Sic Semper Tyrannis

This is Finished

2011-02-22T22:45:00.001-08:00

Friends-
I regret to inform you that I am suspending all blogging activities, for one main reason: I gots too much other stuff going on right now.

Mainly the requirements of learning a new job and going to school are taking the lion's share of my attention these days. Whereas I used to spend quite a bit of time at work writing for this here blog, that is not an option at my present place of employment. But I wouldn't have it any other way. I am certainly not bored anymore!

Thanks for reading all these years. It's been fun.

Be well, and if you feel compelled to catch up, here's my email address: mike@ grandpagriffith.com.

Yours,
Mike

The Morning Verses

2010-12-02T18:31:00.000-08:00

Sorry it's been awhile. You know-- work, school....

I’ve been listening to The Who’s _Tommy_, (you know, the “deaf, dumb, and blind kid?”) while getting ready for work these days.

“Tommy doesn’t know what day it is
He doesn’t know who Jesus was or what praying is
How can he be saved
From the eternal grave?”
Whenever I hear this song, “Christmas,” I think of my old pal from high school Patrick Franklin. He was a big fan of the musical and would always remind me of the theological implications of the lyrics. In fact, I think if I dug up my old yearbooks I would find his words of wisdom amongst a bunch of “Have Great Summer”s from other more typical high schoolers: “Christmas = religious song.”

It’s an odd thing to start your day with memories of a high school past. Although they were mostly enjoyable times and I look back on those experiences fondly, I will take my present life over high school 10 times out of 10.

Ketchup

2010-10-19T20:58:00.000-07:00

My life has been a whirlwind as of late. Sorry for the handful of readers out there who have been crying everyday for the loss of stuff to read here. I have started week three of my new job. Everything is going really well. I’m learning all kinds of new things. The people I work with are nice.

Here’s the FAQ on my job transition:
Where do you work?
Delta Dental. It’s at NW 63rd and Broadway.

What’s your schedule?I work a shift that is basically 2p-0p. while it was definitely the one worrisome issue when deciding to take the job, I must say that it has not been that big of a deal. I still get up and go to bed at the same times, still run and cycle at the same times. I just have a chunk of time in the mornings to use as I see fit before going to work.

Do you ride your bike to work?
No. While it’s possible to do it in the future, my present priority is to learn my job and learn what days will be light days and which will be heavy days, as far as workload is concerned.

What do you do?
I perform daily (nightly) operations on a computer, which basically means I kick off a mostly automated process that moves insurance claims from one location to another and turns it into payment info. At several points in the process I report on the numbers to make sure everything is working as it should. I still need to fully learn what is going on behind the scenes, but I know enough to get the process done.
Of course, the best part of the job has been how infrequently I have to talk to people. Yes, I know how curmudgeonly and misanthropic that sounds but after 11 years of talking to the public on the phone about their needs, both real and perceived, I was ready to be done with it.
All that to say, so far so god on the new job.

In other news- I ran my first duathlon on Sunday! “Duathlon? What’s that?” Well, you know how a triathlon is swimming, biking and running? Well, in a duathlon you replace the swimming part with another running section.

On Sunday I did the Fall Classic Duathlon in Purcell. The distances were 4k (something close to 2.5 miles) run- 24k (about 15 miles) bike- and another 4k run. (When you’ve run 26.2 miles and cycled over 100 miles, it’s pretty easy to get motivated for these shorter distances. The only variable at this point is pace. And that brings me to the one thing that was going on in my head in preparation for this event. In most of my other races, I have never pushed myself, as far as pace is concerned. I’ve always gone into distance races with a pace memorized and internalized and just gone out and “done it.” Just like hundreds of times before. This has been a way to calm nerves, the thought being “You can do this, Mike. You’ve done this exact same activity many, many times.” I also hate the feeling of being tired. I hate being on the edge of not being able to catch my breath. “what if I I run out of breath and have to stop ?” runs through my mind, probably subconsciously.
I decided that I would focus on going past the point of comfort with this race.

Each leg was a distance I’ve done many times. I decided to try to make myself tired this time and try to catch my breath on the transitions. (The transitions are the points where you grab your bike and change out of running hoes into running shoes and vice versa.) And it worked! I went out fast on the first run, the fastest pace I’d done in months (on an obscene running course I’ll add, with a 6% hill in the middle of it), quickly changed shoes in transition to get on the bike and REALLY pushed myself on the bike. I never get to huffing and puffing on the bike on flat stretches but, but decided that I was serious with this thing and was pretty quickly making up time on a few faster runners than me. It felt really good. I remember thinking: “Man, you are pushing too hard! You won’t have anything left for the run and that giant hill.” But I immediately blocked it out and thought, “I’ll worry about that hill when I get to it.”

Turns out, I should have worried about that hill while I was still on the bike!

Granted, I wasn’t the only one slowed to a crawl by that point. There were quite a few walkers. But I refused to walk, even though I was climbing at a pace barely above a walk. I looked at my watch and saw that I was waaaay ahead of where I expected to be at that point and there is also the undeniable physics lesson in that for every ascent there is also a descent, and that helped me visualize the finish line and good friends waiting for me. (Thanks, Whitesides and Clint.)

Overall, I ended up finishing 13 minutes faster than expected, was 2nd in my age and weight class. I FINALLY left a race feeling like I had given it everything I had.

News

2010-09-24T07:43:00.000-07:00

So, after eleven plus years at Integris Health, last Friday I gave my two-weeks notice. There is a lot I could write about this, but it turns out that trying to transfer eleven years' worth of knowledge and processes to semi- computer-literate women over the age of 50 is kinda time-consuming.

My last day in this office is October 1st. I approach it with some sadness, but really more curiosity to see what the future holds.

My new employer will be Delta Dental.

More as I find time...

A scary, yet humorous passage from Tony Blair's new book

2010-09-10T13:48:00.000-07:00

Leaders come in all shapes and sizes, and I have stumbled across the full range in my time. I recall sitting across the table from some leaders, unable to think of anything other than: my God, the poor people of that country. You get the dumb; the cynical; the tedious; the mildly unsuitable; the weird; the products of systems so mad and dysfunctional, you find yourself marveling that the leader is sentient, let alone capable. And frankly some weren't sentient. I remember asking rather unkindly when told of one leader's death, "How could they tell?"

Hotter Than Hell

2010-08-31T15:18:00.000-07:00

And now a word about Hotter Than Hell.

Hother Than Hell is a hugely popular weekend of cycling in Wichita Falls, Texas that happens every year. There are lots of events- criterium racing, road racing, mountain biking, endurance rides, even a 5k run…It’s huge.

I decided to give the 100 mile endurance ride a try last weekend. (Of course, I didn’t just “decide” to do it on a whim. I had been preparing for the last 10 weeks or so...)

The number one thing I heard about the century was how many other people do it. “Prepare for crashes,” “Get there early,” “Be ready to stand with your bike waiting to start for a long time,” “Be ready to ride shoulder-to-shoulder for a long time…” Indeed there were at least 13,000 people out there on bikes on Saturday morning doing one of the various distances. (100 miles was the longest route.) But I must say I wasn't locked into a pack, shoulder-to-shoulder for very long like I expected (and worried about.)

Unlike other bike events I’ve done, every intersection was protected by police or blocked off for the entire length of the course, which is a real luxury. It seems like automobile traffic in the whole surrounding county or two just shuts down for this weekend.

FAQS
Was it hotter than hell?

No. It was merely hot as hell. No hotter. In actuality, at 7am when the ride started, it was rather perfect riding conditions—mid 60s. Not particularly windy. As the ride progressed, however, and the sun started to climb in the sky, it got to the mid 90s. Not ideal, but certainly better than what’s possible in Texas in the mid-to-late summer.

How did it go?

I started off the ride like a man possessed, like I usually do, passing people like crazy, feeling awesome and not working really hard. As we made a turn to the north I got even faster with a good tailwind.

And right about the point I hit 50 or 60 miles, I faded quickly. This was the point where the crosswinds and headwinds appeared and someone turned on the heat. The last 30 or 40 miles were miserable due to the conditions, the sparse, unshaded landscape and the strange things my body started doing as a result. I got nauseous, couldn’t really take in enough calories and was sweating out salt like crazy. My clothes weren’t so much sweaty as they were white with salt. Not a fun time.

But...I finished—in what turned out to be just about an average pace for me on long rides this summer.

And after crossing the finish line and sitting down staring into nothing while my pal Mindy (who kicked my ass and finished well before me I have to admit) tried to snap me back into reality, I went to the medical tent to lie down, cool off and take in some Gatorade. Luckily I didn’t require any IV fluids, but the doctor said that I had shown an “impressive” amount of salt loss. Um...thanks? About 30 minutes later, after proving that I could pee on command, I was off on my merry way.

So, all in all it was a pretty tough day. It was much more about endurance- what I could make myself do- rather than about speed, which was a little disappointing.

Sometimes it goes like that.

The tough days make the good days seem sweeter, however.

The Morning Verses 8/25/10

2010-08-25T06:42:00.000-07:00

Mornings are an interesting, sometimes humorous aspect of being human. They are simultaneously harbingers of the future (of hope or dread, depending on a person’s mental state at any one particular point in time) and reminders (of yesterday’s foolishness- “the night out drinking that shouldn’t have happened,” or yesterday’s piety- the choice to “go to bed early for a change.”)

I think everybody who works the day-shift experiences the phenomenon of mornings a little bit differently. For some it’s a model of chaos while for me, mechanistic efficiency is the name of the game. The alarm goes off, I rise, not really processing information, eat a small breakfast and head out the door for a ride or run.

But it’s that alarm part I want to discuss. I have a CD alarm. It plays songs to wake me up. I usually try to mix it up so it plays different CDs every few weeks. I thought it might be interesting or revealing to discuss the very first things I hear, for it’s important how we start our daylight life.

This morning’s song was spot-on appropriate. “Blessed Relief” by Frank Zappa. Anyone living in Oklahoma knows we’ve had our share of oppressive heat as of late, many humid 100 degree days. This morning’s temperature? The 60s. “Blessed Relief” indeed.

People talk about the weather. Other people talk about talking about the weather as boring and superficial.

I am starting to view weather as a metaphor that people talk about when they really are discussing much deeper things—the challenges and ease of being alive. We “suffer through” the heat just like we suffer through times where it seems life hands us “one damn thing after another.” Illness, death, bad luck—we trip through these periods with no end in sight. On the other hand, we rejoice in the fall colors as if they were some friend having a baby or getting married or falling in love or singing for no discernible reason at all. We are so tied to our environment. And we talk about the weather because amongst all of the other things in life which keep us apart from one another- the distractions and busyness- at least we all locally are experiencing the weather together.

The laid-back, plodding instrumental jazz-rock of the song today was the soundtrack to new hopes, change and all of those kinds of positive thoughts as I prepared for a pleasant bike ride to work.

Sometimes it seems the universe creates these appropriate correspondences to see who is paying attention.

Up With Books!

2010-08-18T12:11:00.000-07:00

This, from Lev Grossman's profile of novelist Jonathan Franzen in this week's Time magazine:

There are any number of reasons to want novels to survive. The way Franzen thinks about it is that books can do things, socially useful things, that other media can’t. He cites- as one does- the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard and his idea of busyness: that state of constant distraction that allows people to avoid difficult realities and maintain self-deceptions. With the help of cell phones, e-mail and handheld games, it’s easier to stay busy, in the Kierkegaardian sense, than it’s ever been.

Reading, in its quietness and sustained concentration, is the opposite of busyness. “We are so distracted by and engulfed by the technologies we’ve created, and by the constant barrage of so-called information that comes our way, that more than ever to immerse yourself in an involving book seems socially useful,” Franzen says. “The place of stillness that you have to go to to write, but also to read seriously, is the point where you can actually make responsible decisions, where you can actually engage productively with an otherwise scary and unmanageable world.”
---
So, in essence- wanna be a person of substance in a nonsubstantive world? Read a novel! :-)

Energetic Thoughts

2010-08-17T16:38:00.000-07:00

I have only a few stray thoughts on energy:
1) It is easy for me to under-appreciate exactly how far our dependence on oil and coal reaches. I tend to think in a very limited scope—the petroleum that is refined so I can put gasoline in my car’s tank.

But in actuality, I use energy all the time and don’t really think about it. Whenever I flip a switch to turn on a light at home or work, I am consuming energy. Whenever I turn on a device that is plugged into an outlet—my TV, stereo, subwoofer, re-charge my laptop or phone, use the microwave, the stove, or turn on my air conditioner, refrigerator, furnace, or hot water heater, I am using energy. (The last four are the easiest to overlook due to the mere fact that I don’t actually “turn them on.” They are automated processes that I program and forget.)

And of course, those are the most immediate, controllable ways I use energy. But energy is also expended on my behalf, behind the scenes. For something as simple as buying a new toothbrush, a mind-boggling chain of energy consumption is enacted:

A toothbrush-designing scientist goes to work one day—turns the lights on in the air conditioned office, makes a pot of coffee, fires up the ol’ PC, sends his sketch for a new toothbrush model over to the CAD modeler in another office with another set of lights, another computer, another coffee machine, another air conditioner, who sends the final specs over to the manufacturing plant, with air conditioning, lights, coffee maker and giant, industrial-sized machines that cut and form the new toothbrush from plastic blanks (which were also probably formed by a separate manufacturing plant with separate lights, A/C, coffee maker, computers, industrial-sized machines and then shipped either by gasoline-powered truck or plane, ship, or rail), packaged in slim boxes made of cardboard and plastic produced by a whole other production process, loaded onto a truck, airplane or train and shipped to my local Target store with its own lights, computers, cash registers, A/C, coffee makers; where I can then drive my car to pick it up and drive home to use it for a few months and then throw it away.

Phew! That’s a whole lot of energy being used for something seemingly so simple for all of us, huh? (Granted, there is an element of scale involved here. These manufacturing plants produce thousands of products at a time. So, it’s not like all of that energy is used to make one toothbrush. I wonder, however, if efficiency studies of this magnitude are ever done by companies in their “greening-up” efforts.)

Of course, I have NO IDEA how to make this whole chain of energy usage work most efficiently. Like I said, it’s mind-boggling. Especially when you follow the similar chain for EVERY consumer product produced in the world!) I only know just enough to know what’s at stake.

There are very simple, seemingly insignificant ways that I try to reduce my consumption at home. Turn off lights in rooms when I’m not using them. I have replaced my standard light bulbs with the cooler-looking compact fluorescent bulbs (when they fit…grrr!) Program the house to get a little warmer in the summer during the day when I’m not there. Recycle all plastics. Thank the lord Oklahoma City’s metro utilities customers get this service for free. Or just thank Oklahoma City’s metro utilities if you like…

Although water is a resource and not necessarily energy, I still count its conservation as an important task and am careful to not leave it running while brushing my teeth (with my well-designed, totally efficiently-produced toothbrush! :))

Here’s where I fail:

Washing clothes—it seems my technical fabric running and cycling clothes can’t get washed with the rest of the laundry, so I wind up having to do waaaay more small, frequent loads of laundry than I would like.

I LOVE air conditioning in the summer. I keep my house very cool. (You will not get any exact numbers on here from me. Suffice it to say, you could hang meat in my living room!)

My gas-guzzling lawn mower. I think any gas I save with my bike commute is made up for in keeping up with my neighbors’ standards of acceptable grass height.

2) Charlie proffered a good visualization—a post-petroleum world. (Ever read the book _World Made By Hand_ by James Howard Kunstler? It’s a work of fiction that imagines just such a scenario. Kind of dystopian, I will warn you.)

What is the next energy source? I like wind and solar power because they seem virtually inexhaustible compared to our oil supply. (The sun won’t be flickering out for another million billion years or so. However, they are both intermittent. Sometimes the sun doesn’t shine on currently expensive solar panels, and it would take an awful lot of wind turbines to equal what we get from even present petroleum output.)

I think it’s true that the first trap we fall into with this question is thinking that there has to only be ONE energy source in the future. The cynical side of me says that the energy source will be whatever the giant energy companies can claim rights to and sell to us for a hefty profit. This single-source scenario is pretty much their wet-dream.

However, with cars and trucks and the electrical grids all being powered by a MIXTURE of fuel sources (read: competing companies in a true marketplace) we avoid the traps of our oily past—uber-powerful lobbies, price-gouging. And of course, true market competition allows for innovation and perhaps, just perhaps, increasing efficiency to the customer once the new sources have hit the market.

3) True confession time: when I watched the video footage of the recent oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico my first thought was not: “Oh, the poor marine life” or even “Oh, my gosh! What are the fishermen in the area going to do?” (Again, proof of how interdependent the players are in this energy game.)

No, sadly, my first thought was “Oh, Good Lord! What a waste of perfectly good oil! Surely there’s some way we can still capture that oil and harvest it and bring it to market! Surely this won’t be 80-something days of complete, abject, unrecoverable waste!”

Does that make me a bad person?

One for Ryan

2010-08-02T14:28:00.000-07:00

Some days, God damn! It’s slow work. I’ll get to the site 6, 7, just to be out of the heat. You know, that sun bouncing back on that plated, tinted glass that the bigger buildings use…that’ll really kill your initiative around 12 or so. Sun beating down. I’m sweating like I’m bathing in it…Those are the days when I’m cussing to myself, singing, imagining buckets of ice and beer…anything to make it go faster. And then you know it’s one of those tall bastards that takes a few days, so what’ve I got to look forward to the next day? Another day of it! Soak, rinse, wipe, dry, sweat, repeat.

Then there are those lucky days you might be out on the east side of town. Shady and quiet. Breeze blowin’ Maybe even birds singing. Sometimes I’ll act like I’m focused on the windows and the washing. Tilt my head up as I’m stretching, but really I’ll be looking out the corner of my eye. Looking inside at the workers in their air conditioning. They have all kinds of ways that they look busy.

No matter where I’m working it’s the same old show inside The same old characters. You can usually tell them by the clothes. There’s usually at least one sloppily-dressed guy. They dress up just enough to keep from getting fired. Usually don’t talk to anybody, just sit in front of their computers all day like they’re hiding in a foxhole.

Then the smaller buildings out there on the outskirts of town off the interstate, usually have one or two young-ish women, fresh out of high school or maybe a year or two older. Still young and pretty enough to dress up for work in new clothes. You can always tell them because the office seems to buzz around them One of these days I’ll invent a game where you place bets on which guy will talk to the pretty girl in the skirt first.

The boss is usually the guy who never looks up at me and the scaffolding as he’s passing by. Doesn’t make a lot of eye contact, probably to keep from having to stop and talk. They’re busy guys. I’m always amused at how the offices seem to look about the same whether those guys are around or not. They’ll get there around 10 or so on a Tuesday morning. Go straight to their office and close the door. Reappear around 4, looking at their watch. Head out to the parking lot while talking on their phone. Nice trick!

Seems like I also see a lot of guys who just kind of blend in. Scenery. They’re like the guys who would be soldiers or spear-holders in one of those Shakespeare plays. Definitely not salesmen. They don’t talk enough or dress nice enough to sell anybody anything. One time I saw one of those spear-holder fellas rub his eyes really hard after staring into space for about half an hour, scratch his hair like he was roughing up a pillow and jump out of his swivel chair in his cubicle. He walked straight past one of the dressed-up young-ish girls without even looking at her, (sure left her confused), and went over to the desk of one of the older ladies. She turned from her computer and looked up at him. He leaned in to tell her something quietly, which instantly, I mean, like super quick started the water-works. I mean she was cryin’ in seconds! He just walked away. I wish to God I knew what that was all about…what he said that would do that…

Anyway, I think they all assume I don’t see any of this out there, if they notice me at all. They probably think the walls protect them. I know more than I let on.

Ethicool

2010-07-11T19:03:00.000-07:00

What techniques should one employ to make moral decisions?

Thanks to Steven, I’ve been stewing on this one as of late, and have arrived at two different conclusions. There is the PREscriptive world of “book learnin’” and theory- deciding on what is “The Good,” which I can’t really discuss for very long, apart from my love of Kant’s categorical imperative when I was in college: which basically proposed that you should act as if the maxim of your behavior became a universal law. It’s basically an eloquent way of stating the Golden Rule. I also got a lot out of the utilitarian view: act in a way that brings the most pleasure (tricky word, pleasure: more like "lack of pain and suffering") to the most people.

Contrasted with the academic propositions is the question that really blew my mind even more, how do I make ethical decisions? Or even more basic: do I even MAKE ethical decisions in my day-to-day existence?

So, for today I will opt for DEscription. I have concluded that ethical decisions are actually what happen to a behavior after the fact. The vast majority of things I say to people, and do or not do to and with them are all instinctive. I tend to operate on auto-pilot, unthinkingly, like a machine. I possess a set of behaviors and responses to situations that have been somehow learned over the course of my life.

An example: when a stranger talks to me at the grocery store, knowing myself well I know I will succinctly attempt to try to answer their questions or acknowledge their comment in as quiet, polite, brief manner as possible so as to dispatch them pleasantly and then go about my business. Another person, with another set of learned behaviors might see the same situation as an opportunity for a rousing conversation and stand there and talk to the stranger for several minutes longer. At no point during the event do I process the thought “mmm. person talking to me. must cut short. Ibidy ibidy” (to be read in robot voice with hands extended like flippers alternately up and down.) Only later, at the checkout line or on the drive home or even months later, while writing a blog (or maybe even never) do I even think about the moral or ethical value of how that interaction went.

Of course, analyzing after the fact, I suppose I have some criteria I use to judge any action or inaction, (in no particular order):

1) Would any other person have responded the same way I did?
2) Would any rational, reasonable person have responded the same way I did?
3) Did the way I responded likely have any effect on The Other? Was it a positive or negative effect?
4) Would my friends have approved or thought it odd or out-of-the-ordinary?

Then there are the nuclear options: “Would God have approved?” and its corollary: “Would the Jesus I know from Scripture have behaved this way?” These are the nuclear options for a couple reasons. One, in all honesty they only crop up for me with respect to the most dire, evidently important events: friends in need or in pain or suspiciously out-of-the ordinary interactions with strangers. Two, expecting Christ-like behavior from myself on a consistent basis is sure to end in frustration. I don’t have the goods to deliver that performance very often. And I’m not even sure I WANT the goods. The life of Jesus is difficult and the death he got for his trouble is even more difficult

So now, the issue of prime importance for me is this: what effect, (if any), do these ruminations on the past, these analyses of previous behaviors have as a corrective to future behavior? In other words, I said I act as a machine in my workaday existence. Is there hope of ever changing the programming of the machine if necessary? I think deep within me is an understood hope that yes, I can change. Learned behavior doesn't HAVE to be final. Sometimes it is. But not always. How is the programming changed? Well, I'm not exactly sure.

And I would say my programming needs changing for two reasons, if: 1) through a behavior or inaction I am harming someone in my immediate vicinity and 2) through a behavior or inaction I am harming someone I don’t know.

All of the preceding was the ideal.

Here’s the practical. For pretty much every behavior I participate in, a “victim” of some sort can be tracked down. Case in point: let’s say I bike to work because it is an “ethical” thing to do. (which by the way, is only one of several reasons I engage in that particular behavior.) I use less gasoline in my car, which has slightly less impact on the environment and if everyone acted like I did, there would be even more people taking slightly less from the environment. Let’s put those damn oil-producing, price-gouging companies out of business! Huzzah!

But an oil company is more than just a fat-cat CEO out on his yacht while a pipe bleeds oil in the middle of the ocean. An oil company is also made up of thousands of regular people checking gas lines, working on oil rigs, people at desks who put in forty hours a week or so, poring over feasibility studies, running numbers…They use their paychecks to put food on the table for a family. We put that company out of business and those other common everyday people don’t eat. And when the oil company has to tighten its belt, maybe that desk-job working, number-crunching person cuts out a few extraneous costs in their budget like their daily trip to Starbucks. Bad news for the Starbucks employee if a lot of gas company employees are cutting out their daily coffee. It goes on and on. How much, (if any) of that am I responsible for with my original decision to use less gasoline?

I become dizzy as I try to mentally appease all of the potential beneficiaries and victims of my collections of behaviors and abstentions. I think it was Sartre who said we humans are cursed to be free. We are cursed in that we are free to act, yet we can't know the full consequences of those free choices.

What do I do in the mean-time?

“Do my best.”

Now taking requests...

2010-06-30T16:17:00.000-07:00

I'm out of ideas.

So, think of me as a cover band of the writing world.
You wanna read something? Let me know and I'll do my best to write it...
"Brown-Eyed Girl?"
You got it.
"Play That Funky Music White Boy?" Wow. Man, we haven't played that one since last week. But Ok. Here goes...

Seriously, my gift to you....I'll write it. You just have to get me started....

On Biking, Walking and the Sounds of the City

2010-06-09T12:13:00.000-07:00

We have now reached the time of the year when commuting to work by bike is a lot more fun. I will take a little bit of warmth and sweat over that brutal winter north wind any day.

