Hooley's is an Irish pub about two miles from here.
Before he moved to Nashville five years ago, my son Tyler was in a band that played a couple of New Year's Day gigs at Hooley's. Only it wasn't Jan. 1. It was Dec. 31.
And that's how the Irish New Year's tradition got started at Alta Mira. Friends would be invited and we would meet at Hooley's about 3 p.m. to drink and listen to Tyler's band while we awaited midnight in Dublin, which was 4 p.m. in San Diego. The big countdown would come, New Year's would arrive in Ireland, and at Hooley's everybody would yell "Happy New Year!" and go into a crazed state for several minutes.
About 4:15, we would depart the tumult and go back to Alta Mira for more toasting and to eat our black-eyed peas and roast pork. Then Tyler moved to Nashville. We went back to Hooley's for the next Irish New Year, even though Tyler was gone. The place was jammed as usual, which is more fun when you are 30 than it is when you reach 60. The following year, we had the bright idea to leave Hooley's to the younger howlers and keep our whole part of the party at Alta Mira. And so Wednesday, revelers will arrive at 3:30, we will drink and keep the watch for midnight to arrive in Ireland, we will yell like crazy when it does, then have a nice dinner starring black-eyed peas.
Guests generally leave around 7, and if they choose, they can find a place to stay up until midnight and yell in the San Diego New Year, or if they can't keep their eyes open until midnight, they can be in bed and asleep by 9 or 10, knowing they have already rung the New Year in. You feel a lot better on New Year's morning that way, and you get to eat black-eyes for luck twice.
Tyler, meanwhile, has a bigger gig than Hooley's this New Year's Eve. He will be playing bass and guitar for the Emmitt/Nershi Band, which is opening for The Del McCoury Band, headliners at the New Year's Eve performance of The Grand Ole Opry, on the stage of the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. That, I would stay up for.
December 29, 2008
December 28, 2008
Summer is way off to the left, there
Above is the solstice sunrise on Dec. 21, when the sun rose out of Tut's eye. Just to the left of the sun, you see Tut's cute little upturned nose, way too upturned, some might say, for a mummy, but we had nothing to say about it.
Now here is this morning's sunrise, Dec. 28, one week after the solstice, and the sun rose right on the bridge of Tut's nose. Imagine you were looking at this picture on this morning one million years ago, and how happy you would feel. The sun is coming back! It will be swimsuit season in no time.
December 26, 2008
Black-eyed peas for New Year's
You can research the reason why Southerners eat black-eyed peas on New Year's Day for good luck, and you can find some engaging, interesting symbolism, such as, "the peas swell when they are cooking, just as your luck will swell in the New Year."
As a Southerner, I wouldn't doubt that for a minute, even if it does not exactly make my eyes mist over. But if that is a little more symbolism than you can chew, and you prefer a more realistic connection between the solicitation and the result, listen to this, which is a true statement: When black-eyes acquired their New Year's Day reputation for luck, it was because the Southern people had grown their own black-eyes, in the warm gardens and fields of summer, and then "put them up," or what city folks call "canning," in quart-sized Mason jars.
On New Year's Day, they opened a couple of these jars, heated up the black-eyes, put them on the table, took a mouthful, and in that instant knew without doubt that in the whole year to come they could not possibly do better, or feel even half as good as they did at that moment, even if a plane flew over and dropped a million dollars on the porch. A year is a long time, and if you want luck throughout, you need to aim high on Day One. And that's where the tradition came from. People who have had put-up black-eyes realize this.
Having put-up black-eyes in the urban age is pretty much a case of knowing the right people. Before his death, Cliff Sims and I were high school classmates and then lifelong pals, and when we were pals, he married Carolyn Meredith, whose parents were farmers near Roscoe, Texas. When I would see Cliff and Carolyn, she would load me up with all the quarts I could talk her out of to take back to California. Believe me, those peas were a standard most of us will never realize on New Year's Day.
So we do the next-best thing. What follows is a recipe that works with either fresh or dried black-eyes. The tradition is popular enough to cause Southern California grocers to stock fresh black-eyes in the week before New Year's, and they come out fine, but I think dried are even better. They taste more like country.
1 lb. dried black-eyes
8 slices bacon, diced
1 medium onion, chopped
salt and pepper
Rinse the black-eyes and soak 4 hours in plenty of water to cover.
In a bean pot or dutch oven, put the bacon with water barely to cover. Over medium-high heat, let the water reduce and boil away just until the bacon starts to fry.
Stir in the onion, liberally season with salt and pepper, and cook until softened. During this time, a dark sheen will start to form on the bottom of the pot. This sheen is flavor gold. You actually are scorching things a little. But not too much. When the sheen is a nice mahogany, pour in half a cup of black coffee, or water. Turn heat to medium-low and scrape the bottom of the pot to help the sheen dissolve into the liquid. In high-tone places, this is called "deglazing the pot."
Drain the black-eyes and pour into the pot (If you use fresh, just rinse and dump them in the pot) with just enough water to reach the top of the peas. Turn heat to low, cover, and simmer until the black-eyes are soft, but not mushy. Start checking at an hour.
On New Year's we are going to have our black-eyes with roasted country-style pork ribs, drunken tomatoes, and good bread. Black-eyes freeze nicely, so don't be shy about making a lot. With luck, you can always have too little, but you can never have too much.
As a Southerner, I wouldn't doubt that for a minute, even if it does not exactly make my eyes mist over. But if that is a little more symbolism than you can chew, and you prefer a more realistic connection between the solicitation and the result, listen to this, which is a true statement: When black-eyes acquired their New Year's Day reputation for luck, it was because the Southern people had grown their own black-eyes, in the warm gardens and fields of summer, and then "put them up," or what city folks call "canning," in quart-sized Mason jars.
On New Year's Day, they opened a couple of these jars, heated up the black-eyes, put them on the table, took a mouthful, and in that instant knew without doubt that in the whole year to come they could not possibly do better, or feel even half as good as they did at that moment, even if a plane flew over and dropped a million dollars on the porch. A year is a long time, and if you want luck throughout, you need to aim high on Day One. And that's where the tradition came from. People who have had put-up black-eyes realize this.
Having put-up black-eyes in the urban age is pretty much a case of knowing the right people. Before his death, Cliff Sims and I were high school classmates and then lifelong pals, and when we were pals, he married Carolyn Meredith, whose parents were farmers near Roscoe, Texas. When I would see Cliff and Carolyn, she would load me up with all the quarts I could talk her out of to take back to California. Believe me, those peas were a standard most of us will never realize on New Year's Day.
So we do the next-best thing. What follows is a recipe that works with either fresh or dried black-eyes. The tradition is popular enough to cause Southern California grocers to stock fresh black-eyes in the week before New Year's, and they come out fine, but I think dried are even better. They taste more like country.
1 lb. dried black-eyes
8 slices bacon, diced
1 medium onion, chopped
salt and pepper
Rinse the black-eyes and soak 4 hours in plenty of water to cover.
In a bean pot or dutch oven, put the bacon with water barely to cover. Over medium-high heat, let the water reduce and boil away just until the bacon starts to fry.
Stir in the onion, liberally season with salt and pepper, and cook until softened. During this time, a dark sheen will start to form on the bottom of the pot. This sheen is flavor gold. You actually are scorching things a little. But not too much. When the sheen is a nice mahogany, pour in half a cup of black coffee, or water. Turn heat to medium-low and scrape the bottom of the pot to help the sheen dissolve into the liquid. In high-tone places, this is called "deglazing the pot."
Drain the black-eyes and pour into the pot (If you use fresh, just rinse and dump them in the pot) with just enough water to reach the top of the peas. Turn heat to low, cover, and simmer until the black-eyes are soft, but not mushy. Start checking at an hour.
On New Year's we are going to have our black-eyes with roasted country-style pork ribs, drunken tomatoes, and good bread. Black-eyes freeze nicely, so don't be shy about making a lot. With luck, you can always have too little, but you can never have too much.
December 24, 2008
Yes, Michael, there is a Santa Claus
When I was nine years old, hopelessly jaded, cynical and wise, I told the six-year-old neighbor girl, Judy Hamilton, from across the street, and her little sister Laura, that there was no Santa Claus.
Later in the day, Martha Hamilton, a very tall woman, walked across the street and without referring directly to my world-weariness, told me from her great height that she wished I had not told her daughters that there was no Santa Claus.
From that day forward I kept my wisdom to myself and never ever again even thought about telling someone that there was no Santa Claus. Then, around the time I was in the 35th grade, a couple of things happened. By then I was a father; Jessie was 10 and Tyler was eight. We went to Disneyland on an off-season day when workers were repairing the Fantasyland Castle. They had erected scaffolding. Until that moment, whenever I had looked at the Castle from Main Street, it had soared into the sky like the spires of European cathedrals. But I knew the dimensions of scaffolding, and against that grid of data, the Castle seemed no bigger than an ordinary house.
I looked into the wide eyes of Jessie and Tyler and realized they didn't know the dimensions of scaffolding; they hadn't had time in their young lives to acquire such data. If they had, I was instantly convinced, Disney would put up that scaffolding only at night and take it down before opening the next day, so the kids would still believe in the Castle. For me, data had become the decay of imagination. And my imagination woke up when I screamed at it that day, still in good working order. I have kept it that way ever since. It may have been that very day that I decided the best possible life would be to have the imagination of a six-year-old, and the experience of a 65-year-old.
