Category Archives: Paul

September 9, 2014 · 22:36

Bands I’ve Never Seen

As I drove out to the hanger this morning, I turned on my usual Sirius/XM channel (#33, First Wave, of course) and they were just starting “Dead Man’s Party.” I, of course, cranked it up to eleven, which is both wonderful and dangerous. Wonderful because it’s really fantastic to just wallow in the song and sing along. Dangerous because it’s easy to be driving at about 85 without noticing it when you’re rocking out. The local constabulary frowns on that.

As often happens when listening to Oingo Boingo, there was a touch of melancholy when the song was over, because it’s extremely likely that I’ll never get to see them in concert. Danny Elfman has had some hearing-loss problems from his earlier rock & roll days and has stated that he will never perform in concert again. We’ll just have to live with all of the great music that he’s now composing for movie soundtracks. That, and cranking it up to an eleven when we’re alone in the car.

That thought in turn got me to thinking of other bands that I would really, REALLY like to see live, but either haven’t yet or won’t ever be able to for some reason or the other. In only the most vague sense of order from most lusted after on downward…

Oingo Boingo — see above. The mix of punk & rock & horns is just perfect. Especially the horns. No one else used a brass section in rock as much as Oingo!

Pink Floyd — I know that Roger Waters is touring with a bunch of musicians that do bits from “The Wall” and other Pink Floyd albums, and I would go see it if I get the chance, but what I really want is the whole group, and that’s not going to happen.

Jethro Tull — Loved them since the 1970’s, I’m a sucker for rock & roll flute. They’re actually still touring as of a year or so ago, so this one might still happen.

The Who — “Tommy,” the first rock opera. “Quadrophenia.” “Behind Blue Eyes.” “Baba O’Riley.” Of the three first rock & roll supergroups, this is the one I would have killed to see live.

Genesis (not just Phil Collins) — I would like to see Phil Collins solo, mind you, but seeing the group re-unite on tour would be amazing.

Depeche Mode — Along with Oingo Boingo, the best of the 80’s, punk, and alternative.

Jean-Michel Jarre — I suspect many of you will have never heard of Jean-Michel Jarre. I would recommend that you take care of that gaping hole in your lives. Start with “Oxygene” as I did back in about 1977 when a co-worker gave me a tape and said, “YOU HAVE GOT TO LISTEN TO THIS!” Jarre has done spectacular concert events with 100,000+ people showing up, because he only does them every few years. The last few have been done in Asia and Europe, but if he would do one here, I would be there.

Amanda Palmer — Words can’t describe how much I admire this woman, her music, her art, her Twitter feed, and her TED Talk. It’s not a matter of “if” I will see her, it’s a matter of “when” and “how many times.” But I haven’t seen her in concert yet.

Stan Rogers — An incredible artist taken from us way too early. If you’re not familiar with his work, pick up “Northwest Passage.” Or “From Fresh Water.” Or any one of his other eight albums. Many, many years ago I had an opportunity to see him at McCabe’s in Santa Monica and I didn’t take it. There will always be next time, right?

Santana — Still touring from time to time, I may yet get a chance. “Abraxas” spun my head around in 1970. I still have the vinyl, the one that had the sticker over the naked black woman on the front cover. I can still do wicked air guitar to “Oye cómo va.”

Pet Shop Boys — Just to hear them do their mashup “Where The Streets Have No Name/Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You” would be worth the price of admission. But there’s so much else as well.

Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young — They had me hooked with that infamous line at Woodstock. If you can listen to “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” and not do the “do-do-do-do doots” at the end, we might not be able to be friends.

Supertramp — “Breakfast In America” was an album on which I just about wore right through the vinyl due to all the constant replays. Have I mentioned how much I love rock & roll piano? Listen to the long, wonderful, piano solo in “Child Of Vision” and be happy no matter how lousy the day was.

Blood, Sweat & Tears — David Clayton Thomas and the boys were another rock & roll group that didn’t always fit the rock & roll mold. Fantastic musicians, great songs.

Billy Joel — The original piano man, a great storyteller. He periodically tours and does Vegas, so it might happen. I assume that we’ll all get to sing along?

There are a whole bunch of folk-ish artists from the 60’s that aren’t with us any more that I wanted to see:

  • Steve Goodman — “A Dying Cubs Fan’s Last Request” and “City of New Orleans” are huge favorites of mine.
  • Tom Lehrer — No one did political and social satire like him.
  • John Denver — Some folks think his music is a bit syrupy, but I find it very sincere and full of joy.
  • Jim Croce — Yet another artist taken from us way too soon.

There are still a few folk-ish artists who are still here and I might still get lucky:

  • Arlo Guthrie — Dare I hope that I could hear him do “Alice’s Restaurant” for a Thanksgiving concert?
  • Jackson Brown — “Running On Empty,” “Doctor My Eyes,” and finally, “The Load Out”
  • James Taylor — Sweet Baby James
  • Chicago — I know they’re still touring, but I don’t want to hear them do anything after the first three albums. Sorry, they were great when they were angry and protesting the Vietnam War, and just seriously pissed off and full of righteous indignation. Plus, I have I mentioned how I love a horn section in rock & roll? And rock & roll flute, as in “Happy Cause I’m Going Home?” Once they got pop and started putting out things like “Bungle In The Jungle” they were dead to me.

