Twenty-eight and a half days later

I really haven't had much to say lately.  Last time I was 'round these parts someone had just shot 32 people to death at Virginia Tech.  I suppose I could have said something about how idiotic it is that some people immediately used the event to call for the arming of all college students (because, you know, someone would have shot the culprit right away, and there'd never be a time when a fully loaded college student got suspicious of someone else and just blew 'em away) but it seemed like a waste of time.

And kind of boring, quite frankly.

My absence can be attributed to the end of school year.  Four semesters of grad school down, one to go.  I've been writing like a bloody fool.  My thesis is about two-thirds done, I think, if you count first and second drafts as "done."  I don't really, so it's going to be a busy summer.

Writing can be a very lonely event.  It's best to be someplace where you can look at something pleasant, someplace bright.  It's hard for me to write when it's gloomy outside (I would have never made it in Seattle).

The Cubs are driving me insane.  That's all I have to say about that.

Saturday is my 40th birthday.  I've been saying for years that it's not a big deal, and while I believe that mostly to be true there are still moments when I can't quite believe that this point has come.  I guess the only way this conflicts me is that I don't feel like I am about to turn forty. 

I feel pretty much the same way that I did when I was 25. Or 30. Or 35. My mind set is the same.  Physically is a bit of a different story but that is completely my fault and not worth getting into. 

Am I missing something?  I think about my father when he turned forty (1974); I was six and don't really remember it, but he was married fourteen years by then and had three kids.  I'm married just over two and have no children yet; our lives at this stage couldn't be any more different could they?

That reminds me that we went to Vegas shortly after my last entry.  I lost my ASS.  I am still looking for it, butI doubt that I will ever find it.  You could not do any worse in a casino than I did during those three days in mid-April.  And yet I had a blast.  Vegas is funny that way.

What I've been listening to tonight:

1. "Regret"-New Order.  It's funny that this came up first, since I've been ruminating about forty.  I've reached a point in my life when I look back at my past and pretty much don't regret a single thing.  What's done is done.  I didn't always feel that way.  I was a short fuse/burning all the time...

2. "It's Money That Matters"-Randy Newman. Featuring the awesome licks of Mark Knopfler.  I could listen to this song for the next forty years.  All of these people/are much brighter than I

3. "Black"-Pearl Jam.  It's early 90s night on the i-pod.  Those boys from Seattle wrote some depressing junk, no?  I take a walk outside/I'm surrounded some kids at play

4. "Secondhand Love"-Pete Townshend.  From the best CD of all time-White City: A Novel.  It matters not that you have never heard of this.  I am not sure that I would have lived through the fall of 1985 without this cassette tape and a hideous white car (inside and outside).  I can guess where you've been tonight, (yeah)/you've been hanging out on the street/wearing your dress to tight/showing out to anyone you meet

5. "Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon (Utopia Planitia)"-The Flaming Lips.  Definitely the longest title of the 546.  Excellent driving song.  Perfect for Utah, ironically.  No words though, and I haven't figured out yet how to write instrumental.

6. "Bargain"-The Who.  OK, I never really had a desire to be a rock star, but I admit that I would have liked to have been in a situation to perform this song in public once.  For some reason, I know exactly how I would do it.  Kareoke wouldn't cut it.  No, I'd need instruments and three other folks in the band.  And some cool lighting.  I sit looking 'round/I look at my face in the mirror

7. "The Boy in the Bubble"-Paul Simon.  I'm pretty sure this is the only song with an accordion in it on the 'pod.  I'm stepping into the wayback machine tonight.  Whenever I hear this song I am reminded of a drive I took with someone once, back and forth, four hours each way, and we just kept listening to Graceland.  He died about a year or so later. Medicine is magical and magical is art/think of the boy in the bubble and the baby with the baboon heart...the way we look to a distant constellation as its dying in the corner of the sky/these are the days of miracle and wonder and don't cry baby, don't cry

