Trail of tears

In my job I've learned to expect the unexpected. And we've had the unexpected occur around here on a number of occasions, including people burning their food or popcorn in the microwave which triggered the fire alarm, someone having a bike stolen from in front of the building. But for the past couple of days we've had something new happen. Yesterday our front desk person IM'd me to ask if I heard someone crying downstairs. Granted I can't hear much with my window open, so I got up to walk down the hall only to hear the sounds of a girl crying in the second floor bathroom. However that's not the weird part. Today there was some guy sitting on the stairs on the second floor openly sobbing. To have someone in the building crying is an odd occurrence; to have it happen two days in a row is very out of the ordinary. Is it because it's spring time and people are shitcanning relationships to clear the deck for their post-graduation lives? Jeebus we all get dumped at some point in our lives, and there's certainly a better place to mourn the end of a relationship than a stairwell (crawling into a whiskey bottle is one suggestion). Goddamn, people, get a grip.

Sign of the times?

With the sub-prime mortgage market in the toilet and threatening the rest of the economy, this may be more prophetic than we think. Photographed this one near Dalton, Georgia in the summer of 2000.

The Young Ones

While watching television late one Sunday night in early 1986, I stumbled across an odd program that was running on MTV. It's rare now that something worthwhile is found on MTV, but back then they actually had some good programming in their schedule. This was one of those program. It was a BBC comedy called "The Young Ones," and it was absolutely hilarious. I know the British sense of humor is somewhat dry and takes a bit of getting used to, but I had practically been raised watching episodes of Monty Python and Faulty Towers on PBS. So "The Young Ones" immediately appealed to me.

The show follows the, um, adventures of Rick the anarchist, Neil the hippy, Mike the cool person, and Vyvyan the punk, all college students, all not exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer. In the 12 total episodes the BBC made of this series, their circumstances (amongst many) find them dealing with vampires, their criminally-insane Russian landlord, a nuclear bomb in their kitchen, oil in their basement, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, a hamster named Special Patrol Group, a female serial killer who's dressed like Alice in Wonderland, Vyvian getting pregnant, and a fateful trip to a laundromat.

The You Tube clip below is from the episode, "Bambi," one of my favorites. In this episode, the boys find themselves competing in a television program called University Challenge against Footlights College Oxbridge. If some of the faces look familiar, they should. Competing for Footlights College are Emma Thompson, and Hugh Laurie long before his stint as Gregory House, M.D.

Well, DUH!

Because sometimes the obvious needs to be pointed out.
Photographed by me around about 2001.

TGISpring

Ah yes, springtime in the American Southeast. A time of transition between seasons, a time of everything being coated in a thick, ungodly layer of yellow pollen. And this year it seems to have gotten pretty bad pretty early, thanks to an almost complete lack of rain. I thought I saw smoke coming from our neighbor's house on Saturday, but it was only clouds of pollen coming from the pine trees in their backyard when the breeze blew. This morning some of the landscaping crews on campus were around with their leaf blowers, clearing the sidewalks of leaves and other debris. The air literally was yellow as they stirred up the pollen on the ground. Combine a pollen count in the billions and a gritty feeling in your mouth and lungs with the very spring-like 87 degree temperatures around here yesterday and it's a very uncomfortable sensation, sort of like watching a Steven Segal movie. Visine eye drops are my new bestest friend for the next few months.

G.I. Exorcist

Another WWII era poster that just makes me laugh. It says this guy is sneezing but it looks like the shit on a shingle he's been served doesn't agree with him. I love the look on the guy's face to the right; to me it says, "You uncouth sonofabitch!" Predates Linda Blair by twenty-five to thirty years.

And if you're asking why all the posters from that era of late, for the past year and a half I've been reading a substantial biography on FDR written by Conrad Black and I've been doing some online searches trying to put faces to some of the names in the book.

Goal

I've decided that I have one main goal in my life, and that goal is whenever I have to go into a Walmart, my objective is to get the hell out of the Walmart. Cue the banjo player from Deliverance.

RIP, Bud

Sad news from the television world this week. Calvert DeForest passed away this past Tuesday at the age of 85. What? You've never heard of Calvert? Oh, my apologies. Calvert is better known to most insomniacs, angry loners, the unemployed, and other subgroups of Late Night with David Letterman fans as the character of Larry "Bud" Melman. Bud would often turn up in and at the most unexpected times on the show, and was hilarious during those times he was on the show. Twenty years later I still remember the product he pitched during the program: "For a late night snack that won't make you sick, try Mr. Larry's Toast on a Stick!"