On the way home last Thursday I experienced a first since I started riding to work two years ago. I met another bike commuter! I had heard rumors that they exist, but had never actually seen one. I caught up with him and we started to chat. As you can imagine, we instantly had stuff to talk about. It was nice to know there is at least one other person who knows what it’s like. We talked about streets we avoid and times of day, how long we’ve been at it, etc.

I didn’t realize until I rode that familiar mile in the neighborhood with another person just how strangely isolating and lonely commuting can be.

Here’s why:
Riding a bike on this city’s streets requires a certain abandonment of regard for other people. It requires that you ultimately not care about people in cars who have the power to end it all for you in a split second. Not care about people stopped at intersections watching you go by, thinking you’re insane. I have found that consistently riding to work requires that I focus on me: myself and my safety. It requires that I control everything that is within my power to control and at the same time, abandon the rest to God and the good graces of the people with whom I share the road. (But doesn’t EVERYONE do this, even when they get behind the wheel? It’s just a little more critical for me because I don’t have tons of metal to protect me. I am vulnerable.) I would say that 95% of the time people driving in cars are very careful with me, which is actually a much better percentage than I expected when I started out.

Anyway, injecting a fellow traveler into this isolated mindset was refreshing.

I also spend time as a pedestrian on our city streets when going between buildings on our hospital campus a couple times a week and there are times when I really listen to the sounds of our city, the traffic.

I have come to the conclusion that, judging by the mere sounds of drivers, people in cars are angry. They drive their cars like people who are angry would drive their cars.

The thing they seem to hate most is to sit at a dead stop. They can’t get away from traffic lights and stop signs quickly enough. It sounds like they are trying to strangle their car’s engine or beat it into submission. You would think that people had a dying person in the back seat based on how quickly they set out to get to the next traffic light. The engines sound like they could blow at any moment.

I hear these sounds, (sounds I largely miss when I am in my own car and my own air conditioning amidst my own comforting music)- guys driving trucks that sound like school buses and souped-up muscle cars and shiny new status symbols as I’m walking around on lunch breaks, crossing a bridge that goes over a major highway, the constant, ceaseless whooshing sound of all of us going…somewhere…and it brings me a kind of feeling of empty sadness.

Where are we all going in such a hurry? Does modern life have to be this way? Mindlessly going from one place to the next? Always feeling late?

While I love my car and the convenience it provides, I also love the little challenge of life without it during my work week. While a lot of the folks in my office loathe the idea of being “stuck” without a car at work, I have found it to not be much of a sacrifice. Rather than rush home or run errands on my lunch break and rush back, I relax instead. Go over to the kitchen and eat something. Read. Take a nap. Listen to music. I have found that it helps to split my day this way.

Anyway, up with commuting by bike!

I Dreamed "I Dreamed a Dream"

2010-05-21T10:38:00.000-07:00

This year has seen two high profile renditions of the song “I Dreamed a Dream” from the musical Les Miserables. Susan Boyle’s English Idol performance is legendary and it was a featured song on Glee this week.

Dear reader, I have to tell you these two pale in comparison to another version that I can’t seem to get out of my head…

I was a senior in high school- shy, quiet, playing trumpet or guitar (or both) in the pit for the vocal music department’s big year-end concert. You know that rush of feelings, like everything is sped-up, at the end of the school year? It was that time of year. And then on top of that I was graduating, so it was like my life was spiraling into adulthood, much faster than I or anyone could control. By a couple weeks’ time, all of the normal touchstones and routines of school life as I had known them for twelve years were about to be uprooted, lost to me.

With that on my mind, I sat in the pit during the first rehearsal, tacet for the next song. I loved the behind-the-scenes life of being a pit musician, getting to see all of the hidden work that goes into a stage production, so I relished all of the moments to just sit and observe.

I watched Jenni Luker- red-haired, porcelain-skinned, quiet, cheerleader Jenni Luker, inconspicuously appear on the edge of the stage. The elegiac opening chords began and I was transfixed siumltaneously by the sounds of that opening and the vision of Jenni standing, no, floating, she was floating in time and space. Quietly, she sang those first simple, unfamiliar phrases softly, plainly. Then the modulation and lyrics of tigers come to tear your dreams apart, equally resigned. This girl was weeping this song, not belting like a Broadway-bound diva.

And I’ve come to realize that’s the way it should be, just like Leonard Cohen says, “Love is not a victory march/ it’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah.” As Jenni whispered her broken Hallelujah, I too was stuck in time. And that memory- of the very moment I said goodbye to high school and the very moment I was wounded with a secret crush on this girl I might have said three words to since junior high- that memory will probably be stuck in my head, hanging in the ether, until I die.

The next day I managed to stumble through telling Jenni how beautiful and affecting her song was. I really wish I could remember what she said in response. Sometimes, though, it's the telling that's the important part, not the person's response.

Two weeks later school was out and I never saw her or heard about her again.

Since then, I’ve heard a handful of recordings, seen the song performed live by a traveling company, heard Ms. Boyle and Rachel Berry on Glee sing it for all they were worth, but not one of them, as technically flawless and rapturous as they may have been, not one of those performances felt the way it did back then. I keep searching.

Sometimes I wonder if she really ever existed.

I wonder if that whole performance is a beautiful story that my head created or that God placed in there for me.

"Strong with the force he is." (To be read in the voice of Master Yoda)

2010-05-11T11:16:00.000-07:00

For a little over three months now I have been taking yoga classes once, (sometimes twice) a week at Cadence Yoga. This has been my first foray at anything remotely resembling this kind of activity, and in a word I must say it’s been an enjoyable process thus far.

I’m sure there are as many styles of yoga as there are yoga teachers. I have been taking a class called Vinyasa 1, which seems to have three main goals, physically-speaking: building strength, increasing balance, and increasing flexibility.

Strength
I am noticing that the kind of strength required for yoga is different than the kind of strength required for lifting heavy things for a certain number of repetitions. Holding static poses with only my body weight makes my whole body shake sometimes, whereas I never shake when I’m lifting weights.

Balance
A lot of times I will be standing in front of the mirror attempting to hold some pose that looks so simple- like sitting down in an invisible chair or making like a tree with one leg- and yet I will get this awful flash of fear that I’m going to fall over and make a fool of myself. In fact, this could be the pithy one line to describe my yoga practice: “It looked so easy…”

Flexibility
I am also horrible at this part, too. Some bodies seem built to do this better than others. I am not lithe and graceful. I am a pile of bricks. However, I do feel that if I keep practicing I will get better and be able to reach and stretch farther. I also have a hunch that this will help me with the cycling and running and my average walking-around life as well. I already find myself straightening up my posture throughout the day.

So, that’s the physical stuff. But of course, for the thoughtful person, there are non-physical components to this activity as well:

Awareness
What a splendid machine this human body is! When I’m balancing and seeing hitherto unknown muscles in my feet and ankles jostling for control or feeling pressures in odd places or feeling that blessed lack of tension in the final corpse pose, I am fully aware of myself in ways that don’t often occur throughout the day. This is a wonderful way to start your day, being cognizant and attentive. There is a lesson in that: be deliberate.

Struggle
Some mornings the muscles and tendons operate better than other mornings. Sometimes it’s a lot of sweaty work. I have found in recent years that anything worth having requires something from you. Nothing ever seems to come as easily as you would like it to. This practice is a good reminder of that.

Mindfulness
Although I don’t really think I need all of the stereotypical “spiritual” benefits normally attributed to the practice of yoga I have learned one valuable lesson about myself over these introductory months: I am waaaaay too critical and judgmental with myself. As a musician I have always had problems with performance anxiety and apparently it spills over into other parts of my life. Many times, when “checking in” with my thoughts during a session I will find myself either happy with how some particular movement or pose went or devastated because I didn’t “do it right” or didn’t do it as well as I thought I could. Hopefully, at some point I will learn to just do and leave the running commentary at home.

Anyway, Mandy is a wonderful teacher and I highly recommend you go see her some time.

On Marathons, Goals, and Health

2010-04-27T18:50:00.000-07:00

This is day two of marathon recovery and I am still walking around the house like an unsteady new-born calf. The pain is slightly less sharp today, however.

So, first things first…race report. Sunday’s marathon and the week leading up to it was exciting, nerve-wracking, exhilarating, and exhausting on both a physical and mental level.

Thoughts during the “taper week,” (when you severely cut down your mileage in order to rest and gather strength):

“How much is enough running?” “Will I forget how to run?” “Will my legs and body be angry if I rest?” “What if my tendon gets worse or snaps on Sunday?” “Is it possible that it could get better with enough rest this week?” “What if I have to stop at some point on Sunday? Will my friends understand? Will I be all right if I let myself fail to finish?”

Earlier in the week I can honestly say I was DREADING Sunday. You know that feeling of having some chore coming up that you’re not looking forward to, but that is beyond your control? Days move on into the future whether you want them to or not…That’s how I was feeling through Wednesday. Not very confident. Each short, slow 3- mile run was accompanied by some tendon pain, nothing unbearable, but I was worried. “How long can I or will I put up with this on Sunday? Three miles? 26.2?”

John Lennon pretty much screams “Why on earth are we here? Surely not to live in pain and fear!” in his song Instant Karma. I try to remember that moment in the song like a mantra whenever I approach the future with dread. You see I chose to give up dread several years ago. By the end of the work week I was able to look forward to Sunday, ready to rely on months of expecting brutal things from myself and ready for it all to be over and get some rest.

The weather at the start was pretty much perfect. I ran the first half to the best of my abilities with strength and free of pain.

And I paid for it from about mile 15 on. As the heat started in, I wound up walking much more than I wanted to and much more than in any of my training runs. I knew two things about walking. 1) Once I allowed myself to walk the first time, the second time becomes easier, leading to a downward spiral of motivation and 2) Starting running again after walking a while KILLED my Achilles tendon. I also became kind of nervous about two columns of salt running down both of my legs at about mile 17 and started taking in pretzels as much as I could stand. Salt deficiency is nothing to play around with in an event like a marathon.

My final time was 4:43:21, simultaneously a disappointment and a great accomplishment. It was a great achievement because I beat last year’s time by an hour and twenty-one minutes. It was a disappointment because I knew I was capable of better. I had a goal somewhere between 4:06 and 4:30. And that’s the real complication, isn’t it? Goals. Actually I had three goals in mind: dream, realistic, and acceptable. “Acceptable” for me was 4:30.

But what is the point of goals? Are they just arbitrary things we keep in our heads to ruin our chances of being content? Am I too hard on myself? Who knows? I really can’t complain though. It’s not like those time goals came from anywhere other than my own head. It’s self-imposed.

The playlist.
I always run with my ipod and for races I shuffle through a playlist of songs I haven’t heard hundreds of times in training so as to give me something to think about. Here’s what played on Sunday if you’re interested:

Lines In the Suit 3:47 Spoon Girls Can Tell
Mistake of My Life 3:51 Caedmon's Call Long Line of Leavers
Everlong 4:11 Foo Fighters The Colour And The Shape
Wendy Clear 2:50 Blink-182 Enema of the State
How Indscreet 4:35 Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire Swimming Hour, The
When I Grow Up 3:25 Garbage Version 2.0
Only In Dreams 7:59 Weezer Weezer
Heroes 3:38 David Bowie Changesbowie
Mutt 3:24 Blink-182 Enema of the State
Jump Man 4:22 Buckethead Monsters & Robots
Mayonaise 5:49 Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream
Devil's Haircut 3:14 Beck Odelay
Trying to Pull Myself Away 3:36 Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova Once (Music from the Motion Picture)
Hot for Teacher 4:45 Van Halen 1984
Yard Of Blonde Girls 4:07 Jeff Buckley Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk Your House 4:46 Jimmy Eat World Jimmy Eat World
When The War Came 5:06 The Decemberists The Crane Wife
Why Bother 2:08 Weezer Pinkerton
What You Want 4:02 Caedmon's Call Long Line of Leavers
Limelight 4:24 Rush Moving Pictures
I've Got A Flair 2:52 Fountains Of Wayne Fountains Of Wayne
Flight Of The Passing Fancy 3:52 Squirrel Nut Zippers Hot
Mr. Brightside 3:43 The Killers Hot Fuss
The Boxer 2:49 Me First & the Gimme Gimmes Have Another Ball
The Bends 4:06 Radiohead The Bends
Relative Ways (EP) 4:03 ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead Source Tags & Codes
Then 5:50 Yes Time And A Word
Pounding 4:45 Doves The Last Broadcast
Inner Revolution 3:14 Adrian Belew Inner Revolution
Like A Criminal 3:49 The Sheila Divine New Parade
The Crystal Lake 5:00 Grandaddy The Sophtware Slump
That Was Just Your Life 7:08 Metallica Death Magnetic
Suicide & Redemption 9:58 Metallica Death Magnetic
The Judas Kiss 8:01 Metallica Death Magnetic
Don't Leave Me 2:24 Blink-182 Enema of the State
Have You Ever Seen the Rain? 2:42 Creedence Clearwater Revival Chronicle: 20 Greatest Hits
Don't Make Me A Target 3:56 Spoon Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
The Gymnast, High Above The Ground 7:13 The Decemberists Her Majesty The Decemberists
Nun Chuka Kata 4:30 Buckethead Monsters & Robots
Cherub Rock 4:58 Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream
One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces 3:53 Ben Folds Five Whatever & Ever Amen
Mr. Bonaparte 3:55 The Bears Car Caught Fire
Drop Dead Legs 4:14 Van Halen 1984
The Camera Eye 10:59 Rush Moving Pictures
It Was There That I Saw You 4:02 ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead Source Tags & Codes
You Look So Fine 5:24 Garbage Version 2.0
Smoking Makes You Look Younger (A True Tale of Underage Smoking) 2:31 Smarty Pants Annoyager
Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad? 3:49 Prince The Hits/The B-Sides
Spacemilk 3:49 The Sheila Divine New Parade
Bargain 5:34 The Who Who's Next (Remastered)
Snarling Wrath Of Angry Gods (From Dry Humping The American Dream) 4:09 Gutbucket Hear This Now: Cantaloupe Music Sampler
Never Enough 3:43 Adrian Belew Here
Keep Fishin' 2:52 Weezer Maladroit
Killer Queen 3:01 Queen Greatest Hits
War 5:48 Joe Satriani The Extremist
YYZ 4:25 Rush Moving Pictures
Adam's Song 4:10 Blink-182 Enema of the State
The Party Song 2:19 Blink-182 Enema of the State
Quiet 3:42 Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream
Army 3:24 Ben Folds Five The Unauthorized Biography Of Reinhold Messner
The National Anthem 5:52 Radiohead Kid A
Sister Jack 3:35 Spoon Gimme Fiction

Finally, I come to the big picture stuff--lessons learned and how do I move forward…

After week 13 of training I got Achilles tendonitis, a common overuse injury for runners and as I went to the doctor and multiple physical therapy treatments I obviously had to do some thinking. The big question was “What am I doing here? Why do I run, again?” I easily have two basic answers: “I run and exercise in general to keep my body healthy and functioning well and to keep my soul and mind healthy and functioning well.” I do not run to break my body down.

Marathon training is tough. I said last year that it was the toughest thing I ever tried to do. Training “by the book” is even tougher. Since January I put 452 miles on my feet, sometimes more than 35 miles in a week. For a guy my size, that’s a lot of stress and pounding on my feet and ankles. And week after week after week starts to take its toll.

There are some things I know. I don’t have to run marathons to keep my body in check. I had forgotten that there are distances between 5k and 26.2 miles that people train for. Right now I’m thinking that I’m done with the full marathon distance. My absolute favorite part of Sunday was the opening 10k, jockeying for position in the crowd, feeling awesome and strong and fresh and clipping the miles by. I like that kind of running. I’m not a fan of the walk-run, see-what-I-can-make-myself-endure type of “running.” In training, before I developed the tendonitis, I liked the middle distance tempo runs best. My favorite race of the year is still the Tulsa Run 15k.

So, after I primarily ride my bike for the whole summer,and my tendonitis hopefully disappears, I’m thinking: “no running distances further than a half marathon.” I think my body will thank me in the long run, (no pun intended.)

Thanks for reading all this and thanks to everyone who showed up to cheer me on.

It’s an amazing life.

In case you didn't get an email from me..

2010-04-21T15:42:00.000-07:00

Here are some details about Sunday's marathon:

Where do I need to be and when?"
Excellent question! The finish line is at NW 7th and Broadway. As far as
"when"--I am expecting to finish some time between 10:30 AM (pretty much
dream pace) and 11:00 AM (if the south wind is extraordinarily high or a
squall moves in.) But come early to find parking and witness much faster
people than I doing their thing.

Another option is to offer encouragement and support at the 20 mile point
(NW 63rd and Classen.) That's probably the point at which you are most
likely to witness my cussing to myself or screaming "Why, O Lord!" at the
heavens. I should probably be reaching that point around 9:30 or 9:45.
However, don't be offended if I don't recognize you on the sidelines at that
point, for I will probably be seeing double or distracted by the sight of
the demons.

While I MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH prefer your physical presence, there are other
methods of keeping track of my progress that morning:

1) You can download an iPhone app here--
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/memorial-marathon/id363346860?mt=8#

2) Go to the marathon website and "Track Your Runner"--
http://www.okcmarathon.com/

Love,
Mike

Please Allow Me To Geek Out With Running Talk...

2010-04-15T17:15:00.000-07:00

Since I'm winding down the days before the marathon I thought I would bring in a special guest blogger--a "spglogger," if you will. I'm going to turn this over to my running pal Charlie Neuenschwander to discuss the upcoming week and running in general.

What's your history with running? How and why did you get started?

I started running while in college. At the time, I was taking time off of bike racing (cycling) to compensate for more difficult classes my last two years. When I started noticing my fitness taking a nose dive, I started jogging because it was easy and convenient. It's much easier to throw on shoes for a 30 minute run than lugging a bike and all the clothes around for rides. I ended up really enjoying running, so I simply stuck with it.

I know this last year has not been smooth sailing for you. Talk to me about injuries and coming back from them.

In January of 2009 I ran my first ultramarathon, a 50k (31 mile) trail run put on as a New Year's run by a local ultrarunner. My training leading up to it was less than par for such an event and in the weeks post ultra, I showed symptoms of a stress fracture in my right shin. I took several weeks off (mostly all of Feb) and started running again in March. My naive mind thought I could run the Memorial Marathon with only 8 weeks of prep, which I did and improved my inagural marathon year by about 18 minutes. However, the second or third week after the marathon I started noticing familiar sensations in my shin, this time on the left leg. This injury was slightly more sinister than the last, as every time I thought the injury was healed and began running again it would come back. I repeated this several times over the summer and finally kicked it around September. I learned a lot last year about myself and about being patient. Ever since mid September of 09, I've had the marathon on my mind and have basically been training soley for the marathon all this time. I wanted to make sure I had a very good foundation before I started adding the long runs.

This will be your third time to run the Memorial Marathon and I know you're out for a PR (personal record) this year. What have you done differently, as far as training, to pursue that goal?

I think the most obvious aspect when I reflect on my own training is structure. I've never really laid out a "plan." I've always just run a certain distance on any given day based on how I felt. Don't get me wrong, I still run what I run each day based on how all systems are operating, but this year I've laid out a schedule that I can refer to which reminds me, for example, "this week I need to start intervals, four weeks from now I'll do tempo runs." Having a sort of structure like that mapped out on paper that I can visually see, has kept me on track and the marathon hasn't snuck up on me. We are less than two weeks out and this year I'm not saying "oh I should have done more intervals, or tempo runs, etc." But I still don't get too wrapped up in schedules. Last weekend for example, I missed my last long run because my one-year-old son was sick. I am a family man and have a day job and those things come first. I find that if I worry too much about sticking to a schedule, I'll subconciously be putting running before my family and I don't ever want to do that. I can't help the things that happen outside of running and as a result I have to always stay flexible.

I know you're a big fan of trail running. Do you think those trail miles aid in any way with a road marathon?

Absolutely. There is definitley more work involved in trail running versus road running. 30% extra maybe? I don't remember where I read or who wrote the article that compared the two forms of the sport but there is a quantified measurement out there somwhere. Your heart rate is usually higher even at slower paces because of terrain variation with twists, turns, up and down hills. Muscles in your legs that may go unnoticed during a road run will get their own workout on trails. I generally like to run trails every once in a while just to keep the joints and bones in check and have a break from all the repetitive motions that goes with road running. And its a lot more fun!

One thing I've noticed when preparing for an endurance event is how high my grocery bill gets as I'm pretty much always trying to take in enough calories to keep the engine going! What's your strategy as far as nutrition, both in general and during the race itself? Are you a GU man during the race?

I suppose this is where my answer would be expected to be some profoud, inspiring insight but alas, I really don't pay much attention to my diet. I try to keep some obvious points in mind, though, like a diet of burgers five days per week is not going to yield the best physiological results. I try to eat a mixture of good meats like chicken and fish with a steak here and there. Veggies and fruits I eat when I can and I go for fresh over canned produce. Carbs are mostly in the form of breads and pastas. The last few weeks leading up to a large race like a marathon, I'll shy away from refined sugar (sodas, candy), which to me makes a post marathon Dr Pepper a nice treat. Flexibility here as well as the training schedule I feel keeps me well -rounded. I'll have a burger any day of the week (but not twice in the same week) and I'll take my family out for ice cream if they want to go. I decided a long time ago that I wasn't going to make any diet of mine, the diet of the rest of my family. I'm not going to be the stick in the mud that stays home while family or friends are going out for pizza. These are the simple things in life that make life fullfilling and may be indulgences but in moderation really don't have much of an effect on one's running. And yes, I am a GU man during the race, and water. I will try something this year that I've been training with and as the race gets into the longer miles, I'll have my folks (who always come to the race) have a bottle of Pedialyte ready about midway through. Yes, the same stuff they give to dehydrated children. Have you ever read the ingredients list? Low calorie, but full of all the stuff that is essential to keeping the muscles in working order. I'm going to see if it makes a difference on race day.

In my experience of physical activity so far, I am starting to realize that there are some hidden ratios at work, (i.e. weight/power) The one devilish ratio involved in the marathon is speed over distance, or in other words, pace. Some people can run fast for short distances. Some people can run slower for a much longer distance. The ideal marathoner can do both. Is this concept as maddening to you as it is to me?

Honestly, I don't get too worried about numbers. I know this probably sounds a little contradictory of a competitive runner but its true. Yes, I do pay attention to what I am doing in training, and what my numbers are. I know that in prep for a marathon you need to run tempo runs as part of your regimen. These I try to run at my goal pace for the marathon and therefore the numbers are important. But ultimately on race day, there are so many external factors that you have no control over (the Oklahoma wind for example) that I show up to the start line on race day with the attitude that I will simply run the best I can on this particular day. As far as short versus long distances, I believe in well-roundedness. I would rather be average at both than to be a self-proclaimed specialist. I practice this by participating in shorter distance races as well as the longer stuff.

Here's a question I get asked a lot…what is in your head as you're running? Do you find that there is a difference in your thoughts as you're training vs. a race situation?

I really don't know what goes through my head. Some things I remember, most I don't. I've probably cured cancer but I don't know it. My thoughts during a run are kind of like dreams. I come back to conciousness not really knowing what I was thinking but some bits and pieces I can recall. Sometimes my mind starts playing loops of songs or shows, movies, etc. I think it may have to do with a rhythmic pairing to my cadence or something. More recently that I recall, my mind kept playing about a 30 second clip from the movie Apollo 13. My mind just put this scene on a loop and it repeated itself for a long time until I started thinking about something else, like the events of the previous day or what tasks lay ahead. But Apollo 13? I haven't seen that movie in probably a decade! Beats the crap out of me where that came from. But it got me through a tough run.

What are your plans for next week to prepare mind and body for the rigors of going 26.2 miles? Got any rituals or superstitious activities?

I usually have pizza and beer the night before. A bit unorthodox, I'm sure, but the first time I ever ran a marathon was a Sunday morning where I just simply went out and ran 26 miles to see if I could. The night before that glorious adventure I was at Sauced with some friends eating pizza and having a finely crafted beer when I made the proclamation "I'm going to run a marathon tomorrow." A month later, I ran my first "official" marathon at OKC. So, pizza and beer are sort of a personal tradition, but I wouldn't venture so far to call it a superstition or ritual.

Finally, what are your plans beyond the marathon?

I'm sort of treating this year's marathon as a stepping stone to my next goal for the year and that is to run a 50 mile ultra. Assuming I make it through the next week and a half and the marathon without injury, that is the next large thing on the calendar. I'm concurrently participating with a group that is attempting to run 60 hours in 60 days (which is harder than it sounds), and that is a good motivator to not become too comfortable in a recovery period post marathon, especially since we are already about two weeks into the ordeal. I also have plans to do a couple short distance races, a 5k (possible) and for sure a 10k in June. Long term plans are to run a timed ultra in October in which I will run either a 12- or 24- hour event but I haven't decided which one I want to tackle.

Thanks, Charlie and good luck in the race, pal!

Two Things

2010-04-12T10:42:00.000-07:00

Wow. Long time no type.
If you’re still with me, I’ve got two things to tell you about.

