Back to Steve Johnson

I received in the mail this week a CD entitled Bluestoons, by Steve Johnson. I was pleased to receive the unexpected disk, and listened to it right away. (The prolific Johnson just does not slow down!)

It’s a solid blues album with catchy rhythms and some nice blues riffs. It’s solidly produced, the gratifying “East West” being my favorite cut on the disk. After two listens I can say I truly enjoy it.

Which is saying a lot. I know my own taste in music, and most of the CDs that I buy I know I am going to like. But I have received numerous recordings and CDs as gifts, and I am not always as pleased with such gifts as I was after receiving Bluestoons. For example, I am unable to locate my Zamfir album, with apologies to my friend George. It has not stood the test of time as far as my musical tastes are concerned. (Also, Shawn Drover with Megadeath gave me their Countdown to Extinction album while I was in Los Angeles in 1992, and I think I passed it on to someone months later with the cellophane still on the cassette.)

But there have been times when others have shared their musical tastes with me and the album has stayed with me over the years and remains a favorite in my collection.

The first is Sting’s Ten Summoner’s Tales, which my roommate brought home after its release in 1993. (I had been a fan of the Police, but had not followed Sting’s solo career unitl that point.) We listened to the songs on that album together that night, and there was not one on the disk that did not immediately capture my imagination. Sting has been a favorite of mine ever since.

The other is Now is the Hour by the Charlie Haden Quartet West. Joining the jazz bassist on the disk are pianist Alan Broadbent, Ernie Watts on sax, Larance Marable on drums as well as a string orchestra filling out the cuts on this CD. It’s good jazz, but mellow, West Coast jazz, and was a gift from my friend Mike in 1996. It remains one of my favorite disks to this day.

Honorable mention goes to Tim for Sam Phillips’ Martinis and Bikinis and to Curt for Cachao’s Master Sessions.

Will Steve Johnson’s Bluestoons stand the test of time and rank as one of my favorite CDs years from now? We’ll have to wait and see. In the mean time, might I recommend the book Show Me Microsoft Windows XP by the ever-versatile Steve Johnson? The man just will not slow down!

Sun Breaks

This weekend seems to be going remarkably well, and I think the reason is that I awoke yesterday morning to a whole lot of blue in the sky and a very bright sun.

Seattle this time of year is typically gray and rainy. I heard Sting comment once that Seattle reminded him a lot of home, meaning England. I have never been to England, but I hear it’s often grey and rainy there, too.

I had not heard “sun breaks” forecast by TV meteorologists until coming to Seattle. Sun breaks are short periods of time during the day when the gray ceiling opens up a tad and actual sunlight breaks through the clouds. It can be a glorious thing after six or seven straight days of drizzle.

When much-needed sun breaks do happen, they are always commented upon, with gratitude, by appreciative Seattleites.

Sunshine often provides amazing restorative physical and psychological properties to Seattleites. I heard somewhere that Seattle sells more pairs of sunglasses per capita than any other major American city. I don’t know if that’s true, but I personally have gone out and purchased sunglasses because of an unexpectedly sunny day.

Here is a rundown on my sunglasses:

Pair 1: Cheap drugstore variety. $8. Plastic tortoise shell frames with very dark lenses. I carry them in my laptop bag. They are with me almost always, serving as my emergency redundant backup pair.

Pair 2: Foster Grants for about eighteen bucks, metal frames, modern design, purchased while out of town and finding myself unexpectedly bathed in sunlight. This pair is kept in a little case in my wife’s car.

Pair 3: Very similar to Pair 2, purchased at Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, SC, under similar circumstances. I keep them in the sun visor of my car.

Pair 4: My “good” sunglasses, purchased at the Bon Marche in downtown Seattle after someone had placed a $70 pair of sunglasses on the “$14.99 or LESS” rack. It is without a doubt I chose the best pair of sunglasses on the $14,99 or LESS” rack. I was too embarrassed to tell the cashier of the mistake and went ahead and paid for them. These I keep in their case in my car.

The other sixteen pair I have purchased since moving to Seattle are spread out across Seattle in a variety of restaurants and coffeehouses, including the Broadway New American, B&O espresso, the Elephant and Castle, the late Minnie’s Cafe and the now-demolished Palmer’s.

The blue sky and sunshine I woke to yesterday are gone. Forecast for today? Rain. All day. But I am still hopeful for a few sun breaks.

From a Post Card

Steve Johnson loved ketchup. "I love that rich tomato flavor," he once said. We had been discussing the double-LP Peter Gabriel Plays Live. Steve would spread ketchup on toast. "Why not?" he replied when I called him on it. "It's the jelly of the tomato family."

