Confession.

M y lady fair and I are housesitting for some relatives as they bask in the warmth of Florida for a couple weeks. It's nice because it gets us away from the Limbo House for a couple days each week, and it's close to everything we need access to on weekends.

They also have a TV. A BIG one. We figured we'd take advantage of that fact and stay overnight Sunday and watch the Superbowl. Little did I know that pretty much all day I would be absolutely captivated by an all-day marathon of...

Mythbusters.

Now this is programming I can get behind. Its entire premise is based on the debunking of bullshit. How can I not love a show like that? Sure, it has its dramatic elements and could probably be condensed into a half hour show, but I'll take it because it has science, engineering, and ingenuity. The only other show that grabbed me like that was Junkyard Wars. It too got a little goofy with the theatrical business, but underneath all that it was a great show. It taught me that if you can weld, there's really nothing you can't do.

Then I kept seeing ads for Smash Lab. Good grief. With those two shows, I'm pretty sure I'd never leave the house.

Bob Joe

My dear friend and bandmate Bob has been providing/fueling me with unbelievable home-roasted coffee for a couple years now. What started out for him as a great Christmas present to give friends and family has finally become a business.

My bride and I simply refer to it as Bob Joe. The real name of his grassroots operation is Rollercoaster Roasters®. Driving home from practice with a brand new bag of his coffee is an olfactory celebration, and man, I can not WAIT to quaff its full-bodied and almost chocolatey goodness the next day. "Robust" is too pedestrian a descriptor.

As I see Bob with some regularity at band practice (not meaning that I'm actually privy to his regularity, mind you), I get my Bob Joe delivered in person. However, you can order it online and have it shipped.

Do it. You'll be glad you did.

More Adventures in Spam

"find the bouffant erectile organ Regina"

Good grief. Where does one even look?

Coat Dream

One of the items on the ever-increasing list of cool things that my Lady Faire does is freelance wardrobe/tech-type stuff for a theater. She’ll get contracted to work in some type of wardrobe capacity for a show that comes through town, such as Cats, Camelot, etc., and although she’s explained to me a thousand times what the job entails, I have never understood it completely. All I know is that it’s exhausting work, requires driving a great distance, makes for an incredibly long day, and she adores it.

She had asked me some time ago that if given the opportunity, would I like to work at one of these things to see what it’s all about. I’d be hired most likely as a stagehand or just a grunt, and even though I have zero credentials, I said yes. This particular production was for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, I don’t care much for musicals. That didn’t matter because I would be setting up and breaking down the show, not actually watching it.

So, LF, Lau, and I left for Lowell at 5AM, and the weather was just ridiculous with sleet, freezing rain, snow, the whole bit. Actually, the weather wasn’t as ridiculous as the jackasses who drove as if the roads were completely dry. It seemed that every two miles we saw a car in the woods, against a guardrail, or in the median. Incredibly, we still made surprisingly good time.

We arrived at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium, and the tractor trailers are already there, as well as the “talent” bus. If we got there at 6:15AM, I can only imagine what time this troupe got there. I got introduced to a few people, mostly the ones I’d be reporting to directly, and I forewarned them that I’m not too savvy when it comes to the processes for this kind of stuff, but I follow direction reasonably well. I was assigned to “props”. At 8AM sharp, all hands were assigned to unloading the tractor trailers in the wind-driven rain and sleet. This is where I started to grasp the magnitude of this particular production. We unloaded road case after road case after road case, and then came the lights. I’ve always been intrigued by stage lights, mostly by how well they’re orchestrated and how they work in general. I’d never actually seen any up close, however, and these were those crazy motorized lights that articulate every which way, change colors and beams, etc. What I also learned is that these things are @%@$#^& heavy. I couldn’t get over how many lights were used for this play; easily rivaling any concert I’d ever been to. After all the lights were off the truck, then came the seemingly endless train of wardrobes. All of this stuff is sprawled out wherever there’s an open space, and I can’t believe it will ever be set up in time.

