Monthly Archives: July 2014

Iced Earth

29 Tuesday Jul 2014

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IcedEarth

Original Facebook post from March 11, 2012 5:01am – typed out on my iPhone as I lay awake in bed after hosting a party.

There’s a theory that holds that inebriation and exhaustion lead to creative writing. Let’s put that to the test. I suspect, personally, that those two states just lead to a relaxing of one’s social editor, their combined effects on me at this moment are certainly not going to lead to any wordsmithing on my part that will put me on a level with Hemingway or Faulkner or Melville, but maybe it will lead to a more truthful account, or perhaps a more error-laden account, of what I was feeling and thinking while I was at this concert.

The last concert I was at was the Foo Fighters and I’ve been meaning to write about that for months now, I’ve even got a good draft started; if you consider good exactly that which doesn’t describe what I was feeling while providing a stale, wooden recollection of what transpired. I should get drunk and try rewriting that.

But that was the last concert, and Friday night was the latest concert. Symphony X, whom I’ve heard, I’ve got some of their stuff and it’s good. Warbringer I don’t know and they didn’t really impact me. But Iced Earth, they are different story. Scott had sent me a few links before the concert, notably, their tribute to Dark City. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuwW9IVwZ0U

My thoughts about it as I watched it for the first time – yup, that’s metal and that’s a lot of sparks. Patton would approve: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs4v-zexx8M

But then I found myself at the concert, watching the pit, and the absolute joy that people in the pit were slamming with; they’d slam into each other, bouncing off and around and into themselves and the periphery of the pit and then they would find each other and grasp hands, pulling each other in for big bear hugs and a shout or two into the other metal head’s ear, pulling away and smiling, connecting, and then back to slamming.

They were living and they knew it and they celebrated with those around them.

Iced Earth’s lead singer stopped for a moment just beyond the half way mark of their set and addressed the audience. He spoke passionately about everything that was going wrong in the world today, or as a metal head would put it “all the stuff that’s fucked up”, and he spoke about his belief in the indomitable thing that is the human spirit and that’s when I began to connect with that band.

They were trying to speak to and sing about the very thing I had been watching – the mosh pit. For those who’ve never seen one live, let alone been in one, it’s hard to describe. There’s a benevolent violence to it. There’s obviously a big chunk of testosterone fueled gender-based display going on, as male after male slam into each other in a mock riot.

But there’s also a release, there were several women in the pit Friday night was well, casting off everything society tries to define them as and giving themselves over to the music and the moment, twirling themselves into the middle of a two-dozen strong melee and seeing where the random impacts send them hurtling.

And that’s where you see the beauty of the mosh pit, when the random chaos sends someone crashing through a group of strangers and onto the floor those same strangers turn to their downed colleague as one and set him upright again, there’s no danger of being trampled, this group of musical anarchists obeys that rule without pause or exception.

Time and time again I watched as five, six, seven people bent down and grabbed a hand, a belt, a shoulder, or a chunk of shirt and lent their strength to the whole to put their brother or sister back on their feet before the band’s guitarist could finish the CRUNCH-CRUNCH-CRUNCH of that current power chord.

I watched the pit and thought about the indomitable human spirit and about how, when the worst is upon us, we, as a species, have shown, again and again and again, the willingness to put aside our own immediate concerns and extend a hand to those who, through the random and chaotic events that surround them, have found themselves flat on their backs, ears ringing, heads spinning, ribs aching, fearful of what the future holds, trying to find their equilibrium, and suddenly in desperate need, cannot right themselves in time to escape harm.

In putting them upright, in helping the people around us that are the most vulnerable, we define the value we place in each individual life and affirm our own value. We find a joy in pulling that person out of harm’s way, if only for that moment it takes to pull them from the ground to their feet and send them back into the spinning violence of the pit, if only for that brief connection as palms meet, thumbs intertwine, and fingers grip, confirming that the help offered has been accepted and appreciated, before the metal-fueled tempo of our evening pushes us apart and the next stranger flies into our midst, desperate for purchase, as our hands reach out, indomitable, to provide it.

End of original post.

Thoughts looking back today: there are connections everywhere if we pay careful enough attention. The song the band played after the singer spoke was Anthem, which I ended up buying on the drive home. I didn’t realize it then, but the third verse would be reflective of the changes I would make in my life six months later. It’s interesting that there were already little hints about what I needed to be focused on cropping up in those things I found interesting or compelling. Is that the human brain’s insistence on finding coincidence in everything or the gentle nudge of the universe trying to push us onto the right path?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vz4yIgnFt0

Iced Earth – Anthem

In your eyes I see you’re desperate and in hunger
Reclaim your future, your past uncertain
See this child he’s raised in hate and in anger
His eyes wide open, his rage so focused

Torn asunder, our destiny is in sight
This is the anthem to celebrate your life
Torn asunder, our destiny is in sight
This is the anthem to celebrate your life

The single mother she is strained and she suffers
She slaves away her life in turmoil
The homeless man had it all and now has nothing
His spirit broken, plagued from injustice

Torn asunder, our destiny is in sight
This is the anthem to celebrate your life
Torn asunder, our destiny is in sight
This is the anthem to celebrate your life

We have the power make our lives what they are to be
Reconnect with our humanity
Transcend to a higher place, accepting reality
You are the key to the life you seek

Torn asunder, our destiny is in sight
This is the anthem to celebrate your life
Torn asunder, our destiny is in sight
This is the anthem to celebrate your life

Derailed

22 Tuesday Jul 2014

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Originally posted on Facebook on January 17th, 2012. A friend of mine then questioned why I would be so interested in the self-help books. My response followed.

