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Going through some pictures the other day, I came across this one from when I was in college. I went through a motorhead phase in high school, and souped up an old 1968 Lincoln Continental that I bought from a friend after his grandfather passed away (it had been sitting in his back yard for years - the trunk was so big he used it to store firewood!). That car was my passion for many years. Part of the reason was that it was just so cool and unique. I’ve never quite understood the specialness I see people feel about themselves when they buy something they think is cool and show it off. As you can probably tell, I don’t have a problem with showing off, but I don’t get jazzed from it unless it’s something I’ve worked on myself - I have to create or alter something to feel proud of it. The other part of the reason was that it was my first semi-adult attempt to master something new. Before buying it I didn’t know much of anything about cars, but I wanted to learn, so I enjoyed the challenge.
When it was time to start college, I drove it cross-country with my friend Chris, from Rhode Island to California. I’ve done 4 other cross-country drives since then, but that first one was by far the strangest and most memorable. I don’t have time to tell that tale now, but I will try to come back to it in a future post…Anyway, I had the car for about 10 years - I finally sold it around the time I finished grad school, as I simply couldn’t afford the upkeep, and my passion for it had dissipated by then.
That car is also the reason I have a scar under my left eye. The hood had a jammed hinge, and when I removed the hood to work on it, the hinge shot up in my face and hit me so hard it knocked me flat on my back (those old solid metal hoods were heavy, so the hinges were meant for serious lifting). This happened not long after I had received some other minor injury working on it, and when I showed up at school the next day with stitches on my face, a friend commented, “that car’s going to be great when it’s done - too bad you’ll be dead by then.”
For those too young to know the reference, Hot Rod Lincoln was a hit country song (I didn’t know it myself until I started getting comments on the car).
Some things to make you laugh:
- The Shining, Redux - a spoof trailer for The Shining, making it look like a heartwarming, father-son bonding film. It won a re-cut comptetition last year, and since then folks have made a bunch of these for other films - if you do a Google search for “trailer recut” you can find them.
- How to make an Easter turducken. “Many children wonder around Easter how it is that bunnies lay eggs. As a side benefit, Easter turducken illustrates clearly that this ‘theory’ is wrong. Obviously bunnies lay chickens, which then lay the eggs.”
- A Dr. Seuss interpretation of Bush’s defense of Rumsfeld, inspired by the actual Bush statement, “I’m the decider, and I decide what is best…” …All my decisions, they come Jesus-blessed.
- A History of US/Iranian Relations Since 9/11, in the form of a conversation between the US and Iran. For something written as humor, it actually sums up the real situation surprisingly well.
- The Senate Ethics Committee Mansion
- This is from last month, when Republican Howard Kaloogian was running to replace Duke Cunningham in San Diego (who was convicted of bribery). Kaloogian participiated in the up-is-down “Truth Tour” of Iraq, which tried to demonstrate how great things really are in Iraq. To help make this point, Kaloogian posted a photo on his web site, which he claimed he took himself, of a peaceful and bustling street in downtown Baghdad. But the photo didn’t pass the sniff test, and the blogosphere soon revealed that it was actually a photo of a street in a suburb of Istanbul, Turkey. Kaloogian then claimed it was a simple photo mix-up, and replaced the photo on his site with this aerial shot of Baghdad, where you can see that Baghdad clearly has buildings and trees (but he still kept the original caption, claiming this showed how great things are). All that may be sad rather than funny, but what I found very funny - as a former fanatical player of the game Civilization - was this take on the story.
- This SNL cartoon on John McCain is very funny, particularly the Apocalypse Now moment at the end. It first ran, I think, in 2003. It was inspired by McCain’s decision to make nice with Bush after the vicious personal attacks he suffered at the hands of Bush supporters in the 2000 primary race. As McCain is gearing up to run again for 2008, he’s cozying up to Jerry Falwell and others he once denounced as “agents of intolerance,” making this cartoon all too relevant again now.
As you can see, I’ve moved my blog to the top of the site. The blog is the only part of my site that isn’t gathering dust, so I thought it made sense to move it up. I’m still fond of the old toppa.com home page, but it’s about 10 years old now, and it’s time to move on. It shall be forever memorialized here, with these screenshots:
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It’s definitely time for another look at the boys. Here’s Kai at his first t-ball game a couple of weeks ago. He’s had a couple more games since then, and he’s been having a lot of fun. I’ve been enjoying going to the games too - at least partly because it forces me to sit down and relax for a couple hours!
