Enjoy Every Sandwich

A Mindful Thanksgiving | Savor The Book

2010-11-24T17:14:00.000-08:00

The Karma of Creativity

2010-10-24T19:05:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday, I had the honor of seeing His Holiness The Dalai Lama for the second time. In 2005, I flew to Washington, DC to hear him speak on how we can - as individuals and citizens of the world - learn to live peaceably. It was worth every Skymile.

This time, I saw him practically in our own backyard, as part of Emory University's ongoing partnership with The Dalai Lama as a distinguished professor of the school. He spoke at events over the course of three days, but the one Wendy and I chose seemed apt to our livelihoods, a presentation on the spiritual nature of creativity. He was joined by author Alice Walker and actor Richard Gere.

Ironically, the first thing we learned as the discussion began was that, according to the Dalai Lama, there is no word in Tibetan for "creativity". In fact, this was a subject he didn't feel very well versed in. He has spent much of his adult life learning about science, other religions, and ethics, but as for painting, writing, and music, well...when asked to lead off the conversation, he giggled, smiled, and said, "Well, I don't know..." and then pointed to his fellow panelists, as if to say, 'run with it, kids.'

Thankfully, Mr. Gere took the reins with grace and thoughtfulness. Collectively, the three panelists, along with the Dalai Lama's interpreter, who seemed to have absorbed everything he's ever heard onstage with His Holiness, expanded the conversation beyond The Creative Journey and spoke about our moral role in society (as artists and sentient beings), and art's responsibility: is it to enlighten, engage, or merely hold a mirror up to society?

As Gere is a longtime follower of Buddhism, he and the Dalai Lama have a longtime friendship. The Dalai Lama admitted to never having seen any of Gere's films. He said he was concerned that much of the music and film today holds up violence and permissive sex as an enticing normalcy, and he worried that it was lowering our sense of value for life. This, obviously, is an opinion shared by many people of varying religious beliefs. Gere respectfully said that he believed - as many artists do - that his job is to show the human experience, warts and all, and hold that mirror up for people to see parts of our society we might not otherwise know about, then decide how to act accordingly. Alice Walker chimed in here to point out that until you have an encounter with a person or group of people, it is difficult to have understanding or empathy for them, a theme she has presented in much of her work.

Personally, I've always held the belief that Gere and Walker shared. Yes, sometimes art is graphic, but if it is working to share a greater truth, if it is telling the truth as it does so, then it is valid. Often, we need to experience the darkness to better appreciate the light.

For me, where the line seems to demarcate between art and crassness is when anyone - Hollywood, a singer, a comedian - takes advantage of shock and titillation to merely prop up an otherwise weak work. It's why John Singleton's "Boyz in the Hood" has stayed with me to this very day, but I've all but forgotten the crass mediocrity of 2 Live Crew.

Perhaps most interesting to me was when I remembered that the Dalai Lama once said, in "The Art of Happiness" I believe, that there is no word in Tibetan for self-hatred or not liking oneself. Meanwhile, in the West, we have enough terms for this to fill a therapist's couch three times over. In fact, we've built a healthy psychological and pharmaceutical cottage industry around this notion. So many of the most creative minds of our culture - from Picasso and Van Gogh to Hemingway and Cobain - have had a nasty streak of self-hatred, whether it manifested itself as depression, addiction, narcissism, abuse, or ultimately, death. It's almost if, on the highest level, these two concepts - creativity and self-loathing - are intrinsically linked, at least by a thread.

Another delineation that was made was the difference between the art the West embraces and that in the Dalai Lama's decidedly more Eastern experience. Many of us in the West - myself included - prefer art to be a tad abstract or expressionistic. I love that Dali, Bergman, and Dylan make me do some of the work. However, the Dalai Lama is looking for objective truths in a work of art. Seeing things as they are, a tenet of Buddhism. Again, perhaps the Middle Way is the best solution here: work that offers truths, but makes you do a bit of the searching to find and define it. And perhaps, just perhaps, that truth is not exactly the same for each artist or viewer.

To me, the question of a link between the creative and spiritual felt a bit moot. In my experience, honest artistic expression has always been spiritual. Perhaps it is not an act of religiosity or a dogmatic statement. Perhaps the spiritual act was not committed on behalf of the deity or dharma to which you prescribe, but to be able to see something holy in everything - the brushstroke, the flawed character's sincere motivation, the failures of a noble protagonist, the imperfect potter's attempt at perfection - is what elevates us closer to whatever we define as divine.

And I can't help but think that, whether we know it or not, when we sit down to write, paint, or sculpt. or stand to dance, play, sing, or act, we are all attempting sainthood. Our act of creating is our humblest, most earnest prayer.

Funny You Should Ask...

2010-09-29T07:16:00.000-07:00

With the Sixth Annual Search for the South's Funniest Accountant well underway, my mind turns to the world of stand-up, one that I admittedly have a love/hate relationship with. When I was in high school, I was performing stand-up at churches, schools, and even a local supper club (that's a whole 'nuther blog post). Anyway, I either borrowed material from the legends (Newhart, Carlin) or wrote my own hackneyed stuff. By college, I was doing open mic nights at the Punch Line, Jerry Farber's club, and anyone else who would have me. I wasn't bad...but I wasn't great. I think the key was, I was likable enough, and was comfy onstage, so I was ahead of many of the other amateurs in that regard, but I didn't have anything so revolutionary to say that was gonna set me apart from the rest of the dorky white guy regiment that made up a healthy slice of the comedy circuit in the late 80's. So, in 1990, I took my first improv comedy class and never really looked back at the idea of stand-up again.

Except on two occasions: one, I do emcee corporate events, and write customized comedy for those productions, and secondly, every fall I get to coach new comics and then host the showcase for a really cool event called "The Search for the South's Funniest Accountant". The event, sponsored by Accountants One here in Atlanta, is a dual attempt to (a) raise money for Junior Achievement and (b) prove that accountants aren't all dull pencil pushers. I gotta admit, some funny folks have come up through the ranks of this event - some have gone on to perform comedy around the city and even across the country. I'm impressed by their talent and their moxie. The accounting world isn't one that encourages such acts of fancy, and I think each and every one of the contestants is a bold spirit. It's a grand experience.

Each fall, as I prepare for this event, I go back through my collection of comedy CDs, DVDs, cassettes, and such to find the comedy legends and stars whose material inspires and intrigues me. And those who make me cringe a little. It's amazing how stand-up comedy has evolved over the years, in so many ways: subject matter, language, performance styles, attitudes...and yet, in one way, it's still the same rudimentary art form: one performer, one microphone, a bare stage. A conversation with an audience you hope will answer you with laughter, nods of approval and eager applause. The flop sweat of a bit gone awry. Self-deprication, self-confidence, swagger, and neurosis, all running through the veins of a performer bold enough to take the stage armed with nothing more than their homemade material and what they pray to God is perceived as charm. It's not for the faint of heart. As a snake bite victim, allow me to say, research has shown that being in front of an audience ranks as high on the Fear-o-Meter as a viper encounter for most folks...and the scars of a poorly executed encounter can last just as long.

With that in mind, here are my random thoughts on some of the bold, the blase, and the just plain ballsy in the world of stand-up.

Richard Pryor - No surprise here. The man - at the top of his game - was just pure brilliance. I know he went to some naughty places - too naughty for some of my gentle readers, to be sure - but what was beautiful about Richard was the pure honesty. Not the foul language, but the way he shifted comedy from observational to confessional. Nothing was off limits - his drug problems, his heart attacks, his setting himself on fire, race, his demons, his hopes and fears. He put it all out there, sharing it in a way that made audiences feel like they knew Richard. I can't say I ever felt like I 'knew' Bob Hope. But I knew Richard...and I'm a better person for it.

Bill Hicks - Bill wasn't even a comedian. He was a street preacher. He was a one man protest movement. He was the original Rage Against the Machine. The Reincarnation of Lenny Bruce - again, comedy born from an all-too-honest place. He pulled no punches, and really didn't care what you thought. Fearless. The saddest thing is, he died in his 30's from cancer, and I can't help but think we've needed him more since he passed away than we ever did while he was here. The world awaits the 21st century rebirth of Bill Hicks. In the meantime, we try to remember his mantra: "It's Just a Ride..."

George Carlin - George falls into the "I liked you better when" category for me, and I know artists hate that. You want to keep growing, keep expanding, and for George, getting softer wasn't an option, but as he got older, George's stuff just felt derivative and grouchy to me. What I loved was his 70's and 80's output of wordplay, social commentary, and twisted nonsense. No one loved the English language more, or was more capable of turning it on its head. No one spoke to hypocrisy better in the 70's. Growing up, I wanted to be George. Ask any comedian who has come along since Carlin, I bet the best ones tell you the same.

Steve Martin - Steve is no longer a stand-up, but those few brilliant years of surrealist comedy were something to behold. A lot of rules went out the window with Steve's absurdist approach, and I remember always being surprised by what he came up with on his albums and on SNL appearances. What I love most, though, is how he evolved. Stand-up to actor to playwright to novelist/essayist to bluegrass phenomenon. Of course, he was always all of those things, but he's slowly morphed into a real Renaissance man. And it all started with a white suit and a pair of bunny ears.

Jerry Seinfeld - "Seinfeld" the series is on a very short list of favorite shows of mine. At its best, the show was the "anti-sitcom", one of the first of its era to eschew the warm fuzzies for pure cynicism. And I like Jerry a lot as a person, from what I can glean from interviews. But, his standup has never put me in stitches. He's got amazing precision, terrific delivery, but some of his observations are just a little too mundane. I almost feel like - if we were to sit in Monk's Coffee Shop - he'd have me doubled over with laughter, but onstage, I never quite connect with the material. That said, I admire him for keeping his stuff clean, as there's really no reason for him to work blue, unlike Pryor and Carlin who sorta made an art form out of profanity. Jerry once said the reason he didn't do a lot of potty and sex related humor is because - on a good day - you spend about 10% of your life going to the bathroom or having sex. So, there's this whole other 90% to explore. I think that's pretty smart...'cause I'm personally tired of comedians retreating to farts and d$*% jokes as a coat of armor against being vulnerable and honest with their material.

Dane Cook - if you forget about Andrew Dice Clay, and we should, he's really the first comedian since Steve Martin to play arenas. A guy playing 20,000 seat halls is doing something right, for sure. But I think what he does right is marketing. Dane Cook is the comedian people love to hate. Comedians especially love to hate him. He's just so in-you-face with this cute/hip routine that I can totally see why people distance themselves. And, he's been accused of the greatest crime in comedy: lifting material from his peers. Unproven, but it's out there. Anyway, I gotta say - maybe it's the Tony Robbins CDs that I've absorbed over the past decade, but I like Dane's energy and seeming love for his work. The guy seems to really enjoy making people laugh, and the mischief in his delivery and material do keep me coming back. That said, where I could see having coffee with Seinfeld, I imagine within ten minutes of java juicing with Dane, I'd want to pour a scalding latte down his shirt. When Richard Jeni killed himself after battling depression, a friend of mine once muttered, "Why can't Dane Cook get depressed?" I get it. But I also get a lot of Dane's stuff. It's a love/loathe thing, and I'm seeing a professional about it.

Patton Oswalt - Hands down, the funniest guy out there in my opinion. Just great, original stuff. Listening to him makes me happy, even when he's describing some of his more hellish moments. His pain = my joy, and that's the equation for the best comedy. To paraphrase his latest CD title, His Weakness is Strong.

Jim Gaffigan - Jim's got a bit of a one note gimmick (the voice of the judgmental audience member that he mimics after every shocking line), but surrounding that is some smart, spot-on stuff. And the fact is, his 'shocking' material is PG at its worst. Very clean, very likable guy...and his "Hot Pockets" routine should be on everyone's I-Pod.

Sarah Silverman - Oh Sarah, I have such a crush on you, and you also make me so nervous when I watch you. It's not that I get all clammy from my crush, it's that you go to some really, really dark places, and I can't tell if you're just looking for hot buttons or if you really mean what you say. So, I watch you for ten minutes, then I turn you off, then I come back over to the show you were on to see if you've changed topics. I can't help but think our relationship would be much the same. In the meantime, I'm torn between your demure delivery and your potty mouth, your truly brilliant material and your 'shock for shock's sake' stuff. Pick a team, girlfriend - I'm rooting for ya.

Larry the Cable Guy - please kill me. Now.

Jay Leno - Many younger folks are surprised to learn that Jay Leno was once a very edgy, sharp, funny comic. That all went away with "The Tonight Show". When Jay was a guest on Letterman's show back in the late 80's, he was on fire. Sardonic, savvy, and the perfect punch line man to Dave's set-ups. Then, Jay - and I try not to use this term too often, as I think it is overused - sold out. In Johnny's slot, he aimed for middle-America and watered down his already PG material to the point it was just cheap, obvious, and each joke was delivered with a 'and here's the punch line, folks' approach that flew in the face of the career he had built to that point. I saw him twice at the Fox Theater in the late 80's. He did two-and-a-half to three hour shows, unheard of for a stand-up, and he was rock solid. I miss that guy.

Dennis Miller - here's another guy I miss. In the 80's and 90's, Dennis' acerbic, pop culture laden humor was the pinnacle of smart comedy to me. He took aim at all demographics, all political beliefs, all sacred cows, but with a touch of common sense and a 'cant' we all just get along' attitude that let you know he was 'one of us', a regular guy who was (a) really smart and (b) really fed up. I can pinpoint the day we lost that guy. It was September 11, 2001. The day those buildings came down, Dennis' fear went up. He went from the Lenny Bruce-inspired libertarian to a full-on Fox News correspondent. Hey, I understand a change in political views - i've had a few myself. But, he committed the cardinal sin for a comedian. He also stopped being funny. Now, he just sounds angry and, like Carlin in his latter days, unpleasantly grouchy. His routines are like sitting next to Neal Boortz on a crowded airplane for two hours after the airlines lost Neal's luggage and made him late for tee time in Florida. Left or right, folks, ya gotta be funny. (Larry the Cable Guy, take note).

I realize I'm leaving out some gems: Bob Newhart, Jon Stewart, Garry Shandling, Lily Tomlin (hats off to all of you). David Cross, Zach Galifinakis, Woody Allen (thank you, guys). And I'm missing out on dissing some easy targets (Carrot Top, you know I'm lookin' at you, son). But, I'm out of time and space. So, now it's your turn. Who tickles your funny bone? And who rubs it the wrong way? Don't be shy. God knows, most of these folks aren't...

Seven Years On...

2010-09-10T12:51:00.000-07:00

Seven years ago this week, Warren Zevon left us. I wrote this modest tribute at the time and came across it while searching for a script I'd written around the same time. Thought I'd share it. There's nothing new here for Zevonites, but hopefully those who know Warren's work will enjoy this and those who don't will get busy seeking it out.

His Ride Is Here: A Tribute to Warren Zevon

Well, it’s been inevitable for a year now, and yet, when the unsurprising news came this morning, I still found myself teary-eyed. Warren Zevon has hastened down the wind.

In September 2002, Warren Zevon announced that he had terminal lung cancer and wouldn’t be with us much longer. His doctors gave him three months. He saw their three months, raised them another nine, put together a star-studded farewell CD, and got to hold his newborn twin sons all summer long. That’s Warren…he’ll sleep when he’s dead, and not a minute before.

I don’t want to write an obit, however. I want to celebrate a life: a musical life that has gone greatly unappreciated by the fickle pop/rock charts, but hardly unnoticed by musicians, critics, writers, and fans of literate, sardonic rock and roll.

Warren Zevon has penned some of the most tender love songs I’ve ever had the pleasure of crying through. He’s also come up with some of the most self-deprecating and caustic tunes in rock history. To top it all off, he’s populated many songs with characters so three-dimensional and eccentric, novels could be etched out of his

4-minute elegies. When it comes to this particular kind of songwriting, only Randy Newman gets same breath recognition. As Jackson Browne put it, he’s the foremost proponent of “song noir”.

If you think you’ve heard the name, but can’t place Zevon, you probably at least know “Werewolves of London” and “Poor Poor Pitiful Me”, his only legitimate ‘hits’ by industry standards. He was also a favorite of David Letterman, who hired him as the permanent fill-in bandleader for Paul Shaffer a few years ago. But if you think that’s where the music ends, read on…

To give you some idea of the adoration fellow artists have for Warren, here’s a partial list of those who have performed alongside him, either as vocalists or musicians, on his albums: Linda Ronstadt, Don Henley, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, REM, Bruce Hornsby, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, Graham Nash, Glenn Frey, members of The Beach Boys and Pink Floyd, Jerry Garcia, Dwight Yoakam, The Everly Brothers, and Chick Corea. Jackson Browne was his mentor and first record producer. He’s co-written a tune with Springsteen. Musicians love Warren.

He has also taken to co-writing songs with novelist/writer pals, including Carl Hiaasen, Paul Muldoon, and longtime friend Hunter S. Thompson. He hangs out with Dave Barry. He quotes Graham Greene and Rilke like a preacher quotes The Bible. That’s no surprise, as his songs are populated with cultural references both classical and comical. His Spring 2002 release (the unwittingly fittingly titled “My Ride’s Here”) manages to roll call Lord Byron, Shelley, Milton, and Keats, alongside Charlton Heston, Jesus, and John Wayne, and that’s just in the title track.

Zevon has had his dark side, both onstage and off. In the 70’s, when he was exalted as a Wunderkind who might be the ‘next big thing’, he was riding high on a heroin addiction and a love affair with half-filled bottles of Stoli. Clint Eastwood once said, “He did everything but drink vodka from a silver boot then”, to which Richard Gere retorted, “I saw him drink vodka from a silver boot!”.

He kicked his drug habit, then went sober from alcohol in the early 80’s, but never really reclaimed his mantle as an almost-superstar. Still, every album was a treat to his cult following – an oasis of wit and warmth in the sea of mediocrity that is popular music.

Musically, Zevon’s dark side is edgy and endearing. His musical protagonists include a disembodied wartime poltergeist (Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner), a murderous lad (Excitable Boy), an aristocratic monster (Werewolves of London), and the misanthropic, hedonistic rampage of “Mr. Bad Example”, a character, ‘very well acquainted with the seven deadly sins, I keep a busy schedule trying to fit them in, I’m proud to be a glutton, and I don’t have time for sloth…”’

That Zevon can then turn around and pen stirring ballads like “Reconsider Me”, “Hasten Down the Wind”, and “Searching for a Heart” only strengthens the case for his rightful place alongside Newman and Bob Dylan as a songwriting sage.

The best gift I could give Warren is to perhaps turn a few folks onto his music that otherwise might not have explored his satiric and sensitive canon. Here, then, is a tally of a handful of CD’s that I encourage you to run out and purchase post haste:

Genius: The Best of Warren Zevon - This is a 22-track anthology released by Rhino Records that manages to hit upon tunes from almost every Zevon album. While not all-inclusive, it’s a fine representation of the many sides of Warren, and a great place to start…

Excitable Boy - Warren’s breakthrough LP from 1978, produced by Jackson Browne and featuring an array of great tunes, including the well known “Werewolves of London”, “Tenderness on the Block” (later covered by Shawn Colvin), and “Lawyers, Guns, and Money”. Warren manages to deftly (and simultaneously) lampoon and embrace the popular “California” sound that the Eagles and Browne were riding high on at the time.

Sentimental Hygiene - Warren’s ‘comeback’ album from the late 80’s features a stellar list of guests, including ¾ of REM as his session band. It also features his best collection of songs – there’s not a filler in the bunch – including the self-mocking “Trouble Waiting to Happen” and “Bad Karma”, as well as the bull’s-eye commentary of “Detox Mansion”, which places our narrator at a Rehab clinic for the rich and famous, ‘raking leaves with Liza, me and Liz clean up the yard’. Priceless.

Life’ll Kill Ya – Warren’s always had an unwitting preoccupation with the macabre, but this CD is eerily prophetic – released just two years before his fatal diagnosis. Zevon, however, never looks at anything, not even death, without his rapier wit intact. Thus, such tunes as “I Was In the House When The House Burned Down”, “Life’ll Kill Ya”, and the hilariously morose “My Shit’s F**ked Up”, a dirge about a dreadful diagnosis from the doctor. I’ve vowed this CD to be my soundtrack as I head into middle age.

The Wind - Warren found out he had cancer in August 2002. They gave him three months. He devoted the days he had left to family and music. The end result was getting to meet his twin grandsons in June 2003, and creating a first – a singer who gets to write his own eulogy. The Wind is packed with cameos from friends: Springsteen, Tom Petty, Jackson Browne, Emmylou Harris, Dwight Yoakam, Ry Cooder, Billy Bob Thornton, the Eagles. But they are just along for the ride. It’s Warren’s goodbye, and it’s filled with tenderness and tenacity – a mix of rollicking wit and bittersweet farewells. Stop reading this now. Go get it.

As for Warren the man, he’ll be sorely missed. There’s no one in line to fill his quirky shoes, and as the music biz grows more mundane, jesters with big hearts such as Mr. Zevon are diamonds buried deeply in the rough. He is also, by all accounts, a really good guy, and one I’d certainly loved to have known. That he is a fiercely loyal friend comes through in the accolades his high profile pals have showered upon him.

The last song on Warren’s final album asks, simply:

Hold me in your thoughts, take me to your dreams,

Touch me as I fall into view

When the winter comes, keep the fires lit

And I will be right next to you.

Keep me in your heart for a while…

For me, that’s where he’ll be.

What's Your Creative M.O.?