After Letterman left for CBS, NBC got in one last laugh and claimed the character of Larry "Bud" Melman as "intellectual property" of the network, so Larry "Bud" Melman didn't make the move with the show to a new network in 1993--but Calvert DeForest did, for the first time having to use his real name on the Late Show. But if you've never seen Larry in action, here he is in a November 1983 segment where he hands out hot towels and questions to the huddled masses arriving at the NYC Port Authority bus station.

Rest in peace, Calvert. You certainly were one of a kind.

VD is for everybody redux

On the heels of posting the VD is for everybody PSA, today I find this graphic of an old WWII era poster. I feel sorry for the girl in the photo, and it makes me wonder if she knew she'd be the poster child for venereal disease and "good time girls," destined to be posted on army bases around the globe. Reminds me of a line of dialogue from the HBO series Band of Brothers: "Remember boys, flies spread disease...so keep yours closed!"

Just an interview

Interviewed this morning for the position I applied for last week. I feel like I used to after midterm exams--a "I could've done better" sort of uneasiness but often I did better on my tests than I felt I did. Who knows. I've a better idea of what the job entails now and I'm not deterred, especially since it comes with an office. We'll see. Wish me luck.

VD is for everybody!

A PSA from the late 1970s. The campy music, the happy people...this was supposed to make you NOT want to get a case of the clap, right? Made just before the AIDS epidemic, when getting VD was the worst thing that could happen to you.

Four in a row

Even though I do like my job, I've found it's in my best interest to keep one shoulder on the wheel while keeping one eye on the job postings around here. Where I work, the only realistic way to be promoted in terms of title and pay is to find another position with progrssively higher job titles and pay. It's rare that you can stay in one place and be promoted.

That's the predicament that I find myself in. Realistically, looking at the prospects in the department and school where I work, there's no place to move up. Only option: move out. Early last week I applied for another job on campus, one that would move me up in title, pay, responsibility, and the administrative food chain. Friday morning I got a call back on the application, and it looks as though I'll be interviewing for the job sometime this coming week. This is four straight applications that I've gotten call backs on. Of the first three, I passed on one interview because I thought, at the time, I should stay where I'm at, another was grant funded with no guarantee of funding beyond two years (a HUGE gamble with state budgets being quite unpredictable these days), and I didn't like the environment in the third place. This latest application is for a newly created position, which worries me. Usually the FNGs (fucking new guys) don't get the best digs for their work environment. I've worked really hard to get to a point where I warrant my own office. If this new job doesn't come with an office, as stupid as it sounds, I'm not really interested anymore. I've worked the cubicle culture before, and I'm not going back.

The iRack

Satire at its best. Mad TV rocks...or is it iRocks?

Ummm . . .hello?

My friend Todd over at Article of Faith has given me few hat tips of late, and I'd like to thank him for such. He's a great guy, and I'd say he deserves to be president one day but I want to stay in his good graces so I won't wish that upon him.

It's spring break for me right now, so I've passed along links to news items and left the writing up to him. Besides, he's smarter and has better political insight than I, though I do trust my gut instincts on politics even if I can't put them in written word. So one side effect of the hat tips apparently has been people taking a look at my profile and/or blog. It's kind of scary, if you think about it. I started this little blog project mainly for myself to get my writing ya-yas out and sharing my rantings with friends, not to mention to give myself some creative exercise from time to time. On that note, please excuse my toilet paper theorum in my previous post; it's not my best work which is why I'm posting this--so anyone who happens to come here from another blog won't see that entry first. I don't think I'm a bad writer; I have my editing errors from time to time and comma, splices remain the bane of my existence. And instead of writing OMG and WTF, I go with the old-fashioned "Oh My God" and "What the fuck."

So if you've found your way here from another blog, welcome! If you're looking for well written, insightful political commentary, that's not me. If you're looking for irrelevant, borderline psychobabble, well then by all means grab a straitjacket and make yourself at home. Hell, blogging is cheaper than therapy. I've got some tea chilling the in the fridge and some red beans and rice on the stove. I prefer my red beans and rice with some polish sausage, so let me know if you're a vegetarian.

How to tell when the budget is bad

In these trying economic times, it's hard for any of us to know how secure our jobs are. What job position is funded one day could be out in the cold the next. With mixed news on the employment front and word that employers may slow down their hiring practices in 2007, it's now more important than ever to have advance warning if your company is cutting back on its budget. I've worked long and hard on this quantitative methodology, and it applies to both the private and public sector. The key to determining the fiscal health of your employer can be summed up in two words:

Toilet Paper

Yes, I said toilet paper. I've determined this factor from simple observation over the past nine years with my current employer. Here are the details to work with.

