I've got yet another new, very dangerous hobby which I've chosen to become addicted to this week. The stock market. And you know, it's a good example of how extremely poor my sense of timing is, because there really ain't much out there that's doing any good. Especially not the stocks I chose to buy into... grr argh.
I'd picked up Jim Cramer's book, Stay Mad For Life a few weeks ago, and there was a lot of good advice in it about retirement planning and saving and all that boring grown-up stuff. And of course a few good stock tips. So I followed some of his advice, which as it turns out was of course written a bit before the current financial crisis which America is unlikely to ever fully recover from. In fact, much of what I read online from various stock pundits involves buying companies that provide raw materials to China, as they are the real economic up and comer these days, and investing in purely American ventures is widely considered to be, well, stupid.
But of course, at this particular point not even that advice is panning out because nobody really has any confidence in the market to begin with, so everything is tanking, more or less. Nobody
is really saying it, but it looks like the US has peaked; we've reached
the highest point of wealth and world economic power that we were ever
going to reach, raised our hands up at the pinnacle of the ride and
gone "woooo-hoooo!", and now we're on the full-tilt ride down. Enter me and my money: The two of us go in, but only one is coming out. It's a fight to the death.
I haven't had my own personal access to Television in maybe two decades. I despise TV, and have had nothing but disdain for it since... well I don't know exactly when, but at some point I decided that it was the devil. I'm not against a good show, mind you. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the greatest TV show of all time. Actually, Firefly is quite good too. And Angel. And those are great shows because Joss Whedon created them, who is a genius. So I'm not a total TV snob. I believe that film can be art, even on TV. But art on TV tends to get canceled quickly, unless you're lucky. But my philosophy has been, for the past few years, that anything that is actually good, I'll hear about it and can watch it on DVD someday. That's how I discovered Buffy; I never would have chosen to watch that show, thinking that it sounded like the dumbest idea for a show on Earth. Especially because the movie was so bad. But I knew some people who really liked it, so I borrowed a friend's DVDs and gave it a shot. I was able to watch all 7 seasons of it without a single commercial break... which is the point I've laboriously been coming to.
Commercials are the devil. I hate hate Hate HATE them. In fact, I've been known to scream at them in disgust. I don't feel that TV programming is what is responsible for dumbing down America, although there are certainly plenty of shows out there that I wouldn't wipe my bottom with. Hell, if I was a personal Nurse for a quadriplegic Stalin I wouldn't wipe his bottom with them. Well ok, to be fair, I'd never be a personal Nurse for any quadriplegic, Stalin or otherwise. Gross. I'm just not that selfless a person. But still, you take my meaning. Next to commercials, aimless channel surfing is the next in line for most mind-numbing thing ever. Anyway. I feel that commercials, and most popular TV shows, are a way of making people think that raving lunatic morons are funny, or even normal. Like those Wendy's commercials where the black guy wearing a Wendy's wig is trying to convince people that they have a constitutional right to a better burger. I know, I know, it's supposed to be funny. Ha ha we're just kidding buy our burgers. But something about it makes me want to commit suicide inside.
So having said all of this, I finally caved and got cable. I did this because, earlier this year I was happily enjoying my HDDVD player when BAM! Blu-Ray won the High Definition battle, making my HD collection obsolete. No more new movies in that beautiful, pristine format I had so recently become accustomed to. Believe me, you have not seen Unforgiven, The Shining, or 2001: A Space Odyssey until you've seen them in HD. I could have made the switch to Blu-Ray, except that the cheapest player is still around $400, the discs cost like $30 to $40 a pop, and a few other reasons that you probably don't care about, but I do. HDDVD players were around $200, and the discs were usually around $20. Sigh. But so I got cable, because they offer some channels in HD, and I was really wanting to watch some stuff in HD again.
