Cassette Memories

***PHOTO MISSING***

I had my wisdom teeth removed on Monday, only about 25 years later than I probably should have. What can I say, I tend to put things off. Thankfully, it went much better than I was afraid it would, although the actual process was pretty disconcerting. I elected to have a local anesthetic only, rather than being “put out,” the thought of which gives me a major case of the wiggins. We all have our irrational fears, don’t we? The local was effective enough — I felt very little in the way of pain — but the numbness wasn’t total, and I was completely aware of everything the oral surgeon was doing. Especially when he was prying underneath the stubborn bottom teeth with a miniature crowbar, and wiggling the pliers back and forth until the little buggers finally cracked free of my jawbone. And then there was the unforgettable snapping sensation when one of them broke, followed by more prying to get the remaining portion out. I have to admit, I took a certain macho pride in remaining awake and enduring all this, especially after the surgeon patted me on the chest and told me I was very brave, and very few of his patients elect to do it that way. Brave or not, though, the adrenaline surge left my hands shaking and my heart racing for a good 30 minutes after the last tooth came out, and I really dislike that sensation.

My recovery has been smoother than expected, too. Several friends had warned me to expect the absolute worst, and I took the entire week off on their advice. But as it happens, I’ve had very little pain, bleeding, or swelling, and I started experimenting with actual chewable food only two days after the surgery. So much for all those horror stories I’ve heard.

Still, I’m never one to complain about time spent away from the office, and I’ve managed to get a lot done around the house in the past couple days. Specifically, I’ve made some significant steps forward in the overwhelming and seemingly never-ending process of reclaiming my living space from all the crap I’ve accumulated over several decades of packrattery. Today, for instance, I’ve been going through boxes of audio cassettes — most of which I long ago upgraded to CD, none of which I’ve actually listened to in years — pulling out the small handful that have some sentimental value as objects and tossing all the rest in the donation box. It’s been an interesting walk down memory lane. Generally speaking, I don’t give up my preferences easily… if I once liked something, there’s a very good chance I still like it. But not always.

For instance, is it really possible I was once an Air Supply fan? Apparently, as I have two of their albums and a greatest-hits package. I don’t think I’ve had the slightest interest in hearing Culture Club since 1985 or thereabouts. And given my modern-day disdain toward country music, the four Alabama tapes I’d forgotten I ever owned were something of a surprise. And then of course there were the two Chicago tapes. I’ve loathed Chicago since that one horrible summer back in my multiplex days, when their greatest-hits CD played for three months straight, every single day, from open to close, continuously rubbing salt in the wound of a recent breakup with every single overwrought ballad and maudlin heartbreak song until finally one afternoon… something happened to that disc. Now, I’m not admitting to anything here. All I’ll say is that CDs look remarkably pretty the way they flash in the sun as they sail off a movie-theater roof across a parking lot that looks impossibly black and glossy with its fresh coating of asphalt. Needless to say, those Chicago tapes aren’t anything I want to hold onto. (For the record, they were Chicago 16 and Chicago 17, every Chicago album being oh-so-imaginatively numbered, rather than titled.)

But then there are the tapes that still actually mean something to me, the ones that hold volumes of sense-memory wrapped in their clunky plastic casings, their smeary labels, and their too-tiny cover art. Handling Olivia Newton-John’s Physical once again reminds me of how deliciously rebellious I felt listening to something that got the local prudes all huffy, how early I made my choice to stand apart from Utah’s dominant culture, and how much of that choice came from simply liking things people around me told me I shouldn’t like. (Yes, Olivia Newton-John was once subversive here in the squeaky-clean Utah of the early ’80s, as ridiculous as that now sounds.) Asia’s Alpha brought back long afternoons of solitary adolescent brooding on my old backyard rope swing, my refuge from the confusing, hurtful world of middle school. The long out-of-print soundtrack to the long-forgotten movie Teachers triggers images of times spent with my buddy Kurt Stephensen, who gave me that one for Christmas one year. Bob Seger’s Night Moves did constant duty on my old Walkman as I stalked the hallways of Bingham High in my army-surplus trenchcoat, my hands jammed into my pockets and a pair of cheap 7-Eleven Ray-Ban knockoffs covering my eyes (these days, I’d no doubt get thrown out as a security risk, looking like that). Fleetwood Mac’s Tango in the Night recalls afterschool make-out sessions with a certain young lady in the back of my ’70 T-Bird, parked in South Jordan City Park with the hot spring sunshine flooding through the windshield. Little River Band’s First Under the Wire was the soundtrack for several long summer-vacation nights spent chewing the fat with the Skinner boys as we camped in my family’s boat underneath the endless Milky Way. Sammy Hagar’s Cruisin’ & Boozin’ was the first (and last) item I ever shoplifted. Karma got even with me, though; the tapedeck in my Dad’s Bronco ate the damn thing the first time I tried to play it. I managed to pull the tape out of the machine without breaking it, but it was stretched and never sounded quite right again.

