Non Creative Garbage

No comments on the books, just a listing of the title and author.

30. Wonderous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould by Kevin Bazzana

31. Buster Keaton: Cut to the Chase by Marion Meade

32. Chaplin by Stephen Weissman, M.D.

33. The Circus Parade by Jim Tully

34. 33 1/3: The Velvet Underground and Nico by Joe Harvard

35. John McGraw by Charles Alexander

36. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (re-read)

37. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut (re-read)

38. After Many a Summer: The Passing of the Giants and the Dodgers and a Golden Age in New York Baseball by Robert E. Murphy

39. Sperm Wars by Robin Baker

40. xxxHolic Volume One by Clamp

41. xxxHolic Volume Two by Clamp

42. xxxHolic Volume Three by Clamp

43. Cobb by Al Stump

(in no particular order)

1. The San Francisco Giants and Tim Lincecum
2. My surgeon, Dr. O’Mara
3. David Bowie
4. The Doctor
5. Kurt Vonnegut, J.R.
6. Persons not People
7. Claddagh Rings
8. Tattoos
9. Yearbooks
10. Hackintosh!
11. iPhone

For what am I thankful?

I am thankful for the second chance I got by accident in March. I decided a long time ago to use what happened to me as a way to go forward in every sense: mental, physical, and spiritual.

I'm thankful that I had a good dinner and good people to share it with tonight. The turkey I cooked was splendid, the ham was decent, and the rest was very good.

I'm thankful for my friends and those I love.

I'm thankful for the Hackintosh I have finally finished and am able to use.

I'm thankful for good music- and there's a lot of it.

I'm also thankful for Kerouac and Bukowski. For poetry, story, words, and the manic muses...

I'm thankful for blue and green eyes.

And for nag champa and its billowing essence.

Stuck while potential
surrounds and slowly crushes
and time runs away

If I were William Hazlitt, I'd be able to write something witty and perfect. But I'm me, and I write what I can. Been simply ages since I've sat down to write anything- poetry, essay, Star...they call to me and miss me...so...

Uncertainty.
12:30 Sunday Morning- heater running
Clicking tocking
Seconds slip away...

I have ideas and I jot them down with my pen. They stare at me and make me think...

Between watching Mad Men and having purchased a folding table, Wheat Chex, and Kleenex at Target, all I did mostly tonight was think. And, download music and things...currently I'm rather into The Promise Ring, Sunny Day Real Estate, and New Order. All that music is related in the roots- and even related to the Velvet Underground. The music has really helped me of late as I've not really felt like reading too much- to be sure, I'm reading here and there, but words are a bit much for me now. Words, words, words...thinking....

The leisure of thinking is more a curse sometimes since I do too much of it. I remember when I was at moments when events in my life allowed me no other action other than thinking. Those times have made me wish to act more than think- but before I can act right now, I have to think...so I'm up late, thinking and wondering.

But more Mad Men first before action...

Little mother
two by two
wafts the wind on my hair

One of my favorite movies is Aguirre, the Wrath of God. Near the end, the guy who's killed for Aguirre suddenly sings that before his next murder. What it means, I don't know. It's probably just a folk song, or made up song.

The English version is much better than the German. It's rather jarring to hear the Inca and the Conquistadores talking in German...those aren't the voices of the actors anyway,

I feel like a slug and just want to see the Giants game and read after they hopefully win. I had a ticket to go to the Giants/Cubs game on Saturday, but the gods were against me going. Instead, I just hung out in Berkeley with O. and talked and saw him. That was good- so was the drive and time away from it all.

The important thing is to remember that there is a whole world out there apart from what I'm in and around all the time. I've taken steps to get to it and I'm nearly there- nearly.

I got a copy of L'Importante C'est d'aimer on Saturday and watched on Sunday. It is a brilliant and underrated movie- the soundtrack is interesting and the movie is amazing.

Back to being a hermit. And today's Saint Michael's Day: the start of the third quarter of 2009-2010. And the day to start thinking about how to get to the next step...

Loves unrequited
Memories turning stale, dim,
Now only echoes.


It's just a haiku. And somewhere down the trail perhaps someone will see it and...

I need to get out- having just finished a biography of Philip K. Dick has sort of gotten to me. Though both the Giants, the Football Giants and the 49ers have won today. Sport is only a temporary consolation and something to talk about with others.

26. Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami

A continuation of "A Wild Sheep Chase" with the same nameless narrator. Just as surreal and beautiful as Chase and all his other books, with a very satisfying ending.

27. I Pass Like Night by Jonathan Ames

Not a very good book- a series of vignettes about a protagonist who isn't interesting, and does some dangerous and sordid stuff. The prose is great, but somewhat wasted on the subject matter. Maybe Ames's other books are better...