From my teen years:

  • Jimi Hendrix — Oh, sweet heaven, could he play the electric guitar. His set from Woodstock was amazing. It was only a few years ago that I realized that it was done at about 4:30 AM. That will wake ’em up!
  • Frank Zappa — Indescribable, his music kept me at least half sane with my college days work schedule. Remember, don’t eat yellow snow!
  • Queen — Wouldn’t it be great to hear “Bohemian Rhapsody” done live? Flamboyant Freddie Mercury, burned out too quickly. On the other hand, Brian May’s still around, with a Ph.D. in astrophysics for his daytime gig these days. If that’s not truth being stranger than fiction, I don’t know what is.
  • Heart — I think there’s actually a chance to see them this week at the LA County Fair. Maybe next year.
  • Boston — I think they’re still touring as well, so maybe it will happen.
  • The Guess Who — Last I heard there were two or three versions of the original group out there doing county fairs and small venues, each one headlined by one of the original band members. Can’t we all just get along, and maybe do a tour with some decent sized crowds?
  • Meat Loaf — Like a bat out of hell, that’s how I would be moving if I got the chance to see him.
  • Moody Blues – Electronic rock & roll done by classically trained musicians. Works for me!
  • Yes — “Fragile” was another album that I just about ground to dust with all of the repeats.

From my punk, alternative, new wave college years:

  • Linkin Park — Okay, so they came out way after my college years, but I still have at times been a bit obsessed over several of their albums. At one of their concerts I would stick out like a sore thumb, but I could live with that.
  • The Police / Sting — Do they still tour? If they do, is it even conceivable that tickets might be available for less than an exchange for your first born?
  • U2 / Bono — See “The Police / Sting” above.
  • Blondie — I believe Debbie Harry is still doing some gigs, I don’t know if she’s with any other members of the band. My favorite rock & roll T-shirt from my college years had her picture on it. I don’t know where it is today, which is probably just as well. I don’t think the world is ready to see me try to fit into it.
  • The Smiths (not just Morrissey) — Another group that’s never, ever getting back together. Morrissey periodically tries to put out a solo album and tour, but he’s got some issues, both with his health and with his eccentricities.
  • Tonio K — One huge punk album that I remember (“Life In The Foodchain”) but the last I had heard, somewhere along the line he had a significant life change. He’s now doing gospel and Christian rock? The guy who did “H-A-T-R-E-D” with those lyrics? Jeez Louise!
  • REM — Lots of fantastic hits, I’ve seen them on some of the old MTV studio concert bits on television. I don’t know that they would be great in a stadium, but in a much smaller venue, just a thousand seats or so? That would be delicious!
  • Pat Benatar — Hard core, kick ass, rock & roll. Hit me with your best shot!
  • Pretenders — A group that I remember being able to leave my graveyard shift boss just agog. He was a tad straight laced, we needed the music to stay awake, he often couldn’t believe what we were listening to.
  • Yello — They had more than the one hit, lots of their stuff is very weird, almost like electronic sound poems with tons of odd rhythms, sound bite mixing, sampling, and sound effects. Oh, Yeah!
  • Alanis Morissette — “Jagged Little Pill” was full of some really powerful and moving anger. Things dropped off after that, but I hear that her new stuff from the past couple of years is very good. I’ll have to check it out. What would really be interesting is hearing her takes on some of those anger-driven songs now that she’s matured and mellowed.
  • Huey Lewis & The News — The heart of rock & roll. Just fun music, I’ll bet they were (are?) a blast to see live.

The Beatles — Included as much for completeness as anything else. I’m not and never have been a huge Beatles fan, although there are plenty of their songs that I enjoy. I’m just not a fanatic. Of course, they’ll never get back together now, but it would have been nice to see them back in the day, just to say that I had done it, if nothing else.

Finally, there are a bunch of country artists/groups that are still quite active and touring, we just haven’t gotten the opportunity to see them live yet. As “bucket list” material goes, seeing them will be pretty low hanging fruit.

  • Alison Krauss
  • Dierks Bentley
  • The Band Perry
  • Lady Antebellum
  • Darius Rucker
  • Zac Brown Band
  • Blake Shelton

Who’s not on the list that has you shocked and horrified that I would forget them, or worse, not want to see them? The Rolling Stones? Bruce Springsteen? Elton John?

Who’s on the list that you just can’t wrap your head around, especially when matched with others on the list? (Stan Rogers and Tonio K? Really?)

Who would be on your list?

The comments are open.

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Filed under Music, Paul

September 5, 2014 · 20:49

Sounds

I was just out in the back yard, standing there in the dark while the dog patrolled and marked her territory. It’s a nice night here, moon through the trees, still warm, starting to get a bit muggy — but what really struck me were the sounds.

From inside the house I could hear the Angels-Twins baseball game on the television. As I mentioned the other day, even if you’re not watching or paying attention to the game, even if you don’t care about the outcome, if you’ve been raised with baseball in your life there’s a rhythm, a form, a patois to a baseball game broadcast that’s all its own. That’s a sound that can take me straight back to childhood, back when there was only one game on television all week, the NBC Saturday Game Of The Week, and it was never my team. (At that point it was the Kansas City Athletics.) Every game was listened to on the radio, with Monte Moore calling the action. I’m sure that for other folks there’s a similar attachment to the sounds of soccer or basketball, but for me it’s baseball.

