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Proving that inevitable and justified are two different words.
NOTE:If this is like everything else on this site, it will change, even disappear without notice or logic.
NOTE 2: Website Boogaloo-- This site is created in Yahoo Pagebuilder (fancy!) and tested in Firefox. It looks
great in Firefox, and does well in Safari, so they tell me. I've tried changing the format to make it work in
Explorer, but it has become obvious it will either look like I want it to in Firefox and messed up in Explorer, or
kind of lame in both, so the 85% of people using Explorer are out of luck. You can get Firefox here. Free.
You'll love it.
great in Firefox, and does well in Safari, so they tell me. I've tried changing the format to make it work in
Explorer, but it has become obvious it will either look like I want it to in Firefox and messed up in Explorer, or
kind of lame in both, so the 85% of people using Explorer are out of luck. You can get Firefox here. Free.
You'll love it.
June 30, 2005-
So, a couple days behind, but at least I have stuff to report. Most of it revolves around the Automatons movie, in fact, I can
almost guarantee all of it will, as I will be tired and sick of posting by then. Another meeting of the minds at Poopaliscious
Studios, this time with a real purpose; the cover art/poster photo shoot. Why we need to do this now, wiser men than I could
tell you. I believe it has something to do with advance marketing and hype and the fact that the "Off Season" dvd box art
has turned into such a m-f-ing debacle. So, the good news: this meeting had girls!!! If you've ever worked in either the horror
or sci-fi worlds, you know how rare this is. Did the presence of those odd chromosomes have the power to quell a
comparative Batman discussion?
No.
But it did keep some of the swearing down, for a while.
This was the first time any of us but Jim had met Christine Spencer, the lead...no...lets just say it...Star of "Death to the
Automatons" and more importantly, this was the first time she had been exposed to us. She was an absolute trooper and let
us off the hook after one or two really indecent things were said around her. I didn't ask but she seems like she was raised
around older brothers. She now has 5 more. Heaven help her.
She really made the grade when we all went to Enid's afterward, a bar that has begun serving an excellent dinner. Asked
what we'd like to drink to start off with, we all deferred to the very petite young woman.
"Jack on the rocks with a splash of Coke."
Case closed.
So, a couple days behind, but at least I have stuff to report. Most of it revolves around the Automatons movie, in fact, I can
almost guarantee all of it will, as I will be tired and sick of posting by then. Another meeting of the minds at Poopaliscious
Studios, this time with a real purpose; the cover art/poster photo shoot. Why we need to do this now, wiser men than I could
tell you. I believe it has something to do with advance marketing and hype and the fact that the "Off Season" dvd box art
has turned into such a m-f-ing debacle. So, the good news: this meeting had girls!!! If you've ever worked in either the horror
or sci-fi worlds, you know how rare this is. Did the presence of those odd chromosomes have the power to quell a
comparative Batman discussion?
No.
But it did keep some of the swearing down, for a while.
This was the first time any of us but Jim had met Christine Spencer, the lead...no...lets just say it...Star of "Death to the
Automatons" and more importantly, this was the first time she had been exposed to us. She was an absolute trooper and let
us off the hook after one or two really indecent things were said around her. I didn't ask but she seems like she was raised
around older brothers. She now has 5 more. Heaven help her.
She really made the grade when we all went to Enid's afterward, a bar that has begun serving an excellent dinner. Asked
what we'd like to drink to start off with, we all deferred to the very petite young woman.
"Jack on the rocks with a splash of Coke."
Case closed.
Larry calls his agent on his new cell phone.
Janeane, the Robot Builder Extraordinarie, goes over the preliminary
designs with Jim. She brought in some possible materials and parts, took
measurements and was embarrassingly pro.
designs with Jim. She brought in some possible materials and parts, took
measurements and was embarrassingly pro.
I get to try out parts of what will become my
sweltering, man-sized prison.
sweltering, man-sized prison.
Janeane indulges Jim as he explains his handiwork.
He built this arm for the photo shoot.
He built this arm for the photo shoot.
Jim begins every meeting with a moment of silent robot prayer. It's part of his "method".
Assistant Director Jeremiah Kipp, always on
the lookout for joy that needs killin'
the lookout for joy that needs killin'
...and it is not even plugged in....
prepping
These were all set to 11 for the shoot.
Shooting.
June 27 2005-
The truly oppressive nature of blog update responsibility is beginning to dawn on me. Now I know why they all have RSS
feeds built in. Then it becomes more of a "when I've got something, I'll send it to you" thing. To be frank, not perfectly
frank, but as frank as one can be in public, most of the stuff on my mind is just not grist for this mill. Even a medium so
unapologetically self-indulgent as this one has limits. At least limits as to what I'd want to read, and if I can't hold myself
to that standard, whats the use?
So here are some inanities:
The Station Agent and City of God arrived from Netflix (you do have netflix...?) and both lived up to their hype, as did
Touching the Void.
Why does Patricia Clarkson not get all Helen Hunt's jobs? It's indecent.
On Saturday I helped my friend Finn with a counter top installation job in Jersey, which ended up being a long day, but
mellow, and it looked good. He does installations for this company installing a material called Richlite, It's really neat
stuff, about 1.000 sheets of paper put under immense pressure with a bunch of polymers or something and squeezed to 3/4
of an inch thick. It's super hard without being brittle and can be milled with woodworking tools, (though it eats bits and
blades like Skittles) It's always cool to learn about a new product and how it works. And Finn is a Top Shelf Finish
Carpenter and Fancy Tool Whore, so it's nice to get a look in his tool bag and see what's out there.
The truly oppressive nature of blog update responsibility is beginning to dawn on me. Now I know why they all have RSS
feeds built in. Then it becomes more of a "when I've got something, I'll send it to you" thing. To be frank, not perfectly
frank, but as frank as one can be in public, most of the stuff on my mind is just not grist for this mill. Even a medium so
unapologetically self-indulgent as this one has limits. At least limits as to what I'd want to read, and if I can't hold myself
to that standard, whats the use?
So here are some inanities:
The Station Agent and City of God arrived from Netflix (you do have netflix...?) and both lived up to their hype, as did
Touching the Void.
Why does Patricia Clarkson not get all Helen Hunt's jobs? It's indecent.
On Saturday I helped my friend Finn with a counter top installation job in Jersey, which ended up being a long day, but
mellow, and it looked good. He does installations for this company installing a material called Richlite, It's really neat
stuff, about 1.000 sheets of paper put under immense pressure with a bunch of polymers or something and squeezed to 3/4
of an inch thick. It's super hard without being brittle and can be milled with woodworking tools, (though it eats bits and
blades like Skittles) It's always cool to learn about a new product and how it works. And Finn is a Top Shelf Finish
Carpenter and Fancy Tool Whore, so it's nice to get a look in his tool bag and see what's out there.
A Little Something for the Sweltering:
East River Park from the Williamsburg Bridge a few months ago.
The Black Canyon (?) I think, in Colorado around Christmas.
June 26, 2005-
The subject of PBS, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and their funding came up on the site forums recently and a
poster quoted one of their friends who was against CPB funding:
"...she didn't want to pay what minuscule part of her taxes was going to PBS. Her reasoning was that if we did away with
PBS, any of the worthwhile shows on it would get absorbed by cable channels, which she is paying for, anyway."
I started to reply and got so carried away it seemed more appropriate to put it here:
This is how many people feel about the percentage of their taxes going to defense. If you did away with the defense
department, any of the worthwhile fighting it does would be paid for directly by the corporations who rely on stability for
their profits, which we are paying for anyway. I wonder how she'd feel about that.
Coming at this ridiculous argument from a more educational perspective, as probably befits a discussion of the CPB; her
solution only works if "worthwhile" and "profitable" are equal. Our country has been extremely successful operating under
the assumption that those are two important, separate concepts that need to be brought into balance. You can't buy a
newspaper on any given day that doesn't note, somewhere, news of a battle on where that balancing point should be.
Anyone should be able to reason that out.
