Today’s entry is brought to you by the cover of this Dokken album that I willfully purchased within a year of its 1985 release, and listened to regularly on the regular fifty-minute bus trip from Schweinfurt to Würzburg. Indeed, there was a time in my life when I would staunchly defend the artistic merits of the waxy disk within. God, I feel hideous thinking about that. But isn’t it healthy to occasionally confront demons from one’s past, cleaning out the psychological basement of repressed memory for an embarrassment yard sale now that the weather’s getting nice?
Sad to say, this album’s musical quality ranks around the median of the record collection of my youth. Hindsight is 20/20, the adage goes, which gives me a crystal clear view of the river of sonic sewage I allowed to flow through my teenaged years. If the Environmental Protection Agency’s jurisdiction in the mid- to late-eighties included music, my room would easily have been declared a Superfund site.
And such a bizarre combination of noxious ingredients, too. Light inoffensive LPs from Huey Lewis and Men at Work leaning against the acronymous metallic piffle of Y&T and W.A.S.P. Nancy Wilson’s on-cover cleavage had me convinced that Heart’s eponymous album was worth heavy Walkman rotation; to this day, I can still sing “Nothin’ At All” from beginning to end, and I may be the only person on the planet who can (Wilson sisters included). Once I actually taped a Debbie Gibson album borrowed from some girl, and my credibilty wishes to God I did so with a sense of detached irony. Most horrifying: on my last visit to my parents’, I found irrefutable evidence that I once owned Toto IV, an album which is the musical equivalent of sarin gas.
What’s the point of telling you all this? Do I expect salvation by baring my early love of the cheesy? No, but I certainly expect all readers of this post to admit at least one of the musical accidents of their formative years in the Comments section.
It’s not that another tax season just ended, reminding me of my powerlessness against the entitlement programs I fund but will never benefit from.
It’s not that Pedro got lit last night like Ted Kennedy on fire in a room full of flashbulbs.
No, it’s even more sinister than that. It’s what’s falling outside my office window this very moment:
And to the guy I just heard say “At least it’s not sticking”: Shut up. Shut the cow up.
UPDATE: Oh sweet holy God of all that is decent, the Sun has swept clean the sky and is shining warm love upon the face of the island. Um, ignore that other stuff, please.
Of all the great hits that David Ortiz has had in his year-plus with the Red Sox, the one that would cement his status as a Boston sports legend — and hero of the human race — is less than a foot away from reality in this photo. Stretch that left arm, David, and let loose your mighty fist into the gaping maw of that grandstanding parasite. And once he flops on the floor, babbling in and out of unconciousness, do me one more favor: reach into his pocket, pull out his wallet, and take back that $8 he owes me for watching Reindeer Games. Don’t send it back to me, David. Keep it for yourself, buy yourself a nice cocktail at The Rack during this six-game homestand. You can go 0-for-300 the rest of the season and you’ll still be my hero.
Being a world-famous personality, I get a lot of email. Like you, a large percentage of it is of an unsolicited commercial nature. Most of it is casually tossed into the electronic landfill without a second thought. Today, though, I received the first spam message that gave me new information which I might never have known otherwise:
Subject: Hahahha, Little Pe-nis U Have satanism
Apparently my equipment has been shortened as a result of demonic possession. I never realized that was one of the side effects. But the mail doesn’t make clear: is there a pill I can take to fix both problems, or do I need to seek a urologist priest? Has someone blended Viagra into a stack of communion wafers?
And if the purging process is anything like what I saw in The Exorcist, someone better have a Costco-sized box of tissues handy.
“The season” hasn’t quite started, yet traffic is already jamming the streets of this little coastal town. It’s not tourists, though. The parking spots are full of trucks and vans, signs of the madcap rush to clean, repair, stock, and ready the stores and restaurants that have been scientifically designed to separate money from the flatlanders. It’s one of the things that Maine folks do best: catch lobsters, grow blueberries, take cash from out-of-staters. We’re the Kenyan long-distance runners of the Tourist Profit Olympics.
