rock over London. rock on, Chicago.

hoops are on.
my B team is the West Virginia. this is because of my brother but it wasn’t a hard sell. WVU’s head coach is Bob Huggins, a born-and-bred West By God hillbilly who has harnessed the ability to recruit athletic freaks. jackrabbits. 6″8′ freaks-of-nature with 45″ verticals. the man spent a year — a year — at Kansas State, which hadn’t been to the NCAA tourney in at least 15 years, and he signed Michael fucking Beasley.
Huggz can recruit. and he’s in the Big East. which means he can recruit in every city from DC to NYC. in five yars, West Virginia will be awesome. just watch.
and Big East basketball is great; Pittsburgh, Georgetown, Syracuse, Marquette, Notre Dame, Louisville, UConn, Villanova. Seton Hall and Providence are names. WVU is beating the shit out of Kentucky right now. seven minutes into the second half, and they’ve only got 24 points. god, I hate Kentucky. that school can rot in hell.

Thanksgiving was delicious. two days of nothing-but-eating. but I didn’t get any mashed potatoes. weak!

a year ago in August, my Aunt Nettie died.
this was the event that anchored one of the wildest weeks in the history of my family. I wasn’t there; I was at this awful, awful job that I can’t seem to shake, but from everything I’ve been told, this was a blessing. conflicting personalities, that death in the family, and the loss of electricity conspired to create our own personal Hell Week. seven people in one house, at the most humid end of summer, after a non-typical monsoon knocked out power for five days straight.
I’m not doing this justice. I know. this is hard to describe. because everyone thinks their family is over the top, more dysfunctional than the next. I’m not going to carry the illusion that mine is any more than yours may be, but it’s definitely unique. I guess every family has their own narrative. and I think this week, that I didn’t directly experience but can sense like it was tattooed on my forearm, this is the perfect example to get that narrative on paper.
I talked to Va. on the phone a year ago, and I remember this; she said: “You need to turn this into a story.” I needed, she said, to write this down.
I couldn’t get out of work for this, a year ago in August, which sucked. I kind of wanted to be there, for the wrong reasons. I knew it was gonna be a trainwreck, but it was gonna be my trainwreck. I was gonna be part of it, and we were all gonna be miserable together, which is a million times better than being lackadaisical alone. 
but maybe not being able to attend was kind of a blessing in disguise. maybe I can turn something out of this. and it’s been over a year, so now talking to my grandmother and mother about this with a tape-recorder, maybe it won’t be seem so horribly crass.

okay, since I wrote that ringing endorsement of the Huggs Mountaineers, Kentucky has outscored WVU 21 to nine, and now it’s 45-41 Wildcats with 4:15 left. fuck!

and in news: mutants stormed across Mumbai. and some poor asshole was trampled to death by hordes of shoppers on Black Friday.

stupidity
disclaimer for this first bit: I’m a little drunk. not a lot, but a little.
I made a promise to myself a while ago that there would be certain things that I wouldn’t write about anymore; not on such a public forum. these things, they come across as unfocused, often juvenile, and always personal. makes for some pretty weak blog. and lord knows, I’d hate to water it down for you.
but what won’t I write about? drug use is not one of them (because, ho ho, if you read hard, you’ll find it), and politics is definitely fair game. people say you shouldn’t bring up sex or politics at parties, as it isn’t polite.  but I can refute this idea with two points: A) fuck that, and B) this definitely isn’t a party.
but what it is I want to write about, well, I’m still not gonna write about. I can’t break that unwritten rule, though I can obviously spend 200 words referring to it. but, just for kicks, you’re more than welcome to imagine what it may be. you, reader that I probably know on a first-name basis, you can fill in the blanks! and who knows how close you’ll actually be.
here’s a hint: it’s not beastiality. I mention this just to narrow it down, of course; it’s not like I’m secretly trying to tell you I want to fuck a farm animal. that is not the case.
… 
but oh, fuck it. fuck it. it’s women. I make it a point to not write about women. explicitly, anyway.

hoops
Indiana has gotten rocked for two straight games now. I’d make a case for being disappointed, but I’m not, because I know better. they’re gonna suck this year, and I should get used to 30-point blowouts. there will be more.