An element that seems obvious to me, living in one of TV's company towns, but which I kind of just realized may not be
obvious to anyone is this: Many of the "worthwhile" shows on PBS are just that [i]because[/i] they are [b]not[/b]profitable.
You meet television people here like you meet engineers or fishermen in other towns and I can't tell you how many times
I've heard the same sort of history. Many of these people got into TV after growing up in the early days of cable and the
Discovery Channel, when these channels were filled with documentaries on incredible animals, research, places and
people around the world. What an amazing job it would be to work on television like that! Learning something every day,
traveling...
So they go to school and work like mad people, trying to prepare for this extremely competitive world.
Then suddenly there were three, four, ten times as many channels, all competing for the same amount of advertising
dollars. Worse, Tivo and hundreds of other channels to skip to during breaks make television advertising less effective than
it once was, leading advertisers to put their ad dollars elsewhere. Not only was the pie being sliced into more and more
pieces, it was actually shrinking.
Programs on incredible animals, research, places and people around the world are expensive to produce. Even the most
well meaning networks were left looking at plate presenting a much smaller slice of pie. And with the same
24-hour-programming-day hunger. Reality changed and "reality" television emerged. (Many people look at reality
television as some sort of cultural failing, but I if you look at the above facts regarding the business of television, you can
make the argument this new genre was really more a simple manifestation of changing economic situation, no more a
reflection on our culture than the explosion of small Japanese cars on our streets during the oil crises of the 70's. ) Now the
bizarre condition exists where hundreds of idealistic, highly educated people are working on shows like "Joe Average 2" or
"Wife Swap" because those are the jobs available. It's odd to speak to people with such, I've always thought, interesting
and fairly glamorous jobs and find them so beaten and uninspired, on their way toward intense cynicism.
Far fewer serious, high quality, truly educational documentaries are being made for television, they are just too expensive
to be profitable given the new advertising climate. Cable channels could certainly run "Sesame Street" or "Arthur" and
make money, though you can bet they would change, but most of the "worthwhile" programming would just go away
because nobody in charge of a cable channel could responsibly write the checks needed to keep them going.
In theory, by law, the airwaves are the property of the public. How cheaply we've given them away to companies that make
billions off of television, radio, cell phone communication, what have you, is a rant for another day, but what is relevant
here is that the CPB is one of the few ways in which the government has constructed a method of giving the public the
direct benefit of these airwaves. It needs to be supported. Should the government have to pay for the CPB when all those
companies are cashing in, no (must....not...start...new...rant...).
Anyhoo...
As a p.s., I'm sure some people might think that my participation in a PBS show would make me some sort of homer. That
experience actually made me a lot more cynical about PBS, but didn't damper my enthusiasm for the network that runs
"Nova" and "Frontline" and far more importantly, first exposed me to Monty Python and British Comedy.
June 23, 2005--
Every summer I like to pick up a snappy English pop cd, last year it was Franz Ferdinand, this year it will be The
Futureheads, which I purchased over Itunes, which means time is indeed passing.
I know a few people who spend a lot of time on Internet forums. A lot of time. And I've noticed that these few people I know
tend to write in the same style. Recently, my work time to time-available-to-spend-on-keeping-up-with-my-forums ratio has
tilted toward the latter, (the Next Big 6 Week Job looks like it just went south, so that may not change...), and I've discovered
something unnerving; I'm starting to write in that same style. It's clever, but it's also written from a smug, self satisfied
position of safety. It's show language, really; dolled up, combed, beautifully groomed. Good for absolutely nothing but
prancing around in a circle. Sure, it has its place, but it is a luxury we allow ourselves, like rich food, and to overindulge
leaves one puffed up and riddled with gout.
And here I am, pontificating like an ass, but that is a different luxury, the one I buy when the hosting fee comes due each
month. It is important and interesting, language and how we use it. The act of writing is different from the act of speaking,
which seems like a ridiculously simple statement until you realize we tend to expect the same exact results from both acts.
Especially these days. It used to be that writing something gave it heft. The fact that someone took the time to gather all
the necessary tools, sit down and scribble something out on paper imbued the resulting document with a certain dignity of
purpose. Attics around the world are filled with love letters, letters to parents,letters to children, friends, written by people
long dead. There is handwriting, there are creases and folds, there are physical manifestations, evidence of the existence
of the person and personality who wrote these pages.
Is there anything more sad and lifeless than a Folder on C Drive holding email from exs?
When it comes to personal correspondence, email is the bastard child of Mail and The Telephone. It carries only
characters and spaces, no character or sense of distance. A letter lets you know, before you open it how far it has traveled.
Email from everywhere shows up at the same time, and the advertising doesn't look any different from the good stuff.
I'm not sure one is less themselves writing email than they are writing a letter, but they may be more their immediate self and
therefore necessarily a more superficial self. Whether that is a good or a bad thing is simply up to the situation, the context
and the future. I have had relationships that began with a meeting, followed by a lot of letter writing. Eventually we met
again, and found though we had both been truthful about ourselves in what we wrote, the parts of ourselves we wrote from
had been given safe passage to the fore by the process of writing itself, and could not bear the rough and tumble of every
day life.
So there I go again, starting with condemnation and finding only equivocation in my own damn evidence!
Groomed, combed and prancing uselessly in a circle.
Every summer I like to pick up a snappy English pop cd, last year it was Franz Ferdinand, this year it will be The
Futureheads, which I purchased over Itunes, which means time is indeed passing.
I know a few people who spend a lot of time on Internet forums. A lot of time. And I've noticed that these few people I know
tend to write in the same style. Recently, my work time to time-available-to-spend-on-keeping-up-with-my-forums ratio has
tilted toward the latter, (the Next Big 6 Week Job looks like it just went south, so that may not change...), and I've discovered
something unnerving; I'm starting to write in that same style. It's clever, but it's also written from a smug, self satisfied
position of safety. It's show language, really; dolled up, combed, beautifully groomed. Good for absolutely nothing but
prancing around in a circle. Sure, it has its place, but it is a luxury we allow ourselves, like rich food, and to overindulge
leaves one puffed up and riddled with gout.
And here I am, pontificating like an ass, but that is a different luxury, the one I buy when the hosting fee comes due each
month. It is important and interesting, language and how we use it. The act of writing is different from the act of speaking,
which seems like a ridiculously simple statement until you realize we tend to expect the same exact results from both acts.
Especially these days. It used to be that writing something gave it heft. The fact that someone took the time to gather all
the necessary tools, sit down and scribble something out on paper imbued the resulting document with a certain dignity of
purpose. Attics around the world are filled with love letters, letters to parents,letters to children, friends, written by people
long dead. There is handwriting, there are creases and folds, there are physical manifestations, evidence of the existence
of the person and personality who wrote these pages.
Is there anything more sad and lifeless than a Folder on C Drive holding email from exs?
When it comes to personal correspondence, email is the bastard child of Mail and The Telephone. It carries only
characters and spaces, no character or sense of distance. A letter lets you know, before you open it how far it has traveled.
Email from everywhere shows up at the same time, and the advertising doesn't look any different from the good stuff.
I'm not sure one is less themselves writing email than they are writing a letter, but they may be more their immediate self and
therefore necessarily a more superficial self. Whether that is a good or a bad thing is simply up to the situation, the context
and the future. I have had relationships that began with a meeting, followed by a lot of letter writing. Eventually we met
again, and found though we had both been truthful about ourselves in what we wrote, the parts of ourselves we wrote from
had been given safe passage to the fore by the process of writing itself, and could not bear the rough and tumble of every
day life.
So there I go again, starting with condemnation and finding only equivocation in my own damn evidence!
Groomed, combed and prancing uselessly in a circle.
