Stolen from Mitch's blog who got it from Winds of Change:

1) Grab the nearest book.
2) Open the book to page 23.
3) Find the fifth sentence.
4) Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

"What do you want to drink, hunh?" --Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf by Edward Albee.

(I cheated slightly; the nearest books are all web design reference books, and when I think books, I really think fiction, so I pushed my chair to my wall unit and blindly grabbed for a book there.)

Continuing to be of pseudo-sound mind and completely soundless body, I, Craig Klein, do hereby bequeath, for a limited time, the following things to the following people:

To Samantha Frezza I bequeath my entire Tori Amos collection. This includes all studio albums, singles, promo-dics, and bootlegs (except the Winter CD which I give to Miller) on CD, DVD, videotape, and audiotape, as well as all magazine articles, tour books, and any other assorted Tori memorabilia I own, not to mention the very wonderful portrait of Tori that Sam herself drew for me as a 23rd birthday present.

To Michael Zavarello I hereby bequeath my half of Bright-Matrix. I think, legally, you get it whether I bequeath it or not, but I wanted to make it unofficially official. I also bequeath unto you my Shadow Galaxy Website, almost everything i know about HTML is due to what you taught me. So take care of my baby. Oh, and I also guilt you into taking over The Electric Wire, because you never read the damn thing and it gives me much joy making it my dying request that you take over, and I know the guilt will compel you to do so. Moo hoo ha ha ha!!!

To Christine Schroers, the number one (and only) fan of my poetry, I hereby bequeath you your favorite poem, "I Call It . . ." Because nothing says friendship like flooshball!

To Chrsitine Cheplic, I unbequeath my part of the lease as it seems she couldn't live in bliss with Sean after all. Instead she trades in the apartment for my testicles. It's an odd trade, and I realize I bequeathed my body to Ross, but I really doubt he'd mind if my testicles went elsewhere, and Christine seems almost strangely excited about pickling my testies in a jar, and who am I to deny the pleasures of my friends. Plus it's nice to know someone wants my balls.

To Heather Dworak, who was beat out on the computer and because I don't own any musical instruments, I bequeath my CD player and my clock-radio. Because next to my computer they're the only other electronics I own, and they both play music which is generally played on musical instruments. It's not the best consolation prize, but I hope you understand.

To Sean Hale, the ungrateful bastard, I unbequeath my DVD player, as he says he's perfectly content to play his DVDs on his X-Box. Fine, then. Spurn the dying wish of one of your closest friends. Ingrate. Just for that, I'm giving you my complete DVD set of The Prisoner.

I, Craig Klein, being of semi-sound mind and not really sound body, do hereby bequeath, for a limited time, the following things to the following people:

To Eric Lamendola I bequeath all my ill-gotten gains from the Chiller-Cons. This includes: The two bootleg Buffy DVD's (The musical episode and the final two episodes of the series), the Babylon 5 gag reel videotape, the Battle Royale bootleg, my collection of Rush music videos tapes, and the Paris Hilton Home Porno DVD.

To Terry Brendt I bequeath all the pictures I took at Contempt on March 12, 2004.

To Dave Fenton I give my computer, and I throw in my internet connection and Diablo II computer game so he can game with himself and play two characters at the same time.

To Lauren Fenton I bequeath my little plastic rainbow-colored slinky.

To Ross Cohn I bequeath my collection of Transmetropolitan comicsbooks and trade paperback collections. And I'll throw in my Spider Jerusalem action figure. Ross also has the honor of recieveing my corpse, so please do not bury or cremate me, just give the body to him.

To Scott Miller I bequeath my collection of alcohol mini-bottles, the tokens of all the birthday shots we did together over the years. And he gets a Tori Amos CD, preferably the Winter maxi-single, just because the bastard doesn't know how to spell her name right even though I've been a fan of her almost as long as Miller and I have been friends.

To Tracy Costa I bequeath my copy of Neil Gaiman's Angels and Visitations. Tracy also becomes the proud recepient of my entire porn collection, sans the Paris Hilton DVD that eric's getting. (Eric, make her a copy, will you?) Tracy also recieves my copy of the one-acts we did together, "All in the Timing." She was a very good monkey, indeed.

To Sean Hale, who refuses to participate because he finds this too morbid, I nonetheless bequeath him my DVD player.

To Christine Cheplic, I bequeath my part of the lease, so that she may have a place of her own, and live in bliss with Mr. Hale.

To Ryan Pearlman I bequeath Dog-Dog, my most beloved stuffed animal. Ryan, the cheeky bastard, plans on burning the stuffed animal. It's a heartless, cruel, vindictive thing to do, taking a cherished item from my childhood and turning it into ashes, and I am so proud of him for saying he would. Give Dog-Dog a Viking funeral, Ryan; with my blessing.

To Noah Gershkowitz I bequeath my car. I hope this means you'll won't have an excuse for missing my funeral, bucko.

Here endeth round one. Some good items taken, to be sure, but there's plenty more! Act now while there's still time!

OK boys and girls, it's audience participation time. (All six of you.)

I'm going to Morocco. It's full of Arabs and the French. And I'm American. My parents are worried; Sean's father is praying for me. Who knows what can happen.

So, as long as there's a chance I might not make it back alive, I've only got a week to put my affairs in order. So, as I have no official kind of will, we'll have to do it the fun way:

Send me an e-mail at craig@shadowgalaxy.net and tell me what I have that you want. It's a first come first serve basis. I know I've got a few things you might want--my porn collection alone has got to be worth something to someone.

So write in and tell me what you want. If I don't make it back with a body temperature above 98 degrees, it'll be yours to remember me by.

