A Flaming Wheel of Sliced Bread

The Visible Man

2011-10-16T12:30:00.000-05:00

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
Going to read @CKlosterman's new book #Visible Man today in a day. Waiting for @magersandquinn to open at 10. Will live tweet w/ pg. #s.

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
And, yes, I will spoiler alert everything. I know you're all waiting to read it yourselves.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
Leaving the house to pick up coffee (prepared), coffee (unprepared) and #VisibleMan.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 1 I'm starting the novel with no previous notions of what it is about other than it's a @CKlosterman book.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 2 Fiction v. Non-fiction. Veracity. Truth?
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 5 Unreliable narrator?
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 9 Has anyone tried e-mailing thevickster@gmail.com? Trying. Didn't immed. bounce back.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 13 George Harrison "Be Here Now" youtube.com/watch?v=He2yrz…
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 20 "his pseudologia fantastica [footnote: This is more commonly referred to a pathological lying.]"
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 21 Book misuses Heisenberg Uncertainty in the usual way. Can't know bc of a mechanical reason, not theoretical.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 22 Guilt vs sensation of guilt. Objective vs. subjective.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert This book so far prompted me to look up and listen to The Jayhawks' "Blue" online.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 31 "Tall people are naturally confident. History has proven this- Alexander, Wilt Chamberlain, Gisele."
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 46 Not trusting that the type of people who read his books would also be able to hang w/ theoretical ideas?
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 57 Ha! Ha, ha, ha. Small admission; I'd totally do that.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 59 Another small admission; I do that too.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 62 I've actually watched that Yao Ming documentary and have a hilarious & heart-touching story about it.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 83 "He wasn't there, and then he wasn't there."
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 87 Now the book can start for real. Everything before this has been pretext, scene-setting. Now comes the book.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 88 The narrative seems H.G. Wells until I thought about it. Its actually Henry James "Turn Of The Screw"-esque.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 92 I find the word "she-wolf" funny.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 100 Had an experience like this recently w/ my GF. Well, all the details are different. But it's close feeling.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 101 Daniel Johnston - The Beatles youtube.com/watch?v=YbBXkF…
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 103 "agency"
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 105 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Deck…
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 105 Also, Mary Decker iconicphotos.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/davidb…
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 114 I wonder what McLuhan would think of "The process was always the problem."
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 121 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarahumara
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 146 Only kind of aware of what's going on. But this feels like the peak of the book coming up.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 131 "It's like trying to using math to figure out history." I wonder what Bill James would think of that.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 147 A little "There Will Be Blood" love has me turning on the soundtrack.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 134 Made me think of edped.tumblr.com/post/753554181…
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#NowPlaying There Will Be Blood – Prospectors Arrive open.spotify.com/track/5gHu56UX…
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 160 "agency"
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 161 Jooky MaGoo is a real band. myspace.com/pistolwhipoffi…
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 167 Oh, hell no.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 169 Reading this book thinking of WIM's book "Faking It". Chuck and I must read the same books. #humblebrag
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 179 This is like the personal propaganda from "I heart Huckabees".
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 191 I could've thought this up vs. I did think this new
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 203 Recondite is the perfect word there. merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rec…
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 224 The temptation must've been to leave things vague. To never resolve it. But this is fiction.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 230 Finished. I liked it a lot. Looking at the book as a whole, it feels like a book about US involvement in...
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 230 ...torture and rendition. Reading too much into it? Yes, probably. But it feels like it.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 230 Also, 1st thing I learned on 1st day of college in Shakespeare class: Appearances can be deceiving.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
An excellent book. Feel like I'll be thinking of it for a while. #VisibleMan
4 Oct

CKlosterman Chuck Klosterman
@MichaelRHerman Thanks, man. Really glad you liked the book & did this experiment. It was extremely, extremely flattering.
4 Oct

Game Over (Welcome To The Future)

2011-05-19T20:10:00.001-05:00

I was talking with some co-workers today about the AL Central and one of my friends was adamant that the Cleveland Indians weren't going to win the division. I think that's nuts.

Going back to 2006, an outlier season where three teams in the Central finished with 90 wins or better, this is how many wins the 2nd place team in the AL Central had at the end of the season:

2010 - 88 wins by the Chicago White Sox
2009 - 86 wins by the Detroit Tigers (Minnesota Twins won a 1 game playoff)
2008 - 88 wins by the Minnesota Twins (Chicago White Sox won a 1 game playoff)
2007 - 88 wins by the Detroit Tigers

The winner of the AL Central has needed to win an average of 88.5 games to take home the pennant. Let's call 89 wins the magic number to win the AL Central. The first team past the 89-win post is going to win the AL Central except by fluke.

After 40 games the Indians have banked 26 wins and to get to 89 wins they need 63 wins over their last 122 games. That's only two games above .500 and the Indians are currently playing at a pace 12! games above .500 for the season. They could lose their next ten games and go one for two the rest of the way and still hit 89 wins.

I think the AL Central is over. The Indians would need to collapse in epic fashion and someone else would have to raise their game incredibly to catch them. And that's a problem going forward because this team is built to win for the next handful of years.

Crazy Like A Fox

2011-05-18T19:00:00.002-05:00

The phone rings in the Utah Jazz draft war room. GM Kevin O'Conner answers. It's Minnesota Timberwolves GM David Kahn on the other end.

"Kevin, this is David. I wanted to wish you good luck with the draft tonite."

"Thank you, David. The same to you."

"I also called to talk shop. Any interest in trading the #2 pick for Derrick Favors?"

"I'll be honest, David. I haven't warmed on Williams. We'll pass."

"Okay, Kevin. I just thought I'd call and make sure."

On the TV in the background, David Stern approaches the podium. He announces the Cleveland Cavaliers select Kyrie Irving from Duke University. The phone rings again.

"Hello."

"Kevin, it's David again. We're taking Jimmer..."

"That will be a bold pick, David."

"...at eleven."

"What?"

"Derrick Favors."

As O'Conner listens to the dial tone, the TV the clock clicks down to zero.

"Kevin," says a Jazz employee. "We're on the clock."

Still stunned O'Conner says, "Um, Derrick Williams. And call everyone between us and twelve. See who they want for their pick."

On the television David Stern announces that with the second pick in the NBA Draft the Utah Jazz select Derrick Williams of the University of Arizona. The analysts go insane. Bill Simmons makes his first "Kahhhhhnnnn" tweet.

"Kevin, it looks like the Wolves have called around and noone was able to make a deal with them. They can't believe this is happening either."

A progressively frustrated looking David Stern announces the Cavaliers selection of Enes Kanter, Toronto's selection of Jonas Valanciunas and Washington's selection of Bismack Biyombo with the third, fourth and fifth picks in the draft.

"What are we hearing?" says O'Conner to noone in particular.

"Nothing. Everyone is thrilled to be getting their guy. We got some offers to take Jimmer and trade him to us. None of them are worth mentioning. Mostly the same offers we got before tonite."

Stern announces Sacramento picks Brandon Knight and the commisioner drops his scowl long enough to smile for a picture. Jay Bilas announces there is a rumor the Utah Jazz are calling around the league trying to trade up for Jimmer. The Pistons select Jan Vesely with the seventh pick and the phone rings.

"Kahn," O'Conner says as he lifts the receiver to his mouth.

"Kevin, do we have a deal?"

"You can go to hell."

O'Conner slams the phone back onto the cradle. A Jazz employee turns to him.

"Charlotte will take him for us but they want us to take back Jackson for Kirelenko. The Wolves apparently told them about the Jimmer situation."

"Tell them no."

Two minutes later a visibly upset Stern wipes froth from his mouth as he emerges from the green room and announces the Bobcats select Kemba Walker. The phone rings again.

"Ignore it," says O'Conner. "Let him ruin his team."

The room sits in silence as the phone rings and rings.

"Milwaukee will take him for us but, thanks to the Wolves, we have to take Maggette."

"No."

Stern announces the Bucks take Tristan Thompson. Almost immediately Stern reemerges from behind the curtain. He smiles widely.

"With the 10th pick in the NBA Draft, the Minnesota Timberwolves select Jimmer Fredette from Brigham Young University."

The next day Fredette is met by a throng of press. He poses with his new jersey as his new GM looks on and he smiles at his new teammate Michael Beasley. Then he sits and leans forward to the microphone.

"The first thing I want to say," he says as he flashes a smile, "is how happy I am to be the newest member of the Oklahoma City Thunder."

Later that same day Russell Westbrook is introduced as the newest member of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Kevin Love beams as his best friend and college roommate gives a good interview and says the right things.

The Timberwolves make the playoffs the next year with a 27-23 record and fail to make it out of the first round. The team stays together for the length of Love & Westbrook's extensions and fluctuates between the late lottery and first round exits. When they leave, the team restarts with a player who is something like 12 years old now.

30 Days of Music in 1 Post

2011-04-27T08:00:00.002-05:00

Over on the venerable Book of Faces I participated in the 30 Day Song Challenge. Every day for a full month you post a song following a certain rule for the day. It's fun to do and it has spurred a little discussion if not as much as I'd hoped for initially.

The only thing I'd improve is it seems aimed at a younger set of followers. Some of the rules are a little focused on teenage angst and less on showing your appreciation for music. So, as a brain exercise, I'm going to redo the 30 Day Song Challenge as tho I were writing it and aiming it at my peer group.

Day 1 - Your favorite song - "A Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procul Harum

This one is the same as the actual challenge and it doesn't change.

Day 2 - Your favorite song from the last year - "Runaway" by Kanye West

In my opinion, the 3 best songs from the last 12 mos. were "Bed Intruder", "Fuck You" and this song. Out of those 3, this is the one I still listen to frequently.

Day 3 - Your favorite song which is 50 years old this year - "My Favorite Things" by John Coltrane

This takes us back to 1961 which was a weird year in music. Rock had struck it big in the middle of the previous decade but had cooled for various reasons. So we're still 3 years away from The Beatles coming to America and jazz is making its last run on the top. As such, I pick Coltrane at or near his peak.

Day 4 - Your favorite song which is 25 years old this year - "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" by Paul Simon

This jump takes us back to 1986 which was the first year I really started to listen to music and have my own opinions on it, simple tho they may be. One of the albums I remember my dad (and, by proxy, me) listening to a lot was "Graceland" and I've held a special affinity for the album even until today. In fact, if you pulled up my fandom of Vampire Weekend you'd find "Graceland" at its roots.

Day 5 - Your favorite song which is 10 years old this year - "Jo Jo's Jacket" by Stephen Malkmus

Now we're up to 2001 and in that year I would've told you my favorite album that year was Weezer's green album. But now it's been 10 years and there are two albums I'd go to the shelf and pull out to listen to on a whim: The (international) Noise Conspiracy "New Morning, Changing Weather" and Steve Malkmus' first solo album. Since I like the latter better than the former, I'll put that one out front.

Day 6 - A Song Which Was Played At The 1st Concert You Ever Attended - "Hanging Tough" by New Kids On The Block

Fuck yeah I went to a New Kids concert and I was excited as shit to go. It was 1989, the concert was at the Met Center and my young ears and heart were won by whatever was on WLOL. My whole family went, we sat right were the speakers were pointed and I still have vivid memories of it. Some might find it embarrassing to admit their first concert was the New Kids. I think it's kind of perfect.

Day 7 - A Song Played At The Most Recent Concert You Attended - "I'll Buy" by The Replacements

It's been the slow season for concerts here in Minnesota and I've been kind of skint here at the end of it all as bands start touring thru here again. Consulting my calendar tells me the last concert I went to was the Replacements tribute at First Ave over the Thanksgiving weekend. Yes, it's been that long. Either way, here's the original version of a song from "Tim".

Day 8 - A Song Played At The Best Concert You Ever Attended - "Warning" by Green Day

Another shocker perhaps. The best concert I ever went to was in January 2001 when Green Day played The Eagles Ballroom in Milwaukee. My friends Adam, Bryan and I drove down from school in Green Bay and it was an amazing show. The band was in the in-between space after their "Dookie" success but before their "American Idiot" success. This meant they were actually trying and tuned in and it made for a great show.

Day 9 - 4 Days of Songs About Classical Elements: Air - "Blowing In The Wind" by Bob Dylan

I could go with Bob Dylan for each of these. But I'll limit myself to this one as the quintessential song about wind. And since YouTube only has covers, it should be one by someone who at least knows Dylan.

Day 10 - 4 Days of Songs About Classical Elements: Earth - "Dead Leaves & The Dirty Ground" by The White Stripes

Again, you could probably go with Jack White on each of these. But again I'll limit myself.

Day 11 - 4 Days of Songs About Classical Elements: Fire - "Fire" by Jimi Hendrix

When you think of fire you should think of Prometheus and Jimi Hendrix.

Day 12 - 4 Days of Songs About Classical Elements: Water - "Take Me To The River" by The Talking Heads

There are a lot of great songs about rain, oceans, snow and tears. But this one is the best one about rivers.

Day 13 - A Song about Luck - "Lucky" by Radiohead

This is the first song I ever heard off "OK Computer". This performance actually since I was a Launch subscriber.

Day 14 - A Song About Love - "Lovesong" by The Cure

This song came out when I was about 9 or 10 and it was the first time I remembered a love song sounding sad. Not just "Baby, baby. Where did our love go?" but actually sad while still being about love.

Day 15 - A Song About Falling Out of Love - "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" by Amy Winehouse

The original is a little too upbeat. I like Winehouse's cover better.

Day 16 - A Song About Loneliness - "So Far Away" by Carole King

How did anyone survive the 1970s? Seriously, did everyone just zone out and let shit happen? Or did everyone break their hearts early on and what we have now is the broken version of those people?

Day 17 - A Song About Happiness - "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" by Stevie Wonder

Scratch that. Everyone in the 1970s must've been listening to Stevie Wonder. Boom! Happiness achieved.

Day 18 - A Song About The Past - "In My Life" by The Beatles

This song, in addition to being my father's favorite Beatles song, was the music which scored Kevin Arnold's first kiss with Winnie Cooper on "The Wonder Years" and you can't get any more about the past than that.

Day 19 - A Song About The Present - "Right Now" by Van Halen

CARPE DIEM, MOTHERFUCKER!!! (Drink Crystal Pepsi.)

Day 20 - A Song About The Future - "Ooh Child" by The 5 Stairstep

Yeah, I see myself as an optimist. But if my fault is believing better things are around the corner, it's a fault I'm okay having.

Day 21 - The Original Song Sampled in A Hip-Hop Song - "One Step Ahead" by Aretha Franklin

To be later used by Ayotollah on Mos Def's "Ms. Fat Booty". When you hear it, you'll shit bricks.

Day 22 - A Song Which Should Be Sampled By A Hip-Hop Song - "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson

It used to be "Cruel Summer" by Bananarama. Now I just wish someone would use "Billie Jean", especially the drum beat and bass lines which are both dope as hell.

Day 23 - Coolest Guitar Riff - "Seventeen Years" by Ratatat

I know it's kind of unfair to put Ratatat here because all they do is riff. But it's my rules and I choose how to enforce them.

Day 24 - Coolest Guitar Solo - "Dazed and Confused" by Led Zepplin

Listen, I could've put everything Jimi Hendrix or Eddie Van Halen ever did in this slot. But I chose Jimmy Page playing "Dazed & Confused" in "Song Remains The Same". Get it?

Day 25 - Coolest Vocal Solo - "Great Gig In the Sky" by Pink Floyd

One of the few times I can think of where the human voice was used as an instrument and yet also given it's own space. If this had been a guitar or a saxophone, it would've been cheesy. But the human voice...

Day 26 - Best Verse - "6 Foot 7 Foot" by Lil Wayne

Yeah, just pick your favorite between either of Wayne's verses on this song. Both are classics.

Day 27 - Best Chorus - "Enjoy The Silence" by Depeche Mode

Just read the words.

All I ever wanted/All I ever needed/Is here in my arms/Words are very unnecessary/They can only do harm

God, there's just so much there.

Day 28 - Best Cover - "Hurt" by Johnny Cash

This is the one time on this list I feel like if I'd forgotten about this song for this category I actually might've hated myself. Like actually been angry with myself.

Day 29 - Best Mashup - "I'm A Flirt 7/4 Shoreline" by The Hood Internet

I could've gone with a Girl Talk or Super Mash Bros mashup here. The Hood Internet is on to something here and it's sneaky good.

Day 30 - Last Song You Heard Before Starting This List - "Vanessa From Queens" by Stephen Malkmus

From the very good and under radar "Pig Lib" album, Malkmus woos a reluctant paramour.

Why I'm White

2011-04-14T08:00:00.000-05:00

I finished Christian Lander's new book "Whiter Shade of Pale" A few months ago now and it's taken me a while to write about this a wonderful skewering of elitist liberal culture. An expansion and update of his super-successful Stuff White People Like blog and ensuing book deal, Whiter Shade of Pale takes us across the United States and into the womb-like pockets of true White America.

The amazing part about Stuff White People Like is it is the rare instance of the subject also being the target audience. Those amongst the right and the uncool aren't privy to what makes White America ridiculous so their criticisms lack wit. It is the type of comedy which doesn't come from Us vs. Them but Us vs. Us. As such you laugh at the same time as thinking "Am I really like that?"

Reasons I Am A White Person

1.) My family is Republican and I'm not.

But by "my family" I mean anyone I'm related to over the age of 50. Basically if you are from the generation ahead of mine in my family, they did a really good job providing for their children thru determination and hard work. Now that they've paid for my entire college tuition (all 5 years), I'd appreciate if they'd give back all of the money they earned. Not because they've stopped working hard. Just because I saw the enormous positive influence that money had on my life and can't imagine anyone else would have to go without those advantages either. The irony is fighting to keep it for themselves in the name of dedication and hard work is the same thing as fighting to eventually give most of it to me, someone who didn't earn it. So I'm going to be the unwitting benefactor of a system tipped in my favor while the future George Washington Carvers & Jonas Salks will have to deal with shoddy science books. Meanwhile the future Howard Zinn will just shake his head.

2.) I don't follow ANY religion.

Don't let my grandmother read this. But the last time I went to church when it wasn't a wedding, ordination or funeral was 2005. Not a big deal, you say? The Church isn't for everyone? More spiritual than religious? Yeah, I'm not into that either. Here's a quick rundown of my "religious" beliefs; If you're going to follow a system of values professed by a human, they should be the ones which focus on humanity. Any mythology not relating to life as we know it is irrelevant. I get that it was metaphorical and meant for a less-educated audience. I'm a more-educated audience and for me the holy trinity begins with Freud, Nietzsche & Marx. Our worldly problems have real-world causes and we have the very real capability and responsibility to fix them. Leave the ghosts to Hamlet. Or, even better, leave them to Scooby Doo.

3.) I like a lot of things that are listed in the book.

Including the first book, I'm guilty of liking the following:

Coffee, Barack Obama, Wes Anderson Movies, Having Black Friends, International Travel, David Sedaris, Not Having A TV, Wrigley Field, Architecture, Brunch, Arrested Development, Netflix, Indie Music, Sushi, Plays, Liberal Arts Degrees, Irony, Dogs, Documentaries, Japan, Bicycles, Knowing What's Best For Poor People, Recycling, Standing Still At Concerts, Michel Gondry, Mos Def, Difficult Breakups, Threatening to Move to Canada, The Idea of Soccer, Hating Corporations, T-shirts, Shorts, Having Gay Friends, St. Patrick's Day, San Francisco, Music Piracy, New Balance Shoes, Beards, Noam Chomsky, Self-Deprecating Humor, Integrity, The Criterion Collection, High School English Teachers, Free Health Care, Che Guevarra, Non-American News Sources, Subtitles, The ACLU, Platonic Friendships, Dave Chappelle, Nintendo Wii, The Simpsons, Avoiding Confrontation, Books, Music Festivals, Glasses, McSweeney's, Hardwood Floors, Bakeries, Modern Art Museums, Cheese, Self-Importance, Conan O'Brien, British Slang, Anthony Bourdain, Nannies, Messenger Bags, Punk Rock, Promising To Learn A New Language, The World Cup, Self-Aware Hip-Hop References, Trivia, Whole Wheat, Ugly Sweater Parties, Monty Python, The Onion, Short Stories, Alternative Newspapers, Losing Weight, Trader Joe's, Supporting The Troops But Not The War, Bob Marley, Road Trips, Girls With Bangs, Swimming, Google, Hummus, Olives, Facebook, Cult Movies, The Big Liebowski, Peacoats, Vice Magazine's Dos and Don'ts, Punctuality, Waiting In Line, Taking A Year Off, The Winter Olympics, The Office, Banksy and Being Offended.

Mea Culpa

And in the face of such glaring evidence I have to plea guilty because the truest mark of a White Person is the hypocrisy of believing you aren't when you very clearly are. One of my heroes is George Carlin and one of his funniest stories is of the night he heard a couple talking in the front row of his show. The husband was upset by one of Carlin's jokes and Carlin overheard the wife say to the husband, "It's okay, honey. He isn't talking about us." I laugh at Stuff White People Like because I get to laugh at an unobstructed view of myself.

To JB, Who Would Be Reading This

2011-04-11T08:00:00.003-05:00

Earlier this year my friend JB passed away after a courageous battle with cancer. I saw him for the last time when he asked everyone come to see him on a Sunday nite. He was just home from surgery and said he wanted to keep everyone up to date. When I saw him, he looked sick. But he had just been in surgery and I figured I would see him again soon when he was feeling better, probably sometime after my birthday. My birthday was on a Tuesday about a week later and he died that Thursday.

The very last thing JB and I talked about was this blog. I felt very discouraged about a lack of readers and he assured me that he was reading and that I should continue writing. Well, he passed away so I haven't really felt like writing anything here. Instead I'm just going to share an e-mail exchange JB and I had last year which I love and will remain my favorite memory of my friend.

August 3, 2010 - From: JB Becker

a dream

Michael,

I had this really shitty dream when I almost killed you. It took place in the house I grew up in and in my dream I was like a serial killer or something. You were for some reason in the bathroom with my sister Julie and for some reason I violently attacked you.

You ended up being OK at the end of the dream (just had like a concussion) but it was weird and unsettling, so, I am just trying to discharge the freakishness of it by telling you about it.

I promise never to attack you in real life.

Best wishes,

JB

August 4, 2010 - From: Michael Herman

JB,

My only comment is this. I have a friend who is so kind and gentle-hearted that ALMOST murdering me in a DREAM is overwhelming upsetting. I am lucky to have such a good friend.

Mike

August 5, 2010 - From: JB Becker

Thank you Mr. Herman. You know just how to put a friend at ease.

What I'm Talking About When I'm Talking About Dreaming

2011-02-23T01:00:00.001-06:00

When you're little you have big plans. They are plans which come with being young, having your whole life in front of you and more or less not knowing better. Since these are usually longshots that noone can or will tell you aren't likely to happen, they get grouped together as your dreams. While an actual dream may have you flying or speaking in front of your whole school while naked, these are things that under the right circumstances could possibly happen. Anyone who has ever achieved them has begun with the dream of one day doing them. In that regard, you've completed the first step.

Then life catches up with you. Things aren't as easy as they seem and that person who achieved the dream you're aspiring to... well, they're the one who did it. There were other people who also wanted to do the same thing, who dreamed the dream just like them, who never got there. You don't hear their stories because there's no way you could document them all. They are swept away by the rushing horde who follows the one person who did achieve their dream. When Eminem says "You can do anything you set your mind, man," at the end of Lose Yourself, he's speaking from his own experience. He just omits that he was a remarkably talented and experienced individual who benefited from being in the right place to have the opportunity to do what he'd set his mind to doing.

I was young once with my whole life in front of me and the benefit of more or less not knowing better. During that time I had two dreams. One was to be an actor. The other was to be President of The United States. I wanted to be each of them because then I'd get to do something I was interested in all of the time. I'd be recognized being that person and that would come to define me to the world. All I wanted was the recognition and to know that people liked me. As I got older, those dreams began to melt and to become more reasonable. By the time I was 21, I wanted to be a film director or just an important local politician. There are way more people who can do those jobs. Then my dreams continued their slide. By the time I was 26, I wanted to be a writer or just someone who was a political insider. Even if I couldn't head the process, I could still be a part of it. Five years, a breakup and an economic crash later, I don't even believe in those dreams anymore. I've found my level and it is what has always been: interested observer. Nothing has changed except for the future as I imagined it. It never arrived.

What I've learned as I've gotten older is your dreams change. What you want out of life becomes less of a destination than a place, a continuous feeling over a one-time accomplishment. It's less about becoming something different and more about fully becoming yourself. Your personal identity is developed so you're less worried about something outside of yourself defining you. In fact, I'm more worried about something negatively defining me than I try to latch onto something positive. If I were more religious that might be different. As it is, I aim to represent the inner me to as many people as possible who want to know it.

Now, as I'm older and less and less naive, I have different dreams. They're things I started a long time ago and thought I would come back to if and when I ever got a chance. They were what I would do once I'd achieved my dreams and then could do whatever I wanted. The irony is I wanted the freedom which would come with success and have been provided that same freedom by abject failure. It's very much the same as the monetary freedom I enjoy because I didn't push myself academically and thus didn't incur astronomical amounts of debt by going to graduate school. P = q but not p can = q too.

My dream now is to have a room. It will have to be a place where I can complete my project and be able to leave it. One of the constants in my life since I was 16 is not living in the same place for very long. Part of that is my choice and it is in response to the part of it which is not. I'd like to be able to not need to tear it down. This room will be mine and it will reflect the inner me. To that extent I've been saving pictures and articles from magazines since I was 19 years old. I keep them in a tan plastic filebox which I dutifully slug from old apartment to new apartment waiting for the day they can all come out to stay. In it are basketball and baseball players I thought were cool, bands which I wanted to memorialize and even a few pictures I tore out because it made sense. They are just things I was interested in or thought looked cool. I'd like to have a place where I can put these mementos on the wall and just sit amongst them. I enjoy high-backed chairs and I will have one in my room. Whenever I'm feeling not like myself or want to reminisce that room will be my refuge. I won't keep snacks or work or even anything I'd use on a regular basis in there. And when I'm not using it, I will keep the door closed.

You can visit it if you'd like. But please be respectful of your surroundings. Take note this is what my dream became. My dream is to have a place which reminds me of the time when I still held onto my dreams. Others may lament the lose of their dreams or continue holding onto them under longer and longer odds. My dreams fulfilled their destiny to become nothing and I feel better for recognizing it. If they say it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all, then I say the same is true of dreaming. And like love, I will not dream like I did as a young man. The loss of my dreams will not embitter me or cause me to close my heart to them. It will be a mature dream I seek, a better and more realistic dream for me to follow. One which is based on me who I am instead of the me I'd once hoped I'd become.

And Evidence Suggests I'm The Man For The Job

2011-02-22T00:30:00.002-06:00

I've stayed out of the Wisconsin union discussion for the same reason I never voted when I lived in Green Bay (or Chicago): It's their state and not mine. But a lot of my friends have been posting this as a status update lately:

"Only 5 states do not have collective bargaining for educators (i.e. “teachers unions”) and have deemed it illegal. Those states and their ranking on ACT/SAT scores are as follows:

South Carolina - 50th
North Carolina - 49th
Georgia - 48th
Texas - 47th
Virginia - 44th

Wisconsin ranked 2nd in 2010 in combined ACT/SAT.

(http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/states/USCHARTsat.html)"

Which is I was tickled to find these two quotes in a book I'm reading about political doublespeak, "Aristotle and an Aardvark: Understanding Political Doublespeak Through Philosophy and Jokes", and thought I would share them for your personal enjoyment.

