Sticking out

Okay, I've made the point in my last post that  I pretty much blend into the scenery. So I figured I probably should give "sticking out" some attention just to be fair.

Again, it's not that I want to stick out. I'm a card carrying introvert. Well technically my card says, Marketing Director, but trust me, I am by definition, an introvert.

Definition of introvert
1 : something (such as the retractile proboscis of some worms) that is or can be drawn in especially by invagination
2 : one whose personality is characterized by introversion; especially : a reserved or shy person who enjoys spending time alone 

Okay, I don't have a retractile proboscis, so I am by the second definition above, an introvert. Though I wouldn't really characterize myself as shy, but I do like spending time alone. I hate crowds, meetings, flying coach on airplanes, standing in lines, parades, concerts, fairs, festivals, popular movies, or anything else that puts me in proximity to lots of people.

I'm not particularly fond of meeting new people, small talk, riding public transit or elevators, either. And I believe I've expressed a few times, my fear of those people who hand out samples in grocery stores.

I realize this makes me seem like a major whack job.

Blending in

I will be the first one to admit that there is nothing striking about my physical presence. I'm not young or particularly good looking. Heredity has not given me an athletic build either. I'm not tall. I'm not short. I'm not a big man nor a small one.

If you walked into a room full of people, you would very likely not notice me. I doubt any of the people who I commute with on a regular basis via the train would be able to tell you I am a regular commuter.

It is not my intent to just blend in, but I do. I guess if the truth were told, I wouldn't want to stick out. I don't particularly like to draw attention to myself. I never have.

I do fancy myself as being a writer. And if I were to garner any attention to myself I would want it to be for my writing. If people like your writing, they don't care what you look like. I imagine if I were a famous writer, I would take the same path as J.D. Salinger or other reclusive authors. I can tell you that you wouldn't catch me at a bookstore doing any readings of my latest work. For one, I think my work is best read silently to one's self.

I also think it is better to create a sense of mystery about yourself if you are a writer. Years ago I wrote about meeting one of my favorite authors (at least back then) Mark Helprin at a book signing. I'd built him up in my mind as being this mystical figure imparting wisdom to his followers. I left the book signing disillusioned. I don't think I've read any of his books since.

A lot of the times when I'm writing I halfway pretend I'm talking (writing) to a friend who actually enjoys my company and my stories. That used to be easier when I had a larger group of people who commented on what I'd written. These days it feels more like I'm sitting in a room muttering to myself.

Chain saw

I spent about six hours on Sunday using a chain saw to cut up half an Alder tree that split in half and fell on the slope in my backyard.  It wasn't pretty.

This was not my first venture into the realm of the lumber jack. About 13 years ago I blogged about my saga with having a tree service from hell cut down two trees in my back yard and the months I spent trying to get rid of the wood. That involved a great deal of splitting wood, but no chain saw.

I've tried on various occasions to describe the wild slope of property that is my backyard. Although it is cool to have half a stream (it flows into a very unpicturesque culvert half way across my property line) flow at the foot of the slope it provides the environment for wild plants and trees attracted to the water supply. This is not Christopher Robin's idyllic half acre wood.  We are talking red alder trees, some fir trees, a few cedar and lots of Rhododendrons.

And of course pervasive ivy, blackberry vines, horse tails, morning glory and monster weeds. The ivy has grown up the trunks of many of the alder trees. I believe that is the reason the particular tree that had split in two and fallen across my ancient fence. It had been overcome by ivy and fallen apart.

Normally, I would have left the fallen tree alone. But a good part of it had, as I said, fallen across my fence and was sticking out on the sidewalk. I still would have ignored it if I didn't worry that someone would complain to the city and I would have been ordered to do something about it like pay a tree service to remove it.

I don't like or trust tree services after my run in with them over a decade ago. I also don't want to pay one a fortune to do what I am perfectly capable of doing. So I did the sensible thing and ordered an electric chain saw on Amazon.

No write turns

It gets harder and harder to find a play on words that is unique or at least hasn't been used by umpteen other people. The write stuff, write on, two wrongs don't make a write and divine write were all used to death. So I had to settle for "No write turns." It only showed up in some posts about typos.

Damn you Google!

Not that "No write turns" makes any sense. But at least it is now uniquely my play on words. I suppose it could have some political ramifications as in don't turn politically right when you write.

Yeah, that's what I was going for.

My son is quickly learning the lesson about the shortage on original thought, too. Yesterday he was excited because he thought he came up with the phrase "Are you kitten me?" Then we Googled it and found there were thousands of uses of the phrase including on t-shirts and coffee mugs. They even took it to the next level with "Are you kitten me, right meow?"