8. "Broken Hearted"-Eric Clapton.  It's a good thing that I'm comfortable with my past now or these songs would have sent me for a fifth of Jamison by now.  It's amazing, absolutely amazing, how a life can change so much in ten years.  I press my fingers to the wound/to tell you of my dreaming

9. "Help Me Angel"-Steve Winwood.  I have a feeling that I have told this tale before but I used to stand in the window of my dorm room my frosh year at Iowa and dance to this (with my back to the street, of course).  It was on the first floor.  I was normally not very outgoing.  I have no idea why I did this.  It was all feet, just the feet.  It's such a damn catchy tune.  Shim shim, scooby shim/scooby scooby, shim scooby

10. "Dakota"-Stereophonics.  A guy singing about his past.  Perfect.  Thinking about think of you/summer time think it was June/yeah I think it was June

<FONTSIZE=4>11. "Temporary Beauty"-Graham Parker.  And we have to make sure to include a song that was big smack dab in the middle of high school, without question the most awkward time of my life.  Excuse me while I take a Brillo pad to my brain.  No, No, I kid, I kid!  And you need temporary beauty/and hope to God it doesn't rain/you need temporary beauty/even though it might be love in vain

12. "Closing Time"-Semisonic.  Perfect.  One last call for alcohol so finish your whiskey or beer/closing time, you don't have to go home but you can't stay here

OK I am officially spooked.  I just went on about the past, turning forty, etc. and then every song that comes up has something to do with it.  Someone is messing with me.  It does make me realize something though: I would love to get together with some people that I don't see much of anymore.  That would be a heck of a present.

 

Just three words

God Bless America

(um, yeah, that's sarcasm)

In which I confess my Reykjavik deception

I have read many tributes to Kurt Vonnegut today and I am reminded of how much I have enjoyed reading his books, and also of the circumstances surrounding me as I read these books, which I feel like writing about today:

My first Vonnegut read was Slaughter-house Five, a brilliant book (though not what I consider his best) about the fire bombing of Dresden in World War II.  It is one of the few books that have made me uncomfortable picturing myself in it; I can't imagine what it must have been like to be in a city as it was being fire-bombed.  My fondest memory of this book is buying a copy for my nephew years later, in the late 90s, and hearing him say "so it goes" again and again for the next month or so.  There is nothing quite like the feeling of introducing a piece of literature to someone and seeing them embrace it as much as you did.

In 1997 I was in a bookstore days before taking a flight to Europe.  I needed something to read and eventually made a selection.  As it turns out I slept on most of the flight to London and did not read (it was overnight) but ten days later my return flight was in the middle of the day. The book I had bought before I left was Bluebeard, another Vonnegut novel, one that I had never heard of but decided to give a chance since I had enjoyed reading him before.  I started it an hour or so out of London and finished it about an hour or so before we landed in Chicago.  287 pages, and as far as I can remember, this is the only book I have ever read start to finish without stopping.  It is my favorite Vonnegut book, and one of my favorite books of all-time.  The next year I went back to Europe for two weeks and spent four days in Iceland by myself.  I had always wondered what it would be like to pass yourself off as someone else in a place where no one knows who you are, and in Iceland I decided to give it a try.  Icelanders are very friendly people, and every time someone introduced themselves to me I shook their hand and told them that my name was Rabo Karabekian.  He is the protagonist of Bluebeard.  I hope I represented him well.

I will always remember where I was when Al Gore finally conceded the 2000 election-stuck in a massive snow-related traffic jam, inching along on what would be a four hour trip home from work.  I had left downtown at six.  Gore conceded at eight.  I got home at ten.  Under normal conditions it was about a thirty minute trip.  December 2000 was exceptionally snowy and I had three of these nightmare commutes within a few weeks of each other.  When a fourth seemed certain based upon a weather forecast, I thought of ways that I could counter the boredom.  I wound up bringing my copy of Breakfast of Champions with me, and when the hours long commute materialized, I held the book against the steering wheel and read it.  I was either stopped or creeping along at less than five miles per hour.  It was surprisingly easy to avoid colliding with the car in front of me and concentrating on the book.