" 'The 10 states with the lowest per pupil spending including 4- North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee & Utah - in the top 10 states with the highest SAT scores. Only 1- Wisconsin -was among the 10 states with the highest SAT scores. New Jersey has the highest per pupil, an astonishing $10,561, which teachers' unions elsewhere try to use as a negotiating benchmark. New Jersey's rank regarding SAT scores? 39th. ...'

George Will, Washington Post, September 12th, 1993"

"In the Journal of Statistics Education, Deborah Lynn Guber points out that a crucial factor Mr. Will ignores in his analysis is participation rates: the percentage of students in each state who actually take the SAT. It turns out that in North Dakota, state colleges require the ACT rather than the SAT, so only 5% of North Dakota students take the SAT. It is fair to say that among that 5% are a large number of students who want to go to prestigious out-of-state schools (that do require the SAT) and who, because of their proven academic abilities, think they have a shot at it. In New Jersey, by comparison, 79 percent of students take the SAT- certainly a more representative cross-section of the entire population of high school graduates. So the SAT scores of the brightest ND students are being compared to the SAT scores of more typical NJ students."

I think the implication is pretty clear. We can definitely get non-union labor to do George Will's job.

Why Dan and Smallz Should Like Brandon Jennings

2011-02-06T11:00:00.004-06:00

1.) He's From Compton!

On a list of Compton natives from NWA to Coolio, he's slightly cooler than Cedric Ceballos and just behind Krist Novoselic. If he had been in the dunk contest this year, he could've found himself in the company of Mort Sahl.

2.) He's The Greatest Scorer In Oak Hill Academy History.

Not Carmelo Anthony, not Kevin Durant, not Jerry Stackhouse, not Michael Beasley, not Rod Strickland.

Brandon Jennings

P.S. He also won the Naismith Award for Best H.S. Boys Basketball Player in 2008.

3.) He Wore A High-Top Fade To The All-American Game.

Brandon grew his hair out thru his senior year knowing he was going to play in the All-American game and wanted to rock the Gumby look. Let me rephrase. Knowing that there was something important down the line, he prepared and focused on it for months.

4.) And Then He Brought It Back!

If you miss the old Gilbert Arenas, I'd like to introduce you to the new Gilbert Arenas. Brandon was even going to Arizona a la Gilbert before he changed to the Europe plans.

5.) Basketball, more than any other American sport, is a game.

Baseball lends itself to statistics because its parameters are so easily defined. Football is all about team planning and preparation. Hockey is close but bogs itself in last line changes and other unspoken rules. Basketball is harder to pin down. It's parameters are so simple (beat your man) and ambiguous (how DO you beat him?).

You can show me that Brandon does X-Y-Z and that means A-B-C. I have no problem believing that. I'm just hesitant to believe there is a secret formula to basketball in the same way that getting guys on base and scoring them while preserving outs seems to be the winning formula in baseball. There are too many factors which come into the mechanics of basketball to say there's one or two things you can focus on.

What I like to see is the end result of a player beating his man with style. When Jennings goes around his back before he throws an alley-oop to John Wall, I'm titillated. When he leaves a drop pass for Andrew Bogut between his legs, I'm excited. When he crosses Stephen Curry to the ground, my heart makes a small leap. Why do all of our warriors have to be automatons? Isn't the thing that's great about basketball is when it approaches Art?

All of this is subjectivity, yes. But, for me, subjectivity is not a dirty word. When I watch basketball I want it to be entertaining and Brandon Jennings is one of the most consistently entertaining players in the NBA.

One White Album (Why?)

2011-01-15T21:00:00.001-06:00

I typed my original White Album post on Thursday in a bit of a rush. I wanted to get the idea out there and get reactions to it before coming back to my reasoning later.

Mostly people missed the really weird songs from The White Album which is what I was going for actually. For example, I think Dear Prudence is a meandering piece of fluff with 6 words which doesn't even crack the top 300 Beatles songs. The White Album is better by cutting all of the Prudences, Rocky Raccoons and even Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Das.

My intent was to make a good, straight-forward 1968 rock album. This was the most popular band in the world slowly tearing itself apart from the inside. In my mind this is The Beatles deciding to rededicate themselves and go back to what made them great; making better music than anyone else.

Side A - I felt it was necessary to throw in sides for historical accuracy. If The Beatles were sequencing this album in 1968, there would've been breaks to be exploited.

Glass Onion - The actual White Album begins with Back In the USSR or more accurately with the sound of a plane landing in a great big theatrical entrance. I wanted to go against that. It's two beats and begin with the song.

Additionally, Glass Onion references The Beatles' history as a band. My scenario has them rededicating themselves to being The Best Band In The World and acknowledging their past is a part of that. Putting that up front is even bolder.

Yer Blues - I included this one because it's a bluesy rock song. Also, John Lennon went from "Help! I need somebody!" to "Yes, I'm lonely, wanna die." in three years. Following Glass Onion, it's pretty stark how The Beatles feel about themselves.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps - I think this is the best song on The White Album and possibly the best song in their oeuvre. The real White Album didn't have a single but I'd make this the lead single from the album and as such I put it into the third spot on Side A where most lead singles go.

I'm So Tired - This is one of the under-appreciated songs on The White Album. I think of it as an echo of I'm Only Sleeping from Revolver.

Cry Baby Cry - I didn't want to make The Beatles into joyless assholes (despite the evidence) and left this song on to reflect their playful and less-serious side. Also the little "Can you take me back where I be from?" code leads really well into Julia.

Julia - This is the second prettiest song on the album and John's homage to his mother. A perfect song to take the listener between sides.

Side B - After John covers the vocal duties on all but one of the songs on Side A, he only sings lead once on the flip.

Blackbird - Though he will be forever most remembered for Yesterday, Paul really should be remembered for this song. It's buried on The White Album and I rectify that by moving it to the beginning of Side B. Imagine setting the needle in the groove and the first thing that comes thru the speakers is this song. It would really be perfect.

Revolution 1 - Whereas the version on the B Side of Hey Jude is a fuzzed-out rock song, the horns and slower tempo swing here. I also like putting it one song before...

Back In the USSR - The album hits the fast forward and peaks loudly between this song and the next.

Helter Skelter - Ok, so not a great song on its own and the temptation might be to delete this song because of its association with Charles Manson. I leave it because it represents how much of the mythology of The Beatles is stuff that was out of their control.

Savoy Truffle - George gets one song on Side A and one on Side B. I think this is one of his songs that had-he-not-been-in-The-Beatles is an indicator what his music would've sounded like in his own band.

I Will - Again, while The White Album makes a big theatrical production of its departure with Good Night (sorry Ringo but no singing for you here), I aimed to go against that and have the album make a sweet and subtle exit.

One White Album

2011-01-13T19:45:00.000-06:00

My friend Jeff asked me how I would pare and re-order The White Album if I wanted to make it into just one album. In fact, here's what he wrote...

"Just thought this would be fun. If you were the Beatles, and you had to whittle The White Album down to one LP because George Martin finds it too bloated, what tracks (maximum of 15) would you keep and what order would you put them in?"

Jeff, I can do it in 12 songs.

Side A

Glass Onion (Lennon/McCartney)
Yer Blues (Lennon/McCartney)
While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Harrison)
I'm So Tired (Lennon/McCartney)
Cry Baby Cry (Lennon/McCartney)
Julia (Lennon/McCartney)

Side B

Blackbird (Lennon/McCartney)
Revolution 1 (Lennon/McCartney)
Back In the USSR (Lennon/McCartney)
Helter Skelter (Lennon/McCartney)
Savoy Truffle (Harrison)
I Will (Lennon/McCartney)

Set For Random and Enjoy

2011-01-09T15:30:00.002-06:00

I recently had to wipe the hard-drive on my laptop because I'd let my virus protection lapse. (In my defense it was a year and half before anything went wrong.) Not only did it provide me an opportunity to upgrade to Windows 7 but also to reload all my music onto my computer. Which is to say I only put stuff back onto it which I really wanted. I feel very satisfied with the results. Here's the list which would be a perfect cross-section of music I like.

Adriano Celentano - Prisencolinsinainciusol
The Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
Aziz Ansari - Intimate Moments for A Sensual Evening
Blackroc - s/t
Bob Dylen - Greatest Hits Vol. 1&2
Broken Social Scene - Something For All of Us & Spirit If...
Cee-Lo Green - Noone's Going To Love You
Chiddy Bang - Hey London & The Opposite of Adults
Doomtree - False Hopes
Doctor Dog - Shame, Shame
The Flaming Lips - Borderline
Gorillaz - Some Kind of Nature
Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown
GZA - Pro Tools
Jonsi - Time to Pretend
Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Kings of Leon - Sex On Fire
Kraftwerk - I, II, Autobahn & Ralf and Florian
La Roux - s/t
Lil Wayne - Carter III
MGMT - Congratulations
Minutemen - Double Nickels on The Dime
Mos Def - The Ecstatic
Pavement - Terror Twilight
Rick Ross - Ashes to Ashes
Sonic Youth - Antenna
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Pig Lib & Real Emotional Trash
Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz
The Talking Heads - More Songs About Buildings and Food
The Tallest Man On Earth - The Wild Hunt
Titus Andronicus - The Monitor
The White Stripes - Under Great White Northern Lights

That's a set of music you can put on shuffle and pretty much count that one song will flow from another to an other.

Yeah, I Want Things To Go My Ways. But As Of Late, Shit Been Going Sideways.

2010-12-31T15:15:00.001-06:00

I finished the book "Everything Bad Is Good For You" by Steven Johnson on the plane yesterday.

The thesis of the book is this. Mass Culture (large C) is in incline, not decline. Cultural critics argue that it's decline because television, videogames and movies have become more violent and filled with sex and other blah blah blah (and they have). What this book argues is that it's actually in incline because complexity has increased and thus the work a person must do to enjoy entertainment has increased. It has even begun to make us smarter, a fact which goes unnoticed because of the Flynn Effect. Basically the shift has taken place because of three things.

The first is not only that culture is more complex by following more and longer storylines but the complexity is encased in the relationships between things. It's not just that you have to solve the mystery of what the things placed into a show or videogame are a la Chekov's gun but also how they relate to one another. You have to parse what information is important to the ultimate resolution and what is not. Specifically you have to do this in (and are trained to do this by) videogames but it applies to more passive forms of culture. Producers are now "allowed" to leave more ambiguity in their programming and require the audience make narrative leaps of filling in and making assumptions which they wouldn't have to in the past.

Because all of our media is now storeable and repeatable and you can see something later which will explain something earlier instead of only vice versa. In 1970, one of the Big Three television networks aired something once and then it was gone, a movie ran once in the theater and it was gone, etc. But with the advent of VCRs and the expansion of cable (and with it, the comensurate thirst for programming to fill their shelves and schedule), media has to hold up to and can require repeat viewings. This encourages the creators to embed clues and in-jokes into the programming which you only see or get upon repeat or obsessive viewings. We've moved away from a lowest-common-denominator you had to get the first time thru to a most-repeatable ethos where you will want to watch it over and over.

A contributing factor to that is we now have a greater community to discuss our ideas via the Internet. It's now a "lean forward" culture as Steve Jobs calls it where we the viewers experience rewards for digesting close readings. Where as the likelyhood of finding someone who had even seen Star Trek in the mid-70s was low, now there are massive web message boards devoted to Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica and Survivor and so on down the line. You aren't encouraged to sit back and zone out. You tune in and join up.

An example they cite is the in-joke of Art Vandalay on Seinfeld. You wouldn't need to know Art Vandalay is a name George uses to lie in awkward social situations to enjoy the episode itself you're watching. It's just a name which could be interchangeable with anything else you could make up on the spot. But for someone who has obsessively and repeatedly watched the show, it's a nod to George's long-arcing laziness. It adds depth to his character to know he's so often a liar that he's has created a character he can lean back on when he's forced to lie. If you haven't been following Seinfeld since day one (or The Simpsons or The Wire or college basketball) there's this massive online community you can tap into right there on the Internet.

I found the book fascinating. It held a couple of keys for me which tailed back incidentally to earlier things I'd been thinking of a la a television show's later explains earlier structure.

The first was that television producers create shows like Lost specifically to obscure and leave out plot points BECAUSE that's the way people want them. To me it seemed like lazy, drawn-out storytelling (and perhaps it is) but they're doing it that way to respond to their audience. So where I might watch Lost and think "This is dumb. He's obviously dead and in a limbo-like state." other people will watch Lost and think "I think he's dead and in a limbo-like state. What are the clues which confirm that?" The Lost audience wants drawn-out storytelling they can watch closely and analyze and interface with other people about over the Internet and in-person. I won't "get" what they think is great about it not because I'm skeptical but because I'm not skeptical enough. I look at it, think "That's answer." and move on. Lost fans see it and get sucked in.

The other key was what I did just there. I didn't use the tools of defining what something is and how it interrelates to other things on a popular television show or in a videogame. I used those tools to define something and how it interrelates to other things in my life. And I'm trying to get better at those things because Life is a one-pass event like a 1970s television show. Johnson brings up the idea of Nietzsche's eternal recurrence near the end of the book in regards to how media is put together in this version of the mass culture. They try to get it right the first time because people are going to watch it over and over if it rewards them for doing so.

A couple of months back I went to brunch with some friends and we were discussing religion. I told them how my morality is based upon having to explain your actions later. I don't always get them right which is why I'm a big proponent of grace. But I'd like to think I could go back and explain my reasoning and emotional state which lead to me doing what I did and didn't do.

I'm trying to get better at the skills "Everthing Bad Is Good For You" defines not to analyze media but because Life is a one-pass event like a 1970s television show. I worry about getting Life right because it too is storeable and figuratively repeatable. I want to make the right choice the first time around because that's the one which will remain in people's memories. If I know better what the right choice is, I'm more likely to make it and to be remembered as making it.

Untitled Pt.2

2010-12-04T17:00:00.002-06:00

"Then six weeks ago, I received an invitation to her wedding. She's marrying some guy she met at a company conference or something like that. They had a by-the-numbers story book romance. He met her, he was nice to her and he really appreciated her. They moved in together, they got a dog and they decided to get married."

He raises his voice a few octaves and buttons his cuffs. "'I want you to be there,' she told me when I expressed reservations. 'You mean as much to me as anyone else I've ever known. Well, other than Brent.' Then she used the dirty trick it was perfectly fair of her to use. 'Please, do this for me. It wouldn't be the same if you weren't there'."

"So I'm going. I'm going to sit near the back on the bride's side and stare across the room at Louisa. She won't be up there making sure I'm watching and it would be the same if I weren't there. But I'm still going."

"The tense moment will come when the priest asks whether there is anyone who knows why these two people shouldn't be married. In my younger and more reckless days, I might've stood up and screamed, 'I do. Because I love you Louisa.' Today I will stay in my seat and the moment will pass without so much as a burning in my legs. She'll run down the aisle and they'll cut the cake. I'll give her a hug and we'll promise to do a better job staying in touch. Two months from now she'll be the furthest thing from my mind. I have enough other women I keep close but not too close to take up my time. In that way, she's been an odd precedent."

He ties his tie while looking at the ceiling.

"I don't want to sound like I regret the way this ended up. Louisa was not the 'one great love of my life' and I did not miss the boat by never telling her how I felt. In reality, we just liked being the center and focus of someone else's attention. The invigorating rush of a crush eventually gave way to how little was behind it all."

"I'm steeling myself for one moment though. At some point in the night, I'll look at Louisa or she'll look at me. We will be talking to seperate groups of people and our eyes will meet across the room one last time. She'll wink at me and I'll wink back. It will be a hold over from when we cared about the other person seeing. Back then, it meant 'I know that you know.' Now it will mean the exact same thing but in a different way."

"It was crazy to be so unhappy for so long. Our relationship could never last. We had to move on with our lives and be happy."

He pulls his suit jacket on. "Does this look good?" He stands there arms spread, his shirt already wrinkling from the sweat.

Untitled Pt.1

2010-12-04T16:25:00.001-06:00

"I once heard, 'A relationship can never last between two people who are the same kind of crazy.' At first, I thought it was the sort of thing which sounds wise because of its odd sentence construction. A lot of advice is repeated because it sounds antiquated and it's a common assumption anything which lasts long enough must be The Truth. So I was skeptical and thought my results would inevitably vary."

"That was before I met Louisa. She was exactly the same kind of crazy as me. By that, I don't mean she loved Japanese animation, Ernest Hemingway novels and Left Coast punk. Quite the contrary."

"I mean she took the world in the same way I did. She could see the differing nature of any moment. Most people see the world in only one way. It's easier to think if you live your life by one hard and fast code of ethics that apply to every situation and every time. In fact, it's so easy most people don't even think they are as they're doing it."

He imitates a voice. "'That's just me,' they'll claim. 'That's how I am.'"

"Louisa saw every new moment as unique. She once told me her only presumption upon entering an unknown situation was she knew absolutely nothing. I remember making a wise crack about how wonderfully Zen that was and how I wish I could be so free-minded and unfrightened by the world."

"She was right though. By going in with an empty slate, her first instinct was to listen."

"Now, years later, I think that's why so many people gravitated to her. She was constantly sticking out her neck and taking risks for what she believed in. And what she believed in was she could actually make things better if only people would tell her what was wrong. She was the most selfless person I'd ever met."

"That was what attracted me to her as a friend. It was a different thing entirely which made me want to be something more. I honestly thought she treated me differently, treated me better. As nice as she was to everyone she met, I thought I caught a certain sparkle when she noticed I was in the room. It was something special to me. Her eyes would beam, her smile would light up and she would stop."

"It became a little game between us. Who could dance around the issue better? Who could let on in a more deniable way? I stretched on for weeks and then weeks became months. The game grew more complex. Soon it became 'Who could flirt more while the other watched?' 'Who could brag more and who could bear more while talking about meeting a nice new...?' Who could get the other to say, 'You'll find a nice ... who really appreciates you,' when the nice new ... left?"

"We became co-dependents in romantic failure and co-conspirators in never being happy. That was the crazy we shared. We chose to always be the bridesmaid instead of ruining our tacit 'If all else fails and we're both 30...' agreement."

"Slowly we drifted apart. Other things and other people started to clutter up our lives. Where once we flirted to make sure the other was still paying attention, now we flirted and didn't care. I could have entire relationships and only mention it off-handedly once it ended. We no longer mattered. All of the years melted, swept away as though there had been a gust of wind. The last time I really talked to Louisa was almost three years ago. She was just out of undergrad and she was freaking out about actually being out in the world. There was so much she just couldn't deal with and she called to lean on my shoulder."

He begins buttoning his shirt, the very bottom button first.

"It was fair of her to call me since I'd been something like a confidant for years. I would listen, make some noises which implied I understood and then make broad, wisened-sounding statements. This time I was bound for failure because what each of us had done was never actual support. We were experts on each other's idiosyncrasies. But we'd never let each other in far enough to truly know us."

"The last time we talked I listened and made affirming grunts in her little pauses. Then when it came time to make my usual non-commital advice, I realized I had nothing. I couldn't even find something someone else would say. There is no old saying which expresses 'I don't even know you anymore and can't relate to your problems.' In real time, I mumbled a bit about how everything would be okay and how she would find her way eventually. It was the first time in our relationship that someone's bullshit openly stunk."

He steps into his dress slacks one leg at a time and makes a grimmace as he buckles his belt to his usual loop. "Not as skinny as I once was."

"We made plans to see a movie in the upcoming weeks and neither of us called back with firm plans. We could've repeated it a few times more, each time behind an 'Oh, hey...' facade. But we both knew it was time to quit."

Take Away the Football Team, the Basketball Team And All We Got Is Me to Represent New Orleans

2010-08-13T07:45:00.001-05:00

Jeff, a Milwaukee native and transplant to Minneapolis, is standing in the Bryant-Lake Bowl, a turn-of-the-20th-century bowling alley converted to include a bar, restaurant and theater. As moderator of a popular and locally-acclaimed reading series, Jeff is working with the technical staff of the theater to wire in a Skype chat with the author of that month's selection.

"Can you hear us?" says Jeff as the 150 person capacity crowd of the theater greets each other and orders drinks around him. ...

Ok, so all of what I just wrote is true. By reporting what I know about Jeff and by attending the July meeting of Books & Bars, I've given an accurate representation of what was happening. I may have embellished a little bit here, tightened up a bit there and put words in Jeff's mouth but at its heart everything I wrote is true to the actual event.

Is it the Truth though? Is what I wrote an absolute representation of the situation? Well, no. I focused on Jeff while cutting out everyone else in the room. I gave one perspective on the event and had that stand in for the whole of the event. As a reader who wasn't there, you would likely assume (correctly I hope) that a perspective highlighting the moderator would be able to be generalized to the lion's share of the people in attendance because taking the time to actually chronicle the entire crowd would be time-consuming and unlikely to shed a great deal more perspective upon the July meeting. So you accept it's a representation of the Truth.

The same is true of "Zeitoun". It's based upon actual events from Zeitoun and Kathy's real lives. But it doesn't purport to be the Truth. It is after all Eggers' name on the front of the book, not Kathy and Zeitoun's names. Eggers is giving a representation of the Truth of their experiences surrounding Hurricane Katrina and using it to stand in as representative of a generalized experience of a person who lived in New Orleans in the aftermath of the storm. We could again try to chronicle the experience and perspective of everyone but at a wont of time and necessity, we don't.

So you might be saying, "So what? Eggers is writing creative non-fiction. Welcome to the world of early 21st century publishing." And I agree with that, especially because the popularity of Eggers and his own deliberate efforts have pushed contemporary publishing in that direction. Did anyone see that 16-year-old Justin Bieber is writing his memoirs? Speak of a wont of time and necessity...

This is why I think it's important. One of the three things which stuck out about "Zeitoun" (along with how it romanticizes the post-storm anarchy and how poorly Kathy comes off) is the frequent references to how difficult it is to be a Muslim in post-9/11 America. It stuck out to me because 1.) it's kind of tangential if Zeitoun is taking the place of the Everyman and 2.) it's like duuuuuhhhhhhh. It's not even something which we can limit to happening prior to January 20th, 2009 either as the stupid "WTC mosque" controversy has proven. Though it's been almost ten years since 9/11, our continued military presence in Muslim countries makes for a constant backdrop to living in the United States right now. Anyone alive and aware in America knows it's difficult to be a Muslim in our culture.

The only people whom that wouldn't be readily obvious for is people who don't live in our culture. Since America is a cultural hegemony (just try to find a foreign film in the top 100 grossing films of 2009) and because we're willing to live with our warts, that's not an idea which is remote to anyone living in a free society on the planet. Which means the people whom need to be told of that reality are for the most part people who are either too young to remember or haven't been born yet. Eggers has to be aware his celebrity and influence means his books will be read not just by contemporary audiences. They will also be read by people who wouldn't know offhand how difficult it is to be Muslim right now.

It matters because for many people who will be looking back on this era, this will be their perspective and representation of this era in the same way Kerouac's "On the Road" is for those of us who were not old enough or even alive in the 1950s. (Notice that I said Kerouac and "On The Road", not Halberstam and "The Fifties" or C. Wright Mills and "The Power Elite".) But it would be ludicrous to suggest "On the Road" is the Truth about the 1950s, no matter how beloved our friend Kerouac is. "On the Road" is creative non-fiction which is meant to represent a generalization of post-WWII America in the way "Zeitoun" represents our current moment. Hell, the focus in each is even on the main character's transportation.

So my impression while reading "Zeitoun" was an awareness that what I was reading was true but not the Truth. I don't think you can hand someone a copy of the book and say "This is what it was like to live in New Orleans in the days after Hurricane Katrina," any more than you can hand them "On the Road" and show them the 1950s. To get closer to the Truth, you have to keep on looking and I hope, being an open-minded individual who believes in the freedom of religion, that the future readers of "Zeitoun" keep looking. Our era is much too complex to summarize in 325 pages and in the experience of only one man.

The Renewable Razor

2010-07-29T21:20:00.002-05:00

"When will somebody invent the renewable razor?"

I think this as I examine the single-blade Bic I have in my right hand to accompany the handful of shaving lather in my left. As I think this, the cold water of the faucet continues down the drain at a rapid pace. It is cold not hot because, although it feels better on my face and makes the hairs of my beard stand on end, warm water makes the blade dull more quickly and I go through razors more rapidly.

I examine the plastic of the handle. It is orange and made of some thin and cheap polymer made of foreign oil and American blood. A whole pack of these things, 20 in all, was less than two dollars so I have no reason to believe great care was expended in lessening the environmental impact of its production. The same is surely true of the razorhead and although it is white I doubt that means it's any more Earth-friendly.

I look at the blade, a thin strip of indeterminate metal, steel possibly, custom-fit to the razorhead. Metals are rare molecules pressed together in the hot depths of our planet's molten core over thousands of years. Geological ages bringing atoms of iron together with oxygen and occasionally something else to form compounds like Fe304 and Fe2O3 or FeCO3 until some man, a human, tears it out of the Earth using strip mining or mountain top removal. Even then it must be smelted in a fossil fuel-burning blast furnace and cast into wide thin sheets before it can be trucked over road and possibly across the continent to the place where it meets the thin plastic held in my right hand.

I look at all of this and I think of the whole process required for me to remove hair from my face. I think of the natural world being ruined so I can have the convenience of a clean face and a nuzzle from my girlfriend. I think about this and I think "When will somebody invent the renewable razor?"

For me, I see hope in the destruction. I reject the bleakness of the end of the world. I imagine a future when there will be a blade that doesn't go dull or at least biodegrades when I am done with it. I imagine a handle made from natural materials not synthetics. I imagine these things, believe they will one day exist and return to shaving my face by rinsing my Bic in the cold stream flowing ebulliently from the bathroom faucet.

Five Texts You Receive On Vacation

2010-07-25T19:00:00.001-05:00

I was on vacation this weekend and had my phone turned off from about 6 o'clock Friday until I plugged it in just a few hours ago. During that time I received five text messages.

I will use this space to respond to those text messages.

Fri July 23rd 5:54 pm from Todd Turner "Hello sir"

Todd, You just missed me before I went up north for the weekend. How was your weekend? Let's get together sometime this week. Maybe go swimming if the weather is nice.

Sat July 24th 3:09 am from Twitter KingJames: I swear I love my bro @oneandonlycp3!! Nuff said

Noone was questioning it, LeBron. Or should we?

Sat July 24th 11:50 am from Facebook Dan Herman to you and 7 others:

Hey all,

I found out yesterday that Four Peaks' Pumpkin Porter is going to be released on...(reply "n" for next)

Oh, fuck this is one of those cliffhangers. When does it get released? WHEN DOES IT GET RELEASED?! click

Sat July 24th 12:44 pm from Stensby Your voice mail sucks.

I hardly ever use it. What sucks about it? [Ed note. Stensby didn't even leave me a voice mail.]

Sat July 24th 7:50 pm from Hayley Doyle What route do ppl use to bike to dan's?

I'm sorry I didn't get this message until it was way too late. I like the way that takes you through Kenwood and along the bike path to Penn Ave. Link

Need A Go-Go Girl Who Dance Like Lady Gaga

2010-06-14T00:01:00.003-05:00

Last night I went to a Lady Gaga-themed 30th birthday party for a friend. Attendees were encouraged to dress like Gaga or in Gaga-inspired outfits. Some people took their direction from Gaga videos and replicated the bubble outfit or the Diet Coke rollers. Other people simply wrapped themselves in electrical tape or something sparkly because nothing which is aware and celebrates its oddness is really un-Gaga. I myself took the four aces and a joker from a deck of cards and stuck them to my forehead with double-stick tape.

It all relates to a simple truth. Like or dislike her music (I personally like it), it would be pretty difficult to deny Gaga's influence as a cultural force. In the last two years she has released 8 new singles and 7 of them have been top 10 hits with the most recent being the Isla Bonita-esque "Alejandro." What distinguishes Gaga as a cultural force is that each video is a envelope-pushing production and the new video is no exception.

