The End of an Era

So the other night I made a pilgrimage, of sorts, and ran a bittersweet errand. I went to Nashville Used Musical Instruments and sold off the first "real" instrument I ever owned, my ancient Korg Poly-800 synthesizer.

Actually, "sold off" is generous. After lugging it around for the past fifteen years (the last time I seriously used it was 1996, for one song on the Feyerabend album) it had seen better days. It still worked fine, but was missing a power supply and a lot of its documentation. The upshot of this, however, was that the store was reticent to buy it off me, because the resale value was minimal given the work and parts they would have to put into it.

Now, you must understand, this was no mere piece of electronic junk in my universe. I had written my earliest songs on this thing, and (when I first received it, way back in 1984) it was a powerhouse of sounds and possibilities. While I no longer had a real use for it, I did not want to abandon it to some trash heap. It needed some sort of good home.

So we struck a weird sort of compromise. The Poly-800 had come to me, that Christmas all those years ago, with a pretty sturdy road case. The store agreed to buy that, and I told them I'd throw the keyboard in on the deal. So it goes (or rather, so it went).

In my fondest dream, some way or somehow this old synthesizer will find its way into a new home - maybe as the unit it now is, maybe as spare parts of some other keyboard - and some kid will get a hold of it this Christmas and more music will be made.

I'm sentimental, I know. But you must understand I hate, hate, hate parting with instruments. I form relationships with the things I make music with. They become a part of me. But in this case, it was clearly time to say farewell. Farewell and thank you. Thank you for "Keep Me Moving." Thank you for "Outside My Window." Thank you for "Renee," and for many many more songs through the years. Thank you.

Nashville Art: Past, Present and Future

The following is an article which I wrote which appears in the December 2006 issue of Nashville Arts Magazine.

It happened 25 years ago in Chattanooga. Ten years ago it swept Atlanta. As I look around Nashville, I want to ask, “Is it happening here?”

In other words, is the Nashville art scene on the brink of a convergence of grassroots and civic forces that might make the arts—all the arts, and not merely the musical ones—a permanent and prominent factor in city life?

“There’s a real optimism in Nashville right now,” says Herb Williams, who has become known in the Nashville art world both for his colorful crayon art and his very visible studio space above the Arts Company downtown. “There’s a real sense that this can work and it can happen. For the first time we have beautiful galleries and amazing art all in one block [along Fifth Avenue]. That’s never happened here before.”

In the mid-1990’s Atlanta was the center of a similar groundswell, a mixture of known ateliers and a sudden explosion of small art galleries and studios. Many of these were the result of determined efforts by cooperative groups of local semi-professional and amateur artists. Some of these groups (like the now-legendary Mattress Factory projects, the Light Monkeys, the Ballroom Studios, the BlueMilk group, and the West Hill Concept Union—a group of which I was a member) flourished for a few years, then struggled, then folded. By the turn of the new century a very few—the Eyedrum gallery and performance space and the YoungBlood gallery, in particular—had found a way to ‘make it work,’ and are still in operation today.

“I think a tremendous impetus for the energy these galleries had was the 1996 Olympics,” says Robert Cheatham, now Eyedrum’s executive director. “A much wider range of demographics came into Atlanta, with a concomitant lowering of the average age. I think the reason the ball kept rolling is because of the huge swell of population into the city and all the development in housing that came in the wake of the Games. That was a double edged sword, for sure, but it helped ensure there were a lot of young people, and they were the ones interested in what we were doing. They were the crowd that came to everyone’s openings, and not just ours.”

What the Olympics brought to Atlanta as well was the brief taste of what it was like to be a '24 hour' city. Cultural events occurred at all hours of the day and night, and they were affordable, and many absolutely free. Artists, musicians, and performers from across the nation and the world were suddenly everywhere in the city, and the atmosphere drew local artists out from their individual efforts and got them thinking about cooperative possibilities.

Tom Wegrzynowski, who is now finishing his MFA in painting at the University of Alabama, joined the West Hill Concept Union in 1998, after it had been in operation for two years. He considers this to be a defining moment in his development as an artist. “While I had my own studio practice, I was largely isolated from other artists at the time,” he says. “I consider joining the Concept Union to be the beginning of my professional art career. In that way I would say that involvement with an art collective was very influential in the development of my work.”

During these years it was not unheard of that Nashville-based artists would leave for Atlanta and not return, seeing vitality there that did not seem to exist here in the eighties and nineties. Allen Welty-Green was the director & composer of the Mind's Eye performance group - a multi-media company that produced many events in Nashville and across the southeast between 1986 and 1992. “We held the first event produced at the Darkhorse Theater. It was still an open church sanctuary at the time. We hung the lights and gave the walls their first coat of black paint. When Mind's Eye dissolved, I was unable to find the resources in Nashville to continue producing art in the same capacity, so I moved to Atlanta, where I already had a number of connections.” Now a member of the Eyedrum board of directors, Welty-Green has continued to produce dance and performance pieces since his move.

But Atlanta’s underground art scene has a very different face now than it had in those early days just after the Olympics. The energy and spark has faded in many ways, and this fact is noted and lamented by those who have been watching for the last three decades. One such observer is Jerry Cullum, a senior editor at ArtPapers magazine, based in Atlanta. “What I see now is that scene is splintering between a few remaining groups. There is some crossover and communication from Eyedrum to the YoungBlood gallery, and some crossover in a minor way from YoungBlood to a new gallery named Beep Beep. But I wish there were more.”

In many ways Atlanta is an example of what results when a groundswell of artistic energy explodes without a concerted civic effort to nurture and sustain it. “At YoungBlood we’ve been lucky to have a lot of support from local businesses, and we went to local colleges and found folks willing to work for us as interns,” says Kelley Teasley, who co-founded the gallery with Maggie White in 1997, “But it takes a lot of patience and we both have had to have other jobs to get by.” What seems to have hurt the Atlanta art scene the most in the years since the Millennium is that the efforts have remained too grassroots, without widespread and concerted support on the part of the city government.

Contrasts to this ‘hands off’ civic approach exist within a few hours’ drive in either direction from Nashville. Both Chattanooga and Paducah are high-profile examples of what can be accomplished when a city chooses to support and foster the arts on a community-wide scale. Twenty-five years ago it was exactly this sort of vision for the revitalization of Chattanooga’s downtown area that helped support the now very-successful Bluff View arts district, which boasts museums, studios and galleries just a few minutes’ walk from the Tennessee Aquarium and the city’s urban center. More recently, Paducah, KY enacted a massive “Artist Relocation Program,” which offered significant economic and business incentives, including interest-free housing loans, to artists willing to move to the city and foster its cultural life. The city also recently invested in a multi-million dollar performing arts center designed to attract musicians and performers of national caliber. “This program is a perfect fit for the community and its goals for the future,” said Artist Relocation Program coordinator Mark Barone in a 2001 interview. Since he spoke those words, many of those goals have been realized. The Lowertown area of the city now boasts well-established galleries and arts activities, and Paducah is now beginning to bank on its reputation as a cultural center in tourism revenues.

“Cities like Paducah and Chattanooga are really embracing artists as an economic development booster,” says Caroline Carlisle of the Twist Gallery, one of the galleries making up the now-growing collection of storefront studio-gallery spaces in the Arcades on Fifth Avenue. “I would love to see the powers that be realize these new visual art opportunities. I would love to see Nashvillians value the visual arts in their city, really embrace it and support it. People have to realize that if they want urban experiences like the Avenue of the Arts and Art at the Arcade provides, they have to support it with their pocketbooks as well as with their presence.”

