Papers

(Note: This entry is rather long.)

My first job was a paper route. That fact makes me feel like a real American boy. I started in my neighborhood when I was about twelve, delivering my hometown paper, The Davis Enterprise. It was published six days a week: Monday through Friday in the afternoons and Sunday mornings.

I started off using the bag, the one that goes over your head like a poncho, with pouches in the front and the back. Putting on that bag, heavy and tight with newspapers, was a skill that took me months to learn. At first I would try to crawl under it, stick my neck through the collar, and stand up. Then I figured out how to use the bag's own weight to generate enough momentum to swing it up and over my head. It was a fluid movement, graceful, I think, and you had to commit to it otherwise that bag would hit your shoulder or rake the side of your head and you'd have to try again. The only thing I can compare it to is putting on a backpack carrier with a thirty-pound toddler in it.

This is just like me, except I had more freckles and less gumption. Also, note how such a system requires constant rotation lest the back pouch become so much heavier than the front pouch that the carrier gets choked, or pulled backwards off his bike, or worse.

* * *

A guy in a van dropped the papers off on the sidewalk in front of my house.

The papers were delivered in a stack, flat, the way they look inside a vending machine, bundled with a plastic strap that I could saw through with my house key. I clearly remember the pop that the plastic would make as it snapped and fell away.

If it wasn't raining I would sit down on the sidewalk and fold the papers right there. If it was wet, I would haul the bundles up the driveway and fold them just inside my front door, my pile of papers spilling off the cold tile onto the living room carpet leaving faint smudges of newsprint on the floor and being constantly tramped on by pets and people. If anyone was perturbed by the sight of a muddy paw print on their front page I never heard about it.

* * *

The nice thing about working for a hometown paper was that it was small. Not a lot of news. It could be easily tri-folded like you would a letter.

But there is an ideal range of bulk for the tri-fold. Too thick and not even a double rubber band will keep it in check--it doesn't pack well and to throw it with any force is to risk a mid-air explosion. But too thin and it's like throwing a piece of cardboard or a playing card: weak, erratic, unpredictable. A good tri-fold can be thrown like a frisbee, one flick of the wrist and it sails in a straight line right up the driveway, or the stairs, depending on if you are delivering to houses or apartments.

On most days a tri-fold was ideal. But sometimes Sunday was too big for anything but a sloppy bi-fold (or, on holidays, a tubular approach where the paper is rolled lengthwise without bending the spine), and Mondays were almost always so word-hungry that a quadruple or quintuple-fold was in order.

By the time you finished a quintuple-fold you were basically holding a hard stick of newspaper in your hand. A stick that could be tossed off sideways like a typical tri-fold, but that could also, on extremely miserable or extremely rapturous days, be thrown overhand like a baseball. And travel at great speeds for great distances, even right up to people's doorsteps.

And get you in trouble.

Screenshot from one of my favorite original Nintendo games: Paperboy.

* * *

At one point there were three paper routes in our household. I had the streets in our immediate neighborhood as well as a stable of student-dominated (I grew up in a university town) apartment complexes on Lake Boulevard, three blocks away. Dustin, my younger brother, got the new development on the other side of the drainage pond that backed up to our house.

I say "household" because I have very nice parents. In particular, my father would often get up with us at 5:00 am on Sunday mornings and drive while we threw papers from the back of his gold Mazda pickup truck, or hopped out at key locations to make pinpoint strikes into the apartment complexes. This was the same pickup truck I drove through fields, parks and pedestrian overpasses late at night. The same truck whose beautifully textured vinyl seat I allowed to be burned by a rogue ash from a friend's cigarette. The same truck I decked out with an Alpine tape deck and hi-fi box speakers behind the seat. The same truck from which budding vandals threw leftover jack-o-lanterns, Christmas trees, oranges and eggs. The same truck.

Sometimes, when we were sick or otherwise afflicted, he would even do the whole route for us.

We certainly didn't deserve that kind of a father.

* * *

Somewhere along the way we acquired a bike with a big front basket.

Ours wasn't quite this cool.

What we gave up in ability to avoid walls, cars, and bushes we certainly gained in coolness, capacity, and dignity.

