Ode to Keith

And Keith! Darn it Keith! Change your name please. Thats not scary and I'm embarrased to say that. Boris, try that! Keith, you know! Oh! WATCH OUT FOR KEITH!

Once again I spent the weekend watching cartoons and darn near splittin' a gut laughing at some of the pure comedic genius that these guys think up. The above clip is from Hoodwinked which is your basic Fletch meets Pixar meets Snatch and is a bonafide laugh-a-minute. From the banjo playing mountain goat to the extreme snowboarding granny, this one's a classic.

I also got a kick out of the latest animated offering in Disney/Pixar's BOLT. These guys always do a masterful job in keeping it just entertaining enough to bridge the gap between what I think is funny and what my kids think is funny. The streetwise pigeons had me almost falling out of my seat. Anytime I hear some Brooklyn-esque accents, I am quite amused.


As I mentioned a few weeks back, I've had a hard time kicking the habit that I picked up after my surgery (http://dailywithdestah.blogspot.com/2008/10/aint-no-sunshine.html). No, not drugs. I left those behind as soon as I could. But the cartoons and Adult Swim still have this strange allure to me. Some of them, correction, MOST of them are downright crude and really force you to push the limits as they toe that thin line between funny and just plain stupid, while usually grotesque as well. They're like a train wreck. I want to look away, but I can't. I want to turn the TV off and just go to sleep, but I know they're on and I don't have to be up early tomorrow, so...I'll just watch for a minute. The Boondocks is the only one that I don't feel like a total loser watching, especially since I am a fan of Aaron McGruder and his comic strip. Most of the others give me the sense that I needed to be high to really relate, and that undoubtedly its creator was indeed (and, more likely, constantly) high. The Boondocks is almost masterful in how it makes fun of the world from a young brotha's perspective. (DISCLAIMER: The N-bombs notwithstanding, this clip still underscores the point quite effectively). Check out Sam Jackson providing the voice of wigger extraordinaire, Gin Rummy.


Finally, keeping the nonsense going as I wind up the weekend and get ready to go to bed, I stumbled upon the Wil Ferrell Christmas classic, Elf, which , like Top Gun, The Wedding Singer, Malcolm X, and Jerry McGuire I will watch with or without commercial interruption each and every time they come on television. My kids love this one too.



Sorry, but I've got to give you two more clips of this one.

Can't steal my joy

It's Friday and it's the day after Thanksgiving and I had nowhere to be today. So why was somebody trying to steal my joy? Did he not like the look on my face? Was I a little too relaxed for his liking? I sure wasn't wearing a shirt that said "Try to get stuck in my craw!" What is a craw anyway? I think I looked that up at some point and if I recall, it was somewhat of a letdown.

I was at the gym when the incident occurred, the first incident anyway. I sat down on an exercise bike and proceeded to ride my way into a low impact cardio workout. It's not my workout of choice, but I have to do what I can do right now and actually running still is not yet an option. I had my headphones on and was zoning out listening to the Verve remixes CD while my man L.A. was holdin' court on the hardwood. This was entertainment in itself. L.A. is always quite the character when our 6am crew would play, having never met a shot that he didn't like and not being at all afraid to tell you about it. He was flat out giving it to some clown that was trying to guard him, although said clown would not exactly be what you'd all all-everything or even all-anything for that matter. I think I must've been laughing aloud because L.A. kept looking in my direction every time he scored. You know how it is when you've got headphones on and you don't realize that people can actually hear you. I'm glad I didn't scream out what I was thinking of saying (something like "I guess you're proof that 50 is indeed the new 40" or "you must've been somethin' else back in your 30s"...something that would've really jabbed at him).

For some reason, the guy on the bike next to mine thought that I was deriving such pleasure from listening to CNN's coverage of the economic crisis.

"Are you listening to this?" he said, motioning to the miniature TV screen above the handlebars on the bike.

I had the music on and didn't really hear his question (well, I heard it, but wasn't really comprehending that he was actually talking to me) and was reaching for the left earbud when he said, "Oh, I didn't see that you had your music on,...."

I just nodded, but he continued. He decided that this would be a good day to be a very vocal Obama detractor. At that moment, CNN was running a story about another person that Barack had appointed to his cabinet and ol' Peter Pessimist to my right decided that he had had enough.

