Buckle down the hatches brother, winter is here. Though the sun will still rise once a day and set once a night, it's the dawn before the early mourning, the dusk signals a nightly wail.
Back where I came from Thanksgiving was the HOLIDAY of the year. Oh you could have your Labor Days, and you could have your Arbor Days, but we would go all out on Thanksgiving and PARTAY! Oh, the fun we would have as Ma, Pa, and all my brothers and sisters would gather in the warm glow of the oven's light and wait until the Great Turkey would pay us our annual visit. The importance of this holiday was that it was one of the few days of the year where the whining stopped, and people actually took the time not to look at all that's wrong in this world but instead be thankful for all that is right. It is after all, as the cliché goes, easier to tear something down than build something up.
Yes if you sit down and think about it, each and every one of us truly does have much to be thankful for, and taking a few minutes before we stuff our faces full of food isn't that much to ask. Me personally am thankful for the foundation that was present before this year came to be and all that has gone by in the past 365 days that has brought so much more. Traveling all the way from the girl whose mother used to send her albino white raisins, to the girl who feeds her goldfish, Murray and Dionne, with a straw. Here's a partial list: I'm thankful for two jobs that provide challenges, growth and opportunities. I'm thankful for a family that has seen me through some tough times and have shared in many memorable moments. I'm thankful for a kitty who sometimes urps up his dinner but never hides his delight in another meal and even looks at me sometimes as something other than the warmest pillow in the house. I'm thankful for my friends who tolerate my eccentricities and flakiness and take my good moods with my bad. I'm thankful for the next cup of coffee in the morning.
So now we turn the corner towards the BIG holidays, the ones that have become days of commercialism mixed with melancholy and wistful once a year good cheer. Turbo Man? Christmastime and New Years tend to bring me down a bit. Is it the stressful hustle and bustle of trying to find gifts and all that comes with the celebration of the season or is it the constant reminder of the passing of time of the time when Christmas Day was the most exciting day of the year and New Years meant something other than reflecting on another year that has somehow escaped our grasp? To think of where we are now as compared to just a short time ago and to think that we are so different than then and that a few years from now we will be even more different than now... makes you want to go out and mash a few potatoes.
When I was in school, my mother would gently wake my brother and I, and push us into getting ready for another school day. She would get our breakfasts together as we got ready for the day ahead. Breakfasts consisted of a glass of orange juice, a glass of milk, and either Pop Tarts, cinnamon toast, or raisin toast. These days as my alarm clock buzzes and I drag myself from underneath the covers, into the cold house with Max snuggled besides me irritated that I'm interrupting his sleep, and as I hear the coffee brewing and as I put the toast into the toaster and bring in the morning papers and try to wake myself, and the last thing I want to do is go out there again and face it all, I remind myself of the potential of the new day, and well, you never know. It takes time to cultivate a raisin. Turn around and you might just find yourself in the right spot at the right time. Who can say what tomorrow will bring? Last November who would have thought I would have renewed diplomatic relations with a woman with a new name? Or spend a memorable evening driving south with a star and running into the only other person we knew at the Hardees in St. Peter? When you've been there before, often times you will get there again if you give yourself the chance. If you are outside the W.C. you are an American, if you are inside, European. Jingle all the way.
Hey cadre of padres, it's no time to spend shadow boxing during a solar eclipse when a picture becomes more like a memory than a memento. Even olives have their pimentos. And thank the good Lord that we do have raisins.
Monday, December 2, 1996
Monday, November 25, 1996
The Pretender
Your name is Jarod and when you were a child you were deemed a genius and trained by a quasi-governmental agency known as the "Corporation." They've taken your remarkable mental abilities to train you to perform whatever tasks needed to obtain their own ends to their own political agenda. After a while you have begun to question your assistance to this organization and determine you need to spend the rest of your life rectifying the wrongs you have helped perpetuate. Problem is the Corporation has taken away your life, the life you knew before, your parents- and all that gives others their identity. So part of your search is the search for who you really are.
Your training and your remarkable mental skills give you the ability to become whatever you need to become to place yourself into the middle of any situation that helps you achieve your own goal: to right the many wrongs in this world. If the situation requires you to be a doctor, a policeman, a Vegas blackjack dealer, a scientist trained to handle highly infectious viruses, a jet pilot, you have the ability to use your skills to succeed. You are the pretender- the eternal misfit, who can pretend to fit into any situation yet never belong; perpetually peripheral, on the outside looking in.
Your name is Lyle Lovett and you are a fairly well known, and fairly well respected entertainer. You are best known for your music, a mixture of country, blues, swing and jazz. You are also known for your failed marriage to Julia Roberts, as well as your own acting career (with a notable performance in Robert Altman's excellent The Player). You performed a solid concert last Sunday night at Northrop Auditorium. Billed as Lyle Lovett with a Large Band (no, it's not a band of pumped up steroid filled ex-football players, but rather a band with numerous musicians), you showcase a wall of sound complete with gospel backing singers on some numbers, and local musician hero, Leo Kottke on a couple of others. Your songs are full of wit and humor, but often come across as a bit too clever, tender without revealing all that much about the man who wrote them. "I don't love you any less, but now I can't love you anymore..."
Because your songs are so eclectic, it is hard to categorize you and thus you probably will never get the notice and acclaim that you probably should in an industry full of predictability and blandness, where every song starts to sound like the one before, and every singer indistinguishable from whoever was hot two or three years ago.
You are the editor of a small, weekly newsletter. During the past week you fulfill a life long dream of sorts, by getting an article published in several local newspapers (one even being a daily). This sudden success is surprising, in that you didn't see it coming. The article that was published wasn't exactly one of your best, not even one you feel all that proud of; it was written quickly to fill up space, one of the many you have written recently that you threw together in an hour and away forever.
Thus you have mixed feelings. Part of you sees this latest triumph as another in a growing line of signs that suggest you might be doing all right for yourself. And any of which would have seemed highly improbable just a few years back. Another part begins to see something off track, that if someone somewhere thought that article was good, there were many others already written, and a few still left to write, and maybe what you once thought might be, still might be ahead somewhere. You are a bit disappointed that the people who saw the article tend to comment more on your picture rather than the words, and are disappointed you didn't mention "them in the article." But that was to be expected. You've seen that before. After all these years you still don't know, or at the very least still don't understand how your writing does and does not effect people.
