I figured a few months ago when my friend Andrew asked if I was interested in playing on a team with a bunch of other bartenders and bar regulars, it’d be a good idea because at least I wouldn’t be the only one smoking on the sidelines at halftime.  As the season progressed, though, I realized that I was actually enjoying the game and the people that I play with and against — it’s not nearly as competitive and testosterone-bloated as the games I was playing ten years ago, when I decided that I was too old and not nearly competitive enough to be playing anymore.

Not to mention the fact that I got in better shape faster than I expected.  I still won’t be running a marathon anytime soon, but my endurance came back so that — in spite of a pulled quad muscle that I really shouldn’t have run on today like I did — I lasted about 60 minutes of the 90 without hurting for air (or passing out, or vomiting, etc.).  It’s a good feeling, and I’m hoping to do enough this summer so that when the next season begins (Labor Day, I think), I’ll be ready to play the full 90 at closer to top speed.

It’s good to be back.  As long as I don’t do something to myself that makes me regret not having health insurance…

One of my best friends has had to deal with more than his fair share of loss in the past year, and at an age that no one should have to face a single death, much less multiples. And while I grieve for those who have left us, and miss them, it is him that I feel the most for, as I watch him struggle to heal and move on and continue to do what the others cannot: live.

No-Man’s new CD Schoolyard Ghosts happened by coincidence to arrive in my mailbox today, and it couldn’t have been more fitting:

you survived another winter.
you survived where nothing grew.

the days felt cold and never changing,
so you just slept the whole way through.

when you think about the future,
it’s like the past, but hard and small.

an old idea you stole from someone.
a borrowed dream that’s born to fall.

—————————-

take a taxi through the snow
tell them you love them,
don’t let go.

through the tunnel moving slow,
tonight’s there’s nowhere
you won’t go.

you survived yourself.
you survived inside the lost world.
the dreams of love repeat.

subways sing with heated calls –
the g-string sirens walking tall.
summer fires turn winter dreams.
an old romantic’s hotshot schemes.

you survived yourself.
you survived inside the lost world.
the ghosts of harm retreat.

—————————-

sweet surrender to the night.
sweet surrender to the light.
the dreams of love repeat.

Celebrate the lives of those around you today, and celebrate your own life before there are holes of your own that you have to deal with.  And don’t forget to tell the people you love that you do, because every chance to do so might be your last. But don’t dwell on the inevitable; try instead to appreciate the finite.

Could Lamont “Action” Williams have teamed up with “Women’s Voices Women Vote,” the reportedly pro-Clinton group that has admitted responsibility for the calls? If so, was it part of getting the word out about his candidacy? Has Lamont “Action” Williams been offered a VP slot? Regardless of his involvement, I’m going to take a good hard look at this wrestler candidate. He may have just stolen my heart, and my vote.

Also at NPR (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90114863).

And no, I don’t think Hillary is necessarily behind this, but if her supporters are this bad, then I don’t want to be counted among them.

Robert Downey: never a better casting choice ever, except maybe Michael Caine as Alfred. Tony Stark seemed to me to be a character that no one could pull-off, because he walks a fine line between charming billionaire playboy and total douchebag (even prior to the recent Civil War character changes).  Downey has the perfect take, though, and you can’t help but like him.

The writing and Downey and Gwenyth Paltrow make for possibly the best ever onscreen super-hero romance. Not too much, not too little.

The movie itself: nothing short of brilliant.  Tons of tiny things for comic nerds like me to notice, excellent effects, and a perfect mix of real-world and pop-art fantasy.  Spot-on music choices.  If this is a sign of the increase in quality we’ll be seeing now that Marvel has more control over their movies, then the future looks good.

If there’s one complaint I have, it’s that I kept waiting for Obidiah Stane to fix himself a White Russian.  But maybe I’ve just watched The Big Liebowski too many times.

Oh, and a hint — stick around after the credits.  Wait it out — it’s so beyond worth it.

What could distract you from the size of Christina Ricci’s forehead?

Remote controlled cars + Nintendo nostalgia + WAAAAAY too much time on their hands:

http://view.break.com/487616

For Cyn:

Kittens-Coca Cola Box

And lastly, bestly: Bill O’Reilly is now lobbing softballs for Keith Olbermann. Proof? He claims that “We didn’t invade Iraq.” (via Digg)

Shut up and think of something more important to say…
‘Sometimes I think that in every straight there’s a gay!’ Something or nothing a whole either way it’s a way,
it’s a way, it’s a way, it’s a way, it’s a way
EARTH DAY, EARTH DAY, EARTH DAY, EARTH DAY
it’s a way, it’s a way, it’s a way, it’s a way
EARTH DAY, EARTH DAY, EARTH DAY, EARTH DAY

Go buy it now.

In other news, I don’t want to hear anyone tell me I’m a good bassist for at least a week. Thanks to Steven McCullough from the Big Tasties (who should be sitting in with us tonight for a little birthday treat to him), I’ve been listening to the Bill Withers classic Use Me for the past hour. Granted, I’ve never been into soul or funk, and that’s SOOOOOOOOOO to my detriment as a bassist, because gadDAMN! - THIS is a bassline.

