DaveTronik 2000

Sick

2012-02-23T09:00:00.000-05:00

Despite the mild winter, or perhaps because of it, I've been living in a sick ward for the last few weeks.

Everybody has had some sort of cold/cough/chest congestion/phlegm in that period. That's fine; I can deal with that, and everybody else, while perturbed at all the hacking and nose-blowing, was OK with it, too.

But then Amelia's congestion turned into an ear infection, and since that time, things have tipped toward the dark side.

After a week's worth of amoxicillin, the poor girl developed a rash. First her ears got red and swelled up. Then the next day, she had red, itchy patches on her elbows, knees, lower legs, race, chest, back and feet. We treated her with a few different kinds of cream, in addition to Benadryl, and hoped for the best.

Then, after two days of Benadryl and cream, she threw up. The next day, she was feeling OK. But then two days after her initial puke, she yakked again. And of course, both times were at night, in her bed, all over everything.

I took her to the doctor to see about making her rash better, and was told she had the worse of two types of amoxicillin rashes, the kind that takes a few weeks to go away. We were told to try oatmeal baths, which helped a bit.

Needless to say, she missed preschool last week. Just when it seemed things were getting better, she threw up Saturday night, once again a few hours after she'd been in bed, thus resulting in a mess on her bed and rug. To make matters worse, after I finished cleaning everything up (while Beth cleaned up Amelia and got her back to sleep), I felt a big oogie. Ended up with my second round of diarrhea of the week (oh, did I forget to mention that?).

After three puking incidents in one week, Beth and I finally realized that the last meal Amelia had prior to each barf was tomato-based: soup one night, pasta sauce the other two. Needless to say, she's off tomato-based foods for a while.

So of course wouldn't you know that once we figure out how to (potentially) stop Amelia from puking, Sunday morning Owen gets the barf bug. He threw up two or three times during the day, and spent Monday in recovery/paranoia mode. But Amelia was fine.

Yes, you can see where this is going. Beth didn't sleep well Monday night, and by early Tuesday morning she was tossing her cookies. The bug knocked her out all that day and much of Wednesday. But at least the kids were fine.

As of right now (Thursday at 9:00 a.m.) I'm fine. My theory is that my irritable bowel syndrome, which has flared up in recent days, is keeping the stomach bug at bay. "You think you can come in here with your fancy germs and take over this digestive tract? I don't think so, bug. Now bugger off!"

Beth's back at work today, neither of the kids has thrown up in several days and with any luck we're on the road to collective well being.

As your reward for making it through this post without getting sick, is this:

Woods

2012-02-13T11:14:00.000-05:00

I'm not at all religious, but this is a place where I'd sit down and listen to a sermon. Located in Dover, MA, the Abigail Draper Mann Woodland Worship Center is operated by the Dover Church. The church is celebrating its 250th anniversary this year, which is remarkable. Miss Draper Mann died in 1875 and willed property in the town to the Second Congregational Society. The Society eventually built a parsonage for the minister.

I assume that in order to honor the fine woman for her large, posthumous donation, the church named this outdoor sanctuary after her.

I grew up running around the woods. My friends and I explored Russell Brook, which ran next to my parents' house and off into the woods behind the house. We'd hop from bank to bank, looking at the fish (mostly suckers), dodging the skunk cabbage, swinging from the vines, slipping into the water once in a while, exploring the stone walls and enjoying total freedom.

Don't worry: this isn't going to turn into one of those, "Back in the '70s, we ran around for hours and our parents had no idea where we were, we knew how to play outside, and we started forest fires but we had the wherewithal to call in helicopters to drop enormous buckets of water to put out the fires, then we'd plan a show, sell the tickets, put on a three-ring circus, clean up the mess and go back home and cook dinner for our parents, and we turned out fine. Oh yeah, and we fended off child molesters with one hand tied behind our backs" diatribes.

Parents today blather on about how their kids don't get outside enough, and they don't know how to make their own adventures, and even if they did go outside, we have to be so careful about weirdos and potential abductors that it's all so different than we were kids. But we have the power to shut off the kids' DSI's, GameBoys, Xboxes, etc. and shove them out the door. But we don't. It's nobody's fault but our own, so either force your kids' hands, or stop yapping about it.

I'm as guilty as the next parent, so I'm not trying to be holier-than-thou. Anyway, back to the woods.

I like walking in the woods, but I've experienced long stretches in my life when I don't hike, most of those in the years since my kids were born. But whenever I get back into the trees, it's like I never left. I've been recently inspired by Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods.

The book details Bryson's attempt, with a friend who's overweight and a recovering alcoholic, to hike the entire Appalachian Trail. I loved the book, and that's all I'm gonna say, except that I highly recommend it.

In recent weeks, I've gone to Snow Hill in Dover, MA, three times. This is odd because before January 19th, I'd never heard of the place.

On the 19th, I dropped Amelia off at school and decided, as I sometimes do, to cruise around the western suburbs looking for places to take pictures for my other blog, The Backside of America. Sometimes I have a destination in mind, but oftentimes I don't.

On that day, I drove aimlessly for quite some time, with no luck. I ended up on Pine Street in Dover. I'd never been on this street before, but it looked promising. And sure enough, within less than a mile, I drove right past a small parking lot that led up a dirt road. I noticed a sign: "Glidden Land Preserve."

The next sign told me that I'd found what I didn't even know I was looking for:

A fire tower! What a perfect addition to the Backside blog.

I hiked up to the tower, but there were a couple of guys working on it, and frankly, I wasn't sure I was supposed to be up there, so I chickened out and went back down to explore a small, vacant building I'd seen off the path on my way up.

The building turned out to be a scout camp of some sort (I'll detail more about these places, and include photos, in future Backside posts). I walked around a bit here and then headed back down to the car.

I wasn't satisfied with my visit, so the next week I went back, determined to get some better shots of the fire tower. I did that, and then explored some more. I wandered aimlessly down the other side of the hill (elev. 443 feet) and before too long I was just feet from the backyards of some impressive estates (Dover is one of the horsiest towns in the state).

I meandered up and down some more small (but steep) hills before arriving back on the main path. Before arriving back at my car, I spotted a path going between two boulders. About 50 feet deep into the woods there was a break in a stone wall, and a sign for the woodland worship center just above. I was tired, so I didn't push on.

But once again, after I left, I had a nagging feeling that I should've done more exploring. So I went back a week later, and that's when I discovered that the benches and lectern in the above photo.

I've done some other random hikes (very easy ones) this winter, and certainly plan to do more this season and beyond. In recent years, it's been difficult to get Owen to go on hikes, but in recent months he's been maturing in some ways, so my hope is that I can get him to join me on weekends to do some exploring in Greater Boston and maybe even hit some bigger hills like Mount Wachusett.

And while I'm no expert camper, I would love for the whole family to do some hiking and camping in the near future, too. Just gotta get rip those kids away from their screens.

Beard

2012-02-02T19:28:00.000-05:00

I'm ambivalent about my beard. I didn't grow it for any particular reason. It's not a playoff beard, although I won't shave it before the Pats win the Super Bowl this Sunday. It's not for warmth, as this has been an unusually warm and snow-free winter. It's not to go undercover, although if my Neighborhood Watch asked to do so, I would in a heartbeat. It's not a spite beard, to annoy anyone.

It's just a beard. During a normal week, I shave two or three times -- I'm a stay-at-home dad, so there's no pressure to be clean shaven. I last shaved the day after Christmas, fully intending to remove my whiskers before New Year's Eve. But I simply didn't, and then figured I'd see how I looked if I let it go for a while.

On January 4th, when I posted a picture of myself and my nascent beard on Facebook, reactions were varied:

"Are you going to grow it really long and let things get stuck in it?"

"Not weird enough." (See video below that addresses my friend Jay's need.)

"If you're growing a beard for winter warmth, you should have started earlier!"

Face-to-face reactions break down along gender lines. From women, I get comments along the lines of, "Oh, you're growing a beard," to "Still got something on your face, huh?" to "When are you gonna shave that ugly beard?" (guess who said that).

Men tend to be complimentary: "Beard's looking good," "Got the beard going, huh? Looks good," "That's the most awesome beard I've ever seen, and I'm 107 years old!"

I hesitated keeping the beard too long, because I have painful memories from my post-college days, when I grew a beard. I was working at my hometown newspaper in the winter of 1987-88 when I decided, for the first time, to get my ZZ Top on. I had no clue about trimming, so the thing got a bit mangy, although thankfully I don't have the genetic makeup to actually grow a long beard. I thought it looked OK, until I saw pictures taken in February '88 at a going-away party my coworkers threw for me before I embarked on a road trip with my friends.

In the pictures, my hair is a bit long, because, you know, it was the '80s and I was young and thought I was cool. And I have tortoise shell spectacles -- what I liked to think of as my Woody Allen glasses. See, you're already getting the idea here about how bad this was.

I'm wearing a pea-green sweater over a brown turtleneck. Yes, you're forming a picture in your head, and it's not pretty (and no, I'm not going to post any of these pictures, primarily because I don't want to scare you, secondarily because my scanner is broken). And under the sweater and turtleneck is something that I can only describe as a big wad of dough. Yes, my stomach, in these photos especially, although less so in reality, looks like I've trapped a baby hippo.

The overall effect of all this -- the unkempt beard, the nerdy glasses, the earth tones, the lumpiness -- is that I, not yet 23 when the pictures were taken, look like a middle-aged professor of geology at a small, out-of-the-mainstream community college. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But not really the image I was going for, or one that I thought I was projecting as I prepared to say goodbye to my friends and family and head out on the Kerouacian path.

Unlike most road trippers, I shaved my beard before I hit the road, and stayed relatively clean cut during my four-month odyssey. Not long after my return back east, I started growing Van Dykes and goatees, rather than full beards. I've stuck with those motifs for the lion's share of the last 20+ years.

But since I can't do much with my hair...OK, I can't do anything with my hair...I figured I'd try a full beard. I've learned a bit about trimming my facial hair over the years, so I've kept the beard much cleaner this time around. I think it looks pretty good, and I seem to have gotten past the itchy stage, so I'm happy.

Still, I won't keep it too long. If I could grow it really long, or at least cultivate enough 'stache to go with a Gay '90s look of some sort, then maybe I'd soldier on.

And now, to make my friend Jay happy, here's Fu Manchu doing "Weird Beard."

Allegiance

2012-01-26T09:30:00.000-05:00

This Hot Stove season is like any other for me: I pay some attention to what the Red Sox are doing, cursing certain moves (letting go of closer Jonathan Papelbon), happy with others (keeping Big Papi on board, signing Ellsbury for another year), clueless about some (is Cody Ross any good?) and confused by a few (why so many potential closers...when you could have held on to Cinco Ocho?!?!).

I learned years ago not to get too wrapped up in what happens during the off-season. On Opening Day, I'll root for whoever's on the Carmine Hose (look it up; I had to).

I understand baseball better than I do other sports, which isn't to say I obsess over stats, scour minor league rosters to spot up-and-coming talent or give a hoot about any teams outside the American League East. But I love the game. I played Little League and Babe Ruth baseball. When I turned 40 I even switched from softball to hardball for five years. I watch as many Sox games as I can, no matter how boring or out-of-hand a game might get.

Baseball has always been king for me. My older brother, Steve, lived and breathed baseball and the Red Sox as a kid, and still does. I can't remember a time when I wasn't rooting for them.

So I think you get my point: I'm a baseball lifer, and pay my allegiance to the Sox, come hell or high water.

Like many kids in Connecticut, I grew up rooting not only for the Sox, but also the New York Knicks, New York Giants and Hartford Whalers. I played my share of pick-up basketball, football and hockey games as a kid.

But I no longer cheer for any of those one-time favorite teams. The Whalers, of course, no longer exist. But don't tell that to hardcore fans who root for the Carolina Hurricanes.

I paid little mind to the Bruins until last season's playoffs. While I fully admit to being a fair weather fan last season, I'll defend myself (and my wife, Beth) by saying that although we didn't watch the team during the regular season, we watched the first game of the playoffs, got hooked by the excitement, and then watched the team's entire Stanley Cup run.

We now watch their regular season games on a fairly consistent basis. If I were to ever move away from New England, I can safely say that I would remain a Bruins fan.

As for the Knicks, that was another team that my brother liked. Basketball has always been at the bottom of my list of sports. I was never any good at it, although my brother was. As a boy and a teenager, I got sick of my barber asking me during every haircut, "You're pretty tall. Playing basketball?" I told him politely that I didn't, although what I wanted to say was, "I'm not even six feet, I wear glasses and while I can jump pretty high, I can't shoot worth a damn and always forget to follow my shot and more often than not I lose the guy I'm supposed to cover. Now just put the bowl on my head and do your job!"

I loved the Knicks' Walt "Clyde" Frazier as a kid. Look at this picture and you'll understand:

I had a pair of checkered, double-knit dress pants as a kid, and I referred to them as my "Clyde pants." Seriously.

