Tag Archives: curling

Binges and Hinges

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It’s been a very crazy few weeks. To quote The Smiths, “I was looking for a job, and then I found a job…”

Yes, there is some stability in the cards. I am giving up on depending on just freelance and contract work for a full-time agency gig. I wasn’t doing the hustling and scraping on purpose; it was just the hand I was dealt. You can’t get an agency gig without experience, and you cannot get experience without a job, so it was a crappy circle.

Despite the new content creation gig, I will still do freelance writing and take on clients. But, it won’t be my only way of doing things. But, it does not mean I won’t have to have a part-time hustle anymore.

It is a small firm with maybe six employees, none of which are hipsters. Plus, it is remote, so I can work without a chance of seeing hipsters and too cool for school agency types. There are two types of people who do content creation agency work; those who are chill or those who are annoying. There is no middle ground.

It is a small firm with maybe six employees, none of which are hipsters. Plus, it is remote, so I can work without a chance of seeing hipsters and agency types. There are two types of people who do content creation agency work; those who are chill or those who are annoying. There is no middle ground.

But, for the first time in over three decades, I am not doing any type of customer service or retail!

I quote the great Lloyd Dobler.

I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don’t want to do that.

It’s sad when a store closes that has been around for over five decades. It’s like it is being placed in a home. The worst part is the vultures who come in waiting for the discount prices to drop to 50% or better. They hover over the things they want. Most of which haven’t sold for a reason. Or worse, they ask a million dumb questions, like “when are you closing?” or “when is the next sale reduction?” Store closings attract weird people. Most of them bring calculators to ensure the markdown is correct. They are truly hideous people.

After years of working in record stores, book stores, libraries, museums, and offices I can certify any statements that people are simply insane. Somewhere along the line people gave up using their brains, thinking for themselves, or learning.

The result is that there are now lots of selfish people out there. Sadly, for the last eight years, at my last gig, I waited on a lot of them. They got enough cigarettes, porn, racing forms, beef jerky and change for parking meters to last a lifetime. Generally, they were rude, and pretty stupid. I will not miss any of that.

It is not quite appliance news, but the toilet got a new flush valve. The old one lasted about 15 years and had seen better days. Now, with the new one added, that ting roars like a jet engine.

The biggest at-home hassle of the month was replacing a hinge on one of the kitchen cabinets. One of them completely snapped off. There was no pulling or extra pressure, it just snapped. It was pretty weird. Once that happened I had to find a replacement.

This was not as easy as I anticipated. As it turns out I needed an 830-40 Soft Close hinge. Every place I tried was out of them. It was crazy.

The only problem is that they do not make them anymore. Luckily, the internet was good to me and I found several replacement options.

The biggest takeaway from all of this is that shopping for cabinet hinges is pretty boring!

I finished binge-watching the latest season of Cobra Kai. It is mindless fun. The show’s soul rests completely on its nostalgia. Between ’80s metal and old clips from the film, it clearly plays with its connections to the past.

There is a lot of melodrama and predictable plot twists, but somehow, it remains an interesting melodrama. Everyone makes poor decisions. Seriously, they all do. All I want is for one of the characters to pause for a minute and reflect on the potential results of their hasty actions.

I guess you could say I just watch it for kicks.

Top Chef is back. It is early, but so far it’s been kind of dull. I hate the fact they are doing it in Texas, where over half the 15 contestants would most likely have problems voting. However, Houston’s diversity and restaurant culture could make the series more interesting as the season progresses.

I am now starting on Station Eleven. It has gotten a lot of really great reviews, and it looks interesting.

I am not sure a series set during a pandemic is the most stable thing to watch, but it looks really good.

I did watch some of the Winter Olympics. While it was not as compelling as previous ones, I enjoyed seeing curling again. I also checked out the biathlon, hockey, and any fast-moving sled thing. Luge, bobsledding, two-person bobsledding, relay bobsledding, bobsledding in kitchens. All of it.

I think the Olympics were missing a soul. They seemed flat. Maybe it was the location or lack of crowds. Instead of having it on to watch, I just tuned in sparsely when the sports I wanted to see were on.

The problem with watching things like the Olympics is that I know that if I ever met any of these people in real life, they probably would be self-centered jerks with massive egos. The curlers seem to have an “everyday person” ethos to them. Maybe that is why I watch it. Or it could be because it is stupid.

Speaking of stupid, this business with the MLB owners and players is annoying. The real people getting hurt are those who work at the games, parking lots, ticket booths, and concession stands. The local businesses that serve that industry are also screwed.

No one should be surprised, rich people have been fighting over crumbs for centuries, and this is no different.

Morris Day can no longer use “Morris Day and the Time” because the Prince estate is claiming ownership. This is a pretty crappy thing to do.

Leave him alone! The man has brought a lot of joy and happiness to people through his music for decades.