All participants will have their aquisitions posted online so there will be a provable document as to who gets what. This offer expires Sunday, May 2, at 12:00 noon. No purchase necessary Vote early, vote often. Void where prohibited, especially Utah.

Around 3:00, I got a call from Susan, from of the sales reps down in our Fiberconn office. She's in serious need of a specific type of cable. I take a looksee, and we've got it. Sher asks if it will be able to ship today. I run the numbers quickly in my head: it's after three o'clock so UPS is doubtful. Plus the time it takes to process the order, then whether or not Shipping will have time to get to it . . .it was doable, but iffy.

"It might not go today," I tell her. "If not today, definitely tomorrow."

Susan says OK, and the phone call ends.

Three minutes later Mike Dahan, the president of the company (who originally owned Fiberconn before selling it to Emerson and heading up the combined Fiberconn/Lodan amalgam) calls me. I'm surprised, and idly wonder if this has anything to do with my impending trip to Morocco. But of course, I was wrong. He wants to know why the cable isn't definitely shipping today, and he wasn't overly thrilled that I wasn't making it a top priority.

Mind you, Susan didn't tell me it was a do or die scenario. She told me it was important, but when I mentioned the cable may--may--not ship until tomorrow, she didn't say "That's bad, I need it to go today, can we do anything to speed things up?" So as far as I knew, this was just a run of the mill need, nothing life-shattering. Dahan corrected my thinking on this matter.

Understand: Mike Dahan is not exactly the cuddliest teddy beard. He's loud, he's blunt, and he doesn't give a fuck if you think he's loud and blunt. Stories of his vitroil him tearing into people are legendary. So, on a scale of one to ten, I'd say I probably got either a three or a four on the Getting Chewed Out By THE Boss Scale. Which is pretty good, all things considered. He was loud, but I wouldn't say he was yelling.

Still. Never a happy thing to get chewed out by the guy that decides very employment. Certainly made my afternoon.

I finished 1984 this morning.

Not the greatest novel in the world. That’s not entirely Orwell’s fault. By now the novel has been copied and homaged to death so reading it’s philosophical-political discourse is simply a matter of deja-vu. Obviously, when it was first published things were slightly different. I suppose there’s an irony to that. Orwell spends a lot of time discussing the malleability of the past--that what we believed happened is 100% dependant upon the documentation of those events. If you change the documentation, you change the past. Memory is fluid. Consequently, if you read all the dystopian novels influenced by 1984 BEFORE you read 1984, then 1984 is the copycat, and the other novels are original.

To drive the point home even further: This past Saturday, Pete, CJ, and I watched Condorman, a terrible Disney movie from 1981. In it the bad guys were the Russians. It was so quaint to see the Cold War. Most teens today don’t even remember what the Cold War was like--hell, I almost can’t remember what it’s like. These days, it’s the Arab’s who are the stock terrorists, or rogue ex-Soviets; but not the Russians themselves. You get bombarded with this fact you start thinking it was always this way. (Oceania is at war with Eurasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia. Except when Oceania is war with Eastasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.)

Which, of course, brings 1984’s true importance to the surface. Cronkite was right: the novel is a warning. You can’t view the book as a prophecy. Time is malleable; no matter what Orwell saw for the future, he couldn’t predict what actually happened. But while you can argue that the exact type of totalitarianism Orwell wrote about would be impossible to achieve--and I also doubt that you could find enough humans so pathologically consumed by the acquisition of power that they could avoid all other human weakness and fashion the type of society found in 1984--you do see the echoes.

That’s the rub. The specifics of 1984 stick out because they are striking images. The viewscreens, the mental and linguistic gymnastics of Newspeak and doublespeak, Big Brother and Room 101 are so vivid people take them literally. But the truth is even these things are allegory, and while it may not be exactly the same as The Patriot Act, or the FCC cracking down on supposed obscenity, or the control of media during the Us occupation of Iraq, the essence is the same.

That’s why Orwell set his novel in the future. Because things are never that bad now. It’s easy to think, and dismiss his warnings, because what the world is like today is so obviously unlike what Orwell wrote about. And the unfortunate concreteness of a specific year makes one think that the novel itself is now irrelevant.

But the novel still holds. The important thing to remember is, at the end of the novel, there is no hope. Winston is broken. He loves Big Brother and waits with blissful apathy for the day he is shot for his earlier transgression. Orwell isn’t saying “this is what’s happening”, he’s telling “this is what will happen”. And, most importantly he’s telling us that once it happens, if it does happen, there will be no turning back.

A week or two ago I ranted about our society’s addiction to materialism. How we have 57 varieties of desire, 31 flavors of ambition, super-sized amounts of materialism, and the almost religious belief that you, too, can have it all. And that abundance has made us complacent. My theory is that only when these comforts are eliminated will any large portion of the population being to resist and change. I think, if Orwell could see society now, he’d disagree. He’d say that by allowing ourselves to be pacified by luxuries we’ve already opened the door to resignation and apathy and Big Brother could easily take hold, not by abolishing our materialism but through it. He’s probably right.

There isn’t a clear delineation here. The important thing isn’t the end of the discussion, it’s in the discussion itself, the continuation of the discussion. Time is malleable. If we talk about the implications now, then we keep those implications in mind, can safeguard against the warning from becoming prophecy after all. If we don't, well, Big Brother’s really not so bad, once you get to know him.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night...

I'm back.

For a while anyway.