But once my brother went away to college, I stopped caring about the Knicks. In the 20 years that I've been living in and around Boston, I've taken to following the Celtics, but not with any true passion.

My brother was also a Giants fan. When we played football in the neighborhood, I'd imagine I was Ron Johnson when I ran the ball, or John Mendenhall when I was rushing, or Spider Lockhart when I was covering a receiver. Somewhere in a box of old stuff, I have a glossy flyer from a basketball game that a few members of the Giants played in my hometown, against, hmmm, I don't know, members of the police or something.

But the Giants didn't win Super Bowls the way the Steelers did. So, in an effort to separate myself from my brother, and root for a winner, I totally jumped on the Pittsburgh bandwagon. I hung a poster in our room of Franco Harris, and felt pretty good about that.

Once I went away to college, I stopped caring about the Giants.

At some point once I moved to the Boston area, I became a Patriots fan. It wasn't a sudden thing. I watched some games here and there. During the 2001 season, I watched more than usual, because Beth was pregnant, and we didn't go out as much as we used to.

Of course we watched the playoffs, and the team's subsequent first Super Bowl victory. Unfortunately, Beth wasn't feeling good that day, so we had to skip her sister and brother-in-law's annual party.

Since that big victory, I've become a full-fledged Patriots fan. There is some irony here. Growing up, my brother and I were friends with a clan of six boys, the Keegans. Five of the six were Giants fans, while the lone holdout was a Patriots fan.

We couldn't understand why he rooted for them, so, being boys, we ragged on him all the time about it. He also liked the California Angels (now the Anaheim Angels of Los Angeles, Planet Earth), so we doubled down on our insults.

He's been rewarded for his loyalty, and may receive payback on February 5th when the Patriots face the Giants in the Super Bowl. The Giants beat the Pats in the big game four years ago.

As a Sox fan, I know how he feels. For Boston fans, 2004 was our chance to stick it to Yankees fans after the ignominious way the 2003 season ended. Still, I have no idea how 2012 will go for the Sox, but I know that no matter what, I'll be rooting for 'em.

Book review: The Art of the Heist

2012-01-20T10:17:00.000-05:00

As someone who often has a hard time making small talk at a cocktail party, I admire people whose cups overflow with self-confidence. Well, in person I might not admire them after a few minutes, but certainly reading a cocky person's account of all the daring, crazy, illegal things he's done in his life, that I find interesting.

Such is the case with Myles Connor Jr.'s memoir, The Art of the Heist. I breezed through this book in less than a week, which, considering most of my reading is done on the can, or while waiting for one or the other of my kids to take a shower, is pretty quick for me.

Written with novelist Jenny Siler, The Art of the Heist is the work of a man who is completely self-assured in all that he does. Born in the early '40s in Milton, MA, Connor is by age 14 leading a band and finding success playing in restaurants and clubs in the Boston area. Short in stature but unafraid, Connor sticks up for himself and his buddies, taking on (and winning, or so he says...countless times) much bigger foes and knocking them out of the way.

Connor's high opinion of himself can be annoying, and made me question some of his exploits. His co-author, Siler, however, points out in notes at the beginning of the book that she interviewed many eyewitnesses to the events and crimes, and also reviewed documents, including police records, newspaper archives, court records, FBI transcripts and personal correspondence, in an effort to ensure Connor's integrity.

Assuming that at least some of Connor's tales are crap, this book is still a fascinating read. Connor is nearing 70 years old, and has spent close to half his life behind bars. Bank robberies and museum heists are his cup o' tea. He caught the antique weapon collecting bug when he was young, and would case small museums around New England and find items he wanted. Then, either by breaking in after hours through the mostly lax security systems, or by getting into the good graces of museum staff through use of ruses and alibis, he would simply take stuff from curators' offices or from storage rooms into which he'd been allowed access.

Before starting the book (somebody gave it to my wife as a gift), I was familiar with Connor because he's long been associated with what is considered the largest art theft in American history, the infamous 1990 heist at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Nearly 22 years after the fact, that heist remains unsolved. While Connor was in prison at the time of the heist, investigators figured he had been in on the planning, given his long rap sheet and love of art and antiques. Connor maintains he had nothing to do with the job at any level, although he fingers two associates and admits that he'd toured the museum with one of them, years before the heist, and talked about knocking the place over.

This most intriguing information, however, doesn't come until the book's closing pages. Will Connor write more about the Gardner job in a future book? I can only hope.

Is Connor lying when he says he wasn't involved in the Gardner heist? That's the big question. He seems to have no problem doing the time for his crimes, and spares no details of the numerous museum and bank break-ins for which he served time over the years. So it seems that if he were on the team that ripped off the Gardner, he'd admit it, as it would be quite the crowning achievement to a long criminal career.

But like OJ Simpson professing his innocence and pledging to find his wife's killer, Connor claimed he was clean, and would go to Europe to try and find the stolen paintings.

What I found most fascinating about Connor's book is the detail he offers of his crimes, getaways and, in one minutely constructed tale, the return of a Rembrandt he and his gang stole in broad daylight from Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. (Side note: I also marvel at the ability of Connor and other memoirists to recall such details as what people were wearing, the cloud patterns in the sky, the exact words from conversations. Yes, I know they're given artistic license with such details, but it's just an ability I don't have, given my increasingly poor memory.)

Bottom line: this book is a quick, entertaining read, but as with so many memoirs I find myself wanting more information, or at least different viewpoints. Connor is certainly a bold man and one to be admired for his self assuredness. But there's no sense of remorse in his book, no sense that by stealing art and antiques, he also steals from the public the right to experience these often exquisite and rare objects. Unfortunately, a memoir written by the museum curators and bank tellers whom Connor victimized, wouldn't find as much of an audience as The Art of the Heist.

Keep On Rockin' In the Seacoast

2012-01-16T18:14:00.000-05:00

One of the first things I did when I moved to Dover, NH, in August 1988, was go to a bar in nearby Portsmouth to see Ed's Redeeming Qualities. I loved their sloppy folk music -- created with ukelele, violin, acoustic guitars, and percussion consisting of rice in a coffee can -- and their funny, albeit sometimes poignant, lyrics. I also fell quickly in love with Portsmouth.

I don't recall the name of the bar where I saw the band, but it was intimate and inviting and felt like the right place to see such a humble, friendly and humorous band. The capital of New Hampshire's Seacoast region has numerous places like this, which helped to foster a music scene that's documented in the upcoming film, "In Danger of Being Discovered."

I saw Ed's Redeeming Qualities (ERQ) several more times over the next two years that I lived in the area (one year in Dover, one in York, ME, which is just a few exits up I-95 from Portsmouth), but never again in Portsmouth. I saw them a handful of times in Dover, at the Work Day Cafe (R.I.P.), and in Newmarket at the Stone Church, a venue that continues to put on shows.

The song for which ERQ was best known, perhaps, was "Lawn Dart," a laugh-out-loud ditty about a kid who "was pegged in the head with a lawn dart / so they're now off the shelves at the K-Mart." Here's the original lineup of ERQ, featuring Dom Leone (who died in 1989) on vocals:

ERQ gained a small bit of wider fame when The Breeders covered their song, "Drivin' on 9," on Last Splash. Again, here's the original lineup (I saw ERQ many years ago in Boston open for the fabulous Charlie Chesterman; ERQ replaced the late Leone with Jonah Winter, but in my mind, the band just wasn't the same without Dom):

ERQ was very popular in New Hampshire's Seacoast region in the late '80s and early '90s, and was a hit as well in Boston during that time. They appeared in a movie called "Ed's Next Move," and had several songs on the soundtrack. But they never landed a major label deal; I'm not sure if they were ever courted. I doubt they would have been interested in signing with a major if the offer were made.

Some of their contemporaries on the scene, however, did receive such attention.

According to the web site for "In Danger of Being Discovered," in 1993 the relatively small Seacoast region produced "at least five original rock bands [that] had major label interest or were independently selling 60,000 copies of their own CD's." I don't know exactly which bands are included on that list, but based on a quick viewing of the movie's trailer, my best guess is Gandhi's Lunchbox, Fly Spinach Fly, Thanks to Gravity, Groovechild, and Heavens to Murgatroid.

By 1993, I'd moved to Boston and didn't know all of these bands. I saw Gandhi's Lunchbox a handful of times and thought they were pretty good. I knew the guitarist, Chris Fortier, from college, as well as the band's singer, Tommy Colletta, because his previous band, Nervous Disorder, played once on a bill with my college band, The Toastmen.

I saw Fly Spinach Fly once or twice at house parties in Dover. They had a Red Hot Chili Peppers thing going on, with heavy grooves and a punk/metal feel, and two dancers called the Jimmies. The band formed after the break-up of Buzzards of May (I think that's the case. I know they were related somehow; it's been a long time, folks....), a band that I saw many times at Dover parties, and who played some killer Sabbath covers.

So although I wasn't part of the scene during its early '90s heyday, I was there for part of it, and was duly impressed.

In addition to the bands I've mentioned above who I saw and enjoyed, I want to say a few words about two other bands from my brief time on the fringe of the Seacoast scene. Bobhouse, for instance. I think I only saw them once, and I don't remember anything specific about their music. I recall vaguely that they were a little bit funky, a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll. I saw them at a party. I think it was in a barn.

The other band, The Dorks (or was it Dorx?), was my favorite on the scene. OK, once again I'm showing off my less-than-stellar memory. I saw them twice, I believe, once at a party, once at the aforementioned Stone Church. They were more punk than most of the bands on the scene, and that's about all I can remember.

When I think back on my brief but busy days of living in the area and seeing bands at house parties, clubs and barbecues, more than specific music, I think of an overall feeling of euphoria. Dover and Portsmouth are very small cities with lots of places to hear music and have a great time. I grew up in a small, rural town, where the bars mostly hosted cover bands or classic rock has-beens. I went to college in a place where the best music was on campus, because there wasn't much going on in town. So when I lived in the Seacoast area, I loved having so many cool places to hang out within walking or short-drive distance.

Oh, man, did I forget to mention The Murderers?

The weirdest and most amusing part of the scene was this band, comprised of a bunch of New Hampshire dudes masquerading as 1970s' British punks. Led by the inimitable Bob Murderer, the band slouched around Dover in leather jackets, jack boots, mohawks and tons of tattoos. One lineup of the band once backed the infamous GG Allin.

My memory is hazy, but I know I saw them play at least once, in a basement at a house party. They played prototypical British punk, hard, fast and sloppy and while somewhat menacing on stage, they were (or at least the bass player, Lenny, aka Larvae) pretty nice and funny guys when you were just drinking beer in a kitchen.

So there ya go, a little wrap up of a scene that I hadn't thought about much in recent years. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention that both ERQ and The Murderers appear under assumed names in my collection of short stories, (C)rock Stories: Million-Dollar Tales of Music, Mayhem and Immaturity, which you can buy here.

"The Women" Review

2012-01-06T10:46:00.000-05:00

This week, I finished reading T.C. Boyle's The Women, a long, fascinating and often-times sordid account of world-famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright and his wives, mistresses, children and trials and tribulations surrounding his family and professional lives.

While I became totally engrossed in the fictionalized tale, narrated by a Japanese intern who worked for Wright -- the melodrama of Wright's paramours, his financial struggles, his MAMMOTH ego, the tragedy that spills forth near the end -- the whole time I was reading, I found myself longing for a good biography.

Don't get me wrong: I love T.C. Boyle, and think his writing, full of incredibly deep descriptions of people, places, things and events, and the emotional states of so many characters, is excellent. I've read several of his novels, including The Road to Wellville, Drop City, World's End and A Friend of the Earth, and loved, or at least really liked, them all.

I have to say, though, that I think the idea of fictionalizing real people -- as Boyle did of John Kellogg, founder of the Kellogg cereal company, in The Road to Wellville -- while surely challenging and fun in terms of tweaking history, is dangerous because it either a) allows casual readers to believe false history or b) makes people like me seek out biographies.

Of course, I'm only seeking out a non-fiction account of Wright now that I've finished Boyle's book, but others might either be turned off by the book ahead of time, or decide part way through that, hey, Wright was such an incredible talent and personality, maybe I should just read what he was REALLY like.

As such, I've added Meryle Secrest's Frank Lloyd Wright: A Biography to my Amazon wish list. I'll buy it elsewhere, however, in order to stick it to Jeff Bezos for his obnoxious Christmas shopping season effort to undermine indie bookstores.

Bottom line, though, is that I heartily recommend Boyle's book.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T19:47:00.001-05:00

Hope everybody had a great New Year's Eve. We hung out at Beth's sister and brother-in-law's house, eating great food, drinking great bevvies and playing really fun Wii games. Now it's time to put away all the new toys, games and books, undecorate the house and get back into the regular groove.