When your employer is doing well fiscally, there is extra money to spend. Thus, if you find comfortable, 2-ply toilet paper adorning the walls of the bathroom stalls, things are going well at the moment. Enjoy!

However, when things are tight and budgets are being cut back, the quality of the toilet paper goes down. Around my office, tight budgets mean 1-ply toilet paper better suited for sanding off a layer of varnish from a tabletop than using on some of the more delicate parts of the human anatomy. The usual type of low cost toilet paper is the John Wayne brand: it's rough, tough, and doesn't take crap off nobody.

So there you go; the key to determining your company's fiscal health is toilet paper. Thank you.

Panic in the streets, part 2

A couple of Decembers ago one of our neighbors graduated with her masters degree. To celebrate this occasion, her husband threw a post-commencement/pre-student loan is due party, to which my wife and me were invited. It was an unusual night for me as I prefer not to enter into social situations where I, for the most part, don’t know anybody. This was one of those occasions. Nevertheless, heading to the kitchen for my first beer of the evening I began a conversation with another one of the guests. As we conversed we both had a feeling that we recognized the other from somewhere, but just couldn’t place where. After we introduced ourselves, I figured out where I knew him from.

It turns out it was Sunny Ortiz, percussionist for the band Widespread Panic. “I thought I recognized you but I just couldn’t place where I knew you from,” I told him. “You know,” I continued, “I worked for you guys for a day,” and proceeded to tell him that I was a volunteer at their free launch party/show in downtown Athens in 1998.

“Yeah, he’s always talking about that,” my wife chimed in. I instinctively cringed at the comment. It was my intention not to make him feel like he was being cornered by a fan (which I’m not but appreciate their musicianship), and I was concerned that the comment would be misinterpreted. Plus, it was a topic that I rarely talked about. But at that particular moment, however, I was more interested in talking to him about the school his child went to and his opinion of it, as my wife and I were looking into which school to send our daughter to the following fall. Talking to Sunny I discovered that a friend of mine who used to work for Panic lived just around the corner from me—the person responsible for me spending a day working for the band.

The road that eventually found me in my neighbor’s kitchen talking to a member of Widespread Panic began on an overcast, non-descript February day in 1998. I had just returned to school the month before, my eyes set on the prize of a baccalaureate degree from a four year university. My classes ended before noon that quarter, so on this particular day I walked over to see if some friends and former bandmates were in their practice space with the intention of just hanging around with them for a while before going to find some lunch. They were there that morning, as was my friend Pete, who at the time worked for Panic. I have previously written about my experiences playing in a band, and Pete played drums with the band that were our fellow basement dwellers and for whom my band opened for one night. I also played with Pete on a one-off gig for my friend Jon’s wedding in 1996, and is perhaps the best drummer/timekeeper I’ve ever played with.

In the middle of our conversations that day in the practice space that used to be a nightclub called Buckhead Beach, Pete turns to me and says, “I was going to call you soon. Do you want to help out with the Panic show in April?” I thought about it for about three seconds. By no means was I a fan of the band and their Grateful Dead style of music, having cut my teeth on punk during the 1980s. But I also recognized that it would be a very cool experience that likely would only happen once in my lifetime, as well as an opportunity to work in a music environment again. With no reservations and a minimum of hesitation I was onboard to work the show.

The morning of Saturday, April 18, 1998, finally broke over the town. In the interim between being asked to work the show and the day of, there was a great deal of uncertainty whether the concert would go on in Athens or be moved to Macon—which, with my schedule at the time, would’ve knocked me out of the ranks of the volunteers. The Athens city council began to hedge and waiver on the expenses of providing law enforcement for the show, in addition to a few other concerns they had. In the end, though, they did the right thing by coming through with everything necessary for the show to go on.

I parked my car that morning in the same campus lot I normally parked in when heading to class. It’s roughly several blocks from where the stage was to be set up at the intersection of East Washington and Pulaski Streets, right in front of the 40 Watt Club. During my walk I passed cars and tents containing sleeping “Spreadheads.” Once I got to the stage, my friend Pete tells me there’s a parking lot for volunteers only a block away. So back to my car I walked. The walk back took longer as the same morning was the annual run/walk benefiting a number of Athens charities, and my path took me directly into the path of a few thousand people just as they were starting the course.