All the artists I interviewed, from Nashville and across the southeast, stressed the importance of group efforts and working collectively to achieve common goals. Robert Cheatham encourages artists here to be self-starters, to get projects underway without waiting for anyone to give permission or even money. Herb Williams emphatically agrees, “I remember early days at Downtown Presbyterian Church, getting a chance to work with other artists there. We put in sweat equity and were part of the community together. My art responded to the elements of that situation. We need more opportunities for artists like that.”

But those opportunities may disappear if there is not an equal commitment at the level of city government to create the economic and civic support to help give the arts living, breathing viability here. There are definitely efforts on the horizon, for example the Nashville Civic Design Center, which is a nonprofit organization founded in 2000 which seeks to foster public dialogue about the direction of Nashville’s civic space. Public art and the support of artists have played a part in these discussions. But there is also a history of resistance among city government officials to consideration of the kind of widespread commitment that would move us in the direction of artist-friendly cities like Paducah and Chattanooga.

So what will happen in Nashville? Since I moved here in 2002, I definitely have sensed a similar energy growing all over the city—in East Nashville, and now downtown at the level of the local galleries—to that energy I felt when I lived in Atlanta. But I also am worried that some of the same civic difficulties that kept Atlanta from becoming a truly arts-and-artist-friendly city may be in effect here. The pieces are in place, and the choices that are made in the very near future will determine the cultural community and reputation Nashville will have for years to come. As artists and patrons, we are truly here at a portentous time.

“We’ve got the momentum, the people, and the galleries all around town moving forward like never before,” Herb Williams says, summing it all up for me. “It’s now or never.”

Categories: culture

Zyklon-Barbie

Here's what worries me about America.

See, it's like this. Say that you're an ugly, mule-toothed skinhead race-baiting neo-Nazi. You are also a musician, and your career has been built on writing and playing songs that denigrate all the "mud peoples" and praises Aryan sensibilities and family values. Then, let's say, for example, you die in a tragic automobile accident. Very few people are going to notice, or care. Some might even cheer. After all, you were ugly. In our country, bad racists are ugly (natch).

But what, oh what, America, if your racists are beautiful?

The ugly racist of my example is, of course, Ian Donaldson of the white power band Skrewdriver. Outside of fringe circles of the right wing, Donaldson never garnered much notice. The songs Skrewdriver sang were not examples of high art - far from it. Humorless paens to the likes of Rudolph Hoess and testosterone pumped swastika waving were mostly the order of the day. Easy to dismiss these guys as kooks (because, um, they are kooks).

But what about Prussian Blue, my friends. What about Prussian Blue?

Prussian Blue, you see, are a folk duo made up of the teenage Gaede twins, Lynx and Lamb. They have delicate features, straight blonde hair, and winsome looks to give the camera. In its original incarnation, Lynx played violin and Lamb played guitar, though now they have graduated to a more robust, band sound. They look sweet - innocent, even.

Oh, and they sing Skrewdriver songs. Did I mention that they sing Skrewdriver songs?

The Gaede twins, y'see - in fact, the entire Gaede family - are virulent racists. Consider, for example, this selection of lyrics, penned by Lynx, for the song "What Must Be Done":

ALL the mud races must be banished,
For look at the world they have damaged.
Look around and what do I see?
Ugly brown faces staring at me.

Our people must look like my mom and dad.
They don't now and that makes me mad.
We don't want to be mongrelized,
We want to be Nature's Finest down deep inside.

Now here's what worries me. In America we seem quite eager to accept any lame or even hateful idea that comes down the flagpole, so long as the one handing it to us is attractive. We idolize the uncouth and the ill-mannered so long as they have a Hollywood address or a Prada pedigree. We obsess about JonBenet to the neglect of our own children and crave our own fifteen minute alotment of attention.

In such a milieu, it is not hard for me to see the possibility that Lynx and Lamb would get a sympathetic ear for their tripe. "After all," I can hear the voices saying, " they're so cute, their politics can't be all that bad..." At the very least, their "angelic good looks" are garnering the twins a rather high media profile - even when the media attention is less than charitable.

The media outlets in this country are notoriously fickle. In a constant craving for a new angle, I fear it is only a matter of time before some major news organization decides to give Prussian Blue a "fair hearing," in the name of some distorted notion of "equal time" or "free speech." If that comes to pass, we may find ourselves coming face to face with what America really values, as liberty and justice for all crumbles against the brute force of our national narcissism.

I mean, after all, they're only kids. And they're so cute...

Built to Spill at City Hall, Nashville, TN September 24th, 2006

This is a testimony to the level of hipness of the staff of my local Vanderbilt Ben and Jerry's ice cream parlor.

So I walked in there one day several months back and was grooving to the tunes on the stereo. "What's this?" I asked. "Built to Spill's new album" was the response.

Neat.

Fast forward a month or so. I am a regular at this store, in all senses of that word, to the point that when I walk in, the staff just asks me how many scoops I want (because beyond that variable, the cone never changes). This leaves us time to talk about other, more important things. Like weekend plans.

What was up with folks on the staff one weekend a few weeks back was the Built to Spill show. So I piggybacked on their enthusiasm, bought a ticket, and went along.

I'm not sure who the first opening act was, but the middle act was Helvetia, and I am sad to say I wasn't impressed. The frontman seems to have some sort of hip indie-rock pedigree and all, but the performance and the music both failed to connect with me. The rest of the band gave the impression that they were very surprised to be on stage ("What am I doing here? Why are there lights? What's this? A bass guitar? What the Hell, people?")

I had intended to stay back in the crowd, but friends encouraged me to come to near the front row, and so I was in prime position for when Built to Spill took the stage.

I was not very familiar with the music, though I had gone to Napster and listened to enough to know I was interested. So when they actualy started, it was the best of all possible worlds: an enthusiastic crowd, music that was very listenable but that was new like an undiscovered country to me, and I was with people who sell me ice cream. I was pumped.

The band looks like a gaggle of math professors, and the lead singer looks two steps away from quitting the math department, moving to a cabin in the woods without running water, and starting to mail letterbombs. The surreal images projected while the band played did nothing to dispel this notion.

The music was energetic, complex, loud and very, very listenable. I was reminded a lot of Sunny Day Real Estate's last album in terms of vocals, and there are a lot of apt comparisons to Modest Mouse as well. What I liked especially is that the music goes on digressions in terms of tempo, time signature, and dynamics - but never loses its sense of melody. Melody, however, with a lot of clangy, crashing noise. I dug it.

The one downside was the overly-enthusiastic drunk frat boy who shouldered his way to the front and did the drunk white guy dance, running into me and the ice cream folks repeatedly. But this was minor.

On the whole, a wonderful use of my time. Recommended.

Show with Tim Gilger at the Hall of Fame Lounge, Nashville, 9.23.06

This was the first time I had booked my own show at the Hall of Fame, and I was glad Tim was there to break the ice with me. I had had one of the worst weeks in recent memory leading up to the show, and was glad to have something familiar and comforting to retreat to on a new stage.

