Words Matter

Endings...and a new beginning

2010-02-06T08:54:00.003-05:00

For the past five years, and 832 posts, some fair, the occasional unhinged rant, and some that were good and even great, I've decided to call it quits, at least here at Words Matter.

I've been looking for a way to consolidate my online profile and my writing, and I've done that over at jimbaumer.com.

From here on out, if you want to read my blogging (which will continue, in a somewhat altered format), then the home page at that site is where to find me.

I've appreciated the many visitors over my time here, as well as the handful of regulars that have come and gone. I remain passionate about many things that prompted me to get rolling and embrace the blogging platform, and I'll continue to share them from to time via my blog at the new site.

News matters

2010-02-04T02:51:00.002-05:00

I no longer subscribe to a daily newspaper. I once had dual sources of news delivered to the house. Then it was down to one, and for the past two years, my news tube, sitting lonely at the edge of the road, serves as a beacon and reminder of what once was.

I still enjoy news, and reading good writing. I find my news fix online, as many people now do. I also enjoy keeping up on what's going on as print journalism changes, with some saying that it is spiraling to its death.

A regular source for reading about the media has become the Columbia Journalism Review. I even think I'm breaking down and adding a subscription (as a replacement for my expired WSJ news allowance).

A recent article on how newspapers alienate those (like mine did with me) that actually read them, by Lisa Anderson, was particularly good. I also thought this comment was pertinent to the piece, by someone that posts as MB. This person compares the demise of newspapers to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, an interesting analogy, I thought, and one I've never considered:

So I've given this whole issue a lot of thought and my current take on the situation is to not buy into the myth that technology killed the newspapers. I am now looking at the newspaper crisis as like that of the Dust Bowl in the '30's. The Dust Bowl was an agrarian, human, and economic catastrophe that had multiple consequences and causes. But no one would ever say that our civilization no longer needs farming or its products because the economic model failed in the 1930's. The Dust Bowl was caused by climate change in combination with damaging farming practices such as the failure to rotate crops. Their drought might be comparable to the collapse of advertising which supported print media so well for so long. And as farming developed an exploitative relationship with the land, it may be fair to say that media consolidation resulted in comparable consequences that could not sustain good journalism when the soil dried up and the wind blew away the shallow roots.

One enduring aftermath of the Dust Bowl is the collapse of family farms and the rise of giant agri-business, which Michael Pollan links so compellingly to our nation's energy and obesity crises. Good journalism might be comparable to the practice of crop rotation; it's failure might be one important factor contributing to journalism's dust bowl. I think an overlooked climate change issue is the collapse of advertising which may have been a canary in the economic coal mine suggesting that the real economy began to decline much earlier than its official onset in 2007/2008 (and might be far worse than officially acknowledged). If our culture shifts swiftly and entirely to electronic media, I believe we will experience troubling outcomes such as an unwitting apartheid of important information that reaches the desk-based workforce but leaves out other, important groups of our population. So I recognize the significance of the disruptive changes of our time but it's too easy to blame the internet.

If you are a fan of Twitter, Jay Rosen's feed there is another good source for staying current on the conversation about all things media.

Ditching Dirigo

2010-02-03T18:02:00.007-05:00

There are some things that a state wants to be a leader in--quality of life, abundant natural resources, jobs that pay a living wage--I’m not sure that having Allen’s Coffee Brandy as your drink of choice is one of those. Then again, Maine’s been carrying the torch for the “syrupy 70-proof liquor” for more than two decades now. There are probably several reasons for this, I’m sure much of it socio-economic.

You wouldn’t gather that from the Allen’s company site, and their marketing “happy talk,” of course. Here’s their take on why Mainers love the taste of the brand. Of course, the company is quite pleased that Mainers love Allen’s:

Coffee is extremely popular throughout New England. People in Maine love coffee and products with a genuine, pronounced coffee flavor. Allen’s probably has the truest coffee taste. Coffee liqueurs and some other coffee flavored brandies tend to be sweet, Allen’s focuses on the coffee flavor not additional sweetness. Allen’s Coffee Flavored Brandy uses a natural extract from Brazilian coffee beans.

People in Maine have found that Allen’s CFB makes the perfect sombrero. Sombreros were first made with coffee brandy, sombreros made with coffee liqueurs came later. Consumers may also consider Allen’s Coffee Flavored Brandy to be a great value as opposed to imported coffee liqueurs.

If you do a Google search for “Allen’s Coffee Brandy” and “Maine,” it brings you to an investigative set of articles, probably one of the most thorough journalistic pieces done on the Allen’s phenomenon in Maine. Interestingly, it was done over a decade ago, and was part of a series in the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, when the newspaper was still a viable newspaper, and practiced journalism.

In one of my interviews for Moxietown, John Leheney, chief historian for the New England Moxie Congress shared with me a popular drink with the Maine Moxie crowd, and of course it involves both the diet version of their vaunted tonic and Allen’s Coffee Brandy. It’s called a “Welfare Mom.” (see #3)

Maybe Maine should scrap the Dirigo symbol and adopt a jug of Allen’s as our state symbol? What are some other dubious "honors" that states would rather not publicize, like Maine and Allen's?

The Obama jobs plan

2010-02-03T05:28:00.007-05:00

President Obama visited neighboring New Hampshire yesterday, announcing a plan that provides $30 billion in loans for small businesses designed to stimulate hiring and create jobs.

The political event, staged at Nashua North High School, played on a theme, one that has become a chosen vehicle for politicians--the faux town hall.

Mr. Obama told the crowd that creating jobs is his number one priority. He also made it clear he was not backing away from health care. The crowd gave him several standing ovations when he talked about the importance of passing health care reform.

[Mandel Ngan / AFP/Getty Images / February 2, 2010 ]

Here's the interesting thing about all this rhetoric about jobs, healthcare, and whatever else the politician of the day is sputtering on about. Rarely does talk translate into action. Campaigning and electioneering is vastly different than governing. Regardless of how skilled someone is on the campaign side of things--and Mr. Obama is certainly a persuasive and charismatic campaigner--getting Congress and the opposition to buy into your plans, and putting together programs that actually work are a horse of a different color.

Not everyone is convinced that the President's jobs plan will work. Even among progressives, generally sympathetic to Mr. Obama and his policies, there are doubts about the efficacy of this recent loan plan.

John Schmitt, an economist for the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), said that extending more loans to small businesses may not have as big an impact as some might hope. While a lack of credit is clearly a problem for small businesses, he said, a much bigger problem they face is a lack of customer demand.

"Without demand in the economy for the goods and services of small business, the availability of credit is just not sufficient," he said.

Dean Baker, co-director of CEPR echoed Schmitt's concern about the demand side affecting small businesses in the U.S. Baker indicates that studies show that demand for labor isn't affected much by lowering the cost to employers, which is what the $5,000 tax credit for each new hire essentially does.

Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill says many questions remain about how the government could actually measure an increase in credit availability to small businesses.

In an email to ABCNews.com, O'Neill posed the following questions about the plan.

"How will we be able to see and measure incremental credit availability to small businesses? How much credit availability currently exists for small businesses? Are there credit worthy businesses that are being turned down?"

O'Neill also cited additional concerns he had.

"Credit worthy means there is a high probability the borrower will pay back the loan in the agreed time with the agreed interest payment. How will the community banks be selected to receive the incremental money? How long will it take to get this money into the system?"

The urgency is great for the president to be able to show something tangible to the American people. Eight million jobs have been lost in this current recession. With 27 million either unemployed or working in jobs with too few hours, there is a need to add about 10 million new jobs just to return to the prerecession unemployment levels of 4.9 percent. As the Economic Policy Institute explained, "Each month we need to create 127,000 jobs just to keep unemployment from rising. Therefore, we actually need 10.9 million new jobs to get us back to 4.9 percent unemployment."

Politics is one thing, but our current predicament and excessive unemployment calls for much more from the President.

Music for moving forward

2010-01-28T22:36:00.005-05:00

A small percentage of people are interested in moving their lives forward. A smaller group are actually taking steps towards making that happen.

Maslowe himself estimated that the number of those people might be as small is two percent!

Singer/songwriter Kasey Anderson is probably one of those people. Back in his hometown of Portland, Oregon, after spending eight years in Bellingham, Washington, Anderson's new record chronicles the process of change. According to Anderson, Nowhere Nights is "equal parts charge, benediction, apology and indictment,” chronicling his artistic coming of age.

From his website's bio section, Anderson lays out in song the circumstances behind, and the reasons for, his own personal renewal.

"For almost a decade I lived in this insulated little community,” Anderson says of Bellingham, Washington, where he spent eight years before moving back to his hometown of Portland, Oregon in 2007. “I woke up one morning and just knew it was time. I was numb all over. I was just a perpetual fuckup, y’know? Burning everything around me and then wondering why I smelled like smoke. I had to get out.”

I love that last line, especially since I know all about "smelling like smoke."

The face in the mirror

2010-01-28T06:19:00.008-05:00

It's important to periodically take a personal inventory and assess what's working, and what's not. If this rare event does take place, I'm guessing that it tends to occur at the beginning of a new year. From this process, new resolutions are made, and occasionally, real change does ensue for a few.

I just completed W. Somerset Maugham's book, The Summing Up, which was his autobiographical accounting of his life, including Maugham's thoughts on writing, literature, philosophy, and religion. Maugham, on the other hand, insisted that it wasn't an autobiography.

The book was much better than I thought it would be. One of a stack of books that my son left in his room upon returning to his MFA pursuits after a visit during the holidays, I perused the worn, dog-eared cover and set out reading through the 189 page book (at least the Signet Classic version).

Like Maugham, I've been reminiscing about my life. While he was 64 and set out to leave a more extensive account than I'm planning, the book and my 48th birthday have given me the push to perform an extensive accounting of the positives and not so positive aspects of my own life.

Additionally, I'm in the process of updating my online presence and soon will have a new website up that I hope will finally pull together my somewhat scattered digital profile and disparate blogging activity. That undertaking has forced me to reevaluate my brand, revisit my bio, and reconsider what services on the writing/publishing side are worth marketing, and the ones that best leverage my skills and strengths. All of this has been very positive for me. It's helped me see how far I've come over the past eight years, providing me with important perspective that all of us should have. Unfortunately, I think most people are unreflective in general and remain content (or maybe, not so content) to get pulled along by the current.

Interestingly, when I first began this journey to reinvent myself back in 2001, I never envisioned I'd be in the place where I'm at today. I could never picture myself motivating other people to move forward in their own lives, by offering nothing more than my own example. Rather than mere rhetoric and talk, my own pathway and progression is a clear example and demonstration of walking the talk. Instead of offering, "do what I say," I prefer to put forth an idea based in experience and reality. More of, "here is something that I think will work because I've seen the success demonstrated in my own life."

As we travel along life's thoroughfare, we learn of new areas that we need to take a fresh look at. In my own life, despite experiencing success with my writing, my career, and embracing a more optimistic outlook, I recognized an area that I had neglected.

We're so much more than spirit and soul--we also have a physical body. I had neglected to care for my own body, and its fitness needs for over a decade. My weight had been trending upward for years, and like many men approaching middle age, I knew I looked like crap, but had believed the lie that being overweight was part of aging.

I'm happy to report that it's possible to reverse many negative aspects of aging by focusing on one area and targeting it for improvement.

While I'm certainly not a medical professional, and nothing that I offer should be construed as medical advice, I would encourage readers to do some reflection and self-assessment from time to time. Committing to self-improvement is a worthwhile goal.

Even better, I think one of the reasons that we have the societal problems and challenges that we do is less about politicians and policymakers, and more about our own inability, or unwillingness to take an honest look at our own lives and embrace positive change. It's far easier to blame others for our problems.

Food, now beer

2010-01-25T21:31:00.003-05:00

What’s going on with Portland, Maine? Nationally recognized magazines continue lining up to sing their praises about the amazing culinary diversity Portland possesses, and now the latest aria now cites Portland for its craft beer.

Maine's closest thing to a city first gets written up late in the summer in renowned food mag, Bon Appétit, knighting Portland as “Foodiest Small Town in America.” So what if city folk consider a place with 60,000 people a small town? Size is relative, I guess.

Then in September, NY Times food writer, Julia Moskin, spent a week eating her way around town. Her article was effusive about the cornucopia of innovatively great restaurants in what I'd call Maine's only city—most of them new and decidedly offbeat.

Good food needs good grog to wash it down with. Along comes another respected publication, The Atlantic, and this time, writer Clay Risen, trumpets Portland’s beer and breweries. Allagash gets mentioned, along with Shipyard, and Peak Organic. Several drinking establishments like usual suspects Gritty’s and Sebago Brewing get a mention. So does Novare Res, which I have yet to try, but plan to do soon.

Portsmouth gets a mention for Smuttynose, a craft brew I really like. Risen notes it as a strategic “pit stop” on that two-hour drive between Portland, and Boston to the south. I concur, as I’ve had some great times involving food and drink in Portsmouth.

Maine’s winters are long, and given today’s blast of rain and wind, fickle and unpredictable, but Portland and other communities up and down the state's landscape offer up a wealth of places to eat and drink away our darkest season.

A year older

2010-01-23T00:36:00.008-05:00

Change and self improvement is mostly a journey of one. While there are significant numbers of people that have chosen to do the necessary work to move forward on their yoyage to wherever--success, self-actualization--regardless of how you unpack the process, there are many others that remain content to stay stuck in their rut. These people wallow in their own pathetic misery, and sure as hell don't want to hear about your weight loss, successes, books you've completed, and goals you are striving for.

That's the double-edged sword that comes when you make positive changes in your own life. If you share it with others, some will want to throw it back in your face, mock your accomplishments, and belittle any attempts not to stay in the same small little place.

January 23 is my birthday. I looked up celebrities that share this symbolic date with me. Most of them are people I know little, or nothing about, and appear to be D-list celebrities at best. I did note that two amazing guitarists--Johnny Winter and Django Reinhardt--as well as Cheap Trick lead singer, Robin Zander were born on this date. I liked learning this, given my interest in music and love of the guitar, an instrument that I occasionally pick up for a season and enjoy noodling around on.

2009 has been a good year, at least its second half. Actually, let me back up. I've been on a journey now for the past seven years. If pressed to characterize where I'm headed, I'd tell you it's to be the best that I can be. Even that doesn't do justice to, or capture my intentions exactly.

I'm somewhat reluctant to expand on that riff right now for several reasons that I prefer not to elaborate on for now. One being that it's early in the morning and I'm not looking to write an extensive post.

I've been pleased with the progress I've made on the fitness front. Losing 52 pounds and getting in shape for the first time in over a decade has been positive for me. By and large, the work I do to make a living is fulfilling and provides me with a meaninful outlet for the skills I've managed to acquire, often by living, and learning from past mistakes. I have a partner that loves me and does her best to understand me in my complexity and allows me the space to breath and grow.

As I move out into the new year, I sense I'm at some kind of crossroads with my writing. I haven't had my usual spark to write that I've had in the past. This may have something to do with having a finite pool of energy and possibly some of that has been siphoned off by my physical pursuits. I think, also, I've been censoring myself. Too often, I find myself thinking about who might be reading what I write, and what would they think of me, particularly if I just unloaded everything, much in the way that I used to, when I started the blog back in 2004, as a place to vent and air my frustrations, which were legion.

I just picked up a book on writing by Nelson Algren, Nonconformity: Writing on Writing. Algren takes aim at timid writing and writers that lose their vitality, in order to conform to society's conventions and mores. The words bite, and seem directed in my way. What is the role of the writer in the world? Are writers still vital, or has any remaining life been bled from the written word by technology's demands for brevity, reducing everything to a cliche, or a 140 character string? I'm not sure Algren's book can answer that, but I hope that it helps in refocusing me and points me in a direction that offers clarity.

My birthday horoscope:

Today's pragmatic Taurus Moon reminds us to use our common sense before embarking on an unrealistic venture. We may feel as if we are at odds with others because the Moon squares the Sun, Venus and Mars, stirring up discord in relationships. Luckily, the dynamic energy can encourage creativity if we aren't overly stubborn. The Moon's easygoing trine to interactive Mercury indicates that communication is the key to resolving the problems of the day.

Panic on the left, paranoia on the right

2010-01-20T06:39:00.004-05:00

American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wind. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind. In using the expression “paranoid style” I am not speaking in a clinical sense, but borrowing a clinical term for other purposes. I have neither the competence nor the desire to classify any figures of the past or present as certifiable lunatics., In fact, the idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant.

Of course this term is pejorative, and it is meant to be; the paranoid style has a greater affinity for bad causes than good. But nothing really prevents a sound program or demand from being advocated in the paranoid style. Style has more to do with the way in which ideas are believed than with the truth or falsity of their content. I am interested here in getting at our political psychology through our political rhetoric. The paranoid style is an old and recurrent phenomenon in our public life which has been frequently linked with movements of suspicious discontent.

[from "The Paranoid Style in American Politics"
By Richard Hofstadter
Harper’s Magazine, November 1964, pp. 77-86.]

Anger and the mediocrity of the ruling class

2010-01-19T16:59:00.006-05:00

I’ve begun reading W. Somerset Maugham’s The Summing Up, part autobiography, blended with Maugham’s philosophical observations on life, as well as reflections on religion, morality, and the human condition.

Today, I couldn’t help recalling the passage I read the other night, considering all the hoopla about the special election to our south, in Massachusetts. Written in 1938, Maugham’s observation still rings true, given our usual choice of tweedle dum, or tweedle dee, come election time.

I have known in various countries a good many politicians who have attained high office. I have continued to be puzzled by what seemed to me the mediocrity of their minds. I have found them ill-informed upon the ordinary affairs of life, and I have not often discovered in them either subtlety of intellect or liveliness of imagination.

I keep hearing reports that the voters are “angry.” Angry, angry, angry! What are they so angry about? Maybe these voters need to do some work on themselves and figure out why they’re so pissed, instead of thinking that Scott Brown will be their Mr. Smith.

I’ve given up believing that elections and the politicians that they inflict upon us matter much anymore. I’d much rather focus my energies on the people that matter to me, pursuits that bring me pleasure—like reading and writing—and trying to minimize stress and strife in my own life, which politics inevitably increases. Oh, and stay as far away as I can from angry voters intent on inflicting their ideological anger on me.

This is not a food blog

2010-01-18T06:42:00.011-05:00

The world of weight loss is fraught with advice on how to shed excess pounds. Some of it works. Established methods, like Weight Watchers, seems to work for many Americans. My mom is a lifetime member and is as trim at 71 as she has ever been. A close friend of Mary and me just lost 69 pounds utilizing the Weight Watchers program.

For others, all the advice in the world seems to do little, or nothing to move them from the world of weight gain and fretting, to loss and then, the hard part, maintenance. The reasons for this, I think are fairly complex. One person's weight loss success story is another one's recipe for disaster. That's why everyone has to find something that works for them.

Sometimes I think the answer lies less in denying ourselves food than finding a way to enjoy good food, in smaller amounts. Michael Pollan touches on this in his books, most notably, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. Notice that "eater's" is in the title.

For both Mary and me, we're less about cutting foods from our diet than eating smaller portions, giving exercise a prominent place in our lives, and enjoying food in a way that we haven't before. Good food is good fun. Locally grown foods, particularly plant-based have found their way into our diets in many new combinations, and methods of preparation.

One of my favorite sandwiches is a Reuben. Not a new food, and certainly not a low calorie one, or low fat by any stretch of the imagination. Corned Beef is a fatty meat. Swiss cheese isn't too bad as cheeses go, and sauerkraut might be one of the healthiest toppings you could add to any sandwich. Russian dressing isn't going to make it onto any top ten lists for diet condiments.

Not only do I like Reubens, I love french fries with it. That means that a meal with a Reuben can be loaded with calories and wouldn't be something that weight conscious folks would keep around, right?

Actually, I enjoy a Reuben fairly regularly. I still like french fries, although Mary and I have tended to make our own oven fries, courtesy of a recipe from one of the Moosewood cookbooks.

This weekend, we added a new twist to our Reuben and fries routine. Mary went to the farmers' market in Brunswick and at my insistence, picked up turnips from our friends at Six River Farm, in Bowdoinham.

As a German, I have an affinity for root veggies--carrots, turnips, rutabaga--all of them are wonderful to me.

Several weeks back, we sliced up some white turnips, drizzled them with olive oil and baked them in the oven. They were a wonderful accompaniment to pork chops. Amazingly sweet, and a lot less calories than traditional potatoes.

Well this week, we used regular turnips (not as sweet as the white turnips, we thought) and sliced them like french fries and did the olive oil and baking routine (with a dash of sea salt).

What an awesome alternative to traditional french fried potatoes, and a new accompaniment to the Reuben sandwich.

I enjoyed a nice Belgian dark ale with my meal.

This might not work for everyone looking to lose weight, or maintain a 52 pound weight drop, but it's working for Mary and me.

Calorie count:

Reuben sandwich 425 calories 44 grams of fat
Turnip fries 250 calories 20.5 grams of fat
Belgian dark ale 155 calories

Failed resolutions

2010-01-09T15:51:00.004-05:00

New Years Eve and it's hard to believe, another Zodiac's gone around
While you drank yourself high on hoping, and watched the ceiling spin from the ground

Counting down from ten it's time, to make your annual prayer
Secret Santa in the sky, when will I get my share

Then you tell yourself, what you want to hear
Cause you have to believe, this will be my year
[From Semisonic’s “This Will Be My Year,” from the album, Feeling Strangely Fine]

Planet Fitness has been running a special in January where new members can join for $1. This promotion intersects perfectly with the New Year’s resolution mindset that characterizes the crowd making a few feel good changes early in 2010. Most of these will be gone by the wayside come the first of February, casualties of their noble intentions that didn’t count the costs associated, or understand what it takes to be successful.

How do I know this? Because New Year’s resolutions are the crutches that I used to try to prop up my own pathetic attempts to make changes each and every roll over of the calendar, or as Dan Wilson of Semisonic sang, “another Zodiac's gone around.”

I’ve been a regular at Planet Fitness since the first of November. To be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to moving my fitness activities indoors in late October, but the days were shortening, and I knew my cycling was coming to a close for 2009. With resignation, I reluctantly began searching for a gym to continue the level of physical activity I knew I would need to engage in if I wanted to stay fit, and keep my newfound slimness intact.

The word on the street was that the Auburn PF location was a good one, and for the past 10 weeks, I’ve been working out like clockwork, three times each week. Given the demands of life and work, I knew early mornings would be best for me, although I did experiment with some other options, like lunchtimes, and mid-afternoons.

Since the Auburn location opens at 5:00 a.m., Monday through Friday, that’s the time I shoot for as I’ve become locked into showing up each Tuesday and Thursday, and am able to get in an hour of cardio and an hour of weights. Then, Sunday morning, I’m there at 7:00, when they open. I wish they were open earlier, as I’d love to be able to keep with my 5:00 a.m. time slot I have during the work week.

One of the benefits of these early morning workouts is that the group that is able to roll out of the sack at this early hour tends to be a bit older, and is mostly made up with the kinds of gym members that have been working out for a long time. What this means for me is that this crowd has a similar mindset as I do—get in, get busy, and get out. As a result, I’m actually enjoying my early morning chances to huff, puff, sweat, and push some weights around.

This past week has been a bit of a challenge, however. Tuesday morning, when I arrived a bit late, at 5:15, I could see the parking lot was already quite full. Entering the well-lit gym, most of the cardio equipment, particularly the treadmills, was being utilized. I figured that many of these were enticed by the $1 offer to get fit, as I didn’t recognize them as regulars.

My wife, who works out at Coastal Fitness in Westbrook has been complaining all week that she’s had trouble getting on the cardio equipment because of the flood of new members who have shown up. I imagine that if I went in the PM to PF in Auburn, I’d run into the same kind of cattle call.

An early morning appointment in Fairfield prevented me from keeping my customary morning fitness appointment this past Thursday, so I went yesterday morning instead. The gym was virtually deserted when I jumped on the elliptical trainer at 5:10. By 5:30, there were 15-20 people working out. I was pleasantly surprised. I knew that most of the $1 set would be gone by early February, but after one week? So much for sticking with those New Year’s fitness plans.

I found it somewhat comical watching two rather large women who I guessed were two of the 100 new members who have been joining daily in Auburn. Apparently by Friday none but these two were motivated enough to get up early on a bitterly cold morning to sweat off some fat. While these ladies were at the gym, they weren’t doing much to raise their heart rate and burn calories. In fact, when I walked by the wall of exercise equipment near the locker rooms, they were lounging on the back equipment, doing nothing but talking. After working working their gums, they made their way to the arc trainers where they spent about 15 minutes and barely broke a sweat. Then, after another 10 minutes on the treadmill, both were out the door, just as I was readying to hit the weights after my 30 minute cardio warm up.

I’m betting that they felt good about burning their 250 calories each, and probably both treated themselves to a carbo death wheel, aka, a bagel, surely loaded with cream cheese and some high calorie coffee drink with whip cream.

Since I began coming to Planet Fitness, there has been a group of men, some my age, a few older, and one younger gentleman that lift a lot of weights each morning when I’m there Monday-Friday. I can tell by the amount of weight they lift, their demeanor, and their upper bodies that these guys are serious. They have become a fitness comfort blanket of sorts for me.

Interestingly, I haven’t seen them since just after Christmas. I’m thinking that they’ve taken a sabbatical until after the fitness wannabes clear out.

New Year’s resolutions don’t work. Lifestyle changes do, however, which is why I’m down 51 pounds, and have been maintaining my weight loss for the past six weeks. It’s based on a simple formula. Reduce calories, increase calories burned, by increasing my level of activity intensity, and stay consistent with my commitment.

Rural matters

2010-01-07T04:12:00.006-05:00

Yesterday, I drove north and spent a portion of the day in Jackman, in northern Somerset County, not far from the Canadian border. This represents the far reaches of the workforce district that I cover with the Local Workforce Investment Board that I work for.

I went at the behest of a community partner who belongs to a group that I also am part of that meets monthly in Skowhegan, after she chided our group that "Skowhegan is not Somerset County." Her point resonated with me, as I realized that in three years in my position, I had never taken the time to visit the Moose River Valley, assess some of their issues on the workforce development side, and meet some of the key members of the community. Shame on me for this.

This behavior is clearly not acceptable for someone that has written regularly about rural Maine, and in fact, my first book detailed how small communities have been affected by a variety of changes since WWII, using the metaphor of baseball to track many of the shifts occurring in small town Maine (and by extension, small town America). Yet, in an official capacity, I had neglected a portion of my region. My colleague's point was an accurate one, as I learned from during my four hour visit.

Spending time in Jackman, and having the opportunity to meet some key leaders in town--school officials, a manager from Moose River Lumber, and other community movers and shakers--as well as being granted a chance to speak to the Jackman Leadership Group, which meets monthly to work on key initiatives in the town--made yesterday a worthwhile visit. There is a positive energy present in the community, one that I wouldn't have known about without visiting. Their school and its principal and superintendent are developing innovative programs, some of them with the potential to act as economic incubators. Moose River's mill is one of the most technologically advanced facilities east of the Mississippi. All of this wasn't surprising, based on my experiences visiting other rural areas of the state.

I plan on unpacking some thoughts I have, mainly about workforce development, over at Working in Maine in the near future. I also plan to touch on some of the struggles affecting rural communities not only in Maine, or nationwide.

Unfortunately, both federal and state policies often work against promoting economic vitality for the almost 60 million Americans living in areas classified as local. Nowhere is this more obvious than with rural schools, which are often the centerpiece of life in this small towns. In Maine, its been the insistence of the current administration to consolidate schools. This plan is misguided at best, in my opinion, as I've stated before.

Understanding the culture of people and place is important. I think one of the primary reasons that some journalists miss the real story, and politicians and state and federal policymakers often get it wrong when it comes to laws and regulations affecting rural America, is that they either don't care, or rarely take the time to really understand that culture. Merely making a campaign stop won't provide the depth of understanding required, and neither do perfunctory visits to pseudo-rural communities.

More to follow on this topic.

God's people snowed in once again

2010-01-03T06:28:00.002-05:00

What is it about snow that's become the 21st century's version of a biblical plague for church people? When it starts to snow, you can be sure that the people of God are incapable of mobilizing and making it to church.

