Drinks With Doug Idea: Books With Doug...with drinks!

Thursday's weather: warm and dry, with the smell in the air of heat and humidity to come. Plants still basking in light and rain surplus, but this will not last. Disappointment: my Siberian Iris have not bloomed this year nearly at all.
Thursday's drink: I'm outta good summery booze. Down to whiskey and mixer.
Thursday's dream ticket: Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors" tour. Sadly she's not coming to DC, which is a total mystery to me. Still, where-ever you are in the country, go and tell me what you think. Only if it was good.

All the hullaballoo about Scottie McClellan's book as me thinking. The Drinks With Doug family should know so much more about this, and more importantly other abuses of our government. So why not a book club?
Well, not so much a book club, with all the estrogen-laden potentiality. Not...that estrogen is a bad thing. It isn't. I've just never - ever - come across a guy's book club.
So let's start a book read that isn't a club or isn't guys or gals or anything other than the book, and what we learn.
At to that point, I propose a book no doubt all of us have heard of, many of us have referenced, some of us have seen the movie (sigh, Robert Redford's so dreamy) and few of us have actually read top to bottom.
I propose we read: "All The President's Men" by Woodson and Bearnbear. Or someone. The guy that Dustin Hoffman played!
I am going to the DC public library this Saturday to check it out. I ask you do likewise. And let's gather together back in a month.
That's pretty much it. Scott McClellan is a douche and his book is completely uneventful except for the cocaine revelation. And we yet to have the account of the abuse of this administration laid bare such that all can see it for what it is, and hold them accountable.

Drinks With Doug Reviews: #1

Saturday's weather: Sharp blue sky and clear cumulus clouds, dry and pleasant, mabye about 73 today.
Saturday's drink: McDonald's coffee, as it's morning and the coffee-pot has died.
Saturday's interest: the movie "Hunger", recently playing to big boffo at Cannes. Admittedly, leaning toward the IRA over the English in the Troubles. But timely, given what we have not been discussing regarding rendition, Guantanamo, and our never-ending troubles.

Drinks With Doug is, at its best moments, a chronicle of the thousand events that, together, comprise the events of a life. Or my life, specifically. Part of that life is food I make. Part of it is the work I do, the soap I use, the smell of my dog in the morning, the progress of my herbs, and the events I attend. Today I start DWD Reviews!, exclamation point included. My first stabs at thoughts on events/experiences I've had here that you can have where-ever you are. Movies, concerts, magazine articles, sex toys; it's all fair game. Except the sex toys.

Concert: "Drive - By Truckers" at DC's 930 Club, Saturday May 10.
DWD Rating: two Southern Comforts and a mess o' beers (out of five possible drinks.)
My friend DE suggested this a while back. I've been hearing D and J talk about the Drive By Truckers, and their songs, and their rock opera Southern Rock Opera for years...feeling at times a little left out of the loop of the 70's experience of southern rock concerts, weed, beer, long hair, Stars-n-Bars tees, and all the other whatnot that, I assume, accounts for the bulk of what we may call "southern culture." OK, I'm a little tight-assed Square-head; but the whole Doobie-rock thing always eluded me. Time to give it a try.
Glad I did. Although frankly, I'm not sure when I'll try it again. DBT hit the stage around 11:30pm; much too late for an old man like me. In the words of my friend D: "I love having gone out, I just hate going out." I agree. The opening act was meh, but DBT hit the stage hard and didn't let go until 1am. And that was BEFORE the encore, which lasted well into the wee hours.
At first the songs hit you in the gut - good rock!, you say. Light and dark, good riffs, swampy feel. And, looking around, I think I've never been less intimidated by a concert crowd in my life. On the other side, after a while their tunes meld one into the other. Swamp seeps into swamp, and it becomes a little bit of an endurance contest: you and the guys (and gal) actually making the music.
In the end they won my respect my sheer force (on their part) to make me like them. But they didn't win my icy northern heart.

DVD: "Primer"
DWD Rating: three gin and tonics, and a splash more of Hendricks
"Primer", henceforth referred to without quotes, is the 2004 sci-fi tech-punk mind-fuck that you'll never understand, and wish you did. The work of the intriguing Shane Carruth (he wrote, produced, directed and acted - one more than Orson Welles OR Ed Wood!), Primer charts the totally mundane discover of something shockingly new, and powerfully corrupting, in science. I'll leave it there...mostly because I don't really understand what or how or why or...well, yeah. It's pretty dense - but not in the David Lynch way of weirdness and incomprehensibility for its own sake way. In that 'I don't understand this, but it has enough coherence and internal consistency that I believe I could understand this' way.
Beyond the tech-blather and weed-hungering questions, it also charts the break-down of a very close friendship: something we've all experienced. Worth several viewings.