April's been a fun month, and, conversely, has resulted in a lack of posting on my part. Not necessarily for lack of trying--there's about a half dozen aborted attempts at posting something over the last two weeks--but either the mood leaves or it turns into self-piting clap-trap, or it reveals something that I'm not willing to show.

Work's been very interesting this month. There are changes in the offing. I thought they would've come through by now but the corporate world is aas beurocratic as they come, so of course I'm left waiting for the other shoe to drop. Most of you should know what I'm talking about--by now I think I've told everyone--but even though no one at my office reads this blog, there are people there who don't know what's coming, and I'd rather not tempt Fate and announce it hear where they shouldn't read it.

The one thing I can say is that I leave for Morcco a week from Monday. And I have no clue what I'm doing, only the hope that just because I don't see how I'm going to pull this off doesn't mean others are wrong for seeing it. I went ice skating two Friday's ago. I haven't been ice skating since I was five or six, and even then it was for about half an hour. So there I was, 28, and putting on skates with no clue how to use them. And it was awkard, and of course my hand didn't leave the railing for my first trip 'round the rink. But by the third or fourth go, I was moving along away frokm the wall. More gliding than skating, but I was doing it. I didn't know how I was going to do it, but I listened to Sean and Dave and I didn't think about not doing it, and I did a pretty damn good job for my first real attempt at ice skating. I figure if I approach Morocco the same way, it'll be just as successful.

I'm putting away years worth of filing. Bills, paperwork, bank statements, insurance information, investment reports; piles of this crap I've littered about my room. Last Sunday I bought two filing drawers and I'm slowly cleaning up the piles and putting them in marked folders. (I think I'm going to close out my Janus fund. In five years I think I've only had three quarters where I made money. Reviewing all the statements reminded me how much money I put into thataccount, and almost all of it is gone. Time to put what's left somewhere that will do me good instead of slowly bleed away.) Anyway, it's very liberating to take these disorganized piles and turn them into a workable system.

April is gone, I'm not quite sure where it went. It's been an odd month, and I've been coasting through most of it. I've been worrying about the affections of my co-worker Brenda, slipping into the familair patterns of unrequited fantasy, and let me tell you that it's really pissing me off. I haven't done any web design since I finished Vendetta. I listened to classical music all last week because I needed to hear music that wasn't already soundtracked into my brain with specific memories and emotions. I really don't think I should be living in Bloomfield by the end of 2005. But the only way that's going to happen is if I start doing something about that now.

(ah, C--------, while you are not safe I am not safe, and now you're really in the total animal soup of time)

My co-worker Bobby told me of a comic store in Kennilworth that was having a 50% off sale starting at midnight. By 12:45 Saturday morning I was at the store and I walked out with a shitload of trade paperbacks. If they had a better selection, I would've walked out with more. I spent the day on the road listening to Rush's Rush in Rio, CD, warmiing up for their return in August.

I want to scream, but there's a better way to release. Screaming is just noise. But put it to purpose, to determination, not apathetic anger but righteous indignation, and that scream becomes a howl.

Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! escasies! gone down the American river!
Dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit!
Breakthroughs! over the river! flips and crucifixtions! gone down the glod! Highs! Epiphanies! Despairs! Ten years' animal screams and suicides! Minds! New loves! Mad genaration! down on the rocks of Time!
Real holy laughter in the river! They saw it all! in the wild eyes! the holy yells! They bade farewell! They jumped off the roof! to solitude! waving! carrying flowers! Down the river! into the street!

iltalics by Allen Ginsberg

My good friend Christine, she of Basment of the Alamo fame, writes:


Dear Craig,

I disagree with everything in your blog.

Love, Christine

PS Have a nice day.


Succinct and cordial, if slightly vague. So far she won't elaborate. She has said it has something to do with my use of commas, but as of this writing I am uncertain it is because I use them superfluously or for a lack thereof, so I suspect that was mere obsfucation on her part. I'm thinking it might have to do with my little history rant last week, but I can't be completely certain as she hasn't directly said so. Perhaps she literally disagrees with everything in my blog, right down the the stupid little links I post from time to time. I suppose it is possible she disagrees with everything in my blog, although I'd hate to think that everything I write here is completely irreconcilable with someone's viewpoint. And yet, if Christine does diagree with everything, that would mean she disagrees with this blog entry, which means she doesn't disagree with everything and is therefore in compeltely harmony with my every thought.

Which is exactly how it should be.

Well, I don't know about you, Christine, but I certainly feel much better.

Of course, that could also be due to the two chocolate glazed doughnuts I just inhaled. But one never knows.

To amuse and confuse, all via that wonderful place they call BoingBoing:

The FTC labels Porn Spam. I dunno. I mean, you'd think with messages like "She is the hottest blonde amateur out there" or "Take her dentures out she can gum like no other." you'd already know that you're dealing with porn.

When Water Isn't Wet This was recently on Good Morning America. It's a chemical that looks like water, but doesn't make things wet. Check out the pictures (there's a link at the top of the article) to see a laptop get dunked in what looks like a vat of water only to emerge completely dry and in perfect working order.

Tired of paying taxes? Here's a well-written article on We The People, a non-profit organization dedicated to fighting against, and eliminating personal income tax.

Really nice pictures from Highgate Cemetery, London, England. I wish they had cemeteries like that around here.

[A]s games shift from pre-rendered animation and simple behavior to physical modeling and advanced artificial intelligence, players find that this new realism further relaxes limits and expands gameplay. It takes power from authors -- to break rules, control pace, and manage plots -- and gives to players a more coherent world of places, people, and things. The product is more toy than movie, more sandbox than story. Video games are evolving into a grand anti-authoritarian laboratory..

