Category: reminisce

Thoughts about the good old days… memories.

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the way to a man’s heart is through…


… that little 3ft x 3ft tile-floored, three-walled vestibule area just inside the front door.

Well, at least to this man’s heart, on this night, it is.

Keaton had a friend drop by for a few hours this evening. At one point, he was pulling around Chicken Dance Elmo in the little wagon while Keaton followed close on his heels wheeling her baby doll in the stroller. They’d circle their little procession around the living room room a few times and then head for the front room. On their way Keaton would shout, “Going to our house!,” and her friend would echo, “Our house!”

Their house, such as it was, was that little 3ft x 3ft tile-floored, three-walled vestibule area just inside the front door. They’d both cram in there with the wagon and stroller and baby doll and Chicken Dance Elmo, and be “home.” At first, Sharaun and I thought it was a fluke. But, after they did it several times, we decided they were really playing house. It was the coolest thing to watch. Where the heck do kids get this stuff?

Now I will tell a short story.

In fifth grade, our class went on a field trip to the town’s public pool. Somehow, a friend and I convinced one of the girls in our class to sneak a camera, which we provided, into the girls locker room. Her instructions, once inside, were to snap dirty pictures of a certain other girl in our class. I have no idea why she agreed to this, maybe she didn’t like the other girl. The boys and girls split and went to their respective rooms to change into swimsuits, and we were jumpy with anticipation. When she finally did return the camera, we hung on her every word. “Yeah, I took some,” she said passively, as if this weren’t the successful culmination of every fifth-grade boy’s best-laid plans. I don’t remember how we got the film developed without involving the folks, but we did. In the end, our mole only managed to take a single picture, which was extremely tame and unsatisfying, but which I still have to this day. Sorry Kristina, I was in fifth-grade-love with you, it’s what we did.

Goodnight.

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youthwise


Sunday, Sharaun’s out shopping and Keaton’s asleep. So far, naptime sans pacifier has proven more difficult than bedtime – Keaton not seeming to mind its absence at all at night, yet having a hard time missing it during her afternoon naps. Yesterday I couldn’t get her to go down at all, and eventually brought her back out into the living room having caught nary a wink. Today, however, I decided to get serious, and, when she was once again playing and talking to herself instead of napping, went in and rocked her for about fifteen minutes in the glider. Once her deep, ragged breathing convinced me she’d fallen asleep on my shoulder, I transferred her to the crib, where I’m happy to say she’s still slumbering peacefully. On the whole, I’d say operation pacifiers-be-gone is moving along quite well.

This weekend, I decided it was high time I worked a bit on all the more obscure BitTorrent downloads that’ve been piling up in my downloads directory, un-listened to and unloved. In line with my laziness, I often leave the “hardest” downloads for last. For my downloading habits, the “hardest” albums are the rare live stuff I love to collect, but hate to sit down and figure out the details on so I can properly organize it, tag it, and merge it into my general collection. It may sound easy, but tracking down the details of that live Jefferson Starship jam I grabbed one day because it looked interesting when the only thing I have to go on is a folder in my “unprocessed” directory called “starship73_SBD_matrix1” is sometimes hard to do. But, I persevered, and Saturday I used Keaton’s naptime to process I whopping ~15GB of rare live FLAC audio. In fact, I’ve snipped in the resulting anally-organized list is below for your perusal, because I know you value this stuff as much as I do, right?

I’m gonna do a general interest bit for nerds now, you can turn your head if you’d like to remain cool.

When I was a kid, I read with gusto a book called Big Secrets by William Poundstone. I’ve written about the book before here on sounds familiar, in the context of my youthwise obsession with backwards audio. The book, was filled with all sorts of cool stuff. One of the coolest, in fact, was the section on mysterious shortwave radio “number stations.” I think (dad, correct me if I’m wrong) that my pop used to mess around with shortwave, and I kind of remember this being partly why I was interested in that particular chapter.

Anyway, numbers stations are an “unexplained” global radio phenomenon, in which a string of random numbers and/or letters is broadcast on a given radio frequency with no explanation, the general consensus being that they are coded communiques intended for participants international espionage community. Some stations have been broadcasting these cryptic strings of numbers since back around the time of World War I. Enticed by the mystery, amateur hammers have, on occasion, turned armchair secret-agents and attempted to triangulate signals and hunt down the broadcast locations. Reading it all back then, I was fascinated. It was like some real-life Hardy Boys thing to me… and I dreamed about getting a radio, studying the signals, and breaking the code…

Anyway, if you’re interested in this type of “cloak and dagger” type stuff, Wikipedia has a great article on numbers stations here, and you can read about the “outing” of one of my favorites from Poundstone’s book, the “Russian Woodpecker,” right here (also via the great Wikipedia). For further reading, this page keeps a list of actively transmitting numbers stations (with sound samples), and even has some cool video of radio-nuts tracking down the transmitting antennas.

I’m sorry if that was boring, but I enjoyed writing it, so you, dear reader, can suck it.

Before I go, a tip of my babymakin’ hat to friends Erik and Kristi for the birth of their strapping young buck, Colton. Way to go guys, he and Keaton can be best friends until they’re around fourteen, then they’re forbidden from seeing each other until they’re twenty-three.

Goodnight.

