Bridge to Nowhere

Oh dear God someone help me because I CANNOT STOP THROWING UP.

Follow the link if you dare. If you dare to watch something good and perfect be horrifically mangled beyond all recognition.

Thank you, Hollywood, for once again completely destroying the entire meaning behind a classic of children's literature.

Stay-at-Home Uncle

Saturday was supposed to be the big Halloween party at my house. I always love seeing what people choose for their costumes; it's a great chance for some real creativity to come out. And I know that many of us were wondering what the Tech Crew would come up with for this year.

Sadly, I had to cancel that Halloween party, because Saturday was also my Mom's birthday, and when it comes down to it, you don't have a Halloween party on your Mom's birthday, unless said Mom is going to attend the party.

Rather than have my friends confess their hidden crushes for Brian's Mom, I spent the day with my nieces. First we drove the long haul back up to the northern suburbs to see the 3-D Nightmare Before Christmas, which is of course their favorite movie. Because their uncle is cool and tries to expose them to the offbeat shit out there.

The rest of the time was spent outdoors at Mom and Dave's raking up leaves for the girls to jump in, or conspiring with my brother-in-law to scare the crap out of the girls when they least expected it. At one point some high school kids rang the doorbell asking for items for a scavenger hunt. It must be tradition, because 20-odd years ago I and several friends had a scavenger hunt in the same exact neighborhood, and both times are the only times I ever remember anyone ever doing a scavenger hunt.

All of this brings me back to that dream I had a week or so ago, the one where I'm running around to all my different groups of friends, trying to be with all of them and in the end just disappointing them. (At least, that's my interpretation of it.)

I'm an extremely lucky guy in that I do have lots of friends, and one of the benefits of never bothering to go far from home is that you get to spend a lot of quality time with family. So while I got to have some great family time, especially with the girls, I had to disappoint some people and cancel the party. I feel bad, but you don't really get a chance very often to watch your brother-in-law almost plummet to his death when he nearly falls out of a tree.

Priceless.

Stars from the Darkest Night

Friday night was Bob Dylan at the new Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates. Due to an undersold show our balcony-level tickets were upgraded to Club Level and so we got to be big fancy Hollywood types and sit in padded chairs and watch people eat chicken satay while the Kings of Leon opened up.

Drank some Stella and got talking to Joe and Charlie, a couple of guys in their mid-40s. Talked music and shitty Chicago radio and missed all of the opening band because the conversation was so good. Those guys were all right.

Dylan's set was by-the-numbers but still good, and I give him lots of credit for leaning heavily on the newer stuff. "Thunder on the Mountain" and "High Water" were just as good live as "Highway 61" and "Tangled Up in Blue." Hard to enjoy a show in a place designed for hockey, though, stuck up in the Club Level where the padded seats haven't absorbed years of nicotine and liquor spills.

While the show wasn't as memorable as other Dylan performances I've seen (the Illinois State Fair show remains the highlight for me), he did play "Boots of Spanish Leather," which nearly brought tears to my eyes. Big fan, big fan of that song, folks.

The concert ended and Dylan and the band lined up in front for a bow and we all filed out of the arena. Some drunk dude from California mixed in with our group and complained that his night was ruined because he didn't hear "Lay Fucking Lady Lay!"

Played parking lot politics with the usual chaos and confusion of getting out of a concert and drove south through the western suburbs and thought about "Boots of Spanish Leather" the whole way home.

Johnny Cash Lives

Greatest. Live Performance. Ever.

Give it a minute...wait for Robbins' speech to end, and enjoy. Pure awesomeness.

Halloween Hipster

Might be a light week for blogging, folks. Lots to do in an already-busy week: Two high school drama productions to attend, a Bob Dylan concert Friday night (awesome), a mother's birthday, and a Halloween party Saturday night. Damn--I still don't have a costume to wear, and I would like to avoid the obscure-hipster-movie character thing that I usually do.

Lots to write about, though, so I'll do my best to get something out soon, especially since I seem to be on a roll again.

The iPod turns Five today, The Fencepost is up and running again, and the Beeb reports that riots in France could happen again.

Drone Jr.

Ring them bells, raise your glass, and give a hearty cheer for the Drone and his wife, who welcomed their first child into the world yesterday afternoon! All is well with the Family 1047 and Agent 86 will most likely be home on Sunday.

