Panther Heart

A few years ago, I was in a folk-pop band called, The Clouds.  When we broke up, two separate bands formed in the aftermath:

California Lions and Panther Heart.

Much like the splintering of At the Drive-in, the two groups created were diametrically opposite:  the former, a pure pop band and the latter, an art/orchestral rock band.

I wasn't involved with either, but I did attend both groups' shows.

California Lions were a tight, cohesive unit with concise, if not quirky pop songs, a self-contained group with a Hollywood producer to boot.  Their songs were catchy and would sometimes be played in the background of reality shows on MTV.

In other words, they were pros.

Panther Heart were the antithesis of that.  Their first show was a fully improvised 60-minute set, complete with psychedelic projections and interpretive dance.  The next time I saw them, they performed a song cycle that would soon form the basis of their first two ep's, "Panther Heart Defeats the Dire Wolf," parts 1 & 2. 

These songs intrigued me.  They reminded me of my favorite Talk Talk albums, dreamy with a hint of foreboding.  They had wordless melodies, and their harmonies were gorgeous.  But while their songs were captivating, they lacked bass, and without its counterpart, the drums seemed noticeably unmoored from the rest of the band.

I saw my opening...

Sometime in the middle of 2012, I asked if I could play bass for them, and thankfully they let me, thus beginning my Tuesday ritual of weekly practices at the Panther Den.  By then, we had eight members, including me, and when we all sang, the sound was incredible!

We recorded the aforementioned ep's (Part 1 includes a book we hand-made) and occasionally played shows until this year, when we decided that this iteration of Panther Heart had run its course...

The good news is, I'm told there will be more music coming from a different version of Panther Heart...   

In the meantime, here's our website.  There are a few nice photos of our rather elaborate shows (including this line-up's farewell performance, January 31) and hopefully, very soon, you'll be able listen to (or purchase) our two e.p.'s directly from the site... 

 Enjoy!

Sincere Thingz

 

  Fun show last Saturday!! Thanks to everyone who came out!  

       And thanks to the OC Weekly for the kind words! 

"A man is real, not made of steel."

RIP Robert Casale, Jr. (BOB 2)

1952-2014

170

See what your IQ is here!

And if anyone can tell me what the missing letter is that fits in BOTH boxes (question 19, if it's the same test), please share in comments...

(I marked, 'I don't know' hoping I'd get points for being smart enough to admit that I don't know everything!)
 ;)

SALUD!

Thank you, Maker's Mark, for fighting cancer and my sobriety at the same time!

Read about more health benefits of drinking whiskey here.

"This is our concern, Dude."

 

RIP PSH

The GIFYS!!!

BEHOLD!!

Praise the Lorde!

On related note, I was very pleased to see that Lorde won a couple Grammys. 

She seems like the real deal...  Let's just hope she doesn't pull a Fiona... 

My favorite quote from her so far is:  "Make so much music you have no friends."

Amen.

If the show fits...

Watching parts of the Grammys the other night, I couldn't help but be reminded of this DEVO quote from General Boy:

"Artists and performers are usually good looking guys and girls who couldn't hold a real job. Seeing the world through twisted eyes leads them to "create." Through songs and the like they gain public attention. This does nothing to increase the general welfare of society, but instead it lines the pockets of spiritless sub-humans who should know better but don't. Entertainment is a cancer that we must eradicate. "Art" is sometimes the excuse by which these people perpetuate their cruel and selfish hoax. I ask you to join DEVO's efforts to correct this situation from the inside out. All of you must realize that a few are shepherds but the rest are sheep. It is every citizen's duty to be constantly alert."

HNY!!

2014!!!

Takahiro Iwasaki

Wow!  Take a look at these beautifully crafted, tiny sculptures by Takahiro Iwasaki!  The rest are here.  Enjoy!

Renaissance (of Gentle) Men

I saw these "Rules for Being a Gentleman in 2014" on FB and thought I'd share...

What do you think?  Would you add any?  Take any away?

What if a man wrote "Rules for Being a Lady?"

How about just rules for being human?

"Saturn was NOT a Single Lady"

These have been making the rounds on the internets lately, and as a teacher I found them highly entertaining.

My favorite teacher response is the title of this post...

My favorite student response is, "If I had one hour to live, I'd spend it in this class because it feels like an eternity."

