Turkey on Mars

The throbbing cut on my knee is reminding me that Arizona is the land of jagged edges. Everything is sharp and gritty there, even the leaves on the trees. But I guess that's why it's beautiful. All that sunlight makes contrasts on every hard surface, either blazing light or shadow. Northern Arizona is the kind of place that nearly anyone can think they can take a National Geographic level picture, and they're probably right. But man, people have sand instead of lawns and there are rocks everywhere. As someone who played most of his games of kick the can on the lumpy, grass-covered landscape of Wisconsin, I can't imagine growing up in Arizona. All the kids in that state must have kneecaps that look like old baseballs left out in the rain.
My parents already bought the house they're going to retire in, and decided to have Thanksgiving out there to get us acquainted. Thanksgiving dinner in that strange place was a little like having the holiday meal in a restaurant, but all the right people were there, as well as all the key side dishes. The good thing about Arizona is that there are plenty of reasons to move around and burn off stuffing, so we did a lot of mountain biking and hiking over the weekend. As we hiked back from a particular vista, we passed a group on their way up to have a wedding, the bride and groom in shorts and hiking boots. Man, I hope I get married like that. Plus having it 2 miles from my parents house would be a pretty good way to get my mom to come to a wedding with less than 20 people, too.
The most bizarre moment of the weekend came when my brother and I were playing together (fiddle and mandolin) and my parents pulled out a ukulele and autoharp. Neither of them knows how to play either instrument, or really any musical instrument at all. My Dad kind of air-guitared his way along on the ukulele. I know my Dad will probably never learn how to play any instrument well, but at least he'll grin and have fun like the kid who's lucky enough to play the kettle drums in the school band. My mom on the other hand, she's just not a team player. She tried to corner me and get me to help her figure out how to play her autoharp, as if I could teach her because mandolins and autoharps are both made out of wood and have strings. I really tried to smile and help her a little, but eventually tension rose, picks flew and once again I was at the center of an argument that seemed to start out of nowhere. So we're never going to sit around a campfire playing "On Top of Old Smokey". In the mean time, I guess I'm thankful that I'm only arguing with my mom over an autoharp?

Roller Queen

Is it possible to nostalgic for 1990? I guess when your image of it is a cross between 1977, 1986 with a dash of the early 90's. Until last night, I hadn't been in a roller rink since my Freshman year of high school. From what I saw, I guess roller rinks are like bowling alleys in that they seem to defy time. Skateland even has the multi-colored disco lights that flash to the kaboompty-boomp of the music. The thing that really suprised me so much was the fact that a lot of the skaters were still doing little disco-shimmy moves to the beat. I should know though that there's a hardcore subculture for nearly everything, based on the groups I've come into contact with recently: flag collectors, co-ed synchronized swimming, sea-chantey singers. I'd really like to find bluegrass musicians that sang in Czech but I'm not counting on that one. I was tagging along with Emily who was at the Sunday-night open skate for roller derby practice. I'm finding myself more and more on the outskirts of the rollergirl scene, although I'm not going to let myself be a full-fledged groupie. I'm sure there's going to be plenty of middle aged men who remember the 1970's to fill that role.
Why so misty-eyed once inside Skateland? My first real date ever was a trip to an eerily, almost identical roller-rink somewhere outside of Pittsburgh. Earlier that Spring, I'd managed to catch the attention of Karen B. She was in the pom-pom team for the marching band, and I was in the trombone section. We met on the band trip to Florida. She was skinny with long, blonde, permed hair and into Slayer. Best of all, she was a speed-roller skater, not a roller ballerina, and that's why we were at the rink. I'd met her on the band trip to Orlando. She first started spending time on the trip with Joe, a recent friend of mine, so I hung out with them among others. I was indebted to Joe because he was recently responsble for helping me gain a shred of sex appeal, or at least helping me get noticed. We had both been in the school musical. Joe was into what was becoming hip-hop, and his Vanilla Ice hair cut and silk shirts showed it. We were assigned to the same dressing room and before performances, with Bobby Brown in the background, Joe showed me some dance moves. Pretty soon, I was making it "my prerogative" to jump into the inevitable open circle at high school dances, still sporting the khakis and button-down shirts that I always wore at the time. Over the course of the weekend in Florida, Karen and I became friends, simultaneously as Joe made the case for and then proceeded to slime his way out of going out with Karen. After the trip when Karen agreed to go on date with me, it ended the possiblity of friendship with Joe and me, and with it the chances of ever doing a synchronized dance routine at homecoming. Karen and I didn't work out, but at least that night at the roller rink, as we skated around to "The Humpty Dance", for the first time in my life I was out with a hot, fast, rocking BABE.

