Wednesday, July 31, 2002 6:59 PM
Joe Goes to Cyberland or The False Recognition of the Camino Real.
This Monday I set myself the onerous task of exploring cyberspace. It turns out, after a quick search in my soul and a perusal of my spirit, that I have to look at me first. What else is new?
I find it a sad thing that the advertisers have taken over the World Wide Web. (Need I say gentle folk that I do recognize the advertiser in me?)Most web pages that you go to are either trying (some terrifying attempts) or succeeding (I haven't decided which is worse) at looking like whiskey adverts in a slick magazine. Plenty of content all of it wrong headed all of it for ill use. We are told and trained at an exceedingly young age that to succeed we need to sell ourselves. Those web pages are the far reaches of that childhood instruction. It’s a hard world and we have to sell not only ourselves, but our football team our college our family our home our company and now our web page or NO ONE WILL PAY ATTENTION TO US! Or perhaps worse give us a pat on the back and introduce us into their club.
I think that eventually we can get to this place of people visiting us, applauding the magnificent work that we have placed before them, showering us in vague phrases of dubious praise. I am, in short, not entirely opposed to the notion. I just truly really and in all sincerity with all the veracity I can muster, straight forward and frankly, honest injun, don't believe it is a place to start. It is a shaky platform. It is going over to the "dark side" (Look what the hell happened to Anakin Skywalker, no, not when he makes it to the dark side, when he shifted back to defend his equally left handed son and choose to look like a pale worm instead of a splendid tyrant. Bête Bête where is my beautiful Bête!)
I spend my life in preparation. I practice the guitar each morning with fumble fingers and a groggy head. I then electronically scribble in my journal hoping that some wonderful nugget will be mind from the massive store of fact and feeling that influences my muddled thinking. I dig at ill formed and less that lucid (illucid? A new word for the growing grants of geekdom) computer programming, mathematical, musical and foreign languages. I read incessantly and obsessively. Eventually I became deeply troubled by my apparent lack of achievement. What was the purpose of all this preparation? Whither goest thou, my fragile psyche?
Then in a Zen hissed fit it occurred to me. Preparation is life. At least it is my life. The preparation seems progressive although it may not be. The preparation seems like a path though it well may not be. The preparation seems like that which comes before, but it is not. It is instead, the goal. I know that this mystical kind of ritual stuff has been thought and said before, but that didn't make it any less startling to me. The Gospel formulated according to the cup of Joe.
And so I begin to glimmer the gleam of my approach to cyberspace, www, internet, technological nightmare, whatever we decide collectively to call it. Start the process. It is all preparation. The produce of this procedure will grow, shrink, look better, look worse, hold your interest, bore you to tears, displease, please, gain your admiration, gather your disgust. But it is important that it is there, bare, with all the cracks, fissures and disjoints evident. Throbbing, potential. It will be the Lackzoom Web with all our hopes and aspirations and foolishness and wisdom. What I hope you never see is a little icon of a construction worker with a jack hammer and a sign over a wooden carpenters horse close at hand that proclaims "Pardon our dust this page is under construction." I hope that our site will be under constant deconstruction. Constant reconstruction.
I guess I'd like to make it hard on those damned advertisers.
Wednesday, July 31, 2002
Monday, July 29, 2002
Monday 7/29/2002 5:38 PM
Clean mind, clean body, take your pick.
Attributed to Elvis
Never put Descartes before dehors.
Cannot possibly be attributed
Lousy as I am at a reasonable facsimile of reasonable argument, I find myself once again embroiled, like a chop blazing on a charcoal grill in the universe of discourse that concerns itself with hypertext, Dub Dub Dub and our burgeoning technological marvels. Scratching my head and other perhaps less appropriate nether portions of my body, I contemplate the spirit filled electronic void that passes itself off as cyberspace. And come up all doe eyes and blank.
I decided that I would single handedly embark on the creation of a hyper novel. Wouldn’t it be neat, I thought, if all my parenthetic expression could be placed in some sort of text box available at the click or passing over of a mouse on some underlined or gaily colored text? That was all that was on my mind, really! But as I started to write I realized that in hypertext chronology or whatever organization that I could manage to design control is more in the hands of the receiver, (in this case you) than the sender (in also the same case me). You would not, for example, necessarily read this sentence because you could choose to drift off to some other portion of my hyperuniverse before I could hyperventilate. It gave me pause which has turned to full stop.
I thought I would take a look at the literature of hypertext and see what was going on. Off to WWW (Dub Dub Dub. It has been pointed out that it is actually faster to say World Wide Web than Double U Double U Double U, certainly ironic and more pointedly indicative of the state of cyberhyperspace.) And I found a welter of confusion. Robert Coover is writing, among others, a hyper novel. There are even such works electronically published. (Don’t want to sound too cheap here, but the $25 fee was too much for my poor, and I do mean poor, mind and its physical manifestation the bank account to pay).
Then I looked for hypertext editors or writing systems figuring that method would become evident in the use of the software and essentially came up with web page editors. Since I already use both Dream Weaver and Front Page to develop (isn’t that a pretension way to put it) my company intranet and parts of the Lackzoom Web, I decided to look at the proffered demo software and was to a program disappointed.
Then I looked at books. Printed pages of materials. Hamlet on the Holodeck is one, The Unfinished Revolution another, The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace a third. The arguments of all lead back to that old French guy Descartes and the Mind Body split. Tired and gloomy I plotted it in four extended Cartesian dimensions and out popped the devil. Seems that many people look on Cyberspace as a place where spirit, long left ignored in our scientific objective glance at the cosmos, shines. I’m not so sure that they are all wrong.
Pearly Gates points out that we, in cyberspace, have and become avatars that guide, like angels, like Dante’s long bearded Virgil, out beyond our midpoint residence in the Great Chain of Being, physically midway between heavenly and animal out to where the stars hang in spirit filled luminescence.
Lost lost lost am I. In a maze of CAT 5 Cables and DNS Info. Unable to bridge my network at home with my network at work with the network of the world. Crashing whole systems of bits bytes words writ in XML C++ HTML ActiveX Perl Unix Linux XP CGI PDQ LSMFT. It all seems like it should be easier. I just, I cry, want to write! Or Do I?
Clean mind, clean body, take your pick.
Attributed to Elvis
Never put Descartes before dehors.
Cannot possibly be attributed
Lousy as I am at a reasonable facsimile of reasonable argument, I find myself once again embroiled, like a chop blazing on a charcoal grill in the universe of discourse that concerns itself with hypertext, Dub Dub Dub and our burgeoning technological marvels. Scratching my head and other perhaps less appropriate nether portions of my body, I contemplate the spirit filled electronic void that passes itself off as cyberspace. And come up all doe eyes and blank.
I decided that I would single handedly embark on the creation of a hyper novel. Wouldn’t it be neat, I thought, if all my parenthetic expression could be placed in some sort of text box available at the click or passing over of a mouse on some underlined or gaily colored text? That was all that was on my mind, really! But as I started to write I realized that in hypertext chronology or whatever organization that I could manage to design control is more in the hands of the receiver, (in this case you) than the sender (in also the same case me). You would not, for example, necessarily read this sentence because you could choose to drift off to some other portion of my hyperuniverse before I could hyperventilate. It gave me pause which has turned to full stop.