We've had a really good vacation -- the kids got all the things they wanted for Christmas -- a Nintendo 3DS for Owen, goldfish and Hungry Hungry Hippos for Amelia were the "must haves" -- we visited with family and friends, saw "The Muppets" and put on a show on New Year's Eve. Yes, the Brigahan clan has been bitten by the thespianic (new word for a new year!) bug.

Owen and Amelia have been really into "The Penguins of Madagascar" TV show for quite some time. They love to act out the show while watching. Owen got it in his head just before Christmas, that the four of us should act out an episode in front of an audience. So he chose an episode (actually just the second part of one called "The Helmet"), transcribed the dialogue off the Internet (which Beth then typed up neatly) and ran us through several rehearsals.

So last night was the Big Show. Our play only lasted about five minutes, but it was received very well by Beth's sister and brother-in-law, and our nephew. I'm really proud of Owen for his hard work in producing, directing, and starring in his first show. It was a lot of fun for all of us.

Speaking of creativity, I've been forcing myself to work on my long-ignored UFO concept album over the past week. I believe I started writing lyrics for this project six or seven years ago, although it seems longer. Honestly, my output has been pretty lame until this week. I'd only written five or six sets of lyrics out of a planned 10 songs before churning out some words this past week. I still have to write two more sets of lyrics, and then music for seven or eight songs.

I originally envisioned the album as telling a story, but four years ago I adopted the lyrics I had at the time and the overall concept and began writing a novel during National Novel Writing Month. So now the album is just a batch of tunes about aliens and UFOs and government conspiracies, but with no overarching theme.

My plan is to finish the songs (and record them) and the novel and package them together somehow. This is part of my 2012 resolution: to push myself on my writing projects. Yes, this is my resolution just about every year, but having published my short story collection late in 2010, I know that I can persevere and get it done.

As I've mentioned plenty of times before, I also have two children's books I plan to get to market in the near future. I'm determined to get these done, as well as the album and novel, over the next year or two. Feel free to ask me and bug me about these projects. I need the push.

Thanks, and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T11:44:00.001-05:00

Hit or Miss: Crippled Pilgrims

2011-12-19T12:18:00.008-05:00

With a name like Crippled Pilgrims, it has to be good!

Perhaps, just as in the classic "Saturday Night Live" sketch that riffs on the longtime Smucker's advertising slogan ("With a name like Smucker's it has to be good!") with products such as "Painful Rectal Itch," "Nose Hair" and "Death Camp," early '80s D.C. band Crippled Pilgrims figured using a somewhat offensive-sounding name might distinguish them from the crowd.

They certainly sounded different from the artists that were topping the charts in 1984, such as Prince and The Revolution, Tina Turner, Culture Club and Lionel Richie. But they also were out of step with the well-known hardcore bands in their hometown, including Minor Threat, Bad Brains and Government Issue.

Sometimes jangly like contemporaries R.E.M., other times all guitar wanky like Television and yet also known to veer into psychedelia like The Dream Syndicate, singer-guitarist Jay Moglia, bassist Mitch Parker, guitarist Scott Wingo and drummer Dan Joseph put out only one EP and one full-length album in their brief career.

I had never heard of them before flipping through records one day at my favorite record store, Capitol Records (R.I.P.) in Hartford, back in the mid-'80s. The record jacket for Head Down - Hand Out is simple, but the bold lines and lowercase script caught my eye. As with other albums I picked out completely at random -- and which I've written about here and here -- I simply decided the album looked interesting, and I hoped for a return on my investment.

And I wasn't disappointed, especially with Wingo's fretwork.

"Black and White," Head Down -- Hand Out's opener, sets the tone, as Wingo pours forth a hypnotic lead before Moglia can open his mouth. The lyrics aren't all that deep, despite Moglia's serious tone: "When you don't see right / and you're off the track / when you don't see white / you don't see black." But I've never been a guy to care too much about lyrical content, as long as the music holds my attention.

And I'll admit that if Wingo's leads throughout "Black and White" and the band's entire catalog didn't sparkle so much, I wouldn't be writing about Crippled PIlgrims. Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not saying Crippled Pilgrims is on par with Television, or other noodle-heavy bands such as Dinosaur Jr. or Built to Spill.

But Wingo's (do you suppose people made fun of his name because of this?) fluid leads and noodling entice the listener and hint at darkness and mystery.

The second track, "Under the Ladder," is much mellower and more folk-rocky. It's in the same vein as Transformer's "You're Everywhere That I'm Not."

On "People Going Nowhere" the band gets a little bit funky -- but not too much, 'cuz they don't wanna confuse those college boys -- but once again it's Wingo's guitar flavorings throughout that drive the song.

"Out of Hand" is Wingo's biggest showcase. His fretwork is never showy (wow, when I started writing this, I didn't realize it was going to turn into a love letter to Scott Wingo). I like Wingo's licks because they don't seem all that difficult, although I'm sure they're more intricate than I realize. As someone who's played guitar for more than 30 years but never evolved beyond a good rhythm player who can play only the most basic leads, I appreciate guitar work that sounds as though if I practiced regularly, I could copy it.

"Dissolving" is another moody, somewhat downbeat song that, like all the songs on this EP, echoed my late-teen/early-20 angst about girls, college, the future, trying to figure out who I was, etc.

The mini-album wraps up with "A Side He'll Never Show," on which Wingo shines for the last minute or so, while Moglia plaintively wails, "It's just a side you will never show," a line that validated my own shyness and unwillingness to share too many details of my private life (traits that carry through to this day, although to a lesser degree).

I'll admit that all these years later the album doesn't work for me as well as it did when I bought it. Part of the reason I liked the album (and the subsequent Under Water) was that nobody else knew about them or cared. I lived in Connecticut and went to college in New Hampshire, far from Crippled Pilgrims' home base in the D.C. area.

I still listen to Head Down -- Hand Out and Under Water, perhaps more for nostalgia's sake these days, than for how much the music moves me. But still, I score this one a hit.

I couldn't locate any videos from the EP, but here's "Down Here" from the full length.

And here's a song by Rambling Shadows, which features Wingo and Moglia, along with a former member of Velvet Monkeys. The music is less subtle than the Pilgrims, fer sure. OK, they're a bar band, and Wingo's solos don't shine like they used to. But here it is anyway.

"Gold Rush"

2011-12-16T10:47:00.003-05:00

While flying to Florida two weeks ago on the way to Disney World (see December 9, 2011, "Disney Whirl"), I got hooked on the Discovery Channel's "Gold Rush."

JetBlue has TVs on the back of each and every headrest, with a good selection of channels, ranging from Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network for the kids, to HGTV, History, Discovery, VH1 Classic and all the networks for adults. So much for reading my National Geographic.

So after flipping around, I settled on "Gold Rush," which follows three groups of guys trying to strike it rich by mining for gold in Alaska and Canada's Yukon Territory. This is the second season. In the first season, just one group was featured, and they lost a LOT of money during the course of the 150-day mining season.

This season, the original group, led by the father and son team of Jack and Todd Hoffman, is back, but they failed to make a payment on season one's claim (the land where they mine), so they lost the site to the awesomely monikered "Dakota" Fred Hurt. The third crew is led by 17-year-old (16 when the season started) Parker Schnabel, who is trying to resuscitate his grandfather's mine.

The Hoffman crew buys a new claim 600 miles north of their original site, putting them in the Canadian Yukon. From the few shows I've seen, I can tell you that the Hoffmans are clueless. They make broad statements about where they'll find gold, based not on previous experience, or geological knowledge, but simply on hope alone. They've got a big crew and they bicker about all sorts of things, and end up in lots of predicaments that make for good TV.

As for "Dakota" Fred, he's a gruff straight shooter who takes pride in the fact that he was able to take over the Hoffmans' old claim. But he's no perfect gold miner. He spends a lot of money on equipment and then lots of time trying to figure out how to get it to work. Not that it's easy to dig massive amounts of dirt and rocks, feed it onto a washer and get just the right angle to send water one way, big boulders another way, and miniscule gold flakes and tiny nuggets into the right spot where you can collect them.

Fred is entertaining, but Parker Schnabel is the one I root for, as do most viewers, I imagine. He's a smart, personable kid who's willing to work hard. His grandfather, who the show claims is 91 but who looks to be 15 years younger, appears on occasion to consult with Parker or give him encouragement.

I realize that this show, like just about every other reality show, is scripted at least in part, and that the participants are getting money to be on the show, and probably to cover at least some of their expenses. Still, just as I was once fascinated by how the contestants on "The Apprentice" were able to marshal their business instincts in a very short period of time to create a viable enterprise, and how I currently marvel at how the artists on "Work of Art" can within a 24-hour period manage to gather materials, plan out a project and make it gallery-worthy, I love watching the guys on "Gold Rush" hoisting 30,000 pound machinery while trying not to kill themselves, and figuring out to defeat the permafrost that keeps making their rigs slide to and fro.

While I'm eager to see which of the mining teams will pan out as the winner, I have to say I find it disconcerting just how much these guys have to destroy the environment in order to find mere ounces of gold. I take some solace in the fact that the show demonstrates that previous mining sites have been shown to recover.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go catch up on some back episodes.

Disney Whirl

2011-12-09T06:47:00.001-05:00

Walt Disney is the Love God!

I took lots of pictures on our trip to Disney World last weekend, but I find this one to be the most amazing. In a surprise twist, I managed to shed my ironic detachment while at the happiest place on Earth (good... the detachment still works) with Beth and the kids. I'd long dreaded going there, because I thought it would all just be too cheesy and artificial. And, sure, it was, but nobody does cheesy and artificial like the Mousketeers.

We went because Beth received a VIP pass to the park because (name of workplace redacted) has a business relationship with Disney. We flew down last Thursday, and got back late Monday afternoon. We spent three days amid the Mouse-attired masses, and had a fantastic time.

We arrived at the Magic Kingdom on Friday under incredible blue skies, with temps in the mid 70s.

Joining the throngs, we hit Main Street, heading toward the castle. The crowds were bigger than I'd expected -- guidebooks told us that early December is generally somewhat quiet, but we were there during the taping for Disney's Christmas special. There were tons of people in front of the castle listening to "American Idol" winner Scott McCreery singing Christmas tunes in that incredible bass voice of his (I don't like his music, but you can't deny the guy's voice is sumthin' else).

We headed into Tomorrowland, per Owen's request. My got on the People Mover, to get the lay of the land. We did a few rides here, including Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin (which Owen loved so much he worked VERY hard to convince Amelia to do it) and the Speedway.

From there, it was a whirlwind -- the Mad Hatter tea cups, the Magic Carpet Ride, the Haunted House, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain (roller coaster), Splash Mountain again, lunch, back to Tomorrowland and stuff I'm definitely forgetting. We had dinner back at the hotel and then chilled in our room after a long, happy day.

The next day we went back to the Magic Kingdom in the morning, doing many of the same rides, and adding in It's a Small World (all of us) and the Dumbo the Flying Elephant (Amelia and Beth), and other stuff that I'm forgetting. After chilling back at our hotel (which was in the park and accessible by monorail -- which Owen LOVED), we went to Epcot in the middle of the afternoon.

The highlight of Epcot, and our entire Disney experience, was Soarin', a ride that simulates a hang glider flight over the state of California. We waited for an hour to get in, and there were a few times when I thought we were going to have to bail, but the kids soldiered on and it was obviously worth it.

I won't bore you with all the other stuff we did there, but I will mention that going inside Spaceship Earth is worth it, and Beth and Owen had a great time on the Test Track (while Amelia and I ate ice cream).

On Sunday we went to the Animal Kingdom, which provided yet more terrific rides. The Dinosaur ride was loud, bumpy and a bit too crazy for Amelia (she covered her ears the whole time); the Kali River Rapids was a quick, yet very wet (for Beth and Amelia) ride; and the safari was much better than I was expecting.

I couldn't convince Owen to do Expedition Everest, the largest roller coaster at Disney.

He didn't want to do Space Mountain at the Magic Kingdom, either. No big deal. Next time.

It was at Animal Kingdom that the kids finally got to meet some of the characters, including Goofy, Mickey and Minnie. Here they are with Minnie:

Later in the day, we returned to the Magic Kingdom for our final few hours of Disney. Had we realized the park was closing at 7:00 -- the Disney Christmas party, under a separate admission, was running from 7:00 until midnight -- we probably would have gotten there sooner than 4:15. Anyway, we ran a quick loop around the park doing a few more favorites and then headed back to the hotel for room service.

And that's it. The next morning, we ate breakfast, packed up and headed to the airport. The flight back went smoothly, unlike our trip south, which was delayed an hour and 40 minutes. It's good to be back home, even if the temps have finally dipped from the abnormal 60s we'd been experiencing in New England down to the normal 20s, 30s and 40s.

