Inspiration

When I first started reading Haruki Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running I got bummed out. A friend had given the book to me because he knows I'm into running and writing, occasionally at least, and Murakami's book is about how he connects the two.

I didn't know Murakami from a pothole, but I was anxious to read the book. The book is thin, and after just a few pages I could tell that I liked the author's style, albeit style translated from Murakami's native Japanese.

But after just a few more pages I reached a crossroads: keep reading and feel really bummed about the fact that I haven't been writing much, and that I've put my running on hold because of a nagging groin injury, or plow ahead and try to get something out of it.

I chose the latter path and am certainly glad I did.

Murakami has an easy way of writing, but he's very straightforward about how hard he works at it. "I have to pound the rock with a chisel and dig out a deep hole before I can locate the source of creativity," he writes. "To write a novel I have to drive myself hard physically and use a lot of time and effort."

He puts the same effort into running. During a 62-mile race, he feels his entire body breaking down. And as so many long distance runners know, Murakami's battle was as much mental as it was physical. He comes up with a mantra to get himself through the roughest miles: "I'm not a human. I'm a piece of machinery. I don't need to feel a thing. Just forge on ahead."

Repeating these lines and narrowing his focus to the three yards in front of him, he plods forward. Finally, at mile 47, he "passed through something....After that, I didn't have to think anymore."

He is upfront about aging (he was 56 when he started writing the book; he's 63 now) and how he has to lower his expectations for training and running or doing triathlons. He admits to his quirks (he can be somewhat anti-social, not unlike a lot of writers, yours truly included), discusses a few hobbies (he's a major, major record collector) and makes a book about running and writing flow by very easily and quickly.

I certainly plan to read some of his fiction now that I've read his memoir.

As for what I got out of the book, there are two answers. First, I realized that I have to keep myself in shape until my groin feels better, so recently I started going to the gym regularly for the first time in five years. Second, I started working on a memoir of my own.

I know, I know, the memoir market is tighter than Monty Burns' wallet. Everybody and their brother, mother, sister, father and backwoods cousin has put out a book in recent years talking all about drug addiction and recovery, setting up schools in Afghanistan, traveling to Venus with their pet monkey, ad nauseam.

So what do I have to add to all this? I don't know, but I'm working on it.

I'm mining material I used for some of the stories in my first book, (C)rock Stories: Million-Dollar Tales of Music, Mayhem and Immaturity. Yes, I'm churning through the tale of my four-month odyssey in 1988 on the road from New England to New Mexico and back.

Four years ago I posted a 10-part series on my old (but still active) blog, DaveBrigham.com, looking back 20 years to the trip I took with three buddies in a 1977 Dodge Tradesman van. I remember at the time that my buddy Jay Kumar said something along the lines of, "You should put that stuff together into a book."

Well, it takes me a while, but I do listen to my friends. My buddy Ric Dube, like Jay, a former coworker at Webnoize, told me after reading some of the original versions of my (C)rock Stories, that if I could get 15-20 really good ones, I'd have a book.

I've been having fun going through my original blog post and adding tons of details from my journal, two newspaper articles I wrote during my journey, and from my cobwebbed memory. I'm also adding background info about places we visited, as well as updates about some of them, and delving into my childhood, my personality and my previous experiences and how they played into the trip.

Ideally, I'll publish the book as an ebook. Thanks for the inspiration, Haruki.

(I wrote this post a few weeks ago and in the meantime have finished Murakami's book and have moved on to Jack Kerouac's On the Road: The Original Scroll. After college, and before going on my above-referenced road trip, I read the originally published version of the classic book, which edited out the names of Kerouac's friends, as well as many (if not all) of the sex. I'm thoroughly enjoying this livelier version.)

Diggin'

Maybe it's nothing.

Maybe, as one wag on Facebook wrote after I posted this picture on my timeline and wondered whether it was an arrowhead, Stone Age tool or a petrified shark's tooth, "It is a shard of rock that by chance is somewhat triangular shaped and looks like all the things you mentioned."

Maybe I let my imagination run wild. Maybe it's a coincidence. Maybe some kid in my neighborhood spent a day fashioning a triangle out of stone in order to teach himself geometry.

Maybe.

I've long been fascinated by archeology, "the scientific study of material remains (as fossil relics, artifacts, and monuments) of past human life and activities," as Merriam-Webster defines it. I don't recall what sparked my interest. Perhaps it was reading my parents' copy of Erich von Daniken's "Chariots of the Gods?" when I was a kid. Von Daniken theorizes that the Egyptian pyramids, Stonehenge and the giant head statues on Easter Island, among other artifacts and monuments, were produced by extraterrestrials or by humans with help from ET's.