Oh the fire went wild

Well, after my post yesterday, I should definitely give the Rotunda a break. Just when I thought I was going to have to pack food and do laps around the Arundel Mills Mall looking for a parking space, I realized the new Johnny Cash movie was playing there, just around the corner. I sat back in one of those velour la-z-boys and enjoyed a fantastic couple hours of movie. Who knows how accurate it was, but as one of many fans who only grew up with the elder statesman Mr. Cash, it was so good to even get a fuzzy glimmer of the roots of his career that are only a legend to me. I haven't seen a musical biography this good since "What's Love Got To Do With It". For the same reasons that I thought the Aviator was a satisfying, disarming and confident movie, this one did what biographies always should do - just stick to portraying the reality of the characters and their story, instead of a half-baked psychological dissection. I was really surprised to see Joaquin Phoenix's resemblance, and how loose-limbed and rough edged he was. His Johnny Cash was simultaneously towering and broken. And as someone who grew up north of the Appalachians, I'm glad I now know what the big deal about June Carter was. I won't say too much more, because this movie's going to get enough good noise I'm sure, but I will say I think anbody who appreciates Johnny Cash, or music for that matter, won't be disappointed if they go.

The season of dark rooms and pale skin

Everybody gets a little layer of pudge around this time, right? For most people that thermal layer would be built up from a pleasent blend of sweet potatoes and cranberries, gravy and chocolate. It's a little different for me. I wouldn't be surprised if my skin gives off a neon yellow glow that makes me visible in the dark from the amount of artificial butter-flavored salt and grease in my system by the end of January.
It's the season of good movies.
I'm from a family of serious movie watchers. We can't go on a tropical vacation for more than four days without bonding in silence for a couple hours in the refrigerated air of a theater. In my nerdiest days, if I was stuck at home with nothing to do on a Friday night, going to a movie with my parents was a way to get out while still avoiding the awkwardness of my dad's silence and the pain of my mom's repeated, epic stories of couch shopping trips gone awry and christmas card debacles.
I spend a lot more time in the fresh air now. But this is the season when I revert to light-enhanced hibernation. Good movies in the summer come at the measured rate of billboards on a Nebraska blue highway. Then all of a sudden, come November, you're in Hong Kong, one light show stacked on top of the other.
It's almost more than I can handle. By the way, when's somebody going to see the light and open another art house in this town? Buffalo's got three! Based on the lines at the Charles right now, there's clearly enough sociology professors and musicians to fill up another indie theater. And the Rotunda don't count. That's just a velvet lined casket where 1st run movies from the Senator go to die. But oh that velvet - and real butter on the popcorn.
So a note on what I look for in awards season: I like flawed masterpieces. I like movies that go so far out on the edge, push the pedal so hard they start burning oil or pop a flat. The Cohen Brothers do it all the time. Jim Jarmusch too. It's one reason why A.I. might be my favorite movie of all time. I won't go into critical detail, but I love how that movie did so much and then ran right off the track at the end, at least to most people I talked to. I thought the ending was great, but it was still completely off-kilter. Sometimes the mistakes in a great, broken movie are a pea under 50 matresses, and the fun is mentally peeling the layers back to find the offending pebble. With Walk the LIne tonight, and the Squid and the Whale next week, I already get the sense I'm going to feel like a spoiled movie princess this year.

Shuffling to salvation

A few days ago I encountered jam session genius. It was a year ago when I noticed that a friend of mine who plays bass kept a set of drum brushes in his case. "You play drums?"
"A little. I just use these when I jam with other people."
"But what do you play on?"
"Anything. I just toss in a little shuffle sometimes."
A year later I was shopping for the glockenspiel mallets to make my little microphone for my Bob Barker Halloween costume, when I noticed a can full of drum brushes. I didn't even have to think about buying a pair. You see, as a lowly mandolin player without much time to practice, I often get a little left out. Part of the reason I got into bluegrass is because it's a lot like punk: learn three chords, start a band. Bluegrass typically flops tonally between major and minor - topically between going to the land of jubilee and dead girlfriends. As soon as a jam session gets into emotionally complicated, minor 7th territory, I usually end up heading to the kitchen to get beers and chop carrot sticks. Not anymore. At my most recent musical meetup, when the tune sheet started looking like a combination of poetry and calculus formulas, I just whipped out the brushes and started beatin' on a shoe box. All of a sudden I felt like I was backing up Lucinda Williams in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Just the right amount of a little boom chick, chugga-chugga. Granted, it only really sounds good with some kinds of music, mostly of the more twangy variety, but I'll take it. At least it makes me feel a little less like the kid who can't play street hockey because he doesn't have his own stick.

