The Year That Was - media edition

Best Music

Yes, this is only a "top 9"...there just simply wasn't a tenth album I will claim as good. A weak year, musically.

1. Two Cow Garage – Speaking in Cursive
   
   While I have been a big fan of this band for quite some time, this album is a monumental step forward, in terms of depth and quality. Just buy it already.
   
   
2. The Hold Steady – Stay Positive
   
   Take off one or two songs with gratuitous keyboards, and this thing really rocks. "Lord, I'm Discouraged" alone has enough lyric power to make you weep. Combine it with "Hey Sapphire," and whoooboy. Plus Craig Finn now sings!
   
   
3. Ben Folds – Way To Normal
   
   Many have expressed disappointment with this album. They're nuts. "Kylie from Connecticut" alone (one of the most beautiful songs of the year?) should propel this into your top album lists. Good, rythmic virtuousity as well.
   
   
4. The Pink Spiders – Sweat It Out
   
   While the production is poppier than I would like and there is (unfortunately) a power ballad (skip "Don't Wait For Me"), this is still a very good album. "Gimme Chemicals" and "Seventeen Candles" are catchy as all-hell.
   
   
5. Magnolia Summer – Lines from the Frame
   
   Many have brought up the Jayhawks comparison. I'll just say that this is alternately lush, rocking, and lyrical. Go buy it.
   
   
6. Jay Bennett – Whatever Happened I Apologize
   
   The best thing he's done since The Palace at 4am. This all-acoustic effort is sweet, complex, and fun. Plus, you can download it for free!
   
   
7. The Raconteurs – Consolers of the Lonely
   
   A good second album of rock, although this sounds more like a band effort than their debut. Consolers more than makes up for the disappointment that was the last White Stripes disk.
   
   
8. Paul Westerberg – 49:00
   
   Sloppy, sticky, catchy in parts, and (sadly) no longer available through official channels.
   
   
9. Gaslight Anthem – The '59 Sound
   
   Nice bar rock with (if I'm not mistaken) a little Clash thrown in.
   

Top Songs

1. “Brass Ring,” Two Cow Garage
   
2. “Lord I'm Discouraged.” The Hold Steady
   
3. “Glass City,” Two Cow Garage
   

Musical Disappointments

• We will probably never see another album from Brent Best, Caitlin Cary.
  
• You Am I forgot how to rock.
  
• The Drive-By Truckers lost it.
  
• Ryan Adams has gone all slick
  

Music I'm Looking Forward To

• New Wilco, Grand Champeen, We Are The Fury, Jason Isbell

Someone I Discovered Much Too Late

• Josh Ritter

Best Movies

1. Wall-E
   
   Gorgeous. Hardly any dialog, but the emotion and meaning couldn't be any clearer. A scathing critique of consumerist culture, and a tear-jerking tale of love and hope at the same time.
   
   
2. Vicky Christina Barcelona
   
   Woody Allen makes a fresh film. It's young, lively, and gorgeously shot. The only down side is that the supreme gorgeousness of everyone in it might make you question your own looks...if you were not as pretty and confident as I.
   
   
3. Zach & Miri Make A Porno
   
   Kevin Smith knocks one out of the park. Both hilarous and touching, more so than it should ever be.
   

Cinematic Crap

• Cloverfield
  
  This one wouldn't be so bad except for one thing: I hate everyone in it.br?
  
• Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull
  
  Space aliens? Space aliens??? Is this really the best they could do?
  

Why in the Hell Haven't These Opened Here Yet?

• Synecdoche, New York
  
• The Wrestler
  
• Zombie Strippers (okay, so I could probably rent this one...)
  

