1. I remember when my dad and I took my nephews to see the movie Avatar my dad said that he had read a short story very similar to the story entitled Call Me Joe. I looked it up when I got home, and sure enough the novellete by Poul Anderson, published in 1957, told the story of a disabled man controlling a remote being on the planet Jupiter. Evidently there was no lawsuit filed for copyright infringement, but James Cameron did rip off other sources for the story of Terminator and had to award a settlement. 

Just the other day I was with my dad and just asked him out of the blue how in the hell he remembered reading that story and connected it to Avatar when he only read Call Me Joe once around fifty years ago. He can just do that. He is always telling me stories from way back in time with an insane memory for detail.

2. I'm watching a six part documentary called I'll Be Gone In the Dark on HBO about a woman trying to solve the case of a murderer/rapist in the Bay Area from the 1980's who raped fifty people, killed 10, and was never caught. She was actually married to comedian Patton Oswalt, so he is in the film too. The details of these home invasions are so vivid, descriptive, and terrifying that I actually paused it to check that all of the doors were locked. 

3. Every day is pretty much the same in terms of the three things I try to get done: Work on my continuing education program online, work out, and write a blog. Today I completed 2 out of 3. The work out didn't really happen unless you count the shared bike ride/walk home from the mechanic and then again to go pick up the car when it was done. Also I spent over $400 on the car and made $0, so that's not a good pattern for the summer. 

Hope everyone is doing super. Drop me a comment about something you're doing to stay productive, a show you're watching, or a new thing you're doing during quarantine. 

Case Logic Inspires Logical Music Choices

Get a look at that. Yup. That right there is a book full of CD's that is currently in Latifah (My cars always have Black chick names. No idea how that started). I unpacked them all out of the cases years ago and found the biggest book offered on Amazon to transfer them into to save space. Do you know that I am such a nut about my outdated tangible music format that I took the back covers out to slip into the sleeves so that I wouldn't lose any paperwork? Also, how could I part with some of these discs? You see that album on the left that reads, "Thirteen?" That is an album by a group called Horny Toad with Louichi Mayorga, founding member of Suicidal Tendencies. He came into the record store I worked at to drop off a few copies, but sadly I wasn't working that day. That album is one where if I threw it out I just know that I would never think to look it up down the line. And even if I did, I would never find it. The Horny Toads live on inside Latifah!

The giant book of CD's has been sitting on a shelf for years now, but something made me take them to my car one morning. I have been having a blast spinning some classics (classics to me, that is). The other day I played Jane's Addiction's "Ritual De Lo Habitual" all the way through. If you go through the effort of putting back the last disc, thumbing through for your next one, slipping the new one back into the player, and especially if you are driving during that whole process - then you're going to damn well listen to the whole thing.

This was the beauty of tangible music, and those days are long forgotten by many and never even known by newer generations. But, my god, I forgot how fantastic Jane's Addiction was. As I was playing those songs I got to thinking that girls loved that band too. They had a sexiness about them with the grooves they played, and they were all tattoo'd up rebel surfer types but with a hippy vibe. They had a heavy but funky aspect to their playing, a lot like the Chili Peppers, only Jane's had a good singer.

I'm off to a beach vacation tomorrow with my in-laws for a week, so I wanted to be sure to keep up on blogging weekly. I know I won't get a chance at the beach house. Your Mission, Seven Readers: Find a piece of tangible music and play it. Report back to me with your findings. 

If You See My Friend, Kindly Look Him In the Eye and Hand Him a Shovel.

We have had a big snow storm here in Chicago.  It is in the top five in the city's history.  The other day I got a text from my buddy, LaFontaine, and it was a picture of his car totally submerged in snow.  What happens around here is it snows a foot and a half of powdery fluffy snow.  Then the snow plows come by to clear the streets but they blast the slushy stuff and tons of snow that buries your car.  To put the finishing touch on, then the temperature drops and all of that snow and ice gets hard and frozen all around your ride, freezing your door shut, and freezing the path ahead and behind you.  Then you have to poke your shovel hard into the snow like a pick ax (the plastic ones are no good), and even then your tires will likely spin and smoke will rise from the rubber you are burning off your tires in vain.  You have to budget an extra half hour to an hour in the morning before work just to shovel yourself out, and then you had better keep that shovel in your trunk in case you get stuck again on your way to work.

So LaFontaine later sent a second text saying that he was successful in getting his car free, but he said that that wasn't the hard part.  The hard part was cold calling a white lady (LaFontaine is Black man) a few doors down to let him use her shovel.  I just pictured him saying, "It's cool.  You can just leave it on the porch and go inside and lock the door.  I won't step any closer until you get inside . . ."

Isn't it sad that racism and fear is still so prevalent in the world?  We can't even band together in our hour of need during a storm to help our fellow man without letting our fear and ignorance get in the way?

I think I can see the top of LaFontaine's car!

Did you guys get hit by this beast of a snow storm?  Also, why the F do I live here anyway? . . . 

Mrs. Noisewater and I are going to miss some things about this apartment.  Hearing the drunks congregating in our alley having loud conversations filled with "WOOS!" is not one of them.  This often wakes us up out of a dead sleep, and then they hang out by the dumpsters and we can make out every single word they say.  I never could figure out why they would want to smell garbage while they converse, but then the other night we could gather from their conversation that they were doing cocaine.  Lovely!  As I have said in previous posts, rather than telling them to shut the heck up, like some of my neighbors have done, I prefer to just interject, chiming into the middle of their conversation.  They suddenly hear from above, "Is that pretty good coke?"  The problem is that they would probably want to talk about that all night with me, so I would have to add something creepy like "Can I come down there in my pajamas and do a bump?  And then maybe you guys can come upstairs with me and cuddle?"

Anyway, one thing I am going to miss in this hood is the middle aged Black man on the block who takes excessively meticulous care of his sky blue circa 1991 BMW.  The thing is dented all over the closer you look at it, which is no surprise because he parks it on the street in a busy section of Chicago - a great way to get dinged.  He is down there when it's cold out warming up the engine while he fusses over cleaning the interior or checking the oil, but I have never seen him actually go anywhere.  Sometimes I will see it parked in a slightly different spot, suggesting that he has taken it for a spin, but it's always returned to the same side of the street.  It's not so much that I'll miss him, it's that I'll never figure out his story/solve this mystery.

In case I don't get a chance to talk to my favorite OCD neighbor to get an explanation, something I will be doing if I see him again before I go, would any of you like to wager a guess at why he behaves this way with his "beemer?"

I have a new post over at The Liars Club.  I don't say this often, but I kind of think I knocked this one out of the park.  I was going to do proper post here, but then I got sleepy.  More to come, but for now, get a look at this:

Cash for Kind Cars

I let people in a lot when I drive, but there are a lot of people who don't. Why would they, right? If you truly believe that whether you do the nice thing or the not-so-nice thing, that they're out of your life five seconds later either way, then of course you're going to keep going, avoiding eye contact (I hate that move).

So, how do we increase Letter Inners and decrease Selfish Buttholes?

I propose a game show like Cash Cab, where you could randomly let in another motorist, and sirens, lights, and a bullhorn would start going off on a car, telling you to pull over, and they would hand you a big wad of cash. I think if we knew there was a car like that out there, we might drive a little less selfishly.

What do you think?

Oh, one more idea. How about the cash car would let other people in and would give money out to people who gave a thank you wave?