Rain in the Summertime

Well, we've reached the end of Swim for Distance Month and I have a total of 27,400 meters notched onto my goggles.  (Just kidding about notching my goggles. That would hurt the goggles.)  Which comes to a total of just over 17 miles.  That's neither as far as I wanted to come or as not-far as I thought it would probably be.  In short, it is Just Enough.  I have earned &a t-shirt and some bragging rights, and the North Dallas Food Bank has earned $17, though I will probably just send them a full $20 because why the hell not.  I just wish I could get the whole swim team doing this so we could send them lots of money.  I haven't sold them on this concept yet.  Maybe next year.

Meanwhile, The Alarm came to town, and everything else just pretty much ceased to be important.

I should back up a little.  If you've been hanging around these parts long enough, you know that my favorite band is Big Country. That's the Scottish band that had the one big hit in 1983, won the Best New Artist Grammy (or was at least nominated for it; I forget which) and then disappeared like smoke.  Only they didn't disappear, of course; they just fell victim to the vagaries of the Copyright Act of 1985 and some bad management decisions and never really made it back across the ocean again.  But, they continued as a band in Europe and the rest of the world, put out eight brilliant albums over twelve years before their lead singer, Stuart Adamson, died tragically in Hawaii. And yes, there's this whole long story about that, and no, I'm not going to tell you about it, because I'm sure I've told that story here before and a lot of it is rampant speculation on my part anyway.

Back to the important part, though.  Big Country was without a singer.  In 2011, almost ten years after Stuart's death, Big Country's 30th anniversary came up and fans were demanding some kind of gathering to celebrate (this was in the U.K., though people I knew from the U.S. actually did fly over there to attend it).  In order to have an actual band for the occasion, the surviving members of Big Country called up Mike Peters, the lead singer of the band The Alarm (biggest hit: Probably "Rain in the Summertime") and asked him to fill in.  There's this funny story, which is probably totally bogus, that Mike was halfway up a mountain in Wales at the time and accepted the job on his cell phone while hanging from a carabiner.  Anyway, the show went unbelievably well, everybody loved it and Big Country asked Mike to stay on full time.

Which he did, and Big Country ended up recording The Journey, its first studio album since 1994, in 2013.  The band did a tour of Europe and the United States, including three shows in Texas that I, Jen, went on the road to see (taking along a reluctant Joan, who doesn't do concerts).  Yes, I followed a band around Texas.  No, I'm not considering a future career as a Dead Head.  It was actually really hard work.  But the shows were brilliant, Mike Peters is awesome, and no matter what happens in the future or what else he ends up doing, I will always think of him as The Guy Who Brought Big Country Back From The Dead.  Which, you gotta admit, is a pretty nifty epitaph if you need one.

After three years, Mike Peters returned to The Alarm.  That was actually fine, because The Alarm is my second favorite band (though the new-ish band, Fun., is jockeying for position in there somewhere). Now The Alarm is on tour, and darned if they didn't come to Texas for three shows.  Did I drag out the Toyota and follow them from Austin to Houston to Dallas?  Er--no.  It was a lot of work last time.  But I thought about it.  And I saw them last night at the Gas Monkey Bar and Grill on a VIP ticket in the balcony, so there.  They played for almost two hours and every time I thought, "Now, how are they going to top that?" they did.  I got home after midnight.  Which was fine.

Here's a pic from my balcony seat:

And here's a short video clip:












And for those of y'all who still haven't heard "Rain in the Summertime," here it is.

Enjoy!

The Great Divide

--Here comes the great divide.
I walk the slide
That only killers should fear.
Here comes the great divide
I walk the slide
I hope I never fall.

--Stuart Adamson

A while ago Joan installed a "podcast app" on my new cell phone. (I had to get a new cell phone because my old cell phone was flipping into "airplane mode" by itself, and at odd times.  A real problem if, say, my boss wanted to call me.  Naturally, T-Mobile couldn't fix it and gently "suggested" that I get a new phone.)  If you're not familiar with "podcasts," all I can say is, check a few out.  They're like radio programs, usually about half an hour long, recorded by regular people, some with agendas and some who just have a topic they like to talk about and educate other people about.  You download them from the Internet and you can listen to them on your computer, or through your tablet or cell phone or what have you.  Because my cell phone talks to my car somehow (I still think this is magic, or else the little guys inside my cell phone talk to the little guys inside my car dashboard and tell them what to say), I can now listen to "podcasts" while I'm driving to and from work, and in rich, stereo sound, too.  This was a revelation.  Imagine; all this time I could have been learning something instead of bouncing around at intersections and belting out the lyrics to "Come On, Eileen" for the 9,827th time.

Anyway, one of my favorite podcasters is Dan Carlin.  He's a political commentator, in a sense, but he approaches U.S. politics as though he's a space alien who has just come to Earth and is starting to learn a little bit about human society.  He's neither conservative nor liberal but kind of a maddening mix of both, which is what makes him so interesting.  Mr. Carlin has two main podcasts; "Common Sense", which is about politics, and "Hardcore History", which is also about politics but in the context of what happened during, say, World War I or the Holy Roman Empire.  (We interrupt this blog post for a quick plug: Although the podcast about World War I was six episodes long and each episode ran about three hours, it was totally and completely worth the time spent and you should go download all six episodes from his web site right now, while they're still free.)

Up until just before The Election, Dan Carlin was saying in his "Common Sense" podcast that he thought the biggest problem we face as Americans is corruption in government.  What, you might ask, did he think the solution was?  Well, he thought we should vote in an outsider who would do things in a way nobody's ever done them before.  So we did that, and, uh, guess what happened.  Now Dan Carlin is saying no, I was wrong; the biggest problem we face as Americans is not corruption in government, nor Donald Trump, as you might expect, but the fact that a large chunk of our population hates another large chunk of our population.  And the reverse.  Which is where Donald Trump came from.  And there are smaller groups that hate other smaller groups, and those smaller groups hate lots of other small groups, and primarily it's just a great big hatefest out there, and if we're not careful, the whole country is going to break up into a bunch of nationalistic, nuclear, surly little rocks.  Sort of like the Soviet Union did--oops, I'm getting ahead of myself.

