As you can plainly see, her main talent is sleeping… usually about 23.5 hours a day (+/- 30 minutes). On Christmas Day, however, she decided to hit the road – probably due to the 35 house guests we had, although perhaps she just got tired of being chased by our foster puppy. She’s an indoor cat, but she does make occasional forays into the great outdoors, usually in the spring (she’s an avid bird watcher). But on Xmas day, it was colder than a polar bear’s toenails. She didn’t come back that night, or the next, or the next… She was outdoors in single digit temperatures, completely MIA, for nearly two weeks. I kept looking for her, to no avail, and was convinced that she was a goner – no house cat could survive that Arctic blast. This past Friday, my wife saw a dead black cat on the busy street near our house – we feared the worst for Coco Bear. But on Saturday evening, she showed up – looking a bit gaunt but seemingly none the worse for wear.
If cat’s have nine lives, I think Coco is down to seven. Unless she managed to build a kitty shelter in the woods out of twigs and leaves, and capture her own food. If that’s the case, we should change her name to Coco Bear Grylls.
Behold the mighty Black & Decker® Flavor Scenter Handy Steamer™
My wife and I got it eons ago, probably as a wedding gift (no Tiffany & Co. silver spoons for us!), so it’s easily more than 20 years old. We used it for a while back in the day, then it was relegated to the Shelf of Misfit Appliances in the basement, along with those other products that you don’t use often enough to justify granting them precious storage space in the kitchen (looking your way, Cocomotion™ and Jelly Belly Snow Cone Machine – we’re running hot and cold on you).
So there the Black & Decker® Flavor Scenter Handy Steamer™ sat, collecting dust, dryer lint and cat hairballs, until our son Peter went on his health kick. He hits the gym more often than he hits the books, and he eats the same lunch and dinner every day: baked chicken with brown rice, and baked salmon with brown rice, respectively. So we needed to step up our rice production in a major way. The Black & Decker® Flavor Scenter Handy Steamer™ to the rescue! It went from overlooked to overworked. It never left our kitchen counter, because we could barely keep up with Peter’s 16-year-old-weight-lifter consumption. As soon as we made one batch of brown rice, we needed to start on another. And heaven forbid if we forgot to make the rice, because then Peter would claim we were “stealing his gains” (i.e. messing up his meticulous weightlifting/eating regimen).
We also had to resort to buying brown rice in bulk:
This will last us about two weeks.
I’m sure the B&D® FSHS™ (we’re tight, so I call it by its nickname) was loving all the attention, and reveling in being needed once again after decades of neglect. It was having its Sally Field Oscars moment:
Then Christmas came… and Peter’s grandmother got him this:
A brand-spanking-new 16 cup rice cooker.
So sorry, B&D® FSHS™… hope you enjoyed your moment in the sun, but it’s back to the dark dungeon for you.
Happy 2018! May it be filled with peace, love and understanding. (HT to Nick Lowe.)
Most folks who make (and break) New Year’s resolutions usually focus on breaking bad habits or some form of self-flagellation.
This year, why not focus on adding more pleasure to your life instead… via the written word. “Read more” is a nice positive resolution, and one you can keep with these great tips from Austin Kleon:
Austin’s Steal Like An Artist book is highly recommended for your reading list. And if you want to double-down on resolutions, another good one would be “subscribe to Austin Kleon’s weekly newsletter” – there’s always plenty of wonderful food for thought in each issue, so your brain can gorge itself while your body stays on its New Year’s diet.
Yes, even Dubbatrubba is not immune to the year-end list frenzy that sweeps the media this time of year (“Top News Stories”… “Best Movies”… “Favorite Cat Memes”… )
But it’s worth noting that while most hacks stick to a Top 10, in true Spinal Tap fashion, this goes to 11.
Not that you asked, not that you care, but here are my favorite albums of 2017, in no particular order, with a video of one of the tracks included for your listening/viewing pleasure.
This is my favorite Sports Illustrated cover of all time:
Sure, it’s a fantastic photo, capturing Sidney Moncrief’s great elevation and determination, with a helpless Texas defender looking on. It’s fun to study the crowd too, and see the looks on people’s faces. This lady is my favorite:
She knows Sid’s about to throw it down…
But it’s also my favorite cover because in February of 1978, when this came out, I was a 13-year-old kid living in Arkansas, and I was definitely high on the Hogs. (HT to my Aunt Virginia for getting my brother and me an annual subscription to Sports Illustrated back then.) I loved those Eddie Sutton-coached teams, playing in Barnhill Arena. They had a very talented trio, nicknamed “The Triplets”: Ron Brewer, Marvin Delph and Sidney Moncrief. Steve Schall and Jimmy Counce rounded out the starting lineup. They made it all the way to the Final Four that year before losing to eventual champ Kentucky by six points in the semis. Back then, they still played a third-place game, and the Razorbacks beat Notre Dame 71-69 on a last-second turnaround jumper by Ron Brewer. I remember it like it was yesterday, even though it was nearly 40 years ago.
