I Hate Boston, But I Love Boston

Monkey and I spent the past weekend visiting our friends from the Long Haul Project in Boston. I was not only looking forward to spending time with our “new” friends but never having been to Boston made me look forward to the impending travel even more. The fact that our excursion would occur over the July 4^th weekend made it even more exciting. After all, Boston (and its environs) is the epicenter of the Revolutionary War.

Now, some of you that are close to me, and even those of you who are not particularly close to me, but just happen to be around when I am in a sufficiently grumpy mood, might be a bit confused here, thinking, “Boston? I thought ATR hated Boston.” No. You misunderstand me. Let me clear that up. I do hate Boston…the band. I do not hate Boston, the city.

And, of course, now those of you not familiar with my hatred of Boston are curious to know why I hate said band (again: NOT the city). Well, it’s more than a feeling, I will tell you that. It’s a difficult loathing to describe, or even justify, but there is something about the style that they managed to carefully develop and hew to forever that just doesn’t sit well with me. Their sound is so clean, so clear, so “wah-wah without the wah,” if you will. It just always seemed so produced. And the pitch of the late Brad Delp’s voice was like Cartman’s “brown noise”—it just does bad things to me inside.

However, I stress, once again, that the city of Boston, despite its very, very close ties to the band Boston, is the object of no animosity on my part. Now that we have cleared that up, let’s move on.

There are many things that I expected to see in Boston, the famous Liberty Bell, the Washington Monument, a host of Celtics jerseys. Strangely enough, beside the jerseys, none of that other “patriotic” stuff was there. Our hosts calmly explained to me that those things are located in other cities, I think one of them was Atlanta, I don’t remember, but I still enjoyed some of the patriotic sites that we did see, like a bronze sculpture of ducks (which was being sorely abused by an army of three year-olds) and a veritable host of soldiers in His Majesty’s Dragoons, or something. I was confused; really, I thought we won the war. Apparently, nobody in Boston was told. Does that make Tom Scholz and Brad Delp the founders of a British band? Do they have more in common with The Who and Pink Floyd than .38 Special (WARNING: link plays "music") and Toto? But, I digress.

What I loved about our trip, aside from the company (both the expected and unexpected kind), was that we enjoyed such a range of experiences. We went to some lovely restaurants, where Monkey and I enjoyed plenty of (but not exclusively) seafood. We miss our seafood out here in the middle of the giant North American continent. We sometimes brave a fish dinner, but not often. It just isn’t the same as having it on the coast. For instance, at our first dinner, at a groovy South End place called the Beehive (where I had my recent smooth jazz experience corrected by the trio that played while we ate), I had a scallop dish that was so fresh and tasty that I nearly cried. It was so nice to have that kind of dining experience.

We also enjoyed Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts (for free—hooray for Friday!) and an exquisite sculpture garden, the de Cordova, where my highlight was Steven Seigel’s “Big with Rift,” which consists of newspaper and whatever happens to come along and grow on it. I give it no justice in the description, but I told Monkey that if I lived nearby, I would visit that piece everyday.

A visit to nearby Walden Pond was also part of the itinerary. The weather held just long enough for us to make our way around the shore to see the site of Thoreau's cabin, to watch a young man release a pretty big fish, and to overhear snippets of every conversation being had. Water is quite a carrier of sound!

While we did experience a wide range of historical, cultural, and gustatory delights, we did not enjoy any musicals. I believe someone did propose we try to get tickets to West Side Story, which was playing nearby. Lucky for everyone, we decided not to.

On the fourth, we headed to the venerable Fenway Park to watch the Red Sox play the Toronto Blue Jays. There were a number of Blue Jay fans there. I think they came south from Canada, although it is possible they are simply part of the Boston population that still thinks they are British subjects. I don’t know what Canada’s status is vis a vis the Crown, but I think they are still more closely aligned than Boston is supposed to be. At any rate, the result of the ball game was favorable to the home crowd (the Red Sox lost—God Save the Queen).