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And here’s Eidan. He’s been crawling for a week or so now, and he’s starting to pull himself upright. Time to break out the baby gates!
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In researching my political post yesterday, I discovered the actor Andreas Katsulas passed away in February. He had been in some movies (I think his biggest role was the “one-armed man” in Harrison Ford’s The Fugitive), but I knew him as G’Kar on Babylon 5. He and Peter Jurasik (who played Londo) were by far the best actors on the series. Their scenes together were always masterfully performed, and the episodes that revolved around their relationship (like Dust to Dust) were among the best. I was always amazed at how much emotional range Katsulas was able to demonstrate, given all the alien headgear he had to wear as the lizard-like G’Kar. He - like Patrick Stewart on Star Trek - was one of those rare TV actors who could take dialog that would sound corny or flat if it were performed by any other actor, and made it sound great.
JMS, the creator of Babylon 5, wrote a heartfelt post about Katsulas’ passing.
Stuart Adamson was the singer, lead guitarist, and primary song writer for Big Country, my favorite band. I’ve always been dazzled by his guitar work, but not being a musician myself, I was never really able to find the right words to describe what I was hearing. When I meet folks who play guitar, I always have to recommend they give a listen to Big Country, as most are not familiar with Adamson’s work, but I’ve never been able to explain exactly why he’s so good. The other day I came across Tom Kercheval’s blog - he’s an independent musician - and not only is he a Big Country fan, he listed Adamson as his primary influence, and unlike me, he’s able to explain Adamson’s talent:
…the thing that always struck me about Stuart’s playing was not so much his lead playing (although it was great) but his rhythm guitar playing, particularly the odd chord structures he came up with. To this day, he’s one of the few guitar players that gives me fits when trying to figure out what he’s playing. His use of droning, open strings when playing chords was so appealling to me, and the Scottish/Celtic sound of the playing as well. He is so underrated. Beyond belief underrated. I still think the album Steeltown is a guitar masterpiece. Listen to that one with headphones and just hear the guitar symphony that is going on on most of those songs - tons of parts interweaving with each other, creating a huge, totally unique sound. Just brilliant. Like no one else.
In regard to Steeltown, I would add that it is also a masterpiece lyrically. Unfortunately, despite a 4-star review from Rolling Stone when it came out, it went nowhere in the pop charts. I think the album was musically too intricate, and lyrically too dense, to stand a chance on pop radio. But those are the qualities that have given it staying power - more than 20 years after it’s release, the opening track Flame of the West can still send chills down my spine.
This bio piece provides a good explanation for what inspired his songwriting, and what gives it the rare quality of being deeply personal yet political at the same time:
My mum and dad also had some great friends who played folk and country music (my mum does a mean Patsy Cline) and they would come to our house after the bars were closed and people would sing through the night. This made me aware of the power of the song and how music was interwoven with the lives of the working class Scots I grew up amongst. I would watch these big rough, hard men declare their love of family and the land — emotions they would be embarrassed to admit to in conversation — in songs old and new. I realised a lot of my schooling was solely aimed at my learning to accept my place in the British class system and railed against it. I believe the measure of a man is in his actions and not his social background (maybe this is why I like the US…another disenfranchised Celt)… A lot of the darkness of the Steeltown album comes from remembering my first experiences of the prejudice of class and nationality and the obvious truths that little had changed in my adulthood. The desire to write initially grew out of just wanting to be a “real” band and then I found I was driven to communicate some of the joy and frustration of the human experience…
Those are the people I grew up amongst and I could see the beauty in such simplicity as well as the anger and beaten acceptance. I think that frustration and learned apathy is the daily bread of the great majority of people in the world and as such represents the greater part of life experience, certainly in the western world and is to me a fertile source of inspiration.