I've touched on this before in greater detail, but it still seems like the greatest of ironies. Don't tell me about how great your God is, how he's blessed you with riches because you've got the power of positive visualization going on, and then, when a few flakes begin falling, the cancellations of chuch services start filling the scroll at the bottom of my nightly newscast, made up almost entirely of Sunday services being called off.

When I was a member of a band of bibical literalists during my fundamentalist wanderings, preacher after preacher railed against us for our lack of belief--usually the context involved some variation on trusting God to take care of us, after we gave our last dime to him, or his church--with a wealth of scriptural examples of God's people trusting him for their safety and deliverance. Apparently, snow has become God's kryptonite, as any weekend snowstorm inevitably means that Sunday services will be the exception, rather than the rule.

I think this illustrates really well how irrelevant that Xianity has become in the 21st century (if it hadn't already shown its ineffectiveness as a system prior to now). If your organization gets grounded from snow, and winter weather, how effective are you really? The reality in all of this for me, is that I rarely, if ever meet anyone that self-identifies as a Xian that inspires me. Mainly, they're either about positive affirmations, or telling me what I can and can't do, and worse, trying to dictate government policy propped up by a set of rules and regulations that were ineffective two centuries ago.

Here's my charge to you; if you want to be taken seriously as a societal force, don't let something like a winter snow storm derail you from what I was taught was a weekly duty--attending Sunday services.

Oh, btw--my friends over at the Shiloh are cancelled due to another winter storm.

Shuffle play Friday-Let the countdown begin

2009-12-31T22:56:00.008-05:00

Hot Tuna-I See The Light/The Phosphorescent Rat

There have been a wealth of bands and performers over the years occupying my personal upper shelf of favorites. While it’s difficult to isolate and name a solitary artist/band as my all-time favorite, Jorma Kaukonen and Hot Tuna would give the #1 slot a strong push—and depending on the day, Hot Tuna may be the one artist I’d take with me if given one catalog of music to take with me to a remote location—like the proverbial dessert island.

I was a high school freshman during the fall of 1976. Dana Aspinall introduced me to his senior football teammate, and Hot Tuna fan, Paul Bohunicky. I didn’t know much about the band at the time, and wasn’t aware that they were Jorma’s Jefferson Airplane side project. Bohnucky was cranking what I’d later learn was America’s Choice from his Jensen’s perched in the back of his ’69 Rambler. Given that I was always interested in new music, I made my own mental note to check out the record bin at DeOrsey’s the next time I was in Lewiston.

By the end of my sophomore year, I had acquired the entire Hot Tuna catalog, all of it on vinyl, which was the preferred music format of the era, and still my favorite way to listen to music when I have a turntable nearby. Unfortunately, the draconian dictates of the fundamentalist sect I got wrapped up with looked unkindly on rock and roll, and I eventually unloaded my carefully acquired record collection for pennies on the dollar.

I’ve begun reacquiring some of the best of my former collection, picking up the odd gem, and adding back classics like Hot Tuna’s Burgers, America’s Choice, and Yellow Fever on vinyl.

Realizing how much I love music, my lovely wife gave me a gift certificate at BullMoose Records. Ironically, owner Brett Wickard once worked for the long departed DeOrsey’s, before starting his original BullMoose store in Brunswick, while a student at Bowdoin back in the early 1990s.

I still love browsing my way through music (to me, always “record”) stores, and BullMoose still maintains a great physical selection at stores like the one I visited in downtown Brunswick. This is no small fact in our age of iPods and other digital music devices, given that younger (and older alike) listeners no longer believe they should have to pay for others creative genius, causing sales to continue plummeting downward.

When The Phospherescent Rat was released in 1973, Hot Tuna no longer was a sideline endeavor for Kaukonen and bassist extraordinaire, Jack Casady. Jack and Jorma were now fulltime and full throttle committed to the band. Jorma’s songwriting shows it, and Casady’s bass playing is amazing, with few modern players coming close to creating the textures, and even foghorn effects that Casady was getting from gear that is far from today’s technologically advanced equipment.

While many of Tuna’s current fan base clamor for the acoustic, Rev. Gary Davis-style finger-picking songs in the band’s catalog, I’m one of those that loved the heavy, effects-driven mid-70s period. It was during this time that the band was known for three plus hour shows, combining both acoustic, and electric in separate sets, and extended jams. This album was transitional, with songs like “I See The Light,” along with “Sally Where’d You Get Your Liquor From,” hearkening back to the previous Burgers style of folk-rock, and “Easy Now” foreshadowing the full-blown electric inclinations of Jorma and Co.

Jorma and Jack performed in South Portland two weeks ago. I was on the fence about seeing them, but decided against it at the last minute. One of the reasons was that I knew they’d play a lot of great acoustic stuff. For me, however, the electric days are gone, as the amplified storm generated 30 years ago just doesn’t seem the same coming from an older musician, which Jorma certainly is, at this juncture in his career. That’s not a criticism, it’s just part of conundrum of rock and roll, baby boomers, and the nature of what the music once was about, and often is tough to pull off for stalwarts like Kaukonen, Neil Young, the Stones, and others, as they age, some not very gracefully.

Sonic Youth-Teeage Riot/Daydream Nation

Sonic Youth represents the break I made with the music I listened to throughout high school, and the DIY-influenced music that I embraced after coming out the other side of a difficult period immersed in fundamentalist ideology. Bands like Sonic Youth provided a new way of seeing music, even processing personal experiences at the time.

Another piece of recorded music that I once owned, originally possessing it on cassette, released on the Enigma label. As would happen occasionally with a cassette recording, particularly longer recordings (Daydream Nation clocked in at 70:47), the cassette would jam, and sometimes get “eaten” by the cassette player. At some point, my cassette copy became unlistenable, and disappeared from my music collection.

My new copy is on CD. I listened to the first half on my ride to work Wednesday morning, finishing the first run through on my commute home, at night. Subsequent listens defy a sense that this recording is 21 years old.

“Teenage Riot” is anthemic in the best sense of the word’s usage. Driving, propelled by Steve Shelley’s always solid drumming, with paired vocals from Thurston and Kim, this song is fairly straightforward, but not typical, given the band’s penchant for feedback, noise, dissonance, alternate tunings, and guitar skronk.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember the bleakness that many of us felt back in the late 80s, at the tail end of the Reagan presidency. This disc reminds us a bit about the dark days of those years, and cuts through so much of the historical revisionism that’s taken place since.

Here are a portion of German artist/musician/critic Jutta Koether’s liner notes that appear on the CD version I picked up at BullMoose.

Daydream Nation: a picture of a moment, taken with a Polaroid. Though the colors are faded, they were faded when the album was first released…remember? Hearing this music now reveals the power of memory-conceptually dreaming, thinking along with the flow. For that moment, it appeared as a stylized recording, a conceptual work, which allowed for spacey “light listening.” [light listening, indeed!—JB]

Koether, again:

Others thought of Daydream Nation as a perfectly laid out demonstration of the paradox of underground music, a dialectical meltdown, a moment in utopia and regression. To a quite a few people, the whole thing looked and sounded good as well. A breakthrough of unique but also somehow generic independent music.

Sonic Youth have continued making solid and even some excellent subsequent recordings, but nothing approaching the sprawling epic sweep that was Daydream Nation.

Todd Rundgren-Just One Victory/The Very Best Of Todd Rundgren

It might be difficult to truly appreciate Todd Rundgren’s musical genius, removed from the late 1960s/early 1970s context, which saw his star reach its commercial zenith.

While not an obscure talent by any account, as time spent listening to oldies formats will probably allow a listen to one of a string of Rundgren’s hits from the 1970s, it’s rare to find anyone that recognizes his name in a conversation about music. During the 1970s, however, you couldn’t pick up a major music magazine without reading an article on Rundgren.

Rundgren was someone that I was somewhat familiar with during my formative musical development as a pre-teen, browsing, and occasionally buying what I remember as Creem, Circus, or possibly even Rolling Stone, at Robert’s Pharmacy in my hometown of Lisbon Falls, or Victor News, in Lewiston.

Later, my best friend, Dave Gray (who taught us all to think [inside joke]) would tell me of Rundgren’s musical prowess as a mult-instrumentalist, his spiritual inclinations, and other qualities that I obviously had missed in my reading.

Most of my musical purchases over the last 20 years have primarily been rock of the independent variety. The last few years, however, I’ve allowed myself to be less focused on maintaining the self-imposed militancy against so-called corporate rock, and I’ve begun occasionally picking up recordings that seem a bit eclectic, and even mainstream, compared to most of my current CD collection.

Browsing BullMoose, I saw TVBOTR and realized that many of the songs were ones I recognized, and actually really enjoyed. Once in my car, after grabbing a cup of coffee at Little Dog (a great locally-owned coffee shop on Maine Street), it was Rundgren’s CD that found its way into the CD player.

There are wonderful tunes on the CD, in fact, all of the 16 tracks are of the quality that I could listen to them over and over again.

“Just One Victory,” however, contain lyrics that uplift, and promote an optimism that might seem hokey in 2009/2010, but in 1973 still seemed possible, as our sense of what was possible hadn’t been wrung out of us yet.

The Rural Alberta Advantage-Edmonton/Hometowns

My last tune, on the last day of 2009 (most of this is being wrapped up an hour before midnight) is by yet another Canadian band, a special discovery from the last half of 2009. I now know there is a wealth of musical talent north of the U.S. border. The Rural Alberta Advantage is one of several artists that I’m learning about.

The band’s music is rooted in a sense of place—in this case, the vast prairies and mountain ranges of western Canada. I think the music also has a timeless appeal to that sense of geographic rootedness that we all yearn for, and continue to search for. As homogeneity continues to be pushed upon us, from Edmonton, Alberta, to Portland, Maine, songs like the ones that the RAA play connect.

Much of the material was written by Nils Edenloff, the band’s lead singer, and chief songwriter. Edenloff had relocated to the more cosmopolitan and artistically viable Toronto, a journey that countless creative Canadians have made before. What comes across in many of the band’s songs, is that sense that you can take the boy out of the prairie, but you can’t take the prairie, and the distinctiveness of Alberta, out of the boy.

The band plays music that’s acoustic, but rocks as well as anything electrified and cranked to 10. In fact, the driving nature of many of the tracks indicates that rock and roll is an attitude, as much as it is amplification. The arrangements of strummed acoustic guitars, synthesizers, even glockenspiels, work, and make for a rich mix of musical mastery.

Well, 2009 is history, and we’re on to bigger and better things in 2010—music will continue to be part of that journey.

Happy New Year!!

Staying true, and keeping fit

2009-12-28T08:06:00.009-05:00

Just before Christmas, I hit a milestone on my fitness journey I began June 23. I have now been walking (as well as biking, lifting weights, and participating in other cardio and strength building activities) the path towards fitness for six months.

What began as disapproval (seeing my weight at 259.5 on the digital scale display), then shifted into the planning stage (how do I lose some weight), and eventually became part of my lifestyle. Changes take time to become personal. For me, personalizing my routine happened almost immediately. By that I mean that I quickly embraced my initial plan of exercise, calorie reduction, and then, as the weeks rolled by, I became acclimated to portion sizes, foods I could eat, and foods I preferred not to eat.

Here are a few things that I have learned in arriving at this stage, with my weight loss fluctuating between 47-50 pounds:

Change requires positive reinforcement--

Rather than deciding what foods I couldn't eat, I started out by figuring out what my caloric intake should be to maintain my weight where it was, and not gain one additional pound. From there, I then ratcheted back my calories, tracking them via Fitday, which has been a great site for me.

Find foods that you enjoy, and don't overindulge--

I love cheese. I also like snacks that are salty. I found a great cheese made by Cabot, which has 50 percent less fat. I allowed myself one serving (which was one ounce) in my lunch for work. I also found that pretzels, particularly the mini ones are fairly low in calories and are a nice compliment to my cheese, and my Sara Lee turkey ham.

Pack your lunch everyday--

I can't emphasize this enough. There are very few options for lunch that are as low-calorie and generally as healthy as packing your own lunch. By the time you can get away from work for lunch, you are generally hungry and when you're hungry, you overindulge. Not a good place to be. Plus, most quick lunch options are heavy in calories, not to mention expensive.

One of the nice perks of packing my own lunch everyday has been the money that I've saved (a minimum of $5-6 a day, which is being conservative, multiplied by two, as Miss Mary has also joined the pack-a-lunch-for-work club), which in these economically trying times, is not a bad thing.

Find a way to exercise vigorously 3-4 times per week--

I can't emphasize enough the importance of vigorous exercise. For me, I need to burn about 3,500 to 4,000 calories per week to support my love of food and occasional higher calorie outings.

When I began my weight-loss regimen, my calorie intake was about 1,800 to 2,200 calories per day. Over time, I've allowed it to increase to around 2,400 to 2,600 per day (particularly on workout days). Occasionally, usually one day per week, I'll allow myself an extra beer, and a snack of some kind, or Mary will make a meal on the weekend that might be a higher-calorie choice and I'll approach 3,000 calories on the intake side.

Because I've been doing this long enough, I know that given my current routine of going to the gym three times per week, which includes an hour of cardio and an hour of weights, plus one to two sessions on the treadmill on my non-gym days, I can support my current calorie intake schedule. This is a key to where I'm at, which has become a maintenance phase.

Today I'm off from work. Instead of taking the day off from exercise, however, I spent 35 minutes on the treadmill, running for 12 minutes, and maintaining an average of 5.0+ miles per hour intensity level, which burned 375-400 calories.

Find a weight range you're comfortable with and stay there--

I'm now trending in a weight range that fluctuates between 207 and 210. My goal is to stay south of 210. I have had a couple of upticks over Thanksgiving and recently, over the Christmas holiday, although this morning's weigh-in (prior to my treadmill session) found my weight at 210 on the button!

I generally weigh-in on Monday and then again on Thursday, although sometimes I can't help jumping on the scale more frequently.

Joining the gym has been a pleasant surprise for me. I'm not someone that generally enjoys gyms, but Planet Fitness in Auburn has been a good fit for me.

I'm in my ninth week of gym membership. I now workout early. Two times during the week, I'm at the gym at 5:00 a.m. Then, on Sunday, I arrive at 7:00 (when it opens) and this is usually my most vigorous workout of the week.

While diligence is required and I have to remain focused on staying the course, it's also exciting to be heading into 2010 without having to make a resolution to lose weight.

Invalidation Nation

2009-12-26T11:56:00.003-05:00

The range or spectrum of discussion and debate in the U.S. is a narrow one. One could argue that our nation’s corridor of communication continues to contract, mainly along ideological, religious, and even cultural lines, inculcated via changes that are being pushed by technology.

In my own life, I have experienced the difficulty engendered by the pinched parameters of dialogue. Never one to stay rooted in any one place, I first investigated and embraced fundamentalist religion during my early 20s, found solace in political/ideological right-wing posturing during my late 20s and into my 30s, and then, pendulum swinging back to the left after the previous administration’s failure to clearly articulate their position for waging war. These journeys to and fro across the realm of what’s acceptable have provided me with a unique perspective, I think.

Spending time in multiple (often opposing) camps over the course of my adult years, compounded by not growing up in an environment that cultivated thought and exploration of ideas, propelled me to desire a deeper understanding of movements, organizations, and whatever else I decided to become involved in and with.

Regardless of what my affiliation was at the time, I quickly realized that most of the people around me—family, friends, co-workers—knew very little about my frame of reference at the time. Whatever they might know about my religious choice, political leanings, or books and ideas I was interested in and exploring, was miniscule, and often, laughable, if it wasn’t so deeply rooted in a fierce anti-intellectual sense of pride.

I enjoy observing people. Because I don’t travel with your typical coterie of friends and acquaintances, I regularly find myself in solitary situations, sitting in a coffee shop, browsing in bookstores, or having a drink in a bar, taking in the conversations of others. Listening to friends chit chat, weigh-in on national issues, or make small talk about their children, marriages, television shows, and thoughts on food/fitness, to name but a few of the topics I’ve overheard being discussed during the past 30 days, reinforces my own anecdotal belief that 85-90 percent of Americans know little or nothing about anything substantive.

My previous point begs the question, then; what are the substantive topics of debate that you are looking for?

Well, how about something as basic as how are government works? Rarely, if ever, do I run into anyone, ideological hardliner, or not that can outline our tripartite system of governance. Yes, some of the right-wing types that I seem to regularly run up against, think they have the solution to all of the nation’s ills. They know the problem, and they are quick to tell me and anyone else that government can’t solve them—because Rush Limbaugh, or some other talking head told them so.

A case in point is the current debate (if you care to call Fox News, and the WSJ harangues against anything that will remove the least bit of control from large insurance companies, a debate) over health care reform. What percent of Americans do you think have read one, long form narrative journalistic treatment of the subject? I think I’ve read five, at least, that have looked at various aspects of healthcare, its attendant issues of cost, doctor’s responsibilities in this, technology’s role, etc. Even the handful of colleagues that I rub elbows with in my day job—people that are bright and knowledgeable about government policy—didn’t follow through in reading one of the better pieces, about health care costs, after I sent them the link.

I’ve made a point of trying to read as widely as I can, on as many subjects as I can find the time to pursue, in an attempt to be an intellectual person. I don’t hold and advanced degree, and I have never even risen to the level of D-list stature in my writing, blogging, or any other attempt to get my thoughts on ideas into the public square. However, I can honestly say that for the past 10 years, I’ve tried to take a more nuanced view of the world, although, my initial attempts to distance myself from religion, and right-wing ideologues, found me overcompensating with wild swings to the far fringes of left-wing thought and ideas. This is a nether world just as dangerous, in my opinion, with Kool-aid drinking required.

What I am beginning to understand is that distant regions of thought tend to be places where the ideological weeds grow the thickest, and can deprive you of valuable air and vitality required for ideas to flourish. Better, spending too much time hard right, or lunatic left, diminishes the ability to think critically. This I have come to accept as a fact. These far flung regions require straitjacketing via ideology that restrict, rather than encourage open-mindedness.

This topic of free thinking and ideas is one that I rarely stray too far from these days. I now understand this as a consequence of my time spent deep within the inner sanctums of movements, and organizations that regularly demanded strict adherence to a narrow parameter of ideas and thought. Because of this, I now recoil when well-intentioned, and others, not so benign in their intent, tell me that truth lies only within the circumscribed confines of their religion, political party’s platform, or corporate parameters required for inclusion.

I just picked up Barbara Ehrenreich’s newest book, Brightsided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Undermined America. This is the kind of example of an idea, which Ehrenreich appears to have again trained her investigative antenna towards, which when I’m done reviewing, and reading parallel books, studies, etc, I’ll have a better understanding of. In this case, Ehrenreich sets out to shatter the myth that all we need to be happy and successful, is a happy outlook. That’s total BS, but the cult of Pollyanna is so entrenched in the U.S. that if you dare to offer a contrary opinion, you are immediately labeled as a cynic, crank, misanthrope, or worse. What is frightening, as I make my way through the first few chapters of the book, is how Ehrenreich’s clear-headed prose resonates with me, based upon years of experience being told not to feel the way I feel, or hold my particular view on a particular subject, because it wasn’t in line with what was “accepted.”

The other day, after posting my thoughts about Oral Roberts, I had a discussion with two co-workers. One, a lukewarm Catholic, with his own fucked up brand of theology that he was sticking to, and wasn’t being budged by anyone else; the other, I later would find out, was a true believer, who attended a Baptist church I once visited and found too narrow for my open-minded religious views at the time.

The first one, a fat idiot (I know, a needless ad hominem attack), who regularly throws out his opinions with the kind of dogmatic certainty, honed by a daily diet of sports talk radio, faux local news, and 15 minute liturgies once a week that irritates the shit out of me, said to me, “boy, are you cynical,” when I launched my missive on Roberts and religion.

Afterwards, I felt somewhat sorry about being so forceful in my condemnation of religion, particularly as perpetrated by religious hucksters like Roberts, in light of finding about the latter co-worker’s Baptist proclivities. Not necessarily because what I said didn’t contain a good measure of truth, sprinkled with firm (and accepted) theological underpinnings, but because I actually like him, and have found him to be thoughtful, and open-minded, at least compared to the other blowhard. This is a good example of the censoring nature of groupthink.

Hence, my ongoing dilemma in trying to think my way through life, and routinely, running up against legions of others that don’t. What I find so difficult, is that these individuals that don’t think, and don’t see a problem at all with their irrational, anti-intellectual parsing of the various issues, regularly indict my views, which have been framed, more often than not, by honest attempts at arriving at a nuanced understanding.

Are you into Facebook, or Twitter?

2009-12-23T15:39:00.004-05:00

Created by Oatmeal

This could have been higher--my intuition towards not being "addicted" to social media led me to answer questions a certain way.

I'm actually embarrassed by some of my answers to the questions, like, have I tweeted while on the can ("yes," he sheepishly replied)? At least I haven't tweeted what I was eating, while I was eating it.

Social media is here to stay, and while I was initially very cold on Twitter as a communications tool, I've warmed considerably, while maintaining my general disdain for Facebook. A recent article in the Washington Post considers the merits of Facebook vs. Twitter.

Interestingly, most of the people I rub elbows via work in Central/Western Maine are pro-Facebook, and many know little or nothing about Twitter. I tend to go the other way on this, given the number of Farmville acolytes inhabiting Facebook, and the general "FML" patois that is rampant there.

Holiday randomness

2009-12-22T15:39:00.004-05:00

Anyone who has ever toiled on a diamond, whether Little League, sandlot, or at a higher level, always dreamed they'd have a baseball card of their very own, at least back when baseball cards were all the rage.

On my BlackBerry, I have several Google Alerts set up, one of them alerting me if my own name gets mentioned. Occasionally, something actually comes across the transom that relates to the Jim Baumer of Words Matter. Most often, however, it's some Baumer in Iowa, getting married, or in this case, another Jim Baumer, a former rookie shortstop for the Cincinnati Reds, in 1961, the year before I was actually born. On the left was his very own rookie card, which apparently is fetching $3 on today's baseball card market.

Here is a profile of this Jim Baumer's professional baseball playing career, a somewhat checkered one. He later became a major league GM with Milwaukee, and I occasionally got some joy out of pointing this out to my friends who were baseball fans.

Shopping locally before Christmas

2009-12-19T19:30:00.003-05:00

I’m not a shopper. For most of my existence, I dreaded the weeks leading up to Christmas mainly because I knew that it would require me to go to the Maine Mall, or some other shopping complex to buy gifts that I was never quite sure that the recipients wanted (or needed).

The past several years, my wife and I have de-escalated gift giving—one of the benefits being that I’ve been able to eliminate the stress of fighting crowds as the holiday season approached. Better, the four weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas have become bearable and even, dare I say, enjoyable—this for someone that could be characterized as a bit of a scrooge (Mrs. B says I was much more than a “bit” of a scrooge). Maybe I'm like the Grinch, and my heart has grown a size or two bigger?

Actually, Christmas, at least in its most traditional sense and accompanied by magic, always held a special place for me. Even as an adult, while hating many of the commercial conventions that characterized the holiday, I would take pleasure in things that become part of my own traditions—A Charlie Brown Christmas, It’s A Wonderful Life, and books that elevated Christmas to a place beyond the crassness of business bottom lines.

For some reason, this year's ramp up to Christmas hasn't seemed very Christmas-like, commercialism, or not. I have sort of felt like Charlie Brown, searching for the “true meaning of Christmas.”

Today, Mrs. B. and I decided to make our seasonal trip to Bath, and do a wee bit of Christmas shopping. This holiday visit to one of the state’s few remaining vibrant downtowns always leaves me feeling better about the upcoming holiday, even given the attendant trappings and commercial pitfalls.

Visiting Bath’s downtown shopping district always involves a stop at Reny’s Department Store, a place that reminds me of the downtown shopping experiences I recall, when I was a kid, in Lewiston, and Portland, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, before malls and big-box retail become intertwined with Baby Jesus. For those of us that remember Peck’s (considered “Maine’s first and [at one time] largest department store), Woolworth’s, and Spark’s in Lewiston, and Porteous, Mitchell, and Braun in Portland, to name but one of many downtown retailers, most defunct, or at least, relocated out of downtown, a visit to Bath helps one relive one’s first retail experiences 40 years ago, before malls were ubiquitous.

We began the day at Fort Andross, picking out fresh ingredients for tonight’s dinner, as well as baked goods and locally-raised bacon for Christmas day. The indoor farmers’ market continues to be vibrant, and it’s exciting to know that local farmers benefit when Mainers make simple, yet profound decisions to support local, sustainable agriculture practices.

Having the opportunity to score fresh greens and beets from Fishbowl Farm, and turnips and carrots from Six River Farm, both farms located near one another in Bowdoinham, is a real treat in the middle of December. There was a time when fresh veggies like these were something that one dreamed of in the dead of winter, imagining warmer days returning, along with yummy produce grown during Maine’s short growing season.

I want to illustrate a clear example of how local buying behavior can influence farmers and other suppliers participating in something like Brunswick’s winter market. Mary and I, while picking out our fresh produce at the Fishbowl Farm booth, had a nice conversation with the young young lady manning their table. When we mentioned how much we have been enjoying the indoor market at Fort Andross, she said that local farmers like Fishbowl are able to take on supplying consumers and their desire for fresh produce throughout the winter, if they know that the market can support their efforts. Buying local does matter, as studies clearly indicate.

Beyond the mere economic data, and agricultural sustainability that shopping at the local farmers' market is this. When I was picking up my turnips from Nate, from Six River Farm, who had both the larger, traditional-style turnips, and beautiful, white turnips, that are smaller, which the small card accompanying the display said, "great in salads," he mentioned that they were also great roasted. I've mashed turnips, boiled them and eaten them with butter and salt/pepper, but never roasted them. He gave me a few hints, and last night, we roasted up a pan of turnips, garlic, and onions, drizzled with olive oil. It was a unique and tasty alternative, as the roasting and olive oil brings a carmelized quality to the turnips and accompanying onions and garlic cloves. Never underestimate the personal touch when dealing with local purveyors. It usually is less transactional, and much more relationship in nature.

We then headed down Route 1, to Bath. Besides Reny’s, I visited a used book shop operated by the Friends of Bath Library, and the very decadent Marnie’s Cookies. I’m particularly careful about what I eat now, but if there was ever a reason to stray a bit from my caloric considerations, it is Marnie’s Shangri-La.

While downtown Bath was a wonderfully different way to spend the Saturday before Christmas, strolling along Front Street, it appeared that many people either stayed home, or chose to shop at the large retailers up the road, at Cook’s Corner, like T.J. Maxx, and Big Lots. The numbers of shoppers seemed less than I remember from other local holiday shopping excursions.

All in all, it was a fun Saturday, and I look forward to heading back to Bath again, possibly for dinner at a place like Solo Bistro.

Searching for nuance

2009-12-18T03:45:00.005-05:00

We live at a time requiring full-time vigilance to stay out and front and not be buried by the avalanche of information rolling down media mountain. Many choose to go under, swamped by secondary squalls of reality-based television, ideological axe-grinding passing as hard news, and others fixate on professional sports.

While the United States has now poured 900 billion dollars into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I'd hazard a guess that fewer than one in 10 Americans could provide you with little more than cursory information and surface noise on either country. I think it would be rare, or even impossible to glean any geopolitical understanding on U.S. involvement in either country from the man on the street, Mr. Joe Sixpack, a close friend of Sarah Palin.

I've been similarly guilty on not really involving myself much beyond cursory details when it comes to our policies in the Middle East, and specifically the two countries where our country's foreign policy has been focused since 2001. Reaching around and patting myself on the back, I have at least read a few books and the occasional essay and investigative piece about military and civilian life on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While it's convenient, I guess, depending on your political leanings, to chant either, "Bush lied, and people died," or to embrace some variation on "drill, drill, drill," as a subtext to removing ourselves from foreign wars for oil, if you in fact hold to that theory, the truth about ME geopolitics is significantly more nuanced than that, I think.

When I first saw George Packer's The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq in CD version at the Maine State Library, my first reaction was, "No--not interested in a book on Iraq." Packer, someone that I've come to know and respect from his essays in The New Yorker, is a solid journalist. Subsequent visits eventually saw me taking the CD package down off the shelf and reading the cover copy.

I'm now in my second week of listening to the lengthy book, 480 pages, and in its unabridged form on CD, it is nearly 20 hours long, which is on the high end for audio books. I'm glad I decided to give Packer's work on Iraq a shot.

