The Passion of The Lips

Nixon reviews Star Wars

2009-09-02T19:28:33Z

As many of you know, I have been spending a great deal of time lately in San Clemente writing my memoirs—a task I feel represents the culmination of my long and fruitful career in public life. For quite some time, Pat has been begging me to slow down and not work so hard. After weeks of pleading, last night I finally agreed to go out and see this film Tricia and Julie have been raving about for weeks: Star Wars. The movie turned out to be a delightful break from my labors.

Dear old Pat always knows best.

Star Wars is an exciting space adventure pitting a rag tag band of anti-establishment rebels against an "empire" meant to represent, of course, evil incarnate. This rebel gang includes CP3O, a gold-plated, lispingly homosexual robot, and Chewbacca, a shaggy eight foot tall creature managing to be more hairy and inarticulate than any stoned hippy you've ever seen.

And I know that's saying a lot.

The rebels are also given guidance by a shrunken green man named Yoda with a funny accent who represents the Jewish elite who lend their support to the anti-establishment side.

I must admit at first I didn't like the overt leftist political overtones of the movie. It does not take a lot of sophistication to see the rebels as representing those who do not like our American way of life: The communists, the Hollywood types, the Viet Cong, all the shouters and the bums who'd rather protest than work together to build a stronger America.

It takes true statesmanship, of course, to see the vision of the movie's "villain," Darth Vader, cleverly depicted as an Uncle Tom black who sells out to the establishment. Though the movie depicts him as vicious and power mad, in fact Darth Vader is striving for nothing more than peace through strength. It is Realpolitik with light sabers.

Dr. Kissinger and I understood this. Though many have criticized our overthrow of the increasingly socialist Allende government in Chile in 1970s, we understood that consolidating our power was absolutely the best way to achieve a lasting peace in South America. Should our "Death Star"—-which we should be clear represents the Galactic Empire's spherical version of the Pentagon—-been blown up for making the hard but right choices?

I think you can all agree that would be the wrong thing to do.

Despite its misguided politics, however, I found I could not resist the charms of this movie! I found myself on the edge of my seat when Luke Skywalker grabbed that rope and carried the lovely Princess Leia across the threshold—-the startrooper's laser beams flashing all around them! And the dog-fighting of the those spaceships before Luke Skywalker blew up the Deathstar? During this scene, my heart was pounding harder than when I faced off against Nikita Kruschev during the Kitchen Debate!

Since my resignation three years ago I have learned to have become more open minded about hippies and leftists. Yesterday even Tricia was listening to this piece of trash Rock'n'roll by some hippy named John Denver. The song was called "Rocky Mountain High," an ode no doubt to smoking dope. Like I said, hippy trash. But I have to admit it had my tapping my toes.

These past years have been a time of deep reflection for me. I have done a lot of thinking during those long, solitary walks along the beach in San Clemente. The world keeps changing but Richard Nixon keep changing with it.

If nothing else, watching this movie taught me that the world needs Richard Nixon more than ever.

Crap Music Edition

2009-09-02T19:23:16Z

Insipid crap, virtuostic crap, literate singer-songwriter crap, safety-pin-through-the-nose crap, mellow crap, glam crap, booty-shaking crap: If nothing else, the 1970s represented a revolution in crap music.

Never before had crap music been taken so seriously before, with the predictable result that pop music experienced an unprecedented explosion of creativity— while "Einstein on the Beach," the decade's watershed opera, was nothing more than five hours of music seemingly designed to make people go insane.

(Stick with the video to the six minute mark, when the composer, Philip Glass, thrillingly breaks from single chord he had been playing over and over. The change has the cathartic effect you might experience when a leaky faucet that had been keeping you up gets fixed.)

The following songs are neither the best, nor worst, nor even remotely representive of anything in particular. They're just the lucky songs that happened to pop into my head tonight:

Song that Puts Me In the Most Enchanting Clinical Depression

I have this feeling that at some especially evocative but forgotten moment during my early childhood—perhaps when some ineffably delicate fading sunset pitched just right through a late summer sky—Gilbert O'Sullivan's schlock-rock masterpiece was playing on an old transistor radio in the background. For a song I supposedly first heard in 1991, it seems to hold a lot of power over me.

Alternatively, it's also possible I'm just a big sap.

Either way, pass me the whisky and tissues.

Song that Convinces me that I am Loaded with Rhythm—In my Mind

When the dude in this video comes out and starts pop locking, doing some crazy, slightly spasmodic I'm-drinking-a-soda mime routine— what the hell does that have to do with a rollercoaster?— I know I could do that! I am sitting here at my computer, visualizing every movement, beads of sweat forming on my brow from the sheer mental exertion. Never mind that I have to get loaded at wedding receptions before I'm willing to dance (i.e. stumble) to "Love Shack."

What I remember about the Ohio Players is that my cousin Charise owned one of their albums (their album covers were noted for their stupidly sleazy artwork), my brother upbraiding her for her bad taste. The Ohio Players, after all, lacked the nuance and richness of the KISS albums he adored.

Most Confrontational Song by the 70s' Smartest Songwriter

Say what you will about 70s culture, but find me a popular songwriter working today with the intellectual firepower to explore the philosophical question of theodicy: Why is God such a jerk? Call this song morose and gloomy—and it is—but it's a far cry more sophisticated than today's crap music that tends to explore such questions as: "How did I end up naked again?"

Bonus Crap: Three Songs I Realized Were Filthy Only in Retrospect

Fear and Loathing at the Bauerstown Baseball Association

2009-09-02T19:18:15Z

Sports writer and legendary freak Hunter S. Thompson covers my little league baseball game, 1979

By the time we got to the little league field, my attorney had begun raving about the concession stand. “As your attorney,” he said, “I advise you to buy some hot dogs and Swedish fish.” The mescaline now clearly had a grip on him. At the sound of a foul ball, he swung around to the right, nearly elbowing a plump-faced housewife with a purple sailboat knitted pattern on her sweater.

“These people are vultures,” my attorney said, wheeling back to face me. “They’re filth. I think they eat babies.” A bead of spit stuck to his bottom lip. The lady with the sailboat sweater took a step back. Her eyes had become wild with fear. With a head swimming with mescaline, her head looked like a slab of bread dough stuck atop a headless body.