I haven't had it on much since I got it, since I don't actually spend all that much time watching TV anyway. I tend to watch a movie with dinner, and that's about it. But I've enjoyed a few things... I got to watch The Lost Boys in HD, and the other night I tried out the HD pay-per-view channel and saw The Golden Compass. Very nice! But last night, something happened which made me decide that cable in my house is a short lived phenomenon. Spiderman was on TNT HD, and I was all excited because I'd been curious what that looked like in HD. When TNT plays movies, they have commercial breaks. A commercial for a Stouffer's TV dinner came on. I was already irritated by the spate of obnoxious pandering-to-the-lowest-common-denominator commercials I'd been forced to sit through between segments of Spiderman, and the worst part is that they tend to play the same 10 commercials on every break, just in case you'd forgotten about their stupid product that nobody needs from ten minutes ago. Oh, I also have to say that the worst commercials to sit through (Well, they're all horrible. It's so hard to chose the worst, actually, that anytime I complain about any commercial it's going to be the worst.) are the chain restaurant ones where they show you large pictures of gross greasy things that come in food-like shapes and are supposed to be appetizing, but are in fact unbelievably nauseating, and are the worst reason to have HD channels.
(Keep in mind that these pictures, as disgusting looking as they are, are not even what the food you order will actually look like in reality. The actual food always looks limp in comparison to the ads. Gross and grosser. Blechh.)
So this Stouffer's TV dinner commercial came on. And it combined just about everything I could possibly hate in a commercial. It starts off with a shot inside of a moving car; Mom and Dad are in the front and three noisy brats in the back, eating some sort of take out and all looking generally miserable. Then the voice over comes on and says, "When did this become our idea of a sit-down dinner?" Several big gross photos of greasy Stouffer's TV dinners later, and a satisfied family sitting down at home to eat them, and I was screaming, frothing at the mouth, unleashing a stream of obscenities at the TV as though I had just been told I had to wipe Stalin's immobile ass. I mean, seriously, Stouffer's TV Dinners have the audacity to lament the disappearance of a sit down family dinner, and try to convince you that they offer a product which solves said dilemma!!? This is what is going to end us, I swear. The problem is is that people just pretend like it's no big deal to have to witness such towering banality, that it's just a commercial and of course it's dumb but it doesn't really affect me. But it's not true. People, you have no idea how much it affects you. Seriously, try not watching TV at all for a time; try turning off your cable for say 6 months. Then go back and watch some... you'll be appalled at the drivel you're made to swallow.
You might think that you can control it. You know, flip to another show while commercials are on, or mute it or whatever. But I'm telling you, having cable in the house is no different than keeping heroin in the cabinet for medicinal uses when William Burroughs is your best friend and drops by all the time. I don't have any TV addict friends who drop by to get a TV fix, and TV is an addiction I gave up long enough ago that it tastes like ashes to me now, so I'll keep it around for the moment, until I can find a better HD solution, but please. If you ever realize that I've relapsed into couch potatoism, please come over and punch me in the head really hard. I'm begging you, intervene. I think I'll be fine, you know. I gave up smoking and fast food. I'm sure I can keep away from idly turning on the TV for no good reason. I have plenty of methadone, I mean DVDs to get me through the more difficult moments. I'm just saying, you know, TV commercials are worse for you than smoking, fast food, or heroin, so I'm a little more nervous about it.
So I went to Cape Cod last week for a nice relaxing vacation from my stressful job. You know, I had to get away from all that constant work travel. Right. That's a picture of me and a hermit crab during low tide in Provincetown. Anyway, my family on my Dad's side is from the Cape. My Grandfather owned a grocery store in Osterville until it burned down and then afterwards moved to Cedarville, which is right by the Cape Canal. I have many hazy and fond memories of visiting Cedarville as a kid, including Christmas Eves with my cousin Karen gleefully listening for Santa on the roof and lazy Summer days at the lake down the road. At the time, we lived in New England ourselves, in Connecticut in the really early days, and in Brockton, Massachusetts for several of the later years. In fact, until we moved to PA, I sported that thick Massachusetts accent in which 'R's are ignored if not dropped entirely, and Pee Wee's Big Adventure was a wicked awesome movie. Sadly, I lost it pretty quick after moving to Ligonier, PA, where I had to learn to wrap my tongue around such western PA oddities as 'Y'uns' and pierogies... ah, the lost treasures of our youth.
So anyway, it was really nice to drive up the cape... Eastern Massachusetts has that incredible mix of smells of cedar pine and sea salty air blown in from the ocean. There is some truly invigorating air there. I stopped at Plymouth and saw the Mayflower! Well, the Mayflower II, actually. It's a replica, but a really good one.
