That's Just Insipid!

Cream of Pants:

idea:

Recording an idea for poetry that involves cataloguing cleverish titles for 'blogs that have occured during the great 'Blog Proliferation of recent times that could be melded into song:

ØBananas of the Human Jungle
ØThe Rule of Tuesday

[there have been too many already forgotten]

Play List:

I broke into the dance room in the gym basement to steal/borrow a stereo with compact disc-to-tape recording capability in order to create a travellin' tape o' glory and good times. Between coaching duties for Varsity Girls softball and Middle School Baseball, I'll be on the Long Island roadways often in the coming weeks. I miss making 'mix-tapes,' a favorite passtime of my high school days.

Tracklist:

Side A
1) Coldplay "Clocks"
2) Lagwagon "Bombs Away" (this is an oldie, but their new album isn't bad!)
3) 311 "Running"
4) Ben Folds Five "Underground"
5) Bjork "Big Time Sensuality"
6) Wilco "Heavy Metal Drummer"
7) Pilfers "Yakuza"
8) Operation Ivy "Sound System"
9) Five Iron Frenzy "Superpowers"
10) Radiohead "Let Down" (after much deliberation)
11) Bjork "Alarm Call"
12) TMBG "New York City"

SIDE B
1) Jurassic 5 "Quality Control"
2) 311 "Large in the Margin"
(now begins the "cooldown"/ride-home phase)
3) Radiohead "Everything In Its Right Place"
4) Weezer "El Scorcho" (live acoustic)
5) Wilco "Forget the Flowers"
6) the Beatles "Mother Nature's Son"
7) 311 "Champagne"
8) Beck "Debra"
9) R.E.M. "Tongue"
10) Miles Davis " 'Round Midnight"
11) David Bowie "Warszawa"

Draft #2:

Fragments of Memos

1.
There were so many things to sit down about
with the emergency eyes of sudden people
misunderstanding the office news and the grins
since the select we in the crowd
fought our way out of committees on failure
and into other committees on infinity's loping armstretch.

Among those growing, we live and are love-illiterate.
Above the adjusted boys and girls we hover like proud helicopters.
About the conversation and the need for us to sit down...

2.
tinfoil is the terrain that stumbles under my feet
when it's loveless outside,

when her defenses rise like the hopeful mist
off a plastic lid in the rain when it's struck,

they fall as soon as forgetting gravity:
the war is over; new contries are carved out of meat
like the newest hunger surging...

'mercial:

Perhaps I find too much levity in the sad television-advertising industry, and maybe I could find less obvious targets for observation-making, but here goes anyway:

So I don't know the brand name (Fresh Step?), but I saw an ad today for kitty litter that promises to eliminate offense odors (namely, cat poop). The angle the ad company used here borrows from a tradition as old as the Greeks. A female voice asks this question three times to various fluffy cats over a series of jumpcuts: "Who want's freshness all the time?" or something the like. In time with the beat after each query, a different cat-paw shown being hoisted, as if these cats were voting. Now, I'm not denying that the notion of feline-democracy is cute, but it's also silly and unendearing. At least they filmed actual cat paws, and not atrocious puppet-limbs, but the whole thing smells like catpiss half-stifled by potpourri.

Abused Ears:

I have a new advisee: a seventh grader, a good ballplayer, pretty friendly. He's adjusting about as well as you'd expect for a third-trimester transfer student at the treacherous Jr. High age.

His parents, however, are a heavy responsibility. While I understand that (especially for only children) overprotective, aggressive mothering is mostly a great quality, in this case I think we're in overkill territory. The kid has been on campus for two weeks, and I've already had more contact with his parents (including 4 frantic calls tonight) than with my other three advisees' families in total for the year .

Despite extensive listening experience in my old job of six summers past, enduring the bitched concerns of parents is one of the few activities I have yet to develop patience for, even when the concerns are somewhat legitimate. In tonights' case, there was actual concern, but nothing I could have foreseen, and there were no actions I could take at that time to remedy the situation beyond making the two calls I made.

I hate to complain because I'd rather work hard realizing there is always someone with a shittier bag to handle (for even less money), but I resent being the punching bag for manic parents when the aggravating situation, however semi-dire, is in no way under my past or immediate control. All that could be explained and framed under contingency was, and the excess of abuse I took after an entire weekend of dorm duty (where I don't leave the suddenly winged-ant-infested, rotten ramen smelling, stuffy WoodDorm for stretches of 5 or 6 hours at a time between meals), my free Sunday night is sort of sacred. I was pleasantly anticipating doing a few loads of laundry with my new bottle of ALL, sipping a Heineken, and reading Dostoyevsky and Salinger for fun, Sunday night baseball on mute. Instead, I'm phone-tagging for a good hour with my brain on anxiety-mode.

It wasn't a terribly inconvenient disturbance, just annoying enough to sting. And yes, someday I know I too will be an overprotective mother. Until such a time, I will continue to learn coping strategies/people-skills for the future parental dissonance that is surely on its way.

(at least I finally, after three months + of battling, tuning their skills, and progressing through a 14 year career, I have finally conquered the Sega Super Tennis World Tour with my two created players: theHIM3 and theHER. I had to raise them from greenness to perfection, and win various championships, increasing their rankings eventually to #2 each. The final match is on a cruise ship against "King" and "Queen," who are dressed as circa 1918 European tennis pros. I cringe to think of how many hours I put into this great game, but now it's all over and I will play no more.)