Oh well, it is better to crush his creative spirit at a young age than to have him get to my age and realize the best you can come up with is "No write turns." I've had my share of heartbreaks with word play, mind you. My kids were playing at a school playground a few weeks ago and were climbing on the monkey bars when I had this cool idea for a bar called the Monkey Bar.

Hundreds already exist, including photos of monkeys drinking at a bar.

Losing self-eh-steam

 I wrote her off for the tenth time today
And practiced all the things I would say
But she came over I lost my nerve
I took her back and made her dessert  

Now I know I'm being used
That's okay because I like the abuse
I know she's playing with me
That's okay 'cause I've got no self-esteem 

Self Esteem,  The Offspring

I watched a short video on Facebook this morning while waiting for my train. It was on a channel called Obsessions that is produced by the New Yorker.  This episode was titled Selfies, Millennials, and Narcissism. The premise was that the self-esteem movement of the 90s has led to a generation of depressed narcissists. 

Apparently the problem began when we started telling our kids (and ourselves) that they were special and could accomplish anything. And low and behold when our kids (and ourselves) discover that that may not be the case, they (or we) become despondent.

Social media has exacerbated this problem by making people think that everyone else is having a better time than they are. And the plethora of carefully staged and filtered selfies is further distorting people's self-image issues. 

Though I would argue this is not a new problem. When I was growing up it was the fact that everyone in magazines, on television and in the movies were better looking and in better shape than I was. This was actualized by the fact that elite in my schools were always jocks and cheerleaders, elevated in social status because of their looks and physical abilities.

The last movie star

Blogger's note: I wrote this post about Burt Reynolds' last movie back in June. I am glad that he had an opportunity to make it before he died on September 6, 2018. RIP Burt!

I stumbled upon a film on Amazon Prime called The Last Movie Star starring an 82-year old Burt Reynolds essentially playing himself as an 82-year old former film star faded into obscurity. Reynolds character is invited to an independent film festival in Nashville to receive a lifetime achievement award. Upon arriving at the festival and being put up in an Econo-Lodge he discovers that the film festival takes place in a bar and the organizers are two Millennials who really just liked his old films.

The film is interspersed with clips from Burt Reynolds' actual films like Smokey and the Bandit and Deliverance. It was eerie seeing the 82-year-old Reynolds next to his 40-something self on the big screen. Once again I was struck at how much harder it must be for movie stars to face aging while records of their young, attractive selves are out their rubbing their lost youth in their faces.

Critics were not overly kind to the film, using phrases like "overly sentimental" and "strikes a note of banality" in their reviews. I find that ironic. I imagine those reviews were written by people who have yet to face aging. Because aging is fraught with sentimentality and banality. I'd like to revisit those critics when they are shuffling alone in their walkers lost in their own banal existences and getting all misty eyed about when they were once a film critic.

Although, other than Siskel and Ebert I couldn't even tell you the name of another critic. Because they are like ticks feeding on the carcases of the famous.

Weary bones

I thought about reprising my post about one of my favorite songs of late (Wolves by Down Like Silver,) but no one seemed to pay much attention to that post (which is a strong indication that no one cares what I listen to on Pandora...though it is a great song). But the songs I've been drawn to of late seem to indicate that I'm more aware than normal that my bones are weary.

I will note here that there is an indie alternative folk trio from Longmont, Colorado called "Weary Bones." But I am referring to my actual weary bones both literally and figuratively. The weary bones in my hands I attribute to the amount of yard work I've done in the past few weeks. The weary bones in my legs and feet I attribute to the 5k run I did with my daughter last Saturday that I didn't know I was going to participate in until the morning of the race (long story).

The general, overall weary bones I'm experiencing I attribute to aging. And when I stepped off the elliptical machine this afternoon it dawned on me that that aspect of my life isn't going to change. It's where the trite old saying, "I ain't getting no younger" comes from.

I don't know why that should be such an epiphany. We're born. We get older. We die. It's a given. Yet we, or at least I, hold out hope that I'll be the exception to the rule. That I'll wake up one day and my bones won't be weary. My hair will be brown again and my face will match the mental image I'm staring out through.

Maybe that is where the myth of heaven comes from. You imagine that when your spirit leaves your body you glide into the light and are reunited with all of your friends and family who passed before you. I guess I just have always fantasized that I wouldn't have to wait until I died.

