St. Allen Iverson

This is the second time in two months that I have watched a basketball documentary that has moved me.  Wheras the Magic vs. Bird documentary moved me in a strange manner that allowed me to realize how much I love basketball as a sport and how much it currently means to me as a guy in my twenties who is questioning what things in life remain pure and how we can find instances of purity or solace in the world, this second documentary actually brought my attention to the subject matter that was the focus of the movie – well somewhat.

No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson is a riveting documentary by Steve James who is responsible for what some call the best basketball movie of all time, Hoop Dreams.  No Crossover covers the saga of Allen Iverson’s journey of success and struggle from the fall of 1992 through the fall of 1993.  James was a resident of Hampton, Virginia, where Iverson grew up, and he chronicles Iverson’s rise to legendary status as the hero of the Bethel High School football and basketball teams.  Iverson led Bethel to State Championships over the traditional powerhouse, Hampton High School in both football and basketball during his junior year.  We see a young Iverson who is immensely talented and gifted athletically in both football and basketball.  He is driven to win and will not accept losing.  I have followed Iverson’s entire college and NBA career and it is almost startling to see how insanely athletic he was in high school compared to how athletic he was in the NBA and he was a freak of nature in the NBA.  He single-handedly turns over 75 years of athletic history in the Virginia Peninsula only to find his comeuppance in a racial brawl that occurred in a bowling alley during the basketball season.  A trial over what really occurred at the bowling alley ensues and the whole town of Hampton is torn apart by years of racial tension.  Different community organizations both black and white try to exert their sphere of influence using Iverson as either their pillar of virtue or their guiding force of criticism.  There are misjudgments in legal council; the choice of a jury trial over a non-jury trial, witness accounts and eventually Iverson is sentenced to 15 years in prison.

As we all know, Iverson did not spend 15 years in prison.  With some coercing of the first-ever black Virginia governor, Iverson is pardoned after 4 months in prison, which in my opinion as an observer of the documentary was just.  The narrative that James is able to construct from the perspectives of various attorneys, judges, public defenders, journalists, community leaders, religious figures, and even his own mother is astonishing.  He set out to tell a story of the racial troubles of his hometown set against the backdrop of the Iverson story and he succeeded. I will not ruin the documentary or his hard work by going in depth into the work he does with the theme of race, I will merely say that you should just watch the documentary.

What I want to talk about, since he fits into the format of this blog as someone or something I am passionate about, is Allen Iverson.  Back in January, when the 2010 NBA All-Star Team Lineup was announced, I wrote this on the blog:

Now, this year you might call Iverson a weak spot as well and as much as it pains me, you would be right.  He is having his worst season as a pro and you can see him deteriorating each time you watch a Sixers game.  To me, this has been one of the most painful aspects of this season.  There was nothing like watching a young Iverson.   He was the fastest player I will probably ever see and some of his off the dribble moves were just phenomenal.  Plus, Iverson is listed at 6'0" - and that is a generous 6'0" - and he used to finish off alley-oops and dunks like he was 6'5" or 6'6".  He was a freak of nature.  Too talented and provocative to be understood by a league that was still fascinated by Jordan.  Had he been embraced, they would have realized that he was made of the same stuff, except maybe he was a littler harder.  But maybe that's what made him so interesting, that he wasn't loved.  I'm not going to get into the psychology, but in any event, Iverson holds one of my two favorite bad ass moments in NBA history.

These opinions are still true.  Since that was written, Iverson bowed out of the All-Star game due to the illness of his daughter and then announced that he would be on leave from the Philadelphia Seventy-Sixers for the remainder of the season.  We have most likely seen the end of Allen Iverson in the NBA and I only realized it this evening.  I love Allen Iverson and I will admit that any day of the week.  I have absolutely nothing in common with Allen Iverson.  He was raised in such a harsh and drastic environment and was able to succeed in ways that I couldn’t imagine.  Did he come out of that situation with flaws? You are absolutely right.  Did I come out of a privileged upbringing on the north shore of Long Island with immense flaws?  You are absolutely right. So maybe I take that back, I share one thing in common with Allen Iverson and that one thing is that we are both flawed like all human beings are – and if he met me, A.I. would probably call me out on even comparing us in one way. 

I will forever admire his tenacity and his ability to take control of a game.  He played on some of the most underwhelming teams that I have ever followed and the fact that he even coaxed them to a modicum of success (2001 NBA Finals) was a miracle in itself.  He is one of the most charismatic and handsome players that I have ever followed.  The original Answer sneaker was one of the most influential sneakers on my formative years.  He was said to have had a dominating personality (the documentary shows this, his interviews show this, various accounts testify to this, like the time Bill Simmons references when he saw Iverson play live and get called for a foul, only to berate the referee into reversing the call. As Simmons says, “there was real violence was in the air.”) and sometimes that dominating personality resulted in compromised situations, decisions, and arrests.  Those are not necessarily attributes to strive for if you are a young man looking to make it into the NBA.

However, and maybe unfortunately and maybe not, what I will remember best is this latter day Iverson.  The Iverson who was too proud to come off the bench in Memphis and who threw a tantrum and was given a chance to come back to Philadelphia.  The Iverson who cried at his press conference at being welcomed back to the city that brought him into the NBA.  When I first saw Iverson cry, I was moved.  This was a player who was as tough as anyone I had met in real life or had seen in a movie.  I got goose bumps when I saw him cry.  I also got goose bumps tonight (and my eyes watered) when the documentary showed a clip of a student thanking Iverson for a scholarship that Iverson donated to him so that he could go to college.  When asked to comment, underneath a black hat with its brim pulled almost entirely over his eyes, Iverson, holding back tears, said that he did not want praise, that he just wanted to try to give back to his community and to someone else. There was nothing in his voice, his eyes, and his posture that suggested even the slightest bit of contrivance.  I also got goose bumps when the documentary showed archival footage of a high school Iverson, fresh out of jail, graduating from high school thanks to a local teacher/tutor (white) who helped him with private lessons while he was in prison and once he was released.  You saw a genuine love in Iverson’s eyes for this woman and I feel that that moment along with the moment in front of the high school boy and then the moment at the podium in Philadelphia are all tied together into the true Allen Iverson – the Allen Iverson that I will always remember.  I equate it in the best way that I can (being educated in the English canon from a liberal arts university) to a mystic.  Iverson has been privy to glances of troubled human action that I will never see, he’s had to overcome things I never had to and that no one in my family will ever have to, but at the heart he has tried to do what is best for himself and what is best for his family. Was he equipped to do all those things? Maybe not? Did he try? Like anything else, he did and sometimes he failed.  But when I see that teenage Iverson with his cap on, when I see him with his brim pulled down, when I see him on the podium, his eyes strange and puffed with tears, I see someone who has looked life straight in the eyes and wanted nothing more than to do the best he ever could.  Sometimes he interpreted that desire the wrong way and received the just punishments for his actions.