The sound was really good, and a bunch of folks came out to see the show, and I felt more and more comfortable up there (and not just because of the beer). Tim played several old favorites plus one new one he had shared with me right before the show. I did my best to add shaker and harmonies, and I think all that worked well.

I appreciated the folks who came and the fact that they filled the room so much - thanks, Disciples House crowd!

My set: Caroline, N Judah, The Life You Save May Be Your Own

Categories: shows played

Almost Famous

I've been reminiscing lately about one of the stranger periods of my life - the year in Atlanta when I was a professional in-home caregiver.

I hadn't intended to come into that line of work, mind you. My first job out of college was being a shipping-recieving clerk on a loading dock for a big chain store in Lenox mall (I graduated with a degree in philosophy, only to find that no one was hiring philosophers in Atlanta. So: loading dock). I worked that job very well for about a year (I think I was the only clerk in Lenox whose manager gave a raise to in the hopes of keeping - I was not making enough to live on with the student loans and I was starting to look for other options) and I had read an ad looking for child care workers, and so I applied.

Those of you who know me will be raising their eyebrows at this point, knowing my long-standing antipathies. But see the logic: I really wanted to teach, ultimately, but had no idea how to go about that and no credentials to do that. So this seemed like a 'back door' to me - a temporary solution to get me moving in the direction I wanted to go. Paying my dues, if you will - what my Ma used to term 'cleaning the turkey.'

The service I interviewed with was on the north side of town, and was run from the lower level (I hesitate to call such well-furnished rooms a 'basement') of a house off Roswell road. The process took a couple of hours, and at the end, the consultant I was working with told me that there were, in fact, no child care positions available for me. But they did have this one, slightly strange, case. Would I be willing to hear about that one?

I was willing. The loading dock had made me very willing.

It turns out that I was being asked to consider becoming a caregiver for Steve, a 35 year old man who had been involved in a terrible accident. He was born with blood that coagulated too readily (think of the opposite of haemophaelia) and had been hurt in his early thirties in a basketball accident. He went up for a layup, was knocked down, and hit his head. He didn't know that he was concussed, and that a clot was forming in his medulla (the brain stem that controls motor functions) which would lead to a massive stroke. That afternoon he laid down for a nap, and didn't wake up for six weeks.

When he finally awoke, he had lost all his fine motor control, most of his speech, his ability to walk, he had become acutely walleyed, and his emotional pallette had been decimated. He still had gross motor function, but that meant that he was, for eaxmple, as likely - more likely, in fact - to knock over or break something as pick it up. Moreover, when he spoke to you it was vaguely like talking to a Picasso painting, with regard to his eyes. I don't intend this description in a mean way - I just want to convey that his physiognomy was one that many found a bit unsettling.

So when I entered the picture, Steve had been in this state for about five years. He worked hard to keep his body in good shape, and to fight every day to regain little pieces of his abilites. I would aid him in his daily exercise regimen at the YMCA, and (with the aid of a thick leather belt around his middle and a walker) help him work on slow, laborious walks - mainly to and from his van at the beginning and the end of each of our days together.

Now, among the differently abled, as one might imagine, there is a sort of hierarchy. And this hierarchy is often based upon financial resources. Part of what made my work with Steve possible was that he had vast economic resources (from both his family and from a medical settlement surrounding his accident). This allowed him to have a very functional, semi-independent life - one that would not be available to everyone in his physical condition.

It also allowed him to get into all sorts of mischief, and that's really what I want to muse about here.

Because of the uniqueness of each traumatic brain injury (TBI) on individual patients, every injury of this sort presents its own set of interesting complications. Steve was extremely limited physically, but he still thought like an athletic and attractive 35-year-old. Which means, mostly, that he tried constantly to flirt and chat up women. The difficulty was that many women were not patient with his speech, and even those who were found his uncanny appearance unsettling.
What this led to was a cycle of despair. TBI victims often have limitations on their brain's stamina to process emotion and they often evince what is referred to as "blunted affect" - which means they sort of 'cut corners' on emotions at times, seeming insensitive or short to folks who don't understand the mechanics of the injury. Combine this with the constant frustration of desire, frustration resulting from physical limitation, and you can imagine the depths of sadness and rage that might result. Steve and I talked about this a lot, when he felt like talking to me.

But Steve was not fully limited, simply because of his financial resources. And it was interesting to watch the effects of wealth mixed with blunted affect.

In the time I knew him, Steve went tandem skydiving, took a trip to the bottom of the Grand Canyon on a mule (with a specially crafted saddle to support him), and was flown in loop de loops in a glider plane. For each of these adventures, part of my job (in addition to the regular tasks of care) was to videotape the proceedings, and later edit the footage together to a punchy soundtrack.

With each adventure complete and documented, we sent these tapes to David Letterman.

"I've got to get famous, David," Steve would tell me repeatedly. "If I can get on David Letterman everything will be fine. I know just what I'll say to him..." and he would proceed to tell me, in halting growls and slurs, how the conversation would proceed.

I edited the tapes and dutifully sent them, and I found myself wondering what, if anything, the staff at the Letterman show thought of this strange phenomenon - if, indeed, they thought of it at all. I wonder if the tapes even ever got to them, or just were lost to the mailroom and mid-level factotums.

The effects of economic difference on the perception and ability to live differently is, of course, nothing new. In older days the difference between being labelled 'eccentric' and being confined to a sanitarium was often contingent upon one's breeding, one's family resources. But in the years since working with Steve I have often wondered, as the likes of "American Idol" and its cousins have flooded the airwaves, the extent to which the same motivations which drove Steve are driving the hearts of these celebrity-wannabes.

By which I guess I mean, to what extent, and why, do we all seem to think that the answer to everything is to get famous, to get on televisions, to talk to Letterman?

And I don't just point that finger at my culture, at those around me. When I send out CD's to magazines to be reviewed, or get my mug up on stage for my fifteen minutes, there's that same desire. Watch me, love me. Make me more complete, meaningful, neccessary than I currently am. Validate me, because I feel disposable and broken.

In the end, I probably have spent an equivalent amount of money and time on musical equipment as Steve did on adventures and videotape. And who knows how much the "American Idol" crowd spends on image, haircuts, publicity? The mind boggles.

Being as I don't own a TV, I don't have much occasion to check in on the Letterman show, but the few times a year I do see it, I am always a bit curious. I wonder if I'll ever see Steve on it. I wonder, if I do, if being-there will have done the trick he wanted it to. I wonder if everything would be fine, then. I wonder.

New music. Yes. New music.

Okay. So instead of working on my dissertation, I have been recording demos of music. Do not tell my advisor.

You can hear Circuit on my MySpace page.

You can hear the Massanetta Conference Theme Song on my music downloads page (at the bottom, under 'Demos')

I should probably go to bed now. It's late.

Sleep tight, everybody.

Categories: shows played

Show with MIke Dominguez and Benjamin Blake at the Commodore, Nashville, TN, 9.8.06

I had not had a chance to play with Mike for a couple of months, so this was a real treat. After all the times we have done shows together, I have a real comfort singing backup for him and adding elements like shaker and such. He played a relatively new song halfway through the set, which I hung back on. But it was really great to see both he and Jen in the same place at the same time (Jen just had a little baby, so such dual sightings are rare these days).