 See, back in the 1960s, and even probably up until maybe ten or twenty years ago, if you told somebody the United States might break up, their likely initial reaction would be, "Oh no!  What can we do to preserve the Union?"  Nowadays, the reaction's a lot more likely to be, "Good.  I don't want to live with those people anymore."  Whoever those people may be.  The Jews.  The blacks.  The gays.  The conservatives.  The liberals.  The Society of Left-Handed Spanish-Speaking Librarians Without Tonsils.*  Pick your label.  Depending on who you talk to, you'd be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that in the very near future, you'll have your choice of Californiastan, Texasberg, the Kingdom of Washoregon, Utahsville,  New Yorkguay and the Republic of Gilead--oops, I mean the Confederate States.  (Maine, of course, will make like a tree and join Canada.) Presumably they'll all have separate currencies and you'll need a passport to travel from one to another. What's more, you'll have to pass an ideology check. No one beyond this point may openly advocate interracial marriage, for example.

So what can we do about this?

Maybe nothing.  Maybe us fragmenting and falling apart would be for the best.  We are using 25% of the planet's resources, after all, which is all the more shocking when you know that we only have 5% of the world's population.  We export our environmental damage by buying lumber from countries that don't have sustainable forests, messily manufacturing our products in countries that don't have air pollution controls, and overfish oceans that aren't subject to our environmental laws.  Breaking us up might be good for the world.  I think it'd be just terrible for us, though.  For all kinds of reasons. I mean, we've been a country for a long time.  It'd be kind of cool if we could keep on being one.

Dan Carlin isn't sure what to do, but I have a suggestion. It's kind of Buddhist-y, but here it is: Let's try actually listening to each other, instead of just seeing who can shout the loudest.  Let's get to know some of our neighbors who think differently than we do. And more to the point, find out why they think differently than we do.  How they came to those conclusions.  What pieces of information they considered.  And whether or not they're convinced of the truth of those pieces of information and, if they're not, if they've ever considered any other pieces of information that might point to a different conclusion. And (here's the hard part) let them get to know the same things about us.  And give us the same pieces of information.  After all, we might be wrong about a thing.  It's not unheard of.

In Buddhism we have this thing called "nonattachment to views."  About which there have been lots of words written, but what it basically boils down to is, "I might be wrong.  Therefore I'll listen and see if I can learn something."

How important is nonattachment to views?  Well, Right View is one of the eight things on the Eightfold Path that leads to enlightenment.  And I quote:  "“Right View” is also called “right perspective”, “right vision” or “right understanding.”...You need to see the world and yourself as they truly are, not what you have been conditioned to see."  And nonattachment to views is a big part of this.  In short, if you've grown up, say, in a country that has a dominant religion, and you and your family are of a different religion, you could perhaps be forgiven (at least for a while) for thinking that people of the dominant religion are inherently bad, evil, or otherwise nasty--especially if people of the dominant religion went out of their way to harass, repress and terrorize you.  (And I have no experience with this whatsoever, as I'm sure you know.)  But, once you got out there in the world and met some of the people of this dominant religion, you might learn that they have the same dreams, aspirations and ambitions as you do, that they want all the same things you want, and that just because they believe something other than what you believe, they're all individuals and it's unfair to paint them all with the same bad/evil/nasty brush.  Even if they've done the same to you.  Which, let's face it, a lot of them have.

We have so many choices anymore for our sources of information, and it's easy to get stuck in a bubble by turning only to those sources of information that support things we've already made our minds up about anyway.  Like, say, watching only Fox News, logging in only to Breitbart, and hanging around only with the #tcots on Twitter.  Conversely, you might watch nothing but CNN, log in only to The Daily KOS and hang around only with--with--I'm not sure there's an opposite label from #tcot.  But if there is one, that's the one I mean.

So what am I suggesting, you may ask.  Am I suggesting you watch Fox News for ten minutes a day?  Follow Karl Rove on Twitter? Log in to LifeSite News, for crying out loud?!  Well, yes, sort of, but more to the point, I'm suggesting you actually talk to people.  People people.  Human beings people. People who think differently than you do.  Find out why they think differently.  Ask them what they believe.  Here's a thing--people love talking about what they believe.  Get them started and you probably won't have to say a word for ten minutes or more.  Excellent tip for cocktail parties where you don't know anybody and you're only there to be arm candy for your wife.

And if you can, without being obvious, ask people why they believe what they believe.  And don't take "Because that's what it says in the Bible" as your answer.  Come back with "Okay, but you decided to believe that the Bible is true. When did you decide to do that?  What happened?"  And maybe the person had a born-again experience when he was fourteen or maybe he was in a terrible accident and almost died and thinks that God saved him or maybe he hasn't a clue when he made that decision or why.

Ah, now you are getting somewhere.  You have, after all, just learned something about this person that you didn't know before.  Maybe it will be enough to alter your view of him.  Maybe not, but more to the point, he's learned something too.  About himself as well as about you. If nothing else, he now knows that you're a good listener.  And what's more, you want to learn things.  Curiosity may have killed some feline back 70,000 years ago, but trust me, intellectual curiosity is about the best asset a human being can have.  Besides being a good listener.  I really think that trumps just about everything.

So that's my suggestion.  Maybe it'll work and maybe it won't, but it's certainly worth a try, isn't it? Because breaking up the country isn't only stupid, it would be really expensive.  You think taxes are high now?  Buddy, just wait until Utahville figures out it needs to host the Olympics again  You ain't seen nothin' yet.


*Not a real political action committee, but wouldn't it be interesting if it were.

Mini-Post: The Widder Adamson Has A Brand New Band!

13 years ago, Stuart Adamson committed suicide, shocking millions of fans and just incidentally, breaking my heart.  I have my own theories about why that happened, but mostly I keep them to myself.  And hey, Big Country recently came back from the dead with new front man Mike Peters and toured the world (and I saw them twice in Texas, which was awesome), but I've never managed to fall hard for a band the same way I did for BC.

Until now. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Fun.  Yes, that's the band name.

Go check them out on their Web site, www.ournameisfun.com.  They do good stuff.  They make good music.  They make deucedly odd videos.  This one's for the breakaway hit, "Some Nights."

And here's my current favorite, "Carry On." 

Enjoy! I just got the CD two days ago and I don't think it's coming back out of my car stereo for another couple of weeks at least.  

Uh, Now? Really? Right Now?

So Joan's in the hospital.  For those of you who missed the beginning of this saga, lemme catch you up.  Joan had a tumor on her leg, and the docs thought it was a thing called a lipoma (a fatty tumor) but because it was growing so fast, there was a decent chance that it was a liposarcoma.  Anything in the medical world that ends in "sarcoma" is usually Not Good, so they did the surgery pretty quickly.  And the tumor turned out to be a lipoma--a nuisance, but essentially harmless.  It was one big one with budding little ones, and that was a bit strange, but anyway, there was no "sarcoma".  So that was good.

