Are you ready for some (college) Football???

Ah, the most wonderful time of the year (school starting, boys out of the house, my office to myself, and the beginning of the college football season).

This season will be rough, I do believe.

But while the present is dark, the future is bright:



and what was all that yakety-yak-yak about? This:

Politics

Obama gave a masterful speech last night, echoing Kennedy from 60, setting forth a new "moonshot" moment--defining the next national challenge as energy independence--continuing his inspirational directive, and hitting McCain hard ("He doesn't get it").... of course, the Reps complained later that he was going negative.

I was feeling pretty good about it.

Then McCain announce Palin as his Veep choice. A woman. Young. Unafraid to go against party elders. A mom. A wife. A shot at history for the Reps (who weren't about to let the Dems have the historic election). A shot of energy for the GOP. A nod to conservatives. And a woman (did I mention that?).

Was it a craven attempt to get the Hill supporters? Sure. Did it work? For many, maybe not, given Palin's views on social issues (choice, gay rights, etc). But for others... those embittered PUMAs, those who just want a woman in the white house (no matter who), and those who were just too uncomfortable voting for an African-American male... well, John McCain pulled off a masterstroke.

He may have just won the election.

But 67 days is a looooooong time, and only time will tell.

Talk to Me (Cheadle, McCarthy, and Obama)

Last night, I stayed up late and watched Talk to Me, the flick from last year with Don Cheadle playing Petey Greene, a influential Washington DC, DJ.

Cheadle, who stars in Traitor (out tomorrow) was incredible... as usual. Folks, if you've never seen Boogie Nights, do yourself a favor and check it out ... sure, subject matter is porn -- ostensibly -- but what it's really about is growing up and (re-) discovering family... and it has a simply beautiful performance by Cheadle: comic, dramatic, heartbreaking.

Talk to Me tanked at the box office (just over 4.5 million... which isn't even a good opening weekend), and didn't do anything at the major awards (it took home one Independent Spirit award for Chiwetel Ejiofor in the supporting role of Greene's friend, confidante, and later manager, Hughes (Cheadle was nominated for lead actor, but lost to Philip Seymour Hoffman [another Boogie Nights alumn] for The Savages]. But it is a solid film. It feels like a 70s or 80s biopic, with a cursory survey of the life with larger set-pieces on major moments in Greene's life (Lisa, in just passing by the TV on the way to bed, said it felt like an TV movie... a pretty apt description), and it has trouble in the last 20 minutes when the film skips over 10 years and momentarily focuses on the Hughes character. But if you're a Cheadle fan, and you want to see another great performance, check it out.

-----------------------------------

The Road continues to haunt me (as it did Lisa as she read it last week)... I feel like I need to read it again soon.

-----------------------------------

On a completely different subject, the Dem convention ends tonight. Hil's speech on Tuesday was about as good as we could expect (as I don't think she hides her feelings well), hitting most of the items of the pro-Obama checklist in her appeal to her voters to back Obama--though she left off "leadership," an omission that the Fox-olytes jumped on immediately. For a moment there yesterday, it felt like John Oliver of The Daily Show was right about the Dems being a circus clown car, armed with a self-destruct button, and the fun was just waiting for it to get pushed: the completely clumsy handling by Pelosi of the acclimation vote was pitiful (the embarassing part is at the very end of the 1 hour long clip... jump to the end). Thankfully, President Clinton was there to give a rousing speech, extolling Obama's leadership. His speech, too, was as great as we could expect from him (because he CAN had his feelings, masking them behind solid speech-ifying). And Biden... he was awesome, even with some Freudian slips.

So tonight, it's Obama. At Mile High Stadium, with 70,000 in attendance. The Republicans are sure to continue their completely childish Messianic criticisms, but we'll see if Obama can succeed in calling on the ghosts of great past leaders in inspiring the nation about the future: this is the 45th anniversay of MLK's "I have a dream" speech (and Obama will be framed on his stage's set by neo-Classical columns meant to evoke those of the Lincoln Memorial, before which MLK delivered the address);

and doing what JFK did in '60, moving from the indoor Dem convention to deliver his acceptance speech at the LA Coliseum. In that speech he began for the first time to discuss the "New Frontier" [a mainstay of his administration] and urged voters:

"I hope that no American, considering the really critical issues facing this country, will waste his franchise by voting either for me or against me solely on account of my religious affiliation. It is not relevant. I want to stress, what some other political or religious leader may have said on this subject. It is not relevant what abuses may have existed in other countries or in other times. It is not relevant what pressures, if any, might conceivably be brought to bear on me. I am telling you now what you are entitled to know: that my decisions on any public policy will be my own—as an American, a Democrat and a free man."