* * *

One Sunday morning I loosed a bundle of papers in the twilight and looked at the top headline. A boy my age had been murdered. His name was Andrew Mocus, and he had been on my baseball team the year before. He was beaten and then pushed into a passing train by another boy I knew and definitely feared.

I didn't know Andrew as much more than a kid with the wrong friends from the wrong side of town. There was definitely an east/west class division in our hamlet. And the dividing line, believe it or not, really was the railroad tracks. Anything could happen east of those tracks, we knew that. The only three fights I've ever gotten in happened in fourth, fifth, and sixth grade when I was being driven across town to Valley Oak Elementary School. East of the tracks.

That morning I sat in front of my papers for a good twenty minutes, silent and still. If it had happened ten years later I would have been calling someone on a cell phone, relaying the news in breathless tones. As it was I was alone, trying to remember Andrew whipping a ball from third to first. He had a good arm. His hair was longish and stringy and he was skinny and tough. His face is smoky in my mind. I see dark features, a bony elbow, a sharp smile.

When I go home I am still a boy. Andrew, also, is still a boy. But there was nothing wrong about him. He got pushed into a train, that's all.

* * *

Rubberbands.

Bags of them. I loved holding big squishy plastic bags full of rubberbands. Thick rubberbands that smelled like wet asphalt and snapped like jaws.

About one out of every thirty would break and leave a small welt on the back of your hand. Sometimes one found your face.

I still like to shoot rubberbands. At people. Especially my brother.

* * *

I gave up the paper routes in stages.

First, I unloaded the apartment complexes. Delivering to apartments was always a hateful chore. Every complex had its own numbering system that never seemed to make much sense. Apartment 3A might be nowhere near 3F. Building 1 was next to buildings 3 and 4 with building 2 nowhere in sight. The doors were too close together, the whole thing just a little too intimate. I preferred to be gliding down the street, flinging the news with abandon. No slowing down. No harassing stares from nosy neighbors or tenants trying to squeeze past on the narrow walks with their laundry. No pretty college girls looking at you like the paper boy that you are.

I gave the apartments to a man named Richard. He was married with a son my age and a college degree, and his last job had been as a successful computer engineer. He was 45 years old, but with the cognitive abilities of a 12-year-old. He had been in a bike accident. Basically, something hit the reset button in his brain and he had to learn how to be himself all over again.





Richard and I, as interpreted by these two professionals.


I walked the route with Richard for several weeks. We actually got along pretty well and shared some of the same concerns: do girls like me? what is the best kind of candy? do farts ever stop being funny? But then I would remember that he was 45 with whitish hair and a son. I had seen Big with Tom Hanks and I knew things couldn't possibly be that easy. I was 14-years-old but in full ownership of those 14 years, having lived each one of them in their proper order. It didn't take long to see that Richard was living in the interstitching between universes, too old to be chucking newspapers and too young to be anything else. A paper man.

* * *

It seems strange to me that less than two years after I delivered my last paper, I was hired as a high school intern at The Davis Enterprise to file photos, type letters to the editor, and write the occasional feature article. It seems logical, I know, but I still don't see the thread. Seriously. I wanted to swim with dolphins. Maybe there are residual ink particles in the decision-making part of my brain. It's not like I entered into this love affair with newspapers, wallowing in their black and white idyll, dreaming about moving from the streets to the editorial offices. When I quit I left nothing behind.

I was going to be a scientist.

Though, I always did like to read the San Jose Mercury News at my grandmother's kitchen table with a plateful of donuts. And I did make some hilarious newscasts with my parents' video camera, complete with skycam footage of a lego car accident, fake anti-diarrheal commercials, and the inexhaustibly humorous trope of anchormen picking their noses. But I never thought I would end up in a newsroom.

I just answered an ad in the paper, that's all.

On Remembering a Wedding Photo of My Parents

My father doesn’t really do facial hair. But there he is in his wedding photo with a mustache. A nice one, too, the color of September though it was only June, fading gold, a final bronze punctuation mark. He is wearing a white tuxedo, and I don’t have the picture in front of me but I swear there are ruffles in there somewhere. Maybe on my mom’s wrists. They, the two of them, look like a perfect match. Two eyes, two ears, one nose each. Hair like fine wool. I never had hair like that.

