In what I hope will be my most frivolous month in terms of spending, my monthly total for August came to exactly $998. Just two dollars under the amount I have allotted on average per month, but still a number far, far higher than I wish—and especially, need—to spend. It goes to show that when I have money I still spend it. And so the less I have the less I spend and the better I feel about it.
But unlike last month when I broke down my spending by category (for the record, my going out and dining out spending was way higher with bills, food and unexpected spending remaining rather constant) I will instead breakdown the nothing that has been occupying me.
Over the last month I have continued to ride my bike for a daily 18 mile round trip commute, hung out constantly on the porch with my housemates, and managed to fit a few books and short stories in as well.
Additionally, my friend Mike and I have begun using all the recording equipment that he owns and have been working on a few musical ideas that we have. I have also began to research, line by line (using wikipedia mostly), what is perhaps my favorite book, Reader’s Block, in hopes of fully understanding its intricate system of cross-reference and literary allusions. Beyond that I have continued working on posting these thoughts, as well as slowly continuing work on some other thoughts that I’ve neglected far too long.
I have been carrying out these last ideas all with no monetary incentive nor even necessarily the completion of them, but rather only for the enjoyment of the acts and the processes themselves. It beats watching TV and demanding to be entertained.
But still, I haven’t begun drawing again.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
For a Minute There I Lost Myself--Part II
But after the game most of the team went to a bar and drank for a little while. I was getting picked on for liking Genny from every direction, a discussion of the game began and from there conversation was all around.
I was in the corner talking to one of the quieter players and we somehow fell onto the topic of Ted Williams having been the last .400 hitter; how he willingly played on the last day of the year and went 6 for 8; and all the guys who have since come close but still just didn’t quite hit .400.
Ted Williams himself hit .388 in 1957.
But as the conversation finally came to pass, I sat back and noticed how nice the moment was, how content everyone felt in that small bar, and how freely the 9-5’ers—both workers and those who worked for themselves—were buying pitchers of beers for everyone. Maybe it was the beer I had drank, or maybe it was the overwhelming argument in the moment itself, but for a minute there I thought I understood why people are willing to work their whole lives, and it was for moments like these.
Rod Carew hit .388 in 1977
And in that moment, like moments that often come to me, I thought maybe it wasn’t so bad. After all, everyone was in the same ship: safety in numbers, right? And that work let moments like this happen: it’s the little things, right?
George Brett hit .390 in 1980
For so long I grew up almost instinctively believing that I would go to college, graduate, get a good job with good pay and that would be that; that was the pay off and that was all that was needed. And in thinking that so long, no matter how strenuously I now claim to believe the opposite, there still is a long process of deprogramming filled with constant second-guessing that I always find myself going through in my pursuit of my idea of doing nothing.
That Tony Gwynn hit .394 in 1994 wasn’t mentioned, probably because it was a strike-shortened season.
But the belief is easy. It’s the action that is that hardest. And in seeing those guys—great guys—enjoying themselves, it seemed so easy, even worthwhile to do. I fell back to short daydreams of going back to school to get a degree to become a professor or anything else that would provide stability and good pay: by no means is my determination never distracted, sidetracked or second-guessed. Far too easily we fall back on our conditioning and I still have yet to overcome that completely.
Then the fact that Ted Williams also won two triple crowns was mentioned (and that he didn’t win MVP in either of those seasons) and talk went onto the previous winners of that.
But I eventually did come to my senses and knew that if the price of those moments was a life time of work the price was too high because those moments can be experienced without the work, without the money. I was there in that moment too. Was it just as a mooch or as an equal, if not in money being spent, but in the more valuable (and perhaps rarer?) commodity of friendship?
Joe Medwick was the last to win in the NL in 1937.
