Thu - July 3, 2008
THIS ONE GOES OUT TO RON
the day before his birthday.
A little tune that reminds me of summer nights
with the windows down and the volume up, of Pennsylvania Turnpike drives and
Berkshire Mall walks and Mann Music Center concerts, of games and movies and
miniature golf, of lawnmowers and stone donuts and not-so-subtle subtlety, of
Dunkball and street hockey and Friendly's and Chi-Chi's and a thousand other
memories you make in your teens and twenties that, like a truly great song or
artist or friendship, grow richer and stronger with every rocking, rolling year
gone by...
HEY HEY, MY MY (INTO THE BLACK)
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Hey hey, my my
Rock and roll can never die
There's more to the picture
Than meets the eye
Hey hey, my my
Out of the blue and into the black
You pay for this, but they give you that
And once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black.
The king is gone, but he's not forgotten
Is this the story of Johnny Rotten?
It's better to burn out, 'cause rust never sleeps
The king is gone, but he's not forgotten.
Hey hey, my my
Rock and roll can never die
There's more to the picture
Than meets the eye.
HEY HEY, MY MY (INTO THE BLACK)
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Hey hey, my my
Rock and roll can never die
There's more to the picture
Than meets the eye
Hey hey, my my
Out of the blue and into the black
You pay for this, but they give you that
And once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black.
The king is gone, but he's not forgotten
Is this the story of Johnny Rotten?
It's better to burn out, 'cause rust never sleeps
The king is gone, but he's not forgotten.
Hey hey, my my
Rock and roll can never die
There's more to the picture
Than meets the eye.
Posted at 03:57 PM
Thu - June 19, 2008
THIS ONE GOES OUT TO JIM
one week before his birthday.
A little tune that reminds me of the warm
austerities of the 13th and 14th floors of St. Martin's Hall, of reading John
Milton and listening to Roger Waters and soaking in Akira Kurosawa, of
Nightbreeding parties and East Coast Satan Tours and all the crazy, creative
collaborations that two best friends could find when, for one wonderful year,
they were loving life together on The Bluff...
WISH YOU WERE HERE
Pink Floyd
So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell,
Blue skys from pain.
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl,
Year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.
WISH YOU WERE HERE
Pink Floyd
So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell,
Blue skys from pain.
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl,
Year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.
Posted at 09:43 AM
Tue - June 17, 2008
TUESDAY MORNING MELODY
on shady avenue.
A guy sitting at his desk. Looking east.
Listening to his elder son, upstairs, strumming his guitar and noodling along
with Wilco. Then listening to his younger son, downstairs, cranking up his iPod
and singing along with Crowded House. Smiling madly all the
while.
With a whole symphony of love in his heart.
With a whole symphony of love in his heart.
Posted at 11:17 AM
Sun - June 15, 2008
Sun - June 8, 2008
THIS ONE GOES OUT TO MOM
on her birthday.
A little tune that reminds me of long talks and
short drives, of old cassettes and new CDs, of classic concerts at the Mann and
the Tower, of time spent laughing and sharing and shopping and just plain having
fun together (especially during those Lincoln Avenue Hibernation Years), of the
deep and always profound connection between a mother and a son who, finding so
many lovely pieces of common ground together, found one of their favorites in
the good music and great lyrics of one artist in
particular...
THE ONLY CHILD
Jackson Browne
Boy of mine
As your fortune comes to carry you down the line
And you watch while the changes unfold
And you sort among the stories you've been told
If some pieces of the picture are hard to find
And the answers to your questions are hard to hold
Take good care of your mother
When you're making up your mind
Should one thing or another take you from behind
Though the world may make you hard and wild
And determine how your life is styled
When you've come to feel that you're the only child
Take good care of your brother
Let the disappointments pass
Let the laughter fill your glass
Let your illusions last until they shatter
Whatever you might hope to find
Among the thoughts that crowd your mind
There won't be many that ever really matter
But take good care of your mother
And remember to be kind
When the pain of another will serve you to remind
That there are those who feel themselves exiled
On whom the fortune never smiled
And upon whose lives the heartache has been piled
They're just looking for another
Lonely child
And when you've found another soul
Who sees into your own
Take good care of each other...
THE ONLY CHILD
Jackson Browne
Boy of mine
As your fortune comes to carry you down the line
And you watch while the changes unfold
And you sort among the stories you've been told
If some pieces of the picture are hard to find
And the answers to your questions are hard to hold
Take good care of your mother
When you're making up your mind
Should one thing or another take you from behind
Though the world may make you hard and wild
And determine how your life is styled
When you've come to feel that you're the only child
Take good care of your brother
Let the disappointments pass
Let the laughter fill your glass
Let your illusions last until they shatter
Whatever you might hope to find
Among the thoughts that crowd your mind
There won't be many that ever really matter
But take good care of your mother
And remember to be kind
When the pain of another will serve you to remind
That there are those who feel themselves exiled
On whom the fortune never smiled
And upon whose lives the heartache has been piled
They're just looking for another
Lonely child
And when you've found another soul
Who sees into your own
Take good care of each other...
Posted at 10:05 AM
Thu - May 29, 2008
(THURSDAY AFTERNOON) DRINK SPECIALS
from the unexpected to the
guaranteed.
With permission from, and nostalgia for, The
Barmaid...
LOVE: Fourth-liners who score game-winning goals.
HATERADE: Educrats who don't know what the hell they're doing.
LOVE: Fourth-liners who score game-winning goals.
HATERADE: Educrats who don't know what the hell they're doing.
Posted at 03:57 PM
Sat - May 17, 2008
THIS ONE GOES OUT TO ADAM
on his birthday.
A little tune that reminds me of being fourteen,
of letting loose and having fun and discovering great new bands, of starting to
feel grown up and knowing that I had a whole hell of a lot of growing to do and
realizing there was a whole, wonderful world out there that I'd only just begun
to explore... and that also reminds me of being thirty-one, and being the proud
father of a six-year-old who'd discovered this band and this song much earlier
than I had, and who, though he would probably never admit it now, used to love
to dance around the house whenever he heard it...
SLIPPERY PEOPLE
Talking Heads
What about the time you were fallin' over
Fell on your face, you must be having fun
Walk lightly! Think of a time
You'd best believe this thing is real
Put away that gun, this part is simple
Try to recognize what is in your mind
God help us! Help us lose our minds
These slippery people help us understand
What's the matter with him? (He's alright!)
How do ya know? (The lord won't mind..)
Don't know no games (He's alright!)
Love from the bottom to the top!
Turn like a wheel! (He's alright!)
See for yourself! (The lord won't mind..)
We're gonna move! (Right now!)
Turn like a wheel inside a wheel!
I remember when, sittin' in the tub
Pulled out the plug, the water was runnin' out
Cool down! Stop acting crazy
They're gonna leave, and we'll be on our own
Seven times five, they were living creatures
Watch 'em come to life right before your eyes
Backsliding! How do you do?
These slippery people gonna see you through
What's the matter with him? (He's alright!)
