September 30, 2004
hoops, hope, and delusions of grandeur
No beer tonight. Not necessary. Lately, I've been self-medicating, substituting my favorite beer for seratonin and endorphins, for peace, for comfort, and for hope.
But not tonight. This week has been incredible, a revolution if I persist, and if I make it so, if I don't let it only be a passing moment. For so long, the key word for me has been "hope." It's what I've increasingly become desperate to find again, just something, some "maybe", some "could be" to keep me moving, to keep me trying. Much of that process is in looking for signs. Well, this week has offered them in spades.
First of all, we are the champions, my friends. Bear with me, please, because I'm about to talk about basketball. But soft, this is not so much about basketball, as it is about hope, and desire, and the persistence of spirit, and people I consider my friends.
For several months now, I've coached a women's basketball team. Last season, we were called the "5, 6, 7, 8's", after the all-Japanese girl kitsch rock band featured in Kill Bill. This season, we went with the Deadly Viper Assasination Squad, which, unfortunately, was shortened to DiVAS, which had to sound a bit arrogant. As if "Deadly Viper Assasination Squad" doesn't.
At any rate, the women I coach are indeed women - not kids, but grown women that range in age from 23 to 30-something. Many of them haven't played at all in years. Only a couple had ever played together. We've played two 8-game seasons in the past few months, against teams that are generally younger, often more athletic and experienced, and that have played together for years. We started off losing 4 games last season, but the team grew, individually and together, and we won half of our remaining games.
This season, we played in a league with only 3 teams. Every third week, we had to play a double-header to make the schedule come out right. One of the teams, the Lady Knights, is a young, quick, scrappy team that had never won a game in either season until last week, when they beat us in overtime. The other team, Mt. Sinai, has never lost that I'm aware of, in either season. We came close to beating them once, but they truly (sorry girls) have us beaten on paper, in terms of their athleticism, skill, and experience. Last week, in the second game of our double-header, they beat us soundly, by 20 or 30 points, as they had before.
So, tonight, we played in a tournament to determine the league champion. We first played the Lady Knights, and once again, they gave us a spirited game, and we barely came out with the win, even with my team playing better, more disciplined basketball than they had in a while. In the last minute of the game, Mirsa, our starting point guard, went down in a pile-up, twisting her knee pretty badly. She was carried off the court in a good deal of pain. We played the last minute out, and won.
We started the second game with an unusual lineup of players, and Mirsa sitting with an icepack on her knee. My team took the floor against Mt. Sinai with a determination, verve and composure that I haven't seen in a long time. They played under control on offense, knowing that we were at our best being patient, taking our time and passing the ball. When a team does this, it's a beautiful thing to watch - the ball moves crisply and quickly from side to side, and the defense has to keep shifting. Eventually, in the process of shifting, a defense will break down, and opportunities present themselves. Tonight, that's what my team was determined to do, and where they once would look uncertain on offense against this supposedly superior team, they looked as if they were in control, unflappable, and determined to play the game their way.
On defense as well as offense, my team played intelligently and with the singular purpose and mind of a true team, and looked more experienced than the more experienced team. They played with intensity and focus, and appeared more athletic than the more athletic team. They played with incredible heart and passion, and appeared more skilled than the more skilled team.
Individually, everyone decided to be horribly cliche, digging down and finding the best they had. Vicky, who's my basketball mate for life, was a warrior, fighting for rebounds, taking and giving blows down low under the basket one moment, picking apart the defense with pinpoint passes the next. Laurel was dynamic, looking more 6'7" than the 5'10" she alleges she stands at, skying for rebounds. Jennifer, with her parents looking on, rebounded, fought for loose balls, and made some nifty Sportscenter passes. Darby unleashed the greatest barrage of clutch shots I've ever seen from her. Airon was the terrible and awesome maelstrom of effort and intensity she always is, beating players down the court both ways, and driving towards the basket with the ball like she was charging the enemy with a bayonnet. And while they got no playing time in the second game, Dina and Cheryl's efforts in the first game insured that we would make it to the second game, and a little better rested at that.
Mt. Sinai usually makes a run in the second half, with increased pace and their outstanding 3-point shooting. As devastating as that onslaught is, the psychological effect is devastating, and it's like some bell rings deeply and sonorously to portend the inevitable loss.
