the face became wreathed with a voluptuous smile...With a careless motion, she flung to the ground, callous as a devil, the child that up to now she had clutched strenuously to her breast, growling over it as a dog growls over a bone...There was a cold-bloodedness in the act which wrung a groan from Arthur. When she advanced to him with outstretched arms and a wanton smile he fell back and hid his face in his hands."

Lucy is voluptuous and devilish... the opposite of the virgin mother, she actually feeds on small children, devouring their innocent soul with her power and strength. She has gone from virtuous and innocent to promiscuous and degraded... so of course she must be destroyed. Her realization of her powers make her the ultimate threat to male primacy.

It would be very hard for me to believe Stoker wasn't aware of these choices he was making, and I like to think he's satirizing the common attitudes of the era, both about the Jezebel archetype and also the male homoeroticism that was so repressed. Again, this is why I enjoyed The Fearless Vampire Killers; it actively explored this theme with the character of the Count's son, who constantly pursues the young Roman Polanski character. It plays it up for a joke, of course, but it one of the few examples I've seen that even brings up that interpretation of the novel (which is obviously the granddaddy of all vampire narratives and informs any vampire story that has come since).

#2 pencil

2006-05-05T09:07:00.000+02:00

I have an interesting dilemma at work. Like most males, I have a block about going to the bathroom in unknown places. Well, by going to the bathroom I mean going "number 2," of course. One of the biggest ways men and women differ is the places they're comfortable going to the bathroom. A guy will go pee anywhere, anytime. He'll whiz out of a moving car window in the middle of traffic if the weather is reasonable. But he's very particular about where he will poop. Now, I'm not one of those guys who will only go in my own bathroom... but I definitely prefer it to anywhere else. I'll go at work without qualms now, and I can go in public if the need arises. But given the choice I'll definitely wait until I get home. In my experience, women are able to go in pretty much any clean public restroom. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that they have to sit down even if they're just going pee; the practical mechanics of #1 vs. #2 are not nearly so different for women. For men it couldn't be any more different. Seriously; how many women do you know who would pee in a drinking fountain if there was a long line at the restroom?

You should probably pretend you didn't just read that.

In any case. Another difference in the scatological adventures of men and women involves the two D's: duration and distraction. The two are intimately connected: a man needs something to distract him while he's going, and this generally leads to longer "visits." Women are in and out, quick as a stinky fox... but of course they use about 10x as much toilet paper as men. While we're on the topic, here's an interesting sociological phenomenon: men don't use toilet paper when they pee. They'll use it for everything else of course; blow their nose, clean their ears... we'll even use it to dry our hands if the paper towels are gone. But it would never occur to us to "dab off" after peeing.

For me, the distraction is different depending on where I am. I read magazines at home, and do crosswords at work. I always use the same book to set my crosswords on, a small paperback biography of Van Gogh that my mom got me for my birthday several years ago (I'm sure she'll be happy to know I still use it so regularly... no pun intended). I also use the same pencil every time, and I invariably place it behind my ear. It occurred to me the other day how utterly disgusting this is. I always put a toilet seat protector down when I use the bathroom at work, a friend of mine told me once that since we work in a white collar office building with other reasonably intelligent, well-educated people, he didn't feel the need to protect himself from our floormates... I reminded him that I've gone to lunch with exactly that sort of person often enough to know how they eat. And I choose the protector. Every time.

Not to get bogged down in tangents, but one thing I really hate is to go into the bathroom at work, have nobody in there so I can get the good stall, get all prepared, put down the paper protector, sit down... and the seat's warm. I just don't like to be reminded of all the other people who use that same toilet all day. It's like eating a hotdog; I enjoy eating hotdogs. I think they're tasty. And I have a tacit understanding with my brain and my gut that, as long as none of us actively consider what it actually is that the body is consuming, we don't have to worry about it. Warm toilet seats are like that. There's no way to get around the awful truth.

But anyways, it occurred to me how ludicrous it was to use a toilet seat protector but stick a pencil that I've used to do crosswords while going poop, probably a few thousand times by now, behind my ear every time I go. Terrible, really. That's the only word for it.

