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brisker · pipes
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About two weeks ago, I received a letter from some company that I'd never heard of, designed to look like a "howdy-do" card. The envelope contained a note saying that the company ran phone surveys on media usage. It also contained a one dollar bill. The dollar, the note read, was to encourage me to answer the phone and talk to them.
A few days later they called me. I told them I wasn't interested in taking their survey. The call lasted all of 30 seconds.
Yesterday I recived another letter, again designed to look like a personal note (even has a persons name and return address on it). This envelope contained a note saying they were sorry they reached me at an inconvenient time, they promised me that they won't try to sell me anything, and they hope that i will take the time to complete the survey next time they call because "surveys help improve products and services for you." This evelope also contained two one dollar bills.
At this rate, nine more rejections and they'll send me a thousand dollars.
I really hope this a survey to find out just how much money it takes before people start answering your survey calls. I'll be freaking rich. |
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I stood in your aisles
Surveyed your rows of music
And gladly joined the ranks of people
Clicky-clacking through CDs
Hoping for something to grab me
Reveal itself as new
In the back room of the old store in Rockville
Before you moved down the strip mall to take up new quarters
I recognized Carol Ann's friend
And talked to her
"You have to hear this band," she said
And played them on the store's overhead speakers
Let me in on a secret
That only she knew
Later that summer,
I went with her to the woods
And became a different me |
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For any of you about to fly, here are the newest screening guidelines.
Just doing my part to help.
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Sitting at home after a lovely weekend, listening to the pleasant surprise of two weeks back: a brand new album from Edie Brickell and New Bohemians. Shooting Rubber Bands at the Stars spent a ridiculous time in rotation in my CD player back in 1988, and I may be one of 25 people who think that Ghost of a Dog matched it for songcraft (and passed it for exuberance). Well, Ghost of a Dog was a long time ago, and despite a few solo albums of pleasantly unexceptional music, Edie's output has mainly been children, three of them apparently, with Paul Simon. New Bohemians have apparently been laying low in Texas doing whatever it is that disappeared bands do in Texas. Until, that is, two weeks ago, when the two came together to spring an album on us.
The album is nice. Mellow and a little bland at first, it seems to be growing on me. Edie's charms remain intact, and the band still mixes a little world beat in with their oh-so-low-burn groove. But it is hard to be objective about something like this. Listening to Edie Brickell and New Bohemians again after so many years mentally plugs me back into younger Matt, crappy high school coat-and-tie, jew-fro-mullet and all. It conjures pictures of me and Mike (now "Michael") Dean hanging out before rehearsal, and then to a chain of high school music and memories. But the music is new and different, older music from an older band, and the memories are the memories of the now me, looking at the events of the then. One of the joys of looking back is the ability to filter out that which was not fun and to linger over that which was, to relive only those moments that made you smile and to imagine that life must have always been so grand, even when it was not. Music is a key to that memory door, certainly not the only key, but one of many, and effective. A mix tape is a time capsule that takes you back to its creation, but a new album is a statement of the present, and a point on the line tracing forward motion through time. When a new point is identified, and the line extended forward, the gaps between points can be admired and understood, even when the gap was never really thought about until the point defined its existence. Somehow hearing this band again, a memory come back to life, forces a reconnection in my head of the me that is and the me that was, and that very act is undeniably joyful.
I need to post more often. I hope you don't mind if I do. I love music, and I love new bands, and I love hearing what people do with notes and rhythm, so I might be writing more about it. There are some wonderful bands coming through Washington over the next few months, and one major music festival taking its intial whirl, so let us see if we can find a few fun things to think about when the music hits us, and makes us think. |
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Scroll across the top of the England vs. Paraguay World Cup game: "Do to World Cup coverage, "That's So Raven" will not be shown at this time, but it will return at its regular time next Saturday..." |
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Or, rather, the dreaded song meme. Yes, I tend to steer clear of the memes, but I really like music, so this one seemed fun. While I'm not a big lyrics person (great with melodies, terrible with lyircs), I'm still jumping on the boat. Here's how it works:
1. Put your playlist on shuffle.
2. Post the first lines to the first 30 songs to come up (along with these instructions).
3. Have people guess the songs and artists in comments to the post.
4. Post the answers to the ones people guessed correctly. A couple of days later, post the first two lines of the ones no one got and get people to guess again.
