Marking Time

A few random newsbits and stories on topics close to my heart:

First the obvious: John “Two Americas” Edwards threw his support to Obama today. Most likely he saw those exit poll numbers that showed about 35% of Clinton voters (poor or working class, white, Southern — all Edwards’ specialties) in West Virginia said they’d vote for McCain instead of Obama if Obama got the nomination. That’s a disconcerting number for a Progressive like Edwards, so he chose today to finally pull the trigger and say Obama is a better option than Clinton for cutting into the poverty level (Edwards’ new anti-poverty initiative, Half in Ten, seeks to cut the number of people living below the poverty line in half by 2018… it won’t happen, but we might as well aim high anyway). The bonus is that by endorsing today, Edwards makes clear to his supporters that McCain is not even a remotely good choice for those who share Edwards’ priorities. —– It was a nice touch, and again -as I’ve said before- a strong indication that Edwards is vying for either the VP nod or a major cabinet position in an Obama administration. I think he’d be great, personally. Maybe more effective as Secretary of Labor, Agriculture or Commerce, but as a VP he would shore up Obama’s support among the possible Democratic turncoats who consider McCain a reasonable option.

Apropos of nothing: A poll of the U.S. asking what were the cities with the rudest drivers puts Miami at the top of that list. Second is Boston. This was no surprise to me, though I actually like driving there — at least they know what they’re doing and, for example, don’t need TWO LANES empty to make a right turn on red like some morons around here. New York City was third, and my beloved Chicago was way down at #8 ! Finally some good news.  We’re just nice over here in the Midwest. Youse could learn a little something from us.

Latest sign of the recession: people are’t buying porn like they used to.  Yup, sales of DVDs and whatnot are down 30% from last year. And last year, it was already down 11% from previous years. Don’t kid yourself, though. The industry is still turning huge profits. Probably what’s happening is that the internet has cut significantly into the sale of DVDs and other hard goods (pun intended).

Speaking of DVDs, is anyone buying this b.s. about having to get a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player? In my studied, professional opinion, Blu-Ray’s increase in visual quality on an LCD High Def screen is nominal at best (because a regular DVD on an HD monitor looks pretty great already). Not to mention, what are we supposed to do with all our perfectly good, 7-10 year-old DVD players? Sometimes I hate all this American compulsion to keep up with technology, not to mention the planned obsolence for the prior generation’s product. I still use VHS to tape shows I can’t watch in person, and my father-in-law’s fifteen-year-old regular 8mm Sony video camera (which we got as a hand-me-down) is still more reliable than the piece of crap Canon DV minicam that I bought three years ago and has already broken twice. Bottom line: if you have not stepped up to a better TV yet, to get a great theater-like picture for a decent price, get a plasma screen from Sony, or even Panasonic, and stick with your regular DVD. The rest is just hot air.

The Tampa Bay Rays (they’re no longer Devils… what, did the Satanist lobby complain?) just took over first place from the Red Sox. Now I KNOW the Apocalypse is just around the corner.

My five-year-old Graham is already very interested in math and numbers, probably more than I ever was. His favorite book is Chicka Chicka 123 by Bill Martin, Michael Sampson & Lois Ehlert. He gets this warped numerical brain from his mother, who was a chemistry major in college before committing instead to the technical theater program. [It may seem like she did a complete 180-degree turn, but there's a good amount of chemistry and physics involved in really knowing about paints, lighting, color temperatures, sound, and set construction.]

Me, I prefer the metaphorical and social aspects of numbers. The context. The interpretation. The poetic possibility of the words “two” and “four” at the end of a line in a song. For instance, I used to look at historical books on baseball as a kid, with lists of statistics and comparisons. Not because I was interested in the numbers, just the guys… like what about their personality made them good performers? I did baseball cards, too, though I never bought very many and unfortunately did not save any.

We here in America, the “marketing” capital of the world, have a greater appreciation for demographics and statistics than we do for pure theoretical or academic mathematics. [Statistically, the number of residents here is now around 301,139,947.] Not that we can’t be fooled by more savvy interpreters who use numbers to mislead us… like publishing an average score rather than a median score to tout the quality of their product. (If you don’t know the difference, it just means you’re typical… not normal  but typical , because norms have a specific mathematical meaning in addition to a vague social one — not to mention: nobody who reads Marking Time is normal anyway. How could they be?)

