Christmas Meat

The whole fam-damnly is coming for my Christmas dinner today. I decided to fall back on old reliable instead of experimenting this year. Last year I had an over abundance of venison, so I think I made a venison loin roast with cranberries. I don't really remember, but several people told me last night that I had. It was, therefore, memorable. But for reasons I'm not sure were good or bad.


Merry Christmas to all resident microbes in the Pyle. I KNOW there is more than one, and remember, it would be a great Christmas present for you all to finally post!

Ancient History

I did something very hard today. I apologized to someone I have not seen or spoke to in 18 years for something I did to them that still haunts me. Nothing illegal or criminal mind you...but hurtful, thoughtless, rude and uncaring nonetheless. I often think about that situation with deep regret.

Now I have finally acted like a man and set it right. Maybe I will sleep a little better tonight.

Holy Crap!

I made the discovery of a lifetime at 2:30 AM this morning. The new iPod nano (as shitty as it is), has turned me on to iTunes as a new source of downloads. While checking the depth of their library, I ran across a previously unknown-to-me live EP by the band Shiner. The first song is called "Fetch a Switch", and the live version has become since last night...one of my favorite songs of all time! One of those things you hear and just know that 40 years from now...you will still be captivated by.

Dark, brooding, and with the slowgrind KC MO sound Shiner had perfected, this song has particularly simple and personal lyrics, no doubt a reflection of songwriter Epley's terrible childhood. Absolutely painful to contemplate while listening, but requiring continuous dissection afterwards, it's brilliant stuff from a brilliant band.

The song starts like this:

Brian Epley says to the crowd "Evolution is just...a theory" and the music starts. Slowly, the first verse unfolds.

Stop your crying boy / I'll make you scream.
Fetch a switch for me.
Dance for Mama boy / and get some smokes.
Don't let your Daddy see that smile.
I'll make you pay for it.

Ouch!

Listen NOW!: "1. Fetch a Switch (Live) - Shiner"

No sheep to count

It's 3:00 in the morning and I can't sleep. I've found that since I have not worked, I'm much more of a night person than I ever expected I was. 5-6 hours of sleep seem to do me just fine these days.

Yesterday I went ice fishing for the day, but without much success. Today I am going to re-vamp the plans and hit a couple different spots hoping to get a few walleye for tonight's dinner. There is gnocchi with roasted tomatoes and Gorgonzola for a backup if I strike out. Sounds hard but it is really very easy to prepare. Best of all, it's Jodi's favorite dish so there are rarely complaints.

HUMmin along

Anyone seen this new Cadillac CTS commercial?

Well that FANTASTIC song you hear explode after her comment is none other than the riff from "Stars" by Hum. Excellent choice, despite the fact that I now feel ancient. Cadillacs have always been "old people cars". Now MY favorite band has been pitched to the brass at Cadillac to sell cars traditionally targeted at old fogeys. They want ME in a Cadillac! I'm officially old!

Hum selling Cadillacs. Oh well, I guess it's better than selling iPods or adult diapers.

Manchester's Pride Falls

Ricky Hatton has just lost to "he whom we no longer speak of" in a 10th round knockout. One person we will speak of, however, is referee Joe Cortez.

Ricky is an inside fighter and a brawler. With arms 6" shorter than "he whom we no longer speak of", his job is to get inside and well...brawl. That's exactly why I thought him the man to do the impossible, beat the undefeated blowhard senseless. Joe Cortez apparently knew nothing of the needs or wants of Ricky Hatton, nor of a brawlers only game plan against a tactician. Hell, I wonder now if Joe Cortez knows anything about boxing at all. For the first six rounds he immediately separated the two fighters as soon as Hatton got inside and began to jockey for punching position. Hello...Hello...Earth to Mr. Cortez...How about letting the man pursue his only chance at winning the fight? It was like Cortez was on the payroll of Hatton's opposition at the worst, or had his head up his own ass at the least. Everyone knew what Hatton had to do to win, and the wrong man stopped him

Unfortunately, Hatton never got an opportunity to explode from the inside. Worse, he ate so many right hands just trying to get in there, that by the 8th round when Mr. Cortez awoke from his coma or heard the check had bounced and finally let them fight, Hatton was already finished. But he was never given a chance in my opinion, and I paid $54.95 to see the worst referee job I have ever seen in boxing.

Gotta love the Onion!


