I was re-reading Last Night Of The Earth Poems for about the 12th time yesterday when this landed in my sight – “Dinosaria, we” – one of my favorite Bukowski poems from the later years. And it struck me just how true some of these lines were, particularly when talking about the jails overflowing and the madhouses closed, the lawyers so expensive it’s cheaper to plead guilty. May you live in interesting times indeed…
it is whatever got you through today
it is whatever will get you through tomorrow
it is whatever it is
it’s what kept you from ramming that car at the intersection
it’s what keeps you from strangling strangers on the street
it’s what has kept you out of prison (so far)
it’s something ethereal and concrete – here & gone
it’s something you can stick in your back pocket
without worrying about sitting on it
it’s something you keep up your sleeve like a spare ace
it’s here when you need it and not when you don’t
it’s there in the night when the fear comes on you
it’s here right next to you, right now, even if you don’t recognize it
go ahead
embrace it.
If you’re late to the party, you can read the first three parts here, here, and here.
I’m sensing that the wind is slipping through the sails on this one, so let’s bring this baby home with one more post. However, you should know that I’ve saved the best (and most embarrassing) for last. I know, it’s because I care. Not really. But you can think so if it helps you sleep better at night.
Specifically remember buying this one at Woolworths in Portsmouth, NH out of the discount bin. Although being a Gentile white 13 year old kid from New Hampshire put me entirely outside Jackie’s target audience, I nearly peed myself listening to this the first time. Continue reading
The problem in college football isn’t that universities don’t know about corruption, it’s that they don’t want to know about the corruption. Much like Sgt. Schultz, they want “to know nuth-zing!” about the money and gifts that their players are receiving from boosters and agents. Same with coaches – they busy themselves with gameplans and schemes rather than wondering how a college kid with no job can be tooling around campus in an SUV sporting rims worth a half year’s tuition. Why trouble yourself with something like that? Let’s figure out how to beat Nebraska!
It’s been quite the year for college football. USC was sanctioned and stripped of a national title, Reggie Bush was stripped of his Heisman title (although he apparently is still hanging onto the hardware), a handful of Ohio State players were suspended for selling memorabilia, Ohio State head coach Jim Tressel was encourage to resign after he got so deep in allegations he needed stilts, and now a convicted felon is spilling his guts on what’s been happening behind the scenes at “The U” for almost a decade.
From the NCAA’s perspective, the problem here isn’t that all of those people were doing bad things, it was that they got caught – that much is obvious. Were the Ohio State players suspended immediately when the NCAA uncovered what had happened? Hell no – they were allowed to play in a bowl game, make some money for the NCAA and their school, and then were suspended for the first five games of this coming season. Maybe the players head to the NFL, maybe this whole thing blows over by the next season – either way, the guys at the top get their money and that’s what really counts.
College football is big business, but more Amway than Microsoft or General Motors. The first ones in – the NCAA and the schools – make the biggest money, then the coaches – their recruits – get the trickle down. The players are the last ones in and essentially cheap labor, the ones who don’t see much out of the scheme and rotate in and out after a few years. In much the same way Amway and other pyramid schemes attempt to hide the fact they’re the same old tired business plan, college football tries to cloak itself in the guise of “student athletes” and “amateurism” – instead of boasting about how much those lower echelon worker bees are taking in, they’re desperately trying to hide the trickle down that comes through boosters, agents, and in some cases, the schools themselves. Neither one wants to admit what they are and both of them are scams.
Even the journalists bringing down the whole house of cards are buying into the scam in some way. Notice the “renegade” part of that headline? It’s implying that this type of behavior – these types of benefits, gifts, bribes, and the like – are outside of the system when, in fact, they are part of the system. It’s how the corruption is perceived – from the bottom up or the top down? Do you think this is merely a problem with greedy college kids not honorable enough to take a free college education as enough payment for a few years of wear and tear on their body? Or do you think it’s a problem with organizations making billions of dollars – a de facto professional sport – off cheap labor?
I know what you’re saying – Tarnation! Part three?! Where’s the first two dagblamed parts? No worries, I’ve got you covered – part one and part two. Go ahead, give ‘em a read and just like Richard Marx, I’ll be right here waiting for you. Of course, Richard’s waiting because he hasn’t worked in the pat 15 years, but still… you get this gist.