I wasn’t there at the bowling alley on February 14, 1993 and the actual events of that night are still uncertain, but what I do know is that criminal or not, what I know of Allen Iverson, I love. When I say that I see him in his latter day form as a “medieval mystic” what I mean is that I see someone who has stared down life and death, his loves, his profession and his mistakes and still feels that passion within himself, that unexplainable thing that brings him to tears.  And if Allen Iverson does that, then maybe we aren’t so far apart, and even if we are, I can live with that, because that is the kind of athlete I want to admire – that is the kind of athlete I would want my son to admire.

She and She

I am not usually a fan of female singers however, recently, I have found myself drawn to quite a few. Some women extremely so: Victoria Legrand (Beach House); some in passing: Neko Case and Jenny Lewis; some in simple pleasure: Zooey Deschanel (She & Him); and some barely at all: Joanna Newsom.

So, when the releases of Newsom’s latest album, Have One On Me and She and Him’s, Volume 2, coincided with each other, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to not compare the two necessarily, but to offer parallel viewpoints on interacting with each album. For, as I hope you will see, one of these albums does not trump the other in any direct manner per say, rather they seem to serve as complimentary wholes to each other.  These are two women with strong voices, one perhaps more singular than the other, who have set up a vision of America in two very different ways with each having varying levels of success.  However, at the core, these albums are both American in every connotation of that word, which is to say, imperfect and open to many identifications.

First, is She and Him’s Volume 2.  This is an album that is entirely about maintaining one overall posture and mood.  The first song, “Thieves,” announces this fact perfectly well. There seems to be a thin haze in the production keeping the listener away from Deschanel’s swooning vocals, M. Ward’s  tasteful string arrangements and the near flamenco rhythm that is straight from a 1950’s prom (see “Under the Sea Dance” from Back to the Future).  This is the posture that Deschanel will proceed to hold for the remainder of the album, which is the idea of a neo-Patsy Cline, the woman singer for those new diners around eastern and western seaboard cities (see Diner).  And there is no one better than Deschanel to try to hold this posture. Her voice is full of confidence but can seem meek, bashful and hurt, as the song requires.  She may never be able to get away from her role as Summer in 500 Days of Summer, however that identity is used to great affect in her singing, whether intended or not.  The production keeps her away from you, just as the character was kept away from the protagonist and the actual audience (maybe to that film’s detriment).  But the one thing we can see are those wide blue eyes and we can hear that soft round voice that wraps the song in whatever allure she has been able to perpetuate through music and film.

Much of this effect is achieved through M. Ward’s production.  In the third song “Don’t Look Back,” Deschanel’s lead vocal is surrounded by backup chamber vocals and Pet Sounds/Wall of Sound drumming that makes the song seem like a cleanly edited 1950’s or 1960’s jingle. The songs are infectious and in fact, they give Deschanel’s vocals a smiling quality; it is almost as if she is smiling back on a whole tradition of music, which is early rock n’ roll, rock-a-billy and the country of Patsy Cline.  The issue is that by the time you are halfway through the album and have hummed more than a few hooks, you can’t help but feel that the songs lack a certain dynamicism that the originals contain.  That may be an easy sentiment to express: old better than new.  Most pompous and curmudgeonly rock critics express that in a few too many reviews and I am not a rock critic. However, when you are pointing so directly at a tradition of music, you have to meet that tradition head on in order to get your proper say in, to have your voice come through the mix that you enjoy so much.

That is not to say that Deschanel and Ward do not make the effort to meet the tradition head-on.  The sixth song, “Me and You,” conjures up an image of that moment when, walking by yourself, the evening has set in; streetlamps come on and the warmth of night feels comforting on your skin; you see people passing on the street, a child’s shout, everything is OK.  This is an album about postures and the seventh song, “Gonna Get Along Without You Now,” is the perfect evidence that Deschanel knows every inch and nuance of the posture she is holding.  Her voice lilts just where it is supposed to on the choruses, becomes short and conversational at points during the spring voices, all the while following along perfectly with M. Ward’s country shuffle.

There are also surprises in many of these songs.  The second song (and single) “In The Sun,” at first seems like a complete summary of Volume 1, until M. Ward inserts a strange guitar flourish that appears right before each chorus and, in its strange way, becomes a bit of a hook itself.  The ninth song, “I’m Gonna Make it Better” pulls off the classic Beatle effect of having a chorus that takes a turn that surprises the listener from the initial verse.  Ward plays some borderline late/post-Beatles George Harrison slide guitar throughout the entire song.  They also insert a playful third section to the song that comes out of nowhere but seems to fit directly in with the remainder of the mood.  It is all concise and clean, but surprising at the same time.

The whole album is enjoyable from beginning to end.  There are no week songs from beginning to end.  The arrangements are all precise, neat and at many times interesting and unexpected.  However, in the end, you find yourself drawn back to that image the music conjures up of an easy warm evening with streetlights, passing strangers and a child’s shout.  While you are there, you have to think that something about the ease of the situation that isn’t quite right.  Those diners that the first song “Thieves” might play in, like so many of Patsy Cline’s did, were not so often filled with ease as they were with strong, unpleasant coffee, and a hard smell of fried eggs and bacon. But maybe from the perspective of modern times, a morning in a diner with swooning vocals can provide is with that level of peace that we may often be hard pressed to find.

Yet, in the end, you still admire Deschanel for her ability to hold her balance and posture so well throughout the entire album.  You have to, because while to try to stand by her side, you wonder whether you are able to do the same since you’d most likely get uneasy at some point and fall.