5. Repeat, adding the next line to the unguessed songs each time, until they're all guessed/you've posted the whole song/you've gotten bored/no-one's going to get the damn thing if you don't tell them.
I'm interpretting "the first line" broadly, cause otherwise some of these would be well nigh impossible. : )
So, then:
Let the games begin. |
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Today is Brent's last day in the office. The fun rumor going around the office is that Brent is leaving to be with his girflriend in Berlin. Brent is, in fact, going to Berlin to be with his girlfriend, so that part is true enough. The rumor, though, seems to ignore the obvious: Brent is not so much leaving to be somewhere as he is leaving to not be here. At least, that's my take. Brent's ready for some livin'. In the three years we've been at the firm together, Brent never had all 3 days of a 3-day weekend off. Well, not until this past one, and that was only because he'd already given his notice. He often worked 2 out of the 3 days, so it's not like he even got a real weekend out of it.
Brent's exit from the office has me thinking about the future too. Ah, a future lived in non-billable chunks. Sounds lovely.... As it is, a suddenly pushed-up deadline could have me in here on Saturday or Sunday, assembling slides for a presentation. Yippee. |
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Yes, Pearl Jam deserved its own entry, and now it gets it. Really, each San Diego day deserved its own entry, but there was not time enough to blog, so San Diego got smushed into one monster entry below. Ah well.
Pearl Jam was good, but not great. For one thing, our seats were waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay across the arena from the band. Now, I've sat in almost these exact same seats for other concerts (I've sat in similar seats at Phish shows on several occassions) and they are usually fine, but for Pearl Jam, well, the energy often failed to reach the corner seats. At a Phish concert, if you can't see the band that well, hey, no biggie. At a Pearl Jam concert, if Eddie Vedder is a poorly lit speck on a faraway stage, you're missing a lot of the action.
But the seats were not the cause of the concert's low energy moments. Pearl Jam has a very big problem: they are a huge band. Too huge, in fact. They have written some amazing, arena-sized music, and they pull an amazing, arena-sized crowd... but the band does not tour very much. They have shied away from their arena-size for so long that they do not have the infrastructure in place to fill an arena with sound and light. Phish toured constantly, so they had years to fine tune their sound system to make sure that they were never, never murky. U2 goes on tour for years when they tour, so they design a light system and a stage that allows them to play to a crowd and entertain even the worst seats in the house. Pearl Jam does not want to be U2 with a stage show and does not tour enough to make the investment of a Phish in a near perfect sound and light system. And so their lighting rig, which dwarfs them on the stage, is in turn dwarfed by the size of the arena. In a smaller place, it no doubt is impressive. In Verizon Center, it looks teeny. Their sound system fails to capture the fullness of their music, at times providing murky bass, but more often losing the high end and sounding constricted, particularly when all 3 guitarists (including Eddie) are playing the same riff. As they play faster and louder, the sound system gets fainter and less full, the exact opposite of the dynamic that they are trying to capture.
How was the show? Sound and light quality aside, the show was good. The band was usually tight and Eddie Vedder sounds amazing. And there is something about hearing an entire arena sing "I just want to scream..... Hellooooooooooooooooooo!" that is a lot of fun. Pearl Jam's best music really is fantastically good stuff, and their ok music is still very good. And they clearly, clearly care, not just about the music, but also about their fans and the world at large. They know they've gotten pretty lucky as far as musicians go and they want the audience to feel their love returned. It would just be easier for us to feel it if they accepted their hugeness and took a step towards upgrading the road show. |
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Yes, I've just returned from the Pearl Jam concert. Frankly, I wanted to title this post with something out of Yellow Ledbetter, since they closed with that, but given that all I can make out of the lyrics to that song are "oh yeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaah, an you see 'em, and i know, and i know, i don't want to stay....," I decided to go with the far stronger "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town."
