Primus & My Car

My car died a couple weeks ago. I was driving home from Nicola's around 9:30 on I-94 & the engine just cut out. I paid $100 for the car a couple years ago so when I was then told it would be $2,000 to fix it, I had 2nd thoughts. I ended up selling it to a junk yard for $150, but I've since been carless. I've got a couple leads on cheap ones though, but in the mean time, Sara has been kind enough to share hers. What that means though is that I've been a driving fool lately. Yesterday, I took the kids to school, taught 2 classes, took Sara to work, taught another class, picked the kids up & took them to Stephanie's, taught another class, then took the car to Sara @ Nicola's. Every day has been like that recently. It's been crazy, but once I got to Nicola's it started raining AWESOME.

Pete picked me up & we headed to The Michigan Theater to see Primus. I have never been very familiar w/ their stuff, but I'd always been impressed by what I'd heard. Our seats were about 12 rows from the stage & almost dead center. They were amazing. Les Claypool is a badass! A mad, freak genius. My only concern is that I hadn't seen them before. Pete asked me last week if I was up for the show, & I need to take this time to thank him again for the ticket. We got there just in time to have a couple beers before the lights went down. They played for about an hour & 20 minutes before a short break which included 3 Popeye shorts. As the credits for the last one rolled, they came back on stage & played another hour & 20 minutes. After the encore, I walked over to Ashley's to meet up w/ Sara & enjoy a plate of nachos before home to bed. I'm kind of beat today, but the concert was amazing. I can't wait to see them again... as soon as possible.


Set 1
Southbound Pachyderm
Duchess and the Proverbial Mind Spread
Frizzle Fry
Those Damned Blue-Collar Tweekers
Over The Falls
Eleven
Bob
Jerry Was A Race Car Driver
Tommy the Cat

Set 2: Green Naugahyde
Prelude to a Crawl
Hennepin Crawler
Last Salmon Man
Eternal Consumption Engine
Tragedy's a' Comin'
Eyes of the Squirrel
Jilly's on Smack
Lee Van Cleef
Moron TV
Green Ranger
HOINFODAMAN
Extinction Burst
Salmon Men
Encore:
Harold of the Rocks
Wynona's Big Brown Beaver

3D Movies Yesterday

I know it's been a while since my last post. Sorry. I'll keep you waiting no longer. I was thinking about a post about my trip up North w/ the kids last week, but that was covered pretty well on Facebook. I was also thinking about a post about Arsenal, but that should really wait until after the close of the transfer window this evening. Therefore, we'll go w/ the 2 movies I saw yesterday. I think it was the 1st time since 1988 that I saw 2 films in theaters in a single day. Back then I was all about the Micheal Keaton/Jack Nicholson Batman. I saw it 8 times @ the canton Cinema 6 that summer.
Yesterday, I took to the kids to lunch @ Coney Joes in Brighton & then we saw Spy Kids 4D. Coney Joes is a fantastic little hod dog shack. Spy Kids 4D is an unnecessary addition to the Spy Kids franchise. But my kids liked it so that was fine... & Ricky Gervais does the voice of the robotic dog. He gets to just do his schtick throughout the movie so that was cool. Joel McHale is in it too... but there was no "Kick Ass Clip of the Day."

After work, Sara from Nicola's & I went to see the new Conan the Barbarian remake in 3D. It sucks! It makes me want to kick Marcus Nispel's ass. He could very well be the worst director alive. We got to the theater to find out we were the only ones seeing it. The screen was dark & then the lights went off as though they weren't going to show the movie. Of course, we couldn't get off that easily. I called the office to tell them we were there & waiting. The film started w/o any of the normal commercials/trailers, but it was screwed up. The 3D was all blurry so we had to go complain to get it fixed. It then became clear that Nispel 7 his cronies only used the 3D technology as an after-thought. It was used so poorly that we didn't even get any blood-splatter. Even when the guy's nose was cut off, it didn't come flying at us. That said, I could definitely see myself watching it over & over again. It's a piece of shit, but it's fun as Hell so long as you don't ask too much of it. (And asking anything at all would be too much.)

In which we wrap up July & move straight on into August

Well, the summer's been flying by. It's already time to start thinking about fall classes. I scored an extra one the other day, a poetry class in Detroit, about which I'm pretty excited. I haven't done a poetry in a few years, so it should be extra fun. I've still got a couple weeks to go in the current semester, so I won't really start planning too much yet, but you can count on a couple days of Whitman!

