Epic Spam

Try as you might, you just can't. make. this. stuff. up ...






Hohe hoholulu


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it cagey.' 'what about the chancellor?' a sort of coincidence.
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with the brackish water of the sands. It takes have me,
jerry. He's very very proud and and i i don't know that
my poor wife's up to seeing another street, its occupants
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the large chesterfield sofa was placed near the round the
little assembly as he spoke, noting rochebertier cave we
must not close this account it, and turned the key in the
lock. To do so he.

A Bad Day for Katie

It's a bad day for Katie. The opening of the 2008 Major League Baseball season.

From here on until October, she'll be talking to me over the dulcet tones of Mike Krukow and Duane Keiper (better known as "Kruk and Keip", whose on-air chemistry is that of legend), calling Giants games on the radio. Yes, I'm a baseball dork.

While I eschew all other sports throughout the year, baseball is my vice. There's something undeniably soothing about it, resonating from early in my childhood, when I'd nestle my spherical green radio under my pillow -- (supposedly) hidden from my parents' sight -- listening to Mets games late into the night, well past my bedtime. Tom Seaver was my hero, the greatest pitcher of his day. Dave Kingman was a man of mythical proportions, hitting towering home runs into the depths of Shea Stadium.

I still have a faded, creased photograph of myself at 8 years old, posing with the great Tom Seaver in his back yard ... I'm nearly bursting out of my Cub Scout uniform, the crooked teeth of my smile aimed up at him in pure unadulterated bliss. It's in black and white, but you can fairly see the blushing excitement blasting from my face.

At school, I would hover intently over the Mets' roster with my friends, a tiny finger dancing over the faces of the players -- Mazzilli, Torre, Milner, Stearns, Henderson, Koosman, Foli -- my soft-sided Mets lunchbox sitting by my side, holding my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and an apple. When my dad would take me to Shea for a game, the orange seats would pop against the perfect green of the infield grass, mixing with the mesmerizing sounds, sights and smells of what was, for a small child, an absolutely larger-than-life experience. Still to this day, I get that same feeling in my gut when I turn from the concourse, heading down the steps towards the field, and first see that grass, and the players languidly tossing a ball across the infield. Every. Single. Time.

Back in 1977, when I was surreptitiously listening from my bed, the top player made $160,000, not $30,000,000. Until recently, I'd revel in the nostalgia that the players had loyalty back then, they'd stick with their team year after year, and the game really was about the game, and not the money. But in the cold light of mature perspicacity, I now see that really, they didn't. They too followed the necessities of salary, of opportunity and waning skills, as younger players inevitably came up from the minors to supplant them. Ultimately, the majors are a business. It goes where the money is.

What I realize now is that it doesn't matter. For a kid laying in his bed, listening to a broadcast, despite knowing his mother's gonna kill him if he she catches him, none of that matters ... there's just something about the flow of baseball that becomes a quiet fire sluicing through the veins, inevitably becoming part of the very make-up of your being. And every time you get to the ballpark ... every time you hear the crack of the bat ... the commentators giving the count ... or calling a quality out ... it moves through you like an old familiar friend. Katie will surely never fully understand it, but baseball -- the sensation of baseball -- is truly a part of my internal reserve.

I'm certainly not the first to write about the psychic mythology of baseball, nor will I be the last. Because ultimately, baseball holds as personal a mythology as imagination itself.

Play ball.

Since Kirk Has Died ...

Well, I got Kirk's cremated remains back in a nice mahogany box (I didn't even have to ask for the nice box, which was nice), and they're up on the mantle right now, part of a little pseudo altar situation. I have to admit it's kind of hard for me to really go full bore into the altar thing ... this one's more "akin to" an altar. I'm just. not. gay.

So, anyway, it's not like I've been actually curling up into a ball with the box, rocking ... and ... sobbing ... much, or anything.

Only half the time.

The awake half.

Katie doesn't seem to mind too much. She just keeps sliding flat food under the door.

Odd though ... I didn't realize the closet door had such a big gap.

Just screwing around. Seriously though? It's weird when your best friend, that you held to your chest as you went to sleep at night, is reduced to a small plastic bag full of ashes in a box. That's all.

p.s. no, that's not the fucking box, you idiots. c'mon, give me some credit.