And then there’s the homemade mixtape with the magazine-ad photo of a sailboat for a cover. That one stirs up feelings I once had for the same girlfriend whose rejection contributed to the Multiplex Chicago Incident; she made the tape for me when she left for college, the transition of our “perfect” romance (or so I believed it was) into a long-distance love affair, and the beginning of the end for us. I recognize only one song on it, Modern English’s “Melt With You.” She and I never did share much in the way of music.

So while the majority of these dusty old outmoded forms of media are on their way to the thrift store — assuming they even want them at this late date — there are some that are going right back into the shoebox they came out of. I’m trying to amend some of my obsessive materialism… but let’s not get crazy here!

Sep092012

In Which I Cryptically Quote Some Lyrics for You

“Oh every night, and every day
A little piece of you is falling away
But lift your face, the western way, baby
Build your muscles as your body decays.”

A verse from one my all-time favorite songs, “Hammer to Fall” by the inimitable, indispensable Queen. Just a little something that’s been running through my mind tonight as I contemplate my approaching birthday, my various medical misadventures of the past year — long story, but don’t worry, I’m okay — and of course my impending appointment tomorrow with an oral surgeon to get all four of my wisdom teeth yanked, only about 25 years after I probably should have had it done. What can I say, I tend to put things off. As you can probably imagine, I’m really not looking forward to a week of living on Jello and Lortabs. But that’s tomorrow, isn’t it? For tonight, let’s lose ourselves in the rock and roll, shall we? Which, oddly enough, is the general theme of “Hammer to Fall”:

Sep082012

Little Victories

For a Utah native, no summer is complete without a visit to Lagoon, our local amusement park. Located a few miles north of Salt Lake City, Lagoon is an ancient part of Utah history; it got its start on the shores of the Great Salt Lake in 1886 before moving to its present, inland location ten years later, in 1896. Much of the original park still remains today, although it’s been added onto and upgraded over the years, so the old and quaint attractions mingle side-by-side with the latest in high-tech, computer-controlled thrill rides. I like plenty of the modern rides just fine, but I’m sure my Loyal Readers won’t be at all surprised to learn that my favorite parts of Lagoon are the oldest ones… and my very favorite ride of all is the 1921 roller coaster that has no official name. Locals just call it the White Roller Coaster, due to the coating of white paint that was originally used to preserve the wooden structure. (Lagoon management recently made what I consider a boneheaded decision to stop painting the WRC, so with weathering and the occasional replacement of aging timbers, it’s gradually turning a rather unremarkable shade of grayish-brown. Supposedly, this is to make it easier for the inspection crews to see problems in the elderly structure, but I’m willing to bet it was a cost-benefit thing; somebody figured out they could save a few bucks if they stopped painting it every spring.)

The old roller coaster isn’t sexy, and it certainly isn’t a gentle lover. Compared to the smooth ride of the modern steel coasters that surround it, the WRC is actually something of a bare-knuckled bastard. Every turn, every warped board, every connecting bolt translates as a rattle, a thump, or a jolt. The whole structure seems to shift and flex underneath you as your car passes over it. It makes many people nervous. For me, though, that’s just part of the fun. The coaster feels like an organic, living thing that never delivers quite the same ride twice. Some of my earliest Lagoon memories are of riding it.

Unfortunately, The Girlfriend and I haven’t been able to enjoy the white coaster together in a very long time. To be perfectly frank, we’d both grown too fat in recent years to comfortably sit in the narrow, old-fashioned cars. The last time we rode together several years ago, Anne was forced to sit with her hips turned sort of sideways — uncomfortable to start with, downright painful once the pounding began. After a very unpleasant run that left her bruised and humiliated, she declared she was done with the WRC, and I accepted this without argument. I’ve since ridden it alone a few times, feeling sad and guilty that she couldn’t be with me, and also pretty cramped myself in those unforgiving seats that were designed for kids and people from, ahem, a time when foodstuffs were less plentiful. Last year, I didn’t go on my favorite roller coaster at all. It didn’t seem worth the trouble anymore. It was just one more thing I’d resigned myself to having to give up now that I was a middle-aged man, one more childish pleasure that I no longer had room for in my grown-up present. At least that’s what I told myself. I didn’t really believe it, and I felt like shit about it. But the situation was what it was…

