Nobody Likes a Bully

This was found in Roger Federer's locker:

Maybe that explains why he can often be seen doing this:

Forget performance-enhancing substances. The USTA needs to start investigating secret identities...

Roger Federer, who will most likely finish his career with more Grand Slam victories than any other player in tennis history (for those unfamiliar with tennis, there are four Grand Slam tournaments: the U.S. Open, the Championships at Wimbledon, the French Open and the Australian Open) and will have earned the undisputed right to call himself the greatest player ever to pick up a tennis racket, beat Novak Djokovic (currently ranked #3 in the world behind Federer and Rafael Nadal) today in straight sets to take the U.S. Open title. As of today, the Swiss star holds twelve Grand Slam titles and trails only Pete Sampras, who retired with fourteen. The guy is 26 years old and rarely gets a hangnail. Unless he loses a limb or three, he's pretty much got it sewn up.

I don't like him.

Don't get me wrong. I respect his almost balletic playing, his mix of power and control, his sublime touch around the net, his uncanny ability to find openings in the court and in his opponents' games and the way he seems to flip some internal switch at will to pull himself out of all sorts of tricky situations and vulnerable positions... and yet I don't like him.

For me, watching a Federer match is a descent into frustration. I can't imagine what it must be like to play against him, to know that more than likely, even if you play your absolute best tennis (think Agassi in Key Biscayne 2005 or even Roddick this past Wednesday), you are probably going to lose. It must make you want to eat your own face. Or your racket. Or direct your next serve at Federer's groin (he'd prob'ly return it for a winner anyway...). There have been exceptions (Nadal has bested him almost every time they've met on clay, Novak Djokovic won last month in Montreal), but they have been few as of late.

Djokovic defeats Federer in Montreal this August

Federer victorious today

Consider this: Djokovic matched Federer game for game in the first two sets today, bringing each to a deciding tiebreaker. Roddick did the same on Wednesday.

Then, Federer showed up.

It's as if the guy can play in third gear for the entirety of a set, coasting and knowing that at whatever point he chooses, such as a tiebreaker, he can shift into fifth, step on the gas and step on the other guy's neck. Here's what SI.com had to say in part about the Roddick match. Feel free to substitute Djokovic's name for Roddick's:

"To Andy Roddick's credit, he played nearly flawlessly against Roger Federer, serving brilliantly, returning well, too, and giving tennis' top player a tough time. To Roddick's dismay, it all added up to yet another loss."

[not sure how many degrees of separation this is, but Gabby (m'wife) teaches at Roddick's alma mater, Boca Prep International]

Andre Agassi was guest commentator at the Open for Federer's Wednesday night match against Roddick. His was by far the best and most insightful sports commentary I've ever heard by anyone discussing any sport, period. The man is truly a genius and should be listened to when he speaks. The days of the "Image Is Everything" attitude have given way to a deeper substance than anyone might have suspected he had back when Ivan Lendl dismissed him as being merely "a haircut and a forehand". Agassi spoke of Pete Sampras's ability to play an "average set", then play brilliantly for "30 seconds" and beat you. He could've just as easily been talking about Federer.

better enjoy it while it lasts, rock star...

the elder statesman

Pistol Pete

I won't get into the things about Federer's personality that irk me. I won't mention that I find him arrogant, pompous and condescending. I won't go so far as to post a few of his quotes here:

"It's just unreal, I'm shocked myself. I've played good matches here, but never really almost destroyed somebody."

"This is probably my most dominant grand slam victory and it's already my 10th in such a short period of time. I amazed myself."

"No, I'm not (disappointed). There's no reason to be because I'm on an incredible run. You always expect a loss once in a while. So when it happens, why be disappointed if I win over 90% of my matches."

"I have a great record against anybody right now, so it doesn't really matter who I play in the final. I'll be in there as the big favorite. But I play my best in the finals, in the important matches. That's why I'm number one. There's no secret...I'm not overconfident, but very confident."

I'll forego mentioning that the same seems to extend to his entourage-of-one, longtime girlfriend Mirka Vavrinec. I'll stop short of reporting that I saw her looking at her fookin' watch in the middle of the second set, as if she had somewhere else to be. I guess it looked like Djokovic might interfere with their dinner reservations if he actually managed to win a set. God forbid she have to sit a half-hour longer to watch Roger collect his $2.4 million check, the most ever for a tennis player at a single tournament.

(S)Mirka enjoying the crucifixion of yet another Federer victim

She don't pull on Superman's cape. She rides on his coattails.

The way it looks, it's sure to be a loooooong ride.

Roger Federer, to borrow a phrase from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, is cunning, baffling, powerful... and quite possibly the best tennis player who ever lived. Most of the players he faces are powerless over him.

I don't like him... and yet I'm compelled to watch his matches. Dammit. Stoopid amazing tennis player...

Oh, and by the way, the above picture of Federer diving? That's en route to his upset victory over defending champion Pete Sampras (you know, the guy who's neck he's breathing down for all-time best status) at Wimbledon in 2001. Call it shades of things to come...

I Got the Blues, the Reds and the Pinks

I've gotta resurrect the once-popular Song O' the Morn today so I can pimp the performer I saw last night. Before I do, I need to say that if you live in this area or in an area where this guy performs, please do yerself a favor and GO SEE HIM. I've now seen him three times, and have come away awestruck each time. If I need to, I'll rent a bus to bring my friends out to one of his shows. I'm not kidding. He's great! As I'm sure you know, I tend to be fairly critical (an oxymoron?), so when I rave, it's usually with good reason. And when I rant... well, let's just say my ranting gets raves. So, here goes:

Song O' the Morn

8/31/07 - The Devil Went Down To Georgia - Ben Prestage - live solo acoustic performance

This song, arguably the most popular Charlie Daniels Band song ever, was given a solo acoustic fingerpicking workout last night at the Bamboo Room (just prior to playing the song, Prestage said, "OK, let's see if I can do this...") and by the time he was through, I'm fairly sure a few roof tiles had been blown across South J Street. He deftly played the main licks, motifs and solos at breakneck speed - as it should be - and cleverly reworked the lyrics as follows (the last lines are a hoot):

The devil went down to Florida, he was lookin' for a soul to steal

He was in a bind 'cos he was way behind, and he was willin' to make a deal

Saw this young man pickin' on a git-tar, and Lord he was pickin' it hot

The devil jumped up on a Cypress stump, said "Boy, lemme tell you what,

Bet'choo didn't know it, but I'm a git-tar picker too

And if you care to take a dare, I'll make a bet with you

You pick a pretty good git-tar, boy, but give the devil his due-

I bet a git-tar of gold against your soul, 'cos I think I'm better'n you"

The boy said, "My name's Johnny, and it might be a sin,

But I'll take your bet, and you're gonna regret 'cos I'm the best there's ever been!"

Johnny, you'd better play the helllll outta your guitar,

'Cos hell's broke loose in Florida and the devil deals the cards

If you win, you get this shiny git-tar made of gold,

And if you lose, the devil gets yer soul.......

[impressive solo]

The devil opened up his case and said "I'll start this show"

And fired flew from his fingertips as he tuned his git-tar low

When the devil started fingerpickin', in his pants Johnny pissed,

And the devil shouted like old [someone-someone(?)] when he played like this:

[extremely impressive solo]

Johnny said, "Hell devil, well that's real good, ol' son

I'm gonna pick this little ditty here, but I think you've already won"

Fire on the mountain, etc....

Well, Johnny bowed his head 'cos he knew that he'd been beat

And he laid his wretched soul on the ground by the devil's feet

Never in his life had Johnny felt soooooo belittled;

No one told 'im the devil's better on the git-tar than he is on the fiddle!

Fire on the mountain, etc......

[impressive outro solo]

OK, so you may be saying, "Who with the what now?"

Some months ago (as I'm sure I mentioned here), Danielle hipped me to this blues guitarist (well, one-man-band, actually. Yeah, it sounded kinda hokey to me at first, too, but that was just the time-honored character defect of "contempt prior to investigation" tripping me up once more) that she'd seen at a music festival someplace. She strongly suggested I see him if he came around, and I took her advice. It didn't hurt that I'd heard a bit of a live performance on 91.3 WLRN's Folk and Acoustic Show (as useless and culturally out-of-touch as I generally find the host, Michael Stock, every now and then he turns me on to someone who really grabs me... in the good way), so I saw him at an arts festival in Deerfield Beach, which I think I've already discussed here.

The point is this:

The guy ROCKS! He's a monster fingerpicker with fantastic phrasing and timing, seamlessly intertwining bass, lead and rhythm lines, a great musical sense of humor, the ability to shift gears and tempos on guitar as well as drums (he plays a kick drum, snare and high-hat with his feet, removing his cowboy boots last night prior to playing) to drive the song and park it, is personable with the audience (when he asks, "How y'all feelin' tonight?", he really seems to be concerned that we're enjoying ourselves. I always like a bit of codependency on the part of a performer. That way I know they're invested in my enjoyment. If I'm lukewarm in my response to a "how y'all doin'?", maybe giving a weak golf-clap, I wanna see a pained look of despair on his/her face. I wanna know that their self-esteem lives and dies on whether they make me feel good. I want them to bleed for me. Real blood, not metaphorical blood. It's enough already with I-would-die-for-you rhetoric. No one who's ever told me that has actually done it. Where's the follow-through? Next time someone tells me that, they'd better be prepared to go through with it - just once, I'm not heartless - so I'll know how much they love me. It'd really help the relationship grow...) and peppers his setlist with old obscure blues, classic blues and groovy originals.

Really, I can't say enough about Ben Prestage. For my local friends, he told me he'll be at the Bamboo Room in Lake Worth the last Thursday of each month for "the next few months". These shows are free and start at 9pm (don't do what I did and listen to the guy who works the door who might tell you the show's starting at 9:30-9:45, so you end up walking around Lake Ave. and getting to the show 15 minutes late. He apologized...), so there's no good reason not to go (unless, like me, you'll be in DC at the end of September to see Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello) (I love parentheses!). Ben will also be at City Limits in Delray on Thursday, 9/13 at 8pm (tour dates can be found on his myspace page - see the first link) (No, I really love parentheses!!!) (Really!).

OK, enough about him. Now, on to me.

No gig this weekend for borderLine, as Gabby is binding me with duct tape, shoving me in the trunk of the car and kidnapping me to Miami for some sort of belated birthday weekend getaway thingy. Should be fun!

Yay: I've given our demo CD to Walter, the GM at Dada in Delray. He sounded interested in booking a new band, so let's see what he thinks once he's heard the demo.

Boo: I have yet to see even ONE point of this year's US Open. Usually by this stage of a major tournament, Gabby's become a tennis widow and I've filled yet another VHS tape with what I hope will someday be classic matches (I have literally hundreds of tapes filled with music videos, tennis matches, old Simpsons episodes, other comedy... I guess I'm storing it all up for those days when I'll be bedridden and need something - thousands of hours of something - to occupy my time). I just haven't found/made the time to sit and watch any of the Open yet...