As all of the unloading is going on, I’m doing my best to be involved and busting my butt while simultaneously trying to stay out of the way. I’m also taking note of the people I’m working with. I don’t know how many of them do this full time, but it’s evident to me that they all know each other and have done this a lot and that I’m a complete outsider; I was transported back to being the new kid on the first day of school (which I have done a lot). It kind or reminded me of Twister, where all the tornado chasers are a super close-knit group and use terminology no one outside the sacred circle would ever understand (it was fictitious terminology anyway). As we go along, I’m also noticing just how over-the-top and dramatic a lot of them are. I wondered if it’s possible that all theater folk regardless of their role in the production are just naturally dramatic. Then it dawned on me: no, it has little to nothing to do with their working in theater; it’s because they’re in their early twenties and that’s just how people that age act. I’m thirty-five, and it’s only now that I can actually see the difference. When you’re between eighteen and twenty-four, everything’s the most important thing in the world and everyone’s a victim. A good deal of sighing and exasperated mutterings abound. No doubt when I’m fifty, I’ll look back on thirty-five as and not believe how wound up I was then.

Persistent, curious stench of bong water notwithstanding, the operation was seamless and everything was assembled and ready to go by 11AM. Showtime was at 8PM, and my services were not required again until 9:30. That meant that I had a good 9 ½ hours to kill. LF was still busy with wardrobe stuff, so I was on my own. The weather was SO abysmal, I just couldn’t muster up the ambition to leave the building. So, I grabbed my book, headed to the balcony, and just read, read, read. Then I read some more.

9:30 finally rolls around and we’re back in business. Load-out for some reason seemed to be a lot faster than load-in, and we were finally on the road at about 12:30.

Would I do it again? Absolutely. Now I know pretty much what to expect, and I will concoct better ways of killing 9 ½ hours. All in all, the people were really cool. It meant taking a day off work, but it was definitely worth it and a much-needed break in the monotony.

What’s next? Jesus Christ Superstar. I won’t be working that one, but LF is. I have to admit that I’m envious because Judas is going to be played by none other than Corey Glover, lead singer of Living Colour. Sublime.

Resolution.

Thank you, Matt Bors.

I Have a Cute Earring

A woman in my office was talking about her lunch plans today, saying that she was going to Legal Seafood to indulge in some “royal padding”. I took this to mean that she was going to order something decadent and fattening.

I was wrong.

She actually said she was going to Legal Seafood to indulge in some broiled haddock.

I have obviously waited WAY too long to wear earplugs at band practice.

And Then There Were Two

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PRIMO.

Show Us Your Wits

I’m back from our nation’s capitol, and it was pretty much as I expected in all regards.

The flight to DC was actually quite pleasant. I opted for a window seat, and my head was turned to the right for the hour or so we were in the air. I just couldn’t stop looking. Much to my surprise, I wasn’t at all nervous. And since I haven’t flown in so long, there are some things about flight I had completely forgotten:

1. As we taxied down the runway for takeoff, the pilot hit the throttle. This was just a US Airways shuttle, but I had forgotten just how much power a jet has. It pushed me into my seat and I couldn’t help but grin ear to ear. Pretty cool.

2. The landscape. It doesn’t matter what you’re flying over, whether it’s the Bronx, Vermont, or Greenland; it all looks beautiful from the air. I particularly enjoyed seeing the clouds from the top, and flying through them was also a highlight for me. Hard to believe I’m thirty-five, isn’t it? I’m like a toddler discovering snow for the first time. It really is the simple things.

3. For a souvenir, I grabbed from the seat pocket in front of me a copy of Sky Mall, the toy catalog for rich people with nothing better to spend their money on. Out of probably 1,200 items, I found one useful one.

Anyway.

I got to DC and took a cab to the Capitol Hilton. I had some time to kill as the conference didn’t really start picking up until the next day, so I decided to take up an offer to visit some family nearby (thanks again, J&B!). They picked me up at the hotel, gave me a tour of DC, fed me, and then we visited the other memorials later that night. Lemme tell ya, this country loves its memorials. Crikey. Regardless, DC is beautiful at night, and naturally, Boy Genius didn’t bring a camera with him.

