PriorBlog

A few years ago when my friend Kirsten died I took solace in googling her name over and over trying to find people sharing memories of her, and it is in that vein that I thought I would share a few memories of Tim Haslett, who I wasn’t super close with, but who I remember fondly.  If anything, I am typing this out for people looking for scraps of his life, however small, floating around on the internet.

I first met Tim at WZBC in the early 90’s.   He was highly regarded, almost to the point of guru status, for his musical tastes.  He was really into hip-hop and funk, stuff I didn’t know much about, but the way he talked about the stuff gave you the impression that he knew just about everything there was to know about.  Best of all, his enthusiasm wasn’t bounded by any sense of serious decorum.  Tim had more than his share of hilarious lines to describe things. For a while, everything was “fifty pound” this, and “fifty pound” that.

“This track rocks harder than a fifty pound diamond.”

“…thumps like a fifty pound jack rabbit.”

He had a unique style and cadence to his dry humor.  For example, he would present a funny idea in what seemed to be the opening clause of a sentence, and then having done so, would switch gears to a new sentence entirely without finishing the first one.  There was a very stop and go measured quality to this, a feigned losing track of his original thought, and then onto something even funnier in an entirely new sentence.   Gagne and I spent hours entertaining ourselves with far off approximations of this mannerism.

I am very well aware that this doesn’t translate well, but I’ll throw in the cursory “you had to be there.”  I know I wish I could be there again myself.

The other night while watching the UNC-NC State game, I opened up the internet and started typing here about college basketball. I did this a lot last year, but haven’t been doing it too much this year because my team isn’t doing so hot. In the post, I mentioned the big game that is coming up between Memphis and Tennessee tonight. The next day checking the website stats I noticed that I got more hits on my website in 24 hours than I had for any month since it has been in existence. Twelve hundred people came from a link on some Tennessee Vols fan website. Two things: I called Memphis coach John Calipari “Steve Calipari.” And, two, not as embarrassingly, I predicted, without having seen either team play more than ten minutes, that Memphis would win the game by 14 or so points. Next thing I know 1200 people are reading my site. Great.

But feeling like a smacked ass didn’t end there. A few months ago I got an email from a friend telling me that he could get me into my alma mater’s alumni magazine since he recently got assigned to be our year’s class notes person. So I started telling him all about how my wife and I had begun harvesting children and so forth, and then I thought it might have been funny to add that the novel I had written had recently been rejected by none other than a very well known writer’s agent. The joke was meant to work on a prestige/failure axis, but it kind of falls flat without the “none other than” which is a phrase, to my self-deprecating mind at least, connoting  humor as much as it does superlative singularity, if that makes any sense (as if I should care any more at this point). Were it up to me, and had I not emailed my classmate after I probably had a few beers, and maybe was describing this aspect of my life in joking form, I think I would have done something as follows:

Mr. Prior also proudly reported that the novel he has written, THE YOKE OF THE HORDE, has recently been rejected by some of the most highly regarded literary agents in the world.

Instead, I got, “His novel was rejected by XXXXX’s agent.”

Say what?

On second thought, maybe my failure at this game is funny to nobody but myself, and maybe I should be ashamed in the proper fashion, i.e. by keeping my fat mouth shut and burning my books when they eventually get to my door.  It’s my own damn fault for not being more explicit with my intentions, but it really burns me up because I look so stupid in front of god knows how many people.

1200 + x.

ESPN’s halftime show had a “special guest,” who turned out to be Bill Walton. Based on the way the discussion with Walton went, he is not so big a college hoops fan since his sons graduated. He mostly talked about the pros. Steve Lavin started bringing up things like Haight-Ashbury, how Bill Walton hung out with people like “Cheech and Chong and Robert Duval.” I think it was Robert Duval, some actor from the seventies, I forget who. The also made the obligatory Grateful Dead references. The best part though, was, when they were wrapping up the Walton segment, Walton started saying how because of the internet, people no longer had the excuse of checking out west coast players. He said something about the internet, for college basketball, erasing all bounds of time and space. Then, Steve Lavin says, “You sound like Marshall McLuhan.”