I wish I had a solution, but I don't. I've started putting the pencil in my pocket instead of behind my ear, but it's very inconvenient and I'm worried I'll forget about it and sit on the pencil. And the only thing I can think of that would be worse than sticking a #2 pencil behind my ear is having it pierce my skin.

favorite spoons

2006-04-18T06:34:00.000+02:00

Everybody has a favorite spoon to eat their cereal with in the morning. This is mine:

Some people use the spoon, wash and dry their bowl and spoon, and put them away to use again the next morning. In this way, they use their favorite spoon every day.

Some people use the spoon, then put the dish and spoon in the
dishwasher or in a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. When next they wash their dishes, they put everything away and use their favorite spoon the following morning. In this way, they use their favorite spoon whenever it happens to be clean. This is how I use my favorite spoon.

Some people let all their dishes stack up in the sink, or in the dishwasher until there is a full load, except for their favorite spoon, which they wash every morning, either immediately before or immediately after eating their cereal. In this way, they get to use their favorite spoon every day.

Some people use a different spoon every day of the week, and only occasionally use their favorite spoon to eat their cereal. In this way, using their favorite spoon becomes as a special occasion or a reward, and makes the spoon even more attractive.

Some people buy seven spoons exactly like their favorite spoon, use one every morning, and let them pile up in the sink or accumulate in the dishwasher. In this way, there is the appearance of using their favorite spoon every day, but very soon they lose track of which particular spoon was their favorite spoon in the first place, until eventually all the set of spoons becomes somewhat better than all other spoons, but not as good as the favorite spoon was originally.

Some people never use their favorite spoon. Just the fact that the spoon is in the silverware drawer and can be used at any time is enough. In this way, there is the constant anticipation of being able to use their favorite spoon, like Christmas eve, or being next in line for a roller coaster.

Some people take their favorite spoon and put it away in a safe deposit box at the bank. In this way they always know where to find their favorite spoon if, indeed, they ever want to use it for their cereal, and have the security and peace of mind in knowing that all their favorite and most valuable implements are safely locked away and can never be taken from them.

Some people remember their favorite spoon from when they were children, but which was tragically lost in a move from their childhood home. In this way, it makes no matter what spoon they use to eat their cereal in the morning; they will always be disappointed and full of resentment because it is not as it was when they were young. They could come into possession of a magic spoon made of clouds and fairy wings, that makes every bowl of cereal taste exactly as if it were milled in god's own cereal factory, and yet they would still scrunch their faces up and turn their mouths down, as if they were eating a bowl of ashes.

Some people give their favorite spoon to their children or their grandchildren.

For some people it doesn't matter which spoon they use to eat their cereal in the morning. It is always as their favorite spoon. In this way, they carry their favorite spoon around with them, wherever they may be, and whichever spoonish implement they happen to be using.

The Conversation

2006-04-15T20:32:00.000+02:00

Just watched an interesting movie last night. I've been on a Francis Ford Coppola kick the past few weeks, so I picked up The Conversation; I had heard of it before, but not a lot; just that it was a minor classic that was well-known to cinophiles. The fact that it came out the same year as Godfather II must have something to do with its limited visibility. (though of course it was nominated for Best Picture that year, when Godfather II won, so what do I know?) Leonard Maltin called it one of the best movies of the 70s, however, high praise considering that decade is one of the golden ages of Hollywood cinema.

Gene Hackman plays Harry Caul, a surveillance expert who has been hired to record the conversation of a young couple walking around in a crowded San Francisco square. His mantra throughout the movie is "don't get involved"; he's not paid to care about who the people are or what they're talking about, or (most importantly) what might happen to them when their private conversations are heard by the people who pay him. All he cares about is making the best recording he can. It's part game and part obsession; he is interested in the challenge of figuring out how to make clean recordings without being discovered, but he is also obsessed with his own privacy, with always being The Watched instead of The Watcher.