From that experience rose a teaching point. In discussing imagination, I will ask my students: "Can animals talk?" They remain noncommittal. I ask: "Who is the most famous talking animal in the world today?" One or two will say, "Mr. Ed." I have no idea where these 2008 college students learned of Mr. Ed, or why he should sport such qualifications, but there it is. Then I prompt them: "This talking animal oversees an international entertainment empire that has made billions of dollars. We gladly pay sixty-five dollars to go to his park and talk to him. We will buy his ears and take them home and WEAR THEM." And then someone says, "Mickey Mouse!" Correcto.
Actually my favorite talking animal is Hobbes, from "Calvin and Hobbes," and I have a developing affection for the rat who starts his own restaurant in "Ratatouille." But you get the point. A guy will pay $45 (including popcorn and a small coke) to take his girl to a movie starring Shrek.
Then, some time close to the Disney experience, at Christmastime, I was in a mall, shopping, when shoppers in malls were still shoulder-to-shoulder. I never go to malls. Going to malls and hip replacement surgery are only a couple of spaces apart in my list of preferences. I crawled under a bench and said to myself: "What am I doing here?" I knew that somebody like me was there for only one reason: to put presents under Christmas trees. That made me feel better. A jolly old spirit was with me. I wasn't entirely crazy.
Then I thought: if Mickey Mouse can talk, can't Santa Claus give? Absolutely. He just needs a lot of helpers. Elves, if you will. Do I believe in elves? Sure I do. I am one.
Later in the day, Martha Hamilton, a very tall woman, walked across the street and without referring directly to my world-weariness, told me from her great height that she wished I had not told her daughters that there was no Santa Claus.
From that day forward I kept my wisdom to myself and never ever again even thought about telling someone that there was no Santa Claus. Then, around the time I was in the 35th grade, a couple of things happened. By then I was a father; Jessie was 10 and Tyler was eight. We went to Disneyland on an off-season day when workers were repairing the Fantasyland Castle. They had erected scaffolding. Until that moment, whenever I had looked at the Castle from Main Street, it had soared into the sky like the spires of European cathedrals. But I knew the dimensions of scaffolding, and against that grid of data, the Castle seemed no bigger than an ordinary house.
I looked into the wide eyes of Jessie and Tyler and realized they didn't know the dimensions of scaffolding; they hadn't had time in their young lives to acquire such data. If they had, I was instantly convinced, Disney would put up that scaffolding only at night and take it down before opening the next day, so the kids would still believe in the Castle. For me, data had become the decay of imagination. And my imagination woke up when I screamed at it that day, still in good working order. I have kept it that way ever since. It may have been that very day that I decided the best possible life would be to have the imagination of a six-year-old, and the experience of a 65-year-old.
From that experience rose a teaching point. In discussing imagination, I will ask my students: "Can animals talk?" They remain noncommittal. I ask: "Who is the most famous talking animal in the world today?" One or two will say, "Mr. Ed." I have no idea where these 2008 college students learned of Mr. Ed, or why he should sport such qualifications, but there it is. Then I prompt them: "This talking animal oversees an international entertainment empire that has made billions of dollars. We gladly pay sixty-five dollars to go to his park and talk to him. We will buy his ears and take them home and WEAR THEM." And then someone says, "Mickey Mouse!" Correcto.
Actually my favorite talking animal is Hobbes, from "Calvin and Hobbes," and I have a developing affection for the rat who starts his own restaurant in "Ratatouille." But you get the point. A guy will pay $45 (including popcorn and a small coke) to take his girl to a movie starring Shrek.
Then, some time close to the Disney experience, at Christmastime, I was in a mall, shopping, when shoppers in malls were still shoulder-to-shoulder. I never go to malls. Going to malls and hip replacement surgery are only a couple of spaces apart in my list of preferences. I crawled under a bench and said to myself: "What am I doing here?" I knew that somebody like me was there for only one reason: to put presents under Christmas trees. That made me feel better. A jolly old spirit was with me. I wasn't entirely crazy.
Then I thought: if Mickey Mouse can talk, can't Santa Claus give? Absolutely. He just needs a lot of helpers. Elves, if you will. Do I believe in elves? Sure I do. I am one.
Some art is hard to plan for
In the 1990s, when the kitchen nook was being built, I should have caught the carpenters at work installing a light switch in the wrong place. I should have said, "Listen, on Christmas Eve, 2008, the sun is going to rise at just the right moment, and at a certain particular angle, that will cast a silhouette of Karen working on a crossword puzzle on the wall opposite the nook table. If you put the switch there, it will cut off part of her head."
But I didn't.
But I didn't.
December 22, 2008
Ho ho ho for hominy
I want to share with you a recipe that is different and a good last-minute one for the holidays. It goes with everything from turkey to barbecue, it is quick and easy to make, cheap, and sticks to your ribs without too big a caloric hit. Everywhere I take it, including a party we went to last night, people love it.
I wish it was my recipe. But it's not. It is "Jessica's Favorite Green Chile Hominy Casserole," from Tom Perini's cookbook, "Texas Cowboy Cooking," available at the Perini Ranch Steakhouse website. Tom and I were high school classmates in Abilene, and he is now nationally famous for his "Cowboy Cooking" catering business.
I just call it "Hominy Casserole." This is the recipe in the cookbook, with a couple of local wrinkles thrown in (all recipes are only a starting place for what you do with it). It serves 10 ordinary people, and six who have had Hominy Casserole before.
1 cup chopped onion
four 15-ounce cans hominy (two yellow, two white)
½ cup hominy liquid
1 tablespoon liquid from a jar of pickled jalapenos
1/4 pound cheddar cheese, grated
10 slices bacon
1 cup diced green chiles (such as Ortega)
Fry the bacon until crisp and drain on paper towels.
In a little of the bacon fat, sauté the onion until soft.
Drain the hominy, saving half a cup of liquid. Dump the hominy in with the onions and heat, stirring regularly, until the hominy is heated through.
Add the hominy liquid and the jalapeno liquid. Stir over medium heat to reduce the liquids. Add the cheese and stir until it melts. Add the green chiles. Crumble the crisp bacon into the mix. Stir until blended.
It is ready to serve at this point. Or you can make it in advance and refrigerate it, even freeze it. This is what makes it so easy at holiday season. When you're ready to eat, you can sprinkle more cheese and bacon over the top, or not. (I only use ¼-pound of cheese, and the recipe calls for half a cup.) Bake it in a 325 oven for 15 minutes, or 40 minutes if it has been refrigerated.
Hominy Casserole is the kind of thing, if there are any leftovers, that you will wake up in the middle of the night and take out of the icebox and eat cold. In fact it is better to make sure you prepare a bigger batch than the people at your table can possibly eat, no matter how hard they try.
I wish it was my recipe. But it's not. It is "Jessica's Favorite Green Chile Hominy Casserole," from Tom Perini's cookbook, "Texas Cowboy Cooking," available at the Perini Ranch Steakhouse website. Tom and I were high school classmates in Abilene, and he is now nationally famous for his "Cowboy Cooking" catering business.
I just call it "Hominy Casserole." This is the recipe in the cookbook, with a couple of local wrinkles thrown in (all recipes are only a starting place for what you do with it). It serves 10 ordinary people, and six who have had Hominy Casserole before.
1 cup chopped onion
four 15-ounce cans hominy (two yellow, two white)
½ cup hominy liquid
1 tablespoon liquid from a jar of pickled jalapenos
1/4 pound cheddar cheese, grated
10 slices bacon
1 cup diced green chiles (such as Ortega)
Fry the bacon until crisp and drain on paper towels.
In a little of the bacon fat, sauté the onion until soft.
Drain the hominy, saving half a cup of liquid. Dump the hominy in with the onions and heat, stirring regularly, until the hominy is heated through.
Add the hominy liquid and the jalapeno liquid. Stir over medium heat to reduce the liquids. Add the cheese and stir until it melts. Add the green chiles. Crumble the crisp bacon into the mix. Stir until blended.
It is ready to serve at this point. Or you can make it in advance and refrigerate it, even freeze it. This is what makes it so easy at holiday season. When you're ready to eat, you can sprinkle more cheese and bacon over the top, or not. (I only use ¼-pound of cheese, and the recipe calls for half a cup.) Bake it in a 325 oven for 15 minutes, or 40 minutes if it has been refrigerated.
Hominy Casserole is the kind of thing, if there are any leftovers, that you will wake up in the middle of the night and take out of the icebox and eat cold. In fact it is better to make sure you prepare a bigger batch than the people at your table can possibly eat, no matter how hard they try.
December 21, 2008
Sun of Tut comes through again
At 4:04 this morning, Pacific Standard Time, a perfectly vertical ray of sunlight touched, just for an instant, a point on the Earth 23.5 degrees of latitude south of the Equator. This was the Winter Solstice. In the next instant, the tilted Earth continued on its rotation around the Sun. The Sun's falling rays left 23.5 South Latitude and started to track north.
In the primitive world, this was cause for whooping and hollering. This great big hot ball in the sky that you couldn't look at was all that made the Earth tolerably warm from time to time. If that big hot ball went out for whatever reason, like what we now call nightfall, then on Earth it was freezerville. Even worse, in the Cradle of Civilization, there came a stretch of days when it looked like the Sun was leaving the Earth altogether, tired of warming this rock and drifting way down in the sky – what we would call south – as if it just might leave altogether.
