Floating around the InterWebs today, this delightfully daffy VW commercial, apparently intended to be a teaser for something bigger during the upcoming Super Bowl broadcast:
I love the greyhound dressed as an AT-AT wandering in at the end. Last year’s VW Super Bowl spot was, of course, that sublime ad featuring a little kid in a Darth Vader costume trying to use the Force on various household objects. I don’t know what ad agency VW retains, but I wish I worked for them…
This has been going around Facebook today; I thought it warranted repeating here as well:
“Not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
— Dr. Martin Luther King
The sad thing is that many people nod along to this sentiment, but in practice it seems to me that racism is alive and well in this country; it’s just been driven underground. Certain words have been banned in polite company. Certain practices are illegal or no longer socially acceptable. But the irrational thinking and emotional responses are still there. (Case in point: the hysteria sparked by President Obama’s “otherness.” People who are uncomfortable with him can’t flat-out say it’s because he’s a black man, so they cook up bizarre fantasies about him being a Kenyan Muslim socialist Manchurian Candidate, and then utterly refuse to accept any evidence to the contrary.)
The dream is still alive… but it hasn’t been fully achieved yet. Someday I hope.
I’m currently reading Stephen King’s latest release, 11/22/63, and, so far, I’m enjoying the hell out of it. If you haven’t heard about this one, it’s a time-travel story in which our protagonist Jake learns there is a portal back to the year 1958 in the pantry of his local diner; the diner’s owner persuades him, naturally, to use the portal and attempt to change history by preventing the assassination of President Kennedy. But that’s still a few hundred pages ahead.
At the point where I am in the book, Jake has just completed his first lengthy foray into the past, kind of an exploratory mission, during which he spends several weeks driving a ’54 Ford Sunliner. Upon returning to 2011, he makes this observation about his “real” car:
As I turned off the engine I thought about what a cramped, niggardly, basically unpleasant plastic-and-fiberglass shitbox my Toyota was compared to the car I’d gotten used to in [1958].
As someone with — ahem — a bit of experience driving classic cars, I can totally relate. Modern cars get you where you need to go and of course they’re far more fuel-efficient than the chromed phantasms from Detroit’s golden age, but once you’ve been behind the wheel of something that feels like your living room, it’s really hard to get comfortable in a footlocker.
A new year already? What the hell happened to the old one? Seriously, 2011 is just a blur for me… as I think back and try to remember exactly what happened during the past twelve months, only four events come immediately to mind:
And that’s pretty much it.
Oh, there was a Rick Springfield concert with our friends Jack and Natalie in there somewhere. And another concert with Jack and Nat, one of those old-fart triple-threat shows comprising Night Ranger, Foreigner, and Journey. And I bit the bullet and took Anne to see Erasure, one of those inscrutable synthpop bands I’ve never cared for, but which she really likes.
And there was the wedding of Anne’s niece Kaitlyn (occasionally referred to in the past on this blog as “The Teenager”), which was a truly weird experience because it wasn’t all that long ago she was a jealous three-year-old who didn’t want to share her “Nana” (she couldn’t pronounce “Anne”) with some scruffy guy (that would be me); surely 16 years haven’t passed that quickly, have they?
And my uncle Layne died. And the father of my old friend Keith.
There was also a development in my personal life that I’m not quite ready to blog about yet (don’t worry, it’s nothing bad, and in fact, most of my friends already know about it; I just have other blog-business I want to deal with before I write about it).
But otherwise… a blur. My impression is that I was generally happy during 2011, not counting the occasional off day. At least I wasn’t as consistently depressed and angry as I was in 2010, but I couldn’t tell you why, i.e., I don’t know what changed or was different from the prior year. Certainly I didn’t experience any of the difficulties so many people faced in ’11; my job remained (thankfully) rock-steady. And it seems like there were fewer of those last-minute “wait, you have to stay late tonight because someone else screwed up and now our hair is on fire” moments at the office that so piss me off. But my more upbeat mood nevertheless puzzles me considering all the ways in which 2011 drove home the point that my youth is officially, irrevocably, irretrievably behind me.