Experience and the emotions that come from it are free. The pay off isn’t the paycheck or the things you can pay for, it’s the play in the moments themselves. Even if I don’t go on a bike ride and take a million pictures everyday; if I don’t finish at least a book a week; if I don’t make four posts a day on this page; if all I have to show for my day is a few hours on the porch laughing with friends—and, oh yeah, I still haven’t started drawing again—watching a baseball game, or anything best experienced rather than described and recreated in some creative way, that is enough to show for the day. And since I from time to time find myself bummed out if I don't accomplish all these things I must continue to strive to remain confident in that belief and do away with any doubts effortlessly.
Frank Robinson won it in 1966.
But because doing something even slightly different requires dealing with a certain level of difficulty—and because we are encouraged to be like water and follow the easiest path—such doubts and second-guessing thoughts are always close by.
Then Carl Yastrzemski, who was the last to win it, did it the following year in 1967.
And in that, I remembered a passage from Woody Guthrie’s Bound For Glory:
“…so you lie, you lie to your ownself, and you say ‘Everybody else in the whole world is all haywire, all wrong, I hate their pretty world, because I can’t find a hole to break into it!’ and every breath you’re a liar. Maybe a good guy, and maybe I love you, but still a liar.” She put her face on my shoulder….
“Yeah. I know. I am a liar. I know th’ real things I’m a-lookin’ fer. Workin’. makin’ money. Building’ up something’. Little house with ever’thing in it. An’ you there. I knew what I wanted. But I couldn’t have none of it if I didn’t find my work. I wanted ta pick out my own kinda work. I’ll work like a Goddam dog, but I aim ta pick out my work...so I been a-lyin’ at my own self now fer a good long time, sayin’ I didn’t want no little house an’ all that.”
And I thought how, while I was no different from anybody in that it was these moments like sitting in a bar and talking baseball that I wanted too; that I wasn’t against the people I was sharing them with or even the way they went about to having them, I was still determined to go about having them in my own ways too.
Then the following year he hit .301, the lowest average ever to win the batting title.
Even if that means having nothing more than an enjoyable conversation about otherwise meaningless and impersonal baseball stats I have somehow retained in my memory.
I was in the corner talking to one of the quieter players and we somehow fell onto the topic of Ted Williams having been the last .400 hitter; how he willingly played on the last day of the year and went 6 for 8; and all the guys who have since come close but still just didn’t quite hit .400.
Ted Williams himself hit .388 in 1957.
But as the conversation finally came to pass, I sat back and noticed how nice the moment was, how content everyone felt in that small bar, and how freely the 9-5’ers—both workers and those who worked for themselves—were buying pitchers of beers for everyone. Maybe it was the beer I had drank, or maybe it was the overwhelming argument in the moment itself, but for a minute there I thought I understood why people are willing to work their whole lives, and it was for moments like these.
Rod Carew hit .388 in 1977
And in that moment, like moments that often come to me, I thought maybe it wasn’t so bad. After all, everyone was in the same ship: safety in numbers, right? And that work let moments like this happen: it’s the little things, right?
George Brett hit .390 in 1980
For so long I grew up almost instinctively believing that I would go to college, graduate, get a good job with good pay and that would be that; that was the pay off and that was all that was needed. And in thinking that so long, no matter how strenuously I now claim to believe the opposite, there still is a long process of deprogramming filled with constant second-guessing that I always find myself going through in my pursuit of my idea of doing nothing.
That Tony Gwynn hit .394 in 1994 wasn’t mentioned, probably because it was a strike-shortened season.
But the belief is easy. It’s the action that is that hardest. And in seeing those guys—great guys—enjoying themselves, it seemed so easy, even worthwhile to do. I fell back to short daydreams of going back to school to get a degree to become a professor or anything else that would provide stability and good pay: by no means is my determination never distracted, sidetracked or second-guessed. Far too easily we fall back on our conditioning and I still have yet to overcome that completely.
Then the fact that Ted Williams also won two triple crowns was mentioned (and that he didn’t win MVP in either of those seasons) and talk went onto the previous winners of that.