Standing between a 300 pound mescaline-crazed Samoan and this terrified woman, who for all I knew was the wife of the police commissioner, I felt the need to explain the importance of our task. To put her terrified, doughy mind at ease.

“Ma’am,” I said. “I am a doctor of Journalism and this is my attorney. We were sent here on a secret mission from San Francisco. Something of importance is going to happen here, according to my editor, Charlie Chan. Do you understand?”

She took another step backwards, nervously biting her bottom lip. I was now visualizing her husband—-no doubt a squared jawed ex-Marine as well as a cop—-clotting my head in with a nightstick. This was getting dangerous. She needed to be neutralized.

“There are infiltrators here. In the bleachers, umpiring the games. CIA. KGB. IBM. We’re here to protect you—”

She stumbled backward and ran away—-no doubt to gather a posse of insurance adjusters to bash the skulls of the acid-chomping degenerates hanging around the little league concessionaire.

“Suppose we get our hot dog and repair to greener pastures?” I said to my attorney. He was transfixed by a game winning hit by one of the players for the Allegheny All-Stars.

“Did you see that?” he said. “Maybe it's the mescaline, but I’d swear that little kid over there just closed his eyes and stuck his bat out, knocking the ball all the way to the center field fence. Now the other kids are literally hoisting him on their shoulders.”

“And I’d swear your face is being eaten by rabid wolverines.”

“Son of a bitch that kid got lucky.”

"That happens sometimes. Let's get some hot dogs. And Swedish Fish. They're two cents a piece here. We can charge 10,000 of them to Sports Illustrated."

"Last out in the game, down by one, full count and a man on first and third, and the kid just stuck his goddamn bat out there. Won the game."

"Amazing. Now let's go before the vultures peck out our eyes. Got any amyls left?"

"Luckiest damn kid in the whole world," my attorney said over the sounds of frenzied, victorious little leaguers.

"Luckiest kid ever."

Carter's Rabbit

2009-09-01T23:55:44Z

In 1979, while fishing in Plains, Georgia, president Jimmy Carter was forced to use his paddle to fend off a deranged rabbit that had attacked his rowboat. A week later, Carter's press secretary, Jody Powell, unwisely mentioned the incident to an Associated Press correspondent over tea, the reporter dutifully filing the story on the AP wire the next day:

The incident, entirely unimportant in itself, quickly set off a minor media frenzy. The press, desperate for copy during the late summer lull, quickly elevated the incident into a metaphor of the haplessness and impotence of the Carter Administration.

Though photographs of the incident were suppressed at the time, Reagan's operatives eventually managed to get their hands on them. A color copy of the photo can now be purchased at the Jimmy Carter Library for $25.50.

The photo itself paints a devasting tableaux. Alone in his tiny rowboat, Carter looks hunched over and solitary. He is diffidently splashing water at a tiny ball of wet fur that is over fifteen feet from the president and is swimming away from him. Not exactly Teddy Roosevelt tracking for bear.

In general, voters are not attracted to presidents who appear to be taken to the limit by a bunny rabbit. This is one reason why military service has historically been an important path to the White House: It comforts people to think their leader has the prowess to manfully dispatch attacks, whether it be the Soviet army or Silly Wabbit. (Sadly, this is probably why women have had a hard time in presidential elections.)

Why haven't nutcases become conspiratorial about this yet? Clearly this incident was hatched by the Trilateral Commission, working in tandem with a cabal of bankers and fringe scientists, to undermine the presidency of Jimmy Carter—thereby clearing the path for a president, Ronald Reagan, more open to corporate/military rule.

Maybe I'll become that nut.

It's also possible, however, that leaders simply become burdened with the symbols the people want them to wear. Within a year of assuming office, Jimmy Carter was already being attacked for being a rudderless namby-pamby. A battle-to-the-death with an aquatic bunny rabbit only confirmed doubts.

Eight months into the new administration, Obama's presidency is already being called Carter's second term. As Obama tries to revive the ideal of progress in America, a notion that went out of style around the time ties became narrow, he is wise to remember Carter's Rabbit—unless you want to spend four years chasing away your own furry animals, always act sure and pretend to be in control. Above all, voters respect strength.

70s Artifact: Topps Baseball Cards

2009-09-01T23:52:21Z

When I was a kid, baseball cards weren't merely collectors items—they represented an alternative system of currency for young boys.

Like the use of cigarettes in prison, they were tokens of agreed-upon value in environments—like Marzolff Elementary School and my back yard—where woefully little real money could be found.

Baseball cards were "fungible:" Easily substituted for tater tots or Twizzlers at suprisingly consistent values. An elaborate but uncodified system existed for the valuation of baseball cards that involved age of card, quality of the player, and team. As we lived in Pittsburgh, any player for the Pirates was automatically highly valued.

Most of my "liquid assets" were tied up in baseball cards. Packs could be purchased for a quarter at the grocery store or department store—a cheap way of buying my silence for 15 minutes or so. In the middle of cards was a stick of calcified bubble gum that literally broke into shards when you bit down on it.

If our boyish economy was built on baseball cards, our "means of production" was too often whining to our moms to buy us a pack of cards, an earnings strategy that tended to be frustrated by my mother's perverse stinginess and willfulness. Even then she was a radical rightwinger, advising me instead to "save my allowance."

Laughable.

At the time, my friends were building vast empires of cards they would show off to me when I'd visit their houses, which they usually kept very orderly separated by year and team in shoeboxes. I actually went through the effort of separating mine by team and year and sorting them alphabetically!

In fourth grade, bent on empire but stymied by my mother's bourgeois attitudes, I decided to make my fortune another way: By gambling. There were two forms of baseball gambling, Knocksies and Flipsies.

In Flipsies, two players faced off, the first player dropping a card from chin-height. The card would fall to the floor, gently fluttering as it flipped side to side. The second player would then drop his card, hoping to match heads on heads or tails on tails. If successful, he earned the right to take both cards. If not, the first player claimed the cards.

Knocksies, on the other hand, was more action-oriented. I favored it. Each player lined an equal number of cards against the wall (the number of cards often a matter of testy argument.) Each player would then flick a card with their wrist at the cards, one at a time, claiming all the cards each player knocked down.

Through skill, determination, and luck, I was eventually able to amass a respectable fortune of over 15,000 cards! It helped that in the 80s my newly pinko mother began buying me sets for the entire year for my birthday.

