Category: tunes

Music. Bands. Songs. Concerts.

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death becomes me


Hey blog. Long time no write. First, Monday was claimed by a grandparent-funded date-night in Oregon. Then, Tuesday fell victim to the senseless timesink of travel back home to sunny California. So, another two nights with nothing new to say and no time to not write it anyway. I won’t say it’s not a trend – it’s totally a trend. But, things move on.

Like for instance, Anthony came over tonight. We were putting together the early versions of our late-summer plans for hiking the John Muir Trail. Fifteen days. The kickoff to my two-month paid-vacation, which my workplace allots its employees every seven years. Yes, the hike to end all hikes – the hike that will most certainly kill me if I can’t stick to the training Anthony and I have planned. But, as “getting fit” is among the top things which I am self-conscious about – I shall say nothing more about it. So, let’s move on to today’s music-centric blog.

Every once in a while while listening to the iPod on shuffle, a track from one of my old favorites will come up. More specifically, a track off the a compilation called DJ’s Delite Volume 1: DJ Vibes.

Seems like a simply statement right? But wait, there’s a massive story lurking here.

Back in highschool I got into “techno” music (and by this generic classification I don’t mean 4/4 “house” music, but more the wild ’92 breakbeat scene). From there, I naturally branched into the jungle scene – which, for a year or so, I ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But, as jungle turned darker with the Chicago scene, I went looking for more of the jangly piano-and-sample stuff that first attracted me to early breakbeats. I ended up at happy hardcore… which some may laugh at now, as the present has cast it as probably the most universally hated genre of music in the history of music. But, that didn’t matter to me then. And, for those who understand, let me clarify that I was not into the pointedly-crafted brand of saccharine happy hardcore which later came to typify the genre, I think of myself as being more into the “happier” side of jungle and breakbeat – not that syrupy fake stuff that most people think of as happy hardcore now. Annnyway… back to DJ’s Delite.

Back then, in my head, I was always looking for the next “best mix.” I’ve written about this before, so I’ll let you read that for more backstory. Now, I’m a litle fuzzy on the specifics, but back in the day I somehow ended up with a mixtape from the once-awesome Chicago junglist mecca that was Dubshack. This tape was a recording of a “rave” over in the UK where the music was bouncy, happy, choppy and fun. The DJs spinning were the likes of Ellis Dee, DJ Vibes, DJ SS, DJ Brisk – names I’d never heard of before. The records they played were even less familiar though: stuff by Naughty Naughty, SMD, Omni Trio, Vibes & Wishdokta – nothing like most of the names I’d seen thrown around on mixtapes I had from local DJs. I loved that mixtape. The only drawback, as I thought back then, was the practice of including the MC’s ranting and raving over the entire thing (a common practice in mixtapes from that era of UK shows, but less popular in the US, I think). Perusing the Xerox’d Dubshack catalog, I located and ordered more tapes with simliar DJs and records (but without the MC babbling). One of those tapes ended up being the tape. That tape was DJ’s Delite Volume 1: DJ Vibes.

I wore that tape out. Wore. It. Out. It was awesome to me. It was the best tape I’d heard in a loooong time. Nearly eighty minutes of almost-all good material: fast, choppy, bouncy, sometimes overly sweet… I ate it up. Looking back on it now, it does indeed seem somewhat “too happy,” but I still love it as a mix – aways will. And that’ll bring us back to the beginning of this whole thing: when one of those tracks comes up on my iPod. And, when one does, I get instantly nostalgic for those highschool days. In fact, several times, the single track sounds so good to me that I’ll flip the iPod over to the whole mix and start from the beginning – only to realize, around three tracks in, that it just can’t hold my attention for 76min like it once could. Seriously though, sometimes nothing sounds better than a track off that compilation… all beatsy and sped-up-broken vocally… great stuff.