I’m incredibly happy to report that the situation is different this year. Like I said a few weeks back when I first wrote about that 5K that Anne participated in, she and I have both made a lot of changes since the start of 2012. I’ve lost in the neighborhood of 40 pounds (I haven’t been keeping close track, so I don’t know an exact figure, but I know it’s somewhere around there — possibly even a little higher) and Anne, who’s taken the extra step of hiring a trainer and has been working so very hard, has dropped 60 and is still losing. We’re feeling a lot better about ourselves, both physically and emotionally, and there’s no question that we’re smaller people than we used to be. And today, during our annual outing to Lagoon with her family, we proved it — and earned ourselves a major sense of triumph — when we successfully rode that rickety old wooden roller coaster again, together, sitting in the very front seats. I was perfectly at ease, right in the middle of the seat with room to spare on either side, and Anne, while still feeling pretty cozy, was not at all compressed, crowded, mashed, or packed in. We just got on, closed the lap bars, and had a fun ride, same as anybody else. Although the day was a bit frustrating in several respects, that one moment made everything else worthwhile. It made all of the struggles we’ve both endured — but especially Anne, because quite honestly she’s worked harder at it than I’ve had to — over the last eight months worthwhile. The joy in her face as she sat down, her exuberant “I did it!” at the end of the ride… well, just think of the end of the original Star Wars, the scene in the hanger on Yavin IV after Luke has obliterated the Death Star and everyone is hugging and slapping each other on the back, and you might have some notion of how that moment felt for us.

I’m so very proud of her — of both of us, but especially of her. And I’ve got my White (soon-to-be brown) Roller Coaster back!

Sep062012

Movie Confessions Quiz

Let’s blather for a moment on my favorite subject, shall we? It’s a movie meme, courtesy of SamuraiFrog!