My hotel room was super stuffy, so I had the window open the whole time. It wasn't really an issue until the odd siren would sound here and there and when the kids started school. The playground (lower left in the picture) was about 1/8 of a mile from the hotel and the sound carried pretty well.

The next day, I attended to the information sessions. They lasted an hour and a half each, and in between sessions I’d go outside for some air. Unbeknownst to me, the very spot I decided to light was where Reagan’s assassination attempt happened twenty-five years (!) earlier. After cogitating a moment on the idiocy that is John Hinckley, I sought out a burrito joint. I was successful.

Fast forward to Monday night, and the band met at around six for rehearsal. We were very well taken care of by the people at the Hilton and the organization putting on the conference. For a band of only six people, we were graced with a huge buffet and an abundant supply of beer. Unfortunately, the buffet was 98% meat, and as I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, I no longer eat meat, so I just grabbed whatever was portable and fastest to eat: cookies. Big, BIG sugar cookies. So, my diet for the night was pretty much cookies and beer. What has two thumbs and a multitude of huge sugar crashes?
This guy.

So, we rehearsed until midnight and then had to lock up all the amps, drums, keyboards, hardware, etc. in a storage closet on the far side of the hotel. I think I got to sleep around 2AM.

I attended more sessions on Tuesday through an incredibly thick fog of sugar overload and hangover, but I got through it just fine. When one is sitting anywhere for more than fifteen minutes at a time, their eyes typically wander; not really looking for anything, but just to look at something other than a person talking for ninety minutes. At one particular session, there was a short, school marm-ish woman in her 50s with a notebook computer on her lap in the row ahead of me. I had no intention of reading what she was typing, but my eyes eventually fell on her screen.

Well whaddya know…she’s composing erotica. It’s no secret that I can’t multitask, so I was especially impressed that this woman could crank out a sexy novel while listening to the speaker, and even ask questions! I would have had a death by Freudian slip if I were that woman.

The next session, there was a guy about my age seated next to me from a much smaller school, and we chatted it up a bit before the session began. As soon as the speaker started, it became abundantly clear to me that the gentleman I was chatting with is one of those “mm hmm mm hmm mm hmm” types; the kind that has just enough knowledge about a subject to be dangerous and is therefore an authority. He mm hmm’d everything the speaker said. Over and over and over and over. As an added bonus, he then translated under his breath the speaker’s dialogue to anyone who would listen. Problem was I was the only one who could hear him.

The rest of the day was pretty much like Monday, except Tuesday night was the night the band was to play. It’s all kind of a blur, but it went as well as could be expected, and I had the same buffet issues. We were competing with a very large rock and roll band that was set up in the main banquet room, and there was also a jazz quartet in another room. Competition notwithstanding, we were well-received. It definitely wasn’t some of my best work, but sugar crashes and beer will do that to ya. At around 1AM, I headed up to the hospitality suite. I somehow missed out on this the first two nights, and man, once 5:00 rolls around, these people know how to party. The term I keep using is “spring break”, and that pretty well sums it up. I got to bed at 3AM, but it was worth it because I met some cool people and actually felt like I was part of something. Now if I could just do something about this unfortunate tattoo…

I kid.

The flight home was everything the first one wasn’t. My flight got cancelled and the weather was just abysmal. I expected the usual kind of shuddering turbulence, but one never really expects their plane to just drop twenty feet all of a sudden the way it did. Interestingly, the landing was a lot smoother than the first. Getting out of Logan was a most prominent pain in the rump. But that's what 5PM on a rainy weekday in Boston is supposed to be, I guess. Thanks, Big Dig!

So there you have it: what is probably a normal or even dull trip for the average person but semi-exciting to The Man Who's Always Five Minutes Late.

Fly Me Courageous

November 1st already? Jeez Louise! Although, I have to say that I’m perfectly fine with autumn’s arrival this year. I’m obviously done trying to take advantage of warm weather and riding my Goldwing, and I’m pretty much all set with swimming this year. So, bring on the fall crispness. I’ve been trying to shoot photos of the fall foliage, but for some reason, all the good foliage seems to be only on the highways. I’m not about to endanger myself by parking on the shoulder as 80 MPH traffic goes whipping by, and I don’t really relish having guardrails or signs in the picture.


