Sporadic

It marathon, not a sprint!

Dear Hipster,

How many forms of hipster transport do you require?

You’re pushing your fixie. You have your tiny wheel skateboard strapped, hipster style, to your extra hipster-y messenger bag. You’re headed down into Bart.

Are you running some kind of hipster Ironman?

First we fixed gear bike 15 blocks!

Then we tiny wheel skate 10 blocks!

Then you Bart from 16th & Mission to 19th street Oakland!

Winner gets to tweet about it & upload their YouTube video.

Karl turned 40 last week and Kathy planned him a “surprise” that Steve and I would meet up with him in Jersey and maybe drive to Atlantic City or something. That was the plan. The problem, is that when you *plan* to surprise someone- they are not part of the planning.

Karl, without knowledge that anything was happening, planned to go coach Tim’s U14* soccer team in a big Tournament down in South Jersey. Add to this that Steve’s dad had an unfortunate accident and Steve was needed elsewhere**. What this adds up to is that it’s just me and crazy Atlantic City Nerd-a-palooza is called off.

I get down there and Friday night we go out to dinner in New Hope***. I had a few more martinis than one should have and end up playing some kind of war game on the X-box with Tim, Jake and Karl until 1:30 am.

The next morning comes way too fast. We’re due to head out at 10:30. I choke down a couple Eggo waffles and we’re off to south Jersey. On the way down I get the skinny on Tim’s team.

“We don’t get beat.” says Tim

“Wow, that’s confidence…”

Karl cuts me off, “No, really, they don’t. I’m kinda hoping that there’s someone good at this tournament that schools them. ”

I continue this line of questioning for a while only to find out that Tim is right. They played, I don’t know… 16 games during the season and their record is 15-0-1. The tie came when half the team was sick and they had to start…let’s say, squirrels in place of the backfield. They played the same team again later in the season and beat them 6 to nothing.

So, yes, they’re very good.

I arrived at the field to attend my first children’s soccer game since I myself was a children. I was surrounded by something I had only heard about on Television pundits and demographic numbers: Soccer Moms. Actual live in the flesh soccer moms. It was like seeing the Belgian warbler for the first time.

So after standing around for 10 mins at the beginning of the game, watching children I don’t know play a game i don’t understand, Karl sent me a text message “you can come over”. So I do. I am now an unrecognized adult male standing among a bunch of 12 year olds. At one point I go to the bathroom and one of the kids asks if I am stalking them. If we had thought quick Karl should have said “I don’t know that guy. Call the police” and then I would offer them candy. That story, however, ends different probably with me in jail.

As it turns out the team is very good and I am thankful because it gives me something to do while I’m freezing to death. It’s 45 degrees and I am dressed as one would dress if you were headed to Atlantic city for the weekend. It’s fine for a little while but after standing motionless for a while my teeth actually start to chatter.

Day 1 they take both games. The second of two, I learn a bizarre rule that if one team scores more than 5 points more than the other, they are penalized for every point over 5. So, in what I would describe as more demoralizing for the second team, during the second half of the game everyone on the sidelines is yelling at the players on the field any time they cross the center line “Don’t score! Don’t score!”

Game 1 5-0

Game 2 6-1

The next day they actually get some competition. They tie the first game and win the second. The second game the other team is coached by an actual drill instructor. In full drill instructor outfit.

Because they have gone 3-0-1 in the tourney they get to play in the championship game against a team we haven’t seen yet. They are a little unbelievable. They are all wearing sweatshirts that have their names on them which also says “undefeated 2005-2009”. They have uniforms for their coaches. The coaches have little megaphones that they use to yell at players in the field. The coaches have “play names”, he’ll yell “Stevie, Jim and Brent- artillery” and the 11 year olds on the field know what to do. It’s bizarre.

This game is tough. The two teams trade leads throughout the first half but Tim’s team ends the first half down by 1. In the first part of the second half two beautiful looking shots don’t go in, but they manage to tie on what I would call a “junk goal”. The tie goes into overtime.