The book's strengths, in my opinion, are the persons, opinions, and institutions that Packer covers. While some have panned the book, most of these critics (like this one) were the kind that attempt to run everything through an ideological blender during their evaluation process. I used to be one of those people. Over time, I've tried to back away from a strict anti-war bias about this conflict, and given the resources, and American lives spent, in what has become a case of nation-building, the most extensive, in fact, in our nation's history.

While the usual cast of characters show up: Bush, Cheney, Paul Wolfiwicz, Donald Rumsfield, and other A-list political figures and members of the administration in power at the time, Packer also highlights some lesser known, but just as important people. Packer's work is brimming with rich profiles of the people on the ground, and those most affected by the day-to-day realities of the war, and subsequent occupation. None is fuller than his narrative portrait of 29-year-old (at the time, in 2003) Charlie Company Captain, John Prior. When Packer writes about Prior's high-minded leadership, and how this young man from rural Indiana, making $53,000/year, while leading 150 men/woman through daily danger, it makes you appreciate the committed people that by-and-large make up the U.S. military.

Prior, like many commanding officers in Iraq, did much more than lead troops in battle. He also was tasked to oversee opening up open-sewage sludge lines, garbage pick-up, power restoration, and a slew of other tasks that were way more than any of these leaders bargained for. It didn't help matters, as Packer details that the boots on the ground were continually hampered by Donald Rumsfield's irrational belief that this was a war that could be waged on the cheap.

I highly recommend Packer's book, as well as just about anything else he writes. In an milieu where there are fewer and fewer journalists working the long-form narrative essay that is Packer's specialty, he continues to be one of the best.

If you're looking for one book to invest time in reading (or listening to) in order to expand on news accounts, and give a broader understanding of the entire U.S. enterprise, as well as one that dispels many myths about the Iraqi people, the CPA, and other entities, then this would be a good one. A word of caution--if you're a Bush apologist, or are looking for simplistic takes on the complexities that make up military endeavors, look elsewhere.

This review was more in line with my own sentiments about the book.

Who names their kid, Oral?

2009-12-16T04:24:00.003-05:00

Another religious charlatan has departed this mortal coil. The latest one exiting stage left is Oral Roberts. The evangelical pioneers are all kicking it.

The standard line on Roberts goes something like this (from the Chicago Tribune):

Mr. Roberts became one of the most famous preachers of the 20th century by pioneering the use of television and computerized databases to spread the gospel and raise hundreds of millions of dollars -- a formula followed by many other ministries.

Using sophisticated direct-mail campaigns, Mr. Roberts popularized the "prosperity gospel," which asserts that God generously rewards financial acts of faith.

"It gives people hope and expectation that seeds sown to God will be multiplied back in every area of life," Mr. Roberts wrote in his 1995 autobiography, "Expect a Miracle: My Life and Ministry."

Mr. Roberts brought Pentecostalism -- which promotes charismatic worship including faith healing and speaking in tongues -- to the mainstream, giving it a newfound sense of legitimacy among the middle class and within other Christian denominations.

That last paragraph threw me for a loop. I'd never thought of Roberts as someone who legitimized religious practices and experiences, like speaking in tongues, which if taken this out of its religious context, might get the practitioner committed to a mental health facility.

I found these two comments from the NY Times to be more pertinent than most of the mainstream accounts of Roberts' life, spent fleecing suckers in the U.S. and abroad.

From Mitch, in Florida-

This marks the end of an era. Roberts was one of the great religious huckster's of the last century. He could pull money out of the trailer parks like no other. He was also a great inspiration for me. I wanted to get into the game with them 25 years ago, but after watching him, Falwell, Angley, Swaggart, et al, I knew that I couldn't compete with pros like these guys.

These guys had the routine dialed in and I could have never kept a straight face with the delivery. Too bad. "I could have been a contender".

From Charlie, McLean (?)-

Change happens one funeral at a time. He will NOT be missed.

Shuffle play Friday-Songs for the guitar

2009-12-10T20:41:00.006-05:00

I’ve never played guitar as well as I’d like to. I admire every guitar player that I've watched that makes playing seem effortless. I think my shortcomings stem in part a result of the scattershot way that I learned to play the instrument.

I started playing in my early 20s, after my line to God got disconnected, courtesy of Hyles-Anderson College. Stuck in the middle of the country with no funds to return home to New England, I had to figure out what to do next. At the time, mid-1984, I was 22, married, with a five-month-old son. My wife and I had spent our meager nest egg moving to Indiana, from Maine, on our quest to find some spiritual Mecca, following Jack Hyles.

Maybe God hadn’t entirely abandoned me, or maybe I was just plain lucky, but I managed—in the midst of double digit unemployment—to land a job that paid more than minimum wage, provided health insurance, and offered opportunities to work considerable overtime—did I also mention that it was at a prison?

Westville Correctional Center was a medium security prison, located about 10 miles northeast of Valparaiso, Indiana. From where we were living in Hobart when I was hired, Westville was a 25-mile straight shot east, out US 6.

While I could write volumes about my experiences working for four years in the bowels of a correctional facility, with its cast of characters, not limited only to inmates, I’ll spare you for now. My SPF post this week is about how I acquired my first guitar, and keeping with my format of five songs for the week, some of my favorite ones to play.

The first axe I ever owned was a cheap Les Paul copy electric that I paid $35 for. I had been working as a Med Tech at Westville for about a year when I noticed the 3 X 5 card on the break room bulletin board advertising the guitar.

I had always wanted to own a guitar, dating back to high school when my best friend, Dave Gray, a highly skilled player, told me that “my hands were too big to play the guitar.” Looking back, I think he enjoyed being the musician in our group of friends, and didn’t want any competition.

The guitar was owned by a guard at the facility and I drove over to his house in town on a Saturday and made the purchase. Since I didn’t own an amp, I improvised by playing it through my boom box.

My time in Indiana didn’t find me learning to play very well at all and I ultimately put the guitar away for a few years. When we moved back east in 1987, I began to work on my playing again, and even took a few lessons.

Since my acquisition of skills was piecemeal, plus I’d play for a few months and then, get bored and put the guitar away for months, and even years, it wasn’t until I started learning to play songs that I my playing finally moved forward.

While I’m still a rudimentary axeman, I can play a bunch of songs fairly well, and a few really well.

I haven’t been playing for most of the past year, and in fact sold a really nice Strat copy that I had, along with a vintage Fender amp last spring, in order to finance my trip to California to visit my favorite writer. I still have my trusty Yamaha acoustic, however, my first brand new guitar I ever owned. Last night I got it out and started playing it a bit.

In keeping with my SPF theme, here are five songs that I enjoy playing, which I’ll dub, “songs for my guitar.”

Woody Guthrie-This Land is Your Land/Library of Congress Recordings

Is there a song more American than this Guthrie classic? The chord progression is a simple one and this song is just so damn much fun to play and have people sing along with.

The myth surrounding the song states that Guthrie wrote it to counter Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America,” a ubiquitous song that Guthrie was tired of hearing on the radio, with the attendant jingoism represented.

Given that Guthrie had seen much of America by this time, had experienced the worst aspects of the Dust Bowl exodus of the 1930s, as well as the racism and classism that followed blue collar workers wherever they went, Guthrie wanted a new song about patriotism, one rooted in the reality of his world and the world of many others just like him.

Jimmy Eat World-The Middle/Jimmy Eat World

I stumbled upon this song by accident. I heard the chords, and liked the muted nature of the progression. I started fiddling around with it before I checked out the chords, and it wasn’t long before I was cruising through it.

Since I suck playing lead, the break isn’t anything I’ll ever master. It’s still fun to play. Even better, it’s a great song on the acoustic.

Three chords, people, a D, an A, and a G.

Semisonic-Closing Time/Feeling Strangely Fine

This album is one of my favorites in my collection. This song is one I never grow tired of hearing.

There are certain songs that sound fairly easy to play, but when I begin working them out, and figure out the chords, more times than not they have a change that my limited chops prevent me from even being perfunctory. I was afraid this would be one of them, but alas, it has the old comfortable G, C combination that I love, with an Am and D mixed in, so even for me, it’s easy to play. I also love to sing it.

Violet Burning-Berlin Kitty/Demonstrates Plastic and Elastic

I made one last trek back into the church after 9/11. The denomination was The Vineyard, and Sunday morning services featured some amazing contemporary music, at least compared to what I had experienced in church.

Mary and I joined a small group Bible study. Since no one in the group could play guitar, I volunteered to be the worship leader, meaning I had to learn a bunch of songs, including a song called, “Invitacion Fountain,” by a CCM band named The Violet Burning. Like most worship songs, it was a strummy little number, but I still enjoy playing it to this day, even if the lyrics don’t take me to a higher place, necessarily.

I picked up a couple of Violet Burning CDs, including Demonstrates Plastic and Elastic, which is much “harder” than most of their other stuff. Unlike many CCM bands, I think their music stands up well against a lot of secular music.

This song, which has a world weary vibe not found in most of what passes for “Christian” music has a cool riff that sounded great with my Boss distortion pedal turned up to heavy distort. I could play this verbatim, along with the disc, which really helped me with my confidence as an electric player.

Green Day-Working Class Hero/nstant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur

While the late John Lennon wrote and released this song, it was Green Day who got me turned onto the song.

There aren’t many songs that capture the class issue as well as this one. Billie Joe nails this in a way that is both contemporary, and also is true to Lennon. It’s a fitting song for the band and one of the best covers I’ve heard in quite some time.

Learned this one during one of the best vacations of my life, a week renting a rustic cottage in Steuben. We spent the day hiking, biking, and just enjoying time away from the grind of life. Without a TV, I’d read for a bit, and after everyone retired upstairs, out came my acoustic and I’d play for a good hour and then head to bed to do it all again the next day.

Nice hammer on with the Am—simple song that is made by the strum patterns.

That’s it folks, for this week’s guitar lesson.

Today is canceled

2009-12-09T05:25:00.004-05:00

It's supposed to snow today. Every newscast for the past 24 hours has hyped this upcoming storm, the first supposed major snowstorm of the year.

I live in central Maine, so the forecast is for 4-8 inches of snow, before turning to a wintry mix, before winding down tonight. It's supposed to be windy. Nothing I haven't experienced before in my 47 years of winters.

So why are cancellations pouring in from all over, scrolling across the bottom of my television screen? If you choose to live in a winter environment, shouldn't you be able to cope with snow and wind? It used to be expected.

I don't think taxes and a preponderance of services is what's killing our state. I think it's that there is so little time in the year when business actually gets transacted.

We don't do anything all summer because the kids are home from school and it seems like every HR person and hiring manager is taking their 6-8 weeks of vacation time that they apparently have (I have two weeks). Then, between T-giving and Xmas, nothing gets done because everyone is out during work time shopping. Add to the stew of non-productivity the day before, the day of, and the day after a winter storm, which once again means reduced time in the office, and it's no wonder that Maine's economy resembles that of a third world nation.

It snows in Maine. Deal with it!

A prosperous faith

2009-12-06T19:21:00.005-05:00

Sunday mornings now find me at the gym. I joined Planet Fitness in Auburn in an attempt to keep my fitness momentum moving forward during the dark days of winter. For the past several weeks, my goal has been to visit the gym 3-4 days per week, where I engage in 50-55 minutes of weight lifting, and another 30-45 minutes of cardio.

Weekdays, I tend to get up early and arrive by 5:30 a.m. in order to get my reps in before heading to the office. On Sunday, Planet Fitness doesn't open until 7:00, so I have to go a bit later.

This Sunday morning routine finds me on the treadmill or elliptical machine during part of my longer, two hour session. Being tethered to an exercise machine results in you being captive to the row of televisions projecting a mix of Fox propaganda, infomercials, and local weather at the AM fitness crowd. One program on The Discovery Channel that I've tuned into the past two Sundays is popular preacher, Joel Osteen, he of the great head of hair, as well as the nation's largest congregation, Lakewood Church, in Houston. To say his theology is suspect, would be putting it kindly. Like so many prosperity preachers, Osteen dispenses with the message of self-sacrifice, and living for others--in essence, Jesus' gospel--and has crafted a message that overflows with pure positivism. Osteen has distilled the Xian life into a series of steps (seven, to be exact), which if followed, guarntees that our existence will be happy, healthy, and blessed with everything that would make this life wonderful.

Actually, I haven't invested more than about 10 minutes the past two Sundays, kicking the tires, so to speak, on Osteen. When someone is hyped as much as he is, and you have some experience with movements that follow a man, then a few minutes listening to what someone like Osteen has to say, since he's wildly popular, is just staying abreast of an opponent, in my opinion.

Interestingly, in catching up with my Long Reads Twitter feed, I came across this article from The Atlantic Online, written by Hanna Rosin, provocatively titled, "Did Christiantiy Cause the Crash?"

Rosin's lengthy, well-written piece explores the prepondarance of preachers that peddle the prosperity message to tens of millions of Americans. While Osteen gets a mention, there are many other messengers that are promoting a brand of Christian faith that is a different kind of animal than the one I once embraced, and different than espoused by traditional evangelical theology. The article provides a blow-by-blow account of the gullibility of many that profess to be following Christ. It also shows that P.T. Barnum's adage about suckers is still alive and well in America.

Called by God

2009-12-05T10:39:00.005-05:00

One of the things that I've gleaned from tracking stats for this site (beyond never having as much traffic as I'd like) is that writing connected to me, personally, seems to do much better, and attracts more hits, than most commentary on politics and culture. My music posts also do quite well, as well as anything tied to sports, although the post on Tiger Woods landed like fart in church.

With that in mind, and since I have quite a bit of material "in the can" that isn't ready to publish in various other forms--plus I have a desire to "test run" some of it--I've made a decision to post it at Write in Maine, my blog targeting writing--my own and the writing of other formidably more talented writers.

If you've been visiting Words Matter for awhile, you know about my experiences, "shipwrecked" in Indiana, after washing out as a student at Hyles-Anderson College, in beautiful Northwest Indiana, America's post-industrial armpit. In two weeks, it will be the 26th anniversary of our son's birth in Hammond, Indiana.

If you would like to know a bit more about my experiences in Indiana, and how I ended up there, head over to read my most recent post, about being called to preach.

There are times that I think I have a book about those unique experiences. Other times, I wonder if there is a demand for a memoir about a 22-year-old "kid" trying to find himself, thinking he's called by God to preach, and stranded with an equally young, pregnant wife, 1,500 miles from home, and the subsequent journey out from the bowels of a movement that was more cult, than actual religious movement.

My first in what I hope will be a series is called, "Call to preach."

Tiger tales

2009-12-02T16:57:00.003-05:00

I don’t spend much time keeping up on the lives of celebrities. Since much of what passes for journalism is often no more than celebrity voyeurism, I have dramatically cut back on news watching, and my newspaper reading. Tiger Woods’ recent car accident is a case in point—not so much the accident, but the media fallout afterwards, and his apparent affair(s).

While tabloid fish wraps like The Enquirer, as well as publications like London’s Telegraph, and a slew of other North American mainstream pubs have been slinging salacious allegations about the world’s top golfer, there are precious few journalists out there delving into more substantive issues regarding Woods, his image, and other questionable activities that fan out far beyond this recent incident, whether or not it involves marital infidelity.

[Reuters photo]

One writer, who regularly covers a different side of sports than do most writers running that beat is Dave Zirin. His recent article at The Nation, where he serves as their sports editor, takes a look at areas of Woods’ reputation that never get talked about—his long-term relationship with Chevron, a company with an abysmal environmental record, not to mention their strong ties to Burma’s ruling military junta.

As Zirin notes, the press has been virtually silent about Woods while he’s made “deals that benefit dictatorships and unaccountable corporations, all in the name of his billion-dollar brand.” All of that’s ok. What he’s now being scrutinized over is his alleged marital infidelities, which are routine for entertainment types like Woods.

Zirin’s right—where was the press before now, when he was taking tainted millions from corporations, governments, and lending his name to golf courses in exotic locales built by slave labor—they were silent. Of course, in America, corporate malfeasance and exploitation of people are much less serious "sins" than cheating on one's wife.

Check out Zirin weekly at his Edge of Sports site.

Post-Thanksgiving turkey talk

2009-11-29T14:48:00.004-05:00

I’m still recovering from Thursday’s excesses. The extra four pounds I packed on has been halved, however. I hit the gym hard both Friday and again this morning, mixing in weights with an hour of cardio each time. By Tuesday morning, which is weigh-in day, I anticipate being back to my pre-Thanksgiving weight. Not too bad, and actually, if I hadn’t engaged in an evening binge of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and creamed onions, just a mere four hours after a dessert of pumpkin pie and apple crisp, I might already be back to my low ebb. I guess one food binge in 23 weeks isn’t too bad.

I spent time doing other things besides eating the past few days. One of the wonders of having time, and not being forced by work, and life in general to approximate a hamster on a wheel, is it gives us time to reflect, and even reconsider our modus operandi.

Over four days, I read, spent some time with my wife and son (home from Brown), played cards, and watched an amazing panel discussion yesterday, on C-SPAN2’s BookTV. The panel featured Chris Hedges, George Packer, and Sam Tanenhaus, taped a few weeks back, during the Miami Book Festival.

The panel, on “politics and culture” allowed all three authors to talk about their new books. Rarely are three erudite and articulate authors featured on television. In fact, television has long ago decided that it would rather trot out blow-dried talking heads and guests playing around the borders of credibility, rather than providing viewers with something more than mere sound bites, or endless harangues back and forth between so-called experts.

Chris Hedges, in describing his latest book, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle, a book he details by way of synopsis as a book about how Americans are “the most illusioned (sic) nation on the planet; we have become utterly disconnected from who we are, what we represent and where we are going—and replaced it with fantasy.”

Some of what Hedges discussed as part of the panel is the same ground that the late Neil Postman tilled two decades ago, when things weren't as dire. Hedges brings a critique of capitalism, however, into the mix, which I think puts his content into a more contemporary window than a mere rehash of Postman.

Packer, a longtime writer for The New Yorker, has released a book of essays called, Interesting Times: Writings From a Turbulent Decade. The essays are what Packer termed “long-form narrative journalism,” a type of journalism that is almost disappeared, outside the pages of a few print publications, one of them being The New Yorker.

Packer describes his book as being about places in the world—East and West Africa, Burma—that have fallen off the radar in the post-9-ll world we now inhabit. Packer, in unpacking one of his essays, about the civil war taking place in the Ivory Coast, described a group of 12 and 13-year-old soldiers that he met while in their country. They were all wearing t-shirts featuring the faces of either Osama Bin Laden, or George Bush.

When Packer asked these kid soldiers about their t-shirts, their thoughts and ideas were a “crazy mish mash” of images and slogans and ideas—some if it coming from hip-hop culture in the U.S. and some of it paying homage to Islamic jihadism.

After he had these conversations, Packer was able to have another discussion with an Italian doctor in the country working for a humanitarian medical organization. When Packer shared his conversation, and the images on the two t-shirts, this doctor said that this was a “perverse affect of globalization,” and called it “contagion by media.”

Today’s world is such that 24/7 media, via images that are broadcast through the web and global satellites, rather than knitting the world together, seems to be driving the citizens of that world apart, perpetuating violence and conflict.

Global media tends to frustrate, and promote alienation, according to Packer. The images that they are exposed to are selective, and provide an “intense, but very narrow view of the world.”

Americans, on the other hand, are receiving “sanitized” views of the wars taking place across the world. We’re bombarded by information and images, but rather than providing clarity and complexity to our thinking about the world, rather, most Americans hold a very simplistic, black and white view of the world.

Packer’s book of essays chronicles the world from the events on 9-11, to the rise of Barack Obama’s political star.

The third panelist featured, Sam Tanenhaus, spoke about his new book, The Death of Conservatism, a book that traces the lineage of modern conservatism, a form that Tanenhaus characterizes as “movement conservatism,” in contrast to the “traditional” form of conservatism that most right-wing gas bags, like Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck, know little about.

Tanenhaus argued points about how Republicans must moderate their focus on ideological purity if they are to return from the political wilderness and offered a historical context, talking about Edmund Burke, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon (who Tanenhaus characterized as “one of the most liberal presidents of the modern era.”

While Hedges was a bit “testy” during an exchange with Tanenhaus, the interplay, and the response to the audience members’ questions were some of the most interesting analysis I’ve listened to for quite a period about the current place we’re in here in America, with Hedges and Packer extending this out into the global sphere.

Interestingly, since joining the gym several weeks ago, I now am treated to semi-occasional glimpses at news channels, like Fox, while on the treadmill, or using the elliptical trainer. I rarely can watch more than one segment, but that brief look at what news has become—mere entertainment, with a veneer of credibility—is what Tanenhaus was talking about.

Here is the link to CSPAN’s archive of the panel.

There is an amazing sequence around the 26:00 minute mark, with Hedges answering a question, and gives a real clear delineation of what has happened to capitalism, with the shift from a “penny capitalism,” which Hedges describes by way of his experiences growing up in a farming community where farmers brought their wares to market and were paid, to the current form—described by Hedges as “corporate capitalism,” which he makes the point has radically upended American politics.

This 5-6 minute section is well worth watching for anyone that would appreciate hearing a clear understanding of where we are, and even, how we got there. It’s the kind of trenchant analysis you’ll never hear on Fox, CNN, or sadly, even NPR, which has become an apologist by-and-large for corporate benefactors.

I’m looking forward to reading all three of these books. I’d go a step beyond and say that if you are fortunate enough to have sophisticated friends, or family members that still care about narrative journalism, any of these three books would make an excellent Christmas gift.

In response to a question about Obama, Hedges refers to him as a “brand,” much like Calvin Klein, or Benetton were able to brand themselves with HIV/AIDS culture through ads trivializing the disease back in the-mid-1990s. Obama has not veered at all from the policies of the Bush administration, despite the ideological hoopla passing as journalism, as well as the antinomian tendencies of many on the right, and even on the pages of mainstream publications like the Wall Street Journal that likes to pose as an institution of "old journalism," but at least since Rupert Murdoch took over ownership reins, more and more resembles the far right's print cousin.

As Hedges accurately indicates, Obama is a mere “figurehead,” and has been “emasculated” by corporate interests, the very same interests that have orchestrated the single largest wealth transfer upwards in American history, from the working and middle classes, to the rich.

Shuffle Play Friday-Shop 'til You Drop

2009-11-27T11:08:00.003-05:00

Chuck Prophet-American Man/Let Freedom Ring

Prophet, former front man for Green on Red, a Tuscon-based roots rock outfit, loosely associated with LA’s Paisley Underground movement (along with Steve Wynn and Rain Parade).
Prophet’s new record, Let Freedom Ring, was recorded in Mexico City, not your typical locale for rock inspiration. Yet, as Prophet indicates in an article he penned for The Huffington Post, Mexico City has some interesting musical energy floating about.

“There's energy in the air. Bands sprouting up out of the cracked sidewalks. These days any kid can find the weird culture that suits him on the Web. It's surreal, but a delight, to see gangs of kids walking down the street in the Roma Norte district dressed as if they were in Kings of Leon.”

Pants Yell!!-Cold Hands/Received Pronunciation

Slumberland Records remains uniquely independent as a label and Pants Yell!! is my new favorite band name. Anchored by singer/guitarist Andrew Churchman, the band deftly maneuvers through nine jangly indie-pop songs in less than half an hour on the band's fourth album, and their first for Slumberland.

It’s hard to believe that Slumberland’s been around since 1989. Along with Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance at Merge, Slumberland remains one of the few indie mainstays that have managed to persevere into the 21st century’s fragmented musical environment of iPod shuffle’s, music downloads, and a general apathy for independent music.

Slumberland has always been, and remains proud to be hailed as a “pop” label. As the Slumberland notes for the new Pants Yell!! record, the band has found their “spiritual home” on the label.

Bon Jovi-Superman Tonight/The Circle

Bon Jovi are rock legends. Love ‘em, or hate ‘em, this Jersey rock icon has been pumping out rockage for 26 years. That alone warrants attention.

The epitome of corporate rock in many ways, and the very antithesis of what usually entices me to a band, or performer, I have my few mainstream musical vices and Bon Jovi are one of them. I don’t apologize for this. Every man has to have a place where he can pull out an anthem, and Bon Jovi are anthemic.

What’s interesting is that while the band’s early chart success and their phenomenal album sales guarantee financial comfort, the band hasn’t necessarily taken the comfortable route the past decade, or longer. While they could certainly “dial it in” and put out rehashes of their former hits like “Livin’on a Prayer,” “Wanted, Dead or Alive,” and “You Give Love a Bad Name,” as well as other chart toppers, their last few albums have actually taken some stylistic risks, like 2007’s Lost Highway, a very solid record, with a strong roots/country influence and vibe. Bon Jovi hasn’t shied away from reinventing themselves.

Of course, when you have Jon Bon Jovi fronting your band, still making women of all ages hot, at 47, it’s easy to overlook that Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora are talented songwriters, and the rest of the band, talented musicians. Hell, turning heads of women at 47 is an accomplishment in and of itself.

The Superman motif is something I’m attuned to. I actually had an earlier SPF focused on songs related to it. Lately, at least in my work life, I’ve felt like I have had to don a cape almost every day for the past three months.

Wesley Willis-Rock and Roll McDonalds/Greatest Hits, Volume 1

It’s the day after Thanksgiving. You’ve over-indulged and all good things you’ve accomplished on the weight-loss front have gone up in flames. In light of that, go out today and pig out at McDonalds. Have a Quarter Pounder w/ cheese and be sure to super-size that order of fries between your shopping stops during Black Friday . Hell, have two Quarter Pounders, a Big Mac, a super-sized order of fries, an apple pie (do they still have the deep fried pies that scald your mouth?), and wash it down with a large serving of Coca-Cola.

I don’t know why this song popped into my head yesterday, while eating turkey. Maybe that’s what caloric overload does—it alters brain chemistry.

The late Wesley Willis was a unique talent. Willis had been diagnosed as a chronic schizophrenic. His music and art (he produced hundreds of unusual colored ink-pen drawings, most of them of Chicagoland and various streetscapes) percolated with the details of life’s little things—like McDonalds—filtered through his special worldview.

Here’s what Jello Biafra wrote upon learning of Willis’ death:

As I got to know Wesley, what really struck me was his sheer will power, his unrelenting drive to succeed and over come a horrifically poor background, child abuse, racism, chronic schizophrenia and obesity among other things. He was the most courageous person I have ever known. Yet through it all he had such a deep, all-encompassing love of life. Little things, big things. He loved bus rides. He loved watching trains. He loved writing songs about how much he loved his friends. He loved traveling to new towns so he could headbutt new friends. Is there any band he saw that escaped being in their own song about how much he loved their show? He was so warm, so sweet, so giving. He could be a handful when he came to visit; but as soon as he left, we'd miss him immediately.

A Big Mac has 29 grams of fat. A Quarter Pounder w/cheese has 34 grams of fat.

Writing about food

2009-11-26T11:22:00.002-05:00

Thanksgiving Day is a day when we enjoy food like few other times during the year. In a country that has lost the ability to cook, Thanksgiving is one of the few days when the kitchen stove gets fired up and food is actually prepared, and shared.

In light of that, I thought it was fitting that The New Yorker the week of Thanksgiving included four captivating “improvisations” about food preparation. These were penned by Judith Thurman, writing about aspic, Anthony Lane on eggs, Jhumpa Lahiri, about her father’s recipe for a rice dish that she referred to as pulao, and finally, Heston Blumenthal on duck.

Food writing is something I’m developing an interest in. What I find interesting about the best writing in this category is that it is often about much more than mere ingredients in a recipe, or simply reviews of restaurants and haute cuisine. Food, like most other subjects, has its own rhythm, politics, culture, and is often connected intimately to people, as well as their geography.

Lahiri’s improvisation was especially of interest because I had just read her essay in State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America, a marvelous book that seeks to update the state guidebooks that were created by the WPA’s Federal Writer’s Project. She’s a wonderful writer, who covered Rhode Island for this captivating collection of state essays, where I first met her father.

