It's Complicated

I'm on a First Date with my new laptop from an unnamed company that may or may not be connected to the treacherous edible icon that brought down the Garden of Eden. (I don't blame Eve, by the way. She was hungry. Besides, it's not cricket.)

Things have been going OK, but, you know, how best to dispel the awkwardness of a First Date, when it's ostensibly happening in one's living room?  I don't know if I'm talking too much and not asking about its life, its preferences, its family, whether it's more Chicago Hope or Grey's Anatomy. It shouldn't be all about me, should it? One good sign: as soon as I powered her on, she somehow automatically re-arranged my sock drawer. But, you know, I don't know if I'm ready for that level of intimacy with a slice of plastic and electronics that's, in fact, not as thick as several wheels of cheese I've known. And you should have seen how they rolled...

Lest I'm bringing some kind of International Business Machine-themed, backslashed chauvinism to this new relationship, my actual girlfriend tells me my laptop is a she, and that her name is Twiggy. Antecedent warning! Antecedent warning! Does a supermodel-thin computer encourage positive body image in its owner? Will I have to put in at least 20 minutes of cardio before she'll allow me to check e-mail? And the questions only get thornier after that--for example, should I even be dating something I own? (the laptop, not the girlfriend. Again, not very cricket.)

Is it just me? Should I mourn that I no longer have C-colon in my life? Suspiciously, this is also the year I'm supposed to get a colonoscopy. How can these two events not be connected? Have powers greater than I ordained that one kind of computing platform is a cancer upon society that needs to be excised, while wearing hip, un-self-concious clothing? And will the surgeon be wearing flip-flops like all the male employees at one of my laptop's company's recent team-building field-trips? 

The blogger reserves the right to dedicate an entire post on the subject of men wearing flip-flops on any surface other than sand... this phenomenon outstrips the laminate on my personal computing mores...

In other technology news, File under Continuing Breakdown of Civility: When I call my voicemail--idling on some computer in the ether that's no-doubt not named for a piece of fruit--it's been cutting off the very beginning of the prompt tree. As a result, the first thing I hear is, "asscode..."

Shouldn't my asscode be different from my passcode? Don't I have an obligation to keep my ass safe and secure? Now that this First Date is going on with me unshaven in my sweatpants, will my hot, newlaptop turn off her encryption to spite my ass? Wouldn't there be unimaginable problems if someone were to steal my ass, and would I be responsible for my ass if it were brainwashed by persuasive captors and committed illegal acts, not unlike Patty Hearst's unfortunate time with the Symbionese Liberation Army?

Look, the more these things turn over in my head, the confuseder I get. If this First Date ends up in a makeout session between me and my laptop, as my actual girlfriend assures me it will, I'm going to have to re-evaluate a lot of stuff on the neutrino level. They're so sexy, neutrinos....

Thanks for reading. And please remember that just because it's possible that by the end of this post, I may end up like this guy, it doesn't mean that my secret plan for unheard-of riches won't come true: designing a computer that uses Ones, Zeroes, and.... wait for it..... TWOS! Keep it under your iHat, ok?

A Weekend in the Country

One day, some folks near Lawrenceville, Pa, saw fit to build a lodge above a lake, stock it with good grub, and decorate it with enough dead animals to score the 2004-2005 Taxidermy Professionals of America Appreciation Award (Pennsy Chapter).

As it turns out, if you stuff them, they will come--and play keen tunes. This weekend, many lucky 80's-era graduates of my high school convened, amongst the fur and horns, and were entertained by more musical talent than Tioga County might have reasonably expected to beget in the mid-late 60s. Two of these fellas have graced these pages before, and you can find an accounting of their musical stylings under Songwriter Buds The Second and The Third., respectively.

photo, Jill Sumner Ellison

Their sets were rousing and wonderful and inspiring in their own right, but for this blogsploitation, I'm focussing on the fairer musicians... the wimminfolk.