I had only heard Benjamin once before - a few weeks ago at Christopher Pizza when he was doing one of the Wednesday Music Society nights. He utterly blew me away then, and I was anxious to hear him at the show. He didn't disappoint. A very delicate, intricate style with a lot of good taste in his arrangements, plus a voice that mixes equal parts Michael Franks and Nick Drake. I was really pleased to have him on the bill. Watch for him - he's going places, and soon.

As for me - I have to say the sound at the Commodore, at least for me on stage, is always really good. I felt really comfortable up there, and I had the added benefit of having just gotten my guitar back from the shop (it had gotten its thousand-mile oil change). The one glitch was forgetting a line in the first song I played, which I chalk up to just being rusty. We had a great crowd (except for a few loud guys in the back of the room yelling for Freebird) and I would say the show was a thorough success. We even got to play an extra pass because of the crowd response, which was a nice vote of confidence from Lee, the guy that runs the rounds.

My set: 1) Wasting Time with You, 2) N Judah, 3) The Man Who Lost the Sea, 4) Telegraph

Categories: shows played

I Dream of Wires

Years ago, during college, I worked at the campus bookstore. The building the bookstore was in was arranged so that the offices were up a flight of stairs above the sales floor, so when you went up there you could basically see everything going on down below.

So one day, I went up to the office area to drop off some papers or something, and was about to start down the stairs when I stopped dead in my tracks. There, down below - just for an instant - I was sure I saw myself - me - walking there among the stacks.

It was absolutely terrifying.

Now, of course, it turned out to be someone who simply looked like me. But more than this, there was a similarity in gait, in mannerisms, the way he held his head. For that instant, it was convincing. And that instant, consequently, was so unhinged that I remember the feeling of it to this day. Vain creatures though we are, I would venture to say that no human being would suffer well being suddenly confronted with their uncanny doppelganger.

This past weekend was a rather down one for me, and I found myself sticking close to home and doing bread-and-butter stuff like filing and laundry. I didn't go out carousing with friends or any of my normal activities. In other words, I was in a mood to be thoughtful, and I had time to spare.

And I found, for that time and place, perhaps the perfect movie.

It's an odd one. It was an independent film, made for just about $7000, and released back in 2004, and it is kinda science fiction. Only it isn't. And it's kinda like Memento, only it isn't. And sometimes the dialogue is convoluted and it's a bit hard to follow in places and that might make it hard to watch.

Only it isn't. I have now watched it six times, twice with the director's commentary. It holds up.

The film is called Primer. It is extroardinarly difficult to describe, because - despite what it seems to be about (some 'classic' science fiction themes, complete with an ambiguous gizmo that whirs and makes your ears bleed) it is actually an extended meditation on trust, and how you might maintain it (or lose it) when the person you are talking to is not, in fact, who you think they are (or, perhaps I should say, when you think they are).

You will be tempted at this point to Google it and find out what I mean without actually seeing it. My recommendation is, don't. Go to your local hip video shop and rent it and watch it. Twice.

Here's the thing - one of the really cool aspects of this film (as opposed to the slick Hollywood movies where every techno thing is explained and made safe by the dialogue) is that - perhaps - the characters have absolutely no idea what it is that they are dealing with. Part of the joy - the first time through, is trying, with them, to figure it out. The story unfolds with a naturalness and the right balance of keeping the viewer on-track mixed with enough confusion to keep things well beyond interesting the first time through. Then the pleasure (on subsequent viewings) is trying to figure out how you missed the clues that maybe - just maybe - some of the characters aren't so clueless after all.

For a low-budget, first-project film, this film completely exceeds expectations. The story is amazing, the characters are believable and well-acted, and the science is fiction, but its not mumbo-jumbo. You find yourself thinking - just for a minute (or 1,337 minutes, depending where you are) that it might actually work.

What's wrong with our hands?

[ The thing that scared me the most, that day in the bookstore, was the possibility of meeting someone - some me - that knew me completely, that was me completely, and yet I wouldn't know what he was thinking. I wouldn't know, moreover, how or why he was there. I was confronted with the possibility, just for an instant, that this other-that-was-me might know me (my trajectories, my motivations, my reasons) in that moment better than I knew myself. I was terrified at the possibility that I was living in his world, and no longer in mine. ]

Why won't our hands work like normal people?

Tighten the straps. There are always leaks. Every half-meter, everywhere. Everywhere.

What if it actually works?

Categories: film

Carry no pictures.

This has been the week for art films. Went again last night to the Belcourt theater, near my apartment, and watched the epic (and recently unearthed) masterpiece by Jean-Pierre Melville, Army of Shadows (L'armee des Ombres).

Travis and I have discussed Melville before, as both of us are big fans of his incomprehensibly beautiful Le Samourai. There are similarities and differences between the two films. Both are suffused with the tres cool aesthetic and detachment of the French New Wave (though Melville precedes the movement in many key ways), and both refuse the easy narrative linearity of your more run-of-the-mill action-adventure films. But, where Samourai feels at points almost whimsical (or as whimsical as you can get about an ill-fated and star-crossed assassin), there is no whimsy to be had anywhere in Shadows. Do not carry pictures of your daughter. They will be used against you. Carrying cyanide capsules, though, is continually reinforced as a pretty good idea.

The film is about the French Resistance, but it is so unlike your normal Hollywood war film that you might spend much of it unaware of the larger backdrop of World War II. You could, in fact, replace or transpose the story into any conflict with oppression - ancient or contemporary. The film's narrative hangs as tightly together as a Harold Pinter play, and trades on the same sort of ambiguities - both internal and external.

If you see the film (and I think it is well worth going out of your way to see), I recommend you do your best to get carried away with it. I spent the first reel trying to hang the narrative against historical and physical landmarks and it simply got in the way of exploring and enjoying (to the extent one can "enjoy" a film like this) the nuance and breadth of the story. I think it works better for the viewer to simply give in to the ambiguities that the characters o the screen are experiencing. Like us, they do not always know where they are, or why they are there, or what to do next. But the decisions that are made - both by the characters and in the narrative itself - are bold and daring (even if ultimately ill-fated and star-crossed).

While I think, in the end, I prefer Le Samourai, the films complement each other and confirm (as if this needed conformation) Melville's mastery of cinema in all its dark genres.

There's a crack in everything

So. This past weekend was a mix of cinema - the highbrow and the low. And on the balance, the combination was oddly right. Much is still percolating.

First, on Friday, I went to go see the much-ballyhooed and supposedly greatest film of all time, Snakes on a Plane. I first heard of this months ago when my friend Thad told me about it, and others have built the buzz since that time. With all the hype, it was a bit of a mystery to know exactly what to expect. I guess I had hoped it would be this strange, over the top, surreal comedy.

Well, it wasn't that, and it wasn't Tolstoy, either. But it was a reasonably solid, if unremarkable, action-thriller. Plus I enjoy Samuel L. Jackson, and it was a good vehicle for him. So I am pleased I saw it, though I don't think I would pay to see it again.

Which lends one to think: what is it that makes this a well-hyped internet film, but not a "cult" film? I don't feel cheated for seeing it once, but I would not repeat seeing nor encourage my friends to see it. Hmm. I guess I was hoping it would be less like Serpent and the Rainbow (another film which, years ago, had good build-up and was not a repeat-see) and more like Donnie Darko (a film which I would go see again, right now, and tomorrow, too). So that was SoaP.

The next day I went with my pal M. to the Belcourt in the village and we watched I'm Your Man, the film about Leonard Cohen.