Let's hope his address is as successful, and that he doesn't end up like those two leaders.

Tramps

Damn... I wish I was independently wealthy and could just follow the tour...

In the course of the past week ALONE, Bruce has performed these songs in concert...

Ricky Wants a Man of Her Own
Cynthia
Out in the Street
It's All Over Now
Tenth Avenue Freeze-out
Save the Last Dance for Me/Dancing in the Dark
Rockin' All Over the World

Then She Kissed Me
Adam Raised a Cain
Rendezvous
For You
Mountain of Love
Not Fade Away/She's the One
Detroit Medley
Little Queenie
Twist and Shout

Good Rockin' Tonight
Growin' Up
I'm Goin' Down
Held Up Without a Gun
Loose Ends
Murder Inc.
Mona/She's the One
I Walk the Line/I'm on Fire
I Fought the Law

Summertime Blues
Boom Boom
Darlington County
Part Man Part Monkey
Seven Nights to Rock
Gloria

Those are the rarities in the last four concerts alone... jeez, man.

Tiny Cats

As the convention begins...

PUMAs are PUSSIES... whining, snivelling, crying, mewling, pussies who make Joe Lieberman look like John FUCKING Wayne.

The cats need to shut the fuck up, and either get on board, or get the hell out of Dodge, er, Denver, er the Democratic Party (maybe you could work off some of that stress with your cougar sisters...).

'Nuff SAID.

Transition

Olympics: over (a great finish for both polo teams: silver... it's not gold, but being number two in the world is pretty freaking cool).

DNC convention: starts tonight. I like the Biden choice. Don't love it, but I was never going to get my pick (and no, that's not Hillary... no matter how hard McCain wants me to think she should have been the one).

Summer ending: hit the beach yesterday... even body-surfed... not the usual Bill Hydrophobic activity.

Summer ending: schools starts for both boys tomorrow (hoo ray).

UCLA football in less than a week...

Water FREAKING Polo!

It's just before quarter to six in the AM. Got up over an hour ago to watch the live streaming of the USA Water Polo match ... the semi-final against Serbia.

We will be playing for the GOLD FREAKING MEDAL in two days! The USA dismantled the Serbs 10-5, under the incredible work in goal of Merrill Moses. About midway through the game, whenever we'd make a stop on a shot, I could hear the crowd chanting. It sounded familiar but I couldn't quite make it out. It sounded like the Pauley crowd chanting "AIR BALL... AIR BALL" after an errant shot by the visitors. It didn't hit me until the beginning of the fourth quarter that they were chanting "MERRILL ... MERRILL"... oh, man, he was feeding off the energy, and he was making saves to spur on his team. How many saves?

You

won't

believe

this....







wait for it....














wait for it...























SIXTEEN SAVES. He stopped over three-quarter of the blockable shots.

Can't wait for someone to wake up around here... er, KYLE... Can't wait for him to see this... simply the best example of goal-tending I have ever seen.

And we play for the Gold just after midnight tomorrow night. Lisa and I will be in LA for a family wedding (a swanky affair)... so I need to check the NBC site to see if they'll be broadcasting the game live... if not, I need to bring my laptop to watch us play the Hungarians... maybe a little cocktail at the bar, then cheering our team on to victory.

Oh, and one more thing:

Hey, Serbia. That whole "we'll-throw-the-Italy-game-so-we-get-to-play-the-Americans-in-the-semis" thing... how'd that work out for you? Serbia, do you like apples? Well, how do you like them fuckin' apples. Serbia, you got served... beeeeyotch!

Sorry, got carried away there...

(btw, just checked out the NBC site... they won't be playing the Gold medal game until Sunday afternoon... kinda sad, given that this will be the first medal of any color since 88, and the first Gold (hopefully) since 04... NINETEEN OH FOUR... looks like I'm laptopping it tomorrow)

Cash

After all this talk of The Road and "Further On (Up the Road)"...

It's not much visually,


but, damn, that's devastating...

[the removal of the line "So let's take the good times as they go" sung (like Joey Ramone when performing "What a Wonderful World") by a man who's completely aware of his coming mortality... there are no good times left, child... until I meet your further on up...]

Lost on the Road

OK, I'm not sure if it's the fact that I've been pulling 12-15 hour days on this damn project or what, but I'm having trouble sleeping at night.

