Happy Holidays! Happy Old Year! Happy New Year!
Sometimes you just want a new headlining post...
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
The End of 2015
The year is coming to an end, and we got to see some family in Santa Monica this year.
Happy Holidays! Happy Old Year! Happy New Year!
Sometimes you just want a new headlining post...
Happy Holidays! Happy Old Year! Happy New Year!
Sometimes you just want a new headlining post...
Fourteen Hours of Star Wars
According to the internet this has been the thing to do: leading up to the release of "The Force Awakens," people have been subjecting themselves to all six of George Lucas' Star Wars space westerns in varying orders.
I didn't know about this until I went looking for images for this post earlier today, even though it is exactly how my wife and I spent December 22nd, 23rd, and the late morning of the 24th.
My family, while not being specifically religious, does adhere to regularly scheduled activities during the Decemberween times that could easily be considered "traditions". We have the crab feast on 12/24, the ocean swim on 12/25, and the movie theater trip on 12/26. This year, with both brothers coming down from Sac, I thought that should I be able to steer the movie-house trip to "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," I should be prepared.
This was a conversation with Corrie as well, and actually she pushed for us to get it done. She doesn't remember well (or particularly care about) movies after a certain amount of time, and, in the event we saw something else on Boxing Day, we could see the newest episode soon after to make the ordeal of binge watching the first half-dozen not for naught.
Some of the wathcing orders I studied were by release date, (Episode Order: 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3), the machete (EO: 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 6), or the altered machete (EO: 4, 5, 2, 3, 6, skipping Phantom Menace). All of these had their merits. And drawbacks.
We opted for chronological on the episodes, so we'd start with Phantom Menace and end with Return of the Jedi. We also tried to approach this exercise with total ignorance, like experiencing it all in a vacuum. This is not how I, as either a parent or a responsible adult trying to share artifacts from American culture with young people, would choose to initially experience these six movies, but mainly because I'm artistically minded, and the story about The Story is just as important to me and the point of view I'd be trying to impart on the youth. I'd probably go with release date order...
Anyway...
Ignorance. Six stories. Six movies. Here are some notes and observations.
Ignorant POV: An uneven fantasy vehicle for Liam Neeson, with action elements. There are some extremely annoying moments with an animated air-breathing fish-biped. And, this fish creature along with the flying Cheech-mosquito and the Chinese invaders, exhibit embarrassing ethnic stereotypes.
There is a climactic race scene that concludes around minute 80 (of 130) that's meant to show off the abilities of a young boy Liam Neeson has discovered. The race scene is lovingly filmed and action packed. You get the feeling that it was a better idea in concept.
The boy has really high levels of what amount to anomalies in his blood, and these allow him to be a better pilot and racer. The anomalies give him special powers, the same special powers that both Liam Neeson and his trainee, Ewan McGregor, have. It turns out the boy's a slave and living this far away from the Galactic Republic means his blood anomalies weren't discovered in infancy. The Republic are to whom these two heroes, Neeson and McGregor, report. Neeson and McGregor are a mash up of monks, knights, cops, and diplomats.
The story is dense and convoluted, but not bad. There is a cool looking badguy, but he doesn't get enough screen time. Liam Neeson is dispatched, Ewan McGregor agrees to train the kid, Natalie Portman makes strange eyes at the kid, there's reluctance to training the kid...it ends...
There's a shadowy bad guy who runs both the cool looking badguy and the invasion force, an invasion force that uses robots.
Norant POV: So, this was way not as bad as I remember. It's certainly not great, and Jar-Jar is incredibly annoying, but that turns into a Star Wars theme (the annoying turd), and thankfully Jar-Jar isn't on screen for too long. When he is? (Sigh) And Watto? (Double sigh)
It's been said that the whole hexology of movies is Anakin's arc, from kid---since his mom claims he has no father, and there's talk that the midichlorians spontaneously formed his zygote, which makes him the chosen one---to young lover to turning to the darkside to his redemption.
It sure looks like it's actually Palpatine's hexology. I'll circle back to this later.
The race scene was fun and nice, but that's one of the things that makes this movie uneven: it has very little to do with the overall events of the film. Sure it shows the kid's abilities, but isn't there an invasion happening far, far away? Oh yeah, they can't get back because to make the repairs they need some gear from winning the race. WARNING: HACK CONTRIVANCE.
The Jedi are cops? Diplomats? Sword-wielding enforcers of republic will? They show up to talk and are promptly attempted to be killed. There will be no discussion with the Chinese-ish baddies.
Then they try to help thwart the invasion, then they take off with an elected queen, while slightly creepy Senator Palpatine tries to stave off the senate's attempt to legitimize the invasion.
They end up even able to find Anakin Skywalker by trying to get away from the Chinese-ish droid-mongers. Anakin's piloting skills also come in handy near the end, after the race and before Neeson is killed. Er, sent to Jedi ghost-gig land.
This is a far more political story than fans were expecting. In defense of storytelling, if you have a bad-ass cliche-inspiring Evil Empire and are trying to tell their back story, it's going to have to be pretty political if you want it to make sense.
Fans, starved for new Star Wars material, starved for the first look at how someone could become DARTH VADER, took in this political/fantasy/actioner and couldn't believe their eyes. The hate came from the soured well of desire to love a thing. It remains lustily loathed. The nitpicking is easy: Darth Maul looks really cool but is on screen for less than three-hundred seconds. Watto's a fluttering Cheech Marin mosquito-lizard. Jar-Jar is every sad minstrel's worst Jamaican-fueled nightmare and his slapstickery is even worse. Is this a movie about DARTH VADER (as we were lead to believe) or an interplanetary political thriller mixed with sci-fi/fantasy elements starring Liam Neeson?
Ignorant POV: No fucking around here. This one starts with a huge action set piece, a large scale space dog-fight scene with Anakin and Obi-wan starring. Anakin is the superior pilot, again. This movie has the seduction of Anakin by the big reveal: the Power of the Darkside! Well, that, and the creepy senator from Naboo in the first movie who became chancellor last movie reveals he's Darth Sidious and and starts styling himself an emperor.
He convinces Anakin that in order to serve the Republic best, he needs to stop the Jedi from opposing the reforms Chancellor Palpatine is trying to enact. This means, apparently, making sure all the Jedi are dead. Since Palpatine/Sidious are now controlling both sides of a war zone, he calls off the droids, sends the clones the order to kill all Jedi, starts calling himself Emperor Palpatine and the Republic becomes the Empire.
Also Anakin gets the girl knocked up, kills a bunch of kids, and almost gets killed by McGregor and lava. He ends up in a cool looking and sounding suit. Full of action, and there are less scenes of whiny Annie and the Natalie Portman character, who herself dies in childbirth. Saving her from the childbirth death was the motivating factor for Anakin's darkside venture. It didn't exactly work, but what can you do? Who would have done something different given all the factors?
Norant POV: See? Anakin's not such a bad dude. He had tough decisions to make, and because of what Yoda called his desire for vengeance and underlying fear, he made some wrong ones. But for it's worth, it looks like he considered them. He felt he was being true to the Republic (before it became the Empire) and to democracy itself. He even says as much.
Anyway, the baby twins are sent to differing zones, and there are only Yoda and Obi-wan left. The only Jedi that we know for sure survived are Obi-wan Kenobi and Yoda! JUST TWO.
Also, it turns out that Chewbacca held some major positions in the Republic's military force, and he ages very well---as in not at all.
So, Palpatine has gone from senator, to chancellor, to emperor. The droid-monger douches he used to invade his own planet (at the direction of his hooded Sidious persona) have been planning the work on a spherical space station. This sets up both the cloned stormtroopers (cloned from Jengo Fett) and the Death Star.
Ignorant POV: Wow, Vader is pretty cruel to his daughter. Since he could foretell his wife's death during childbirth, couldn't he feel, with those high midichlorian levels, that this girl, who's home planet he destroys, is actually his daughter? Also, time on the sand planet Tatooine has not been kind to Obi-wan.
Very deliberate pace, less action than previous episodes, the score seems more soaring and manipulative, and the story is more simplistic. Good guys, bad guys, rogues, Evil-ness. Not bad for the newer, now in decline, galactic collection of outposts and Empire-titled places.
Norant POV: I wrote at length about watching these three again back at the end of 2012.You can read all about it here. Pacing clinic. Manipulative score. Iconic beyond comprehension. Moving on...
Ignorant POV: Okay then! They pretty handily nearly destroyed the entire universe we care about. Luke doesn't know he and Leia are siblings yet, but he knows Vader and Anakin are the same, and they're his dad. Daring and dark. Luke loses his hand, a puppet plays a major role, and Han is captured and sent off with someone named Boba Fett.
Norant POV: Ditto.
I didn't know about this until I went looking for images for this post earlier today, even though it is exactly how my wife and I spent December 22nd, 23rd, and the late morning of the 24th.
My family, while not being specifically religious, does adhere to regularly scheduled activities during the Decemberween times that could easily be considered "traditions". We have the crab feast on 12/24, the ocean swim on 12/25, and the movie theater trip on 12/26. This year, with both brothers coming down from Sac, I thought that should I be able to steer the movie-house trip to "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," I should be prepared.
This was a conversation with Corrie as well, and actually she pushed for us to get it done. She doesn't remember well (or particularly care about) movies after a certain amount of time, and, in the event we saw something else on Boxing Day, we could see the newest episode soon after to make the ordeal of binge watching the first half-dozen not for naught.
Some of the wathcing orders I studied were by release date, (Episode Order: 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3), the machete (EO: 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 6), or the altered machete (EO: 4, 5, 2, 3, 6, skipping Phantom Menace). All of these had their merits. And drawbacks.
We opted for chronological on the episodes, so we'd start with Phantom Menace and end with Return of the Jedi. We also tried to approach this exercise with total ignorance, like experiencing it all in a vacuum. This is not how I, as either a parent or a responsible adult trying to share artifacts from American culture with young people, would choose to initially experience these six movies, but mainly because I'm artistically minded, and the story about The Story is just as important to me and the point of view I'd be trying to impart on the youth. I'd probably go with release date order...
Anyway...
Ignorance. Six stories. Six movies. Here are some notes and observations.
I
The Phantom Menace
Ignorant POV: An uneven fantasy vehicle for Liam Neeson, with action elements. There are some extremely annoying moments with an animated air-breathing fish-biped. And, this fish creature along with the flying Cheech-mosquito and the Chinese invaders, exhibit embarrassing ethnic stereotypes.
There is a climactic race scene that concludes around minute 80 (of 130) that's meant to show off the abilities of a young boy Liam Neeson has discovered. The race scene is lovingly filmed and action packed. You get the feeling that it was a better idea in concept.
The boy has really high levels of what amount to anomalies in his blood, and these allow him to be a better pilot and racer. The anomalies give him special powers, the same special powers that both Liam Neeson and his trainee, Ewan McGregor, have. It turns out the boy's a slave and living this far away from the Galactic Republic means his blood anomalies weren't discovered in infancy. The Republic are to whom these two heroes, Neeson and McGregor, report. Neeson and McGregor are a mash up of monks, knights, cops, and diplomats.
The story is dense and convoluted, but not bad. There is a cool looking badguy, but he doesn't get enough screen time. Liam Neeson is dispatched, Ewan McGregor agrees to train the kid, Natalie Portman makes strange eyes at the kid, there's reluctance to training the kid...it ends...
There's a shadowy bad guy who runs both the cool looking badguy and the invasion force, an invasion force that uses robots.
Norant POV: So, this was way not as bad as I remember. It's certainly not great, and Jar-Jar is incredibly annoying, but that turns into a Star Wars theme (the annoying turd), and thankfully Jar-Jar isn't on screen for too long. When he is? (Sigh) And Watto? (Double sigh)
It's been said that the whole hexology of movies is Anakin's arc, from kid---since his mom claims he has no father, and there's talk that the midichlorians spontaneously formed his zygote, which makes him the chosen one---to young lover to turning to the darkside to his redemption.
It sure looks like it's actually Palpatine's hexology. I'll circle back to this later.
The race scene was fun and nice, but that's one of the things that makes this movie uneven: it has very little to do with the overall events of the film. Sure it shows the kid's abilities, but isn't there an invasion happening far, far away? Oh yeah, they can't get back because to make the repairs they need some gear from winning the race. WARNING: HACK CONTRIVANCE.
The Jedi are cops? Diplomats? Sword-wielding enforcers of republic will? They show up to talk and are promptly attempted to be killed. There will be no discussion with the Chinese-ish baddies.
Then they try to help thwart the invasion, then they take off with an elected queen, while slightly creepy Senator Palpatine tries to stave off the senate's attempt to legitimize the invasion.
They end up even able to find Anakin Skywalker by trying to get away from the Chinese-ish droid-mongers. Anakin's piloting skills also come in handy near the end, after the race and before Neeson is killed. Er, sent to Jedi ghost-gig land.
This is a far more political story than fans were expecting. In defense of storytelling, if you have a bad-ass cliche-inspiring Evil Empire and are trying to tell their back story, it's going to have to be pretty political if you want it to make sense.
Fans, starved for new Star Wars material, starved for the first look at how someone could become DARTH VADER, took in this political/fantasy/actioner and couldn't believe their eyes. The hate came from the soured well of desire to love a thing. It remains lustily loathed. The nitpicking is easy: Darth Maul looks really cool but is on screen for less than three-hundred seconds. Watto's a fluttering Cheech Marin mosquito-lizard. Jar-Jar is every sad minstrel's worst Jamaican-fueled nightmare and his slapstickery is even worse. Is this a movie about DARTH VADER (as we were lead to believe) or an interplanetary political thriller mixed with sci-fi/fantasy elements starring Liam Neeson?