Cool thing about vinyl #372: the B-side. Let me turn my attention to all the youngsters out there for a moment… Kids, back in the day, when you’d walk down to the record shop (uphill both ways, of course, in some kind of blizzard with no shoes) you could either buy an entire record or just a single song. Now, you might think this is the same as your newfangled iTunes, but it wasn’t. These days when you buy a single, you’re actually getting cheated because you only get one song. Back then, if you bought a single, you got the song you were looking for and then another one on the other side – the b-side. So really, every single was a double. Now, get off my lawn! Continue reading
when most people get face-to-face with
The Almighty,
their questions will probably
be different than mine.
i won’t ask why we are here
or what is our purpose in life.
i’ll ask
why Jimi?
why Janis?
why John Lennon?
why Stevie Ray Vaughan and
John Belushi, why Bradley Nowell
and Jim Morrison?
why leave us with the mediocre
talents, the dry ones who only gain
relevance by their tired longevity – those
who refuse to do anything but fade?
and while I don’t wish death or harm
on anyone,
why are the brilliant pulled away from
us so soon and the lukewarm
allowed to stay so long at a low simmer?
sure, you gave us decades of Bukowski and Hunter
and Clapton and Miles Davis -
but did you really have to take Charlie Parker
and Robert Johnson to balance
those scales?
don’t mean to question the methods
or the wisdom – I just feel like now that it’s
all over, maybe you can let me in
on what it’s all about.
well, that and…
where’s Hank Williams playing tonight?
Hey, did you catch what I wrote yesterday in Part One? No?! Well then go back and check out all the good and embarrassing stuff right now – I’ll wait.
One my favorite vinyl moments is probably also an incident which will be savaged by just about anyone with musical taste. Possibly the best thing about being a DJ at a college radio station is that, at one time or another, you’ll be pulling a 2-6 am shift with no one listening to you except a handful of drunks, insomniacs, and the utterly insane. Why is this good? Because anything is possible – no one is listening, no one will complain. So one morning, I decided to experiment a bit. Quick note about set-up… The WUNH on-air studio, at the time, had two turntables, three CD players, and two CART machines (kinda like 8-tracks, mostly used for station ID’s and public service announcements). I loaded up some acid jazz in one CD player, some random punk band in another, and a bluegrass CD in the last one. In the CARTS, I had a station ID and a PSA that was coming due in the next couple minutes. Pressed play on the acid jazz beats.
Now, the interesting thing is that I had John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” on the left turntable and the soundtrack to 2001: A Space Odyssey on the right. I dropped the needle on Coltrane and bled it in over the top of the acid jazz and found a mix. Next, I added some punk in the background, and then the bluegrass slightly louder, but still somewhat in the background. Really making some interesting noise, but not quite there yet. So I started up 2001 and cued up ”Also sprach Zarathustra” – which I then began to scratch with all the hip-hop ability in my very caucasian body, which wasn’t a whole lot. After awhile, I got bored with that and tried to scratch both the Coltrane and 2001, which was interesting to say the least.
The best part? Absolutely no calls regarding this 15-minute car wreck of a performance. Hell, if someone was listening, they probably thought it was the latest single from Aphex Twin.
Now onto some more tasty vinyl from the collection… Continue reading
There’s nothing like vinyl. To me, there’s nothing like the click of a turntable as it begins to spin – the care of gently dropping the needle – and the warm hiss through the speakers before the opening track.
Growing up, I used to raid my Dad’s collection of records and, smudging the living crap out of them, I’d spin those LP’s over and over again. Little did I know this would become somewhat of an addiction. I was lucky enough that you could still buy vinyl in stores up until I was in junior high. After that, I discovered that record clubs were still selling vinyl, so I joined up with Columbia House – 12 records for a penny! – to get my fix. For the next couple years, I was able to make several questionable purchases as part of two-for-one sales. Going to college actually caused a relapse when I began working at WUNH because they were home of the largest vinyl collection on the east coast (or so I was told). It was a tremendous assembly of good, bad, and absolutely bizarre music – and lots of it was on vinyl.
So when I was over at my father-in-law’s place last night listening to music and pawing through his collection of records, it made me want to dig out my collection from where it had been in storage under our stairs for the past couple years. In addition to my own purchases, I’d actually had an infusion of albums from my Uncle Ed a couple years ago. Tonight, I began digging through the collection and here’s some of the results… Continue reading
Although I know nothing is ever as simple as it seems to be, there are times when being a sports fan in 2011 is just too damned complicated. Perhaps all those heroes of the past had their problems but they weren’t subject to the same 24-7 media scrutiny that we have today. Maybe it’s just a case of ignorance is bliss. Either way, I’ve found that being a fan has involved a bit more moralistic tap dancing than I’d like.
Last week, the New England Patriots traded for Washington Redskins defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth. Bundled in the package is a matched set of baggage which includes tremendous natural talent, attitude problems, and a criminal background. Maybe he can become a good football player again, but judging from what I’ve read, there’s not much doubt that Albert Haynesworth isn’t a very good person.
After spending a week trying to reconcile my feelings about this, I’ve come to the conclusion that I hate the move. It doesn’t matter how much of a difference he could make, this is not the kind of person I want playing for my team. Sure, the Pats and Bill Belichick have a history of taking troublemakers into their system and spitting out functional players who contribute positively to the team and sometimes even the community – Corey Dillon, Bryan Cox, and Randy Moss are cited as examples.
