xtcian

freakophilosophy

9/28/06

I've been tossing around the idea of Ten Smart People in a Room Theory. It works like this: say there's some burning question that needs to be answered. It can be anything as flouncy as "did Barry Bonds use steroids?" to world-imperiling as "is Iran actually trying to make a nuclear weapon?" Ten people would be gathered in a room, and they would have the following characteristics:
- very high intelligence
- very broad, well-versed knowledge on the subject at hand
- completely agenda-free.

Now, the last of these would be hard, since almost everyone has an agenda, but it could be worked out. If one of your Ten has a book coming out about the subject and takes a side, then his book sales are dependent on his opinion, so he'd be eliminated.

Likewise, if the question was political, no partisan politicians would be allowed to be in the room either. It would simply be a room with Ten People, smart as hell, and nothing to prove. The roster would change for each question.

I think about this room a lot, because of two reasons: one, we live in an age of spin and lies, which puts even the most obvious conclusions into doubt; and two, I tend to miss the big picture and want to know what actual smart people think.

I asked some friends the other night about Barry Bonds, and the consensus was: yes, Barry Bonds took steroids and every smart person knows it. I was relieved to find out that there was a consensus, and I wanted more:

So, does Iran really want to make nuclear weapons?
Is the "bird flu" scare totally overblown?
Is Michael Jackson actually a child molester?
How will history rate George W. Bush as president?
Did Shakespeare write all of his own plays?

I want the ten smartest people to get in the room and answer those questions. Professional, smart people free of all partisan hackery or academic squibbling. Get a consensus and publish it, so at least we have a touchstone for arguments. I want things spelled out for me by serious individuals so I can make better choices with my philosophy, my writing, my voting lever, my charity and my mindset.

What would be your question?

if you no longer like piña colada

9/27/06

We were in the car today, going over the Sepulveda Pass, gossiping about a friend of ours who is about to lose his girlfriend, even though he doesn't know it yet. He still has time to make a play, do something drastic, but there seems to be one answer: she has to break up with him so that he can "bottom out" and then actually get his life together.

The whole "bottoming" phrase is common in AA, meaning the time at which drunks realized they could go no further and had to seek help. For me it had nothing to do with alcohol, it meant the times when things got so obviously bad that a revolution within my own heart was going to be the only salvation.

But I had a question: do we really need to actually "bottom out" in order to save ourselves? Can't we see the bottom coming, or even sense its vague possibility, and decide right then and there we are going to start over? Or are human beings so drunk by their own circumstances to actually create change without any immediate threat?

Our friend could walk into his girlfriend's room tomorrow and say: "I've got a new plan, I'm spending eight hours a day on this, three nights on that, and here's how things are going to change around here" and in a month's time, their relationship will likely be saved. But he probably won't do it. He needs to hit bottom, like my sister Michelle says during each teen movie: "skid row..." and only then will he have the wherewithal to make a comeback.

How much time would we save if we decided that "today will be our bottom" and just started anew? How much suffering, how many four-hour phone conversations can we avoid? How many months would we get back, the ones that were ticking away while we wait to get married, or have a kid, or decide what our Life was going to be?

So today's CODE WORD is simply: when did you hit bottom? Did you actually need to hit bottom? Or, if you want to answer anonymously, are you on your way?

thirteeners

9/26/06

And so it comes around again, another person labeled "The Spokesman of His Generation" and a chorus of people lining up to pee on his coronation robes. The current smackdown occurred courtesy of Josh Levin in Slate who asks, "If Zach Braff is the voice of my generation, can't someone please crush his larynx?" Zach's offense? A hit TV show, one good movie, one so-so movie, and then Entertainment Weekly anointing him as Generational Spokesperson.

I speak from some experience, as I spent about three months in 1993 or so being Spokesperson For My Generation. Being poor, I did not dissuade anyone of this idea, and turned it into a couple of non-fiction books, some fun articles for big magazines, an afternoon on Oprah, a bizarre side career in P.R. and advertising, and the occasional satisfaction of my low-level sexual addiction. I thought I was a pretty damned good writer, but I also knew how lucky I was, thanks to Kyle York Spencer's New York Times article and impeccable timing. The door opened for me, and I bloody well stepped inside.

However, one characteristic of both my generation and this current generation - whatever you want to call Zach Braff's demographic - is the preponderance of people of your age group who want you not only to fail, but flame out in a blaze of embarrassing glory. People hate being spoken for, even if you're doing it well. And thus I spent a lot of the mid-90s getting actual letters (and later, email) telling me that I was making a career out of crass generalizations, and I was a big fucking whiner to boot.

I never disagreed with those assessments, but if there's one thing your peers hate more than your early success, it's you admitting that they're probably right.

A lot of us kids today - and I'm including everyone born from 1961 to 2000 - have an instinctual "he's getting too big for his britches" button that is unfathomably sensitive. The second anyone our own age appears to be garnering too much kudos, the backlash will begin, and it will begin FAST and HARSH.

