#33

Like many "young adult" novels, Bang! strains credulity at times. But the kids in my classes loved it, many even reading ahead in excitement. When the killings and violence stopped there was enough poop humor and other disgusting middle-school stuff to keep them reading.

Good for teaching youth about the consequences of actions, and there's plenty of room to question and discuss what it means to be a man or a father or a mother.

unexpected house guests

Being married to Cha is always surprising. After almost 14 years of nuptial bliss, and four previous years of sinful cohab, she still manages to bring out new material.

Yesterday she called me and said we had unexpected house guests for two nights this weekend. I figured a cousin or sibling was in town on short notice, but no. We are hosting a three-member Japanese drum troupe Friday and Saturday. They're performing at Cha's huge fund-raiser event at Center Stage this Saturday and need a place to crash. Previous variants of this routine include the old "honey, the president of San Francisco's City Council is staying over this weekend. Can you entertain him for a couple days?" Or "the Green Party presidential candidate is staying tonight. He wants to know can he borrow your Philip K. Dick paperbacks?"

So Friday night I have a gig and I'll be tied up at Mick O'Shea's until 3am. Cha will be there too, and says she's bringing the Japanese with her. Saturday we'll both be working the Center Stage gig until after midnight. The drummers are performing there for a little while and then they'll need a place to go.

I guess we'll just give them our house key and leave them to their own devices. Hate to be bad hosts, but it's a crazy weekend coming up.

all ye who enter here

all ye who enter here, originally uploaded by Blog-Sothoth.

view out my classroom window

view out the classroom window

view out the classroom window, originally uploaded by Blog-Sothoth.

memorial

student graffito, originally uploaded by Blog-Sothoth.

Less than one week with the students remain. Most of the students will stop coming today anyhow because grades are already in. Drink a forty to my time at Booker T.

ouch

guitar, originally uploaded by Blog-Sothoth.

The callouses are in good shape! Been playing a lot of guitar lately, for obvious reasons. Hope the hard work pays off Friday. Gulp.



Today I was listening to Sabbatum, which is a recreation of several Black Sabbath tunes as medieval chant in Latin. It's amazingly awesome. While I was listening I thought about how much I used to love Black Sabbath when I was a teen. I listened to that stuff with my headphones on for hours, digging that cavernous sound. I learned a lot about guitar solos listening to Tommy Iommi. Then I thought about Sabbath post-Ozzy, and the album



And I thought: I haven't listened to that in ages. I downloaded it from iTunes for $7, which is probably what I paid for my vinyl copy 25 years ago. The album is awesome. There are only a couple clunkers. It's a bit more '80s than Sabbath's early stuff, of course, and often sounds like Black Sabbath via Rush or Uriah Heep or Scorpions. I'm digging the shit out of it--perhaps nostalgia?

Also great:



Can't get enough Aimee Mann. Dave Eggers has a guest appearance and whistles.



Heard this on the radio a lot last year, then got a jones for it after they stopped playing the tunes. Another $7 iTunes download.



Awesome awesome awesome.



Hell, yeah. A funky introducton to Tribe Called Quest.

get well soon

Dedicated to Seth, who took what sounds like a nasty spill. All of us here at Blog-Sothoth--meaning, well, me--hope he mends nicely.

#32

I've only read a couple prison memoirs--Berkman's and Dostoevsky's--so I'm by no means an expert in the genre. Wideman's is interesting because it's a prison memoir written by someone who's not on the inside, in collaboration with his brother who is locked up for murder.

Lukie gave it to me as a birthday gift. She spent some time teaching prisoners who were working toward their GEDs. She even taught the guy who killed her sister's boyfriend. The prison in Brothers and Keepers is in Pittsburgh, which is her hometown, and where she worked. It's also where Berkman was incarcerated after shooting Frick.

Wideman is wrathful and indignant about the plight of his brother, who chose to play the street game and lost badly. There are seething passages about The Man and the fucked-up society which limits the choices of young urban youth, driving them to crime. But Wideman, who went to Penn and became a novelist and professor, knows his brother chose the path which took him behind bars. The book looks at how two young men with identical origins could have had such divergent fates.

Robby seems a decent chap, likeable and smart, and the murder in which he was involved is like a Tarrantino-scripted comedy of terrible errors. Nobody intended to hurt anybody, but somebody done got killed anyhow. My favorite parts of the book are those penned by Robby himself. Robby works towards an engineering degree and finishes it just before funding for the program is cut. He tries to be hopeful, but prisons unfortunately are designed to limit hope.