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my love affair


Monday my friends. An eventful weekend, that I wrote and wrote and wrote about… and then decided, in the eleventh hour, to scrap for this canned entry instead. Don’t discount it just because it’s been written for a while though, I promise it’s still good. As you read it, I’ll be flying north-by-northwise to Oregon for the week, where we’ll be spending Thanksgiving with the family. Wish me well, then, and I’ll hit you with some more words when I’m on the ground. Enjoy.

Often when I write, my memories pull me to things I’ve put down in words before. This entry is an example of that. I’ve written about the history and development of my love for music from multiple angles before, but not centered directly around the “record store” theme. And, that’s what the keyboard called my fingers to do today, write about my then-burgeoning musical fanaticism as related to record stores. Having written in bits and pieces about this already, I figured I’d link you to as much related content as I could query up, just in case you wanted to read the scattered version before the (hopefully better-reading) amassed version. So… links numbers: one, twain, and thrice.

At an early age, my obsession with the “record store” began. I guess the initial seeds were planted when my older cousin turned me on to Depeche Mode, sometime back when I was in the fourth grade. I can remember going into record stores at the mall and asking to see their Depeche Mode cassettes. I didn’t have money to buy them, of course, I just liked turning them over in my hands, looking at the artwork and reading the track titles. And, since, for some odd reason, the store in the mall kept the tapes behind the counter and the records out front, I’m sure I bothered many a clerk by having them retrieve stacks of tapes they were sure “that nine-year-old” wouldn’t buy. Over time, I learned to funnel the wee bit of discretionary income ten-year-old-me got away from Garbage Pail Kids and invested into music on tape. I began a small collection, mostly things like Depeche Mode, A-Ha, Pet Shop Boys, and the like.

Then, one day near the ripe age of twelve, our family went to visit my grandparents at their mountaintop house in Southern California. While there, my Depeche Mode introducing cousin, now himself settling well inside his teenage years, showed me the first “CDs” he had purchased. Apparently, his dad, my uncle had a new-fangled Edison that would play the odd, grooveless, silver discs. He had U2’s War and Joshua Tree, and he raved to me about them; I can still remember the passion in his young voice as he described just how good the music was on those little plastic things. It took me a while to make the conversion from cassettes to CDs though… several more years, in fact. Those buggers were expensive, and I could buy a humongous “brick” of 90min blank Maxells at K-Mart for like $10. Predictably, as I got a little older, and had a little more change in my pockets, my collection began skewing in the “dubbed a friend’s copy” direction. When I met Kyle after we moved to Florida, things exploded. With the influence his dad had on his extremely-mature-for-his-age and varied musical tastes, and the mainline connection to his dad’s collection in Texas (via dubbed cassettes again, but of course), my horde of lovingly hand-labeled 90min Maxells flourished.

Shortly thereafter, after I’d become teenage no-good in my own right, a little “record store” (although, there wasn’t a lick of vinyl but for the “DJ” albums in the back) opened up tucked into a corner of our local supermarket-anchored stripmall. Being only a few miles from my house, I used to ride my bike there regularly to peruse the selection. Owned by a middle-aged guy named Roland who had muscular dystrophy, or maybe ALS, I can’t be sure. He walked the store with the aid of those metal hand-gripped “wrist crutch” things, spoke with a thickly-slurred speech, and was actually a pretty ill-tempered guy – from what I could understand. For the most part, though, the store was “run” by a longhair in his early twenties. He was almost always there when I went in, and I used to remember his name, but it’s gone now.

At some point, in an effort, I’m sure, to flog dismal sales, Roland began offering his customers the option of “previewing” CDs. Previewing CDs was a relative new idea at the time, and plenty of stores were busy implementing in-store “listening stations” for the purpose. There was one key difference with Roland’s model, however, he let customers “preview” the discs overnight, for a $3 fee. Nevermind that this practice would be highly frowned-upon by the WEAs and Sonys of the world, it enabled him to make his cost back on the disc with just a couple “previews,” and you agreed to buy the disc if it came back in less-than-pristine state (only happened to me once, with Coil’s Stolen and Contaminated Songs. (If you haven’t heard that album, you likely never tried mushrooms in the 90s, and, unless you plan on trying them now, there’s really no need to hear it at all). Anyway, I “obtained” many an album through this “rent-a-CD” scam, dubbing them off for less than it would’ve cost to buy a cassette new. I used to rent an album a night (you could only do one at a time), Roland would acidly correcting me when I asked to “rent” something – “Issh nah rentihg!,” he’d chew around his tongue, “Issh pree-yooig!”

On a sidenote, that longhair worker and I developed a sort of record store friendship over time. He’s special order things for me, and even recommend new music to me based on what I bought and rented. In fact, he’s the one who first suggested I try out Pulp’s Different Class, which I now hold as one of my absolute favorite albums of the 90s. Kinda cool.

