October 09, 2007
1. He was underwhelmed with the response to his request for readers' suggestions about excerpts to read at his live blog reading (photo above: it went very well, thank you) and so decided to withhold textual love in a hissy fit of passive aggressive protest.
2. Has been curled up in fetal position--in catatonic state of vegetative thinking.
3. Traumatized by Mets’ collapse. (A theory not incompatible with hypothesis number 2).
4. Severe Carpal Tunnel from excessive “air quoting.”
5 . Busy doing intensive intelligence work, cracking the code on al qaeda terrorist site--tireless labor unfortunately rendered meaningless by the White House’s leak of the Bin Laden tape.
6. His imaginary friend was feeling really needy after an actual break-up and needed his undivided attention. (By the way: He is feeling a bit better now, hence the mini entry.)
7. Completely and utterly distracted by Dennis Kucinich's wife.
8. Busy trying out for the Knicks. Finally got tired of getting called “bitch” by Isaiah.
9. Had nothing to say.
10. Was completely absorbed in the writing of his book "A Definitive History of Inconclusiveness."
11. Was too busy working on an album with his band Hornless Unicorn: The Band Formerly known as White Zebra.
12. Too busy watching the Dafur Genocide on Google Maps.
13. Forgot.
WISH I HAD MY CAMERA MOMENT OF THE DAY:
10,000 young hipsters and Teddy Vegas wrapped around the block in Harlem waiting for a bus to the Arcade Fire concert in Randall's Island. I am sure it broke the record for the most white people ever to be in Harlem at once--and no doubt the record for the most goatee-sporting vegans too.
INTIMATION OF MORTALITY OF THE DAY/CONCERT NOTES OF THE DAY:
The fact that I needed to take a nap between each of the bands' acts at the concert yesterday. And I'm not kidding. I have no idea how those people stayed standing and dancing on the infield for 7 or 8 straight hours. It was probably some combination of youth, alcohol and Ecstasy. But still. I think there should be some designated rest area (with complimentary blankets and cots) for 30 and over attendees. It'd be AARP-tastic.
I also felt a bit like a chaperone at the hipsters' dance because I really couldn't stand the loud, thuddingly generic dance music played by LDC Soundsystem. It was the penultimate act and completely ruined the gorgeously soulful mood created by Blonde Redhead. As for Arcade Fire: They were stellar as always, but in truth the power of their music was somewhat diluted by the huge outdoor venue. The highlight for me: "Intervention." In particular the soaring moment when Win Butler screams in anguished defiance "Who's gonna throw the very first stone?...OH, WHO'S GONNA RESET THE BONE????"--evoking the kind of righteous goose bumps that remind you that it's a blessing to be alive.
Only quibble. I just wish Win Butler didn't feel the need to drop the "F" word so often. I feel it comes from some misplaced assumptions about New York audiences and really feels like it's beneath the dignity of his music.
Actually, one other quibble: Not with the band but with the crowd. After telling the crowd that $25,000 from this event would be going to support a free medical clinic in Haiti, Win Butler added, "To give you some sense of how much money $25,000 is, it's $24,000 Canadian." No one in the crowd laughed.
LFAQs OF THE DAY:
Which team has brought more shame on itself, the Mets or the Knicks?
How many people in NYC were totally bummed that Ahmadinejad left right when they'd finally learned how to pronounce his name?
How many people just like throwing that name into a sentence cause it's fun to say? (I confess to being one of them).
How many people think he should change his name to Ahmadajinejad because it'd be even more fun to say? (I confess to being one of them.)
PHENOMENON OF THE DAY/ANALOGY OF THE DAY:
You know those pop-up ads that invade your screen and make you press "close screen" to get rid of them? Well evidently the web advertising companies have the shameless audacity to count that forced gesture of dismissal as a click through! It's like a guy claiming he got a girl to talk to him when all she said was "leave me alone, creep."
PREDICTION OF THE DAY:
In the age of ubiquitous customization, the generic will assume luxury cachet. The refusal to honor and accommodate individual preference will confer status and desirability upon the brand.
ONION-ESQUE (SHALLOT-LIKE) HEADLINE OF THE DAY:
Hillary to focus group decision to stop using focus groups
TV SHOW IDEA OF THE DAY:
Dancing with the Candidates.
PET PEEVE OF THE DAY:
A word I hate: “robust.” Only used by those never uncertain, often wrong glad handers on Wall Street (“we anticipate robust growth”) and those never uncertain, always wrong ideologues in Washington (“we intend to implement more robust security measures with regard to all Blackwater activities.”) The subtext of pretty much any utterance that relies on the term "robust" in this culture is "this is robust bullshit."
APT DEGREE OF THE DAY:
A B.S. in Advertising.