LOL!

Sir Duke

"I am an optimist from where I sit, music is mostly all right, or at least in a healthy state for the future, in spite of the fact that it may sound as though it is being held hostage." -- Duke Ellington

Texas Tea-Pain

Did you know that the pitch-correction program known as Auto-Tune was created by an oil engineer working for Exxon?

Yes, it's true... the "music" of T-Pain (I can only assume that the 'T' is short for 'terrible,' as in the Terrible Pain he causes listeners unfortunate enough to be exposed to his "singing.") is just another glorious byproduct of the American Petroleum Industry!

You know, like catastrophic climate change?  ;)

Don't believe me?  Click here and read the article yourself! (Don't forget to treat yourself to the hilarious video at the bottom of the page with Weird Al explaining the cultural implications of the Auto-Tune phenomenon!)

HE'S BACK!

MAMBA TIME!!

"John the Baptist of the Psychedelic Era"

Interesting interview with R. Crumb talking about his love of old timey music...

Seemed apropos after the previous Bottled Spirits post...

Enjoy it responsibly, here.

The Bottled Spirits Debut!

I surprised my dad for his 75th birthday celebration last Saturday by having my new band, The Bottled Spirits, play a few songs at his party.  Here's our opening number...  enjoy!

"There is no humor in heaven"

Samuel Clemens, American literary treasure and original old man Muppet in the balcony, was born yesterday in 1835.  In honor of his birthday, here are 25 snarky quotes from the master... enjoy!

A few of my favorites:

“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.” — Notebook (1887)

“It is just like man’s vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.” — What is Man?

“Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.” — Following the Equator

HAPPY T-DAY!!

Circular Firing Squad

Thanks for the reminder, Kevin Drum!

Drum (11/13/13):  ...anyone over the age of 40 knows that Clinton lived through an eruption of right-wing rage that was every bit as bad as what Obama has gone through. Even the specific obsessions of the wingers weren't even very different. Health care socialism? Check. Economy-killing taxes? Check. Gay rights destroying America as we know it? Check. Supposed juvenile drug use? Check. Endless faux scandals and corruption? Check. Government shutdown? Check. Deficit hysteria? Check. Ball-busting wife? Check. The similarities, frankly, are pretty stunning."

And yet how often do we liberals say it's worse this time because the President is black?

How often do we write off the Tea Partiers as racists?

And how is that helpful exactly?

Not only is it poisonous to civil dialogue, it seems naive when we need only look back at how the last Democratic administration was treated...  (Clinton murder conspiracies?  Check.) 

Of course racism is still extant in our body politic -- race has played a prominent and punishing role in our country since its inception  -- and elites have used it to divide us down through the annals of history, so...

given this bloody past, shouldn't we treat racial matters with care?

Does it really serve progressive interests to label millions of Americans racists so, uh, liberally?

Because when we assume to know the hearts of millions of fellow citizens and cavalierly (if not claravoyantly) call them racists, we serve the plutocratic desire to divide and conquer.

99% are easy to beat when we're all in a circular firing squad!

"The more you think, the more you stink"

Producer, David Briggs:

when I first got to L.A. I got invited to Radio Recorders to see Ray Charles, and I walk into the studio, and Ray’s playin’ all the piano parts with his left hand, reading a braille score with his right hand, singing the vocal live while a full orchestra played behind him. So I sat there and I watched. And I went, “This is how records are made. Put everybody in the fuckin’ room and off we go.” In those days everybody knew they had to go in, get their dick hard at the same time and deliver. And three hours later they walked out the fuckin’ door with a record in their pocket, man.

Respect.  Read the rest here.

Thank you, Sophie

She was our rabbit's foot during game 7 in 2010... 

and I'd like to think she had that same effect on the game tonight.

Lakernation thanks you, Sophie... RIP...

Student Agency

Thanks to Ron Berger for inspiring us teachers to raise student engagement through collaborative inquiry and constructive critique and for sharing this example of that work at the Cotsen teaching conference yesterday!

Divide and Conquer

Nice op-ed.  Does Kristof make a false equivalency?  I don't know...

What gets me is the tribalism...

As long as Fox and MSNBC (et al) continue to reinforce the tribal red vs. blue framework, they enable the 1%, without drawing attention to the fact that the other 99% (BOTH red and blue) are being ripped off...