In her early videos, she celebrated rockstar-like Midwest partying, L.A. decadence and, like a good New Yorker, New York. Then came the dual turning points of "Paparazzi" and "Bad Romance" where the now-famous Gaga began making insider points/mocking the celebrity culture which now enveloped her. By the time "Telephone" and its unabashed product placements arrived Gaga was both ensconced in the business-side of things while winking at us from the art-for-arts-sake side. How "Alejandro" distiguishes itself from Gaga's earlier videos is the type of iconography it choses to ape.

It's disappointing to me Gaga's first foray from what she'd done well with into new turf didn't take her anywhere interesting. Gone are American influences as Gaga draws from an even deeper pool. Unfortunately the influences she draws are the tired and worn-out trifecta of Fascism, Catholicism and Victorianism. If she's feeling restricted from producing her art (and quite unworthily so) the play isn't to recycle cliche. Even if it reads as unintentional homage to Madonna, it's a rare misstep from Gaga and hopefully one she doesn't soon duplicate.

So why didn't it work? I'd offer this as a simple possibility. We Americans have our cultural feet placed deep one-each into two cultural pools: that of Europe and that of Africa. Gaga represents an excellent balance between those two cultural pools. It's not a stretch to call her music techno or to call it R&B. Some may look down their rock critic noses at dance pop here in the Anglosphere but dance music is what makes the rest of the world move. You could play "Alejandro" in an international setting and not seem over-reaching or out-of-place in either Stockholm or Malawi. Gaga's American melting pot is what distinguished her from other also-rans. I put forth the video doesn't work because it tilts to formalism while forgetting about that world-moving sensation of dancing.

The truth is Gaga is one of only two American popular artists who have actual credibility within all but the shrewdly discriminating of our culture. If her career follows the arc of Justin Timberlake's (an artist who has his own internationally-infused songs), she'll be just fine.

My Reading List

2010-05-27T18:30:00.002-05:00

A friend asked for my reading list. This was the result. Get on GoodReads and you'll get an e-mail every I add or finish a book. Starting with January '09...

Read

No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff
Flesh and Blood by Michael Cunningham
The Genocides by Thomas Disch
Kafka On the Shore by Haruki Murakami
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
Black Hole by Charles Burns
People Are Unappealing: Even Me by Sara Barron
Rock, Paper, Scissors: Game Theory in Everyday Life by Len Fisher
The Ghost Map... by Steven Johnson
Bonk by Mary Roach
My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientists Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Black Hole War... by Leonard Susskind
Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman!... by Richard Feynman
13 Things That Don't Make Sense by Michael Brooks
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
Alex and Me... by Irene Pepperberg
Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman
How Proust Can Change Your Life... by Alain de Botton
The Book of Basketball... by Bill Simmons
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2009 edited by Dave Eggers
City of Thieves by David Benioff
Inventory... by The Writers of The Onion
How To Talk About Books You Haven't Read by Pierre Bayard
Why God Won't Go Away... by Andrew Newberg
Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit by Daniel Quinn
The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson
How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer
Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCann
Pleasurable Kingdom by Jonathan Balcombe
Big Machine by Victor LaVelle
Professor Stewart's Cupboard of Mathematical Curiosities by Ian Stewart

Reading

Twitterature by Alexander Aciman
Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder
The Magicians by Lev Grossman
Avoid Boring People... by James D. Watson
News, Nudity, Nonsense: The Best of Vice Magazine Vol. 2 (2003-2008)

To Read

The Biology of Belief... by Bruce Lipton
Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut
Speaker for The Dead by Orson Scott Card
House of Tomorrow by Peter Bognanni
Aristotle and Aardvark Go To Washington... by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein
The Tall Book by Arianne Cohen
Wigfield by Amy Sedaris, Stephen Colbert and Paulo Dinello
The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
Professor Stewart's Hoard of Mathematical Treasures by Ian Stewart
Second Nature by Jonathan Blacombe
The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Supermob by Gus Russo
The Collected What If... edited Robert Cowley

It's A Number Game But Shit Don't Add Up Somehow

2010-05-20T07:45:00.000-05:00

From the time I got on the bus yesterday morning until when he stopped texting me back seven hours later, Smallz and I exchanged mini-diatribes about the NBA Draft ranging from which player the Wolves should take with the fourth pick to the proper way to evaluate talent and construct a team to the other person's deficiencies at evaluating talent and those of their chosen method to constructing a team. Basically our arguments were this.

Smallz loves efficient players. Thus Kevin Love is his one shining beacon on our entire roster. As such Al Jefferson inspires much hatred in Smallz's gut. Not only does Jefferson play the same position as Love but inefficiently uses the ball in offensive situations Love would efficiently use them. His evidence is statistics and his team-building philosophy is to find other efficient players to pair with Love.

I, on the other hand, believe Jefferson is inefficient because he needs to be. Love is a good player and a compliment to Jefferson. But efficiency statistics don't tell the whole story. As the most offensively-skilled player on the Wolves, a less-than-efficient attempt from Jefferson is still better than passing the ball to a less talented teammate. Being the focus of the offense and the volume of his shots he can't cherry-pick only the best attempts. Basketball is scored as a quantitative game, not an efficiency game, and to remove Jefferson without a suitable replacement will only focus the defense on another lesser player.

(Further reading found HERE.)

This is especially important with the NBA draft coming up. Since the Wolves didn't get one of the surefire guys at the very top of the draft, their path forward is a lot less clear. Smallz wants to trade Jefferson to free playing time for Love and draft Kentucky's DeMarcus Cousins, a freakishly large center who may have character issues. I want to keep both Jefferson and Love while drafting Syracuse small forward Wesley Johnson, a lower risk lower reward player who plays a position of need. We could argue back and forth for hours (and did) about which one would be a better fit for Minnesota. I wanted to model the problem and get some results now.

How I Used Math To "Solve" the Problem

So let's assume three things. First that either Cousins or Johnson could boom or bust with equal likelihood. Let's just say Cousins wider range of possible outcomes averages out to Johnson's thinner range to make things easier. Second, let's assume the pick is an independent outcome. Let's say if Minnesota picked Cousins they wouldn't keep Jefferson and his minutes would go to DeMarcus. Third, the actual outcome will be one of many possible outcomes. When a weatherman says 55% chance of rain and it doesn't, he was right. It just fell in the 45% he didn't mention.

Here's the "game" I developed. Imagine every possible outcome for DeMarcus Cousins' and Wesley Johnson's careers is represented by a playing card. Since they are top draft picks they are more likely to succeed than fail so all face cards represent complete success (being a cornerstone), ten through six represent qualified success (being an NBA starter) and five through two mean they bust. I could look up the real success rate but let's keep it simple. Now draw two cards, one representing Cousins and the other representing Johnson. Reset the deck, reshuffle the cards and repeat the process 100 times.

(Or do like I did and use a random card generator like THIS ONE.)

What I found is Cousins is a cornerstone 37% of the time, a starter 38% of the time and a bust 25% of the time. Likewise Johnson is a cornerstone 38% of the time, a starter 33% of the time and a bust 29% of the time. In 48% of the cases Cousins is the better player while Johnson is the better player 45% of the time. (The remaining 7% is when they're even.) It's also worth noting Cousins is significantly better 27% of the time while Johnson is significantly better 26% of the time.

So what do the results tell us about who the Wolves should take? Nothing. This is a simplified model of an enormously complex system. But within the context of the system it says we should expect any result to be possible. In that way both experience and this simulation align. In the NBA Draft eventually you have to play the odds and hope for the best.

P.S. This is the raw data from my simulation. Cousins is on the left and Johnson on the right. Ignore the symbols. That's just me coding the data.

CJ

A4**
A3**
A9**
88-
610++

610++
Q8**
QK*
63*
32*

5J++
10Q+
9J+
87*
410++

56*
3Q++
34+
5A++
67+

109*
QJ*
4K++
82**
109*

63*
56+
7Q++
86*
J8**

3A++
910+
5K++
J9*
Q4**

103**
KJ*
JQ+
A2**
9Q+

25+
K5**
9Q+
4A++
63*

44-
6K++
6Q++
9K++
K3**

KJ*
8A++
5J++
8Q++
A5**

25++
7Q++
KA+
K8**
A3**

J3**
22-
J3**
37++
24+

76*
9J+
A4**
3K++
QJ*

KA+
88-
53*
A8**
82**

36+
J8*
8Q++
J7**
Q9*

6J++
AA-
6A++
A5**
310++

92**
QQ-
JK+
56+
8Q++

8J+
Q9*
Q6**
Q5**
810+

J2**
33-
104**
A7**
QA+

A Joke Written for My Girlfriend

2010-05-11T01:35:00.005-05:00

Last week I thought up a joke for Audrey. Not a joke for Audrey to tell as a part of her act. I wrote this joke for Audrey to think it's funny. Here it is.

Preface: Audrey does comedy open-mics. These open-mics are dominated by "bros" who are probably told by their friends "Dude, you're really funny. You should do stand up." The results are exactly what you would expect, especially if what you're expecting is a lot of unfunny date rape jokes. Wait, that's redundant. So I wrote this joke for her since I know how much those jokes agitate her.

When I was younger and more carefree in the world I did some hitchhiking. I spent one entire summer standing by the side of the road with a small "Need a ride" sign. At times the experience was great. Others it got a little hairy.

There was one time a semi pulled over for me and as I was running up to the cab I saw the "Ass, grass or gas: Nobody rides for free" bumper sticker which I was sure they didn't even print anymore. I didn't have a lot of money and what I did have I wanted to spend on weed. So as I was pulling myself up into the cab by the mirror (something I later learned is a faux pas) I thought to myself I would go for the "ass" option and see about calling the truck driver's bluff. I was a good looking 20 year old but noone would ever confuse me as feminine.

Well, the truck driver and I totally fucked. But I must not have been very good at it because at the next rest-stop she still made me buy her a tank of gas.

Is that funny?

I love that joke and not just because I wrote it. I love it because it contains three inversions and one negation. In other words, there are three points where what you would normally expect is flipped on its ear and once where the absurdity of the underlying point is exposed and used to destroy the point itself.

The first point (and it's a sneaky one which isn't revealed until the end) is when the truck driver is a woman. It reminds me of that "brain-teaser" where the son is in a car accident with his dad and yet the doctor at the hospital can't operate on him because the boy is also the doctor's son. Truck drivers are assumed to be men in the same way doctors are.

Secondly the traditional idea of the feminine sex drive is inverted. This is the idea of women wanting sex and wanting random sex outside of a relationship writ large. In the traditional morality, women who want sex and who want non-relationship sex are either weak-willed and easily-manipulable or whores and home-wreckers. Basically there's no room for a woman to act like we easily assume a (male) truck driver does. This joke inverts the traditional idea by giving a (later-revealed) woman that same and equal interest in sex and random anonymous sex at that.

The third inversion (and the root of this joke) is the idea of the male being made into the object of sexuality. The aforementioned date rape jokes are "funny" because if the woman (and these "bros" are never date raping dudes) is made from a subject into an object she loses her humanity and her rights. The reason rape is a crime is because it infringes on the right of an individual to choose their sexual partners and the extent of their sexual activities. However an object doesn't share those rights. So the making of a male into a sexual object (something which could be done to these "bros") makes that denial a two-way street and the "bros" are driving into traffic.

Which is why the negation is my favorite part. It takes the idea of the male as infallible sexual subject and eliminates it completely. The "I" in the joke isn't "the male as sexual god" whose prowess doubles as ascendancy and overwhelms any *cough* complications along the way. The "I" is an inexperienced 20 year old on the side of the road. While the virility of a 20-something male is sanctified under the traditional morality, in reality a truly experienced individual knows it's not something worth sanctifying.

For that reason the entire system is negated. If the value it holds up as the pinnacle of virtue is something of no value at all, then the system itself is of no value at all. That includes the aforementioned "male as sexual god" paradigm used as a justification for the unfunny date rape jokes. Wait, I already said that term was redundant.

Thirty By Thirty - Finis

2010-01-31T22:45:00.004-06:00

As I approached my 30th birthday, I followed through on a decision of how I would celebrate the last year of my twenties.

A lot of people approach their thirties in a mournful state. I should know as, in the last few years, my peers have increasingly become people approaching and then passing thirty. They think of it as the dying of their youth and the end of their best years. I took the opposite tack. I am much happier be 30 than 20. When I was 20 I had no money, had no girlfriend and didn't know who the fonk I was or who I wanted to be. Well, those three things are no longer true. I wouldn't peel back my twenties in any kind of redo because what I did and what happened made me into who I am today.

Thus I celebrated my twenties as this great time I did, went and saw everything I could and enjoyed myself while doing, going and seeing. In much the same way we congregate together on New Years Eve to celebrate the passing of time instead of mourning it, my turning thirty will not be the dying of one era but the commencement of another. They will be the years when I find my way in the world, grow with those people who will be my life companions and enjoy all of the perks of being an adult instead of being an over-inflated kid.

As a part of this year long celebration I have done thirty things which I had never done before and then came back here to write about the experience. My brother originally called it my "busted list" as in I had to do these things before I'm old and busted. Some of the tasks were small and easily completed. Others required planning and assistance. It was not my intent to have a list of thirty items and only accomplish twenty-something. There was a list which was greater than thirty items and your suggestions were appreciated to expand upon it further and into the future. As I said, the intent was to share in this celebration both in the actual commission of the thirty things and also in writing about it in this space.

To that extent I have re-written the Thirty by Thirty mission statement:

Between his 29th and 30th birthdays, Michael Herman celebrated his transition into his third decade by completing thirty tasks he has never previously experienced and embracing the idea you can always find new experiences no matter how old you are thanks to the wonder, beauty and timeliness of Life. He hopes to continue the rest of his life in the same spirit.

MRH 1/31/10

Thirty By Thirty #30 - Read "Macbeth"

2010-01-31T22:30:00.002-06:00

It's weird as an English Literature degree-holder to have never read "Macbeth." It's even stranger because the first class I took in college was Dr. Zahorski's EN335 - Shakespeare. There are plenty of classics which I've missed in my years of reading contemporary books for fun and pleasure. "Macbeth" is just the most egregious example. So I sat down, cracked open the play and realized where Kurosawa drew his inspiration for "Throne of Blood".

Thirty By Thirty #29 - ZAIREEKA!!!

2010-01-31T21:55:00.000-06:00

In 1997 The Flaming Lips released "Zaireeka", an album meant to be listened to on four separate CD players at once. It's no small feat to get four different CD players and stereo systems together and so I set it as a goal to organize a "Zaireeka" party for 30 by 30. But sometimes your motivation will similarly motivate someone else. As my "Zaireeka" idea did Josh Dibley. He put all the pieces together, invited the people and brought it all together. All credit goes to him for fulfilling number twenty-nine. I just sat in the middle of the room and listened.

Thirty By Thirty #28 - Get Glasses

2010-01-31T21:50:00.002-06:00

As you get older, your eyes aren't as sharp as they once were. I can still see fine without glasses. There are just certain low-light situations where I can't see fine details at a distance. For example, I can't read the score on the television across the room in a dark restaurant.

Two years ago when I worked for the insurance agency and had better health coverage, I'd gone to the eye doctor. I got a prescription which I hadn't filled because money got tight as the economy went south. But now that I was on better standing financially, I got a super-duper cheap pair for under $100. Now I'll be able to read subtitles at foreign films more easily.

Thirty By Thirty #27 - Exercise My 2nd Amendment Rights

2010-01-31T21:45:00.000-06:00

Gun culture and its attendant hunting culture is something which is handed down by generation. Since neither of my grandfathers or my own father were really into guns or hunting, I somehow skipped over having ever discharged a firearm in my life. Make sure that, if you haven't yourself, you tell your friends who own guns. You will eventually find yourself standing at a gun range unloading an entire ten round 9mm clip into a target. Yeah, it may not be your comfort zone. But that's the point.

Thirty By Thirty #26 - See Morzart's "Requiem"

2010-01-31T21:40:00.000-06:00

Nik called me and asked if I wanted to go see Mozart's "Requiem" performed by a full choir at a church in Wayzata. I had a copy of a performance my cousin had been a part of in my car for years. Yet I'd never seen it live. Since it's my favorite classic piece (or 1a and 1b with The Brandenburg Concertos), I said "Yes," in a heartbeat.

Thirty By Thirty #25 - Visit Paris

2010-01-31T21:35:00.000-06:00

If you haven't heard about this one yet I apologize. It was awesome. Everywhere I went it was ridiculously beautiful. The highlights were having the Eiffel Tower out my window as I went to sleep/waking up, visiting The Palace at Versailles, seeing all of the art museums and getting to visit Europe finally.

Thirty By Thirty #24 - Bowling League

2010-01-31T21:30:00.001-06:00

Bowling is what my mom's family does together. If we're not sitting at one of my aunts' houses having a meal, we're bowling. This goes back to when we would all go to Arizona for X-mas. We would go bowling each night after dinner. If you doubt our seriousness, know that when we all grouped back up at my grandfather's house after his funeral the thing we all agreed to do was go bowling. So when Eric asked me if I wanted to be in a bowling league, I accepted quickly and without hesitation.

The best part about bowling in a league is you get to bowl after league is over and get a lot of practice. So, if you're like me, you learn how to hook the ball like a pro would. Results may vary but it's a work in progress.

Thirty By Thirty #23 - Eat A Fig

2010-01-31T21:25:00.000-06:00

So I was at brunch as hosted by a couple of my dinner party friends. They were serving figs which I'd never had in non-Newton form. As I had with the meat raffle, I thought "30 by 30." Figs are even better as fruit without the cake.

Thirty By Thirty #22 - Get My Passport

2010-01-31T21:20:00.000-06:00

So there are two reasons to get your passport. The first is so you can travel internationally and we'll get to that. The other post-9/11 reason is to verify your American citizenship when taking a new job. Since I knew I was going to do the former and in this down economy you never know when you're going to be doing the latter, it seemed like a good time to get my passport.

Thirty By Thirty #21 - Run A 5K

2010-01-31T21:15:00.000-06:00

During the summer I bike everywhere. I also used to do cardio five days a week. So taking on a 5k would be no problem, right? I started strong. Then reality set in a bit. To get my entire body mass moving, I can't jog. My stride is too long. I either need to walk or run. I alternated between the two and finished in 33 minutes. That's a pretty good time apparently.

Thirty By Thirty #20 - Win A Meat Raffle

2010-01-31T21:12:00.001-06:00

The lady approached the table Katie and I were sitting at and asked us, "Do you want to do the meat raffle?" I thought in my head "30 by 30." I took $5 out of my wallet and had Katie pick the numbers. One of the numbers she picked hit. Participate, yes. But also win.

Thirty By Thirty #19 - Swim Across Cedar Lake

2010-01-31T21:10:00.000-06:00

Sometimes you begin something without even knowing it. Then you get close enough to the end, you think "Why not just finish it?" I was reading a book at the library when I got a call from Dr. Thom. It was a nice day out (how appropriate I was inside reading) and he wanted to go enjoy it. So we met up with some friends who were lounging at Hidden Beach.

He and I took to the water. Then we swam out past the nets. Then past the buoys. Then we were halfway across the lake. Then we got to the beach on the far shore. Then it's an even longer walk back around Cedar Lake to where our friends were and where the car was parked. So we just swam back across the lake.

Thirty By Thirty #18 - Go To A Drive-In Movie

2010-01-31T21:05:00.001-06:00

Drive-in movies are big. Not in the really popular sense though they were once that. I mean big in the sense of physically large. It's appropriate then to see really big movies at a drive-in. So we packed up four cars of friends and drove out to Cottage Grove for the two biggest movies of the summer, "G.I. Joe" and "Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen."

Thirty By Thirty #17 - Try A New Recipe

2010-01-31T21:00:00.000-06:00

... tried a new recipe. Audrey and I went to Rainbow at The Quarry and got a huge piece of salmon. Then I went to Epicurious and looked up the easiest and most delicious way to prepare it, broiling. After brushing it with butter and cracking a little salt and pepper over it, the fish was met with rave reviews.

Thirty By Thirty #16 - Host A Dinner Party

2010-01-31T20:55:00.001-06:00

I have a group of friends who are very good at hosting dinner parties. Everyone has the rest of the people over and we all enjoy wonderful food. To this point I had not hosted these same people for dinner. So I had Sarah, Don, Patrick, Morgon Mae and Jason over and...

Six things you should know about Happiness No. 1 - A Song Playing Quietly On The Radio

2010-01-22T00:30:00.002-06:00

Six things you should know about Happiness
By Mark Anderson

1. They say our “chronic happiness level” is governed by 3 major factors:
genetics, life circumstances outside our control and our own activities and practices.
Up to 40% of our happiness level depends on our own actions, according to the scientists.

My chronic happiness level is governed
by a billion factors, including, but not limited to,
the sound of the grinder,
the earth of the beans
mixed with the soapy steam coming from your shower,
the enlightened kitchen window sill
framing an original masterpiece each morning,
the cracking of two eggs
by my own hand,
and the sizzle and flair
of fry-pan possibility...

A Song Playing Quietly On The Radio
By Michael Herman

“What’s the most alive you’ve ever felt?” she asked me.

This was the way our conversations would start. I couldn’t explain it or her to anyone else. It just was this way. I knew how to respond.

“How do you mean?”

This gave her a fork from which I could read her intent. Either she would start talking about it at great length and with asides and footnotes or she would clarify what she wanted to know from my answer. Basically, I wanted to know if she wanted my attention or my opinion.

“What I mean is this. If you had to think about a moment when you experienced what it means to be alive in your opinion, what would that be?”

It was the latter.

“I’d have to think about that. Does it have to be something which actually happened to me or just what that moment would be like if it happened?”

“Either. I’m not necessarily looking for a peak moment like getting a hit in Little League or the first time we kissed. But you get the idea of a representative moment I’m going for?”

“I do. Let me think about it.”

She was a good sport in these moments. I knew she wanted to have explosive conversations where grand proclamations were made about Love and Beauty and Truth. That’s not the way I’m wired though and she allowed for the differences in our approaches.

“Okay, how about this? Imagine a radio. And on this radio is a song. And the song is a very quiet song. On top of that the radio is turned down very quietly. So it’s coming out of the speaker very quietly.”

She was leaning in as though what I was saying was the song coming out of the radio. It was probably involuntary but it also almost broke my concentration.

“Now the room you’re in isn’t noisy or have a lot of people in it. It’s just a quiet room where you’re sitting alone, let’s say. And there‘s this radio playing quietly in the corner. So to listen to it you focus intently on it. It‘s the only thing which has your attention.”

“Okay.”

“The thing you wouldn’t think is how noisy that room really is until you try to listen to the song playing on the radio. It’s so faint and you have to try so hard to listen for it, everything else you’d been blocking out becomes really loud. You hear your own breathing. You hear the floor squeek as you shift your weight underneath you. You probably hear something happening in the next room or outside which you’d been ignoring before then.”

She was being very patient and listening though I knew she probably already had follow-up questions.

“I think that’s what Life is like. There are obviously situations like when we first kissed where the radio is blaring and you can hear the song loud and clear. Most of the time… Most of the time you’re straining to hear the song. It’s when you’re straining you hear stuff you wouldn’t otherwise and that stuff is what Life really is.”

Half Birthday Haiku - Becoming A Bore

2010-01-21T23:40:00.000-06:00

Half-Birthday Haiku
By Mark Anderson

The sun lost in fog
Icy slush loves all wheel drive
Where is my checkbook?

Hoppity hop hop
When I think of dead bunnies
My heart splits in half

Turn on your sun lamp
Put a kettle on the fire
Nuclear winter

I miss whiskey eyes
Though they may not have been real
Heartbreak in sunlight

Becoming A Bore
By Michael Herman

John was concerned he was becoming a bore. It wasn’t something which occurred to him until recently. But now that he was aware of it, it was apparent to him. He’d begun becoming a bore sometime in the past as his interesting qualities were smoothed away by the passage of time. Now he was full-on into the process and slowly approaching the day he would actually be a bore.

If he had to nail down an exact day his process of becoming a bore began, it would probably be during the summer following the summer he graduated from college. Initially he had remained very vibrant and his social life was fruitful with many friends, parties and sometimes anonymous sexual partners. That part was when he was still interesting and had fun for himself. Then the seasons changed from summer to fall and fall into winter and winter into spring. By the time spring turned into summer again, he was not vibrant. He found his social life no longer bore fruit and his many friends had dwindled, there were fewer parties and his sexual partners were more anonymous. John, upon reflection, realized he had lost something during this timeframe.

With fewer people who knew him intimately and fewer still opportunities to see those people, John began to lose the edge on what made him interesting. Where he previously had been surrounded by people who shared his taste in music, movies and television, he found himself increasingly surrounded by people whose opinions he did not know about music, movies and television. It’s not that these people didn’t have opinions. It’s that the people who filled into the vacuum of the friends he once knew were not his friends. He didn’t feel comfortable talking with them about television the same way he did with his now-former friends.

Increasingly his discussions became about the same topics he dreaded as a younger man. A good conversation in his new life was less likely to be about an interesting book he read than the exploits of a celebrity couple or an Internet video others had seen. He began seeking out information on these topics. If he was going to have an informed opinion, he would need to get informed on the topic. He began scouring news sites, late night talk shows and occasionally the newspaper for information about what other people apparently give a shit about. He avoided topics which were political, religious or otherwise controversial. Polite conversation rarely had room for these topics unless everyone involved was of a similar opinion. And John was unaware of whether the people he knew shared in his opinions. Soon almost all of John’s conversations consisted entirely of small talk.

Even the conversations he had with the people who had been his closest intimates at one point were now small talk. When he would see a friend for the first time in years, the topic was invariably would be something called “catching up.” It consisted of the other person saying “what they’d been up to” which was more or less a laundry list of their life events since the last time they met told in chronological order. Then John would give the same laundry list and at the end they would agree it had been too long and they shouldn’t let so much time pass next time. Completely forgotten and alien to the process were the things which made them friends in the first place.
What John didn’t realize is he had finally become what he always wanted to be. He was now an island unto himself with no one able to know him really. He’d gained the freedom to be whomever he fucking wanted to be since no one was going to be checking in on him anyhow. It was fully within his capacity to make his world as he sees fit and how he wanted it to play out. As his universe had shrunk, the space he occupied in it expanded until he filled it totally. He was everywhere at all times and all at once.

It was in this position he now found himself and it wasn’t what he wanted at all. He didn’t want to make small talk with what used to be his best friends. He didn’t want to be surrounded by people he didn’t know. He didn’t want to know about celebrity culture or the blockbuster which was making millions in cinemas worldwide. He couldn’t buy into it and that would always prevent him from faking enthusiasm for it. Eventually he wouldn’t even be able to pretend to relate to what others thought.

He was going to have to be himself. He was going to have to give a shit about what he gave a shit about and not worry about things he didn’t. It was going to be difficult because it meant he wasn’t always going to be able to please everyone. But he wasn’t worried about pleasing people he couldn’t relate to anymore either. There would be some people who wouldn’t get him or understand where he was coming from. That was now fine in his opinion because he was willing to sacrifice those people in favor of people who did get him and did understand where he was coming from. He didn’t want to be off-putting or closed-minded. Just reasonable in his expectations of others and of himself.

John experienced something on that day which he hadn’t in a long time. It was a sense of longing, loneliness crossed with maudlin sentimentality. He thought back to when he had intimate friends and real conversations. He thought back and wondered how to get them back again.

