Pants

Just because.



These pants were in a parking lot in Montpelier Vermont at the time.

Then the Shoveling

The path to the back door.

Because the dog has to get out somehow.

And Still it Snows

And Still it Snows
Originally uploaded by baseballpajamas

...and snows.


Strangely the temperature has been a consistent 31.5 degrees all day.

It just occurred to me: maybe the thermometer sensor is buried in the snow? That would explain it.

Finally it Snows

Finally it Snows
Originally uploaded by baseballpajamas

Tuesday evening, Montpelier.

After a movie at the Savoy (9 people in attendance) and dinner at the bar at the Black Door.

"Crazy Heart" was the movie. Lauren had a burger and I had shepherd's pie.

On the way home I had to get pushed up our hill by a couple of strangers.

For the Olympics: The Best Curling Song I Know

Okay, it's the only curling song I know.

Withnail: The Anti Olympics

None of this would wash with Jeff Wode.



(I'm in a "Withnail and I" sort of mood)

Egads. Have you not seen Withnail? You must.

No Coke--Pepsi.

(Fergus at Camp TaKumTa)

Pepsi wants to give money to the best summer camp for kids with cancer ever, Vermont's Camp TaKumTa.

But only if you vote enough times. Luckily, Pepsi lets you vote up to ten times per day.

So go there. Vote. Ten Times a Day.

Voting closes at the end of February. Thank you.

Grande Rue

I've heard intelligent people say they would not be helping the people of Haiti because there are people close to home who need our help. That's true, but the New York Times online has offered a compelling argument that we're talking about two completely different scales of need: a panoramic montage of images representing a quarter-mile stretch of road in downtown Port au Prince. Imagine this in your home town.

I scan these images and, again, things start blending together between the real and speculative. What is this blur or overlap or frisson I am feeling between now-times and end-times? Is it the insidious nature of Margaret Atwood's book, or the insidious nature of the times we are living in?

"There was a lot of trash cluttering the streets--burnt things, broken things. Not only cars and trucks. Glass--a lot of that. Shackie said we had to be careful which buildings we went into: they'd been right near one when it collapsed. We should stay away from the tall ones because the fires could have eaten away at them, and if the glass windows fell on you, goodbye head. It would be safer in a forest than in a city now. Which was the reverse of what people used to think.

"It was the small normal things that bothered me the most. Somebody's old diary, with the words melting off the pages. The hats. The shoes--they were worse than the hats, and it was worse if there were two shoes the same. The kids' toys. The strollers minus the babies.

"The whole place was like a doll's house that had been turned upside down and stepped on. Out of one shop there was a trail of bright T-shirts, like huge cloth footprints, going all along the sidewalk. Someone must have smashed in throuugh the window and robbed the place, though why did they think a bundle of T-shirts was going to do them any good? There was a furniture store spewing chair arms and legs and leather cushions onto the sidewalk, and an eyeglasses place with high-fashion frames, gold and silver--nobody had bothered to take those. A pharmacy--they'd trashed it completely, looking for party drugs...."

--Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood

My 2nd Quiche

My 2nd Quiche
Originally uploaded by baseballpajamas

...was not as good as I had hoped; certainly not as good as the first one, a couple weeks ago.


Ah well.





Maple sausage, cheddar, and spinach.

Sick Girl Noontime Crash

Sick Girl Noontime Crash
Originally uploaded by baseballpajamas

-Rob (mobile)

Lux Interior, Rest in Peace

The copyright image above is borrowed with the good graces of photographer Mike Leach, who retains all the rights he want to retain and who has a fabulous collection of rock show awesomeness covering the last 30 years at: http://www.bestrockphotos.com/

Go there. Spend money. Put some rock history on your wall.

This week I learned from the novelist Colson Whitehead (who should probably be working on his next novel instead of confirming such things) that Lux Interior died last year.

Lux Interior, of course, was the frontman for the crazed psychobilly band The Cramps.

I saw them in 1984 at a little low-ceilinged place in Seattle called The Golden Crown (actual shot from that show appropriated above). Influential proto-grungers U-Men opened. Man, it was one of my most memorable shows.

At the time, Seattle was a post-Here-Come-the-Brides backwater; nothing like the self-satisfied metropolis it became in the late 90's. I was just out of college, and naive as hell. This show blew me away. I stood on a chair at the back of the room as Poison Ivy did her slinky ice queen thing and Lux Interior howled and perspired and crowd surfed and (literally) kicked a fan off the stage. I don't think I had ever seen someone stage dive before, and certainly I'd never seen crowd surfing. I remember standing on that chair, ceiling within reach, while the audience passed Lux toward the back of the room, surfing on their outstretched hands, looking (I thought) at me with a menacing look on his face. Like, This is life or death here, asshole. But I've never had such a wide grin on my face. It was glorious.

See also "Lux Interior's Astral Ascension" in the LA Weekly. The guy was something else.