Like any good piece of art, a discussion of this movie could go in any number of directions: questions of perspective and interpretation; the culpability of those who are 'just following orders' or 'just doing their jobs,' when the outcome of those actions lead to immoral acts; the unreliable narrator/protagonist, in this case one who descends further and further into delusional paranoia; even a Kafkaesque bureaucracy (mirroring the theme of personal responsibility) headed by a shadowy figure known only as "The Director." These are all interesting topics; a suitably inspired individual could write a book about this movie, with each of those themes composing its own chapter. For now I'm going to try to narrow in on the theme that I think is at the heart of the movie, that the other scenes eminate from, in a way.

The Conversation has often been compared to Hitchcock; it is a suspenseful psychological thriller in the vein of Vertigo (and one of its most famous scenes involves a large quantity of blood in an extremely white bathroom). One of the ways in which it most mirrors Hitchcock is the use of Watcher and Watched to represent movie audiences and (most specifically) movie directors. Hitchcock's two most widely acknowledged masterpieces are Vertigo and Rear Window, and both of them play extensively with this dynamic. Hitchcock called Vertigo his most autobiographical piece; it's a fascinating study in (among other things) controlling every aspect of a person; how they dress, move, speak...with being the director of a movie, in short.

The Conversation mirrors Hitchcock's themes most specifically in this way. (If you were to catch me in the right mood, I might even argue that the aesthetic choices that reflect Hitchcock's cinematography are included to point towards these more general thematic resonances.) Harry Caul is a perfect representation of the obsessive, reclusive filmmaker (Coppola himself?) who never wants to stand in front of the camera. His life is to create high quality recordings of other people, to pass on intimate details about their lives... but nobody in the movie knows anything about his own life and history, including the audience. The one scene in which we all (characters and audience) learn something of his history is also one that highlights his paranoia with being watched... this is an amazing, understated acting job by Hackman. We watch as he struggles to overcome his own paranoia and let himself be vulnerable, while at the same time realizing that, because of who he is and what he does, lowering his guard even for an instant will result in him compromising himself and his job.

Also of interest is the cast. A short list includes:

A VERY young Harrison Ford (five years before Star Wars), who still manages to turn in one of the most menacing performances of his career:

Robert Duvall and Teri Garr in what amount to cameo roles:

Cindy "Shirley" Williams:

And the old Coppola favorite, Fredo himself, John Cazale, second-billed to the master Gene Hackman:

The pacing is slow at times, and there's this mime who desperately needs to get his ass kicked (if you don't know why everyone hates mimes, this movie will show you), but overall it's an intriguing movie that works on a lot of levels. AND it's pretty funny to see what passed for high-technology surveillance equipment in 1974. Well worth a peep.

The Theory

2006-04-12T21:09:00.000+02:00

Check it out, I wrote a guest blog for my friend Tara...

http://terrasplayground.blogspot.com/2006/04/theory.html

It's about a Theory that I've developed over the years. I won't go into it in detail here.

dum

2006-04-11T07:39:00.000+02:00

It's always a good thing when the universe conspires to keep you humble. And by 'you,' of course, I mean 'me.'

Last night I finally sat down to do my taxes. Not the final possible hour, but pretty damn close. The IRS has gotten rid of telefile this year, which is the only way I've ever done my taxes before (tells you something about my financial portfolio, another good way the universe helps me stay humble). They have replaced it this year with free online filing. This is achieved through third party companies that work in partnership with the IRS (i.e., they make a deal with the devil) and file your taxes for you for free. So I choose the first company on the list, go through the rigamarole, answer all the questions, and click the "figure out my taxes" button. It kicks back that I am owed almost 6 grand (about $800 more than my total income tax paid last year).

So what went wrong? I'm still wondering about that. Now I have one day less to figure it out and get everything filed so I can collect my actual return... of course, there's that small part of me that wanted to push that button and see what happened. How quickly would the red lights flash and the claxons blare at IRS central were I to file that return? But the obvious issue with that idea is... if I'm too feeble to complete a free online tax filing service, with a single W2, no assets, and no dependents... why would I think I could outsmart the IRS? Like I said, it's good when the universe decides your ass is outgrowing your britches. I obviously needed to get knocked down a peg.

If only that were the end of the story...

