Super Sunday

Deja vu all over today.

Fours years ago, right around this time, it was the night before a radiation session early on in the uneasy reign of the Interruptnum. The New York Giants, coached by Tom Coughlin, were trying to slay another giant in the form of the unbeaten New England Patriots, coached by Bill Belichick. Eli Manning and Tom Brady were calling the audibles at the line of scrimmage.

Today, it is the eve of another medical procedure. And while tomorrow's procedure will be of a much more benevolent nature, it is to ameliorate something that was directly caused by the radioactivity of four years prior. And the New York Giants, coached by Tom Coughlin, are playing the New England Patriots, coached by Bill Belichick. Eli vs. Tom redux.

As it was four years ago, the game was won in the fourth quarter. Once again, Eli made a low percentage throw to an unheralded receiver to put the G-Men in a position to win.

The only guy who couldn't lose today was Bill Parcells, who coached both teams to Super Bowl berths in the past, and whose coaching tree boasts both Coughlin and Belichick.

Eli may not have led my fantasy football team to the championship final as he did last year, but he now has two Super Bowl rings, which is one more than his celebrated brother. Peyton may no longer be Archie's favourite son.

The best part of my day, however, took place before the game. As I was watching a great NFL Films documentary on Joe Namath, I heard my father - who is always sitting nearby while his mind is usually nowhere near - proudly tell me that he remembered Broadway Joe (another New York quarterback, who just happened to win the first game they called the Super Bowl - in the year I was born, no less).

After that, I stopped worrying about my little surgery the next morning. I began to feel really good.

A Bottle and Friend

To all the diasporadic Scots out there, I hope you took a moment yesterday to savour some Songs, Poems and at least a couple of drams.

Last night Bomber and I enjoyed an extended toast to the most neglected of the Romantics. Selected Specimens from our respective collections were exchanged under the sign of the Oak. The pipes were perfectly shrill, the haggis was spicy, and the Extra Special Bitter was flowing.

Lauzzy and Cousin were missed.

For the second consecutive January 25, we swung a blockbuster hockey pool trade.


Here's a bottle and an honest friend!
What wad ye wish for mair, man?
Wha kens, before his life may end,
What his share may be o'care, man?

Then catch the moments as they fly,
And use them as ye ought, man:
Believe me, happiness is shy,
And comes not aye when sought, man.

1787

Reconciliation Rock

I heard some good news yesterday.

Not only have David Lee and the Van Halens patched things up ...

Relationship of Command was released way back in 2000. Yet by the end of 2011, it still stood near the top of my unwritten list of the very best albums of the decade.

Hardcore? Post-Hardcore? Prog-Punk? You'll have to consult with Patti Schmidt for that call.

Whatever it was, its on its way back.

When At the Drive-In split apart eleven years ago, two new bands were created that never really caught my attention. While I'll always have a soft spot for the proggy element in rock music, The Mars Volta's sound seemed to regress, rather than progress, after a decent debut in 2003. As for Sparta, I never really lent them a fair listen.

But ATDI's full lineup will reassemble with an eirenic enthusiasm to play at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California in April, along with Godspeed You! Black Emperor (themselves missing in action for many years), Explosions in the Sky, Radiohead, Feist et al.

Now that's a BigRockShow, as Les Claypool might say.

Or a BigPostRockShow, as Patti Schmidt would surely say.

2012

Happy 2012 to all.

Tho I may be suffering with my annual distemper, today is coming up Roses.

I realized, many years ago, the truth behind the futility of Resolutions. Things are really only resolved in the crucible of contingency and change. They are resolved in the wake of revelations. After the apocalyptic unveiling of our true natures.

The counterfactual rests on the flimsiest axis. The most unstable of fulcrums.

And yet, the calendrical reboot provides us all an opportunity to Project, however vainly.

But this time, it could be different. The unintended consequences of my Interruptnum will continue to germinate and cross-pollinate.

Gather ye rosebuds while you may.

Alt-worlds. Alt-ideas. Alt-attitudes. Altered states.

They will be written. They will be read. They will be seen. They will be loved.

Emancipation from expectation. The salving, the solving, even the celebration of the anxiety of influence.

Long live, quite literally, the new flesh.

The Interruptnum has, and will continue to cost me Money. Good Money, and Bad Money.

Yet it has also freed me from Money's tyrannical grip. I love that about the Interruptnum.



Have a good year, my friends.

Oh, and go Oregon Ducks Go.

Mike Judge is pretty cool

I was flipping through channels the other night and stumbled across a revenant from the mid 90's.

Yes, Hank Hill may be gone, but Beavis and Butthead are back!