Oh, crap... I owe you guys the next Yosemite installment, don't I? Jeez, nothing like keeping the momentum alive, huh? OK, next week. Promise! Go 'head and dust off the edges of yer seats...

Happy Whatever-Holiday-Hallmark-Says-It-Is-This-Time weekend, kids! Go into labor, or whatever you're supposed to do to celebrate. Stay away from barbeques, if you can. Somewhere, an animal will thank you.

Sunday Bloody Good Sunday

Slept in a bit today after playing at Gizzi's last night and then hanging around Koffeeokee with friends until they rolled up the sidewalk and called it a night. We had a better-than-average gig turnout as a result of my new shameless band-pimping-via-email and friends telling friends to come and see us do our thang. Also, I've put us on this website. Not sure what compelled me to do so, but it was fun creating the page. Carlos is busily mastering three tracks we've recorded for a demo CD, and once we have that we can shop it around locally to find some more gigs, and the music can be uploaded to the afore-mentioned site. I guess the logical next frontier will be MySpace. Everybody's doin' it... pickin' it and chewin' it... thinkin' that it's candy, but it's snot.

[ok, the tracks are mastered and two of 'em are available for listening/download on the site]

Casey surprised me by singing harmonies here and there in the verses during The Weight last night. She was so good, I nearly stopped mid-song to tell her. She's very cool...

So, back to today.

I drove to South Miami to spend the afternoon with my good buddy Jeff who was once my vet, then a member of borderLine and has become a trusted and valued friend. He gave me this for a ridiculously low price:

the pic's from google; I'll take some photos of my actual amp ASAP

Jeff's such a nice guy that he wanted to give it to me gratis, but I'm insisting on paying him for it. Hopefully, he'll wear me down and I'll lose my resolve on that issue.

After hanging with Jeff and his critters, amp safely in trunk, I headed back north to Hollywood to see if my friend Bill Burns was playing his Sunday gig at Universe Cafe. Seems he had the day off, so I stood around and watched TV as Roger Federer beat up on James Blake to win yet another tennis tournament. All the players say that Federer is a really nice guy and a humble champion, but that's never been how he comes across to me. He seems incredibly arrogant, and unfortunately has the talent to back up his assertions of tennis greatness. In post-match interviews, he generally says something along the lines of "I played magnificently" and "I made some incredible shots" and crap like that. Most other players are at least somewhat self-effacing ("I got some lucky breaks") and tend to compliment the opponent, but not good ol' Rog. I think the first time I've heard him actually take the time to climb down off his pedestal and acknowledge the guy across the net was after this year's Wimbledon final, when Rafael Nadal ("Vamos, Rafa!!!") took him to five sets and very nearly took the match.

After losing to Novak Djokovic ("Who?", you ask. "Currently #3 in the world" is your answer) in Montreal, Federer dismissed it as an "insignificant loss". Of course, Djokovic had beaten Andy Roddick a coupla days before and world #2 Nadal just the day before, so I'd say it was pretty significant to Djokovic. In fact, it was the first time anyone had beaten Nadal and Federer in the same tournament since they became #'s 1 and 2 in the world, whenever that was. I think it may have been the Eisenhower Administration. The way I see it, Djokovic deserves his moment in the sun. Roger's got a deep enough tan by now. Metaphorically, he's the George Hamilton of tennis.

Federer's taken to wearing a white sportjacket and white pants to his Wimbledon matches. The only thing missing is a top hat. I didn't dress that nicely to go to the prom. I'm just waiting for him to start playing matches wearing a Superman outfit and cape.

But I digress... chronically.

With Bill Burns nowhere in sight and money still in the meter, I stopped into Trader John's Book & Record Exchange, a place where I recall Mike and I hanging around many, many moons ago. Gabby and I were also there once years back. I picked up a copy of Peter Singer's book Animal Liberation, which I've read about but never read. I referenced it a few posts back on the author's birthday. I also picked up a vinyl copy of Bruce Springsteen's The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle. I'll add it to my collection of albums I can eventually play on the turntable I have yet to buy (my b'day is Friday *cough, cough*). I also had a nice conversation with a 6o-ish British woman shopping in the store. She was astounded that a person my age would even be looking at vinyl (I had a copy of a Dionne Warwick/Bacharach-David LP in my hand at the time. Tasty...), so we talked about music and pop culture. She wants to come see the band, which should cure her of any affinity for music that she currently has.

From there, my next stop was Sublime in Ft. Lauderdale, where I treated myself to a yummy vegan feast and read some more of Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. Bryson's one of my fave authors who can, and often does, send me into gales of laughter with his dry-as-kindling wit. ASHoNE isn't really meant to be funny per se, but it certainly has its moments when it's not being informative. If you've not read anything by him, I'd suggest A Walk In the Woods or I'm A Stranger Here Myself or The Lost Continent for starters. Actually, screw that. Everything he writes is worth reading.

Here's an excerpt from the opening page of The Lost Continent:

I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.

When you come from Des Moines you either accept the fact without question and settle down with a local girl named Bobbi and get a job at the Firestone factory and live there forever and ever, or you spend your adolescence moaning at length about what a dump it is and how you can't wait to get out, and then you settle down with a local girl named Bobbi and get a job at the Firestone factory and live there forever and ever.

Hardly anyone ever leaves. This is because Des Moines is the most powerful hypnotic known to man. Outside town there is a big sign that says, WELCOME TO DES MOINES. THIS IS WHAT DEATH IS LIKE. There isn't really. I just made that up. But the place does get a grip on you. People who have nothing to do with Des Moines drive in off the interstate, looking for gas or hamburgers, and stay forever. There's a New Jersey couple up the street from my parents' house whom you see wandering around from time to time looking faintly puzzled but strangely serene. Everybody in Des Moines is strangely serene.

I don't yet have his memoir, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. Have I mentioned my birthday is Friday? *clears throat*

Last stop of the evening before coming home: Barnes & Noble, which for some reason I insist on calling Barney Snowball. I took it easy and just bought the current issue of Uncut...

On the way home (aren't you glad I'm including nearly every minute of my day here? Careful... falling off the edge of your seat can be dangerous), I was listening to the Night Train jazz program on 91.3 WLRN, the local public radio station/NPR affiliate. Ted Grossman was playing some scorching swing by legendary trombonist Jack Teagarden recorded live at Club Hangover in 1954. I noticed the 30-ish guy in the next lane was rockin' out in his car, drumming on the dashboard and doing the "car dance"... in perfect rhythm with what I was listening to. Suspecting he might be enjoying the same song as I (Muskrat Ramble. Wanna hear it? Go here and put the cursor over the music symbol next to the track), I turned my radio down so I could hear his and found that he was also listening to WLRN. I motioned to him that we were listening to the same thing, and he rolled down his window and said, "NPR?" I said, "Yeah, these guys are unbelievable!" We continued driving up Oakland Park Blvd. and then both got on 95. We passed each other a coupla times and gave each other the thumbs-up while grooving on the rest of the Teagarden set. It was kinda like car-flirting, only it was about music and I don't think either of us are gay. Ok, well prob'ly not him anyway. Or me.

Just as Shirley (my new bookstore friend) was impressed with my vinyl proclivities, I was impressed that two guys in their 30s, with CD players/satellite radio/MP3s/DVDs/M-O-U-S-Es available, would choose instead to listen to public radio and groove on music that came out at least a decade before they were born...

And now I'm home. The laundry's done, and so am I.

Woke Up, Fell Out Of Bed, Hiked Until I Was Half-Dead

[This post was begun on 8/5 and is becoming waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long, so here's what there is so far and the rest will be up shortly]

Hey, has anyone else noticed it's freakin' HOT?!??!???! JAY-sus!

Gabs and I went with the Vullos (and Kristi's mom - not a Vullo but an incredible simulation) last evening to see the Fab Four at the Kravis Center. It was better than I'd expected and we all had a good time. As Mike commented, these guys did their homework. They did a great job musically and with the onstage banter, and
(d)E(a)d Sullivan was quite entertaining during what would've been the intermission. As "Paul" said, he's very clean, that little old man.

borderLine had the night off, what with me at the Fab show and Casey in Delaware, but we will be playing again at Koffeeokee on Saturday 8/11 starting at 9pm. Be there or... be somewhere else?

The wife and I went to K-Mart (Where America Goes To Get Out Of The Trailer Park For A Couple Of Hours. While there, Gabs picked up a Gazillion-Pack of FlavorIces, her new summer staple. I swear, if she could find a way, she'd shoot this stuff into her veins, ice be damned!) this afternoon and then to Sweet Tomatoes for an early din. Good thing we went early, too, 'cos we no sooner sat down than every elderly person from within a six state radius descended on the place like a horde of gray-haired locusts. We huddled protectively over our plates like two kids in a Dickensian orphanage. I was ready to take a piece out of somebody's walker if I had to. I had a butterknife and was not afraid to use it, believe you me.

So, being at K-Mart and the SweeTomatoes brought me to a Yosemite state of mind, seeing as I did 60-80% of my hike outfitting at the K and the Tomato had pesto pasta on the buffet tonight, which Joe ate practically each night we were in the Park. Thus..........


The Yosemite Chronicles continue! *APPLAUSE*


Day 4: God Give Me Strength -

Wednesday June 13 - Joe and I woke up around 6am to prep for our assault on Half Dome.

Ugh. That sounds so violent.


Wednesday June 13 - 6am - Waking from a restful slumber, Joe and I began those few tasks that would allow us to peacefully meander the 16-or-so miles to and from that most magnificent of mountains, Half Dome, standing majestically some 4000 feet above the Yosemite Valley floor.

Ahhh, much better.




I decided to forgo showering (after all, what's the point? It'd pretty much be a waste of water. After all, I was about to WALK 16 miles up and down a mountain...) and instead lathered liberal amounts of sunblock and bug juice atop the previous day's grime-covered layer of the same. I believe in using the strongest sunblock I can find, especially since each step taken on this hike would take me one step closer to the surface of the sun. The one I use, Banana Boat's Baby Magic Sunblock (hey, if people trust this crap on their babies, that's all the recommendation I need), boasts an SPF of 50 and contains titanium dioxide. Basically, once this stuff is on, I have roughly the same sun protection Darth Vader had while on the Death Star, minus the cloak and mask. Although, since it goes on thick and white, I tend to more closely resemble a stormtrooper. My bug repellent-of-choice is an herbal concoction called Green Ban that I picked up one year in the Yosemite Mountain Shop. It does not contain DEET, which I believe eats your brain while chasing away insects. There's a trade-off I'm just not willing to make. Green Ban is supposedly "tested in the Australian rainforest" - which I didn't even know existed, but it sure sounds impressive - so on my skin it went.