Lahiri writes,

But there is another rice that my father is more famous for. This is not the white rice, boiled like pasta and then drained in a colander, that most Bengalis eat for dinner. This other rice is pulao, a baked, buttery, sophisticated indulgence, Persian in origin, served at festive occasions. I have often watched him make it. It involves sautéing grains of basmati in butter, along with cinnamon sticks, cloves, bay leaves, and cardamom pods. In go halved cashews and raisins (unlike the oatmeal raisins, these must be golden, not black). Ginger, pulverized into a paste, is incorporated, along with salt and sugar, nutmeg and mace, saffron threads if they’re available, ground turmeric if not. A certain amount of water is added, and the rice simmers until most of the water evaporates. Then it is spread out in a baking tray. (My father prefers disposable aluminum ones, which he recycled long before recycling laws were passed.) More water is flicked on top with his fingers, in the ritual and cryptic manner of Catholic priests. Then the tray, covered with foil, goes into the oven, until the rice is cooked through and not a single grain sticks to another.

Today is a day when I’ll sit down around the table with family, like many others. I know that I will appreciate the bounty and variety of foods that I’ll be sharing with others in our home.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, my regulars, and all the others that may have stumbled upon my writing, here at Words Matter.

Writers that kick

2009-11-24T16:39:00.004-05:00

I'm sending this video to the Baltimore Ravens. I don't care if my son is enrolled in an MFA program, and wants to be a writer. Hell, on the strength of this video, he might get a tryout and if he kicks well, get a 10-day tryout.

He is going to play football, goddamit!

I kicked field goals all day from Mark Baumer on Vimeo.

I hope Billy Cundiff misses all his kicks this Sunday. Oh no! I just found out he kicked at Drake, collegiately, which makes a pretty good guy in my book, so I guess a football career for Mark is no big deal.

He's coming home for Thanksgiving and I'll hold if he wants to practice after dinner.

Know thy farmers

2009-11-22T06:04:00.005-05:00

There are many things that industrial production has done to rob Americans of food’s value and benefit. One of the most basic things lost is our ability to enjoy food’s simplicity and its most basic components—things like vegetables, fruits, simple cheeses—and just as important, we’ve forgotten the culture of food that probably has been lost, beginning with our parents, possibly, but most likely, with us.

Michael Pollan, one of the best writers currently writing about food, touched on the phenomenon of American’s rabid interest in watching people cook and prepare food—some of it quite exotic—yet at the same time, they don’t cook, or take much interest beyond watching regarding their own food and its preparation. Or, as Pollan puts it, “the rise of Julia Child as a figure of cultural consequence — along with Alice Waters and Mario Batali and Martha Stewart and Emeril Lagasse and whoever is crowned the next Food Network star — has, paradoxically, coincided with the rise of fast food, home-meal replacements and the decline and fall of everyday home cooking.” Paradox indeed!

One of the things that my wife and I have found exciting is the amount of fresh locally grown foods that we can locate within 2-30 miles of our home. I think it’s much like that in many other parts of Maine, a state that isn’t considered a major agricultural producer. Trips this summer and fall on Saturday mornings to the state’s best farmer’s market, in Portland, have convinced us that Maine has a vibrant farming community around Portland, as well as many other communities nearby. It’s like that through much of the state, actually.

A quick 20-30 minute walk among the assorted, colorful vendor’s booths revealed familiar vegetables like carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, potatoes, and lettuce. Other favorites, like beets, turnips, and parsnips also bid us hello. Even better, we began asking about other vegetables (one of the additional benefits of farmer’s markets—you get to talk to the experts who know the most about their products), discovering a wonderful root crop, like celeriac (or celery root), which is wonderful in soups, as well as kohlrabi (also called, German turnip), which has a texture like broccoli root and makes an awesome slaw.

As fall set in and many of the smaller outdoor markets ended for the season, like in Brunswick (held on the mall and on Saturdays as Crystal Spring Farm), a group of local farmers began holding an indoor market at Fort Andross, near the bridge between Brunswick and Topsham. This Saturday morning market, begun in 2008, now boasts over 30 vendors, with a wealth of vegetable, meat, and cheese options available to shoppers.

[Fort Andross in Brunswick; a former mill, it is now home to the winter farmer's market]

Not only does Saturday bring out many local farmers, but other vendors include some amazing artisan bread makers, including a local favorite of ours, Judy’s Kitchen, of Durham, who bakes breads, pies, pickles a variety of vegetables, and now is producing ChowChow. Chowchow, is a relish made from a combination of different vegetables: green and red tomatoes, onions, cabbage, carrots, beans, asparagus, cauliflower and pies, which are pickled in a jar and served cold. The name is based on the French word chou for cabbage.

I have come to enjoy these forays each week to the farmer’s market. Not only do Mary and I get to pick from some of the best locally grown produce, grain-fed beef, free-range turkey, and even freshly harvested fish, we are getting to know our local food producers, ask questions about farming, and we have become connected to the food chain in a way that would never happen relying solely on our local supermarket.

In closing, Mary and I have made positive lifestyle changes, dating back to June. While both of us have lost significant amounts of weight (50 pounds for me and 26 for Mary), the more lasting result has been to get a handle on the way we eat, particularly choosing local options whenever we can get them. We still go to the local supermarket, mainly for our staples, but more and more, we are finding local food to be a better choice, and even in Maine, with winter rapidly bearing down on us, it appears that we’ll be able to stay connected to our local purveyors during the months between growing seasons.

Last night’s menu:

--Salad made from lettuce and fresh mixed greens, fresh carrots, and local broccoli (all grown within 30 miles of our home)
--Mary whipped up a warm Vinaigrette (Giada De Laurentiis’ recipe)
--Leftover minestrone/vegetable soup from the previous week’s farmer’s market run, which included locally grown parsnip, turnip, and celeriac root.
--Bread from a local bread maker that practically melted in our mouths and was the perfect accompaniment to our meal

Lastly, there’s an appreciation that comes from a meal like this one, shared together at our dining room table, not in a restaurant, or in front of the television. Conversation occurs, the food is enjoyed, and food becomes something sensual between people and helps ground and connect us.

Shuffle play Friday-Workin' for the Man

2009-11-20T04:43:00.008-05:00

Four songs, and the briefest SPF yet. Work has been kicking my ass up and down I-95, and then beating me over the head every evening, and even in the early morning hours when I usually have time to write. Hopefully this stretch ends soon.

No time to write, with little time for music makes Mr. Jimmy a cranky boy.

Did I once say “I love my job?”

Kathleen Edwards-Hockey Skates/Failer

Kathleen Edwards burst onto the music scene in 2003 with her critically acclaimed Failer disc. You couldn’t turn on the radio and not here one of her songs being played on Adult Contemporary radio.

Edwards cites Neil Young as one of her influences, which makes sense if you’re a Canadian singer-songwriter. Being Canadian, Edwards also sings about Canada’s most favorite export—hockey.

I like Edwards’ writing. It’s gritty, and there are a wealth of references I connect with. Oddly, as Pitchfork noted, Edwards also produces the kind of stuff that wins “Grammys and sits on the coffee tables of well-behaved urbanites, who will shiver a bit when Edwards says ‘fuck,’ but quickly grin and giggle at her candor, clinking their martini glasses.” That’s irony, I guess.

John Doe-The Golden State/A Year In The Wilderness

John Doe has been a favorite of mine since I first “discovered” LA punk legends, X, back in the early 80s. Once you hear them, you never get Doe and Exene Cervanka’s restless harmonies out of your head.

Doe’s continued to record, act in films, and maintain a frantic work schedule that puts many of his younger peers to shame.

Interestingly, Doe and Edwards toured together back in the fall of 2008, co-headlining 11 dates, and she contributed vocals on Doe’s 2007 release. Their harmony on this track takes me back to when I first heard Doe and Cervanka for the first time. Of course, there’s only one Exene.

The Bottle Rockets-Indianapolis/24 Hours a Day

This is shit-kicking at its finest. One of the best stuck-in-the-middle-of-nowhere tunes ever written, IMHO.

This song nails a band’s worst nightmare, “broke-down” in a place that while, technically a city, isn’t exactly the cultural milieu where the songwriter wants to stranded. I think this line is so apropos to the singer’s plight:

Sittin' in this bar is gettin' more than I can stand,
If I could catch a ride, would they think I ditched this band.
Who knows what this repair'll cost, scared to spend a dime.
I'll puke if that jukebox plays John Cougar one more time!

The Bottle Rockets are one of many American bands that crank out fine tune, after stellar track, in relative obscurity. Since forming in 1992, the boys from Festus, Missouri have churned out 10 records, with nary a bad one in the bunch. This one, along with The Brooklyn Side are my favorites, with Zoysia being a close third.

Think Uncle Tupelo, with a bit more southern twang.

30 Seconds to Mars-Kings and Queens/Kings and Queens

I now try to catch Robin Ivy’s Zodiac Zone each day, leaving the house for another long work day. Ivy’s the longtime morning DJ on the only rock station left in southern Maine that plays music newer than 20 years old. Ivy gives her daily astrological forecast, and also provides the “color for the day.” She also gives daily music news updates, which is where I caught her talking about Thirty Seconds Over Mars and the short film, The Ride, set to their song, "Kings and Queens."

Set in Santa Monica, the film features hundreds of riders, descending on Santa Monica’s historic pier, where I spent some time, back in April. The film’s cool, so check it out.

For those who don’t follow music, or may know little about the band, 30 Seconds to Mars is actor Jared Leto’s band, formed back in 1998 with his brother, Shannon.

Jon Nolan-Hope, AR/When the Summers Lasted Long

Jon Nolan at one time fronted Say Zuzu, one of the best alt-country bands I’ve had the pleasure to catch live. I happened to see them the first time, at the Cumberland Fair, where they burned through a set for about 20 people. Subsequent live sets never failed to leave me in awe and wondering why they never had the success they obviously deserved. Did I mention that they were just great guys and always emanated appreciation for their fans.

Say Zuzu, who hailed from neighboring New Hampshire, slogged across many miles and American landscapes in their infamous “Bull,” their tour bus (and the title of their 1998 record) . Much bigger in Italy than they ever were stateside, nevertheless, to have seen and heard the band over their decade long run is to have loved them and their music.

Nolan, who is now plays mostly local gigs as a solo artist, released the amazing When The Summers Lasted Long in 2008, his debut disc.

“Hope, AR” is the final track on the song, and like “Indianapolis,” uses the locale of a breakdown to pen an ode to life on the road, at least the less enjoyable aspects of being a touring rock musician. It also happens to be the birthplace of our 42nd president, William Jefferson Clinton.

Changing your orientation

2009-11-16T17:19:00.003-05:00

How do you develop a habit? Procrastination is a habit, which is developed by never following through on anything. Are lifestyle changes anything more than just an alteration of habits? How long does it take to make significant changes in areas like eating, exercise, or developing the habit of writing (yes, developing your writing craft is a habitual activity)?

There is a myth that is perpetuated by online research (basically, a Google search with the string, “how long does it take for something to become a habit”) that says that breaking a habit takes 21 days. Gretchen Rubin, at Psychology Today’s blog, The Happiness Project, had a post about this, back in October. I just ran across it.

Rubin links to an article and study that shows that developing even simple habits “could take us over two months of daily repetitions before the behaviour becomes a habit.”

Positive changes don’t happen overnight (or in 21 days). It involves a change in orientation, which is what I’ve been experiencing in my own life, given the lifestyle changes I’ve made. While the feedback I’m now receiving via self-evaluation and from others can be flattering, it was literally weeks, and even months before that occurred.

Significant changes require a mindset and a determination to do the right thing, long before a habit becomes ingrained, and often before the changes are noticed by others. Better, success in anything isn't about a lucky rabbit's foot, a talisman or amulet, weird diets, or self-help videos.

Shuffle play Friday-Poker 101

2009-11-12T19:36:00.005-05:00

My intention has been for SPF to be at best, a semi-regular feature here at Words Matter. If not necessarily a fresh post every Friday, certainly a couple of posts per month on one of my favorite subjects—music—I never intended to drop the ball for three weeks, however.

A lot has happened since I last posted my last SPF. Ironically, my last SPF three weeks ago found me repping the number three, as in Joel Plaskett’s triple record, the triply delightful Three.

Over the past 21 days, I joined a gym, have lost a few more pounds, and I’m not too pleased to mention that my home state decided to dubiously embrace its state motto of Dirigo (means, “I lead”) by becoming the first state to reject a gay-marriage law that was approved by the legislature and signed by our governor—same-sex couples are now second class citizens in our state. Music, as always continues to provide support, inspiration, and a soundtrack by which to navigate this veil of tears.

Poker Rapper-Squeeze Play/10 Card Commandments

Poker Rapper, aka J. Taka, is married to my niece. To me, he’s simply been JT. Little did I know that this always funny, and sometimes retiring member of my extended family was destined to become a poker legend.

By day, he’s a network engineer, IT geek (in the best sense of the word), and all-around good guy, but when the night falls, he’s a poker rapping fool. He now has a new mixtape/CD out, announcing to the world that he knows how to squeeze, stall, and grind with the best of them.

Actually, JT (as I’ll forever know him, blowing up, or not) is no stranger to Maine hip-hop fans, the creator/founder of longtime online hip-hop oasis, Appleton Radio.

I ordered the disc two weeks ago and had it sitting around on my stereo. Two days ago, I threw it into my CD player upstairs and began blasting it during a treadmill session. The 10 tracks got me through my workout and then some.

Bisson obviously knows his stuff, as he recently proved by winning a trip to the Aruba Poker Classic via Ultimate Bet, and having the chance to rap, and also sit at the table with some of the legends (all verified in the best journalistic fashion by asking his wife) of poker.

Pick up the disc (or download from the site) and Bisson will have you talking poker smack like a true champion.

The Hold Steady-Chill Out Tent/Boys and Girls in America

In May 2007, I made a trip back to Indiana, scene of my fundamentalist train wreck some 20 years earlier. I chronicled the “Pleasantville” qualities of my first day, and subsequent observations returning to the land of Hyles.

Tucked into my suitcase were six CDs I had brought with me, one of them being The Hold Steady’s BAGIA, which became the soundtrack for my daily journeys, first exploring NW Indiana’s post-industrial wasteland, and later in the week, when I journeyed across farm country, to Fort Wayne, reconnecting with an old Bible school buddy, now pastoring an inner-city church, while engaged in many interesting entrepreneurial ventures in another post-industrial Midwestern hub.

I’ve written before about the lyrical genius of Craig Finn, and his former band, the legendary Lifter Puller. The Hold Steady, Finn’s current focus, are a band that are destined to be under-appreciated by fickle rock connoisseurs, a band that Pitchfork accurately (in my opinion) characterizes as sounding better “sandwiched between "Born to Run" and "Back in Black" than Illinois and Tigermilk. In other words, the more likely you are to use music as a social lubricant than as a social balm, the more likely you are to enjoy the Hold Steady.” What that means, I think, is that The Hold Steady get shunned by some in the indie scene because they aren’t weird, or quirky, or lack any historical context for their music. Instead, Finn writes literate lyrics that tell stories about people we all know, and the band packs a wallop, equally capable of carrying off their rockmanship in a club setting, or an arena.

‘Tis the nature of today’s fragmented world of rock and roll.

This particular tune, which captures the day in the life of two disparate characters—the college girl from Bowdoin and the working class stiff, who takes the day off, “his first day off in forever, man,” who shows up at the musical festival in “western Mass.,” probably Amherst, and how their two worlds of polar opposites and separate social classes get shoved together when both O.D. during one of the musical sets.

The Bowdoin Girl:

there was a stage and a PA up in western massachuttes,and the kids came from miles around to get messed up on the music.and she drove down from Bowdoin with a carload of girlfriends,to meet some boys and maybe eat some mushroomsand they did and she got sickand now she's pinned and way too shaky.she don't wanna tell the doctor everything she's takenthe paramedics hovered over her like a somber mourning familythey gave her activating charcoal, they flooded her with saline

The Working Class Stiff:

he was rough around the edges:he'd been to school, but never finished,he'd been to jail, but never prison.it was his first day off in forever, manthe festival seemed like a pretty good plan,cruise some chicks and get a sun-tan.and his friend gave him four, but said only take one,but then he got bored and ended up taking all four.ah, so now my man ain't that bored anyways,the paramedics found him: he was shaking on the side of the stage.

And then the chorus:

Him (the boy):"Everything was spinning and I came to in the chillout tent,they gave me oranges and cigarettes."Her (the girl):"I got really hot and then I came to in the chillout tent"Both:"They gave us oranges and cigarettes."

Great, great song, and just one of many Finn masterpieces across a career that will one day be lionized I’m sure, posthumously.

Simon Scott-Spring Stars/Navigare

Simon Scott once drummed for Slowdive, one of those great turn-of-the-90s bands, in the same vein as Galaxy 500, My Bloody Valentine, Mazzy Star, and a host of others that got lumped in as being “shoegazer.”

Slowdive’s Souvlaki, which came out in 1993, was voted by the Guardian as “one of the top 50 albums to hear before you die,” in 2007. Quite heady praise, indeed.

Scott has a new solo record out, and this track, first heard on Irene Trudel’s weekly two hours of wonder on WFMU, features a nice slide guitar carrying the melody, and the song has a textural quality that works well.

I actually found an interesting music site that includes an interesting track-by-track analysis of the record by Scott.

In-Flight Safety-Model Homes/We Are An Empire

In keeping with my Canadian musical fixation of late, In-Flight-Safety gives me no reason to abandon that orientation.

“Model Homes” is possessed by a plaintive, mournful melody that speaks volumes, connecting personally with me to where I’m at, where I’ve come from, and possibly where I’m headed.

Good songwriting has the capacity to speak to people across a variety of experiences, and I think this tune is one of those songs that does that very well. Based in musically fertile Halifax, IFS create atmosphere and textures with their sound.

John Mullane, IFS’s vocalist describes their sound as “cinematic.” Since I love cinema, and I dig their sound, I’d say he’s done a good job with that description.

The band’s been around since 2003 and We Are An Empire indicates that the best is yet to come.

Yo La Tengo-Periodically Double or Triple/Popular Songs

YLT are indie rock royalty. Popular Songs is album #16 for the band over their 25-year career. That’s a lifetime given that most bands outside of rock’s limelight rarely put out a second, or a third record.

It’s rare in underground rock’s fragmented universe of musical schizophrenia, to find a band that consistently produces good to great music every time they come out with a new release. There are few other bands that occupy that rarefied status—possibly Sonic Youth, and maybe Built to Spill—certainly few others with the track record and consistency of YLT.

I can never get enough of Ira Kaplan’s guitar wankery, particularly when it is accompanied by James McNew’s soaring organ. On this one, however, there is a more subdued approach, at least at the beginning. This particular track features McNew’s funk organ swirls on a Motown-influenced groove. The last three tracks ratchet up the noise and allow the trio to stretch out, clocking in at 9:39, 11:25, and the epic closer, “All The Glitter Is Gone,” with a track length of 15:54.

It’s hard to believe that it was 15 years ago that I first saw the band for free, playing one of the lounges at Bowdoin College. It appears that the band’s lost nothing with over time, continuing to defy the tendency to become a parody, or nostalgia act, a scourge for many of their aging rock peers.

Industrial food in America

2009-11-10T21:44:00.005-05:00

The older I get, I continue to marvel at how little I truly comprehend the level of "fucked-upness" that pervades the culture I'm trapped living in the midst of. Take for instance, food--or something closely resembling the industrial approximation that comprises the diet of average Americans.

Writing about food is a lot like writing about religion. Americans generally know little about either topic, but that doesn't stop them from getting offended when you broach the subject. Better, both topics are chock full of misinformation, myth, and downright destructive ideologies.

I just got done listening to Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, on CD. I'd read most of The Omnivore's Dilemma, and have consistently sought out his columns in the New York Times and other places, writing about food in America. Pollan regularly has stated that the food system in our country is a matter of national importance. It rarely is framed, however, in almost any political debate, or discussion.

What I love about Pollan is that his writing on the topic hits us right between the eyes, like when he wrote back in July, in the New York Times Magazine “How is it that we are so eager to watch other people browning beef cubes on screen but so much less eager to brown them ourselves? For the rise of Julia Child as a figure of cultural consequence — along with Alice Waters and Mario Batali and Martha Stewart and Emeril Lagasse and whoever is crowned the next Food Network star — has, paradoxically, coincided with the rise of fast food, home-meal replacements and the decline and fall of everyday home cooking.” Food, like just about everything else in our land of make-believe has become just another spectator sport.

Because Americans have become ahistorical, Pollan's thoughts and ideas seem new, and somewhat offputting to anyone that thinks high fructose corn syrup is one of the essential food groups. Actually, others have firmly tamped this ground before, writers like Wendell Berry, before Pollan, and Joan Gussow both understood the connection between dietary health and its connection to our agriculture, and policies that drive it. One can even go back further to Sir Albert Howard, British botanist and organic farming pioneer, in the 19th century. Pollan references all three in his latest treatise on food, in which he indicts the American food industry as the cause for our plague of obesity, diabetes, coronary disease, and cancer, to name a few of the serious health issues that now are rampant across the U.S. Let's have a conversation about health care reform, and while having that conversation, let's also place part of the blame squarely where it belongs in this conversation; firmly on the American diet of highly processed, industrial foods.

I'm now more than four months into a journey that I don't plan on turning back from. I've faced up to some truths in my own diet that weren't easy to tackle at first. As weight has come off, and I've become conscious of what I'm putting into my mouth and body, the words of Pollan have resonated with me.

Health is more than how much you weigh, or how many times you exercise each week. Pollan boils his ideas down into their most basic element when he states, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

Not a bad manifesto for Americans to adopt.

Maine revisits Prohibition-era

2009-11-07T07:22:00.006-05:00

If you've ever attended a wine tasting, you'll know how informative and enjoyable these can be. For someone like me, who never knew much about wine, and whose experiences with the fruit of the vine consisted mainly of toasts with really bad, discounted wines at family gatherings, the past couple of years of occasional tastings accompanying the wine drinker in the family--my wife--have been great. I'm still no expert, but I now can tell the difference by taste between a cabernet, a merlot, or a shiraz.

Recently, Mary informed me about a law that has curtailed these monthly events at wine merchants across the state, including a couple of her favorite wine venues--RSVP, in Portland, and Freeport Cheese and Wine.

A new law, sponsored by Rep. David Webster (D-Freeport) has put a damper on wine tastings at wine merchants and other establishments that held these regularly. The new regulation requires every seller of wine to reapply for permission to hold wine tastings. Since Maine has only five inspectors covering the entire state, it has basically closed down an important element that merchants use in promoting, and ultimately selling wine.

My first forays into the world of wine tasting began about five years ago. A small shop in Freeport (now shuttered), whose owners happened to live in our town, sent out mailings to all the residents in town. Mary dragged me to my first event that July, and I've been a semi-regular at a variety of tastings in Freeport, Portland, and a few other locales since.

While I don't drink wine regularly (I'm a beer kinda' guy), I've come to appreciate a nice red with my steak, and particularly enjoy other varieties of wine with special meals. Sometimes, having a nice chianti Fridays, at pizza night is a great way to wind down after a demanding week.

Mary's been mentioning this issue now for several months, and this morning, she put the Portland Forecaster in my hands, doing something I often do with her--"here, read this article--"offering a better explanation of an issue than I can usually give. Her rationale was wanting me to have a broader sense of the issue with wine tastings, and how they've been shut down by a stupid piece of legislation.

Steve Mistler, who has written for this venerable monthly for quite some time, does a good job showing the idiocy of Webster's bill, and the consequent difficulties this has visited on businesses, many of them Webster's own constituents. What is particularly troubling is that it hurts small businesses particularly hard.

From my own experiences, it's not unusual for Mary and I, after attending a wine tasting, to pick up several bottles of various types of wines that we've just sampled and enjoyed. We might spend $50-100 that particular evening, and bring them home and have them in our wine refrigerator to enjoy with a meal in the future. Others do the same, with a few spending much more than that on wines. It's obvious to see that this legislation removes some serious cash flow from local businesses.

From Mistler's article, I gather that Webster was more concerned about supermarket liquor events where "booze, race cars and scantily-clad women" were going to be present. The article goes on further, doing a good job painting Webster as the "boob" that he is, when it has an additional quote from him saying that "we wanted to give parents a fighting chance to go to a grocery store and not have to wade through a sea of drinking adults." Some of the merchants that Mistler interviewed were none too pleased with Webster's explanation, including Peter Leavitt, of Leavitt & Sons Deli in Falmouth, who characterized the bill as "stupid," and "neo-Prohibitionist."

I understand New England's Puritan past, but good lord, why can't consenting adults be trusted enough to enjoy adult beverages without government nazis and anti-drinking zealots taking that away from us?

Post-election day, 2009

2009-11-04T03:54:00.006-05:00

Waking up in the wee hours, I went to Twitter first for my news, and then various news sites, often linked from Tweets--another example of how technology changes the way news travels and how we access it.

Sadly, Maine's opportunity to take the lead and be the first state in the country to endorse gay marriage via referendum was defeated, and the vote wasn't as close as pundits had predicted. One year after California's Proposition 8 struck down gay marriage in the country's largest state, it was hoped that Maine, might counter and endorse same-sex marriage, providing supporters with the political breakthrough they coveted. In the end, the effort was thwarted. Like in California, gay-marriage supporters were outflanked by those wanting to protect "traditional" marriage, and once again, Maine, like California before, with its Proposition 8 referendum, was flooded television ads warning voters that legalizing gay unions could change the way children are taught about marriage in schools, and other misinformation. Even worse, Maine's Catholic Diocese, an organization with no moral authority, used its tax-exempt status and pulpits to lobby against civil rights for all of Maine's citizens.

[Bangor Daily News photo/Bridget Brown]

I found this while surfing for results, a "Love letter to Maine" from a couple that hoped for a different result on Question 1.

Seeking election results, there were some positives for me as the results of the other questions were settled. Both question 2 and question 4, two other measures that I had been following closely were soundly defeated.

Here's the results from Tuesday, with most of Maine's precincts reporting:

Question 1

With 87 percent of precincts reporting, the campaign to overturn Maine’s same-sex marriage law won with 53 percent of the vote vs. 47 percent opposed to Question 1, according to unofficial results compiled by the Bangor Daily News.

Question 2

Question 2, one of two tax initiatives on the ballot, was trailing 74 percent to 26 percent as of 1 a.m. with 87 percent of statewide results tallied and it appears that it will be roundly defeated.

Queston 3

Maine voters rejected a move to repeal the state’s school district consolidation law, an initiative that was of greater concern in Maine's rural areas, than in the more populated parts of the state. It was voted down soundly, with a vote count of 284,117 to 201,203 — or 58.5 percent to 41.5 percent — against repealing the law.

Tuesday's vote appeared to have fallen largely along an urban-rural, north-south divide. Voters in Maine's southern counties --where cities and larger towns were largely exempted from merger requirements -- voted to keep the law.

Northern counties, where dozens of towns found themselves out of compliance with the law -- and now face more than $5 million in penalties starting July 1 -- voted in favor of erasing the mandate.

Question 4

Question 4, known as TABOR II (another in a long line of "taxpayer bill of rights" initiatives), conceded defeat shortly after 10 p.m. on Tuesday. With 87 percent of precincts tallied, the vote was 60 to 40 in oppostion.

Question 5

A proposal to expand the availability of medical marijuana in Maine was headed for passage late Tuesday night.

Question 5 would expand Maine's medical marijuana law to permit marijuana to be used for treatment of many more conditions, and to create a system in which patients can get the drug from nonprofit dispensaries.

With 136 precincts reporting statewide, 22 percent, the proposal was leading 71,620 to 43,244 -- a 62 percent to 38 percent edge.

Maine is one of 13 states that allow the use of medical marijuana, a group that includes Montana, Hawaii, Rhode Island and California.

Question 6

Voters in Maine supported a $71 million transportation bond nearly 2-to-1, according to unofficial voting results compiled by the Bangor Daily News.

With 87 percent of precincts reporting, more than 65 percent of voters said yes to Question 6.

Maria Fuentes, executive director of the Maine Better Transportation Association, was encouraged earlier in the evening with how widespread backing for the bond appeared.

“So far we are seeing that there is support both in rural and urban parts of Maine,” she said. “This year people are very anxious about the economy, but Maine people have been pretty consistent about supporting transportation bonds.”

Mainers have traditionally supported bond issues for transportation, given the state's rural character and dependence on roads, passing every transportation bond issue voted upon over the past 40 years.