After the game, we had another great dinner near MIT (I think my arctic char raised my IQ five to ten points), and then walked to a nearby bridge to watch the fireworks over the harbor. The evening’s show was great, despite the occasional T train that blocked our view momentarily. It did confuse me, however, when one of the nearby spectators told his son that the fireworks were to signal the Queen that all was still well in her most loyal of colonies. I thought to correct this historical misunderstanding, but the child’s beaming face in the glow of the rosettes and showers of flaming metal through which he waved his Union Jack was so precious, I thought, “Who am I to interfere?”

We walked home along with a mass of people who literally filled the streets. It made me wish we could just get rid of cars altogether, so that everyday bikes and shoes could ride and wander wherever they desired without fear of being run down, backed into, or blasted in the face with exhaust. This is a dream that may never be realized, but, even as it was suggested that this is what the zombie apocalypse might look like, I continued in my reverie undaunted.

And what did this fabulous trip to Boston leave me with? What is my final thought? I have learned that I love Boston, the city, far more than I hate Boston, the band. Rock on!

A Dose of Dimness

So, hooray, they may have finally plugged the oil leak. That's great. It really is. But, I just can't get too excited over it. I think I am suffering from too much cynicism. Or maybe it's just reality. I mean, plugging up a deep sea gusher after three months and 200 million gallons is like signing a peace treaty after a mutually destructive global nuclear war. I mean, let the healing begin, sure, but things are so totally fucked, how long is it going to take?

Not to mention that this good news comes at a time when that wacky, wonderful war in Afghanistan (you know, the one that is "Obama's War") is getting more dicey by the day. And....

Look, I am not trying to bum anybody out, but I have been thinking, lately. Perhaps more than usual. Everything is hosed. Everything. There are very few things in this world that I can think of right now, beside the things that I have a direct hand in making or keeping a certain way, that work for me. The small picture stuff: my marriage, my dogs, those things are good. My house is falling apart around me, and my job is sort of undefined, right now, but I can deal with those things. But, all the big picture stuff: economic stuff, big business stuff, energy stuff, conservation stuff, political stuff...all that is just totally off the rails. And I don't know what to do about it.

I can hear the chorus of folks out there saying, "Live a purposeful life. Make the right choices." I see that as being more and more impossible every day. I feel like every time I think I have a handle on some kind of small act, it is co-opted, or I figure out it isn't the good choice I thought it was. And, anyway, it shouldn't be that hard to live a life that doesn't support criminality, amorality, unethical behavior, or the hi-jacking of the planet's genetic code. I can't take it.

In French class, one year in high school, we listened to a French song called "Si j'etais presidente (If I were president)" I don't remember any of the lyrics (except the title line from the chorus), but the gist of it was that this singer would make the country and the world into his ideal if he had the power. We had to write our own version. Since it was in French, and I was an average student of the language, at best, I am certain that Ms. Butcher doesn't have my lyrics in a portfolio of excellent student work somewhere in her files marked "Baltimore Polytechnic Institute (1980s)." But, I know I didn't take the assignment that seriously, anyway. I just wanted to make sure I used at least 70% of my vocabulary words correctly, therefore ensuring a grade of C. What I would really do...well, that didn't really enter into it.

I wonder what our current leader would write (in English), if he were posed with this assignment? I think we had some idea that some change was coming. Well, some change has come, most notably in the form of a new Health Care Bill, soon to be making its way into reality. But, it is and will continue to be molded, watered down, and hacked away at by pharmaceutical companies (especially the two with revenues in excess of $60 billion) and insurance lobbyists and other special interest groups until it doesn't do anything but waste money, time, and people. What else?

I guess that might be another reason why I feel so defeated, right now. I guess I was expecting more from BO. Instead, I just see a smarter version of the same dumb shit: poor response to a Gulf disaster and floundering policies in the middle east. I know that he is not single-handedly responsible for these things, but he has to take the heat as much as his predecessor. It just makes me wonder: are we so far down the road that we can't get turned around and onto a better track?