On another side note (the other side, perhaps), I can’t help but think now how a CD “rental” policy would translate for today’s teenagers. At the time, I was renting and dubbing CDs at the rate of one a day. Today’s kids would be renting and ripping or copying digitally, completely lossless. They could then make a torrent of their newly acquired album, and put it on the web almost instantly. I, on the other hand, had to actually purchase all that dubbed music again on compact disc later in life. Oh how times have changed…

Roland’s music store eventually went out of business. In fact, when it did, the guy who owned and operated the music store where I was working at the time bought a lot of his unsold stock. Oh, that’s right, we skipped that part, didn’t we? After graduating highschool, I took my love of the record store to a new level by actually seeking employment at one. I loved working at that store, and my impressive knowledge of music, for a guy of my age, helped make me a successful salesperson. Soon, I was “promoted” to the position of assistant manager. This meant nothing, really. A tiny raise, keys to the store, and being entrusted with counting the day’s take before recording it in the books and dropping it in the floor safe. Other than that it was just more headache: having to deal with upset customers and stupid merchandise return policies, and having to ruin peoples’ weekends by cold-calling them looking for someone to cover a slacker’s deserted shift. But man, I absolutely loved that job… headaches or no. I was around my people all the time, around the music. More than that, I could buy CDs at a buck over cost. I must’ve put half my paycheck right back into the boss’ pocket every single payday. He must’ve loved it. The job also came with “access.” If I wanted some rare Prodigy remix CD5 that was only released in limited quantities in the UK back in ’91, chances are I could page through one of the distributors’ books and put it on backorder. It sometimes never came, sometimes took months, but, more often than not, I’d score the illusive item.

This “access” turned out not to be limited to “legit” rare items, either… nope. One day, I was surprised to see a few CDs marked with neon pink “import” stickers mixed in with the regular stock. I say surprised, because, by then, I was entirely familiar with the kind of CDs mom-and-pop shops tag and sell as “imports.” Yup, bootlegs. Illicit disks that cost as much as a typical CD wholesale, likely due to the shady way they have to be mass-produced, shipped, and advertised, and retail for anywhere from $25 to $30 a pop. I asked the boss about it, and she replied that some guy had come into the store with a list of items he could get, and a trunkfull of items he had on-hand. She called the owner, and got the OK to do some speculative purchasing and see how they sold (the markup was good per disc, earning at least 200% on each, if not more). She took an empty box, accompanied the man to the parking lot, and took off his hands some discs she figured might sell, she also took a copy of his larger inventory list. I immediately asked to see the list, and was delighted to see several Beatles’ bootlegs I’d been after online, some of the original Yellow Dog releases that were already completely out of print. Finding a source like that for bootlegs, and at “cost” (well, his cost, at least), was like a dream come true to me.

I had a few truly enjoyable years in the employee of the record store… but then I had to move away from home and go to “real” college. Not long after, a new friend from my Circuits class introduced me to something called Napster, and, overnight, my love affair with the record store was over. Oh sure, I still enjoy walking into one, the least corporate the better, and perusing the stock. There’s some sort of magic charm those places have for me, I’m drawn to them even more than the traditionally-classic male retail pulls: home improvement, electronics, and books. I’ll always like record stores, I’m sure… it’s just that, for me, they’ve become quite obsolete. The internet is now my preferred music distribution channel. Because, obtained legally or otherwise, they’ve got the record store beat on price and stock.

That’s it. Have a good Monday. Goodnight.

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elevenovembers


For some reason, this seemed like a good thing to do today. Eleven years of Thanksgiving-time writing, from 1995 to last year. Cobbled together from pre-blog journals, and post-journal blogs. Random, but perhaps interesting…

Enjoy.

——————

11/23/95

Turkey Day!! I’ve been listening to the Rascals a lot, Animals too. But The Beatles’ Anthology Volume One came out Tuesday – I’ve been hitting that pretty hard. I guess the album of the moment though is JJ Cale’s Naturally; it’s freakin’ awesome. Much props and nuff spect to Bob for that one.

Joey and I went back to Astro yesterday – we pried the manhole cover off and actually descended into the chamber of doom. We took a large magic marker and wrote our own coded messages on the wall. I wrote “the chamber of doom has been breached.” Then over the proper entrance to the tunnels, I wrote “we now rule the underworld” and left first and last initials for he, Kyle, and I. Pretty cool it was.

I’m listening to the Beatles’ rooftop concert now. Guess I’m kinda bored since I’m sitting here writing on this computer. I wish there was something to do ya know? I saw the movie Clerks last night and it was pretty good. Christmas will be here soon, my B-day even sooner – 19 whole years of life, and lots of information swimming around up there ya know. One day I swear I’ll be pretty smart. Maybe not. Someone’s at the door – I guess I might have to go when they walk in here.

11/7/96

dave
is a lunafoil
and his hands are
very cold
It hurts to grip a pencil
And stings to crack his knuckles
His bones are tired and heavy
And his skin is dry and warm
His feet fit well in his own shoes
And his long shirt hangs limp

12/4/97

Woke up late today and had to rush out to class. Only come to find out that we have some quiz that I didn’t even know about. Needless to say, I didn’t do very well. This Physics class is really bringing me down – I just can’t get it. I just pray that I get at least a C in there so I don’t have to take the whole God-forsaken class over again next semester, that could screw everything up.

I am going home tomorrow again to work for Frank the funnel cake man. Wheee! I love work in the food business. Owell, it’s $100 and boy do I need it. I wish I could win the lottery, I’d keep going to school for the education sake of it, but I wouldn’t be as pressured. My finances would be set for life, no more worry. The whole money thing really sucks. I mean, I know there’s no other way to do it. You have to have some sort of economy, but I don’t understand how it works. How can our money be backed by gold, why is gold so special anyway? What makes it so valuable. I guess it’s the same unknown force that can make some words “bad.” Arbitrary choice is what I call it. Okay, maybe the scarcity of gold plays a role, but still – who cares. Dinosaur eggs are pretty rare too – why not back our money with those?