II
Attack of the Clones
Ignorant POV: So the pilot/pod racing kid from the first movie has turned into a whiny bitch. The scenes with this guy and his weird rat tail---incidentally the same look and outfit that McGregor wore last movie as the trainee---and Natalie Portman are crushingly boring, sickly trite, and drawn out to the point you feel like fast forwarding. He whines so much! This is so much worse than the last one.
A grander story is taking form, though. It looks like someone many years before has ordered an army of clones. It looks like the elected queen from the first movie has shifted over to elected senator, and the senator has shifted over to Chancellor of the Republic (rather than Senator of the planet Naboo). Throughout the course of the movie he maneuvers himself into a position where he can unleash the clone army on the hostile droid-mongering trade federation Chinese-looking badguys.
Those trade federation baddies, the same ones that invaded the planet in the first scene of the first movie, answer to the same hooded "master" as they did before. There's a wheezy droid villain, General Grievous, who's part critter, part robot. And Christopher Lee plays a bad guy named Count Dooku.
Seriously. Count Dooku...but I can't remember why I should care about him. He also answers to the hooded master. The whining scenes changed my entire appetite for this crud.
The clones fight the droids at the end, and Sir Whines-a-lot and the un-aging babe get married, but I stopped caring.
Norant POV: My goodness, this one was way worse than I remember. I remember thinking "at least it has to be better than Phantom Menace," but...eh. I did like it back then, but after thinking about it, it dawned on me that the only times I'd seen it was once in the theater---and Corrie and I were late because we'd been finishing drinks at the bar---and again in 2013 in upstate New York during some down time staying with family. And no other times...
Other observations:
- The droid-mongering bad guys all have spherical ships.
- Palpatine, as chancellor, gains a human army specifically because of a conflict he's instigating as the hooded "master."
- Grievous gives us the framework for how to keep an injured person alive using robotics, paving the path to Vader later.
- The darkside is far more powerful than the light side of the force.
- Your badass violent soon-to-be-historical-cliche evil villain-for-all-times probably shouldn't be a whiny punk called "Annie."
III
Revenge of the Sith
Ignorant POV: No fucking around here. This one starts with a huge action set piece, a large scale space dog-fight scene with Anakin and Obi-wan starring. Anakin is the superior pilot, again. This movie has the seduction of Anakin by the big reveal: the Power of the Darkside! Well, that, and the creepy senator from Naboo in the first movie who became chancellor last movie reveals he's Darth Sidious and and starts styling himself an emperor.
He convinces Anakin that in order to serve the Republic best, he needs to stop the Jedi from opposing the reforms Chancellor Palpatine is trying to enact. This means, apparently, making sure all the Jedi are dead. Since Palpatine/Sidious are now controlling both sides of a war zone, he calls off the droids, sends the clones the order to kill all Jedi, starts calling himself Emperor Palpatine and the Republic becomes the Empire.
Also Anakin gets the girl knocked up, kills a bunch of kids, and almost gets killed by McGregor and lava. He ends up in a cool looking and sounding suit. Full of action, and there are less scenes of whiny Annie and the Natalie Portman character, who herself dies in childbirth. Saving her from the childbirth death was the motivating factor for Anakin's darkside venture. It didn't exactly work, but what can you do? Who would have done something different given all the factors?
Norant POV: See? Anakin's not such a bad dude. He had tough decisions to make, and because of what Yoda called his desire for vengeance and underlying fear, he made some wrong ones. But for it's worth, it looks like he considered them. He felt he was being true to the Republic (before it became the Empire) and to democracy itself. He even says as much.
Anyway, the baby twins are sent to differing zones, and there are only Yoda and Obi-wan left. The only Jedi that we know for sure survived are Obi-wan Kenobi and Yoda! JUST TWO.
Also, it turns out that Chewbacca held some major positions in the Republic's military force, and he ages very well---as in not at all.
So, Palpatine has gone from senator, to chancellor, to emperor. The droid-monger douches he used to invade his own planet (at the direction of his hooded Sidious persona) have been planning the work on a spherical space station. This sets up both the cloned stormtroopers (cloned from Jengo Fett) and the Death Star.
IV
(retconned) A New Hope
Ignorant POV: Wow, Vader is pretty cruel to his daughter. Since he could foretell his wife's death during childbirth, couldn't he feel, with those high midichlorian levels, that this girl, who's home planet he destroys, is actually his daughter? Also, time on the sand planet Tatooine has not been kind to Obi-wan.
Very deliberate pace, less action than previous episodes, the score seems more soaring and manipulative, and the story is more simplistic. Good guys, bad guys, rogues, Evil-ness. Not bad for the newer, now in decline, galactic collection of outposts and Empire-titled places.
Norant POV: I wrote at length about watching these three again back at the end of 2012.You can read all about it here. Pacing clinic. Manipulative score. Iconic beyond comprehension. Moving on...
Holiday Special
Just kidding. This was not in our fourteen hour marathon. Check out my thoughts here if you're feeling up to it. (That "review" has some spicy language that was likely fueled by gin.) The first appearance of Boba Fett (besides Episode II's look at him as a kid). Bea Arthur singing. Carrie Fisher singing the Kashyyk holiday diddy "Life Day" to the John Williams score. Whoa.
Back to it...
Back to it...
V
The Empire Strikes Back
Ignorant POV: Okay then! They pretty handily nearly destroyed the entire universe we care about. Luke doesn't know he and Leia are siblings yet, but he knows Vader and Anakin are the same, and they're his dad. Daring and dark. Luke loses his hand, a puppet plays a major role, and Han is captured and sent off with someone named Boba Fett.
Norant POV: Ditto.
VI
Return of the Jedi
Ignorant POV: By now it's hard to maintain a semblance of ignorance. You can see the writing on the wall from hours out. Will Vader turn back to the good? This plays out in a very direct conflict where he gets to choose, and he chooses light-side.
Also there are a bunch of teddy bears running around and a giant gangster slug-critter that get's dealt with in the opening act. Luke and Leia learn of their twinsity, Leia and Han are free to go have babies, the gold robot is still holding the whiny bitch flame, and Luke is now the lone remaining Jedi. All stories have met their consummation.
Probably the best of these first six films.
Norant POV: Easily the one I've seen the most, especially as a kid watching the VHS cassettes. Also, my favorite from the same time span. Leia as a slave wearing the metal bikini-top warped many a young kid like myself in likely detrimental ways in the enlightened-view-of-lady-folk areas of social development.
VII
The Force Awakens
I think we, as a movie watching world, were ignorant in this. By the time we got to the theater I felt like I'd had quite enough Star Wars for a while. The royal "we"---the hopeful audience---were confident: JJ Abrams makes pretty good movies, he cast women and black guys to prominent roles, he respects the material, and "it couldn't be as bad as Phantom Menace, right?" I heard that a lot leading up to it, and I wouldn't say that anymore having just watched it.
Anyway, this movie delivered. It was action-packed, humorous without the slapstickery, and had enough markers for weirdos like us who subjected ourselves to the marathon in preparation, while being independent enough to be seen first with no back story knowledge needed.
That was the tricky part that Abrams, I think, pulled off: He made it possible for this to be a fan's first Star Wars movie, for it to be enjoyable in that regard, and for there to be building excitement for the next episode, all without any knowledge of twelve hours of movie before. But, he also made it enjoyable for fans who knew the entire backstory, especially for those of us who know Chewbacca's son's name (Lumpy is he's called).
I would never claim to be a super-fan, cosplaying it up at festivals and the like. But after measured conversation, I, along with my gracious wife, sat down on 12/22 and watched The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. We got up the next day, 12/23, and while doing some housework, watched Revenge of the Sith, A New Hope, and Empire Strikes Back. On 12/24, before leaving for my auntie's place in Santa Monica, watched Return of the Jedi. Ugh.
On the the night of 12/23, John Williams' score for the Imperial March was playing on a constant loop in my dreams. It was too much.
On 12/26 we finished the now-heptology of American cultural mythology. I liked The Force Awakens. I didn't think it was as fantastic as some reports I've been reading, but it did everything it set out to do. It filled the gaps between the end of Return of the Jedi and the opening scroll of this one, it introduced important players, it wasn't too bogged down in exposition or whiny bitches, it had plenty of action, and it had some mystery (which a video game spoiled).
I definitely enjoyed it. Is it better than Return of the Jedi? Probably not...
Palpatine: In Episode I he, as Sidious, launches the attack on his own planet, Naboo. He knows this will lead to him gaining extra powers, and that those powers will eventually lead him to come into control of an army of human clones. That's the darkside for you. How much more powerful is the darkside? The Jedi, possibly too busy policing the Galactic Republic, are ignorant to his disciple invoicing an entire army of clones decades before?
Anyway, he's in control of both sides and the one source of antagonism he may face is with the Jedi, so he takes control of one of their most powerful members, flips him to the darkside, and the rest is history. He miscalculates just once, when he thinks the remnants of Anakin are so far gone that he'd kill his own son. Those first six movies are really about him, not Anakin.
Note: I argued with my brother Dan all throughout Decemberween as to whether Empire Strikes Back is better than Return of the Jedi (my position), not because I particularly believed it, but because it was my brother and I like being contrarian and messing with him. While I maintain that Empire... is one of the greatest sequels in the history of American cinema, I think the consummation and completion of the arc in Return... makes it a better movie. How does that work exactly?
Who knows...
You were right, Dan.
Saturday, December 12, 2015
Literary Mystery
I heard recently about a novel that was released to little fanfare back in April. It was titled
Cow Country and has "Adrian Jones Pearson" listed as the author. A literary critic writing for Harper's floated his theory about Pearson, and this theory garnered some extra attention for the book, and now the book is causing a buzz in the cranky circles of the literary fiction fans.
Art Winslow, the Harper's writer, theorizes that since Pearson is admittedly a pseudonym, the quotes from "Pearson" were very anti-writing-establishment in substance, and the content was similar stylistically, that "Adrian Jones Pearson" is really Thomas Pynchon.
Pynchon being my favorite author, this caught my attention. Penguin, the publisher of Pynchon's work, contends that they are the publishers of Thomas Pynchon's work and that this book, Cow Country, is not TP's work.
That's what you'd expect from them, right?
Anyway, as the mysteries fly, it sounds like the jury is still out, but many feel like this author is not Pynchon in disguise. It seems like the view is that it is actually another writer in the post-modern tradition, Jacob Appel.
I have it on the way to the house, and will report out on my own thoughts as I read through it.
I sat to write a post a few nights ago. I sat and stared. My brain was awash in numbers and articles and stories and warm-ups and other daily detritus. I stared. So many things I thought I had to say.
Some random stuff may be on the way...
Art Winslow, the Harper's writer, theorizes that since Pearson is admittedly a pseudonym, the quotes from "Pearson" were very anti-writing-establishment in substance, and the content was similar stylistically, that "Adrian Jones Pearson" is really Thomas Pynchon.
Pynchon being my favorite author, this caught my attention. Penguin, the publisher of Pynchon's work, contends that they are the publishers of Thomas Pynchon's work and that this book, Cow Country, is not TP's work.
That's what you'd expect from them, right?
Anyway, as the mysteries fly, it sounds like the jury is still out, but many feel like this author is not Pynchon in disguise. It seems like the view is that it is actually another writer in the post-modern tradition, Jacob Appel.
I have it on the way to the house, and will report out on my own thoughts as I read through it.
I sat to write a post a few nights ago. I sat and stared. My brain was awash in numbers and articles and stories and warm-ups and other daily detritus. I stared. So many things I thought I had to say.
Some random stuff may be on the way...
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Overeating, Catalytic Converters, and Other Thanksgiving Weirdness
)))The Holiday Season(((
The "holiday season" in the US is the Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year's quartet.
Of these Thanksgiving has usually been my favorite. This dates back to the relative recent past of living in San Luis Obispo when none of the five of us living at Oceanaire could either leave town or get off work.
We would hang out, Marc not heading back to upstate New York, Corrie not heading to Oklahoma, Tony and Ryan and I all not heading north...Tony and I usually had to work as well, as are the sad days working in the food industry.
We would make an obscene amount of food for those of us who stayed behind. One year we had a 37 pound turkey and two trays of Tony's lasagna. The next year Ryan bought all the fixings for a turducken, and Corrie and I built it.
It's not about candy or dressing up. It's not about consumerist exchanges of goods. It's celebrating what the earth gives you and not the turning of an arbitrary day.
Lately we've been heading to my mom's in Scottsdale and doing it up there. I like turkey (they, not so much), hanging out with my mother, and it offers an opportunity to see my grandfather.
It's the overlooked middle holiday that I like the best, the underdog of the season.
We would hang out, Marc not heading back to upstate New York, Corrie not heading to Oklahoma, Tony and Ryan and I all not heading north...Tony and I usually had to work as well, as are the sad days working in the food industry.
We would make an obscene amount of food for those of us who stayed behind. One year we had a 37 pound turkey and two trays of Tony's lasagna. The next year Ryan bought all the fixings for a turducken, and Corrie and I built it.
It's not about candy or dressing up. It's not about consumerist exchanges of goods. It's celebrating what the earth gives you and not the turning of an arbitrary day.
Lately we've been heading to my mom's in Scottsdale and doing it up there. I like turkey (they, not so much), hanging out with my mother, and it offers an opportunity to see my grandfather.
It's the overlooked middle holiday that I like the best, the underdog of the season.
)))One Hand Holding the Door Shut, One Hand Stuffing a Mouth Full(((
Syrian refugees are being turned away at the gate. Right? Is this an accurate statement? I'm off living under a rock, trying to help the youth of this country get on the proper road to being a productive adult, so current news events usually zoom over my head.
We don't watch the news, no longer receive the newspaper, and don't roam Twitter for anything. I listen to NPR occasionally, to and from school, but I never get long passages of news events.
The impression I've been getting is that the Syrian conflict has created millions of orphans and single-moms---always two of the scariest things to republicans---that have few places to go. Can't come here, because...why again? I was told recently it was because they were all Muslim and that the Qur'an teaches them to kill Christians. This was not a television, but an actual republican.