Reporters Expose Airport Security Lapses By Blowing Up Plane

Holiday cheer

Well that did not go as I thought it would. The Christmas party that is. My wife and I got into a huge fight (primarily of my making..I'll admit) just before leaving that cast a dim shadow on the entire night. Dinner sucked (culinary wise) as it always does; eaten in a tense atmosphere of seething anticipation of resuming the fracas as soon as we could leave. By the time I abruptly terminated the night...she was locked and loaded for bear, all hell broke loose.

For the most part we are made up this morning. Cleaning the house certainly gave me an extra dog in the fight (at least she could not bring up THAT old standby). I stand by the reasoning for my displeasure, but take back my approach and timing to voicing it. We you have been married as long as we have, you learn to say "I'm sorry".

Bloody hell he's got bollocks

Working for Gordon Ramsey would be both the coolest and most frustrating job in Chefdom, Yes?

F----- hell you wanker. Watch Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares and you will find out. It's my dream job.

I hope your resting today Ricky

Well tonight is the Medical Center Christmas party that I am obligated to go to. It is important to my wife, so I will attend this year. John and wife will be there, so at least I will have at least ONE person to talk to as my wife gets loaded with her co-workers. This morning was spent cleaning the house so my wife can relax this weekend. I would have done it yesterday, but cleaning on Thursday does NOT constitute having a clean house for the weekend in her eyes.

Still no word from the Executive job interview. I had been going on the fact that the interviewer stated they would probably be making the decision at the end of this week. It is down to myself and one other candidate, and I am very confident on getting an offer. Hopefully they are deciding today and will call early next week.

Tomorrow night is the big Floyd Mayweather jr. Vs. Ricky Hatton fight I have rented on pay-per-view. I HATE Mayweather. He is always walking around with thousands of dollars in cash, and flashing it to the media and anyone who will look. He is young, talented, and ungodly rich; and he wants every single person on the Earth to know it. I did not pay to see Oscar De La Hoya lose to him, because I honestly knew what the outcome would be as soon as the fight was booked. But Ricky Hatton is one tough shit, and Mayweather will have much more of a fight on his hands this time. I'm willing to pay my money to see Hatton KO him, and cut him down a few notches.

Moving Music (Redux)

At a not too distant dinner party with John and his wife and Jefe, we got in a debate similar to the discussion of my last post. Jefe and I, being completely captivated by the power of both music AND it's reproduction, called out John's wife on whether she had actually ever been moved...I mean MOVED...by a piece of music. She apparently found it hilarious that I could be moved to tears by a song, or a combination of composition and playback. I in turn found it quite odd that someone had never been so affected, and set upon my wine-drunken way to produce a mixtape of those songs I could think of off the top of my head, as soon as they left for the night.

The ostensible purpose, I guess, was to see if when presented with the CD, she could at least comprehend that given the right set of memories, circumstances, place in life or environment, with the right composition...tears could flow.

I'll never know the results because it's never come up again, and I am now too embarrassed to ask. She probably ripped it to her Ipod anyway-effectively killing those tracks whose music itself, and not lyrics, were the source of emotion. Nevertheless, I thought I would share it with the world.

All of these rock/pop songs have at one time or another, and for reasons so diverse as intensely personal memories to brilliant compositional skill, reduced me to tears.

"Play crack the Sky" by Brand New
"Fake Plastic Trees" by Radiohead
"Anniversary of an Uninteresting Event" by Deftones
"Oh My" by Big Wreck
"Then she did" by Janes Addiction
"Dreams of Reason" by The Tea Party
"In this time" by The Tea Party
"Songs of Farewell and Departure" by Hum
"Roman Catholic Haircut" by Tripmaster Monkey
"Ten Years Gone" by Led Zeppelin
The entire Final Cut album by Pink Floyd.
"Call it Sleep" by Steve Vai

The Classics and blues have their own lists.

Nanopleasure

My friend John gave me an early Christmas present yesterday, a brand new Ipod Nano. Now...I have oft posted of my affinity for music and my cravings for stereo gear, but I don't believe I actually ever expressed a desire for a portable MP3 player. The whole idea was anathema to me then, and now my thoughts might just as well be carved into stone and worshipped in a Greek church as a relic of divine truth.

This type of musical reproduction ABSOLUTELY SUCKS!