If only Nurse Betty could have held out one day more he could have shared his birthday with the MBA, who celebrates today, so while you got those glasses raised, people, don't forget him.

This post probably doesn't make a damn bit of sense, but you get the general idea. Good friend's wife gives birth and much merriment ensues.

November 2006 looms...

Lots of talk these days about the U.S. and Iraq. Baker wants to meet with Bush and give his plan for a way out. Now today comes word that the U.S. military is "rethinking" their role in Iraq, admitting they can't control the violence and are going to look at other ways to control the emerging civil war.

All of this is because an election is coming in a few weeks, and those in power want to remain in power. The Republican administration knows things are going horribly wrong in Iraq, and if it looks like they're finally willing to admit their mistakes and try alternative means to victory, maybe that'll turn into a victory on November 7th?

At first I was deeply troubled by the fact that it takes an election to force our leaders to admit their strategies are wrong. I would like to think that decisions are made because they're the logical, correct decisions, and not being made because polls are trending Democratic and congressmen are quaking in their boots.

But wait! Perhaps that's the whole point of elections. Maybe that's how these things work: a national biannual referendum on our leaders. The vox populi voted in these bastards, but that's what gets rid of them as well. If this wasn't an election year, perhaps the war could drag on and on and on until the next even-numbered year, as more people die and more anti-U.S. sentiment is created.

Maybe the election will be the thing that will finally end this thing. And maybe there's hope for democracy after all.

Six Thousand Years Old

As my students were leaving class today, one kid asks me, "How old is the Earth?"

I quickly answer back, not really thinking about why he asked. "About 5 billion years or so."

"Oh. Well, I think it's only about six thousand years old." (And now I know where this is going.)

I sat and listened while he explained to me some dating system based on Jesus' birth and Noah and the Ark, and why carbon dating didn't work. Please remember that this kid is 11. And also one of the most intelligent kids in the building.

As he finished I politely said, "Well, people have different points of view on that I suppose. I guess I just trust the scientists when they say it's that old."

"Well, I trust God."

I don't even know what to say to that, folks. Is it my job as an educator to point the child towards rational, scientific fact, or to just nod and smile and let them believe what they want to believe? I did the latter, but would have preferred to do the former, since that seems to be what's in my actual job description.

I just said nothing and told him I'd see him next week.

The Theatre

You know how when people in TV and movies have dreams it's all very symbolic and has great meaning on the plots of peoples' lives? But when we have dreams it's usually just a mish-mash of the day's events and stuff that barely makes sense?

I had the strangest dream just now.

I went to the movies and every single friend I have was at the show.

Walked in with Brems and the theatre gang to go see a Jet Li action film. This makes sense, because if I do go to the movies it's usually with those guys. But as we were walking in I discovered that another group of friends (let's call them Work Friends Version 2.0) had saved me a seat and that it was expected that I was sitting with them.

Before long the friends from high school and college entered the theatre and came over to say hello. Old School Gang were in town for a funeral or something like that. After talking to them for a while I lost sight of where I had been sitting and started wandering around the theatre. Found Work Gang 2 and sitting a few seats behind them was Work Gang 1, and so I got talking to them for a while, and once again lost where my seat was.

It's probably significant to point out that no one, and absolutely no one was watching the movie. Apparently it was really boring and half the patrons had left the theatre. One person even started firing up Phillies Blunts in the middle of it to keep himself entertained. T was wrapped up in a bunch of blankets with either her parents or her old roommate, I can't remember now. Prince Fan was there with her folks as well.

Nate was wearing shorts and the theatre gang were all wearing black. I was carrying half of a bottle of red wine with me and never saw more than a minute of the film, my back always being turned away from the screen, trying desperately to find where I was supposed to sit.

The film ended and everyone started filing out. I watched T and Duder and the rest leave and tried to catch up with them but once again was surrounded by the Old School Gang and was given the impression that I was supposed to leave with them. We started walking out one of those side exits from the auditorium and I looked for a garbage can to throw out the wine.

Then I woke up.

(Written rather hurridly early this morning right after I woke up; edited this evening. I'm telling you, this dream freaked me out. After I came out of it, I felt like I had suddenly been given a clue into the entire nature of my being or some shit like that. Freaky deaky, man.)