I ate a couple of protein bars from my Vegan Survival Kit, made sure my pack had everything I'd need: more bars, sun n' bug stuff, bottled water, hat, gloves, ID in the unfortunate event that my body needed to be identified, digital voice recorder, trekking pole, and extra socks. One of the greatest hiking tips I've ever gotten - thanks, Wayne!!! - and continually pass along is to bring fresh socks and change them mid-hike. It's like putting on new feet. I went down to Curry Pavilion to fill my faux CamelBak (thanks, K-Mart, for saving me $30!) with H2O and to drop in a CamelBak Elixir electrolyte tablet. At this point, Joe was right behind me and we headed to catch the first shuttle of the day, the 7:00am to Happy Isles, the Half Dome trailhead. Joe realized he'd forgotten something and went back to base camp, and I caught the bus and started off without him, as I wasn't sure how long he'd be and I didn't want to risk not having enough time to complete the hike. I figgered, Joe's a big boy (he sure snores like one), and I was NOT to be denied.


[just had to take a short time-out to perform goldfish CPR, a skill I was not previously aware I possessed. Our li'l fishy has been acting strangely as of late, swimming upside-down and sideways, appearing listless and dull in color. Our guess is that he may be/may have been suffering oxygen deprivation from the water we haven't been very good about changing lately. He kinda looks like he's got some neurological impairments/brain damage/is retarded. Bad parents, we. A few minutes ago, I looked in on him and he wasn't breathing, or gilling, or whatever it is they do that denotes aliveness. Those things around his face that usually move weren't moving. I called a code blue ("Honey, I think he's gone..."), Gabby called the trauma team (ran out to get some bottled water) and I got the crash cart (opened the top of the bowl and reached in). I moved him around, talked to him, rubbed his sides and did everything I could think of short of actually performing mouth-to-fish on the little guy. Somehow, despite his best efforts to "move on to a better place" or "go to the light" or "die already", I managed to keep him alive till Gab returned. We moved him to ICU (put him in a bowl of CLEAN water) and Gab changed the water in his bowl. Once in the smaller bowl, he perked up considerably, prob'ly from the sheer terror of being manhandled and all. Hey, whatever works. The other option is in the bathroom and we shall not speak its name. *raises eyebrow*

I'm happy to report that Fishy is now in his own bowl and swimming comfortably, sometimes upright, sometimes not. Hell, even if he is brain damaged, at least he's become very entertaining to watch!]

I rode the bus to Happy Isles with the others who'd gotten up for an early start and stretched in the shade of the bus stop. Prior to a hike, I do the same stretching routine I use prior to tennis matches, which takes about 10-15 minutes and incorporates some faux-yoga movements. As I've said for a few years now, yoga is my next frontier. For now, I'm busy perfecting the "Sitting On My Ass & Talking About It" pose...

Having brought my digital voice recorder (DVR)/portable brain along, I have a fairly-detailed record of this hike.

7:30am - I took my first steps on the trail to Half Dome. This is the same trail the Boys and I hiked two days before which would take me again past Vernal and Nevada Falls. I should say that I opted not to bring my camera along on this hike, as I wanted to travel as weightlessly as possible. As much as I had wanted to make this trek for years and years and had visualized it over and over again, in my mind there still lived a nagging fear that I would not be able to do it, that it would be beyond my physical limits, that I would fail. Leaving pounds of camera equipment behind seemed like a good idea, a way to remove one more possible obstacle from my journey's path. Since I don't trust my digital camera to do what my film SLR can do, I didn't bring it either. Except for the teeny camera in my voice recorder, I was camera-less.

7:55am - I made the following entry in the DVR: "Standing at the footbridge, watching the sun come up over Vernal Falls... I don't know how my life could get better than this". It wasn't a sunrise per se, but to see the sun ease up over this beautiful waterfall was magnificent.

8:24am - DVR entry: [sounding winded but exhilarated] "Less than an hour, and I'm at the top of Vernal Falls..." In hindsight, my only regret is that I treated this hike in some ways as if it were a business trip, something requiring that I just put my head down, put one foot in front of the other and plow through. To this end, I prob'ly coulda packed my gear in a briefcase as opposed to a daypack.

I think I made a small error in following the next segment of the trail that leads up to and past Nevada Fall, as I should have been hiking with the fall to my right (as I remember doing in years past). After hiking for some distance with Nevada on my left, I realized I'd taken a wrong turn but knew that this trail would eventually wind back to the fall and that I'd get where I intended to go anyway. after all, I've found that even our wrong turns take us to where we're supposed to be... It seemed a waste of time and energy to backhike, so I continued on. The result was that I had the trail mostly to myself for about an hour, and the solitude was wonderful. I listened to nature's early-morning symphony of birdcalls and waterfalls, and added to it the crunch of my boots on the trail...

Oh, and I talked to myself. Incessantly. I find that I'm good company, and that I can be very encouraging. Giving myself encouraging self-talk helped me to dispel a lot of the fear that had somehow ended up on the hike with me ("You'll never make it, y'know... Much too tough of a hike... You're gonna fail... You can always turn back... This just isn't your year, kid..."), despite my having insisted that it stay at the cabin. I guess it jumped into my pack when I wasn't looking, and it weighed me down until I realized I was carrying it and made a conscious decision to let it go. So I did... and I picked it up again... so I let it go again... and picked it up again... and let it go again... and again.

[Sad news: despite a valiant effort lasting a couple of days, I must report that Fishy has gone on to the Big Ocean (via the toilet). I performed more lifesaving manuevers yesterday evening but it seems that Fishy had come to, in Stephen King parlance, the clearing at the end of the path. Gabby and I gathered around the toilet (can two people "gather", or is this verb reserved for three or more?), said a few words, pushed the small silver handle and bade Fishy a fond farewell. He/she was a good fish, kept to him/herself, never said much, never made trouble. We'll all miss him/her, especially Ginger who enjoyed pawing at him/her from outside the bowl...]

9:23am - DVR entry: "At the top of Nevada Fall... feelin' good!" I'd been to this spot before, but everything from this point forward would be uncharted territory for me. I stopped to use the outhouse above Nevada Fall and, when I came out to rejoin the trail, found that I had just been passed by a mule train carrying supplies. Holy 1800's, Batman! I muttered a few choice obscenities as I realized that passing these animals and the person leading them was not gonna be easy, and I was not at all thrilled to be breathing in the trail dust they were kicking up. Plus, they move slowly. Plus, they poop. A lot. And big. Like mules. Like several mules. At once.

I made my way slowly along the trail and was relieved that the mule train stopped to take a break and let me pass. Soon, I came across a Park Service crew who were busily doing trail maintenance work and I marveled at the idea that they had to hike all the way up here with heavy gear (picks, shovels, rakes, etc.), work for 8 hours and hike back down again. I thanked several of them (they were kinda spread out) for doing this work and said to one of 'em, "And I thought God was the one who took care of these trails..."

When I came to Little Yosemite Valley, which comes suddenly after a kind of monotonous uphill section (90% of this hike is uphill, and the other 10% is mostly uphill), I was taken in by its simple beauty. No one had ever told me about this stretch of the hike, the Merced River running though it, the beautiful trees and meadows, the views of Half Dome from behind, the variety of secluded places to go pee.

Merced River - Little Yosemite Valley (not my photo - thanks, Google!)

Another Googled pic of LYV

Googled again! Rear view of Half Dome (Half Ass?)

I stopped by the river to dip my hat in and cool off, then continued on through this relatively flat area. I tend to hike at a fairly quick pace (or so I'm told), and here's how one might get an idea of my average hiking speed (assuming one gives a crap): a Beatles song was playing in my head and I found myself hiking to the beat of "I'm Only Sleeping" and singing it aloud, presuming that bears are not Beatles fans.

I hiked on in 4/4 time...

More to follow...

And We Unpacked Our Adjectives

Here's today's poetic offering from the Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor from publicradio.org. I get a daily email from this site and generally find some interesting information about writers and musicians, plus some occasionally great poetry:

Poem: "Becoming" by Jim Harrison, from Saving Daylight. © Copper Canyon Press, 2006.

Becoming

Nowhere is it the same place as yesterday.
None of us is the same person as yesterday.
We finally die from the exhaustion of becoming.
This downward cellular jubilance is shared by the wind, bugs, birds, bears and rivers, and perhaps the black holes in galactic space where our souls will all be gathered in an invisible thimble of antimatter.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Yes, trees wear out as the wattles under my chin grow, the wrinkled hands that tried to strangle a wife beater in New York City in 1957.
We whirl with the earth, catching our breath as someone else, our soft brains ill-trained except to watch ourselves disappear into the distance.
Still, we love to make music of this puzzle.


Next:

Know what I'm really tired of? What makes my eyes roll (and not in the good way)? What makes me wanna bite my own face sometimes? No? Well, allow me to tell ya:

When I call someone and they don't answer, do I really need to be subjected to a menu of options longer than the novel-length menu at the Cheesecake Factory? Seriously, by the time I finish hearing the dizzying array of possibilities available to me - leave a message, have the person paged, send a fax, rent an airplane towing a message banner, send up a flare, triangulate the coordinates via GPS and drop a note tied to a rock, have a series of electric shocks administered to their armpits - I've forgotten who I was trying to reach in the first place. And as for the purpose of my call, well that's now anybody's guess. So if you don't get a message from me, you'll know why. Blame the technology you've chosen as a means of "connectedness".

Also, I don't need to be instructed to leave my message "after the tone". I've worked that out. My IQ is above-average at least. I've yet to begin leaving a message while the automated voice, or the voice of the intended call recipient, is still saying its piece. That's would just be plain rude. Everyone knows that.

Further, I don't need permission, or a reminder, to "hang up" when I'm "finished recording" my message, if at this point I even leave one (and technically, I'm not recording anything. The system is). Are there people out there who, not given such information, would stay on the phone a few hours perplexed as to what to do next with their lives? Oddly, I can easily imagine there are. Maybe we do need this after all, if for no other reason than to keep our country's productivity up.


Now, by popular demand, it's time to take you back to Yosemite for...

Day Three: He Was A Hairy Bear... He Was A Scary Bear!

Tuesday June 12 - After taking the boys up the Mist Trail and exhausting them on Monday, Ralph and Joe requested that Tuesday be a "light day" (insert obligatory feminine hygiene joke here). I figgered this was a good idea so we could save our legs for Half Dome or, as Joe repeatedly referred to it, Half-a-Dome. He sounded like the storekeeper from the old Abbott and Costello show... I decided to take them on a leisurely stroll to Mirror Lake with intentions of going off-trail a bit to Hidden Falls, a spot that's a park employee favorite but remains little-known to tourists. For some reason, employees seem to go to Hidden Falls for the express purpose of taking naps. I'm not sure what that's all about, other than that I recall it being kinda difficult at times while working in the Valley to find much serenity during the day in all the usual places.

Ralph on the trail

Me on the trail

We got our directions to Hidden Falls from our buddy Morgan at the front desk and set off a'strollin'. Hidden Falls turns out to be very aptly named, 'cos Ralph and I couldn't find it. We were, however, able to find every starving mosquito--or rather, they found us--for a fifty mile radius. This made stopping to eat lunch kind of annoying: bite, chew, swat; bite, chew, swat; screw it, run. Joe left us midway through the hike/stroll/meander to keep an appointment with a massage therapist, as he was feeling residual achiness from the day before. The Mirror Lake loop was less leisurely than we'd hoped for, but worth doing and certainly one of the least strenuous options available.