I thought I would take a look at the literature of hypertext and see what was going on. Off to WWW (Dub Dub Dub. It has been pointed out that it is actually faster to say World Wide Web than Double U Double U Double U, certainly ironic and more pointedly indicative of the state of cyberhyperspace.) And I found a welter of confusion. Robert Coover is writing, among others, a hyper novel. There are even such works electronically published. (Don’t want to sound too cheap here, but the $25 fee was too much for my poor, and I do mean poor, mind and its physical manifestation the bank account to pay).
Then I looked for hypertext editors or writing systems figuring that method would become evident in the use of the software and essentially came up with web page editors. Since I already use both Dream Weaver and Front Page to develop (isn’t that a pretension way to put it) my company intranet and parts of the Lackzoom Web, I decided to look at the proffered demo software and was to a program disappointed.
Then I looked at books. Printed pages of materials. Hamlet on the Holodeck is one, The Unfinished Revolution another, The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace a third. The arguments of all lead back to that old French guy Descartes and the Mind Body split. Tired and gloomy I plotted it in four extended Cartesian dimensions and out popped the devil. Seems that many people look on Cyberspace as a place where spirit, long left ignored in our scientific objective glance at the cosmos, shines. I’m not so sure that they are all wrong.
Pearly Gates points out that we, in cyberspace, have and become avatars that guide, like angels, like Dante’s long bearded Virgil, out beyond our midpoint residence in the Great Chain of Being, physically midway between heavenly and animal out to where the stars hang in spirit filled luminescence.
Lost lost lost am I. In a maze of CAT 5 Cables and DNS Info. Unable to bridge my network at home with my network at work with the network of the world. Crashing whole systems of bits bytes words writ in XML C++ HTML ActiveX Perl Unix Linux XP CGI PDQ LSMFT. It all seems like it should be easier. I just, I cry, want to write! Or Do I?
Wednesday, July 17, 2002
Wednesday, July 17, 2002 5:55 PM
Modulate whose frequency?
Thirty years ago I became involved with a listener sponsored radio station here in the Pittsburgh area. Call letters: WYEP-FM. It is on the air to this day at 91.3 FM instead of 91.5 FM on your radio dial. It is quite a different station. Not passing judgment. The trade off was that the station must sound more acceptable. Simply survival. People are more prone to pay during the pledge drives. It is far, however, less dangerous to listen.
Don't get me wrong here. In the early days even I had a hard time listening. Our politics were boorish. We thought we were revolutionary. Our social message, then deadly serious, now, still serious, seems quainter, like watching in all its embarrassing retrospect, Woodstock, the Movie. Our programming skills amateurish. I am certain that in the halls of "professional" broadcasting the high “pros” laughed at us. More probably ignored or were unaware entirely of our existence.
Eventually, in a move that still puzzles me, I was appointed (hired I guess) Program Director of the station. This came with some very serious disabilities, not the least of which was a drastic non-living wage. The most of which was ultimate responsibility for the duties of the job with very little authority to carry them out. Sound like a political position? You bet! I abhor politics on almost every level. Instead of a system developed to preserve rights in a social context, real politic serves as a wedge for most abusers to pry their own ideas and ways with whatever tools or power available. If it doesn’t work hit it with a hammer. Do I sound bitter? Perhaps! I hope I will never be in such a position again.
BUT
when it worked you never heard the like.
Two grade school on friends (they became my friends as well) one a newly discharged Vietnam Vet, the other a clever musician with a genius for finding and playing appropriate music, produced an impromptu show each morning, 10 AM to Noon. Audio snippets of historical and current events mixed with musical snippets, classical hep, nostalgic rare and topical music in as tasteful a montage as I have ever heard. The very juxtaposition filled the air with meaning and depth. That radio program was lived in that time for that moment. If you were not there to hear it, you missed something significant.
There were black shows, gay shows, feminist shows, political shows; ethnic shows one following the other. Mostly saying the same old thing in the same old way, but all capable of rising above the thrall and all definitely exposing a voice that had all but been cashiered out of the broadcast band. As you can tell, the thrust of WYEP was mostly to the far left of center. Which makes it even odder that I became the leader of the air. I eschew, close to disdain, all political messages. I consider definite purpose in the art of radio as pornography. (James Joyce makes such a claim about the nature of pornography and what it serves in The Portrait of An Artist As A Young Man. I subscribe to it.)
I believe in the Art of Radio. In those days I could feel it strumming through me. The Tribal Tom Tom. You bet! I envisioned the radio dial as a geography, swoop from peak to gorge as you glide from low AM or FM to higher frequencies. It is a constantly moving landscape. Not only did it move as you moved in space from city to city but it changed in texture with time. I wanted WYEP to both fit into and disrupt that geography. I wanted it to explode mountains and then rebuild them, cause gorges to fill with torrents of water, move with sometimes swift violence and sometimes gentle determination.
My tools were the people who sat in the control room. It was my style to set them in place and then let them create as they would. I demanded only that creation. The problem was that I could not remove the poseurs. The Board of the radio station was all powerful, it consisted of listening subscribers, working members, staff and some community wonks. It met almost weekly. It made decisions with a socially cautious group mind. It left the staff powerless and ineffectual. "What gives you the right to throw me off the air?" one of the untalented who got the crook of my thumb would ask. I'd explain my criteria. Reach through your Brother Love DJ image. It is indistinguishable from the music that blares out 8 Track machines from the candy apple red Mustang at the corner of Forbes and Craig, out of record players in placed in the windows of college dorms. Forget the soft midnight DJ voice and use your own. Over and over I’d make the points, thinking that someone was listening to what I was saying or what the station was playing. And then without mercy, without thought, I would be overruled. I simply made it harder to get on the air. I worked the system, learned to buck it and eventually I left. Not in a hail of protest but in a whimper when a new General Manager was hired. We agreed. A Dios!
The station languished. Some people stayed and put forth tireless and thankless effort. It is out of Oakland on the South Side and prosperous. On the air. Plays a lot of alternative rock. I guess I was wrong about the 8 Track college dorm thing. WYEP sounds to me pretty much like everything else. There are a few charming exceptions.
There is no more landscape on the radio dial. Owners like Clear Channel Sound have brought a sound to radio across the board that is close to what the universe will sound like near the ultimate increase of entropy. Undistinguished, undifferentiated, no signs of struggling life or intelligence.
I can't wait for the cycle end. I want to see Rebirth. In a roaring flashing Big Bang!
Modulate whose frequency?
Thirty years ago I became involved with a listener sponsored radio station here in the Pittsburgh area. Call letters: WYEP-FM. It is on the air to this day at 91.3 FM instead of 91.5 FM on your radio dial. It is quite a different station. Not passing judgment. The trade off was that the station must sound more acceptable. Simply survival. People are more prone to pay during the pledge drives. It is far, however, less dangerous to listen.
