June 2004 Archives

Reading a meme on Aretela's blog the other day got me to thinking. Let's say you were one of those folks who's home is so "impressive" that you're going to be profiled on MTV's Cribs. What is the one thing in your house that's just silly, that's going to make people sit there and go, WHOA! Yknow, like Big Boi's stripper pole in his basement, (though in retrospect it's kinda normal to have those poles in basements only most people call them structural poles.) or the wicked crazy waterfall/pool that the one guy from Blink 182 has.

Me?

I'd build a batting cage in my backyard. Not just any cage, though. It'd be a scale version of Wrigley Field. The only change would be the lack of infield dirt since it'd be all grass, all the time. How hott would that be? Maybe 200' to straightaway center, 180' to the corners It'd be hott. OK, maybe it's 175' to center and ~150' to the corners.

How amazing would that be? Paint a pitching machine up in pinstripes and put a big old 22, or 34 on the back and launch 'em over the ivy every morning. That'd be brilliant.

Then, in the fall, you could play football. Yknow, pretend you're Gayle Sayers breaking away up the middle towards the dying ivy. It's be amazing.

Right, so that's what I'd have at my house. What would the rest of you have? Anything?

Also- Ozomatli/Wilco/Beastie Boys reviews are forthcoming.

Too many thoughts roaming around in my head these days to actually blog effectively. But I'll give it a shot right now. Not that anyone's really reading this site regularly anymore. I think most of the LJ kidz have run away, which is, yknow, sad.

I spent the morning doing adult-type new homeowner stuff that turned out to be a lot more productive than I thought it'd be at the outset. Things are actually starting to come together and I think Nena and I are actually going to pull this thing off. We're even getting volunteers to help us paint the weekend of July 9th.

The incentive for people to help us is that if we manage to get things done on schedule and without burning ourselves out- we're totally going to have a party after the wedding to christen the new house. . .

However, after a morning of adult stuff, I really needed to hit the batting cages.

I love baseball. Growing up there was no better way to spend a day than to play a pickup game in the wannabe field in front of my house. We weren't terribly good at the game and our field had more tricks and slopes than the Juicebox down in Houston. But damn did we have fun.

Growing up as a Cubs fan, I've seen the power baseball can have for bringing a group together- for creating community. But until today I'd forgotten the power that the sport has for bringing joy. There's joy in this game, a joy that is all too often forgotten until you spend an afternoon at the batting cages.

The local batting cages are out at Clinton Lake and standing into the batter's box, you understood why the park district had placed them out here. The lake provided a slight breeze that came in off of the third base line and the sun hit my shoulders lightly as the smell of the lake floated through the air. Standing out there I could almost smell the hot dogs and hear the beer vendors around me. The only thing present to wake me from my baseball fantasy was the sound of the PD supplied aluminum bats.

*ping*

I don't do it all that often. Maybe once a year, twice at most. I really should go more often and maybe I will now that I'm going to be living so close to Clinton Lake after next month. Hitting clear my head, standing in the batter's box it's just me and the pitcher. Perhaps that's what draws me to the batting cages- the sensory experience involved in taking a baseball deep. When you go yard, everything lines up just right. The contact sounds perfect, the vibrations that wrack your arms and back feel perfect, it's as if the ball is being lifted off your bat effortlessly. Amazing, just am amazing. It's pure synesthetic joy.

I dragged Ulli out with me today, thinking that it'd be criminal for her to have never hit a baseball in her year in the U.S. After a quick lesson in stance and technique I let Ulli have at the slow pitch softball machine. About ten pitches in she managed to get the hang of it, and by the end of the afternoon she was absolutely in love with the whole thing. She'd tapped into the joy of hitting a baseball.

We alternated rounds and while Ulli wouldn't have stayed in the lineup after today's performance, I hit for average today, sending a steady stream of hard grounders up the third base line. I managed to pull a decent number of balls as well and even launched a few that made Ulli gasp.

Yeah, I went yard.

After seeing me hit those few longballs, Ulli noticed how different a homer sounded from the other contact I made. "Do they feel better to hit?" she asked. After hearing my answer, Ulli made me promise to bring her back next week. She's going to go yard if it kills her, methinks.

While we were out there, a son showed up with his father in tow. Junior was great to watch. A tiny little thing of a ballplayer standing in there with his brand new metallic blue Easton. A tiny little thing facing the big, scary machine with devil horns on it. A tiny little thing with beautiful mechanics hitting with such joy as to remind me why I was here- this was fun. Baseball is fun.