The Year in TV

• The Shield ended perfectly
  
• I got absolutely hooked on Burn Notice
  
• Jeez, The Office is SOOOO much better post-strike
  

My Year in Technology

Why buy newspapers when you can get Darkgate Comics Slurper

• I know I'm late to this one, but I love my Wii
  
• Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog was probably my favorite bit of entertainment all year.
  

taking the chill off with a lovely beverage

I call this one "The Sub-Zero":

• take a mixer and fill with ice
  
• add
  
  
  
  • 1 measure dark rum
    
  • 1 measure tequila
    
  • 1 measure vodka
    
  • 1/2 measure triple sec
    
  • 1/2 measure strawberry liqueur
    
  • 2 TBSP sugar syrup
    
  • 2 measures grapefruit juice
    
  • 3 measures cranberrry juice
    
  • light squeeze of lemon
    
  
  
• shake vigorously
  
• pour into glass 2/3 full
  
• top off with seltzer/soda water
  
• garnish with lemon wedge
  
• sip and try to forget your heating bill
  

frozen dreams

My favorite band right now is Two Cow Garage. I first met them when they got up and jammed with Slobberbone after one of their Wapakoneta OH shows. While Slobberbone was brilliant (two separate sets, each about 1 1/2 hours, with a 30 minute encore), Two Cow was an unexpected pleasure, unknown, unannounced, raw, energetic. They even did most of their own songs (save a jam/duet/whatever on "Give Back The Key To My Heart" with the 'bone), and each of their originals had a spark, an energy that I really needed to hear in rock at the time.

They were obviously talented, and I was taken with the guys. I wanted to tell all my friends about them. This being the era of the internet, I talked an awful lot online with friends from all over. Word spread. When their first album Please Turn The Gas Back On came out (awesome, raw rock, with some raw country thrown in for good measure, they had established an online fanbase.

As much as I liked album one, it was The Wall Against Our Back that really grabbed me. As well as pure rock your face off tracks like "My Concern" and "Make It Out Alive," the guys in the band started to really think about their situation, the career of an indy, small rock and roll group. They started to explore the class and status structure of rock and roll. Do you hold on to some vague desire for authenticity, or "sign on the dotted line" and become corporate? Do you remain who you are, in the face of overwhelming odds?

This continued with III, perhaps more explicitly. As someone who was struggling with my own job dilemmas (trying very hard to find a tenure-track professor gig, wanting to move into a job where I felt like a scholar and academic rather than just a mechanic, blindly teaching courses outside of my training, specialty, and interests, making entirely too little money and working entirely too much), I could relate. In fact, I needed to have this music. Realizing that other people in other fields were having the same issues as I made me feel a little less alone, a little more hopeful.

It's not much of a stretch to say that The Wall Against Our Back got me through my years of adjuncting, and III helped me adjust to teaching in a field pretty foreign to me. Their latest album, Speaking in Cursive (click on the link, buy it for $5, it's unbridled awesomeness) shows amazing musical and lyrical growth, but part of the reason I'm so taken with it is the theme of "what happens if we never become rock superstars? Is what we have enough?" which pretty much mirrors how I've been thinking of my own career. It's always nice to know you're not alone.

What made my love for this band even better is the personal connection I forged with the guys in the band. One of the first times I saw them, Shane, bass player and singer extraordinaire, came over to thank me for talking them up online. Every time thereafter, we talked a bit more, got to know each other a bit more. And while I don't know him nearly as well as I would like, I do think of him as my friend. I've also gotten to know guitarist/singer Micah, and this personal connection brings a new dimension to their music. I'm not just a fan. I feel I have to fight for these guys, push them wherever and whenever I can.

And, of course, see them perform whenever I can as well. After completely missing their last BG show (even though I was at the bar three days before, I saw no flyers or ads to tell me they were playing), I was pumped to find out that Shane and Micah were scheduled to play an acoustic show at Toledo's Frankie's Innercity. So I gathered up some friends and went, but it was just fated to be one of those nights.

The first issue was the bitter cold. In order to celebrate the first official day of winter, the weather plunged down to a lovely -2...not including the wind gusts of up to 35 mph. My car fought me, but it did eventually start. Of course, it took a good ten minutes to come up to temperature, and my foggy breath was steaming up the windows.