There may be a connection between these three separate stories, as much as there ever is a connection between anything. All three of you are actors, playing roles of what is expected of you while at the same time somehow playing off of what is expected of you. Some somewhere out there might even suggest an overall theme many of us share, a commentary on today's society where there are many who are pretenders, searching for their roles, trying to understand past wrongs, hiding at times behind their own words, and constantly searching for that elusive comfort of the place others call home. Oh and one more thread ties together the three of you: you alls gots goofy hair.
Your training and your remarkable mental skills give you the ability to become whatever you need to become to place yourself into the middle of any situation that helps you achieve your own goal: to right the many wrongs in this world. If the situation requires you to be a doctor, a policeman, a Vegas blackjack dealer, a scientist trained to handle highly infectious viruses, a jet pilot, you have the ability to use your skills to succeed. You are the pretender- the eternal misfit, who can pretend to fit into any situation yet never belong; perpetually peripheral, on the outside looking in.
Your name is Lyle Lovett and you are a fairly well known, and fairly well respected entertainer. You are best known for your music, a mixture of country, blues, swing and jazz. You are also known for your failed marriage to Julia Roberts, as well as your own acting career (with a notable performance in Robert Altman's excellent The Player). You performed a solid concert last Sunday night at Northrop Auditorium. Billed as Lyle Lovett with a Large Band (no, it's not a band of pumped up steroid filled ex-football players, but rather a band with numerous musicians), you showcase a wall of sound complete with gospel backing singers on some numbers, and local musician hero, Leo Kottke on a couple of others. Your songs are full of wit and humor, but often come across as a bit too clever, tender without revealing all that much about the man who wrote them. "I don't love you any less, but now I can't love you anymore..."
Because your songs are so eclectic, it is hard to categorize you and thus you probably will never get the notice and acclaim that you probably should in an industry full of predictability and blandness, where every song starts to sound like the one before, and every singer indistinguishable from whoever was hot two or three years ago.
You are the editor of a small, weekly newsletter. During the past week you fulfill a life long dream of sorts, by getting an article published in several local newspapers (one even being a daily). This sudden success is surprising, in that you didn't see it coming. The article that was published wasn't exactly one of your best, not even one you feel all that proud of; it was written quickly to fill up space, one of the many you have written recently that you threw together in an hour and away forever.
Thus you have mixed feelings. Part of you sees this latest triumph as another in a growing line of signs that suggest you might be doing all right for yourself. And any of which would have seemed highly improbable just a few years back. Another part begins to see something off track, that if someone somewhere thought that article was good, there were many others already written, and a few still left to write, and maybe what you once thought might be, still might be ahead somewhere. You are a bit disappointed that the people who saw the article tend to comment more on your picture rather than the words, and are disappointed you didn't mention "them in the article." But that was to be expected. You've seen that before. After all these years you still don't know, or at the very least still don't understand how your writing does and does not effect people.
There may be a connection between these three separate stories, as much as there ever is a connection between anything. All three of you are actors, playing roles of what is expected of you while at the same time somehow playing off of what is expected of you. Some somewhere out there might even suggest an overall theme many of us share, a commentary on today's society where there are many who are pretenders, searching for their roles, trying to understand past wrongs, hiding at times behind their own words, and constantly searching for that elusive comfort of the place others call home. Oh and one more thread ties together the three of you: you alls gots goofy hair.
Monday, November 18, 1996
The 14th Time Around
My favorite series of stories when I was a child were a group of books called "The Spaceship Under the Apple Tree." The books were about a boy who while sitting in an apple orchard witnesses a spaceship crash and befriends the little alien chap who emerges from the ship.
The premise of the stories was the alien, Marty's, attempts at trying to get back home while trying to fit in with the strange routines of the young earth boy (because Marty was so small in stature, earthlings assumed that he was a boy although he was in reality an elderly alien- something any young Japanese American kid growing up in the suburbs could relate to). This of course was "ET" before "ET" came out. There was a sadness to Marty's plight, being unable to get back home because he lacked a certain space element (XYZCHROMIUM) to repair his ship, and a certain poignancy in his attempts to fit into a life of a young earth boy. He inevitably would go so far then get frustrated and pull out some space gadget like the time he tried playing baseball only to pull out some space shoes to greatly add to his foot speed.
The stories appealed because they were about being lost among friends, about trying to fit in while keeping an eye affixed on the horizon, forever looking for a place to call home. Marty was critical and skeptical about earth customs and proud of his own homeland yet the stories always contained a message about the benefits of our human existence. Marty would inevitably reveal that his own home had problems of its own and that our world was a pretty good world to live in. The grass is always greener even in outer space.
"I'm standing in the rain in line to see a movie starring Gregory Peck. You know it's not even the one I had in mind. He's got a new one out now, I don't know what it's about but I'll see him in anything so I'll stand in line." This was the fourteenth time I've seen Bob Dylan in concert. On our way down to Mankato last Sunday evening, my companion asked me why I admired Dylan so much. Not really having an appropriate answer, I mumbled something about him having it right about women and liking the way he has consistently during his career questioned why we are here.
The self proclaimed and later denied "Never Ending Tour" has now reached its ninth year. The traveling troubadour is still trying to connect with an audience. "Me I'm still on the road, heading for another joint. We always did feel the same we just saw it from a different point of view, tangled up in blue." The shows are starting to show some wear and tear. The core of the backing band, J.J. Jackson, Tony Garnier, and Bucky Baxter has been with Dylan for the past five years. This fall's shows feature a new drummer, David Kemper who replaced Winston Watson. The band is increasingly more slick, more professional, and more predictable, the very things you would expect from other performers but qualities Dylan has shied away from throughout his career. The striving for chaos, varied setlists and constantly changing arrangements are things of the past as the shows are beginning to become more and more repetitive.
The Mankato show opened with the now somewhat regular "Down in the Flood" which remains a strong first song. The taut bluesy rock and growling Dylan vocal lack some of the drive and punch that was present when Dylan began playing this song as the opener a little over a year and a half ago, but it still remains superb night after night with the superlative lyrics, "Sugar for sugar, salt for salt, when you go down in the flood it's going to be your fault..;" Bob looked downright dapper in a white straw cowboy hat and matching cowboy shirt.
