It’s the end of the world!

May 21^st, the day that Harold Camping says is the day of rapture. Earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan, the tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan, the Mississippi River flooding, Man United winning it’s 19^th English title, Man City winning the FA Cup, Newt Gingrich declaring his candidacy for president, and really, the 21st is a Saturday. Seriously, I have to work all week to have the world end on the weekend! WTF! It couldn’t happen on a Monday. Yeah, like I’m going to put in a full effort this week with no payback at week’s end except the end of the world. That’ll work. What the hell, Liverpool blew it’s chance to seal a bid in the Europa League (purgatory pretty much). Coach L left dear old GMU for Miami, really, Miami (Florida) where coaches go to die. How much worse can it get? Oh “The Donald” is not running for president. Thanks. I feel so much better. I’m moving to Greenland, I hear it’s warmer there.

Starbucks what have you done?

My beloved Seattle's Best Coffee has been reduced to a beginners level coffee whore. Seriously have you seen the packaging? Level 1 (mild), Level 2 (Bright), Level 3 (balanced), level 4 (rich), level 5 (bold). Really? If you look at the fine print (in 4 pt type) you might be able to figure out which of SBC's coffees fit the profile. Seattle's Best Blend is "level 3." There's no telling where Post Alley Blend, Breakfast Blend, Bistro Blend, fit into this framework. I mean, do you really think I'm going to go out and buy "level 3"? Good news for Peet's & Caribou where I will be getting my coffee from now on. RIP SBC, you will be missed.

Level 3 - the coffee formerly known as Seattle's Best Blend.

The Transcendent Band

I'm waiting. Back in the day we had a lot of transcendent bands, The Beatles The Stones, The Who, Pink Floyd, Zeppelin, Cream, The Band, Jimi, The Grateful Dead, CSNY. Many others could be added to that list. In later years I would add Little Feat, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Talking Heads, Springsteen, Los Lobos, The Clash, Steely Dan, The Police, U2, Dave Matthews Band. Lately there just hasn't been a band that has blown me away. Maybe it's because I'm older and the bands that are really making a major impact are doing so to those much younger than me. Maybe there are just no bands making that kind of impact any more. Has Rock & Roll run it's course and is now so mainstream that no band has such a dramatic impact? I really hope not. I really like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Drive By Truckers, and the Subdudes but none have had that kind of influence. Green Day, who I also like, have made an impact and now there is a Broadway Musical based on their "American Idiot" album. I fear that there are many transcendent bands out there that I am just missing because I am old and that their music just doesn't resonate with me. I'm being left behind by the very thing that I felt defined part of me. I used to have WHFS (102.3 in Bethesda, MD) with Weasel, Cerphe, Josh, Mark, and Damian to guide me. Now radio is a wasteland and only Pandora or internet radio leads me to new acts. I am constantly drawn back to those bands of yesteryear that I can no longer see perform except in a completely remade form. Getting old sucks.

Zuckerberg, Time Magazine's Person of the Year, Really?

Mark Zuckerberg, really? Have we stooped so low? The guy who gave us Facebook? That's all it takes? Sure Facebook rejuvenated Betty White's career so at least it's got that going for it but, really, it's just a way for people to talk to each other without actually having to talk to each other.

Here's my choice for Person of the Year, Jon Stewart. He would probably hate this but he has stepped forth as the voice of reason in this year of ridiculous bickering. It is not out of line to say that without Jon Stewart's lambasting of congress that the 9/11 first responder health care bill would not have passed. His Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear drew over 200,000 people to the national Mall (myself included) to say, "turn it down a notch America!" Yes he's a comedian but he makes more sense than most people, plus he's funny.

My choice for
PERSON OF THE YEAR - JON STEWART

Because he didn't invent Facebook!

Maybe he'll friend me for this post, oh boy!

What have you done?