Automatons Update: Here are some photos of the space as it looked after I returned from Colorado. The boys had been
busy taking apart televisions and made a lot of progress. This was a relief as our first attempt at pulling apart computers,
etc., resulted in a disappointing amount of "set usable" material. Jim was relieved of TV destruction duties after shocking
himself three times. (I always miss the good stuff!) As you can see, Clean Up as a concept hasn't shown up yet, but that'll
change. I have not shown what they've put together so far, as I have not received clearance from Mr. Secrets McKenney.
busy taking apart televisions and made a lot of progress. This was a relief as our first attempt at pulling apart computers,
etc., resulted in a disappointing amount of "set usable" material. Jim was relieved of TV destruction duties after shocking
himself three times. (I always miss the good stuff!) As you can see, Clean Up as a concept hasn't shown up yet, but that'll
change. I have not shown what they've put together so far, as I have not received clearance from Mr. Secrets McKenney.
June 20th, 2005
As one or two (okay, let's just say "half") of you know, I spent a year or so around the turn of the century editing a Maxim rip-
off website called men360.com. Don't bother, it's long gone. The best part of that job was the requirement to add three or
four hundred words of new material every day. Because we didn't actually...what's the word...pay, this responsibility fell on
my shoulders. It taught me a lot of things, most importantly that 3/4 of all the "news" you read , hear or watch is actually
PR. And I learned why. Researching and writing articles is time consuming, and thats one thing editors and reporters
don't have. PR folks make it SOOOOOO easy. Anyway, thats a rant for another day. One of the pieces I actually did
have time to research was on Red Bull, which was just starting to show up all over around that time. I just found the
article, along with a lot of other stuff I wrote then and thought lost forever, on an old hard drive, so expect to see more of
this shameless blog padding in the future.
Here it is, the bracketed instructions are for the web guy, the other employee...
RED BULL STORY
(TITLE?)
(FEATURES)
Call it fate, call it kismet, some things are simply destined to be together, beer and peanuts, Richard and Liz, and our topic
today, Stimulants and Booze. Once a beverage no-man’s-land patrolled sporadically by droll Irish coffees and saucy rum
and cokes, the modern upper/downer region is a bustling international metropolis where attractive, multi-racial “soft” drinks
mix and mingle with their more established alcoholic brethren.
Standing a horned-head above the rest is the now full-fledged sensation, Red Bull. Only a few months ago, it was almost
nowhere, now you can’t pass out anywhere without landing on one of those shiny little cans. Red Bull and Vodka is by far
the most popular concoction going, the classic, laboratory-clean vodka brain-dim being punched up a bit by what the
manufacturer calls the “overall feeling of well-being” associated with their product.
The Cocktail
Thorough testing by the Men360 research team, followed by thorough testing and “What the Hell…another round of
testing, please” found this mixture to be just as pleasant as any other vodka/soft drink combination, excepting of course the
venerable Vodka Tonic. {ITALICS} (Safety Tip: Watch the bartender pour some other sucker’s vodka first. If the bottle is
covered in dust, plastic, 2-liter size, sports an abundance of red and gold on the label or, most appalling of all, is not a
bottle but a button on the soda gun, do yourself a favor and call your vodka off the shelf.) {END ITALICS} If you can get
your barkeep to use a taller glass and a whole can (just 8.3 oz.) of the mixer, so much the better. You will of course pay
more, but hey, you’re worth it.
Congratulations, young man, you have a cocktail in your hand! Why this cocktail? Well it couldn’t be for the vodka, all
you have to do is look to our Russian brothers to see vodka’s implications. It is the only “Gateway Booze”, leading you from
harmless marinated fruits to martinis to dry martinis to gallon bottles of Cossack to squeezed sterno and eventually
dumping you on your knees in a pool of hydraulic fluid with a straw. No, you’re drinking this tincture for the healthful
properties inherent in Red Bull:
q Increased physical endurance—
q Improved reaction speed and concentration—
q Increased mental alertness—
q Increased metabolism
q Elimination of waste substances from the body
Sure, those nattering nabobs of negativism may whine that alcohol reduces physical stamina, slows reaction speed and
concentration, decreases mental alertness and decreases metabolism, but you can proudly claim to have {BOLD}doubled
{END BOLD} your waste elimination, which chicks dig.
The Reason
A night spent in the company of RB&V goes far towards explaining its pattern of distribution. While relatively new to the
US, Red Bull originated during 1987 in Austria, a country that had already made its mark as a supplier of overly-macho
products by previously releasing Arnold Schwarzenegger and World War One. It soon was available all over Europe, South
America, Africa and Australia, with sales rising from one million cans in 1987 to 30 million in 1998. Why has it taken so
long to gain a foothold in America? Because, as any kid back from his summer jaunt across The Continent can tell you,
Americans just do not club like they do in the rest of the world. Unless an American RB&V aficionado lives in New York
State or Florida, he’s most likely going to end up at 2 a.m. with a large buzz on and a heart like a hummingbird, trying to
find out where the hell he should go. Practical by nature, the average American will return the following night to his shot-
and-a-beer standby, leaving the bar staff to finger through his damp, unconscious pockets at 2a.m., trying to find out where
the hell he should go. In Europe, this young man would know exactly where to go…to the next club, to make a braying,
American ass of himself! Clubbing there is way big, way bad and goes way late.
Under these circumstances, the RB&V is a natural choice. Recently, rave culture and its all-nighter drugs have begun
filtering farther into the American mainstream, bringing a demand for after-hours clubs with them. As they have
proliferated, so has the market for Red Bull. The closer you get to the club scene, the more of it you’ll see.
The Way
So just how do they do it? Don’t bother reading the back of the can because amigo, we’ve done it for you, and after
throwing out the Carbonated Water, the Artificial Flavors and the vaguely named “Colors”, we copied the rest onto a piece
of paper. That was easy. Then we tried to find objective information on what these substances were. That was hard, but
not impossible and you can find the results below, listed in the same order they are on the can, from greatest
concentration in the beverage, to least.
{{{{THESE SHOULD ALL BE BUTTONS}}}}
SUCROSE:
The “–ose” suffix is the tip-off here, tagging this little buddy as sugar. In this case, a combo plate of glucose (which has its
own button on the previous page) and fructose. Made from sugar cane or sugar beets, its most primitive form is molasses
and it’s most refined form is white table sugar.
GLUCOSE:
Another of the Atkins-hating “–ose” family, this sugar’s inclusion in the drink is interesting. Glucose is the only sugar that
can be carried in the blood. All the other different sugars that enter your body-any of the “-ose” family-must be converted
to glucose before they can enter the bloodstream, which takes a little time. Glucose does not need to wait in that line and
this{BOLD} sugar {END BOLD}jumps right into your {BOLD}blood{END BOLD}, spiking the hell out of your…you guessed it,
{BOLD}blood sugar{END BOLD}. Which is cool for a while, making you feel energized and focused, but when your body
realizes what’s going on it dumps loads of insulin into your bloodstream to calm things down. In fact, it gets a little crazy
and dumps your blood sugar levels way below where you were before you started all this nonsense. You know…that 20-
minutes-after-a-Krispy-Kreme feeling. You crash. Oh, and all that insulin inhibits your ability to burn fat. It just gets
prettier and prettier…
SODIUM CITRATE:
Here is another interesting one. When absorbed by the body, Sodium Citrate is converted to Sodium Bicarbonate…baking
soda to you and me. It may be in there to neutralize acidity in the drink, as baking soda is broken down by acid,
neutralizing the acid and producing carbon dioxide. That may be why one of the listed side effects of this chemical is
“flatulence”.
TAURINE:
This is what Red Bull hangs its hat on, saying it “acts as a metabolic transmitter and additionally has a detoxifying effect
and strengthens cardiac contractility.” Which very well may be true. Trouble is, there is not a lot of evidence to back that
up.
It is also a little misleading to label it as some sort of miracle additive, as it is the second most common free amino acid in
your body. You’ve got plenty of this stuff hanging around. It’s a little like Gatorade adding a banner on the bottle that says
“With New Ingredient: H2O!” It probably can’t hurt to drink it, but would you pay $5.50 for well vodka and Gatorade?