The second song, a country lilt version of "Lay Lady Lay" was Dylan and the band just going through the motions. When the standard third song, "All Along the Watchtower" and the next song, "Just Like a Woman" lacked any sign of energy, I was a bit worried it was going to be an entirely forgettable show.
Maybe it was a feeling that Bob wasn't really into the evening, or more likely I wasn't quite into the evening yet, my mind began to wander. As I thought about the past few weeks, the joy at looking forward to another Dylan concern accompanied by a friend who had never seen the man but was curious to see him; about the drive down past her grandparents' home in LeSueur, and our tasty roast beef sandwich dinner at the Hardees in St. Peter (WARNING: if you are ever in Mankato, they don't have an Arby's!); I pondered her question to me about my enthusiasm toward Dylan. A brief moment of clarity came into view, how so many of his songs are about being the perpetual outsider- like Marty the alien- looking for some kind of home- about traveling, seeking and searching for some kind of inner and outer peace. Making sense out of nonsense. Unforgettable lyrics from an unforgettable voice.
"You're going to lose your best friend now. You're going to have to find yourself another best friend somehow." "There are many there among us who feel that life is but a joke. But you and I have been through that and this is not our fate. Let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late." "Ain't it clear that I just don't fit. Yes I believe it's time for us to quit." "One of these days and it won't be long, going down to the valley to sing my song. Gonna sing it loud, sing it strong, let the echo decide if I was right or wrong." "Every time you leave and go off someplace, things fall to pieces, in my face." "How does it feel to be without a home? With no direction home? Like a complete unknown?"
The next two song performances provided a solid answer to my friend's question. The countryish "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" was beautiful, with Dylan occupying all the lyrics from the great opening line, "When you're lost in the rain in Juarez and it's Easter time too. And gravity fails and negativity don't pull you through..." all the way through to the witty Dylanesque conclusion, "I started off on burgundy but soon hit the harder stuff. Everybody said they'd stand behind me when the game got rough. But the joke was on me, there was nobody even there to call my bluff. I'm going back to New York City, I do believe I've had enough..." Like he had just pulled the words down out of the air and was singing them personally to all six thousand that were in the room, it was a spine tingling moment.
The acoustic "Tangled Up in Blue" was equally as impressive. I've heard this song live many times over the years and it remains one of the few Dylan songs that I feel he hasn't improved upon from the recorded version. But the current arrangement, stripped down acoustic with a soft and sad reading was truly moving. I among many was hanging on every familiar word. Bob's guitar solos tend to rely heavily on two note riffs, but when he is into the performance, as he was during this night's playing of "Tangled" the solo was effective and added an important piece in understanding the whole.
The other highlights from the rest of the evening were a weary and penetrating "One Too Many Mornings," an inspired, wistful "I'll Remember You," a rollicking "Like a Rolling Stone" and a bitter "It Ain't Me Babe." And the moment Bob allowed J.J. to take a guitar solo in "Highway 61" and J.J. gave a searing performance that would have made Robbie Robertson proud. Just when you think you may have seen one too many shows in one too many towns, with one too many familiar readings of a song, Dylan twists a vocal, adds a guitar lick, plays around with a line in a way that makes you feel something new about the song and think something different about your own life. Not only is there no other performer with quite that ability, no other performer can come close in choosing his repertoire from such a vast catalog of brilliant original songs.
And there was another lesson learned this evening. I greatly appreciated my friend's company at the concert. Many of the prior thirteen concerts had been attended alone but as I have learned its often better to share in the moment. You only have to be as alone as you think you are. Rejuvenation through redemption. On the long drive home we got a little lost but sharing in the entire experience together was one of those rare moments in life where the journey becomes as meaningful as the search. It meant a lot to me that she enjoyed the evening.
I was a bit perplexed however at the behavior of other audience members. It felt like everybody knew each other and we were two strangers in a strange land. Why would you pay to see a concert and spend the entire evening gabbing inattentively with friends? Or how 'bout them two lovebirds that sat in front of us, who kept the beat by playfully tapping each other on their rears? Or the guy behind us who kept screeching his loudest "WOOOO!!!" throughout the songs. Or the guy who kept shouting, "DYLAN!" as if to identify the performer for anyone who was unsure. What was the deal with those people?
Thus the main difference of the shows these days isn't with the musicians themselves but with the people listening. One might explain the other. This Sunday night show featured enough of the "greatest hits" in an accessible manner to keep happy the FM trained, cigarette lighter flicking, people more interested in touching the man than being touched by the man. At the end of the show several audience members ran up on stage and hugged a bemused Bob. During the final encore number, "Rainy Day Woman 12 & 35" the stage was full of satisfied dancing customers. But the show also contained enough moments of inspired genius to keep the newly initiated and even the hardened among us coming back for more.
The premise of the stories was the alien, Marty's, attempts at trying to get back home while trying to fit in with the strange routines of the young earth boy (because Marty was so small in stature, earthlings assumed that he was a boy although he was in reality an elderly alien- something any young Japanese American kid growing up in the suburbs could relate to). This of course was "ET" before "ET" came out. There was a sadness to Marty's plight, being unable to get back home because he lacked a certain space element (XYZCHROMIUM) to repair his ship, and a certain poignancy in his attempts to fit into a life of a young earth boy. He inevitably would go so far then get frustrated and pull out some space gadget like the time he tried playing baseball only to pull out some space shoes to greatly add to his foot speed.
The stories appealed because they were about being lost among friends, about trying to fit in while keeping an eye affixed on the horizon, forever looking for a place to call home. Marty was critical and skeptical about earth customs and proud of his own homeland yet the stories always contained a message about the benefits of our human existence. Marty would inevitably reveal that his own home had problems of its own and that our world was a pretty good world to live in. The grass is always greener even in outer space.
"I'm standing in the rain in line to see a movie starring Gregory Peck. You know it's not even the one I had in mind. He's got a new one out now, I don't know what it's about but I'll see him in anything so I'll stand in line." This was the fourteenth time I've seen Bob Dylan in concert. On our way down to Mankato last Sunday evening, my companion asked me why I admired Dylan so much. Not really having an appropriate answer, I mumbled something about him having it right about women and liking the way he has consistently during his career questioned why we are here.