Steve used to keep ketchup packets in the pocket of his waistcoat. He called it his packet pocket. "In case I get an itch for a tomato shot," was his explanation. "It's that pick-me-up that gets me through the day."

Others disagreed.

"That's pointless," Tim H. told me, about fifteen years ago, when confronted with Steve's penchant for tomato shots. Steve would tear open the ketchup packet and squirt its contents into his mouth, an act that Tim found mildly revolting.

Tim would take "salt hits" before exams from little Morton's packets he would pick up at Hardee's.

John T. preferred tartar sauce.

What did Jay K. prefer? "Mayonnaise. In packet form. Preferably Duke's. I cannot abide Hellmann's," he told the Post and Courier.

As Big as Four

January 22nd. Today is my daughter’s birthday -- she turns four!

This morning I woke her up and held up four fingers. “How many fingers am I holding up?“ I asked. Big, wide grin. She doesn’t miss a thing.

She got up and stood in front of the mirror and asked me if she were bigger. I told her she was as big as a four-year-old today.

And she is.

We are having a birthday party for my daughter and her little friends this afternoon, and the children want to dress up and pretend to be princesses. So my wife made some little princess skirts out of colorful material, and the kids are going to make little crowns to put on their heads so that they can pretend to be princesses.

There will be only one prince at the party. His name is Miles. He will be here with all of these other little girls. But he can hold his own.

For her birthday I bought my daughter a big house for her Barbie dolls to live in. (Right now, Barbie is living in a cardboard box with a window cut into it.) The new Barbie house is pretty neat. It has lights and a doorbell and a shower and furniture and everything. I know she will enjoy it. She already enjoys playing with her Barbie and Kelly and Wonder Woman dolls and dressing them up.

Wonder Woman is my favorite.

My mother-in-law came into town for the birthday party, and she and Caryn made a birthday cake. I think everybody will have a good time.

Even Miles.

Sunday: Penguins, Loaves and Fishes

I have just concluded Sunday breakfast with a steaming cup of chamomile tea.

This is day three without coffee, and no headache yet. Since becoming ill with an upper respiratory infection Thursday, I have given up the coffee in favor of juices, chamomile and green teas, and have yet to experience any adverse effects. So far so good. Let's see how long I can last...

I always enjoy Sunday breakfast. It is the one day of the week my family is together during breakfast time. (We are often together Saturday mornings, but not always). Sunday usually means the biggest breakfast of the week, and sometimes my wife will fry bacon or sausage or cornedbeef hash and make homemade biscuits and we will eat so much that we don't want lunch until two in the afternoon.

Sunday also means Sunday paper, and I have been pleased with the return of the penguin Opus to the Sunday funnies. I was a huge fan of Opus in the 1980s, when I was in high school and college. Steve Dallas, the womanizing lush of an attorney from the 1980s comic strip "Bloom County," has appeared recently in Berkeley Breathed's "Opus" Sunday strip. Seeing attorney Steve Dallas back in action -- now graying and raising a son -- reminds me that 1985 was twenty years ago, and that I, too, am graying and raising a child.

And on Sundays I often take my child to Sunday School.

Recently, the Three-Year-Old class learned about the loaves and the fishes. In the story, Jesus is preaching to a huge crowd of people and everybody gets hungry. So a couple of fish and five loaves of bread are gathered by the disciples and Jesus then performs a miracle by feeding everyone with such a small amount of food.

The miracle did not register with my daughter, but the gathering of the loaves and fishes did:

DADDY: What did you learn about in Sunday school today?
HARPER: About Jesus.
DADDY: What did Jesus do?
HARPER: Jesus talked some kid out of his lunch.

Lost on Gilligan's Island

My friend Michael pointed out to me on the telephone yesterday that "Gilligan's Island" and "Lost in Space" were essentially the same show.

I added that among the obvious thematic similarities there was another aspect to both shows to consider:

One show was supposed to be funny, but usually wasn't.

The other show was supposed to be quite serious, and was often unintentionally funny.

A Bitter Pill

On October 10th of last year my friend Peter and I attended a St. Louis Rams game at Qwest Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks. By the middle of the 4th quarter, the Seahawks were up 27 to 10 over St. Louis. But the Rams pulled it off, spectacularly, winning the game 33 to 27 in overtime. Seattle crumbled in the fourth quarter. The Rams stepped up and did what they had to do to win the game.

Peter and I were bitterly disappointed.

The Seahawks fell to the Rams again five weeks later, this time in St. Louis. The final score was 23 to 12, Rams over the Hawks.

