Patriotic Gore

Mr. Vidal still entertains.

Oh, snap

So the principal who hired me away from Booker T. has 'un-hired' me. "I over-hired and didn't realize it," she said.

Uh, I backed out of a good high school job because you offered me a firm contract. D'oh. Now I'm fucked.

So this morning to avoid getting sent just anywhere in the Baltimore School System I re-signed at Booker T. Looks like my time there ain't over yet.

West Side Forever, beeyotches!

Fourteen years together...

Cha arrives, originally uploaded by Blog-Sothoth.

...and that's just counting the married time.

4 continents and 15 countries down, with many more to go.

I love you babe.

#35

I'd read and admired Crace before--Quarantine was the novel, and it ranks as my fave Jesus novel after Robert Graves' King Jesus. The stories in Continent are reminiscent of the work of other fabulists like John Hawkes, Calvino, Hrabal, or Borges. The stories are peculiar and deliciously mysterious. Crace's world is more than a little bit different from the one we inhabit, but is absolutely convincing. The book is only 140pages long but I spent several days savoring it.

The end is nigh

We had two students show today. They helped clean off dry-erase boards and sweltered in the hot room with us. Over 100 degrees today. Thank God the kids only had a half-day anyhow.

8th grade graduation tomorrow in the auditorium is going to be a sweaty mess.

I packed books and pushed desks and chairs into piles in the corner. Then they closed the school for teachers due to heat and we went to Chipotle. Tomorrow we wrap everything up for the 8th graders and after that it's simply packing up and cleaning until Friday. Then, a couple months of glorious freedom.

One of the fashionistas made a poster for Lukie. It had a drawing of me in the corner. A huge speech balloon over my head said: "Yo, I'm Mr. G. BE QUIET!" Over a drawing of Lukie the speech balloon said: "Don't talk about my big sloppy booty."

Thanks

To everyone who came out to see our first gig with the new MLS line-up, a big Thank You!

Thanks to Cha for talking me into saying yes to this. I didn't think I had the chops for it, but like that old song says, she believed in me and made me give it a try.

Seamus United was out in full force and it was a sight to behold. Thanks gang.

A posse of drunken inner-city school teachers helped me deal with stage jitters by yelling my name and the words "you rock" even when I fucked up badly.

My family--you guys are the best! I love you.

And thanks to Silenus, K'wali and Klezma, Chuckles, Yo! Adrienne, Leni, Scott, and Perry, The Bus, Flea and J3553, Gypsy Girl for the shot of bourbon when I needed it most, and of course Yahtzee who's my main man. And King Raj--he brought the new bandmembers gifts. What a sweetheart. If there's anyone I'm forgetting I apologize. Thanks everyone for your support.

Thanks to the band who are all infinitely better at this sort of thing than I, and thanks in particular to Earthdragon for giving me the chance to live a teenage dream of playing live music and having people dance and shout and cheer. What fun.

And to Shaun the sound dude--You are The Man. That was a lot of work, and we appreciate your help and it would have been a much more daunting task without you.

There were some great moments last night. The return of cello was a huge hit, and everyone I spoke to said Kristen was awesome. She IS awesome. And Mark? I thought Mick O'Shea's shifted on its foundation when he layed down the heavy artillery. Nick nailed the songs he sang and the crowd ate it up, and his guitar soloing made me wonder why I have any solos at all. And Earthdragon? Lead vocals, backing vocals, rhythm guitar, and fiddle--the guy does it all and does it all well.

All the positives aside, I made many mistakes. I choked on some solos, and at one point stepped on my overdrive pedal and launched into a solo I really worked on a lot only to have no signal at all (after the second set began I forgot to turn up the level on my pedal. Idiot). I started singing at the wrong time in "Let's Go," but realized it quickly. I hadn't counted on the fact that standing in front of a crowd would cause me to forget all the songs I'd memorized, and that in the dark of a pub with only red and green stage lamps it's virtually impossible to see your music charts. Occasional sloppy fumbling resulted. Ooops!

But we played through. I know I learned a lot about how to watch as well as listen when you can't hear everyone else through the monitors. I know what to expect now and what I need to work on.

easily distracted

easily distracted, originally uploaded by Blog-Sothoth.

Trying to get any teaching done at Booker T. is hard enough--but when it's the last full week of school? Fuggetabouddit.

We had "Fun Day" for the 8th graders yesterday, with outdoor sports and activities and free dogs and burgers and sodas (and police protection). It was a blast, despite the swampy B'more weather, and it was great to see troublesome gang-bangers and dealers and thugs and bullies smiling and acting like what they are: children.

Today was 8th grade graduation rehearsal. Lukie and I got to watch the kids who were denied the chance to walk the stage because of behavior problems. Many of these are my favorite kids. I had more fun with them than I would have had at the rehearsal.

I have more gray hairs after this year, but I will miss these kids, and I hope they all make it.

#34

I got this from poet Dan Bouchard many moons ago. I think he was moving from Philly to Newport, and he divested his massive library of a couple boxes by sending them my way. Occasionally I still find some of these volumes unread.

I'd not heard of Paul Watkins, but dude can write! This a fantastic little novel and I was swept away. Blurbs on the book cover riff on his similarities to Hemingway; I can see the stylistic resemblance in Watkins' sparse descriptive passages and in the combat scenes. But Watkins is a better prose writer than Hemingway, at least in this book.

Ben Sheridan grew up in Rhode Island, the son of Irish immigrants. A terrible accident kills his father, and he finds out that his father's past was more colorful than he previously knew. Ben's attempt to find answers take him home to the west coast of Ireland as the Troubles turn bloody during the early 1920s. He learns the information he sought but at a terrible cost.

I'll definitely seek out more from Mr. Watkins.