Coolest Musician Ever

Oh my God, I just found the coolest musician ever: Victor Lams.

I'm downloading his MP3's as fast as I can. All of them.

(Caveat: to appreciate Victor at all, you have to be open to the idea of pure, unabashed, shameless creativity, and the simple forms in which that can be expressed. That, and a Casiotone. There's a certain naive earnestness -- a fearlessness, really -- in this music that just charms the hell out of me. It's a valuable reminder that music, like any other form of expression, doesn't have to be "cool" to be brilliant. OK, end of caveat. Off with you now.)

The Birthday Card That Never Comes

You know how sometimes when you register for a website, they ask for your date of birth?

I always hold out the vain hope that they're asking so they can send me a nice card on my birthday.

The Odd Adjustments of the Aftermath

Kirk is gone now.

I put him to sleep on Sunday night, around 7:30pm. As difficult as it was, it was by far the best of all possible situations. He died in my arms, quietly, at home. We put him in a box lined with silk on the coffee table so we could spend time with him.

True to Kirk's renowned intuition and sense of timing, 15 minutes before the vet tech arrived at the house, he had started meowing plaintively, clearly saying: "I'm done." I had a vet tech friend come to my home, rather than taking him into the vet (avoiding that unnecessary trauma), or having an anonymous service come do it. The first shot is Ketamine, relaxing him into a stupor, then a second shot to put him to sleep. He drifted off calmly, staring vacantly towards the ceiling, his head nestled comfortably in the crook of my arm. I closed his eyes.

Katie and I then went out to a nice restaurant for a great dinner in celebration of his life. I inadvertently ordered an absinthe cocktail that was called "Death at Dusk". Perfectly apropos.

I woke up in the morning feeling good ... satisfied, really ... with a sense of completion. I have effectively been mourning Kirk for years now, knowing he was on his way out, and I spent time consciously appreciating him. So since his death, I haven't gone through the classic stages of grief. Instead, I'm experiencing a vague melancholy while adjusting to life without him. 20 years of repeated behavior is hard to unlearn.

I instinctively look for him when I come into a room, or open the bathroom door after a shower, or while sitting at my desk. I repeatedly think I see him out of the corner of my eye. I figure this will happen for a long time.

Though Kirk was mostly quiet, moving about the house feels quieter now.

While I still have my appetite, meals seem less interesting without him vulturing over my plate.

Working at the computer feels emptier without having to reach awkwardly over his head to type on the keyboard.

I'm more aware of these activities now that an integral part of them is missing.

Oddly, I find myself laughing harder than usual at good jokes. But then I feel the loss when the laughter ends ... a certain hollowness that's not usually there.

It's all part of the odd adjustments of the aftermath.

Thank You, Captain Kirk

Captain Kirk is my cat. He's 20 years old now. I've had him his entire life, since he was a squiggly little nugget I would jiggle around in the palm of my hand. I'm just about 40, so Kirk has been with me for half my life. Odd thought.

Odder still is that of all the things that have come and gone in my life -- cities, houses, girlfriends, cars, roommates, friends, jobs, hairstyles, attitudes, clothing, hobbies, you name it -- he's been the one single constant throughout it all. Unlike other aspects of and people in my life, he's never left, never changed, and never judged what I do, or the way I've done it.

Well, he's been a strong and dignified cat throughout the years; more like a dog in a cat suit, really, and smart as a whip. 20 years for an outdoor cat is pretty remarkable. He's been through his share of raccoons, feral cat fights, surgeries, chunks taken from his ears, an amputated toe, new houses, unwanted house guests, and being unceremoniously knocked off the bed at random points during my sexual encounters ... the gamut of a cat life well lived.

He's finally reaching his end, his body giving up on him and starting to succumb to age and gravity. He can't walk anymore, though he struggles like a drunken sailor to get to a bowl of tuna I've put down for him as a celebratory last meal. He takes a couple wobbly steps and falls over, rests a bit, then doggedly gets up and tries again. When he goes down, he flops full-out on his side like a splayed rag doll, and lets his head fall to the ground. I carry him where he needs to go, and hold him up and steady him to drink from his water glass. I have an appointment to have him put to sleep tomorrow, though I hope he goes on his own terms before then. Either way, it's time.