Dad would stand in when Junior grew weary from taking cut after cut and in him I saw the same joy, the same exhilaration writ large. Red tshirt and khaki shorts Dad took his cuts, rippling his tanned calves and flexing his everyman biceps. Dad knew the joy of hitting the longball and by all accounts he had taught his son what there was to know about it.

On the way back to Arturo, I stopped to talk to Dad a bit. We'd both worn our Cubs caps to the cage today and we'd instantly bonded. We talked about the season, the impending Cardinals matchup that we, the expats, we lucky enough to be able to watch on ESPN2 tonight and were generally happy to have another believer around to talk about it with. Baseball is about community.

Today is Drieg's birthday. His birthday is special because it always falls a few days after the solstice, reminding me that summer is really here. Part of summer for me is baseball. The joy of hitting a baseball, the joy of watching my Cubbies defeat the odds and actually win a game. Yeah. . .I don't know how to finish this post. I've tried four different ways, so maybe there is no perfect answer, there is only the acknowledgment that we should all take time out of our schedules and make contact with a baseball; no matter how bad we think we are at it.

This was too funny. Thanks to Freesia for suggesting it.

I was off Monday so I slept 'til noon and spent the afternoon eating donuts and watching reruns of The Cosby Show on various TV outlets. Amazing, you can see no fewer than 8 episodes of that show every day if you have basic cable. I have all sorts of thoughts about representation floating through my head right now, but that's not important to this story.

The day wasn't a total loss, though. I did do every single, stinking piece of laundry in this apartment and will have everything clean when Nena gets back from Santa Fe on Wednesday. I also ran to the grocery store to buy milk and what will hopefully be the last roll of laundry quarters I will have to buy for a long, long time. I can't believe it- I'm going to have laundry fascilities IN MY HOUSE! Amazing shit, yo.

I also spent time talking to G-Steve. It was a pretty crazy 24 hours. In that span, Strick AND G-Steve came back from the dead and called me. They're both doing well- G-Steve plugging away at the jobby job in SF and Strick having found himself back in the land of beer and cheese. It was good to talk to those guys; there's more here, but that goes in another post.

Instead, this post is about Arturo, and the kind of hardcore legend I've been living with for the past 6 years. With all the major life changes that are going down right now I'm having to shift Arturo's insurance so I can get him and Will on the same bill. With this change, there's all sorts of paperwork that has to get done. But, to do the paperwork, I need to find a whole assortment of documents first. Which, yknow would be easy if I didn't have my stuff scattered in different locations across town.

While sitting watching The Cos Monday, I figured I should be productive and actually look for said documents while I was lounging. Nothing. I cleaned the damn apt and came up totally empty. OK, fine I thought. I showered, got in my awake pajamas, (as opposed to my sleeping pajamas- there is a difference) settled into the couch and started watching the Cubs game on ESPN. I figured I'd go out to Arutro between innings of the Prior v. Clemens battle and pull the papers out that I needed to look at.

Between the first and second innings, I locked my keys in Arturo.

Longtime followers of the Chronicles of Arturo might remember the great lock-in of 2000 where our hero was locked up in the Rec Center parking lot for a week while a host of professionals attempted to get me back into Arturo. I'll spare you guys that story for now and just say that it was an adventure.

Realizing that I've locked all of my keys in Arturo, I do what anyone else would do: I panicked.

I calmed down and walked back into the house to collect my thoughts and attempt to remember where the hell the spare key was. Right, storage. But where?

I called Corn and Cheryl and they volunteered to help me attempt to find Arturo's keys in storage.

Yeah, nothing.

We searched storage for a good, long while and we came up with jack. To make matters more interesting, it's so humid in Lawrence right now, that a lot of the boxes are so wet, they're losing their structural integrity. Yeah, I can't wait to get this stuff out of storage. Soon, yo. Soon.

After searching, we were sweaty and hungry so we went to grab a really late dinner getting me home and in my bed much later than I'd intended to. Oh, and I missed Mark Prior's win over Roger Clemens.

I woke up Tuesday morning at 9a on the dot without help from my alarm. It was pretty impressive, yo. Seriously. I was about to go back to sleep when I remembered that I had to start calling around to get Arturo unlocked before I did anything else like go to work at 4p or Ulli's going away party at 11p.

I called AAA and they sent a recovery crew that was at my door in 25 minutes.