Obscenely gifted wimminfolk. photo, Ken Harris

Secret weapon Lori Barrett coordinated the homefront, played a set of her own hard-driving, yet funny tunes, accompanied another songster on bass, organised the sound-and-lights package, held a rehearsal in her garage and even "produced" a back-up singer in the form of her own daughter--gotta be a first amongst Mansfieldians in my extended peer group. When I was emerging from tweenhood, Lori was the star ingenue, "Following the Fold" as Sister Sarah, and putting jam on the cat, in The Fantasticks. Last weekend's show blossomed around her infectious enthusiasm, and the beaming pleasure she takes in music of any kind, and it was pretty clear that if you randomly sat her down with two strings to stretch, saw, strum or otherwise experiment with, she'd ignite into a small sun.

photo, Lonny Frost

Esther Friedman played the fiddle.

photo, Frost/Barrett

Someone ought to write a short story with that as the first line. She also said Yes to the fortunate Chris LaVancher and his proposal of marriage, and now they, well, make beautiful music together. And separately. She put an album out that's available on CD Baby, as well as Napster and you can find her stuff on Amazon, as well.

photo, Tom Willner

 I've already used the word "artisinal" to describe this kind of intricate song-making, so I won't do it again, but I will say this: If you were to trek out, on a high spring day, into the Massachussetts hardwood forest, and a tree fell in front of you at about the three-mile mark, not only would you hear it, but if you were to cut it open to count its rings, you'd find a teeny tiny little dryad with a hand-whittled lyre, posessed by the ghost of Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, plucking out an Esther Friedman tune. Swear to God.

And finally, guest vocalist Gwen Walker, who tore the shingles off the place with "Down on my Knees." photo, Ken Harris

Gwen Walker, den mother of us all; Gwen Walker, operatic mezzo who not only put the "belt" in the Belt Parkway, but also put the "fist" in sophisticate; Gwen Walker, who will still have the porcelain skin of an early-thirty-something when the rest of us are clipping coupons for Pollident. Whatever deal with the devil Gwen Walker made, I want in. Gwen was always one of the older kids whom you wanted to be like. Sometime around 1985, she put together a pick-up group at Mansfield University and they did a "coffeehouse." I didn't know what a "coffeehouse" was, nor why one would hold it at the student union building, but I took notice, given that Gwen always projected the air of someone who knew what the hell she was doing. This was especially driven home when I sat in on a rehearsal and watched her bear down on a trombone player until he got the solo right in their cover of Chicago's "Hard Habit to Break." She also referred to a Billy Joel tune as "the Joel," as in, "Awright everyone, we're going through the Joel, now." Years later, I heard Twyla Tharp do the same kind of thing in rehearsal. "Andy!" she'd bark -- "Cue up the Meyer!" (Edgar Meyer, bassist/composer). So, there you go: Twyla, meet Gwen. Gwen, Twyla.

 

A couple of luminaries in the audience ought to be mentioned--our childhood teachers. Bill Berresford was a major presence in the musical lives of many, many Mansfieldians (and Blossburgundians, too, and others, through a multi-school wind ensemble), and he was beaming all night long. Our beloved choral and theatre muse, Christine Wunderlich, conferenced in on someone's cell phone, and sent pleased-as-punch vibes from Pittsburgh. And there was another gent who took great relish at the evening's festivities--particularly Tom's rollicking, funny song about the ironies of modern conception--Jack Novak, our elementary school principal, who was as sharp as ever and remember us all, down to our bus routes. I always thought he was a terrific principal and it was a lovely surprise to see him.

photo, Lonny Frost

Everyone joined in a finale of Tom Willner's reggae chillax anthem "All Fruits Ripe," with lush harmonies and sweet syncopations. By that time, I had found the Zen of building the lavender hi-side light during a crescendo in the bridge. The controller I commandeered was a gutsy little 8-channel trouper, and faded the lighting to a blue mist at the end of each song.

photo, Ken Harris

And that's exactly what had happened at gig's end, when we walked out the door, tired and happy---a blue mist bathed the Tioga Hammond basin. Lycanthrope jug bands prowled the dirt roads in search of cheap whisky and a good time. The young shoots of corn dreamt of a time when they might tassle, and what that might feel like. And so we all made our way gingerly back to our parents' houses...

Going home as adults brings an inevitable regression to the old times, but in a good way, when we sang three-part harmonies in the school cafeterias, drove past endless pastures to catch the latest movies, and spent Thursday afternoons at the bowling alley. That's smalltown life for you. Many of us stayed in the area and are raising families, many moved away. Some have died... The thickets of Tioga County can still call back its own, and we delight in going back. So much the better, in this case, to gather around the musical fire, and tell each other a few stories.

Thanks for reading.