Starbucks bought out Seattle's Best Coffee (and it was) a few years ago and now seems intent on destroying the brand. The latest onslaught is by changing the logo. SBC had a great logo (on the left) but it has been replaced by a new logo (on the right). How "Target" generic is that? I'd like to know how much they paid for that logo and how can I get in on that gig because I know I could've done better. Just what demographic is this new logo appealing to, the generic, Twilight, Android, Blade Runner, Futuristic, What's the point of it all, new world?
Which one makes you feel more warm and fuzzy?

A Picture Only A Deadhead Could Love

I saw this on the way in to work this morning. It made my day. Morning Dew Lawn Service with a "Steal Your Face" sticker on it (and a GD Euro oval). I had to take a picture.

The Dead live on!

Going Old School

I am on a quest. A quest for the beer of my college days (or before). Before micro brews and the mega breweries of Anheiser Busch and Miller took over everything. Lately hipster bars have put Pabst Blue Ribbon on tap. In the old days I would have never touched PBR but I have to admit I kind of enjoy it now. My buddy Jack picked up a case of Gennese Cream Ale for the World Cup this summer and that started this whole old school beer idea. I was in Milwaukee a few weeks ago and my mission was to find Schlitz on tap somewhere. It didn't happen and the one place I went that had Schlitz (and Blatz) on the menu were out of both. Curses, foiled again. I did find the Blatz Brewery which is now condos as is the old Pabst Brewery complex. I have to admit I would love to live in a condo in Brewery Building #2. Since then I have been looking up all of the old beers that I remember seeing commercials of as a child. Schaefer, Rheingold, Piels, Schlitz, PBR, I'm searching for them all (except Ballantine and Carling Black Label which sucked, not to keen on Stroh's either). They are the new microbreweries, reviving the old formulas and selling in small geographic areas. Strange that I can get Schlitz Malt Liquor at my 7-11 but not Schlitz beer. My friends have decided to help me in my quest. Jack went up to Pennsylvania and brought back Schmidts and Stegmaier (although it's now called Lionshead). Another friend is headed up to Staten Island where he will hopefully score some Rheingold and Schaefer (and maybe some Piels). "Schaefer is the one beer to have when you're having more than one", a prelude to college binge drinking? I don't know what's driving this, maybe a look back at simpler times. All I know is that I need a Schlitz because "When you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer."

You should know

I blog here now.

So why not shut this blog down?

I dunno.

I kind of like it here.

Maybe I'll come back one day.

Something will always itch.

Spigot is a funny word

I woke up with a start yesterday morning realizing that I still had not turned off the outside water supply and the spigots could freeze. It's January, for Heaven's sake! Then I remembered that the temperature was expected to be in the 70s. Turns out we set a new record of 73 degrees for the day. No worries regarding the outdoor plumbing this winter it seems. Perhaps I ought to hook up the Super Splash Tunnel. In other climate news, a large ice shelf the size of Manhattan was found to have broken loose from the land mass where it was attached in the Canadian Arctic. The night watchman of the ice shelf says he is not responsible, adding: "It wasn't broken when I left it."

Loch Raven Review

Two of my poems appear in the Winter Issue of Loch Raven Review.

"Yukon" is new, while "Lifeline" was first published at Peeling Wallpaper in February 2005.

Quality Time

I like to read poetry on the toilet. In fact, it’s the only place I read poetry. No other spot in the house feels quite right. And I only read poetry in the morning. There’s something quite nice about starting my day with a good strong cup of coffee, a healthy constitutional and a couple of quality poems. I’m always on the lookout for a poem that will set the bar, challenge me to have the kind of day the poet obviously had in order to achieve that level of brilliance. Not that this happens often. Usually, the poem falls short or my day does.

Sometimes I wonder how the poets I read would feel knowing just where I read their work. Funny, though, I only think about that when I’m reading living poets. Dead poets, I’m quite sure, would be happy to know they are being read at all.