When I moved out of the house, the cards were neatly stacked in the corner of my parent's garage. You can imagine my pain when, years later, when I was living in Oregon, my mother casually mentioned during a phone call that they had had a minor flood.

"Your cards all got ruined," she said, a bit apologetically. At the time, I was posing as a guy who didn't care about, you know, things, man. Still I'm sure the halt in my voice was unmistakeable before saying, "Guess I shouldn't have left them on the floor."

In truth, despite my stoic pose, vast holdings of nostalgia had suddenly gone up in thin air— a devastating bear market on memory that left me feeling impoverished for days.

Advice from Uncle Carl about women, 1977

2009-09-01T16:05:30Z

Hey, kid. That's right, you. Come over here. Do me a favor— see that bucket of ice? Yeah? Well, bring it over to me.

Thanks kid.

You ever tasted whiskey? Oh, you haven't? Well, here take a sip.

Ha! Has a bite to it, don't it? This stuff will put hair and your chest. Here, take a swig of water. That'll wash it down.

Tell me, kid. Your Mom still upstairs squawking with my old lady? Squawk, squawk, squawk. What are they talking about—how bad their husbands are? Yeah, I thought so. That's why I stay down here. I'd rather listen to the static on the shortwave radio than listen to the static in the kitchen.

These broads will drive you crazy if you let 'em. I don't let 'em. I spend most of my time down here in the garage alone here with my friend Jack. That's Mr. Daniels to you, son.

Kid, by the way, don't tell your mother I let you taste whisky, OK? Capiche? Good, good.

Billy, when you get a little bit older, you're going to want to meet a lot of girls. And that's ok, son. Have some fun while you can. I married your Aunt Nancy when I was 19. Got hitched a church in San Diego that had a neon sign. Place call the Four Square Church. Got hitched and went right into the Navy. Too young.

She was my brother's sister. We met while he was courting her. What are the odds that man is going to fall for the sister of his brother's girl? Not as bad as you'd think.

Son, believe it or not, broads are like janitors. They carry with them a lot of keys but for some reason they never seem to have to key to every door. There's always one room or another they can't open. This is just a fact of life. And there's nothing wrong with it. Nothing wrong with it at all.

Kid, you're going to meet a lot of women in your life. Make sure you sow some wild oats. But after you've broken a few hearts, just pick one. Don't be in a hurry and don't wait too long. Just pick one and be done with it. At some level, they're all the same.

Son, I bet your Mom is wondering where you went to. Come here. Take another swig of water. Make sure she can't smell that whisky on your breath.

And kid— do me a favor? Please shut the door on your way out.

Chewbacca looks back

2009-09-01T16:03:57Z

The 70s were out of sight. When Star Wars exploded, it was like I was sitting in the Millennium Falcon as it blasted into hyperdrive. One minute I’m just another struggling actor serving fat slobs fried hash and pancakes at an IHOP in Van Nuys. The next moment—WHOOSH!— I’m moving so goddamn fast the whole universe turns into a freakin’ blur.

Dude, I won’t lie to you: the “blur” started a few years before Star Wars. Kashyyyk was certainly a nice enough planet to grow up on— about as comforting and stifling as a womb—but if I ever see another freakin’ Wroshyr tree I think I’m going to puke.

Even a few light years away, I knew that fantastic sun-drenched, Bikini-drenched, dope-drenched L.A. was where it was at. In the 70s’, L.A. was cosmically famous.

I landed in L.A. in 1974 and found myself living in a pink stucco house up in Laurel Canyon. Lived with a bunch of wanna-be actors and musicians, who spent most of their time getting treated for crabs and staying up all drinking tequila and snorting some of Central America’s finest hand-crafted exports. Like I said, “WHOOSH!”

I absolutely loved living in Laurel Canyon. Down the street, Joni Mitchell owned a gigantic furry dog—it looked a bit like the The Shaggy DA— and she used ask me to walk him when she was out of town. Frank Zappa would laugh when we passed his house—he lived in a log cabin that had once been owned by silent movie star Tom Mix. Staring first at the dog’s shaggy face and then at mine, he’d yell: “Hey, Chewie, are you taking your brother for a walk?”

At that moment, Laurel Canyon felt like it was at the intersection of all of the creative vibes in the cosmos. (That’s right, I just said the word “vibes” and “cosmos.” Back then we actually used groovy words like that. WHOOSH!)

Unlike my roommates, I didn’t come L.A. to get famous. My roommate Randy did. Back then if the adjectives “chiseled” and “good looks” ever came even remotely within proximity of your name, you moved to L.A. It was practically the law. In Randy’s case, it was as if the state of Rhode Island collectively said, “Randy, you’re just too darn good-looking to live here so we all chipped in to buy you this bus ticket to California.”

When I met him, Randy was a struggling actor with a predilection for seducing rich middle-aged women at the Polo Lounge. Class act, that guy. Last I heard he was selling real estate in Escondido.

Before I get into how I got the part of Star Wars, I just want to say that LSD was never my drug of choice. Weed and blow seemed more “natural,” to me—as if you could buy it in bulk at the health food store. Acid seemed a little harsh and industrial to me. My coworker at IHOP, another struggling actor, had an insider's Hollywood euphemism for LSD: "Special effects." To me it was like fiddling with your concsiousness with a pneumatic drill.

The night before my audition, however, I was given two tabs of acid by a coworker at IHOP. I was facing three days off work and was already restless. So on the day of the Star Wars audition, I had dropped the two tabs and sat on the sofa in the living room trying to figure out the chord changes to “Moonshadow” on the guitar, waiting for it to kick in.

Randy would get up around noon, invariably hung over, light up a joint, and read through casting calls on a hammock we put up in the living room. On this day, August 5th, 1975, Randy yelled to me. “Check this out, man. This is far out!”

I wasn’t quite at WHOOSH, but the edges of shapes were starting to take on a certain wavy iridescence.

Randy continued. “Listen to this casting call: ‘Hairy male Wookiee for supporting role in sci-fi film. Minimum 8 foot tall. Must be shaggy and must have piercing yelp’.” He attempted to jolt upright, swinging awkwardly in the hammock, the bogarted joint dangling from his lip. “Dude, the audition is today at 2:00pm!” I looked at my wristwatch, which was starting to warp and drift in and out of my field of view.