A brief complaint about AAA: I like what they do, I'm glad to pay my dues every year. However, their cost control measures ALWAYS kick me in the ass. For example, this November when my mom's car died at Midway Airport and the idiots at AAA kept me in the parking garage for over 3 hours while they figured out the difference between their collective asses and a hole in the ground. Yes, they did eventually tow me to my parents' house for free. But I would have been a LOT happier if they'd just listened to me off the bat when I said that I needed a tow, not a jump. . .

Anyway, so they sent me a recovery crew. These guys spent an hour trying to get Arturo open by trying to get a stick in through the door and having the stick hit the power unlock button.

Guess what. Arturo's too smart for that.

Something that I could have told them. But, yknow AAA doesn't ask me about my car. They quit after realizing that Arturo is hardcore and AAA sent a locksmith. Only, he's not a locksmith who picks locks, he's some other kinda crazy locksmith that jimmies crap in the lock and around the windows and hopes that works.

Guess what. Arturo's too smart for that.

It is now 11a and I'd planned to be done with this crap by now. The locksmith gives up and tells me to call his competition but that they'll have less luck than he did (he had ANY luck?). He didn't mean to brag but, he's the best locksmith in town. If he couldn't do it, no one in this town could. After spending some time contemplating how bad the locksmiths in this town must be if this guy is actually the best one we've got, I tuned back in to listen to what he was telling me.

"1989 Cressida? These things are notoriously hard to get into. It's looking more and more like you're going to have to break a window to get your keys back. I tell you what you should do. While you're waiting for the other guy you should call around and price auto glass. Find the cheapest window to break, break it and get your keys back."

Brilliant, right? Upon further reflection I realize that with advice like this he might actually BE the best locksmith in town. The best as voted on by the auto glass merchant's association.

I called the competition (be there in 20 mins) and then called the dealer to price glass. I figured they'd have the most expensive glass in town so it'd make a good worst case scenario. The service guy is all too happy to estimate labor for the glass ($75) and he sends my call to the parts guy to figure out what glass will run me. While I'm talking to the parts guy at the dealer he has an epiphany. Do I have my VIN? Yes? OH, here's your key code. Go get a new key, don't break a window.

Wow, he's totally the best locksmith in town.

The final locksmith shows up and I tell him I've tracked down my key code. He smiles and looks relieved. He didn't think he'd be able to take the trophy for breaking into an 89 Cressida, so he's glad to not even have to try. We laugh and talk about baseball for a few minutes to make his trip out here worth his while. Eventually he leaves and I change and meet him at his shop. 10mins and $15 later, I have a new spare key. It's now living on Nena's keychain.

The moral of the story? Arturo is hardcore. Freaking hardcore, yo. Indestructible and nearly impossible to break into. Let the legend continue to grow. I love this car.

Ray Charles has been eulogized countless time on the internet, and in ways far more eloquent and knowledgeable than anything I could attempt to say. Corn and I dedicated two long sets to Mr. Charles last night on the show. It's all we could do really. The man changed the way we listen to music, he made an entire genre popular if he didn't outright invent it. Yeah, Rest In Peace, Ray.

The show went brilliantly well yesterday. I'm really coming into the character of DJ Slim Mochachino and by the end of the night, I had Corn rolling every time I was on the mic. If you didn't listen last night, tune in next week- it was and will continue to be amazing.

We started out with some technical difficulties that came about because of how similar but not exactly the same the KJ boards are to the KRLX ones. Yeah, at KRLX the same button turned things on and off, at KJ they only turn things on and what I learned as the KRLX cue button turns things off. After that, though we were off to a flying start and it really freakin' ruled.

As soon as we started playing music, the calls started coming in. "Is this KJ?" people asked us. "What have you done to KJ? This doesn't sound like KJ." But once we assured people that we were just two guys with a legit show devoted to Soul, R&B, Funk and the like who hadn't kidnapped anyone to get onto the airwaves- they relaxed and began thanking us for playing such great music on KJ.

It's as if folks were scared for us, because they didn't think we could get away with our sonic revolution. Gone was the indie rock and pretension- in its place was good, old fashioned music to make you feel good, if not a bit. . .yknow, amorous. Yup, the calls asking us what we'd done to KJ were great; apparently they'd never heard music like this on the station before and well, they liked it. Sam and Dave, Jill Scott, John Lee Hooker, Shai, Otis Redding, the Rev. Al Green, Aretha and Ray. Orgasmic times in the shack, yo. Big love to friends who called in, yo. Big love.

It was one of those brilliant moments when you see how good college radio can truly be. I'm sure I'll post more about this at a later date, but suffice it to say that it was so damned good.