I told them that since I wasn't a Christian I'd be safe. They didn't think that was as funny as I did.
Anyway, as a country America celebrates Thanksgiving, a holiday that has as a large portion of its basis the traditional pagan harvest feast, where we as the people are given gifts from the earth. In the recent past, as in the turn of the 21st century, the celebration has become about gluttony.
I know that we're not turning away Syrian refugees (who're starving to death because there isn't enough grass-soup to go around) because of lack of food. This entire country goes ballistic for a major feast, we eat so much food we begin to feel sick, and then we have too much leftover to be able to eat it all before it goes bad.
And I'm not even talking about "them," you know, other people in the country---I'm talking about myself. Corrie and I tried to reign in the copious amounts of food this year: small turkey, no dressing, twice-roasted new potatoes, green salad, no rolls, no cooked greens, one type of pie. Still, there was plenty left over, and I was uncomfortably full more than once.
I understand that the issue of refugees and what to do with them is more complicated than people want to admit, but I can't see how this posturing is a good look.
How do we convince young people the value of compassion when they're regularly exposed to wild hypocrisies like these?
I understand that the issue of refugees and what to do with them is more complicated than people want to admit, but I can't see how this posturing is a good look.
How do we convince young people the value of compassion when they're regularly exposed to wild hypocrisies like these?
)))Special Forces(((
I found myself listening to the Old Man. We were having conversations like two fellas, and I think he was enjoying himself. He seemed like he was. I surely was.
This Old Man is my grandfather, the mythical Grandpa Tom from my youth, and his presence has loomed over my family for generations. My mother's father even had, at one point, my own father working for him. In one of many former lives, my grandfather had been a lobbyist for the trucking industry.
Those are some facts. The stories that surround those facts are the clouds and breezes that define the myth and the legend. Separating the facts from the stories, or vice versa, has been the cause of enjoyable moments by my maternal family members, always outside the presence of the man himself.
On this particular trip, I found myself just rapping with him as he told stories. Some of his opinions bled into the stories, and they are what you'd expect from an 88 year old republican living on the outskirts of Phoenix. Of course I almost never agreed, but I never took the bait and we just kept rapping.
Sometimes I see myself as reinforcements, swooping in from Southern California to come to my mom's rescue. I deflect the attention. I generally enjoy myself, and this trip was more fun than most. I like ordering beer with lunch, especially with my elder grandfather. This year I taught him about micheladas. He didn't try mine---the acidity of the tomato juice gets his acid reflux up.
One story during our conversation was about his time in the military. Having grown up on a ranch, or in the country at least, he was pretty handy with a rifle. At one point during his service, he'd made a wager with his commanding officer attesting to his prowess as a sharpshooter. "They didn't have 'snipers' back then like today," he explained.
It was because of the force with which he made his point---he was indeed an excellent marksman---that they pushed him along into the Special Forces unit.
He even collected the $20 from his CO.
"Damn!" I marveled, eyes wide, "I bet you bought drinks for everybody that night!"
I could easily check the veracity of such claims, but that's not what buddies do. I understand that this person is my grandfather and not a buddy, but on that afternoon we were just buddies swapping stories, and buddies bullshit each other. And, of course, grandpas bullshit their grandbabies.
But, mortal coils being what they are and with that edge is approaching faster than ever before, I've decided to shuffle along with the beat...a couple of bullshitting buddies...
This Old Man is my grandfather, the mythical Grandpa Tom from my youth, and his presence has loomed over my family for generations. My mother's father even had, at one point, my own father working for him. In one of many former lives, my grandfather had been a lobbyist for the trucking industry.
Those are some facts. The stories that surround those facts are the clouds and breezes that define the myth and the legend. Separating the facts from the stories, or vice versa, has been the cause of enjoyable moments by my maternal family members, always outside the presence of the man himself.
On this particular trip, I found myself just rapping with him as he told stories. Some of his opinions bled into the stories, and they are what you'd expect from an 88 year old republican living on the outskirts of Phoenix. Of course I almost never agreed, but I never took the bait and we just kept rapping.
Sometimes I see myself as reinforcements, swooping in from Southern California to come to my mom's rescue. I deflect the attention. I generally enjoy myself, and this trip was more fun than most. I like ordering beer with lunch, especially with my elder grandfather. This year I taught him about micheladas. He didn't try mine---the acidity of the tomato juice gets his acid reflux up.
One story during our conversation was about his time in the military. Having grown up on a ranch, or in the country at least, he was pretty handy with a rifle. At one point during his service, he'd made a wager with his commanding officer attesting to his prowess as a sharpshooter. "They didn't have 'snipers' back then like today," he explained.
It was because of the force with which he made his point---he was indeed an excellent marksman---that they pushed him along into the Special Forces unit.
He even collected the $20 from his CO.
"Damn!" I marveled, eyes wide, "I bet you bought drinks for everybody that night!"
I could easily check the veracity of such claims, but that's not what buddies do. I understand that this person is my grandfather and not a buddy, but on that afternoon we were just buddies swapping stories, and buddies bullshit each other. And, of course, grandpas bullshit their grandbabies.
But, mortal coils being what they are and with that edge is approaching faster than ever before, I've decided to shuffle along with the beat...a couple of bullshitting buddies...
)))Comic Hiatus and Relevance to Current Narrative(((
I am a book guy. I maintain a pretty serious library and have multiple blogs dedicated to books and writers. I try to celebrate books in all forms with all people. Comic books included.
I've found myself excited about the recent resurrection of a comic book universe with Valiant. Back in the '90s, when I was younger and into comics, Valiant was the only independent universe, complete with a stable of interesting characters and connections and conflicts. This was the first real rival to DC and Marvel. Two of the hottest selling copies on the market were consecutive issues of one of their most popular characters, Bloodshot. This guy is part Wolverine, part JCVD from Universal Soldier. A man with amnesia wakes up to find himself a trained killing machine with microscopic robot-nanites infecting his blood, making him mostly indestructible. At that time the two books were Bloodshot #6:
I've found myself excited about the recent resurrection of a comic book universe with Valiant. Back in the '90s, when I was younger and into comics, Valiant was the only independent universe, complete with a stable of interesting characters and connections and conflicts. This was the first real rival to DC and Marvel. Two of the hottest selling copies on the market were consecutive issues of one of their most popular characters, Bloodshot. This guy is part Wolverine, part JCVD from Universal Soldier. A man with amnesia wakes up to find himself a trained killing machine with microscopic robot-nanites infecting his blood, making him mostly indestructible. At that time the two books were Bloodshot #6:
And #7:
Because Valiant was small at the time, both issues had small print runs, and because the company was highly regarded by readers, the books came into high demand. Reason? Issue 6 had the first appearance of Colin King, Valiant's new ultra-cool James Bond/Bruce Wayne ninja spy-assassin. This was the Sonic the Hedgehog of the early 90's comics, seemingly conceived in a boardroom out of coolness molecules. Issue 7 saw for the first time King in costume as Ninjak.
He would eventually star in one of the greatest comic covers in history:
For some reason I was deep in a rabbit hole on eBay when I came across #s 6 and 7 of Valiant's original run of Bloodshot. I am a fan of Ninjak, and the opportunity to own Bloodshot 6 and 7 for that price was irresistible. I bid, sure I would never win, not for fear of being outbid, rather that the minimum bid would never be reached.
But I won the bid and they've since arrived. The winning of the bid with its accompanying emails and texts transpired while I was in Scottsdale, and it was all very surreal. Two comics that were legendary from my youth but could never get my hands on, two comics I hadn't really thought about in decades, were suddenly on their way to my house. And now in my shelf. Awesome.
In related news, Sony has paid actual BUCKS to Valiant in a move to join Warner Brothers with DC and Disney with Marvel as getting into the business of making cohesive comic book movie universes.
Both Bloodshot and Ninjak are back in comics. Bloodshot is the first planned movie from Sony, so we'll how that turns out.
Ninjak doesn't have any planned movies yet, but...come on:
)))Catalytic Converter Blows with 160 Miles To Go(((
Zooming along I-10, the high-speed roam home, Corrie keeping Trixie---her blue VW wagon---aimed at LA at a hundred miles an hour, we heard a sound. Then the Check Engine light started blinking. Blinking.
We'd seen this before, on a trip to a local brewery. The manual says that the blinking check engine light means the catalytic converter could have blown. The car will still run, just with reduced performance, and that you should get it looked at ASAP, but you should still be able to get places.
That last time, listening to the car go from regular sounding and feeling to lawn-mower sound combined with busted out diesel rattle, was scary. We were only in Wilmington, which is a few miles away from home. We turned around, went home, switched cars and went about our day.
This time, we'd been in California for only a few minutes, with a few hours to go.
We switched drivers around Morongo Casino, hit traffic, and unfortunately I wasn't able to guide Trixie at the century mark very often.
It turned out it wasn't the catalytic converter, but instead an engine coil. I know what an engine is, and what a coil is, but I have no idea what an engine coil is. Oh well, she's back to normal, and for less money that the catalytic converter costs, so...victory?
This begs the question: Should travelers in their mid-thirties be driving an 11 year old car with 180k+ miles at speeds nearing a hundred miles an hour for extended time periods?
We'd seen this before, on a trip to a local brewery. The manual says that the blinking check engine light means the catalytic converter could have blown. The car will still run, just with reduced performance, and that you should get it looked at ASAP, but you should still be able to get places.
That last time, listening to the car go from regular sounding and feeling to lawn-mower sound combined with busted out diesel rattle, was scary. We were only in Wilmington, which is a few miles away from home. We turned around, went home, switched cars and went about our day.
This time, we'd been in California for only a few minutes, with a few hours to go.
We switched drivers around Morongo Casino, hit traffic, and unfortunately I wasn't able to guide Trixie at the century mark very often.
It turned out it wasn't the catalytic converter, but instead an engine coil. I know what an engine is, and what a coil is, but I have no idea what an engine coil is. Oh well, she's back to normal, and for less money that the catalytic converter costs, so...victory?
This begs the question: Should travelers in their mid-thirties be driving an 11 year old car with 180k+ miles at speeds nearing a hundred miles an hour for extended time periods?
Monday, November 9, 2015
Temperatures "Plummet" and the Kitten Makes a Discovery
I use the quotes around plummet in the title because, well, this is Southern California, and to hit the dial under 60 counts as "frigid" in these parts.
And those temperatures (in the 70s and 80s during most daylight hours) inspired us to get our wall furnace kicked on.
And then Picasso, our kitten, made the discovery: Warmth! Coming from the wall! The sounds of the thing belching back to life had him transfixed, and then...well, he is a kitten:
This is, maybe, ten minutes after it was pumping heat. Makes you smirk.
In other cat news: A while back I remember thinking that when (or, frightingly, if) Tux returned to his normal self, un-afflicted by the bizarre skin tremors that have haunted him for the past twenty months and reduced his quality of life to shite, that he would be an elder cat, having slid past the dignified middle-aged kitty stage.
That turned out to be wrong. And I've never been so happy to have been wrong. Tux is nearly back to normal. A serious, HST-style drug regimen had helped, and he's mostly back. He comes for love, he connives for food, he's not really playing with 'Casso, but he's hissing at him less and less. It's a new day.
And those temperatures (in the 70s and 80s during most daylight hours) inspired us to get our wall furnace kicked on.
And then Picasso, our kitten, made the discovery: Warmth! Coming from the wall! The sounds of the thing belching back to life had him transfixed, and then...well, he is a kitten:
This is, maybe, ten minutes after it was pumping heat. Makes you smirk.
In other cat news: A while back I remember thinking that when (or, frightingly, if) Tux returned to his normal self, un-afflicted by the bizarre skin tremors that have haunted him for the past twenty months and reduced his quality of life to shite, that he would be an elder cat, having slid past the dignified middle-aged kitty stage.
That turned out to be wrong. And I've never been so happy to have been wrong. Tux is nearly back to normal. A serious, HST-style drug regimen had helped, and he's mostly back. He comes for love, he connives for food, he's not really playing with 'Casso, but he's hissing at him less and less. It's a new day.
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
A Simpsons Halloween
Corrie and I were invited to a Simpsons themed Halloween party this past Saturday. A while back we were invited and told, as were all invitees, to dress as your favorite Simpsons character. Since we weren't really ready to devote enough energy to choosing, after all these years, or favorite character, we decided to pick what constitutes a couple and go as them.
At first I was pushing for Fry and Leela...which are characters from "Futurama" and not the Simpsons, even if they did make an appearance this past season with a special crossover event. I liked the idea of being outside the box.
Corrie was a tough sell, since, to quote her, "Aren't there nearly a thousand different characters we could be? I'll be Lisa and you can be that hippie vegan eco-terrorist or that Irish boy from the movie..."
Corrie has always felt like Lisa (second-born over-achieving daughter with a hell-raising older brother, Betty-Crocker-like mom and lovable thearsty-pops)(love you both so much, Ron and Carol!), so Lisa for her was easy and straightforward enough.
I loathed the idea of being a one-off character, and I have some cut-off shorts, so I let my hair get a little shaggy, bought a cheapo button-up shirt and cut the sleeves off to make a vest, and voila, add an orange shirt and you have Nelson Muntz.
Here we are, Lisa and Nelson, or, a mid-thirties version at least:
At the party there was a projector showing the Simpsons Halloween specials on the wall, thanks to the FX online site's continuous playlist of those specials, all eight hours worth. The party wasn't that long, of course. There was a quiz with prizes, and near the end, I dusted off my old point-and-shoot Cannon for picture 13,397, a group photo of all of us, nearly every one in costume:
Represented characters: Selma, Kent Brockman, girl Nelson (the only double!), Troy McClure, Scorpio (with flamethrower prop!), Lisa, zombie Frank Grimes, Duff-woman, Ms. Krabappel, Apu, Moe, girl Sideshow Bob, Malibu Stacy, Dr. Nick, and Nelson. Only one of us wasn't in costume, and she was the ultimate contest winner.