What Kind of Show Has It Been

Not a very good one, if you ask me.

This hurts me to say it, being the Aaron Sorkin nut that I am, but Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is... not that great.

It disappoints me to say it, and I've been holding out these past few weeks, hoping that the show finds its groove, its timing, and its reason for existence, but it just ain't happening.

I don't really care for the characters, and so I don't really care what happens to them. Matt and Harriet and yet another will-they-or-won't-they situation? Bleah.

The show has potential, I believe that firmly, given the talent involved in front of and behind the camera. But Sorkin just seems to be using the show as a means to start a national discussion rant on the Christian right and why it was so, so mean of NBC to fire him from The West Wing.

Now I don't really need to point out the fact that I too can come across as self-righteous and smug about the Christian Right, but I write a dinky blog that a handful of people read. I expect more from the so-called "credentialed" pros.

I guess I'm just disappointed in Aaron Sorkin. He's so much better than what Studio 60 has been. His shows, always concerned with passionate people committed to their professions, can literally inspire to you be more devoted to your job, your friends, or at least your grammar skills.

For a show that's supposed to be about a comedy show, they forgot one important element: They forgot to bring the funny. Skits about Juliette Lewis and a Wild at Heart-era Nicholas Cage would be really funny in 1993, but not now.

Maybe, if it's given enough time, Studio 60 will run out of Sorkin Grudge Topics and will become a decent show. My first suggestion would be to find a crack comedic actress that can rattle off that dialogue better than Peet and Paulson. Bring Sabrina Lloyd back from TV Limbo, hell, have her play Natalie Hurley again for that matter. She ain't no gal Friday.

She's good.

Wandering Jones

A week or so I joked about how the weekend up in Door County would be where it all went wrong. Of course that didn't happen, but the trip did have one "negative" effect:

I've got that wanderin' feeling again.

Pack a bag, pick the essentials, and hit the road. That's what I like to do, we all know that. So now after the little road trip up north I just want to keep going. Work seems grey and boring, and the coming winter isn't looking too promising. And I'm out of firewood.

Tony Pierce's neverending road trip isn't helping, either. Now, sometimes I can take or leave Tony, but I have to tip my hat to him. He's been spending the last thirty-odd days driving from LA to the East Coast and back again. Along the way he's been meeting blogger after blogger, hanging out, drinking, doing video interviews, and seeing the country one state at a time.

I want that job.

So that's why I give him a lot of credit. He's doing what he wants to do, and he's not afraid to fuck up or get fired or even bother with a false name.

And this is where I agree with my #1 Critic: I've always been too timid to stretch too far beyond my comfort zone, always stuck around home. And this is probably why I'm so restless and get that wandering jones so much.

Hmm, Wandering Jones.... I like it.

To Be Continued, I'm Sure...

The Pogues, Remastered

You can now get every single damn song The Pogues ever recorded on iTunes.

Okay, most of 'em, at least. A bunch that weren't available before. And all of the albums are now remastered.

My freshman year of college, I was playing a Pogues album. Probably Peace and Love, since that's about all I owned at that point. This guy knocks on my door. Indian guy. "Are you playing The Pogues?"

Yep.

His name is Sujit. And he has a copy of their first album, one of the ones that you can't get in the U.S. (This is back in the days of Imports, kids.) I make a taped copy of it and it lasts a year or so before getting eaten by a portable stereo back home in the shower.

I eventually found Red Roses For Me at a record shop, but it was missing three songs that I knew from Sujit's version. Apparently he had an Asian version that had bonus tracks or something.

But thanks to iTunes, after 15 years, I now have those missing tracks, plus a dozen or so new ones that I never heard before.

The Pogues fucking rock, ya'll. Yes, Donal, it's just a variation on diddle-ee-ii music, but I love that shit, because that's what created American bluegrass, and that's what my grandpa loved, and that's what my mother loved, and because that's the way these things work, that's what I love as well. That crazy drunken folk music that people sing in the corner together and understand their present and their past all at the same time.

I'm the Driver, I'm the Winner

When you look at a map of Wisconsin, and you look at that little northern spur that sticks out into Lake Michigan, you're looking at Door County.