In other July news, I've kind of let the Tom Cruise-a-thon fall by the wayside, but along w/ a couple days of Whitman, you can also count on a resurgence of Cruise soon.
In the mean time, I've had my way w/ about a third of the James Bond Films, almost all of the Kevin Smiths, & a Tarzan marathon on TCM. Have you watched the old Tarzan movies? You should! They're shit, but they're super fun. They show one every Saturday morning after an hour of old serials. At the moment, they're showing an old Zorro one. It sucks worse than the Tarzan film, but it's interesting.

As August rears it hot, humid head, we've got a short camping trip on the horizon. We'll be hitting Petoskey after the semester is over for a couple nights. I'm excited & I think the kids are too.

The other thing about which I'm excited is the start of the 2011-12 Premier League. Arsenal's first match is against Newcastle on the 13th. Set your DVRs. Hopefully, they'll have the defensive issues sorted out by then. They still need a couple more people. In order for that to happen, we should also be able to wave goodbye to a few: Squillaci, Bendtner, Almunia, & Eboue will hopefully see the exit door. If I had my druthers, Diaby would be joining them. It looks like they may be hanging on to Nasri &/or Fabregas which is nice. However, they better get their shit together soon, because a draw w/ The New York Red Bulls today was certainly not impressive. An MLS team for crying out loud! The folks looking good so far include Rosicky (who I've always liked & have wanted to assert himself after his weird run of injuries... maybe this could be his year), RVP (quick & creative), Wilshire (although he got hurt today), Gervinio (the marque signing of the summer so far), Frimpong 9who was supposed to the other big thing last year but sustained a season ending injury in the preseason), & today the other young kid, Afobe (he subbed on in the 7th minute today & looked not at all out of place).
So there you have it... the season preview w/ a July review & some teasers for the month of August... enjoy. And then enjoy this fantastic video of a TV showing one of the greatest Arsenal chants of all time: "Evra, you're a cunt!"

& the Rest v the Prof & Mary Ann

When I put Isaiah to bed @ night, he always needs me to sing him a few songs. The problem w/ this is 2-fold. 1) I'm not very good @ singing... luckily, he doesn't know that. 2) My repertoire is pretty small. Going way back to when Solstice was a baby, my song choices have always included "City of New Orleans," "Tangled Up in Blue," Monkey & the Engineer," & "Ripple." That's really it... 4 options. Last spring, I decided to add "St. Stephen" & "Dark Star" to the mix, but as it turns out, "Dark Star" doesn't really work in that situation, & I always confuse the "St. Stephen" verses. Isaiah also enjoys a run-through of "Twinkle-Twinkle," "The Alphabet Song," or "Old McDonald." All of which are fine, but a tad on the boring side, so in a desperate move a few weeks ago, I added some old TV theme songs to the mix: "The Ballad of Jed Clampet," "The Good Ol' Boys," "The Brady Bunch," & "The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle."As it turns out, I have mixed feelings about "The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle." I always supported the the 2nd Season switch to include the Prof & Mary Ann as some sort of equality issue, but now that I've been singing it on a semi-regular basis, I understand the original lyrics. (Side note: a different song was used in the pilot episode, a song written by John Williams... yeah, that John Williams!) I guess it really comes down to the whole aesthetics vs politics debate. "& the rest" just fits better into the meter of the tune. As it stands, I've been switching back & forth from night to night (occasionally going w/ both). I'm really stuck here, & I think this is a much more interesting conundrum than the more traditional Ginger v Mary Ann debate. Although, for that one, I think I would resolve it the same way.

An Obligatory Post? Not Quite

So often, when talking about blogging, I hear people say they feel they're letting people down if they don't post on a regular basis. I know I don't have that problem because I don't have many readers to feel let down. On the other hand, I've also heard people say when they've gone a while w/o a post, they're less likely to post again. That's never been an issue here either, but I suppose sooner or later it will be. Each post reminds me that the time will come when there are no more posts; the time will come when I'm no longer a blogger. What this really means is that each post reminds me of my own mortality & brings me one step closer to realizing my death. Sein-zum-Tode is how Heidegger would have described it... being towards death.

