unparalleled finger dexterity

Eyes

2008-12-17T21:46:00.002-06:00

Maybe it was too much USA Network or just too damn much 80's nostalgia, but I can't get In Your Eyes out of my mind. "Eyes" is a favorite body system of my daughter's. Likely, because "digestive" gives her trouble on the third syllable. She can, though, say "sheek," "nose," tees" and "ears" just fine, thank you very much.

This is her, last Christmas. She's a different child today, on the verge of her second Christmas. But the eyes are the same. I don't know if they will ever change and I hope they don't. I can't imagine, yet, what they will see.

Radio Days

2008-11-13T22:13:00.005-06:00

The radio in my car no longer works. I do not have Sirius or XM or my iPod plugged in to my lighter or however you do that. I just have a radio with an antenna. Except it no longer works.

Why am I thinking, much less blogging, about this? Well, obviously, because it's more important that anything else in the world. The spastic writhings of Wall Street's death dance? Extrasolar planets? Where's Waldo? These are the concerns of the superficial.

No, I am blogging about my radio because I think we, as a society and as a world, are losing out on our ability to be surprised. Take my iPod, for example. It learns my preferences so that it's not randomly shuffling. It's giving me what it thinks I want to hear.

I remember a time when I would drive the miles from Westfield to South Bend and I would hit that patch of nothing but static and bad country music somewhere in Pennsylvania and I would just want to swerve into oncoming traffic and explode in a tinkle of horn blaring, brake sounds and tinkling glass. Anything to escape the horribleness of the music.

And then I would be saved. "My Perogative." Something. Something with a hook. And I would remember those bus rides in high school after a basketball game when we'd all be singing "My Perogative." We were, arguably, the least urban and, likely, the least musical of any boys school in New Jersey's history. And as the final, synthesized notes faded into a commercial, I'd be tens of miles beyond where I was and now I was going somewhere.

That was the power of radio, to me. It could control you, in a way, as much as you controlled it. It'd give you those moments of utter perfection, of almost cinematic production values -- think "In Your Eyes" while making out in your Cutlass Supreme in the driving New Jersey Rain.

Calling in to the radio was something that amazed me to no end. Just by getting through to the deejay, I was able to influence the tens of listeners who waited in their bedrooms, their finger poised over their boombox's "record" button, listening for the perfect track. Getting through to that girl (God I loved her voice) who hosted "Mandatory Morrissey" on WHTG.

My point is that iPod's don't give you that. Satellite doesn't give you that. You lose the community of listeners. You lose the thrill of "OHMYGODILOVETHISSONG!!!!!" You lose radio days.

Good Times

2008-11-05T08:22:00.005-06:00

Good times, for a change.

This morning, as I drove my daughter to school in the heavy, soupy fog of autumnal Orleans, I could not help but think that this dawn differed. This morning mattered in a manner morning's hadn't in so many, many years.

Last night, we elected a transcendent figure. He may even be transplendent. Obama is more than black, but it's so important that he is. He instantly changed the face of America in a way that no amount of pop culture diplomacy could have. Sorry, Kanye.

Now, I have never been taken by Rev. Jesse Jackson, but I was moved by the imagery of his Grant Park tears more than any other of the many, many wonderful scenes from last night. As flotsam on the current of history, Rev. Jackson has often been between the devil and the deep blue sea. He was on the balcony, and on the ballot, and I was just taken by the emotion that he showed.

So, we have an historic opportunity here and it's down to us not to squander it. In all those tens of millions of ballots, we re-ignited the torch that we have held aloft to the world for these centuries. We have, on this morning and in those votes, become again the hope to the forlorn and the fantastic. For whatever reason, though, the Sudanese government still hates us.

None of this is said to denigrate Sen. McCain. His concession speech was marvelous. The fact that his supporters booed his grace and decency struck me as the perfect snap-shot of his campaign, one that was forced to embrace anger and negativity in order to rally the mean Republican to his cause. Compare and contrast the scenes of that Arizona resort to those from that park on the shores of the great waters.

I cannot wait for January.

Photo credit: AP Photo/David Guttenfelder

Good Times

2008-11-03T23:08:00.007-06:00

Credit: http://blogs.princeton.edu/wri152-3/sdsherma/archives/001518.html

Good times for a change

See the luck I've had

would make a good man turn bad

So please, please, please

let me, let me, let me get what I want

Good times for a change

See the luck I've had

would make a good man turn bad

So please, please, please
let me, let me, let me get what I want

Haven't had a dream

In a long time

see the life I've had

would make a good man bad

For once in my life

let me get what I want

Lord knows it would be the first time
Lord knows it would be the first time

- S. P. Morrissey

Undecided

2008-10-28T19:39:00.002-05:00

If you are still undecided as to what button you will push on 4 November, may I please suggest that you are an idiot?