Hell, small examples abound on this blog. Back in 2004, I wrote about seeing a play with Marisa Tomei, and apparently I was talking too much about myself, and the comments were too positive, which led some guy to write "This guy is a giant, quivering, pink, pearly pussy. Sure, I don't HAVE to come here, but there's so much unwarranted ass kissing in these comments I thought a little voice from the non-dipshit world might be refreshing." Which remains, of course, one of my favorite comments ever.

Just a few days ago, when the comments section was filled with wonderful exhortations, it got too much for "Hans," who wrote (dripping with disdainful sarcasm): "You are wonderful. You are attractive. You are incredible. You are popular. Please, please don't stop the blog." I mention these not because they bum me out (they don't), but because they are a fascinating study on our peculiar psychology. Even though we come from an era that lauds the easy dollar and finding shortcuts to success, we absolutely loathe people who seem to be "getting away with it."

And so the article on Zach Braff. Josh Levin is filled with disgust at someone who wrote and directed a movie that made sure Natalie Portman fell in love with him. Also, he punched up the dialogue in his next movie and got to bed Rachel Bilson. And he doesn't think Braff has anything interesting to say. I mean, I get it.

But what is lost here, and why I think OUR GENERATION (if I may be so bold) has come up woefully short in the Great Artists department, is because there is such a tightrope of acceptance any of us are allowed to walk. Aim too low, and we're hacks. Aim too high, and we're pretentious. Make no money, and we're losers. Make too much, and we "don't get it anymore." Try to simplify, and we're boring. Try for something courageous, and, as Morrissey said, there's always someone, somewhere, with a big nose who knows, who trips you up and laughs when you fall.

Let me tell you something about writing and directing your own movie: it's really, really hard. It is much harder, say, than writing a 2,000-word article about how it doesn't speak for you. Anyone who dares, in this day and age, to do something artistic AT ALL not only deserves your respect, but your support.

I have never done two things in my life (well, three if you count heroin): I have never called anyone ugly, and I have never trashed a piece of art that was made with good intentions just because it didn't speak to me personally. I have sat through the most boring, soporific, navel-gazing theater in Manhattan, and while I have been frustrated, I have never said it was bad.

On behalf of my dad the symphony conductor, my mom the composer, my brother and Jordana and their plays, for the commenters like Annie and Block and CL and Oliver who dare to string notes and words together for a living, I would like to extend a middle finger to those people who exist to tear us down if we start doing too well. There is no parade too small for you to rain on, and I hope you drown in it.

i want to be in that number

9/25/06

Tonight my beloved New Orleans Saints took on the Atlanta Falcons on Monday Night Football, and it was one of those historic games that will be mentioned for the kind of impact a crowd has on the outcome of a sport. This was the first game to actually be played in New Orleans since Katrina hit, 23 games ago. The Saints won 23-3, and thunderous ecstasy was heard from the same seats where entire families lived for weeks surrounded by filth and excrement. Tonight wasn't just a win, it was a rebirth.

The emotion of the players reminded me of another game we all saw in 1990, when Loyola Marymount met Michigan in the NCAA tournament. LM's best player, a kid named Hank Gathers, had just died mid-game in their own tournament, and the rest of the team bounced back with a performance that was so unbelievable, so unconscious, so thirty-foot-swishes, that you believed them to be temporarily touched by the God of their choice. They upset Michigan, the defending champions, 149-115.

Tonight, the Saints played with the kind of fury reserved for a team whose town almost died. While the offense performed admirably, it was New Orleans' defense that seemed to be an extension of the 50,000 faithful who packed the Superdome; every wide receiver was covered like white on rice, with Michael Vick becoming a human piñata.

If you saw the Superdome a year ago, it looked like it needed to be imploded into the ground and the land sold for parking. Thank god nobody listened to the naysayers and the place was built up again, better than new. Monday night's telecast even featured past moments from the Dome's history, including (you guessed it) Michael Jordan's "The Shot," and Dean Smith cutting down the nets.

After 9/11, New York turned to its sports teams for a measure of succor: they had the Mets, Yankees, Jets, Giants, Knicks, Nets and Rangers. New Orleans has only the Saints. Now that half the population lives elsewhere, they needed this victory, and the rest of the season (we're now 3-0) as a signal that New Orleans isn't going anywhere. No offense to Atlanta fans, but in a game that usually disintegrates into money, thuggery and gracelessness, this was a victory won by a team who deserved it more: a town with a horrible wound, trying desperately to cobble together its soul.

a pregnant Tessa and me, New Orleans Superdome, October 2004

cellophane flowers of yellow and green

9/22/06

On the Odd Journey of Names:

In 1966, Julian Lennon, John's son, brought home a watercolor drawing of stars surrounding a girl he sat next to at school. John asked what it was, and Julian replied, "it's Lucy in the sky!" Thus the inspiration for "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," which was constantly misread as a code name for LSD. The song went on to define psychedelic pop for the period and became one of the most famous songs in the canon.

