So it is almost Easter. And for me that means going to my grandparents' houses and eating food. For this particular holiday my grandmother always makes Easter bread, which I'm going to miss out on this year because I have to work. "Easter Bread" is what can only be described as a calzone with various delicious meats and some eggs in there. As much as I love Easter Bread, that isn't really why I'm here today. I'm here to talk about the song Alice's Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie.
As you may or may not know, this is a 20 minute long epic song is played right at noon on Thanksgiving day on WBCN 104.1 the local rock station. This particular song is a holiday tradition for my family. This song brings up feelings of simpler times for me. It reminds me of my grandfather (may he rest in peace) sitting in the living room with the radio, encouraging us to listen to the bluesy satiric monologue that Mr. Guthrie was setting forth to us on this wonderful day. The last two thanksgivings where I'd had to work while the song was being broadcasted, I still found my way near a radio to hear the song in its entirety.
So why does the Arlo Guthrie's masterpiece song come up on this here Good Friday? Well, the simple answer is, karaoke. Now, I know what you're thinking, does this story have a happy ending, well, yes it does. Thursday night, I was back home at my parents house sipping wine. I had gotten an invite to go out on the town with my buddy Steve but I had backed out due to the fact that I felt a bit of sickness coming on. Well, after a few few large glasses of got rut Carlo, my mind changed suddenly. "I had 2 much wine, feelin fine. U still up 4 beers?" I sloppily texted him. Well fast forward a few hours later when I'm gettin drunk in one of the local townie bars. A few classmates of mine come up to me to compliment my karaoke abilities I'd showed off while hammered at our five year reunion. After getting bored of the crowd and finishing two pitchers of beer we decided to wander down the street, where as it happens, karaoke was being held. I grabbed a binder and the first song I was excited to see what "Alice's Restaurant." I turned in my slip requesting the epic and waited patiently for three minutes. I thought I'd heard my name being called but in the drunken state that gave me the confidence to go for it, I actually made it up and some other gent was called. I talked to the KJ and it turned out that he only had ten minutes left and there were five people in line in front of me. The happy ending to the story is that I stormed out of there without having to make an ass of myself first. I rarely have timing, but I'd attribute it to that for this instance.
---
Upon further research this song inspired a movie that was produced a few years later and I am looking forward to watching. Also this is based on a true story and the restaurant is actually "a half a mile down from the railroad tracks" in Stockbridge and the church where Alice lived is in Great Barrington which has been turned into a non-denominational church/concert venue (which sounds like a adventure in the making to me). Also I found a three minute karaoke version on the net which likely would have been what the KJ had on file. Fail.
4/10/09
3/2/09
pee zero kay three are
Here I am again after being bugged by mister mania for so long because I have neglected this for oh so long. You wanted a new blog entry, so here it is mister mania. I really should appreciate the fact that he keeps asking me for it because it is really the encouragement I need but am completely ignoring. I have really enjoyed writing and one of my big fears what not having an audience or some bologna like that. I really need to embrace the fact that he is trying to help me get off my lazy ass and open up my creative outlets more. So I asked him a favor the other day and he said he would do the favor for me if I completed one of these damn things. What was the favor you ask? I wanted him to transfer me some money onto an online poker account so I can play with real money and chat with him about it while he was doing the same. So what should I write about today? How about poker!
Burda is after all the man who introduced me to the world of poker. I had known what it was before and had played it maybe a handful of times, but i never really understood the game or appreciated what it took to play it. I couldn't have had a better teacher to introduce me to the subject, I mean, its who he is. The man is a friggin poker player, his job is to play poker. He thinks poker, he dreams poker, he reads poker, he even blogs poker. It is his passion. It is something he really cares about.
One could argue that it is just a game of chance. While it is obvious that an element of chance is involved from the way the cards are dealt, it is also true that everybody has the exact same chance of getting those cards, so the stakes are the same. What you do with what you get is how the game is played. It's a game that is all about attitude and style. Self awareness is a very big part of how the game is played. Mind games are in play and reputations are on the line. Credibility is the name of the game. Integrity is king.
Other than mister mania reminding me of poker the object in my room that helps to remind me of it is a gift I got in a yankee swap xmas party at work. I got a liter of vodka that came with two decks of cards and a handful of chips. Its kind of neat, but in all reality, the fact that it came with so few chips makes it impractical as a poker set.