Don't get me wrong here. In the early days even I had a hard time listening. Our politics were boorish. We thought we were revolutionary. Our social message, then deadly serious, now, still serious, seems quainter, like watching in all its embarrassing retrospect, Woodstock, the Movie. Our programming skills amateurish. I am certain that in the halls of "professional" broadcasting the high “pros” laughed at us. More probably ignored or were unaware entirely of our existence.
Eventually, in a move that still puzzles me, I was appointed (hired I guess) Program Director of the station. This came with some very serious disabilities, not the least of which was a drastic non-living wage. The most of which was ultimate responsibility for the duties of the job with very little authority to carry them out. Sound like a political position? You bet! I abhor politics on almost every level. Instead of a system developed to preserve rights in a social context, real politic serves as a wedge for most abusers to pry their own ideas and ways with whatever tools or power available. If it doesn’t work hit it with a hammer. Do I sound bitter? Perhaps! I hope I will never be in such a position again.
BUT
when it worked you never heard the like.
Two grade school on friends (they became my friends as well) one a newly discharged Vietnam Vet, the other a clever musician with a genius for finding and playing appropriate music, produced an impromptu show each morning, 10 AM to Noon. Audio snippets of historical and current events mixed with musical snippets, classical hep, nostalgic rare and topical music in as tasteful a montage as I have ever heard. The very juxtaposition filled the air with meaning and depth. That radio program was lived in that time for that moment. If you were not there to hear it, you missed something significant.
There were black shows, gay shows, feminist shows, political shows; ethnic shows one following the other. Mostly saying the same old thing in the same old way, but all capable of rising above the thrall and all definitely exposing a voice that had all but been cashiered out of the broadcast band. As you can tell, the thrust of WYEP was mostly to the far left of center. Which makes it even odder that I became the leader of the air. I eschew, close to disdain, all political messages. I consider definite purpose in the art of radio as pornography. (James Joyce makes such a claim about the nature of pornography and what it serves in The Portrait of An Artist As A Young Man. I subscribe to it.)
I believe in the Art of Radio. In those days I could feel it strumming through me. The Tribal Tom Tom. You bet! I envisioned the radio dial as a geography, swoop from peak to gorge as you glide from low AM or FM to higher frequencies. It is a constantly moving landscape. Not only did it move as you moved in space from city to city but it changed in texture with time. I wanted WYEP to both fit into and disrupt that geography. I wanted it to explode mountains and then rebuild them, cause gorges to fill with torrents of water, move with sometimes swift violence and sometimes gentle determination.
My tools were the people who sat in the control room. It was my style to set them in place and then let them create as they would. I demanded only that creation. The problem was that I could not remove the poseurs. The Board of the radio station was all powerful, it consisted of listening subscribers, working members, staff and some community wonks. It met almost weekly. It made decisions with a socially cautious group mind. It left the staff powerless and ineffectual. "What gives you the right to throw me off the air?" one of the untalented who got the crook of my thumb would ask. I'd explain my criteria. Reach through your Brother Love DJ image. It is indistinguishable from the music that blares out 8 Track machines from the candy apple red Mustang at the corner of Forbes and Craig, out of record players in placed in the windows of college dorms. Forget the soft midnight DJ voice and use your own. Over and over I’d make the points, thinking that someone was listening to what I was saying or what the station was playing. And then without mercy, without thought, I would be overruled. I simply made it harder to get on the air. I worked the system, learned to buck it and eventually I left. Not in a hail of protest but in a whimper when a new General Manager was hired. We agreed. A Dios!
The station languished. Some people stayed and put forth tireless and thankless effort. It is out of Oakland on the South Side and prosperous. On the air. Plays a lot of alternative rock. I guess I was wrong about the 8 Track college dorm thing. WYEP sounds to me pretty much like everything else. There are a few charming exceptions.
There is no more landscape on the radio dial. Owners like Clear Channel Sound have brought a sound to radio across the board that is close to what the universe will sound like near the ultimate increase of entropy. Undistinguished, undifferentiated, no signs of struggling life or intelligence.
I can't wait for the cycle end. I want to see Rebirth. In a roaring flashing Big Bang!
Monday, July 15, 2002
Monday, July 15, 2002 6:37 PM
Adventures in Lawn Bowling
Saturday afternoon roughly one pm. I parked in front of the lawn bowling courts at Frick Park. The area surrounding is a posh inner city neighborhood on the south side of Penn Avenue which separates the drive-by black neighborhood of Homewood and the yupped-up money of Point Breeze. The city at this divide is a constant study in contrast. Black and white in every polemical sense of the words.
There was no one around. Chirping birds, wishing whispering wind. I walked the distance around the chain link fence that encapsulated the lawn bowling courts to a small shed building with the name Frick Park Lawn Bowling Association on a sign. People skirted me with dogs on long leashes and plastic bags in their hands. I noticed a white paper announcement behind the links of fence giving the hours of operation. Saturday, but I was an hour early. I drove over to East Liberty in search of books at the Goodwill.
I returned with a passel of Ross Thomas in my trunk. I parked in almost the same place. At the far left court a man and a woman, Isabel and Hank I later learned, were heavy at work. She was weeding around the gutter and while, he with an electric drill attached to about one hundred feet of orange 12/3 extension cord was peppering the green painted boundary board with holes. I sat on a park bench, Pocket PC attached to the extended keyboard, and labored in Pocket Word trying to physically describe the place. Twice the keyboard slid off the notebook in my lap and I contented myself with observation in the hot sun.
There are three courts each one hundred and twenty feet by one hundred and twenty feet. Left, Center and Right. Left and Center are manicured grass. Right is wild grass in a much more chaotic state. Each court is separated by a black-top island strip the length of the court and roughly five feet in width bounded with a foot high concrete curb that drops to the field of play. There are three two sided park benches evenly distributed across the strip. A resting place for players and spectators. Around the entire perimeter of the two manicured courts was a gutter. The far left court looked and I assumed had been abandoned. I was only partially correct.
A bearded man in a red ball cap and a woman in gray shorts and a white blouse shook the locked gate that was closest to the park bench where I wilted. "Do you have a key?" she asked him. He shrugged. They walked around to the opposite open gate. Soon another woman, dressed for game, tan shorts, tan blouse, opened the locked gate with a key and walked across the court. A final women player arrived.
They all gathered while the workers pulled and whirred. "Oh, no," said weeder woman, “you can play today." And they all disappeared into the shed. Out they bounded with satchels full of equipment and moved into the middle of the center court. First they stuck number boards into the ground by the gutter to indicate the lanes in which they were playing. The two men were playing singles. I heard them say. The four women, doubles.
Someone flipped a coin won the toss and threw the small white colored jack ball. Another walked across the court and centered it on the lane. Play followed. Each player alternated rolls. This was different. Bocce, after the initial two throws, the person furthest from the "puleen" (pallino) throws until he exhaust his store of balls trying to get closer.
The women playing doubles had sixteen balls (later I found that they were called bowls) at the end of play. This is also a change from Bocce. When you play doubles in the Italian version, there are still only four total balls on a side. I concluded from my recent excursion to the discount sports store that lawn bowling is a more expensive sport.