After writing the above, I realized I have a chance here for an interesting side-story. Some years after getting the DJ’s Delite tape from Dubshack, and after making multiple “backup” copies (as I often used to do with cassettes I cherished), I decided I needed to find a CD copy for archival and longevity purposes. So, I hit the internet (on my Packard Bell with my Prodigy account) to look for some more of this new sound. In my effort to track down a CD copy I ended up blindly sending a mail to the catchall e-mail address of the label that released the original compilation on vinyl: a semi-established UK jungle/happy hardcore label called Rogue Trooper. Rogue Trooper records was an offshoot the longer-established and more well-known Death Becomes Me label, which had pressed several important pieces of wax in that era of electronic music. Or maybe it was the other way ’round, I can’t remember. I eventually got a reply from a nice gentleman in the PR department of DBM Records, and he happily scored me a CD copy of the mix (which I also cherished). The CD was indexed as a single, 76min long, track – all running together, but I didn’t care – I could finally stop worrying about my tape copies breaking or melting. I couldn’t have been happier.

Anyway, in a similar way that my whole Beligan Benefactor story went down, I soon found myself trading more and more casual e-mails with the label’s PR guy. Turns out that Death Becomes Me, until that point mostly a vinyl-format release outfit, was starting to dabble in CD-R-based releases as opposed to factory-pressed CDs, and they were curious about how these new-fangled recordable CDs would hold up to shipping around the world. Somehow, it became my “job” to “beta test” their new CD-R format releases. They would cut CD-Rs of all their new releases and mail them to me, whereupon I would receive and play them for a week or two before reporting back on sound quality, shipping damage, etc.

It was a lot less formal than I make it sound – but what it amounted to was me: some random kid from Florida, getting pre-release jungle and happy hardcore mixes from the then-hottest UK scenesters. I think of it now, and I think how I could’ve used is as my “in” to “the scene.” Between that and my job at the record store, where I was awash in pre-release promos, I could’ve staked a pretty decent claim. But, that’s neither here nor there. Some of the CDs I got were good, some bad, some not-bad-but-boring. Somewhere today at home, I still have a stack of hand-labeled CD-R releases from Death Becomes Me and Rogue Trooper…

Neat huh? Years later still, I’d decide that I wanted to convert that CD into MP3. I took on the onerous task of ripping it, splitting up the long 76min single-track into individual records as best I could by ear, and storing it digitally. And that, dear friends, is the long story of just one album on my iPod – from a random cassette I ordered from a random Chicago mail-order music joint in the mid-nineties to a CD I got direct from the UK to bits and bytes on an iPod. Cooool…

Goodnight.

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gotta get that chore wheel, y’all


Well, it’s official – Keaton’s walking. All of the sudden today she just started standing up from sitting, not needing to pull up on anything for support. Once up, she’ll walk short distances – ten or so steps – to mom or dad or something else she can hold on to. While it’s not full-on walking as a primary mode of transportation (and therefore not “real” per Sharaun’s definition), it is definitely walking and she’s definitely doing it. I’ll make sure and get some video posted as soon as we get some. And so, another milestone. Now… if she’d only get some more teeth, those two bottom-front ones look so lonely in there…

I don’t know why I’ve not realized this before, but my high-speed provider offers free usenet access. You get capped at 2GB per month and the retention isn’t as stellar or solid as giganews or anything, but it’s pretty awesome. Sometimes usenet is the best place for some lesser-represented music on the major invite-only trackers (especially classic blues, there’s a well-established group on usenet for the genre, but it’s scarce on most private-trackers). So, I hooked that up the other day on the new compy at home and was winging bits through wires in short order. Got some great new vintage blues stuff too, can’t wait to give it all a listen.

Actually, speaking of that blues music, I recently downloaded a collection of recordings from the pre-Robert Johnson Delta blues artist Tommy Johnson, and, as I often do with new musicians I “find,” I decided I wanted to know more about him. I headed over to allmusic.com and looked him up, and it turns out he’s got one heck of a story. Check this out:

The legend of Tommy Johnson is even harder to ignore. The stories about his live performances … are part of it. So is his uncontrolled womanizing and alcoholism, both of which constantly got him in trouble. Johnson’s addiction to spirits was so pronounced that he was often seen drinking Sterno-denatured alcohol used for artificial heat — or shoe polish strained through bread for the kick each could offer when whiskey wasn’t affordable or available in dry counties throughout the South.