"I'm not a republican, but this is the first time that I have voted against my gut," he said, confusing me for a minute. Was he saying that he was a McCain guy or that he was an Obama guy? As we (actually, he) kept talking, it became clear that he had actually voted for Obama. His frustration, however, was in what he perceived as Barack appointing the same "establishment" types that had produced the financial mess in the first place. Has any President-Elect ever been blamed and criticized for so much even before he was sworn in? It's ridiculous. It's like he's not just been hired for the job of President of the United States, but Manager of the New York Yankees. If he orders his eggs over easy instead of poached, there will be a news story about it and his competence will be measured against this action and dissected and analyzed over and over again. Luckily, my rehabilitating knee prohibits me from spending too much time on the bike, so I was soon free of this very annoying conversation, but it wouldn't be the last of the day.

A friend of mine would later try to get me to assist with some of their personal drama and try to bend my ear with some of their gossip about somebody that is supposed to be one of their close friends. Again, I got outta there as soon as I could. Finally, I could not help but be saddened by the madness that led to the senseless death of some people at Walmart. It is truly a shame when people are so maniacal about saving a few bucks. The irony is that they are spending to save. How does that work? Some unlucky person that happened to be working and attempting to control the crowd was trampled in the process and later died. At a time when the whole world needs to really take a step back and remember the real reason for the season, we are still all caught up in the materialism that continues to send us into a tailspin.

Why I am thankful

I am thankful today for so many things, not the least of which is being able to take a moment to reflect on exactly what some of those things are. I am thankful that I have this outlet(writing, blogging, however you wish to term it) to record some of my thoughts on a daily basis if I so choose. So often in my past, things were trapped inside my head and never saw the light of day while my frustration with people not quite understanding where I'm coming from continued to grow.

I'm thankful that I am alive to see another glorious California day in which wearing a jacket is optional and the multiculturalism is mandatory. I love it that I can see people of all sorts of different ethnicities each time I leave my humble abode. I'm thankful that I even have an abode to be so humble about. Many people are losing theirs and I have the nerve to complain sometimes about how much mine is costing me. I'm thankful that I can make the payment for this place, even if only by the skin of my teeth.

I'm thankful that while I may be on the mend after this knee surgery that was much more serious than I had bargained for, I am getting pretty good physical therapy and making some progress. The progress is slow to come and requires a great deal of patience and restraint on my part, but it is progress nonetheless. This time last month, I was still taking narcotics half of the time and awakening with a great deal of back pain in the middle of the night, almost every night. I was walking around like a zombie most days, motivated to do little more than sleep (assuming that I actually could), and in danger of falling asleep each time I was driving for more than 20 or 30 minutes. Even though I've got many more tough months of rehab ahead of me, all of that seems like so long ago. I'm thankful for the little things like walking without crutches and being able to ride an exercise bike or bend my leg into a sitting position comfortably.

I'm thankful to have the opportunity to spend time with my wonderful children and hear about what goes on in their school day, each day. I'm thankful to have local family that I can talk to anytime I want to or drop in on whenever I have the urge. It's such a luxury to know where everyone is going to be on a day like today and to be able to look forward to breaking bread (some serious bread!) with many of them today and relaxing and talking like no time at all has passed since the last time you had a chance to catch up.

I'm thankful for the many people that care about me and look after me in their own ways. There are those that invite me over to eat on those days when I have absolutely nothing at my house. It's as if they have a sixth sense or get a memo informing them that the stock at my place is getting mighty low. There are those that call to say hi or send an email at just the right time. I may not seem appropriately grateful for this correspondence, but I am. I am so much the better because of it.

I am thankful that I am even able to recognize that I have things to be thankful about.

prince of darkness

I was driving today and flipping through the radio stations as I often do and came across a song that was oh so familiar, but I couldn't quite place it. I was tapping my toe and humming along and even doing that thing steering wheel drum solo thing that annoys me whenever I see other drivers in traffic doing it. Just then I remembered that through the wonders of modern technology, all I need to do is look at the text display on the navigation/radio system of my car to find out not only the name of the song, but the artist as well. With the possible exception of when I'm driving through a tunnel or obscure area in the hills, this is a pretty fail safe feature. It was Ozzy Osbourne. You thought I was going somewhere else with this, didn't you?

When I was 9 or 10 years old I was terrified of Ozzy. The guy just scared me. Not only were his lyrics allegedly glorifying devil worship and going to hell(hand basket not required) but he looked downright scary on his album covers often wearing fangs and having dripping blood running down his chin. The kicker, however, was the urban legend that told of him actually biting the head off of a bat. Some stories said the bat was alive and others still said that it bit him back and that he got rabies. It was the kind of wonderfully horrible tale that the mind of a 9 year old couldn't help but take for fact and lose sleep over.