OK, I'll keep talking about it, because I can't stop. Then there was the time when we started going through the shack looking for what music KJ actually owned that could help us out. There was almost nothing. Yeah, KJ wasn't around way back in the day, but KJ was around for part of back in the day. Yet it's as if the 1970s never happened at KJ unless you were white. All sorts of classic rock, but no funk or soul or R&B. Sad, yo. Sad.

All we could find was the "Soul" vinyl collection. It's like 2 dozen albums, but it's two dozen brilliant albums. So brilliant, in fact, that at some point I couldn't take the brilliance anymore and I started pounding on the floor in joy. Yeah, it was sad that there wasn't more, but what was there- so good.

Amazing, there I was sitting on the floor of the shack looking through the vinyl (because the Soul vinyl is on a floor-level shelf) and at some point some album was too good to have me contain myself anymore and I started laughing and pounding the floor while Corn and Nena watched. When they saw why I was doing it, they understood. It was a brilliant moment.

Yeah, this show is gonna be a good time, yo.

First off, a shameless plug. Listen to me and Corn tonight at 7p CDT on The Quiet Storm. 90.7 FM here in L-Town or via the web at KJHK.org You can also get there by clicking on my "Current Listening" link.

The show should be a good time, so listen in, call in if you're so inclined.

Right, so I've survived my first two full days of work and I really can't complain, but it's brought to mind something Drieg said to me a long time ago Drieg. In the midst of some fight or another he told me that it seemed as though I felt as if I was too good to work retail.

For some reason, that comment really bothered me. Maybe it's my wacko-liberal egalitarianism, maybe it's. . .I don't really know what else it could be so let's just go with that.

Working this job has made me think that Drieg might have been onto something, because as time wears on- this job grates on me. My job is pretty easy, I wander my department and ask people if they need help. If they need it, I provide it. Since I'm currently working off-peak shifts, this leaves a lot of time for wandering the aisles with not a lot to do but think. This brings me to the hardest part of my job, wandering the aisles, trying to find something to do with my brain.

Most of the time, I find myself thinking about what kind of job I could get excited about. I love teaching, I love what I do when school is in session, but if I didn't do this, what would I be doing? What would make me happy? Aside from talk show host all I can come up with is some sort of visual artist, or graphic designer.

I'm finding that I wish I'd taken more studio art at Carleton, more stuff that could have gotten me some kind of design job. Designing the invitations for my wedding has reminded me of how much I love to do that kind of work and how much I'd like to do more of it. Only, I don't know when that will be and I know I'll never be doing enough of it to pay the bills.

At what point in my life did I take the turn down a path that led me away from this? At what point did art not seem like the way to go? Maybe it's what happens when you're a "smart kid" in our educational system. They slot you away in the smart kid track which is devoid of the visual arts- or at least it was where I grew up. Maybe it's because I was never the best at drawing things, that was Torres, so that's why I was never told I could be any kind of visual artist. Maybe that's why I am where I am. . .

Who knows. These are the things I think about at work. I wish I could get motivated about sales margins and the like, but I can't. I'm good at my job, I know where things are and I'm really nice to people, but there's something frustrating in knowing that I'll never be great at it. That's what Drieg was right about, I don't think I'm too good for this job, I'm just frustrated because I want to be better at it than I feel I can be.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder how I got here.

Damn, I'm tired.

Yesterday was my first actual day of work at DAS ÜBERBÜY and damn am I dehydrated. Seriously, I spent most of my shift shelving DVDs and while the place was air conditioned I still managed to sweat a ridiculous amount, but not enough at any one time to really notice I was sweating profusely until after my shift ended.

Oh, yeah, the shift wouldn't end either.

Last time I worked retail I was the manager of a small educational toy store. I set my own hours and I was in charge of opening and closing. I knew exactly what I had to do and when I had to do it.

Right now, everything's a mystery to me.

I just do what they tell me to do when they tell me to do it. It's a strange way for me to live as I've grown used to having more control than this. Going to work is like driving down a twisty mountain road you've never been on, at night, with your copilot giving you directions every so often. "TURN NOW!"

Yeah, I know this is what rally racers do. But I'm not a rally racer, and I'd never met my copilot before yesterday.

Apparenty I'm also subverting the training process by not wearing a white shirt as I'd been told to do. Sorry, the last time I wore a white polo shirt was when I was an 8th grader at St. Hubert's. That was the uniform and when I graduated, I left it behind.