Concert: "X" 13X31 Tour, Wednesday May 21 at the aforementioned awesome 930 Club.
DWD Rating: four straight scotch (and whatever you can find on the floor.)
What can be said that hasn't been of X over its history? Four amazing musicians - who we know not just by name or face or style but by expression - who together welded the mayhem of LA's punk scene into lasting fierce on-your-fucking-toes musical cocaine. (Not that I know what cocaine is like. Ahem.) C, our friend G and I went, passing (now regrettably) on the Detroit-based opener The Detroit Cobras. Billy Zoom (Paxil-man), Exene (former of King Aragon!), DJ Bonebreak and the aging-but-ageless John Doe: as a set they are history. My history, American music history, our history. I can't say enough.

Event: Art-O-Matic, Friday May 23
DWD Rating: Two sloppy martinis. That's it.
AOM is a somewhat yearly event that I fully support. Heck, I leap up and down at. Hurrah! Art-O-Matic!
It's an un-judged, non-judgemental collection of DC artists' work - often taking over abandoned office buildings and/or intimidating neighborhoods to display the creative output of our area.
No tsk-tsks. No smug chin-scrubbing. No art talk.
It's sappy and sassy and dirty and goofy and provocative in every way creation should be (see previous post!) Walk one floor or eight. Stare or breeze. Laugh - please - and mull. Be yourself.
Art-O-Matic. Why didn't I thing of this?

It's The Arts

Monday's weather: 60's and dry, partly sunny like September, and rather windy (like me.)
Monday's drink: Not having one, but if I were, I think I'd fancy a White Peach Bellini. Fizzylicious.
Monday's adage: "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." (from Al Gore's 2008 commencement address at Carnegie Mellon University.)

This last weekend was chockablock with art in my hood. Art-O-Matic continues apace (C, D F and I will be going this coming Friday) and the now-empty jumpin' Jesus church that occupied a former garage at 14 and T has been converted into an 'edgy' downtowny-artist gallery that Transformer has occupied for the time. It was also Mid-City Artists' weekend whatnot to boot, with two of my neighbors exhibiting. I didn't get out to experience a single one of them, natch.

I did experience, side-note-wise, the new Harris Teeter store up at Kalorama and 18th, the one in the old roller rink. And I feel confident I can state for the record that it is the gayest grocery store, ever, in all of existence. Quite a statement I admit, but empirically true.

Back to art. The weekend, and the work of my friend J*who writes for The Art Newspaper set my mind to art recently. I've always had an uncomplicated relation with much of it. And generally speaking, I prefer more than less, perhaps mostly because I don't expect much from much of art. Not at least on our shared cultural level. The personal: well that's altogether another issue.

Art-O-Matic is a great example. Floor after floor of...what is that? Who did this? WHAT is that supposed to be? Lots of questions cast into the air for us to play with. The questions - the playfullness of it all - and not worrying about answering them is, for me, very stimulating. But then rarely I happen on something that is not playful at all. No predicting what it is or where I'll find it. But it's a something that...not that it demands attention, for I willingly give it. It's something that seeks somehow to come into me and fill me.

I know the language is a little fruity here, so let me try an analogy. Faith is a mutli-level experience for me. Most of it - the theological questions, the existential wandering, the poking about in that cloud of ideas apart from the quantifiable - is for me just fun. The more questions the better: I wish lots of people were asking lots more questions publicly, inviting the rest of us to trade answers back and forth, free from the weight of whether we're getting it right. Like those rainbow beach-balls that get popped from one to another at bad outdoor concerts. It just bumbles along, no direction, free from direction, existing just for us to bop it to someone else, something fun that we share and joins us together.

But then there's the personal layer. Wholly other than the diverting ponderments about abstractions, these are the deep questions of what my life's work is and should be, how I engage with those I love, and whether I allow my spirit - the spirit - to fill me as it should or if I fight it and keep it from its - and my - work. These are the rare moments I open to the fuzzy pink cloud of theology so that it can pour into me - to what end, who knows.

These are profound and scary moments, but at the essence of life. "Sitting with spirit," I refer to it with my shrink. So it is with art. There's a great jumbly mess of ART floating around in which I am perfectly comfortable moving through. It's just fun, and meant to be swatted up to someone else. But there are - rarely - works that I open to and try to come to live with as they fill me. Perhaps I'll share one or two of these in posts to come.

But not now. Life, Gordon Ramsey, and C all call me away from the dread blog. And none too soon.

*I have to give a shout-out to the work the J does, and the better thoughts he has on art that often don't make it to print. The Art biz - meaning the incredibly high-priced, stratospheric world "real" artists inhabit, opposed to those doing good work living down on this plane with us mortals - has become, I perceive, a sham: little else than oddities put out by no-talent ego cases with mendacious sales pitches, work that exists solely to be commoditized where "value" means exactly and only the price it fetches at auction. People who adopt the surface and trappings of real art before them but have nothing to say or, more charitably, little interest in conversing. I won't characterize J's thoughts on this, adding only when I say these things to him, he has a good chuckle. While you're at it, check out the Art Newspaper. Read it for a month, and write back what you learned about the arts world.

