[Surrogate's Blog]
A day without surrogate, is like any other day, except... without surrogate.Now I know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall...
2007-07-31
Good morning Boys and Girls.7:41 a.m. Tuesday.
The sun is out. The leaves on the trees and bushes are inching toward their late summer green; darker, drier looking.
Haven't seen a deer outside in ten days.
Rain? -an anomaly this summer. Nary a single all-day rain since May.
My golf game, which seemed to be working its way into shape nicely a month ago, has departed entirely again and my scores reflect the lack of concentration I've dealt with in all things "surrogate" over the past six months.
Work has been good this summer. I'm gleaning the benefit of having been in this town for a couple of years now, and have found that there's rarely time to do work for a "first time" customer these days; something I'm happy about.
I'm debating starting a complete rewrite of my recent novel. I'd deliberately written it in a style that left a lot to the imagination and made some of the transitions rather abrupt. Some of the folks I've asked to read it have enjoyed the style while others have said that it's taken them time to realize a jump has occurred after I've made one. This is a tough choice for me to decide on since I've started roughing out the next one and have outlined a few of the scenes already, meaning I'm itching to get started on it in earnest as soon as the weather turns. Rewriting this last would take me at least two or three months... annoying.
Life moves on...
Be good to everyone.
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Isn't it ironic? Well, maybe...
2007-07-29
Good morning Boys and Girls.Anyone know about Sabrina Matthews?
She's a comedian(e?) whose oft repeated little special on Comedy Central makes me laugh every single time I catch a little of it. A few minutes into the special, she shruggingly announces that she's a lesbian - to which the laughter is loud and genuine, because - well - the announcement simply isn't necessary, and she knows it. She goes out of her way to dress in the stereotypical butch lesbian outfit, complete with the over-sized flannel shirt and rolled up sleeves, and seems to deliberately affect the posture of an extremely tired and overwrought truck driver.
And man oh man, is she ever smart and funny - and dry as toast.
The reason she came to mind this morning is that in the middle of the night last night, I was writing a note to someone, and I was going to call a certain situation "ironic."
Well, see, here's the thing: like the judge said about pornography, I decided, I may not know the exact definition of irony, but I'm pretty sure I know it when I hear it, or read it, or see it. But, I pondered, what if I'm wrong? -Maybe I should check it out.
Why, all of a sudden, after at least thirty-five-plus years of assuming I grasped the concept, did I doubt my own understanding of the word?
Sabrina Matthews. It's HER fault.
One of the funny bits in her special is when she takes Alanis Morissette to task for the lyrics to her popular song from a decade ago, "Ironic."
Ms. Matthews contends that the litany of events Ms. Morissette describes in the song as being ironic are, for the most part, not ironic at all, but merely unfortunate.
"rain on your wedding day..."
"a traffic jam when you're already late..."
"good advice that you didn't take..."
-and quite a few more. Not ironic. Unfortunate.
What IS ironic, she says, is the fact - that the song "Ironic," became a multi-platinum hit for Alanis Morissette.
Funny stuff.
So...
I looked it up.
Irony, I decided, after checking quite a few online dictionaries and reading through the various definitions, is the older and wiser, and more witty brother of sarcasm.
Irony is me taking all that time to make sure I was using the term correctly in the letter I was writing, only to forget WHY I'd planned to use the term in the first place by the time I got back to my letter.
Oh, I remembered what I was writing about and even the next sentence I'd planned to punch out, but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how the word "ironic" wold have fit within the context of what I was going to say.
But, I did come to a certain conclusion out of the exercise and it is this:
Irony is deciding you want to be a writer just as you reach the stage in life where short-term memory fades unexpectedly from time to time, and just often enough that putting together more than a few lucid thoughts at a sitting becomes impossible.
Or maybe that too is merely unfortunate.
Be good to everyone.
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A post about nothing much...