Here's the deal: if you make more than $250,000 per year and you have a y-chromosome but do not have a mother, sister, wife or daughter, please go right on ahead and vote McCain/Palin. If you do not believe that science is an imperfect's way of glimpsing the perfect, please go right ahead and vote McCain/Palin. Finally, if you believe that we, as a nation, are better off today than we were eight years ago, go right ahead and vote McCain/Palin. Well, if you can manage to pry the foil hat from your eyes and scuttle to the polling place, that is.

I'm voting Obama/Biden for a number of reasons. Primary among them is that I lost all of my respect for McCain the candidate when he selected Governor Palin, a political figure so bereft of national substance that she is nothing more than Dan Quayle with a uterus. She impresses me as a woman devoid of curiosity of the world around her. And she scares the absolute mess out of me.

In the event that McCain wins and dies, statistically relevant possibilities both, SHE becomes President. That would make her boss of America, rather than just boss of the Senate. She would nominate Supreme Court justices, when she could not name a single, solitary case other than Roe versus Wade. Brown versus Board of Education was not important enough to appear on her radar. Griswold versus Connecticut never affected her. Terry versus Ohio? Marbury versus Madison? The Amiable Nancy? Sarah? Anything?

But it doesn't stop there. The fruit fly comment killed me. I mean, come on. You're child has Down Syndrome and you're going to roll your eyes at scientists? Are you going to have the Christian Scientists draft your health care legislation? Well, it would save a boatload of money, I guess, and they sure as spit-fire must be scientists, right?! I think the fruit fly comment got me so bad because it showed that she's more than happy to sacrifice my child, or my wife or whoever's child or wife or parent at the altar of her wackadoo belief system. Makes my choice pretty damn easy.

Alright, so why do I like Obama? First, he's an excellent orator. Second, he has passion. Third, he's a smoker. I love that for the simple fact that I want to see the President standing next to fourteen secretaries, two janitors and Allen from accounting in the February drizzle in the White House smoking pit.

For his policy points, which I mostly like, please see Senator Obama's website.

For a much better point of view, please see: http://www.newsweek.com/id/163896

Streetcar

2008-10-25T07:54:00.002-05:00

I rode the streetcar today. How I waited to do so until today is anyone's guess, but there you are. Gasoline is down well over $1.30 from the summer, so I didn't really do it to save money.

I did it because I love the streetcar. You should, too. I love that they follow, as the whole City does, the curves of the River -- that you feel the lean, this way and that, as you vroom along.

I love the pop and the jolt and the doodoodoodoodoodoo of the idle.

Most of all, though, I love the scenes. You miss all that in your car. You miss the lawyer, maids, busboys and barbacks getting their days underway. You miss the dazed coeds going home -- going home at seven in the morning. Bust mostly, you miss the City herself. The oaks and the offal. The homes and the homeless. Cutting down the middle of the Avenue, there is something so incredibly perfect about riding the streetcar and folding yourself into the wooden seat. You see it all.

To learn more: http://www.railwaypreservation.com/vintagetrolley/neworleans.htm

"Hello darkness, my old friend....."

2008-10-24T07:49:00.002-05:00

While I could burn a few neurons discussing the Presidential race or perhaps, maritime piracy, I'd rather talk about Ty.

Saturday presents yet one more seminal moment in college football for all the nation to watch. Well, for all of those not watching the Ohio State/Penn State game, at any rate. For those seventeen people, Notre Dame's trip to Starbuck-nation should finally kill the demon that is Ty Willingham. Then again, Saw V opens this weekend, so you never know.

Ty Willingham was a bad coach and a major contributor to ND's slide into football irrelevance. It's going to be very interesting to watch the game and listen to Bob Davie call it. Yeah. If they let Mark May call it with him we're in for a treat.

Enjoy.

So far, so good

2008-10-23T22:07:00.002-05:00

Alright. I got things sort of where I want them to be.

So I guess I should explain the name of this blog. I wish I could tell you the name of the clever swine who came up with it in the first place, but he was "the windy day place-kick holder" on the 1990 Notre Dame football team. "Unparalleled Finger Dexterity" was the name of his fictional/fantasy autobiography. I never forgot that.

Seems fitting, what with all the typing.

Just getting a feel for this

2008-10-23T18:33:00.001-05:00

And it's clumsy as the front seat of my Cutlass Supreme.