2010-08-30T06:31:00.000-07:00

I am cutting and pasting an excerpt from Jonathan Fields' blog, as this is just a great entry. His blog ("Awake at the Wheel") is a great read, and this entry, in particular, captured my imagination. Working from home, I have tried to set up a feng shui'ed kind of workspace, and have even taken to attempting certain rituals to put myself in the 'stay focused, get it done' mindset. Some days are diamonds, some days are stones, and some of my approaches had the stickiness of a 1986 Post-It note.

When I read that Tom Wolfe always wore a white suit when he wrote (my Lord, does the man ever wear anything else? He is the yin to Johnny Cash's yang), I tried 'getting dressed' for work in my office. A great idea - ditching the shorts and t-shirt for a more business-like, crisp look. I was miserable within minutes. Isn't being comfortable one of the very attributes of having a work-from-home business? Why was I opting to wear the poly-blend shackles of the Dunder-Mifflin world if I wasn't going to meet a client? Well, my answers to Jonathan's survey are at the bottom of this entry. In the meantime, here are Jonathan's two cents on how to set the stage for your creativity to flow:

Legendary copywriter, John Carlton, tells the story of how he used to have a very specific outfit that he’d to wear to write copy. And, he had to wear the same thing every time, right down to his hat in order to get into that place where, as he says, he literally stalked and attacked his writing.

Could it really be that what you wear changes how you feel enough to impact what you create?

And, what about other factors like where you work, what your view is, how light or dark or loud or quiet it is. Do these things change your creative output, too? In my experience, everything from what I wear to where I am and what I eat have a pretty profound impact on my creative output.

These things form my Optimal Creative Modus Operandi (MO).

So, I thought it would be fun to do an experiment here and share our collective creative MOs.I’ll start and I’d love for you to share yours in the comments.

Below is a short list of personal and environmental conditions that have an impact on my creative output, along with my preference for maximizing the flow of creative juices.

Here is Jonathan's Optimal Creative MO:

Clothes – Bare feet, old jeans and a well-worn t-shirt.
Sound – Moderate background noise, classic rock, love writing to Led Zeppelin
Light – Bright, sunny setting, preferably with sunlight on my face and body
Time of Day – Early morning (5:30am), then again late in the evening.
Location – Crunchy, low-key cafe, home-office or Soho House in NYC.
Directionality - Facing out into a room with a wall or substantial piece of furniture at my back
Routine/spontaneous – Routine, BUT provided I have an idea capture device
Long periods or short bursts – 2 to 4 hour intensive creative sessions where time often fugues
Carry something to capture ideas on the fly? – Always have a voice recorder or app on me
Squeaky Clean or squalor (setting) – Squeaky clean
Clean or dirty – Unshowered in the morning, showered at night and in the final weeks of writing a book, you probably don’t wanna get too close to me, lol.
Solo or surrounded – Solo, except when creating music, then collaborative
Digital or analogue – Analogue to ideate, digital to flesh out and build out
What fuels you? – Raw almonds, organic berries and ice-cold water
Leaded or unleaded? – Leaded latte in the morning, nothing in the evening.
Breaks – Getting outside between creative bouts, preferably by water or woods.
Mindset practices that fuel creation – Meditation, playing guitar.
Movement practices that fuel creation – Yoga, hiking, running, spinning

Those were Jonathan's. Here are mine (Tommy's) :

Clothes – always barefoot, shorts and a t-shirt for summer; jeans and button down oxford for winter, barefoot until winter weather demands otherwise.

Sound – music, always: jazz, Americana, classic rock are faves. Depends on what I'm writing as to who sets the mood, but Miles Davis is always a sure bet to stimulate something creative.

Light - I need good light, and the addition of candlelight, just for ambience, is always a plus.

Location - My Mac is in my office, so I live there. I sometimes take my Dell laptop onto our front porch for some Spring/Autumn work, when the weather is mild enough.

Directionality – Back to the window or I'd never get a lick done.

Time of Day - Love the AM, once I'm up and coffee has worked its magic.

Routine/spontaneous - Loose routine. Try to be flexible to change and improvise when needed.

Long periods or short bursts - Long periods punctuated by short breaks.

Carry something to capture ideas on the fly? - Moleskin notebook Wendy gave me and my Tony Robbins RPM Planner book.

Squeaky Clean or Squalor - The cleaner the better.
Clean or dirty - Me? Oh, I'm weird about this. Gotta shower to feel truly ready to work.

Solo or surrounded - Solo. Not a recluse or a curmudgeon, just love to talk, and I will given the opportunity.
Digital or analogue - Digital.
What fuels you? - Coffee and Coltrane are my drugs of choice.

Leaded or unleaded? - Leaded. One cup when I wake up (6am), another mid/late AM, and a final one toward mid-afternoon.

Breaks – Whenever my kids need me, when I can grab a few minutes with Wendy. My office is always open, so if I lose an hour in the afternoon, there's always night time.

Mindset practices that fuel creation - Meditation. Creative writing before business writing. And, yes, sometimes Facebooking. Sadly.

Movement practices that fuel creation - Yoga and running.

So, now it’s your turn.

What’s YOUR Creative Modus Operandi?

Copy and paste the below list into your comment then share YOUR creative M.O…

Clothes –
Sound –
Light -
Location -
Directionality –
Time of Day -
Routine/spontaneous -
Long periods or short bursts -
Carry something to capture ideas on the fly? -
Squeaky Clean or Squalor -
Clean or dirty -
Solo or surrounded -
Digital or analogue -
What fuels you? -
Leaded or unleaded? -
Breaks –
Mindset practices that fuel creation -
Movement practices that fuel creation -

Emmy Wishes - Why Not?

2010-08-28T06:03:00.000-07:00

As television has had a surge in quality over the past few years, and thanks to the rising costs of movie tickets and the recession, has likely experienced a rise in viewership at the megaplex's detriment, I figured it a post about the Emmy Awards was fair game. But, instead of predicting winners, I thought I'd just share my thoughts on who I'd LIKE to see win.

So, please, read on, and share your own thoughts as well. This is a conversation, after all.

Outstanding Comedy Series
"Curb Your Enthusiasm"
"Glee"
"Modern Family"
"Nurse Jackie"
"The Office"
"30 Rock"

I'm not a "Gleek", though I suspect they might win, unless "Nurse Jackie" beats them just b/c the Emmys want to show they are edgy. As we are HBO-less, I haven't seen it or the current season of "Curb", but I have to say my vote would go to either "Curb", having seen, squirmed through, and loved previous seasons (and this year, he brought the cast of "Seinfeld" back - there's a coup!), or "Modern Family", which takes the model of "The Office" and places the it in the home. They execute it with hysterical precision*.

* - However, can we call a moratorium on shows that use this format now, NBC?

Outstanding Drama Series
"Breaking Bad"
"Dexter"
"The Good Wife"
"Lost"
"Mad Men"
"True Blood"

I know it was "Lost's" last season, and "True Blood" has its fan base, but for true blood, ya gotta go with Mr Dexter Morgan, and this season had more surprises and suspenseful turns than any before it. "Mad Men"? The show just keeps getting better, so I imagine the award it theirs to lose, and I do really like the show. And "Breaking Bad" may be the only show on TV that takes a troubling premise and makes it into great storytelling better than "Dexter". Still, "Dexter" gets my vote, with "Mad Men" as a happy frontrunner for the likely win.

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series
Jim Parsons as Sheldon Cooper , "The Big Bang Theory"
Larry David as Himself, "Curb Your Enthusiasm"
Matthew Morrison as Will Schuester, "Glee"
Tony Shalhoub as Adrian Monk, "Monk"
Steve Carell as Michael Scott, "The Office"
Alec Baldwin as Jack Donaghy, "30 Rock"

Carrell and Baldwin are both pitch-perfect in their roles, and have walked this aisle before. So has Shaloub, though I think this being "Monk's" final season earns him a better chance at one more walk. For me though, it's about time we rewarded Larry David for doing something that doesn't seem all that hard, but may be the most challenging thing to do on camera: play yourself with unflinching honesty and un-likeability. For 7+ seasons, David has given us the shining example of what we look like at our most self-absorbed worst. It's not just a comment on David or show biz. It's a comment on being an American in the 21st century.

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
Bryan Cranston as Walter White, "Breaking Bad"
Michael C. Hall as Dexter Morgan, "Dexter"
Kyle Chandler as Eric Taylor, "Friday Night Lights"
Hugh Laurie as Dr. Gregory House, "House"
Matthew Fox as Jack Shephard, "Lost"
Jon Hamm as Don Draper, "Mad Men"

I love watching Hugh Laurie give acceptance speeches. I'd kill to be 1/10th that charming. And Jon Hamm? Please...the guy is almost as solid as Clooney. But, my vote goes to Michael C. Hall for "Dexter". Really, I've never been one to root for serial killers, but he lets you inside the darkness just enough to see what he sees, and for that, well, I'd shake his hand if I weren't afraid I'd end up Saran Wrapped to a table. How 'bout an Emmy instead?

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series
Lea Michele as Rachel Berry, "Glee"
Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Christine Campbell, "The New Adventures of Old Christine"
Edie Falco as Jackie Peyton, "Nurse Jackie"
Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope, "Parks And Recreation"
Tina Fey as Liz Lemon, "30 Rock"
Toni Collette as Tara Gregson, "United States Of Tara

My Tina Fey crush aside, I'd love to see Edie Falco win. Guessing the "Glee" girl gets this one, but Edie is terrific. Our first disc of "Nurse Jackie" Season One just arrived via Netflix yesterday. I feel confident I'll feel the same after actually seeing her in the role. Having spent so many seasons with her on "The Sopranos", I just know the quality of her work.

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series
Kyra Sedgwick as Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson, "The Closer"
Glenn Close as Patty Hewes, "Damages"
Connie Britton as Tami Taylor, "Friday Night Lights"
Julianna Margulies as Alicia Florrick, "The Good Wife"
Mariska Hargitay as Det. Olivia Benson, "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit"
January Jones as Betty Draper, "Mad Men"

Just promise me we'll stop giving this award to Kyra Sedgwick for her way off-base Suthern acksent and we'll call it even, ok?

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series
Chris Colfer as Kurt Hummel, "Glee"
Neil Patrick Harris as Barney Stinson, "How I Met Your Mother"
Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Mitchell, "Modern Family"
Eric Stonestreet as Cameron Tucker, "Modern Family"
Ty Burrell as Phil Dunphy, "Modern Family"
Jon Cryer as Alan Harper, "Two and a Half Men"

I guess the guys from "Modern Family" are gonna cancel each other out, leaving the path clear for Neil Patrick Harris, who is every bit as funny and charming as Hugh Laurie, so at least the speech will be fun to watch. I have no horse in this race. Andy of the "MF" cast or NPH are fine by me.

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman, "Breaking Bad"
Martin Short as Leonard Winstone, "Damages"
Terry O'Quinn as John Locke, "Lost"
Michael Emerson as Ben Linus, "Lost"
John Slattery as Roger Sterling, "Mad Men"
Andre Braugher as Owen, "Men of a Certain Age"

John Slattery will likely win and deserves to, but my heart is with Andre Braugher. "Men of a Certain Age" is a terrific show - perhaps my favorite current series - and Braugher's overweight loser of a son, husband, and father was nothing short of heartbreaking and hilarious. Sleep apnea and love handles can indeed be plot points for 40-something year old men. It may not be pulse racing drama, but it's reality, and he played it sweetly and without a trace of ego.

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series
Jane Lynch as Sue Sylvester, "Glee"
Julie Bowen as Claire Dunphy, "Modern Family"
Sofia Vergara as Gloria Delgado-Pritchett, "Modern Family"
Kristen Wiig as Various Characters, "Saturday Night Live"
Jane Krakowski as Jenna Maroney, "30 Rock"
Holland Taylor as Evelyn Harper, "Two and a Half Men"

Like I said, not a "Glee" person, but I'd give Jane Lynch an Emmy just for showing up on "Sesame Street" and announcing the letter of the day. Love her.

Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series
"The Colbert Report"
"The Daily Show with Jon Stewart"
"Real Time with Bill Maher"
"Saturday Night Live"
"The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien"

How does "The Daily Show" keep not only sustaining its high level of satirical marksmanship, but actually get a little better each year? Maybe it is that scary notion that the news keeps getting more surreal so the targets just jump onto Jon's desk, asking to be stripped of their empiric clothing (thanks Fox and Mr Beck for making it soooo easy). Still, it's the best post-11pm show. The problem though? Well, there's this guy named Conan, and he got treated like Gordon Gekko's mailroom clerk by NBC this year. I don't think his stint on the "Tonight Show" was Emmy worthy, but his old show was...and his new one will be as well. So, don't be surprised if he wins the "I'm with Coco"/anti-Leno vote. He's got mine, but if Jon and his writing staff take the stage instead, I'll still be smiling.

Outstanding Reality Program
"Antiques Roadshow"
"Dirty Jobs"
"Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution"
"Kathy Griffin: My Life On The D-List"
"MythBusters"
"Undercover Boss"

Dirty Jobs. (Dirty) Hands down.

There are other categories, and I celebrate knowing that Ms Betty White has already scored her Emmy for her amazing SNL hosting stint. These are most of the biggies, though, and I look forward to seeing how it all plays out Sunday evening.
How 'bout you? Let's hear from the Gleeks and Mad Men, the Modern Family Members and the Leno fans (I'm sure you're out there, just don't know any of you personally).

Who says there's nothing good on TV?

Papa Said, "Kill Your Darlings"

2010-08-22T12:23:00.000-07:00

The problem with throwing your hat over the wall? Sometimes you have to go get it and apologize for the sloppy toss. To quote Mr Vonnegut, "And so it goes..."

Last winter, I decided the best way to ensure I would stay on track with my first attempt at a novel was to start a Facebook page for it, keeping the promisary fuel burning. Not that I expected anyone to be waiting with bated breath. After all, I'm a twice self-published writer who has a cumulative sales tally of a few hundred copies. J.K. Rowling, stand down - your fortunes are secure.

Still, when I had the idea for "The Puzzle of Autumn", I was enthused. A few months and 100+ pages later, I was less so, mainly because I realized what I had on my hands was not the start of a great novel, but the remnants of a couple of decent short stories that needed paring.

In fact, I realized that short stories are still my passion. It wasn't like I'd mastered the form and was ready to graduate to novels. Lord knows I could write a short story every month for the rest of my life and still never touch the hem of Raymond Carver's garment. And as I kept trying to cram all of my varied passions into my novel, I realized there just wasn't room for all the things I want to write about. From snow leopards to Mexican coyotes, little league heroes to playground bullies, meth labs and fishermen's nets, Native Americans rituals and corporate boardroom b.s.

Fortunately, these varied interests are coupled with a very splintered writing schedule, and it's a lot easier to wrestle with the finite borders of a short story than the seemingly endless, and easily loosened, thread of a full length novel.

Vonnegut called short stories 'Buddhist catnaps', meaning they are little meditative retreats you can enter into, become one with, and then return to life within an hour or two, hopefully a little more enlightened by the experience. I doubt I'm destined to be a source of any sort of enlightenment, but I know my life's busy schedule invites the notion of penning catnaps instead of sprawling tomes worthy of hibernation-length reads.

So, "The Puzzle of Autumn", once a novel in process, is now a trio of short stories - one in need of shredding, one in need of a vast remodeling, and the other...well, I have no idea. But that's half the fun of it, isn't it? Hemingway said that you have to 'kill your darlings'...and there was some good stuff in those pages amid the meandering, the detours, and the mess. My job is to salvage and rebuild what's there, and move on with some more short fiction as life allows. Lather, rinse, rewrite.

But this time privately, without the neediness of a Facebook fan base or cheer squad. Because in the end, you write for one person: yourself. Getting back to that is where the truth lies. And Hemingway also said a writer must simply write the truest sentence he can, one sentence at a time. When I've got enough of those, I'll be in touch.

The Devil's in the Jukebox

2010-08-21T14:19:00.000-07:00

I knew taking my son to a Green Day concert meant we'd have to have the 'that's not a word you should say' conversation. But, I have to say I'd rather have that conversation rather than the "Son...we need to talk about the quality of music you're listening to" chat. Green Day is the real deal, and they give me hope that the legacy of The Clash is truly alive and well. If he were listening to Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga, I'd be tempted to have a serious 'Come to Jesus" around the difference between disposable product and lasting artistry. So, that his MP3 player is filled with the likes of the Beatles, U2, Green Day, The Clash, and Warren Zevon gives me assurances that he's on the right road for a lifetime of rich musical exploration.

I was fortunate enough to be raised in a home where my sister exposed me to folks like Paul Simon, Johnny Cash, Elvis, and The Eagles, so while I may not have been on the cutting edge musically, circa 1975, I was certainly getting some solidly smart stuff. I assumed that all music - all music that moved me - had to be good.

Then, somewhere in my high school days, a time when I was inside the doors of the Baptist church everytime they were unlocked, I began to hear about the dangers of rock music, particularly under the guise of something called 'backmasking'. Remember this phenomenon? Artists would supposedly record hidden messages in their songs which could only be heard if you played the song backwards. So, if you were willing to destroy your album AND your needle as a kid, you could find out that "Stairway to Heaven" was actually an invitation to hell.

Well, I couldn't reconcile my quite naive faith with the inference that my favorite artists were somehow trying to corrupt my soul. I had to know, so I bought a book, written by a minister whose factchecker must've been a glaucoma-stricken spider monkey. He didn't just go after your Black Sabbaths and AC/DCs. No, he inferred everyone from Kenny Rogers (who he referred to as "Kenny Rodgers") to Eagles drummer "Ron Henly" (really? Not even close...) were in legion with Satan. His basis? A thin collection of out of context lyrics, quotes, and presumptions. Oh, and of course, deciphering the backward messages embedded on LPs.

Conveniently, for an extra few bucks, you could order a cassette as well, featuring the minister and a 'music expert' who played these questionable backmasked segments for all to hear. Of course, they told you what to listen for before you heard the snippet. They played short segments from Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, Styx, and others. It was a huge lesson for me. All I heard, even with much evangelical coaching, was garbled nonsense. Of course, the objectionable phrases were never "Join Satan's army" or "Kill your teacher". To convince you these random sounds were actual words, the minister had to create bizarre phrases, such as "Satan eats from my pantry. The cabinet is open. He builds a sandwich at the altar. The pie is good." Really? Is this the kind of directive we should expect from Beelzebub? Because if that's the best you got, he sounds a lot like Dagwood.

Of course, these false alarms set off a barnstorm of artists actually attempting backmasking to capitalize on the phenomenon. After all, fundamentalists had once again sold the very goods they were trying to supposedly crush. My favorite? Weird Al Yankovich embedded, "Wow, you must have an awful lot of free time on your hands" and "Satan eats Cheez Whiz" on a pair of songs.

The most faith-affirming moment of my teenage years was having my youth minister tell me, after I explained my confusion, that I should go start a big fire in my fireplace...and burn (wait for it....) that stupid book. There was nothing wrong with my music, and I should look out for false prophets peddling malevolence as redemption via retail.

Think about the creepy rock gods who haunted your dreams as an adolescent. Today, the very musicians we were told would wrap their scaly fingers around our teenage souls and plunge them into darkness have proven to be - at the worst - harmless clowns. Ozzy Ozbourne? We've all been invited into his home for asparagus and indecipherable conversation. Gene Simmons of KISS? Yep, reality TV has proven that he' probably be a more reliable source for a sitter than the Vatican. Robert Plant? He's singing spirituals with Alison Krauss these days. And Alice Cooper? He's a Republican, a born again Christian, and avid golfer. Even Pat Robertson can only claim one of those attributes. At least, I assume Pat's golf game is as crappy as his attempts to emulate Christ.

So, backmasking may be a thing of the past - unless someone figures out how to embed messages in MP3 files. Give them time. So, my challenge as a parent is to guide my kids toward some music with true substance, then lets them make their own choices. After all, there is a miniscule amount of 'evil music' out there, but sucky music abounds. And you don't have to play it backwards for it to initiate the something truly dangerous, according to Albert Brooks ("Broadcast News"), which is "just bit by bit lower our standards where they are important. Just a tiny bit."

Your Moment of Bliss...

2010-08-04T10:02:00.000-07:00

I'm posting this link not because Arcade Fire has a terrific new CD - "The Suburbs" - out this week or because I worship at the altar of all things Springsteen, but because the guy who is running the camera on this bootleg video expresses such pure surprise and joy when he sees and hears all this come together that it's just contagious.

Every time I watch it, it makes me smile because we've all felt that moment at a concert, ball game, play, etc where we're just jubilant with awe and surprise. May we all have more moments like this one.

Keep the car runnin', gang.

T

Eat. Pray. Retort.

2010-08-02T05:01:00.000-07:00

I do a pretty decent job of dodging remarks that compel me to vent out loud. I don't tune in to Glenn Beck or Pat Robertson, and I know where the 'hide' button is on Facebook. It's all part of being in my early 40's and keeping my usually excellent blood pressure in check.

That said, I do - at times - stumble across a quote or two that requires at least a cursory response, and my blog seems like the place to take such umbrage. Sadly, the bone I wish to pick is with a talented woman - she's a decent writer and obviously folks find her engaging. I, however, am just not so moved.

Here's the quote - courtesy of this week's Entertainment Weekly- from Elizabeth Gilbert, author of "Eat Pray Love", in response to repeated criticism of her hit book and soon to be blockbuster film: "If women like it, it must be stupid." In other words, my work is being marginalized because it struck a chord with women.

Now, I take pride in my balance of gender-based yin and yang. For every Scorsese movie I worship, there's a Meryl Streep film that devastates me. For each Springsteen anthem that moves my soul, there's an Emmylou Harris ballad that makes me believe in worlds unseen. I would likely be described as a 'sensitive male' before someone uttered the phrase 'man's man', and I'm cool with that.

