Web Log, 10/1/06-10/14/06

Saturday, October 14th, 2006

Mindful of the riddle of the Sphinx, I set out to buy my very first cane...when the thought of paying list price for a new one at Long's depressed me. I mean, I can see online that Long's canes start at $11.99! If your tastes run to a model with a few appurtenances, then you can pay three times that!
Determined to save a buck, even as an invalid, I reasoned that, on account of because there're lots of OP's in this town, a good place to find a bargain on a pre-owned cane might be the local St. Vincent de Paul thrift store.
Hobbling past myriad other geriatric bargain hunters, I politely inquired, at a plain folding  table near the back of the store, if there might not be some walking aids in the store's current inventory. A well-mannered, easy-going young black man fielded my query and searched...but could only find me a walker. ['Someday', I told him, but not today.]

While limping back toward the door, I was informed by a thoughtful octogenarian (who just happened to have had her hearing aid turned up) that her daughter had found her a lovely cane...at the nearby Dollar Store! Say no more! If it's in the Dollar Store, it's in my price range!

This cane I purchased was made in China.

Perhaps I'm not in on the business model, but how can a craftsperson turn a profit in this line of work?

It's marathon ugly! Uglier'n it has to be! The eyes of the aqua-dog carved at its top are small carpets tacks. In its mouth is wedged a turquoise cat's-eye marble. It sports a gaping neck wound on its right side!

All along its length is dried-blood-red paint...thickly applied, as if by a cake decorating tool.  

Friday, October 13th, 2006

The x-ray results have been reported: I have an 'avulsion fracture' in my left fifth metatarsal foot bone.

The doctor's supposed to call me on Monday to tell me if I should have my foot put in a cast.
 In the meantime, the advice (from his nurse) is to 'stay off of it'.


Thursday, October 12th, 2006

Sad...very sad.

Off this afternoon for evaluation and x-rays. 

Wednesday, October 11th, 2006

Sometimes life offers us only grim choices:

"I have to look at my wife and kids and say, 'Is it a trip to Hawaii or a baseball game?' I wasn't going to face that pain."
Steve Sweeney of San Ramon

Tuesday, October 10th, 2006

We's all gots problems, and I got a new one: this morning I seem to have injured my left foot while walking in my cheap shoes. The foot slipped quite abruptly off a beveled driveway curb. Now, looking on line, I think this is what's called a 'sprained foot' and, as it is nearly always fatal, I have commenced to put my affairs in order.

A tendon connects muscle to bone while a ligament connects bone to bone.

"After circling the Baghdad airport for 40 minutes because of mortar and rocket fire, traveling by helicopter to the Green Zone to avoid the deadly bomb-strewn highway into the city and holding a meeting with President Jalal Talabani in darkness because the power was suddenly cut off, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held a news conference Thursday to talk about all the progress being made in Iraq." LA Times Editorial

NOTE: while our Secretary of State did bravely remove her helmet for the photo at left, she elected to hold on to her flak jacket, even though it was not quite the shade of gray...or tan...to match her business attire.

Sunday, October 8th, 2006

"Until I was ten years old, I thought my name was 'Shut Up' " Joe Namath.

We've all heard, "I don't swim in your toilet so please don't pee in my pool."
But now comes, "Don't pray in my school and I won't think in your church."

Saturday, October 7th, 2006

"Most Profound Man in Iraq — an unidentified farmer in a fairly remote area who, after being asked by Reconnaissance Marines if he had seen any foreign fighters in the area replied 'Yes, you' " From "A Letter From Iraq", by a still-un-named Marine Officer

Friday, October 6th, 2006

Listening with one ear yesterday morning to Radio KQED's 'Forum', I heard some learned person refer to things that were in 'temporal proximity' (rather than to things that had occurred at about the same time). See, if you and I were born in temporal proximity, then we must be about the same age.

