We Want MORE 44!!!

Not a whole lot to say about this. Only - the old gang got together for our first performance in the past eight years. Six songs, acoustic (except for electric bass): The Shirt, Against the Background, Thank You Though, Green Pink & Blue, One Way Flow Jet, and Anxiety. A smattering of the olde tyme contingent came out to see us, and much fun was had.

Not a Cop-Out: My Next 10 in Netflix

I enjoy this, as an exercise in trying to remember why I added these movies when I did:

Just returned:
Dragon Lives Again / Star of Stars

So, I did end up seeing this. I can say more at another time but -let me simply say: there's a reason this movie is not found under the heading "classics."

1. Seven Samurai
Japanese director Kurusawa's masterpiece inspiration for "The Magnificent Seven." I'm surprised I haven't seen this already, actually. But it certainly seems to be in that "must see" category for a guy like me. So here it is.

2. MST3K: The Giant Spider Invasion
I have sprinkled MST3K episodes (ones that are rated by others at 4.5+ stars) throughout my queue, at the rate of about one out of every 10. Here comes another. And I can't wait.

2.My Son the Fanatic
Indie film (comedy, I think) about a Pakistani living in England who turns to Islamic Fundamentalim as a result of stresses in his own life. Just seemed pretty interesting, the write-up I read. Seems like it would be fun to read & compare how someone with similar stresses as me handles it very differently in the context of another culture.

3. Me Myself I
Fairly recent film taking on the "what would my life have turned out like, had I made a different choice?," a subject with which I have endless fascination.

4. Kung Fu Hustle
Crazy, comedic, madcap martial arts movie. Seems like it should have Jackie Chan in it, but it doesn't. This was recommended by Mixdorf, if I'm not mistaken.

5. Of Mice And Men
Hmm. I'm not excited about this movie, at the moment. Retelling of tale by (Steinbeck?) that came out in the early 90s. I remember the movie's heyday being when I was renting movies out back at Title Wave, and people I aspired to be seemed to be the ones renting it. Here's that obligation I've never been able to shake coming to pass, I guess.

6. 49 Up
Amazing documentary undertaking as filmmaker interviewed a group of seven year olds in 1964, then again 42 years later. It's been sitting in my list of "Watch Now" possibilities for some time, with me passing over it again and again. But only when it arrives on my doorstep, will the watching truly be inevitable.

7. The Squid and the Whale
One of Jeff Daniels' quasi-indie endeavors, which bodes well. I'd forgotten anything about it - I have no idea why (only because of the marine-related title?), I was confusing it with that Bill Murray movie, Life Aquatic. I guess this one has to do with relationships.

8. Oldboy
Kind of wild movie, the summary of which I just must have stumbled across, about a guy who was drugged, imprisoned, and tortured for 15 years by he knows not who. He then decides to exact revenge (but, again, on he knows not who). The summary seems to indicate some sort of mind-blowing finale. Overall, a departure for me. But I'm game.

9. Mysterious Skin
Indie flick about the relationship between two weirdo friends not all that promising of a premise, but Netflix seems to think I'll give it a 4.1, even though the average rater has given it a 3.5. Those are some pretty good odds.

10. The Conformist
1970s Italian action adventure. Seems like I've heard good things about it, but I cannot recall at this date.

One Stress Off the Plate

My parents found a place. For those that know the area (and, I guess, care), about a half block to the southwest of Hoover, so in the general area where they already live - which is great. It's a duplex they'll be sharing with a retired woman. Everything on one floor, no yard work/shoveling, and much, much cheaper than any decent retirement community. Though I haven't seen the place yet, it seems like about as good a scenario as could have happened, considering he current state of the rental market in communities along the Cedar River.

Also - also - apparently, in a checkup yesterday, my dad was told that the oxygen has been doing wonders for him. When he went in originally, they (the medical staff) say his face was beet red from his lungs having not been able to process enough oxygen., and that the differece is night and day.

yay - on those two things, and here's two a couple of stresses, at least, that won't be hanging over my head in the immediate future.

A Soul-Baring Post, Like in the Old Days

And why I haven't been posting with reguarity or substance, of late.