Finally, I just want to delve a little bit into the history of Disney World. I'm the kind of guy who appreciates a massive amusement megaplex like Disney for the rides and entertainment and food, but can't help thinking about how it all got put together, how it's run behind the scenes and what the landscape looked like before the Mouse stamped his likeness all over everything in sight.

Disney World opened in 1971, 12 years after Walt Disney decided his company needed to open an amusement park east of the Mississippi. After his advance men looked into the possibility of developing an area near Orlando, Florida, Disney flew over the spot in 1963 and liked what he saw: proximity to the planned Interstate 4, the Florida Turnpike and the Air Force base that would become Orlando International Airport (thanks Wikipedia!).

In order to buy up the nearly 28,000 acres around Bay Lake, Disney formed numerous shell corporations with wacky names such as Reedy Creek Ranch Corporation, Latin American Development and Management Corporation and RETLAW (Walter backwards). The land had been acquired in 1912 by the Munger Land Co. and divvied up into 5-acre lots. Since most of the land was swamp, the owners/speculators were more than happy to sell, according to Wikipedia.

Anyway, long story short: Walt Disney died in 1966, five years before the park opened. While I couldn't find any pictures of what the land looked like before the park was built, I did find a cool web site (Daveland!) that has some great early shots of the park.

What Are You Going to Do Next?

2011-12-01T10:07:00.003-05:00

Yes, we got a hot tip from Phil Simms about a little resort in Florida built by a guy named Walt Disney. You might know him as the director of the 1928 animated short film, "Steamboat Willie." We're sneaking out of town today and coming back Monday. If you need to contact us, send a telegram to us care of the Contemporary Resort.

The hotel seems to be quite futuristic. In addition to a monorail that runs through the building, the staff also offer jet packs in both adult and kid sizes, to make traveling to and from the various attractions much more exciting.

Owen is excited for something called "Space Mountain," which he assures me will be both exciting and educational. Amelia is so looking forward to Cinderella's Castle, where perhaps we'll sit a spell and drink some tea and eat some scones.

We also plan to visit something called the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, or "Epcot." I believe this is where we will refuel our jet packs, and obtain powdered astronaut food.

Finally, our best chums have suggested we fly on over to the Animal Kingdom, where we'll be subject to the whims and vagaries of beast and fowl alike.

Cheerio!

Good Times

2011-11-28T19:27:00.002-05:00

As much as I enjoyed "Good Times," this post isn't about the Norman Lear-produced sitcom (which often, as I like to say, took the "com" out of sitcom).

No, this is about having fun over Thanksgiving with my immediate and extended family. Beth and I traveled south with the kids Thursday morning, hitting quite a bit of traffic, but still arriving at my parents' house in Windsor in plenty of time before dinner. My sister was there, as were my brother and his two kids, Grace and Isaiah.

My mother and sister prepared all the great food: turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, salad and gravy. We brought bread, pies and beer. After stuffing our faces, some of us went for the requisite post-meal walk around my parents' neighborhood. The weather was oddly warm (as it has been a lot this month), which was nice. Unlike much of America, we eschewed (I love that word) football, in favor of just hanging out, playing games and listening to my mom play the piano. Hearing her play a few Christmas carols and some ragtime numbers was a treat, as my mom doesn't tickle the ivories as much as she used to.

That night, we slept at my sister's house in West Hartford, with the kids going to bed close to 10:00. The next morning, we all walked to breakfast. We wanted to go to this place, the Quaker Diner:

Unfortunately, this snug little joint was a little too busy to wait with two hungry kids. I do love diners, so we'll have to get there a bit earlier next time.

We ended up, instead, at A.C. Petersen Farms, the remaining restaurant in what was once a small and very popular chain run congruently with four farms.

After breakfast we went back to my parents' house for a while. After a few hours, we headed back to West Hartford to visit my friend Gary and his wife, Rebecca, and kids, Evan and Olivia. While the kids played amazingly well together, the four adults had some drinks and just chewed the fat. As we did with everyone else we saw that weekend, we heard from Gary and Rebecca about what they went through during the loooooooong power outage that much of Connecticut suffered through earlier this month.

I was amazed at all the tree branches still stacked in front of so many houses, awaiting pick up by city and town trucks. I was impressed with how well all my friends and relatives did during the Dark Days.

After our visit, we went back to my sister's place, where my brother and his kids, as well as my parents, were joined by all six of my Brigham cousins and most of their family members. Here are my cousins (l to r) Lynne, John, Amy, Joy (hidden) and Ann:

Here's my cousin Sue (r) with my mom:

Here, my dad entertains my cousins Lynne and Ann, and my mom:

Because it's rare that my brother, sister and I get together with all six of our cousins, there of course had to be pictures:

Thanks to my cousin John's son, Matt, for snapping this great picture.

I took some pictures of the next generation of cousins:

(left to right: Sequoya, Owen, Grace, Lindsay, Isaiah (on Lindsay's lap), Sam, Amelia and Matt)

It was a really fun night.

The next day we trekked back up to my parents' house to say goodbye to my brother and his kids. Then we went out to brunch with my sister and my parents at the Whistle Stop Cafe. The restaurant moved from a smaller location around the corner earlier this year into a space that's pretty huge. The food and service were good, and I like the fact that they feature entertainment on weekends and have a nice little bar tucked into the corner. I wish them well.

Traffic on the way home on Saturday was non-existent, which made for a relaxing trip. Good times, indeed.

Giving Thanks

2011-11-23T09:23:00.001-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

I Love Lydia

2011-11-16T19:23:00.008-05:00

Whenever I tell people I like country music, I have to quickly add, "but not the mainstream crap." I like old stuff like Hank Williams, Johnny Cash (as well as his later stuff), Buck Owens, Hank Thompson and Wanda Jackson, as well as newer stuff ranging from Giant Sand to The Derailers, BR-549 to Lucinda Williams.

And now you can add Lydia Loveless to that list. How can I not love a 21-year-old woman who's confident enough to write and record a song called "Jesus Was a Wino?" Or who covers Metallica in concert?

With a voice powerful enough to slap a cheatin' man standing at the back of the bar, Loveless (her real name? I don't know. I knew a kid in junior high school, a Mormon as it turned out -- the first one I ever met, maybe the only -- named Loveless, so it's possible) is so damn self assured it's scary. Evidently she grew up with musicians tramping through her parents' house, as her father owned a country music bar. As a teenager -- you know, like, just a few years ago -- she got turned on to punk rock and hero-of-the-gutter Charles Bukowski, so now she combines those two musical flavors into what somebody wisely, years ago, dubbed cowpunk.

Anyway, here are a few videos, including the aforementioned Metallica cover.

Subterranean

2011-11-08T11:11:00.002-05:00

I've taken so many pictures of Boston's subway system, I don't think I'll ever have enough time and space to post them all. I've posted countless albums on my Facebook page documenting the numerous trips I've taken on the MBTA with my son, Owen. I've also posted a bit on my other blog, The Backside of America (see August 30, 2010, "Going Underground").

Owen likes the different types of trains, especially on the Green line -- well, he used to before he got completely and totally absorbed in Mario Kart. On our trips, I've always taken more interest in the stations, the people and the surrounding scenes on the above-ground portions of our trip.

All the shots in this post are of a mosaic in the Park Street station on the Green line. The work of art was created in 1978 by Lilli Ann Rosenberg, who passed away earlier this year at the age of 86. One hundred ten feet long and weighing in at 12 tons, the mosaic depicts the history of the Boston subway system.

Book Review: "Occupants" by Henry Rollins

2011-11-02T19:42:00.001-04:00

I first heard Black Flag nearly 30 years ago, when I was in high school. I was a huge fan of the band through college and for the few years beyond. I saw them twice, and became quite enamored of their lead singer, Henry Rollins. I bought a few of his books, and saw his post-Black Flag band, the Rollins Band, during the brief time I lived in Albuquerque.

In more recent years, I've watched a few episodes of his talk show on IFC, enjoyed his talking head appearances on a variety of networks, and jumped in the wayback machine to watch old Black Flag clips on YouTube.

The only movie of his (and there are many) that I've seen is "Heat," which I didn't like and forgot that he was in. So I'm quite familiar with the man and his output. I'm a fan, although I don't always agree with what he says, and I sometimes get sick of hearing him go on with his strong opinions.

Having in recent years tried to develop an eye for photography, I decided upon learning that Rollins was to publish a book of photos, that I needed to own it.

The photos are by turns heartbreaking, bizarre, beautiful, humorous and uplifting, and always imbued with a sense of humanity. Because Rollins is a man who loves to talk and write, there are of course short essays accompanying each picture.

As he says in the beginning of the book, "I thought it would be pretentious to release a book that only had photographs...So I decided to write something for every photograph."

Great idea, indeed. As someone who publishes a blog featuring pictures of the lesser-seen parts of these United States (The Backside of America), I'm a big believer in words matched with photos.

But Rollins's accompanying write-ups are not at all what I was expecting. I was hoping for explanation, rather than stream-of-consciousness ramblings. Some of them work, some of them don't, but none of them tell me what, who or where I'm looking at. I'm a journalist at heart, and I need that information.

Still, there are some cool shots in the book, and certainly plenty of things to think about as far as injustice, poverty, war, decay, beauty and the human spirit go. Do the photos shock or amaze? No. Does Rollins bring fresh perspective with his words? Nope.

Will this book sit under a coffee table (I know, they're supposed to be on the table) along with my other big books -- "Lost Boston," "The Big Dig," "Lost America" and "Punk: The Definitive Record of a Revolution" among others -- to be pulled out and reviewed once or twice a year? Yeah, sure.

At the very least, the presence of "Occupants" in my house will provide a few opportunities for me to expound on the virtues of Black Flag to my kids, and maybe even their kids.

Book Review: "After Lyletown" by K.C. Frederick

2011-10-27T09:20:00.006-04:00

Most people do things when they're young that they regret later on in life, whether it's driving drunk after a party and taking out somebody's mail box, getting a tattoo on your face, or buying a Haircut One Hundred Album.

In K.C. Frederick's "After Lyletown," Alan Ripley's past holds an event of heavier consequence. As a grad student in the '60s, Ripley fell in with a radical crowd that plotted to knock over a gun store and pass along the weapons to black communities struggling for their civil rights. Hardly a committed revolutionary, Ripley is less in love with the idea of arming minorities than he is with the woman who hatched the plot.

As fate would have it, he gets neither the woman nor the chance to prove his loyalty to her plan. A case of appendicitis lands him in the hospital when the caper goes down. Things go badly; one man dies and another ends up in jail for a long stretch.

Twenty years later, Ripley is a successful lawyer living in the suburbs of Boston with his wife and son. His life is comfortable. Until Rory, the man who spent several years in jail over the failed weapons heist, rings him up.

After Rory entered the story, I spent much of my reading time expecting something big and bad to happen. And while it never does, Frederick develops great suspense. What does Rory want from Alan? Why does Alan hide his past from his wife? What will happen when she finds out about this dark chapter of his life? Will Rory blackmail Alan and ruin his married and professional lives?

Rather than add more violence and crime to the initial, and crucial, episode, Frederick builds the story by gradually filling in the details of Alan's past and present. In some ways, he's like a reformed convict, although he didn't take part in the failed plot, and didn't serve jail time. He realized that his hospitalization was a gift, and that he needed to mature, and use that opportunity to help people. Sure, there was a failed marriage. Sure, he's not always sure he's doing the right thing in his job. But that's what makes him such a human protagonist.

"After Lyletown" springs from a revolutionary era in the United States. The book succeeds, however, because Frederick understands the quiet moments from which real change occurs: poor decision-making made in the name of love, guilt kept close to the vest, blind faith that an associate with a chequered past won't ruin one's life.

Frederick does a great job of bringing the reader into Alan's convoluted life, and reminding us that we cannot, ultimately, escape our own history.

Extra! Extra! Blog All About It!

2011-10-19T10:14:00.005-04:00

Seven weeks after I sent an entry to the Indie Books Blog, today is the day they feature my book, "(C)rock Stories: Million-Dollar Tales of Music, Mayhem and Immaturity."

You can read my blurb here; if you haven't bought the book yet, there's a "buy" link at the bottom of the post.

Thank you.

As you were....

They Say It's Your Birthday!

2011-10-14T10:00:00.001-04:00

Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer turns 65 on Saturday, October 15th. Funny guy Norm MacDonald will be 47 on Monday.

But more importantly, my niece, Grace, turns 8 on Tuesday the 18th, and my brother, Steve, will be the big 5-0 on Thursday the 20th.

This past weekend, Beth and I flew to D.C. for a surprise birthday party my sister-in-law, Tonya, threw for my brother. Held at the massive and well-appointed Gaylord National Harbor Hotel, the bash featured loads of dance music, a fun quiz game, free drinks, good eats and a great time for hanging out with family.

As you can see, despite the fact that more than 80 people were invited, and that Tonya had to convince Steve that, yes, indeed, they were going to see a jazz band in a hotel ballroom, my brother was surprised.