Yeah, I know, I know. I’ve been talking about getting old and being out of touch for ages, but this thing I’ve been feeling lately is… something else. Something much harder to articulate. And somehow it’s also much more authentic and consequential than my earlier whinging about landmark birthdays and losing my hair, although, again, I can’t really put my finger on why. Or what caused it. Maybe it was seeing that grumpy toddler all grown up dancing with her groom. Or perhaps it was the startling moment a few weeks ago when I realized my friend Cheryl’s daughter is now about the same age Cheryl and I were when we met. Maybe it was the observation that all the pretty young things walking around out there no longer pay much attention to me (and why should they, since I’m the same age as their dads?) Or the even more unsettling observation that I now tend to find their mothers more appealing anyway. Probably it’s all these things and a million more, large and small, all adding up to an understanding of something I’ve been trying to deny or simply ignore for a very long time: that while there may always be possibilities — as Mr. Spock so frequently counseled us back in the days when Star Trek was relevant — the probabilities of a great many things are shrinking for me. It’s a thought and a sensation that should fill me with panic, or at least a tremendous slug of regret. And it does, from time to time. Still, the impression remains: I think I’ve been generally happy this year. Or so I believe at this particular moment. Maybe I wasn’t really as happy as I think and this is just some kind of post-holiday glow I’m feeling. Because Christmas in 2011, for the first time in recent memory, was not a completely depressing and anxiety-provoking ordeal for me.
What the hell is happening to me? No, seriously, this is weird… enjoying Christmas, having an epiphany about lost opportunities and not instantly overwhelming myself with self-recriminations?
Some among you may be tempted to suggest I’m finally growing up. And you may even be right. But if you say it to my face, I’ll most likely tell you where to stick it. Because there’s a part of me that really doesn’t want to hear that. The part of me that once made a pact with the very Cheryl I mentioned above to become Lost Kids rather than grow up.
I’m beginning to babble, I know, but I have one more thought about 2011 before I click “Publish” on this entry: generalized sense of well-being aside, I feel like I really dropped the ball on blogging during the past twelve months. I haven’t actually compared the number of entries I published this year to what I posted in 2010, but it seems like there were a lot fewer ones, and most of the ones that did go up were shorter and pretty superficial. Or so it seems to me. As I said, I haven’t actually quantified it. But our esteemed colleague-in-blogging Jaquandor mentioned a while back that he wished I wrote more, and this blog’s archive is filled with half-finished entries that I keep hoping I’ll get back to, but somehow know I won’t. Maybe one little guy out in Utah slacking off on his personal blog doesn’t matter in the Big Scheme of Things, since we’ve been repeatedly told throughout 2011 that blogging is over as a social phenomenon anyhow. But it troubles me to see myself letting Simple Tricks slip away from me, because my little rants and musings here are about the only writing I do anymore, and if I stop doing even those…
Which parts of your self-image — which dreams — are okay to let go of, and which do you have to keep fighting for?
I’ve just learned that 2012 began with the passing yesterday of the legendary swordmaster Bob Anderson, who trained and/or doubled for every Hollywood swashbuckler from Errol Flynn to Orlando Bloom during his long life. Mr. Anderson was an Olympic fencer who started working in movies in the 1950s as a stunt double on Errol Flynn’s Master of Ballantrae. (He was notoriously known for a time as “the man who stabbed Errol Flynn” because of a minor on-set accident.) Of somewhat more relevance to we nerdy Gen-Xers, Anderson doubled for Dave Prowse as Darth Vader during the climatic lightsaber duels in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. (He wasn’t credited, but no less a source than Mark Hamill — the guy on the other end of Vader’s saber — has reported it was so.) He also trained actors and choreographed fights for The Princess Bride, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the 1993 version of The Three Musketeers (that’d be the one with Charlie Sheen and Keifer Sutherland), the two Antonio Banderas Zorro flicks, and, of course, the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. He even trained Lindsay Lohan, of all people, for a scene in the remake of Disney’s The Parent Trap.