Newsom’s Have One on Me is a different beast, but one that provides its own privileged looks into American life along different points of the highway.  It is a triple album, so immediately, you know there may be points where the material is stretched. On this album, Newsom is very pleased to disrupt moods and to have the general flow of a song take an abrupt turn.  The lead-off track, “Easy” makes this desire pretty clear.  Newsom’s striking voice is paired up with cinematic strings, until a piano enters, then the piano builds and is joined by thumping drums that are right out of a prog rock track.  Throughout the song, about four different melodies start and then give way to a completely different one. Instruments appear and surprise you, like the horns that arrive late into the song.  The same is true, maybe even more so, for the following title track. What “Have One On Me” evidences is the ability that Newsom’s songs have to remain rootsy and feel like a window into some anachronistic backwoods America, while at the same time containing complicated string and horn arrangements.

These sonically complex songs are also balanced with quiet, mournful songs, touched with Newsom’s signature harp.  “Esme” is an excellent example of this type of song.  Newsom’s voice sings sweetly and plainly and not full of gimmickery as she can come off elsewhere on the album.  There is a sincerity here that is missing in other places.  This track is Saturday morning on a weekend trip to a cabin in the Adirondacks.  You rise from your bed, your lover still laying in the sheets, and walk to the window. There is a bright mist among the pines, but a sense of melancholy as you look through the glass because the weekend is already over at that point and you will have to be moving on to the next point.

Movement is captured extremely well on this album.  However, there are also times where Newsome overdoes it.  The middle section of the album seems to force its surprises on the listener.  This is most evident on “Baby Birch,” which begins in the vein of a traditional folk song – longing in tone and delivery. This is a welcome discovery after the shifting moods in the first five songs.  Initially, “Baby Birch” shares that virtue with traditional folk songs, which is the means of communication between people against the darkness in life.  But the song does not remain content and turns into a strange march filled with drums, claps and chanting.  Sonically, it sounds terrific, but it ruins the initial mood of the song rather than adding to it as a change of pace.

It would be hard to say that Newsom was attempting to write each of these songs with an idea of movement in mind.  However, as a listener, it is hard to ignore.  On “Does Not Suffice,” specifically, Newsom describes putting away objects into boxes.  The song itself is elegaic and feels like packing and moving on.  One can picture a hot afternoon in May, moving out of an apartment you had on a sidestreet in a small upstate town.  This is another instance where Newsom remains sincere and it works to her benefit.

The album is not completely separated into songs that are simple and sincere and good and those that are too busy and bad.  Perhaps the two strongest songs on the album are “Good Intentions Paving Company” and “Go Long.”  In “Go Long,” Newsom’s voice sounds more womanly than anywhere else on the album while she is singing about “the loneliness of you mighty, mighty men.”  Newsom paints an image of a small town with a sugar mill and fire pits.  The objects and the sentiment of the song are completely real and you can see a sepia toned town with workers shuffling past the fire pits to the mills.  The music remains relatively simple with the harp dominating overall.  The picking becomes more intricate towards the end and Newsom’s voice breaks from its simple womanly singing to peals of pleading, which elsewhere can become grating or gimmicky.  Here, she achieves a balance as she does on “Good Intentions Paving Company” with its driving piano that makes the listener immediately determined.  Newsom’s vocals are intricately layered and harmonized while she sings about the “tilt of this strange nation/and the will to remain for the duration” and provides some of the most literate and expansive lyrics since Dylan.  The percussion below the words is inventive and propulsive.  This song captures all of Newsom’s powers working together as one.  There are hooks all over the place, the lyrics are sincere but she uses here voice in strange dynamics as another instrument but she never grates.  Again, this is a song about moving and how our emotions and relationships are tied up in that movement.  Even the propulsive rhythm slows down and the song becomes holy, pensive and hymnal, but even then, there is some out of step percussion that steps in.  However, it makes you aware as a listener and the surprise is welcome.  The song feels important at every step of the way.

She should have finished the album with “Occident,” which is the closest a song on the album comes to a traditional ballad.  It is just Newsom, a piano and lazy, quiet drums that are used perfectly for atmosphere.  This is a song that is searching for redemption and remorse.  Like, “Good Intentions Paving Company,” it achieves an effect of seeming important, as though at any instance you listen to it, something profound is occurring in your life -  you feel compelled to look sideways into the sun and let the light fall across your cheek as though you are staring down something you can’t quite make out, you feel a poignancy you aren’t quite sure of.

That is what America is about: a poignancy we aren’t quite aware of.  Whether we are moving, like Newsom’s work on Have One On Me or smiling in place at a tradition of diners and highway anthems like Deschanel on Volume 2.  Newsom looks sideways at a bright object and makes music that suggests and unknown profundity, while Deschanel looks straight on a tangible object but finds it hard to articulate why it will remain important other than to provide us with a welcome posture and a high-level of enjoyment in reverie.  These are both imperfect albums from an imperfect nation that struggles to articulate itself, whether on the move or sitting at home, playing those albums from the basement – at each instance, we are groping at what is gold.

Podcast of Myself Episode 3

I had an action-packed weekend. My childhood friend Jeff came into town for the weekend and we treated ourselves to some good dinners and brunches as well as went to the Knicks vs. Heat game last night.  I should have a write-up of that game and some other general thoughts for you later today.  I also am still working on my She and Him/Joanna Newsom post, which I should have up here for tomorrow.

However, now I am giving you the third episode of the hit series known as Podcast of Myself.  In this episode, I welcome Willie Miesmer who is the guitarist for the band Tony Castles as well as a member of the band Boogie Boarder. In this episode, we touch on such topics as Willie's experience playing in the Tony Castles and in Boogie Boarder, the South by Southwest Music Festival, Larry Johnson's Four Point Play, the movie the Runaways and Kristen Stewart, Joanna Newsom, and the book The Blue Star by Tony Earley.  Parental discretion is advised.





Keep track of this space as I will be bringing you more of this always great and always new content.

Podcast of Myself Episode 2

When you are on a roll, you have to stay on a roll.  For the second episode of Podcast of Myself, I welcome a very special guest, Miles Debas, and lots of Stumptown coffee.  In this episode, Miles and I discuss his band Snakes Say Hiss, Beach House, NBA jerseys, obscure 1970's folk artists, the Taliban and the nature of viewing art.



You can find a link to Miles' website on the side panel of this page and you can download the entire podcast here.

Tomorrow or Friday you can look for my post on She & Him's Volume 2 and Joanna Newsom's Have One on Me.

Now, everyone enjoy the twilight (no pun or copyright infringement intended).