employment
I’m not going to lie, I haven’t applied for a new job in a few weeks. tonight, I saw a job with the Saturday Evening Post in Indianapolis. I didn’t even know this publication still existed, but what the hell. didn’t Norman Rockwell used to do the illustrated covers for them? 
Rockwell was the shit. pop art from the 40s. he’s got a museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, that I’ve been to an awful lot. my aunt lives in western Mass, so my dad would take us there to kill time during extended visits. it’s not a bad way to spend an afternoon.
but anyway, the job. I am going to gun for this, because I want it. I’ve got it mapped out already: they’ll hire me, and I’ll sleep on Smith’s couch for a few weeks while I move my shit from Va. and find a new place to crash. I’ll do this for those few weeks, and maybe next August? I’ll go back to school, and launch into a new career that I haven’t yet identified and which may not exist, and when I walk the streets I’ll be followed by maybirds and they’ll announce me, and I’ll smell like roses, and my debt will go away, and people will sing me praises.
oh god, would I do this.

stuffing
my brother asked me to make the stuffing for Thanksgiving. this is a heavy responsibility, and I will not fuck this up. get ready for the best stuffing you ever overloaded on, Thanksgiving! I’m pulling out the stops.

music
I heard a song at the gym the other day. this is not a good way to introduce music; generally, the music at the gym eats a dick, and when I acknowledge that I heard it while toweling sweat off of myself in a room full of naked, middle-aged men, it reveals to you that I am not Hep to the latest on the Music Scene. this is okay, because I can live with your terrible fucking judgment. fuck you, Josh, cast your eyes away.
the song is “cellphone’s dead” by Beck. and according to the all-seeing eye that is Wikipedia, it’s been out for, what, two years? where the fuck have I been?
either way, I like the bridge, moreso than the rapping. this song, it actually inspired a blog post headline, which was gonna be “head west” — I make a point to have the post titles appear nonsensical, which I’d imagine no one has noticed – but then I went out this evening, and shit changed. either way, here is the song. I like Beck an awful lot, ridiculous Scientology be damned.

I was walking home on saturday night, late, and I lifted a copy of the Wall Street Journal from someone’s stoop. weak.
anyway. in their weekend section, there’s a big spread, photos and graphics and breakout boxes, about the threat of international piracy. like those pirates that hijacked a supertanker last week. the story was an analysis piece, on how piracy has changed over the years, but the response of civilization should be the same: stamp it out. in the name of the markets, of course.

the only time the Wall Street Journal is even remotely interested in the failed state that is Somalia and the ongoing humanitarian crisis there is when people from that failed state interrupt the flow of the west’s money.

it’s cold out tonight. I felt it. just walked in, and it’s cold by Virginia standards.

I’m looking for something to write about; I’m sitting here with the blog up, feeling the desire to record something. I want to, like I could say something burning, or dark and deep tonight, but I’m shot in the foot before I get off the porch: I’ve got nothing to write about in particular. there’s no great story, or even great set-up, buzzing about my head right now. 

so what’s going on? I’m still burning through that lasagna. that’s nice. I did right by it. matter of fact, I’ve got it in the oven as we speak, reheating. me and the half tray of lasagna? we’re gonna have a moment in five. I can smell it now. hell yes.
and what else. I checked a handful of books out of the library the other day, and got a couple of albums, too. for those of you dirtbags who don’t frequent your local public library, most of them now have decent multimedia sections to them. so, among other things I rented, I picked up a book on the Napoleonic Wars, another on a guy who was supposedly the influence for Rudyard Kipling’s ‘The Man who would be King’, and an an recording of Modest Mussorgsky’s ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’.
I don’t pretend to understand classical piano music, but I’d like to start playing again, and this ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ is pretty, and I think I could play it with a bit of practice.

and what else, still:
I’m 25.
that doesn’t look old until it’s written in front of you, and I don’t feel any pulls, dragging me out the door, but goddamn do I need to do something soon. and I’m not even meaning professionally, but anything. because I feel like I’m getting stagnant, and I’d rather burn up quickly than just get stale.
my my, hey hey.

I watched on TV while congress interviewed the executives from the Big Three. but what was the big news of the day, besides the fact that the Senate has pulled a scheduled vote on appropriating funds for the auto industry? the three executives all rode in private jets to Washington! when they could have taken coach! the fucking humanity!