Vegetarians may have some reason to care, as taurine is found in animal and not vegetable protein but if they make sure
they are balancing their intake of the various proteins they need they’ll be okay because guess what; our liver can make
this stuff! It just needs the right ingredients. The female hormone estradiol depresses the liver’s ability to pull this off, so if
you are a woman or on your way to being one, you may want to find out more about getting the right proteins (methionine
and cysteine for starters). There are some conditions that bring on taurine deficiency, but if you had one you’d know.
There have also been a few studies that show that it suppresses your nervous system, which hardly seems to back up Red
Bull’s claims of heightened awareness but may some day help epileptics. Unfortunately, taurine does not like to cross the
blood-brain barrier, so that day will be a long time coming, if ever. Mostly it just hangs out and helps make bile acid. That’
s right, Red Bull…For Your Best Bile in Years….
{BOLD AND RED}ON A SERIOUS NOTE{END RED}
There are situations in which taurine can be dangerous:{END BOLD}
{ADD A DOT/BULLET} If you are taking an antidepressant that is an MAO (Monoamine Oxidase) Inhibitor, such as but not
limited to Parnate, Nardil, Marplan and Eutonyl.
{ADD A DOT?BULLET} If you have PKU, (Phenylketonuria) a recessive genetic disorder which is nearly universally tested
for at birth. It is a rough one, almost always leading to mental retardation, schizoid changes and convulsions, so if you’re
reading this you don’t have it. Just covering all the bases.
{ADD A DOT/BULLET} If you have Wilson’s disease, a potentially fatal genetic disorder caused by the body’s inability to
metabolize dietary copper.
GLUCURONOLACTONE:
This is a compound formed in the liver when glucose is metabolized, begging the question “Why add it when you’re liver’s
going to be metabolizing like crazy trying to deal with all the glucose that’s already in 8.3 oz. Of Red Bull?” Red Bull says
it is a detoxifier, but we could find no reputable source listing this compound as anything special. On the other hand, no
bad news either.
CAFFEINE:
Almost certainly responsible for 90% of Red Bull’s miraculous restorative powers, this old friend has made a comeback of
late, with many of the old negatives falling to better research and its athletic performance and metabolism benefits being
proven through research. The best thing about caffeine in this situation is that it is the Devil You Know. One can of Red
Bull contains the same amount of caffeine as your average cup of filtered coffee. We’ve all had coffee, we all know what
to expect when we drink one. The highs, the lows, the need for expensive toothpaste…and we know what would happen if
we drank two cups of coffee per hour from 10 pm to 2am on Saturday night…
We’d turn into cops.
INOSITOL:
This is usually lumped-in with B-complex vitamins, but since it is not essential in the human diet, debate still rages as to
whether it should really be considered a vitamin. Reported benefits include fat metabolization, anti-depressant
capabilities, anti-cancer benefits and even the end of thinning hair. Animals fed inositol-deficient diets got fatty livers, but
that has {BOLD} never {END BOLD} been observed in humans. This seems to fall in the same boat as our buddy
glucuronolactone. If somebody is trying to sell it, it will make you happier, hairier, leaner and cancer-free, if you go into a
nutritional chat room it’s the product of a government plot and responsible for mind-control and AIDS. Actual scientists,
however, have never found it to be particularly beneficial{BOLD} or {END BOLD}toxic.
NIACIN:
Also known as Vitamin B3, Niacin helps your body metabolize sugars and fatty acids, helps enzymes function and helps
your body produce energy within your cells. All good. Red Bull contains 100% of the RDA for niacin, somewhere around
{BOLD} 19mg{END BOLD}. Of course, if you by some chance ate a meal at any time during the day you probably already
got your RDA. Niacin occurs in all meats, peanut butter and beans and is added to most enriched and fortified grain
products. If you take a whole lot of Niacin, you’ll get a very unpleasant flushed/burning feeling, but that usually only
occurs when doctors are using it therapeutically at around {BOLD}1000mg{END BOLD}. Don’t sweat it.
D-PANTOTHENOL:
A variation on Pantothenic Acid (Vitamin B5), this compound is used by your body all the time, all over the place. It is
also in all kinds of foods, so if you’re eating, you’re getting enough. It is so ubiquitous they haven’t even set an RDA for it.
PYRIDOXINE HCL:
Also known as Vitamin B6, Pyridoxine acts primarily as a catalyst, helping your body produce nonessential amino acids,
insulin, hemoglobin and antibodies. If you eat chicken, fish, pork, liver, whole grains, beans or nuts you are probably
getting enough already. One good piece of news is that high intakes of B6 and B12 (Next Button) have been linked to
lower risk of coronary heart disease among women.
VITAMIN B12:
The best thing about B12 is that rock stars take shots of it in the ass to keep going and therefore allow you to claim that by
drinking it in Red Bull you truly are “Partying Like A Rock Star”. It helps your body use fatty acids, makes red blood cells
and is a part of many different body chemicals, appearing in every body cell. Vegetarians may have reason to worry about
B12 deficiency, but since your initial requirements are low and B12 is both stored and recycled by your body, the chances
you really NEED it at 2:30 am are small. If you end up with too much B12, it can interfere with your body’s ability to
absorb fat.
The Recommendation
Pardon the pun, but if you strip away all the BS, what you are basically talking about when you talk about a RB&V is an
alcohol and caffeine delivery system, replete with all the pleasant and unpleasant qualities those drugs bring to the table.
Keep yourself hydrated, don’t drink one after 10:30 if you plan on sleeping before 3:00 and don’t be an idiot and get
behind the wheel just because you feel “more awake” than you usually do at closing time. Take that advice and enjoy,
because most importantly the RB&V is actually pretty damn good!
Super Troupers: On the set of "Canniballistic!" in Maine, Turquoise Taylor Grant
looks away in shame while Laura Sweeney bombshells a men360.com shirt.
looks away in shame while Laura Sweeney bombshells a men360.com shirt.
June 19, 2005-
Back last night from lovely Colorado. So lovely I brought three local newspapers with me to check out rents, jobs, etc. It's a
pipe dream, but one that's hard to ignore while you're out there. I spent part of my last day there in Ouray, which is a town
I've always loved. It's far enough away from everything and harsh enough in the winter to keep it's small mountain town
flavor. I'm going to spend some time today trying to put together some pages dealing with the whole trip. I've learned my
lesson with the London Trip page; this one will be much simpler...
It was sad to leave such a beautiful place, not to mention my beautiful nieces and nephews, and a bit depressing leaving
the cab in my basically industrial neighborhood, but it was nice to see Henry and to walk to the store for coffee and the
paper this morning. Then on to the dog park. A fairly civilized routine, really.
Okay the Colorado Page is now done.
By the way, I apologize if the layout has been goofy. I use the Firefox browser and everything has looked great to me, but I
just received a heads-up about issues with Explorer and the site. I have not found a good way to rectify it in Sitebuilder, so
some of the collage-type stuff I like to play around with will have to go. Or I will have to get smarter....guess which...
Back last night from lovely Colorado. So lovely I brought three local newspapers with me to check out rents, jobs, etc. It's a
pipe dream, but one that's hard to ignore while you're out there. I spent part of my last day there in Ouray, which is a town
I've always loved. It's far enough away from everything and harsh enough in the winter to keep it's small mountain town
flavor. I'm going to spend some time today trying to put together some pages dealing with the whole trip. I've learned my
lesson with the London Trip page; this one will be much simpler...
It was sad to leave such a beautiful place, not to mention my beautiful nieces and nephews, and a bit depressing leaving
the cab in my basically industrial neighborhood, but it was nice to see Henry and to walk to the store for coffee and the
paper this morning. Then on to the dog park. A fairly civilized routine, really.
Okay the Colorado Page is now done.
By the way, I apologize if the layout has been goofy. I use the Firefox browser and everything has looked great to me, but I
just received a heads-up about issues with Explorer and the site. I have not found a good way to rectify it in Sitebuilder, so
some of the collage-type stuff I like to play around with will have to go. Or I will have to get smarter....guess which...
June 11, 2005--
I need to try and make this short and sweet, as I am way behind on the packing for my trip to Colorado. The trip that
begins with a flight in 4 hours...