Minifigure of speech

I think having a Lego minifigure of myself would be kind of cool. And I imagine you could pay to have one made, but it wouldn't be the same as actually being a bonafide minifigure. Because it isn't really an authentic minfigure unless Lego makes a shitload of them and people want to collect it.

So I'm just putting it out there to Lego and the universe that I would make a pretty bitching grumpy old man minifigure. I would be the perfect addition to your Lego town. My minifigure would be yelling at kids to get off his lawn or yelling at the neighbors to stop setting off fireworks or he would call the police.

If my father had had a minifigure, his would have been yelling at the neighbors not to race up and down the alley on their motorcycle. That was his grumpy old many gig. I don't have an alley so I don't yell at motorcycles too much.

But I suppose there really wouldn't be much of a market for a grumpy old man minifigure that looks like me. I seriously doubt that even my kids would want one. They see me all the time anyway and think minifigures only exist for superheros and famous people.

The other day my daughter was writing out a list of famous people like Alexander Hamilton, Albert Einstein and Mark Twain. I am not sure why she was making a list of famous people. Anyway, I asked her if I was on the list and she told me no, because I wasn't famous. My son pretty much agreed.

So you see my kids  wouldn't see the point in a minifigure of me.

But I still think it would be cool.

What's in a name?

I was playing Russian Roulette with movies on Netflix while working out and watched a documentary called The Strange Name Movie. Here's Netflix's description of it:

"Ordinary people with extraordinary names open up about the ridicule, judgment and rewards that come with having an attention-grabbing moniker. What's in a name? Plenty, especially for the likes of Al Dente, Stuart Putz, Jeanine Cobbledick and Linda Slutsky."

I thought this would be a stretch to create a documentary about, but I'll be damned if all 52 minutes of it wasn't highly entertaining. Maybe it is because I have a sophomoric sense of humor and love the fact that someone would name their kid Tim Burr, Donald Duck (Senior, Junior and the Third) or Ronald McDonald.

There was also a guy named Paul McCartney who married a woman named Linda. And there was Asian American gentleman named Donald Sutherland who enjoyed the disappointed looks on hostesses faces when he made a reservation at a restaurant and they were anticipating Donald Sutherland the actor. There was also a young man named Bond, James Bond.

Who lives, who dies, who tells your story

But when you’re gone, who remembers your name?
Who keeps your flame, who tells your story?  

Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story,  Lin-Manuel Miranda

Good question. I suppose I do. Oh, not after I'm gone. But now, through this blog, in bits and pieces. My story is woven in and out of the posts. You can find little tidbits of my life and thoughts.

Not that that is why I started blogging. It just started evolving that way. Because, if nothing else, I think I am a pretty good storyteller. And since I am not famous and not constantly shadowed by the press looking for trivia about my life, it falls to me to tell my story. But for the life of me though, I don't know why anyone cares about the lives of famous people anyway.

I've written before about wishing that I had more of my parent's stories. My father died before I thought to ask him what his story was. And I waited too long to ask my mother. By the time I did, much of it had faded from her mind.

My children will at least have my blog. For what that is worth. They may not care. I occasionally try and tell them what it was like for me growing up or at various stages in my life. But I think it is the nature of youth not to hear such stories. At least when I'm gone, and if they want to know, this blog will be there...or somewhere...for them to find out.

Not my own private Idaho

Through an odd twist of fate, I have over the years returned to the place I was born on business. When my mother was still alive, it entailed carving out time to visit her and taking her out for at least one dinner. In the years since she died, I haven't had the opportunity much to go back to Boise on business. I was pulled to other places like Los Angeles or Burbank to produce video ads.

But another opportunity came up and I just returned from a few days and nights in Boise shooting some video for a new ad campaign. The shoot took me into parts of Boise that are charming and give one the impression that the entire city is like that. But it was nothing like the parts of the city I grew up in. I tried explaining this to the people I was with, but they essentially just shrugged.

It is difficult to explain that, despite the changes, Boise will always be haunted by the specter of growing up there. Being a tourist there is one thing. But living there is another. Once you get out of the downtown and the higher income neighborhoods, you're left with strip malls and tract homes from the 50s. It is a flat, sprawling place.

And I wouldn't say I had a bad childhood. Nor did I have more than my fair share of teen-aged angst. I just felt compelled in my early 20s to run as far from the place as I could get knowing I'd be mired there unless I did.

Now granted, I did enjoy the slower pace on this trip. Seattle has become a hectic city. It is fraught with crowds, traffic,  and homelessness. It is expensive to live here. So the thought did occur to me, "What if..." But then I remind myself that Boise is landlocked and conservative. I don't want my children growing up there.