Right around the corner from the Mayflower II was Plymouth Rock, but I didn't get to see it because they were renovating it. Yes, you read correctly; they're renovating a ROCK. Sheesh. I did see the rock as a child at least, but it's as hazy as all my other memories. Probably because it's just a rock and not actually particularly interesting. But I did get a picture of a nice Asian family who had come all the way to see it and were similarly disappointed yet determined to come away with something:
The worst part is, the Pilgrims didn't actually even land here first. They first arrived in Provincetown, and got into some skirmishes with Indians. So they upped anchor and made for Plymouth instead.
Apropos of not much, I snapped this shot of a screaming hawk not far outside of Plymouth:
I also took a drive through Cedarville and tripped out when I found the street my Grandparents used to live on... thanks to a call to Dad to help me out with directions. Everything is exactly as I remember it, only it's gotten smaller. The lake beach that I used to play on, which was enormous when I was six, seemed rather cramped this time around. I also took a drive through Osterville after crossing over onto the Cape; and although I never really was there much, it was nice to see where we came from, and where I'd probably be living had Williams' Grocery Store never burned down. Ah, the lost alternate realities of our youths.
Here's a sea snail, trolling about under water during low tide.
At any rate, I spent the majority of my time on the Cape in Provincetown... turns out, it's somewhat of a Gay Haven up there. Didn't know that when I booked my hotel... ah well. I figured it out when I got up my first morning there to go get some food at a nearby bakery, which turned out to be a Gaykery. They had teddy bear cookies decorated with icing leather chaps and candy button nipple clamps. Of course, I didn't notice that right off, I was just feeling like Provincetown was a very nice place, and everybody was so friendly and the large bearded man that seemed to run the shop gave me a free container of cherries to go with my food and I was thinking, "Wicked awesome! What a friendly place! Everybody here seems happy and genuinely nice! Is that supposed to be two guy teddy bear cookies?! Holding hands...? Oh..."
Well, suffice it to say that during my two day stay there, I received more attention than I generally feel comfortable with from men, but about the same amount as usual from women, which is to say, very little. But it's a thoroughly enjoyable town nonetheless. It's an odd mash-up of things: An old fishing and whaling village on the most venerable area of land in the US, which also has quite a history of participation in the Arts. Here's a harbor picture of the town:
I got this picture on the way in from going out on a Whale Watch. I had gone on a Whale Watch with my family many years ago when I was really young, but this is one of those times where it was even better than my childhood memory of it. I'm going to show you too many pictures of whales now.
Totally sweet. It was like we hit the motherload of whale towns.They were jumping and bouncing around all over the place. In fact, for those of you not too sick of whales by now, I took a video. I apologize in advance for it though; There was so much going on, and I kept trying to move the camera to catch stuff and the boat was rocking quite a bit, so that in essence I wound up missing a lot. Sorry. But there are still one or two good things to see here:
It was the 'Sunset Whale Watch', which meant that we came back in to town in the evening, allowing for a few gratuitous Cape Cod shots. This is the actual very tippiest tip of the Cape itself.
And here's another shot I like of Provincetown. The tall thing there is the Pilgrim monument. I believe that the residents like it so much because of the Phallusy of the thing.
And that's pretty much it. I mean, I spent some time on the beach, but even in June the Cape Cod water is BRRRRRR Cold! I braved it for a little while, and you do get acclimated to the frigid temperature after a bit, but even so. I did see a seal having lunch from a school of fish right off of the shore... that was pretty cool. You don't see that too often off of other beach towns. The big dark spot is the school of fish, and that's a seal head poking up there.
And here's my parting shot; the wake of the Whale Watch.
Ambulance Driver: We had to dig him out from under the most peculiar things I ever saw.
Dr. Hill: What things?
Ambulance Driver: Well, I don't know what they are, I never saw them before. They looked like great big seed pods.
Dr. Hill: Where was the truck coming from?
Ambulance Driver: [King George, VA].
Dr. Hill: Get on your radios and sound an all points alarm.
Block all highways, stop all traffic, and call every law enforcement
agency in the state. [on phone] Operator, get me the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Yes, it's an emergency!