RHETORICAL STRATEGY OF THE DAY:
Not the big lie theory. But the big truth theory. Don’t proclaim a falsehood loudly and boldly in order to make people believe it's a truth. Proclaim a truth loudly and boldly in order to make people believe it's lie.
-Why did you have your office door closed?
-Because I was having phone sex with one of those 970 services.
The comment elicits a laugh. But of course, you really WERE having phone sex with one of those 970 services.
MOTTO OF THE DAY:
You may not have greatness within you. But you definitely have better-than-that-ness within you.
CARTOON WITHOUT ILLUSTRATION OF THE DAY:
Hey, don’t step on his eureka moment.
EXCHANGE OF THE DAY:
-You know what they say?
-What?
-All kinds of shit.
SUGGESTED BAND NAMES OF THE DAY:
Illegal Cheese
Jack of None
Fragment Machine
Brainy Tard
SHORT FILM IDEA OF THE DAY:
Go to a still life drawing class and film all of the different renderings of the posing model as you go around the semi- circle of sketching artists. Different styles, diffferent perspectives, different levels of ability. Etc.
BOOK IDEA OF THE DAY:
Empathy: The Autopsy.
SOCIETAL SYMPTOM OF THE DAY:
Automated Empathy.
RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:
Least but not last.
EXCERPT FROM THE JOURNAL OF MOURNING:
Every summer Saturday at 7:30 p.m. A solemn moment of observance. This is when I received the call. Still shocked by the absence. The wound in the fabric of myself still raw. I pick around in this wound a bit with the finger of memory. Although I know it is wrong and contrary to a spiritual affirmation of my father's life and the gift of life he gave me, my approaching birthday (July 25) doesn't feel like something to be celebrated.
---
There is no in-between: Either his absence has no reality for me or it has too much.
--
My birthday. So hard without the annual call. It kills me this morning knowing that for the first time in my life, I won't be getting a call from my father.
--
Remembering my father proudly displaying his new smile--after he got new front teeth about three years ago. He looked really different and it took some getting used to. It wasn't just the startling whiteness of the choppers. It was that they simply didn't fit in his mouth the way his old teeth had.
At the time of his sudden death, my father was at the penultimate stage of a long dental process which was to culminate in the implanting of two new molars to help him with chewing. The thought of him dying, after many costly and painful sessions in the dentists' chair, with those posts in his mouth ready for the implants to finally be mounted on them: Heartbreaking.
--
Realizing I now have inherited my father's back hair and what I used to refer to when I was a kid as his "adult" breath in the morning. I remembered smelling it when I would go wake up my mother and father in bed on weekend mornings when they were still married. This morning, I smelled it on my pillow.
---
The sad irony of deciding to use the name Teddy Cohn instead of Teddy Vegas in the credits for the character voice I do on my friend Stevie J's Adult Swim cartoon "Superjail" because I figured my father would get a kick out of seeing his son's name on TV--and he certainly would have no idea who Teddy Vegas was. Feeling sad now that he will never see it. Also feeling a little funny about having just put a shameless plug for my friend's new cartoon in the middle of my journal of mourning.
---
Wishing I had spoken to my father more about how often he thought about his father. I never identified with his predicament as I never really believed my father would die. I wish I could ask him now. I'm curious.
--
Filling out the beneficiaries' form for my father’s life insurance policy. The grim impersonal officialness. The monetary remnants of a life. The symbolic flow of love from him to me. The reminder of the terrible finality. The just wanting him to still be here. I pause before dropping the letter into the office mail chute. I don’t want to let go. I don't want his life to be replaced by his money. I close my eyes and say a few words to my father. I say thank you dad for loving me. Thank you dad for providing for me. Thank you dad for remembering me. I say dad I miss you. And then I drop the form down the shaft.
---
Over time, the integration of the whole person. The whole life. In the face of the material traces of his existence (photos, documents, etc.), I am thinking more about the man over time. The child, the bar mitzvah boy, the soldier, the student, the young man. Not just myfather, but the man who preceded his being my father. The man known and loved. And the partial stranger.
--
It will have been two months today.
The finality of it feels no less final. The wound seldom less raw. I guess the difference is I have had 60 days on the planet without him now. Some metaphysical dirt thrown on the body of his memory. A sixth of a trip around the sun without him traveling along with me. I have had two months to get used to the story of his absence. But it feels every bit as real and unimaginable as it did that first day when I got the call.
--
Looking through the bag of his personal effects for the first time since bringing them back. Holding his watch. I begin to put it on my wrist. Then suddenly envision it on his. Throughout his life. Ticking out time. The time we would be in the world together. Crushed by the absence of that wrist, that arm and the man to whom they were attached. I put the watch back in the bag. It is not time to wear it yet.
--
When will the time come when I will be able to have thoughts about my father without feeling the wound of separation? When will I be able to experience the presence of the memory without being overwhelmed by the absence of the person?
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Posted on 10/9/2007
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