Four young people walked into the court. “Hey,” said Hank, “do you have your Bocce balls.” One of the girls held up a white net beach bag with bright yellow and green balls. “They’re not really Bocce balls she said. “Well, you can play over there.” Said Hank pointing to the far wild court. “We can show you how to lawn bowl, if you want.” I moved close to the fence, the young people huddled and listened. Isabel went to the shed and came back with an 8 ½ x 11 paper hand out describing the Lawn Bowling League and the activity. One of the women, Annika, showed them the bowls, pointing out that they weren’t round. Hank looked at me and said “You’re allowed to come in a watch.” I did.
They were all lovely people. The young folk moved away to the far court and played a casual game of Bocce in the wild grass. Not making nearly enough noise for my money. Annika., slight Swedish accent, handed me a bowl and showed me that it was biased on either side and that you rolled it in down the middle. Isabel explained that there was a large logo and a small logo and the bowl was manufactured to break toward the smaller logo. Hank beamed across the court and said, “I guess you can tell we love this game.” You could. “I don’t know why everyone doesn’t play it.” And for the life of me I couldn’t figure it out either. I stayed for an hour or so and watched. Shook hands with everyone when I left. “We’d love to have you join us,” said Isabel.
I read the flyer later that night. Most everyone, it says, who bowls is under sixty. Dispelling the rumor that it is a game only for old codgers. Isabel explained to me that it was a national organization and that they traveled to Connecticut and New Jersey and that although last year’s finals were in California that they were going to take place in August in good old Frick Park this year.
But I kept looking at that wild court. The game of lawn bowling is gentle and gentile. Thought about stern old Dago guys in the alley. It would be drinking tea instead of slopping grapes. Thought about the light of the hot afternoon sun. Remembered the darkness encroaching, chasing shadowed men more deeply into shadows.
Maybe next year.
Adventures in Lawn Bowling
Saturday afternoon roughly one pm. I parked in front of the lawn bowling courts at Frick Park. The area surrounding is a posh inner city neighborhood on the south side of Penn Avenue which separates the drive-by black neighborhood of Homewood and the yupped-up money of Point Breeze. The city at this divide is a constant study in contrast. Black and white in every polemical sense of the words.
There was no one around. Chirping birds, wishing whispering wind. I walked the distance around the chain link fence that encapsulated the lawn bowling courts to a small shed building with the name Frick Park Lawn Bowling Association on a sign. People skirted me with dogs on long leashes and plastic bags in their hands. I noticed a white paper announcement behind the links of fence giving the hours of operation. Saturday, but I was an hour early. I drove over to East Liberty in search of books at the Goodwill.
I returned with a passel of Ross Thomas in my trunk. I parked in almost the same place. At the far left court a man and a woman, Isabel and Hank I later learned, were heavy at work. She was weeding around the gutter and while, he with an electric drill attached to about one hundred feet of orange 12/3 extension cord was peppering the green painted boundary board with holes. I sat on a park bench, Pocket PC attached to the extended keyboard, and labored in Pocket Word trying to physically describe the place. Twice the keyboard slid off the notebook in my lap and I contented myself with observation in the hot sun.
There are three courts each one hundred and twenty feet by one hundred and twenty feet. Left, Center and Right. Left and Center are manicured grass. Right is wild grass in a much more chaotic state. Each court is separated by a black-top island strip the length of the court and roughly five feet in width bounded with a foot high concrete curb that drops to the field of play. There are three two sided park benches evenly distributed across the strip. A resting place for players and spectators. Around the entire perimeter of the two manicured courts was a gutter. The far left court looked and I assumed had been abandoned. I was only partially correct.
A bearded man in a red ball cap and a woman in gray shorts and a white blouse shook the locked gate that was closest to the park bench where I wilted. "Do you have a key?" she asked him. He shrugged. They walked around to the opposite open gate. Soon another woman, dressed for game, tan shorts, tan blouse, opened the locked gate with a key and walked across the court. A final women player arrived.
They all gathered while the workers pulled and whirred. "Oh, no," said weeder woman, “you can play today." And they all disappeared into the shed. Out they bounded with satchels full of equipment and moved into the middle of the center court. First they stuck number boards into the ground by the gutter to indicate the lanes in which they were playing. The two men were playing singles. I heard them say. The four women, doubles.
Someone flipped a coin won the toss and threw the small white colored jack ball. Another walked across the court and centered it on the lane. Play followed. Each player alternated rolls. This was different. Bocce, after the initial two throws, the person furthest from the "puleen" (pallino) throws until he exhaust his store of balls trying to get closer.
The women playing doubles had sixteen balls (later I found that they were called bowls) at the end of play. This is also a change from Bocce. When you play doubles in the Italian version, there are still only four total balls on a side. I concluded from my recent excursion to the discount sports store that lawn bowling is a more expensive sport.
Four young people walked into the court. “Hey,” said Hank, “do you have your Bocce balls.” One of the girls held up a white net beach bag with bright yellow and green balls. “They’re not really Bocce balls she said. “Well, you can play over there.” Said Hank pointing to the far wild court. “We can show you how to lawn bowl, if you want.” I moved close to the fence, the young people huddled and listened. Isabel went to the shed and came back with an 8 ½ x 11 paper hand out describing the Lawn Bowling League and the activity. One of the women, Annika, showed them the bowls, pointing out that they weren’t round. Hank looked at me and said “You’re allowed to come in a watch.” I did.
They were all lovely people. The young folk moved away to the far court and played a casual game of Bocce in the wild grass. Not making nearly enough noise for my money. Annika., slight Swedish accent, handed me a bowl and showed me that it was biased on either side and that you rolled it in down the middle. Isabel explained that there was a large logo and a small logo and the bowl was manufactured to break toward the smaller logo. Hank beamed across the court and said, “I guess you can tell we love this game.” You could. “I don’t know why everyone doesn’t play it.” And for the life of me I couldn’t figure it out either. I stayed for an hour or so and watched. Shook hands with everyone when I left. “We’d love to have you join us,” said Isabel.
I read the flyer later that night. Most everyone, it says, who bowls is under sixty. Dispelling the rumor that it is a game only for old codgers. Isabel explained to me that it was a national organization and that they traveled to Connecticut and New Jersey and that although last year’s finals were in California that they were going to take place in August in good old Frick Park this year.
But I kept looking at that wild court. The game of lawn bowling is gentle and gentile. Thought about stern old Dago guys in the alley. It would be drinking tea instead of slopping grapes. Thought about the light of the hot afternoon sun. Remembered the darkness encroaching, chasing shadowed men more deeply into shadows.
Maybe next year.
Saturday, July 13, 2002
Saturday, July 13, 2002 8:28 AM
I know that I yam and yam that I know.
I went out last Sunday in search of a Bocce set. Thought, if I'm going to be mentally involved in this game for a time then I should probably try some physically finessed action. Figured, well, it'll probably cost around $40.00 which is too much for the frivolous side of my budget and hoping it would only be around $20.00. I also vowed to get down to the lawn bowling courts over at Frick Park this coming weekend. Research says my brain. Research! I am nothing (quit the cub scouts twice before my twelfth year), if not prepared. At least, know something of what the hell you are writing, expostulates my creative writing teacher.