“Um, Randy. That sounds cool and all, but I don’t think an audition is a good idea. For one thing, I’m not in the Screen Actor’s Union…”

“Who gives a sh—

“And I just dropped two hits of acid.”

“Oh,” he said. "Oh, right."

But after reflecting for a moment, he said: “But who cares about that? This could change your entire life! Let’s go!”

To be continued...

Leisure Suit Larry

2009-08-31T14:08:21Z

X-post from The Seventies

In the 1980s there was a line of video games centered on a character named Leisure Suit Larry, a balding, 40-something loser clad entirely head-to-toe with synthetic fibers.

The Leisure Suit Larry games represented a noble departure from the typical shoot ‘em up fare of most video games, which tended to require no more creativity than blasting pixilated aliens to smithereens. These games, on the other hand, offered a challenge infinitely more complex: Using his (and I mean “his”) creativity, the player negotiated Larry through a world of beautiful women armed with frustratingly good taste.

I’d argue that video games work, in part, as metaphors for the, uh, romantic ambitions of certain types of adolescent boy—a way of directing the excess drive bestowed upon pathetic teenage boys towards something more tractable than live female girls. It was encouraging that, with his bald spot and cheesy manner, Larry was the one creature in the universe less likely than a gawky teen boy to find romantic bliss.

(Ironically, I became familiar with the game while watching John, my sister’s future husband—and future ex-husband—play it for hour on end. It seemed to set the stage for him to become twenty years later a balding, 40-something loser on the prowl.)

As a grown man, I can’t help but think with utter amusement (and contempt) about the Leisure Suit Larry archetype, a relic from the Disco-and-sexual-liberation-movement 1970s utterly adrift in our more judicious times.

Like many horrible cultural trends of the 70s, the leisure suit phenomenon was a reminder that freedom isn’t free—but can be ridiculously cheap. As the anarchist tendencies of the late 60s counterculture morphed into a corporate repackaging of the ideal of liberation, it became easy in the 70s to “do your own thing” at an entirely hedonistic level.

The Leisure Suit phenomenon was what happens when the idea of “liberation” detaches from the idea of political awareness: In the end, you’re left with a bunch of synthetic fibers and gold chains—and a boundless, unsatisfiable libido.

The 70s: Victim of bad film stock

2009-08-31T14:06:20Z

X-post from the soon-to-be-defunct Seventies Blog:

I have a theory that memories of particular eras are seen through the filter of the prevailing film stock of the time. It is as if the memory loses track of what was observed first hand and what was recollected later with photographic help.

I suspect that my recollection of the last ten years will always maintain the flat, luminous quality of digital photography--a reality so upclose and shimmering it begins to seem unreal.

Memories of the 80s and 90s, on the other hand, have a fussy solidity that seems nervous and defensive. Every shape is stamped in heavily saturated hues, as if to say, "Everything is back to normal now, right?"

I even have ex post facto memories of the 50s and 60s, an inherited awareness of those years when my parents were younger than I am now, a hint of mischief in their eyes as they seek a measure of youthful joy in a world as stiff and rigid as crew cut.

But it is the bleary, kaleidoscopic images of the 70s--blurred and faded in shades of yellow and orange, as if they had been soaked in water--that I tend linger. It is their utter unreality, their sense of ghostliness, that creates a seemingly unbridgeable distance to my childhood.

The truth is that what I now know about the time in which I grew up--a decade of exhaustion, decadence, and malaise--fails to match up with what I personally remember. Had I known then that it was a worthless time, perhaps I would have spent less time wandering around in blissful ignorance.

Beyond the carnivalesque swirl of my childhood memories were cultural currents that were frightening, electrifying, and ultimately unsustainable. This blog is an attempt to fill in the gaps of those faded memories--to make sense of a time that feels impossibly insubstantial 30 years down the road.

This has got to be seen to be believed

2009-08-31T12:55:01Z

Stick with Glen Beck for a minute or two, it gets good:

Made with real jaggery!

2009-08-31T01:04:25Z

It is a sign, I think, of relative personal contentment that I am cooking again. Devoid of even the slightest responsibility these past two weeks, I have been in a kind of languid drift. Except that I'd rather wallow in a layer of grime than pick up a feather duster or enamel cleaner, I'd make a pretty good house husband, picking up Mrs. Breadwinner at the train station and doing my best to prepare a fortifying, home-cooked meal. It takes strength to face the dog-eat-dog world of work. A few more weeks of this, I'll be pouring Yoko a glass of Scotch and watching her sleep at the sofa with a newspaper on her lap. Maybe that is my calling: homemaker.

During my early twenties, shortly after I concluded that 90% of all foods eaten in the suburbs was hyper-processed garbage, I began exploring the cuisine that was least like Vernon, CT: Indian food. During summer break from college, I would bring home these exotic ingredients from an Indian grocery store that would annoy my mother because they would inevitable clutter her already cluttered pantry. When I left for Oregon, she very politely refrained from throwing out my bottle of rosewater (which I used for making homemade Yogurt Lassis) which stayed in her refrigerator for several years.

(In retrospect, she may have been hoping that I would come to my senses and return to Connecticut soon so that I could rightfully reclaim it, transforming that rosewater into a metaphor for her wish that I live closer.)

Last night, I made fried urad dal balls with coriander leaves with a fresh mint / coriander chutney. Though the photo makes it look a bit lifeless and sad, it was surprisingly tasty:

It was, in fact, the first substantial Indian meal I've ever made that involved no substitutions. Real ghee (a kind of clarified butter), real jaggery (a kind of unprocessed dark sugar), and actual dal (more or less a family of lentils.)

There are two possible lessons to be learned from my new-found culinary spark: Either working in a bitterly divisive and inefficient workplace sapped the life right out of me-- or it's simply work itself that sucks me dry. The house husband thing looks better and better every day.

Dispatch from Maryland

2009-08-21T19:07:13Z

Like other leftist utopias I've lived in-- Portland, Northampton--the town of Takoma Park, MD, remains thoroughly aware of its complete marginality. You could just as well post a sign on the roads out of town reading: "Welcome to the United States of America." Every "War is Not the Answer" bumpersticker, every dreadlocked girl biking daintily down the road, screams: We are not like the rest of you sharp-eyed, materialistic, warmongering American bastards. Insular, elitist, and detached from reality? Feels like home already.