Gimme the keys

I went shopping for an electric piano last night, which for a guy who's played piano on and off for 25 years was an amazingly big step. I played a lot of classical piano growing up. It really wasn't too awful, but the performances I had to do in front of family Thanksgiving gatherings were pretty mortifying. Towards the end of college I remember this exchange with my mom at a brunch, with something like "Moon River" playing on a piano in the background:
"Eric, why can't you play anything like that? I always wished you could play like that."
"Because I've been taking classical lessons. If you wanted me to play stuff by Henry Mancini [which would have gone over better at Thanksgiving], why didn't you send me to a teacher that would have taught that kind of stuff?"
"Well, because classical teachers were easier to find."
Wow. I don't think Vladimir Horowitz ever had that conversation with his mom. Still, while I was good, it's not like I was on my way to Julliard. Going into college I still loved music, but I realized I barely even listened to classical and I associated modern piano with crushed velvet, Nordstrom's and Elton John. Plus if I was going to be some kind of musical artist, I wanted to play something I chose and made work. 8 years later, now that I own "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road", I've realized something after several attempts at a handful of stringed and wind instruments: My musical mind speaks piano. I'm a sort of Arnold Schwarzenegger of music. No matter how hard I try to learn the lanuguage of another instrument, I can't hide my native tongue. So I'm jumping in and enjoying my original instrument for a change and taking advantage of what I have already in me. But just like I'll never learn "Losing My Religion" on the mandolin, I'll never play anything by Billy Joel.

all mixed up

Anybody else feeling a little mixed up by the weather? I've lived north of the Mason-Dixon line for most of my life and as a kid there were years I'd had my first snowball fight by now. I've been out on my bike a little the past few days, and it's a little disorienting. Wonderful, but confusing. 34th street in Hampden is already getting decorated, and it feels like those subdivisions you see in Florida with the fake snow on top of the rancher houses. I've been itching to get out and hike and kick some leaves. I usually associate the outdoors with cold weather, probably because as a Boy Scout, we went on all our campouts in the fall and spring. At night I'd run from the fire to my tent and then try and cover as much of my head as possible short of leaving a breathing hole for my nose. In the morning, sometimes there would actually be frost on my shoes. Without getting out, I'd pull my clothes into my sleeping bag and clench my body, as if I could mentally make my heart beat faster to warm my shirt and pants more quickly. My tentmate and I would laugh at the cold and each other's eyes peeking out of the tops of our sacks and somebody in another tent moaning while the Scoutmaster tried to get him up to make breakfast. Textureslut organized a kickball game on Saturday that got chilly because it went nearly until dark. I finally felt like I was in the right time of year. I think it was the manhole cover as home base that really took me back. I'm looking forward to round 2. Anybody want to play kick the can?

Change-up

I've changed the name of my blog already. At first I thought it would be intersting to reclaim a goofy nickname pinned on me in middle school. Then I realized that if I ever met up with other bloggers I might start hearing "Hey, Bubblehead", which was something I never expected to get stuck on me as an adult. I also found out that a bubblehead is the name for a sailor in a submarine. There are a lot of sailors in and around Baltimore. I'm not a sailor.

So why "in the rumble seat" When I was a kid, we drove a sandy brown Impala station wagon with vinyl seats from Milwaukee deep into the Great Plains to see the national parks. There were several of these trips all through elementary school. Because we were a 6 person family, my sister and I were always sent to the back of the car to sit on the seat our family called the "rumbleseat". It was another mark of being the little ones, like eating off the kids menu and not getting into roller coasters. But what I didn't know was this seat was a gift. Back there we had an unadulterated view of the Western landscape, including all the things from cowboy songs. Of course, we saw everything backwards, but that meant we got the longest look goodbye. Everything raced by for the people in the middle. I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in one sitting in the rumble seat. And my sister and I could also make puppet shows for the cars behind us.

I think a rumble seat is the name for the bench on the back of a jeep, so it's the bumpiest.

