Objectivist Social Network

A friend just told me about The Atlasphere, an online social network for Ayn Rand enthusiasts. The irony is of biblical proportions. In addition to being a social network, it advertises itself as a niche dating site. How do two Objectivists who don't know each other get together?

Objectivist Girl: "God, I hate people!"

Objectivist Guy: "God, you're hot when you're arrogant!"

Objectivist Girl: "God, you're hot when you're telling me I'm hot!"

A passionate embrace, kiss, and selfish sex ensue.

Oh, yeah, I used to be into Ayn Rand in college.

Randy and Burton and Candy and Liz

Slowly over the last decade, Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings evolved into the Sweeney Sisters.

It was like one of those 3-D illusion pictures where you look at it, look at it, look at it ... then Bang! It's the frickin Sweeney sisters!

The first time Bachman and Cummings did something together after years of estrangement, it was unexpected and great. We just couldn't believe they were performing together again.

Then they started doing the occasional special event as The Guess Who. We couldn't get enough of them.

Then they started telling stories about the old days and how songs came to be. We loved it.

Several years in, I got off the bandwagon and starting asking, Why do people still get excited that these guys continue to play together?

Then it happened. They became Bachman & Cummings. They released a CD. They did a concert for TV. Burton's youthful black hair was a stark contrast to his geriatric skin. Their stories about the good old days became lounge-act banter.

Then they showed up live in the studio at WNED, the Buffalo, N.Y. PBS station. They talked to the host and played live during fund raising intermissions of their TV special. They nattered about how much they enjoy PBS television while the camera panned between them and the volunteers taking pledges on phones.

I have nothing against PBS or fund raising. I like The Guess Who, BTO, and some of Cummings' solo material. It's just that their transition to elder entertainers has been more caricature than graceful.

Guitar Theory

One of the early guitar-like instrument makers or players really blew it. Why do we learn to play using our dominant hand to pick and strum? Fretwork requires much more dexterity and precision. Wouldn't we be better musicians if we learned to play other-handed?

I doubt we could relearn to play other-handed to any measure of success. Too much brain training would have to be undone. But, learning from scratch....

I can't think of any instrument, that doesn't have strings and a neck, where the dominant hand doesn't take the dominant role.

I've Got Stuff to Carry

I've gone and bought a murse. No, not a male nurse. A man purse.

Sometimes I just need to carry more stuff than will fit in my pockets. Not often. Just those times when I'm out on an urban day trip or out for a day at the poker room. Then I need to carry my meds, Altoids, glasses, sunglasses, pen, notebook, maybe a book if I have time to kill, maybe a bottle of water, maybe a snack. (I have blood sugar issues.)

I got it at Eddie Bauer. It's about 9x6x4 inches. It's close in size and design to the canvas kit bag my dad was issued in WWII. I wish he still had it. It would be so cool to use it.

I looked online to see what was out there and this one from Eddie Bauer fit the bill. I went to the store to check it out and while I was looking in the compartments and convincing myself it was a very manly bag a nice older woman came over to help me. I told her I wanted something to carry stuff that wouldn't fit in my pockets like a paperback and my glasses.

She said, "You need a murse."

Well, that comment told me that the bag I was holding was definitely not a murse and was therefore very manly indeed.

I said, "I'll take this one."

The tag calls it a Small Guide Bag. That sounds about right. The Web site calls it the Expedition Small Bag. Yep, you bet. I will make an expedition to the Fallsview poker room on Friday to try it out.

Things That Sound Dirty But Aren’t

Back in this post, I mentioned my friend Teeb who collects words and phrases that sound dirty but aren't. The list has been kept in our heads for decades and our failing mental capacities have jeopardized the completeness and integrity of the data. In order to record the list and protect it from further deterioration, I'm going to keep it here and add to it as needed.