But, what would I do, si j'etais presidente? I guess it doesn't matter. It's never going to happen. And, even if it did, any efforts I made to create my vision would be thwarted by everyone who has even a tiny bit of power, money, and influence. They'd want to keep that power, that money, that influence. Who wouldn't? But, aaaargh, the world as it is is so ridiculously messed up. In so many ways. What can we do? What can I do? You know, besides move to Canada, eh?

Central Standard Time Winds Down

This is it. The last post at Central Standard. It's time to retire this little bastard journal of my life, times, and mind.

But, I am not done with blogging. I am just shifting gears, and focusing my recording on a new development in my life (and Monkey's, too). In a few weeks, we will be bringing home a new puppy. He is already named: Parker. So, I have decided, in the tradition of many others before me, to keep a record of the growth and training of our soon-to-be newest addition.

That blog will be found here. Hope to see you there!

Hooray! Now I Have Time To (Insert Cynically-Mentioned World Destroying Behavior Here)

You read it here. I'm just happy to know that the end of the world is still on schedule. How messed up would that be, if it showed up late (or early).

Side note to La Fashionista: You keep David Hasselhoff out of my living room. I don't care what time it is.

Resisting The Urge

All we have is now.
--The Flaming Lips, "All We Have Is Now"

As the year draws to a close, it is natural that we wish to look back, to gauge the year just past to see what was good and what was not, to see how we progressed as we made our way down the road of life. This year, we might feel even more tempted to look back and measure the decade that is drawing to a close (depending on whom you talk to). Honestly, I am pretty blown away by the fact that it was a decade ago that Monkey and I spent our first New Year's Eve in Missouri, wondering if the world would end at the stroke of midnight and prove us wrong for not building a survival shelter, taking our meager savings out of the bank, buying a generator, and stocking up on canned goods, bottled water, and kerosene. I hadn't even thought about it, really, until comoprozac started running his list of the best albums of the Aughts. A lot has changed in ten years, most of which, I don't really need to get into.

As a matter of fact, I am not going to get into any of it. I am going to try to resist the urge to look back. I am going to try to resist the desire to measure my progress. Instead, I am just going to be happy to be where I am, and try to keep my focus on the road ahead...or maybe just the road under my feet. After all, the future is impossible to see.

My Plan For Immortality

Some might see this as a problem, but I see it as a way to keep myself alive for as long as possible (I hope this is long range planning, but, who can say?). I have been on Goodreads, a kind of bibliophile website, for a few months shy of a year. On this site, one can list books he/she has read, is reading, and wants to read. It is invaluable to a forgetful reader such as my self in several ways. First, I can, using the review and rating feature, keep some record of my reactions to books, then, in the future, I can refresh my memory if need be about whether I have read a book (I forget sometimes), and whether I enjoyed it or not. In addition, I can share my ratings and reviews and such with friends who care to link up to my page. It's a nice way to keep track of, and get ideas from other readers. You can even comment to others' ratings and reviews, thus, a dialogue is possible, too. Most importantly and most enjoyable for me, however, is the feature by which I can keep track of books I wish to read. I used to try to jot downs books I heard about or read about that I wanted to read, but, often, the scrap of paper, or sticky note, or marginal notation on a piece of other mucilage was lost. I even carried around a little notebook for a while, but, that got buried under some pile of other papers eventually. Now, I can keep them handy on this little website. I can print them off when I go to the library or bookstore, and, thereby, I can, in a more orderly manner, wade through my reading list.

So, you might ask, what is the problem? Well, this tomic accounting has revealed to me something I have known all along, the "to read" list, grows more quickly than the "read" list. By a rate (at the present) of 2 to 1. But, if you'll recall, I said this was not a problem, but a way to ensure longevity. How? Well, as long as I have twice as many books to read as I have read, I will always have a goal. With a goal, I will always have something to live for. After all, who wants to leave this earthly sphere not having read the latest Booker Prize winner?

Why So Glum, Chum?

Wow, am I in a foul mood today.

Why?

Well, it could be because tomorrow is officially Back-to-work Day. But, more than that, are the following:

Why isn't Obama crushing McCain?

Why Russia really invaded Georgia.

The French hold us responsible for everything.