And lastly, for all you "size does matter" people out there, I give you a whale's penis.

Bush will be re-elected. It's not that people don't care. We just don't care enough.

There used to be a time when I could write what I wanted to say. It's been a solid decade since I wrote with any sort of regularity, and it's astounding how much of that ability has left me. In theory I could simply hold onto these rambling "essays" until I've polished them properly, but considering I've got at least two blog entries that have been sitting in the "drafts" folder for over a week, you'll have to forgive me if I favor posting incomplete thoughts rather than letting them fade into oblivion completely.

The point being: it occurs to me that I was far too biased at the end of my last entry. The implication I gave is that our contry is going to hell because not enough people "realize" that Bush is a bad President. But that's preposterous. Bush as "bad" is a subjective viewpoint. My presumption of it as an absolute without the benefit of time is wrong.

Case in point: just this weekend my friend tara told me she thought Bush was doing a good job as President. And, let's face it, wherever the hell the pollsters are stumping for people, half of them, or slightly more, feel the same way my friend does. The truth is, much as some people hate to admit it: there are plenty of people who think Bush is doing a fine job as President.

They're wrong, but that's not the point. The fact is (in relation to yesterday's rant) it's besides the point.

Because it doesn't matter who is President; history will play itself out regardless. It's not a question of whether Bush is re-elected or not. If Kerry gets in the White House--and don't think for a moment that's something that fills me with any sort of excitement beyond the fact that it would mean Bush isn't in the White House--we're still in the quagmire. Kerry isn't for gay marriages. In fact, Kerry's said that he has no intention of immediately withdrawing from Iraq. Really, the only difference between Kerry and Bush is which Special Interests they're beholden too.

That said, the epiphany I've come to is simply this:

"Now" doesn't matter. People are to content and pacified by materialism--and I'm one of them, dopn't get me wrong--to put up enough of a fight to change things now. So whether Bush stays in office or Kerry gets in, it doesn't matter. When things get worse, it wont be the errosion of personal liberties that will motivate people. It's when their material liberties are gone that they'll finally stand up. That's when the masses will rise up and claim what's theirs. Oh, they'll do it in the name of Freedom and Liberty and Democracy. Because those things have given us all that we have today. But the difference is that in the 21st century it's the physical embodiments that will provide the spark, not just the philosophical ideals.

100 years ago it was women's suffrage and the 40-hour work-week. In ten years it'll be hi-speed Internet and file-swaping. It's the same dance. Just a different tune.

In 1893 the stock market crashed. Banks closed by the score. The US Treasury was brankrupt. There were no unions. People worked twelve hours a day, or more. There was no minimum wage. Women could not vote. Europeans came to America by the tens of thousands because they thought there was a chance of something better and when they arrived all they got was the ghetto.

History is a funny thing. There's just so much of it. This is an understatement, I know, but do you trully realize how much history you don't know? Did you know that at the turn of the 20th century America was seriously looking at a revolution? The economy was in the toilet. When workers went on strike, they were shot by the police. Socialists, Communists, Anarchists--they were all thriving movements in this country. They were serious movements, driving or radical social change and they existed because the society these people were in--in America--were attorcious. Poverty, disease, destitution. These weren't catch-phrases, they were a way of life for almost all of the population.

On Monday, PBS ran a documentary on Emma Goldman. Goldman was a Russian immigrant who came to America and became one of this country's leading Anarchist. The media dubbed her "The Queen of the Anarchists" and "the most dangerous woman in America." She was a captivating speaker, holding rallies and lectures about social revolution, the rights of workers, of women, of sex and equality. She was jailed simply for critizing and, shortly after World War One, deported.

What fascinated me more, though, was the world Goldman lived in, that enabled this woman to speak out and be persecuted because of it. It's the history you don't remember: That President McKinley's campaign was financed by special interest. That during World War One President Wilson signed The Seditions Act into law making it illegal to criticize the U.S. government and the war. That the Bolshevik Revolution was actually about equality and freedom for people, not the suppresion of it.

You see where I'm going with this, don't you?

I watched President Bush last night, and it became glarringly obvious that he was utterly helpless and adrift during the press conference, stammering as he either avoided or struggled to answer the questions--except when it came to Iraq. Whenever he talked about his course of action with that country, which, understandably, came up in almsot every question, his tone altered. His confidence grew, his conviction was palpable. And it occured to me: Iraq is all Bush has. Take that away, take away the almost fanatical belief that invading Iraq was right, that this will help "win the war on terror" in the long run, and the man has nothing. Go read the transcript and see for yourself.

I think about the Patriot Act, which isn't as severe as the Seditions Act. I think about the protestors who point to signs of violence, but it's not like the cops are out blatantly killing them with impugnity. I think about the Bolsheviks, who overthrew a government for the rights of people, and what it really gave them was a perversion of that ideal. Yet the fear of similar revolution was enough for America to throw people out of the country.

Compare and contrast Emma Goldman, who worked ceaselessly and openly to change society to the people protesting now. Because here's the thing: the disenfranchised have no voice. The people speaking now--they have jobs. They have possessions. They have computers and 401K plans and ATM cards. You and me--we don't worry about whether or not we'll get minimum wage, we get pissy because someone took our parking spot at the office.

There was a prominent anti-war movement in America during World War One. Socialists protested. Suffragists protested. And they were arrested simply for criticizing. But they kept on protesting. And it didn't change anything--America stayed in the war, and twenty-five years later America--and Europe and Asia--had to do it all over again because they didn't get it right the first time.

