Scuba Steve

Today I decided that Scuba Steve must be single. I know you think I'm crazy, but the odds are, I'm right. Think about it for a moment. Have you ever met a single person over the age of 30 who didn't have to leave the office early for "scuba class"? Unless "scuba class" is code for big-single-orgy, I have to feel bad for these people. The whole scuba thing is so transparent. When I hear, "Oh, I have to run...have scuba class tonight!", all I can think of is, "wow, this poor fool is not just single (I don't pitty singles), but desperately single". I can almost see how the events leading up to registration played out. Single X became increasingly frustrated with traditional dating outlets, such as the bar scene, where they feel too old,or blind dates, where the nervous energy involved is simply too much to overcome for even well-matched participants. Both make them feel desperate. So, a helpful friend suggests they get into some sort of hobby or sport that they find interesting where they can find like-minded singles. The problem is, many of these people either don't have any interesting hobbies, or they overthink the whole thing and freak out about how a chosen hobby may define them in the eyes of others. And the search begins, for a hobby that will define them in the light in which they would like to be seen. "I'm adventurous, exciting, willing to try things new, and I'm definitely not ordinary" they think. The problem is, they are ordinary, because as stated earlier, EVERY SINGLE OVER 30 IS DOING IT, and so is Scuba Steve. Good luck Steve in navigating those troubled waters.

Enron

Has anyone seen "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room"? I knew these guys were bastards, but it's far worse than I thought. Enron wasn't a case of cutting accounting corners, or anything so innocent. EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS COMPANY WAS GARBAGE, so much garbage that Arthur Anderson shredded literally one ton of documents related to Enron ahead of the investigation.

In one interesting instance, Enron devised a scheme to export energy out of California in order to create shortages. These shortages create the conditions for increased energy prices just in time for Enron to sell the energy back into the state at unbelievable markups. If that wasn't good enough, Enron decided to start taking down power plants in California to manipulate energy prices. Profits associated with this program reached the 30 billion dollar range. If you remember, the ensuing energy crises, and the associated fiscal crisis, were at the root of that poor bastard Gray Davis's undoing. Let me throw out a little c-o-n-spiracy, and suggest that Enron's Republican allies, such as G.W., looked the other way on this little experiment, knowing that there were electoral fringe benefits involved. Crazy? Maybe. The film suggests just that, and I have to say it did occur to me during the whole Schwarzenager circus.

In any event, I recommend you watch this film for your own edification.

Pine Cone Grenade Ingenuity

Tonight, MacGuyver made his first ever appearance on my television. All those years ago, I never thought I'd see that man on a 48" television, but there he was. I was getting ready to watch a dvd, The Weather Man, forwarding through previews, and thinking about the fact that I had to watch not only standard previews, but also those advertising syndicated television shows being released on DVD. "What does that say about the quality of the film I'm about to watch," I thought? Coud it mean that this movie was thought well of, and its advertising time was in high demand? Or, more likely, were the distributors of the film unable to sell all of their advertising slots in a traditional fashion?

Then it hit me like a sledgehammer, the Mac appeared with all of his mullet magnificence. Where have you been all these years? Isn't it obvious that your skills are desperately needed during this time of uncertainty and war? Let's be honest, George Bush could use a man with his brand of minnesota diplomacy and pine-cone-grenade-ingenuity. Truth be told, he could use a thousand.

Ah, just thinking of that show reminds me of the wonderfully cheesy innocence of the 80's, that same feeling that allowed us to revel in parachute pant hysteria. It was okay to like cheesy things back then, or cheer for patrick swayze and the boys in Red Dawn. The Cosby Show wasn't really that good, but it was an example of an obvious and readily available artifact of popular culture that we could all rally around without fear of someone impeaching its goodness. In the culture of the 80's, The Cosby Show's goodness was unquestioned, and its content made for great bus stop or water cooler fodder, depending on your stage in life. In a similar way, The 'A' Team, and yes, MacGuyver, as cheesy as they were, could be appreciated. So the question I posed to myself while images of Richard Dean Anderson flashed across my television was this. Does this observation represent a divide in the cultures of my youth and my adulthood, or have I simply changed?

Welcome to Public Bathrooms

I started a new job this week and with it came a giant step backwards in one regard. Gone are the corporate washrooms, with their auto-start faucets, and what seems like constant janitorial services. The building I now work in is open to the public, and so is the bathroom in the lobby, used by our suite-based organization. Before I get into the two mysterious incidents I encountered in a mere four days at this new job, let me tell you that the facilities are actually relatively clean and I like the fact that I have re-captured control of the heating controls of the water I wash my hands with.