Of course, the drive necessitated going down many roads which have been studiously avoided by any plow or salt trucks, so it's always fun to know that at any minute, you can lose control, slide across intersections, and get run over by a similarly out-of-control semi. But in spite of the mortal peril, we made it.

There was the third issue, related to my inability to find a designated driver. It's always hard to see good rock and roll without beer, but hey, I love these guys, so I was willing. Of course, the bar had to rub my sobriety in my face by having the $1.50 special on PBR, Blatz, and Black Label...it was the trio of destruction, and I could not partake.

Unfortuntately, after an hour or so, we got the announcement: Micah and Shane were stranded outside of Cleveland in a blizzard. So, since I couldn't even drink my oblivion away, I instead had to settle for introducting my mad Romanian friend to White Castle hamburgers.

The guys at Freankies told me that Shane and Micah are planning to try to reschedule for next weekend, though. Hopefully I'll have a designated driver then...or at least, maybe it won't be so damn cold.

a day in my life

In an effort to satisfy those who are bored with my Twitter feed reposts (hopefully it's better than nothing, but who knows?), I realize that I need to provide some original TheMikeDuBose content...after all, you are the ones who pay big money for subscription fees to this site, who send me mountains of fan mail (the photos are particularly appreciated), who give up their jobs and family to follow me on tour, I realize that you deserve something just for you.

Unfortunately, though, my life was (up until yesterday) pretty much filled with grading, conferences, and similarly exciting stuff. And what did I do to actually celebrate was read a book. Trust me, describing myself sitting on the couch under a blankie turning a page does not make exciting, edge of your seat prose. In fact, I've done absolutely nothing that warrants extended writing.

But, in an effort to satisfy my throng of fans, I realize I have to provide something. So please forgive the randomness and look for whatever jewels that might come. After all, even a disjointed TheMikeDuBose is better than none at all. We present you, the reading public, moments in my day:

• Last night, I had another Little Caesars Pizza dream. I worked there 9.5 years (throughout school and such), and on average, I still have one of these dreams every week or so. In these dreams, I'm always the avenging savior assistant manager, sent over to bring law and order to a store on the edge of destruction. This was pretty much the role I played in real life, so the subject matter doesn't surprise me that much. However, what does it say about me that, even in my dreams, that the most heroic role my mind can imagine is to save a pizza franchise? Superheroes, after all, don't usually work for minimum wage, and pizza workers don't usually get the girl. Oh well.
  
• Even though we're renters, we had to spend a few hours doing home improvement. We live in a very small (some would say cute or petite) little bungalow in town, which has as its main advantage washer and drier hookups and no undergrads living either above or below us. Unfortunately, though, if this place is insulated at all, it's with one or two 37 year old copies of The Toledo Blade, which, as you might imagine, doesn't cut down on the wind very much. Our windows are even leakier...sometimes I'm surprised that sparrows and other small birds don't just fly through the gaps. So yesterday, after the spousal unit and I dined on White Castle stuffing for lunch, we went out and applied window insulation kits...it's basically double-sided tape and humongous sheets of plastic wrap. Of course, whenever we've had to do this, the BG wind picks up and gives us hell. But now, our place leaks much less. It's a pain, though, and I often wish we could just tent the house with a giant ziplock bag.
  
• I am used to my car being against me. I am also used to computers trying to sabotage me by randomly freezing or erasing data. General paranoia has made me immune to most shocks when things go horrifically wrong. However, now my own body is trying to kill me. I have a problem where I get hot really easily. This means that when it hits 75 degrees, I start to sweat. My doctor, after hearing my tale of woe, told me that I have "Heat Intolerance" (neat name, at least), and he gave me a prescription for a super-strength antiperspirant, which is basically a super-concentrated solution of the over-the-counter active ingredient, and it glues up your armpits for a few days. Well, I put on my Thursday night dosage before bed, but when I woke up, my armpits were red, tender, and burning. My body has randomly developed an allergy to the only active ingredient in mass-market antiperspirant. I'm sure friends and family will be thrilled to hear this.
  