Very good concert, by the way.
The weekend is a blur. Flew to San Diego Thursday night, put away a solid 300 or so pages of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell during the flight, was picked up by my brother and almost immediately whisked away to Pacific Beach for fish tacos. One mahi, one shrimp, one bite of my brother's fried oyster taco. Damn tasty. By off coincidence, a Rather Large Crew of Seattleans had also landed in San Diego Thursday night to celebrate the 30th birthday of one of their members. They were a tight knit Rather Large Crew and, while they were all rather nice, they were also all very much more into each other and/or their drinks than me. My brother's roommate Ashley, however, was extremely young and extremely endearing, and unbelievably healthy looking. Friday morning, Ryan and I grabbed coffee and bagels before he went into work, and I went to his couch to finish off the last 160 pages of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell . Enjoyable book but, at 782 pages, roughly 300 pages too long. Friday night was a very enjoyable BBQ at the house of one of Ryan's good friends, along with the Rather Large Crew of Seattleans (who shall hereinafter be known as "the RLCoS"). A fantastic BBQ with a built-in deep fryer produced a wealth of delicious french fries and some superb pork chops (yes, "and apple sauce," albeit not from the grill). The U.S.-Venezuela soccer game was watched... then the Mavericks-Suns basketball game (in high-def), then some sort of anything goes fighting league. Many more pleasant conversations with the RLCoS.
Saturday started with a late breakfast out, followed by attending an oustanding Padres-Astros game with a very strange ending (a tag out, pick off at first base on a ball, with 2 men on, the Padres down by 1 run and the clean-up hitter at bat). Shopping at a crazy outdoor mall. X-Men 3. And then, yes, out on the town at some bar with the RLCoS. But - oh ho - we leave the RLCoS to hit another one of Ryan's friends' place, where we watch the Ultimate Fighting Championship (with a Moderately Sized Group of San Diegans ("MSGoSD") who were quite a lot of fun (except for the blonde girl who was passed out on the bed). Then it was off to a clubby club to meet back up with the RLCoS, which was, well, a little tiresome. And finally home to bed.... or, rather, to meet Ryan's current girlfriend and a friend of hers and to wait patiently until they leave so I can go to bed.
Sunday lived it up to its name. Sun. Day. Off to the beach where, hmmmn, Ryan thinks he remembers that some friend of his might be having a beach party or something, maybe it was Saturday... no, there it is, their blue tent. Just us two and one girl. Then another girl shows up. Then a couple, with a grill. Some beer. 30 minutes later there are roughly 35 people milling about our tent, grilling food, drinkiong beer.... and tents like this and groups like this up and down the very crowded beach in each direction, with no one older than 40 in sight. Unbelievable. The MSGoSD show up and sit a conveniently removed location away and two of them and myself start chucking a frisbee as best we can around other GoSD. After many hours of beaching, it's off to meet Ryan's current girlfriend (and friends) at a happy hour, followed by us getting cleaned up and going off to eat dinner at Acqya al 2, the San Diego sister of one of my two favortie restaurants in Firenze. Where we are joined by two girls from L.A. whom Ryan mysteriously knows. The food: Yum yum yum yum. The girls: Yawn yawn yawn yawn. A blissful parting, and home to bed, the better to arise on Monday for my 6:30 a.m. return flight.
San Diego was lovely. I had a great time hanging out with my brother, seeing his office (he runs his own advertising agency), meeting his friends, getting a feel for his life. His life is, well, tiring and way too action filled. It can be hard to spend a lot of time with him, because he likes to fill his time with other people. But he seems to be enjoying himself, and that's definitely a good thing. And the best parts of the trip - the first BBQ, the baseball game, the beach party - were an awful lot of fun. And a night at Acqua al 2 is always good, even if it is in the company of two surface-pleasant L.A. types, with traditional bored/cutting personalities underneath.