As I've written before, the book also sparked my life-long interest in UFO's (see August 7, 2011, "Sucked Back In").

My other blog, The Backside of America, focuses on archeology in a completely non-scientific way. My fellow contributors and I share an interest in taking pictures of forgotten highway overpasses, abandoned factories, dilapidated barns, rusting cars, run-down diners, faded signs painted on old brick buildings, sanctuaries hidden in the woods, etc. and writing about them. Sometimes we just share our photos; other times we provide some insight into why we took the pictures, and the history behind the subjects.

Time machines don't exist. Therefore, the best way to travel into the past is through researching and understanding who our ancestors were, how they lived, where they lived, what they did, how they died, what they loved, what they hated, what they made, and so forth.

On my recent trip to New York City with my family (see April 23, 2012, "NYC Three Times"), I was surrounded by skyscrapers, traveled underground on subways, rode in cabs on jam-packed streets -- the total urban experience.

As much as I love being in Manhattan or Boston or other big cities, I find myself trying to imagine what the land beneath the concrete and metal looked like 500 years ago, when rivers flowed, trees swayed in the breezes, animals roamed freely and Native Americans lived in small villages and planted and hunted for their food.

Then, I think about what our world will look like 500 years in the future. Will it be a Space Age utopia, like we've been hearing about for decades upon decades? Will the population maintain a manageable level? Will there ever be a universal peace? Will we control greenhouse gases? If not, will humans die out, and Mother Nature reclaim the landscape

Bigger questions than I usually write about or think about, but ones that pop into my head from time to time. And when I stumble across something as simple as a triangular stone that may or may not be an artifact from an earlier citizen of my neighborhood, I can't help but be fascinated by how quickly things change in our world, and how quickly we forget those who came before us, and to learn from them.

Maybe all these thoughts are coming to me lately because, having recently turned 47, I'm starting to truly feel middle-aged. I listen to the music that my nearly-10-year-old son, Owen, likes -- trance techno -- and shake my head. I see an older man, perhaps 65, shopping at the grocery store and wearing sandals and sporting an earring, and I identify more with him. "I can see him flying his freak flag during the Summer of Love," I tell myself.

I look all around me everywhere I go and see everybody consumed by smart phones and I wonder about the questions that archeologists 200 years from now will have about all these gadgets, which, as cool as they may be now, will seem so primitive in the not-too-distant future.

And I wonder about my own legacy. Am I raising my kids the best way I know how? Will they turn out OK, and be happy with who they are and what they do? Will sales of my short story collection soar after my death? Will I ever put out that UFO concept album I've been talking about for years? And the companion novel? Will I publish the children's books I've been tinkering with for the last couple years?

Let's hope the answers to those questions are: yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.

NYC Three Times

For the third time in as many years, we took the train from Boston to New York for April vacation. And despite one minor setback, I have to say this trip was the best we've done.

The trip down was relaxing, as usual, and the weather was terrific. Owen juggled my laptop, Beth's iPad and her phone, while Amelia listened to Wild Flag on my iPod and just hung out playing with her stuffed animals. I spent most of the time looking out the window, trying on numerous occasions to snap some pictures.

While I still struggle to get the right aperture and shutter settings on my camera, I did a better job than I did last year of taking pictures while the train was in motion. Here's a shot of Bridgeport, CT.

After checking in to our hotel and meeting up with my sister, who joined us once again this year, we followed Owen's lead onto the subway up to Times Square. He was an unfailing tour guide for the whole vacation.

After riding the Ferris wheel inside Toys 'R Us, we had dinner at Carmine's in the Theater District. I figured the place had some fascinating history, but it turns out it was started in 1990 by a guy named Artie Cutler, who had in mind a place that "looks and feels as if it has been around for a very long time."

Regardless of its artificiality, the food was excellent.

To round out our first evening, Owen and I went on a short subway trip. He loves checking out as many lines as he can while we're in the city. He looks at subway maps online and figures out the best way, then commits the route to memory. We follow blindly; he's never wrong.

We had to go above-ground for a short time, and found ourselves walking past the Hotel Chelsea, where Beth and I stayed with friends a few years ago.