1) The training for this year’s Memorial Marathon has taken up the bulk of my energy, both mental and physical.

Here’s a little behind-the-scenes on how you train your body and mind for one of these things. There is one day of every week where you run a “long” distance. The first long run of the 17-week schedule was 8 miles, I think, and it generally builds up from there to, usually 20 miles. Then there are shorter runs during the week to keep you strong and build your endurance and speed, etc.

My training suffered a setback right after I did my 19 mile week. After that run I developed tendonitis in my Achilles tendon. This is a pretty common injury for runners and for me, has proven to be more of a lingering nuisance rather than unbearable pain.

While developing this condition so late in the game sucks, it’s also not a dealbreaker for me. I’ve put way too much work in to call it off. It’s an injury I CAN run on—YES I HAVE gotten clearance from my doctor, (who is also a runner), and two days ago I finished the hardest run of the whole program, the 20 miler. It wasn’t pretty the last 4 miles or so, but I got it done on a windy, warm day.

Now, to set myself up for a marathon that is enjoyable, not just something I can suffer through, I have begun physical therapy, (which is wonderful) and am being very careful and intentional the next couple of weeks.

Sidenote: It becomes increasingly apparent to me that, through this whole process of losing weight, keeping it off, and adopting healthy behaviors to grab life by the throat, I have somehow become something of an athlete. It’s funny how life works out.

But I am starting to reevaluate some of my goals and assumptions as a runner. There will be more time to stew on and pontificate about that after this goal is completed, however.

Stay tuned over the next few days for more on how YOU can help me out with this next long run and a potential special guest post.

2) I just finished reading Dave Eggers’ book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius for the second time. Can I iterate to you how much I love this book? Probably not, but I will try.

This is a mostly true (?) memoir written in a sophisticated, sometimes funny, sometimes inspiring, sometimes “make-you-want-to-cry”-sad, always interesting style. It reads like an EEG, a direct feed of the thoughts of a neo-Romantic poet; a manic-depressive twenty-something guy forced by circumstances to become the guardian of his younger brother.

I have never read a book that makes me want to be a writer more, and I would like to recommend it right now to anyone interested in the art of stringing words and sentences together. So I will.

“I recommend this book to anyone interested in the art of stringing words and sentences together.”

A Writing Exercise

2010-03-21T17:06:00.000-07:00

So my writerly friend Scott came up with a wonderful idea. Take some of your favorite songs and use them as an inspiration or stepping-off point for short stories.

Below is what I came up with. Here's the fun part. Who can tell me what song was my inspiration?
-------

Dear Mom,

I know you’re going to catch hell for this. And that’s not fair, I know. I guess you’ve probably seen the reports over and over ad nauseum by this point. I’m the one they’re dragging off. Not you. You shouldn’t have to suffer. When I was walking into that courthouse, some bullshit reporter yelled out, “Why’d you do it, Owen?” I just kept walking with my face to the concrete. Acting like I didn’t hear it. But I heard it. I acted blank and like I wasn’t present. But I was.

The truth is- I couldn’t believe the question. Did that jackass of a reporter really expect me to answer? Did he really expect me to stop amidst the crowd and cacophony- the noise and rushing- and talk? Did he think I would stand there and deliver some pithy little sound bite for him and the folks back home? Or some well-reasoned lecture? Like I’m some kind of professor something? What the hell was he thinking? Can you believe people get paid to do that?

Looking back on it, though, he kinda was my first prosecutor. Sitting here with some time on my hands, I really do wonder. I do wonder “why I did it.” It’s not like he was asking for it. Not like he was secretly screwing my wife or something. William Gibson Smith wasn’t anything special. Not deserving or undeserving of any favor or disfavor. He wasn’t asking to die. Not anymore than any of the rest of us, anyway. You know how some guys, though, are just asking for trouble? To get hit? Taken down a notch? They talk like they’re so tough or so smart. Got that bubbly electric blonde or elegant waif on their arm like an advertisement? Those kinds of guys make me question things, not William Smith. The kind of guy with everything handed to him…silver-platter. Job, car, woman, smiling friends. Those are the guys that make me question fairness. What’s fair is fair. Isn’t that what they always say? Or All is fair in love and war…Man, that question of fairness…it really claws at me. You know what I mean? It’s like sometimes I can’t sleep because I keep those pounding ideas alive in my head. If no one ever said life is fair, where did I get the idea from? Was it a dream? Did I dream it up? Surely there’s some reality propping that table up, right? I mean, I’m not normally in the business of creating ideas out of mid-air. So surely there’s something to it. Fairness exists somewhere, right? Otherwise we would have had to create it. Creation ex nihilo. We’re all nihilists that way. Creation. Creation. There’s something to it, right? To create. To make order. Structure. To arrange. Breathe life into chaos. Make a living, breathing chaos. Forge it. Give it substance.

Some nights…Man! I just can’t keep all of these ideas at bay. It’s like having your back to the door, pushing with all your weight. Your arms splayed. You groan and grunt and strain. But it’s not enough. I still have the thoughts. They still come out. Still come out. Still.

I wanted to shout when I was in that courtroom. Listening to those dull arguments and propositions by the lawyers and suits, as if I weren’t even there. Not even a bit player in my own drama. I wanted to scream “Do you know who you’re dealing with here? Do you know? I consume whole worlds!”

It’s all right, though. It’s all meaningless, mom. All of it.

I miss you.

2010-03-11T20:28:00.001-08:00

Flight: A Novel by Sherman Alexie

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book is equal parts _Catcher in the Rye_, with its depiction of teen angst and delinquency and _Slaughterhouse Five_ with its time- and personality- jumping protagonist and initial inscription in homage to Vonnegut.

However, unlike his predecessors, Alexie's narrator brings much more redemption by the end of the novel, nearly- and I mean NEARLY- bringing this cynical reader to tears.

View all my reviews >>

What's In a Name?

2010-03-08T16:43:00.000-08:00

Today I learned a lesson about names.

Do you ever wonder how your life, your circumstances, your habits, personality- basically all of the things that make up your reality- would be different if you had a different name? Cara- would you have wound up acting and thinking the same way if your name had been longer? Is ease of pronunciation an aid in getting people to talk to you? What if you had been named "Carolina?" Or Carol?

Christina--aren't you "Chrissy" to some people? And does Chrissy act differently than Christina?

Or Charlie, Steven… we are kindred spirits, I’ll bet. My whole life I have grown up with an ambivalence about my name. No one knew whether I was “Mike” or “Michael.” And consequently, I didn’t know either. I have secretly gotten quite a bit of amusement as I’ve listened to people of my own age group try to avoid making the choice between the two, by calling me “Mr. Stutzman,” “Stutzman,” or, even, rarely, “Mr. Man.” Would a rose called “Steve” or “Charles” smell as sweet?

Of course, I have no answers to these questions, but today this naming business got even weirder for me. Here at work, we have a dry-erase board in our kitchen/conference room and this week’s unspoken, unofficial project has been to write your name and the traditional meaning up there for the office to see.

I went around proclaiming to a few friends that I knew that my name means “He who is like God,” and that no matter how they tried, they shan’t come up with a cooler one than that. And my implication was that, maybe they ought to show me a little respect since I’m like God and all. After all, it’s right there in my name!

(And truly, there have been times in the past when I have literally thought to myself, “I need to try to start living up to my name a little better.)

Well, enter the fact-checker, Lauren. She says, (with a website up at her desk), “Um…this website makes it sound a little different than you said it.” This says it’s like a rhetorical question: ‘Who is like God?’ [Turns out that’s a pretty important question mark at the end.] For the assumption in the Hebrew mind: “no one.” No one is like God.

“Well, shit.” I said, like Dr. Evil in the first Austin Powers movie.

*********

But the more I think about it, the more I like how those ancient Jewish folks thought. Some of my favorite stuff in the Bible is in the Old Testament, the wisdom literature, where G-d is mysterious at times and even belittles the ignorance of his creation. (By the way, anybody else think it’s cool how Jewish folks approach even the name of their creator with reverence and the fear of even writing it all the way out?)

Think of the end of Job. G-d says “Were you here when I made all of this? I created the earth and sky and heavens, the waters, and sea monsters. I don’t remember seeing you here…” That’s my own very scholarly translation by sheer power of memory.

I’m not sure why I like it when humans are put in their place and we discover that our place isn’t as high up as we might have presumed or would have preferred. It’s like watching the First Place Apple Pie baker at the county fair finding out that there is a ribbon even better than the blue ribbon. Turns out there is a .5 or even a Zero place ribbon and it’s a most beautiful color, one like we’ve never even seen before!

All the sad baker can do at that point is sit on the stage and eat their apple pie in humble resignation.

After all, “Who is like God?”

I can live with my name.

Ohhh We're Halfway There WOAH OH!!

2010-02-23T09:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning marked the beginning of week 9 of a 16-week marathon training plan. Halfway there! And friends, let me tell you- I am feeling AWESOME right now with my running, going farther faster than ever! Saturday morning was my fastest long run to date. 15 hilly miles at Edmond’s lovely Mitch Park. Have you ever been there? It’s a really nice park. I’m thinking I should log more miles there and add it to the biking rotation in the spring and summer.

Friends, I have a dream and you can definitely help me realize it. My dream is this: I finish the marathon at my goal pace, and am greeted by a swarm of friends and well-wishers. That’s where you come in. Can you come watch me finish?

The Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon is on Sunday April 25. It’s the 10th annual staging of this race so it’s sure to be surrounded by hubbub. Why don’t you go ahead and mark it on your calendar?

I know, I know. Sunday is the Lord’s Day. But maybe God and your priest or pastor will grant you special dispensation to miss. Here’s what you could do. Just go to church every day, even Mondays, between now and the marathon to stockpile some good will.

I am working REALLY hard right now. I don’t usually let on very much because it’s not polite and it’s boring to listen to and I enjoy the process anyway. But it would be nice to celebrate at the official end of the means with everyone I know.

As you were…

Words, Words, Words

2010-02-04T13:28:00.000-08:00

Sorry it’s been awhile since my last post, my darlings. I’ve been consumed by a thought:

Should I write stuff for the blog just to write and give people something to read?

How long can I/could I write with nothing to say? By which I mean, “I wonder how long I could say things in typed form but not really have any meaning beneath the words.” Or to put it another way: does there really have to be a message beneath the medium?

I can come up with words to write, form sentences and string together remote, disparate thoughts until the cows come home. I can do all that and still not really communicate anything.

It would be akin to window dressing. You know how those tiny old clothing and vintage shops in the small town of our collective unconscious have those antique-looking mannequins that are just an impaled torso with no arms or head? It would be like that. Yeah, imagine one of those dummy torsos supporting a velvet shirt or chemise or “blouse” or “top” or whatever feminine word you use to describe it. The oddity of it, the novel mystery of the little anachronistic garment might draw you into the shop. But then, once you cross the threshold into the curious little room, you would be horribly disappointed by “instead ofs.” Instead of coins from faraway places, or dusty, varnishey-smelling hutches and sturdy two-ton colonial writing desks or ancient farming tools from the Depression. Instead of a wonderfully idiosyncratic, graying shop owner. Instead of ancient European postcards and unmbrellas. Instead of toys and papers and books and copper thises and avant-garde, 60s plastic thats. Instead of all of these bohemian, well-used and forgotten, weathered treasures to think about and admire. Instead of all of that, you would be greeted by a blank, cold, nothingness.

An empty, shop-shaped void.

Or is the empty space a curio of its own?

And that’s really the interesting thing about expectations, isn’t it? Does the person with no expectations also experience no frustrations? Walk into that shop with no assumptions about what you will find and…is the void a disappointment? All style and no substance? All icing and no cake? Form but no function? All sizzle, no steak?

Also with expectations and lack thereof, there is a converse problem. The person who rolls through life expecting nothing, harboring no dreams or hopes, never gets to experience the thrill of something wonderful in his or her head coming true. For there was never "something wonderful" there in the first place.

Turns out I have a bunch of words I can use to say nothing.

Fooled ya.

Another Blog I've Started...

2010-01-20T19:28:00.000-08:00

Here's a little secret: One of my favorite things to do is cook. Consequently, one of my other favorite things to do is EAT. So, over there on the right hand column you'll see a link to Feast Your Eyes.

That's where I'll be letting you know "what's cooking?"

I wouldn't recommend going over there if you're hungry, however.

An Idea Whose Time Has Come

2010-01-06T08:39:00.000-08:00

I’ve been reading about the internet a little bit as of late. It’s not as if I set out to. That’s just what was next in line on my “books-to-read” list and I like working my way through projects like that.

A memory occurred to me as I was reading about the rise of “Internet 2.0…”

I was in college in the late 90s, early 2000s. In my Mass Communication class our final assignment was to devise a theoretical message and a way of delivering the message to a mass audience.

My original idea was to create a news service, similar to AP (Associated Press.) However, my proposed news service would only distribute info about me, what was going on in my world. I probably proposed to call it MSP (Mike Stutzman Press.) While it was purely tongue-in-cheek, my teacher wouldn’t let me do it for my final. “There ought to be some relevance to the message you are communicating on a mass scale.”

Well, how times have changed since then, huh?

That’s right, everybody. I thought of the idea behind Twitter and even this blog ten years ago.

Compensation please…

That's All He Wrote

2009-12-30T18:49:00.001-08:00

And that down there is the last I've written in the "Pure, Simple, Fantastic" vein. Like I said, it was really more an exercise in the "write SOMETHING, no matter what"- school of thought. I've discovered over time that I'm more of a "write when the inspiration strikes" type of guy.

Thanks for reading.

Maybe some day we'll all find out what REALLY happened to Duke and Rock n' Roll...

Pure, Simple, Fantastic Part IX

2009-12-29T06:54:00.000-08:00

IX.

The eight-legged creature reached out with two tentacles and delivered the two foreigners from the hopelessness of finding the ocean bottom and a potential eternal resting place. The octopus snatched them out of mid-water and began to pass them from limb to limb to limb to limb to limb to limb like the most skilled juggler of all time, before attempting to feed the plastic men to itself. However, either the taste or the texture of the two misshapen creatures was unpalatable. The humpy beast spit them out and quickly darted back to the anonymous depths, leaving behind a puff of ink to make for a getaway.

As Duke and Rock n’ Roll again sank farther into the blackness they were floating in space, expansive, with no up or down, a great thunderous churning could be heard, parting the water like a giant oil tanker. But it was no oil tanker. This was a living, breathing beast. Lonely, calling out through the void in low moans. The whale, mistaken by ancient sailors as a sea monster, defied gravity as its heavy, barnacled body slowly worked through the water. Eyes closed, he nearly slept as he traveled, no fear of obstacles for miles all around. Mouth open, he sucked up all surrounding insignificant life, a vacuum with hardened, wrinkled skin. Duke’s body and Rock n’ Roll were captured by the direct flow into the whale’s mouth and were soon in slimy, compact world of undigested shrimp and kelp and briny, tiny microscopic cities of translucent non-imals.

But they were not long in the belly of the beast, for the gastroesophageal systems of whales had not evolved to digest plastics and the two commandoes were expelled out of the beast’s mouth like tiny water-to-water missiles. The giant leviathan made a grunting noise similar to an old man recovering from a sneeze and slowly swam away to its lonely, slow-moving future.

Against the Machine

2009-12-28T14:49:00.000-08:00

Just got done reading Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob by Lee Siegel. (Unfortunately the bulk of the book was about how we, the "Internet 2.0" culture, are becoming less human and not about "being human.")Anyway, his last paragraph is a real doozy and pretty much sums up the author's dark predictions for the internet's effect on humankind and very neatly sums up what's at stake:

There is only one person in the world who connects with us entirely, antiseptically, and without fear of judgment or rejection. He is at the very heart of our desire for convenience. He is at the other end of our wrist and finger. The less he needs the actual presence of other people, the more he will depend on goods and services to keep him company and populate his isolation. The more distracted and busy his isolation, the more he will measure people by their capacity to please him, or to gratify him without "getting in his face." For the only face he can bear will be his own.

Here's to seeing other people as ends in themselves, rather than as means to our ends!

2009-12-21T16:13:00.000-08:00

The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World by Eric Weiner

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Other than the intriguing subject matter, a real strength of this book is the author's literary style. Weiner is very conversational and humorous at times, but in that unique way that a trained journalist is able... It was a pleasure to read his adventures.

Equally uncomfortable with the "happiness" and positive psychology movements, Weiner doesn't get bogged down in the surprising amount of available research and science and instead presents a (well-informed) regular person's search for what exactly "happiness" is and why it's so elusive and seemingly counterintuitive. For instance, great happiness and misery can be found in similar environments throughout the world--poverty and affluence are no guarantees of either end of the spectrum.

And the author's struggle to face these kinds of contradictions, along with a slew of others, are exactly what made his voice trustworthy and interesting for me.

Part travel book, part soft philosophy book, all worth the couple of days it took to read it!

View all my reviews >>

Pure, Simple, Fantastic Part VIII.

2009-12-15T06:23:00.000-08:00

VIII.

And then the crabs came.

They descended upon the action figures like the Americans on Normandy. “Peter and the Wolf”-type music played in the distance as they shuffled about, claws and pinchers clicking. A group of three smaller crabs were linked like a crustacean chain, straining together and pulling in the same direction to remove Rock n’ Roll from his sandy grave as if they were either playing tug of war with his lower torso or saving him from falling in ice, Boy Scout-style. Meanwhile two larger crabs had managed to separate Duke’s head from his body and were bandying it about, applying an impromptu game of midnight catch with a face of chiseled, handsome good looks.

Just as the small group was able to extricate Rock n’ Roll and set him right with the world again, a great crashing wave came from nowhere, sending the whole scene into a wash of tornadoed chaos- crabs flying every which way into the sea, Rock n’ Roll and the headless Duke strewn into the ocean as well, powerless, determined by an uncaring universe.

Farther and farther the tide took the two out to the sea. They had been jettisoned out at least a mile before they began to sink in slow, slow motion amongst the bubbles and darkness. They tumbled an flipped in the inky wetness until a fast, flitting shape appeared on the periphery, jetting this way and that-- a mysterious, graceful shape.

Pure, Simple, Fantastic Part VII.

2009-12-07T20:08:00.000-08:00

VII.

There is the phrase “…with lives precariously hanging in the balance,” which would seem an appropriate description of Duke and Rock n’ Roll’s situation, were it not for the fact that they were inanimate objects. Their lifeless faces were like Japanese samurai art, frozen in time-locked with an expression of strain, as if damned to forever be engaged in battle. So, in a way their visions of vistas high above the ground were wasted on them, as well as on the gull and its dull, black eyes.

As the wind battered the gull this way and that, Duke and Rock n’ Roll were held above the ground in its claws like potential sacrifices to the Earth. As mile after mile of marshy coastland unraveled beneath them, it was the closest that plastic soldiers would get to the magnificent last few minutes of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 or the first Star Trek or The Black Hole or some other movie with a fantastical voyage through spacescapes. The earth might as well be an alien planet when seen from the altitude and vantage point of birds.

Ocean
Hill
Sand
Cracked-
Mud-
Earth
Hill
Sand
Cracked-
Mud-
Earth
Ocean
Sand
Cracked-
Mud-
Earth
Ocean
Hill
Cracked-
Mud-
Earth
Ocean
Hill
Sand

Seemingly all the elements conducive to the creation of life breezed by below them at a hurried clip.

And then, in an instant, it was over.

The seagull let out a screeching cry and released the two soldiers to the peril of a freefall. Falling rigidly for a couple seconds, they hit the deserted grey beach with a quick THWIP! Sound, unnoticed by man, hardly noticed by nature. Rock n’ Roll managed to land with his head buried directly into the ground, presenting his olive-green-pantsed ass to the universe. Duke survived the free fall by slamming into the sand on his side, reclining like an ancient Greek would while partaking of dinner at table.

And they stayed there.

Day turned to night, receded to dawn. Shadows of clouds passed slowly by.

The moon at night cycled through phases. Waxing. Waning. Gibbous. Crescent. Sliver. Full. Never cognizant of this manmade presence splintered into the coastline wilderness

Homework Sucks

2009-12-02T10:24:00.000-08:00

I'm currently reading _Great Expectations._ Here's a passage where Dickens could have just written "I wasn't good at school." But there's no ART in that!

"I struggled through the alphabet as if it had been a bramble-bush; getting considerably worried and scratched by every letter. After that, I fell among those thieves, the nine figures, who seemd every evening to do something new to disguise themselves and baffle recognition. But, at last I began, in a purblind groping way, to read, write, and cipher, on the very smallest scale."

Pure, Simple, Fantastic Part VI.

2009-11-30T19:31:00.000-08:00

VI.
As you were out to sea, nearly drowning, the plastic militiamen were swept away on a most strange and unforeseen adventure. Like most adventures, theirs started in the jowls of a beach-combing sea-mutt. While you were submerged beneath the waves, this scampish young dog with matted hair the color and consistency of wet diapers came running from out of nowhere- on a bee-line course to your collection of bellicose figurines. With equally quick swiftness he had shaken the bag loose with his muscular neck and snatched up the first things to drop out- your precious ‘Duke’ and ‘Rock n’ Roll.’ And as stealthily and mysteriously as he had appeared he disappeared up the beach again with two new playthings in his mouth.

“Wow,” I said. “You sure do speak dramatically and insightfully for a crusty old anonymous guy on a beach.”

Quoth the seaman, Well, I’ve seen many things in…

“…I mean,” I interrupted, “You speak like some people write. It’s almost as if you could serve as some kind of ironic, archetypal narrator in a metatextual short story.” I myself was amazed at my well-developed vocabulary for a ten-year old.

The dog-I shall thenceforth call him Cerberus- ran at full speed away from the waves, towards the dry dunes. He weaved in and out of the staggered clusters of anonymous vacationers- around and even between their tanned, coconut-scented legs. All the while he kept in his tight jaws Duke and Rock n’ Roll, chomping down on them as if they would serve as his final meal in the near future.

Cerberus ran.

And ran. Like a salivating running machine, his tongue hanging out. But still he held on to Duke and Rock n’ Roll. Until the time came for a rest and he slowed to a trot. Trot slowing to a walk. Walk becoming a sleepy stumble until Cerberus collapsed on the wet sand of the beach, finally laying down for a spread-eagle nap, loosening his death-grip on Duke and Rock n’ Roll for the first time.

I sat in rapt attention listening to this odd man’s even odder tale, wondering the same thing that most sociologists would wonder at this point: where are the parents? Well, when sociologists have dreams of their own, perhaps they can have parents in them!

Immediately after hitting the ground, the exhausted dog fell into a deep slumber. Caressed by the sound of the gulls overhead, the steady whoosh of the wind and waves enveloping him in their peaceful anesthesia, he drifted far, far away into a dream world of his own…

All men are great in their dreams, Sigmund Freud once said, and dogs are really no different. Beneath their fur and tails and collars and keen senses of hearing are hearts of flesh-pumping blood. But Cerberus was different. He found himself running in slow motion through a watery world of fire hydrants as plentiful as trees in a human’s dream world. He ran without ceasing, without tiring. Yet in his heart was the vague sensation that he was failing. Failing his dog-wife. His dog children. Even his loving human owner and wife were disappointed in his actions. It was the unceasing pressure in his head- the instinct that all of these dogs and people were ultimately let down by his failures. These vague feelings plagued his dreams and had even begun to spill over into his waking hours. Many were the hours he would sit on his haunches, staring at the gray old wooden fence of the backyard where he lived. As if that fence would move or speak some word of worldly wisdom to him.

But it never did.

It was unchanging, consistently fulfilling its unceasing purpose: to keep him in the yard…

“Wait a minute,” the dream-me interjected. “How do you know what this dog was dreaming?”

Sometimes you can just tell, the mysterious salty dog in the overcoat finally replied after sitting in silence for an uncomfortable few seconds. As Cerberus lay in his unquiet slumber, dreaming his dreams, a lone seagull circled overhead crying out in that lonely way that seagulls and coyotes do, as if someone will answer. While uninterested in the strange lump of mottled fur on the sand, the seagull noticed two small plastic novelties right nest to the dog’s mouth- your ‘Duke’ and ‘Rock n’ Roll.’ Attracted to their bite-size proportions the seagull swooped down to disencumber the dog of the out-of-place toys. For fear of waking the dog and betraying common wisdom involving sleeping dogs, the bird gingerly stepped around in the sand, pecking at the machine gunner and sergeant just long enough to arrange them for transport in his beak. And just as the dog exhaled an unconscious snort, the seagull was up in the air again with what it thought would make a lovely breakfast for the kid-gulls back home.

Pure, Simple, Fantastic Part V.

2009-11-22T20:21:00.000-08:00

V.
(This is the part of the story where you hear a harp glissando and see a fuzzy, white-bordered, cloud scene as a new camera shot zooms onto your screen. If this were a TV show or movie. Which it’s not. It’s written.)

I quickly arose from my near-drowning, still smelling salt in my nostrils, heart wanting to leap out of my ten-year old chest. As I gulped in oxygen like it was kool-aid, I looked around my sun-blocked surroundings to find my defiance of death went unnoticed by all present on the beach that day.