Podcast of Myself Episode 1

As promised, the Puddles of Myself Podcast aka Podcast of Myself is now available.  Once each podcast has been booted off this main page, you will be able to find them archived in a section that you will see at the top of the main page called "Podcast of Myself."

In the inaugural episode, we welcome guest Erik Lilleby, a childhood friend of mine.  In this conversation, we test the waters on such topics as the Dalai Lama, Baby Mama, The Walkmen, prostitutes, the NHL and the Dick Cavett Show.  Parental discretion is advised.

The Ballad of Donovan McNabb

I could list off all the stats from Donovan McNabb’s ten-year tenure in Philadelphia: first in every relevant passing and quarterbacking category, five NFC Championship Game appearances, one Super Bowl appearance, six Pro Bowl Selections, five NFC East Division Titles and eight playoff appearances.  However, I never write about sports because of the numbers; I don’t write about sports to use the numbers as an effective strategy of evaluating talent and managing a team, because, although I can manage many aspects of life, I never look to sports for management or organization, which is somewhat of a paradox in an institution which is based on various levels of organization.   I have always looked to sports, as many do, for a release of my emotions, to let down the guard of daily priorities and deadlines in order to be taken away in the human emotion and narrative of the game.  Like many use movies, I use sports as my escape, and at the same time as that strange vantage point in which to view the human condition.

Now that the Eagles have traded Donovan McNabb to the Washington Redskins, it feels like a part of my own life has been traded away.  It’s not as though my memories, good and bad, have been taken away forever, but at the same time, it’s an era that has ended; a certain sensation lost.  This is mainly because there has not been another sports figure in my life that I have grown up so closely with or have been as “intimate” with in the ultimate sense of sports.  As a basketball fan, I of course grew up with Michael Jordan however, he was a far more omnipresent sports deity than McNabb ever was.  As a Philadelphia fan, I grew up in the Eric Lindros era, but he was too much of a primadonna and an underachiever to truly embrace. As a Philadelphia and basketball fan, I grew up in the Allen Iverson era.  Iverson was a figure who I admired greatly for his athletic ability, his toughness, his desire to win and for his defiant attitude – although that attitude often worked to his own detriment.  He was a figure that fit perfectly with the Philadelphia sensibility and left us with many memorable moments.  However, I was far more invested in the NBA as a whole than in the Sixers themselves and traditionally, like most Philadelphians, I have always been an Eagles fan first and foremost.

So, in 1999, a pitiful franchise drafted a black quarterback with a canon arm and unheard of agility with the second pick of the NFL Draft.  The crowd infamously booed at McNabb when he was introduced onstage, which signaled the beginning of the love/hate (mostly hate) relationship between Philadelphia and Donovan McNabb for the next ten years.  I was fourteen years old when the Eagles drafted McNabb.   I am now twenty-four years old.  In McNabb’s time as quarterback, I have seen three different presidents, graduated high school, graduated college, seen Phish break up and reunite twice, lost my grandmother, fallen in love, lived in three different “cities” and had a world of other experiences that feel like they belong to a different life.  In McNabb’s ten years as quarterback, he has been both savior and the ultimate goat; he has been a courageous opponent of racism and bad radio hosting (Rush Limbaugh); he has been the focus of a pro-sports soap opera (T.O. vs. McNabb); he’s been injured and been washed up; he’s made one of the best plays in NFL history; been to the Super Bowl; played on a broken ankle; and has at times been the most electrifying and exciting player in the entire league.  He has gotten married and had kids, while I have been put on the precipice of finding my role in the world.  He has been an integral part of my life – a focus of my adoration and scorn. Even though I have never met him and probably never will, he feels like her is a distant member of my family.  I have never felt that way about a professional athlete and I don’t know when I will again.

To demonstrate McNabb’s presence in my life, I want to share three stories that sum up the McNabb era to me:

1.  2001 NFC Championship Game (January 2002). Eagles vs. Rams at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis. The Rams are one of the best teams in the league.  They are known as “The Greatest Show on Turf” with Marshall Faulk, Kurt Warner, Isaac Bruce and Tory Holt lining up on offense.  I was in a local bar at my town watching the game with the father of one of my sister’s childhood friends.  He was a Philadelphia transplant as well and faced the same amount of adversity as I did sticking to our favorite football team deep in Jets/Giants territory.  The Rams were heavily favored in the game, as the Eagles had made an impressive run beating the Giants and Bears to get to the NFC Championship Game.  At the end of the first half, the Eagles were actually beating the Rams 17-14.  I was 16 at the time and had never experienced this kind of success or excitement as an Eagles fan.  My lasting memory as a fan had been watching the Eagles lose to the Cowboys in the 1992 Divisional Game and crying like a baby (well that and the infamous 4th and 1 stand against the Cowboys in 1995). I looked to my sister’s friend’s father and told him that I thought the Birds had the game.  This man, being a far more experienced Eagles fan and a drinker than I, told me to hold tight and bought me what was a very welcome underage beer.  I sipped on that beer and a few others as McNabb came out cold and inaccurate in the second half and the Rams took the lead going into the fourth quarter.  I felt the same feeling in my stomach that had wrenched me apart back in 1992.  However, McNabb came alive in the fourth quarter and put the Eagles up before the Rams came back to take the lead.  I gripped the pint glass in horror as the Rams regained possession due to the Eagles continued offensive problems. But the Eagles defense came through and stopped the Rams, giving the Eagles the ball with 2:20 left and one timeout.  McNabb and the Eagles took the ball into Rams territory, but McNabb threw an interception and that was the game.  I looked at my sister’s friends’ father and he shot me a knowing grin.  That same feeling from 1992 exploded in my stomach and he slid me another pint as I watched Donovan, helmet off, shaking his head as the confetti fell in the Edward Jones Dome.  Something about his look told me they would be back the next year.  Two weeks later, Tom Brady became a household name.

2. 2003 Home Opener. Eagles vs. Buccaneers.  The Eagles had blown the NFC Championship Game against the Buccaneers the year before and the Bucs had gone on to win the Super Bowl.  I thought the game was a fluke and heading into the 2003 season it looked like the Eagles were vastly improved and were the favorites along with the Patriots to win the Super Bowl.  However, they came out flat in the first game of the season against the Buccaneers.  They looked uninspired, as though they had forgotten how to play football.  I was a freshman at college and I remember frightening the crap out of my roommate when, after a terrible Donovan pass, I ripped my phone out of the wall and hurled it across the room and into the wall, letting it smash into pieces all over the floor. According to my roommate, I then muttered, “I don’t want to live anymore.”  A classic McNabb era moment.