I have my resolutions in place for 2012.

Be a better father
Be a better friend
Be a better boss
Exercise more
Lose weight
Swear less
Floss
Get up when I wake up – I hear this is good for you.
Eat better & cook more
Travel out of the country
Try something completely new, in this case I’ll be trying posing naked for a local artist
Read every book on this list and try to learn a few new things: http://liveboldandbloom.com/01/self-improvement/the-20-most-life-altering-concepts-ive-ever-embraced

No, I’m not so messed up that I need to read each of those self-help books. As I mentioned in a comment a few days ago (said comment: Yes, I am much more spontaneous since my divorce. Such a large change invited the opportunity to examine everything in my life and I’m trying to capitalize on that.), my divorce provided a catalyst to examine everything in my life.

More accurately, dealing with my father’s dementia, decline, and death started the derailment of my train off the neatly laid tracks that it had glided along all its life and the divorce was the thing that finished the job.

Looking back now, I can see that my initial response was to deny anything was going wrong, to do everything I could to keep the train on the track, especially when it came to my marriage. Once the divorce became inevitable, I then spent a lot of time looking to replace what I had lost.

I thought I could easily switch to a new set of tracks and continue on my mostly unmolested way. I assumed that everything in my life would continue to run smoothly. After a few years I realized that trying to replicate something that didn’t end up working, that failed for reasons I didn’t entirely understand, and that maybe wasn’t what I actually wanted might not be the best idea.

Even more humbling – I might not be able to do it. There might be no getting the engine out of the ditch. With that insight came the idea that maybe walking is better, or driving, or sailing, or whatever preferred travel metaphor the reader would like to substitute here.

And so I find myself exploring how I think about things, how I think about thinking about things, about how important the illusion of having control over the things around me is to the way I move through my life, and how I want to live and love and exist and parent as I move through my forties.

I don’t view those books as self-help as much as I view them as offering a toolkit for how to view the world differently. I’m not trying to lift the engine back onto the tracks now. I’m sitting down on the furrow it has gouged in the earth and I’m observing. I’m looking back at where I came from at the breakneck pace that derailed me in the first place. I’m looking ahead at where I want to go. I’m looking at the tracks and wondering if I want my path through life so precisely defined and regulated.

I’m looking at where I am and working to enjoy and accept that for what it is. Some of the concepts on that list are new ideas for me and I sense there is something to them that will allow me to move through the world in a different way, different being what I sense I need right now.

So, messed up? No. In *need* of those books? No. But I’m definitely re-examining everything and I feel like those books will offer perspectives I hadn’t considered. We’ll see how far I actually make it through that list.

 

Insights 2+ years later. I did okay with those resolutions, though I ended up reading only one book on the list – Simplify Your Life. It had a lot of good ideas that I’m still following up on. That year I also read Stephen Batchelor’s Living with the Devil, which dramatically changed the way I look at and move through the world.

http://www.amazon.com/Living-Devil-Stephen-Batchelor/dp/1594480877

Patton

21 Monday Jul 2014

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Patton

Originally posted on January 6th, 2012

Last Saturday I was in a small pharmacy in Nashua picking up the chemotherapy drugs for Patton. As I told the woman working behind the counter the “patient’s” name she asked me if he was named after the general. I replied that he was and she told me a story. She and her sisters had taken their great Aunt over to France last year to visit the WWII cemetery in Normandy. Her aunt had lost a brother in the war and had always wanted to visit his grave and the family had only just managed to find the time to do that recently.

While they were at the cemetery her great aunt was invited to lay a wreath at the marker of one of the unknown soldiers buried there. The person she would be laying the wreath with was Helen Patton, grand-daughter of General George S. Patton, Jr. We continued speaking while she rang up my purchase. When I left I found myself once again pondering how interconnected everything is, how choosing a name for my cat back in the 90s could somehow lead to a story about the grand-daughter of his namesake in a small pharmacy that I was visiting only because they provided veterinary drugs.

Patton’s blood work this morning revealed that his immune system has killed off most of his red blood cells since his transfusion last Tuesday. As a result, he is now dependent on blood transfusions just to maintain enough red blood cells to keep him alive.