I didn’t see that one coming.

ESPN is hyper-promoing the Memphis-Tennessee match up on Saturday night. It is kind of interesting monitoring the hype building up for this game. The coaches have sort have been trading quotes in the press that are remarkably congenial. There was the story about Bruce Pearl calling John Calipari for tickets to the game, and then another story about Calipari saying that Tennessee should be ranked #1. Maybe they’ll tie. I haven’t seen much of either team this year, so I have no idea who’ll win. But… that won’t stop me from making a prediction. Memphis 84 Tennessee 70.

One the one hand you have the love fest between those two and on the other you’ve got the Krzyzewski Williams battle of words in the east. Just a thought, I think a lot of people hate Duke because Billy Packer loves them so much. But, yeah this is a story where if you are at all invested in one of the teams it’s going to totally color who you see as right and wrong. These are two coaches I really can’t stand. I personally can’t stand Roy Williams’ faux-righteousness more than anything about Coach K, but I have a lot more problems liking Duke as team. Either way I think they are both big babies.

So I ordered a bunch of copies of my book, The Yoke of the Horde, that I could sell from home or whatever, because on Amazon and Createspace, I have to sell the book for twelve bucks, which I personally think is a little prohibitive. I don’t want to get too into how many copies for various reasons, some of which will become apparent in a few lines.

As I am sitting there admiring the book for the seventieth time last night, I noticed that the word “eight-teen” on the back cover looks kind of funny. That’s when I realize, long after it is too late to stop the shipment of x amount of books to my home, that not only are there a few grammatical errors in the text, but there is also a glaring one in the description.

I feel like such a smacked-ass.

Here is the new plan I am formulating. I am going to offer these books at an exceptionally reduced rate due to “publisher error.” Let’s say you want to buy a copy of a book, and you know that you can get it discounted 50% because an extraordinarily common word is misspelled on the back cover. Don’t you think that knowing about a deal like that could swing you? I mean, I bet some people, who wouldn’t want to buy a copy of Yoke in the first place, might now buy a copy knowing it is available for six bucks. On the other hand, if you want to pay full price for the book with mistakes, it looks like it is available now on Amazon.

And that’s what this all about anyway. Getting the word out, however that word might be spelled.

Eight-teen.

Since receiving the proof in the mail I have found about three errors in the content of the book as well. Nothing too crucial, but it just gets in the way and delays my fame and power by a few weeks. What if I don’t make it to the end of the month, you know, what if something horrible happens to me, and because of this delay, I never receive the accolades or cherished attention this book was written for in the first place?

Last night, against my better judgment I set off to see the band Yeasayer play at Great Scott in Allston.  I learned earlier in the day  that the show had sold out, which surprised me, because I didn’t realize that Yeasayer was that big yet.  And I don’t think they were the reason it sold out, actually.  I think there was some other band that was headlining who are really popular.  I don’t feel like looking up the band name now, and why should I since they are (presumably) the reason I didn’t get to see Yeasayer, whose latest album I have been listening to a lot while I putz around on the internet all night.

As a reward for being completely uninformed (read square), I got to stand in the wet snow pathetically asking all of the younger, better looking, ticket holding people if they had an extra.  I wasn’t alone in this pursuit, and after about twenty minutes forced myself to the honest assessment that I wasn’t getting in.  I tried calling a friend or two, but nobody was around.  I don’t really know anybody in that part of town anymore, so I shuffled off back to my car.

The snow was coming down pretty fast, the roads weren’t the best, and I was all bummed out about my failure.  I ended up stopping at a bar for a quick beer, just to have something to do.  And as my beer was heading to me, my wife called me to tell me all about the roads which at this point I was very familiar with.  I lied to her about being at the show, drank half my beer and headed home.  Oh, and to entertain myself at the bar, since of course I didn’t have anybody to talk to, I read a few pages of a two or three week old Weekly Dig.  This maybe was the highlight of my big night out.