Therefore, I read "Eat, Love, Pray" last year at the behest of a couple of female friends who felt I would connect with Gilbert's journey. I do, after all, love to cook, meditate, and I believe, as Sheryl Crow said, "Love is a Good Thing".

In a nutshell, I found Gilbert's journey to be vapid, self-absorbed, and self-serving. To be fair, that's her right. Hey, if a publisher paid me $200,000 to go on a year's journey to indulge in great pasta, find some inner-peace, and then have a passionate romance, I'd be looking for the dotted line. That is, if I weren't happily married. Gilbert apparently was as well, but suddenly decided she was unhappy - for no definable reason, according to her book. So, she walked out, leaving everything to her ex-husband (out of guilt, she purports), had a brief fling, and then went on a quest to find God....or happiness...or a really good angel hair marinara.

Honestly, I'm a tad mystified that this book is so popular among women. In the end, Gilbert's apparent search for happiness ended with her, ultimately, falling in love with another man. (Oops...retroactive spoiler alert. She travels the world over seeking enlightenment and then completes her journey by falling for a handsome Brazilian dude who makes her all tingly inside.) In the long run, she could've saved some frequent flier miles, wandered into a singles bar in Jersey and gotten the same outcome.

To make criticism of her work a matter of sexism is a tad insulting to women and men alike.

The reason I didn't like Gilbert's book is the same reason I LOVE the writings of Carrie Fisher, Anne Lamott, Geri Larkin, Mary Karr, and Joan Didion; the lyrics of Lucinda Williams, Indigo Girls, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Patti Smith, and Bonnie Raitt. These are insightful, empathic women who explore both self and other, who ask the big questions but don't feel like the world is revolving around them as they do so. They are self-deprecating, alive with humor and mischief, and capable of busting your heart wide open with the right phrase, because you know they meant it, they lived it, and they want to share how it felt.

Now, to put Carrie Bradshaw's $500 shoe on the other foot, I have to be fair and ask the fateful question:
Can men be narcissistic, self-absorbed, and self-serving? Hell yes. We wrote the book on it (likely titled "Overeat. Prey. Self-Love."). We majored in this topic and graduated Summa It's-All-About-Me Laude. We swim daily in Lake Me and dangle from the tip top of the MeMonkey Tree. That's why truly en-route-to-enlightenment guys see women as teachers, mentors, and our best bet at understanding whatever divinity intersects with our humanity.

Hell, we're looking to you to save us, ladies. We're the barely walking upright Y chromosomes who start wars, fill up 90% of our penitentiaries, and seem to leave a pretty brutal karmic footprint everywhere we step. We'd do well to listen to the wisdom you ladies lay down on the page, in song, in artistry, hell, at the checkout line.

But I just didn't find much of that life altering wisdom in "Eat Pray Love", and I don't think that makes me a chauvinist, a shallow guy, or even a harsh critic. It just makes me all the more aware that the women who truly Eat, Pray, and Love with the kind of joie de vivre that moves me not only reside on my bookshelf and my I-Pod, but also happen to share my home, my zip code, my kids' school hallways, yoga classes, dinner parties, and Girl Fight Club gatherings.

I'm sorry Ms. Gilbert, but I disagree with your assessment of why some find your book to be as shallow as an Atlanta summer rain puddle.

To paraphrase Mr. Dylan - "You don't need a weather girl to know which way the wind blows..."

The First Rule of Fight Club is "Enjoy Every Sandwich"

2010-07-11T10:11:00.000-07:00

 I remember the day I went to see the film "Fight Club" like it

was yesterday. I went with three of my best pals - Steve Coulter,

David Silverman, and Chad Pittard. The four of us are in possession

of a collectively dark sense of humor, and it was never more

evident than during our viewing of this film at Phipps Plaza, a ritzy mall

where wealthy Buckhead patrons once actually 'dressed up' for the movies.

Well, we might've frightened these poor scratch golfers and

Driving Club members more than the movie itself.

The film, for those who've never seen it, is a very

dark satire, a commentary on society, materialism, manhood,

and about thirty other odds and ends.

Anyway, we were the only four laughing - often loudly -

causing many elderly moviegoers to move away from us.

It was sorta like having a quartet of Tyler Durdens sitting

behind you while you watch the apocalypse unfold.

The movie is hard to watch, to be sure.  It's supposed to be.

I rarely make it to the end.  But, there are lines of dialogue, insights,

and scenes that I come back to.  Sure, I aspire to live like such literary

characters as Atticus Finch or Tom Joad, but I'm also aware that

most days, I am Jack's Medulla Oblongata.

With that in mind, I was reminded of this scene on the one year

anniversary of my snake bite.  This scene is actually a modern day

retelling of a Zen parable about a man who is chased by a tiger, who

then jumps from a cliff to escape his fate, only to hang from a berry vine

 that is about to give way.  If he climbs up,the tiger gets him;

if he stays put, he falls to his death.

His answer? Eat a berry from the vine, and enjoy 'the best berry

he's ever eaten'.  Talk about being present!

Man, that's a reminder of how precious and fragile this whole gig is.

In "Fight Club", Tyler Durden is the tiger - or in my case, the snake.

And Raymond K. Hessel gets a disturbing but vivid lesson in how

important it is to live your life with purpose and passion.

I can't find the scene on YouTube, so I'm posting the edited scene

here from the "Fight Club" screenplay.  Hope it inspires you to

go enroll in that class, sign up for that marathon, ask out that person,

or just enjoy that next sandwich a bit more.

"HUMAN SACRIFICE" scene from "Fight Club"

EXT. ALL-NIGHT CONVENIENCE STORE - MOMENTS LATER

Tyler, with Jack following, emerges from the trees and heads into the
parking lot.  A Clerk ambles toward his car, taking off his uniform bow
tie.  Tyler suddenly pulls a HANDGUN out of his belt and rams it
against the Clerk's head.

EXT. WOODED AREA - CONTINUOUS

Tyler marches the Clerk, the gun aimed at his head.  Jack follows.

JACK
What are you doing?!

TYLER
Shut up.

JACK
Are you out of your mind?!

TYLER
Shut up.

Tyler stops the Clerk and pushes him down to a kneeling position.

TYLER
Give me your wallet.

The Clerk fumbles his wallet out of his pocket and Tyler snatches it. 
Tyler pulls out the driver's license. 

TYLER
Raymond K. Hessel.  1320 SE Benning, apartment A.  A small, cramped
basement apartment.

RAYMOND
How'd you know?

TYLER
They give basement apartments letters instead of numbers.  Raymond,
you're going to die.

RAYMOND
Please, God, no.

JACK
What are you doing?!

TYLER
Is this a picture of Mom and Dad?

RAYMOND
Yesss ...

TYLER
An expired community college student ID card.  What did you used to
study, Raymond K. Hessel?

RAYMOND
S-S-Stuff.

TYLER
"Stuff".  Were the mid-terms hard?

Tyler shoves the gun against Raymond's temple.

TYLER
I asked you what you studied.

RAYMOND
Biology, mostly.

TYLER
Why?

RAYMOND
I don't know.

TYLER
What did you want to be Raymond K. Hessel?

A long beat while Raymond weeps and says nothing.  Tyler COCKS the gun.
 Jack JERKS back, wincing, sweating.

JACK
... Tyler?

TYLER
I'm busy.

Tyler continues, to Raymond:

TYLER
The question, Raymond, was "what did you want to be"?

Tyler begins to squeeze the trigger.

JACK (croaking with dry mouth)
Answer him!

RAYMOND
A VETERINARIAN!

TYLER
Animals.

RAYMOND
Yeah ... animals and s-s-s --

TYLER
-- *Stuff*.  That means you have to get more schooling.

RAYMOND
Too much school.

TYLER
Would you rather be dead?

Tyler shoves Raymond's wallet back into his pocket.

TYLER
I'm keeping your license.  I know where you live.  I'm going to check
on you.  If you aren't back in school on your way to being a
veterinarian, you will be dead.  Now, get the hell out of here.

Raymond staggers into the darkness.  Tyler watches.  Jack, still
clinging to a branch with a deathgrip, looks at Tyler.  Tyler slowly
turns to face Jack.

TYLER
Raymond K. Hessel, tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of your
life.  Your breakfast is going to taste better than any meal you've
ever eaten.

Halfway Home...

2010-07-11T09:28:00.000-07:00

Back in early April, I made my predictions for the 2010 MLB season. Now that we're at the midway point. it's time to assess how things are going.

First, from Jason Heyward and Jose Reyes to Chase Utley and Justin Morneau, the ball field is looking a bit more like a minefield, with the collective disabled list looking like a fully staffed All Star Roster. The Red Sox alone have seen Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia, Victor Martinez, Clay Bucholtz, Jason Veritek, Manny Declarman, and ace Josh Beckett ride the pines on the DL so far this year.

This brings me to my first disappointment of the season. The Red Sox are struggling with these injuries, and while I never say 'never', the fact that they are playing with second and third stringers tells me the Yankees and Rays may pull away while the chance is there. Given the choice, I'll take the Rays. I'm weary of the Yankees and their fattened payroll.

The Braves have been a welcome surprise. Plagued by injuries, the Phillies have drifted back a few games (5.5 at 'press tiime') and we're keeping the Mets at arm's length as well. I don't know how we're doing it - aside from Prado and Infante, no one is toying with .300 at the plate. In fact, Diaz and Escobar are closer to Mendoza territory. But, like all resourceful teams, the right players are stepping up at the right moment. And it's great to see Tim Hudson and Billy Wagner working such evasive mastery on the mound. Will we hold on? Will Heyward return the second half, with his lightning stick of a swing intact? WIll Bobby get one more run at the Fall Classic? Well, I'm hopeful. The Phillies still scare me with that lineup, but the Braves teams of the early 90's didn't have a roster full of sluggers. They had a team that played like a team, and that's what the Braves are looking like currently. FInding ways to win - we've used the squeeze play, for cryin' in the dugout! That's baseball, classically played.

As for the rest of the divisions, there's at least a two to four team race in each of 'em, and I love that. San Diego is outdistancing Colorado, the Dodgers, and the Giants - I didn't see that coming. The Tigers, Twins, and White Sox are making it interesting. The Cubs have already dipped ten games below .500, leaving the Cardinals and Reds to duke it out. I don't have a horse in that race with the Cubbies slipping away, but it's a fun rivalry to watch play out. And, as for my only 'way off' prediction, I thought the L.A. Angels would be chasing down first against - are you ready for this? - the Seattle Mariners. Sixteen games out of first, the Mariners will have to settle for another season of enjoying the Ichiro show and little else. Meanwhile, the Texas Rangers are proving to be quite an exciting team to watch, carrying the division on the broad and capable shoulders of slugger Josh Hamilton. So, I missed one. So far.

That's what I love most about baseball. The second half stretches out through the dog days of summer and into the cascading shadows of autumn, giving teams time to heal, to recalibrate, and yes, to trade up. By September, we could very well see the Red Sox back on top, the Giants capsize the Padres, and God willin', the Braves running away with their division. Short of the the Pittsburgh Pirates making a run for .500, anything can - and likely will - happen. I'll be watching from the cheap seats.

Salvation in the Streets

2010-06-25T05:41:00.000-07:00

The good stuff is out there. You've gotta dig past the Rolling Stone covers donning Lady Gaga and the headlines about Miley Cyrus, claiming she's 'all grown up now', while donning a costume that makes her look like the proprietor of a S&M aviary. The good stuff is, likely, going unplayed on the radio, and your local Best Buy employee will merely stare blankly into your eyes when you ask for it. "Alejandro Escovedo?" he'll repeat after you ask for his latest release. "I don't think he works here. We got a Alex Escobar, though." Just give him a reassuring hug and leave him there with his life size Justin Bieber cardboard cutout, then head to Decatur CD or Wuxtry or even I-Tunes. The good stuff IS out there.

In a summer that boasts very little in the way of new releases that promise to capture the imagination, I'm reveling in three new CDs that have kept me from losing hope in a world where "American Idol" runners-up tour arenas and twelve-string troubadours, toting three chords and the truth in their tattered cases, play to half-full coffeehouses and sell their own homemade CDs in the back of the room.

So, behold - The Real Deal:

"Street Songs of Love" - Alejandro Escovedo. If you lived in Austin, TX, you'd know the locals think he belongs on a musical Mt. Rushmore. Outside of that weird and wonderful town, however, he dwells in that wonderful Zevonian category known as 'cult favorite'. He's opened for the Sex Pistols, fronted for punk/alt-country bands like True Believers, The Nuns, and and Rank and File. Widespread fame, nonetheless, has still artfully dodged him.

But almost dying of hepatitis a few years ago may have been the best thing that happened to this former punker's career. To help him pay his medical bills, a few friends recorded a tribute CD of his music. Lucinda Williams, Los Lonely Boys, John Cale, Steve Earle, Cowboy Junkies, M. Ward, Vic Chestnut, Son Volt, and others offered up loving versions of his tunes. People took notice and he dwelled, well, a little less low on the radar. But it was his one-two punch of "The Boxing Mirror" and "Real Animal" that proved that his near death experience paved the way for a musical resurrection. "Street Songs of Love" completes a trilogy of albums about survival, redemption, and regret. From the Velvet Underground-tinged "This Bed is Getting Crowded" to the tenderhearted "Fall Apart With You", the new CD is as varied as it is tight, the latter courtesy of Escovedo's backing band The Sensitive Boys. Whether playing snug garage band anthems or achingly crooning over a bed of strings, Escovedo finds the sweet spot, the one between your heart and your gut that can release gallons of adrenaline, or bleed out from heartache.

Other standouts include the title track, "Undesired", an electric version of "Shelling Rain", and a ramped-up anthem called "Faith", on which Alejandro shares vocals and guitar licks with a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer who has made his living singing about faith, doubt, and hope. The latter has instilled me with faith for 25 years...and Escovedo gives me faith for the future of the American musical landscape. "Street Songs of Love" is this summer's sonic scripture on which I stand.

"American Slang" - The Gaslight Anthem The buzz around this new CD is off the charts, and with reason. Fans of everyone from Springsteen to The Clash, The Dropkick Murphys to The Hold Steady hear a familiar sound in these Jersey boys, and you can see the sparks coming off their fingers and tongues when they perform. This is bottled lightning, all wrapped up in the same kind of joyful abandon an Asbury Park kid had playing the Stone Pony back in the early 70's.

Their third release, "American Slang" is alive with energy, but also has the focus of a band ready to bust through. Lead singer Brian Fallon's voice is just ragged enough to sound tattered by the streets, yet light enough to carry tunes like "The Diamond Church Street Choir" and "The Queen of Lower Chelsea" to their appropriate, joyous peaks. Tough as leather, yet catchy as hell. It's music that insists on driving at 90 miles an hour, gathering up every world-weary and wide-eyed character it meets along the way to become a part of the stories woven into songs like "Old Haunts" and "Boxer".

Download "Bring it On" or "Stay Lucky" and if your pace doesn't quicken with delight on your morning walk, or your foot doesn't get a bit heavier on the accelerator on your weekend cruise, I'll give you your money back, no questions asked.

"Women and Country" - Jakob Dylan - Maybe this notion of Velvet Underground and Clash-influenced artists isn't your cup of tea. Maybe you'd like to just slow it down and listen to someone who is easy on the ears, and knows a thing or two about rhyming couplets as Zen koans. With a voice as warm as Jack Johnson's and a bit of his dad's gift for layering mystery into lyrics, Jakob Dylan may be your man.

I could never figure out why The Wallflowers went the way of so many 90's bands - a couple of hits, then disappointing follow-ups, the cobbled together 'Greatest Hits' swan song, and then obscurity. But, between their 'oh, are they still together?' releases, Jakob Dylan has wandered off and created two terrific solo albums. This second one is a generous serving of Americana pie. T-Bone Burnett produces, which is always a good thing. Neko Case rides along to provide harmony on a number of tracks, adding sweet lilt to Dylan's soft, plaintive voice. But front and center is some smart, mature songwriting, laid back vocals, and an artist who sounds quite comfortable in his own skin, even acknowledging in one tune that he doesn't desire to 'fill anyone's boots'. Dad likely couldn't agree more.

That's not to say Dylan doesn't tip his hat to some influences along the way. "Nothing But the Whole Wide World" kicks the CD off with the kind of bittersweet hope is dad is capable of when the mood strikes him, and from there, Jakob travels through Tom Waits country ("Lend a Hand"), a touch of James Taylor ("Yonder Come the Blues"), and even a bit of Randy Newman slips in ("They've Trapped Us Boys"). By the closing number, "Standing Eight Count", it's pretty evident that Jakob Dylan is no wallflower. In fact, going solo may be just the renaissance he needed.

So, if you're finding the summer to be high on heat but low on sonic fuel, I'd recommend one of these three artists - a little something for everyone - and proof that the good stuff is out there.

Monkeys On Their Backs

2010-05-27T05:40:00.000-07:00

I just caught the tail end of a "Simpsons" episode that featured animated versions of Gore Vidal, Tom Wolfe, Jonathan Franzen, and Michael Chabon. First, I applaud the show for being the kind of program that would seek out authors as guest voices, and I give kudos to the writers for having such a good sense of humor about themselves, as they all took swipes at their various reputations (ex: Marge: There's Tom Wolfe. He uses more exclamation points than any other writer in the English language." Tom Wolfe: It's true!!!)

Ahhh, but these boys don't always play so nice. Anyone remember Wolfe's feud with not one, but three literary lions about ten years ago? He referred to John Updike, Norman Mailer, and John Irving as his "Three Stooges". Their crime? Saying that Wolfe can't write. This got me curious and I did a little Googling to learn a bit more about authors and their various 'tudes.

First, let's get the obvious out of the way - yes, most drink, many to excess. Hemingway, Faulkner, Joyce, Kerouac, Bukowski, Chandler, London, Fitzgerald, Poe, Parker, Thompson. Shall I go on?

Others battled depression. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and Poe (again). Plus, Twain, Dickens, Tennessee Williams, Tolstoy, William Styron, Spalding Gray, and Kurt Vonnegut, to name a few.

Still others just loved a good fight: Hemingway vs. Gertrude Stein, Melville vs Hawthorne, Lillian Hellman vs Mary McCarthy, Kerouac vs. Ginsberg, Mailer vs. Vidal. Truman Capote vs. well, just about anybody.

And then some earn the reputation of a recluse. From 2005-2009, if Salinger, Pynchon, and Cormac McCarthy hadn't dropped by my place once a month for a truly mind blowing game of Scrabble, I wouldn't have been able to vouch for any of their whereabouts.

All in all, a moody, cantankerous bunch, huh? I'd make a list of the ones who offed themselves, but reading "The Bell Jar" would be more uplifting, so I'll spare you the funereal procession of legendary names.

I am fascinated by what fuels - and derails - artists. It is, in fact, an emerging theme in my own novel (first draft in progress...don't hold your breath). However, so much of the fuel seems to be - as we've come to learn from everyone from Van Gogh to Cobain - suffering, pain, angst; the melancholy archangel, disguised as a muse. Given the impetus for some writers' finest work, you gotta wonder what would've happened if God had given Job a moleskin notebook somewhere around the time those sores covered his body. Dante might've been known as an also-ran.

Is there a necessary mix of arrogance and self-crippling punishment required of those who leave their mark? Is masochism a prerequisite for publication?

Well, the answer to that last question is a resounding 'yes', but it isn't the kind of masochism one finds at the bottom of a bottle or in the barrel of Dr. Thompson's fateful pistol. It's the fact that those who create do so because they must - there's something inside of them that begs to be released, be it to win the affections of another, to right an injustice, or to merely stop the voices pinging around their skull.

Art is purging, demons and angels at war inside, raging to be set free. Some folks are ill-equipped to host the battle, but when they uncork their ink bottle and spill it, mingled lovingly with their own blood, on the page, canvas, stage, or staff, we all benefit from their unburdened spirits.

Just stay out of their way while they create, apparently, or you'll get covered in 30 year old Scotch, a cavalcade of Zoloft tablets, or worst of all, your or their blood.

Bono once sang, "Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief, all kill their inspiration, then sing about the grief." That covers it for a lot of the creators mentioned above. What they left us is irreplaceable, but the lives they carved for themselves in the process left some pretty pronounced and irreplaceable holes as well.

I leave you with my favorite story about the writing process, involving James Joyce. Heard it from Stephen King, and it sorta says it all. As James reached the end of his work day - he sat and wrote every day, not allowing any disturbances for the brunt of the daylight hours - a friend came to his door.

The friend asked, "James, what's wrong? You look so glum. Did you write today?"

"Yes."

"How many words?"

"Eleven."

"But that's good! For you, that's very good. Eleven words."

"Yes...but they were the wrong eleven words!"

To quote another favorite writer, "And so it goes..."

Tony Robbins - Best Story Ever - Inspired a Pimp!

2010-05-16T13:16:00.000-07:00

Fair Ball

2010-05-14T05:05:00.000-07:00

I need to get something off my chest. Last night, I veered dangerously close to becoming one of 'those' parents. You know, the sports parent who takes pleasure in the failures of the other team, who actually does a happy dance when a nine year old makes a mental error that costs his team a run. I'm not proud of it, but there it is. I wanted to see the other team experience a little karmic payback, and I'm still wrestling as to whether that's a deficiency on my part or theirs.