I'm thankful to M. for bringing Cohen to my attention. I had always had a vague notion of who he was and the importance he held in American music, but my word, I never knew. I never knew the power of the lyrics he wrote, or how they would deeply affect me.

The movie itself is an interpersal of interviews and photo montages of Cohen with a mix of mostly-Canadian perfomers covering his songs in a tribute-concert setting. Rufus Wainright and Nick Cave are two notables among a solid group of luminaries.

It was interesting. One of the things that has kept me at bay for so long from Cohen was that I didn not like his voice and delivery - so hering these songs performed by others really "worked" for me. It allowed me to concentrate on the devastatingly perfect turns of phrase and poetry. So I liked that part. By contrast, M. found the cover performances somewhat frustrating and occasionally tedious, wishing that there would have been more of the "final payoff": Cohen himself performing (which occurs in one brief sequence - backed by U2 - at the end). I found that contrast in responses interesting, and I appreciated where M. was coming from on that, though I still find Cohen's voice - as opposed to his writing - to be a less-than-ideal showcase for his songs.

As far as those songs go - if you don't know Leonard Cohen, I cannot recommend highly enough that you delve into his writing and songs. Amazing stuff. Simply breathtaking. More than once, in the dark, was wiping away tears.

Show with Lianna and Jen Wallwork Dominguez at the Commodore, Nashville, 8.11.06

My friend Lianna hosted a songwriter's dinner at her home a few weeks back, and I went and met some great new folks and had a marvelous time. In addition to great food and company, I also walked out the door with an invitation to play the Commodore. It's one of my favorite rooms in Nashville, so I was very pleased and agreed immediately to do the show.

When I arrived Friday night, I had worked up a couple new songs (new to Nashville, anyway) from the repetoire to try out. There was a good crowd in the room already, and several folks from Divinity School and other walks of my life arrived to listen as well. So I was super pleased with the turnout and the response.

One of the best parts of the evening, though, was the surprise of finding that Jen Wallwork Dominguez was third on the bill for our round. She just had a baby a few weeks back, so I hadn't expected her to be out and playing for another month or so at least, but she was in great form and sang several songs that (as always) blew me away. Both Jen and Lianna won some new fans that night with their great performances and songwriting.

I was pretty pleased with my part of the set, too - though, as often hapens, I kept feeling that my music doesn't fit so well in the singer-songwriter setting. I started the set with Babylon, Alabama (I picked that one becuase I like the rhythm and tempo of it - it seemed to fit the "grab the attention" needs of a loud bar). During the second pass I played The Man Who Lost the Sea, and I finished off with Wasting Time with You (which went a lot better than the last time I played it in public)

On the whole, a good show. Thank you Lianna for booking it and Lee Rascone for hosting it (and great to see Jen and all of you who came out to listen)!

Categories: shows played

Call it something like, "What I did on my Summer Vacation"

Hell's Departure Lounge

This was my Odyssey.

All I wanted to do, you see, was get home. I had just spent a lovely four days on the North Shore of Massachussetts, travelling up the coastline visiting little towns and just relaxing. It had been so relazing, in fact, that I had begun to soften my hardline position that the world is a rude and ugly place. I had begun to feel what some people call hope (and hope, of course, is what Terry Pratchett refers to as 'that greatest of treasures.')

Ah. But then I went through airport security.

I had found a cheap round trip ticket on US Airways, which is the daughter company of a recent merger of USAir and America West - a merger which was being loudly touted from walls on posters and from thumped chests of ticket agents on buttons. Great things afoot, the atmosphere seemed to say. Here, in this place, the perils which have beset the airline industry as a whole are firmly held at bay.

It should have been simple: a short flight from Boston to Philadelphia, and then from Philadelphia to Nashville. Simple, in my life, implies a certain level of tolerance, of course, and Things Do Happen. But within reason, no? A certain level of tolerance goes a long way under Normal Circumstances.

But Normal Circumstances had, apparently, followed my lead and taken a holiday somewhere on the North Shore.

We were delayed getting off the ground, due to a bad weather system throughout the middle Atlantic states. Then, after an hour, we got off the ground, and were delayed in the air from landing by, again, severe weather. Once we got on the ground (after an extra 45 minutes in the air) we were delayed on the tarmac, three times, by what is called a "ramp closure".

Closing the Ramp, apparently, involves pulling back all ground crew from service and halting all traffic in and out of the airport. Nothing moves. Which means, of course, that the third time we stopped on the tarmac, 30 feet from the gate, that was exactly where we stayed. 30 feet from the gate. For another half hour.

Needless to say, I was late making my connecting flight. My connecting flight had miraculously managed to make it out in one of the windows when the ramp had not been closed. Now, this is understandable, and still well within my level of tolerance.

We were told that a gate agent would meet us upon our debarking from the plane, to assist us in making new connections. So, upon debarking and calling the nice person in Nashville who would have been picking me up at about that time at the Nashville airport and informing her that I was in the airport at last, only not the right one, I got in the line to talk to the station agent.

After about five minutes of waiting in line, the station agent suddenly announced loudly to the crowd that he couldn't help us anymore, and that we all would have to go to the other end of the terminal to wait in another line to talk to the customer service agents.

Thinking this a rather loose interpretation of the promise we heard on the plane that "an agent would be waiting at the gate to help," we all just stared at the agent, mute.

"No, I mean it," he repeated. "I'm leaving. You'll have to go to the other desk."

So I turned and made my way, like the rest, to the other end of the terminal. Ah, now being at the back of the line was an advantage, as it meant I got to a higher place in the new line. Tolerance. Sweet tolerance.

After an hour in the new line, though, tolerance was waning. Of the three agents at the desk, one kept leaving to talk on her cell phone, and the other two seemed about as efficient as, well, a post office after a bad fire. Ten minutes per person seemed to be the average, we determined (my stalwart co-queued companions and I), and we heard through the grapevine that the folks still not quite at the front of the line (which was not so far from us) had been standing where we were standing, two hours ago.

Lovely.

At some point, two more agents arrived, but the comedy of errors continued. The line moved a little faster, only now new plagues erupted. Computers began crashing. Printers ceased to work. The devil, it seemed, was in the details, and no one was bothering to pay attention to the fine print. I will spare you, gentle reader, of the many grumblings which ensued.

I will detail for you, however, that when I finally got to have my time at the desk, it was with a gate agent that (I swear, I am not using this term in anything but the most accurate sense) was literally mentally challenged. Everything I said, or indeed anyone said to him, was repeated back, slowly, and pondered at great length before any action was taken. Watching him type was a Chinese water torture of one-fingered hunt-and-pecking. It should go without saying as well that it was when he finally was trying to print out my new boarding passes that the computer printer went down again. Despairing, after five minutes of watching his slow, bumbling attempts to fix it, I howled for a manger.

This was, in fact, the limit of my tolerance.

So now, armed at last with boarding passes in hand, I was informed that the airline does not offer hotel considerations for delays due to weather, and my flight home was leaving at 6:45 the next morning (it was then just after midnight). So I found the bar (ordered a two-fisted set of beers to brace my rattled nerves), and then the all-night Chinese restaurant in the other terminal (good egg rolls, sub-par shrimp fried rice), and had great impromptu conversations with my fellow refugees. I really didn't sleep at all that night, though there was one fitful nap on the floor of gate B-19, for about an hour. Never was I more glad that I always travel with my travel pillow strapped to my backpack.