Question 7

Question 7 on Maine’s ballot was a constitutional amendment designed to give clerical workers extra time to count signatures on citizen referendums and people’s vetoes.

Given that five of seven questions on this year’s ballot are people’s vetoes or citizen initiatives, each requiring at least 55,087 signatures to be approved as a ballot question, this puts a strain on municipal offices throughout the state as clerks and other personnel must verify each signature on petitions to ensure that they are registered voters. Because petitions are often submitted shortly before they are due, clerical staffers at municipal offices often don’t have the time to count signatures before they are required to return them to the circulators. Question 7 would have increased that time to 10 days. Municipal office staffers currently get five days.

With 87 percent of precincts reporting, 52.2 percent of voters, numbering about 252,332 had voted against the measure as of 1 a.m. On the other side, about 47.8 percent of voters, totaling 230,890 people, supported the measure.

Civics in the age of (dis)information

2009-11-01T08:34:00.004-05:00

One of the ongoing issues plaguing American politics, and by extension, any pretense towards dialogue, is the institutionalized ignorance brought about by our continued failure to properly provide instruction to our young in the area of civics. While other advanced societies, mainly western, provide a strong foundation to children in school, the U.S. fails mightily in this area. As a result, we must bear with ignorance at every turn, and often, turn of the radio knob, or channel scroll.

I met a woman a few years ago. We connected on a personal level, mainly through my books, and some of the things I’d written about my former hometown. Initially, our conversations were based on mutual interests and passion for people and for local places. Over time, however, I realized that we had political differences that were impossible to bridge. I was a left-leaning independent voter, with quasi-libertarian tendencies, and she was a right-wing ideologue, supporting people and ideas that I found abhorrent, and intellectually dishonest. Some of these ideas were plain bat-shit crazy.

This isn’t limited to my own small circle of acquaintances and the people I brush up against, either. Take for instance the entire “birther movement.” This group/movement has as their foundation the belief that Mr. Obama is ineligible to be our President because he is not a “natural born” citizen.

I had been hearing rumblings about this from the far right edges of the political landscape, but Elizabeth Kolbert’s article in The New Yorker helped bring it into sharper focus for me. Kolbert cites a poll indicating twenty-eight percent of Republicans surveyed don’t think that Obama was born in the U.S., and another 30 percent said they were unsure. Kolbert’s point, a somewhat scary one, is that over half of Republicans surveyed by this poll doubt the legitimacy of the U.S. government.

Tying this into technology, Kolbert references the writings of Cass R. Sunstein. Sustein taught for 27 years at the University of Chicago Law School. He now heads up the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. He is known as a prolific legal scholar who has produced a wide swath of written material, including four books on the topic of information, or better, the avalanche of information available via technology. Kolbert uses the term “virtual civics” to classify Sunstein’s four books about issues pertaining to truth, and the idea that if information is good, then more information must be better; or as Sunstein views it, “the Web has a feature that is even more salient: at the same time it makes more news available, it also makes more news avoidable.” Basically, if something doesn’t square with my presuppositions, often wedded to an ideological position, then to hell with it—I’ll just ignore it. Consumers can now filter what they see or hear. (See/hear no evil)

In Republic.com 2.0, Sunstein writes, “I do not mean to deny the obvious fact that any system that allows for freedom of choice will create some balkanization of opinion.” Choice now has been taken to a new level, and the consequences are not positive, in my opinion.

Group polarization—people’s tendency to become more extreme after speaking with other likeminded adherents—is becoming increasingly widespread and has infected American politics like the plague. This isn’t the bastion of right-wingers, either. Spend an hour, or so, reading the comment sections of Huffpo, the DailyKos and other well-trafficked left-wing blog sites, and you'll recognize that this tendency exists at both ends of the spectrum.

Because I’ve read Richard Hofstadter extensively, and also because much of what he wrote looks back on a time that now can be viewed within a historical context—helping provide a framework for our current period—I was pleased when Kolbert referenced the following snippet of Hofstadter’s description of an equally dark period, some 45 years ago, during the era of Barry Goldwater. Hofstadter wrote, “I call it (that period, which could easily be describing our current time) the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the qualities of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind.”

Never before has the need to beef up civics education been any more urgent than during our present time of disinformation.

You can test your own level of civics literacy here.

Here are my results:

You answered 28 out of 33 correctly — 84.85 %

Average score for this quiz during November: 77.7%
Average score: 77.7%

I missed the following (with their correct answers)-

Answers to Your Missed Questions:
Question #6 - D. establishing an official religion for the United States
Question #7 - D. Gettysburg Address
Question #10 - C. Religion
Question #26 - C. revenue minus expenses
Question #33 - D. tax per person equals government spending per person

Can exercise save us? If so, will we take it up?

2009-10-28T20:09:00.004-04:00

Americans are fat, or at least most Americans. In fact, statistics reveal that more Americans are obese than are merely overweight.

While I didn’t qualify for the former category, I certainly was on my way there, until reversing course back in June. My own experience the past 18 weeks has taught me some really important lessons that were validated this morning, when I found a link to this great story in the Financial Times, about Jerry Morris.

Who is Jerry Morris, you ask? Well Jerry Morris is a British researcher who came upon data that indicated an unprecedented number of people dying of heart attacks in Britain. Morris was the one that set up a vast study to look at heart-attack rates in people fromm a variety of occupations, primarily civil servants—schoolteachers, postmen, transport workers, and others.

As he began carefully sorting through this data, just after WWII (there were no computers to do this work back then), Morris had an inkling that heart attack rates were related to occupation. He was particularly interested in the busmen that were part of his data set. Partly this was do to the sample size being large, but also, he noted that the data was particularly telling in that the drivers and conductors were from the same social class, yet, conductors rates of heart attack was half that of the drivers. The only explanation that Morris could come up with was that the drivers were sedentary and the conductors on the double-decker busses had to climb up and down stairs, taking tickets all day.

Today, it’s a given that exercise can help lower the risk of heart disease. In 1949, however, Morris was the first one to make that connection.

The article goes on to mention that Morris began his connection to exercise in early childhood.

“My father used to take me on a four-mile walk from Glasgow once a week, when I was a schoolboy. We used to aim to do the four miles in an hour. If we did that OK, I got an ice-cream. If we did it in even a minute less, I got a choc-ice.”

Morris himself is now 101, and still regularly shows up for work at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where his office is.

The most interesting part of Morris’ study for me was the correlation between heart health and vigorous exercise.

When Morris compiled his research, an inordinate amount of these civil servants were gardeners—91 percent actually—it’s what “kept them sane,” Morris reported. He originally believed this would keep them from heart disease, but he found out that only vigorous exercise—running, biking, playing football, swimming, etc. had the capacity to do that.

In my own case, it wasn’t until I ramped up my activity, as well as becoming more conscious of how many calories I was taking in that I began to see any significant and consistent weight loss. Merely cutting calories wasn’t going to do it. Continuing to overeat also wasn’t helping. It required a combination, but physical activity was certainly a key factor in my success. It will continue to be, if I am to remain successful in keeping the weight (47 pounds as of this morning, btw) off.

I’ve mentioned Tyler before, he of 344pounds.com. He’s now down 123.6 pounds in 40 weeks. How’s he doing it? Yep; reducing calories, and of course, ramping up his physical activity.

Here’s a running routine he’s adopted.

Now that the days are growing shorter, I can’t bike after work. I’ve rediscovered my treadmill in the basement, and most mornings, I’m on it 35-40 minutes before work, and sometimes another 20-30 minutes in the evening.

This week’s been a challenge—for the past two mornings, I’ve had to leave the house before 7:00, headed to early morning appointments for work. Last night, I came home after a very long day and hit the treadmill for 35 minutes. I have been alternating somewhat like Tyler, between walking/running. I’ll usually walk for the first five minutes, starting first at 3.9 and then increasing to 4.1, or 4.1. Then at 5:00, I crank it up to 6.8 and run for two minutes, or sometimes, 2:15, then walk for another two, or three minutes, run two, et cetera. I also try to get a 3-4 minute burst in about midway through, and do some light weighted exercises for my upper body.

After that routine, I came up and hit the Lifecycle for 30 minutes watching the Celtics pregame. Burned about 800 calories, which helped offset the 2,300 calories I consumed for the day.

As Morris’ study shows, obesity, and all the attendant health issues connected to our sedentary lifestyle and lack of activity will continue to plague us in the U.S., as well as developing nations that refuse to learn from our mistakes here in the west.

Book it

2009-10-26T04:14:00.003-04:00

Books are wonderful things. They transport us to new places, open us up to new ideas, and sometimes, simply entertain. For nearly 40 years, I've carried on a love affair with books, dating back to my earliest memories of checking out books at the Marion T. Morse Elementary School, in Lisbon Falls.

On Saturday, I was in attendance at Boston's inaugural book festival. While the city at one time had a festival, apparently sponsored by the Boston Globe, it's been years since the last one. Seeing that Boston was the only major American city without an annual festival championing the book, plans were undertaken to revive the tradition.

The first one was a success from what I could see. You can read my reflections from Saturday at Write in Maine.

Shuffle play Friday-sporadic record review #1

2009-10-23T21:26:00.004-04:00

I’ve managed to stay fairly regular with my Shuffle Play Friday posts. This Friday, not only did I not have my weekly SPF up before shuffling off for a busy final day of the work week, I had little, or no time prior to work to parcel together my thoughts.

Usually, I’ve got most of this written Thursday night, and even have it posted prior to midnight, when Thursday shifts into the wee hours of Friday. Thursday night, I was gassed and in bed by nine. My day job has been kicking me in the ass of late, coupled with a physical routine that is forcing me relocate the energy level that I once had when I was a young man.

Today, while eating my lunch, sitting outside my office, in the parking lot, I cobbled together a few thoughts, and a couple of paragraphs that approximated some of my feelings about a new CD that arrived in the mail. It’s been awhile since a collection of music has me this excited about some new tunes.

This week, as much as I wanted to write about another batch of four, or five songs, I’ve decided to forgo that convention, at least temporarily. The reason being, Joel Plaskett’s new triple disc, Three, showed up yesterday, in the mail. Holy fucking shit!! While I had some high expectations about Plaskett, based upon a few things I’ve read, plus the handful of tracks I’ve listened to online, this new record has been playing over and over since yesterday afternoon, when I ran out to my post office box in hopes that the new disc (s) had arrived. I wasn’t disappointed. It was sitting in my box, and I’ve been listening in my car, at home (even Miss Mary, not the biggest fan of most of my music gives it a “thumbs up”), and in my head for the past 24 hours.

The first disc (at least the way the CD is sequenced) contains several of the tracks I had previewed online; tunes like “Gone, Gone, Gone,” “Through & Through & Through,” and “You Let Me Down.” All stellar and I love being able to blast them on something besides my computer. The other two discs also are filled with amazing stuff. On disc two, “Beyond, Beyond, Beyond” is one of my favorites on the entire disc. With its plaintive look back at what I believe is autobiographical material—Plaskett’s youth growing up in Nova Scotia (he mentions Lunenburg, the town where he was born, before moving to Halifax, “In ’87 I moved away”).

With a line like “Beauty, love and people close, because that is what we need the most,” Plaskett sets forth his priorities and values for his listeners. This isn’t someone that got into music for the “sex, drugs, and rock and roll” stereotypes. No, he’s got something to say, and every song is infused with something worth taking away. Plaskett’s a songwriter and he knows he way around words and imagery.

The arrangements on Three are mostly simple and spare, although simple doesn’t mean lacking punch, or power. Plaskett is a musician that understands space in his music, and doesn’t feel the need to fill it with a bunch of noise, or guitar wankery. In fact, the axe work provides what’s necessary, and nothing more. Plaskett proves that he’s a tasteful player, and both his playing, along with the fretwork of his dad (yes, his freakin’ dad!), Bill show a stylistic nod to being comfortable with the knowledge that less is more. Father and son share songwriting credits on disc two’s “Heartless, Heartless, Heartless.” The elder Plaskett, a former folkie during the 80s, also contributes piano, tenor guitar, and even bouzouki (a mainstay in modern Greek music).

The backing vocals of Anna Egge and Rose Cousins add something unique to the record. In fact, Plaskett indicates that he wrote parts into songs, like in “Wishful Thinking,” which tracks in at 7:15, and uses a basic arrangement of a drum machine, guitar and great call and answer lines, courtesy of Egge and Cousins, as well as adding some amazing harmonies on this one.

From an interview that Plaskett did back in May for The Coast, a Halifax-based arts and entertainment site, he indicates that Three has a definite narrative arc, basically, a story in three parts; going away, being alone and then coming back home.

Maybe that’s one of the reasons why this new disc, by a musician that two weeks ago, I knew nary a thing about, has quickly forged a connection through his songs, evoking memories and remembrances from my own life.

There is always a temptation to read our own experiences into songs, and the words of songsmiths, or writers in general; there is even a danger in personalizing music entirely. At the same time, good songwriting is impressionistic, and has the ability to transport us.

Plaskett’s new disc (s) does that and more.

Chasing the sun

2009-10-21T19:37:00.000-04:00

I know opportunities for post-work bike rides are just about gone, as days grow shorter. By the time I get home from work, there is no longer time/light enough to get in an hour on my bike.

After being on the road since 7:00 this morning, I cut my day short and was home by 4:30, which allowed me time enough to get in 16 miles out and about on the back roads near where I live.

The next several months will be tough. I can join the gym and maintain the level of workout intensity I've grown accustomed to (and need to maintain in order to stay in shape). What will be difficult will be the lack of sunshine, and the seasonal blues that a shortage of vitamin D can engender.

The irony of being fit

2009-10-17T20:21:00.005-04:00

Since June 23, when I weighed-in at 259.5 pounds, I have lost ~~44.5~~ 45 pounds, all in a period of 17 weeks, or just over four months. This involved nary a newfangled diet, eating plan with odd variations of foods replete with prescribed times of the day for imbibing, no pre-packaged food plans, or anything else out of the ordinary. Actually, I take that back—losing weight and adopting a healthier lifestyle does entail swimming upstream, adopting a new consciousness that is not the norm. It involves awareness and accepting responsibility for your choices of foods, quantities eaten, and deciding to exercise, or not, along with the level of intensity.

For me, my decision resulted from coming face-to-face with a man in the mirror, approaching middle age, who had been going to seed for more than a decade. It had been years, save for a brief period in 2005, since I had embraced any regular, intensive level of physical activity, or continued for any longer than a month, or two. I mention 2005 because that was when, just after New Years, I joined the YMCA nearby and enlisted their training services. For about two months, while working at home, I’d leave my writing tasks three afternoons per week, and do a variety of stations on their Nautilus equipment. I absolutely hated it. I hated the people, pretentious stay-at-home moms, and assorted elderly fitness fanatics, and others that I wasn’t ready to deal with—I hadn’t made the mental commitment that I’ve come to by accident over the past four months.

When I started all of this back in June, I was hoping to start with losing 10 pounds, and if that went well, then I planned to continue, possibly dropping 20 pounds total. I approached all of this with trepidation, and not much confidence. I’ve lost 10 pounds before, and then gained it back, shortly thereafter.

I think what jumpstarted my progress was Mary’s excitement at biking for a cause. We both made decisions to ramp up our training intensity as a pretext to participating in The Dempsey Challenge. Over those weeks, which eventually become months, being out on my bike, for an hour, or two at a time, was liberating. You couldn’t be checking email, answering a cell phone, Twittering—just you, your bike, propelled by the power inherent within your own human frame—plugged into the real, rather than virtual world. [chart above indicates the simple math of weight loss--my avg. calories consumed (bluish, on left), vs. avg. calories burned (yellow, on right) over the past two months-jb]

There were times out on the back roads, and occasionally, main roads, when a driver got too close. Occasionally (maybe two, or three times all summer and early fall) I would think, mid-ride, this sucks! I don’t want to be out here, 45 minutes or longer, from home. The hills that day seemed too steep, or my legs felt like shit because it was my third, or fourth consecutive long ride. Surprisingly, these negative thoughts were rare, and before long, I began to anticipate and pine for my ride after a day of work—days most often spent dealing with problem people, bureaucracy, and the giant “suck” that is work, even for someone like me, who generally likes his day job.

Interestingly, it took me until I was down about 35 pounds that a few people began asking me, “have you lost weight?” When I’d tell them the amount, most often, they were incredulous. I’m not surprised, as most of these people, maybe all of them, never knew me when I was in my athletic prime, or had seen me when I was a 25-year-old athlete, still engaged competitively on the diamond.

What has been ironic of late, particularly the past two weeks, is how many people at the office have made comments like, “hey skinny,” or, “look at Mr. Weight-loss,” or one person who said to me, “you need to upgrade that wardrobe,” particularly since my pants in particular have gotten quite baggy. One person, bless her heart, even asked me, “are you ok?” because apparently, in our country, being 50 pounds overweight means you are viewed as healthy, and nearing your ideal weight elicits concerns that you might possibly have lost your weight, not from any healthy motive, but possibly that you are wasting away from some ravaging disease. Recently, my own mother said to me, “you look good, but you shouldn’t lose any more.” Ah, excuse me, but according to most weight charts, I’m still about 10 pounds heavier than someone my height and frame should be. I’ll continue to work out and watch what I eat, because I like the new me.

As the days grow shorter, and my riding time is being compressed, I will be forced inside for the winter months. This time, I’m finding a gym where I can go, do my shit, and get out in 1-2 hours; I plan on doing this three times per week, and intersperse it with my treadmill work in the basement.

As I log those hours, under artificial illumination, I’ll long like a dog for his bone, to be back out in the open air, on my bike, building up for my next fitness adventure, and the warmer days of summer 2010.

Shuffle play Friday-Back to the north

2009-10-15T22:27:00.006-04:00

A few weeks back, I detailed the parallel rock universe, just north of our border, infused with diversity and variety. While I like to think of myself as being into newer music, I actually know little about that new world I'm immersing myself in, save for a few bands--The Tragically Hip, Our Lady Peace, Bachmann Turner Overdrive, and a handful of others.

I encourage my brethren in the continental 48, and of course the yonder regions of Alaska, and the tropical paradise of Hawaii to check out CBC Radio 3, and tune into a diverse array of bands that stack of favorably to anything on rock stations stateside.

Joel Plaskett-Gone, Gone, Gone/Three

Who releases triple albums anymore? Shit, who releases music arranged and sequenced, period? Joel Plaskett, Canadian indie rocker extraordinaire, that’s who. The former front man for Halifax-based Thrush Hermit had a career year in 2009, winning a Polaris for Three. The Polaris Music Prize is a fairly new award, established in 2006, and is given to the best full-length Canadian album. It’s based solely on artistic merit, irrespective of genre, and not dependent on sales or record label affiliation. The award comes with a C$20,000 cash prize.

Plaskett is no stranger to an array of Canadian music awards, including songwriter of the year in 2006 and 2007, male artist of the year in 2005, entertainer of the year in 2004, 2006, and 2007, as well as being a recipient of a bunch of other coveted Canadian rock honors. Who knew?

Three is about multiple derivatives of the number three—the album consists of three discs, with each disc comprise of nine songs. Many of the song titles have a title that repeats three times, like “Gone, Gone, Gone.” Plaskett is pictured on the cover holding up three fingers and the numbers of the release date, 3/24/2009, are all divisible by three.

Plaskett’s music has been described by one critic as “aching folk-pop,” which I couldn’t disagree with. When I first listened to Plaskett’s tracks on Last.FM, I heard a bit of the pop-ish qualities of Joe Pernice, an expat American, now living in Canada himself; Toronto, to be exact.

I ordered Three last week, and I’m eagerly anticipating its arrival. I expect the discs will be pulling overtime duty in my CD player at home, and in the car.

The Wheat Pool-This Is It/Hauntario

If you know anything of my musical inclinations, you know they never stray too far from alt-country, and rock firmly planted in the roots-rock vein. Hearing The Wheat Pool the first time recently, I couldn’t help but thing of Uncle Tupelo’s brilliant third album, March 16-20.

This particular track is an folk-rock gem, perfect for late at night listening, when you are sitting alone, beer in hand, reminiscing about happier times, when you were younger and hope was ample and not hedged in by gray hair and the approach of middle age. The song’s chorus has the line, “If our love is but a fire, then our hearts must be made of wood,” which you’ll be singing to yourself for days afterwards.

Another track I particularly liked and couldn’t resist was “Neil Young,” an ode to one of their Canadian rock and roll forefathers (as well as a longtime fave of mine), from The Wheat Pool’s first record, Township.

No less an authority on the entire alt-country genre than No Depression gave Hauntario a solid review, indicating that the new release is a “restless, hurting record full of the kind of cocaine jags and morning after regrets that put a person in a frame of mind to hit the road, fleeing with the last few vestiges of dignity and pride intact. None of the songs come from a healthy, happy place, and if they weren’t so brilliant and evocative, we’d all be much better off avoiding them altogether. But, there’s a kind of train wreck fascination in following the sludgy tangled momentum of each song as the crunching electric and acoustic guitars swirl around each other trying to find their own voice as the skies around them thicken.”

So there you have it. If alt-country is your cup of tea, then The Wheat Pool are your kind of band and Hauntario will probably fit right in next to your UT, Bottle Rockets, and Centro-matic CDs.

Amy Honey-Old Reliable Death/Pioneer Woman

What is it about Nova Scotia that keeps churning out some of Canada’s more talented musicians, like singer-songwriter Amy Honey, the pride of West Chezzetcook? Not too much different than my home state of Maine, with a population slightly less than our 1 million plus, Halifax has long been home to creative types, but West Chezzetcook?

Like it’s evil twin brother, taxes, death never takes a holiday, and always stalking its prey. Maybe because I lost an uncle this week, this song resonated with me and easily made the cut for SPF.

Amelia Curran-Bye, Bye, Montreal/Hunter, Hunter

I’ve been to Montreal many times, particularly when my wife Mary’s aunt lived in the city. I have never been to this international city and not had a great time and left longing to return.

When I heard Curran singing this song, I couldn’t help but think of the time, when Mark was small, and we’d drive north and spend a long weekend, taking in an Expos game at Olympic Stadium, one of the ugliest ballparks ever visited upon fans of America’s favorite pastime.

I need to find an excuse for returning for one more visit, soon.

Tijuana Bibles-Custom Made Man/Custom Made

Surf rock, replete with wrestling masks, wry lyrics, and killer guitar riffs, the T-Bibles were a huge hit in Europe, a continent that tends to “get” bands that don’t quite catch fire on this side of the pond.

From the website, tijuanabibles.org, Tijuana Bibles were pornographic tracts popular in America before the advent of mass-market full-color glossy wank-fodder such as Playboy. A typical bible consisted of eight stapled comic-strip frames portraying characters and celebrities (eg. John Dillinger, Popeye, Disney characters) in wildly sodomistic situations.

The band Tijuana Bibles regularly contributed music to a variety of film projects including Canadian indie rock film Goldirocks, the masked wrestling horror film Zombie Beach Party (directed by old friend and nemesis Stacey Case) as well as two "blue" movies, Johnny Legend's Sex Mex and Toronto's "Dirty Pillows". They've also produced several of their own music videos for several of their own songs, including “Custom Made Man.” When the cult Canadian 70's TV show The Hilarious House of Frighenstein needed supplemental music for re-broadcast in 2006, the Bibles were enlisted for the task.

The Hub of Broken Hearts

2009-10-12T08:42:00.005-04:00

Another season that began with so much hope, sits dashed on the rocks this morning, as the California Angels accomplished what they’ve been trying to do since 1986—beat the Red Sox in the postseason. What was supposed to be the Sox’ strong suit—pitching, and in particular, the vaunted bullpen—gave away the game, one that clearly should have been won.

Much like the Shaughnessy-invented “curse of the Bambino,” another overused, and in my opinion, useless phrase is, “2004 changed everything.” Yeah, probably for those bandwagon riders, many female that now make it impossible for the cult of the longsuffering to find tickets to the games, but dues-paying lifers to the club knows that 2004 changed nothing for the many that know baseball is a marathon, not a spring, and as fatalists, know that every Red Sox loss could be the beginning of the unraveling of a season.

I still contend that most sports fans are morons, but some of RSN recognized chinks in the team’s armor long before October’s shadows graced Fenway’s green manor. Back in spring training, the incessant talk of too much pitching rattled around the echo chamber of Boston sports writers and their tendency to repeat one another. The rigors, strain, and torque visited on arms and bodies necessary to throw a baseball upwards of 90 miles per order can sideline the best of pitchers. Who would have guessed back in March that the season would hang on the inconsistent Game 3 slants of Clay Buchholz?

Two weeks ago, I grabbed Steward O’Nan and Stephen King’s Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Fans Chronicle The Historic 2004 Season off the library shelf, mainly to hate on King and possibly pen an essay about his over-inflated ego and the self-importance that attends some of the book. I’ve been reading it for the past week in snippets, between the overly long commercial breaks that plague televised baseball, and occasionally in bed, before sleep overtakes me. Instead of King’s ego getting in the way, I’ve found the book an interesting work of history that helps put the past three seasons in an entirely new context. To those of you that think “2004 changed everything,” I have two words for you and an accompanying gesture—fuck you!! (ok, enough of the potty mouth, and maybe a bit harsh, but good lord, many long-suffering Sox fans never got to experience 2004's WS win, kicking it before seeing their team break a streak of futility that dated back to 1918, curse, or no curse--jb).

Yes, the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004, and again in 2007—so what? The Yankees have won a total of 26 compared to a mere six for the Red Sox, and my prediction is that they’re on their way to #27 this year. Who the hell is going to stop them? With all due respect to the Angels, a gutsy group of gamers in their own right, watching the Yanks take two swings last night and turn Carl Pavano’s strong performance for the Twins into another “nice try” by a Yankees’ opponent convinced me that it will take a Herculean effort to derail the evil empire.

Red Sox fans might be staring another postseason drought of three years (2000-2002), or longer squarely in the face.

While I’m a big fan of Jon Lester, Beckett’s been a disappointment two postseasons in a row. Buchholz showed me something during parts of August and much of September that I had been looking for from him, still I’m not convinced he’s matured enough to become the type of big game pitcher the club needs.

I'm more optimistic about the pitching, thinking it will be ok heading into 2010, with Lester heading a decent staff, I still have my concerns about Beckett, and Dice-K, and it appears the Wakefield years in Boston are over. However, we may be looking at another throwback string of fourth and fifth starters the likes of Frank Castillo, John Burkett, and Brad Penny next summer. Buchholz could win 14, or 15 games, Lester might once and for all harness his electric stuff and have the career season I thought he’d finally have this year. With a greater commitment to training, Matzusaka could win in double figures. Still, Papelbon (Papel-fuck, as I “affectionately” call him) was shaky all season, culminated by yesterday’s meltdown (even Hendu throwing out the first pitch couldn’t save the loveable lunkhead). Who closes next year?

[Papelbon leaves field in 8th, after surrendering the season (Photo by Jim Rogash/Getty Images) ]

As for the offence, fans saw an anemic club that the likes of Lackey, Weaver, and Kazmir (while they got to him, it was a surprise to me, given his previous history against the Sox), not exactly Cy Young candidates, shut down. Right now, the Sox have a lineup that can’t hit the good pitchers. Yes, they pad their stats against Triple-A caliber staffs that clubs like Baltimore, Kansas City, Toronto (save Halladay), and the rest of the AL consist of. Against stud pitchers, however, Ortiz, Lowell, Drew, and most of the Sox lineup is overmatched. That won’t change next season.

Baseball’s basically over for me, closing the book on 2009. Now it’s on to basketball and the Celts (and possibly a few Red Claws’ games), and hockey with the Bruins.

Portland, Maine, a haven for foodies

2009-10-10T21:00:00.010-04:00

Maine, just like other parts of the country, is fighting to preserve its unique qualities, and not be overrun by homogeneity, and bland corporate ubiquity.Depending on where you go, it seems hit or miss how well the state is doing to maintain its identity.

Portland is Maine’s largest city, and the closest community we have to something remotely urban. With a population of just over 60,000 (230,000 if you include South Portland and the surrounding metro area of Greater Portland), Portland exudes a vibe of a small town, where people still know one another, and yet, offers qualities of cities with much larger populations.

