Rememberance of Things Past

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You know, I was just thinking, it’s been three years since went to one of the best parties I’ve ever been to. Almost exactly three years ago, we were preparing to leave DC for the northern wastes of Detroit, Canada. So our great friends in the current snow capitol (well, actual Capitol, too, I suppose) of the country threw a pretty great going away party. There was karaoke and some of it was even custom written for us! There were some beers, some scrapbooking, some kids.

It’s kind of hard for me to believe that it was three years ago that we left. That’s half my son’s life (almost)! Hell, my daughter has NEVER been there and she’s almost a year old. I feel like this post is getting a little melancholy, so I’d better wrap it up (in Bacon, so it’s more delicious).

Anyway, it was a great party three years ago, and I’m afraid our going away party in Michigan won’t be quite as good. Hopefully our “welcome back” party in DC next month will make up for it.

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Slight Modifications May Be Performed As Needed

So, according to the Wall Street Journal (among other sources), maybe I wasn't that far off 18 months ago when I first started worrying and was even less far off nearly a year ago. And all this time I thought that I was probably just letting my disillusionment, paranoia and anger run away with me.

The weirdest thing is that there is a decent chance I was ahead of the curve! I haven't been ahead of any curves since I was in college. And just like those curves, being ahead of this one will be monumentally meaningless.

But forgetting the real world and the actual state of human existence, wouldn't it be awesome if rabbits could talk?! I was telling my son a story last night in which he and some now-far-removed friends were playing baseball with a bunch (well, one rabbit named Bunkers, one cat named Ratatat and one lizard named Alfred) of talking animals. It sounded wicked fun. Except when he demanded that I end the story with a vicious snowstorm. I didn't like that part. What I particularly don't like about it is that it's still only April. Vicious snowstorms are decidedly not out of the picture yet.

And also, just because I haven't done it in a while: There are 10 links in this post

A Little Bird Never Tells Me Anything I Want To Know

Like any good citizen, I went to the Detroit Cityfest today. Yeah, it's at New Center. I gave a "veteran" $5 for three little American flag pins and I wore mine upside down. It was pretty rad. I also got to see, live in concert, Denice Wilson (or something like that). You know, the "Let's Hear it For the Boy!" woman? Plus I ate some vegan Ethiopian food. I'm sure you're all very jealous already, but wait until you hear this. We also got 6 free tickets to tomorrow night's Detroit Shock game. That's a WNBA team as you probably don't know. Apparently their games are so full that they wander around a big old festival handing out tickets all willy nilly and never worry about having more people than seats. Then, as we were leaving and driving through the depressed and dilapidated ruins of a formerly great American city, I realized that I don't care at all any more. There's nothing anybody can do to fix the problems and the whole country is going to be in that kind of shape in a few years anyway. Man, not caring is wonderful.

There aren't your lives all sooooo much fuller now that you know that about my day? Aren't they?????

Minimum Wage. HEEYAAAAAAH!

The other day, I was walking around the neighborhood when....ah, who am I kidding, I never walk anywhere. I mean, there aren't even sidewalks. By the way did you ever notice that just the name "sidewalk" is car-centric? Why is walking relegated to the
"side?" Why don't we call roads "sidedrives?" Anyway, what was I talking about?

So in our neighborhood we've got this meat store called Nitsche's Meats. Imagine my disappointment when they didn't have any, not even one, Ubermensches. The meat is pretty good though, if you're into that kind of thing.

List Tuesday: I Just Stood There Whistling

Reasons Why I Didn't Write A List Today

1. Myu fiungfersa are frpozrebn toghethert

I'm Your Only Friend

Well, we made it all the way to Detroit. It sure is weird to live in a different country. Canada will probably grow on me.

But it is snowing here, so I guess we've got that going for us. March comes in like a line, goes out on the lam up north here.

Also, just so you know, if you ever stay in Pittsburgh, you should totally stay at The Priory. It is the awesomest little hotel this side of the Allegheny River. Or was it the Monongahela River? Freaking Pittsburgh and its Three Rivers. Anyway.

Also, keep checking Why I Hate Detroit. I might keep posting there. I sure as hell hope NOT, but I probably will. Stupid Detroit.

List Tuesday: Why is the World in Love Again?