A popular location for weekenders and summers-in-the-family-cabin people, it consists of small towns with populations all under a thousand people. Small shops and restaurants and plenty of resorts and bed and breakfasts. No McDonalds, no Starbucks. Lots of trees and lots of water.

Erica's family has a cabin on 28 acres, which is where I spent all of Columbus Day weekend. After ducking out of work on Friday I wound up volunteering to drive the mini-van the 5-6 hours it would take to get to northern Wisconsin. Packed to the gills, with Francine the Wonder Pit Bull squeezed into a small opening in the back, we left the big cities of Chicago and Milwaukee and watched the landscape give way to forests and fields and the fall colors at their peak.

It was about twenty minutes before we reached the cabin that Erica exclaimed, "I forgot the keys!"

It's a good thing she has family up there and could grab a spare set, otherwise I think it would have been a race to see who would throw Erica into Green Bay first.

It was those first moments of arriving and settling in to the cabin that I enjoyed the most. Bringing the bags in, turning on the lights, pouring ourselves a drink and starting a fire, while T did a little schoolwork and Zander fell asleep in his crib.

Most of the weekend was spent lounging in the cabin, hiking through the woods, and visiting some of the sights of Door County. Breakfast burritos to nurse a hangover, wine-tasting and pumpkin festivals, the Packers on the radio and card games at night.

Fairly unremarkable to describe, but a joy to experience. As you all know, I tend to travel alone, the solitary wanderer who all too often shies away from group activities. I had a lingering fear that I would want to constantly retreat into my head, pull back from the fun-with-friends, the way I often have done in the past. Hard to explain why I do it, but it's just one of those things I do too much.

It was to my great surprise that instead I found myself the One Who Got Things Done all weekend. Organized the packing, made sure people were fed properly, drove through the heavy city traffic. Everyone else did their share, don't get me wrong. But usually I just hang back in group functions, a passive observer.

Sure was different this time. Found myself stepping up when needed, and it was a good feeling. For a guy whose self-esteem has taken a real beating over the past few years, that's kind of huge.

Great to hang with T again; almost forgot what good friends we were. Thanks for laughing at all my jokes. And thanks to the Dynamic Duders for a great weekend. We gotta do that again sometime.

Leaf-Peeping

No more blogging or commenting for the next few days, folks.* I'm off to that mecca of midwestern autumn leaf-peeping, Door County. For the next few days I will be amongst trees and trails and friends and large quantities of dark beer.

This is the thing that all the married couples do, so wish me luck, as I'm most definitely not a married-couple-type person, nor do I do many of the things that married couples do. (There's probably about a dozen jokes about sex that I could make here, but I'll keep this PG today.)

For a long time I used to think Door County was like the World's Largest Craft Fair, but from what I hear it's actually quite beautiful and there's plenty of outdoorsy things to do. I have a feeling, though, that the extent of our outdoorsy-ness will be watching Duder take a piss in the backyard.**

So, next week get set for stories involving lighthouses, pumpkin festivals, and which parts of the evening had to be explained to me the next morning. Because when you mix friends and alcohol and me, It's not a matter of if I make a jackass out of myself, but how often. Hooray for the socially acceptable drinking problem!***

*Or email. Or television. Or clear cell phone connections. Oh dear God what am I going to do?

**Joke blatantly stolen from either Mrs. Duder or T. I don't really remember right now.

***Just being sarcastic. It's all good with me and booze. Except when I'm drinking with Duder, so we'll later refer to this weekend as the Moment Where It All Went Wrong.

Fire, Tornado, Gunfire

In the wake of the recent school shooting across the country (now there's a sentence you love to type), I thought I would share the perspective from an elementary school.

As we do every year, the staff gathered and went over the building crisis plan. What to do in case of fire, tornado, and that old chestnut, Armed Intruder. We have complex steps and a detailed plan of action in case a bomb threat, toxic spill, or sudden cold front threatens the safety of your child.

It sounds like I'm being sarcastic, but I'm really not. We have all of the necessary steps in place, for any eventuality. Because we have to. Because it happens. We've had these detailed plans in place since at least Columbine, during my first year of teaching.