Of course, last night, it could have just been that I was haunted by The Road. I still have images of it going through my head (and not just the sepulchral charnel-house ones [though those are there, too])... images of a father and a son alone in a world. I keep thinking, could I be as good a father as "the man" is in the novel? As understanding to and of "the boy"? I wonder if life has become so complex that we can't conceive of a time where life (and survival) is such a clear-cut proposition [and here I've got to be careful... I had a buddy who felt the same way about the Michael Mann version of The Last of the Mohicans... and though he doesn't see it or won't admit it, I think that sort of philosophizing led to the subsequent end of his marriage]

I listened to the Slate Audio Book Club discussion of the novel. They spoke of its simultaneous profundity and simplicity (and not in a good way). Its overtly Hemingway-esque bluntness. The images of masculinity.

I don't know why I felt the need to find what others had felt. Was I trying to figure out why the ending hit me so hard? Did it hit others in the same fashion? (yes and no) And why did it not have me in tears, thinking of the ending later, and yet haunt my thoughts so?

Don't read unless you've finished the book:

Is it because the ending is somewhat (or according to some readers) overtly and too-easily hopeful? Is that why I don't cry in recollection? I know I seem to be harping on this, but you weren't there in the bathroom... I was a mess. I was crying hard.

The ending sequence had the father dying. I lost Ma. The father and son had some unspoken (but clearly defined to them) arrangement for one putting the other out of his misery if the first was to die. In those moments before death, even after we had decided to let her go, hearing her rasps, I wanted to die (... instead... too? I'm not sure.) So maybe that was the connection. But the father refuses to use the final bullet on the boy, telling him that he had wanted to, had planned to, but now cannot bring himself to. The father says that the boy must go on. To carry "the fire" in him. To find the other "good guys." The boy rails against this decision, this betrayal, this abandonment. I get that, too. In spades.

Then the boy is found by a man. And in the nihilist world of the novel, we expect the worst. Of course, what that worst is can fill a laundry list of nightmares: the boy is killed; the boy is raped; the boy is killed then eaten (we've already seen a locked basement filled with people [one of whom is a man with amputated legs], who are obviously being kept locked up as food storage, and a baby on a spit); or even the boy killing the man (even though we'd seen "the man" kill, this would be worse than the simple loss of hope the boy endured late in the book).

But it isn't the worst. It's the best. The man is traveling with his family (the boy son of which we had seen glimpses of earlier in the book), and the man takes him in to join his wife, son, and daughter.

(The boy returns alone to the body for one last goodbye, and here I was sure that the boy would commit suicide over the corpse of his father [it's not crystal clear, but the impression is that his mother had left the father and boy so she could kill herself]... I was sure this was going to happen. And when it didn't, that's when the waterworks started for me... why? Was I relieved that he didn't kill himself? Was I sad that he didn't kill himself to join his true parents instead of joining this new family? I'm still wrestling with that.)

And all of this happens in the last few pages of the book. Two hundred pages of death, hopelessness, and nihilism. Then this deus ex machina. For some readers, this is far too easy, too simple, too pat (oh, look the family has a daughter, an Eve to the boy's Adam).

The penultimate paragraph has irked some readers as well: we hear that the mother of the family later (how much later--an hour, a week, a year--we're not sure) asks the boy to talk to God, but he can't he can only talk to his father. The irksome have found this sudden insertion of religion too much in the final pages... of course, there's been god throughout the novel, it's not the first mention... just the first positive mention. Other irksome readers have complained about this undefined future time when the discussion takes place... is it too hopeful? The man had died of a cough... was it the poisonous atmosphere that killed him? and if so, wouldn't kill everyone?

Then the final paragraph hits. And it says nothing of the man, the boy, or the family he joins. It doesn't discuss what happened to the world or what will happen. It takes a rather flowing (in comparison to the short choppy prose that has led us here), very rich (in vocabulary, again a clear distinction to what preceded it), and almost poetic view of nature.

And it ends:

In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.

This mystery, too, has irked some readers, claiming that this insertion of "mystery" (whether it be religious [like the graph that precedes it] or New Age-y [which is really out of left field]) is heavy-handed.

The mystery doesn't bother me, but it does fascinate me: is the mystery the mystery of life ("older than man")? is it a subtle statement that life again will rise from the sea, that this is a new beginning? Is it that there were the things before man, and in this book we're seeing the end of man, but the last words send us back to nature... is it saying that man is just a blip on the radar, just a moment in time, and that continuum is something that we'll never know, because we aren't going to be there to see it all?

It IS a mystery.

Maybe that's why I can't get it out of my head.