The self proclaimed and later denied "Never Ending Tour" has now reached its ninth year. The traveling troubadour is still trying to connect with an audience. "Me I'm still on the road, heading for another joint. We always did feel the same we just saw it from a different point of view, tangled up in blue." The shows are starting to show some wear and tear. The core of the backing band, J.J. Jackson, Tony Garnier, and Bucky Baxter has been with Dylan for the past five years. This fall's shows feature a new drummer, David Kemper who replaced Winston Watson. The band is increasingly more slick, more professional, and more predictable, the very things you would expect from other performers but qualities Dylan has shied away from throughout his career. The striving for chaos, varied setlists and constantly changing arrangements are things of the past as the shows are beginning to become more and more repetitive.
The Mankato show opened with the now somewhat regular "Down in the Flood" which remains a strong first song. The taut bluesy rock and growling Dylan vocal lack some of the drive and punch that was present when Dylan began playing this song as the opener a little over a year and a half ago, but it still remains superb night after night with the superlative lyrics, "Sugar for sugar, salt for salt, when you go down in the flood it's going to be your fault..;" Bob looked downright dapper in a white straw cowboy hat and matching cowboy shirt.
The second song, a country lilt version of "Lay Lady Lay" was Dylan and the band just going through the motions. When the standard third song, "All Along the Watchtower" and the next song, "Just Like a Woman" lacked any sign of energy, I was a bit worried it was going to be an entirely forgettable show.
Maybe it was a feeling that Bob wasn't really into the evening, or more likely I wasn't quite into the evening yet, my mind began to wander. As I thought about the past few weeks, the joy at looking forward to another Dylan concern accompanied by a friend who had never seen the man but was curious to see him; about the drive down past her grandparents' home in LeSueur, and our tasty roast beef sandwich dinner at the Hardees in St. Peter (WARNING: if you are ever in Mankato, they don't have an Arby's!); I pondered her question to me about my enthusiasm toward Dylan. A brief moment of clarity came into view, how so many of his songs are about being the perpetual outsider- like Marty the alien- looking for some kind of home- about traveling, seeking and searching for some kind of inner and outer peace. Making sense out of nonsense. Unforgettable lyrics from an unforgettable voice.
"You're going to lose your best friend now. You're going to have to find yourself another best friend somehow." "There are many there among us who feel that life is but a joke. But you and I have been through that and this is not our fate. Let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late." "Ain't it clear that I just don't fit. Yes I believe it's time for us to quit." "One of these days and it won't be long, going down to the valley to sing my song. Gonna sing it loud, sing it strong, let the echo decide if I was right or wrong." "Every time you leave and go off someplace, things fall to pieces, in my face." "How does it feel to be without a home? With no direction home? Like a complete unknown?"
The next two song performances provided a solid answer to my friend's question. The countryish "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" was beautiful, with Dylan occupying all the lyrics from the great opening line, "When you're lost in the rain in Juarez and it's Easter time too. And gravity fails and negativity don't pull you through..." all the way through to the witty Dylanesque conclusion, "I started off on burgundy but soon hit the harder stuff. Everybody said they'd stand behind me when the game got rough. But the joke was on me, there was nobody even there to call my bluff. I'm going back to New York City, I do believe I've had enough..." Like he had just pulled the words down out of the air and was singing them personally to all six thousand that were in the room, it was a spine tingling moment.
The acoustic "Tangled Up in Blue" was equally as impressive. I've heard this song live many times over the years and it remains one of the few Dylan songs that I feel he hasn't improved upon from the recorded version. But the current arrangement, stripped down acoustic with a soft and sad reading was truly moving. I among many was hanging on every familiar word. Bob's guitar solos tend to rely heavily on two note riffs, but when he is into the performance, as he was during this night's playing of "Tangled" the solo was effective and added an important piece in understanding the whole.
The other highlights from the rest of the evening were a weary and penetrating "One Too Many Mornings," an inspired, wistful "I'll Remember You," a rollicking "Like a Rolling Stone" and a bitter "It Ain't Me Babe." And the moment Bob allowed J.J. to take a guitar solo in "Highway 61" and J.J. gave a searing performance that would have made Robbie Robertson proud. Just when you think you may have seen one too many shows in one too many towns, with one too many familiar readings of a song, Dylan twists a vocal, adds a guitar lick, plays around with a line in a way that makes you feel something new about the song and think something different about your own life. Not only is there no other performer with quite that ability, no other performer can come close in choosing his repertoire from such a vast catalog of brilliant original songs.
And there was another lesson learned this evening. I greatly appreciated my friend's company at the concert. Many of the prior thirteen concerts had been attended alone but as I have learned its often better to share in the moment. You only have to be as alone as you think you are. Rejuvenation through redemption. On the long drive home we got a little lost but sharing in the entire experience together was one of those rare moments in life where the journey becomes as meaningful as the search. It meant a lot to me that she enjoyed the evening.
I was a bit perplexed however at the behavior of other audience members. It felt like everybody knew each other and we were two strangers in a strange land. Why would you pay to see a concert and spend the entire evening gabbing inattentively with friends? Or how 'bout them two lovebirds that sat in front of us, who kept the beat by playfully tapping each other on their rears? Or the guy behind us who kept screeching his loudest "WOOOO!!!" throughout the songs. Or the guy who kept shouting, "DYLAN!" as if to identify the performer for anyone who was unsure. What was the deal with those people?
Thus the main difference of the shows these days isn't with the musicians themselves but with the people listening. One might explain the other. This Sunday night show featured enough of the "greatest hits" in an accessible manner to keep happy the FM trained, cigarette lighter flicking, people more interested in touching the man than being touched by the man. At the end of the show several audience members ran up on stage and hugged a bemused Bob. During the final encore number, "Rainy Day Woman 12 & 35" the stage was full of satisfied dancing customers. But the show also contained enough moments of inspired genius to keep the newly initiated and even the hardened among us coming back for more.