• Bonafide
• Back end processes
• Insertion order
• June Cleaver: "Ward, weren't you a little hard on the Beaver?"
• Stimulus Package (Courtesy of George W. Bush, 2008)
• Hard six (A type of bet in craps.)
• Entry-level position
• Philatelist
• Executrix
• Polishing my Oscar
• Pictorial
• Live Circus Acts
• Full frontal
• Big pink eyesore
• Flopping the nuts (Poker jargon from Teeb.)
• Live straddle (Poker jargon from Teeb.)
• Munchkin (Thanks Sass!)
• Balzac
• Goblin

Pariah Dogs and Wandering Madmen

I saw Rush at the ACC on September 19th and 22nd. I went with S, another man's wife. It's okay. He knows. Neither of our spouses are Rush fans, so we have a standing date for dinner and a show every time the tour comes to Toronto.

My wife, V, is obsessive about accumulating Jack points. It paid off. The morning of the Wednesday show, I learned that she won tickets to the Saturday show. She was very happy for me and very proud of her radio contest prowess and that her obsessive compulsiveness had a positive outcome. The seats were in section 108, about centre ice and fifteen rows up. My seats on Wednesday were in section 101 at the back of the arena, nine rows up with a direct stage view. On Wednesday I watched the video screens a lot. On Saturday I was close enough to watch the band. S joined me for the second show. She wore her Presto tour shirt. My Farewell To Kings shirt hasn't fit since the Presto tour, so I was out of luck, vintage-shirt-wise. We had a blast.

On stage behind Geddy Lee were three ovens the size of large vending machines. They had glass paneled fronts and were filled with rotisserie chickens. I love their humour and inner-weirdness. They are three guys who would surely be misfits in any other situation.

Sometime in the '90s I stopped paying attention to lyrics. If a song had tragic or idiotic lyrics and a beat, I would bop to it. I just got tired of bothering with lyrics because most of them were fluff. In the last year I started paying attention again, at least enough to notice which were worth it. I think Alanis making fun of Fergie might have been the trigger.

I looked through Rush lyrics to find a title for this post. My god, most of them are depressing. They're very well crafted, but most deal with struggle, conflict, and oppression. Neil has issues. I don't remember that from when I was an obsessive fan in the '70's and '80's. I remember finding the lyrics intelligent and insightful. But I was at an age then when struggling, conflict, and being oppressed were standard issue and were badges of honour. Even a song like The Spirit of Radio that is upbeat and energetic, lyrics included for the most part, concludes with:

One likes to believe in the freedom of music
But glittering prizes and endless compromises
Shatter the illusion of integrity

And yet I still feel good, get a rush (sorry) and bop to it whenever I hear it. How do they do that?

I noticed an interesting thing while reading dozens of Rush lyrics: the music of their songs gets much of its complexity from the way the lyrics are written. The rhyme, the meter, the length of lines and stanzas. The music has to be written to accommodate all that.

The show was three hours long with a twenty minute break. Not bad for a bunch of old guys, much of the audience included. They had plenty of lights, lasers, pyrotechnics, and videos. It was a great show. They kind of have to have all of that going on because the three of them are so busy creating all that sound with their hands and feet that sometimes they don't have the freedom to be animated on stage.

A Bob & Doug McKenzie video introduced The Larger Bowl. A South Park video introduced Tom Sawyer. Other videos featuring band members were shown to open the concert, return from the intermission, and close the show after the encore.

The people with floor seats stood for the whole show. The people in the stands stood for the first three songs, for favourite songs, and for the three-song encore.

Once during each set, a crew member came on stage in a chef's hat and apron to baste the chickens. When this happened at the show on Saturday, eight guys in row 1, centre floor, put on chef's hats. It cracked Alex and Geddy up!

Big Al's Babes are a bunch of Barbie doll groupies around the gear at the base of Alex's mic stand. A search landed me at 2112.net which explained that roadies set up the babes so they hold Post-It signs that say things like: My Mom Thinks Your Hot!, I'm Only Doing This To Pay For College, Freebird!, and I Thought ZZ Top Had Beards.

Rush has always attracted fans who are musicians. Their music is usually complex, requiring precision and technique. They also attract individualists and independent thinkers. Their lyrics are smart and thought provoking and generally deal with protagonists who go against the grain. They have occasionally had songs make the charts, but they have never set out to write commercial songs. A lot of their appeal comes from the fact that they have completely disregarded music industry axioms. The rebellion and nonconformity are part of the attraction for their huge core following.