Anderson’s work first came to my attention as a result of my mid-1990s obsession with the Highlander franchise — he was Sean Connery’s fight double in the original Highlander film, and he worked with the star of the Highlander TV series, Adrian Paul, during that show’s first season. As I read up on him, I was impressed by how many of my favorite films he’d had a hand in. In a sense, he’s had more influence on my cinematic tastes than any other single individual. What an amazing career this man had.
Anderson was 89 years old.
Good lord, has it really been two weeks since my last entry? Sorry, kids. I didn’t mean to vanish without notice like that. To explain, The Girlfriend and I have both been under the weather since the weekend of the 16th. And when I say “under the weather,” I mean “down in a two-mile-deep bomb shelter with a Cat-5 hurricane stalled above it, slowly grinding away the very crust of the earth.” Seriously, I can’t remember ever having a head cold lay me out the way this one has. I normally have a fairly strong constitution, or so I like to believe, but while Anne has remained relatively functional, I’ve been helpless in the face of this shit. At its peak, I spent two days on the couch in my bathrobe, weak as a kitten and drifting in and out of a fitful sleep. A few days ago, I ruefully joked — and it was one of those jokes with a grim kernel of truth at its not-very-funny heart — that I have in fact picked up a case of Captain Trips, the implacably deadly weaponized flu virus from Stephen King’s novel The Stand (his scariest work, in my opinion; I don’t do “outbreak” stories anymore, because they’re all too plausible in my mind).
It started pretty innocuously as a sore throat and a raspy voice, which I chalked up to Salt Lake’s annual winter temperature inversion, when a mass of cold air traps car exhaust, fireplace smoke, and all the other atmospheric filth you can think of near the valley floor for weeks at a stretch. Soon I had a cough too, which I again attributed to the inversion-caused “crud layer.” But then came the runny nose, the nasal congestion, the weepy (and then gooey, and then crusty) eyes, the sinus pressure — I had a day where I felt like Rocky Balboa had given me a solid right cross, the entire left side of my face ached so badly — and the stuffed-up ears, all of these rotating in and out of prominence. Just as I started to feel like I was making headway, a new symptom would pop up and smack me back to the couch. And underpinning all of it was a mind-deadening fatigue that quashed any ambition to do, well, anything. I suppose my kitty boys have enjoyed the constant company, at least.
Speaking of the kitty boys, on the second or third night after this thing really got a hold on me, I awoke to see one of them, Jack-Cat, sitting in the open doorway to my bedroom. Well, to be more accurate, I saw his silhouette sitting there. Unlike his shaggier, Creamsicle-colored brothers, Jack is sleek and black, a classic Halloween-style cat, so it was easy to identify him in the dark. I don’t know if I was feverish or if it was just the hour of night when the lack of good sleep finally gets to you, but in the instant of spotting him there, only a few feet away, his face ominously invisible in the shadows, I knew, just knew, that he was waiting for me to die. And once I’d rattled off my last breath, my normally sweet-natured little black buddy was going to eat me. Starting with my eyeballs. My tender, juicy eyeballs, round and bulging, primed to pop in Jack’s fangy little mouth like giant grapes…
Silly, right? Of course, it’s silly. But that was a bad night regardless.