-Invasion of the Body Snatchers
So I just got back from an overnight job down in Virginia. It was a job from hell too... definitely payback for all those more exotic locales where I usually get to play in for a week or two. I left on Thursday morning at around 9, drove for five hours and then went right to work when I got there. It turned out to be one of those times where Murphy's Law was pumping iron and needed the good steroids.So what should have been two, maybe three hours worth of work setting up the next day's exam turned into ten. I didn't get to my hotel room until 12 pm, and I still had my administrative duties to attend, so I didn't get to bed until around 3 am. I of course had to wake up three and a half hours later to go back in to work to administer the exam. I got done with that, packed up all the equipment and got on the road by 2:00pm, hitting Philadelphia rush hour on the turnpike right around 5pm. Meanwhile, it was 90 degrees outside and my car's A/C was broke.
Despite all of this travail, I have made it home to report that I don't believe that Virginia really exists. I don't mean that there is not a US State that goes by the name of Virginia; What I mean is that it's a made up place. Like that playground in the first X-Files movie; the one that the secret shadowy people put up really fast in order to cover their tracks and make the site of their latest machinations look like it was an ordinary place. I've been down there a couple of times now, and that's always my impression of it. As you first enter Virginia via route 301, you immediately pass a Naval Warfare base. Everything is covered by trees, even scrapyards and auto places. In fact, all you really see are signs for scrap yards and auto places, and dirt roads leading to these supposed places of business
And the people... I almost didn't notice it at first, as I'm somewhat dismissive of the general human populace, but especially the American human populace. However I had to deal with some of the locals, and they had this peculiar trait of being curious about people from other places, as though there were any difference between a Virginian and a Pennsylvanian general populatory. (I think I just made that word up, by the way. It's supposed to connotate a member of the general populace, leaving out any indicator of an individual nature) But when some of the people found out I wasn't from the area, they'd get all questiony, rather like drunk college girls do to young men with British or Italian accents. It was strange and unsettling and brought home to me the fact that Americans in general don't get out enough. Also, they all work for the Government in one capacity or another down there. My job, in fact, was at a government contractor's site; one of those civilian weapon systems designer companies. They all have Secret or Top Secret clearance, and they tend to walk around with shrewd looks in their eyes, whether or not any of them have any call to look that way. People who think they're shrewd tend to don that glance, (like that stupid woman in that commercial who suggests going to Chili's for lunch as though it were an idea on par with the Grand Unified Field Theory) and people who are tend to hide it. Also, a large percentage of them are overweight in that way that only "poor" Americans can pull off. On the whole, it's a very unsettling package.
So due to all of this, my gut feeling is that Virginia is a place where the government hides it's pod people, poorly disguised as typical Americans, and that if there are any Virginians who are not pod people they just don't notice it because they're used to it and are in fact becoming assimilated. I see this as the future for the rest of America. I mean, obviously it's a national trend that's well under way, but I think it's something that as a social construct which covers an entire area, it's actually already complete down there. Freaky.
So in the tradition of Bridget Jones' Diary, I've been wanting to start a sort of stat list on certain numbers that are important to me these days. I'm not a girl, I swear. That book is really funny. You do NOT have to be a 30-something desperately single British girl to laugh at that book. The book I say, not the movie. The movie was kind of dumb. You're not allowed to make fun of me until you've read it. I also like The Gilmore Girls, what of it? Wanna fight?! I'll kick your Vin Diesel wannabe butt. Do tough guy posers still wanna be like Vin Diesel? Or is there a new poseur out there for them to cloak their inner inadequacies behind their idolatry of?
Of course we all have a tough guy we admire, though, so perhaps I'm not being fair. If I had to pick a tough guy I admire, it'd be Clive Owen in Children of Men in fiction, or that guy whose nephew had his arm bitten off by a shark a few years back in reality. He jumped in the water and chased down the shark, beat it up and dragged it onto shore, killed it and got the arm out, and they were able to successfully re-attach his nephew's arm. He beat up a shark. That guy is cool, and will never ever have problems with the ladies. True story, I swear. It happened at least a decade ago if not longer though, and I've been unable to find any reference to it online, but my friend Scott remembers it too, so I'm not making it up... unless it was one of his lies that he told for entertainment purposes back in the day and over the years we both forgot it was totally made up, like his famous story of the last great legal Stroudsburg gunfight showdown (yes, Western style) on lower main street in front of the McDonald's in the 70's.... hmm. I'll have to get back to you on this.