Throw in a Monday night of bocce ball and cooking-out, and today's Pearl Jam concert and, man oh man, I'm pooped. So off to bed. If only I had a fish taco before it....
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Well, it's official. The last of my good work buddies to have entered the firm with me has just given his two week notice. There are other people around who I am good friends with, and there are other people around who entered the firm with me, but as far as the overlap of the two groups goes I am the last man standing. One has shipped off to France. One has gone a-clerking. And now Brent is heading off to find his muse and try to do something a bit more personally meaningful. Brent, buddy: I'll miss having you around. I hope you find what you're looking for out there, even if it just turns out to be a bunch of U2 tickets. Brent let me know on Friday that he was giving notice come Monday. I have to admit that it cast a bit of a pall over the weekend. Throw in the poor decision to eat at the Cheesecake Factory yesterday (always tasty going down... but rarely a good call once the greasy bread and fried things try to make friends with my stomach), the hangover on Saturday from a boy's night out with a college friend and his buddies (I've never really had drinking-style "sea-legs," but whatever fascimile I did have seems to have disappeared), and Amanda feelin' like she's coming down with a cold and, well, the weekend was not as joyful as it could have been. I did attend my 15 year high school reunion on Saturday night. A very nice time, despite massively (and predictably) low turnout. I attended a private boys school from 3rd through 12th grade, and my class graduated a total of 52 people. When all you are coming back to see is a bunch of fellas, high school reunions are not high on the agenda. Apparently, only 11 of us still live around Washington... and only 7 of us made it to the reunion. On the plus side, one of the seven was Tony Gerdes, one of the two people that I have not seen since graduation who I really do wish I had kept in touch with. He's become (or perhaps always was) fairly religious and just wrote a book on "faith, family and fishing." I imagine he knows a thing or two about at least two of those things, since he now has SIX children. Yikes. So we've got faith and family down pat... I'm guessing the fishing part comes in when he tries to feed them all. : ) The religious amongst you should feel free to check out his book and report back: Tony Gerdes, "Faith, Family and Fishing: A 21-Day Devotional Journal". The only other thing worth mentioning from this weekend was that Amanda and I spent part of Sunday engaged in a mean bocce ball game. Hopefully the first of many to come.... |
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A large number of bands are touring this summer. Very few of the ones I want to see are coming to DC. As this seems to be a recurring problem, I thought I would throw it out there for discussion. Is DC a crappy music town? Do we not support touring musicians? Do we not have good clubs for them to play in, or venues of the appropriate size? The bands that I am speaking of in this particular case are bigger than the 9:30 Club, but not probably big enough for Verizon Center, but I've seen it with smaller bands too... Radiohead is playing Montreal, Toronto and Philadelphia, but not DC. String Cheese Incident is playing Columbus, Ohio and Kansas City, but not DC. Phil Lesh is playing Hartford and Scranton, but not DC. It's just odd... we are apparently not a major city. How the hell did that happen? |
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Too many things floating through the transom today to pick one to write about. One post begins: "When my family gets together it always does so over food..." and continues on to discuss the many bits of tasty we gathered over this past weekend. One post begins: "On terittoriality: A partner in my office has decided that some of us are too involved with other projects and so has determined to remind us that we belong to her." Good subjects, both. But no. Instead I write this: Why was I supposed to like King Kong? I ask because, well, I watched chunks of the movie last night and, well, the word "chunks" could be used to describe what I saw in an entirely different manner. This was not a good movie. The Peter Jackson hallmarks were there: long looks at beautiful terrain, loving glances of comradeship (hinting at much, much more) between people/creatures (the Samwise/Frodo relationship writ large between woman and monkey), extended cuts of not much happening... all the things that