She is thin. Arms bowing in blithe symmetry, hands meeting at the navel clasping a shock of white roses. She glints like a piece of quartz. She is absolutely real right then—this picture more de facto, more present than my most recent memory of her. Her face is the face under her face. A face I’ve never seen.

These are not my parents, of course. They are protagonists in the story of me. They eat coconut ice cream and lie about for hours and read novels. They motor around in old cars and hike mountains and wash each other’s hair and cook together, tossing ingredients across the kitchen, leaving the dishes until morning. They play frisbee, argue about politics, curse loudly and laugh louder. They stop to help strangers on the side of the road. They have dirt under their fingernails but they smell clean and raw like limes or fields of alfalfa. They know people. They have friends in Mexico and Canada. Sometimes people will visit and stay for weeks. My parents just smile and pull fresh linens out of the closet in the hall. Downstairs there is an open window where a cool breeze hurries in and tangos past the pot belly stove, up the stairs to the loft where they sleep gracefully on a mattress on a worn oak floor.

They are professionals, actors or models, posing for pictures while my real parents are getting dressed in the bathroom. My mom is sweating, her make-up is starting to cake up and she is dabbing her face with toilet paper. My dad is in his undershirt, bent over the sink with a safety razor, scratching at the hair under his nose, shaving off that mustache at the last possible moment, right before the music begins to play and the guests file in and the world is born and practice is over.

It's a poem, son.

I recently put a poem in the latest online issue of Anti-Poetry. One of my favorite online poetry mags, and it's legit. The poem, truth be told, is kind of a departure from my usual haunts. But I like it, and happily someone else did too. Check it out the poem and bio here and then stay and poke around a little bit:

http://anti-poetry.com/

Guilty Pleasures (Episode Two)

It's time for the next installment of Guilty Pleasures. Click here for episode one and the basic premise.

Today's theme: Age of Innocence: Old School Hip Hop.

Okay, so not old old school, and not so innocent. But oldish. Let yourself drift back, back to a simpler time. Back when the words gangsta rap were just a phlegm ball in the back of Dr. Dre's throat. And let these three prime selections serenade you as you linger on the interwebs. Finally, it is interesting to observe several things that tie these tracks and artists together: 1) Storytelling. Rap (at least some mainstream rap like Tone Loc and Will Smith) had this thing for telling long, cheeky stories about mishaps and misadventures. Rap is still a narrative medium, but it is often hard, edgy, braggy, and in your face. LL Cool J's "Mama Said Knock You Out" (not to mention Easy-E and NWA) is kind of a precursor to all that. But compared to much of contemporary rap and hip hop, Will Smith's "Parents Just Don't Understand" astounds me in its kind of wide-eyed, countrified middle-class tameness. That could be due to Smith himself as an artist at that point in his career, or the fact that these artists are being promoted by major labels with certain target audiences and the resulting self-censorship requirements. 2) All three of these rappers went on to launch extensive acting careers. Although I think it's safe to say that Smith's is a bit more successful and respectable.

And don't forget to vote for your guiltiest pleasure and then comment on your criteria for voting. Sentiment? Shame? Deliciousness? Mmmmmmm.


Tone Loc - "Funky Cold Medina"

Okay, this could be kind of creepy, but please note that it's from the pre-roofie era. Remember: innocence. And a careful examination of the lyrics reveal a fair amoung of raciness (caution sensitive readers), but no malintent on Tone's part. Just good old-fashioned fun. Tone Loc's voice is indescribably cool, a voice that turns every word into gravelly butter. "This is the 80's and I'm down with the ladies," and many, many other lyrical gems abound. Look for Tone in classics like Surf Ninjas, Spy Hard and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.

	Tone Loc - Funky Cold Medina
	Found at skreemr.com

LL Cool J - "Mama Said Knock You Out"

"EXPLOSIONSSSSS" and "lyrics that'll make you call the cops." In 1991 it worked for me. And let's face it, it still does. Definitely working in a diffent sub-genre than Loc and Smith. And nice abs.




DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince (Will Smith) - "Parents Just Don't Understand"

Hey Mr. Big Film Star. What do you have to say about this?

Just enjoy. Although, for some reason embedding for this vid has been disabled by You Tube. So you get a link instead.


