Wednesday, December 28, 2005

in the dark recesses of imagination

i have always loved being scared. it is invigorating. your body tenses as you prepare to react to the impending threat. all of your senses are heightened, and your skin contracts, preserving body heat. your heart beats faster, causing all of your body's functions to be quickened. your body is at full alert.

when i was a kid, my mom would let me sometimes stay up to watch the late movie with her. my excitement would increase if the movie involved some monsters or occult themes. when the kids my age were reading "encyclopedia brown" or judy bloom's works, i was reading and re-reading stephen king's entire works...and laughing my way through them.

the most scared i recall experiencing during a movie was while watching "the exorcist." sure, other movies will startle me or cause me to look behind me a few times; but, this one still gives me the creeps for a long time. the fact that it is loosely based on "true" events only adds to its power to frighten me.

i have noticed that my scareability quotient has been reduced to almost nil in the past 25 years. on occasion, i will go to a movie with the anticipation produced by marketing. "the scariest movie since ______" is a common superlative given to these pretenders. the most disappointing of these was "the blair witch project." you may have also lain down 7 or 8 dollars to watch this blather. sorry. the film was mostly shot with a hand-held video camera with the stability function not functioning. as a result, watching the movie gave me the sensation of spinning in circles while on the deck of a small boat in high seas. i really thought i was going to be ill in the theater, but i couldn't allow myself to leave because this thing was going to get scary. at least that was what i was led to believe. the college-age son of one of my friends had been afraid to walk home to his dormroom after watching the "blair witch project," so i knew there was something for which to wait. when the movie was over without producing anything worth writing about, i was sorely disappointed. it seems the only scary proposition that night was that of me worrying over whether i would get home before vomiting. i had to pull over.

the scariest experience i remember was one of my own creation. i had driven to austin for a basketball game just after my return from my mission. i had gone by myself and stayed for the end of the last game of the night. just after crossing over the bridge on jacob's well road, my car died. it was extremely cold and dark outside, and i had no recourse. these were the days before cell phones, and no one was going to come down that road at midnight, so i lifted my tired ,wet body out of the car and started to walk. me walking home was no big change of experience, i have walked all over wimberley at one time or another...but tonight was different. it was much shorter to take an old abandoned road through the woods, than to stay on the main roadway. i have always been a firm believer in the magic of taking the shortest route to accomplish a task, so my decision was already made. the moon was new, so it was unusually dark out that night. i was very cold and tried to coax my meager wind breaker into doing something miraculous, but it didn't help me much. in the dead of night, dark, cold, and possessing a mind full of frightening images and stories; i was in for a long walk. about 3 or 4 miles of pretending not to hear any creaking, or footsteps, or groaning is enough to whittle away the wits of a twenty-one year old boy from the woods. i couldn't get home fast enough, but i wouldn't allow myself to run...partially from pride and machismo, partially from being too tired from playing hoop all night, but i also didn't want to compel any ghoul in the forest to have to chase me. that would really have freaked me out. it was exhilarating.

i got a new book for christmas that is a modern-day telling of the dracula story. i remember learning about vlad "the impaler" dracula in high school and being fascinated with his ferocity, inhumanity, and unquenchable cruelty. he was a perfect model for the most famous of all horrors. the fact that a real person lived who performed these incalculable acts of depravity was scarier to me than any story about a guy who wanted to bite the necks of pretty young girls. shoot, at the time, i wouldn't have minded doing some of that myself.

so far i haven't gotten very scared reading this new book, although am really enjoying it. the work is also a history and geography book, as the protagonist couple are traversing europe in the search of the tomb of vlad dracula. fortunately, we all know what i should do in case it does start to frighten me - get under the blanket and not allow any part of myself to be uncovered. everyone knows the bogey man is only allowed to attack body parts exposed to the world.

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

an offer you can't refuse

do you have an unreasonable love of something that is middle to low brow? i think most of us participate in some form of behavior that is somewhat embarrassing. Not illegal or immoral, more in line with the pursuit of dorkiness. here's a tale about one of mine:

my wife and i have an unhealthy love of all things disney. the pinnacle of disneymania -for us- is the annual pilgrimage to walt disney world near orlando, florida. when i inform others of an impending trip to wdw, i will invariably get a remark about having to do this kind of thing because of the age of my son (5.) what the joker doesn't know is that charlotte and i had been going to wdw for 5 years before jman was born; and, by that time we had already purchased ownership in disney's version of a time-share. we'll be going to wdw once a year long after our son is married and raising his own family.