Our guys were playing an uber-aggressive team that has a real 'win at all costs' attitude. They play what I call 'cheap baseball', where a runner steals home as the pitcher is walking back to the mound with the ball, and turns his back on home plate as he does so. I'm not saying it's not legal, I'm saying it's a cheap way to score runs. I'm talking about the kind of team that isn't satisfied to apply a tag for an out. They have to take the runner down when they tag him. More of a rugby tag. They don't just lead off of first, they taunt the pitcher as they take their lead. It's a head game with them, and it usually works on opposing teams, because typical nine year old boys aren't into mind games, save the occasional failed attempt at a Jedi mind trick.

I managed to reign in my inner-sports dad most of the game, but there were a couple of moments where these kids just stepped outside the boundaries of sportsmanship in my opinion. The clincher was the last play when my son was the victim of one of their said 'rugby tags', and the opponents celebrated their win with chest bumps and loud cheers as Grady cradled second base with a bloody lip.

My argument is not a mere, wimpy 'play nice, boys'. I realize that for every Cal Ripken Jr., there's bound to be a Ty Cobb out there, turning up his spikes on the slide, looking for ways to win to feed his own fevered ego. We should play to win, but I don't think that kind of baseball is designed to make you a winner in the long run.

This philosophy is actually for the good of those kids who won the game last night. This kind of baseball won't get you very far, because in a season or two, you'll find that you can't pull those kind of stunts without someone giving it right back to you. You'll try to steal home on a play no one has any business stealing on, just to grandstand, and you'll end up flat on your back as the catcher blocks the plate and Thurmon Munsons you to the ground as payback for that brushback pitch your starter threw at his buddy. You'll taunt the other team with chants from the dugout and find that it fuels the opponent to rally mightily instead of fold. You'll find that once players hit a certain age and skill level, they don't take your crap...they feed it right back to you. Then you'll be whining like Pete Rose when Gene Garber broke his 44 game hitting streak, and no one will care, because we're all a little glad someone stopped you from catching the more noble Dimaggio.

As Grady nursed a bloody lip and bruised ego last night, I told him in the car that what makes me proud of his team is that they play with integrity. I don't mean that the other team cheated. I mean integrity, from its root in Latin, meaning 'truly whole'. To me, baseball is a game this is physical, mental, emotional, and yes, spiritual. The other team last night played a great physical game, a probably too smart for their age mental game, but emotionally and spiritually, I saw a void. On the other hand, our team sometimes checks out, gets too down on themselves when they are behind, but they play the kind of game at nine years old that they'd be expected to play in college ball, Double AA, or even the show. It's the kind of ball that is competitive, but never cheap. It's a respect for the game, the other team, and themselves.

Some of this is on me. I know that as my kids get older, the rules change. There's a contingency out there that says, "Take what's yours", "If it's not breaking the rules and gets you ahead, do it", and "There is no second place, there's only first and the losers". I believe in winning, I believe in playing to win, and I believe in playing your hardest to do so. I'm not Mr. Rogers in a pair of cleats. But I do believe Little League is designed to nurture kids to respect the game more than the win column, and to respect themselves so they can hold their heads up as future versions of Cal Ripken Jr, Greg Maddux, and Sandy Koufax. Not Ty Cobb. Nobody liked Ty Cobb. Nobody respected him as a man. They wanted him on their team, but they didn't trust him.

Of course, I can't complain too much about a team that gave 110% - even if their version of how to do so is a little skewed - when I'm still showing some dugout immaturity at the age of 43. I can't very well condemn the fleck of pitchers's resin in their eye when I've got a Louisville Slugger in mine. So, I'll get to work on my game. I sure hope they'll work on theirs, too.

Food Rules

2010-05-09T13:51:00.000-07:00

I'm enjoying the conscious choice I've made to get more of our family's food from farmers than factories, and one helpmate on the journey is most certainly going to be Michael Pollan. I was fascinated by "The Omnivore's Dilemma" back during my pure vegetarian days, and enjoyed "In Defense of Food" during my more recent flirtations with being a flexitarian (Lord, that's a stupid label...I'm just going to go by my Native American name: "Man Who Spares Cows Most Days").

Anyway, Pollan's new book - a glorified pamphlet really, clocking in at 137 pages, half of those populated by cute illustrations of foods, herbs, and plants - is still worth the price of admission (about $10), if only as it serves as a layman's reminder of some of the common sense guidelines we often choose to overlook - out of laziness more than ignorance. That's certainly why I bought it. Of the 64 "Rules" in the book, I'd say only a dozen or so were new turf for me, but to have the nagging voice of nutritional wisdom whispering in my ear from time to time is a huge helpmate. Left to my own devices, I'd just go wrap myself into a giant Taco Bell gordita and roll into the fiery pits of hell, stoked by Colonel Sanders and Mayor McCheese. So, I buffer the side of reason by having folks like Mr. Pollan, Morgan Spurlock, Healthy Chef Alex, Andrew Weil, and the editors of Vegetarian Times on my bedside bookshelf.

While I could easily reel off Mr. Pollan's 64 Rules right here and save you the $ - it's really that short of a book - I'd rather tease you with a dozen of my favorites. Oh heck, we're talking food here, so let's make it a baker's dozen. Then, you can go out and find his book yourself to explore his explanation of these and discover the remaining 51 and their supporting statements. Again, most of these are common sense, but I find them to be catchy reminders - and in today's drive-thru world, fast and easy are two modifiers most of us seek.

1) Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.
2) Avoid food products that contain more than five ingredients.
3) It's not food if it arrived through the window of your car.
4) Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of your milk.
5) Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.
6) Pay more, eat less.
7) "The banquet is in the first bite."
8) "Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a pauper."
9) Don't get your fuel from the same place your card does.
10) Avoid foods you see advertised on television.
11) Buy your snacks at the farmers' market.
12) If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don't.
13) Break the rules once in a while.

I'll leave you with the overarching theme of the book, one that Pollan focused on in "In Defense of Food". Should I ever follow this with true dedications, I'd be much happier and healthier. It sounds childishly simplistic, but within it are enough challenges to keep even the most Zen-like of eaters from nutritional enlightenment. Ready? Here it goes:

Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Sound easy? Would it were so. But as mantras go, it's a mighty good one.

The Revolution Starts Now.

2010-04-24T13:03:00.000-07:00

Just when you thought Hardee's was winning the War on Terror (killing Americans sloooowly...very slooowly), KFC has upped the ante. With Hardee's, the goal has always been how much meat can we get between the buns, but KFC opted to ditch those needless carbs and just return us to our neanderthal roots, where waiting for the bread to toast was for the weak and thumbless. No, here is a bacon and cheese sandwich, nestled between two deep fried boneless chicken breasts.

But, last weekend, as I read an article about this purgatorial poultry and began to blog about how misguided the fast food chains and their heavy-user ilk are, I realized that getting mad at the fast food industry is like getting angry at Ann Coulter - neither are going away until we stop patronizing them, so beating the drum just gets more people to line up for what they're pitching. I saw it in an AJC blog about the Double Down just last week. A hardy portion of those who said they were going to go buy one of these Double Deaths was doing so just to anger the 'tofu nazis' who want to put nutritional information in everyone's hands and make people more aware of what is in their food.

Really, any person in their right mind who willingly consumes one of these 550 calorie, 32 grams of fat, beige and brown fillet o' sadness knows what they are getting. And as strong an advocate as I am for all restaurants to make their nutritional information available to ALL customers, I don't think you look at this thing, then look at a salad, and really have to dwell on which choice is going to be fuel and which is going to be luggage.

No, the battle that I am more interested in - right now, at least - is the one that I've given over excuse after excuse to. Every few months, when a milestone in life comes up - New Year's, the Peachtree Road Race, or in this case, my 43rd birthday - I say to myself, "I could do better as the family food shopper and cook...for my whole family." For us, the problem is not the fast food circuit. We hit it too infrequently to be a true victim of their wares. No, instead, I've realized that my enemy is - must be - my neighborhood grocery store. How does it happen? Well, here's the conversation that has happened in our house more than once:

Me: We really need to start shopping exclusively at the Farmer's Market.

Wendy: I'm all for that. We'll eat better and save money.

Me: OK, I'll make my menu for next week's meals and go shopping in a day or two.

Me (three days later): Well, now we need paper towels, and the milk at Publix is cheaper, and the Farmer's Market bread is so fresh it goes stale after a couple of days, so we waste money there...I'll just go to the grocery store.

Me (two weeks later): Well, I know it's not good for us, and I'm not going to eat it, but I got a frozen salisbury steak for y'all to share because they were on sale and I thought I'd...I'd...oh dear God, please forgive me!!!! I'm trying to murder my own beautiful family with a genetically disfigured microwavable meal made from the parts of the cow that even McDonald's deemed too gross to use!

Me (an hour later): I should really go to the Farmer's Market. Maybe tomorrow...unless we need detergent.

You see the cycle. The only way I'm going to be able to break this is to start viewing the grocery store as a predator, as the enemy, the people who are diametrically opposed to my family's well being. I'm talking Tea Party-at-Pelosi angry, NPR Listeners-at-Palin pissed. And if you watch movies like "Food, Inc.", "Killer At Large", or "SuperSize Me", your fire of indignation won't need much stoking. They all lay it out pretty well.

The food industry, known as "Big Food", is basically a conglomerate - about six companies provide America with over 90% of our food. Really, good luck buying something that Conagra or Monsanto don't have a stake in.

What does this mean? Well, most of our off-the-shelf food has corn in it, from our meat to our coffee to our bread and juices. Most everything we buy at the grocery store has undergone processing, preserving, chemical additives, or genetic modification. Food isn't so much grown anymore as it's made. There's a scene in the film "Fast Food Nation", where Greg Kinnear works in a food lab and adds a chemical to a new fast food burger to make it smell like it was grilled. That way you don't have to actually, ya know, grill it. Just add some Red Coaxaclymanethate 16 and we'll all come running. It's Pavlovian, and while it's easy to blame Pavlov, the fact is, we're smarter than dogs...and we should know we're being played.

I'm tired of the smoke and mirrors, and tired of being treated like a hypnotized lacky by the food industry. I want to make a change. I want to stand up for something that matters - like farmers' livelihoods, animals treated with at least an inkling of compassion in the process of their all too brief lives from caged birth to slaughterhouse, and most of all, and most selfishly, I want to know what it feels like to put real food in my body again. It feels like it's been too long, because our lifestyle makes it too easy to cave in. I'm a total caver, a nutritional spelunker of Olympian status. The treadmill to good intentions doesn't lead much of anywhere, it seems.

So, here I go...an effort to do the right thing, and the audacity to say it out loud so that the people who read this blog - be it a dozen or a hundred - hold me accountable.

Wish me luck, and for those of you who are well-versed on this whole subject, feel free to pass along your wisdom.

It's time to ante up, not Double Down.

Mingus

2010-04-22T03:56:00.000-07:00

So, today is Charles Mingus' birthday, and I thought I'd share this strange little tale from "Welcome to Storyville" with you. It's an imagined meeting with the legendary, hot-tempered bassist. I've always struggled with the fact that a lot of my so-called artistic heroes probably wouldn't like me very much, nor would I enjoy so much as a cup of coffee with them. For every sociable Springsteen, there's a mean-as-hell Miles or Mingus, I guess, and sometimes it's best to just admire the work and not dwell on the rest. Anyway, here's what happened when I met Charles Mingus...or imagined I did.

Charles Mingus Hates My Lily-White Ass

Being dead for twenty-five years, that didn’t stop Charlie Mingus from busting down my front door with the business end of his stand-up bass. He heard the music playing on the stereo I guess. It was Bird, and he never could get enough of what Bird did with his horn.

When he saw me – skinny and pale – his interrogative gale knocked me to the floor. “Aw, man. What the hell is a cracker like you doing listening to ‘Klactoveesedstene’? Who gave you permission? Who told you that you had the soul to understand the complexity of what Bird was sayin’?”

He filled the doorframe, eclipsed the sun. His teeth clinched a cigar the size of his ego, dripping ashes of indignation, setting my carpet aflame. Mingus lifted me by the throat and threw me to the top of the stairs. I landed and tumbled down in a percussive 5/8 rhythm that made him smile a maestro’s smile.

He pulled a string off his bass and tied me to the kitchen chair, started rummaging through my record collection, old scratched up 33’s and even some 78’s from the days of Savoy and Prestige. “Chet Baker? What is this?”, his voice a mercurial roll, his fist curled, ready to give me the same toothless sag Baker kept in his final years. “Come on,” I said, “his groove is warm, sparse – it makes me ache.” I hoped to connect with him on an emotional level, knowing I could never spar with him on technique or style. “You want to ache? Listen to Trane’s ‘Alabama’. White men killed four little black girls in a Birmingham church, and Trane mourned for us all. That’s anguish. Chet Baker. Shit.”

How could I tell him that I could sing him every note of ‘Alabama’, if I weren’t tone deaf? That the song haunted me in my sleep, but not like his own ‘Goodbye Pork Pie Hat’, the saddest dirge I’d ever heard, six pallbearers on an uphill march to Lester Young’s inevitable peace? How could I explain Chet Baker, a zoned out white junkie who lifted everything he learned from Miles and Clifford, but still managed to make it his heartbreaking own? I appealed to his better nature, a logician’s argument. “You know, Chet fell out that window, that’s what made him a legend. Like JFK, dying before his time, lionized for his last fatal moment.”

“Man, Chet Baker didn’t fall out no window.”

“Yeah, in Amsterdam. What, you think he jumped? Took his own life?”

“I was there.” His eyes shrunk into his skull, his cigar hung from his lower lip.

“I pushed him.”

“You…”

“Pushed the mutha right off the ledge.” His cheeks swelled like Diz’s used to when he played “A Night In Tunisia”, a wicked grin filling the hole where a mouthpiece should be.

Now Mingus had been dead some eight or nine years when Chet’s frail frame melded with the cobblestone alleyway beside the Prins Hendrik Hotel, but I wasn’t going to argue with him. After all, here he was.

“You got any wine?” He began to rummage through my kitchen, tossing chicken legs, hurling pears. Then came the refrigerator door and a series of empty plates and Rubbermaid bowls, all licked pristine. Mingus came out sucking his fingers, so fat only one could fit in his mouth at a time. “What kind of host has a man over and don’t even stock up on wine?” He opened my last beer with his teeth, drank it all and ate the bottle. He hovered over me like a cloud threatening a nestling with its hailstones.

“Well, if there ain’t no spirits, let’s see how else we can get high,” he said, returning to my record collection. “Ahhh, Brubeck. Duke. Dolphy. Now we’re talkin’. He was readying “Ellington at Newport” for the turntable when his eyes scanned down the alphabet to the M’s. There, between Marsalis and Monk was a collection of some twenty or thirty sonic captures of Mingus’ chaotic genius. His smile was a reprieve.

Mingus wrapped his hands around my forearms and lifted me out of the chair, though it still drug beneath me, my inflamed wrists still lashed to its backing. He pulled out my copy of “Blues and Roots” and set the needle on ‘Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting’. “I’m gonna take you to church, boy!” He ripped the string from my wrists and restrung his bass in one imperceptible move. I was free, but I wasn’t going anywhere, not with 300 pounds of righteous anger hovering over me, not with the Malcolm X of jazz reborn in my living room. Not with Mingus about to play.

While the record popped and hissed along the warm grooves, Mingus doubled the bass line not five inches from my face, driving hot nails of rhythm into my core, making my chest vibrate with each pluck-and-slap. For five minutes and thirty-nine seconds, he lifted me up to God’s house, where Jesus and Buddha and Mohammed and Vishnu and Krishna all sup from the sweetest fruit on the vine, while Monk plays “Epistropy” on a newly tuned baby grand. Then, with a warning no longer than the crease separating the tracks, he shot me back down to earth with the opening licks of “Cryin’ Blues”.

For five hours, he played song after song, album after album – The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, Ah Um, Oh Yeah, Tijuana Moods, Tonight at Noon, Let My Children Hear Music. His fingers were a blur of crimson and ebony, my ears numbed by the low moan and rumble of his sound. I was higher than Bird on his nastiest trip, escalated by an Ecclesiastic squall of joy.

Mingus jumped from octave to octave on his bass, never taking his eyes off of me. He saw the swelling in my eyes, the quiver of my lip, and he knew it wasn’t from fear. He saw my feet moving, my shoulders swaying. He’d found his way, burrowing right past my shortcomings and into my heart. He tore through my chest and wrapped his callused fingers around it. Mingus fingers. He could’ve torn it out and left me to bleed out on my carpet, the needle skipping endlessly as the police outlined my corpse in chalk and tape. But instead he gave it a gentle squeeze, and starting it pumping with new rhythm, something in a 9/8.

“Feel that?” he asked. “That’s soul.”

“It feels strange,” I told him. “Its always beat in 4/4.”

“That’s cause you ain’t never lived the music.”

That was the coldest thing he could say to me, but he was right. The music was all around me, up in me even, but it didn’t flow out of me. I breathed it in, but I couldn’t breathe it into anyone else. I felt the paralysis of being in the front row at Minton’s, tapping my clumsy fingers to Max Roach’s rat-a-tatta-tat, knowing I’d never sit on that stage. In my hands, his thundersticks were so much kindling. I knew no rhythm-a-ning; blues, but no roots. I had the soul of an admirer, not an artist. I hung my head.

“That’s alright, boy. Lightning’s gotta have a place to strike.” Mingus smiled, smelling my impotency over the bitter scent of tobacco and burnt rug. Maybe it was my obvious awe, my vulnerability, or just that in his final years, Mingus had softened. Maybe it was that he sensed that I’d carry him -bass and all - in my arms all the way to Orval Faubus’ gravesite and help dig him up so Mingus could piss in his filthy segregationist mouth. Maybe it was that Mingus knew that I’d love his half-black/half-Chinese ass even if he struck me dead then and there.

Mingus slung his bass on his back and stepped toward the door. He extended his hand, and I mine. He shook it and grinned. Then, he put his cigar out in my open palm, singeing the skin off in a perfect fifty-four ring gauge.

I howled. “What was that for?”

As he floated down the street, he hollered, “In case anyone asks, you can tell ‘em, ‘Charles Mingus hates my lily-white ass!’”

A Year Without Art

2010-04-19T05:32:00.000-07:00

Back in grad school, I saw a play called "Days of Absence". It takes place in the South, circa the early 60's. The action begins as the town's white population realizes that the entire African American population of their town has vanished. One would think that a town in the deep south, at the peak of the Civil Rights Movement, would rejoice, but instead, their orderly little society breaks down with the majority of their labor force suddenly gone. They are paralyzed by the absence of something they'd always taken for granted.

"Days of Absence" is not a great play, but using a play at a metaphor just seemed right as scores of Atlanta artists are preparing to go march to the Georgia Capitol this afternoon to protest the 'zeroing out' of the budget for the Georgia Council of the Arts. If this measure is enacted, Georgia will be the only state in the USA without a state arts organization. This will prompt the NEA to also pull almost a million dollars of funding they provide to Georgia arts organizations annually. Basically, the next musical tone you hear won't be a symphony visiting your kids' school, it'll be the death knell of Georgia's cultural heritage.

I know there are some - many, perhaps - that find the arts frivolous. They believe 'the arts' are for the elite, and that group of elitists is getting what it deserves. After all, when the economy is down, who needs Mozart, Moliere, or Monet, right? Well, many of us would argue that these are precisely the times that the arts were made for. After all, that greatest of American art forms - the blues - was not born out of an economic boon, nor was our greatest literary work - "The Grapes of Wrath" - penned about a particularly resounding season in the Sinoma vineyards.

Nope, hard times are precisely when people turn to the world of arts and entertainment for a balm, a breath of hope, or at least a distraction from CNN and Fox.

And those who argue that they can get by just fine without the ballet or the opera, hey, I hear ya. I'll take Radiohead over Rossini any day. But, the arts are a much more finely integrated field of disciplines than you might expect. While your favorite television shows, films, and bands on your I-pod may not receive grants and arts funding, most of them were born of a society that valued arts enough to put them at the forefront of their children's and their communities' lives. That's why I propose that anyone who is unwilling (from Tea Party reveler to Georgia Congressional Assembly member) to lay down the estimated 25 cents per taxpayer cost that the arts absorb per year in Georgia to go one year without the arts in your life. Try it.

This means no plays, museums, dances, or concerts. Easy enough? OK, now add no movies (all those actors, directors, designers, crew members, etc were fueled by arts-based education and exposure to the arts in their communities, after all). No television except news and chosen reality shows - no "American Idol" or "Dancing with the Stars" obviously. No music at all. Period. Nada. Your visual art exposure is limited to magazine ads and billboards, though most of those were designed by men and women who took their share of arts courses before they decided the arts were a stripped-bare, too hard row to hoe endeavor and took the more commerce-friendly route of advertising. I say this as one who majored in theater and now makes a living writing scripts for corporate videos. Glass houses.

No 'Lost', no Leno, no Lady Antebellum. Just Larry the Cable Guy. Ouch. Great legacy, Georgia.

Look, artists are used to working with next to nothing. For those who say artists are lazy folk just waiting for government handouts to see them through, I have to say artists are some of the hardest working people I know. They're the ones teaching your kids all day and finding time to work in a non-union play that pays $250 a week on the side. They're the ones designing costumes for a half-dozen shows in town on shoestring budgets to make ends meet. They're the ones teaching art classes at rec centers so our kids will know that Rembrandt isn't a toothpaste and Salvador Dali isn't the guy who sang "Nine to Five". Artists know how to stretch a dollar further than Willy Wonka stretches taffy. Give an MBA and an artist fifty dollars each. The artist will eat for a week. The MBA will be broke by the second morning's triple shot frappe.