Victory and Defeat

Thursday's weather: Sunny this morning, near picture-perfect in the afternoon, with a reddish-grey haze over the sky now in evening. You can stare directly at the sun, though I don't recommend it. 70's, moist, and eerily still - not a leaf moving.
Thursday's drink: a moderate T&T; no need for me to be too tight, especially when that makes me a bad boyfriend.
Thursday's wish: A Day With No News. Perhaps, maybe, someday.

My friend RL phoned me this afternoon from San Francisco. Or Oakland, somewhere in the Bay; whatever. I thought it odd she would be phoning in the early afternoon, no doubt knowing I would be at work. Something bad, I thought; oh dear earthquakeaccidentbabyfalljobearthquakedeathtemblor... Earthquakes and other natural disasters, no surprise, have been very much in the forefront of my thoughts lately. A hazard of my job.

I answered, "B....?", and could tell immediately this was not a bad call. It was, contrarily, a good call. "I just heard, the California State Court ruled that gay marriage is legal! Everyone's talking about it all around me, it's quite the thing. Isn't this great?," she asked. While I was at work.

I should explain. I don't work for an open-minded organization. I don't work for a company that has liberal spousal recognition, or bring your dog to work policies. I don't work for an employer that wants in any way to know I'm gay and happily so. I doubt they ever will - the culture there is just far too insular, set, comfortable with itself and only itself.

This is a problem. A large problem; one that probably hurts me more than I admit and affects me more than I understand. Imagine for a moment: you go to work. Coming in, some of your colleagues are standing around, talking of their vacation. Or holiday, or episode last night while drinking and watching "American Idol" - it doesn't matter. A part of you is immediately on notice: you twitch (imperceptibly so, hopefully) and monitor your words that you don't let something of yourself (your holiday, your vacation, your drunken night in front of the TV) slip. Mostly people are polite: they learn to stop asking after you evade several queries. ("queries", ha!) You're not part of them - you're different. Cool, aloof. Different. Colleagues stop asking things; you stop answering. You're a ghost.

I realize the blog is often over-done. Like a stew with too much going on, or a bad press release with too many editors - too ornate...rococo. But I'm not overstating. In an environment like this - and they are far more numerable than just this oppressive spot described - you're apart and alien from the very well-spring of civics...and civility.

Why do you think I was an in-your-face faggot in the 90s? (Well, not really so much, but perhaps we could say around-your-face fag.) But that's another story. Well...a lot of other people's stories, but that's again, that's something for another time.

So the victory - gay marriage! - was set off by my immediately scurrying to find a 'safe' place to talk on my cell phone. I found myself even censoring what I would say, that someone would overhear and put 2 and 2 together and figure it out. In the tiniest moment of courage I pushed that aside, saying loudly "California here we come!" My victory undercut by the knowledge that I was in a side hallway, out of earshot to most.

Victory and defeat. I'm not sure which won out in my personal little wars today. But mostly I'm heartened by the phone call. Perhaps that there is the victory. Not the ruling, not whatever follows. Not whatever I may say about it. That someone would hear of this and think to immediately pick up the phone and call me. As I think on it, that is (in the parlance) the game-changer.

Tonight I'm feeling quite the victor.

Drive-By Blogging

Monday's Weather: Upward of 4 inches of rain these last 24 hours and cool, like a Michigan Spring. My herbs are doing aerobics in the front.
Monday's Drink: Sorry, but it's left-over Woodbridge Pinot Grigio, which isn't really as bad as all that, but you know...it's Woodbridge.
Monday's Forbidden Link: photo-bombing. Tsk-tsk.

It's late and I haven't blogged in a week. Frequent commenter David has already observed such.
But I realize that often posts should be short, without literary effect; something only slightly more than a Twitter tweet or a scrawled note in high school class.
So here's short, until I'm with enough time, to write something meaningful. Last weekend was punctuated by three events: several hours of gardening on Saturday (in which I moved a full-grown lilac, several established plants, and other mucking about), the Drive-By Truckers' concert late Sat/early Sunday morning at the 930 Club (the coolest rock-n-roll club in the U.S.), and making chicken marsala Sunday afternoon for dinner.

The gardening was great, and perfectly timed. Basil in the ground now, lilac in new home, workin' the dirt in the front yard. Fotos to follow soon. It's a perfect break from stupid work or confused home to plunge a spade deep into the brown soil and turn it over, and then better plant something that will grow, be green, take space, make flowers or become yummy; all in weeks. And of course the smell. The smell of turned earth. Nothing else smells like that.

Drive-By Truckers were a slab of BBQ'd possom all right. Good music, long fucking concert. And you know: even if you're like me (not so inclined to own a DBT CD), they just worked so hard on stage (hitting around 11:30, encore around 1:15, getting home around 2:20) that the just MADE you like them. Which I do.