Mirror Lake

On the return end of the loop, I was hiking ahead of Ralph and heard a rustling sound in the woods ahead and to my right. Suddenly, a deer leapt out onto the trail and began trotting toward me. My first thought was, "Cool! A deer, and so close!!!" As I watched him approach, my next thought was, "Uh... antlers. Maybe not so cool..." My mind sorted through my Yosemite files and pulled up the information that the only animal-related human fatality in the park, to my knowledge, was caused by a deer. It seems a child had been feeding potato chips to a buck (feeding the wildlife in Yosemite is a big no-no, and for very good reasons) and they got into a bit of a struggle over who was gonna keep the bag. Sadly, and I'm sure inadvertently, the deer fatally gored the child. With this story flashing in my mind, I moved aside as much as I could to let the deer pass, all the while cooing niceties at him such as "Ooooh... pretty deer. Aren't you a pretty deer? Or is that 'handsome'? Ummm... you're a pretty, handsome deer..." He passed me close enough that I could have touched him, but I kept a respectful distance. I saw that Ralph was standing uptrail, ironically, like a deer in the headlights, so I calmly suggested he move to the side to let the buck pass, which he did.

Different buck, but you get the i-deer

I figgered that was my wildlife interaction for the day... but I was wrong. Not five minutes later, I heard another sound of something moving through the underbrush and, as I came around a boulder and looked to my right, I saw a brown furry ass running away into the woods (when I told Gabby the story, she asked, "Did you think it was a shaggy hiker?" She funny!!!). I ducked back behind the rock for a sec, peeked back around and was face-to-face with a California Black Bear (yeah, they're really brown, but that's what they call 'em anyway). He was prob'ly 50 or so feet away, and I'm glad 'cos I wouldn't want to be much closer to one of these guys. This fella was easily 250-300 lbs (or more. Who knows? I didn't have time to size him up on my Watch Out, There's A Big Ass Bear On The Trail chart), so the further away, the better. We looked in each other's eyes for a few seconds and I moved back behind the rock in the hopes that, like a two-year-old child, he'd think that since he could no longer see me, I'd ceased to exist. Good plan, Keith.

When you get to Yosemite Valley, they take great pains in trying to make you Bear Aware. Here's some of the tips you might hear, read or see on video:

If you encounter a bear:
Bears sometimes bluff their way out of threatening situations by charging and then veering off at the last second. If this happens, do your best not to scream or run. The bear will probably retreat as soon as she has made her point (this is her territory) and scared you senseless.
Never approach a bear. Give it plenty of room to pass by. Most black bears try to avoid confrontation when given a chance.
Do not run from a bear. Running away from a black bear may stimulate its instinct to chase. You cannot outrun a bear. Instead:
Stand and face the animal.
Make eye contact without staring.
Talk softly in a monotone and back away slowly.
If you have small children with you, pick them up so that they do not run or panic.
If there is more than one person, stand together to present a more intimidating figure, but do not surround the bear.
Give the bear room so that it can avoid you.

That's all well and good, but here's what happens in REAL LIFE when you (ok, I) encounter a bear:

Your hands go numb.
Your legs shake.
You run your ass off in a direction opposite the bear, find your friend uptrail and babble semi-coherently, "Bear! Bear on the trail! There'sabearthere'sabearthere'sabear. Bearbearbearbear!" And do a lot of pointing. And nearly soil yourself.

I know that conventional wisdom suggests that a human cannot outrun a bear, but here's where I beg to differ. Had the bear given chase, I guarantee that I would have been the first person in recorded history to fly unaided and would have easily avoided being mauled/eaten/bear-raped. I think my strategy for any further bear encounters will be the following, since this is almost what happened anyway:

I will immediately shit my pants.
I will reach into my pants, quickly gather my own shit and throw it at the bear in the hopes of either a) repelling him in disgust or b) giving him something distractingly interesting to focus on whilst I make good my escape. I'm vegan, after all, so there's plenty of nuts, seeds, berries and other bear-attractive goodies in my, uh, scat (I'm not sure whether this works to my advantage or against it. Just how keen is a bear's sense of smell again...?)

I believe this plan will work, and that it will be included in future Bear Awareness literature. When you see it, remember me!

Having had all the stimulation we could stand, Ralph and I headed back to base camp and then over to Yosemite Lodge "food court" for din-din. While waiting in line for my plate of pasta with vegan marinara, I overheard the women ahead of me discussing the Half Dome hike, so I asked if they'd done it and for their impressions of the hike. [Now over the years, I'd heard or read dozens of people's stories of hiking Half Dome but as my chance to do this hike drew closer, I wanted to hear some more. Particularly, I was interested in how people thought the hike to the top of Upper Yosemite Falls (rated "strenuous") compared to Half Dome (rated "very strenuous"). I'd hiked the Upper Yosemite Falls trail in 2000 and it was by far the greatest test of physical endurance I'd ever put myself through. After 4 hours and 2000+ feet of elevation gain in the middle of a hot August afternoon, my body threatened to contact an attorney and sue me for abuse. But I made it, and I made it back down.]

The women in the pasta line told me what it was like going up the Half Dome trail - nothing I hadn't heard before - but when I asked, "And coming down?", one of 'em said, "Don't ask!" and they all turned to look at a smallish woman in their group. I looked at the quizzically and the stared-at woman disclosed that a few years back, she'd been on the 45-50 degree vertical cable descent from the top of Half Dome when a freak hailstorm hit. She slipped on the slick granite, lost her grip on the cables, fell/slid a scary distance and injured herself quite severely. As she recounted the story, I quickly realized that I had read online here about her accident shortly after it had happened, as it appeared in a Yosemite group in which I'm active. In fact, I'd even sent my wishes for a speedy recovery to this woman, Brigid.

Brigid showed me some of her scars (devastating) and told me of her lengthy hospital stay (months, if memory serves), physical rehab, learning to walk again, etc. Prior to the accident, she'd been a triathlete and had run something on the order of 20 marathons. I'm sure her physical conditioning is what allowed her to recuperate, recover and return to Yosemite the very next year (!) to make the same hike again (I found out on Wednesday that a woman fell on the cables on Tuesday, hit her head and died later the same day. Eerie...). We talked for quite a while and she took my email address and phone number, but I've yet to hear from her. I sincerely hope she stays in touch, as I felt I'd met a kindred spirit in Brigid. If not, I'll cherish the experience of our paths having crossed.

We all retired to our cabin, having had another full and satisfying Yosemite day.

Coming soon! Tune in for Installment 4: God Give Me Strength

Anniversary, Schmiversary - or - Five Long Years

Saturday July 13, 2002 - a date which will live in infamy. Keith Berger and Gabrielle Freddie were suddenly and deliberately married...

It's been five long years (you know just what I'm talkin' about), and we've yet to kill each other. This is a good thing 'cos, so far as I know, murder is still illegal in the state of Florida. If I'm wrong about this, someone please let me know. No reason. Y'know, just because.

Being that Gabby and I have grown accustomed to living a certain lifestyle familiar to those who keep all their belongings in a shopping cart, we decided not to celebrate with some sort of fancy night on the town (ok, our meager bank accounts decided for us, but that's beside the point) but rather to spend a quiet evening at home watching our cat try to eat our bird. Meanwhile, the cat who was not trying to eat the bird nearly choked himself attempting to swallow a feather he'd found on the carpet. I'm thinking that eating the bird would not be a good idea for him or the bird, should the opportunity arise. Leave it to our cat to thwart nature...

Alright, who's ready for Installment #2 in my Yosemite saga? Hmm........ don't everyone raise your hands at once...

Please allow me to ask the musical question...

Day Two: Why Don't You Take A Frickin' Hike?!?

Monday June 11 - Ralph and Joe had requested a "warm-up" hike to prep us all for our planned assault on Half Dome (covering roughly 16-17 miles with an elevation gain of 4800-ish feet, the trek to Half Dome and back is considered by many to be the crown jewel of Yosemite Valley hikes... and one that I had never so much as attempted in my five previous visits) and to acclimate us to the altitude. We live at sea level and Yosemite Valley is at about 4000 feet, so our pansy Florida asses were huffing and puffing a bit in the mountain air.

I presented the boys with some options and we settled on a hike to Vernal Falls along the Mist Trail, so-called because the trail takes you so close to the Falls that you get fairly soaked from the mist. You also get to see one of the most breathtaking sights you'll ever see, Vernal Falls, dropping pristine white water 317 feet - roughly equvalent to a 31-story building - and you not only walk right past it but you can stand at the top and watch the water go over the edge. And, when the sun is right (which seems to be most of the time), you're pretty much assaulted by rainbows. In fact, there is one spot on the Trail (for anyone who's been/plans to go there, it's when you're standing just to the left/above the cave) where you might find yourself standing inside the rainbow. It's a magical feeling, and I made sure to point this effect out to a few fellow hikers on the trail who seemed awed by it. This hike is a personal fave of mine, one that I would gladly do every day for the rest of my life, given the chance.

Ahhh...

In hindsight, the Mist Trail might not have been the best choice for us, as Ralph's knee can be a bit dodgy and the result was a pronounced limp (pronounced: limp), but Joe and I made it up easily enough. He and I left Ralph to relax at the Emerald Pool just above the Falls and went up a bit higher, nearly to the base of Nevada Fall (594 feet high - that's about 60 stories for you city folk... or architects).

Nevada Fall

All the falls were running fairly high so we got our share of misting. Joe and I went off-trail on the steps to Vernal and scrambleslid out closer to the Falls. It felt like a hurricane - high winds and lots of water - only without the fear of death and dismemberment due to a flying-street-sign-turned-guillotine. As hot as it was midday, the water brought cooling relief (why does that sound like a Preparation-H advert?).

Big fall, little Joe

We all spent a bit of time out on a boulder downstream from Vernal that I've come to think of as my "safe place", y'know, the place you visualize when attending a guided meditation or when standing in line at the DMV for three hours behind a guy who smells like a Greek salad...

Joe in quiet repose, and certainly not smelling like a Greek salad

On the way up and down the Mist Trail, we found ourselves interacting from time to time with two European women living in Holland (Petra is Czech, Paula... not sure). Joe engaged Paula in a discussion of foreign films he'd seen (such a smoothie, that Joe!) while I just tried not to be the quintessential stupid American. On the way down, they called us from behind and took our picture with Vernal in the background. Petra gave me her card and said she'd email the pic to us. We had a short but interesting conversation about hiking, travel, politics (Petra's not a fan of Bush - thank God - but then, is anyone?) and the differences between Europeans and Americans. If they hadn't had to leave the park in a little while to continue their own American adventure, we might have all eaten dinner together.

Me, Joe & Paula above Vernal Falls - don't mock, it's a great hiking hat!