Now, with the Rams returning to Seattle for the NFC Wild Card playoff game, I thought it fitting that Peter and I attend together, and offered him the ticket.

All week meteorogists had been calling for a winter storm in the Puget Sound region. We’d had snow in the North Sound, and in the mountains and foothills, of course, but nothing in Seattle but a little rain. As of Wednesday, they were calling a game day forecast of low-30’s and snow flurries and a wind chill in the 20’s.

Peter grew up in North Dakota, and I was sure such bitter temperatures for a football game were not intimidating to him.

But in the end the weather forecasters were wrong. It was cold, but not bitterly so. And we of course saw no snow. (We did see a bit of rain, which, interestingly enough, marked the first time it had rained on the Seahawks at home in Qwest Field.)

In the end, however, it was Peter and I who were bitter: Rams 27, Hawks 20.

Maybe next year.

Excuses and Dead Dogs

I have not posted anything in some time, and it is mainly because I have had little to say.

Or perhaps what has been on my mind translates poorly here. I have become less than an intermittent blogger. I have become a lazy one.

Besides, what else can be said about the tragedy in the Indian Ocean?

In November I traveled to South Carolina for nearly two weeks, leaving me rather busy at the office the remainder of that month. I posted nothing in November.

And in December I was occupied with completing a short story called “The Third Christmas Tree,” which is the fifth in my Christmas series, behind “The McBeezles and the Christmas Tree,” “The Mean Spirit of Christmas,” “J.T. Thornton’s House of Freaks” and “Merry Christmas from Medford Orchards.” I send these stories to members of my family as Christmas gifts.

A few friends in Seattle saw this year’s story well before most of my family on the East Coast. Problems with the mail. Also, I think I inadvertently sent most of them Media Mail instead of Priority Mail. I should have double-checked with my postman, Juan, but I did not.

I received a call yesterday that brought me some cheer. A friend named Danny had loaned “The Third Christmas Tree” out to someone at a Christmas party, and I guess the thing had gotten around. This woman in his office had asked Danny for more Christmas stories, and Danny obliged her. He reported to me on the telephone yesterday that his friend said she read the one from two years back very, very slowly, so that it would not end too quickly.

For any writer, that is a fine complement.

(This is the same Danny whose wife would not allow “Merry Christmas from Medford Orchards” read to their small children. She’s right. The story is PG. The death of the dog is rather traumatic, even for me. Furthermore, Danny‘s Labrador Retriever and my Labrador Retriever are sisters, and the dog that dies in the story is a black Lab, and was based on our two dogs.)

Speaking of dead black dogs, I have just completed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a novel by Mark Haddon. The book opens with the night-time discovery by an autistic boy of a murdered poodle on the lawn of a neighbor. The book is presented as the boy’s own diary, and his investigation into the death of the dog leads him to uncover family secrets that turn his world upside down.

I do recommend the book. Its power is in its unique point of view: that of a fifteen-year-old autistic boy who fears the colors yellow and brown, cannot relate to other human beings, and whose life must be perfectly ordered. I recommend the book unless, of course, you are bothered by the image of a black dog on a lawn with a garden fork through its chest.

Snow

HALLOWEEN CONCLUDED

Things are now running a bit more smoothly. I have the dog in check, and have learned that it is easier to distribute candy by the handful, instead of straining to carry the handle-less cauldron to the door with each ringing of the bell.

I have systemized the quantity distribution of the candy. Most kids get two. The kids with the superlative costumes get three. Older kids who barely try only get one. (In 1995, when I lived alone, I gave teenagers who did not bother to wear any costume at all single-serving packets of Sanka, out of spite.)

I must admit I am enjoying the costumes. I find it refreshing that the costumes thus far have not all been licensed by Disney. Not a single “princess,” thankfully. (I could go on at length about the “princess” craze, but this is neither the time nor the place.)

Mostly tonight I have seen more traditional Halloween costumes: a legion of witches, three devils, a lion, a horde of ninjas, seven Spider-Men, a parrot, two bears, one Super Man, a mish-mash of zombie types, a few vampires, more than a handful of masked ghouls, and most peculiarly, a kid in whiteface with fangs wearing a Spider-Man costume. I guess the idea was that somehow Peter Parker, having already been bitten by a radioactive spider, was also bitten by Lestat.

The biggest disappointment of the year: not a single Bat Man among them!

Halloween - 6:26 PM

The first Trick-or-Treaters have arrived! I was alerted to their presence on the stoop not by the doorbell, or the taunts and giggles of mischievous children without, but by the low growling of the black Labrador standing watch in the living room.