The marsala...well, you know. Dudes, I'm occasionally brilliant in the kitchen, and made that chicken and noodle dish leap from the pan to the dish. I should elaborate on this, and more more, later. But I'm s'posed to post more and write less. So here's your take-away: 930 Club: amazing.
Oohs and Aahs in DC: you'll never find better soul food. Drive-By Truckers: damn you work hard, boys! I love you for that. My dreams: who was that long-haired charmer who sidled up to me on the couch? My friend DE: let's golf soon. My friend DG: I need to compose less and write better. My partner C: you're my hero. Bro in Spain: keep the info coming, and I'll blog more!

11:1opm, time to post. Will update site with friends' links and more soon. Will also post part 1 of letter for former bf and still beloved J soon.

Derby Denouement

Sunday's weather: cloudless sky though it's less blue and more slate, fresh breeze from the west and perfect 75 degrees.
Sunday's drink: well, yesterday's actually; a Mint Julep, heavy on both the mint and julep
Sunday's ingredient: limes! Good heavens I have so many limes in this house. I need lime recipes, people!

The first Sunday of May invariably is a slow day. That's as it follows the hubbub and excitement of the first Saturday, which of course is the running of the Kentucky Derby. Today's no exception.

134 years they've been running the Derby down in Louisville. 7 years C has been throwing a Derby party. (All good traditions have to start with small numbers.) No doubt he's actually been doing a Derby-do for longer, but 2002 marks the year he had both the house to hold people, and the gambling account to take their money. Both are good things.

As Derby Day's grew in number they also grew in size. 2007 was probably the peak with about 75 or 80 people in and out the door. Even with three floors of entertainment, juleps, TVs to watch the race and gaming options, that's a lot of people. Parties that large need three things: a good guest list, a brigade of friends to help, and - during the party itself - the ability to talk to four people at the same time. The friends have been key: in years past they have saved our bacon: making juleps, moving food out of the kitchen, greeting at the door, supplying the bourbon, handling wagers, unclogging the clots of people that form in the tightest places, making desserts, keeping the riff-raff away. But the parties have required a great deal of work - printing programs, coordinating food prep, staffing the...uh, gaming entertainments. Managing the money. Keeping your cool. They have been big parties.

A funny thing happens at big parties. I'm thinking back to Tammy's pre-WHCA dinner garden brunch last weekend...and to david's comment. When you're the host, people naturally want to see you: say hello, shake a hand, thank you for the invite, trade a pleasant comment or two. And when you have 80 people all trying to get just one minute with you, well you begin to feel a little special. You can see it in people's eyes - as they follow you from task to task, watching to see who else may be in line, calculating the right moment to strike. You become a little more desired, a little more important. At least then and there. (Thinking back to Tammy's party, I get that a little more. But there of course it isn't just the host people are circling around, it's big fish that swim in and out. They, too, can see the looks in other's eyes, and they begin to feel ... well, a little special. Or more special, in their case.)

I'll admit I missed a little of that yesterday. But what I got in its place was an ideal number and range of friends and zero stress. People didn't need to yell to be heard, everyone had just as much time with anyone else as they wished, no-one was in demand and thus no-one was demanding. We opened the door at 4 and that was it. Like the gates opening at Churchill, it just goes of its own motion.

We didn't have the gaming options (thank you U.S. Congress) as in years past, and of course there was the heart-breaking end for Eight Belles which, thankfully, I didn't see. (By the way, check Sally Jenkins' take on what's really going on here; I think it's not said enough.) But cleanup was done by midnight, everyone left with a smile - at least I think they did - and you would never know any different this morning. Except for all the new bourbon. Thanks, guys. Now I need to start finding bourbon drinks.

Well we all have sacrifices to make, I guess. So here it is, 3pm Sunday afternoon. Soon I'll take STG out for a little run of her own outside. Go buy some eggs, make find a lime bar recipe. Listen to the birds and the children and the brunch-crowd and the power-saws of DIYerselfers. Wag a finger at myself for not hitting the gym.

And lay on the couch and let the memories of another Derby Day past slowly simmer and settle back somewhere into my brain. Thanks for the company, the pies, the booze and the fun. Let's do it again next year.

Except next year, how about I pick the winning horse for a change?

Odd Ends

Thursday's Weather: wet this morning with sprinkles, which the herbs drink up; sunny and most righteous this pm. Can't wait to take STG out for a walk.
Thursday's Drink: I drank too much last night, to my discredit. One glass of Tanq and tonic, and then to seltzer.
Thursday's Link: What?! Boomerangs work in space?!

A little less lofty tone tonight. Back from work, STG fed and walked, the dishes from last night's macaroni & cheese scoured, lists made of what we need for Saturday's Kentucky Derby party. Quiet, save for the sounds of kids on the street here. Whooooo, whaaaaa, "Oh my God, he's doing Great! Eight weeks old on Tuesday!" My little piece of Sesame Street.

Here's something you may not know. I'm told (I don't remember much, if anything, of my childhood) when I was just a boober I wanted to run away and live with Mr. Rogers.