The first incident that puzzled me ocurred on my third day at the office. I took a stroll for an afternoon piss, pacing myself for another appointment around 5:30 or so, well after I had arrived home at this new gig (yeah, the hours at this place are positively governmental). Walking up to the single urinal I noticed that it sounded like someone was using the bathroom stall next to me as a urinal. Settling into my most mentally productive phase of the day, my mind drifted towards a comforting valley of thoughts from Israeli-Palestinian relations to the assertion by some cultural anthropologists that the progress of societies is measured by our adoption of non-zero-sum games. But, something at the edge of my consiousness impeded my progress to the polar opposite of REM sleep. The person in the stall next to me was giggling. "What the fuck was he giggling about?!", I thought. Was someone in the office jacking off in the stall next to me, or maybe more innocently, someone likes to use the ol' cell phone in the crapper. Then I realized the nature of the crime. Looking under the stall, I saw urine splattering onto the floor. It wasn't concentrated in one area either. It was as if someone was performing a little pre-wash on their car on a hot Saturday afternoon before applying wax and all. The giggling continued as I walked to the sink to wash my hands. Taking a look in the mirror, I could clearly see whoever was in the stall was now attempting to peek through the stall door in an attempt to ascertain who had witnessed their guilty pleasure. At that point, I really had to question what my next play was. Do I linger at the sink, spoiling for my first taste of moral indignation for the day? Or, do I get the hell out of there as fast as possible, ahead of some exceedingly embarrasing first-week freakfest? I went for plan b, but I could hear the perpetrator hot on my heals. As I crossed the hall to our suite, I heard the door behind me close for a second time, clueing me in that the perp was now out in the open. I did my best nonchalant double-take (yes, you know the one ladies) and spied a short pre-teen kid, sporting a nuggets jersey, a spikey blonde dew, and a devlish grin spanning from one ear to the next, headed for the front door of the building. Classic. That little fucker had to run in and use our bathroom for a little FDNY action.

The second incident was much less dramatic, but no less disturbing. In this instance, I was the only one in the entire bathroom. My prospects for meaningful introspection appeared much more promising. Using the very same urinal (again, the only one), I started the normal process. "Ahhh," relief, do a quick one-over to check the place out and straight into total consciousness without consciousness. But wait! What the hell is that?! Those look an awful lot like fingernail clippings sitting on the top of this standard white-porcelin urinal! Under what conditions would fingernail clippings come to rest here?! Okay, let's think about this. Did someone actually clip their nails while urinating? Is that even possible? First, I can't imagine you could accomplish the task with a single hand. If this is true, it would seem likely that this perp had similar success or lack thereof in painting the target. Yet, the floors appeared clear of such evidence. That really seemed like the most-likely scenario. My other options seemed much less plausible:
a) Someone clipped their nails eleswhere and transported them great distances to deposit them here.
b) These clippings were once anchored to the floor of this bathroom, but over milennia were raised to the level of the top of the urinal through periodic flooding.
c) It's only a matter of time before I find myself in a very dark hole within the home of a coworker, who for some reason keeps yelling at me to put the lotion in the basket. So, what do you think? How did these clippings end up in such a mysterious setting?

Watching a Little Tourney

I'll go ahead and apologize right off the bat for those of you who aren't into basketball, but it's Tourney time, and I have an observation.
Doesn't Adam Morrison, demeanor and all remind you just a little of Teen Wolf?



Strangely enough, this photo was found under the "Adam Morrison" Google image search as opposed to the "Teen Wolf" query.

And do any of you remember that they not only made a sequel to Teen Wolf, but a cartoon series?

What I'm Listening to Today

Third in a series...

David Bowie
Yeah, the guy pioneered the lipstick rocker look, and he plays a regular as a skeleton opposite Keith Richards at most mega-sporting events performing equally watered-down new material as the 'Stones, but, Aerosmith he is not. David Bowie has written and performed some of THE rock classics. To demonstrate my point, simply listen to Queen Bitch (you may have heard it on the Life Aquatic soundtrack)with it's jiving guitar riff that defies you to stop your foot from tapping, if not bob your head like a member of the overmedicated youth. In the true sense of the phrase, it rocks. For you younger readers, Puff Daddy can thank Mr. Bowie for the kickin' beat he sampled in Been Around the World. On the other hand, you could always lose yourself in a smoke laden laser show before contacting Major Tom via Space Oddity to see how his Life On Mars is. If you're a loyal Pink Floyd fan, I highly recommend you switch to full-caf and pass on the Dark Side of the Moon in favor of these more full-flavored tracks. Let's make some cha-cha-cha-chanG-ES.

Spoon
Because I loved their first album (I still can't figure out why it isn't more notable), Kill the Moonlight, I had high expectations for their second album, Gimme Fiction. The first track, Carryout Kids, is a bit of a departure, but not an entirely unwelcome one. Both the demo and album versions of I Summon You deliver the same sort of tempo and endearing lyrics that made Kill the Moonlight such a favorite of mine. However, I have to say that the band must have stepped up to a more talented producer on this album, because there is definitely more to the layered sound found on the album track. It has to go down as a favorite of mine on this album. I Turn My Camera On is eerily Franz Ferdinand...ish, with that back and forth bass effect. Sister Jack has an almost do-wop quality, tambourine and all, that I'm not used to hearing from Spoon, but it kind of works. I also like They Never Got You, and Two Sides, Monsieur Valentine. So, while this album has some potholes to be sure, what album doesn't these days and there are certainly some gems here. If you haven't listened to this band, I highly recommend you check out at least one of these two albums.