The Son In Winter - No Way Jose

2010-01-19T19:25:00.001-06:00

The Son in Winter
By Mark Anderson

She, his mother, full of elegance and grace (he always imagined a train of diamonds in her wake), was worried. Her son, the son with the brooding dark eyes, one Tuesday morning, refused to make a sound. She wanted to be angry (he could tell) but she couldn't because she feared the worst; that she, who had resisted anger throughout his earlier years, who had taken deep breaths to suffocate the demons inside her, was to blame for this sudden shift from sound to silence. Had she loved him too much? Had she forgiven him too often? Though he had been mild-mannered all these years - a fact which the demons despised - there had been moments, here and there, inconsequential to most, but palpable to her; moments of jealousy for his youth, his beauty, his potential, laden with regret (of which he suspected), but for what? He was the perfection of the love between her and the father; a magical happening. She watched him closely standing at the window watching the gentleness of the snow fall on the hedges lining the yard below. She watched him open the window - there was nothing she could do - and crawl onto the ledge and, just before he jumped, he looked back at her; his eyes, black like coal, reflected her outstretched hand. She called the police. She called her husband. "I miss him, too," her husband said then hung up the phone.

No Way Jose
By Michael Herman

The name who recruited me was named No Way Jose. The name wasn’t ethnographic before you start thinking I’m a terrible person. He was a squat, blue-eyed Mormon from California and his name wasn’t Jose, Joe or even Joseph. He was a just a tough son-of-a-bitch though he’d scold you if you called him that.

He was called No Way Jose because his verbal tic was to say the phrase when he was really angry. He would be chewing you out for something, perhaps something you did and perhaps not, and he would set up a rhetorical question like, “Do you think you’re allowed to flaunt the rules and do whatever you want without thinking?” Then he would throw out the answer you knew was coming; “No way, Jose.”

At first you took it seriously and honestly felt bad about yourself until he came over to your desk to inquire about a report you’d written and made no reference to his earlier questioning of your ability to come to work each day without throwing up on yourself. Then, as you got used to it, hearing the phrase came as a relief and an inside joke you were in on. It meant he’d reached his crescendo and you were only a short time and a few agreements from going to the proverbial water cooler to tell your friends about your brand new No Way Jose story.

You had to be careful though. One time someone prompted him, interrupting him as he was about to say it. Another time a guy smiled as he said it and then started to laugh when he was asked “What is so funny?” The worst was when someone came out of his office and practically skipped over to his friends to tell them about it. Jose had one more thing to clear up with him unfortunately and found him mid-story laughing away. I don’t know what happened to those first two guys but I can tell you the last guy doesn’t work for the company any more. What I’ve heard through the retelling is he works at the visitor center in a rest stop on the border of Iowa and Missouri.

I understood as I got older and had been through some shit with the man what No Way Jose really meant as he uttered his go-to phrase. It was a crutch, yes. But only in the sense it provided him with needed support.

Listen, what we were doing wasn’t super-duper legal and it wouldn’t have held up for very long under any serious and direct scrutiny in our direction. We were modern sheriffs in a Wild West of our own making. We weren’t going to change anything by taking the high road out of any situation. So we made the rules and laws bend and flex to our needs. I’d been raised Catholic myself and it always reminded me of Augustine’s plea to God to “Give me chastity but not yet.”

No Way Jose’s catch phrase was his way of setting an outer boundary for himself. It might’ve been easier to call us animal fornicators or hypothesize about the sexual proclivities of our female family members. To call us words like fuck, shit and cocksucker would’ve driven home the fearful deference he wanted from us. That he didn’t reflected the littlest bit of reserve he wanted to make sure he held onto, a small pause in his process in case he ever needed it.

Anchor - Lice

2010-01-19T02:50:00.001-06:00

Anchor
By Mark Anderson

I often wake from naps
with an anchor

tied to my heart
and my bed,

that lonely ship,
keeps me from sinking

Lice
By Michael Herman

The very first thing we did was remove the sheets from the mattresses. We were wearing rubber dishwashing gloves so we were protected from the lice and still I did my best to make sure the fabric didn’t touch me or my clothing. I’d worn a few things which were worn out in the case I needed to throw away or even burn them. It was a pair of pants with a hole in the pocket and a t-shirt I received for working on a spring break mission trip when I was in college. There was no sentimental value to either but still I swung my hips aside like a matador as the sheet followed my guide. These were going to be burned. We couldn’t even risk someone else taking them out of the dumpster and reusing them.

“Did you hear anything about this family?” another member of my church service group asked me.

“No, I didn’t” I said lying.

“Man, these people are lucky to be here. They’re from somewhere in Asia originally and they were just farmers there. One of their uncles lived in the city though and he had gone to college for something like engineering or something like that. Well, one of his friends took him to this party one time and there are a few Communists there. He doesn’t talk to them, say hello to them or anything. They just happened to be in the same room as him. Then when the military overthrew the President last year, someone puts word in the right person’s ear that their uncle had been at this party and that it. They had to move away or die.”

I knew the circumstances of their immigration weren’t ideal. I knew they’d come from a refugee camp in South Vietnam. It was one year ago our church elected to host a refugee family and we’d received bulletin updates about their progress coming here to Arizona to be a part of our community. When they’d finally arrived and were introduced at both the eight o’clock and ten-thirty services, our congregation rose to their feet and applauded for these people. They had persevered where we perhaps could’ve not. We settled them into a basement apartment in a square brick-building and some of the older women in the congregation took up the cause of obtaining them furniture. They looked high and low in the community and it was in a Salvation Army store across town they found a couch which we later found out was infested with lice. The children were the first to complain of itchiness and then the adults did as well.

Now here we were throwing out all of their bed linens and scrubbing what else we could before the exterminators came tomorrow. In another room, two other parishioners on the service committee were putting the secondhand cups and china into plastic yard bags. After we’d folded the sheets and put them in their own bags in the back of Pastor’s truck, my compatriot and unloaded the bureaus and dressers of their contents. The family had four children, all under the age of six, so these were hand-me-downs from the congregation. I recognized some of the clothing from when my friends and I wore them as children twenty five years before. They belonged to this family now.

There was only once I took a break and sat down in the middle of the carpet. The mother was sitting in one of the chairs across the room. She couldn’t see me observing her or perhaps she didn’t care. Her eyes were fixed on a spot just in front of the pile. I could see how they carried the burden and wear of the years, even before they’d been nephews and nieces to trouble and risked their lives to be here. It was formed in her frown the misery and hardship she’d seen in her life and now, in America the land of prosperity, continued to happen.

As we left them with a reminder the exterminator would be by at ten o’clock the next morning and they would have to leave for four hours, I wondered if they knew. All of what was left was still theirs. It was protected in these trash bags and wasn’t being thrown out. When they came back tomorrow, they would be able to put their dishes away and re-hang their clothes. They would be allowed to sleep in their new beds scheduled to arrive the day after and raise their children here without worry of someone knocking on your door in the middle of the night. I was humbled knowing I’d been concerned enough of lice to wear gloves and how foolish I’d been to think things as small as lice were worth being concerned.

Audrey Hepburn - Chess

2010-01-19T01:25:00.000-06:00

Audrey Hepburn
May 4th, 1929 - January 20th, 1993
By Mark Anderson

I am not a superstitious man. I do not say God Bless You when somebody sneezes. I might say Gesundheit with a thick German accent but that has nothing to do with anything other than I learned German once. I don't cringe when I see peacocks hanging about a theater. The so-called evil eye in their feathers is really quite stunning; I'm quite happy to be seen by them near a theater or wherever. I carried a deuce in my wallet for years until one cashless, drunken night, I spent it on a coat-check. I adore my black cat who crosses my path any time she damn well pleases. Self-fulfilling prophecies. Placebo effects. You get what you wish for. It's all a matter of coincidence, if you ask me.

That isn't to say I have always been so clear minded. On January 19th, 1993, my mother and I decided to rent a movie. Amongst all the titles we came across Breakfast at Tiffany's. "Is Audrey Hepburn still alive?" I asked as Moon River began to echo in my ears. My mother wasn't sure. By the time we got home, we'd forgotten the whole conversation, having rented something else, probably The Hand That Rocks The Cradle.

Chess
By Michael Herman

Chess is an intricate game. Adapted from earlier Indian and Persian games, it uses an eight by eight checkered board to simulate war. Each piece can move in its own unique and individual way. The queen is the master of the board, able to move in any direction as far as she wants unless otherwise stopped. The bishop is limited along the flanks and moving in diagonal while rooks are shaped like castles but move like cannon shot in straight lines by column or file. The knights have the special skill of crossing over pieces in their way simulating the long distance attacks the makers of the game only saw in their infancy but knew what horrible terror they would wreck as warfare evolved. The pawns are limited in their destruction but share that countenance with the king. The mollis rex is too vulnerable to commit his own atrocities and gives his gauisus phasmatis on to his subordinates. Chess drives home its very simple yet important world to beginner and world champion alike: We may all be moved around the board by the hand of an unseen master but it is not without purpose.

I know all of this about the game and still I suck at chess. I can look at the board and look at my pieces and look at my opponent’s pieces and nothing comes out. No strategy, no master plan. I am the chess-master we fear in our own lives. I have no purpose to the game, quickly becoming bored with creating a defense or enamored with a ploy to capture a way-begone piece. The worst is when I lose patience with the game. It is when I lose patience I lose control. I become a rash mess and will make an unnecessary move which gives the entire game away. What makes it terrible is I know it is the wrong move as I make it. I’ve played enough games to know if I, for example, move a bishop to place the king in check but do not have a knight covering or my opponent can move a pawn to block the queen’s angle of retribution I should not move my bishop into check. But I will do it anyway, knowing full well my gambit will fail unless my opponent is either an idiot or being charitable. I do it because I want something to happen, some excitement to take me over. For a moment, my move seems bold like I’ve swung into motion an intricate and established plan which will lead to attrition, yes, but also ultimately victory. Really I am just throwing disruption into an otherwise ordered game, plotting to do something so remarkable it has to be memorable.

This is not the strategy of a winner. A winner knows the most important thing is winning. They will sit back and assassinate your pawns and rooks and queen slowly and methodically by waiting for opportunity to present itself and then capitalize upon it. To a winner there is no greater concession than an obvious mistake made out of impertinence. It’s a weakness for them to twist to their advantage and yet you are lucky if their eyes light up. A winner will not even give you the satisfaction of knowing you’ve affected them. The best you can hope fore is they lean forward and make sure their skills haven’t slipped to the point of missing something. You can imagine their interior dialog in that moment being racked with self-doubt and humbled by your adventurous fallacy. In most cases they will accept your piece without even a smile. They will sweep it from the board and wait for the anger to grow from inside you into another terrible idea. These are the players who can become champions.

I will make my move knowing it is not what a winner does. I will make it because that is what I do. There are many ways to win a chess game which go by vaguely Nietzschean names like zugzwang and zwischenzug or poetic license like The Fool’s Mate or The Sicilian Defense. There is only one way to play chess as I would and it is to sacrifice. Too many pieces clutter the board and I play better when I am in the open, free to move pieces in guided chorus from all points. It is the player who happily accepts my pieces I want to play because they are helping me to clear the board of theirs. Often the endgame doesn’t materialize until we are each down to a few pieces. They will have their king, their queen (which dogmatically is to be protected like a king), a rook and a few pawns. I will have my king, two bishops and a knight. From this point the game is exciting to me. The strategy reveals itself in its chaotic fervor to be one unlike the romanticized notion of war as organized and clean. Its ambiguity and chaos is like what infantry veterans describe as the fog of war. It is in this section of the game I can use to my advantage being foolhardy and free.

There has been only one player who has found a counter to what qualifies as my strategy. He was a classmate of mine and the first game we ever found ourselves in played out in a way I was left with my king, a queen and a pawn etching its way across the board. He had no pawns, only his king, his queen and a knight to his side. It was by luck I found myself in the position and really even it was more to my bravado than benefit. Still he looked at the board the way I normally would, not understanding how the things laid out in front of him all fit together. As I promoted my pawn and put him into check I could see he was already thinking of the next game. He tipped over his king and asked me to play again. I accepted and moved my pawn first. His next move was small and conservative. I moved my knight out from the rear. His follow-up was again small and conservative. I played my other knight into the middle of the board and again he was small and conservative. Then, after I brought my queen and he was yet again small and conservative, I realized what had happened. I had engendered a fear in him. He was fearful of getting beat by me again with my unconventional strategy. For all of its little intricacies and ideas of grandeur, my greatest advantage was the psychological one. I didn’t lose once to him for the next three years until his family moved away.

Grilled Cheese - The Machine

2010-01-13T00:10:00.001-06:00

Grilled Cheese
By Mark Anderson

My father was a master
grilled cheese maker.

His skills with a knife,
having served as a Marine,

enabled him to precisely slice
one slice of bread

into two thinner slices
between which a slice

of American
could easily be toasted.

The Machine
By Michael Herman

The Scientist woke up as he had each time before He was traveling through time and it always knocked him out It was one of the side effects of the travel and he wondered what sort of long term effects it would have on him Each time he waited for this to be the trip he couldn t remember how to build The Machine Or re build it depending how you considered it

He d discovered time travel He didn t know when in relation to where he was now but it was some where in the range of seventeen or eighteen years ago to him when he d made a correct guess and the answer revealed itself quickly Time as well as space was like a deck of index cards Looking at the deck of cards you might see it as one complete and whole block This was the way humans saw time and space normally But he d imagined the cards fanned out They were still a part of the deck but now you could see they were individual cards Once the parameters were in his mind he was able to take existing transportation technology and modify it for his purposes

The first trip had sent him only a short distance back in time He knew enough about causality to not encounter himself so he would wait until he went home each night to enter the lab From there he further refined the process finally working all day and all night when the other him disappeared into The Machine Soon he was ready for another jump which would send him further back The second trip sent him further back and more refinement sent him even further back than that

His progress quickly outstripped itself He was going back in time distances which made returning to his lab first inconvenient and then impossible The jumps were leading him back to when he was in university and then even further back to when he was in grade school He could no longer just drop into his own work and had to start recreating it Each time he made a jump without the benefit of notes schematics or previously collected data with each jump holding the possibility of forgetting something essential

Soon he started encountering time when they lacked some of the finer and then the basic elements of The Machine It became a new challenge for him He had to find make steal forge invent organize shape or eliminate each element entirely from scratch each time he traveled backwards It made him into a puzzle solver who knew what the final picture looked like but had to make the pieces himself

He knew he was likely reaching the end of how far he could go Even the materials which made up The Machine s parts were becoming unknown He was coming to the end of his journey and his thought as he was initiating the rudimentary Machine he d stood in front of half a second ago was What if this is the last time

He sat up and rubbed the back of his head This like the other times he had no idea how long he d been unconscious only that the process had worked and he was now further back in time than any time before He looked around and saw he was near a road cutting through a forest He planned as he had before to follow this road to the nearest town where he would explain away his stark appearance and begin again the process of re building The Machine

Remembrance - Placekicker

2010-01-12T01:15:00.000-06:00

Remembrance
By Mark Anderson

Every once in awhile,
sometimes once a day,
but rarely more than
once an hour,
I forget to breathe
and when I remember,
a tear of joy
(if that's what we're calling it)
streams down my cheek.

Placekicker
By Michael Herman

When I was a teenager, I was on the football team. My hometown was not very large and all able-bodied boys were expected to play football in the fall and baseball in the spring. Even if you were disinterested in sports and would rather be doing something else like I would’ve, our enrollment was small enough that even two or three boys not participating meant the team was dangerously close to not being able to even play at all. Therefore, no matter how you felt about it, every autumn would find you in shoulder pads and every spring would find you wearing a mitt.

The difficult thing was our school was placed in a conference based on geographical location instead of number of students. We were outmatched in every regard, playing against larger and faster teams who had fresh substitutes ready to come in. There was even one school in our district which went to the state tournament every few years. It was bad enough to be drafted into something you would otherwise want no part in. But to consistently lose to better teams made it nearly impossible to see the positive in.

Which is why I caused a commotion the first time I kicked a field goal in practice. It was one of the first practices of the year, taking place weeks before school started That year’s senior class was smaller than usual and some of the boys were still taking part in the harvest so I was one of the eighth graders who was asked to fill in for those who were missing. I was screwing around with some friends afterwards while waiting for my mom to pick me up. We were punting the ball to each other when I got the idea I wanted to try kicking a field goal.

My friend Johnny took one knee dead on to the uprights about twenty yards downfield, I stood a few steps back like I’d seen on television and he faked receiving the snap. I stepped forward, planted my off foot and swung my kicking leg. My foot made the sound of a baseball slapping your glove and the ball flew through the air straight over the crossbar. Johnny stood up and lifted me into the air as I raised my arms above my head in celebration. A coach had seen what I’d done and asked me to kick another one from the same spot. By the time my mom arrived, I was the team’s placekicker.

And I was the placekicker the next five years. I was a natural at it. Johnny would take the snap from the center, he would set it down and, like that first time, I would send it over the crossbar. At first, I would also mimic my celebration from that very first time but then my field goals became commonplace.

Since we were still the smaller school in all our games we didn’t score many touchdowns and I was called on to score most of our points. Our final scores would range from close 10-6 losses to 44-15 blowouts. Occasionally a team would let us hang around at 6-6 or 12-12 and there would be an audible murmur in the crowd. It didn’t even phase me that they were all thinking if we could just get in range with almost no time left, I could kick the winning field goal. I knew if it came to that I could and would do it. Then the bigger school would wake up and we’d be looking up at another loss on the scoreboard. I finally graduated in the spring of ‘86 and went away to college responsible for the most points in my high school’s entire football history.

Slowly the nearby metropolis crept closer and closer via urban sprawl and finally absorbed it into the megalopolis itself. My hometown went from being a farm town to a suburb and families with children moved into upright developments with cul-de-sacs. Around the time my parents finally sold their house and moved away, one of the children of one of those families broke my record. The influx of kids made our team competitive and we were holding our own against our rivals. He took a handoff from the quarterback, turned right and ran untouched into the endzone.

The game was stopped, the public address announcer asked for a round of applause for me and I walked out onto the field with the head coach and the school principal to congratulate the young man. He took off his helmet, shook my hand and someone took a picture of all four of us. There was more applause as the four of us left the field and the rest of the team went on with the game. He could take the time to hug his mother because we were now a large enough school to have fresh substitutes. Chances are he didn't even play baseball in the spring.

The Liar - Reverse Mortgage Pt. 1

2010-01-11T23:45:00.001-06:00

The Liar
By Mark Anderson

I have never been comfortable
with the phrase "to be honest"

as if by not saying it
before or after

whatever it is I'm saying
is a lie

Then again, what do I know?
I lie all the time

Reverse Mortgage
By Michael Herman

This morning I was sitting in the breakroom doing the crossword. It was the USA Today puzzle, not the New York Times. The clues aren’t as difficult but considering I’m a scavenger I can hardly be choosy. It, at the very least, gives me the sense of accomplishment of being able to finish it. Sometimes I have to quit the Times or take the puzzle back to my desk to look up answers on the Internet. I’d feel worse about it if it weren’t just idle pursuit.

“Excuse me,” the short squat one said. “We need your help.”

I looked up from number 39 down “It may be about a foot”, four letters. There were three of them. The oldest looked to be in her fifties. The next one was in her forties. She’d asked the question. The last one stood there meekly. She looked to be about nineteen years old. Something about the general similarity of their appearance made me think they were related.

“Shoe,” I said out loud. “S-H-O-E, shoe.”

I penciled the letters into the boxes and turned my attention back to the trio.

“Okay,” I said. “What can I help you with?”

“We need to know about mortgages.”

Someone had apparently told these three about my previous job prospecting sub-prime mortgages before the big crash happened. Four years ago I would’ve considered this a hot lead, people who approached me. Now I wondered what use I could be to them.

“Sure, I know a few things about them. What do you need to know?”

“We were just watching the television,” said the fifty-ish one. “We heard about reverse mortgages and they said they were for old people. What are they?”

I’d been someone who had prospected sub-prime mortgages. What that mean was then, just like now, I was really good at getting people to believe in me, even if I was just talking out of my ass. I straightened my posture and leaned forward on the edge of the table.

“I’m not sure. Why would you need one?”

I was using a trick I’d used in those heady days. It was less important for me to answer a question than to find out what the person I was talking to wanted in the end. Back in the day, of course, I would subtly steer them towards wanting a three-year ARM. Now I was just genuinely interested.

The three of them looked at each other. They all knew why they would be asking me this question. In their mind, they would come to me to get the information, take that information and then make their decision. What they were asking each other now was how much they should let on, how much I should be allowed to know about their decision. The fifty-ish one was the first to speak.
“It’s our mother…” she said.

“Shhhh,” said the young one.

The fifty-ish one held her hand up to nullify her objection.

“It is our mother. She is very sick and she cannot pay her medical bills. The man in the commercial said a reverse mortgage was a good way to pay for outstanding medical bills.”

“Hmmm,” I said. “Well, I don’t know that much about them. Is it okay if I talk to someone who might and then get back to you?”

Again, I was using a technique from my earlier career. I knew exactly what I was going to do was go look up “reverse mortgages” on the Internet and read all about them until I felt I had a handle on what they are and what their pitfalls were. In a real pinch, I might even actually call someone who knew about them like my dad or one of his banker friends. The point was when I came back, my opinion would carry much more authority because I’d “talked to someone who knows about this sort of thing” and they’d “told” me what I was going to say anyway. This established trust which I would then use to guide people on to the next level.

They all looked inward at each other. Again they were deciding how much I, a complete stranger, would be allowed to help them make their decision. I could tell this was something which had caused their family a great deal of stress for a long time coming and they were running out of options and feeling desperate. Nothing was off the table for them and yet they were probably wary from seeing other better options turn bad. I’m sure it even occurred to them to just go look it up on the Internet themselves.

“Okay,” the squat, forty-ish one said finally. “We want to know what you can find out.”

“Alright,” I said. “I’ll let you know what I find. What are your names?”

They told me their names and I stood up to leave. Ten minutes and a stop at the bathroom later, I was back at my desk and logged into the worldwide Internet. I called up a browser window and typed in the words “reverse mortgage.”

to be continued

Katzenjammer - I Am The Electron Pt. 1

2010-01-09T09:40:00.003-06:00

(Let's just pretend this went up last night after work. Didn't have time to type it up then.)

Katzenjammer
By Mark Anderson

Heaven only knows
why one loves it so.

I would stand up
but my right foot is asleep.

Sometimes
insurance commercials
break my heart.

I Am The Electron
By Michael Herman

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is one of the most misunderstood scientific theories of our time, on par with evolution or global warming. Don't know it by name? That's okay and kind of proves my point in a way.

The Uncertainty Principle states on a sub-atomic level we can know either a particle's location or its velocity but not both. Most who misuse it utilize it as a way to explain away indefinite situations. It's a lot easier to think a confusing situation is simply unknowable than to dig deeper. This is not what Uncertainty is about at all. There's actually a mechanical reason we can know one or the other but not both.

Let me back up just a bit. We see things because it either emits light or reflects it. In most cases, it is the latter. We see the red of the rose because light hits the petals and all of the different wavelengths are absorbed except the ones out eyes see as red. The red wavelengths are reflected into our eye, our ocular nerve converts it into electrical code and our brain decodes it as "RED." The way we see subatomic particles is the same. A scientist fires a little bit of light at the particle, the light reflects or absorbs on to a piece of film and the scientist decodes what is on the film as "ELECTRON."

The problem is the invisible wavelengths used to see subatomic particles get really powerful quickly. To see exactly where an electron is, the wave has to be focused in such a high frequency it will knock the electron off its course. You know its exact location but instantly lose it in the process. Alternately we can use a lower power, lower frequency wavelength which tells us the general area the particle falls in without disturbing it. By comparing two of these snapshots, we can follow its general movement and therefore determine its general velocity in a "It was kind of over here and now it's kind of over here," way.

to be continued

Five Greeting Card Messages I Never See in Stores - Exchange

2010-01-07T20:00:00.002-06:00

Five Greeting Card Messages I Never See in Stores
By Mark Anderson

Happy Birthday
I'm only giving you this card so you won't complain
about not getting anything from me.

Anniversary
Wow. That felt a lot longer than a year, didn't it?

Going Away
I'd say I'll miss you but we'll probably talk more
now that you're leaving.

Graduation
I gave the cash to your parents for safe keeping.

Sympathy
While I'm sorry to hear about your husband's death,
I think we all know he had it coming.

Exchange
By Michael Herman

I'm twenty-three years old and I'm sitting in front of the television. The program I'm watching is the popular sports highlight program and they're showing players just a little younger than me playing basketball. A nineteen year old is dunking the ball over a twenty-one year old when I get a very common feeling. I realize I've never dunked a basketball in my life and now that I'm past my physical peak I probably never will.

I'm twenty-five years old and I'm talking on the phone with my mother. She's telling me about my father like she normally does and I start to listen not to what she's saying but how she sounds as she says it. Her stern, ringing voive which would scold me as a child has disappeared and been replaced by a much quieter and frail voice. As I wonder if she's always used that voice with other people, she stops to take a long breath. I interrupt her story.

"I love you, Mom."

I'm twenty years old and I've snuck into a campus bar with my friends. Now it seems less impressive and I should've recognized a number of kids from my class who were also there. At the time though I'm very nervous and expecting to be caught any minute. My friend who is twenty-one years old puts his hand on my shoulder. I jump slightly.

"Hey, man. Loosen up. Enjoy yourself. No one cares."

I'm twenty-eight years old and I'm at work in my cubicle. My boos has me re-typing a report I wrote six months ago. She's given me plenty of time to basically take out the stats from then and replace them with the stats from now. I may change the way some of it fits together. Changes I would've made if I hadn't rushed it the first time. Otherwise I'm bored and wonder if anyone who will read this report cares.

I'm twenty-seven years old and I'm at the gym. I've been running on the treadmill and I can feel my cotton t-shirt sticking to the small of my back. On my way to the lockerroom I pass the basketball courts. The men, many ten years younger than me, move in quick spasms and one gets past his defender with the ball. He takes two steps to get into the air and puts the ball lightly off the glass and it falls into the hoop.

"Next time, dunk that!" one of his teammates screams.

He smiles and runs back on defense. I wonder if he can or ever could.

I'm twenty-five years old and I tell my mom I love her. She stops what she's talking about and takes a deep breath.

"I love you too."

Imaginary Boyfriend - Chin Up

2010-01-06T22:45:00.000-06:00

Imaginary Boyfriend
by Mark Anderson

You know who I'm talking about.
That man you met ten years ago on the train
whose deep brown eyes asked you to dinner,
whose soft-yet-strong hands tracked your every move,
touching your back as he took off your coat,
grazing your cheek as he wiped away a crumb of cake,
whose lips later unfolded you
like an origami box.
Before he asked you to stay,
you had already left the building,
skidding across the ice to your train,
a nonstop, one-way trip
homebound,
safebound,
where the love you claimed you needed,
golden and engraved,
framed easily on the mantel.
Now, as the embers cool each night,
everyone tucked their beds,
you close your eyes and decide
next time you'll stay.

Chin Up
by Michael Herman

He was just hanging there when I first came upon him. I noticed how thin he looked. His shoulders were no wider than his hips and his coal black hair gave him the appearance of a burnt match. If he had been pushed around by larger men for his entire life it wouldn’t surprise me.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

He responded with silence. His focus seemed transfixed on holding his grip and his thin arms held his slight weight completely motionless. His eyes weren’t closed though and I’d seen them turn slightly in my direction when I spoke. I knew he’d heard me so I tried to speak to him again.

“Excuse me,” I said louder. “What are you doing?

“I’m doing pull-ups,” he said quietly.

It was at this point I realized his feet were crossed. I don’t know what additional benefit it offered him except he didn’t need to think what to do with his feet. He could just pull himself up and not worry about touching the ground.