Save one pair of eyes.

As seagulls cried and little kids from other families ran laughing in ill-fitting swimsuits I noticed I was being watched by an unlikely, stone-still figure. Sitting on the remains of an ancient tree, washed upon the beach from who-knows-where, was an old gentleman. He stared in my direction, piercing eyes spanning the distance as if he were shooting a laser-beam into my soul. It was like when General Zod lifted a car without using his hands. When you know you’ve been watched with that kind of focus, you can do naught but go.

And so I went. As I neared the stranger, he neither waved me on nor shooed me away. I saw upon close inspection a gray beard and weathered long trench coat, an odd fashion choice for a coastal day in the south. His clothing and squinty eyes betrayed a man accustomed to the elements, to sorrow. For sorrow is being married to a wench as spirited and unforgiving as the sea. Perhaps he was a whaler or pirate. Regardless, you might say he was an ancient mariner. When I finally made it to the end of the tree trunk, this ghost-like apparition finally spoke, staring off into the distant reaches of the ocean, which connects all humanity.

I have seen your suffering. I have seen your life nearly snipped short, he said. His voice was that of a chainsaw idling in a tank of rock salt. I have also seen your two small plastic friends, the military men. I have seen their disappearance and I know their shared story.

“You mean Duke and Rock n’ Roll?” I said excitedly, half-believing that a crusty anachronistic old man from the sea would actually speak of my playthings by their proper names.

…the same, he answered.

“Please, mister. You’ve just gotta tell me what happened to them! One minute we were winning the war of the Savannah Beach and the next I was drowning and Duke and Rock n’ Roll were gone…”

Sit… he said, still staring off in the watery distance as if he were prophesying.

Pure, Simple, Fantastic Part IV.

2009-11-15T14:04:00.000-08:00

IV.

With ten-year old pride still intact I slowly made my way back up the beach in the way that you do when your previous understanding of the world comes crashing down around you and you receive a new vision of the forces out there. The universe was specially- designed for snuffing the life of a ten-year old kid and all his unassuming promise. Water and tides and the continental shelf-- all of them the wily traps of nature to take back her own. Not to mention the killer sharks that were probably looking on from the distance and smiling toothy grins as I gulped and choked on this new reality that tasted a lot like seawater.

That is to say, I walked up the beach slowly.

Since the sea didn’t kill me that day, I knew my mom would. How could I have been so foolish? To venture into the water alone was an act of stupidity so brazen that it could only be punishable by death. I’m pretty sure I caught a fleeting glimpse of my parents looking over blueprints for the guillotine they were going to build in the backyard to teach me a lesson, discussing the relative merits of stainless steel vs. alloy for a proper blade.

In actuality my near-drowning went unnoticed by mom and dad and the rest of mankind. Reality changed and I internalized it. You, dear reader, are the first to hear of it.

As I quietly rode back home in the rear seat of the station wagon, a wet mess, I held up my Zip-loc bag of heroic miniature friends. Perhaps one of those camouflaged Hectors with chiseled features could deliver a rousing speech to lift my spirits.

“You listen here, soldier. We suffered a defeat today. No secret about that. You go toe-to-toe with Mother Nature like that, you’re gonna wind up ass-over-head a few times. But you survived today for a reason. You get up. Dust yourself off. Try again another day…”

But something was horribly wrong! This was not the full complement of soldiers I started the day with! I was missing two vital members of my team- Duke and Rock n’ Roll! Somehow, amidst the confusion of nearly leaving this mortal coil by way of a watery grave, two of my favorite plastic pals had gone missing. Who was going to make the dramatic speech in front of the giant American flag? Storm Shadow? Not likely. There was never any empirical evidence that he could even talk!

I learned another pretty big lesson that day: sometimes things get lost.

They just “get lost.”

There is no rational reason for it or method for recovery. You can try to retrace your steps, check under the couch and cushions, check in the junk drawer or “think harder” all you want. It will end fruitlessly. Sometimes things are just “gone” and gone for good. Scissors, a black glove, a green They Might Be Giants hat, a leather coat, a Bible, a circular container of needles for sewing buttons…gone.

After a few days of life without the missing object, it becomes easier to just give up thought of where it could be. There comes a time when you have to surrender to the inherent chaotic void that roams the world and accept the loss. Better to do that than live with tension for the rest of your life. Just face it, baby. It’s gone and gone for good.

But I have found that, for some reason my subconscious has been unable to let go of Duke and Rock n’ Roll. In fact I recently had a dream, a most wondrous, strange dream that depicted the alternate history of the fate of those two. Maybe it was “a bit of bad mustard,” as Ebenezer Scrooge would posit, but it was a wondrous vision all the same…

Pure, Simple, Fantastic Part III.

2009-11-08T14:51:00.000-08:00

III.

The memories from this fortuitous day in question are hazy at best. Perhaps a more writerly way to say that would be “I remember it like it was yesterday…” In either case, sitting here in my landlocked adulthood one thing I’ll never forget from my previous life on the beach was how the man-made world seemed to gradually fade off into the naturally-made world. It wasn’t more than fifty yards or so before sandy concrete and parking meters morphed into dunes that you couldn’t see over, interspersed with non-functional staircases crafted with lonely, grayed-out boards made ancient and pitted from lifetimes of exposure to the moist, ceaseless winds originating from somewhere halfway across the world.

On the really hot days you couldn’t run out to the tide fast enough to escape the scalding sand if you were brave and went barefoot. And venturing from parking lot to waterline in shoes and socks was equally treacherous. Every step you took poured more sand through holes in your shoes until, by the time you could actually see water, it was like lifting witches’ cauldrons filled with barbells and attached to your legs.

Even though I was prepared for a most intensive, specialized shoreline assault mission with my Zip-loc bag of Joes, I regret to say that I remember none of the details of play that day. For all I know it could have been an epic, bloody battle like at the end of Red Dawn.

But isn’t that the way childhood is? I know that I know that I know that I spent oodles of time, hours upon hours posing these miniature militiamen into appropriate positions. However, I’ll be damned if I can remember any of the moments themselves.

Like I’ve hinted at earlier, time is measured in different ways when you’re a kid. I have this theory that I’m not quite ready to publish in Scientific American yet, but it goes as follows: as you get older, the basic unit of time increases. When I was really young the basic unit of time was a day. All planning stretched out no further than a day: “Today I’m going to eat my toast, watch Tom and Jerry, hide in the backyard while mom sweeps the house, have some lunch, maybe watch some Disney channel and wait for Dad to get home.” By high school I could never prognosticate further out than two days. By the time I was in college the basic unit of time had expanded out to a week. “Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I have English Comp, Math for Poets, and Fundamentals of Blah, blah. Tuesday and Thursday I have my science lab with that cute Darcy girl, and this weekend I think I’ll hang out with my dorky guy friends.” Now, having reached my thirtieth birthday, the basic unit of time is about two weeks- one paycheck. I’ll bet my parents are making plans by the month. My grandparents…

I wonder what the basic unit of time is for those gray-haired, Chinese mystics who live to be, like, one hundred and forty and learn how to fly.

I digress.

I may not remember the details of how exactly my crack-team of commandoes secured the Georgia coastline that day, but that may be due to one of those moments of childhood singularity- you know, the kind that you remember a couple decades thence and write about in a short story?

At some point that day, as the sun had gotten as high in the sky as it was likely to, I placed Duke and Rock n’ Roll and Scarlett and the whole gang back in their Zip-loc so as to spend some time in the water.

One of the great things about beaches is that they are equal-opportunity bodies of water. Unlike a swimming pool, lake, or pond there are a variety of ways to enjoy yourself without having to commit to total immersion. You can dip your foot in a pool, but eventually you have to jump in.

At the beach, however, you’re allowed to just sit right at the point where the water gives up its advance on the sand and recedes back. It’s possible to sit in an inch or two of water for hours on end and come away feeling like you’ve had a pretty productive day of water sports. And people walk along beaches without shoes but dressed in regular clothes all the time. And being a conservatively timid kid I found myself plopped down at the water’s edge, fascinated with how it never seemed quite possible to dig a hole in the wet sand. Every few seconds the dying throes of a wave would creep up and erase your efforts. The feeling of the earth below you, melting between your toes is a sensation that is difficult to forget. Normally, that sensation- the wet sand, hot sea, seagulls chattering- that was enough.

But this day, this momentous occasion, it wasn’t enough to dwindle in the puddles and tide pools.

Many times in the past, I had watched my brothers wading in water up to their necks, jumping into waves, seemingly miles out (but in reality, maybe fifteen or twenty feet), they laughed and yelled with excitement as they waited for the next wave to splash into them. And I figured I could be just as daring. So, I slowly walked out further, ever so further into the sea- solid, wet sand slowly giving way to inches of water, giving way to water at my knees, giving way to…And upon each new goal set and attained, the ocean kept coming at me, ceaseless, the little white-capped piles of water ahead of me slowly becoming hills, becoming mountains, all unaware of my presence.

It was at that point when the warm water was at chest level that I lost my footing, probably surprised by an unexpected wave. And I learned fear.

It’s amazing how in one flash-of-lightning you can become fully aware of things you took for granted one millisecond before.

One instant before I was swept away that day I lived in a world where there is always a ground to place your two feet, air for your lungs to breathe, and sight without burning. But all of that went away in one frightening instant. For the first time I had recognition of fear. It’s an odd, chilling sensation when your head goes under water, feet touch nothing, you twist and arch your back, squirming to find bottom so as to make sense of the surrounding murk and the sound…Oh my God , the sound. It’s the sound of suspension, stasis, like a low hum, with eery slicing sounds as your arms flail in the water.

The vast expanse of the ocean was waiting for me that day, like some kind of patient predator- one of those that builds elaborate traps and simply bides their time until their next meal stumbles by.

But for some reason, the sea said “not yet.”

That flash of panic was followed by the knowledge that I wasn’t in that deep of water. “There’s gotta be a floor here somewhere.” I had kicked and squirmed enough, stretched and reached out far enough that my fingers eventually felt solid ground again. I could make heads and tails of my situation in space, from which it’s a fairly natural maneuver to get your head above water by leaping off the ocean floor.

That first huge gasp of air after sucking in a nose full of salty water is exhilarating. I couldn’t run up to the beach fast enough, swimsuit weighing me down, hair plastered to my head, all the while looking around to see who noticed my near drowning, to know whether I should feel embarrassed. No one seemed to notice as my world changed from an idyllic romp in the sun to a universe where fear and death were possible. No one noticed as reality expanded one thousandfold in less than a second. No one noticed. I could check off the worry of embarrassment. But was that better?

I could be dramatic and literary and say I remember that event every day of my life and thank God for blah, blah, blah. But the truth is, I go years without even thinking about it. In fact, I only am reminded of my near drowning when I come desperately close to admitting that I can’t swim, an adult of thirty-something years of age.

Thankfully the older you get the less you have to talk about these things.

Pure, Simple Fantastic Part II.

2009-10-28T19:39:00.000-07:00

II.

For whatever reason there was one day I indeed had my precious time alone in that rear seat. It was a typical hot Savannah summer day, the sun just pummeling down as if Mother Nature had seen enough and finally decided to get rid of the humans. On top of that was the fact that the station wagon offered little to no measurable air conditioning, especially all the way back in the Crow’s Nest. TV chefs and cooking personalities talk about “sweating” vegetables in a frying pan. Maybe Mother Nature was a carnivore, preparing a chubby kid snack for herself.

Despite the hellacious heat, heaven was simultaneously present. After all, this was a beach day.

It’s about an hour’s drive to Tybee Island from where we lived, which is approximately 4,200 minutes or 70 hours in kid-time. Days at the beach weren’t an all-too common occurrence for the Stutzman clan, probably because it’s no “day at the beach” for parents to cart around three boys constanty fidgeting while they face the prospect of aging at seventy times the normal rate, arguing amongst each other, facing traffic, the heat, the temperamental A/C and just the general ludicrousness of life.

The drive out to the island was an observant kid’s dream as far as scenery goes: past the Krispy Kreme, turn right onto the long boulevard with palm trees planted evenly in the median, one for every local soldier killed in battle (if I remember correctly), huge rollercoaster bridges that seem to give the car wings to glide above the saturated marshes and millionaire homes and boats and gray sand and the families of crabs that live in pockmarks of the stinking, salty ground, past the old civil war fort where something important surely happened amongst the man-made mounds and tunnels and cannons, the bricks and bars. I’ll never forget the significance of the violin and bow found in the moat and displayed at the fort’s museum, surrounded by black-and-white sepia photos of those stoic civil war guys who all looked like Lincoln, gazing off to the photo’s edge, silent. I always wondered, “Who has time for violins when a civil war is happening?”

But today was not a day for the civil war. I had bigger fish to fry.

In the seat next to me, in a carefully sealed Zip-loc bag, was a crack team of military commandoes, a beach assault team- the likes of which the world had never seen assembled: reporting directly to me was Duke, the First Sergeant and natural-born leader. The importance of this mission could not be overstated and for times like these, you need cool heads in control.

Handling communications was Breaker, whose job always seemed a little nebulous to me. He didn’t even carry a gun. But I’ve never been a technical guy and was sure he was handy for something. Probably making phone calls on his fancy headset.

Providing versatility with the crossbow, (a genius idea- a bow and arrow held horizontally) was the fiery red-head counter-intelligence soldier Scarlett. Also important as a source of boobs for distracting the enemy.

Bringing the heavy firepower was Rock n’ Roll, his blond hair and manly beard a reminder of better times, when toughness could be measured by the amount of hair on your face or the number of keyboards you had on stage in front of you or the length of your cape.∗

In case of trouble, it’s always a good idea to have a teacher. Thus the inclusion of Spirit and his trusty eagle buddy. And speaking of trusty animal buddies, Mutt and Junkyard were called up for service for this mission. Unfortunately the dog disappeared- probably into the recesses of the house, under a couch or other inaccessible cranny. Mutt never seemed to be the same without his dog. He was a “dog handler” after all. His whole identity was stricken. This is why specialization is a very risky undertaking. Markets dry up. Funding disappears. Schools of literary criticism become passé.

Also storming the beach that day would be Snow Job, the arctic trooper.

Finally, as an early demonstration of my seeking the best in people, the white ninja Storm Shadow was also enlisted, despite his history of working with the enemy and the red cobra image right there on his uniform. Still, if you sent an army of ninjas to any war… Plus, in a rare reversal of Western mores and fashion, Storm Shadow wore white while his “good guy” counterpoint, Snake Eyes wore black.

I always felt mildly jealous of the kids on the G.I. Joe commercials. They would get to play with the coolest new figures and vehicles amongst the most awesomely exotic locales. Granted, what looked like a swampy landscape on the planet of Dagobah was in actuality a corner in some drafty television studio soundstage. But today I was going to be one of those kids. I would have miles of actual coastline, the wispy salty wind, the sand dunes and beach grass…all of it real.

∗ Applies only to Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman, who by all observational accounts was the model for the Rock n’ Roll action figure.

Pure, Simple Fantastic Part I.

2009-10-24T15:38:00.000-07:00

Pure, Simple, Fantastic

I.

There is a certain “schlupping” sound that it makes.

The schlup and the sound of friction, like when you rub your fingers along the outside of a balloon. That strange hybrid is exactly the sound you get when you’re a little kid, say five or six years old, and your soft, white thigh flesh sticks to the vinyl seat as you’re moving around, getting fidgety from a long car ride.

But then, who’s to say it’s a long car ride? Kid-minutes are roughly seventy times as long as adult minutes. And is the fact that it’s a long car ride even important? Does the back of your thigh make the same sound when it slides across the seat during a short car ride? Of course. But it’s MY story and I thought it was an important detail, so back off.

Dateline: Savannah, GA- The early 80s

My hometown isn’t just a song by Springsteen. It’s also an actual place. You can point to it on a globe or map. I remember Savannah being a lot like hell in that people pretty much resigned themselves to being hot and sweaty all the time. I lived there from the womb until about eleven years of age, and it snowed a grand total of once in those years. And by “snowed,” I mean the grass had some frosting at the tips of the blades until the morning sun evaporated it. So, we wore shorts a lot. Thus the shluppy, farty sound my legs made when they stuck to those utilitarian, tan bench seats.

But Savannah was also a lot like heaven. For one thing we had a car.

The legend of that first family car looms large in my memory/ imagination; as transportation of the masses should. This poop-brown 1976 Chevelle station wagon was the wondrous device that shifted the Stutzman clan from one world, with its requisite culture and expectations, (namely our house), to strange, exotic new worlds where all bets were off, like Burger King. Or on really long days, we might ride clear across town to the Hobby Shop so my oldest brother Mark could get some glue or just the right paint for the intricate airplane models he would build. At the time I thought my eldest brother was some kind of magician. I never really got to see the process involving directions in both Japanese and English and time spent waiting for the glue on the plastic parts to dry. I only saw cool airplanes hanging from the ceiling in battle position, held in place by clear thread.

Anyway, that station wagon was something. (I mean that in the “folksy” sense. As in “Man, that station wagon was something,” not “that station wagon had physical presence.") The most radical feature for my little-kid brain to process was the rear seat. It faced backwards! Don’t let the awesomeness of that concept escape you, dear reader. If you’re reading this you’re probably old enough to have become jaded to the beautiful world of kid concepts and the pure, the simple, the fantastic.

There’s something so delightful about traveling -moving- but not really knowing where to. Riding in that back seat looking out the tailgate at where you were, with someone else worried about the logistics of driving and figuring out where to go and how to get there and all that rigamarole; that was just the best. (Not to mention making faces at the other drivers. Even at that age, I got a sense of how hard those adults were trying to ignore us, my brothers and I, with our fingers at the corners of our mouths, stretching them out. The default response was to stare ahead, as if terrified by a thought.) And I am still enthralled when I see the odd train or bus or people-mover or what have you that allows a passenger to disengage from what’s coming up ahead.

So, logically Mark and my other brother Todd and I would fight over that back seat. In one of the cruelest design flaws, the builders or architects or other scientific-type responsible for that seat forgot to make it big enough to fit all three of the Stutzman boys. In fact, it could really only seat one of us comfortably, and two of us rather uncomfortably. Three of us? Forget it.

My parents must have enjoyed opening that tailgate to find, not a dead body like you would see in a mob movie or James Bond film, but a big lump of giggling boyhood. I know that would make me happy these days.

But in all honesty I have to say I enjoyed the times when I had that rear seat to myself. Much like Edgar Allen Poe, I think I might have had a devil looking over me as a child, silently, calmly watching over my bed at night. How else do you explain a child who enjoys solitude?

Well, you could also explain it by saying: “When you’ve got two other loud boys living in the same house, demanding attention, you start to crave time alone.”

That explanation sounds less grotesque…

An explanation

2009-10-24T15:29:00.001-07:00

A couple years ago I started working on a "fantastical memoir" type of thing to exercise my creative writing muscles. I'm going to start posting the fruits of those labors here. It has really just been a writing exercise in the "write SOMETHING every day" method of becoming a better writer. I'm not sure that approach works for me but it gives me something to post here on the old blog! (P.S. today marks my five year anniversary with this thing! Wow!)

These posts will be LARGELY unedited, mostly just a typed version of how the pen hit paper. What I'm saying here is that it's still really rough, I don't like a lot of it, and I haven't finished it. I still revisit it every now and then. But here's what I've got so far. Hope you enjoy some of it...

But before I get to that...

2009-10-19T15:22:00.001-07:00

The zeitgeist of conversation between me and a couple friends of late has been "The Album." We've been listening to some "classics" and talking about the album as an artform.

Which of course always comes around to discussion of the influential ones in your own life, regardless of(or at least not entirely dictated by)the likes of Rolling Stone, The Onion, Pitchfork Media or whatever critics tell you you should like.

So, not typically being a listmaker, I thought I would at last put my list together. This is roughly in order of preference, yet not very scientific and I feign very little critical detachment. But here are my 107 favorites, (because I can't narrow it down to just 100. In fact I thought of a couple more about three hours after sending this to my friend.) Anyway, these are the albums that have brought comfort, defined a season of life, forced me to sing along, to cry, and made me see life and music differently. I still thrill to see their album covers and enjoy listening to all of them.

Feel free to chasitise me for ommissions or gross miscalculations in ordering:

1. The Beatles Abbey Road
2. The Beatles The Beatles (White Album)
3. The Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
4. Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon
5. Radiohead OK Computer
6. Led Zeppelin ZOSO
7. King Crimson Discipline
8. Elvis Costello & the Attractions Imperial Bedroom
9. Pink Floyd The Wall
10. Paul McCartney Ram
11. Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here
12. Van Halen Van Halen
13. Jellyfish Spilt Milk
14. Frank Zappa The Grand Wazoo
15. Weezer Weezer(Blue)
16. Stereolab Dots & Loops
17. The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour
18. Adrian Belew Op Zop Too Wah
19. Wilco Sky Blue Sky
20. Genesis Foxtrot
21. Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream
22. The Beatles Revolver
23. The Beatles Rubber Soul
24. Ben Folds Rockin’ the Suburbs
25. Bob Dylan The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
26. The Beatles Help!
27. Garbage Version 2.0
28. Decemberists Castaways and Cutouts
29. Paul & Linda McCartney Band on the Run
30. They Might Be Giants Factory Showroom
31. The Zombies Odessey and Oracle
32. Rush Moving Pictures
33. XTC Nonsuch
34. Elvis Costello & the Attractions Armed Forces
35. Wilco A Ghost is Born
36. Fountains of Wayne Welcome Interstate Managers
37. The Cardigans Life
38. Dave Brubeck Quartet Time Out
39. Sixpence None the Richer Divine Discontent
40. Beck Sea Change
41. Sun Kil Moon Ghosts of the Great Highway
42. Wynton Marsalis Standard Time
43. Wynton Marsalis Think of One
44. REM Automatic for the People
45. Queen A Night at the Opera
46. Sheila Divine New Parade
47. Frank Zappa Hot Rats
48. Radiohead The Bends
49. Yes Close to the Edge
50. David Gray Flesh
51. REM Life’s Rich Pageant
52. Wilco Being There
53. Yes Going for the One
54. They Might Be Giants John Henry
55. Sixpence None the Richer Sixpence None the Richer
56. Genesis Nursery Cryme
57. The Who Who’s Next
58. Dave Matthews Band Before These Crowded Streets
59. The Police Synchronicity
60. King Crimson Three of a Perfect Pair
61. Genesis Wind & Wuthering
62. Brian Wilson Smile
63. Elvis Costello & Burt Bachrach Painted From Memory
64. Bob Dylan Time Out of Mind
65. XTC Apple Venus
66. Bloomsday Bloomsday EP
67. David Bowie The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
68. Wilco Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
69. Phish Billy Breathes
70. Coldplay A Rush of Blood to the Head
71. Rush Permanent Waves
72. Miles Davis Kind of Blue
73. Pedro the Lion It’s Hard to Find a Friend
74. U2 The Joshua Tree
75. Josh Rouse Dressed Up Like Nebraska
76. They Might Be Giants Flood
77. Led Zeppelin II
78. Radiohead Pablo Honey
79. Paul Simon Graceland
80. The Cardigans First Band on the Moon
81. Bob Marley & the Wailers Legend
82. Of Montreal Aldhils Arboretum
83. Pink Floyd Meddle
84. Dire Straits Brothers in Arms
85. Stereolab Sound-Dust
86. Fountains of Wayne Fountains of Wayne
87. Stevie Wonder Songs in the Key of Life
88. The Beach Boys Pet Sounds
89. The Beatles A Hard Day’s Night
90. The Beatles For Sale
91. King Crimson THRAK
92. MxPx Slowly Going the Way of the Buffalo
93. Red House Painters Songs for a Blue Guitar
94. Tom Petty Wildflowers
95. John Coltrane A Love Supreme
96. Portishead Live at the Roseland Ballroom
97. Ivy Apartment Life
98. High Llamas Hawaii
99. Jeff Buckley Grace
100. Tom Waits Rain Dogs
101. Elliott Smith XO
102. Metallica …And Justice for All
103. Old 97s Satellite Rides
104. Weezer Pinkerton
105. Blink 182 Enema of the State
106. Eric Clapton From the Cradle
107. Liz Phair Whitechocolatespaceegg

Stay With Me...

2009-10-18T20:21:00.001-07:00

I will have a pretty large update in the next couple days.
I'm going to be laying some creative stuff on you in the coming weeks.
Stay tuned for some prose-writing...

Change of Seasons and An Invitation to Witness Awe-Inspiring Glory (aka Mike finishing a race)

2009-10-05T09:20:00.000-07:00

Well friends, the changing of the seasons is bringing with it a change in focus for yours truly. I was a biking nut for the whole summer. With the purchase of a new bike in June (and a little spandex…largely against my will) and lots and lots of training miles I now feel totally immersed in cycling culture. Riding a bike has become one of my favorite ways to pass time.

But the time has come to go back to the activity that largely turned the tide for me over two or three years of massive weight loss—running.