What I'm Listening to Today

Second in a series...
First off, I'm listening to www.pandora.com. If you've yet to be let in on the secret, this site/tool is one of the coolest things on the web (I love superlatives that end with '...on the web'. It sounds so cheezy, like I'm writing for Wired Magazine or something). A product of the very impressive sounding, Music Genome Project, Pandora allows users to build personal dynamic streaming radio stations based on selected artists, or songs. Now, this would be pretty cool if the result was a streaming radio station that just played your selected artists or songs. Then again, that would be too easy for people ambitious enough to apply the aforementioned moniker to the effort. Instead, the creators of Pandora build these dynamic stations based on an incredible categorization effort that is the Music Genome Project. The result is quite impressive. Unlike other tools that have attempted to implement similar technology, you shouldn't find yourself confounded like the author of the WSJ article titled, "My Tivo Thinks I'm Gay". In addition, Pandora allows users to provide additional guidance as you go on the station's content, and save up to 15 of these discreet stations, accessible from any computer connected to the internet.

Try Pandora out.

Mark Geary
For those of you who know me, you already know I'm a sucker for depressing acoustic tunes in the mold of the great Elliott Smith, Iron & Wine, and Beck on the entire Sea Change album. Mark Geary seems to fit this mold well, and his album Ghosts, while far from unique, can be relied upon when in such a mood. The song, Up & Up seems to me to be the highlight. Then again, maybe you should just stick with Elliott Smith.

Iggy Pop
I was recently given a large collection of music to add to what I already have. I've finally found the time to start going through it, and I've found some great stuff that I'd forgotten. To find Iggy Pop these days all you have to do is watch those commercials that ad execs call edgy. The incredibly catchy Search and Destroy seems to be a favorite. You could also just listen to every young punk rock band currently on the market. The track, The Passenger, must be an influence for the band Clinic, while the song Fall in Love With Me could be slid into the next Strokes album without a notice. To be fair, Iggy Pop has influenced just about every rock musician out there in one way or another, it just seems a bit more acute these days. Regardless, the point is, you might as well go to the source and check out Raw Power by Iggy and the Stooges, or Lust for Life by Iggy Pop.

The Kinks
Okay, so we all know the Kinks. For some of you it may be based on a longtime love of good rock. For others it might be from the early influence of a sibling (I remember listening to the track Destroyer over and again..."Paranoia, they'll destroy YA". Perhaps that's why I'm writing a blog named My Helter Skelter Head). For the rest of you, I can only assume you know of the Kinks through bad 80's films most likely starring Tony Danza.

No matter, the Kinks have some terrific music, especially that which was made in the late '60s. Arthur (Or The Decline and Fall of the British Empire is a great example. Think somewhere between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, not as watered-down as the former, but not necessarily as edgy as the latter either. Of all the album, I think the track Victoria is the most memorable. If you're ever traveling to Australia, please be sure to start the track Australia 6:46 before landing for a cinematic moment. Mr. Churchill Says is definitely one of the highlights, with its up-tempo beat and catchy guitar riffs that accompany lyrics that are certainly relevant today.

Emotional Momentum

The concept of momentum, when applied to emotions, is incredibly interesting. We've all experienced it, the feeling that some result is inevitable, based on those events which preceded it. Yes, in these situations conditions can change and therefore forestall what seems inevitable. In this sense, our feeling of emotional momentum betrays us. But, on another level, that level on which events create the overwhelming conditions leading to a result, this feeling is clearly instructive. I suppose you could say this is the primary thesis of the book, The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, but I'm only convinced that this feeling is of interest because of its psychological underpinnings, rather than its commentary on macro behavior. I'm interested in how a person can find themselves trapped in a series of emotional responses they know to be wrong. Or, how a particular made basket at a particular point in a game can carry a large enough emotional payload to completely change the perceived fortunes of each of the teams involved.

Clearly our responses to events are based upon established models of behavior each of us carry around with us in our heads. Perhaps, then, this idea of emotional momentum is simply a case of each of us knowing how this movie or that normally ends. Someone pisses me off, I say things I already know I'll regret. A player on the opposing team hits a big shot, and my teammates and I all feel like the sum of our efforts to be successful are wasted. Put simply, our reaction to events are based on what we've experienced in the past, what in our view is likely to happen. Perhaps the unconscious John is a hell of a statistician. Perhaps unconscious John just thinks he is.

Mark Twain

From time to time I recall just how compelling a figure I find Mark Twain to be. Sometimes called America's first authentic author, he symbolizes the American spirit, his life an imperfect portrait of our distinct sense of adventure, perseverance, and originalism. He lived in arguably one of the most interesting periods in American history, fully embracing not only the adventure offered in the American West, but those presented around the globe. Raised in a poor family, he held an array of jobs to sustain himself, among them, printer, riverboat captain, investor, lecturer, and of course, author. A true American original, our speech is peppered with his quotations. If you've never spent any time with his story, I encourage you to do so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_twain