Keep Reaching for the Stars

We do not make the top 500.

Summer List

As of yesterday, school is over for the year. As of today, summer begins for Teo.

My list:

- drink coffee (already working on that one)
- look out the window for a while (doing it now)
- File 10 months worth of desk-junk and stray papers
- go to Memphis, see Graceland and cousins, not necessarily in that order
- play a round of golf with mom & dad
- Transcribe 15 therapy sessions
- Analyze said transcriptions
- keep drinking coffee
- call everyone I know to say hello
- begin internship applications
- buy stock in coffee company
- read the 15 articles and 4 books required by my next training site
- go to Knoxville
- eat more fruit
- stay hydrated
- get out of bed at 6:30 five days a week, 7:00 one day, and 8:00 one day
- become major shareholder in coffee company
- watch less baseball, because, really, it only makes sense
- ride my bike
- run
- play tennis
- drive to Cincinatti
- coffee up!
- participate in corporate training and computer orientation for the new part-time job I took at a suburban hospital's adolescent inpatient psychiatric unit, a job I do not want, nor do I have time for, but I took it anyway, and they will be 2nd shifts, which, dontchaknow, means midnight
- keep writing dissertation and internship applications
- borrow more money
- become CEO of local coffee company
- scratch
- not bounce checks
- Help LB figure out whether the Prius or the Civic Hybrid is a better car
- clean the bathroom (should move that up the list)
- walk
- enjoy the lake
- prepare for absolute madness between September and February, during which time I will apply to approximately 10 or 12 internship sites, interview with those who call, attempt to get a Chicago site so that I don't have to, you know, blow up my life by moving, and prepare for all of this for six intense months while writing the dissertation and taking classes and being at the training site all for the pleasure of sitting and looking at a computer screen at 9:00 a.m. in late February to find out a) if I matched and b) if I have to move to freaking Montana, not that there's anything wrong with Montana, except that I don't want to be there
- enjoy a good cup of joe, despite driving the coffee company into the "ground(s)" by not having time or knowledge to run it properly

Ah, yes. Summer vacation just like I remembered it.

Drive In

I'm taking the little Pinatas to the drive in tonight. They've seen Cars already, but I haven't. I haven't been to a drive in theater in years; I'll provide a full report after our visit.

Zoom

My kids like Nascar and I can't figure that out. I don't really get it. They don't get into it enough to follow particular drivers or care all that much who wins, but they seem to like watching it. Personally, it's not really my cup of tea, but it's fine that my kids like it, I guess.

I come from a town where people put out American flags and Nascar banners during the summer. There's a dirt track that holds races every Sunday night about four miles from where I grew up. On muggy nights, the sound from the track carried all the way to my house and I could hear the cars racing as I went to bed as a kid.

And still, I never got into it.

Whoa

I made wine. Actually, I just bottled it this week. I made five gallons of it two and a half years ago. It's good. My posts may make even less sense now.

I made wine . . . (!)

The Border

My earlier link to "South of the Border" reminded me of a story:

I don't live too far (in the grand scheme of things) from the U.S./Mexico border. A friend of mine was working on a video shoot at a beachfront nature park on the border at the same time that a cable news network had set up cameras to get some "border hopping" footage.

While he was there, a seal had beached himself and was unable to get back out into the water. Some men on the Mexico side of the border saw this, squeezed through the fence, helped the seal back into the ocean, and then went back through the fence into Mexico. The news network captured this footage and showed it later as "evidence of how easy it is to cross the fence into America".

Huh? They were helping a seal. I understand that people certainly do hop the border and am not suggesting that it never happens. But for crying out loud, the guys were rescuing a seal. And then they went home.

Can't top Vin

Vinnissimo has hipped us to the beauty of Tennessee, but I'd like to share a link of my own: This is possibly the most horrible place on earth. If you've driven down I-95 through the Carolinas (such as driving from NY to Florida), you've seen the signs and passed the place. Just awful.

Now back to Vin's lovely tribute to the beauty of Tennessee.

bonnaroo and tennessee

bonneroo
peace love & understanding
smoky mountain cabins and chalets
moon pies
the opry
mlk
dollywood
jack
chattanooga
mammoth cave - largest know cave
smoky mountain national park
big south fork
land between the lakes
stone door
fall creek falls
team green

Robots

I need to get me some of them robots.

Not a Punchline in Sight

Friday marked my last day at the VA. My one-year rotation is up, and I'm moving on. After six months in the outpatient clinic and five-plus months in the inpatient psychiatric unit--I did diagnostics as well as individual and group therapy on both rotations--I am left with the feeling that I have just scratched the surface of what I'm really trying to learn. This was the most profound experience of my working life, and it was easily the most important work I've ever done. Nothing is a close second.