Because today I went to dig out my sandles for the first time this year. I was going to walk down the street to the mailbox and return some Netflix movies (Godfather and Anchorman) and, since it was nice and sunny out, I decided it was time to grab the tevas from the back of the closet.

Okay, to complete this story effectively I actually need to give a little backstory here. At the beginning of the year, early January I guess, I lost a pair of boots. Yes, that's right... LOST BOOTS. I have always been a loser of things...sunglasses, jackets, books, hats... but this was the first time I'd ever lost something that you would almost invariably need to have with you when you left the place you brought them to. You'd have to get prrrretty wasted to wake up in the morning and say to yourself, "ah hell... where did I leave my shoes last night?" I was never that wasted so I didn't know what had happened. I checked through my entire apartment (it's a one bedroom, not a lot of places for a boot to hide), then I checked at my gym on the assumption that it was really the only place I could leave a pair of shoes (since it's the only place to which I bring a change of shoes). No luck. I called my friends who I had stayed with for a weekend at the end of December. No shoes for you. I gave up the ghost.

A quick aside to this aside: I LOVED those boots. Super comfy John Fluevogs that they don't even make anymore. The best pair of shoes I've ever owned, the perfect mix of style and utility... I was bummed to lose those boots.

Here, I'll show you:

They were this style:

And this color:

See how cool that is? The seamless front, but in the soft warm brown? Yeah, that's right... I owned the last pair of "Brown Angelic Chelseas" in the known world... and I lost them.

The worst part is that they were the warmest, most durable, most waterproof pair of shoes that I owned. And I walk two miles to and from work almost every day. I spent an entire Seattle winter wearing tennis shoes whenver I went outside.

I think you see where this is going. I dug out my sandles and found my boots. I SWEAR TO GOD I looked in the exact place I found them a dozen times when I first lost them. I access that particular cubbyhole in my closet literally daily.

It was just such a shock when I found them... feeling around in the back of the closet, rest my hand on one of them... the slow realization spreading over my body like sunshine... I remember the episode of The Tick (the old animated series, not the live-action one a few years back, starring Puddy from Seinfeld... seriously, when they gonna release the cartoon version on DVD? Sorry, too many asides to asides to asides here, I know) that featured the supervillian The Ottoman Empress... she controlled furniture, and was amassing an army of couches and tables to take over the world... the way she neutralized the Tick was to trap him in The World's Most Comfortable Chair, so he didn't care about fighting crime anymore... anyways, the point is, when this guy who had sat in the World's Most Comfortable Chair for something like 20 years but escaped gets caught in the chair again, he says, "Hello... old friend..." Which is a line I still use fairly often. Usually just in my own head, but whatever. It amuses me. And I said it to my boots today.

The funny thing is, I KNEW I was going to find those boots again. I went shopping several times determined to buy a new pair, but never found any that worked save one pair of Merrells... and they didn't have my size in any store in Western Washington. So I just had a feeling the Brown Angelic Chelseas would come back to me somehow. Little did I know, they never even left me.

So yeah, back-to-back days that the universe kicks me down a notch. How's that for a double-play? "Boy can't even do his taxes... then loses a pair of boots in his own 400 square foot apartment for four months." But honestly? I'm so stoked to get those boots back I don't care. They're tall boots, too, so even though I feel stupid I also feel taller than I have in months, which pretty much evens it all out. Oh yes, that's right. I'm wearing the boots right now. Surprised?

A Scanner Darkly

2006-04-09T21:13:00.000+02:00

When I first saw the trailers for A Scanner Darkly, the new Richard Linklater movie, I became immediately geeked out. Linklater is one of my favorite filmmakers, and Waking Life one of my favorite of his films. To see that he was taking a Philip Dick novel (who is the subject of Linklater's monologue at the end of Waking Life... yes, that's Richard himself playing pinball) and treating it w/ the rotoscope effect that he used for Waking Life (and that is also used to great effect in Yellow Submarine, another of my favorites)... well, it seemed a benevolent group of people, who I didn't know but who obviously had great fondness for me, had gotten together to make a movie just for Jerod.

I decided I should read the novel first in preparation.