So it goes

Usually no good news comes just as one is preparing to retire for the night.  This is no exception: Kurt Vonnegut died Wednesday at the age of 84.

There are hundreds if not thousands of reasons why I write, none more important than any other, all spinning in the middle of my mind trying to help me make sense of what it is I am trying to say.

Most of the time when I write, I sit at a desk in a spare bedroom that we have upstairs.  It faces east and during the day what I see depends on the time of year. In the summer I can barely see anything other than trees, their leaves concealing what is beyond.  We live over a flight path to O'Hare, and in the summer I can usually only hear the planes.

When the leaves fall, I can see almost an entire neighborhood of homes beyond the shells of the leaf-less trees.  I hear the planes before I see them, and then they pass in between the branches, seemingly.

I get distracted by the view a lot.

To my left is a bookcase that has three shelves full of an assortment of books.  There is no real order to it, except perhaps for height.  I tend to store my books in descending order.

Sometimes when I am having difficulty transposing what I am saying in my mind to the screen of my computer, I look at the top shelf of the bookcase and see these titles displayed in a row:

Slaughterhouse-five
Cat's Cradle
Breakfast of Champions
Bluebeard

Sometimes it takes a while, but I always wind up figuring it out.

And so it goes . . . the man was a genius.

Hovering

Monday is the start of the 2007 baseball season. I am both anxious and horrified. I love baseball, it is one of the true constants of my life, but I can't take a year like 2006. Or 2005. Or 2004 for that matter.

Your last three World Series champions:

2004: Boston Red Sox
2005: Chicago White Sox
2006: St. Louis Cardinals

I like Boston and have no problem that they finally won a title, but ever since the realization is that it is nothing more than a cruel reminder of what the Cubs haven't been able to do for the last Jeebus-Freakin'-Crisco 99 years.

Having the White Sox win in 2005 was agonizing, not so much because they won but because of the behavior of most of their fans (at least the ones I know) towards the likes of me. They were (and are) obnoxious, still more consumed with the misfortunes of the Cubs than the success of their own team.

The Cardinals winning last year? That was the worst. They are the only team that I root against every chance I get. They are the enemy( and I do hope you're reading this, General Turncoat).

Just writing those last few sentences has me thinking about a cabinet full of Pepto Bismol. I will write more about this coming season later. Let's end this with a Random 11:

(This is a blatant rip-off from here. I am not that original.)

1. "Radio Free Europe"-REM. So I guess it is just about impossible to get through this without a song from these guys. I was just reading earlier today that they are working on the 14th album. I can only come up with nine.

2. "Rock It (Prime Jive)"-Queen. I'd bet you've never heard this one before.

3. "Beautiful Day"-U2. So I guess it is just about impossible to get through this without a song from these guys.

4. "The Valley Road"-Bruce Hornsby and the Range. Whatever happened to these guys? They take up a significant part of th soundtrack from my late 1980s.

5. "Silver and Gold"-U2. This is not a remake of a Burl Ives tune from "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" though it would be a lot more interesting if it were. And it wouldn't be anywhere near my i-pod.

6. "City of Blinding Lights"-U2. Three out of the last four. What are the odds? I think this is one of their best songs ever.

7. "Sara"-Fleetwood Mac. This is actually not what came up first. I recognized the song before this as a repeat. I used to think that there was a stanza missing to this song whenever I heard it on the radio, the part where Stevie Nicks blurts out "in the sea of love..."

8. "Arc of a Diver"-Steve Winwood. Most lyrics that I can't understand of any song I own.

9. "Come Talk to Me"-Peter Gabriel. I can't think of anything to say.