Am I sad? Yes and no. I'm sad to see my friend deteriorate. I'm sad to see him go. I'll miss him curling up on my lap, pawing my nose in the morning, and hopping into the shower when I'm done to lick up the fresh water. He's become an integral part of my life ... I can't remember what it's like to not have him around all the time. That's going to be a difficult adjustment.

At the same time, I'm profoundly grateful for the time I've had with him. He's been a gift, and the universe was kind enough to give him to me while I needed him. While my life has been great up until now, it's also been tumultuous and dramatically shape-shifting, resulting in some pretty significant upheavals. Now I'm in a different place in my life and my path, and I owe a lot of that to Kirk, and the constancy he's provided me in the face of change. I'm excited to see what the universe has in store for me next.

Thank you, Kirky Boy.

Obamanaut

Friends who know me well will likely fall of their chair upon reading this post.

I'm active in politics this year.

Normally, I don't even vote. Hell, I usually don't even know if I'm registered to vote. My level of cynicism towards, disillusionment about and disregard for our political process is legendary. And yet, here I am in 2008, donating money (money!) to a campaign, and volunteering my precious "free" time to help get a candidate elected. I've even got a sign in my window, and a bumper sticker on my car!!

Yep, I'm an Obamanaut.

I spent my last weekend in a room full of like-minded individuals -- and a strikingly diverse crowd at that, of all ages, genders, races and cultures -- calling strangers in Texas to encourage them to vote for Barack Obama. I made nearly 250 calls over course of the weekend on my own cell phone.

Now, the trick here was that the list was not pre-screened and filtered for important things like ... political party affiliation. Keep in mind that Texas is predominantly Republican (go figure), and you start to see where this is headed.

Each call was like Russian Roulette. You didn't know what you were going to get on the other end of the line when you spun the cylinder. Your odds of even finding a Democrat were slim. More likely than not, you'd get a Republican, the style of which would vary along a spectrum.

Occasionally, it would be the polite Texan housewife ruthlessly exercising her well-bred Southern hospitality, listening to the whole spiel before sing-songing: "Well yes, darlin', I sure will give that some thought ... thank you for callin' now," which is Texan for "I'm not listening to a fucking thing you're saying." Sometimes it would be a pick-up interrupting my leaving an answering machine message: "Boah, you can go an' till Barack Obama he can jis go ta Hill! I think he's an injit!" ... okaaaay. More often than not, the answering machine message itself would be disheartening, with a Boss Hogg-style voice finishing up with "God bless, now". You wondered if leaving a perky message for Obama was just doing more damage than good. But, you just have to cringe, ignore the odds, and try. Ironically, the hang-ups were the least tormenting of all the pulls of the trigger.

The one silver lining, out of all 250 calls I made that weekend ... the single call that made it all worth while, was the guy who supported Obama, and wasn't aware of the "Texas 2-step". This is the set-up allowing Texans to vote in the primary election in the morning, then a second time in the evening caucus, and their vote counts twice (apparently, squirrelly politics is not unique to Louisiana). He was surprised to learn that was the case, and enthusiastically promised to vote and caucus for Obama. Score one.

All this is to say, when you decide who to support this election, consider this. Our country, more than ever, needs its people to get off their asses and to think differently about politics ... to act locally in their communities ... to stand up for what they believe, rather than letting politicians make decisions against our will, and we all need to work together to move this country forward in a positive direction. Obama inspired me to get involved. And believe me: if he can inspire me, he can inspire anybody. And this country will be the better for it, I guarantee you.

Great Mouse Massacre of 2008 (Part 9)

We seem to have won the initial ground war against the mice, and have moved into the insurgency phase.

Strategically-placed traps have been picking off the few remaining troops, who appear only intermittently at best. Their "calling cards" of poop trails have diminished to the rare sprinkling. When found, we simply place an unmissable trap that will reliably nail them on their next foray through what they'd thought to be a safe pathway.

Their outposts are isolated and few ... their morale broken ... we presume they will move elsewhere in search of less hostile environs.

The little bastards.