It was an interesting experience; good book, certainly, but one that left me conflicted. (Check out the Wikipedia entry for a great overview and discussion; as the site itself says, there are a lot of spoilers in the entry. I treated it like I do Cliff's Notes; perfect for augmenting the book itself, not so effective as a replacement.) It all made sense, however, as I researched a bit before writing this entry.

The thing that most confused me about the book was how completely dated it is. It is so obviously set in Dick's own milieu, the San Francisco Bay area in the late 60s/early 70s, but is well known as a futuristic sci-fi novel. Turns out it's because Dick didn't think he could successfully publish a non-sci-fi novel, so he had an editor assist him in moving the book forward a couple decades in some specific ways. The main setting of the book, however, is San Francisco during the height of the hippy era. The cover to the right, obviously from an early edition of the book, is the perfect representation of what I'm talking about... If there had been a DEA agent in The Village People, I think he'd have looked like that...

It seemed to me as I was reading that Dick was just suffering from the common ailment of artists who try to set their pieces in the future. (Most noticably authors and visual media creators. A perfect example is the Star Trek series; Captain Picard, for instance, is still a hero of the modernist school--believes that rational thought and discourse can solve any problem, that history is progressing linearly-- many millennia in the future.) All the characters still talk the same, think the same, act the same, as the people in the era in which the piece of art was created. In Scanner, they even still listen to the same music, drive the same cars (complete with 8-track tapes), and reference the same cultural icons. What actually happened was that Dick wrote a book about his direct experience, set it just far enough in the future to sell it as sci-fi, added a few invented gadgets to make it believably futuristic, and then planted little clues throughout to show the reader that it is indeed autobiography.

The thing about the book is that the themes are universal, which is the sign of any good work of art. I talked in a previous post about the idea of surveillance, about being watched constantly; in this context, it's the police/CIA/government who are the watchers. Like in 1984, there are real citizens who are "converted" to spies (interesting that Scanner is set exactly 10 years forward from that book...). The twist in Scanner is the idea that the individual himself is brainwashed in such a way that he actually spies on himself... initially just as part of the group that he has infiltrated, by reviewing videos from camaras planted in their home. But then, as the specific psychotropic aspects of the drug take hold more and more, the agent becomes less aware of his dual role (undercover agent vs. member of the surveyed) and actually begins to report on himself as a separate entity (his undercover role is unknown even to the bureau for which he works).

The means for this transformation is the drug that the narcs are trying to trace to its sources: Substance Death, Substance D... SD. The fact that it ruins the brain if abused extensively clearly links it to LSD. Also, SD is "Scanner Darkly," which refers to the means of surveillance used by the narcs.

In any case, the aspect of the book that really appealed to me was the religious/spiritual undercurrents (not surprising if you read my other blog entries). There is the obvious reference to the bible's "mirror darkly," but for me, the following line in particular--near the end of the book when it's revealed that Substance D is organic and the specific Latin term for the plant is named--stood out:

"Mors ontologica. Death of the spirit. The identity. The essential nature."

From the small amount I actually have studied Philip K. Dick, his life, his work, etc., I know that he ws a mystic, in the William Blake sense: someone who actually had direct conversations with a projected entity that, for lack of a better word, we call God. Much of Dick's work was inspired by revelatory experiences/visions. Much of his personal system of belief is based on the ideas of projected reality, the universal mind...check out this R Crumb representation for more details, it's fascinating...

This is in line with the mystical aspects of all religions. And the end goal of all these religions is exactly what is described in the quote above: death of the individual identity, the 'essential nature' that we cling to, which makes us think we are different, special, isolated from others, etc. Which, of course, lends a whole new layer to the many themes of the book. The major overriding emotion of the book is something like rageful regret, I think; anger and sorrow at all the people who have lost their lives or minds by abusing drugs such as LSD. But there is also something of the Timothy Leary in there, the idea that psychedelic drugs can be used to achieve the death of the ego that is aspired to...

