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Ramblings (March 2004)

03/30/04 -- 11:54 p.m.

Have actually been extending my cultural horizons lately, which basically means that I've stepped out the front door for some other reason than to commute to work.

Caught Calexico at the 40 Watt in Athens last night, and had a really good time. My buddy Ward and I headed down that way, grabbed some food (Athens kinda has the same feel as Asheville, where you're afraid that activists are going to descend on you en masse if you order a cheeseburger), did some record shopping and caught the show. We missed Vic Chesnutt's opening set on purpose because he's usually good but really depressing, and we weren't quite in the mood for that. So we hung out in Low Yo Yo, this cool hole-in-the-wall record store that's attached to the 40 Watt, where I found a nifty collection of Robyn Hitchcock b-sides (yes, Eartha, you'll be hearing it soon). The show's 2nd act was a band called Summer Hymns, who were apparently local to Athens. They were good in a math-rock-meets-a-good-backbeat kinda way, although the singer had this insanely annoying habit of staring at the floor and mumbling incoherently between songs -- and this was his between song patter to the audience! Calexico hit the stage about 11:30, and were really, really good. Those horns are just so panoramic, so cinematic, that you can't help but stand there while it washes over you and think about epic journeys and quiet, heroic decisions. A couple of songs really stood out, like "Trigger" and "Crystal Frontier," mainly because the band changed them up so much. I was disappointed, though, that they didn't include their cover of the Minutemen's "Corona," which just came out on their Convict Pool EP. Not as good as the first time Ward and I caught them at the Echo Lounge in Atlanta (which was just an absolutely perfect show -- if they'd been any better, I'd have had to build a religion around them), but much better than the ragged show we caught the next year at the same venue (which I blame on the Echo Lounge for their habitual booking of too many opening bands who all start too late). Fun, fun night. Friday night -- Elf Power at the Handlebar in Greenville.

Tonight, M and I went to catch The Triplets of Belleville, which we couldn't believe was playing in the tiny, backwards hamlet of Anderson. What a wonderful little movie! So stylish, so bittersweet, such an undercurrent of sadness running through everything that happened. I had a smile on my face the whole time. It's really hard to describe the film. Definitely influenced by the styles of the '30s cartoons, with a hot jazz feel, and some not-so-sly satire of American consumption. Highly recommended.

On a related note, the theatre had a warning sign about The Passion of the Christ. Foremost on the sign-writer's mind seemed to be that he/she needed to warn people that there were subtitles ... and oh yeah, a little violence and graphic bloodshed.

03/14/04 -- 11:53 a.m.

Just got back from a weekend downstate, where I was meeting my future in-laws and their extended family. I had gone to school down there for my undergraduate degree in Quantum Physics ... OK, English, and it was a real blast from the past. It's strange how the little memories let you know where your personality really formed, and that it was at college and not at high school from which my finest incidental memories spring. There's the ditch where Holly and Coretta wrecked and nearly killed themselves, and we stood out there with them on a remote country road for hours while the wrecker crew sorted things out, because we were the only ones they weren't afraid to call. There's the road to Quimby, where we went to a punk rock show and there was nearly a massive brawl because the band's amps were shorting out and they were getting heckled to the breaking point. There's the former spot of some woods where I sat by a bonfire, bored out of my skull while a dozen of my friends tripped on acid all night. Here's where I thought for sure I was gonna die. There's for sure where I shoulda died, or at least gotten messed up pretty badly. Here's where somebody did die. Here's the stretch of road I traveled nearly every day for two years in a psychotic relationship. Here's the stretch of road I traveled during a much shorter, but healthier, relationship -- a stretch of road that would find me, at midnight on full-moon nights, barreling over swamp bridges with my lights off, just for the fun of it. Here's the stretch of road I traveled during a relationship that lasted about two days, but which held the potential to be, by far, the most psychotic of the bunch.

Ah, good times.

I wouldn't trade those memories for anything -- not even the ones that will go untold even on my death bed, either out of scandalous embarrassment or sincere shame. High school has nothing on that.

03/10/04 -- 12:28 a.m.

Whenever we remember it's on, we try to catch Scrubs (Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. around here, on NBC). A truly hilarious show -- definitely in the vein of Andy Richter Controls the Universe (one of the few shows that has ever reduced me to quivering laughter). Scrubs has that same effect, especially on tonight's episode with the Epiphany Toilet. One of the maintenance men had built a totally exposed toilet on the roof of the hospital, which became overwhelmingly popular due to the clarity of thought it provided. Michael J. Fox, who played a doctor with extreme OCD and who always had to go home to use the toilet, kept referring to the Epiphany Toilet as "my Everest." OK, so it's hard to explain, but that show just has a quirky sense of humor that's right up my alley. It's a wonder it wasn't cancelled after three episodes. Oh Andy Richter, we hardly knew ye!

03/05/04 -- 11:15 p.m.

Just found out someone I know has been diagnosed with Pick's Disease. His decline had been going on for months and months, and it had generally been diagnosed as Alzheimer's disease until a new neurologist nailed down this specific diagnosis. From what I've read, Pick's Disease is in the same general family of neurological disorders, but specifically targets and atrophies the frontal lobes. It apparently has its way with the victim's moods and behavior for a while, saving massive memory loss for the very end. The end result, we have a fifty-odd-year-old-man with the behavioral instincts of a four-year-old, who gets incredibly frustrated about not being able to do the simple tasks he knows he's been able to perform for decades..

There's really no telling how long the disease has been having its way. The victim is your classic misanthrope and highly eccentric, so the warning signs have probably been hidden for a long time in the midst of that. But boy, when it started to show itself in full-force, the rate of decline was remarkable. The general prognosis is that he'll be incapable of caring for himself by the end of the year, at which time he'll need to be hospitalized. For now, those around him get to contend with an unbelievable amount of legalese and paperwork (think victim, wife, longtime mistress, wife's failing business, and victim's successful business co-owned with the mistress -- oh, and valuable commercial property that will need to go up for sale to pay for care -- and you get the idea of the surreal environment in which this has all been taking place.).

On a lighter note, it would probably be smart of WebMD to reduce its popup ads for weight loss to queries that aren't wholly inappropriate. Chances are, if you're on WebMD looking up a withering neurological disease, you're not all that interested in reading about diet journals.

03/04/04 -- 1:37 a.m.

High bandwidth fun!

Check out the The Cat with Hands (found via Reecie). Takes a minute or two to load up in QuickTime even on the handy ol' DSL line, but worth it to see this spooky little short film. Too bad it's so small, though -- hard to tell what's going on in a couple of scenes.