Books Six through nineteen were mangas of Fullmetal Alchemist. A great comic with amazing characters and great story. Highly recommended.

20. Tea: Addiction, Exploitation, and Empire (Hardcover by Roy Moxham.

A very interesting look at the history of Tea and how it came to Europe, and, specifically effected Great Britain, India, China, and the rest of the world. It almost makes you not want to drink tea. The author actually ran a tea plantation in Africa during the 1960s and I would have liked to know how his experience there turned out.

21. iWoz by Steve Wozniak and Gina Smith

The autobiography of Steve Wozniak, who designed and invented the Apple 1 and the Apple II computers that started Apple Comptuers. His life is interesting and he goes into all kinds of details about his pranks, phone phreaking, working for HP, starting up Apple, his life in general. A fun and fast read- much recommended for anyone into technology, Apple, or computers.

22. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos

One of the most infamous books of the 1920s but a novel that is still current. It’s about woman, named Lorelei Lee, who travels through life in a breezy way just existing moment to moment. A fun book- it’s rather like reading many blogs the way it talks about what happens. Highly recommended.

23. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

A reread from when I was really small. I admire Dickens’s prose style and the way he makes characters. The characters are much better than the plot, but you can’t fault Dickens for that since this was only his fourth book. The ending is a bit predictable, but it is satisfying.

24. Public Enemies by Bryan Burrough

A great read about the most infamous bank robbers of American History: Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, The Barker Gang, Alvin Karpis and Baby Face Nelson. The book follows all of these infamous folk heroes in the peak of their careers and how the FBI rose to prominence thanks to their exploits. John Dillinger I liked, Alvin Karpis too- I wanted him to get away...the others, not so much. And I didn’t realize how much cross-country travel these folks all did and how many times they came to Reno and were all over Nevada. There’s a story or two in all that.

25. Beggars of Life by Jim Tully

An fascinating autobiography of a neglected writer. Jim Tully was famous before WWII and he wrote novels, biographies, and press releases for Hollywood actors for twenty years. Beggars of Life is the first book of his autobiography that describes his life on the road as a tramp during the 1900s. An exciting and well-written book worth reading.

26. Edgeworks Vol. 3 (The Harlan Ellison Hornbook & Harlan Ellison's Movie) by Harlan Ellison

Really two books in one: the first part are reprints of a column Ellison did in the 1970s for a couple different publications. Great stuff- funny, witty, urbane and perfect. So many great columns to mention- but I thought the series where he talks about his college days at Ohio State to be the best ones.

Harlan Ellison's Movie is the script for a spec movie Harlan was given to write a movie he wanted to, without limitations. It couldn't be made in the 70s and I doubt it could be made now. About a liberal hippie type who inherits a bank and decides to fight the system with the system. Amazing ending.

27. New York Giants: An Informal History of a Great Baseball Club by Frank Graham

I've been a Giants fan since 1988- and I know a lot about them. Graham's book is a great team history and talks about some of the best teams ever in baseball. This book only covers the Giants's history up through 1952, so it doesn't talk about the last Giant victory in the World Series, the move to San Francisco and forward. It does cover the origins of the team, the time of John McGraw from 1902 to 1933 (I'd read a book about McGraw for sure- he sounds like a hell of a guy) and his successors. It's well written and clearly stated and it explains Leo Durocher's quote of "last guys finish last"- he didn't say that exactly, but that's what he meant. Recommended to people who like baseball history or Giants fans.

28. A Day in the Bleachers by Arnold Hano

A piece of New Journalism written ten years before the term. Hano went to the first game of the 1954 World Series of the New York Giants versus the Cleveland Indians and described his entire day, before and during his six hours watching the game in the Polo Grounds's centerfield bleachers. And, he describes Willie Mays's amazing catch against Vic Wertz so well, that it's like you saw it yourself. Amazing writing with many, many quotable passages- it's so good that I'd recommend it to anyone who likes great writing, journalism, history, oral history or baseball.

Every summer for the last few years there's always been a song that's hit me and made me think it fit for that time.

2004- "Little Wonder"- David Bowie
2005- "Nite Flights"- The Walker Brothers (Scott Walker)
2006- "The Million Game"- Can
2007- "LDN"- Lily Allen
2008- "The Man Who Broke the Bank in Monte Carlo"- Charles Coborn
2009 "The State I Am In"- Belle & Sebastian

More books to add to my list. I have to get on that-

I installed Windows 7 on my MacBook. It's the best OS Microsoft has ever put out- it's almost as good as Mac OS 10.4. And all my school programs seem to work on it so far. As time goes on, only one or two programs and the basic OS itself keep me using Macs for Mac OS X.