It never did. Just when the days were starting to get really cold, even in the middle of the day, a day arrived when the Sun looked like it had decided not to leave after all, and started back toward the huddled primitives in time to make the days reasonably bearable again by what we call April. But then maybe the primitives celebrated too much, enjoyed the green, stopped praying to the Sun, prayed to the Rain instead, to the point that the Sun became dissed and said, "I'm out of here," and started wandering off again. Who knows what kind of horror stories the primitive brain could launch, about an object as important as the Sun?
So the Sun, in its fickle winter fancy, developed a nice pagan crowd of celebrants on that crucial day when it decided not to leave, tens of thousands of years before more scientific minds came along and decided that the Earth didn't orbit the Sun at all, but just the other way around.
Thousands of years more passed, and one day at Alta Mira I noticed that at the dawn of the day of the Winter Solstice, the Sun rose out of King Tut's eye. I thought that was very cool. Within me rose an ancient, visceral sigh of relief and a voice whispered, "You and me, Tut." I showed you Tut a few blogs ago. Here he is this morning with the Sun rising out of his eye. Tomorrow, it will rise to the left, a sliver closer to his nose. Then in a week, his mouth, then his chin, his throat, his folded hands, after which April is not far behind. Makes me feel good, I'll tell you.
In the primitive world, this was cause for whooping and hollering. This great big hot ball in the sky that you couldn't look at was all that made the Earth tolerably warm from time to time. If that big hot ball went out for whatever reason, like what we now call nightfall, then on Earth it was freezerville. Even worse, in the Cradle of Civilization, there came a stretch of days when it looked like the Sun was leaving the Earth altogether, tired of warming this rock and drifting way down in the sky – what we would call south – as if it just might leave altogether.
It never did. Just when the days were starting to get really cold, even in the middle of the day, a day arrived when the Sun looked like it had decided not to leave after all, and started back toward the huddled primitives in time to make the days reasonably bearable again by what we call April. But then maybe the primitives celebrated too much, enjoyed the green, stopped praying to the Sun, prayed to the Rain instead, to the point that the Sun became dissed and said, "I'm out of here," and started wandering off again. Who knows what kind of horror stories the primitive brain could launch, about an object as important as the Sun?
So the Sun, in its fickle winter fancy, developed a nice pagan crowd of celebrants on that crucial day when it decided not to leave, tens of thousands of years before more scientific minds came along and decided that the Earth didn't orbit the Sun at all, but just the other way around.
Thousands of years more passed, and one day at Alta Mira I noticed that at the dawn of the day of the Winter Solstice, the Sun rose out of King Tut's eye. I thought that was very cool. Within me rose an ancient, visceral sigh of relief and a voice whispered, "You and me, Tut." I showed you Tut a few blogs ago. Here he is this morning with the Sun rising out of his eye. Tomorrow, it will rise to the left, a sliver closer to his nose. Then in a week, his mouth, then his chin, his throat, his folded hands, after which April is not far behind. Makes me feel good, I'll tell you.
December 20, 2008
He says control your attention, I say unhook your buttons
David Brooks wrote this earlier in the week in The New York Times:
"Most successful people also have a phenomenal ability to consciously focus their attention. We know from experiments with subjects as diverse as obsessive-compulsive disorder sufferers and Buddhist monks that people who can self-consciously focus attention have the power to rewire their brains. Control of attention is the ultimate individual power. People who can do that are not prisoners of the stimuli around them."
He was not writing about Christmas, but he may as well have been. Christmas is the ultimate stimuli crucible and thus the ultimate power battlefield, in a peace-on-earth kind of way. Actually, it's always about peace. People are born with a war room in their brains where "keeping the peace" is the only mission. I don't know about you, but I knew where the war room was, and what the mission was, by the time I was four years old.
During the year, the time spent on keeping the peace is inversely proportional to the distance between you and anyone who likes to push your buttons. At Christmas time, when the universal wish is peace on earth, the war room is humming 24/7 with plans and strategies to keep the peace. I love the "peace on earth" Christmas cards. How are we going to have peace on earth when we can't keep the peace at the dinner table?
Actually, peace at the dinner table is very doable, as long as you settle for peace inside your own head. I don't know exactly what David Brooks meant by "successful people," and I couldn't say how you judge or measure your own success, but I say without hesitation that there is no success quite like getting up from the Christmas dinner table with a mind as peaceful as when you sat down, when everyone else is bleeding from bullets fired by moms and dads and sisters and brothers and aunts and uncles who have been thinking for months of ways to control your attention. They only have to hit one button. And they know where the button is.
But what if you have disconnected the button? When someone tries to push it, it no longer works. You will still hear what was said, but it doesn't hit you. It passes through as if you were invisible. The effect on you is astonishing. It is not only a feeling of freedom, it IS freedom, and power. One way to say it is, "Control of attention is the ultimate personal power." Another way to say it is, "Pushing my buttons doesn't work any more, Mother." Getting up from the table with a mind as peaceful as when you sat down is so powerful that you want to go outside and fly. It is a feeling of liberation that most people only realize in their dreams. A popular term for it is "taking back power." I call it flying sideways.
"Most successful people also have a phenomenal ability to consciously focus their attention. We know from experiments with subjects as diverse as obsessive-compulsive disorder sufferers and Buddhist monks that people who can self-consciously focus attention have the power to rewire their brains. Control of attention is the ultimate individual power. People who can do that are not prisoners of the stimuli around them."
He was not writing about Christmas, but he may as well have been. Christmas is the ultimate stimuli crucible and thus the ultimate power battlefield, in a peace-on-earth kind of way. Actually, it's always about peace. People are born with a war room in their brains where "keeping the peace" is the only mission. I don't know about you, but I knew where the war room was, and what the mission was, by the time I was four years old.
During the year, the time spent on keeping the peace is inversely proportional to the distance between you and anyone who likes to push your buttons. At Christmas time, when the universal wish is peace on earth, the war room is humming 24/7 with plans and strategies to keep the peace. I love the "peace on earth" Christmas cards. How are we going to have peace on earth when we can't keep the peace at the dinner table?
Actually, peace at the dinner table is very doable, as long as you settle for peace inside your own head. I don't know exactly what David Brooks meant by "successful people," and I couldn't say how you judge or measure your own success, but I say without hesitation that there is no success quite like getting up from the Christmas dinner table with a mind as peaceful as when you sat down, when everyone else is bleeding from bullets fired by moms and dads and sisters and brothers and aunts and uncles who have been thinking for months of ways to control your attention. They only have to hit one button. And they know where the button is.
But what if you have disconnected the button? When someone tries to push it, it no longer works. You will still hear what was said, but it doesn't hit you. It passes through as if you were invisible. The effect on you is astonishing. It is not only a feeling of freedom, it IS freedom, and power. One way to say it is, "Control of attention is the ultimate personal power." Another way to say it is, "Pushing my buttons doesn't work any more, Mother." Getting up from the table with a mind as peaceful as when you sat down is so powerful that you want to go outside and fly. It is a feeling of liberation that most people only realize in their dreams. A popular term for it is "taking back power." I call it flying sideways.
December 18, 2008
Getting around to answering comments
I have made an executive decision about my blog. I will always read all of the comments to any specific blog, but I won't reply to them via another comment to that specific blog.
There are three reasons for this. One, the blog software won't let me post my comment without a username and password, and I refuse those terms for posting a comment to my OWN BLOG.
Second, the software refuses my password when I attempt to post the comment, and it is the same password with which I log in to Blogger. Long short stories, novels, movies, sitcoms and docudramas are written about this level of insanity.
Third, a blog starts to age the instant it is posted. I don't know why a reader should be asked to check an old blog for new comments. Part of this is my newspaper background, in which all news shortly after dawn becomes fishwrap, and part is my aversion to asking readers to go into the stacks to find responses to their comments.
There is a fourth factor. Blogger sends copies of comments to my personal email, but WON'T LET ME RESPOND TO THE EMAIL. Do you see a pattern here? If you do, please let me know what it is.
These things being so, I have decided to respond to comments in new posts. Like this one. Ray, I don't know how many draws we ate to at Lavender's, but every one was competitive, fair, cheap, filling, and fulfilling. I wish we could do it again, give you one last chance to win, but I know I would be full after one chicken-fried steak, a few potatoes, some green beans, and one roll. Hell yes, I have all the Elvis 45s. I do remember nearly ripping a stitch at the Paramount, and I still play the guitar, sort of, and sing, REALLY sort of, but if you want to hear a Grant play the guitar, listen to Tyler, as you already know. He is arriving tonight for the holidays, and I imagine in the next day or two he will bring his guitar over and we will play the same songs I was playing in 1959. Did I already mention he is the 2008 National Flatpicking Guitar Champion of the United States of America? I did?
Jen, you said you were still interested in the sunset story. I would like to tell you more. What are you interested in? Jessie, my daughter, will be here next week for Christmas, and she promises to show me how to insert photos into stories where they should go, and not where Blogger puts them by default. Just for the heck of it, at the top of this blog, is a photo of the dawn after all the rain we had. There is in that photo, and in many others, evidence of living suspended between earth and space, which is a big part of the ongoing sunset story. I'll be blogging soon about the business of living between earth and space. It has been my address since 1992.
There are three reasons for this. One, the blog software won't let me post my comment without a username and password, and I refuse those terms for posting a comment to my OWN BLOG.