When I got home my wife was watching some show about an insanely ugly woman whose job it is to hook up socially inept millionaire males with attractive women.  There were these two dudes who only went on dates if they were double dates so that both of them could be together, and then there was some other guy in his late thirties who chose to go out on a date with some 21 year old chick.  When the disproportionately aged couple were presented with the meal on their dinner date, the dude went into a meditative trance, which I guess was his version of grace.  Normally I would find something like that funny, but I was in such a bad mood I felt like punching him.

On the plus side I got the proof for my book from createspace, and I only found one little grammatical mistake.  Of course I didn’t read the whole thing.  I read maybe thirty pages.  I’ve read the thing so many times before I figure I’ve found most of the mistakes, but the bottom line is that it’ll be for sale soon, and won’t that be fun.

Here are some snacks I have been enjoying lately and encourage you to try out for yourselves.

Late July’s Organic Classic Cheddar Cheese Sandwich Crackers- The crackers are salty, but not too salty, and while cheddar cheese filling is made from organic milk from organic cows, it still tastes just as good as a chemically processed spread. For an extra treat, you can peel two of the sandwiches apart and make one super sandwich as sort of a cheesy paean to the Oreo Doublestuff.

Mi-Del Cookies Vanilla Snaps- These cookies appear rather inconspicuous. Less than exciting packaging reveals a profoundly plain looking cookie belonging unquestionably to the snap family, and also not so shockingly, the taste of this bashful little friend doesn’t at first insist on anything amounting to cookie transcendence. No, it is only after you mash its pulpy remains about your mouth after a few chews that the “organic dehydrated cane juice” kicks in like a rodeo bull on steroids. These are highly addictive cookies and if you do try them, I would advise doing so with some type of supervision. One of the pleasant side effects of the Mi-Del Vanilla Snap is the accumulation of gooey Vanilla Snap paste encasing your molars after you’ve eaten about twenty or thirty of these bad boys. Fear not. This material can be dislodged with subtle shoves of the pinkie finger moving upwards from the gums. Based on the number of cookies you have already eaten, you can find your mouth subsequently filled with what amounts to three or four “new” cookies. The gift that keeps on giving. I read online somewhere that the DEA is working to classify the Mi-del Vanilla Snap as a Schedule I narcotic, so you might want to “snap” some up while you still can.

Milky Way’s new More Caramel Bar- I got one of these by accident, expecting the good old tried and true Milky Way of yore. Milky Way doesn’t always score when it comes to tweaking the product line. One only has to remember the miserable experiment that brought to life Milky Way Dark to ascent to this. And, in truth, misadventures like the Dark will probably scare some people away from this new version of the Milky Way with “More Caramel,” which is ashame, since this bar is one of the hottest new candy bars to hit the market in a very long time. Definitely a departure from the classic Milky Way, despite it differing not so much in ingredients but ratio, the new Milky Way presents itself to the mouth with an overwhelming sentiment of silkiness, a silkiness, it is necessary to add, subject to the task of preparing for a thrilling revelation of caramel. This is a softer, sleeker, smoother bar than its predecessor, a, dare I say it, more European take on the classic American candy.

Because Quimby and my wife swore by it, I decided to have a go at reading Henry James’ The Golden Bowl. I started this, oh I don’t know, maybe three weeks ago, and so far I think I’ve read about ninety or so pages. It’s not that it isn’t interesting, it is, it’s just that I have probably put more mental energy into these ninety pages than some kid bouncing over his Koran in a Northwest Frontier Province madrassa. Even so, all I’ve got to show for it are the ninety or so pages, and this is embarrassing, in a way, because I was dumb enough to tell people, quite proudly at the time in fact, that I was reading Henry James.

“Who are you reading?”
“Harry Potter, and you?”
(Trumpet intro) “Henry James.”