Of course I lived next door to the craziest kid on the block and he seemed hell bent on becoming Ozzy and trying to convince me of how cool it was to be so destructive. His efforts were futile due to the fact that I was one of the scariest kids of all time. I was not the kid that would go into the haunted house and I definitely was not the one that would lock myself inside a dark room with a mirror and call upon somebody named Bloody Mary to come out and play. With all of this in mind, I found myself absolutely tickled that I was sitting there making my way through traffic and enjoying Ozzy's song. I attributed it to the fact that I didn't think I had ever actually realized that this was his song, but just one of those songs that somebody always had playing and that I'd managed to hear plenty of times. Don't forget that I grew up in the suburbs.

It also got me to thinking about not only that whole period of time but also the heavy metal/rock 'n roll genre. How did Metal and Rock become synonymous with the devil and hell and how did the imagery that usually accompanies the music, whether in their crazy costumes or the rather detailed artwork from the album covers, the face of the music? Did every one of the musicians that had a hand in producing the music pay homage to the prince of darkness and deliberately set out to represent such dark ideology with each thundering chord from their electric guitars and each lyric screamed from their mouths? Was this really the music that got all of the little demons and devils all riled up and ready to unleash their mayhem? What if they actually preferred something from Mozart or Bach?

Think about it. If going to the darkside is so heaped in ritual and tradition, wouldn't it be entirely possible that all of the noise and thrashing around that's often depicted would be distracting? Along that same line of thinking, wouldn't the wild hair and tiger skinned spandex pants be a little over the top as well. What if it turned out that The Grim Reaper didn't actually have that menacing look on his..er..uh..face..um...skull face...(whatever!) and was actually like a tired old factory worker that was moonlighting after his day job and actually preferred to stroll down the Styx listening to some Bill Evans tickling the ivories at a very elevator friendly decibel level? If so, then demons might actually ride on the backs of winged dragons to the tune of Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee.

I don't know where I get this stuff. It's just a shame that most of it never makes it off the proverbial cutting room floor. I always feel like some of the most interesting "thinks" that I think get lost in the shuffle before they ever have the chance to see the light of day and be developed as complete thoughts (see yesterday's post). I'm just glad that my seasoned ears can delight in the artistic merits of the music and not be discouraged by the shady associations that it had in years past.

Over and under in between the ups and downs
My mind's carpet magic ride goes round and round.

Can you dig it?

I had 73 things to do today and somehow work came in at 74. You know how it is during a short week. I know that nothing will be open on Thanksgiving and I won't really want to do anything on Friday except for watch some football and eat some leftovers, so that leaves today and tomorrow to do everything. Of course, that won't happen since my time is rarely my own, and I won't leave with enough leftovers to last me very long. Oh well, no sense complaining about any of this.

I am struck by a single thought this evening, and that is how is it that people can interrupt you at precisely the moment when you were about to have that moment of clarity? You know that moment when the tornado that swirls the thoughts, activities, deadlines, worries, fears, and desires all around into a windblown cocktail that you alone get to enjoy from right in the middle of it Dorothy and Toto style, suddenly loses its steam and lays down each of the multitude of elements in your world into a very orderly grid resembling the situation room of a battleship (or at least the ones in the movies, half lit, but with green blips showing various items on the radar) and moving at the speed of that carousel with the horses and the circus music from your youth. That moment when you feel like you actually can do all of the things that you need to do if only you approach them in precisely this specific order and devote precisely this specific amount of brainpower on each and...POOF! Somebody interrupts you and it's all gone. You were a juggler and someone diverted your attention long enough to make it impossible for you to keep 4 balls that you had in the air from crashing to the ground. How does that always happen?

I've tried writing things down and making this imaginary perfect grid an actual living document, but even that doesn't quite get it done. Sure, I may have something to reference with respect to what has been completed already and what has yet to be completed but the intangibles get lost. What intangibles, you ask? The INTANGIBLE intangibles! If they weren't intangible, they'd probably be perfectly preserved on the paper and any clown could see exactly what they were. But since they are the style points that might define the difference between John Riggins' solid game and Walter Payton's breathtaking one, even though the stat line of each might be identical, there's no since in trying to teach you if you don't understand already. Sometimes I can leave one of the balls up in the air for awhile and keep on juggling just as if no time had passed at all. Other times, however, it's like I've stumbled upon some 13th century playwright's notes and am supposed to be able to discern the spirit of the subject matter and what exactly inspired him to write the things that he wrote and why he wrote them the way he did. It doesn't even seem like these were my own ideas in the first place. I can't even make any sense out of what I've jotted down.