Which classic movie don’t you like/can’t enjoy and why?
Gone with the Wind. I think this one is probably a victim of its own reputation for me; all my life, I’d heard what a great, important, landmark movie it was, etc., etc., so when I finally saw it at the age of 19 or 20, I was incredibly disappointed to discover it was essentially a soap opera populated by characters I really didn’t like very much. (I’m sorry, but Scarlett O’Hara is a selfish, shallow little bitch who deserves everything she gets; I occasionally encounter women who hero-worship her, and I just do not get the appeal. I also tend to watch these women very, very carefully…)
Which ten classic movies haven’t you seen yet?
Geez, I could list a lot more than just ten, and I’m somebody who actually likes old movies and watches them fairly often, and could probably be considered pretty well-rounded in my viewing, at least compared to the average schmoe. There are just so many movies out there after a century-plus of filmmaking.Also, I think answering this question depends somewhat on how we’re defining “classic.” Are we talking about stuff that makes the Sight & Sound list? (For the record, I’ve actually seen quite a few of those.) Do we mean the black-and-white and/or studio-era stuff? Or does the definition extend to what I think of as fairly recent films, like Reservoir Dogs and Fargo (neither of which I’ve seen, but which people talk about as if they ought to be considered classics)? What about cult classics and movies that are so bad they attain a sort of perfection? Also, what about foreign classics? I have to confess I haven’t seen many foreign movies aside from the handful I was exposed to in my film-history classes back in college, and a slightly smaller handful of things I’ve stumbled across on my own, so again, many of those that are talked about as great and enduring pieces of cinema have eluded me.Anyhow, here’s a completely random list of those titles that leap immediately to mind as ones I think I ought to see but haven’t gotten around to, not counting the two already mentioned:
1. From Here to Eternity
2. Blow-Up
3. The Usual Suspects
4. The Sound of Music
5. Raging Bull
6. The Magnificent Ambersons
7. Gilda
8. All About Eve
9. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
10. The Hidden Fortress
Have you ever sneaked into another movie at the cinema?
I can’t think of a specific occasion, but I’m sure I must have at some point or another. Hasn’t everyone?
Which actor/actress do you think is overrated?
Christian Bale. I know everybody loves him right now for being the “definitive” Batman, yada yada yada, but I’ve never been very impressed by him. There’s something about him I find tremendously off-putting and unlikable, almost a subliminal revulsion… and I felt that way even before his much-publicized prima donna tirade against some poor DP who accidentally wandered into a shot during filming.
From which big director have you never seen any movie (and why)?
Darren Aronofsky. No particular reason, except nothing he’s made so far has appealed to me very much.
Which movie do you love, but is generally hated?
James Cameron’s Titanic. I don’t know that it’s generally hated, i.e., I don’t have any real sense of what percentage of the population dislikes it, but I seem to find myself defending it in conversation pretty often. The thing that really amazes me, though, is the degree of dislike people feel for this movie. I mean, the people who hate it really bloody-well hate it, and they want to make sure you know they hate it, and exactly why they hate it, and then they want you to concede that deep down, you kinda hate it too, because apparently it’s the Worst Movie Ever (said in the perennially disgusted voice of the Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons, naturally). And I just don’t get that level of bile, I really don’t, because the movie works for me. I like Jack and Rose, I like Kate and Leo’s performances, I buy their romance, the dialogue does not make me cringe, I think the runtime is just what it needs to be… hell, I don’t even question Jack dying at the end because he didn’t climb onto the piece of wreckage. (Yes, there does appear to be room on the piece of wood for two people, but it’s not necessarily buoyant enough to keep both of them out of the water, which is so cold that most people are freezing to death instead of drowning; in other words, if he’d climbed on too, they probably both would’ve died.) The only thing in the movie I really don’t like is Bill Paxton. Good lord, could that man ever act? So yeah, I like this movie, lots of people don’t, and much like politics and religion, there’s no convincing each other we’re right. I seem to have this same problem with the Star Wars prequels and the fourth Indiana Jones flick, too. I concede they weren’t great movies, but they also weren’t the soul-sucking disasters that so many claim them to be. There were aspects of all of them I found endearing enough to overlook their flaws. And I still like Dances with Wolves, too.
Have you ever been “one of those annoying people” at the cinema?
“Annoying people” meaning a distraction to others? Yes, I’m afraid I have. Once, back in that film-history course I mentioned, when I got a little bored with the featured film one week and started doing the MST3K thing with a friend. I figured it wasn’t that big a deal, since the movie was silent. It’s not like I was talking over the dialogue, right? Well, wrong. I was being an ass, and a woman sitting in front of me put me in my place over it by telling me to either shut up or leave. I was humiliated, I was angry, I had a not-very-nice epithet of the sort I usually reserve for Scarlett O’Hara on my lips… but she was right. I had no excuse, no defense. I still feel a deep shame when I remember the incident. And I don’t do that sort of thing anymore, at least not in public viewing situations.
Did you ever watch a movie that you knew in advance would be bad, just because of a specific actor/actress was in it? Which one and why?
Yes, a flick called The Man with the Screaming Brain. There was no way, realistically, that a movie with a title like that was going to be any good, but it starred Bruce Campbell, and he’s awesome, and a screening of The Man with the Screaming Brain was included with a book-signing event a few years back that offered a few seconds of actual face-time with Bruce, so I figured it would be worth it. He’s one of the coolest people you could ever have the fortune to meet (he even complimented me on the shirt I was wearing that night!) But The Man with the Screaming Brain was, not surprisingly, a horrible movie. Ye gods, was it bad. Not quite Alien Apocalypse bad, but still…
Did you ever not watch a specific movie because it had subtitles?
Nope. I’ve got no problem with subtitles, and honestly, little patience for those who do. They’re not that difficult, people.
Are there any movies in your collection that you have had for more than five years and never watched?
Yes. I’m not proud of it, but I do. The fact is, I tend to buy DVDs at a greater rate than I actually watch them, and things tend to back up. Especially now that I can buy complete seasons of television series for about the same cost as a feature film. I have probably hundreds of hours of TV and movie viewing sitting around that I haven’t gotten to yet…
Which are the worst movies in your collection and why do you still own them?
I have a lot of movies that generally get classified as “guilty pleasures” — a term I resist, by the way, because taste is subjective, and if you like something, you ought to feel free to like it without qualification — but I’d say the worst ones are actually ones I bought because I was swept up in a momentary hype situation but later lost interest in. Minority Report comes to mind… I really liked it when I saw it in the theater, figured I had to have it when it came out on DVD, but now doubt if I’ll ever have the desire to watch it again.
Do you have any confessions about your movie-watching setup at home?
“Confessions?” What, like I’m ashamed I don’t have one of those custom home-theater theme rooms that look like the bridge of the starship Enterprise or something? No, I don’t. I have an HDTV and an upconverting DVD player, as well as a still-functional VCR for the handful of things I can’t get in a digital format, and that setup is just fine for me. I got over the home-theater thing a long time ago; I’d rather spend the money on a trip to Europe or something.
Any other confessions you want to make?
Yes. You got me. I’m the killer. I did it behind the snack bar with a film splicer.