Monday, October 28, 1996
This Perfect World
"Far from where people dwell he cuts a shaft, in places forgotten by the foot of man; far from men he dangles and sways. The earth, from which food comes, is transformed below as by fire; sapphires come from its rocks, and its dust contains nuggets of gold. No bird of prey knows that hidden path, no falcon's eye has seen it. Proud beasts do not set foot on it, and no lion prowls there. Man's hand assaults the flinty rock and lays bare the roots of the mountains. He tunnels through the rock; his eyes see all its treasures. He searches the sources of the rivers and brings hidden things to light. But where can wisdom be found? Where does understanding dwell?"
There is one time a year when you get a guaranteed second chance, when you are allowed to turn back your clock and fix any mistakes you may have made during the past twenty four hours. This is an opportunity that many do not take advantage of. One day a year we get twenty five hours in a day and there are those who spend that extra hour watching another episode of Baywatch.
Despite the invention of Franklin Planners and computerized schedulers it is still amazing how much time we waste and let slip away. We may never figure out time. Seems like the older you get the faster time slips on by. I hate to continue to dwell on it, or in it, but it is becoming more and more clear to me that time is such a relative thing. Days that drag on speed up when as the old cliché goes, "you're having fun" or approaching yet another pressing deadline. There are days when things move in slow motion and it feels like you'll never make it through. Other days you could stay up all night and not get enough done.
One of the things I have come to most appreciate about my upbringing was my mother's decision to sign me up for piano lessons. There were times of doubt as I struggled through learning a chromatic scale or while butchering another Clementi or Bartok piece, and I'm sure I more than frustrated my piano teacher with all the time I devoted to learning the Beatles' catalog. Over the years however being able to pound out a song on the piano has been one of the best stress relievers in my repertoire. Whether it was through the lost lonely first few frustrating days of my freshman year of college or after one of those madcap Christmas rush days at Cheapo, going to my parent's house and playing some piano always got my mind back into a more peaceful state.
I always figured the day I could afford my own piano would be the day I could consider myself a success. Never seemed like a realistic goal and I never thought it would happen. To have my own piano meant being able to afford a place that could hold it. So last spring when I got my house and along with it a piano, there was the belief that after more than a few moments of struggling, I was on my way to at least some small amount of success. Unfortunately, as my time at the office piles up faster than the leaves in my yard, I really haven't had much time to enjoy my piano. It sits as a big keyholder in my living room. That old balance between professional and personal is as out of whack as my still to be turned back inner alarm clock. There is always some sort of compromise you need to accept to get to another step on that big ol' ladder of life.
Thus after a fifty hour work week the little fellow decided to take a breather this week. He decided to take a day off. That day off became but an hour off yet on an untypical Friday night he joined a group of friends for a pale Sam Adams at a local pub. Then afterwards he met up with another friend looking for a friend who showed him her new apartment after waltzing on down to the nearby Dairy Queen to enjoy a Heath Bar Blizzard. They settled in on her comfy used couch and watched Grease II one of her favorite movies, a movie made in the eighties taking place in the sixties when life was about a song and a dance, a girl named Stephanie and a mysterious man, the "cool rider," on a motorcycle.
It was all strangely familiar, reminiscent of things gone by, of another time, of the days of our lives of another familiar face. Sometimes we just need to be reminded of what is and should be important in our lives, of how valuable a quiet little friendship can be. He enjoyed the evening, her company, the setting, her enthusiasm in singing along with the entertainment, and yes even the time. What a fine Friday. It just goes to show that when afforded the rare opportunity of a second chance, sometimes you can get things right.
There is one time a year when you get a guaranteed second chance, when you are allowed to turn back your clock and fix any mistakes you may have made during the past twenty four hours. This is an opportunity that many do not take advantage of. One day a year we get twenty five hours in a day and there are those who spend that extra hour watching another episode of Baywatch.
Despite the invention of Franklin Planners and computerized schedulers it is still amazing how much time we waste and let slip away. We may never figure out time. Seems like the older you get the faster time slips on by. I hate to continue to dwell on it, or in it, but it is becoming more and more clear to me that time is such a relative thing. Days that drag on speed up when as the old cliché goes, "you're having fun" or approaching yet another pressing deadline. There are days when things move in slow motion and it feels like you'll never make it through. Other days you could stay up all night and not get enough done.
One of the things I have come to most appreciate about my upbringing was my mother's decision to sign me up for piano lessons. There were times of doubt as I struggled through learning a chromatic scale or while butchering another Clementi or Bartok piece, and I'm sure I more than frustrated my piano teacher with all the time I devoted to learning the Beatles' catalog. Over the years however being able to pound out a song on the piano has been one of the best stress relievers in my repertoire. Whether it was through the lost lonely first few frustrating days of my freshman year of college or after one of those madcap Christmas rush days at Cheapo, going to my parent's house and playing some piano always got my mind back into a more peaceful state.
I always figured the day I could afford my own piano would be the day I could consider myself a success. Never seemed like a realistic goal and I never thought it would happen. To have my own piano meant being able to afford a place that could hold it. So last spring when I got my house and along with it a piano, there was the belief that after more than a few moments of struggling, I was on my way to at least some small amount of success. Unfortunately, as my time at the office piles up faster than the leaves in my yard, I really haven't had much time to enjoy my piano. It sits as a big keyholder in my living room. That old balance between professional and personal is as out of whack as my still to be turned back inner alarm clock. There is always some sort of compromise you need to accept to get to another step on that big ol' ladder of life.
Thus after a fifty hour work week the little fellow decided to take a breather this week. He decided to take a day off. That day off became but an hour off yet on an untypical Friday night he joined a group of friends for a pale Sam Adams at a local pub. Then afterwards he met up with another friend looking for a friend who showed him her new apartment after waltzing on down to the nearby Dairy Queen to enjoy a Heath Bar Blizzard. They settled in on her comfy used couch and watched Grease II one of her favorite movies, a movie made in the eighties taking place in the sixties when life was about a song and a dance, a girl named Stephanie and a mysterious man, the "cool rider," on a motorcycle.