I personally believe that psychedelic drugs are roadsigns, but that they are often mistaken for the end itself, or at least the path to the end. As I understand it, both through personal experience and study, the spiritual path is steep and fraught with challenges. The challenges become more and more difficult to overcome as you progress up the path (culminating, I suppose, with some version of being tortured, nailed to a wall, and then spending three days in metaphoric hell). But, also as I understand it, all of the potential, all of the revelations, everything we perceive and experience, is projected from our own mind. The individual mind that is part of the universal mind. There is that holy spark in each of us that we can kindle and grow until it expands out of our selves and affects others, joins us to them and spreads the fire.

So for me, drugs such as LSD are simply neon signs that remind us of the potential we all have in our own heads. The drug itself isn't doing anything but pointing out our own ability to reach other planes of existence. The MIND, not the drug, is the tool. The ways to enlightenment the sages have always discussed invariably include some form of intense meditation; just imagining that ingesting the drug by itself is all that is necessary to achieve what-we-may-as-well-call-heaven, without the requisite self-study, is a funamentally flawed concept, to my way of thinking.

So I'm even more excited about the movie now than ever. From what I can tell after reading the book, the casting is spot-on: Woody Harrelson as Luckman and Robert Downey as Barris are inspired, not only because they seem perfect for the roles but also because they're playing druggies... in fact, all of the cast choices seems to have a tongue-in-cheek metafictional quality. Choosing Keanu to play Arctor/Fred mirrors his role as Mr. Anderson/Neo, for example, and Winona Ryder as the beautiful but crazy female lead...

NEWS FLASH: I just discovered that Rory "Slater from Dazed and Confused" Cochrane is playing Freck, a minor but significant role in A Scanner Darkly!!! Glory be. I love Richard Linklater, heh. And he seems, without my prior knowledge, to love me, too.

Horoscopes and King Nasty

2006-04-09T01:04:00.000+02:00

Business first: check out the latest horoscopes.

Now pleasure. I went to my first live Mariners' game of the season last night. Had to see Felix Hernandez's first start of the year. If you haven't heard of this guy, check it out. He's the hottest pitching prospect to come along in years... some would say decades. In all fairness I'd argue that he's the biggest TEENAGE prospect in decades, probably since Doc Gooden. Those two guys for the Cubs were plenty hyped, but not til they were in their early 20s. Here's hoping the careers of those three guys aren't any indication of what the future holds for young Senor Hernandez.

His nickname is King Felix, but I've taken it upon myself to dub him "King Nasty" instead. Cause this kid is NASTY. 19 years old, with a fastball approaching 100mph (some have clocked him above that but I've seen him in person five times now and he's gotten as high as 97-98), a mid 80s change-up, and a 12-6 curveball that makes big league hitters look absolutely stupid. AND he's got pinpoint control of all three pitches, solid mental makeup, buckles down with men on base... all the cliches are true in this case.

(Quick aside: 12-6 refers to the face of a clock that is metaphorically superimposed in front of the hitter; as in, the 12 is around his armpits and the 6 his knees. A 12-6 curve is one that starts around the shoulders and, at a certain point, breaks straight down and crosses the bottom of the strike zone, around the hitter's knees.)

Anyways, it's definitely an event every time this kid pitches. And it seems the Ms are really developing him the right way, not letting him pitch too much and hurt himself when he's young, focusing on the near and distant future instead of the immediate moment, etc. He is clearly on a strict pitch count; he hit 99 after 5 innings last night and they took him out. They would have had a better chance to win if they'd left him in a couple more innings, but that's not the point. It was a relief to see.

I have always been a "wake me up in 80 games" baseball fan, but this year I'm already pretty amped about the Mariners. Not only is Felix always great to watch, but Ichiro is my all time favorite player. Unlike any other baseball player I've ever seen... and the new Japanese catcher, Kenji Johjima, looks like the real deal. And even though it's only been 5 games, all five starting pitchers look solid through one start... and they've been able to score some runs, too. The bullpen is going to cost them some games, definitely, which is the most painful way to lose a game (in my opinion), but I think this team is going to be fun; I don't expect them to win 90 games and make the playoffs this year, but I'm still excited.

