I Hope that I Get Old Before I Die

Clear off the kitchen table, darling.

For on the kitchen table I must lie.

I'm just tired for my wife

Served the banquet of my life

and I hope that I get old before I die.

~They Might Be Giants, "I Hope that I Get Old Before I Die"

This is enduring to the end.

This is remembering that the problems I have are small and manageable and mostly only irritations, compared to the shattering woes of so many, many others out there.

My woes:

1. Oldest son has a dead battery in his van.

2. The tree that got cut down a few weeks ago, there's still a lot of firewood from it in the front yard, and chopping it up with the wedge and sledgehammer is proving to be tougher than I expected.

3. I'm a little tired of the relatively easy, good-paying job that I have.

4. I'm a little tired of the side gig I have, grading papers.

5. It's snowing in the mountains not too far from here, and here is is only early October.

6. The ash in the back yard is being killed by beetles.

7. I still have a lot of sand to haul in and spread to level the back yard.

8. The basement bathroom -- one of four functioning bathrooms in the house -- isn't finished being remodeled yet.

So yeah. It's hard to join this pity party because there's not really all that much to pity here.

Something About Polk

I'm closing in on finishing James Thurber's "92 Stories," and have found a treasure-trove of delights.

One such is a bit called "Something About Polk," focusing on the then-current (and also now-current) general ignorance of the accomplishments of James K. Polk, the 11th President of the United States.

He was impressed that a previous reader of a book on Polk was indignant enough about the author's dismissive view of Polk to write in the margin three concrete facts about the former president, showing he wasn't as "almost unknown" as the author thought.

The facts, for the curious:

1. Governor of Tennessee

2. Twice Speaker of the House of Representatives

3. The Jackson leader in the fight against the U.S. Bank.

Thurber, of course, agreed with the author -- he himself knew little of Polk, and lamented that he'd neither been shot or impeached or anything to help the common man cement an idea of Polk in their heads, unlike other presidents.

I learned the word "roorback," or a last-minute political trick, coined from such a trick played by Polk's opponents meant to convince voters that Polk was a slave-trader who branded his slaves, as reported in a fictional book by Baron Von Roorback.

But even contemporary historians and writers dismissed Polk as forgettable, with Thurber pointing out that Carl Sandburg included an anecdote about Polk's wife in his "Abaraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years," but not about Polk himself.

He concludes the best would be to make up more memorable Polk stories and share them to the point they entered the zeitgeist, and concludes thus:

"These are all that I can think of myself, and i am afraid that none of them is going to hurl our hero into immortality, but at least they are a start in the right direction. Let somebody else try it. There's no great rush."

I suspect he would have been amused by this:

Voice of A Generation

I read Douglas Coupland’s “Generation X” back in the mid-1990s, when I was a disaffected college student studying journalism and English and wishing I was done with school.

I was also listening to a new band, introduced to me in the wilds of Idaho by a brother who was living the life of a sophisticate in Phoenix: They Might Be Giants.

I remember being told Coupland was the voice of my Generation X. And I recall, while reading his book, that maybe he was. Or maybe he wasn’t. I was younger and more callow than his protagonists, anxious to get out into the world and make my mark in the exciting field of newspaper journalism.

I remember listening to TMBG – their album Flood was one of the first albums I ever bought with my own money – and thinking, hey, these are funny songs. Or at least I should call them funny so I can be as sophisticated as my brother in Phoenix.

Nowadays, I can claim to have read Coupland’s “Generation X”.

Nowadays, I still listen to TMBG.

Slate writer Laura Miller, in her review of Coupland’s “Bit Rot,” laments the fall of Coupland as the Voice of A Generation.

I think she ought to pull her old TMBG albums out of mothballs and consider she’s overlooked the real VOAG all along.

 

What qualifies them as VOAG in my book? Well, this song for a start:

The song captures the pre-Internet narcissism that’s now bubbled over into the full-blown Me-Fest that represents the Internet and, to many extremes, my generation and those that have come after it. That I have a platform at all to flap my gums about whether TMBG is the true voice of Generation X is evidence that the Internet Me-Fest is the defining element of my generation.  (And remember, it’s not important that anyone actually listen to what I have to say, but that I say it in a public forum. Because truly I should be allowed to blurt there merest idea if by random whim one occurs to me. And here it is. And there it goes. Because in a day or two, Generation X-like, I’ll have forgotten what I’ve written here unless I encounter it again in a year or two when Facebook reminds me I’ve written it.

Meanwhile, I’m in my veal-fattening pen but absent the bleeding hippie boss. (My current boss is also Generation X; I have failed to climb the corporate ladder but as my corporate ambitions can be summed up in one Dilbert comic, I’m not all that bothered by it.)

But one song, I can hear you asking – does one song define VOAG? Well, they let one book define it for Douglas Coupland, but I have more evidence.