Earlier this week I bought some yogurt from the co-op in the center of town. I was rung up by some scruffy hippy with Mansonesque eyes who stared directly at the cash register and my yogurt and no further. Little tufts of hair sprouted all over his head, each gathered by one of dozens of colorful little rubber bands--a veritable rainbow coalition on this guy's oily head--standing there blankly in front of me like the living monument to everything wrong about the 60s counterculture. Maybe it was time I just moved to some bland suburban middle-age ghetto, I thought. The prospect of having a bunch of gin-soaked salesmen neighbors suddenly looked a lot better.

Wednesday I went into the pet shop in the middle of town that sold dog food that was all but whipped up in Wolfgang Puck's kitchen. Latin music played on the speakers, giving the store the aura of one of those bookstores where you can buy Buddha figurines. I grabbed a bag of Pacific Salmon dog food (I think it's meant to be served with tarragon in a white wine reduction) and stood at the counter, feeling snobby and decadent about serving my dog gourmet food.

The town is growing on me. Unlike other hippy havens, this town actually backs up its rhetoric about diversity with a very earnest dedication to tolerance. Takoma Park is 35% African-American and ringed with neighborhoods where some of the hundreds of thousands of Salvadoran immigrants in the Maryland suburbs live. This commitment to diversity is thoroughly honorable and unhypocritical--though when I am driving down University Avenue and every single sign for miles is in Spanish, my own commitment to diversity is tested. It only takes a few moments as a minority to realize just how wonderful it is to be in the majority all the time. But the pupusas I had for lunch at the local pupuseria today were delicious. Cheese and meat stuffed corn cakes, gooey with a crisp exterior. And the horchata was flavored with sesame!

For whatever my misgivings and ambivalences, however, I am feeling-- one week into this move at least-- increasingly content with the decision to move. A rain storm just blew through the area and I sat on the front porch watching the rain fall through the trees. For whatever the virtues of South Philly, I realized it was a chance to rest my eyes on a little greenery that was most lacking. So I just took a chance to sit there and watch the rain with my pampered dog-- feeling like the filthiest, most contented hippy in the world.

Point of etiquette

2009-08-20T01:38:15Z

The instructor for that dismal class (see yesterday's post) sent me an email telling me I got an A. Here is the email in full:

Hi Rob,
You received a grade of A for Project 3.
Therefore, your final grade for the class is an A!
It was nice to have you in class.

I have put off responding to this email all day because, in fact, it was most definitely not nice for me. It was rather like listening to the droning narration of vacation slides by some half-senile aunt for three hours at night. My strategy to keep myself mentally engaged was to attempt to write in my notes every single word she said. The guy sitting next to me simply laid a slim book on meditation on top of his notebook, paying not the least attention to the ceaseless drone coming from the front of the room. The girl on the other side of me just repeated the phrase "this is boring, this is boring" in her notebook.

Earlier in the evening I had started to draft a response that included the phrase "and I really enjoyed the class"-- until my body shuddered from the sheer mendacity of it. I am now trying to develop a formula that acknowledges my pleasure at the grade, adopts a measure of friendliness, and refrains from telling her that the class was actually so mentally dulling that I actually lost knowledge during the course of it. And I feel like I have to acknowledge it within 24 hours.

So the question is: How fake do I want to go on this?

Update

2009-08-18T17:00:54Z

I am sitting in our new apartment on the outskirts of Takoma Park, MD, intent on a week of slack-jawed relaxation after a couple of weeks of stressful upheaval.

During the final days before our move--and settlement on our house--the dog and I found ourselves in an increasingly feral environment. As the house uncluttered and the boxes piled up in the living room, my entire existence seemed restricted to a three feet space around the couch where the dog and I slept. At night I would run to class, living behind a bewildered dog, mixing packing and homework during the day.

One of the courses vied for one of the worst classes I've ever taken. The instructor was prone to 45 second pauses, spoke in a droning monotone, would hand out things she printed off the Internet for the purposes of two minute "conversations" that went nowhere, and would sometimes leave the class for 20 minutes at a time while we did various busy work. During one of those absences, the guy next to me said in exasperation: "If I turn into the undead, please tell my wife I loved her." During the final class, he was drinking cognac during the break in order to get through. It was that bad.

It was an unfortunate matter of timing that my move and closing occurred the weekend before the end of class. During the time, I also had to move into the room I am renting in Mt. Airy. And then, when school wrapped up we rushed off for 36 hours in Chicago for a wedding.

The boxes have mostly been unpacked and the move 95% complete. When we decided to move to DC, it seemed like an impossibly complicated task. It's hard to believe we actually figured all this out. Now all I have to do is finish my degree and get a job.

But first: A few days of therapeutic brain death...

The 70s

2009-07-16T02:18:41Z

I have created a new, temporary blog for this ridiculous blogging class I'm taking. It's about the 1970s:

http://the-seventies.blogspot.com.

So far I'm struggling, but standards are pretty low in Blogging 101. Feel free to comment; I'm being graded on "community."

The Marywana Shootout

2009-07-07T18:46:06Z

The following is one of my Dad's bizarre stories from growing up, the one I am making him write for Meigs County Stories. It is the story about a mysterious herb, "Wackey Tabackey," and a weird old lady who went off the deep end.

* * *

In the summer of 1953, Syracuse, Ohio was a small rural river town with a population of about 650 people and a slew of mangy dogs.

Just two years earlier it had reached a milestone in its march into the modern world, its dirt and gravel streets had been “chipped and sealed.” Not much ever happened there. The most exciting event in years was when Mayor Harvey “Longbelly” Tunner caught his foreskin in his fly when taking a leak out behind the Baptist’s annual tent meeting.

Mary Himen was born there, and had not been more than fifty miles away in all of her thirty eight years. As a child, she was shy and introverted, but by adulthood had acquired a reputation as an individualist with a wackey tilt. Following the death of her parents, she became—to use the vernacular of one old timer—“as kooky as a left handed crank shaft.”

By late summer of 1953, Mary had taken to closing herself into her parents house and not emerging for days on end. No one knew what went on in there, however, after the “incident” was over it took several pickup truck loads to haul away the empty tin cans, wine bottles and her leftover stash of “Wackey Tabacky.” Marijuana made her horny as hell.