Johnson spent most of the ’20s drinking, womanizing, gambling, and playing … when the money got low and apparently, only when the mood struck him. By all acounts, Tommy felt no particular drive to relentlessly promote himself and — while he played music for pay until the very end of his life — he certainly wasn’t as serious about his career as he was about his drinking.

He cut one more stack of great records for the Paramount label in 1930, largely through the maneuvering of fellow drinking buddy Charley Patton. Then the slow descent into alcoholism started taking its toll, the one too many nights of Sterno and shoe polish buzzes reducing his once prodigious talents to small, sporadic flickerings of former genius. He worked on a medicine show … in the ’30s, but mostly seemed to be a mainstay of the juke and small party dance circuit the rest of his days. He was playing just such a local house party in November of 1956 when he suffered a fatal heart attack and went out in probably the exact fashion he wanted to.

Now that’s some hardcore musicianship… a real dedication to the craft. I tip my shiny wingtip to ya, Tommy.

I’ve decided, after Sharaun told me some friends of ours have a similar plan, that I’m going to create a comprehensive “chore chart” for the house. The hope, is that I can standardize a routine that will help both me and Sharaun to better keep up with housework. This may seem anal or unnecessary, but it’s not. I’ve complained again and again and again about the state of our house. Sure, we can clean it up enough in the common areas to where people don’t notice, but I see the backlot, what gets swept under the rug – and it’s filthy. The things I know Sharaun dislikes doing, cleaning the showers and bathrooms, I don’t do often enough. Plus, I’ve tried to explain to Sharaun that keeping a place “tidy” as a lot easier than doing a major “spring cleaning” every few months to sort through the accumulated detritus.

The other day, I threatened to hire a maid – a luxury which somewhat disgusts me, but the threat was hollow and was meant more to “subtly” communicate (for the billionth time) my state of displeasure with the cleanliness of our crib. Of course, she thought the idea was ridiculous – which I thought might spur some re-dedication but instead generated the suggestion of a “chore chart.” Bingo, I’m all over that. I want to have this done next week and put into use ASAP. Sheesh… we gotta get right or this kid is gonna grow up thinking she can leave a trail of waste behind her all the time. I gotta get that chore wheel, y’all.

Goodnight.

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sweat, death, & fervor


Tuesday night and I had a great time finishing up yesterday’s mowing. It was the backyard this time, and I purposely kept finding little things to do to stay out in the weather and sweat a little longer. It was so perfect, warm and green and the iPod was on-point, I enjoyed stooping and kneeling and the sheen of sweat on my face. The drip, drip, drip of sweat off the long tangle of my beard made me even more happy. I mowed, edged, pulled weeds, sprayed weeds, fertilized, and fixed four sprinklers – it was a banner day for yardwork. In conclusion, I’d like to thank Congress for pulling-in daylight savings time and making all this after-work earth-time possible. I love 8pm sunsets.

I’ve written before about how I have a slight obsession with “true crime” stories. No, not like the cheap novels or anything, more like those “forensic” shows, and anything to do with serial killers. In fact, it’s a small theme on this site, bucketed under the “darkside” tag moniker. To me, serial killers are somewhat fascinating – not because they are awesome, but because it often boggles me to try and wrap my mind around what they do. Don’t worry, I’m not thinking about serial killing anyone.

Anyway, I’ve always been interested in the history around the Zodiac killer, especially since finding an obsessively detailed website based on the still-anonymous killer and his crimes a few years ago. It was with zeal, then, that I read the recent news that, with everything being stirred up again because of the new Zodiac movie, police in San Francisco had “discovered” a lost card from 1990 that may, in fact, be from the Zodiac killer. Well, of course the zodiackiller.com guy posted the high-res scans today, and the message boards are lighting-up with couch-based detectives trying to puzzle out meaning from the cryptic missive. Interesting, and will be fun to watch develop. Wouldn’t it be cool if, by getting his wish and making it big in public eye, he ends up hanging himself?

Today, in the middle of a meeting we were both in at work, Pat IM’d me this link. For those of you who managed to resist the urge to click the aforelinked link, I’ll pass along the title here before I go on to make my point – the article is called: The Great Rock Hope, Arcade Fire grabs the baton from Bruce Springsteen and U2, and it begins with the auspicious sentence, “For those who haven’t been following along, rock critics have crowned a new World’s Greatest Band.”