I went to foxwoods for the first time with mister mania. He also brought me to Vegas. Both times a lot of poker was played. Real life poker was so different than online poker. The adrenaline you feel is greater. He plays online all the time. I wonder if he still gets the same adrenaline for every had that I do when I'm playing in real life.
Burda is after all the man who introduced me to the world of poker. I had known what it was before and had played it maybe a handful of times, but i never really understood the game or appreciated what it took to play it. I couldn't have had a better teacher to introduce me to the subject, I mean, its who he is. The man is a friggin poker player, his job is to play poker. He thinks poker, he dreams poker, he reads poker, he even blogs poker. It is his passion. It is something he really cares about.
One could argue that it is just a game of chance. While it is obvious that an element of chance is involved from the way the cards are dealt, it is also true that everybody has the exact same chance of getting those cards, so the stakes are the same. What you do with what you get is how the game is played. It's a game that is all about attitude and style. Self awareness is a very big part of how the game is played. Mind games are in play and reputations are on the line. Credibility is the name of the game. Integrity is king.
Other than mister mania reminding me of poker the object in my room that helps to remind me of it is a gift I got in a yankee swap xmas party at work. I got a liter of vodka that came with two decks of cards and a handful of chips. Its kind of neat, but in all reality, the fact that it came with so few chips makes it impractical as a poker set.
I went to foxwoods for the first time with mister mania. He also brought me to Vegas. Both times a lot of poker was played. Real life poker was so different than online poker. The adrenaline you feel is greater. He plays online all the time. I wonder if he still gets the same adrenaline for every had that I do when I'm playing in real life.
12/21/08
Bottle Cap
I want to focus on one of the things in the title photograph of this blog today. This is the bottle cap. This red bottle cap is from the Coca-Cola company. My mother collects them for their serial numbers found underneath them which are coke reward points. Whenever I see an empty coke bottle lying around I grab the cap so I can give to my mother. After the serial number is entered it just goes to the garbage, so essentially I'm just holding on to trash for my mom right now.
This brings a few things to mind. First is working at the West Concord Supermarket. When I was 15 or so my first job was to be stock boy for this small nice family supermarket. Other than being paid the other perk would be that I would be able to take a drink or two a day. I started off just taking whatever I wanted and trying new things etc. But the clever lads at Sprite came up with an idea. Back then Sprite had its own reward system (Rocketcash or something). This was a pretty cool way to do a reward system because you were rewarded in cash. Most of them were a dime but some were a quarter, half dollar or dollar. You would be able to spend them at designated online vendors. After taking about two Sprites a day about two days a week I ended up buying a Boyhitscar album. And with the left over cash i got some replacement lenses for oakley sunglasses (which my dad turned into sunglasses using the peices of safety glasses he got from work. It worked from an advertising perspective because when I would buy a CD from the interenet I usually got it from the website that Sprite introduced me to (cduniverse) before switching to other means after a few years.
Sometime before that my parents would drink pepsi in order to cut the points off the side for 'Pepsi Stuff'. I forget what we got but we did that for a while. I remember the commercial had a harrier jet on it and one dude tried to buy it and sued when he couldn't get it. You would be able to submit a minimum amount of points for any item and then pay about ten cents for every point or so that you still needed if you wanted to get something out of your point range. Well, the price for the harrier jet advertised on the commercial was quite a bargain apparently.
Sometime in high school I collected "Planet Lunch Ploids"which was the Lays chip point system. I got some cheap Yak-Bak door alarm or something. I would occasionally go as far as diggin in the trash in my high school to find bags to cut out the points on the back.
My mom smokes Marlboro Lights religeously. Probably about a pack a day for as long as I can remember. On the sides they have Marlboro Miles. I've always suggested to her to start collecting that. We'd probably have a Marlboro brand pickup truck by now if she did. (A brief search of the internet has shown me that the whole mile program is over so people will stop being addicted to nicotine or someting. Interesting that the phillip morris page and wikipedia deny its existence.)
This brings a few things to mind. First is working at the West Concord Supermarket. When I was 15 or so my first job was to be stock boy for this small nice family supermarket. Other than being paid the other perk would be that I would be able to take a drink or two a day. I started off just taking whatever I wanted and trying new things etc. But the clever lads at Sprite came up with an idea. Back then Sprite had its own reward system (Rocketcash or something). This was a pretty cool way to do a reward system because you were rewarded in cash. Most of them were a dime but some were a quarter, half dollar or dollar. You would be able to spend them at designated online vendors. After taking about two Sprites a day about two days a week I ended up buying a Boyhitscar album. And with the left over cash i got some replacement lenses for oakley sunglasses (which my dad turned into sunglasses using the peices of safety glasses he got from work. It worked from an advertising perspective because when I would buy a CD from the interenet I usually got it from the website that Sprite introduced me to (cduniverse) before switching to other means after a few years.