Speaking of dead poets, I just finished reading “Slouching Toward Nirvana,” by Charles Bukowski. This is Bukowski’s twelfth posthumous book of poems. The guy’s been dead since 1994 and he’s still averaging just under a new book a year. I really wish he would knock that off. Doesn’t he know how much of a slacker that makes me feel?

Here’s a little gem from Bukowski’s poem “you can’t make a lion out of a butterfly” about a boxer friend of his:

in the ring
right after the fight
Butterball had told me:
“that guy couldn’t raise half a
hard-on in a high-class
whorehouse.”

And this from “to hell and back”:

Once you’ve been to hell
and back,
you don’t look behind you
when the floor
creaks and
the sun is always up at
midnight
and things like
the eyes of mice
or an abandoned tire
in a vacant lot
can make you smile.

Start your day with a good poem. Just don’t sit too long. It leaves a ring.

The power of 5

Two years ago I posted a story about receiving a free razor in the mail from Schick. It was the Quattro. Four blades. I remember thinking, "How many more blades do we need on a razor." I mean, you put enough blades on a razor cartridge and you'll start splitting atoms! Well, today, I opened my mailbox and there was a brand new trial razor waiting for me. I knew right away. It had to be. Five blades. And I was right. It was the Gillette Fusion. Five shaving blades. But wait...there was more. A bonus blade on the back side for trimming sideburns and under the nose. Gillette skipped right over the Cinque and went straight to the Sei!

I simply can't believe this. I am afraid to try this razor. It is quite possible that I would lather up and, with one swipe of the razor, cut my head clean off - a scene right out of Monty Python. This particular razor doesn't take batteries. That would be the Gillette Fusion Power - 5 blades and vibration. There is nothing more absurd in my mind than a vibrating razor. I can only hope the man responsible for the battery-powered razor is being kept safely out of a laboratory environment. He should never invent again!

Now, having had my rant, I will say that the power of advertising can be persuasive. Maybe if instead of my mailman delivering my free razor...


...the Gillette Fusion Girls had dropped by and enticed me to give it a try, my response might have been a little different. I am a team player, after all.

On the cover of the slick, brightly-colored insert that came with my free Gillette Fusion razor were just these words: "It's Time." My question to Gillette is: Time for what?

"I'll Never Sleep Again!"

Clearly shaken, those were the words my 11 year old son used to describe his first day of Family Life education (aka Sex Ed) at school yesterday.

Really love your peaches, wanna shake your tree

The other day I was driving along, listening to a classic rock station on the radio. The Joker, by Steve Miller was playing. I was about to click it off (I’ve never been particularly fond of the song), but before I could do so, this familiar line caught my ear:

"Some people call me the space cowboy…Yeah! Some call me the gangster of love…Some people call me Maurice…Cause I speak of the Pompatus of love."

Pomatus? I hadn’t thought about that word in years. I am old enough to remember when The Joker first hit the airwaves. It was 1973. In fact, I was old enough then to really care about music. Steve Miller wasn’t a musician from my parent’s generation. Glenn Miller was! Steve Miller was on the bandstand of my ge-ge-neration!

Pomatus? Well, frankly, when I first heard the song, I didn’t know what the word meant. And being fifteen, I guess I was a bit too self-conscious about my vocabulary to ask someone. So I let it go. Quickly, I grew tired of the song and stopped caring that I didn’t know.

Fast forward to 2006. It struck me listening to The Joker again that I still didn’t know the meaning of a pompatus of love. How ridiculous was that? I went home that night and did a search on the internet. Turns out the word doesn’t exist in any legitimate dictionary. Steve Miller made it up, based loosely on an R&B song from the 1950s. It’s kind of an interesting story. There’s a good write-up about it here.

More interesting to me, though, is that I could wait 33 years before I cared enough to look this up. Thirty-three years! You’d think I’d be pissed off after all that time, that I’d been duped into believing a word was real when it wasn’t, a word made up by an artist I never really cared for. But I’m not. The sum total of my reaction was: “Huh, interesting, well, I wonder what the weather is supposed to be tomorrow…better head over to weather.com.”