So there you have it, folks. My post-Fall semester has so far been taken up with an armpit allergy, saran wrap windows, and pizza dreams. Exciting stuff, huh? Rest assured that over the break, as I'll be occupied with syllabi planning, writing, and teaching myself video game theory, that there will be more wacky adventures. Bet you can't wait.

the sutured wound

In honor of my addled-finger state, I have invented another drink, which I call "the sutured wound":

• fill pint glass with ice
  
• fill 1/3 with rye whiskey
  
• add a splash each of strawberry liquour and triple sec
  
• top off with good ginger beer (note: ginger ale, particularly the syrupy mass-market crap, is not acceptable), stir
  
• sip gently while watching sport and dreaming about that perfect location for a nice, sexy scar
  

injury, triage, treatment

I was applying pressure to the wound, hoping against hope I could staunch the flow of blood. Meanwhile, as my head started to sway inside the confines of my skull, I could hear the uneasiness and pain enter my wife's voice. Shock started to set in, and I wondered if I would make it to a safe refuge, or would I instead collapse, blood pooling around my prone, inert body?

What had in fact happened, I wondered as later I sat in the emergency room, my memories still too fuzzy to really know for sure? Somewhere, deep in the confines of my subconscious, I had visions of rage-filled students coming at me with butterfly knives, and me disarming them, protecting my fellow instructors cowering behind me but getting sliced up and mortally wounded despite my eventual victory. Or had I lacerated my torso when, upon entering my house, a bomb planted by some crazed Sara Palin groupie exploded? Had my past as a hardened criminal finally caught up with me when my old comrades Lefty, One-eye, and Chuckles jumped me, whispering in my ear that no one really ever leaves the life?

Unfortunately, none of the above. My life just doesn't have that level of drama, much to my chagrin. I would rather be able to tell people that I wounded myself breaking up a hostage situation. Somehow, cutting my pinkie while trying to core a cauliflower for a curry doesn't have the same level of excitement to it. But at least it was deep.

I could've lived without going to the ER, but when she saw the wound, my spousal unit immediately got the "I must take care of you and protect you from your own macho bs" look in her eyes, so what choice did I have? Later, when she told me she was glad we came, I told her straight out that I knew she wouldn't shut up about it if I didn't go. I could get away with saying this to her, being wounded and all. Me being in pain will lessen her physical displays of rage.

When the ER staff saw that I had a sense of humor about everything, they were quite pleased. A nurse asked me if I needed another pillow, and I said only to stifle the screams. The doc then picked up a towel and mimed strangling me. When the spousal unit said she didn't want to look at the wound as the doc sewed it up because she might get dizzy, the doc encouraged her..."go ahead...you two have good insurance, so we could always admit you if you passed out and hurt yourself...more business for us!" I figure that you have to have a pretty sick sense of humor working in an ER, but I was quite surprised to find out it's almost the same as a restaurant worker's humor. There's a paper in there, I think.

I got a tetanus shot, and the nurse was good...I hardly felt it. When the doc gave me a local anesthetic, though...shots to the pinkey really bleedin' hurt. A good rule of thumb is when the doctor tells you something will "sting," find something hard to bite down on, quick.

Strangely enough, the lady in the bed next to me also was in for some cauliflower-related incident, but I didn't get particulars. I then asked the ER doc if he thought there was some connection, and we discussed it for a while. I brought up the possibility that cauliflowers were really alien brains out to destroy humanity by inducing kitchen-related injuries, a theory I think the doc liked.

Unfortunately, even though I did get five stitches, the fact that they are on my little finger doesn't make them cool enough to brag about, in spite of their relative grossness. I tried wearing the hospital bracelet all night, but as there were no parties where I could impress people with inflated tales, it was kind of pointless. I did hang out with two friends, but they were notoriously unsympathetic.

