Good thing I didn't go listen to John Updike speak at UCLA a couple months ago.

That decision's now up there with the 2001 World Series.

i was going to put this up as a joke. i like jokes and i thought this would be one... turns out, it happened to be one of the most beautiful things i've seen and heard in a long time.

good times.

we're watching obama today at school. it kind of messes up my pacing plan, but whatever. we had a fun weekend. the first ever ramble featured a rad special guest in the form of former bob dylan drummer mickey jones. he told us many fun stories and was a true awesome man (his wife was nice too). we played him a cover of memphis. he's played it both with johnny rivers (whose band he was in for a time) and chuck berry. it was surreal. it was also surreal when he made a comment about andy and matt playing well together, to which i responded by asking what it was like to play with rick danko.

the next one will be taking place march 14. between now and then, we should be shooting two short films (one with mickey as a whaler) and one with singing and dancing.

in other news, i had a lot of fun with my wife and baby in ventura yesterday. it was sunny. we saw wyatt and his wife. we played in the sand.

i've too many things to grade. that is all.

School is about to start. I went to the YMCA both last night and this morning. I am proud of myself, though I find it hard to finish a workout with the nice whirlpool and steam room waiting for me after. I'm trying to pump iron. We'll see how long it lasts.

In other news, Jack turned one. He had a fun birthday and a fun Christmas. We went to Colorado and participated in a fun wedding. He wins the universe award for awesome and best. Robyn comes in second.

We've a ramble this Saturday. Come out, if you like and if you are a friend. It's at the house. The show will start at 7:00 and will feature us, assorted members of the Romany Rye, a possible rad special guest, and some Chuck Berry tunes. Sleeping babies and such will move the after-party to Cha Cha, but we'd love to see you for the show if you are a friend and not a creep. It will take place in our garage.

I'm also shooting a movie with Vern at the end of the month. It will be about a whaler and it will star Rick Steve. We could use help if you are talented at things that are hard and usually time consuming and expensive.

Happy Burf Day!

Pictures of the now one-year-old Jackson Duke! He will be celebrated.

And Rafael Furcal is back. He will play with grace. He will be honorable.

Break starts this weekend. Super.

The Gentleman's Jam. 1st official. Will be January 19th. Special guests. For real.

I had to scrape ice off my car this morning. First time in LA.

UPDATE:
McNulty is in the version of A Christmas Carol we're watching in class. I keep waiting for him to end up under the London Bridge having a taste with Cratchit, for Tiny Tim to find his older brother's gun, and for Scrooge and the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come to have the following exchange:

Scrooge: I see you favor a .45.
Spirit: At night I do. And I keeps one in the chamber in case you ponderin'.

I haven't posted on here in a while. I think it has something to do with a certain someone freaking me out about my sentence structure. Maybe it was something else, I'm not sure.

We're living in a new house and Jack is starting to walk. He's just taking a few steps and he smiles and laughs when he does it. I like him. He is cool.

We're not really playing much music, but we should start again sometime soon.

I haven't been watching too many movies. I watched The Long Goodbye. I really liked it. I want to go driving up the coast, I think. I'm listening to Leonard Cohen in my classroom and it is raining. I think it's making me want to play hooky. I think it is making me want to play hooky from life in general. I am reading The Naked and the Dead . It is very nice. We're going to have a concert in my garage soon. Jack turns one on Thursday. Things are happening. Things are moving. Things are just chugging right along.

Obama

It would be stupid for Obama to give up a 20 year smoking habit on the eve of becoming the president.

Garage Sale!

We're having a garage sale. 2738 Locksley Place. We'll probably start around 8:00.

Cool.

This weekend was fun for several reasons. On Friday, I went with Jayson, Am-en, and some other guy to the Ben Folds concert. When the concert was over I went back to Jayson's work and had a free beer. On Saturday, I cleaned up around the house (the new house that we are now living in) and then in the evening, I took Jack to the super-rad Salon thing in Long Beach. While in Long Beach, I saw many friends and Jack saw many girls who he made become his girlfriends. He works much faster than I ever did in my prime. We didn't stay until the end because he was quite spent, but it was very fun nonetheless.

Today, we finished our weekend of fun by going to church, making delicious combination of pureed meat, fruit, and vegetable (for the boy), and eating Korean BBQ with Kevin and Tisa. The place we ate at featured many parts of the cow and pig. I liked the pig parts the best.

