RegularGoy's Xanga

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 14:58:42 GMT

I'm taking you with me, honey baby, when I go.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 10:56:28 GMT

1. Today's my last day as an Operations Program Associate in the Wisconsin Division of Energy Services. I'm proud that I've done a good job here and relieved that I'm moving on. I don't have any other feelings about it, for good or for ill. It was a job. I traded forty hours of my life every week for enough money to live on. It's honest pay for honest work. I was raised in a blue collar household. Nothing less is acceptable, and you shouldn't expect anything more than that.

2. No, I am not meant for better things. But I'm going to try for better things anyway. How does Jeff Tweedy put it? "I live my life like I wasn't invited."

3. As noted in pulse: Sept 11 (my birthday) I start working ten hours a week as an office assistant for a progressive non-profit, the Wisconsin Community Fund. I wasn't going to apply for the job, but I heard a sermon at church about not building bigger barns to house your treasure, and I realized that part of my take-home pay at a progressive NPO would be the sense that I'm nudging the world's balance towards good in some fashion. As a government employee, I helped preserve the status quo. There are worse things than the status quo. But I'm not spent enough yet to doubt that there couldn't be better things, too.

4. After Labor Day, I'm also taking classes on the Book of Isaiah, the history of Pentateuchal criticism, and the dialects of ancient Canaanite peoples. So many dead languages, so few years of life.

5. I'm also going to start a new Xanga and stop blogging here. I started this site on a whim as a way to keep in contact with old friends. That roughly coincided with the start of my tenure with the State of Wisconsin, so it seems like a good time to move on. It's never a good idea to turn a corner in a rut. I hate the name, and I'm tired of the color scheme, and the particular rhythms of writing that I've established here are too entrenched to be interesting anymore.

After work today I'm off to spend a week in Nebraska. I'm going to stay as far off the grid as I can. When I get back, I'll leave a forwarding Xanga address.

Monday, August 20, 2007

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 14:27:14 GMT

Ye Olde Music Miscellany

1. The following forms of sacred music make me hope that there is a heaven:

Southern Gospel
African American Gospel
Bluegrass
The way some Catholic organists play the Communion Liturgy

The following forms make me feel ambivalent on the topic of heaven:

Classical hymns
Modern hymns (19th century onward)
Celtic

Emergent worship--where the lyrics sound like bad teenaged love poetry and get repeated seventeen times each, and the guy with the guitar does this really intense prayer between each song where every other word is God, as in: "God, we just, God, come before you, God, to thank you, God, for, God, being God today, God."--emergent worship makes me hope there's not a heaven, mostly because I wouldn't want to be stuck with a God who's too passive to smite somebody who'd turn his name into an interjection.

2. Yes, even good emergent worship. I'm not dismissing the genre out-of-hand. I'm just saying it doesn't work for me.

3. South Park did the best parody of Christian rock music:

Cartman proceeds under the theory that, to make Christian music, all you have to do is take mainstream pop songs and change "baby" to "Jesus." I'll bet that's been an inside joke in the CCM industry for decades.

4. The first time I ever heard Michael W. Smith was on Armed Forces Network radio in Germany when I was twelve. The song was "Somebody Love Me." I missed the fact that it was Christian; but since it was a guy singing, and all the pronouns were "he," I just naturally assumed he was gay. And when I was twelve, I was pretty OK with that. I had to become a Christian before I could learn homophobia.

5. Speaking of Christian music and its ill effects, here is what James Hetfield of Metallica said about Stryper's landmark LP To Hell With the Devil:

"It sparked a hatred that will forever scar me. I can't bear to see striped spandex jumpsuits to this day."

And because one good turn deserves another, here's a rare photograph of an authentic Stryper Bible, the kind that Stryper used to fling at its audiences during its shows:

Those guys may have been shitty songwriters, but they knew how to market a brand. And lest we dismiss branding as tacky, the Jacob narrative in Genesis is a fine reminder that God likes a man with good business sense.

(DISCLOSURE: My Hebrew lexicon has a "No Depression" sticker on it.)

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Sun, 19 Aug 2007 23:43:55 GMT

Here are a couple of very old videos for you to watch until I have a chance to write about something:

Jimmie Rodgers in 1929

Roy Acuff and Brother Oswald.

"I betcha it belongs to the Acuff-Rose..."

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 15:14:26 GMT

"Damn, double damn, and an extra pint of damn for the weekend!"

Busy week at work, which is why my writing here has been rather lacking. Suffice to say that 4:30 p.m. next Wednesday can't come soon enough.

For the pathologically curious:

I'm leaving my job with the State of Wisconsin to take a teaching assistantship in Intro to Judaism at the University of Wisconsin, which will (almost) fund my full-time pursuit of a PhD in Hebrew and Semitic studies there. I'm also hunting for gainful part-time employ to supply me with beer money for the coming year. If that sounds superfluous, then apparently you haven't studied dead languages enough.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 13:05:47 GMT

1. This is the song that was running through my head on the bus ride into work this morning:

No reason except that it's brilliant.