The next morning should have gone smoothly. Instead of a direct flight, I was re-routed to Charlotte, and from there to Nashville. Fine. So I got to my gate, fueled with a breakfast of chocolate and vanilla swirl yogurt cone, and got on the plane. Thank you.

And there we sat on the plane. For two hours. Two hours, and a lot of that time with the air off (and it was hot). Apparently, we finally were told, the ground crew had put too much fuel on the plane, and it had to be siphoned off. Why they hadn't taken care of this the night before (since, trust me, that flight had been on the boards since 2am - I was checking) is beyond me.

So, needless to say, I got to Charlotte late, and missed my connecting flight.

(There is a funny word we used to employ in German class: abgefukt)

Now there had been snafu's all through the system, of course, and also some flights from Chicago had been cancelled that morning, so there were now a lot of people trying to scramble to get where they were going. The earliest I was told I could get on a flight was 5pm that afternoon.

Did you know that they now have places in the airport where you can get massages? I splurged and got one. If I was going to be shouldering burdens like some slacker caryatid, some transient Atlas, I wanted to make sure my shouldering equipment was in peak shape.

Refreshed, I stormed the nearest customer service counter I could find, with my trademark mix of sweet charm and steely assertiveness. By the end of my seige, I was booked on a 1pm flight. They had tried to route me through Atlanta. No, thank you. The thought of another connecting flight made visions of late career Tom Hanks movies dance in my head. I got to get out of this place, I kept repeating. Direct flights only, please.

When I got to the gate, the agent asked me (of course) if I would be willing to be bumped to a later flight?

No. No, thank you.

When I finally got back to Nashville, after twenty-two hours behind airport security, I had decompressed enough to remark, ruefully, that at no point had anyone offered me an apology, or anything other than grudging consideration. It was, though and through, a completely miserable experience.

The road to Hell is, of course, paved by the Tennessee Department of Transportation. But if you choose to fly, trust me, you'll be booked on US Airways.

It's Time to Zag

So while I was at Massanetta I became reacquainted with an old, old love of mine - one that had become buried in the mists of time and almost... almost... forgotten. But not completely. Not entirely. Not entirely forgotten.

I guess you could say I got in touch with my inner Cheerwine.

Cheerwine, y'see, is a bottled beverage which hails from the Carolinas, and is largely unavailable anywhere else. It is akin in taste to a really cherry Dr. Pepper, but it has a bit more bite and a lot of that old timey cachet that just gets you right here (he points to his heart with his hand). It makes you think of another time and place, a place where you can sit on a porch and play checkers on a checkerboard with old bottlecaps for the pieces. The kind of nostalgia which Cracker Barrel tries (and fails) to export wholesale. Cheerwine has that. It has it in spades.

But here's the thing, see. The thing is this. I'm a purist.

If you have read this blog at all, you know I am rather picky about my beverages. And since I am not a cola drinker generally, the fact that there is one soda that I am fanatical about is sort of an exception-proving-the-rule type thing. But even here, I am quite picky.

Not just any Cheerwine. Not in cans. No. Not in two-liter jugs. No. Gotta be this: gotta be Cheerwine in glass bottles. Ice cold. Preferably painful-cold, like out of a long-cooled ice chest.

And here's the best part. You wanna know the best part? The best part is this. Cheerwine, when it comes in the glass bottles, has a different formula than regular Cheerwine. Like all the "soft" drinks, the Cheerwine company sometime back started using corn sweeteners in most of its products. But not the Cheerwine in the glass bottles. No. Proudly and happily they have maintained their heritage - the heritage when these kind of fizzy drinks meant something. When they took a stand. This is Americana at its grand height. Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to introduce to you a carbonated beverage still made with real sugar (there's the proof, there on the right).

So, when it comes to "soft" drinks, rest assured I am remaining vigilant, though now there is a happy chink in my armor. I think, every once in a blue moon, I can contentedly kick back and relax with a cold bottle of Cheerwine ("On All Occasions, It's Good Taste") - even here in Nashville.

I brought some home with me from the 'netta. Oh, and I found an online source, as well.

Dude. Forget your tired old corn-syrup cola. It's freakin' time to zag!

You've got raisins on your knees!!

So we are one week into the whole Massanetta Conference experience, and one conference is over and done. It was a real learning experience, and I made a lot of weird turns along the way, but on the whole I'd say it was a good time had by all. I planned way too many songs the first couple days, and didn't do a good job teaching them to the crowd (I just sort of jumped right in), so some folks felt a little lost on the whole singing-along part. Such is my learning curve.

By midweek, however, we all seemed to have gotten our stride. Things ran a lot more smoothly from about last Friday on. On the last day there were Many Enthusiastic Folks who came up and talked to me and said I did a good job (I even got a half-serious offer for a pastor position, which I appreciated very much, but politely declined. Small matter of the dissertation to finish).

The next day, however, the co-director and I sat down with the evaluations, and darker clouds returned. So there was a stack of pages, each a distillation of a given groups comments. It was about half-way through that one page read, and I quote: "Play less songs" followed immediately by "Play more songs" as part of the comment stream.

I had not been aware that Franz Kafka was a conference participant, but apparently both he and Joseph Heller were in attendance, masquerading as 6th graders.

I am not complaining. The co-director and my fellow staff have been nothing but supportive of me during this, my first time as a music leader. I am just hard on myself. I want to get it right, y'know?

But let me tell you this (it's my favorite part). In additon to the 'middlers' (a polite name for middle schoolers) and the adult leadership (a group I nominally belong to, given my mentality and general hyperactivity) there is a group of twenty high school kids here, the 'Enablers' (yes - an unfortunate name for those of us still in twelve-step, but still).

These guys are just amazing. I am used to Montreat, where the youth from all over are cool and all, but this is just another level. These young folks remind me entirely wonderfully of the youth group I used to work with back in Decatur that made such a tremendous impact on me. The first day of the first conference I watched as they leaned out the windows of the conference center, calling to the middlers who were waiting outside to come in for the first event. There was this great sense of welcome and anticipation, and I loved watching it. The Enablers were bridge-building, making a space for these gawking and gangly about-to-be teenagers and allowing them to feel wanted and appreciated - a set of feelings not often conveyed to this age group by adults, let along by high school kids. Watching that happen - without an adult suggesting it or anyone being forced to - watching it happen naturally - has done more for my knee-jerk cynicism this past week than anything I have seen in the past year. It is a warm memory I will take with me and treasure for a long time.

I think we - the adults and the Enablers - have become a solid team. We work well together, and there is a lot of respect running both ways across the age divide. I've had several of the teens help me out with songs and I've pitched in to help with clean-ups and other responsibilities that normally fall on their shoulders. Their energy is infectious, and the adults I work with are stellar, as well. A good cross-section of recent seminary grads, seasoned pastors, and outdoors-y types. I feel like I am making friendships that will last a long, long time. I hope so.