Thursday, October 5th, 2006

A few years ago, a fellow with whom I worked told me that he had spent several days in the clutches of a paralyzing depression. 'Paralyzing', in the sense that he could summon no enthusiasm for anything! His depression on this occasion was accompanied by some eye trouble as well and so he just couldn't see going to work. I know when I'm not feeling jazzed about my life, then my tendency is to withdraw and to eschew idle chatter. And, so, I can certainly relate to why and how my buddy not only didn't feel like going to work, but also why he didn't (even) feel like calling in to tell his co-workers not to expect him. I mean, it's one thing if the reason you don't wanna go to work is that you have a broken ankle, or a cough...or a fever...or the trots, but if it's because you are experiencing (for want of a better term) 'existential despair', then you don't necessarily wanna spark a discussion on that subject with someone whom you maybe don't know very well and whom you maybe don't like!
Anyway, making use of his company's hang-loose sick policy, he not only took Tuesday off, but he also stayed away Wednesday and Thursday...just lying on the couch in his dreary apartment, watching television and feeling sorry for himself. 
Friday dawned and my friend still didn't feel all that much better. But, the fact is, he was getting grossed out by daytime TV and that fact was sufficient motivation for him to find out if his front door still opened. It did, and so he went to work, expecting lotsa questions about his unreported absences. But no one said a thing! His office was a recess in the back-forty and, so, no one noticed him gone! He had not been missed!  

Who among us has not imagined the world just as it is, but without us? I mean, when you have drawn your last breath, who will care? Who will even notice? For those of us who live alone, these questions are, perhaps, more poignant than for those of us who live with and among others. For we can only imagine who will come in to pick up after us. Should we be embarrassed about what will be found hidden under a pile of socks in a dresser's bottom drawer? But why? We will not be there to be embarrassed! I close this entry with reference to a story out of Vienna, Austria, concerning one Franz Riedl, a pensioner in his eighties.

Wednesday, October 4th, 2006      Happy Birthday, Bing!

"Tucked away in fine print in the military spending bill for this past year was a lump sum of $20 million to pay for a celebration in the nation’s capital “for commemoration of success” in Iraq and Afghanistan. The...legislation empowered the president to designate “a day of celebration” to commemorate the success of the armed forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, and to “issue a proclamation calling on the people of the United States to observe that day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.” Not surprisingly, the money was not spent." America's Newspaper of Record

Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006                 Woody Guthrie has been dead for thirty-nine years. 

Revisiting and (at the risk of some pretension) 'researching' a song I learned in my folkie days, I was surprised to learn that Woody Guthrie did not write the music to 'The Ballad of The Deportees'. No. The music (a waltz) for Guthrie's topical poem (written in reaction to the New York Times coverage of a Northern California plane crash in January of 1948) was composed by one Martin Hoffman for whom, so far, I can find almost no non-hearsay Web citations. What 'emerges' is that Hoffman wrote the music, which was then adopted by Pete Seeger and Judy Collins. Sadly, Hoffman is said to have taken his own life not long after framing this poem...a poem that has lost none of its resonance, these some sixty years later.  

Monday, October 2nd, 2006

"It’s like something out of “The Daily Show” or a “Saturday Night Live” sketch, with...high-school-like rivalries between cabinet members who refuse to look at one another at meetings being played out on the world stage. There’s the president, who once said, “I don’t have the foggiest idea about what I think about international, foreign policy,” deciding that he’s going to remake the Middle East and alter the course of American foreign policy. There’s the president’s national security adviser whining to him that the defense secretary won’t return her phone calls. And there’s the president and Karl Rove, his chief political adviser, trading fart jokes."
From 'State of Denial', by Bob Woodward

Sunday, October 1st., 2006                       Happy Birthday, Brian Price!

Spent the last two days recording with RJ. We've tried the following technique(s), with the objective of creating a strong vocal sound: I electronically 'doubled' my lead vocal and then panned each of those two tracks 20% (left and right). RJ sang the first harmony and, then, the second (lower) harmony) three times each and those six tracks were panned 50% left, 50% right and center. Think of it, geometrically, as a ten-pin bowling 'spot' from which you remove the 'one' pin and pins seven, eight, nine and ten. What's left, in front of you, are pins two and three, shadowed by pins four, five and six. The effect is, fwoabw, 'authoritative'. 

Here're the first-draft mix results of this technique on Far Away Places and on Deportee.

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