It was all strangely familiar, reminiscent of things gone by, of another time, of the days of our lives of another familiar face. Sometimes we just need to be reminded of what is and should be important in our lives, of how valuable a quiet little friendship can be. He enjoyed the evening, her company, the setting, her enthusiasm in singing along with the entertainment, and yes even the time. What a fine Friday. It just goes to show that when afforded the rare opportunity of a second chance, sometimes you can get things right.
Monday, October 21, 1996
Buck Up Buckaroo
If you people know but one thing about me, it is that I am a man who loves his potatoes. Mashed, fried, steamed, boiled, broiled, foiled, doesn't matter how you fix them, I'll eat them.
It may not be fashionable to admit it but it is easy to admire a potato. You can beat it, smash it, peel it and cut it up but it always remains consistent. It is one of the few food items that can stand alone as the main meal, or play a supplemental and supporting role in a meal. It's the type of food that you don't rave about while you're eating it yet later on as you lie awake at night you realize how much it means to eat a good potato.
Yes, we all could learn a valuable lesson from our friend Mr. Potato. Few foods are as versatile, and even fewer people can do as many things as you can do to a potato. In the age of increasing specialization in the work force it is refreshing to sit back and enjoy the fruits of a finely cooked potato.
Thus it is my advice to the kids just out of school that they don't limit themselves to one area of their chosen vocation whether it be in the law (torts, contracts, tax, property, etc.), medicine (podiatry, nose ears and throat, pediatrics...), or musical genres. It is best when beginning, to expose oneself to as many different areas as one can and get good in as many different things as one can rather than perfecting one area in neglect of the others.
As careers increasingly become things of the past, as more and more of us switch jobs more and more often it is imperative to be adaptable, flexible and versatile. The changing nature of the workplace and of our colleagues in the work force may or may not be something unique to the times we are in, but certainly the tides of change are firmly established and woven into the fabric of our culture.
Just like Madonna's process of selecting a father for her baby, it is good to give yourself as many options, as many choices as you possibly can. America is after all a pro-choice country. You see it every day in your store. People like to be able to choose between buying the latest Iris Dement or the latest Shawn Colvin. The first Wallflowers disc or the second. They like the choice of new or used, vinyl or CD. Every day life is full of many choices. Cats or dogs. Republican or Democrat. KFC or Boston Chicken. Cable or satellite. MCI or AT and T. Public or private schools. Difford or Tilbrook. Heineken or Pabst Blue Ribbon. National managed health care or private scattered clinics. Expresso or cappuccino.
Independent thinkers like to be challenged rather than limited. Corporate capitalism thrives on competition. Diversity, a politically charged word that scares some and empowers others is perhaps the keyword to watch for as we cross the self proclaimed bridge into the 21st Century. Ohairi nasai. Much as we all like to have choices it is that which is different that bothers a lot of people.
Much attention will be given to that cross into a new millennium. All the visible and not so visible pundits will try to attach their pre-determined meanings to the new century. But a potato is still a potato no matter how you fix it and slice it up. This is to say that no matter what they tell you the year 2000 will probably feel much like the year 1999. Yet that doesn't necessarily mean we are headed in the right direction.
As the suburbs spread out towards the ever shrinking wilderness we may see more and more cougars walking around in our downtowns heeding no attention to the traffic lights or crosswalks. A deer in the headlights? We watch as the stock market hits new record highs as more and more corporations downsize it is about the choice of deciding whether or not this is what we want to be. Yes indeed it is wonderful to live in a land that offers diversity. Yet to take our freedom to choose lightly means losing some of that freedom. All it would take is another potato famine and there would be no more french fries. Idaho may not have a lot of electoral votes yet it is meaningful nonetheless. And it is still important that we at the very least take the time to acknowledge the bespectacled beauty of that which we don't recognize until it is far too late. A deceptive curve, an expected fast ball.
It may not be fashionable to admit it but it is easy to admire a potato. You can beat it, smash it, peel it and cut it up but it always remains consistent. It is one of the few food items that can stand alone as the main meal, or play a supplemental and supporting role in a meal. It's the type of food that you don't rave about while you're eating it yet later on as you lie awake at night you realize how much it means to eat a good potato.
Yes, we all could learn a valuable lesson from our friend Mr. Potato. Few foods are as versatile, and even fewer people can do as many things as you can do to a potato. In the age of increasing specialization in the work force it is refreshing to sit back and enjoy the fruits of a finely cooked potato.
Thus it is my advice to the kids just out of school that they don't limit themselves to one area of their chosen vocation whether it be in the law (torts, contracts, tax, property, etc.), medicine (podiatry, nose ears and throat, pediatrics...), or musical genres. It is best when beginning, to expose oneself to as many different areas as one can and get good in as many different things as one can rather than perfecting one area in neglect of the others.
As careers increasingly become things of the past, as more and more of us switch jobs more and more often it is imperative to be adaptable, flexible and versatile. The changing nature of the workplace and of our colleagues in the work force may or may not be something unique to the times we are in, but certainly the tides of change are firmly established and woven into the fabric of our culture.
Just like Madonna's process of selecting a father for her baby, it is good to give yourself as many options, as many choices as you possibly can. America is after all a pro-choice country. You see it every day in your store. People like to be able to choose between buying the latest Iris Dement or the latest Shawn Colvin. The first Wallflowers disc or the second. They like the choice of new or used, vinyl or CD. Every day life is full of many choices. Cats or dogs. Republican or Democrat. KFC or Boston Chicken. Cable or satellite. MCI or AT and T. Public or private schools. Difford or Tilbrook. Heineken or Pabst Blue Ribbon. National managed health care or private scattered clinics. Expresso or cappuccino.
Independent thinkers like to be challenged rather than limited. Corporate capitalism thrives on competition. Diversity, a politically charged word that scares some and empowers others is perhaps the keyword to watch for as we cross the self proclaimed bridge into the 21st Century. Ohairi nasai. Much as we all like to have choices it is that which is different that bothers a lot of people.
Much attention will be given to that cross into a new millennium. All the visible and not so visible pundits will try to attach their pre-determined meanings to the new century. But a potato is still a potato no matter how you fix it and slice it up. This is to say that no matter what they tell you the year 2000 will probably feel much like the year 1999. Yet that doesn't necessarily mean we are headed in the right direction.