Running is an equally interesting thing to decide to do. One of the best shirts I saw in the marathon said: “My sport is your sport’s punishment.” Through the whole process of dropping the lbs I had a love/hate relationship with the mere word “running.” For, the pace at which I was tripping around the lake and park could more accurately be described as a “jog.” “Running” is for skinny, fast people.

Here’s something that has me excited, though.

Somehow over the summer I’ve become accustomed to a more aerobic (as opposed to a “fat-burning”) workout. Consequently, over the last month I have been running much faster than I ever have in my life! So, I transition into this time of the year with new hope. I will be smashing my previous times in the two events I have coming up: Race for the Cure 5K this Saturday 10/10 and the Tulsa Run 15K on 10/31. (By the way, I would love to see people I know at the finish of these. Anybody wanna “Save the Boobies” or take a road-trip to Tulsa?)

Progress is addictive.

2009-09-29T11:11:00.001-07:00

The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite by David A. Kessler

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
If you struggle with overeating, you must keep one thing in mind when deciding to read this book: you MUST finish it! Otherwise don't start it!

For the first half of the book is pretty much filled with reasons why American people trying to gain control of their appetite routinely fail over and over, again and again, against a seemingly unconquerable enemy.

Backed with all kinds of research studies on what goes on in our brains when presented with foods we love (usually foods loaded with sugar, fat, and salt ad infinitum) Kessler is like a clanging symbol of behaviorist hopelessness. It's REALLY hard to resist these foods! And the fast food and chain restaurant industry has a vested interest in people failing. I found it to be scary the amount of chemistry that goes into concocting these hyperpalatable foods.

The second half of the book presents a little more hope in outlining some mental tricks in REPLACING the habituated behaviors of overeating terrible foods with other, (sometimes non-food-related), healthier behaviors.

So, in this book you get both the negative and positive aspects to viewing the human body and brain as a machine... It can learn procedures by which it can destroy itself or keep itself running at optimum efficiency and health.

As a former hopeless, unhealthy overeater I thoroughly enjoyed this book! (Even if the science got a little overwhelming.)

View all my reviews >>

2009-09-18T13:03:00.000-07:00

China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power by Rob Gifford

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
In this book NPR correspondent Rob Gifford offers a fascinating view of China’s past, present, and potential future. A twenty-year resident of the country, Gifford weaves together an enjoyably readable book that is equal parts travel journal, (the narrative thrust of the book recounts his two-month journey of Highway 312, China’s three-thousand mile equivalent to America’s Route 66) and political, economic, and spiritual history book.

Along the road, Gifford meets all kinds of interesting people, each one voicing their own hopes and struggles. As an interesting hybrid of “foreigner who speaks the language” the author deftly exposes these individual’s lives as demonstrative of the larger life of China as a whole-- an impossible, multi-cultural whole. Gifford’s China is hard to pin down, hard to define: at times too Western in its greed and environmentally- damaging technological progress and at times not Western enough, (see the country’s treatment of the ethnic minorities in Tibet and Muslim northwest.)

But it’s the people that are most fascinating. One of the more heart-rending passages about a karaoke bar prostitute:

“[…}there is a dangerous tendency for everything in modern China to be given an economic impetus, as though financial pressure is the only reason anyone ever does anything. We often fail to see that Chinese people are living, breathing, loving, hating individuals, who do things for complex psychological reasons, just like Westerners. And as Wu Yan sits talking about her life, her story doesn’t have that standard tone, which says, “I must do this or I won’t be able to eat.” She is slightly laconic, and cynical and angry.
“So why are you working here?” I eventually ask her.
There is a long pause.
“There was a boy…” She pauses again for a long time, rattling the dice in the cheap plastic cup. “Wo ting xihuan de…who I liked a lot.” She is looking at the floor.
“But he liked another girl.” She stops shaking the dice, then looks up at me with large, hurt eyes. There is a long silence as I try to compute what she is saying.
“So…you’re…doing this to punish him?...Or to punish…yourself?”
She doesn’t answer but reaches out her arm to me, the palm of her hand facing up. There are two jagged scars on her lower arm, as though her wrist had been cut. She looks angrily into my eyes.
“It’s difficult being a person isn’t it?” she says finally.
I look at her and nod slowly. She shakes the cup with the dice inside and slams it down on the glass table.

Coming to this book knowing pretty much nothing about the country, the author kept me in it the whole time. Great read!

View all my reviews >>

New Directions in Music Appreciation

2009-09-09T07:46:00.000-07:00

It was two or three years ago when I quit a band. When I think about those sad times, it’s often accompanied, strangely, by The Who.

In tears I had already told my compatriots that I was done. There was just one more show on the books. Just had to get through that one last hurdle- one last concert, and a life of freedom and promise awaited me.

And anytime I hear The Who’s album Who’s Next I am transported to that time of my life- the rush of things winding down, friendships entering into a new phase, the hope of time and ordinary concerns, the unknown. I was discovering the album for the first time the week of the show. Snatches of a lyric here and there would pierce me as I drove around that week, succinctly and sharply defining the moment.

“No one knows what it’s like \ To feel these feelings like I do…”

“No one bites back as hard on their anger\ None of my pain and woe can show through”

A wild drum fill here or a strange synthesizer sound there would somehow speak peace to my busy mind and heart.

It’s the strangest thing in the world to say. After all, this is rock n’ roll we’re talking about here.

But in Pete Townsend’s artistry, his collected oeuvre, you have the entire set of possible emotions—anger, rage, silliness, spiritual depth, love, skepticism, sadness, loneliness, lightness…Listening to this music reminded me: just as all of these things were possible for Pete Townsend to write about, they were possible for me to feel. If Pete was able to experience all these things and exist, so could I. Everything would be ok.

As the day of the show drew closer I had to routinely skip a song every time it came on just to be able to get through the night without breaking down: “The Song is Over,” which I guarantee is not about a guy leaving a band he was in for most of his adult life. It’s about a love relationship ending, but I knew it would have been too much to take at the time.

“After the show is finished,” I said to myself. “After I’ve packed up the guitars and amps for the last time. Then I can hear this song.”

If you’ve not heard this song I recommend you listen to it somehow, if only for that aching chorus.

The Song Is Over

The song is over
It's all behind me
I should have known it
She tried to find me

Our love is over
They're all ahead now
I've got to learn it
I've got to sing out

Chorus:
I'll sing my song to the wide open spaces
I'll sing my heart out to the infinite sea
I'll sing my visions to the sky high mountains
I'll sing my song to the free, to the free
I'll sing my song to the wide open spaces
I'll sing my heart out to the infinite sea
I'll sing my visions to the sky high mountains
I'll sing my song to the free, to the free

When I walked in through the door
Thought it was me I was looking for
She was the first song I ever sang
But it stopped as soon as it began

Our love is over
It's all behind me
They're all ahead now
Can't hope to find me

(Chorus)

This song is over
I'm left with only tears
I must remember
Even if it takes a million years

The song is over
The song is over

Excepting one note, pure and easy
Playing so free like a breath rippling by.

Let This Be a Lesson To You

2009-09-08T09:51:00.000-07:00

Last week I learned a lesson about bodies. It turns out my body’s “memory” is pretty short-term.

Having reached my two biking goals for the last three months (1) complete a century and (2) a sub-30 minute lap of Hefner, I decided there was no time like now to start adding running/jogging back into the mix so as to prepare for the Tulsa Run 15k at the end of October.

Let me present my stupid heresy and then I will present the result…

Proposition (what was in my head): “I typically bike for an hour, I should be ok if I run for that long. Back in the marathon training I was doing that kind of distance just about every day.”

Result: Soreness from hell! I mean like “hurts to get out of a chair and walk” soreness. I haven’t felt that bad since the three days after the marathon. (Happily I am mostly over it now as I write this.)

I had always heard that cycling and running are utilizing different sets of muscles, but thought that was mostly hooey. However, after this weekend’s debacle I am a believer. An hour on the bike is nothing. An hour running after three months off? Well, let’s just say I paid for it big-time.

It kind of sucks to feel like I’m starting over with the running, but this might turn out to be a good opportunity to unlearn bad habits, learn faster paces, etc. Like Charlie I am looking forward to braving the cooler temperatures, and come December and January or so, seeing the crowds thin out in the mornings.

Whatcha Listenin' To? (Special Billboard Edition)

2009-08-28T10:01:00.000-07:00

For those not in the know, Billboard is the organization that keeps track of chart data of popular and classical music, (music within a lot of genres, actually.) They publish this info in a fascinating weekly magazine. I say it’s fascinating because it so grotesquely reminds me of the business behind making music, getting it on the radio, etc. etc.

I’ve always found it strangely creepy to see the photos of insanely popular, beautiful pop divas and tattoo-ed gangsta rappers, and cowboy-hatted studly dudes, and mopey indie rockers, and past-their-prime dinosaur rockers making the state fair circuit…all of these kaleidoscopic performers and entertainers glad-handing the record label execs that pay the bills (perfectly tanned rich white guys in expensive suits) at press events. Those photos always seemed kind of out-of-whack somehow, as if the business were a kind of image-driven circus with out-of-touch Great Oz-type guys controlling it all.

When I worked at a music store in college, we used to consult the Billboard to try to translate when customers would come in looking for “this song I heard at the club” or “you know that song on the radio? It goes ‘doot doo doo…”

Billboard’s been around for awhile and the CDs they compile of each year’s big hits (along with the “Have a Nice Day” series) serve as a great document of what gooey, transient treats the culture was producing way back in the day. Well, our public library has a lot of these discs. And me being…well…me, I decided to start methodically working my way through these, having finished experiencing the 90 or so albums the library had from the Rolling Stone Top Albums of All Time.

The library’s collection of Billboard discs starts with the year of 1975. Here are some highlights so far:

1976-
It was an auspicious year, in that yours truly came on the scene.

“All By Myself” by Eric Carmen- I have an untested theory that the chorus of this song can be overlaid by Harry Nilsson’s “Without You.”

1977-
“Undercover Angel” by Alan O’Day- I’d never heard this song before. It’s one of the goofiest mish-mashes of pop/rock and over-the-top studio production I’ve heard in a while.

“Rich Girl” by Hall & Oates- I leave this little aural adventure of mine with a new appreciation for these guys as they had several hits in this time period. Fantastic funky Rhodes piano and triumphant B section.

“Don’t Leave Me This Way” by Thelma Houston- It took Baz Luhrman’s Moulin Rouge to really hear the darkness underneath the bubbliness. I like it when songs can trick you like that. (See also most of They Might Be Giants’ catalog written by John Linnell.)

1979-
“Heart of Glass” by Blondie- There are a scant few songs that even have a remote chance to get me to bob my head, much less dance. But this one is definitely on that list. Let’s be honest. A large part of this band’s appeal was how good Deborah Harry looked. But this is a very tightly-constructed disco-pop song, regardless of the band’s image. The melodies will stick in your head but they are delivered with such a lackadaisical sigh. Also of interest to me is the unconventional 4/4 bar followed by ¾ bar in the B section. Maybe I won’t be dancing to this after all…

“Just When I Needed You Most” by Randy Vanwarmer- I wonder what good ol’ Randy Vanwarmer is doing these days… The gentle falsetto vulnerability of this song is pretty creepy in my book. And I'm pretty sure I'm hearing an auto-harp solo in there too! I wonder why you don’t hear this kind of thing on the radio anymore.

1982-
“Eye in the Sky” by Alan Parsons Project- This is the best Pink Floyd song never written or recorded by Pink Floyd. Lyrically, it’s a thing of ambiguity. Is it about God or a creepy lover? You tell me. Also of interest are the extended chords which employ quite a bit of dissonance, but it’s all dressed up in such a comforting soft-rock kind of way, you don’t even notice the complexity of the harmony you’re hearing. This is probably my favorite song I’ve heard off of these Billboard discs so far.

1983-
This was apparently a schizophrenic year in music. You have Men at Work’s Australian version of The Police with “Down Under,” Eddy Grant’s Jamaican funk heard on “Electric Avenue,” Culture Club’s reggae on “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me” (probably deserving of an award or medal for “most times to repeat a refrain so as to avoid writing a verse,”) and the epic “best impression of a Meatloaf song by a female artist” in Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” And don’t forget Michael Cembello’s “Maniac.” And yet somehow the Stray Cats’ “Stray Cat Strut” is still an anomaly, even amidst such a mixed-up year.

More later…

A Nice Sunday Ride

2009-08-24T09:48:00.000-07:00

Midtown Coffee Ride
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Yesterday was a beautiful day. Here's a good way to spend a beautiful day: take a leisurely bike ride downtown, thrill at the 20 mph cruising speed as you descend the best hill on Shartel. Soak in that lonely, weekend feeling of tall, empty Sunday buiness buildings and relatively dead streets, normally chaotic and stressful during the week. Have a free cheeseburger (or two) at SchlegelFest, an outdoor party/bicycle-shop-perusal. Ride back home, smell the bakery as you blow past it.

Even better, do it with a couple friends and Life Is Good!

(I think we shall do this route again, for both Coffeeslingers AND Cuppies and Joe are within reach!)

Abandoned Ideas Volume 4

2009-08-18T10:26:00.000-07:00

Whenever the weather is bad I wind up having to spend some time at the gym. I like to see people there and look at their faces while they are pounding out miles on treadmills and elliptical machines, sweating it out on stationary bikes. As I look at them, I many times see the same faces and wonder “what keeps” them (me) at this?” What motivates us to spend our valuable time in this manner? Is it health? Mutual well-being? Stress-relief? Escaping feelings of guilt? Running away from bad habits? Pure enjoyment? A desire to improve at something? To look more conventionally attractive? Anyway, I look around at these familiar, yet anonymous faces and feel a strange camaraderie. We’re all WORKING for something.

And I got to thinking about that “work” part. Work is merely the expense of energy- burning calories. “What if,” I thought to myself, “we could find a way to harvest all of this energy we’re expelling in the name of fitness?”

What if the sum total of the mechanical energy I’m producing could be captured and stored by that stationary bike? And then sent on to a master collection point at the gym? And then multiply that by how many people use that one bike in one day. Multiply that by however many other bikes, treadmills, and weight machines are used in a day, week, month…Now multiply that by however many fitness centers there are in the country, the world! Whoah! There is your alternative energy source!

The Century (Full Report)

2009-08-10T13:17:00.000-07:00

Today I bring you a report of the second huge accomplishment of the year for yours truly.

Saturday was the cycling century and I finished that mofo! The course was basically from the Children’s Center in Bethany, west to Hinton, and back.

Common questions:
Did your butt hurt? Surprisingly, no.

Was it a race? No. It was an endurance ride, which means there were rest stops every 10-15 miles. Overall, these were the best rest stops I’ve seen with an event like this. The people working them were excited, helpful and they were well-stocked with powerade, water, snacks, medicines, etc.

How long did it take? Time on the bike was 5 hours and 54 minutes. Total time, including rest stops, was about 6.5 to 7 hours. I wound up averaging about a half mph lower than I wanted to.

How was it? I got off to a really fast start. I made a point to get up close to the front at the start, to try to avoid the mass of humanity and find the faster people to try to keep pace with them. This lasted for about the first 20 miles or so. I have found that the field tends to thin out after the first rest stop. And I got passed by a couple pretty disciplined pace lines, which I've yet to learn about, being fairly new and all.

There were two factors that made this ride difficult: the heat (at the end) and the wind. I chose this particular century because the course was largely east/west, banking on the fact that we typically get north-south winds in Oklahoma. In biking, crosswinds are easier to deal with. However, the wind was probably blowing 20-25 mph on Saturday, which made the two jaunts heading south just brutal.

And then, as the morning turned into afternoon and my body started to get mad at me, the temperature rose to the mid 90s. The last rest stop was my longest, as I was getting light-headed and cranky. It felt good to just sit and soak up those big winds blowing across the dusty plains outside of Yukon. I wanted to stay there for the rest of the day.

But I didn’t. I had a goal to meet and I was close enough to push through. The one bummer was that police support at the intersections was mostly a forgotten memory after the halfway point and cruising through Yukon, I and a handful of other people hit every damn red light! You would think a chance to rest would be welcome. It was not. For at every red light my body kept thinking “we’re done! Great!” But we weren’t done. In fact there were still a handful of hot miles to go. I was fading fast.

I finally reached the Children’s Center to one lone anonymous stranger’s half-hearted cheering and immediately found a shady spot on the lawn to collapse. I laid there for a good ten minutes, too tired to care about what I had just done, the muscles in my calves twitching. I guess my legs hadn’t gotten the message that we were done now.

Other than the weather there was one other unexpected difficulty for me on Saturday: fueling. In total I burned something in the neighborhood of 8000 calories doing this thing. Your body has to take in energy to continue as it’s burning at that rate. It’s usually not a problem for me. I’ll have a big breakfast, and take in granola bars and Gatorade to replenish every hour or so. Unfortunately the rest stops didn’t have Gatorade but had Powerade instead. I didn’t know this before Saturday, but Powerade + Heat do not mix well in my stomach. So, the last thing I wanted to do was eat. But like I said, I needed food for energy. Water alone will not cut it. So, I faded at the end because I ran out of gas, not motivation.

So, all in all, a tough day.

One interesting thing I am noticing, though… The residual toll was much tougher on my body when I did the marathon (a scant three and a half months ago.) After the marathon I was literally too sore to walk for about three days.

However, this time, I was ready to ride again the next day, feeling no pain or soreness. This could be due to the fact that I was MUCH more well-prepared for this event, having already done the goal distance plus a few more miles in training.

What’s next?

I plan to keep biking for the next month or so, since I love my new ride so much and to try to become a social creature again. Then I will switch over and try to learn how to run again for the Tulsa Run 15k in Tulsa at the end of October.

It’ll be nice to have Saturday mornings off for awhile!

2009-08-07T15:35:00.000-07:00

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a stirring book of unaffected beauty. The prose style is not futzed over. It's simple. Deceptively so. And Ishiguro is able to evoke the thoughts of a woman looking back over her childhood and early adulthood very convincingly. Nice trick for a male writer.

The other nice trick he pulls off is setting a wistful, evolving love story against the strange backdrop of a school with an unusual, mostly unspoken secret drama. (And that's all I'll reveal...)

I was sad at the end, both for plot reasons, but also because I would have to begin the search for another good, highly readable book.

View all my reviews >>

Hopefully not a bad omen...

2009-08-07T09:22:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the day! I shall be doing the 100 mile ride for Spin Your Wheels, benefitting the Children's Center in Bethany.

If all goes well, I should be finishing at the Center around 1:00 if you want to stop by and be amazed at the Triumph of the Will!

I'm not normally a superstitious type of fellow but I do like order and my routine, and this week has seemed to be out to rattle me.

It started out with a flat tire right before Wednesday's morning ride. After pumping it up again I was only able to get in 2/3 of the distance I wanted to cover that morning before it was going flat again. And Thursday morning's thunder and lightning show forced me to hit the stationary bike at the gym, which I hate. And then this morning's flat tire reappeared after setting out on what was supposed to be a nice, easy short ride. Unfortunately I had to walk the bike about 4.5 miles to get back to the car. My only consolation was: "at least this didn't happen tomorrow." (Fingers crossed.) So with a brand new tube, I will set out confidentally tomorrow morning.

Conditioning-wise, none of this is that big of a deal. You're supposed to taper off your weekly mileage before a big event anyway.

But mentally, I just feel off-kilter, having had to go with plan B and C against my will for the last three days of training.

Like I said- I like predictability and routine, especially the week going into the thing I've been training for literally for months.

This has not been that kind of week at all.

I don't subscribe to Netflix, but...

2009-08-06T13:31:00.000-07:00

Richard Corliss has written a curmudgeonly article in this week's Time called "Why Netflix Stinks" in which he bemoans the disappearance of his favorite corner video store called Kim's. I must say I was struck by the following observation:

Beyond the mail delays and the botched orders, the lack of human interaction is the big problem with Netflix and its cyber-ilk. Thanks to the Internet, we can now do nearly everything- working, shopping, movie-going, social networking, having sex- on one machine at home. We're becoming a society of shut-ins. We deprive ourselves of exercise, even if it's just a stroll around the mall, until we're the shape of those blobby people in WALL*E. and we deny ourselves the random epiphanies of human contact.

(While I agree with the thought and am determined to not become as insular as he suggests, I find it amusing that one of his main illustrations was from a movie!)

I don't want to be a shut-in! I want to LIVE life!

Stop reading this and go outside and INTERACT with someone right now!

This Friday's Ride

2009-07-28T19:30:00.001-07:00

mustang to chicksha
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I'll be doing this bike ride on Friday morning, (planning to start around 7), if you wanna come share some miles.

I messed up on it last week and ended up riding an extra 35 miles. I won't do that this time!

Anyway, it's not too hilly and has luxuriously wide shoulders for most of it.

The Satanic Verses and the Art (?) of Provocation

2009-07-21T16:30:00.000-07:00

I recently struggled through Salman Rushdie’s infamous book The Satanic Verses. It was a little over 600 pages of gobbledy-gook alternatingly about two plane-wreck-survivors-turned-angel-and-demon-turned-back-into-regular-guys, an obvious re-working of the early days of the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), a butterfly-eating prophetess leading a village to a possible watery grave in the Arabian Sea, and a bunch of other stuff that I barely remember, which may or may not have incited any brain activity in the first place.

This was a complicated book that reminded me how much of an insulated dumb American I am.

Of course, when it came out, this book infuriated influential Muslims to the point that they wanted the author dead. Officially. As in “if you know where the author is hiding and don’t think you have the gumption or wherewithal to kill him, let us know. We’ll find someone who will kill him.”

This all got me to thinking about art and the goals with which one goes about creating art. I’m going to make a pretty big assumption from the outset- namely, that Rushdie knew that some ideas in the novel would upset some Conservative people of the Muslim faith. You don’t title your book after a possibly heretical story of errantism in the Qur’an and expect everything to be peachy keen. My favorite example of a similar action in the Western World would be if I were to write a book called The Whorish Wife of Jesus. (Of course, my book would be about The Church, “the Bride of Christ,” so it would be ok. Heh.) Nor do you talk about the wives of the Prophet and prostitutes in the same breath and expect there to be no discussion among the faithful.

Rushdie is obviously no idiot. Even though I’m kind of surprised that the literary critics and English teachers of the day didn’t issue a fatwa against him for creating such an incoherent mess of a book, I can readily admit that he obviously has an extensive body of knowledge serving as the inkwell in which he dips his pen.

If Rushdie knew that people of the Islamic faith would have problems with some of these elements, then surely at least one of his goals was to provoke these folks. We sometimes soften this impulse by using language like “I wrote this to make people think…to question…to take their faith seriously, etc.” (see also Kevin Smith’s Dogma.)

But I am now wondering: is provocation a noble goal for an artist? Does art need to be noble? Does art need anything at all? (I personally can’t escape the notion that art should uplift us out of negative states- of intolerance, of hopelessness, of base, cruel lives. I’m kind of old school that way and I also realize how subjective the notion is. So I’m not married to it.)

Another question- is a mere exercise in the freedom of speech necessarily “art?” For instance, when whoever it was that put the crucifix in urine and called it an artistic utterance did their thing, was the obvious shock and outrage that resulted a valid, complete appreciation of the creation? I don’t know.

Here’s the thing. Sometimes a guy like Rushdie wants to encourage thought and critique of ideas and open up the windows and let in some fresh air with provocative material. But as the publication of the Verses showed, the result can sometimes be the exact opposite of his intentions. What happened instead? An influential cleric denounced the work as offensive, therefore well-meaning people of faith didn’t read the book, denounced it and the author as offensive (possibly evil) and demanded his life. The intended audience burned the book, bombed bookstores, et cetera, et cetera. So much for discussion and honest critique of one’s cherished ideas.

No, trenches were dug even deeper. Instead of fresh air and productive discourse, the same sides just retreat further away from each other.

It seems to me that human nature has always been thus and thus it shall ever be.

What say you?

Norman Conquest

2009-07-20T15:12:00.000-07:00

Saturday’s long ride was a nice change of pace.

I was convinced by a friend at work to do The Norman Conquest- a benefit ride for the JD McCarthy Center- the longest distance being a 66 mile ride in and around Norman that claimed on the website to be “VERY hilly.”

They weren’t kidding. While, training-plan-wise, I wanted to get in a few more miles than 66 on Saturday, the elevation changes MORE than made up for it since I do not normally train on those kinds of grades. What a workout! A bunch of steep hills, and rolling country roads made for very interesting terrain. It’s interesting to do that kind of ride with other people. There isn’t a lot of talking. It’s kind of a ghostly quiet, the only sound you hear being a bunch of clicks as people shift at roughly the same time.

And as you probably know, the weather on Saturday morning was fantastic! Not hot, not windy. Unlike, I don’t know, the last three months?!

After averaging 2 mph better than I expected to, (long descents and being around other people certainly helps), I feel like the relatively flat 100 mile ride in three weeks shall be no problem.

Bring it on!

Tongue Twisters

2009-07-16T10:02:00.000-07:00

While entering doctors' information into a database I have created some tongue twisters in my head. You will notice an overall theme. They all involve languages spoken by one doctor in particular.

