Rick Webb dot net

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So. I have obstructive sleep apnea. I have had it for years. I've always known it. When I went to Tunisia in 2001 with my friend Nick, he was so obsessed with my massive, violent snoring that he filmed a short video to show me how bad it was. My girlfriends through the years have been tolerant or not tolerant in varying amounts through the years. Because I am a business owner, I have been able for years to sort of work around my apnea - I can, to some extant, set my own hours. When looking back through the years, it's interesting. It's interesting how my inability to get enough sleep lead to my massive desire to sleep in. It's interesting how that lead to a very liberal set of work hours in the early years, and how that shows through even to today in our fairly flexible work hours for non-client facing staff.

As we've grown, however, some of these perks have needed to take a bit more formal shape - we still have formal work hours, but people need to be here for a fixed set of yours at the core of the day so people in various time zones can work together, etc. Interestingly, it is those self-same new needs that lead me, finally, this year, to think about doing something about my apnea. Additionally, Emma is a very light sleeper, and my snoring has bothered her a fair amount. So these two things combined lead me to decide to take some action.

I'm sort of an anti-hypochondriac in a lot of ways, and even though every sign has pointed to bad apnea for a lot of years, I've kind of figured it's all sort of BS, and I really don't have it, and it's no big deal, etc. etc. But my doctor convinced me to get a sleep test a month or so ago, and I did it. The results were pretty dismal. Very dismal. The doctor conveying the information sounded very worried for me. It was decided that I needed a CPAP mask, stat. A CPAP mask is basically a mask you put over your nose and hook up to a machine and it applies continuous air pressure through your nose and forces the uvula and the tongue, and makes it so you can breathe properly.

I'd much rather they just cut off my uvula - there is maybe a millimeter between my uvula and my tongue in the best of times, so chop that sucker off, right? Well apparently surgery only halves your number of sleep interruptions per hour - and they like you to be under 20 or so interruptions per hour. I am at 45. So on its own, surgery won't cut it. Ha. Cut it. Get it?

So, the rough plan is CPAP, then some weight loss (which has been going well already - 15 pounds! did you notice?) and then with the weight loss and surgery hopefully I can go off the mask. Great.

So I went in last weekend back to the institute to get fitted for the mask. You have to get fitted because they need to calibrate the amount of pressure - too little it doesn't work, too much, well, I guess you like blow up or something. After two hours of adding all these electrodes to me, and glue in my hair and wires everywhere, then they don the mask. And it's this moment where all of the sudden you're completely depressed. They have ARCHAIC equipment at this institute. I've been looking at CPAP sales websites and they have all these sleek, awesome, small machines and tiny little nose masks so you look sort of like a diver in Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Cool little nose straps. But here there is this giant fucking mask, and not one machine but two, each the size of a wash basin. Great. Suddenly every ounce of coolness, hipness, or youth is sucked out of you. This is the rest of your life. It's painfully depressing.

The nurse sees this happen in you, and she sees it happen five times a night, every night, basically. You can tell she feels bad, but there's not a lot she can do.

Still, though, you're tired, the mask is on, it's halfway comfortable, and you can breathe great, and you think "okay, maybe this can work."

Then another goes by while they try and get their archaic machine to send data. It doesn't work. After another 30-40 of trying, they give up, they send you home.

So. Now. I have to do it all again. Do I go to the place with the archaic equipment? I got my original appointment through my doctor. I emailed him my problem, asking him to get me into another institute, where he originally wanted me to go, but he literally didn't understand the question. So.. now.. I have to try again with him, or go to the original institute. And, of course, the insurance company. I have to call them because you just KNOW I'm going to get billed for this shit. Isn't that lovely.

Health care. Such a pain in the ass. And it doesn't help the whole time they're like "you are going to die if you don't get this fixed GLOOM DOOM MISERY DESPAIR." SO I feel like I just want it NOW. Better rest? Weight loss? BRING IT ON.

But now... at least another month.

Ugh.

One more before bed:



I'm not doing best of yet. I still have to see a few more. But here's my annual list. New releases only. Using this list.