So fast-forward 100 years later. The world turns. Women have the vote, and labor unions are special interests of their own.You can download music without paying for it. You can get twenty kinds of HBO. So tell me, besides thinking the Iraq war is wrong, what is there worth fighting for? What do you have that is in jeapordy? The RIAA arrests you for downloading Beyonce? That's someone else. Can't make it to the protest 'cause you have other plans that day.

Iraq is half a world away. It doesn't affect us, beyond our righteous indignation about it (provided you even have righteous indignation about it). We can still text message our buds, and download music, get two weeks paid vacation and write blogs about poking fun at the President.

History is echoing, only we aren't listening. Bush will be re-elected. It's not that people don't care. We just don't care enough. I'm not sure it matters. A hundred years from now we'll be doing it all over again, anyway. Maybe we'll listen by then.

If I can't dance I don't want to be in your revolution.
--Emma Goldman, in spirit

Things Not To Do Pt 2:

1) Do not lose your birth certificate the night before you planned on going to get your Passport, which already had to be expedited because your company wants to send you to Morocco in two and a half weeks.

Things Not to Do:

1) Do not watch a documentary on Emma Goldstien and the rise and fall of the Anarchist movment in turn-of-the-20th-century America, and the failure of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, followed by the Sodderbergh-remake of "Solaris".

2) To not attempt to write a blog entry about this while your right middle-finger has swollen to the size of a ping-pong ball and is causing you not an easily ignored amount of discomfort.

3) Couple this with a continuing lack of a good night's sleep.

On second thought, do not check out the super-heroes section of the site I posted below. Beyond being disgustingly comprehensive, browsing through those pictures have reminded me of about a half dozen comics that I have forgotten all about, and I'm not tempted to break out my comic collection and start reading. I'm talking about shit I haven't touched in ten years or more:

Averngers comics from the 80s; the early 90s incarnation of Ghost Rider; the really bizzare Dr. Strange storyline from the mid-90s; DC One Million; the friggin' "Evolutionary War" story that ran through all of Marvel Comic's annuals in . . . 1987; The entire 80-issue run of Starman; old What If...? issues; the "Armor Wars" storyline from the late 80s Iron Man; Ann Nocenti's run on Daredevil, not to mention Frank Miller's "Born Again" storyline; Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D.; the 3-issue Hawkworld mini-series from 1989, Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters (1987), The "Titans Hunt" Storyline from The New Titans....

OK, see, this is what I mean. This is bad, this is why I stopped buying these damn things, this is why you must never allow me near a comicbook store. This is why I can rattle off stories and plots and titles because I grew up reading so much of this crap, so many memories and stories...

Undoubtedly, so many of them would read poorly now. But I can still remember what it was like reading them for the first time. Before special-effects caught up with a person's imagination, before video games became three-dimensional with more than 64-colors, this stuff opened worlds to me. It was escapism, sure it was. It was escape and comfort and reading too many comics is as bad as watching too much TV. But I remember reading "Kraven's Last Hunt" and "The Dark Knight Returns" in the same summer and having my mind blown away but their power and depth and there was nothing like it, nothing that mixed the complexities of the novel with visceral images. Reading all 12 issues of Crisis on Infinite Earths twice in one sitting because my 13 year old mind was swimming in all the details and convolutions of the story. The joys of tracking down "famous" issues and storylines, like finding buried treasure because these were Great Stories that I possessed.

Comics multiplied like rabbits, from one or two a week to five to ten and often more; from one box to three to six to nine, to the point where I had two collections spread out in two rooms of my parents house, finally consolidated when I moved to Clifton and encompassing 16 three-foot-long boxes, over four thousand issues; which grew to nineteen boxes and some six thousand individual issues before my finances and my preference for collected editions finally brought my buying to a halt.

I know the routine. I know the fanboy urge, I know the geek tendencies, the stimga attached to both my collection and my collecting. I know I'm 28 years old and there are better things to do then spend hours holed up reading comicbooks. But do you know how much willpower it's going to take not use a large chunk of my tax refund to finance a massive trade-paperback-buying-binge? Collected editions of single-issues that are buried under a hundred pounds of the same thing? So many memories, and the chance to relieve, if only briefly, that sense of wonder and the child-like (not childish) joy of escape? Do you realize how many books I could buy? Do you really understand how bad that would be? I mean, where the hell would I put them all...?

GO HERE NOW






And if you're truly daring, go to the site's main page and check out the super-heroes....

Mike Dahan, the President of Optical Connectivity, came to visit today. I'm sure other things were discussed, but a lot of the visit was about the big ol' mess our Morocco plant is in. Which, as Dahan understandably pointed out--is our fault. We set them up, we supply the materials and the training. If they don't get it, it's not for lack of trying on their part. At least it isn't until we can say and prove conclusively that we did everything we could. Which we can't say yet.

So at one-thirty, Matt pulled in all the department heads (and me; yes, I am not a department head but I kick ass and everyone loves and I do the majority of the Purchasing-department's Morocco-related bits, so nyah) and Mike gave us a fairly-mild riot act regarding the situation. Jim and Sana (heads of QC and manufacturing, respectively) squirmed, most everyone else was silent. And Dahan said the same thing about twenty times--although, admittedly, I think it needed to be said that often to hammer the point home.

Anyway, at one point he started making a list of what we felt were the biggest issues we're having with Morocco. So I mentioned the irregular inventory reports. Dahan listens to me, confirms I'm point man for these issues and then says "Good. You're going to Morocco."

See, Dahan's big thing (and he's right) is that far more can be accomplished by going in person than via e-mail or phone. He wants someone there, at least one person once a week, for as long as it takes to get Morocco rolling properly.