...calling the kettle black

this.

title is not my favorite, but what do you expect from a pot-ty mouth?  :)

as i play trying...

All of us failed to match our dream of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible. In my opinion, if I could write all my work again, I am convinced that I would do it better, which is the healthiest condition for an artist. That's why he keeps on working, trying again; he believes each time that this time he will do it, bring it off. Of course he won't, which is why this condition is healthy. - Faulkner

doolittle democrats

good news, 99%!  your incomes increased by 1% last year!!  (nevermind that top earners' -- the so-called, "1%" -- incomes jumped 22.5% last year!!) 

if you consider a new gilded age a problem (like most progressives do), might i point out that within the 99%, BOTH liberal AND conservatives' incomes have failed to rise? 

these data show no tribal divide!

both red and blue -- indeed almost the whole population -- have seen their incomes rise only 1%!!

wage stagnation affects left and right alike, and yet the 99% fail to unite to put up a fight!!  hmmm...

what keeps us so divided?

do we on the left think we need the other side to fight inequity?

if so, how do we talk about it in a way that unites, not divides us, the 99%?

shameless self-promotion

shot by us in one day and edited by nani serna... enjoy!!

manufacturing monsters

this has always been a tragic, difficult case involving big issues:  race, guns, self-defense, and people differ on which of these three most affected the outcome in Sanford that night. 

sadly, of the two people involved, we only have one side of the story and that complicates things…

this case was never simple, but simple stories seemed to solidify in the media immediately following the incident…  skittles, hoodies, un-armed teens, oh my!

in essence, the media promoted a simplified version of the state’s case -- including flogging that 911 transcript as proof of Z’s evil intent -- months before the trial.

is it possible that they poisoned the well?

could a simple, group narrative have emerged in the media that supplanted Z’s presumption of innocence?

now that the trial is over, why isn’t Z’s version of events getting more play?

could it be that the scripts have been written and the characters’ roles assigned?

don’t the good people, too busy to keep up with the trial, deserve to hear the full state of the evidence?

at this point in time, what’s more egregious, leaving out a much ballyhooed transcript that “sets the tone for the situation” or leaving out Z’s side of the story (thus eliminating what produced the reasonable doubt for the jury) as many in media continue to do?

obviously, reasonable people may disagree about the “tone” the call sets… it’s quite subjective, isn’t it?  to me Z comes across as a well-intentioned, if not weary citizen, tired of a recent spate of break-ins, trying to keep his community safe…  others see it differently...

but when bowdlerized versions of the events are broadcast in the media for months leading up to the trial (charles blow, 3/16/12: “Zimmerman apparently pursued him anyway, at some point getting out of his car and confronting the boy.”), then echoed across the internet AFTER the verdict (conveniently omitting the testimony that produced the reasonable doubt), I blame our news media, not you.

they suck.  you don’t.

:)

loving to hate

I hate watching my loving friends, love to hate… 

especially such an insignificant target as George Zimmerman…

might I suggest two worthier targets for our rage besides a fellow citizen?

governor rick scott and angela corey, the special prosecutor he assigned to this case … the same woman assigned to the prosecution of marissa alexander, the woman who got 20 years for firing a warning shot….

maybe these two would be better targets than Z?

because it seems the liberal opinion of Z has become quite rigid -- he’s the villain.

and he very well may HAVE murdered M, and the state’s version of the events could be completely right on.

I accept that possibility.  

but since I wasn’t there, I also accept other possibilities.

isn’t that what reasonable, rational people do?  don’t they look at all the evidence available, especially in a situation where someone kills another human being and claims “self-defense?”

what is reasonable or logical about disappearing Z’s side of the story then?

• Z wanted a safer community
• Z's efforts had previously helped apprehend a home invasion suspect
• Z was sucker-punched by M on his way back to his car
• eyewitness, john good, told police he saw M wailing on Z MMA style before the gunshot
• Z sustained injuries before the gunshot and M did not

for some reason, Z’s version of the story had to wait until AFTER the trial to emerge, but M’s version appeared almost immediately following the tragic incident.