Phil says millions of jobs are at stake. that’s what I’ve read, too. this is important shit. Michigan will be reduced to rubble. beefs will move from the courts, and into thunderdome. Detroit will be roamed by armed gangs of cannibals.
so with all of this about to crash down, I think it’s really self-serving for politicians to focus on bullshit like executive pay, on private jets, on bonuses. yes, it’s bullshit, yes, they don’t deserve it. but really, who fucking cares? they’re talking about billions of dollars, the collapse of the American auto industry, and lots of peoples’ livelihoods. golden parachutes shouldn’t be the first priority when we’re about to experience The Great Depression II.

also, I made lasagna. with turkey. and it came out well!

more on the auto industry.

no, wait. basketball is on. I love collge basketball, I fuckin’ love it.
I went to a giant state school in the midwest, and we suck at football. and to be honest, we haven’t been that good at basketball recently, either, but it’s definitely more of a hoops-centric than it is anything else. I mean, it’s Indiana. it’s won five national championships; none in the last two decades, but that doesn’t matter. because we’ve got five trophies. and what’s your school done, Sally?
IU is gonna suck this year, because the recruiting scandals (coaches made three-way calls to recruits and generally hounded the shit out of them to get them to attend the program) ended in a complete turnover of staff, loss of almost all of the scholarship players and a bunch of NCAA sanctions. but that’s okay. I’ll get over it. they’ll be back. and irregardless of whether or not Indiana’s in them, the conference tournaments and March Madness are always fun to watch.
my brother has season tickets to Georgetown’s Big East schedule — mostly so he can scalp them to yokels who come to DC to see games – but the Big East is arguably the best hoops conference in the country, and I’m getting to a couple of those games, Mike, so help me. I’m your brother. brothers got to stick together. 
let’s us see who Georgetown’s got:
among others they’ve got Pitt, Syracuse, Louisville, West Virginia and Marquette at home. god damn. that’s pretty good.

I wanna buy the newspaper when I get up in the morning, so I can read about how the economy is fucked and we’re all going to die. and the funnies! so I’m scrounging around my apartment for change. I’ve got a little bit in my wallet, and I found a quarter in the laundry basket. so far I’ve got 55 cents. that’s 20 cents short. son of a bitch.
the Canadian at work, he wants to nationalize the auto industry, and I think that’s stupid and that maybe the companies should go under. maybe they deserve to, but more rationally, maybe they need to. and he said, “fine, Matt! fine, let’s just let the auto industry go under. I bet it’ll be great to live in the 10th strongest economy in the world.”
I don’t think that’s going to happen. I don’t think that they’re gonna stonewall the Big Three. no fucking way they just let the auto industry go bankrupt. some companies are too big to fail. too many ripple effects, too much unemployment. no one has the stomach for those kinds of free-market principles with that kind spectre looming. not only would it be irresponsible, it’d be kind of heartless.
I read an opinion in the Washington Post today that I found compelling …

“Why run these risks (of allowing the auto industry to default) when the 6.5 percent unemployment rate seems headed toward 8 percent? Just to satisfy a purist “free market” ideal? It doesn’t make sense. But neither does it make sense simply to heave taxpayers’ money at automakers. The goal is not to rescue the companies or workers; it’s to shore up the economy and improve the U.S. industry’s competitiveness. A bailout won’t succeed unless other things also happen.”

read if you like.

but oh! oh, fuck yes. I found two dimes. they’re at a bottom of a Snapple bottle full of pennies I’m working on. but I’ll empty it out to get at them, by god I will. because tomorrow morning, I’m drinking coffee and reading the newspaper.

man, CCR was the bomb. they did a pretty slick cover of “midnight special”.
and you know who does a pretty good cover of “going out west” by Tom Waits? Queens of the Stone Age. I read that the album version of “little sister” on their fourth album was recorded in one take. I’m impressed — though I don’t particularly like that song. eh.

the auto industry is about to die. and they’re calling for massive government investment to stave off this inevitability.
I do not profess to have any real idea about the repercussions of such an action, letting them die. I would imagine they’d be huge. shockwaves across the nation kind of huge. you gotta think that something as large as the quake the Big Three automakers make if they tripped would manifest itself in ways that we can’t even fathom.
so fine. maybe they can’t just die, maybe their continued existence is necessary. that can’t be that hard to argue – this is the same kind of logic that pundits are now using to act like they’ve figured out the horribly mismanged bailout of the financial industry (like David Brooks in the New York Times and angry/old Charles Krauthammer). though I think, that if they were to be saved, then they would be required to suffer for it to the benefit of the rest of us for well into the foreseeable future.
and, you’d have to retool the union contracts: because aren’t all these agreements predicated on the idea that their employers were the untouchable titans of business? well, GM has been getting its ass handed to it by Toyota for some time now – so that rule no longer applies. I’m all for labor, and government’s support of it –  but not directly. meaning, look, asshole, I respect you for working at a plant in Dearborn for your entire adult life. I just don’t think it’s the rest of the country’s responsibility to float your pension and health insurance; it’s not doing that for anyone else.
so tough shit. take it up with those awful companies that employed you.
anyway, the Democrats will try and get it through before Obama assumes office, which I’d imagine is their way of shielding his administration from the political fallout that’s coming with this. good luck with that shit. it appears that the Bush administration is gonna pretend to be fiscally conservative and stonewall any attempt to pass more bailout legislation. and I’ll read all about the fingerpointing in the newspaper while Michigan burns to the ground.