He had a great time, making the rounds several times, dancing like he probably hasn't done in years, and giving a heartfelt speech of thanks to the gathering of friends, family, coworkers and neighbors.

The next day, Beth and I joined my brother, Tonya, their kids, Grace and Isaiah, and my sister and parents for brunch in the hotel. The trip was a quick one, but it was great to celebrate with my big brother and see how well loved he is in his various communities.

Happy birthday, bro!

It was great to see my brother's kids, too. I can't believe Grace is going to be 8. She's such a great kid: smart, funny, a great dancer (a highlight of the party was when she, Isaiah and some friends and cousins hit the dance floor with my brother), artistic and musical. And it's cool to see her excited about soccer and ice skating.

Here's my favorite recent picture of her:

Here's a big happy birthday to you, Grace! Hope we see you and Isaiah, and your mom and dad, at Thanksgiving.

(C)rocktoberfest!

2011-10-12T10:58:00.011-04:00

UPDATE: ALL THE PRIZES HAVE BEEN CLAIMED!

Welcome to the first-ever promotional quiz for my book, "(C)ROCK STORIES: MILLION-DOLLAR TALES OF MUSIC, MAYHEM AND IMMATURITY."

Below are 10 questions that relate to stories in the book. The first five people to answer all 10 correctly will receive their choice of (1) copy of the book OR (1) promotional t-shirt from Zazzle.

To see your t-shirt choices, visit my Zazzle store. There are 15 shirts (in both guys' and gals' styles), one for each story in the book. Select one, email me your choice, and I'll order it and have it shipped.

Send answers to me here.

Use any life line you need.

GOOD LUCK!

1) Name a band in which "Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo" writer/singer Rick Derringer played.

2) Name two original members of Foghat.

3) Name Stewart Copeland's pre-Police band.

4) Define "poser."

5) Who is "Echo" from Echo & the Bunnymen?

6) Which band formed first, New Order or Soundgarden?

7) List two names that Butthole Surfers performed under before selecting their official name?

8) Who's the most famous band to come out of Athens, GA?

9) What is Steven Tyler's birth name?

10) Other than "a post-punk band from Washington, D.C.," what does "fugazi" mean in?

We've Been Blair Witched

2011-09-28T10:45:00.006-04:00

I know it doesn't look like much, but that thin, rusty pole in my backyard has me a little on edge. I noticed it this morning as I was getting into the car to drive Amelia to preschool. I got out of the car, walked into the backyard, took a quick look at the pole, shrugged my shoulders and scratched my head, then got back in and took her to school.

When I returned about 20 minutes later, I promptly got out my camera and snapped a few pictures, before removing the pole and resting it against my shed. I emailed two pictures to my wife, Beth, and a few minutes later she called so we could say to each other, "That's really weird. I have no idea how that got there."

"It's like 'Blair Witch,'" she said, referencing this movie.

Maybe the reason I'm feeling a little hinky is because I'm currently reading K.C. Frederick's "After Lyletown," in which a guy in his mid-40s is feeling a bit nervous after an encounter with someone from his past. I have no clue if a neighbor is playing a joke by sticking this random pole in my yard, or whether someone I don't know wandered in late yesterday afternoon while Beth, the kids and I were at Owen's school picnic.

Either way, it's odd. Who puts a rusty pole into someone's yard?

Planes, Trains & Automobiles

2011-09-26T11:33:00.002-04:00

I found myself thinking about the John Candy/Steve Martin comedy vehicle "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" this past weekend during a quick trip to D.C. to see a Nationals game with my brother, Steve, and sister, Beth. No, I didn't have to share a room with a sweaty shower curtain ring salesman who had his hands between my "pillows."

But the trip didn't go quite as smoothly as I'd hoped.

The plan: leave Boston at 3:40, meet my sister at BWI Airport, hop in a rental car, drive to the Greenbelt Metro station and ride into D.C. to meet my brother, who lives in Maryland, and works in the capital. This is the third year that the three of us have gotten together for a siblings-only trip. Two years ago they met me in Cooperstown to tour the Baseball Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, they couldn't stick around the next day to watch me play on the Hall's field with my over-40 team.

Last year, to celebrate my sister's 50th birthday, we gathered at Fenway Park for a Sox game. We hung out during a rain delay and ate at the park, a fate that we feared we might face again this year, based on the D.C. forecast for last Friday.

The weather turned out fine, but unfortunately my sister and I didn't arrive at the park until the 4th inning. My flight was delayed nearly an hour, so I didn't arrive at BWI until nearly 6:00. By the time my sister and I rode the rental car shuttle, waited in line at Enterprise, filled out paper work and hit the road, it was about 6:30.

My brother had suggested we drive to Greenbelt and ride the train, instead of trying to find parking in D.C. near the park. The drive to the station went relatively smoothly. We parked, got our tickets and went up to the platform.

We had to wait close to 10 minutes for the train, but were happy once it arrived. By this time, the game had begun, but we figured we'd be on the train for about 30 minutes and be at the game by about 7:45 or so.

The train cruised to the College Park stop as my sister and I chatted about the Red Sox, the Nationals, what else we had planned for the weekend, blah blah blah. Then, between College Park and Prince George's Plaza, the train got all herky jerky.

Then it stopped completely. Several times, the driver tried to get it moving, but it wouldn't go far before it came to a halt again. Then we sat for a few minutes, having no idea what was going on. After a few minutes, we got going pretty well and pulled into the station. But then the driver announced we had to debark and wait for another train.

So we got off, and waited on the platform for a few minutes, glad the rain we'd been expecting was holding off. After a few more minutes, an announcement came over the P.A. telling us to cross up and over the tracks to the other side, where a train would arrive in a few minutes.

Everybody walked to the other side, where we waited a few more minutes before a train arrived. Finally, we were on our way, seemingly at super-sonic speed. I tell ya, those Metro trains can HAUL!

Still, we had 11 stops to go before Navy Yard. By the time we traveled through all those stations and got up and out of the station, it was almost 8:30. We got to the game, met my brother, stuffed our faces with hot dogs, fries, chili, ice cream and beer and watched the Nationals try, but fail, to overcome a 6-1 deficit.

The park is nice; our left-field bleachers seats afforded a pretty good view. The game was fun, even though I didn't know many players and had no concern of the outcome. I was glad to have finally arrived, and to be hanging out with my brother and sister. We had a lot of laughs during the game, and on the way back to Greenbelt and during the drive from the Metro station to my brother's house in Bowie.

We chatted for about an hour before hitting the hay around midnight. The next day I had a fun breakfast with my sister, and my brother and his family: his wife, Tonya, and my niece, Grace, and nephew, Isaiah. After breakfast, my sister and I gave Isaiah his presents for his third birthday, which was Sunday.

Shortly after that, I had to head back to the airport, while the rest of them were off to Grace and Isaiah's soccer games.

A short trip, made shorter by the failings of two transportation modes, but all in all, a good time.

Hit or Miss: Man Sized Action

2011-09-19T10:48:00.003-04:00

Because it's been a long time, I don't recall whether I picked up Man Sized Action's Claustrophobia at random, or whether I'd heard about them because Husker Du's Bob Mould produced the album (side note: I definitely bought Soul Asylum's Made to Be Broken after reading, probably in SPIN, that Mould produced it).

Either way, I had no idea what Man Sized Action would sound like. It ain't like today, kids, when the Internet tells you everything you need to know, and way, way more.

And frankly, before writing this, I didn't recall what they sounded like. Their tunes haven't been burned into my psyche the way many of The Rezillos' songs have (see September 8, 2011, Hit or Miss, Part I).

The band certainly had their supporters. Obviously, Mould was behind them. I also found an article online written by recording engineer extraordinaire/arbiter of punk cool Steve Albini, who also dug Man Sized Action.

I have to say, though, after listening to these album samples (I don't have a working turntable), I'm not impressed. The music isn't as fast as I was expecting, and I can't stand singer Pat Woods's voice.

Yes, there are bands I like whose singers are obviously not classically trained (such as my favorite band of all time, the Flaming Lips). And I love Neil Young and his crazy warble.

I would definitely like Man Sized Action if their singer didn't sound so...bored, and like he's afraid to let it all go. When he tries to emote, it's like he doesn't know how. Score Man Sized Action's Claustrophobia a miss.

Judge for yourself:

Hurricanes, Birthdays and Tobacco

2011-09-12T21:36:00.017-04:00

We went to my parents' house this weekend as a make-up for a busted plan during Hurricane Irene two weeks prior. My brother and sister-in-law and their two kids, Grace and Isaiah, flew up Friday. We arrived Saturday at lunchtime, not long after my sister. We'd been scheduled to gather the last weekend of August in Old Saybrook, CT, but my brother and his family had to cancel, because they figured their flight home on Sunday -- the day the hurricane hit New England -- would be canceled. We went down to Old Saybrook for one night (instead of the planned two) and stayed with my sister and my parents at the house we'd rented.

It was good to have a chance to hang out with everybody, and to celebrate Beth's birthday to boot.

After lunch on Saturday, we took the kids, along with Grace (Isaiah stayed behind with his parents to try and take a nap), to a park in Windsor, the town where my parents moved four years ago. My sister and my mom joined us at Northwest Park. After checking out and feeding a bunch of farm animals (sheep, cow, horse, donkey, turkey, goats) and cruising through the nature center, we hung out at the playground for quite a while. It was great to see Owen and Amelia just goofing around with Grace, who they only see a few times a year.

I also checked out part of the on-site tobacco museum, with Grace, my sister and my mom. Like many towns in the Connecticut River Valley, Windsor was a tobacco town. I'm pretty sure the land on which the park sits was donated to the town by owners of a former tobacco operation. My hometown, Simsbury, was also a tobacco town. When I was a kid, there were tobacco barns on the edge of my neighborhood, right next to the train tracks.

The museum proper, which houses all sorts of equipment and samples of tobacco, was closed. So we walked around the archive building. There, we saw lots of cool old photos and glass cases of cigars, cutters and other small equipment. What I found most interesting was the display of small banners that in the early days of the industry were included inside the cigar boxes. Very cool collectibles.

Later, we all went out to dinner, before going back to my parents' house for cake, ice cream and presents. That night, Beth, the kids and I slept at my sister's house.

The next morning we went back up to my parents' house and ate breakfast while my brother and his family packed for their flight back to Maryland. It was a quick visit, but it was good to see everybody and catch up.

My sister and I are flying down to MD on September 23 to catch a Nationals game with my brother.

I'm looking forward to that, but I'm also anxious for the holidays, when all of us will be together again, for scenes like this.

And to talk about sports and trucks with my little buddy, Isaiah.

Hit or Miss: The Rezillos

2011-09-08T09:17:00.002-04:00

I discovered punk rock (and, by association, post-punk and lesser-known New Wave) via college radio, when I was a junior in high school. Eventually, I shifted from buying Rick Derringer 45's and Charlie Daniels LP's at Caldor to seeking out Dead Kennedys, Joy Division and Phantom Tollbooth albums at independently owned Capitol Records (R.I.P.) in Hartford.

At Capitol, there were so many albums to go through, that often, after I'd picked a few records I'd heard of, I'd select something purely on how cool the cover was, or whether the name of the band clicked with me.

I've still got most of my LP's, stored in the attic, although I haven't listened to them in years. Every year I swear I'm gonna buy an MP3 turntable and get all my vinyl onto my iPod. I think this is the year. Really.

Anyway, I figured over the course of some posts here, I'd feature some of the hits and misses from those blind album choices of years gone by.

The most colorful album cover to strike my fancy was The Rezillos' Can't Stand The Rezillos, seen above. The band's debut, it featured covers of '60s songs including The Dave Clark Five's "Glad All Over," Gerry & the Pacemakers' "I Like It" and "Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight," a song originally recorded by Fleetwood Mac in 1969 (see below for The Rezillos' version).

The band had a Top 20 hit in their native U.K. with "Top of the Pops."

While that song is catchy, I favored the album's lead cut, "Flying Saucer Attack," a choice that will surprise no one who knows me.

"(My Baby Does) Good Sculptures" is pretty darn good, too.

But for pure pogoing pleasure, nothing beat the band's version of the aforementioned "Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight."

Score Can't Stand The Rezillos a hit.

Sell! Sell! Sell!

2011-08-29T10:42:00.004-04:00

I had big dreams when I published my first book: I wanted to sell 500 copies over the course of the first year. After eight months, I've sold less than 1/5th that amount. Sure, I knew the first 50 or so copies would be the easiest ones to unload. I promoted the book via Facebook and word of mouth and during the first few months sales were relatively brisk, mainly to friends and family. My book was in the top 10 sellers for a short time on Booklocker, the print on-demand company I used to put out my book.

