Hunting is not a sport

It's just killing. I saw on Facebook some lunatic posing with his "trophy", grinning from ear to ear. What type of weapon did the deer killer's adversary carry? Sickening. A deer killer once asked me if I was a vegetarian, noting that if I'm not, I'm a hypocrite. Not true. Sure, I'm a hypocrite on many levels, sure, but not this. If I want meat, I go to the store. And I've heard the argument that without "hunting season" the deer will starve in the winter. Bullshit. Shooting an animal, a deer, is just mean and simply wrong. To pose in a photo with the newly killed "trophy" is beyond sickening.

Living through a lens, mic or pen

I like to write. Rather, it's something I am compelled to do from time to time. But it seems the more time spent writing, the more of real life is missed. Perfect example is anything involving the children. You have the camera, video camera, you want to capture this moment. But in the capture, you lose the experience. I'm not sure one is worth the cost of the other. Does this experience - be it monumental or ordinary, either of which defines beauty - matter most on film or in our hearts and conscious mind. Rhetorical ? there, thus no question mark. As with most anything, balance is generally the answer. But what the hell do I know.

Waiting for the next big thing

The problem is the Next Big Thing just isn't coming. You can apply this to really anything - art, poetry, fiction, music, especially music. But it's movies I'm thinking of now. I'm an eighties kid. Grew up with eighties and I'm damn happy about that. I love the eighties. Loved pretty much the entire decade as a teenager. I love the nostalgic thoughts those times give me still. Problem is, I want more.

But there is no more. There can't be another Bull Durham. There will not be another John Hughes. Cusack is older and makes generally lame movies now. The cool kids that shaped my fragile upbringing for better and worse are now middle age dads and soccer moms. It's pathetic. And I'm not getting any younger either. But I do want and almost expect more greatness from film that I just cannot find. I am aware of good films, great ones even. But it's not enough. It's not the same. Even with the age of Say Anything and Ferris and Breakfast Club and Field of Dreams - eighties films all - they still ring true and show beauty and truth and passion and move me to tears. Am I a nancyboy for stating such? Sure, I guess I am. But those films meant something and they mean something still. I'm still waiting for my next soliloquy from Crash while ironing, Annie busting in the front door. I'm still waiting for Dobler to tell me what he's not looking for in a career. I'm dying for another tough girl drummer with bangs and black gloves.

But they've all gone away. They've aged and they've died. Those who could have given more and should have given more have moved on. I may sound bitter because I am. I'm an eighties kid and expect to be entertained. Thank God the cable networks play some of these classics on an annoyingly semi-regular basis.

Columbus Day

I'm going to work on Columbus Day. It's one of those off holidays anyway. But even if it was a paid holiday, I would choose to work that day. There are only a couple people deemed worthy of a national holiday and for some bizarre reason, the great Chris Columbus is one. He didn't discover anything. To "discover" pretty much means to you know, discover something. What he thought he discovered was India. Hence, calling those already there - Indians. But then he chose to disrespect those already there, at the very least. And I'll stop there, because that's really enough. The rest is sickening. A drunken, ignorant, cruel and sadistic sailor who couldn't tell North America from India. And there is a national holiday in his honor. Yea, I'll be working this and every columbus day.

LeBron Needs a Hug

Bless his ignorant soul. He just keeps making it worse. LeBron James is just a kid who can play a game very well. That's it, a game. Off the court, he's lost. He's empty and shallow. He's a millionaire child, spoiled, entitled and sad. So he took his talents to South Beach. He cannot seem to comprehend that he's become a cartoon. He and his kiddie nation of handlers believe they're better than anyone else and act accordingly. But he's just a kid. Poor guy has never had to clean up his messes or get his hands dirty or learn how to treat others. Big guy just needs a hug. Bless his heart, LBJ just needs a hug.

Anyway, the always entertaining sports writer J Whitlock says it better. As always.

the little things

Always the little things. The little things that push you over the edge and make you so angry you have to punch a hole in a door or smash a t.v. The little things that move you to tears and make you believe like a child. The little things that make you laugh out loud and pee in your pants. Always the little things. The easiest to feel, the hardest to appreciate or even recognize. It's the little things I adore.

Olbermann

I'm torn. I really like Keith Olbermann. I loved his wit and humor on SportsCenter. He helped grow that network in the 90s. He was funny and clever and the smartest kid in the class. And I know A Sorkin modeled much of the late great gone-before-its-time Sports Night from watching K Olbermann. I only wish the guy would have stayed with sports. His smart-ass brand of humor just fits sports. When he talks politics he sounds too much like a pompous ass. I'm no Republican, but his bias is beyond obvious. I cannot agree with his take on political and social matters simply because he's so one sided. It's beside the point that I generally and oftten agree with his opinion. It's just that his show is set up as a news program. Call it entertainment and I'm on board. Totally. The guy is whipsmart and funny as hell. I just hope FoxSports can bring him back to his roots in sports.