With great enthusiasm I rushed to the front door, the growling Labrador in tow, and was greeted by witch, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and a well-attired toddling bee, all of whom excitedly cried out, “Trick or treat!”

Taking the giant, over-full plastic cauldron of candy in my hand by the handle, I opened the door.

Two things, then, happened simultaneously, both of which got tonight’s Halloween festivities off to a poor start.

As soon as the door was open, and I was hovering over the stoop with my cauldron of chocolate candy, the dog went for the bee.

I cannot blame the dog entirely. I myself dislike bees and their cousins, hornets and yellow jackets, and I can only assume that Polly was attempting to protect her master, as all good dogs should.

At the same time, the cauldron’s handle, stressed as it was by the enormous weight of the candy within, gave way, and all nineteen pounds of chocolate bars spilled out onto the stoop.

I then attempted, at the same time, to both control the dog and to rescue the grotesque mound candy from a possible rush by the witch and the turtle; the bee, sensing that it was the focus of the 75 pound dog’s inner rage, took flight.

Chaos ensued.

It is 6:30 PM now, by my clock. Things have been more or less restored to normal (I have all but abandoned trying to re-attach the handle to the cauldron) and Polly and I are awaiting our next group of unsuspecting costumed freaks.

Halloween - 6:06 PM

Tonight is Halloween, and I am alone in the house with a large black dog and an enormous kettle of chocolate candy. My wife and daughter have elected to drive to the home of friends in another neighborhood to have chili and dress in costumes and Trick-or-Treat.

I am therefore on my own, tasked with the dissemination of nineteen pounds of candy to any and every errant costumed kid that might ring my bell.

To enhance the mood of the occasion, I have illuminated a jack-o-lantern that I carved just this afternoon from a pumpkin, and have dug up John Carpenter’s soundtrack to the film Halloween which I have on vinyl. A few carefully placed candles have completed the mood I have chosen for tonight’s costumed Trick-or-Treaters.

So far, business has been slow. Nonexistent, actually, and that worries me. Though it is just after six o’clock, it has been dark for some time now, and the costumed candy hordes have yet to come. The reason I am concerned at this point is that I went a little overboard while purchasing the treats. Safeway had them on sale, and I loaded the cart with every conceivable chocolate bar - Twix, Payday, Butterfinger, Hershey’s, Nestle Crunch, Baby Ruth, and so on.

There is a lot of chocolate here.

More than I could consume in six months if the costumed rascals fail to turn out in great numbers.

I hope they come.

The Verdict

Sitting on a jury was, for me, a humbling experience. A form of service to the community that is vastly under appreciated. Many people gripe and complain about jury duty, or joke about it, and I suppose I, too, have been guilty of the same. But the simple fact of the matter is: while I and my eleven colleagues on this jury in King County, Washington, may have found ourselves inconvenienced with the time we spent away from our jobs and our homes, and while we may found ourselves woefully underpaid for what is such an important obligation for society, the fate of a defendant was solidly in the hands of myself and eleven others.

How can anyone take such a grave responsibility lightly?

In our criminal case, the accused had already been arrested and charged. He had one shot at justice: the twelve men and women in the box, listening to the evidence.

In the end, the prosecution failed to prove its case and the defendant was acquitted.

After the trial, the judge, prosecutor and defense attorney spent a few minutes in the jury room with us discussing the trial. Both the prosecutor and the defense attorney were candid in explaining their strategies to us, and were interested in how we as a group went about coming up with our verdict.

The conversation was informative and enlightening, and I was reminded again that the process works in this, the greatest free society in the history of the world.

Voir Dire

On Monday the 11th I reported to King County Superior Court as a potential juror.
I can say that as of today I am sitting on a jury hearing a criminal case. To say anything further would violate my charge as a juror.

Here is what I can tell you:

During the voir dire I managed to get a laugh out of the courtroom. The question posed to me was to relate to the court any prior jury experience I had. Here is my response:

“I served five days on a jury in a civil case in which homeowners filed a lawsuit against the builder for shoddy workmanship. I again served five days on a criminal case, a defendant charged with aggravated assault and attempted murder. I also played Juror Number Seven for several weeks in a community theater production of Twelve Angry Men.”

These days I am known as Juror Number Eleven.

A Frivolous Response

I was engaged yesterday in paying for merchandise I had won on Ebay, and the seller, located 2,400 miles away, requested that a check or money order be received via US Mail by Monday, essentially one mail day after bidding closed on the item.