How do ya know? (The lord won't mind..)
Don't know no games (He's alright!)
Love from the bottom to the top!
Turn like a wheel! (He's alright!)
See for yourself! (The lord won't mind..)
We're gonna move! (Right now!)
Turn like a wheel inside a wheel!
He's alright! The lord won't mind...
Alright! Love from the bottom to the top!
Alright! The lord won't mind...
Right now! Turn like a wheel inside a wheel!...
SLIPPERY PEOPLE
Talking Heads
What about the time you were fallin' over
Fell on your face, you must be having fun
Walk lightly! Think of a time
You'd best believe this thing is real
Put away that gun, this part is simple
Try to recognize what is in your mind
God help us! Help us lose our minds
These slippery people help us understand
What's the matter with him? (He's alright!)
How do ya know? (The lord won't mind..)
Don't know no games (He's alright!)
Love from the bottom to the top!
Turn like a wheel! (He's alright!)
See for yourself! (The lord won't mind..)
We're gonna move! (Right now!)
Turn like a wheel inside a wheel!
I remember when, sittin' in the tub
Pulled out the plug, the water was runnin' out
Cool down! Stop acting crazy
They're gonna leave, and we'll be on our own
Seven times five, they were living creatures
Watch 'em come to life right before your eyes
Backsliding! How do you do?
These slippery people gonna see you through
What's the matter with him? (He's alright!)
How do ya know? (The lord won't mind..)
Don't know no games (He's alright!)
Love from the bottom to the top!
Turn like a wheel! (He's alright!)
See for yourself! (The lord won't mind..)
We're gonna move! (Right now!)
Turn like a wheel inside a wheel!
He's alright! The lord won't mind...
Alright! Love from the bottom to the top!
Alright! The lord won't mind...
Right now! Turn like a wheel inside a wheel!...
Posted at 08:17 AM
Mon - April 28, 2008
ALL THE WAY INTO THAT EMPTY NET
the penguins shoot; we score.
A TWM fan, friend, and regular correspondent sent a
little dispatch that I would say got my week off to a good start, if it had not
also done such a fine job of finishing off my weekend:
I was visiting my oldest son and granddaughter and watched that second goal roll like a beer can in a Kansas crosswind all the way into that empty net and it was all I could do to keep from tossing a five-month old into the air like a graduation cap.
I know the feeling. And I imagine all of Penguin Fandom does too.
My seats are down at that end of the rink, just along the goal line, and as I watched Adam Hall's sweet clear bounce off those boards and roll oh-so-achingly slowly down the ice, I wanted to launch myself over the glass, lie down behind it, and blow. When that puck finally hit the back of the net, after almost sixty minutes of play and nearly 150 of whipsawing tension, I wanted to laugh and cry and sing all at once. I was so full of joy that, for a moment at least, I think I may have levitated.
Friday night, when Sid one-timed that sweet Ryan Whitney pass off Geno's shin pads and into the net to win Game 1, an exuberant Ethan leapt into my arms, I lifted him into the air, and at least some small part of me wanted to toss him, hat-trick-like, down on to the ice, so he could join in the celebration himself.
These are exciting times to be a hockey fan in Pittsburgh. And this is an exciting team of fine young players and, by all accounts, even finer young men who deserve every last ounce of this city's abundant, if occasionally misdirected, sporting passion.
In our house, with all due respect to the football teams at both ends of the commonwealth, hockey is what baseball used to be to America: an all-consuming passion, a unifying, electrifying pastime around which, from October through April, and especially come playoff time, everything else must fit, revolve, or fade away. (Our neighbors three houses over told us last night that they could follow the progress of yesterday's game by listening for Wendy's and Adam's and Ethan's reactions to echo through the yards and down the street.) Penguins hockey is part sport, part religion; it's shared values and family tradition. And this year, so far, feels like we're making memories to last our lifetimes.
Some of you understand this. Many of you do not. But I imagine that, without too much trouble, most of you who do not can at least imagine it, or maybe substitute something from your own lives and loves -- yesterday or today, now or forever -- that brought you, your family, and a great, rising swell of your community together.
The next time some humorless, utilitarian economist (yes, I know that's redundant) wants to whine about the opportunity costs and negative externalities of using a little casino money to pay for a new multi-purpose arena that also helps keep this hockey team -- and along with it, these marvelous emotions -- in town, or the next time some self-obsessed, self-important community activist (yes, I know that too) who loves jazz or theater or football wants to know what's in this for her, I'd like to invite them both to our seats at the arena, or to our sofa at home, or to that house with my emailer, his son, and his almost-cap-tossed granddaughter, or to any of the tens of thousands of other homes in this region just like it, during a Penguins playoff game. And I'd like them, if only for a moment, to calculate the sustainable growth, or perhaps the community benefit, of living and sharing and carrying those moments within you, of waking up with an extra bounce in your step and a rally towel still fluttering in your chest, knowing that everything you do, every last bit of work or stress you face between now and Tuesday night at 7:00, will come a little easier, will carry a hop and a smile and a little extra energy because those kids just keep on working and winning and making you feel, even on this most gray and rainy of Mondays, that you, your family, and your wonderful little corner of the world have one more thing to look forward to, and to be thankful for, together.
I was visiting my oldest son and granddaughter and watched that second goal roll like a beer can in a Kansas crosswind all the way into that empty net and it was all I could do to keep from tossing a five-month old into the air like a graduation cap.
I know the feeling. And I imagine all of Penguin Fandom does too.
My seats are down at that end of the rink, just along the goal line, and as I watched Adam Hall's sweet clear bounce off those boards and roll oh-so-achingly slowly down the ice, I wanted to launch myself over the glass, lie down behind it, and blow. When that puck finally hit the back of the net, after almost sixty minutes of play and nearly 150 of whipsawing tension, I wanted to laugh and cry and sing all at once. I was so full of joy that, for a moment at least, I think I may have levitated.
Friday night, when Sid one-timed that sweet Ryan Whitney pass off Geno's shin pads and into the net to win Game 1, an exuberant Ethan leapt into my arms, I lifted him into the air, and at least some small part of me wanted to toss him, hat-trick-like, down on to the ice, so he could join in the celebration himself.
These are exciting times to be a hockey fan in Pittsburgh. And this is an exciting team of fine young players and, by all accounts, even finer young men who deserve every last ounce of this city's abundant, if occasionally misdirected, sporting passion.
In our house, with all due respect to the football teams at both ends of the commonwealth, hockey is what baseball used to be to America: an all-consuming passion, a unifying, electrifying pastime around which, from October through April, and especially come playoff time, everything else must fit, revolve, or fade away. (Our neighbors three houses over told us last night that they could follow the progress of yesterday's game by listening for Wendy's and Adam's and Ethan's reactions to echo through the yards and down the street.) Penguins hockey is part sport, part religion; it's shared values and family tradition. And this year, so far, feels like we're making memories to last our lifetimes.
