The Iceman Cameth. And Then He Lefteth...

If you haven't been able to get enough of my ongoing efforts to bring ice into our home in the form of the ice and water dispenser built into our refrigerator, I have an update.

Recall from my August 8 post that Jillfoil and I have been living happily ice-free for four years now. Our guests however, have not been so happy. Especially at cocktail hour.

So we had a plumber come over to hook up the water to the refrigerator. $245 later, he told us that the water was connected but the dispenser was broken.

A week later, the appliance guy came and told us that the pfetzer unit was broken. He took a $100 deposit for the part and drove away. Just this past week he returned with a new pfetzer unit, installed it and told me that in 12 hours we would have ice.

And now, for your arithemetic pleasure, I will recount the total cost of this modern convenience:

$245 Plumbing and installation of water source
$100 Deposit for the purchase of pfetzer unit
$160 Balance on pfetzer unit
$125 Appliance guy labor

I keep rubbing my eyes and hoping that the numbers change. But they don’t. $630.

And while $630 for the convenience of automatic ice surpasses the cost of a brand new refrigerator, at least I can serve my father his favorite beverage and offer him his choice of crushed or cubed ice.

Only I can’t. 12 hours passed and no ice. 24 hours passed. It’s been four days now and every morning I rush to the ice maker like a kid at Christmas. And every morning I find the ice bin filled with metaphorical coal.



Look at all the metaphorical coal.

And what do I do now? Just forget about it and move on? Stop throwing good money after bad and chalk this up as a $630 learning experience?

I mean, what is the effing lesson here?

Or do I call the appliance guy back? If I’m just $50 away from making this right, I’d be a fool not to finish it off and give my dad a god-damned glass of ice water right? But on the other hand, what if it’s going to take $250 more dollars? I mean, COME ON. When does it end?

And so I was wedged in tight and stuck. I couldn’t decide what my next move should be.

But there’s this blog. And it’s hungry for content. And I’m planning on launching this thing publicly in the next day or two. And then the pressure for content really mounts. And if I decide to cut my losses and live the rest of my life without automatic ice, then this topic will be closed and there will be nothing more to say or post about it.

But if I call the appliance guy and bring him back…

It’s thin logic. It’s no way to make a decision but it’s what I’m going to do. I’m calling the guy back. That will give me at least one more post and maybe, just maybe, a cool, refreshing iced beverage just in time for the summer to officially end.

More to follow…

Great Headline Over at The Onion...

Michael Phelps Returns To His Tank At Sea World

Everything that Happens will Happen Today

In 1981, David Byrne and Brian Eno put out a crazy-good record called “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.”

Now that I think about it, that record might have been the first of many good recommendations over the years from my friend Nick.

The record has since been lauded as a wildly influential precursor to electronica, world music and sampling. I know…world music. Not my thing either but this is a great record. That it was produced before digital technology makes it even more remarkable.

I even remember that Oliver Stone used some of it in “Wall Street.”

Anyway, Eno and Byrne have just released a new record called “Everything that Happens will Happen Today” and they’re streaming it for free on the website http://www.everythingthathappens.com/.

It sounds really good.

Here is what Byrne has to say on the website:

Brian Eno and I recently finished our first collaboration in about 30 years. The name of the new record is Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. For the most part, Brian did the music and I wrote some tunes, words and sang. It's familiar but completely new as well. We're pretty excited.

The album is available exclusively from this Web site. You can stream all of the songs for free and purchase it in a variety of digital and physical formats, including a limited edition Deluxe Package designed by Sagmeister Inc. All formats can be downloaded immediately and physical CDs will be shipped in the Fall.

You sir! You look like a strong young man...

For 141 years, our town has hosted a fair. And it’s a classic. 4H exhibits, rides, a midway, fried dough, live music, corn dogs, agricultural exhibits, even modified lawnmower races and a demolition derby.

And carnies! If I had any gumption at all, I would present to you a photo gallery of carnies from the fair but I simply couldn’t do it. I’m too intimidated.

I just know that every carnie in the place has more fist-fight experience than I do and I get the very real sense that they’d enjoy throwing down with a rube like me.

(For some reason I've always remembered a line from the Bill Murray stinker “Larger Than Life” where Murray’s character’s father was a carnie who offered this sage piece of advice: “Son, there’s two kinds of people in this world, carnies’ and rubes. Don’t be a rube.”)

But there was still a lot to see…and all of it was electric-thrill-neon-overload. Win this prize! Dare to ride! Eat! Show your strength! Test your courage! Suspend your disbelief! Witness! Marvel!

And if you ever sense that you’re falling into a rut where you live in a kind of insular world and see the same kind of people day-in and day-out, take yourself down to the fair. Where does the guy with the tank top and pock-marked shoulder blades come from? Where does he work? Why doesn’t he wash his pants?

What about the enormous fat guy who decided, fuck it all, to go to the fair without a shirt?

And how on earth can that lady be walking around in bare feet?

The looming presidential election makes me think that there is some kind of lesson to be learned here. This is America and these are Americans. Their tank-tops and t-shirts say it loud and clear.