Things I Would Like to Do and Even Imagine Myself Doing But Probably Will Not Do On My Last Day Of Work In DC Tomorrow

1. Moo like a cow as we all move like cows off the train and onto the escalator to our untimely demise


2. Meet the Press


3. Sing songs from the Rocky Horror soundtrack out loud on the train


4. Dress like Dr. Frank N. Furter on the train*


5. Spend all day reading the whole internet


6. Hire a barbershop quartet to sing a goodbye song to my office


7. Talk to Charles one more time


8. Do some serious shreddin'


9. Eat some pie


10. Not miss anybody here in DC


11. Write a Goodbye, You Stupid City post on Why.I.Hate.DC (you there Rusty?)

*After telling this joke I always like to clarify that I'm only kidding. I believe tomorrow will result in the average amount of desire to dress up in fishnet stockings etc. If you were to do a "dressing up in fishnet stockings etc desire test" tomorrow, my name would be right in the middle.

Always Hungry For Something

Well, here we are.
Here we are where we soon shall not be.
We are now officially in our last week living and working in DC. A week from right now (assuming I'm not just waking up from a wicked, last-day-of-work-in-a-soul-crushing-office-building hangover) we'll be somewhere on the road between here and the great city of Detroit. And by "great city" I mean "abandoned hellhole," but whatever.

So I guess I thought I would take the last few days here to recollect a little about the good and the bad of living here in DC.

Today's Sappy Post!

The Good: Obviously, the best thing ever about our time here in the Nation's Crapital (get it? I changed the word to make the meaning something different! LOL) is that I met so many wonderful people that populate my link field over there ---->
I will fucking miss the shit out them. And I'm angry about that. But it's a good anger, right?


The Bad: Actually, this just happened yesterday. I found out that over the weekend my friend Charles (the homeless(?) Street Sense vendor) was jumped, beaten up, and robbed by a gang of five "young'uns." Now he doesn't have money for rent and may have to move into a shelter again. He told me that it's a good thing he doesn't have a gun because now he'd be serving life in prison. What a world.

We'll Try Not To Get In The Way Of The Guns

So, if you've been reading anything around here, you'll know that I complain about Detroit often. Basically every time I have to go there. Well guess what? It's not quite official yet, but it looks like we're moving there in a couple of months! How do you like them apples? They are tart and firm and, like Detroit, they taste like a potent urine, exhaust and malt liquor cocktail.

But how bad can it possibly be, right? Let's take a look at some of the uplifting news stories that have come out of Detroit lately!

1. 2 killed, 3 hurt in Detroit shooting spree


2. Man arrested with $78,000, nuke info


3. Detroit Now only SECOND most dangerous city!

Still, it's better than this steaming dungheap of cronyism, corruption, violence, poverty, callousness, petty politics, taxpayer boondoggles, drugs, condescension, apathy and downright evil.

P.S. I did my part to battle the evilness of DC yesterday. Charles the Street Sense guy at Metro Center was hanging out so I chatted with him a bit. I asked him if he was doing anything for Thanksgiving, if he had any family in the area. He said no. So I didn't invite him to our house for Thanksgiving.

Guess What the Other One Did Instead

Okay, this has certainly been quite the week. Most of the time I've been sitting in a conference in Detroit, listening to people talk about all kinds of relatively gross stuff. I got to see some sino-sagittal nerve complexes get ripped in half! Of course, I was a co-author on one of the papers, so that was kinda cool. And one of the other papers cited a paper that I helped write a couple years ago. But on the whole, we spent almost a week in Detroit. Yikes. Being in Detroit for a week is kind of like someone swinging a baseball bat at your head only at the the last second you duck and it misses you.

Then on Wednesday (confirmed on Thursday) the wife had a miscarriage. That's like someone swinging a baseball bat at your head only at the last second you duck and it misses you, only then you notice that they actually had two bats and the second one is now about 35 mm from hitting you in the chest. Oof.

Day-glo Vu

I meant to say this earlier, but I, uh, forgot.

The third weirdest thing happened to me yesterday. I thought I had managed to invent some sort of telekinetic teleportation technology because one moment I was in Detroit, and the next, seemingly, I was back in Washington DC!

It all started at the Detroit Airport security line.....
This one woman started asking the TSA lady why the government isn't able to control what goes on the arrival/departure board. The TSA lady responded by saying that asking that question means you are ignorant. Taking offense, the other lady is all like "I'm ignorant? Did you even go to high school?" "Yes" "Well, did you go to college?" "Yes" and then the non-TSA lady goes through the metal detector and the TSA lady, in full ear-shot of the rest of us in the line, calls the woman a, and I quote, "fucking ignorant ass."

Seriously, it was like being back in DC! Imagine my dismay when I found out that I was still in the wrong airport. It was as bad as this one time when I woke up in the middle of the night, only it wasn't the middle of the night, it was about 2 PM and I was stuck to my non-ergonomic chair because I forgot to take the peanut butter sandwich out of my wallet and sat on it by mistake.