The excitement of the shows re-sparked my enthusiasm, so I started poking around the Internet to see what was out there about the band. There are a lot of fan sites and picture galleries. Wikipedia has a lot of information and it was there that I found a link to Durrell Scott Bowman's PhD. dissertation Permanent Change: Rush, Musicians’ Rock, and the Progressive Post-Counterculture. How cool is that? I'm only 25 pages into the 331 page document, but so far, it's a great read. Thanks Durrell!

Smoking Is Cool

I don't smoke. I've heard it's bad for me. But there's something about smoking I find appealing. Not the smoking that happens in shirt sleeves in the winter outside office buildings. That's just depraved. The kind that happens in movies. The kind that used to happen in bars and cafes—except when smoke drifts into the smoker's eyes and he squints because it hurts and he has to move his head out of the cloud. That's not cool. That's just an ugly addiction. But, but, if the smoke didn't drift into his eyes, if it wafted upward and a little to the side in a languorous blue ribbon, then, then you'd have cool. See how that's cool? And suppose he had a glass of scotch. In a thick lowball glass with a heavy base. On the rocks. But just three rocks. Rocks that are transparent and solid, their surfaces washed smooth and clear with just enough dents and curves to give them character. And he's casually leaning back, arm cocked at the elbow, the cigarette looking like it's part of his hand. And his face is relaxed, mouth hinting at a smile. He's about to say something important. Maybe he's listening intently to a friend. Or maybe he's alone and just enjoying the moment. Turning the glass slowly to look at the reflections and refractions. Or gazing at the small fire he controls at his fingertips. See how that's cool? Sometimes I wish I smoked.

Americans at Loblaws

So I’m in the packaged meat section shopping for bacon. I push my cart off to the side and step closer to scan the selections. Bacon’s bacon as far as I’m concerned. Some has less salt, some is just non-accessorized bacon. So it really just comes down to price point for me. A good lean cut at a good price.

I start to move toward what looks like a promising pile of packages and hear in a mid-west bark, “Over there, dear.” I look over and there’s a casually dressed 60s-ish couple. The shorts-wearing James Cromwell guy is leaning on the cart with one arm and pointing to the bacon with the other. Mrs. Cromwell, lets call her Trixie, is quite something in her yellow top, pink capri pants, and rhinestone thongs. Her blonde hair is sprayed and poofed in a Beach Blanket Bingo 'do and the bangs are separated from the bulk by a black hairband. She must have been a real looker before 8-tracks. I swear I saw her in commercial during a first run episode of Bewitched hawking harvest gold appliances.

Trixie draws a bead on the bacon and barges in front of me. “’Scuse me, hon.,” she says as she bends in and starts rifling through the packages.

“No problem,” I say as she gives me a view of what I’m sure she thinks is her best side. I’m not up on the barging etiquette of suburban Indiana, so I wait it out.

Trixie says to the bacon, “I like the one with less salt,” as she pokes through the reduced salt packages.

James says, “Maybe the Canadians don’t measure that.”

I wait it out.

He speaks up and says, “I guess the Canadians don’t measure that.”

I’m not sure if that’s aimed at me or Trixie, but Trixie is distracted enough to look up at him and move out of the way. She’s dislodged a good looking package from the pile and I grab it while I have the opportunity and make a hasty retreat.

There’s a cart jam in isle 6. A guy is overwhelmed by the selection of salsa while a woman is waiting to get some and everyone else is reduced to one lane to squeeze by.

As I approach, the guy says, “I moved to Toronto from Phoenix, Arizona, (he actually says the city and state) and I gotta tell ya, you got better salsa here.”

The waiting woman starts to respond but the guy speaks up to talk over her, “The Mexicans make it in Arizona, but what ya got here is better.”

I take my turn to squeeze by and see that he’s choosing between Old El Paso and the store brand. The woman realizes it’s not a two way conversation, so she stops trying and leans on her cart until she can get to the shelf. The guy’s face turns sour and he says, “Guess they don’t have the hot,” while he continues to ponder his options.

What’s the deal with American visitors? I was on vacation in Michigan for a week last month and people were polite and friendly. I had a great time. Some of my best friends are American. But the one’s who come here (at least the ones who make themselves known) seem to think that they’re the show and we’re the audience. And I thought it was just their president.