Sep052012

New Opportunity: The Daily Derbi

Do you remember me mentioning a while back that my buddy Mike Gillilan is a contributor to a car-news blog called The Daily Derbi? Well, a couple months ago, Anne and I were out for an afternoon cruise in my beloved old Ford Galaxie and, on the spur of the moment, we stopped to see Mike and his girlfriend. He took a few photos of my car while we were there, and then, a few days later, asked if I would mind him turning those shots into one of his Weekly Wallpapers for the Derbi site. Of course not, I told him; I’m proud of that old girl, and always happy to show her off. Then he asked if I would like to contribute some copy to go along with the image. Sure, I said, no problem. I did a little research on the history of the Galaxie line, mixed it with some personal observations on my particular car, and banged out a couple paragraphs for him. The end result turned out very well, if I say so myself. (I’m sure Mike would agree.)

His image and my words drew quite a few accolades, as well as a little boost in traffic for the site, so, to at last get to the point of this entry, I’ve been asked to join The Daily Derbi myself. Mike and the site’s founder, Chad Waite, both think my perspective as a lover of classic Detroit steel will add an interesting new flavor to the proceedings over there. I’ll be honest, I’m a little dubious of how well I’ll fit in — I’ve been doing my own thing here for nearly a decade, with no editorial oversight whatsoever, free to write whatever, whenever, and however I wish — but I’m game to give it a try. And I think writing about different subject matter in a different location may help break through some of the malaise I’ve been feeling about blogging lately. We’ll see how it goes.

My first solo post for the Derbi went up a couple days ago; it’s about an exhibition of vintage racing machines currently on display at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. Give it a read here, and then have a look around the rest of the site. Feel free to let me know what you think…

Sep032012

Friday Evening Videos (Special End-of-Summer Edition): “Going to California”

I discovered Led Zeppelin my freshman year of college.

Well, wait… no. That’s not entirely accurate. I was aware of Zeppelin as early as middle school; it was pretty much impossible for a young person not to be at that point in time. Lots of kids were wearing t-shirts with the “Swan Song” logo on them, and if you listened to Rock 103 or Rock 99 — which I did — it seems like either “Black Dog” or “Rock and Roll” played every single hour on the hour. And of course “Stairway to Heaven” got a lot of attention during the Great Satanism Hysteria of the early ’80s. Many of my classmates seemed to believe that listening to that “Stairway” song while playing Dungeons and Dragons under a blacklight would open a direct portal to Hell in your closet, or something like that. So, yeah, I knew of Led Zeppelin. But I didn’t really start to appreciate them until one beautiful fall afternoon when I was driving along 13th East in my little VW Rabbitt — what, you think I drove the Galaxie or my old T-Bird to the U of U everyday, and then left it in one of those tiny little parking stalls to get all dinged up? Not even.

Anyhow, I was driving along that day with the westering sun flashing and winking through the trees and golden leaves the size of salad plates fluttering down to the road from the stately trees overhead, and onto the radio came the Zeppelin song “Ramble On.” That’s the one that mentions Gollum from The Lord of the Rings, which, I will admit, was the thing that first caught my attention. But it was the overall mood of the song and the non-Gollum imagery that stayed with me and was still on my mind later that evening. It was one of those rare moments when you hear some random piece of music that seems so perfectly suited to the setting or the activity that it feels as if your life has a genuine soundtrack. Before long, I’d bought a copy of Led Zeppelin IV and a paperback copy of Hammer of the Gods and was on my way to becoming at least a casual fan of what was once called “The Biggest Band in the World.” (To be clear, I never got really into Zep, but I enjoy a lot of their stuff.) To this day, their music always seems to remind me of back-to-school time no matter what season I actually hear it in.

So it seems perfectly fitting that one of their songs happened to come up on my iPod tonight as I was walking around the dark subdivisions that crowd the Bennion Compound on three sides, reflecting with much melancholy on this, Labor Day, the last night of a summer that never seemed to get started for me. Doubly fitting that it was one of their mellower, slightly sad ones as well. Ladies and gentleman, to note the coming crisp evenings and yellowing of the leaves, I give you “Going to California,” one of my all-time favorite Led Zeppelin tracks:

Zeppelin predates the music video by quite a few years, so the most visually interesting version I could find on YouTube was this live clip from one of the five sold-out nights the band played at Earls Court Arena in London in 1975, when they were at the very peak of their popularity and creativity. I think this is a beautiful song, even if the lyrics about girls with flowers in the hair are incredibly dated at this point. It’s startling to realize that Led Zep was actually contemporaneous with the whole flower-child thing, considering that they don’t really sound like a typical “Sixties band.” In fact, for a long time while I was in high school in the ’80s, I thought they were a current band, because their music was still so ubiquitous on the radio. (They actually broke up in December of 1980; I was in my first year of middle school then.)