Yeah, Mr. Rogers. He of Pittsburgh and PBS fame. Perhaps this is something we of our generation share; perhaps this is far too intimate a revelation. TV was still something odd and special growing up - certainly as a child. I still was lucky enough to have yards and fields and neighborhood candy stores (Pucksty's!) and a school close enough to walk to (which no longer exists save for Friendster searches.) I remember snow storms and milk delivery and Halloween and the scary lady who lived at the end of the block by my brother S always used to tell me she wasn't scary at all and mostly the smell of leaves. Leaves in the Spring, the Summer and the Fall. My sensory memory.

Anyway, I was just a niblet and, I'm guessing, not terribly happy at home. The whys to that are why I pay a therapist $165 an hour to niff-naw around the issues there. Regardless, I'm told that sometime around 4 or 5 I wanted to run away and live with Mr. Rogers. Apparently I had my mind made up: I was going to pack my bag and go outside (the world will protect me) and hop a bus or something and end up on that street Mr. Rogers lived on - the one us'uns of a certain age all remember: the T-Street, the cars and buses, the celesta banging out the familiar welcome. I don't know what he was to me, but obviously I wanted more of it and was ready to leave mom and dad and brother and Heidi-dog to get it.

I was only dissuaded from my adventure by mom, or so I'm told. By mom. Apparently she tried reasoning with me, which didn't work at all I guessing because what could be more real than TV? In the end, as she tells the story, she told me "...Mr. Rogers isn't real. He's only make-believe." I'm also told at hearing this I cried for a day or more.

Like so much of my youth, I have no memory of this. (That's why I'm in therapy, folks.) But it seems more than plausible. I was a soft child: a goopy, sensitive, emotional thing who as prone to crying or throwing up as to running about and pinching the girls and sharing my building blocks at school. All to the aroma of vegetable soup, which I think they made every day. Still to this day I can't smell vegetable soup without flying back to Paul L. Best Elementary School.

These days my neighborhood is more likely to smell or Ethiopian or Greasiopian or just plain gutter-booze-alkies. But there are trees and lamp-lights at night; little gardens out front and colorful townhouses all 'round. It's really quite cozy. My tiny bit of what I imagined Sesame Street would be...and here it is.

Thursday night and already the bar traffic hoping. Maryland-douches and Virginia-blobs prowling for parking so they can spend LOTS of money at one of my neighborhood trendy bars. (By the way: the bars are douches, too and the waiter hate you and the bartenders water your stupid drinks down, and you're better off saving your money and going to H Street NE.) I hear sirens, again, off to the east it sounds - Howard University area. C is downstairs unwinding. Coffee's made to start at 5am, and the kitchen is more clean than dirty.

I'm very happy with this life.

Signs of the End Times

Monday's weather: monsoonal rains, and now just moist and cool. The plants shall thrive but I am wiped.
Monday's drink: a glass of Bella Serra Pinot Grigio. A glass and a half.
Monday's link: to the United Church of Christ, for anyone wanting to learn more about the church from a source other than the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr.

Sign the First: WGN-TV cancels U.S Farm report.

Was just watching a History Channel "program" about Nostradmus' super-special secret collection of lost prophecies that have only recently resurfaced. Scaaaary stuff, kiddies. Fires and plagues and hunger, all culminating in the year 2012. Just in time for the next presidential election. Coincidence? I think not.

But we don't need make-believe to scare us, and I've have been thinking about end times lately. Of both the eschatological and the far more mundane economic sorts. You couldn't have fit more bad news into the front section of yesterday's Washington Post, save for the obvious fact that there was much more that could have gone in. Globally things are getting seriously scary. And worse, we grow more unconnected with the things so necessary to life: growing food, resting, quiet, a little love.

And across the states? Fewer jobs, less money, spotty health care. More pan-handlers here in my neighborhood. More fights - and louder and more violent it sounds - outside my window on Friday and Saturday nights. Worry swirls like water in the tub, sucking more and more of us into it. And as we approach the brink (for if I lose my job, my house, my family's health-care, my children's schooling, who's to say it isn't the end of times for me?), where is our FDR?

Sign the Second: Bush Gets Laughs at WHCA Dinner

This weekend was prom here in Washington. The White House Correspondent's Association annual dinner. Of all the crappy beef-or-chicken dinners for journalists in this town - the super snotty retirement home called the Gridiron, the beer-n-brats prolitarian feel of the Radio/TV Correspondent's Association, and this one - the WHCA is usually the highest profile. This year notably. And by high profile, I mean the largest single annual migrations of ego-inflated puffins outside of the Oscars.

My friend J went to the dinner: hope she had fun. Good luck hearing what's being said at the podium...hell, at your table. The room is LOUD, the waiters just waiting to drop their 12 servings of arugula and prosciutto with port reduction right into your lap, and your table mates more interested in who's over your shoulder than what's in your head.