Say the following phrases to yourself as ridiculously quickly as possible. You might find that they have a pleasant ring to them:

Spanish Spinach- spanish spinach spanish spinach spanish spinach spanish spinach spanish spinach spanish spinach spanish spinach spanish spinach spanish spinach spanish spinach spanish spinach spanish spinach

Urdu Underwear- urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear

Hindi Hyundai- hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai

Terrible Arabic- terrible arabic terrible arabic terrible arabic terrible arabic terrible arabic terrible arabic terrible arabic terrible arabic terrible arabic terrible arabic terrible arabic terrible arabic terrible arabic terrible arabic

Last Saturday's Ride

2009-07-14T13:34:00.001-07:00

"How was it?"

It wound up being 76 miles.

I'm not going to lie...76 solitary miles are tough.

Almost 5 hours of myself, my mind, my bike and that's about it.

The relatively short section where I wasn't sharing the road with cars was mercifully broken up with some music, but it didn't last for very long.

Turns out I need people.

Why wasn't this an issue with running? Probably because I could have my tunes for the whole time, I suppose.

Friends of the blog--if you own a bike and haven't forgotten how to ride it, please consider getting up early on a Saturday soon and breaking up some of the monotony with me!

This Saturday's Ride...

2009-07-09T06:52:00.000-07:00

7/11/09 Route
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I'll be biking this 74 miles on Saturday if anyone wants to ride along for some of the miles. Overholser and Hefner are pretty popular legs. But if you want something more challenging, the early hills in Yukon will make for a pretty good workout, [and a hellacious workout if the wind is up.:-)]

I'll be rolling out at 6 am and I'll have my phone with me if you want to synchronize.

Abondoned Ideas Volume 3

2009-07-07T10:30:00.000-07:00

Back in the days when I was in the band Grandpa Griffith I had a fleeting glimpse of marketing genius.

Some background: When you self-finance an album, it actually costs about the same amount of money to make 1000 copies of your album as it does to make 500 copies. You wind up with boxes and boxes of CDs that, unless you're Kid Rock, will probably remain unsold, resting very safely in your closet for the rest of your life.

(If I ever move out of my house to another one at some point in the next two to sixty years, I will have to face a pretty big decision--namely, do I even bother to move all of these boxes of _Electric Scooter Holiday Blowout_ and _Jay_? Maybe I should place them on the curb for the garbagemen or leave them in the closet for the next homeowner or renter to discover, like a rare archaeological find...)

Back in the day, I thought a good way of selling the album, (besides the tried-and-true hard work of playing a lot of shows and developing an audience, etc.), would be to take a cue from the Girl Scouts and sell them like so many boxes of thin mints.

Stake a claim by a busy roadway, (I always had the corner of NW Expressway and Meridian in my head), make some signs and play an all-day marathon concert to draw drivers' attention.

Those CDs would sell like Straford Peaches! In my head, at least.

A Pretty Good Way to Start the Day...

2009-06-30T07:47:00.000-07:00

And now I present to you the results from my latest blood draw with notes from the doctor and nurse...

My New Road Bike!

2009-06-28T21:20:00.001-07:00

I recently (i.e. since the marathon in April) started training for my first bicycle century--100 mile ride. As of yesterday, here is the bike I'm going to do it on--a 2008 Giant OCR C3! I've put 82 miles on it in the last day and a half.

Upgrades over my other bike (the flat bar road bike which I shall now use exclusively for the daily commute to work):
-5 lbs lighter
- clipless pedals
- a more aerodynamic riding position

Life is good!

Abondoned Ideas Volume 2

2009-06-25T14:36:00.000-07:00

For all of the video-game-designing readers that might be out there, I offer the following concept free of charge.

The name of the game in my head is Ted Nugent's Rock n' Roll Safari.

For those that don't know-- Ted Nugent, also known as "The Motor City Madman," was a rock n' roll guitarist and bandleader in the 70s and 80s. Ever heard the song "Cat Scratch Fever?" "Stranglehold?" Ever heard of the early 90s band Damn Yankees? That's him shredding on the guitar. Ted is also a vocal conservative political voice, a gun nut, avid hunter and sportsman. Pretty weird dude.

In my head, the game was a first person shoot em up type a la Halo or Wolfenstein 3D. (Remember that one? I played it obsessively in my early college days!) Endorsed by Ted Nugent, it would feature shooting up animals in a variety of environments: the African Plains, the swamps of the Southern United States, the Rocky Mountains, outer space? That's the "safari" part. The "rock n' roll" part was originally that it would just feature a sweet awesome soundtrack.

But now, since the invention of Rock Band, I have rethought it. I think that the plastic guitars should be involved somehow. Maybe equate the guitar playing to taking the lives of animals? Like, if you get so many notes correct in a row, the guitar shoots a zebra on the screen? I don't know.

That's about as far as I got before abandoning the idea.

A Month of Sundays Part VII

2009-06-15T16:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Sunday, which has meant a new church experience as of late.

Against my better judgment I went to a friend’s church. (Why “against my better judgment?” Well, what if at the end of the service all I could think to say is “Dude, that was weird!” I’m not looking to be in the business of offending people. Better to avoid the possibility, I thought.)

Anyway, from what I could tell it was non-denominational. An 11:00 start time is absolutely perverse, but I have dealt with that in other posts already. This was the second service of the day and was one of those “multiple campus”-type churches.

My friend Joe plays guitar. I really got more out of watching him do his thing during the music than anything else. There were about 25-30 people in attendance, which made the high-energy rock band and dual screens showing video of the musicians and singers feel a little superfluous. I felt like I was attending the “little mega-church that could.” Perhaps the earlier service was a bit larger.

Things I liked: I like walking up to a building and someone opening a door for me and saying hello. Bonus points when their skin is a different color than mine. That was one thing I noticed about this group of young-ish (ranging from 10- late 40s in age): they weren’t all pasty white like me.

The music was the sound of “contemporary praise and worship,” which means rock drums, electric bass, acoustic guitar and Joe doing his best impression of The Edge from U2. As I watched these people up front, leading worship, singing with eyes closed, hands lifted, dramatic and all-- I wanted so badly to feel the same feelings…to tap into whatever it is that they apparently are tapped into. But even more than that, I wanted even more badly to believe that these people were truly in the moment like they seemed to be.

Is it really possible to be this excited?

Is it not just a conjurer’s trick? (I spent many years in a band. I know that the best way to invoke a response from people was usually to “fake” that emotion yourself. Move around to make people want to move around. Thrash about to make your audience want to thrash about.) Does praising God through music work the same way? Through the power of suggestion? “Act ecstatic or reverent to elicit the same response?” I hope not!

I don’t know if there is a reason behind it or not, but I noticed that the band played improvisationally behind announcements at a couple points, which proved to be an exercise in focus for me. My ear naturally gravitates toward musical sound. (This is why I sometimes fade in and out of conversations at restaurants or anywhere else there is "background music." If you have experienced this weird quirk of mine...now you know why at least.)

Things got weird for me after the musical time. The sermon or message was delivered on the giant screens, a video I presume. As I listened to the middle-aged guy talk about change and the gospel, wondering where he actually was, I had an argument with myself inside my head:

“Mike, this is really weird. There’s this talking head up there, speaking authoritatively and every now and then he asks people to repeat. As if he can hear them. It’s like George Orwell. Institutionalized passivity. The Great Oz.”

“I know it seems weird, Mike, but this is how many, many people do ‘church’ now. Anyway, it’s really not all that different than listening to a live, in-person speaker. It’s not like you’re interacting with a pastor when they’re delivering a sermon anyway. For that you need to go to an African American church!”

After basically watching TV with these folks for what seemed too long, (I find that I get antsy more frequently with my new active lifestyle), it was time for the response, which seems to always come down to deciding to be a Christian of some sort.

After that were some amazingly well-produced, high-energy videos promoting upcoming events involving the other “campuses” throughout the city and we were dismissed to the sound of funky music from the band.

A Month of Sundays Part VI

2009-06-08T15:58:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I visited another church.

This time it was different, though. The other times I went to churches I had never been to before. This time I decided to do a Thomas Wolfe-ian experiment and visited my first childhood church experience- the Lutheran church. Unable to go back to Savannah, Georgia and recreate my ABSOLUTE first church memory, (getting yelled at by a lady for running around and playing hide-and-seek in a darkened church sanctuary!) I visited the little Lutheran church that we went to for about three years off and on when my family first moved to Oklahoma back when I was in fifth grade.

Childhood is obviously a powerful time for people- all kinds of new experiences, neural connections being formed in the brain, new habits unrolling, a worldview shaping, etc. And the idea of God and church being thrown into the mix at this time? Pretty overwhelming when you look back!

And “look back” I did. Since I had insider knowledge I realized that some things don’t change much. The building and grounds are all largely the same- four walls, a steeple and a parking lot surrounded by a lot of land. Over the last twenty or so years this church never built on an additional wing, never added services or offered choices of worship styles to accommodate an influx of new people or made any of the changes typical of a “successful” church. They still recite the Divine Order of Worship, (I can still sing the tunes in my head), they still sing every verse on hymns and stand on the last one. They may have switched out more comfortable chairs for the wooden pews and gotten a new pastor, lost some of their folks to old age and the regular movements of life, and Lord knows I’ve changed since my junior high years, but Sunday felt like I had travelled back in time.

The strange thing was that there were still some older people left who remembered the thirteen year old version of me, which I didn’t expect.
“How are your mom and brother Todd?”
“Where is your mom now?”
“Are you living here?”
“You used to play the guitar…”

The best line I heard... when I said that I have a church family of Nazarenes here in town, a lady slyly said “They’re good…but we’re better!”

I really wonder how a church like that has survived through the generations. There were about 50 people present in that sanctuary (which seemed so much larger to my shy, childhood brain.) The average age was the oldest I’ve seen yet, probably in the mid to late sixties (probably due to the fact that the church is very close to a couple retirement communities), with a handful of children present.

Let me speak for a moment in crass commercial language. How does a church like this compete in what is unfortunately a marketplace? In the last few weeks I’ve seen what draws the young and hip- the excitement and energy. I’ve also seen the church situations where one can advance in social standing by immersing themselves into a larger pool of like-minded folks. This unassuming building, this small group of folks, can offer neither of those two things.

I looked around, wondering what has kept these people together through those changing tides and times? The couple young mothers with their noisy kids sharing the same air as octogenarian choir members...what has kept this thing alive? If I were indeed writing a book I would have interviewed some of these folks and gotten some of their stories.

So, what was the service like?

Lutheran worship is by the book. Literally. Everything is written out as if the congregation and pastor were speaking the lines of a play, (“the most boring play ever written,” if you asked some folks.)

A Diversion:“Thy and My”
One important note on theology and memory: There is a point in the liturgy where you are supposed to sing “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation.” Turns out I remembered the tune correctly over these years but the words slightly incorrectly “…the joy of MY salvation.” That’s a big difference, theologically-speaking, contained in less than a syllable: God’s salvation vs. My salvation. Hopefully God has not been offended over the years for my incorrect thoughts!

There were some very strange feelings welling up in me. “This used to feel so normal, so routine.” No longer. I’ve already discussed my problems with reading things aloud, even if they have had been passed down over hundreds of years. And then there were the silences- waiting for people to walk from the back of the room to the front to read the day’s scriptures, waiting for the pastor to walk from the altar to the back to sing with the choir, and then back, the un-polished-ness of it-- the silences were brutal. I realized for better or worse, that I am used to a pretty well-oiled machine of continuity in church services.

I also realized how hard these people are working to make even this simple worship service happen. Go to a larger church with some “professionals” around and you can hide or blend in and go months or years without anyone asking anything from you. Not so in a church this size. (Within five minutes after the service I was recruited to play guitar!)

Again I am left with questions: why would someone engage in this activity on a Sunday morning? Is it a convenient, regular meeting place and time for your friends and support network? Is there something to the liturgy or the act of performing the liturgy? Is it just what they’ve always done? Is it the sermon? The hymns?

I shall continue to think on it…

"Admit That the Waters Around You Have Grown"

2009-06-05T09:27:00.000-07:00

I was at the grocery store the other day and heard the absolute classic (and still very much relevant) Bob Dylan song “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” It was shocking to hear a work of prophetic importance and depth in that context: strolling through the pasta isle.

Why is that, I wonder?

Grocery store music probably sounds a lot like it did twenty or thirty years ago. In fact, most of the stuff that serves as background music at Crest and Buy for Less, (my two primary haunts) was released in the late 70s or 80s. Interspersed among that faire might be a Backstreet Boys or Celine Dion ballad that takes me back to junior high bus rides.

I’m sure there have been all kinds of research studies performed to determine the exact types of musical elements that make people want to purchase more stuff. Apparently unobtrusive pop music performed well in those tests, for I hear an awful lot of comforting, numbing sounds whenever I’m buying food. (Strangely, though, the music that makes you want to buy food apparently is not the same kind that makes you want to buy pants. To buy pants in a department store, you need actual muzak versions of hits without vocals.)

But then there was Bob Dylan!

I like living in a world where I can be surprised like that.

A Month of Sundays Part V

2009-06-02T10:33:00.000-07:00

So, Sunday morning turned out to be an experience EXACTLY like what I was looking for when I set off on this little experiment of mine. I went to a Divine Liturgy service at a Christian Orthodox church and it was something totally different!

I’m not going to even fake like I know the ins and outs of Orthodoxy and their theology and history and branches and all that hoohaw. Those kinds of academic minutiae become less significant to me with every passing year anyway.

Here’s what I can tell you. Yesterday was pretty much the exact opposite of what I witnessed the week before at the mega-church. When I walked in the door I was overwhelmed by the art in the sanctuary. It was all over the place—iconography. I did enough research on the internet beforehand to know that you are not supposed to talk upon entering the church. I saw a guy silently shush! some whispering people in the atrium area as I was getting my bearings.

Looking into the sanctuary I saw priests in robes, I heard what sounded like cantilation coming from one corner of the sanctuary, (cantilation: you know how in movies that take place in the middle east, there is that “foreign” sounding singing going on? Or in movies where a kid has to sing for his bar mitzvah? Kinda sounds like that…) a platform and then behind it another room containing an altar in a “holiest-of-holies” kind of configuration where the priests and altar boys hung out. On the left was a choir.

I found a place to sit just in time to stand up and this thing was off and running and I was pretty much lost in space and time for the next hour and a half or so, never knowing when to sit or stand or cross myself. I just watched a family in front of me who really seemed to know what was going on. The dad sprang up out of his seat when the time came to stand and we got quite a workout through the duration of the service.

The liturgy was printed out and it was in English, but here’s the thing—it was sung! And these weren’t strophic “songs” (i.e. verse, chorus, etc.) where you could catch on with the repeats. This was more like chant. So, even if I did know where we were in the service, which wasn’t guaranteed, I had no chance of participating, having not had the tunes ingrained in my head since childhood as I’m sure some people present had. (And even if I had grown up with the tunes I still would have struggled to participate since I somehow managed to sit in front of two of the most tone deaf women I’ve ever heard! It was like I had two devils sitting on my shoulders, each one determined to distract me from the beautiful sound of the choir leading the congregation!)

After the lengthy time of call and response type stuff, one of the official dudes in robes read an epistle, the Gospel text was sung (!) and then there was a short homily delivered by a guy looking like one of the Byzantine paintings come alive—lanky with a short beard…His message was about the unity of Christians—pretty abstract stuff about how all Christians are unified by the name of Christ, how it’s a symbol of God’s character and how to find God’s plan for your dating life (just kidding about that last part.)

Then, a really interesting thing happened at communion time. This is when I really lost track of what was going on. Basically all of the “official” guys in robes paraded from the altar with the bread and cup and banners and cross and went to the back of the room and then back to the altar, signifying (I hope) the love of God shed abroad to all the world.

In preparation for the communion, the choir was singing, priests were praying, there was incense slung, all these voices over one another. It’s funny to me that this was just as overwhelming to my senses as the loud drums and rock spectacle from the week before.

At this point I might as well talk about the music and other aesthetic matters. The music I heard in this service was probably many hundreds of years old and its models were probably close to a thousand years old. There were no instruments played, other than the human voice. I also noticed that there was no “us and them,” no musicians and an audience watching. It really felt more like one big choir, some people knowing the music better than others. The choir was more of a device to keep everybody in the same key. The melodies employed ancient modes (different from those used in the Catholic church) that bring to mind deserts of the Middle East and time. It is foreign to my musical experience and probably the experience of most Americans outside of the Orthodox community.

Which I found kind of cool.

This was not the sound of trying to make the Gospel hip or “relevant” through catchy pop music or emotional string pulling. People in some churches get up in arms about how out of date hymns are because they were written in the 1800s. Well, go back in time another, I don’t know, 400, 500 years? and place yourself in a non-Anglo Saxon culture. That’s the musical scene we’re talking about here. Its irrelevance to pop culture, and even to regular life was strangely attractive to me. To me it was the sound of people doing what they have done as a worship practice for centuries. That’s deep.

And then there were the paintings covering the entire, beautiful room. Icons of Bible stories and sad-eyed saints with circles behind their heads depicting halos and skinny, six-pack abs Jesus. Why do saints never smile? There was writing in both English and Greek? maybe Arabic? Visually, it was all quite beautiful to me, and I’m sure all of my head-tilting and golly-gee gawking at the ceiling and walls and stained glass made it clear I was a visitor.

Speaking of which, come communion time, I know enough to realize that when visiting a church it’s safest to assume that I am not invited to the Lord’s Supper. The guy to my left was invited and when he came back, he slipped me a piece of bread! Now, I don’t know how regular of a gesture that is in a church like this, but that small, silent act by a complete stranger was very meaningful to me. Here I was an outsider. Here he was- an insider, bringing me back a piece of the love of God as he knew it. I like that.

After all the rows had been served, there were a few announcements, just like at any church, and they moved to the ending bit, dismissed by rows to approach the altar, kiss a handheld cross and the priest’s hand and file out. Which I assumed was similar to how other churches shake hands with the pastor on the way out.

But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it! Mike Stutzman kisses the hand of no one, priestly garb or no! :-) I tried to summon the courage to do something so far out of my comfort zone, but failed. I watched each row file down there, hoping to see just one person merely pass by, or just kiss the cross, which would give me tacit permission to do likewise but wound up leaving into the hot, bright noon time sun, still curious about what I had just experienced.

A Month of Sundays Part IV

2009-05-26T15:41:00.000-07:00

“Congratulations on your decision to commit your life to Christ! Here’s what’s next:
-Fill out this card
-Pick up your What’s Next Kit today”

So, on Sunday I went directly into the belly of the beast (according to some friends) and attended a service, no an “experience,” at one of the local “.tv” versions of church.

I know. I know. I know.

“Consumerism.” “Plastic.” “Fake.” “Watered down.” “Marketing.”

I’ve heard/read just about every bit of vitriol people have to spew against mega-churches. Luckily, since I’m not out looking for the “ideal church” and defending it, but rather out looking for new, unique experiences for myself I feel absolutely no need to join in the raging arguments.

So, with that in mind, some observations: Once again, crossing the threshold of an unfamiliar church, not knowing anyone is a little bit of a mental battle. But I walked in to a giant cavernous space which was merely the “coffee” and hawk-the-programs-and-services area. Even though I was a little early, the idea of mulling about in that area was unappealing to me so I went in and found a seat in what took the place of a “sanctuary,” feeling more like a concert hall.

As this was one of four services that day, I expected everything to run like German clockwork. Get ‘em in and out. And I was right.

After an introductory rock-out song, the place went dark and the “praise and worship” time started straight up at 10:00. I got the impression that this block of time is one of the big draws of this kind of church. Clearly lots of behind the scenes time, energy and money had to be poured in to the process of making this happen. It was loud. High energy. Lights. Smoke machine. Distorted guitar and big, busy drums. “Give it up for Jesus” was said more than once. And behind the words on the screens was some sort of digital milky white shape floating through space. So, pretty much a typical Sunday morning for yours truly! [The preceeding sentence is to be read with sarcasm.]

I listened to the music with a bit of jealousy: everyone on in-ear monitoring and live sound production on par with what you’d expect to hear at any kind of touring band’s concert—all kinds of digital delays on the voices and drum loops, etc. All very slick and polished. If anyone around me was singing along it was impossible to hear them. Musically, this was the sound of people who are paid to rehearse, not the sound of people who volunteer their time. Like I said, as a musician I was a tad jealous. That’s a pretty posh gig: being able to hear yourself on fancy equipment and play music that, let’s be honest here, doesn’t require much in the way of technique. But the really interesting thing I noticed, as I looked around at those assembled: mostly hip-looking 16-30 year olds, was that a lot of them looked just as bored and distracted as the 16-30 year olds I’m used to seeing. Amongst all the lights? The pounding subs? The smoke? Still bored? Of course, there were also the folks for whom this kind of music (or more importantly these words, I presume) really resonate. They were the “jump up and down and raise your hands”-type of folks.

So, high-energy, rock n’ roll show…check.

The only things left to do to call it church after that were deliver a message and invite people to become Christian or more Christian or Christian again or Godly or who knows what it is that people have in their heads at those invitation moments?

One other little observation-- as the official people spoke about the goings-on during the week and in the future, everything was “awesome.” As in “This concert/evangelical event is going to be ‘awesome.’” “That small group activity is ‘awesome.’” If everything is awesome, NOTHING is truly awesome I thought to myself.

After the official videotaped “blessing” from the great Oz, we were off and running with the teaching moment. The message, delivered by a pretty young (I’m thinking late 20s to mid-30s) hip-looking guy, in jeans and designer T-shirt, was flawless as far as presentation technique is concerned. He didn’t use big, difficult words, used humor and examples from television and was an energetic speaker.

But as I listened to the topic “The Power of Prayer” I must confess I felt like I was being tricked a little bit. It seemed that in preparation, the message was put together with some general points: “Prayer is effective when it is X, Y, and Z” and then the supporting scriptures sought out. This type of teaching is one of the big criticisms I have heard of this and other mega-churches but I was more surprised by the underlying assumption of the message, namely that prayer is the method by which you get the things out of God that you need/ want for yourself: to conceive a child, a mate, etc.

True confession time. I don’t pray. Ever since I was a child I have had the assumption that if my creator is up there or out there or in here or wherever, then God knows what I need/want before I tell Him about it. And I don’t see much use in reminding myself of these needs and wants. I’ve been trying to focus on the overabundance of good in my life, not the lack of niggling things that would make it “perfect.” As I’ve always heard, “ ‘Better’ is the enemy of ‘good.” Of course, this leaves out the state of the world and others, which I’ll bet God knows about as well. But it surely wouldn’t be a bad thing if I were more mindful of the world outside of me and mine.

After the message was the requisite time of invitation to make a change and raise your hand with atmospheric, dreamy synth music playing in the background.

After that there’s nothing else left to do, apparently. We were dismissed and I checked my watch as I walked out the door. 11:00 EXACTLY.

Another realization I had during this time was that I’m afraid this project of mine is going to prove useless. What can you really know about a group of people by how they worship God for an hour or two on a Sunday morning? In that room were probably three hundred people. Three hundred stories, three hundred collections of successes and failures, cruelties and compassions. THOSE stories are the identity of the people of God for me. The rest-- musical choices, choir robes or lack thereof, preaching, prayers—those are just window dressing.

Right now I know this much. I’m not looking for an “awesome” hour of holy goose bumps or an hour of intelligent, Biblically-correct interpretations of reality or an hour to “recharge the batteries.” I’m starting to think that the things I want from a church are generally what EVERYONE (who isn’t a psychopath) wants from life, regardless of God talk: to love and to be loved. [Which, yes, I have largely known for the last 13 years…]

So, a big question I now ask myself is--"What place does a worship service have with respect to this perceived need?"

After church #3 it appears I’m still no further along than when I started!

2009-05-20T10:06:00.001-07:00

I Love You, Beth Cooper by Larry Doyle

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
As I was reading this humorous, sometimes clever take on high school life, I often thought: "why isn't this a movie?" especially as it bears a striking resemblance in form to the movie "Superbad." And then today I read that it is coming out as a motion picture in a couple months.

It's a fast read, a story of one incredible night in the life of a couple geek-ish senior boys and their unbelievable penetration of cool high school elite society.

Although the author unapologetically deals with cliche characters: the jock, cheerleader, nerd, etc. it is apparent which world was most familiar to Him when he suffered through those years.

A very funny, quick read.

View all my reviews.

A Working Class Hero is Something to Be

2009-05-15T08:52:00.001-07:00

Nancy Gibbs has a great essay in this week's Time magazine called "Do-It-Yourself Heroes" where she discusses three regular people who have been catapulted to hero status in the media as of late: Captain (Sully) Sullenberger, Captain Richard Phillips (the guy who offered himself up to pirates), and Susan Boyle, the English Youtube singer-lady.

Best passage:
"It's so much better to discover that Superman could be anyone; that everywhere you look, there are hidden reserves of majesty and honor and genius and luck. [emphasis mine.] The stories wouldn't have worked if Susan Boyle had been a yuppie barrister or Phillips a SEAL himself. Their normality gives them wings."