Since this was weeks ago, I fear a sequel to the conversation will be something like this:

“So, what are you reading now, Mister-I-am-so-smart-I-read-Henry-James?”
“Henry James.”
“Still!?”
“Yes. I am only on page 100.”
“Well, I have just finished reading Book XLVII of the Harry Potter trilogy, Harry Potter and the Teabagging Dragon of Nirmdorf!”

Now we can easily fill in the explanation slash line of thought that goes something like you’re supposed to read for pleasure, and who cares if it takes you fifteen minutes to read a page so long as you enjoy it. There are, of course, some points to be made about this line of thinking, points that I would like to go over right here and now.

One, I do care about the speed at which I read. I am a slow reader and I feel embarrassed by this. My embarrassment is particularly acute, because I read on public transportation, and I feel like when I am reading slowly other people are watching me. You think I am being paranoid, but before you label me as such consider that most people on the T, as we’ve discussed before, for some unknown but remarkable reason choose not to read during their commute. And this is by no means my way of dragging an agenda into this, say people should read. I really could care less about what people do, but I just find it mysterious that they would prefer to stare into empty space rather than read, which, you know, is doing something. At this point I will have to qualify, because I realize that I do care about what they are doing, since it could potentially involve me. My point being that I often suspect, that despite the appearance of being in a meditative and or comatose state, that my fellow passengers might actually be checking out things on the subway car, and noticing that I have been stuck on page 7 since Stony Brook.

I feel like I have a right to feel self-conscious about this because my mom made me do a second tour of duty in kindergarten back in ‘79, but let’s not focus too much on my pathetic past when the less than glorious present exists before us in all of its splendor. Which brings me to, am I actually enjoying this book, and I have to say, I think I am right on the brink, intelligence-wise of being able to like this book. In other words, I might recommend this book to smarter people, but not dumber people. I have read certain pages in this book over four times. It is to the point where I need to reference some chart in which I can weigh time spent reaching a semblance of understanding to overall sublimity of literary flair. Some people, no matter how hard they try, just aren’t going to get it, and some people, who maybe aren’t really going to get it, are just going to keep flailing away to the amusement of their fellow passengers.

Before I leave you today, I would like to offer you a little something extra. It would be one thing if I were just to mention how pathetically I have been struggling through this book. My guess is you probably are looking for a little something extra, like what is so difficult to understand about this book, what’s it about in other words. Here is what I have figured out so far. This Italian guy marries an American woman for her money, leaving behind his old girlfriend another American who happens to be friends with the girl who married her ex-boyfriend. Then, the rich girl who got married, she’s now trying to set her dad up with her husband’s ex-girlfriend, and they all live in this huge estate together. Yes, I know, it is just like Melrose Place!

Since it’s been really icy lately and it took me forever to get rear lights for my bike I have been taking public transportation to work, which is nice because even though I am gaining weight like crazy, I get to read. So, score two for gravity.

First book I read was Common Ground by J. Anthony Lukas. I’ve always wanted to read this because it is about Boston. It didn’t disappoint. It follows three families through the decade surrounding the bussing crisis in Boston. As somebody who lives here, it was interesting to see what in the past were to me nondescript street corners or buildings come to life as a parts of a larger history. We were down in the South End Saturday. It was the first time I had been there since reading the book and I felt like I was on a pilgrimage to the holy land.

Oh, this is where Colin chased the guy down the street with the baseball bat, etc, etc.

I love playing tour guide even though it puts my wife to sleep.

For me there was an added bonus of an entire chapter having to do with the large newspaper I am currently contracted to work for.  I was able to regale my lunch table with tales snipers being dispatched to the roof of the building  in 1974 and so forth.

Then I moved onto Plexus by Henry Miller. A couple of years ago I bought this after browsing around Pazzo Books with nothing better to do one afternoon. How I miss those days when I had nothing better to do. Nowadays there is always something better to do, so hop to it! I picked up this book for two reasons. One, I knew Henry Miller was “important” but didn’t really know anything about him. Two, it was an early edition, from like 1963 or something and I liked the cover art.

