Where I Am

Where I am, at the end of the day
with energy saving bulbs and an old Mac forgotten.
Something familiar in a red toolbox,
oily and aged, something of my grandfather
in saving of old tape, glues drying in bottles like
reminders of past visits, or just time elapsed.
Dust and wood chips, screws on the floor and even cracked concrete
all remind me that there is work to do. Not here,
other places, and here. I have to go surfing
the long board is joining up with the Mac
and wondering if they are just saved
and fodder for nostalgia or useful
like pliers and hammers.

Metro Bus Chronicles #3

Too much sugar in my coffee this morning. Starting out too much on the sweet side. It's hot already, the city has started to bake. A couple of guys get on the bus outside the India Sweet and Spice (how queer, the Sweet has been rubbed off the awning). They stand in the aisle next.to me, smelling of hair tonic and cardamom. "It's going to be a long weekend, isn't it?" I ask myself. I need to reach my destination slowly, the approach must be carefully timed to my thoughts. I have to leave some inspiration behind, in reserve, to brew for later tapping.

Go! Go! Raleigh

My friend Dana is again publishing an amazing blog at gogoraleigh.com. He was out of the scene for a while, but is back this year with what I think should be recognized as one of the best, most comprehensive civic blogs I've ever read. Would someone give this guy a Webby?

Everything from the highest level city development plans, to sports (he's an admitted Carolina and general ACC basketball addict) to where the next chain restaurant is opening down to local music events, if there is anything you want to know about what's happening in Raleigh, it's here. Speaking of Raleigh, and the fantastic time we spent there with Caro's friends and our families, if you want to see change happen fast, look at that place. If you think they're only building high-rise luxury towers with downtown loft living in places like Manhattan, Atlanta and Los Angeles, well then think again. With an air of objectivity, the site feeds you some insight into the impact that development is having on economy, civic pride and local activism. Growth (and the sprawl that goes with it) isn't all it's cracked up to be, and this site will give you some perspective to follow the impact of development on a mid-sized city. My aunt, who also lives in Raleigh, tells me developer greed is taking over there at the expense of sustainable and environmentally sound growth. It's in these mid-size cities where you can really see how fast change and growth can happen. Interesting stuff.

Y2K, Me and The American Dialect Society

The Y2K

This came up in a recent Google Alerts I have set to see when something with my name is published (okay, I know it sounds vain, but it's really so I can figure out where people might be back-linking or posting about my blog). A recent Alert included this post about the name of a drink in the cocktail calendar I published at the end of the last millenium (sounds impressive, huh?). The American Dialect Society, as part of their ongoing work, is perhaps looking to seek out how terms like "Y2K" entered the American vernacular.

Coincidentally - given the years I spent doing my small part to help undermine the American economy by advertising subprime mortgages - the word subprime is the Society's 2007 word of the year.

Canvas | Eco Detour: Set the Record

canvas | Eco Detour: Set the Record is the latest feature travel article by my friend and true inspiration, Bruce Northam. This article has Bruce exploring the labyrinthine maze of favelas in Rio de Janiero, where many of the city's poorer residents live.

David Sedaris, No Photography Allowed.

Caro surprised me with a trip down to Irvine to see David Sedaris read. Front and center! Photography wasn't allowed, so I got this dumb shot of the podium before he came out. He was introduced by a local teen he found at the pre-reading book signing (she was running for Secretary of her school's student council, and pronounced herself a supporter of the Newport Beach Public Library) before launching into an hour of reading. Most of it I've heard on NPR or read before in the New Yorker, but he ended the reading with recent entries from his diary, made while on a fact-finding trip to Japan. Funniest one being about a barber with crap (literally, feces) on his hand, and Sedaris's attempt to get him to reveal his poop-smeared palm.

He read his New Yorker piece about buying weed while home in Raleigh for Christmas. I think at one point, Caro and I were laughing so hard, we started yelling "oh my god! oh my god!" at him, like he was doing some sort of personal reading for us. A consequence of sitting in the front row, just facing the reader and seeing no one in the audience behind us.

Sedaris is special to me and Caro; not because he's from Raleigh, which is cool, but that we were both reading his book, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, when we met.

This Blog Doesn't Suck.

No, not this blog, dummy. You may think the blog you're currently reading is sucky, okay fine, but this guy's blog really doesn't suck. Maybe because he's a comedy writer, or maybe just because his un-sucky content is about what does suck. Like head cheese, which definitely does suck. A lot. He lives in Hoboken, NJ, but it's unclear if that sucks or not. Mostly, I think it would suck.

He's friend's with the McDonald's raw chicken girl-victim and comedy writer, whose blog, Felber's Frolics, is also quite funny.