because we are in this vacation club, we have been able to invite others to vacation with us,while offering lodging free for the week. this trip was no exception. charlotte's brother, david, went with us and seemed to have a really good time. i hope he was able to remove himself from some of his current worries, if only for a few days. he is a fantastic photographer, and i look forward to seeing what he was able to produce. our trip was made better by having him with us.

we were sitting in the lobby of the wilderness lodge, and i noticed that someone had dropped a popsicle on the floor across from us. it had been a while since it was abandoned there, and since the person who dropped it didn't have the courtesy to pick up his mess, the thing had melted into a sizable puddle that was ruining the wood floor. when i reported the mess to the concierge, he replied that he had just been made aware of the situation, and was in the process of summoning the facilities maintenance crew.

this was not the first, or last, time i would see a mess on the ground...left by some self-absorbed slob who expected "the help" to clean after him. it really is repulsive that people are this oblivious to their surroundings and the property of others. it is not only wdw that suffers from this refuse narcissism. look at your local movie theater if you need proof. i would love for someone to explain to me why he feels it appropriate to leave a box of popcorn and a cup of coke on the ground in the theater. on one occasion, charlotte and i had the opportunity to see a show on the opening night for the local theater. i mean no one had ever watched a movie in this room before. it was beautiful and immaculately clean. i can't possibly tell you the name of the movie; but, i can tell you that i was alarmed -but not surprised- to find the theater a mess when the lights came up. people just stood, leaving their garbage in the aisles, and walked out as if there was not a care in the world. it is beyond my comprehension. this happens everywhere. THERE IS A TRASH CAN RIGHT OUT THE DOOR. USE IT!

my policy is that if i bought it, i used it, i am responsible for its disposal. it is not a difficult concept, so i am not sure why we are so daft as to not comprehend.

of course, i have had my day as a litterbug. before stevie ray and willie enticed me with their credo to not "mess with texas," i had my own fun littering. when i was a teenager, i used to love to throw an empty coke bottle out of the window of a moving car. not just throw it arbitrarily, it had to be aimed at a road sign. when you are going down the road at 60 mph, hitting a highway sign with a bottle thrown with your left hand is pretty darned difficult. in fact, i don't know that i ever succeeded. unfortunately, now i have outgrown such sophomoric pursuits. i missed my chance...literally.

environmental concerns are one of the primary political issues of our day. as the earth's population continues to increase, and its natural resources are stretched further, the preservation of the planet's natural ecological functions will increase in urgency and importance. i don't know how we, as a people, can expect to preserve the delicate balance of life in prince william sound or the galapagos when we are unable to prevent the streets of our cities from becoming filth strewn cesspools.

Sunday, December 18, 2005

gonna get gone

i won't be posting here for a little while. we are leaving in the morning for disney world.

Friday, December 16, 2005

one of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you


i work with a very nice girl named jina. she and i have known each other for about 10 years and i almost think of her like a sister. today, something happened to her that i have never witnessed first-hand: jina got the boot.

jina doesn't park in the parking garage because her access pass has broken. this is an easily remedied situation - if one will walk down to the office, one will receive a new clicker without question. she hasn't done this. she prefers to park in the 2-hour parking spaces for the duration of a 8 hour day. i understand jina has had many opportunities to wad up and dispose of austin municipal parking tickets. this is apparently the only action taken with this residue of illegal parking...until today, that is.

i don't know how many tickets she had refused to pay - until today- but she said the cost of removing the boot was 300$ on its own. i'm glad she remained in a good mood throughout, i felt like throwing up.

good luck, sweetie.

he's too much


this december, some tv station (i can't remember which) is presenting something they call "25 days of christmas." that they refer to the actual christian holiday is noteworthy, but the real treat is that they play some really old christmas shows. my favorites are the stop-animation stuff with rudolph, frosty, and santa claus. my all time favorite is "the year without a santa claus."

the two greatest christmas special characters ever created are found in this cartoon. thanks to the ingenuity of mrs. claus and mother nature; a bargain is struck between heat miser and his brother, snow miser, which allows christmas to resume as originally planned. they are so cool that big bad voodoo daddy has covered their theme songs on their eponymous christmas album. these two brilliantly designed characters have recently made me reanalyze my thinking. am i a heat miser, or am i a snow miser?

it is more than just an existential exercise, it is a defining decision. i do love a cold day. i love the snow. i love the mountains (where cold weather is often found.) but, i love the warm months much more. i love the feel of the hot sun on my face. i love jumping into cool water on a hot day. a cold drink on a hot day does alot more for me than a hot drink on a cold day. i prefer to run around in shorts and a t-shirt. i love it so much that i've been known to dress this way in the dead of february. could i be more happy living in minnesota or south arizona? i think we all know the answer.

in summary, let me state that the long, hot, humid days of summer renew my vigor; while the dark, frozen months of the winter make me want to hide under a blanket...in my long johns.