John was so good to give it to me, and I really appreciate the thoughtfulness of the gift; but the thing sounds like absolute shit. To think that an entire generation of kids are getting their music solely in this manner makes me shudder for the future of recorded song. Really. Obviously, users of these devices don't actually care for what the music sounds like anymore. For the most part, they can't give a shit about what it has to say either, because these interminable devices simply reduce music to background noise. Something to blare in your head while you do something, or worse, multiple somethings else.

I have a very, very modest stereo system by Audiophile standards...roughly $15,000 invested over many years of upgrade and trading. But it never fails to make the hair on my arms stand up. It can open the wonders of opera and orchestral music, point out the ridiculous, repetitive absurdity of hip-hop, or convert you to acapella or Gregorian chant. It can make you cry by bringing the sheer beauty of a composition to your ears. It can also peel the paint off the wall with the likes of Thin Lizzy or Deftones. You simply cannot do something else while it plays. The idea is sacrilegious, and the things you would miss immense.

What will future recordings sound like when my generation...apparently the last to savor the sound of the music...passes on to the HI-FI swap shop in the sky? Probably a droning variable pitch hum punctuated with reminders of emails to return, groceries to get, and who won last nights game. 24/7 background-input-shit muzak with neither artistry nor intent. Blame not the artists, but the delivery mechanism.

Miracle Planet

So I'm watching some nature show on TV...it was either Miracle Planet or Planet Earth...I'm not sure, but anyway, one of those shows with a Richard Attenborough type narrative in which the voice seems locked in orgasm because the camera found a tadpole in a South American jungle cesspool. The show had a good bit to do with communication, which got me to thinking.

These things as well, occur on Plant Earth.

Two middle-aged men are drinking coffee on the way to a fishing tournament when the conversation hits a lag. Suddenly the cab of the pickup is filled with a acrid, sulphur-like odor. The stench is overpowering...fed by last nights foraging on Busch Lite, nachos, and half a case of Slim Jims. After the prerequisite hang time, the perpetrator turns to the victim and makes an announcement.

"Pheasant Guts", he says with a grin that conveys the required pride of ownership. The victim, in a moment of instant recognition and appreciation of the similarity, grins back, and the silence resumes during the savoring until other topics are found.

The superiority and complexity of both verbal and nonverbal Human communication has just been demonstrated. Merely two spoken words has changed the situation from an emergency reach-for-the-window-button dash, to a calm olfactory sampling (albeit tentatively). The unique Human power of language has instantly counteracted and prevented the normal animal response of pain avoidance.

It's all part of our Miracle Planet.

It's official now...

I've been gone too long. How do I know? Well, the only site I really ever followed took me off HER spinsterish blogroll, presumably due to lack of activity on my own. This action comes from a woman who updates her webcam on her blog once every two years.

Go figure.

Well I'm back, and putrid with the odor of the Pyle once again. How much I've missed these scat-laden musings over the months, should be readily apparent by the frequency of their appearances. Catharsis by blog? A journey of self-discovery? An alter-egoish identity by which to voice (and therfore conquer) your fears? Hardly folks. I now realize that this little blog was, on some level, work. Work is not something I've done much of in the preceding 12 months. My God it's amazing how far I ran.

So...after months of formal Psychotherapy (thanks Doc Steve), I have been left now with a fair idea of how to properly visualize my situation, and the next baby step out of it. The result? I've concluded I'm up to my neck in it, and about to take in a proper mouthful. "Bet it taste like chicken" will be baby step #2, number one was the whole of the year 2007. Not much has changed. You see, it's like the Young & the Restless...I have not tuned in since college, but I'll bet you one of my mothers popcorn farts that the characters and story are the same as ever. Where has the year gone? Who the fux knows, but it sure was an expensive trip for the as-yet-to-be-employed amongst us, a group I can't seem to extricate myself from. I hope membership does not last as long as the "Trekkie" clique did. That was a social disaster.

Truth be told, I have had three job interviews; all in the past month. One was for a menial cooking job at a local restaurant that I frequent, and the other two were the primary and secondary interviews for an executive position as a transportation division manager at a large and reputable company. Talk about a varied career interest. That's akin to saying I left an interview for a McDonald's part-time janitor position, just in time to catch my flight to CIA headquarters in Langley VA so I could interview for the soon-to-be vacant position of Mid-East Intelligence Chief.

I actually think I will be offered the executive position this week. I will follow that up in a later post under the heading "How much are your principles worth?"

I KNOW you're salivating already.

AVERT YOUR EYES Ye Sensitive Lasses!

November in Wisconsin! I'm sorry Donna that Joddi is turned the wrong way for your gratification.