But I eventually did come to my senses and knew that if the price of those moments was a life time of work the price was too high because those moments can be experienced without the work, without the money. I was there in that moment too. Was it just as a mooch or as an equal, if not in money being spent, but in the more valuable (and perhaps rarer?) commodity of friendship?
Joe Medwick was the last to win in the NL in 1937.
Experience and the emotions that come from it are free. The pay off isn’t the paycheck or the things you can pay for, it’s the play in the moments themselves. Even if I don’t go on a bike ride and take a million pictures everyday; if I don’t finish at least a book a week; if I don’t make four posts a day on this page; if all I have to show for my day is a few hours on the porch laughing with friends—and, oh yeah, I still haven’t started drawing again—watching a baseball game, or anything best experienced rather than described and recreated in some creative way, that is enough to show for the day. And since I from time to time find myself bummed out if I don't accomplish all these things I must continue to strive to remain confident in that belief and do away with any doubts effortlessly.
Frank Robinson won it in 1966.
But because doing something even slightly different requires dealing with a certain level of difficulty—and because we are encouraged to be like water and follow the easiest path—such doubts and second-guessing thoughts are always close by.
Then Carl Yastrzemski, who was the last to win it, did it the following year in 1967.
And in that, I remembered a passage from Woody Guthrie’s Bound For Glory:
“…so you lie, you lie to your ownself, and you say ‘Everybody else in the whole world is all haywire, all wrong, I hate their pretty world, because I can’t find a hole to break into it!’ and every breath you’re a liar. Maybe a good guy, and maybe I love you, but still a liar.” She put her face on my shoulder….
“Yeah. I know. I am a liar. I know th’ real things I’m a-lookin’ fer. Workin’. makin’ money. Building’ up something’. Little house with ever’thing in it. An’ you there. I knew what I wanted. But I couldn’t have none of it if I didn’t find my work. I wanted ta pick out my own kinda work. I’ll work like a Goddam dog, but I aim ta pick out my work...so I been a-lyin’ at my own self now fer a good long time, sayin’ I didn’t want no little house an’ all that.”
And I thought how, while I was no different from anybody in that it was these moments like sitting in a bar and talking baseball that I wanted too; that I wasn’t against the people I was sharing them with or even the way they went about to having them, I was still determined to go about having them in my own ways too.
Then the following year he hit .301, the lowest average ever to win the batting title.
Even if that means having nothing more than an enjoyable conversation about otherwise meaningless and impersonal baseball stats I have somehow retained in my memory.
For a Minute There I Lost Myself--Part I
In keeping with my tradition of showing up severely hung over—the team’s superstition is that I play better that way (“better” being relative, of course)—I made the trip on Sunday morning to watch my Sunday morning, over-25 baseball team play in the championship. It was the fourth consecutive year we (they) have made the championship game. And for the third straight season they (we) lost.
But even though I didn’t play—my wrist injury limited me to four games on the season—there wasn’t a better way to spend a Sunday morning: outside, under the sun and, oh yeah, awake. Beats sleeping off a hangover. And between the jokes on the bench (shit, I can’t remember the remarkable 80’s player referenced), our shortstop coming a double short of the cycle (he only had three at-bats), our first basemen’s perfect bunt down the third baseline that hit the base, the left fielder’s still breathing heavily an inning after he scored on a double from first; and even though the comeback came up short (they cut a 5-0 1st inning deficit to a 7-5 loss), by the end of the game I was reminded just how enjoyable the nothingness of a game can be.
And at that moment, my day could have been complete.
But even though I didn’t play—my wrist injury limited me to four games on the season—there wasn’t a better way to spend a Sunday morning: outside, under the sun and, oh yeah, awake. Beats sleeping off a hangover. And between the jokes on the bench (shit, I can’t remember the remarkable 80’s player referenced), our shortstop coming a double short of the cycle (he only had three at-bats), our first basemen’s perfect bunt down the third baseline that hit the base, the left fielder’s still breathing heavily an inning after he scored on a double from first; and even though the comeback came up short (they cut a 5-0 1st inning deficit to a 7-5 loss), by the end of the game I was reminded just how enjoyable the nothingness of a game can be.