worked in the LOTR trilogy seeming a bit, well, threadworn when applied to a different type of story. There is a big monkey. There is a silly Naomi Watts acting a lot like the character she played in the first part of Mulholland Drive. There is a pouty Adrian Brody looking, well, pouty. There is a monstrously out of place Jack Black looking like he is dying to launch into some kind of comedic riff and not just wryly arch his eyebrows. And there is what appears to be a lot of leftover footage from various Jurassic Park movies... but not quite as realistic looking. So: why were we supposed to like this? Is it because we are supposed to give Peter Jackson the beneift of the doubt after he pulled off the tremendous feat that was the LOTR trilogy? Is it because we are supposed to care about these characters and the love between silly woman and big, fierce monkey? Is it because we are supposed to be thrilled by the action and accept the excessive length as the price we pay for our rip-roaring action sequences (however fake they may seem)? I only saw chunks of the movie because I found it hard to watch. The dialogue was bad, the pacing was bad, the casting was bad, the CGI was often unrealistic (particularly during the "running with dinosaurs" sequence), and the epic-ness was absurd. I couldn't sit and watch the whole movie; I kept finding other things tnat I "had" to do in other rooms (like, say, scooping the kittie litter). Maybe I just missed the point of the movie. But it seemed to me that the big monkey was just a bigger lemon.
Current Music: |
McCoy Tyner - Walk Spirit Talk | |
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I have to admit it: I am enjoying this sudden and unexpected day of gray wetness. The chill is delightful and the blue-gray rainy haze sleep-inducing. If I have to be at work on a Monday, I'd much rather have it be like this than have a beautiful sunny day go a-wasting. This weekend was full of beautiful sunny days (two, to be exact), neither of which went a-wasting. Saturday witnessed the 5th Annual Bottom Feeders Fiesta, and I am happy to report that once again me and my human brethren destroyed our crustacean opponents. Indeed, the crabs hardly put up a fight. Were it not for the fact that they had put themselves in front of us by walking into a very obvious cage-looking contraption, I would have been tempted to feel sorry for them. Well, that and the fact that they are really damn tasty. Sorry, crabbie friends, but know that your death was not in vain. Your destiny of being yummy was fulfilled. Sunday was spent in a very large field in the Virginian boondocks chasing down frisbees and trying to curve them over, under and around other people. I have been playing in an ultimate league this spring after not playing for quite some time and, despite some frustrating tendencies from other people on my team to repeatedly huck the disk waaaaaaaaaaaaaay downfield rather than taking the safer, shorter pass, I had a very nice time. Sunday was especially fun. Very little wind, lots of sun, but not a lot of humidity, and actual grass on the field to cushion our falls (much nice than the dirt/rock combination on our usual fields). My team played very well for one game, pretty well for another 1 and a half games, and not well at all for the other one and a half games we played. Unfortunately, this led to a 1-3 record and left us out of the playoffs. Regardless of our not-as-good-as-hoped-for record, two of our losses were very tightly contested and all of the games were a lot of fun. I am now rather sore and, yes, a bit sleepy. Thanks to all who came out for the crab festivities on Saturday....
Current Mood: |
 mellow |
Current Music: |
Something jazzy | |
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A weekend cleaning bout has left my bedroom without the darkish-greenish-greyish drapes that used to provide darkness. The standard white venetian blinds just can not stand up to the light that bleeds in from Connecticut Avenue at night, much less the actual light of day. But the darkish-greenish-greyish drapes that used to provide darkness also provided a home for the dust and were therefore deemed unattractive by my far-more-knowledgable-about-these-things girlfriend. So away they went. No more darkish-greenish-greyish drapes; no more darkness. We have woken up at 7:00 a.m. the past two days, rising (sort of) with the sun... the "(sort of)" by virtue of what comes next: she moves to the couch and tries to fall back asleep there, shielding herself from the light with either a pillow or kittie on her head; I claim the newly freed bed space and burrow in sheets.