All of sudden this game between two teams of kids has turned more exciting than the Steeler game that I’m missing. First overtime breezes by. No score. As anyone who watched the women’s world cup back in the 90’s knows, a game that goes through two overtimes goes to penalty kicks.  Karl borrows a piece of paper from me to start building his list of PK players. Just as he finished the list, somehow Tim’s team scores. We all proceed to go nuts. I had to talk two of the kids out of dumping gatorade on Karl. Thank god they listened. I can’t imagine how awful it would be to drive home an hour soaked to the bone.

Then they present these kids with giant trophies. Everyone goes home happy. I’ll tell you. It wasn’t a weekend boozing in AC for sure, but it was pretty good and a chance to see the other side of life.****

*U14 is short for under 14. I will spare you all of the New Jersey State children’s athletics rulings and explanations and just leave it at “under 14 years old”. It’s actually unbelievably complicated.

** Last I heard he was fine and moving towards a complete recovery.

***Quaint little town also known as the birthplace of Boognish

**** It could have been one of those christmas movies where the main character gets hit on the head only to find that they are married with kids and they realize that their other life with the drinking and the banging models doesn’t stack up.

I went to my very first World Series game last night. The Giants won 11-7. Very nice.

I look like I have boobs

However, the thing that I have most enjoyed about this post season came in game 5 of the NLCS. As I mentioned earlier, I have enjoyed being  sanctimonious Steeler fan for the majority of my life. As we were building up to the series, I was following with increased interest the tales coming out of the Rangers/ Yankees series. I read a recent account of the Yankees fans apparently being more than a little mean to Cliff Lee’s wife. Now, I don’t know how the giants fans behaved last night but there’s been nothing in the press about it yet. Maybe that’s because we took Cliff Lee from “unhittable” to “guy who got completely shelled”. So Giant’s fans didn’t have to have that whole I’m so mad that I can’t believe this and I have to aim that anger somewhere. I also don’t think that Giant’s fans would have that simply because all of us are just shocked speechless that we’re even here. There would never be any incredulity with a loss, sadness sure, but  not shock. There’s more shock associated with the fact that we’re even here.

Anyway….so I’m at NLCS game 5…Phillies are up 3 to 1… we’re one game from clinching…it’s the last chance we have to clinch at home.  Every single Giants fan, while hopeful and well wishing, has some serious fears about sending this game back to Philly.  As the innings progressed and the runs failed to appear, some fans started to move towards that kind of directionless frustration. It was at this point that Philly knocks a pretty good ball into the outfield. I can’t remember who hit it, but it was one of those insult to injury moves. The time when you throw your hands up into the air and just sigh.

or

If you’re a philly fan it makes you jump up and yell something about how awesome the phillies are. If you’re one Giants fan, it makes you hurl your empty plastic beer glass at that Philly fan. And in an incredible twist of fate…your beer cup hits the Philly fan in the head. This was one of those points where things could have gone two ways. The first way, the bad way, would have been if those Philly fans yell back and then the Giants fans get riled and then there’s a melee.

What happened was not that… and what happened was so refreshing it made me suddenly sanctimonious again. From the cheap seats, walking on the backs of the bleachers comes this guy, wearing an orange Giants be-logoed suit, a foam beard and a pair of Elvis sunglasses replete with side burns. Suddenly he’s right on top of these phillies fans and he’s got a hand on the philly guys head and he’s yelling in the direction of the cup.

It completely diffuses the situation. Suddenly, this crowd that could have gone to riot, feels guilty about what it’s just done and just sort of stops it’s antagonism.

In a night that had little to recommend itself…Giants lose, series goes back to Philly, it rains…there was this one thing. And honestly, it was a pretty good thing.

The San Francisco Baseball giants are in the pennant race.

I have to admit to you that I was not a baseball fan for much of my life. Sure, when the pirates got good back in ’79 I tuned in. I picked some favorites.