And at that moment, my day could have been complete.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Spare the Time?
Finding yet another way to cheaply entertain ourselves, last night I and two of my friends passed on immediately going into the bars on Allen St and instead decided to each buy a beer and probably-not-so-discreetly drink them on the street. Hell, the guy passed out on the ground to the right of us would have to be more deserving of attention than us, right?
And while doing so we decided that we would ask people passing by for two things: 1)the time and 2)a pen, which would naturally have been used just to write down the time of course. You can ask a person for change and they’ll blatantly ignore you (or I, you). But ask them for the time and they are all the more willing to help you. We had one women walk by and then stop in the middle of her conversation, apologized to us for not helping us immediately and politely told us it was 3:05.
We probably did that for a good thirty minutes, didn’t garner any attention from the cops riding by, and were more entertained than we would have been sitting in a bar with music blasting in the background.
We never did get that pen though. Maybe tonight!
And while doing so we decided that we would ask people passing by for two things: 1)the time and 2)a pen, which would naturally have been used just to write down the time of course. You can ask a person for change and they’ll blatantly ignore you (or I, you). But ask them for the time and they are all the more willing to help you. We had one women walk by and then stop in the middle of her conversation, apologized to us for not helping us immediately and politely told us it was 3:05.
We probably did that for a good thirty minutes, didn’t garner any attention from the cops riding by, and were more entertained than we would have been sitting in a bar with music blasting in the background.
We never did get that pen though. Maybe tonight!
Flat Tires
Over the last three weeks I have had four separate occasions in which my bike tire(s) went flat. It’s almost like the world wants me to have a car. And had they been car tires I would have let these instances single-handedly ruin my days, if not weeks. But because I know how to patch up a bike tire I tend to take the flats a little more in stride. Not to mention that the do-it-yourself ability of patching a tire up is a lot better than having to wait for AAA or a car mechanic to help you out. It’s just the tip of the iceberg in the do-it-yourself mentality that fills up entire books with ways to become more self-sufficient.
Though four times is a bit steep, so after the latest I finally wised up and bought a new tube.
Though four times is a bit steep, so after the latest I finally wised up and bought a new tube.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Music Makers
Perhaps this all traces back to my stubborn belief that the people around me are just as entertaining as anything on TV; that I laugh just as hard, if not harder, to our conversations as any comedian has made me laugh; that I would be just as eager to read an email from a friend than anything in the newspaper; and that I know musicians just as capable at their craft as anything on the radio, but I have suddenly found myself going to more shows as of late than I ever have previously.
It was after the last time I paid $60 to go to a show of a national act that I realized that I could have seen 12 local shows at $5 each and then decided that would be the last time that I would ever spend that much for a performance of any kind (perhaps Tom Waits excluded—perhaps). And while I’ve always held a preference for albums over shows (the finished product versus the process, though knowing of obvious exceptions to my so-called rule), local acts have to start somewhere.
As such, I’ve seen three of my now favorite local bands—all with friends or family in them—over the course of five or six shows (including the great free shows after the Square at Mohawk) over the last few weeks and I probably had 12 times the fun of any large venue show and was more intimately involved in each of the shows. I even bought one band’s Cd—worth every half nickel (or “bees” as they used to be called because they had pictures of bees on them)—and also plan on buying the other two bands‘ albums, as well as a few other local bands, as soon as I get the chance (and the change).
This isn’t being said out of some elitist form of liking bands “you haven’t heard of,” nor is it said with some sort of delusional belief that Buffalo houses the best local scene the world over. But with new albums being almost $20 and concerts being twice as much—speaking strictly economic terms only—who needs them? This is about being personally involved in what is around us as much as possible. The world is in my backyard and in a world of 6.5 billion of us (all in my backyard?) overrun with thinking machines we cannot stop, there’s a good chance that even in a city the relatively small size of Buffalo that there are more than enough capable musicians—or any sort of art for that matter—to keep us inspired and appreciative of music.