So do the framed mirrors with eagles clutching American flags in their talons…and you can take one home if your aim is good.

C’mon fella, just knock all three down and win a prize for your girlie…

Acorns

Vacations take on a different meaning when you put the word “family” in front of them. I’m sure my mother and father could have told me that.

As a vigorous and vibrant young man, I might have passed a week on a lake in Maine by sleeping off a hangover on the beach, water skiing, napping on a hammock, taking midnight cocktail cruises on the boat or heading into town for some alcohol fueled “locals vs. tourists” action at the pub.

(Mainers will describe visitors by simply saying that they are “from away”. They have also been known to use a term which seems to describe visitors from my home state but can actually apply to any tourist - Masshole.

As a Massachusettsian myself who married into a family of Mainers, I walk a very fine line on this issue. So far I have stayed out of trouble by joining with the Mainers in a common disdain for New Yorkers. Especially Yankee fans.)

Getting back to my point about the fun that a young man might have on a Maine vacation, the list of available activities shortens up dramatically when you add a 2 ½ year-old to the mix. Or rather, the list changes.

Sleeping-in is out. Getting up early and swimming in glass-smooth water is in.

Water skiing is out. Kite-flying is in.

Midnight boat rides are severely curtailed but mid-afternoon floats on an inner-tube with Littlefoil are in. Totally in.

Drinking is actually still in.

Sleeping away a hangover on the hammock is out. Rocking in the hammock with Littlefoil while he shakes off the sleepies from his nap is in.

There was skinny dipping and trips to the ice cream shop and in many ways it was the kind of wholesome summer vacation that you feel lucky to be able to provide for a kid.

No one knows how long we’ll be able to keep coming back to the camp on the lake but I hope and hope and hope that Littlefoil will remember something about this trip. Even a little something like the acorns he collected all week. He’s been hiding them around the house. So far I’ve found one in my shoe and two in our bed. I hope we keep finding them all winter long.




Sunscreen is a must...




Frog catching. I mean c'mon! Frog catching!




The Foil Fleet.




If it's slimy or slippery, Littlefoil loves it.

Family Vacation!

This is me swimming in Maine. Or rather, this is me just a half second before I began swimming. That’s Lucy with me – one of the all-time great dogs.

Lucy isn’t with us anymore but Ruby has joined the family and is currently working her way up to “most favored dog status.”

On Friday, we're loading up the family truckster and Ruby, Jillfoil, Littlefoil and I are going back to the lake for a week of swimming and hiking and biking and camp-firing.

Wholesome as all get out.

I'm hoping to keep work distractions to a minimum...but you know how that goes.

No blogging either. But I promise pictures and stories when I get back.

El Rey

On Monday night I piled my suburban self into the car with my suburban friend and headed into the big city for a rock show.

The last show I saw downstairs at The Middle East was The Dismemberment Plan. Last night it was El Vez.

How to describe El Vez…he refers to himself as the “Mexican Elvis” but that leaves too much unsaid.

He’s a showman. A kind of gay-cabaret, show-tune, Elvis-camp, rock-o-Latino showman - prone to flamboyant costumes, visuals and props. He performs in front of a crack band and beside the El-Vettes who play the role of back-up singers and go-go dancers.

It’s a chaotic mash-up of pop-culture with liberal amounts of Elvis and a sprinkle of Latino politics thrown in.

Allmusic.com puts it this way:

El Vez, aka Robert Lopez, has been kicking around the L.A. underground music
scene for nearly twenty years. While his records are excellent documents of the
El Vez phenomenon, the only way to get the full El Vez experience is to see his
live shows.

The best cultural reference points to help describe an El Vez show are the Ike and Tina Turner Review, a Tom Jones Las Vegas gig, the LSD episode of Dragnet, and Elvis Presley's '68 comeback special. Listening to El Vez is akin to hearing the live-band equivalent of sampling. An audience on any given night can be treated to half a dozen costume changes and might hear bits and pieces of at least 200 songs - not all of them Elvis recordings.

And that’s so true. At one point last night I texted myself so I could remember the three songs that made up one particularly audacious number – Elvis’ “In The Ghetto”, The Marshall Tucker Band’s “Can’t You See” and Oasis’ “Champagne Supernova.”

And it totally worked. The show was a blast.



I’m not sure that I would sit and listen to El Vez records for hours on end, but having seen him a couple years ago during the “Merry Mex-mas” tour and at last night’s “El Vez for Prez” show, I am highly recommending that you check out http://www.elvez.net/evFrameset.html to find out when he’s coming to your town.

Better yet, don’t bother. I’ll save you the click!

8/12/08 Hoboken - Maxwells
8/13/08 New York - Le Poisson Rouge
8/14/08 Philadelphia - Johnny Brenda’s
8/15/08 Washington DC - Black Cat
8/16/08 Atlanta = Variety Playhouse (Elvis Death Day Show)
8/17/08 New Orleans - Parish
8/19/08 Houston - Continental Club
8/20/08 Austin - Continental Club
8/23/08 Los Angeles - Key Club
8/24/08 San Diego - Casbah