REM

I got into REM around the early 90s. High school and into college. Eponymous was my first album. A good beginner's course, she said. I moved on to Green, then Pageant and then the earlier offerings. I was mesmerized to be sure. The voice. The lyrics I couldn't define. The sweetness of the Rickenbacher. This is about the time I started writing and playing guitar. No coincidence I'm certain.

After the massive success of Out of Time, that was about it for me. A few good songs here and there, then Berry's decision to become a civilian, and that was it for me. I just couldn't get the newer stuff - newer being anything after 1991. My younger brother at the time had the back of his car covered in band stickers. My favorite was the hardware store-bought single letters that spelled EARLY REM. And he was right. For me, "early REM" includes the trifecta of Reckoning, Fables and Pageant. That's when REM became REM. Chronic Town was impossibly good, but it was also the prelude to what was possible.

I put the Athens quartet on the shelf for many years as I explored jazz, folk, Pixies, Nirvana and indie pop. But then I heard - and I mean really heard - track one of Reckoning. That naturally led to Fables, which led to Pageant. These albums matter. They matter more now than when they were recorded. They're better now, to me, and for me. They speak and confirm and grace and hypnotize like so few pieces of music truly can. They inspire and delight. What was old, is new again.

autumn

Best time of the year. It lasts but a short time, a wrinkle really. Cooler temps, sweater weather. Baseball getting near playoff time. Leaves changing. All that crap. The best songs are written in the fall. They have to be. Summer is brutal and muggy. Winter is nice but obstructing and bitter. Spring is the time between two extremes. Autumn is the keeper of dreams.

that was waaaaay lame.

long time, no words

Shameful. I'm no writer. But you'd think I could manage a paragraph of words on an anonymous blog three times a week. Family, baseball, music, film, nostalgia, fairly obvious observations, pop culture, movie quotes, anything.

More later.
But likely not.

B Philips and the Cardinals

So Brandon Philips said some things that may not have been meant for popular consumption. So what. The guy is a competitor, he wants to win and maybe he went a bit too far. But the Cards players and St. Louis media reaction was similar to that of an eight year old girl. That mean boy said he didn't like me. Boo freakin' hoo. Get over it, and play the game. Obviously Philips' comments that they whine and (complain) were accurate. Would have been a lot more poetic had the Reds won the game though. Best way to shut up the whiners is to win.

Hopefully with the series finale, Mob lackey (over-rated manager) LaRussa will just fill out his lineup card, keep his hat on so as not to expose that ridiculous toupee and shut up and watch the ballgame.

more on saving - dvr edition

I'm pitiful. The DVR is filling up quick. I hoard tv shows and movies and assume or expect I'll watch them soon. Not sure why I find it necessary to continue recording two episodes a day of The West Wing on Bravo. Two a day. And I've seen the series three times. And it is a great show, especially the first four seasons when Sorkin wrote the bulk of the series ("bulk of the series, Dude"). And it does give me inspiration in writing. Or I think it does. But really. How necessary is that? And movies that I dearly love - miller's crossing, 4 weddings..., vanilla sky, legend of 1900. If they've been sitting there untouched for months, how necessary is it really? Well, they're not.

I'm still not erasing them though.

what's the use of saving

And I'm not talking about money. Though I'd never be accused of that either. Just saving in general. My problem - as if there were but one - is I want to save freaking everything. I have magazines from 20, 25 years ago - i might need an article in there someday; concert t-shirts I haven't worn in 15 years, nor will I ever again - maybe there will be a use for that Poison/Warrant shirt from '88, but there's still a little life in that Dylan 93 rag of cotton; cassette tapes for heaven sake, and thousands, literally thousands of CDs. I'm all for nostalgia. And I'm not quite of the "hoarding" variety. But keeping every last remnant of nothingness is messy, unnecessary and definitely unhealthy. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

politics suck

I can't follow politics. It's not farfetched to say anyone holding political office is a liar, a moron or likely both. Obviously that's a gross exaggeration - like saying all doctors are competent and human, or all cops are part owners of strip clubs - can't make goofy ass generalizations of the like. But it seems for every numbskull on the left, I have to listen to a similar arugment from the right. For every liberal egghead with a pen and an opinion, I have to balance it with the opinion of a dim-witted conservative. It comes to this - they're all the same. They are the same in different ways and different in the same ways. A politician equals a politician. Left or right, I can't tell anymore. They want the general public to believe they are right and good without just cause, without reason and sadly without dignity and humanity.

pay what you want - social-ism

Another pay-as-you-go concept

The skeptic/realist in me says this could never succeed. The tiny part of me that reaches for the stars wants it to be possible. But the concept has tried in the past, in fairly progressive cities like Portland, Denver and Austin. I hope it does work. I hope it's possible that such a thing could work. Some capitalists would argue it's a step backward, that it's literal free trade, that best case scenario would be breaking even. But those capitalist arguments - while likely not untrue - are not the big picture. Doing good. Simple, forgotten concept - it's called doing good.

