Monsters At The Fence

"All The World Is Green"

Live On Letterman

Saturday Morning at the Tennis Courts

Future Wimbledon ball boy, maybe?

The Migraine Brain

I'm one of the lucky ones. I might get about two or three headaches a year. My mom has suffered from major migraines for years and so have so many of my friends. There was a period of time about fifteen years ago when I really got them bad for a few weeks. There was no way I could function when one would hit. I'd be at work at the record store and would just go to the back office, lay my head down against the cold, hard desk and rub my temples hoping for any measure of relief.

Anyway, those days of major headaches are long since past. How people make it through their days dealing with pain like that, I have no idea. My heart goes out to them. Last Thursday's episode of Fresh Air featured neurologist Carolyn Bernstein whose book, The Migraine Brain, explores the subject. I'll listen to the podcast of the show tonight. It should be quite interesting.

I could learn a lot from my kid.

The 5-year-old boy just used my phone to call his 3-year-old sister who is grocery shopping with her mom.

"Hi Ari. I like you. You're so beautiful. Bye."

I think he just made her day.

Stop; Start Forward

Dreams of a westbound train are spending much time in my head again.

iTunes Genius was keeping a certain mood going for me nicely as I played with thoughts of my life's trajectory.

"Chips Ahoy" by The Hold Steady led nicely into Pink Floyd's "Goodbye Blue Sky" and I kept thinking of those many hours of relative silence that a long train ride would provide. I imagined myself undisturbed and relaxed with notebook on my lap as the landscape passed by outside my window. Who knows? Maybe this hotel worker would finally figure out how to write something worthy of publication on a trip like that.

Anyway, it was a nice thing to imagine until the next song, supposedly related to the two previous, kicked in: "Beautiful Girls" by Van Halen. Awesome song, but I can't say it really fit the playlist. We're back to good now. Bruce Springsteen. "The River."

And I'm back to those dreams of solitude and inspiration.

Status Report

I can't imagine that there are two more exhausted parents than my wife and I. I'm probably wrong about that and if so I wish those other parents my deepest sympathies.

Feel Good Friday

Friday's almost done but I'll post anyhow. From Bon Jovi's This Left Feels Right, enjoy a reworking of "You Give Love A Bad Name." I like it.




As an afterthought I'll add a song that's been in my head all day. As has been reported from within the McCain camp, apparently Mrs. Sarah Palin was unaware that Africa was a continent and not a country. I really hope that it's just a ridiculous claim, but one just doesn't know for sure. Anyway, enjoy Toto. They probably knew that little fact.

Diamonds On My Windshield

It ain't the most profound of lyrics, but I think my favorite two lines from any Tom Waits song are the following:

A Wisconsin hiker with a cue-ball head
Is wishing he was home in a Wiscosin bed

A Young Girl On An Autumn Day

Or Maybe It's Just A Phase

In recent developments, my daughter seems to be quite the hockey fan. At age three, and oh so "girly" in the ways of princesses and all things sweet and sensitive, I'm a bit surprised. But there she was, arguing with me tonight to watch the Devils and Sabres do their thing on the ice. I mentioned that hockey was on while I was surfing around to see what I wanted to watch. She wanted to watch hockey but I wanted to watch Monday Night Countdown prior to tonight's Redskins-Steelers matchup. Already mastering her way around a conversation she offered: "Dad, you do know that they're just talking about football, right? Now turn it to hockey."

She had made her point and so I turned it to hockey. She watched a few minutes, we talked about what was going on and the names of the teams and her short little attention span took her to the other room. It seemed like as safe a time as any and I turned the channel back to Monday Night Countdown. Within seconds, my little princess hurried back into the living room with actual tears on her face. I assumed her brother had made her cry somehow. Wrong. It was me. "Dad, you turned the channel when I didn't want you to," she accused.

Back to hockey. Olvia, the biggest hockey fan I know, is hereby welcome to borrow her and take her to a game whenever she wants.

Father Daughter

Thinking about my sweetie. Thankful that she loves me.

Blogging is fun when I don't worry about it being good.

What's the deal with Twitter SMS? I send a tweet from my phone and have no confidence that it will update within the next ten hours or so. Someone please buy me an iPhone or a G1 Android so I can stay in the Twitter loop at all times. Just kidding. Sometimes it's healthy to just make do with what you've got.

I saw Nine Inch Nails on Halloween. The good post about the show is here . The thing that I'm talking about is something that made me smile the day after. I went to read about the concert on the NIN website under the forums page and read about someone who was bitching about a stolen tambourine. The person complained that Trent Reznor tossed his tambourine down to her after she asked him for it. According to her story, someone then immediately dragged her to the ground and took it from her. I read that and got pissed on her behalf remembering the time someone grabbed a program from my hands at a Dio show. Anyway, that crap happens.

Later that evening I was at work and talking to a co-worker about the show when she mentioned that a friend of a friend was bragging about a tambourine that he or she had gotten at the concert. Small world, I guess. I told her what I had read of that story and she got a kick out of it. She'll ask her friend about that and tell me more from that side of the story. I didn't know either person but between the Internet and a co-worker I found myself somewhat knowledgeable about two sides to a story about some silly tambourine incident at a NIN show.

In other news (I'm allowing myself some meaningless rambles tonight), I'm still trying to decide if I love the new Todd Rundgren CD or not. It really rocks hard, but something holds me back from really hearing it as I think I'm supposed to hear it. He's so talented and so sharp that it almost feels too calculated to be trusted as a true rock 'n' roll experience. It's not fair of me to look at it like that, but there it is. I found it helped for me to look at it not as a new Todd Rundgren release but rather as some debut CD by some 20-somethings trying to make their mark. Is that the bastard elitist coming out in me? It's not real rock unless it's performed by broke, mean and lean musicians? Anyway, "Gun" is currently my favorite track from the CD, although the big riff seems to borrow (or is it steal?) from Alice Cooper's famous "School's Out."

Also, I want to write with a bit less self-consciousness, a bit less politeness, but there are some respectable people out there with my last name and I'd hate for them to have to answer to my weird blog posts if they were to have bosses and potential bosses come across the blog. Maybe I'll start another one and find the balls to cuss on it from time to time.

I'm going to bed now. Thanks for reading.

"It's A Sad And Beautiful World"

My friend and co-worker died in a car wreck yesterday. I think he was in his mid-40s. I clocked in, heard the news, and worked for the next nine hours, smiling in public and trying not to cry in private. When trying to process his sudden absence from our lives, I kept hearing the phrase, "life is fleeting" in my head. That line which I first heard in Gary Oldman's Romeo Is Bleeding so many years ago always sounded somewhat cool and profound. We lose a friend though and the line carries very little weight. I tried to say it in conversation with friends today, but I would ponder it first, decide that it sounded devoid of proper compassion and let it go unsaid.

All of us at the workplace will miss our friend very much. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and loved ones. We're all going to have to just deal with this in each of our own personal ways. (I guess this is mine.) When my wheels wouldn't go, he was my ride to and from work. I'd wait for him outside my apartment while listening to Tom Waits on my iPod. He would pull up and I'd hop into his car where Mariah Carey was always sure to be playing on his stereo. If not the music, then the rides and the good conversations were always well appreciated. He was always a good Samaritan to me.

Life is fleeting. Or, "it's a sad and beautiful world." From Down By Law, starring Tom Waits, John Lurie, and Roberto Benigni, here's one of my favorite scenes.