10. "Accidents Will Happen"-Elvis Costello. I'm trying to recall the last time something happened to me that I could consider to be an accident. I'm drawing a blank. I smacked my left kneecap last week but I sort of deserved it.

11. "Walk On"-U2. The first one that came up was a repeat. I've got 554 songs on this thing, all by U2.

That was incredibly lame.

The thrill is gone

It's been almost a full year since I have been really sick.  It was a Monday evening around eight o'clock last mid-April when I started to feel a bit "green" and by ten I was off on a rousing adventure lasting until morning which found me getting acquainted with several of the fixtures in one of our bathrooms.

The previous day we had been to a birthday party for a cousin who was turning one.  I later found out that half of the people who attended were either ill at the time of the party or became so soon afterwards.

So why I am reliving this?  Well, I recall the last thing that I ate before  the adventure began was a sandwich from a local chain that was just a block from school.  I had grown quite fond of the sandwiches they make and ate there two or three times per week, either after or in between class.

Perhaps you know where this is going.

What goes down must come up, they say (or at least I do) and it was ugly.  I will spare the details, but the aftermath has been that I have been unable to eat from this place since.  I barely even notice it when I walk by now.  Just thinking about this place makes me cringe.

Tonight I found out that my class was canceled as I was on the train about halfway into the city, so I turned around and called my wife, to see if she wanted anything special for dinner.

She fancied a sandwich.  From this place.  Which conveniently now has a location just a few blocks from our home.  So I went, and as I stood in line listening to some huge Bulgarian in front of me rant about the quality of his sandwich (which is another entry in itself) I decided it was time to try again.  I ordered a sandwich of my own.

I tried, but it ain't the same anymore.  The thrill is gone.  I can't eat anything from this place and not think about how ill I was that night.  All I could think about was what happened to me the last time I ate something from this place.

I could see having this reaction if it were the fault of this joint that I became ill in the first place, but it's not.  I had the exact same symptoms of twenty other people.  It was definitely something I caught at the party from the day before.

This has happened once before.  Thanksgiving 1997.  Someone, or something, at dinner wasn't right, and more than a few people paid the price.  For me, that didn't come until about five a.m. Saturday morning.

A friend and I had gone to see Boogie Nights the night before, and while some would argue that that particular film would make anybody toss their cookies, I didn't think it was all that bad.

But I can't watch it now.  If I stumble upon it on cable, I have to turn it off immediately.  If someone mentions it, I get a queasy feeling in my stomach.  Any remembrance of the film reminds me of what happened about ten hours after I saw it for the first time.  It's all I can think about now, just writing about it.  I remember yanking a fixture that holds a roll of toilet paper completely off the wall.  I've never heaved so much in my life-I could have lifted a car off of someone.

All this makes me wonder what could have possibly happened if I had sat down in front of the TV tonight as I attempted to eat my sandwich and flipped on HBO just as Don Cheadle walks into the donut shop.

And I told myself I'd be asleep by eleven tonight

In memory of Larry "Bud" Melman (who did the best impersonation of Roy Orbison I have ever seen-you might not have, since he did it for only a month before Orbison died) I found this on YouTube (I don't have the patience to embed-it takes me so freakin' long). This is a perfect example of why I loved staying up until 11:30 all through my high school years. I miss the old days of Letterman.

Here's something else that has been making the rounds the last day or two as well: movie director David O. Russell going completely off on Lily Tomlin on the set of I Heart Huckabees. I heart meltdowns. Fair warning-this is actually pretty offensive; he calls her a lot of bad names. I give Tomlin credit for not taking off one of her shoes and bludgeoning him. I was never much of a fan of his movies (Flirting with the Disaster seems to be the best) and I can pretty much guarantee that I will be ignoring any of his future work.

I do wish that this had come out about eighteen months earlier. Last year when I was on the editorial staff of Oyez Review we received a fiction submission from Russell's wife. It was a horrible story. I wrote a very nice rejection letter. Had I seen this first, I would have written a much more interesting one.