I blame our media.

and what’s been “hard to stomach” is the “certainty of suspicion” of Z from the getgo.  that’s why I wrote the initial FB post – to call attention to our media.  facts be damned (or disappeared), we’ve been told who to hate, and it’s certainly not the kid in the hoodie with the skittles.

all I’m saying is, how can you really be so sure?  

and don’t we have bigger fish to fry than Z?

NAEP DATA SHOW STEADY, 40-YEAR IMPROVEMENT!

have you heard about the incredible gains US students have made on the NAEP for the past forty years?

you're probably not alone if you haven't...  you've probably even heard the opposite.

since most newspapers call the NAEP the 'gold standard' of testing or 'america's report card,' why don't more americans know about it and the tremendous gains our schools have been making since the 70's, especially within our black and hispanic populations?

the fact that these tests are administered every 4 years could be part of the problem, but the most recent data have been released, and instead of these achievements being heralded as a triumph for the american educational system, they were met with massive indifference from our press corp...

shouldn't this be front page on every major newspaper and the leading story on every cable network, especially the so-called "progressive" one?

it's as if americans are only allowed to hear about their schools when the story is either sexy or gloomy.

aside from the washington post breaking rank and gallantly publishing these promising NAEP data, only NBC nightly news deigned to mention the report...  brian williams giving it a a full 68 words, starting with the requisite, "a grim report card..."

shameful.  

then again ABC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, all took a pass... same with the NYTIMES, NPR, salon, and slate... 

now, when was the last time you heard/saw/read in these same media that US schools are failing?

it's time to change that narrative; a narrative that's been pushed by powerful political forces for forty years.

tell a friend!  OUR SCHOOLS ARE WORKING!!

NAEP scores have been steadily rising for the past 40 years!!!
 

the last practice

the weight

Many families have Christmas traditions.  Some families open presents on Christmas Eve.  Some wait until morning.  At our house, we’d wait.  See, Santa always made late-night special deliveries.  We'd awaken to open treasures unseen before Christmas morn…

But on Christmas Eve, my parents would allow my sisters and me to open one present.  Just one.  It was the best part of the night!  After delicious dinner and before boring church.  Of course I'd have already picked out the "best" present to unwrap HOURS before. 

I'd use a very scientific method:  The one that felt the heaviest. 

One year a large box mysteriously appeared early in the evening.  It surprised me.  I’d only taken my eyes off the Christmas tree when I closed them to sleep!  Suddenly, there it was!  Beaming beneath the lighted tree.  I just needed to feel it without my parents seeing me…

So just as the Aunts and Uncles arrived in their church clothes, holding their polite gifts…

                     ...I picked up the box and shook it!             

                                              THUMP!  THUMP!!  THUMP!!! 

                                                                               :::GASP:::  
 

It’s to me, from my parents… 

IT’S GOT TO BE THAT VIDEO GAME CONSOLE!

I immediately shoved the present back under the tree… just in time to greet the arriving family members. 

Don’t look suspicious.  Just act normal.  Just be cool.  Calm.  Collected.

Casual.

That seemed impossible now.

I didn't even hear what Aunt Barbara and Uncle Jay said as they squeezed the Merry Christmas out of me.  I'm quite sure it had something to do with how handsome I was/How much I'd grown since the last time they saw me/How they remembered when I...  blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, BLAH!

 I didn't care.  All I could think about was that present! 

Then Grandma and Grandpa arrived, and the whole ritual repeated all over again. 

"Look how handsome you are/How much you've grown/I remember when you..."  

This was torture! 

And just when I thought Greetings of Yuletide Cheer were complete, my Oma and Opa opened the door, and we were back on the “Merry Christmas”-Go-Round!  Kisses.  Hugs.  Kisses.  Hugs.  Spin.  Repeat.

It would be another 53 minutes and 13 seconds before I FINALLY got to hug the only thing I really cared about…

MY PRECIOUS! 

Dinner was a blur.  I was completely obsessed with opening that present.  I think somebody said grace.  I pretend prayed.  Eyes closed as cover. 

Why should I pray?  MY prayers had already been answered!

Obviously, I ate all my vegetables.  My parents didn't even have to ask!  ANYTHING to please them.  They were saints!  I said, "Please," and "Thank you,”  and finished my whole plate.  We were all going to church at midnight, and no one wanted to get too full and fall asleep.  I couldn’t fall asleep even if I wanted to!  I waited patiently to be excused.  I couldn’t sit still.  I was anxious.  I was antsy.  I WAS AMPED!!