Well damn, if that ain’t coming right out and saying it.

Should Slate be afraid? Afraid to call the Arcade Fire the new “world’s greatest band?” I mean, that’s pretty presumptuous, right? So many people are thinking it, though, I guarantee. The band, having blown away the music press with their debut, have come-correct again this year with an incredibly solid sophomore effort (and now, for your benefit, I won’t keep summing up things which are much better written in the Slate article). I do have to say, however, that I feel entirely vindicated in comparing the ‘Fire to the same bands Slate does in my many lusty rants about their awesomeness.

The Slate article goes on to say that the Arcade Fire are “…a gale-force live band,” and damn if I can’t do anything but nod my head in agreement after seeing them only once prior in a tiiiiny little club in San Francisco. In fact, hoping for a repeat of that history, I recently spearheaded an e-mail campaign to try and recruit some friends to go see the ‘Fire live when they’re out this way later this summer, and my mail went something like this:

Folks,

Tickets for the Arcade Fire’s two shows in Berkley (at the Greek Theater) go on sale this Sunday via Ticketmaster, but tomorrow through some backdoor pre-sale website. Either way, I’m buying some – and hope to get them during tomorrow’s pre-sale. There are two shows, June 1st and 2nd, which is a Friday and Saturday. I’m leaning towards the June 2 Saturday show, as the post-work Friday afternoon drive to Berkley sounds like crap. Tickets are $31.50ea (plus some fees I bet), and the entire venue is general admission.

Reply and lemme know if you’re interested, and how many tickets I should get if you are down.

Even if you don’t know the ‘Fire’s work, the show should rock (plus you can tell your kids you saw them and they’ll marvel at your role as a piece of rock-‘n’-roll history). If you want to get an idea what the band is like live, check out their SNL performances last week on YouTube here.

Love you.

And hey, if the Slate (and many other) hype is to be believed… maybe my “piece of rock-‘n’-roll history” statement ain’t that far off.

Goodnight.

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anthematic?


Mowed the lawn today, and the iPod’s shuffle function was feeling anthemic. Now, when I wrote that sentence in my head as I mowed, the word “anthemic” sounded awesome. In fact, the word “anthemic” was the entire reason I wanted to write the sentence, I wanted so badly to use it – as it just sounded great in my head, and I figured it would look so sexy on the screen (sans serif, of course). How crushed do you think I was when I banged it out at the keyboard and the little red dots popped up underneath it when I hit the space bar to move onto the next word. “What, ‘anthemic’ isn’t a word?” I thought. Bollocks. A quick Google search to vindicate me – no definition quicklink in the upper right for “anthemic.” Dang, what’s going on here. Maybe it’s “anthematic?” Little red dots again. Well, that was such a bust – and I was so geared up, a shame. I’m gonna use it anyway, ’cause it makes you just want to drop your pants: anthemic. What I meant to say was, the iPod played long greats like Weezer’s “Only In Dreams,” and Death Cab for Cutie’s “Transatlanticism.” I mowed with a grin; the weather was perfect.

I think it should be illegal to sell dishtowels that don’t actually absorb water. I hate this. Hate it with a passion. We must have twenty dishtowels at home, all of which aren’t worth their weave but for the microfiber ones. Those microfiber ones are like those super-mashed up t-shirts you get at trade shows, you know the ones that are unbelievably compressed into shapes like little rocketships or wrenches or tennis shoes (depending on the trade show, of course). Everything else is jack. Don’t be fooled, my painstaking research has proven that about 90% of dishtowels just push water around and don’t absorb a drop. If you want a towel that will actually dry your dishes, get the microfiber ones… they are the jonk.