Then, about two and a half weeks after the surgery, the wound site--which was healing fine, though it was a bit swollen--started turning red and unhappy lookin'.  Back to the doc we went.  The doc took one look at it and said, "Okay, I'm admitting you to the hospital."  The lack of "sarcoma" notwithstanding.

That was last Wednesday.  Joan's been in the hospital ever since.  That's--let me see here--six days in the hospital.  I've been going to work, going to the hospital, then coming home and crashing into bed.  Today I finally did the effing dishes and made up the beds with clean sheets.  And now I'm sitting here writing this because my brain won't wind down.  

Have you ever noticed that when it rains, it pours?  The best possible example would be 2001.  In a span of three months, the Twin Towers fell, a guy in my church choir died, Joan's mom died and Stuart Adamson died.  I mean, I'm sure they all didn't plan it that way (except maybe Stuart) but I had just started to crawl out of a crippling depression and by that December I'd turned around and crawled right back into it.  I wouldn't really be back to normal for another couple of years, during which I made such a mess of my life that when Joan made the first suggestion about moving to Texas I said, "Great, how long will it take you to pack?" instead of "Where? Isn't that near North Dakota someplace?"

And since the universe really listens to me when I tell it these things, let me just reiterate that I don't need my wife very sick in the hospital when I'm trying to a. keep my job and b. not go crazy.  Okay? Okay? Hello? McFly?

That's the thing about being me.  It's like I'm Oklahoma.  Most of the time I'm fairly peaceful, running a casino in a small town in Durant County, but then suddenly the sky darkens and this tornado rips through everything and destroys jobs, friendships, mortgages, relationships.  Tornadoes are entities unto themselves once they really get going, but they need supercell thunderstorms to set them off.  In 2001, three people I cared about dropping dead in a matter of weeks was the supercell. And the Twin Towers thing didn't help.  (By the way, I have no idea if there's actually a Durant County in Oklahoma.  I just think there should be.  The man got the railroad built, didn't he?)

In case this isn't obvious, things are just Not Going Well at the moment.  Not going well at work, not going well at the house (though we got the first part of the major plumbing repair done, for less than we thought it was going to cost, and even managed to squeeze in a new water heater as part of the deal).  Not going well here on the old laptop, with my writing group, with swimming and with being alive generally. I'm pretty sure I've already heard the tornado warning sirens kick on a couple of times, but then, maybe not.  Maybe they were false alarms.  Anyway, I feel like I'm sitting here in a weather tower, watching one hell of a big supercell start to rotate not all that far away.  And wondering if there's anything I can do to keep it from sucking (pun intended).

But, as my doc keeps reminding me, everything's different now.  I'm medicated, I'm meditated, I'm surrounded by good friends and I'm Doing All The Right Things (except for hitting the sugar, and I'm doing that pretty hard).  I'm not drinking anymore, I'm not a member of a Lutheran church filled with easily-ruffled feathers and my options for getting into trouble are somewhat limited.

Plus, there was that moment on the freeway where I was hurtling toward the hospital after a ridiculously long day at work and getting more and more upset at the way things were going when suddenly it occurred to me that if I couldn't stay calm in this situation, of all situations, I did not need to be calling myself a Buddhist.  And I like being a Buddhist.  Even if you have to stay calm through some pretty hairy moments.  Like tornadoes.

The thing about tornadoes is, you can't really predict them.  You can say, "Oh, yeah, conditions are perfect out here," and then watch a supercell rotate all day and do jackshit nothing.  Or you can think this is just a little spring shower and suddenly the alarms go off.  So if you can't predict them, the best alternative is to duck into a well-built underground shelter while one goes by.  Which is the equivalent of staying calm in a catastrophe.  Yes, even in Durant County.  If it exists.

The Trans-Texas Tour

Hands up, who thinks that it's way past time Jen blogged about the Trans-Texas Tour.  Yeah, that's what I thought.  I barely got back to Dallas before everything slipped into fast forward, so sorry about the delayitude there.  But hey, I'm here. You're here.  Joan's here (hi, Joan).  Let's do this thing. 

I love this light effect.  That's Mike Peters with the halo.

To begin with, I'd never been to Austin. Or Houston. Or anywhere south of Conroe, for that matter. And I  don't know why Conroe, in particular, it's just as far south as I remember going.  So driving down to Houston was the first and most significant part of the adventure.  Did y'all know there's this giant, ridiculous statue of Sam Houston on the side of the freeway near Huntsville?  For, like, no apparent reason.  I'm sure it's historical and a big tourist draw and all that but it reminds me of carving Mount Rushmore next to Interstate 101 and just like leaving it there, without bothering to tell anybody who the faces are (not everybody recognizes those guys, you know) or why you carved them there.  

Yeah, the blazing sun there kind of ruins this photo, but it pretty well
captures what the Austin show was like. 

Let me put this another, less polite sort of way.  I hated Houston.  Hated it.  It's a great big megalopolis that sprawls all over the place, with octopus arms reaching out to Galveston and Clear Lake and South Padre Island and a bunch of other places I don't know the names of.  It's about 99% humidity 99% of the time.  The people we encountered were shockingly rude, for Texans.  We got there just before rush hour, which was an obvious mistake, and our route took us right through downtown, which was another obvious mistake.  I never thought I'd say this, but the drivers in Houston are crazier than the drivers in Dallas, who in turn are crazier than the drivers in L.A.  Not kidding.  I may never look at the 75 North Central Expressway the same way again.  

Luckily, we weren't going to be there for very long.  I hooked up with Tammy and Tracy, and the three of us headed for the club while Joan went for a well deserved nap.  As venues go, I guess it could have been worse, but the very Houston-ness of Houston was seeping through the walls.  There were three opening bands, each one more irritating than the last, and by 11:15 I was getting heartily tired of everything.  The rumor was going around that Big Country wasn't even there; something had happened to their bus or their equipment van or both, and they were somewhere in Kansas, looking for Toto. Just before 11:30, somebody started playing Flower of Scotland on a Gibson Les Paul and suddenly there they were.  Two old guys, two new guys, and Mike Peters, who's been around forever, but since he's new to the band he doesn't really count as an old guy or a new guy. 

The story, as we found out later, was that the bus had survived the trip from Aurora, Colorado that day. (What idiot tour manager would think Aurora, Colorado to Houston, Texas in one day was even remotely reasonable?! Boys, fire your tour manager. I'm just sayin'.)  But the air conditioning on the bus had not.  Fourteen hours on a bus with no air conditioning.  I just can't even.  And the equipment van hadn't made it to Houston yet, so the band ended up borrowing equipment from the other bands.  (Prompting one hilarious moment when Mark Brzezicki, who's 6'7", sat down behind the drum set and his knees came up around his ears.  Oops.) 