Angels on the Airfield

In which a cyclist is reborn, and Blaiser enjoys a left turn at Albuquerque.

Last year, over Memorial Day Weekend, I broke my first bone in an ironic attempt to demonstrate a speedy hill descent, on a mountain bike, to my son...

It was 39 years old, this bone, and I discovered the hard way it would no longer absorb the force of bodyslamming macadam like it did in its younger days. And so, the brand-y new road bike I had purchased the month before did not, in fact, aid me in reducing my waistsize. Rather, it sulked in the bedroom and tried to maintain dignity as a silver-and-black clothesrack.

When one is no longer a kid, injuries take longer to really heal. So....One year later, and I'm fully back in the saddle as a bike lover, having made peace with the shift from cross bars to road bars, attacking hills, exploring twice or three times a week (via semi-serious rides) the best North Jersey has to offer in the way of scenic pavement. The effort has taken me comfortably south of 200 lbs. Pants are starting to fit well, again. It's nice.

Good thing, too, because I attended a wedding in Los Angeles over the weekend. Now, I have to say, I'm an Easterner, as my grandma would say, and as such, I don't really recognize LA's right to exist, what with what I perceive to be a mostly nonsensical lifestyle: Botox available on the beach, executives who have the gall to "develop" reality shows, and a dearth of decent public transportation, encouraging everyone to enmausolate* themselves in gas-guzzling cars that smogify the planet more and more each day. Oh, and the earthquakes, and the just, plain weirdness of Southern California (note irresistible marketing banner).

The nuptials, however, were fab, and pulled off as a bit of matrimonial performance art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

They don't really "allow" weddings there, but my buddy, a minor deity of American public radio who shall remain unnamed, had the audacity to act on a good thing when he saw it, and I don't just mean securing the hand of his elegant bride. The guests convened around dusk...

The lamps were lit...

a bride and groom emerged from the smog, became man and wife in a swift, yet moving ceremony--at arguably LA's most romantic locale--and then processed into the modernist concrete courtyard.

Delicious foods were served at the reception and a vinyl-spinning DJ brought the noise. Again, I don't mean to pull back the Venetian blinds that shield the secret and wild nightlives of public-radio personalities, but Holy Crap can that Krista Tippett dance a mean Limbo...

A beautiful wedding aside, bad things tend to happen when I visit California. Once, I went to San Francisco for a gig and awoke to a medium-sized earthquake, which seemed to say, "If you've wondered what it would feel like if you won the slots in Vegas, and then fed all 200 quarters into the vibrating, heart-shaped bed at the same time, ponder no further."

This time, I went to Venice Beach for the first time, and somewhere nearby, Dennis Hopper expired; Gary Coleman had turned up his toes the day before. Now, the narcissism of blog-writing aside, I'm not implying my movements have any effect on anyone, really, but could there be some link? An MD Super-80 extends its flaps at Dallas/Ft. Worth, and a dimuntive actor in Utah suffers a brain hemorrhage?

I don't mind admitting that it got me thinking, though, and so I did some research into my whereabouts when the world lost Hervé Villechaize on September 4, 1993. And you know what? I have absolutely no idea what I was doing. Probably sweeping the dance floor at the Joyce.

Alors, I'll impart the following bit of wisdom: If you're a middle-aged celebrity under 4'-8", you better make sure your affairs are in order if I either reach for a broom, or board a jetliner.

Writing of which, I am a huge fan of periodic jet travel, even though you now have to pay for checked bags, blankets and bad food, and despite the fact that we were never intended to be up there in the first place-- otherwise we'd have spray feathers available to us in random office buildings in LA instead of spray tans.

The flight back was direct, but due to bad weather somewhere in the middle of the country, we hung a Louie in New Mexico and hauled ass for the Great Lakes.

Then around the stretch we came, and BAM! We were over Manhattan and swung wide over the Atlantic before sliding into the Rockaways, and the airfield formerly known as Idlewild. Given the freakin' traffic on the Van Wyck on the way outta there, I wish they had left the damn golf course alone.

* Good word, huh?

I'm so sorry, Uncle Barbara.....

Or, why Barbara Ehrenreich and Dick Cheney ought to go out to lunch together. In France.