I don’t know what the current international education rankings are, and I’m too lazy to look it up now, but U.S. school children have often been ranked outside the top ten in math and science when compared to other industrialized nations. But let’s not forget context : these rankings may or may not mean the other nations have smarter children. It more likely means that our U.S. priorities have skewed toward consumption and distribution rather than production of real goods, one of the main economic areas (other than medicine and finance) where math and science knowledge are most necessary. Look around you, where you are sitting right now. Where was the furniture made? Where was your shirt made? Your desktop phone or cell phone? And we already know that most if not all of your computer was built overseas. See… the numbers don’t lie.

So even though April is national poetry month, I’m going to swim against the tide and my own natural tendencies to publish a few hard, incontrovertible numbers and stats here this week. First (tomorrow) the socially relevant ones, then after that some trivial and temporary personal ones.

Yes, it’s spring — a time when Hollywood dumps most of its schlock before the summer blockbusters, a time when the attention of the 18-35 yearold male demographic turns to baseball (yes, I know I’m not 35 anymore, but let’s say  I am for the sake of argument), and a time when when a few key Democratic primaries are right around the corner. Hurray for April!

The schlock that shocks for today is something called Zombie Strippers, a real movie coming out in a week or two. It’s most likely a spoof or something not altogether serious. But it’s probably also a hack project with a bunch of cheap, easy jokes and a few lame scary scenes (plus some gratuitous T&A for those 18-35 year-old boys). Therefore, if you’re looking to get into a really good zombie comedy, go rent Shaun of the Dead, a cool, goofy British flick from about four years ago. Or if you gotta go out to a theater, see Simon Pegg from Shaun of the Dead in the new British/American comedy Run Fatboy Run, David Schwimmer’s first feature film directorial effort. The Fatboy script is by American actor/improv artist Michael Ian Black, who some of us may remember as the goofy bowling alley employee on the tv show Ed, but who is much better as a commentator or writer on such shows as “I Love the 80s”, Stella (the name of his comedy troupe), or in print for the hip literary journal McSweeney’s (founded by another fave of mine, author Dave Eggers).

Baseball-wise, take note that the Sox (both White and Red) are in first place today. Meanwhile the Cubs are a weird but exciting team to watch… the new Cardiac Kids, with an extra-inning game every three days or so. And up-and-coming pitcher Graham Nielsen had his first tee-ball practice yesterday. Right away, Dad got roped into being an assistant coach (oh, who am I kidding?, I loved it), and it turns out his manager Karen Fabishenko has some great teaching methods for these little squirts with the attention span of a chipmunk. (e.g. the glove is a “hungry alligator” that eats baseballs… this gets kids to squeeze their mitts like a gator’s mouth.)

I also note with great gladness (but not surprise) that favored Boomer-Rocker Bruce Springsteen is endorsing Obama for president today. If The Boss says it’s okay to vote for wisdom instead of “experience”… well then, it must be okay. As for Hillary’s experience claim, Irish peacemaker and Nobel laureate Lord David Trimble threw her under the bus a few weeks back for claiming she was “involved” in the peace process during BIll’s terms in office.

Finally, I’m immensely enjoying Stephen Colbert’s weeklong run in Philadelphia in advance of the upcoming Pennsylvania primary. Philly’s mayor was pretty funny on Monday, with some smart and practical perspectives on gun control. And Tuesday night, my boys (and Philly natives) The Roots were onstage with Stephen for a rousing performance. As for Obama’s so-called “elitist” comment, yeah, I admit he could have talked about Western PA more gently and in a more P.C. manner. (Barack admitted it, too.) But I think the fact that he even mentioned guns at all  is what mainly caused the stir. As Colbert ironically brought up on Monday’s show, the Philadephia “elitists” vs. the western PA “gun nuts” has been a battle brewing for over a year now, in the courts and in the news.

But by all means, get out your shotguns and go hunting for black bears, Pittsburghers. In my opinion, it’s better than wasting your time going to a Pirates game, and Mr. Colbert will love you for cutting down on the worldwide bear population.

If you don’t know anything about chaos theory except what you learned from Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park, you’re not alone. I don’t really know about it either. But ignorance never kept me from using a good metaphor before, so why start today?

The chaos to which I am referring is that which currently exists in my home. No, it’s not just the standard kid-created chaos of toys on the floor, jelly stains on the couch, and DVD cases in the bathtub. (Why? I ask you. What chaotic logic could have possessed him to… oh, never mind.)