Some of you understand this. Many of you do not. But I imagine that, without too much trouble, most of you who do not can at least imagine it, or maybe substitute something from your own lives and loves -- yesterday or today, now or forever -- that brought you, your family, and a great, rising swell of your community together.
The next time some humorless, utilitarian economist (yes, I know that's redundant) wants to whine about the opportunity costs and negative externalities of using a little casino money to pay for a new multi-purpose arena that also helps keep this hockey team -- and along with it, these marvelous emotions -- in town, or the next time some self-obsessed, self-important community activist (yes, I know that too) who loves jazz or theater or football wants to know what's in this for her, I'd like to invite them both to our seats at the arena, or to our sofa at home, or to that house with my emailer, his son, and his almost-cap-tossed granddaughter, or to any of the tens of thousands of other homes in this region just like it, during a Penguins playoff game. And I'd like them, if only for a moment, to calculate the sustainable growth, or perhaps the community benefit, of living and sharing and carrying those moments within you, of waking up with an extra bounce in your step and a rally towel still fluttering in your chest, knowing that everything you do, every last bit of work or stress you face between now and Tuesday night at 7:00, will come a little easier, will carry a hop and a smile and a little extra energy because those kids just keep on working and winning and making you feel, even on this most gray and rainy of Mondays, that you, your family, and your wonderful little corner of the world have one more thing to look forward to, and to be thankful for, together.
Posted at 10:21 AM
Mon - April 14, 2008
THIS ONE GOES OUT TO NITYA
the day after her birthday.
A little tune that reminds me of being young and
in love, of living below the Mason-Dixon line and still trying to find your way
but knowing, more than you've ever known anything, that you'd found the one
person with whom the hope and the search and every, crazy thing else would
always make sense...
REAL WORLD
Bruce Springsteen
Mister Trouble come walkin' this way
Year gone past feel like one long day
But I'm alive, and I'm feelin' all right
Well, I rode that hard road outta heartbreak city
Built a roadside carnival out of hurt and self-pity
It was all wrong, yeah, but now I'm moving on
Ain't no church bells ringing, ain't no flags unfurled
It's just me, you, and the love we're bringing into the real world
Into the real world
I built a shrine in my heart, wasn't pretty to see
Made out of fool's gold, memory, and tears cried
Now I'm headin' over the rise
I'm searchin' for one clear moment of love and truth
I still got a little faith, but what I need is some proof tonight
I'm lookin' for it in your eyes
Ain't no church bells ringing, ain't no flags unfurled
Just me, you and the faith we're bringing into the real world
Into the real world
Well, tonight I just wanna shout
I feel my soul waist deep and sinkin'
Into this black river of doubt
Well, I just wanna rise and walk along the riverside
And when the morning comes, baby, I don't wanna hide
Yeah, I'll stand right at your side with my arms open wide
Well, tonight I just wanna shout
I feel my soul waist deep and sinkin'
Into this black river of doubt
Well, I just wanna rise and walk
Along the riverside 'til the morning comes
When I'll stand right by your side
Oh, I wanna find some answers, I wanna ask for some help
I'm tired of running scared, baby,
Now let's get our bags packed
We'll take it here to hell and heaven and back
And if love is hopeless, hopeless at best
Come on put on your party dress
It's ours tonight
And we're goin' with the tumblin' dice
Ain't no church bells ringing, ain't no flags unfurled
It's just me, you and the hope we're bringing into the real world
Baby, into the real world
Oh, into the real world...
REAL WORLD
Bruce Springsteen
Mister Trouble come walkin' this way
Year gone past feel like one long day
But I'm alive, and I'm feelin' all right
Well, I rode that hard road outta heartbreak city
Built a roadside carnival out of hurt and self-pity
It was all wrong, yeah, but now I'm moving on
Ain't no church bells ringing, ain't no flags unfurled
It's just me, you, and the love we're bringing into the real world
Into the real world
I built a shrine in my heart, wasn't pretty to see
Made out of fool's gold, memory, and tears cried
Now I'm headin' over the rise
I'm searchin' for one clear moment of love and truth
I still got a little faith, but what I need is some proof tonight
I'm lookin' for it in your eyes
Ain't no church bells ringing, ain't no flags unfurled
Just me, you and the faith we're bringing into the real world
Into the real world
Well, tonight I just wanna shout
I feel my soul waist deep and sinkin'
Into this black river of doubt
Well, I just wanna rise and walk along the riverside
And when the morning comes, baby, I don't wanna hide
Yeah, I'll stand right at your side with my arms open wide
Well, tonight I just wanna shout
I feel my soul waist deep and sinkin'
Into this black river of doubt
Well, I just wanna rise and walk
Along the riverside 'til the morning comes
When I'll stand right by your side
Oh, I wanna find some answers, I wanna ask for some help
I'm tired of running scared, baby,
Now let's get our bags packed
We'll take it here to hell and heaven and back
And if love is hopeless, hopeless at best
Come on put on your party dress
It's ours tonight
And we're goin' with the tumblin' dice
Ain't no church bells ringing, ain't no flags unfurled
It's just me, you and the hope we're bringing into the real world
Baby, into the real world
Oh, into the real world...
Posted at 10:10 AM
Sun - April 13, 2008
THANKS, MR. PRESIDENT
for protecting us.
If this AP Photo by Joseph Kaczmarek -- of Kathy
Fendelman hugging her children, Samantha and Benjamin, while their father leaves
for his second deployment to Iraq -- doesn't break your heart and tear at what's
left of your
soul...
...you must be named George W. Bush.
...you must be named George W. Bush.
Posted at 10:25 AM
Sat - April 5, 2008
THIS ONE GOES OUT TO ETHAN
on his birthday.
A little tune that was one of the first ever to
inspire him to sing along from the back seat, and that, like him, always makes
me smile...
WAITIN' ON A SUNNY DAY
Bruce Springsteen
It's rainin', but there ain't a cloud in the sky
Musta been a tear from your eye
Everything'll be okay
It's funny, I thought I felt a sweet summer breeze
Musta been you sighin' so deep
Don't worry, we're gonna find a way
I'm waitin', waitin' on a sunny day
Gonna chase the clouds away
Yeah, I'm waitin' on a sunny day
Without you, I'm workin' with the rain fallin' down
I'm half a party in a one-dog town
I need you to chase these blues away
Without you, I'm a drummer, girl, that can't keep a beat
An ice cream truck on a deserted street
I hope that you're coming to stay
I'm waitin', waitin' on a sunny day
Gonna chase the clouds away
Waitin' on a sunny day
Hard times, baby, well they come to us all
Sure as the tickin' of the clock on the wall
Sure as the turnin' of the night into day
Your smile, girl, brings the mornin' light to my eyes
Lifts away the blues when I rise
I hope that you're coming to stay
'Cause I'm waitin', waitin' on a sunny day
Gonna chase the clouds away
Waitin' on a sunny day...