And if you still want more, here's In Living Color's very funny parody of LL Cool J:

One Man Losing Machine, Utah's MVP, Makes You Scratch Your Head, Mr. One Look, The Whole Field Is My Blind Spot, I Only Have Eyes For Collie

Max Hall.

I'll throw you under the bus tonight. But we can be friends again tomorrow.

Oh! Awwwww.

I'm sure many people have heard of the astronaut who lost a tool bag in space the other day

but I just wanted to say, the more I think about it the funnier it becomes.

Observe: You train your entire life. You run miles and miles, sit through hours of meetings, throw up in planes, build up your resistance to G-forces. You're constantly studying and are forced to open every aspect of your life like a book. You are probed and poked and interrogated. You're given simulations and scenarios and you struggle through them a thousand times. You learn to love Tang and powdered ice cream. Then one day you fly up into space and walk out into the dazzling light with your trusty tool bag. You turn around for one second--ONE SECOND--to wipe up a dab of grease and ZAP! Your tool bag wanders off into orbit and you've just blown the first and maybe only mission of your little astronaut life. Within a few hours people on earth are laughing and shaking their heads and leaning back in their swivel chairs to ask their cubemates if they heard about that astronaut who flubbed the spacewalk and sent her wrench set on the slow train to Alpha Centari. Every Jim, Frank and John is walking around sneering to their friends and saying, "Geez, well they could have sent me up. I'm no 'astronaut,' but I could have probably tied up my tools. You know?"

Sorry, nice astronaut lady. It could have happened to anyone.

Pardon Me

With Bush leaving office, talk about federal pardons is heating up. Apparently, Bush has used his pardon less than any other President in recent memory. So he is, of course, being criticized both for his choice of pardons, and for not using his pardon powers enough.

Despite its potential for abuse, I like the executive pardon power. At it's best it speaks of mercy and the ability for an unfathomably huge bureaucracy to act in an intimately compassionate way. And, we get a little taste of what it might be like to have a King!

Anyway, what I really wanted to do was link to this. If you're short on time, skip down to the section called "Still in Prison" for some disturbing examples of people who should probably be pardoned, or at least have their sentences commuted.

Reminds me how thankful I am I didn't get into the lobster business.

Guilty Pleasures Episode One

Inspired by J. Lindo, I would like to start a periodically recurring post on this blog. It also has to do with music. I call it "Guilty Pleasures." We all have them: songs or artists that we outwardly mock or dismiss but which we secretly love. Whether that love is spurred on by nostalgia or just a musical proclivity that we would try to hide from our hip friends, we can't help but feel a bit ashamed. And the shame is part of what makes us indulge in it all the more. ("Come here, Hall and Oates' "Kiss on My List" 12" single from my parents' record collection, you make me feel so dirty! Shhhhhh!")

So without further delay, I bring you today's three contestants in the first installment of Guilty Pleasures. Today's theme is Never Give Up: Songs of Inspiration. Don't forget to vote on your favorite. (See poll on sidebar.)

Journey - "Don't Stop Believing": I know. Many of you feel no shame in stopping and singing along to this one when you catch it on the classic rock radio station (for the fifth time that day) as you're cruising the dial. I do it all the time. But never with a straight face, and always while trying to tamp down that embarrassingly real feeling welling up in my heart that says, "Don't stop, Joe! Don't stop believing! You will make it!" (I also have to ask myself, "Who are the streetlight people?")

	Journey - Don't Stop Believin'
	Found at skreemr.com

Chumbawamba - "Tubthumping": First of all, how many people actually know the title of this song is "Tubthumping"? Up until five minutes ago I thought it was "I Get Knocked Down." Where is Chumbawamba these days? Probably trying to figure out how to recreate the fame created by these four-minutes of shoulder-bopping indulgence. I've never heard a sweeter voice sing the words, "Pissing the night away . . ."

	Chumbawamba - Tubthumping
	Found at skreemr.com

Joe Esposito - "You're the Best": From 1985's Karate Kid soundtrack. In the movie, it plays during a musical montage at the final karate tournament. Do yourself a favor and listen to this all the way through. Picture Ralph Macchio with a clenched fist and the sneering face of that blond-haired bully dude. Think of every ten-year-old boy who has been picked on and then dreamed of crane-kicking their tormentors into Canada while this song plays in the background. Is your heart racing yet? Guilty as charged. "Fight 'till the end, cause your life will depend, on the strength that you have inside you!"