All along, I was concerned that I would run out of energy and motivation to continue marketing the book. And sure enough, I did. I never thought I'd get rich off the book, but I've always hoped to at least break even. But I wasn't willing to do what I needed to do to boost sales, i.e., contact all area independent bookstores; mail out review copies blindly; push myself on local media outlets; walk around Boston with a sandwich board sign (and nothing else!) featuring the front and back covers of the book.

Of late, however, I've been pushing the book a bit more, and sales have increased a little, which is nice. I've sold a few through the Newbury Comics chain of stores in Massachusetts, had two books places in my locally owned bookstore, Newtonville Books, and seen a few copies fly off the digital shelves as well.

With summer coming to an end, I'll have more free time to promote my book, and work on other things, such as my two children's books, my novel/concept album project, and an article about a mystery in my hometown of Simsbury, CT, that I wrote about here last week (see August 24, 2011, "My Nascent Archeology Career").

So, in case you haven't gotten the point, I'd like you to go out and buy my book. Or, if you've already bought it, please recommend it to your friends and family.

As they used to say on the Bartles & Jaymes commercials, thank you very much for your support.

My Nascent Archeology Career

2011-08-24T22:26:00.003-04:00

I've long been interested in archeology: I'm fascinated by the stories of discovery in Egypt's Valley of the Kings; Jordan's ancient city of Petra; the trove of material uncovered during Boston's Big Dig project; really, any place where scientists locate and delicately reveal pieces of the distant (and not-so-distant) past.

I subscribe to American Archeology magazine.

Here's some quick background on the above photo. When I was 14 or 15, two older kids in my neighborhood told my friends and me that they'd rummaged through an abandoned house close to the nearby railroad tracks. It was full of somebody's stuff -- lots of it, they said.

So my buddy Pat and I (and maybe his brother, Bryan) hoofed it down the tracks, then slid down a hill leading to a swampy area until we got to the house. Sure enough, the place was empty of people, but full of all the things that make up a life: boxes and cans of food; framed photos; clothes; magazines, books and newspapers; a mannequin (?); pots and pans.

I imagine we went back at least one more time, although I can't recall (it's been a looooong time). I don't remember when the house was torn down. In the early '80s, when I was 18, a road was built right near where the house had been, leading over the train tracks and into a new condo development.

While I didn't know the people who had lived in the now-abandoned house, the memory of walking through the detritus of their lives haunted me for quite some time. OK, maybe I wasn't dwelling on it in college, but through my 20's and into middle age (oh man, is that what 46 is?) I've continued to puzzle through the situation. Why did the owners leave behind everything? Were they forced to leave? Who were they? How long had they lived there?

I remember that the people in the pictures in the house were African-American. I let my mind wander to dark places when I thought about these unknown folks. Did racists from my hometown threaten the family, forcing them to flee? I doubted it, but I just had no clues as to what had gone on.

Fast forward to August 2011. I joined a group on Facebook called "I grew up in Simsbury, CT." I posted a question wondering if anybody knew anything about this abandoned house, and lo and behold, two people not only knew of the house, but had visited the old man who lived there back when they were teenagers.

They told me his name was President Little (what a name!) and that he was the son of slaves. One of them said he had no family to leave anything to when he died, which was why the house was left in the condition that my friends and I found it. The other Facebook commenter said, "President was a great man, and all the kids loved him."

Well, I was thrilled to uncover a piece of the puzzle. I had a name, and the fact that the man claimed to be the son of slaves (or that somebody remembered it that way) backed up my memory of seeing a black family in pictures in the house. A quick Google search turned up some basic genealogical facts. Turns out President Little's parents weren't slaves, as they were born in the late 1800's. But it's entirely possible he was the grandson of slaves.

I also discovered that President Little had five kids, and as best as I can tell, four of them were alive in 1981 when he died. It's possible that one or two of them are alive today. So why didn't he leave the house and his belongings to one of them?

As fate would have it, I had a trip to Simsbury planned for last Friday, August 19. I played in the 7th annual Ben Nascimbeni Memorial Golf Classic. I set out from home a bit earlier than I needed to in order to try and find anything at all at the site where President Little and his family had once lived.

I turned off Route 10 onto the road leading past where the house had been, and into the development. I walked back down the road, toward Route 10, looking for an entry point into the thick woods that shield the development from the road.

Finding no path, I just plunged in, camera in hand, not caring at all about the fact that I was wearing neat and clean golfing clothes. The going was a little rough and muddy, but within five minutes I stumbled across what I figured was the remains of President Little's abode.

Upon my approach, I could tell I was in the right place. It looked like this:

I stepped carefully through the mud, and around the objects, and things began to come into clearer focus.

I was thrilled that I'd found this location that had been on my mind so often over the years. I was proud of myself for taking the plunge into those woods and so quickly locating the spot. These feelings were mixed with sadness, however, about the fact that somebody's life and belongings were slowly sinking into the muck. I was also shocked, frankly, that whoever had torn down the house had removed big items like furniture and appliances, but simply left behind these smaller items.

So what now? I'm not sure. I've talked in the recent past in the abstract sense of wanting to write a book about this house and its abandonment. Now that I've discovered the name of the man who lived there, and been to the site, strangely I feel less of a need to take on something as big as a book. Honestly, I never knew what form the book would take.

I do plan, however, on finding out as much information as I can about President Little, his family, the house, people who knew him, etc. And put together an article of some sort and try and find a market for it.

This project brings together so many of my interests: history, archeology, genealogy, my hometown, detective work. I can't say why this concept has stuck with me for such a long time. Encountering the abandoned house all those years ago made quite a mark on my psyche, and I've felt the need to solve the puzzle, even though I have just a very tangential connection to the people involved.

Stay tuned....

Well, I Almost Got On the Field

2011-08-16T22:10:00.004-04:00

I reported yesterday that I'd be stepping onto the Fenway Park diamond before today's Sox game, but alas only Owen and Beth got that opportunity (see August 15, 2011, "Chance of a Lifetime").

I hung out with Amelia while the two of them were on the field for a pre-game ceremony involving Beth's company. It was Amelia's first time at Fenway, which she enjoyed, especially the chocolate ice cream.

Owen had fun hanging with a few other kids while Beth did her corporate duty. He even got to meet Wally.

As for Beth, she made it to the big screen.

We all had fun, and our decision to leave after the 6th inning was a good one, as the score remained the same, Sox up 3-1, from that point on.

Chance of a Lifetime

2011-08-15T20:17:00.011-04:00

Tomorrow, August 16, marks the the second time that I will set foot on the field at Fenway Park. The first time was in October 2002, during the Emerald Necklace Half Marathon. That was the first half marathon I ran, and certainly the most memorable. The race starts near Boston's Museum of Fine Arts and continues near Fenway. Because the Red Sox weren't in the playoffs that year, the course ran down Lansdowne Street, under Fenway's center field bleachers, and onto the warning track. We then ran all around the park on the track, including next to the Green Monstah. It was very cool.

Still, not as cool as I expect tomorrow's experience to be.

More details will follow, but in a nutshell, Beth is going to be the on-field representative for her company in a pre-game ceremony, and the kids and I get to tag along, and then stick around the for game. We'll be there for the first game, which starts at 1:35. Jon Lester (see above) will be pitching.

More details and pictures to follow.

Put Me In, Coach

2011-08-12T11:32:00.001-04:00

(I love this picture. This is Owen's fall 2010 team, which I didn't coach, but which I enjoyed watching immensely.)

I love baseball. I loved playing as a kid and a teenager. I loved playing as a grown-up, from age 40 to 44. I love watching the Red Sox. I mourn baseball during the winter.

But I'm conflicted about coaching. In the first draft of this post (yes, I'm a journalist at heart), I went on about how coaching Owen's team this summer has been a bit of a pain in the ass. Then I read through it and thought I was being a bit of a drag, so I set to rewriting it.

Then, came the latest agonizing, I-need-a-beer-immediately-after-this-game kind of a game. And now I realize that if Owen continues to play baseball next spring (he's taking this fall off, after having played three seasons in a row), I won't be coaching. Over are my days of keeping score, telling kids repeatedly to keep their eyes on the batter, and reminding each and every kid that they won't get a hit if they don't swing the bat.

I tip my hat to those with the combination of patience, empathy and discipline to wrangle kids, teach them the basics, encourage them to have fun and let them know that the world won't end if they lose a game or don't get to pitch.

Don't get me wrong. I've enjoyed coaching. First of all, my presence behind the bench makes Owen feel more comfortable than if another coach is there. He's a shy kid on the bench, and I think my being there helps him relax a bit. I like being there with him, just as I felt good when my dad helped coach my Little League team.

Secondly, I enjoy watching a kid get his first hit, or make a really great play, or whoop it up when he (or she; we had a girl on the team for the first half of the season) scores a run. I make it a point to congratulate kids on all the good things they do, while also making sure I point out as best I can where they can do better. It's hard to get information into their heads during the game; that's what practices are for, but we don't have those in the summer.

Owen's teammates are good kids. Each one of them had at least a few good moments during this short season (we've played seven games; we've got one more next week). Sure, they lose focus more than I'd like, and they hector (I love that word) me about pitching or catching or batting first more than they should. But they're 7- to 9-year-olds and that's what they do.

And I signed up for this, so I can't complain (too much).

But it sure can be tedious. The kids have a hard time focusing, probably because most of them have been in camp all day. So when they're in the field, I spend a lot of time reminding them to keep their eyes on the batter, or to get their gloves off their heads. Because there aren't any practices, I'm constantly yelling out to them what the situation is, i.e., runner on first, one out, play it to second, tag the base. Two of the kids had never played organized baseball before this summer, so they don't always know what to do, or where to be.

I recruited two dads (Thank God!) from the team to help, so they take part in this, too.

When we're at bat, it's more of the same. Reminding each kid to keep his eye on the ball, swing hard, keep your back foot planted. When they're on base, we spend a lot of time telling them the number of outs, run if it's on the ground and go part way if it's in the air (unless there are two outs).

Yes, I know, this is what coaching is. And for the most part I enjoy it. But this is all done on two feet; there's no sitting down. God, I sound old, don't I? Anyway, the games are slow, because most of these kids (at least on our team) are just learning to pitch, so there are a lot of walks. In an effort to keep the free passes to a minimum, the league instituted a rule by which if a pitcher walks two kids in an inning, and throws four balls to a third kid, that batter is then pitched to by one of his coaches, until he gets a hit or strikes out.

Our penultimate game was a tough one. One of the kids refused to take the field if I didn't let him pitch. I told him I needed him in a different position, and then his mother and I spent about five minutes cajoling him into taking the field so the inning could start.

Later in the game, another kid got very upset because he hadn't pitched in as many games as his brother, and this was their last game, and it wasn't fair, in his view. I assured him he'd done a great job in the field, and that's where I needed him. His father is one of the assistant coaches, and helped smooth things over. Still, I never thought I'd be so exhausted and exasperated during a three-inning Little League game.

We've only got one more game, and Owen's not planning on playing in the fall, so before you know it I'll be complaining that I miss coaching Little League. Because I love baseball.

Sucked Back In

2011-08-07T21:45:00.002-04:00

After a few years away, I've been sucked back into the vortex of black ops, government conspiracies, and UFO's.

My fascination started when I was a kid, looking through my parents' copy of "Chariots of the Gods," which asks questions such as, "Did astronauts visit the Earth 40,000 years ago?" and "Did extraterrestrial beings help set up the giant stone faces that brood over Easter Island?"

I don't remember the answers, or frankly reading that much of it, but the pictures were cool and made me think about ancient civilizations and wonder whether it was possible that aliens had visited, say, the Incas.

I, like so many kids of my generation, was very taken by Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," some of which I'm watching as I type this sentence. Thanks Retroplex!

Anyway, it's not like I obsessed about UFO's when I was a kid, but when I got into college I began thinking about them more. I wrote a short story in my 20s about two young brothers who see an alien space ship. The younger brother wants to tell their family, friends and the world about it, because he's just so fascinated by it. The older brother believes that if they talk about it in public, people will think they're crazy. I don't remember the exact ending, but it definitely gave the younger brother (basically me) the upper hand.

Of course, later in my 20s I got into "The X-Files." I loved the one-off episodes, which dealt with all sorts of odd characters and spooky sightings, more than the government conspiracy aspects that took over, and eventually ruined, the show.

I read Whitley Strieber's Communion, in which the man known up to that point for horror novels The Wolfen and The Hunger details his alleged encounter with extraterrestrials.

And several years ago I began writing a concept album about UFO's, which I have subsequently used as an outline of sorts for a novel with the working title "Area 51 Is for Lovers." My plan is to complete both an album and the novel and market them together in digital form.

So I think it's safe to say I've put more thought into the extraterrestrial phenomenon than most people my age. But of late I'd taken AboveTopSecret.com and other conspiracy web sites off my regular browsing list. I spent my time a little more constructively: finishing my collection of short stories, trying to launch myself as a children's book writer, raising my kids, coaching Owen's baseball team, etc.