This chaos is intentional and necessary, even if it’s just temporary. For you see, we’re getting new carpeting installed in two rooms today, and had to remove all the furniture to two other rooms. Graham’s bedroom is easy: a bed, a cheap desk, a couple of dressers, a nightstand, some toys — done! But it’s the family room – the legos-between-cushions, video-topheavy, musical, functional, pulsing, beating heart of any house– that took a lot more to clear out and clean up.

It was complicated by the fact that the big entertainment center had to be disassembled (dissembled? … let’s just say “taken apart”).

We had already re-painted much of the room over Christmas break, changing from earthtones to a nice lavender. But all the baseboards, and the whole area behind the big entertainment center, had been left unpainted until such time as we could do this take-apart thing. Which was yesterday. After work. The painting of the baseboards in advance of the new carpeting was saved until then, too. All of which meant that, between shifting furniture and washing out brushes and re-painting a few spots we missed at Christmas, I was not done until 1:30am. Granted, I took a couple of breaks between 5 pm and 1:30am. Nevertheless I was not a happy camper.

In fact, I was an irritable bear all night, as Sue bathed Graham and read to him and generally kept him out of my way. (Thanks, honey.) But I knew I would be like that, so I warned them early on that I would not be available for conferences or spider-killing for the rest of the night.

This is just how I get. I swear under my breath. I sigh. I bark at other people, and at myself for being such an idiot. I just hate the maintenance and upgrade process, both personally or professionally. Whether it’s putting in new bulbs and shrubs, or running new wire for a light fixture or stereo speakers, or installing software, or putting up displays in a classroom, it doesn’t matter. I don’t have the ability to keep that vision of the finished product out in front of me, all cleaned up or in a new color or twice as functional as before. I just go in expecting something to go wrong, and it usually does. (”If you build it, it will break”… I call this the Ecclesiastes Version of Field of Dreams.) Meanwhile, all I can see is the tedious task in front of me: the heavy particle-board shelf with stripped screws that I have to somehow keep together, the shoddy coaxial cable which I have to run to Radio Shack to get a replacement for, the uneven spackling job that I did on the wallboard, despite all my best efforts to scream and seethe and grit my teeth and make my best effort to get it smooth.

Probably the only situation where I actually enjoy the process itself, and taking my time to get it right, is when I’m building a piece of furniture. It’s like sculpting, for me at least. A hand-crafted piece, using very few power tools, takes awhile to complete. But along the way, that piece is a source of peace. I can listen to music. I can get out all the frustrations of the week by pressing a little harder with my electric sander, or shuttling a piece of fine-grit, handheld sandpaper a little faster across the surface of a good piece of maple. Even the writing process, which I generally do enjoy (for finding the right adjective is like finding the right size router bit and making a perfect groove), still has it’s moments of tedium. If it didn’t, if it wasn’t the product of some hard work, then it wouldn’t be worth much, right?

So I guess the real chaos for me, when I do the maintenance stuff that life brings me every day, is an inner chaos. It’s my own creeping frustration, my mistrust of myself — or of the folks in China or Sweden who built this two-bit thing that I’m now having to fix. My inner chaos far outstrips the chaos one can actually see when looking around the house, or my office at school (which is pretty bad, having gotten steadily more crowded with stuff since September). 

On the other hand, it’s my process, and no one else’s – my own brand of perverse perseverence, of bulling my way through a project till it’s done. So perhaps it’s valuable for that reason alone. It may not be infused with hope and cheerful enthusiasm. (And when I think of this, I remember suddenly that my father was the same way.) But it’s still okay. I get things done.

And tomorrow the carpeting will be done (the pros are installing it, arriving in about an hour). The painting, too (which I must admit I’m proud of, and pretty good at… in the sense of being careful, even anal about it… one of the very few things I am inclined to be anal about).

And when it’s done, I will be happy. Not happy that it looks good. No, that level of appreciation will not fully arrive for a few weeks. Tomorrow I will just be relieved we got it done, and it’s all over with – one more thing checked off the five-year to-do list. Sure, it will take over a week to get everything back where it belongs. But the main part of the tedium and heavy lifting will be done by 6pm today.

And then I’ll take my nap. Which I richly deserve, and which I will appreciate immediately –before, during, AND after, as you can probably guess.