C and I went to one gathering - crowded, hot, people so pleased with themselves for being in each other's company. We watched the dinner on TV - the President sleep walking through his least amusing and smuggest performance ever (which is saying something.) C went to one of the afters - bizarre, wet, incompetently managed.

All boiling down to this: the New York Times is right to sit these embarrassments out. The year following the President's tragicomic slide show looking for Iraqi WMDs ("Nope, they're not under here, heh heh heh") every serious organization should have done likewise. A colleague said to me: "God, that press corps just loves this man." I disagreed. I think they're in love with the idea of their all being in that room with a President. And that is shameful.

There will be other signs in the future. Consider me your sentry at the watch-post for the apocalypse. And I think I'm learning: I should wrap up my posts before my ass starts to hurt.

Two Quick Thoughts

Tuesday's weather: Dee-lightful, except my garden all the rain is encouraging the weeds.
Tuesday's drink: Puh-lease. Gin and tonic with lime.
Tuesday's song: "Ever Fallen In Love" by the Buzzcocks

OK, two...or three...quickies.

1. I have been saying for a week Hillary could carry Pennsylvania by 9 points. I'm sticking to that tonight. MSNBC's co-anchors can't find enough ways to paint anything tonight as a defeat for Clinton - why does she hate Barack so much?? - so to hell with them. (And by the way: why do we give a shit about what Rachel Maddow thinks? Rachel Maddow? Are you freakin' kidding me? Hey Rachel: how many elections you won? How many you worked on? Go take a nap.) So whatevs; Hillary's going to win, period. All this masterbatory time-filling about how much she has to win by is shite. Eat it, Olbermann.
2. Um...changing the tone quickly, Congrats KA! My friend has just announced she's getting engaged, and I couldn't be more thrilled. Were I straight, and were I her type, I bet I would be living in bizarro-world. But still: she's one of the most honest souls I know. Mazel tov and blessings heaped upon you.
3. For friends I haven't called in the last couple days (RJ I'm looking your way!), I'm sorry. I'll try and do better.

OK. Sleep well my beauties. Keep hope alive.

Dry Sponges

Monday's weather: Day two of steady rain and moist air. Garden soggier than a 40's radio comedy.
Monday's drink: Lamole di Lamole Chianti classico. Robusto!
Monday's song: "52 Girls" by the B-52s. ("And Hazel and Mavis!")

People keep telling me: "Don't worry 'bout your blog! Just write what you want. It doesn't have to be polished or finished or even very meaningful." Well, my use of quotations suggest someone - several someones I guess, by my use of "people" - said those actual words. Which no one did. But the message is the same. Write and post! Write and post! Keep 'em entertained! More! Whoop! Whoop!

Meh. You're on your own for entertainment. I am not a clown. And I do not amuse you.

Hahahaha. Oh, but I amuse myself. Well to the point. Half the weekend was spent at a pod-conference. Podcamp they called it: an "un-conference." (Oh? Does that mean I can wear un-clothes? ) The presenters and attendees ran the range: those professionally focused, those wildly successful, hobbyists, cranks, nutters, and grandmamas wanting to blog and podcast about doilies. Which, by the way, if there is no doily-focused podcast, could be a big hit, trust me. Depends would sponsor it in a heart-beat.

Much was discussed. The presenters were up to the task, some of the discussions provocative (that's a good thing), mercifully few of the attendees loud and long and windy. Almost without exception I liked everyone I met, and save for one or two lumps (no, I'm not linking to that) no-one seemed intent on impressing, which is refreshing. Sorting through it all, two terms came up over and over. The first is "social media and networking" (yes, those exact words were spoken, many times) and the second is "authenticity."

The first annoys me somewhat. It's come to be a term people toss about in conference rooms, Dilbert-like, to show just how connected with the moment they are, and they have no idea what it means. Those who do know what it means may still not understand how it works. And those who know how it works - how many people are we talking here? - are frankly groping about to understand its uses. I think tomorrow I'll link to some of these...assuming I can figure out the link thing. Let's say for now I learned a lot of what the web can do, and what it's doing now. But often I still don't get the "And...why would I want to do that?" thing.

At my final session - New Leadership for a New somethingorother - the webkins around the table were erudite in their tasks and applications and desires for the future. "And how about you?" asks team leader Joel Mark Witt, an affable fellow. "Uh...yeah," I fumble. 'Don't tell them who you work for', I think. 'Don't say dumb shit that will give you away as a giant fake here' follows soon. 'You don't know shit from shinola' I think, rather unimaginatively... 'Don't say you're not on Twitter or Utterz or Qik or GoobleGobble'.

Shhhh.

Yeah, see the thing is: I'm not really one of you. I'm a writer, a story-teller with some good show-biz sense and technical know-how. But I'm not in this bubble of Web2.0 blahzy blahzy. Not that I don't respect it because I do. Genuinely. I'm just, with a few minor exceptions, a guy who tells true stories and tries to make them interesting.