We don't need much to do a lot. More is better, sure, but nothing...well, nothing begets nothing. No arts funding, no arts advocacy at the state level, and we'll have more than a year with out arts. We'll have a generation that experiences a slow deterioration of a state that gave us Ray Charles, James Brown, the Allman Brothers, REM, Ma Rainey, Curtis Mayfield, Robert Shaw, Howard Finster, Ossie Davis, Burt Reynolds, Joanne Woodward, Oliver Hardy, Holly Hunter, Julia Roberts, Pat Conroy, Erskine Caldwell, Pearl Cleage, W.E.B. De Bois, Joel Chandler Harris, Ha Jin, Carson McCullers, Margaret Mitchell, Flannery O'Connor, Eugenia Price, Ferrol Sams, Ann River Siddons, Alfred Uhry, & Alice Walker.

Metro Atlanta will certainly feel the sting - lost jobs, lost tourism revenue, loss of commerce in restaurants and shops near cultural havens. But where it'll really sting are the outlying areas - suburbia, and the rural and urban areas that don't have any local arts organizations to speak of. They look to the hub of Atlanta to send artists their way - to their schools, rec centers, churches, and community halls for events, education, and performances. Those will be the first things stripped from arts organizations' budgets.

A year without arts? It's coming sooner than we think. Unless we do something. Unless you do something. Here's a link where you can:

Georgia Assembly of Community Arts Agencies

2010 MLB Preseason Experts Picks - MLB - SI.com

2010-04-03T05:57:00.000-07:00

2010 MLB Preseason Experts Picks - MLB - SI.com

When I see this many experts chiming in on who is going to walk away with it all come October...and I realize it's only early April and I've been too deluged with work to really keep up with much of what's been happening on MLB.com or the daily sports page, I can't say that what I'm about to put in cyber-ink here shouldn't be quietly deleted in shame come mid-season. But, I'm never one to shy away from predictions. Hey, "The Hurt Locker" beat "Avatar", and Duke is in the Final Four, so I am capable of hitting the mark sometimes.

So, with a love for the game and a tad of blissful ignorance about where all the teams truly stand as we cross the threshold of the 2010 regular season, here are my fearless predictions for how all this plays out.

Let's start with the AL Central, because I don't really care and this won't take long. The smart money seems to be on the Twins to reclaim the Central title, and that's fine, but don't expect them to go much further. Why? Because the Mike Scioscia's Angels are going to repeat as well in the West, though the Mariners might give them a run for their money.

And the AL East? Well, this is the division to watch, isn't it? The Red Sox have shored up an already amazing starting rotation, the Yankees have said goodbye to free agents Johnny Damon & Hideki Matsui, and the Tampa Bay Rays continue to show serious moxie. It's a three team race, and Joe Maddon knows what he's got to do. So, how does it all shake out? Well, everyone seems to be leaning toward the Yankees. But, my soul won't let me do it. My heart is with the Sox and I'm looking to them to shake the Yanks' foundation this season. Heck, I'm also looking to the Rays to shut the Yankees out of the wild card. Not saying it'll happen, but my hope is Red Sox, Rays, then Yanks. But my hunch is it'll go down to the wire, with the Yankees getting the wild card in the end.

And now, looking at the National League, let's get the obvious out of the way: the Cardinals repeat in the Central, carried on the broad and capable shoulders of Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday. The West is more of a toss-up, I think. The Giants, Rockies, and Dodgers made it a three team race to the tape last fall, with the Dodgers pulling away in the final week to claim the division. The Giants and Rockies had a better spring training season, but spring training is a sometimes erratic way to gauge a regular season performance. Conventional wisdom says Rockies. So, I'll say Giants. Though given my admiration for Joe Torre, I'd love to see him in post-season again, and with a better result than last fall.

So, now we come the Braves division, which everyone seems to think the Phillies own. And, dang it, if the Phillies didn't go away over the winter break and actually ADD juice to their line-up. Roy Halladay is considered by many to be the best in the game. And new acquisition Placido Polanco (3rd base) is no slouch. Add Rollins, Howard, Utley, Victorino, & Werth...well, you get the picture.

The good news for Braves fans is this seems to be the season we stand the best chance at revisiting the post-season, be it by nudging the Phillies out of first (unlikely) or claiming the Wild Card spot (very likely). Jason Heyward has too much hype resting on his young shoulders, and I hope it doesn't stop him from delivering. We haven't heard about a young player like this since Andruw Jones made the team as a teenager...before that, you have to go back to biblical times (Simon Peter, son of Jona, Left Field for The Disciples, .294 lifetime batting average). The kid's got the stick. In fact, the entire Braves team seems re-energized at the plate this spring. And our starting pitching seems solid. No more perpetually wounded Mike Hamptons eating up the lineup. Our five man rotation looks impressive, and Billy Wagner in the bullpen gives me hope for closing the door. Middle relief is where I need a little convincing.

What it all comes down to for the Braves is, this is their big chance - Bobby Cox's final season is going to be one of heavy nostalgia, high hopes, and a sense of 'let's win one for the gipper' all around, even from those armchair critics of Cox. Just as importantly, who knows who will be at the helm next year, and anything less than unprecedented momentum toward a dominating season doesn't bode well for a team that will have a new manager and, with him, likely a new coaching staff as well. The team needs to gel, and rumor has it, this season there is more camaraderie and chemistry on the team than there has been in years. I'm counting on it, and looking to the Braves to win the Wild Card, and go head-to-head against the Phillies in post-season.

Who'll win it all? The two names I keep hearing are the same two we saw in the Fall Classic last year: Yankees and Phillies. I'm going to predict Red Sox/Phillies, with the Phils winning, despite my attempts to cheer the Sox to their third championship in the last decade.

Of course, all of this is speculation. One injury tilts the whole table, and this magical season is meant for surprises. Who knows, maybe the Cubs will shake the curse. Maybe the Mariners have more surprises up their sleeves than I thought. Maybe this is the year for the Washington Nationals!

Nah.

Play ball, boys. I've been counting the days since November 5th, 2009.

Task force says no to closing schools | ajc.com

2010-04-02T05:15:00.001-07:00

Task force says no to closing schools | ajc.com

Posted using ShareThis

This whole DeKalb school closing issue just keeps getting more surreal, like "a Dali painting come to life with music by Philip Glass" surreal. A group of us worked very hard the past two weeks to get Medlock taken off the list, though honestly, it wasn't our grass roots efforts, but pure metrics and numbers that saved us. Now, the whole thing seems to be wide open again.

I don't blame the Task Force, though. They were assigned to do the board's dirty work, and while school board administrators pull six figure salaries and our superintendent brings down seven digits a year, our teachers are fighting for their jobs, and our school system is trying to shave $2 million dollars off of a $115 million dollar budget by displacing kids in high-risk areas for the sake of putting a band-aid on a series of gunshot wounds that have the DeKalb School System looking like Sonny Corleone at the causeway.

I don't know where this goes from here, but I do applaud the Task Force for standing up to the school board and speaking out for the schools.

I remember when being a product of the DeKalb County School System was a point of pride. Now, I'm just hoping my kids survive it all.

Pony Rides Are For Girls

2010-04-02T05:14:00.000-07:00

This is a short film written and directed by my pal David Silverman, and starring another good friend Steve Coulter as the wayward clown. That's the very funny Chris Elkholm rounding out the cast. Enjoy...and beware of wandering clowns.

Pony Rides Are For Girls from David M Silverman on Vimeo.

Opening Day...

2010-03-28T06:09:00.000-07:00

I wrote this back in 2005 for inclusion in my collection of short stories, "Welcome to Storyville". It's not autobiographical, I just wanted to write something that honored my love of baseball, my respect for Jackie Robinson, and capture a bit of the mystical father/son elements of "Field of Dreams" all in one story. This was my best shot at it. It's called "Opening Day", and with the start of the season just a week away, I thought I'd share it with ya. Enjoy.

OPENING DAY

God have mercy on the man

who doubts what he’s sure of…” - Bruce Springsteen, Brilliant Disguise

You can smell the promise of Opening Day – the bouquet of the newly shorn turf, the slight hint of lime down the foul lines, the powdery cloud of Gatorade as it’s dumped into the dugout cooler. Stand behind the plate and the expanse looks like God’s promise to a chosen few, the 750 men who call The Show home. It is Easter Sunday after a winter of Good Fridays. Unfailing as an equinox, the nine hometown boys take the field, the last warm-up pitch is tossed, the lead-off man steps into a chalk-rimmed box of perfect proportions, and rests the bat on his shoulder, just for a second, to survey the wonder, the possibilities. A whole season of hope stretches out in front of him like a chiasmic yawn, and when he lifts the bat from his shoulders, the gentle weight of ten thousand little boys’ dreams takes its place.

The pitcher, too, holds 10,000 wishes, stitched between the 108 tightly woven seams of the ball. He is the thinking man’s hero, calculating the inches, the precision of his dipping curve, his elusive slider, his heat so brutal that no man’s stick could lay claim to it. He stands in the eclipsing shadows of Koufax, Gibson, and Spahn and prays his arm has a tenth of their elegance. This first pitch sets the tone for the game, for the season.

There is symmetry to baseball that eludes us in life. Away from the diamond, as perfectly chiseled as any jeweler’s stone, our days long for the simplicity of throw, hit, and catch. But God is no more in the dugout guiding our game than Casey Stengel. He seems up in the cheap seats, with binoculars, doing His best to just score the game properly now.

At best, for those of us who must watch from afar, the game is a metaphor. But baseball is also the one great peacemaker. When my father and I, estranged as two warring tribes, would go to see the Sox play at Fenway, all conversation of broken curfews and C-level grades fell away and we worshipped together at the altar of all that was true and good in our lives, in the taste of a hot dog smothered in golden mustard, in the enviable joy that came with having field level seats where Fisk could hear me call his name. My last good memory with Dad comes not in us holding hands through his mire of IV’s and tubes at Mt. Sinai, but of our palms slapping together as one when the Sox clinched a playoff berth a few months before he died.

Today, it is baseball that brings me a tenuous balm with an eleven-year-old boy who doesn’t yet know that when his father takes him home today, he will drive on to his new apartment, and see him on weekends and holidays. There was no defining moment for Trisha and myself, no clumsy one-nighter or careless fist. It was an almost imperceptible series of tiny pin pricks, rather than a mortar shell, that bled us out and lead to a weary admittance that love, in whatever form it had taken for us, had morphed into some sort of hideous complacency, a complacency we promised each other we would never tolerate should it find its way past our door. Maybe it was losing both my parents within a year’s time. Maybe it was how the years had drained the passion out of Trish’s shoulders when we embraced. Maybe I was just a lesser man than I wanted to believe.

Joshua sits in the car, its trunk packed with suitcases and clothes, and waits for me to drive us to the game. His playful honking of the horn is, for the first time in our lives, not funny to me. What used to be a teasing mockery of my own impatience before family trips now only bellows as a shrill reminder of my inadequacies. I stand in the kitchen, fumbling with keys and words, trying to find something to say to Trish that will lighten the burden for her, wishing suddenly I could make everything all right again. But I cannot. That I took the initiative to suggest my moving out, that I found an apartment a couple of miles away; these things were a death knell of sorts. She wanted me to stay, see if counseling would help us work things out, but I wanted a trial separation, a temporary split that I knew would only cause the rivulet between us to pool into a widening gulf. Each visit would become more formal, every conversation more guarded until one day we’d simply see that it made more sense, seemed more practical, to keep things as they were.

“Coming, Josh! Stop honking please!” I yell as he taps a shave-and-haircut rhythm on the horn. “Look,” I turn to Trish. “I’ll just tell him the truth, but I’ll leave it open, open that I might be back soon.”

“So, you’d recon…”

I cut her off before she could angle this into another quest for compromise. “I’m just saying, I think me moving out, even for a short time, is enough for him to digest for a while. We won’t talk about duration, or consequences. He’ll just know that we’ll get together again next Friday night and that I’ll try to drop by for dinner once a week or so, that’s all I can promise.”

Trish’s eyes well. The closer we’ve come to taking action, the more I realize that I am more invested in this change than she. Perhaps I was the only one who fell out of love, or maybe I just didn’t have a healthy idea of what love should be, I don’t know, but there was no turning back now. The deposit and the first and last month’s rent were paid, and we had reached a civil agreement not one week earlier.

I kiss her on the temple, another sign of our flagging affection, and walk to the car. Trish doesn’t follow me, leaving me with the image of her quivering lip, her eyes tinged with pink, her bare feet shifting on the linoleum floor in anxious dread. This, I think, is the last time I will live in my own home, the home I helped build, and I have no reason to give for it other than that there is a thin cage of ice around me now. Why I blame Trish for not being able to pry me from it, I do not know, but I do, as much as she blames me for being resolved to live in it.

We back out of the driveway, and sensing something is amiss, Josh poses a baseball trivia question, our traditional way of passing time en route to the stadium. “How old was Sandy Koufax when he quit the show?”

“That’s easy,” I say, “thirty.” I toss it back to him. “Why did he quit?”

Josh wrinkled his nose. “He got hurt, right?”

“His pitching arm,” I answered. “It felt older than thirty.”

“How could just quit like that? He was at the top of his game,” says Josh.

“He had to save his arm, and I guess there were more important things to him. You know he refused to pitch in the opening game of the World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur.”

“What’s that?” asks Josh. I give him a smile, our trivia game now becoming a full-fledged religion class. “The holiest of Jewish holidays. Its like Easter or Christmas for us.”

Josh watches the traffic backing up on I-95 for a while as we drive into Boston. While his mind drifts from thoughts of Maysian catches to the steam from a fresh Sabrett, I grapple with the inevitable admittance that lay ahead, seeking some gentle precision as I raze a young boy’s world. I will tell him, I think, as we are making our way home from Fenway. No man, no true father would deprive his son of the enchantment of a Major League game. This means that we’ll have to push through this awkward silence and get on with the business of being fans, just a couple of buddies who swap lore and share a pretzel as we watch the luckless wonders of Beantown slouch toward almost.

Today the sun is a crimson wonder, sharing the sky with a hitter’s wind that is decidedly pushing toward the Green Monster. Josh and I find our seats along the third base line and watch as the groundskeepers put the final touches on the field. It truly is majestic, and that Josh can see this makes me proud. He marvels at the diamond the way some kids his age stare at a new Gameboy or one of those X-Boxes through a store window. He sees past the labor disputes, the bloated egos, the steroid-strengthened muscles that help push regulation Rawlings into the cheap seats. The holiness comes from the total picture, the history that brought the game to this sun-drenched day, the formless legacy that assures him the game will still be a constant when he brings his son to Fenway. He knows where the game has been, and believes in where it can go. Mostly, for him, there is today, and all the promise Opening Day brings with it.

I am loathe to leave Joshua for even five minutes while I run to the restroom before the first pitch, but he assures me he will stay put, and I go. I come back with quickness in my step as I hear the public address announcer welcoming fans to Fenway and asking the 30,000 plus to rise for the presentation of the colors. To Josh’s right is a black man now, sixty, perhaps older. He stands with his Kansas City Monarchs cap over his heart as local boy Steven Tyler sings – howls, perhaps – The National Anthem. The crowd cheers as if he has just performed “Dream On”, and baseball prepares to birth another season of wonders.

The Red Sox take the field to a legion of hands echoing the percussive opening strains of John Fogerty’s “Centerfield”. Nine men in red and white scatter into a formation so familiar, so geometrically perfect that no logician could call it into question; the sun cascades off the foul lines, and the shadows drop like a swath of satin over section 153 where we are stationed. It is perfection.

Joshua sits with his glove in hand, naively certain a foul ball will have his name on it. “Whose foul you gonna shag today, Josh? Nomar’s?” Josh gives me that look I used to give my dad, the one that says I need to back off the ‘that’s my boy’ routine. But I have to keep my mind active, keep my head in the game. I cannot afford to sink into a morass of worry over talking to Josh about his mom and me, not if I’ve got nine innings and a walk to the car to wait through. So, I turn my attention to the man sitting at Josh’s elbow, his head buried in his program, as he scribbles the line-up for the visiting Seattle Mariners on the scorecard. He finally feels my gaze.

”Oh hi.” I am thrown by his steely glare. “I was just admiring that you were scorekeeping. It’s a lost art.” Josh gives me an eye roll.

“Kept score at every game I’ve been to since I was as young as this one here,” says the man, nodding toward Joshua, who brashly responds with a headshake. “What? You don’t keep score, little man?”

Josh is candid, but his tone respectful. “I miss too much of the game. Then, I get home and all I got is a sheet of paper that looks like a math test.”

“Heh. Yeah, you can miss something if you’re not careful, but you really learn the game when you keep score. The strategy, the science behind every play.” The man jots down another name or two and cracks open a peanut shell with his free hand.

“Hey dad? What’s his hat? That’s not the Royals.” Josh whispers. But his voice carries on the wind like a lifted fly ball.

“Now, I know a bright young fella like you has heard of the Kansas City Monarchs,” says the man. I feel a history lesson coming on, but it is one long overdue.

“Are they a Triple A team?” asks Josh. I blush, like he’s just asked the man why he isn’t eating fried chicken instead of peanuts, but the man is a patient sage. “No, son. They were the finest team that ever played in the Negro Leagues.” The second wave of redness came on as I anticipated Josh’s next question. “What are the Negro Leagues?” Time stands still as the old timer looks to me. I give a weak smile, eager for Josh to learn about the history of the game, but really hopeful that he can enjoy the one at hand, given the post-game that lies ahead. Today, of all days, I want Josh to see something spectacular: a sliding catch, a triple play, a ball hit so hard it sails over the Red Seat in right field, shattering Ted Williams’ Fenway distance record.

“You know, Josh should learn about the Negro Leagues. Maybe you could give him a tell him about them. You know, between innings.” My statement feels like a peace offering rather than an earnest request. The man laughs. “Son, the Leagues were as rich and textured as the Majors in their day – I got more stories than your boy here has patience. I’d talk his ears off.” I give him a pursed-lipped smile, clean closure to our banter. That is, until Josh says, “I know who Jackie Robinson is.”

“Do you now,” says the man. “Yes,” says Josh. “He was the first black man to play baseball.” The man shook his head, “No, son, he was the first black man in the Majors, but the Negro Leagues were filled with black men playing baseball. Jackie broke down the wall.”

“What wall?” asks Josh. The man points out toward the Green Monster. “One at least two times bigger than that one there.”

His metaphor is lost on Josh, and the first pitch is imminent. “Tell ya what, we’ll pick this up later,” said the man. I smiled and nodded on Josh’s behalf. We watch together as Kurt Schilling sends a fiery screamer past Ichiro, twice baptizing the Fenway faithful with the tailwind of the pitch, the gale of the swing. Our annual constant is launched, with no site of labor strikes or rain clouds to stop the splendid machination of the next six months. Perhaps this will be the season when the Sox watch the World Series from the Fenway dugout, rather than from a sports bar.

Where will I be by post-season? Six months is an eternity – so many decisions made and executed in half a year, between the first and last pitches of a season. Players overcome slumps, find their stride, and contend for the title between April and October. All of that is put in motion today, by one pitch.

I am where I said I wouldn’t be, lost in my thoughts, and find my way back only when the Sox are coming off the field after an apparent 1-2-3 top of the first. Our new friend thumbs his program, scanning player bios and earmarking an ad for Thornton’s Fenway Grill. No matter. Josh watches him curiously, but never speaks. Fine with me, I think. He doesn’t need to shoulder the white man’s burden on my account. Not today anyway.

“Dad,” says Josh. “What’s going on?” I ask him what he means, putting on my best game face. “You’ve been staring at the foul pole for the last five minutes,” he says. The kid doesn’t miss a beat, I’ll give him that. “You’ve been acting weird all day – you and Mom get in a fight?”

“Um, sorta. Yeah.” The admittance of the slightest static between Trish and me seems to alleviate a soreness in my chest, and I only hope that this negligible revelation hasn’t transferred the ache to Josh. But he pushes onward, unaware of the rocks poised to fall in his path. “You fight a lot, or you did. Then, you stopped. Now it’s just real quiet all the time. Is everything o.k.?”

“Yeah, Josh. It’s fine. Grown-ups fight sometimes, it’s how we work things out.”

“You’ve just been really weird,” Josh says.

“I’m fine, Josh. We’re all fine. Hey, tell ya what. Why don’t you go get us a couple of hot dogs?” Josh’s face shines, and I hand him a twenty-dollar bill. “Get whatever you want with the rest of it, o.k.?” My son, so earnest and concerned just seconds before, is on his feet, bounding over his aisle mate with the clumsy exuberance of a foal. He hollers back an obligatory “excuse me” as he tramples up the stairs and out the entryway.

I stare out at the infield and take in the New England air, but can feel the old man’s eyes on me. I turn. The slightest hint of a smile curls at the corners of his mouth. “Got out of that one, huh?”

“Yeah, well, we came to watch a game, not have a family counseling session,” I tell him.

“He should get to enjoy the game.”

“Mm-hm,” the man returns to his scorekeeping, and I feel the air leave my mouth, a weighted sigh that makes my chest tremble. I had gotten out of ‘that one’, but it was just a stall tactic. I couldn’t keep buying Josh hot dogs the rest of the day. I’ve no sooner thought this than the man says, “When you gonna tell him?”

“When am I going to tell him what?”

“That it’s over.” The man has folded his program and is now giving me his full attention. A lifetime of scoring every at-bat suddenly tossed aside to play therapist. I remain resolute. “I guess that’s really none of your business, and who says it’s over anyway?”

“You. I seen it before. Seen both of my sons do it to their kids. You get this faraway look like you’d rather be anywhere else, and you carry that with you wherever you go. Gets so you wanna shed your own skin, but you don’t. You shed theirs.” He kicks his head back, alluding to Josh.