In other news, on the 5th I’ll be flying to Washington DC for a business conference. This is an interesting development for three reasons:

1. This is my first business trip
2. This is my first time flying alone
3. I’ll be playing in a band as part of the night time entertainment. The band consists of university administrators from all over the country, and evidently they do this every year at this conference. We have a clever name that pertains to the organization throwing this shindig but I’ll spare you dear reader from a nerdy inside joke.

If you’re wondering what the photo above is, it’s my Lady Fair checking out my negatives.

Why Does Fabian Look Sixty?

You know how when you'd watch a sitcom like Laverne and Shirley or Happy Days (or perhaps Full House for you younger folk), and suddenly there's a musical guest? Not surprisingly, these little "features" show up when the show has run its course and is in dire need of being put out to pasture. It's essentially a way to fill ten minutes that would have ordinarily been filled with the usual hijinx and tomfoolery. It's a desperate crutch used by writers to compensate for a dry creative well.

My version of that very desperate act is in the form of posting comics. This isn't to say that my web log is begging for its end (or is it?), but it's most definitely a testament to the laziness I've got going on at the moment. Behold the Big Fat Whale.

Unfortunate Marketing, Chapter 461

We have a water cooler in my office, and Poland Spring supplies the water. We got a delivery this morning, and the delivery guy left a little promo thing that’s most likely intended to hang on a 5-gallon water bottle, though it looks curiously like a "do not disturb" sign. I grabbed it on my way out the door because I was intrigued by why Poland Spring was offering a “do not disturb” sign. I did a double-take as I saw what they were hawking: The Aquapod®. But it wasn’t the item so much as the name that caused the double-take: it looked like it read Aquapoo.

The name is goofy enough, but the marketing strategy is even sillier. It’s an effort to get kids to drink water. Naturally, they have to use selling points like “cool new bottle!” and that it’s “great-tasting.” Personally, I think that good water should have no taste at all. And somehow, this little guy is fun to drink. Man, when did our standards for fun becomes so...so...lame? But the bottle shape makes me chuckle:

“It’s water! To the extreeeeeeeeeme!”

Next they’ll have it play some generic heavy metal guitar riff and put sunglasses on it.

Did Someone Ban de Soleil?

What the hell? I can't remember a time when we ever got hammered with this much rain. It's downright biblical in proportion. The good part is that I got to work on my Goldwing and not feel like a complete loser for wrenching the thing instead of riding it.

The title of this post I felt compelled to apologize for at first because of the corniness of the pun and complete murder of French. But whenever it warms up and I smell coconut from someone's sunscreen, all I can hear is that jingle from the 70s that went "Bain de Soleil for the San Tropez taaaaaaaaaaaan."

Mind you, there hasn't been any whiff of sunscreen because there hasn't been any necessity for it since about last August I think.

Factoid

It Was 99 Years Ago Today

January 23 - Charles Curtis from Kansas, becomes the first Native American US Senator.

Music, Music, Over My Head.

Some random thoughts today, all musical in their scope.

Saturday night my lady fair, Jefelau, and I went to go check out two bluegrass bands at a microscopic Greek restaurant on the cape called Nick and Athena’s Place. It’s a cool little joint that has a seating capacity of maybe 45 or so, VERY tightly packed. It’s pretty much a coffee house that serves Greek food.

First up was Tripping Lily, replete with two mandolin/acoustic players, a guy on upright bass, and a female singer/fiddle player. I imagine there are two things that this band encounters with regularity: being confused with Tripping Daisy (in name only), and the inevitable comparisons to Nickel Creek. Now, I’m new to the bluegrass thing, like a year new, so all I can do is compare them to Nickel Creek because they’re pretty much all I’ve heard thus far. Regardless, they were spectacular. Also, their instruments were just gorgeous, and I was particularly taken by the parlor acoustic. Evidently they have all their stuff custom made by this guy.