Things are rough here. Work really, really getting me down, as is the situation in Waterloo with my dad's health and my parents' impending move (though it’s hard for me to know how much each factor is contributing) I’ve been depressed in the last few weeks. Had to send a note to my theatre group telling them I need to pull back for awhile. I’m completely overloaded at work – pursued with shit as I stumble out of the door each night and have no energy to be the father I want to be. And Rose & Lucy are having trouble going down for the night, so I’m finding that my day begins at 6:30 (when I leave home) and doesn’t slow down till 9:30 or 10:00, though I'm moving like a broken shell of a man during the hours when I'm not in at work. The stress seems to be building by the day. I was so blasted and incapable of function at home last night I told Sharon I felt like I needed to be institutionalized. Not true, probably, but I felt like it.

Trying GoodReads HTML Cut & Paste Review Function

Genghis Khan: Emperor of All Men by Harold Lamb

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
The first of a number of books passed on to me from my grandmother's collection, this was a generally informative, though a tad sympathetic, chronicling of the rise of young chieftan-son Temujin of the Gobi Desert into a merciless supreme emperor and arguably the most successful military commander of all time. The author has managed to compile a surprisingly complete account of events from a culture largely without a written history. Indeed, a majority of the historical accounts of his battles are from the records of the defeated; somewhat remarkable as when the Mongol Horde ovverran your civilization, they tended to put an end to everything.


View all my reviews.

Knock on Wood

About what? Discuss...

More Waterloo News, of a Different Sort

Two pretty big things:

One, my dad's health is poor. He's had some type of blood/oxygen thing going on for some time that they've actually had some trouble pinpointing; but his lungs have been quite stressed, and he's not able to catch his breath after even some pretty low key activity. They've finally got him on oxygen 24 hours a day (like, a machine with a tether and a tank and the whole nine yards). I'm not sure where all this is headed, but I don't have a very good feeling about it. You guys have known him personally, to various extents, throughout the years - so, keep him in your thoughts, as you are able.

Two, my parents' house just sold. I'm wondering if the fact they were high & dry through the recent flooding made their neighborhood suddenly seem like a very desireable location or what, but there it is. Mind-blowing, as again - this is the only house I have ever known them in. They still haven't landed on the apartment or condo to which they'll be moving, but that'll be figured out sooner as opposed to later, one would think.

The Incredible Shrinking Newspaper

Obviously, this is good in an environmental/paper waste sense, but other than that – I find the struggles of news organizations to thrive in the world of “new media” one of the great, ominous issues of our age; and one that – due to the lack of a true political motivation one way or the other –one that no one (other than journalists themselves) really gives that much thought to.

Carried Away, As Usual

So, I got so excited about creating intro music for my new podcast, I never got around recording anything else:

http://media.putfile.com/Poliopolis-Bump-Music

Hello, Old Friend!

Tomorrow, 10 am, a bearded Mixdorf will knock on my round, green door.

I will say, "Go away, I do not want any well-wishers, or distant relations."

And he will reply "And how about very old friends?"

and...well, you get the picture.

Actually, I'll be meeting him at the airport. And though the Hilron house in a bit of disarray and maybe with hot water running in only one of four taps (with the one not being the shower), I will receive him and we will have an amazing joyride, nonetheless.

Full report down the line, no doubt.

I Will Not Die Tonight

Quite apropos, I think, this amazing poem I heard yesterday on Garrison Keillor's Writers' Almanac. Especially in light of the subjects covered in Mixdorf's post about China.

"Borrowed Time"
by David Moreau from Sex, Death and Baseball
© Moon Pie Press, 2004

I will not die tonight
I will lie in bed with
my wife beside me,
curled on the right
like an animal burrowing.
I will fit myself against her
and we will keep each other warm.

I will not die tonight.
My son who is seven
will not slide beneath the ice
like the boy on the news.
The divers will not have to look
for him in cold water.
He will call, "Daddy, can I get up now?"
in the morning.

I will not die tonight.
I will balance the checkbook,
wash up the dishes
and sit in front of the TV
drinking one beer.

For the moment I hold a winning ticket.
It's my turn to buy cold cuts
at the grocery store.
I fill my basket carefully.

For like the rain that comes now
to the roof and slides down the gutter
I am headed to the earth.
And like the others, all the lost
and all the lovers, I will follow
an old path not marked on any map.

I'm Actually Not Kidding Here (Well, All That Much, Really)

As I read the report of the robot, ASIMO (who can also recognize faces, walk on uneven terrain, and respond to most basic commands), directing the Detroit Symphony orchestra; I had the recurrence of a long-time and growing fear that I will live to see entire races of sentient, intelligent robots enslaved.