Here's the last bit. So part of my task in preparing for this gig was to write the conference theme song, and I did. It ends with the proclamation, "Massanetta, you've got reasons to believe!" which is greeted by an enthusiastic cheer by the Enablers (again, very supportive). But the other morning, between conferences, I walked through the lobby of the lodge where I'm staying and was serenaded by Enablers and staff, singing (to the tune of the theme song), "Massanetta, you've got raisins on your knees!" (This was apparently composed by one of the Enablers while she was in the shower a couple mornings ago, and it has spread like any good meme does)

Tonight, at the kick-off of the new conference, as I reached the end of the theme song the first time through, I couldn't be completely sure... but I think I heard that being sung at me from both sides of the hall, where the Enablers stand. And from the back, where the adult leadeship sits.

It was hard to finish the song, because I was laughing pretty hard at that moment.

I am very glad I came here.

I'm the Guy that does that Thing

So I am AWOL from my normal life again, this time for a good two weeks. I have fled, once again , to the wilds of Virginia - but this time to the mountains, not to the sea. Oh, and I am about to be surrounded by 300 some-odd middle schoolers.

Because, you see, I have skills. Arcane and strange skills that involve the ability to make a fool of myself in front of large groups of people without collapsing into embarrassment, which comes in handy when you are wanting to do things like, oh, get hundreds of twelve-year olds to sing along with you.

I am, once again, doing that youthworker thang.

This time, though, it's a little different. Instead of being a grunt, I am actually the music leader at the Massanetta Springs Middle School Conferences for the month of July. Which means, hallelujah, I am being paid to be a musician (as most musicians will tell you, this is a rare and wondrous honor).

I've never done anything like this before. I've done some small-scale song leadership, but here I am hooked up with wireless microphones and power-point projectors and I am referred to in the planning schedules as one of the "Big 3" (along with the Keynote leader and the Recreation leader) and I get my own room. If you've never been to a youth event before, lemmetellya - your own room is worth more than gold.

So I have gotten my callouses back from playing guitar so much, and I have learned or re-learned about forty songs of various stripes from traditional hymns to "contemporary Christian" hits. Plus I've written one of my own - the theme song for the conference (which is standard practice for the music leader to do).

I premiered it for the staff this morning, and they were very enthusiastic about it, which was a very good thing (as I was and remain quite nervous about the whole enterprise. But hopeful, and prayerful, too).

So tomorrow the youth arrive, and this thing gets off the ground for real. I'm quite excited. And hopeful. And nervous.

And prayerful.

But I'll still wear the T-shirts

So anyone who knows me basically knows that I am an absolute, beyond the pale, insanely fanatical follower of any and all things having to do with Superman. If you've met me in person, or been to my apartment, or talked to me for any length of time, this is probably obvious. As obsessions go, it's a gentle and lifelong one. I am no latecomer to this. Keep in mind that, in the months leading up to this, I have gotten a little teary-eyed just watching the movie trailers ("They can be a great people, Kal-El, they wish to be... they only lack the light to show them the way..." Ah, it gets me every time).

So I am not speaking off the cuff or without a lot of consideration when I say (and sad I am to have to admit it) that I really, um, was not so taken with the latest installment in the ill-fated Superman movie franchise, Superman Returns.

I'll start by saying I think they definitely made the right casting choice with Brandon Routh. He really surprised me - he managed to inhabit the big shoes left by Chris Reeve and add his own touches as well. So he kept the right "feel" to maintan continutiy with the earlier franchise, but brought his own dignity and goofiness to the Superman/Clark Kent personae. Plus he looks great in the suit. Better than Reeve did (or George Reeves, for that matter).

However, in terms of the story, this felt very much like Superman I - meaning that the character depth and story were pretty flat all around. Worse, many of the "gee whiz" aspects of the story were reminiscent of Superman III (and the never to be mentioned fourth installment). There were lots of plot gaps, and Lex Luthor still comes of as a farce - even with Kevin Spacey in the role. Really. This is the arch enemy of Superman? Hardly.

At nearly two and a half hours, it amazed me that so little was actually said, and so many huge plot holes were left gaping (and some pretty deep messing with the mythology. Supes is basically an absentee father [??!?!] in this installment. He and Lois have apparently had intimate relations, and a relationship [which is not a problem - that has precedent], but when they meet again on the roof of the daily planet, it is as stiff and formal as a tax audit. Weird.)

So, the sad thing is, it's trying really hard to be Spider Man 2, and failing. It should have aspired to Superman II instead.

(and I'm not even going to get into the goldmine of character development, nuance, and mythology they basically tossed away by choosing to ignore the entirety of the last five seasons of Smallville. Really. In light of that whole corpus, the thought of playing Lex Luthor for laughs is just ludicrous. Finally we might get to see him for the scary and tyrannical mastermind he is, with an actor the calibre of Kevin Spacey, no less, and they go trying to make him a bad Gene Hackman copy [and even Gene Hackman should have been allowed to play the role much darker, and could have brilliantly. In both cases, I blame the directors]. Luther's 'master plans' come across as poorly executed science projects. What the HELL people?)

It is sad to say that, with so many years and such good mythology to work from, the earliest Superman movies are still the best Superman movies. On the balance, though, I'll still stick with Smallville. Somebody over in Vancouver seems to be paying attention to the important stuff.

If they decide to make yet another Superman movie, holding on to Brandon Routh and scrapping the screenwriters and perhaps also (though I'm sad to say it, given his excellent work on the X-Men films) Bryan Singer, I'll probably go see it, because that's the kind of guy I am. But my confidence in this franchise is shaken. I'll admit it.

I've still got my DVD box sets and the comic books and old radio shows, though. And yeah, you'll still see me in those t-shirts.

Doc at the Radar Station

So I am like many people in this world in that I have certain irrational fears. Phobias. Yeah.

Phobias, by their very nature, are a bit strange. You get a low-grade anxiety attack from, say, spiders. Being in high places makes you woozy. You can't stand to touch cotton balls. These are all fears that have no basis in anything objectively threatening (at least not threatening in that moment of fear, per se) and yet drive those of us who have them to distraction and avoidance.

Well, yes. I am phobic. I have a set of these fears as well. Most of them are standard issue. I am afraid of heights (and the vertigo can get pretty bad, which made my stint working with Outward Bound interesting), and I am mildly claustrophobic. I really don't like talking about blood. As abnormal fears go, these are pretty normal, I imagine.

But folks sometimes have a second set of these things - like the cotton example above. I've known two people with that cotton phobia. They can't open aspirin bottles by themselves. Think about it. Some phobias are so common that we don't knock them - the heights one, for example. But when you are afraid of cotton, I imagine sometimes you get some funny looks.

I feel their pain. I, myself, have a peculiar phobia that gets me funny looks and into funny situations.

I'm radiophobic, you see.

No. This is not an irrational fear of lite-rock FM stations (though perhaps there should be a fear like that) nor of common household appliances descended from Marconi and Tesla's early recievers.

Nope. Radiophobia is an irrational fear of things like X-ray machines and nuclear power plants (though irrational here is not meant to mean ignorant - though that is often a confusion. There is much maligning of "radiophobia" as a knee-jerk antipathy to nuclear things on the part of an uniformed public. That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about a genuine phobia here - a real condition that apparently I share with the likes of Thomas Alva Edison and many others).

Now it should be noted that there are plenty of reasonable and rational fears of these things - what with Chernobyl and dirty bomb threats and the like. With reasonable fears you can take reasonable precautions, and minimize risks to safe levels such that normal life can continue, well, you know, normally.

But (and trust me on this one), there is nothing like an unreasonable fear of X-ray machines to make you aware of just how many unsympathetic dental hygenists there are in the world.