This means-break out the tissues from the cozy atop the toilet tank-I will not be updating this blog for a week or so.
A deep blow for all, I know, but since I will be in Colorado visiting both of you who read this, I don't feel so bad.
Besides this trip, the most exciting thing going on in my little corner of the world is the beginning of work on Jim's next
epic. I spent yesterday building little set parts and painting walls grey for the test shooting I will gone for next week.
I am confident Jim has already made the best decision of the production; he has delegated some of the producing
work to his lovely girlfriend Lisa and brought on filmmaker and critic Jeremiah Kipp as an Assistant Director and
General Whip Cracker. The production meeting we had this week took about half as long as it would have and we
actually left with lists, schedules and other wondrous, fantastic and efficient things for me to forget and throw away...
It was also the first test of the tables I built. So far they seem to hold up well under the weight of leaning men, cans of
beer, Thai food take out and a Lord of the Rings binder. WHAT? Yes. Lord of the What-the-fucking Rings... What
gives Jeremiah? I couldn't bear to look closer to find out if it was actually a TrapperKeeper...
Anyway, below are some pics of Dork Meeting #1, taking place in the new space. I like to call it Shit Plant Studios, as
we are next door to New York City's largest waste treatment facility. So far the wind direction has been kind, but the
last five, six blocks of the bike ride (its that big), not so pleasant. These are the directions to the space from my house.
"Won't you be, won't you be, please won't you be,,,my neighbor."
Meow meow, smelly, meow, meow...
Okay, too much caffeine now, too much TV as a child, too much stuff to do before I head to the airport. I'm out. Have
a great week.
I need to try and make this short and sweet, as I am way behind on the packing for my trip to Colorado. The trip that
begins with a flight in 4 hours...
This means-break out the tissues from the cozy atop the toilet tank-I will not be updating this blog for a week or so.
A deep blow for all, I know, but since I will be in Colorado visiting both of you who read this, I don't feel so bad.
Besides this trip, the most exciting thing going on in my little corner of the world is the beginning of work on Jim's next
epic. I spent yesterday building little set parts and painting walls grey for the test shooting I will gone for next week.
I am confident Jim has already made the best decision of the production; he has delegated some of the producing
work to his lovely girlfriend Lisa and brought on filmmaker and critic Jeremiah Kipp as an Assistant Director and
General Whip Cracker. The production meeting we had this week took about half as long as it would have and we
actually left with lists, schedules and other wondrous, fantastic and efficient things for me to forget and throw away...
It was also the first test of the tables I built. So far they seem to hold up well under the weight of leaning men, cans of
beer, Thai food take out and a Lord of the Rings binder. WHAT? Yes. Lord of the What-the-fucking Rings... What
gives Jeremiah? I couldn't bear to look closer to find out if it was actually a TrapperKeeper...
Anyway, below are some pics of Dork Meeting #1, taking place in the new space. I like to call it Shit Plant Studios, as
we are next door to New York City's largest waste treatment facility. So far the wind direction has been kind, but the
last five, six blocks of the bike ride (its that big), not so pleasant. These are the directions to the space from my house.
- Go out front door, continue straight down the road two blocks to the Garbage Transfer Station. Take left.
- There will be a Waste Treatment Facility on your right. Keep going until you reach the corner of the facility.
- Take a right and continue down the length of the Waste Treatment facility.
- When you reach the end, take a left. Third door on right.
"Won't you be, won't you be, please won't you be,,,my neighbor."
Meow meow, smelly, meow, meow...
Okay, too much caffeine now, too much TV as a child, too much stuff to do before I head to the airport. I'm out. Have
a great week.
The two J's
Noah and Larry
June 8th-
This may be weak, but I have spent most of the time I had available for writing in this thing on the addition of material
to the LondonTrip page. It is unbelievable how much time it takes to get all that together.
Had dinner last night with Marc Goldberg and his lovely girlfriend. A very good time. I haven't really sat down with
anyone from In A Fix since it ended, so it was good to get caught up. We all went out for a beer afterward, so that
Marc and I could bore the pants off his poor girlfriend by watching baseball highlights and discussing the merits of the
hard slide. I'm sure anyone who is at all interested in sports has seen that video (under "Sights and Sounds" here),
and to me, its a clean hit, as they say in football. He led with his shoulder, not his head or elbow. That's baseball. I
was disgusted during the Red Sox-Yankees series when almost back to back, two Red Sox just went quietly into that
good dugout against Posada at the plate. Is it dangerous? Sure it is. Maybe it doesn't belong in the game. If so,
change the rules. No problem. But until then, you have a duty to your team to try and make that play at the plate.
In his excellent book "Baseball for Brain Surgeons and Other Fans", Tim McCarver, a former catcher, touches on this:
"...in 1963 with the Cards, I was the runner on third against the Dodgers in the worst collision Leo Durocher said he'd
seen in his fifty years in baseball...I made a mistake...and saw that i would be out by ten feet. The Dodger's catcher
was Johnny Roseboro, who was like a mobile brick wall. He'd catch the ball and come down the line to meet you...He
absolutely loved contact....So now when I Johnny coming toward me, I said this is self-preservation and lowered my
head and hit him on the left side of his neck. He had planted his left leg, and it twisted around. Even his glasses
under his mask turned. Although John stayed in the game, he would miss about two weeks with a wrenched knee.
Later in the game, Roseboro was back behind the plate, and I go up to bat. My neck is killing me and I looked like the
Phantom of the Opera. I had left the side of my face on Roseboro and his equipment; the skin from below the eye to
my lip was gone. And Rosey says through his mask, "Are you all right?" "Yeah, I'm fine, are you?" "Oh, fine." There
was a beat, and he said, "That's the way you've got to do it, you know." My respect for this man went up a
hundredfold"
Old time baseball.
And here's an interesting article on that topic
---Today love entered my bedroom window.
This may be weak, but I have spent most of the time I had available for writing in this thing on the addition of material
to the LondonTrip page. It is unbelievable how much time it takes to get all that together.
Had dinner last night with Marc Goldberg and his lovely girlfriend. A very good time. I haven't really sat down with
anyone from In A Fix since it ended, so it was good to get caught up. We all went out for a beer afterward, so that
Marc and I could bore the pants off his poor girlfriend by watching baseball highlights and discussing the merits of the
hard slide. I'm sure anyone who is at all interested in sports has seen that video (under "Sights and Sounds" here),
and to me, its a clean hit, as they say in football. He led with his shoulder, not his head or elbow. That's baseball. I
was disgusted during the Red Sox-Yankees series when almost back to back, two Red Sox just went quietly into that
good dugout against Posada at the plate. Is it dangerous? Sure it is. Maybe it doesn't belong in the game. If so,
change the rules. No problem. But until then, you have a duty to your team to try and make that play at the plate.
In his excellent book "Baseball for Brain Surgeons and Other Fans", Tim McCarver, a former catcher, touches on this:
"...in 1963 with the Cards, I was the runner on third against the Dodgers in the worst collision Leo Durocher said he'd
seen in his fifty years in baseball...I made a mistake...and saw that i would be out by ten feet. The Dodger's catcher
was Johnny Roseboro, who was like a mobile brick wall. He'd catch the ball and come down the line to meet you...He
absolutely loved contact....So now when I Johnny coming toward me, I said this is self-preservation and lowered my
head and hit him on the left side of his neck. He had planted his left leg, and it twisted around. Even his glasses
under his mask turned. Although John stayed in the game, he would miss about two weeks with a wrenched knee.
Later in the game, Roseboro was back behind the plate, and I go up to bat. My neck is killing me and I looked like the
Phantom of the Opera. I had left the side of my face on Roseboro and his equipment; the skin from below the eye to
my lip was gone. And Rosey says through his mask, "Are you all right?" "Yeah, I'm fine, are you?" "Oh, fine." There
was a beat, and he said, "That's the way you've got to do it, you know." My respect for this man went up a
hundredfold"
Old time baseball.
And here's an interesting article on that topic
---Today love entered my bedroom window.