Anyway, my stat list: Motorcycle odometer reading - 1504 miles (it had 3 miles on it when I bought it) Weight - 194 lbs! (I weighed 212 lbs last September) Stamina - 40 minutes at 5.8 mph on the treadmill (Last September? 5 minutes at 5.5) Books published by someone I know - 1 (before May 27th 2008 - 0!) (Big fat congratulations, Julie!) (Everybody go buy a copy at Amazon and leave a review!) (NOW!!) (Or, you can also find it on the New Fiction table at Borders and other fine book chains) (By the way, really good publication party the other night J. Well done, great toast. Good food. Very entertaining conversation.) (I need a tattoo where I can see it in the mirror, now.) Well anyway, I was supposed to have been in Alaska all last week... I had a job in Anchorage that I was supposed to fly directly to from Chicago, but it got canceled at the last minute. SO, bummer. That would have been a really good post. Which is why, of course, you're stuck with this self-conscious place keeping post instead. I consoled myself this week by catching up on other things. I've added 7 new galleries to my smugmug page... I'd been really slacking on uploading my recent U.S. travel pictures, mostly because I had a hard time finding them interesting enough to bother about. But when I went back and looked at all of them, I decided that there were in fact some good ones that I could be proud of, even if they're not quite foreign travel quality. So here they are: Neosho & Branson, Missouri, USA, St. Louis & Hannibal, Missouri, USA, The Clinton Museum in Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA, 3 Border Towns In Mexico, The Coral Castle, Homestead, Florida, USA, Seattle, Washington, USA, & Chicago, Illinois, USA. Or you can just go to the main page. Or not. I think that the best ones I already posted here, so, whatever.
So on my most recent work iteration, I was sent to Chicago for a week in order to proctor two one-hour-long exams to three students. Which, if you do the math, left me with a city load of free time. I mean, not to preen or anything, but I really love my job sometimes. Chicago is a totally fun city. I was there once before, many years ago on a stopover on my way to Alaska by Greyhound bus. I had a friend that lived there, and I spent a night or two checking out the city with him. The main thing I remember was him taking me to see The Second City show. It's a comedy theater based in Old Town in Chicago where Saturday Night Live does much of their recruiting. The alumni list of the Second City main stage is intimidating.
Anyway, I of course bought tickets to revisit The Second City revue while on this trip, and when I was in the theater, waiting for the show to start, I saw a picture on the wall of the troupe from 1996, the year I'd been there before:
That's right! I saw Tina Fey when she was still just a pup! Pretty cool. But I have no recollection of the performance, really, except that I do vividly remember her pal there from 30 Rock, Scott Adsit (far right), because that hair really stuck out in my memory and he was really funny. He did some sort of a yodeling mountain man sketch that had me peeing my pants. Apparently I also saw Rachel Dratch and Kevin Dorff. I could be wrong about all this, because my memory of 12 years ago is probably faulty given the fact that none of the molecules that were in my brain then exist anymore, your body completely changing out it's physical composition every 7 years. It's science. But that picture said they were the 1996 troupe, so I'm going with it. The troupe I saw there last week was really funny also. I mean, I'm older now and a bit jaded when it comes to SNL type of comedy (The name of the revue is 'No Country For Old White Men', typical SNL parody fare. Though in all fairness, the show itself pretty much had nothing to do with the movie parodied in the title.); Nobody is ever going to be funnier than The Kids In The Hall. But they were really good, and I've got their picture and names down in case any of them become the next Tina Fey or Scott Adsit. My picks for future success are Amber Ruffin and Brad Morris. Joe Canale may make a great straight man comedian. (Who, if you put the accents on different syllables in his name, reads Joke Anal(e)... possibly a funny stage name? Or a fortunate accident at birth? Hmm.) They were all good, so who knows, but that's what I'd bet on in the OTB bar of comedy stardom.