WAITIN' ON A SUNNY DAY
Bruce Springsteen
It's rainin', but there ain't a cloud in the sky
Musta been a tear from your eye
Everything'll be okay
It's funny, I thought I felt a sweet summer breeze
Musta been you sighin' so deep
Don't worry, we're gonna find a way
I'm waitin', waitin' on a sunny day
Gonna chase the clouds away
Yeah, I'm waitin' on a sunny day
Without you, I'm workin' with the rain fallin' down
I'm half a party in a one-dog town
I need you to chase these blues away
Without you, I'm a drummer, girl, that can't keep a beat
An ice cream truck on a deserted street
I hope that you're coming to stay
I'm waitin', waitin' on a sunny day
Gonna chase the clouds away
Waitin' on a sunny day
Hard times, baby, well they come to us all
Sure as the tickin' of the clock on the wall
Sure as the turnin' of the night into day
Your smile, girl, brings the mornin' light to my eyes
Lifts away the blues when I rise
I hope that you're coming to stay
'Cause I'm waitin', waitin' on a sunny day
Gonna chase the clouds away
Waitin' on a sunny day...
Posted at 10:13 AM
Sun - March 23, 2008
HE IS WRITTEN
a lutheran, home alone, yet
again.
The world is bright and cold and beautiful this
morning -- at least in this little, Southwestern Pennsylvania pocket of it --
calm and quiet beneath a sun that has risen today to save us from another gray
dawn of our own unmet expectations. It is Easter as Christmas, twenty-nine
degrees of late December masquerading as late March, with blue skies and still
winds and easy silences enough to remind us that there are powers far greater
than our own to which we are called. And to which we must answer.
These are, I suppose, profoundly Lutheran things to think, to feel, to know in your soul: that on a Sunday morning, when your wife and your boys are at church, settled in among so many sinners pretending to be saints, ignoring the cries of other wives and boys who do not want to be there, listening to the Gospel of a Lord Who loves us recounted by men who often make it sound as if He does not, singing hymns of joy that come out sounding like the sorrowful dirges of a too-heavy heart, you can be home alone, with a spiritual experience all your own. Nestling into a soft couch in a big, sunny room, simply to sit and think and write, while fresh rays of light descend through the blinds and resurrect the day again. Watching a squirrel scramble up a tree, alighting on a limb then leaping off again, as if inspired, and perhaps elevated, by some unseen, delicate hand. Listening to the gentle exhalations of your laptop, warm embraces pecked out in plaintive rhythms, ebbing and flowing in effortless streams, a gift that comes from somewhere you can not know or see, and for which you can never be thankful enough, except with the ready strokes of your own supplicating fingers.
Lost and lingering in yet another reverie, you embrace these earthly pleasures, soothed by their simple joys and strengthened by their solemn testimony to a peace and a faith that you feel most fully when you are alone, thinking of the ones you love and knowing that yours life's most bountiful blessing is their love in return. Happy disciple of all ninety-five theses, you rejoice especially in the weekly revelations of your favorite two: the one that proclaims the priesthood of all believers, and the one that proclaims you need not go anywhere, at any pre-ordained time, in the company of any ordained men, to know and feel and find the presence of your most merciful God, who is nowhere and anywhere and everywhere at once, and so ever and always with you, in the warm and simple graces of your quiet, joyful life.
These are, I suppose, profoundly Lutheran things to think, to feel, to know in your soul: that on a Sunday morning, when your wife and your boys are at church, settled in among so many sinners pretending to be saints, ignoring the cries of other wives and boys who do not want to be there, listening to the Gospel of a Lord Who loves us recounted by men who often make it sound as if He does not, singing hymns of joy that come out sounding like the sorrowful dirges of a too-heavy heart, you can be home alone, with a spiritual experience all your own. Nestling into a soft couch in a big, sunny room, simply to sit and think and write, while fresh rays of light descend through the blinds and resurrect the day again. Watching a squirrel scramble up a tree, alighting on a limb then leaping off again, as if inspired, and perhaps elevated, by some unseen, delicate hand. Listening to the gentle exhalations of your laptop, warm embraces pecked out in plaintive rhythms, ebbing and flowing in effortless streams, a gift that comes from somewhere you can not know or see, and for which you can never be thankful enough, except with the ready strokes of your own supplicating fingers.
Lost and lingering in yet another reverie, you embrace these earthly pleasures, soothed by their simple joys and strengthened by their solemn testimony to a peace and a faith that you feel most fully when you are alone, thinking of the ones you love and knowing that yours life's most bountiful blessing is their love in return. Happy disciple of all ninety-five theses, you rejoice especially in the weekly revelations of your favorite two: the one that proclaims the priesthood of all believers, and the one that proclaims you need not go anywhere, at any pre-ordained time, in the company of any ordained men, to know and feel and find the presence of your most merciful God, who is nowhere and anywhere and everywhere at once, and so ever and always with you, in the warm and simple graces of your quiet, joyful life.
Posted at 10:39 AM
Wed - March 19, 2008
THURSDAY EVENING OBSERVATION
from a table at max &
erma's.
There are few things in the world less interesting
to hear than a workout described.
Posted at 07:11 PM
Sun - March 16, 2008
WHAT WOULD JESUS DO?
not what you're doing.
I would like to think that parishioners arriving
for Palm Sunday Mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Shadyside would not be
parking their minivans and SUVs in the lot of a privately owned business across
the street. And that they would not be running red lights and stop signs to try
to beat each other to a couple of remaining parking spaces. And that they would
not be creating their own spaces by parking along the curb and through the
crosswalk, thus totally blocking all the wheelchair-accessible curb ramps on the
corners. But I would be wrong.
I know Jesus loves you, people, but I gotta think he'd be pretty pissed about that shit.
I know Jesus loves you, people, but I gotta think he'd be pretty pissed about that shit.
Posted at 09:34 AM
Sun - February 24, 2008
IS BIG BROTHER WATCHING?
is the death star monitoring?
Perhaps you remember BD, the happily repatriated
Pittsburgher whose husband lost his hearing, and whose insurance carrier twice
found a way to refuse his pre-approved, specialist-prescribed cochlear implant.
I'm sorry to report that she and her husband have made little progress toward
getting him the operation he so desperately and obviously needs, but I'm pleased
to report that at least one problem BD addressed in her email has now been
solved:
Your TWM entry outlining my husband's dilemma, and concluding with our joint barbs aimed at those best-beloved UPMC Minutes, was posted on Monday, February 11. Now, less than two weeks later, the UPMC Minutes have suddenly become closed-captioned... all across the board, every Minute on every channel.
Coincidence?
Oh, we think not.
(Well, okay. We highly doubt it. But we're gonna claim credit for it anyway.)
After all, TWM has been a consistent, persistent source of UPMC commentary and criticism. Eight days before BD's email appeared here, my Opinion 250 piece, in which I took a couple of shots at UPMC, its excess margins, and its bankrupt leadership, ran on the front page of the Post-Gazette's Sunday Forum section. So it's not all that unreasonable to assume, in this (hyper)linked-in age of hyper-cyber-awareness, that Big Brother is watching or the Death Star is monitoring. The only surprise here would be that, having heard, the UMPC powers-that-be actually listened, and then did the right thing.