Next up was a guy named Jake Armerding, and he was also amazing. He had his dad with him to help out with vocals and mandolin, and they were just an incredible pair. The musicianship between the two of them was dumbfounding and I was riveted from start to finish. The whole time I was watching him, I was thinking that he looked and sounded like a cross between Dane Cook and my bud/former singer for Room 314, Patrick. Jake tore up the fiddle and mandolin, and his dad also cooked on mandolin and had an incredibly broad vocal range. Great stuff.

Last night LF and I watched Broken Flowers, a Jim Jarmusch flick. If Bill Murray’s in it, I don’t care who’s directing...I’ll watch it. I didn’t care for it much, but one thing that LF and I noticed was the virtual absence of a soundtrack. The only time you’d hear actual music is when Bill Murray played a CD in his car. That, I thought, was a great effect. Recently when I’ve been watching movies, I’ve been paying particular attention to all the cacophony that’s happening throughout. For one reason or another, it seems a lot of directors deem it necessary to have the mood spoon-fed to the viewer. Silence isn’t an option. I’ll be watching a big action flick, and there's the typical canned dramatic strings and kettle drums going, usually with a cheesy synth and wheedle-wheedle-wheedling guitar over the top of it. More often that not, I find that the scene would be just as gripping without any music at all. Explosions are just fine without cheese accompaniment. Silence can say just as much as a pounding soundtrack, and a good example of this is a chase scene. Think Escape From LA with nothing but the sound of a V8 screaming in pain, bottoming-out suspension, and tire squeal. The message there is loud and clear.

Today’s final musing is about technology. In my never-so-humble opinion, the greatest innovations in the past hundred years (that aren’t medical) are the helicopter, ATM, and MP3 players. I generically refer to MP3 players because I don’t consider the iPod the be-all end-all of players. I will grant you that they are amazing little devices, but does the world reeeally need another iPod ad? Or even another version of the thing? What are there, like 46 versions of the thing now?

Cheap-ass that I am, I have an iRiver iFP-890 that holds a “paltry” 256 MEG. That’s right-not gigs but actual MEGS. It’s still good for about 5 hours’ worth of tunes (a couple train rides), and it fits the bill quite nicely. Know what else? It takes a single plain ol’ AA, not a proprietary rechargeable that I have to send back to the company for replacement. With my 890, I can record from anything to anything, and can record band practice via either the internal or an external mic, and it’s also a voice recorder. Oh, and it has radio. It’s not the size of an iPod Angstrom (coming soon, no doubt), but I’d hardly describe it as cumbersome. I’ll grant you that I wouldn’t mind having some more capacity, but I’m not gonna pay over two bills for something that’ll be passe within a day.

Tai Chi, Chai Tea.

While walking down through Harvard on this unseasonably warm day, I spied a guy doing Tai Chi. He was right in the park across from Harvard and I kept my eyes on him for a good quarter mile.

The whole time I’m watching him, I’m thinking I wish I had the crackers to do Tai Chi in public. Some good, old-fashioned physical spiritual enlightenment in front of God/Buddha/Allah/Elvis and everybody. How can a spectator not be touched by that?

Alas, I don’t because I’m too self-conscious. I even feel funny just setting up camp and reading a book on the common. However, if I’m to be even a semi- serious photographer, I need to care not one iota what those around me are thinking. I need to get completely absorbed into the moment. Yeah, that's it! I'll even try some Tai Chi myself! Let ‘em wonder, I say!

As I’m having this mini pep rally in my head and get closer to the open field practitioner, it becomes abundantly clear to me that he isn’t some dude doing Tai Chi. He's actually some drunk dude trying to get off the ground.

IM MBTA

As any avid reader of this blog (if there actually is such a being) knows, I take the train to and from work every day. It’s pretty much par for the course that from rush hour on, the train is gonna look like hurricane with a goofy name blew through it, replete with a million Metro newspapers, coffee cups, bags, bottles, wrappers, sunflower seed hulls (GROSS), and other assorted flotsam and jetsam.

In order to alleviate the exquisite landfill likeness, the MBTA has employed two methods to combat these superslobs. One is by the train conductor announcing over the PA at each stop to “please remember to take all your personal belongings, coffee cups, and newspapers when exiting the train.”