The next day, of course, started out at the New York Transit Museum in Brooklyn. We went last year, so this year's trip was a bit shorter. I was glad to see that, in addition to lots of old subway cars and some transit bus cabs (which the kids can sit in, as you can see below), the museum has added plenty of interactive features to hold kids' attention.

After lunch, we hit the Central Park Zoo. The kids were excited to see the penguins, because they love "The Penguins of Madagascar," which is supposed to take place at the zoo. We were all a bit surprised that the penguins were inside, behind glass. Still, they were cute.

While I was impressed by the polar bear, I also felt a bit sad for him. Shouldn't he be frolicking in the snow?

After the zoo, we hit FAO Schwarz, before meeting my sister for dinner at Bill's Bar & Burgers near Rockefeller Center.

Afterward, we went to the Top of the Rock and caught the sunset. It was beautiful.

My sister and I did another subway excursion with Owen while Beth took Amelia back to the hotel. Below, a common scene throughout the trip.

On Wednesday, Owen was under the weather, so he and Beth stayed in the hotel most of the day. My sister was off doing her own thing, so I took Amelia to the American Museum of Natural History. She had a good time checking out all the stuffed animals -- from elephants and giraffes, to rhinos, tigers and water buffaloes -- but we didn't stay all that long.

After lunch, we went to a playground not too far away in Central Park. But it wasn't just any park; it was the Diana Ross Playground. Amelia had a blast!

I was happy to see when we got back to the hotel around 4:00 that Owen was feeling better, and up for going out to dinner, and then on to "STOMP!" The show was a lot of fun -- cool percussion of all sorts, from hand clapping to body slapping to brooms and drums and old kegs and barrels. The kids loved it, as did Beth, my sister and I.

On Thursday, we went (for the third time) to the USS Intrepid, a decommissioned aircraft carrier that holds lots of old planes and helicopters, and which this summer will be the new home of the space shuttle Enterprise.

As they have each of the last three years, the kids enjoyed the big ship. There's so much to do and see both inside and on top of the carrier. It's quite impressive.

Later that day, we trekked as far north as we've gone on Manhattan, to The Cloisters, "the branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art devoted to the art and architecture of medieval Europe," as the Met's web site puts it.

While the kids had a good time there, I have to say, The Cloisters is the one place we visited during the week where I thought to myself, "I wish Beth and I could be here alone and take our time." The building is like a castle crossed with a monastery, and the architectural, religious and cultural artifacts within are amazing. Next time Beth and I go down on a grown-up adventure, I'd love to go back there.

Here's the museum upon approach:

Here's one of the many stained glass windows at the museum:

Here's a view of the courtyard:

As Thursday was our last full day in the city, we weren't done after The Cloisters. We met up with my sister back at the hotel, and trekked (on the subway, natch) to Little Italy for dinner. Owen had requested pasta, so I figured we might as well do the touristy thing and check it out.

After getting turned around a bit on Canal Street, we found our way to Mulberry Street, the heart of Little Italy. Well, Mulberry is basically the entirety of the neighborhood now. I wish I'd seen Little Italy before Chinatown expanded its boundaries.

Regardless, it was cool to walk past so many Italian restaurants, and to have a few hosts/owners/barkers try to flag me down and wave us into their places of business. I'd looked online at a few places beforehand, and stuck to my guns. We ended up at a perfectly fine place called Da Nico.

On its web site, Da Nico claims to be a favorite of movie stars, New York Yankees and former mayor Rudy Guiliani. We didn't see anybody famous. I saw Chazz Palminteri's picture on the wall.

After dinner, we walked a few blocks to the subway. I was trying, once again in vain, to get some good night time pictures. As we walked on the sidewalk into Chinatown, I had my camera up, trying to capture something (I forget what) when I suddenly walked right into a small, old Chinese woman who had stopped in front of me. Lesson learned: pay attention to your surroundings while trying to be a camera dork.

We took the train up to Times Square, where we wandered around, bought a few t-shirts for the kids and enjoyed yet another beautiful, warm evening.

Friday morning Owen and I went on one last quick subway trip while Beth and Amelia hung out at the hotel. The train trip back was fine, after a hectic boarding. Beth and Amelia had sat together in one car, while Owen and I hoofed it up two cars to find seats across from each other. Eventually, the nice guy next to me offered to switch so Owen and I could be next to each other.

Here's the last quality shot I got of NYC. This is Canal Street.

Will we go again next April? I'm not sure. I'd like to get down there for a weekend around Christmas time, although I can only imagine how expensive and hectic things will be at that time of year.