Arkansas begins conference play this afternoon, with a home game against #19 Tennessee. I’m a Xavier alum and season ticket holder so I’ll be at the Muskies game, but there will always be a special place in my heart for my Hogs too. Woo Pig Sooie!
Buffalo Tom is my favorite band. Their heyday – such as it was – was back in the early 90s. A three-man band from Boston (not Buffalo), they are still together, but record only sporadically and tour even less frequently.
However, they did give their hardcore fans – the ones like me who contributed to their Pledge Music fundraiser for their new album – an early Christmas present. On 12/24, they shared an early release of their new album, Quiet and Peace which is slated to come out on March 2 of next year. It’ll be their first release in seven years, but they haven’t missed a beat. It sounds fantastic. (You can pre-order it here.)
The first song is available on Spotify and Soundcloud.
Here’s an excerpt from this Stereogum article with lead singer Bill Janovitz talking about the track:
“[‘All Be Gone’ has] this blue sky, sunny day feel to it, but it’s a really melancholy lyric in a lot of ways,” Janovitz told me when we spoke over the phone yesterday. “It’s pretty self-evident about getting older, [with lyrics like] ‘My time behind is greater than my time ahead’ — that sort of stuff. But it’s kind of a blazing, Buffalo Tom ‘let’s get the guitars up’ sort of track.’
“[As] you get older, you feel like holding onto time, especially when you have kids,” he adds. “And I’m just a victim of nostalgia in any point in time — I’m so vulnerable to it. I wear my emotions on my sleeve. Kids grow at such an exponential rate, it really hits home to you. A lot of [the song] is about that, certainly. But it’s also not just this sad, melancholy song — it’s really about carpe diem, seizing it all as you can, and trying to hold on.”
Buffalo Tom are roughly analogous to other somewhat overlooked artists such as Judee Sill or the Dream Syndicate; not the most prominent artists of their time, but a hidden treat for someone that falls in love with an era’s music and wants to dig a little deeper. If they do, they’ll find scores of poetic, ingratiating rock songs that can stand proudly on a playlist next to Weezer and Guided By Voices. Anyone who cares enough to know who they are thinks well of them, and Janovitz suspects he might hear a bit of their influence on younger artists like Japandroids and Speedy Ortiz — both of whom he loves. Buffalo Tom have carved out a place for themselves, and these days, that’s enough for him.
Later in the same article, there’s this great quote from Janovitz:
Not only is Janovitz surprisingly open about why Buffalo Tom never connected on the same level as some of his peers, he brings the subject up himself. “I can give you theories why I think we weren’t bigger. I think our lyrics are opaque, but we’re not like Pavement with opaque music. A lot of our music was very emotional, but it wasn’t really direct songwriting. There really wasn’t a compelling frontman. It was faceless and nerdy, but not ‘nerdy cool,’ like Weezer. It was a bunch of things that were never quite right,” he says. “I wish I could blame a press agent or a manager or a label. But I think we were given an ample shot.
“Ultimately, I can’t complain too much,” he adds. “I always wanted to be respected more than rich. I wanted people to really like our music. I wanted to touch people. I wanted people to understand. I wanted people to hold us up like I hold up my heroes.”
Mission Accomplished, Buffalo Tom. 30 years later, I still love your music.
I spend a lot of time walking through cemeteries. Don’t judge. I’m not some Tim Burton goth. It’s just a great place to walk a dog (hello, Mt. Washington Cemetery), and also a great place to get some exercise when your kids are practicing at the school nearby (looking at you, Walnut Hills Cemetery).
In all my tombstone travels, this is hands-down the best name I’ve ever seen.
Fearnaught = fear naught = fear nothing.
“Do not fear death, but rather the unlived life. You don’t have to live forever. You just have to live.” – Natalie Babbitt
While the children are still nestled all snug in their beds (they are teenagers, after all), I just wanted to take a moment to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas. I’m sending this special Casey Kasem long-distance dedication your way: the Eels doing an acoustic version of “Everything’s Gonna Be Cool This Christmas.”