The dialogue ususaly goes something like this:

"Um. I know this might sound crazy, but i'm really uncomfortable sitting here with the X-ray machine turned on. Could it be turned off while I'm here?"

"It's not firing. It won't hurt you."

"I realize it's not firing. I realize it won't hurt me. I'm sorry. It has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with it being in the room and being turned on. I just have a fear of X-ray machines."

"But it's totally safe," she says, the look of incomprehension starting.

"I have no doubt of that. That actually isn't the point. The point," I say, anxiety building, "is that I am just... afraid... of it."

And as you might expect, this dialogue rapidly goes nowhere, largely for the fact that dental hygenists are, to a fault, a very by-the-numbers sort of population (think about it - you clean teeth every day. These folks have a low need for out-of-routine circumstances). It follows that they would try to reassure me with by-the-numbers rational arguments of safety and the like.

The point is is that this is a phobia, and reasoning with me just does not help. I'm sorry.

Now, before you get the wrong idea - I do not completely collapse in a heap there in the examination room. I do manage to survive with the machine on (they are rarely willing to de-energize it), and I even manage to occasionally get an x-ray done when I am assured that they are absolutely necessary. But it does bring on a low-grade panic attack, and I have just learned to live with that.

The phobia is interesting to observe, though. I think because of it I am more aware (hyper aware) of radiation sources we encounter in our daily lives than the average person. Dentist's offices and airports are obvious. But I notice smoke detectors, and the wicks on gas lamps, and certain areas of the college campus I live near - because I know that each of these is a source of (largely unnoticed) radiaton exposure. And I avoid them. Or, if I can't avoid them, I live with it and just have my blood pressure go up a bit.

What put this in my mind is the fact that, because of this odd phobia of mine, I have an obsessive knowledge of radioactive things. I know way too much about how atom bombs and reactors work. I could probably name off the top of my head at least five dozen nuclear accidents or contaminations from the last forty years (at least one of which happened near my old home in Decatur, GA), and I will never ever go picking up scrap metal (just trust me on this one). And as with any true paranoid obsession, the combination of the fear and the knowledge means that, for whatever reason, the universe never ceases to delight in having fun with me about this.

So, for example, my first girlfriend, after our first kiss, was talking to me about her family and her life and she was talking about her father and saying he had a weird job and I said, "Well, at least he doesn't work at a nuclear power plant or anything..."

But, in fact, he did.

And I have in fact had three realtionships with people somehow connected by family to the nuclear industry (all of which I would find out after I got involved with them. it's not like I go looking for this). Needless to say, family visits were not a high point in those affairs.

And so yesterday (this is really what brought it to mind) I was getting my hair cut, and the stylist and I were making conversation. AndI asked how long he had been cutting hair. Not too long. Oh, what did you do before this?

"I was a health physicist in the nuclear industry."

Aha.

So we had a very good conversation, in which I was able to employ some of my obsessive knowledge. I asked about, among other things, whether the Cherenkov effect is as beautiful in real life as it seems to be in the pictures (it is); whether it is scary to stand that close to an operating nuclear reactor (it is). He was pleased to realize I knew quite a bit about his job. I was less pleased to realize that, in some ways, I knew just as much about his job as he did, and occasionally more.

"So why are you cutting hair?"

His first answer had a lot to do with changes in the industry, about restructuring and outsourcing and downsizing. And I took that at face value. it wasn't until near the end of the conversation (and the haircut) that I got the rest of the story.

"Thank goodness, " I said, "it sounds like you were pretty safe, and never had any trouble."

"Well, actually, when I was working my last job," he said (and he named the plant, and a part of my brain suddenly went "oops" and I got very quiet), "they were a bit lax, and several of us got exposed to iodine and thorium isotopes. So they sent me home for a few months, and then I got the letter about not coming back. I don't like to think about it. I joke sometimes that I probably glow inside, or that I got cancers I don't know about. Though I don't imagine that's really something to joke about."

It's one thing to read about something. It is something else to meet someone who has lived through somehing you have read about. Those are two different things.

So yeah, I have a soft place in my heart for the cotton-phobes of the world, because, like me, they have an irrational fear. And strange phobias are pretty funny. But there are also points when the irrationality of a fear begins to shake hands with the reasonableness of being afraid, and at such moments (I shout from the rooftops to the dental hygenists of the world) I don't imagine it's really something to joke about.

Marching to the Ocean, Marching to the Sea

Douglas Copeland called it the notion of the "poverty jet set" - the overeducated folks who work McJobs in order to have the money and freedom to (as often as possible) jump ship, skip town, and junket to exotic locales. For better or worse, the ultimate McJob might in fact be graduate school.

At least, that is the way it seems from a distance.

The reality (as reality often is) is far more complex. Take me, for example. I really haven't taken a 'vacation' in probably ten years, but one might reasonably argue that my whole life is, in fact, one big goof off session. Seriously: I occasionally write, I eat very well, I sleep (sometimes), I watch a lot of episodes of the X-Files.

What is there to get away from?

And yet, recently I was graced witht he chance to get away from my life in Nashville; to take a vacation from my goof-off life of graduate studies and really goof off. To go, in short, to the beach. And I went. And it was wonderful.

I was not alone. Making the fifteen-or-so-hour trip with me was my intrepid companion and fellow gung-ho Catholic, Burt. We burned our way across Tennessee and then took on the wilds of Virginia in a rage of driving and loud music and really good conversation. I kept saying "we must be at least half way there by now!" and Burt would just calmly shake his head no and consult the map. It was (from the standpoint of driving) insane, but (from the standpoint of one's relation to life and the universe) a good position to be in. If the trip is insanely long, you might as well enjoy it. [There's a life lesson in there.]

Okay. And the beach was fantastic. We were in two houses on a private beach on the Chesapeake Bay. To get there, you had to drive northwest from Virginia Beach - over a long long bridge that had tunnels that went underwater (cool and scary). We arrived at like 4:30 in the morning and so didn't get a good look at the place until the next day. I have to say, it was truly perfect. Being in the bay, the waves never got terribly high, and the tides were mild for the most part (there was one day whe several folks got marooned on a sandbar, but that might have had more to do with the alcohol levels than the water levels). The one thing I missed was body surfing, but that was a small price to pay. The water was warm at good times and cool at good times, and I had fun wading and swimming.

Did I mention that while I was at the beach my car rolled over to an amazing 200,000 miles on the odometer? This is, I think, some sort of karmic justice (as if I believed in karma, as if I believed in justice. But still). This is, you see, the second Nissan Sentra I have owned in my life. The last one (from mid highschool to mid-college) was a lemon. This one, Lord bless it, is a peach. It runs and runs and runs, despite being old and looking like baked - over Hell. I call it the Grey Ghost, my car, but it also reminds one of the Energizer Bunny.


So the car and the beach were fantastic, but I cannot neglect to mention the people, as well. Shane, Virginia, Jimmy, Burt, Katy, Heather, as well as Melissa, Luke, and Lindsay (who came down from D.C.) shared laughs, got drunk (repeatedly), played card games and made merry in the surf and the sea. It was good to be among friends old and new, away from the cares of Nashville, and inebriated with sand between my toes. (Oh, and at night, the stars. My goodness, the stars).

I was gone just long enough to be ready to come back. A perfect vacation, and a wonderful time.