This one’s short.
I had a dream last night, significant because I rarely remember my dreams.
In it, I was looking over my grad school transcript, and one thing stood out.
There was one class that I had failed. There was a big F right there on my transcript.
The name of that class was: Whole Wheat.
Yes, I failed Whole Wheat.
I haven’t gotten any junkmail in awhile; my dual-edged spam filter does the job well. But today, one slipped through, and I’m glad it did. It was clearly penis-embiggening spam, but the subject line kind of got me thinking:
“Now all your dinners with women will have a logical conclusion.”
So, they currently lack this logical conclusion? Is it that they have an illogical conclusion, or they lack a conclusion entirely? If the dinner ends, doesn’t that denote the conclusion of the date? But it has no logic? So many questions.
The body of the email was one line:
“Now you can turn on your tool like you turn on the lights.”
By running 70 watts of electricity (or 40, since I use CFLs - you’re welcome, Al Gore) through it? No thanks, email. No thanks.
I’ve been to lots of concerts over the years — large and small — and I’ve had lots of favorite musicians. A brief list, in mostly chronological order:
College was mostly whatever was on WHFS out of Baltimore, MD (Cowboy Mouth, Violent Femmes, Jimmy’s Chicken Shack, Eve 6, Fastball, Fuel) — Seriously, this radio station was *always* on for my four college years.
After arriving in California, I found out about Girls With Pianos and Boys With Guitars. These quickly rose to my favorite artists list:
Of these latter, I’ve loved them all in varying amounts, and seen Regina and The Mountain Goats in concert twice each.
But then there’s Eef Barzelay. I think I’ve written about him several times before this, or if not, I’ve meant to. I first found Eef on January 31, 2006 over at the wonderful music blog 3hive. The first time I listened to his song, Ballad of Bitter Honey, I fell in love with the way the song turned from being funny (the first acoustic lyrics to the song are “That was my ass you saw bouncin’/Next to Ludacris”) to rather poignant in a verse.
I bought that album, and listened to it at every available opportunity for the next several months. When I went back to Portland a couple years ago, I tracked down most of the cds from his first band, Clem Snide, at a used record store. And I bought the newest album, Lose Big, the day it came out.
I’ve been to two Eef concerts, one electrified, and the other acoustic: him, guitar, and a stage. The two shows were the perfect complement to each other. There’s something in the way he takes it all so seriously and not-seriously, his movements so jerky and his lyrics so smart, that just engulfs my attention.
Today, I found a new song on his MySpace called The Open Road, and he explains writing it:
please check out “the open road”. It’s a Walt Whitman poem I turned into a song as an audio accompaniment to NY photographer Peter Kayfas’ soon to be released book of road trip photos entitled, appropriately enough, “the Open Road”.
So, go pull up the song here: Myspace.com/eefbarzelay. Here’s the poem…and parts of it just knocked my insides around:
Song of the Open Road
Walt Whitman
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Strong and content I travel the open road.The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are,
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)
I’d never heard this poem, and maybe it’s just the emotional state in which I find myself on this gray, cloudy, California day, but this rocked me.
This line:
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I am good-fortune
In particular, the way that Eef strums right as he says the last syllable in the second ‘fortune’ and the vocals fade slightly, punches me in the self-sufficient guts. I need not ask for good-fortune, for I make it. I am it.
And this line:
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing
And this line
The earth, that is sufficient
With his voice cracking on ’sufficient,’ raises the hair on my neck while putting a lump in my throat; it’s this perfect counter to the personal sufficiency of being my own good-fortune.
This is a gorgeous, gorgeous song.
And it’s why Eef is my absolute favorite.
I’ve been logging my food all day every day for about two full months now. I’ve gotten my protein, carb, and fat ratios down to a fairly exact science, weighing everything by the gram before it goes on my plate. But the one thing that I haven’t been able to gain control over has been sodium.
Because it’s in freaking everything in crazy amounts. Your daily value of sodium is 2300mg, which seems like a lot, but I swear to you, even on days when I’ve cooked all three meals from scratch, have intentionally not added any additional salt, getting my intake under 2300 is almost impossible.
I mean, I usually come close; my average is probably about 2700mg, but still, it shouldn’t be that difficult, should it?
This is me trying harder tomorrow.
I’m expecting a package, and it’s coming from Salt Lake City. It’s a small thing (I got a great deal on a box of protein/energy bars for cycling), but you know, packages are always exciting.
So, I order it on 11/10, and they email me the little tracking number, which I’ve been checking incessantly.
11/11 2:30 AM Departure Scan Salt Lake City
Sweet, I think, it’s leaving SLC early in the morning.
11/11 10:31 AM Arrival Scan Las Vegas, NV
11/11 11:16 AM Departure Scan Las Vegas, NV
Now, I’m totally convinced that it will be at my house today at this point. I know it’s wishful thinking, but come on, I’ve made it to Las Vegas in under three hours. Then this:
11/11 4:52 PM Arrival Scan Vernon, CA
And that’s the last one for the day. Do you know where Vernon, CA is? I didn’t so I Googled that ish.
Sixty-one miles. That’s all, a piddly 61 miles away from my doorstep. And that’s what’s so aggravating about it: my little box of protein bars made it all the way from Salt Lake City in one day, only to have to spend the night away from my loving arms in a horrible, cold warehouse, only 61 miles away.
What can brown do for me? How about not let my package spend the night alone? Jerks. I’m glad your horse didn’t win the Triple Crown.