Monday, December 12, 2005

all the way


today is sinatra's birthday...but then, i'm sure you already knew that. his full name was francis albert sinatra...of course, you already knew that ,too.

i have alot to do today, so i'm gonna miss out on a good deal. turner classic movies is playing sinatra movies all day long in deference to this greatest of american singers. although he was also quite an actor (even won an oscar) , even gene kelly couldn't teach him to dance very well. the movies they made together are an interesting collation - sinatra paling in the footsteps of a master, while kelly's mediocre singing is exacerbated by being paired with "the voice." nevertheless, i love these old musicals. fortunately i have most of these movies already on tape, so it won't matter if i miss them this morning.

my first awareness of sinatra took place when i was about 16. i was at home on a saturday afternoon and watching tv. whatever game i was watching was over, so i decided to see what else was on. we only had 4 channels, so this little endeavor didn't take very long. one of the local broadcasters usually showed old movies on saturday afternoons. typically, it was the three stooges or abbot and costello - this time it was a sinatra movie. i didn't recognize him or the music, but i thought the movie was really cool. it turned out to be "the joker is wild." this movie is a true story of the life of joe e. lewis. joe began his career as a crooner in the chicago of the 1920's. after being nearly killed by two knife-wielding hit-men, he was forced into a different career path. he preceded don rickles in the self-deprecating, heckler-baiting, wife-degrading form of comedy. it doesn't sound so funny when put this way, but it always gets a good laugh out of me. joe and frank had become friends ,so i'll guess the movie has an element of truth woven into the fabric of poetic license.

after discovering sinatra, it still took several years before i began to be a voracious listener. over the years i have collected a stockpile of sinatra media. i own something like: 75 cd's, 50 albums, 10 books, 14 movies. it used to be that i listened to nothing but fas. i guess my obsession is waning because i only listen to him every other day. what are you gonna do?

no one asked, but i'm going to have to classify sinatra as the biggest talent of the 20th century. music, movies, television, pop culture. for a long time, he defined the cool in our society. and don't try it with the elvis garbage. his movies were celluloid sewage, and i don't love his music, anyway. this is just my opinion.

p.s. in the three movies sinatra and kelly made together in the 40's, his love interest was often betty garret. she got the third billing in the credits ahead of ann miller, vera-ellen, and jules munshen. she was obviously a big deal... and then she disappeared. she reappeared in the seventies as laverne and shirley's landlady, edna babish. for a while i wondered where she had gone, and then one day i got my answer. i had assumed she retired long enough to raise her family, and then jumped back in the game. this may be true but the primary reason for her career disruption is more nefarious. she and -particularly- her husband were blacklisted in hollywood. in the 50's, they moved to france, and continued to write under pseudonyms and noms de plume. way to go tailgunner joe! too bad you weren't as successful at keeping america safe from you.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria.

it is really cold tonight. i mean, it is supposed to be 23* tonight. it almost never gets this cold in central texas. there is rain falling and we are awaiting the apocalyptic sleet storm... or at least a little bit of freezing rain.

you would think we were in the middle of an ice age judging by our reactions. church tonight has been cancelled. i was called and asked to cancel seminary in the morning. we will turn on the tv in the morning to see if school has been cancelled, or at least rescheduled to start later in the day. some rural school districts have already indicated their plans to begin classes after 10:00. this is what we do here. cold weather is such an unfamiliar commodity that we approach it with the traditional american methodology... we overreact.

i can only remember a few real snowfalls here. the snow usually lasts until late in the morning, and then disappears. in 1984 (or so) we had snow that fell to a depth of several inches and remained for a few days. that was unusual. i think neil and i built a snow-midget.

typically, our wet winter weather consists of ice. we don't get ice-fall every year, but it seems to happen in most. this really does present cause for precaution, as we don't have a clue what to do when our roads offer limited traction. either way, we are going to worry about it as if jack frost was on the verge of a maniacal rampage.

maybe we'll be stuck at home tomorrow; maybe we'll have a beautiful landscape with the trees heavy-laden with crystal decorations of ice; or maybe, just maybe , we'll wake up and go to work in the customary way because nothing extraordinary has happened in the night. i'll let you know.