Sheets over head works for a while, but I still have been getting up earlier than normal.
We will supposedly get new drapes soon. But I'm starting to like the light coming in in the morning. It reminds me of Ecuador and rising with the sun. I have no doubt that it will induce me to a better sleep cycle, and may even make it possible for me to work out in the morning. These are good things. Rising with the sun just sounds healthy. Gives you a running start to the day. Wouldn't you get more accomplished with a running start to the day? Instead of rush-rush-rush to shower and then rush-rush-rush to car? No more zombie-walk to work?
Today's ramblings are brought to you on behalf of one toasted everything bagel with roasted red pepper cream cheese and tomatoes and a medium coffee with milk and fake sugar. The bagel people know me. They smile at my approach and ask me how I'm doing and what I want. I ask them how they are as well and then order my bagel. One asian man, one asian woman (slightly older), two latino men, one laid back and funny and the other younger, more anxious, and a little eager to please. The asian man, all business the first few times I went to the store, has become very friendly now that he recognizes me. The more laid back latino man has been giving me sly, conspiratatorial smiles from day one. I need to get their names next time. Apparently, I am a regular, so I had better start acting like it. |
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Ah, St. Patrick's Day. A day to celebrate the joys of kelly green, stout beer and traditional reels. A great day for a jew with no Irish blood whatsoever.
Eh?
Let me explain.
Much as there is a great natural kinship between the Italians and the Jews (Italians are, after all, just a happy band of Jews: we both love to eat, we talk with our hands, and we each have delis), the Jews and the Irish share a common heritage that can be summed up in two words: corned beef. The choice meat of white hardship and poverty, corned beef has served to tie the Irish and Jewish communities together for well over 200 years. Throw in the cabbage and, by god, your traditional Irish feast starts to look an awful lot like my Reuben. Yum.
But these are mere surface ties. What really brings us together is a shared history of woe. Yes, whole generations of Irish had firsthand knowledge of what it meant to have their asses handed to them for their religious beliefs and for just plain being Irish. The ignominy of having one's island overrun by a bunch of English fops is pretty much the stay-at-home version of the Jewish experience of being kicked from country to country.
Add in the traditional Catholic/Jewish guilt. Sprinkle with the goal of establishing self-rule over one's homeland. Add their potatoes to my latkes. Mix a little Hava Nagilah with some Lord of the Dance. Erin Go Braugh and Aaron Goldstein. And the American experience: the Irish became cops; the Jews became laywers. We're all in this together, my law and order-lovin' brethren.
So, yes, I am wearing my Irish Rugby jersey, and I will drink my pint tonight and celebrate this most Irish Pesach. Because I may not have any Irish in me, but I have a wealth of Jew, and that's pretty much the same thing. Sláinte! L'Chaim! And a Happy New Beer. |
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Shane MacGowan may not be dead yet, but he's doing a fine job of getting close to it. Last night at 11:04 p.m. The Pogues took the stage at the 9:30 Club, older, balder, but still a mighty band. But the mightiest man of that once mighty band shambled on with them, a bottle in one hand, a glass in the other, and looking well-nigh 80 years old.
The concert? Fantastic. The band can still play. The music is unmatched, a mix of traditional Irish instruments and melody with punk enthused fervor and fuck-tomorrow heedlessness. The music of men too long at sea finally reaching port and heading straight for the booze and whores. The music of an island of people kept under heel too long their neighbors and their own. Rage, despair, rum, sodomy and, yes, the lash.
But Shane. Oh, Shane... his speech starts slurred, gravelled, unsteady, unclear. He's not sure which microphone to stand at. He sings a bit off the pace of his bandmates at times, pulling apart some of the delicate strands of his songs.
But there's that: His songs. These are his songs. His lyrics. His heart.