That's the problem with cauliflower-related injuries...they just don't sound bitchen'. Story of my life, I suppose....I can't even hurt myself in novel, interesting ways.

this is your charge, America

Please, oh country that I love, do not screw this up.

a smartass thought about writing

If I was one of those "gee, see how clever I am" academics, I would point out how Reagan is very close to the word regain, and I would tie that all into the nostalgia tendencies. I would then bring up the etymology of regain, twist something in that to make myself clever, and then throw in some dense theory written either in French or in some East European (but that I will leave in the original language, sans translation) to show that the desire for nostalgia and nationalistic resurgence was built into the linguistic infrastructure which inevitably let to Ronald Reagan becoming president. I would, incidentally, have a smug look on my face while I wrote the above section.

Luckily for the reading public, I am not that kind of academic or writer. But I wonder...if I was that much of a poet/gearhead, would I have an easier time finding a tenure-track job?

multitasking

The major benefit of grad school is, I think, the ability to multitask. When I was a grad student taking classes, I had to:

• plan for the next class I was teaching
  
• grade papers
  
• stay in touch with my department and professors
  
• keep up on department news and politics
  
• take 4 classes, each of which involved
  
  
  
  • at reading one reading apiece
    
  • usually at least two papers
    
  • weekly discussions
    
  • a zillion different theoretical constructs/approaches
    
  
  
• keep my house in workable order and cleanliness
  
• keep my then-date now-spousal unit appeased
  

How did I do it? What makes this all the more fascinating is that I had a fairly active and regular social life, as did all my friends (each of whom were balancing similar workloads). But then, I was on fire. I could do thousands of things. The world was my oyster.

Today, I've had to take care of some students. When I finish with them, I find myself having to adjust back to writing. I go in the bathroom to shave, and I have to run back to the computer to type something important. I finish shaving, come back to type again, and have to run back to plug in the razor to charge...because I know otherwise I'll forget it. I have to then clear blocks where I can write, because when I actively work on my own stuff, I can't really do much else.

Sometimes, I find myself wishing I had half the mental faculties and multitasking ability I had in grad school. But then again, it did take me several years to get the dissertation done, so maybe I'm just being nostalgic.

Now, what did I have to do next?

a brief programming note

I am experimenting with doing this blog over at Wordpress. Blogger has lots of advantages, but there is no way I know to back up your blog. At Wordpress, you can do that. So, please feel free to check out the new experiment at http://themikedubose.wordpress.com/. It might change, as I get ideas/try to avoid real work. Also, feel free to leave suggestions/pass judgments in the comments to this post.

events are conspiring against me

At the beginning of the week, I was looking forward to a long Wed.-Thurs.-Fri.-Sat.-Sun. stretch of writing. I planned to do a lot of work on the (now overdue again) book manuscript, get that damned theory chapter that's been bugging me out of the way, bust out pages like nobody's business. So what happened?


Wednesday, I had a doctor's appointment. When I gave myself runner's knee over the summer, the doctor gave me a knee brace. Said brace did stop the knee, but it also made me walk just differently enough to tweak my old heel spur in the other foot...and it just would not die down. Now, I have a nifty new night splint I get to wear. It's awkward. It takes 5 minutes to attach. I now have to limp/stumble if I have to go to the restroom at night. Plus, I have to get used to sleeping a completely different way. Wee.

Afterward, the spousal unit and I went to vote. That killed over an hour, but I really like the idea of early voting. I hope it causes more people to get out there and vote. The whole time I was at the office, though, I kept whispering to myself, "don't screw it up, America, don't screw it up." These two events, of course, led to me getting nothing done.

Thursday came, and I realize I had essay proposals to review. My students are picking a specific example of someone/thing that goes against normative gender roles and analyzing it. Needless to say, a large part of the assignment is figuring out what they can write about. So far, they want to write big important issue papers. One student wants to write about (paraphrase here) how guys see other guys. So my responses to them took all day, in between bouts of grading.