Joe, Ralph, me and Paula

Petra at Nevada Fall

Eventually, the boys and I hiked down and had din-din at the Mountain Room at Yosemite Lodge where Gabby and I had our rehearsal dinner in '02. Methinks it may have been too pricey for Joe (I'm pretty sure he ordered the most expensive item on the menu for some reason), but I had a great vegan dish: Grilled Portobello Cap with Vegan Polenta, quinoa and roasted veggies, and gazpacho for the appetizer. Sated and pleasantly exhausted from the day's hike, we caught the last shuttle back to Camp Curry and bid Yosemite goodnight...

Next installment:

Day Three: He Was A Hairy Bear... He Was A Scary Bear

Lord Have MRSA!

****A call for help: my blog buddy Suki could use a bit of support after having a bit of a medical scare, so if you can, please pop over to her blog and send her some positive thoughts and energy!****

It was on this day in 1957 that this guy

met this guy



and the rest is history.



And from the Writer's Almanac:

It's the birthday of one of the most influential and controversial philosophers of the 20th century, Peter Singer (books by this author), born in Melbourne, Australia (1946). His book Animal Liberation (1975), which is generally credited with starting the animal rights movement, has sold more than a million copies and is estimated to have converted more people to vegetarianism than any other book ever written.

But Singer has said he is disappointed by the book's impact. He said, "When I wrote it, I really thought the book would change the world. I know it sounds a little grand now, but at the time the '60s still existed for us. It looked as if real changes were possible, and I let myself believe that this would be one of them. All you have to do is walk around the corner to McDonald's to see how successful I have been."

I've yet to read Singer's book, but I've always heard good things about it. My best reference source for nutrition info and the book that was basically my Bible when I transitioned to a vegan lifestyle is John Robbin's Diet For a New America. Heir to the Baskin-Robbins fortune, Robbins watched his family members suffer obesity and early deaths from their dairy consumption and put 2 and 2 together. What he came up with was 4, like most people, but more importantly he saw the link between the ingestion of animal products and preventable disease and death in humans.

In light of reports from Europe (shorter report here) that they're finding methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA, commonly called Mersa by its friends and family... just before it kills them), if there was ever a good time to go vegan, it would be now. I read in the Onion that the world death rate is holding steady at 100% so I know we all have to die eventually (except my Jehovah's Witness friends who plan to live forever in paradise on Earth. Hi Marty!!!), but it doesn't hafta go down like Stephen King's The Stand... I'm foregoing including a picture of what a MRSA-affected area looks like ('cos it's kinda gross and I don't wanna see it every time I come here), but if'n yer curious, go here. When you stop vomiting, you can make a choice as to whether to eat that next pork chop or burger.

If you need me, I'll be with Stu and Frannie on our way to visit Mother Abagail...

It's always something, and then it's nothing... and that, I guess, is life.

Red, White and Blues

I awoke this morning and did what I do every 4th of July: I sprang out of bed and threw my hands in the air (and waved 'em like I just didn't care) in celebration of America's hard-fought independence from the stifling and oppressive imperialist monarchy of the hateful British Empire and that limey bastard, King George III!!! Feh!

That or I got up, showered and took a dump. Yup, I think it was the latter.

I don't like the 4th of July. I don't enjoy barbeques (what vegan does?) and fireworks do not excite me. In fact, I hate the idea of all those dogs and cats (and kids... let's not forget the kids) who are scared shootless by all that frickin' noise the entire week before, the night of and several days afterward as people continue to blow stuff up for fun. Nearly every year on and around the 4th, we housesit for friends and watch the sweetest dog in the world. Abby (the dog) is so freaked out by fireworks that it's all we can do to get her to go outside for 5 seconds to pee during the day, and we sometimes have to dose her with Benadryl to get her to stop trembling. Is all this noise really necessary? The rockets' red glare and bombs bursting in air happened during a war. People were being killed. Do we really want/need to keep that memory alive? Grrr.....

I will never be mistaken for a patriot. Usually, the only time red, white and blue come together for me is when I wash my clothes (I stridentally refuse to racially segregate my laundry). I think the whole idea of patriotism is a farce (have I already ranted about this in here someplace?). In my opinion, the only people who have a right to go on and on about their Americanism and how much they love their country blahblahblah are those who actually chose to be here. If you're foreign-born and have become an American citizen by choice, I'm all for hearing about your love for this country. If you happened to have been born here (like me), please fold up your flag and shush. Really, it's enough already. My parents conceived me in Brooklyn, hung around for the next nine months and on August 24, 1968, whether I liked it or not, I became an American citizen. That's just what happened. I had no say in the matter.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love living here. I haven't been to any other countries (except Canada, but that doesn't count. Any country I can get to by going through a toll booth doesn't count. I need to cross an ocean or something to get that feeling of actually going somewhere. To me, Canada seems like reaaaaaaaaally far upstate New York) and I imagine most of 'em are nice, but I'd prob'ly choose to live in the U.S. anyway. However, I just don't have this feeling of patriotic connection, and I don't dig nationalism. I always remember what my freshman sociology professor said, that when you create an in-group, you automatically create an out-group. Our current government has done/is doing enough to isolate us from the rest of the world; I don't wanna add to it.

But to be hypocritical for a moment, even though I didn't choose to be born on this planet (or maybe I did?), I do consider myself a citizen of the Earth and I feel that borders only exist on maps. If we all took a moment to realize that what we really are is one big family living on one small planet, rather than hundreds of groups separated by imaginary lines and fear-based ideologies, we might actually achieve the peace that so many of us talk about wanting.

Oh, and one more thing. I live in a country where, if I choose to, I could own and operate a grotesque, obnoxious, hugely wasteful eyesore of an automobile named for a slang term for oral sex. Is it any wonder there are so many people around the world right now who just don't like us?

Happy EveryDay, fellow citizens of Earth!

Do You Have To Have A Beard To Be A Mountain Man?

I'm finally taking a bit of time to recount some of my recent Yosemite adventure. I figger I'd better hop to it before I forget the whole thing ever happened...

Installment #1

Day One: Travel & Unravel

Ralph, Joe and I (pics to follow) awakened at our respective homes at ungodly hours in the neighborhood of four o'clock in the morning. I never realized there was a four o'clock in the morning. I knew about the four o'clock in the afternoon. This four o'clock was dark. Threw me all off. I took the sixty gazillion pounds of crap I'd packed into my two bags and one guitar case (note to self: next trip to Yosemite, pack much lighter. I didn't use 1/3 of what I brought, including six t-shirts that, when packed into my bag, magically gained ten pounds each. In the future, I might just pack some bricks and forego the t-shirts. At least bricks can be useful. You never know when you might wanna build a tiny wall. Really, awful unstrategic packing. I think I had less crap with me when I went and lived in the park for three months), dragged it all out to the car, kissed the Gabster and the kitties goodbye and headed down to our jumping-off point, Ralph & Ann's house in Pompano Beach. How their address qualifies to have "beach" in it is beyond me. They're so far west, they're about as close to the beach as they'd be if they lived in Wyoming. And if they did, I'm sure they'd be in Wyoming Beach. But I digress... as usual.


Joe and I parked our cars in Ralph's development (more about that later...) and we all headed off to Ft. Lauderdale Airport. I remember when it was a little bitty airport. Now it's all grown up and busy as hell with lines out the wazoo, whatever that is. It's kinda like Disney, except the only attractions are airplane rides. Joe made every effort to get himself arrested or at the very least detained by trying to bring bottles of unusual liquid, including his own laundry detergent, through security. They weren't having it and, in the end, neither was Joe. Detergent confiscated. The next time I saw the security guy, his colors were brighter and his whites were whiter.
Is this a double-message?

Passing time between flights. I lost.

So we flew... and we landed... and we flew... and we landed. If there's a direct flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Fresno, they take great pains to hide it. With our rental car rented ($132 for six days through Dollar-Rent-A-Car. Not too shabby, especially when split three ways), we got in out white Dodge Charger--giddy up!-- and drove non-stop to............ the Cheesecake Factory down the street from the airport. Hey, we were hungry. Those airplane snacks don't go very far these days.

I had agreed to do all the curvy mountain driving to and from the park and I'm glad I did, as Joe developed a bit of carsickness in the back seat and Ralph turned as white as our car a few times on those guardrail-less turns where, if ya sneeze, you're now headed over a thousand-foot cliff. Buh-bye. *waving* I'd done this drive before, so for me it was no sweat. The worst part was prob'ly the rental's utter lack of power on the uphill climbs... oh, and the downhills... um, and the flat portions... basically, any time it was in motion. As I commented to the guys, "Hmm, this car really has a lot of get-up-and-stay".


We winded (wound?) our way up the beautiful mountain road that is Route 41 and finally began to catch glimpses of Yosemite Valley. Coming through Wawona Tunnel toward Inspiration Point, I instructed Ralph and Joe to close their eyes for a minute. As we exited the tunnel, I said, "OK, open 'em!" and they had their first full view of Yosemite Valley:

I can never see this sight enough. I wish a photo could do it justice, but it can't. If you've never been to Yosemite, please do yourself a favor and, before you take your last breath on this planet, go.

Ralph taking it all in...

We stopped to stretch and rest our travel-weary legs, to take in the sudden expanse of beauty and, like everybody else, to photograph the hell out of it. Ralph cried, Joe walked off his carsickness and I trotted up into the woods for what seems to have become my traditional First Pee in Yosemite. I've been in some nice bathrooms and I've been in some (literal) shitholes, but for a place to urinate, you just can't beat this view. We'd have stayed longer, but we were eager to get down to the Valley and check in to our cabin in Curry Village.

We endured a looooooooong wait in the Curry Registration line, as the computers had been troublesome that day. As always in Yosemite, everybody talks with everybody and the moods are always high, so we struck up conversations with the people around us. The Valley seems to be a popular destination for, uh, women who enjoy the company of other women, and we soon realized we were flanked on all sides by lesbians. And just when I thought I couldn't love Yosemite any more than I already do! The line moved like a snake with a broken back, but we were finally checked in and sorted out by Morgan, a cool, funny kid who spends his off-days rock climbing (I ran into Morgan nearly each day we were there, even on his days off, and he was always helpful and accomodating. I sent a commendation about him to the feedback area of the park website). We dragged our tired asses and all our stuff to cabin #296 and went to catch the tail-end of dinner at the Curry Pavilion. It kinda sucked because of how late we got there, but we made do (then later, we made doo-doo). There are quite a number of vegan options available in the Valley for me to get my needs met, but I brought along my Vegan Emergency Survival Kit anyway (a selection of Clif Bars, ProBars and Greens Bars for protein).

Curry Dining Pavilion, a short walk from our cabin

It took awhile, but my roll-a-way bed finally arrived (by mutual agreement, Ralph and Joe each took one of the double beds in the cabin) and we all went to sleep. At this point, our day had been nearly 24 hours...

Our base of operations...

OK, so we're not very tidy...

Tune in next time for Installment #2: Why Don't You Take A Frickin' Hike?!?

Almost Forgot I Have A Blog

It's been too long since I've put anything here. Bad blogger! Bad!!!