From down the block I can hear the high school football game, the first home game of the year. It’s a private high school, not the public school our kids went to, but it’s always great to hear the crowd, the band, the totally unintelligible blaring from the PA system. It would have been great to be back in Kansas City for this weekend’s season kickoff festivities for the Chiefs, but lacking that, the sound of night high school football games tells me at a cellular level that football season is here.

As Jessie finished her business, over the hill by the county line I could hear a siren start up. I remember as a kid being surprised to find that (as a general rule) different siren sounds indicated different emergency vehicles. Fire trucks don’t sound like ambulances which don’t sound like police cars. What I was hearing tonight was a police car, which made sense given that it came from that direction while the fire station was over that way and the hospital over that way. A minute later, off toward the Valley, the sound of an incoming helicopter indicated that something was indeed up over toward the freeway.

When we were in Vermont and upstate New York in June, one of the things that struck me after a couple of days was the total lack of sirens and helicopters. Between police, fire, and ambulance sirens and police, private, and traffic helicopters flitting about, you never go more than a couple of hours without hearing sirens and choppers in Los Angeles. It’s so routine you don’t even think about it until you start hearing a LOT of them. (If they’re fire engines, you live near the hills covered in dry brush, and you suddenly catch a whiff of smoke on the breeze, that’s a whole different alert level.) But in ten days in New England, I didn’t hear a single siren, nor did I see or hear a single helicopter. As with the dogs that did not bark in the night, it stood out once it was noticed.

Finally, off in the distance, going through the Santa Suzanna Pass, a train whistle could be heard. There’s a reason that sound is so synonymous with loneliness and longing, the call of the road, the desire to be off seeking adventures or a new life, all debts paid one way or the other, a clean slate wherever we end up. It made me wonder what sound evoked those feelings before the train was invented. There must have been one, the feelings aren’t new. I’m thinking it might have been the sound of honking geese heading over the horizon.

Where do those geese go, and when can I follow?

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Filed under Dogs, KC Chiefs, LA Angels, Los Angeles, Paul

September 1, 2014 · 22:07

Time

My routine’s been a bit irregular of late simply because of life being life and the calendar being the calendar. As a result, I’m feeling a bit “adrift” today, not sure what day it was or what time it might be. Sort of like jet lag on a big scale.

I understand all of the reasons that have gone into it. The Wings Over Camarillo airshow last weekend meant four or five days in a row where the universe played 52-pickup with my regular routine. Some job search activity this week required a re-shuffle of some of my weekly routine activities. College football started this weekend with games on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and tonight (I think today is Monday) where the last of the pre-season NFL games were all on Thursday. Given that normally it’s college football games on Saturday and pro games on Sunday, my “football-based circadian rhythm” is askew.† Then they threw in this holiday which means that the Long Suffering Wife is home an extra day, which is a good thing, but not according to the “normal” schedule.

I’m sure there are many folks out there in the world who still have chaotic, random schedules to a much greater degree than the rest of us. For example, in my college days my schedule was almost completely random with only some large-scale order to be seen. In the big picture, there were the three quarters of classes and tests along with the summer break. Most classes had some sort of regular schedule for meeting. But beyond that, between projects, papers, assignments, and most of all, my random swing-shift and graveyard-shift job to keep the bills paid, it was seriously non-linear. On a day-by-day basis I was trying to figure out on the fly when I would sleep or eat, because it was different most days from the days previous and the days following. Looking back on it, it’s a wonder that I survived (relatively) sane.

Now I’m used to the same type of schedule that most of us have. Many of us (not all, I understand) have work schedules that are predictable and repeatable. For most of us, there are significant parts of our lives that are tied to a routine weekly or monthly schedule. Even if it’s not our favorite television shows on at the same time every week (well, except for those on Fox) it might be school schedules for our kids, PTA meetings, soccer practices, AA meetings, whatever. As a society, we smooth the rough edges of coping with it all by having a bit of routine that allows us to plan ahead and lean into the turns, as it were.

Additionally, when we do something that completely throws our personal schedule out the window, such as going on a vacation, we generally know when it’s coming and can plan for it. We expect it. It doesn’t catch us by surprise. And it only disrupts our personal schedule, but the schedule of society (television, sports, church) goes on like clockwork. We’re more thrown off when a disruption catches us just a bit by surprise. If that surprise is a major disruption or catastrophe (family illness or crisis, earthquake, blizzard, flood, Kardashian sighting) then we don’t so much notice the change or absence of routine because we’re so caught up in the immediate moment while we’re in the jaws of the crisis.

It has made me think today about how our ancestors dealt with this. Ancient agrarian cultures would still have dealt with the movement of the seasons to know when to sow and when to harvest. The seven-day week goes back over 2600 years and apparently was common to many cultures independently. Western culture has it codified in large part by the Biblical book of Genesis and the Judeo-Christian creation story. Apparently the Soviets tried to change to a more “efficient” five-day week after the Russian revolution, but changed back after only about ten years. Still, it was a schedule.