I received an email from the seller, signed Stacey, wondering where her check was. She needed it to arrive immediately. I suppose she was in dire need of the $3.05 I owed her. Out of courtesy and for reasons of protecting this troubled woman's privacy, I have not reproduced her email to me. I am, however, posting my own excessive and frivolous response, for what it's worth:

Stacey,

I am at a loss to understand why you would pounce upon me so crossly; I am stung by your words. I am sorry that you are so angry. I wish that I could help in some fashion. Send you an Ethiopia Yergacheffe.

Of course I have made payment. I am not without honour.

Yet I am not surprised that you have not received it; I have only just tended it to the United States Postal Service. But I wanted to alert you that that your customer HAS MAILED PAYMENT to the address you provided, although if you are expecting to arrive by Monday, October 11th, you have been undoubtedly misled by what one might assume to be opponents of the United States Postal Service.

This is how the envelope was addressed:

Stacey
[Last Name and Address Withheld]
Deerfield, NH

The envelope was printed for the sake of clarity, as opposed to handwritten. I read somewhere that the postal service machines can read zip codes printed on envelopes more easily than those that are handwritten.

Do you know your "plus four?" Juan asked me about that. If you knew your "plus four." I do not know your "plus four." Why would I? Juan only laughed. “Ha ha.”

PLEASE ADVISE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE IF YOU DO NOT ACCEPT PAYMENT BY U.S. MAIL. If this is indeed the case, I do not know what to do; ring up the Postmaster I suppose and plead my case to have the envelope returned. There are courier services out there, and I suppose FedEx, options I could explore if you force me in that direction. My Uncle Mortimer refused to accept anything from the U.S. Postal Service his entire life. He was picked up by the Dekalb County Sheriff's Department twice in his adult life for failing to appear for jury duty.

You post in your listing that you accept money orders, but there is nothing in there about not accepting mail. Standard mail will take many days; priority mail takes three or so days. I paid for First Class Mail, which is a registered trademark of the United States Postal Service. The envelope is on its way to you in Deerfield, although even with First Class TM postage affixed, my mail carrier, Juan, assures me that it will not arrive by the 11th of October. "You confuse with those other guy," he mumbled to me yesterday out by the mailbox in his customary broken English. "Ha ha."

Your demands have shaken me in ways I prefer not to be shaken; indeed they are a bitter pill to swallow. But I digress.

I can only hope and pray that my money order sent First Class TM via the U.S. Postal Service is sufficient. I will make inquiries with a friend who is a Postal Inspector in Wichita, to see what he can do about moving this thing along. I figure Wichita is about half way to you, maybe not quite half way. There is a place near I-70 near Garden City there that makes the most succulent potato cake I have ever tasted. If you are ever through there, stop in. It's called The Moses House. Ask for Duke.

Do you like potato cakes?

I will close with the words of L.A. real estate developer Dominick McSwain, spoken to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947, "How about a little smile, comrades? Hides the wrinkles." (The quote has often been misattributed to Bertolt Brecht.)

Sign me,
Distraught in Seattle

Watching the boats with my daughter at Lowell's in Seattle

Grits with my Salmon

When I moved from the heart of Dixie to the Pacific Northwest in 1998 I was prepared for many changes. And there were quite a few, both expected and unexpected.

After moving here I traded up on many things. Life got better. So did the view from my apartment. There were many things to be thankful for.

Yet there were other areas of my life in which I took some hits. And I did my best to stay thankful!

For the most part, though, it's pretty much the same. I am still the same person I was, with more or less the same likes and dislikes, beliefs, fears, and so on. And life in the Pacific Northwest is pretty much as it was back east. Except for, of course, the utter lack of oppressive summer heat and humidity.

Oh, and the rain. Can't forget all this rain.

And the beautiful trees they've got out here. Special Agent Dale Cooper was on to something, I believe.

And geoducks. Certainly no geoducks back east.

Did I mention the rain?

In fact, everything here is different. Completely different.

I'll come in again.

When I moved from the heart of Dixie to the Pacific Northwest in 1998, I traded:

• Batchelorhood for the married life
• Sunny days for rainy ones
• Fried flounder for baked salmon
• "Coke" for "pop"
• Maxwell House for Starbucks
• Sweetened iced tea for unsweetened ice tea
• Tropical storms and the occasional hurricane for earthquakes and volcanoes
• Mustard-based barbecue for...whatever it is that passes for "barbecue" out here
• Shoney's for Shari's
• A "mean-and-three" for sushi and rice
• Panthers for Seahawks
• Bombers for Mariners
• Gamecocks for Huskies
• Hootie for Pearl Jam
• Grits for hashbrowns

Well, no. No on the hashbrowns. For some things, there just are no substitutes, no matter where you are.

I'm keeping grits on my plate, thank you very much.