Che parts 1 and 2
Bride Wars
Paul Blart: Mall Cop
Underworld 3: Rise of the Lycans (man this year started off weak)
Taken
He's Just Not That Into You (curse you emma)
Coraline
The International
Scott Walker: 30th Centure Man
Watchmen
Sunshine Cleaning
Valentino: The Last Emperor
American Swing
Monsters vs. Aliens
Fast and Furious
Adventureland
Hannah Montana the Movie
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
Caprica
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Star Trek
The Brothers Bloom
Up
The Hangover
Food, Inc.
The Proposal
Transformers: revenge of the fallen
Brüno
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
(500) Days of Summer
On HIs Majesty's Secret Service
Funny People
District 9
Inglorious Basterds
Whip It
Zombieland
Couples Retreat
Where the WIld Things Are
Antichrist
The Fantastic Mr. Fox
New Moon
Up in the AIr
Avatar
Nine
Sherlock Holmes

46. Weirdly, 4 more than last year. Awesome.

It's looking like I'm not going to be doing health month this year. I can't put my finger on exactly why. I think I just.. I dunno. It fucks with me too much. But here are some various concerns:

1. I don't smoke anymore, very often, and I am wrestling with the lozenge. I want to quit it. It's making my voice raspy. It makes my heart race. But it's going to be complete hell quitting the thing. It's going to kill me, and I can't imagine doing it right now with work and the integration, let alone while not being able to eat cheese or drink or something.


2. I've been reading Michael Pollan, and I can see that my original rules are a bit fucked up (though very useful for weight loss, which I still desperately need). I'm trying, roughly to start following his rules about processed foods, etc., and I've been making progress, but it's slow. I'm not ready for a big jump in.


3. Aside from nicotine, it's clear to me the other thing I really need to get a handle on is my Diet Coke consumption and I am so so not ready to deal with that, even though I know I need to.


4. Exercise is a big problem for me, and I want to tackle that.


5. I'm too busy to make a rules-based system that i will undoubtedly fail in, and feel bad about myself.


6. I have to go to SF, and to Korea, and my parents will be here, and there are too may situations in which I will need a drink.

So, I have distilled all that, and this is broadly what I think I'm going to try to do this month:

1. keep the lozenges to a minimum - less than 4 a day
.

2. My friend Madeline is trying for "no hangovers" - I'm going to try something similar. And I'm going to try to confine myself to Wine


3. I'm going to try and follow the "eat only food, mostly vegetables, not too much" dictates. Which basically means I'm going to try and give up Doritos and fast food (my only real vices in that realm).


4. I'm going to get my treadmill fixed and try and exercise 3 days a week


5. I'm not going to obsessively track any of it.


6. I'm not going to get bogged down by mean people on the internet


7. I'm going to try and keep a lid on the cheese consumption - no pizza deliveries and no cheese in the house.


8. I'm going to probably break all of these rules a few times and not sweat it.


9. I'm gonna do a few weighings now, for a start weight, and at the end of the month, for end weight, and hope to lose 5 pounds.

Well, that's about it. I'm sorry to let everyone down. I got shit to do and I don't feel like feeling bad about fucking up.

A few points:

First, it is patently absurd to spend 1/12 of the year - fully 8%+ of the entire year - looking back on things. Ridiculous!

Secondly, too much happens in december! I have four more trips to go! At least 20 restaurants! This is madness.

I will do this, but in my typical, annual way, I'm going to do it all between Christmas and New Years, this year, holed up in the Golden Nugget Hotel, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

I have been meaning to write about this for a while, since one day this spring when the memories of this time of my life came crushing back to me. I've almost never talked about it in my adult life - not for any drama, not for any deep, dark secrets, but... perhaps out of habit. Out of muscle memory for the painful, pointless, adolescent embarrassment that the period coincided with. I can't say. I do think it's time to exorcise it, though, and to make it mine. So onward.

Despite growing up in Alaska, or perhaps because of it, my mother made every effort to raise her children with a musical education. Piano lessons began at around age eight, if I recall correctly. I think it was age eight, because trumpet began when they let you start playing in the band in elementary school, which was fourth grade, or age nine. And piano came first.

I loved piano, but there were a dearth of piano teachers in Fairbanks, and mine, though she was wonderful, was classically focused. Some of this was necessary, as a student learns the basics. I banged and pounded my way through Hanon's warm-up exercises and various etudes and simple piano pieces. I say "banged and pounded," since nuance and dynamics were not things that were of interest to me. This extended to school band, where I chose the trumpet, originally, simply by putting my lips to it and unleashing a godawful squaawk! and thinking "Yeah. This is the instrument for me."

The classical foundation was, of course, necessary, but I was much more interested in learning to play the synth parts of the various pop songs and the ricky, meaty ten finger chords from the piano ballads I heard on the radio. My piano teacher, Mrs. Wallace, resisted these urges. (Later, much later, my teacher would take a two-fold approach to a compromise - letting me play some cheesy piano ballad whose score I had picked up at the local music store, in exchange for consenting to play more classical fare. She's worked around my hopeless lack of dynamics by selecting musicians who fared well under my pounding fists - most notably the Russians such as Rachmaninoff, and some of the more contemporary classical composers such as Alberto Ginestera - a pounder's paradise if ever there were one on the keys.)