Second, the software refuses my password when I attempt to post the comment, and it is the same password with which I log in to Blogger. Long short stories, novels, movies, sitcoms and docudramas are written about this level of insanity.
Third, a blog starts to age the instant it is posted. I don't know why a reader should be asked to check an old blog for new comments. Part of this is my newspaper background, in which all news shortly after dawn becomes fishwrap, and part is my aversion to asking readers to go into the stacks to find responses to their comments.
There is a fourth factor. Blogger sends copies of comments to my personal email, but WON'T LET ME RESPOND TO THE EMAIL. Do you see a pattern here? If you do, please let me know what it is.
These things being so, I have decided to respond to comments in new posts. Like this one. Ray, I don't know how many draws we ate to at Lavender's, but every one was competitive, fair, cheap, filling, and fulfilling. I wish we could do it again, give you one last chance to win, but I know I would be full after one chicken-fried steak, a few potatoes, some green beans, and one roll. Hell yes, I have all the Elvis 45s. I do remember nearly ripping a stitch at the Paramount, and I still play the guitar, sort of, and sing, REALLY sort of, but if you want to hear a Grant play the guitar, listen to Tyler, as you already know. He is arriving tonight for the holidays, and I imagine in the next day or two he will bring his guitar over and we will play the same songs I was playing in 1959. Did I already mention he is the 2008 National Flatpicking Guitar Champion of the United States of America? I did?
Jen, you said you were still interested in the sunset story. I would like to tell you more. What are you interested in? Jessie, my daughter, will be here next week for Christmas, and she promises to show me how to insert photos into stories where they should go, and not where Blogger puts them by default. Just for the heck of it, at the top of this blog, is a photo of the dawn after all the rain we had. There is in that photo, and in many others, evidence of living suspended between earth and space, which is a big part of the ongoing sunset story. I'll be blogging soon about the business of living between earth and space. It has been my address since 1992.
December 16, 2008
One-car family
Karen was driving me to school this morning when she said, “I can’t pick you up this afternoon at 4; Oprah comes on at 4.”
She had a point. If I had to choose between watching Oprah and going to pick somebody up from work, I know which it would be, every time, even if I did love the person at work and slept with her every night. And I don’t even like watching Oprah near as much as she does.
“You make a good point,” I said, “but I am afraid I must insist.”
Karen was driving me to school because going into 10 months now, we have had only one car. The lease on my old ride expired last February and we figured no second-car expenses – lease, gas, insurance, maintenance – would add up to at least a grand a month, which was pretty good, and that was BEFORE the economy collapsed and we started considering keeping our cash in pillowcases. If in these difficult times you are looking for a bang-for-the-buck to cut expenses, getting rid of the second car is a pretty good way to go, even if it is the guy giving up the car and he has to deal with the emasculated crater where his manhood used to be.
“But hey,” I said to her, having an idea, “I bet Oprah would give us a car. You email her and say you love to watch her so much, but you have to go pick up your husband at work. And he says he insists. And then Oprah would invite us on the show and say, here is your brand-new Mercedes ML350. And free gas for a year.”
Actually I think I would hold out for a Toyota RAV4, with leather and bells and whistles but still a small engine that burns regular. I had an ML350 and it was a great ride with a German turning radius, but I burned out on $50 tabs for a tank of premium and in fact one day LONG before gas went over $4 vowed that when I got rid of this vehicle, I was going to get a Prius.
But then I went down to the Toyota lot and sat in a Prius. Cute car. Then the helpful salesperson reached over and pushed a button. Gauges and instruments and dash lights popped to life. “What did you do?” I said to the salesperson. “Turned it on,” she said. “It’s running.” “The engine isn’t running,” I suggested. “Yes it is,” she said. “Right now, it’s electric. Step on the accelerator and you’ll go.”
That was it for me and the Prius. I am too steeped in GTO geezerhood, and I think it probably has something to do with manhood as well, to feel comfortable in a car whose engine may or may not be running when you are seeing if she will get rubber in third gear. So I shifted my vision to a RAV4. I would consider a Pontiac. I have seen Oprah give away Pontiacs.
But it grows on you, this business of being up a grand a month and buying stuff other than gas and insurance. Our schedules have been more or less compatible, with a little coordination, and it was just a quirk in my schedule today that made me available to go home at 4. I imagine we will keep the arrangement this way for awhile, possibly even if Oprah insists.
She had a point. If I had to choose between watching Oprah and going to pick somebody up from work, I know which it would be, every time, even if I did love the person at work and slept with her every night. And I don’t even like watching Oprah near as much as she does.
“You make a good point,” I said, “but I am afraid I must insist.”
Karen was driving me to school because going into 10 months now, we have had only one car. The lease on my old ride expired last February and we figured no second-car expenses – lease, gas, insurance, maintenance – would add up to at least a grand a month, which was pretty good, and that was BEFORE the economy collapsed and we started considering keeping our cash in pillowcases. If in these difficult times you are looking for a bang-for-the-buck to cut expenses, getting rid of the second car is a pretty good way to go, even if it is the guy giving up the car and he has to deal with the emasculated crater where his manhood used to be.
“But hey,” I said to her, having an idea, “I bet Oprah would give us a car. You email her and say you love to watch her so much, but you have to go pick up your husband at work. And he says he insists. And then Oprah would invite us on the show and say, here is your brand-new Mercedes ML350. And free gas for a year.”
Actually I think I would hold out for a Toyota RAV4, with leather and bells and whistles but still a small engine that burns regular. I had an ML350 and it was a great ride with a German turning radius, but I burned out on $50 tabs for a tank of premium and in fact one day LONG before gas went over $4 vowed that when I got rid of this vehicle, I was going to get a Prius.
But then I went down to the Toyota lot and sat in a Prius. Cute car. Then the helpful salesperson reached over and pushed a button. Gauges and instruments and dash lights popped to life. “What did you do?” I said to the salesperson. “Turned it on,” she said. “It’s running.” “The engine isn’t running,” I suggested. “Yes it is,” she said. “Right now, it’s electric. Step on the accelerator and you’ll go.”
That was it for me and the Prius. I am too steeped in GTO geezerhood, and I think it probably has something to do with manhood as well, to feel comfortable in a car whose engine may or may not be running when you are seeing if she will get rubber in third gear. So I shifted my vision to a RAV4. I would consider a Pontiac. I have seen Oprah give away Pontiacs.
But it grows on you, this business of being up a grand a month and buying stuff other than gas and insurance. Our schedules have been more or less compatible, with a little coordination, and it was just a quirk in my schedule today that made me available to go home at 4. I imagine we will keep the arrangement this way for awhile, possibly even if Oprah insists.
December 13, 2008
Sunset stages, the story
Sunsets proceed in stages. Maybe you know about that. I didn't discover it until I was in like the 40th grade (I am in the 60th now), which surprises me a little. I have looked closely at quite a few sunsets in my time, starting with the gorgeous West Texas sunsets when I was a kid in Abilene.
But it was a long time before I noticed the stages. You have to reach a point in your life where you are willing to hang around for the whole thing. Mostly, people will take a minute to look at a spectacular sunset, then go do something else. To see the stages, you have to give it a half-hour, or at least 20 minutes. When it happened to me, I was watching a sunset and saw the shimmering, bright‑gold veil of light pass through its moment of peak radiancy, then fade as usual to something grayer. Several minutes later, I thought I saw the luminosity increasing once more. It did increase, and peak, and fade to something grayer still. I waited and watched. The luminosity returned a third time.
"Hey," I said. Since that night I have watched for the stages. The most I have ever seen is six. They are easiest to see when clouds are present. The sunset last night was perfect for stage‑watching. We had clouds coming off the ocean yesterday in advance of what the weathermen are advertising as a good series of storms coming down to us from Alaska. Karen saw it first and went out and took these photos. In the first, you are looking at the tip of Point Loma jutting into the Pacific. The second shows the silhouette of shorefront condos in Coronado and the ocean beyond.
BLOGGER: PUT PHOTOS 1 AND 2 HERE (SEE PREVIOUS POST)
But the show, of course, is in the sky. This is the second or third stage of a sunset, still in the gray and gold registers. On the clock it was about 5 p.m. Then Karen had to leave for a meeting. I was in the back of the house. Five minutes after she left, I came to the front, looked out the windows, and ran for the camera.
BLOGGER: PUT PHOTOS 3 AND 4 HERE
I got the fifth and sixth stages. The stages arrive in luminosity waves. The light changes in color and intensity each time but there is always an increase, a peak and a fade. The colors go from bright gold to gold‑trimmed peach to rose to dusky rose to the very lowest register of red to charcoal to pearl. It seems as if the clouds might simply be swapping colors with the sky behind them. When the sky was peach, the clouds were rose. When the sky turned rose, the clouds became peach. As the sky moved from pearl to charcoal, the clouds moved from charcoal to pearl.
But I'm not sure. It would need more study. I have thought occasionally to make a more formal study of these sunset stages, but then the sunset arrives and I forget about it. I would not be a good one to record notes during a sunset. Someone, however, should. Possibly someone already has. As an issue of physics, the stages of sunsets must be a fairly interesting matter of angles, declinations and refractions, the purely mathematical interplay of sunlight with Earth boundaries. Maybe someone out there knows exactly how many stages there are, and of what duration, and how far apart.
I watched a little longer, then took one last photo.