Sometime before that my parents would drink pepsi in order to cut the points off the side for 'Pepsi Stuff'. I forget what we got but we did that for a while. I remember the commercial had a harrier jet on it and one dude tried to buy it and sued when he couldn't get it. You would be able to submit a minimum amount of points for any item and then pay about ten cents for every point or so that you still needed if you wanted to get something out of your point range. Well, the price for the harrier jet advertised on the commercial was quite a bargain apparently.
Sometime in high school I collected "Planet Lunch Ploids"which was the Lays chip point system. I got some cheap Yak-Bak door alarm or something. I would occasionally go as far as diggin in the trash in my high school to find bags to cut out the points on the back.
My mom smokes Marlboro Lights religeously. Probably about a pack a day for as long as I can remember. On the sides they have Marlboro Miles. I've always suggested to her to start collecting that. We'd probably have a Marlboro brand pickup truck by now if she did. (A brief search of the internet has shown me that the whole mile program is over so people will stop being addicted to nicotine or someting. Interesting that the phillip morris page and wikipedia deny its existence.)
12/19/08
Camera(s) Part I
Here we are on the second post ever. The first one that I intended to write in the style I had wanted. I was all set to set the course for an open road to talking about the stuff surrounding me. The stuff sitting about me. And what happens? I immediately veer off course. I had planned on choosing to talk about the bust I have in my living room, but here I am, complaining and whining about the things around me which I had planned to avoid. Oh well. I guess I should jump in to it by explaining how I got here.
So how did I begin my journey with a myspace style mirror shot with camera in hand? Not at all where I intended to go when first delving into my things. It's not so much the hansom man staring at you in the mirror that we're gonna thing about. Nope today we're going to talk about cameras. I had intended to talk about one specific thing to start off on the right foot, but here we go, breaking my own barriers on the very first try. I guess today we're going to talk about cameras in general. With the idea of choosing one specific thing, to help limit what I had to say thereby limiting the lenghth of my rants to medium to medium short. Here I go with a long rant. A rant about cameras.
So one of the ideas I wanted to incorporate into this blog was a picture or two per post. (again here i am straying from what i perceived would be the norm on the first go with this). And so how do we get pictures? Cameras! But see, here's the thing. Who the hell uses a camera. I mean,
I have a state of the art one year old cell phone that takes 1.3 megapixel photographs. (It also plays music and makes phone calls believe it or not. Maybe I'll talk more about my phone one day but right now I wanna talk about picture takers.) Honestly who needs anything more than that?
Oh. There's low light in my living room with only one light at 9pm at night? Oh. Maybe I'll light
up the object with a flashlight, that'll work probably. Oh, it still came out blurry? Ok. Oh I know! I got a camera for x-mas like 2 years ago that I barely used. That thing has a flash on it. Remember those things? Yeah phones don't really have flashes. I didn't think they'd be useful really. I mean if you need a flash for a picture then the picture wasn't that important to begin with now was it, right? Wrong. Flashes totally improve picture quality in low light situations. Like now.
I've had a camera in my cellular phone for almost as long as I've had a phone. The phone I use now and two previous phones have had cameras in them. The problem with those two previous camera phones (photos not found) is the lack of a removable memory card. In order to get the pictures off of those phone I would have needed to buy a cable that was made specifically for that phone to connect to my computer to get them off or pay something like fifty cents per picture to email them to myself. And we all know that the cable would have gone to waste because each new phone has a new connector and all the accessories bought for previous phones become useless. And to email each picture to myself, every random picture that meant something at the time, but looking back at them from a financial point of view I would end up wasting too much money just to throw those on a hard drive somewhere. But on the other hand, I probably have hundreds of photographs on those two phones that I am likely never to see again. For some reason I still have the phones somewhere but chargers are another story. It's not like in thirty years I'll be showing my future son's girlfriend pictures of him on my old camera phone the way my mother used to show pictures in a photo album.
...