“Yeah, well, every marriage is different. Every family is different.” I hope to sound more indignant that I likely do. By now, Josh is headed back down the stairs with two hot dogs and a souvenir cup of Coke big enough to have an undertow. “Let’s just drop it, alright?” I say. “Dropped,” the man says, and Josh slides back between us, aglow with excitement over the taboos he’s about to break. Trish is a bit of a health nut, and hot dogs rarely make it into our fridge. As for cola, it’s regarded with the same disdain as tobacco and firearms, so this is a pure criminal activity for Josh, and I am all for it.

As Josh takes a chunk out of his first hot dog, the man leans in and says, “Wanna hear about Jackie Robinson now?” Josh shrugs, wiping the mustard from his chin with his free hand and, after a premature swallow, concedes, “Sure. You ever meet him?”

“Meet him? Yes, I did, but not at a ball game. I met him on an airplane some years later. ‘Course, I’d watched him play all those years, so I felt like I knew him already.”

I am grateful for the man fulfilling his promise to Josh, and for getting off my back about our personal woes. It’s funny, but when the weight of the world is on you, there’s a real war that goes on inside between wanting everyone to give you help and everyone to just keep to themselves. Even strangers. I caught myself more than once over the past few months getting into such conversations at work, at church, even over poker with a group of guys who haven’t had an emotional revelation since their first orgasm. I’d ask, “Why do people stay together?” and that would open up all kinds of psychobabble and philosophical chatter. Most of the comments leaned toward not wanting to be alone and how being comfortable was equitable to being happy. I didn’t buy it, but I liked hearing people talk about it for a while, then I wished they’d stop. At some point, the talk always crossed a threshold that went from theoretical to personal, and then I’d recede.

I listen as he tells Josh about how gracious Robinson was when they met, and how Robinson was as pivotal as Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks for the Civil Rights Movement. “To refuse to get up and go to the back of the bus, that was huge,” he said, “but to be dropped in the middle of some fifty-odd white men on the field, and another few thousand in the stands, most of whom would just as soon see you beaten with a bat as hitting with one, that’s something else.”

Josh is well into his second hot dog now, and the two have totally lost sight of the game, mired in the stuff of which legends are made. Schilling is throwing fireballs past the Mariners, but Josh and his new friend are decades away, in a time both simpler and more small-minded. The man tells Josh about seeing Jackie in a major league uniform for the first time, and standing silent as crowds jeered his mere presence on the field. He talks about a game where he watched Jackie turn even the vilest of bigots into rabid fans with his hustle and verve. He paints a picture of a man, half-way down the third base line, taunting the pitcher as he goes into his stretch, daring him to pick him off, then breaking for home and beating the pitch across the plate. “Stealing home, that was his trademark,” he says. “You had to either be brave or crazy to try it.”

“We steal home a lot in my league,” says Josh. This is where I jump into the fray. “Uh, Josh, that’s on a passed ball or wild pitch. Jackie Robinson stole home on perfect strikes.”

“Your dad’s right,” says the man. “See, Jackie knew that to get through all that hate, he’d have to take his game to a new level. He’d have to play the game better than every white man out there, and he did, even with people yelling horrible things and throwing pieces of watermelon on the field. Josh furls his brow. “It’s a myth that black people like watermelon,” I tell him. “It’s a stereotype, and they were making fun of him.” Josh seems befuddled by this, and I am glad for it. Racism shouldn’t make sense, and kids will be the first to let you know it doesn’t.

A loud cheer pulls us back to the game as Garciaparra drives one to the centerfield wall and makes it to third after the ball takes a wild careen toward right field. We are rapt in the anticipation of a man-on-third, no out situation – a much-needed insurance run at odds with the many ways a team can leave a man stranded ninety feet away. But today, the diamond gods are smiling, and on an 0-and-2 pitch, Manny Ramirez faithfully drives a sac fly to left, giving Nomar plenty of time to tag and cross.

Putting what appears to be a button on our Jackie Robinson discussion, the man confides to Josh that Jackie would’ve been dancing and bouncing on the third base line, giving the opposing pitcher such fits that he couldn’t have found Ramirez’s strike zone with a roadmap and a compass. “Jackie would either have taken home, or helped Brooklyn load the bases. He made pitchers that nervous,” he says.

Josh and I watch as Boston goes on a tear, piling up seven hits in the next two innings, including two long balls that give us a commanding 7-0 lead over Seattle. By the eighth, I start thinking about the talk Josh and I must have, and I start getting my head around it again. We have managed, thanks to a Sox blowout and our didactic friend, to breathe in baseball for the three hours we’ve spent under the Fenway sun. Now, the magic is coming to an end.

As the Sox take the field for the top of the ninth, the man leans in to Josh one more time, speaking loud enough for me to hear, too. “You know what it takes to play baseball, son?” Josh gives him a puzzled look. “For those men out there, it takes talent and determination. For Jackie Robinson, it took something more. It took a kind of courage most men don’t have. Only the thing is, they do, they just don’t know it. You know the kind of courage I’m talking about?” Josh nodded but his eyes broadcast his naiveté. I begin to feel uneasy with the man. The time has come to move on, and I want Josh to enjoy the end of the game; the thrill of the final out, even in a lopsided game, is to be cherished. Instead, this old timer is breathing his hot breath in Josh’s face, giving him a life lesson to accompany his baseball history. “Look,” I say, “you’ve been real nice, but Josh is trying to watch the fi…” He cuts me off, spitting his words right over Josh’s head and into my face with a voice as steady as rod iron but eyes that reveal a fury that must run deep. “The kind of courage I’m talking about is the kind that gets handed down because someone showed it to you. You think Jackie Robinson walked out on Ebbets Field alone that first day? He had the weight of all of Negro America on his shoulders, praying to God he’d get a hit that first at bat, and you know what else he had? He had the good sense to know he was right where he belonged. That’s why he couldn’t stay on third base for too long without dancing down the line. He knew he was meant to cross that plate - to steal home. It was the bravest thing a player could do, and that’s why we spent half this ball game talking about him instead of one of those men down there right now.”

I give the man a cursory nod, the sermon now ending, but then he quips, “Takes courage to know where you really belong. That’s the kind of courage little boys take with them into manhood. All the ‘go home, nigger’ chants and watermelon rinds in the world can’t take that out of you.” The man holds his stare until he senses my shame, then he tips his hat and says, “Good to meet you both. Take care now.” Josh, who ignored all that just transpired in favor of the game, turns away from the field and offers a goodbye. The man smiles back at him and nods, then gives me a parting look, takes a breath, and heads out into the walkway.

I find it nonsensical that this man would try to chisel away at the complexity of a marriage, tying it up in some cinematic sermonette on sports heroism. To think he could somehow change my heart with one swelling ‘Field of Dreams’ speech seems ludicrous to me, and there is a part of me that wishes I’d told him I saw right through his quixotic pining. Courage, I think, is knowing when to walk away, like Sandy Koufax did when his arm gave out. Courage, like everything else in life, is subjective, and cannot be relegated to broad ethical blueprints. It is situational, as much as we hate to admit it, and sometimes the bravest thing one can do is hang up his spikes.

The game ends with a long fly ball that teases the Green Monster but ultimately drops like a sandbag over the warning track and into the faithful glove of Johnny Damon, who drifts from center to shag it. Already on our feet to watch the trajectory of the drive, the fans give the Sox a cheer as they gather around the mound for high-fives and glove slaps. Josh jokes that they ought to make Major Leaguers line up and say ‘good game’ to all the opposing players, like he is required to do in his pony league. This makes me smile, and I pull him to my side and give him a squeeze.

In the parking lot, I start to break the ice. “Josh, you wanna go get some ice cream? There’s something I’d like to chat with you about.” He is mildly suspicious – Coke and ice cream in the same day means something, though he is not sure what. “Sure, Dad.”

“Let’s go to Ben and Jerry’s,” I offer, and we slide into the front seat to traverse the snaking line of cars out onto I-95 again.

Figuring we’re in for quite a meltdown, I begin to broach the subject, trying to get handle on my opening farewell. I had structured it all in my head, at least I thought I had: start with the generalities about how people sometimes don’t stay together, about how some of his friends have parents who have split, and then whittle it down to the inevitable specifics, the dance around the ‘d’ word. But as I try to stack the words in my head, they are nudged out by the indelible image of a pair of cleated feet, dancing over chalk dust. The damn man stuck Jackie Robinson in my head and, stubborn player that he was, Jackie won’t walk away. Instead, he jitters back and forth, channeling all that fear – a fear he must’ve felt in some deep down part of him, wondering if someone in the third base bleachers might throw a brick or fire a pistol. That fear is melted down by an alchemist’s hands into pure courage, and thrown back into the fire again, illuminating the trail for those brave enough to get close to the heat. I see his feet start to settle and then, like a train, surge down the line toward home plate. He is alive in the moment, and his slide, a mere half-inch under the catcher’s swiping tag, is what happens when pressure succumbs to grace. No matter how hard I try, I cannot release the image, the majesty of one man, carrying dreams on his shoulders, down the third base line and finding himself, finally, safely home. The words I’d constructed, once so inevitable, will not come. They have come too close to that heat.

I don’t know what Jackie looked at when he started his run homeward – the pitcher’s footing, the catcher’s mitt, or maybe the ball as it raced him to the plate. I’d like to think he had his eye on the only thing that mattered: home.

I am not sure what I will do tomorrow. I could find myself putting my shirts and jeans on crappy metal hangers in my new closet on Willoughby Lane. I could be calling a marriage counselor and asking naïve questions about the therapeutic process. No one knows what lies ahead when the next pitch comes along. Today – at this moment – I do know where I am supposed to go. I am carrying a little boy’s hopes on my shoulders for one more day. Today, I am stealing home.

A Survey for Bookstore Junkies

2010-03-24T04:02:00.000-07:00

Someone sent me this survey. Couldn't resist filling it out. Anyone who is game, please feel free to send me your answers to the following questions. I love learning about my friends' take on books and authors.

For Bookworms Only…

1) What author do you own the most books by?

It’s a close race between Vonnegut, TC Boyle, Tom Robbins, Hunter Thompson,, and Sam Shepard.
2) What book do you own the most copies of?

We’ve got two copies of “Life of Pi” by Yann Martel.

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?

Not in the least. Given that the option would have been ‘Of which book do you own the most copies?’, I prefer the less awkward, grammatically incorrect version.

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?

The heroine from “Postcards from the Edge”, Suzanne Vale (a/k/a 1980’s Carrie Fisher). She’s what they might call ‘a hot mess’.

5) What book have you read the most times in your life?

Non-fiction: Stumbling into Enlightenment by Geri Larkin

Fiction: Stories by T.C. Boyle

6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?

Probably a biography on Pete Rose that I toted to school every day for two years.

7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year?

“Eat, Pray, Love.” A few very lovely thoughts buried under pages of rather melodramatic narcissism. That she left someone who loved her and she claimed to love so she could ‘find herself‘ and that ‘finding herself‘ just be by marrying a different man left me unable to relate or empathize with her. Also, being paid by your publisher to go out on a spiritual journey feels a bit contrived to me.
8) What is the best book you've read in the past year?

It’s been a bit more than a year, but I have to go back to “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy. Brutal, but unforgettable.

9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?

Well, if I were being self-serving, I’d say “Welcome to Storyville” by Tommy Housworth, but now I can give a sincere answer while also getting in a free plug for my book, so – with that strategy in plain view, I’d say any good anthology of short stories – Updike, Carver, Vonnegut, O’Connor, TC Boyle, Elmore Leonard. The short story is all but dead, and it’s such a wonderful medium.

10) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?

TC Boyle’s “The Tortilla Curtain” is very cinematic…and timely.

11) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?

My, they’ve mangled so many great books, from “Bonfire of the Vanities” to “Breakfast of Champions”. I guess “Life of Pi” is one that seems unfilmable, and it’s being bounced around Hollywood, I think it was attached to Ang Lee last I heard. I wish they’d leave it be.

12) What authors have you met?

TC Boyle, Tom Wolfe, Spalding Gray, Sam Shepard, August Wilson, Pearl Cleage, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Buffett and Leonard Cohen.

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character:

I had a dream that I made it onto the property at Owl Farm once, trying to meet Hunter Thompson. I remember little else from that dream, which is probably for the best.

14) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult?

I have no idea. Probably some humor-based book. I mean, define ‘lowbrow’. One man’s Ian Frazier is another man’s Dave Barry.

1 5) What is the most difficult book you've ever read?

Michael Ondaatje’s “Coming Through Slaughter” was challenging because the writing is fragmented, and the narrative POV shifts without warning. But it is rewarding and beautiful. Also, “Blood Meridian” by Cormac McCarthy makes you work pretty hard - very dense, unflinching subject matter, not a wasted word.

16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen?

Probably “Troilus and Cressida”. I don’t think Shakespeare even saw that one.

17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians? These are my choices? Well, I like Beckett and Chekhov, so give a point to each team and call it a tie.

18) Roth or Updike?
Both are masters of precision and flawed humanity. I lean toward Updike, but I hope to read much more of both in the coming years. I’ve only dabbled in their canons. (That sounds dirty, but you know what I mean…)

19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?

Dave Eggers. I like Sedaris, but Eggers won me over from the first page of “Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius”. And “Zeitoun” is marvelous.

20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Shakespeare.

21) Austen or Eliot?
TS Eliot. Jane Austen is just not my genre. I stop reading when a fainting couch is mentioned.

22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?

Too many to name. Updike’s “Rabbit” series, for starters. I’ve read oodles of Vonnegut, but never “Slaughterhouse Five”. I need to read more Twain, Philip Roth, Hemingway, Faulkner. The list goes on…
23) What is your favorite novel?

I think “The Grapes of Wrath” might top my list, though “To Kill a Mockingbird” is darn near perfect. I know Atticus Finch and Tom Joad are the characters who have defined integrity and manhood for me.
24) Play?
“Death of a Salesman” (Arthur Miller) and “True West” (Sam Shepard).

25) Poem?
“Hallelujah” or “Anthem” by Leonard Cohen. And a handful of Bukowski’s musings on art.

26) Essay?
“Self Reliance” by Emerson. “Palm Sunday” by Vonnegut. Does Spalding Gray’s “Monster in a Box” count as an essay?
27) Short story?
Where do I start? Raymond Carver’s “A Small, Good Thing” destroys me every time I read it.

28) Work of nonfiction?

I love Geri Larkin and Anne Lamott’s spiritual writings. “The Art of Living” by Epictetus, “The Art of Happiness” by the Dalai Lama, “The Four Agreements”, “On Writing” by Stephen King.

29) Who is your favorite writer?

TC Boyle, Kurt Vonnegut, Cormac McCarthy, and Raymond Carver are on the short list this week.

30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?

I really have no idea. Someone I’ve likely never heard of. There are plenty of ‘genre’ writers who sell millions while more gifted scribes go unnoticed, but one man’s coffee is another man’s tea.

31) What is your desert island book?

Er…’The Survivor’s Guide to Desert Island Living’? For real, I think I’d have to say “Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas” by Tom Robbins, just because it’s such a playful, fun read.

32) And... what are you reading right now?

“Day Out of Days” by Sam Shepard. “Born to Run” by Christopher MacDougall (actually about running, not a Springsteen bio). Anxiously awaiting a Raymond Carver anthology to become available at the library.

Book Talk - featuring me!

2010-03-23T19:44:00.000-07:00

So, I was driving to a meeting this week and had my I-pod with me. I was toggling somewhere between Bob Dylan and Bright Eyes when I saw "Book Talk" on the artist list. I couldn't recall what this might be, so I clicked on it, and it was a radio interview I did back in 2006 for my collection of short stories.

I cringed as I listened, praying to God that I hadn't said anything totally asinine...you know, in case one of the two dozen people who heard the interview actually paid attention. I was pleasantly surprised. If you were flipping channels and stumbled upon the interview, you might actually believe I was legit. I mean, if you didn't know better. So, given that, I've had the interview added to my website and wanted to share it here. If you've got a few minutes, give it a listen. Here's the link:

http://www.tommyhousworth.com/radio.html

Enjoy!

The Sunset Limited

2010-03-22T04:27:00.000-07:00

It is a rare treat to go to the theater and find yourself stunned into contemplative silence. That's where I found myself Saturday night at the opening of "The Sunset Limited". I rose quickly to applaud the masterful work of actors Peter Thomasson and E. Roger Mitchell, but then caved back into my seat as the houselights came up, still reckoning with what I'd experienced.

The play was penned by Cormac McCarthy, a writer who refuses to shy away from stories about the nature of evil ("No Country for Old Men"), the darkness of destiny ("The Road"), or in this case, the question of God. To borrow a quote from the author of the children's books "A Series of Unfortunate Events", if you're looking for a story about a happy little elf, you can walk away from this tale right now.

I don't want to divulge too much, but I will tell you the story sets two men together in a room - one a former convict who found God during his prison experience, the other an atheist, a college professor who has found no compelling reason for faith in mankind or a higher power...or to go on living for that matter.

What unfolds for the next 100 minutes is an eschatological chess match between the two men, a twist on Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" in a way. Though at times, McCarthy, the actors, and director Jessica Phelps West find opportunities for pure philosophical pugilism to accompany the strategic chess moves. It's a powerful meditation on why we're here, and why some take comfort while others take exception.

McCarthy is so careful with his choice of words (read "Blood Meridian" and tell me the man doesn't labor over the precision of language like no one since Joyce) that every exchange is layered with meaning. It's a play few will believe they could experience more than once because of its depth and the magnitude of the subject matter, and yet, it cries out to be seen repeatedly, the manuscript purchased, dogeared, and highlighted until the pages are caked sunflower yellow.

So rich is the script, in fact, that it is really a warning to the actors and director who dare to navigate it. Luckily, the show is the hands of amazingly capable people who take every line, every layered linguistic epiphany and set it into the proper context, right up to the searing, unsettling climax. The thought that this same play is being rehearsed right now by Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L Jackson for an HBO production gives me hope that the rest of the world will see the same caliber of work that Theatrical Outfit is putting on the stage right now.

I'll admit, I'm a sucker for three things that this play has in spades: outstanding writing, rich theological discussion, and theatrical minimalism. Cormac McCarthy, two men in a sparse room, and the tug-of-war between two notions: a benevolent or an absentee God. That's all I need to be truly shaken to the core.

It may not be a play for everyone, surely if the happy little elf reference gave you a tingle of comfort than perhaps you better hold off for a splashy musical. But, if you want to-the-bone theatre, a night that will open up a world of questions and discussion, rather than serve up pat answers and tie up the neat bow of closure, then "The Sunset Limited" is calling your name.

Conan's Tour -- No Bread for the Redhead

2010-03-13T14:12:00.000-08:00

I said it then and I'll say it now. Conan's a class act. Read this...

Conan's Tour -- No Bread for the Redhead

Ten things that make Cormac McCarthy special - Times Online

2010-03-12T12:34:00.000-08:00

This article is a year or two old, but with "Sunset Limited" about to open at Wendy's theater, I'm on another Cormac kick. Here are ten reasons why...

Ten things that make Cormac McCarthy special - Times Online

Set the Twilight Reeling

2010-03-11T07:28:00.000-08:00

I wrote this short piece for "Welcome to Storyville" (2005, Xlibris). It came back to me today as I was listening to Chet Baker play his horn, as pure as an angel, with the devil racing through his veins. We're all walking contradictions, reaching heavenward, hounds at our heels. That's what the guy in this piece is talking about - good intentions, earthly vices, regret, and a glimmer of grace. He's probably a jazz musician, but he could be anyone. Thanks to Lou Reed for the title...and for not suing me for lifting it.

Set the Twilight Reeling

If I could just get my hands on five hundred dollars. Tonight. If I could just get my sax out of hock. If I could hold you one more time. If I could finish that book. That song. That thought that never made it out of my head and into your ear. If I could find the right drummer. If I could have pulled off what Oedipus did. If I could remove this guilt like a skin. If I could check in for 30 days and get clean. If I could get some junk in my veins right now. If you’d have listened. If I had found that hook when I needed it. If God was home and checking His mail. If grace had dominion and sway over these demons. If I could just get my hands on two hundred dollars. Tonight. If I could just find my Velvet Underground tape. If I had been clean when I met that agent in Soho. If I hadn’t thrown up on her shoes. If I could forget your name, your face, your fingerprints. Your sex. If I had been born somewhere east of here. A hundred years from now. Or fifty years ago. If I had been Bobby Kennedy. Or Malcolm X. Or even Bird. If I had been a gunslinger. If I could just get my hands on fifty bucks. Tonight.

I could take my words. Those notes. This moment. My battered faith. Your bruised heart. All the troubles of the world would rest just fine on my shoulders after I turn that corner. I can see that corner. This time, I can see it. You’d see, too. I’d make it all up to you. I’d gather up all the stars and the sun in my arms, and I’d set the twilight reeling.

Warrior Dash a/k/a "What Have I Gotten Myself Into"?

2010-03-05T16:03:00.000-08:00

So, Wendy had this bright idea about going up to North Georgia for an outdoor adventure later this spring. As I recall, the last time she came up with an idea for an outdoor North Georgia event, I ended up in the ICU.

This time, though, we're lunging headlong into the danger, rather than stumbling upon it. The Warrior Dash is a very unique race. I've done the Peachtree, the ING half-marathon, but I've never attempted anything like this.

The Warrior Dash starts as a simple 5k through the wilderness. At the end of the 3.1 mile trek, you then have to traverse a series of obstacles: running a tire-lined obstacle course (Junkyard Jam), climbing a rock wall, leaping over fire (Warrior Roast), swimming under floating logs (Slithering Swamp), & snaking under barbed wire through mud (Muddy Mayhem). The only thing missing is Andy Dufrane's crawl through the sewage pipe in "Shawshank". But don't give them any ideas, or they may add the "Fecal Flume" to the festivities.