OK, I did discuss UFO's with my buddy Jay Kumar for his excellent podcast, Completely Conspicuous, back in February 2010. You can check it out here.

But, seriously, I've not given much thought to alien spacecrafts and nefarious government plots for quite some time. But I just finished reading Annie Jacobsen's "Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base," so now I'm back on-line, both in the sense of wanting to know what's up with top-secret military projects and possible alien incursions, and in checking out some of my old favorite web sites.

I used to be positive that Earth had been visited by aliens. In the galaxy, with its billions of stars, I figured, there must be at least one planet out there with a civilization advanced enough to locate another planet with advanced beings, and to figure out how to travel through space to get here.

But after having finished "Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base," by Annie Jacobsen, I believe that a lot of what gets reported as UFO's are actually secret government projects. Area 51 is the place where the CIA and the Air Force developed spy planes and drones. Nearby locations that are part of the Nevada Test Site have seen hundreds of nuclear bombs detonated over the last half century.

Jacobsen does a great job documenting the history of the super-secret site, which the U.S. government has never acknowledged. Or it has, depending on whom you ask. She talked to numerous former employees of the CIA and the military who worked at the site starting in the '50s. The stories about the Cold War, and overhead reconnaissance, nuclear testing, spy projects and the like are fascinating enough.

But then at the end of the book (SPOILER ALERT!!) Jacobsen drops the biggest bombshell of them all: the only unnamed source in her book claims that he was one of five engineers (and the only surviving one) to have worked to reverse engineer the infamous UFO that crashed in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.

He claims the craft had Russian writing inside, and that the "alien beings" that have long rumored to have been inside were actually genetically or biologically altered, child-sized humans. The engineer claims that his team was told that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had recruited the most heinous Nazi doctor of them all, Josef Mengele, to aid the Russians in their effort to pull off a UFO hoax that would throw the United States into a "War of the Words"-type panic. Mengele, known for his demonic surgeries and medical abuses of twins, Gypsies, Jews and other minorities in Germany, provided the Russians with children, or very small adults, with enlarged hears and saucer-like eyes, the book claims.

The aircraft that they landed in was controlled remotely, goes the argument, and the Russians' hope was that when they landed on U.S. soil, the government and people who think we'd been invaded by aliens and that all hell would break loose.

The engineer also claims that his team and subsequent ones not only worked to reverse-engineer the craft, but also performed tests on humans similar to what Mengele and the Russians had done.

I don't know what to think about all of this. Last week I went online and found reports citing many of Jacobsen's named sources, and they say she's way off with this claim, and that she included it only to sell books. Of course, taking the word of men who spent their entire adult lives keeping secrets for the government is rather difficult to do. Are they helping to perpetuate what Jacobsen claims is the real reason that Area 51 has never been acknowledged? That rather than as a way to keep all their airplane and bomb technology in the black, that what the government really is doing is hiding the fact that we engaged in unspeakable human testing in the name of fighting the Cold War?

Frankly, just about any scenario seems possible to me. I believe that during the Cold War, paranoid men did crazy things. Some of these actions were necessary, sure. Preventing the Soviets from putting nuclear missiles on Cuba was a must-do. I condone spy planes and satellites, although I wish they weren't necessary.

But the number of nuclear bombs that the U.S. government detonated -- in Nevada, in the Pacific -- is just ridiculous. Those events caused damage to the environment and surely to humans and animals in the area. Others were just purely evil in their disregard for what might happen. For instance, the Atomic Energy Commission (now the Department of Energy) detonated a thermonuclear device in the atmosphere, despite protestations from the scientific community that doing so could possibly set the planet's ozone layer on fire.

Reading Jacobsen's book makes we wonder what's been going on at Area 51 for the last 30 years or so. She doesn't cover that time period, because the government hasn't declassified anything since the late '70s. The technology that has come out of Area 51 is amazing: stealth bombers, which were in the works since the late '60s but didn't get perfected until the late '70s; drones, which are now commonplace in our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but which were first envisioned in the '50s; bunker-buster bombs; the march of military hardware goes on.

So I have to think that whatever's been in the works out in the Nevada desert for the last few decades has got to be pretty incredible. Do the current projects relate to cyber wars? Biologial warfare? Battle field cyborgs? Who the hell knows?

In the course of writing this, I did some online research and learned about Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, which some folks in the conspiracy industry call "Area 52." These folks, including the dudes from History Channel's "UFO Hunters," say that since Area 51 was exposed in the '80s as the place where so much military-industrial-espionage work goes on, much of the black ops works has shifted to Dugway.

So now I've got another place to obsess over. Great.

I'll use my newfound momentum to finish my album and novel. And maybe some day I'll take a trip out west to see these top-secret locations, and camp out in hopes of seeing some crazy, unidentified lights or space ships, all the time wondering if anybody will ever discover the truth that's out there.

You Ain't B.A.D., You Ain't Nuthin'

2011-08-03T15:17:00.005-04:00

Please forgive the title's reference to Weird "Al" Yankovic's "Fat," a parody of Michael Jackson's "Bad." But that video just cracks me up.

Anyway, I went to see Big Audio Dynamite last night at Boston's House of Blues (which is a much different place than the original, Cambridge-based HOB, but let's save that discussion for another time) with my friends Jim and Ken. We ran into my buddy Jay, and we all had a good time. We laughed, we ate, we drank beer (except Ken) and we danced a bit.

I found it funny to be at the show, because I was never a fan of Mick Jones's post-Clash band. I wasn't alone in thinking it odd that I was in the crowd grooving along to "Rush" and others of the band's hits. Ken brought up on more than one occasion before, during and after the show, the fact that in the late '80s I had taken great pleasure in making fun of B.A.D.

I joined Jim because his lovely wife, Nikki, had bought tickets for Jim's birthday. Ken signed on just a day before the show. Although I wasn't expecting much from the band, I have to admit I had a good time. I knew more songs than I figured I would. Sure, I found some of the songs a bit boring and sloganish (is that a word?). But it was cool to see something a bit different than what I usually see, and to have the legendary Mick Jones be the central figure, well that was pretty damn great.

Kid Stuff

2011-07-31T17:12:00.011-04:00

In November 2009, I was struck with the idea of writing a children's book. My son, Owen, loves subway trains, especially Boston's MBTA system. In trying to find Christmas gifts that year that related to subway trains, I didn't find much other than a few books that were below his reading level. I figured I'd try my hand at writing a children's book or two about subways.

I started out simple, with a rhyming alphabet book for preschoolers. I shopped it around to literary agencies, but got little interest. One agency, having read my query letter, asked to see the whole manuscript, but eventually turned it down. At the same time, I began working on a subway-themed counting book. I completed a first draft on that one, but haven't returned.

As for the alphabet book, that, too, took a back seat once I set my sights on finishing "(C)rock Stories: Million-Dollar Tales of Music, Mayhem and Immaturity," the short story collection I'd been working on for nearly 10 years.

After my short story collection was published, in late December 2010, I spent some time marketing and promoting that book. Eventually, Ireturned to my alphabet book with fresh eyes. I still liked the book, but figured I could use a few other opinions. I sent the manuscript to a few friends and family members, looking for honest feedback that would help me get it published.

I received constructive criticism, for which I am thankful. Still, I'm having a hard time hammering a new draft into shape. The basic problems, as one friend pointed out, were that the book mixed in too many technical subway terms, and it didn't tell a story

Now, as regular DaveTronik 2000 readers are aware, I'm pretty familiar with Boston's subway system, and with the trains, especially on the Green line, having taken countless trips with Owen. I grappled with the idea of making the story specific to the MBTA, but after considerable time spent trying to fit the rhymes and letters into that mold, I abandoned the idea.

Lately, I've gone back to the drawing board, trying to tell a story that follows the rhythm and pace of the trips that Owen and I take. I'm having better luck with this idea, but I'm still finding it very hard to tell a story, make it rhyme, and use preschool-level words. I'm going to get it done, but it's taking longer than I'd hoped.

When I'm satisfied, I'll try shopping it directly to publishers. I don't have an illustrator on board, but my understanding is that if a publisher likes the idea, they'll put an author in touch with someone to do the art. Seeing how I'm not a celebrity, the chances of publishing a picture book are small, but I know that my idea is fresh and if I can show them that I have at least one other similarly themed book in the works, that can only be to my benefit.

(Since my foray into children's book writing was inspired by my nine-year-old, I've of course also thought about writing chapter books for kids his age, but by the time I get around to that, Owen will be way too old to care about them.)

Now, here's a complicating factor: in recent weeks, I've been making up bedtime stories for my daughter, Amelia, who's four. I've created two characters that I'm considering using for books. I'm not going to let out too many details, and I'm not sure if I'm really going to follow through, but I get excited when I tell stories to Amelia using these characters, and would love to explore them on paper.

OK, all this kid talk has made my thirsty for an adult beverage.

I Love a Parade...and a Carnival

2011-07-27T09:52:00.002-04:00

Each summer growing up, I looked forward to the annual Simsbury Volunteer Fire Company's carnival the way a drunk joneses for his next bottle of booze. The carnival was held the same week in July. The festivities opened on a Wednesday (or maybe Thursday) and went through the weekend, with a parade on Saturday night. I got almost as excited for the parade, with its scores of area fire departments, marching bands, trucks, police cars, clowns throwing candy, etc., as I did for the rides and games of skill at the carnival.

I loved the Ferris wheel, the Rotor, the Spider, the Goolamajig -- OK, I don't remember the names of all the rides, but I loved everything about the whole event.

I would go to the carnival on one or two of the early nights. It was held at Weatogue Park, where I sometimes played softball, or knocked around golf balls or just ran around or rode my bike. I loved the games, from tossing a ping pong ball into a fish bowl (I'm glad I never won; I didn't actually want the fish), to pitching nickels in order to win all sorts of glassware: Miller beer mugs, parfait glasses, ashtrays (it was the '70s), banana split dishes -- you name it, I won it and stashed it in my closet for years and never used any of the stuff for anything other than storing loose change.

On Saturday evening, my family and I would walk down to the corner where our road, Mountain View, met with the parade route, Latimer Lane. We'd hang out with my friends the Keegan boys and bounce around until the parade started. We could see up the hill to where the parade started. There was always a police car at the head of the line, and when we saw it moving down, we'd yell out, "It's starting! It's starting!"

Fire trucks from all around Connecticut and parts of Massachusetts (and perhaps Rhode Island and New York) streamed by, honking horns, blaring sirens, flashing lights. There were bands made up of firemen (there may have been a few women, but it was mostly men back then), a high school band or two, with baton twirlers. Old fashioned fire trucks, ambulances and other public safety vehicles filled things out.

My high school's theater group even rode by in a truck, promoting whatever show they were putting on that summer ("Guys 'n' Dolls," "The Fantasticks," etc.). It was quite the community event.

The parade wound about another mile or so to the carnival grounds. My friends and family, of course, made our way to the park, usually taking the train tracks as a shortcut. The firemen had a special section near the back of the grounds, near the brick tower where they performed rescue and fire drills, where they caroused with their wives and families. I used to think it would be so cool to hang out in that roped-off area.

After more rides and games and food (cotton candy, popcorn) I went home, my carnival and parade needs sated for another year.

The next morning my friends and I walked back down to the park to look for money, discarded prizes and anything else of value. One time, I found a $5 bill, and being the goody-goody that I am, I turned it in to some people breaking down the event, just in case someone came back looking for it.

The fire department canceled the event in 2000, after nearly 50 years, after realizing that the amount of work that went into the event wasn't worth the meager tally of dollars flowing in. For more, see this article.

In 1979, when I was 14, a local church, St. Mary's, started a competing carnival, which still runs in June after 32 years. While that carnival doesn't have an attendant parade, and never seemed quite as glamorous as the firemen's carnival, I'm glad my hometown still has an event like it.

I was reminded of carnivals and parades after recently taking some pictures at the St. Mary of Carmen Society festival in my adopted hometown of Newton, MA. Known as "the festa," the event is put on by an Italian-American group associated with a local Catholic church.

The carnival, which I've attended with Owen in years past (although not this year), runs from Wednesday to Sunday in the middle of July. At 10:00 on the final night, there is a candlelight procession from the parade grounds to the church. Parishioners and residents of The Lake, as the section of town is affectionately known, follow behind a statue of Mary, singing songs in Italian and holding candles. Along the route, people launched numerous fireworks, which add to the festive atmosphere, but, in my opinion, take away some of the solemnity.

I walked right in the procession, alongside many older Italian-American men and women, and although I had no idea what they were singing, or had any sense of the tradition, I was moved. I have no ethnic customs in my family, so whenever I get a chance to soak up somebody's else's, I enjoy it.

The procession ends at the church, where a local girl dressed as an angel is hoisted up above the faithful, and tosses flowers.

Afterwards, most people filed into the church. I, of course, didn't.

I vowed to return next year, however, to get better pictures, and to witness the Sunday afternoon procession, during which parishioners attach dollar bills to the statue of Mary.