I mean, whose to say that this money is actually worth something? It’s all just paper. If someone who had no concept of money was offered a $500 bill, they’d say “What do I want with paper?” “But, it’s backed up with valuable gold sir.” “What’s gold, I don’t care, give me food or shelter or love, something I can really use, you know? What do I want with a shiny metal or green paper, they won’t sustain my life.” Ahhh, but without them you can’t get shelter or food. That’s the catch.

So, I can understand the need for money and economy – I just wish it didn’t govern my life so much. I mean, why am I really in college right now? Because I have a passion for learning and love to go to school?, not really – although I do like to learn. But the reality is that I am in college because I need a degree to get a job, I need a job to get money, which I need to live. I guess it’s a valid argument to say that you really don’t need money to live, you can always live without money, there’s plenty of ways. But those are the ways of a man in the mountains who traps and makes all his own food, has no electricity, and lives like a pioneer.

Maybe that’s why I am drawn to that lifestyle, not the full-on pioneer life, but a happy mix of mine and theirs. You know, a mountain cabin, but with electricity so I can have lights, television, and computer. Just enough amenities to live comfortably. I wish that I could just be retired but not old. Have some money to live off of that I never worked for. Man, the lottery would be great. Almost time to head back to school.

11/24/98

Well, the once a month entries continue – not by choice, it’s school clamping down on me again. It’s now the day before I go home for Thanksgiving, which means to me that in my head, the holiday season I love so much has begun. I am now reading Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. I am about 600 pages into the first book, and there are eight of them. It’ll be neat to see when I actually finish the whole thing. And he’s still writing. I can’t wait until Christmas, but then again when can I ever? I think I am going to fare pretty well in my classes this semester. Hopefully. Owell, I think I am going to go now – gotta get busy doing nothing.

11/3/99

Nothing much going on. I had my annual winter cold last weekend, it was a bad one too. I am just now beginning to feel better. I’m about to head out to the library and get some Operating Systems studied up. The test is tomorrow morning, and I really need to do well on it – although not as well as I need to do on the next Networking exam. Man – this school thing is going to be the death of me.

Listening to the new Counting Crows album, it came out yesterday – it’s pretty darn good, but I still have to get used to it before I flip out over it. Got a new modem for my computer, and I’ll get around to installing it when I have some free time. Frank moved out of the house back home – the parents are happy I guess. I can’t wait to be married and settle down. I am ready to start something of my own, a life, a family. I can’t wait. I hope that this operating systems test goes alright.

I know that these entries are so dull, I have nothing really to write about beside school. That’s all I do and think about. This thing will definitely be shut down after school.

11/28/2000

Right now I have taken two cash advances in less than a month, just to pay bills. I am paying bills with bills, and that’s not good. What happens if I max out my last credit card going to Florida and then have nothing to fall back on in case of emergency, or if I need to take one last cash advance to get us through January.

The money situation is really getting to me. I feel like a failure to Sharaun, and I have some guilt about the amount of debt we have. Talking to other grads at work and realizing that they have similar debts and money issues makes me feel better. And everyone keeps telling me that the first couple years starting out are really hard. But, I don’t want to be paying on my school loans right up until I retire – that’s ridiculous. I want to be out from under all this debt in a reasonable amount of time.

It’s the apartment rent that’s killing us now, along with the fact that work for Sharaun is slow and sparse at best. Half days here, full days less often – and just not enough extra income coming in right now. It’s not even really that, there is enough money – but there are also things in these next few months that are taking more than normal. Car downpayments, school loan payments starting, etc. I keep replying on MS Money’s cash forecast, saying that things will begin to go better after January. It sucks that our roughest month is the one month where it’s nice to have extra cash for gifts. But, whatever – we still have food to eat and a warm place to sleep – so what am I complaining about.

So now I’m just waiting for a conference call to begin, supposed to be getting some pick up work on somebody’s project. Whatever, I’m just glad to have something to do – I hope there’s a chance for some recognition with this work, whatever it is. I just want to start making a professional as well as personal impression on people. I have already established myself as a funny and friendly guy – now I need to put out the dual image of that guy doubled with a great worker. Then I can get my name out there and start on my path to riches!

Well, that’s enough for now – the phone should ring any minute…

11.25.2001

Thanksgiving was great!! We went to the a lodge in the mountains. It was almost like being at an “inn” from the Wheel of Time series that I am reading (again). We spent a lot of time relaxing, reading by the fire, watching the snow fall, etc. It was a blast. It was so gorgeous out there. Now I’m back at work, and just waiting until the next big vacation: Christmas. Then I have almost two weeks of off-time, not that my current on-time is all that taxing that I need some off-time, but whatever. We did all our Christmas shopping yesterday, and it’s been really Christmas-ey feeling lately. We’ve had a fire the past two nights, it’s been chilly enough.

Sharaun’s new job starts in January, and the money should start nearly doubling each month. That will be the biggest development since we’ve been here. Finally, enough money to pay off the last credit card, and then start sacking some away for a possible house downpayment, and start chipping away at the school loans. Right now, we’re set fine until Christmas, since I pulled out of our stock plan at work, and we got that check plus the extra each paycheck. So, once her money starts coming in, I can re-enroll in the stock plan and maybe even start putting the full into both retirement plans again. I really want to do that, and as soon as possible too. I have been too long out of them.