More evidence that Fearless Leader is either in league with or is the Devil himself.

Gorillas Evade Census Takers, But Monkeys Are Not So Lucky

Somehow, 125,000 western lowland gorillas evaded census takers for the International Union for Conservation when last they counted up the apes five years ago. This is great news for western lowland gorillas. If I'm not mistaken, I think it means they will receive a 63% increase in foreign aid over the next twenty years. They will also be invited to become at-large members of the United Nations. Representatives for the western lowland gorillas were engaged in grooming and were unavailable for comment.

Of course, the good news for the gorillas is as usual tempered by bad news for about half of the other primate species that seem to be checking out from Planet Earth at a highly worrisome rate. Forest destruction and human consumption (yup, that's what it says) are the primary culprits. Really, dudes, stop eating the monkeys. It just is not cool.

Mother Nature Owes Me Thirty-Five Bucks

We have had some heavy weather here in Nebraska the past couple of weeks. We have had serious rain, some places have had hail, many have been visited by twisters, all have experienced strong (60-75 mph) winds. We've lost many trees right here in the Monkey Hood, and some local shopping centers have had to put on new roofs.

Last night, however, was a pretty impressive display in these parts. We had a tornado warning for the first time since Monkey and I have been here. At least, it was the first time I have heard the sirens. The sky was darker than I have ever seen, and the clouds had a sort of green hue to them. Nothing touched down, and I was safely ensconsed in the basement gym of Basketball Church, so, no real worries, there.

However, when I got home, Monkey showed me a recent email from our CSA farm, where we have paid for a share of the fresh-picked crop this summer. They had been bombarded by heavy rains and large (baseballs, I heard) hail, maybe even a tornado. There buildings were not very damaged, but the crops were apparently wasted. No harvest this week--no veggies for you! So, unless we get an extra week at the end of the year, that's one less crop we get for our "investment." So, the way I figure it, we're out thirty-five bucks (at least--who knows what other long range effects the stom will have on the fields of the local producers).

It's been a rough spring for the ag business. It has been cold and wet. Nothing can be planted on time because it's so muddy, and nothnig is coming in on time because it has been so cold. This latest waether was just some poo icing on a crap cake. The farming life is tough.



Before Monkey showed me the email, I watched the sky the whole way home from basketball. It had been about two hours since the tornado warning, and a tornado watch had just expired. Above, while little or no rain was falling, the sky was an electric light show. I took a two minute video of some of the sublunary action. I hope it posts (Thanks, comoprozac.). It was like Nature was listening to Dark Side of the Moon and throwing lasers in the clouds. It went on for hours, until, at about 11:30, the skies opened up and dumped on us until 3:30 this morning. With acompanying scary winds.

Lucky for us, this morning, while windy, is clear (for now), and I see no damage on the grounds of Monkey House Nebraska.

This Train Goes All the Way to Romanticism

Writing with no topic in mind, with no clear purpose, is like performing a trapeze act without a net, like walking a tightrope across Niagara Falls, like sky diving without a parachute. Except for the fact that writing with no topic is not likely to result in your death. So, maybe it's not like that at all.

However, it is a bit thrilling, and a hell of a lot of fun, sometimes, to just sit down and bang away at the keyboard or push the pencil around and see what happens. You might end up with a really interesting tidbit here and there. You might end up with something close to a fully-developed, well-on-its-way-to-being-a-masterpiece first draft. You might end up with a turd.

For your sake, I am hoping for non-turd. But, maybe you'd like that. Who am I to judge?

I pause, staring at the keys. In the bedroom, Monkey's watch alarm goes off again. the second time in fifteen minutes (that makes sense). I hope it's nothing important she was trying to remind herself of, because she is not here. As a result, I am being repeatedly alarmed for no good reason. That is not good for the nervous system.