June 6, 2005-
Today was the first official Day of Production on Jim's new film, "Death to the Automatons." It began at 6am, which
was painful, but my own fault. I'll be building the structural part of the set with my friend Larry-also on of my
roomates-and to do that, one needs materials, which usually means Home Depot. Jim wanted to go yesterday but I
pulled my years-of-New-York-construction-experience card and vetoed that idea. If you have to go to a Home Depot in
an urban area, there are only two times to go; 6am or maybe, possibly, 2pm. Any other daylight hour will be almost
indescribable. A lazy man would simply describe it as a "mob scene." Untrue. Mobs don't have a lot of real
admirable qualities-they 're loud, slow and usually a bit quick to the rope-but they do generally embody a remarkably
clear sense of purpose.
You can plan around that. Bar the gates of your castle, walk the roof of your furniture store with a gun, that sort of
thing. The crowd at a Big Box Store, especially on a weekend, gives no such quarter. A mob in size, a mob in
unruliness, a mob in lack of respect for personal space, but without the simple decency with which a mob will
organize-pitchforks in front, torches to the rear-and go about its business. Each person a mob of their own. Hundreds
of them. A mob of mobs, crashing half-panicked through a world once ordered with the most beautiful simplicity:
shelving
and
products.
-Each mob leaving behind an individual-sized wake of disorder and flotsam through which the other mobs travel,
picking, consuming, reshelving, discarding into wakes of their own. A bedlam of mobs through mobs, wakes over
wakes, weaving a tapestry of chaos.
Metamob.
And that is basically Home Depot on Sunday at 2pm.
So we went today, Monday, at 6am.
Had I passed a moldy, reanimated Charles Kerault shuffling the aisles with a CBS Sunday Morning camera crew,
trumpeter in tow, looking for just the right spot to film those just-before-a-commercial moments of serenity for the show,
I would not have blinked an eye. Such was the peace we experienced at Home Depot this morning. Waiting in what
only qualified as a "line" under a strict geometric definition, we were approached by an assistant manager who rushed
us to a special contractor's area to be rung up immediately.
Sleep be damned, some things are worth it...
File under "Hopelessly Old."
I am sorry to report that after the exciting, many-paragraphed, "Home Depot Wasn't Crowded" opening, the rest of the
day was rather dull. Unloading supplies, building work tables and assembling shelving. Try as I might,I couldn't keep
myself from thinking, as I built the first work table, "This would be so much easier to build on a work table."
Yeah, I know.
Jim did bring the little video camera to start the all-important-these-days "Making Of" footage, but I did not, sadly,
bring my camera to show you...and the other one...the space and our handiwork. I'll try and remember to remedy that.
***
I have a roommate who listens to his television at volumes usually reserved for the elderly or interred. Like anything
taken far beyond the realm of the ordinary, this practice sometimes results in a new vision of a known quantity. He was
watching something as I first sat down to check my email, something filled with the blood-curdling screams of women.
And the screaming didn't stop. There were other sounds of violence, but what made me wonder "What the Fuck is that
creep watching?!" were the continuous, endless screams of women. I actually got kind of freaked out, hearing that in
such a relentless way. Suddenly more intelligible dialogue started up again and I realized he was watching
Spiderman 2!
I really enjoyed that movie! But now I have to wonder, what is wrong with me that I listened to that same exact
amount of women's screaming in a movie theatre and enjoyed it lightheartedly? People were screaming! Context is
everything, I guess, but still, its something to think about.
Today was the first official Day of Production on Jim's new film, "Death to the Automatons." It began at 6am, which
was painful, but my own fault. I'll be building the structural part of the set with my friend Larry-also on of my
roomates-and to do that, one needs materials, which usually means Home Depot. Jim wanted to go yesterday but I
pulled my years-of-New-York-construction-experience card and vetoed that idea. If you have to go to a Home Depot in
an urban area, there are only two times to go; 6am or maybe, possibly, 2pm. Any other daylight hour will be almost
indescribable. A lazy man would simply describe it as a "mob scene." Untrue. Mobs don't have a lot of real
admirable qualities-they 're loud, slow and usually a bit quick to the rope-but they do generally embody a remarkably
clear sense of purpose.
You can plan around that. Bar the gates of your castle, walk the roof of your furniture store with a gun, that sort of
thing. The crowd at a Big Box Store, especially on a weekend, gives no such quarter. A mob in size, a mob in
unruliness, a mob in lack of respect for personal space, but without the simple decency with which a mob will
organize-pitchforks in front, torches to the rear-and go about its business. Each person a mob of their own. Hundreds
of them. A mob of mobs, crashing half-panicked through a world once ordered with the most beautiful simplicity:
shelving
and
products.
-Each mob leaving behind an individual-sized wake of disorder and flotsam through which the other mobs travel,
picking, consuming, reshelving, discarding into wakes of their own. A bedlam of mobs through mobs, wakes over
wakes, weaving a tapestry of chaos.
Metamob.
And that is basically Home Depot on Sunday at 2pm.
So we went today, Monday, at 6am.
Had I passed a moldy, reanimated Charles Kerault shuffling the aisles with a CBS Sunday Morning camera crew,
trumpeter in tow, looking for just the right spot to film those just-before-a-commercial moments of serenity for the show,
I would not have blinked an eye. Such was the peace we experienced at Home Depot this morning. Waiting in what
only qualified as a "line" under a strict geometric definition, we were approached by an assistant manager who rushed
us to a special contractor's area to be rung up immediately.
Sleep be damned, some things are worth it...
File under "Hopelessly Old."
I am sorry to report that after the exciting, many-paragraphed, "Home Depot Wasn't Crowded" opening, the rest of the
day was rather dull. Unloading supplies, building work tables and assembling shelving. Try as I might,I couldn't keep
myself from thinking, as I built the first work table, "This would be so much easier to build on a work table."
Yeah, I know.
Jim did bring the little video camera to start the all-important-these-days "Making Of" footage, but I did not, sadly,
bring my camera to show you...and the other one...the space and our handiwork. I'll try and remember to remedy that.
***
I have a roommate who listens to his television at volumes usually reserved for the elderly or interred. Like anything
taken far beyond the realm of the ordinary, this practice sometimes results in a new vision of a known quantity. He was
watching something as I first sat down to check my email, something filled with the blood-curdling screams of women.
And the screaming didn't stop. There were other sounds of violence, but what made me wonder "What the Fuck is that
creep watching?!" were the continuous, endless screams of women. I actually got kind of freaked out, hearing that in
such a relentless way. Suddenly more intelligible dialogue started up again and I realized he was watching
Spiderman 2!
I really enjoyed that movie! But now I have to wonder, what is wrong with me that I listened to that same exact
amount of women's screaming in a movie theatre and enjoyed it lightheartedly? People were screaming! Context is
everything, I guess, but still, its something to think about.
June 4, 2005-
Well here is where the whole blogging process breaks down a bit; I just don't have that much to report. I did
accompany Jim yesterday as he checked out the warehouse space he acquired for the 'Automatons' film.
Which will be, I found out, an actual film, shot on super 8 and transferred, "Pi" style. Everything will also be
shot digitally and I guess the idea is for a mix of textures and styles. Walking into a large empty space after
reading a script describing a set packed to the rafters with material was a bit daunting, especially as I just took
on a fairly large job helping a friend of mine build out a restaurant /bar. The space is close to where I live,
however, so long hours will be much easier to take. This afternoon I'll head over with Jim and a tape measure
and we'll figure out where he wants everything, I'm thinking of just welding up a bunch of tube steel frames we
can move around and dress for the set or clamp lights, etc. to. The glamour...
***
A couple of questions from-behold the power of Google!-high school classmates of mine forces me to amend
my statements regarding high school. I am always shocked at how my memory differs from that of other people;
how they can remember details about me and my life I can't, how their feeling for the timbre of a time can be
so, well, "different" is the only word that comes to mind as my memory fails me in a different way. I paint much
of my personal history the way society paints hers; haphazardly with a large brush and grey paint because hell,
nobody's looking back there anyway. And as long as nobody does, we can get away with it.