In 1974, Donald Johanson discovered the skeleton of an early hominid woman while they were digging in Ethiopia. It was one of the biggest discoveries in anthropological history, and while they were celebrating, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" came on the radio, and thus they named their skeleton "Lucy."

I first got interested in the Lucy bones when I went to Africa in 1981, where I got to meet Richard Leakey, who signed his book "Origins" for me, and basically went out of his way to make a shy 13-year-old feel worthwhile.

Meanwhile, Lucy came to mean the entire race of Australopithecus afarensis, who lived 3.2 million years ago. Last week, scientists revealed the bones of a child found near the original Lucy, calling it the oldest child fossil in existence. Slate ran the headline Little Lucy's Debut.

as an adult, only 3.5 feet tall

This means the transition animal between ape and human, the very creatures that eventually make you and me, are named after a girl who sat next to Julien Lennon in pre-school: Lucy O'Donnell, born in 1963 and now 43 years old, living in Surbiton in Surry, England, running a nanny agency.

My little Lucy gets her name from Nonnie (Lucille Tessman), and from my great-great-grandmother Lucy Rigby. I also loved the Peanuts cartoons as a kid, which gave us Lucy van Pelt. But also deep in there is the memory of a man in Africa whose peers dug up Lucy from millions of years ago, and was one of the first adults who treated me like I had something to say. I'll always be so grateful for the way he talked to me that day, and I won't forget to tell my daughter all about it.

detail of the Yahoo! Most Emailed Stories page where I got the picture - bizarre cultural statement, eh?

a sleep trance, a dream dance

9/21/06

Almost three years ago I told a brushstroke story about how two of my favorite screenplay ideas had been scooped: first "Sliding Doors" in the late '90s (which I actually liked) and then "The Butterfly Effect" in 2003, a movie so embarrassing that it might be Required Renting for macabre purposes. The ending is so insane that, well, describing it here wouldn't do it justice.

My original screenplay, one that I finished in 1998 and tinkered with for years, was basically a time travel mystery with a unique twist. The basic idea still remains intact and unassailable, but "Butterfly Effect" did temporarily ruin my chances at being taken seriously, especially when their protagonist's mode of time travel was vaguely close to mine.

I haven't mentioned what happens at the end of my script to anybody, because it turned out I was scooped by nature itself. In my screenplay, Hurricane Helen, a category 4 storm, blazes into New Orleans and drowns the Ninth Ward, uptown, and the garden district. Seven years after I wrote it, Hurricane Katrina did just that, only sparing the Garden District (and the house the script is based on).

Not to be outdone, I got scooped by the NOAA's National Hurricane Center, as Hurricane Helene churned through the Atlantic this week, a name that didn't even exist for hurricanes in 1998. It won't threaten New Orleans, but it still seems bizarre.

Oh, and the hero of the screenplay? A little girl named Lucy. Written two years before Tessa and I began dating.

I've discussed my definition of "cognitive resonance" on here before, but briefly, it states that the second you have an idea, someone else in the universe has the same idea, and from that moment on, it's a race to the finish line. In scientific circles, it's referred to as the Hundredth Monkey effect, which tries to explain why monkeys on isolated islands suddenly learn things taught to other monkeys hundreds of miles away.

Sitting here on our computers, dreaming of worlds that don't exist, we are those monkeys. Maybe that crossword is easier for you in the afternoon because so many of your fellow monkeys did it in the morning, even though they were thousands of miles away. I do indeed dig on the spiritus mundi of it all, but it can be real hell on your scriptwriting.

on the highest mount in Wales

9/20/06

The effervescent and wonderful Kaz of the comments section lives near us in LA and turned me onto the Cappucino Review blog run by her friend Amy Ferraris. In particular, this was a good entry, about a guy who is opening a new coffee place on Pico called The Schubert Coffee House, and why he is doing so.

First off, anything named after a composer is fine by me, as Tessa had a dog named Chopin, two dogs named Rachmaninoff (Rocky) and I had a hamster named Haydn, a cat named Elgar, a ferret named Sergei (for Prokofiev) and a dog named Kije (for Prokofiev's beautiful "Lieutenant Kije Suite"). Lucy is lucky we didn't name her "Albrechtsberger".

Secondly, I have to admit to having something of a coffee fetish, in that there's something about the subject that always gets me going. The flavor, the texture, the variety and of course, the caffeine all combine to, well, do something to me that is ineffably good. Shit, Bach himself wrote a cantata to coffee, and half of the Aubrey/Maturin novels involves Stephen and Jack waiting for a pot.