3. 2004 Super Bowl (February 2005). Jacksonville, Florida.  New England Patriots vs. Philadelphia Eagles. Finally, the two best teams in the league before the season began, met in the Super Bowl.  This was the game that most of America wanted to see.  We had Tom Brady and the Patriots going up against McNabb and Terrell Owens who made a dramatic return from a foot injury. I had friends at college who were older than me and who had an off-campus house.  We bought a keg, a hero from the (then unknown) local Italian deli, and a tray of buffalo wings.  We had everything set up.  As the game went on and we got drunker and drunker, we didn’t realize that the TiVo had been turned on earlier in the day and that we were watching the game on delay.  So, when the neighbors ran in (Patriots fans) screaming about the Patriots winning, when we were watching the Eagles receive the ball with the chance to make a dramatic fourth quarter comeback win, we were baffled. However, I then watched as McNabb mismanaged the two-minute drill and then threw up on the field.  The pinnacle of my experience as an Eagles fan had been ruined by TiVo and McNabb throwing up from “exhaustion.” My friend, a Patriots fan, turned to me and said, “Even I can’t really enjoy this one.”

As I look back on all of these McNabb memories, and even think of some of the more successful ones like the Broken Ankle Game or the Scramble Throw Game, I feel as though maybe these three stories don’t capture the feeling that I am trying to describe.  Instead, I am reminded of the 2003 NFC Championship Game (January 2004). Eagles vs. Panthers in Philadelphia.  The Eagles are heavily favored to get over the hump and play the Patriots in the Super Bowl.  The only problem is, they don’t show up.  They play listlessly against the Panthers and again look like they have forgotten how to play football. I am watching the game in my basement, throwing anything that is not nailed down. My family is upstairs and, after having bought me snacks to watch the game during my first winter break home from college, are cowering in fear.  As the Eagles blew another chance to take control of the game, I hurled the remote at the wall and screamed, “This wasn’t supposed to happen!” I felt that same explosion in my stomach and I felt as though I were going to cry all over again – just like 1992.  However, I didn’t.  But looking back on that moment now, it seems to sum up everything to me.  It’s just me, alone, with McNabb and the Eagles and things just aren’t going the way they should be going.  During those peak years of McNabb’s run 2001-2004, every time he and the Eagles failed, it just seemed wrong, like it wasn’t supposed to happen.  They had tremendous seasons each year and he was so exciting and so multitalented and such a “nice” guy that it seemed like he was going to be the one to put Eagles fans out of their misery.  However, he never could and that wasn’t supposed to happen.

So, now, after ten years with the Eagles, he has been traded to division rival Washington. I won’t hold it against the Eagles for trading him and hopefully I will get over seeing him in a Redskins uniform, although that may never actually happen.  Something tells me it will always be strange to me, because he shouldn’t have been traded to the Redskins.  He should have remained an Eagle until the end of his career, because we are the only city that deserved him.  Only Philadelphia deserves an athlete who was talented and successful but never appreciated.  Yeah, McNabb did choke and choke often, but he was booed on the first day.  He was constantly put on the cross when no Philadelphia fan would do the same to themselves for being a bad fan.   McNabb wasn’t supposed to go to Washington – he was supposed to stay in Philly to keep the fans miserable.

Or, maybe the trade all makes sense.  Because, like I said, “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

One More Victory

Tomorrow is my last day at work.  You have got to take the small victories where you can and certainly tomorrow will be a huge victory for me. I've toiled hard at the job for two years without much love. It is very strange to do something you are good at but not enjoy it very much.  I am sure that I am not the first person to have ever said that or uttered that sentiment.

Moving on.


If you read my post from earlier in the week, or have been following my progress in the Amazon/Createspace Breakthrough Novel Award Contest, you will have found out that I did not make the cut from the pool of 1,000 to the pool of 500.  I didn't make it last year either and that's alright. However, one of the benefits of entering the contest is that you get "professional" feedback from some published writers and literary agents.  You actually get two different sets of feedback.  So, without further ado, here is what the public is saying about the early version of From Here to the Last Mound of Dirt, that very novel that is chronicled on this space and which you painstakingly follow as though your life depended on it - because in reality, it does:

ABNA Expert Reviewer #1

What is the strongest aspect of this excerpt?

I like these stories where you have a sort of puzzle to solve--what's going on here, how do these people interact. It's very well handled in this piece.

Descriptions are lush and not intrusive--they aren't just plotzed in the middle of a conversation, slowing things down.

What aspect needs the most work?

Almost all of the voices sound the same. If you're going to do 1 person narrative for a host of characters, they need to SOUND different. I thought James using all those sentence fragments was a style thing to differentiate his voice but...they all do it!

What is your overall opinion of this excerpt?

I'm a little unsure as to where the story is going. Some interesting characters and potential for some really fascinating interactions and the prose is *beautiful*. This would be a good weekend read, but it's a bit slow for a big 'edge of your seat' best seller.

ABNA Expert Reviewer #2

What is the strongest aspect of this excerpt?

An old setup -- children returning home after the death of a parent -- is handled well enough that it is interesting. The lack of major conflict between the siblings or Ben and his children is refreshing.

What aspect needs the most work?

There are five narrators in this excerpt. Their voices are too similar. With the exception of Maggie, they all sound alike in their cadence and descriptions. They need to be differentiated by the style of their narration.

What is your overall opinion of this excerpt?

The funeral story, characters gathering after the death of a relative or loved one, is a popular motif. The specifics here: four children returning to their old home to see their father, prepare their mother's funeral, and help sell the old house. In tow is also the wife of the oldest son. Dad's drinking, kept in check for 30 years by his now dead wife, has resumed.

The excerpt avoids the usual cliches. The siblings all get along well enough. They all love their father and vice versa. No long standing resentments are unpacked, no bile unleashed, no verbal acid flung about in this Long Island story.

Each section of the story is narrated by either the father or a child. And therein lies the problem. The narration is pleasant enough. It's just not different enough. The voices are differentiated, except for Maggie the magazine writer, by little more than section headings.