Friday, was that a day for writing? Of course not. While going to bed the night before, the spousal unit found some water patches in the hallway. This was kind of mysterious, as there were no leaks on the ceiling. They were still there the next morning, so I called maintenance. Our cool maintenance guy looked them over, realized they were next to a vent in our supply/utility closet, and checked out our water heater. Prognosis? It was "about to explode." So maintenance spent all day tearing out the old water heater and installing a new one. I of course couldn't actually write with all this going on, so I got my grading caught up, dealt with "why am I failing" student e-mails (as the result of the aforementioned grading), and ran to a produce stand to get some orchard-fresh apples.

That night, we had the Halloween party. I went as a Mad Scientist. Spousal Unit went as a witch, but a friend asked her "are you some Renaissance Fair person?" A good time was had (and I'll post photos of costumes and our carved pumpkin later). Of course, this meant a late night, so I slept in way too late on Saturday. Spousal unit was on the desktop from the time we woke up until 6, and I just can't do any serious writing on my laptop, as much as I love it.

No real work done so far today. Part of this comes from dealing with students, but there's also the case of I've been away from it for about a week now, and I need to re-immerse myself, saturation, the dunk tank method. Of course, it's almost lunch time...and I still have to write to my publisher-to-be and explain why I'm not done...and there's more student contact to come...and my computer's version of Doom is calling me...

deadline reminder

I'm trying to reach people through as many different ways as possible, so consider this to be a warning...and not your last one.

The Popular Culture Association's 2009 conference is in New Orleans from Wednesday, April 8, through Saturday, April 11. The deadline for submissions is November 30. On their website, they have a complete list of areas, each with its own address or call for papers.

While this conference is used by some academics as simply a vacation spot (and, hint-hint, it is in New Orleans, a great place for a vacation), there are still good panels and papers (including mine). So everyone I know should go.

Plus, it's New Orleans. Jazz clubs. Awesome food. Drinking on the streets. Voodoo stores. How could this not be fun?

Please go. I want to get everyone I know there, so we can act like a street gang and take over the place.

little known facts about me

It's a secret that I've been hiding for ages, and it's finally time to come clean. My soul can't take the deception any longer. Yes, I, themikedubose, have physical deformities. To wit:

• I have a mysterious spot on my left leg where, in a perfect circle, no hair whatsoever will grow. This is puzzling, because I'm quite hirsute otherwise. My parents know of no birth defects, forceps gouging, or massive burns. My theory? Alien abduction.
  
• When it is cold outside, my pinkies are significantly more chilled than the rest of my hand. Maybe this is a sign my hands will still turn into hooves or something.
  
• I get hot entirely too quickly. When I told my doctor this, he thought about it, and then diagnosed me: I have heat intolerance. Oooooh.
  

Okay, so maybe it's not enough to let me join a circus...but have pity anyway. And quit looking at me!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Star Trek and deadlines

One of the best things about Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, other than the very awesome Kirk scream, is its applicability to real life.


Bear with me here.

The Genesis Device (all such sci-fi devices are unique, destructive, and therefor must be capitalized) is about to go off. The Enterprise's warp core is not working. Someone's giving the countdown of doom. Kirk keeps asking for distance from the explosion and time until detonation. If they can't travel fast enough, they are all dead...and with the warp core down, they will certainly be obliterated in the explosion.

Kirk looks worried. But it is not him with whom I identify. Sulu is at the helm, and in a resigned voice, asks no one in particular: "We're not going to make it, are we?"

Star Trek is infamous for putting the ship in mortal peril. They always seem to escape. Sulu knows this. Yet his voice gives away a hint of awareness that their luck might have finally just run out.

It is now October 22. I am supposed to have the book done by the end of the month. And boy, is this thing fighting me. I am having to go do mortal combat with the damn thing every day. I've cut my football back to almost nothing. I've eliminated most of my television viewing...and for that matter, culture enjoyment of all sorts. But the book is working against me at every turn.

Nine days. I know how Sulu felt.