But, alas again, that was later. Much later. Nearly ten years later. In the intervening years, my urge to play other forms of music was almost completely unfulfilled, save for the occasional aforementioned pop music scores I'd find at Music Mart. These, however, only went so far when you had a full rehearsal docket of Brahms and Handel, as well as a practice card for band requiring five 30 minute practice sessions a week, to be signed off on by a parent, as well as classwork, and never mind playing doctor with the neighborhood girls. Not having someone to teach me and coach me through Lionel Ritchie's "Say You, Say Me" or Bruce Hornsby's "The Way It Is" made it even more impossible.

Years of frustration went by. Actually, I could do the math. From age 8 to age 13. Five years. No pop music issuing forth from my desperately modernist fingers. And then, somehow, my mother alighted on the solution.

The origins are murky, though of course, now, I realize that my mother probably always had this planned. She had, after all, set me on this musical path - she played the piano and sang in the choir and taught me all about everything from Ralph Von Williams to Bob Dylan before I made it to Kindergarten. By the time I was thirteen, though, I probably thought it was my idea to go to the University of Alaska Summer FIne Arts Camp, having gone through some fairly painful Alaskan-style summer camps, the stories of which are for another day. Wherever the idea came from, however, I can say with confidence that upon my first year of summer fine arts camp, my life was changed for good.

The memories of it are totally murky, and since they came rushing back to me this spring, I have been trying to piece them together. I went to the camp for four summers. I think. Maybe five. These were the summers of my adolescence, and there was so much change through the years that it's almost impossible to recall anything in a coherent series of events.

First, there were the musicians. Musicians from all over the state. This was something of a shock. There was band, of course, at your school, so you knew the other trumpet players you sat with and competed with for first chair, and the cute flautists and clarinetists that you had crushes on, born in exotic locations outside the state or raised by mysterious, disciplinarian parents who insisted their Korean, Sikh or Hatian offspring be the best. And there were adjudications, for piano, throughout the years previous - once or twice-annually affairs where all the piano students in the city of Fairbanks gathered at the public library to play on one of the three good pianos in the town - a Bosendorfer - while some out-of-state adjuticator passed judgement on your playing (curiously, this is where I finally learned about my lack of dynamic sense, and became acutely embarrassed by it, despite years of my teachers pleadings to learn pianissimo. Somehow the outside critique stung more). But aside from these, musicians in alaska were in a bubble. You got the sense there weren't many of them around.

So to arrive at Fine Arts Camp and discover trombonists and timpani players and harpists and jazz bassoonists - it really was eye opening. Reassuring. Overwhelming. Welcoming. Scary. Amazing.

I remember walking into one of my group piano classes (group piano class?? who knew there was such a thing!), and some precocious, snooty 14 year old I had never seen before (she was home schooled) was playing, perfectly, the theme song to a recent film, composed by an 80's one hit wonder I had liked (okay, okay, it was Lihmal's theme to "Never Ending Story"). Who was this person? Where did she come from? How did she manage to learn this song? Where did she even get the score from? She was one of many. Cool veterans of fine arts camp studiously scoring their own arrangements of new wave hits in advance arranging classes. Glockenspiel players! Glockenspiel!

Then there were the classes and the teachers. I remember learning what the 12 bar blues were and feeling forever changed. I didn't even like jazz, but just understanding such a basic, primal structure to so much music was incredibly powerful. Learning improvisation techniques - something so important to my thinking about music now, but heretofore completely unheard of. Improvise? You're kidding, right? You follow the score, you follow it exactly, and the if the piece is supposed to last 3:15 in the Glenn Gould version, then by god, you better be close to 3:15. But here, suddenly, were dozens of different teachers, styles and techniques. I took a classical malleted instruments class. Jazz improvisation - every year. Rock Piano (on Fender Rhodeses - my first introduction to such a heavenly instrument). I learned to play the harmonica. I expanded my trumpeting into jazz trumpet. I took my first guitar lesson - and hated it (guitar wouldn't hold appeal to me until I discovered the bliss of delay and fuzz). It was an unending smorgasborg of eye-opening musical magic. Marimbas. Vibraphones. Farfisas.

And then! And then! Let us not forget the name - this was Summer Fine Arts Camp, not Summer Music Camp. The music curriculum was just part of the fun. There were photography classes - I first learned to use a darkroom in my time here. For as much as my mother was a music buff, my father was a photography buff, and bought me my first Pentax K1000 when I was 11. It was here, though, that I truly began to understand the device's mechanics and the full process (I had always sent my film away previously). And print making classes - something I could never quite get the hang of, much to my consternation later in life. And Macintoshes! I first discovered the joy of Photoshop at Summer Fine Arts Camp. Painting. Figure drawing. Pastels (I loved pastels - I was such a pussy). There was so much.