	Joe 'Bean' Esposito - You're The Best
	Found at skreemr.com

Okay, now is your chance to vote for your favorite guilty pleasure, then comment on why you voted the way you did. What was your criteria for voting? Sentimentality? Level of guilt evoked? Musical aptitude? Your vote counts!

"So I got that going for me. Which is nice."

Friday my mind starts to wander to things like this:



Carl Spackler (Bill Murray) in Caddyshack explains his experience caddying for the Dali Lama, or "The Lamba."

On Sarah Palin

Let me just say that I do not despise or even dislike Governor Sarah Palin. I was, as many were, more than a little grossed out by the way she was immediately slandered, upon her arrival on the national scene, by rabid pundits and celebrity doofuses (doofi?). However, I cannot escape the opinion that she, for all her niceties and her refreshing status as a legitimate outsider, would be an odd and even disconcerting figure on the vice presidential throne.

Witness these two passages from Fareed Zakaria's Newsweek column this week:

1) Regarding her qualifications to influence foreign policy and her delicate understanding of our relationship with Russia:

"It's very important when you consider even national-security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America. Where—where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to—to our state."

Ummm. Wow.

2) And this exchange with Katie Couric about the blahblah economic meltdown blahblah:

COURIC: Why isn't it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries; allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

PALIN: That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the—it's got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

It made about as much sense as this infamous answer.

Again, I do not think Sarah Palin is stupid, or incompetent, or lame. And I'm sure that going from backwoods pol to primetime news would be shocking, difficult, and lend itself to bouts of nervousness and stammering. With the cameras rolling and the lights in my eyes, I probably wouldn't have done much better. (Okay, so I don't really believe that. I think I could have come up with something at least a little more coherent.) But I'm not a VP candidate. And I know we don't vote for VP candidates. But it does make you think . . .

And yes her performance in the debate tonight was generally acceptable. But it was plain to see that she had her script and anything beyond that was just too much to handle; she would quickly retreat to the emphatic catchphrasing about "mavericks" and "taxes" and "jobs." She was charming enough and drew some laughs, but by the end of the hour her repetitive answers were starting to feel shallow. Bottom line: she's just not "qualified" for the position. Period.

Now, I tend to agree with the conventional wisdom that Biden is kind of a jerk and a schmooze. Palin seems sweet and probably down-to-earth and surely someone I share more common experiences with. But does that mean I should vote for her ticket? I don't know. I do have a hard time bucking the feeling that I should vote for "nice" people. People who haven't spent a lifetime working the room and raising money for political campaigns. People who donate to charity. People who allow their faith to be a real power in their lives (although I think this can be problematic as well). But is all that a smart litmus test for a national election? I'm not so sure.

Real Space Age Technology

I tried posting this a while back but it didn't really fly (pardon the pun). I'll try again, because I think you'll see that:

a) We were so wonderfully naive in 1985. No one cared that video game graphics consisted of lots of right angles, and we could watch a commercial comparing a minivan to the space shuttle without a whole lot of irony. The future was a field of boundless possibilities!

b) There's no way anyone ever took a corner in an Aerostar going that fast. I know this. Our family owned two, and I turned 16 during the reign of the Blue One. (The Blue One was subsequently wrecked during a Nevada blizzard in January of 2002. I admit, I was at the wheel. My new bride was in the passenger seat, and my dear father was sleeping on the middle bench. The back was stuffed with stemware and small kitchen applicances. All humans and appliances survived swimmingly. I came three millimeters from having a screw in my skull. My dad bounced off the ceiling one time and tweaked his neck a bit. Thank you three-feet-deep gravel on the shoulder of eastbound I-80.)

I hope it works this time. Enjoy:

Bernanke: Approve Bailout or Risk Recession

Reads the AP headline. That was the latest threat from the Grand Poobah of Finance. I, for one, say let's risk (oh no, risk!, as if that ever stopped anyone in a corner office) the recession. Is the free market really free? Is capitalism, in the words of George Will, a system of individual gain and loss? Or just all gain all the time? I understand that the implosion of giant corporations entails a certain amount of collateral damage. I understand that I am a man of little means and my retirement isn't tied up in this alleged mess. I understand that I really don't understand anything about the twisted logic of global finance and speculative trading (aka legalized gambling). So all you eggheads can go ahead and set me straight. I'm sure someone will be able to tell me how these companies were indirectly responsible for the overall prosperity of the nation over the last ten years, that it all trickles down, and that these noble companies were taking on all the risk for little old me and now I want to have it both ways by punishing them for our collective greed.