As the suburbs spread out towards the ever shrinking wilderness we may see more and more cougars walking around in our downtowns heeding no attention to the traffic lights or crosswalks. A deer in the headlights? We watch as the stock market hits new record highs as more and more corporations downsize it is about the choice of deciding whether or not this is what we want to be. Yes indeed it is wonderful to live in a land that offers diversity. Yet to take our freedom to choose lightly means losing some of that freedom. All it would take is another potato famine and there would be no more french fries. Idaho may not have a lot of electoral votes yet it is meaningful nonetheless. And it is still important that we at the very least take the time to acknowledge the bespectacled beauty of that which we don't recognize until it is far too late. A deceptive curve, an expected fast ball.
Monday, October 14, 1996
Fall of 1996
Itza bout time. Itwaz never bout anything else. As you rake and clean the mess, you will in time, see that. Days pass by in a whirl. Seasons color the morning drive. Patience thinning. Sun shines in your eyes. Blinded by the light of effortless originality sought. The original seer sought. Youngsters reaching into the playing field determine the outcome. A fifteen percent tax cut. Cross the board. Sleepless, shrinkless nights. Repetitive motion stress, stretched tendons dangle. Soft tissues wipe away the bloodshot eyes. Ultraviolet light wipes the memory off the chip. Paved path that leads right past her doorstep and right out of sight. Shelled pistachios, carbonated beverage. Unapproved baking soda toothpaste gets your teeth extra ultra white. Root canal. Grimaced smile of one left behind. Dripping candlewax spreads it scent across the white smeared porcelain top. An old postcard from down under. A note slipped in your doorbox. A cracked lip, an itchy stomach. Registered voters with no birthdays. A dial tone alternating with a busy signal. Unordinarily ordinary. Forwarded voice mail from another day.
A rash rush to conclusion. A new suit to play dress up. Pretend part of changing times. Cork. The Great Gatsby. Old Sport. Plenty of bills to justify the over the top work hours. Bags of recycled papers to track the news of all the days of all the weeks gone by. Dinner stored in plastic Tupperware containers cooked with microwaves, emptied into the whirling sound of the disposal underneath the suds. Scarf weather. Dusty spider webs beneath the hardwood floors. Limp. Scarred knees of another sort. Oil embargoed, sand war. Ripples of a glance of another sort. Moving to another place another voice to let another's existence (or lack thereof) forget. Fashionably forgotten songs on a shrink-wrapped tape. The cover of a slept on couch where the pillows slide back to expose the underlying folded up mattress of some other couple. Spell check Ecclesiastes. An apple a day to keep the variety away. Prison food. New international version. The new internal vision. A broken promise, a cross country trip an unfinished crossword puzzle with all its clues. Multimedia speaker system of an unknown long song. A bacteria virus. A disease. A pill. My pharmacist Bill's bill. A damnit doll, a smokeless friend. Fired up furnace burning. Kingdom come, peace and quiet, thumping bass of a rapped out car. SuperAmerica on every corner. A cloverleaf interchange, a rocking pickup truck that rolls back into me. Awaiting the light to change from red to green. Conspiracy theories of grassy knolls and FBI files. Aristotle. Nietzsche.
On the road. Again. Once more. Spit in the face of the wind. The podium fall. Explaining the ballot layout to a judge. A youngster's enthusiastic wiggle. A fifteen inch monitor. You get what you deserve. A phone call on Friday to a missing person. Eight hours of video tape. An optimist, inspiring another, what more can you do for someone? San Diego Zoo. Sittin on the Davenport in upper Greenwich Village, our nation's Capitol in U.S. News And World Report's biggest bargains of Universities, the University of North Carolina. An Arizona resort. An abandoned goldmine shaft. Ying Yang. Merging into oncoming traffic. Unplug the voting booth. Meeked out. I need you need we all need ICE CREAM! The voice of authority seeks the perfect display dictionary. Take the place of you. A struggle. One day at a time. Next time you'll know much better. Forced air heating. Circumstances dictate the action of reaction of interaction of the events of a folded card game. Dropping rocks into the board's divets. Feeding goldfish with a straw. Mare bear. Better days were had. Had by all. Guardian of a nephew. Recess. An angry clarinetist, a frustrated trumpet blower. Divest. Invest with lower interest rates. Escrow accounts. CDs of a different account. Scarecrow tactics that count. Bobbin the head. Blinking through the debate. Eyebrows. A hard drive failure. Crashing the levee. A soccer style football tackle. Painting the bat for another season in the not too far off distance. It's about time that lingers on. Bouts of time.
A rash rush to conclusion. A new suit to play dress up. Pretend part of changing times. Cork. The Great Gatsby. Old Sport. Plenty of bills to justify the over the top work hours. Bags of recycled papers to track the news of all the days of all the weeks gone by. Dinner stored in plastic Tupperware containers cooked with microwaves, emptied into the whirling sound of the disposal underneath the suds. Scarf weather. Dusty spider webs beneath the hardwood floors. Limp. Scarred knees of another sort. Oil embargoed, sand war. Ripples of a glance of another sort. Moving to another place another voice to let another's existence (or lack thereof) forget. Fashionably forgotten songs on a shrink-wrapped tape. The cover of a slept on couch where the pillows slide back to expose the underlying folded up mattress of some other couple. Spell check Ecclesiastes. An apple a day to keep the variety away. Prison food. New international version. The new internal vision. A broken promise, a cross country trip an unfinished crossword puzzle with all its clues. Multimedia speaker system of an unknown long song. A bacteria virus. A disease. A pill. My pharmacist Bill's bill. A damnit doll, a smokeless friend. Fired up furnace burning. Kingdom come, peace and quiet, thumping bass of a rapped out car. SuperAmerica on every corner. A cloverleaf interchange, a rocking pickup truck that rolls back into me. Awaiting the light to change from red to green. Conspiracy theories of grassy knolls and FBI files. Aristotle. Nietzsche.