I could point to Flood, TMBG’s most popular album, but then I’d have to discuss my hatred for “Your Racist Friend,” which while politically motivated, is absolutely unsingable unless you’re really in the mood for a whiny, whiny, WHINY song. My hatred of the song probably implies to many of my generation, and those that follow, that I am the racist friend being sung about. That assumption is false. Be honest with yourself, the song is terrible.

So I’ll move on to their better album, Apollo 18.

More specifically, this song:

In a spare 74 seconds, TMBG captures the feeling of gleeful angst Generation X is known for. Note it doesn’t describe what the angst feels like, nor its point of origin. It’s angst for angst’s sake, which is the hallmark of this generation. That overseas guy thinks he can describe it, but overseas is how it really feels.

Older

[Spoiler Alert]

This song is a pretty accurate description of the creative process. Really felt like this writing my first novel. And still feel like this in many ways. Especially considering my legs are too short to reach the brake.

This Is How I Feel Right Now

Horatio Alger 2.0

I have to wonder, are we all fooling ourselves? Will the Internet cream rise to the top, bringing the rest of us with it? Note I classify myself in the “rest of us” category, as I’m not willing to give in to the Internet delusion that we’re all on equal footing here. I remain a social have not and want not, firmly so, not bothered that in social circles I’m more of an irregular rhombus, or an ovoid construct at most. Many folks on the Internet, however, tend to believe they’re the next Big Thing waiting to be discovered, knowing that The Man (if they even know what The Man is; a few years ago, I went to a TMBG concert in Utah. As a prelude to one of their songs, they had to ecplain what “The Man” is, because, apparently , many of their fans don’t know. I liked their definition: “The Man is a euphemism for ‘The Man.’” In other words, go look it up, you morons. End of segue.) is holding them back. You anal retentives are now short-circuiting because you have to go back to before the segue started to match the two ends of this thought. Tough for you. I, for one, don’t believe The Man is holding me back, because, for all I know, The Man doesn’t even know I exist. So why am I on the Internet, thus? It’s not a living. It’s not a hobby, because I’m not here on weekends. I’m here because the Internet is here, and would go on merrily without me, and, indeed, is going on merrily without me, even with me here. Horatio Alger would despair at the false Internet hopes. Or he’s go out there and be one of those Internet millionaires we read about in the paper and hope they have to pay lots and lots of taxes and eventually end up living in a van down by the river because they forgot to read the prenuptial agreement their significant other made them sign.

So it is.

Randy, my brother, is out of jail. He’s glad to be out. We took him out on the town – pizza and a trip to the Army Surplus Store, just to tell you what kind of twon we live in – and it was fun to watch my kids interact with him. We’ve talked about him being in jail, we wrote letters to him there. Lexie, our five-year-old, wanted to sit next to him at lunch, then hold his hand through the surplus store. Then this weekend at Liam’s baptism, Isaac, 3, ran up to him, hugged his legs and said, “Oh Randy, I’m glad you could come.” Mom said that really made him feel good. And he needs thing to help him feel good, because he’s got a long road ahead of him.

Yes, Liam was baptized Saturday. I think he was excited. He’s like me. He doesn’t carry his heart on his sleeve. He was thrilled, however, to get his own copy of the Book of Mormon Sunday from the bishop, and thrilled with getting to sit in the choir seats behind the pulpit while waiting for the presentation. Goofy kid.

Been reading “Is Paris Burning” the last few days. Interesting story about Paris’ liberation during World War II, and how the city escaped the massive destruction Hitler had planned for it. I never knew the German general in the area, Deitrich von Cholitz, actually sent delegations to the Allied forces, asking them for help to “save” Paris before reinforcements arrived and von Cholitz was forced to go through with the demolition plans. Gives you faith in humanity. At least the humanity of humanity during World War II.

Demons out!

In the morning sun,
‘bout seven o’clock,
The parking lot fills ‘round Toys R Us.
And my little girl, she will get away.
Ride her bike down Toddler Highway.
Take your Close’n’Play.
Toddler Highway.

I’ve had this TMBG song going through my head all morning. I’ve discovered by writing it down somewhere, I can occasionally get it out of my head. Or reinforce the endless loop I have going through my brain until memory cells begin to die.

I wasn’t too sure about the lyrics. So I searched for them on the web and found these. Then I wasn’t so sure about the Close’n’Play. So I searched for it. Found this:

http://www.feelingretro.com/toys/Misc-Toys/close-n-play-phonograph.php

Should today’s alternate music loopheads be concerned that they’re getting their alternative music from people who are (gasp) approaching 50?

Maybe fans of the Johns aren’t that shallow. I like to believe that. So I suppose in the cosmic sense, this all makes sense. I refused, however, to spell Highway as “Hiway.” That is an abomination.

I used to have one of these, and rode around on it in the front yard in just my underwear. I was five or six. I have photographic evidence that will not be shared here.

http://www.feelingretro.com/toys/Ride-On-Toys/inch-worm.php

Song is still going through my head. I really liked those brain cells. . .