Here’s the best part. In another 33 years I’ll be old and senile. I’ll probably forget that I ever looked up the meaning of pompatus. So I’ll do another search. And buried in those search results will be a link to this story – that I wrote! Won’t I be surprised.

Beta bits

I just switched over to Blogger beta. It was one of those impulse things. I was signing on to my regular Blogger account when this pop-up box appeared asking if I wanted to try out the new Blogger in partnership with Google. I had no idea that Google bought Blogger. No matter, the pop-up box said there were lots of new features at my disposal with Blogger beta, so I said yes.

What the hell was I thinking? I don’t need new features. I need to stay away from new features. New features are bad. New features will steal your time and suck the life force out of your body, turn you into Kevin Costner.

People have been technology-challenged since the VCR. And yet we keep buying more stuff, trying to keep up with the times: DVD players (now with Blu-ray), computers with wireless home networks, surround sound systems, digital music players. Face it, we don’t understand any of this stuff beyond the bare bones knucklehead features. On/off? Yeah, sure we can handle that. Set time? Probably, but the daylight saving component is iffy. Choose your digital music format buffering level? Uhh, yeah, right.

There is no way that I am going to use any of the new features I just signed up for at Blogger beta, and yet I just couldn’t bring myself to say no. Have you seen those new Jessica Simpson ads for Directv where she plays a dumb but extremely hot blonde waiting tables at a bar? In one of the ads, Jessica-of-the-impossibly-short-short-shorts asks her audience if they wouldn’t rather be checking her out in high definition 1080i. Her punchline, delivered in a perfect southern belle drawl, is brilliant: “I totally don't know what that means, but I want it.” (Those last two words pronounced “woe nit.”) Yeah, Jessica, I can relate. My new drag-and-click template editing capability at Blogger beta? Don’t have a clue how it works, what purpose it serves, or even if I can figure out how to use it, but I totally woe nit.

Oh, I do love a good tagline

Like this one from the cover of the November 2006 Smithsonian magazine...

From Beloved to Beheaded: The Real Marie Antoinette

(You've got to admit it has a certain edge to it.)

Coming Soon...

I have started pulling together a book of poems from Peeling Wallpaper. My plan is to organize the best ones into a chapbook. I am motivated to do this for two reasons. One I just love the word chapbook. It is so pretentious and snooty. “Yes, my chapbook ‘The Curves of a Rectangle’ will be published next month by The Bloated Nymph Press.” Can’t you just see it? It is so me. My second motivation for publishing a chapbook is that it will be out in time for the upcoming holiday season. I hate holiday gift shopping. This way I can sit down with a stack of my chapbooks, inscribe each one, wrap them up in shiny holiday paper and ship them off to everyone I know in place of the Spencer Gift quality crap I usually send. It will be nice to know that a chapbook I wrote and published is now shoring up the short legs of wobbly tables all over the world. Rest assured, my chapbook will be published on only the finest parchment. Should you find yourself in your library with a little piece of something stuck between your teeth and no toothpick in sight, look no farther than the cover of my chapbook. Maybe I’ll even make my chapbook mint flavored.

Nexus

I'm going to hang out here at Something Itches while I take a break from Peeling Wallpaper. This picture that I put up over at PW before hastily closing the door and turning off the lights is a vintage postcard from Crystal Cave in south-central Pennsylvania. I visited this tourist Mecca for my sixth grade class field trip back in...well, let's just say this vintage postcard was a new release when our class roamed the gift shop at Crystal Cave. And what is that old coot pointing at in the photograph, you might ask. Could it be a wad of chewed up bubble gum stuck atop of that stalagmite by an irresponsible grade-schooler? I'm not saying a word. Not a word.

The End

I'm finished writing this blog. Two blogs is one too many for me. Thanks for coming by. I hope you will visit me at my other blog: Peeling Wallpaper.

Cheers!

Virtual tour of a blog III

The Something Itches Petting Zoo