2007-07-27
Good morning Boys and Girls.There've been six or seven small bright blue birds flitting around the back yard of late. They're not Bluebirds, and they're certainly not Blue-jays. I've never seen this sort before, but they are pretty. They look a little like good size Finches, except for the color. Suppose I'll have to research a little to find out what species they are.
It's been slightly overcast and cool around here the last few days, perfect work weather for me, and I've taken advantage of it. For me, it's not that I do more work on days like this, though I do ten to do more when it's comfortable, but for me, it's simply that I'm not as tired at the end of the day. When and if I could find a place to live where the temperature never gets much above eighty, or below forty-five or so - especially if it's near a decent-sized population center - I'd move there pronto.
I keep looking.
I've heard there's an area near the mountains in the one of the Carolinas where there's a hundred-mile square with this sort of climate, but I've yet to track it down. One of these days...
Well this has been a useless post!
Oh well. I could have written about Michael Vick's alleged dog fighting ring, but no. I'll do as he asked in court yesterday. I'll wait "till all the facts come out."
Then, if it's true, I'll gladly throw in my two cents and scorch his ass.
Be good to everyone.
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Four! -I mean FORE!
2007-07-26
Good morning Boys and Girls.I've been exchanging mail with my friend Kurt Maddox over at tBlog - or here at tBlog, depending on where you're reading this - and somehow my love of golf came up in our conversation.
Eventually I bragged, as usual, when, inevitably, it got to that point in the discourse, that I am a professional golfer.
This is a true statement - the fact that I am the worst professional golfer in the history of the game notwithstanding.
Here's the story:
For years I'd entered a hole-in-one contest sponsored by the Children's Miracle Network at Beaumont Hospital in my hometown of Royal Oak, Michigan. Over the course of one Friday night, Saturday and Sunday morning each summer, you'd buy three balls for two bucks and take your shot at a little one hundred and fifteen yard hole. I usually spent about twenty bucks and got about thirty shots at the hole.
In 1996, I got a hole-in-one in the preliminaries and made the finals which constituted one shot at a 185 yard hole Sunday evening. The finals always included 20 people who'd either made an ace during the prelims or had survived a closest-to-the-pin playoff to make up the rest of the field.
That first year I made the finals there were seventeen holes-in-one in the preliminaries over the course of the three days, which sounds like a lot, but consider that there are hundreds of thousands of shots attempted, and frankly, even golfers with marginal skills can "zero in" when hitting the same relatively short shot time after time.
Anyway, that year, my shot in the finals sucked. I missed the green altogether.
Fast forward to 1999. In the preliminaries, my second shot at the short hole rattled the flag and dropped. Cool. I'd be in the finals again, and I'd only spent two bucks!
Something I didn't find out till I arrived for the finals late Sunday afternoon, was that because my hole-in-one was the first of the weekend that year, I'd go last in the finals.
It was the Sunday of the PGA championship the year Sergio Garcia busted onto the scene and was chasing Tiger Woods on the back nine. He hit this amazing shot from the stump of a tree which he then ran after to see how it ended up, jumping at the crest of the hill to get a better look. I remember a bunch of us standing around and watching in the clubhouse of the little driving range as we waited for our own competition to begin and laughing our butts off at Sergio's joyful child-like enthusiasm. I was reminded of it this past weekend when they re-showed the clip during the coverage of the British Open while Sergio was leading.
So. I was the last to hit. A hole in one here? Two million bucks.
There's a guy with a video camera out on the green for the underwriting insurance company who puts up the money. They'll only pay up if there's tangible proof someone actually gets an ace. Additionally, there are a couple of young girls in shorts and t-shirts with a long tape measure and clipboard, who record the exact distance from the hole each shot ends up, this being important because of the prize structure.
No one expects a hole-in-one and I certainly had no illusions about getting one. On the other hand, I wanted to hit a good solid shot and not embarrass myself, especially since mine would be the final shot of the event. After all, hundreds of people turn out for the finals, and I knew more than a handful of of them, plus my son and a good friend had come to cheer me on.