It’s hard to believe that Eidan is 8 months olds already. His two front bottom teeth came in a couple of weeks ago, and yesterday he finally figured out crawling. He spent a few days in frustration, going backwards when he meant to go forwards, but now he has all his gears properly aligned and has achieved forward motion. When Kai learned to crawl, I frequently played a game with him where he would start crawling towards me from one side of the room, while I was on the other side, making a tower with a set of stacking cups. The goal was for him to reach me and knock it down before I finished. Eidan is now playing this game with me, and he laughs himself silly every time he knocks down the cups.
He’s at a stage where nothing makes him happier than spreading chaos and destruction. He used to play quietly and gently with his toys, but how he spends some of his playtime seeing how much noise he can make banging them together, or how far he can throw them. He’s still into roaring, as I mentioned before, and now he has also taken to growling. Sometimes I can hear him growling upstairs when I come home, and the standing joke is for me to ask if some feral animal has snuck into the house.
Having said all that, he’s also very sweet. He’ll give you a little hug and rest his head on your shoulder when he’s happy to see you.
We were worried about him over the past week, as he suddenly started refusing his baby food, and would only drink from his bottle. We kept trying to feed him several time every day, but at most we could get him to eat only a few bites. Last night we finally figured out the reason: he just doesn’t want to eat baby food anymore - he wants regular food. He had a big dinner last night, consisting of sliced bananas, yogurt, chicken noodle soup, and eggplant. He was so thrilled that we finally figured it out that he burst into gleeful laughter several times during the meal.
I think I forgot to mention previously that he had a good checkup last month. Although he was well below average for weight (20th percentile), he was at 80th percentile for height. Hmm, tall and thin… I wonder where that comes from?
As you might imagine, Maria and I are having many conversations about our trip next year.
- The first big question is where Maria is going to work. As part of the fellowhsip, the Council on Foreign Relations will place her in an organization relevant to her research interests. It’s not finalized yet, but it looks likes she will go to JICA - the Japan International Cooperation Agency - where she will analyze options and make recommendations for how JICA makes its international aid loans in the future.
- The second big question is finding an international school for Kai. These schools are intended for expat families like us, so instruction is in English and Japanese (it would be way too overwhelming to throw Kai into an all-Japanese school!). The problem is that they are extremely expensive, with tuitions around $15,000/year (the number is even scarier looking in Yen: 1,700,000). But through Maria’s friends in Japan, we’ve learned about a few that are less expensive, so we’re chasing down those leads. One is the Doremi Garden Preschool, which, at the very least, has an awfully cute website (and if Kai goes there, I’d probably be the only dad on “Mommy and Me” days!). We actually have to nail this down soon, as the classes at these schools fill up quickly.
- Once we’ve settled on Kai’s school, that will determine the part of town we live in, as I’ll need to take Kai to school on the train each day, and we don’t want it to be a long commute. Maria says it can be difficult for foreigners to find a nice place, as apartments rented to foreigners are typically rented only to foreigners, which means they may not be in the best shape. So she has also asked her friends to help us find places that are normally rented to Japanese families.
- Then there’s our house here. We’re going to talk with a good friend of Maria’s to see if she’d like to live there while we’re away, and see if she can cover about half the mortgage (we’ve decided we’re not comfortable with the risk of simply renting the house to people we don’t know). That would make it financially viable for me to drop to part-time status, or even go on leave for a while.
So I’m imagining a typical weekday in Japan for us will go something like this: Maria will work 9-5, and I’ll be in charge of the boys. Eidan and I will ride on the train with Kai to take him to school in the morning, then if the weather isn’t too bad I’ll bop around a different part of Tokyo each day with Eidan until it’s time to pick up Kai. Then I’ll work for a few hours at night (which is when my cowokers in the US will be starting their day, so we can be online at the same time). For Maria, our six months in Japan will be mostly about work, but for me, it’s mostly an extended family vacation. All I can say is, I married well 
I haven’t posted any new videos of the boys in a while, so here’s four for you. The first one is Kai playing his Star Wars light sabre game - as you can see, he works up quite a sweat with this game (who says video games lead to slothfulness?). The second is Kai reciting the French alphabet. The third is Kai bopping Eidan on the head with a balloon, which Eidan thinks is just about the best thing in the world. And the fourth is Eidan in his doorway jumper, which is one of his favorite places to be.
Give the videos a minute or so to load in your browser, particularly the first once, since it’s a couple minutes long.