The run came, and the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad didn't waver, never became flustered. They continued playing perfect, zen-like basketball, fire and coolness in harmony, intensity and desire meshed seamlessly with smart and methodical efficiency. Tonight, Mt. Sinai heard the bell. They became flustered, they wavered.
The last minutes of the second game saw Mirsa return to the game for Airon, who had to leave because she was bleeding from the punishment the increasingly desperate Mt. Sinai players wantonly dished out on her. Those final minutes were more joy and anxiety-ridden I've ever known, as every shot missed or made became more critical, every foul call pivotal, every turnover potentially disastrous.
But the impossible happened. 37-36. Beating the team that had never lost, we took the league championship. As Mt. Sinai missed its last, potentially game-winning shot as time expired, my team, our friends, and I exploded with pride, relief, and just simple, raw joy.
I imagine some people stopped reading this a while back, because a lot of my friends don't understand or like sports. That's cool, I've been there. Someone may deny the importance of tonight some significance because "it's just a game," and just an amateur league, at that. But the path of this team of individuals through these two seasons, and through the games tonight, is about more than learning the fundamentals of a game. We succeeded because the game of basketball demanded the best qualities of character in the individuals, and they responded. We succeeded because these truly extraordinary people bought into the bigger concepts of teamwork and sacrifice and effort. And, we succeeded because they went through the process to find ways to connect with each other and work together as one.
This is my fourth basketball championship, three as a player on teams I took pride in assembling, this my first as a coach. Yet, I've never been prouder of anything in all my years playing sports than I was tonight. I wanted the win for them so badly because they've earned it, and because I've really come to love and respect these women, these friends of mine. This memory, this pride, and this love will always be one of the things in my life that will be closest to my heart.
So, now how much would you expect to pay for the week I've had? But wait, there's more!
Earlier this year, I had another event that ranks as one of the prouder moments in my life. A piece I wrote was accepted for publication in a project called Writing Austin's Lives, produced by the University of Texas Humanities Institute. The book was released back in May, and I went to the release celebration. The lovely and talented Sylvia Gale, one of the editors of the book and the project coordinator, handed me my free copy. I walked outside to wait for my parents, and there it was, the last story in the book, with my name in a simple, elegant font. I still remember the afterimage of my own printed name from staring at it in the bright sunlight.
While the book is, I think, important, and an outstanding, well-produced body of historical and cultural documentation, I know it's not such a huge deal. But I was pretty freakin' floored by it all.
Last month, my 15 quiet minutes were prolonged, when the lovely and talented Sylvia Gale sent an invitation to join four or five other authors from the book to read and discuss our stories at the Texas Book Fair on October 31, at the State Capitol. The impact and import of this immediately struck me - reading my work at the Texas Book Fair, just like Ethan Hawke a year or two ago. Wow. Mmm... literary chicks. OK, so I'm no Ethan Hawke... well... Mmm... literate chicks. Perhaps still a bit overreaching, I suppose... Mmm... literally... chicks.
But seriously, let's be realistic. Visions of me in a silk smoking jacket signing autographs for adoring literary, literate, or even just literal women are sophomorically unrealistic. But no doubt Sandra Bullock might be there, might stop by as an interested Austinite. Of course. Perfectly logical. And without all the women flocking around me annoyingly like they do in my initial fantasy, I'll be free to approach her suavely and ask her out. You watch, I'll do it.
So, anyway, back to this week - another email yesterday from the lovely and talented Sylvia Gale, after 5:00PM, alerting us that the book has won an Austin Chronicle Best of Austin award, and that we can go to the bash, with it's lure of free food, free drink, and maybe, I don't know, Sandra Bullock. Well, that wasn't in the email, but it's a logical assumption. Anyway, I had plans already and didn't want to ditch my friends Jennifer and Jenna (collectively known as The Jennafer). How would that look to Sandy Bullock, knowing I had abandoned friends to meet her, even if it was to begin our new lives together and ensure the birth of our three beautiful children, Jordan, Elijah, and Ezekiel Joe?
So, I didn't go. But it turns out that the 127 authors in the book won the Critic's Award for Best Local Author, collectively. So, I'm 1/127 the Best Local Author. I wonder if I'll get my own banner to hang off my apartment balcony, or if I have to share it with the other 126 people, like they do the Stanley Cup? Do I get a free T-Shirt? Has Sandra met any of those other people? Will she know me by my T-Shirt? And, if I'm such a hot writer, why did I just capitalize "t-shirt" twice?