On the road. Again. Once more. Spit in the face of the wind. The podium fall. Explaining the ballot layout to a judge. A youngster's enthusiastic wiggle. A fifteen inch monitor. You get what you deserve. A phone call on Friday to a missing person. Eight hours of video tape. An optimist, inspiring another, what more can you do for someone? San Diego Zoo. Sittin on the Davenport in upper Greenwich Village, our nation's Capitol in U.S. News And World Report's biggest bargains of Universities, the University of North Carolina. An Arizona resort. An abandoned goldmine shaft. Ying Yang. Merging into oncoming traffic. Unplug the voting booth. Meeked out. I need you need we all need ICE CREAM! The voice of authority seeks the perfect display dictionary. Take the place of you. A struggle. One day at a time. Next time you'll know much better. Forced air heating. Circumstances dictate the action of reaction of interaction of the events of a folded card game. Dropping rocks into the board's divets. Feeding goldfish with a straw. Mare bear. Better days were had. Had by all. Guardian of a nephew. Recess. An angry clarinetist, a frustrated trumpet blower. Divest. Invest with lower interest rates. Escrow accounts. CDs of a different account. Scarecrow tactics that count. Bobbin the head. Blinking through the debate. Eyebrows. A hard drive failure. Crashing the levee. A soccer style football tackle. Painting the bat for another season in the not too far off distance. It's about time that lingers on. Bouts of time.
Monday, October 7, 1996
This Side of Paradise
If you can bet on but one sure thing during an election year it is that just about everyone will complain about the number of negative political advertisements that flood the airwaves. The telling sign however is that we live in a land where many will listen to these ads and base their votes on what they hear. "By golly he's right, I ain't gonna vote for that other guy..." We tend to limit ourselves and settle for that which is in front of us. The people who complain about having to vote for the lesser of two evils are the same people who accept campaigns in which the candidates go out of their way to prove they aren't as bad as the other, not that they have anything different to offer.
Another sign of the times is how little we can know about our neighbors, but know enough not to discuss religion or politics with them. Yet this is the time of the year when many don't have a second thought about displaying a sign in their yard in support of a political candidate. "Well if Edna and Harry are gonna vote for candidate X, I think I will too."
How effective are political signs? Do people get to a voting booth on election day, notice a name that they had seen on a sign and cast their vote merely on that small bit of name recognition? Probably. It is good to be living around people who share similar points of view, which can be demonstrated while driving into a neighborhood where a row of homes have the same candidate's sign posted in their yards. It may also tell you which parts of town you want to avoid.
Political participation is at an all time low and it seems many who do still participate do it only out of a sense of civic duty rather than any passion or conviction for a particular candidate or issue. We have raised a whole generation of voters who think the best anyone can do is be against high taxes, be tough on crime, and be the one who is going to ferret all of government's excesses. If all we need to do to fix what ails our country is to lower taxes, higher more cops, and make sure that everybody works hard and earns their own money, then I guess our country isn't too bad off after all. The relationship between the government and the disenfranchised, between our country and the rest of the world, the growing lack of job security, the growing distance between classes and races, hell who can be bothered with any of that?
When all of our campaigns are framed in terms of who is more patriotic, labels- who is a liberal and who is a conservative (what is the difference?), who is against crime and for a strong defense, who is more fiscally responsible, is it any wonder that people can vote their conscience based on a slogan, a sign, an advertisement? A Declaration of Independence, a Constitution, a Bill of Rights, the abolition of slavery, the Civil Rights movement- we are taught to respect history but to end up where we are is to ask the question "is this all there is?" Democracy strives for parity which leads to mediocrity. We are happy enough to find a detergent that gets our whites just a little bit whiter and if it doesn't, we can always switch back to our old brand. This year, our senator is new and improved...
People are fed up with the status quo yet the fear of change leads to another round of who has the better name, who has the better face, slogan, more positive picture of America. It would be nice if the rest of our lives were as simple. Despite the emotion it arouses, politics isn't seen as something that effects every day life. More and more everything is derivative of that which came before. While stopping to seek greatness we haven't learned to lower expectations. Always looking for the next big thing and hanging those expectations on whoever claims to have "new ideas," inevitably we are disappointed and disillusioned. Good night my love and may the Lord have mercy on us all.
Another sign of the times is how little we can know about our neighbors, but know enough not to discuss religion or politics with them. Yet this is the time of the year when many don't have a second thought about displaying a sign in their yard in support of a political candidate. "Well if Edna and Harry are gonna vote for candidate X, I think I will too."
How effective are political signs? Do people get to a voting booth on election day, notice a name that they had seen on a sign and cast their vote merely on that small bit of name recognition? Probably. It is good to be living around people who share similar points of view, which can be demonstrated while driving into a neighborhood where a row of homes have the same candidate's sign posted in their yards. It may also tell you which parts of town you want to avoid.
Political participation is at an all time low and it seems many who do still participate do it only out of a sense of civic duty rather than any passion or conviction for a particular candidate or issue. We have raised a whole generation of voters who think the best anyone can do is be against high taxes, be tough on crime, and be the one who is going to ferret all of government's excesses. If all we need to do to fix what ails our country is to lower taxes, higher more cops, and make sure that everybody works hard and earns their own money, then I guess our country isn't too bad off after all. The relationship between the government and the disenfranchised, between our country and the rest of the world, the growing lack of job security, the growing distance between classes and races, hell who can be bothered with any of that?
When all of our campaigns are framed in terms of who is more patriotic, labels- who is a liberal and who is a conservative (what is the difference?), who is against crime and for a strong defense, who is more fiscally responsible, is it any wonder that people can vote their conscience based on a slogan, a sign, an advertisement? A Declaration of Independence, a Constitution, a Bill of Rights, the abolition of slavery, the Civil Rights movement- we are taught to respect history but to end up where we are is to ask the question "is this all there is?" Democracy strives for parity which leads to mediocrity. We are happy enough to find a detergent that gets our whites just a little bit whiter and if it doesn't, we can always switch back to our old brand. This year, our senator is new and improved...
People are fed up with the status quo yet the fear of change leads to another round of who has the better name, who has the better face, slogan, more positive picture of America. It would be nice if the rest of our lives were as simple. Despite the emotion it arouses, politics isn't seen as something that effects every day life. More and more everything is derivative of that which came before. While stopping to seek greatness we haven't learned to lower expectations. Always looking for the next big thing and hanging those expectations on whoever claims to have "new ideas," inevitably we are disappointed and disillusioned. Good night my love and may the Lord have mercy on us all.
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