That winner, a young lady named Lauren, was part of a quartet of us who, on any given day, could have won the contest. Her and I were joined by Corrie and the young lady dressed as Malibu Stacy as the ultimate arcane Simpsons knowledge holders.
A grand time was had by all.
"It's Kearns you idiot!"
"No it's not."
"Disregard!"
At first I was pushing for Fry and Leela...which are characters from "Futurama" and not the Simpsons, even if they did make an appearance this past season with a special crossover event. I liked the idea of being outside the box.
Corrie was a tough sell, since, to quote her, "Aren't there nearly a thousand different characters we could be? I'll be Lisa and you can be that hippie vegan eco-terrorist or that Irish boy from the movie..."
Corrie has always felt like Lisa (second-born over-achieving daughter with a hell-raising older brother, Betty-Crocker-like mom and lovable thearsty-pops)(love you both so much, Ron and Carol!), so Lisa for her was easy and straightforward enough.
I loathed the idea of being a one-off character, and I have some cut-off shorts, so I let my hair get a little shaggy, bought a cheapo button-up shirt and cut the sleeves off to make a vest, and voila, add an orange shirt and you have Nelson Muntz.
Here we are, Lisa and Nelson, or, a mid-thirties version at least:
At the party there was a projector showing the Simpsons Halloween specials on the wall, thanks to the FX online site's continuous playlist of those specials, all eight hours worth. The party wasn't that long, of course. There was a quiz with prizes, and near the end, I dusted off my old point-and-shoot Cannon for picture 13,397, a group photo of all of us, nearly every one in costume:
Represented characters: Selma, Kent Brockman, girl Nelson (the only double!), Troy McClure, Scorpio (with flamethrower prop!), Lisa, zombie Frank Grimes, Duff-woman, Ms. Krabappel, Apu, Moe, girl Sideshow Bob, Malibu Stacy, Dr. Nick, and Nelson. Only one of us wasn't in costume, and she was the ultimate contest winner.
That winner, a young lady named Lauren, was part of a quartet of us who, on any given day, could have won the contest. Her and I were joined by Corrie and the young lady dressed as Malibu Stacy as the ultimate arcane Simpsons knowledge holders.
A grand time was had by all.
"It's Kearns you idiot!"
"No it's not."
"Disregard!"
Sunday, October 25, 2015
The "Future" was Last Wednesday
October 21st, 2015, came and went the other day. The hover boards and flying cars don't exist in any commercial sense, and fax machines all over your house aren't a thing, but skinny wall-mounted 16:9 aspect televisions and world "enhancing" glasses are.
Those were some of the highlights from the Future scenes in 1989's "Back to the Future II", the day that Doc Brown, Marty, and Jennifer headed back to the future.
That specific day from the movie, October 21st, 2015, was last Wednesday.
Some movie futures we remember, like Judgement Day from T2. How about Danny Glover hunting his Predator in the same summer-of-'97 LA where Skynet takes over and launches the apocalypse?
Anyway, the Back to the Future franchise was more viscerally important to me, likely due to the age of exposure. Seeing the first movie as a kid had a special impact. I remember being able to wrap my head around Marty McFly's surreal predicament---he may erase his own existence because his mothers's lusting for him---better than other adult-y situations I'd seen up until then.
The Cubbies getting ousted on 10/21 was more sad, as people had hoped that the predictive element of the film could help lead the North Siders to their first World Series victory since 1908, as the news declares in the movie. "Against Miami?!?" Marty says. The AL team against the cubs in BttF2 is called the Gators, the mascot of the university in Gainesville. That Florida would have a team---two even in reality---takes a back seat to the Cubs winning.
A day so far off in the future is now in the past.
The march slogs on...
Those were some of the highlights from the Future scenes in 1989's "Back to the Future II", the day that Doc Brown, Marty, and Jennifer headed back to the future.
That specific day from the movie, October 21st, 2015, was last Wednesday.
Some movie futures we remember, like Judgement Day from T2. How about Danny Glover hunting his Predator in the same summer-of-'97 LA where Skynet takes over and launches the apocalypse?
Anyway, the Back to the Future franchise was more viscerally important to me, likely due to the age of exposure. Seeing the first movie as a kid had a special impact. I remember being able to wrap my head around Marty McFly's surreal predicament---he may erase his own existence because his mothers's lusting for him---better than other adult-y situations I'd seen up until then.
The Cubbies getting ousted on 10/21 was more sad, as people had hoped that the predictive element of the film could help lead the North Siders to their first World Series victory since 1908, as the news declares in the movie. "Against Miami?!?" Marty says. The AL team against the cubs in BttF2 is called the Gators, the mascot of the university in Gainesville. That Florida would have a team---two even in reality---takes a back seat to the Cubs winning.
A day so far off in the future is now in the past.
The march slogs on...
Saturday, October 10, 2015
"Lethal" Weekend Evening
They don't really make them like this anymore...
When I was visiting Ryan for that week back in July we got stuck for a pair of hours on the couch watching "Lethal Weapon 2" on commercial television. Here's an excerpt:
Even with the "I don't give a frigs" and the quick cuts to commercial, it was pretty fun seeing the time before Mel Gibson was outed as a bat-shit crazy person, and to try and enjoy the mindless destruction and laugh at the corny one-liners. The chemistry between Danny Glover and Mel is obvious.
I told Ryan about how "Lethal Weapon 2", from 1989, was the first one of the series that I saw. My mom took me and my dad's brand new car to the drive-in to watch a new action movie. My dad and brother were off doing something else, maybe at the Cabin. I remember pretty clearly that my mom got me a Kit-Kat bar from the concession stand, and that that alone made it a special trip.
Once I got back to Long Beach, and maybe after we returned from Idaho, I called my brother Dan and asked if he had a Lethal Weapon four-pack DVD. He did not.
Eventually, procuring some sundries from Target, I'm guessing, we found the exact four-pack I thought my brother had, and picked it up. All four discs in one slim container for under ten bucks.
Corrie and I watched the first entry (from 1987) on some random Wednesday, and got a pretty decent buddy-cop action flick. The quips were flying, the action set pieces were grand; one cop feels his age, the other is dealing with the constant threat of suicide...the buddy-cop action movie is created here with "Lethal Weapon". Buddy-action movies existed since Butch and Sundance, but the comedic, action, buddy-cop blockbuster started here. Or gained widespread acceptance here.
It was enjoyable if you're looking for a competent action vehicle that's self-aware about it's humor.
Then, over a recent weekend, Corrie pushed for a Saturday night marathon wherein we powered through the next three, and, in between, we talked about what we liked, what worked and what didn't, and how it compared on it's own to other action movies as well as to the other entries in the canon.
The second, the one I saw at the drive-in with my mom, is my favorite. The bad-guys are serious bad-guys---South African Apartheid-era bureaucrats; the chemistry is set without being yet over-the-top; Joe Pesci pre-"Goodfellas"; the quips ("They fuck you at the drive-thru!"); the closure for Riggs and his former'wife's "accident"; the repeated, for some reason, destruction of Murtaugh's wife's station wagon; the condom commercial; the toilet bomb, and in general the action set pieces are more lively.
Two helicopters shoot up an LAPD detective's seaside trailer? ACTION SET PIECE. But the best of them all?
BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE ON STILTS. I'm on the couch, cheering, yelling at my television at 9:30 at night on a Saturday, eventually turning to Corrie and saying, "Imagine the random canyon they found where they could build an entire house on stilts, just to tear it down. They don't make these kinds of movies anymore..." The scene, later when a bloody Leo and sweaty Murtaugh find Riggs, is perfect: Mel Gibson, leaning on his truck, puffing on a cigarette, is in post-coital bliss.
The movie takes a stand against both dolphin-killing-tuna-concerns as well as apartheid. The action is as well executed as it is planned. We found ourselves having this conversation:
Me: So, don't you think if the South African consulate had planned out a brazen attack on a major American metropolitan police force in which it had killed multiple detectives, that the state department might consider that an act of war?
Corrie: Something like that. they certainly wouldn't be able to hide behind "Deeplo-mahtic I-moo-ni-tee."
Then we watched the third, from 1991. Mel's mullet is bigger and fresher, Joe Pesci looks like he's aged ten years, and is blond; and Danny Glover looks the same. The new addition here is Rene Russo, and for many a young man my age, this was our introduction to her.
Corrie and I had a long conversation about this movie in which she made the case that it could be the best one of the first three. The chemistry between Leo and the detective pair feels real and, frankly, not quite reasonable considering the trios origins. Anyway, the boogeymen are money-hungry ex-cops, Rene Russo kicks ass, and the action kinda stopped trying to top the previous sequel.
We followed up this entry with a late night viewing of the fourth, about slavery, counterfeiting currency, and Mel's Riggs coming to terms with being "too old for this shit." Chris Rock is here and given some good work, but as a character the young detective from the 5th season of The Wire is better (that's not really fair, though, is it?). Rene Russo is pregnant, and Jet Li get's a major American mainstream introduction. The end reminds me of the end of "Return of the King," lots of slow motion smiling...
I'd forgotten how enjoyable '80s era action movies were, if you're into that kind of thing.
And, there's this: "Lethal Weapon", from 1987, opens with a helicopter shot of a beach-side condo suicide. That's literally our exact neighborhood, the Villa Riviera and the circular condo at the end of Lime, less than a thousand feet away.
When I was visiting Ryan for that week back in July we got stuck for a pair of hours on the couch watching "Lethal Weapon 2" on commercial television. Here's an excerpt:
Scene: Interior of Murtaugh's wife's station wagon, Joe Pesci's Leo Getz realizes he got the wrong sandwich from a (hypotheical) drive-thru Subway.
Leo: Tuna? I didn't order this...Hey...guys...
Riggs: Tuna!?
Leo: I didn't order this.
Murtaugh: You can't eat tuna!
Leo: Were you listening? I didn't order this! Let's go back.
Riggs and Mutaugh: (in unison) No!
*Cut to commercial break.*
I told Ryan about how "Lethal Weapon 2", from 1989, was the first one of the series that I saw. My mom took me and my dad's brand new car to the drive-in to watch a new action movie. My dad and brother were off doing something else, maybe at the Cabin. I remember pretty clearly that my mom got me a Kit-Kat bar from the concession stand, and that that alone made it a special trip.
Once I got back to Long Beach, and maybe after we returned from Idaho, I called my brother Dan and asked if he had a Lethal Weapon four-pack DVD. He did not.
Eventually, procuring some sundries from Target, I'm guessing, we found the exact four-pack I thought my brother had, and picked it up. All four discs in one slim container for under ten bucks.
Corrie and I watched the first entry (from 1987) on some random Wednesday, and got a pretty decent buddy-cop action flick. The quips were flying, the action set pieces were grand; one cop feels his age, the other is dealing with the constant threat of suicide...the buddy-cop action movie is created here with "Lethal Weapon". Buddy-action movies existed since Butch and Sundance, but the comedic, action, buddy-cop blockbuster started here. Or gained widespread acceptance here.
It was enjoyable if you're looking for a competent action vehicle that's self-aware about it's humor.
Then, over a recent weekend, Corrie pushed for a Saturday night marathon wherein we powered through the next three, and, in between, we talked about what we liked, what worked and what didn't, and how it compared on it's own to other action movies as well as to the other entries in the canon.
The second, the one I saw at the drive-in with my mom, is my favorite. The bad-guys are serious bad-guys---South African Apartheid-era bureaucrats; the chemistry is set without being yet over-the-top; Joe Pesci pre-"Goodfellas"; the quips ("They fuck you at the drive-thru!"); the closure for Riggs and his former'wife's "accident"; the repeated, for some reason, destruction of Murtaugh's wife's station wagon; the condom commercial; the toilet bomb, and in general the action set pieces are more lively.
Two helicopters shoot up an LAPD detective's seaside trailer? ACTION SET PIECE. But the best of them all?
BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE ON STILTS. I'm on the couch, cheering, yelling at my television at 9:30 at night on a Saturday, eventually turning to Corrie and saying, "Imagine the random canyon they found where they could build an entire house on stilts, just to tear it down. They don't make these kinds of movies anymore..." The scene, later when a bloody Leo and sweaty Murtaugh find Riggs, is perfect: Mel Gibson, leaning on his truck, puffing on a cigarette, is in post-coital bliss.
The movie takes a stand against both dolphin-killing-tuna-concerns as well as apartheid. The action is as well executed as it is planned. We found ourselves having this conversation:
Me: So, don't you think if the South African consulate had planned out a brazen attack on a major American metropolitan police force in which it had killed multiple detectives, that the state department might consider that an act of war?
Corrie: Something like that. they certainly wouldn't be able to hide behind "Deeplo-mahtic I-moo-ni-tee."
Then we watched the third, from 1991. Mel's mullet is bigger and fresher, Joe Pesci looks like he's aged ten years, and is blond; and Danny Glover looks the same. The new addition here is Rene Russo, and for many a young man my age, this was our introduction to her.
Corrie and I had a long conversation about this movie in which she made the case that it could be the best one of the first three. The chemistry between Leo and the detective pair feels real and, frankly, not quite reasonable considering the trios origins. Anyway, the boogeymen are money-hungry ex-cops, Rene Russo kicks ass, and the action kinda stopped trying to top the previous sequel.
We followed up this entry with a late night viewing of the fourth, about slavery, counterfeiting currency, and Mel's Riggs coming to terms with being "too old for this shit." Chris Rock is here and given some good work, but as a character the young detective from the 5th season of The Wire is better (that's not really fair, though, is it?). Rene Russo is pregnant, and Jet Li get's a major American mainstream introduction. The end reminds me of the end of "Return of the King," lots of slow motion smiling...