Granted, this means his comment was more of "We need people who handle Morocco here to handle Morocco there. You handle Morocco? Fine, you're going--what's your name again?" rather than "We need Morocco running properly! Send Craig immediately!" But, hey, I ain't quibbling.

Now I just need to get a Passport. (And flasbacks to Sneakers runs through my mind--kewpie dolls to anyone who understand what I'm talking about.)

I'm not sure when I'm going, but seeing how this is the damn President of the company saying I'm going, my buess is it'll be no later than sometime in May. I'll find out more soon enough.

Still. Morocco.

Cool.

Why do they call it "midnight"? It's not the middle of the night. Eight/nine o'clock PM--that's the middle of the night. Once 12:01 hits, you're in the morning. It makes no sense to call 12:00 "midnight". You don't say "I was up 'till 3:00 at night", you say "I was up 'till 3:00 in the morning." You don't call 12:01 PM midmorning--it's after noon. So why is it midnight when it's actually the end of the night?

Really, that's what it should be; not "midnight" but "endnight."

My left front tire blew-out on the way to Staten Island this afternoon.

All things considered, I was rather lucky; I noticd a strange noise from my car when I was on Rt 3, and when I hit stop-and-go traffic on the Turnpike, the car wasn't responding right at all. By sheer luck--and my usual jumpy brain--I was so wrapped up in the problem that I didn't notice I took Exit 13A instead of 13. Rather annoyed at myself, and the noise getting more pronounced, I quicky turned around to head back onto the Turnpike, figuring the sooner I got to Marvin and Marsha's, the sooner I could figure out what the hell was wrong with my car.

Halfway up the entrance ramp to the Turnpike, the tire blew. Half an hour later a tow truck took me off the ramp to their office where I wanted about an hour and twenty for a tow truck to take me back to Bloomfield. (Tow-trucks aren't allowed on the Turnpike unless they have authorization from the Transit Authority. So I called Triple-A who alerted the Transit Authority who towed me off so I could call Triple-A again to get my car towed . . . again. Oh, and the Transit Authority charged me $45 for the tow. Which is being passed onto Triple-A, theoretically, but something tells me in a week or two I'm going to get a bill in the mail. Fuck you very much.)

Anyway, when the truck came, I could've just put on the dougnut in my trunk. But I was in Elizabeth, which meant I would still have to take Rts 1&9, 21, and whaterver other side-streets if I wanted to get home. In rush-hour traffic, and lots of constrution zones. Since I wasn't 100% sure if the noise I heard before the blowout was related to the bloweout, I figured I was better off getting a tow to my mechanic and worry about things there.

Forty minutes after a drive through scenic Elizabeth, Newark, and the slums of Bellvue and Bloomfield, I was at my mechanic. I called up Sean who came over and together we put on the doughnut. I test-drove my car; sure enough, the noise and the odd-handing had vanished.

So tomorrow I get to take the backroads to work--Very. Slowly.--and call up Vespa's to get new tires. which I will go to either on my lunch break or after work. Because after two half-days at the office I desperately need to put in a full day.

All told, I got off easy. Can you imagine getting a blowout on the Turnpike when you're driving 70 mph (at least)?

But needless to say, I'm rather moody. On the bright side, I'm home, and can do . . . stuff.

Gah.

You might want to read the post before (though, physically, below) this one first as this rather continues the theme.

Ken's dad, Seymour, is getting old. I don't remember how old he is exactly, but he's in his eighties, I think. And he's not doing too well. The sons have begun circling the wagons, so to speak, trying to take care of him, and deciding how and what they need to do to do it. It's a bit messy: Ken lives in Maryland, Mitch is out in San Diego. Adam is the closest in Conneticut (Seymour is living in . . . Queens, I think) but he's got three young kids to raise as well, and Seymour isn't exactly making it easy on the sons.

When Ken was talking to my parents, the seriousness of the situation becme evident as they discussed the possibility that, in the near future, the sons would have to make decisions about their father's well-being because Seymour wouldn't be able to do it for himself.

You know the old cliche--parents raise their children so later on in life the children can take care of the parents. And it occured to me, listening in on them, that it's so very true. Ken and his brothers are facing up to the harsh reality that their father may not be able to take care of himself. I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with my parents as they talk about making sure my Grandmother is OK. Fortunately she can still function with a great degree of autonomy, but my father and uncle worry constantly and they still provide support--helping her with errands, visiting her at least once a week . . . there's a tremendous amount of energy being spent on making sure their mother is all right.

And for the second time yesterday afternoon, I was struck with the most powerful sense of inevitability. Because I may still feel like I'm young; and I am, realtively; I'm 28. But my parents are both turning 57 this year. They're fine now, but twenty years from today, it'll be me that'll be making sure they're taken care of; and even if they are able to live on their own, make sure they have all that they need and that certain necessities are being supplied.

Am I being clear? The pendulum swings both ways. Our parents take care of us, then we take care of them. Unless, of course, we're heartless bastards that don't cre and blow them off--and as someone who keeps his family at arms legnth that certainly gives me precedence to follow that route. But that's unthinkable to me, as frustrating at the other option is.

Time dilates and diminishes simultaneously. I know this point is several years, decades, away. And I know that at this point, wherever and whenever this point will occur, I will be far more ready for it--are you ever ready for it? Or do you just rwealize the time is now, and you do it?

Let's face it: this is not something I need to be seriously concerning myself with now. But I will, one day.And that alone concerns me.