Cut to my return to the stage. A small army of volunteers, as well as a handful of experienced roadies, were unloading road cases from small, rented moving vans. Light rigging was being assembled, amplifiers set up, cables run. The stage itself was pretty interesting. Hauled by a semi, the stage was portable and about the size of a tractor trailer. It opened up to offer more stage floor space and the top was hydraulically controlled to rise up once the lighting was rigged. This stage, in particular, had to come from Canada and there was some concern that border customs might delay it long enough to be a problem. Fortunately that didn’t happen.

My friend Jon and I got the job of wrapping cables in thick layers of plastic. On either side of Washington Street speaker towers were set up, a pair for at least the first couple of intersections heading up the street from the stage. The cables ran from the stage board up the south side of the street, with connecting cables running across from those south towers to the accompanying one on the north side. Our job was to wrap these cables in the street with many layers of plastic sheeting in order to protect them from what was certain to be thousands of fans and their footsteps.

It was roughly noon by this time, and downtown was beginning to fill with an army of tye-dyed fans and small time vendors selling t-shirts. Patchouli was ever present in the air; bras, as Jon pointed out, were not to be found downtown on that day (not a bad thing). Several hours before the show started there was already a palpable feeling of anticipation and electricity in the air that would only come to a head once the band took the stage. By early afternoon the stage was set, so I took off for a few hours, wanting to be there when the show started.

I returned downtown late in the afternoon, and the crowd, which had been gathering since around midday, had grown quite a bit. My camera was with me, so I began taking a few shots. Maybe you’ve noticed them with this entry?

Nine years later I can’t recall what time the show started. It was around dusk, which in April comes around 7:30-8:00 in these parts. I do recall that I made it a point to be there at the front in the space between the stage and the barriers holding the fans back. Did I feel like the guano flashing my laminant which allowed me access backstage. Showtime finally arrived and the band hit the stage, much to the delight of the gathered mass of fans. Things started off well at first, but quickly took a scary and potentially dangerous turn. Once the band started playing, as will happen with festival type gatherings, the crowd of an estimated 75,000-100,000 people took a collective step forward, trying to get closer to the stage. Immediately the people at the very front of the crowd were pushed up against the barrier fences. I saw what was happening and sought out one of the regular Panic stage crew to tell them what was going on. In short order people were being pulled out from behind the barrier, one or two required medical attention if I recall correctly. The show stopped a couple of times during the first few songs as the band asked the crowd to take a step back and give the concertgoers up front some breathing space.

The next few hours while the band played was “hurry and wait” time. My experience of the show is different from someone who was there to see the band. Much of my time during the concert was spent hanging around backstage, my services not being needed until the show was over. I took the opportunity to walk back to my car to put my camera away, and then head over to the Grit for some tea as the sugar and caffeine would be needed before too long once the load out started.

The volunteers who hung around until the end of the show gathered together backstage as the last song began. “This is the final song,” we were told. “Once it’s over, we’ll wait 15 minutes then go onstage and begin the breakdown.” No pun intended, but this set the stage that for me at least was the most memorable moment of the whole experience. The band finished off their last song, marched off stage, and we marched on at the predetermined time. I rounded the drum riser to find myself looking up Washington Street at the sea of fans, thousands of them, hoping for another encore. Of all the times not to have my camera. I called to Jon and pointed out the sight, and we both stopped for a moment to take in this incredible sight that’s forever etched in my memory.

The load out took longer than the set up as many of the volunteers had left by the end of the show. Admittedly I enjoyed myself as I helped take apart sections of the light rigging, including the circular display over the stage where the varilights were mounted. For the record, varilights weigh about what you’d expect, about 45 pounds each. It was my job to offload the varilights from the stage to someone in one of the awaiting trucks so the lights could be returned to their road cases. Given how expensive these things are, the only thought in my head as I handed them off was “don’t fuck up…don’t fuck up.” I knew the band had a show a few days later and the last thing I wanted was for them to be one varilight short when they got there.

Trash and broken glass. My God, the street in front of the stage was covered with trash and broken glass. Literally, you could walk across the street and never touch asphalt at all. And we had to walk across this scene of devastation moving road cases from the stage to the waiting trucks. The forklift that moved the larger items made nearly constant crunching noises as it ran over glass in the street. The shoes I wore that day were ruined, the bottoms so badly cut up from broken glass that they were thrown in the trash the next day.