Big Country avoiding the eau de Houston.

In spite of it all, they put on a fantastic show.  And I'm not just speakin' as a die-hard fan here; Tammy and Tracy both agreed that they were worth the wait and even, wonder of wonders, worth enduring the three bands that came before.  And yours truly ran into Bruce Watson (the lead guitarist) on her way back to the car.  (They'd parked the bus right next to us.) I ran over and tapped on his shoulder.  "May I kick the tires in your honor, sir?"  "You can blow it up for all of me," he replied.  Fangirl moment! And me without a grenade.  

The next morning we hauled off to Austin.  Night, meet day.  Day, meet night.  Austin--wow.  What can I say about Austin?  Well, Austin was everything as cool and funky as Houston was sprawly and el barfo.  For one thing, there was a huge demonstration going on at the Capitol. (See two blog posts ago.)  Joan suggested that we maybe skip the Capitol tour, seeing as if I was in jail I'd miss the concert. (She knows me too well.)  Fifth Street is a long series of increasingly weird businesses, from head shops to curanderas to garden shops to ordinary 7-11s.  In between, small apartments, funky condos, rundown crack houses and an occasional unprepossessing concrete block.  Oh, and a concert hall.  Well, lots of concert halls.  This one was a couple of streets down from the Capitol building, which loomed over the whole scene like a pro-lifer with a big canvas--okay, never mind.  

Let's move on.  There was only one opening band in Austin, and thank all the stars and little fishes, they were actually good.  It was 103 in the shade and the concert was outside. Yours truly managed to give herself heat exhaustion bouncing up and down on the patio.  I drank three bottles of water but plainly that wasn't anywhere near enough.  I almost fell asleep at the wheel on the way back to the hotel, and several times the following day on the drive back to Dallas.  Yep, ol' Jen isn't 20 anymore.  

Best part about the whole thing:  It's obvious that the band was having the time of their lives.  Which is a good thing, because I've been in a band and I can honestly tell you that if you don't love it, it will kill you.  Look, I was on the road for all of two days and I almost dropped dead; the band had been out there for five weeks.  Yes, they had guys to carry their stuff, but still.  Besides, I (along with lots of other people) thought that Big Country was dead and buried in 2001.  To see the band come back to life, with such an explosion of sound and energy, is just--just--I ain't got words.  I got pretty emotional. And Mike Peters might be just as good a singer as Stuart Adamson.  No disrespect intended to Stuart, of course.  

Midafternoon Sunday, we finally made it back to Dallas.  I staggered through the doorway and tried to decide if I should collapse on the couch or walk another ten feet to my bedroom.  I was that tired.  There was another show in Dallas that evening, but I didn't make it.  As I was saying, I'm not 20 anymore.  And Big Country has moved on--but they promised they'd be back.  I'm holding them to it.  Stuart would have expected nothing less.

Off To Be The Wizard

I suck at this packing to leave town thing. I can't imagine it's anybody's favorite chore. I'm even reasonably good at the packing part; I can get a lot into a suitcase (thanks, Military Dad) but I still suck at it.  Mainly I can't stop thinking about odds and ends I might need or could need or am thinking about possibly needing. Like a new pair of ear buds to replace the pair that broke yesterday. Like bug spray and some Power Bars and ear plugs for that hardy soul that gets to room with me.  Mind you, I've already left the house, so all these things will need to be picked up from the drugstore. And a Starbucks, to get some Via in case they don't have coffee there.  It's a Buddhist retreat; they'll probably only have tea. Coffee interferes with the blah blah blah and is bad for your ___________ and makes __________ more difficult or something like that.  To which I say, blammo. Bring on the caffeine or I might get ugly. Er.  

This place I'm going is in Oklahoma. Well, not quite Oklahoma. It's actually the border of Oklahoma, just south of the Red River.  On Google Earth, anyway, you can see the river from there.  Probably not in real life. It looks pretty darn rural, with fields and trees and rolling hills and stuff.  Very intimidating for this child of technology. 

Speaking of technology, this weekend is all about ditching it.  There's no cell phone reception and no wi-fi. Which means no phone, no lights, no motor car, not a single luxury.  Well, okay, I'm driving a motor car, so there must be SOME such things.  And I've got a flashlight.  There's probably electricity, at least for lights. But they're serious about no cell phones, no laptops, no tablets, no Internet, no Nooks, no...

Well, actually, I am taking my Nook.

But I can explain. 

Our gang of Buddhists is reading a book called "Training In Compassion," by Norman Fischer. We're actually supposed to have read the whole thing, which I haven't done. I've read about half of it and understood basically none of it, but hopefully what I have absorbed will help some. We're all supposed to have a copy, and when I bought mine I did what I usually do. I bought it with my Nook. So there it is, on the Nook. And on my cell phone, which has a Nook app.  

(In fact, in the ongoing war between Nooks and Kindles, I expect both to lose.  Tablets will win and reign supreme, and Nook and Kindle apps will duke it out in cyberspace. But I still think Nooks should win just because they have a cooler name. Kindle. That's what you do to light a fire. Fire. Books. Bad combination.)

Apart from the Nook, though, which also has a bunch of religious texts, a couple of sci-fi thrillers, a trashy noir or two, the latest issue of Time Magazine and maybe, just maybe a cowboy romance (no, not really, but I scared you there, didn't I?), I'm going to unplug, put away and otherwise be shed of tech for two days.  I think I can go that long without Tweeting. And if this thing lives up to its advertising, there won't be much to Tweet about anyway. Be safe, everybody. See you on the other side.

PS. Last night, in blasting wind and frigid temperatures, the mighty Law Dogs were brought low by Bat Pitch Crazy to the tune of 6-19. Yeah, that's pretty bad, but in the first inning we were ahead by two runs for the first time in team history.  And yours truly managed two hits and runs to first without falling down.  Truly, can the majors be far behind?

P.P.S. Big Country's new album "The Journey" is really really good!! Yes, even though Track Four is a heartbreaker and made me cry. Check it out.  "The Journey," wherever classy CDs are sold.

Mini-Post: In a Big Country...

Yeah, yeah, I know I haven't done a blog post this week, but BIG COUNTRY TOTALLY HAS A NEW ALBUM COMING OUT ON TUESDAY, and what can I say, I've been a little distracted, it's only been like TWENTY YEARS since the last one, and yes, I know Stuart's dead, but Mike Peters is a good guy and he'll do a good job, okay?  You can order it here. If you think Amazon is evil incarnate you can also get it here or here. Sorry about the CAPITAL LETTERS but I'm a LITTLE EXCITED.  Caesar the Cat is not excited; he is asleep next to my keyboard.  To be continued.

