Sep/100
Hoarders
Does ragtime sheet music count?
I detest reality television.
And yet, I am addicted to watching “Hoarders” on A&E.
I suppose it’s a kind of psychological porn for me (“Oooh yeah… don’t you dare throw away that cockroach infested teddy bear!”), taking to the extreme something we all do a little. And it’s very satisfying to look at the television and go, “Goodness, at least I know in which box my Occupied Japan figurines are preserved!”
In my head I said that as “pre-ser-ved,” where the “-ved” rhymes with bed.
Here’s the funny part. The only-in-America part. Because between every show segment are five minutes of expertly crafted, animal-tested, USDA-grade commercials to convince you that happiness is owning Charmin toilet paper, gold coins, clothes washed with Woolite (“A woman never reveals the age of her clothes!”), floors by Empire Direct, and the latest $40,000 minivan.
It’s like a show on drug addiction brought to you by the good folks over at Cocaine Enterprises.
Maybe if we talked less about what we don’t have and focused more on how our worth comes from the inside, people wouldn’t think having=happiness and would know that their missing wife was actually dead inside their house hidden under the clutter…
Apr/101
Whiplash
Nowhere is there a more happier crew.
I could seriously change my last name to “McFly” with all the time-traveling I’ve been doing. So far this week I’ve been in the present, nine years in the past, ten years in the past, forty years in the future, and three days from today.
As Marty would say, “This is heavy.”
Jess and I left DC on Friday night and flew to Orlando for the first time since I graduated from film school there in 2001. Our mission? A five-day excursion with her family to Disney World. Criminal as it sounds, I only made it to Disney World one time (for all of 6 hours) when I lived in Orlando. A classmate of mine dated a girl who worked at the park and got us free tickets, and we went to MGM Studios for one of their Star Wars Weekends. Those of you who’ve been there know that six hours at Disney World is like standing in the lobby of the MOMA and saying you’ve done the museum. It doesn’t really count.
We landed in Orlando at 10 PM, and from there we caught “Disney’s Magical Express” which, frankly, is neither magical nor express. The park is 15 miles from the airport, and we got to the hotel at 1:13 AM. We were on the Disney bus as long as we were on the airplane. Something is wrong with this picture.
Mar/103
Try Harder or Quit
I need to become this person.
My French teacher in high school had a thing. Whenever a student would come to talk to him about late homework, he would curtly ask, “Is this a big long story ending with ‘I don’t have it’?” And invariably, if the student (usually me) indicated that yes, this was indeed a story ending with “I don’t have it,” he would quickly go, “Okay, sorry. Better luck next time.”
My point: Hi. Sorry. I’ve been a negligent blogger. The reason why? A big long story ending with “I don’t have it.” Moving on.
There are few things more pleasurable for a person interested in ragtime, stride, and early jazz than finding other, ridiculously talented people who are also into it. The internet is more adept at causing this phenomenon than any technology ever, and helped me discover this guy. His name is Bernd Lohtzky. He’s a German. And he might be one of the best interpreters of this style of music I’ve ever heard.
To wit:
It’s hard to communicate how watching something like this makes me feel. To be honest, it elicits a mountain of self-doubt. First, I’ve been thinking about ragging/striding this etude for a long time. It lends itself to it very well. And then I see this and… I quit. I mean, I cannot do what this guy does. I don’t think I ever will be able to. His playing is nearly flawless. He has no trouble keeping rhythm. It’s effortless and beautiful and sparkling. Listen to some of his other videos on YouTube. He plays Jimmy Johnson’s “Caprice Rag” like it’s a piece for children. My playing sounds sodden and weak in comparison.
Feb/100
The Boxing Reindeer is Dead
The head is the best part.
From my step-nephew:
The boxing reindeer is dead. He got crushed in Tyler’s book bag. But, you get one of his body parts in memory of him. Please, be safe.
Best wishes,
Tyler
I cannot be the only person who recognizes the genius of my nine-year-old step-nephew.
Literally, he may be one of the funniest, quirkiest people on the planet. I aspire to this.
Jan/102
(Lack of) Organization
I think I’m in need of an intervention. I went through all of my CDs this weekend. Not a single disc matched the case that it was in.
If Bryan were a character in a video game, he would be called "The Archivist"
Josh Groban was in Jo Ann Castle. The Chieftains lived with Dave Matthews. Scott Joplin lay with John Williams. Bon Jovi was stuffed inside Michael Jackson. Honest to God it looked like someone had deliberately gone through my stuff and messed it up to screw with me but, no, this is my natural state. When it comes to organization I am, as the French say, a hot mess.
They say opposites attract, which is why I’m friends with Bryan Wright. His CD collection is alphabetized, prioritized, cataloged, categorized, displayed, diagrammed, digitized, duplicated, researched, registered on the list of Historic Landmarks, and indexed by Google. He can find any CD, record, recording, research paper, picture, piano roll, or page of information in a manner of seconds and tell you exactly what it is, where he got it, why he owns it, how much it’s worth, who collects it, and which needle to use on his record player to play it. He’s like RoboCop with a spreadsheet. He might as well have x-ray vision, because being that organized seems like a superpower to me.
I don’t know why I’m so afflicted. I don’t come from messy people. I clean up well, when I dedicate myself to it, but inevitably it’s going to plunge into disarray again because the behavior that causes the calamity, my je ne sais quois, is hard to change.
Dec/090
Goodwill to Men
Well, Christmas has come and gone. No matter how much Christmas music I listen to or shopping I do, it seems like I never am ready for the day when it comes, and then it’s all over like a night in Vegas. It’s like your wedding day only with more reindeer (unless you are, in fact, a reindeer yourself, in which case I suppose you’d have reindeer relatives).
This about sums up my feelings at the moment...
It’s been a very weird Christmas so far. We spent months shopping for people, and we received many nice gifts on Christmas day, and then today we worked to clear out a family member’s house – he’s moved into assisted living and is getting rid of his property – and took truckload after truckload of trinkets and knick-knacks and old Christmas gifts to Goodwill.
It was a surreal contrast. On the one hand we were excited on Christmas to get gifts, to open presents, to watch others open their presents, and then two days later we were besieged by the accumulated detritus of a lifetime, by the weight of possessions and property. It definitely was enough to give me pause and wonder about what is actually valuable.
The things that I think are valuable – our photo albums, for instance – really have no lasting value at all. Jess and I take a lot of pictures – thousands upon thousands, as our Facebook friends can attest – but who is going to give a shit about those when we’re old? No one. They’ll go through and discard them like we went through and discarded things today.
Dec/090
Self-Explanatory
Took this picture in the bathroom of a Pittsburgh restaurant. I thought this was pretty much something us men had tacitly agreed upon, but apparently not?
I thought we were on the same page about this...
My mind is ablaze with questions. What kind of garbage were people throwing into this urinal? How often was this happening? It must have been frequent enough to warrant a sign, which leads me to my next question: What is the thought process of someone who disposes of their trash in a urinal? “Hm. I found this old pen in my pocket while urinating. I tried to write on the wall and it didn’t work, and that trash can seems pretty far away. Maybe I’ll just throw it in here. Yeah, that’s the ticket.”
Shocking. These must be the same men who pee without lifting the toilet seat.
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