MY TREASURE! 

I just wanted to rip into that present right then and there, skip church, and play with my game all night!  Until the sun came up!  Me and Santa, battling head-to-head!  Mom serving us muffins in the morning... 

BEST.  CHRISTMAS.  EVER. 

And maybe it was.  After all, I still have what I got from my parents that night.  And I still use it all the time…

But it’s not the video game console.  It wasn’t even a game.

When I finally tore into that present, I was crestfallen.  My heart sank.  I thought my parents had tricked me.  They started laughing at me!  I could feel the blood rushing to my ears… then the big, wet tears… 

THIS ISN’T WHAT I WANTED?  I HATE THIS!           

Later, as I sat in that painful pew at Midnight Mass, I prayed that tomorrow would FINALLY be the day for me…

Prayed for Santa’s Late-Night Special Delivery Service to come through…

Prayed to TRANSFORM THAT DUMB OL’ DICTIONARY I had opened into…

MY INCREDIBLY VICIOUS VIDEO GAME!! 

Please, God?  PLEASE!?  PLEASE!!   

PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzz...  I prayed so hard I finally fell asleep on my mother's shoulder.  My sleepy saliva, like translucent tinsel decorating our Christmas sweaters….

In the end, I had no need to ask for God’s help.  I was lucky enough to be born with wonderful parents who spoiled me on Christmas. 

I got it.

But ask me if I still have that AWESOME-MOST-INCREDIBLY-VICIOUS VIDEO GAME… 

Nope.  I outgrew it by the 9th grade.  Sold it at a yard sale with some stuffed animals... 

But that Dumb Ol' Dictionary helped me all through middle school.  All through high school.  All through college. 

All through graduate school…

And I couldn't have made it (or this) without it!

"out to where but the rocks remain"

"(Talk to Me of) Mendocino"

McGarrigle Sisters

HEADS, I WIN...TAILS, YOU LOSE!

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CHAHAHUI!!

ST. LOUIS & THE BEAT-UP MUSTANGS at BLUE CAFE,

LONG BEACH, 4/9/11

in case you missed it...

THE THINGZ at THE HOUSE OF BLUES, HOLLYWOOD

JANUARY 7, 2011

                                                

BEWARE! THE KOCHTOPUS!

following up my post on the koch brothers...  here's a great video of senator bernie sanders describing the koch brothers 'echo chamber' that repeats and amplifies right-wing orthodoxy until it penetrates mainstream media outlets...

the blame game

(tip o' the energy dome to my colleague linda for the cartoon.)

Q:  who's the only stake-holder in public education that ISN'T held accountable?

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

HOPE YOUR NEW YEAR HAS STARTED OFF AS WELL AS MINE... CHECK IT:
THE THINGZ ARE PLAYING THE HOLLYWOOD HOUSE OF BLUES MAIN STAGE TONIGHT!!
I'M SO EXCITED!!! 
HERE'S A VIDEO SHOT RECENTLY FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO AREN'T GONNA MAKE IT... :)

MERRY XMAS!!

              Live at The Redwood Bar in LA, 12/12/10

actually, this year i DID get what i wanted for xmas:
tickets to today's game versus the heat!  i might be on TV!!
                              GO LAKERS!!!

in case you missed this...

we'll be playing the double down in vegas, january 15...
come rock out with us!

deep thought

i'm reading a biography of louis armstrong to my class.  we were discussing jim crow laws, and one of my students asked:

mr. c, do you think if martin luther king hadn't done what he did for african americans, we'd [latinos] have to drink from different water fountains and go to separate schools too?

hmmm...

memoir recommendation

here's a great memoir i shared with my class on friday called,
"the halloween that ended my childhood," by ann hood.

it's definitely more sophisticated than my christmas piece
(see "the weight of words"), and a bit longer, but a nice mentor text for my students (and me) to learn from nonetheless.

enjoy!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

this week's treasure moment

while discussing a part in ramona the pest where she doesn't want to chase davey, the boy she's spent the last couple of chapters trying to kiss, i had my students write what ramona was thinking, as if they were her.

one of my girls wrote,

i don't need to chase you. in a few years, you'll be chasing me!

so true. 5th graders are hilarious!

harry reid is THE MAN!