Marijuana was not well known in that part of Ohio in 1953. However, in looking back I realize it not only grew there, it was extremely prolific. We simply did not recognize it. We call it “pigweed” because it flourished in the wet muddy areas around pig sties. As a young kid who worked summers on the farm, I hated the stuff. It was a hot, dirty, never ending job to keep it cut down and burned. The smoke had a very distinct smell, years later, this forgotten smell would trigger a flood of memories rushing back into my consciousness. I was a young fireman in a drug recognition class. The instructor burned some marijuana acquaint us with the smell and I instantly recognized the smell of “pigweed.”

It was a hot lazy summer day in early August. Roy “Rabbit” Swift (the nickname resulting from his sexual tendencies) had returned a few days earlier from a two year hitch in the army. Early that morning while looking for something to occupy himself, he chanced upon Mary and they promptly settled into her house for the day. They spent the morning “smoking and jokin” and passing the bottle, and by noontime Mary was hotter than a Mexican taco. The action became hot and heavy, but just two steps out of the starting blocks, Rabbit went down in flames. Mary flipped. Grabbing her father’s shotgun and quickly loading it, she directed a few blasts in Rabbit’s direction as he beat a hasty retreat out the back door. The shots did very little damage, however, they did prompt a call to the county sheriff’s office.

Sheriff Henry “Stubby” Miles and his Chief Deputy Matthew “Misery” Ducker were in the cell area playing poker with a couple of the prisoners. They immediately sprang into action. Grabbing the radio mike, Stubby dispatched his two Deputies, Bill “Bug Dust” Barellie and Dexter “Crackerbelly” Betz to the scene.

By the time they arrived, Mary had climbed about halfway up the hillside behind the house to a deserted chicken coop and had barricaded herself inside.

Syracuse is fondly described by the local residents as being “four miles long and just as far back as you can see.” which was two blocks. The town is perched snugly between the river bank and the steep slope of a high hill. It just two short blocks from the riverbank to State Route 124 which is carved into the hillside along the northern edge, and in the area of the Mary’s house a concrete wall about five feet high had been constructed hold back the hill. Her house is located on a sloping lot which begins at the top of the wall and extends back to about halfway up the side of the hill. The chicken coop is located at the back edge of the lot at an elevation of about three hundred feet above the highway.

When the deputies drove up, Mary blasted a round in their general direction. They dove out of the cruiser and took shelter behind the wall. Bug Dust, who had grown up with Mary decided to talk her down.

He stuck his head up over the top of the wall and appealed to her as a childhood friend to lay down her gun. Her reply was both immediate and to the point. The buckshot tore up the sod about six feet in front of Bug Dust’s face covering it with dirt and chewed up pieces of grass. With that, they decided that a call for reinforcements would be both proper and prudent.

Stubby and Misery arrived about twenty minutes later and joined the two deputies behind the wall. Stubby wasted no time, and after quickly accessing the situation, took decisive action. He called out the local Syracuse Volunteer Fire Department whose station was located a block away. Being the middle of the day, the alarm was answered by two retired farmers, the local minister and four housewives. They decided to remain in the station house and see what developed.

What developed was nothing much. Every now and then one of the deputies would peek up over the wall and this would immediately elicit a shotgun blast from Mary. It appeared to be a standoff. The sun was climbing higher in the sky and what little shade there was had since disappeared. The four law officers were sweating and cursing; the volunteer fire department was getting bored, a small crowd of onlookers were gathering and then the two prisoners showed up. Stubby and Misery had left in such a hurry they forgot to lock the cell door. The two prisoners, curious about what was happening, had decided to hitchhike the seven miles to the scene where they promptly joined the deputies behind the wall. At this point, Stubby once again sprang into action—he called for assistance from the two neighboring counties.

By the time additional help arrived, the local Ladies Aid Society, assisted by members of the Garden Club, were preparing sandwiches and cold drinks and had the two prisoners running them up to the wall. The situation was becoming desperate. Finally, a plan of action was agreed upon.

Heavy brush and rocks located just below and to the right of the chicken coop would provide good cover. Misery would crawl from behind the wall using a drainage ditch and make his way up and around an adjacent house. After going around the house he would then sneak into the heavy cover and creep undetected up to the front of the chicken coop. This was accomplished without incident, however, Misery then discovered that the coop was raised about two feet off the ground and that he could only see Mary’s legs. He couldn’t continue without being detected and retreat was out of the question as a hundred pair of eyes were focused upon him and with each passing minute he could feel the pressure mounting. He was sweating profusely, and struggling to control the panic welling up within him. He had to do something. Finally, frustration prevailed. He drew his service revolver, took aim and shot Mary in the left knee cap.

With this development, the local fire department sprang into action. They rolled both pumpers and their ambulance. What followed was a rescue operation of epic proportion. When it was over, Misery was a local hero, the fire department had generated a run report for the year and Mary had been safely deposited in the State Mental Hospital.

Misery went on to become to become a well known county sheriff’s deputy and Mary became a local legend forever after known as “Marywana Himes.”

Why I am reading about Buddhism again.

2009-07-02T23:54:28Z

I won't deny that during my last week of work I settled some scores.

I have written about B____, the conspicuously crazy woman who at one point said I sexually harassed her-- part of her attempt to lobby for a boss who would be more understanding about her showing up whenever she wanted and ignoring deadlines. (Later, shortly after I got married, she joked at a Christmas party that she and I were going to "get drunk and make out in the back.")

Three days before my last day, I passed her in the hallway. I had tried to smooth things over with her the week before but B____, always the victim, screamed that I needed to apologize to her and ran out of her office bawling. (I was supposed to apologize to her because I outsourced a job she was supposed to do and predictably forgot about.) As she ran out of the room, I yelled after her, "Remember when I used to sexually harass you?"

So I stopped her in the hallway and just let her know that, three years ago, a member of the Board of Directors took me to lunch and explicitly told me to lay her off at the end of her probation because of her behavior. I let B____ know that I refused, thinking I was doing the right thing by sticking my neck out, and that it was a huge mistake she made me pay for. "Who should apologize now?" I said. I then added, "Never EVER speak to me ever again. And go fuck yourself."

That same week I had run into a former coworker who had moved on to greener pastures about two years ago. She told me how the environment there turned her into someone she didn't recognize: Confrontational, testy, unfriendly. I thought about this statement and realized that this was a really good insight-- I, too, found myself acting in ways there that weren't exactly natural to me. Even though B____ earned every word I said to her (and had she not run off the bawl in the bathroom, she would have heard more) it probably wasn't the most evolved thing I've ever done.