“I’m doing pull ups in sets of 20 and I’m resting between sets.”

“You do them in sets of 20?”

“Yup. I do them in sets of 20.”

“How many sets have you done?”

“So far I’ve done 3 sets. Now excuse me for just a minute.”

His arms began to move and through his shirt I could see his shoulders tense. My initial impression of him as a slight and wiry man was unfounded. He was thin, that was undeniable. Close to his frame his muscles hid as though each had a secret compartment for it to be stored until its utility was needed. I stood admiring him while he lifted his chin to his hands twenty times in rapid succession. Slowly he lowered himself into the hanging position I’d found him in.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Please.”

“Why are you doing pull-ups here?

“I suppose you think it’s odd because this is not a place where you would usually find someone doing them. I do them here at the bus stop because I have a long wait and I want to be efficient with my time.”
I didn’t know which impressed me more: that he had given me such a well-thought and lucid answer or that had not broken the concentration he used to hold his grip.

“Why?”

He set his feet on the ground and lowered his arms from their locked positions. I briefly pondered how I was talking to a stranger and, though I had the best of intentions, my questions may be an annoyance to him. He squared his shoulders with mine and his gaze fixed quickly upon my feet.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I guess I’ve learned the hard way to be prepared for whatever comes your way. And on top of that, I don’t want to believe I am prepared for something only to find years of misuse had left me not able to meet my opponent.”

He looked up briefly and caught his eye in mine. Then he turned back to his work and reached his hands up.

“It most frustrates me I must think of the world as my opponent and that I must be prepared to defeat it.”

With that he stepped off his feet and his knuckles flushed to pale white. He hung briefly as he regained his composure and again I watched as he lifted his chin to his hands twenty times in rapid succession.

Otherwise - 54682

2010-01-05T22:30:00.003-06:00

Otherwise
after Jane Kenyon
By Mark Anderson

I woke up this morning
feeling refreshed and clear.
It has lately been otherwise.

I guzzled a liter of water
while brewing the coffee.
It has lately been otherwise.

I drove you to work and missed you
the moment you left the car.
It has lately been otherwise.

54682
By Michael Herman

Harry Phillips sat down for a game of dice. It was a game of his own invention and the rules were simple. There were two die and Harry would start the game by setting a goal number. Sometimes it was a high number and sometimes it was a low number. He would then continue to roll the dice for multiple turns. If their total was more than the goal number, he won. If their total was less than the goal number, he lost. In the case of equaling the goal, he simply rolled again. Since he was playing alone, it was what he did anyway. Harry was simple like the rules of the game so he thought it would amuse him.

However he had not won the game in nearly thirty years. Every night since May 5th, 1967, when he was both younger and more inclined to believe in chance, Harry sat down at his kitchen table after his wife went to bed and began rolling the die. He would roll them repeatedly onto one of his wife’s woven placemats to dampen the sound. Over and over and over until he reached the point of exhaustion. Without fail, he would lose the game of his own construction.

At first he thought it had something to do with the dice. The dice he used were worn from years of playing the game. All of the edges were rounded off and they would often take many more additional tumbles than a new pair. You could even tell the faces of the die were wearing away because of how shallow the dots were becoming.

His suspicion was unfounded. The condition of the dice was the same when he rolled the initial goal number as when he was rolling each successive time. For all intents and purposes, they were the exact same conditions except with a consistently different result. The same went for the placemat, the table, the chair he sat in, how he sat, how he rolled the dice, etc. In each case, the conditions were the same and even the introduction of new variables like sitting more upright after setting the goal had no effect.

The next thing he investigated was if it was something not obvious which was affecting the game. Harry was never superstitious and in fact had faithfully attended church every Sunday with his wife since they were first married. In his mind, if there was anyone who deserved the Good Lord’s favor, it was him. Still it nagged at him and he tried different things which may or may not have an unknown influence on the dice. He tried thinking of the result he wanted as he rolled. He didn’t look at the dice as they tumbled. He tried holding his breath as he rolled. Each technique was tested hundreds of times and each time the result was a loss.

Finally he gave up trying to figure out the cause and believed he could figure it out by just observing. There was something there which he simply hadn’t noticed yet. Only by the close and considered playing of the game could he figure out the root of the anomalous results. So he continued to play well after like-minded people would’ve given up and taken on new amusement.

Earlier tonight he had again waited until his wife grew tired and retired to their bedroom. She had a routine of her own and he knew to wait until she washed her face, brushed her teeth and came to give him a good-night kiss. Like every night since October 23rd, 1971 he pretended to read the newspaper in his favorite easy chair while she rattled around in the bathroom. Originally he had actually read the paper and it had occurred to him at some point in 1969 to check if there was something special about the last date he’d won the game as if he were a part of a larger phenomenon. When he found nothing of note and no pattern emerged from the news stories he read, the paper became a prop to his ruse.

“Good night, Harry,” his wife said as she crossed the living room. “Come to bed soon.”

She kissed him and Harry smiled a compact smile at her. He made no noise and she returned across the same path which carried her into the room. Once he heard her weight press down into their queen-sized bed, he folded his paper nicely and carried it to the mudroom to be stacked atop the other newspapers for recycling. After rescuing the dice from the family Monopoly game, Harry sat in his usual chair at the kitchen table where he could see the door to the bedroom. He placed the woven placemat in its usual configuration wider than it was tall and shook the dice to set the goal number.

Nine.

Harry knew there were five combinations which could win against a nine. He could get two fives, two sixes, and either a four or five and a six. At first he was reassured by getting a higher number as the goal. The lower numbers were more frustrating. At least with a higher number, there were fewer opportunities to win so it simply followed the cause was just that there were fewer chances to win and that’s why he wasn’t winning. That theory went out the window when his losing streak extended well beyond when the law of averages should’ve entered in and given him a win. Now he abhorred the higher numbers. He wanted the best chance to win and rolling a nine gave him a lessened chance of winning.

He took the dice into his hand again and rolled them onto the mat.

Five.

He rolled again.

Four

He rolled.

Six.

Again.

Eight.

Again.

Two.

Ice - Pierre

2010-01-04T08:50:00.000-06:00

Ice
by Mark Anderson

I once fell through the ice
in the marshy pond behind the house.

We - Mike and I - both fell in and I
remember scrambling myself out and looking

back to see Mike scrambling, too.
I didn't go back to help him. I ran home.

My mom - who was on the phone -
told me to undress and take a shower.

Mike called me later, so I went over to his house
to watch Clash of the Titans.

Pierre
by Michael Herman

He looked up from his notes.

“Is there a more French name than Pierre?”

“Marianne.”

“No, a French male name.”

“Napoleon.”

“No, that was one specific guy who was French. If anything it sounds like that one Italian ice cream.”

“Neapolitan.”

“Yes.”

“I guess I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean a name which could only be a French guy’s name like Pierre or Jacque or something like that.”

“Well, there are guys who aren’t French named Pierre and Jacque.”

“Fuck off. Like who?”

“There’s a guy named Pierre Garcon who plays wide receiver for the Colts. And Jacque Vaughn played point guard at Kansas and in the NBA.”

“Hmmm,” he said. “Are they from Louisiana or something?”

“I don’t know really. I guess I don’t know that much about either of them.”

We went silent for a while. He went back to prepping his notes and I went back to looking out the window instead of prepping mine.

“I thought about your question,” I said thus breaking the silence.

“The one about the French name?”

“Yes, that one. I thought of the most French name I could think of.

“Okay, what is it?”

“Guy.”

“Gi?”

“Yeah, Guy. Like Guy de Maupassant.”

“Gie Day Maw-Paw-Saw?”

“Yeah, he was a French writer at the turn of the Twentieth Century. He used to eat in the restaurant at the base of the Eiffel Tower because he hated looking at it.”

I knew this is where I started sounding pedantic and condescending. Being a know-it-all is a trait which earns you praise as a child and scorn as an adult.

“It’s spelled G-U-Y but pronounced G-ee. Guy.”

“Hmm,” he said.

“I think since it looks like a word in English but is a name pronounced a different way in French that makes it distinctly a French name. There‘s no English equivalent either.”

“Hmm.”

It was his stupid question and he wasn’t even paying attention.

“Do you not agree with me?”

“Nope,” he said returning to his notes. “I still think it’s Pierre.”

“You still think it’s Pierre?”

“Yup, I still think it’s Pierre.”

We resumed our silence.

London - Boston Marathon

2010-01-03T12:00:00.000-06:00

London
by Mark Anderson

In London, I lived with an Indian,
an Australian, a Spaniard and two brothers -

Irishmen, one of which,
a lanky ginger whose accent brought tears to my eyes,

taught me to ride
the fine line between lust and love.

I showed up late to class each morning
wearing the same clothes I'd worn the night before

at the pubs and clubs,
unwavering and undisturbed,

as if the whole world were mine
because it was.

Boston Marathon
by Michael Herman

In 1978, a little known runner from Charlotte named John Rettle ran The Boston Marathon for the first time. He had been a long-distance runner in high school and, following one uneventful semester at college, he returned to his parents home in Charlotte with his suitcase in hand. Some things were whispered at first about his prompt return amongst the people who knew his parents and knew his family.

The Rettles were held in high esteem amongst the neighborhood going back to his great-grandfather’s arrival previous to the McKinley Administration. They were a well-read family of altruists initially and then also philanthropists once they had established themselves in the community. There was even talk of one of John’s grandfather’s brothers running for statewide office before everyone realize the world of politics is no place to waste a man of such high moral fiber. That one of their kind failed to live up to the over large expectations of the family, both internally and without, was grounds for much consternation.

The women of the community asked each other what could have gone wrong with that boy. Was it a girl who broke his heart? Could he have gotten mixed into the wrong group of people so far away from his home and his family? Perhaps this was a wider-spread problem. It was entirely possible this new generation of Rettles were not made of the same stuff as their predecessors. The modest wealth the family had acquired was making this newest batch of world-beaters into the intellectual equivalent of wet mush. John was the eldest of his generation and, though no one was willing to out-and-out speculate, those who followed him in age didn’t seem to have the same streak which had carried their family to the top.

That talk faded as soon as there were new topics to discuss such as racial integration of the schools and such. John had taken common jobs in the community and the other members of his generation went on to do things worthy of their family heritage. His brother became a prominent doctor with a procedure named after him while his second cousin went into science and worked for the government as a part of The Rand Corporation. By the time three different families lost sons in Vietnam during the same week, John was a mere afterthought. The cashier at the grocery store still smiled at him but that was because she was still young and he was still handsome.

Now, as he stood at the starting line in Hopkinton, Mass at thirty-two years of age, John could feel the weight of expectation hanging on him still. He looked to his left and right seeing other runners had prepared for the brisk New England April by wearing sweatshirts and he wondered if he made the right decision to run in just shorts and a tank top. This was the first time he’d run long distance since high school and it seemed both regular and foreign to him. There was no way of knowing how his body would react now that he was much older and since he had not trained. Slowly the other runners shed their extra gear, handed them to loved ones and took final calls of encouragement. Noone had traveled to Boston with John simply because he hadn’t told anyone. He wanted to come to them at the end and after it was all over with news of what he’d accomplished.

With a ready-set-gunshot, the race began and muscle memory took over. The regular switch and gate of his earlier years returned to him and he glided through the crowd of runners in front of him. By the end of the first mile the elite men runners had left him behind and most of the elite women runners had by the end of the fourth mile. But John remained ahead of the majority of the pack and he could feel the air around him heat as he passed through it. It was the greatest moment of his life.

Slowly the younger runners who had paced themselves gained on and then passed him. It was around mile ten the first one zipped by him like a lithe gazelle streaking across the veldt. John watched as he went past with a pace twice his and each step carrying him further ahead. The younger man’s calf muscles twitched in rapid succession like trees bending in a stiff wind, all power and no resistance. At mile twelve more than a handful had gone past and by mile fourteen John had receded back into the pack amongst his peers. His side ached, his feet hurt and each step boomed through his entire body.

It was around the nineteen mile mark he felt the blood accumulating in his shoe. He was wearing a new pair of shoes he’d purchased the week before in Charlotte and something about them didn’t fit right. On another man they might’ve been a perfect fit. But as his heel struck pavement and his toes slapped directly to the ground the shoe shifted slightly along the outside edge. These were the same shoes he’d worn during high school when he ran the mile, the 5k and the 10k. He was now three times further than he’d ever ran competitively and the additional wear had cracked the skin causing his foot to become irritated and then bleed.

John sat down at the bottom of the hill between the twentieth and twenty-first mile. He took off his shoe to assess the damage. The bloody mess had soaked through his shoe and he knew he wouldn’t be able to get his sock back on if he removed it. He slipped the shoe back onto his foot and tied it tighter than it had been. Two steps down the course he had to sit down again. Someone from the BAA came over to him and offered him help. A nice young woman, she smiled at John as she removed his shoes and socks to apply pressure, stop the bleeding and begin bandaging his feet. It was a small detail he didn’t notice as he sat spectator to those still on the course going past him.

Dear Future - Lynx

2010-01-02T15:00:00.005-06:00

Dear Future
by Mark Anderson

I'm sorry.
I'm sorry I lied

and I'm sorry I yelled.
I won't say

you know I love you
because you already know

that when we meet again
I'll have no choice

but to loosen my tie.

Lynx
by Michael Herman

The cover of the brochure in my hand had a lynx on it. The lynx was made more ridiculous by wearing sunglasses. "A Better Life Awaits” read the text along the bottom. And the only thing I could think was I wished it were true. I opened the brochure and flipped to the first panel.

“Welcome,” it read. “We’re pleased to have you as our guest.”

I rolled my eyes and moved on. I remain skeptical to this day of someone who refers to you as a “guest” after charging twenty-two hundred dollars to your credit card. It’s on par, in my book, with restaurants which advertise down-home cookin’. It’s an obvious marker something is bound to not add up.

“Here at the Foggy Meadows,” it continued. “We value you as a customer and are grateful you chose to stay with us. We know you have options on where to seek treatment and strive to meet your highest level of satisfaction on this and every return visit.”

I’d read these platitudes often and in other waiting rooms. Not these exact lines but some variation of which said essentially the same thing. After the usual assurance that if I needed anything during my stay I could phone up the CEO and he’d get right on it, I flipped to the back of the brochure and looked to the very bottom.

“Printed 9/2001. Re-order #4861-2”

That line itself was more telling than anything contained in the rest of the brochure. I knew this type of place having patronized a few in the intervening years. They’d all seen a surge around the time irony died and a new seriousness was born with business booming right up until the moment the people got tired of being serious and went back to wanting others to do it for them. This place had, sure as I can be, been just like the others and printed too many brochures assuming incorrectly things really had changed.

It was at this moment a woman emerged from the back and showed me through the door and into another room where I could wait in privacy. I’d been through the procedure before and this was just one of its many now-familiar steps. I could forsee how things would go from this point forward.

As I set the brochure in the trash can, I looked again at the majestic and powerful beast on its cover. I knew from a report I’d done in fifth grade it was a lynx, not a bobcat. I studied it and thought about what the designer had thought about bringing the big cat together with cool shades.

See, the lynx represented the world as we find it. Using something like a bear or a lion would’ve had too much attachment to previous uses and, perhaps being an animal connoisseur themselves, the designer wanted something which created a new association much akin to the one you the consumer were seeking.

The glasses were there because the designer sought out the familiar. Sunglasses have been shorthand for cool going back almost seventy years now. Its placement on the nose of thed lynx represents desire by mankind to see ourselves in the world as we find it. Animals do not actually wear sunglasses in the wild and yet they might if they had the chance.

Bringing the two together is what places like Foggy Meadows wanted to do. Big promises are made by people who don’t know the names of all the people who work for them and then you are left to fend for yourself. The industry wanted to bring you into the world so you could find yourself in it. And they felt they succeeded because there you were, in it.

I turned my mind away from the trash can, leaving the thought of the brochure with the physical reminder and onto anticipating what came next. I thought about when I would leave the facility how I would go from there to the bus, to a train and to a short walk to my home. I would have something to eat, watch a little television and get into bed. The next morning I would awake, shower and go to work. Then three or four months later, whenever I had again collected the necessary fund, I would be back in another waiting room and holding another similar brochure to the one with the lynx.

Because though I knew I would be disappointed by my stay, I believed this time I actually might not.

Thirty By Thirty #15 - Kayaking

2010-01-02T01:57:00.000-06:00

A kayak is a different boat than a canoe. You sit much closer to the water and you feel closer to it too. My friend Katie let me borrow her kayak and take it out on Lake Nokomis while she went for a jog around the lake. I wish it had been a better lake. I need to try it again on a different lake.

Thirty By Thirty #14 - Go Skinny Dipping

2010-01-02T01:52:00.000-06:00

I'd been swimming. I'd been naked. But I'd never been swimming naked. So one night over the summer, a friend and I went behind Coffman Union at the University of Minnesota and went down to the Mississippi River. We shook off all of our clothes and ran into the river. Then we turned right back around before either mosquitoes or campus security knew we were there.

Thirty By Thirty #13 - Discharge A Fire Extinguisher

2010-01-02T01:45:00.000-06:00

Part of recharging a fire extinguisher is taking all of the old stuff out. So you should ask if they give training on how to fire one when they need to be recharged. My work offered it and I jumped at the chance.

There are three things you need to know:

1.) Know where the fire extinguishers are kept beforehand.

2.) Use a sweeping motion to distribute the retardant.

3.) Send someone to grab the next extinguisher immediately. Your extinguisher will have about 15-30 seconds of juice before it runs out.

Thirty By Thirty #12 - Listen To A Frank Zappa Album

2010-01-02T01:37:00.001-06:00

I wanted to listen to a Frank Zappa album because he was a monolithic rockstar whose work I was completely unfamiliar with and that seemed odd. So I bought a greatest hits and a live album. I wasn't very impressed with most of the stuff. It probably sounded really weird when it came out. But now it just sounded worn. I realize this may be like calling Star Wars "a cliche action movie where the special effects are the most important part." Still, his music wasn't for me.

Thirty By Thirty #11 - Participate In An Effigy-Burning

2010-01-02T01:33:00.000-06:00

My friends organized an effigy-burning where we torched paper-mache puppets of various public figures who we felt needed karmic comeuppance. It was mostly people we dislike but we also tried to be fair and torched people we agree with but who are annoying. This was not the first time I've used my First Amendment rights. It was just the toastiest.

Thirty By Thirty #10 - Fire A Blowgun

2010-01-02T01:30:00.000-06:00

My friend Jake needed help making paper-mache puppets. I went over to his house to help him. Instead of making the puppets we screwed around shooting a blowgun in his backyard. You hold the tip of your tongue in the hole, you fill the nozzle with breath and then take your tongue away. It's a lot like playing a brass instrument but more deadly.

Thirty By Thirty #9 - See A Minor League Baseball Game

2010-01-02T01:26:00.000-06:00

When I was 13, my dad and I planned to go on a tour of minor league baseball stadiums in Iowa and Wisconsin. That summer the Mississippi River flooded and we had to cancel the trip. The same summer the St. Paul Saints began playing in the independent Northern League. 16 years later, Audrey and I biked over to Midway Stadium to see the Saints play. They got beat badly but I did meet her friends and family.

Thirty By Thirty #8 - See A Player Hit For The Cycle

2010-01-02T01:18:00.000-06:00

I've seen and played a lot of baseball in my life. But there were still somethings I'd not yet seen. Though a no hitter and a triple play are still on my list of things to see, I have now seen a player (Michael Cuddyer) hit for the cycle. Even things we think we know can still surprise us by showing us something new.

BOX SCORE

Thirty By Thirty #7 - Learn About Game Theory

2010-01-02T01:11:00.000-06:00

Carissa's b-day pub crawl was supposed to end up at the Triple Rock. Since I work near the West Bank, I killed time with Dr. Thom at the downtown Grumpy's waiting for the party to progress in our direction. I saw the Big Bang Book Club I'd heard about was wrapping up their meeting. So I went over to the meeting space, introduced myself to the moderator David and asked what the next month's book would be.

"Rock, Paper, Scissors: Game Theory In Everyday Life by Len Fisher," he said.

SOLD!

Thirty By Thirty #6 - Eat At White Castle

2010-01-02T01:05:00.000-06:00

Alex MacGillis and Keith Koska were nice enough to take me to White Castle for my birthday, even though it was two months later. I'd avoided White Castle for my entire life because my dad told me he'd gotten sick after eating there. I haven't eaten red meat since I was 19 and I didn't get sick. In fact, I actually thought their hamburgers were kinda good. Maybe White Castle just suffers from a bad reputation and people should give it a chance. Afterwards we went to the bar across the street and drank High Life.

P.S. I'm glad Alex and Keith took me because my other friends were planning on taking me to White Castle by kidnapping me in the middle of the night and driving me there.

Thirty By Thirty #5 - Begin Biking To Work

2010-01-02T00:53:00.001-06:00

This summer I started biking to work. It was great because I was out getting exercise while saving money on my commute to work. Other people at work were impressed and would ask me about it. I told them what I'll tell you. You should do it too and make sure you wear your helmet.

Thirty By Thirty #4 - Barn Razing

2010-01-02T00:51:00.000-06:00

My friends Patrick and Morgon Mae had a shed in their backyard they wanted to take down. I helped them because I'm tall, strong and have hands. It was a lot like putting up a shed but in reverse. Credit goes to Morgon Mae for calling it a barn razing.

Come Out On Sunday

2009-06-26T08:05:00.000-05:00

This weekend I will be marching in the Minneapolis Gay Pride Parade. I will be doing so as a member of the Orono High School Gay/Straight Alliance Reunion. The parade kicks off at 11 am and follows Hennepin Ave from 3rd St S to Loring Park. If that's all the convincing you need to come to Downtown Minneapolis on Sunday morning, wave as we walk by and we'll wave back.

http://www.tcpride.org/pride_events/2009_Parade_Location.php

Now for a further explanation. Thirteen years ago, the world was a different place for gay and gay-friendly kids. At the time there was no gay marriage, there was no Lawrence V. Texas and there was a need for an organization which supported kids who were gay or had gay friends. From that need sprung the Orono High School Gay/Straight Alliance.

The purpose of the OHS GSA was to create understanding and acceptance where the students already were. The cliche of the closed small town which saw the world in one way and everyone who didn't see it that way was destined to leave wasn't true about our community. For a high school which had tremendous programs in art, band, newspaper, choir, theater and a diversity of sports, this was a vibrant community which embraced its kids and their accomplishments. The OHS GSA felt that should extend to all of the community's kids including those who were gay.

Now it is 2009 and gay rights have advanced by leaps and bounds in the last decade. There are six US states which will perform gay marriages, Lawrence V. Texas struck down anti-sodomy laws and there is still a need for an organization which supports kids who are gay or have gay friends. Sadly there no longer is a Gay/Straight Alliance at Orono High School. The group never received official recognition from the school or school district and folded once those who were involved graduated.

That's why we're asking for your support. We are looking to you, our vibrant community, to simply show up. Those who are against gay rights believe they represent a silent majority. They believe they are "saying what no one else will say" or "standing up for what everyone else wants but won't admit it." This is not true.

If there was a silent majority, then support for gay rights would not be helping people get elected. If they were "saying what no one else will say", then the gay rights movement would be shrinking, not growing. If they were "standing up for what everyone else wants but won't admit", there wouldn't be a Pride Parade.

This Sunday The OHS GSA is having a reunion. There are a few of us who have contributed our talents, our time and a little bit of money. It's been frantic at times but the pieces are coming together. If you are an OHS alum and you'd like to march with us, please contact me, Ariel Dumas or Thom White directly. We have a t-shirt for you.

But in the end we are only asking for the smallest of measures. Please come out and support us on Sunday morning. Go to the early service of church or take your morning run an hour earlier. Then find a patch of pavement on Hennepin Ave where you can see. When we come walking past with our banner and Spartan helmets, wave to us. Wave to us and be counted as a member of a community who supports and is proud of its kids. All of them.

R.I.P. Karen Erdmann

Thirty By Thirty #3 - Stop Buying Comic Books

2009-05-30T13:35:00.000-05:00

"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became an adult, I set aside childish ways. For now we see in a mirror indirectly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known."

1 Corinthians 13:11-12

In the spring of 2001, I dropped out of college. Specifically I'd had my fill of the small liberal arts institution I was attending in Wisconsin and decided to move home mid-semester. I moved in with my grandfather for the summer, got a job downtown at a production company and started riding the 156 bus to work. Most days I'd have a little extra time on my way to my stop and I'd duck my head into Big Brain Comics which was located on 10th St at the time.

When I was growing up I read a lot of comic books. My grandmother would buy old issues at garage sales and bring them to our family cabin in Central Minnesota. For the most part they were Archie comics with people being more willing to part with them I'd guess than X-men books. But occasionally there would be a superhero book mixed in. This was providential, of course, because when I was nine the first Michael Keaton Batman movie was released. Suddenly there was an entire realm of knowledge to dive directly into face-first.

Now fast forward back to 2001 when I'm living with my grandfather. I'd wanted to get back into comic books for a while but getting comics in Green Bay was inconvenient if you were like me and lacked a car. Now I was walking past a comic book store everyday on my way to the bus. After doing a little poking around, I took the plunge.

Even though the movie was still a year away, the character I was most interested in was Spider-man. Seeing there was a new title which was less than a year old I bought my first issue of Ultimate Spider-man written by Brian Michael Bendis. I was instantly hooked. I started adding other Bendis titles like DareDevil and other Ultimate titles like Ultimate Marvel Team-Ups. Little did I know there was a comic book renaissance going on which would explode a year later when that first Spider-man movie would push comic books into the collective conscience. I expanded my titles and reading further and further, again discovering new knowledge to drink up.

But like all good things, there needed to be an end. My favorite series "Y: The Last Man" ended in January of 2008. Most of the books I was reading out of habit instead of really wanting to read them. I wasn't spending a lot of money keeping up but it felt more like responsibility than entertainment. So I decided I was going to follow the series "100 Bullets" to its conclusion and that would be it.

The 100th and final issue of "100 Bullets" came out this April. I went into Big Brain (now on Washington Ave but again on my commute home) bought the last issue and put it on the stack of comic books I need to catch up on. I'll probably keep reading comics from time-to-time in graphic novels. The days of buying individual issues though has ended.

I threw the "growing up" tag on this post even though I dislike that phrase. "Growing on" would be a better way to describe setting aside comic books. I've benefited from reading comic books because they taught me a love of reading and of voluminous knowledge and itt would be foolish to lose that message as I separate from the medium.

Thirty By Thirty #2 - Read A Murakami Book

2009-05-30T11:15:00.000-05:00

(It's not that I'm falling behind. It's that most of the things I want to do are more conducive to good weather and full employment. What I'm falling behind on is documenting.)

I've recently been thinking about who my favorite authors are and I'm coming to the realization they are almost all authors who are my contemporaries. Not necessarily my peers as they are usually older than me and most definitely more accomplished than me but my contemporaries because they are writing about now. If I had to name my five favorite authors three of them [1] would be writers who are producing excellent work right now while there are many more [2] who I hold a great deal of respect.

I find this to be a thrilling realization. Part of this may be passing beyond the saturation point [3] where the canon has revealed the majority of what it's going to or maybe it's because the level of access to writing is just higher right now [4]. More likely though is the simplest explanation. Right now is just a really good time for literature.

Case in point is the Japanese author Haruki Murakami. Often praised as one of the great post-modern authors and perhaps the greatest author Japan has produced since the war, Murakami has written 12 novels since 1979. Still his 2002 book "Kafka On The Shore" (English Translation 2005) stands amongst his greatest work. He's not slowing down and he's not resting on his laurels.