as for me, i may sleep in the tent, tonight. don't ask me why. it just seems like it would be fun.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

chew on this

monday is the day i go to the grocery store, today was no exception. somehow the gender roles in our family have been sorted along different lines than the traditional. as a result, a few of the "feminine" duties have become mine - namely: shopping and cooking. i enjoy cooking very much. shopping is enough to make me stick my head in the freezer.

for some reason, HEB finds it reasonable to rearrange the store's merchandising plan at least once a year. consequently, as soon as i have mastered the locations of all the products we buy; they redesign, and i am lost, once again. this infuriates me every time. i walk around the store in a medium-grade rage, cursing and muttering under my breath. last time it was so bad from every direction that HEB assigned some of its staff to "finder" status. that must have been wonderful to interact with people at their wit's end. i felt so bad for these college age students that i didn't even bother to approach them. i took the high road and suffered in silence.

the benefit of going to the store on monday morning is that is when it is sparsely populated. i get a little mental when too many people are around; i get completely insane when way too many people are around and they are blocking the aisles, and talking too loudly, and packing their baskets with the largest buckets of lard and sugar concoction they can find. i am always curious as to the contents of the carts others are pushing. i am amazed at how much junk is purchased on a daily basis. lots of people fill their carts with pre-processed crap that is sold in a box, and people are confused as to why we are so big in this country. if it comes packaged in a box, chances are that it will not be very good for your body. don't get me wrong, we buy some of that stuff too; i just like to limit our crap content to a containable level.

the other group that confuses me are the folks in the "health alternative" aisles. not only at HEB do i see these people; i work next door to whole foods market, and these folks are swarming around that place. i can only wonder why it is that when i see someone poring over the gluten-free, low-carb, dolphin-safe pasta selections, that person will not strike me as being the most healthy cat in the joint. usually this person looks malnourished. his clothes don't appear to be clean, his hair is a fright (unintentional dread-locks budding,) and he's sporting a pimply, pallid complexion. i get the whole chemical-free concept to "natural" grooming, but is this really necessary? isn't this a different form of devolution? to paraphrase dennis miller: there is no good reason for you to smell like a person eating limburger cheese while giving a permanent in the septic tank of a slaughter house. if i wanted my nose to be filled with the aroma of old pizza, a greasy hamburger and onions, i'd look under my bed in 1985. if these people are the face of organic food choices...sign me up for a double double and large fries. i'll wash it down with a jolt cola.

maybe i'll see you there someday. i'll be the self-aggrandizing jack-ass peeking into your basket while trying to avoid eye contact and conversation with everyone in the store. if i appear to be frustrated, please don't take it personally. i'm simply trying to keep myself from thrusting my head in the lobster tank.

Monday, December 05, 2005

falco claimed he was also a punker....err.....not sure about that


i am listening to mozart's "requiem mass" as today is the anniversary of the death of wolfgang amadeus mozart. he is -in my mind- one of the most prodigious, brilliant, prolific, genius talents to live. 214 years later, his music fills every corner of the world.

i first heard his music earlier than my memory's reach. when he was a child, he wrote "twinkle..twinkle..little star." it's probably one of the first bits of music sung with most children of the western world. i knew some of his most popular pieces all through my childhood. i didn't want to listen to any of it; but, it is ubiquitous, and i couldn't have prevented learning it if i had wanted to. do you remember the scene in "amadeus" when salieri is trying to play for the priest some recognizable music of his own composing? this scene illustrates my point. in high school, the movie "amadeus" was released, and knowing his work became slightly cool; though, not cool enough to pull me away from the forgettable dreck i was listening to at the time. dreck like falco's "rock me amadeus". although this stuff is crap, i still like to listen to it. i may just refer to that quality as relating to my being properly diverse in my tastes.

it was on my mission that i really began to listen to the works of mozart. we were strictly limited in the music to which we were allowed to listen ,and a 19 year-old can only listen to a finite amount of mormon tabernacle choir before needing to shove a hot poker into his eustachian tubes. i was given a taped copy of the soundtrack to the movie, and i listened to it endlessly. when the funds were available, i would buy a new tape filled with compositions i had not previously known. there was always something familiar in each of his pieces. it was amazing. i came to recognize that there was a huge world of music that i had been ignoring. mozart was my first step.