And the other attendees... well, what can I say? Essentially every artist from 13 to 18 in the State of Alaska, all in one place. Along with innumerable student performances throughout the months, they had three student dances as well - social gatherings. The few times I've thought of Summer Fine Arts Camp through the years, this is the part that I almost always thought of. I made my first friends here that were anything like me. They changed my life. They gave me my life.

It was here, in the summer of 1985, that I first heard Peter Hook's haunting falsetto refrain that permeates New Order's "Temptation." I can still remember the first time I heard it, and I can still feel the reaction I had to it. I had heard nothing like it in my life. It's still a remarkable work, but then, in Alaska, it was unbelievable. Thinking back on it, it boggles my mind that this even happened - "Temptation" came out in 1982 or so, and somehow, in three years, it had found its way halfway across the world to Fairbanks, Alaska, to become a dance hit, unaided by the internet, New Music Express, radio airplay, MTV or even a halfway decent record store. I usually think of my friends at Fine Arts Camp as being older than me, and therefore "in the know," but it is really amazing how they found out about all this music so quickly. It was here I also learned about Joy Division, Depeche Mode, Tones on Tail (though not Bauhaus or Love and Rockets, which I had learned about in church, weirdly), and so much more. Billy Idol. The B52s. Roxy Music. Through my four or five years attending camp, the dances became, literally, the highlights of my year.

And it was here that a girl first ever told me she liked me. I still shudder at how terrifying and confusing it all was. I had had a crush on her for ages, but was a typical adolescent male, unable to think straight or see past my own nose. It was only when she explicitly, undeniably told me that she liked me that it started to click. It was not my first kiss, but it was the first I can ever remember. I doubt the girl, who went on to become a famous cheerleader in our district, even remembers it. I doubt she remembers me, but she changed my life.

So many memories blow by. I grew up at this camp, but time has blended the years together. Playing video games at the student union. Sitting in the seats of the giant concert hall (oh, man, what was it called? I will have to look it up. Oh, got it. The Charles W Davis Concert Hall), watching my flute playing crush practice in the symphony. Glowing with pride and embarrassment when she'd wave from the stage. Seeing my friend Dylan arrange and score New Order's "Elegia" and watching him conduct a string quartet as they played it. The choral practice room (oh man! I forgot! I sang in choirs there too! Church choirs. Jazz choirs. Doo wop. Everything I could get my hands on). Learning that the choral room was named after my father's godmother. The dances in the Great Hall. Learning the drum parts to Soft Cell's "Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go" that we just HAD to hear, in its entirety, at every dance. The dark rooms. The printmaking studio. Sitting out by the fountain, everyone trying to look cool, desperately wanting to meet everyone but too cool to admit it, or just too scared.

Years later, in college, I went home for the summer. I met a girl. I fell in love instantly. She went to another school, in another district. When I worked up the gumption to finally talk to her, she said, "I remember you. I was three years younger in Fine Arts Camp and I had the hugest crush on you." I met her at the campgrounds above the university. We walked down to the camp, which was in session. People remembered me, people remembered her. Their approval of me sealed my fate as an acceptable prospect for her to date for the summer. If the camp people thought you were okay, you were okay.

What amazes me now, thinking back, is how much of my life was influenced by this camp, and yet how little I think of it, and how I never pieced it together through the years. It just sits there, in the back of my mind, like your mother's care or the town you grew up in - something so intrinsic to your being that it's hard to even call it an influence. And it amazes me to think about all of this going on in Fairbanks, Alaska. When people ask me what it was like growing up there, I inevitably talk about the cold, the pain, the loneliness, the dark, the misery. But what were all these artists doing there? Hundreds of art students in a city of less than 30,000. How is it anyone in Alaska knew about the Smiths in 1986? Or the Cure, before Kiss Me? Who brought these things there? I don't think I'll ever know, but I do know that it was Summer FIne Arts Camp that brought them to me.

I love the sensation of riding through all of London in a London Cab. Crossing the whole town, late at night, with no one else on the road, drunk in the back of a real London Cab. You've drunkenly babbled out the address of your hotel - you don't have to give the name, or the cross street, and no matter how obscure, and how slurred you say it, off they go, never asking a question about how to get there.

You head south, and things look unknown and vague. You were told that night that 28 Days Later was filmed in this part of town, and it looks it. Real london, not the center. People live here.

Then gradually things become more recognizable. This used to be around Camden Town, but I can start to pick things out by Kentish Town now. Then a quick turn and a route you don't know, and you're into the unknown again, eventually coming out somewhere on oxford street, and all of the sudden everything is familiar. There's the first Top Shop I ever went into. Your old late night drinking club is on the right. The Apple Store should be coming up now. Ahh yes, there it is. But you're staying in a new part of town, so again you plunge into the unknown. Only it's not the unknown, it's the parts of London you always see, but never can piece together. There's Marble Arch. That's weird, that doesn't seem to be on the way to your hotel, especially when the next thing you see is the London Eye, but somehow it all just works and makes sense. Big Ben, kids. Houses of parliament.