I think I’m finally making headway on this stuff. My left ear is still intermittently stuffy, and I have a nagging cough. But my nose is free again, and I’m starting to regain interest in doing things that I used to do in the Before Time. And Jack-Cat hasn’t made any suspicious moves whatsoever. But still… I’m keeping a close watch on him. You never can tell…
This past Sunday, December 11, a ceremony was held in New York City in which representatives from NASA officially transferred the title of ownership for the space shuttle Enterprise to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. While the thought of suit-and-tie-wearing administrator-types delivering speeches and signing documents is not particularly inspiring, I couldn’t help but chuckle when I read that a spaceship of all things has a title, like any other jalopy that backyard mechanics might trade amongst themselves. I immediately remembered all the old cars my father has bought and sold over the years, and one thing in my brain led to another, and… well…here’s something silly that I just dashed off:
FOR SALE: 1976 space shuttle orbiter, rare prototype model, very low mileage (only driven on local errands to the troposphere and back). U.S.-built. All-original interior with factory air and working 8-track. Paint is good (kept in garage for past 26 years). Tires were new when it was parked. Engines need work. Would make a great conversation piece! Best offer. Call 555-5555, ask for Buzz.
Yeah, sometimes I worry about my brain…
The previous video reminded me of something a couple friends turned me onto a while back, which I’ve been meaning to post but just haven’t gotten around to. It’s another live performance, this time by a musician named Johnathan Coulton. I’m not at all familiar with him — I gather he’s an indie artist with a pretty sizable cult following — but the song is catchy and seems to have benign intentions, i.e., Coulton doesn’t sound like he’s being cruel toward my main man despite the (apparently) humorous nature of the lyrics. It’s hard to tell for sure since it’s sung in French and I don’t know French, but… well, I’ll let Johnathan himself explain what it’s about:
One thing I particularly appreciate about this (and which I assume is deliberate) is how much it sounds like… a Rick Springfield song! No, really, the guitar tone here is very similar to Rick’s own audio signature, the same sound you hear on “Jessie’s Girl,” among many others. I like that sound, obviously, and I liked it so much in this song that I was fully prepared to purchase one of those new-fangled download thingies until I learned the album recording is somewhat different. Maybe Coulton will release another version with that deep, early-80s thrum that I love so much. In the meantime, enjoy this one as we roll on past midnight, chasing after the early morning hours…
Between working in an understaffed office populated by inconsiderate ignoramuses and presided over by a hard-headed old skinflint, and a bad case of a medical condition called “positional vertigo,” The Girlfriend has been suffering through a truly craptacular week. So I’m going to dedicate this week’s music video to her, in the hopes that it will provide a little comfort. Or at least make her smile for a second.
“It’s Always Something” is a 1999 song by our mutual main man that gradually over the years has become one of my all-time favorites of his. Yes, it’s right up there with “Jessie’s Girl” in my book, believe it or not. I find a lot of meaning and resonance in this tune, and also a genuine sense of optimism that I often have trouble generating on my own. Just like Rick Springfield himself I would guess, based on what I’ve learned about him in the past 12 months. It’s a great song, in my humble opinion, one that in a more just universe would’ve been a tremendous hit. As it is, though, I didn’t even hear it until a couple of years after it came out. C’est la vie, I guess, and certainly right in line with the song’s own ironic narrative.
This isn’t a music video per se; it’s a live performance clip from a concert Rick gave earlier this year, so unfortunately you get the shaky-cam effect and the sound is kind of dodgy in places. But it’s the best clip I could find, and Anne knows the lyrics anyhow…
If any of the Loyal Readers out there don’t know the lyrics and can’t decipher them from the video (and also give a damn), you can find them in an earlier entry I wrote about this song…
Here’s another look at what’s happening with Discovery‘s replica engine nozzles. (I guess it’s not really correct to keep calling them replicas, considering they’re authentic spaceflown hardware, but NASA’s own Kennedy Space Center Twitter feed — from whence I snagged this photo, incidentally — refers to them as replica shuttle main engines, or RSMEs, so there you go, straight from the astronaut’s mouth. Or something.)
Anyhow, I thought I’d share this shot because (a) it shows all three nozzles now back in place, and (b) it’s a little easier to discern what you’re looking at than in the one I posted yesterday. And also because I just like posting pics of space shuttles. Deal. Soon they’ll be in their respective museums and you won’t have to see any more of this stuff for a while, at least not until I get out to them and take my own photos…