Thoughts from an evening at the University of Washington

2006-04-05T08:45:00.000+02:00

As I was walking across campus to class tonight I saw a homeless man pushing a shopping cart towards me... it was deep into campus, at least a quarter mile from any outlet onto the main streets and uphill, and this guy's cart was stacked high with his belongings. You don't usually see guys like that with the super loaded carts that far into campus, but he'd made the trek for some reason.

He was pushing his cart away from another homeless guy... this guy had a sort of backpack hanging down in front, like a baby bjorn but full of god knows what... and he was yelling, alone, speaking in tongues even, just babbling to himself really loudly. It appeared that the first guy, the guy with the shopping cart, was leaving him behind. He kind of looked at me as if to say, "damn man, this guy is nuts even for ME." It was an interesting encounter.

Then in class, the lecturer made some comment about Sheboygan... traveling there for some reason or another, not that he was going but as a funny city name to drop in the middle of class or whatever...so this guy is DRY, and his subject is DRY (Introduction to Computer Software User Assistance, yikes), so it's really hard to pay attention to what he's talking about. I literally couldn't focus on what he was saying, what his PowerPoint slide show was slide-showing me, anything... but the positive aspect of this is that it's super easy to daydream through a whole class. In any case, his mentioning of Sheboygan started me off on a whole mental tangent... what's that? You want me to share it with you? Okay, okay. It's late but I have a few minutes.

You can take the boy out of Sheboygan, but you can't take the Sheboygan out of the boy

This, for reasons that shall remain safely in my own head for the time being, spawned the following math equations to test the validity of my theorum:

Sheboygan-boy=Shegan
boy-Sheboygan= -Shegan

And then my favorite Hall n' Oats song, "She's Gone," started going through my head. THAT'S what happens when you take the boy out of Sheboygan, I guess.

Googlezon is the best... DOUBLE TRUE

2006-04-01T19:47:00.000+02:00

This is by now several years old but it's still pretty neat: http://epic.makingithappen.co.uk/

This particular link has both versions of the EPIC flash animation; the original (and superior in most aesthetic ways), set in 2014, and the updated one set in 2015.

It's a testament to the telescoping of history that, in the year or so between these versions, enough changed that fundamental and completely ingrained aspects of our social/media landscape such as ipod and GPS weren't even mentioned in the first go-round.

Although this is obviously a distopian vision in many ways (note the name on the Googlezon ID card), several of my friends, upon first viewing the video, responded with some variation on "hell yeah." This was their vision of the future, what they wanted for the world... and, like any good distopian vision, there are many aspects that are exciting to contemplate. I think the ending of the second version was added to balance the presentation somewhat. Young people everywhere using technology to connect to each other and form digital communities around the world. Which is one of the things about the internet that has always been so exciting.

Incidentally, one of those techno-friends is also the best data miner I know. Also discussed in the Googlezon video, in a way that echos Hiro's job in Neal Stephenson's novel SnowCrash: People getting paid based on the number of hits to the information they dig up and make readily available for consumption.

I think the most compelling metaphor I take from the EPIC video is the idea that someone is always watching. This, of course, is a central concept to 1984, and it's becoming more and more appropriate with the Office of Homeland Security, the struggle between Google and the Justice Department for the records of our internet traffic, ad infinium. This has actually been true for several years... in the first class in this University of Washington certificate program I'm currently taking, someone in the class said something to the effect that every email you write can be read by any number of people at any time after you write it.

To me, however, this is just a reminder of something that has been true for all times and will continue to be true as long as humans are around to ponder their existence. One of my favorite books is The Way of Man by Martin Buber, which is a short description of Hasidism--a form of Jewish Mysticism--presented as several short essays deconstructing some old Jewish parables. The one that sticks out in this context is the first chapter of the book, "Heart-Searching." The core parable of this essay is from Genesys, in the Garden of Eden. After Adam has eaten the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, he tries to hide from God; God calls out, "Where art thou?," which of course has been fodder for skeptics ever since. How is it that an omniscient being could lose track of something? Buber explains:

"In so asking, God does not expect to learn something he does not know; what he wants is to produce an effect in man which can only be produced by just such a question, provided that it reaches man's heart--that man allows it to reach his heart."