The Big City

I'm pretty good with directions when I'm driving or walking around town or in the woods. But for some reason, I get turned around in New York City. After several trips there over the last decade, I've gotten better. But when we arrive on Monday for our third April vacation in a row in the Big Apple, I'll rely on Beth and Owen to steer me in the right direction.

I guess this small-town boy just gets a bit overwhelmed by it all. I've lived in and around Boston for the last 20 years, and feel comfortable in the city. It's big enough to find new places to explore all the time, but small enough to hit a lot of spots in just a few hours.

Even though Manhattan's laid out on a grid, I get confused. I don't take the time to study the layout enough ahead of my visits, so I mix up the avenues and the streets, and lose all sense of east, west, north and south. But I love going there, because there's just so much cool stuff to do and see (duh...).

And of course I love to take pictures there. I'm still trying to master my camera, nearly two years after buying it. I don't read the manual enough, preferring to just wing it and fix things up in the (virtual) dark room later. I plan to read a bit of the new photography book Beth and the kids got me for my birthday, which I hope will result in some cool shots.

I'll post stuff on Facebook during the week, most likely, and will wrap the trip up here afterwards.

In the meantime, here are a few pics from our last two trips.

Play ball!

This is Owen at his first Red Sox game, in September 2009, when he was 7. The good guys beat the Orioles, 10-0, behind six home runs (five of which we saw before heading home late in the game). We went with Owen's friend Zoe and her dad, Dave, who had the tickets. It was a beautiful night and a great milestone in a kid's life.

I don't remember my first Sox game, but I know I was younger than 7. I'm pretty sure Jim Lonborg pitched, although honestly he might have pitched in another game (or two) that I attended. My family used to go to Fenway once or twice a season when I was a kid. Sometimes we'd go to a nearby Brigham's to get ice cream and branded drinking glasses, a few of which my parents still have.

To this day, the certain combination of freshly mown grass, grilled meats and cigar smoke takes me back to Fenway Park, circa 1972. Always has, always will.

There's nothing like the feeling of walking up the ramp from inside the park and getting your first view of the greener-than-green field, the Green Monster, Pesky's pole, the players SO CLOSE to the crowd. I still get a rush of adrenalin and excitement when I do it today, after countless games.

So here's to another Red Sox season. There will be frustrations, glories, heartbreaks, annoyances, thrills, chills, spills and no shortage of yelling at the TV. But I love it, no matter what.

Wish I could be there!

Goin' Underground

The MBTA is about to raise fares and cut some service for subway, bus and commuter rail passengers in the Greater Boston area, which is a shame. The move will result in some commuters leaving the "the T" in favor of driving to work or elsewhere, which will hurt the environment and add to Boston's infamous traffic woes.

It didn't have to be like this.

Up until 2000, the state legislature covered the difference between the T's income and expenses each year. Beginning that year, the state enacted what's called "forward funding," in which the T was allotted one cent for every five cents collected from state sales tax, but also saddled with $3.8 billion in debt the state had borrowed to complete public transportation work required by the feds in light of the massive Big Dig highway project.

Long story short: the sales tax hasn't dumped as much into the T's coffers as legislators had projected, the debt load is crushing the agency, making it difficult to keep up with regular maintenance on tracks, trains and buses, and the state doesn't appear to be willing to shift that debt burden. For the whole story, read this Boston Globe article.

I ride the T a lot with my son, Owen. He used to love riding the whole subway system, mapping out the trip ahead of time and making sure we followed it, well, to a T. More recently, he prefers the Green line. He likes to check out the different lines and types of subway cars, and I love to watch people, take pictures and wonder about all the abandoned tunnels of the system.

While I love the trips, I get bummed seeing the terrible shape of so many tunnels, trains and stations. The system needs money for upkeep, never mind for buying new equipment and expanding the Green line into Medford.

Because Owen and I don't ride that often any more, I'm not concerned about paying more on future trips. But for so many people, taking the T is the most affordable way to get to work, do shopping or visit friends and family. Paying more is going to hurt plenty of people, it's clear.

It's sad that the state and federal government spent $15 billion to bury Boston's Central Artery highway and improve the face of the city by removing raised highway structures, but the two entities can't commit themselves morally and financially to a cleaner mode of transportation.

The MBTA currently has a $160 million budget shortfall for the current fiscal year. So raising fees and cutting service now does nothing to address the agency's long-term fiscal woes. The federal and state governments need to commit to building and maintaining public transportation across the country. Increase gas taxes, tolls, whatever you need to do.