I'd forgotten how enjoyable '80s era action movies were, if you're into that kind of thing.
And, there's this: "Lethal Weapon", from 1987, opens with a helicopter shot of a beach-side condo suicide. That's literally our exact neighborhood, the Villa Riviera and the circular condo at the end of Lime, less than a thousand feet away.
Off the Grid and Loving It
My phone broke two Fridays ago.
I've been living in the early '90s. You want to let the spouse know you're running late because the meeting went long? Nope. You realize as you're looking at the printer cartridges that you forgot to write down the model you're looking for and wouldn't it be nice to quickly and easily ask the person sitting in the same room as it at home to send along that info? Guess again.
[Since you're already at the store, and I forgot to mention it, we still] need garlic[. Please just grab some, thanks.] NOT GONNA HAPPEN.
This is what it used to be like.
As much as I have been enjoying being off the grid, a person in my position needs to be able to get quick messages from colleagues as well as send the same. My wife is upset that she has to email me to contact me in some form during the day, and who can blame her, since I have limited email-viewing time on my laptop.
Emails are another serious issue without the device. I get between twenty and fifty emails a day from various sources. When I can see them on my phone, I can deal with them nearly immediately. "Didn't you get that email?" I've been asked occasionally the past two weeks. I smirk. Even with a working phone I may not have been paying the most attention to some of the chatter...
But today is the day that it hopefully gets fixed. Playing my Simpsons game on Corrie's old phone (which takes a charge and connects to Wi-fi) is getting annoying, especially with the Halloween event going on.
I see the need to be connected; I feel the need to be connected. No off-the-grid mountain-manning-it just yet...
I've been living in the early '90s. You want to let the spouse know you're running late because the meeting went long? Nope. You realize as you're looking at the printer cartridges that you forgot to write down the model you're looking for and wouldn't it be nice to quickly and easily ask the person sitting in the same room as it at home to send along that info? Guess again.
[Since you're already at the store, and I forgot to mention it, we still] need garlic[. Please just grab some, thanks.] NOT GONNA HAPPEN.
This is what it used to be like.
As much as I have been enjoying being off the grid, a person in my position needs to be able to get quick messages from colleagues as well as send the same. My wife is upset that she has to email me to contact me in some form during the day, and who can blame her, since I have limited email-viewing time on my laptop.
Emails are another serious issue without the device. I get between twenty and fifty emails a day from various sources. When I can see them on my phone, I can deal with them nearly immediately. "Didn't you get that email?" I've been asked occasionally the past two weeks. I smirk. Even with a working phone I may not have been paying the most attention to some of the chatter...
But today is the day that it hopefully gets fixed. Playing my Simpsons game on Corrie's old phone (which takes a charge and connects to Wi-fi) is getting annoying, especially with the Halloween event going on.
I see the need to be connected; I feel the need to be connected. No off-the-grid mountain-manning-it just yet...
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
RIP Yogi Berra
Yogi Berra, the long time Yankee icon and oft-quoted catcher and left fielder, has passed. His teams won 10 World Series during his career, which is an astoundingly high amount of championships. It's more than Babe Ruth, more than Lou Gehrig, more than Joe DiMaggio, more than Mickey Mantle, and more than Derek Jeter, the most recent Yankee legend. No one in baseball won more championships, and in American sports, only Bill Russel of the Boston Celtics won more as a player.
Joe DiMaggio died a few years back, and I'm not even sure what I was doing. The last Yankee legend who died before that, Mickey Mantle, was in 1995, and that I do remember pretty well. I was even thinking about it this past week as I thought about Yogi.
It was 1995 and I remember being on the phone with a girl I liked, and being an awkward kind of guy as a teenager, that phone call was an awkward kind of thing. I remember desperately wanting to talk about something real, something meaningful in which we both had interest, but, like the sentence said, I was awkward.
As the conversation lagged, I mentioned Mickey Mantle had died. "Aww," she said in manner that told me she wasn't really baseball savvy. "He played...baseball?"
I chuckled slightly but non-derisively, "Yeah, on the Yankees back in the day. He was...pretty good."
She, being a cool chick, tried to find some common ground. "Well, Jerry Garcia died."
"Aww," I mirrored. "He, uh...he played guitar?"
"Yeah," she chuckled in the same manner that I had, "for the Grateful Dead. He was pretty good, too."
Yogi Berra played catcher for over half his career, but he also played in the outfield for a sizable chunk. Bill James ranked him as the best catcher ever, as of 2000, just ahead of Johnny Bench. Much of his value, according to James, came from being a left fielder, but, as he says, the players have to go somewhere.
Who could possibly be better? Piazza? Joe Mauer? Pudge Rodriguez? (Didn't Pudge get busted for 'roids?) If it's not Yogi or Bench, who could it be?
Anyway, the game lost a classic ambassador, and I got to reminisce about being an awkward teenager.
You'll be missed, Yogi...
Joe DiMaggio died a few years back, and I'm not even sure what I was doing. The last Yankee legend who died before that, Mickey Mantle, was in 1995, and that I do remember pretty well. I was even thinking about it this past week as I thought about Yogi.
It was 1995 and I remember being on the phone with a girl I liked, and being an awkward kind of guy as a teenager, that phone call was an awkward kind of thing. I remember desperately wanting to talk about something real, something meaningful in which we both had interest, but, like the sentence said, I was awkward.
As the conversation lagged, I mentioned Mickey Mantle had died. "Aww," she said in manner that told me she wasn't really baseball savvy. "He played...baseball?"
I chuckled slightly but non-derisively, "Yeah, on the Yankees back in the day. He was...pretty good."
She, being a cool chick, tried to find some common ground. "Well, Jerry Garcia died."
"Aww," I mirrored. "He, uh...he played guitar?"
"Yeah," she chuckled in the same manner that I had, "for the Grateful Dead. He was pretty good, too."
Yogi Berra played catcher for over half his career, but he also played in the outfield for a sizable chunk. Bill James ranked him as the best catcher ever, as of 2000, just ahead of Johnny Bench. Much of his value, according to James, came from being a left fielder, but, as he says, the players have to go somewhere.
Who could possibly be better? Piazza? Joe Mauer? Pudge Rodriguez? (Didn't Pudge get busted for 'roids?) If it's not Yogi or Bench, who could it be?
Anyway, the game lost a classic ambassador, and I got to reminisce about being an awkward teenager.
You'll be missed, Yogi...
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Et tu, Peppercorner?
(Sigh)
Last December it was the Dollar Bookstore, this September...
If you can read the writing on the poster you'd see that it apologizes for the inconvenience, but the Peppercorner will be closing forever, and they thank everyone for the support over the years.
This restaurantis was around the corner from our apartment, priced incredibly well, and not overrun with annoying elements of the neighborhood. It's a place Corrie and I have visited an average of 30 times a year, which is a little under once a weekend.
We were regulars for sure. they knew which restaurant I worked at in Orange County; they knew when I busted my leg; they knew when Corrie was studying for her exams; they were on top of my back-to-school-ness. It was a nice little family atmosphere.
The Peppercorner, though, would be closed for stretches during the summer, or spring, sporadically over the years. A poster would be up stating that the owners were on vacation. The owners of our pizza joint on Malcolm X Blvd in Bed-Stuy did the same thing, so this was nothing too out of the ordinary.
Just a few weeks back it was closed. Another vacation I figured, since there was no note this time. I got back from Oklahoma City and had breakfast there one of the days before work started again.
That day turned out to be the date listed on the sign as the last day they'd be open.
A few days back I started researching---trying to find anything that I could about the closing.
Whoa.
It turns out that all those "vacations" were forced shutdowns for health code violations. Dirty meat slicers; roaches, both dead and alive; unlabeled chemicals like de-greaser and other various poisons; slime in the ice machine...the list went on, as did my brain:
Roaches, while disgusting, are as ubiquitous in downtown Long Beach as the black and white cats of Brooklyn: they are everywhere. And huge. And, for me, not the crazy deal breaker if they're near the doors: they're seriously everywhere down here. Over 20 dead and nearly a dozen living? Oh my...
The meat slicer needs to be cleaned regularly...same thing with the ice machine.
Neither Corrie nor I ever got sick from the place, and the inside, what the public saw (aside from the train-wreck of a bathroom) was always clean and nice, never betraying the reality behind the scenes. Plenty of other restaurants in this neighborhood are way dirtier inside than the Peppercorner was.
That leads to our next issue: where to eat now? There's the Long Beach Cafe, the closest thing to resembling the Peppercorner: a dive-ish diner. But the coffee is super-weak, the sausage isn't that great, and it's more expensive.
A tiny bit closer than the Cafe is the Breakfast Bar, a restaurant that makes decent food, but isn't a "local dive-y diner," and has the unfortunate case of being overrun with hipsters. Maybe that's changed, but we've yet to see.
There's the "close" far place, Potholders. The food and ambiance are definitely agreeable, and the walk isn't so bad at nearly a mile, so a bike ride isn't out of the question. But it's BUSY, so, for us, we're looking at arriving before 10 am at least, which isn't always that easy.
The next most likely place we'll head is called Park Pantry, and it's a little over a mile, but in the opposite direction from Potholders. It's right across the street from Bluff Park, and the prices are even better than the Peppercorner's were. Also, it's a mandatory bike ride, and, because of the prices and neighborhood density, it's a mandatory pre-10 am arrival. Better shot closer to 9, really.
Ahh...the problems of the childless adult: where's the best diner for me to melt away in?
Last December it was the Dollar Bookstore, this September...
If you can read the writing on the poster you'd see that it apologizes for the inconvenience, but the Peppercorner will be closing forever, and they thank everyone for the support over the years.
This restaurant
We were regulars for sure. they knew which restaurant I worked at in Orange County; they knew when I busted my leg; they knew when Corrie was studying for her exams; they were on top of my back-to-school-ness. It was a nice little family atmosphere.
The Peppercorner, though, would be closed for stretches during the summer, or spring, sporadically over the years. A poster would be up stating that the owners were on vacation. The owners of our pizza joint on Malcolm X Blvd in Bed-Stuy did the same thing, so this was nothing too out of the ordinary.
Just a few weeks back it was closed. Another vacation I figured, since there was no note this time. I got back from Oklahoma City and had breakfast there one of the days before work started again.
That day turned out to be the date listed on the sign as the last day they'd be open.
A few days back I started researching---trying to find anything that I could about the closing.
Whoa.
It turns out that all those "vacations" were forced shutdowns for health code violations. Dirty meat slicers; roaches, both dead and alive; unlabeled chemicals like de-greaser and other various poisons; slime in the ice machine...the list went on, as did my brain:
Roaches, while disgusting, are as ubiquitous in downtown Long Beach as the black and white cats of Brooklyn: they are everywhere. And huge. And, for me, not the crazy deal breaker if they're near the doors: they're seriously everywhere down here. Over 20 dead and nearly a dozen living? Oh my...
The meat slicer needs to be cleaned regularly...same thing with the ice machine.
Neither Corrie nor I ever got sick from the place, and the inside, what the public saw (aside from the train-wreck of a bathroom) was always clean and nice, never betraying the reality behind the scenes. Plenty of other restaurants in this neighborhood are way dirtier inside than the Peppercorner was.
That leads to our next issue: where to eat now? There's the Long Beach Cafe, the closest thing to resembling the Peppercorner: a dive-ish diner. But the coffee is super-weak, the sausage isn't that great, and it's more expensive.
A tiny bit closer than the Cafe is the Breakfast Bar, a restaurant that makes decent food, but isn't a "local dive-y diner," and has the unfortunate case of being overrun with hipsters. Maybe that's changed, but we've yet to see.
There's the "close" far place, Potholders. The food and ambiance are definitely agreeable, and the walk isn't so bad at nearly a mile, so a bike ride isn't out of the question. But it's BUSY, so, for us, we're looking at arriving before 10 am at least, which isn't always that easy.
The next most likely place we'll head is called Park Pantry, and it's a little over a mile, but in the opposite direction from Potholders. It's right across the street from Bluff Park, and the prices are even better than the Peppercorner's were. Also, it's a mandatory bike ride, and, because of the prices and neighborhood density, it's a mandatory pre-10 am arrival. Better shot closer to 9, really.
Ahh...the problems of the childless adult: where's the best diner for me to melt away in?
Sunday, September 13, 2015
To the Bible Belt and Back
Is calling Oklahoma a "plains state" more accurate than "bible belt"? I think their state slogan is "Native America" or "the real Native America", which is certainly cooler and better than either previously mentioned descriptors.
I used to take my camera on wanderings around Brooklyn and snap pictures of the massive churches and cathedrals that speckle the borough once known as "the borough of churches". Now, Brooklyn may still have many houses of worship, but it's the east coast, it's one of the most worldly places on earth, and no one would ever mistake it for something referred to as "the bible belt."
Oklahoma is a place that lives up to that descriptive title.
There are churches dotting the landscape, which is fine and dandy, but this metropolis, if Oklahoma City can be called a metropolis, is wildly sprawling and spread out. I believe that along with Houston, OKC is one of the two cities with a metro population above a million people with a population density less than 1000 people per-square mile.
Driving around the city has this effect: lots of space---building or strip mall---lots of space---building or strip mall---you get the idea.
I only bring it up because the churches represent the most dynamic buildings residents get to look at. Not all of them, of course. Here's a set that catches my attention every time we visit, and only this trip did I take a picture:
It's a former strip mall that went under and was bought out by the Victory church organization. It's very peculiar.
Anyway...
My father-in-law Ron and my brother-in-law Peter were having birthdays a week apart book-ending Labor Day weekend. Since Pete was turning the big Three-Oh there was to be a party bus celebration. Corrie and I were coming to town, as was the youngest of their siblings, Stephanie, in from Austin with her boyfriend Michael. Mary, Corrie's middle sister, was the organizer of said party bus, and with Corrie coming to town, we were able to peel Rob, the eldest of the Dolman siblings, away from his own life and come out with us.