So, Minute-men and women, if you are watching and monitoring -- and you know you are -- let me just say, for the first time ever: well done. It was a small step, but significant. Now all you have to is keep putting one corporate foot in front of the other, over and over and over again, and follow that same path of actually giving a damn about more than your own bottom line. If you do, it might not be long before you actually live up to the images of your own incessant marketing.
Your TWM entry outlining my husband's dilemma, and concluding with our joint barbs aimed at those best-beloved UPMC Minutes, was posted on Monday, February 11. Now, less than two weeks later, the UPMC Minutes have suddenly become closed-captioned... all across the board, every Minute on every channel.
Coincidence?
Oh, we think not.
(Well, okay. We highly doubt it. But we're gonna claim credit for it anyway.)
After all, TWM has been a consistent, persistent source of UPMC commentary and criticism. Eight days before BD's email appeared here, my Opinion 250 piece, in which I took a couple of shots at UPMC, its excess margins, and its bankrupt leadership, ran on the front page of the Post-Gazette's Sunday Forum section. So it's not all that unreasonable to assume, in this (hyper)linked-in age of hyper-cyber-awareness, that Big Brother is watching or the Death Star is monitoring. The only surprise here would be that, having heard, the UMPC powers-that-be actually listened, and then did the right thing.
So, Minute-men and women, if you are watching and monitoring -- and you know you are -- let me just say, for the first time ever: well done. It was a small step, but significant. Now all you have to is keep putting one corporate foot in front of the other, over and over and over again, and follow that same path of actually giving a damn about more than your own bottom line. If you do, it might not be long before you actually live up to the images of your own incessant marketing.
Posted at 11:59 AM
Thu - February 21, 2008
HAIKU AT THE END OF A BUSY DAY
because i have to post
something.
Long day. Lot of
work.
Nice problem to have when you
Know you're doing good.
Nice problem to have when you
Know you're doing good.
Posted at 10:42 PM
Wed - February 20, 2008
THIS ONE GOES OUT TO DAD
on his birthday.
A little tune that reminds me of my hunting trips
and hot chocolate, 8-tracks and jukeboxes, roadside diners and family truckster
sing-a-longs, the simple pleasures of a father and son finding a lovely little
piece of common ground in the hooks and grooves of a three-minute rock song...
OLD TIME ROCK 'N' ROLL
Bob Seger
Just take those old records off the shelf
I'll sit and listen to 'em by myself
Today's music ain't got the same soul
I like that old time rock 'n' roll
Don't try to take me to a disco
You'll never even get me out on the floor
In ten minutes I'll be late for the door
I like that old time rock 'n' roll
Still like that old time rock 'n' roll
That kind of music just soothes the soul
I reminisce about the days of old
With that old time rock 'n' roll
Won't go to hear 'em play a tango
I'd rather hear some blues or funky old soul
There's only one sure way to get me to go
Start playing old time rock 'n' roll
Call me a relic, call me what you will
Say I'm old-fashioned, say I'm over the hill
Today's music ain't got the same soul
I like that old time rock 'n' roll
Still like that old time rock 'n' roll
That kind of music just soothes the soul
I reminisce about the days of old
With that old time rock 'n' roll...
OLD TIME ROCK 'N' ROLL
Bob Seger
Just take those old records off the shelf
I'll sit and listen to 'em by myself
Today's music ain't got the same soul
I like that old time rock 'n' roll
Don't try to take me to a disco
You'll never even get me out on the floor
In ten minutes I'll be late for the door
I like that old time rock 'n' roll
Still like that old time rock 'n' roll
That kind of music just soothes the soul
I reminisce about the days of old
With that old time rock 'n' roll
Won't go to hear 'em play a tango
I'd rather hear some blues or funky old soul
There's only one sure way to get me to go
Start playing old time rock 'n' roll
Call me a relic, call me what you will
Say I'm old-fashioned, say I'm over the hill
Today's music ain't got the same soul
I like that old time rock 'n' roll
Still like that old time rock 'n' roll
That kind of music just soothes the soul
I reminisce about the days of old
With that old time rock 'n' roll...
Posted at 08:15 AM
Thu - February 14, 2008
BACK AGAIN, BLACK AGAIN
every year, every day is today.
Regular readers of TWM know that I don't like to
repeat myself -- concepts, yes; full posts, no-- but if any occasion called for
it, then calls for it again and again, it's this awful day of arch-capitalist,
quasi-romantic reflux, the majesty and mystery and manufactured monstrosity of
Valentine's Day.
So, once more for tradition and by popular demand, I offer up a gently tweaked, slightly revised version of the annual TWM VD Screed for your blog-reading (and holiday-rebelling) pleasure...
BACK IN BLACK
Welcome to the day, devoted to love, that everyone hates.
Irony doesn't get much better or thicker than that, but we're all too busy to enjoy or even to notice it. We’re running around in search of the sweet and the cute and the red, white, and pink, scrambling for gifts and cards and flowers and chocolates and teddy bears and lingerie and little lacey things that earn a few oohs and aahs, then spend a couple of days on a night stand and the rest of the year cluttering up the back of a bedroom drawer. We're venturing into Victoria's, hauling ourselves to Hallmark, trying vainly and desperately to find that one pure and preciously overpriced gift that will, better than anything we could say or do, declare I love you. Or, at least I didn't know what else to get you, so I hope this is good enough.
All this business assumes, of course, that you're married or committed or at least casually dating. That you’re close enough to honor and commemorate and so not be thoroughly disgusted, depressed, or diseased by the sight of the attached and attaching. That you’re willing to accept the scuttling about to shops and kiosks and candle-lit corners of pretentious restaurants to celebrate this grand and glorious day of romantic hope and harmony that forces you to fully acknowledge the love, or lack thereof, in your life.
Bruce Springsteen once sang, when you're alone, you ain't nothin' but alone. But you ain't never more alone than when you're alone on Valentine's Day.
Oh, sure, you know it's a sham, a show, an artifice, the only day of the year that some spouses or partners or significant others would ever think to get or give a present that says they care enough to buy the very best. And only then because the retail-industrial complex tells them they must. You tell yourself you're above it all, or maybe beneath it, and that you're not going to get bitter or angry enough to wallow in the echoing silences of your own hollow heart. You know it all means nothing, but, like so many things when you're alone, it feels like it means everything.
Attached, unattached, being one and wanting to be the other -- it doesn't matter. Valentine’s Day is the ultimate no-win situation, the great lose-lose proposition in the name of love. If you're in love, you're a lover, and the pressures of the day make sure you do it. If you're not in love, you're a loser, and the oppression of the day makes sure you know it.
For years, I did my part to protest the compulsions and conventions of the day. I wore black instead of red. I bought a present for my wife and gave it to her on the 11th, the 12th, maybe the 15th. For a few years, I didn't buy her anything, and she bought me nothing in return. On our first Valentine's Day as a couple, we avoided romantic comedies and watched The Silence of the Lambs -- which, when you think about it, is really a dark and twisted love story at heart -- instead. On our first married Valentine's Day, we holed up in our Baltimore apartment and watched The Brood, a great low-budget horror flick about the brutal physical and psychological scars of a failed marriage that, thanks to radical techniques in psychotherapy, come to life in the murderous rampages of killer mutant dwarves. (Yes. Really.)