It’s gotten colder here in SoCal the last few days (cold enough that I made a lovely beef and barley stew from scratch today…it was pretty darn good). When the weather gets this way, I always think of my family back in Oregon, and the town I grew up. I’ll be going home for Christmas this year, and these are just a few reasons why I love going home:
My car, last year.
Seriously, this is the view out my Mom's kitchen window, right above the sink. I'd do the dishes for hours.
Deer in the backyard at night. This is a several-times-weekly occurrence.
Puddles frozen over make nice designs.
When it rains a lot, the town park (Sturdevant Park) floods all the way up to the entrance when the river overflows.
Wait, why do I live down here again?
You know why I didn’t write yesterday? Because I went to sleep at 9pm.
On a Saturday night.
And I didn’t wake up this morning until 8am.
Why? Because I love sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. And of all the kinds of sleep, winter sleep in big blankets with the window open and cold on my face is The Best kind of sleep.
Also, I was tired because I rode 30 miles on my bike earlier yesterday morning.
And tonight, I’m watching lots of TV, so this is all the blog you get.
Oh, one more thing: went with The Girlfriend to the new Fresh & Easy that opened in Yucaipa, and it’s Fantastic. Seriously, when the new one opens up on Mt. View, it’ll be great.
I guess one of the purposes of a blog is for my readers to feel like they know me better after reading an entry. In thinking about it, I realized that there’s a number of things that I enjoy (that probably fairly lame to enjoy) and, more importantly, odds are pretty good that you don’t know about my enjoyment of these things. Yes, I’m a little embarrassed to be admitting these things, and if you mock me in public about them, you will incur my frowniest face. So, on to Part 1:
Beatboxing.
Indeed, I can lose myself for hours at a time on YouTube just watching people beatbox. Several times I’ve taken it to the next level and have searched out websites that promise to teach me how to beatbox, to no avail. Here are a few of the beatboxing videos that I’ve found (and yes, bookmarked) over the years that put a goofy smile on my face, and that I will only watch in private because, again, I think it’s fairly whack that I enjoy it.
Kenny Muhammad is one of the most famous beatboxers, largely because I think he was one of the founding fathers of the art form. Here he is playing with the New York Philharmonic.
Seriously, I have no idea who this guy is, but he’s amazing. His scratching sounds more scratchy than actual turntables. Listen to when he takes it backwards. I think the thing about beatboxing is that when it’s good, it blows my mind. I frequently find myself sitting in awe that these humans are making these sounds.
Just let this next one roll. Odds are good that you’ve seen it before; it made the internet rounds a year or so ago. But dude, it’s the beatboxing, vocalizing, and tongue-clicking, all At The Same Time. Maybe it’s because it takes more and more to amaze me that I’m so intrigued by this whole genre.
While not beatboxing in the traditional sense, this last one is still a fantastic video. This guy’s done other stuff in his YouTube channel that’s fantastic, too.
So, there you go: the first thing I like that’s possibly fairly lame? Beatboxing. Remember, keep the mockery to a minimum, please.
A few years ago, I got a “nice camera.” A DSLR that had me convinced I was meant to be an Actual Real Photographer. While the reality has certainly set in, I do have a favorite set of pictures that I have taken. It was a couple years ago now, I think, and was of a Saturday afternoon on the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica. There was a huge group of people just dancing. But not the usual break-dance-then-we-ask-for-money-to-do-the-finale dancing, and none of the dancers looked especially fantastic.
It was just a group of people dancing together. I assumed it was the final for some Arthur Murray group or something; I never asked. Here are a few that I took:
I love the expression on this girl's face: like un-self-conscious concentration.
I always like the movement in this one.
But the one picture that is my favorite from that day -probably my favorite picture that I’ve ever taken - was this last one. This little girl had been sort of dancing with her father off to the side, and she kept trying to pull him over onto the main dance area. He, however, wasn’t having any of this being pulled business, so she then tried to get away from him so she could twirl and spin on her own. In this one beautiful moment she pulled away from her dad’s hand, ran right into the corner of my frame, and this was the result:
Look, I’ll be honest: I just got out of bed to write something because I forgot to write today. So, guess what you get? I wrote what I thought was a pretty good craigslist ad for a breadmaker I’m trying to sell. I’ll copy it here, just for you:
Oster Breadmaker (Bread Maker) - $20 (Loma Linda)
Reply to: XXXXXXXXXXXX
Date: 2008-11-02, 5:37PM PSTYou want an awesome bread maker? I’ve got an awesome bread maker for you. Do you know how I know it’s awesome? I’ve made bread in it. Others might be selling you a “brand new” machine, or one that’s “in the box,” but seriously, how do you know if those things work? Or if the bread they make is any good? Yeah, you don’t.
But with my breadmaker, I’ve made white bread, wheat bread, half white/wheat bread, and every time, the result was - you guessed it: Awesome.
Look, I know you know the economy sucks, and the crappy bread at the store is almost $3.50 a loaf. But you can own this fantastic bread maker that you know works because I’ve made plenty of bread with it, and it’ll only cost you the same price as 5.7 loaves of store-bread. Once you buy that sixth loaf of bread from Stater Bros, you’ve already spent more than you would have on this bread maker.
I just blew your mind, didn’t I? You’re welcome.
There is a little bad news: I don’t have the manual that came with it. I think it’s in a box somewhere, but I haven’t been able to find it. However, would you like to know what I did do for you? I found a copy online. Right here: http://www.oster.com/manuals/oster/005838-000-000_English.pdf
Twenty bucks, and it’s yours.
Seriously, though, my hands are freakin’ cold, thus making it difficult to type. Also? Sleepy.