So, wow, I really can't complain so much about life this week. I even won the monthly parking stakes this week (with four $1.00 entries, carefully crumpled to exacting topological shapes to maximize their drawability), so I get to park in the garage under the building for a month, making Fado's and Gingerman even better post-work options.
Finally, as if all that isn't enough, there's a film that's been getting some limited release the past couple of weeks that takes in large part from some of my experiences - Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. They had to get that Jude Law dude to play me to kind of sex my character down just a hair, plus, if George Lucas taught us anything, white folks love their science fiction stars to speak with British accents. Actress, sometimes karaoke singer and Apple grower Gwyneth Paltrow plays Sandra Bullock.
Posted by Rob at 11:14 PM | Comments (0)
September 29, 2004
the point
Home now, 11:13 PM. I got home safe and sound, despite what the bill said I had drank. Yes, I was safe to get home. The alcohol couldn't be escaped today, not in the face of the simultaneous emptiness and the excitement I felt overwhelm me all afternoon.
Today, Nikki gave me one of the first, one of the only responses to my post last night. And, she sent me a link, to www.perpetualkarma.com. She told me that she could really see me together with the site's author, Julie. Nikki's nice that way. The site is truly a wonder, both in terms of the effectiveness and simple elegance of its design, and most of all, in its content.
I was stunned, in tears, anxious, seeing how Julie writes, the flow, how she exposed herself so willingly before the world. I saw the same in her photography, her ability to see the sacred and the beautiful in the mundane and arcane, intelligently, yet all without the pretense that too often accompanies intellect. just beauty, of the simple kind that speaks to the heart.
Last night, emboldened by a great number of Harps that drained quickly and disappeared on the desk before me, I for the first time poured myself out before whoever might read this blog. And I was excited, even proud, to finally put it all out there, uncensored. It was thrilling, and frightening, and liberating.
Today, this afternoon at work, I felt myself lost, as I acknowledged how adrift I am right now. At the same time, I embraced it. I was thrilled by the experience of writing last night, of writing as I haven't in many years, I think. At once, it feels like self-destruction, in the method and the honesty; and like self-actualization, in the merging of emotion and ability that hasn't happened for me in so long. The product is not perfect, maybe not even moving to anyone but myself, but I see it as a start, and more than I had in my life before.
The motivators were, admittedly, the aforementioned bottles of Harp, together with the soundtrack to "Garden State" (something I was thrilled to see Julie speak of in some of her blogs). I bought the soundtrack last night, having seen the movie Sunday night. I played it in my car, then drove to Circuit City as they closed to buy an entire album by Zero 7. The Garden State soundtrack advertises that "it will change your life," and shockingly, that piece of marketing proved prophetic.
Today, it was humbling and inspiring to see Julie's website, to see someone that did it on a regular, almost daily basis. It is what I have always wanted out of the website I've been wanting to put together, and the feel, the rawness of experience and emotion is what I've always tried to transmit in my writing.
I originally envisioned a blog as an opportunity to put my writing out there, to get more of the exposure I've always needed to sustain myself, to feel there was something worthwhile in me, that would survive me and this mess of a life. Looking at Julie's site, I see that it is more importantly a way for me to expose, to continue working towards the ability to communicate what it is I feel. Maybe no one will listen. But maybe someone will, and maybe someone will find that moment that resonates, that they relate to, the bold stroke of the brush, the single note singing out from the bent string of a guitar, just the one moment of connection.
That, in the end, in the scale of my life to this point, would be something, would be something of value. And today, tonight, in this life as I've written it so far, could I ask for anything more?
Posted by Rob at 11:06 PM | Comments (0)
September 28, 2004
provdence in the fall...
Several years ago, I was on a plane from D.C. to Austin. I was early to the gate, as usual, one of the first on the plane, so I was able to watch the other passengers file on. Bags and t-shirts and expressions filed on and filled seats around me. In some freakish mishap, the other two largest men on the flight would sit on either side of me, and we laughed about it a good deal of the way home.
At some point when my bulky seatmates settled into their naps and books, I put my own headphones on and relaxed. I was always kind of amused at the fact that I had to shut down my personal CD player before the plane took off. Somehow, the idea that Soundgarden or Tori Amos or even Stereolab could bring down a Boeing 737 airliner is at once amusing and bemusing to me.