We protested, resisted, battled, and backpedaled. We waged our own little matrimonial war on the terror of the day, striking symbolic blows and arrows into the tiny, cupidian hearts of the rabid romantic fundamentalists hell-bent on winning their Hallmark jihad and shoving their saccharine, sugar-coated day down our throats. Not because we wanted to be different. And not because we wanted to be cool. We did it because we’ve always thought that this all-too-manufactured occasion forgets one all-too-natural notion: that you shouldn't need a special day to tell you who or when or how to love.
And that, if you're doing it right, every day is Valentine's Day.
So, once more for tradition and by popular demand, I offer up a gently tweaked, slightly revised version of the annual TWM VD Screed for your blog-reading (and holiday-rebelling) pleasure...
BACK IN BLACK
Welcome to the day, devoted to love, that everyone hates.
Irony doesn't get much better or thicker than that, but we're all too busy to enjoy or even to notice it. We’re running around in search of the sweet and the cute and the red, white, and pink, scrambling for gifts and cards and flowers and chocolates and teddy bears and lingerie and little lacey things that earn a few oohs and aahs, then spend a couple of days on a night stand and the rest of the year cluttering up the back of a bedroom drawer. We're venturing into Victoria's, hauling ourselves to Hallmark, trying vainly and desperately to find that one pure and preciously overpriced gift that will, better than anything we could say or do, declare I love you. Or, at least I didn't know what else to get you, so I hope this is good enough.
All this business assumes, of course, that you're married or committed or at least casually dating. That you’re close enough to honor and commemorate and so not be thoroughly disgusted, depressed, or diseased by the sight of the attached and attaching. That you’re willing to accept the scuttling about to shops and kiosks and candle-lit corners of pretentious restaurants to celebrate this grand and glorious day of romantic hope and harmony that forces you to fully acknowledge the love, or lack thereof, in your life.
Bruce Springsteen once sang, when you're alone, you ain't nothin' but alone. But you ain't never more alone than when you're alone on Valentine's Day.
Oh, sure, you know it's a sham, a show, an artifice, the only day of the year that some spouses or partners or significant others would ever think to get or give a present that says they care enough to buy the very best. And only then because the retail-industrial complex tells them they must. You tell yourself you're above it all, or maybe beneath it, and that you're not going to get bitter or angry enough to wallow in the echoing silences of your own hollow heart. You know it all means nothing, but, like so many things when you're alone, it feels like it means everything.
Attached, unattached, being one and wanting to be the other -- it doesn't matter. Valentine’s Day is the ultimate no-win situation, the great lose-lose proposition in the name of love. If you're in love, you're a lover, and the pressures of the day make sure you do it. If you're not in love, you're a loser, and the oppression of the day makes sure you know it.
For years, I did my part to protest the compulsions and conventions of the day. I wore black instead of red. I bought a present for my wife and gave it to her on the 11th, the 12th, maybe the 15th. For a few years, I didn't buy her anything, and she bought me nothing in return. On our first Valentine's Day as a couple, we avoided romantic comedies and watched The Silence of the Lambs -- which, when you think about it, is really a dark and twisted love story at heart -- instead. On our first married Valentine's Day, we holed up in our Baltimore apartment and watched The Brood, a great low-budget horror flick about the brutal physical and psychological scars of a failed marriage that, thanks to radical techniques in psychotherapy, come to life in the murderous rampages of killer mutant dwarves. (Yes. Really.)
We protested, resisted, battled, and backpedaled. We waged our own little matrimonial war on the terror of the day, striking symbolic blows and arrows into the tiny, cupidian hearts of the rabid romantic fundamentalists hell-bent on winning their Hallmark jihad and shoving their saccharine, sugar-coated day down our throats. Not because we wanted to be different. And not because we wanted to be cool. We did it because we’ve always thought that this all-too-manufactured occasion forgets one all-too-natural notion: that you shouldn't need a special day to tell you who or when or how to love.
And that, if you're doing it right, every day is Valentine's Day.
Posted at 08:46 AM
Wed - February 13, 2008
A QUICK FRUSTRATION FOR A SNOWY WEDNESDAY MORNING
because i saw it on shady.
Though I will admit to raging at a few oblivious
drivers and even to honking at a few obnoxious drivers, I am proud of the
restraint I showed this morning when, climbing Shady Avenue en route to
Aylseboro, I saw a young woman park her car and, holding a coffee tumbler in one
hand while dialing a cell phone with the other, step out into the street and
start walking right toward me. She made no effort to move tight to the other
parked cars. She certainly made no effort to move between them. She just kept
walking, straight down Shady as if she were on the sidewalk, happy and -- at
least in her mind -- perfectly safe and even more perfectly entitled to stride
toward an oncoming vehicle.
I could have run her down. I probably should have run her down. But I didn't. I braked hard and, when I realized she wasn't going to change course, I stopped. She kept coming, dialing or texting or menuing away, until she was no more than two feet from the front of my big, green, impossible-to-miss SUV. She stopped. And then, without ever taking her eyes off the cell phone screen, took three steps to her left and kept walking, squeezing between my 4Runner and the parked cars beside me, along on her merry way.
I sat transfixed. I watched her pass and even craned my neck to watch her go, no doubt looking like some idiot tourist on one of those drive-thru safari exhibitions, mouth agape at some strange species of creature he's never seen before and is still sort of shocked to see so close to the window of his own car and the relative normalcy of his own life. She kept going. She never looked back, beyond that simple side-step, even acknowledged my existence. The last I saw her, when I finally decided I should get back home, she was still walking down Shady, toward Forbes Avenue, in the northbound lane.
If, later today, you read about a young woman struck by a car somewhere in Squirrel Hill, you can bet dollars to donuts -- or at least cell phones to coffee tumblers -- that it was her. You can bet that the driver wasn't at fault. And you can be sure that no accident victim ever deserved it more.
I could have run her down. I probably should have run her down. But I didn't. I braked hard and, when I realized she wasn't going to change course, I stopped. She kept coming, dialing or texting or menuing away, until she was no more than two feet from the front of my big, green, impossible-to-miss SUV. She stopped. And then, without ever taking her eyes off the cell phone screen, took three steps to her left and kept walking, squeezing between my 4Runner and the parked cars beside me, along on her merry way.
I sat transfixed. I watched her pass and even craned my neck to watch her go, no doubt looking like some idiot tourist on one of those drive-thru safari exhibitions, mouth agape at some strange species of creature he's never seen before and is still sort of shocked to see so close to the window of his own car and the relative normalcy of his own life. She kept going. She never looked back, beyond that simple side-step, even acknowledged my existence. The last I saw her, when I finally decided I should get back home, she was still walking down Shady, toward Forbes Avenue, in the northbound lane.