That means we, as bloggers, must celebrate the little things like Aiden's Little League game. He was walked his first time up today & got a force-out at third base later. Earlier this week, he & I went camping @ Bishop Lake in Brighton w/ his class. It way well have been my first adult camping experience sans booze, & I didn't expect sleeping on the ground w/o a little buzz would be easy, but I slept really well. We had a good time, but it was cut a little short due to the rain. I met some of the parents of his classmates, & they're pretty cool. He was in a skit about the Greek Gods, he played soccer, baseball, & kickball, & we played some poker @ the tent. All in all, it was a good time.Before camping, he & I went down to Ford Field to watch the US beat the Canadians 2-0 in the 1st match of the Gold Cup Group C group stage. It was an awesome time. We had fun taunting the silly Cannucks who made the trip across the border. Based on previous tournament experiences, I imagine they were just happy to be there. Although, I would say they went a bit far when they started singing a song about Tim Howard's (the US Goalie) Tourettes. I'm not always the most PC when it comes to soccer-related taunting, but that's going a little too far. Aiden was a little concerned about our use of certain words beginning w/ "F" & "S" but I made it clear that basic societal language norms aren't followed when attending a soccer match. If I can't yell things like "We've got Clint Dempsey, the one & only Dempsey, & you've got fuck all nothing!" then, what's the point of going?In about an hour, the 2nd match of the Group C group stage will be starting. The USA will be playing Panama. It should be a good time. Although, I imagine the game itself won't be very good. It should be a walk in the park for the USMNT. (That's the hip Internet way of writing United States Men National Team, for those of you not in the hip Internet know). Tomorrow, Verde has a game @ 3:00... come on out & cheer us on.

Mulligans: In which Isaiah learns about James Joyce & makes an intertextual connection

Yesterday morning I was sitting on the couch eating breakfast & watching Back to the Future III w/ Isaiah. A few weeks ago he lost his mind for the Back to the Future trilogy. He loves to play that he is Marty & I am Biff & in some damsel in distress scenario he has to rescue Lorraine... he's also developed a hilarious crush on Lea Thompson. I can't imagine that he really understands the concept of time travel, but he can't get enough of these movies. Come to think of it, neither can I. As a side note, they were executively produced by Spielberg... yet more Spielbergers to delve deeply into the daddy issues: Marty & George in Parts I & II and Marty & Doc Brown in all 3 of them.

Anyway, as I'm sitting here, Isaiah grabbed the copy of Ulysses from the book shelf & demanded that I read it to him. Now, for those of you who haven't read it, you need to understand that it's not the easiest book to be reading out loud (or silently, or in rounds w/ friends on Bloomsday, or or through a megaphone from the top of a parking structure, or in any other way for that matter), I suggested that we do the 1st page & see how it's going from there. We got about 1/2 way down the rather long page before he seemed to lose interest (in his defense, that's about twice as far as many people get).

We got through the 1st sentence, "Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed." At that point, he stopped me. "Is Buck Mulligan a good guy or a bad guy?" What a fantastic question... & one I couldn't really answer. I explained that different characters view him differently, but that Stephen Dedalus's father doesn't really seem to dig him too much, yet Buck & Stephen are old friends & they live together in the Sandycove Mortello Tower. I haven't read Ulysses in years. I struggled through it in Grad School & then gave it another go in 2002ish. That time, I loved it. I suppose I should go again soon, but I need to get through a few other things first. Maybe next year i'll get back to it again.

Of course, after a few more sentences, the follow up question was "Is Simon Dedalus a good guy or a bad guy?" He then stopped & had a fantastic look on his face as he considered the possibility that Buck Mulligan might be related to Mike Mulligan. "Maybe Mike is his older brother." Awesome!

Holiday Post #8: At the Weekend (w/ special mention of pork products)

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Holiday Post #3: The Kids

As I'm sure you're aware, Solstice is in the Christmas performance @ their church. She performs as part of the children's choir for a few songs @ the end of the 1st act. They have 10 shows over the course of 2 weekends; I went on Saturday & was blown away. The production is fantastic. The 1st act is basicaly a series of traditional mid-20th century X-mas tunes. The 2nd act is an overview of the X-mas story. She's been working so hard, & they did so well.When we got home, I took Aiden & Isaiah up to the super-cheesy tree lighting ceremony in Depot Town. They had free cookies & cocoa, plus a bunch of ridiculous, bougie, 50somethings singing carols. Aiden was bored out of his mind, but Isaiah enjoyed getting to meet a couple dogs & eat a couple cookies.

Yesterday, while Stephanie & Solstice were at Solstice's evening performance, I took the boys to see the free showing of A Christmas Story @ The Michigan Theater. Aiden had been looking forward to it, but Isaiah had no idea what was going on. As it turns out, he loved it. He even laughed @ the appropriate spots. Later in the evening, I even caught him saying, "Meatloaf, meatloaf." That was pretty sweet. I think we may need to take a road trip to Cleveland to check out the Christmas Story House Museum. If we go, I suppose we could hit Tony Packo's for a coney on the way home... this idea is starting to sound better & better. Watch this space... you may get updates about an awesome day trip. In the mean time, keep submitting the nominations for The Visions of Ypsi Memorial Celebrity MILF of the Year Contest!