I had never worked in a place where I detested so many people and so many people detested me. There were two main camps (my bosses and my former friend, Lisa)-- my boss not trusting me because of my association with Lisa, and Lisa ended up not trusting me because I was insufficiently spiteful towards my boss and her arch-nemesis. I ended up forming a rump third camp, mistrusted by everyone.

For this very reason-- and because of my anxiety and frustration about selling my house-- I realized that I needed to remember how not to get so wrapped up in these emotions. The central message of Buddhism--be mindful of what you're doing and why-- is probably a good one for me to think about right now...

Too many words about Michael Jackson

2009-07-01T23:58:45Z

As the 1980s wore on and the sociopathic aura of Reaganism settled over my little suburban street, I remember feeling deeply cheated to have grown up in the eighties. Veterans of previous decades spoke longingly—if annoyingly—about the thrill of living in stirring, decadent times, but I was reasonably sure that the only great adventure offered by this decade was a siege mentality of the few who cared surrounded by the many who didn’t.

By 1984, the decade's fun New Wave early years were over, replaced by a pop culture that seemed formed from an especially noxious and gooey mix of bubblegum and silicone. What wasn't schlocky and insipid (E.T.) seemed vicious and shallow (Andrew Dice Clay) and the Reagan Revolution seemed to give an entire nation permission to let out its inner slick dickhead.

It's possible, of course, that my alienation had nothing to do with the culture. Perhaps I had simply become sufficiently adult, and therefore hip to the world, to become appropriately cynical. It's possible that Americans had always been as shallow and selfish as they suddenly appeared to me around the time of Reagan's re-election, only I had grown out of my puerile Disney-ish fantasies of a nation of people who shared certain humane beliefs.

Growing up in the 70s, my brother had a plastic peace sign dangling from the ceiling of the bedroom we shared, though it may have symbolized bong hits more than anything more enlightened. It still seems to me, however, that the 80s were the decade when people finally gave up on having the least thoughts of anything like "the public good," withdrawing to their sanctuaries of late night cable, doing lines of coke off Poison CD cases, and whacking off to some seriously deranged free market fantasies.

You could neither say the 80s were good to be enjoyable nor so dramatically bad as to be interesting. It was just something to muddle through until something else came along. (This isn't to say that some great music wasn't made in the 80s, but one common thread to that music was a collective alienation.)

Perhaps because he had always seemed too effete to do anything as badass as OD, the death of Michael Jackson took me by genuine surprise. But after I processed the fact, registering his death as perhaps the least appealing pop star personality to OD since that guy from Blind Melon, what I was left with was the music—music that brought back to me the whole of the 80s in one hair sprayed, sequined, overly shoulder-padded swoop.

There has been nonstop talk about Michael Jackson all week. At one point, I was walking down Snyder Avenue when I heard three cars in a row playing Michael Jackson. Earlier today, I was behind two burly union-looking guys who were talking about MJ. "Yeah, he was really talented,” said one with an accent that sounded like it should have been coming from under the hood of a car. “Not really my thing, you know—but a very talented guy."

Now I understand the power of pop music as well as anyone. I am, I confess, a sucker for a catchy tune. I recently listened to “Come on Eileen” four times in a row. I contend that good pop songs—even the dumb ones—are important. They give people a common point of reference, allowing people of the same age to sync their nostalgia with that of millions of others. Inescapably, the Michael Jackson phenomenon was something our generation shared. We all can remember how lame the tough guys looked in the video or “Beat It” and we all can remember the creepiness of the Vincent Price intro to "Thriller."

Still, in the donut hole of the 80s emptiness—at the very center of the falseness and selfishness of the mid-80s—there will always be Michael Jackson. He was, undoubtedly, a superstar—creating a string of songs that ingratiated themselves into your brain like some sort of repetitive fever dream. But for all of his fame, Michael Jackson’s music never seemed to carry much in the terms of cultural meaning.

Unlike Elvis, who brought black music to white America, or the Beatles, who absolutely destroyed the limits of what was possible in pop music, Michael Jackson seemed to be mostly about… acting as butch as possible while wearing silk, sequined shirts. Thematically, he tended towards gestures of faux toughness and masculinity— note the lyrics of “Bad” and his many videos involving dancing gang members. If anything, his accomplishment is letting Quincy Jones add some rock edges to a disco beat.

In the end, I would never discount someone’s grieving over a musician they admired. They have their Michael Jackson, and I have mine. (Note: “My” Michael Jackson loved molesting little boys.) And they have their 80s, and I have mine. But for me, the essential falseness of Michael Jackson mirrored the essential falseness of the 1980s—and there are some limits to my sorrow over the passing of an icon of a benighted age.

Southern (Philadelphia) Hospitality

2009-06-29T00:51:08Z

Unemployed, finally

2009-06-28T23:44:49Z

On my last day of work at my famously dreadful job, I looked to the right sidebar of my Facebook page to see this advert:

This image was a reminder that, in my bounding joy at ridding myself of this job, I had forgotten to stop by a park bench on my way home and hang my head in despair.

There are certain conventions regarding finding yourself without work-- typically you're expected to wallow in self-doubt (and Häagen-Dazs) for a week or two before taking halting steps towards recovery-- that I am violating. While millions join the ranks of the unemployed with a pit of anxiety and fear in their bellies, I simply feel renewed. The restorative spiritual effects of unemployment benefits is a little mentioned benefit of our current pseudo-Stalinist socialist welfare state. It may be perverse, but the very thing that is decimating the nation as a whole is lifting my spirits and given me a renewed sense of opportunity and optimism. It's like I'm tap dancing my way to the soup kitchen-- though, thanks to communists like LBJ and FDR, the soup kitchen has been replaced by a gigantic gold-plated replica of the government's teat. My compliments to their Marxist overlords in Moscow.

My actual last day, which I had prepared for by entering into a state of utter detachment, was actually much less fake than I expected. People come and go at a place like that, and I have seen enough of it to know that the convulsions of sadness that most departing employees expect never materialize. As world-changing and epic as my last day felt to me, it was, for everyone else, just the last day of another workweek they're trying to get through. Unless you're JFK, the hole of your absence tends to fill up amazingly quickly. (I may, however, begin making bomb threats simply to keep my name in the public eye over there.)