First things first:

When I called Gabby from Yosemite on the day she got her biopsy results, she answered the phone with one word: "Benign". Whew... Although she and I had maintained a positive attitude about the whole thing and made a conscious effort to not energize the possibility that she/we might receive some bad news, I could feel some weight lifted off my mind when she said that word.

Yosemite memories to follow very soon. Suffice to say that my vacation was spectacular with a capital S and a capital PECTACULAR... Until I tell the tale, just one pic:

Me atop Sentinel Dome at 8122 ft., mere feet from where I proposed to Gabby in 2000. Silly girl, she said yes. It's been all downhill from there... at least for the seven hours it took us to hike back down to the Valley. ;-)

And now, the triumphant return of Song O' The Morn!

6/27/07 - In The Light - Led Zeppelin
From the 1975 double album Physical Graffiti. This track reminds me of how rarely I hear accolades given to John Paul Jones for his role in the band. Aside from his bass playing (matching Jimmy Page note-for-note on so many classic Page-associated riffs. Black Dog, anyone?), his keyboard playing is always interesting, as on this track or when sounding like a flute on Hairway To Steven (or when sounding like "a" as in neighbor and weigh). Generally, JPJ played what the song required, staying in the background while Page, Plant and Bonham took the superstar roles. Some choose to stay in the shadows, but everybody needs the light...

While in Yosemite, I didn't record any Song O' The Morns (or are they Songs O' The Morn?), but I am aware that I found the Boston song Don't Look Back in my head on numerous occasions, prob'ly 'cos I made a point of trying to get up as close to dawn as possible nearly each day. It's not their best song, but the new day and dawn references are what my early-morning brain seized on. Really, it's such a positive song, which makes hearing it (in my head or otherwise) bittersweet considering Boston lead singer Brad Delp's shocking suicide earlier this year. We'll miss ya, Brad.

(any lyric errors, blame Google. I'm too tired/lazy to muster up the energy to proof it)

Don't look back

A new day is breakin'

It's been too long since I felt this way

I don't mind where I get taken

The road is callin'

Today is the day

I can see

It took so long just to realize

I'm much too strong

Now to compromise

Now I see what I am is holding me down

I'll turn it around

I finally see the dawn arrivin'

I see beyond the road I'm drivin'

Far away and left behind

It's a new horizon and I'm awakin' now

Oh I see myself in a brand new way

The sun is shinin'

The clouds are breakin'

I cant lose now, theres no game to play

I can tell

There's no more time left to criticize

I've seen what I could not recognize

Everthing in my life was leading me on

But I can be strong

I finally see the dawn arrivin'

I see beyond the road I'm drivin'

Far away and left behind

Briefly

Spent today running around getting last-minute items for my trip and packing like a madman. I think I have everything. I think I have too much of everything. I'm prepared to downsize in Ralph's parking lot should the need arise. I've decided to bring a guitar along, as Yosemighty is a very guitar-friendly place and I'd hate to be caught without. I was gonna bring my old Sigma (the bastard stepchild of Martin Guitars), but one of the bridge pins gave up the ghost as I was taking off the horribly old strings and I don't have any extras laying around nor time to go and get one. So, I'm taking my Taylor. I'm sure all will go well, but if something were to happen (I've seen those old Samsonite ads. I'm fully aware that my baggage is handled by gorillas on crack), I'd be more upset if the Martin were to sustain damage.

Gig went well tonight. Thankfully, some people showed up (thanks especially to Glenn and Kelly for coming out!). My old friend and harmonica ace Billy "Hot Lips" Burns has returned from wherever it is that he's been hiding and sat in on Stormy Monday. Outstanding!

We'll be at Koffeeokee on 6/22. Bring a friend. Bring earplugs. Bring da noize.

OK, I'm off to bed for a few hours and then off to Yosemite! I'll be back... eventually. If yer lucky.

A Day In The Life

Yesterday's Song O' The Morn took me back to what I consider to be the happiest day of my life, so I wanted to share it here...

6/6/07 - Stand By Your Man - Tammy Wynette

I'm not sure exactly how old I was (I'd have to say somewhere around ten) but one summer day, my Mom took me to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village for the day. I sat and alternated between watching two sets of performers for hours. One was a Beatles cover band called The Leaves. I sat cross-legged on the ground, transfixed as they brought to life those songs I'd been listening to on the radio and my mom's turntable pretty much ever since I was born. I was amazed to be hearing those songs live and, for me on that day, these guys might as well have been the actual Beatles. This little Beatlemaniac (or in this case, Leavesmaniac) sat and listened and watched and clapped through each set they did, smiling as big as I've prob'ly ever smiled in my life throughout the afternoon.

So where do Tammy Wynette and her signature song enter into this idyllic childhood memory? Well, I'm glad you asked!

Between Leaves sets, another group of performers would set up and perform a puppet show using these really cool, life-sized, animal puppets/marionettes. The puppeteers were charismatic, funny and a hoot to watch. They used music for some parts of their show and one particular segment included a giant bird-looking thing with ridiculously big boobs (clearly referencing Dolly Parton) crooning "Stand By Your Man" and then inserting itself in a large cardboard box and ostensibly mailing itself to its man, choreographed to a Woody Guthrie song: "I'm a'gonna wrap myself in paper/I'm a'gonna dot myself with glue/Stick some stamps on top of my head/I'm a'gonna mail myself to you".

I can't recall a happier day in my childhood and, honestly, few days in my adulthood have been as purely joyful as that day was for me. I revisit that day often, picking up my mental crayons and coloring the images a bit deeper and a bit brighter each time, lest I begin to forget...

And to think that most days by noon I can't remember what I had for breakfast...

6/6/07 - Round Here - Counting Crows
Yes, I'm aware that this song was originally recorded by Adam Duritz's pre-CC band, the Himalayans, but the version I woke up to this morn was the one from August and Everything After (an album that, I regret to say, got one listen and then languished in my CD rack for about a year until I went back and realized just how great it was. I do this a lot. I'm sloooooow. Just ask Dave). Round Here is one of my fave songs and, as I'm sure I've mentioned, the one I used to usually close my solo acoustic gigs with (thanks for showing me the signature riff, Dave). There's a lot of space for extemporaneous improv in it, especially at the end. I think, of the songs I perform, it's Gab's favorite... aside from the ones I wrote for her.

Gabby's been doing great today, post-biopsy. She called me early in the day and said, "Well, it fell off" ("it" being her newly-pierced boob) and went on to tell me she'd put it in a jar with formaldehyde. I told her that ice woulda been a better bet if she'd had her eye on reattachment but that if she just wanted to keep it for some high schoolers to have for dissection ("Save a frog! Lop off a boob!"), formaldehyde was the way to go. Really, she says that it's just been kinda itchy. And that's why the lady is a champ.

Spent the evening at La Casa Vullo having din-din and watching comedy. First up: Eddie Izzard's Dress To Kill. Fookin' hilarious! I then introduced them to Mitch Hedberg as we watched Mitch's Comedy Central special from the Mitch Altogether CD/DVD. A fun time was had by all!

Half Dome, taken from the Panorama Trail just below Glacier Point, 1989. Four more days... In the background to the left of Half Dome is a peak called Cloud's Rest. Below is a pic of me doing a bit of death-defying bouldering on Cloud's Rest. Ah, the stupidity of youth...

To the left is the front edge of Half Dome... Not knowing how to climb back down from the rock I'd just scrambled up on, I chose to simply jump back down. Not the smartest move, but who at 19 years old isn't immortal, right? If a strong gust of south-blowing wind had come as I prepared my mountain goat-esque leap, I would've prob'ly fell a few thousand feet before coming to a very sudden, very messy stop.

It's nice to still be here.

Mammogram-A-Ding-Dong

Gabs had her first-ever mammogram a few weeks ago and, as if the procedure weren't enough fun already, received notice a few days later by mail that the test results showed a couple of "abnormalities". Next came the ultrasound, then the consultation with the doc, then the order for a needle biopsy. Gabby's been uber-nervous about this, and I don't blame her. Needles suck. Needles that yank stuff out of yer body suck even worse.

Today was biopsy day, and I accompanied Gab to the medical office and held her hand through the invasive procedure. Well, most of the way through it anyway, right up to the point where I nearly vomited on her/fainted onto the floor.

Let's just say that Gabby made it through her ordeal like a champ (after, I half-expected her to say, "Screw it! Let's do the other boob while we're here!" Me? Not so much), after my several dozen reminders to take slow, deep breaths. The doc demanded that she not hyperventilate, as if insisting that one not hyperventilate is a good strategy for thwarting such an occurrence. So, we breathed together like some Lamaze couple. The doctor, a no-nonsense woman with a stellar reputation in the breast community (I like to think I have such a reputation, as well), performed two biopsies, one with a itty-bitty needle for the smaller of the two suspect areas. The second biopsy on the larger area was performed with an instrument resembling a small electric carving knife that was actually plugged into a large machine making intermittent vacuum-like noises. The doc's technique resembled what one might do with a small electric carving knife whilst attempting to remove a particularly tenacious turkey leg from the rest of the frame.

At this point, I felt my legs losing touch with the rest of my body and said weakly and prudently, "I'm feeling a bit lightheaded. I'm gonna go sit down..." I let go of Gabby's hand and quietly wished someone would take mine and lead me to the chair that looked to be a thousand miles away down a dark tunnel.

Sitting down, it was all I could do to keep from vomiting and/or fainting. I strategized as to which biowaste container would be best to yak into, realizing that running out of the room was not gonna be an option. You see, at this point, my legs had ceased all communication with the rest of my body, the room seemed to get several shades darker and my right ear took to ringing like a crack dealer's cell phone. I took some deep breaths (my cure for everything. "Lost yer job? Drove yer car into a canal? Deeeeeep breaths..."), only to find out later that this is usually a sure-fire way to achieve fainting rather than stave it off. A better bet woulda been the ol' head-between-the-knees move, but my thinker was not in top form at the time. My best strategy was to sink back in the chair and hope that it would contain me till the smelling salts arrived.

Eventually, it all passed (as everything inevitably does), but not before m'wife--having just had her left breast stabbed repeatedly and still lying on the procedure table-thingy--giggled and asked me a few times how I was doing. Yeah, as usual, it's all about me.

She's a remarkable woman, my wife. Me, on the other hand? I'm just a guy who almost fainted from something that wasn't even happening to him. If there's a "weaker sex", it's certainly the one I'm a member of.

Moving on...

In five days, I'll be in my most favorite place on the planet, Yosemite National Park. I'm so excited I hardly know what to do with myself, so I'm gonna post a coupla pictures I took out there in 1989 and 2002.

Yosemite's most recognizable icon, Half Dome, touched by a cloud in the summer of 1989 when I worked in the park for the second time. At 8,836 ft., this granite dome stands at the east end of Yosemite Valley and poses one of the greatest challenges to hikers in the park. This year, I intend to meet that challenge and will stand on top of that hill by week's end.