At $1,000 a transfusion and with weekly transfusions needed for at least the next 4 weeks and possibly the next 8 weeks and with no certainty that he would ever respond to the medications he is on and could likely relapse after that, all the while feeling terrible – he spends all of his time hiding in his cat carrier now, refusing to even enjoy a last bask in the sun – I am making the difficult decision to end his suffering rather than prolong it with only a marginal chance at a return to health for him.

I’ll take that $1,000 I would have spent on his next transfusion and donate it to the Pat Brody shelter instead, helping dozens of cats instead of just one. And I’ll remind myself that the pain we feel at the loss of a loved pet is the price we pay to ensure that they had a chance to live a good life. It’s more than a fair exchange and one I’m certain I’ll pay several more times between now and when it’s my time to go.

http://www.catsontheweb.org/

About a month later I wrote this:

“Most nights in January I came home and looked for Patton. Some nights I wouldn’t look, because I remembered that he was dead.

Wednesday night was the first time I forgot to look for Patton AND the first time I wasn’t conscious of the fact that I didn’t have to look for him.

I can’t tell which sucks more; missing him every day or getting over missing him every day.”

I’d realized at that point that Patton was one of the reliable people I’d depended on at the start of my divorce. I was never alone in my new apartment because he’d come along with me. It didn’t seem like he cared much about the new smaller location as long as he still had his defined space next to me on the couch every night.

Subtleties

15 Tuesday Jul 2014

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VWspeedos
Originally posted January 6th 2012

Relevant to what Ranger M posted today: http://rangerm.wordpress.com/2014/07/14/slow-and-steady/

Consider the speedometers in my two VWs. In my Passat, a good highway cruising speed put the needle just shy of the 12 o’clock position on the dial, less than halfway around. I noticed in my Jetta that 72mph now falls significantly further along the dial’s face, closer to 2 o’clock position. I wonder if it is a deliberate design. They added in every 10 mph increment up to 80 and then reverted back to every 20 after that, so it’s not even a consistent design – something that traditionally, stereotypically, would have driven a German engineer a little batty – and so it smacks of marketing’s dark influence.

Have studies shown that drivers are happier when they feel they are getting more out of their car? Does having the needle sweep past the halfway mark on the speedo impact drivers subconsciously in some way? It took me a solid week to figure out why I felt I was driving faster on the highway, I didn’t notice until I drove the Passat recently. It’s such a subtle change. I’d be tempted to write it off as nothing more than a new speedo design if it weren’t for everything we know about how products are designed and marketed these days.

And that makes me wonder about the sustainability of our current car culture. When I bought my Passat in 2000 it was classified as a mid-sized car. It has a 1.8L 4-cylinder turbo charged engine that was officially rated at 150hp, though there were a lot of rumors that VW had quietly upped the horsepower to closer to180, slightly stepping on the toes of their stable mate’s Audi A4. In typical German fashion, VW’s engineers described the horsepower as “adequate”.

I can assure you the car has more than enough horsepower to rapidly put me over the speed limit even on the highway and still returned 32 mpg over its lifetime. It put those figures up as I averaged 72mph on the highway winter or summer. I suspect it would have been much closer to 40mpg had I been able to average 55mph without creating a risk to myself and others.

The 2012 Jetta Sportswagon I just purchased is considered a small car. I compared its measurements against the Passat when I was shopping, not being sure if I was comfortable with a small car. It turns out that they are nearly identical in size, with the Passat having a 5 in longer wheelbase and total overall length. In nearly all other interior and exterior measurements the Jetta is larger. So my 2012 “small” car is equivalent to its midsize cousin from 2000.

This suggests that the 2012 Passat must be larger and a quick review of the specs shows that it is. The wheelbase grew 4 inches and total length grew 6.5 inches from 2000. Most other interior or exterior dimensions either remained the same or grew. Horsepower is up, of course, being a key marketing factor even as many people now search for higher miles per gallon.

Today’s Passat has a 2.5L 5-cylinder engine rated at 170hp and is predicted to get exactly the same MPG as my 2000 Passat. What if they had just kept the same base engine and found ways to make it more efficient? Couldn’t that extra 20hp (again, assuming it’s underreported to spare Audi from cannibalized sales) have been sacrificed for better MPG? Our current model of building and selling cars is unsustainable. The models grow in all respects year to year, eating away at what could be significant leaps forward in MPG improvements, in order to sell the consumer on the new, improved, and bigger aspects.

Most of the family sedans today are packing more horsepower than the legitimate sports cars of my youth. Yet, there are no roadways where that horsepower can be safely applied. For example, my colleague’s G37 Infiniti sedan has 328hp. That car would probably be overpowered for most drivers at around 228hp, so those 100 extra horse just eat up extra gas. It’s good to see some companies pushing 40+MPG as their chief marketing aim, but we could have been there a decade ago.

As an aside, a special thanks to Jon for pointing out to me years and years ago that I was riding the clutch in my car. That 162,000 miles you see on the odometer are all on the original clutch.