And then, like that, one last turn happens, and you're at your hotel. Blake's or Charlotte Street or St Martin's Lane or the Saunderson or wherever it is this time. A different one every time. What was the name of the one you stayed in with your sister? Eight Hundred dollars a night, with a private terrace and a king sized, dual temperature zone, moisture absorbing Tempurpedic bed that still ranks as the greatest bed you've ever slept in? But not this time. This time you've chosen an upscale suites style hotel, gorgeous but stupidly cheap on Orbitz for some reason, and you're on a budget these days. South Kensington. A new part of the city for you, but gorgeous as always.

London. Every time I go, I can see why Aug loves it. I don't even have to DO anything to love it. Just sit in pubs with his friends, do some karaoke, eat funny foods, hunt for british-only books, and con pharmacists into giving you codeine. There used to be an absinthe hunt, too, but that's over now. Gone the way of the dodo, thanks to the legalization of absinthe in America, courtesy of the Swiss embassy.

Just as well. Duty free's a pain to haul around the country for the rest of your vacation.

Fuck it, I'll do a grown up meme, I don't even care. But I ain't tagging nobody. If your read this it's your own fault so don't give me guff abut being a 37 year old dude who likes chain memes on Facebook. And all answers will be GROWN UP. Copy the questions here; start a new note and paste putting your answers over mine. Then tag your friends to see what we all have in common. 1. What bill do you hate paying the most? Payroll. Ha. I kid, I kid. Because I love. 2. Where was the last place you had a romantic dinner? I had a romantic dinner last night by myself at a Burger King. I thought "this is a fun neighborhood to live in." I had thought about going to some fancy place in SoHo since like there are so many of them, but I ate at the Burger King on Canal. you know, living in SoHo you forget that Canal st is so close. It's crowded as hell but at least it doesn't smell like Grand st. I consider it a step up. 3. What do you really want to be doing right now? Nothing. For like three weeks. I'm sorta "doing things"-ed out. The getting the 50 pages written has improved matters slightly, but staring at 200 boxes while hung over really saps your mental energy. 4. How many colleges did you attend? Two. Boston University and The University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Ironically, I have spoken at more colleges than I have attended. That's interesting. Let's see... 1...2...3...4...5...6...7... with an 8th in october. huh. 5. Why did you choose the shirt that you have on right now? It was on the top of the pile. Most of my shirts are still packed. 6. What are your thoughts on gas prices? I share Ryan's belief that I am happy when they go up. I was seriously happy as a camper when they were $4/gallon. I'd like to see it up to ten. 7. First thought when the alarm went off this morning? "Fuck this." 8. Last thought before going to sleep last night? "I am drunk. That was fun. I like this apartment." 9. Do you miss being a child? God no. I barely ever think of it, honestly. My consciousness begins somewhere around 17. And even then it's sort of embarrassing. Actually, come to think of it, I think a lot about growing up in alaska, but not like "oh remember when we were kids we did this or that?" I do vaguely miss being 24 and thin, but that is a different story. I wouldn't go back, though. 10. What errand/chore do you despise? Taking the trash out. 11. Get up early or sleep in? Sleep in, god, sleep in. Though that's not very grown up, is it? I should say "UP AN AT 'EM!" By the way, right now, Mary J Blige is singing the line "I'm talking about the things I love," and it strikes me as a fairly ridiculous line. I think she may have just said she loves working out, too, which is kind of a surprise to me for a few reasons. 12. Have you found real love yet? Again, I am in agreement with Ryan. Love is all around, and it's easy to find. It tends to be easier to find when you love simply for love's sake and not cuz you expect something out of it. It's even easier to find when you do not confuse the finding with it with the need to act upon the finding of the love. You fell in love. Good for you. So what. Why does that mean you have to go all gaga and ruin your life and trip all over yourself. Look at you. Pull it together. We're grownups, remember? 13. Favorite lunch meat? I quite enjoy sliced smoked turkey. But, then, it's really weird how much sodium that has. Kinda a downer, especially for a lunch meat that seems like it should be healthy. Gotta love the tryptophan, though. Ben and I were on a huge tryptophan kick for a while there in the early TBG days. Did you know you can buy it in pill form at GNC? 14. What do you get every time you go into Wal-Mart? You know those fake ray ban sunglasses all the hipsters wear? They sell the perfect pair at Wal Mart for $3. I always buy them in bulk. 15. Beach or lake? Lakes. I own part of a lake and it is awesome. 