Vernal Falls with Rainbow, 2002

This 317 ft. waterfall is one of my favorite spots to visit. One route to Half Dome takes you up to, around and past this magnificent fall via the Mist Trail (so-called because of the watery mist you're sprayed by en route). I recall the sign posted at the top of Vernal back in 1988 that read, "Do not go near the edge of the fall. If you slip and fall over, you will die", complete with an etching of a little red stick-figure, arms waving in the air, careening over the fall. A great bit of writing. No frills, straight to the point, unequivocal. Not "You may be injured" or "It's possible that..." Straight-up: You Will Die. Nice!

More Yosemite pics later. And I'm deferring the next Song O' The Morn till tomorrow (at least). I know, I know, you're on the edge of yer seat...

Several Puns Not Intended

Recently, someone asked me, "So how's life treatin' ya?", to which I replied, "Great, as long as I stay out of its way". Life is rolling steadily forward, and I'm rolling with it. So far, so good...

The band played this past Saturday to a bit more than our usual handful at Gizzi's. They were most appreciative and we played pretty well. I know I felt very relaxed, as did Casey, and it seemed to come through in our performances. I find that most of the pressure I feel in these situations (really, in most situations) is self-generated. No one I play in front of tells me I need to do better or be better. I just hear it in my head. I guess when I can get out of my own way, life is smoother still.

We've (borderLine) been invited to play at a 4th of July picnic at Lake Ida Park in Delray. More on that (hey, who you callin' "moron"?) when I get the details. I believe it's a sober picnic sponsored (no pun intended) by Delray's Central House, a 12-Step clubhouse. This means there will be no alcohol or other drugs... with the notable exception of more tobacco than both the Carolinas produce in a year. Ah well, I s'pose if you're gonna give up an addiction or three, give up the ones that are killing you the quickest, no?

Oh, we'll be at Gizzi's again this Sat., 6/9. Come one, come all. I leave for Yosemite the next day, so all you groupies might as well stay home. Big Daddy's gonna need his beauty sleep that night...

Song O' The Morn update:

5/30 - Driver 8 - R.E.M.
5/31/07 - Fall On Me - R.E.M.
After Mike and Kristie reminded me of what a great band they are, I broke out Eponymous (sadly, the only R.E.M. album I own, but a good 'un) and put it in the car. You just gotta love those Peter Buck hooks! Simple, but immediately recognizable and memorable. I don't have any particular emotional attachment to R.E.M., but I do recall thinking that the MTV Unplugged version of Fall On Me was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever heard way back when. I think I have a VHS copy of it buried somewhere, but I'm not up for the archaeological dig it would require to find it right now. If anyone knows where I can find this or see it, please lemme know. I tried youtube, but no dice.

6/1/07 - I'm Only Sleeping - Les Beatles
I've always loved this song. The backing harmonies are especially beautiful, and the backward guitar intrigued me as a kid. In fact, as I think back, Yesterday and Today was the 1st Beatles album I actually bought by myself. I must've been around 12, and I think it may have cost me $4.00. All my other Beatles albums had been given to me by my mom's friends. Man, I can remember it, no pun intended, like it was yesterday. Riffling through the album racks, finally pulling this one up and checking to see if there was a Butcher Cover hiding beneath. Well, there wasn't, but there was the album inside and I played it about a thousand times over. I swear I can smell that record store as I write this. That, or I really need to wash my socks.

6/2/07 - Who Will Save Your Soul - Jewel
Say what you will about her, but Jewel is one of maybe three singers I've heard in my life whose voice has given me chills. Two are women I know personally, Holly Wilkie (a friend from high school with a voice as clear as glass. During rehearsal for a school performance, she sang "Ave Maria" and very nearly made me cry...) and Marnie Wagner (a friend I met in Florida and have in my life to this day. When we met, she told me, "Oh, I play guitar and sing" and I thought, "Yeah, ok, whatever". Later at her apartment she sang a song she'd written - Purple Sky? - and for the second time in my life, chills).

6/3/07 - I'm Ready - borderLine
Yup, I woke up hearing Casey sing this Wille Dixon song in my head. It was brought to the band by our former harp player, Robert. I'd never heard it before, but it's now in our set and Casey handles it very well. Just another I-IV-V blues, but it fills the time.

6/4/07 - Solid As A Rock - Ashford and Simpson
I told'ja this stuff was random... My mom and stepfather listened to lots of R&B (before those initials stood for what they stand for today: Really & Bad) during my teen years, Ashford and Simpson among the bunch. I never saw A&S perform, but Mom & Steve took me to see some great concerts over those years: Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder, Chicago (not R&B per se, but they did have a kick-ass horn section)...

One of my Song O' The Morn bands is coming to town. The Black Crowes will by at the Mizner Park Amphitheater on 8/25 (the day after my b'day). I've seen 'em before, most memorably at the now-defunct Sunrise Musical Theater, and would see 'em again. At this point, I'm on the fence about going. If anybody feels like making a b'day gift of a ticket, by all means do so!

I've Been Trying To Get In Touch With My Feminine Side, But She Won't Return My Calls

An email exchange with Danielle earlier today inspired this:

Sometimes I wish I were dating again, for purely sociological reasons. It'd give me an opportunity to try out my Philosophy of Honesty in Dating, or Ph.D., if you will. It goes a bit like this:

Rather than wasting time with all that disingenous "I'd-like-to-take-you-out-to-dinner-and-a-movie" crapola, I'd like to try a more honest approach along the lines of, "Hi! I find you extremely attractive and would like to have sex with you. Repeatedly. As often as possible. Starting now." (of course, if your name is Maxwell Edison and it's Joan you're asking out to the pictures, it's not so much sex you're after as it is a chance to swing your silver hammer... and Happy 40th, Sgt. Pepper!)

You see, when you get right down to it, nobody really wants to take someone out and feed them or see a movie and hold a philosophical discussion afterward. That's just a means to an end. In truth, everybody just wants to get everybody else out of their clothes and into their bed. Or their car. Or somebody else's bed. Or car. Or the lawn. You get my point.

No other species has to go through all that we put ourselves through in the pursuit of sex. But then, no other species wears clothes (except William Wegman's poor Weimaraners. I can't wait til those pooches get tired of Wegman making them play dress-up and just maul the shit outta that guy... and, while we're at it, for Anne Geddes to have her ass kicked by a whole bunch of babies in bee costumes. They oughtta shove her ass into a giant flower pot and leave her there. In my perfect world, these two nutjobs would be in adjoining prison cells. Please, people. Leave children and animals alone).

So, perhaps clothing is the problem?

I remember my high school friend Larry Hansen (if I were to pony up the twenty bucks or whatever it is to become an all-access member of classmates.com rather than remaining at lurker-level, I could get in touch with Larry today. After reading what comes next, you'll wonder why I might ever consider doing that) saying once that "The only thing standing between us and sex with all these girls [gesturing toward a good portion of the student body - pun intended] is a little bit of cotton... oh, and permission". Wiser words were never spoken, especially not by any sixteen-year-old. It could've easily been a line spoken by Damone to Rat in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Instead, it was spoken by Larry to me in a tiny little school in a tiny little town in Upstart New York. Sadly, try as I might, all my high-school permission slips were denied... I'd have to wait till a few weeks after graduation to get past the cotton.

(I'm sure everyone wanted to know that)

So, do you think we could pull off such a sea change in this age-old, frustrating ritual? Could we pack up the games we play and just lay it all out there, putting our honest desires out in front and dispensing with the subterfuge? No more "Would you care to dance?" unless said dance is to be done naked and horizontal (or however you like. Freak). "Can I buy you a drink?" could become, "Listen, I have a few condoms..."

On the subject of alcohol, which I under no circumstances advocate the use of---remember, the root word in "intoxicated" is "TOXIC"--, the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous (the basic text of the 12-Step program that has helped save the lives of millions of people since its inception in 1935) refers to alcohol as a "social lubricant". I've always interpreted that to mean that it helps one's pants slide off more easily. Not sure if that's really what they meant, but I've seen it happen.

If you're single, tired of all that dating nonsense and interested in being a force for positive change in this world (oh, and "horny" would prob'ly be helpful, too), why not give it a shot? Sign up for Professor Berger's Ph.D. course today! Get out there, be honest with others about what you want and what you need, and see what results come your way!

(I'm reminded of what another friend from around my high school days once told me. Brian Finch, an impossibly good-looking guy my mom always referred to as "Stunning", once assured me that, "If you go up to ten women and tell them you wanna have sex with them, guaranteed, nine of 'em will slap you in the face. Ahhh, but the tenth one..." And then he smiled the smile that had removed many a cotton barrier, and would go on to remove many more. Brian's seen more ass than a rental car. For all I know, he was right.)

So I Had My Politics Tested...

...and you can too, over at http://www.okcupid.com/politics. Thanks to Kristie for posting her results and piquing my curiosity. By the way, has anyone not yet seen Jojo's famous hula boogie?




My completely-unsurprising results:

You are a Social Liberal (76% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (8% permissive) You are best described as a: (8e/76s) Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

I practically flew right off the charts into some as-yet-undefined area of liberalism, a place where trees hug you back and the heart spews blood volcanically.

When given the opportunity to create a new law, here was (were) my suggestion(s):

"48. And finally, if you could make up ONE new law and have it enforced FOREVER, by goons, what would your law be? Use your imagination, let your despotic instincts run free.

I would dictate that... people planning to have children need to take parenting courses ahead of time and, if they fail, must be sterilized or otherwise rendered so hideously ugly that no one would ever again consider breeding with them. Also, there needs to be a law dictating what you can and cannot name a child, 'cos this shit's really getting out of hand. Throw some letters back in the Scrabble bag and pick a few new ones before you name your kid Qwwaneshianyah. Please. He'll thanks you later and prob'ly not shoot you... at least not for that."

If you're reading this, considered yerself tagged. Now, go forth and quiz thyself.

Oh, and the latest Song O' The Morn entries:

5/28/07 - Breaking the Girl - Red Hot Chili Peppers
1991's Blood Sugar Sex Magik never gets old and has yet to start sounding dated. I would put it up against any album of its time-or since-for pure funkiness, groove, power and balls. Sandwiched between the funk/rap of If You Have To Ask and soulful grit of Funky Monks, BTG could have been lost with its simple, straightforward acoustic guitar and crooning vocal, but the placement is perfect. And after watching the behind-the-scenes video Funky Monks (which I should prob'ly return to Mike, considering he lent it to me roughly a hundred years ago), I can just picture Flea banging steel pipes to get those big sounds in the percussion breakdown mid-song. And to think that John Frusciante was, what, 19 or 20 at the time BSSM was recorded...? JAY-sus!