Creative writing class ninth grade. "You can only write what you know," said Mrs. Whatever-her-name-was-that-vanished-from-me-after-all-these-years glibly. I thought it was stupid then, confirming that if I could only write what I know I would spew out about a page and a half and before the necessity of moving on to something else. I know that wasn't her meaning, but it is always my initial negative reaction to a rule or a guideline. I am a very contrary person. Whatever it is I'm against it, remains the ruling script in my life. Sometimes it is even helpful.
But there is a problem with this knowing thing. An old Stan Freberg cartoon where a person comes across a struggling artist, who looks terrible, takes one look and says, oh, you've suffered too much. My life has not been full of suffering. I am a suburban guy in a middle age struggling from pay check to pay check in middle America just middlin’ along. I have not been to war. I have not been part of a holocaust. I have not seen abject poverty. I have not ...well, it's all been ok really. So in the suffering department, other than a load of guilt I carry around for acts that seem not even all that related to me, I lack the "artistic temperament". I conclude from Stan and others that I just suffer too little.
I am not particularly driven. I wish I came home every evening and just wrote long tormented passages of passionate prose or poetry. Instead I eat some dinner, take a glass or two of wine and write for an hour and produce some broken dreams that seem never to get done. I will not bother here with the growing list of projects which I am far better at conceiving than completing. Hey, maybe this is a “life of quiet desperation.” No?
The other problem with this epistemological dilemma is that what I know is relatively uninteresting. For example, I toyed with the idea of a novel called simply, Mechanical Refrigeration. I liked the idea of it being confused with a text book and I may (just one of the projects) even write it some day. The problem is that when I start to write it, it seems very uninteresting. Either I know this subject too well or I don't understand its charm or my depth of knowledge is every bit as shallow here as elsewhere. Perhaps I should suffer on the spit of thermodynamics for a century or two.
It really is ridiculous, I now suffer and despair because I don't suffer and despair or know enough. Doesn't seem legit to me. Could I exist in an unheated garret with these superficial miseries? Perhaps I should cut off an appendage and proclaim undying unrequited love to some woman. Carry her scarf in my back pocket so that…wait this is getting far too erotic and complicated for my simple brain.
I went over to one of the sports sales stores that reside behind the mall and seem way more interested in clothes than sports. They had exactly two Bocce sets. One for $20.00. But it was called a beginners set, had pictures of children playing on a lawn and plastic hollow balls. Next to it was, of course, the set that I wanted. I picked it up, proud that I had the muscles to do so, for I am sure that Olympic Weight lifting champ Paul Anderson (shows when I paid attention to sports last, eh) would have had a hard time raising that set in a spiffing wooden box to eye view for examination. 80 bucks!
Always the smart shopper I went to a discount store and found a set for even more money. America can provide a cruel shopping experience. How can I possibly write about Bocce when I have not played Bocce? How can I play Bocce without having a set of Bocce Balls? Thus, thrust high on the horns, I hang watching the world spin around.
I know that I yam and yam that I know.
I went out last Sunday in search of a Bocce set. Thought, if I'm going to be mentally involved in this game for a time then I should probably try some physically finessed action. Figured, well, it'll probably cost around $40.00 which is too much for the frivolous side of my budget and hoping it would only be around $20.00. I also vowed to get down to the lawn bowling courts over at Frick Park this coming weekend. Research says my brain. Research! I am nothing (quit the cub scouts twice before my twelfth year), if not prepared. At least, know something of what the hell you are writing, expostulates my creative writing teacher.
Creative writing class ninth grade. "You can only write what you know," said Mrs. Whatever-her-name-was-that-vanished-from-me-after-all-these-years glibly. I thought it was stupid then, confirming that if I could only write what I know I would spew out about a page and a half and before the necessity of moving on to something else. I know that wasn't her meaning, but it is always my initial negative reaction to a rule or a guideline. I am a very contrary person. Whatever it is I'm against it, remains the ruling script in my life. Sometimes it is even helpful.
But there is a problem with this knowing thing. An old Stan Freberg cartoon where a person comes across a struggling artist, who looks terrible, takes one look and says, oh, you've suffered too much. My life has not been full of suffering. I am a suburban guy in a middle age struggling from pay check to pay check in middle America just middlin’ along. I have not been to war. I have not been part of a holocaust. I have not seen abject poverty. I have not ...well, it's all been ok really. So in the suffering department, other than a load of guilt I carry around for acts that seem not even all that related to me, I lack the "artistic temperament". I conclude from Stan and others that I just suffer too little.
I am not particularly driven. I wish I came home every evening and just wrote long tormented passages of passionate prose or poetry. Instead I eat some dinner, take a glass or two of wine and write for an hour and produce some broken dreams that seem never to get done. I will not bother here with the growing list of projects which I am far better at conceiving than completing. Hey, maybe this is a “life of quiet desperation.” No?
The other problem with this epistemological dilemma is that what I know is relatively uninteresting. For example, I toyed with the idea of a novel called simply, Mechanical Refrigeration. I liked the idea of it being confused with a text book and I may (just one of the projects) even write it some day. The problem is that when I start to write it, it seems very uninteresting. Either I know this subject too well or I don't understand its charm or my depth of knowledge is every bit as shallow here as elsewhere. Perhaps I should suffer on the spit of thermodynamics for a century or two.
It really is ridiculous, I now suffer and despair because I don't suffer and despair or know enough. Doesn't seem legit to me. Could I exist in an unheated garret with these superficial miseries? Perhaps I should cut off an appendage and proclaim undying unrequited love to some woman. Carry her scarf in my back pocket so that…wait this is getting far too erotic and complicated for my simple brain.
I went over to one of the sports sales stores that reside behind the mall and seem way more interested in clothes than sports. They had exactly two Bocce sets. One for $20.00. But it was called a beginners set, had pictures of children playing on a lawn and plastic hollow balls. Next to it was, of course, the set that I wanted. I picked it up, proud that I had the muscles to do so, for I am sure that Olympic Weight lifting champ Paul Anderson (shows when I paid attention to sports last, eh) would have had a hard time raising that set in a spiffing wooden box to eye view for examination. 80 bucks!
Always the smart shopper I went to a discount store and found a set for even more money. America can provide a cruel shopping experience. How can I possibly write about Bocce when I have not played Bocce? How can I play Bocce without having a set of Bocce Balls? Thus, thrust high on the horns, I hang watching the world spin around.
Wednesday, July 10, 2002
July 10, 2002 6:00 PM
I land on the moon
The People’s Park flap was gone almost three months. Chain link fence contained the place. The Manson family was driving around the town before going to LA on a rip. The Barb and the Tribe were passed out on each corner and down on University Ave peaches and penumbras were sold out the aisles of an all night grocery. It was July. It was the twentieth. It was 1969. And when Armstrong blew the line 240,000 miles away, my new wife and I were trudging up the stairs, carrying meager boxes and suitcases to Phil and Kay’s apartment at the Pacific School of Religion.
It took a couple weeks to get established. An apartment rented from Landlord Elmer over on Ashby, round the corner from the Black Panther National Headquarters. Two apartments down from the nightly concert given from Country Joe McDonald’s balcony. Five blocks from constant turmoil and riot control.