But without clocks or watches, for much of recorded human history the average person knew only approximately the times of sunrise, noon, and sunset. Some might be aware of the lunar cycle. But a sense of time as we see it didn’t come by until fairly recently, in the last couple hundred years.

Which way of living is more “natural” or “correct”? I suspect it’s both, and neither. We try to get back to that when we go camping or on a retreat, but that assumes that we can turn off our cell phones and not be checking the internet every five minutes. It is nice to not have that feeling of being slaved to a schedule, but most of us don’t get to live that way for long periods, and most of don’t want to. It’s fun for a week or even a month, but then we start longing for the comfort and predictability of that routine.

Tomorrow it will continue — I’ll have to remind myself several times that it’s Tuesday, not Monday, because it will “feel” like Monday with most folks going back to work and school. Then it will be a “short” week and the weekend will be coming at us sooner than expected (never a bad thing) before we finally settle down (we hope) into a month or two of day-in, day-out routine.

Boring, but comforting. It’s all a matter of balance.

This weekend, I guess I’ve felt out of balance in that sense. Yet off in the distance of time, I can hear someone like Benjamin Franklin laughing his ass off at me for that, and beyond him I can hear some Babylonian laborer shouting that we’re all freakin’ crazy. They’re no doubt all correct.

Especially if I start talking to old Ben or that Babylonian in public!

†(Lest you think I’m obsessed with football and base my entire weekend around it for half the year — I’m not and I don’t. I’ll make a point to watch or listen to my beloved KC Chiefs play, but other than that, it’s interesting noise. While I’m doing something else, like writing, doing something on the computer, or putting up Christmas lights, I’ll have the game on. When everyone screams, I’ll watch a replay. I do the same thing during the spring and summer with baseball. I get bent out of shape very rarely if I have to miss a specific game, but it’s a comforting, ambient sound that I can pay more or less attention to as my time and other activities warrant.)

 

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Filed under Paul, Sports

August 26, 2014 · 23:12

Always Darkest Before Dawn

And then you go and try to look up who said that (it’s unknown, a very old proverb) and instead find some of the most idiotic comments in the world on some of the Yahoo! and Answers.com and Ask.com sites. Are folks out there really that freakin’ stupid, are they on drugs, or are they trolling to see how PO’d they can get folks like me when we’re already in a sour mood? Better than the “bro-dudes” and the outright racist and misogynistic trolling sites, but still…

So I go to try to be creative and play with PhotoShop, something I haven’t done in a while, and find that my 100% legal software that I’ve used for years now needs to be “re-activated”? What fresh hell is this, and why? How much time do I get to spend tomorrow “fixing” a problem that didn’t exist yesterday and shouldn’t exist today? At what point is it better to simply toss Adobe’s installation disks into the blender (yes, it will blend!) and downloading some freeware equivalent such as Gimp?

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Surrealistic. And unrealistic.

Astronomically, the darkest hour, as far as the sun is concerned, is always at the point where the sun is exactly opposite of your longitude. But the moon is going to be up for a few minutes at least on most nights. And these days, there’s far more light pollution just after sunset since everyone’s still awake. Some nights there is lightning. An aurora displays. And fireflies. And noctilucent clouds. And supernovae.

I understand what the phrase means. I’m also thinking the sentiment behind it might be just as much nonsense as trying to make scientific sense (or justification) of a proverb that probably pre-dates the wheel.

How ’bout I just go to sleep and see what happens when dawn actually rolls around?

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Filed under Freakin' Idiots!, Job Hunt, Paul

August 11, 2014 · 20:54

SHAZZBATT!!!

Today turned ugly in a heartbeat with the news of Robin Williams’ death.

My mind keeps spinning through all of the amazing roles. “Mrs. Doubtfire.” “Dead Poet’s Society.” “Good Morning, Vietnam.” “The Fisher King.” “Good Will Hunting.” And on and on.

It wasn’t just the comedic roles either. He scared the hell out of me as the psychotic killer in “One Hour Photo.” He can still reduce me to tears in “What Dreams May Come.”

Then you would see him on some talk show or another, just going off, impromptu, twice as funny off the top of his head as anyone else was after months of polishing their routine.

The “Comic Relief” telethons, where after hours of some of the best and funniest had done their acts, Robin, Billy, and Whoopi would come out as hosts, only to have it devolve into Robin & Billy spinning off into an alternate reality while Whoopi occasionally threw them a straight line, which was like throwing raw meat into a pool of piranha. The rest of us couldn’t catch our breath for laughing.

Who else could have ever, ever been Mork from Ork?

I generally don’t get too upset over celebrity deaths, but some hit me hard. Jim Henson. George Carlin. And now Robin Williams. I guess I’ve got a thing for people who can make me smile and laugh.

We’ll never know what demons he was fighting and the depth of the pain his depression gave him. We can only pray that he’s found a release and can now rest in peace.

For those of us still here, let’s remember Robin Williams by fighting harder against the disease that took his life. Depression isn’t a mood, it isn’t a weakness, and it isn’t something to be ashamed of, any more than you should feel weak or ashamed if you got cancer or appendicitis. Depression is a liar, a stealer of souls, a demonic voice that no one else can hear, constantly telling you that everything is useless, you’re worthless, no one loves you, and no one can help you.

All of those messages that depression bombards you with are lies.