Fully 95% of the people here fall into these two categories:

1. Wear a government-backed badge and think they can do whatever they want and you had better jump right in line or out of line if they want to go first (the TSA woman)


2. Have a "powerful" job and think that that means they are far above the inferior rabble that have regular jobs (i.e. the whole "Did you even go to highschool?" comment)

The other 5% of people in the DC area are those like me who do not act like either of the other two groups.



And think that we are so much better than them and feel smugly self-superior.



Just like the other two groups.

LIST TUESDAY! DETROIT ROCK CITY!!!

So, for certain reasons, I visited the lovely city of Detroit yesterday (City Motto: Now only the SECOND most dangerous city in the country!). Basically, the only time I listen to the radio is when I go to Detroit and rent a car and forget to bring any CDs or remember to bring CDs but the car is only equipped with a tape player. Seriously. This is what happened yesterday. It's like they built a time machine to bring a car from 1997 to the present just to rent it out and annoy me. Stupid Ford. Anyway, I was listening to 89X, "Detroit/Windsor's only New Rock Alternative!" By the way, Windsor is in Canada. I think maybe Detroit is too. I'm not sure. But that is beside the point. What is so close to the point that it can actually be proven to be the point through simple mathematical analysis is this: a list of songs I heard on the radio.

SONGS I HEARD ON 89X DETROIT'S ONLY NEW ROCK ALTERNATIVE

1. Some song by My Chemical Romance: It starts out with some almost springsteenian lyrics about going to see a marching band with your dad with a nice, insistent drum cadence and builds up to an almost epic sound. All in the first 30 seconds. Then it devolves into your basic emo, pop-goth crap completely indistinguishable from approximately 50% of the songs I heard yesterday. Well, not completely indistinguishable. There was this one part with some awesome squealing guitars that sound almost like Poison or something.


2. Candlebox - Does it really matter what song? Well, okay it was their one hit from I think 1993. Confession time: This is almost of Postsecret caliber - I once voluntarily attended a Candlebox concert in the Yakima SunDome. Wow, it feels good to have that off my chest.


3. Another song by My Chemical Romance. Or maybe Ashes of Soma. Or maybe the Used. Or maybe Chevelle. I know I heard songs by all of those guys because the DJ told me so. I just can't tell the difference. Really, I can't. I must be getting old.


4. That one Green Day song that rips off the rhythm and chord progression from Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4." Another song from 1994! I felt like I was back in middle school playing hackey sack! By the way, compared to the the pop-punk/goth/whatevs stuff this song is not bad. It's almost dirgey and not at all emo. If you don't know what "emo" means, it means whining about how sucky life is and how some girl betrayed you and maybe you should go cut her, or maybe yourself. Green Day on the other hand, whom I don't really like but appear to have real potential to be a three decade band, got big by writing about being bored and stoned and lazy without being all depressive like those grunge %*#$ers. That's a much better reflection of the zeitgeist of the younger generations because it will last. Being a whiny self-obsessed, mopey teenager only lasts a few years. Being lazy lasts forever.


5. Some song about a ghost. Maybe by Sleater-Kinney. It was actually really good. If you know what I'm talking about, please tell me what it is.


6. Nickelback. Hey, they're Canadian too! That qualifies as a rock "alternative," right?


7. Another song by My Chemical Romance


8. Audioslave? Oh yeah! The one's with the Soundgarden guy! Man, remember Soundgarden? They were all "black hole sun, don't you come" and then that chick's face was melting off! Sweet!"


9. The Toadies song about asking someone if they want to die or something. It still kicks butt. Just like 7Mary3. Chugging, slow guitar riffs are to a Nokia-brand cell phone what industrial staplers are to orange elm leaves. Yeah.


10. Three Days Grace? Is that a band?


11. Snow Patrol. Or should I call them......SLOW Patrol? HA HA HA HA HA! Because of their slow tempos? Get it? Get it? Thank you, I'll be here all week!


12. Another song by My Chemical Romance


13. An ad for a concert by My Chemical Romance

Oh yeah, I also read a book yesterday in airports and airplanes: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. I think this was the fourth time I have read it. It's only 139 pages long. But it is really good. It has now officially entered my top five books ever. The list now looks like this....

A TON OF BRICKS'S TOP FIVE BOOKS EVER

1. Catch-22


2. One Hundred Years of Solitude


3. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich


4. Lonesome Dove


5. Any book by Thomas Pynchon, none of which I have read, but if someone asks, will claim to have read and really really like.