BLOGGER: PUT PHOTO 5 HERE.
I didn't know if there would be enough light, and I don't have photographer skills to go adjusting apertures for this sort of thing. But the shutter gave a sharp "click," so I figured I had it. It wasn't another 10 seconds before this sunset's final fade began. I like it that sunsets have stages. It makes them like a rainbow for the day, acknowledging a present beautiful moment and promising more to come.
But it was a long time before I noticed the stages. You have to reach a point in your life where you are willing to hang around for the whole thing. Mostly, people will take a minute to look at a spectacular sunset, then go do something else. To see the stages, you have to give it a half-hour, or at least 20 minutes. When it happened to me, I was watching a sunset and saw the shimmering, bright‑gold veil of light pass through its moment of peak radiancy, then fade as usual to something grayer. Several minutes later, I thought I saw the luminosity increasing once more. It did increase, and peak, and fade to something grayer still. I waited and watched. The luminosity returned a third time.
"Hey," I said. Since that night I have watched for the stages. The most I have ever seen is six. They are easiest to see when clouds are present. The sunset last night was perfect for stage‑watching. We had clouds coming off the ocean yesterday in advance of what the weathermen are advertising as a good series of storms coming down to us from Alaska. Karen saw it first and went out and took these photos. In the first, you are looking at the tip of Point Loma jutting into the Pacific. The second shows the silhouette of shorefront condos in Coronado and the ocean beyond.
BLOGGER: PUT PHOTOS 1 AND 2 HERE (SEE PREVIOUS POST)
But the show, of course, is in the sky. This is the second or third stage of a sunset, still in the gray and gold registers. On the clock it was about 5 p.m. Then Karen had to leave for a meeting. I was in the back of the house. Five minutes after she left, I came to the front, looked out the windows, and ran for the camera.
BLOGGER: PUT PHOTOS 3 AND 4 HERE
I got the fifth and sixth stages. The stages arrive in luminosity waves. The light changes in color and intensity each time but there is always an increase, a peak and a fade. The colors go from bright gold to gold‑trimmed peach to rose to dusky rose to the very lowest register of red to charcoal to pearl. It seems as if the clouds might simply be swapping colors with the sky behind them. When the sky was peach, the clouds were rose. When the sky turned rose, the clouds became peach. As the sky moved from pearl to charcoal, the clouds moved from charcoal to pearl.
But I'm not sure. It would need more study. I have thought occasionally to make a more formal study of these sunset stages, but then the sunset arrives and I forget about it. I would not be a good one to record notes during a sunset. Someone, however, should. Possibly someone already has. As an issue of physics, the stages of sunsets must be a fairly interesting matter of angles, declinations and refractions, the purely mathematical interplay of sunlight with Earth boundaries. Maybe someone out there knows exactly how many stages there are, and of what duration, and how far apart.
I watched a little longer, then took one last photo.
BLOGGER: PUT PHOTO 5 HERE.
I didn't know if there would be enough light, and I don't have photographer skills to go adjusting apertures for this sort of thing. But the shutter gave a sharp "click," so I figured I had it. It wasn't another 10 seconds before this sunset's final fade began. I like it that sunsets have stages. It makes them like a rainbow for the day, acknowledging a present beautiful moment and promising more to come.
December 12, 2008
Sunset stages
There is a story that goes with this succession of photos, that shows the stages of the San Diego sunset last night. But I am too ticked to mess with it anymore. For the last hour and a half, I have tried to post the story with the photos INTERSPERSED IN THE STORY AT APPROPRIATE POINTS. Instead, every time and every way I tried it, Blogger put the photos at the TOP. And INVERTED from the order in which I POSTED them. So the hell with it. If that's where Blogger wants them, that's where they shall be. For the time being. Blogger is put on notice that I will figure out how to put the photos where I WANT THEM TO BE. Sometime in my lifetime I will have the satisfaction of knowing that in their command posts deep below the Rocky Mountains, Blogger controllers will bash their foreheads into their polished steel desktops because someone up there put his pictures where they were SUPPOSED TO BE. Meantime, it's martini hour. I'll post the story tomorrow.December 11, 2008
Presenting a look at media's future
For their semester projects, students in my media class developed proposals or pilots in one of the seven media businesses – books, movies, magazines, newspapers, radio, recording and television – and then pitched them to me in class as if I were the media mogul who would buy the project.
I can’t provide specifics. We all signed non-disclosure agreements, and I told the students, truthfully, there is no reason why an idea generated in this class can’t go on and make a bazillion dollars in the industry. If one of them DOES, trust me, you will hear about it in this blog. I can tell you that the projects reveal a lot about the future of media. When my kids were little, if I wanted a peek into what was going on in their culture, I could watch “The Simpsons” and “MTV.”
Same thing now. Students know things about media that would draw blank stares in Geezerville (over 40). These guys are already their own TV producers and directors, thanks to YouTube and MySpace, and in class they used these online resources to present their TV pilots and movie trailers that, when we were their age, would have required months of work and thousands of dollars. Watching this, I get a clearer conviction that, in media, the Web is changing everything.
One student, who has some prior acting and producing experience, has already pitched his project to genuine moguls. He won an audience with them last week in Los Angeles. I asked in him class if that pitch was different from pitching to me and the class. Yes, he said, it was. There was an oval table. He sat on one side, and three cable TV execs sat on the other. They didn’t speak, he said, or make gestures, or smile, or ask any questions at all.
So I stopped him and asked the class. “These three guys had one thing on their mind. Do you know what that is?” From four or five places in the class, there rose the word: “Money.” Either they learned something this semester, or they knew it already. I know I learned a lot. Question: how is prime time television the same as being stopped at a railroad crossing?
I can’t provide specifics. We all signed non-disclosure agreements, and I told the students, truthfully, there is no reason why an idea generated in this class can’t go on and make a bazillion dollars in the industry. If one of them DOES, trust me, you will hear about it in this blog. I can tell you that the projects reveal a lot about the future of media. When my kids were little, if I wanted a peek into what was going on in their culture, I could watch “The Simpsons” and “MTV.”
Same thing now. Students know things about media that would draw blank stares in Geezerville (over 40). These guys are already their own TV producers and directors, thanks to YouTube and MySpace, and in class they used these online resources to present their TV pilots and movie trailers that, when we were their age, would have required months of work and thousands of dollars. Watching this, I get a clearer conviction that, in media, the Web is changing everything.
One student, who has some prior acting and producing experience, has already pitched his project to genuine moguls. He won an audience with them last week in Los Angeles. I asked in him class if that pitch was different from pitching to me and the class. Yes, he said, it was. There was an oval table. He sat on one side, and three cable TV execs sat on the other. They didn’t speak, he said, or make gestures, or smile, or ask any questions at all.
So I stopped him and asked the class. “These three guys had one thing on their mind. Do you know what that is?” From four or five places in the class, there rose the word: “Money.” Either they learned something this semester, or they knew it already. I know I learned a lot. Question: how is prime time television the same as being stopped at a railroad crossing?
December 06, 2008
The grass is greener in December
We got our first soaking rain of the season on the day before Thanksgiving. Then we started watching the hillsides. We didn't have to watch long. By Monday after Thanksgiving, there it was: grass.
Well, not grass, really. In Southern California, wherever a hillside is brown on Thanksgiving and a fuzzy, deceptively adorable (like lion cubs) green four days later, what you are viewing is the birth of weeds. Cute now, but wait till they grow up.
The weeds have been down there for months below the brown surface, meeting in their seed communities and grumbling about the long wait. If there is any living thing who looks forward to a nice rain more than I do, it is a Southern California weed seed. When November arrives, you can put your ear to the ground and hear them rumbling down there, desperate in their instinctive drive to come roaring out of the ground.
And now here they are, in the first week of December, loosed upon us, giving the landscape a green sheen that regular human beings associate with a spring month like April. Intruding into our dreamy considerations of cozy fires and Christmas scents and togetherness is a Scroogian voice whose annual mission is to nag us until we go down to the garage with a broom and sweep the cobwebs off the weedwhacker.
I have lived now in Southern California for 36 years and I have yet to digest the idea of pulling out the weedwacker in December. From Texas, where seasons are normal, I moved into an upside-down world, where December is the busiest month for the lawnmower repair man.
Actually, I moved into a coastal desert next to a cold-water ocean. It is not a fruitful combination for rainmaking. For rain to fall in Southern California, mammoth weather systems have to be spawned over Alaska at just the right moment to catch a ride on the jet stream when it decides to sag southward. Even in our rainy season November to March, rain is a chancy event. Ours is a culture that stirs like cattle at the low thunder issuing from the Weather Bureau warning that this next storm is likely to be a killer. There is never a stampede. We know in our collective brain herd that there's no storm out there. The No. 1 parody headline in Southern California newspapers is: "Killer Storm Looms."
But the quarter-inch the clouds do manage to squeeze onto us is enough to create chaos on the freeways and bring the weeds roaring out of the ground. If you think nothing grows in the desert, just put a little water on it. In a week, you'll have a golf course. Or a hillside of baby weeds. By the Rose Bowl, they'll be waist-high. I'll pull out the weedwacker when I pull out the Christmas decorations.
Well, not grass, really. In Southern California, wherever a hillside is brown on Thanksgiving and a fuzzy, deceptively adorable (like lion cubs) green four days later, what you are viewing is the birth of weeds. Cute now, but wait till they grow up.