If there’s any good to be found in this, let it be that we spread the word far and wide and loud:

If you are suffering from depression, YOU ARE NOT ALONE. There are people who care, people who will help you.

If you’re in the United States, call any time from anywhere,

1-800-273-8255 (TALK)

or go online at SuicidePreventionHotline.org.

You can also go to Suicide.org for an immediate connection to local hotlines in every US state, international hotlines, as well as immediate help by chat on that site.

If you’re a veteran or on active duty in the military, the Twitter account @realwarriors is staffed 24×7 to help.

If you are anywhere else in the world, check here or here for a list of crisis hotlines in your country.

If you want to read an excellent personal account of the battle against depression, read Wil Wheaton’s story here and here.

The bottom line is simple — talk to someone, get help, you are not alone. It might be terribly hard to do, to accept, to ask for help, to break through the disease. You have to find a way to do it, to ask for help, to talk to someone.

Talk to a friend, a teacher, a doctor, a nurse, a counselor on a hotline, a radio call-in talk show, whatever. Hell, call and talk to me if you need to, 24/7/365. I want us all to be on this fantastic ride for as long as we each possibly can.

Tonight we’re grieving and trying to understand what’s impossible to understand. Over the next few days we’ll see news reports and documentaries and retrospectives and interviews. None of that will help us understand, but with time we’ll laugh again. Probably at some old Robin Williams movie or television show, the laughter now mixed with a dose of melancholy. But as his family has asked, we will remember him for his life, not for his death.

On Facebook I said, “Days like this I almost hope I’m wrong and God exists – there are more than a few choice comments I would like to make about her job performance.”

I don’t know if I’ll ever actually get to have that conversation, but if I do, one of my questions will be, “Why do funny, intelligent, and wonderful people like Robin Williams have to be so tortured? Doesn’t that qualify as a design flaw in the universe?”

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Filed under Entertainment, Health, Paul

August 8, 2014 · 22:06

“I Should Of Stood In Bed”

It’s unclear who said those immortal words, but the meaning is crystal clear. (I always thought it was Leo Durocher or Yogi Berra, but I wasn’t even close.) Today tried hard to be one of those days.

We awoke to the sound of running water. That’s special and wonderful if you happen to live near a trickling brook or a rippling river, but when the sound comes from water running somewhere in the walls and under the house it’s a little bit more stressful. I dragged my butt out of bed and into some clothes (for which the neighbors are no doubt eternally grateful), stuck my head into the itty-bitty, teeny-tiny access hatch to the crawl space under the house, where I could see the water running and pooling and and generally making a mess. I left the water on long enough to take a quick shower, then I shut off it off at the meter and called the plumbers.

With no water in the house, I tried to get through my other tasks for the day, before I  ran into my next crisis:

I’m not dying of some horrible toxic reaction between the dissolved food dye and the chocolate, so I guess that I “chose wisely.” (Remind me some time to tell the family story that makes this so funny for my kids.)

As long as the water was off, there was another plumbing issue that I had put off for a while. I needed the water shut off to do it and it seemed to be a pain in the ass to shut off the water to the whole house for one little repair. But now that the water was off anyway and the shower in question was still disassembled. The repair took only a few minutes and was done, easy as pie.

The plumbers didn’t get here until after 6:00 PM, which they had told me when I called early this morning, so it wasn’t like I was stressing too much over the possibility of going into the weekend without water. It was interesting to see these guys getting through that little access hatch to work under the house and then start hacking and soldering. I’ve been down under there when I’ve run cable for phones and television and internet:

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(Me ten years ago after coming out from under the house – sorry Texas!)

…it’s not my favorite place, even though I’m not particularly claustrophobic. You need to be a contortionist, there are spots where it’s pretty tight, it’s filthy, it’s hard to move around, and every now and then you do wonder just how the fire department is going to get you out if you get stuck.

They were pros and got the job done. I turned the water back on, they tested their repairs to check for leaks, no worries. But what’s that noise from the half-bath at the other end of the house?

The new cartridge was pretty well smashed to pieces (I have no idea how it broke that badly without shattering the glass shower enclosure that it shot into) but my only lucky break of the day was that I had saved the broken cartridge that I had taken out instead of trashing it. It doesn’t work as a shower cartridge, but it works great as a specialized plug in that valve so that we could turn the water back on.

Not the way I had planned on spending Friday. Perhaps I should have stood in bed. On the other hand, if I had, the bed might be floating away and my yard might look like that mess up on Sunset Boulevard last week, so maybe it all worked out for the better anyway.

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Filed under Castle Willett, Farce, Paul

July 21, 2014 · 17:19

A More Personal Anniversary

Following all of the 45ths and 20ths and 3rds that get me all fired up about our space program, today’s the 13th anniversary of a more personal event. Thirteen years ago today, the Long-Suffering Fiance decided to take the leap and became the Long-Suffering Wife.

Last year I mentioned some of the festivities of the day and posted a few pictures. What’s struck me this year is some of the tiny, almost trivial things that stick with you from a day like that and become family lore, familiar touchstones for a couple to refer to. Things like going out with my son, shopping for black socks. The way the heels of her shoes were sinking into the grass as she walked down the aisle.