It really was a remarkable experience, in that it was exceptionally hard, but unbelievably rewarding. Some days I came home and worried, worried, worried. I was moved to many throat-lumps and more than a few tears during the actual work when on the job, and I stayed awake at night thinking about the people with whom I worked more than a few times. There were some moments that were very much life-or-death. There were times when I was very green--an absolute novice. Scared and unsure and insecure.

But at the same time, the work was phenomenal, the staff was brilliant, and the Vets were the best group of people I've had the honor to work with.

I will miss that place. Tuesday will come, and I will be sad not to have the 6:00 a.m. wake-up call and traffic tie-up on the way to the VA.

Contrary to popular belief, I will very likely never make any real money at this job...I'll be able to pay back my loans over a couple decades and I'll be able to pay my rent, and that's about it. But if I leave the hardest job I've ever had, after it brought me to tears and wore me out after working many long, emotional hours for free...and yet I will miss it? Badly?

What that means is that for the next two years, as my finances crumble and my personal life disintigrates into a tiny box as I finish classes and I write a dissertation and apply for the 300 jobs in a pool of 700 highly qualified people (internship), I will still have no doubt whatsoever that I really really really really really want to do this forever.

Rip Vin Winkle

On May 5th, 2006 I received a trail end marker and took a left at Albuquerque. I then got lost in a canyon. It's a long story but I'm glad to be back. Last night I read the “Adios, Amigos y Amigas” post. I'm still catching up. Wow . . . I've missed you all sorely. Glad you are all still riding.

Fried Egg Sandwiches?

Do tell.

Sigh redux

My son's team played again against the team whose coach had been such a jerk last game. After Mrs. Pinata had a conversation with the league president about the behavior we'd seen, Mr. League President - who is a friend of ours - came and watched the game. And I have to give props to the previously horrid coach: He was much kinder and more encouraging to his team this time. A happy ending, I hope.

Evidence

Here it is (see below). He doesn't actually do the BANANAS part, but this clip still kills me.

The Sebastian Bach Paradox

The Sebastian Bach Paradox has come to light recently, as the cool/cheese/wrong/geek/bad/retro worlds have all collided and smashed into tiny bits.

My talent (?) as a writer cannot do this subject justice due to the complexity. I can only do this chronologically. See if you can follow. Spare your judgments until you have read the salient information in its entirety. And then, and only then, do I kindly ask for your help in telling me what to think.

First, I was born in 1968. Then, in 1975, I started playing drums. By 1980, I was 12, and I was okay at the instrument. Not bad actually. The late ‘70s, and I have chronicled this before, was bereft of good music in the Chicago suburbs. Far removed from the hipness of the East Village, I was left with REO Speedwagon.

Then. Late ’80. Rush. Moving Pictures. Changed my world. Changed everything. My obsession with the band was embarrassingly thorough from 1980 until 1986. I wasn’t aware that liking the band was a bad idea until I showed up at music school in 1987. Me and my Rush records went underground as I attempted to act “cool” and like jazz fusion (Minor story digression: Hiding Rush records in favor of fusion is, indeed, as pathetic as it sounds. I am NOT making an argument for fusion. I am merely recounting the facts. The story of my musical taste winds up with a good ending, but not until about 1991, 1994, then 1999, and then again recently.)

Back to the story. I’ve still bought the new Rush records out of an obligation to my adolescence, and to the fact that I learned a lot of drumming from my 6 year immersion. I don’t talk about it, except with my friend E who is also an embarrassingly pathetic fan who has also led the confusing life of a longtime fan of a geeky Canadian rock power trio.

And this is where we find the beginning of the Sebastian Bach Paradox. Being a Rush fan is confusing.

Teo, is that your point? No. As Wallace Shawn said in the Princess Bride, “Wait ‘til I get going!”

Sebastian Bach. An odd man with an odd bit of 1990s fame, a tall man, a loud man, a guy from Jersey with an hysterical stage name, and a guy that never really did much for me as a musician when he was selling millions with Skid Row. They were huge in the early ‘90s, and they were fine, but I wasn’t in that world. I was kinda tuned into them for a while because (musician name-dropping warning here) I recorded a record in the same studio where they recorded a record. That doesn’t mean anything at all, other than at the time, it’s what my band (real name: Trainwreck) told people whom we wanted to impress with our rockness.

Then music changed, Skid Row stopped selling records, I moved out of Jersey a couple times, and we find ourselves in 2002 or so. I see Sebastian Bach is playing on Broadway, and I kind of though, “Oh,” and that’s about it. Then we find ourselves in 2005, and one of those MTV or VH1 shows shows a glimpse of good ole S.B. at his house in Jersey with his wife. Seems like a nice, funny, kinda wacky guy, in a now-I’m-rich-and-a-little-fat kind of way. He was kind of endearing.