The weeds have been down there for months below the brown surface, meeting in their seed communities and grumbling about the long wait. If there is any living thing who looks forward to a nice rain more than I do, it is a Southern California weed seed. When November arrives, you can put your ear to the ground and hear them rumbling down there, desperate in their instinctive drive to come roaring out of the ground.
And now here they are, in the first week of December, loosed upon us, giving the landscape a green sheen that regular human beings associate with a spring month like April. Intruding into our dreamy considerations of cozy fires and Christmas scents and togetherness is a Scroogian voice whose annual mission is to nag us until we go down to the garage with a broom and sweep the cobwebs off the weedwhacker.
I have lived now in Southern California for 36 years and I have yet to digest the idea of pulling out the weedwacker in December. From Texas, where seasons are normal, I moved into an upside-down world, where December is the busiest month for the lawnmower repair man.
Actually, I moved into a coastal desert next to a cold-water ocean. It is not a fruitful combination for rainmaking. For rain to fall in Southern California, mammoth weather systems have to be spawned over Alaska at just the right moment to catch a ride on the jet stream when it decides to sag southward. Even in our rainy season November to March, rain is a chancy event. Ours is a culture that stirs like cattle at the low thunder issuing from the Weather Bureau warning that this next storm is likely to be a killer. There is never a stampede. We know in our collective brain herd that there's no storm out there. The No. 1 parody headline in Southern California newspapers is: "Killer Storm Looms."
But the quarter-inch the clouds do manage to squeeze onto us is enough to create chaos on the freeways and bring the weeds roaring out of the ground. If you think nothing grows in the desert, just put a little water on it. In a week, you'll have a golf course. Or a hillside of baby weeds. By the Rose Bowl, they'll be waist-high. I'll pull out the weedwacker when I pull out the Christmas decorations.
The solstice is nigh
What you see here is King Tut, who lies at the extreme southern end of that part of the horizon we call the Alta Mira Calendar. The Calendar extends 46 degrees from its south to north limits, where the winter and summer solstices are marked, and if we were that anal, we could create a chart showing exactly where the sun came up each day of the year. This morning the sun rose with a bang near Tut's throat. You see his feet on the left, then his arms folded across his chest, and his head and mummy's headdress at the right. On the winter solstice, the sun will rise out of Tut's eye, then the next day begin its long journey north. That the sun rises out of his eye gives the solstice a nice pagan ceremonial feel, and so we toast it with strong water. Even when it's cloudy.
The road to the 3Day
This morning I took what I consider my first training walk in preparation for next November's Breast Cancer 3Day walk in San Diego. I can't believe I am doing this. I should never have gone to the closing ceremony of this year's walk, even if Karen was in it. Sixty miles in three days. The Germans have a phrase for people like me: "Ich, Narr." It means, "I Fool," or, "You Effing Idiot," or, "Inspire THIS!" I believe I will put "Ich, Narr" on my walk tshirt next November.
When I walk, I am two countries, North Michael and South Michael. The two are separated by the thin nation of Titania. Titania used to be Arthritica, until Arthritica fell to a physicians' coup. You can see it clearly in xrays: titanium hip joints, like gigantic, deformed golf tees, and those chicken scratches between them are some kind of interior metal stitching where they took my prostate cancer out. This maturity business has its hazards, I tell you.
So North Michael is sort of teed up on Titania, and when he leans forward South Michael sort of follows along by dint of the long shafts of the titanium tees rammed halfway down my thigh bones. Missing is the old sense of natural attachment between North and South, but I don't miss it that much, because Arthritica was a dictatorship of pain and evil sadists wielding bone spurs.
Walking doesn't hurt now, which makes a big difference in miles per gallon. I walked for 50 minutes this morning. Yeah, I know. But it's the first day. I don't know how many miles, but this morning I decided not to measure that way. There's no way I will ever be able to walk 20 miles in one day. I am training to walk seven or eight hours in one day.
The farthest I have ever walked at one time was probably eight miles. When I was in college, I was a summer substitute mailman. It turned out to be a great job – second-best job I ever had – but I almost didn't survive the first day. I carried the route in penny loafers because my mailman shoes hadn't come yet. It was June in West Texas, and the route was mean, dusty and long. By noon I was as done as a rest-home ribeye.
I stumbled into the first blocks of the afternoon leg. Three blocks along, a screen door slammed two houses behind me and the resident yelled: "Hey! This isn't my mail! This is Peach Street!" I looked at the letters in my hand. All for Palm Street. One block over.
So I have experienced walking survival. Why I undertake it again, Ich Narr, I do not know. So far, I am walking for my late wife Meredith, for prostate brother Mike Bryant, for Peggy Odam, battling breast cancer in Houston, and for Karen, who this morning walked twice as far as I did in 50 minutes. Did I say I have to raise $2,700 in donations?
When I walk, I am two countries, North Michael and South Michael. The two are separated by the thin nation of Titania. Titania used to be Arthritica, until Arthritica fell to a physicians' coup. You can see it clearly in xrays: titanium hip joints, like gigantic, deformed golf tees, and those chicken scratches between them are some kind of interior metal stitching where they took my prostate cancer out. This maturity business has its hazards, I tell you.
So North Michael is sort of teed up on Titania, and when he leans forward South Michael sort of follows along by dint of the long shafts of the titanium tees rammed halfway down my thigh bones. Missing is the old sense of natural attachment between North and South, but I don't miss it that much, because Arthritica was a dictatorship of pain and evil sadists wielding bone spurs.
Walking doesn't hurt now, which makes a big difference in miles per gallon. I walked for 50 minutes this morning. Yeah, I know. But it's the first day. I don't know how many miles, but this morning I decided not to measure that way. There's no way I will ever be able to walk 20 miles in one day. I am training to walk seven or eight hours in one day.
The farthest I have ever walked at one time was probably eight miles. When I was in college, I was a summer substitute mailman. It turned out to be a great job – second-best job I ever had – but I almost didn't survive the first day. I carried the route in penny loafers because my mailman shoes hadn't come yet. It was June in West Texas, and the route was mean, dusty and long. By noon I was as done as a rest-home ribeye.
I stumbled into the first blocks of the afternoon leg. Three blocks along, a screen door slammed two houses behind me and the resident yelled: "Hey! This isn't my mail! This is Peach Street!" I looked at the letters in my hand. All for Palm Street. One block over.
So I have experienced walking survival. Why I undertake it again, Ich Narr, I do not know. So far, I am walking for my late wife Meredith, for prostate brother Mike Bryant, for Peggy Odam, battling breast cancer in Houston, and for Karen, who this morning walked twice as far as I did in 50 minutes. Did I say I have to raise $2,700 in donations?
December 04, 2008
Get your "Toolpusher from Snyder" right here
When his eyes fell on Slim Willet's name in my Thanksgiving blog, my old (approaching ancient) Abilene pal Ray Finfer more or less immediately posted a comment saying: "Slim Willet has a CD?"
Well, yes, he does, but that is getting ahead of the story. The CD I was listening to on Thanksgiving morning was loaned to me by another native Abilenian, Jon Standefer, who got it from a thoughtful Texas friend of his. It was home-burned, a compilation, and I have to say I was disappointed when there were like only five cuts on it. One of them, "Toolpusher from Snyder," though, is an all-time favorite and naturally left me wanting more. But there was only "Hadacol Corners," and then "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes," which of course hit the national charts in 1952 when it was covered by the crooner Perry Como.
I actually thought "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes" was inferior, compared to the primary Willet genre, which were songs about the oilpatch. They were vigorously regional (if you didn't know what a stem and a rotary table were, it was no use listening to Slim Willet) and never would make the charts, but you couldn't beat 'em for unique.
So when I saw Ray's comment, I thought, no, Slim Willet doesn't have a CD. But for a couple of years now, every time I say or think the word, "doesn't," I immediately think of Google. So it was more or less automatic that my eyes, reading Ray's comment, told my fingers to Google Slim Willet. There were 3,360 results. One of them is artistdirect.com and, yes, they do have a Slim Willet CD, 30 cuts in all, including all the oilpatch songs "mastered from original vinyl," and available on special order for $16.99. I hope their site doesn't crash in the rush, which is why I'm going to wait awhile to order.
I'm in no hurry. See, I don't have a Slim Willet CD, but I do have the original LP, "Oil Patch Songs," with Slim in oilpatch duds and hard hat, looking down at the camera from the rig floor. I haven't played it in years because I haven't had anything to play it on. The only people with turntables anymore are still churning their own butter. My plan is to order the CD and frame the LP and hang it in the hallway and every time I pass it think about Ray and the boys eating their hearts out.
Well, yes, he does, but that is getting ahead of the story. The CD I was listening to on Thanksgiving morning was loaned to me by another native Abilenian, Jon Standefer, who got it from a thoughtful Texas friend of his. It was home-burned, a compilation, and I have to say I was disappointed when there were like only five cuts on it. One of them, "Toolpusher from Snyder," though, is an all-time favorite and naturally left me wanting more. But there was only "Hadacol Corners," and then "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes," which of course hit the national charts in 1952 when it was covered by the crooner Perry Como.
I actually thought "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes" was inferior, compared to the primary Willet genre, which were songs about the oilpatch. They were vigorously regional (if you didn't know what a stem and a rotary table were, it was no use listening to Slim Willet) and never would make the charts, but you couldn't beat 'em for unique.
