Currently Listening Wolfmother By Wolfmother see related

Adieu for now.

It seems like Facebook is where all the cool kids are going, and so I'm making the switch.  You can find me there, if you're given to that sort of thing.  Less amusing blogability, but more connectivity.

Currently Listening Siamese Dream By Smashing Pumpkins see related

"Today is the greatest day I've ever known . . ."

So a good friend of mine, one DangerDan, took me to visit some friends last night.  They are a little band you may have heard of . . . popular a while back . . . played a few shows in the nineties.  Yeah, they're called the Smashing Pumpkins.

This is part of the 18-show series (I think it's 18, maybe fewer) they are doing as artists-in-residence at two different venues.  One is the Fillmore in Cali, and the other just happened to be The Orange Peel. In Asheville.  North Carolina.  An hour from my house.  As I mentioned, Danger got his two rationed tickets (it was quite a hoopla they went through to avoid scalpers, although the word was that individual tickets were going for $500 to $1000 on EBay), and was kind enough to include me.  A pretty incredible musical experience.

They played for three hours, which would be unheard of if they were struggling artists, let alone one of the probably three defining bands of alternative rock.  They played stuff that you vaguely remembered.  They played stuff that you didn't remember.  They played their hits. They played the favorites. Billy played one song that he wrote on Friday night (!!).  Just amazing.

The show is "musical open source", so all recording devices are allowed.  Dan got an hour on video.  Some of the audio that shows up on the internet should be incredible. 

Also, did I mention that I stood 8 feet away from Billy for 3 hours while he played music?  That hasn't really set in yet.  Incredible experience.

Currently Listening Basement Anthology: 1976-84 By The Penetrators - (I Like) Brooklyn see related

Orthodoxy and Visions of Johanna

A good friend of mine was passing through and last night we had good intentions of laying down some music, but this was not to be and so we sat up late, chain smoking through a pack of Parliaments and talking over ecclesiastical exodus, heresy, childrearing, genetic disease, the similarity of my wife to Helen of Troy, the remedy for conflict in Africa and Cindy Lauper.  It was a good talk.

As for the talkers, we vary in our states of doubt and belief, I think - recognizing the bankruptcy of a skepticism that never affirms, but acutely feeling the weakness of the affirmations we crave.  He affirms the value of legacy, and I affirm morality, and we turned over our sundry philosophical rocks to find what lived underneath.  Again, a good talk.

One concept that seemed to underlie our ideas through the night was the Story we have been told and tell each other, the written words, their relation to God, the inherent strangeness of the idea of the Unfathomable documenting Himself (and the strangeness of the men who did the documenting).  As I folded laundry and propped open my sleepy eyelids tonight, I was listening to good old Bob, and realized the power of a story, the durability of an image.  I chewed on a particular seven minute ballad of questionable coherence, but found that it carried its own weight.  I was struck by the similitude.  A collection of images, strangely tied together, durable, perpetually dated and perpetually relevant, told and retold.  I'm not sure what to make of it all.

But at least we had a good talk.

Currently Listening Early Days & Latter Days: 1 & 2 By Led Zeppelin Nobody's Fault But Mine see related

"They call me the working man . . . "

Yesterday, two of my best friends at work and I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge together in the middle of the morning.  A stiff breeze, perfectly clear skies, Lady Liberty down below.  For a brief moment, it seemed OK that we had flown to NYC with 12 hours notice.  The rest of the day was full of Town Cars and pastrami and angry customers, but for that moment, it seemed all right.

My boss' boss' boss has started saying "peace" when people leave his office.  This is not meant in any sort of a religious "shalom" sort of sense, but rather some sort of late 90's gangsta sort of way.  Regrettably, the man in question turned 60 today and is white.  When the VP leaves his office, he uses it rapid-fire, and actually said "peace peace peace peace" to him as he left last week.  I'm not sure what the right reaction is, but snickering is about all I can muster.