While the Amish one-room schoolhouse certainly didn't have a detailed emergency plan (much less a phone), I can probably hazard a guess that those schools in Wisconsin and Colorado did last week, and yet people still were killed. What I can't seem to ascertain is whether the crisis plans were effective or not in these incidents. Were people saved thanks to a detailed plan, or did it go out the window once the shooting started? How do people respond once the shit goes down? How would I, or my co-workers?

Now schools are talking about revising their emergency plans, just as we revised ours again this morning. But it's just another example of people trying to fix something after it's long been broken.

What I still can't fathom is the fact that we even have to have something like this in place. Fire, tornado, that's one thing. But I still can't wrap my head around the fact that in addition to aligning curriculum to state standards and collecting money for after-school clubs, I also have to know where the best place in my room is to avoid machine-gun fire.

Wilco at The Auditorium Theatre

For those of you with good musical taste who live in the Chicago area...

Wilco, the Best Band in America, is playing at the Auditorium Theatre over Thanksgiving weekend. Just so you know.

Kristine, you should totally come see them play! I'm sure it's no sweat getting here from the Philippines.

Click here for touring information. Peace out.

--The Boy With Poetry Power

The Astonishing X-Men and other nerdy matters

I'm disappointed in my reading habits this year. I burned through books like mad last year, but this year I haven't gotten through more than a few. Planned on starting another Rutherfurd book but it's still sitting on the nightstand, unopened.

Admittedly, I've been digging back into the comic book habit a bit. The awfulness that was X-Men: The Last Stand drove me to discover better-told X-Men stories, and I found that in Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men and the more-recently published Astonishing X-Men by Joss Whedon. Astonishing reminds me most of those character-driven Chris Claremont issues of the mid-80s, and of course it has Kitty Pryde, which is always a plus in my (comic) book.

In other geek reads, I've been nosing through Order of the Phoenix for the second time, and so far it still holds up as the "best" Harry Potter book in my opinion. While not as showy as Goblet of Fire, it's the book that feels the most grown-up, imploding the last little bits of its happy-little-magic-land.

Harry's an asshole (but for good reason), the Ministry of Magic is shown as a hypocritical, bureaucratic disaster (like most governments), and Dolores Umbridge makes for a pretty psycho-ass villain. Plus, you've got a secret society meeting in a decrepit mansion, Fred and George's farewell, and that incredible moment when the ministry officials are coming to get Dumbledore and he just takes them out and Bam! disappears into the night. That'll look quite cool in the film version.

And in case I don't sound nerdy enough at this point, I'll just add two more things: Heroes is actually a pretty good comic-book style adventure, and of course Battlestar Galactica returns Friday night, which better damn well record on my DVR this weekend while I'm out of town. (In spite of my extremely nerdy tastes, I do have a life and am heading north for the weekend with some friends.)

'Nuff Said.

When the Rain Comes

Knock Knock!

Who's there?

Rain!

Rain who?

Holy Fuck you should see all this fucking rain!

Bloglife

Interesting things happening in the world o' blogs. JaG says she's not reading blogs any more, while it seems others have stopped blogging altogether. Perhaps we've gone through another round or so of people who dipped into this habit, liked it for a while, but let it drift away, stranding their blogs in the middle of nowhere, the same final post just sitting there, like a dusty car on the side of the road.

Visits and comments on here have declined a bit as well, but that's probably due to a variety of factors. One, I don't update all that frequently. I can imagine the frustration of coming here and seeing nothing new. I give credit and thanks to those that keep coming back, though. Also, the moderation setting on the comments is probably annoying, but I think we all know why that has to be there.

And a big reason they've declined is that I haven't been commenting as much on other blogs lately, being busy with work and life and all of that normal boring stuff. And commenting is reciprocal; you have to give as much as you get in this business. I'm horrible on Buzznet these days, being too busy getting out the last of the vacation photos online. Haven't had the time to scroll through other peoples' pictures as much, so I'm being a bad Buzznetter.

So in spite of the flat status of comments and visits, at this time let me say hello and thanks for stopping by to two recent visitors to this blog: Marisa and the Spinning Girl are the first "new" commenters I've had in quite a while, and that gives me hope that the blog-world is alive and well and there are still people out there who have interesting things to say and want to make at least the briefest of connections with another person out there in that big wide world.