16. Do you think marriage is an outdated ritual? I am a big fan of contracts, so I don't see why marriage should be considered an outdated ritual. However, I think it's kind of insane how people rush toward getting married as kids and fuck up their lives because of it. But now that I'm 37, whenever of-my-age-ish friends decide to get married I am generally happy for them, unless I am secretly in love with the bride in the said situation, in which case I am generally happy for them and slightly jealous and mildly concerned about my own life. I am starting to think it was a kid that wrote this grown up meme, but if so, that kid's sorta on to something. Stick with your theory that marriage is out dated. Change your mind in your mid 30's. It'll be better. I promise. 17. Sopranos or Desperate Housewives? Sopranos. But you know, I always meant to watch Desperate Housewives when it was starting up because it got such good reviews. Now it seems kind of pointless. I had the same issue with Survivor. I feel like I should have watched a season of that at some point - that whole defining reality TV thing. but now it just seems too late. 18. What famous person would you like to have dinner with? Bill Clinton. On a private jet. 19. Have you ever crashed your vehicle? In 1988 I totalled a Dodge Caravan. A car 200 yards ahead of me stopped to turn, I immediately slammed on the breaks. I was only going maybe 30 miles an hour. But I was on sheet ice, in 40 below weather, in Fairbanks, and we hadn't put the studded tires on. The breaks locked, and I just kept skidding for all 200 yards in some slow motion nightmare. I hit the back of the other car, and he started skidding too, about another 100 yards. The stereo was playing "The Dog End of the Day Gone By" by Love and Rockets. As the crash ended, Daniel Ash sang the line "Got to get away from the city of lights" and I looked up and could see the skyline lights of Fairbanks, Alaska twinkling in the distance. Then I realized my knee hurt. 20. Ever use a fire extinguisher for its intended purpose? I have, yes. On a grease fire. It was smelly and awesome. 21. Ring tone(s) We should really think about that word, ring tone, since more and more people are using custom ring tones. I, however, do not, and I use the marimba sound on the iPhone. I should make a custom ring tone. Maybe of Einsturzende Neubaten, or Scott Walker. 22. Strangest place you have ever brushed your teeth? The Sahara Desert, south of Matmata, Tunisia. 23. Somewhere in California you've never been and would like to go? Hrm... A certain person's bed? Ha. 23. Do you go to church? No. 24. At this point in your life would you rather start a new career or a new relationship? Career. 25. How old are you? 37 26. Do you have a go-to person? I have several for various things, but there are still a few gaps. I'd love a good moral compass person, I find that a difficult position to fill, and I'd also love a business mentor. 27. Are you where you want to be in life? Hrm... I feel a bit behind, actually. About 18 months behind. I blame the economy. 28. Growing up, what were your favorite cartoons? The animated version of Thunderbirds, GI Joe, Thundercats, He Man, and that one where they went to some weird lost world underneath the pond at an amusement park. I remember the episode where they almost got back to our world but didn't make it and I nearly cried. 29. What about you do you think has changed the most? That is a tough one, but i think the biggest change is how less emo I have become. I don't mope much anymore. Well, comparatively. 30. Looking back at high school were they the best years of your life? Jesus god no way. I do miss a few people from then, though. And I do love how just holding the hand of a girl made me almost pass out. 31. Are there times you still feel like a kid? Rarely, but it happens. 32. Did you ever own troll dolls? No. 33. Did you have a pager? No. 34. Where was the hang-out spot when you were a teenager? The Wood Center at the University, Jeffry's over on the old Steese, and Denny's on Airport. 35. Were you the type of kid you would want your children to hang out with? Yeah, more or less, though I was a bit of a downer.

Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen movies you've seen that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag at least 15 friends. 1. Last Year at Marienbad 2. Les Trois Couleurs: Rouge 3. Dekalog Five; Thou Shalt Not Kill 4. The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover 5. Sombre 6. Trust 7. Henry and June 8. How To Get Ahead in Advertising 9. Jude 10. Breaking the Waves 11. At Sachem Farm/Uncorked 12. 8 1/2 & Stardust Memories 13. Grosse Pointe Blank 14. The Empire Strikes Back 15. Until the End of the World (5 hour version, natch)