I spent today’s lunch hour finishing another stage of 120 Miles. Today’s weather was the best so far this year, 50 degrees and sky so blue it almost hurt to look at. I had a song stuck in my head the whole time, “Ain’t They Pretty” from the marvelous Fought Down album from Ken Layne and his merry band of Corvids. It’s a slow shuffler that evokes an image of fifty people in a dimly-lit bar, swaying and singing along with the chorus, louder than they really should, wrapped in the carefree shine of “just one more” cocktail:
you’re in for a good time
drop on by now
don’t be crying
the people are friendly
wait and see
all your drinks are free
you’re in for a good time
And God, does the song makes me want to drop by, and have a good time, and drink for free. I want to know where that place is and get there pronto. Who wouldn’t? We’ve all been in a place like that at least once. The day has drifted into a long warm night, empties are scattered all around, illuminated points from candles or strings of lights poke holes in the dark, it’s later than anybody thought, someone’s been slowly but steadily turning up the music for hours, but no one’s in a hurry to get going. I miss that place, folks. And some of you know where that place is.
And you’d better start telling.
I’ve put duct tape on the heating controls in my car, leaving it more or less permanently stuck on “cold”. It’s a symbolic gesture, annoucing my acceptance of Spring in fact if not in meteorological deed. It’ll probably affect the resale value a bit, but I’m no slave to the little blue book.
It was 46 degrees and sunny during my lunch break, perfect weather for the start of my new project, 120 Miles. This is not a film about an unlikely rap hero that makes it big, and is certainly not 15 times as long as Eminem’s flick. It’s a project close to home, something I thought about doing last year before I found myself in the death throes of monkeypox.
“Another project,” the jilted masses say derisively. Yeah, I know my track record is none too great. But this one’s already started, and there’s photographic evidence atop this post.
“Rational Red Sox fan” sounds like a contradiction in terms, but there are a few of us out there. We’re sad that the 2004 season started off with one in the loss column, but take comfort in knowing there are 161 games left to work out the kinks. Obsessing over the first game as a harbinger of full-season doom is insane, like thinking your cross-country trip to California is ruined because you accidentally took a left turn instead of a right out of your driveway.
The sports headlines cry havoc as well: “Boston’s Martinez Has Poor First Outing,” “Ace Out Of Place.” You’d think Pedro was leaning on a walker and throwing underhand in between shots of Centrum Silver by the tone of those articles. Here’s Petey’s box score from Sunday:
IP H R ER BB SO ERA
P Martinez 6 7 3 2 1 5 3.00
Not Pedro’s best stuff, no doubt. But poor? Chan Ho Park would kill for a line like that. Jeff D’Amico won’t pitch one game that well all season. Let’s not start shoveling dirt on the diminutive Dominican quite yet. If he strings four or five average starts in a row, then I’ll start giving current sportswriters running on auto-pilot a little more leeway for hyperbole.
But baseball is not like politics, thank God. You don’t go from grand prize contender to washed-up has-been on the basis of one error-prone night early in the race.
Like you may have noticed, there’s a few small changes happening on this humble Site du Web. The sidebar links are being renovated, a new title is being sought, I’m trying to have at least one thing a day to say. Plus, I’m determined to find a way to post pie regularly. New technology, the pie posting.
But there are promises from posts past that need addressing as well. I’ve made allusions to: a song involving man-sandwich love; T-shirts; local celebrity stalking. If there are things I’ve forgotten, please deposit a reminder in the comments. These things will be brought to finality by the end of springtime.
But there’s a lot more to talk about, including: boats, the German language, woodworking, bird chiles, home recording, microscapic travel. Yeah, microscapic. It’s a new word that means something to me, and I hope I’ll be able to demonstrably define to you.
God, I really feel like I’ve been asleep for four months.
Not John Kerry. He makes things happen instantly!
Kerry Unveils Plan to Create Manufacturing Jobs During Visit to NH Factory
If this man can create manufacturing jobs simply by visiting a factory, then why the hell is he running for President? He should be ferried at government expense from factory to factory, plant to plant, assembly to assembly, working his unique brand of employment magic until the national industrial engine is fully manned.
How does he do it? I can only guess that Senator Forbes Kerry strutted into this particular New Hampshire factory foreman’s office flanked by two representatives of Manchester’s unemployed class, peeled a thousand C-notes off the $525 million wad he carries with him at all times, and declared “these two men now work for you, and you shall pay them $50,000 this year using this trifling amount of money I have just placed into your wretched hands.” That seems the kind of common touch for which the man is so well known.
Perhaps his next step should be unleashing a plan to create clearer headlines during his next visit to campaign HQ.
This blog’s Official April Fools Day policy is to post no tricks, pranks, hijinks, capers, hoaxes.
In the spirit of the day, however, we proudly bring you this photo of John Kerry attempting to win over a plebian or two by nibbling on an oversized sandwich.
Actually, this is just a test post for Kinja, the spiffy new weblog aggregator from the people who brought you Gawker and Wonkette