One of our ongoing jokes (at least, I think it’s a joke, we seem to all be laughing, right, dear?) is how our wedding anniversary is the day after the moon landing anniversary and it’s a good thing, otherwise I would never remember our wedding anniversary. I don’t know if it’s quite that bad, but there may be some basis in truth to the theory.

Things have changed quite a bit in thirteen years, as it will for anything, any group, any family, or any couple. But we’re still hanging in there, still a “cute couple,” still in love.

We’ll stick together, kid, we’re going places together!

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And we’ll have the collection of silly, grinning selfies to prove it!

 

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Filed under Family, Paul, Ronnie

July 9, 2014 · 23:06

Ghost Story

How am I supposed to get any work done this evening if they’re going to put “Ghostbusters” on television for me to watch? I mean, jeez Louise!

The story in the family is that I was visited by ghosts once – I told the story many, many years ago to my mother and she believes it still. I have long ago accepted an alternate explanation.

In 1974 I spent the final six months of my senior year in high school living alone in Vermont. I won’t go into the whys and wherefores, but the bottom line was that my parents and brothers and sisters were in Southern California while I was living in our house in Vermont.

The house in question was three stories, eight bedrooms, three baths, and the entire third floor was a family room the size of a basketball court. It was over a hundred years old then and had been many things over the years. We were told that it had originally been built as a parsonage or convent, but then had spent a couple decades or more as a nursing home. When we got it (as a serious fixer-upper) it had been empty for several years. (Who needs an eight bedroom home in Vermont?)

While staying there alone, in order to keep heating costs down, we had closed off the second and third floors and the wing of the house that had the dining room and garage. I stayed in the master bedroom downstairs.

At one point I got sick, the flu of some sort, and spent a couple days bedridden. One late night, I woke to hear footsteps upstairs. I was sick as a dog and didn’t much care, but listened as multiple sets of footsteps walked through the second floor, down the grand staircase at the front of the house, through the study, the big living room, and the dining room.

At this point I saw several figures come into the room, two of them at the forefront, a man and a woman. The woman came and sat on the edge of the bed while the man stood behind her and a few other figures behind him. The woman said that she was one of the former tenants of the house when it was a nursing home. (We knew that there were more than a few of the elderly tenants who had passed away in the house many years earlier.) She and the other former tenants knew that I was there alone and ill, so she wanted to let me know that I would be alright in the morning. They would sit and watch over me during the night, so I should just get some sleep.

I was pretty zonked, between whatever early 70’s over-the-counter cold and flu medicine I was hopped up on and the exhaustion of several days with little food or water with significant “unpleasant bodily functions” to boot. I was probably also seriously dehydrated. Between one thing and the other, I wasn’t freaked out at all by this visitation. I remember it as being very calming and soothing.

I went to sleep as instructed and woke up the next morning feeling much better. In a day or so I was up and about as normal.

I had very vivid memories of the “visitation”, so I told my mother about it when next we talked. To this day, she’s convinced that it was real. She claims to have experienced other poltergeist-like events while she would be alone in the house during the day. Things like the radio station changing or the volume suddenly turning way up loud when she was off in another part of the house completely. Toilets flushing by themselves. That sort of thing.

My explanation for the “visitation” is much more prosaic and boring. Flu + dehydration + hunger and low blood sugar + lack of sleep + intense fever + any cold or flu medication I could get my paws on = hallucinations! We knew the history of the house, so it wasn’t like a seed of suggestion hadn’t been planted. As for my mother’s poltergeist, it was a very, very old building with very, very old wiring and plumbing. We had done the best we could to upgrade and repair, but given a choice between it being proof of the afterlife or just a leaky toilet and a loose wire in a building over one hundred years old, well…

Sorry, my degree is in physics, not psychics, and I’m an amateur astronomer, not an astrologer. And as I had to explain to a cocktail waitress (who truly was a wonderful person) when I was working as a room service waiter for Marriott in college, studying on my dinner break, I studied cosmology, not cosmetology, so no, I couldn’t do her hair for her.

Sorry. It’s a good story, but I have to disagree with my mother on the root cause.

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Filed under Family, Health, Paul, Science Fiction

July 8, 2014 · 22:12

Why I Love NASA So Much

Three years ago today, NASA launched the final space shuttle mission, STS-135. It’s an appropriate time to mention just how much I love NASA.

Yes, you read that correctly. I really, really love NASA. Really.

If you’re a regular reader, you might be surprised by that assertion, given my comments here, here, and here. But the belief that I do nothing but criticize and rag on NASA couldn’t be further from the truth, and I’ll tell you why.

Because when I was five, my dad dragged me out of bed at O’Dark-Thirty and we sat there for hours to see an American get shot into space.

01 Shepard LaunchPhoto: NASA

Because all through the Sixties I devoured every

02 Life Cover

Photo: Life Magazine

03 Look Cover

Photo: Look Magazine

TIME COVERS - THE 60S

Photo: Time Magazine

and

05 National Geographic Cover

Photo: National Geographic Magazine

that I could find with pictures of every single manned and unmanned space shot.

Because the Mercury Program showed us that we had the right stuff.

06 Glenn LaunchPhoto: NASA

Because Gemini taught us how to do the things we had to do to get to the moon.

07 Gemini LaunchPhoto: NASA

Because Ed White took the first US spacewalk.