Talk Thursday: On the Flipside

Now this'll be a challenge: Trying to explain the significance of "On the Flipside" to a generation that may have never seen a record.  A record?  Well, it's a big black vinyl disc that produces sound, see, and some of them were bigger than CDs and some of them were just about the same size as CDs, and the small ones were called "singles," and--what's a CD?  Oh dear.  Well, back in the Pleistocine, before there were iPods...

In my part of the country, they didn't actually call it the flipside.  They called it the B-side.  The A-side was for the main song, the "real" song, the reason you bought the record.  The B-side was for Some Other Song.  Sometimes it was a dance mix or something of the A-side song.  Sometimes it was something else from the album (see, kids, the big vinyl discs were called "albums") that the band liked and wanted to get out there even if it was never going to be A-side popular.  (Yes, I know you just download songs in like ten seconds these days.  No, don't tell me about it.  When the RIAA comes knocking on the door I don't want to be an accessory after the fact.)

Once in a while, though, you got a rare treat.  A B-side song that was as good as, or better than, the A-side song.  When that happened, it was sort of like the world stood on its head, because what was this B-side song doing on the B-side when it should clearly be on the A-side?  Rumors would swirl around the release of the A-side.  Conspiracy theories would be launched.  Whole plots and counterplots could spin out of a few dark bass notes.  Sometimes I really miss being fourteen, when you could spend most of an afternoon talking essentially about nothing.  As opposed to now, when we talk about the economy and our jobs and which of the Presidential candidates would look best in a Speedo.  

In my lifetime, I have been so fortunate as to come across a B-side that was so good I can't remember what the A-side even was.  Oh, sure, I could probably Google it, and get half a dozen hits from half a dozen people even more obsessed than I am with random bits of obscure trivia, but if I actually found out, some of the magic would be gone.  The record was by Big Country, it was from the early 1990s (CDs were just coming in) and the song was called "Never Take Your Place."  Not only was it the best B-side I ever heard, it was one of the best songs I ever heard.  I can still hear it in the back of my head, and remember most of the lyrics all these crazy years later.

Okay, nobody panic; I'm not going into one of my Stuart-killed-himself-ten-years-ago (eleven this December) and-I'm-still-not-over-it fits of mopeyness.  I decided, recently, that I'm never going to be over it, so there's no point in trying to get over it.  It hurts, but I can live with it most of the time.  Some wounds don't heal.  Maybe this one will scar over eventually, but I'm not holding my breath.  Okay?  Okay.  On with the story:

If you want to hear the track, you can download it for a mere 99 cents right here.  I highly recommend you do exactly that.  It's a dark, dreamy, haunting sort of song that will stay with you for quite a while.  I'm particularly taken with the lyric, "All the gold of Africa will never take your place."  In context of the song, it's striking and sad.  In context of what eventually happened to the singer, it's a bit spooky.  In fact, a lot of BC's lyrics seem to point to Stuart's end; particularly disturbing is one from "Seven Waves" a few years later: "I might just swim out on the waves tonight, and lay right down and drown." Do normal poets write lyrics like this?  I don't know any normal poets.  I don't, for that matter, know any poets, though I just met one two weeks ago.  Once I get to know him better I'll ask him.  (And he'll probably look at me quizzically and start playing his harmonica.  Well, you know.  Poets.)

I wonder if, another 50 years from now, our ancestors will look back at the 1980s and wonder why we judged our entertainment value on whether it was A-side quality or B-side quality.  They'll probably be transmitting songs through the air by then, and playing them on passing clouds or the backs of beetles.  Then they'll get hold of Never Take Your Place and have to revise all their theories, which will ruin half a dozen master's theses and more than a few recording agents.  If there are recordings.  Recordings?  Well, children, long ago music needed an actual solid object to exist...

Talk Thursday: No Topic? No Problem.

Well, kids, no Talk Thursday topic has appeared in my mailbox yet. Not sure why--maybe the topic-o-meter had a blowout and they had to send to Shanghai for parts - but I'd like to assure my nervous fans, both of you, that this is not a problem. I have never needed an excuse to blather on at great length. Besides, I already have a topic picked out, and I was gonna use it whether it fit in with the "official" topic or not. I'm kinda stubborn that way.

December the sixteenth is not a good day for me. In fact, it's pretty much the worst day of the year to be Jen. The only good thing about it is that when I wake up tomorrow morning it will be December seventeenth and things are bound to get better. Every year I try to forget what happened on December 16 and every year I manage to remember it anyway. Nine years ago, on December 16, 2001, someone I care very deeply about killed himself. And yours truly has really never been the same since.

Oh, sure. I'm familiar with the various platitudes. He wasn't in his right mind at the time. (Well, obviously.) He had some problem, maybe a mental illness, that we didn't know about. (Yes, he had a big problem that we didn't know about then, and probably also a mental illness, and a serious alcohol problem, besides.) There's nothing you can do to save somebody who truly wants to take himself out. (Who wants to save him? It's too late to save him. He's probably a fourth-

grader in Beijing by now. I just want to track him down and beat the stuffing out of him for putting everyone who loved him through all this crap. Too bad it doesn't work that way.) The Lord works in mysterious ways. (Don't even get me started on that one. The Lord had nothing to do with a .34 blood alcohol level, a belt and a handy ceiling pipe.) You need to let this go, Jen. (Uh, hello. Tried that. Been trying for about nine years now. Hasn't worked. Still upset. Thanks for the thought, though.)

And hey, I wasn't even a close friend or family member. Yeah, I cared deeply for the guy, but I was a fringe dweller in his life. I'll be kind and say he probably would have recognized me in a crowd, might have remembered my name without too much prompting. But if I'm still this upset after this long, imagine what his close friends went through. Imagine what his kids went through. Imagine what a thrill it must be for them, to remember Christmas as the time when their daddy

died.

So here, at last, is the point I'm trying to make. If you, whoever you are, are thinking about suicide, if the notion has even crossed your mind lately, but especially if it has done more than cross your mind, please, please please please get some help. Don't rip a giant hole in the hearts of everyone who has ever loved you. Don't leave a hundred or more people to write maudlin blog posts at their favorite Middle Eastern restaurants on a busy Thursday night. Pick up the phone -- right now -- and call one of these numbers: 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or 1-800-SUICIDE (784-2433) (TTY: 1-800-799-4889). In the Dallas area, you can call (214) 330-7722. Okay? Okay. Thanks. Tell them Jen and Stuart sent you.