So how did I begin my journey with a myspace style mirror shot with camera in hand? Not at all where I intended to go when first delving into my things. It's not so much the hansom man staring at you in the mirror that we're gonna thing about. Nope today we're going to talk about cameras. I had intended to talk about one specific thing to start off on the right foot, but here we go, breaking my own barriers on the very first try. I guess today we're going to talk about cameras in general. With the idea of choosing one specific thing, to help limit what I had to say thereby limiting the lenghth of my rants to medium to medium short. Here I go with a long rant. A rant about cameras.
So one of the ideas I wanted to incorporate into this blog was a picture or two per post. (again here i am straying from what i perceived would be the norm on the first go with this). And so how do we get pictures? Cameras! But see, here's the thing. Who the hell uses a camera. I mean,
I have a state of the art one year old cell phone that takes 1.3 megapixel photographs. (It also plays music and makes phone calls believe it or not. Maybe I'll talk more about my phone one day but right now I wanna talk about picture takers.) Honestly who needs anything more than that?Oh. There's low light in my living room with only one light at 9pm at night? Oh. Maybe I'll light
up the object with a flashlight, that'll work probably. Oh, it still came out blurry? Ok. Oh I know! I got a camera for x-mas like 2 years ago that I barely used. That thing has a flash on it. Remember those things? Yeah phones don't really have flashes. I didn't think they'd be useful really. I mean if you need a flash for a picture then the picture wasn't that important to begin with now was it, right? Wrong. Flashes totally improve picture quality in low light situations. Like now.I've had a camera in my cellular phone for almost as long as I've had a phone. The phone I use now and two previous phones have had cameras in them. The problem with those two previous camera phones (photos not found) is the lack of a removable memory card. In order to get the pictures off of those phone I would have needed to buy a cable that was made specifically for that phone to connect to my computer to get them off or pay something like fifty cents per picture to email them to myself. And we all know that the cable would have gone to waste because each new phone has a new connector and all the accessories bought for previous phones become useless. And to email each picture to myself, every random picture that meant something at the time, but looking back at them from a financial point of view I would end up wasting too much money just to throw those on a hard drive somewhere. But on the other hand, I probably have hundreds of photographs on those two phones that I am likely never to see again. For some reason I still have the phones somewhere but chargers are another story. It's not like in thirty years I'll be showing my future son's girlfriend pictures of him on my old camera phone the way my mother used to show pictures in a photo album.
...
Introduction
I've always loved writing but I was never really a fan of blogging.
But here I am starting a blog.
I used to blog a little bit in college, but it was more of an online journal full of private thoughts that I probably shouldn't have shared anyway. Cool. Done with that.
The reason I wanted to start this blog was to make a sort of writing exercise for me. I love writing but I don't write enough. This is sort of a way to get me to start writing more often.
I've always heard that I should try to write about what I know. When I do this I tend to make things that are closer to private journal entries than to the short stories I wish I were writing.
This blog is going to open up a window into my life. This will give me things to start writing about. This blog is about the things I know. The things around me. More specifically, the objects that surround me.
And I know people surround me but what people think about other people can be too candid sometimes. I'll save that for my secret journalthingyorsomething. I also hate blogs because I don't read anybody else's. Its the whole 'show me yours and i'll show you mine' type-a-thing going on. I barely read the stuff I write. I wish I did read yours. Sorry, I don't. Maybe I will now though, not so you read mine, but to better understand how this thing works.
Humans are different from animals in the way they act and react to the objects around them. Computers and media, houses and cars, tables and chairs, pillows and blankets, soap and deodorant, and so on. This has always fascinated me. The way we interact with the objects around us. The way the objects around us effect who we are.
I intend to choose an object in my life, in my apartment, or my parents house, or what have you, and use it as a stepping stool to open my mind and get myself to start writing. Hopefully it will help me better get to know myself, both as a person and as a writer. But also I want to get to know you, the people around me, both in my life or even some strangers. How my objects around me speak to you, both specifically (that object, my object) and generally (an object of a similar nature that you may have in your life that also speaks to you).
I have always had a spotty memory. Sometimes I can rant and rave and go on and spout off for a while about an object. I plan on being specific about what the object is to me in my life, and also what the object is in general. Hopefully this writing will help me jog my memory and better get to know what the hell is going on around me. But who knows, maybe I will deconstruct my life so much that all the stuff around me will just become the sums of their parts and no longer the memories and ideas associated with them.