08 Gemini 4 EVAPhoto: NASA

Because Mariner showed us that Mars had craters instead of canals.

09 Mariner 9 MarsPhoto: JPL

Because we learned what “renedezvous” meant, and how to do it.

10 Gemini 6-7 RendezvousPhoto: NASA

Because we faced down an ‘angry alligator.’

11 Gemini 9 Angry AlligatorPhoto: NASA

Because we paid for our mistakes with Apollo 1.

12 Apollo 1 FirePhoto: NASA

Grissom. White. Chaffee.

12 Apollo 1 CrewPhoto: NASA

Because Surveyor showed that we could land on the moon and scouted the path.

13 Surveyor 3Photo: NASA

Because at the end of 1968, when we as a country had endured assassinations, riots over civil rights, the growing war in Vietnam, we ended the year with our first view of the home planet rising above the horizon of another world, while the words of Genesis were read to us on Christmas Eve.

14 Apollo 8 EarthrisePhoto: NASA

Because the Eagle landed at Tranquility Base. And the entire world watched, breathless, as we saw the first steps on the moon, live on our televisions.

15 Apollo 11 TV imagePhoto: NASA

Because Apollo 13 taught us that “failure is not an option.”

16 Apollo 13 Service ModulePhoto: NASA

Because I watched Apollo 17 leaving the moon, on live television. I talked my parents into letting me stay home from school for three days to watch the final moonwalks live, because they were the last ones for then. Who knew that forty-five years later, they would still the last ones?

17 Apollo 17 LEM LiftoffPhoto: NASA

Because I got to see Skylab launch, and we started on the next steps, learning to live in space.

18 SkylabPhoto: NASA

Because Pioneer showed us what Jupiter and Saturn looked like up close and made us want so much more.

19 Pioneer 10 JupiterPhoto: JPL

Because Viking landed safely on Mars, proving that it could be done, and showed us what the surface of another planet looked like up close. If only we could scoot over and touch that one…

converted PNM filePhoto: JPL

Because the Voyagers showed us Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, plus all of their large moons, in absolutely stunning detail. And then they kept going, finally reaching interstellar space. The Voyagers are still working, now in the thirty-seventh year of their three-year mission.

21 Voyager JupiterPhoto: JPL

Because the Space Shuttle was the most magnificent machine ever built, despite being the result of a thousand compromises. It may not have been perfect and it may not have been as cheap as it was supposed to be, but it was the most beautiful thing to ever see lifting off the pad.

Photo: NASA

Because Sally Ride led the way, leading the way for so many women who have followed.

23 Sally RidePhoto: NASA

Because Challenger again showed us the price of hubris.

CHALLENGER EXPLOSIONPhoto: NASA

Scobee. Smith. McNair. Onizuka. Resnik. Jarvis. McAullife.

24 Challenger CrewPhoto: NASA

Because Galileo, although partially crippled, showed us things at Jupiter that we never dreamed of. In July, 2016 the Juno mission will arrive at Jupiter and show us even more.

25 Galileo Jupiter & MoonsPhoto: JPL

Because the Hubble Space Telescope has extended our vision a million fold.

26 Hubble Space TelescopePhoto: NASA

Because the HST Repair Missions were necessary to fix Hubble when it first was launched, showing levels of ingenuity, problem solving, and skill not seen since Apollo 13, all accomplished flawlessly.

27 HST RepairsPhoto: NASA

Because Pathfinder let us go touch that rock over there on Mars, and when it landed I sat with my three kids, watching the feed from JPL to see if it had succeeded and cheering those first pictures.

28 PathfinderPhoto: JPL

Because the International Space Station is the biggest international project in history, showing that multiple nations on almost every continent can work together to build the most complex and advanced laboratory ever, and showing everyone what their planet looks like from space every day.

29 International Space StationPhoto: NASA

Because Columbia showed us again that this was an extremely dangerous business, no matter how easy we made it look time after time after time. Yet we picked up the pieces and flew again.

30 Columbia AccidentPhoto: NASA

Husband. McCool. Anderson. Chawla. Brown. Clark. Ramon.

30 Columbia CrewPhoto: NASA

Because Spirit roamed around Mars for 2,210 sols of its 90-sol mission before getting stuck in the sand. One of these days we’ll have to go rescue her and bring her back home. (Thanks, Randall, even though it makes me cry every time.)

31 SpiritPhoto: JPL

Because Opportunity is STILL roaming around Mars, now in her 3,715 sol of her 90-sol mission.

32 OpportunityPhoto: JPL

Because Cassini has not only sent back over 332,000 pictures of Saturn, her rings, and her moons, it also put the Huygens probe down on the surface of Titan ten years ago. And it’s still going.

33 Cassini SaturnPhoto: JPL

Because Curiosity landed on Mars using a freakin’ rocket powered sky crane and it’s as big as an SUV, nuclear powered, laser shooting, climbing Mount Sharp, now in the 683rd sol of its 90-sol mission.

34 CuriosityPhoto: JPL

See, I REALLY LOVE NASA. All of these missions and hundreds and hundreds more. All of the tens and hundreds of thousands of people who work so hard to make sure that the billion necessary details get done so that the impossible somehow becomes the possible.