I never thought I would read it, but one night I pulled it off the shelf just to see what the writing was like and I liked it a lot better than I thought I would have. Eventually I got around to reading the rest of it, and I was really enjoying it until about the last fifty pages or so.

It’s about Henry living in New York with his second wife, who supports him as he tries to become a writer. The parts about wanting to be a writer kind of make you want to vomit, but the other details of his life in New York in the twenties and the odd ball characters he hangs out with are worth throwing up for. This is the second book in a trilogy, so I wasn’t a 100% on all of the details.  For example, the way his wife Mona supports him is basically through taking advantage of her admirers.  I kept wondering how accurate this description was.  Basically, she stays out all hours of the night with one of her admirers and comes back with a bunch of bills to support the two of them, but Henry seems to stick to the line that there’s no sex involved.  Everytime she comes back though, I was wondering what he was or wasn’t telling us.

The one thing I had heard about Henry Miller was that he had run into some trouble with people considering his work to be obscene.  From Amazon, I learned that other books in this trilogy are a lot more graphic.  This book is very tame until an impromptu orgy breaks out about two thirds of the way through.  It’s abrupt intrusion makes for a nice comic landing, as Henry’s friend uses a post-coital pause to gush on and on about how philosophical and deep Henry is.  And then it’s back to fucking, I suppose.

As much as I am not into reading books to find out about the authors’ sex lives, I would have much preferred a sixty page sex scene than the end of Plexus, which is this paean to Oswald Spengler.  The book is steeped in Henry’s egotism, which is possible to overlook when you are invested in reading about the parties and people that make up Henry and Mona’s world, but when it’s just Henry raving about Oswald Spengler’s influence on his way of thinking, things get dull fast.

This morning after locking my bike I began heading to my secret entrance at work when I was accosted by a security guy who told me that “they” would “get mad” if I continued using that entrance.  So I walked in the entrance that all of the people who shower and dress before leaving for work go through, somewhat embarrassed, but figuring the security guy wouldn’t be there tomorrow and I could then renew my nefarious entry habits.

Later in the day, I noticed this security guy again inside.  Must have just got hired I thought.  He really seems on the ball.  I worried that this might be a new threat I would have to deal with.

At the end of the day, after changing back into my grubby cycling home clothes in my private wash room (that I think I described earlier), I headed to the elevator I use to get back down to the parking lot.  Again, the aim is to be as low profile as possible when walking around that place in shorts, sneakers, and a t-shirt.  The only problem was a phalanx of guys in expensive suits in front of the elevator.  I decided to avoid them by descending a flight of stairs and catch the elevator below, but when I got there another security guy was protecting the elevator.

So I descended another few flights of stairs and headed towards my bike.  On the way I noticed that all of the doors were propped open.  Once I got into the garage I saw a line of black SUV’s parked behind a state police car.

Now I was curious, because in the past important people have stopped by my workplace, and so I knew somebody good was in there.  I just had to find out who.

I have only dealt with the secret service once before when Jeff Timberlake and I ventured off to go to his brother’s coffee shop in Harvard Square and on the way Tipper Gore’s motorcade cut us off at a corner.  It all happened so quickly that Tipper and one of her daughters popped into a furniture store before we could figure out who they were.  But figure we did, eventually asking one of the secret service guys who they were.