i wonder if sharon angle supporters would feel the same way about harry reid if they read this.

after all, he was the guy that actually ran the mob out of las vegas in the late 70's. (remember casino?)

he was a boxer, whose fistfight opponents included his father and father-in-law (the former, after he'd been beating up on his mom, and the latter because he didn't want his daughter to marry harry).

of course he's a hero to liberals (or should be) because he successfully blocked bush from privatizing social security after his 2004 reelection (and before wall street went bust).

but the thing that resonated with me the most was reid's take on meeting bush in the oval office:

"I never went to Kennebunkport as a kid,” Reid recalls. “I never went anywhere. And I’ve got no blue blood in my veins, just some desert sand. So as he and I sat there in the Oval Office, I said little in return.”

there's more, but suffice to say, the caricature of a wimpy, milquetoast, meek guy who needs to "man up,"* is completely destroyed by the facts.


*incidentally, doesn't "man up" mean to go from a zone defense to man-on-man? i don't think these people think so... but maybe i've just been watching too much basketball...

INVASION OF THE BROWN MARMORATED STINK BUGS!!!

i heard about this a few weeks ago when steve benen wrote about them at the washington monthly. i thought it was a very instructive piece about the right-wing agenda in this country, specifically, the reiteration and amplification of reagan's proclamation 30 years ago that, "government is the problem."

according to the washington post, these titular stink bugs (halyomorpha halys) have been destroying enough flora along the eastern seaboard that 15 congressmen have asked the USDA and EPA to step in to help farmers and local industries deal with the problem.

the best part is, of the 15 lawmakers, 8 are republican...

BENEN (9/26/10): In other words, faced with a [sic] environmental problem, the first instinct from conservative Republican politicians is to ask the federal government to do something. Indeed, they're specifically asking for federal bureaucrats to sweep into action and use expanded federal regulations to help people.

Hmm.

There seems to be a bit of disconnect here between Republican ideology and real-world problems. On the one hand, conservative lawmakers like Bartlett hate "big government," the EPA, federal regulations, and government bureaucrats. This year, plenty of GOP candidates are talking about eliminating the EPA, firing parts of the federal workforce, scrapping regulations, and slashing spending on various agencies.

Shouldn't conservative lawmakers, right about now, expect the free market to offer a solution to the stink-bug problem? Why hasn't the GOP offered everyone a tax credit for fly swatters and facemasks? Why aren't Tenthers running around demanding to know where, exactly, the Constitution empowers the federal government to deal with an insect infestation?

there's more, but it always bugs me ::ahem:: when conservatives pretend that government can do no good, that the free market is always the best solution, and that regulations are socialist.

they know better.

yet we've heard this same refrain on a variety of topics--from social security to health care, medicare to medicaid--for the past 30 years from the right-wing.

this just demonstrates that their claims are disingenuous at best.

too bad i can't get the EPA to regulate the stink of THEIR B.S...

a must-read

here's jane mayer's brilliant new yorker expose of the billionaire koch brothers' ever-expanding, increasingly-influential "kochtopus" that has been bank-rolling an anti-democratic agenda (including the current tea party movement) for the last 30 years in our country.

this piece is important to read because these guys prefer to stay anonymous, while very visible "actors" (tv talking heads, politicians, and their supporters) play out the scripts that their think tanks write to forward their pro-business agenda...

it's all very disheartening for someone like myself who believes that the people, not the powerful, should control the destiny of this country.

it's on like donkey kong!

the thingz at "the great pumpkin bash,"
malone's bar & grill
10/15/10

last week's treasure moment

i'm reading ramona the pest to my class. while discussing a part where ramona doesn't want to share with her neighbor, howie, i asked my students to write about a time when they didn't want to share with someone...

here's what i found in one of my student's reader's response notebook:

i like to share because sometimes i don't have the stuff that i need...

sweet and an independent thinker! i love my class this year!!

The Weight of Words

Many families have Christmas traditions. Some families open presents on Christmas Eve. Some wait until morning. In our family, Santa always made late-night deliveries, so we'd awake to find heretofore unseen treasures on Christmas morn. But on Christmas Eve, my parents would always allow my sisters and me to open one present. It was the best part of the night, after delicious dinner and before boring church. Of course I'd have already picked out the "best" present to unwrap hours before. I'd use a very scientific method: whichever one was the heaviest.