Gerard did 50, and Mike did 20, and both tagged me, so I'm going for 70. OK, here are the rules. Test your memory and your love of live music by listing 50 artists or bands (or as many as you can remember) you've seen in concert. List the first 50 acts that come into your head. An act you saw at a festival and opening acts count, but only if you can't think of 50 other artists. Should you choose this challenge, here's what you do: Copy my note. Click on “notes” under tabs on your profile page. Select "write a new note" in the top corner. Paste the copy in the body of the note. Make your list. Change the number at the top, and add your title. Once you've saved, don't forget to tag friends (including me) on the right. 1. Michael Nyman 2. Antony and the Johnsons 3. Dead Can Dance 4. Naked Raygun 5. Big Black 6. Man Or Astroman 7. Johnny Cash 8. Metallica 9. Cradle of Filth 10. The Chameleons UK 11. The Wolfgang Press 12. Gallon Drunk 13. PJ Harvey 14. Pavement 15. Ned's Atomic Dustbin 16. Ultra Vivid Scene 17. Nirvana 18. The Jesus Lizard 19. Scratch Acid 20. Shellac 21. Ministry 22. Revolting Cocks 23. My Life with the Trill Kil Kult 24. Daft Punk 25. Slowdive 26. The Verve 27. Ride 28. My Bloody Valentine 29. The Pale Saints 30. His Name is Alive 31. Daisy Chainsaw 32. Tripping Daisy 33. Spectrum 34. GOD 35. Jesu 36. Godflesh 37. Mandy Moore 39. Britney Spears 40. George Michael 41. Love and Rockets 42. Bauhaus 43. Low 44. Doug Martsch solo 45. Rihanna 46. Mercury Rev 47. Negativland 48. Bikini Kill 49. Nation of Ulysses 50. Unwound 51. Manic Street Preachers 52. Mazzy Star 52. Galaxie 500 53. Lords of Acid 54. Genesis P Orridge solo 55. Coil 56. Tony Conrad 57. Wanda Jackson 58. Neil Diamond 59. The Pet Shop Boys 60. Crispy Ambulance 61. Happy Flowers 62. Seam 63. Julian Cope 64. The Cranes 65. Air 66. Outkast 67. Gnarls Barkley 68. Pizzicato 5 69. Public Enemy 70. Mr. Bungle

The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up? Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Look at the list and then number the ones you have read, so by the end, you have your count. Tag other book nerds. 1 Pride and Prejudice - 1 2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien - 3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - 2 4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - 3,4,5,6,7,8,9 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - 10 6 The Bible - (Cover to cover??) - 11 7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte -12 8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell - 13 9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - 10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - 14 11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott -15 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy - 16 13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller - 17 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare - 15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier - 18 16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien - (Didn't finish it) 17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk - 18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger - 19 19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger - 20 Middlemarch - George Eliot - 21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell - 20 22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald -21 23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens - 24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy - 22 25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams - 23 27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - 24 28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck - 25 29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - 26 30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame - 27 31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy - 32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens - 28 33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis - 29 34 Emma - Jane Austen - 35 Persuasion - Jane Austen - 30 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis - 31 37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - 38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres - 39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden - 40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne - 32 41 Animal Farm - George Orwell - 33 42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - 34 44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving- 45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins - 46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery - 47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy - 35 48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood - 36 49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding - 37 50 Atonement - Ian McEwan -38 51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel - 52 Dune - Frank Herbert - 39 53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons - 54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen - 40 55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth - 56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon - 57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens - 41 58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley - 42 59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon - 60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - 43 61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck - 44 62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov - 45 63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt - 64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold - 65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas- 66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac - 46 67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy - 47 68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding - 69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie –48 70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville - 71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - 49 72 Dracula - Bram Stoker- 50 73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett - 51 74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson - 75 Ulysses - James Joyce - 76 The Inferno – Dante- 52 77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome - 78 Germinal - Emile Zola - 79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray - 53 80 Possession - AS Byatt – 54 81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens - 55 82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell - 83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker - 84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro - 56 85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert - 57 86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry - 87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White - 58 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom - 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - 90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton - 91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad - 92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint - 59 93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks - 94 Watership Down - Richard Adams - 60 95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole - 61 96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute - 97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas - 98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare - 63 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - 100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo - 64