My name was announced. The closest shot to that point was eighteen feet plus a few inches away from the hole. I'd debated between hitting a full four iron and choking up on a five wood and playing a little fade - a left to right shot I'm fairly good at controlling. I'd decided not to make the choice till just before I hit when I'd check the wind.
It was still as can be. The four iron. Then I looked at my son. He seemed a little surprised I'd chosen the iron. I changed my mind, and took a couple of half practice swings with the five wood.
I took aim the the guy holding the camera who stood about ten feet left of the pin and I put my best relaxed swing on the ball.
Right away everyone started cheering and clapping. The ball would certainly end up on the green, or at least close to it; that was obvious. It was a high shot and as it reached its apex it had turned just perfectly and now, we could all see it would be very close to the hole if the distance was right.
It landed perhaps ten feet in front of the green and took a soft bounce where, upon hitting the short grass it tracked right toward the hole.
We could hear the camera man and the two girls out there suddenly screaming, and instantly, my heart started pounding.
The pin was back right on the green and the camera man shouted "Oh my GOD!"
It didn't go in. I saw the video tape. It ran over the right edge of the hole and settled two feet, ten inches away.
I took the five thousand dollar first prize gladly, as I was in the middle of expanding our home at the time and the money would be more than helpful.
When a person accepts any cash whatsoever, or goods exceeding three hundred and fifty dollars in value for any sort of accomplishment having anything whatsoever to do with swinging a golf club and striking a ball, that person relinquishes their amateur status.
You may, after a period of two years, and along with a check for eight hundred dollars, request the USGA to restore you amateur status after a further two year waiting period, during which an investigation is done to make sure you haven't taken any money in the interim.
Eight hundred bucks to become an amateur again?
Hell no!
I'd rather keep the story and remain the worst professional golfer on earth - which I am.
Be good to everyone.
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I'd cry for Tammy Faye, but I don't wear enough makeup...
2007-07-22
Good morning Boys and Girls.Well, one of my favorite foils from the Christian right has died. Tammy Faye Messner, the one time Tammy Faye Bakker died Friday of cancer.
In my life, not too many people have made me angrier on a regular basis than her and her former husband.
They, of the Magic Jesus school, recklessly took advantage of their supporters for years, building their "ministry" on the backs of an incredible number of gullible people who faithfully sent in their dollars to help build what finally became, and was from the start, largely, a fun park of cynical excess and showiness.
When people think of televangelists, surely their names come to mind quickly. Perhaps they should have remained the puppeteers they began their careers as.
I'm sure Tammy Faye had many redeeming qualities. I'm sure she believes she's gone straight to heaven, and who am I to say, perhaps she has. If so, I really do hope there are separate heavens, assuming there are any at all, because I honestly don't want to be a member in any club that would accept her with open arms.
I really dislike fakes.
God forgive me - or don't. Your call.
Be good to everyone.
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Bias?
2007-07-19
Good morning Boys and Girls.I was thinking about a blog post I read the other day where someone complained about the bias of the media coverage of the war. Oh hell, it was Ruined. He won't mind if I name him.
It was the usual. Only bad things are reported. Successes are ignored. It's BIAS he claimed, and he's certainly not alone in believing this to be the case.
He then complained about the media coverage of his own employer's company's demise and how it was skewed, inaccurate, and by inference, that it was incomplete.
It's at least a two-fold deal and really, it's probably more like twenty-seven-fold, but here's the problem in a nutshell, and, since he's a friend, I'll use Ruined's blog to illustrate this as well.
When have we heard about peaceful days in his neighborhood? -Days where his neighbors have had no interaction whatsoever with him and his family? Oh there have been mentions of peaceful times in general that he's thankful for, but those reports are interesting only because we KNOW of the problems he's suffered on a fairly regular basis with these people, and when something bad and NEW happens, he tells us what he's experienced. THAT'S news.