So, fine. Let's pull the trigger. But I will tell you this: I don't want to hear any more preaching about government regulation of economic resources. No more drawing a halo and wings on the "free market." No more romanticization of the private sector, no more griping about welfare. Whether it's necessary or not, this is welfare in a tuxedo. This is "redistribution of wealth" (gasp!)

We can spend billions on this bailout but we can't guarantee our citizens basic health care? Don't get me wrong, overall I like our economic system, I think it works pretty good. But it is what it is. Sometimes it doesn't work all that well. And now we're gonna cry about it. Now we want that other system: the one where someone takes care of us. The one where the many take care of the few. The one where public money subsidizes private risk.

Fine. Let's throw 700 billion at them. But no more pretensions. We are a social democracy, not some pure market democracy, and not some libertarian paradise where everyone rises and falls on their own merits, and where charity is meted out by private parties and the government steers clear. I hope that now we can just accept this and move on.

UPDATE:

9/24/08
Interesting footnote: An open letter from prominent economists to Congress.

Also, I really am serious about being persuaded by someone smarter than me (in layman's language, of course) why the bailout is a good idea. The rant is for provocation and good blog copy, but I'm still open to new perspectives.

Praying with RJ

I know blogging about how cute your kids are is s000 cyber-provincial and so very easy, etc., etc., but this is an entry about how cute (and strange) my kids are, so turn back if you must:

We try to pray with RJ nightly. She has a way of praying now that makes me so happy. She hardly ever "asks" for anything or says "thank you," but she hears us doing that, and for now I think we feel like we just want to encourage this space of comfort she seems to have found inside the prayer. She just sort of talks . . . and talks . . . recounting her day, making exclamations ("And then tomorrow Grandma is coming to the airport!"), and issuing evaluations ("Mommy is sooooo nice." "Baby Joe was naughty 'cause he was screaming.").

She also fixates on things. Here is a nearly verbatim excerpt from the other night:

"Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Heavenly Father, the cake is all gone. We had it all gone! I want that we have some more, but we can't because it's all out. I wish it was still up. Yeah. We were sad. And we were crying. And we said, "The cake is all gone so mommy can make some more. Uhuh?'"

Really, we did have cake. And it was all gone (as far as she knew). But she really didn't make too big a deal of it at the time. And she didn't cry. But it's so incredible to see her try to interpret and order her experiences after the fact. It's like we get to see what's going on inside of that little head of hers, when asking her that question point blank usually brings mixed results. ("RJ, what are you thinking about?" "Ummmm.......doggies!")

So after listening to her go on about cake for almost a minute, I started to crack. Sometimes Em and I both have teeth marks on our arms from biting them so hard during prayer. This time, though, I snorted, in a muffled sort of way but she heard it and then started going on for another minute about how "Daddy is so funny, huh? He's a funny guy because he like to laugh, huh?" The implied third person in this kind of conversation is what touches me so. As if God is nodding his head and saying, "Yup, he sure is. And he's lucky you're around or I'd have offed him years ago."

Yeah. Cute.

Oh, and so is this guy:

Quote of the Day

"For in spite of itself any movement that thinks and acts in terms of an 'ism becomes so involved in reaction against other 'isms that it is unwittingly controlled by them. For it then forms its principles by reaction against them instead of by a comprehensive, constructive survey of actual needs, problems, and possibilities."
- John Dewey

Here, then, is something that might guide us, until it becomes an 'ism itself. Let us call it, antiism. Never before has the double-i looked so good, certainly not since Hawaii was discovered by Napoleon in 1924. I'm not saying let's purge the suffix "ism" from the language. But we could be like those people who continue to surf even though they lost both legs in a shark attack and now have to use a special surfboard with molded stump-slots. We realize that we will never actually "surf" again, but persist in the evolution of a new sport (sturping?) that is more humble and interesting than the original, not to mention more difficult, if somewhat less graceful.