11.25.2002

Ever since I removed this thing from the work PC, I haven’t really written. Much, much, has happened. And I even think I lost an entry due some strange overwriting that may have gone on between this local file and the one on the server.

Anyway. So much. My boss got fired. One of my best friends is getting a divorce. Another, less-close, got an a car accident and nearly died; drunk. We took a limo to see Rent in San Francisco. Sharaun learned today her job is gone next year, so it’s back to the hand-pressing for her. Too much, way too much to write in detail about. I’ll let that serve enough, mostly because I’ve been through it all so many times in my head and out of my mouth, that I’m sick of talking about it all.

Right now I’m feeling depressed. I’m feeling removed, lonely or something. Sharaun is at a late-night soccer game, I stayed here. I guess part of the feeling I have right now is almost guilt. Over what, I don’t know. But I’m sure it’s guilt. I was driving home, thinking about how I’m sometimes proud at how well I roll with the punches, and also how sometimes I think I shouldn’t “roll” so easily. Sometimes I almost think I’m removed from things too much. I mean, I like to think that I just don’t let things I can’t change bother me. But maybe it’s more than that, maybe I just am too separated from it all. I kinda know what I wanna say here, but not really. It’s more rambling. It’s not like I’m a cyborg without feelings, but sometimes I’m very cleverly removed from experiencing things in the “conventional” way. I have this buffer zone or something, which I feel is somewhat admirable and somewhat questionably detestable. Or something.

11/24/2003

thiickkeenn your maan11y swordd

11/25/2004

thanks

11/24/2005

yellow photos

11/24/2006

football and leftovers

——————

Oh, and, oddly enough, I’m still trying to finish the Wheel of Time series…

Goodnight.

Posted on

fathering gold


What’s that they say about a man’s home being his castle? It’s true – I’ll tell you now. As I sit here, the final bits of daylight streaking Wednesday’s cloudy sky, I’m all alone (save for the cat and the pasta on the stove, if they count). Sharaun’s with Keaton at church. I, an occasional heathen, chose not to go. I know, I know, I shouldn’t forgo it, but… I did. So I sit here once again, with the windows open wide to catch the failing sun before it’s gone, Radiohead’s new LP loud on the speakers, and some bachelor-style pasta aboil on the stove. I can put an ‘a’ before “boil” and make it a fancier verb, right? I think you can do that with any verb, technically, if archaically at that. Anyway, I’m’a do it and you’re’a read it… and that’s about it, K? Let’s do this thang.

Seriously though, I’ve explored the theme of how much I love my “home” before on this blog, but moreso lately the whole theme keeps replaying in my head. Pretty sure it has to do with the fact that, during these last few days of sabbatical “downtime,” I’ve not strayed far from the comforts of the place. Cloistered tight within the walls, satisfied to waste the wonderful days reading and listening to music and lounging. I know, you’re saying, how many dang times can I write about “being lazy and listening to music?” A lot, apparently. For reals, though, I am having a truly good time… even if I do have a slight tinge of guilt about wasting so many fine outdoor hours. I feel I’ve earned some time to atrophy and watch the dust motes drift, I just do. In fact, the way I feel right about now, nothing could pry the smile from the corners of my mouth – I just feel good; happy; contented; in clover.

Speaking of Radiohead’s new album… What? Oh, I wasn’t? Hmmm…. well, shutup then. Speaking of Radiohead’s new album, I find it fantastic. And I’m confident that, with the two-plus hours of unadulterated listening time I have before me now, of which, by the way, I’m already taking full advantage, the thing will continue to grow on me. Man, I hope the comma/clause thing I have going on in that sentence is valid. You should get this album. It’s free, what do you care? Seriously… go and download it from anywhere… it’s all over the internetsites out there. If you have trouble finding it, this link should help. Good listening to ya.

Before I leave the subject, though, and because the message boards I frequently lurk on are alive with Radiohead chatter this day, I wanted to just pass along a hilarious quote from a looong thread about In Rainbows. This quote, I’m afraid, holds Nostradamus-esque signs and portents for how my own listening party will likely tonight, mere minutes from now, I’ll wager:

Well, after an evening of Radiohead holiday, reality slaps me in the face as my girlfriend walks in, politely listens to “15 Step” and “Bodysnatchers,” and then asks me to turn it off so she can watch that reality show about the restaurants that suck until the one guy comes in and makes them not suck, while making people cry.

Seeya tomorrow, Radiohead.

Moving on.

One of the fondest memories I have from my days as a kid is throwing a bottle to sea. A note I’d written, with help from dad, rolled tight and tucked inside, I can remember rearing back and tossing it off the end of the pier with all my might into the breakwater. My dad suggested both my brother and I do it, something to do together for fun. I don’t know what it is, but there is something distinctly “manly” feeling about throwing a message in a bottle into the surf. I suppose it evokes the survivalist archetype ingrained in the male psyche, or somesuch Jungian nonsense… Regardless, as activities for young boys to do with their dads go, it ranks up near the top to me. We used the resealable clamp/stopper-type bottles, you know, the ones with the ceramic/rubber stopper on the metal hinge thing you push down against the neck for the tension seal.