Further On (Up the Road)

I used to be a voracious reader. Then I stopped teaching and started coding, and my tastes changed. Gone was fiction, that which was artifice and not real, replaced with coding manuals and reference guides. Since that day, I can probably count the novels I've finished on both hands (and maybe my feet)... I've started probably well over a hundred, but very few grabbed me enough to complete the task (and it had become work [ironically, when it was part of my work (prepping for classes), it was a joy; when it became a pastime, something mutated and it became a chore].

A few have stood out in that time: Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (though I could never get through his related Baroque Cycle). L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy. The Harry Potter series by JK Rowling (though especially The Prisoner of Azkaban... I still remember getting choked up while reading its ending aloud to Kyle).

But I usually need to be prodded. As I was this past month.

Kyle, in preparation for Rio Mesa's Honors English class, was assigned to read and annotate Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. So Kyle, Pa, Lisa and I all read the book together so we could discuss it. Lucky (or unlucky?) Kyle: he was able to talk through the book with a teacher who had read it before (Lisa's favorite book of all time), a teacher who hadn't (so sue me), and one of the greatest voracious readers of all time (Pa).

It truly is an incredible book. It is almost perfect, a combination of coming-of-age, social commentary, historical document, comedy, and love story (one for Harper Lee's father if the legend is correct). What a great book to teach the elements of fiction. And annotating it and discussing it made the experience all the better.

Then as that experience was ending, Entertainment Weekly came out with its "New Classics" list (and I had read many of the Top Ten: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Beloved [Toni Morrison, the author of MY favorite novel of all time, Song of Solomon], Mystic River [Dennis Lehane, the author of many of Lisa's and Pa's latestr readings], Maus [Art Spiegelman]). But the lists top novel of the last 25 year was Cormac McCarthy's The Road. I had never read any of his books (though I had been tempted to pick up No Country for Old Men after seeing the great Coen brothers film... and I'll need to discuss that later). The blurb was interesting, and Lisa (always looking after my literary [lack of] appetite) had the book in my hands within days.

And I started to read it. Slowly at first. Unsure of where it was taking me... though completely sure of the sense of absolute dread with which it was taking me. A story of a father and a son walking down the road, heading south, toward the ocean, after some unnamed, unexplained apocalypse. Hope and hopelessness, kindness and cruelty, love and fear. For the first several dozens of pages, nothing much happens. In fact, nothing much happens at all. But once pulled into this world, it's tough to get out. That was it for me as a reader, just as it was for the characters themselves.

Much foreshadowing about the ultimate fate of the father and son. The pistol the father carries has only one bullet, and much is cryptically made of their arrangement for the end of their lives' journey. As the novel moves on, layer upon layer of physicality and emotion is added. And at the end SPOILER ALERT

when the father dies, and the son goes back to mourn over his body

I wept.

Scratch that. I sobbed.

I cried harder than at any time since the funeral of my mom. Uncontrollable sobs, heaving, shaking. So much so, that I had to close the bathroom door (I was reading the final pages in the upstairs bath during breaks from work), in fear that Kyle might hear me from his room.

I don't know how long I was there, only that much blowing of nose, wiping of eyes, and deep inhalings to regulate my breath happened before I could leave the sanctuary of the bathroom.

And so instead of getting back to coding, I come back to the computer to key this in.

And I think of the Springsteen song, the title of which is the title of this post:

Where the road is dark and the seed is sowed
Where the gun is cocked and the bullet's cold
Where the miles are marked in the blood and gold
I'll meet you further on up the road

Got on my dead man's suit and my smilin' skull ring
My lucky graveyard boots and song to sing
I got a song to sing, keep me out of the cold
And I'll meet you further on up the road.

Further on up the road
Further on up the road
Where the way dark and the night is cold
One sunny mornin' we'll rise I know
And I'll meet you further on up the road.

Now I been out in the desert, just doin' my time
Searchin' through the dust, lookin' for a sign
If there's a light up ahead well brother I don't know
But I got this fever burnin' in my soul
So let's take the good times as they go
And I'll meet you further on up the road

Further on up the road
Further on up the road
Further on up the road
Further on up the road

One sunny mornin' we'll rise I know
And I'll meet you further on up the road
One sunny mornin' we'll rise I know
And I'll meet you further on up the road.

And I always thought the song was ultimately hopeful... is further on UP the road, not down... and yes, that makes a difference.

----------------------------------------

Oh, yeah, and about that Old Country... I know many hated the movie, or at least hated the last 20 minutes (after the fade to black, and the death of our protagonist), with its disjointedness and seemingly senselessness.