Of course, they did make it, so maybe I will. But they had Spock, who was willing to sacrifice himself in order to save the crew. The good of the many sometimes outweighs the good of the few.

Where's my Spock? Who will take my classes, the dilithium crystals of my life, and fix them so I can heroically escape death by missed deadline?

Zappa Plays Zappa

A brief time out/work avoidance moment to tell you about our experience at Zappa Plays Zappa last night.

I'm a big Frank Zappa fan. I got into him while he was still alive but (unfortunately) after he had stopped touring. I'm a biggest fan of the One Size Fits All era, but I have several timeframes represented. Even so, I feel inadequate...I've only got about twenty of his seventy or so albums.

When I found out that Zappa's son Dweezil had put together a touring Zappa tribute band, I was intrigued. Dweezil always had the technical skills, but he was much more manic than his father, and I wondered if he would have the discipline to pull this off. However, every time I checked their tour dates, they seemed to be focusing on festival shows, and they seemed to never be around where I live, so it was all a moot point...until last night.

Zappa Plays Zappa came into Ann Arbor last night, and I managed to snag two 4th row seats...the joys of working at home. First, it was nice to be so close, I felt like the luckiest little girl in the world! Second, it was one of those shows where the spousal unit and I were lowering the average age...pretty much the exact opposite of what happened when thmarn and I went to see My Chemical Romance. Third, I love knowing that there's no opening act for me to groan my way through.

The band was utterly amazing...almost three hours of music. We got a lot of the classics: "Peaches," "Zombie Woof," "I Am The Slime," a couple songs off Joe's Garage, a dance contest, a smokin' "Cosmic Debris" that featured solos from everyone including the awesome Ray White, and a version of (get this) "Billy the Mountain"...it must've went on for a half hour, weird and funny as all hell.

Dweezil smokes. Having to sit and learn all of Frank's music was really good for him...he's more fluid than I've ever seen him, both faster and with more emotion. He's starting to look a lot like Frank, and he sure as hell can channel his father's playing. More importantly, he was sporting the "how lucky am I?" grin through most of the evening.

I'll never get to see Frank, but this evening made me a little less sad of that fact.

ps: With a crowd that old and a set list that long, people were constantly getting up to hit a bathroom. If Dweezil was more of a commercial slut, he should've had the whole deal sponsored by FloMax.

another beverage

I call this one the "Writing Depression":

• Fill a pint glass up with ice
  
• fill 1/4 with vodka
  
• 1/4 wild strawberry liquor
  
• splash of triple sec
  
• top off with club soda (preferably Big K brand)
  
• sip while watching football, trying to figure out how to fix your manuscript problems, become self-deluded that you'll actually finish the book in 11 days.
  

so, how's it going?

I have just finished stitching together a draft of the completely new chapter of my book. It has 100% of the structure/organization, 85% of the sources (and I know where to find the others), and 70% of the actual language. I should be able to get it more or less complete by the end of the week, if all goes well.

Then I just have to stitch it together with the rest, stitch in the conclusion and expand it, and reword the entire thing. And I have 17 days to do it. Piece of cake!

I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to anyone whom I might've insulted, ignored, or generally treated in a questionable manner during this process. I think I've been handling the stress and workload pretty well, but one thing I learned in the dissertation is that perspective and judgment are the first things to go.

Kind of like in a whiskey drunk.

lazing on a sunday afternoon

Somewhere in Matt Groening's book School is Hell, there's a piece about graduate school, where someone is in the doorway of a graduate student, asking them if they wanna come to a picnic. The student, without looking up from his book, replies with "Sounds great! I'll be there in four or five years.

I spent until 10pm yesterday at my computer busting out job applications. I worked until 9 most nights last week. Today, I'm sitting at the computer again, going over some criticism. It's warm, and in order to battle the heat from the cpu, I've got the window open.

Across the street is one of those mega-apartment complexes for undergrads. If you look through the trees, you can see the "kids" playing volleyball. I assume there's also beer involved.