Nebraska's "safe haven" law is the lead story on CNN.com right now. The whole thing is pretty sad on a number of different levels. Because of the urgency of the article, I was under the assumption that hundreds (or even thousands) of children were being dropped off and legally abandoned. It turns out, however, that only 34 minors have been affected.

In 2005 (the most recent data found on a quick search), 3220 abortions were performed in Nebraska. To put it in perspective (based on the approximately 26,000 children born in the state), nearly ten percent of the children conceived (that doesn't sound right; that can't be right, right?) were aborted. If these people were at least responsible enough to get their abortions in nearby Kansas, their dead fetuses could have been receiving the sacraments from this horrible man.

The lesson of the day is that it is better to murder than is it to abandon. I guess.

We've moved into our new place officially. It's a little strange, but I'm excited. There are way too many things to take care of, mostly relating to things in need of purge. It'll all get finished soon enough, though.

I don't really have anything else to add. John Updike is at UCLA tonight. I'd kill to go see him, but we need to finish up stuff around the house. The argument might be made that the house will be there tomorrow and John Updike will not, but like historic World Series games prior, it is really better to be responsible in the present. Not.

Echoing Darren's recent thoughts, I can't fathom, on any level really, how irrelevant abortion has become in regard to reasons to vote for a candidate.


link

via one of Darren's friends:

Remembering Collective Shame

By Uwe Siemon-Netto

This column requires a caveat: I am not an American citizen and therefore neither a Republican nor a Democrat. But as a German residing permanently in the United States I believe that I have a duty to opine on at least one aspect of the upcoming elections – the question whether years from now Americans will have to wrestle with collective shame, just as I have had to deal with collective shame over what has happened in Germany in my childhood for my entire life.

It was West Germany’s first postwar president, Theodor Heuss, who coined the phrase, “collective shame” contrasting it with the notion of collective guilt, which he rejected. No, I cannot be expected to feel guilty for crimes the Nazis committed while I was still in elementary school. But as a bearer of a German passport I have never ceased feeling ashamed because three years before I was born German voters elected leaders planning the annihilation of millions of innocent people.

I am certain that in 1933 most Germans did not find the Nazis’ anti-Semitic rhetoric particularly attractive. What made them choose Hitler, then? It was the economy, stupid, and presumably injured national pride, and similar issues. This came to mind as I read the latest Faith in Life poll of issues Americans in general and white evangelicals in particular consider “very important” in this year’s elections.

Guess what? For both groups, the economy ranked first, while abortion was way down the list. Among Americans in general abortion took ninth and among white evangelicals seventh place, well below gas prices and health care. Now, it’s true that most evangelicals still believe that abortion should be illegal, which is where they differ from the general public and, astonishingly, from Roman Catholics even though their own church continues to fight valiantly against the ongoing mass destruction of unborn life. Still, 54 percent of Catholics and 60 percent of young Catholics have declared themselves “pro choice,” according to the Faith in Life researchers.

What I am going to say next is going to make me many enemies, of this I am sure: Yes, there is a parallel between what has happened in Germany in 1933 and what is happening in America now. The legalized murder of 40 million fetuses since Roe v. Wade in 1973 will one day cause collective shame of huge proportions. So what if this wasn’t a “holocaust?” This term should remain reserved for another horror in history. But a genocide has been happening in the last 35 years, even if no liberators have shocked the world with photographs they snapped of the victims as the Allies did in Germany in 1945. And it has the open support of politicians running for office next month.

If most Americans, and shockingly even a majority of Catholics, think physicians should have the “right” to suck babies’ brains out so that their skulls will collapse making it easy for these abortionists to drag their tiny bodies through the birth canal; if even most white evangelicals think that economic woes are a more important concern (78 percent) than legalized mass murder (57 percent), then surely a moral lobotomy has been performed on this society.

I agree it would be unscholarly to claim that what is happening in America and much of the Western world every day is “another holocaust.” No two historical events are exactly identical. So let’s leave the word “holocaust” where it belongs – next to Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and Mauthausen. Still there are compelling parallels between today’s genocide and the Nazi crimes, for example:

1. Man presumes to decide which lives are worthy of living and which are not. “Lebensunwertes Leben” (life unworthy of living) was a Nazi “excuse” for killing mentally handicapped children and adults, a crime that preceded the holocaust committed against the Jews. Notice that today fetuses diagnosed with Downs Syndrome are often aborted as a matter of course in America and Europe.