So when I saw Ray's comment, I thought, no, Slim Willet doesn't have a CD. But for a couple of years now, every time I say or think the word, "doesn't," I immediately think of Google. So it was more or less automatic that my eyes, reading Ray's comment, told my fingers to Google Slim Willet. There were 3,360 results. One of them is artistdirect.com and, yes, they do have a Slim Willet CD, 30 cuts in all, including all the oilpatch songs "mastered from original vinyl," and available on special order for $16.99. I hope their site doesn't crash in the rush, which is why I'm going to wait awhile to order.
I'm in no hurry. See, I don't have a Slim Willet CD, but I do have the original LP, "Oil Patch Songs," with Slim in oilpatch duds and hard hat, looking down at the camera from the rig floor. I haven't played it in years because I haven't had anything to play it on. The only people with turntables anymore are still churning their own butter. My plan is to order the CD and frame the LP and hang it in the hallway and every time I pass it think about Ray and the boys eating their hearts out.
A rose in my teeth, pizza in his
My dog bit my wife. On our wedding anniversary. Seriously.
Of course he’s my dog when he bites my wife or barfs on the living room rug. All other times, he’s OUR dog.
And we are HIS people, but only on dog world terms, whose inhabitants view life thusly: 1. food; 2. people; 3. everything else. And that is how he got in trouble.
Wednesday morning, Dec. 3, the third anniversary of the main people (the people who feed him) in Gulliver's life, he and I went down to the street to get the paper. I came back up with the paper, and Gully generally is right behind. Not on this morning. I stood by the front door and called him, then walked back down toward the street and called him again.
He darted past me with something in his jaws. I followed him back to the door. He was standing at the door but as I approached he moved away several feet and turned to face me. In his jaws was clamped a thick wedge of not very tasty looking pizza, probably of the frozen, bake it at home variety. Didn't matter to him. He had a prize.
I called him to come to me. Damned if he didn't, a step at a time, until I could reach out and get my fingers on the crusty rim of the pizza. He tore away and retreated. "Okay, fine, I don’t care if you do eat it," I said. That was true. In the back of my mind I viewed myself later in the day scooping up pizza barf off the floor, but that was okay, compared to actually wrestling him for it.
He was also telling me something in dog language. He hadn't eaten the pizza yet. Why didn't he eat it where he found it on the street? Because he wasn't hungry. He had just had breakfast, before we went out for the paper. He intended to bury the pizza for later. In fact he intended to bury it in the house. When I opened the door, he ran right in. I advised Karen, my lovely bride of three years that very morning, what was happening, then walked back down to the street to find where the pizza came from.
Karen sized up the situation for about one second and decided that Gully was not going to eat the pizza in her house, or bury it, or retain possession, or do anything else with it but give it to her. This of course was the last thing on his mind. Just a couple of days previously, we had watched a show on television featuring a brave man called the "Dog Whisperer," who was able to correct bad dog behavior by a routine of "exercise, discipline and affection." During the show he demonstrated several times. Unfortunately, they didn't include a male Sheltie with pizza clamped in his jaws.
I found no pizza evidence on the street, and when I returned, Karen described what happened. Gully is gentle but skittish when he doesn't approve of what people are doing to him, such as grooming or brushing or scratching him around the tail. He regularly snaps at me when I am trying to brush foxtails out of his coat. So when Karen, dog whisperer style, got him on his side and commenced to relieve him of his pizza, he took umbrage and actually snarled, she reported, as he struck at her hand.
It was over when I got there. Karen showed me a bloody scratch on the back of her wrist and another tooth mark farther up. The pizza was in the sink. Gully was brooding in the hallway. He now knew, as Karen had said to me, dog whisperer style, that he was in her pack, and not the other way around. He laid low for several hours, then was his old self, but I don't think he'll be bringing prizes to the front door any time soon, and never, I hope, on anniversary mornings.
Of course he’s my dog when he bites my wife or barfs on the living room rug. All other times, he’s OUR dog.
And we are HIS people, but only on dog world terms, whose inhabitants view life thusly: 1. food; 2. people; 3. everything else. And that is how he got in trouble.
Wednesday morning, Dec. 3, the third anniversary of the main people (the people who feed him) in Gulliver's life, he and I went down to the street to get the paper. I came back up with the paper, and Gully generally is right behind. Not on this morning. I stood by the front door and called him, then walked back down toward the street and called him again.
He darted past me with something in his jaws. I followed him back to the door. He was standing at the door but as I approached he moved away several feet and turned to face me. In his jaws was clamped a thick wedge of not very tasty looking pizza, probably of the frozen, bake it at home variety. Didn't matter to him. He had a prize.
I called him to come to me. Damned if he didn't, a step at a time, until I could reach out and get my fingers on the crusty rim of the pizza. He tore away and retreated. "Okay, fine, I don’t care if you do eat it," I said. That was true. In the back of my mind I viewed myself later in the day scooping up pizza barf off the floor, but that was okay, compared to actually wrestling him for it.
He was also telling me something in dog language. He hadn't eaten the pizza yet. Why didn't he eat it where he found it on the street? Because he wasn't hungry. He had just had breakfast, before we went out for the paper. He intended to bury the pizza for later. In fact he intended to bury it in the house. When I opened the door, he ran right in. I advised Karen, my lovely bride of three years that very morning, what was happening, then walked back down to the street to find where the pizza came from.
Karen sized up the situation for about one second and decided that Gully was not going to eat the pizza in her house, or bury it, or retain possession, or do anything else with it but give it to her. This of course was the last thing on his mind. Just a couple of days previously, we had watched a show on television featuring a brave man called the "Dog Whisperer," who was able to correct bad dog behavior by a routine of "exercise, discipline and affection." During the show he demonstrated several times. Unfortunately, they didn't include a male Sheltie with pizza clamped in his jaws.
I found no pizza evidence on the street, and when I returned, Karen described what happened. Gully is gentle but skittish when he doesn't approve of what people are doing to him, such as grooming or brushing or scratching him around the tail. He regularly snaps at me when I am trying to brush foxtails out of his coat. So when Karen, dog whisperer style, got him on his side and commenced to relieve him of his pizza, he took umbrage and actually snarled, she reported, as he struck at her hand.
It was over when I got there. Karen showed me a bloody scratch on the back of her wrist and another tooth mark farther up. The pizza was in the sink. Gully was brooding in the hallway. He now knew, as Karen had said to me, dog whisperer style, that he was in her pack, and not the other way around. He laid low for several hours, then was his old self, but I don't think he'll be bringing prizes to the front door any time soon, and never, I hope, on anniversary mornings.
December 02, 2008
Looking for an angle on a brand
The New York Times had a reporter in Abilene for at least a couple of days last week, writing a story about a couple of Abilene Christian University football players.
It was a terrific opportunity for the city to make the sort of impression envisioned by the Abilene Branding Partnership. But the opportunity went pffft. The reporter, Thayer Evans, came into town and left again, then wrote not one, but two stories, one of them very long, that appeared in last Saturday's Times. Nowhere in either story is there any evidence that Abilene, the kind of city it is, or that it might aspire to be, entered Evans' consciousness, though in both stories there was a natural opening, if the right brand had existed.
Of course there are no guarantees. Even an effective brand couldn't have done anything more than give Abilene its best chance to enter Evans' thinking, as he worked on his stories. As it stood, the city had no chance at all, and free publicity for Abilene in The New York Times, publicity with tangible value, was lost.
I am looking at this loss through a couple of lenses. One, I have been writing newspaper stories for almost four decades, and with every story I was always looking for a good angle, which is one that attracts readers because it provides more than information. If you want an example of the master of the good angle, look at the way Calvin Trillin wrote his story in The New Yorker about Snow's Barbecue, Texas Monthly's choice as the state's No. 1 barbecue joint. The story is one good angle after another, and to me, reading the story was almost as good as eating the barbecue.
The second lens is the brand that I think would be right for Abilene: "Abilene, Texas Style." I have been blogging about that for more than a year, most recently, coincidentally, in the last couple of weeks as the Branding Partnership went public with its brand choice, "Abilene Frontiering," which did not receive a warm response.
Then I opened up Saturday's Times and there were two stories with an Abilene dateline, complete with a photo of Shotwell Stadium, and neither story said a thing about Abilene, except to refer to Abilene Christian University as "an unlikely place on the rolling plains of West Texas," which doesn’t exactly set the imagination ringing like the bells of Notre Dame. There was good stuff Thayer Evans could have said about Abilene, which would have been applicable to the stories he was writing. He just didn't have a trigger. The brand is the trigger.
I was reading the stories a second time when I wondered if I – playing Evans now – might have found something useful to the story in discovering, in signage or in media or on restaurant book matches, that Abilene marketed itself as "Abilene, Texas Style." Even Evans would have heard of Texas Style, which is an old, familiar, even storied, brand: big, best, west, excess, strong, courage, honest, the Alamo, "Giant," oil, cattle, wide open spaces, lone stars, stars at night, friendly, warm, pious, tough, hard-working people as good as their word, deep in the heart of Texas.
Abilene, Texas Style, would be new to him, but he has seen western movies set in Texas towns like Abilene, with wide streets and stores and hotels and barber shops and cafes and saloons and churches and rodeos and stock shows and piety and power and characters and bankers and leaders and plain citizens always going about their business in the background and a sheriff and scalawags and renegades and all of them local representatives of their native Texas Style and proud of the local spin they put on it in a demanding country under a vast West Texas sky.