Does he go out and ask his neighbors for their side of the story? No. Frankly, that would be an unreasonable expectation, and what he's writing about is how what's happened has affected him, and or his loved ones.
Well, in some respects, that's how the news works. An explosion? -That's a fact. Easy to report on. But what of something like this? "We think this particular neighborhood is cleared of the enemy." Okay. Good. But are they gone or did they just move elsewhere? If you report that things are peaceful in a place today that wasn't peaceful yesterday, that's all well and good, but if there's new violence elsewhere, THAT'S the story that will get the coverage. And frankly, that the story that SHOULD get the coverage.
Reporting FACTS is not biased.
Yesterday there was that steam explosion in NYC.
That was news.
I'll bet that in an office nearby there business went on as usual, with deals getting done, and word-processing happening and lunches being enjoyed. And know what? The media ignored that stuff completely.
That's not bias.
Mistakes are made. Hell, I'd heard that one person was killed in the blast early on, but this morning, I heard that the lady who died, died of a heart attack.
Bias? Bad reporting? Or simply an early report that didn't contain every fact that was eventually gleaned?
Remember, we don't hear about prisoners who are treated well in the prisons over there in Iraq. We only hear about bad situations that occur - which we hope happens only infrequently. Bias?
Nope. Things that are as they should be, or as they USUALLY are, is simply not news.
Das life.
Be good to everyone.
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"I can shout louder than you can talk. I can shout louder than you can talk. I can shout louder than you can talk. "
2007-07-17
Good morning Boys and Girls.I find that as I get older, I'm becoming more impatient.
When people do something that makes me realize I can't trust them? I walk away. I'm tired of giving people two three and four chances that take a toll on my psyche.
When people make statements that they have absolutely no way of knowing are true? I write them off as fools, and I wash my hands of them. I'm learning that, as one of those Blue Collar Comedy guys says, though I don't remember which one, "you can't cure stupid."
He's right.
I LOVE to learn new things.
I LOVE to find out I've been wrong about something and change my position - if and when it's warranted.
On the other hand, when idiots spew the same old crap in a new and louder way and expect it to be taken as fact because they've said it cleverly, or with tons of new emphasis - but still without saying a damn thing that gives any merit to their words?
Uh uh.
Anyone happen to watch Lindsey Graham on Meet the Press Sunday? I'll bet he said "Let'em win!," twenty times, always while interrupting Jim Webb's comparatively lucid and thoughtful words. I was embarrassed. Graham reminded me of a Junior High kid who'd missed his Ritalin, whiny and... Hell, it almost sounded like he KNEW he was sounding stupid, and thought if he sounded stupid more LOUDLY, that no one would catch on. Like he was thinking, "If I shout continuously, maybe no one will be able to get that my position is really shitty... and, fer' sher' at least they won't be able to process what Webb has to say."
-And Webb has a kid over there.
It's all that's left to the pro-war crowd.
We're not supposed to remember that EVERY f*cking decision they've made is wrong. We're supposed to trust that THIS time, they've got it right.
For me? Lindsey Graham, by his own behavior, has proved himself to be an idiotic dirt-bag. -What a tool.
Be good to everyone.
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We're ba-ack...
2007-07-15
Good morning Boys and Girls.Before I start, a note:
I'm posting here, at tBlog, at Wordpress and now, starting today, at Livejournal, though there, you'll have to look for "surrogatesblog" ; since someone else has the user name "surrogate," there.
Back up your posts people. I always get a sick feeling in my stomach when the blogs go down, knowing I haven't backed up in a month or two since I always forget UNTIL there's a problem. And, after all, since I've come to delude myself into thinking that some day, my missives here over the years will be considered universally brilliant and necessary reading for all well-schooled people, I can't leave my work to disappear forever into the cyber ether. I want to make sure I've got them on my own hard drive, where they're safe and sound - until I screw up and delete them accidentally myself after one too many Bloody Marys or an overdose of Crystal Meth - both relatively unlikely scenarios unless I experience a severe personality change.