(Mr. Anderson is back too, so Hank Hill never really went anywhere).

I may actually watch a music video again.

Black Friday

I had a busy day on Friday.

It wasn't just any Friday. It was Black Friday, a truth that was only to be revealed later on that day, in all its gory majesty. It is a day, I learned the hard way, when otherwise rational and restrained human beings succumb to the most primordial of their acquisitive natures and engorge themselves in a communal orgy of commercial exchange and borderless cupidity.

It began just like any day, although it was a Friday. The week long tedium of Work was coming to a close. I must have suffered a nasty and febrile dream Thursday night, as I woke up with the melody of a KISS song reverberating in my head. As I ground my coffee beans, I caught myself mouthing the lyrics to "2000 Man". I don't like KISS, and never did (but hearing Gene Simmons imitate Geddy Lee's vocal stylings was a happy event for me earlier this year). As a nine year old kid, however, I did buy the "Dynasty" album. I had seen too many kids wearing their older brothers KISS Army t-shirts to school, and I wanted to find out what all the fuss was about. I was very disappointed. But I still played the shit out of that album on the family stereo unit because, as bad as KISS seemed to me, it was still better than my older sisters' Supertramp and Meat Loaf albums.

On Friday morning, as I drank my morning coffee, I performed the usual routines. I checked out my fantasy sports results from the previous night. My hockey team (defending champion hockey team, I might add) was still resting all too comfortably in fifth place. Nor did my football team harvest much on American Thanksgiving Day -- Dez Bryant and Jermichael Finley combined for a heady 6 points. At least my Harbaugh had prevailed in the epic Battle of the Harbaugh brothers.

After cramming a day's worth of work into a morning, I had to get on with other things. My poor mother has been waiting for a laptop computer for a long time. First it was her birthday gift. In 2010. Then it was a Christmas gift. Then a Mother's Day gift. Then it was a birthday gift again. Then, as the days drifted unrelentingly towards the end of another year, it was a Christmas gift yet again.

I had bought everything on Tuesday, when the waters were much calmer. I even snagged myself some sweet headphones, the obscene price of which was salved by a store credit that had been hard won and well deserved from an incident a couple of years ago. But I was picking up the laptop and its accessories on Friday. Little did I know what was, quite literally, in store for me.

I rounded up everything I needed for a weekend in the Glen, including my own laptop and its accessories, and embarked on my way down to the suburban entrepot. "2000 Man" was still playing clumsily inside my head in a rather anti-virtuosic manner, despite my frantic search for a radio diversion. I had to remember to pick up a "chill pad" for the laptop, as I had forgot to add that to the package on Tuesday.

The traffic was heavy, even for an early Friday afternoon in a government town. And everyone seemed to be driving in the same direction as me. Except, unlike me, most of them appeared to be frothing at the mouth in anticipation of some kind of bacchanalian ritual that would whip them into a rabid frenzy of an unhealthy sort.

I was getting worried. "2000 Man" was still in my head, but it wasn't reassuring me. Rather, it was considerably distressing me. I needed a chill pad of my own. I wanted to get down there, pick up the goods, and get the fuck out of town before rush hour. I knew I still had to do a bit more work once I got to the Glen, and then I had to setup the laptop, the printer, and all of the other stuff.

When I finally got into the store, I knew something was very wrong. People, old and young, were everywhere. A sea of wretched humanity. Gnashing their teeth. Clutching and grabbing for every shiny bauble that danced before their deadened eyes. Disturbing moans and groans gathered into a crescendo above the bubblegum pop soundtrack of the store as many of these unfortunate creatures were told that the treasure they coveted was no longer in stock, while others shrieked in paroxysms of delight as they fled towards the cacaphonic symphony of the cash registers. It appeared to me as hellish as a detail from the right panel of The Garden of Earthly Delights.

Fuck the chill pad, I thought to myself. I'll get it another day. I just gotta find that cute little Filipino salesgirl, get my stuff and get out of here alive. Then I dutifully got in line, completed my business, and loaded up the New Idler. Earlier that morning, over my first cup of coffee, I had hatched an elaborate scheme to pick up some other badly needed things during this rare foray into the commercial abyss. But waiting in line had sent me into the rush hour. After aborting the original plan, I sped out of the city in a Bournean/To Live and Die in L.A. flourish and set out for the bucolic sureties of the Country Home, bearing the long awaited laptop and all the accessories.

But then don't you know, I'm a 2000 Man.

Fulcrum

Downtown walk in an autumnal Arcadia
Weekday faces fade away
Almost makes you feel
The past is not here today

It is time.
It has always been time.