There is an interesting element of mystery in why James, the doctor son, has not told his father or his wife that she's pregnant. Other things -- Liza's guilt at moving away and "killing" her mother, Maggie's annoyance that she is not thought the leader of the children even though she's the eldest -- are not so interesting.

 

 

What they actually review is about a 5,000 word excerpt of the novel that you submit along with a pitch as well as the complete manuscript. There are some extremely true words in each of these little reviews and there is a lot to take from it, namely that the voices need to distinguish themselves earlier on in the story. As I see it now, the beginning did suffer due to me writing out each of the voices and finding them as the manuscript went along. When we come to Part III on the blog, those of you who have followed the progress, will see how the voices are certainly more distinguishable.  All very helpful stuff in terms of revision, which can  and usually is the bulk of any creation.

 

So, job almost over.  Little comments from the outside world on my writing.  Something to build on moving forward.  It's like Todd Rundgren said in the song, "One More Victory,"  "we need just one victory and we'll be alright."  We've got a couple here, and the last time I checked, that song was probably the best song to listen to while watching college basketball on mute and drinking whiskey.  I'm just saying.

 

Now, the next installment of the riveting and distinguished voice of Section 2 of Part II of From Here to the Last Mound of Dirt:

 

Mr Kosciuzko looked out of his window as he slowed the limo through the school crossing in front of the Setauket School.  He nodded his head at the statues of Benjamin Tallmadge and Abraham Woodhull at the peaks of the two wings of the school – those honorable American revolutionary spies.  He sighed and felt his heart grow heavy, too, as he drove past the Emma S. Clark library with its beautiful latticed windows, lush landscaping, and wood structure that seemed to be something out of a fairy tale.  Peter checked the time on the library’s small clock tower, which faced the road; it was the same as the time in the limo.  His heart was heavy, because he wished that he could tell a story too.  He wanted to write a story about the town, about all of its landmarks because he found it fascinating and thought that there was some similarity in this town and its history that anyone could relate to.  His grandfather had told him that there was a recluse who used to live in a  barn behind the library.  When his grandfather was a teenager they would spy on the recluse – they named him Hank.  Peter’s grandfather told him that whenever they spied on the recluse they would only see him sitting in the far corner by his candlelamp reading a book, they imagined that it was the Bible.  However, one time his grandfather had gone alone to look at the recluse.  He went at the same time of night he and his friends had always gone at.  However, this specific time when he looked in the window he had seen the recluse masturbating.  His grandfather had been shocked and slipped on the pale and crate he used to peer in the window.  When he looked up from his fall he saw the recluse’s eyes in the small window, the candlelight glowing around and behind them.  The eyes both frightened and full of rage.  His grandfather had been so scared that he didn’t even wipe the mud off his hands as he ran down Old Main Street.  When he was far enough away, he had caught his breath in the street underneath one of the streetlamps and wiped the mud off his hands on the grass.  He noticed a decent gash in the space between his thumb and pointer finger.  When he got home he didn’t try to sneak into the house as he usually did, he simply went in the front door.  His parents asked him where he had been and he told them.  He didn’t tell them what he had seen.  His father gave him the belt that night and, his grandfather said, he didn’t blame him that time.

 
“You know, Petey,” Mr Kosciuzko’s grandfather had said. “There are times in your life when something happens, could be big or could be small but you realize inside of yourself that you are learning something profound. Maybe you can’t define it then or maybe even ever, but you can feel it.  I think that night, I realized what growing up was.”

Peter took deep breaths as he stopped at the three way stop sign next to the reconstructed Setauket Post Office and the Mill Pond Bridge. There were swans out on the pond and he saw leaves falling off trees. He thought of his grandfather and the vanilla tobacco he smoked with his suspenders and his slicked back hair, always parted to the left.  Peter wished his grandfather’s story of the recluse could have been his.  Why was it that he had nothing in him to tell?  He turned right and continued on Old Main Street.  Maybe it wasn’t that he had nothing to tell, but that he did not know how to tell it.  He believed that every monument had a story – even the Mill Pond with its swans and ice hockey in the winter had a story to it.  However, he probably could not tell the story correctly and after seeing men who could tell a good story, he had to retreat to his driver’s seat.  All of the changes that were seen through his driver’s side window would remain in the repose of his chaffeur’s mind.

Mr. Kosciuzko turned the car left up Ridgeway and along the perimeter of Detmer’s Farm.  He remembered picking pumpkins with his children while the sky grey dark grey over the dirt.  On the left, they passed St. James Church.  Rose O’Donnell had been a fixture at the church.  Peter’s wife, Ellen, hadn’t really been friendly with her, and neither had Peter himself.  But they saw her each time they went to mass, which wasn’t so often, though they weren’t negligent parishioners.  Everyone knew that Rose would be a mass every Sunday and the kids would be there with her, all lined up and dressed neatly – the boys with wet hair.  Mr. Kosciuzko could not ever remember seeing Ben with the whole family at church.  Although, it was more like the Irish to dissent from the Catholic Church than it was for the Italians. Peter could not remember where his identification of Rose O’Donnell as Italian came from, but something told him it was true.  She did have the red hair, but stranger things had happened than an Italian with long red hair.

Peter checked his rearview mirror as they turned back onto Main Street. There was a GMC SUV following him.  He saw the older O’Donnell daughter, Maggie, moving her lips through the divider.  She had the same red hair that Rose O’Donnell had, although not as uniquely beautiful as Rose had been – graceful might have been the better word.  Mr. Kosciuzko’s son, Chris, was about the same age as Maggie.  Peter wondered if Maggie had any children.  They would most likely be riding in the limo.  But Ellen had showed him that notice in the paper a year or two ago that said Maggie O’Donnell’s wedding had been cancelled.  Kids were waiting longer and longer to get married and have children these days. Especially a girl like Maggie O’Donnell who was supposed to be quite the successful photographer.  If you were a woman and successful or even a man and successful at an art or a career, why stop to go through the pain’s of childbirth or father hood?  Peter could understand that point of view.  There was more ambition in the world – he could see that from TV and the internet.  However, there were certain lines he couldn’t draw.  He wasn’t sure if he was losing touch or if he was right.  Too often it seemed to him that there was an abundance of ambition, but also indecision and inaction in equal doses.