Robbie and I looked around the mostly full bus early on, as we chugged water the entire time, and joked that we were easily the oldest heads on the bus. I also finally got to meet Jake, Mary's boyfriend. He's been around for a while, but I always seem to miss him.
It was very nice to have all five siblings together---Rob, Corrie, Peter, Mary, and Stephanie---and after examining memory banks, we realized that it was the first time all five had been together for three consecutive days since our Mexico wedding seven years ago.
Another awesome surprise for Ron (that we were able to keep a lid on) was Carol's brother, Pete, was going to be driving in from Buffalo, NY, on his new Harley.
Corrie and I arrived in Oklahoma City after lunch local time, were picked up by Ron, grabbed some food, and met Peter at the spring company where he is the young spring-king in making. Having grown up in the spring factory watching Ron work for a number of years, Peter took to it like the mechanical genius he is, and seems likely being groomed for the eventual takeover in a decades time. I love talking to experts in any field, and spring-making is definitely one. Peter didn't go to college for mechanical engineering, but knows wire and metal so well that he can explain why an engineer's specs won't work in practice every single time it's the case.
After seeing all the cool stuff Peter and the spring company are working on, we headed back to the Dolman house to meet with the Daniel and Lola, the growing-up-so-fast pair that helped me realize the reality of "Uncle Pat". We'd only have a few minutes to hang out since they were headed to a family reunion on their mom's side of the family.
Friday was a traditional family favorite for dinner, with everyone hanging out next to the oil cauldrons. The name escapes my memory, but, from what I do what remember, it was a Swedish deal they picked up while in the military: vats of oil are set to low in those electric pancake griddles, seasoned with garlic and anchovies, and the meat and vegetables are put inside. After a few minutes, while the food cooks, people chat and visit, eventually spooning the cooked goodies over sliced French bread, the seasoned oil making the bread taste great.
It was quite good, but I may have had grease sweats for a few hours.
Saturday was fajitas and then off to Pete and Sherri's to get ready for the bus.
Then the bus. We visited a handful of bars while also being able to drink on the bus, but, as I said earlier, Robbie and I kept to the water. Kids were getting on pretty well around us as we tried to talk about office dynamics, kids, and education. Corrie was busy documenting the whole thing with her camera and talking with her sisters and their friends. Rob and I were the grey-beards excitedly talking about adult things.
I did get a chance to talk with Cece, a friend of Mary and Steph's, and the family as well, whom I met originally in 2004 at the Farm. She was smart kid, like Mary and Steph, back then, and now she's doing well with a cute daughter and a nice gig at a veterinarians.
We even got to see Joey, Corrie's lone friend from high school, and our host back when we visited Chicago in 2009.
Sunday was another family favorite dinner: pizza. See, they do pizza in a special manner. Carol makes four or five extra-large pizza-dough shells, and everyone gets to use whatever toppings they want on their little sections. Pizzas go into the over one at a time, and you can nosh on your own quarter when it finally cools. This is a pretty neat way to let everyone do what they want.
And the next day my time was all done. Uncle Pete Brown left on his Harley at six am Monday, and I left after a late breakfast. The flight was direct (always appreciated), my seat partner was a gruff good ol' boy who wouldn't move his elbow for a plane crash. I read pretty much the entire flight, trying to finish Mo Yan's Life and Death are Wearing Me Out.
The cabbie wouldn't tell me the price from LAX back to Long Beach until I got in, and once he $80, I jumped out of the moving car. Eventually he heeded my command, "You better pull this car over," and after trying to catch a shuttle home, I settled on taking the subway. At 4:00 on the 405 from LAX to Long Beach? The trains were faster than any car or van could possibly be.
Corrie remained in OKC, then headed west to the Farm, then headed south-east to Austin, and is due home tomorrow.
Trips to Oklahoma City are a surreal experience for me. Seeing the family is always so much fun...
I used to take my camera on wanderings around Brooklyn and snap pictures of the massive churches and cathedrals that speckle the borough once known as "the borough of churches". Now, Brooklyn may still have many houses of worship, but it's the east coast, it's one of the most worldly places on earth, and no one would ever mistake it for something referred to as "the bible belt."
Oklahoma is a place that lives up to that descriptive title.
There are churches dotting the landscape, which is fine and dandy, but this metropolis, if Oklahoma City can be called a metropolis, is wildly sprawling and spread out. I believe that along with Houston, OKC is one of the two cities with a metro population above a million people with a population density less than 1000 people per-square mile.
Driving around the city has this effect: lots of space---building or strip mall---lots of space---building or strip mall---you get the idea.
I only bring it up because the churches represent the most dynamic buildings residents get to look at. Not all of them, of course. Here's a set that catches my attention every time we visit, and only this trip did I take a picture:
It's a former strip mall that went under and was bought out by the Victory church organization. It's very peculiar.
Anyway...
My father-in-law Ron and my brother-in-law Peter were having birthdays a week apart book-ending Labor Day weekend. Since Pete was turning the big Three-Oh there was to be a party bus celebration. Corrie and I were coming to town, as was the youngest of their siblings, Stephanie, in from Austin with her boyfriend Michael. Mary, Corrie's middle sister, was the organizer of said party bus, and with Corrie coming to town, we were able to peel Rob, the eldest of the Dolman siblings, away from his own life and come out with us.
Robbie and I looked around the mostly full bus early on, as we chugged water the entire time, and joked that we were easily the oldest heads on the bus. I also finally got to meet Jake, Mary's boyfriend. He's been around for a while, but I always seem to miss him.
It was very nice to have all five siblings together---Rob, Corrie, Peter, Mary, and Stephanie---and after examining memory banks, we realized that it was the first time all five had been together for three consecutive days since our Mexico wedding seven years ago.
Another awesome surprise for Ron (that we were able to keep a lid on) was Carol's brother, Pete, was going to be driving in from Buffalo, NY, on his new Harley.
Corrie and I arrived in Oklahoma City after lunch local time, were picked up by Ron, grabbed some food, and met Peter at the spring company where he is the young spring-king in making. Having grown up in the spring factory watching Ron work for a number of years, Peter took to it like the mechanical genius he is, and seems likely being groomed for the eventual takeover in a decades time. I love talking to experts in any field, and spring-making is definitely one. Peter didn't go to college for mechanical engineering, but knows wire and metal so well that he can explain why an engineer's specs won't work in practice every single time it's the case.
After seeing all the cool stuff Peter and the spring company are working on, we headed back to the Dolman house to meet with the Daniel and Lola, the growing-up-so-fast pair that helped me realize the reality of "Uncle Pat". We'd only have a few minutes to hang out since they were headed to a family reunion on their mom's side of the family.
Friday was a traditional family favorite for dinner, with everyone hanging out next to the oil cauldrons. The name escapes my memory, but, from what I do what remember, it was a Swedish deal they picked up while in the military: vats of oil are set to low in those electric pancake griddles, seasoned with garlic and anchovies, and the meat and vegetables are put inside. After a few minutes, while the food cooks, people chat and visit, eventually spooning the cooked goodies over sliced French bread, the seasoned oil making the bread taste great.
It was quite good, but I may have had grease sweats for a few hours.
Saturday was fajitas and then off to Pete and Sherri's to get ready for the bus.
Then the bus. We visited a handful of bars while also being able to drink on the bus, but, as I said earlier, Robbie and I kept to the water. Kids were getting on pretty well around us as we tried to talk about office dynamics, kids, and education. Corrie was busy documenting the whole thing with her camera and talking with her sisters and their friends. Rob and I were the grey-beards excitedly talking about adult things.
I did get a chance to talk with Cece, a friend of Mary and Steph's, and the family as well, whom I met originally in 2004 at the Farm. She was smart kid, like Mary and Steph, back then, and now she's doing well with a cute daughter and a nice gig at a veterinarians.
We even got to see Joey, Corrie's lone friend from high school, and our host back when we visited Chicago in 2009.
Sunday was another family favorite dinner: pizza. See, they do pizza in a special manner. Carol makes four or five extra-large pizza-dough shells, and everyone gets to use whatever toppings they want on their little sections. Pizzas go into the over one at a time, and you can nosh on your own quarter when it finally cools. This is a pretty neat way to let everyone do what they want.
And the next day my time was all done. Uncle Pete Brown left on his Harley at six am Monday, and I left after a late breakfast. The flight was direct (always appreciated), my seat partner was a gruff good ol' boy who wouldn't move his elbow for a plane crash. I read pretty much the entire flight, trying to finish Mo Yan's Life and Death are Wearing Me Out.
The cabbie wouldn't tell me the price from LAX back to Long Beach until I got in, and once he $80, I jumped out of the moving car. Eventually he heeded my command, "You better pull this car over," and after trying to catch a shuttle home, I settled on taking the subway. At 4:00 on the 405 from LAX to Long Beach? The trains were faster than any car or van could possibly be.
Corrie remained in OKC, then headed west to the Farm, then headed south-east to Austin, and is due home tomorrow.
Trips to Oklahoma City are a surreal experience for me. Seeing the family is always so much fun...
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Labor Day in Oklahoma
The strands of ideas flutter from my hand like invisible threads in the wind. The write up of the trip to Upper California (and, briefly, to southern Oregon) has been shelved for the time being. Maybe this weekend (we have four days off!) would have served the perfect time to get that material down, and eventually I may still get to it, but...
...But, as has been planned for some time, Corrie and I will be heading to her family's place in the great plains state of Oklahoma.
My time, as of three weeks ago, has been full of teenagers at work and Corrie's professional excitement at home.
I once posted a congratulatory post about her having passed her first test on her road to gaining her architectural license. Over the course of the past five years, I have lagged on posting those congrats-esque posts, partly because I've been busy, but also largely because THERE ARE SEVEN TESTS AND AN EIGHTH CALIFORNIA SUPPLEMENTAL EXAM. None are free, or free from stress and studying.
Even after she passed her last exam, she had to wait to call herself an architect until her license number was achieved and remitted to her.
And because she's badass and Corrie, within a week of obtaining her license number---officially becoming an architect---she had her first client, her first signed contract, and her first check. It's not humongous, of course, but she's working with a client that has a piece of property in Compton and wants to do a socially responsible project that will start the long process of improving an, until just recently (Thanks Cube and Dre!), largely forgotten city.
We joked that she couldn't have written or even dreamed up a better scenario for her first gig.
Congratulations, baby, you're my inspiration and I'm so very proud of you. I'm pleased beyond words that I've been able to run the background while you finished.
So, now, Labor Day and a trip to Oklahoma are in the works for tomorrow morning. The crunch of the hours left are beginning to sound on my ears. Boarding passes printed; shuttle for 5:30 am (YIKES) booked; Tux's fancy prescription dry food attained; my wards will be ready for tomorrow; and Corrie's off to an evening final exam for one of the classes she's taking for her construction administration certificate (to go along with her architectural license).
Still need to take out the trash, finish the dishes, feed the cats, get their food machine set up for the few upcoming days, and pack. AND pour a stiff gin and tonic...
Happy Labor Day, whenever it really happens...
...But, as has been planned for some time, Corrie and I will be heading to her family's place in the great plains state of Oklahoma.
My time, as of three weeks ago, has been full of teenagers at work and Corrie's professional excitement at home.
I once posted a congratulatory post about her having passed her first test on her road to gaining her architectural license. Over the course of the past five years, I have lagged on posting those congrats-esque posts, partly because I've been busy, but also largely because THERE ARE SEVEN TESTS AND AN EIGHTH CALIFORNIA SUPPLEMENTAL EXAM. None are free, or free from stress and studying.
Even after she passed her last exam, she had to wait to call herself an architect until her license number was achieved and remitted to her.
And because she's badass and Corrie, within a week of obtaining her license number---officially becoming an architect---she had her first client, her first signed contract, and her first check. It's not humongous, of course, but she's working with a client that has a piece of property in Compton and wants to do a socially responsible project that will start the long process of improving an, until just recently (Thanks Cube and Dre!), largely forgotten city.
We joked that she couldn't have written or even dreamed up a better scenario for her first gig.
Congratulations, baby, you're my inspiration and I'm so very proud of you. I'm pleased beyond words that I've been able to run the background while you finished.
So, now, Labor Day and a trip to Oklahoma are in the works for tomorrow morning. The crunch of the hours left are beginning to sound on my ears. Boarding passes printed; shuttle for 5:30 am (YIKES) booked; Tux's fancy prescription dry food attained; my wards will be ready for tomorrow; and Corrie's off to an evening final exam for one of the classes she's taking for her construction administration certificate (to go along with her architectural license).
Still need to take out the trash, finish the dishes, feed the cats, get their food machine set up for the few upcoming days, and pack. AND pour a stiff gin and tonic...
Happy Labor Day, whenever it really happens...
Sunday, August 23, 2015
"Which one do you want?"
"How about the one in the back, the one I didn't make eye contact with..."
Corrie's intent on eliminating food-allergy as the reason for his suffering (beyond food allergy, the causes are barely treatable), and this has us trying to find "novel" proteins.
A novel protein is one that animals have not been exposed to recently. Most cat foods are made of chicken, beef, white-fish and pork. We've tried all sorts of stuff in the last seven months: pheasant, turkey, lamb (barf-city), and bison.
One thing we did try, but it had been a while, was rabbit, but in the form of raw frozen hockey pucks that needed to be dealt with a bit. This was during the "raw diet" period.
On this most recent attempt, we decided to back with rabbit. We found a butcher two miles away that sold rabbit, so I rode my bike over to the place to procure some. One. Whatever, really, I wasn't quite sure how it would work.
I was planning on boiling it until it was soft enough to pull with little effort, then adding the tuarine and calcium, reducing the last of the stock until it was gooey and adding it back.