I know Kent thinks Starbucks tastes like "monkey ass," but they rarely fail me, they always have soy milk, and the company is fairly un-reprehensible as companies go. I consider it the Target of coffee places, especially since the new Target stores are particularly satisfying.

The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf has some excellent blended drinks, but let's face it: those are milkshakes, and besides, there's some kosher rule that doesn't allow them to use syrups. If you know me, you know that's a dealbreaker.

Yes, that is my collection of syrups at home. I don't usually have that many, but this one online store was having a "Buy 12" sale for almost no money, and I splurged. My current crush flavors are "Chocolate Biscotti" and "English Toffee," although they are all pretty much tastier than hell. Have me make you a 3-shot coconut latté one of these days and you'll understand.

As I've oft said, it sucks that coffee places weren't around when I was at Carolina because I would have GLADLY stopped driving pies for Gumby's and bussing tables at La Rez. I like the calming habit of making espresso shots, certainly enough to stand around at Caribou Coffee and make $6 an hour in 1990. In college towns, baristas and pizza guys make the same amount of money, but women will only have sex with one of them, and it isn't the guy who smells like cheese.

I've gone through a few home espresso makers over the last four years, but I've settled on a favorite for form and function: the Francis Francis! X1, usually $1.3 million dollars, but you can get them refurbished on eBay for a song. The one we have in Venice is a rare pink, because, well, I'm a gay, gay man and also because our whole kitchen ended up being 1940s pink.

I know true aficionados only use freshly-ground beans grown on a south slope in Chile that have been kept in a humidor at 61 degrees, but I couldn't stand the mess. I opted for the espresso pod, which looks like a cross between a tea bag and an unused condom, and it works wonderfully.

The crema (the brown oily foam that collects on the top of a shot) is wonderful, the bitterness is just right, and there is absolutely no mess. The Francis X1 could have a slightly more powerful steaming wand, but then you're talking about thousands of dollars.

Until I figure out my chemistry, regain the energy I had in my teens, calibrate my seratonin from the Celexa and lead my team in rebounds, the effect of coffee on my brain is as close to vague euphoria I'm gonna get this side of a tequila bender. In the hour after a good latté, I am convinced anything is possible, anything can get done, and occasionally I do it. That such a spirit is legal and homebrewed is something to celebrate, so I ask... what kind would you like?

sawasdee kha!

9/19/06

I'd like to use the blog today as a public service for our wonderful commenter Lyle, better known to you as the Bangkok Expat Mama. She's an old friend of the UVA crew that lurks on these pages, and her adopted country of Thailand just had a bloodless coup while Prime Minister Thaksin was away at the United Nations.

They have shut down most web services, and Lyle's few information outlets include this blog and Fox News, which pretty much defines "irony". So I'm offering this entry as a way for people to talk to Lyle and to give her the news, as we have millions of sites at her disposal, and she has but a few.

These are the basics:
- Coup leader (Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratkalin) says action was necessary to end "intense conflict." He said on TV last night he'll turn the government back to the people as soon as possible.
- Sonthi, the first Muslim army commander in Buddhist-dominated Thailand, was appointed to the army's top post last year with a mission to deal with an Islamic insurgency in the country's south.
- Thai TV says that coup leaders have told the king they're taking over the country, and I'm not sure what he said, but apparently the king didn't like Thaksin.
- Police reportedly clearing streets, but no violence reported.
- Thai military says nation under martial law; constitution suspended.
- Gatherings of more than five people are banned.
- Ousted Prime Minister Thaksin is going to be hanging in London.
- Oddly enough, market watchers think this is all eventually good news.

This was just in from the AP wire:

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- The United States has urged Americans to reconsider any travel to Thailand while Britain told its citizens living there to stay in their homes, after the Thai military toppled the country's prime minister in a coup... those already in the capital [should] stay at home, and monitor the media. The U.S. Embassy, in an e-mail to its citizens living in Thailand, said that while there had been no reports of violence in the overnight coup, Americans should "monitor the situation closely, avoid any large gatherings and exercise discretion when moving about the city."
"At this point, we are not advising Americans to leave Thailand; however, Americans planning to travel to Thailand may wish to carefully consider their options before traveling until the situation becomes clearer."

***

Anyway, Lyle, we're with you over there and we hope you and your kids stay safe! Anyone who has more reports or questions or observations, you know where to click below...

old sour

9/18/06

People who have been reading this blog know how much basketball means to me, as a vague historian, as a religious spectator, and as an occasionally-quite-angry player. I've actually played on blacktops in pickup games all across the country, especially when I was back on the book tours, and learned to deal with every kind of random ballplayer. I'm probably at my best behavior when I don't know any of my teammates, which means the Thursday night crew at Mulberry Street Garden has had to endure my psychotic rantings for most of this decade.

Here in LA, though, I try to get through with two basic skill sets: I'm pretty accurate from long range, and my interior passing is formidable. As I have aged, and no longer feel like taking the rock to the rack as often, it is nice to know I have a few things left in the arsenal before I have to give up the game in the year 2067.