Favorite lyrics:
As days go by the more we need friends And the harder they are to find If i could have a friend like you all my life Well i guess i’d be doin’ just fine
I’m not a car guy. Never have been. It’s genetic. My father lived in Jersey City, NJ, where you could get by without a vehicle – subways, streetcars, buses and trains worked just fine. He didn’t get his license until he got married in his late 20s. His first car was given to him by a friend of his who decided to become a monk. (I think it was a Studebaker, but I’m not sure. Let’s go with Studebaker because it’s fun to say. Studebaker!)
When we moved to rural Arkansas after my mom died, going car-less wasn’t an option. School and church were 10 miles away from our hillbilly home. But cash was always tight, so we never had a nice car, just a never-ending procession of $500 autos… a conga line of clunkers. Typically we had a couple at any given time – when Junker A needed repairs, we’d switch to Junker B. If the repairs cost too much, we’d pull the plug — my dad was the Jack Kevorkian of the auto industry — and buy another hooptie from W.G. Pickett’s used car lot (their sign said “we tote the note” – meaning my dad could pay in installments).
(This shot is from an ad campaign I worked on long ago – if you do an image search for “used car salesman” it shows up!)
A few years ago, just for kicks, my brother and I tried to name every car we owned while we were growing up in Arkansas. We were able to name more than 30, in a 12-year period. We owned every AMC model except the Pacer (Ambassadors and Matadors and Hornets, oh my!). We had a yellow Ford Maverick (“The Big Banana”) and an orange one (“The Great Pumpkin”) and a purple Ford Torino (“The Purple Cow”). We actually bought the “convent car” – the Ford LTD sedan that the nuns who taught at our grade school drove. They upgraded, and we got their castoff. It was pure white, of course. Can you imagine how embarrassing it was to get dropped off at grade school in the old nun-mobile?
Following in my father’s footsteps, I too was late to the car game. I bought my first car just before I graduated from college in 1986. My friend Paul was selling a 1976 Datsun B-210. It had been rear-ended so the trunk wouldn’t close, it had to be held semi-shut with a coat hanger. The car had been sitting in a campus parking lot for a few months, so Paul said he’d take 50 bucks for it. My friend LJ and I went halfsies on it… $25 each. It was a stick shift and neither of us knew how to drive a manual. After graduation, I’d get rides to Xavier and practice driving in the deserted parking lot. One day I finally got up the courage to actually drive it home. Other than mistaking first gear for third gear once and screeching through an intersection, the ride was uneventful.
coat hanger sold separately
Nowadays, I take the bus to work 95% of the time. So to me, cars are just a bucket of bolts, a way to sometimes get from Point A to Point B. I don’t give a tinker’s damn about particular makes, models and styles. With one exception – the car we just got rid of.
Behold the mighty 2010 VW Jetta Sportwagen TDI. My first true car love. Smooth. Sleek. Fast. Up for whatever. Oh, and easy to put my kayak on top without hurting my back. It got great gas mileage too… over the seven years we owned it, we averaged 35 mpg, doing mostly city driving. For six of those seven years, we thought we were saving gas and being kind to the environment, because it was billed as a “clean diesel.” Turns out Volkswagen was duping us the entire time – they programmed their cars to cheat their way through the emissions tests. So our class-action-approved options were to turn it in or get the exhaust system fixed. I didn’t trust the fix, and because most owners are turning in their cars, getting parts and repairs would likely be a nightmare a few years from now. So we cashed it in – VW is paying well above book value as penance for their sins.
I never thought I’d get attached to a car, but darned if I don’t miss it. I finally understand how other folks can “ooh” and “aah” over particular cars. Maybe I’ll have to use the cash we got from VW to buy a nice Studebaker…
UPDATE – adding a comment from my older sister:
Damo you forgot to mention the recalled Ford Pinto. Recalled because it was found that if it was rear ended, basically the whole car would explode. This was discovered after we used it for thousands of miles going back and forth to high school (120 miles round trip per day). Of the three of us you always rode in the back because you jimmy rigged some kind of antennae for your radio reception and it needed to be extended through a crack in the back window. You owe your big sis for being such a good driver while applying a full face of makeup I wasn’t allowed to wear leaving the house. Those were the days.
Kevin Sullivan on Life advice from a man who lived it: “A good one Damian. Bring our lens into focus after the long weekend or our long life journey.” Jul 7, 09:38
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