Lisa and I saw the movie with another couple, and the three of them were not happy campers when walking out of the theater... a collective WTF was sounded. But not me. Eighteen months earlier, I would have been right there with them. But in December of 07, I "got" the ending. After seeing all this death, the sheriff (the Tommy Lee Jones character) could no longer make sense of the world, nothing seemed to fit. After mom died in Dec of 06, I felt the same way (and still do if the 3x a day anti-depressants are any proof). There were many times in the year between Mom's passing and seeing Old Men when nothing made sense to me.

I got it. May you never get it.

Cormac McCarthy, you bloody brilliant bastard.

Slammed

Still slammed by work (and I think it's had an effect on my physical outlook as well: after multiple late nights and hardcore days (Thursday, I worked from 6am to 8pm with about a total of 1 hour break for eating in between [and stopping early only because of a hacker attack on our servers]; Friday, worked straight from 6am to 4pm with about 30 min of break... stopping only because I had hit a point where continuing would have meant another 4-6 hour binge and I just didn't want to do that), I was hit by a wave of nausea late Saturday night/early Sunday morning... maybe it was acid reflux [man, I have GOT to lose weight] since my throat was burning and tasting like I had been chewing on batteries [the only good thing was that by going to the kitchen at 1:30am to try to wash the taste away with water/tea/yogurt/fruit... I was able to watch Team USA's water polo team play and defeat China on Lisa's laptop on the counter]... the nausea didn't go away until last night, and all I did yesterday was sleep on the couch [effectively killing Pa's plans to buy a new car (four and a half months after his wreck)... plans that were put off from Saturday by a similar nauseated day for him]... went to sleep early last night and didn't wake until 6:15 [late for me]... and I could go back to bed with no arguments right now.

We pick up Kyle from UCLA water polo camp today... infrequent reports from him (via text... and only in reply to our requests/messages [yep, we've been relegated to teenage parent wasteland]) are that he's enjoying his time there, though a Hungarian shooter have been lighting him and the senior goalies up like a Christmas tree. Can't wait to hear the full scoop.

Friday's Olympic Opening Ceremonies were pretty damn cool, awesome, really (though that opening number with 2008 drummers was a little frightening with its robotic feel and intimidating numbers... which is what I assume was the intention of the hosts). Of course, knowing that Putin's lapdog was behind an invasion of Georgia at the same moment kinda killed the whole Olympic ideal (er, truce) vibe for me... didn't Medvedev get the damn Olympic memo?

Obama's veep announcement must be coming soon... I'm still holding out hope for Hagel or Powell, but I know that would piss off too many partisan Dems, so that's not gonna happen.

One last thing:

Can we please get a starting QB NOT made of glass??? Come on, Craft or Forcier... step up and lead us to ... well, if not greatness, at least in the right direction.

Back to work.

------------------------

UPDATE: Kyle's back from camp, I'm back to work, listening to the podcast of NPR's Most Emailed Stories... and I found this one. Parents, siblings, and friends, oh my... I hear you, sister, I hear you...

More Randomness

Another (almost) week passes and no blog entries... sorry. Work has been slamming me: a project that we had timelined to go out on September 15, was moved last week to...

wait for it...

August 13.

So let's just say that time's a little tight.

But there are some things that simply need mentioning:

Despite the fears (and projections) of a less than stellar football season starting next month (the consensus is that if we finish 6-6, that should be considered a success)... football season tickets arrived yesterday! Then when I was at a Ventura County Bruins alumni meeting last night, this arrived at the door:


(courtesy: the guys at the Bruins Nation blog)

The shirts are freaking sweet, and something Lisa has always thought the Athletic Dept should provide to fans... and they finally have (gotta love that Slick Rick). We're hoping to turn the Rose Bowl blue. And then win!


Another bit of news.

OK, Streets of Fire was a pretty cheesy flick... but it had a Springsteen title, and I remember when it came out in the summer of 84 (just as Born in the USA was gaining momentum), my buddy Kevin came down from school up in San Jose, and we checked it out in Westwood, where I was still in class. Sure there was no Springsteen in the flick, but any Walter Hill-directed film that could bring together a smokin' hot Diane Lane (yeah, I had a crush... kinda still do, as do many others), the screen debut of Willem Defoe, and a live performance from The Blasters... well, 'nuff said.


When we were coming back from JO's last week, we were listening to E Street Radio on Sirius, and we heard "The River"... and there was a moment in the song, and it was like I was hearing it for the first time... I figure that'll be my next song explication... but that's for another day... gotta get to work now...