Yesterday was the first night of Passover (for you goyim that may not have been aware) which meant I was down at my folks for the obligatory Seder. This year my cousin Ken Wagner showed up. He's part of my mother's side of the family; him, his brother Mitch (of Monkey in My Paznts fame) and his brother Adam are the sons of Ethel, who was my mother's mother's cousin. This means he's either my first-cousin-twice-removed, or second- or third-cousin, not removed. (We were never quite sure what the proper designation was; though many a conversation was had as we all would sit around trying to figure it out.) but the bottom line is, whereever the geneology places us, they're a close part of the extended family.

Ken was recently cleaning out things at his father's and he came across an old wallet of his mom's from forty years back; in it were pictures of Mitch and Ken (but no Adam as he wasn't born yet) but also a picture of two women that no one could place. The picture was old even forty-years ago; from the style of dress, I'd say it was turn of the century; I'd be very surprised if the picture dated as late as the 1920's. The two women were standing on a porch, no smiles. They wore white shirts and dark skirts.

Now, Ethel, Ken's mom, was the family historian. She could rattle off names of brothers and sisters like my roommate rattles off Football stats. She died back in 2000 and after her, my mother was the reigning keeper of the family history, so Ken brought the wallet to show her in the hoped that they could place who the people were.

I sat with my mother and Ken as they tried to piece the puzzle together. The only thing they had to go on were a few pictures my mother has long since displayed in the hallway of my parent's house. The photos are rather sacred to my Mom--she has no immediate family; she was an only child and both her parents died before I was even born. These pictures are practically her only link to her family; these sepia-toned photos of stern-looking people, half-faded and fragile from the passage of decades since they were first taken. In most of the photos there's a small hand-written name, done by my mother's mother, identifying who is who.

So we sat there, the three of us, in the floor of my old bedroom trying to place the people in Ken's photo with the people in my mother's. It took a bit to dawn on us, but we realized the house that was in Ken's photo was the same one in one of the photo's my mother had. We spent half an hour trying to figure out who the women were but couldn't be certain. Our best guess was that it was either Ethel's cousin Dorthy (also known as Dottie), or one of Ethel's mother's siblings.

And it occured to me, as we tried in vain the give an identity to these faces, that there is a history there that is almost lost. My mother can remember her lineage to my great-great-grandmother. She had five children, one of whom gave birth to Ethel and one of whom gave birth to my maternal grandmother. Another fought in the Boer War, losing a leg and settling in South Africa. He ran a hotel and met Queen Victoria at some point. Another came to America, joined the Marines, and settled out in California. One was a Russian Pharmacist. there were also twins who died in their infancy.

But this is almost the extent of our knowledge. Ethel knew more. But in her final years she was ravaged by Alzheimer and there was never time--or the thought--to record her knowledge before if left us. She died four years ago and in four years time there are generations lost to us.

Like I said, when Ethel died, my mother became the relative to know the family history, though it's nowhere near what Ethel knew. And it occured to me last night that at some point, when my mother dies, I'll be the one who will be responsible for preserving my family's legacy.

You see, several years ago, Ethel made a crude family tree for me. I kept it, tucking it away in a plastic bag and shoving it in a drawer in my old bedroom. When my mother and Ken and I were trying to remember the names and relatives, I remembered the timeline, remembered where it was. Both my parents are packrats, and I've inherited that instinct to save things.

I'm not a family person. Everyone knows this. I'm not comfortable with "family". I don't like talking with my parents about my life. I barely speak to my cousins. Last night I spoke to my brother for the first time in at least eight months. And let's not even get started about "children". And yet despite this . . . or, maybe, because of it . . . it's going to be up to me to keep the legacy going . . . to preserve it, to make sure what we still have doesn't get lost; and perhaps even recover bits and pieces that were.

I've been revisiting some music I haven't listened to in a while. Right now (in the ease of a relaxing Saturday afternoon where I'm recovering from the previous night's partying) I'm returning to Tori Amos's Scarlet's Walk, her 2002 album.

Now it's a year and a half since Tori released this album. It's a whopper album: 18 songs, rivaling her '96 album Boys for Pele in length and scope. It's a far more mature album than Pele, which was basically Tori flipping out after the break-up of her eight-year relationship with her then-boyfriend. There's moments of maddening genius on that album, but by and large it's an obtuse mess of emotion overruling composition. By contrast, Scarlet's Walk benefits from all the growth and knowledge Tori's had since Pele. Her lyrics still tend to lean towards the deep end of the ocean, but they're reigned in enough to allow the listener to comprehend, for the most part, her meaning.

(Though, in all fairness, one must accept the prerequsite that to enjoy Tori's music means you'll have to spend at least some time trying to decipher exactly what she's getting at.)

Despite obvious emotion of the album, it's an extremely mellow one. There's a melancholy that, unfortunately, coats the whole album with a kind of "sameness". Songs tend to blend into one another, sonically. I'm not a fan of this technique. I prefer albumns to have a variety in their selections to keep my interest going all the way through. It also doesn't help that the subject matter itself is repetitive: "A sorta Fairytale", "Wednesday", "Strange", 'Crazy", and "Sweet Sangria" all deal with relationships that end. I understand that this is a unversal topic, but five songs out of the first nine of the album seems like overkill.

Understand, Scarlet's Walk is a concept album. It tells the story of the titular Scarlet as she makes her way across the country and what happens when she does. The genesis for this idea came to Tori as she toured the U.S. in the first few months after the September terrorist attacks. Tori's reaction to that, and her opinions of it, come out in this album. It's a reaction on a social scale, not political (although things inevitasbly go that way during "Scarlet's Walk" and "Viriginia"), and the results are worth listening to. Tori's observations and critiques of America in the shadow of September 11, 2001, are not as completely damning as one might think. But after two years I still don't see why Tori felt the need to take eighteen songs to do it in.