The summer is hot and nights are long. But, I am finished with my thesis- my defense was on July 13 and my thesis was accepted without changes. I turned in my "thesis" box with all the paperwork and two copies of the thesis I'll have bound for my library. I am now a Master of Arts in Teaching. Now, a new goal: to finish Star by July 13 next year and have a manuscript ready. And that's not counting the other stuff I have to write...

Here is the slideshow I used for my thesis:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0s3_s6c7K4

Typing with two spaces after each sentence is something I'm doing now. After all, that's what they taught me to do it typing class, and there's some good reasons for it. I think the best one is that it makes the space between sentences more clear and easier to read.

Water then outside for some air.

hora fugit.

(Time flies and the hours run away. A poetic translation, but why not?)

Time flies, huh? And I've been busy, very, very, busy here.

Busy:

recovering from the accident and starting to walk again. I'm using a walker now and I can scale stairs with help. Soon to crutches and independence! And a road trip. I need a week away from it all and the coast of California sounds nice. Pismo Beach. San Luis Obispo. San Francisco- and seeing friends. Just away from the desert, and soon. Somewhere.

I'm almost done with my thesis- I feel confident with it and how it's gone. I've learned a lot and I'm looking ahead to my next academic step.

I moved, with help, to a much better house. This one is good and worth staying in for the foreseeable future.

And figuring out the first three months of my next campaign. Round two will start up sooner than I want, but I know what to do next and how to do it.


I've read two dozen books this year so far, seen many movies and many baseball games. I even got to see a Reno Aces game. There's nothing like going to a baseball stadium and seeing baseball live. I hope to see a Giants game before the end of the season or before the start of my next campaign at the end of August.

Best Movie in a Theatre (slim pickins here there's only been three or four summer movies I've wanted to see): Star Trek

Best Movie at Home: Walker

Best Book: Beggars of Life

Best Album: Angela Hewitt's Well-Tempered Clavier and the Soundtrack to Dirty Harry

And I'm waiting for my baseball hats from The Cooperstown Ball Cap Co . This company makes by hand baseball caps from wool, with leather bands, and makes just about any logo you could want. It takes four to six weeks since it's made by hand, and I should be getting my hats soon. I got some Giants hats, and I look forward to them.

And I look forward to getting out and smelling different air. A. had it right. That's half the fun of travelling.

Back to being busy- I have a thesis to finish.

Franchise‽

The term movie franchise just seems like a word only an accountant from 1984 would use. Would even the accountants at Warner Brothers in the 1940s have dared say to Jack Warner- "We need to exploit the franchise of Casablanca!" No, never. At least until big amounts of money got involved.

Maybe I trust movie critics too much sometimes, but the Terminator movie sounds awful and bad. I'll wait until next week to see it, although I'm sure there'll be space in the theater for me and my wheelchair even on Saturday if I really wanted to see it sooner rather than later.

The Yearbooks arrived at school and they were beautiful. So much of my time and effort in the first three months of the year was put into that book, I just had to buy a copy for myself. With 7 more days of school, I just know I needed that book as a symbol of my first year of school.

I just saw Alex Cox's movie Walker - see this. It's an amazing movie, set in the 1850s, starring Ed Harris as a crazy American who goes to Nicaragua and takes the country over, with blessing from an oligarch who wants to control transportation. The movie is a comedy of sorts and full of anachronisms of all kinds, despite it being a historical bio-pic. The parallel is to the 1980s involvement with the Contras, but it's still valid to recent American imperial adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the music is by Joe Strummer of The Clash and it's a great soundtrack. Highly recommended as it's the best movie I've seen in a long time.

Magma, Coltrane, Miles, Mozart, Jean-Luc Ponty, and who knows next will send me to sleep...

I am done with the rough draft of my thesis. I finished Chapter Five today and sent it to my thesis adviser. This means I'll have plenty of time to put a few touches on it, give it to the school APA reader, and easily have my defense on June 23.

Things are coming up James!

The Crime of Stuckism

I saw the Von Sternberg version of Crime and Punishment tonight on TMC, with Peter Lorre as Raskolnikov. Von Sternberg said that the movie had as much to do with the novel as"no more related to the true text of the novel than the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Gower is related to the Russian environment.". He hated it but I liked it, though it began to verge into melodrama toward the end of the movie. I felt it captured the spirit of the book- and now I must re-read it. I'll have quite a bit of re-reading this summer Breakfast of Champions, The Idiot and I think I'll tackle Isak Dinesen finally. Her writing is amazing and great- but I've not yet felt I could read it, but now I do.