I don't see how Evans could use any of that in his stories, but the point is, the brand, "Abilene, Texas Style," engaged his thinking. And he keeps thinking. Is there something about Abilene, Texas Style, that gives me an angle? Then he remembers: giving people a second chance always happens in the westerns. And that's what Evans' stories were about: two football players getting a second chance, not in an unlikely place with rolling plains, but in a town that markets itself as doing things Abilene, Texas Style. And that is all he has to say, for the town and its brand to get the publicity. Not a bad angle.
It was a terrific opportunity for the city to make the sort of impression envisioned by the Abilene Branding Partnership. But the opportunity went pffft. The reporter, Thayer Evans, came into town and left again, then wrote not one, but two stories, one of them very long, that appeared in last Saturday's Times. Nowhere in either story is there any evidence that Abilene, the kind of city it is, or that it might aspire to be, entered Evans' consciousness, though in both stories there was a natural opening, if the right brand had existed.
Of course there are no guarantees. Even an effective brand couldn't have done anything more than give Abilene its best chance to enter Evans' thinking, as he worked on his stories. As it stood, the city had no chance at all, and free publicity for Abilene in The New York Times, publicity with tangible value, was lost.
I am looking at this loss through a couple of lenses. One, I have been writing newspaper stories for almost four decades, and with every story I was always looking for a good angle, which is one that attracts readers because it provides more than information. If you want an example of the master of the good angle, look at the way Calvin Trillin wrote his story in The New Yorker about Snow's Barbecue, Texas Monthly's choice as the state's No. 1 barbecue joint. The story is one good angle after another, and to me, reading the story was almost as good as eating the barbecue.
The second lens is the brand that I think would be right for Abilene: "Abilene, Texas Style." I have been blogging about that for more than a year, most recently, coincidentally, in the last couple of weeks as the Branding Partnership went public with its brand choice, "Abilene Frontiering," which did not receive a warm response.
Then I opened up Saturday's Times and there were two stories with an Abilene dateline, complete with a photo of Shotwell Stadium, and neither story said a thing about Abilene, except to refer to Abilene Christian University as "an unlikely place on the rolling plains of West Texas," which doesn’t exactly set the imagination ringing like the bells of Notre Dame. There was good stuff Thayer Evans could have said about Abilene, which would have been applicable to the stories he was writing. He just didn't have a trigger. The brand is the trigger.
I was reading the stories a second time when I wondered if I – playing Evans now – might have found something useful to the story in discovering, in signage or in media or on restaurant book matches, that Abilene marketed itself as "Abilene, Texas Style." Even Evans would have heard of Texas Style, which is an old, familiar, even storied, brand: big, best, west, excess, strong, courage, honest, the Alamo, "Giant," oil, cattle, wide open spaces, lone stars, stars at night, friendly, warm, pious, tough, hard-working people as good as their word, deep in the heart of Texas.
Abilene, Texas Style, would be new to him, but he has seen western movies set in Texas towns like Abilene, with wide streets and stores and hotels and barber shops and cafes and saloons and churches and rodeos and stock shows and piety and power and characters and bankers and leaders and plain citizens always going about their business in the background and a sheriff and scalawags and renegades and all of them local representatives of their native Texas Style and proud of the local spin they put on it in a demanding country under a vast West Texas sky.
I don't see how Evans could use any of that in his stories, but the point is, the brand, "Abilene, Texas Style," engaged his thinking. And he keeps thinking. Is there something about Abilene, Texas Style, that gives me an angle? Then he remembers: giving people a second chance always happens in the westerns. And that's what Evans' stories were about: two football players getting a second chance, not in an unlikely place with rolling plains, but in a town that markets itself as doing things Abilene, Texas Style. And that is all he has to say, for the town and its brand to get the publicity. Not a bad angle.
December 01, 2008
An Idyllwildian Thanksgiving
We had a very quiet and restful Thanksgiving and only gained about 5 lbs. each. Hope you did the same.
We always spend Thanksgiving in a knotty-pine cabin in Idyllwild, a community in the Riverside County Mountains about two hours from here. Southern California is an amazing place to live. Any kind of atmospheric, cultural, economic and entertainment bioclimate is available within two hours of our front door.
With encouragement from the imps at the Weather Bureau, I had hoped for some weather, which in Idyllwild would have meant snow. But no, after some sprinkles on Thanksgiving Day it cleared up, nice blue skies, and temperatures that Idyllwildians would call suntanning weather.
We were in serious hibernation mode. Karen went up on Sunday after the closing ceremonies of the Breast Cancer 3Day and set foot out the cabin door one time, she said. I drove up on Thanksgiving morning, and it was a drive for a lifetime. Overnight rain had broken into patchy showers, enough to keep the interstate wet so it reflected the sky, with clouds letting enough light through to create an encompassing Impressionist smear of gray and rose and ivory. The highway was almost deserted at that hour, and the wet lanes became part of the sky smear, losing all suggestion of concrete, lane markers disappeared, flooding me with the impression of riding on the sky, words rolling over in my mind, looking for the ones that would best describe this suspension between earth and heaven.
I decided that if there was something I could be thankful for on Thanksgiving morning, it was being born into a species equipped with a brain that could seriously process its surroundings, admit they were too beautiful to describe, but possible to enjoy to the point of rapture even as it became convinced it was flying in total contradiction to the vibration of the tires on the interstate.
I also had hot coffee in a traveling mug and Slim Willet on the CD, so if you know who Slim Willet is, you realize my rapture was complete. I was in a moment unique to my life thus far, and I was thankful. And then I got to knock on a cabin door, and there was Karen!
Karen, with nothing more than a pot and a spoon, produced a turkey breast of considerable juiciness and she is hereby an honorary member of the Kettner Blvd. College of Turkey Surgeons and Airport Relocation Committee. We had stuffing, gravy, green bean casserole with real mushrooms, and Karen's special gorgonzola salad with pine nuts. Then pumpkin pie with walnuts and whipped cream. By then it was 4:30 in the afternoon and I was ready for bed. We watched a movie until 7, and then I did in fact crawl into bed and slept until 7 in the morning.
The Idyllwild community, augmented by a throng of flatlanders, has its Christmas tree lighting ceremony in the town circle every Thanksgiving holiday. On Saturday we stood bundled against shirtsleeve temperatures and precisely at 5 p.m., with the sun down and temperature dropping, the lights went on in a hundred-foot pine topped by a star of white lights. Above it, the sky was in evening blue, with Venus and a new moon in the background, and way up, the silver contrail of an airliner headed southeast.
We drove home early Sunday morning to beat the return rush, unlocked the front door, and there was Gully! Life is good.
We always spend Thanksgiving in a knotty-pine cabin in Idyllwild, a community in the Riverside County Mountains about two hours from here. Southern California is an amazing place to live. Any kind of atmospheric, cultural, economic and entertainment bioclimate is available within two hours of our front door.
With encouragement from the imps at the Weather Bureau, I had hoped for some weather, which in Idyllwild would have meant snow. But no, after some sprinkles on Thanksgiving Day it cleared up, nice blue skies, and temperatures that Idyllwildians would call suntanning weather.
We were in serious hibernation mode. Karen went up on Sunday after the closing ceremonies of the Breast Cancer 3Day and set foot out the cabin door one time, she said. I drove up on Thanksgiving morning, and it was a drive for a lifetime. Overnight rain had broken into patchy showers, enough to keep the interstate wet so it reflected the sky, with clouds letting enough light through to create an encompassing Impressionist smear of gray and rose and ivory. The highway was almost deserted at that hour, and the wet lanes became part of the sky smear, losing all suggestion of concrete, lane markers disappeared, flooding me with the impression of riding on the sky, words rolling over in my mind, looking for the ones that would best describe this suspension between earth and heaven.
I decided that if there was something I could be thankful for on Thanksgiving morning, it was being born into a species equipped with a brain that could seriously process its surroundings, admit they were too beautiful to describe, but possible to enjoy to the point of rapture even as it became convinced it was flying in total contradiction to the vibration of the tires on the interstate.
I also had hot coffee in a traveling mug and Slim Willet on the CD, so if you know who Slim Willet is, you realize my rapture was complete. I was in a moment unique to my life thus far, and I was thankful. And then I got to knock on a cabin door, and there was Karen!
Karen, with nothing more than a pot and a spoon, produced a turkey breast of considerable juiciness and she is hereby an honorary member of the Kettner Blvd. College of Turkey Surgeons and Airport Relocation Committee. We had stuffing, gravy, green bean casserole with real mushrooms, and Karen's special gorgonzola salad with pine nuts. Then pumpkin pie with walnuts and whipped cream. By then it was 4:30 in the afternoon and I was ready for bed. We watched a movie until 7, and then I did in fact crawl into bed and slept until 7 in the morning.
The Idyllwild community, augmented by a throng of flatlanders, has its Christmas tree lighting ceremony in the town circle every Thanksgiving holiday. On Saturday we stood bundled against shirtsleeve temperatures and precisely at 5 p.m., with the sun down and temperature dropping, the lights went on in a hundred-foot pine topped by a star of white lights. Above it, the sky was in evening blue, with Venus and a new moon in the background, and way up, the silver contrail of an airliner headed southeast.
We drove home early Sunday morning to beat the return rush, unlocked the front door, and there was Gully! Life is good.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)