THEN, it’s 2006, and I watch an episode of The Gilmore Girls, and I guess they have this band that’s part of one of the side-story lines, and it’s a cover band that is pretty funny in how they “bring the rock” and such. They’re bad, but they’re good bad, and they’re funny. And they’re doing this funny version of a Gwen Stefani song, you know, the "Hollaback Girl" one about bananas. So it’s recent. And it’s funny. And I look up from my book, and there’s Sebastian Bach, on the Gilmore Girls, singing a Gwen Stefani song, about not being a Hollaback Girl.

Do you see how worlds are starting to collide? Not finished yet.

Not only is he doing the funny cover on G.G., but he acts a little, and he flat-out cracks me up. I’m sitting there trying to explain the incongruity of all of this to LB, who has an idea of the incongruity of it due to my sudden interest in the G.G., but really, unless you knew the world of Skid Row and S.B., you really can’t understand the brilliance of that casting decision.

And at that point, I decided, Sebastian Bach is cool. I will defend Sebastian Bach. He is okay.

Last week.

Flipping cable, I run across VH1, which apparently is now the heavy metal channel (an entire separate blog post on that one, to be sure). Anyway, there’s Sebastian, along with some other metal guys. And they are in a new reality show about a new supermetalgroup for the purposes of getting some VH1 ratings. Fine! There’s Sebastian. My guy. I defend Sebastian. I watch for a while, mildly intrigued.

Sebastian Bach was wearing a Rush t-shirt.

The paradox.

Does this now mean that Rush is cool? My instinct says no. But we have retro (it was a shirt from 1980 or ’81, and believe me I would know, and that was a good era for the band). And we have S.B., who freaking played a Gwen song on G.G. and sold it, and we have a guy who I actually think kind of believes in his music, even if it doesn’t sell records anymore, and we have kind of a good guy, and one who is comfortable enough in his own skin to do the Gwen/G.G. thing and also a cheesy reality show and also wear a Rush t-shirt throughout the whole episode.

So,
#1 is Sebastian Bach cool?

And,
#2 is Rush cool?

If no to #1, then how do we explain the Gwen/G.G. thing?
And if yes to #1, then how do we answer #2? Does this vindicate my decision to purchase this album in 1982? Or this one in 2002?

I do not know what to make of any of that.

Sigh.

It was a busy week, so the blog was quiet.

My older son is in Little League playoffs right now. Some of you may recall my previous post (or posts?) about the lunacy of youth sports in southern California, and things haven't become more sensible since then. Overall, I have to say that both of my kids have been lucky to play for good coaches who tend to do a nice job of being both encouraging and instructive with regard to the fundamentals of the sport. Most coaches are good, decent folk who have the best interest of the kids in mind and do a great job - as volunteers - to make the sport fun and instructive.

Sadly, in his team's opening round game, they faced a team whose coach has taken a decidedly different approach to working with kids. His methodology is comprised of varying amounts of the following ingredients:

1. Screaming
2. Yelling
3. Swearing
4. Bullying
5. Public humiliation
6. Acting like an idiot

At one point, some fielding errors on the part of the opposing team allowed a player from my son's team to advance from first base to third base. The opposing team's coach stormed out of the dugout, pointed at one of the players on his team, and screamed "that was your fault!". Shortly thereafter, one of his players was not moving quick enough for him, so he screamed, "Throw the damn ball!". He also screamed "what part of second base don't you understand?" to the right fielder for throwing the ball to the wrong spot.

These kids are between the ages of 8 and 11. 8 and 11.

I won't go into the rest of the story (including my reaction and my wife's efforts to keep me from creating an incident that might have landed me on CNN), but the whole thing has me quite sickened. My son's team won the game by a comfortable margin, which only underscores the ineffectiveness of the bully's coaching methods. Even though my son didn't play for the idiot in question, I wanted the guy off the field and - most importantly - away from kids.

I like youth sports and what they strive to achieve in the lives of kids. However, I can't stand the bullying and abusive behavior I see from a small (but unfortunately not small enough) minority of parents and coaches. It makes me sad.

The only bright spot in the story is that I sat down with my sons after the game to talk about the bully coach's behavior. When I told my older son that I'd remove him from any team coached by a bully, he agreed with me and smiled. (And he expressed to me how much he appreciates his current coaches, which was nice.) My younger son simply looked at me and said, "that man should be in jail". And I agree. If you bully kids, you should go to jail. I'm not sure what the charges should be or how long you should be in there, but there should be some sort of incarceration.

Note To Blog

Things that need attention, to which I will attend shortly:

- Current reading list
- Cognitive/Neuropsychology
- The Sebastian Bach Paradox
- Fried Egg Sandwiches
- A recent and disturbing inability to spell

Stay tuened. (!)