I feel like Jack Nicholson's Melvin Udall in As Good as It Gets sometimes when I'm on a roll and the phone rings or someone sends me a text. Maybe the only true way to get anything done is to do it at precisely the moment when you get inspired and then not to stop until you are finished. Now wouldn't that be something.

Further on up the road

Ominous

I got in the red, 4wd Jeep Cherokee Laredo that they rented to me at the Hertz #1 Club Gold counter and put the key into the ignition. It was a rather peculiar key. In fact, save for the sure embarrassment that I would’ve felt, I would’ve asked exactly what it was and how it is that I’m supposed to use it to start this vehicle. Was it a keyless remote type key like the one I have for my Murano, or do I actually have to put it into the ignition. It turned out to be the latter. It was almost 830pm now and I know I should’ve gone to find some dinner much earlier but here I was acting like I was smack dab in the middle of Metropolis or something. I looked around the car, first over my shoulder, then in the rearview mirror . Finally, I turned all the way around to give the backseat and rear hatchback area a good once-over. It’s too quiet here; so much so that it almost makes you nervous. I don’t get nervous, but curiously I was at this moment. I almost expected to see someone’s menacing countenance eyeing me when I looked into the rearview mirror as I turned the ignition. It’s much too quiet here.

I backed out of the space and proceeded to drive out of the parking lot listening to Real Jazz on Sirius 72. My hotel is just off the highway but tucked in at the end of a dead-end road that backs up to a field. It’s not a very productive looking field. Not many of the fields around here look terribly productive. Most are desolate and devoid of life. It’s as if this land was thrown away and reclaimed in foreclosure. To my right I could see an imposing dark figure in the periphery. As I got deeper into my left turn out of the parking lot, the dim street light, accentuated even more by the subtle trace of fog that had lowered at this hour, allowed me to see that the dark figure was a very ominous looking 18 wheeler. A Mack truck to be exact, not to be confused with the nose-less Peterbilt variety. I don’t know why this behemoth of the byways captured my attention for more than that split second, but it did.

Suddenly, I was in a Stephen King movie. The lights on this sleeping giant flipped on and the engine roared to life and it lurched toward me. My Eddie Bauer leather boot slammed the accelerator to the floor as I struggled to overcorrect the while and straighten out of this left turn gone wrong. The quick glance that I gave to the intersection ahead proved to be nearly fatal as I mistakenly took the left turning Dodge Durango turning toward me to mean that I could safely make my right turn under its cover but was nearly broadsided by the late model Saturn SUV. As I swerved yet again, the Mack truck took out all of the other cars at the intersection now giving strong chase. I sped down Overland Avenue across the bridge over the Snake River, weaving in and out of the cars still out at that hour. I turn right and then right again, but I can’t shake him. My appetite is gone. I can’t remember why I had even come out of the hotel. I wish I hadn’t. My motor skills are imitating Nathan Bourne’s romp through Prague in the Mini Cooper. My mind is reflective, recalling abstract thoughts to a soundtrack of a female opera singing tragedy. The road runs out and all at once I’m in one of those fields again. Is this where they grow potatoes? It looks more like the location of a mass grave, perhaps soon to be my final resting place. Who knew that renting a 4x4 would come in so handy and so soon. How is this truck keeping up with me? Who is driving that thing? Where is everyone? Why doesn’t anybody help me? Is this how it all ends for me?

Stella by Starlight plays gently on the satellite radio. I’m still warming up the car and the daydream/nightmare is gone. That truck has been parked there all day and no one is in it. I’m heading to Morey’s Steakhouse and will enjoy the “best Steak on the Snake” according to them. I snicker at that ol’ truck as I turn onto W. 7th Street North and drive out to make the right on Overland. If it weren’t so dark, I’d probably walk over to this place and walk back. I’ve walked much further in much larger cities. It’s awfully dark outside though and the Weather Channel is telling me that it’s 32 degrees with the wind chill. Morey’s is close but it still gives me the creeps. Sure, it sits just a few feet from the Snake River but the street it is on is so dark and desolate. Without the 70 foot tall sign to lure you in, I daresay that only those in the know would ever find this place. It has that abandoned warehouse near the docks feel to it. Couple that with the not so generous use of streetlights and throw in the large professional sports team stadium parking lot and it’s easy to see why the hair on the back of my neck stands up each time I’ve been there. At least there were 3 cars in the lot this time and I found a spot fairly close to the front door.