After dropping off the progeny at school this bright, cold, Brave New Morn, I walked to the village center to do some marketing. My cleaning supplies needed replenishing, I had money to deposit in the bank, and there was bakery danish with my name engraved on its top, in sweet, lacy white icing.

It occured to me, on the bracing walk back home, that Mondays in January ought to represent the ne plus ultra of fresh starts and renewals. I don't want to take a Polyannish position that ALL things are, in fact, possible (cue monkies to fly out of my nether orafice), but that MANY things, or at base, SOME things are surely possible, and that's a lot for many people. I'm not talking about most Americans, if you will. Rather those of us on the planet who are truly challenged--folks who may worry what kind of roof will be over their heads tonight, where their next meal is coming from, why their soccer team was blown away on the way to the stadium. And especially not anyone still driving a Hummer. Unless they're driving it in North Florida, which I encourage as much as possible to globally raise the temperatures there in time for my visit there in two weeks...

So. I was upbeat--to be sure. That's what I do: Zany OptimismCTM, and welcome to it. After cheerfully scrubbing dishes and tidying up, I turned on the radio and heard the surprising news that one of the most war-torn areas on Earth was down with that, too: Seems a lot more people in Afghanistan think that things can and will get better. Afghanistan.  You'll remember it as the land of you-can't-win-here and If-it's-a-new-decade-you-must-be-the-next-major-power-to-invade-us....

But the next story on the radio was that Barbara Ehreneich wants me to feel bad. Or rather, that the power of positive thinking is, essentially, a dumb thing for Americans to do. Well. Full Disclosure: I have not read her book yet, but for now, I'm calling Bull Puckey, based on her interview on the BBC this morning and her irresponsible position on Optimism:

On a personal level, it leads to self-blame and a morbid preoccupation with stamping out “negative” thoughts. On a national level, it’s brought us an era of irrational optimism resulting in disaster..

Now, look. I realize this quote is somewhat out of context. Moreover,  I think I have a handle on what she's really railing against: delusion; megachurches; a breakdown in reason and logic. That's all well and good, but in the damaging sound-bite interview I heard this morning, the message was overwhelmingly "Don't be so damn positive." Cow Pies, I say.

Greed and stupidity certainly contributed to the various late 20th-Century economic bubbles--i.e. many folks took no responsibility for their own mortgages and allowed less-than-savory--ok scummy--real estate brokers and bankers to mesmerize them with the promise of short-term financial alchemy. Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's moving more product than I this fall? Don't blame it on my smiley-face, however. Or my neighbors'. Blame it on the disintegration of American education, perhaps, but not on a sunny disposition, a precious commodity in the general moral morass of Planet Earth these days.

Barbara, I'm sorry you got breast cancer,* and I'm sorry you didn't like the pink-ribbon festooned support network you found on the Internet. (And who wants you to embrace your cancer as a gift? That's just dumb.) You've lost the whole point of life-changing events. It's a changed perspective that one embraces, not the burden of disease. It's an ability to maintain perspective that allows us to find the clichéed silver lining, and re-discover the beauty, say, of a freshy cut perrywinkle-blue iris.**

Barring suicide, we don't choose the manner of our deaths. This is thin ice for me, and my cancer friends can surely chip in, but perhaps part of what's going on for long-time chronic and fatal disease-sufferers is that they simply have much longer to contemplate their own demise, or see it only through the filter of sickness. I don't know, but what I do know is that this media campaign rubs me the wrong way.  Again again again, I have homework to do, but you know what? My instinct tells me there are equal parts self-promotion and bitterness in this book. That's why Barbara and Dick ought to have lunch together. In France.

I'll wager that for every bummer story you throw at me, I'll come back with a positive one. There's parity in this human life. Which side do you choose to be on? Is it a value to society to teach our children that the class is half-full? For we all die. This is perhaps the root tragedy. There are wonderful things in life and we don't get to carry on indefinitely. Sucks to be us, yeah, I know. I'm with you on the inanity of bringing motivational speakers in to pep up the academic community,  but don't you make me feel bad on this beautiful Monday morning.

Thank you, the management here at Blaiserblog.com

* Contrary to pessimistic readings, this is sincere. I do not minimize anyone's health issues. That would be mean.

** $4.99 at Trader Joe's. You should check it out. But stay away from their ecologically-correct cedarwod & sage multi-spray... it smells like a half-pack of cigarettes left overnight in a can of Old Milwaukee...