Those who can, do

Those who cannot, don't. No need to make it any more complicated than that. If I think I should - for health concerns or twisted depravity - stop drinking Dr. Pepper, I would do that. If someone wants to lose weight or get in shape, they either do or they don't. It's ridiculous to think you can get there by reading how-to manuals, gathering research, planning, getting facts together, etc. If one wants to quit smoking, the best way to do so is to ... not smoke. Sure it's difficult to improve oneself. Studying quantum physics is hard too. String theory is hard. Playing baseball is often hard too. Those who can, do. Those who cannot, do not.

Oscar Schmoscar

What's the big deal with this annual schmuck fest? At least the Golden Globes have some drunken entertainment. But that's me. I abhor award shows of any kind. But this is the worst because it's the biggest, arguably. It's the television equivalent to gossip magazines. Good movie, great movie, over-rated movie. Big deal.

listening to music, proper

I often have a difficult time listening to music. This is both sad and pretty pitiful. I love music. It's truly essential. But I somehow can't spare the precious time to listen to a forty-five minute album I've waited for and anticipated. And it's not for the same reason I never finished Salinger's Raise High... - wanting to hold something back. No, I'm talking new-ish albums by fleet foxes, MGMT, one of the countless Pinback side projects. For someone who loves music dearly, why the issue? I'm baffled, shamed and inaudiblely un-excused.

real taste vs. flavored taste

This is a sham. I suppose some "flavored" things taste like the real thing. Can't think of a single one really. The worst offender is peach. I love peaches. Love "peach flavor" too. But they're in no way similar. The smell is even different. Both nice and good and fine. But not similar. What they should do is come up a way to have peach flavored peaches. That would be the best ever. Like, ever.

finding new music - "but it sounds like coldplay"

Pains me to say this but some of the silly teeny bopper shows are excellent for finding new music. Usually, bands that oddly sound a lot like Coldplay. Shows like gossip girl, one tree hill and the o.c. The producers must have slews of young, hipster cool-ies going to little dives in NYC and Portland and finding these guys, offering to put them on this "hot new hip cool show! yea!" before they get big time. Then after they reach moderate fame, they're back on these same shows - see cutie, death cab for; mouse, modest; airwaves, angels and; etc; etc. Really though, the "new music", it all sounds like Coldplay. All of them. They all sound like Coldplay.

wasting time

How much time does the average human waste in a day? A week, a year? It's disgraceful. And I am the world's worst. Every day, I have, oh, 20 or 30 things I might want/need to do. Not major things, I'm talking about minor things - do some laundry, work on a story, begin a new story, organize photos, clean the basement, dye my hair, listen to new music, read something, experiment in the kitchen, etc., etc. These are everyday things. But I reach a point, and think it's going to take too long, that I don't have enough time to do that, any one of dozens of minor little... "things" - most of which are enjoyable, or at least meaningful and rewarding. Is it just me? What a waste, what a #?@$-ing waste.

JD Salinger

Everyone has an opinion of this guy. Sure, he gave voice and call to action to countless post-adolescent boys. His words rang true and continued to bleed into our minds with the fifth, sixth, tenth readings. So accessible - his books, not the man. Personally, I never could finish Raise High...Left the last four pages. Unread. Had to leave something behind. I'd already read the others, plus those volumes of pirated stories from his earlier days. Now, with wide speculation of a dozen or more completed, unpublished novels - kept in a locked safe near his NH home - I may well finish those last four pages. A legend gone. One of the best we ever had.

Nirvana, Seasons in the sun

Seasons in the sun



Beautiful. Playful. Sloppy. Raw. But mostly beautiful.

The forgotten blog

I've seen - and swiftly forgotten - stats on the numbers of blogs created, blogs continued and those abandoned. So sad. Everyone starts with so much to say and so little time. Two, three, five posts a day on what they cooked for dinner or what movie dispelled expectations. Then it dips to twice a week, then three times a month, then seldom. And then the inevitable. The forgotten blog. Lost. Discarded. Left as worthless. Pity. It's a window to life. It happens with education, relationships, television programs and learning new things. Always in like a lion and out like a lamb. Like the loveable schlub said, "you're out of your element". So I'll again restart my random thoughts. At least until tomorrow when I change my mind again.