A Volvo stopped in front of Mr. Kosciuzko and he stamped on the break. There was a light ahead.  He checked his rearview mirror again.  He saw Maggie O’Donnell’s lips moving still.  What was she talking about? What were they all talking about?  He respected the families that kept the sound divider up during the rides, although it always raised his curiousity – a trait he hated about himself.  Maggie reminded him so much of his own daughter Sonya.  It wasn’t Maggie’s appearance that reminded Mr. Kosciuzko of his daughter, it was her reputation.  Peter hadn’t spoken to Sonya in five years – it would be six in the upcoming November.  He knew that Ellen still spoke to her.  The last Ellen had told him, Sonya was teaching to deaf children in Washington D.C.  Before that it was working for some small town newspaper outside of Iowa City.  

The traffic resumed and Peter felt the smooth purr of the engine pick up.  She had run off with Lee when she graduated college. He was from San Francisco and that’s where they moved.  Mr Kosciuzko remembered when she told them.  It rained on her graduation day and they stood under the green awning of the restaurant they were going to eat dinner at.  Peter saw the polished gold and bronze of the bar railings through the tinted window.

“Lee and I have a flight tomorrow. We’re going to San Fran.  I’m sorry this is such short notice. But we’re in love. This is what you’re supposed to do right? Just go?”

Peter had bought her a gilded volume of Aquinas.  He had it wrapped in thin navy wrapping paper with a red ribbon around it.  He held it behind his back as he told her.  Later, as they ate dessert and drank coffee, he pushed it across the white tablecloth, past a wine stain.  He wanted her to keep her mind active after she graduated – to never forget the glow of being a student, of having a wandering and active mind.

“Here, honey,” he’d said.

She smiled at him and the way her eyes glistened, he felt like the child. She teased the ribbon until it fell off and onto her lap. Then she tore the wrapping paper so that it almost evaporated, leaving only the book – the gild of the pages shining in the restaurant ambiance.

“Thank you, dad. Its beautiful.  I’ll always keep it by my bed.”

Sonya held the book to her chest and Lee put his arm around her, pushing his long brown hair to the side with his other hand.  He was unremarkable with his scruff of a beard and glasses, but she seemed to love him. 
  

 

Go to the 'Mats

One of the fundamental elements of writing, regardless of the formant, is that there must be a story, no matter how miniscule.  Even when the form is as kaleidoscopic and broken apart as Ulysses, there remains a core story, which pulls us in; a core story that we truly care about.  This is an obvious and widely known fact by any one who has read a book, watched television or retreated to the darkness of the movie theatre.  All of this being evident and proven true (yes, even you Seinfeld), makes the fact that what I am about to write even harder, because I am not so sure what the story or the point of the matter even is.

Alex Chilton is of course dead now.  Most music fans know this and most music fans mourned this.  Alex Chilton’s work was somewhat widely known, greatly appreciated, and especially loved by that button down shirt or old sweater that you maybe wore too much, but everyone seemed to love because it smelled like you – or if not you specifically, then your closet or the detergent your mom packed away for you when you moved out. 

However, there was a time when Alex Chilton wasn’t dead and in that time I learned about a band that his music as much as their own dirty shirts – that band was the Replacements. Coming of age in the late 90’s and early 00’s, of course I was late to the Replacements party.  I had only learned about them through Big Star by way of Wilco and even then, it was through singles (did they really have any?) and odd tracks that I picked up in the glorious groping days of downloading from Napster or Limewire or Kazaa or whatever you could pump for music and bits of porno – this is already starting to sound like a bit of a Replacements song.  However, it was not until I got to college and a good friend of mine who lived on the first floor of my dorm (I lived on the third) introduced me to a thorough knowledge of the band and an immediate love of the album Tim. I could immediately relate to the feelings of angst, restlessness, passion, self-deprecation, and ultimately drunkenness that roamed around the corridors of each track on the album. I distinctly recall visions of looking out the window of one of my living spaces on a Sunday and listening to “Here Comes a Regular” and thinking that I had to grow up sometime, but the only problem was that I enjoyed the clarity of the picture that was painted for me, that I wanted to indulge in the cliché even further: that brown, not sepia, toned image of a bar in the middle of the day, which causes a certain level of ease on the surface, until you realize that that image is good for one day, but will ultimately cause a hollowness and loneliness as seasons pass.  I think I thought about those things in the fall.

And it turns out I wasn’t alone in having my mind drawn to such profound ruminations on the human condition.  After I graduated college, I spent a stint teaching at a private school in New Hampshire right on the shores of Lake Winnipesauke.  The summer was spent teaching students from Thailand about American culture and the American education system.  As part of this teaching, we were given small focus groups of eight students with which we were to discuss current events, American customs and values or relevant cultural touchstones.  I had the inclination to teach my group about the Replacements.  Not because I was a rebellious punk – I have always been far from it – but because it seemed to make the most sense to use the band as an example for these kids, who came from a rigid memory based education, to the merits of forming an opinion and expressing it with passion and conviction.  Critical thinking and self-expression are the ultimate goals of American education are they not?  Well, at least the liberal college demographic, then? OK. We agree.  So, I played them various selections from The Replacements’ (The Mats) catalogue, including the aforementioned, album-ending masterpiece that is “Here Comes a Regular.” While the song was playing, I asked the students what they thought of the music. I asked them how it compared to their music.  I asked them what it made them think of.  The most memorable response was from a favorite student of mine who was an innately creative guy. His response was:

“I see myself…I see myself walking across the blank.”

I don’t think that two dozen rock-writers crammed into a room could have stumbled across that poignant and absolutely perfect description of The Replacements.  What this student grasped about the song, and perhaps the entire band, was how well that could make palpable that fine line between loneliness and rebelliousness and energy and how the two are usually inseparable and usually leave you, in one way or another, “walking across the blank.”

The story continues to become diluted, because this is not  supposed to be about “Here Comes a Regular” or even about the album Tim.  This is really about the album Let it Be (those new to the Replacements, that is a Replacements album, not the Beatles album, although it is a toss-up for iconic album covers in my opinion).  This is about the album Let it Be because during that time, like Alex Chilton and like the Replacements, I loved something so much that it joined that rare pantheon of those shirts and sweaters that are at one with the familiar scents that we can only call “me,” “fresh laundry,” or “home.”  In my case, like the cases of so many other people in the world, this was an actual person. And maybe I haphazardly allowed myself to indulge in these strong emotions, but maybe not.  Hindsight is never 20/20.