Wicked Witch of the West

I've got that awful burning feeling in my chest that I'm sure almost anyone living in the city has had at one time or another when they've felt attacked or someone tried to get a way with stealing something of their's. I was having a wonderful stay at the Common Ground where I met a whole bunch of people and got almost no reading done (I wrote a little. I really like my new journal. It's one of those moleskeine reporter's books that flips open.) Just as I was thinking about packing up I looked out the front window and noticed a kid is checking out my folding bike. But he wasn't looking in the "oh, what a pretty bike" way. He was roughly putting his foot on the pedal, ringing the bell, playing with the front light. The anger rose in me, but I didn't want an unnecessary confrontation and I noticed a couple of other young guys nearby who looked like they might have been his friends. Then I realized he's non-chalantly unscrewing the light from the front of my bike, which unfortunately is easy to do by hand. I bolted out the front door and asked, "Do you have to look with your hands?" He seemed thrown off a little and took his hands off and said, "Oh, I'm just looking." His friends took it as a challenge though: "I can take your bike any time I want." "Sure you can. Whatever," I answered. So I managed to hold my ground, but I felt shaken and mad. I've had a lot of kids notice my bike. It's orange, it has small wheels becuase it's designed to fold so it looks like a BMX. Apparently a very tricked out BMX with all the gears and commuting equipment. That's funny, becuase I think of it as being kind of geeky.
So as much as I hate to give in, I think it's time for me to get a beater bike for riding and parking on the street. A real old upright bike like the ones the Wicked Witch of the West, Maria Von Trapp or Mr. McFeely rode. Actually I love these kind of bbikes, so the unfortunate inspiration provides me with an exciting oportunity to do my favorite thing - buy another bike. My dream bike has moustache handlebars and a creamy yellow frame, so it'll look classic but have all the speedy, techie fixins. This opportunity will get me part of the way. It might even be nice to get a Flying Pigeon. These are the Chinese bikes that at least a billion people and most of Cuba get around on. They're simple, hence easy to fix but you can drive a truck over them. I'll finally have a bike that befits the museum professional I am. Keep an eye out for me and my flying bowtie.

The Pretenders

I had a fantastic conversation over dinner tonight with my friends Scott and Mark that made me think it's all gonna be alright. It went something like this:

Scott:"Half of my job is me pretending to be an engineer."
Me (to Mark, a civil engineer): "Hey Mark, what does a real engineer act like?"
Mark: "I don't know I'm always pretending to be an engineer, too".
Me: "Wow. I've been pretending to be a curator for three years. That's why I got my job title changed."

We're all just winging it. Cool.

Step right up

So now I'm longer curator of the Flag House. Officially I am now "Director of Collections and Programs". I actually asked for it, partly because people always ask a lot more questions on tours when they find out you're the curator. I still have to answer all the questions we get about flags. Mostly the change came because I do about fifty things at the museum, and wanted my title to reflect it for the sake of my resume. I like the fact I'm a swiss army knife. Plus, everybody that I give any kind of direction is older than me, and now I have a title that reflects the wierdness. Thankfully, it's a small office, and everybody's pretty nice to each other. We don't hit happy hour, but we're nice. So up until now, I've been calling myself curator/roustabout because I'm literally the one who does all the heavy lifting in the building. I guess now since I'm the one in charge of putting on the show, I'll be director/side show barker.

Souper Bowl Season

Oh, tis the best time of the year. Soup season. I made my first public round last night for a meeting in my living room. Something new, an Algerian soup called Boukhtouf (Any Algerians in the house? Hope I didn't screw it up.) Off to a good start. Yummy sounds all around the room. I feel about soup the way Rodney at Dangerously Delicious feels about pie. He feels pretty strongly about soup too, but he's has to represent for the pie people. I would love to spend months traveling the country, poking into Grandmothers' kitchens, absorbing soup wisdom. Everybody around the world has soup. I don't think there's a culture without it. So now that I can't drink for the next few months (I'm taking medicine that does a job on my liver) perhaps I will start hanging around Belvedere Square and become the Cliff for Atwater's soup bar. Anyone want to be my Norm?

Dear Bjork

Dear Bjork,

It's taken me a couple days to write this. I've gone over our meeting, our few seconds together over and over again. Dreaming of meeting you for so long, the emptiness I feel now is so strange, like the windswept plains of your native Iceland. You see I've had a crush on you for so long, since junior year of high school when I first saw you bouncing around during an interview on MTV like the precocious wood sprite you are. I want to say I'm sorry, sorry for seeming to be just another stardazzled drunkard, simply trying to steal a few moments in your glow. I only wish I could reveal myself to you as the man of substance I am. I hope that we can meet someday and have a real conversation when I finally travel to the island of your birth.

Eric

Slow ride

Am I a Halloween grinch for zapping some particular little kid and their chaperone with the invisible death rays mounted in my car headlights (you know you wish you had them in your car too)? I was stuck on 37th street behind a line of cars thinking there was some kind of spontaneous parade, accident or an arrest going on ahead. Then I notice a little kid chucking candy into the back of one of the cars. Then a minute later he does it again and I realize HE"S BEING DRIVEN FROM HOUSE TO ROWHOUSE TO TRICK OR TREAT. At a geologic pace no less. Now if this was somewhere in rural Nebraska where the next farm over to bag some candy was 2 miles away, I could understand not making the kid earn his sugar. But, this is Baltimore, where we all live microscopically close to each other. I just hope the little guy isn't morbidly obese by age 10. Still, there were some really cute little kids working hard for the treats last night. Too bad I've got a 3rd floor apartment. Someday I'll be one of those guys with a coffin on my front lawn with a bowl of candy next to it and me hiding inside.