Came the looking for jobs. Andrea got one first at the Bank of America main office at the far end of the Tenderloin, home of P. Giannini. I cleaned an occasional movie theatre, applied to run a newspaper clipping service filled with chattering Hispanic women clicking scissors across a table, talked to one of the large grave insurance companies that abound across the Bay Bridge. Walked Hammett’s dark streets in a tie and sport coat. Out of place in almost every world that San Fran exhibited.
I would find solace during this period of unemployment, in two places. Ocean side San Francisco in Golden Gate Park there was a bandstand filled with empty concert chairs. I would read and dream between unemployed appointments. In Oakland, I would go to Lake Merritt, blue water mid city with small sailing craft tacking, finding the wind. A ribbon of tar macadam around the lake, and gentle grass covered hills into the park.
Which lead to lawn bowling courts and the myriad of retirees that played the day long. They were not the loud and sometimes drunken with all the spirit and passion of the men that I remember that played bocce in the alley behind my Carver Street house. The game only nominally resembled Bocce. The idle old folks were gentile, with supreme expressions of bliss, self satisfaction and awareness as they would roll the ball on a manicured grass lawn. It was cucumber sandwiches and tea contrasted to provolone, mortedella and wine.
As I sat there, day after day, newspaper, marked with irregular black penciled circles, on my knee, Chandler and Hammett (both recently discovered in the mystery section of the Berkeley Library, highly recommended by Berkeley denison Anthony Boucher in article from an old mystery magazine) on the bench next to me, I started to recognize this undistinguished mass of older folks as individuals. I could only give you as I write this, a high fictional account of those personalities, a choice I leave for another writing. Clouded feelings that linger in my memory, made somewhat more vivid by a glass or two of blood red Cabernet and feverish typing.
They would kneel, close to the ground on mats and examine the lay of the courts. Like a golfer reading the break and speed of a green. Then stand, bending deeply and roll the biased ball down the lane, striving to place it as close to the jack as possible. Hardly a cry of triumph, just a small smile that followed the gently swaying accurately placed body English that surely must have affected the course of the bowl. I sat outside the fence on a park bench and they never paid me much mind. Concentration on the game was intense. I longed for inebriated yells as I watched, howls of disapproval, a victory dance followed by vicious gulping swallows of grappa. None ever came. But they eventually won me over. Expressionless, liquorless, focused, they rolled game after game. Men clothed in green pants, yellow shirts, women with their hair pulled severely back wearing plaid culottes that bared no danger. White buck shoes and tennis sneakers. The court, carefully short cut grass surrounded by a perfectly wood framed gutter. The wind blowing genteelly against an American flapping flag, sails snapping on the lake, which was surrounded by high rise senior apartments on the far side hard against the four lane boulevard.
I shake a fag loose. Feel the heat and smell the orchids in General Smallwood’s hot house. Take a sip of his brandy. I reach. One small step for a man.
I land on the moon
The People’s Park flap was gone almost three months. Chain link fence contained the place. The Manson family was driving around the town before going to LA on a rip. The Barb and the Tribe were passed out on each corner and down on University Ave peaches and penumbras were sold out the aisles of an all night grocery. It was July. It was the twentieth. It was 1969. And when Armstrong blew the line 240,000 miles away, my new wife and I were trudging up the stairs, carrying meager boxes and suitcases to Phil and Kay’s apartment at the Pacific School of Religion.
It took a couple weeks to get established. An apartment rented from Landlord Elmer over on Ashby, round the corner from the Black Panther National Headquarters. Two apartments down from the nightly concert given from Country Joe McDonald’s balcony. Five blocks from constant turmoil and riot control.
Came the looking for jobs. Andrea got one first at the Bank of America main office at the far end of the Tenderloin, home of P. Giannini. I cleaned an occasional movie theatre, applied to run a newspaper clipping service filled with chattering Hispanic women clicking scissors across a table, talked to one of the large grave insurance companies that abound across the Bay Bridge. Walked Hammett’s dark streets in a tie and sport coat. Out of place in almost every world that San Fran exhibited.
I would find solace during this period of unemployment, in two places. Ocean side San Francisco in Golden Gate Park there was a bandstand filled with empty concert chairs. I would read and dream between unemployed appointments. In Oakland, I would go to Lake Merritt, blue water mid city with small sailing craft tacking, finding the wind. A ribbon of tar macadam around the lake, and gentle grass covered hills into the park.
Which lead to lawn bowling courts and the myriad of retirees that played the day long. They were not the loud and sometimes drunken with all the spirit and passion of the men that I remember that played bocce in the alley behind my Carver Street house. The game only nominally resembled Bocce. The idle old folks were gentile, with supreme expressions of bliss, self satisfaction and awareness as they would roll the ball on a manicured grass lawn. It was cucumber sandwiches and tea contrasted to provolone, mortedella and wine.
As I sat there, day after day, newspaper, marked with irregular black penciled circles, on my knee, Chandler and Hammett (both recently discovered in the mystery section of the Berkeley Library, highly recommended by Berkeley denison Anthony Boucher in article from an old mystery magazine) on the bench next to me, I started to recognize this undistinguished mass of older folks as individuals. I could only give you as I write this, a high fictional account of those personalities, a choice I leave for another writing. Clouded feelings that linger in my memory, made somewhat more vivid by a glass or two of blood red Cabernet and feverish typing.
They would kneel, close to the ground on mats and examine the lay of the courts. Like a golfer reading the break and speed of a green. Then stand, bending deeply and roll the biased ball down the lane, striving to place it as close to the jack as possible. Hardly a cry of triumph, just a small smile that followed the gently swaying accurately placed body English that surely must have affected the course of the bowl. I sat outside the fence on a park bench and they never paid me much mind. Concentration on the game was intense. I longed for inebriated yells as I watched, howls of disapproval, a victory dance followed by vicious gulping swallows of grappa. None ever came. But they eventually won me over. Expressionless, liquorless, focused, they rolled game after game. Men clothed in green pants, yellow shirts, women with their hair pulled severely back wearing plaid culottes that bared no danger. White buck shoes and tennis sneakers. The court, carefully short cut grass surrounded by a perfectly wood framed gutter. The wind blowing genteelly against an American flapping flag, sails snapping on the lake, which was surrounded by high rise senior apartments on the far side hard against the four lane boulevard.
I shake a fag loose. Feel the heat and smell the orchids in General Smallwood’s hot house. Take a sip of his brandy. I reach. One small step for a man.
Monday, July 08, 2002
Monday, July 08, 2002 8:52 PM
Lawn Bowling to you, Boules to the French, Bocce to Me
Take me back O! gaming muse to the alley of a hot summer evening behind my childhood dwelling at 33 Carver Street, Larimar Avenue District, East Liberty, Pittsburgh, USA, World, Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Universe, World Without End Amen. (Thank you, Stephen Daedalus). Old men, at least to my young brain, would move from the helpless humidity sweating their back porches and sweet smelling coolness of grape arbors out into the black cinder heat of the alley. This alley was at best an avenue of careless lumps, bumps and holes. Car traffic had, over the hard years, caused a massive mountain crest midway and ruts deep enough to swallow half a 1950 car wheel. When those old guys congregated, black pants, white shirts, gray whiskers and liquored, it became a Bocce Court.