It doesn't mean I'm not a little scared of getting older. I will be reaching a pretty huge milestone age in about eight months (along with the rest of you, Salem, Bud, Jon, Chip, etc.) and now when I play really well, I have the added joy of knowing I did so as a quasi-"old guy."

My dear friend, the excellent writer Mark Rizzo, plays hoops with me when his ankle is doing well, and we decided to do some drills at the YMCA last night. A couple of kids were at the next basket, so after a half-hour of boring warm-ups, we went ahead and challenged them to 2-on-2.

These kids were good, they could dribble like crazy and were fast. Mark and I were joking around, so we lost the first game 11-4. We laughed it off, then tentatively asked for another. They weren't going to do it, because they thought we were no competition, but Mark and I silently agreed we'd actually try this time. Five minutes later, we'd destroyed them, 11-2. Now they were a little upset.

You always have to play a rubber match, and this is where the world was supposed to right itself, and we'd lose. But the thing is, Mark and I are pretty good. Still. We came at them hard, pulled a few tricks out of the back pocket (Thursday ballers, you can guess which ones) and nailed them 11-8.

Three things came to mind:
1) Kids today have a LOT OF WASTED MOTION. You dribble and dribble, but you aren't going anywhere. I'll give you space so that you don't drive, which leaves you open for a nine-foot jumper, but YOU CAN'T HIT IT! I'm giving you the key to the game, and you won't use it. Learn the short jumper and you will probably beat us.
2) I was guarding a player who was twenty-three years younger than me. Think about that for a second.
3) GODDAMN that felt good.

i'll cross the stream

9/17/06

A few pictures from last week:

Tessa delivers a wonderful eulogy for Nonnie (then we sang ABBA's "I Have a Dream," believe it or not)

pallbearing to the graveside

quesadillas at Houston International

back home, Lucy reads with Lee Lee

snuggle fabric softener mascot bear

9/14/06

Everyone's favorite Lee (oft from the comments section) is here with is in Los Angeles kicking promotional ass for a certain fabulous periodical in the Triangle area, and because I have now temporarily painted myself into a corner with the blog, I asked her to give me a topic for today.

She said, "You know how Britney Spears does something stupid with her baby, and the paparazzi always catches it? What's something you've done with your baby that you're really glad was NOT captured by paparazzi?"

Curiously enough, I had just done something a few hours before. It was so stupid I hesitate to bring it up, but here goes: our babysitter was unloading some laundry, and her son was playing with Lucy, who was sitting on top of the dryer. Before today's big meeting, I went into the laundry room to kiss Lucy for luck. Lucy pulled away (as she is wont to do sometimes) and I leaned in further, and almost - ALMOST! - pushed her off the dryer for a four-foot drop.

I managed to grab one leg, and the babysitter grabbed her torso, but Lucy was dangling and, dare I say, scared shitless and FURIOUS. I almost hurt my precious little daughter just trying to kiss her. With her plaintive wails in the background, I drove off to the meeting, and basically had to wipe my own tears on my sleeve.

I am happy to report that NO PAPARAZZI WERE PRESENT DURING THIS INCIDENT and that is something to be thankful for. Oh, and Lucy was fine. That's what I truly have to be thankful for.

And your story?

granite and chisel

9/13/06

I've been keeping this blog running like clockwork (with the occasional power outage) for four and a half years now, which makes it among the longest-held online diaries out there. Something like 90% of all blogs are abandoned in the first three months, so many of you are already beating the odds. I mean, I'm no Evan Williams or Dave Winer, who have been doing this for ten years, but I'm doing pretty well.

However, this site has reached a midlife crisis, or at least a bumpy adolescence. I have several things working against me: I can't write anything concerning my job, which would get me millions of more hits because I'd be discussing famous people and facets of entertainment that you, the reader, consume every day.

In addition, I am no longer in the lead-up to Lucy's birth, my wedding, a piece of history, a Presidential election or a naturally-occurring phenomenon that necessitates breathless commentary. And in the face of such horrendous leadership by our current American leaders, my political posts have become apoplectic with rage. The kind of rage that is so intense that I can barely begin to write anything that isn't laced with profanity and the kind of ill-wishing that would land me on a FBI watch list. But ceasing to write about politics in this era would be like keeping a blog in 1349 and not mentioning the Black Death.

The last of all these reasons has proven to be the most destructive. I know many people have stopped reading this blog because of the politics: my Doom 'n' Gloom™, and the inevitable heart-stopping intractability of the conservative commenters. The political debate on these pages has gone from vibrant to disastrous. More often than not, the people on the right wing have simply outlasted the writers on the left (or middle), by parroting the same talking points and occasionally devolving into mania. My progressive compatriots have simply packed up and gone home, only returning for the occasional pictures of Lucy.