Boeing lists the maximum seating capacity of a 737 at 189. Despite being sandwiched between two large men, the flight was not quite full. It occurred to me that the group of people on the plane with me was perhaps the size of a typical village in a hunting and gathering society, and was maybe even larger. I looked around at my fellow passengers, and imagined us as isolated, as members of one village. Something primal in me saw the correlation, saw the problem.
In a balanced world, with man as just another animal running around the landscape, that village of 150-200 was a practical size. But I lived in the moderate sized city of Austin, with around 750,000 other people. Most of those people, including myself, were tied in by mass media, the allure of images on the television and the internet. Our village, my village had grown beyond the capacity of our social natures to handle, and I wondered at how it must effect us, to have so many distractions, so many choices that threatened to overwhelm us.
How easy in a small village to know all that the opposite sex can be, and how easy to know your choices and know that yours was the best. Sure, there were bound to be conflicts, a handful of figures that for reasons right or not reigned supreme over the lust and love in a village. I knew others had realized it before, but this was my epiphany, that as we grew larger and more disparate as a society, that love became, perhaps, more precious, more elusive, maybe improbable, maybe impossible.
So now, the confession, the embrassment, the revelation. Last week, watching "While You Were Out" on TLC (The Learning Channel), I fell in love, with Gina. She was the target of the show's trick, seen only in a handful of cutaways during the course of the one hour program. But nonetheless, I picked her out immediately, as if I'd seen her across the packed dirt of our small village as a child, as if I had recognized my place and hers in an instant, destiny written in a dusty midsummer moment.
Yeah, I know this is wacky. I work downtown. I get out plenty. I see a lot of attractive women. I've been fortunate enough to date some of them. So why this, why now? I used to believe in something more in life, something more in love. I believed in soulmates until one left, until I lost her. That was a long time ago, almost a decade now. Since then, I've let go, I've dated a lot of great and beautfiul women. Long ago I left the habit and compulsion, of comparison to her. Relationships came, and they went not because of her, but because so often that flash of recognition, that magic, was not there.
At 35, "magic" has been discounted, by friends, by parents wondering what's up, by popular wisdom. But I think the belief in that magic is too central to who I am. What I love of life is music, writing, feeling, the things outside our intellect that give us the moments we can't adequately explain in terms of cold logic, psychology and physiology. Sometimes I give those truer loves up to live, to make a living, to live as someone who can pass as relatively sane. But it is always there, denied or not.
As the show went on, I was amazed at how Gina continued to "fit." I saw in her a singular compassion and grace, and the initial spark of recognition became a bit of enfatuation that frightened me, that I hadn't known since I was so much younger. I told one friend about the experience, jokingly, and dismissed it.
I know what this all sounds like. I still have my grip on reality, don't worry. Maybe it was some curious misfire of just the right neurons at just the right time. Maybe it was a trick of psychology. But how much worse to think that it was a genuine moment in the life of a heart, of a soul, a moment and an epic that might be lost in the expanse of what has become the human experience? How much worse to think that what is sacred to us is prey to numbers and distance?
I write this, and like all good, sane people, I will let the moment go, having gone too far in speaking of it at all, in chronicling it here, perhaps for the ridicule of all who read this.
But please, stop a moment, in the safety and solitude in which you might read this - don't you want to believe it, too?
Posted by Rob at 10:30 PM | Comments (0)
On Virtual Virtues
So, last night, I return home from my basketball team's third loss in, oh, three games. It's a work in progress, but that's another story.
Anyway.
In my usual obsessive effort to accomplish as many things as possible in one smooth motion, I gathered up my work clothes, shoes, briefcase, gym bag, and some miscellaneous trash from my back seat, bumped the car door closed with my still-sweaty butt, and then decided to go get my mail.
The mail was disappointing. Having paid off many of my debts this year, I've realized that the threatening letters from credit card companies and collection agencies I used to get were not only better than nothing, but they gave a comforting sense of familiarity in the way they reminded me of my childhood and my relationship with my parents.
But there, on the sole trashcan in the complex's mail room, was a shrink-wrapped copy of a gaming magazine, complete with a disk full of playable demos. And I, as fate and my chromosomal makeup would have it, own an XBox. It was addressed to someone else, but had clearly been placed on the area informally designated and universally understood to proclaim, "I'm too good for this junk mail, but you might want it." I've always hoped for some unwanted, misdelivered pornography, but the closest I've come was a Nordstrom's catalog, which doesn't even usually have lingerie in it.