I have been listening to Fall In Love Not In Line, the new record from Kids On A Crime Spree. They are an Oakland based three piece trio, comprised of Bill Evans, Rebecca Barron, and Mario Hernandez, who make music meshes power pop, reverb fuzziness, jangly vocals, and blissed out melodies.

It is their first album in 11 years and it is well worth the wait.

I have been enjoying Reversing into The Future: New Wave Graphics 1977 – 1990. It is a wonderful book about album art and graphic design spaning punk, new wave and post-punk eras.

Written by Andrew Krivine (who owns a massive collection of stuff from this era), the book represents a visual history of the period with essays on the art, design, album sleeves, posters, and adverts

The book also signifies how the indie music scene of the time used visual design elements that coincided with the anti-consumerist and anti-materialistic aspects of the music. Eschewing away from the black and white print style of punk, designers within the new wave movement instead favored a more artistic approach. One that incorporated visual style with the music.

I also am revisiting each of Neil Gaiman’s short story collections. I had not read Fragile Things in a few years but recently explored it again, and it did not disappoint.

Currently, I have delved back into Trigger Warning, his most recent collection of short stories. I forgot how dense it was. Each of the stories is wonderfully imaginative. I am still a sucker for The Return of the Thin White Duke, his nod to David Bowie and Nothing O’Clock, his nifty Doctor Who story.

During the pandemic, I saw him do a virtual reading of Click-Clack the Rattlebag that was pretty spooky. Overall, Trigger Warning is a compendium of great stories culled from various sources.

He is doing a speaking tour right now, and I would love to see him, but I’m not sure how the money shakes out.

I was not expecting much from The Batman. I wasn’t really intrigued by the trailers and thought another version of the franchise was redundant.

However, I must admit that this new incarnation of the Caped Crusader plays out like a neo-noir. It is gritty, brutal,l and dark. It also captures the detective feel of the comics which has been missing from other films.

While it has a ridiculous end scene that causes the film to run 15 minutes too long, this mashup of mafia film, cop drama, film noir, and superhero flick captures the grimy aspects of the comics without compromise.

Colin Ferrell damn near steals the film as the Penguin, and Jeffrey Wright is terrific as Jim Gordon. Robert Pattinson’s sulky emo antics got a bit tired, but I am hoping he ups his game in the next films as Bruce Wayne develops further.

Paul Dano is pretty creepy in everything. Here he lets it all loose. Thankfully, they took the Riddler out of the stupid clothes of the comics and cartoons. Now he looks more menacing and contemporary.

Hey, if you are looking for something to listen to and love music, check out Modern Musicology, a podcast that I am on. It has been a lot of fun to do and I hope you check it out. Each week we discuss an interesting topic. Tune in and dig it!

With the cold weather seemingly behind us, I am so looking forward to reading outside in the sunshine again. I like Spring. It is not too hot and it usually features a bevy of interesting new records.

However, what I really want this spring is for an end to the madness and unhinged terror of the world to subside. maybe it will be replaced with kindness and lemonade. I doubt it. But it would be nice.

The Guy Who Came In From the Cold

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The weather over the last few weeks has been obnoxiously brutal. I am not a cold-weather person. I do not mind the serenity of a snowstorm, but I certainly don’t want a foot of that stuff, much less sleet and ice.

Going out to shovel the snow this month was unpleasant. I went out after the first storm hit and cleared the front and back steps and made a path along the walkway. I cleared out the driveway as best as I could. But the heaviness of the snow and the nasty 30 mph wind just made me stop.

The problem with this methodology is that you feel frustrated during the entire process. You know that more snow is coming. You know it’s going to be garbage out. But, you also know you need access in and out in case of an emergency.

So with this thinking in my noggin, my dumb ass went out and did some shoveling. It wasn’t all bad. I did it in moderation, and the crisp air was nice when the wind wasn’t whirling. Eventually, I called it a day and went inside to a cup of tea.

I didn’t do my radio show that night, opting instead, to run a prerecorded program from the KDHX archives. I hate missing shows. When it happens,I get this empty feeling in the gut, an unsatisfied fix. Anyway, staying in was the prudent thing to do.

The next morning saw the full force, the big show. All of the weather folks said we were going to get snow, and they were right. It started light and lasted over 12 hours. It was wet, heavy, and compact snow, over a few inches of ice.

I got up that morning and did another go-round with the shovel. It was a pretty crappy endeavor. There was just too much. It was the biggest snowstorm here since 1982 and the second-biggest since 1912.

When it all stopped that early evening I went out, and with the help of a few neighbors, got the driveway, stairs, and entryways done. I also cleared off the sidewalk. While I was outside I could not help but think how nuts you would have to be to live in a climate like that for a long time.

I hate winter. I hope this is the bloody end of the snow for this year. I feel bad for parents that have little mongrels running around sugared up and excited to go out and play in the stuff. I also hate how the entire city freaks out and decides to bum rush the grocery stores and gas stations. It is frightening that people think they need to shop like they are going on a safari or something just because there is a snowstorm coming.