wolfgang was without peer in the musical world. his problem was that of his being unwilling to play the game. in those days, financial success was dependent on royal favor, and teaching music to the elite. he was unwilling to suffer fools long enough to be paid for his unmatched services. he drove from him those who could have been his greatest champions. to complicate matters, mozart was a horrible spendthrift. when his health began to deteriorate (probably from kidney failure) he was irretrievably in debt....and alone. on 5 december, 1791 he succumbed in the arms of his wife. unable to afford a funeral befitting his talents, he was buried in an unmarked grave just outside vienna, austria. he was younger than i when he died, having not yet reached his 36th birthday.

thank God for giving mozart the talents he exhibited. his music is filled with beauty, and passion, and a depth of feeling missing from most of the works of other composers we laud as brilliant. mozart was truly a musical genius and alone in his ability to create virtual perfection.

here's an interesting post-script :when i was a kid, many adults thought the music i listened to was without merit. not only that, it was rife with corruption-producing qualities. my parents were given the same treatment by their elders when the beatles entered the scene. today, i listen to the teenie-bopper stations and am alarmed at the morally deficient excreta emanating from my speakers (i have previously stated the fact that i am getting old.) in his day, youth of europe were forbidden to listen to some of the works of mozart because they were too provocative and sensual for the day. i find that hilarious. i guess old people always have, and always will be irrational and paranoid.

where's the ghost coon when you need him?

why is it that something bright and shiny turns me into a blithering idiot? we are incredulous that the american indians sold manhattan island for the original "few trinkets and beads", but i often think many of us are not far behind them in the national raccoon-obsessed-with-a-shiny-new-object sweepstakes. the raccoon just gets stuck with the insult because we're doing the writing, and he can't reflect accusation back to us.

last week charlotte decided we needed a new car. i didn't agree with her assessment. our 8 year-old car seems to be doing just fine. sure, it needs a new radiator, and it has a tiny oil leak; but ,old cars are supposed to have some character and a few idiosyncrasies. my whole life we have had less-than-new vehicles. dad's favorite past-time (for a while) was the sonny gold special. when our current beater had taken its last beating, dad would drive/push it down to sonny gold's used car lot. the "used" in this sentence doesn't indicate previous ownership - it means this car had been USED. we would run out to the driveway to see dad drive up in a new stud-mobile, or water-bottle, or gunner, or, whatever. these cars never got us the right kind of second looks; but, they usually got the job done for a longer period of time than we had the right to expect.

fortunately for us, my dad had several friends who were -by trade- mechanics. we spent plenty of time under the shade trees of two -in particular- who seemed to get us out of some good jams. i'll never forget the time dad and i left the laytham's house after "fixing" the fuel pump(?). just before we reached bobcat stadium, one of us noticed some healthy flames sneaking their way out from under the hood. what a thrill it is for a young teenager to stand on the side of the road waiting for the fire department to arrive and extinguish your engine fire. after stopping the car, i guess one of us had opened the hood. not too swift, if we did. fire tends to get really excited in the company of unlimited oxygen, and this one should have been a harbinger of coming attractions.

i used to be able to identify the major areas of austin (and surrounding areas) by my having been broken-down there. i am lumping "out-of-gas" into this geographical fubar even though that is the fault of the driver, not the vehicle. i want to tell you that i have been broken-down everywhere, man. it is a bit like a wimberley white trash version of the song johnny cash made so famous. i realize that you have -by now- noticed that "wimberley white trash" is more than a little redundant. get over it.

charlotte's history is similar, if not as dangerous, to mine. she outdoes me though , in that she was once the proud owner of a 1960's era orange volkswagen bus. what a beaut.

in our zeal to leave car trouble behind us, we have bought two brand-new right-off-the-lot vehicles since we got married. they both were excellent cars and we have no regrets over their purchases; but, we have changed our ways. it is a beautiful thing to drive off the lot in a car that only you have owned. our first car had 6 miles on the odometer. i checked the oil, and the dip-stick was covered in a glorious, golden elixir of clean oil. you'll never see that if you don't buy new. nonetheless, we are pre-owned buyers from now on. there are very clean, well looked-after cars available with enormous savings if you are willing to buy last year's model, or the one from two years ago. anyway, it works for us.

charlotte found a two year old model for sale in fort worth. good car, good history, good luck. we drove up to pick it up yesterday. it is not perfect. there are a couple of dings, and scratches; but, no where near enough to diminish the 10,000 dollars in savings. even so, it is a lovely car. we also bought jackson a new dvd player for long car trips. he watched "herbie the love bug" on the way home.

in an effort to come full-circle: both the car and the disc-player are beautiful, and new, and shiny. i didn't even want this car, and i haven't been allowed to drive it, yet either. it doesn't matter though, it's shiny and i want it. i can't stop looking at it long enough to let go and pull my paw back out of the trap.