I looked about warily, then, in an amazing feat of dexterity, slipped the package under my arm.
The magazine was fascinating, obviously created for people who play video games for over 10 hours a day. I own an XBox, bought with a gift certificate on a lark, but it gets played maybe 10 hours a month. I play: one basketball game that I can't master at all, one driving game that I am completely incompetent at, Tetris, which is devastating for any obsessive-compulsive personality, and a game called Splinter Cell. In Splinter Cell, you're a ninja-like American covert operative who apparently owns only some sort of wetsuit and speaks only in a low, gravelly series of wry threats.
One of the games reviewed was Def Jam: Fight For New York. Populated by hardcore rappers portraying violent street thugs, the game's depth is apparently amazing, with appearances by over 40 hip-hop superstars, and the ability to outfit your player in appropriate attire, including Jacob the Jeweler. The game was obviously developed by people who think "stereotype" is a question about what you listen to your Chingy album on.
The game challenges you to fight in up to five distinct "disciplines": wrestling, street fighting, martial arts, kickboxing, and... submission? Personally, if I'm playing a video game, I'm looking to escape reality, and I want the challenge of trying something new. If by "submission" they mean letting someone kick the crap out of me, then I've finally found a game I can excel at, but I'm just not interested.
The magazine also provides helpful tips that accompany screen shots of the game. For example, if you smash your opponent's head into a car door three times or so, the door will pop open, after which you can insert said head into the opening and use the door to continue the attempted decapitation of your opponent, probably in retribution for comments commonly made in the game like, "I'm gonna rip your tongue out and lick my ass with it."
Maybe I'm too old for this. In Splinter Cell, one has the option to be non-lethal: stealth is generally rewarded, and I take it as a personal challenge of my honor and respect for life to accomplish my mission with as few casualties as possible. I get a special sense of pride from sneaking up behind someone silently, then uncoiling like a cat, putting the would-be evil doer in a headlock and dragging them in the darkness, where I then knock them unconscious, usually adding my own wry one-liner to the action: "It's bedtime for Bonzo. And you're the chimp, chump." WHACK!
The only exceptions, of course, are when the opponents speak in foreign accents. Some deeply-ingrained or hereditary Republican impulse in me then feels it's OK to open fire, though carefully, so as not to injure any innocent English-speaking bystanders, or worse, to run out of ammo too soon.
It is addictive, the challenge of beating these games. I'll look up and see I've been playing for hours, realize my hands are kind of sore, and I'll decide to take a break. I'll pause the game, switch the television back to cable. Often times, I'll catch a few minutes of the news. When I watch footage from Iraq or Sudan, I'm disappointed by the lack of pithy and witty dialogue accompanying the death and destruction. Maybe it's just not getting reported, the things that soldiers and rebels say before they off someone. Furthermore, almost exactly no one at all wears sleek black stealth outfits, instead wearing standard camouflage, or khaki, or tattered and bloody shirts or robes.
After a while, I'll switch the TV back to XBox. I unpause the game, and there's my character standing in midst of dead people that didn't talk American, a mission almost, but not quite accomplished. Invariably, I start the level over, holster my pistol, and I stay in the shadows until the Russian guard ambles by. I grab him, drag him back into the darkness, and alone in my living room, I mutter, "Sweet dreams, comrade."
Posted by Rob at 04:13 PM | Comments (0)
Top Ten Reasons John Kerry Is Suddenly So Damned Tan
Some observers, including the Drudge Report, have noted that John Kerry has been getting tanner and, well, less cadaver-like in the days leading up to his first presidential debate. There are any number of good reasons for this, aside from the obvious, cynical marketing considerations. In fact, there are, to be cliche, ten good reasons:
10. Chasing after quiet but crucial George Hamilton Fan Club vote.
9. Attended all three days of Austin City Limits Music Festival.
8. Waited six hours in the Georgia sun for Zell Miller to show for his duel.
7. Follow the money - more Democrats in office means less restrictions on powerful tanning bed industry.
6. Knows CBS will declare the tan real without checking.
5. Setting up new slogan for final month of campaign: "Don't get burned again."
4. Advisors told him he needed more people of color on his campaign staff.
3. Unfortunate side effect of strict ketchup diet imposed by wife Teresa Heinz Kerry.
2. Wants to counter "hunky" soul patch and sideburns George W. is rumored to be growing.
1. Swears he was on a boat on a river in Cambodia at noon on Labor Day.
Posted by Rob at 03:09 PM | Comments (0)
September 20, 2004
calendar lung
It was our fourth week in the calendar mines. Christmas was almost upon us, but Daryl and I worked shoulder to shoulder in the semi-darkness, digging out the lodes with our bare hands, the calendars and day planners emerging shiny and refined from cardboard boxes. Each nugget was a year in the life waiting to happen, each day highlighted by quotes from famous Minnesotans, each month by scenes from Stone Cold Steve Austin's Death Match. Dobermans, fire trucks, Britney Spears, Chicken Soup for Teenagers With Urinary Tract Infections, themes of every imaginable, ghastly variety passed through our hands as we shipped them to the kiosks and the novelty stores, but we had little time to reflect on their import. We knew only the work and the toil, for days on end. Or, rather, 2 days a week on end.
The mines were seasonal. With Christmas and the turning of the year comes the ritual of casting off the previous year's collection of tick-marked and highlighted calendars, the symbolism lost on much of our society today. To meet the exponentially increased demand, the Company solicited every year around the holidays for temporary help. With no screening for ability, anyone with the ability to find the sharp end of a pencil within three tries was given that pencil and a box cutter.
Daryl is a dauntingly intelligent friend of mine with a master's degree, who worked at the time as a researcher for a human rights organization. Consequently, she could locate the sharp end of a pencil in no more than two tries, and had a need for extra cash. I was an attorney that had taken a huge paycut to work for one of those now-defunct companies that featured free bagels on Thursdays, well-stocked fridges, a liberal dress code, and regular keg parties. Accordingly, I didn't really care which end of the pencil I used, and had a need for extra cash.
The process was beautifully organized. A hand-held, bar-code-reading, wireless device acted as a divining rod, instructed us which of the coded, differently sized and shaped boxes to pick up and construct, and how many of each calendar to put in each box, before we slapped the bar code label on it and sent it down the conveyer belt. We quickly proved our competence and eagerness, and cleverly hid our secret amusement at the entire operation and the product we were handling. As advanced calendar handlers, we had, or at least exercised, great latitude as far as job assignments went. One day we might opt for the mining operation, but the next we would weigh and ship, or quality-check outbound shipments.
On one particular day, we were sent to a 2nd-floor cage where defunct and discontinued calendars faced their final days.
We fell into an easy rhythm, dropping the boxes onto the rollers, cutting the tops open, and shoving them off down the line -- thump, slash, slash, zip. Thump, slash, slash, zip. We chatted occasionally, always careful to supplement the rhythm rather than break it. Then, Daryl uttered something dissonant and syncopated: "I got engaged."
Thump, slash, slash, clank, clank, clatter. Daryl yelped, watching my box cutter fall, neatly, blade down, through the grating, to the open work area below. She had just been gone for a few weeks to the East Coast, and met up with someone she had known years before. He asked, she said yes, pow, bang, from rogue to partner, with all the suddenness and force of an open box cutter falling on someone's head.
Over the remaining weeks in the employ of the Company, I cherished our time together, knowing that soon, the security blanket I relied on in my single life would, if not disappear, then at least shrink considerably, not providing quite the same comforting coverage as it had for years.
The work went on through those weeks, and we laughed and talked through it. We surmised that many would not make it out through the season, felled by the hazards of the calendar miner's way of life. We heard whispers of two men crushed to death by a crate of Star Trek Klingon Quote of the Day calendars, their deaths covered up quickly by payments to their families by the military-consumer-calendar complex. Their blood would join that of countless other lives broken and spent in the mines, dripping down through metal grating, flowing across the concrete floors, down into the drains and back into the earth.
Those that did survive, like Daryl and I, would carry the scars and yes, the pride of being calendar miners. As we exited into the misty December evening on our last day of employment, I looked at her, her future suddenly open to her, the promise of a life with someone who cared, who loved, and who would take care of her when the calendar lung set in, marking out her last days on yet another calendar, under the godlike watchful gaze of Justin Timberlake's prize dachshund.