5/29/07 - Have A Cigar - Pink Floyd
It was a treat being amongst the capacity crowd to hear Roger Waters sing this one recently at the Whoever-Owns-It-This-Week Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach. That joint gets turned over more often than a hooker's mattress. I was impressed that Rog could hold that long bit in "traaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiinnnnnnnn" (note: the vocals on the album track belong to Roy Harper. Shut up, Dave). Another treat was the fistfight that broke out between the two drunkards mere feet from the tiny piece of real estate Gabby and I had claimed like squatters on the lawn. This is the second fight I've seen at a show (coincidentally, both at the same venue), the first of which provided me with my Most Ironic Concert Moment Ever:

During James Taylor's singing of Shower the People (yes, that's "Shower the people you love with love / show them the way that you fee-eel"), two guys a few rows in front of us start throwing punches and pummeling the crap out of each other. They had to be broken apart by security personnel and escorted out. JT and band never stopped playing, as they were oblivious to this little slice of hippie-love-gone-sour. I said to the guy behind me, as I laughed my ass off, "A fight at a James Taylor show is like a hug at a hockey match!"

Sing it with me, kids: Shower the people in front of you with blows..........

It's been a nice weekend so far, and Monday's looking good too.

We played our two gigs, Saturday night at Crossroads and Sunday afternoon at our friend Scottie's house. There was a crossover of attendees at both, and all the feedback was positive. People really seemed to dig us at both places, and I thought we sounded really good most of the time. Casey had spent the week in Maryland and, trooper that she is, came directly from the airport for the second half of the gig. She showed up, having spent the past seven hours in transit, and stepped right to the mike and brought the goods. A girl in the audience (Helen....... Helen Wheels) requested some Counting Crows, so we played Round Here (actually a song by the Himalayans...) with our friend Buda sharing the vocals. I used to close my acoustic gigs with this one, so it was nice to bring it out again. I think we'll add it to our set...

Sunday's gig was poolside and it was a sober event, so there were minimal drownings and maximums bikini-ings. We were joined for a few songs by an amazing violin player named Carl. The guy was outstanding, and we hope to play more with him and possibly his percussionist friend Benny, who also sat in. I don't mean to marginalize Benny's playing, but I wasn't really able to pay attention to what he was doing with all that was going on.

I was fairly exhausted by the end of the afternoon but stopped by Elwood's on the way home to see if Mike was playing. Unfortunately, he was not. It's prob'ly for the best, 'cos I needed to get some din-din and would have spent much more time there if Mikey had been around.

Monday will possibly hold a visit to Mom's late in the day.

Here's the latest Song O' The Morn playlist:

5/26/07 - Real Love - The Beatles

I remember the thrill of the Beatles' Anthology coming out, and hearing this song for the first time with the surviving Beatles on the track. It wasn't really the Beatles, but it was sorta the Beatles and it was the first time in a long time and that was good enough for me. I pulled out my copy of John Lennon - Free As A Bird - The Dakota Beatle Demos and sadly found that the people at Pegboy Records (whoever they are) made some crappy CDs. It's gone all foggy-looking and will no longer play. Too bad, 'cos there were some haunting recordings on there, many of which were recorded by John through a boom box sitting atop his piano. Very intimate stuff, as I recall.

5/27/07 - When The Levee Breaks - Led Zeppelin
Despie the allusions to Chicago, I can only think of New Orleans now when I hear this song (yeah, I know, me and everybody else). Plant is an under-rated harp player (and some may say an over-rated singer. Methinks I hear Dave...). Oh, and those are the brickheaviest drums I've ever heard.

Oh, I nearly forgot: I saw a woman wearing a Mitch Hedberg t-shirt this evening. I gotta get one or five.

Song O' The Morn Begins Now

Finally, the weekend is here! Thank God, or whoever designed the standard Mon-Fri work week.

In the course of an online interchange with Mike, it occurred to me that, for as long as I can remember, I have awakened each day with a song running through my head. It's a different song each day, but so far as I can tell there is always one playing as I wake up. It's as if my subconscious mind drops a quarter into my inner jukebox and presses the Random button, as there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason as to what song I'll wake up to. I decided a few days ago to start keeping track of these songs each day and to begin daily-blogging my Song O' The Morn and maybe writing a few related thoughts. Exciting, I know. Please try to contain yourselves...

So far, this week's Song O' The Morn selections have been:

5/22/07--Thorn In My Pride - Black Crowes
This slow-burning bluesy groove is the 3rd track on the BC's 1992 offering, The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, which I'd been thinking about adding to the CD case in my car only the day before. Great guitar tones and swirling organ lines held together with a lazily-percussive beat. Not a bad way to wake up.

5/23/07--Blue Collar Suicide - The Refreshments
The opening cut on 1996's Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Buzzy (I read that the name of the album came from a dream one of the band members had about appearing on Late Night with David Letterman. Apparently, in the dream, this is how Letterman intoduced their album) is a breathless romp through one man's dissatisfaction with his relationship with a girl who snores, can't cook and gives him a great excuse to take more pills than she could count. Fun!!! I initially gave this CD a listen after hearing "Banditos" (track 7, which references Jean-Luc Picard and gave us the line of the decade, "Everybody knows/that the world is full of stupid people") and it quickly became my favorite album for several months running.

5/24/07--Long Train Runnin' - The Doobie Brothers
I have no idea where this one came from or why it's even in there. I need to talk to the boys in charge of the jukebox and get 'em to changes some things up.

5/25/07--Hurricane - Bob Dylan
Bob's ode to the plight of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. I was listening to this selection before bed, so it must still have been hanging around come morning. I still think Denzel Washington deserved the Best Actor award for his raging portrayal of Carter in 1999's The Hurricane.





Till the morning comes...

Burned Out From Exhaustion

"The wind howls like a hammer
The night blows cold and rainy
My love she's like some raven
At my window with a broken wing"

Work has been nightmarishly hectic this week, beginning with my having to tell numerous people one at a time that our friend/coworker had died. I was also in the unenviable position of having to call her patients (Connie was a mental health counselor with an active caseload) and break the news to them, plus act as a sort of liaison between all of us and her family regarding memorial plans and so forth. Monday just felt surreal all around... I felt a bit more grounded on Tuesday, but then the normal busy-ness of work went into overdrive (plus we're shorthanded) and stayed that way throughout Wednesday. Today was better, more time to breathe. I'm grateful that I am surrounded at work by some seriously wonderful people, many of whom I think of as friends. We're like a communal family, and when one (or more) of us is out, the others just fall in and see to it that what needs doing gets done, no questions asked. Despite the stress I was feeling, I also laughed a lot. I'm glad there's a long weekend in the offing...

...and during that long weekend, borderLine will be playing back-to-back gigs on Saturday and Sunday. We're at the Crossroads Club 12-Step clubhouse (1700 Lake Ida Road, Delray Beach) once again on Saturday (I think we start at 5:30?), playing a benefit for the family of a fallen biker. I don't know his name, but the information I have is that, eerily, he was killed just up the street from me on the corner of Jeffrey and Federal. If it's the incident I think it was, I recall the street being blocked off for a number of hours and hearing the next day that there had been a fatality.

Sunday we're playing a private pool party in Boynton Beach in the afternoon. Talk about going from one extreme to the other...

I'm hoping that Gabby and I can go and spend some time with Mom on Monday.

It's been a bit of a trying week all around, but I know it'll even out and things will get better. They always do!

Oh, and happy 66th b'day to this guy:

Look out kid, it's somethin' you did...

Some Thoughts On Loss

Well, I'd planned to write a bit about the concert I saw Friday night and my own gig this evening but, as I was leaving the gig, I received a message that a friend died suddenly earlier today.

Connie, a woman I've known for quite a few years now and have worked with for just as long, was visiting a sick friend in the hospital and apparently had a heart attack during the visit. Details are a bit sketchy at the moment, and I'm kinda shocky right now, but this seems to be the case. I called Ursula, my friend who'd left me the message, and heard myself say in disbelief the sort of thing that's so common at times like these, "I just spoke with her on Thursday...", as if that somehow negates the awful reality that this person is no longer here.

Life feels so impermanent sometimes, so fragile, so easily and irrevocably altered.

My first question after absorbing the information, being a pragmatist despite myself when faced with these situations, was, "Is anyone taking care of her dogs tonight?" I hope that when I go, someone will go to wherever I'm living at the time and take care of my babies. Of course, I plan to live to at least 125 so there's no rush...

When my aunt passed away in December of 1999, I began to wonder a bit about what happens after we die. I had for many years been of the mind that dead is dead, the Great Unconscious, and that any sort of afterlife was just kind of a fantasy to make it all seem ok. I still have no idea what happens after we die, as I've yet to have that experience. Anyone who says they "know" oughtta change that word to "believe", 'cos they couldn't possibly know. But when Aunt Kay died, this question came to mind: "When she exhaled her last breath and her essence left her body... where did it go? Where did she go?" So I don't have a belief in an afterlife per se (besides, I spent twentysomething years avoiding my life and have since been enjoying it, so being afterlife-focused does not interest me in the least), but here's what I thought then, and what I like to believe today:

Perhaps when we die, we simply become part of the bigger whole. Our last breath leaves our body--whoosh--and we disperse, riding the breeze to wherever it goes. Perhaps our bodies are simply vessels for the essence of us (our souls, maybe?), mine being known today as Keith Berger, and when that essence is no longer contained in the vessel, it reintegrates with everything else. When I think of this, I see the image of a glass of water being tossed into the ocean. Now, while the water is in the glass, it has a certain shape and volume. As it enters (or re-enters) the ocean, it no longer retains that shape. It just becomes that much more water in the ocean, each molecule riding the current that carries it, some going one direction, others taking divergent paths. If this is something like what happens, then I imagine that the consciousness I now have will cease to exist as I become part of a bigger consciousness, a universal consciousness, if such a thing exists. I will no longer be or understand myself as Keith Berger. I will have no sense of individual self, no sense of "I". "I" will simply be whatever "I" am, wherever "I" am, and that will be enough. I like this idea. I'd like for it to be the truth. Just like all good ideas of faith, this gives me comfort.

Much like my aunt, Connie loved the ocean and spent lots of time out on it, on personal time and with the Coast Guard. I guess that makes my metaphor somewhat apt...

(all photos taken in Montauk, NY, walking distance from Aunt Kay's house. She spent so much time there that my family calls "Kay's Beach")

Here's what I wrote in my journal on the plane ride home from Aunt Kay's funeral. The word "God" is in it a few times. If that bothers anyone, please take what you like (if anything) and leave the rest:

We can live our lives in avoidance of pain, unhealthily and vainly trying to stave off what is only natural and necessary, or we can accept these feelings as they come through the natural course of things, feeling, processing and continuing to live as we had been living prior to the painful experience. Life without pain is life incomplete, as would be life without joy. We have been endowed with an unlimited set of feelings/range of emotions to match life's limitless array of experiences. After all, it's all about BALANCE. God knows what He/She/It's doing; all things for a reason. Even if and when we find ourselves struggling to understand the "why's", we need only accept the "that's". Acceptance is a tool that keeps us from going crazy, or at least from returning to that place. Faith takes care of the "why's". Faith reminds us that God is in charge and that if we really needed to know, we'd know. And in our hearts, in the quiet place made not of words but of feelings, we know. We know.

I'm grateful today to have touched and been touched by all those I love and haved loved in this life so far. You know who you are. Thanks for reading, and thanks for being here.