A couple of bloggers have contacted me during the "outage," to complain bitterly that Rocky and Nick have dropped the ball; one going so far as to call them "losers," and swearing off shoutpost forever; but since I have absolutely no idea what caused the problems, or how difficult they were to fix, and knowing for sure that I probably wouldn't understand the actual processes used to remedy the situation even if they were explained to me slowly and completely using a chalk board and a pointer, I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon.
I'm thankful they got things fixed and hope it's a good long while before we have to go through another few day panic session.
Now... What was I going to write about today?
Be good to everyone.
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Just a pretty thing.
2007-07-11
Good morning Boys and Girls.
Last week, I think it was on the Fourth though it may have been one day either side of it, in the early morning, a young buck stood majestic on the hill behind the house, maybe seventy feet away. I'm no expert, but I'd guess he's two or three years old. His fully formed rack looks to be velvet covered as yet, and his coat is stunning; in the sunlight, it's a brilliant orange-red.
He stood there for a couple of minutes looking at the house, right at me, actually - though I can't imagine he could see me very clearly through the glass - and then he simply walked on over the hill and back onto the trail so many of the deer around here use.
I didn't see him again till last night as the sun set.
He was walking in the opposite direction last night and he didn't come down onto the side of the hill this time, he just walked along the trail and minded his own business. At one point something slightly spooked him and he took a couple of galloping leaps before settling down again and ambling off toward the apple tree seventy or eighty yards away on the neighbor's property. I'll bet he can't wait till the apples are ready for chomping.
This morning, just now, he came all the way down and used the salt block. He stayed for at least ten minutes before loping off back up the hill as though he realized he was running a tad late for an appointment.
So beautiful.
Be good to everyone.
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Irrational worries.
2007-07-09
Good morning Boys and Girls.As a new week begins, I'm struck dumb by the fact that the summer is more than half over. I don't like it. A little wisp of panic hits me as I realize that the snows of winter aren't that far away.
This is new to me. It's only started the last year or two and seems to come a little earlier each year. Part of me, the rational, pragmatic side, realizes this is nuts. It makes me feel selfish and small... and old.
Yesterday afternoon I played golf with a friend on a great public course about an hour south of here. It was over ninety degrees, though a nice breeze kept it fairly comfortable throughout the round, which, since we hadn't teed off till around four, didn't end till eight-ish. At least a half-dozen times as I played, the thought struck me that this same beautiful course, in a hundred and twenty days or so, would likely be covered in white stuff.
"Well, duh," you might say. And you'd be right. That's the way it works! Eight months of tolerable weather and four months of cold. Not a bad deal, really, and far from a serious problem for anyone but a self-centered goof-ball.
Why, then, am I feeling this way?
Makes me angry with myself.
Be good to everyone.
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Itsy-Bitsy Post....
2007-07-08
Good morning Boys and Girls....
Best joke I've heard in months....
..................................
This morning on the way to work I got rear-ended at a stop light. I hadn't been paying attention to my rearview mirror and was really surprised by the impact, along with being quite annoyed.
Anyway the fellow who was driving the other car got out...
He was a dwarf.
He said, "I'm not happy"........
I said "Well, which one are you then?"
......................................
Be good to everyone.
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Ya'll be careful with them thar' bottle rockets.
2007-07-04
Happy Fourth of July Boys and Girls.Hope it's a good one.
Rainy here... Thank goodness.
It's been dry as... as... Well, it's been really dry, this while out West they've had more rain than they've been able to deal with. Weird weather patterns.
I'm going to take the rest of the week off from posting.
Catch you Monday.
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How about tacos instead?