I would kill to work at JPL or for some NASA site. I wanted (and still want, desperately) to be an astronaut, to see the Earth from orbit, from the moon, or in my rear-view mirror as we head to Mars. But even if I can’t do that, there are so many other amazing things that NASA and JPL do routinely, things that I would do anything to participate in and help accomplish.

NASA is now holding “NASA Socials” for many of its launches and major events, inviting bloggers and others active in social media so that word about their new missions gets spread far and wide. So far I’ve not been chosen as one of the NASA Social participants, but I’m going to keep trying.

When I rant about what NASA isn’t doing, it’s because there are so many things that it has done and so many amazing and fantastic things that it could do if given the chance. Those I rant at are the bureaucrats and the politicians, particularly the politicians. Don’t confuse my contempt for our current “leadership” with my utter admiration for those in the trenches at NASA, doing the impossible on a daily basis.

So, just in case I’ve been too subtle,

I really love NASA!!!

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Filed under Astronomy, Paul, Politics, Space

June 27, 2014 · 20:40

Arkansas & California

I had forgotten about this series I started. It was a thing back in January. The mind is a terrible thing…

Arkansas

I’ve been there once, one summer in the late 1960’s (probably 1968). I was twelve, we were living in the Chicago area, and my father was going to visit a couple of his aunts in Jonesboro. One of the aunts was a nun and was celebrating her Golden Jubilee, i.e., fifty years as a nun. For reasons that still elude me, I got to go along on the trip while leaving my seven siblings behind.

I remember a long drive, stopping in Springfield, Illinois to see Lincoln’s home, and driving by the Gateway Arch and Busch Stadium in St. Louis. I remember it being incredibly hot and muggy, with mosquitoes the size of quarters. I remember an incredibly long, hot, and uncomfortable Mass in an oven of a church with no air conditioning and tons of incense.

I was the completely “fish out of water” distant relative kid who knew no one and was known to no one other than “Jim’s kid.” They were all old, stern, “South Dakota dirt farmers” and I was terrified of doing anything wrong or getting in trouble.

In this situation made awkward as only a twelve-year-old pre-pubescent mind can make it awkward, I met the matriarch of the family, a great aunt of mine, for the first and only time. She was a hoot and could see what my problem was. On the first day when I had nothing to do, she gave me a fishing pole and sent me down to the creek to see if there were any catfish in it. (I think I caught a couple of small bullheads and threw them back.) Then, at a huge family dinner, when I was desperately trying to be ultra polite and not make any etiquette faux pas while eating fried chicken, she saw me trying to figure out the proper way to cut it and eat it with a knife and fork.

She (politely and with humor) hollered at me to just pick it up and start eating. The gist of it was, “This is the South. If it had wings and we fried it, just pick it up and eat it with your hands! And don’t you dare go away from this table hungry!” I liked her, she was a gem.

California

In a paragraph or two there is no way to say what I want to say about the state that would be a top ten economy in the world if it stood on its own, and the place where I’ve lived for almost forty years. I went to college here (Irvine), got married here (twice), had kids here (three), and saw them all grow up and go to school here, along with little league, plays, amusement park trips, concerts, trips to the beaches, trips to the mountains, trips to the desert, trips to SF conventions…

San Diego is wonderful, a great place to go kayaking, to the world-class zoo or wild animal park, or to see my beloved Chiefs lose to the Chargers. Out in the desert to the east of Los Angeles there are some neat things to see, some fantastic places to get a dark sky for astronomy, and a lot of places to fry and die like a lizard on a rock. Up the coast from LA you have Ventura, Santa Barbara, and the Central Coast, all of which can be charming and beautiful. Or not. North of that is the San Francisco area with all of it’s charms and quirks, plus Napa and the redwoods. Inland from there you have Sacramento and Davis, both of which I’ve grown to like a lot as I’ve visited my daughter in college. North of that I have yet to go, at least by car.

There are scenic wonders and parks all over the place. Yosemite, Muir Woods, Big Sur, Monterrey, Death Valley, all are spectacular. All are easily accessible to folks living in some HUGE population centers, so all are generally crowded, which can really harsh their mellow.

In the middle of all of that is Los Angeles, by which I mean the “Extended LA Metro Area.” Orange, Riverside, LA, and Ventura counties all included, with parts of San Barnardino County as well, it’s a wall-to-wall megalopolis that stretches for a hundred-plus miles in every direction except to the west, where the ocean prevents that spread (so far). I have often flown in at night from the midwest or east coast and had people on their first trip to LA sitting in the window seat. They start seeing the lights out around Palm Springs and Ontario and want to know what freaking huge city that is that they’re not expecting. I tell them it’s LA. “But we’re not supposed to land for another thirty or forty minutes, we’re not even descending yet. That can’t be LA!” Welcome to La-La Land.

Talk about a love-hate relationship. It’s so pretty from the air at night. There are great museums, theaters, plays, concerts, entertainment venues, the beaches, the mountains, the surfing (which I don’t do, but I’m on a roll here), the skiing (ditto), my beloved LA Kings and LA Angels… And there’s the mind-numbing traffic, the congestion, the sky high cost of living, the droughts, the brush fires, the earthquakes…

Yeah. La-La Land. We can’t wait to get out, and then we’ll probably be dying to get back. At least to visit.

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Filed under Paul, Travel