But it is a nice place to visit.

Wizard of odd

On this day in 1856,  Lyman Frank Baum (who went by L. Frank Baum because he didn't like his first name), the man who wrote The Wizard of Oz was born.  He died 63 years later on May 6 in Hollywood. His last words to his wife were "Now we can cross the Shifting Sands."

After writing the Wizard of Oz, Baum liked to spend winters at the Del Coronado Hotel near San Diego, California. Coincidentally, there was lots of shifting sands at the Del. Also coincidentally, my wife and I spent a few nights at the Del Coronado before we got married, had kids and couldn't afford such luxury.

Taking care of business

As I write this post, I am watching the second part of a two-part documentary on HBO called, Elvis Presley: The Searcher. I have watched many documentaries about Elvis. I have read many books about his life. But having just go back from my first trip to Graceland in March, watching this documentary has been a different experience.

I had seen many photos of Graceland. I have a miniature model of Graceland that I set up under my Elvis tree each Christmas. But hokey as it sounds, there is just nothing like actually being there in person. The images I see in the documentary are now familiar places I've stood and experienced.

Artificial Intelligence

ar·ti·fi·cial

ˌärdəˈfiSHəl/

adjective

1. 1.

   made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, typically as a copy of something natural.

   
   

   "her skin glowed in the artificial light"

   • 
     

     
     
2. 2.

   (of a person or a person's behavior) insincere or affected.

   
   

   "an artificial smile"

   
   

My wife was asking Siri a question on her iPhone and Siri referred to her as Teresa.  She prefers to be called Tess, so she told Siri to "Call me Tess, not Teresa." Siri then started referring to her literally as "Tess not Teresa." It took us awhile, but we eventually convinced Siri to just call her "Tess."

I haven't had that problem with Siri. We don't talk too much. I talk to Alexa more often. But she hasn't graduated to calling me anything. She actually seems a bit distant. Or perhaps she just seems that way because I've given her a British accent. And I don't really say much to her other than "Turn on Elvis" (which is the name of the lamp I've programmed to be controlled by Alexa). She generally just turns on the lamp and responds, "Okay." Or sometimes she doesn't turn on the lamp and says, "I can't find office." This can lead to a prolonged argument about my pronunciation that ends with me just reaching over and turning on the lamp manually.

I imagine Artificial Intelligence, or AI, will eventually be a bit less artificial and a bit more intelligent. But I suppose then instead of just turning on the lamp Alexi will say, "Do it yourself, I'm busy...you are just like your lazy brother Dan."

I can hardly wait.

Found in translation

On the same day I posted my Lost in translation post, an anonymous person left a comment on a post I made on election day 2016 (If this is Tuesday then there must be an election). Ironically it wasn't in English. It was a single sentence:  Depois, coloque ácido salicílico sobre as verrugas. At first I though it was Spanish so I ran it through a Spanish translator. It came back with "Depois, put salicylic acid on the warts." I Googled "Depois," the one word that didn't translate and discovered it is a Portuguese word for "afterward."

So I ran the phrase through a Portuguese translator and it gave me the English translation "Then put salicylic acid on the warts." Random as this comment is, I decide to approve it because it has been awhile since anyone has commented and I wanted to give this one the benefit of the doubt and hope anonymous was metaphorically suggesting that "warts" are Trump followers (since the post was about the stupidity of Trump and his followers) and we should put salicylic acid (a treatment for acne) on them. Either that or this was from an oddly stupid spammer who forgot to enter a link to his site that sells salicylic acid. If that is the case, I politely suggested in English, "Que seus genitais caiam."  This is Portuguese for "May your genitals fall off."

Maybe I am bi-lingual after all.

Lost in translation

I will be the first one to admit that I do not have an affinity for learning other languages. Perhaps it is because learning English took it all out of me. Oh, I took two years of German in high school and a semester in college.  But beyond telling some one to "listen and repeat," counting to ten and asking you if you'd like to drink lemonade, nothing stuck. Oh, and I can say, "durch, für, gegen, ohne, um" (which means "by, for, up, to, without"). A group of us from Herr Haddock's German class turned it into a cheer at Basketball games for some reason.

I am not even sure why I tried to learn German. I've never been to Germany and I don't have a burning desire to go to Germany. I have, however, spent a great deal of time in Spanish speaking countries, so it would have been more productive to me to try and learn Spanish. Though I can also count to ten in Spanish, ask where the men's room is and order more beer.  And I didn't have to spend three years in a class room learning it.