So much to write about but so little time to corral my thoughts into my novel, my thesis or my diary. The list of my books of 2009, so far, will come and then the Five Books that T. recommended me do. And then? Finish my thesis.

If I could go see one thing- I'd go see Amanda Palmer's play in Lexington, MA. Reading about it on her journal makes it sound really like something. I feel stuck in so many ways, due to what happened...I lost a month, I can't walk or drive for a while. Stuck stuck stuck! Am I a stuckist?

February is almost over. I have three more months of school and then the summer. I hope to finish my thesis by then so I'll have my MA and the summer free. I want to go drive around Nevada and California. Or go to New York.

I got a new Flute; a Yamaha YFL-461, offset G (good for saxophonists like me) open hole, silver Flute. It's beautiful and it plays great too. I've just been so busy this week I've not been able to practice at all. I need to play more music and maybe even get right with my Alto Sax.

But I was able to see the original version of The Maltese Falcon, not a bad movie over all, but it's not Bogart's version. The Wrestler was great. I want to see Coraline soon. The Oscars sucked this year. Slumdog deserved everything it got but Mickey was robbed for best actor. Milk? I can't stand Sean Penn. Phoney, phoney, phoney. But what actor isn't? I don't like actors and actresses, yet half of my love interests have been actors and actresses. That's why I've sworn all that off, at least for now.

I've been reading a lot- but I'm behind in writing it all down...I'm currently reading about Steve Jobs, Abe Lincoln, Simone Weil, and Tristan Tzara. What a dinner party that would make, though I'd need a couple more ladies to even all that out- probably Louise Brooks, Marie Curie, and Dorothy Parker.

Stay gold. What a good line- and something that anyone with sense should do. The Outsiders in my mind, is an underrated book. And, it's something the kids are reading and don't want to put down. Cool.

I'm behind in a lot of things, but not behind in school. There, I'm ahead and I'm going to stay that way until May 29th. And I'm behind in my sleep. Good night.

Time passed onward
the words froze and then dried up,
but poetry blooms.

I'm so busy, but I'm not busy at all. I must finish my thesis by the first week of April so I may graduate in Spring. Difficult. I must finish it and then finish Star, and submit, submit, submit and submit. Yes.

Teaching is a good thing and rather fun; I don't like the hours though. Most of my concentration is wrapped-up in teaching and preparation. This is good in most ways just I wish...I wish...M., A., S., the list goes on and on.

Tomorrow, I chaperon a Middle School dance. That's going to be an interesting experience for certain.

Happy birthday Scott Walker! He shares it with Nixon, strangely enough....

Life is interesting- my personal life has been a rollercoaster and school has been strange. 2009 has been very interesting so far.

Top Twenty ShorDurPerSav of 2008

(in no particular order)

1. My MacBook, iMac and iPhone

2. My good friends

3. Lapsang Souchong Tea

4. The Doctor

5. Honesty and Truth

6. William S. Burroughs

7. Bicycles

8. Jack Kerouac

9. Tegan and Sara

10. Emily Dickinson

11. Sierra Nevada College and my thesis advisor

12. Living in town

13. PlayStation 3

14. Robert Louis Stevenson

15. Orson Welles

16. Equivalent Exchange

17. 24 Hour Clocks

18. Parker Jotter Pens

19. My new car

20. You

It seems that all of Viacom's cable channels will be removed from Time Warner Cable. Time Warner Cable is the second largest cable country in the US. That's 13.4 million people all over the US without MTV, Nick, Comedy Central or whatever channel they love because corporations can't agree to pay each other enough money.

So- the bread is getting more expensive and the circus is cancelled. The comments on this story at Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood are amazing. The majority of them seem to be in the camp where people are going bat-shit crazy over the lack of the TV. I've always wondered when Americans would really start to wake up and get angry about something. After everything, is this the last straw?

And add to that, Viacom is using YouTube to put encourage Time Warner customers to demand "their" channels. Manipulation, corporate greed and madness and all people can think about is "their" channels?

Another straw- the city of Reno canceling the yearly (since 2000) New Year's fireworks show downtown. It would have cost them $30,000 and our brave mayor said "With the downturn in the economy, with people getting laid off and with the tightening of budgets all over town, we just didn't think it was right to spend $20,000 or $30,000 on something that goes up in smoke." Even better, the cancellation was announced on Monday, but that's how Reno works. I think it's even more important to have had the fireworks to herald a New Year with new possibility and opportunity. Reno is so very minor league, it's really pathetic. It's a hell of a way to end this year.

Tomorrow is J.D. Salinger's 90th birthday. Hapworth 16, 1924 is the last story of his to be published since he left the public eye in 1965.

The usual top ten list will happen later on- I just need to rest. The last two days have drained me emotionally.