I remember spending weekend days at a friend's house, drinking beer, playing volleyball in the front yard. Now, I'm thinking of that experience while I watch some other lucky teen punks play volleyball in the sun. In between bouts of bitterness and loathing, I write about really horrible literary criticism.

One would hope this eventually evens out.

blogging activity

Yes, I haven't been around much...been working...but I have not abandoned this. Later this week, I have to type up an entry I handwrote while at the Detroit airport. Then I get to tell you about my new car (pimpmobile). I still have to give the results of my MySpace and Facebook experiment. And there are, of course, more horror stories from work.

However, if you haven't noticed, there is a summary of my Twitter feed on the right. I started Twittering a while back...the short space fits my current workload. If you Twitter, please let me know so I can follow you.

Also, I have a blog chronicling thoughts, ideas, and rants-in-progress about my book and other scholarship. You might've heard me mention it before, but it was previously invite-only. I'm changing that. I'm also moving the academic blog to another site which allows backups (which, inexplicably, Blogger does not). So if you have any interest in seeing what I've been up to in terms of scholarship...or in telling me how I'm wrong...please check out Thought Emporium, my new home for scholarship.

Now, I'm going back to work so I can get this damn book done, move onto a tenure track job, buy a house, start homebrewing beer again, have kids who will take care of me when I get (more) old and decrepit, and spend more time admiring my awesome spousal unit.

seven years gone

I wasn't going to do a post-9/11 post, but someone on a mailing list wrote something that shook me to the core, and I just had to work out some thoughts (albeit a day late). An expansion of my reply:

My experience pales to most people, but I do remember the utter disorientation that everyone at school seemed to exhibit...everyone was walking around like a zombie. I was sitting in my office doing some grading, and one of my colleagues kept wandering the hallways, listening to a portable radio. When I finally asked him what the hell he was doing, I didn't believe his response at first.

I went down to my department's conference room, where there was a tv set up. A number of people had gathered to watch the coverage...by that time, the second tower had already fallen...but no one was really saying anything. I stayed for an hour or so, and then went to my only class of the day. The teacher there had the tv on, and likewise, everyone was just staring, silent. I stayed for about 30 minutes before heading home. I didn't break out my cd player for the walk as I normally would...somehow, I just really needed to hear some quiet.

I got home and watched coverage for a few hours before my mind snapped, and I just couldn't take it anymore. However, nothing else was on. Even Food Network has suspended their coverage, which I understand, but it was a shame...I really needed a diversion at that point.

That night, the spousal unit and an old roomate and I went to BW3s for wing night. We were sitting on the deck, right across the street from a gas station, and it seemed that every 15 minutes, someone from the gas station would come out and raise the prices on the sign. Afterward, we went to Howards (the ultimate BG bar), and we got to see the President-appointee's "I've finally finished reading kid stories and am now ready to pretend to be a leader" speech to the nation, where he begged us, the nation, to show unity by going (wait for it) shopping.

It's a shame those are my two most vivid memories of that day. But it was obvious by them that something in the world (and particularly in the US) had changed for the worse. I was never one of those "capitalism is evil" types, but I became much more cynical about government and authority after trying to juxtapose the gas gouging and the presidential pleas to shop. I still think that 9/11 is the day that W became unglued, and our country and the world has suffered the wrath of a government becoming more egotistical, more evil, and less empathetic ever since.

On the plus side, the actual people of the country drew together in a way that gave me hope. Locally, our Muslim community started to pre-emptively reach out to the area and become more open. The population showed the enormous courage, unity, charity, and grace that those in power so clearly showed they lack.

(Actually, come to think of it, the Katrina aftermath was pretty much the same thing.)

I want to be hopeful here. I want to believe that the people of this country will work not only for their own best interests but for the best interests of us all, even when the government is clearly wrong. However, many good people still actively support a very bad government, one that's making us all look bad and get our souls messy. Please, America, we have a chance to finally do right by each other. Do the right thing.