I'm to blame for it, because I believed so whole-heartedly in a free debate; I'm the one who brought up the subject and provided a "comments" button. I let J-Booger (now posting under a variety of pseudonyms before I can block his IP address) harass me and my family for months until I took action. Many of the other right-wingers are good guys whom I've met, but they seem to be the only ones left standing.

Every blogger has a reckoning. They all come to a begrudging acceptance of the imperfection of the blog form, or else they quit. I'm at that crossroads right now. Greg T. once mentioned how I'm always "one bad hair day away from retiring," so I know how boring and self-obsessed I can sound when I contemplate why I do this, but I am either going to have to change my approach to an online community, or get serious about my drum lessons.

Nobody listens to anyone any more. Everyone goes into every situation with their mind made up, waiting for their turn to talk. It has been 14 years since I saw an opinion change. For my part, I feel like I'm open to different viewpoints if someone were to present a strong argument.

I am not out to solicit praise. Someone please tell me how I can do this blog differently, or what they would do with this space. Dialogue is all but dead, and the rest is gossip. If this is merely a place to put photos, I could do it on Flickr. Are blogs really just the domain of knitters and people who are still dating? If we've all made up our minds, why are any of us still talking?

rolling blackout

9/12/06

I just got home, put my wife to bed, rocked Lucy to sleep (twice) and realized... I've just been in planes, cars and funeral homes for two days and I don't know what happened in the world. How was the September 11th 5-year anniversary for everyone else? Did anything happen with that "Path to 9/11" docudrama? Was there any news besides the Chargers blanking Oakland?

with tangerine trees and marmalade skies

9/11/06

I write to you, yet again, from deep in the heart of Texas: Cut & Shoot in Montgomery County, about an hour north of Houston. Sadly, we have come here to mourn the passing of Tessa's grandmother Lucille Tessman (known to everyone as Nonnie), an incredible character if ever there was one. Fans of "Five Wives" will remember her back-porch bon mots, but those closest to Tessa will know her as a touchstone of stability in my wife's childhood.

Sandy, Nonnie and baby Tessa, 1969

Nonnie's mother died of the Great Influenza Epidemic of 1918 when she was a baby. The actual story is that she died from dancing (caught the flu at the party), but losing your mother is only slightly worse than losing your father, which Nonnie did two years later. He had a heart attack in the driveway and collapsed dead on top of her brother. The locals blamed the new "iced water machine" that was put in the press shop, which led Nonnie to say "my daddy died from iced water, and my mamma died from dancin'."

Her troubles were only beginning: she was then shipped to an aunt's home, where she was routinely harassed by the other kids, and then came the "Tomato Tom-Tom" story which I told you about a few months ago (read it if you haven't yet, it's unbelievably sad). She stopped growing at 4' 11". She then married an abusive husband who died a year into the marriage while having sex with her best friend. It's a miracle she came out of any of this with her mind intact.

But then she found the love of her life, married him before the war, had two great kids and lived to be ninety. I knew our last visit with her would be our last, but at least Lucy got to meet her namesake, if only for a few minutes of wonderful lucidity.

Today we went to the wake, an open-casket viewing ceremony that, admittedly, was my first. I had seen many on television, but was wholly unprepared to see Nonnie's body right there in front of us. I don't know why it has taken me this long to truly get it, but there's something about the open casket that seems... culturally bizarre?

Note to Lucy and family: please, please don't do this for either me or Tessa.

On the way home, the rain began to pour in thundering loud sheets, the kind of rain that even the "fast" setting on the wipers can't handle. Lucy hasn't really seen rain since she was a newborn, and studied the ferocious window intensely. Finally, she smiled. "Bubbles!" she said, "Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles, bubbles bubbles bubbles bubbles bubbles bubblesbubbledbubbles!!!"

She knew bubbles from her Gymboree classes, but the thought of millions of naturally-occurring bubbles in nature has to be the best thing I've ever heard.

After putting her to bed, Tessa and I went through Nonnie's stuff, including her purse - one of those odd, intimate objects you never expect to end up in the hands of others. I never thought Nonnie particularly remembered who I was, since I met her in the twilight of her memory, but inside her purse was a picture of me and Tessa on a rowboat from September 2001.

It said "Tessa and Iren." She may have not fully understood my name, but she carried us around in her purse for the last half-decade of her life, and that's something. So here's to Lucille, to Nonnie, to the gifts she gave my wonderful wife, and the name she gave to my daughter. We won't remember her as that little gray person in the casket, we will remember her worrying, her laughing with Tessa, her puttering around the 20th century, a tiny hurricane blowing in from the Texas coast.

no one wept except the willow

9/10/06

We've all heard hundreds of stories about how badly September 11, 2001 affected this country; in essence, history has given us a lot to look downward to. New Yorkers have reactions from "I lost my three best friends" to "I don't know what the fuss was all about," but many of us inhabit that sad liminal in-between.