I’m getting out of the car, but I still feel the urge to glance at the rearview mirror and then behind me in the backseat again. I don’t know what I’m expecting to find, nor do I want to know. If there were some eyes peering back at me, what would I do but jump anyway. The banquet hall one hundred yards in front of me looks even more eerie as I turn off my headlights, transforming its doorways into cavernous shadows that don’t look inviting or festive at all. As I’m putting on my gloves, the feeling of uneasiness comes over me once again. If I turn my head to discover someone standing there I will surely have a hard time keeping my composure. My forehead is getting moist and my hands are starting to sweat as I pull on the left glove first, and then the right. My peripheral vision detects something out of that window again and now the cold sweat has washed over my whole body and I don’t even feel like I’m breathing anymore or that my heart is beating. Finally, I snap my head to the left to find that no one is there and that my paranoia is having its way with me again. The window had begun to fog up as I sat there and as my breathing had quickened. Calming down now, I reasoned that the flickering of the lone light pole some fifty yards away signaling that some electrician clearly needed to come have a look-see, had began to dance playfully with the shadows and through a condensation obscured window had made for one chilling visual effect. “Get out of the car, and walk into the restaurant!” I chastised myself.

Nevermind the monster truck that was parked two spots over from me with its 22” tractor tires and Born to be Wild mud guards. I couldn’t help but think that this looked like precisely the vehicle that Kurt Russell did battle with in Breakdown as he tried to retrieve his kidnapped wife from some small town desperadoes. I got out and with my head on a swivel, as the football coaches always reminded us, I walked swiftly into the restaurant to enjoy my dinner. The whole time I was in eating that Steak Diane and sipping on that Grand Estates Merlot (or 2) I found my thoughts returning to that dark parking lot. From my window seat, I stared out at the Snake River and the overpass not far up the way and would occasionally turn my sights back to the front door whenever I heard anything in that direction. Of course I was seated sideways as I would never dream of having my back to the door. Brother Malcolm clearly had a profound effect on me at age 15 because since I read his autobiography, no doorway ever gets a good read on the back of my head after I initially pass through it.

I noticed that I was now the last person in the restaurant. Things close early around here and I didn’t show up until almost 9pm. I got into a long conversation with my waiter, Orlando about Bogota where he is from and the next thing I knew it was time to go. I wasn’t scared, but one’s imagination can run wild when left idly to wonder and wander. Mix in some red wine and red rum might come out. That’s the last thing I need is to come up missing in a place like this. No one would come look for me for quite awhile. Who knows what unspeakable things might be done to me in the meantime? Contrary to what I’ve said in previous writings about dining alone, perhaps having someone with which to converse can be a good thing.

Alas, it was indeed about that time. After paying the check and gathering myself to walk out, I hesitated at the door and looked back again to find that the bus boy and Orlando had looked up to see me off. We had said our official goodbyes when I signed the check and he walked off, but you know how that awkward silence and the strained facial expressions have a way of creeping up on you when you make eye contact after a goodbye. “Goodbye, have a nice night,” they said. I waved and smiled. The smile disappeared from my face when I turned my sights back through the thin plates of tempered glass on the front door. I braced myself for not only the cold, but the loneliness of the darkness.

I tried to be optimistic. At least the cold would heighten my senses and I’d be very aware of any intended ambush. But it sure was dark out there and my car was the only one that remained. Where does the staff park? Do they live in the building? It was all so peculiar. Perhaps there was an employee lot around the other side that I had neglected to notice. Not on the Snake River side, but the other side around the dark corner beyond the parking lot.

As I walked in and out of the shadows cast by the distant light posts my eyes played various tricks on me as if they had received a memo that it was not the middle of November but instead the very first day in April. I tried to dismiss all of this but as I approached from the passenger side , the high clearance of this 4wd vehicle allowing me to peer underneath to the other side I would swear that I saw a pair of feet waiting. My gait slowed as I struggled to focus in on what appeared to be some work boots. I took one more step and then…

SILENCE.
DARKNESS.
Regaining my bearings I figured that I was face down in the backseat of my own vehicle as it rumbled down a dark country road. My satellite radio was no longer on the straight ahead jazz station but on some sort of eclectic alternative selection that seemed straight out of a movie that might involve UFOs or hills with eyes. I could see a couple other pairs of boots on the floor near my face, but heard no conversation.

I don’t have the stomach for all of this, I thought to myself. No, really, I don’t, in the present tense, so enough of this charade. In my solitude, I got the crazy idea to inject some fiction into my daily ruminations. We’ll have to see how this is received first. My own “first draft” sort of critique would call for an increase in the vivid detail. What do you think?