2. In German-occupied territories, Jews and Gypsies were gassed for no other reason than that some people considered it inconvenient to have them around. Today, unborn children are often slaughtered because it is inconvenient for their mothers to bring their pregnancies to term.

3. Murder I is legally defined as killing another human being with malice and aforethought. The Nazis killed Jewish and Gypsies with deliberation – and maliciously. But what are we to think of babies being killed deliberately simply because they would be a nuisance if they were allowed to live? No malice here?

4. Ordinary Germans of the Nazi era were rightly chastised for not having come to their Jewish neighbors’ rescue when they were rounded up and sent to extermination camps. Ordinary Americans and Western Europeans might find the fad to kill babies disagreeable, but as we see from the Faith in Life poll, most have more pressing concerns.

Some future day Americans and Western Europeans will be asked why they allowed their children to be slaughtered. They would even have less of an excuse than Germans of my grandparents’ and parents’ generation. In Germany, you risked your life if you dared to come to the Jews’ rescue. In today’s democracies the worst that can happen to you is being ridiculed for being “a Christian.”

As a foreigner I have no right to tell Americans whom to elect on Nov. 4. Recently, though, a friend asked me: “If you worked in an office and a colleague asked you at the voter cooler, whom he should vote for what would you tell him?” Well, I would say: “I am not here to make up your mind for you. But personally I could never give my vote to so-called pro-choice candidates.”

This would doubtless lead to a heated postmodern dialogue. Perhaps the colleague is not a Christian; he might chastise me for mixing politics and religion. “If you as a Christian oppose abortion,” he could say, “then by all means don’t get involved in an abortion, just don’t impose your religious views on the rest of us.” How would I answer that? An evangelical might yank out his Bible and quote passages pertaining to this issue. But to a non-Christian the Bible is meaningless; I am not sure a political debate around the water cooler is a great venue to start individual evangelization.

My Lutheran approach would be different. I would argue natural law, the law God has written upon the hearts of all human beings, including non-believers. Unless they really have undergone a moral lobotomy they should be open to this story: Down in Wichita, Kansas, there is a physician by the name of George Tiller. On his website he boasts that he has already performed 60,000 abortions, mostly late-term, and week after week he is killing 100 more unborn babies.

Dr. Tiller does not think of these fetuses as clusters of cancerous cells. He knows they are human because he baptizes some of them before he incinerates them in his own crematorium. You don’t baptize non-humans. Dr. Tiller knows that. He is a practicing Lutheran. His former congregation, Holy Cross of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, excommunicated him as an unrepentant sinner. But the Lutheran Church of the Reformation, which belongs to the ELCA, communes him. Did I mention that he kills 100 human beings every week and has already done away with 60.000? Sixty thousand! In Nuremberg they hanged some fiends for murdering less than 60 -- zero point one percent of Tiller’s toll.

Perhaps this little tale will give even non-believers pause if they have not discarded their conscience, known to Christians as the law God has written upon every man’s heart. One day, of this I am certain, this will indeed result in collective shame – and God knows what other horrible consequences.

We had a nice weekend in Big Bear. We sat inside and watched babies crawl around on the floor. At night we talked some and made jokes. It was good.

I am listening to "Ballad in Plain D"; it is such a beautiful song. The bell rang; lunch is now over. Students are coming into my class; they will be finishing their narratives. A student just rang my bell; its sharp ting hurt my ear.

New York.