At the finish line, you receive free beer (if beer is your thing. I'll opt for some Gatorade), a viking helmet, a 'bad ass medal', and a gratis party with live music and all your fellow, filthy revelers. Unlike the Peachtree and the ING, the rules are a bit more loose. Shoes and shirt are optional, costumes are encouraged, you can run the whole course while getting intoxicated, or you can run the whole course like you're hoping to qualify for the Olympics. They don't care. They don't want anyone to get hurt, but other than that, it's just one intense party that resembles nothing so much as the trials for a reality show.

So, besides getting my running game back in high gear, I am hoping to visit one of those rock climbing adventure places, trek up Stone Mountain in my Vibrams a few times, and as for practicing jumping over fire, well, I think the closest I'll come to that is shuffling past the incense cones I burn in my office. I think given the number of times they mention beer on the site, getting in shape for this is beside the point, but I welcome any impetus.

It should be great fun. I'd invite you to join us, but their site says they are at capacity for the Southeast event. Go to www.warriordash.com to learn more and see if some spaces open up. I'd love to see you there. I think I'm gonna need all the help I can get!

Emptying the Tank

2010-03-05T14:57:00.000-08:00

This is what Jon Stewart had to say at the Kennedy Center Honors about his and my mutual hero:

"Whenever I see Bruce Springsteen do anything, he empties the tank. Every time. And the beautiful thing about this man is that he empties that tank for his family, he empties that tank for his art, he empties that tank for his audience, and he empties it for his country. And we, on the receiving end of that beautiful gift, are ourselves rejuvenated, if not redeemed."

This got me to thinking about what that kind of commitment means to us everyday mortals. First, you've got to ask, what do you perceive as 'your tank'? Is it a specific talent or gift? Is it your time? Your commitment to a cause or people in your life?

Then, where do the contents of that tank end up, day in and day out? For me, a perfect day means I've spilled a fair amount of sweat on the page for clients who want creative corporate scripts, treatments, and other writings. I've infused my kids with the proper amount of wisdom, love, and guidance, I've made Wendy feel loved and honored, and I've still got enough left to put a few words on the pages of a novel that feels like it's never going to end. Maybe I've helped some kids learn a bit more about the game of baseball, God's grace, or how to become better improvisers. Those are the good days.

The not-so-good ones feel like my tank is emptied by mindless time-suckers, from Facebook to bad TV. Since I gave up Facebook for Lent, I've managed to read more than I have in months: Sam Shepard's latest book, the runner's journey in "Born to Run", and "Pops: A Biography of Louis Armstrong". It feels good to have three books going at once after months of reading nothing longer than a blog post and the Sunday paper.

In the past few weeks, my tank has been emptied for better and better reasons, and the cool thing is, it's also been simultaneously replenished. Marketing my business makes me love what I do even more, listening to The White Stripes and Radiohead makes me want to create something artistically indelible, reading Sam Shepard and Cormac McCarthy makes me want to write the most perfect paragraph known to mankind, and "Born to Run" (the book, and the song for that matter) makes me want to run up Stone Mountain every morning in my Vibrams.

I'm being reminded of something very simple, but quite hard to master. If you empty your tank for the right reasons, into the right receptacles, a magical thing happens: your mere efforts cause your tank to refill.

You feel, to quote Jon Stewart, "rejuvenated, if not redeemed."

I'm feeling a little like Tony Robbins here, so I'm guessing a firewalk is in my future, but I wanted to share this, nonetheless. We owe it to ourselves to perform at a level each day that makes us feel heroic, if only to ourselves.

So, empty the tank.

And, as always, enjoy every sandwich.

The 2010 Oscar Race: Spectacle or Storytelling?

2010-03-03T05:16:00.000-08:00

Am I even qualified to chime in on this? My Lord, I used to see every film that even stood a chance of being nominated. Then, fatherhood and entrepreneurship replaced 'cinema buff' and now I can only tell you which animated films rocked my world. Still, I wouldn't trade all the sexy blue girls in "Avatar" for a night of reading together with my kids or the freedom that comes with running my own biz. Why that freedom hasn't led to more matinees, I can't say.

What I can say is this: with ten Best Picture nominees, I don't think anyone out there really expects to cover the waterfront when it comes to having an aerial view of all those that got nods this year. So, my picks and predictions come with biases that may have nothing to do with merit, but more with politics. How does this separate me from those few anointed souls who get to cast Oscar ballots? It doesn't. Thus, here I go...

For the actor awards, a mere mention will do: Jeff Bridges, Jeff Bridges, Jeff Bridges. I saw "Crazy Heart" and he's earned it. Hell, I saw "Big Lebowski" and "Fearless" and he earned it then too. Best Actress? Sandra Bullock or Meryl Streep, you pick. Supporting? Christoph Waltz for "Inglourios Basterds", for the first scene of the movie alone. From what I hear, Mo'Nique is a deserving Supporting Actress winner, though Maggie Gyllenhaal always makes my heart pitter-patter a bit.

Animated film? "Up", hands down. Screenplays? "Up in the Air" and "A Serious Man". The latter doesn't stand a chance, but I thought it was the most thought provoking film I saw last year. And the Coens can pen character studies and moral conundrums like nobody's business.

Best Director: If I have to listen to James Cameron or Quinten Tarantino talk at the podium, I will impale myself on Oscar's tiny little phallic sword. Though Tarantino may be deserving, and I applaud his comeback, he's a blowhard and we'll never hear the end of him if he wins. But, he's not in the same league as Cameron when it comes to ego, who may ask for a moment of silence when he wins again. Ya know, to honor the animated avatars who died in the filming of his masterwork. No, give me Kathryn Bigelow. I wanna see a female Best Director, and one who directed a gritty war film to boot.

This leads us to...

Best Picture: I am predisposed to dislike "Avatar". I know, everyone tells me that it is a 'cinematic game changer'. Hey, the collapse of Wall Street was an economic game changer, but it doesn't mean I have to like it. James Cameron and his budget-bleeding vision is ambitious, to be sure, but ambition bites the nails of success, so Bono says, and sometimes we're so busy chewing on the three dimensional scenery that we forget about compelling storytelling, and this has always been my issue with Cameron. He'll never get to play in the same sandbox with Scorsese, because he doesn't tell stories, he shows us fireworks.

Meanwhile, his ex helmed a film that told a truly human and compelling story about IED diffusers in Iraq. "The Hurt Locker" is getting my vote because it was a story, warts and all, that gnawed at my soul, rather than just offered up eye candy.

However, if visual stimulation is the core value for those voting for Best Picture, may I recommend "Up", which was captivating, and (I pontificate) told more of a compelling story about humanity in its early two minute montage of the life of a couple (if you didn't cry, see a shrink or a priest NOW!) than "Avatar" did in three hours.

If ambition is your cup of tea, then Tarantino gets my vote. "Basterds" was epic. Sprawling, but epic in scope, with characters that were intentionally animated, but tinged with satire instead of blue paint. The man never fails to find that place in your chest to inject the adrenaline.

Personally, of the nominees I saw ("Up in the Air" being the most glaring omission), I would choose "A Serious Man" as the best film. Questions of God and man will always hold more water for me than "man and alternate universe populated with Blue Man Group understudies".

I know, I know, "Avatar" is a 'game changer'. Maybe I'm just being an elitist, or a reactionary. Maybe I should see the film before passing judgment, and I will...on DVD. (I can hear the groans now. "But you MUST see it on the big screen, and it's MUCH better in 3-D. And you have to sit on the right side of the cinema. And you need special glasses that have built in 'character blind spots'...). Yeah, yeah. I'll rent it, ok? And I'll eat my words if I find it to be all that and a side of guac.

Meantime, I'm rooting for "The Hurt Locker", the only film that stands a chance up against "Avatar", I suspect. Dark Horse: "Inglourious Basterds". Secret Fave: "A Serious Man".

Honestly, as soon as Mr. Bridges and Ms. Bigelow get their trophies, I'm satisfied. The rest is just icing on the cake. Whether it's army green or avatar blue icing, we'll just have to see.

Connecting The Dots...

2010-02-25T04:02:00.000-08:00

These last two posts came together yesterday as I went through a mini-editing process of a chapter in "The Puzzle of Autumn". Ya see, there's a scene in "It Might Get Loud" where Jack White puts on an old LP of Son House, a song called "Grinnin' in Your Face". It's a cappella, save the furious, out of time hand claps by House himself. It's the essence of the blues, one man against the world, commanding the elements around him surrender to his wearied defiance, his holy stance, his swaggering paupered pleas.

Jack White says it's his favorite song, has been since the first time he heard it at age 18, and he's spent his entire career - The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, the one-off solo project - trying to recreate the essence of that one track, the fierce simplicity of one man's struggle against The Blues with their deserved capital letters. To me, this is the most humble and powerful mission an artist can take. It's getting the essence of the soul and spirit on paper, on the canvas, out of your instrument and into the world.

It dawned on me over my pre-dawn coffee yesterday as I went through a fattened, meandering chapter of my book that I was doing the same thing - having just reminded myself of how truly magical the art of choosing the right words can be, with gratitude to Sam Shepard ("Day Out of Days") and Cormac McCarthy ("Sunset Limited") for this week's wakeup calls - I felt the need to, all at once, go back and revisit every word on the page and make sure those are blood stains, not snack crumbs, in the ledgers. That the words that felt like they 'would do' will do no more unless they do all. That I play only the notes, as Miles said, 'that matter'.

It's a humbling experience, going back after what feels like days trying to just get a story out onto a page, then realizing that all you've done is give birth, and you've still got to raise the little bastard into a decent human being. And that you've got a two dozen more to do the same with before you're ready to let them out of the house. Gets mighty crowded.

But, I'm not alone. Sam's here. Raymond Carver's in the corner trying to find a light for his cigarette. Cormac McCarthy is going through my manuscript with a red pen and I don't see much that isn't marked up. TC Boyle is sitting atop my desk reminding me not to take it so seriously that I end up like Joyce, who is balled up in the corner sobbing over The Pogues CD playing on my I-pod.

Then there's Jack White, his guitar gathering dust in the corner as he claps his hands and stomps time with his enormous boot, trying to get that Son House song just right. Just right.

Just. Right.

The Angel is in the Details

2010-02-22T16:28:00.000-08:00

Giving up Facebook for Lent has led me to do some rather miraculous things, like actually start reading fiction again, after a hiatus that is embarrassing to admit for a self-proclaimed bibliophile and writer.

I eased back in with my old pal Sam Shepard, who has - of late - been penning short stories, essays, monologues, and semi-autobiographical allegories alongside the periodic play or film. His new book is called "Day Out of Days" and when I settled in at Dancing Goats Coffee House this past Sunday morning to read it for an hour before church, I almost missed the start of the service for getting lost in his aching attention to detail, his ability to make the simplest of daily routines seem mesmerizing, his gift for finding just the right word, and never settling for anything less. Any writing that leaves me, both, inspired and humbled has done its job in spades.

This is the first piece in the book. It's called "Kitchen", and somewhere Raymond Carver is smiling. Enjoy.

Kitchen (Sam Shepard)

I've always done my best work in the kitchen. I don't know why. Cooking stuff up. Maybe that's it. Now I've got my own kitchen deep in the country with a big round table smack in the middle. But I am surrounded. I'm not sure who put all this stuff in here. Who jumbled all this up on my white brick walls as though it told some story, made some sense; some whole world out of floating fractured bits and pieces. Pencil drawing of Seattle Slew, long after retirement - bloated pasture-belly, glazed far-off stare in his eye as though looking back to the glory days of the Triple Crown. And, wedged between the glass and flat back frame, snapshots of different sons in different shirts doing different things like fishing, riding mules and tractors; leaning up against their different mothers at radical angles. Postcards of nineteenth century Lakota warriors like Gaul, adopted son of Sitting Bull, price on his head; left for dead only to come back and seek his perfect vengeance at the Battle of Little Bighorn. Henry Miller with a walking stick, black beret, sitting on a rock wall gesticulating to the camera, some quote about morality and why don't we just give ourselves over completely and unabashedly to the present, since we're all up agains the same grim prospect anyway; same sinking ship. Slaves in sepia tone, harvesting bluegrass seed and whistling "Dixie". Wedged between the tile and brick, more pix of hawks and galloping horses out near where we used to chase skinny coyotes back into the tangled mesquite and ocotillo. Then Beckett's sorrowful bespectacled hawk-face, gazing into oblivion with no trace of self-pity, hands clasped between his knees. Underneath in neat black scrawl: "There is no return game between a man and his stars."

Who scrambled all this stuff in here with no seeming regard for associative order, shape or color? Without the slightest care for where it might all wind up. Just randomly pinned to cupboards and door frames, slipping sideways; gathering spotted stove grease and fly shit. El Santuario de Chimayo, for instance, caked in Christmas snow, but what's it doing right next door to a business card for my horseshoer with an anvil and hammer logo? Then, working up the wall, there's the little bay in Lubec, Maine, where another set of rum-running ancestors lay long buried, then magic stones from Bernalillo, Wounded Knee, the painted stick, guts of the dream catcher, antelope, prairie dog, old speckled racing greyhounds flying off the tailgates; rusted spurs on the back of the black walnut door. What's all this shit for? Some display for who? For me? What for? Some guest or other? I have no guests. You know that. I'm no host. Never have been. Maybe the old Sonoran man who drops off split oak but no real visitors, that's for sure. Everyone knows to stay far away. Especially now with the tiger-brindled pit bull out front. The screaming burro kicking buckets down the hill. The fighting gallo in attack mode. I'm in this bunker all my own, surrounded by mysterious stuff. It may be time to take a break and walk back out into the dripping black woods where I know the hollowed-out Grandaddy Sycamore sits and waits for you to climb inside and breathe up into its bone-white aching arms.

It Might Get Loud

2010-02-20T20:20:00.000-08:00

Three generations of guitarists, each with a very different approach to music, are brought together to talk about their craft and play guitar. This could be the ingredient for a self-indulgent jam fest, or an intriguing look at artistic sensibilities and how - regardless of their divergences - can all create magical results.

Jimmy Page, despite his one-time reputation as a purveyor of black magick and dark occultism, is a complete British gentleman. Soft-spoken, quick to smile, and warm as English tea.

The Edge? A humble workhorse, with a technical prowess that would guarantee him professorship at MIT should the band gig ever grow tiring.

And Jack White? Well, he's my new hero. Cocksure without pretense, his sole devotion seems to be to finding a way to play the blues that Robert Johnson and Son House created almost a century ago through as pure and uncomplicated means as possible.

Together, they are a blues veteran who helped define heavy metal, a Clash-inspired post-punk modernist who won't go onstage until every foot pedal and FX box is in place, and a brash kid who believes a guitar and a drum kit are all it takes to tear down the very walls that separate mankind.

The film takes us through each of their approaches, as they share musical philosophies, their struggle of 'finding their voice' through the guitar, and ultimately, how they stayed true to their muse amid meteoric stardom.

They also play, sharing riffs of each others' songs, and showing true appreciation for the art each has brought to their instrument. Perhaps most telling is the ending moment, when they choose to forego such obvious encores as "Kashmir", "Seven Nation Army", or "Vertigo". Instead, they sit on sofas and play acoustic guitars, singing The Band's "The Weight". There's never been a song so mythic, or a moment so intimate between three guitar gods.

Even if you're not a fan of these three gentlemen, I highly recommend renting "It Might Get Loud". Ultimately, it's a lesson in how art allows room for the Rembrants and the Pollocks, the Shakespeares and the Salingers. The raw materials are the same, but in the hands of an artist, there's a magic that is unyielding to tradition or the demand of form. The result may be beauty or rage, divinity or madness, but it is true and pure and undeniable.

So is the spirit of "It Might Get Loud".

What's On Your I-Pod?

2010-01-30T06:48:00.000-08:00

I'm not exactly the musical trailblazer I was when I was younger and took the time to explore the influences and offshoots of every new artist on the charts. I'm impatient with commercial radio, not in my car enough to make satellite radio worth it, and were it not for a gift subscription to Rolling Stone this past Christmas from Steve Coulter, I'd likely think that the Foo Fighters was a new reality show on SpikeTV.

But, I'm making an effort in 2010 to cut through the cobwebs of my classic rock/jazz/Americana habits and at least get to know some artists whose careers didn't start when I was in high school. So, with apologies to Misters Springsteen and Dylan, here's what's on my I-Pod these days, in hopes this list invites you to share some of your current faves, recommendations, or thoughts.

*Radiohead - only took me fifteen years to catch on.

*Foo Fighters - because they aren't really on Spike TV.

*Ben Harper - thinking he might be the love child of Prince and Bob Dylan.

*Monsters of Folk - an Americana supergroup with no AARP members? Sign me up!

*The White Stripes - a guitarist/singer who worships at the altar of the blues, and a female drummer. They had me from the first icky thump of "Seven Nation Army".

*Wilco - been a fan for years, but still feel I can list them here without seeming dated.

*Green Day - with thanks to Grady for getting me into their music beyond a surface level.

*The Hold Steady - early-Springsteen influence won me over, their boundless energy kept me.

*Arcade Fire - er, there's a Bruce influence here too, so I'm told. I guess. Whatever it is, I like it.

*The Killers - Bruce meets Bowie, with more than a dash of Queen.

*Beck - I stopped listening in the late 90's. I've missed some great stuff!

*Vampire Weekend - white reggae by a bunch of Ivy Leaguers. Not sure why it works, but it does.

*Michael Franti - have been listening to him since the early 90's and The Disposable Heroes of Hip-hoprisy. Glad he's still around...and keeps evolving.

*The Nightwatchman - Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine's political music is fierce. Even scary at times, but it's raw emotion, and I do miss the days when artists sang about social issues.
Remember that?

Norah Jones - her latest, "The Fall", is guitar based, featuring Marc Ribot (who has collaborated with Tom Waits and Elvis Costello over the years). A natural evolution for her smoky sound.

*Eddie Vedder - I'm just now embracing Pearl Jam after all these years, but what I'm really enjoying are a couple of Eddie's side projects - especially his "Into the Wild" soundtrack. Oh, and PJ's "Backspacer" was my favorite album of 2009.

Train - pretty straight ahead stuff, sorta like Matchbox Twenty without all the preening and posing.

*Muse - these guys opened for U2, and had the acoustics in the Ga Dome not been so awful, I might've really enjoyed them. So, giving a couple of their current songs a spin, and now would love to see them in a proper venue.

*U2 - yes, they are now dinosaurs by industry standards, but "No Line on the Horizon" was a majestic, mature effort by a band that has been known to run out of good ideas from time to time. Way to stay relevant, guys.

*Coldplay - I'm trying to like these guys. Some songs are darn catchy, but all i can think as I listen to them is, "So, you want to be U2, huh? Or is it Radiohead on this song? Uh, do you guys have a sound of your own you could run with?"

*TV on the Radio - just giving them a try for the first time, thanks to my friend and neighbor Karen. We'll see what happens.

*Arctic Monkeys - would welcome some guidance here. Got one of their CDs from the library and I really like it. What's the next best step after "Humbug"?

*Ray LaMontagne - skinny white guy who sounds like a grass roots soul singer. Gotta love that.

*Neko Case - honestly, I saw the CD cover of "Middle Cyclone" at the library with a sexy barefoot redhead on the hood of a muscle car, wielding a sword. I took it home on that premise alone. Who knew there was such good music inside?

OK, so that's what's new in my I-pod. Any suggestions for where to go next to keep expanding my musical horizons? Tell me...what's on YOUR I-Pod?

Everything I Ever Needed to Know About Life, I Learned from Beatles Rock Band

2010-01-24T20:38:00.000-08:00

In the last month, I've spent too many hours in front of the television, a plastic bass guitar hanging around my hips, swaying back and forth like some sort of "American Idol" also-ran to the music of the Beatles.

However, believe it or not,this has led to a number of life-affirming epiphanies. The first is, even with the Beatles singing along beside me, I still can't sing. I sound like Lou Reed with a sinus infection. But, the other moments of enlightenment I've had, while perhaps a tad obvious, were mightily reinforced by this simple little interactive Wii game called "Beatles Rock Band". Here's what John, Paul, George and, yes, even Ringo, have managed to remind me of in the past month.

1) Perfection is Overrated
Even Tony Robbins says, "Perfect is a lousy goal. Be outstanding." The reason: once we fail to attain perfection, we slack off - with goals ranging from exercise to efficiency. So, when I'm playing my Hofner bass on medium difficulty, and am two-thirds of the way through "I'm Looking Through You" without missing a note, I panic. I'm close to a perfect score, and like a pitcher who is two outs from a no-hitter, I falter. I botch a note. Game over. But then, I can relax. At that point, my goal becomes 99%, and that...is attainable. If I go through life giving 100%, and scoring a 99 most of the time, I will have lived very well indeed.

2) Turn Off Your Mind, Relax, and Float Down Stream
John was a wise man indeed. This lyric from "Tomorrow Never Knows" applies mightily to Rock Band and life itself. When I think about the notes I'm playing, I get in my head, and I start missing cues left and right. When I just groove to the music, and find the inevitable sway of the songs, I lock in and the playing is effortless. That's why the word 'jam' has two meanings - one is when you're stuck in a rut, the other is when you just flow with the music that surrounds you.