Burt Blylevin, Willie Stargell, closer Kent Tekulve

These names still ring a bell, but honestly, I can’t say I was more than a fair weather fan.

That all changed out here in the city by the bay, I am friends with people who like baseball, who talk about baseball, who discuss baseball and who go to baseball games. So I decided about 5 years ago that I was going to be a baseball fan.

It’s taken a few years and I’ve learned something new each year:

• That black crap on batter’s helmets is Pine tar
• A balk is when the pitcher is into the wind up and then throws at the runner
• The in field fly rule means that even if you drop the ball the runner is still out and it prevents people getting unfair double plays
• I can actually see what pitch is being thrown (usually only on TV- but sometimes at the game)

Seriously, I actually know something. And my knowledge is being rewarded this year. The Giants are playing well and they have advanced to the NLCS and I am able to put allthe knowledge I’ve picked up to good use.

I’d like to thank Giant’s announcers Mike Krukow and Duane Kyper, without whom I wouldn’t know all of the bullets above, along with tons of other useless trivia.

And it couldn’t come at a better time.

See, my beloved Steelers have got me conflicted. For years I enjoyed being sanctimonious about the Steelers. The Rooneys were a class act and they demanded classiness from their players. People who played for the Rooneys were held to a higher standard. They were expected to stay on the right side of the law and to behave in a manor befitting the Rooneys.

So I spent years getting to make jokes about all the felons on the other teams. Then our superbowl winning star quarterback acted exactly like the hillbilly that I have said that he is. No it doesn’t matter that he wasn’t charged. The very fact that he put himself in that situation, the fact that he was drunk in public, buying drinks for underage women, acting like he was a stupid 19 year old at 28. Why do that?

I’ll tell you why: he’s a hillbilly with too much money.

Enter Buster Posey, solid hitter, rookie star…married his high school sweetheart, bought a house 2 miles from the house he grew up in, spends the off season with his family and friends in the town he’s lived his whole life.

Ahhhhhhhhh….it’s like a warm bath. It’s like Peyton Manning is on the team I like. He’s not banging models. He’s not involved in “an incident outside a nightclub”. He’s not arraigned for gun possession.

He’s just hitting well into the gap and that makes me happier than 4 and 1.

Go Giants!

I made a shocking decision this morning and I am encouraging everyone I know (out of state) to vote republican.

Of course I’m not advocating that you do that here.

I want everything here in California to get better, I want to keep personal and civil rights in place, I am hoping for a day when everyone is treated equally and people are not just interested in the rights of oil companies or banks. A time when no one, no matter how poor they are, gets quality health care. I don’t want some crazy lady who outsourced 15 k jobs from her own company to do that to us, but as for the rest of you… let’s do this thing!

Here’s my logic:

I heard an interview on the news this morning about how the “do-nothing administration hadn’t been able to tackle the enormous deficit or get us out of two wars or fix wall street or do anything about the oil spill in the gulf” and that’s why this person was voting republican. I actually heard the needle scrape off the record in my head. “What!!??” thinks I.

• Doesn’t this guy realize that the previous administration got us in to two wars that ran up that deficit?
• Doesn’t he realize that republicans actively advocate (even now) for less regulation on banks and big business (read: oil companies)
• Isn’t that the very definition of stupidity? Doing the same thing twice and expecting different results?

Here we are at a landmark point in our nation’s history. We have a president who has good ideas and wants to put them into practice, but what we hear from the right is “We won’t work with this guy! We’re going to drag our feet and complain!” and most interestingly “Where’s your birth certificate!?” (it’s here)

Do you remember when you were in grade school and someone was being obstinate, stubborn and stupid? What did you say? “Let the baby have his bottle” So I say “vote republican!”

Then they’ll come in…screw everything back up…complain some more…point fingers at everyone but themselves…yell a bunch on Fox and Friends…and in two years we’ll be ready to re-elect the president.

Only like I said… don’t vote for Meg Whitman or any of these jackasses. (yes I get the irony) Because while I agree that we should let the republicans screw stuff up but good. I don’t want then to mess up stuff where I live.