Even though I don’t remember the exact contents of the notes us young castaways tossed asea that day, I do remember including our addresses and an admonishment to any potential finders that we’d love to hear from them. I remember walking to the very tippy-top of the pier and chucking the thing into the coming waves, watching them bob in place for a bit before losing sight of them in the wash, hoping they’d make their way out to the deeper waters and maybe catch a swell that’d carry them to some foreign land. Man, what a great “bonding” thing to do with your kids, eh? Kudos, pop – that was fathering gold right there. Never did get a response from those bottles, I suppose. Likely they ended up in tidepool on the beach near the pier, never really going anywhere – but, that didn’t matter to me. I’m gonna do that with my own kid(s) one day… I promise. Way cool.

Awww crap, I thought it sounded familiar… last paragraph here. Three and a half years ago… must be running out of memories.

‘Fore I go, I was randomly reading posts again… here’s another bit I found funny and had forgotten writing altogether. Third paragraph into this one. A piece of string… still laughing.

Goodnight.

Posted on

dedicated to naked women


Hey folks. Long blog today, and while it’s not X-rated by any stretch – it does deal with adult themes (as the ratings board would say). Anyway, it was tagged on to the end of yesterday’s Keaton-focused piece, but when it grew by leaps and bounds it threatened to overshadow the “good dad” feel I had going – and it warranted its own entry. I’ll just do it now, then, and write regular stuff tomorrow. Enjoy.

I like to think I can remember the first time I learned that there were entire magazines dedicated to naked women. I like to think I can, but in reality I’m unsure when the exact moment was. Somehow this morning, though, I got to thinking about my pornographic awakening – and decided it would make a fine blog article. Coming of age is one thing, but a young man’s slow introduction to pornography is a whole coming-of-age sub-timeline in and of itself – and is thus worthy of it’s own independent documentation. So let’s move linearly through this awakening, using the progression of time as our axis, shall we? Sure we shall!

Like I said, I don’t think I can honestly say I clearly recall my first encounter with pornography. I can, however, say with a fairly high degree of accuracy when, where, and what I think it was. As far as I can tell, I officially lost my innocence sometime in the third grade. Does that seem too young to you? Yeah, me too. But, that’s how it all went down, I’m afraid. I can recall sneaking into my friend’s dad’s closet, feeling “bad” for just being in his folks’ room in the first place. What we were after lay tucked around the corner on the closet floor: a stack of magazines filling plain brown grocery bag nearly to the top. Playboy magazines, all of them – how my buddy learned of them I don’t know.

We were careful always to pull from the center, and replace the top of the stack after taking one. Our thinking was that, with such a large stack, he’d never notice a single issue gone AWOL, certainly not from the center of his stash. Thinking back on it now with an adult mind, though, I realize the stack was likely arranged chronologically, although we doubtless knew neither the word or concept – and were confident he’d never figure out he’d been relieved of one.

We’d take the magazine to the side of his house, sheltered to our backs by the building itself and our fronts by a thick row of hedges. We’d crouch there in the dead leaves and flip through the glossy pages of women. In the end, we’d bury the things under the piles of leaves, to return later and revisit their slowly biodegrading pages. All in all I think we must’ve liberated three or so magazines, and left them there for the snails and bugs to eat, for the rain to warp and the sun to bleach, and, most importantly, for our curious minds.

I don’t remember deriving any carnal pleasure by looking at those magazines, however. I suppose we were too young to understand, and were more interested in the rule-breaking and taboo aspect of the whole thing. Good thing, I suppose, as I was, after all, only in the third grade – for crap’s sake.

The next thing I remember along this NSFW timeline is a book. I think it was called Anchors Away, and I’ve written about it before. We found this book one day on the way home from school, a large group of us who all went to the same place each day after the final bell. Finding the cover intriguing, I can recall reading from it and realizing we had something special. See, Anchors Away was a so-called “blue” novel. Paperback smut, literary pornography. And, I’m not talking about your $2.99 supermarket checkout romance novel dirty, this was real Penthouse Forum stuff (at least, to a fifth grader). Each day on the way home, we’d pluck the novel from it’s appointed hiding place and rip out a single page. One of the older boys would then take turns reading aloud to the troupe as we journeyed from the schoolyard to the babysitter’s place. I learned a lot of new words that way, but I suppose it was something of a step back from the living images I’d been weaned on. It did, however, serve to educate me on what women actually did with those typically-covered bits I’d seen earlier in those Playboys among the leaves.

I think we eventually got caught with this book; one of the younger kids must’ve squealed. I say I “think” we got caught because I do recall getting caught, for something… I can remember my mom making me go out into the field and get whatever it was we were caught with (I’m still leaning towards this trashy novel), digging it up from it’s hiding place against a fence. Some part of me remembers a magazine buried in a field too, though, which is why I’m confused. Nonetheless, whatever it was we were caught with, be it magazine or blue paperback, the two were around the same time, and it spurred my mother to bring home a copy of Where Did I Come From? in attempt to educate me properly about the birds and the bees. I suppose it was good, but Anchors Away sure painted a more exciting picture than did the wiggly-lined cartoons in Where Did I Come From?

Shortly after the book incident, pornography blossomed in front of my young eyes. In the short year or two that was fourth and fifth grade the long sword of porn pushed its way into my consciousness from several different angles. I can remember discovering that one of our favorite bike-riding haunts, the “chalk trails,” was not only a BMX wonderland but also a hidden cache of porn. Soon, we’d realized that you could hardly poke around a bush, overturn a rock, or kick the bottom of a ditch at the place without unearthing a nudey magazine. It was then I learned that kids horde and stash porn in this way at common, usually unincorporated, gathering places. Don’t believe me? Next time you see some young kids riding bikes through that thicket of pines near your house, take your dog for a walk out there and kick the weeds a bit – I’ll bet you an issue or two of Jugs will roll off your toe sooner or later.