I remember them as dour, stern, serious guys. I remember the passion with which they treated these nightly matches. It frightened young me that someday I would have to join such an adult world. Where game was high drama and serious as murder. Games are games; I shrug, now, dismissively. My life is a game. The thought of entering such intensity, witnessed as a child so many years ago leaves me weak kneed and panting. Perhaps it is a fault. It seems like it when I insecurely tick off all the slack solutions to my problems on a sleepless night.
I wish I could remember their names, their faces. I know that they did not come from my father's generation but my father’s father’s. Maternal grandfather died when my mother was young, paternal when I was still cutting teeth. Having little direct connection is the probable reason I remember them as shadow.
By high mystery, akin to what I witnessed in the mass on Sunday, somber Latin rising with the blue incense to a reproduction of Michelangelo’s touch in the dome, they broke into teams. Those who were waiting in the wings to play would line the side of the alley, leaning against fences that were held upright by green vines and dragon popping flowers, would drink basement prepared wine out of unlabeled bottles and jelly glasses. They were a wonderfully boisterous expletive included, albeit in some dialect regional Italian, crew. Some of their bocce balls were made of wood, some of steel, taken I guess from Homestead or Braddock Works. They were not the modern gaily colored red and green with yellow lines balls that are shelved at We Are Sports stores, but a murky brown or gray dark with dirt, age and use. Camouflage in the alley. I could never distinguish one team from the other.
Opposing teams would either toss a coin or play mora, that rock, scissors, paper staple of Italy, throw out a number of fingers, one through five, against an opponent who would violently thrust a digit count at your midriff. You both cry out an amount that predicts the two handed count. Italian number words would be sung out with a cadence, Cinque, five, would become Cccchhhhinnn Kwaaaayeee! and instead of ten, dieci, deee-aaaaaa-chi, but the cognoscenti would yell Tutti, all. To this day this distinction between dieci and tutti is how I know if a veteran or relative new comer is playing. The winner would throw the pulleen. I know now that this small object ball, called the jack in more Protestant circles is properly named the pallino. But these guys threw the pulleen.
Placed with rolling care in that precarious humped street the game would begin. Volo, the air shot, with back English so that the ball would hit, cause damage to the opponents position and stick close to the pulleen, against Puntata, the rolling shot better suited to a manicured lawn and in desperation, raffa or smash shot, all the explosive force of a hand grenade, lobbed or thrown overhand. Not much finesse, but powerful collisions. I am sure that this is how Enrico Fermi got the idea to split the atom.
The truly wonderful thing is, as I sit here in the backyard typing, I see that it is Bocce at the neighbors this Monday evening. There are loud guys over across the orchard, white tee shirts, bellies extended over their belt buckles, black or tan slacks, yelling as they play on the posh Bocce court built by my Plumbing Contractor neighbor. Earl just scored a point, I heard the yell. I probably should walk over, behind the vegetable garden next to the tar paper, wood window and two-by four shed, in front of the carefully high stacked grasshopper winter fire wood and the swing that delightfully flies out over the forest valley below.
I just threw out my right hand.
Tutti!
Lawn Bowling to you, Boules to the French, Bocce to Me
Take me back O! gaming muse to the alley of a hot summer evening behind my childhood dwelling at 33 Carver Street, Larimar Avenue District, East Liberty, Pittsburgh, USA, World, Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Universe, World Without End Amen. (Thank you, Stephen Daedalus). Old men, at least to my young brain, would move from the helpless humidity sweating their back porches and sweet smelling coolness of grape arbors out into the black cinder heat of the alley. This alley was at best an avenue of careless lumps, bumps and holes. Car traffic had, over the hard years, caused a massive mountain crest midway and ruts deep enough to swallow half a 1950 car wheel. When those old guys congregated, black pants, white shirts, gray whiskers and liquored, it became a Bocce Court.
I remember them as dour, stern, serious guys. I remember the passion with which they treated these nightly matches. It frightened young me that someday I would have to join such an adult world. Where game was high drama and serious as murder. Games are games; I shrug, now, dismissively. My life is a game. The thought of entering such intensity, witnessed as a child so many years ago leaves me weak kneed and panting. Perhaps it is a fault. It seems like it when I insecurely tick off all the slack solutions to my problems on a sleepless night.
I wish I could remember their names, their faces. I know that they did not come from my father's generation but my father’s father’s. Maternal grandfather died when my mother was young, paternal when I was still cutting teeth. Having little direct connection is the probable reason I remember them as shadow.
By high mystery, akin to what I witnessed in the mass on Sunday, somber Latin rising with the blue incense to a reproduction of Michelangelo’s touch in the dome, they broke into teams. Those who were waiting in the wings to play would line the side of the alley, leaning against fences that were held upright by green vines and dragon popping flowers, would drink basement prepared wine out of unlabeled bottles and jelly glasses. They were a wonderfully boisterous expletive included, albeit in some dialect regional Italian, crew. Some of their bocce balls were made of wood, some of steel, taken I guess from Homestead or Braddock Works. They were not the modern gaily colored red and green with yellow lines balls that are shelved at We Are Sports stores, but a murky brown or gray dark with dirt, age and use. Camouflage in the alley. I could never distinguish one team from the other.
Opposing teams would either toss a coin or play mora, that rock, scissors, paper staple of Italy, throw out a number of fingers, one through five, against an opponent who would violently thrust a digit count at your midriff. You both cry out an amount that predicts the two handed count. Italian number words would be sung out with a cadence, Cinque, five, would become Cccchhhhinnn Kwaaaayeee! and instead of ten, dieci, deee-aaaaaa-chi, but the cognoscenti would yell Tutti, all. To this day this distinction between dieci and tutti is how I know if a veteran or relative new comer is playing. The winner would throw the pulleen. I know now that this small object ball, called the jack in more Protestant circles is properly named the pallino. But these guys threw the pulleen.
Placed with rolling care in that precarious humped street the game would begin. Volo, the air shot, with back English so that the ball would hit, cause damage to the opponents position and stick close to the pulleen, against Puntata, the rolling shot better suited to a manicured lawn and in desperation, raffa or smash shot, all the explosive force of a hand grenade, lobbed or thrown overhand. Not much finesse, but powerful collisions. I am sure that this is how Enrico Fermi got the idea to split the atom.
The truly wonderful thing is, as I sit here in the backyard typing, I see that it is Bocce at the neighbors this Monday evening. There are loud guys over across the orchard, white tee shirts, bellies extended over their belt buckles, black or tan slacks, yelling as they play on the posh Bocce court built by my Plumbing Contractor neighbor. Earl just scored a point, I heard the yell. I probably should walk over, behind the vegetable garden next to the tar paper, wood window and two-by four shed, in front of the carefully high stacked grasshopper winter fire wood and the swing that delightfully flies out over the forest valley below.
I just threw out my right hand.
Tutti!
Monday, July 01, 2002
7/1/2002 6:50:07 PM
Is this a doddering old man I see sniveling before me?