2007-07-02
Good morning Boys and Girls.Absolutely beautiful day here. Cool, crisp, sunny.
We need a bit of the rain that's been flooding Oklahoma and Kansas - though certainly not all of it.
Busy week for me starts as soon as I'm done writing this. A couple of side projects, young guests in from abroad staying here for about ten days over the next three weeks, the holiday this week, and I know I'm playing golf at least once in the early evenings - probably twice - as I'm subbing for folks who are on vacation. Hope I play better than I did last evening. It was ugly. Beautiful course though.
Saw my daughter only long enough to give her a peck on the cheek as she slept on the couch at my son's house. It's a common occurrence when I go over that way every other Friday if I have to leave early Saturday morning. She tends to fall asleep there when she's gotten home in the middle of the night from her shift at the Irish sports bar where she waits tables. I always feel bad. It's a toughie. Don't want to wake her up, but I don't like leaving without talking to her.
Wow... this is a boring post.
How about a joke?
A woman dies, she waits at the gates of heaven. She's looking in through the gleaming white fence made of stacked pearls and trimmed with diamonds. She sees all kinds of wonderful things through openings in the gate.
Saint Peter, who was on his hourly coffee break, finally came back. The woman said to him, "This is such a wonderful place! How do I get in?"
"It's not so hard. You have to spell a word," Saint Peter told her.
"Which word?" the woman asked.
"Love."
The woman correctly spelled "Love" and Saint Peter welcomed her into Heaven.
About ten years later, Saint Peter came to the woman and asked her to watch the Gates of Heaven for the day as he had a tee time.
While the woman was guarding the Gates of Heaven, her husband arrived. "I'm surprised to see you," the woman said. "How have you been?"
"Oh, I've been doing pretty well since you died," her husband told her. "I married the beautiful young nurse who took care of you while you were ill. And then I won the multi-state lottery. I sold the little house you and I lived in and bought a huge mansion. And my wife and I traveled all around the world. We were on vacation in Cancun and I went water skiing today. I fell and hit my head, and here I am. What a bummer! How do I get in."
"You have to spell a word," the woman told him.
"Which word?" her husband asked.
"Quesadillas."
Be good to everyone.
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A mind is a terrible thing to baste.
2007-07-01
Happy Sunday Morning Boys and Girls.Friday. Eastbound I-96 at mile marker 100.
A Brinks armored truck sat along the shoulder of the expressway.
Behind it was a Penske rental van.
Behind that was a state police car.
It looked like the guys from the armored truck, in uniform, were transferring bags from the Brinks truck into the rental van with the policeman standing guard.
That's all I saw. I was traveling about 65 miles an hour.
But for the next fifteen or twenty minutes, all kinds of scenarios went through my mind.
Did the Brinks truck simply have engine problems?
Who brought the rental van?
What if the guards were fake?
What if the policeman was fake?
-That sort of thing.
Probably nothing nefarious was going on...
...but I could have come up with 5 movie scripts based on the ten seconds I could clearly see the situation as I drove up to it, passed it and saw it in my rear-view mirror. It was fun to extrapolate...
So... Friday, about 6:30 p.m.
I'd helped my son Ryan pick up a big 52" LCD T.V. from a shipper near Detroit Metro Airport. He'd bought it on Ebay from a reseller, a factory refurbished model, for about half what he'd seen the same model at the big box retailers. Cool.
We put it on top of my jeep and secured it with more bungee cords than necessary. Arriving at his house, he helped me undo all but the last cord, which I unfastened while he propped open his side door so we'd be able to maneuver it into the basement.
The last cord... I unfastened it from the back of the rack and reached up as far forward as I could to relieve the elastic tension almost completely. I let go.
There was still just enough spring left to have the damn thing flip up and over the rack, it's other end still fastened to that side of it, and SNAP!
I cracked my windshield but good.
I haven't felt that stupid in a while.
Damn physics.
Be good to everyone.
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