I am reading this book, lately: Sea of Glory. It's by Nathan Philbrick, who wrote Mayflower and In the Heart of the Sea, about the whale ship Essex, the sinking of which inspired Melville to write Moby Dick. The story of this book focuses on the US Exploratory Expedition of c. 1840-something, an around-the-world naval mission to map Antarctica and some of the South Seas, and to generally gather knowledge and earn laurels for the relatively new US of A. The captain of the voyage (the commodore, I guess), named Wilkes, was quite the worker, and he spent many hours gathering scientific measurements and doing captain-y stuff, the burden and worry of which caused him to pass out after taking a well-earned sauna somewhere in Tierra del Fuego. This was early in the voyage--after setting sail from Norfolk, they sailed to Madeira Island, then back west and around Cape Horn. They hadn't been to sea but a matter of months, and here this command figure is having something like a nervous breakdown.

After reading about this, my first thought was, "Does this kind of thing happen anymore?" You know, this melodramatic swooning after a heavy labor. Do people do this? Or is this some Romanticized nineteenth-century PR? I don't know, but, in my estimation, these Dickensian, Bronte-like, Austenian reactions to stress are just so two centuries ago.

Of course, nowadays, look at what we do have: pop stars and movie men making the headlines. Oh, Britney, was that a good old fashioned swoon we witnessed two weeks ago? Oh, Heath, is this the post-modern version of fainting into the arms of your second?

Please, Muses, ye Gods that make folly of literature and life, bring back the Romance! Bring back the cravat and the petticoat! O, but we need a Romantic revival!! Yet, please, I have had enough of the Gothic. Thank you.

A Very Long Western Story, Part Two: Black Hills Fever Dreams

When I was a child, I had a fever.
My hands felt just like two balloons.
Now, I've got that feeling once again.
I can't explain, you would not understand.
This is not how I am.
--Pink Floyd, "Comfortably Numb"

When I was a small boy, I had some disease. My mother once told me it was Scarlet Fever, but I was under the impression that that was fatal, so let's say it was something else. At any rate, I remember very little about the time except these amazing fever-induced (I'm assuming) hallucinations or visual interpretations of images from the television.

During my convalescence, it seems, according to my memory, that I watched a great deal of TV. I remember a cartoon about a girl choking on a chicken bone. That was vivid and very blue--it had a Shel Silverstein meets Maurice Sendak kind of feel. When my grandmother was pretty sick, she used to like when I read Where the Wild Things Are to her. Ironically, it always reminded me of that dreamy childhood sickness feeling. Strange, but I just thought about that. Anyway, I also remember an episode of Soul Train in which every one had very large heads and they were levitating. Then again, that could have simply been the hair- and shoe-styles of the day making them look like that. I still to this day, when I have a fever, feel as if my own body has grown immense, and that, while I know if I look at my feet they will be right there, five and a half feet or so away from my eyes, they feel like they are a hundred feet away. It's a weird feeling, let me tell you. One other thing I remember is an image, from what I cannot recall, in which a metal, robot-like, pterodactyl-looking thing with orange wings fell burning from the sky. It writhed and roared on the oily street as reddish flames engulfed it. I was horrified.

The farthest one might be able to get from the oily street, writhing, burning pterodactyl or not, might be a long stretch of the plains of southwestern South Dakota. It was a veritable sea of rolling brownish hills, resplendent in its dry grassiness, as it crested and receded under the wide blue sky. This was the predominant view as Monkey and I drove through Wind Cave National Park, where visitors can find Wind Cave (which I'll tell you about next time). In addition to Wind Cave, the park is home to a host of free-ranging (at large, they like to call them) prairie ruminants. We literally stopped the car in the middle of the road at the first sight of pronghorn antelope, not 300 yards from the road. We also saw, on a forty-five minute trek up US 385, through the park, bison, elk, coyote, and prairie dogs.

Yes, prairie dogs, as far as the eye could see, acres and acres of prairie dog town. Time would show that these towns were merely villages, compared to some, but that is (like Wind Cave) another story for another time. However, at this particular point in time, it was a thrill to see these little sentries of the plains up close. Monkey and I had seen prairie dogs (not dogs at all really, but, I think you know that) on our treks back and forth to Oregon. Once, in Wyoming, a little scamp ran out in front of Monkey and nearly wrecked her. Boy, that was fun!