William Stuart Adamson Jr., April 11, 1959 - December 16, 2001

Reflexive Application of the First Precept

I've been thinking about suicide a lot lately. Okay, calm down, I didn't mean thinking about committing it. It's just that there seems to be a lot of it around. My friend Sally just went to a funeral for a woman, about my age, who killed herself. Some college kid in New Jersey jumped off a bridge after a makeout session between him and his boyfriend got broadcast on the Internet by his roommate. (I think I'd just strangle my roommate and plead justifiable homicide, myself. Not a jury in the world...) A thirteen-year-old hung himself here in Texas after school officials allegedly ignored years of bullying and harassment. And last week, four soldiers at Fort Hood killed themselves. (This is the Fort Hood where the Army psychiatrist freaked out, went on a rampage and shot 37 people last year.) So it's kinda captured my attention. We're also coming up on the ninth anniversary of Stuart Adamson's suicide, which I know I've bitched about on this blog at great length. For the record, it's against the rules to kill yourself if you've ever swapped smoochies with yours truly. Bear that in mind, the other eight or nine of you. The penalty is getting bitched about on my blog for all eternity.

I found out recently that people with bipolar disorder have the highest rate of suicide of any kind of mental illness, and probably the rate is even higher than is generally known. People with bipolar disorder, you see, tend to do things like drive too fast, get into rollover accidents and crash into telephone poles, go BASE jumping and hanggliding and things like that. It's called "thrill-seeking behavior," in which you kill yourself purely by accident, versus killing yourself on purpose, which society kind of frowns upon. (When I was talking about the funeral with Sally, for example, we spoke in whispers, as though someone might overhear.) But for all the frowning, people still do it. I even had one in my immediate family; my grandfather, who was dying of M.S. and decided to hurry the process along with a 12-gauge shotgun. Cause of death was being minus most of his head. Or lead poisoning, if you prefer.

Anyway: The First Precept for lay Buddhists is to refrain from the taking of life. This is why you don't often see Buddhists eating meat or stomping on ants or advocating for the death penalty. But ask ten Buddhists how a Buddhist views suicide and you'll get twenty different answers and forty deep discussions. Actually, that's the standard formula for Buddhist views on everything. In general, though, since you're gonna be coming back anyway unless you're fully enlightened, suicide is considered an inappropriate behavior. It causes grief for your friends and family members and it makes a big mess. It's in the same vein of taking your personal suffering, anxiety and grief and dumping same into the laps of some innocent parties, like some of my co-workers do every darn day when they come to work in a bad mood. That's a big bad Buddhist no-no. In short, while it's not a mortal sin in the Catholic-guilt sense of things, most Buddhists would consider it kinda rude.

But that's just in general. It's not hard to find examples of Buddhists who condoned or committed suicide. The Buddha himself didn't have a problem with monks Vikkali and Channa committing suicide when they were dying of painful illnesses, even though the other monks argued for keeping them around a while longer. And then there's the monks who marched in front of anti-government protests in Tibet, India, China and Burma. They must have known they'd be the ones most likely to get hurt or killed. Now, one might argue they put themselves first in the line of fire to protect the lay people further back in the crowd, but how about the guys who set themselves on fire to protest religious oppression in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos? (No, I'm not gonna include the famous photo, but you can go see it here if you're really interested.) So does suicide violate the First Precept only if you don't have a good enough reason? And who gets to decide what a good enough reason is, anyway?

And if you start questioning the actual definition of suicide, things get even less clear. My mother-in-law, for example, died of congestive heart failure. That was obvious. But what was interesting, as we found out when we started clearing out her apartment, was that she stopped taking all of her medication about a week before she died. Which, considering most of her medication was for her heart, was basically inviting said heart to stop beating. She knew this; she was a nurse. So was her death a suicide, or did she die of natural causes? Does refusing medical treatment count as suicide? Or does suicide only apply to things like jumping off bridges? Or is there a ratio of, say, forty percent suicide to sixty percent natural causes? (I've always thought, for example, that Stuart Adamson's death was seventy percent suicide and thirty percent accident. I'm still convinced, on some level, that he was sure it wouldn't work and was just trying for the hell of it.)

So the First Precept, as applied to oneself, is a little fuzzier in its application as it appears on the surface. This is not surprising to me. All of Buddhism, and especially the Precepts, is fuzzy in its application. The Precepts ain't commandments, folks, as much as I'd sometimes like them to be. They require that most terrifying thing when we speak of religion: Rational thought.

Personally, I believe there are three circumstances under which suicide is acceptable. The first one is dying of a painful disease and not wanting to wait around for the inevitable, kind of like my grandfather. Double points if the treatment is very expensive and/or if your illness is taking a serious toll on your friends and family members. The second one is if you really, really screw something up, and it gets a lot of people hurt or killed, and the only way you can really atone for it is to die. (I'm thinking in this case of an aircraft mechanic who forgot to take the tape off the pitot tube before a 737 took off from Lima, Peru; the plane crashed in the mountains because the altimeter wasn't working and all 230 people aboard were killed. If I were that mechanic, yeah, I'd definitely have considered suicide. Luckily, if I screw up at work, the worst thing that can happen is that we may be out some money.) The third and final circumstance is if you're about to be tortured for information that will get all of your friends killed. But that's not a circumstance I'm ever likely to encounter, unless of course a rival law firm decides to kidnap me to find out what I know about, say, the Burns case. And that doesn't happen very often in Dallas.

Fort Worth, maybe, but not Dallas.

Saturday Shocker: Big Country Rides Again!!

You kids aren't gonna believe this. I'm not even sure I believe it, but I've verified it by three independent sources
(source one) (source two) (source three) so it must be true. So here they are, the words I never thought I'd type again: Big Country is back!! The band has some limited tour dates set for January 2011 in London, Newcastle and Liverpool. The tour is to be called "Back in a Big Country" and more dates are expected to be added later on, especially in Scotland. Unless it's spectacularly successful, I expect we can write off a U.S. megatour with a three-night stop in Dallas/Fort Worth, but hey, a girl can dream, can't she?

Now, let's deal with the first and most obvious question: No, this ain't your mama Jen's Big Country. We'll have to call this Big Country Mark Three,* seeing as one of the founding members, Stuart Adamson, rudely killed himself about nine years ago. (Yes, it really was that long ago, and no, I'm still not over it. I'm not sure I'll ever be over it. Lying sack of...Well, anyway:) The surviving three original members, drummer Mark Brzezicki, guitarist Bruce Watson, and bassist Tony Butler are all back, and Bruce Watson's son Jamie will also be joining the band on guitar. (Hard to believe Bruce Watson has a grown son. I swear the guy was nineteen years old just last week.)