But make the foolhardy decision to start up a Parade of Homes through your version of history, say, by yapping
about it in a blog, and all of a sudden all these Howard Zinn types start with the murmurs and the pointing...
Which in the end is helpful. I posted previously I hated high school, and almost immediately received an email
from someone who knew me well at that time, remarking it certainly seemed like I was having a good time. And
having thought about it, he's right, and my history as written here and upstairs is wrong. It wasn't a lie, just the
unavoidable consequence of complex situations, relationships and events being forced together under a single
phrase. The truth is complicated. The truth, packaged for consumption, becomes untrue. It's unavoidable even
with the best of intentions.
In this case I not only changed the truth, but switched it 180 degrees. I did hate that time in my life, but school
was actually my favorite place to be, a refuge, if anything. Why else would I hang around the place? I
certainly wasn't attending class...
I did have great friendships there, fantastic adventures and sweetly simple loves. The first two you can cultivate
as life moves forward, the last you trade for adulthood.
Funny, I had not thought twice about high school for years when a couple months ago I received an email from
an old classmate about our coming reunion. This was followed in about ten days by a separate email regarding
the retirement of the Starkeys, an influential husband-wife team of English teachers at the school. A week later
another high school friend found my site after seeing me on a Colonial House rerun and emailed me pictures of
her family. The past comes back to get you sometimes. I've broken down and bought airline tickets for the
reunion, I've also added my "where are they now" update to the alumni website, which I've known about but
avoided for about ten years. I'll go back and learn about things I already know, somewhere back there, and the
broad grey strokes will shrink and maybe start to shimmer a bit.
I'm older, again, and another chip falls off my shoulder. A pile grows around my knees. I hope it gets tall
enough to improve my view before I'm too frail to climb it.
Well here is where the whole blogging process breaks down a bit; I just don't have that much to report. I did
accompany Jim yesterday as he checked out the warehouse space he acquired for the 'Automatons' film.
Which will be, I found out, an actual film, shot on super 8 and transferred, "Pi" style. Everything will also be
shot digitally and I guess the idea is for a mix of textures and styles. Walking into a large empty space after
reading a script describing a set packed to the rafters with material was a bit daunting, especially as I just took
on a fairly large job helping a friend of mine build out a restaurant /bar. The space is close to where I live,
however, so long hours will be much easier to take. This afternoon I'll head over with Jim and a tape measure
and we'll figure out where he wants everything, I'm thinking of just welding up a bunch of tube steel frames we
can move around and dress for the set or clamp lights, etc. to. The glamour...
***
A couple of questions from-behold the power of Google!-high school classmates of mine forces me to amend
my statements regarding high school. I am always shocked at how my memory differs from that of other people;
how they can remember details about me and my life I can't, how their feeling for the timbre of a time can be
so, well, "different" is the only word that comes to mind as my memory fails me in a different way. I paint much
of my personal history the way society paints hers; haphazardly with a large brush and grey paint because hell,
nobody's looking back there anyway. And as long as nobody does, we can get away with it.
But make the foolhardy decision to start up a Parade of Homes through your version of history, say, by yapping
about it in a blog, and all of a sudden all these Howard Zinn types start with the murmurs and the pointing...
Which in the end is helpful. I posted previously I hated high school, and almost immediately received an email
from someone who knew me well at that time, remarking it certainly seemed like I was having a good time. And
having thought about it, he's right, and my history as written here and upstairs is wrong. It wasn't a lie, just the
unavoidable consequence of complex situations, relationships and events being forced together under a single
phrase. The truth is complicated. The truth, packaged for consumption, becomes untrue. It's unavoidable even
with the best of intentions.
In this case I not only changed the truth, but switched it 180 degrees. I did hate that time in my life, but school
was actually my favorite place to be, a refuge, if anything. Why else would I hang around the place? I
certainly wasn't attending class...
I did have great friendships there, fantastic adventures and sweetly simple loves. The first two you can cultivate
as life moves forward, the last you trade for adulthood.
Funny, I had not thought twice about high school for years when a couple months ago I received an email from
an old classmate about our coming reunion. This was followed in about ten days by a separate email regarding
the retirement of the Starkeys, an influential husband-wife team of English teachers at the school. A week later
another high school friend found my site after seeing me on a Colonial House rerun and emailed me pictures of
her family. The past comes back to get you sometimes. I've broken down and bought airline tickets for the
reunion, I've also added my "where are they now" update to the alumni website, which I've known about but
avoided for about ten years. I'll go back and learn about things I already know, somewhere back there, and the
broad grey strokes will shrink and maybe start to shimmer a bit.
I'm older, again, and another chip falls off my shoulder. A pile grows around my knees. I hope it gets tall
enough to improve my view before I'm too frail to climb it.
A Night at the Park Slope Ale House
This actually happened a couple of weeks ago, but I happened upon the pictures and liked a few...
June 2, 2005-
Things like this, this blog, become so quickly a beast that needs constant feeding. Bought two sets of tickets for
Colorado this week. One set for a June visit to the family, another for a July weekend to attend my first high
school reunion. 20 years. I hated the place, or perhaps it was just the particulars of the situation. Either way the
decision to head back into the teeth of it will be one I second guess until its over. I've looked at the alumni
website and realized I will be one of the only people there not worried about my sitter. I suppose we'll all look at
each other's lives with envy and be glad to return to the geographic context that validates the choices we made.
How tough it will be on anyone who still lives there, in that neighborhood, They won't have that wool to pull over
their eyes.
***
Someone in the forums brought up the German guy who plasticizes corpses people thought they were leaving to
science and flays them, basically, posing the eviscerations in "imaginative" or ironic situations. A man carries his
own skin on a hangar, stuff like that. It is touring science museums as an educational "visible man" , "visible
woman" event.
I don't have a problem with people seeing the inside of the body of a dead person. I think it entirely appropriate
to open medical school dissections to the public or to perform dissections in museum auditoriums for people to
see. I know seeing the traveling school exhibit of real human lungs, one healthy at death, the other ravaged by
smoking allowed me to visualize what I was doing to myself and helped me quit smoking.
But these bodies are posed for effect. He is using human corpses as a material, a medium like wire or clay. He
himself calls it "edutainment." Have we reached a point where it is okay to entertain ourselves with the bodies of
the dead?
And where did he get these bodies? I'm sure there are people now who have signed up to have this done to
themselves, but who were the first batch? A visitor to the show remarked that most of the "cadavers" (what are they
to be properly called now...is there an honestly descriptive name we can live with as a society?) were clearly
Asian. Well good, at least they're not from an area under international pressure to clamp down on illegal and
coercive organ harvesting. The copy of the expository material the museums put up on their companion websites
tap dances around the fact the original owners of these bodies had no idea they would be turned to plastic,
posed doing skateboard tricks (yep) or riding a bike and packed around the world for profit as part of a macabre
sideshow. For thats what this is. Let's just admit it. The cash starved institutions who book this show can polish
this turd with the "Learning Anatomy" cheesecloth all they want but there is far more Barnum than Herophilus in
this guy. In one article I read he tells the reporter to write it up as sensationally as he would like, as more people
would come the more outraged the press.
Fuck this guy.
Things like this, this blog, become so quickly a beast that needs constant feeding. Bought two sets of tickets for
Colorado this week. One set for a June visit to the family, another for a July weekend to attend my first high
school reunion. 20 years. I hated the place, or perhaps it was just the particulars of the situation. Either way the
decision to head back into the teeth of it will be one I second guess until its over. I've looked at the alumni
website and realized I will be one of the only people there not worried about my sitter. I suppose we'll all look at
each other's lives with envy and be glad to return to the geographic context that validates the choices we made.
How tough it will be on anyone who still lives there, in that neighborhood, They won't have that wool to pull over
their eyes.
***
Someone in the forums brought up the German guy who plasticizes corpses people thought they were leaving to
science and flays them, basically, posing the eviscerations in "imaginative" or ironic situations. A man carries his
own skin on a hangar, stuff like that. It is touring science museums as an educational "visible man" , "visible
woman" event.