You know, it just occurred to me that I really don’t hear Zeppelin on the radio much anymore…

Aug302012

So How’d Anne Do in Her 5K?

Following up on an earlier post, I’m pleased to report that my lovely Girlfriend Anne did very well last weekend in the JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes. But looking back, I don’t think I made it clear exactly what this event was. It’s an annual charity event held at Salt Lake’s Liberty Park; two laps around the park’s perimeter added up to 5K. It’s not a race, and it’s not timed (although I did, in fact, time her — more on that in a sec). It’s basically a pleasant morning stroll (along with a couple thousand other folks and their children and dogs) followed by some carnival-type activities in the afternoon, all for the good cause of raising money to research juvenile diabetes. But 5K — roughly three miles — is a pretty good walk for someone who wasn’t especially active up until fairly recently, and Anne was genuinely nervous the night before, wondering if she’d be able to make it all the way around or if she’d become exhausted partway, or get leg cramps, or otherwise end up feeling humiliated by the whole thing. She needn’t have worried. As I said, she did great… in fact, she and her friend Kathy got annoyed at the slow pace of the herd shambling along the designated path and decided to cut over to an adjoining sidewalk so they could go at their own pace. They completed their laps, plus cut back through the middle of the park to reach the official finish line, in just over an hour, well ahead of most of the other walkers. Sadly, I can’t tell you precisely how much over an hour, because I messed up on my timekeeping duties and accidentally reset the stupid stopwatch partway through. Hey, I recently bought a new cellphone and I’m not familiar with the stopwatch function yet! Anyhow, the total I calculated at the end was one hour and five minutes; I’m guessing the actual time was probably more like 1:10 or maybe 1:15. Still, pretty good… and Anne wasn’t winded or sore and in fact seemed ready to go around again! I’m very proud of her.

She did well on the fundraising end of things as well, starting with a modest goal of $150 and ending with $180. I’d like to personally thank our friends and coworkers who donated, and point out that the JDRF will still accept funds in Anne’s name for up to eight weeks, so if you didn’t contribute and you’re thinking you’d like to, it’s not too late! Just go here and click the big orange “Donate to Anne” button at the top of the page. She and I both thank you in advance.

Aug292012

Video of My Dad in Action

It’s been nearly a month since I promised to post videos of my dad’s burnouts at this year’s Wells Fun Run, and it’s going on six weeks since the event itself. To all my Loyal Readers who’ve been waiting on the edge of your seats for this — and that’s probably as many as two of you, I’m guessing — I apologize. Time flies, and it’s been especially fleet-winged this summer. The other day while I was taking my afternoon constitutional, I noticed the subtle difference in the air, that hard-to-describe quality when it’s still plenty hot outside, but the blast-furnace intensity of summer’s peak has faded and you just somehow know that a corner has been turned. The leaves aren’t changing yet, but the change is coming. Already. This summer’s shot to hell before I even realized it was summer.

You’ll have to forgive me. My mood always gets somewhat volatile this time of year, from just before Labor Day stretching on through Indian summer and into true fall (when Utah is blessed with a fall and doesn’t proceed directly into a foot of snow on the ground, which is how it’s gone the last few years). On the one hand, I love the changing weather and the golden light, the chance to slip into my leather jacket again, and the smell of woodsmoke and dried cornstalks. But I always get restless around this time of year, too, missing the certainty of long-abandoned back-to-school rhythms and knowing that, with the arrival of my birthday in September, another year of my allotted span is gone, another trip around the sun completed… another summer lost.

But we’re not here to lament over the inexorable march of time, are we? No, this entry is about celebrating my dad’s skill at an arcane competitive event.