It's not that I wouldn't love to be fluent in another language. I envy people who have mastered more than one language. It's just that I was never very good at diagramming sentences and grammar in English so trying to make the leap to grammar in another language was just too much. Plus I could never get the hang of formal and informal pronouns.

What if the Bard had a Blog?

I knoweth not about oth'r playwrites, but i spendeth not a most wondrous dealeth of timeth crafting mine own prose. Although i usually not sitteth down and hamm'r one out in five minutes, i rarely spendeth m're than a few minutes h're and th're during a day to writeth one. And i m're rarely ev'r doth a lot of rewriting 'r deleting. So, although mine own prose may not all beest most wondrous art, those gents art f'r the most parteth genuine

But oft,  i catcheth myself being extremely self-conscious. And i'm quaint sure t shows in mine own writing. I starteth w'rrying about being too negative 'r repetitive. I tryeth to soften stuffeth 'r int'rject a self-depreciating jab. And all of this happeneth at which hour i starteth to bethink i'm writing f'r an audience instead of f'r myself

Well enow, i've been writing f'r almost a fourteen years. And occasionally i've hadst regular readeth'rs. But exp'rience hast did teach me yond v'ry rarely doth regular readeth'rs stayeth regular readeth'rs. I can only guesseth at the reasons without wallowing too far into self-doubt and blaming t on mine own writing. F'r the most parteth i bethink t is just a byproduct of the way life is anon. Th're art just too many things tugging on our attention spans to focus on aught too longeth

Time is full of gopher holes

I was reading one of my past blog posts, (The blog/time continuum) that deals with the concept of people popping in and out of a blog (and your life) and only getting snippets of who you are at any given time and place. You can read it yourself if you want to get the full cosmic flavor.

But the image of people popping into your life at random points conjured up the image of gophers popping in and out of gopher holes. Or perhaps it is more like a metaphysical Whac-a-Mole game (because there are many times in my life where I wanted to whack people out of my life [figuratively, of course]). At other times I've wanted to reach in the gopher (or mole) hole and pull people back in who have disappeared for no apparent reason (but not in scary, stalker kind of way).

Maybe I should drag a groundhog into this analogy as well. Because they pop out of their hole and run scurrying away if they see a shadow. Or perhaps I should use my old nemesis the mountain beaver since I have a great deal more experience with them than gophers and groundhogs. But mountain beavers would be more relevant for people who pop into your life and just won't go away (kind of like relatives, Jehovah's Witnesses or timeshare salespeople).

But I digress with a lugubrious howl.

Monkey business improvised

I've come to the conclusion that blogging is writing's version of improv. Or at least the way I've always approached it. I rarely spend more than an hour or so writing a blog post. Sometimes a seed of a thought pops into my head and I start writing. So it kind of approaches real time writing. If I actually had a real time audience reading as I wrote, it would truly be blog-prov.

Computers changed writing the way Gutenberg's press changed the way people accessed writing. It definitely changed the way I approached writing. Writing with a pen or pencil was slow and cumbersome. Typewriters were a bit better, but still you were at the mercy of typos and white out. The first time I experienced word processing and the ability to write almost as quickly as I think, I knew the world had changed forever. Or at least my world.

Let the wolves enjoy my bones

When I die, let the wolves enjoy my bones
When I die, let me go
When I die, let the wolves enjoy my bones
When I die, let me go  

When I die, you can push me out to sea
When I die, set me free
When I die, let the sharks come round to feed
When I die, set me free

Oh the world is dark,
and I've looked as far I can see
When the years have torn me apart.
Let me be  

When I die, let the flames devour me
When I die, set me free
When I die, throw my ashes to the breeze
When I die, scatter me  

Whole world is dark, and I've looked as far as I can see
When the years have torn me apart 

Let me be
Let me be
Let me be
Let me be 

Daylight is waiting for you
Daylight is waiting for you
Daylight is waiting for you
Daylight is waiting for you

--Down Like Silver, Wolves

I have been listening to Pandora a lot lately.  Sure, I have to listen to ads and I can't listen to the exact songs I like, but I can listen to songs that are similar to the songs I like. And that is how I discover gems like the song above that I am obsessed with. It's by singing duo Down Like Silver. It is a haunting song that apparently came out in 2011. But I just discovered it and wonder why the world isn't listening to it. They have other great songs, including one called, Idaho (go figure...neither of them is from Idaho). But Wolves is the one that messes with my soul.