Wow folks, a few months ago, I was busy ripping through my entire CD collection, turning them into MP3s. And, since I’m anal and I like all my audio files to be tagged correctly (i.e. contain the right artist, album, track, etc. data embedded into the file), I oft-lamented on the difficulty of getting my treasured Beatles bootlegs (or bootlegs in general, for that matter) to properly tag-up. The lack of a centralized CDDB-style database for bootlegs was the main problem. Back then, I decided to do something about it and I wrote a script for the great freeware tagging app, the Godfather, that would go out and “scrape” the then-incomparable bootlegzone.com website for tag data. The script was complex, full-featured, and worked like a charm. With its help, I automatically tagged up hundreds of Beatlegs… all with the press of a button. That whole time, I kept thinking, “What if bootlegzone went offline tomorrow?” Me, with hundreds of untagged bootlegs still to go and so much invested in my script… I’d’ve been heartbroken. Well, fate, this time, it seems, spared me. As of sometime late last month, bootlegzone went dark for good. Sad to see it go, but glad I got to exploit its labors before it died. Believe me though, in the Beatleg world, it’s a big deal.

In Keaton news, she’s begun to stand unassisted at every chance she gets. Sharaun or I will say, “No hands!” and she’ll throw her hands in the air and squeal like she’s riding an imaginary roller coaster. So far, she seems more interested in perfecting her standing technique than she does taking any real steps – but we have been able to get her to take a single step by moving away from her and holding her hand. She can push into a standing position from sitting, so I’m assuming walking isn’t far off. Things move fast. Speaking of Keaton, I managed to get up a new series of images to her gallery – check ’em out here.

Thanks.

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weekend minus one


Friday tomorrow, and we have an “off-site” event at work, which means it’s gonna be just a little more than a half day and then an afternoon of early beers and some snooker. I think it’ll be a nice way to ease into the weekend. As for the weekend, I don’t have many plans. Sharaun is leaving me with Keaton all day Saturday while she goes snowboarding. I’m thinking we’ll maybe walk to the park or something. At some point I have big plans to mow and fertilize the lawn, and maybe install a screen door.

My website was down most of the day today, some database issues on the host side which I hope they’ve now worked through. Not that I’m losing millions in trade for every minute of downtime, but I’m sure Sharaun’s grandmother in Florida thinks her computer is broken when she goes to look at Keaton’s new pictures and gets a 404. I really think that blog comment spam is what may be causing my somewhat frequent database issues, as my host limits the number of database “connects” I can have in any given time-chunk. Every time a spam comment gets written to the database (which still happens, even though Akismet catches them and relegates them to an unpublished “spam” queue for later review), it counts against my “max connections” ceiling. Honestly, that’s the only thing I can see pushing me over the limit. Also, though, I think my host has weak database support on my current plan (where I share a single server with hundreds of other users’ websites, and we’re all getting a slice of the same MySQL pipe on the backend). I could upgrade to a virtualized dedicated server – but that costs dough. Anyway, sorry for the nerd-talk.

My beard is progressing nicely and is now rather fuzzy and voluminous, little hairs jutting this way and that in a nice thick tangle. Whenever I’m in the car, I strain my neck to admire it in the rearview. I love watching the water drip off it in streams during my morning shower, and the fact that the fuzz of it obscures the bottom lobe of my ear in the mirror. I have these visions of the pictures from this summer’s future camping trips, where I have this massive jumble of beard hanging off my chops, like the mountain man I always dream about but will never be. Sometimes I wonder if, come the day I decide I want to shave it all off (never?), Keaton will recognize me the same. I know she’ll know who I am, but I can’t help but think she’s gotten used to unshaven daddy as the one true daddy – any other daddy might just be an impostor.

I’m all pumped because Sharaun and I and a bunch of friends all got tickets to see the Arcade Fire play at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley in June. There are still tickets left, so get ’em and join us there – the whole venue is general admission so it should be blissful anarchy trying to jockey for the good seats. Yay! Arcade Fire in an outdoor venue on a nice June night… I can’t wait.

Goodnight.

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reevaluating invincibility


Tuesday evening and Sharaun’s at a volleyball game. I put Keaton down to bed about 15min ago, and am now enjoying some Malajube whilst writing up tonight’s blog.