The other thing I spent a lot of time doing, on Julie's suggestion, was touring Frank Lloyd Wright houses. He'd spent quite a few years in the Chicago area, and it has the highest concentration of FLW architecture anywhere. In fact his first important structure is in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. It was his home and studio for around 6 years, I think. He also designed the Oak Park Unitarian Temple, and a student of his designed the Oak Park post office, the prettiest post office you ever did see. I wasn't allowed to take photos inside of any of the houses, which is really sad because the insides of FLW structures are usually what really matters. As an illustration of what I mean, I was allowed to get photos inside the Unity Temple, so here's an outside photo, and then a couple inside photos:
Right? Honestly, probably one of the most awe-inspiring church-type thingies I've ever stood in. I've stood in the mother of all churches, the Vatican's St. Peter's Basilica, and as pretty as it was, it inspired as much scorn and cynicism as anything else. (Of course I was drinking absinthe in the Vatican, so my impressions may have been untrustworthy.) FLW found his inspiration in simple lines set in complicated and beautiful ways. He relied on design and creativity, rather than wealthy materials and grand scales (though he wasn't against wealth, necessarily) to make his mark. His houses were amazing, also. In addition to the one in Oak Park, I visited the Robie House in Hyde Park, on the University of Chicago's campus. It's considered to be a masterpiece, but I can't show you why... here are some so-so interior shots I found on the web. And here's a window on the Robie House:
Let's see what else, what else... Oh, I did the Chicago City Pass. It included 5 big things: The Adler Planetarium, the Shedd Aquarium, the Field Museum, the Museum of Science and Industry, and a choice between a ride up to the Hancock observatory or to the skydeck on the Sears Tower. I used the city pass to go up the Sears Tower, because you can go up to the restaurant/bar on the 95th floor of the Hancock building for free, which I did. Here's a shot of how I look in the thermal spectrum! They had a heat sensing camera in the Science museum, located in the Hyde Park area.
Hmmm, I guess I'm devolving this into a photo journal. Well, pictures are better than words. Here's Lake Michigan.
And here's a shot of the city from the Hancock building. The spider is on the outside of the window... apparently the wind picks spiders up off the ground and blows them around the sky all the time, and sometimes they land one hundred stories up and make the best of a bad situation. That's the Sears Tower tall on the left.
This is a weird public art statue that reminds me of the nice fairy version of a Silent Hill monster.
I was walking down the busy Chicago shopping street known as Miracle Mile, when I noticed Phil Donahue being interviewed through a street level window on a radio studio! My mom used to love his show when I was a kid. I sat there grinning like an idiot, snapping photos, until Phil noticed me. I waved. He waved back. Then I realized it was possible that they were also filming the show as they sometimes do, because other people were rushing past as though they didn't want to be seen, and I bolted. I'm hoping to God that my idiot mug didn't show up on some Chicago TV segment. Ugh. But what I heard of the interview was really good. He was talking about how much the news and other media has turned into a circus... he said that even though he now has like 500 channels on his TV, the bowflex is on every one of them. Wish I could've stuck around for more; he's still pretty sharp, that guy. Phil is on the left, and my idiot mug is reflected in the window on the far right.
I guess that's mostly it. I can't think of any other crazy Chicago stuff I did. But you know, there is so much to do in Chicago, and so much good food, it's not surprising if it turns out that I've forgotten something... I kept very busy all week. Chicago is a city I would love to live in; I doubt I'd ever get bored there. It also has a really good vibe. It's a very clean city, it's got this total art deco thing going on in its design, it's on one of the Great Lakes, and there is a ton of park area, adding lots of fresh and green to that whole clean vibe thing. I'll leave this post with a night shot of the city, taken from the Sears Tower.
I took my new motorcycle on its inaugural ride up to the Catskills for an overnighter this week. I'd never realized how close the Catskills are to the Poconos, and when I was looking over a map to try and figure out what would make a good ride, I noticed that you can pretty much take route 209 straight up to Woodstock! So that's what I did. Very nice ride. In Woodstock, which is not where the titular festival was held as it turns out, (That would be in Bethel, NY) I found the Yellow Submarine: Some hippie had turned an old church into an Art Studio dedicated to Love art. All hearts and bright colors and whatnot. Folk art. Damn dirty hippies.