And again, my views on a matter will place me in the category of "fringe element."

As I Mentioned Recently...

There is an additional source of stress, of late.

Happy Mothers' Day!

Ouch

I hope that was just not having my basketball legs under me yet, and not age. It was pretty brutal this morning.

The bad:

• Pretty much every time I tried to drive, I got stuffed. I just had no spring in my step - it was like I knew what I wanted to do, but my body couldn't do it.
• I missed everything in sight. I remember (in the olden days!) being pretty much dependable from just inside the three point line on in. I had a stretch this morning where I am positive I missed more than 10 in a row.

The good:

• When I was not driving, I seemed to be able to get any open look I wanted. That may have had something to do with them not thinking I was worth covering (see the missing, above), but people usually aren't as focused in on your bad day as you are yourself, so I don't know if they were familiar with me enough to make that sort of judgement.

I also got totally gassed. I can go out and run four miles without thinking twice, but Mixx is right - this is a toally different sort of exercise. And all those baskets (actually, not all that many baskets) I've been shooting in the back yard over the past seven years don't do a whole lot to prepare you for a full-court game of four on four.

I really do think a lot of it has to do with re-familiarizing myself with the game - and my limitations. And I do think/hope that whole "getting my b-ball legs under me" thing plays a part, too. I probably won't ever be able to do what I used to, in terms of driving the lane. But I can pick my spots, start hitting shots, and distribute the ball.

We'll see if I can have a better outing next week.

The Full Monty and Back into the Fray

All along, they've been indicating that we will be receiving an Economic Stimulus Check that gives us $600 apiece (Sharon and me), and up to $300 per child. Some scary wording, there: up to. Well, I'm pleased to announce that I just checked the ol' bank statement and it's a full $300. Seeing as our tax lady told us we could claim 10 dependents and still come out even, this should not have been surprising. But you never want to count those chickens till they hatch.

In other news, I tracked down the old wake-up basketball league I last played in 10 years ago and asked them if they'd have need for an occasional sub. Things worked out much better than I'd hoped, as they put me in the "draft" for the summer league. My first game is tomorrow morning, 6 a.m. sharp. I remember how creaky and non-limber I felt playing at that hour when I was 29. I can only imagine what it's going to feel like tomorrow morning.

Relax, He Doesn't Care!

As was touched on in comments to my post yesterday, my father-in-law is redoing our hot water piping. We may not have a family on either side that's going to leave us a whopping inheritance, but in the practical skills and boundlessly generous nature of my father-in-law, we are truly blessed. He's helped us on numerous other home improvement items in the past, but this is the biggest - almost certainly beyond my skills at present; though, even if it wasn't, the chance of me finding the time to do this work is slim to nil. So thanks, Ken.

And so, yet another long-overdue item of home improvement (old hot water pipes were just about rusted through) out of the way; but also yet another non-visible item of home improvement out of the way.

It's a bit of a thorn in my craw that of the thousands and thousands of dollars I've dumped into making my house more up-to-code, energy efficient, and generally livable; we have yet to do any aesthetic improvements to our house since painting Lucy & Rose's room about six years ago. Perhaps we're employing some of the same wisdom that put us in that class of folks who did not take out a aubprime mortage; but it would be nice, for once, to be one of those people that have a newly remodeled kitchen or bathroom to enjoy. As it is, we're living in the same old shithole. But a shithole that's got it where it counts. Ala the Millenium Falcon.

Sharon & I are also in the process of taking on a major feng shui-driven cltuter clearing that's made us evaluate all that we have assumed or held dear about not giving/throwing away for the past 10 years (more on that in a later post), and - as we sit in the midst of this endeavor (don't forget - every household endeavor with two kids under the age of five moves at a glacial pace), the aesthetic condition of our home seems all the more hopeless.

I've actually started getting a bit stressed, with a visit from Mixdorf on the near horizon. I wish the patio was done! I wish we'd just slapped a coat of paint in the hall! I wish we had our new steel roof! (look for that in summer 2009) Etc, etc.

I think I just need to chill out. I'm long past the point of being judged by close friends (e.g. the judgements are long since rendered). Quality times are made by company kept and ephemeral happenings; not by showing off a cork-floor kitchen. I just need to make sure potential hazards are out of the way and rest up for some potential late-night skullduggery. About the appearance of my property? Relax, he doesn't care.