Happy Friday, everyone!

A Month of Sundays Part III

2009-05-11T16:36:00.000-07:00

The tour amongst the devout continued yesterday morning. Once again I marveled at how late church starts for a visiting person. (Granted, as of now, I have no plans to attempt Sunday School at these places, which would admittedly push the start times up an hour or so), but a relatively leisurely morning has been the best benefit of these experiments thus far. I went to the city’s most notoriously political, liberal Congregational United Church of Christ (whatever that means) service on Mother’s Day and it was quite an eye opener, intellectually-speaking.

Size: I’d say probably in the 300-400 range? [Caveat: I am horrible at judging numbers of people. My markers are my living room, which can contain about 8 people and Owen Stadium, which can hold 75,000. Any groups larger or smaller than that and I get overwhelmed by estimates.]

Service style: Kinda old-school—featuring hymns, a little bit of the “written out prayer” and “responsive reading,” sermon, end. The highlight for me was a focusing device which I had never heard of: the singing bowl. It’s basically a handheld, resonating bell that was struck with a mallet a few times and was VERY effective for yours truly to slow down his mind and adopt a less critical, analytical mindset and enter into a more trancelike, prayerful, reflective, reverent state. Listening to the oscillating overtones slowly devolve to silence was a beautiful, sparse moment for me. It turns out that I’m the kind of guy who craves silence. I could go on and on about how much our culture fears silence and blah blah blah. I won’t.

The People: this group of folks trended about 10-20 years older than the gathering at the last church I visited. Still, well-dressed and pasty white.

Unlike last time, I did have one exchange with another human. I present the drama in its entirety for you right now:

Me: "Is this seat saved?"
Guy about my age, with two kids: "Nah. No, of course not....saved it for you!"
Me: "Well, all right!"
-THE END-

The Sermon: I don’t imagine anyone goes to this church’s services and leaves unaffected by the sermon in some way, based on anecdotes I have heard in the past. This is definitely a pastor who harps on social justice issues and is unafraid to talk of politics and government from the pulpit. While the idea of the people of God working for social justice is nothing new to me, this type of presentation, without talk of Jesus and salvation WAS new. Granted, this is a rather sweeping generalization to make upon just a single listen to a sermon.

Here’s what I was really thinking while the preacher talked about Mother’s Day’s origins as a radically anti-war American observance: “What if I were sitting in this very same pew listening to a preacher deliver an equally persuasive polemic from a conservative standpoint?” Well, I would have been ready to burn down the building of that bizarro church! “How dare they fire up the base by sullying religion’s name with crass politics!” I would have said to myself. But since I agreed with the thrust of what those old women were saying back in the 1800s when they were inventing Mother’s Day and what Mr. Preacher Man was reading from his script, ‘twasn’t that big of a deal.

I also found it kind of odd that such a “progressive” message (at least in Christian circles) was delivered in such a “traditional” feeling place- among wooden pews, a center aisle, choir in robes, organ and piano- amidst “traditional” music and amongst some grey-hairs. Context is so important.

But I left with one big question and one big lesson for myself.

Question: Do people ever listen to a sermon so as to disagree? Or do we like one preacher over another when they say what we already believe? Do we like having our ideas confirmed?

Lesson: On liturgy- I have finally figured out how to talk about my problem with responsive readings and reading prayers. I’m still fiercely independent. I loathe the idea of reading aloud someone else’s words as if they were my own. This is why I tend to not personally utter a script written out for me at least not until I’ve had a lot of time to review the words, think about them and decide if they are reflective of something I really do believe or even aspire to believe. For what good is served if I lie to both God and myself? And, on a purely aesthetic level, the sound of people monotonously reading aloud is absolutely chilling to me and not in a good way.

Yet another interesting day amongst strangers, but in the grand scheme, not strangers.

Whatcha' Listenin' To/ Watchin'? (Special Wagnerian Edition)

2009-05-08T10:21:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you about one of the many cool things about the library. Imagine this scenario:

All through high school and college I hear about this humongous cycle of operas by Richard Wagner called Der Ring Des Nibelungen. I am reminded of it when reading Alex Ross’s The Rest is Noise (on loan from the library.) When checking to see if the library has recordings, or even better, videos of the operas I find out they don’t. I suggest the title, never thinking they would actually purchase them (we’re talking about one standard length opera and three super-sized operas, probably close to 15 hours of material in total!) Well, two weeks ago I was notified that they came in and were on reserve for me. Wow! When systems actually work like this I get excited.

Last night I finished watching the entire cycle, which has taken a little over a week to fit in the time. Let me start with some basics:

1) This kind of stuff is not for everyone. In fact it’s only even marginally for me! After all, this is OPERA we’re talking about! And I don’t even like opera. But I’ve always been curious about this Ring cycle for several reasons, as I’ll discuss.

2) The four operas tell a continuing story and were meant to be staged over four consecutive nights. The titles: Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, Siegfried, and Gotterdammerung. Have you ever heard the terms “epic” or “spectacle?” I can think of no better words to describe Wagner’s intent with this massive work of art. It’s the story of gods, goddesses, humans, dwarves, supernatural heroes, there’s a dragon…(Sound like another Ring-ish work, maybe?) Wagner had about 50-60 years’ head start on Tolkien, but I found some striking similarities between the two story lines. I have reason to believe they were drawing from the same well.

3) I watched all of this with a combination of: a) awe at Wagner’s sheer artistic ambition- imagine it, imagine writing hours upon hours of musical score for a giant orchestra with scenes connected by instrumental sections, writing the libretto (lyrics), envisioning stage directions and practical matters like visually creating HEAVEN BURNING DOWN!- and b) frustration- does it really take half an hour for two characters to say goodbye? On one hand, this continuous work of art is the absolute height of human creativity and ingenuity and labor. It’s THE example of a Romantic artist with something to say. On the other hand it’s an overweight, bloviating bore. One thing is for sure. This Wagner fellow would be out of place in our world. I wish I could bring him here in a phone booth time machine like Bill and Ted and introduce him to this Twitter thing that is all the rage.

4) The actual production (from the 80s) on the DVDs felt a little bit odd. One, the conductor was Pierre Boulez-- Mr. 20th century, anaesthetic, math-as-music guy. Probably has never had a Romantic impulse in his life. And he’s French--not the guy I immediately associate with German Romanticism on this loud of a scale. Two, the production design seemed to be a bit of a departure from the horned helmet and long pigtails that you normally see as the caricature of this music. I was a little distracted by the purposeful anachronisms—ancient looking, dark, foggy sets looking like a primordial Middle Earth and suits and ties for the men at points. Obviously this was the set- and costume designers’ attempt to present this story as timeless yet timely and relevant to today as well.

5) Unlike in other versions of musical theater there really isn’t any “acting” as we typically think of it. There are no spoken lines. Every bit of plot and emotion has to be expressed through singing and music. Due to the sheer size of the sets the “acting”, as it were, winds up looking a lot like it used to in the Greek theater where the characters wore giant masks to portray emotions over a large distance. While Wagnerian opera doesn’t have masks the performers are really insignificant in comparison to the giant landscape behind them.

Until you hear the voices. Good Lord, the voices! It’s another one of those dichotomies. The sheer lung capacity and power required to be heard over a large orchestra including drums, trumpets, horns and strings is quite impressive. It is almost “musical technique as athleticism.” It’s also piercing and not the kind of thing you’d like to relax to.

So, all in all, I’m glad I exposed myself to this monstrous work- this impressive, impractical, frustratingly slow, ambitious, sometimes glorious work of art that reminds us exactly what human beings are capable of.

A Month of Sundays Part II

2009-05-04T15:05:00.000-07:00

So, it turns out that regular church-going people that maybe don’t play guitar or maybe don’t teach a class or maybe aren’t on staff at a church really have it easy. They roll out of bed at whatever time on a Sunday morning, maybe have some breakfast, probably read the paper and watch the news at a leisurely pace before they have to arrive.

Yesterday I went to church by myself, an anonymous stranger for the first time in my life. The first thing which struck me about yesterday was just how late 10:30 in the morning is! No wonder people can fall into a pattern of shopping around for churches. When you are unconnected or have no responsibilities or both, church-going is easy! (Of course I realize that for the average family with kids a Sunday morning is anything but leisurely. You can’t make the start time late enough for those frazzled folks.)

I went to a medium-sized non-denominational church yesterday on the northern side of town. Just like at my home church the service started with music and the musicians started pretty much on time, but the majority of the congregation, casually-dressed and ranging in age from babies to early 50s, were straggling in about five or ten minutes later.

(Note: If I wanted to I could probably write an entirely different blog, separate from Sic Semper Tyrannis purely about church music and my experiences with it, aesthetics, etc.) Therefore I will limit my musical remarks to two things I know for certain:

1) I do not get excited about “Christian” music, by which I mean BOTH “praise & worship music” and traditional hymns with the organ, choir, orchestra and the whole nine yards. It’s just not the kind of music I listen to at home, at the gym, in the car, or anywhere outside the walls of a church, (other than when someone specifically asks me to learn a song as an accompanist.)

2) I do not expect a church’s musical selections to be consistent with my aesthetic preferences. If I did, I would be a miserable, miserable person. For the church that sings Radiohead, Red House Painters, Frank Zappa and Steve Reich or plays John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme,” (all artists or compositions that I would say have struck me on a very “spiritual” level, if I even knew what that means) most likely doesn’t exist.

Having said that, the music was pleasant enough- a couple acoustic guitars and vocals and rock band rhythm section, nothing too loud, distorted, or fast. I enjoyed watching people react to this music, everything from stone still statue, (a page out of my book!) to the requisite lifting of hands, closing your eyes, etc. I also thought it was sweet to see a couple little girls dancing at the front, as if they were having fun. Fun? Anyway, I get the feeling I will always feel like a foreigner during the musical part of a church service.

After the music there were a couple baptisms of kids. Of course with as many churches as there are in the world, that’s probably how many ways you will hear people talk about baptism. One thing I thought was interesting was how the baptisms were performed not by the pastor, but by either a parent or someone influential in their lives, (a small group leader, etc.) Scandalous! Thus, the talking during the baptisms was very off-the-cuff and unpolished.

Then came the pastor’s sermon, pretty basic stuff about how we need God and that we need to realize that fact.

And of course, it’s not church if the congregation isn’t invited to respond to the message. I was intrigued by how “low-pressure” the invitation to “come forward” was. For some reason, I guess to avoid coming across as some kind of salesman, the pastor seemed almost apologetic that they follow the sermon with soft music and a prayer time.

And then church was over. Really not unlike hundreds of other services I’ve been to in the grand scheme of things.

While I had some trepidation walking into a church by myself, (as I would have in walking into any social situation by myself), I will say that I was very comfortable in this place as an observer. I spoke to no one. Nor was I spoken to. That’s an easy morning. I know at my home church, they try to make that an impossibility-to be completely anonymous as a visitor. However, it didn’t bother me one bit this first time out. “Other people” are a blessing and a curse in my worldview anyway! But I would think that too many weeks of that on end would start to feel a little hopeless, however.

But this talk of social interactions leads me to think about why someone decides to go to a church service in the first place. I know why I have gone all of these years: to see my friends at this easy, predictable meeting place and time... to play music...to be of service...and (when I’m of the mindset) to hear about God and his people. But why would someone else go to church?

I’ll let you know when I figure it out…

OKC Memorial Marathon Report: It's No Walk in the Park

2009-04-28T13:42:00.000-07:00

(I apologize for the length of this post. I just finished doing the most difficult thing I've ever tried in my 32 years, so you're going to have to read every damn word I have to say about it!) :-P

Hey, so I ran a marathon the other day.
Wait a minute, I ran a marathon?
I ran a marathon.

Here’s how I know I did it. The tops of my legs are absolutely screaming in pain! Even after spending half of Sunday and all of Monday laid up on the couch I am still really sore... Walking like a duck or Frankenstein and trying to find routes into buildings that don’t involve curbs or stairs.

Common questions from people at this point: How far is a marathon, anyway? A true marathon is a fixed distance: 26.2 miles. How long does that take? Well, it took me 6 hours and 4 minutes. Some people can do it in far less time, like in the two hours and minutes range for world class marathon athletes. Friend of the blog Charlie had a really disappointing day and finished it in under 4 hours. By “disappointing” I mean, “awesome” by most normal people’s measurements! Some people take even more time than I did, looking at 7 or 8 hours. But that’s just the thing. This is a very personal undertaking for most people that do it, really only racing with yourself.

Anyway, I finished about a half hour faster than I expected. Since I normally have been doing a half marathon in about three hours, this means my pace was fairly steady through the whole course, something I really didn’t expect. I started with the early start slowpokes at 4:30 Sunday morning. Yeah, that’s early, but actually I’m used to my long distance runs starting well before 6:00. My body is better at this stuff earlier rather than later in the day.

Eating? Carb-loading. I think regular people love this idea for some reason. And yes, I had pasta the night before, a great homemade baked crab-spinach bow-tie pasta. And I was instructed by the staff nutritionist here at the hospital (who happens to be a marathon runner) that the whole week should include some carbs. “Yes, ma’am.” I said.

I had been training with GU over the last month or so. Basically they are 100 calorie shots of jelly to give your body energy. I went through five of those little buggers, one every 5 miles.

So, now that the basic info is out of the way, how about some more grand, “reflective” type thoughts:

1) Since we were running in the dark on city streets for a couple hours, early starters were warned to not use headphones with the threat of being disqualified (and their results not posted.) Big problem for me. I gotsta have my tunes! I have many times said that “without my ipod I couldn’t go five minutes.” Well, that all changed on Sunday. I wanted to see how far I could go without music as a distraction for my mind and to hopefully last until daylight when it wouldn’t be a safety issue. Well, it turns out I can go 13 miles without music! And as I saw each water station coming up I would cut the music so I could hear the crowds and cheering. (Best waterstop: 20 miles. A huge, loud group of folks that made you feel like a superstar.) Speaking of 20 miles, it’s often said to be “the wall” for marathoners of all skill levels. And I felt something happen in my left shoe exactly at that point, (later turned out to be an awfully large blister on my heel popping, as evidenced by a bloody sock. Gross!) But I didn’t really hit a wall at 20. In fact, at that point I was re-motivated, as I knew I only had 6.2 miles to go, a distance I do every day. Much more critical for me were miles 18 and 19, since I had never done over an 18 mile run.

2) Some key moments along the way: Miles 9-12 were wonderful for me. I had separated myself from the walkers and the faster runners had long since disappeared from my view. It was quiet. Peaceful. The sun finally coming up. Running through neighborhood streets after the Chesapeake water stop. “This wouldn’t be a bad way to spend a morning,” I thought to myself, glad to have some time to myself without having to think about other runners. Probably one of my favorite stretches.

Another key moment was around mile 14 or 15 at Lake Hefner when the leader from the 6:30 start came zooming by. I don’t know if he wound up winning but it is impressive to see a finely-tuned running machine like that working at full capacity.

Then of course, there is the finish line. Seeing it up ahead with both sides of Broadway jam-packed with people, Debbi McCullock yelling at me from the right side, it was all a welcoming sight. I turned off the ipod for the last mile and picked up the pace the last minute or so, just to truly experience the moment.

3) A moment of self-realization--I expected to be overwhelmed with emotions and flashes of life for me over the last couple years of struggle and all that after about mile 22 or so, this being the capstone of an amazing journey for me and all. Well, the movie version of a marathon never happened. I realized I am a task-oriented guy. Mow through. Get done what needs to get done with focus. There is time for crying and emotion later.

4) Nobody has been rude enough to ask me this, but I’ve been asking myself for about the last three or four months, when I began preparing in earnest for this by adding a long distance day to my weekly schedule…”why?” Why have I forced myself into this vision? Why have I required brutal things from myself, from my body for months on end? Why not just sleep in? Well, I can’t say I know exactly why, except to the last question: “why not just sleep in?” I’ve done life “sleeping in.” I’ve done life lazy. I’ve done life fat because of those choices. I lived life many years as a totally different, miserable person who had given up. I am determined to distance myself from that former person, as far as the earth is from the sun.

So, with this one under my belt, this thing which many people never do in their lifetime, will I do another one?

While I’m certainly not ready for another one anytime soon, (I’m going to fall in love with my bike again for the summer), I will say that I definitely like the residual effects of training—keeping my weight down, feeling strong, waking up with purpose, confidence.

I should probably always “be in training for a marathon!”

A Short Story

2009-04-22T04:41:00.000-07:00

Here it is.

It's called "Percival". Hope you like it!

Download here.

(Thanks go to Scott Allen for the encouragement and mind-melds over the last few months.)

A Month of Sundays

2009-04-20T11:56:00.000-07:00

I am a church-going, God-fearing guy. I am also walking around, looking at life through different eyes these days.

Here’s the deal. I have gone to the same church for something like 13-14 years now. In that time I have missed maybe a couple handfuls of Sunday mornings.

Obviously this means:
1) I enjoy this group of people, the things they talk about, the things they do and aspire to be.
2) I feel like they took me in as a friend during my darkest days.

(Both of the above are blessings that I dared not hope for.)

At the same time I feel like I have been living the same Sunday over and over and over and over and over: get up early for musical practice and play guitar.

I have decided to “shake up my life” a little bit for awhile by taking a sabbatical from church life as I know it.

I have decided to use this time off to also see how other people live their Sundays. Visit other churches. Perhaps go to the mall, a park, sleep-in. All options are available and I don’t even know how long I’m going to be gone. (Full disclosure: Yes, I’m also on the lookout for the future Mrs. Stutzman. Maybe she’s not in the place I’ve been looking for 1/7 of every week! :-))

If you have a church or other house of worship that you would like me to check out for you, please let me know. Think of it as Research into the family of God!

The sabbatical started yesterday morning as I slept in for the first Sunday in years. Yesterday was a beautiful, relaxed day of no responsibility short of meeting friends for talking about life.

Friendship Business Saturday Night TIME CORRECTED (7 PM)

2009-04-16T08:58:00.000-07:00

Public Service Announcement:

I will be playing electric and acoustic guitar with a band called The Friendship Business this Saturday night at a great little hole-in-the-wall coffee house called Starbucks. It's on NW Expressway and MacArthur. I imagine the music will start at 7-ish.

End transmission.

The Gauntlet

2009-04-13T15:19:00.000-07:00

A bit of a change in plans is in the works as of today.

Rather than do the half marathon in two weeks for the Memorial I will be doing the full marathon! I was planning on my first marathon being the Andy Payne in May, but realized while looking at the info online that the OKC Memorial Marathon is much more friendly to a beginner, (and a slow beginner at that!)

Reasons: 1) I can take an early start, 2) Last year’s results had plenty of people much slower than my pace, 3) The course is WAAAAY more interesting than laps around Lake Overholser.

Training-wise I feel a little bit at a midpoint: very much over-prepared, distance-wise, for the half and perhaps a little under-prepared for the full. My long-run to date is 18 miles. Another 8.2 miles sounds like an awful lot, and it is. But it doesn’t feel like an awful lot in my legs. (Especially considering the brutal weekend I did a couple weeks ago of 33 miles on the bike one day and a 17.5 mile run the next day.)

If you’re free on the morning of Sunday April 26th I would love to see you at the finish line or somewhere close to end, when I will really need to know that someone cares. If all goes well I should be crossing the finish around 11 am or so!

For more info on the Memorial events, go here

The Red Bud Classic

2009-04-06T10:14:00.000-07:00

Wind.

Ancient people called it “pneuma,” and equated it to this amorphous thing called “spirit.” What spirit does the wind really contain?

Well, over the last couple days of biking and jogging long distances, the wind has been whispering, no, it has been screaming “You Will Fail.” Biking into a head wind uphill is a peculiar exercise in futility that is simultaneously humorous and makes you want to cry. Ironically, a 40 mph gust of spirit-wind can pretty quickly kill your own spirit and suck away your initiative.

I did the red Bud 33 mile bike event on Saturday morning; my first time to do that long of a biking distance and I am happy to report that the wind did not get the better of me! Thankfully the bulk of the course is East-West and the wind on Saturday was coming from due south. I discovered that there is a big difference between an event like that and biking around Lake Hefner-—namely, other riders and HILLS. You have to be very intentional in gear selection on a longer course for the terrain includes inclines of all shapes and sizes. You never really notice incline here in Oklahoma when you are driving these roads in your car.

Fellow beginner Brandon and I felt like aliens in a spandex-clad world of “serious” cyclists. (Best moment for me—slowly pedaling my way up the largest, windy-est hill past people in spandex walking their bikes. I REFUSED to get off the bike. Also a great moment: well-earned pancakes at the finish line!)

To make this weekend absolutely brutal, I went ahead with marathon training plans the next day and continued with my longest run to date into the same spirit-killing wind!

Today shall be calm and restful. I think I earned it.

All Men are Great in Their Dreams...

2009-04-02T09:46:00.000-07:00

…except for me.

Last night I experienced a variation on a recurring dream. I am often visited by this nocturnal vision where I am backstage at a theater, waiting in the wings and preparing to go on and deliver my lines in a play.

Only problem: I have no idea what the play is!

I run around fiendishly backstage, (all the while trying not to attract attention from the stage manager and other actors), searching for a script so as to figure out who I am, who all these other people are, and what my lines are and to try to hastily commit them to memory so as not to embarrass myself in front of an audience.

I’m pretty sure this terrifying dream is about measuring up to expectations-my own, others’- and the fear of failure, the fear of “being found wanting.”

In last night’s variation, it wasn’t just a play. It was a musical!

My subconscious has now gone one demented step further. I now have to sing a song I’ve never heard in a musical I’ve never seen.

Abandoned Ideas...Volume 1

2009-03-31T20:54:00.000-07:00

Over the last, I don't know, 20 years? I have had the pleasure of being best friends with a true "Ideas Man," a visionary in the truest sense of the word. A guy who tosses out energy of pure inspirations like lightning, unbounded by restraints of practicality. Jeff Logan is a concept-generating machine.

I am not an Ideas Man. I am an implementation type of guy. I am bound to the earth by thoughts like: "How could I/we actually pull that off?" or "How much money/time/effort would that require?"

But, I once had a vision for a retro-looking, black and white television show called "Leave It to Devo," starring the guys from the 80s band.

Never really got much further than the name, however.

Whatcha Listenin' To?

2009-03-20T16:07:00.000-07:00

Wow. So much stuff. I might as well just get to it.

Midnight Drive Tommy Emmanuel

You know how people sometimes say that listening to music “takes them away” to a special place? We have this way of associating certain sounds with memories and locations? Well, when I heard the music on this album I was instantly transported in my mind…to trying on dress shirts in a Dillard’s dressing room. Emmanuel has a reputation for being a finger-picking guitarist supreme- a “God With Us” of the six string. While I don’t doubt his technical skill, this was some of the most hideous “jazz” I’ve heard in many years. Whether or not you want to argue its genre classification, this is the music for soulless people who want soulless sounds to ignore. Perhaps he recorded this stuff for a big royalty payoff with Muzak. I don’t know. But it made me sick to my stomach from the initial sounds of overly polished keyboards and lack of anything remotely resembling human emotion.

I will pursue other albums by this guy, however, in the hopes that this one is just an anomaly.

Forever Changes Love

This is one of those albums from the 60s that is regarded as a cult classic. I was hoping for a monumental surprise like The Zombies’ Odeyssey and Oracle, but apart from the opening track “Alone Again Or” (and its inclusion in the film “Bottle Rocket,” I believe, or one of the Wes Anderson movies anyway) this music didn’t really register.

After reading up a little bit, it turns out that so much of this album’s charm is wrapped up in context, (isn’t it always thus?) as it was a departure for the band sonically and a harbinger for the end of Flower Power. I would propose that the end of the magical 60s is more interestingly displayed in the music of Hendrix, the Who and Zappa. Acoustic-ey soft rock does not depict an end to hippie-dom. Violence of sound does.

The Sea Hawk and Other Film Scores of Erich Korngold London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andre Previn

I heard a performance of Korngold’s Violin Concerto at a Philharmonic concert about a month ago and was blown away. You know how when you’re watching old black and white movies and they start with a brass fanfare and Romantic-sounding violins in unison playing a soaring melody over titles written in fancy script? Well, this is THAT kind of music, really interesting when decoupled from the pictures. The more lyrical moments were absolutely perfect for our little dalliance with Spring that we had a couple weeks ago. Windows down, sunroof open. Life is good…

The Essential Emerson, Lake and Palmer Emerson, Lake and Palmer

I first heard most of the lesser-known works in this collection as a music major in college. ELP are at the top of the list of bands associated with the movement known as “Progressive Rock.” Keith Emerson might as well have been a mad scientist for all of the crazy innovations he helped bring about in the world of synthesizer technology, (along with actual, real mad scientist Bob Moog.) and Greg Lake’s voice and bass playing can also be heard on the early King Crimson albums.