The Catskills are really pretty, but it's a pain in the butt to stop the bike, get off, and dig out my camera every time I want to take a picture, so I tended not to. Besides, pictures of hills and nature and what all are usually not nearly as interesting in photo form as they are when you're there looking at it, so really you're grateful that I'm sparing you, I know. But here's one of my motorcycle in front of an interesting tree stump.
There is a town named Tannersville in the north of the Catskills State Park area, and I found a Swiss chalet there to spend the night in! It's run by an old German dude named Robert who was a ski / snowboard instructor for the US Olympic team. His nickname is the Red Baron, and he wears one of those pointy WWI era German helmets to the races. Anyway, I think he only called it a Swiss Chalet due to marketing reasons; it felt much more German than Swiss. He was also the cook there, which you have to appreciate. He made some awesome German food, Schnitzel with apples and brandy, and he served Dinkel Acker! One of my favorite German dark beers. The hotel was otherwise empty, it being the off season in the Catskills, and the room I stayed in reminded me in many ways of some of the German guest houses I've stayed in... Big blocky wooden furniture, hard beds and clean sheets, an old poster ad from the 70s for Interlaken on the wall; even the smell of the soap and the shower heads reminded me of Germany! It felt like home.
Next morning I took a longer route back by driving North a bit more and hooking on to route 10, which was really beautiful, until it took me to route 97 south, which is apparently a famous biker road in the area as it follows the Delaware river all the way down to Port Jervis, the last town in NY before crossing over the river into PA. Very pretty.
Have I said yet that I love my new toy? Whee! But it's all rainy out today, so it does have it's limitations. Guess I'll clean the house and go to the gym. Sigh.
I saw The Kids In The Hall last night! They came to the State Theater in Easton, and of course, as any truly rabid KITH fan, I'd had my tickets since they first went on sale a month or so ago. Julie and I rode my awesome new fun machine (i.e. motorcycle) out on route 611 to go see them.
Let me start out, right off the bat, by saying that they were awesome. They are, of course, among the greatest comedy troupes of all time. They had a TV show which lasted for four glorious seasons, and a fifth merely great one. For the last decade or so they've done various things on their own, NOT as a group, which always seemed insane to me. Their particular brand of comedy never seemed like it could function apart from each other, and their checkered solo careers bear that sentiment out, I believe. Dave Foley was the most successful of them, having a leading role in the sitcom News Radio and I think he's hosted Celebrity Poker as well (actually, the Head Crusher made fun of him for that in a very funny encore skit), and the others have had various degrees of success themselves... Scott Thompson had a bit part in Mickey Blue Eyes and a stint on Larry Sanders' show, Bruce McCulloch directed a few movies and had a couple of guest appearances on the Gilmore Girls, Mark McKinney was in Saturday Night Live for a bit and starred in some movie with Isabella Rossellini, and Kevin McDonald had four measly lines in Galaxy Quest, and has done various cartoon voices and other guest appearances.
They are all very funny people, but together, they're gold. I'm extremely happy that they finally figured that out. They got back together and wrote a bunch of new material, and last night's show was fucking hilarious. Pardon my potty mouth, but that's how funny they were. Here's a video which they used to open their show:
The part where Bruce mouths something and then Mark is like "Oh yeah those guys are crazy", they voiced over in a very Price-Is-Right announcer-like voice; "Easton, Pennsylvania!" It was funny live, in an easy joke kind of way. Then at the end when they all run out, they all run on stage chasing Kevin in his underwear with an apple in his mouth. They did some really funny new material, including a sketch about two men fighting over an imaginary girlfriend, Bruce as a superhero called Superdrunk, a great Hitler/beer/blowjob/time machine bit, and even one with an evil soul-sucking baby. Of course they brought out some of their beloved favorites, Chicken Lady, Gavin, Head Crusher, and the two Kathies, (with one of them on a new diet plan called "tweaking on crystal meth") but they used new punchlines for them, so it was all good. No, brilliant. Anyway, guess you had to be there.
Okay okay, I'm done now. I'd post them all, if I could. They're so awesome.
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