Thank you and long live the tea party in every state but mine,

-dac

PS yes I know that I actually said the words “how much damage can a one term republican do?” back in 2000. Yes I know the answer to that it’s : Exactly one crapload. So…I’m ready to eat my words and go  back into the dark ages when my “elect a douche bag” plan backfires. If that does transpire I’ll categorically deny everything and go into hiding in a secret undisclosed location (read: Canada)

Well, so, I’m about to be 40. The 66% complete mark of my father’s life. The 48% complete mark of my grandfather’ on one side and 67% complete of the other. It’s a time to reassess. I’m a mid-level tech project manager working on web projects that will have to be re-done in between 2 months to 2 years by people who I hope are not me. That’s the nature of the web, imperminance is the rule. I get it. However, this is not what I envisioned for myself. Let’s go back and get the skinny on how me at a variety of other ages thought we’d turn out:

4- Fireman: Look at them! The trucks are shiny! The sirens are nifty! I don’t know what they do, but that whole truck / siren thing looks like it’s about the coolest thing on the planet. I want to have a fireman on my cake this year!

7- Han Solo:  Luke is awesome, but c’mon… Han has a blaster and drives a space ship. Luke is basically his bitch. Everytime Luke gets into trouble Han has to dig him out. Greg told me that there’ll be 9 movies in total. If we see one movie every three years it’ll be 2000 when they’re done. We’ll be seeing the last one at the age of 30! 30!?! Who’s 30? Oh like I don’t even think my mom’s that old. That’s like a million years from now. Let’s go kill water striders in the creek!

13- Shut up! I’m not growing up! You’re stupid. Leave me alone!

15-Astronaut: Okay. Han Solo doesn’t exist. If we want to go into space, we’re gonna need to learn how to fly fighter jets like Buzz Aldren. Maybe join the Air Force? I hear that if you have anything less than 20/20 vision that they basically send you to hanger and hand you a wrench. I can still be one. I’ll figure it out. The world is my oyster.

19- Hemingway: I read books! I wrote important sounding short stories! I drink! We sit around the cube at Bethany and talking about important deep things. We like Hemingway! We’re gonna be just like him in the 20’s! Maybe not Hemingway. Maybe I’m gonna be Eugene O’Neal. No matter! Why choose? We’re all gonna be famous writers! Kids are gonna hafta study Us!

22- Reporter: I’ll write about war zones! I’ll have a column like Dave Berry! I’ll settle in around 40 and work on that first novel like Voneguet did. Newspapers are never going anywhere! Let’s start a ‘zine!

24- How the F@#$ should I know what I’m gonna be? Maybe I’ll own a record store or something? You gonna pass that thing over or just bogart it all yourself.

27- Retired: This Internet thing is never going away and I’m gonna make like a gazillion dollars for ever. It’s gonna be the freight train to awesometown from here on out. I’m gonna hit some start up and then just sit back a travel. Yup! I’ve got this thing licked.

28- Famous Comedian: The bronx is a freight train to the big time baby! Robin Williams opened for us!  We’re touring and stuff. We’re funny all the time. Pass me that Jack and let’s write some funny sh!t and we’ll perform it and people will say we’re awesome!

30- Doomed/ Poor House/ Street Vagrant: This internet thing is never coming back. We’re completely ruined. I am gonna live out here in a shack in the woods forever. This pooch is screwed. Expect nothing. get nothing. Maybe I should develop a meth habit?

35- Middle Management: Okay. We’re fine. You’re not destitute. Things don’t suck. Just ride this thing out. Put a couple dollars away. Retire at 67 and then fritter the rest of your days away until the sweet embrace of death. You have friends! They’ll come by. You’re fine. Just sit tight.

39- Shut up! I’m not growing up! You’re stupid. Leave me alone!

I hope you enjoyed that trip though my failings to fulfill my own perceived promise as much as I did. 2 weeks from now we’ll see how it works out. I’ll keep you posted.