For Joy (sort of)

Easy come, easy go on the battery re-charging.

A buttload of stresses, ranging from our hot water currently being in & out of service to an external source of stress I will undoubtedly be blogging about in the next few days, to some odds & ends around some customer service-related nagging issues we're trying to resolve - but probably mostly related to my chronic condition of being underslept, led to be being near the flipping point last night. Sharon suggested I take a day off.

A call into work this morning, and I was free. As of 11:48 am, I've already biked to Steamworks for a waffle, coffee, and read of the morning paper; and then down to the Theodore Wirth mountain bike trails for a trail run and then bike home. It would have been pure "for joy," but for me rolling my ankle twice; the first one just a tweak, and the second one somewhat more severe. I had to walk it off for about five minutes, then gingerly run/limp back to my bike.

I'm getting around OK now, and I think I'm going to be spending the rest of the day attending to some household maintainence things at a leisurely pace.

Peace out.

Valentine's Day

This past weekend. The first opportunity Sharon & I have had to get away for the evening since before the actual Valentine's Day. In one sense, it's not as bad as it sounds. I've had the opportunity to be away many nights for theatre-related stuff, and once to hang out with a friend. And Sharon has been taking a weekly Pilates class, and just last week attended workshop on rain gardens.

But a chance to get away together - ah, there's the rub. It had all the makings of an evening for which our sights were set way too high...

We'd planned to go down to the West Bank (University of Minnesota West Bank), see eat Indian food, then see a play. We got down there and got Indian food in our bellies all right, but both realized we were so exhausted we were going to be battling sleep if we tried to sit through any sort of two-hour form of passive entertainment. It was sunny & cheery out (still only 6:30 or so by that time), and since we were only a couple of blocks from crossing over 35W (and two blocks south of the historic bridge collapse), I suggested we do a river walk down one side of the Mississippi, cross the Stone Arch Bridge , and back up the other side to check out the reconstruction efforts for the I35W bridge.

It ended up being a glorious two hour walk, with a lot of new redevelopment sights to see with in the Guthrie Theatre area. We were down there last year to go to a nearby farmer's market, but didn't get upstream & downstream quite so far. It's quite an amazing little area of riverfront; something Minneapolis should be quite proud of, and something I'd recommend to visitors to my city. You could definitely spend a whole day just wandering down along one side of the river and up the other, if you really took time to digest the various pieces of history and maybe took in an attraction such as the Mill City Museum.

As it was, the only couple of places we stopped were once on the Stone Arch Bridge (recent days of heavy rainfall had made for a spectacularly powerful St. Anthony Falls, with huge, white, rolling waves and a fine mist drifting down from the falls at least a half mile or so), and on the Cedar Ave Bridge for views of the construction. If you haven't checked up links thus far, do check out the first one, above, to see our proximity to I35W. Literally, you're a hundred or so feet over from all the work, and it was quite a sight to see. This massive concrete columns where shifts of workers are toiling 24 hours a day to create a marvel of first-world civil engineering. They're not going to screw this bridge up.

Anyway - they have actually created a pedestrian & bike lane over Cedar Ave, where I do not believe there was one before - just to accomodate folks wanting to get a look at the work, replete with historic marker-type signs indicating exactly what's going on. Stuff like the fact that this bridge is going to have one arch that spans the entire 504 feet of the river (no columns in the water!), and in the arch during that stretch, there will be 150 row beam segments, each weighing between 150 and 200 tons. Cool, mind-blowing stuff like that.

After the bridge, we headed over to the Freight House for coffee & a treat, where we hung out for a couple of hours. It's worth noting that there was a really cool series of paintings there by a guy named (I think) Alex Pederson. Unfortunately, I can't find anything out about him on the web. But the whole series depicted Sasquatch in various settings in and around Minneapolis, and were all really well done. T-Clog would have loved it.

Anyway - though we remained sleepy at the conclusion of the evening, our batteries were charged.

Exibit A

Subjects characterized by precipitous mood swings, calm and peaceful at one moment, wtih fits of almost psychotic rage the next.

A way to think of a house with a five-year-old and one-and-a-half-year-old in it is something like the British considered their mental institutions in the late 1800's.

So much so, that I've started occasionally referring to Lucy and Rose as "the mental patients." Only in the company of Sharon, of course. And now you.