"Well," sez I, "I think my focus is rather different than a lot of you here." Earlier he displayed a slide of a sponge, prompting discussions of how water/information flows through and is held by a sponge/person. "See, it's like that slide. A sponge actually has to be a little wet before it can absorb water. My audience is like a dry sponge. They have the ability to absorb, but often few if any of the resources. You all keep getting wetter and wetter, and much of the world is getting drier and drier.

To his and the table's credit, rather than being waved off this seemed to open up a new, and fruitful pursuit. Because for all my bitching about Work, I believe in the value of reaching out to people forgotten by the narcissistic American machine.

Well. Hurrah for me. But still, if there's a way I can incorporate a few bubbles falling from the hyper-google-mega-bleeding edge I will think this a valuable effort. Next post will be less heady and more homey. Really. COME BACK! READ! MORE POSTS! NEW NEW NEW! Ooops, sorry.

PS: C is out at a fancy dinner tonight with Rupert Murdoch and Tony Blair. I'm at home with STG and re-heating leftover basmati rice and biryani, watching the rain fall. Who's having the better evening? xo to C.

DWD Housekeeping

Today's weather: Sunny from start to finish, and warm. You can almost see tree leaves growing.
Today's drink: good old standby Vantage Seltzer. Raspberry flavored.

OK, seems as good a time as any to get some stuff out of the way. And since I very much doubt I'm doing anything other than talking to myself here, I'll continue the delusion by asking myself questions and then answering them.

Why are you doing this?
Ah. Very good question, thank you. I have no idea.
Well, I have some ideas. Perhaps this may be a good way for me to keep in closer contact with friends. Without the time to write everyone individually - save for emails which read more like telegrams but less personal - this may allow me to genuinely articulate what's happening with me. So sorta like a letter in that it's composed, but one I only have to write once.
Or perhaps this will be off site storage for memories. Like an external hard drive for my brain. I find my memory is not at all a steel trap, and in various ways I am lessened by not having perfect recall.
And maybe, just maybe, if I'm real lucky, this will be the perfect way for me to completely embarrass myself and loved ones, and lose my job. Keep Hope Alive!

Speaking of loved ones, what's with the initials?
Mmm-hmm, yes. Thanks for noticing. Another great question.
If the unthinkable happens and people start dropping by my little U-Stor-It here, secrets may be spilled. Feelings may be hurt. So I've decided names won't be named.
All the people who appear here will be real. I assume some of my friends and loved ones will know who some of these people are, but that's assuming a lot. So initials it is. That goes for everyone but me, including my dog. For reference, I may add a little list at the side. But for now that's just crazy talk.

Why do your links suck?
(laughs) Oh, you caught me! No I love questions like this, thanks.
I don't know how tricked out this thing will be. I don't fully know yet who I want to link to. I don't know what sorts of media - other than text - I want to post. I don't know how searchable I want it to be, so I'm not tagging the posts. Yet.
Next question...yes, you in the back?

Yeah, um, this is your third day and you've posted every day? Are you going to do this every day, and do you seriously expect people to be that interested in what you're doing?
Wow, I love this group. Such smart questions. Thanks for that.
Again, I have no idea. And this time I really mean it. Perhaps this will make me a better person. You know, therapy on Wednesdays, gym on Thursday, Saturday, Monday. Watching "The Soup" with C on Fridays. Posting when I come home from work.
Look, we'll see. I know I don't have seven interesting things to say every week, so I'll go easy on you. For now, I'm just getting the hang of this.
OK, last question. Yes?

Yeah, uh...so I hear you like Hillary. So, why do you hate hope?
This press conference is over.

Talking to Walls

Today's Weather: cool at dawn and warm since; not a cloud all day. My garden needs watering tonight.
Today's Drink: Screwdriver, with an extra helping of screwd.


Those who know me know part of my job is to find odd, funny or oddly funny vids floating around the internet ether. The idea is to grab them just at the edge of insane popularity, have a larf or two, and establish in all those who view said highlarity that we will help guide them through the mad crush of the web. Arbitors of popular, in some way. That, and to distract them from the tedium, struggle or diminished hopes of their lives.


Unfortunately this video had the opposite effect on me. It's called the Cube, and it was a made-for-TV experiment by Jim Henson. Yeah, that Jim Henson. Apparently before he settled on felt and ping-pong ball eyes for his metier, he worked in experiemental film. (It's long, but worth a watch. Think of it like a Philip Glass opera: feel free to wander in and out as you like, you won't miss much.) The fact that it's made by Kermit's dad makes it all the weirder.


So I'm wandering in and out of this cool lost arcana from the 70s, when it comes to me. I am the man in the Cube. Doesn't know how he got there, doesn't like being there, doesn't know how to get out or who the oddball characters who traipse in and out are. He spends a lot of time presumably talking to the walls.