Tori calls this album a "sonic novel" but that's an incorrect descrption. It's more accurately descriped as a "sonic scrapbook". With a scrapbook, you get a collection of images and pictures that give you a sense of what's happening but only make sense, linearly, once somebody explains the conext. A novel presents events and their ramifications and does so within context. But you can't understand Scarlet's walk (or, for that matter, Scarlet's Walk) without supplemenary matieral; the album alone does not supply enough context. Tori's an exceptional muscian, she can give you the emotion force of an event or situation with overpowering skill, but she's a lousy linear storyteller.

As a result, the most of the songs work individually rather than as a cohesive unit. I'm hesitant to say the album is "just too exhausting" to listen to as a whole, as that gives the impression an album shouldn't be challenging. The problem isn't that; it's that the reward isn't worth the effort. There's little to be gained listening to Scarlet's Walk as a whole than if you focused on individual songs, or smaller groupings of them.

"Amber Waves" and "Carbon" are stand-outs of the albums early offerings, with "Wednesday" providing a happy-bouncy feeling reminiscent of earlier tori songs like "Happy Phantom" or "Mr. Zebra"; and like thos songs the music works as contrast to the songs darker subject matter. "Don't Make Me Come to Vegas" has a jazzy feel not often found in Tori songs. "I Can't See New York", Tori's ode to the desctruction of the World Trade Center (though, in Scarlet's story, is about witnessing two planes colliding in mid-air) is haunting and sobering without being overly sappy or simplistic in its subject-matter. "Your Cloud" is a deceptive lullabye that at first seems to be a song perfect for lazy summer afternoons until you realize it's an astute discetion of individuality within relationships. "Taxi Ride" is a better pop-song, musically, than "A Sorta Fairytale" though it's subject-matter about dead friends and the incindeary (pun-intended) lyric "just another dead fag" ensures even this finely crafted pop wouldn't wouldn't lift Tori to Top 40 status.

Mind you, for all my talk of the "concept" lacking cohesiveness, it actually comes together beautifully in the final four songs, where Tori's themes of relationships, nationalism, politics, nature, history, the march of Time, and love are best realized. "Another Girl's Paradise", "Scarlet's Walk", "Virginia", do more for the album as a whole than the previous fourteen songs, and "Gold Dust" is a fitting epilouge to the whole experience.

Had Tori cut half the songs from the album (or perhaps switched some tracks with B-sides like "Tom Bigbee"), she would have had something closer to the "sonic novel" she claims Scarlet's Walk is. The album certainly would work better as a complete entity, even if it means losing some of the songs I genuinely enjoy. In truth, There's really two albums here: the songs about Scarlet's relationship with men and her relationship with America. They don't mix well; had Tori focused on one instead of both, I think the album would have been much improved.

But to appreciate Tori is to understand her indulgences. Scarlet's Walk is an indulgence, but it isn't a compltely selfish one. I may feel Tori does not succeed in her attempts, but at least the attempt is made. The results are worth listening to, if not repeatedly then at least once, to understand what she is trying to say.

Once again, the Second Breakfast Club Invasion of 2004 was a smashing success. This time it trully was an invasion: all told, over twenty people showed up, which was a pretty amazing feat. Miller was there, brining Danzig. Pete and CJ showed up; Ryan brought some friends, Eric showed up with four people, Deb brought Jill who in turn invited her sister (who, it turns out, is Jenny, a good friend of Lauren's), Dave and Cayrn were also there; Sean brought Raine and Kate; Aline showed up even with her laryngitis.

It was great: seeing the Scott Danzig Dancing Machine is action was hysterical--not so much because Danzig is a bad dancer (he isn't) but simply because it's Danzig. But he danced away with Deb and CJ, and Miller was shakin' his groove thang as well. It's way too bizarre seeing people you'd never think of as dancer out on the dance floor, but they were having a blast and that's all that matters. I also got a huge kick out of watching Sean get out there--he's normally more the "standing-with-the-dancers" type, but with Raine dancing up a storm and Sean being no dummy he was right there with her, which I was very glad to see. Even Pete got into it for one song.

We got there early--about 10:30 was when my crew (me, Sean, Kate, Christine, Debbie, Jill) got there. Dave, Caryn, Ryan and his friends were already there. Miller showed up and Danzig came shortly after. Aline arrived, then Pete and CJ, and finally Eric and his crew.

For the most part the dancing was in two groups; Sean, Raine, and Kate were in their spot (when Eric showed up his crew joined that bunch) and the rest took another, so I was bouncing back and forth all night long, dancing a song or two with one group then heading over to another group for the next few songs. then checking up on the people relaxing off to the side. I can never stay with one group--considering I was the guy that invited most of the people I couldn't see not spending time with everyone there. Which means I didn't exactly get into any long conversations with people, but at least I got to alk with everyone for a little bit.

We got going around a quarter to two. I would've stayed but Raine was ready to fall alseep and I think Sean was getting tired, too. Dave and Caryn had left about half an hour earlier. When we split Miller, Danzig, Pete and Cj also called it a night, as well as Deb, Jill, and Jenny. Ryan closed the place down; I'm not quite sure how long Eric stayed; as of this entry he's the only one I haven't caught up with to see how his night ended.

But another successful outing at the Breakfast Club has come and gone. I think next time we'll go for a Saturday invasion to see if it's any different. You should come.