I'll wrap this up with a Random 11. Remember, this is a blatant rip-off from here. It's OK because we have Iowa City in common. And we have reason to celebrate heavily tonight!

1. "Waiting on a Friend"-Rolling Stones. God I love this song. Whenever I hear it I wonder why life is not one big party. Aside from that, a very strange memory pops up as well: in the fall of 1981 my family took the plunge and got cable television. It was about fifty channels, and I think a third were public access message board types. One of them was for each city that the cable company served-they would scroll through in alphabetical order, and they'd play music in the background. I always heard this song played on that channel. I'd sneak into my parents bedroom (where the second box that changed the channels was located) and sit there watching this channel in the hopes of hearing some cool music until I'd be busted and kicked out of the room. Yeah, I had a radio, but I was a strange kid.

2. "Gasoline Alley"-Rod Stewart. This is from the "MTV Unplugged" collection. Yep, they used to play music on that channel. We're going for the sentimental touch this round. Every time I hear this song I want to learn how to play the mandolin. And yes, I'm typing in the exact rhythm of the song. So I have to babble about something until the song is over because I want to hear the rest. You know something else I would like to learn? How to speak Irish. OK, Rod is starting to whisper so he should be done by the time I finish this sentence. And he is.

3. "Champagne Supernova"-Oasis. This is what I enjoy most about the 'pod, that it can play three straight songs that make the hair on my arms stand up. I have to move on though, because this song tends to make me really depressed.

4. "Detox Mansion"-Warren Zevon. We're only 4/11 of the way but this has the potential to be the all-time Random 11. "I'm raking leaves with Liza" but really, who hasn't? I have to waste more time here, so may I present a few "lines of the day" from our recent road trip:

"There's something funky about the chicken."

"Can we go see the birds?" "No, there's a cop behind us."

"I'm smelling something-is it your feet?"

"That bagel made me uncomfortable."

"Next year, we're going to the beach."  OK, Warren's done.

5. "The Memory of Trees"-Enya. You probably have no idea what this is, and you're missing out. Trust me. Enya is the third-most featured artist on the 'pod. We are on a roll.

(I notice I am "addressing" readers a lot lately, as if I had more than twelve. Hello everybody!)

6. "Electrolite"-REM. We (that's a "royal" we, just to clarify, loyal subjects) follow with the second-most featured artist. The first time I heard this song was in a bookstore in Galway, Ireland on a rainy afternoon towards the end of my first solo trip to Eire. The hair on my arms is at attention again.

7. "Don't Be Cruel"-Elvis Presley. Eh. I must have felt obligated to have more than three Presley songs.

8. "Revolution Earth"-The B52's. I lost my Good Stuff CD a few years ago, which is unfortunate because I can think of at least four other songs from it that would be on the 'pod if it were still in my possession.

9. "Take Me Home"-Phil Collins. But we just met. THANK YOU!

10. "Ignoreland"-REM. Here's what I don't get about this song: it's got a great sound to it and powerful lyrics, yet they choose to muck it up by distorting Michael Stipe's voice. It sounds like he's singing this song underwater and it's completely unnecessary.  

11. "What's My Scene"-Hoodoo Gurus. I heard this song once sometime in the 80s (I think) and didn't hear it a second time until this past October when I was on my way to pick up a pizza. Thank you satellite radio. I sometimes obsess about things like that; when I hear a song that I completely forgot ever existed I get caught up in exactly how long it has been since I last heard it. Last week while we were gone a friend of mine watched the house for us and I offered him use of our other car. Yesterday I noticed that he left a CD in the player and almost every one of the seventeen songs on it ('twas a mix) was a wayback song that I forgot ever existed. Most were from the two year period of my life where I worked full-time after graduating high school before going to college when I'd be forced to listen to "easy listening" radio for eight hours per day. I was amazed that I still knew a majority of the lyrics.

And we're done. Really, why isn't life one big party?