Having no desire to go outside, I spent four days inside doing projects, reading, and watching movies. For someone who has been indoors most of the last two years, being inside because of a winter storm is a piece of cake. It’s not a hard decision really, it’s cold, it’s icy, you cannot see well, and the wind is beastly.

On the positive side, I got a respite from dealing with the public. These days you aren’t sure what to expect when you go out into the world. While there are a lot of kind and empathetic people, there also are morons who deserve the opprobrium heaped on him. Especially selfish people who are oblivious to the world and think everything is about them. Selfish people who seem oblivious to the world, instead of thinking everything is all about them.

While winter storms are an inconvenient disruption, they are also a chance to slow things down, get some projects done and catch up on books, movies, TV, etc.

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I have been hearing more and more about Iceland over the last few years. I worked with a guy who went there often for music festivals, and another friend of mine was there a few times and loved it. Iceland also has become a more frequent subject of travel shows in recent years.

I am also curious about it because I listen to loads of bands from there. There is a musical vibe happening there, and it is so much deeper than Sigur Ros or Bjork.

This, along with my interest in history, led me to How Iceland Changed the World: The Big History of a Small Island by Egill Bjarnson. A journalist based in Reykjavík, who has championed his country in several publications over the years, Bjarnson has written a crisp book about the country he loves.

While I have read books about the Vikings over the years, I had not thought about Erik the Red or Leif Erikson since grade school. When you are young, their exploits capture the imagination. When you read about them as an adult, you quickly discover that Erik the Red was an exiled murderer and Erikson was a religious zealot.

Expanding his narrative to include Greenland and Northern Canada, Bjarnson’s chronicle of the country’s founding is fascinating stuff. Later, he moves on to Iceland’s role in the contemporary world. From creating natural energy to serving as a neutral arbiter in world affairs. Overall, this is a pretty compelling read.

Izumi Suzuki was a Japanese writer, actress, model, and countercultural icon. Her life came to a tragic end in 1986 after she committed suicide. During the last decade of her life, she produced an influential body of radical, punky, and groundbreaking fiction that is only now being discovered by English readers.

Terminal Boredom features an intriguing collection of stories that use gender roles, despair, and isolation as common themes. Translated into English for the first time, there are some great sci-fi elements to her work that are a throwback to some of the best SF of the 70s.

Each of the seven stories featured combines her black humor, sense of irony, and dystopian unease with clever storytelling that never rests on solid ground.

I watched a film from 1961 called The Hoodlum Priest. Filmed on location in St. Louis, it was interesting to note the different settings in the film. The movie is based on the true-life story of Charles, “Dismas” Clark, a Jesuit priest who helped the recently incarcerated find a new life.

The biggest takeaway I got from the movie was that there was a seriously seedy underbelly going on in the city back then. There were a lot of slums, underdeveloped areas, and forlorn residents.

Don Murray and Keir Dullea star in it. Murray played it serious in an intense performance. Dullea was pretty good in his first feature film.

The St. Louis of 1961 does not seem very appealing. Now I know why my mom hated moving here so much.

At the moment there are a lot of great bands coing out of Oakland and the San Francisco Bay area. there’s a lot happening there, and Artsick is at the center of it.

Hailing from Oakland, the band featues Christina Riley of Burnt Palms, bassist Donna McMean from Lunchbox, and drummer Mario Hernandez from Kids on A Crime Spree. energetic and raw,

As a whole, Fingers Crossed is fine collection of eleven songs steeped in power pop melodies and post-punk snarling.

On Fingers Crossed, released via Slumberland Records, the trio makes music that is spirited, and lively, resulting in a slick debut filled with catchy songs and clever melodies.

The Olympics are on. I have not seen as much of it as I would have liked. But the curling and speed skating have been great. The luge, skeleton, and bobsledding have also been competitive.

I watched the biathlon the other day. I still don’t get it. It just seems like a lot of work. Those rifles have to be heavy, and I am sure the athletes are exhausted after finishing.

I also am pretty sure that those kids who do the half-pipe and snowboarding are probably as annoying as the local skateboard kids in my neighborhood.

A few weeks ago saw John Adams conduct the St. Louis Symphony. he debuted a new work and selected a program of exceptional contemporary works. The SLSO has done a great job with social distancing, masking, and keeping people safe. They also got a rad new filtration system.

I have also seen some plays. Most of the smaller companies here are doing a great job of keeping people safe. I saw The Prom at The Fox and was a bit nervous by the volume of people and the great swarm of people who didn’t cover their noses.

In appliance news, I cleared out some calcium from the kitchen sink faucet. The UV sanitizer I got during the pandemic finally crapped out. It served me well.

The biggest domestic hassle was having a hinge snap on one of the kitchen cabinet doors. I jumped online to get a replacement and quickly discovered it had been discontinued. After more digging, I found one from a specialty seller and am hopefully good to go.

I also got some new sneakers for the first time in over two years. Going to a shoe store right now is pretty weird.

That should do it for now. After a slight warmup, it is cold again. People are still weird though. Much more than usual.