And the vocalist will be (drum roll, please) Mike Peters of The Alarm, and if there's a more brilliant move in the hiring of a lead vocalist, I ain't seen it yet. (Sorry, Sammy Hagar. I'm sure you were a runner up, though.) Mr. Peters is the throaty guy behind 80s hits "The Stand," "68 Guns" and "Sold Me Down the River", and thankfully he's just listed as a "guest vocalist." The Alarm being quite the awesome ensemble themselves, it would be a shame to break them up permanently. Besides, The Alarm is the middle of its thirtieth anniversary tour. (I'll pause for a second and let that sink in. Thirtieth. Anniversary. Tour. Yeah. Me too.)

Tickets are running 22.50 euro, which is about $40 bucks U.S., and airline tickets from Dallas to London for that week of January are running around $1300. If I play with the dates there and back I can get it down to about a thousand, but there's still the hotel room and meals and all that. So, realistically, I can forget about this one unless by some miracle I get a book contract between now and then. (Hey you. Yes, you in New York City. You know you're thinking about it.) Ironically, this would be the fourth time I've traveled via larga distancia to see Big Country play somewhere. (If Mohammed won't come to the mountain...) I know the third time is a charm, but does the fourth time count for anything? I'd better be careful. Last time I got smooched. Who knows what could happen. Course I'm, um, a little older now.

Hey, by way of countering some idiot pastor in Florida who does not bear mentioning here, today is Buy a Quran Day. If you buy it at Amazon, your purchase will be counted. Belated happy New Year to my Jewish friends and Eid ul-Fitr to my Muslim friends. And for all of us American folk, I wish the flags weren't at half-mast today.

*Purists and those of us with nothing better to do than remember odd and obscure facts will tell you that the Big Country most of us remember is Big Country Mark Two. Big Country Mark One consisted of Stuart Adamson, Bruce Watson, two keyboard players and a clarinetist and existed just long enough to open two dates for Alice Cooper before nosediving out of existence. I am not making this up. Except about the clarinetist, I'm not 100% certain about that.

Talk Thursday: Ashes to Ashes

One of the interesting things about Talk Thursday is that I never have any idea what I'm going to do with the topic until I sit down with it. Take this week's topic, for example. Ashes to Ashes. Most people think of death, and since I'm most people, I do, too. But I think about one particular death because of this lyric:

Ashes to ashes, earth to earth

The preacher throws in the first handful of dirt

My little boy asks me, "Does goodbye always hurt?"

--The Raphaels, "Life is a Church"

The guy who wrote that, W. Stuart Adamson, Junior, decided to remove himself from the planet a little over nine years ago at the most importune time possible. I can't imagine he was really trying to cause chaos and disruption for me in particular when he drank himself to death in a cheap hotel room in Hawaii, but damned if he didn't succeed anyway. 2001 wasn't a very good year for anybody, of course, what with buildings falling in New York and an idiot in the White House and the first X-Files movie coming out. Still, for me it was kind of the train wreck that divides my life into before and after. First Joan's mom, who had congestive heart failure and had been sick for years, died. Then a guy in my church choir felt a little sick to his stomach one day, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died a week later. And then--this happened.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Stuart had disappeared about six weeks beforehand. He'd left a note for his teenage son that said something to the effect of "See you Sunday," and then dropped off the face of the earth. Apparently he was at a soccer game (football, if you're on the other side of the pond) with some friends some time later when he got a call on his cell phone. He made some excuse and left early, and that was the last anybody saw of him.

The weird thing is, he didn't really go anywhere. He checked into a hotel near Nashville, where he lived, and pretty much stayed right there, drinking and ordering in food, for most of the time everybody who knew him was going bananas trying to find him. The police were alerted. His credit cards were checked. Law enforcement bulletins were put out. His publicist even raised his voice. His fans, among them me, were emailing his photo around the still-fledgling Internet, the electronic version of knocking on doors and saying, "Have you seen this man?" Nothing. Nada. How he got to Hawaii was and is a complete mystery.

Anyway, he did get to Hawaii, and he did get even drunker than he already was and hang himself from a shower rod. His blood alcohol content was about three times the legal limit, which is basically fatal. And some 7,000 miles away, I was helping Joan clean her mom's apartment. I excused myself because I had to sing at my dead choir member's funeral and I needed to go home and take a shower first. I got as far as getting undressed when out of nowhere, this tidal wave of despair hit me. It was like all the light of the world got sucked into a void. I couldn't stand up under it. I put my shirt back on and lay down, not sure I'd ever get up again. And I stayed there, missing the funeral, as it got dark outside, until Joan came home and asked me if I was okay.

I was not okay.

But hell, what could I say? Hi, everything sucks and nothing will ever be all right again?

Here's the spooky thing. I didn't actually find out Stuart was dead until the following day, when it started getting splashed around the Internet and even made a few newspapers. "Eighties Singer Found Dead," that kind of thing. So here's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking I had a gen-you-ine psychic experience. I think I picked up on somebody else finding out Stuart was dead, and wham, it passed through that person's brain and into mine like a lightning bolt.

I'd love to know who.

Anyway. Ashes to ashes, earth to earth. I kept breathing, and life got better. What's more, I got medication, and it got better still. But I have no explanation for what happened that evening.

Holly Daze

If it were up to me I'd cancel Christmas. I know that sounds, well, kind of Grinchy, but let it never be said I suggested EVERYONE ELSE cancel Christmas. I'd just like an opt-out card, please. This time of year sucks. It's dark, it's cold, it's miserable, lots of people are mopey, but there's this societal expectation that we're all supposed to be happy and jolly because, after all, it's the holidays. In fact, try writing a blog post like this and see what happens. (I'm waiting.)

I don't know where this got started. I'd imagine around 2,000 years ago, but in fact it's probably closer to a couple hundred years ago, and I suspect the motivation was not to celebrate somebody's birthday but to sell products. Certainly that seems to be the primary motivation these days. This is probably the worst economic year in the U.S. since 1991, maybe even since 1929, yet we're all still supposed to charge out there and go Christmas shopping. With what? I'm tapped. I'm doing good to get presents for my closest friends and relatives. My colleagues can forget about it. I might make them cookies if they're very lucky. Most likely it'll be cards all around. If I can find some cards. Maybe I'll make some on the laser printer.