One year a mysterious box appeared early in the evening. And even though for the entire month of December I had been ever-so-attentive to the quantity of presents always present (as any 10-year-old worth his/her suburban salt would be), suddenly, there it was. Beaming beneath the lighted tree. So just as the Aunts and Uncles, in their church clothes with their polite gifts, arrived and embraced Mom & Dad, I seized my opportunity...

...I picked up the box and shook it!

THUMP! THUMP!!THUMP!!! :::GASP:::

It's from my parents...

It's got to be that game console!

Then, as quickly as I had grabbed it, I shoved the present back under the tree, just in time to greet the arriving family members without arousing suspicion. Just act normal. Just be cool. Calm. Collected.

That seemed impossible now.

I didn't even hear what Aunt Barbara and Uncle Jay said as they squeezed the Merry Christmas out of me. I'm quite sure it was something about how handsome I was/How much I'd grown/How they remembered when I... blah, blah, blah, blah, blah... I didn't care. All I could think about was that present! Then Grandma and Grandpa arrived, and the whole ritual repeated all over again. "Look how handsome you are/How much you've grown/I remember when you..." This was torture! And just when I thought Greetings of Yuletide Cheer were complete, my Oma and Opa opened the door, and we were back on the “Merry Christmas”-Go-Round! It would be another 53 minutes and 13 seconds before I FINALLY got to hug the only thing I really cared about at that point... My Precious!

Dinner was a blur. I was completely obsessed with opening that present. I think somebody said grace, but I was pretend praying, eyes closed only to cover my covetous thoughts. Why should I pray? My prayers had already been answered. Obviously, I ate my vegetables--anything to please my Suddenly-Saintly Parents--they didn't even have to ask. I said, "Please," and "Thank you," and sat still even though I was feeling antsy. My TREASURE! We were all going to church at midnight, so we didn't want to get too full and fall asleep. But I would never fall asleep. I was too amped! I just wanted to rip into that present right then and there, skip church, and play with my game all night till the first light of Christmas day! Me and Santa, battling head-to-head, Mom serving us muffins in the morning...

BEST. CHRISTMAS. EVER.

And maybe it was. After all, I still have what I got from Mom & Dad that night. And I still use it all the time.

But I didn't think so when I finally tore into it after dinner. I was crestfallen. I thought my parents had tricked me.

Later, as I sat in that painful pew at Midnight Mass, paying little heed to the impending Birth of Our Baby Savior, I prayed that tomorrow would FINALLY be The Big Day for me. Prayed for Christmas Day Redemption. Prayed to turn water into wine... to transform that Dumb Ol' Deceptively Heavy Dictionary into my INCREDIBLY VICIOUS VIDEO GAME! Please, God? PLEASE!? PLEASE!! PLEeeeezzzzzzzzzz... I prayed so hard I finally fell asleep on my mother's shoulder, my sleepy saliva, like translucent tinsel decorating our Christmas sweaters. At least I would provide the Preacher some Sunday morning sermon material for the following week (Typically, the least-attended Sunday of the year, so the "We're-all-children-of-God-resting-on-His-shoulders" fluff sermon wasn't heard by many besides my family and me). I guess in my passionate pleading to The Almighty to RECEIVE, I ended up GIVING after all.

And isn't that what Christmas should be about?

Ultimately, I had no need for divine intervention beyond being lucky enough to be born with wonderful parents who spoiled me on Christmas. But ask me if I still have that Awesome, Most-Viciously Gnarly Video Game… Nope. I outgrew it by the 9th grade. But that Dumb Ol' Dictionary helped me all through Middle & High School, College and Graduate School, and I couldn't have made it (or this) without it!

Nick & Elvis in SF!

nick lowe, great american music hall, 10/1/10


elvis costello, great american music hall, 10/1/10

The Clouds Live in the LA River

nevermind.

sorry.

hope to transmit again soon...

i'm baaaaaaaaaack

testing. testing. 1, 2. 1, 2. is this thing on?

it's about to be.

more soon...

long beach green festival

The Sky


the clouds @ green festival, 5/9/09

here's what i did instead of working in my classroom on saturday. we played on the "fire stage" at the "art park" on elm and broadway. it was a lot of fun... better than working in my classroom!