Yesterday I was publicly acknowledged for completing my MBA.  It was in the all employee meeting.  Or so I heard.  I was in New York.

Last Thursday, I was really tired of my job.  I had rolled out of bed at 5AM to be in Coney Island at a subway shop by 6.  In the afternoon I drove to the north end of the city through heavy traffic on the Cross Bronx, up near Fordham and Columbia, to pick up parts.  I then spent a few hours at the hotel answering irate emails from Taiwan.  At 10:15, I decided that I needed to see something familiar and calm down, so out I went in my rented purple PT Cruiser . . . across the Triboro, down the Deegan by Yankee stadium, across the George Washington, down the NJ turnpike, out 78 . . . until I came to Bloomsbury.  That's where my grandparents are buried.  I drove through their town, by the church where my grandfather worshipped, by the farm of the man who blocked when my dad was a running back, up over the mountain and to my grandfather's orchard.  It turned out to be a good idea.  Not a good one for sleeping, but a good one for my head.

 The cooler of sodas in my office on ice for coworkers seemed like a great idea until we all gained 10 pounds.

We interviewed a recent college grad on Monday for a position in my group and made him an offer.  I think he might take it.  Everyone is a little nervous.  I hope he is too.

I seem unable to control sleeping on planes right now.  I just fall asleep.  Slept through landing yesterday morning.  Slept through takeoff last Friday.  Slept through beverages yesterday afternoon. Sleep and sleep and sleep.  Seems to indicate that I'm tired, or that I'm some sort of altitude-dependent narcoleptic.

And now, back to work . . .

Currently Reading What Is the What By Dave Eggers see related

Notes from the Whale's Gut

A few things from me that have been slipping through the Xanga cracks:

• If you need a theme song for bathing your children, may I recommend the BeeGee's "Stayin' Alive"?  It just keeps everybody moving.
• So my wife has been smoking Nat Shermans like they're the greatest thing since cherry limeade.  I'll admit, even Entropanic's "almonds in an ashtray" are preferable to minty cancer sticks.
• If you are involved in the lives of my kids but can't be around them with great frequency due to your distance, schedule or disdain for adolescent yelling, we've used my my wife's Xanga to try to post pics of the fam.  We will try to do this with some regularity. I think this statement may have just cost me a lot of blog credibility.
• NBA playoffs.  The Mavs/Golden State series pretty much ensured my sleep deprivation for quite some time. The wheels fell off Newcastle United at the end of the season in the EPL, but at least I've been watching good basketball.
• NYC at the end of the week - nice time of the year to be going there.  Regrettably, Taiwan looms on the horizon.
• I'm so up on current events right now, it's crazy.  I may need to cut back on the magazine subscriptions next year.  I feel a little too relevant.
• I started keeping a cooler of sodas on ice in my office at work and giving them away to all comers.  This is one of the more positive moves for morale that I've achieved in a while.
• From Thomas Watson this weekend "Correctio est gymnasium virtutis".  In modern English, "Correction is where virtue works out."  I'm thinking about having this tatooed on my forearm.  Thoughts?  The wife approves, but thinks it may distract people.
• Went to a great conference two weeks ago that I'm still sorting through - it was on poverty and community change from an ecclesiastical perspective.  Learned a ton, most significantly in reshaping my definition of poverty.  A typical Western approach has been to define poverty as a lack of things (implying it can be remedied by giving someone more things).  A more wholistic view defines a poverty of being where someone may indeed be deprived of things, but more adequately is also deprived of self-respect, community respect, contribution, recognition of his value, etc  I found it extremely enlightening as a framework to sort through some of my (failure-prone) community action efforts up to now.
• Liked the new Bond.
• Moved up from "tongue torch" to "nuclear" at Zaxby's.  So far, so good. 
• Yuengling.  So affordable. So delicious.

I wish you all well.  If anyone wishes to join us at the beach at the end of May, we have spare beds.