Around 6:00 in the morning on Sunday we finally had everything broken down and moved into the trucks. I guess I had done a good job as a few people asked me to go out on the road with them. Had I not just started back to school I probably would have.

The stage was closed up and made ready to be moved to locations unknown. The city street cleaners were about clearing up the residue of thousands of people attending a free outdoor concert. Our work was done, and I headed back to my car. My day, which had started on Saturday, ended Sunday morning the same way it had begun—walking past cars and tents filled with sleeping Spreadheads. As I pulled into my driveway about 6:30 Sunday morning, the newspaper was already waiting. I opened it only to be greeted with photos from the concert I had just left. I was exhausted, but glad I had volunteered to work the show. And I’d do it again in a f*cking minute.

Panic in the streets, part 1

I'm not a fan of the band Widespread Panic, but I found this video of them from their "Light Fuse, Get Away" launch party, April 1998 in Athens. It was a free show, lots and lots of people in attendance, and I was there working the gig. Up until I stumbled across this video I had never seen any of the footage that was shot that night. So enjoy this video for now; part 2 will be my retelling of the events of that day.

March 9 update: Sorry, for whatever reason they (the user, not You Tube) have pulled the video.

25 years ago today...

...John Belushi died from a drug overdose. Damn you, John! What a complete waste of a life and comedic ability! Your brother Jim is a pale facsimile.

Random thoughts on a Monday

There are occasions when I want to write about something, but I just can't completely develop an idea or topic. That should be very apparent by reading some of my posts. Today is one of those days where I want to write, but there is no rhyme nor reason to any of the thoughts floating around my head. So in lieu of something coherent, and because my eyes simply won't focus well this morning, some random thoughts resulting from the weekend of March 2-4.

What do you get when you combine Terry Schiavo and $30? A potential licensed driver in Georgia. The driving in town seemed much worse than usual this past weekend. Everyone seemed to have left their brains in the pants pocket of the jeans sitting on their bedroom floor. Maybe it was the full moon, or maybe it was the extra sporting events in town this past weekend.

I heard on the news of a 420 pound woman in California who went to the ER complaining of stomach pains only to find out she was pregnant and in labor. What surprises me more is not that she went full term without knowing, but that someone actually had sex with the woman.

Is Green Acres really the place to be? Farm living is not the life for me.

Tornadoes killed a seven year old girl in Missouri, fifteen people in Alabama, and nine people in Georgia last Thursday. Six people died Friday morning when a bus carrying a college baseball team careened off an overpass in Atlanta. This is not a good time to be in the South.

America's "King of Beers" tastes like piss. Not that I know what piss tastes like, mind you, I'm just making an approximation. Give me a Samuel Adams Cherry Wheat any day.

Will I ever make the time to write about our family trip to Disney World a few days after Christmas?

I did make time on Saturday to head out to the driving range and hit golf balls. Hit the irons pretty well and made some good shots with my 3 wood/iron as well as my pitching wedge. Couldn't hit my driver worth a shit. If only I could slice a turkey as well as I was slicing golf balls that day. There was a golden lab hanging around the driving range, just sitting there, playing coy. As soon as I directed a comment to him he came trotting over, tail wagging, happy that someone was paying attention to him. Damn dog took the golf ball I had just teed up and ran off with it.

A shout out to my former RMI co-workers. You people were great to work with, even if you, for the most part, didn't understand my off-beat sense of humor. It's fun to run into people I used to work with whom I haven't seen in a while. Invariably we get to the "So, what are you doing now" question. When I tell them I manage a department with a seven-digit budget, the usual "wow" reaction says a lot. Hey, I was a lot smarter and capable of more responsibility than my job ten years ago required; I started working at RMI still bearing the wound caused by my father's death, and I just didn't want to be smart or responsible.

Damn...work calls. I like my job, but perhaps it's time for a change. There are a few on campus that will pay me more and with more tasks and responsibility. But I've gotten so comfortable where I'm at. I mean, I have my own office and I get to wear jeans on Fridays, and I'm not about to discipline myself for a dress code infraction.

Uh oh....

Okay, it's pouring down rain at the moment, there are rumbles of thunder in the distance, a large portion of Georgia is under a tornado watch. Now comes word that the National Weather Service's office in Atlanta is having trouble with their severe weather alert system. What this means is that everyone who has a weather alert radio won't get a message if severe weather happens today. Nothing better than a tornado coming down your street and your first warning is your car being blown through your home's front window. Auntie Em, it's a twister! IT'S A TWISTER!