Whatever you do, don't blame the good folks who work at the T. Below, you'll find a 45-minute documentary, "Boston Under: After Hours," which shows how drivers, track maintenance workers and supervisors work behind the scenes to make things run as smoothly as possible.

What's In a Nickname?

During my childhood, I had two favorite Red Sox players: George "Boomer" Scott and Rick "Rooster" Burleson. They couldn't have been less alike, both physically and attitudinally. A first baseman, Scott stood 6'2", weighed 200 lbs., and was known for his good sense of humor. He's black. Burleson, a shortstop, was 5'10", weighed 165 lbs., and was a very intense player. He's white.

What they had in common other than my loyalty and their service to the Sox, was terrific nicknames.

Other Sox players of the '70s had cool tags, as well. Carlton "Pudge" Fisk, Bill "The Spaceman" Lee, Dwight "Dewey" Evans. Of course, every team at that time, and going back to the start of baseball in this country, had players with colorful handles.

A quick, completely random rundown of nicknames: Edward "Whitey" Ford, Robert "Lefty" Grove, George "Babe" Ruth, Jay "Dizzy" Dean, Paul "Daffy" Dean, Elijah "Pumpsie" Green, Phil "Scooter" Rizzuto, Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd, James "Cool Papa" Bell, "Hammerin'" Hank Aaron, Lawrence "Yogi" Berra, Orlando "Baby Bull" Cepeda, Richard "Goose" Gossage, Mark "The Bird" Fidrych, Frank "Tug" McGraw, Johnny "Blue Moon" Odom.

There are many more, of course.

Many, although not all, of those nicknames date back at least 20 years. The heyday of baseball nicknames pretty much ended by the '80s.

Who do we have today?

There are players with nicknames today, and in recent years, but for the most part they pale when compared to the more colorful handles of the past.

Some pretty good nicknames in recent years: David "Big Papi" Ortiz, Covelli "Coco" Crisp, Charles "Chili" Davis, Randy "Big Unit" Johnson, Rich "El Guapo" Garces.

Largely, though, the names are unimaginative: Alex "A-Rod" Rodriguez, Larry "Chipper" Jones, (Insert First Name Here) "Gonzo" Gonzalez, Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez, Carsten Charles "CC" Sabathia.

Take a look at this list of baseball nicknames. Plenty of guys playing today have nicknames, but for the most part they're not well known or part of the culture. While these names -- take, Dustin "Pedey" Pedroia, for example -- are used locally and by fellow players, they are unknown in the wider audience and the media. To national broadcasters, Pedroia is just "Pedroia."

I suspect the situation is the same in other sports. What happened to cool baseball nicknames?

I suspect the primary reason is that few players have loyalty to a team or city any more. Damn free agency! With a few notable exceptions -- recently retired Red Sox Tim "Wake" Wakefield and Jason "Tek" Varitek to name a few -- players don't spend more than a handful of years on the same team any more.

Instead, they travel from one team to the next, seeking out more money and "respect." Baseball is, of course, a business. So why shouldn't players get the most money they can during what for most of them is a brief career? I can't say I blame them. If some family dangled $15 million a year in front of me so I could be their stay-at-home dad...wait, that's not a good analogy.

I don't know who bestowed nicknames on players of yore. Probably sports writers were responsible for many of the colorful appellations. Lots of column inches to fill, no competition from radio, TV or the Internet. Go crazy and start naming guys!

It's definitely a guy thing to do even if you're not a sports writer. I had several nicknames from grade school on through college, all of them bestowed by male friends or acquaintances: Digem, Briggy, Wiggy, Blotto, Dietrich.

Even after college I had a few nicknames: some guys I worked with at a factory called me John Boy; the first year I played over-40 baseball a few guys called me Scoop.

I miss nicknames. Heck, there aren't even any good Mafia nicknames anymore. Where have all the good nicknames gone? The rap community (Wiz Khalifa), roller derby (Kiss 'n' Vinegar), drag queens (Isabel Ringin), reality TV (Snooki), electronic musicians (Skrillex), ranters on Internet message boards (a**hole1776). I bet Boomer Scott, who just turned 68 last week, could take on all of those guys and whip 'em all on the diamond, with one hand tied behind his back.

I'd like to watch him try.

Thanks to my buddy Ray for spurring me on with this idea. Check out his band, Powderhouse, here.