ELP often wore their classical influences on their sleeves. See for instance direct “rocked up” arrangements of Copland’s “Hoe-down” and “Fanfare for the Common Man” and my favorite, their adaptation of Janacek’s “Sinfonietta.” This is the perfect music for nerdy music majors who still like their rock n’ roll a little too much and reminded me of a strange time in my life.

In my mind there are no better musical moments than when Emerson’s synth comes forward for a solo in “Lucky Man” and “In the Beginning.”

Gold B.B. King

The legendary relationship of King to his guitar “Lucille” has been written about ad nauseum. I am interested in one thing about the man’s playing: its simplicity. If you were to somehow extract just his lead lines from these recordings it would probably not sound very impressive- single note lines, mostly pentatonic. But somehow, it just sounds like “him.” I realized the strange difficulty of this when learning (just the bass line) of the tune “Why I Sing the Blues.” This is music of feel, not impressiveness.” A distinction I will probably have to make for the rest of my life.

One Kind Favor B.B. King

The song “See That My Grave is Kept Clean” was recommended by blog-stalker Willie for its “voodoo” and I definitely hear it. I love a song that has a groove that’s not instantly recognizable. It takes a couple bars from the beginning of the song to figure out what the drums are doing- when what used to be chaos begins to take form.

Continuum John Mayer

I continue on in my respect of this guy. While I prefer the version of “Gravity” with the horns off the Live in LA album, there are some very strong hooks and fabulous guitar playing on this album.

Back East Joshua Redman

Given to me as a gift, this music was a surprise. Redman is much more of a traditionalist than I had imagined in my head, which in the case of jazz is a good thing, to my ears. He has a crazy amount of technique, plays all over the horn in flights of fancy like John Coltrane, but never seems to stray too far. Then there is the interesting choice of performing in a trio with no piano. Unlike with my experience with Ornette Coleman, however, I never missed the harmony being filled in. It takes a very special bass player to fill in the holes, but whoever it is on this album does a fantastic job.

I think that should suffice for awhile. There is much more I’m listening to. Maybe next time.

On Skiing- A Study of Ratios

2009-03-18T11:13:00.000-07:00

I will start at the end. I had a spectacular crash while skiing at Monarch a few days ago.

While it wasn't one of those where they drag you behind a snowmobile in a body bag, and I was only on the bunny slope, I am currently laid up on the couch recovering. And the doc said I shall feel the pain from this for at least a couple weeks. Deep muscle bruising in my back and chest. Perhaps a rib was affected as well.

I tried skiing for the first time ever. It shall be the first and last time. I have given it the old college try, took a group lesson, gave it my best, and found that it is not for me.

The whole trip I was visited by thoughts of proportions, namely the ratio of Work:Fun.

Day one-Work:Fun ratio----95% work, 5% fun.

Day two-Work:Fun ratio----80% work, 20% fun. (Surprisingly, this was the day of my spill. I was going so fast and pretty much STRAIGHT down the slope and thought to myself "Wow. I'm going really fast down this hill. I wonder why I haven't crashed yet..." And then in an instant I was laid out in the snow with skis ten feet downhill and poles ten feet uphill. Important side note: I never did learn how to turn right in my two and a half days of attempts.)

Day three [not even a half day]-Work:Fun ratio----90% work, 10% fun. I hit a wall that morning, metaphorically speaking. In pain, contemplating taking the beginner lift all the way to the top rather than half way, I realized an important truth in my life at this point. I want to be able to run the 1/2 marathon in a month and perhaps the full marathon in May MUCH MUCH MUCH more than I want to be able to say that "I skied greens." From that point on, I was done.

Ketchup

2009-03-03T17:10:00.000-08:00

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while, my darlings. Here’s what’s been happening instead of my writing for the blog:

1) As you might already know, it was exactly a year ago that I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. You may also remember my basically saying at the time “Don’t worry. I’ve got this one covered.” Well, it turns out I was right as of last week’s appointment with the Good Doctor. Based on my blood work results, he jokingly accused me of masquerading as Mike Stutzman. My blood work was perfect! Not just diabetic perfect, but regular, healthy person perfect. At which point in my appointment Dr. Cruzan pointed at his computer screen at two numbers, (my weight over the last couple years) and started to praise me for a bunch of hard work and “grabbing the bull by the horns.” Then he asked me when I’m going to write my book. I kind of chuckled and he looked at me and said- “No. Seriously. When are you going to write your book?” An intriguing idea…

In the prophetic words of a friend a year ago—“You are going to make this disease your bitch.”

2) Over the last couple months, under the encouraging words of a writer friend I have been writing a short story for the first time since, maybe junior high. As of last Friday, I have a finished rough draft. Maybe when it’s done I’ll let you all read it. I have been reminded how much fun the process of writing can be. The kinds of things I find myself considering, the kinds of minuscule choices I find myself faced with in editing—it’s a hoot and a half.

3) I read my first graphic novel last week. Watchmen? Maybe you’ve heard of it? I don’t really feel qualified to discuss its merits in comparison to the genre, and truth be told I wasn’t blown away by it. As a work of fiction, apart from the graphic component, it employs some interesting devices. Namely, the insertion of seemingly extraneous material like a book within a book, psychological profiles of characters and magazine articles that serve as a handy way to get a lot of background information into the story in quick bursts. And the book raises the question of why costumed crime fighters and “super-heroes” do what they do. Pretty unconventional answers are given in addition to the regular pragmatism that we’re used to from guys like Spider-man and Superman, from kinky sexual responses to the costume to the love of “adventure”, to pure determinism in the case of the God-like Dr. Manhattan. However, I’m still not sure why this book is so revered.

4) I’ve been listening to lots and lots of new music as of late and I’ll probably get to telling you about that in a week or two. In the meantime, go outside. Spring is becoming more and more of a reality! I think my soul may be coming back after going south for the winter!

Good Lord! What a beautiful morning!

2009-02-24T06:34:00.000-08:00

Hey.

The next time you want to inject a little bit of transcendent joy and well-being into your life, do this: Go outside when the weather is just about perfect...sunny. Calm. No wind. Fairly warm. Now, listen to the piece "Elizabeth the Queen" from Erich Korngold's score to the film_The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex._

You will feel the same ageless peace that I do right now.

You're welcome.

Writing Like a Bastard

2009-02-22T19:06:00.000-08:00

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
So, there is an important decision we, as readers, have to make when reading this stream-of-consciousness screed against humanity. Namely, we have to decide how seriously we will take the seemingly endless complaining on the part of the narrator Holden Caulfield, as we do with any teenager in real life.

It is important how much or how little we let his observations on the "phoniness" of people into our heads. I would posit that the more thoughtfully you take his complaints, the more opportunity this book has to affect you as literary art. I would say the dangerous decision is just to say that the narrator is crazy and dispense with him from that point. Indeed that would make reading this book a waste of time.

But, what if Holden's right? What if the world really is full of phoniness? What if loss of innocence is something to bemoan? Well then, the idea of a foul-mouthed, alienated, know-it-all who yet defends the innocence of children and who values protecting their youthfulness...well that character becomes SO MUCH more poignant, so much more human in his duality, so much more interesting. Brokenness is always more interesting.

The other thing I liked about this book is Salinger's creation of a kid who "speaks" so interestingly. You want him to keep going just to hear what he'll say next.

View all my reviews.

Someone Make the Case for Me...

2009-02-09T20:42:00.001-08:00

I caught most of the President's press conference tonight and one thing struck me as odd.

In the midst of such godawful economic news: of layoffs, of Wall Street's near collapse, the credit crisis, an 800-something BILLION dollar plan to MAYBE fix things in the mid-term and about a thousand other financial things I don't understand..it seemed perversely out of place that one reporter asked the president's views about steroids in baseball.

Someone make the case why I should give a rat's ass about who used steroids in an entertainment industry when the world seems to be crashing down around us..

And...go!

2009-01-27T14:48:00.000-08:00

The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids by Alexandra Robbins

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
It's been a long time since I was in high school, but Robbins does an excellent job of transporting you back to those times and what were the typical concerns of the age. She followed a handful of smart kids at a prestigious school as they applied to colleges and followed one renowned scholar from the same school during his freshman year in college.

Of course, what made this book interesting is to compare my experience to theirs. If she would have written a book 13 years ago called _The Underachievers_ I probably could have made an appearance.

Also, hooray for her decision to include practical suggestions to improve the lives of high school kids preparing for college, rather than just bemoan the situation of education in America.

View all my reviews.

Here's Your Homework...

2009-01-23T22:32:00.000-08:00

Compare and contrast the voices of Howlin' Wolf and Tom Waits.

And....go!

More substantial updates to follow, I promise.

Whatcha Listenin' To?

2009-01-14T14:39:00.000-08:00

Where the Light Is: Live in Los Angeles John Mayer

On Cara’s recommendation I listened to this and she was right on, Mayer’s playing in the Trio setting dovetails nicely with the Hendrix I’ve been listening to as of late. In fact, he does a couple of Hendrix tunes, “Bold as Love,” and “Wait ‘Til Tomorrow.”

One thing is apparent with this recording. You can tell just by his guitar tones and the way he plays that he has spent time as a scholar of the strat-playing blues guys like Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. His singing voice even sounds like SRV at times. This guy obviously has some skill on the guitar. He also has things to say in his songwriting- my two favorites being “Daughters” and “Gravity.”

But what’s interesting is that all of the preceding is usually said about obscure artists in the back of Guitar World magazine, not guys who have had sentimental hits on the radio. Mayer is a famous dude. College girls probably think he is the greatest thing since sliced Dave Matthews. And, for once, I’m fine with that. He is a talented person who plays music with feeling and thought. He should be revered. I need to listen to more of his stuff.

Chicago Chicago

Speaking of talented guys who obviously breathe music…This is a pretty cool album in that it is so ambitious. You can tell they were interested in music that went beyond the structural conventions of pop music: verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus. These guys were making songs that segued into each other and had extended instrumental sections, all the while maintaining a pop sound that translated to radio pretty easily, (with big edits) and of course, there are the horns which open up a whole world of possibilities, texturally-speaking.

…And then the 80s came and crushed this spirit of experimentalism as it did with so many bands…

The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind Osvaldo Golijov

This is another guy who comes recommended. He is a composer in the “classical tradition,” meaning his music is obviously written down and performed in auditoriums in front of dressed-up people but man! I would bet you’ve never heard music like this unless you live in Brooklyn with a bunch of Hassidic Jews.

For there are some very strong klezmer (Yiddish or Jewish folk music) gestures, which automatically sets it apart from the other 99% of music I’ve heard in the last year. It’s amazing how a handful of modal scales can evoke such an ancient sorrow or such a fun lightness, mainly by changing the tempo.

Anyway, this is really interesting listening and I recommend you check it out from the library if you are local.

It Only Took a Couple Days...

2009-01-06T19:40:00.000-08:00

...And at the start of the new year, every unemployed, uninsured, young mother-to-be who can barely gather together the mental faculties to take down a phone number is looking for a doctor who will basically see them for free.

While I don't blame these ladies for being uninsured, and don't fully blame them for even being unemployed, I do wish that they would wait before deciding to bring another human being into the wreck of their lives. Maybe wait until they are in their mid-twenties? Does Medicaid pay for birth control? Anyone know?

I hate to start the year with bitching. So, here's the alternative.

My new year's resolution is to buy some of those re-usable bags to use at the grocery store. This just seems too easy! Thanks, Steven, for the practical tip!

Man vs. Man, Man vs. Society, Man vs. Himself, Man vs. Nature

2008-12-23T15:21:00.000-08:00

As I have been thinking about Ebenezer Scrooge and how marvelous a fictional creation he is I have also ventured into how we tell stories. I think we have stories that we tell about ourselves. (I’m going to use the word “narrative” because that’s the word that college grads use.) I was thinking as I compared my life to Scrooge’s, that “transformation” is a big idea for me now. Indeed I think transformation is an important narrative for many folks: “I once was lost, but now I’m found,” The Biggest Loser, “Rags to Riches,” “I was so much older then/ I’m younger than that now…”

There are other ones floating out in the ether, though: victim of circumstance, “pulled himself up by his bootstraps,” “quiet life of courage,” victim of systems beyond his/her control, “pride before a fall,” the typical VH1 story of success-excess-fall-redemption. I could go on.

I was thinking that these narratives are a form that we overlay on the experiences of our lives to impose order, meaning, and purpose(?) Are the experiences in our life truly random and we just come up with a good way to talk about them? Or is there really a structure underneath our lives, and we are merely naming the structure? Don’t know. Maybe someone else could enlighten me on that one.

But the other thought that has occurred to me is how powerful these narratives can be. How we choose to describe ourselves and our experiences can also shape our future. For instance I said that the “transformation” narrative is the one huge one I use for myself these days. I like that story. It says I’ve come from some place (bad) and have moved to a different place (better.) It gives my efforts and experiences thus far a meaning and a purpose and imbues future efforts and experiences with hope. For me, that’s a sustainable story.

But let me tell you about the other possible narratives that I could use to describe the same life and activities and events: 1) “He worked really hard, lost a lot of weight, all to get down to what is really a baseline level of health and attractiveness for some other people, or 2) “He worked really hard every day, to beat his body into submission, only to learn what it will now take to stay at that level,” or 3) “Every day was a physical fight against bad genes…”

All three of these alternate stories describing the same history can be (and are) true for me. Obviously, the fact that I can recall them shows that they have entered my noggin at various times.

But in an effort to practice responsible, pragmatic story-telling, I’m choosing to ignore them. For I have found one type of story that finally gives me some peace, some happiness. The way I see it, to not rehearse telling that one story to myself and anyone who will listen would be a crime.

Sorry if this all sounds like cheesy, psychobabble, self-help gobbledy-gook. It only sounds like that because it is.

So…what’s your overarching narrative?

An Awesome Quote

2008-12-18T16:25:00.001-08:00

There is no better time than now to read Dickens' _A Christmas Carol_ and here is a monster of a quote that I just read that shall give you hope if you, like Ebenezer Scrooge, find yourself on a nasty path in life:

"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change."

Amen to that! All is not lost! People can change! Hallelujah!

Merry (early) Christmas, my friends!

Whatcha' Listenin' To?

2008-12-10T08:49:00.000-08:00

Oh, man! I’ve got so much music floating around in my own personal ether as of late. Would you care to know about it?

Jimi Hendrix Band of Gypsys

For me, this album served a great purpose: as a point of comparison for how bad the Woodstock performance was! Here we have a different rhythm section backing up Jimi and they are much tighter here, arrangement-wise. Unlike with the Woodstock show, it sounds as if these guys actually played together before the concert. The material is bluesy funk rock and lends itself well to improvisation and Jimi is on. The guitar tones are classic and he spends equal time in “crazy electric noise land” and working with thematic ideas. This album, with fantastic drumming by Buddy Miles, reminded me why Hnedrix is so beloved, and gives a tragic glimpse of what could have been, had he lived and continued experimenting and working with different musicians.

Vince Guaraldi Charlie Brown Christmas

This is really the only Christmas music I need. The melancholy of “Christmastime is Here” is the reason I got the album, but the vibe that these guys create on all of the songs just takes you back to simpler times of innocence. Now, I don’t know how a collection of notes and a certain sound of a recording space can really do what I’m saying it does here, (i.e. simultaneously recall your childhood memories and/or vague notions of a “Christmas soul.”) Chances are, I bring a lot of that appreciation with me to the recording, but I’m not the only one. This music is pretty much playing any time I’m at home these days…

Metallica Death Magnetic

I’m pretty sure this is the only place on the internet where Charlie Brown and Metallica are mentioned together, but also in the “useful music” vein is this new Metallica record, which is useful for inspiring you to run a long distance. Thanks I’m sure in no small part to Rick Rubin’s guru-ism, this album is what Metallica’s follow-up to …And Justice for All (should) have sounded like had the 90’s not intervened. I happen to really appreciate the band’s more proggy, compositional tendencies, so this album is just about perfect for what I need Metallica for.

My Morning Jacket Evil Urges

This is another album serving as the soundtrack for My Morning Jog as of late. Stylistically, it’s all over the map: white boy funk, alt-rock, jam band, some folkie and electronic elements…with a production philosophy sounding at times like The Flaming Lips and other times like the latest Radiohead. It’s pretty melodic stuff and rocks just hard enough to keep you awake.

Prince 1999

It has two giant hits: the title track and “Little Red Corvette.” But what is more interesting to me is the stuff I’ve never heard before.

Let us talk seriously for a moment. Prince is obviously a sexual creature. If I were to say some of the things that he says on this album to a girl I don’t know, (or even most of the girls that I do know) I would probably get arrested. The only reason he gets away with it is because he is Prince. And I am Mike.

“International Lover,” with its hilarious speech towards the end, is the best and only “pilot-of-the-plane-as-loverman” metaphor I’ve ever heard. This album also makes for an interesting document of the synth sounds that were available at the time.

Booker T and the MGs The Best Of

“Green Onions” is of course an instrumental classic. As I listened to this organ-driven R&B Soul I wondered what would have happened if these guys had collaborated with new Orleans funk outfit The Meters. Probably the entire planet would have been wobbled off-center from simultaneous dance exhaustion.

Stevie Wonder Fulfillingness’ First Finale

I have no idea what that title means but man! This is such a great album! It’s like a comfortable T-shirt. Even after listening to this album over and over I never got tired of it. In particular, the harmonic writing is pretty sophisticated, (Steven, take note, if you haven’t heard this!) yet still entirely functional. The sentiments are direct and apparently heart-felt, but I just can’t get over how interesting the purely instrumental component of this record is. There is a steel guitar part on “Too Shy to Say,” (that I’m pretty sure is playing whole tone scales), that on anybody else’s song would sound out of place. But Stevie had a vision and somehow made it work. I recommend this one in addition to the Charlie Brown stuff, as a Christmas gift to yourself. I promise it will be a laid-back holiday season.

Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker Carnegie Hall Concert

Who knew? Who knew that these two purveyors of West Coast jazz would have flirted with fusion in the 70s? I certainly didn’t. With the Fender Rhodes electric piano sound and some excellent electric guitar from John Scofield (apparently before he decided to do the “elevator jazz” thing), these guys come this close to being among the “next big thing” in jazz, ca. 1974.

OK, hopefully that’s enough to tide you over for awhile. I’m off to the library to pick up a bunch more, including Cara’s recommendation of John Mayer live. We shall see…

On Stravinsky and Context

2008-12-03T07:07:00.001-08:00

It was a little under 100 years ago that Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” first debuted to a famous riot and all kinds of subsequent hubbub about the future of orchestral music and a bevy of challenges to the basic assumptions of what “music” is and what “art” is. The world of “serious” music has never been the same.

Having never heard this piece played live before, last night’s concert at OCU was a wonderful experience. Going with a few friends who had never heard this music before, I thought it was a great opportunity to do a little research. I went into last night’s experiment with one hunch- namely that what was shocking and perverse and evil and troubling and “weird” to an orchestra-goer 95 years ago is now humdrum.

Here was my reasoning: in 95 years, a lot has happened in the worlds of music. Art music went waaaaaaaay further out than Stravinsky with regard to dissonance and rhythm. Tonality died an official death. “Found sounds” and electronic noise became fashionable in some circles. Composers employed chance in their pieces. Absolutely nothing became off-limits. In the popular music world sounds became rough too, thanks largely to the electric guitar, the Marshall amp and a healthy dose of teen angst. And in the middle brow world of soundtrack music, your average action or horror movie doesn’t sound all that different than the stuff we heard last night.

But I forgot one important thing—context. When I sit down in a concert hall, facing the stage, there are only two things demanding my attention: the music and the music makers. I am especially attuned to “experience art” in that situation. For me, “The Rite of Spring” is still barbaric and affecting. There is no Arnold Schwarzenegger on a giant screen to distract my mind. I see the physicality of a kid sawing away at his viola, bow hair flying about as he tries to achieve the volume levels demanded by the score. I see the weird gestures the conductor has to make to keep the odd meters stilting along. I see the faces. Oh, my Lord! The faces! So intense and determined to pull off this unnatural monstrosity.

Sitting on the front row while a large orchestra plays at that volume and with that degree of dissonance…that is something else, my friends. The general consensus among the tabula rasa folks was that it was an intense, scary piece. Riot-worthy? Who knows.

But it is still “art” that demands your attention.

(Thanks to my friends Lisa Hollowell and Josh Lester for being so talented!)

Things For Which I Am Thankful

2008-11-25T09:33:00.000-08:00

*I am healthy, happy, more content than I’ve ever been in my life. And I don’t mean that in the “it’s-the-end-of-the-year-and-I-need-to-think-of-something-to-say-I’m-thankful-for” kind of way, but in a “I am a changed man” kind of way. I am a changed man. I know I look different, but that’s just the outward manifestation of something unbelievable that has happened to my mind and soul. I’m still not sure what has happened/is happening to me. I don’t know what to call it. I know that’s a little vague for my Christian friends, but in the way of explanations, it’s all I’ve got right now...

*I have tons of people in my life who want awesome things for me. I see and talk to and type to so many people who care about how life goes for me. This is not something I will ever overlook again.

*There are simple pleasures in life of which I am now aware: collapsing on a couch and engaging people in relaxed conversation about anything... a sunny day with no wind, a bike and a path around a lake... a cold, gray day with a cup of tea and a heating bill I can afford. There are tons of other ones that I could name but I have already devolved into sickening cheesiness as it is.

*Parents who care about me and who instilled into me values of right and wrong, somehow without coercion or the requisite guilt and shame I hear about so often. This was really a genius move on their part.

*Enough money to pay the bills and enough money to feed myself (and others)

*ALL KINDS of goals met

*Low blood sugars, astounded doctors

*Finally...public libraries

Here’s to life and the transformation of Mike into a Pollyanna!

Happy Thanksgiving, my lovelies!

Whatcha Listenin' To?

2008-11-10T15:13:00.000-08:00

Sorry it’s been a while since my last post, friends, but man! Life is flying by at a pretty fast clip these days! Yet I still press on in my quest to educate myself to the varieties of free musical experience...

The Pretenders The Singles
This is catchy 80s pop. To read interviews with lead singer Chrissie Hynde and see her image, you would think she would sound like a punk rocker from the Sex Pistols’ mold. So, it was a little bit of a surprise to hear how clean and polished the production was on this collection of songs. Very rarely do you even hear distortion on the guitars. This music would have translated to radio so easily. That’s why it’s a shame they never got much recognition beyond “Brass in Pocket,” (a pretty catchy song in its own right.) Hynde’s voice is pretty distinctive and I, for one, like that about this music. But by all means, do not listen to the cover of “I Got You Babe” with UB40!

Joe Henderson Big Band
This album features uber-tight, imaginative arrangements that venture well-beyond your basic swing tune. I find it kind of funny that this is billed as a Joe Henderson album when the band and the arrangers are really the stars.

Moody Blues Best Of
In my exploration of well-known “classic” bands and albums, I’m discovering an archetypal story: “progressive late 60s art rock band carries on into the 80s to produce really crappy, easily-digestible pop music.” (See also Emerson Lake and Palmer, Genesis, Yes…)

Jimi Hendrix Live at Woodstock
Sometimes it’s easy to take for granted Hendrix’s contribution to the electric guitar. That is to say, obviously he’s famous, a real hero on the instrument, etc. But do we ever stop and think about just how weird those sounds coming out of his amp were (and still are?) In one way of listening, a tune like his iconic treatment of the national anthem is just noise. I mean “strangling-a-cat-with electrified-barbed-wire” noise. But in the other way of listening it’s a musical revolt—prescient musique concrete as avant garde as anything the academic concert hall was producing at the time. Was he just a stoned hippie or an artist saying something valid and relevant about his time?

Whatcha' Readin'?

2008-10-29T09:16:00.000-07:00

I just got done reading a wonderful book by Dave Eggers called What is the What.

Eggers is a marvelously skilled writer. The 500-plus pages of non-fussy literary art simply fly by. He tells the truthful story of Sudanese refugee Valentino Achak Deng in such a lovingly precise way. While Eggers is known for playful, postmodern turns in his previous books like A Heartbreaking work of Staggering Genius and You Shall Know Our Velocity, this novel treats a sobering story of a man and a country in crisis with the utmost respect and care. There is something really cool about a writer with mad technical skills practicing restraint—holding off on the metatextual machinations and florid passages of description to simply tell a story.

I would definitely recommend that you read this book, but only if you like books that are awesome.

The Tulsa Run

2008-10-27T10:43:00.000-07:00

Saturday was probably the last great milestone of the year for yours truly. I ran in the Tulsa Run 15k. (Answer to the Most Frequently Asked Question: 15k=9.3 miles.)

I decided this was something I wanted to try about a month and a half ago when I first jogged all the way around Lake Hefner, which is 9.5 miles. I had done a couple 5ks and enjoyed having goals to work toward. My chip time on Saturday was 1:59:52, which is pretty slow compared to a lot of people in the race, but there were still quite a few people finishing well after me. Anyway, being absolutely noncompetitive, I try to avoid comparisons to others like one might avoid the plague. So the best part for me was that I beat my previous best pace by twelve minutes!

It was a beautiful course and the weather was pretty fantastic.

Here's to health and goals fulfilled!