And now I hate myself, just for a little while.

There’s a magic in Vonnegut’s writing that I’ve never found in any other. I’ve found many an author that can take me in, that can transport me and move me, but no other can touch my (cliche? why not?) soul like the late KVJ. Walking away from a reading of some of his books leaves that same ethereal, other-worldly, drugged feeling that I go coming out of my first theatrical viewings of The Matrix and Memento. Sure, I’ve got plenty of movies that I’ve loved in my life, but so very few that profoundly affected me on a core for which I have no words.

There were a few of his books — like Cat’s Cradle, maybe, or a few of the shorts in Welcome to the Monkey House — that, as wonderful as they were, didn’t hit me any harder than my other favorites (Palahniuk, McCammon, King), but at the top of his game, Vonnegut is king, and the posthumous Armageddon in Retrospect is a fitting memorial landmark for his kingdom.

Before reading the short fiction and essays collected in Armageddon, it’s best to have read Slaughterhouse Five, his absurdist novel memoir of his experience as a POW who survived the Allied firebombing of Dresden, Germany in 1945. The two work wonderfully together to show, both through the words and the tone, the effects and the horror of war. None of this comes across as preachy, though it definitely has a distinct point of view.

After reading Armageddon, it seems a lot clearer to me why so many politicians who have never seen combat (or served in anything more dangerous than a Guard reserve unit) have no reservations about sending people into war for any reason other than absolute necessity. I think that if more people in positions of power had seen and experienced anything even remotely close to what obviously shaped so much of Vonnegut’s life, then a number of conflicts (such as we are currently engaged in in Iraq, for instance) would never have happened, and uncountable decisions in the course of wars might be a little better considered.

Perhaps those sitting in higher places should be forced to read and memorize both Armageddon in Retrospect and Slaughterhouse Five, as well as the tragically overlooked and underrated Timequake (in which the entire world is forced to relive ten years in realtime, both successes and tragedies). Maybe then they’d be more careful (and not to imply that all wars are based on cavalier decisions, though I’m certain that there are a few of those) about considering the costs of their goals, and whether the two balance in the end.

But probably not, because there are other things at stake besides regret and understanding atrocity, like oil rights and the wants of their cronies.

So it goes.

Rest well, Kurt, and know that you made a mark on at least one of us.

Defenestration. Ah, good times.

I can get the low string, fine (the C for you cellists; for my purposes, I’ve dropped it to a B). It’s every other string, and especially trying to change strings in the midst of playing. Plus, I’ve totally missing out on the dynamics.

I suppose I’m going to have to give in a take a lesson or two, if I can find a cello player / teacher here in town for cheap enough. And willing to teach me just the basics, skipping things like “notes” and all that other theory stuff that I already taught myself.

Sigh. But if I can make music like this, it’s totally worth it:

(Look, cello and 24! You can’t beat it.)

Now watching: Apocalyptica (I may not be learning enough, but at least I can enjoy listening)

It is cacophony at its most beautiful, this place. Jarring chainsaw guitars and guttural vocals assault you from the speakers mounted in every corner. The crack of pool balls makes you wince every time you’re not listening to the airy hiss of a freshly opened beer bottle. There’s laughter, of course – the hoarse cackling of old men telling jokes about homosexuals and stories about the ball and chain. Every so often (quite often, honestly), a profanity becomes a louder string of profanity, which then mutates into the sharp room silencer of broken glass on the bar or a table, which in turn becomes the growling scream of police sirens and ambulances and lawyers rubbing their cricket legs together while they count your hard-earned cash and listen to you swear that you were only there for one stupid drink before you went home to the screaming kids and the screaming cow of a wife.

This is one of those moments. Witness the life span:

The birth is a slow and beautiful thing, a masse shot from an expensive hand-made cue. The cue ball shoots hard to the left and, suddenly becoming aware of its rotation and the laws of physics, straightens its path and rolls forward. It traces a slow and lazy arc around the fifteen ball, ignoring the nine and the eleven, and taps the eight, menacing black eight, the hard crack of rock on rock. In a magical transfer of power, the cue stops moving with a sigh, and the eight assumes its path, forward four inches and into the corner pocket, moving across a six-year-old beer stain without a care in the world.

The tall man leaning against the broken pinball machine utters a word under his breath. The winning player whips his head hard toward the tall man, a glint of yellow fluorescent bouncing off of his head as he turns. “What’d you say?”

The tall man grins slightly as he raises his eyes from the newly occupied pocket to meet the lazy eye of the bald man. He repeats the word, louder, a dash of anger in his voice: “Bullshit.”

The doctor slaps the baby, and the moment takes its first breath.

Adolescence and the teen years fly by like they always do. There are words, words that make parents wince and shrug and point at in-laws as the source of learning. There are lies and accusations and threats of punishment. There are nervous breaths and first steps and the pain of teething.