"Kafka" details the travel stories of two men in Japan with possibly intertwining stories. Murakami uses dream sequences, the supernatural and American advertising figures to suggest a world which isn't real. Which in the end is true. It's a fiction book detailing the lives of fictional characters.

What was so amazing about the book is how the suggestion of unreality in the fictional world pointed back at the reality of the world around you the reader. Murakami may have a character who wears a white suit and a small goatee named Colonel Sanders. He also has his characters taking naps, preparing food and using the bathroom. With these little anchors linking his world back to the real world, he suggest the reader take a deeper awareness of their own life.

Part of the idea behind Thirty By Thirty is to experience new things like reading an author I had not before. It's also about doing things which remind me to be aware of my own life. For that reason I am glad not only to have read "Kafka On the Shore" but also to be living in an era with a wealth of literature.

[1] Klosterman, Gladwell and Simmons
[4] Chang, Pollack, Hornby, Sedaris, Ruiz-Zafon, Martel, Jacobs, Moore, July, Auster, Azzerad, Thompson, Roumeiu, Bendis, Mack, Johns, Morrison

LOST Live Blog

2009-04-29T19:55:00.034-05:00

Hey, I haven't made a post in April. Let's do a LOST live blog.

7:56 - Uh, oh. The President is speaking. This may be an abbreviated LOST tonight.

7:59 - Okay, he must've looked at his watch and thought, "Oh, shit. LOST is almost on. I gotta go."

8:00 - I would've loved this show unconditionally if the Obama press conference had been part of the show.

8:03 - Love Jack's period sideburns.

8:04 - COMMERCIAL BREAK - If I had any doubts about "Star Trek" totally sucking, that commercial put them to rest. It's going to TURBO-suck.

8:06 - COMMERCIAL BREAK - Forgot to mention the attendance to night: Me and a squeeky-toy-loving Bron-Bron.

8:07 - Destiny? The kid is a piano genius and doesn't know the meaning of "destiny"?

8:10 - JEREMY DAVIES!!!

8:11 - See, that's a callback to my comment about that moment in the season premiere.

8:12 - "I'm from the future (and suggest you invest in Apple)."

8:14 - COMMERCIAL BREAK - I did a quick scan earlier this week. There are only seven movies I'll probably see on their first day this summer. Seriously, out of 16 weekends I found 7 films worth seeing. And I was being generous.

8:16 - Miles also has 1997 hair.

8:19 - It's Sean Connery's journal from "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade."

8:22 - When the guy who can speak to dead people calls you crazy, you know you're chiquita bananas.

8:23 - COMMERCIAL BREAK - Evening Dog Time!

8:27 - Faraday doesn't seem like the most stable of individuals. He's kinda flaky.

8:29 - Cost matters not to Charles Widmore, fool!

8:32 - Bron disappeared upstairs and it's really quiet. Chances I walk upstairs and find she's pooped - 2:1

8:34 - Gah-ross! She's his girlfriend in the future. Now he's talking to the eight-year-old her. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!

8:37 - COMMERCIAL BREAK - What's the likelihood you'll get cell phone service in the middle of the woods? Honestly, if I'm some place where I can use my iPhone and I need a compass just leave me.

8:42 - COMMERCIAL BREAK - No dog pile upstairs. I did find a turkey sandwich and a Surly though.

8:45 - Just a flesh wound.

8:47 - Shot by a PHYSICIST?!?! Not a PHYSICIST!!!!

8:49 - Finally some explanation.

8:52 - Okay, I'm on board. I'll do it if it means shit is going to happen.

8:54 - COMMERCIAL BREAK - Bron likes to bark when she needs something. It can mean she needs to use the bathroom or it can mean she wants attention. She's the only high-maintenance female I need really.

8:55 - COMMERCIAL BREAK - OMFHGSWINEFLU!!!!1!1!!! Film at 11.

8:58 - Widmore and Faraday's mom? I guess they were sittin' in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G.

8:59 - You shot me, you dick.

9:00 - Thanks, mom. Happy Mother's Day everyone!

The Story of LeBron James Herman

2009-03-21T10:00:00.002-05:00

LeBron James Herman began her life under humble means. The youngest of four littermates LeBron was born to a single mother illegitimately and out of wedlock. Because she was the youngest it often fell to LeBron to help her mother complete such household tasks as folding the laundry, rinsing the dishes and sometimes caring for her three siblings who were just minutes older. But there lived inside her a simple dream. LeBron James Herman was going to be the first female canine President.

Adopted by rank strangers in 2009, LeBron began her campaign for President almost immediately. She was comfortable with the face-to-face person-canine contact required of all great candidates. Able to switch quickly from barking for attention to overwhelming her constituents with playful licks to the face, LeBron was a natural at winning people to her side.

"Awwwwwwww," said local voter Marie Johnson. "Who's a cute puppy? Yes, you are. Yes, you are."

In 2010, LeBron attended law school at the University of Minnesota. She studied constitutional law to get a firm handle on the advanced principles she'd need later in her political career. An excellent student from the first day, LeBron showed an aptitude which was unexpected.

"I have to admit this shit to you." explains U of M law professor John Hamburg. "When LeBron wandered past the door of the classroom, then back in front of the doorway and then kind of hesitantly entered the room and fucking cocked her head expectantly, I thought, 'Whose fucking dog is this?'. Then I realized this dog was in the fucking class like a goddamn straight-to-video Disney movie."

LeBron was on the dean's list her entire academic career and graduated summa cum laude in 2012. Shortly afterward she began working for a local Minneapolis special interest group where she showed herself to be a prodigious talent. She successfully lobbied for increased parks funding, school lunch programs and the introduction of the two-hour midday nap.

In 2013, LeBron began to address her ultimate goal of a political career. Setting her sights on the Minneapolis mayorship, she campaigned night and day (minus two hours) by ringing doorbells and appearing with local celebrities in a full-court press unheard of previously.

"The crazy thing is you think, 'This is just unhuman,'," says campaign manager Inez Munoz. "Then you remember LeBron is a dog and it really is unhuman. She has a secret well of doggie power which gives her an extra gear she can go into and just blow people away."

Elected by a landslide, LeBron's time in Minneapolis was short. With her eyes set to Washington, she accepted the Governor's 2014 invitation to replace resigning Senator Al Franken who was leaving to pursue a career in something else I don't know what. Six months later the people of Minnesota concurred with the governor's decision and elected to another six years in office.

Still LeBron's gaze cast higher with 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as her ultimate goal. She quickly formed an exploratory committee and announced her candidacy in late 2015. Often winning debates by barking until her opponent was quieted (How you like them apples?) and garnering endorsements from both sides of the aisle, LeBron was swept into office on a tidal wave of voter support.

"There was the fucking-shit-ass matter of whether you counted her age in dog years or in fucking people years," says Hamburg. "Then it occurs to you she knew this was an issue and was fucking thinking ahead all the fucking way back in 2010. I mean, fuck."

The LeBron Administration created broad initiatives such as no-leash laws, an end to animal testing and the flat tax. A firm believer in term limits, LeBron stuck by her ideals and served only one term in office before retiring from public life in 2020. She returned to the home of her adoptive strangers where she lived out the rest of her days just chillin' doooood. Shortly after her 14th birthday she went to live on some farm somewhere or something where she could chase tennis balls or something. Dan couldn't explain it very well through the tears so I'm confused, especially since we don't have cousins on Dad's side who own a farm.

"Yes, you are," recalls Johnson. "Just so cute. Sooooooo cute."

5(+1) Questions About Watchmen (NO SPOILERS)

2009-03-04T01:45:00.001-06:00

One of the joys of living in Chicago for the last two years was meeting, befriending and seeing a metric ton of movies with Miss Mary Kravenas. We met when I worked briefly at a book-seller in Evanston and bonded over our love of all things nerdy, geeky and comic book-related.

In fact, we have one of the best origin stories of any friendship. One day on the train into the city I read an ad saying Amy Sedaris would be signing copies of her new book at the Michigan Ave. Borders near my office. We decided we would go and took our place pretty far back in line when we arrived after work. So far back it took us until past midnight to reach the head of the line. Anyone you can spend six and a half hours in line with and have a deliriously happy good time is surely a true friend.

Mary was fortunate enough to see a preview screening of "Watchmen" tonight and when she got home, I asked her five spoiler-free questions about the film.

Mike: Okay, first question. The one every fanperson is worried about. Is it good?

Mary: Yes, and one of the people I went with was unaware of the graphic novel and he enjoyed it a lot.

Mike: Does the movie have the feel of the graphic novel or is it an entity unto itself?

Mary: It has the feel of the graphic novel. But it definitely has the cinematic feel too, much like "300" where the hong kong action film, turn-and-pivot filmmaking is present.

And the use of some of the actors--namely the dwarf actor who's in, well, everything, brought some unintended humor, I think. There were definite cheers and applause

Mike: Peter Dinklage?

Mary: No, let me find his name. He was in Seinfeld... Danny Woodburn

Mike: Malin Ackerman. Was she okay? Please be honest.

Mary: She did a good job. She kicks ass as Silk Spectre. There were some parts as Laurie where it was a little soft. The Night Owl/Silk Spectre sex scene made me roll my eyes a little.

Mike: Related to that. Did the filmmakers have the um... guts to include Dr. Manhattan's um... bits?

Mary: Yes, uncircumcised and everything. I haven't seen that much wang in a movie that didn't have an NC-17 rating.

Mike: Finally everyone worth their salt knows the Giant Squid is out. Did the replacement ending live up to it?

Mary: Well, it's no Giant Squid. There were parts of the replacement ending that I feel worked well. Because this is a movie, I think the changes that were made to the ending worked and made the ending and how things tie together/are explained more... realistic isn't quite the word.

Also there are a couple of elements that were very "Hollywood." There are going to be quibbles. If the movie could just end a couple minutes earlier I think some reviewers would've been happier. I don't know that I agreed completely with some of the thinking on the ending. There is a parallel to some recent movies.

But in an overall sense, I think the new ending worked for the movie. Even if I didn't agree with it completely.

Mike: Anything else to say?

Mary: There are some great choices of music like when Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" is played during the Nite Owl/SS2 sex scene which made me snort. And Jackie Earl Haley is brilliant.

Mike: Mary, thanks a lot for putting a lot of my fears to bed.

Mary: You're welcome. It's not a perfect movie. But it's really good.

LOST Live Blog

2009-02-18T19:55:00.034-06:00

Guess who is home this Wednesday night in time for LOST? Let's do this.

7:59 - An attendance tonight: Dan, myself and a sleeping Bron-Bron.

8:00 - Jack wakes up on the island. I think I've seen this one before.

8:02 - The part they didn't show you is when Hurley let Leonardo DiCaprio sink just a moment beforehand.

8:03 - Can I just say I like flash-forwards better than I like flashbacks? It's like seeing something on the horizon and getting to walk to it.

8:05 - COMMERCIAL BREAK - I have a small bone of contention. So out of all of the people Ben was trying to recruit to come back to the island, he went to Jack, Sayid and Hurley. Then the only person who actually went with Ben was Jack while Sun is in this weird showdown and Desmond Hume more or less just showed up. How was Ben the leader of The Others for so long? I mean, wouldn't it be necessary to win people over to your side at least once?

8:09 - "Is he telling the truth?" One of those things that if you need to ask...

8:10 - "Okay, guys there are all of these 'pockets' and one of them is a tropical island." "I'm going to go out on a limb here and say we should try to find the one which is a tropical island."

8:12 - See what I mean about having something to work towards?

8:13 - Err, Desmond. I think it's been obvious for a while that Ben is playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers.

8:14 - Or land in Guam.

8:15 - COMMERCIAL BREAK - Is anyone else really fired up for "Watchmen"? It's getting so close they're running the short commercials now.

8:18 - COMMERCIAL BREAK - By George, Dennis Leary will sell Smallz a truck with a step if they have to mail it to him.

8:19 - Have we established whether Locke's legs work yet?

8:20 - A very good summation about watching the rest of this show.

8:24 - Okay, who's that guy?

8:22 - Ben: Dropping some knowledge on Jack.

8:25 - Oddly enough her name WAS Freckles.

8:28 - Kiss 'er. Kiss 'er.

8:29 - YES!

8:30 - COMMERCIAL BREAK - Doctor or God? Wasn't there an Alec Baldwin movie about that?

8:33 - Ah, yes. The venerable Coffee of Shame.

8:35 - You know when you think the bully from your school was the BAAAADDDEST dude around and then you see him get beat up? Yeah.

8:37 - I mean, it's obvious Locke's legs don't work now when he's dead.

8:38 - COMMERCIAL BREAK - So I got a new phone today. It has a QWERTY board and everything. If you think I sent a lot of text messages before... Mu-ha-ha-ha-ha!

8:41 - COMMERCIAL BREAK - Would you actually hold a friend to a "... I'll marry a goat." I mean, there needs to be an acceptable substitute like a slug in the arm. But to make him actually marry a goat?

8:44 - Hurley! Buying up the plane like Daddy Warbucks. Anyone remember that part in "Annie"? Anyone?

8:46 - "What will happen to the other people?" "Who cares?" Ben!

8:49 - Doesn't Frank LaPetis sound like the type of name you'd write down on the attendance sheet when there was substitute?

8:51 - And how exactly does a surgeon get to know an airline pilot very well? Doesn't that seem unlikely?

8:52 - COMMERCIAL BREAK - Having Dan here pays off. Frank is apparently the helicopter pilot. Again, I ask...

8:54 - COMMERCIAL BREAK - How nice is it to see Nathan Fillion getting cast in other stuff? I mean, even meaningless mid-season replacements.

8:55 - Do you think the LOST writers just sit around and think up one-liners for Ben to zing Jack with?

8:56 - Well, now that you put it that way...

8:59 - Ah, yes. It's not where you are, it's when.

Thirty By Thirty - #1 - Start Taking a Multi-Vitamin

2009-02-16T14:05:00.000-06:00

Okay, when I was thinking up things to do for 30 x 30 it wasn't all just glamorous things like "Go parachuting" or "Visit New York City." Sometimes they're just going to be little things which I really should be doing anyway. Taking a multi-vitamin is a good example.

When you're young, you don't have to care about things like eating right. Your margin of error is much higher and you can do most anything without facing really grave consequences you can't recover from. Ask anybody you know about "how much wilder" they were in their youth and you'll surely hear tales of "I can't believe nothing bad happened" from most of them.

Well, later in life is when you start paying for those youthful indulgences and indiscretions. I know this personally from needing to undo years of abuse by losing a lot of weight and now fighting to keep it off. So I need to start thinking now about the little things I can be doing now to pay off positively much later.

Thus I am taking a multi-vitamin. There are some questions about their effectiveness. But I know that I'm most definitely not getting a balanced and completely nutritious diet right now. So I will take a One-A-Day multi-vitamin a vitamin C tablet to make sure I am augmenting my diet correctly.

25 Things

2009-02-12T08:00:00.000-06:00

I technically did 29 things for my 30 x 30 unrelated to the 25 things craze. But here are 25 random things about me.

1.) Sometimes I just get lazy about shaving and turn it into an opportunity to grow a sweet beard.

2.) I always watch the Onion News Network twice, once with the sound and again without the sound to read the scroll.

3.) When I go on a date I have to listen to three songs as I'm getting ready: "Today" by Smashing Pumpkins, "I Have A Date" by The Vandals and then "First Date" by Blink 182. Then I listen to as much Jay-Z as possible. Do you know how super confident listening to a lot of Jay-Z makes you?

4.) If you and I are going somewhere in a car and we get to our destination, I am out of the car before you have your seatbelt off. Then I'll stand next to the car like it's you who has the problem.

5.) My brother and I have an ongoing competition to see who can shake famous people's hands. Basically the only way to win would be to shake Obama, Jordan or Thom Yorke's hand (and I was close on the first two).

6.) When I go to the movies, I try to sit in the dead center of the theater. I will go to the extent of counting rows and seats in a row if it's a place I've never been before.

7.) Peanut butter + two slices of bread = meal at any time of day

8.) If I had to pick my best year of my life, I'd pick 2005 followed by 1998.

9.) If I had to pick the worst year of my life, I wouldn't pick one. Each year had something going for it.

10.) My archnemesis for my entire life has been the telephone. If I'm ever on the phone with you for more than a minute consider this a show of the strength of our friendship. I'm literally torturing myself on your behalf.

11.) It would be my dream to one day play a game of Risktego, aka a game of Risk with each of the battles being a game of Stratego. And by "one day" I mean the week it would required to play straight through only taking breaks to sleep, to eat, to use the bathroom and to take a walk outside pondering why you wanted to play a game of Risktego.

12.) I don't eat beef. It's partially a consciousness thing but also beef just makes me feel logey.

13.) When I was little I read a lot of comic books. Here's the weird part. They were mostly Archie comics.

14.) I know that in kindergarten I was as tall as an emperor penguin. I know this because I stood up to show the class how tall an emperor penguin was.

15.) In college my friends and I developed a thirty-hours-a-day, four-days-a-week calendar. We're pretty sure you'd go crazy but the idea of twenty hours on and ten hours off appealed to us. I mean, let's be honest. We were already doing the twenty hours on.

16.) I've moved at least once every year since I was 16 except 2004 and 2007. Amazingly I still check and use the very first e-mail account I ever set up.

17.) When the World Cup rolls around, I'll cheer for any team that speaks English or Portuguese.

18.) I have a friend who I always considered a music expert and was intimidated by his knowledge of music. He then told me he considered me a music expert and was intimidated by my knowledge of music. This individual is now one of my best friends.

19.) During high school, I used to run up to people I knew, put my arm around their shoulder and try to swing into their arms. This worked about as often as you would imagine.

20.) If I had to pick between the ability to fly, invisibility or the strength of 10 men, I'd pick flying. People who pick invisibility are creepers and not to be trusted. I don't know anyone who would pick the strength of 10 men.

21.) To date I have yet to incur any credit card debt.

22.) My favorite soft drink is RC Cola.

23.) I believe there are two appropriate responses when someone offers you a piece of pizza: "Yes, thank you. How generous of you." and "No, thank you. I already have my own slice."

24.) I made a decision a few years ago to be more polite. I rethought it as the minimum amount of consideration you can expect from another person and perhaps politeness keeps us from tearing other apart.

25.) I remember what it was like to be the kid who got left out in grade school. For that sole reason, I am always trying to include new people into whatever I'm doing.

Thirty By Thirty - Mission Statement

2009-02-09T08:00:00.000-06:00

As I approached my 29th birthday, I made a decision of how I would celebrate the last year of my twenties.

A lot of people approach their thirties in a mournful state. I should know as, in the last few years, my peers have increasingly become people approaching thirty. They think of it as the dying of their youth and the end of their best years. I take the opposite tack. I would much rather be 30 than 20. When I was 20 I had no money, had no girlfriend and didn't know who the fonk I was or who I wanted to be. Well, those three things are still true but I'm much further along the journey. I wouldn't peel back my twenties in any kind of redo because what I did and what happened made me into who I am today.

Thus I will celebrate my twenties as this great time I did, went and saw everything I could and enjoyed myself while doing, going and seeing. In much the same way we congregate together on New Years Eve to celebrate the passing of time instead of mourning it, my turning thirty will not be the dying of one era but the commencement of another. They will be the years when I find my way in the world, discover those people who will be my life companions and enjoy all of the perks of being an adult instead of being an over-inflated kid.

As a part of this year long celebration I'm going to do thirty things which I have never done before and then come back here and write about the experience. My brother calls it my "busted list" as in I have to do these things before I'm old and busted. Some of the tasks will be small and easily completed. Others will require planning and assistance. It is not my intent to have a list of thirty items and only accomplish twenty-something. There is a list which is already greater than thirty items and your suggestions are appreciated to expand upon it further. As I said, the intent is to share in this celebration both in the actual commission of the thirty things and also in writing about it in this space.

To that extent I have written the following as a declaration of purpose:

Between his 29th and 30th birthdays, Michael Herman will celebrate his transition into his third decade by completing thirty tasks he has never previously experienced and embracing the idea you can always find new experiences no matter how old you are thanks to the wonder, beauty and timeliness of Life.

The 29 Things About Me At Age 29

2009-02-01T20:30:00.017-06:00

1.) I was born at 8:30 in the evening on February 1st, 1980 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The hospital where I was born (Abbott-Northwestern) is still standing. No, Gregory Peck, it did not burn down years ago.

2.) I grew up in Edina, Minnesota where I lived at the end of a cul-de-sac with a large yard. I'm the oldest of three children with one sister two years younger and a brother four years younger.

3.) When I was really little (my aunt estimates 3 or 4 years old) I kept another little boy from drowning. We were up at my family's lake cabin and this boy hadn't been raised near the water like I had and thus couldn't swim very well. I laid down on my belly on the dock as I held his head above water and shouted until the adults heard me.

4.) I've been to the hospital a few times in my life. I can't give you an exact number because a good number of them happened when I had epilepsy as a very small child. There are the three times I remember.

When I was four, I was playing in the basement of our old house with my dad and my sister. My sister and I were taking turns jumping over a comforter my dad was swinging back and forth. Normally if you tripped you'd fall into the comforter. I overshot once and had to get stitches in my chin.

When I was 13, I had an incident during my sleep at summer camp which made it seem like my epilepsy was coming back. It turned out it wasn't. But I did have to have a battery of tests to verify this. The one upside was my dad and I stayed up all night watching "Terminator 2: Judgement Day" and "The Commitments" per doctor's orders.

Then when I was 20, I fell into a door frame and needed stitches in my eyebrow. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. It was a klutzy trip into a door frame, not a shameful display of foolishness. Move along now. Nothing to see here.

5.) Since I was very young I've been fascinated by the news. As a kid I would read Newsweek and US News and World report while being glued to CNN Headline News. On the morning the democratic demonstrations in Tienanmen Square were suppressed I watched the news report on CBS's This Morning with Charles Kuralt. It was the same day the Ayatollah died.

6.) The very first time I was on the Internet was in 1988 or so when the kid up the block got a modem. He had to place a long-distance call to Houston in order to sign into a very basic version of Prodigy. Later his father got the phone bill and hit the roof. The point was we were there.

7.) I was there in-person with my dad, my sister and my brother when this happened.

The fact I love baseball is not entirely unrelated.

8.) After my ninth grade year I transferred away from Edina to Orono where I graduated in 1998. Being at a smaller school allowed me to letter in varsity basketball, concert band and theater while participating in the school newspaper, the literary magazine and ultimate frisbee. I would not have had the opportunity to participate in all these extra curriculars at a school like Edina High School.

9.) I lived in the state of Wisconsin across three academic years while I attended school near Green Bay. This experienced exposed me to what it's like to live in a town smaller than Minneapolis.

10.) While I was in school at St. Norbert, I was a member of a "frat." It wasn't frat really. It was technically a "men's independent social group" and it was made up of a the really smart, really independent kids who "would never join a frat except... Hey, what's this?" To this date, my best and closest friends are people I met through this group.

11.) In the fall semester of my junior year, I won a student-faculty grant from the school to write a manuscript under the supervision of a professor. The college gave me $2000 which I promptly dumped back into tuition. To this date I have yet to finish the manuscript. But at one point in my life I was technically an endowed writer.

12.) I published the on-campus underground satirical newspaper while I was at St. Norbert. We were pretty serious about getting the paper out every two weeks. So serious that one time I drank too much, got up the next morning, puked during class (I was running to the restroom at the time), went home to sleep it off and still got up to meet my own self-imposed deadline of that evening.

13.) After my junior year of college I was blown out. I wasn't feeling challenged by my school work so I was making up impossible challenges to complete this school work. For example, I would type my papers for the critical writing class (the hardest class in the English major) on the day of class. When this wasn't enough, I started writing them in the two hours before class. In April I took incompletes in all of my classes and moved home.

14.) I graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2003. Since I'd missed some gen ed classes on my first time through I took an extra two semesters (fall and summer) to finish. Recently I saw my diploma for the first time in five years. I put it back in the box it was in and don't expect to see it for another five years.

15.) I've visited 31 out of the 50 states. My family was very good (and fortunate) at taking a lot of trips when I was growing up. Since then I've added to my 50-state tally by taking long road trips to each coast either with my friends, my high school band, protest trips or just by myself. These are the states I've visited.

16.) I've been out of the country three times total. I went to Canada with my mom for a week and I've been over the border from Brownsville into Matamoros twice. I don't consider this a deficiency. Do you know how much of the United States there is to see?

17.) The one time I ever tried to hitchhike I was successful. In fact, it was someone I knew who picked me up. My friend Pete and I were leaving the Phish concert in the middle of the Everglades for Y2K and he needed to be on a plane the next morning. We were holding a sign near the front gate when my friend Jake drove by in an RV. It's possibly the luckiest moment of my entire life.

18.) When I got out of college, I didn't know what to do with myself. So I did what any person would do in that situation. I went into whatever paid me the most. In this case, it was insurance.

19.) There was one Friday night when I was nary a year post-college I was sitting at home watching a re-run of "Cops." Suddenly it occurred to me. I was sitting at home on a Friday night watching a re-run of "Cops." Even worse, I'd seen that episode previously. It was that night I decided to be more of an extrovert.

20.) I've had seven girlfriends in my lifetime. I loved all seven of them in their own way. I've felt bad about how things ended with all seven of them. The good news is three of the last four will probably read this so I'm getting better at staying friends.

21.) I lived in the state of Illinois for two years while my now-ex-girlfriend pursued an acting career. This experience exposed me to what it's like to live in a city larger than Minneapolis.

22.) When I lived in Chicago, I worked for the insurance arm of a large property holding firm doing complex filings of yada yada yada and blah blah blah. Our offices were on the Magnificent Mile and I would ride the train down from Evanston every morning. This was the best job I've ever had. The work was challenging, I was given a great deal of autonomy and there was an amazing culture of camaraderie amongst the young people of the office.

23.) The best part about living in Chicago for me was the really cool concert festivals I attended in that city's parks. I went to Pitchfork three times, the Touch and Go 25th Anniversary weekend and numerous great bands famous and otherwise playing at the summer street festivals. Still one of my five favorite moments ever was at Lollapalooza last year when this happened by accident.

24.) Three of my friends have died in my lifetime. The first was my childhood friend Brendan who used to come down the block to play when we were little. He died from a sudden onset of meningitis when we were in high school. The next was my college friend Emily who crashed her bike and flipped over her handlebars while not wearing a helmet. She used to call everything "fascist!" and I'm sure would've actually exploded if she had lived to see the Bush years. Then I was 24 when my friend Chuck who worked across the hall passed away after coming home from the bar. He complained to his girlfriend about feeling ill and went to bed. That "feeling ill" was his vital organs shutting down.

25.) I have only one grandparent left, my paternal grandmother. I was six years old when my dad's dad died and that makes me the youngest member of our family who remembers him. My mom's mom died when I was a sophomore in college and my grandfather died two days after I'd visited him when I was 26. I realize how lucky I am in all four circumstances.

26.) I cried when Kirby Puckett died. I actually cried twice, once when I heard the news and once when they held a moment of silence for him at the T'Wolves game two days later. After the moment of silence I turned to my then-girlfriend, pointed at Kevin Garnett and said, "That's the only other athlete I will cry over when he dies."

27.) I've been quoted twice in the newspaper of the metro area in twice I was living. When I was in high school, I was a part of an article about kids who transfer high schools under Minnesota's open-enrollment rules. When I was in college, I was a part of an article about a protest trip we took to the School of The Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia. I also appeared on the front page of the newspaper in the later article.

28.) My brother and I were in a band together called MidDef when I was in college and he was in high school and even wrote a few original songs. We played exactly two concerts; once in Dad's basement for X-mas and once in our Mom's backyard for some friends.