Posted by Rob at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)
September 16, 2004
blogging, rocking, and whining
ok, so at first, I have to admit I dismissed this whole blogging idea as a little too obviously self-absorbed. but as any of my friends, or really, anyone whose email address I've captured, knows, self-absorption is one of my hallmarks. the least bit of thought comes out of my head, and I have to send it out to 50 people. I'm sure, on the positive side, that I've helped give people the drive to learn about email filters.
this also gives me an out. at 35, it's gotten increasingly hard to say I want to be a writer. at 18, if you want to be a musician or writer, people are like, "cool. you'll be good at that." at 25, people are still supportive: "cool. you can totally do that." at 30, it's, "well, you're still young." at 35, however, people pause, wondering if you're serious. then they say, "uh. you're a lawyer, Rob."
but there's also a lot of people who have been incredibly supportive of my writing. it's just that I don't do so much of it. so, this'll be good practice, I'm sure. and when I start babbling to some of my friends, they can save themselves time and effort by just telling me, "yeah, read it, got it."
so, i have, despite my best efforts, been sucked into the acl maelstrom. expect lots of bitching and whining from me. no doubt, it will rain. i will itch, get bitten by ants and mosquitoes, and be annoyed at having to use stanky, muddy porta-potties. as i am now old and crotchety, many of the damned kids will surely annoy me. some of the damned rock and roll will be too loud, which is only possible if it sucks. which some of it will.
don't get me wrong - i love music, and since the time i first gained a little independent mobility (age 18), i've hit lots of outdoor shows. there was aqua fest back in the day, where i saw acts like roy orbison, sheena easton (mmm... irish prince protege...), los lobos, and even jackson brown, whose music makes me want to gnaw out my own liver.
it was also, curiously, the only place i ever saw stevie ray vaughan. i was stunned, as anyone should be. i ended up standing next to this dude in a wheelchair who was a drummer, and he was digging the show, even though he couldn't see anything at all. a few guys standing around put their beers down, and soon, this wheelchair rose up out of the crowd, treating everyone to one of the greatest air drum solos ever seen.
there were also dark times. i dated a girl that was all about the country music. i think the relationship effectively ended the day she ejected guns and roses use your illusion 1 from my cd player, flung it in the back seat, and put in randy travis. but before that critical moment, i found myself at aqua fest seeing suzy boguss, which remarkably, was not so bad. then there was sammy kershaw, who opened with "cadillac style", played it once in the middle of his set, and then again for each of his two encores. it's because of things like that they now use metal detectors and don't allow glass bottles at concerts. the coup de grace, however, was the antichrist of music: billy ray cyrus. god help me, i tried. i stood respectfully while he and his mullet belted out stupidity. then he played led zeppelin's "black dog," and i became hysterically distraught. during "achy breaky heart," i sang the music's original lyrics, "tulsa time," at the top of my voice.
i've been to willie's picnic, numerous freedom fests, even the blockbuster rockfest at the texas motor speedway in 1997. held on july 4, on the infield of a massive motorsports racetrack, over 385,000 people sweated as one stage carried a massive amount of talent, including the wallflowers, matchbox 20, jewel, paula cole, and collective soul. collective soul proved a good time for a nap, which continued into the counting crows. from time to time, my friends and i would wake up, and adam duritz would still be singing, and every time, we asked each other - is this the same damned song?
as dusk fell, people were tired and a little punchy from the heat and the lengthy collective crows onslaught. where we were, on the back track furthest from the stage, with the grandstands right behind us, people began using the lids to their lemon chills as frisbees. it was fun, carefree, just as a fourth of july music festival sponsored by a massive conservative video rental chain should be. then the occasional small plastic water bottle would plop down around us.
within half an hour, it was medieval warfare. it had turned to night, and the lights came on, and the air was completely filled with missiles, from plastic water bottles, to glass, to rocks and probably some small children. people were hiding under blankets, or returning fire. people were running around with bleeding head wounds and cuts from glass. i saw at one point a glass jar that had to hold about 2 gallons of water or, I don't know, moonshine, just miss smashing into a little kid's head.
no doubt provided the soundtrack, for a while oblivious to the melee. they were followed by bush, but at that point, we had evacuated along with anyone else that was either not a combatant, or who had run out of good ammo.
so, anyway. don't tell me i'm a wuss, because... well, because i know i am. but i've paid my rock and roll dues. i worked security at the first show of ozzy's first retirement tour. i sat on the stage and watched bob dylan. but now my knee swells a bit when i stand, and grass makes me itch, and mosquitoes seem to love my diet of cookies and pie.
whew. this blogging thing does get easy to do. time for lunch.
Posted by Rob at 12:46 PM | Comments (0)