If, later today, you read about a young woman struck by a car somewhere in Squirrel Hill, you can bet dollars to donuts -- or at least cell phones to coffee tumblers -- that it was her. You can bet that the driver wasn't at fault. And you can be sure that no accident victim ever deserved it more.
Posted at 09:52 AM
Mon - February 11, 2008
TOTALLY DEAF
and completely unable to
comprehend.
I've lately exchanged a few emails with a happily
repatriated Pittsburgher -- we'll call her BD -- who's been reading TWM and
enjoying the Patriots' Super Bowl loss and otherwise trying to reacclimate
herself to a city she loves. But a few days ago, after reading about rising
waters and reassigning genders, she wrote again to ask if I could answer a
simple, nagging question. I could not. And I doubt you can either. But her
question is worth asking again, and her story, as maddening and infuriating as
it is, needs to be told in more than just my inbox:
Could you clarify something for me?
Today's Post-Gazette states that the person rescued yesterday from a tunnel beneath the Convention Center, Rebecca Hare, was homeless and in the process of undergoing a sex change. So, let me understand this. Ms. Hare is apparently so destitute that she is compelled to live inside a maintenance tunnel, yet is able to cover an extensive, extended medical procedure costing, according to a University of Michigan website, between $30-$40K.
PLEASE, can you find out what kind of medical insurance Ms. Hare has?
I have just returned to Pittsburgh after a 30-year exile and pay over $1000 per month for COBRA coverage while I am searching for employment. Shortly after our arrival here, my husband lost his hearing entirely and was recommended as a cochlear implant candidate by one of the area's top specialists. His preapproval for the surgery was denied by our insurance carrier -- twice -- and we were firmly told that this was not a covered procedure. So my husband remains totally deaf and completely unable to communicate with anybody as he attempts to adjust to new experiences in a new state. (Trying to purchase a bottle of his favorite wine was a real eye opener for him.)
I was thinking if my family could get the same kind of insurance as Ms. Hare, it might cover his implant, or at least he would qualify for some reconstructive procedures, and I might be able to convince a surgical team to pop an implant in his head while they're fussing around with other parts of his body. It's certainly worth a try.
So, if you could find out more about such a medical insurance plan, I would be most grateful. Or maybe I could just wait until it's tabled on an upcoming UPMC Minute. (They really need to close-caption those things, you know.)
BD is right, of course: they should close-caption those things, if only so her husband and everyone else left in the dark or the silence (or both) by their friendly neighborhood health care providers might better understand how a minute can change their lives. And how want of a few dollars can destroy them.
Could you clarify something for me?
Today's Post-Gazette states that the person rescued yesterday from a tunnel beneath the Convention Center, Rebecca Hare, was homeless and in the process of undergoing a sex change. So, let me understand this. Ms. Hare is apparently so destitute that she is compelled to live inside a maintenance tunnel, yet is able to cover an extensive, extended medical procedure costing, according to a University of Michigan website, between $30-$40K.
PLEASE, can you find out what kind of medical insurance Ms. Hare has?
I have just returned to Pittsburgh after a 30-year exile and pay over $1000 per month for COBRA coverage while I am searching for employment. Shortly after our arrival here, my husband lost his hearing entirely and was recommended as a cochlear implant candidate by one of the area's top specialists. His preapproval for the surgery was denied by our insurance carrier -- twice -- and we were firmly told that this was not a covered procedure. So my husband remains totally deaf and completely unable to communicate with anybody as he attempts to adjust to new experiences in a new state. (Trying to purchase a bottle of his favorite wine was a real eye opener for him.)
I was thinking if my family could get the same kind of insurance as Ms. Hare, it might cover his implant, or at least he would qualify for some reconstructive procedures, and I might be able to convince a surgical team to pop an implant in his head while they're fussing around with other parts of his body. It's certainly worth a try.
So, if you could find out more about such a medical insurance plan, I would be most grateful. Or maybe I could just wait until it's tabled on an upcoming UPMC Minute. (They really need to close-caption those things, you know.)
BD is right, of course: they should close-caption those things, if only so her husband and everyone else left in the dark or the silence (or both) by their friendly neighborhood health care providers might better understand how a minute can change their lives. And how want of a few dollars can destroy them.
Posted at 02:05 PM
Tue - February 5, 2008
THE SUPERS
and a short break.
In honor of Super Tuesday, the
Super Bowl, Superman,
and a Super Duper Need to get a few things done, TWM will take the rest of today
and maybe even all of tomorrow off. Regularly scheduled blogging will resume on
Thursday. At the latest.
Posted at 07:21 AM
Thu - January 31, 2008
ON HOLD
here, there, and everywhere.
Oh, wow. One hell of a
day.
Back later with some updates, some observations, and a piece of Dan Abrams video that, even with the season premiere of LOST tonight, may be the best thing I see all week.
Back later with some updates, some observations, and a piece of Dan Abrams video that, even with the season premiere of LOST tonight, may be the best thing I see all week.
Posted at 05:13 PM
Wed - January 30, 2008
TWO-HOUR DISMAY
every child left behind.
Can someone, anyone in western Pennsylvania, for
the love of God and all the memories of my lost childhood, when snow was snow
and ice was ice and superintendents and meteorologists were not near-sighted,
mother-clucking Chicken Littles, why the Pittsburgh Public Schools, and a whole
hell of a lot of other schools in the county, have a two-hour delay? The roads
are bone-dry. The temperature is 25 degrees. The wind is blowing and gusting
in occasional huffs and puffs, but not enough to be felt even once on a
three-mile drive in my high-profile vehicle. I saw a couple of toppled trash
cans. Two plastic shopping bags fluttered across my path. When I got back to
my house, I think I heard a storm window rattle.
At the risk of sounding like some crotchety old fart, bent back arched over his rhetorical cane, grumbling about how he used to walk to school, uphill both ways, in hip-deep snow with wild dogs snapping at his heels...
...when I was a kid, a two-hour delay was a rare and precious commodity, something not to be taken and surely not to be given lightly. When you got one -- and don't even talk to me about days off; for those, you had to have the promise of six inches or more and already be well on your way -- you felt like you'd just won the lottery. Or lost your virginity. Or both. You had to have snow -- a lot of it -- or accumulating ice or the nearby detonation of a thermonuclear device. You needed a hell of a lot more than a downed power line, a couple of scattered tree branches, and the increasingly grating notion that our delicate children must be protected from any weather you would not find on a South Florida beach.
At the risk of sounding like some crotchety old fart, bent back arched over his rhetorical cane, grumbling about how he used to walk to school, uphill both ways, in hip-deep snow with wild dogs snapping at his heels...
...when I was a kid, a two-hour delay was a rare and precious commodity, something not to be taken and surely not to be given lightly. When you got one -- and don't even talk to me about days off; for those, you had to have the promise of six inches or more and already be well on your way -- you felt like you'd just won the lottery. Or lost your virginity. Or both. You had to have snow -- a lot of it -- or accumulating ice or the nearby detonation of a thermonuclear device. You needed a hell of a lot more than a downed power line, a couple of scattered tree branches, and the increasingly grating notion that our delicate children must be protected from any weather you would not find on a South Florida beach.