I’ve always had a special affinity for Portland, dating back to my high school years when a trip to the Old Port was special, and felt somewhat decadent, especially for a small town kid who had his sights on leaving his hometown in the dust, at some point. In high school, a night on the town, catching a show at the Cumberland County Civic Center, and eating at one of the many restaurants that dotted the Old Port, even back in the late 70s, was a real treat for me and my friends.

Fast forward 30 years and Portland has recently been honored with recognition and accolades from a well-known food magazine, as well as America’s newspaper of record for its abundant eateries, and great local food.

Bon Appetit voted Portland “America’s Foodiest Small Town” in August, and then, a few weeks later, Julia Moskin, food writer for the New York Times visited town, and wrote an effusive piece about the city and its decade-long ascendancy as a food destination. Moskin highlighted many of the city’s eateries, bakeries, and markets where fresh, local food is the norm, not the exception. She also recognized the many top-notch chefs that populate the city’s food scene.

There’s always a danger to take for granted the special qualities that exist in one’s own backyard, thinking that the grass is greener, and life more robust elsewhere, especially in bigger cities like Boston, New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles. While these places certainly have elements that are impossible for Portland to compete with, for a small city, it arguably has an amazing array of local food options, and restaurants committed to local farmers and food producers.

Moskin’s article struck a chord with me. Some of the restaurants she mentioned, like Hugo’s and Fore Street, I was familiar with. I also knew about Rabelais, Portland’s bookstore for foodies, located on Middle Street. There were many more places, however that I knew little about. After reading the article, and discussing it with my wife, we’ve decided that we are going to make an effort to get into Portland more often, and sample some of these places, even on our small budget devoted to out-to-eat options.

With fall firmly ensconced, and Maine farms producing a rich bounty full of abundant choices for local food lovers, we headed into the city to sample the offerings of Saturday’s Portland Farmer’s Market at beautiful Deering Oaks Park.
Before hitting The Oaks, we buzzed over the Casco Bay Bridge to partake of bagels at 158 Pickett Street Café, one of several places Moskin mentioned in her article.

Bagels are a food item that I used to eat almost daily. Back when I went low-carb, following the prescription of Dr. Atkins, I called bagels, “wheels of death,” and even though I’ve abandoned the low-carb path, bagels have never found their way back to my daily menu of foods.

158 Pickett Street is located near SMCC, about a mile and a half down Broadway, after turning left off the bridge. Moskin mentioned Chef Josh Potocki’s “long-fermented water-boiled bagels,” and chili-garlic cream cheese to top them off, and Mary and I decided to break our bagel fast and sample one each.

Arriving just after 9:00, there was a line of six, or seven people ahead of us in the non-descript building just a stones throw away from the SMCC ballfield that Mark used to play on during his fall baseball days during high school.

The place had a hipster vibe, with staff sporting an abundant variety of colorful tattoos. The line moved quickly and we placed our order; I ordered a poppy seed bagel and Mary had one with everything, both toasted and topped with the above-mentioned spread, which the cashier assured us was “a good choice.”

[Willard Beach, bordering the SMCC campus]

We took our order to go and drove a few hundred yards, parking and walking down to Willard Beach bordering the backside of the campus. The bagels, both about the size of a baby’s head, were heavenly. The chili-garlic cream cheese was the perfect complement to the crusty bagel, which had its own abundant flavor.

From South Portland, we headed back across the bay and into downtown Portland, bound for Deering Oaks and Saturday’s assortment of fresh local produce.

With the sun just peeking through the clouds, we enjoyed walking through a variety of booths filled with root vegetables, arugala, fresh heirloom tomatoes, and locally-produced artisanal cheeses. We had discussed creating our evening meal from what we found at the market, and we didn’t leave disappointed.

With tomatoes, turnips, arugala, fresh basil, as well as mozzarella, and feta cheese made from goat’s milk (for tomorrow’s tomato feta salad), we then were off for Brighton Avenue and Rosemont Market.

Rosemont Market is a local market of the finest order. Committed to carrying the freshest in local foods, ranging form locally-grown produce, to meat from local producers, as well as freshly baked bread they bake themselves, this neighborhood market provides a cornucopia of what’s right about Portland’s Buy Local movement.

We picked up steak and sausage for the grill, both from Maine producers, as well as a bottle of moderately-priced red wine, a snack of polenta pennies (cookies), and a Moroccan chicken soup, which was our lunch (it came with a large, doughy roll that was similar to the mouth-watering rolls my German grandmother used to bake), and we were on our way home, and an afternoon bike ride.

Tonight’s dinner was a celebration of our day; a rich bounty that came from Maine’s often, too-rocky soil, and local farmers that continue to buck the blandness of over-produced, factory farms, where too much of our nation’s food ends up originating from.

I feel fortunate that Mary and I live so close to Portland, and we’re planning to embrace this benefit by sampling local food, whether we pick it up and cook it for ourselves, or allow one of Portland’s skilled chefs to work their magic and prepare it.

[Sign for Portland Farmers' Market]

[One of the Farmers' Market's wagons]

[Abundant veggies from local farmers]

Jesus rules the airwaves

2009-10-08T23:12:00.004-04:00

My drives up and down the interstate afford me ample time to think, ponder a variety of subjects, and listen to the radio (and alternately, books on CD). During these chunks of time, I occasionally wonder why Maine as a state continues to languish economically, culturally (with the exception of Portland, primarily), and whether a new administration in Augusta will make any significant difference.

Once I drift north of Augusta and begin to lose the southern Maine radio stations, there isn’t much for variety on the FM side of things. Jim Rome’s national sports talk show can be picked up via WJJB-96.3, aka, The Big Jab, an FM blowtorch with a signal that travels up and down the I-95 corridor. I can only handle so much of Romey, however, as his schtick tends to irritate in large quantities, at least according to my tastes. There is public radio, and MPBN, which I do listen to semi-regularly, and actually caught this interesting piece tonight on my way home, about Lewiston, home base for the work that I do.

Since my schedule this week has been extremely hectic, I haven’t been able to find the 15 minutes, or so required to squeeze a trip to the Maine State Library in on my lunch break, or passing through Augusta on my way home. Hence, I haven’t been able to pick up an interesting book to listen to. As a result, I’ve had to imbibe more bad radio than I prefer.

Interestingly, I discovered something today I had never noticed before—mid-Maine has a significant number of Xian radio stations. I’m not quite sure why this is. Is this part of Maine in the throes of a religious revival that I’m not aware of? Do the residents of Augusta, Waterville, and Fairfield have a greater propensity for the rock knock-offs of bands/artists with names like Newsboys, Addison Road, Tobymac, and Kutlass?

These were all artists that I heard on some station called K-Love, located at 102.1 (WKVZ) on the FM dial, and originating out of Bangor.

According to K-Love’s information pack (which you are required to download in order to access), they don’t play commercials (because they know their listeners don’t want them), are “positive and encouraging,” and they can “help you make a difference.”

Actually, K-Love’s information pack left me nonplussed, and unimpressed--basically, it contains little substantive information about the station.

I only listened to K-Love for about 15-20 minutes in truth, and scanned the website briefly, but my experience with Xianity prompts me to take a stab at pegging this station as catering to a segment of so-called believers that I’ve run into that I define as “consumerist Christians.” They have both feet firmly planted “in the world” of American consumerism, and their faith places a sanitized veneer over an overly materialistic approach to life. They tend to equate being a good Xian with being a Republican, see Sarah Palin as someone to admire (her new book is being distributed to Xian book stores via mega-religious publisher, Zondervan), are by-and-large anti-abortion, and probably support the Yes on 1 position on Maine’s upcoming, and overly divisive gay rights referendum.

Another station specializing in watered-down rock with spiritually-oriented lyrics is 99.3, WWWA, which the FCC indicates is based in Winslow and is affiliated with the Worship Radio Network.

From the station’s website, which like K-Love’s, again provides very little beyond generic information about WWWA, or the WRN; I did learn, however, that “all radio stations at Worship Radio Network are non-profit, 501c3, non-commercial radio stations. Most radio commercial radio stations rely on sell ads to make a profit. We ask you to invest in the station financially so we can bring you more of what YOU want without all the clutter.”

If you prefer Bible teaching to music, you can pull in 99.5, which is listed as WJCX, and apparently emanates from Pittsfield. This station is affiliated with the Calvary Chapel churches, and featured a variety of scripture-based teaching programs each time I tuned in.

Calvary Chapel is a non-denominational church, which claims ties to evangelicalism. They were founded in 1965 in Southern California. The original Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa was pastored by Chuck Smith, operating as a cross-cultural missions organization that bridged the "generation gap" that existed during the Vietnam War period. Calvary Chapel became a hub for the Jesus People movement that was prevalent at the time, particularly on the west coast.

Calvary Chapel pioneered a less formal and contemporary approach in its worship and public meetings. For example, it did outreaches on the beach and baptisms in the Pacific Ocean. Much of Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) has it roots in Calvary Chapel worship music. Additionally, Calvary Chapel features a “rolling commentary” style of preaching, centered on the biblical text each sermon is based upon. Their style of worship, and emphasis on contemporary styles of worship music makes me think they are very similar to the Vineyard Churches, which can be found dotting Maine’s landscape in Lewiston, Mechanic Falls, Westbrook, and a few other communities.

I’m not quite sure what this concentration of Xianity means north of Augusta. I did find it a bit odd, but then again, I don’t find much about organized religion beneficial, or personally edifying. Others may have a different take on this than I do.

First Dempsey Challenge is a hit

2009-10-04T16:59:00.004-04:00

Over the course of a lifetime, we look back to events, and periods of time that represent turning points for us, crucial moments. Sometimes these moments are personal, other times they connect us with something larger than ourselves.

When I decided back in June that I was tired of being overweight, out of shape, and neglectful of maintaining a modicum of fitness, I didn’t think that I’d be riding in an event that would be a major fundraiser for cancer awareness, supporting families and cancer survivors. I also didn’t even consider that I’d be part of a team made up mainly of family members and riding in memory of my late father in law, someone who had a real impact, albeit a delayed one, on my life.

Patrick Dempsey is an A-list celebrity, best known as Dr. Derek Shepherd, on Grey’s Anatomy. What many people outside of Maine don’t know is that he grew up in tiny Buckfield, Maine, a community that is easily missed, unless you have a reason to turn off busy Route 4 and head west into the center of town. Like similar communities in rural Maine, the economic changes and shifts of the late 20th and early 21st centuries have all but removed any vestiges of local trade and industry. The town is now a bedroom community for Lewiston/Auburn to the southeast.

While Dempsey’s star has risen far beyond the tiny hamlet where he grew up, he obviously hasn’t forgotten his roots. Like almost all of us that have been touched by cancer in some way, this vicious disease struck his mother in 1997, when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She was successfully treated, but the cancer returned twice, requiring further treatment.

His mother is doing fine today, living an active, healthy life, but Dempsey wanted to do something more for others. His own experience with his mother helped him to realize that access to good, reliable resources are essential in helping not only the cancer patient, but also members of the family, as well as caretakers. Because of this experience, Dempsey decided to give something important back to the very community that helped his mother through her journey to recovery and health. As a result, The Patrick Dempsey Center for Cancer Hope & Healing was born.

In an attempt to generate funding, as well as continue to raise awareness about the center and what it has to offer, Dempsey announced in early 2009, The Dempsey Challenge, a bike ride of varying lengths—100, 50, 25, and 10 mile rides, as well as a run and a walk as part of the festivities.

Celebrities are notorious for lending their name to causes, and having little, or nothing to do with the event. Occasionally, they make a cameo appearance, the crowd ogles, and goes “ga, ga,” and that’s about it. The star gets some positive press, and hopefully a bit of money makes its way into the till of whatever organization is running the benefit event.

Not only did Patrick Dempsey do more than make a token appearance and then dart out, he was an active participant, riding 50 miles, and bringing along fellow cycling rock stars, George Hincapie, and David Zabriskie to accompany him on his ride. In fact, Dempsey, a competitive cyclist, was out on Maine’s back roads, along with world class athletes Zabriskie, and Hincapie on Saturday during the day’s steady rain and occasional downpours, warming up for The Dempsey Challenge ride, happening on Sunday.

Our own Team Tarazzmatazz contingent were in the parking lot by about 7:00 a.m. and it was a good thing, as the parking area on the corner of Lincoln and Main was nearly full and about 20 minutes later, was at capacity. As my wife and team captain, Mary said, “cyclists get out early.”

After Saturday’s torrential rains, and late night lightning and thunderstorms, the fact that it was not raining, and merely overcast was a portent positive for riding. The mood was festive and by 7:30, there were already long lines for the row of Porta Potties lined up against the former Grand Trunk Railroad Depot, on Beech Street.

As the 8:00 a.m. starting time approached, a couple of thousand cyclists were jammed into the staging area along Oxford Street, waiting for the 100-milers to go out, and then the 50-mile group (which included Dempsey and Co.), and then the three biking members of our team, riding the 25-miler. Even a slight delay of five minutes couldn’t dampen the positive energy of the riders.

[staging area packed tight before the start of The Dempsey Challenge ride]

I was feeling a few butterflies, which reminded me of what it once felt like, back in the day, when I was still pitching semi-pro baseball, and that feeling in the pit of my stomach that always arrived minutes right before I threw my first pitch.

Mary, Rosie (a friend from work), and I were eager to be on our way, headed out on the course, along with others nearby. About 8:20, we got the word that the 25-mile group could begin moving forward, and like water surging over a dam, our group was off.

The course was very well designed, and the initial part of the route was marvelous, with Auburn’s finest making sure that the early stage of our ride was free of automobile interference. There were a few challenging hills early in the ride, but by-and-large, the route was not overly taxing for Mary and I, since we’ve been riding most of the summer, and training religiously for this ride since July. It was really special to see so many people out on their lawns, and along the early parts of the ride, cheering the riders on, shouting encouragement, and offering personal messages via handmade signs.

Not only were there 3,500 participants biking, running, and walking, there were also several hundred volunteers, all offering a smile, a word of encouragement, and even a drink, or a snack.

One of the takeaways from The Dempsey Challenge’s maiden voyage is that it couldn’t have been located in a better community. To those coming in from outside, like Mary, a representative from Amgen, one of the event’s major sponsors (along with Mercedez-Benz), her first experience in Lewiston was an overwhelmingly positive one. As we chatted in line, waiting to pick up our lobster dinner, she told me how impressed she was with Lewiston, the enthusiasm of the participants, and how beautiful she found the early fall foliage. Hailing from Thousand Oaks, California, and having grown up in Portland, Oregon, Mary told me that she was very impressed during her first visit, including a wonderful meal on Saturday, at Fishbones, one several great restaurants that now dot the community.

Lewiston and surrounding communities have embraced this first time event with a great deal of enthusiasm. To have 3,500 sign up to take part the very first year, and to have assemble such a strong organization enabling such a great event the first time makes me excited for next year’s 2nd go round, as it can only get better.

Today was special for me, personally, as the day was infused with meaning as a member of Team Tarazzmatazz. The family connection was important, as all of us were participating in memory of Joe, Mary’s dad. Also, Mary and I had gotten fit through training to ride, with me losing 40 pounds, and Mary 25.Lastly, the fact that a local boy that’s found fame far beyond his hometown, yet hasn’t forgotten where he came from, and even that despite somewhat dire weather predictions, only a few sprinkles fell on the festivities, made this one of the best events I’ve participated in for a long time.

I leave you with the saying that Mary had printed on the front of our Team Tarazzmatazz t-shirts we wore, in memory of Joe T, “remember the good times.” This is one time that I’ll savor and keep with me for years to come.

[Mary and I after our ride]

[Participants enjoying themselves at Simard-Payne Police Memorial Park]

Shuffle play Friday-The October stage edition

2009-10-02T05:52:00.007-04:00

Baseball and rock and roll are interchangeable in my way of thinking. Many an athlete wishes he was a rock star, and many a rock star would love to swap his axe for a bat and wield it with the ability of a hitter like Manny, or ARod.

Over the course of 162 games, there are classic duels and battles, some of them epic in scope, much like songs in an artist's catalog, at least back when albums ruled the rock and roll world, pre iPod. Some of these songs are classic and something you can listen to over and over. There are also those songs, like a 12-0 stinker by your favorite team that you'd prefer to skip over, but true fans battle through.

Summer's gone, and the lingering fragrance of it's bloom is kept alive for those fortunate enough to have a baseball team headed to the postseason. New England's team, the Boston Red Sox, got in via the Wild Card once more. They'll do battle with the Halos from Southern California. Fans in New York, Philly, Colorado, Los Angeles (California is doubly blessed), St. Louis, and either Detroit or Minnesota will have their summers extended by the league championship series and their hopes of making it to the Fall Classic, aka the World Series.

In the spirit of playoff baseball, I bring you this week's baseball playoff version of Shuffle Play Friday.

The Baseball Project (Steve Wynn)-Ted Fucking Williams/Volume 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails

If Steve Wynn was a baseball player, he’d be the cagey veteran that keeps reinventing himself. As a young player, he might have been a combination of power and speed. As his career progressed, and his wheels no longer allowed him to swipe bases at will, like in his 20s, he would have learned to adapt, gravitate to a new position, and still help his team onward, often displaying his best during October’s trip to the big stage.

From his early days as an influential member of LA’s Paisley Underground in the 80s, leading The Dream Syndicate, through various incarnations, Wynn’s music has always maintained an integrity that was about the music, rather than merely cashing in, commercially.

In 2008, Wynn formed The Baseball Project, with REM’s Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey, formerly of Seattle’s The Young Fresh Fellows, as well as serving as REM’s fifth member for the past decade, or more, and Linda Pitmon, Wynn’s wife.

The group’s first outing, Volume 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails, besides its great baseball-related title, weaves its way through baseball's past with songs about the game’s great players (like Teddy Ballgame and Willie Mays), as well as obscure players like Harvey Haddix. Do you know Haddix’s baseball claim to fame, besides once serving as a Red Sox pitching coach?

Here's a great interview with Wynn and McCaughey talking about baseball, and songs about baseball.

Bruce Springsteen-Glory Days/Born in the U.S.A.

While my rock and roll tastes run to the alternative side of the fence, Springsteen’s “Glory Days” will always evoke special personal memories for me.

The lyrics about the washed up baseball player that can’t quite get beyond his moment in the sun years ago was me for far too long. The song also stirs up memories of Mark’s senior year, particularly of the College World Series in Appleton, Wisconsin, when Springsteen seemed to be blasting from the speakers on a regular basis.

Plus, could there a more iconic American popular music figure than Bruce Springteen?

Warren Zevon-Bill Lee/Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School

Both Bill Lee and Warren Zevon epitomize the bad boy, renegade figure in their respective fields. It’s only fitting that it would be Zevon that paid homage to Lee in a song.

Back in high school, my friend Dave picked up Zevon’s “Exciteable Boy” and the album became our soundtrack during the summer of 1978, between our sophomore and junior years of high school. I was coming off a breakout season as Lisbon High’s ace pitcher, going 6-0 that spring. That summer, Bill Lee would struggle to win 10 games during his final season in Boston, before being exiled north of the border to toil for Montreal’s Expos. In ’79, he’d win 16 games, but Lee’s freethinking ways, and regular marching to his own beat wore thin and by ’82, “The Spaceman” was out of organized baseball for good, blackballed by its conservative establishment.

Barbara Manning/SF Seals-Dock Ellis/Baseball Trilogy (EP)

Keeping the pitching theme going, particularly left-of-center hurlers, Dock Ellis proved that you don’t need to be left-handed, to hold views, and exhibit behaviors that didn’t exactly ingratiate him to baseball’s powerbrokers.

Ellis was certainly one of baseball's more flamboyant and interesting figures during the seventies. In 1971, he helped lead the Pittsburgh Pirates past the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series, back when both cities were in the throes of their own baseball glory days. Both cities have fallen on hard times, both baseball-wise, and economically, particularly Pittsburgh, with the Pirates last winning season coming 17 years ago, in 1992, a record for professional sports futility.

Interestingly, that 1971 club that Ellis was a member of had the first all black starting lineup in MLB history with him on the mound.

Manning, a fine singer-songwriter in her own right, named her band after a legendary minor league team that was the pride of San Francisco, before the Giants abandoned New York’s Polo Grounds for the greener pastures of the west coast.

Neil Diamond-Sweet Caroline/Sweet Caroline

I know this is a bit of a stretch for baseball-related songsmithing, but there are few songs that have become attached to a team, like this one is to the Red Sox. A few years back, The Standells "Dirty Water" might have made the cut, but it's a rare occurance at any wedding where this song doesn't get played and a Sox-style sing-a-long doesn't break out, with the requisite refrain, "so good! so good! so good!" emanating from the dance floor.

The song has no connection to the Red Sox, Diamond is not a Boston native, or even a Sox fan for that matter, but come the eighth inning at Fenway, you'll hear this blasting from the Fenway speakers like clockwork.

The regular season is winding down, and the new heroes will step forth on the postseason stage, some unexpected, like an Al Weis, or Gene Tenace, others, like Mr. October, Reggie Jackson will be no surprise.

Go Red Sox!

Biking is life

2009-09-30T19:42:00.004-04:00

I’ve been thinking about a number of things this week. One of the advantages that attend biking is its capacity to slow your world down. In my opinion, this slower pace puts you in a positive place more conducive to thought and rumination.

About 15 years ago, I would bike to work in Brunswick. My commute was about 15 miles from home. Two days per week, I’d make the trek on my bike. It involved some effort, mainly making sure my backpack had my work clothes, a towel to shower, deodorant, and other supplies necessary to prepare for my work day. My employer had a locker room with a shower, so that was a plus. One time I forgot clean underwear, so I spent the day free and easy inside my work jeans. Other than that, I enjoyed this interlude in my life, one that was too brief.

Rather than zipping to Brunswick by car in 20 minutes, the ride took about an hour on my bike. Slowing down from 50 miles per hour to 15 helped me to notice trees, markers along the road—a stone wall erected many years ago, a small family cemetery—things that are just a blur whizzing by in your car. Instead of rock music blaring from my speakers, I was alone with the sounds of the morning—birds chirping—and my thoughts.

Over the past 15 weeks, I’ve reconnected with my physical self. I’ve come to notice how my previous neglect put me on a path that might have resulted in negative health consequences. Granted, flying over my handlebars two weeks ago left me scraped, bruised, and scabbed over in a few places, but I survived, possibly because I had been training for three months. I weathered the incident with a few Band-Aids®, and being sore for a few days. I started a soul patch on my chin that I think I’ll keep. It covers up some of the new pink skin that forms after an abrasion. When I shave in the spring, I’ll be none the worse for my chin plant.

I’ve been wondering what would happen if Americans adopted a lifestyle like the Danes, and other countries that choose alternatives to the automobile. What if we embraced a way of living that was actually sustainable? It’s possible if we recognize that having fewer things is preferable to having stuff, but being increasingly unhappy.

My friend Anne moved to Portland, Oregon a few months ago. She just wrote to tell me that she is heading up a cool organization called the Community Cycling Center, where they dedicated to bikes as tools of empowerment. She’s in a great city that has worked diligently to make the bicycle an important part of their overall transportation policy.

In Maine, despite efforts by groups like the Bicycle Coalition of Maine, resistance to bikes is widespread, with many drivers viewing us bicyclists as adversaries, standing in their way. Rather than slowing down, and waiting, or deferring to bicyclists, these idiots swerve into the path of oncoming cars, drive too close to cyclists (Maine law requires three feet clearance between cars and a cyclist at the edge of the roadway, btw), and generally exhibit the mindset of a 10-year-old, while yielding an instrument of death that is in excess of 3,000 pounds, and an SUV might exceed 4,000. My bike and I weight about 250, so there’s not much competition should the driver clip me—I’m dead, or seriously injured.

Still, every night, at least one driver insists on boorish behavior, all because they’re too selfish to tack on a potential 15 seconds to their commute by courteously sharing the road with me. I’m sure it’s even worse in Maine’s larger communities, like Portland.

All in all, it’s been a great 15 weeks, and as the days grow shorter and darkness descends earlier and earlier on the roads I’ve grown fond of during summer’s longer days, I know this portends that my biking season is coming to a close sooner than I would like.

It looks like a membership at a local gym is in order for me to maintain my progress. My hours on the Lifecycle® and Stairmaster® all winter will be tolerated, only because I know I’ll be hopping back on my Diamondback as soon as the roads are cleared come springtime.

Ken Burns-Race and space in America

2009-09-27T06:20:00.003-04:00

Noted documentary filmmaker, Ken Burns, is on C-SPAN's Book TV talking about The National Parks: America's Best Idea, with best friend and collaborator, Dayton Duncan, discussing the new documentary.

On how he and Duncan came to take on this project, which took 10 years to complete:

It's right in our wheelhouse, and I want to stress "our." In the formal sense, [writer and longtime collaborator Duncan] came to me 10 years ago and said, "Let's do the national parks," and it took me a nanosecond to say, "Of course." About that same time, 10 years ago, we were in the middle of producing our film together on Mark Twain, and we were talking to the novelist Russell Banks about Huckleberry Finn. Banks was saying—and we certainly agreed ourselves—that this was Twain's greatest work. And then he said, "It's our Illiad and our Odyssey." He went on, "Though most of us share a common European ancestry with those who wrote The Iliad and The Odyssey, we Americans were grappling with two new themes that Twain alone, among writers—but also among politicians and philosophers and artists of the 19th century—was willing to deal with honestly and openly. And those twin themes were race and space." Those are all I've been focused on for the last 30-plus years.

The six part series begins today on local PBS stations and will continue for five additional nights. Don't miss it!

Rush weighs in with Leno

2009-09-26T09:51:00.004-04:00

I missed the Rush Limbaugh interview with Leno, Thursday night. Apparently, Rush has lost a great deal of weight, 82 pounds in fact, over the past five months. He's not revealing many details, however, since he says it's much too complicated and even someone with "talent on loan from God" doesn't quite understand it.

Since I've been on my own quest for a healthier lifestyle for the past 14 weeks, having lost 39 pounds, I'm always interested in the success of others in their own journey to shed pounds and embrace a better way. Given that Limbaugh is a celebrity magnifies the effort and attention being given to it.

Being overweight is not healthy, so given that he's shed weight, I'm pleased for his own longterm health. I am concerned, however that he's not doing this by combining healthy eating with exercise and a focus on fitness.

I know that Limbaugh has an aversion to exercise. I've heard him speak about it, saying that he hates to walk from the car to enter a building. Granted, this was several years back, but I doubt that he's running, walking, or even biking as part of his new weight loss routine.

He did mention he's using Quick Weight Loss Centers to shed pounds. Limbaugh has lost large amounts of weight in the past. I remember that he mentioned he had his own personal chef preparing healthy, low-fat meals for him. I think he was married to Marta at the time, who apparently couldn't cook. This was the longest of his three marriages.

I wish him success in keeping the weight off. It is a fact (since he insists on being fact-based on his show) that losing weight and keeping it off isn't about diets, or special programs, particularly complicated programs like the one that he's not sure of the details about. It involves burning fewer calories than you consume. This requires attention to what you eat, and a regular program of exercise.

That's why I'm a proponent of the weight loss occuring with this gentleman in Texas, and continue to concentrate on my own routine of healthy eating, combined with exercise.

Losing weight is easy. There are a plethora of fad programs available, particularly if you have the money to pay for them. Success in keeping the pounds off are much harder and require daily, if not hourly vigilance.

Shuffle play Friday-Workout mixtape (or songs to shake your ass to @ 5:30 a.m.)

2009-09-25T04:40:00.009-04:00

I’ve detailed my reconnection with the physical, completing the body, soul spirit continuum in several posts over the past 14 weeks. This isn’t yet another post about me and my new body shape. No, it’s time to rock out for this week’s Shuffle Play Friday. I am loosely tying it to working out, however. It's what I do now.

With the days growing increasingly shorter, light to bike is becoming precious. It’s hard to get a ride in each morning before work, now that the sun comes up around 6:30. As a result, I’m back on the treadmill, ramping up my minutes from 15-20, to 35 to 40 several mornings per week, spending most of the time alternating between running/walking.

I hate the treadmill, and the fact that it’s located in my dark basement doesn’t help things. What gets me through my period of torture? You guessed it—rawk!!

Here are a list of five songs that can make any workout pass by with minimal discomfort.