Similarly, I can recall finding another cache of girly magazines tucked away in an alley frequented by local skateboarders for a unique concrete burm which made up one end of it. There, hidden under a pile of the kind of bushes that become tumbelweeds when they dry out and the wind’s up, we found another worm-eaten, weather-wracked, stack of porn. We, of course, stole these and re-hid them to our own ends. It must go this way over and over again for those homeless magazines. To be hidden and unhidden by their pubescent stewards, all until they’re found by someone other than the original hider, only to be transported to a new hiding place for the cycle to begin anew again. There must be reams of dirty magazines out there that travel around this way, from bush to bush or rock to rock, visited by their grubby-handed “owners” on the weekend for a peek. I imagine this population of transient literature has entertained many a kid as they’re buried and reburied over the years. Kinda neat to think about.

Anyway, it was also around this time in my life, that I can remember hearing Two Live Crew’s debut album, The 2 Live Crew Is What We Are. Our neighbor’s babysitter had a copy, which, thinking about it now, was quite vogue of her at the time, I suppose. The neighbors behind us also had a copy, and they’d listen to it in their backyard now and again. I knew it from the time I’d heard it across the street from the babysitter. What a shock it was to hear this album. And, although it may seem a small thing – I do feel like I wouldn’t remember it so vividly had it not played a role in what I learned and when. The songs were graphic, but comedic. And, once again, I think the whole “naughtiness” of it was the greater attractant than the subject matter itself.

Near the end of the fifth grade, my family moved from California to Florida. And, along with my friends and classmates left back on the west coast were all the porn hotspots we’d come to know. I had no more “sure fire” repositories of tattered magazines I could simply ride out to with my friends. But, as soon as I’d managed to make friends in sunny Florida, we’d managed to figure out which stand of trees and which ditches held the goods. I’m telling you, porn was right under the noses of kids at that age those days.

Then, eventually, it happened. I moved out of the realm of pictures in magazines and words on pages, left the land of static, unmoving images and imagination, and entered the age of moving pictures. Passed down through the generations, I received (cover your ears Libby – thanks Mike!) a rather unassuming VHS tape marked atop with a label declaring “I Like To Watch.” This was the first pornographic movie I’d ever seen. I hid it in a locked case in my closet. Why I had a locked case in my closet, I have no idea. But that’s where the movie lived, to be watched rather infrequently, in all honesty. I can remember that feeling dropping it into the VCR for the first time, like we were about to see something incredible. And, I guess, to kids in the eighth grade, it was rather amazing… Things remained pretty much the same after that. As we became older, porn was still around – it just wasn’t such a big deal anymore.

Anyway, the reason I wrote this whole thing… all these words… is to talk about how utterly different things must be for teen and preteen boys nowadays. Likely gone are the days of hiding absconded Playboys under piles of leaves, of burying graphic novels under mounds of dirt. And we all know why, right? Let’s say it all together, then: the internet.

It’s my belief that, were this piece written by Joe Anykid who’d grown up in this day and age, he’d unflinchingly name the good ol’ information superhighway as his introduction to porn. Oh, and and there’s no way today’s kids’ learning curves could be as “stepped” a program as I went through back in my day, either. Back then we scraped together pages torn from magazines, single boob-covered playing cards lifted from stag parties, and those pens where you turn them upside-down and the chick’s clothes come off. Those were our brief, fleeting snatches of the Holy Grail. Today, however, all a kid has to do is “log on” and he’s got it all. No bit-by-bit introduction, no long period of discovery, nope, not anymore. It must go right from curiosity over scantily-clad adult-themed primetime TV to scheiße and donkey shows these days.

Must kinda suck, you know, not to be able to have any real revelatory moments on that pathway to porn omnipotence. To turn on the computer and all at once in one fell swoop learn every single debaucherous, raunchy, disgusting aspect of the trade – from the most mainstream to the darkest most fearsome fringes – all on the same webpage, perhaps. Poor kids, exposed to everything and anything at once, a tainted smörgåsbord of the immoral and illegal – benefiting naught from the baby-stepped approach to porn that was our introduction in the eighties.

Ahhh… the wonder of the internet. I liked my way better.

Oh, and remember folks, pornography is evil, and no good can come from it. K? K.

See ya!

Posted on

soylent green is teachers!


Happy Wednesday night, lovers. I didn’t write yesterday because I was preoccupied with workstuffs. Have no fear, however, as I’ll only be able to blame work for another couple weeks. Let us commence.

The other day I was talking to a friend and he happened to mention that his wife had recently secured a part time teaching gig at a local middle school. English, if you must know. Anyway, this got me thinking back to my own middle school days, and the teachers that I had as I went through the education system. More importantly, it got me thinking about teachers as people.

I’ve long known, now that I’m grown and mature and ever-so intelligent, that teachers are, in fact, real, living, breathing, humans. I suppose, if you had me hooked to a polygraph (and I had no thumbtack in my shoe), I’d be forced to admit that I’ve always known this – but the attitude allowances afforded the young gave me leave to ignore it when I was, myself, in middle school. Kids are expected to be immature, that’s why we made a word for it. Adults know pre-teen kids are going to be hellions, particularly the boys. So, despite knowing all along that teachers were indeed people, with red blood not unlike my own, I used the long leash of youth to treat them otherwise. In fact, I/we treated them downright awful, quite unlike people, in fact.