When I got to the butcher, which was a bodega owned by Bangladeshis with a back area for chicken (et al) butchery with two guys and one girl (all Latino), I went to the back and asked for conejo. One guy came over, printed out the ticket, and pointed me over to the register. I had to pay the fifteen bucks before they would move on the rabbit.
I paid, returned, and the guy waved me back. "Back there?" I questioned. He just nodded and motioned again. Through the swinging doors and into the cutting and washing area, through another set of doors into a small muggy room with huge steaming kettles, and then through another set of doors.
Inside this last room the first thing I saw were the live chickens, dozens of them, in pens. As I moved into the room I started to notice the pigeons and the quails. The guy pointed to a pen behind me, above my left shoulder. I turned.
Inside were two terrified white rabbits. The guy said, "Which one do you want?"
"Uh, how about the one in the back..." and as he was grabbing it like Elmer Fudd with Bugs, under my breath I said, "...the one I didn't make eye-contact with..."
I told Corrie about it later and she almost teared up. I've been back a few times since and they haven't had me play Death again.
Hopefully Tux comes out of this soon enough. The things we do for our pets...right?
Thursday, August 6, 2015
Baseball Notes
I was joking with Ryan about how this year the baseball tables have turned. Instead of the Yankees and Red Sox snatching up the marquee players at the non-waiver trade-deadline, the biggest "buyers" were the perennial sellers Kansas City Royals and Toronto Blue Jays.
Well, the Blue Jays aren't traditional sellers like the Royals and A's have been, seeing as how Toronto is a mega-market and the communication giant Rogers owns the team, but they do own the longest post-season drought in the majors. But it's not like they're the Cubbies; The last time the Jays were in the playoffs they were winning their second consecutive World Series (Joe Carter's walk-off game 7 homer?).
This season the best team in the American League are the Royals, last year's pennant-winning squad, and they got considerably better at the deadline. The Jays had one of the best offenses in the AL before going out and getting the best shortstop in the game in Troy Tulowitzki, but their pitching was still questionable...until they signed probably the best pitcher available in David Price. That signing may just amount to a rental, but this team has since won 6 of 7 and has pulled even in the race for one of the two wild card spots.
Now that there are two wild card positions, the calculus of deciding between being a buyer or a seller at the deadline has become even more confusing. It appears that one of the two wild card spots will be taken by whichever AL West team doesn't win the division (Astros or Angels), as both of those clubs are playing well.
The Yankees, my Yankees, were going to be the subject of a post back in March, a post that was going to eulogize what I thought would be a down year. Turns out that the AL East is quite mediocre, and the Yanks have a nice cushion in first place. My dad gave me a list of things necessary to go well for them to be playoff contenders, an idea I thought was so out of touch with reality that I wouldn't even dare mention it.
Turns out that I was the one out of touch with reality. This I knew, and the initial research for my March Yankee post had more of a "Who are these guys?" angle, which slowly lead to a eulogy. I didn't know any better. I did recognize that I was out of touch, mostly because of lack of time to read about sports in general combined with no cable and no baseball on regular broadcast television anymore. (Wasn't Saturday afternoon Fox's baseball broadcast? All I ever find on Fox on Saturday afternoon is "I Love Lucy", which is a fantastic show, but the episodes all seem to be from the end of the series after they move to Westchester, and those just don't hold the same appeal for me...)
So, my dad's list seems pretty good now:
1) A-Rod has to produce somewhat...capital CHECK;
2) McCann shakes off the early dust and produces all year like the end of last year...check;
3) Teixeira remembers he's a baseball player and not a garbageman (my paraphrasing)...capital CHECK;
4) They need just enough starting pitching, and Tanaka can't go down to a-blown-elbow-Tommy-John-surgery-inducing incident...check
5) They maintain their bullpen dominance, second last year to only the Royals...check.
There may have been more on the list, but those were the main points I remember. Both A-Rod and Teixeira are playing like it's 2009; McCann has played well all year; even Jacoby Ellsbury came back and is playing well. Even (weird-shape-headed) Brett Gardner made the All-Star game. The bullpen has been great; Tanaka managed to not snap that elbow (probably shouldn't even mention this for superstitions sake), but "Ol' Pine Tar" Pineda got hurt, which made it likely that the Yanks would go get a pitcher.
So...he got hurt a little late in the trade-market game, and the player the Tigers wanted for David Price is a young Dominican phenom, so the Yankees just decided to hold onto the kid, let the Jays waste a major prospect on Price, and insert this phenom into their rotation like he was a prize from a trade.
Luis Severino is his name and he pitched his first game yesterday. It was a pretty good showing for a first major league appearance: he pitched five solid innings against the Red Sox, no walks, 7 strikeouts, gave up a huge welcome-to-the-show solo homer to David Ortiz, and took the loss because the Red Sox pitcher was a knuckler who was on his game. The final was 2-1, the homer being the lone earned-run Severino gave up.
I didn't really mean to ramble about baseball for this long; I just wanted a newer post to show up to supplant the "We like Roy!" post. I have a few other ideas of stuff to work on, and I need to hurry it up as summer winds down.
Well, the Blue Jays aren't traditional sellers like the Royals and A's have been, seeing as how Toronto is a mega-market and the communication giant Rogers owns the team, but they do own the longest post-season drought in the majors. But it's not like they're the Cubbies; The last time the Jays were in the playoffs they were winning their second consecutive World Series (Joe Carter's walk-off game 7 homer?).
This season the best team in the American League are the Royals, last year's pennant-winning squad, and they got considerably better at the deadline. The Jays had one of the best offenses in the AL before going out and getting the best shortstop in the game in Troy Tulowitzki, but their pitching was still questionable...until they signed probably the best pitcher available in David Price. That signing may just amount to a rental, but this team has since won 6 of 7 and has pulled even in the race for one of the two wild card spots.
Now that there are two wild card positions, the calculus of deciding between being a buyer or a seller at the deadline has become even more confusing. It appears that one of the two wild card spots will be taken by whichever AL West team doesn't win the division (Astros or Angels), as both of those clubs are playing well.
The Yankees, my Yankees, were going to be the subject of a post back in March, a post that was going to eulogize what I thought would be a down year. Turns out that the AL East is quite mediocre, and the Yanks have a nice cushion in first place. My dad gave me a list of things necessary to go well for them to be playoff contenders, an idea I thought was so out of touch with reality that I wouldn't even dare mention it.
Turns out that I was the one out of touch with reality. This I knew, and the initial research for my March Yankee post had more of a "Who are these guys?" angle, which slowly lead to a eulogy. I didn't know any better. I did recognize that I was out of touch, mostly because of lack of time to read about sports in general combined with no cable and no baseball on regular broadcast television anymore. (Wasn't Saturday afternoon Fox's baseball broadcast? All I ever find on Fox on Saturday afternoon is "I Love Lucy", which is a fantastic show, but the episodes all seem to be from the end of the series after they move to Westchester, and those just don't hold the same appeal for me...)
So, my dad's list seems pretty good now:
1) A-Rod has to produce somewhat...capital CHECK;
2) McCann shakes off the early dust and produces all year like the end of last year...check;
3) Teixeira remembers he's a baseball player and not a garbageman (my paraphrasing)...capital CHECK;
4) They need just enough starting pitching, and Tanaka can't go down to a-blown-elbow-Tommy-John-surgery-inducing incident...check
5) They maintain their bullpen dominance, second last year to only the Royals...check.
There may have been more on the list, but those were the main points I remember. Both A-Rod and Teixeira are playing like it's 2009; McCann has played well all year; even Jacoby Ellsbury came back and is playing well. Even (weird-shape-headed) Brett Gardner made the All-Star game. The bullpen has been great; Tanaka managed to not snap that elbow (probably shouldn't even mention this for superstitions sake), but "Ol' Pine Tar" Pineda got hurt, which made it likely that the Yanks would go get a pitcher.
So...he got hurt a little late in the trade-market game, and the player the Tigers wanted for David Price is a young Dominican phenom, so the Yankees just decided to hold onto the kid, let the Jays waste a major prospect on Price, and insert this phenom into their rotation like he was a prize from a trade.
Luis Severino is his name and he pitched his first game yesterday. It was a pretty good showing for a first major league appearance: he pitched five solid innings against the Red Sox, no walks, 7 strikeouts, gave up a huge welcome-to-the-show solo homer to David Ortiz, and took the loss because the Red Sox pitcher was a knuckler who was on his game. The final was 2-1, the homer being the lone earned-run Severino gave up.
**
I didn't really mean to ramble about baseball for this long; I just wanted a newer post to show up to supplant the "We like Roy!" post. I have a few other ideas of stuff to work on, and I need to hurry it up as summer winds down.
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
"We like Roy! We like Roy!"
"And now the seniors in the back!"
All Simpsons related jokes aside, "Roy", when written like "RoY" can represent an acronym. It stands for "Rookie of the Year." And this is a roundabout way of mentioning that yours truly, the feisty Head behind the Caliboy Network of blogs, has won some kind of a Rookie of the Year award.
It does feel a little strange to be a thirty-six year old rookie, but at least I'm doing something I love and find rewarding.
There was a ceremony and everything. It happened this past Sunday at Dodger Stadium, as Corrie and I were treated to a game in an event suite. I don't think I've ever been to a ballgame and spent exactly zero dollars on anything. There was a fridge in the suite that was stocked with (not great) beer and there were hotel pans over sterno flames full of food.
There was even a movable photogenic board that we could take pictures in front of:
They gave us official jerseys with our name on them (see above), and while I appreciate it, I would have chosen a different name had I known what was happening when I filled out some paperwork.
There were 23 recipients of this particular Rookie of the Year award; I was easily both the oldest and tallest recipient. I was also the most Irish, and sunburned easily while we waited in the pre-entrance queue. I was also the math guy, and you can guess what that may imply.
The balcony outside the suite was nice, and an upcoming panoramic picture will speak to that. They showed our names on the jumbo-tron and during the first pitch ceremony they showed "closeups" of the balcony, so we could wave and have pictures taken of ourselves off said jumbo-tron:
My mother asked why I wasn't smiling or looking in the direction that everyone else was looking. My only answer was a joke about doing an impression of Vito Corleone, but really the lag-time was so severe that you almost had to spend the entire time waving and looking interested to have the effect be that it was instantaneous.
Anyway, the game was between the Dodgers and the Angels, the Southland's two major league teams. The Dodgers took an early 2-0 lead, and eventually coughed it up, heading into the 8th inning tied at 2. Andre Ethier of the Dodgers drilled a homerun to put the Dodgers up 3-2 in the bottom of the 8th, which meant that a quick three outs in the top of the 9th would give the Dodgers the series sweep. It was not to be.
The second pitcher in the bottom of the 9th gave up a solo homerun, which, after no Dodger scored in the 9th, sent the game to extra innings. It was about here that Corrie and I started to play pool on the suite's pool table.
Yup, our suite had a pool table:
Once the Dodgers came up in the bottom of the 10th and game was still 3-3, someone got on base and Andre Ethier, the near hero from inning 8, smashed a two-run walk-off homer, sending the remaining Dodger faithful into a frenzy and giving the boys in blue a 5-3 victory.
Quite a show. Corrie and I drove surface streets back to Santa Monica where we enjoyed some dinner.
Here is the aforementioned panoramic picture containing me at the edge and the perspective from our event suite:
All Simpsons related jokes aside, "Roy", when written like "RoY" can represent an acronym. It stands for "Rookie of the Year." And this is a roundabout way of mentioning that yours truly, the feisty Head behind the Caliboy Network of blogs, has won some kind of a Rookie of the Year award.
It does feel a little strange to be a thirty-six year old rookie, but at least I'm doing something I love and find rewarding.
There was a ceremony and everything. It happened this past Sunday at Dodger Stadium, as Corrie and I were treated to a game in an event suite. I don't think I've ever been to a ballgame and spent exactly zero dollars on anything. There was a fridge in the suite that was stocked with (not great) beer and there were hotel pans over sterno flames full of food.
There was even a movable photogenic board that we could take pictures in front of:
They gave us official jerseys with our name on them (see above), and while I appreciate it, I would have chosen a different name had I known what was happening when I filled out some paperwork.
There were 23 recipients of this particular Rookie of the Year award; I was easily both the oldest and tallest recipient. I was also the most Irish, and sunburned easily while we waited in the pre-entrance queue. I was also the math guy, and you can guess what that may imply.
The balcony outside the suite was nice, and an upcoming panoramic picture will speak to that. They showed our names on the jumbo-tron and during the first pitch ceremony they showed "closeups" of the balcony, so we could wave and have pictures taken of ourselves off said jumbo-tron:
My mother asked why I wasn't smiling or looking in the direction that everyone else was looking. My only answer was a joke about doing an impression of Vito Corleone, but really the lag-time was so severe that you almost had to spend the entire time waving and looking interested to have the effect be that it was instantaneous.
Anyway, the game was between the Dodgers and the Angels, the Southland's two major league teams. The Dodgers took an early 2-0 lead, and eventually coughed it up, heading into the 8th inning tied at 2. Andre Ethier of the Dodgers drilled a homerun to put the Dodgers up 3-2 in the bottom of the 8th, which meant that a quick three outs in the top of the 9th would give the Dodgers the series sweep. It was not to be.
The second pitcher in the bottom of the 9th gave up a solo homerun, which, after no Dodger scored in the 9th, sent the game to extra innings. It was about here that Corrie and I started to play pool on the suite's pool table.
Yup, our suite had a pool table:
Once the Dodgers came up in the bottom of the 10th and game was still 3-3, someone got on base and Andre Ethier, the near hero from inning 8, smashed a two-run walk-off homer, sending the remaining Dodger faithful into a frenzy and giving the boys in blue a 5-3 victory.
Quite a show. Corrie and I drove surface streets back to Santa Monica where we enjoyed some dinner.