there’s a lot more to this, yes. but oh, fuck it. I’m going to sleep. or, I’ll try to: sounds like my neighbor is having a dance party next door. and I wasn’t invited! what the fuck!

edit: it’s tomorrow morning. if we’re gonna bail out Detroit, I want either a flying car, or one that gets 60 miles to the gallon within five years.

okay, so here’s a pretty neat story we ran in the paper tonight:
astronomers have produced photos of the first planet outside the solar system to actually be discovered by camera. meaning, when you look up and see all of the stars? well, they used all sorts of high-falutin’, high-tech daguerrotypes — and the Hubble Space Telescope — to actually spot a planet in orbit around one of them, 25 light years away.
they published this in Science, a journal that tends to run the kind of articles that give me ice cream headaches. but this is an easy, interesting read.
and if you click on the link over on the right to the astronomy picture of the day, today’s picture (Nov. 14) is a detailed image of this star and its planet. how the hell they were ever able to identify that dot as a planet is unbelievable. but still, pretty cool.

I’m dogsitting tomorrow night after work. or meaning, letting the dog in and out for friends. or, more precisely, going through their fridge and cleaning up on my friends’ leftovers. this is my toll. pay up.

I … I just have to mention this, before I go.
nice going … uh, Joe … with the shoplifting. 
I’m gonna tell you this, because I don’t think you have that strong male figure in your life: you know, you shouldn’t shoplift. because it’s wrong, man! we live in an ownership society, and you’re tearing at the very fabric of that ownership! we’re you raised by wolves? or in Kouts, Ind? shoplifting is where our society will rise or fall!
but, then I thought on it harder. and came to the conclusion that if stealing from Whole Foods and its deliciously overpriced organic bullshit is wrong, then by god, I don’t want to be right. hell, I stole a Snickers bar from Target once in college. I had half a stock for a solid two hours after that.
so I get it. you’re a renegade, Joe. and a kleptomaniac. but a Patriot, first and foremost, with a flair for the dangerous. you’re a red-blooded, American man, and a modern-day Robin Hood. and nothing says sticking it to the man like stealing a Naked Juice from an organic grocery store.
I salute you. now go get your dumb ass thrown out of a Trader Joe’s for stealing a $7 scone.

and in case it isn’t immediately obvious: I’m just giving you a hard time. you know I got love for you, Mr. Martin.

Mar got into grad school.
she’s moving back to Bloomington, then. back to school, Mar goes. library science, because Mar wants to work in a library. hell yes, Mar.
this is something that has stuck from our childhood. mom loves the library, couldn’t ever live without it, and took us there regularly. she’s passed this love on to Mar. this is good. I’m on board, because this isn’t misplaced love Mar’s got; it’s hard to find fault with being habitually addicted to reading.
so she’s gonna go back and get her master’s degree in library science, and pick up a teaching certificate to boot. and, maybe, end up a librarian at a school somewhere. I think this is kickass.
because Mar’s the best of us, and no one’s gonna disagree with me, and I know she’s gonna end up doing right. no pressure, Mar, of course.

I did jack, shit today. more laundry than you could shake a stick at, and I made a whole mess of potato salad. this is my new thing, this potato salad. and I’m getting better at it. boiled the potatos a little longer this time, threw in a few eggs, got some onions rocking. olives, green peppers and mustard. it turned out well, but I went heavy on the wasabi again. again! should have seen it coming. I need to learn to respect wasabi’s strength, so that we can live in this world, in peace, together. but I’ve got a lot of growing up to do.

and I landed that freelance editing job.
that’s not the right phrase. “landed” would presume I put effort into this. I didn’t. I’ve put plenty of effort into finding work, and I’ve found nothing, but this you can attribute to luck, as in: I’m lucky to know Spencer. and I’m lucky he introduced me to his roommate. and I’m lucky she thought enough of me when this job came around.
so keep your fingers crossed that I don’t fuck it up. I’ll probably be okay, but still, I’d appreciate your help.

also: Beirut – ‘Postcards from Italy’