I can remember standing outside our English classroom prior to the bell, quietly informing everyone who passed by that they would be expected to throw paperballs at the teacher at precisely 1:15pm on the classroom clock. I’d never orchestrated anything of the kind before, and wasn’t even sure it would work, as it had come to me rather suddenly. Sure enough, all around the room I could see the clandestine preparations, the attempted silent paper-crumple, the tucking of the intended missiles behind Trapper Keepers and under legs. Then, as the appointed time rolled around, the room was alive with bridled energy. I knew that, should no one cast the first stone, nothing would happen. So, I raised my arm and let my crumpled paper fly. A deluge of wadded paper followed. The participation and output were worth being proud of. Some kids threw one, some threw multiples, and even the goodest of the good had no qualms about adding their wads to the lot when the onslaught was anonymous, but I saw them.

I really remember writing this next one before, but I searched the archives… and I could find it.. soo…

I also remember the time my 7th grade gym teacher overheard me telling my friends that my dad could pick locks. They had just given us a lecture on the locker room requirement for Master combination locks, as they were the most secure lock available, when I not so quietly told my cronies something along the lines of, “They’re not secure, my dad can figure out the combinations in a few minutes.” I was, of course, lying; straight-up 100% fabrication. My gym teacher was a gem though: when he overheard my hubris, he stopped his lecture and walked over to our group (the group ‘W’ bench) to challenge me. “Your dad can pick Master locks, son?,” he asked. “Yeah,” I say nonchalantly, not making eye contact as a show of cool. “OK,” he says. And that was that. Until, that is, I came back in to re-dress for class. That’s when he walked up to me with a cardboard box full of locked Master locks, must’ve been more than ten in there. “Take these to your dad for me, son. We don’t have the combinations and could really use them,” he added, smug with self satisfaction. Not knowing what to do, I took them.

When I got home, I had no choice but to come clean to my dad. I told him about how I’d bragged, how I’d lied, and how the gym teacher had called me on the carpet for the whole bit. Now, I don’t pretend to be in my dad’s head, but I like to think I identify with the spirit of what he did next. After listening and nodding, he rose, fetched the Yellow Pages from the cupboard above the phone, and flipped to the ‘Ls’ for “locksmith.” “Yes,” I heard him say, “I have some Master locks to which I’ve lost the combination, is there any way you can help me get them open?” Silence, as he listened. “Uh-huh,” he said, “I see. I’ll be right over. Thank you very much.” Then my dad and I, and the box of locked Master locks, got in the Nissan Sentra and drove the five minutes to the local locksmith. When we got there, the smithy looked up each lock in turn by serial number in a blue book emblazoned with the “Master” logo. And, one by one, opened each one and affixed to each a Post-It with the combination. With each lock opened and annotated, he rang us up at $3 each. My dad paid, and we were on our way.

When I came to gym the next day, I carried a box of opened locks, each with its combination attached. I walked right into the gym teacher’s office and handed over the box. After opening it and inspecting the contents, I could read the surprise on his face. “Tell your dad thanks from me,” he said as he set it aside, his tail not quite as between his legs as I’d hoped – but still sounding defeated nonetheless. Triumphant, I walked to my locker to change. I don’t remember making a big deal of my achievement to the crew, mostly I guess because I was afraid they’d ask how I did it and word would get back to the teacher. No, I wanted him to be deflated, I wanted him to be beaten, I wanted to be the winner.

As an aside: Not but a few years ago, I had the opportunity to tell that very gym teacher (who’s still teaching in that same gym, by the way) what had really happened. Surprisingly, he remembered the event clearly – but had forgotten it was me who had hornswaggled him. When I told him what we’d really done, paying for combinations at the locksmith, he was surprised and a touch vexed, I think. He’s a good guy, and a friend of ours that we see every now and again when we’re back home – but I still think he secretly hates me just a little for that one.

Oh, and, talk about a cool dad, huh?

But, as clearly as the above described behavior demonstrates my point – I haven’t even gotten to the whole reason I picked this topic today… the most demonstrative story of them all; proof that, to us, teachers just weren’t classified as genetic kin.

It was the time we found out where our Algebra teacher lived. We had recognized the van in the driveway while riding bikes through the neighborhood the weekend before, it was unmistakable. We snuck out the following Friday night, armed with eggs. The mission was simple: egg her van. Something, however, went wrong when one of our co-conspirators pulled a can of spraypaint from his jacket. Before we had time to protest (and, not that we would, with the evils of peer pressure, and all), he had shaken it and tittled it towards the van. When we left, running, the van now prominently displayed in bright green: 2 + 2 = 5. Ugh, to this day I shudder when I think about her finding that in the morning. Knowing full well that she was a chosen target, and that she more than likely would see the perpetrators on Monday, yet having no way to catch them.

I think about it now, how expensive auto body work is. How paint ain’t cheap, how aggravating it is to spend time righting something you never wronged in the first place, how frustrating it is to have no one to blame, and how violating it is to be victimized in the place you feel most comfortable.

Sorry teachers, I owe ya.

No proofreading – go! Goodnight.