Anyone who has read this particular online diary for any amount of time is no doubt tired of hearing my plaintive wails about 9/11: the descent into impenetrable darkness, the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, the Celexa. However, I would like to take this anniversary and put away all the ugliness and sadness and give a huge thanks to that day for what it gave me.

That I was able to wade through that much anguish was one thing; it taught me I might survive any depression, and forced me to reckon with all the humiliation I suffered as a kid. I began to understand my apocalyptic paranoia for what it really was - a lasting, chronic fear of being young, unprotected and abandoned. The events of that day played right into some deep psychosis, and if I hadn't rooted it out, I'd still be a ticking time bomb ready to implode into worthlessness.

But that's just solipsism. The real thanks I have to give is this: September 11 allowed me to have a family. It wasn't until I saw those bodies falling from the sky, it wasn't until I helped people find their children, not until I dusted off survivors and helped feed families whose brethren were irreparably lost, that I was able to shrug off my own disgusting ego and come to grips with a simple phrase: "you're not going to live forever."

When "the rest of your life" didn't seem so daunting anymore, the concept of marriage became not only acceptable, but a delight. And when you accept a certain fatalism and are ready to face the possibility of a broken heart, you can have a child, and in the years following, we did.

There will be much talk today of "are we safer?" There will be political parties jockeying for position over the dead bodies of New Yorkers absent for five years. There will be so many things we could have done better, yet instead opted to choose fear over intelligence. But in this one moment, I need to thank the worst day in our memory for giving me the best gift I've ever known.

a few good men

9/7/06

Thanks to our wonderful friend and next-door-neighbor, the lovely and talented David Petrarca, we got to go onto the set of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and it was completely fabulous watching him direct one of the upcoming episodes. Easily the best television set I've ever seen (indeed, one of the best sets ever built, the workers assured me). They basically recreated an entire theater inside a warehouse studio on the Warner Brothers lot, and it's like a jungle gym: every single room, every staircase, every nook and cranny can be used in the plot. It's like an M.C. Escher painting filled with monitors.

I got to meet Aaron Sorkin, the Patron Saint of Smart Television, and see some of your favorite stars in action. David himself was terrific; laid-back and completely in control. I don't know if you've seen any of the previews (or the pilot leaked on YouTube) but we're super-psyched for the season. Set your Tivos to STUN, baby!

Which leads to today's CODE WORD: Which new TV shows are you aware of, and which are you psyched to watch?

when the saints go marching out

9/6/06

We sat in our car today, mouths open, listening to the mood-obliterating story on the murders currently being committed in New Orleans. The murder rate is the same as it was a year ago, but half the population is gone; you do the math. It took some detectives three weeks to crack the case of a 15-year-old boy riddled with bullets lying face-down in a ditch. He lay there for twelve hours with the life flowing out of his chest. They solved the case, but in the meantime, 21 more people were killed.

This is America, folks, not some third-world country along a tribal-warring AIDS highway. Not only that, but it is what used to be my favorite city in the world, completely left for dead by people who swore to save it. The story of Katrina has to be one of the most egregious cases of neglectful homicide perpetrated on American soil since the Trail of Tears.

There used to be 35 homicide detectives in New Orleans; now there are nine. Just take that fact alone. Why is our government not sending in trained professionals to pick up the slack? I've heard many people, not just nutjob lefty conspiracy theorists, posit that the Bush administration is voluntarily letting blue-leaning New Orleans die on the vine to ensure Louisiana stays a red state forever. I don't believe that yet, but it's not an impossible leap of faith.

Why can't this country have Compassionate Capitalism? Even a small re-arranging of finances, a modicum of common sense, and a dose of empathy, and almost every American problem could be fixed. We spend billions on bunker-busting nukes, and we can't give New Orleans twenty detectives to solve crime?

According to Newsweek, we have basically budgeted $26 billion for New Orleans: $6 billion to fix levees that are guaranteed to fail, and $20 billion to come up with a better plan. Meanwhile, Hans Vrijling, the superstar of Dutch levee-building (who protects a town a hundred feet lower than NOLA) said he could protect ALL OF NEW ORLEANS from a storm TEN TIMES THE STRENGTH OF KATRINA for $10 BILLION. And he could start tomorrow!

Our crimes are not of compassion, since almost everyone feels awful about what has happened to this country over the last five years, nor is it absolutely a crime of apathy, since plenty of people have given a lot of time and money. Ours is the worst sin of all in a world of such plenty: a crime of inefficiency.

Can we please elect some people who know how to do stuff? These feelings of utter helplessness are making America morally ill, and there's no drug for it except a sweeping revolution of thought, and an abrupt change of heart. When that kid lay in a New Orleans ditch waiting for help, nothing less than the American character flowed out of his body, pooling in red puddles by the cypress leaves.

the right trousers

9/5/06

A few random thoughts while people filter back to the internet after a nice long, hot summer off...