A very phlegmatic “Gore,” was his response, which thrilled me, because that was my guess.  We continued to wait and were eventually joined by a woman who told us that the Native American seer Sitting Bull had recently prophesized that the world was going to end in the next five to ten years.  I don’t know if the Secret Service guy heard this or not, but within seconds the motorcade took off.  Without “Gore(s)” I should add.
A few years later I unknowingly had a conversation with one of the Gore kids at a bar.  The place was probably crawling with SS, but what did I know.  Had I known who she was I could have told her about Sitting Bull, or at least asked if the vice president had been tipped off by the secret service and taken Sitting Bull and his prophecy down.  Probably saved the world, but not something that could get out to the public.  Makes the fall of Communism seem like small potatoes, doesn’t it?  As it was I talked to her about the teevee show Land of the Lost.
I had reservations about asking one of the suits in front of the SUVs who they were waiting on.  I mean, I guess in a lot of ways I resemble an assassin.  Desheveled irritated/irritating white male with glasses and a Messiah complex wielding a weapon, in this case a Kryptolock, but curiosity got the best of me and so I approached the two guys in suits.  Neither one, I would guess, was carrying.  They seemed to not be secret service guys but some type of well polished lackeys.

I could tell they weren’t thrilled that I had come up to them, and I knew this so I told them not to worry that I wasn’t planning on sticking around, I was just curious as to who they were waiting for.  They sort of stared at me apprehensively and then the shorter of the two, after a few seconds pause, said “Senator Clinton.”

Then the other guy cued that music from that scene in Raiders of Lost when the Ark of the Covenant is first shown.  Or at least that’s kind of the way the words “Senator Clinton” were presented to me.  Prissy and icy, like she was a holy relic I had no business being around.

I will admit to being flabbergasted.  And as soon as he said it I started trying to think of strategies for sticking around and seeing her.   I fiddled with my bike lock for a while, and then checked to see if my tires had enough air.

What a schmoe I am.

Then I headed home.

On the way I noticed that there were some cops at the scene of the Alan Peguero murder.  One was in the store and another was out front on the corner.  After observing so much security, it was strange to pass by a scene in which a month ago there was absolute vulnerability.  I wondered what business the cops could possibly have in there, but I wouldn’t dare ask.  Just pedaled on by.

I lobbied hard for getting cable teevee when the Phillies got into the playoffs, and we ended up getting a nine month “deal.”  I know most of you have cable and are probably so used to paying for it that it doesn’t seem like a big expense any more, but to me the extra thirty or forty bucks a month seems like a lot because we’ve gone so long without it.

So, we get cable, and it comes a day late so I missed game one.  Then they installed it the day of game two, but when I got home there was a bunch of stuff I had to do right away, so I missed the last couple at bats.  Both games starting at 3pm didn’t help matters much either.  I was all set to watch game three, but by now less excited because the Phils were down 2-0 in the series.  Only problem was I was completely exhausted because I was at game two of the ALDS the previous night, which lasted until just before one am.  Then I came home and the new baby that my wife had was making all sorts of noises all night and I couldn’t get any sleep.  Don’t know if I mentioned the baby before, but he’s here now, so back to baseball.

I lasted until the fourth or fifth inning before falling asleep.  I woke up to some sit-com on TBS.  The season was over I found out via a blurb on mlb.com.

At least I got cable.

A few notes then on all of the non-Phillies baseball I have been watching.

Chip Carey.  When my family got cable back when I was a kid, one of the benefits was that I went from just being able to watch the Phillies to being able to watch the Phillies, Yankees, Mets, and Braves.  Chip’s father Skip was a Braves announcer, and I have never been able to get over how boring those old TBS broadcasts were.  Chip was just abysmal during the Yankees series.  He would get all pumped up over Yankee singles and so forth.  At one point, the Yankees were trying to get a rally going and the crowd was really into it, and Chip goes, “This crowd is up for grabs!”

This crowd is up for grabs.

As if it wasn’t enough that the Yankees already have a soap opera based on them, all of the baseball coverage revolves around what is going to happen to Torre, Posada, et al after the season.  Then again, it is hard to get into the playoffs when the Dbacks are playing the Rockies, Troy Tulowitzki or no Troy Tulowitzki.  Maybe I’ll just watch when Tulowitzki comes to bat.  Actually, Branden Webb is as good a pitcher as anybody, but that’s not as important as ARod’s feelings.