29.) When this posts I will be when I have just turned 29 years old. If I live until at least 70, my life isn't even halfway over. The best part isn't that I feel like I've done a lot with the 29 years I've had. It is that I feel like I can do even more in the coming years ahead.

LOST Live Blog

2009-01-21T19:35:00.053-06:00

I didn't watch LOST from the beginning. I tried to catch up a couple of times but each time obfuscation frustrated me. But I am giving the the series another chance since it's ending and one of my favorite comic book writers, Brian K Vaughn (Y: The Last Man, Runaways), is the headwriter. He's very good at bringing his stories to a conclusion so I'm getting on for the rest of the ride. In celebration, I'm going to do a live blog of the season premiere of LOST tonight. Tune in back here as I update this post with my thoughts.

8:00 pm - Okay, I'm "caught up" on the show thanks to that primer show that was just on. Up next is the real deal. Who else is ready?

8:02 pm - I have no idea what's going on.

8:05 pm - I have no idea what's going on.

8:06 pm - Jeremy Davies!

8:10 pm - I have no idea what's going on.

8:11 pm - COMMERCIAL BREAK - Okay, it's a joke. I kinda get what's going on. So far it's a lot of hinting at time travel which is the other reason I'm giving LOST another chance. I love time travel movies and stories. If this is going in that direction and will cross into true sci-fi, I'll see it through.

8:15 pm - Spoiler Alert - Tom Cruise's cousin is in this one.

8:16 pm - "Why did you jump off that boat?" "So I'd have another chance to take off my shirt."

8:18 pm - One complaint I have about this show is when the characters stop and have a conversation purely for plot exposition. If it's important, show it to me and I'll figure it out. LOST has a smart audience.

8:21 pm - COMMERCIAL BREAK - So what I've heard is this first half hour is supposed to be mind-blowing. As of yet I've been a little disappointed. It seems to be a lot of reveals but not a lot of revelations.

8:23 pm - COMMERCIAL BREAK - One of the most disorienting things about living in Chicago the last two years is when I came home and I didn't recognize any of the local newscasters. I don't know who any of the KSTP people are save for Dave Dahl. He's like a beacon in the darkness.

8:27 pm - So, if this show is going in a time-travel direction, is there any chance Hiro Nakamura shows up?

8:30 pm - OWWWWWWWW-IE!

8:33 pm - COMMERCIAL BREAK - Is anyone else weirded out by Dakota Fanning? Not anything specific. Just y'know in general.

8:35 pm - Gosh, I really love Jeremy Davies. He's one of those guys who should've had a much better career. I mean, he was in "Saving Private Ryan."

8:38 pm - Here's another complaint. Why can't the show just have characters show up without having their face obscured?

8:41 pm - Is that the triceratops poo from "Jurassic Park"?

8:42 pm - COMMERCIAL BREAK - One of the things I'm doing during the commercial breaks is making plays on Lexulous (nee Scrabulous). I mention it because there's a really interesting article about Scrabble and its online versions in this week's New Yorker. It's not online but you should check it out, especially if you're a fan of the game.

8:48 pm - Minute forty-eight and Sawyer is still shirtless.

8:49 pm - Ah, yes. The "blood out of the nose" trick. Is it cliche or archetype? You decide.

8:53 pm - COMMERCIAL BREAK - Uhhhhh, nothing to say here. As you were.

8:59 pm - This is what I was hoping for. Let the characters talk amongst themselves and the audience will pick it up.

9:01 pm - Michelle Rodriguez!

9:04 pm - COMMERCIAL BREAK - Okay, wtf is with the pig in the mall? It's memorable but still I don't know if it makes me want to buy their product. I do have to admit they put a pretty good button on it to remind you what the product is and therefore it's actually a good effort.

9:07 pm - And Sawyer finds a shirt.

9:10 pm - I think I see a very successful "Weekend at Sayid's" franchise spin-off with potential.

9:15 pm - COMMERCIAL BREAK - Okay, so Sayid was calling Locke "Bentham". And anyone who appreciates the very wierd knows Jeremy Bentham asked in his will to be preserved and placed on display at either Oxford or Cambridge. Now Ben is a little dodgy about whether "Bentham" is really dead. Hmmmmm...

9:18 pm - COMMERCIAL BREAK - I was completely off-base. It's University College London.

9:22 pm - "It's like 'The Godfather.' They smother you with pillows and make it look like an accident."

9:24 pm - Mmmmm, mangoes. I love mangoes and could eat the shet out of one right now.

9:25 pm - Ah, the "headache" trick. Is it cliche or archetype? I'd like to see someone just once move through time and come out on the other side with a lot of ear wax.

9:26 pm - COMMERCIAL BREAK - Okay, so I'm doing well in one of the two games I'm playing against my ex-roommate Brian and just getting slaughtered in the other. I'm really good at getting at least 20 points each turn and Brian is really good at getting at least 20 points each turn AND bingo at least once a game.

9:33 pm - "Everything is going to make sense. I promise." It better.

9:35 pm - "You mean 'Take care of her?' take-care-of-her?"

9:38 pm - COMMERCIAL BREAK - Is it okay I find those Comcast Triple Play commercials annoying but like the Of Montreal song at the end? I know Kevin Barnes gets a lot of crap for licensing his songs out for commercials. But they are good songs.

9:43 pm - Yes! More characters talking between themselves. I'm not feeling as frustrated by all of this.

9:45 pm - Thank God for mothers. What kind of mother wouldn't believe her son in that situation? If I told my mom everything Hurley just said, she'd believe me even if she was the only person who believed me. Yay Hurley's mom!

9:48 pm - COMMERCIAL BREAK - There are a few movies coming up which I should be superbly pumped to see. I'm pretty sure "Watchmen" is going to be good. I'm waiting to see about "Terminator: Salvation." But what to think about this new "Friday the 13th" movie? I mean, I saw the recent "Halloween" movie and it didn't set a good precedent.

9:52 pm - "Hoooooooooot Pockets"

9:55 pm - Bigger badass: Locke or Chuck Norris? I think it's a toss-up.

9:57 pm - What the ...? Who is that lady?

9:58 pm - I have no idea what's going on.

President Barack Obama (2009 -

2009-01-20T08:11:00.002-06:00

OMFG!!1!1! ITZ TEH WINDCHHILZ!1!!1!

2009-01-16T14:35:00.004-06:00

I don't believe in the wind chill factor. Don't get me wrong. I do believe it exists. I'm merely stating its importance is over-stated. Its importance is in making pedestrian numbers sound SCARY!!!

Do you ever walk out the door when it's 40 degrees out, feel a 5 mph breeze and think "Man, it feels like it's 36 degrees today." NO! Because noone cares at that temperature. Even if the wind is whisking by at 60 mph, the windchill factor is still only 25 degrees. You'd be more concerned about how a tropical storm got to the Upper Midwest in the middle of January than how cold it feels like outside. It's even more meaningless when you get further down the scale. Can any of us really tell the difference between -10 degrees and -28?

But that's what gets the fonking headlines. A negative -10 degree temperature is bad. You wouldn't want to be standing around outside for too long when the mercury drops that low. But add a 10 mph wind and suddenly IT'S -28 WINDCHILL!!! THAT SOUNDS ALMOST THREE TIMES WORSE!!! CAN YOU FONKING BELIEVE WE LIVE SOMEWHERE IT "FEELS" LIKE -28 DEGREES OUT?!?!?

Take a step back for just a second. This is the methodology of how you determine wind chill. Wind chill is the heat transfer on a bare face walking into the wind at 3 mph. Sooo basically you can mitigate the effects of wind chill by not having exposed skin and/or not standing in the wind. Either this strikes you as common sense or you're a fool.

Here's what wind chill is expressing. Your body radiates heat. That heat stays close to your body as the energy required to diffuse with the air around you is quickly exhausted. The wind comes along to blow that heat away from your body. When it does, the air surrounding you is made colder. So instead of being 5 degrees mitigated by this layer of heat near your skin, it is 5 degrees next to your skin. (Ludo, how are my physics?)

So what you can do is trap this warm air near your skin. If the wind can't blow it away, then it will continue to shield you from the cold. You can either wear layers or a hat or a scarf or a less permeable jacket. Sounds like something Mom told you years ago, right?

Wind chill is, at best, a factor of inconvenience and discomfort. Wind chill won't make your car harder to start in the morning (your car doesn't naturally radiate heat) or cause frostbite (the cold itself has that locked down). It just means you may need to plan better about what you wear and how much exposure you get to the elements.

It's true. It is it's cold outside. It's January and we live in the middle of the continent north of the 40th parallel. So stay inside and while you're at it invite me over. I'll brave the cold because I'm well-prepared and don't believe in the windchill.

P.S. For those of you who care, here's the formula for calculating wind chill.

where Twc (wind chill) and Ta (actual temp) are measured in °F, and V (wind velocity) in mph.

Who Is On First?

2009-01-10T10:50:00.000-06:00

Last night, after my book club meeting, I proceeded further south in Minneapolis to the new Chatterbox Pub at 45th and France. The Chatterbox is a now-chain-of-restaurants where you can have a drink, eat good bar food and play games. Board games are free though you can also play old-school videogames for a small fee. My friend Pete lives near this newest location and he was already there with our friend Peder.

One of the oddities of this location of The Chatterbox is the bathrooms are for one person at-a-time. (When you lock the door it flips an "in use" sign like on an airplane.) So in the men's room there is a toilet next to a urinal with no divider in between them. When one of my book club compatriots accidentally opened the unlocked door to find it occupied, the nearby and observing waitress regaled him with this story.

When the restaurant was just opening, a gentleman opened the door to find the bathroom occupied. He waited and let the occupants exit. That's right; occupants. But get you mind out of the gutter because this is what the gentleman in question told our waitress storyteller. When he opened the door what he saw was one occupant was making use of the toilet while the other was using the urinal. Not that odd in a usual bathroom except in this one, as I mentioned, there is no divider.

Here's the question I want an answer to which has, no doubt, been lost to the sands of time. Who was there first? I suppose it's possible (and in fact, most likely) they both entered the restroom at the same time since they also both left at the same time. But drive with me for a while.

If you are in said restroom using the toilet and someone else comes in to use the urinal, that's just rude. Obviously it's meant for just one person and your oversight of not locking the door should not put you at the peril of someone walking in on you and choosing to stay. Other than when we are sleeping, the most vulnerable a person is each day is when they are sitting down to use the toilet. Society has established rules governing this situation for just this reason. Ultimately though it's just harmless.

However it's more intriguing to me if the man using the toilet was the second occupant. Talk about a ballsy motherfonker. Short of it being an "emergency" that would be one of those moments where you just kind of have to take it. Yes, it's still rude. But c'mon. Could you imagine the conversation you would have?

(Man opens the door while you are peeing)

You: Occupied!
Man: (nothing)

(Man crosses the room, unbuckles his pants, pulls down his underwear and sits down on the toilet.)

You: (stunned silence)

I mean, men hate to even make eye contact while washing their hands. This man is flaunting etiquitte so basic it's to the point of being informal and understood. Either he doesn't know (which is unlikely) or he doesn't care (which makes him a total fonking bad-ass). Anyone who is audacious enough to walk into an occupied restroom, basically expose themselves to a complete stranger and then subject the same captive stranger to all of their foul odors is a man not to be fonked with and perhaps one whose movements should be tracked.

And since we can imagine him, it means it is possible for him to exist. And if this man were to exist, we'd all be in trouble. Because a man who can poop in a one-man bathroom next to another strange man who is peeing is a man who has the will to dominate us all.

It's only worth mentioning because everyone is thinking it. I hope we never see such a day. And may God have mercy on us if we do.

Auld Lang Syne, My Friends

2008-12-31T18:00:00.004-06:00

It's easy to look back on a year like 2008 and reflect it wasn't a good year. When I compare where I was last year on NYE and where I am now, it's easy to see things have not worked out the way I thought it would. My projection was certainly different than where things ended up. Still it was a good year.

It was good because good things happened this year. A certain Hawaiian was elected President, I shed 50 pounds of unneeded weight and I took a fully-funded trip out West. I saw both AL and NL baseball games, pro basketball games and my favorite band Radiohead with my brother at the south end of Grant Park as fireworks exploded in the panorama behind them. I also walked away unscathed from a car crash which could've easily killed me and I met a lot of new people I can see being good friends in the years to come.

There were bad things to happen too and I won't reflect on them here. The truth is they, like this year, are now in the past. As a friend told me once by paraphrasing someone else, "Everything I've done has lead me to here. And I am better for it."

Happy 2008 everyone and I'll see you again soon in 2009.

Oh, Eight Songs

2008-12-22T01:15:00.003-06:00

I was combing through the last year in music and I'm going to do something a little different. The thing to do usually is to make a list of the year's best albums. But let's be honest. Not only are you unlikely to go out and buy those albums, most people don't even consume music via the album anymore. It's all about single songs.

So these are eight songs I chose to represent the music which turned me on in the last year. These were bands and/or songs a regular person wouldn't have stumbled into just by listening to the radio. (Sorry Kanye and Coldplay.) At the same time I also wanted to highlight music that most people could enjoy too. (Sorry Battles and TV On The Radio.) Most of all though these were eight songs I listed to often during the year. When I think back on 2008, these songs will be the soundtrack.

And just for added difficulty, let's make them appear in the same slot as they do on the album from which they come (our first song is first on its respective album, the second song comes second on its album, etc.) and do it in under thirty minutes.

1.) Colin Meloy "Devil's Elbow" - When I think of 2008, I will think of being in Chicago. When I think of being in Chicago, I will think of three things. The first one is obvious. The second is the good times. The third will be riding the train. I rode the CTA everywhere and on the nights when I didn't have a companion I was plugged into my MP3 player.

Colin Meloy's live solo album got a lot of spins on my way to work, going to baseball games, going out to shows and most often when I was going home. I will hear this song or any from this album and forever think of the Clark and Division stop, the stretch between Sheridan and Howard and standing at Main in the morning. Add in that it's a great song and "Devil's Elbow" spells 2008.

2.) Vampire Weekend "Oxford Comma" - Have you ever heard a buzz band that everyone seems to love and they really are that great? It's not hype. It's actually music journalism fulfilling its purpose and bringing good music to light. I had a few of those this year.

Vampire Weekend was one of them. Maybe it's because all of my musical taste is calibrated to The Clash but I always love music that isn't familiar. I like weird sounds and sounds that are presented in a different way than I've heard. Being able to do that within a three minute pop song though is a real feat.

There's something that sounds very close to Jamaican reggae about Vampire Weekend's music. Their influences are actually West African and I think that's something Joe Strummer would be way into if he were still alive. I think that because it's stuff I'm way into myself.

3.) Kings of Leon "Sex On Fire" - One of the great quotes I like to pull from my life is by Gregg Allman. He was talking about the term "Southern rock." He said (and I'm paraphrasing) "All rock comes from The South. So saying 'Southern rock' is a little bit like saying 'rock rock'." Normally when we think of music that rocks, we think of the music which followed and drew influence Led Zepplin with shredding guitars, bombastic drums and soaring vocals. Allman is right though. Even the almighty Zepplin sound draws its roots in The South.

That would mean the purest form of rock made today is the "rock rock" being made by bands like My Morning Jacket and Kings of Leon. I mean what's more sex and drugs and rock and roll than a song called "Sex on Fire"? All the more to the point when you dive into the lyrics about the visceral and raw elements of making sweet love. Wrap it all up in a melody and a beat that makes you want to drive very fast down the open road and you'll be wrapping yourself in the American flag in no time.

4.) MGMT "Electric Feel" - MGMT was another buzz band that lived up to their billing. A lot of music played on synthesizers ends up sounding like its been run through a computer and filtered into bleak dystopia. It's just what happened because Bowie and Eno and their ilk were the first guys to get there and start using these new tools and that's the type of music they make.

What makes MGMT so weird and interesting is they make music about a psychedelic world without technology. They present a conundrum when they use a syntesizer to sound like a "4000 year old Peruvian flute" as Andrew VanWyngarden says in the behind the scenes video to this song. For forever the idea of more authentic and earthy music is that which is played on instruments made of wood. (See: any coffee shop this Friday or Saturday) Yet here are these two guys working with The Flaming Lips' producer to make a song about a girl from The Amazon who can create electricity from her hands. It's the type of music which appeals to your head, your heart and of course your ears.

5.) Broken Social Scene "Churches Under The Stairs" - When I think about concerts I saw this last year I'll think of the peak performances. From Pitchfork Music Festival to Lollapalooza to Rocktober to a set of shows on either side of Snelling on University to a few more great shows at First Ave, I saw a lot of really great live music this year.

Broken Social Scene contributed a large part of that great live music. I saw them not once, not twice but three times this year and each time my love for them deepened even further. Each concert was like a date. On the first date at Lollapalooza I got a quick brush-up on their sound and an introduction to some of the songs I didn't know. The second date later that evening at The Metro was confirmation that first blush wasn't a misread on my part. Then by the excellent concert of a third date at First Ave during Rocktober I had made my decision and I was wearing my good underwear. I fell for this band the way you're supposed to; by seeing them in their peak moment and being rewarded as you do.

6.) Flobots "Handlebars" - This song gives me an opportunity to give shoutouts and for wildly different reasons. First I have to shoutout Willibuster, Ghost and Emily Osby. When I was visiting home during August, we were hanging out with one of Will's high school friends and the night devolved into what most parties usually do with all of us sitting around looking up stuff on YouTube. It was even Will himself who pulled up the video for this song and every time I hear this song or watch the video I think of chilling with those three.

The other person I get to shoutout is K10. Eight years younger than me and full of opinions, K10 is more than willing to tell me my musical taste sucks and that I've gone soft in my older age. Which is exactly the thing I love about him. Ever said that if you had the opportunity to talk to yourself at a younger age you'd probably just argue about stuff? I don't have to imagine what that would be like to argue music with my younger self because of this guy. Except my younger self really likes The Flobots. "As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens his friend."

Additional shoutouts for additional and different reasons to Dan, Patrick, Noha, Luke, Pete, Peder, Jim, Abby, Stensby, Christian, Nicky, SayRock Brian, Ed, TK and all the people that were at Doomtree Blowout. Thanks for making "going to shows" the new black in '08. Let's go get them swimming pools in '09.

7.) The Black Kids "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend To Dance With You" - Guess "What?". Yet another buzz band that lived up to their billing was The Black Kids. I got this CD during the month I was subletting in Evanston and it was just a matter of having heard about them a lot on the periphery and finally taking the whole CD plunge. It really is amazing doing that worked out so well for me this year.

Okay, what do The Black Kids sound like? It's like The Cure was brought to the 21st Century and decided to write in the "Just Like Heaven" mode. That mournful quality is still there as are the crazy good synth lines. The difference is Robert Smith is playing with The Revolution and that means really danceable sped-up songs underneath the heartache and loss. It literally is the type of music which can be called 1980s retro and not have that be a derisive term.

8.) The Hold Steady "Stay Positive" - Is there any greater summation of the year of Our Lord two thousand and eight than "You gotta stay positive!"? Yeah, things went into the trash this year. At the same time a new era is dawning. Things are always darkest before the dawn and sometimes things are so bad the only place we have to go is up. In 2008, we all had to stay positive or else we'd lose our minds. But by staying positive we'll see ourselves through.

Now pour that over the type of big anthemic hooks that Springsteen and U2 only stumble upon anymore and you have a song you actually can listen to and come out feeling positive and part of something larger. The song isn't suggesting that we stay positive and then leaving us to figure out how to do that. It is infused with the raw energy and mass needed to sustain and to even see the way through to thriving. It doesn't move you in the usual way of touching your heart. It should swell in you the defiant walking-into-the-wind attitude needed to tough things out. Because, as I said before, this year more than ever you gotta stay positive.

Take It Off And Keep It Off

2008-12-17T23:30:00.002-06:00

This time last year I weighed over 300 pounds. Not a lot over but over. I was having difficulty with my back and my feet. Even climbing the three flights of stairs into our apartment would wind me. Want some photographic evidence? Okay, here's me on NYE last year.

Now compare to this picture taken at my sister's wedding in September. Much better right?

When I stepped on the scale today I weighed 260 pounds and I've been as low as 252. That means in the last year I've lost 40-some pounds and more importantly have been able to keep it off. My back and feet are feeling better, I can feel the additional muscle I've picked up (the key to weight loss) and I don't get winded anymore. Even when I'm on the treadmill at the gym I'm chugging along breathing naturally.

The key to my plan is pretty simple. I plan to do much more than I need to do. Then when I do it is in excess and does even more good than I need it to and when I don't do as much as I planned I still have done enough to do what I need to do. If I plan to go five times a week and I only go three times, it isn't the end of the world nor do I lose ground.

The most important element though is getting to brag about losing a lot of weight. Listen, I'm probably never going to summit Everest or hit a major league curveball and chances are neither are you. That's just life. It's the little challenges you take upon yourself to complete which end up defining your life. Being able to tell people you took on something like this and triumphed makes its own gravy. It becomes a loop of success and praise which reinforces itself over and over.

The easy way out on my personal health would be to do what I did for most of my twenties and just act like it didn't matter. What did I give a fuck for? It's the little challenges though and succeeding on something like this can only pay off in other situations down the line. All in all, it's about changing your ethic. Once you do that you can make bigger changes in your life, changes that will make losing 40 pounds into no big deal.

The Life of Pi

2008-12-01T23:30:00.003-06:00

I often refer to Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" as the best book I ever read. My favorite novel is F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" while the most difficult book I've read is "The Sound and The Fury" by William Faulkner. (It only took me three tries.) Still I consider "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" the best book because of what it stirred in me.

It was more than just a simple appreciation for the method by which the author told the story or an affinity for the characters. It was a deep connection between myself and the ideas of the book on a spiritual level. I found it encapsulated not only the world I lived in or the world I wanted to live in but both at the same time.

Since I finished "Unbearable Lightness" at the end of summer 2003, I've read a lot of really good books like "Ender's Game", "Good Omens" and "A Long Way Down." But there have only been two books which approached the incredibly high level of "Unbearable Lightness."

The first was a Spanish book called "The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Set in Barcelona during the years after the war, it tells a Gothic story of a young boy whose father owns a used bookstore. His father takes him to The Cemetary of Forgotten Books where he discovers a book by Julian Carax. However when he goes searching for other works by Carax, he finds that someone has been systematically destroying all copies of Carax's work. It enthralled me to the point that I was very upset when I went to Amazon and found Zafon had not written any other books.

The other book up to "Unbearable Lightness" standards is the one I just finished, "The Life of Pi" by Yann Martel. Telling the story of a young Indian boy who finds him tossed from the proverbial pan of a shipwreck into the fire of a lifeboat inhabited by a Bengal tiger, it's more a novel about the place of Man in the world.

When the action is taking place in Pondicherry, India the emphasis is on the relation of God to Man. It specifically explores religious pluralism as the main character simultaneously adopts Christianity and Islam while retaining his Hindu beliefs. Multiculturalism is still a relatively new idea so it's interesting to watch it seep from the Ivory Tower of academia into the mainstream via books like "Life of Pi."

Still the hook of the book is the section taking place in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. As great as it is to read about this kid following many paths to the top of the same mountain, my constant thought was "This was really great AND there's a part coming up involving this boy and a tiger in a lifeboat." It's interesting to watch the story slide quickly down Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Where the Indian boy was interested in God and self-actualization in the first section, his focus slides quickly into pure survival. Man's place in the world is re-framed as he has to take on a direct (the tiger) and indirect (the sea) threat to his life from Nature.

Finally the way it all wraps up is beautiful. Like its predecessors before it, the ending was everything I could've expected while reading the book. It encapsulates the ideas I have as well as the ideas I'm moving towards and that meant the book carried a lot of weight for me. It's definitely a book which requires a lot of consideration and that's the best thing you can say about a book. Quite simply put it's the best book I've read since at least "The Shadow of the Wind" and maybe even "The Unbearable Lightness of Being."

Going To California - Day Five - Bakersfield To San Francisco

2008-11-20T13:10:00.000-06:00

Departure Bakersfield - 54 degrees and clear
Arrival San Francisco - 59 degrees and cloudy

Sundown - 4:55 pm
Miles Traveled - 253 miles
States Visited - 1
Major Cities - San Jose, CA; San Francisco, CA
Average Speed - 62 mph

Can you know a city by staying there one night? No, it would be impossible to know the geography let alone the heart and the spirit of a city in an evening.

Can you try to see an entire city in one night? Yes, if you have the proper guides and a willingness to stay up until 4:00 am on your internal clock.

When I knew that my trip was going to be ending in San Francisco it pleased me greatly. It was one of the five Great American Cities I hadn't visited yet and, as someone who had always though himself a little Beat and Boho, it was like the mothership calling me home. Add on the number of Beat/Boho friends I have who are already on the mothership and it was going to be on like Genghis Khan.

The tricky thing is I only had one night. I knew I wasn't going to see everything or even everything I wanted to see. With the right priorities I could get a good taste of San Francisco.

So I got into town, took the BART into the city, met Schwa, saw the circus, had some drinks, met Meg, we all got picked up by Viv, the four of us went to the sushi place, I ate a prawn head in the most digusting way possible, was met by Will, rode over to City Lights, said "Bye" to Meg and Viv, went into the Poetry Room, got my picture taken on the stairs, got drinks at Vesuvio, walked up Russian Hill (to the TOP!), got in the car, talked to Boston, rode to the Golden Gate Bridge, took some blurry photos, rode across the Golden Gate Bridge, took some blurry video, rode to Haight-Ashbury, got my picture in front of the street signs, met up with Jamie, had a beer, walked into Golden Gate Park, saw the outside of a museum I'll need to go into next time, stood and BS-ed in an amphitheater, walked back to the car, dropped off Jamie and Schwa and was dropped at my hotel by Will.

The only thing I know is I need to come back.

Going To California - Day 4 - Flagstaff to Bakersfield

2008-11-19T10:00:00.001-06:00

Departure Flagstaff - 35 degrees and clear
Arrival Bakersfield - 82 degrees and clear

Sundown - 4:48 pm
Miles Traveled - 482 miles
States Visited - 2
Major Cities - Ummmm...
Average speed - 70 mph

A Sampling of Gas Prices
$2.11 Kingman, AZ
$3.29 Bullhead City, CA
$2.25 Junction of Hwys. 395 & 58
$1.99 Bakersfield, CA

One of the things that's both neat and frightening about growing up is you start to deal with your parents as adults. Rather you're dealing with them for the first time as an adult yourself. In fact it may be the first time you get to talk with them about grown up stuff at all.

Since thirty is just up around the bend for me I'm actively working on redefining my individual relationships with my parents. I want to reset the structure of our realtionships to accomodate two adults instead of one adult and one "child." More importantly I want to actually know my parents. Neither of them are particularly old and we'll have at least another thirty to forty years together. Up until now they've had to be models from which I might base my behavior. But now that I'm pretty much a fully-formed adult I can look and see them as they are.

More importantly, if your family was nuclear like mine, these are the two people who have ostensibly known you for the longest. They were the ones who can tell you the most about who you were before you remembered and even tell you a lot about the stuff you do remember except from an adult's perspective. They really are the mirror of your experiences and if they are honest and respectful of you they can tell you more about yourself than any other person not walking around in your skin.

So when I was having dinner with my mom last night, we just talked like I normally would with any other adult in my life. We talked about the election, we talked about my sister's wedding, we talked about my upcoming job prospects. But mostly we talked about each other and ourselves. That is to say we talked as adults.