So do I. My cube is my work. And my walls are my bosses. The whole establishment of the place, really. You can talk yourself into and out of several personality disorders talking to the bosses; explaining to them why this won't work, asking them why that doesn't work, wondering who will take responsibility when for this and that and fearing the likely outcome that the answer is you. Now sure, every work place runs a little herky jerky. The difference is that when something falls and goes boom, the person responsible for said boom is called to account. Boom is fixed, or it isn't and Mr. Responsible is demoted, transferred, fired or at least roundly mocked for his incompetence and dispiriting attitude.


Work (my work, which from here on out will simply be Work captialized - that is until I get caught at all this and become the one person actually expected to take responsibility, in this case for speaking truthfully and clearly) does not work this way. Boom happens with much frequency, and many mouths start to jaw in many taupe offices about the need for more meetings to target the best way of tracking down the sub-sub-division which is responsible for overseeing the actual...well, if you're still with me you're not cut out for my Work. Fingers point outward in every direction, like a Cushball, but always always outward, never inward.


A colleague today notices a problem. One I've repeatedly noticed, and brought to the attention of Mr. Greyface in Oversized Taupe Office. Too many words taking up too much of my time are spilled, and nothing changes...which I begin to think is the real point of my Work. An absurdist comedy set in a Cube featuring a lead who doesn't know what's happening, and why it keeps happening over and over, completely unaware of the camera (or the director or the playwright) who keeps turning the crank and pressing the absurd button.


I didn't watch it to the end. I don't know if he gets out, if he comes to accept his absurdist dada state, or if we, the audience, leave him as we found him.


Talking to walls.

Jump Right On In

Tuesday’s weather: sun up cold, bright sky, sunny afternoon and dry air.

Tuesday’s drink: classic Gimlet.

I always think I’ve told everyone this story. But then when I tell it, I’m reminded I haven’t. That, or my Alzheimer’s is more pronounced than ever. Either way, as I stare down into this empty hole that will be Drinks With Doug (DWD), I can only think about this one story. So here goes.

I’m in tenth grade. I’ve just moved down from Traverse City and am starting school mid-way through the year. Meaning I don’t know anyone and no-one is all that interested in knowing me.
Among the requirements at Adams: swim class. This is bad, because I don’t swim.

Oh sure, I splash in the water, perhaps like a fish on the line splashes about. Otherwise I am terrified of the water. Apparently I always was. One of my first memories – and there are precious few of those, much more on that in the coming months – was going to swim camp at the Y in Royal Oak. I hated it. Hated, with the screaming, pouting, wimpering hate that only a 4 year old can conjure. My antics paid off and my parents pulled me from the YSWIM ordeal. But of course, I also didn’t learn how to swim.

So here I am, an overweight, red-headed newbie dweeb in swim class once more. No antics will get me out of the pool this time. I manage to generally hide my yawning terror as we do the ‘Dead Man’s Float’ – who the heck came up with this name, btw? Cardinal Richelou? – and discover that I even kind of like the back stroke. Blind elderly ladies with arthritis swam better than me, but I survived.

Then came diving. Into the deep end. I, no surprise, was the last to go. My instructor, a woman whose name I can’t recall though I wish I could, was very cool about the whole thing. No doubt sensing my throbbing terror she walked me all around the edge of the deep watery pit, pausing periodically to look down into the chlorine blue. She showed me the pole she can thrust in the water in a moment to yank a troubled diver to the surface. She even walked the board, did a quick hop, disappeared into the water and sprang to the sides, all in probably less than 10 seconds. Now, it was my turn.

She didn’t yell, or make a fuss. She didn’t march me to the edge of the board and scream, or worse, push me in. She really didn’t do anything…other than make very clear that I was not leaving until I dove in the deep end. Clearly, she meant it.

I stood at the tiled edge for a bit. The water warm on my toes as I dipped them in. That chlorine and teen-age boy smell. Big buzzy industrial lights and the sound of little tiny wavelets. I walk to the board. Pause. I step up. Pause. I start walking to the end. Long pause. She’s not even moving.

And then I do it. Brisk walk to the end, bounce once, twice, in I go, feet first straight down, like spaghetti into a pot. I remember a cloud of bubbles – who knew bubbles make noise down there? – and almost effortlessly I rose to the surface and swam to the side. Up out of the pool, dripping wet and still fat and dweeby, I felt like Edmund Hillary.

I don’t know what I said, but I do remember laughing a lot. Teacher was happy. Still cool, but very happy. “I want to do it again!” I said, and she smiled and nodded to the board where I scampered up and bounce bounce in we go blubblesbubblesbubbles and up to smell the chlorine again and out.

I’m always re-learning that this is how I do things in life. I’m not a jump-right-in-er like some of my former boyfriends are (J coming immediately to mind.) I don’t like being pushed into anything, and will probably fight whoever’s doing the pushing even if I want to do it. I walk around a thing, look at it, dip a toe in, look again, pause, and then run in.

So begins Drinks With Doug. A deep empty pool I have no idea how I’ll navigate, I’ve walked around and around the edge, paused and thought, and now have jumped in. No turning back now.

(bubblesbubblesbubblesbubbles)