Passing out of the park, however, did not end our views of nature, nor our startlements (as the Tiresias-blind railway handcar driver says in O Brother Where Art Thou?). With so much land and so few people, there are a great number more deer and elk and such running loose up in SD. The side of the road is like a waiting area for wild undulates, looking to collide with a speeding vehicle. Lucky for us, we never met with one of these suicide mammals, but we kept a nervous, watchful eye while in the area.

As we approached our destination, Hill City, SD, our nervous, watchful eye gazed upon the unfinished (perhaps never-to-be finished) startlement known as the Crazy Horse Monument. Really just a face and an arm pushing forward out of a mountain side, the monument seems to rise up above everything nearby. From a business standpoint, that doesn't seem very wise (especially when you're charging ten bucks a pop and your sculpture isn't done yet), but for the roadway gawkers (hello!) it is a boon, let me tell you. We had plans on visiting the monument proper on Tuesday, so we just snapped a few polaroids at seventy miles per and kept on rolling. After all, we had been rolling for about eight hours at this point, and the driving was getting a might tiresome. Little did I know that by the time we were done with the trip we would have covered two thousand miles over five days, but, that's another other story for another other day.

Of course, we rolled into Hill City at about four o'clock, an hour ahead of schedule, because we missed the damned Carhenge. We couldn't check into our lodgings, so we decided to wander about the town for a few minutes. It's a small town, with a population of about 700; we figured it wouldn't take long to see what was to be seen. After a brief pause for the cause at the local Exxon, we came upon a sight that filled me with wonder and awe. A true startlement, inducing dizziness, fainting spells, and pseudo-fevers in the author. For there, perched upon the Black Hills Dinosaur Museum, wingless, and no longer aflame, was a thirty-four year old vision from my past.

The Next Worst Hard Time

I am currently reading Timothy Egan's The Worst Hard Time, the story of the folks on the High Plains who didn't leave during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. It's like a non-fiction companion piece to John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. I had heard of this book last year. During a trip to the Hyve, I heard Egan on some public radio show. He was discussing his book and the film (which he also discusses in the book) The Plow that Broke the Plains. The film sounds fascinating--a 1930s documentary of how the farming practices of the 1920s contributed to the Dust Bowl conditions. I really want to see this film (it has something to do with that other lives stuff I was talking about in my last post, but, I digress...).

As luck would have it, The Worst Hard Time was selected as the Lincoln One Read Book last month, so the public library featured it prominently during my last foray for publicly borrowed Johnny Cash CDs (I found one). Perhaps it would have been more fitting if I had been looking for Merle Haggard CDs, but, that is not the case, and, in this instant, I have decided not to exercise my right of artistic license. Johnny Cash was whom I was searching for when I found The Worst Hard Time. So, having previously been interested, I picked the book up.

It's been a slow read to start with. That could be because I have not been reading it except for when I am abed. Bleary-eyed and thinking about how much sleep you can get before the alarm goes off at 5am is no way to enjoy a book. But, I am enjoying some of the stories. I sometimes wonder: how entertaining can three hundred pages about flying dirt be? At such times, I remind myself that it is really about the human drama of determination in the face of economic and natural forces.

Underneath it all, however--underlying the stories of the farmers beaten down by the depressed price of wheat, the mortgagees getting foreclosed on, the citizens beating on the closed door of their empty, penniless bank, the desperate and stubborn fighting the drought, locust, and swirling sediment--is the story (reiterated from The Plow that Broke the Plains) of humanity's disregard for the natural world and the consequences of humankind's actions. It is a story we need to hear today more than ever; however, those that need to listen the most, have their ears closed the hardest.

As the ice caps shrink and walruses come ashore far south of the receding ice flow, as oceans rise and temperatures soar, as drought takes hold of larger areas of the planet, and forests are decimated at record pace, as species become extinct before we even discover them, we must make it clear to those that doubt that our actions are surely responsible for these occurrences. It is not a natural trend. It is not something that will soon reverse itself. It is the vision of our future, and it is not pretty.