So we just changed floors at work. New floor, new desk, new things

One new thing is a new door. A new door shouldn’t make any difference right? Unfortunately it does. What it’s done is put the same song in my head all day every day.

There’s this band that you should have heard of if you haven’t called Tilly and The Wall. They’re from Omaha and like all those Omaha bands have some loose connection to wunderkind Conor Orbest but that’s not important right now. This is the important thing:

They do not have a drum kit, what they have is one girl that tap dances and two others that stand on top of boxes and kind of stap their feet along with the music. It creates a really interesting percussion section. It’s really good, which is why I say- go pay attention if you haven’t.

So on their first record they have a song called “Bad Education”. I think it was the single, but I’m not sure. I couldn’t find the album track but here it is on letterman:

It starts with this kind of ‘stomp stomp crack’* which is the exact noise that front door makes every time someone comes or goes. Then my brain, being completely trained by years of trying to be funny by connecting one thing to the hopefully illogical next thing as fast as I can, completes the “sentence” by starting the lyric. And like I said, it’s a good song, so then it stays in my head for a while. But I’m used to thinking of more than one song on any given day so it’s weird. I’ve had tilly and the wall and not just tilly and the wall…”Bad Education” in my head non stop for two weeks.

Even when I listen to something else it goes away until I stop listening and then someone leaves. Then it’s back.

I guess there’s worse things, the door could sound like the beginning of a Chicago song**

On another separate but still musical note, if you haven’t heard the band “Lost in the Woods” give them a listen. I heard them on NPR “first listen” and they’re a little weepy but the sound is tremendous- they call themselves “Orchestral Folk” it’s like Neutral Milk Hotel with a little less punk and more strings.

*Note to Nancy Reagan: “Stomp Stomp Crack” way better than “just say no”

** Or a Steve Miller song… or etc

So I get forwards from a variety of sources, and those forwards tend to fall into 2 key categories:

1. Dirty/ Bad Jokes, Example:

While a woman is keeping vigil beside her husband’s deathbed, he says to her, “Before I die, I have something to confess to you.”
“Shh, not now,” she replies.
“But I need to tell you: I cheated on you, with your sister and your best friend and your mother and the next door neighbor” he admits.
“Yes, I know,” she replies.
“I need to clear my conscience before I die… ”
“Shh,” she counters. “Just lie back and let the poison work.”

2.  Forwards from republicans about how bad President Obama is, Example:

I do not like this Uncle Sam,
I do not like his health care scam.
I do not like these dirty crooks,
or how they lie and cook the books.
I do not like when Congress steals,
I do not like their secret deals.
I do not like this speaker Nan ,
I do not like this ‘YES WE CAN’
I do not like this spending spree,
I’m smart – I know that nothing’s free,
I do not like your smug replies,
when I complain about your lies.
I do not like this kind of hope.
I do not like it, you BIG Dope.
I do not like it NOPE, NOPE, NOPE!

So I wanted to respond to the republican screed with some of my own poetry:

I wonder if this “poet” knows
That the oil out in the gulf it grows
Not because of the current folks
But because of Bush’s regulation jokes

I also wonder if they see
That most Americans can’t pay the fees
And therefore end up out of luck
When they are health problems struck

I think that those people all lose sight
That these problems didn’t come overnight
Big war debt, and no taxes for the rich
Put the economy in a drainage ditch

Now it’s fun to blame the man
Who inherited the past’s mis-plan
But everyone who’s all complain-y
Might want to check with Bush or Cheney

I pass 4 people everyday when I walk from my house to the Bart station.

1. Middle aged lady who kinda looks like an ex-girlfriend’s mother. I noticed the resemblance last winter when I saw her in a jacket. She has the same grey puffy jacket that my ex-girlfrind’s mom had. Similar hair color. She’s the first one I notice and the most consistent. Every day. 8:15. Somewhere between 26th and 24th street. I bet she works at the Hospital. She looks nice. I think I should talk to her.