If we may ignore for the present moment the obvious sexism of the language (that's for another blog entry), the metaphor that is present in 1984, the EPIC films, and our lives today becomes clear. We have always been, and always will be, watched. Someone is always watching us... and whether you want to project that watcher from out of the self and call it God, or just call it something like the conscious, the ego, etc., is immaterial, in my opinion. Buber again:

"Man cannot escape the eye of God, but in trying to hide from him, he is hiding from himself...This question is designed to awaken man and destroy his system of hideouts."

Jack Handy sighting

2006-03-30T23:38:00.000+02:00

Don't know if anyone reads The New Yorker anymore, but they seem to have lured Jack Handy onto their island; he's still funny as hell...

This Is No Game

Ideas for Paintings

Even better; just found out he's done some stuff for McSweeney's:

The Legend of Me

Also check out this two years old interview. Turns out Mr. Handy wrote "Toonses the cat who could drive a car" and "Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer." He is indeed a hero of men. And my new idol.

Com-pyooter make me kuh-razy

2006-03-30T18:05:00.000+02:00

Ten of twelve horoscopes are done. I'm drawing a blank on Aries and Gemini. Figured a quick blog entry might loosen the logjam that seems to be affecting May-June. (Check out this week's 'scopes.)

My brother is a Gemini, he was in town this week with his wife... it was a fun week, but I had a disheartening experience at work on Monday. I was taking Tuesday off so I could hang out with the bro. I had set aside all of Monday to complete a mind-numbing and arduous task. I completed the work at around 5:30 and was in process of copying the 20 or so files over to a share on a remote server so the client could review the work... when my computer (or God, or whatever) nuked the entire folder in which my files were saved. It didn't even nuke them, exactly; it 'undid' them. How's that for an ominous verb? "Undo." It actually blipped the folder (and all the work I had done that day) out of existence completely. It wasn't in the recycle bin, wasn't anywhere on my local drive... nada. Like the day had never happened.

I of course began to question my own sanity. I thought I'd finally gone completely kaka-kookoo and was ready for the extra-long sleeve white jacket and four rolls of rubber wallpaper. I couldn't decide what would be worse; realizing that indeed my computer just burped and deleted my whole day... or waking up from a dream, feeling relieved for a brief moment when I realized that the work hadn't been lost, and then recoiling from my brain in horror as I further realized that I had dreamt a whole day of mundane work. In the end I was thankful it was a waking experience, if only because I still got paid.

This raises another obvious reflection; we know that the computers are getting smarter all the time. We constantly increase their individual ability to think and ponder and work stuff out, faster and with greater abstraction... and they are also constantly able to talk to all their millions of friends on the internet. With high bandwidth internet connections, they can communicate 24/7, even if we've turned them off. It always freaks me out a little when I can tell my computer has learned something new; like, a program gradually runs faster and faster because the computer figures out how the program works, what it's capable of, etc.

Anyway, my question is this; do experiences like mine on Monday point towards our hyper-smart computers becoming malevolent? Or is it just something akin to a practical joke?"I know what would be funny... I'm gonna make this dude question his own sanity, and then the very fabric of the information society to boot... Might be good for a lark." Quality science fiction has always played an important role in our world; many of the greatest inventions and discoveries of our time were posited by science fiction artists decades before they were realized as truths, and a huge body of work in the past 1/2 century or so (actually almost a hundred years if you consider Metropolis) contemplates the darker side of digital intelligence. Movies like Terminator II and the Matrix set (trilogy plus animatrix) even take it to the point of wondering when and how the inevitable slave revolt will manifest itself...

Bloggy Bloggenheimer

2006-03-26T03:14:00.000+02:00

Today's the day I've been doing computer stuff I've needed to do for months. I created a quick Web page so I could publish the horoscope scripts I've been writing for the past few months; I got Skype set up and had a nice long conversation with a friend in Barcelona; and now I'm getting a blog going.

I've fought the idea of blogging for years now. It's the same reason I never have participated in poetry/fiction readings; I get really tired of hearing/reading the vast majority of the stuff out there, and never wanted to be associated with either scene. In the end, it was my desire to get more writing jobs that motivated me to set this up.