'Isms should be like lawnmowers: useful but ultimately disposable. And even though your neighbor's may be shiny, rusty, fast, slow, gas, electric, push or ride, at the end of the day, it still does basically the same thing. I'm not talking about relativism. I'm not saying all lawn mowers are equal. I'm talking about the recognition that transcendence probably won't be found in any human interpretation of a reality that is hemmed in by geography, history, or biology. And that goes for Mormonism as well, as a historically situated institution on earth. As a mediator between me and the divine/ideal (yes, I believe in a God of parts and passions, I've just got a bad jargon habit), it's the best thing going right now. It is a bright repository of divine revelation. It is a tool of maximum efficiency. But if the circle is "Truth", then it is still inside of the circle. It is not the circle itself.

It's good to be inside the circle. It's expansive and humanizing. It keeps us connected us to the people and ideas around us, and makes for a lot of beautiful improvisation.

Don't ask me where this post came from. I must have swallowed a lotus flower last night.

Still Here

Yes, things are going just fine here in Ohio. Got the kids out for a little fresh air today. Weeded the roof. Tomorrow is canteen day! E's potatoe pancakes were perfect for the third week in a row. It really doesn't get any better than this.

RJ's Top Ten Two-year-old Things To Say

10. "Daddy go peepee on the potty?" (This is not a request for me to go peepee on the potty.)

9. "Ehwanam some milk."

8. "Ohhhh soooo preeetty."

7. "Daddy do it?"

6. "No hanks." (As in "no thanks.")

5. "M'kaaay." (Think the school counselor in South Park.)

4. "Mmm watch a videeeo?"

3. "Zzzzzzip!"

2. "Bye-bye." (Said in a low whisper when you put her down to sleep. I've been trying to get her to say "Nigh-night Dada," but she insists on doing this little half smile and whispering, "bye-bye." Kind of creepy.)

1. Sorry. So cliche. You guessed it, the answer to any and every request: "Noo!"

Bricks

There are a lot of bricks around here. A lot of bricks. They seem to show up everywhere: on the streets, on the walls, the walks, patios. I can't decide if they color the air, and if the overall effect is warm or chilling. There is a tight formality in the way bricks fit together on a street, no mortar, just red and purple blocks lying together like prisoners, jutting out here and there, waiting for the ground underneath to sway and knock them free. But bricks in general are slow. They don't appear in long swaths like asphalt, or flow out the end of a pipe like concrete. They take their time. They don't care if your car shakes off its fenders when you drive over them. They sit back and talk about Sunday sermons and shade, mustaches and timepieces. Some were born yesterday, and some just won't die. I'm sure I fall somewhere in the middle.

Now Broadcasting

In this brave new world, there are few advantages as precious as having your own radio station. (At least for us poor saps still without ipods.) So, if you want to groove and you're online, check mine out here.

You can get your own radio station too, just go sign up at http://launch.yahoo.com. It takes awhile to train your station to play what you like. I apologize if mine still airs some complete crap every once in awhile. I realize it's just a computer program, but I can't help but feel offended when Trace Adkins starts crooning.

Computer: Here's some Trace Adkins, Joe. You know you like it.

Me: No I don't, shut up. I'm cooler than that.

Computer: I dare you to skip it before someone you respect walks in.

Me: I will. And don't ever play that crap again, or I'll, I'll . . . I'll shut you down. Yes, I'll shut you down! And I'll be the one who decides when to turn you back on.

Computer: Fine. But don't think this is the end. There are a whole slew of country pop icons out there for me to choose from. I'd think twice before starting a ground war with Yahoo!'s extensive music catalog. You fool, if George Strait and Kenny Chesney don't get you, then the Christian Rap and New Jack Swing will. I'll go Easy Listening all over your #%@!

Me: Uhhhhh . . . I . . . I'm sorry.

Computer: Accepted. So, got any Duster?

Me: Yeah, sure. And, do you think you could play some more Rita Coolidge?

Computer: (smiling) I won't tell anyone.

Me: Thanks.

Rock Bottom

You know you've hit rock bottom when you find yourself in a darkened aisle on the second floor of the library, browsing through volumes of The Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyc.