2. This is what we had for dinner last night:

3. This is everything that's wrong with liberalism in America today. Shhh: I might be applying for a job as a delivery driver with them. As an old friend once told me: the measure of adulthood is the amount of hypocrisy you're willing to tolerate in your life.

4. This is where I have an interview on Friday for a part-time office support gig. I'm guardedly optimistic about it. The interviewer has a strong East Coast accent.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 13:15:34 GMT

Are you familiar with the mythic theme of a man who is given an unpleasant task which he must do until he can trick somebody else into doing it in his place? It's common and shows up in the literature of a lot of cultures throughout world history.

Over the next three days, I will serve on the interview panel that is charged with finding my replacement as Operations Program Associate in the Division of Energy Services.

And people think mythology is lame.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 14:28:13 GMT

Music Monday (abbreviated edition)

This is the video to Old Crow Medicine Show's "Wagon Wheel." The video is very mediocre, so pay it no mind. The song is exquisite:

The chorus was written by Bob Dylan for a song that he never recorded, except on a couple of rare outtakes. Old Crow Medicine Show decided to write a song around it. It's one of my all-time favorite road songs. Enjoy.

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Sat, 11 Aug 2007 13:57:38 GMT

Yesterday I saw an article in the Wisconsin State Journal reporting that a life ring from the Edmund Fitzgerald had been found by an apple farmer in Michigan. The news, in turn, caused a certain famous song to get stuck in my head, where it has been lodged ever since.

And because I'm sure it's already stuck in your head now, too, I thought I'd share the love:

Don't know what we're talking about? Here's your chance.

Friday, August 10, 2007

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 14:07:01 GMT

Some people like to go out dancing

1. Last Friday, oh man. It was Elissa's first full day back in the U.S. She and her brother Andrew and I started with happy hour at Gennas, something that elaboration will only sully. Then we walked State Street to sober up enough to drive. Then we had fish fry. And then we went back to the townhome and got roaring drunk and took turns reading out loud from the Book of Mormon. Details:

Fish fry was at the Wonder Bar on Atwood St, which is the sort of place whose facade is designed to deter everybody but the regulars. Inside, though, it's done up in tasteful northern woodwork. The three of us walked in, and a guy in a ballcap (the host) looked at us and pointed to a table. We sat down.
The men's room did not have a sign, and could only be discovered by process of elimination.
Graffiti above the urinal: "What wouldn't Jesus do?" Below it, in different handwriting: "Start a war." "Love your sorry ass."
The beer-battered cod was sublime--crisp but not greasy. And the beer is served in jumbo-sized pitchers.
Perhaps you wouldn't think that reading aloud from the Book of Mormon would be funny. You'd be wrong. Behold: the first three verses of the Book of Mormon:
- 1 I, Nephi, having been ^aborn of ^bgoodly ^cparents, therefore I was ^dtaught somewhat in all the learning of my father; and having seen many ^eafflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a ^frecord of my proceedings in my days.
  2 Yea, I make a record in the ^alanguage of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians.
  3 And I know that the record which I make is ^atrue; and I make it with mine own hand; and I make it according to my knowledge.
It's almost hypnotically unreadable. We dug through it, looking for the good stuff. There was none. It was like reading a board game telecast. Even the wars.
I can't believe that the Republican frontrunner believes God inspired this hamfisted dreck. Next you're going to tell me there are other serious Presidential candidates who believe that humans once hunted dinosaurs for food.

2. Tuesday night Elissa and I went Contra Dancing in the third-oldest synagogue in America. It's basically a lot like square-dancing and involves a lot of spinning. I think we're going to become regulars. I do savor the irony that contra dancing is the first thing that comes up when you Google "Madison contra," what with this town's insurgent political history.

3. Grocery shopping last week, I saw that you can now buy Idiot's Guide Digests at the check-out aisle. If Reader's Digest is the literary equivalent of pre-chewed food, isn't this on a par with pre-chewed oatmeal?

4. Brady Quinn, that blue-eyed Irish darling, has finally signed his contract to play for the Cleveland Browns. Mark my words: before the season is over, this man will cry on camera. Cleveland is not a fun place to play football, or to watch football, either. Clevelanders treat football the way primitive tribes treat ritual self-mutilitation. It is by turns ecstatic and creepy.

5. Tonight is Latin Music Night at the Madison Mallards game. God bless minor league baseball and its zany promos. As an added bonus, in Wisconsin you can get cheese curds at the ball park. And (unlike the teams I grew up cheering) the Madison Mallards are in contention in their North Woods League. If they whip Duluth tonight, I think they clinch a playoff berth. I just found this out today, but tonight I intend to treat that information as though the fate of Western Civilization were riding on it.