The Smiths-How Soon Is Now? (12-inch)/The Sound of The Smiths

The Smiths are being rediscovered by a new generation of music fans as result of the vapid summer movie hit, 500 Days of Summer. Haven’t seen it and don’t plan to.

I’ve been a Smiths fan since I scored The Queen Is Dead from Columbia (on cassette) as part of one of their “6 tapes for a penny” offer. It was just after my fundamentalist crash and burn.

This particular track’s propulsive nature and atmospheric guitar riffing by Johnny Marr makes it a good track to lock in and turn up the speed control to.

Joe Satriani-Surfing With The Alien/Surfing With The Alien

Satriani is a guitar shredder extraordinaire. This was his best selling disc, solid from start to finish. The title track, however, is a classic for those that like kick ass rock with frenetic fretwork.
I’ve had this on cassette for years, and somehow, it ended up in the bottom of a box that nearly got discarded at last Saturday’s Durham Trash Disposal Day. Fortunately for me, Miss Mary saw it before handing over the box to the guy that dumps things into the trash compactor.

Monday morning, guess who was in the tape player of my basement boom box, propelling me onward?

Stereolab-Metronomic Underground/Emperor Tomato Ketchup

This song is a departure from the other more straight-ahead rock tracks in this week’s SPF.

Stereolab is a band I first got turned onto during my ‘BOR years. Eclectic

This particular track has a hypnotic groove, locked in by synthesizer, rather than guitar and a repeating bass line. That and the lyrics sung in French by Laetitia Sadier creates an ambience where picking up and putting down my New Balance 720s sync with the beat, and running in place is no longer difficult.

Interestingly, my father’s best friend in high school knows Stereolab’s Tim Gane’s dad, Reuben, and as a result, I scored a personally signed photo courtesy of Tim.

Prisonshake-Bedtime Beats You Senseless/I’m Really Fucked Now

I drove to Princeton in 1994, to catch Guided by Voices. That’s the kind of thing I once was willing to do in order to connect with music that had meaning for me. Label mates at the time, Prisonshake were on tour with GbV, and I met Robert Griffen, guitar player, and Scat Records maestro.

The show was at one of the houses (think frats) on the Princeton campus. I was early and Prisonshake was loading in their gear before playing. I introduced myself. I learned later that Griffen could be a tough guy to get next to, but he was great to me. I guess he figured that if I was crazy enough to drive six hours to catch a show, he could at least be cordial. We had a beer.

The Shake have always done things their own way. Scat was based in Cleveland before Griffen, tired of the post-industrial dreariness, drunks, and crack whores for neighbors, relocated to St. Louis, where the label is now based.

I just found out this weekend, listening to Mike Lupica’s show via the archives on WFMU that Prisonshake has just released a new album, a double one at that, their first one in eons. If its as good as any of the old stuff (which Lupica say that it is), then it should be one hell of an album (it’s available in vinyl only).

Caspian-Moksha (track 1)/The Four Trees

In my day job with the workforce investment board, I meet new people all the time. Much of my work involves putting together partnerships, leveraging resources, and piecing together a variety of funding sources to offer training programs, primarily to help job seekers gain new skills, upgrade their skills (if they've been laid off), and on a personal level, possibly help some find the path to do what they were meant to do with their lives.

In the course of my efforts, occasionally, I connect on a more personal level with individuals doing similar work in the community. I happened to have a chance to have lunch a year ago with a young man involved with the Caleb Foundation. Caleb is an interfaith organization that develops, preserves and manages rental communities so as to provide safe, decent housing to low and moderate income residents.

We got talking about books, writing, and ultimately music. Long story short, he gave me a CD of a band that his girlfriend's brother plays in. The CD I have was an original, but the jewel case was a generic Maxell one, sans song titles, and without band name, with just the disc title, "The Four Trees." I just knew the songs as track 1, track 2, etc.

The band is Caspian, from Beverly, Mass. They might be characterized as post-rock, and their music is instrumental. Think church of sound, with waves ebbing and flowing in intensity, inducing a sort of spiritual state.

Track 1, which I learned is titled "Moksha." Most of this CD, including this track is loud, angular, with anthemic dual guitar structures, and mostly muscular drumming. As a band, Caspian doesn't create mere sounds, they create sonic landscapes that you get lost in.

Well, please forgive me, but I've got to wrap this up as I'm due for my morning appointment with Mr. Treadmill.

Heroes are hard to come by

2009-09-23T20:02:00.006-04:00

My fitness focus continues. I’m entering the 14th week since June, when after being disenchanted with my excess weight, and deteriorating physical state, decided to do something about it. I’m now down 39 pounds. Even better, I think I’m in the best shape I’ve been since high school. This new me, committed to riding my bike, lifting weights, and on off days, hitting the treadmill hard is scaring me. I’ve been taken over by the spirit of Jack Lalanne!

Shortly after deciding to shed excess pounds, I was at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast in Auburn when The Dempsey Challenge was mentioned, and registration packets handed out. Not giving much thought to it at the time, I stuck this in with the assortment of other materials they bombard you with at these kinds of events. Later, going through these at the kitchen table, I mentioned it in passing to Mary. She seemed much more interested in it than I was. She actually when online to the site and got the idea that we should form a team and participate. Since we were already both biking, I figured I could do the 25-mile ride slated for October 4, and even mix in some fundraising.

Since June, I’ve sent out appeals to friends, family, and a handful of business associates, and other colleagues. My fundraising has been a fraction of Mary’s. While I’ve raised slightly more than $250, she’s near $1,000, and I have no doubt she’ll surpass that total.

I’m participating in this ride for The Patrick Dempsey (yes the actor) Center for Cancer Hope & Healing at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston. The Dempsey Center provides free support, education and wellness services to cancer patients, families and caregivers.

I’ll be participating as part of Team Tarazzmatazz, in memory of my late father-in-law, Joe Tarazewich, who lost his battle with cancer, 10 years ago this summer.

My father-in-law was a heroic individual. Our team name is one part his last name, and also part “razzmatazz,” which indicates a play to confuse, or dazzle an opponent. Joe was a former football player at Drake University , and he loved to compete, and in particular, demolish an opponent.

[Joe T. at a Drake practice, 1949]

When I first started dating Mary, and visiting her house, Joe intimidated the shit out of me, and I’ve never been easily intimated, probably less so then, when I was full of blather, and not much else. Maybe that’s why he seemed so imposing.

It wasn’t just his physical presence, which filled the room. It was his penetrating blue eyes, and his questioning nature that always managed to get at the crux of any matter.

A man that was fully engaged in his world, Joe might reference Emerson or Thoreau, while commenting on an article on business from the Wall Street Journal. This would be while he had one eye on "All Creatures Great and Small," on PBS, simultaneously working on the crossword puzzle from the Portland Press Herald, a daily ritual of his. He was the first intellectual I’d encountered that wasn’t an academic egghead.

Not only was he erudite on most subjects, he also managed to maintain his 100 acre property, work on a dry stone wall from rocks lying around his property, run his own business, and also find time to do accounting work on the side.

I was stricken by his daughter, so I continued to come back and endure his questions, and began coming back with a few answers. One time he sent me home with a book of Emerson’s essays. When I came back and could hold a semi-literate discussion with him, I thought I caught a twinkle in those deep blue Polish eyes that may even have contained a trace of respect for something he saw in me.

Years later, while in my mid-20s and now married to his daughter, and the father of his grandson, he offered to support our young family if I thought I wanted to pursue a professional baseball career. He had read about an independent league in the Midwest and thought I had the talent to see if I could reconnect with a baseball career derailed by injuries initially, at the University of Maine, and then sidetracked by fundamentalist religion.

He had seen me pitch in a league now long defunct, and dominate hitters with a combination of fastballs, guile, and feistiness that has never desserted me.

At that stage of my life, I knew that baseball was a pipe dream, but I’ve never forgotten that offer, or the fact that he may have been the first person to see my potential, fifteen years before I began to finally harness it, as I approached the age of 40. By that time, Joe had passed away, and it’s one of the regrets of my life that he never saw me publish my first book, or get to see the work I’m currently doing helping people find their own pathways to success in the workplace.

I often think of Joe, as I continue to learn new things, have several books going at once, and never tire of increasing my intellectual capacity.

There is the tendency to romanticize individuals after they pass away. Death can make us overlook people’s shortcomings, and airbrush away their defects. Like any other human being, Joe had his flaws. He could be cantankerous (particularly when he knew he was right), overly opinionated, and even downright difficult to tolerate, especially when we were living with Joe and Joan for 14 months, while beginning construction on our own house. Possibly the reason Joe and I butted heads as often as we did was that in many ways, we had similarities in that we both held on vigorously to our opinions.

Family gatherings have never been the same for me since Joe passed away. Oh did he and I love to argue on any subject—religion, politics, sports—it didn’t matter. We’d get into very heated debates, causing the rest of the family to move outside of our sphere of argument. We both loved it, however, and rarely missed an opportunity to verbally spar and parry.

The measure of a man’s life is often summed up by what others say or write about you after you die. This is particularly telling when it comes from people with no vested interest in enhancing your legacy.

Rex Rhoades has been the executive editor for the Lewiston Sun Journal for well over a decade. On the morning of July 18, 1999, he penned a fitting tribute to my late father-in-law, a man he had never met, until reading his obituary.

Rhoades was struck by all the things Joe had done in his life, and I think by those rare qualities of a true renaissance man.

He wrote,

Roll the highlight film. A boy, born to immigrant parents in Saco, Maine, in 1925, industrious and studious, he learns English and begs to go to school. Service in World War II aboard a submarine, the USS Piper, in the Pacific. Returns, attends Drake University where he quarterback the football team. Wins the “Salad Bowl” against Arizona in 1950.

Graduates with a business degree, majoring in accounting and economics. Teaches and coaches at St. Louis High School and Thornton Academy (his alma mater). Works as an accountant and controller for several businesses, and is president of Building Materials, Inc. in Lisbon Falls.

Town manager in Greene and Wayne, he eventually becomes administrative assistant to the Durham selectmen—plus plumbing inspector, assessor, and code enforcement officer as well.

Built his home, enjoyed building stone walls and using computers (before they became the norm), and the study of philosophy. He stood up for things that he believed in, like education.

“He will be remembered for standing up at the 1998 Durham town meeting and declaring, ‘I’m through being a cheapskate,’ and leading a vote to pass a school music program,” said his obituary.

Rhoades went on with his touching tribute to Joe, which captured the man so well.

My father-in-law was a hero and he is an inspiration to me today to keep doing what I do, not always receiving accolades and the spotlight, but working diligently for what is right and good.

I’m honored to be riding in his memory, October 4. There may be readers that aren't already supporting a rider, walker, or cyclist that would like to support my efforts and help support a great cause. If so, you can make a donation by following this link to my online fundraising page.

[Drake football, circa 1950, Veterans Stadium, Wichita, KS; Joe is #36. All-American, Johnny Bright, is directly behind Joe.]

Bullies, sadists, and the right-wing

2009-09-19T00:56:00.003-04:00

It’s still difficult for many on the left to come to terms and fully understand the hijacking of their country by right-wing zealots, even after three decades of lies, misinformation, and the ever-present shroud of fear that now blankets the nation. Max Blumenthal has written a guidebook for you and anyone else that would like to get at the true root of what ails America.

Terry Gross interviewed Blumenthal about the new book, Republican Gomorrah: Inside The Movement That Shattered The Party, a week ago. I highly recommend that interview as a starting point, although I’m hoping ultimately that those that really care about changing the direction of the country will buy the book. Heck, wouldn’t it be nice if Blumenthal’s book woke people from their slumber and stopped the downhill slide to the right once and for all?

It’s interesting to hear Blumenthal speak (during his interview with Gross) and tick off details that constitutes a who’s who of right-wing Republicanism, many of them born-again evangelicals, and their strangely twisted theology and personal mistreatment of scripture. One of these figures is Sarah Palin. Blumenthal writes about going undercover at gathering at a small house, with members of the Wasilla Assembly of God, the church where Palin was baptized and spent 20 years as a member. Blumenthal is there when Thomas Muthee visited the group. Blumenthal actually feigns speaking in tongues to get inside and get a bird’s eye view of the bat shit crazy fringe element that is part and parcel of who Palin really is (quite funny, really and worth finding on the Fresh Air clip, around the 31:00 minute mark). Strangely, while this information was available briefly, it never gained much traction, or was widely disseminated even by the “so-called liberal media” during the presidential campaign of 2008, when Palin came close to being vice president of the U.S.

Blumenthal talks about “fringe elements,” which control large portions of the AM dial, talkers like Alex Jones, who spews conspiracy theories so whacked that it really makes me wonder whether or not we haven’t descended into a kind of bipartite seperation in the U.S. between not right and left, but sane and insane.

Jones warns listeners that President Obama is going to “create concentration camps for right-wing dissidents,” and “implement massive gun seizures,” which Blumenthal contends is all designed to create fear and mobilize grassroots opposition to all things Obama (like healthcare reform) support for far right Republican causes, and fill the coffers of right-wing organizations that have become depleted during the eight years of GW Bush.

While both Blumenthal and others use the term “fringe” to describe many of these elements of the right, they are, however, not unpopular. Talk radio figures like James Dobson, Michael Savage, and even Jones, command enormous audiences of several million Americans, and regularly influence mainstream reporting on news and aspects of the Obama administration, and the Democratic party.

Blumenthal delves into the psychology that is part and parcel of the right-wing playbook and in fact supports its framework. Jane Smiley’s review of Blumenthal’s book gives considerable space to this element of the book, and I think it is an important aspect of understanding how all the various elements and the vast network of seemingly disparate organizations connect.

From Smiley’s review:

Blumenthal does two things that no one else I have read manages to do–the first of these is that he organizes the network. He shows how Ted Bundy is connected to James Dobson is connected to Gary Bauer is connected to Erik Prince is connected to Ralph Reed is connected to Jack Abramoff is connected to Tom Delay is connected to Tony Perkins is connected to David Duke is connected to Mel Gibson, and so forth, and in the course of tracing these connections, he informs us, or reminds us, of the crimes and misdemeanors these people have committed.

It appears that Blumenthal deftly connects the dots and ties this “vast right-wing conspiracy” (sorry, couldn’t resist Hillary’s terminology on this) to the Christian Dominionists, a group that almost no one on the left knows anything about, but wield power and influence, followers of the late RJ Rushdoony, and Gary North.

More from Smiley’s review regarding this movement, which Blumenthal details in his book, whom he equates with the Taliban, quite accurately, I might add:

Many of the Evangelicals Blumenthal discusses are Christian Dominionists–that is, they differ from the Taliban only in their choice of doctrine. Their uses of that doctrine (to dehumanize women and other groups, to never share power, to control every aspect of every life within their power, and to create society as a steeply hierarchical structure with them at the top) are those of the Taliban.

It’s an eye-opener to read about R.J. Rushdoony, son of Armenian immigrants who fled the Armenian genocide of 1915. You would think that a man whose family escaped mass murder would go on to espouse peace, love, and understanding, but Rushdoony went the other way, taking literally the 613 laws in the Book of Leviticus. In his book, The Institutes of Biblical Law, he advocates capital punishment for “disobedient children, unchaste women, apostates, blasphemers, practitioners of witchcraft, adulterers,” and homosexuals. Gary North, the Presbyterian Christian Reconstructionist, is his son-in-law, and, while not backing down on the mass death penalty, advocates stoning rather than burning at the stake, because stoning is cheaper (and of course that is a factor, because there would be a lot of people to exterminate). As for who would be doing the killing (of you and me, if they could catch us), well, Christians would, but not because they wanted to. Ever unable to accept responsibility, they assign agency to God, who wants us killed, who will beat us until we “crumple” on his “loving” breast, a God who has given us all sorts of talents, skills, and interests, but is, like these Christian Dominionists, interested only in power. I believe his motto is “Adore me or I will hurt you.”

I think one reason that the right continues to gain support and that those who don’t subscribe to their doctrine underestimate their staying power, is that they have never been up close and personal to this craziness and succumbed to its power, even for a short period, like I have.

Having seen its darkness, and been in its clutches, and broken free, might be one of the reasons why it concerns me so much and continues to motivate me to warn others.

I’ll be picking up Blumenthal’s book sooner, rather than later. I urge others to do the same.

Shuffle play Friday-Songs about superheroes

2009-09-18T05:09:00.006-04:00

It's time for another Shuffle Play Friday, my weekly homage to a handful of songs that I’ve discovered, or become reacquainted with over the previous seven day. I try to keep it light, or lighter via these posts.

This week, I was thinking about leadership, and the lack of it wherever you look—locally, at the state level (the two areas where I get to stare this paucity in the face), and following the healthcare debate, it’s quite apparent that the election of Mr. Obama hasn’t done anything to change the corporate stranglehold on power and politics. If you aren’t one of America’s elite powerbrokers, you are SOL and without an advocate for the things that matter to the working or middle classes.

We need Superman in the worst way, but he seems to be unavailable at the moment.

Larry Norman-Reader’s Digest/Only Visiting This Planet

I’ve written about Larry Norman before. This morning, I heard another song that made me thing about this track of Norman’s from a 1973 album.

Norman sang, “It's 1973, I wonder who we're gonna see
Who's in power now? Think I'll turn on my TV,
The man on the news said China's gonna beat us,
We shot all our dreamers, there's no one left to lead us.
We need a solution, we need salvation,
Let's send some people to the moon and gather information.

spoken: They brought back a big bag of rocks.
Only cost thirteen billion. Must be nice rocks.

Things haven’t changed much since 1973 in that while we haven’t had a major leader gunned down recently in the U.S., we still have no one left to lead us.

Who can we call upon, if as Norman sings, we have no one to lead us out of the wilderness.

Crash Test Dummies-Superman's Song/The Ghosts That Haunt Me

I remember when this song first made its way onto the playlist of our local adult ontemporary station, WCLZ. The lyrics painted Superman as a world weary everyman, albeit one with extraordinary powers. It was an interesting twist on the superhero take coming from Hollywood.
Brad Roberts’ signature voice singing the song’s quirky, but outstanding lyrics make one pine for someone with super powers.

Our Lady Peace-Superman Is Dead/Clumsy

Another Canadian band with a song about Superman—is there something in the water supply to the north that promotes songs about superheroes?

I read that the song was making a statement about television, and the influence that it has on children, and the unrealistic expectations that it engenders. The band’s lead singer, Raine Maida hearkened back to the simplicity of the television he remembered—black and white images of the original Superman, and then, he contrasted it with the two popular cartoon morons of the moment, Beavis and Butthead.

The Rosebuds-In The Backyard/Lifelike

One of my favorite online stations that I listen to is KEXP, out of Seattle. This station is a great example of what FM radio should be, a freeform station hearkening back to the days when the FM dial was about unpredictability, and catching music that you weren’t expecting. It’s all so predictable today, by-and-large, as corporations have wrung most of the vitality from the radio band.

Quilty 3000 does a great Sunday afternoon show that I try to catch every week. The KEXP site allows me ease of access of Q3000’s shows as they archive the streams and I usually go back and listen.

I liked this one by Raleigh, North Carolina’s, The Rosebuds, a band I had never heard of before last Sunday. They also happen to be on Merge, which is always a positive endorsement in my book.

Mason Jennings-The Field/Blood of Man

The first Mason Jennings song I ever heard wasn’t played by Jennings, but by my niece’s husband, at the Tarazewich (Mary’s family) Christmas gathering two years ago. He and I had our acoustic guitars out late at night in front of the fireplace, alternating takes on songs we could play. He began picking out the chords to “Forgiveness,” an extremely poignant song about family relationships.

Jennings new album is getting solid reviews and I think I’ll end up picking it up. Jennings plays all the instruments himself, and it represents Jennings stripped down and raw, which is how I like him best. He is also scheduled to play Portland in October, I think.

This particular track is about a soldier in a war far away (Iraq?) who loses his life and the perspective of a parent’s sense of loss and memories that remain. It also touches on the responsibility of our leaders (“If I was the president…”) and how they’ve failed our lost sons and daughters. The father goes out to “the field,” a place that obviously holds meaning according the Jennings, and tries to connect with the disappeared son.

Five more tunes for this week are now in the can, and another SPF is posted for readers that love music. Long live rock!

Leading with my chin

2009-09-15T17:15:00.005-04:00

I’m proud of the weight I’ve lost (36 pounds), as well as ramping up my fitness routine and achieving some positive gains from the lifestyle changes I’ve made.

Over the past 13 weeks, I’ve gone from being someone who never walked away from a plate of nachos, an extra cheeseburger, or a second helping of ice cream, to exhibiting the kind of discipline I once had, but had set aside once I segued into my 30s and 40s.

I’ve been talking about “losing 20 pounds” to anyone that would listen for about 10 years. Making the shift from talking about it to doing something about it puts me in select company in America, because we’re a country of whiners who rarely do more than sit on our fat asses and complain about _________________ (fill in the blank), without doing a goddamned thing to change the mix, or play a different hand.

For the past two months, I’ve upped my training from 3-4 days per week of 12-15 miles on my bike, to where I’m now biking five days/nights per week and logging over 100 miles weekly. Usually, Saturday, and/or Sunday involve rides of 25+ miles. I’ve also signed up to participate in The Dempsey Challenge, a member of Team Tarazzmatazz.

Given my newfound fitness focus, and given the very demanding work schedule staring me in the face for the week, with three events scheduled beyond my normal 8:00 to 5:00 daily routine, I knew I had to get out on my bike early, pre-work, if I was going to get in five days on the bike this week.

This morning, I was on my Diamondback at 5:45 a.m. just prior to sunrise. I was well equipped with a bright fluorescent vest, and two new lights that cost me about $70 last week, to aid in visibility now that I am battling shorter days for road time.

About 45 minutes into my ride, an awesome early morning with the sun just coming up on the horizon, my front tire caught one of the ubiquitous pavement fissures that populate Maine’s back roads. Our roads are a mess, as the cash-strapped legislature and our do-nothing governor continue cutting corners on road maintenance in order to deal with budget woes. In a matter of seconds, my front fork had been spun around and my 223 pound frame was being hurtling over the handle bars. I think I hit my right knee first, and then began a bumpy landing, first touching down on both hands, then my elbows, and finally coming to a rest on my chin. As I lay on the pavement, I was afraid to reach up and feel my throbbing chin, thinking that I’d be feeling stands of shredded skin.
Gingerly hoisting myself up and on my feet, moving my neck and flexing my wrist and arms, I knew I was sore and banged up, but it didn’t seem as though anything was broken. My biggest concern was my chin at that moment. I grabbed a paper towel stained with chain grease out of my gig bag on the back of my bike to dab my chin. After putting pressure on my scraped chin and pulling it away, I was surprised that there wasn’t much blood at all. I was a afraid to glance in my rearview mirror, however, not sure what horror I’d come face to face with.

I dialed my cell phone (which I always carry) and called Mary.

“Mary, I just took a bad spill off the Shiloh Road. I’m pretty banged up and shaky,” I stammered. “Can you come pick me up?”

Mary had just left the house for work, but she immediately turned around and motored my way.

I managed to work up the courage to look at my chin. Amazingly, there was no fragmented laceration, or jagged gash—just a nasty looking case of road rash—a serious abrasion. I was lucky!

I twisted my front fork back around and into place. My bar ends on my handle bars were badly bent. My hands were shaking, but I got on my bike and started cycling towards the intersection where I’d eventually rendezvous with Mary and her Rav 4.

I was never so glad to see her vehicle when she turned the corner and I dismounted near the lighthouse, just off east of Route 125 in Durham.

We managed to wedge my bike into Mary’s SUV, after removing the front tire and doing a bit of tugging to fit it into the back.

Arriving back home around 7:30, I began peeling off my biking attire and apprising the damage. Beside my asphalt-stained chin, my right knee was badly bruised, with some abrasions and showing signs that it was beginning to swell. Fortunately for me, the weather was cold enough that I donned a windbreaker and as a result, my only injuries were a few abrasions on my left elbow, and a very sore neck and back. After calling into work letting them know of my incident and that I wasn't going to be in for the day, I spent the rest of the morning icing my knee, and trying to lose the shaking in my hands.

Twelve hours removed from my brush with a serious injury, I’m pretty sore, slightly bruised, and my chin is already scabbing over. It certainly could have been much worse.

[Bike helmet and gloves--don't leave home without them!]

In addition to escaping a brush with broken bones and something even worse, my bike was virtually unscathed. Feeling a bit better this afternoon, I was able to make adjustments to my bar ends, putting them back in place. My front tire needs to be re-trued, as it was slightly warped, but other than that, I think I’m ready to get back out on the road, although I may take tomorrow off for some recovery time.

Writing prompt

2009-09-14T23:37:00.004-04:00

Successful authors routinely find their way into elite MFA programs. At least that's what I've been told. My son is now at Brown, enrolled in their MFA program for writing so I guess he'll become a successful author. Even better--he's blogging about the process, at least the first 10 days in.

Apparently other Brown MFA'ers blog, as evidenced by this blog by Amish Trivedi, a poet who comes to Brown by way of Iowa City. He occasionally displays a political side, weighing in on Glenn Beck, healthcare, and capitalism.

Ah, to be young and enrolled in an MFA program, instead of hopelessly wedded to work and the daily saga of the adult treadmill/hamster wheel.

Here's a list of some of the more prestigious writing programs, from Atlantic Monthly.

Shuffle play Friday-forget the past

2009-09-10T21:17:00.009-04:00

[I’m getting this week’s musical post up a tad early (yes, Shuffle Play Friday is back for another week).

On Sept. 10, 2001, which is now eight years ago, I started work at UnumProvident Insurance (now just plain UNUM). The next day, during training class, the Twin Towers came down and they sent all us trainees home, as well as the rest of the training department. People were freaking out, crying hysterically; I was glad to be home, processing all of the news coverage by myself, and later, with Mary, when she came home from work.

In many ways, I had hit a wall at that point in my life, knowing that I had to make some different choices. Since then, I've in embarked on a new path, in essence, reinventing myself. It's been a long arduous journey and I've done things in parts/sections. My physical transformation/metamorphosis has been the last to arrive, lagging far behind the other changes. My weight ballooned, even while other aspects (my soul/spirit/intellect) had gone through some serious growth and development. It feels good to experience some sense of completion nearing, and have equilibrium restored.—JB]

This week, I discovered that Canadian rock is more than The Tragically Hip and Bachman Turner Overdrive. Actually, I already knew that, but I’ve been listening to CBC Radio 3, and a host of new music that’s from our civilized neighbors to the north after being linked there through an interesting web search journey one night, a journey that reconnected me with Julie Doiron, former singer for Eric’s Trip, a band I was a fan of during my WBOR days.

Back when I was doing my radio gig, I often stopped by the station mid-week after working my day shift job for the local power company. I’d want to preview new stuff that always seemed to arrive around Wednesday. Seeing that my shows were usually Saturday nights and wanting to be the freshest DJ on the air, I’d spend a couple of hours going through the “new” CD bin. It was usually a night when student DJs like Colin Decker and Alec Thibodeau (from Car and later, Lincolnville) had their shows. I’d gotten to know them and we’d talk music and I’d get a sense about what they were digging. Pete Hodgin, who is now a teacher and not long ago was still DJ’ing on WMPG (Portland’s stellar community station), with a Friday rock show supreme. Hodgin was another student that I enjoyed trading music preferences with. He’s the DJ that got me into some great Midwestern rock on the Faye Records label, like Ditchwitch. He also turned me onto the lo-fi geniuses, Guided by Voices, circa Vampire on Titus, and before Spin and other indie rock mags picked up on the Bob Pollard story.

Those were good times!

Doiron, btw, is now performing solo and has been putting out stuff for a decade after Eric Trip’s demise.

Grand Analog-I Play My Kazoo/Metropolis is Burning

In an age where there seems to be so little that’s new and wondrous, I’m really enjoying a whole new batch of artists that I’m not familiar with, via the world of new Canadian music. As a big fan of all things Canadian, having someone like Grand Analog pounding in my headphones, while writing late at night has been one of this week’s guilty pleasures.

The Junction-My Love Was There For Me/Another Link in the Chain

Another Canadian artist that I’ve been grooving to this week; when The Junction sing the refrain, “In a time of doubt, it’s easy to feel sorry for yourself,” I say “fuckin’ yeah,” as I nod my head to the frenetic beat of the tune and the chorus of “sing along, sing along.”