Baby’s first fuck you.

It is in those wonderful steps into adulthood that the moment reveals its true potential, that real snowflake uniqueness that all moments have. There’s something special about the blur of the expensive hand-made cue as it moves from floor toward the tall man’s jaw, about the tall man leaning quickly to one side to avoid the stick, long dirty hair brushing the impromptu weapon as it moves on its way. It’s a slow-motion special, a frozen in memory special — a real Polaroid moment. The butt of the cue continues upward, inertia claiming its ground, and the bearer of the cue falters, arms swinging farther than intended. The tall man snaps immediately back to the ready, poker faced behind blonde wisps.

He’s been waiting for this moment all his life.

At the very least, he’s been waiting since he got cut off at the bar.

If the moment had parents, they would bristle with absurd pride at the connection of fist and throat, gaudily ringed fingers searching for and finding the pronounced Adam’s apple. They would cheer as the moment walked the stage of graduation, hands clapping moronically as gaunt fingers slammed a bald head once, twice, three times into stained green felt, and then a fourth into the recently replaced glass top of the broken pinball machine.

Blood on the pool table marks this day on the calendar. All the tables get together after hours and compare stories.

The moment’s adulthood and middle-age and elder years pass in a blur, as they all do. The best times of its short-life are behind, after all, all over but the funeral and the taxes. More blood, urine from a bladder that loses control, teeth spit out through bitter lips, hearing loss from the kick to the temple and the good eye swollen shut.

Old age can suck. But old age can bring acceptance of dusk, of the coming of night, and the moment feels its time coming to a close. The bald kid with the lazy eye and the neglectful stepfather who fed him beer at ten to forge a bond – he’s on the ground, not moving as much as twitching. The tall man with the acne scars and the bad tattoos and the trail of broken hearts and collarbones a mile long, that man stands and stares at the pulp at his feet. And the crowd has grown quiet, except for the speed metal symphony and one girl crying, sobbing, whimpering.

You might think the silence is shock. You’d be wrong, though, but you’re forgiven for that; you’ve just forgotten where you are.

No, this isn’t shock. This is respect, recognition of the passing of a moment.

Gently into the good night it goes, pausing at the door to say hello to the burly policemen, mindful of sudden moves. Those mace cans are filled with nasty stuff.

Also, because this is based on a real incident in my bar.  So, needless to say, ©2005 Insomniactive Productions, and if you copy this without my permission or steal it and claim it as your own, I will release the marmosets on your smallest child.

Unless you’re Warren Ellis or Chuck Palahniuk, in which case, a signed copy of my work as yours will suffice.

I wish I had studied more science in school. As an adult I’ve read a fair number of books about the things that interest me about astronomy. I’ve delved into Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, reread Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries, and now watched THE UNIVERSE. All I can do is skim the surface, though, because I barely paid attention in high school physics (in fairness, it was the class right after lunch, and my adventures in sleep-deprivation due to uncommon biorhythms was well underway by then). Come to think about it, I barely paid attention to anything in high school that didn’t have it’s short-lived place in my window of constantly-shifting interest. That’s why I almost didn’t graduate high school.

I wonder why they don’t teach a class in high school called about living. You could spent a week on not getting into stupid debt by running up credit card balances on drinking and CDs in college. Maybe a week on how things have cause and effect, and things you do will have consequences. A day or two on how you’re not entitled to anything in this world, how karma doesn’t work out for everyone, that bad things happen to good people and vice versa.

Sure, parents and social systems are supposed to be teaching you all this, but have you seen the people that are spawning out in the world lately? I know that there have been bad or negligent parents throughout the history of civilization, but this is ridiculous.

Not to mention that most high school kids wouldn’t pay any more attention in these classes than they do in English. Have you gotten an email from these people lately? You’d think your friends were trying to beat spam monitors as hard as the marketers…

But I’m an experiential learner, more than a vicarious one. I can’t read a manual on how to use a piece of software and understand it enough to make a difference; I have to poke my way though a specific task. I can’t hear my parents say, “Credit cards are bad;” I have to run myself into a dangerous level of debt and live on Ramen noodles and work multiple jobs for years to see what they meant. So it’s not my parents’ fault that I fucked up (in oh-so-many ways). In spite of my best efforts, they did a really good job.

And I recognize that I’ve got to reap what I’ve sown, at least until they make that wormhole that allows me to time travel and fix some things here and there. But it doesn’t stop me from wishing, from time to time, that I had managed my finances instead of mangling them, that I had learned more then about the things I wish I knew now, that I could make things better for the me now by making a few sacrifices and alterations then.

Also, when you fancy suits that paid attention in high-school physics work out that wormhole thing? I’d like to request a feature that allows one to re-experience specific dreams that one can’t necessarily remember when they were dreamt, so I can have that dream of a magnified universe hovering over my night-sky. That was a nice one.

Now listening to Brian Eno’s and Harold Budd’s AMBIENT 2: THE PLATEAUX OF MIRRORS