Vacation

2011-07-22T09:14:00.010-04:00

We spent a week on Cape Cod earlier this month, as we've done for the last nine years. We rent the same house with Beth's parents, her sister and brother-in-law and their son, Max. We had a good time going to a nearby beach, riding on the Cape Cod Central Railroad, visiting the Heritage Museum and Gardens, eating fried food, watching the MLB All-Star Game, going for walks by the salt marsh and riding go-cars and bumper boats. Oh yeah, and drinking beer, margaritas and Old Grand-Dad.

One thing all three kids -- my two, Owen and Amelia, and their cousin, Max -- loved to do together was launch stomp rockets. As you can see, Max knows how to throw himself into it.

Inevitably during our time on the Cape, talk turns to buying a place in Pocasset, the section of Bourne where we rent. The discussion is usually more fantasy than reality, because let's face it, the idea of owning a vacation home is Part II of the American Dream, after owning a primary home.

I'm always the voice of gentle dissent in these discussions. I'm not handy and have no desire to ignore projects around a vacation home in addition to my primary home. I like going to the beach for short periods of time, and am not a boating person. The main reason I cite when trying to dissuade Beth about the prospect of buying a second home, is that I don't want to feel tied to one place for summer vacations.

Growing up, I never thought about my family owning a vacation home. It seemed like something that only rich people did. Although my family didn't travel to faraway locations every summer, we went to some terrific places and had some cool adventures.

Here's a brief list of my favorite spots:

Montreal

Washington, D.C.

Grand Tetons/Grand Canyon/Bryce Canyon/Great Salt Lake

Torrington, CT

I envision taking such trips with Beth and the kids, which is why I'm reluctant to get tied down to the Cape. Owen turned 9 in May, and Amelia 4 in June. They'd be able to handle trips like the ones I recall fondly from my childhood. We plan on taking them to Disney World in October, which, while I'm not big on mega-resort experiences, should be a lot of fun.

Other spots I'd love to take the kids in the coming years include:

New Mexico

New Orleans

San Francisco

Egypt

Petra

There are countless other places around the U.S. and the world I'd love to explore. Beth and I have never been big on travel, but with the kids getting older I think it's time for some adventures. Of course, I still value our time on the Cape each summer, so we'll have to find a balance.

Where I'm From

2011-07-19T07:38:00.005-04:00

This is the house where I grew up, in Weatogue, Connecticut:

This place was the center of my universe for the first half of my life, until I was 23. I grew up there with my older siblings, Steve and Beth, my parents, Dick and Joan, and our dog, Lucky. Here, I learned the value of education (my parents were both teachers); the passion of being a Red Sox fan; the wonder of playing a musical instrument (my mom played piano; I played clarinet first, then took up the guitar); the importance of treating everyone equally; the thrill of playing baseball; the joy of spending holidays with my extended family; and the excitement of punk rock, thanks to college radio stations WWUH (91.3, University of Hartford) and WESU (88.1, Wesleyan University), on my boombox radio.

When my parents decided to move out of 29 Mountain View Road a few years ago, I felt a part of me was being ripped away. The thought had never occurred to me that they would leave. I thought they would always live there, and I'd be able to soak up childhood memories during visits for holidays, birthdays and other family events.

But they didn't need all the space, and wanted to move some place where they could live on one floor, so they wouldn't have to go up and down so much. So they readied the place for sale, and in December 2006 they moved to a new place in an "active adult" community in Windsor, about 20 minutes away.

I thought I'd really miss the house where I grew up, and that I'd want to drive by the place whenever I was in the area, talk to the new owners, see what they'd done with the place, reminisce about my childhood, etc.

To be honest, though, I haven't thought about the house that much in the years since my parents moved out. Sure, I think about good times I had there, and I harken back to a childhood in the neighborhood filled with baseball, football in the snow, the summer camp at the elementary school behind the house, riding bikes around with my friends, exploring in the woods and along the brook near my house, climbing on the roof of the school during the Blizzard of '78. But I don't have any desire to visit the house, or talk to the owners. I don't feel like I've lost anything by letting the house go.

This holds true with every place I've lived, no matter how long or how short a time. After college, I moved numerous times before landing in the house where I am now with my wife and kids. We've been here 7 1/2 years, and I hope we'll be here for decades to come. When we sold our previous house, in West Roxbury, I certainly drove by the place once in a while, but I didn't really miss it. Same with previous rental houses or apartments.

Turns out it's true that home is where you hang your hat. Of course, no matter where my houses or apartments have been, and regardless of where they may be in the future, that hat will always be a Sox hat.

Heredity

2011-07-08T14:30:00.005-04:00

("Big Alex," Felton Street in Waltham, MA)

I was reminded during a recent visit with my sister how much I loved big rigs when I was young. She's five years older than I am, and told me that to this day she remembers the difference between a cabover and a conventional truck tractor because of how obsessed I was with spotting 18-wheelers.

Previously, I hadn't thought about how similar my one-time appreciation for big trucks is to my 9-year-old son Owen's current love of subway trains. I used to ride my bike down to the heavily traveled Route 10 in my hometown, Simsbury, CT, so I could spot trucks. I would hang out for quite a while, trying to get them to blast their air horns. And when they did, I got a real thrill.

I was totally into CB radio lingo, even buying a book so I could learn some in case I picked some up on my walkie talkie while I was watching trucks. Did I watch "BJ and the Bear" on TV? Yes, I did. Did I love C.W. McCall's "Convoy" when it played on the radio? Yes, I did.

I've never seen "Convoy" the movie, however, which I need to rectify.

In the last two years or so, Owen and I have gone on close to two dozen trips on the Boston subway system. He loves the trains, the stations, the noises, the connections between places. I love to take pictures and see parts of Boston I don't usually see from the highway or local streets.

Just as I now take my son on subway trips, my dad helped feed my truck obsession, although not to anywhere near the degree that I help Owen. My dad took me to a truck dealership in Hartford once, and explained to a driver outside how much I loved trucks. Faster than you could say, "10-4, good buddy," I was climbing up to take a look in the cab.

Another time, on a family vacation out west, we stopped for the night at a motel in Salt Lake City. I was in the outdoor pool and saw a truck pull into the parking lot. Once again, my dad asked, and once again, I got to check out the cab.

Also, I loved the "Smokey and the Bandit" movies when I was a kid.

And I had a favorite 18-wheeler when I was a kid. In the center of Simsbury was a factory called Ensign Bickford. They had a red-white-and-blue cabover Peterbilt parked there with a double sleeper. I used to dream of breaking through the security fence and driving that thing away.

Why did I love trucks so much? Because they were big, and loud and the best ones had huge chrome smoke stacks, running lights that lit up the night and the guys driving them looked like cowboys. I imagined that driving a semi truck was all fun: traveling the open road, being your own boss, sleeping in the truck like it was a camper, meeting people from all walks of life.

Now, like me, Owen dreams of one day driving a big rig, although a subway car is a much different beast than an 18-wheeler. He loves the Green Line more than any other, and keeps track of which trains we've ridden (they have four-digit numbers prominently displayed), which ones have derailed in the past, which ones have been repainted. His favorite stations are Government Center and Park Street, because the trains squeak the most as they come around the bend at those stations.

And, like my sister, I've learned a lot from exposure to a young boy's deep interest. Thanks to Owen, I know the difference between a Kinki train and a Breda train, for instance.

I wonder what Owen's kids will be obsessed with. Maybe spaceships.

What's In a Nom?

2011-06-30T09:02:00.000-04:00

Last December, I published my first book, a collection of short stories called "(C)rock Stories: Million-Dollar Tales of Music, Mayhem and Immaturity." The fruit of 10 years of labor, the book was originally subtitled, "True Stories of Fake Things That May or May Not Have Happened." The 15 stories carry the unnamed narrator (AKA, me) from high school through his late 20's, as he discovers punk rock, goes to gritty clubs, fights off perverted street people, survives three Butthole Surfers gigs, fails with girls, fights with friends and learns that sometimes loving a band means hating who they are.

Click here to read a really nice review that one-time Billboard rock columnist Ed Ochs wrote of my book.

I have other books in the works. OK, when I say "works," I mean that I've worked on them, but not lately. One of the books is a novel about space aliens, government cover-ups, road trips, love and archeology. It has a companion soundtrack of original music. The whole project actually started out as a concept album, but I turned it into a novel nearly four years ago. And then figured I could handle both a book and an album. It's gonna be a while before it's done, but it will be done.

I also have two children's books "in the works."

When talking to a few parents at my daughter's preschool last month, including one who has a children's book in progress, I mentioned that I was writing a rhyming alphabet book for preschoolers. And the director of the school, who I've known for many years, said, "And you just published a book of short stories."

And one of the moms said, "Oh, cool. Is it for kids?"

No, I said, it's for grown-ups.

Herein lies my problem.

Do I write the children's books (I have a counting book "in the works" as well) under my own name? I would feel weird publishing under a pen name, but I don't want to confuse (or scare off) potential buyers of children's books who realize that I've written a collection of short stories filled with swears and adult situations.

I have no idea if a publisher would push me in that direction. "(C)rock Stories" is self-published, so it's not likely to sell many copies (under 100 to date after six months on the market), so maybe a publisher wouldn't care.

I've thought about using initials before my last name (D.J. Brigham), or using my mother's maiden name (David Bogert). Or something totally made up and unrelated to my name (Dagger McTavish). I know I'm putting the cart before the horse on this. I still have to finish the books and find somebody to publish them.

Any feedback from folks who've run into this problem, or know somebody who has, or who just want to toss out noms de plume just for fun, I'd love to hear from you.

I'm Here Now

2011-06-27T16:24:00.000-04:00

Not long after my editor's job at Webnoize was vaporized by a tornado of bad management decisions, in November, 2001, I began renting the domain name DaveBrigham.com. I didn't do much with it at first, but I viewed the site as a place that would serve both as a personal blog and a space to promote my freelance writing career.

I took a little time around the 2001 holidays to just relax, and after the turn of the year, I began looking for a new job. I interviewed for a position at the New England Historic Genealogical Society, and was asked back for a second interview. I'd previously been a member at NEHGS and done quite a bit of research into the Brigham family, so I was excited at the prospect of joining the society.

I felt I was a bit overqualified, however, but thought it would be a good idea to do the second interview for practice, if nothing else. In the midst of this process, my wife, Beth, and I were discussing day care options for our first child, who was due in May. Among other things, we discussed the idea of my staying home with the baby after Beth went back to work in September of that year.

That sounded like a good challenge, and a great way to bond with my first child. So I declined the second interview, and decided I would try my hand at full-time child rearing. I had been doing some freelance work, and figured I would continue once the baby arrived.

Once I took over stay-at-home dad duties after Labor Day, I realized how difficult it was to mix freelance work with a baby's schedule of feeding, napping, activities, diaper changing, etc. I soon dropped out of the freelance business, although I dropped back in on occasion, writing CD reviews and conducting artist interviews (for free) for music web site Junkmedia (you can find a complete list of my writings for them here) and a few pieces for a newsletter published for members of the Society for Commercial Archeology.

Eventually, I realized that if I wasn't going to use DaveBrigham.com to promote a freelance career, I had to do something with the site. So I turned it into what I initially called a "non-blog" because I hated the term and wanted to pretend I was doing something better or different. But I wasn't.

I posted updates on life at Case de Brigahan, pictures of the kids, the occasional piece of fiction, random musings, streamable songs I recorded with my son, Owen and, my biggest undertaking, a multi-part retelling of a road trip I took with friends in 1988. I was faithful to the site for many years (I've lost track of how many, and the archive on the site isn't complete).

I enjoyed updating the site, and receiving feedback from friends and family. But I never liked the interface for publishing. Every time I updated the site, I would receive a message telling me that my browser (either Firefox or Safari) wasn't optimal, so I wouldn't be able to do all the magical things that PC users could. That was fine, I dealt with it.

But then Facebook came along, and I came to realize that it was much easier to post pictures there and just link to them on my blog. And then I started a blog called The Backside of America via Blogger, and really enjoyed how easy it was to set up a good-looking site, insert photos and links, tag items, receive feedback and separate out each posting.

So I came to the decision to let DaveBrigham.com lag, and start things anew here on Blogger.

What am I going to be doing here?

Glad you asked.

Look for the usual updates on life in general -- Owen's baseball games, Amelia's progress on riding her bike, subway trips with Owen, vacation pictures, etc.

I'll also be writing book reviews and linking writing-related posts to my page at Goodreads.com. Additionally, I'll post more music from my MegaChips project with Owen, and occasional videos.

The new and improved DaveTronik 2000 ("On the Cutting Edge of Last Century") will also serve as a marketing spot for my first book, "(C)rock Stories: Million-Dollar Tales of Music, Mayhem and Immaturity." I'll also update readers on other books in my pipeline.

So there ya go.