With that being said, I was well enough pleased that my parting warranted two cakes and a plate of Primos' hoagies and a spectrum of goodbyes ranging from the touching to the why-are-we-even-fucking-bothering-with-this fake. But so life goes. At those moments when life seems to zoom into overdrive for you, it's simply just another day for 99.9% of the world.

So I found myself facing the prospect of, for a few months at least, channeling my energies in the direction that suits me, rather than in the direction that some loose assemblage of assholes, crackheads, and prima donnas determine. (Have I mentioned that the letters of the organization I worked for, PDDC, stand for Pricks, Dicks, Douchebags, and Cunts?)

How many similar opportunities like this have I had in my life, squandering entire summers in high school watching reruns at 2:00am and stealing my Dad's girlie magazines? No experience is completely bad if it reminds you that if your time is valuable.

If two weeks from now I am spending all of my time looking a tattered copies of Penthouse and watching old episodes of Get Smart, then the misery of the past three years has been for naught.

And in that cause, there's only one solution for my weakness: Find an ever worse job.

Demolition Derby

2009-06-25T13:51:33Z

Last week the president of our board of directors backed up in our parking lot, clipping two vehicles. She then apparently got nervous, threw her car into reverse, and excitedly hit the gas-- clipping THREE MORE vehicles.

That's right: Our board president was playing demolition derby in our parking lot, smashing a grand total of five vehicles in a span of three seconds.

One of the vehicles included the car of my boss, the Chief Operating Officer, who our board president can't stand.

13 more work hours to go before sweet, sweet unemployment.

Livejournal, I just needed a little space

2009-06-24T02:25:25Z

Livejournal,

I know I have been a little distant lately, but sometimes, you know, a fella just needs a little time to himself.

I know I have been a little preoccupied lately. After several centuries of professional hell, my job is wrapping up. This is a big change. I hope you understand that. For the record, all of my sexual inadequacies-- and I repeat ALL-- are a result of "stress from work." That includes my seemingly unhealthy obsession with Lindsay Lohan upskirt photos.

Once I get this stuff sorted out, baby, it'll get better. You'll see.

"College" is not especially hard, unless you mean having to show up for every class and completely all assignments hard. At the end of the summer, I will be 75% of the way to getting a unmarketable publishing degree-- part of my age-old dream of writing capsules of television programs for TV Guide.

Easy or not, it does take up a good deal of my time. I'm sorry if I've been a little distant or preoccupied lately.

Selling this house-- a project that has gone remarkably smoothly-- was another stressor. Yoko and I were concerned that we might be able to sell the house in this market. But we did. In three days! August 4th is our settlement date. I expect to be at least half living in DC by early August.

Yes, a great burden has been lifted from our shoulders, but there is still a constant background hum of stress.

Now I am preparing for my final week of work. It promises to be three days of fake sadness and phoney promises to hang out later by people who don't especially like me (that is: my entire workplace) and... cake.

I know I have been uncommunicative; I know I have been keeping to myself too much. Just a few more Lindsay Lohan Web sites more and I'll be ready to talk again like old times.

Does that woman EVER wear panties?

Yours,

Lipby

Countdown

2009-05-14T01:37:43Z

Yoko's last day at her job is in two days.

She moves to DC in 13 days.

I anticipate resigning from my position in 19 days-- and will likely finish working in six weeks.

In the next three months, we have to get this house ready to sell-- and then actually get it sold. Then there will be the schlepping of stuff, job searching in DC, apartment searching. In the meantime, I will be taking twelve graduate credits before the end of the year.

As much as I dread the grueling pace of change, I have to admit that it has given me a definite lift. What's frustrating, in fact, isn't that things are changing too quickly, it's that, now that the process has started, that it's moving too slowly.

Graduation

2009-05-12T02:42:45Z

This weekend I was in Connecticut to attend my nephew's graduation at UConn, an event that unfolded with all of the solemnity of a pep rally. At one point, a very hefty family a few rows ahead of left only to return a few minutes later with nachos and hot dogs. At they returned to the section, you could see the entire section rolling their eyes as if to say "trashy people." The looks quickly turned dumbfounded as the crowd realized that this graduation, which was being held in the 10,000 seat basketball arena, was being treated for all intents and purposes as if it were a Huskies basketball game.

My nephew, for his part, seemed to take a delightful amount of bemusement from the ceremony-- when he wasn't looking bored silly-- the exact same mix of emotions that once led me to skip out on my graduation ceremony. Twenty years out, I envied (an envy that at various points of the ceremony verged on the palpable) the youth and possibility of the graduates, wishing I had possessed the direction that these kids appear to possess (but mostly probably don't.) It is strange to see a thousand happy graduates blazing through their graduation day at supersonic speeds, hungry to finally get on with their lives, while all I wanted to do is quietly tiptoe back that moment and linger for a good long while...

I must confess, however, that one thing I don't miss about university are the professors with a missionary zeal regarding ideologies that have absolutely no chance of surviving outside of academia foisting their politics on everyone else. Here is a photo of some feminist professor ruining the student's big day with her own political statement about vagina-power. This, my friends, is akin to pushing the bride out of the limelight at a wedding reception:

May this womyn die and live in a hell populated by nothing but oversexed fratboys.

Lèse majesté

2009-05-08T03:51:45Z

I ran into the phrase "lèse majesté" in something I was reading and, for the life of me, I couldn't remember what it meant. So I went to trusty Wikipedia which very helpfully reminded me lèse majesté is the criminal offense of insulting a head of state. So far, so enlightened.

As an example of Lèse majesté, however, Wikipedia included this cartoon, a very subtle commentary on William Pitt's threat to suspend habeas corpus.

Since viewing this image, I have been unable to get its essential crassness out of my mind. The image depicts John Bull (the British version of Uncle Sam) letting loose an unabashed gust of flatulence directly in the face of King George III.

First of all, whatever notion that somehow modern minds are corrupt and debased are wiped away by this drawing. Imagine this cartoon being published by any newspaper or magazine in the country. It's simply unfathomable. It is perhaps too base for Hustler magazine.

In a sense, this image is the very essence of satire, stripping this form of commentary to its bare, gushing Platonic form. A man directly farting in another man's face: I can think of no more basic way of depicting disapproval.