It’s not that I’m closing my life off from any sort of national acts: I get to hear new albums via friends all the time and know which ones I like. But when it comes down to it I would rather play a game of pickup football than go to a Bills game; I would rather hear my friends’ jokes than pay to hear a comedian’s, and would rather listen to my friends’ band over paying $60 to see a more than likely already rich act get richer. Even if the quality is slightly (or in the case of my football playing, largely) less, it still matters because more personal.
And yet 30 million people watch American Idol every time that it is on (could you imagine if that could be turned into an army with a useful cause what a force it would be to reckon with?); Lindsay, Paris and Britney are watched with such salivating interest; the radio constantly buzzes in the background of offices and cars all day long; and reality is escaped from by watching reality TV.
But must we all, in our own unique talents, compete against—or worse, surrender to—the elite geniuses (or as may be more the case today: the elite idiots) of the world over on a daily basis?
It was after the last time I paid $60 to go to a show of a national act that I realized that I could have seen 12 local shows at $5 each and then decided that would be the last time that I would ever spend that much for a performance of any kind (perhaps Tom Waits excluded—perhaps). And while I’ve always held a preference for albums over shows (the finished product versus the process, though knowing of obvious exceptions to my so-called rule), local acts have to start somewhere.
As such, I’ve seen three of my now favorite local bands—all with friends or family in them—over the course of five or six shows (including the great free shows after the Square at Mohawk) over the last few weeks and I probably had 12 times the fun of any large venue show and was more intimately involved in each of the shows. I even bought one band’s Cd—worth every half nickel (or “bees” as they used to be called because they had pictures of bees on them)—and also plan on buying the other two bands‘ albums, as well as a few other local bands, as soon as I get the chance (and the change).
This isn’t being said out of some elitist form of liking bands “you haven’t heard of,” nor is it said with some sort of delusional belief that Buffalo houses the best local scene the world over. But with new albums being almost $20 and concerts being twice as much—speaking strictly economic terms only—who needs them? This is about being personally involved in what is around us as much as possible. The world is in my backyard and in a world of 6.5 billion of us (all in my backyard?) overrun with thinking machines we cannot stop, there’s a good chance that even in a city the relatively small size of Buffalo that there are more than enough capable musicians—or any sort of art for that matter—to keep us inspired and appreciative of music.
It’s not that I’m closing my life off from any sort of national acts: I get to hear new albums via friends all the time and know which ones I like. But when it comes down to it I would rather play a game of pickup football than go to a Bills game; I would rather hear my friends’ jokes than pay to hear a comedian’s, and would rather listen to my friends’ band over paying $60 to see a more than likely already rich act get richer. Even if the quality is slightly (or in the case of my football playing, largely) less, it still matters because more personal.
And yet 30 million people watch American Idol every time that it is on (could you imagine if that could be turned into an army with a useful cause what a force it would be to reckon with?); Lindsay, Paris and Britney are watched with such salivating interest; the radio constantly buzzes in the background of offices and cars all day long; and reality is escaped from by watching reality TV.
But must we all, in our own unique talents, compete against—or worse, surrender to—the elite geniuses (or as may be more the case today: the elite idiots) of the world over on a daily basis?
Monday, August 20, 2007
I Can Stand a Little Rain
I don’t know what it was about riding a bike in the rain today—with very little brakes and having almost wiped out turning a corner on a rain run off (thingie?)—that not only didn’t piss me off but actually had me slightly smiling like a mad man. But I’ll be damned if I am going to sit here and try to think of a reason. Sometimes feelings about a feeling aren’t even necessary and it’s just best to allow the original feeling to exist on its own. But the fact of it is that I was even willing to stop off and do some food shopping and lugged home the bag willingly even though the rain had yet to subside. The open air can always have an intoxicating effect if one simply lets it.
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