Here is the aforementioned panoramic picture containing me at the edge and the perspective from our event suite:
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Summer of Road Trips
This summer has seen Corrie and me, and me solo, spend more time in the car running awesome road trips than probably any summer since 1990 (for me).
I professed recently that I would be trying to "stretch" a little in my write up of the ten-day, 1800 mile trip up to Oregon and back along the coast, camping the entire way down to San Francisco. That's still in the works.
The last stretch of that mostly campfire tinged adventure found us spending the evening in San Luis Obispo. During the brief time there, I felt my novel based on a facsimile of that bubble town welling up, and once I got my life squared away back in Long Beach (that took eight days) I was off for a week in San Luis. There I pieced together the scenes and themes and character interactions from that story while testing my tolerances against Ryan's active social life. By day, I had my notes spread across the floor like the unhinged whack-job writer I am:
While there I visited places that hold meaning for both myself and my characters in the story. One place I saw that doesn't really play into the book is a lake on the side of town where we all lived together at various times, and by "we" I mean mostly anyone mentioned in this blog with any kind of regularity: me, Corrie, Norm, Tony, Ryan, Marc, Jimmy... That was the Oceanaire House, named for the street it exists on, in the Laguna Lake area of town, itself named for the body of water that butted up to the houses across the street on Oceanaire.
There was a point when the Laguna Lake zone was considered "the other side of town", and that may still be true, the neighborhood being separated from downtown SLO by Madonna Mountain. It's all very small and quaint and close together, and "other side of town" means more in larger locales.
Anyway, the drought has taken it's toll on Laguna Lake:
In case there's any doubt, in the above picture there is no water, only cloud cover. In the below picture, one can see the edge of one of the two puddles that remain. Madonna Road is off in the distance. I used to ride my bike along Madonna on the way home, taking this lake for granted like most SLO-towners.
Ryan said that as the water receded an abandoned car appeared, along with guns and other sundries.
The one issue of the alternative weekly newspaper that appeared had one of my former professors on the cover (for the bummer story that he and the other teacher DJs at the college radio station were losing their gigs):
Anyway, after returning home with a new appreciation for our domestic life, there was basically one day before we were off again, this time together and further afield.
Driving away in the darkness on Thursday evening, we set out with me behind the wheel at 11:30 pm. I drove to Vegas, where Corrie took over driving after getting some shuteye during my first leg. She's got a cool karate-kicking a bathroom door into a dude's chest and then being accosted by Crazy Eyes anecdote that may come later. I got some sleep, awoke to catch the sunrise, and took over driving duties about 80 miles south of Provo, Utah. Slept through the tiny jaunt through Arizona that made this a five state drive.
Corrie's family is rather large, and every other year, on the even years, there is a family reunion at the family farm outside of Amarillo in the panhandle region of Texas. The odd years also see reunions, only at the still-working farm run by one branch of the family in southern Idaho. This was our destination, out to see family rarely visited and to celebrate with Uncle H.A. for his 90th birthday. He still works the farm daily, so if you want any ideas about how to live to a hundred years, make sure you have plenty to do and/or run a farm, where the work is never-ending.
High-speeding it up Interstate 15 through Provo and Salt Lake City, we detoured quickly to the great Salt Lake. Antelope Island to be exact, but seeing as how this is summer. it's probably more accurate to label it a peninsula, connected to the mainland by wide swaths of noxious salt flats. Ten bucks got us access, and we spent the better part of an hour looking at stuff and getting sunburned. Needing to touch the water, we hiked down in what could be called "our manner", which means off the path in a non-destructive way. On this day that got us covered by spiders, big suckers, which sent us back to the path. My hand post-lake-touching took about six minutes before it felt dry, stiff, and cracking.
Here's a picture from the Antelope Island State Park, from a hill over looking a salty beach:
I finished up that section of the trip, up I-15 to I- 84 through Ogden, and on northwest to Burley Idaho. The speed limits all through there are 80, which is how it should be. Everywhere. We arrived around 3:30 local time on Friday. Idaho, being in Mountain Time, is an hour ahead of California.
Idaho was very nice, warm in the day, cooled off by night, and we slept in out tent for two nights. The birthday was pleasant, the food good, the people better. I was the "city boy" and together Corrie and I were the "godless Californians." That last part is more of my own interpretation and less any actual phrasing. The Texas side of the family, full of historians and teachers and librarians, a lush or two, and a couple of wild grandkids has generally been viewed as being full of delinquents by the severely pious Idaho faction. These are folks who wear boots and cowboy hats and handlebar mustaches not because of a feeling of connection to some idealized old-west archetype, but because that idealized old-west life still exists.
The Snake River is visible a mile away, and Mt. Harrison and the range is thirty miles out. A bit higher up and this is the view from the kitchen while you do dishes.
Corrie and I walked down an access road on the side of the property, stopped halfway to the river when it got too muddy, and turned back to take this picture:
Beans in front, stretch from the house and cattle pens down to the water. The place is really beautiful. Especially the storms sweeping by slowly in the distance.
I fully enjoyed my time with the manifested archetypes, understanding that my presence is their archetype of "laid-back-Californian" and acted respectfully, trying to leave a good memory flavor of my people. Also I somewhat unsuccessfully tried not to view the experience like an anthropologist...see, I understand that godless city-folk like me need to experience the various modes of living in this vast nation. It makes my understanding that much more nuanced and rich.
The other night, after we'd returned to our tiny Long Beezy apartment surrounded by other apartments filled with minorities, I pondered how one of those cowboys may experience chilling with us for a few days. Sour beers and gin-and-tonics, zooming paramedics and buzzing helicopters...would they partake if we could rustle up a bong load? How would they function on a Sunday morning with nothing to do?
Anyway, it was a great time. Corrie got to say her piece, but always with a smile and a giggle, the disarming weapons in the employ of cute blond girls.
The Idaho farm was less than a half-hour east of Twin Falls, and when we set out with Corrie driving on Sunday (before church) for Sacramento, I got to relive a part of the trip we took back in 1990, the year mentioned many lines before.
Corrie would drive from outside of Twin Falls, Idaho, down US HWY 93 to I-80, turn west and head to Winnemucca, Nevada, where I would drive the last leg to Dan's. This was the opposite direction of the first two days of our 1990 trip. Back then it was Day 1, Sac to Winnemucca, NV; Day 2, Winnemucca to Twin Falls. For us last week on the backtracking it was a nine hour drive.
We stayed with Dan for two nights, the one full day spent hanging out with Norm and Holly and the boys, which up until breakfast that day didn't appear to be a possibility.
When we left yesterday, Corrie drove the first leg, and made it to Kettleman City on I-5. I dropped Corrie off at her evening class before making it home. Corrie drove more miles, but I was behind the wheel for far longer. The tripodometer read 1995 miles when I parked.
Then you get home and try to resume regular life. Cats, sour beers, gin and tonics...somewhere a cowboy is having a funny feeling resembling deja vu, only it's not that exactly. A second self of him is sitting on our balcony puffing on a Pall Mall contemplating Pynchon and sipping a nice Tart of Darkness from The Bruery.
I professed recently that I would be trying to "stretch" a little in my write up of the ten-day, 1800 mile trip up to Oregon and back along the coast, camping the entire way down to San Francisco. That's still in the works.
The last stretch of that mostly campfire tinged adventure found us spending the evening in San Luis Obispo. During the brief time there, I felt my novel based on a facsimile of that bubble town welling up, and once I got my life squared away back in Long Beach (that took eight days) I was off for a week in San Luis. There I pieced together the scenes and themes and character interactions from that story while testing my tolerances against Ryan's active social life. By day, I had my notes spread across the floor like the unhinged whack-job writer I am:
While there I visited places that hold meaning for both myself and my characters in the story. One place I saw that doesn't really play into the book is a lake on the side of town where we all lived together at various times, and by "we" I mean mostly anyone mentioned in this blog with any kind of regularity: me, Corrie, Norm, Tony, Ryan, Marc, Jimmy... That was the Oceanaire House, named for the street it exists on, in the Laguna Lake area of town, itself named for the body of water that butted up to the houses across the street on Oceanaire.
There was a point when the Laguna Lake zone was considered "the other side of town", and that may still be true, the neighborhood being separated from downtown SLO by Madonna Mountain. It's all very small and quaint and close together, and "other side of town" means more in larger locales.
Anyway, the drought has taken it's toll on Laguna Lake:
In case there's any doubt, in the above picture there is no water, only cloud cover. In the below picture, one can see the edge of one of the two puddles that remain. Madonna Road is off in the distance. I used to ride my bike along Madonna on the way home, taking this lake for granted like most SLO-towners.
Ryan said that as the water receded an abandoned car appeared, along with guns and other sundries.
The one issue of the alternative weekly newspaper that appeared had one of my former professors on the cover (for the bummer story that he and the other teacher DJs at the college radio station were losing their gigs):
Go Jim Cushing!
Anyway, after returning home with a new appreciation for our domestic life, there was basically one day before we were off again, this time together and further afield.
Driving away in the darkness on Thursday evening, we set out with me behind the wheel at 11:30 pm. I drove to Vegas, where Corrie took over driving after getting some shuteye during my first leg. She's got a cool karate-kicking a bathroom door into a dude's chest and then being accosted by Crazy Eyes anecdote that may come later. I got some sleep, awoke to catch the sunrise, and took over driving duties about 80 miles south of Provo, Utah. Slept through the tiny jaunt through Arizona that made this a five state drive.
Corrie's family is rather large, and every other year, on the even years, there is a family reunion at the family farm outside of Amarillo in the panhandle region of Texas. The odd years also see reunions, only at the still-working farm run by one branch of the family in southern Idaho. This was our destination, out to see family rarely visited and to celebrate with Uncle H.A. for his 90th birthday. He still works the farm daily, so if you want any ideas about how to live to a hundred years, make sure you have plenty to do and/or run a farm, where the work is never-ending.
High-speeding it up Interstate 15 through Provo and Salt Lake City, we detoured quickly to the great Salt Lake. Antelope Island to be exact, but seeing as how this is summer. it's probably more accurate to label it a peninsula, connected to the mainland by wide swaths of noxious salt flats. Ten bucks got us access, and we spent the better part of an hour looking at stuff and getting sunburned. Needing to touch the water, we hiked down in what could be called "our manner", which means off the path in a non-destructive way. On this day that got us covered by spiders, big suckers, which sent us back to the path. My hand post-lake-touching took about six minutes before it felt dry, stiff, and cracking.
Here's a picture from the Antelope Island State Park, from a hill over looking a salty beach:
I finished up that section of the trip, up I-15 to I- 84 through Ogden, and on northwest to Burley Idaho. The speed limits all through there are 80, which is how it should be. Everywhere. We arrived around 3:30 local time on Friday. Idaho, being in Mountain Time, is an hour ahead of California.
Idaho was very nice, warm in the day, cooled off by night, and we slept in out tent for two nights. The birthday was pleasant, the food good, the people better. I was the "city boy" and together Corrie and I were the "godless Californians." That last part is more of my own interpretation and less any actual phrasing. The Texas side of the family, full of historians and teachers and librarians, a lush or two, and a couple of wild grandkids has generally been viewed as being full of delinquents by the severely pious Idaho faction. These are folks who wear boots and cowboy hats and handlebar mustaches not because of a feeling of connection to some idealized old-west archetype, but because that idealized old-west life still exists.
The Snake River is visible a mile away, and Mt. Harrison and the range is thirty miles out. A bit higher up and this is the view from the kitchen while you do dishes.
Corrie and I walked down an access road on the side of the property, stopped halfway to the river when it got too muddy, and turned back to take this picture:
Beans in front, stretch from the house and cattle pens down to the water. The place is really beautiful. Especially the storms sweeping by slowly in the distance.
I fully enjoyed my time with the manifested archetypes, understanding that my presence is their archetype of "laid-back-Californian" and acted respectfully, trying to leave a good memory flavor of my people. Also I somewhat unsuccessfully tried not to view the experience like an anthropologist...see, I understand that godless city-folk like me need to experience the various modes of living in this vast nation. It makes my understanding that much more nuanced and rich.
The other night, after we'd returned to our tiny Long Beezy apartment surrounded by other apartments filled with minorities, I pondered how one of those cowboys may experience chilling with us for a few days. Sour beers and gin-and-tonics, zooming paramedics and buzzing helicopters...would they partake if we could rustle up a bong load? How would they function on a Sunday morning with nothing to do?
Anyway, it was a great time. Corrie got to say her piece, but always with a smile and a giggle, the disarming weapons in the employ of cute blond girls.
The Idaho farm was less than a half-hour east of Twin Falls, and when we set out with Corrie driving on Sunday (before church) for Sacramento, I got to relive a part of the trip we took back in 1990, the year mentioned many lines before.
Corrie would drive from outside of Twin Falls, Idaho, down US HWY 93 to I-80, turn west and head to Winnemucca, Nevada, where I would drive the last leg to Dan's. This was the opposite direction of the first two days of our 1990 trip. Back then it was Day 1, Sac to Winnemucca, NV; Day 2, Winnemucca to Twin Falls. For us last week on the backtracking it was a nine hour drive.
We stayed with Dan for two nights, the one full day spent hanging out with Norm and Holly and the boys, which up until breakfast that day didn't appear to be a possibility.
When we left yesterday, Corrie drove the first leg, and made it to Kettleman City on I-5. I dropped Corrie off at her evening class before making it home. Corrie drove more miles, but I was behind the wheel for far longer. The tripodometer read 1995 miles when I parked.
Then you get home and try to resume regular life. Cats, sour beers, gin and tonics...somewhere a cowboy is having a funny feeling resembling deja vu, only it's not that exactly. A second self of him is sitting on our balcony puffing on a Pall Mall contemplating Pynchon and sipping a nice Tart of Darkness from The Bruery.
*****
All told:
Ten day trip: 1800 miles. Seven day trip: 500 miles. Five day trip: 2000 miles.
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