Some of you may be wondering exactly what I’m talking about when I say “burnout.” Well, everyone knows what a burnout is, even if you don’t know it by that name, and many people — most people, probably — have done it at one point or another. You step on the gas a little too aggressively, your tires squeal and produce a little whiff of smoke, maybe you lay a patch of rubber on the asphalt, and then you’re off. For most people, a burnout is accidental and extremely transitory. In a burnout competition, however, the idea is to deliberately prolong the effect. Each driver is given 30 seconds to generate as much smoke as possible; whoever lays down the biggest smog bank and/or excites the crowd the most is the winner. Most people competing in these things will simply lock their brakes and stand there while their tires spin in one place. They might produce a lot of smoke this way, but it’s not really the most exciting thing to watch. The thing that makes my dad different and interesting — and ultimately successful at this — is that he knows how to keep the burn going while the car is moving. It’s trickier than it sounds. Most of the other drivers lose their smoke almost the instant they let their vehicles start rolling. But Dad has this knack… well, better you just see what I’m talking about. Here’s his first (and best run) from Wells this year:

You’ll notice the car tries to go sideways when Dad cranks on the power. Let me assure you, that’s normal, and it’s okay. A lot of the burnout drivers appear to be on the verge of losing control when they start to swing around like this, but Dad almost never does, which is part of the showmanship I mentioned in my earlier blog entry. I’m very rarely afraid that he’s in trouble when I see this.

Now, here’s his second run. The video isn’t as good, I’m afraid. The sun was down by that point and the light was nearly gone, so my video camera was having trouble holding focus. Also, the Nomad stalled just after Dad began his run. The engine was hot, you see, and big, high-compression, carbureted engines that are overheated are prone to a condition that you don’t see much in modern, fuel-injected cars, i.e., vapor lock. But the rules say you’ve got 30 seconds from the time the burn begins to generate smoke, so if he can the car going again…

In case you’re wondering, that really irritating squeaky noise in the background comes from a kid who had this big inflatable hammer thing with which he was beating his brother over the head. I was very close to taking it away from him.

Anyhow, because Dad was able to restart the car and resume his burnout, this run counted… and as you can see, it actually turned out pretty well, considering he lost so much time. Well enough that he won first place this year.

I know this is a silly event, and damn hard on the environment… but I love watching my dad do it, and I have to say again that I’m really proud of him. The crowd out in Wells knows that car, and they love it and him. There was a time when I didn’t have a lot of respect for my dad’s interests or abilities. What can I say, I was a real dumbass. Now I know better. Now I know it’s really cool to watch your old man when he’s in his element, doing his thing, and winning at it…

Aug272012

Old Friends

Turning now from real-life heroes to fantasy heroes, yesterday the actor Mark Hamill — whom you may vaguely remember for a role he played in three somewhat obscure space-opera films made some 30 years ago — tweeted “It’s always great to catch up with a dear old friend!” as a caption for this photograph:

Presumably this was taken at the just-completed Star Wars Celebration VI convention in Orange County, California. It makes me happy.

That is all.

Aug272012

Drive-By Blogging: Special Tranquility Base Edition

I thought I’d round up a few of the things I’ve been seeing about the late Neil Armstrong that have struck me as interesting or poignant.

First, I liked the sentiments expressed in the statement issued by his family:

While we mourn the loss of a very good man, we also celebrate his remarkable life and hope that it serves as an example to young people around the world to work hard to make their dreams come true, to be willing to explore and push the limits, and to selflessly serve a cause greater than themselves.

For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request. Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink.

The last thought was immediately and predictably picked up by the cool kids with their Twitterings and turned into a trending hashtag: #WinkAtTheMoon. As these things ought, I suppose.

Next up, Armstrong’s fellow moonwalker, Buzz Aldrin, who sounds to me like he’s genuinely hurting right now:

I had truly hoped that on July 20th, 2019, Neil, Mike [Collins] and I would be standing together to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of our moon landing, as we also anticipated the continued expansion of humanity into space, that our small mission helped make possible. Regrettably, this is not to be. Neil will most certainly be there with us in spirit.

On behalf of the Aldrin family, we extend our deepest condolences to Carol and the entire Armstrong family. I will miss my friend Neil as I know our fellow citizens and people around world will miss this foremost aviation and space pioneer.

May he Rest in Peace, and may his vision for our human destiny in space be his legacy.

I can’t imagine what it would be like to have shared an experience like what Armstrong and Aldrin shared — being the first two human beings to walk on the moon — and then decades later to wake up one morning and have to face life without the other one. I don’t know if Buzz and Neil ever got together for barbecues, or even really spoke at all, but surely they must have had some kind of bond that’s now broken. How lost must Aldrin be feeling right now.

Actor, writer, Star Trek alum and Internet sensation Wil Wheaton said this:

I met Neil Armstrong once, at a dinner to honor Jimmy Doohan in the early 2000s.

He was not much taller than me, but he was a giant of a man. He was as kind as he was intimidating.

Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer:

We have had our missteps since that one small step, and we can argue about the directions we are or should be taking. But given what we’ve done, and what we are capable of, I have the spark of hope that the future will look back at July 1969 and recognize it for what it was: the dawn of a new era. The end of homo sapiens terrestrialis and the birth of homo sapiens cosmos.

Neil Armstrong was the human who literally stood at that dividing line.

And I wonder… will there someday be a holiday in his honor? In my mind’s eye I can see people lining the streets, watching parades, talking about that day, smiling and laughing… and all the while, through a quartz window in the dome, the crescent Earth will be hanging in the black sky above them.

I really like that image, and the idea of a holiday in Armstrong’s honor. As I recall, I proposed something similar a few years ago.

The novelist Armistead Maupin, best known for the delightful Tales of the City series, posted a heartwarming anecdote on his Facebook page:

I met this nice man around a campfire last year in Santa Fe. As the moon rose in the sky, he talked, with extraordinary modesty, about landing on it. Later, when I introduced Chris to him as my husband, he smiled as if this were the most ordinary thing in the world. It occurred to me that there’s been more than one ‘giant leap for mankind’ since 1969.

Maupin is gay, if you didn’t know.

Speaking of Facebook, for all its annoying tics and general superficiality, it can provide opportunities for interesting encounters that we might not otherwise have. Here’s an exchange I had Saturday night with the lovely B-movie actress (and recent cancer survivor) Jewel Shepard:

Jewel: A moon walker has died. I met him once when I was in the 6th grade. He looked so ordinary, I thought to myself, this couldn’t have been a man who actually walked! on the moon. Later in life, I have come to realize there are many “ordinary” folks who have done extraordinary things. He was just one of my childhood I will never forget.

Me: Great thoughts, Jewel. I envy you for having the opportunity to meet him. I wish I had…

Jewel: @Jason yes, I was lucky — but what I learned most from that day and those that followed is this: There are a lot of folks who have achieved exactly what they wanted by following through on a dream. It’s when one doesn’t see past their current station in life is where the dream dies. If one has the desire and applies themselves in little ways towards that goal… a form of that goal does come true. That is what I took away from that day. I was in a foster home. I was alone… and yet, I thought I could just “make it” in movies. Okay, maybe not at the level I had dreamt — but I did and am doing stuff. What Mr. Armstrong allowed me to see for that moment in my life was a person can do something that is both magical and meaningful if one puts heart and thought and never takes their eye off the goal. Direction is what he taught me that day. After all the questions asked like, “Can you breathe on the moon” were answered, I was left with excitement in all things were possible no matter how improbable.

I can’t claim that Jewel Shepard and I are anything resembling actual friends, but we’ve talked in this fashion a couple of times. I like her. She’s a feisty, funny, smart, tough lady. And what she was saying about inspiration and dreams struck a chord for me, as that’s something that’s been on my mind lately. But that’s another blog entry.

Two more items… one is a real treat, a complete, hour-long interview Armstrong granted within the past couple of years (I’m not sure of the exact date, but it looks pretty recent) to an Australian trade group for CPAs, of all things. I haven’t had time to watch the complete thing yet, but in the first two segments, at least, Neil comes across as relaxed, friendly, self-confident but also self-effacing, and full of great stories. In short, a confirmation of everything everyone who ever met him has been saying about him the past couple days. If he had any reticence about being interviewed, it’s not on display here.

And finally, John Scalzi, as he so often does, wrote a blog entry I wish I could claim as my own, comparing the future we used to imagine would flow from Armstrong and Aldrin’s feat to the future we in fact ended up with:

We can still go back to the moon, of course. We can still go and build and stay and use the moon as our first stepping stone to other worlds. Anything is possible. But for me Armstrong’s death forever closes the door on a certain possible path the we could have taken, the one where that first small step and giant leap was not essentially taken in isolation, but was followed by another step and another leap, followed by another, and so on, one right after another, without pause and without interruption. Even when or if we return to the moon, we will never live in Neil Armstrong’s future.

I wonder how Armstrong himself felt about that. He lived down the road a piece from me; people I know had the honor of meeting him and described him, in so many words, as one of the best of men. Back here on Earth he did not seem to go out of his way to call attention to himself, and while he encouraged people to keep alive the spirit of exploration and service that he exemplified, it doesn’t seem that he spent a lot of time beating a drum in public. For all that, I read that when he was 80, he volunteered to be the commander of a mission to Mars, should anyone want him for the job. I would guess he wanted to live in Neil Armstrong’s future, too. I’m sorry for him he didn’t get to.

Amen, John.

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