Right.

The other method is a decal on the inside of the train. First of all, who was commissioned to make these things? It looks as if it were created using IM, for crissakes. Capitalize the first letter in a sentence, people! I took the picture with my phone, so it’s a little unclear. It reads as follows:

your tax dollars pay to clean
this vehicle. please do your
part by removing your
belongings upon departure.
Thank you!

Yeah, okay.

Now here’s the thing. I agree that everyone should leave the train with everything they brought with them. However, if my tax dollars are already paying to clean the vehicle, why should *I* do anything to help? It’s not as if I’ll get a break on my taxes. Hell, they don’t even provide an I Help Clean the T Cars deduction checkbox on the tax return.

When a Focus Group Would Be GOOD.

When I want to feed the coffers of my stagnant intellect, I’ll sometimes listen to a show on public radio called Open Source. It’s hosted by a guy named Christopher Lydon, and like all talk shows, it has its good days as well as bad. I find that it usually falls on this side of boorish, and listening to two people argue for an hour tends to suck the life out you, (often to the point of entertaining a petition to get the previous hour of my life back). There’s the occasional interesting topic that’ll be covered, but usually I’ll just listen to it because I’m just waiting for Eric in the Evening to come on afterwards. My opinion of what is or isn’t interesting radio notwithstanding, my real issue with the show is this: the name.

It’s called Open Source. However, whenever it’s mentioned, no matter who says it, always sounds like Open SORES.

Oh, and today’s photo? It’s a metaphor for bridging communication between cul…bah, who am I kidding. I got more film developed and I liked this one.


It Was 99 Years Ago Today
Aeroplane of Alberto Santos-Dumont takes off on Bagatelle in France and flies 60 meters (200 feet)

99.

Okay, I’ll resist the urge to post about the perilously close potential of my town becoming the next Atlantis because of a certain aged dam. No, instead, I’ve chosen to focus on a different subject involving age (stay with me here).

Anniversaries. They always seem to be marked by round numbers, typically divisible by either five or twenty-five. Whether it’s a business’s inception, death, tragic incident, measure of sobriety, or…oh, marriage, it’s only a big deal at 5, 25, 50, and 100. Frankly, it’s too neat and packaged for me. Too…symmetrical and perfect. So, I’m adding a new feature to the ol’ web log. It’s called “It Was 99 Years Ago Today”, and you have my word that there will NEVER be a Sgt. Pepper, Toto, or Get Smart reference in it.

And, in my never-humble opinion, 99 is a much sexier-looking number than 100.

It Was 99 Years Ago Today

Dr. Lee DeForest perfects the electrical vacuum tube

Monday Morning Funny

I'm still a little foggy from the weekend, so I'll let someone else do the thinking for me today. My mother just sent this to me:

Three Surgeons

Three surgeons are having a conversation. One of them said, "I'm the best surgeon in Texas. A concert pianist lost 7 fingers in an accident, I reattached them, and 8 months later he performed a private concert for the Queen of England."

One of the others said. "That's nothing. A young man lost both arms and legs in an accident, I reattached them, and two years later he won a gold medal in field events in the Olympics."

The third surgeon said, "You guys are amateurs. Several years ago a cowboy who was high on cocaine and alcohol rode a horse head-on into a train traveling 80 miles an hour. All I had left to work with was the horse's ass and a cowboy hat. Now he's president of the United States!"?


Ahhhhh. That's good stuff. Thanks, Ma.

What Has Two Thumbs and Sawdust For Brains? THIS GUY.

In my usual rush out the door this morning, I grabbed both mine and my lady fair’s cell phones. Ordinarily, that wouldn't be too big a deal. But in this case, it is. You see, to save a couple bucks, we decided to go completely cellular and dump the house’s land line. So far, it’s worked out okay. There’s a juggling act involved because you do NOT want to go above your minutes limit, because sweet Jesus, cha-CHING. But it seemed to make more sense than having two phone services.

But now my lady is completely incommunicado and it’s my fault. It’s her day off, and she had a lot of phone stuff to do, naturally. Siiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. Sorry, Butterbean.

What’s ignernt mean?