I don't have a problem with people seeing the inside of the body of a dead person. I think it entirely appropriate
to open medical school dissections to the public or to perform dissections in museum auditoriums for people to
see. I know seeing the traveling school exhibit of real human lungs, one healthy at death, the other ravaged by
smoking allowed me to visualize what I was doing to myself and helped me quit smoking.
But these bodies are posed for effect. He is using human corpses as a material, a medium like wire or clay. He
himself calls it "edutainment." Have we reached a point where it is okay to entertain ourselves with the bodies of
the dead?
And where did he get these bodies? I'm sure there are people now who have signed up to have this done to
themselves, but who were the first batch? A visitor to the show remarked that most of the "cadavers" (what are they
to be properly called now...is there an honestly descriptive name we can live with as a society?) were clearly
Asian. Well good, at least they're not from an area under international pressure to clamp down on illegal and
coercive organ harvesting. The copy of the expository material the museums put up on their companion websites
tap dances around the fact the original owners of these bodies had no idea they would be turned to plastic,
posed doing skateboard tricks (yep) or riding a bike and packed around the world for profit as part of a macabre
sideshow. For thats what this is. Let's just admit it. The cash starved institutions who book this show can polish
this turd with the "Learning Anatomy" cheesecloth all they want but there is far more Barnum than Herophilus in
this guy. In one article I read he tells the reporter to write it up as sensationally as he would like, as more people
would come the more outraged the press.
Fuck this guy.
June 1, 2005:
Hell, everyone else has one. I have actually tried to start one on two different occasions, on two different
services, but it just didn't work out. What those services have are all kinds of fancy features that make things
easier for you, what they don't have is a 15 inch demon with a tiny barbed whip that forces you to keep going.
By the time I have finished with all the forum stuff on this site, I'm usually out of time or gumption. One of my
favorite things about the forum is that I'm only very roughly in control of the direction, but that means that a lot
of things that flicker across the tiny brain in this huge skull go unexpressed and is it not, in this day and age,
everyone's right-near duty-to tar the the information superhighway with strictly personal inanities? Clearly.
So here it goes:
This is a good day to start, as I actually did something interesting last night, namely, attend a
Mets-Diamondbacks game at Shea. The pros: Front row seats down the third base line, a beautiful night. Cons:
the Mets getting spanked, last minute opportunity resulting in me going solo.
Here's a photo or two of me at the May Mets-Yankees series, with seats almost as good. My friend David has a
new "buying tickets off EBay" obsession and I am encouraging it as much as possible.
Hell, everyone else has one. I have actually tried to start one on two different occasions, on two different
services, but it just didn't work out. What those services have are all kinds of fancy features that make things
easier for you, what they don't have is a 15 inch demon with a tiny barbed whip that forces you to keep going.
By the time I have finished with all the forum stuff on this site, I'm usually out of time or gumption. One of my
favorite things about the forum is that I'm only very roughly in control of the direction, but that means that a lot
of things that flicker across the tiny brain in this huge skull go unexpressed and is it not, in this day and age,
everyone's right-near duty-to tar the the information superhighway with strictly personal inanities? Clearly.
So here it goes:
This is a good day to start, as I actually did something interesting last night, namely, attend a
Mets-Diamondbacks game at Shea. The pros: Front row seats down the third base line, a beautiful night. Cons:
the Mets getting spanked, last minute opportunity resulting in me going solo.
Here's a photo or two of me at the May Mets-Yankees series, with seats almost as good. My friend David has a
new "buying tickets off EBay" obsession and I am encouraging it as much as possible.
I'm not sure if this is an East Coast thing or an Old Fogey thing, but the sports rules I was brought up with-in the Denver
Metro Area sometime during the Middle Ages-excluded booing your own team. Granted, we only had the Denver
Bears, as far as baseball went, and the Broncos of the late 70's were our Gods and did no wrong, but the Nuggets were
terrible, as I remember it. You just didn't boo them. You were their fans. In the UK they use the term Supporters,
which may be better, but then again, we never cruised the streets in mobs, beating the Browns fans with 2X4's, so,
there ya go....
It just doesn't sit well with me. It really feels like a petty attempt to try and lift yourself over these athletes. In my
personal non-scientific anecdotal study at three games so far this year and games past, the propensity to boo your own
players is often in direct reverse proportion to your social standing. Ever seen a shot of a celebrity or power broker
booing their own team? I didn't think so.
Things I will boo at a game:
game is not as important as stopping for the two minutes it takes to sing the star spangled banner. Really. It's the
national anthem. I find this shocking. I'm afraid to even get started on it...
I mean sure, I want to shoot Ronan Tynan in the leg as much as the next guy, but come ON!
***
Just received the script for "Death to the Automatons", the microbudget robot epic the world is holding its breath for. I
have been promised it involves lots of setting stuff on fire. Jim has secured a space and the robot building will begin
soon, I guess.
Reading "Down and Out in Paris and London" by George Orwell. Great descriptions of what it is like to be out of
money. Actually, completely out of money. Brought back many old memories and thoughts of the friends I went
through it with. "Hunger" by Knut Hamsun is another great book that really captures what its all about.
-TOP-
Metro Area sometime during the Middle Ages-excluded booing your own team. Granted, we only had the Denver
Bears, as far as baseball went, and the Broncos of the late 70's were our Gods and did no wrong, but the Nuggets were
terrible, as I remember it. You just didn't boo them. You were their fans. In the UK they use the term Supporters,
which may be better, but then again, we never cruised the streets in mobs, beating the Browns fans with 2X4's, so,
there ya go....
It just doesn't sit well with me. It really feels like a petty attempt to try and lift yourself over these athletes. In my
personal non-scientific anecdotal study at three games so far this year and games past, the propensity to boo your own
players is often in direct reverse proportion to your social standing. Ever seen a shot of a celebrity or power broker
booing their own team? I didn't think so.
Things I will boo at a game:
- Managerial decisions, usually lifting a pitcher who seems to be doing well. Absolutely unjustified, but I
rationalize it as kind of a reverse cheer for the player. - Ball and strike calls I can't even see.
- Yankee fans who catch foul balls at a Mets game and wave their Yankee jersey around. (last night)
- Lack of effort. I have never done this, and I think it is really rare. There are usually less than a handful of guys
in all of professional sports you can point to with this.
game is not as important as stopping for the two minutes it takes to sing the star spangled banner. Really. It's the
national anthem. I find this shocking. I'm afraid to even get started on it...
I mean sure, I want to shoot Ronan Tynan in the leg as much as the next guy, but come ON!
***
Just received the script for "Death to the Automatons", the microbudget robot epic the world is holding its breath for. I
have been promised it involves lots of setting stuff on fire. Jim has secured a space and the robot building will begin
soon, I guess.
Reading "Down and Out in Paris and London" by George Orwell. Great descriptions of what it is like to be out of
money. Actually, completely out of money. Brought back many old memories and thoughts of the friends I went
through it with. "Hunger" by Knut Hamsun is another great book that really captures what its all about.
-TOP-
Don Wood Online
For the love of Pete, who's in charge here?
For the love of Pete, who's in charge here?
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BOOK:
Deep Survival
--Laurence Gonzales
--Laurence Gonzales
ALBUM:
King of California
--Dave Alvin
--Dave Alvin
FILM:
Don't Shoot the Piano Player
The photos and even video on this
blog were produced with the Canon
PowerShot SD110 Digital Elph,
which I can't say enough good
things about.
3.2 megapixels is way more than
enough. Don't believe the hype!
blog were produced with the Canon
PowerShot SD110 Digital Elph,
which I can't say enough good
things about.
3.2 megapixels is way more than
enough. Don't believe the hype!
Yeah, about the blur...I have become allergic to the washed out look of
digital flash photography. The trade off is long shutter speeds which
lead to...'nuf said...
digital flash photography. The trade off is long shutter speeds which
lead to...'nuf said...