Before tonight, I was off to a slow start on Kerouac’s On The Road. The long introduction was interesting, but stole some of the immediate thunder I had expected. But, oh man, once I got into the book proper I was spellbound. Kerouac’s writing seems just barely strung-together enough to tell a story, like it was written in some mad fit (I know, it was) as if he was afraid it all had to come out at once or else be lost (I know, he did); but at the same time it’s so beautifully detailed and descriptive that I’m almost there with him, belting back whiskey on a flatbed racing across the west. I’m only six chapters in but I can barely put the thing down. I can’t wait until he gets to San Francisco. That said, then, I’ll go ahead and write this up snap-quick so I can get to reading, maybe get my voracious on. Here we go.

I think it’s time for me to reevaluate my invincibility. Over the past couple years, the number of times my body has succumbed to sickness or ailment has risen sharply. I used to be untouchable, completely impenetrable to disease. Recently, though, I’ve had to take a day off work here, another there, and have lost a few good weekend days to sleeping and sniffling. Is this what happens when you get old? Instead of ignoring the signals my body gives me, should I now pay attention to them and react accordingly? What crap. When did I become weak? This morning, I woke up with a sore shoulder, apparently my body didn’t like the way I slept on it, it ailed me all day, pins and needles. I remember when I could sleep in the reclined front seat of a Nissan Sentra and wakeup no worse for wear. Then, my mouse-hand has been protesting some movements lately, almost like the years of totally un-ergonomic use I’ve forced it to endure are coming to bear. Sometimes, I even get heartburn after eating a burrito (extra large, extra-extra spicy, please). What’s worse, I get super sleepy around 4pm every day. Oh Father, why hast Thou forsaken me?

A thought occurred to me the other day whilst pondering some work stuffs. I’m sure you’ve all heard the phrase “good old boy” used in reference to the way some organizations are run. Usually what’s meant by this is that a small network of back-slappin’ buddies run the company, promoting and demoting according to how well others fit into their “good ol’ boy” mold. So that regular Joes sometimes feel like their chances of being favored or given the big job or being promoted are hindered because they didn’t go duck hunting with the clique on the weekend, or some other such nonsense. Anyway, what I was thinking was, that this whole notion of a “good old boy network” probably isn’t that wrong, and furthermore shouldn’t be that surprising.

Dealing with people is tough, there are so many assholes, so many who are ungrateful, so many who are under-appreciative and over-demanding, so many who are abrasive, impossible to relate to, unpredictable, unprofessional, abstract, difficult. The old adage rings true, you know, “birds of a feather…” I wonder, though, if this “flock together” pack-mentality may be the subconscious (and sometimes all-too conscious) reason behind the classic “good ol’ boy network?” By surrounding yourself with an army of like-yous, you have to deal with a lot less. You know a lot better where the lines are, know what’ll motivate and what’ll correct. It makes me think, however, that the school of “relationship based management” may have hit on something. Developing relationships with the people you work with and who work for you is probably a good way to avoid the “easy out” tendency to populate the ranks with you-clones. Whatever, all I was trying to say is that maybe those folks who look at the good ol’ boy network with envy are just the square pegs…

It’s been well-established now that I love ARGs (Alternate Reality Games). I think my first real experience with the genre was the with the whole Lost Experience thing, which seems late when you consider the “I Love Bees” stuff and many of the other “armchair treasure hunts” which have gone on, but arguably I was smitten all the way back when the Smashing Pumpkins did something very similar with their album Machina, and I was way into that. I also got into the whole Lonelygirl15 thing for much of the same reasons. The idea that you can participate with others in a real-life Hardy Boys type mystery adventure is awesome to me. So, when I found out that the Nine Inch Nails, a collective of whom I’ve been a casual fan since high school, are slowly “leaking” tracks from the new album “Year Zero” as part of a viral marketing slash ARG thing, I was thrilled. Not only do I get awesome tunes, I get to follow a neat post-apocalyptic storyline to boot.

Goodnight.

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it’s tuesday night and


It’s Tuesday night and my toenails are too long. Not all of them, just a few here and there. How that happens I have no idea, I always cut them all at the same time. Must be that some are just rogue growers, outpacing the other toes. The crooked one, in particular, seems to have an agenda.