I've always been afraid of my audiences when writing. Depending on who reads a piece of my work, they will get different ideas from it. They will not understand what I intended to say and my word will be misinterpreted or used against me somehow. That's one of the things that shut me up from writing for a while. Worrying about the audience, who I was writing to, what one person would think about what I said. I think this blog will help me throw that fear out the window. I am looking for differing perspectives. And I also hope to write without consequences. I hope that my writings will be specific enough to keep you and me entertained, but vague enough to remove me from any negative consequences.
I tend to think in phrases. Short Vonnegut style passages or as in song lyrics. I will hopefully attempt to keep a monologue going instead of a stand up comedy style patched together delivery.
I'd joked in college when people asked what I was going do after I graduated. I'd respond "I'm going to drink wine by the gallon and write poetry in my parents basement." I've always had the understanding that most writers were drunks, and I sometimes believe that I am more open and pure when I've had a few. I'm sure in the end this will be good for me instead of turn me into a failed drunk who writes sometimes. Am I proud of this intro? No. I don't feel I'm of the right mindset to write right now. I cannot fully explain what is going on in my head. Will that stop me from trying or will that discourage me from writing or will I not press publish post? No. Go for it kiddo. Exercise away.
Who knows really. All this stuff here is just a bunch of words and ideas. Not specific things. So here we go...
But here I am starting a blog.
I used to blog a little bit in college, but it was more of an online journal full of private thoughts that I probably shouldn't have shared anyway. Cool. Done with that.
The reason I wanted to start this blog was to make a sort of writing exercise for me. I love writing but I don't write enough. This is sort of a way to get me to start writing more often.
I've always heard that I should try to write about what I know. When I do this I tend to make things that are closer to private journal entries than to the short stories I wish I were writing.
This blog is going to open up a window into my life. This will give me things to start writing about. This blog is about the things I know. The things around me. More specifically, the objects that surround me.
And I know people surround me but what people think about other people can be too candid sometimes. I'll save that for my secret journalthingyorsomething. I also hate blogs because I don't read anybody else's. Its the whole 'show me yours and i'll show you mine' type-a-thing going on. I barely read the stuff I write. I wish I did read yours. Sorry, I don't. Maybe I will now though, not so you read mine, but to better understand how this thing works.
Humans are different from animals in the way they act and react to the objects around them. Computers and media, houses and cars, tables and chairs, pillows and blankets, soap and deodorant, and so on. This has always fascinated me. The way we interact with the objects around us. The way the objects around us effect who we are.
I intend to choose an object in my life, in my apartment, or my parents house, or what have you, and use it as a stepping stool to open my mind and get myself to start writing. Hopefully it will help me better get to know myself, both as a person and as a writer. But also I want to get to know you, the people around me, both in my life or even some strangers. How my objects around me speak to you, both specifically (that object, my object) and generally (an object of a similar nature that you may have in your life that also speaks to you).
I have always had a spotty memory. Sometimes I can rant and rave and go on and spout off for a while about an object. I plan on being specific about what the object is to me in my life, and also what the object is in general. Hopefully this writing will help me jog my memory and better get to know what the hell is going on around me. But who knows, maybe I will deconstruct my life so much that all the stuff around me will just become the sums of their parts and no longer the memories and ideas associated with them.
I've always been afraid of my audiences when writing. Depending on who reads a piece of my work, they will get different ideas from it. They will not understand what I intended to say and my word will be misinterpreted or used against me somehow. That's one of the things that shut me up from writing for a while. Worrying about the audience, who I was writing to, what one person would think about what I said. I think this blog will help me throw that fear out the window. I am looking for differing perspectives. And I also hope to write without consequences. I hope that my writings will be specific enough to keep you and me entertained, but vague enough to remove me from any negative consequences.
I tend to think in phrases. Short Vonnegut style passages or as in song lyrics. I will hopefully attempt to keep a monologue going instead of a stand up comedy style patched together delivery.
I'd joked in college when people asked what I was going do after I graduated. I'd respond "I'm going to drink wine by the gallon and write poetry in my parents basement." I've always had the understanding that most writers were drunks, and I sometimes believe that I am more open and pure when I've had a few. I'm sure in the end this will be good for me instead of turn me into a failed drunk who writes sometimes. Am I proud of this intro? No. I don't feel I'm of the right mindset to write right now. I cannot fully explain what is going on in my head. Will that stop me from trying or will that discourage me from writing or will I not press publish post? No. Go for it kiddo. Exercise away.
Who knows really. All this stuff here is just a bunch of words and ideas. Not specific things. So here we go...
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