If I should fall from grace with God
Where no doctor can relieve me
If I’m buried ’neath the sod
But the angels won’t receive me
Let me go, boys
Let me go, boys
Let me go down in the mud
Where the rivers all run dry
Shane's voice strengthens with the crowd's support. And the crowd understood him - loved him - cheered him and his bottle and his ruined self. This is, after all, what Shane sang about, more than anything else. Ruin. Heartache. Destruction. Booze.
One evening as I was lying down by leicester square
I was picked up by the coppers and kicked in the balls
Between the metal doors at vine street I was beaten and mauled
And they ruined my good looks for the old main drag
In the tube station the old ones who were on the way out
Would dribble and vomit and grovel and shout
And the coppers would come along and push them about
And I wished I could escape from the old main drag
And now I’m lying here I’ve had too much booze
I’ve been shat on and spat on and raped and abused
I know that I am dying and I wish I could beg
For some money to take me from the old main drag
Creation and destruction, so intimately tied together in so many artists that it might as well be cliche. And how must the rest of the band feel, standing there alongside him and knowing his talent, what he was, what they were... and seeing what he has become. What is it like to support a man capable of such creation and self-destruction? To watch his talent waste away into endless empty glasses, brawls and ashtrays, 'til all that is left is a smell of the whiskey and the smoke in your clothing and a scar on your fist.
The bar is still barely standing. It is better than no bar at all. You cannot see The Doors with Jim Morrison. You cannot see the Grateful Dead with Jerry Garcia. You cannot see The Who with Keith Moon.
You cannot see The Pogues with Shane MacGowan, but you can still see pieces of him. And at times that's good enough. |
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Well, I was going to write about The Pogues. Still am, actually, but first I'm going to write about something else entirely: My brother. My brother Ryan has been writing a blog of his own over on myspace.com. Some of it is good, some of it is less so, but he's been posting something every Friday for the past 15 weeks and I figured I ought to link up to it somehow. So here it is: http://blog.myspace.com/ryrantHere's what I find absolutely amazing about his blog: the comments. Not because there are a lot of them, because sometimes there aren't. And not because the comments are particularly well-written, because sometimes they aren't that either. It's who is commenting that makes me go, "huh." The comments all seem to come from a collection of young, healthy, attractive California and New York-lookin' women. Clamoring to tell my brother how wonderful he is. Fawning, even. Ryan Berman, the Ace Young of myspace.com. Who are these people? Are they friends of his? Friends of friends? People from the 6th degree of separation? I don't know... but they sure do seem to like him. Maybe you will too. : ) |
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Literally. Bah - I feel like ass. My voice sounds like I've digested gravel. My ears feel like they are full of cotton. After getting progressively sicker and more stuffed up over the course of a very nice long weekend in Santa Fe (which really is a beautiful town), yesterday's return flight sucked the last of my energy from me and replaced it with a sensation of being in an air-compressed bubble, with the rest of the world just beyond. I see your lips moving, but heaven knows what you are saying.
On top of this ill-surdity, add two drives through the DC Metropolitan area: home from the airport last night, and to work this morning. Last night: on the Dulles non-toll road, in a lane which is turning into an exit only lane, I put my turn signal on to get over to remain on the freeway. The cab that has been hanging out about 10 feet behind me on my left immediately speeds up to try and keep me from coming over. I speed up. He speeds up more. I speed up. He closes the gap to about two feet. With my lane starting to curve off to the right, and me strenuously trying to avoid going with it, I give one final burst of speed, clear back to about three feet, and cut the cab off. I stay on the freeway, he looks at me like I'm an asshole. Let us weigh the assholeness. Him: saw me put on turn signal - while ahead of him - to get in front of him and avoid leaving highway behind and so speeds up to try and cut me off and force me off the highway. Me: Put on turn signal to safely enter his lane, and then had to do it dangerously because he tried to cut me off. Hello? WTF. This morning: more asshole driviness. At 3-way stop sign at T-intersection, waiting to make a right hand turn to head to Rock Creek Parkway. I reach stop sign, look to left. Car is there at stop. He goes. I start to go.... but immediately stop because car directly behind car-that-just-went tailgatedly blows through the stop sign immediately after him. Does it matter that it was my turn to go? Apparently not. Car proceeds to tailgatedly follow 5 feet behind every driver on the Parkway while weaving in and out of small spaces. Later in drive, while exiting circle to get on Pennsylvania, cabbie comes across inner two lanes of circle traffic to cut me off from my turn, stopping circle dead and making me slam on brakes.