It’s Tuesday night and there’s a tied-off bag of dirty diapers sitting on the ground next to the trash in the garage. It’s there because the diaper-eating machine we have in Keaton’s room got full, and Sharaun put it there for me to take the final few steps to the “outside” trash. That’s my job, see; taking things to the “outside” trash. If Sharaun says she “emptied” the trash, what she means is she tied off the bag and moved it somewhere other than in the garbage can from whence it came. This is “emptying the trash.” It is then my responsibility to take this bag, be it on the floor in the garage or slumped out of the way next to the sliding glass door in the kitchen, to it’s final resting place in the “outside” trash. It’s a tiered approach, see.

It’s Tuesday night and so far I’ve listened to four albums all the way through: Of Montreal’s Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?; Andrew Bird’s Armchair Apocrypha; Aqueduct’s Or Give Me Death, and Patrick Wolf’s The Magic Position. They are all quite good, and I listened to them because I feel like they’ve suffered a bit for my Arcade Fire tunnel-vision. In particular, the Of Montreal album is a standout. Seriously, listen to this track and tell me what you hear. Beatles? O&O-era Zombies? Beach Boys? Great stuff, right? When I was bangin’ this joint in the car today, turned up to eleven, the weather was so gorgeous and not a thing in the world seemed amiss.

It’s Tuesday night and I stopped at the store on the way home to buy vanilla extract. I was, or am, I can’t quite decide, going to make cookies. A family recipe of Sharaun’s, her mom’s dad’s favorite. They are somewhat difficult to make though, and my mind wanders to easier tasks like peanut butter or sugar cookies. I don’t think we have any chocolate chips, or maybe I’d make those. Anyway, I bought a big thing of vanilla extract at the store, it was the store-branded generic kind, the kind with names like “Sunny Select” or “Sam’s Choice.” It was $5.99, cheaper than the size smaller of the “name brand.” I came home a triumphantly showed my purchase to Sharaun. I was shown the bottle she bough (larger by one ounce) for $0.98 that day at the local sprawling el-cheapo store. Fine, back tomorrow with the receipt then. Cookies aren’t getting baked by typing anyway.

It’s Tuesday night and I’m in a wonderful mood. Things seem great, and my cares seem small compared to the many things I enjoy. My job, while difficult, is becoming easier by the week as I find more confidence in what I do. Difficult things turn into easier things, and impossible things into only difficult. I feel respected and even somewhat revered, unjustly so, to be sure, yet I feel it. And it’s not just my job: I’m happier than ever with the little family Sharaun and I are working on. Our daughter is the most precious thing in the world to me, providing me with an endless source of fascination and pride. I like our house, the town we live in, and the direction in which we’re headed. I couldn’t ask to run with a better clique, our friends are our extended family. Things are good, and looking up.

It’s Tuesday night and there’s still a pile of dead ants on the guest bathroom floor (I killed them with the death-spray, you can get it at the supermarket). I thought about vacuuming them up, Sharaun vacuumed today and left the vacuum right there in the hallway. Right in the middle of the hall, cord stretching off into the other room, looping and bending around corners. It’s right there outside the bathroom door. It’s her style. Cleaning up but leaving all the implements of cleaning out, thus making a mess out of cleaning. It’s her ironic twist on tidying, like the joke about a towel getting “wetter as it dries.” She tortures me with it, because I’m expected to notice, and give praise, for the cleaning that has taken place. All I see is the dustpan, and the vacuum, and the 409 and the sponge and the upholstery spot-cleaner, splayed around the room in disarray. “Yes honey, it looks clean and tidy, neat as a pin right under all this mess. Yes indeed.”

It’s Tuesday night and I missed registrations for the Spring semester philosophy classes at the local community college by one week. I marked my calendar for the wrong week, the deadline’s passed. I’m bummed, but figure it’s OK. I’ll just mark the calendar for summer term, no big loss.

It’s Tuesday night and my on-again/off-again beard is on-again. I admire it in the rearview mirror everyday on the way to work. I want to grow it long and bushy and wear it fashionably unkempt like a fake hippie. I like the way it makes me look, like to twist it up into little hair tornadoes while I sit and think, like the fact that it’s something different on my face after so much same on my face. I think this time might really be “the” time. The time when I grow it for good and learn to live with it. We’ll see.

Goodnight lovers.