Last night, I was lucky enough to be in Boston for a totally unique show. Mark Burgess, of the Chameleons UK, was in town on his way to Maine, and a local booker/fan of the Chameleons convinced him to play a show while in Boston. Conveniently, the Massachusetts band The Curtain Society agreed to be his backing band. Anyone that knows the Curtain Society knows that this was probably a dream for them, since they routinely cover the Chameleons. To add to the surrealism, the opening acts were Lifestyle, a local synth pop band who elected to play their set without synths, and Aaron Perrino of the Sheila Divine, who played solo. No one knew what to expect for Mark. We all had heard that the band and Mark didn't get a chance to practice together. Would it be just a couple of songs and the rest solo acoustic? Would it be okay? Things started off awesomely with "Swamp Thing," which was damn solid. If the set didn't get any better than this, this would be a truly memorable night. But then something amazing happened. Every single song got better. The Curtain Society got more comfortable, Mark fell into his old role, and by the third song, they were damn near perfect. And the song selection was just insane - Nostalgia, Second Skin, Less than Human, Soul in Isolation. The performance was stellar. It was nothing like a band playing covers and a dude singing along with a new band. By the third song, these people became a true band - they were vamping and improving. Perfectly executed dynamic changes. It was stellar. Then, as added surrealism, out of nowhere for the last song, Marty Wilson Piper from the church jumps up on stage for the encore of the Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows". Um. Yes. Marty Wilson Piper just... jumped on stage and played a Beatles cover with Mark Burgess. WHAT? All of this on weeknight at a frat bar in Boston that no one goes to, with one week's notice. It's a testament to how much Boston has always loved The Chameleons (WFNX routinely places "Swamp Thing" in their top 5 best alternative songs poll) that the place was nearly sold out.

what are your 15 most influential books? don't think about it too much ... just what comes to mind. tag a few friends (and ME!) ... Weird that I haven't done this yet. 1 - Ada, or Ardor - Nabokov 2 - The Sorrows of Young Werther - Goethe 3 - Indiana - George Sand 4 - Lolita - Nabokov 5 - Mason & Dixon - Pynchon 6 - Money - Martin Amis 7 - The Fermata - Nicholson Baker 8 - Theory of Economics - George Bataille 9 - The Wild Party - Joseph Moncure March 10 - Unexpurgated Diaries of Anaïs Nin, vols 1-4 - Anaïs Nin 11 - Linotte - Anaïs Nin 12 - 45 - Bill Drummond 13 - Head On - Julian Cope 14 - The Elements of Typographic Style - Robert Bringhurst 15 - Beautiful Losers - Leonard Cohen

Stole this from Jocelyn because I am a sucker for nostalgia.... 1. Who was your FIRST prom date? Anne Hogenson. 2. Do you still talk to your FIRST love? No. She wrote me in 1999, I promptly wrote her back, and I never heard from her again. These were actual letters in the mail. 3. What was your FIRST alcoholic drink? My first taste was budweiser, the old dad scaring his kid off of booze by letting him tasting it routine. My first full drink was - ugh - a Bartles and Jaymes premium wine cooler. 4. What was your FIRST job? Working at the farmer's market in Fairbanks, Alaska selling rhubarb, raspberries and strawberries. 5. What was your FIRST car? 1976 Dodge Dart, Bronze with a black hard top. I'd kill to own that thing again. Slant 6 all the way! 6. Who was the FIRST person to text you today? Danielle Strle 7. Who is the FIRST person you thought of this morning? Mark Pomfret. 8. Who was your FIRST grade teacher? Mrs. Grundy. She was awesome. 9. Where did you go on your FIRST ride on an airplane? Hawaii, when I was a few weeks old, in 1972. 10. Who was your FIRST best friend & do you still talk? Mike Eckley, and sadly, we do not. Drifted in the 90's. He was a lot older than me, so we weren't in high school at the same time. 11. Where was your FIRST sleep over? Mike's, I'm sure. 12. Who was the FIRST person you talked to today? Mark Pomfret. 13. Whose wedding were you in the FIRST time? My aunt and uncle Bonnie and Bill's. I was a ring bearer. I was like 6. 14. What was the FIRST thing you did this morning? Brushed my teeth, threw my smelly trash out the door, and talked to Mark Pomfret. 15. What was the FIRST concert you ever went to? Johnny and June Carter Cash, Growden Park, Fairbanks, Alaska, 1984. 16. FIRST tattoo? yet to come. 17. FIRST piercing other than ears? yet to come. 18. FIRST foreign country you've been to? Canada, does that count? I was like 3. Next would have been the United Kingdom at around 5 or 6. 19. FIRST movie you remember seeing? Fantasia. 20. When was your FIRST detention? Oh god. Probably kindergarten, definitely by first grade. I had detention some 20 or 30 times in grade school. 21. What was the FIRST state you lived? Alaska 22. FIRST Roommate? Justin Tabone, he was from Ohio. He was hilarious. He loved Rush and the Grateful Dead. We would teach other about our musical tastes, and he often used the term "ultra vivid scene" as a replacement for "goddamn it." 23. If you had one wish, what would it be? Yeah wtf is up with this question? 24. When was your FIRST speeding ticket? I was 16, it was in Fairbanks, AK. I was totally speeding. 25. FIRST song you knew the words to? Probably every song on the Peter, Paul and Mary children's album, Peter, Paul and Mommy, most notably "Puff the Magic Dragon." 26. Who do you think will be the FIRST person to respond to this? YOUR MOM