Going To California - Day 3 - Amarillo To Flagstaff

2008-11-18T08:30:00.001-06:00

Departure Amarillo - 47 degrees and clear
Arrival Flagstaff - 55 degrees and clear

Sundown - 5:15 pm
Miles Traveled - 608 miles
States Visited - 3
Major cities - Albuquerque, NM
Average speed - 66 mph

A Sampling of Gas Prices
$1.97 San Jon, NM
$2.15 Santa Rosa, NM
$1.95 Albuquerque, NM
$2.99 Allentown, AZ
$2.69 Flagstaff, AZ

Five Words Young Jeezy Shouts In The Background of "Put On"
Aye
Ha Ha
Hey
Whoooo
Yeah (pron. J-eah)

If it isn't completely obvious and exactly what eveyone else is thinking, I'm sure I could do this "driving across the country" thing all the time. There is something deep in my soul that loves the Kerouac idea of just having the open road in front of you. Going, as Sir Edmund Hillary would say, because it's there.

However I don't think I'd want to do it professionally. Putting on this many miles in a day because you have to is hard. I need to keep driving for that next stop on the map, the next spot where I have a hotel reservation. I probably would've made the same stops as scheduled except I would've done them with a little more generous allowances for stopping and seeing the countryside.

As it is, I'm enjoying watching these United States roll by my windshield. I've seen both purple mountains majesty and amber waves of grain. The amazing thing about our country is people spread out all the way across this diverse continent feel they are all involved in the same great thing going forward. As the man himself said, "There are no red states. There are no blue states. There is only the United States." And what's more American than getting out at seeing this country we love.

Going To California - Day 2 - Emporia To Amarillo

2008-11-17T07:45:00.002-06:00

Departure Emporia - 37 degrees and clear
Arrival Amarillo - 73 degrees and clear

Sundown - 5:40 pm
Miles Traveled - 495 miles
States Visited - 3
Major Cities - Wichita, Kansas; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Average speed - 63 mph

A Sampling of Gas Prices

$1.95 Wichita
$1.57 Oklahoma City (W00T!)
$1.85 Amarillo, Texas

On April 19, 1995 at 9:02 am domestic terrorists detonated a fertilizer bomb in front of The Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma destroying one third of the building and killing 168 people including 19 children. Two and a half years later in October of 1997 The Oklahoma City National Memorial was established and put under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service. The memorial was dedicated by then-President Clinton on the fifth anniversary of the bombing, April 19th, 2000. I visited the memorial on my way through Oklahoma City today.

See the photos of my visit at this link.

Going to California - Day 1 - Minneapolis to Emporia

2008-11-16T18:45:00.000-06:00

Departure Minneapolis - 32 degrees and overcast.
Arrival Emporia - 42 degrees and dark.

Miles traveled - 546
States traveled through - 4
Major cities - Minneapolis, MN; Des Moines, IA; Kansas City, KS/MO
Avg. speed - 61 MPH

A sample of gas prices

Minneapolis, MN - $1.97
Des Moines, IA - $1.92
Converse, MO - $1.73
Kansas City, KS - $ $1.76
Emporia, KS - $1.85

When I was young, my dad and I were much closer than we are now. I was the oldest of my siblings and as such I could go do things that the other kids couldn't. It's just one of the many perks of being first. Mostly it was just a bunch of sporting events that we got to see together including a lot of Twins games from very close. But the crown jewel of father-son time for my dad and I were our roadtrips.

The very first one was just a jaunt down to Lake City when I was about six to see my great-grandmother O'Hara. She was very old and I was very young. It stands out though because it's the only real memory I have of her. She seemed so frail and small. My dad has told me since then his memory of that trip is how she was so happy to spend time with her grandson and her great-grandson.

Most often though we'd base our roadtrips around sports. One year we drove to all of the NFL training camps in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Another we drove to the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa. We even flew one time to Kansas City so we could take a car across Missouri to a Cardinals game in St. Louis.

However the very first roadtrip we took out-of-state was to Kansas City for one of my dad's co-worker's wedding. It was 1990 and I was ten while Erica was 8 and Dan only 6. If my dad was going to take Mom to the wedding, they'd have to find someone to take care of us for the whole weekend. So, sensing an opportunity in a problem, Dad just took me instead of Mom.

There are three really great memories of that roadtrip. First, we stayed at a hotel with two trees involved which had a pool where you could swim between the indoors and outdoors. Second, it was the first time I saw two of the greatest television shows ever; "Saturday Night Live" and "American Gladiators." I can very vividly remember watching The Eliminator on "AG" and watching a "Twin Peaks" parody sketch on "SNL." (Which means Kyle McLachlen was hosting with musical guest... Sinead O'Connor.) The third memory requires a little set-up. At the time Dad had a BMW 3 series with 5-speed manual transmission and an overdrive. Basically, the car was meant to go really fast and it could.

We were peaking over a hill in Iowa already doing north of 80 when Dad noticed there were no other cars visible, there were no police officers sitting in the ditch and, hell, there was this long straight downhill stretch of open road in front of us. So he turns to me and says, "Your mom doesn't need to know about this." He dropped the car into the overdrive and it took off. By the time we got to the bottom of the hill we were doing 120.

I thought about that road trip as I was driving through Kansas City today. I got a chance to think back to when Dad and I would take roadtrips together. I got a chance to think back to when Dad and I were closer. I thought about how things have changed and how things have not. Mostly I got to think about when we would just get in the car and drive.

A List of Items

2008-11-14T21:00:00.002-06:00

One winter jacket, red
One sweatshirt, grey (printed)

One gymbag/suitcase, black

-contains-

One swimsuit, black
Two pair shorts, one red/white and other tan khaki
Four t-shirts, two blue (printed) and two white (one printed, one not)
Four pair underwear, patterned
Four pair socks, two pair navy calf cut and two pair white ankle cut
One pair sunglasses, black
One toothpaste tube, half full
One toothbrush, could be replaced
One can bodyspray, full
One stick anti-perspirant, half consumed
One can shaving cream, half consumed
Two safety razors, unused
One phone charger
One package to mail to a friend
Two books to return to a different friend

One green backpack w/ "What Would Elvis Do?" patch

-contains-

One winter hat, navy w/ forest green
One pair winter gloves, navy
One scarf, tan/grey
"Downtown Owl" by Chuck Klosterman
Batman collection "War Drums"
Free Darko's "The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac"
Four DVDs

-"Lost In Translation"
-"Serenity"
-"Live Free or Die Hard: Unrated"
-"Gigantic: A Story of Two Johns" to return to a third friend

Six music CDs

-Catch 22 "Keasby Nights"
-LCD Soundsystem "45:33"
-Aesop Rock "None Shall Pass"
-Bad Religion "New Maps of Hell"
-Of Montreal "Skeletal Lamping", packaging difficult to open
-Atmosphere "When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold"

One Audiobook

-"The Day the Universe Changed" by James Burke

One digital camera, borrowed
One mp3 player w/ headphones
One cellphone, company-provided
One notebook with directions
One composition book, "Story Arcs" written on cover
One laptop (pending deposit in bag)

Today Was A Good Day

2008-11-05T08:01:00.000-06:00

Four years ago, the day after the election, I wrote the following blog post on my old blog Captain Handsome.

Election Results
Today I feel both disappointed and relieved.

I feel disappointed because John Kerry and John Edwards didn't win. It's a little like cheering for your favorite sports team if your favorite sports team directed the economy, the military and the governance of law.

A lot of people like cheering for the Yankees because the Yankees win. If you had to choose your favorite team based on how they played, how they treated their fans, etc., the distribution would be more even. Or people just wouldn't care which is what happens more often in politics.

When John Kerry and John Edwards didn't win, it doesn't mean I won't vote for Democrats two years from now. I'll still be back cheering for the same team because the same things will be important to me then and it will be the same team which will be able to deliver them to me.

As I've expressed elsewhere, this one in particular would've been nice to win.

I'm relieved because it came down to votes. There was no last minute surprise "Hey, we have Osama bin Laden," or "Holy shit, President Bush raped a bear. And that bear was my father!" shit. I think that's the stuff which really turns people off to politics and makes them think their vote doesn't count. This election really was about courting the voters, talking about issues and who is the better man for the job.

There are still votes to be counted and the television networks don't choose the president. It would be great if Bush were ushered out the same way he was ushered in. However, I'm waking up to an America in which George W Bush is the President and I can finally react to that.

The nation selected George W Bush. They elected a foreign policy where the United States actively uses its military might, a domestic policy which supports businesses who are then responsible for supporting their employees and a moral policy which is very conservative. They also selected leaving things as they are over how things could be.

And I'm not sure I fit with that. I don't fit with the Bush Administration's interpretations for sure. Yet a lot of voters looked past the pragmatic and went on the basis of values. While I can relate to those values, they aren't mine.

Atleast I know where I stand. And I can start setting my course from there.

Whether that is me following through on my festering urge to move out of the US or just into a deeper blue state or the exact opposite by going into a red state and helping to bridge the gap, I don't know.

Today is a brand new day. Today my relief is to be starting.

Now it's four years later and I can tell you what happened.

After getting over the initial shock, I decided to commit myself to work and spent the next term floating astray and trying to fit into the corporate world I found odd. For three of those years, I had the support of a wonderful and caring woman and she did more than her part to help me see the cheer in my life and why I should continue on. But the stress of our relationship pushed us apart and this summer things fell apart. I moved home from Chicago and looked around at my options.

There are two realizations I've come to in the last two months. I've found I'm back where I was four years ago and my old burning is coming back. I never really forgot that feeling and anyone who was there will tell you volunteering was the part of my Chicago job I enjoyed the most. It's no coincidence that I'd supported a community organizer for President. Then last night that community organizer won.

Yesterday the nation selected Barack Obama. They elected a foreign policy where the United States uses its military might judiciously, a domestic policy which asks people to make sacrifices for the greater good and a moral policy which is open and liberal. They left behind things as they are and want to see how things could be. And I fit with that. I can relate to those values because they are mine too.

So, with the economy in the tank and the corporate world a suit that fit poorly to begin, I'm going to look into making service my full-time occupation. I don't know if that's going to be foreign service, the Peace Corps, Americorps, some form of government job, some form of non-profit or non-governmental organization, etc. All of that is to be determined. The point is I woke up this morning in an America that needs help and I plan to do my part in helping.

In 2008, Yes We Can!

I Make It Rain

2008-10-18T16:40:00.000-05:00

I had a friend who posted an article on his Facebook about the American tax system explained through beer. Here it is and then my comments follow...

Tax System explained in Beer

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten guys comes to $100.

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7.

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18.

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. 'Since you are all such good customers'' he said, 'I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.' Drinks for the ten now cost just $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers?

How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33.. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).

The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).

The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).

The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).

The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 ( 22% savings).

The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

'I only got a dollar out of the $20,' declared the sixth man.

He pointed to the tenth man, 'but he got $10!'

''Yeah, that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man. 'I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I'

''That's true!!' shouted the seventh man. 'Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!'

''Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison. 'We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!'

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

I think there's a falacy in the logic of this article. It assumes that all of people's needs (the beer) are met by the bartender (the government). But that's not the economic model used in the capitalistic, free market United States. That's actually large-C Communism.

This article is actually a pretty sound illustration of why a tax break doesn't benefit the middle class. Despite paying taxes on a percentage basis, real world costs (food, housing, clothing, gas) are on a dollar for dollar basis. And the tax cut you describe gives the tenth man ten times the actual dollar for dollar benefit as the fifth man and provides no benefit for the first through fourth men.

Take college tuition for example. That is a flat cost. If you go to the University of Minnesota and are from Minnesota, you pay the same rate regardless of your ability to pay. So a middle class family who makes too much to qualify for financial aid has a penalty in sending their children to college. They have to choose on a dollar for dollar basis where their money would be better spent.

In my opinion, the great flaw in conservative fiscal policy is not giving tax breaks to the rich. Freeing money from the grandstanding whims of politicians (who gave $700B to Treasury to "I dunno. Fix the economy or somethin'," without oversight) is a good idea. Taxes can only benefit the people who are paying in, the citizens of the country. Investment capital can benefit anyone anywhere, especially in areas that are poised for rapid growth in the globalized economy aka The Third World. It is that the money doesn't end up being put in investments that benefit everyone.

The money is ending up emphasizing the investments over the capital. People are buying dot.com stock and mortgage-backed securities to get a healthy return for their portfolios because investing in government projects (in the form of bonds) have been money losers in the conservative fiscal world. There's no reason in the profit motive to do something that's altruistic.

Merck, for example, isn't going to do a whole lot of R&D on a new tuberculosis treatment in order to share that research with its competitors. It would be foolish to expect people to work hard, get ahead and then flush that advantage down the drain. But the Centers For Disease Control would.

So if you're saying that there should be tax breaks to free investment capital for use in the world economy, then I agree with you especially if that money is bringing basic needs to developing nations.

If you're saying that a tax break is a way to create wealth, I still need to be sold because it seems to me to be just moving water out of one bucket and into another.

If you're saying that the rich are going to take their ball and go home, I encourage you to tell me a better economy for the wealthy than the one we've got. You know that liberals have been waiting 40 years to say this...

Love it or leave it.

What's Up Goat?

2008-10-16T22:15:00.006-05:00

In the wake of dropping the journo-style and not yet ready to start talking about the really personal stuff, I was racking my brains trying to come up with an interesting topic. I was standing at the mirror brushing my teeth when I saw the perfect topic staring right back at me.

One of the things that I've done a pretty good job avoiding in my lifetime [1] is making questionable choices with my appearance. I've adopted a very Lutheran "don't do anything at all to keep from sinning" approach to long or dyed hair, piercings, tattoos, etc. I even dress conservatively to keep from getting singled out. My philosophy is this. I'd rather not be labelled as a freak based upon my appearance. I'd rather that someone has to get to know me before they figure out that I'm a weirdo.

The one weak spot in my plan [2] is facial hair. I will wear the shit out of a beard. I'd like to say it's because I subscribe to an earlier model of masculinity which endorsed facial hair. That wouldn't be truthful. [3] It's more that sometimes I go a few days without shaving and I just kind of keep on going not shaving. Sometimes it becomes a really sweet beard, sometimes it becomes an excellent Sunday Stache. [4]

So with my current office-less employment and the early hour I have to be "there", I had a full palate of facial hair to work with last Sunday. First I cut off the underside. Then I went long the jawline. Finally I cut the cheeks because they always get itchy. Then I stopped. What it left me with is a goatee. [5]

Now there's really only one reason to wear facial hair that still requires the maintenance of regular shaving. You want to look cool. Which isn't always the case. When it's done right, it's very right. When it's done wrong, it's very wrong. There is no middle ground. You either look awesome or like a total tool. [6] But, like I said, my current employment is office-less so my Sunday Goatee became a Why Not All Week? Goatee.

Now I have two lengths of facial hair. There is the goatee which is now two weeks old and the rest covering the cheeks and jawline which is a week old. [7] I'm thinking I'll keep it for now and let it grow. It's going to turn cold here in Minnesota soon and having a beard is a good thing in the winter. Also all of my friends are sporting beards and this will give me a lead on Grow-vember. I mean, growing a beard is normally what people do while rededicating their lives, right? You're damn right. [8]

[1] Along with low door frames and tiger attack.
[2] Save for an earring I had for a year and then forgot about.
[3] Actually my model of being a man is more like this.
[4] When you don't shave for a whole week and then make hilarious shapes in your facial hair as you shave it on Sunday, especially when you wear it that way all day to be funny.
[5] Which is actually a Van Dyke. Like the word "irony", the dictionary definition of "goatee" differs from its real world application.
[6] Dumas, Ariel. "Don't Grow a Goatee, Mike." (1998)
[7] Still shaving the neck. Ladies, if you think in-grown hairs suck on your legs, imagine them on your throat.
[8] You should see the html of this entry. It's a little busy.

A Challenge From A Friend

2008-10-15T00:05:00.000-05:00

A friend recently challenged me to give up the journo-style of writing I've used writing this blog and the last one. Part of the reason I used that style is because I can generate a lot of it really easily. (Just being honest.) More importantly I used it because I wanted to write about what I thought about things that were happening in the world instead of talking about what's happening with me.

Usually things that are happening with me fall into two categories. Either they're stuff that is too personal to talk about (I have about three of those things right now) or they're things which aren't really that interesting. I think that makes sense and is probably the case with most people. So even when I do talk about my own life, it's because I participate in it. I present it like a reporter who wanted to make sure all of the facts were right over talking about the experience of being there.

So I'm using this post as a declaration of dropping the journo-style and with it the detached subject matter. If you want to know what I thought of the Broken Social Scene show last night or the Presidential election, you'll have to ask me directly. I'm going to migrate into a different style for a while and see what's over there. This will no longer be a blog of ideas. It will be a blog of Mike Herman.

Thoughts Before A Debate

2008-10-07T19:45:00.007-05:00

The general consensus this election cycle is the Obama campaign needs to be careful about not being a bully, especially towards Sarah Palin. Let's set aside general politicking for a minute. I find it more interesting that bullying is considered the natural order of the Obama campaign if not politics in general.

It's odd to me because what one side perceives as bullying is often just criticism by the other side. Since the two-party system works best when the two sides are collaborating (because then it really is the will of the people and not just the ruling party), the necessary first step is to collect the consensus of the other party. Part of this consensus-building is defining and then mediating the differences between your viewpoint and that of your collaborator.

What has changed in America in the last 15 years is things have gotten really tight, really negative and really focused on winning. There is so much at stake in each race because of the former that candidates are willing to do the middle to because they are the latter. More and more candidates are doing it and will continue to do it because it works. People respond to clear, simplified black and white more enthusiastically than muddled greys.

Which flies completely in the face of the necessary first step of collaboration and actually harms American politics. Everything is so amped up and focused on ripping out the other guy's jugular what's lost that governance is really supposed to be about moving the whole country together into prosperity. That comes with making some sacrifices especially in the "always needing to be right" arena.

You need to slow things down, think about the three fingers pointing back when you point one away and use your reasoning to criticise yourself. If you were going to fight to the death, would this be the issue? Is this really something that you really want to be your legacy, the thing people think of when they think of you?

Each of the candidates for President this year are promising change. Obama has been known as a man who focuses on change since he gave the keynote address at the Democratic convention four years ago and John McCain's allure to voters on both sides of the aisle since 2000 springs from his deserved reputation as a bipartisan worker. I hope whomever wins in November stays true to his roots and he knows the way to really create change is through grace.

Our country has endured bullying as the modis operandi of politics for too long, almost a whole generation. It's time to begin collaborating again, not berating the other side into deep-held anger. The necessary first step in collaboration is to collect the consensus of the other party. Our focus should be on how we're the same and how we all can get better and not how we can win by pointing out the other side is wrong.

So that's why I was really saddened by the news this week. For all of the talk of change and maverick reformers by these two men I deeply respect, it's going to be politics as usual in the last month before the election. And that hurts even more than if it had just been another two Ivy League-educated, wealthy white men duking it out.

My Five Favorite Time-Travel Movies of All-Time

2008-10-01T22:45:00.000-05:00

Travel through time is suprisingly a common plot device in movies. Army of Darkness, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and of course the Back to the Future trilogy are all movies where the plot centers around a character or characters moving through time. However in each of the cited cases, the time travel is not as important as the characters being a fish out of water. The movie is not about time travel as much as time travel is a mechanism to create the plot.

I like movies that are centered on time travel itself. The time travel needs to be integral to the plot with the additional treat of questions of causality woven into it. The central metaphor is then not a fish out of water but a fish in the current of a river. The current may normally push the fish in a specific direction. But the fish is able to swim in many directions and not just where the current takes them. Since I like these types of movies, I've seen quite a few and these are my favorite five.

Groundhog Day

Probably the most popular movie on this list, it's the one which is 100% centered on time travel and it does it in a very innovative way. The idea is causality is not being something fluid where small changes have large impacts. Instead causality is something that you repeat over and over until you get it "right", a kind of destiny forcing your hand. Free will is out the door but except in your capacity to learn.

Add on to its uniqueness that this story could only have been a movie. If you tried to tell "Groundhog Day" as a short story, it would've been almost unreadable. The consistent hiccups in the The medium of film and the audience's familiarity with film editing makes this movie not only possible but also very enjoyable.

12 Monkeys

I liked this movie because it posits that everything that will happen will happen. It's not just regardless of the involvement of time travelers either but in some cases because of those time travelers. It puts a different spin on causality than the normal "butterfly effect."

According to 12 Monkeys, you can't go back in time and kill your grandfather because you didn't already. At the same time, there are things that happened in the past that are better understood from the perspective of the time-traveler. Once you know X precedes Z but follows Y, the entire story is changed. The time travelers' role is no longer God-like with a prescient knowledge but as a cog in the machine that serves a role in advancing history to where it was going all along anyhow.

Donnie Darko

Donnie Darko is largely indecipherable on its own. Richard Kelly's strength is what is in his head, not putting what's in his head onto the movie screen. Which is why a quick plunge into the extra material on the DVD is important to understanding this movie. This is especially useful if you get your hands on the director's cut.

Once you find out about the tangent universes, artifacts and the living receiver stuff, the movie makes a great deal of sense. One of the assumptions of most time-travel movies is that there is one true time stream and we can make tangential changes in it by traveling through it to another point. This movie is different by positing that making a tangent universe is actually a bad thing.

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

Okay, this movie is on here for two reasons really. First, it was a movie I watched as much as any other when I was an adolescent. My mom figured out how to use our video camera to play videotapes we rented from the videostore through the VCR and dub them. So I had a copy of this movie before owning your favorite movies was common.

Second, it's a goofy movie. It's not a heavy-handed "Going back to kill your own grandfather" time travel story. They can and do come both with and without existential dread. Bill and Ted are traveling through time to collect historical figures to come speak at the final history presentation of the school year. Even Camus would've cracked a smile at something as absurd as that.

Primer

There was a brief couple of months in early 2005 where this movie made me lose my mind. I rented it from CinemaRevolution, watched it by myself and then promptly showed it to anyone who I could get to watch it with me. It's not a movie that you can really figure out in the first time through and also gets better with repeated viewings. I was so enthralled I literally watched the movie like an addict.

It was addicting because it has the most believable mechanism for time-travel in any movie I'd seen. Normally it's a device like a flux capacitor and we're asked to suspend our disbelief that this device is the reason time travel is possible. "Primer" used a version of realistic physics to explain how time travel could actually be possible in real physics. Seeing "Primer" was, for me, like having a dream that you wake from and are convinced that it was real.

Twins Win!!!

2008-09-25T23:59:00.000-05:00

I just got home from the second best baseball game I ever attended. I feel so high right now that I didn't even send taunting text messages to my Chicago friends who are White Sox fans. It was a hell of a way to pull into first place.

The Twins came into their three game series against the White Sox with two fewer wins and three more losses. To get back into contention they would need to win all three games and thus also hand the White Sox three more loses too. So their goal was simple. Win all three games and they controlled their destiny. All they had to do was just keep winning.

On Tuesday night the Twins ran up the score 9-3 backing up Scott Baker's brilliant pitching performance. Then on Wednesday night the bullpen held an early lead and the Twins edged the Sox 3-2. Now Thursday night's game was the single most important game of the season. Win and they would be in first place. Lose and they would be counting on the Indians to do their work for them.

My friend Brian and I agreed that while riding bikes would be fun, going to the Twins game was just that much more essential. As I was preparing for the game, Nicky sent me a text message. It was a prayer to Kirby Puckett to "guide us in our quest to win the division", that "our hits may be guided through the gap", that "our fielding be strong" and "our pitching be accurate." It's basically what the Twins needed to do. Play strong fundamental baseball and get just a little assistance from luck. I loaned Brian my Santana home jersey and I wore my Mauer home alternate jersey and we were off.

The Twins began the game well. Mauer poked a ground rule double over the center field fence to score Denard Span from second and Kevin Slowey pitched three perfect nine up, nine down innings to give the impression this would be a small ball victory. Hell, I was even excited about the prospect that I might finally see a no-hitter.

Then came the inning that almost undid the entire Twins season. In the top of the fourth the second batter for the White Sox, Orlando Cabrera, hit a one-out barely-homerun into the second row in left field. Then Jermaine Dye singled. Then Jim Thome doubled advancing Dye to third. Then Dye scored and Thome took third on a Konerko fielder's choice. Then Ken Griffey walked. Then Alexi Ramirez singled with Thome scoring and Griffey being forced to second. Then A.J. Pierzynski ended a long at bat by being hit by the eighth pitch he saw.

So the bases were loaded when Juan Uribe hit a line drive right back at Slowey. The ball glanced off of Slowey's pitching wrist and when he went to throw the ball to first everything went haywire. Morneau couldn't dig the throw out of the dirt and Griffey, Ramirez and Pierzynski all scored to make the game 6-3 in favor of the visitors. This single play could've been the Twins 2008 season going down the drain. But the Twins kept on clawing back. Casilla scored in the 6th to cut the margin to two runs.

Then came the inning that saved the entire Twins season. Brendan Harris began the inning by doubling and scored when Carlos Gomez took a single off of Chicago closer Bobby Jenks. It was at this point I turned to Brian. "Do you think Gomez can score from first?" I asked. "I mean, I'd certainly like to see him try." The next batter Denard Span was up to the task. His groundball to the rightside of the infield slipped under Paul Konerko's glove and Gomez got on his horse. As he crossed home plate the crowd reached ThunderDome levels. All 43,601 fans in attendance were jumping up and down, screaming and giving each other high fives.

The game ended up going to extra innings and that's were the Twins closed the deal. Joe Nathan pitched two perfect innings, often falling behind in the count during the tenth only to get the guy out anyhow. The bottom half of the inning was even more dramatic. Nick Punto walked, took second on a fielder's choice and then stole third on a wild pitch. After Span was intentionally walked, Alexi Casilla came to the plate.

Casilla had previously had an opportunity to win the game in the eighth following Denard Span's RBI triple. He tried to drop down a suicide squeeze bunt and missed. On the very next pitch he struck out waving at the pitch as it went by. The inning ended when Mauer grounded out to first. Now, two innings later, Casilla had the chance to win the game again.

He looked at the first pitch at the belt for a strike and then blooped the second pitch at his knees into centerfield scoring Punto to win the game.

From the drama of coming back from being down by four to the playoff like atmosphere in the crowd, this game eclipsed all but one other that I've ever attended in my lifetime. The Twins squeezed out a must-win victory over a hated division rival at a time when they could assert themselves as the better team. They used sound baseball fundamentals to outmanuever their opponent and to do so as a team. Even when they were down by four I thought to myself, "There's some way they're going to back into it and win this game." Then when they did, it was that much sweeter. As the line from the new Conor Oberst song goes, "Victory is sweet/Even deep in the cheap seats."

Now there just need to be a combination of Twins wins and White Sox losses that equal four and the post-season is ours. So this weekend say your Hail Kirbys as Francisco Liriano, Glen Perkins and Scott Baker take the hill. As I said to Nicky when we saw a game earlier this month, "To be a Twins fan is to know how to succeed by wit, cunning and advancing the runner."

P.S. The greatest game I ever attended? Well, y'know...

I Am Still Here

2008-09-14T18:30:00.008-05:00

Sorry for the brief absence. I'm writing a post which melts down a lot of the personal feelings I'm experiencing. It's been my nemesis for about a week and a half now for one simple reason. I don't like to talk about me unless it's in a frank manner to someone close to me. Thus I'm having difficulty talking about it in a general manner to anyone who wants to know. I'll be working on it the rest of the night and hopefully will have it up by tomorrow morning.

Update

Gah, fuck it. I can't do it. Can't get over the hump and into the backside of the argument. Please instead watch this clip from "Waking Life" which encompasses about half of what I wanted to say.

USA BASKETBALL WINS GOLD!!!

2008-08-25T10:50:00.004-05:00

I didn't comment on this yesterday when it was new news despite watching the end of the game online. But I'm glad that the USA Mens National Basketball Team won the gold medal in Beijing and winning all of their games can go back to being no news. Is it time for the NBA season yet?