- First off, speaking of North Carolina music, Jamie Block will be playing a reunion show at Arlene's Grocery tomorrow night at 11pm sharp. Sadly, I will not be attendance to bring you the melodious violins and scrumptious piano chords evident on "The Last Single Guy," but I can guarantee he'll break a few strings en route to a glorious evening of twisted, anti-folk, folk, sample-infused pop.

- Secondly, a heartfelt "happy birthday" to Lindsay Bowen, who turned thirtysomething this weekend.

- Speaking of all of the above, two of my fave people, pictured in yesterday's blog, are having kids right as we speak. Clay Boyer and wife Amber just had a wonderful li'l tyke named Jacob - and Matt McMichaels' wife Carrie is currently a week late and counting. Huzzah to kids and the mothers that bear them!

- Speaking of kids that mothers have borne, Lucy's language skills have taken off in the last month; however, her translations are so endearing that I try (mostly in vain) to record them on video. From the first week of her life, I always referred to her pants as "pantaloons" because I was (and am) reading the Aubrey/Maturin seafaring series by Patrick O'Brian. Now she knows all pants as "pantaloons"... but pronounces it "pantapoon."

In this clip, I ask her what garment I'm holding, and she replies "Daddo's pantapoon." Maybe I'm the only one who think that is heartbreaking, but it took weeks of carrying around the camera to capture it, so I'm posting it!

all i ever wanted was to be your spine

9/4/06

Thanks to a post by the Gribster, I spent the better part of Labor Day perusing the NC Music History blog, and if you had anything to do with Chapel Hill from 1985 to 1999, perhaps you will find yourself lost as well.

Bands break up in the same manner as hiccups disappearing; you never quite know which spasm was the last. In the case of many of these bands, I haven't thought about them since actually experiencing them up close and personal at the Cradle - one always assumes there will be another show, so you don't mark it in your short-term memory. Pretty soon the band breaks up without you knowing, and the next time you hear of them is FIFTEEN YEARS LATER on the NC Music History site, and you're left wondering "what the hell happened to those guys?"

I was privy to many of these bands, not because I was a big fan of the so-called "Chapel Hill sound" or that I particularly liked the music. In fact, I found most of the bands too fucking loud, and I didn't really get what they were going for. I mean, I understood it intellectually, but I didn't enjoy it. My tastes - and my own "bands" - were unabashedly twee, and my favorites of the scene remain Johnny Quest, Dillon Fence (pronounced with French accent), the Sex Police, Metal Flake Mother, Bicycle Face and the Popes. That list would have gotten you laughed out of a Polvo show, but them's the breaks.

I was granted access to the inner workings of the scene because my roommates were all part of it. I lived with the Archers of Loaf, Ben Folds, members of the Squirrel Nut Zippers, some of the Mayflies USA and, of course, Greg Humphreys. Like any good cultural anthropologist, I knew that era - the early '90s - would be considered halcyon, so I stayed up until 4am to listen to the stories.

There was an intensity to that sort of mid-to-late-20s creativity that was palpable. In late 1992, I had just helped write a nicely-selling book and had been commissioned to write a cover story for the Washington Post Magazine on why Generation X hates Baby Boomers so much. It was late on a Thursday night, and the Archers of Loaf were downstairs at the Purple House hammering out a song. As I approached the rousing climax of the piece, the boys in the band were crescendoing to an unbelievably frenetic, apocalyptic frenzy. I put the last period on the article, and Mark Price crashed the cymbal at the end of their explosive practice session.

I ran outside to catch my breath, and so did the Archers. We exchanged stories of what we were working on, laughed in the humid breeze, and drank Jim Beam. Their song became the unbelievable one minute and forty-three seconds of sonic chaos known as "Sickfile" on the seminal Icky Mettle LP. My piece wound up on the cover of the Washington Post. And we didn't need to live in New York, Washington or Los Angeles. We did it all from a creaky fucked-up purple-colored house in the middle of the North Carolina Piedmont.

The Purple House residents in early 1993: Caleb Southern (Ben Folds, Archers producer), Matt McMichaels (Mayflies USA), Jon Gray (The Swedes), me, Clay Boyer (early Archers, Shek a la Shek), and Matt Gentling (Archers of Loaf bassist)

In essence, the NC Music History site celebrates those kids who rejected the paradigm of the "real world" and chose to make their mark in the confines of one of the best places in the world: the great State of North Carolina. Mac McCaughan may be a Dook fan, but he never sold Superchunk to the highest bidder - their headquarters is still in Carrboro.

In many ways I miss the dream of that perfect world: never having to leave the Southern Part of Heaven and still being a vital part of America's artistic discourse. Many of us had to finally let the umbilical go, and moved to New York and Los Angeles. Perhaps it's age, and the need for a million new voices for inspiration. When we were twenty-six, we figured the million voices in our own heads were enough.