I was looking for something I had read once about driveaway companies, services for getting your car from point A to point B without having to drive it. Basically, you pay some schmoe to joyride your vehicle across the country, while his only deterrent from motoring to Alaska and/or blowing it up is a $200 security deposit.

How can you not love a book whose slogan is "Promoting Thrift as a Viable Alternative Lifestyle," and whose cover offers tantalizing headlines like "Fool-proof yogurt making," "Diet on the cheap," "Economize with antiques," and "Mass-produce pies." I very much especially like the generic casserole recipe on page 47 (italicized comments are mine):

1 cup main ingredient (meat)
1 cup second ingredient (vegetable)
1-2 cups starchy ingredient (potatoes, noodles, rice, etc.)
1 1/2 cups binder (see below)
1/4 cup "goodie" (I'm not telling, but the sky's the limit!)
Seasoning
Topping

What is a "binder," you say? Elmer's glue? (According to the Gazette, binder suggestions include "cream sauce, sour cream, can of soup.") Alright poor people, get your leftovers out and let it rip. We're having "ingredient" casserole tonight! Post your creations to this blog. No need to actually make it in the kitchen. We'll do a virtual taste test, and the winner gets an entire cup of "goodies" sent via snail mail by yours truly! Don't think I'm serious? Try me.

Happy concocting!

Lips detaching from face

I've built up a good store of useless judgment and have worked hard enough today that I don't feel guilty letting it out in blog form.

Pirates

A big disappointment like you knew it would be.

Favorite character: stain-toothed voodoo lady. There's something strangely seductive about her, not in a particularly sexual way, that's probably part of it, but I just want to keep watching her. The sound of her voice, that iceberg grin, just understated, unlike anything I've ever seen. What an intriguing human form, absolutely delightful to observe.

Second favorite: Davey Jones. More interesting than any of the non-CG leads.

Worst ending. Yes, jaw-popping sets, props and gags. A few perfect lines from J Depp. But other than that a bewildering, unwieldly story with surprisingly little at stake and too many careless moments. One question: What the crap is going on with the heart? Am I supposed to care? It was discovered and then changed hands twice without contributing anything significant to the narrative? What was all the trouble about again? Oh yeah, it's a bloody, beating, disembodied heart. Throw it in a bag and forget about it for the last 30 minutes of the movie while Keira Knightley tries to make her lips jump off of her face and stick to an unsexed Johnny Depp who then jumps into the mouth of a grainy green-screen Return-of-the-Jedi sphincter monster while the oh-so-convincingly sad remaining cast retreats to their bayou "sanctuary" only to be greeted by a cameo of apple-eating Geoffrey Rush who I guess had been in cryogenic storage for the previous 3 hours. Orlando who? I could hardly tear myself away from his hearbreaking dad/son scene: "Don't try to but into my life now, dad. I rise above your pirate ways." - "I never wanted this for you son" - "Oh come here youuuu."

Cabela's

A truly magical place, despite all the instruments of death and torture. I threw caution to the wind and embraced the taxidermy in all it's postmodern glory. There are plenty of live moose in the world, it's just that I'll probably never get a chance to see them without considerable time and effort and hey, let's face it, moose-watching isn't at the top of my list of do-before-I-die activities.

I even lent my support by buying two camping pads. My justification was that there is no Cabela's in Ohio and we're probably going to want to do a lot of camping in the Appalachians. And by a lot, I mean at least once. I also bought Cabela's brand beef jerky for a little backpacking adventure this weekend with Scott and his two oldest boys. I never buy beef jerky, but it just seemed like the right thing to do. Again, the magic.

Should I lie and say I didn't want a gun? I won't. There were hundreds, nay, thousands of them. All my life I've grown up knowing that guns are for hicks and criminals, and that owning one would be far more trouble that it's worth. I'm 28 and I've never shaken the feeling that I'm too young to own a firearm. Guns aren't for kids. And yet here comes the guy behind the counter talking to me like I'm his equal, saying, "What can we do so that you walk out of here today with something?" I almost ponied up and acted the part. I wanted to. Wanted to walk out with a big silver glock pressed against my palm, or a shotgun slung over my shoulder. Didn't know what I would do with it, but wanted the world to know, for a moment, that I could figure something out. Shooting watermelons, or street signs, or aliens. I'd figure something out.