My wife, Robyn, sat on the end of the bed and complained that our son, Jack, would have trouble getting to sleep. We were in New York with my parents. A friend from college was getting married. We had eaten bowls of fettuccine and marinara. It was Paul Newman’s marinara. His face on the jar was rugged and his hair was gray. He looked good.
“Jack’s going to have trouble getting to sleep,” said Robyn. She was sitting on the bed reading a People Magazine. Jack had made his way under the hide-a-bed.
“Maybe we should put him in the bathroom,” I said.
“Really?” asked Robyn sardonically. “You really think it would be a good idea to put him in the one place people are going to be going in and out of through out the night?”
“Or we could put him in the elevator with a do not disturb sign on the crib,” I said covering some from the bathroom suggestion I’d thought made sense. Robyn shook her head some. My jokes weren’t amusing her.
“What time do you want to leave for Brent’s?”
“I’m not sure, I’ve got to call him.”
“Maybe you should do that now,” she said.
“I’ll call in a little bit,” I said.
“You guys should take a cab,” said my mom from the kitchen. She was washing dishes.
“The subways are safe, mom,” I said.
“We don’t want you getting mugged,” said my mom.
“Where’s it at?” asked my dad. He was looking at a plastic tourist map we’d bought from a drugstore earlier in the day.
“They live on Riverside Drive,” I said. My dad squinted at the map. He had trouble seeing in the dim light. Jack pulled at something on the floor and put it in his mouth. I think it was a string of carpet. “You guys get to go right through Harlem,” said my dad.
“Really?” asked my mom. I think she was hoping he was pulling her leg. “Yeah,” he said.
“We love Jackson, but we don’t want to raise him,” she said half-joking.
“I’d love to raise Jackson,” said my dad.
“Jeez mom,” I said.
“You know what I mean.”
“We’ll be fine,” I said.
“Gosh, Debby,” said my dad. We all laughed.
“You know what I meant,” she said.
“Do you have money in your wallet?” asked Robyn.
“I’ve that money we took out earlier.”
“That’s right,” she said.

I fixed my dark gray beanie in the elevator mirror on the way down. The floor ticked away electronic and red. The song Seal sang for one of the Batman movies played soft. It was quiet and intense. Very melodramatic. It sounded like it could’ve been in a high school production of Phantom. That’s how you talked about musical theater. Les Mis, Phantom… one word was all you really needed. It was a New York thing. New York tourist vernacular. Like Urkle or Tim the Tool Man.
“Which way do we go?” asked Robyn as we stepped into the cold night. It reminded me of walking into the produce section at Costco.
“59th street,” I said. “The Columbus Circle.”
“Do you know what that is?”
“No.”
* * *

pumpkin patch and octoberfest!

we went to the pumpkin patch with the pools, parents, poppo, and sister. we also watched the great pumpkin and ate meat at a german restaurant. i also had a reunion. andy smith and the pools crashed it. fun. fun. robyn is sick. pray for her to become not sick.

the dodgers lost. i'm still busy. i'm not sure what else. i'm resting after the half-marathon. i will rest for about a week and start running again, i guess. not much else.

i was in class for the game tonight. andy was sending me text messages. they were mostly lewd remarks about larry bowa. not much else. the classes are time consuming, but i should be completely finished by april--except for btsa--a fun beginning teacher support program full of busy busy work. lame.

i'm also getting ready to apply for grad school in the fall. the program will allow me to keep working. it looks to be rad. we'll see.

we'll also be in new york in a couple weeks for the wedding. should be super rad.

we also may (hopefully) be living in the new place next week. my uncle is giving us a player piano with a bunch of old rolls. i am excited. i think i'll put the piano from here in the garage for awesome future gentleman's jams.

robyn and jack are still alive. this is a blessing. jack claps, plays kazoo, piano, changes his own diaper, says dada, and opens bottles with his gums. he also recently said the phrase "waz up boi?!" in sort of a new yorkish asian jew type beastie boy voice. it was weird.

i also ordered an all-in-one remote from woot. i have not received it yet. i imagine woot is run from the back of some guy's car in norwalk--that same guy who tried to sell me sweet speakers one time.

i am very excited the dodgers are in a position to be awesome. i was at the clinching game with greg and it blew my mind wide and long.

as far as the games go, i plan on listening to them on the radio--or radio with the tv on and the volume down. this might very well be vin scully's last (potential) world series... really, honestly, the stupid people who run tv world need to let him broadcast the games. he is such a beautiful man.

i met him once. it makes me cry to think of it sometimes. i was supposed to pick darren up from the airport. it was raining and i didn't want to go. i ended up waiting in baggage claim for a while... after a bit, several hard-bodied men began walking toward the rotating metal luggage thing. one looked like gary sheffield. another, like kevin brown... after a few moments of awesome, i realized these greek godesque gentlemens to be the dodgers. i chatted a little with then pitching coach jim colbourn as i had gone to high school with his son and met vin. i was a bit frightened, but felt my life would be a little less awesome if i didn't say thank you... so i did... and shook his hand... and i haven't washed that hand since...

i went to the game last night with greg. it straight blew my mind.