When I asked if this non-white shirt ownership status would be a problem; I'd been told that wearing some other color would be OK and I've been doing that. But it's really throwing the rest of the staff. People that aren't in my department think I'm some strange customer that likes to shelf DVDs, cuz they're always asking me if I need help finding something.

Yeah, I really need a white polo.

It's been over three years since I've had my own radio show, but this Thursday night- I'm back.

The Quiet Storm
7pm-9pm CDT
Every Thursday this summer on KJHK
90.7 FM
webcast on www.kjhk.org

That's right, every Thursday night this summer I will be spinning the slowest jamz, guaranteed to set your party off right.

Won't you join me and my cohost Cornelius the Don?

Seriously, though. I'm really looking forward to this radio thing, and I'll change the "Current Listening" link into a link straight to the webcast. . .once they get the server back up.

In the meantime, though. Are there any requests?

The Quiet Storm is coming. Is your soul prepared?

There's something that I've been unusually quiet about aside from, yknow- everything as of late.

A while back Nena and I decided that it'd be best if we tried to buy a house rather than continue to rent. With interest rates where they've been and where they're going. . . With home prices in this town where they are and where they're going. . . It just seemed like the best thing for us to do.

Right, enough stalling. Nena and I are buying a house.

Bid placed on Saturday, bid accepted on Saturday after a bit of negotiating.

Yeah, we're really, really excited as well as absolutely terrified. Like, a HOUSE. A freakin' HOUSE. After the 4th of July Nena and I will actually own a real HOUSE. Like our parents do and shit. Amazing.

We close a month from today, we get married two months from today. . .where the hell did my life go? It's like it was yesterday that I was too young to. yknow- be getting married and buy a house.

Crazy.

Though, there's no one else I'd rather be going through all this than Nena. . . I guess it's not that crazy, it's just time.

Though, I've been having some crazy dreams as of late. Like last night, where I dreamed I was marrying my HS gf. We cut 8th period to go get ready for the wedding as we were to be married before dinner. Then I woke up in the dream and realized that I was actually supposed to be marrying Nena that day, so I got up and went to work and realized that my wedding had been scheduled for my lunch break. Did I mention that I was a grad student in NYC? Very strange.

Then there was the other dream about the field trip to the MSI in Chicago with friends from Carleton. Only, they weren't my real friends from Carleton, just caricatures of people from Carleton and the museum wasn't the real museum, just a caricature. . . strange days, yo. I mean, we're buying a HOUSE.

I went to my first day of my new job today.

Before the emergency road trip to central Aztl��n, you might remember that I'd applied for a number of big-box jobs. Well, after weighing an offer from where America shops and another at DAS ÜBERBÜY I decided that it'd be best to only shop where America does, and not have to sell anything to them.

I took my employment dependent drug test the day before we left for the funeral and was at my in-laws when I got the call that I'd passed the test and I was (according to corporate) ready to undergo employee orientation. I was told that so as to kill multiple birds with only one stone, Big Blue only does employee orientation on Sundays and I'd been therefore scheduled for orientation in 3 days.

The only problem was that I was scheduled to be in New Mexico on Sunday.

When I told them this, the reply was "no worries, I'll just have another week off and train Sunday after next." Word, another week off to work on wedding planning and then I'd get to walk into training on Sunday fresh as a daisy. Perfect.

That Sunday was yesterday.

I showed up at 10 to noon so I'd be early for my first day, cuz that's what you do, right? You show up early the first few weeks and make a good first impression. That's what you do, right? You show up early and bring everything they'd told you to bring, SSN #, driver's license, dress business casual, be ready to start, excited about working. . .apparently this isn't what you do. Because the majority of folks who were to be trained yesterday never showed up.

Apparently, only 2 of the 7 new employees that were supposed to show up for training bothered to show up for THEIR FIRST DAY OF WORK. So, they sent us home. Training is supposedly too boring to bear with only 2 people, so they sent me home and told me to come back to work on my next scheduled work day. I'd do training NEXT Sunday with a new crop of employees.

What? That's it? Who do I report to on that day? How do I clock in? What do I actually DO? Yeah, apparently none of this really matters. I managed to get enough answers out of people so that I'll actually get paid for working this week, But I'm also really annoyed because thanks to the idiocy of the 5 that didn't show up, I lost 4.5hrs of work this week. Instead of the 30hrs I was scheduled for, I now have 25.5. Bastards. Are these idiots going to give me the money they've cost me?

I guess not, because I'm pretty sure those idiots are unemployed now.

*shakes head*

Yknow, apart from the idiots, I get the feeling that this is going to be a pretty cool job.