2. African American woman who looks like the girlfriend from the second season of the Fresh Prince. She’s cute in that kind of mid-eighties braids thing. The only thing is that she’s always yelling at someone on her cell phone. Someone that she’s always very angry at. The things that she’s angry about is unclear but she’s very clever in her insults*. I think I should offer her a big glass of warm milk, that usually calms people down right? I always pass her walking down 24th

3. The woman and her hyperactive 5 year old on their way to the Mission children’s center on Bartlett in between 25th and 24th. The kid has just clearly done a solid hit from some kind of high powered meth. He reminds me of if Bucket were a child. He runs 50 feet in front, hides behind something, then jumps out and runs 50 feet behind. All the while he’s yelling something unintelligible. **

4. The gang bangity looking guy who I think works at the liquor store. He’s got the baggy pants. He’s got the oversize white T-Shirt. he’s got the shaved head. Does anyone ever go into the liquor store? Why can he stand outside? Who shops there? Is it s front?

*”why you gotta be so F%^&in’ undercoverable!”; “”Who do I have to F#$% to get some hair culers that don’t look like doughnuts!”; “Where the F$%^ did you leave my D#$% D#%$#! You keep it up and I’ll F@#$ing S@#$ up your A$$!”

**It’s as if he only ate the marshmallow pieces from lucky charms. He’s lost the capacity for intelligible speech. It’s kinda like “nur nur nur nur nur” at max vol. Somewhere there’s an enormous pile of the oat pieces probably behind the fridge or inside the dog.

Explination of the crap pond mentioned in “Spin Grandma”.

So the day before thanksgiving arrives and I have house guests. Mom and Bob are in from down south, and Jen is staying with me because the guy she’s subletting from is back for the holiday.

This is fine, I have the space, but what I don’t realize is that my plumbing cannot take the strain. For the past couple weeks, I have noticed that when someone takes a “longer shower”* that a shower smelling pond builds up in my garage. This is not a big deal, but I’m worried because it doesn’t bode well for the future since it means my sewer line is not draining properly.

On the day before thanksgiving, this comes to a head. The pond is back and it’s not just shower residue…there’s um…”sewage” floating in my garage. Yes, friends ans neighbors- I had a growing crap pond in my garage on the day before people would be coming over to eat things and presumably… excrete them.

Suddenly, the “well I should probably do something about this” became a mandate.

so we :

1.) snaked the drains (disgusting but no result)

2.) Called the landlord,  which then led to:

3.) tore up the deck because he *swore* there was a bigger plumbing intake down there and I had just covered it up

4.) Stood around staring at the crap pond

5.) tried snaking the drains from the other side which led to:

6.) some random woman saying “The city should be able to snake it from the street for you”

7.) called the city and then

8.) waited

9.) and waited

10.) Finally the city guy shows up at around 9pm and he snakes the city side and there’s no subsidence in the crap pond. Then he says “Flush a toilet” and I say “No, because it’s just gonna fill the crap pond some more”.

11.) Finally after some pleading and cajoling the city guy agrees to put his flush hose into my garage drain. First I cram it in and try to get it to move… it doesn’t. Then the city guy helps out. He wangles the thing for about 5 min and finally with a geyser, which we watched from the street, the crap shoot in the city main drain flows free and

12.) The crap pond drains away. The final draining of the crap pond leads to

13.) I hose all the crap into the drain and then liberally spread Clorox all over my garage floor, for which I ruin a par of brown cords (bleach stains) but now my drain flow through and everything is great

It took like 12 hours, and 7 people and 14 “street consultants”**, but the disaster was averted and the pond was vanquished!

Thanksgiving went off without a hitch but the thing I was most thankful for was family or friends or yummy food… it was that there wasn’t a lake of human poo in my garage.

amen. 

* Read: more than 5 mins

** Comments like “wow you got a real mess on your hands”

*** BTW the title is a reference to the crap demon from Dogma, in case you don’t remember here’s the screenplay… just search for Golgatha if you want to read the appropriate scene.