As I sit here typing TV news is telling all residents of Penn Hills (where I live) that the East End Rapist, armed and dangerous, this morning after a police chase, has ended up in one of the woods hereabout. Keep your doors locked. And your eyes peeled.
The office of Home Security has asked all Americans to look out for anything peculiar. We are on high alert during the 4th of July holiday weekend.
Two truck loads of coils are being shipped to a job site in Cleveland Ohio at least a week early and with little goddam notice. Surprise!, I’ll cry when I awaken tomorrow and tell the crew of unprepared workers to look out the window and figure a way to get those nine 3000-5000 pound babies across the dock and into the safety of the presently empty cold produce-to-be cooler.
At another job site we managed to receive a common place across-the-line reduced voltage start 150 Horsepower Electric Motor instead of the more rare and more difficult to find part winding start 150 HP Electric Motor. It only costs money to fix it.
I nearly stopped at a stop sign in Wilkins Township over the weekend and was sorrowfully given a $95.00 ticket by a young crisp crew cutted law officer, who was, he said, letting me off easy because it would not carry the three points against my license and insurance. The people in the neighborhood were complaining about horribly careless drivers.
Because I paid via electronic transfer, my cable internet line provider, which apparently can not receive electronic transfers (cash them, of course, just not log them) shut my connection off until I emailed (at work via the DSL line there) proof that I had paid them.
We added two computers with the Windows XP Professional operating system and I have spent the past week scaring up drivers for printers, print servers, scanners, cameras, DVDs CDs, upgraded software, and, by gum, two optical mice and one damaged keyboard.
My laptop keyboard developed alien typing syndrome, wherein anything typed on the right hand portion of the keyboard came up as those interesting ASCII symbols that must be of use to some one on Aldeberan. Tech support in Houston called to let me know that I had left the key pad in a locked position and that everything worked fine once they pushed the Pad Lock Key. Bad I am, but I pushed that key many a time and the damn thing still wouldn’t work. What? The air trip and rumors of Middle Eastern terrorists, scared the thing into proper operation? I’m afraid I’ve just become another stupid tech support story.
My VPN (Virtual Private Network) at home will not recognize my Virtual Private Network at work. Oh, yes, it worked for a day or two just long enough to give me the flush of hope. I am almost never home so I have to figure it out or figure some way to call the bastards during the day. Beam me over, Scotty. Uhh, on second thought is that teleport beamer configured with some network card. Remember the fly? Ugh, all those intermingling fly and human body parts.
So I am bent, beaten and bewildered this week. Where is the young Joe who used to laugh in the face of danger? Who made naked love to his wife in a park atop Berkeley while the East Bay Slasher was impaling people weekly in the dark? (It was my wife’s idea, honest. And now that I saver it, not a bad one.) Where is the young Joe who used to laugh at electronic gadgets and give them a sharp tap with a very large hammer until the blasted circuitry either worked correctly or was toddled off to the gadget bone yard? Where is the young Joe who used to ridicule the high panic of news reporters who have nothing better to do than to feed and make us all crazy with fear? Where is the young Joe who used to drive in the face of the worst winter blizzard or drive without care through summer monsoon? Who used to take the garbage out in the morning?
Here. I guess. Just older. Not as stupid. Not as much to prove. More cautious. Mature! Still it would be nice to lose a little of the fear that manages to bind me and brings with it unhealthy dollop of paranoia. Or maybe it’s just the weight of this week. Who did me more harm the rapist of the policeman? The terrorist or the TV news anchor? Is it worse, if I am victim or perpetrator?
I’ll take off my clothes, if you take off yours.
Is this a doddering old man I see sniveling before me?
As I sit here typing TV news is telling all residents of Penn Hills (where I live) that the East End Rapist, armed and dangerous, this morning after a police chase, has ended up in one of the woods hereabout. Keep your doors locked. And your eyes peeled.
The office of Home Security has asked all Americans to look out for anything peculiar. We are on high alert during the 4th of July holiday weekend.
Two truck loads of coils are being shipped to a job site in Cleveland Ohio at least a week early and with little goddam notice. Surprise!, I’ll cry when I awaken tomorrow and tell the crew of unprepared workers to look out the window and figure a way to get those nine 3000-5000 pound babies across the dock and into the safety of the presently empty cold produce-to-be cooler.
At another job site we managed to receive a common place across-the-line reduced voltage start 150 Horsepower Electric Motor instead of the more rare and more difficult to find part winding start 150 HP Electric Motor. It only costs money to fix it.
I nearly stopped at a stop sign in Wilkins Township over the weekend and was sorrowfully given a $95.00 ticket by a young crisp crew cutted law officer, who was, he said, letting me off easy because it would not carry the three points against my license and insurance. The people in the neighborhood were complaining about horribly careless drivers.
Because I paid via electronic transfer, my cable internet line provider, which apparently can not receive electronic transfers (cash them, of course, just not log them) shut my connection off until I emailed (at work via the DSL line there) proof that I had paid them.
We added two computers with the Windows XP Professional operating system and I have spent the past week scaring up drivers for printers, print servers, scanners, cameras, DVDs CDs, upgraded software, and, by gum, two optical mice and one damaged keyboard.
My laptop keyboard developed alien typing syndrome, wherein anything typed on the right hand portion of the keyboard came up as those interesting ASCII symbols that must be of use to some one on Aldeberan. Tech support in Houston called to let me know that I had left the key pad in a locked position and that everything worked fine once they pushed the Pad Lock Key. Bad I am, but I pushed that key many a time and the damn thing still wouldn’t work. What? The air trip and rumors of Middle Eastern terrorists, scared the thing into proper operation? I’m afraid I’ve just become another stupid tech support story.
My VPN (Virtual Private Network) at home will not recognize my Virtual Private Network at work. Oh, yes, it worked for a day or two just long enough to give me the flush of hope. I am almost never home so I have to figure it out or figure some way to call the bastards during the day. Beam me over, Scotty. Uhh, on second thought is that teleport beamer configured with some network card. Remember the fly? Ugh, all those intermingling fly and human body parts.
So I am bent, beaten and bewildered this week. Where is the young Joe who used to laugh in the face of danger? Who made naked love to his wife in a park atop Berkeley while the East Bay Slasher was impaling people weekly in the dark? (It was my wife’s idea, honest. And now that I saver it, not a bad one.) Where is the young Joe who used to laugh at electronic gadgets and give them a sharp tap with a very large hammer until the blasted circuitry either worked correctly or was toddled off to the gadget bone yard? Where is the young Joe who used to ridicule the high panic of news reporters who have nothing better to do than to feed and make us all crazy with fear? Where is the young Joe who used to drive in the face of the worst winter blizzard or drive without care through summer monsoon? Who used to take the garbage out in the morning?
Here. I guess. Just older. Not as stupid. Not as much to prove. More cautious. Mature! Still it would be nice to lose a little of the fear that manages to bind me and brings with it unhealthy dollop of paranoia. Or maybe it’s just the weight of this week. Who did me more harm the rapist of the policeman? The terrorist or the TV news anchor? Is it worse, if I am victim or perpetrator?
I’ll take off my clothes, if you take off yours.