Randy Moss was the last time I had this feeling in the pit of my stomach because he was a player that I absolutely loathed. He was blessed with all the talent in the world and yet couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He’d quit on plays or give full effort only when he wanted to. Blocking was a foreign concept to him. However, when it came time to bring him onto the team, I was willing to see what happened. Surely if he dogged it Belichick would send him packing – it wasn’t like they had anything invested in him at the beginning, so they could take a chance. What made this reasoning easy was that despite his attitude, Moss had been productive and seemed to care about football. In some ways, I couldn’t blame him for quitting on the Raiders because they’d been sucking the life out of their fans for years with bad roster moves, and poor drafting under the watchful eyes of Al Davis’ undead corpse. If you were one of the best wide receivers in football history and suddenly found yourself trying to catch off-target dying quails from Aaron Brooks and Kerry Collins, can you honestly say it’d be easy to run out there and give it 100%?
Haynesworth is a different matter altogether. In ten years, he’s had two seasons that could be described as dominant and wouldn’t ya know it, he was playing for a big contract at the time. After snookering Washington into signing him to the biggest contract in NFL history for a defensive lineman, he promptly became very ordinary before segueing into a complete pain in the ass. It’s the profile of someone who doesn’t appear to care that much about football aside from how he can steal as much money as possible before retiring. That being said, the Pats traded a 2013 fifth-round pick for the guy – that’s as close to nothing as you can get in the NFL – meaning they gave up a future special teams player for the guy. Combine that with a contract that allows them to cut him prior to the regular season without having to pay out his full salary and it’s a low-risk move.
So what’s not to like? How about the fact Albert paralyzed someone because he was driving his Ferrari over 100 mph and crashed into the victim’s car? Perhaps the fact he’s going to court this week for sexual assault charges for groping a waitress? Maybe the fact he has some serious road rage and threw a punch during a traffic altercation? It’s one thing to be a doofus, but this guy’s boneheaded decisions hurt people.
Wait, I can hear the fans now… I don’t care what he does off the field – it’s what he does on the field that counts. Fine. How about the time he tried to stomp on an opposing player’s head, missed, and then took another shot – requiring 30 stitches for the other guy? That happened on the field. How about that? Again, this is where Haynesworth has separated himself from the pack (and not in a good way) – perhaps Moss was a pain in the ass, but he never attempted to put a hole in someone’s forehead mid-game. Kind of a difference there.
Everyone deserves a second chance, but not necessarily from everybody. I hope Fat Albert reveals his true colors right off the bat so he can be cut and pollute someone else’s roster. Maybe it’ll happen, maybe it won’t – but I’ll be a lot happier when this chump isn’t wearing my team’s colors anymore, that much I’m sure of.
Not to harp on movies this week, but I just came back from seeing Super 8 and my question is this – why can’t Hollywood put out more movies like this? A simple story told the right way with care, attention to detail, good performances, and special effects that are used to further the story instead of distract the audience from gaping holes in the plot. In a way, it’s sort of like a Bizarro Michael Bay movie in that way…
Go ahead and make all the lens flare jokes you want, but I’ll say this – JJ Abrams could say his next project is an adaptation of the phone book and I’d be on board. I think what makes his movies different than the shlock that parades through most weekends is commitment. After watching Cloverfield, it struck me that there was never that one character that explained everything that was going on or anything that took the audience out of the premise. The story was told from the perspective of a group of friends making their way through the city, and if that meant no one got to see the monster fully until the final 15 minutes of the movie, so be it. In today’s give-it-to-me-now culture, that’s a pretty big risk and I admire the guy for doing it. While Super 8 doesn’t make you wait as long, it’s the same premise – not showing you what’s roaming in the shadows adds to the movie and the suspense.
Now, I don’t want to take too many shots at Mikey Bay… okay, that’s a complete lie, but let’s move along anyways… but another thing that struck me about Super 8 is that within the first couple minutes of the flick, I began to care about the characters. I watched two Transformers movies and couldn’t possibly care less if someone told me “Oh, by the way, they kill off Shia LeBouf’s character in the first 5 minutes of Transformers 3.” Wouldn’t phase me at all because his character really doesn’t mean anything to me – maybe I’ve watched him save the planet a couple times, but there’s not much there otherwise. Maybe it’s because they’re kids in Super 8 – or maybe it’s some deep, unresolved anger I have towards LeBouf. Probably both.
Fact is, if studios cared a bit more about producing a decent movie occasionally instead of vapidly buying up every comic property they can get their grubby hands on and creating sequels nobody wants to see, perhaps they wouldn’t have to worry so much about pirates cutting into their profit margins. In fact, I’d put forth that about the only way someone would ever see half these crappy flicks prior to their arrival on basic cable would be if they could see them for free. Even then, there are some things that once they’ve been seen cannot be unseen. You know, like Jim Carrey running around with a bunch of penguins desperately pining for our adoration.