Tune in, tune out the sorry world, and push the problems of the world outside the cocoon of sound emanating from my computer.

Sometimes all we can hope for in this world of disappointment is that one person who “is there” for us. Check out the YouTube video and have a get happy moment.

Superchunk-100,000 Fireflies/Incidental Music 1991-95

It was the summer of 1994. WBOR usually was off the air during the summer months when most students returned home. For whatever reason, the 50 watt college blowtorch stayed on the air most of the June, July, and August. I happened to have the Brunswick/Bath area for my service area as CMP’s meter installer extraordinaire, which meant that my improvise sound system in my truck (a cheap Sanyo AM/FM cassette deck stayed tuned to indie rock all summer, as I completed my orders, which included disconnecting the power for many of the area’s low-income residents that had failed to pay their utility bills. What can I say—it was a host of shitty jobs I held for much of my 20s and 30s as I struggle to locate a truer path.

Almost every DJ on ‘BOR played this killer Superchunk (originally penned by Stephen Merritt and recorded by his band, the Magnetic Fields) track that still packs a wallop and sounds great a decade and half later.

It’s debatable if there was a band more emblematic of American indie rock during the early to mid-90s than Chapel Hill’s Superchunk.

Julie Doiron-Heavy Snow/I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day

A member of the aforementioned Eric’s Trip, a Moncton, New Brunswick four-piece named after a Sonic Youth song.

Eric’s Trip were one of a slew of lo-fi, four-track wonders that populated the indie scene during the early 90s. Doiron played bass, guitar, and sang.

Doiron, who veered away from electric music for a period after Eric’s Trip broke up, choosing quieter melancholy arrangements, has again embraced elements of electric guitar, the pace changes, and the more stripped down sound that her first band was known for—oh, and that voice!

Keep on rockin’ in the free world!

Biking before dark

2009-09-09T20:46:00.004-04:00

Today was my third day over the past four of biking vigorously. Saturday, I rode 26 miles, Sunday, it was just over 20. Yesterday, I gave my legs a rest, and then tonight, I raced the sun as it was setting after work, to bike a route just shy of 21 miles.

It’s been awhile since I’ve pushed my body physically like this. At 47, I thought my days of intense physicality might be past, but apparently, I still have some tiger left in my tank.

I enjoy the physical changes that losing 35 pounds, and rounding into shape are bringing to bear 0n me. I think our physical condition influences who we are and our outlook about life much more profoundly than I’ve considered before.

[I snapped this 15 minutes before the sun set; this is about 6 miles from our house, along the power lines in Pownal.--JB]

Question authority

2009-09-08T12:12:00.005-04:00

It's nice once in awhile to come across a well-written opinion piece making perfect sense. Like Reason Magazine's Jesse Walker sharing a few thoughts about Mr. Obama not being our nation's guidance counselor, as well as other cogent points, like this one.

Children shouldn't be taught that the president—any president—is a beloved paternal figure with a grand plan for everyone. (From the original lesson plan: "Students might think about: What specific job is he asking me to do? Is he asking anything of anyone else? Teachers? Principals? Parents? The American people?") Children should be taught the truth: that presidents are polarizing figures who are constantly dogged by controversy. That Americans don't always agree about proper public policy, and sometimes they disagree enough to do something as drastic as keeping their kids home from school. That politics is about conflict, not listening in unison while a friendly face on a TV screen dispenses instructions.

I also liked the link out to McLuhan and the phrase, "the medium is the message," something I've been rolling around in my head of late.

It puts some of the political craziness of the past week into some kind of manageable context. Maybe that's why the magazine he writes for and manages is named Reason.

You call this change?

2009-09-07T00:22:00.005-04:00

I happened upon this while doing some late night internet reading and was struck by a portion of the post:

With Kennedy gone, we are at the mercy of a weak, squabbling, visionless Democratic party and a President whose domestic reform policies are adrift–sliding towards the horizon with each passing day: The lost battle for Afghanistan. (Seriously– the British, then the Soviets, and now us?) The phony victory on Wall Street, one bubble replacing another. Health care reform being taken over by right-wing screwballs at the town meetings. The very idea that amidst all this, Obama is vacationing on a huge estate on Martha Vineyard’s is smack out of the George Bush playbook (except that with W, it was the Texas chainsaw vacation).

It appears that for the many who had hopes and dreams that the New Jerusalem would be ushered in during an Obama presidency, reality has finally begun to set in for all but the Kool-aid camp.

If the Van Jones debacle isn't another example of Obama's inability to stand beside and defend anyone or anything that might tarnish his ties to the establishment, then I don't know what is.

I was struck once again by the political bait-and-switch represented by Obama and his faux leftism, despite what the idiot choirboys (like Beck, Limbaugh, et al) spew about Marxism, as I listened to Jonathan Kozol speak for three hours on BookTV about education in the U.S.

The interview with C-SPAN's Connie Doebele was wide-ranging and touched on Kozol's books about our failed "segregated" system that creates educational haves and have-nots, typically along racial lines, excluding blacks and Latinos.

Kozol talked about being “stunned” by the large number of what he termed “devout liberals,” all living in major U.S. cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles—these are mostly privileged white people, self-identified liberals that refuse to face up to the fact that they’ve abandoned poor African-Americans and Latinos to what Kozol calls “apartheid schools.”

Obama, the nation's most prominent African-American abandoned public schools for his own two daughters.

Progressives were duped once again, as they usually are when they pull the lever for a Democrat.

Spouse's Jose Ayerve featured on SistersTalk

2009-09-05T06:11:00.004-04:00

I'm keeping the rock and roll theme going here at WordsMatter. Spouse front man, Jose Ayerve, gets a nice feature interview at SistersTalk Radio.

SistersTalk is a Gay/Lesbian podcast, highlighting artists/musicians, authors, entertainers, and others from the Gay/Lesbian community.

Jose talks about his music, his influences behind Spouse, and some of his other music. Beyond music, he also shares his own personal coming out story, and the response of his own parents and others. You also get to hear a couple of Spouse songs, including one of my fave tracks, "Are You Gonna Kiss, Or Wave Goodbye?"

Attention Brooklyn-area music fans!! Jose will be part of a CD release party for "Ciao My Shining Star: The Songs of Mark Mulcahy," at the Williams Music Hall of Williamsburg, September 20, an interesting disc he was part of with some other big name rock and rollers.

Great interview!

Random musings during the Friday nocturne

2009-09-04T02:59:00.003-04:00

Rather than continuing my recent Friday routine of Shuffle Play Fridays, I leave you some random thoughts I’m ruminating on during the early AM on Friday. The coyotes nearby have roused me from my sleep with their barking and calls to one another, so I decided to leave the comfort of my bed, albeit one that had me lying there fully awake, to visit my office and spend some time in front of my computer screen.

-Writing blues

There was a time when I considered my personal pool of energy to be unlimited. What I’m discovering, based on my current experiences is that our individual reservoirs are more likely finite, and we are able to shift resources around, depending on what our focus and priorities are.

Last spring and early summer, I’d work a full day, come home, have dinner with Mary, and retire to my “hobbit hole” and work another three to four hours (and occasionally longer) on what eventually became Moxietown. That wasn’t a sustainable routine, but I did manage to maintain it for six months, or so. Once the book was released and the Moxie Festival completed (which is where the bulk of my sold out title got dispensed), I took some needed time away from serious writing.

Over the winter and during the early spring, I ramped up my writing and began what I thought would be book #3, a book that I intended to be a compilation of my experiences of my sojourn into fundamentalist Xianity during the early 1980s. After completing about 25,000 words, I found the writing becoming mechanical and devoid of much vigor. About February, I came to recognize that for whatever reason, that project needed to be moved to a back burner because I had hit a wall. It has remained on its own SanDisk in my desk drawer since.

After taking a month off, I got reengaged by writing some longer essays, releasing a few snippets, portions and samplings via an occasional blog post here at Words Matter. There have been weeks when I’ve been as prolific as any period that I’ve experienced as a writer. Unfortunately, the summer months (what we’ve had of a summer) have found those bursts of fury spaced further and further apart.

Blogging by and large has been easy for me. One of the reasons that I’ve persevered as a blogger is that I find 1,200 to 1,500 word posts relatively easy to crank out. This blog has become my veritable semi-regular column on a variety of topics, my most recent inclination to write about being music, although music writing and the recent development of Shuffle Play Fridays have been more about creating a weekly blog placeholder, or a means of putting up something that might draw readers back from time to time, as I sometimes get fixated on things like blog stats and return visits. Stupid, eh?

This past week, however, I think my physical fitness focus has caught up with me. The past three or four days, I haven’t had my usual flurry of blog post ideas flooding my head during my work day. Often I jot them down on a scrap of paper or notebook I keep for idea generation during a 90 minute drive to Skowhegan, or some other remote outpost that I serve in my day job. Hence, there has been a paucity of posts here this past week. My work blog has also languished for a much longer period. An occasional idea has floated by, but I’ve been lacking sufficient energy/passion to post it.

I attribute this to channeling so much energy into the physical side of things, which has siphoned off some of my creative energy and fire of late.

Is this a reality for any other writers out there? Does one have to sacrifice being fit and in some semblance of being in shape if they want to become wildly successful, or at least a prolific practitioner, toiling in relative obscurity?

-MOB rules

I can’t abandon Friday morning music musings entirely. Partly, this is a result of my current reading, which is Michael Azerrad’s excellent book about indie rock, Our Band Could Be Your Life. One of the 13 bands that Azerrad highlights is Mission of Burma that seminal Boston-based band that has influenced so many other bands that followed their blazing of the musical trail.

Only rock obscurantists like me care about MOB (my own preferred acronym, although it’s not unique to me, as I’ve seen the band’s name represented as MoB) and their music has receded into the musty corridors populated by vinyl and cassette tapes, both of which I have a deep affinity for.

Formed in Boston, MA in 1979, the band consisted of Roger Miller, Clint Conley, Peter Prescott and Martin Swope. Musically, they were as intense as any punk band, but they were also able to separate themselves from regular three chord crowd through their use of unusual time signatures and chord progressions, as well as tape effects (courtesy of Swope).

A truly groundbreaking outfit, their music was destined to be ignored, or cited long after the band broke up, like most artists that hit the scene too early, or inaccurately time their 15 minutes, only to be a mere wisp of smoke in some grander scheme, a mere rock and roll footnote.

Actually, I’m being a bit hyperbolic concerning MOB (or MoB) because in 1981, they actually signed a record deal with Ace Of Hearts, a Boston-based label run by Rick Harte. Harte was a producer of some local renown and he took a liking to the band after hearing seeing them play live in Boston. As local labels went at the time, Ace of Hearts was a great place of the band to be. Harte cared deeply about his artists and his product. Like most indie labels, small press book publishers, and other creative endeavors operating outside of the mainstream (read, popular, mass-produced culture), distribution tends to be an issue. It was for MOB and Ace of Hearts, which at that time was one of the few indie labels out there.

Their first single, “Academy Fight Song / Max Ernst” single actually sold out very quickly and both songs have become fan staples of the band.

Next came the EP “Signals, Calls And Marches,” which also sold out its initial pressing of 10,000. It was later was reissued by Rykodisc (with six remastered original songs and two bonus tracks – both from their first single) and Matador (with video material and even more bonus tracks). I own the Rykodisc CD version.

Later, the band released the full-length "VS," which is generally considered to be one of their best works, and has been recognized by several critics as one of the best albums of the 80s.

Despite developing a strong following in Boston, and a few other indie outposts at the time, MOB broke up in 1983, partly because of Miller's worsening tinnitus, due in large part to the band’s notoriously loud live performances. The band went out for a farewell tour and released a live album “The Horrible Truth About Burma,” which came out on Ace Of Hearts in 1985.

During the 90s, it was rare to read an interview with a member of a variety of post-punk outfits without them dropping a MOB reference, citing them as a key influence.

The band reformed in 2002, playing a bunch of reunion shows. They garnered rave reviews, drawing old fans, and new acolytes alike. Bob Weston (who plays in Shellac, a math rock outfit, with Steve Albini) had replaced Swope at the mixing board and on tape manipulation. OnoffOn was released in 2004 on Matador, as well as a new live recording. 2005 brought another new record, with several tentative titles, but finally was christened "Obliterati."

There is a new record in the works set to be released next month, on Matador. Recorded in Boston back in March, "The Sound The Speed The Light" has an October 6 release date.

-Front running in Tampa Bay

I’ve chronicled my personal hatred of the team formerly known as the Devil Rays here at Words Matter. My antipathy for the club has a back story that’s hard for me to let go of. Last fall’s AL final between Boston and ball club with its front running fan base that couldn’t go away soon enough, is still fresh in my mind.

Despite a lineup that virtually has no center, and another sub par outing from Josh Beckett (is he injured again?), Boston managed to take two of three important games from TTFKATDRs, hopefully finishing them off, one year after baseball’s dumber prognosticators were hailing them as the AL’s team of the future. Oh yeah—I owe Clay Buchholz an apology, as the young hurler sucked it up last night and gutted out six innings to log another quality start—Buchholz may actually be rounding into a major league pitcher after all.

Tampa Bay is America’s professional sports armpit in my opinion. An overbuilt southern city, devoid of much in the way of culture (typical of much of the “new” south), fans of TTFKATDRs have to be some of the worst bunch of bandwagon riders in all of MLB. For the past three nights, each time NESN’s cameras would pan the crowd (of what should have been a sellout), we saw a wash of empty blue seats, as the good folks of Tampa Bay couldn’t muster enough enthusiasm to even half fill the ugliest and most user-unfriendly professional sports venue in North America (Tropicana Field makes the Big O in Montreal look like Camden Yards), in what was the ball club’s watershed series of the 2009 campaign.

So long Tampa; you got a sniff last year, but now it’s back to being suck city all over again, you foreclosure wasteland, and Siberia of an American urban area, masquerading as a viable place to live and conduct business.

Shuffle play Friday-DIY

2009-08-28T11:44:00.007-04:00

I just started reading Michael Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From the American Indie Underground, for a book club I’ve been invited to join. I can already tell it’s going to be an interesting read for a couple of reasons that are quite obvious to me—indie rock, particularly the type Azerrad highlights, is informed by the DIY ethic that drives me forward in my own life. Also, each of the 13 bands featured are favorites of mine, and I think Azerrad is spot on for highlighting their significance, as well as providing a good deal more detail on most than even I was privy to. The only one of the 13 that I’m a bit dubious on would be the Butthole Surfers, although I’m sure once I get to that chapter, I’ll come to appreciate what they were about in a way that I’m not, at present.

This is a book that puts late 70s/early 80s punk/hardcore into a particular historical context that’s often missing from rock criticism, and any other writing connected to rock and roll. Actually, one of the benefits of the book is that it fills in details about a key period in the evolution of early punk/hardcore, and how it reached its watershed moment in Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Sprit,” when the entire indie/underground scene blew up and changed, almost overnight.

In light of Azerrad’s book, this Friday’s Shuffle Play Friday features tracks from some the 13 bands featured, as well as representing some of my favorite rock songs of all time.

Hüsker Dü-Ice Cold Ice/Warehouse Songs and Stories

Back in 1984, stranded in the center (or close to it) of the country, shipwrecked and looking for a new source of meaning, music became my new drug, replacing fundamentalist religion. At the time, Chicago’s WXRT hosted "The Big Beat," a hour-long indie rock show, every Friday night at 11:00. This became my gateway into a whole new world of underground music I knew little about.

Fast-forward to early 1987 (the year I’d move back to Maine, in August after four years in the post-industrial armpit of NW Indiana) and pre-internet, so there weren’t a wealth of places for someone living in Chesterton, Indiana to connect with indie music.

It was on ‘XRT where I first caught wind of Hüsker Dü and their loud, fast rock and roll. “Ice Cold Ice” was being played regularly. I drove up to Michigan City to pick up Warehouse Songs and Stories on cassette, after reading about it in the latest issue of Rolling Stone.

Black Flag-TV Party/Damaged

It’s hard to imagine the unbridled passion that Black Flag brought to their music in today’s corporate rock environment. The anger was real, with Henry Rollins working out his issues onstage each and every show, often on the heads of members of the audience that pissed him off.

Rollins wasn’t Black Flag’s first vocalist, but he was the one that moved the band forward and gave them their more serious focus that they become known by.

The band’s sound, characterized by Greg Ginn’s fractured, atonal playing style came to epitomize the hardcore punk sounds, since Black Flag were one of the first playing this kind of music in the U.S.

I picked up Damaged in a used vinyl shop. TV Party is a throwback to some of the goofier tunes that characterized the earlier years when Keith Morris (later of the Circle Jerks) was on vocals.

DOA-51st State/True (North) Strong and Free

I first saw DOA in Chicago, in 1986 on a bill with the Descendants, DC3 (former Black Flag member Dez Cadena’s band), and a fourth band that escapes me now, some 23 years later.

DOA, led by the irrepressible Joey “Shithead” Keithly are still going strong. Like Black Flag, DOA originated as a punk hardcore band, but later introduced a more melodic approach to their songs.

The band, which hails from Vancouver, BC, wear their Canadian hearts on their sleeves. This song captures the Canadian inferiority complex that comes from being America’s neighbor to the north, as well as the love/hate thing that is the reality when you live next door to someone that can potentially make your life hell if you piss them off.

At this stage of their career, think a Canadian Ramones, and you’ll be close.

The Minutemen-History Lesson-Part II/Double Nickels on the Dime

The title of Azerrad’s book comes from this song. DNOTD was released in 1984. I owned it on cassette, acquiring my copy back in the 90s. I still regularly listened in that format, but the cassette player in my old 1984 Pontiac chewed the tape up last w/e, so I’ve got to get it on CD, or vinyl, as this album is one I must own.

I never saw the Minutemen live, but I did see Mike Watt’s post MM band, Firehose back in the late-90s when they played the old Zootz nightclub, in Portland. I met Watt after the show, as he stood and shook hands with everyone that came, a holdover from the days of punk, when by-and-large, bands appreciated their fans, and there wasn’t the star/fan divide common with most entertainment/sports, today.

X-Johnny Hit and Run Pauline/Los Angeles

I don’t know why Azerrad leaves X out of his book, as they warrant a chapter, in my opinion, as they are one of the seminal bands in the early days of American punk. They also have had a tremendous influence on so many other bands that followed.

In 1986, X released The Unheard Music, a documentary chronicling the members of the band, and the Los Angeles punk scene. I heard it advertised on the aforementioned WXRT, Chicago's alternative rock station. It was playing at a theater on Fullerton, in the city, and I drove my 1968 Chevy Impala, with a dead cylinder, the requisite 45 miles from Chesterton, to catch the showing.

There were about 5 people in the theater, in a seedy end of the city, but it was worth the trip and gas to get there. Great rock movie and I was totally hooked on X and have been ever since.

The movie captures the seamy underside of Los Angeles, the one that Jim Morrison sang about in “LA Woman,” and the one I went searching for on my recent trip to the City of Angels.

Yet another album I once owned on cassette.

Lessons learned from losing weight

2009-08-25T07:34:00.005-04:00

It has been nine weeks since I stepped on the scale on June 23 and decided I was going to begin taking steps towards ending being overweight.

Actually my 259 pounds on my 6'4" frame was obese on all manner of weight charts. While I'm still considered overweight according to a variety of weight charts, and my BMI of 27.87 on FitDay still classifies me as such, my weight this morning is 229 pounds, which is 30 pounds lighter than I was at the end of June. I've hit my weight goal three days ahead of schedule. Even better, I am in the best shape I've been in since 1993, when I was pitching for Coastal Athletics in the Twilight League, competing against college "kids" ten years younger. I'm starting to feel that athlete's "buzz" that comes from being in shape and having clothes fit properly.

Here are a few key things I've learned over the past nine weeks on my fitness/weight loss journey:

* Awareness of what I'm eating
* Losing weight requires limiting portion sizes
* The importance of regular, vigorous exercise
* A realization that this is a lifestyle shift, not a mere diet

It's interesting that whenever you make significant change (s) in your own life, these changes produce fallout, and will prompt naysaying from those around you that may not be in the same place that you are at the moment.

Yesterday, I was waiting for a meeting to begin and someone I've worked with over the past three years asked me if I've lost weight. When I told her that I had, she then began lamenting her own weight and went off on a rant about how "it's so easy for men to lose weight," and that it's so hard to eat right, etc. I mentioned that my wife had lost 20 pounds, and that seemed to quiet her a bit about weight loss and men (it was informative for me when this person mentioned that she had just been at a local eatery that has an all-you-can-eat buffet).

The reality of losing weight is that it is difficult. I love to eat and it would be easy for me to eat half a box of triscuits, or have a big plate of taco chips, piled high with cheese, sour cream, and salsa. There was a time when I might have two plates of nachos while watching a ball game. I regularly had second helpings at mealtime. Instead, I now am aware of how many calories those nachos contain, and I don't eat them anymore. I also limit myself to one serving of dishes at dinner. At the same time, I love cheese and I make sure I have a bit of cheese most days, as well as other treats. I've also discovered how wonderful apples, red peppers, and other fruits and vegetables are as lunch items, instead of a high-calorie sub from a local sandwich shop. In fact, I rarely eat out, choosing instead to pack my lunch each work day. I am also saving quite a bit of money foregoing these lunch purchases.

What I like about the routine I've adopted, as has Miss Mary, is that we are both eating healthy foods (and some not so healthy--I still have a penchant for pepperoni and other foods high in sodium), but practice moderation, not a trait that's in vogue any longer. This is a great time of year to be doing so because despite our rainy summer, many local farmers are selling their produce along Maine's roadways. During the past week, we've had fresh cucumers, zucchini, and corn (with butter, btw).

Another positive development from the past nine weeks is recognizing that targeting a healthier weight doesn't have to involve freaky diets, colon purges, or eating highly-processed, packaged food pitched by all manner of celebrities. It's empowering to recognize that it is possible to decide to do something, develop a plan, and through attention to that plan, achieve desired results.

Friday night in the city by the bay

2009-08-22T15:47:00.004-04:00

Living in a rural state like Maine, crammed up into our nation’s northeast corner, cultural offerings and entertainment choices often are lacking, at least compared to larger metropolitan areas of the country, and even New England. Save for Portland, there are few if any places that offer more than a movie at a metroplex, a chain meal at the strip mall, or a back road Allen’s Coffee Brandy, cut with a jug of milk.

Portland is small compared to other cities within a two hour drive, south from Maine’s southern boundary. At the same time, there are few cities of Portland’s size that offer the variety of activities available to participate in on a given Friday or Saturday night. And it has an amazing number of topnotch restaurants, although just how Portland matches up with other larger cities has come under some scrutiny of late. Others chime in on this matter..

What I especially appreciate about the city, and have for the past twenty years, since moving back from the Midwest, are the opportunities to see artists and bands in smaller club settings, particularly those of the independent variety. Portland has its arena shows at the Cumberland County Civic Center, and pricier events at Merrill Auditorium and a few other venues, but if you want to go out and catch a band that represents what I referenced yesterday when I asked rhetorically (regarding Joe Pernice) the question “why hasn’t this guy/band hit it big, yet?” from Friday’s post, then you usually can find several choices in Portland, especially at places like Space Gallery.

I’ve blogged about Jose Ayerve and Spouse several times at Words Matter. My friendship with Jose dates back to my days spinning records and playing DJ on the Bowdoin College station, and then reconnecting with him several years later.

Given that Spouse doesn’t play out as much as they once did, as band mates are growing older, acquiring additional responsibilities beyond music, and that all of them live south of here (mainly in Mass.), when I get wind of an upcoming gig, it gets filed away in the memory bank.

I’d been aware of last night’s gig at Space for a couple of months. Being that is was a Friday night, and Miss Mary and I had been through a particularly tough work week, I suggested that we hit a Happy Hour locally, connect with some old friends at Slainte (Chris Keenan plays every Friday night, from 5:00 to 7:00), and I even Tweeted our niece hoping that she might be free to meet us for a drink.

As luck would have it, we experienced the perfect convergence. I caught up with Alexa, Chris’ wife, who I used to work with, we got to hear Chris run through his set, have a couple of pints of Guiness, Joanne did meet us, and we let the stress of work slide away.

Afterwards, with the night still young and Jose and Co. not expected to go on ‘til much later, I was interested in a bite to eat. At first thinking Norm’s, Joanne suggested 555 (or Five Fifty-Five), on Congress. I’m so glad she did. I had wanted to check out the place and we weren’t disappointed. The restaurant has been receiving quite a bit of buzz, including Chef Steve Corry being voted one of the 10 best chefs in the country.

Eating at the bar, we had drinks, I had the sam’s blt burger, with organic arugala mayo, bacon pickled sweet tomatoes and melted Vermont cheddar. MMM!! If one must imbibe calories, then this is the way to go. Actually, even with my beer intake exceeding my usually austere one light beer per summer night regimen, I didn’t get too far “off the reservation” with my night on the town. Mary had the steak n’ fries, which features a three-day marinated hanger steak. After a drink with her aunt and uncle, we bid Joanne “adieu” as she was headed home to see hubby and prep for Yacht Rock @ The White Heart. Mary never has shared my affinity for amplified music, so after sitting in my car and chatting for a bit, she headed for home. I was off to rock out at Space, any a rare late night out.

We bid Joanne “adieu” as she was headed off to Yacht Rock @ The White Heart and Mary was headed back home. I was off to rock out at Space, any a rare late night out.

There were two opening acts on the bill ahead of Spouse. I showed up during the middle of the opening set by local guitar player Adam Kurtz. Kurtz was working his way through several computer enhanced solo guitar excursions. Definitely an interesting player. I wasn't expecting much, but I'd definitely check out a set of his again, particularly on a night when I wasn't hoping he'd finish so I could see the act I was waiting for, always the curse of the opening act.

Between sets, I had a chance to briefly chat with Jose and we spoke about Pernice’s book tour that he’s managing. We chatted briefly about publishing, my own upcoming book projects, and he introduced me to the guys in Sandra Black, who drove up from Morgantown, West Virginia to play with Spouse (and follow them to Northhampton, MA on Saturday). The band brings a very distinctive delivery to their indie-infused rock. I heard elements of the Pixies, VU, noise-rock, but what really propelled the band’s sound and made me want to hear more from them was vocalist Billy Zweiner’s delivery, which I wish I had words to describe, but it was unique in a very positive way. The band was very tight, which was even more amazing in that Jose was standing in on bass because the band’s regular bassist, Jason Henry’s wife just had their first child, so he was AWOL for the first time ever. Jose mentioned they hadn’t had a chance to practice, foregoing a run through for a day for the boys at Scarborough Beach, instead. Sound check was it for them, but I thought they were pretty amazing.

What else can I say about Spouse. I’ve seen them as a three-piece, which they were for this show (JJ O’Connell on drums and Ken Maiuri on bass), a four, or five-piece, and I”ve seen Jose solo several times. Each time, I think, “these guys are so much better than 95 percent of everything else on the alt-rock landscape,” but Jose and the band continue to languish in indie rock obscurity.

Spouse broke out five new tracks from what will be their latest offering due in the fall. I thought the new material had a much harder edge than the standard Spouse fare making up their current catalog. That isn’t to intimate at all that the band has sacrificed songwriting, or their melodic sensibilities. Jose’s guitar playing has evolved over the years where he truly carries the band in a very understated way not common with most guitarists and band leaders. He truly understands the concept of band, versus wanking away like so many axemen.

As the band segued into their older material, I couldn’t help but sway, bang my foot, and groove to the all-too-familiar strains. Spouse’s “Are You Gonna Kiss or Wave Goodbye?” from 2004, was one of the CD’s that pushed me forward during the writing of my first book. I can write to certain types of music, much of it mellower than Spouse, but that CD will always hold a select place in music that I own.

I also felt pangs of bittersweetness as I thought back over the years. My life has shifted dramatically for the better over the past seven, or eight years. As I grow older, I no longer feel as “at home” at shows, and tend not to go out and see bands. Spouse and in particular, Ayerve, remain one of the few artists that will make me stay out into the early hours of the AM to catch them live.

Today, I woke up nursing a hangover and struggled through my 20 mile bike ride. I’m actually feeling a bit dehydrated, but I’m glad I got out once again to a rock show. It’s a connection to the past that I cherish, albeit an experience of youth that is slowly slipping from my grasp.