So, in this time that I refer to, I loved very much and listened to The Replacements’ Let it Be very much. I even took an initially ill-advised and haphazard trip to Europe to visit this person and amid all those mixed feelings that had built over a certain period of time, there was a realization that came to me one night in my hostel room.  Maybe it wasn’t a realization so much as a feeling.  For the early part of the trip, like the hero in my own ex-patriate novel, my aunt had put me up in a fine to premium Spanish hotel in the middle of Madrid, where I could drink whiskey and then go out and walk around the city and meet the person I loved and drink wine and whisky and come back to my room and smoke cigarettes out the window into a courtyard, with a dim light on and FoxNews playing lowly on my TV to give the sound of America its due cadence.  However, that luxury ran out justly and I found my own accommodations – rightly so – in hostels around the city.  One night, before I was to go out and drink a beer or two on the street before meeting this object of my desire, I placed Let it Be on my Discman.  My hostel room was empty and as I listened to the blistering cadence and lyrics of “Seen Your Video” I was dumbstruck.  I heard the lyrics “Seen your video/phony rock n’ roll/we don’t wanna know.”  Although I had heard the lyrics before, it was as if I had never paid attention. I knew all of the rock n’ roll tradition that had grown out of this song and this band, but I had never let the song just sink completely over me.  The ragged and blaring guitar first made me want to run out and find a beer to drink to cool myself.  However, I let that initial feeling wear off and I realized that there was more to it and that there was more to my wanting a beer to “cool myself” as I had constantly sought to do.  It was that this song made me feel alive in a way that I had never remembered. Not better or worse than the love I felt at that moment, but different in a way I had never remembered.  It made me want to run out into the streets and embrace everything that was life, which was everything that was true and was false.  I wanted to run into the cool, light October air and watch the night fall in around me and see the lights of the city meet the darkness. I recognized that much of my life had been postured and phony and that anything that reigned me in would always be there and that it was my duty to fight it off in any way I could, but that in the end it would always be there, because that is life for good and bad. Life for good and bad is “phony rock n’ roll.”  We’ve seen it all before and it will always be there, but we can still scream and rail at it like Westerberg does to try to keep it at bay. However, in the end, it is that life that gives us that glorious Westerberg scream that says he isn’t going to die, even though he probably knew he was going to, just like Alex Chilton did.

And this is all true all over the album.  Even months later when I had returned from my Europe trip and distance had turned things for the better, I was feeling myself satisfied (obvious cue to where this was going) with the love I felt, for it had been hard fought and placed at a point of maturity in my own mind and in my own history of feeling.  However, I knew even then that I would still remain unsatisfied in some way because at that time I was living at home with my parents and wanted to be a big voice and be on my own and making it and that’s all I could ever talk about. Even now, with all this past, I still, like I am sure most of us feel, unsatisfied.  Like Westerberg says in the song, “look me in the eyes and tell me I’m satisfied” or, plain and simply “are you satisfied?”  I have never believed that anyone wanted to know anything as much as Westerberg wants to know that he’s satisfied or if the person he is speaking to is satisfied.  I don’t mean to turn to those I know and those who are from my generation and call them out on being satisfied with the same blood-curdling urgency that Westerberg does (although I certainly feel that urgency within me), I simply want to relate.  For again, here, in this song there is that abundance of life.  We are surrounded by good things. I don’t have a lot of money, I have friends, I have freedom, I have youth, I have the desire to create – but I’m not satisfied.  If I had money and nothing to work for to keep my alive, I wouldn’t be satisfied.  Becoming satisfied is becoming to understand yourself better.  It’s not like that recent 30 Rock where Liz Lemon considers “settling.”  Becoming satisfied is finding reality and that’s all that the Replacements were about.  I’m closer to understanding their basic records that understanding myself.

I only briefly want to mention “Sixteen Blue,” which is a classic Replacements song.  It has classic 50’s/60’s chord progressions and a messy Westerberg vocal where at one point he slurs classic lines such as  “your age is the hardest age/everything just drags and drags” and “don’t understand anything sexual.”  The guitar tone is the purest on any Replacements song.  There is something simple and concise about it.  It has the poignancy and noise that Pearl Jam almost sought out but never achieved.

The last arbitrary song mention goes to “Answering Machine,” which, if you want to tie it to my story of distant love before, played a big part in my life. “How do you say goodnight to an answering machine? How do you say I miss you to an answering machine? How do you say its OK to an answering machine?”  You don’t need a long distance romance to find the importance of this song.  The key line comes in the very first line, when Westerberg, never more earnest than in this song sings, “Try and breathe some life into a letter.”  Maybe this song is about trying to leave a message for a person that you love on their answering machine when that love has gone wrong.  Sure.  I’ve been there; we’ve all been there.  Especially now that texts and other online ways of leaving messages are easy ways to relay the insecurities we feel in a relationship.  What this song always was to me was that riddle of communicating with another person.  The symbol of technology and technological advancement is obviously there with the empty space of the answering machine, but this ties into those best parts of Desolation Angels when Kerouac wonders if he will ever be able to connect to another human being in the greatness, sadness and holiness of the world.  Maybe Westerberg didn’t think that profoundly or intend his song to come off as profound – and it surely doesn’t in any traditional sense.  However, this song is nothing if not profound.  It sounds youthful like all of the other songs on the album, but it points out that clear presence of loneliness and isolation in the world, where we can’t even express our satisfaction or dissatisfaction to another person; that desire that clearly lies in our voice or behind our eyes. So, perhaps it wasn’t the Rolling Stones that always capture that impalpable energy of youth, maybe it was the Replacements the whole time, because they were closer to the pulse of life when Westerberg sang “Unsatisfied” than The Stones were when Jagger strutted on Ed Sullivan and pouted “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.”

Is there a story in all of this? In these anecdotes about Alex Chilton, laudry detergent, old shirts, college, friends, teaching, Thai students, summers and profound loves?  No, there probably isn’t much of a story and I have violated the elementary focus and cornerstone of writing.  However, whatever this is, it has love, death, travel and the attempt at human connection.  So maybe there is a story somewhere and, at the very least, there is life, which is what we are striving after.

And believe me, I don’t have one and I am not satisfied.  But you’ve already seen that video, haven’t you?  Damn those Replacements.