Yes, I have a tree up. Well, more like a bush. It's about 3 feet tall and pre-lit. We're all a little that way. I might get some lights out there. Some lights would be cheery. But I, personally, am not cheery. I'm just not, okay? I'll be cheery when the Solstice passes and it starts getting marginally lighter.

You're getting the picture, right? This season is anywhere but jolly for a lot of folks, whether they're bipolar or not. Suicides go way way up before Christmas. (Take Stuart Adamson, for example, who took his own life on December 16. And he had all the money in the world, could have gotten some help, etc etc.) People drop dead in hospitals, especially the days immediately following Christmas, at a prodigious rate. And lots of us plod around the country to visit relatives we may love but don't like very much, fight a lot with them and crawl back home even more mopey than we were when we left. (And out several hundred dollars, not counting the $40 or so bucks for the privilege of hauling a bag along.) Oh, did I mention I was tapped? Dry tapped, even. Skipping the trip this year.

So anyway, if you know somebody who gets mopey around Christmastime, don't try to cheer them up or wish them a happy fucking holiday. Just pat them on the shoulder and say, "Hey, dude. I'm here." That's worth a lot. Heck, that's more of a merry Christmas than most Merry Christmases.

By the way, for Ann and all my Jewish friends, happy Hanukkah. And if you're not happy, that's just fine and dandy. Wait a few months and have a fine Purim.

Also by the way, if you don't think the death penalty is appropriate for teen "sexting" (that is, kids, usually girls, too young to know any better sending cell phone pictures of themselves sans clothing to people they like, usually boys - apparently a common practice, though illegal, that has occasionally resulted in the kind of extreme adult overreaction of prosecutors charging both under-fifteen parties with disseminating child pornography) you might want to read this.

Cry the Beloved Country

Playing on the iPod: Stiff Little Fingers, "Suspect Device"
Meters Swum Today: 1700

Well, folks, I just got done watching the First Great Presidential Debate. McCain showed up! Will wonders never cease! and before I get started, we all know who my candidate is, right? There's not really any doubt about that, is there? So anything I say about the other guy is bound to sound a little snarky, right? Yes, I know, I'm letting the Queen of Snark crown slip from my cold dead fingers. As they say in OA, "I'm willing not to be snarky." But I just wanted to clear up that whole partisan thingy right now.

I'm listening to Stiff Little Fingers. This should tell you something.

What we had here was a failure to communicate. Mr. Lehrer with the candidates, the candidates with each other, the candidates with we the people, and we the people with - well, everybody, I guess. I mean, seriously, how many times can you ask the same question and not get an answer before you throw a water glass at somebody? Mr. Lehrer must be a saint. Or he's been doing this so long he's immune, I'm not sure which.

Hang on, I gotta get on another SLF song - "Alternative Ulster," that's a good one. I played this album Inflammable Material (remember albums?) to death in high school. Literally, the black vinyl turned white. Had to buy another copy.

I think we're divided by a common language. I mean, you ask a guy how the serious problems we're facing with the economy might cut into your budget plans for being president, and he answers with, "I want to increase spending for preschool education"? Hello? Disconnect? And how does a question about dealing with Russia automatically lead to ranting about how we're not taking good care of our veterans? And don't even get me started with the old dude telling the other guy that he doesn't have the experience to understand (fill in the blank here). Why didn't he just call him a young whippersnapper and shake his cane at him? Thank God the younger guy finally mentioned the huge amount of money we're sinking into the war in Iraq and how bleeding $10 billion a month might just possibly be, I dunno, affecting the economy or something. I'd been screaming, "MENTION THE WAR, YOU IDIOT!!" at the TV for at least half an hour by then.

We stopped getting the paper recently, except on weekends, and oddly enough I don't miss it. Except "For Better or for Worse" which is in permanent reruns anyway. Well, I should say, I miss being somewhat informed but I sure don't miss the spike in blood pressure that went with my morning coffee. Yet here I watched the frickin' debates and once again I'll be sitting down to meditate with my AK-47 later. I started out angry, got worried, and ended the evening depressed as hell. I still like my guy better than the other guy, but Lord help me, he did not do a very good job tonight. If I were coming in as an outsider I'd be thinking, no matter who wins this thing, we're all well and truly fucked. No wonder the space aliens don't land here - it's probably on all their star charts: KEEP GOING. DON'T EVEN STOP FOR GAS.

Okay, my guy did do one thing right. He said we should kill Osama bin Laden. On a Buddhist-y sort of level I can't imagine how that's going to help anything but somebody had to say it. Maybe between now and the next debate he could, I dunno, fly over there, find the guy, sever his head and carry it triumphantly onstage in Nashville. That might help. Hell, that might even clinch 270 electoral votes.

Nashville. Dear God, Stuart Adamson lived in Nashville. If they hadn't cremated him we'd be picking up seismometer readings from turning over in his grave. I better go listen to The Skids for a while. And take my meds.

Roger Hodgson might be God.

Playing on the iPod: "In Jeopardy" by Roger Hogdson
Meters swum today: Zilch. Took the day off.

Yeah, I know, I said Stuart Adamson was God, but gods don't drink themselves to death in cheap motel rooms in Hawaii a week before Christmas after disappearing for six weeks and scaring hell out of their wives and kids. Not that I'm bitter or anything. Seriously, though, I think Roger Hodgson may be God. My sister sent me In The Eye Of The Storm for Christmas and it's been riding around in my car CD player ever since. I've got a few of his other ones--Hai Hai was the follow up to Storm and it isn't near as good--but just for recording Storm, Roger has achieved deity status. Hi, Roger! Please bring me a pony and a plastic rocket!

In case you don't know Roger, he was the lead singer of Supertramp for years and years before striking out on his own. Storm was his first solo album. If you want a serious head trip, get onto YouTube and look for the video, "Had a Dream." I love that whole marching-band-turning-int0-Nazis thing. Or maybe Russians. As an ex marching bander myself, I can relate.

My hyperfertility is dying down, but I have figured out how the bad guy in the second book knew the good guy's father from the first book by way of the go-between dude from the Cafe El Rincon who trades in information, which has something to do with money laundering and a missing three or four million and the blowing up of things. Plot turns to counterplot turns to scheme turns to sinister goings on and sooner or later even I get confused so I'm fine with things settling down again. It's just that I like this stuff. It makes me feel high. It's like ol' "Bod" Stewart said, "I've got lightning in my veins." I'm not leaning on a slot machine, but it doesn't work that way, anyway. If it did I'd be rich. I am not rich. But I have Enough and that is a lot.