Recap: In addition to being legitimately sick and tired, I am also now sick and tired of the massive crappy driving that occurs around me on a daily basis. I had a recent Rock Creek Parkway experience where not one, not two, not three, but _four_ (FOUR!) different drivers simply could not stay in their lanes and came perilously close to flicking me off to the side of the road by weaving into me (2 of them) or crushing me head on (the other 2). Almost every time I drive through Adams Morgan someone flies willy-nilly into oncoming traffic because a car has stopped in front of them. I can't remember the last time traffic stopped when I tried to parallel park instead of barely switching lanes and whizzing by - forcing me to wait for a break to avoid hitting anyone. And that's assuming they don't block me from pulling into the space at all by ignoring the turn signal... and the slowing down next to the space... and me looking over my shoulder _at_ the space. These seem like obvious signs, yes? Apparently, no, unless they are being mistaken for obvious signs that I want you to stop your car one foot behind mine and then gesticulate at me like I am an asshole for not moving out of your way.
Basically, it boils down to this: too many people are driving. Not in a "oh, so much traffic" kind of way. In a "there's supposed to be a test to see if you are _capable_ of driving" way. Driving is not a right. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney. You do not have the right to drive a car. I don't care that you just bought a house out in Sherndon and the only way you can get to work is by driving. If you can't drive, maybe you shouldn't have bought a house so far away. Want to solve the traffic congestion problem? Want to help lessen our reliance on Middle Eastern oil? Want to save countless lives lost in driving accidents? Here's a thought: Revoke 50% of the licenses currently granted. Make the test ridiculously hard. Make it harder to get a license to drive than to be an airline pilot. Someone turns without a turn signal? 1 point on the license. Someone cuts off someone with a turn signal on? Another point. Think its fun to straddle the lanes? 5 points and you're out. Get these idiots off the road before they kill me. Please. |
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A very peaceful Valentine's Day. Made rosemary fingerling sweet potatos, crab cakes (which, alas, were more crab crumbly and less crab cakey than I would have liked), and a creamy-mustardy-corn side/sauce for the crab cakes to rest upon. Very tasty, although a bit, um, richer than I had imagined it would be. Add in a very tasty Pinot, one Amanda, and one persistent kitty and, voila, you have my Valentine's Day dinner. Watched the 40 Year Old Virgin after dinner. It was funny, but I thought it was more just a well-crafted comedy in the modern "Anchorman" mold than anything legitimately inspired. Some good set pieces, but also a lot of fluff, especially towards the end. But the final gag had me in stitches - very unexpected use of a song and dance number that managed to fit very, very well. Lots to do at work today. Better get myself moving...
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...nothing's as precious as a whole in the ground... | |
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DC: Knock knock. HW: Who's there? DC: Dick Cheney. HW: Dick Cheney w- DC: BLAM!!! In true White House fashion, the first official announcement about the Vice-President shooting a hunting buddy: 1) came 24 hours after the incident, 2) only came after national reporters pressed for confirmation that a local media story about the shooting was accurate, and 3) strongly implies that the person who was shot was at fault for not identifying himself when he approached the Vice-President from behind and not, say, the Vice-President's fault for turning 180 degrees and firing at ground level without first checking to see if the coast was clear. I don't know much about hunting, but I sure know obfuscation. By the end of the week, I'm sure someone will have suggested that this is really Hillary's fault. |
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slipperyhodge's journal