Posted at 08:15 AM
Sun - January 13, 2008
THIS ONE GOES OUT TO ADAM MACKIE
on his birthday.
A little tune from an album we both love, by a
band we both love, dedicated to the artist trapped inside that engineer's
body...
RIGHT WHERE IT BELONGS
Nine Inch Nails
See the animal in his cage that you built
Are you sure what side you're on?
Better not look him too closely in the eye
Are you sure what side of the glass you are on?
See the safety of the life you have built
Everything where it belongs
Feel the hollowness inside of your heart
And it's all
Right where it belongs
What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you think you know
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection
Is it all you want it to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks?
Would you find yourself
Find yourself afraid to see?
What if all the world's inside of your head
Just creations of your own?
Your devils and your gods
All the living and the dead
And you're really all alone?
You can live in this illusion
You can choose to believe
You keep looking, but you can't find the woods
While you're hiding in the trees
What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you used to know
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection
Is it all you want it to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks
Would you find yourself
Find yourself afraid to see?
RIGHT WHERE IT BELONGS
Nine Inch Nails
See the animal in his cage that you built
Are you sure what side you're on?
Better not look him too closely in the eye
Are you sure what side of the glass you are on?
See the safety of the life you have built
Everything where it belongs
Feel the hollowness inside of your heart
And it's all
Right where it belongs
What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you think you know
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection
Is it all you want it to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks?
Would you find yourself
Find yourself afraid to see?
What if all the world's inside of your head
Just creations of your own?
Your devils and your gods
All the living and the dead
And you're really all alone?
You can live in this illusion
You can choose to believe
You keep looking, but you can't find the woods
While you're hiding in the trees
What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you used to know
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection
Is it all you want it to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks
Would you find yourself
Find yourself afraid to see?
Posted at 04:23 PM
Mon - January 7, 2008
SCENES FROM AN ORTHODONTIST'S WAITING ROOM
on a monday morning.
A pile of magazines akimbo, atop what looks like
the desk I had in Ms. Strauss’ fourth grade: scratched, worn, faded,
bearing the marks of a generation or three of students and dental patients
who’ve sat before and moved beyond it.
Thank you very much.
A smile, a nod, the passing of a clipboard from a mother with too much make-up to a receptionist who doesn’t need any. Beside the mother, two young girls whose apples of fashion sense have not fallen far from the overgrown tree; teased hair and painted nails and Ugg(-o) boots that, were it forty degrees cooler, would still be unnecessary, or at least unwise. But this morning, with fifty degrees of rain and unseasonable warmth, they just seem untoward: the foolish choices of two young girls with, if her fur collar and lace cuffs are any reliable indicator, an excellent role model in the practice.
Singing words of wisdom, let it be…
Paul McCartney now, with good advice, one song after Rod Stewart, live and unplugged, looked to find a reason to believe. The music, like the brick on these uneven walls, is not new, but firm and strong and sturdy enough for this day, this place, this long and often frenetic room of comings and going and too-loud cell-phonings.
I’m at the orthodontist’s office now. We’re almost done.
I hope so. And I wonder whether, had she just opened the door and leaned her head out and spoken at the same volume, her friend would have heard her anyway.
A polo untucked. A sweater carefully draped for a casual look over the shoulders. A Gucci bag and glasses and three kids with Under Armour sweat jackets stretched over out-of-shape bodies. I imagine there’s a Land Rover, with an onboard DVD player and the residue of at least two trips to Whole Foods scattered across the floor, waiting outside.
Two brothers fight over a magazine. No, a catalog. Lots of sneakers at prices that could feed these kids for a day and two kids in Africa for a year. They will be looked at and bought and worn and, for the first few moments, perhaps, appreciated, shuffling four-and-a-half feet below three-thousand-dollar smiles that, with a nod and a shrug, will pass for gentility.
Somewhere amid the din and clatter of suction tubes and hard-working hygienists, Adam sits, mouth open and wary, waiting for the moment when he can leave these things, like all the rest of his thirteen-year-old uncertainty, behind. He spits. He probably rinses twice.
The waiting room’s burnt-orange sea parts, some file left and some file right and so, here in the middle, I am alone with my thoughts, my keyboard, and my own, agitated stillness.
Jimmy Buffet now, content with himself and his simple pleasures, wasting away again.
I know how he feels.
Thank you very much.
A smile, a nod, the passing of a clipboard from a mother with too much make-up to a receptionist who doesn’t need any. Beside the mother, two young girls whose apples of fashion sense have not fallen far from the overgrown tree; teased hair and painted nails and Ugg(-o) boots that, were it forty degrees cooler, would still be unnecessary, or at least unwise. But this morning, with fifty degrees of rain and unseasonable warmth, they just seem untoward: the foolish choices of two young girls with, if her fur collar and lace cuffs are any reliable indicator, an excellent role model in the practice.
Singing words of wisdom, let it be…
Paul McCartney now, with good advice, one song after Rod Stewart, live and unplugged, looked to find a reason to believe. The music, like the brick on these uneven walls, is not new, but firm and strong and sturdy enough for this day, this place, this long and often frenetic room of comings and going and too-loud cell-phonings.
I’m at the orthodontist’s office now. We’re almost done.
I hope so. And I wonder whether, had she just opened the door and leaned her head out and spoken at the same volume, her friend would have heard her anyway.
A polo untucked. A sweater carefully draped for a casual look over the shoulders. A Gucci bag and glasses and three kids with Under Armour sweat jackets stretched over out-of-shape bodies. I imagine there’s a Land Rover, with an onboard DVD player and the residue of at least two trips to Whole Foods scattered across the floor, waiting outside.
Two brothers fight over a magazine. No, a catalog. Lots of sneakers at prices that could feed these kids for a day and two kids in Africa for a year. They will be looked at and bought and worn and, for the first few moments, perhaps, appreciated, shuffling four-and-a-half feet below three-thousand-dollar smiles that, with a nod and a shrug, will pass for gentility.
Somewhere amid the din and clatter of suction tubes and hard-working hygienists, Adam sits, mouth open and wary, waiting for the moment when he can leave these things, like all the rest of his thirteen-year-old uncertainty, behind. He spits. He probably rinses twice.
The waiting room’s burnt-orange sea parts, some file left and some file right and so, here in the middle, I am alone with my thoughts, my keyboard, and my own, agitated stillness.
Jimmy Buffet now, content with himself and his simple pleasures, wasting away again.
I know how he feels.
Posted at 12:05 PM
Quick Links
Calendar
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
Categories
Archives
Terror Alert
Brilliant Satire
Required Reading
Traffic Count
Official Muse
Syndication
Carbolic Wear
Y Chromosomes
Some Perspective
On Tour
XML/RSS Feed
Statistics
Total entries in this blog:
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Jul 03, 2008 03:58 PM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Jul 03, 2008 03:58 PM