3) Come Together
Sure, you can play Rock Band by yourself: if you've gotten your kids to sleep, chloroformed your spouse and have the volume turned down low. Seriously, getting to go solo is a rare treat. However, the whole point of Rock Band, to me, is community. My kids fight over every board game or card game we propose, and then sometimes, when they do agree on a game, Wendy and I have to grit our teeth and pretend it's one of our favorites as well. Music, however, knows no generation gap, be it between parent and child or a nine and seven year old. Rock Band has brought us together, night after night, to enjoy something we all truly love: the music of the Beatles. It's sad that an electronic toy has to be a catalyst, but hey, it beats staring at the TV.

4) And Your Bird Can Sing
I can hear Grady and Maggie finding their way into good pitch control and could see them having really good singing voices as they mature. But, that must be a very recessive gene, as Wendy and I are borderline tone-deaf. My greatest regret in life - one of them anyway - is that I cannot sing. I've often thought of that old Robert Johnson myth about the devil at the crossroads and wondered if I would sell my own soul to have a voice like Van Morrison, Don Henley, or Tony Bennett. I might not sell my soul to the devil, but I'd be happy to give him our spare bedroom.

With Rock Band, everyone gets to sing, for better or worse, as if they are a true jukebox hero. It reminds you that, as long as you're a rock star in your own mind, the rest of the world really doesn't matter. Nor do they need to know. It's just gentle subtext to carry with you from day to day, just like the invisible cape I sometimes imagine flowing from my shoulders. Oh...was that my outside voice?

5) Still Waters Run Deep
John was always my favorite Beatle. My three favorite Beatles songs are "A Day in the Life", "Come Together", and "I Am the Walrus", with "Dear Prudence" on their heels. So, of course it's John. However, the one who has really surprised me during our Rock Band experience has been George. I always enjoyed George's songs, and knew he was likely the most pure musician in the group (certainly the most accomplished guitarist), but wow, the texture of his tunes really makes me realize just how vital he was to the Beatles success. He only wrote about 15-20 songs that the Beatles released, but what a collection: "Here Comes the Sun", "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", "I Me Mine", "Something", "If I Needed Someone", "Taxman". And "Within You Without You" used to be the track I always skipped on "Sgt Pepper's". Now, I'm mesmerized by it. Just goes to show you, sometimes it is the most unassuming person who is doing the richest work. They were all fine musicians, but George mixed spirituality and sitar appreciation in a way none of the other guys could touch. Thanks, George.

6) Unlocking the Mystery of Life

The Beatles Rock Band disc comes with 45 songs. 44 are available immediately, then the final one - "The End" - must be unlocked after an interactive journey through the band's musical career. So, you've gotta do some work - some seeking - to get this last tune. When you do, it only has two lines of lyrics to offer to the listener:

"And in the end, the love you take
Is equal to the love you make."

Jesus said it. Buddha said it. Paul (McCartney) said it. It's a truth so simple it could fit inside a fortune cookie, yet so complex that only a rare few embody its wisdom as a way of life. But, hopefully, we're all trying. When I sing this lyric with my kids, I feel like it's all they really need to know to have a blessed life.

'cause all ya need is love, right?

Golden Guesses

2010-01-16T08:12:00.000-08:00

Back in the good ol' days of college and grad school, you could pretty much count on my having seen all of the Golden Globe and Oscar contenders by now. It was of the highest priority as I sat around my own Algonquin Round Table of fellow cinephiles. Today, though, family time and work have eclipsed such free time, and dust-coated Netflix sleeves is about as close as I get to the box office counter sometimes. I've seen "Up", "It's Complicated", "Inglorious Basterds", and "A Serious Man". I am VERY eager to see "Up in the Air" and "Crazy Heart". "The Hurt Locker" arrived in the mail yesterday. I'm doing my best...but my best isn't what it used to be.

This, however, does not preclude me from making predictions and doing some wishful thinking. Sometimes the only fun in award shows is taking a stab at who will win, who should win, or who you dearly want to see go home statue-less. So, uninformed though I may be, here goes.

Best Motion Picture, Drama

'Avatar'

'The Hurt Locker'

'Inglourious Basterds'

'Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire'

'Up in the Air'

I'm rooting for "Up in the Air" here. The story just sounds like my kind of subtle tale. I love Clooney. Reitman's last film was "Juno", which was tremendously entertaining. I will say the first twenty minutes of "Inglorious" deserves an award for being the best short film within a film of the year. Wow. Unforgettable.

Best Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical

'(500) Days of Summer'

It's Complicated. I saw it, I laughed a lot, I adore Meryl and Steve. And I'm starting to relate to characters who are eeking into AARP territory.

Best Director - Motion Picture

'Inglourious Basterds'

I think I'd like Bigelow to win. A female director taking home the prize for a war film rocks. Clint's got enough trophies, Quentin is too full of himself, Cameron is even moreso. Reitman might be a nice surprise.

Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama

Jeff Bridges. Jeff Bridges. Jeff Bridges. Can I say it again? Jeff Bridges. Long overdue.

Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama

'Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire'

The momentum seems to be with Sandra Bullock, who I really like. If Gabourney Sidibe is the lead in Precious, wouldn't it be beautiful to see someone not-so-beautiful win a top acting trophy?

Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture

'Inglourious Basterds'

Always the best, most competitive category. Christoph Waltz gave the best performance I've seen all year. So, that seems hard to ignore. Tucci and Harrelson are supposed to be terrific in their roles as well. And you know how I feel about Matt Damon - one of our most underrated actors. Every time Ben Affleck got work and Matt didn't, I would scratch my head. Now, Matt has made his way to the A list and Ben has all but disappeared. That's about right.

Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture

'Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire'

Julianne Moore

'A Single Man'

I really have no educated opinion here. Julianne Moore makes my heart race a bit, that's all I've got to offer.

Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Comedy

'(500) Days of Summer

Michael Stuhlbarg

'A Serious Man'

Maybe this is where Matt Damon gets his due.

Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Comedy

Meryl, Meryl, Meryl. Always Meryl. Except for "Mamma Mia".

Best Screenplay - Motion Picture

'The Hurt Locker'

Mark Boal

'District 9'

Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell

'Inglourious Basterds'

Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner

I'm thinking this is Quentin's to lose. Ambitious script, to be sure.

Best Animated Feature Film

'Coraline'

'Fantastic Mr. Fox'

'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs'

'The Princess and the Frog'

'Up'

Up made me cry like a baby, then it made me smile like a giddy baby. Then it made me cry again. I loved Up. Gotta go for Up.

Best Television Series, Drama

"Dexter" gets my vote, though I think it's too dark to win. "Mad Men" is likely to score again. No complaints - great show.

Best Televison Series, Comedy or Musical

"30 Rock" rocks. "The Office" has become hit or miss". "American Family", however, has become the funniest show on TV this season. I guess I'm the only person in Atlanta theater who doesn't watch "Glee", but I don't.

Best Actor in a Television Series, Drama

Michael C Hall does great work on "Dexter" - funny, creepy, tender, and real. Hugh Laurie gives great speeches. Jon Hamm wins this, though.

Best Actress in a Television Series, Drama

As long as Kyra Sedgwick doesn't win, I'm happy. Worst southern accent since "In the Heat of the Night".

Best Actor in a Television Series, Comedy or Musical

A little weary of Alec Baldwin winning, but I get it. He nails his character, week after week. It's an egoless performance by a man with a huge ego.

Best Actress in a Television Series, Comedy or Musical

Toni Collette

'United States of Tara'

I love Tina Fey. As a comedian, as a writer, as a person, and in a "List of Five" kind of way, so there ya go.

Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television

Neil Patrick Harris

'How I Met Your Mother'

John Lithgow turns in one of the best performances of a very distinguished career as the Trinity Killer. I'm rooting for him, even if he did what I think he did in the last episode of the season (haven't seen it yet - don't tell...)

So, there ya go - my hopes and predictions for Sunday night's awards. How about you?

IHOP Right On Outta Here...

2010-01-04T05:25:00.000-08:00

So, for the first time in years, the family and I strolled into an IHOP the other night. Any place where kids eat free and there's something called a "Bottomless Pot of Coffee" is just fine by me.

We were on the cusp of the new year when, though I try to refrain from the term 'resolution', I do think over things I'd like to change and aspire to in the coming year. One of those goals is to regain my svelte-like figure from a few years ago when I was on the friendly side of forty and I was coasting through a vegetarian lifestyle like Michael Stipe at a salad bar.

So, hey, I figured I was off to a good start here. While it wasn't the Sunflower Cafe, IHOP is certainly a place where one can dodge the meat bullet. Stack of pancakes, a scrambled egg, glass of OJ and I'm home free, right?

But, oh, the good people at IHOP are brave enough to do their customers a service. They print the caloric amount of each meal and item they offer right there on the menu. I applauded their desire to help customers make informed choices, but also thought the sheer weight of the statistics (pun intended) would send me and other patrons streaming for the door.

Then, I looked around and realized that, compared to the other patrons that night (and likely any given night at an IHOP), I was Mahatma Gandhi on day 23 of his civil disobedience fast.

Still, if you have any frame of reference for how many calories the average adult should take in each day, you'd be quick to realize that most of the IHOP menu is prepared to take you 50-75% of the way there on many of their meal offerings.

Luckily, as I perused the kids menu, looking for something in the under 500 calorie range, I discovered the very back of the menu was dedicated to meals that were 'caloric conscious'. Two small pancakes and a scrambled egg substitute later, I was a happy lad.

I began to wonder what it would be like if all restaurants listed the caloric/fat intake of their menu items either on their menu or their menu boards. Most fast food establishments have a chart that they keep tucked away in the dark recesses of the hallway leading to their restrooms. However, would you rethink the Arby's Beef and Cheddar with Curly Fries if you knew it was putting almost 1200 calories into the tank? And I guess if you're ordering a Hardee's Monster Burger, the fact that the burger alone is 1100 calories means little to you. You're likely either very famished, very drunk, or both. That Personal Pan Meat Lover's Pizza? It just made sweet love to you with 49 grams of fat, Romeo.

But, most people don't know, or don't care to know. I know I sound like I'm on my Morgan Spurlock "Supersize Me" high horse, but I'm not. I promise you, I'll drop all vegetarian pretenses the minute someone offers me a Chick-fil-A sandwich, and if offered the choice between an Outback Steakhouse Bloomin' Onion or a foot massage from Jenna Fischer, I'd actually have to wrestle with the decision for a minute before stepping away from that floral bouquet of Vidalia.

What IHOP did was allow me to make an informed decision about their food. They didn't hide the fact that they sell a lot of fat-and-sugar laden items, they just told me what the odds were on the physiological betting track. I think that's pretty cool of them.

That said, I don't really plan to eat there again for a few years. But, I appreciate them letting me know that a simple Caesar salad packs a mighty 990 calories.

I can only assume each lettuce leaf is doused in dressing and bacon fat before being served. If not, you can darn well bet that some restaurant will run with that method and market it as their next new healthy menu item.

If the Shoe Fits...

2010-01-04T05:11:00.000-08:00

My previous post feetures (er, features) a recent Parade magazine article on the benefits of barefoot running. The new book "Born to Run" touts running barefoot as a healthier alternative to trekking through 5 and 10k's with bulky layers of confining rubber sole underfoot.

However, let's be honest, would you take to the streets in your bare feet? I love going barefoot and I can't fathom the notion. So, short of moving to beachfront property or putting waaaay too much trust in the dog owners who traverse the grounds at Piedmont Park, I need shoes to run.

After my snake bite this summer, however, I was told one of the best ways to ensure that my foot regained 100% of its strength and flexibility was to do lots of exercises that worked the muscles. The best way to do this, of course, is while barefoot. I get my dose of yoga a couple of times a week, but as for running, I wanted to find some middle ground between the two extremes.

Enter the Vibram Five Finger shoes, the first footwear to make "Planet of the Apes" fashionable. They aren't very attractive, running the gamut from 'goofy' to 'creepy' when spotted by passersby, I am sure. If I wear them long enough, they may even cure my foot fetish.

However, as running shoes go, I've entered a whole new, liberated world.

For shorter runs (3-4 miles), these lightweight shoes allow me to simulate running barefoot without the risks of doing so. I can feel some serious footwork being done as I run now, and I've shifted my weight from being flatfooted to running on the balls of my feet, which is how a more spry, buoyant runner is supposed to land.

I've been running since 2003, and the first thing I always did when I got home from a run was take my heavy, confining shoes off. With these creepy-monkey shoes, though, I often leave them on for hours, provided I'm staying home and no one is dropping by. No need to scare loved ones who think that the snake venom took hold and turned my feet black.

So, I start the new year revived as a runner, hoping to take on another half-marathon this year and toying with the notion of doing so, while not in bare feet, at least in shoes that make it feel like I am. I haven't decided whether to rent a gorilla suit to complete the ensemble.

But it's not out of the question.

Barefoot Running | Parade.com

2010-01-04T04:52:00.000-08:00

Barefoot Running | Parade.com

Jon Stewart Speaks About Bruce Springsteen At the Kennedy Center Honors

2010-01-03T05:52:00.001-08:00

Yep.

The Out There That's In Here...

2009-12-29T18:08:00.000-08:00

This is from one of my favorite writers, a Liberal Baptist preacher in Texas (wow...). His name is Gordon Atkinson, but he's more commonly known as "Real Live Preacher" (his site is www.reallivepreacher.com).

I just read this essay in his latest collection of writings and it really struck me. It sort of explains why, with all of my admitted uncertainties and issues with religion, I work hard to let faith carry the day over doubt. On good days, it does. On others, it doesn't, but I think that's ok too.

Here's Gordon to explain why:

ON A WING AND A PRAYER by Gordon Atkinson

This is the “Sombrero Galaxy.” It lies 50 million light years away from us in the Virgo cluster and contains an estimated 800 billion suns.

Someone named it after a Mexican hat, an act so incongruous as to border on blasphemy, to my way of thinking. Why not follow that by drawing Kilroy on a Torah scroll? Let him hang over the very name of God with his nose dangling between the He and the Wa.

I prefer the simple dignity of the Messier designation – M104. Whisper it if you must say it out loud, then let an astronomer/priest write it on vellum and slip it reverently into a wooden map drawer in some secret location.

I showed my oldest daughter this picture recently, and we talked about 50 million light years. I say we talked about it, but that's not exactly true. You can't talk about something that is beyond the human capacity of understanding. I can't grasp the size of Texas. What am I going to say about a light year?

“There are something like 800 billion suns in this galaxy,” I said. “And there are billions of galaxies like this in our universe.”

We sat in stupefied silence, shaking our heads.

“Do you think there's intelligent life out there?” she asked.

“I do. Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“I DON'T know. But I THINK so. When I consider what I can grasp about the size of the Universe, which isn't much, it just makes sense to me that there is intelligent life out there. Of course, we're pretty cut off by the limitations imposed by the speed of light.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, by the time we see or hear anything from distant star systems, the light or the radio waves are already millions of years old in some cases. There's a lot going on out there, but we can't see it or hear it.”

She seemed very disappointed, so I told her about Voyager.

In 1977 NASA launched two identical Voyager spacecraft. Their mission was to travel straight through our solar system, radioing information back along the way, and then move beyond Pluto and out into deep space. Radio signals and information will continue to be received from Voyager until its systems fail sometime around 2020.

After that it will continue to travel in silence for what we might as well call forever.

But Voyager carries something more than scientific instruments. It also contains a golden disc that was the brainchild of Dr. Carl Sagan, then professor of astronomy and space sciences at Cornell University.
This golden disc contains a delightful collection of sounds and images from our planet, as well as some mathematical symbols and keys to help an intelligent species understand it.

The odds against any intelligent being ever viewing this disc are, literally, astronomical. You'd have a better chance of finding a contact lens in the Pacific Ocean. The institute for the Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence estimates that it will take Voyager 750 million years just to reach the nearest star system.
And yet, Dr. Sagan and others spent the time, effort, and money needed to create their golden disc. Why would they do that? Dr. Sagan said, “The launching of this bottle into the cosmic ocean says something very hopeful about life on this planet.”

Indeed. I say it took great faith, hope, and love to launch this golden disc into the Cosmos on a wing and a prayer. The possibility of finding intelligent life was worth the effort whatever the odds.

I call it an act of pure worship.

When the end you seek is so wonderful, so unthinkably good, and so compelling that you would throw yourself against time, space, and even reality for a the slightest chance of finding it, you are worshipping indeed.

And that is why I bow my head in prayer every day of my life.

rlp

Norah's Arc

2009-12-29T17:27:00.000-08:00

Wendy found Norah Jones in her stocking this Christmas. Not literally, that would've been a gift for me, but her new CD, "The Fall". We've been enjoying it quite a bit. However, if I had paid heed to one disparaged purchaser on I-Tunes, I'd have missed out on this treat. An armchair critic reviewed the CD, giving it low marks and pining, "What happened to my Norah?"

Apparently, these guitar-driven tunes, not unlike something you might hear from Rickie Lee Jones, aren't what this listener expected. She wanted "Come Away With Me 2" or "Norah Sings the Standards", I'm guessing. Perhaps Norah's slice of Americana pie wasn't to her liking, but the question she poses - What happened to my Norah? - touches an artistic nerve with me.

While there are certainly some entertainers who are willing to sell their soul to sell a few CDs, books, or movie tickets, it is admirable, I think, for an artist to follow their muse, even if it takes them out of public favor. The artistic spirit is a restless one, and stagnation is nothing short of calamitous. Wrongheaded inspiration, such as a vanity project, can lead to such missteps as Waterworld , the extra 300 pages in a Tom Wolfe novel, or any number of art-rock concept albums. But, to not risk, to not dare, leaves the rest of us mere mortals here on the ground with nothing to show us what's possible. Evolution and creation may be diametrically opposed in Southern Baptist pews, but in art, both are required. One must create, and then one must evolve before they create again.

I'm sure a number of onlookers gawked when Salvador Dali went from bowls of fruit to melting clocks. A lot of fans tuned out when the Beatles stopped rhyming 'June' with 'moon', missing out on "Revolver" and every masterpiece thereafter. And why couldn't Woody Allen keep making those Marx Brothers-inspired slapstick flicks like "Bananas"?

The word 'artist' gets thrown around too often, to be sure, but a word that doesn't get used enough is 'audience'. We are called 'the consumer' more often these days. As a consumer, we feel entitled to get exactly what we want from our favorite actor, filmmaker, author, or musician. However, as an audience member, we are a more active participant, a part of the creation process. We watch the arc of our favorite artists' journeys, and we accept that some steps may take them out of our comfort zone. They may make a Holocaust film after we fell in love with their comedies, an acoustic folk album when we know them for their edgy guitar rock, a Broadway musical about rollerskating toys when we want more songs about cats. No, wait, scratch that last one.

But, even though I find little that's redeeming in the work of Sir Lloyd Weber, I will say, he's followed his muse, even when it's led to wretched excess. Good for him.

And good for Norah, who is following her muse and inviting those open-minded enough to join her on the journey.

Ten Great Pop Culture Moments of the 2000's

2009-12-16T19:17:00.002-08:00

In no particular order, I'd like to offer ten pop culture moments that stood out to me from the past decade. Some are bittersweet, some are inspiring, and at least one is just plain dopey. But, I wanted to share them. They appear below in a series of ten YouTube videos. Again, no particular order, and I already realize I'm guilty of the sin of omission as I think of what I've missed. Just enjoy what's here...

Read on....

Pop Culture Moment of the 00's: Worth the Wait

2009-12-16T19:17:00.001-08:00

Are you kidding? Coming back to win three in a row against the Yankees and four in a row against the Cardinals to claim their first pennant in 86 years?

That's poetry. That's storybook. That's worth the wait.

Pop Culture Moment: Tom Waits Live!

2009-12-16T19:05:00.001-08:00

If you'd told me I'd get to see Tom Waits in concert - twice, no less - in the 00's, I'd have never believed you. The man hadn't played Atlanta since the mid-70's, and hardly ever tours. But, there he was, gracing the Tabernacle in 2006 and the Fox in 2008. Thanks, Tom. It was unforgettable. Twice.

Pop Culture Moments: Ocean's Eleven

2009-12-16T18:58:00.001-08:00

It's only 15 seconds long, but damn if this isn't the funniest scene. What fun these guys appeared to have making this film. Remember when films were fun? They still are, thanks in part to "Ocean's Eleven", a movie that Soderbergh, Clooney, et al could've phoned in, but didn't. We need one more...

Pop Culture Moment: The Sopranos Final Scene

2009-12-16T18:55:00.001-08:00

Who could've imagined this ending? Many complained, but to most of us, it was the perfect ending to a show that defined the darker side of the decade. Tony can never leave the life, and living with it is worse than dying from it. A classic finale to a classic show.

Pop Culture Moment: Warren Zevon - Keep Me In Your Heart

2009-12-16T18:52:00.001-08:00

When Warren was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2002, he decided to record one last album. He said goodbye to his fans on Letterman (check it out on YouTube - the interview is where this blog's title came from). A diagnosis of a few weeks lasted over a year. Warren lived to see his twin grandsons be born, and to celebrate life with his musical friends one last time. The result was "The Wind", and this great song, which closes the album.

Pop Culture Moment of the 2000's: Bruce Springsteen - My City of Ruins (WTC Benefit)

2009-12-16T18:44:00.001-08:00

After 9/11, a star-studded benefit was aired to raise money for victims and the city of New York. It was a somber affair, and no one in the world of music could set the mood better than the Boss. This simple elegy shifts from a prayer to a call for unified resurrection. "Come on, Rise Up" became a call to a nation, a reminder of what we could do, even in the face of devastation.

Great Pop Culture Moment - No Country coin toss scene

2009-12-16T18:41:00.001-08:00

The best film scene of the decade. More tension than Hitchcock and Hannibal Lechter put together. Javier had me at 'Friend-o'.