Radical Transparency

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July 1, 2009

The Violinist

Hal asked me about Michael Jackson tonight.

What kind of guy was he? Was he really a musician? He wasn't just a dancer that had other people write music for him? Why did he wear red lipstick? Why does a person wear red lipstick? Is there any reason for anyone, ever, under any circumstances, to wear red lipstick?

He told me he wasn't sure about Michael Jackson. He'd be interested to hear what people that knew him thought of him.

Then he told me that there are some musicians he really does like.

The three tenors, for example. And the guy I met in Israel. What's his name? Leonard Bernstein. I like him. And then there's the one that runs around on stage with a violin. You know who I mean?

I didn't, but Hal wasn't convinced...

H: You know who I mean. He's on TV all the time. And he plays all kinds of music. Really fast. One song to the next. Jumping around the whole time. You know that guy, right?
J: No idea. I don't really watch much TV...
H: Oh he's famous. He's been around forever. You've seen him.
J: Maybe if I heard his name or saw a picture...
H: No no. You know him. He has the violin in one hand, and he conducts the orchestra with the other. Shit. What's his name?
J: Maybe he was before my time?
H: Oh no way. He's probably on tour now. It's a whole big show. Jumping around all over the stage with a violin. And great music. Music everyone likes.
J: Hmmm. Well. Sounds awesome. I guess I'm drawing a blank...
H: Yeah. We both are. I'll tell you when I remember his name. You'll know him.

And maybe I will.

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Filed under  //   hal   leonard bernstein   lipstick   memory   michael jackson   music   the three tenors   violins  

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March 9, 2009

Teriyaki Science

My grandfather took a bunch of us relatives to dinner tonight.  Hibachi-style Japanese.  The shrimp the dude threw to Hal (the grandfather) hit him in the forehead.

They give you heaps of food at those places.  Hal couldn't eat all his.  Or drink more than three sips of his non-alcoholic (or, as he calls it "decaffeinated") beer.

So I took his leftovers home (because I don't like wasting food) for the animals (because I don't eat meat).  Food leftovers, not beer leftovers.

He had ordered the beef chicken shrimp combo and left pieces of all three meats.

Noticing this fact, I decided to conduct a very important science experiment...

I put a piece of shrimp, a piece of chicken, and a piece of beef in front of Beans the kittencat (almost a year old: maybe still a kitten; maybe a cat now; unclear).

He licked the shrimp first, kinda bit at it, moved on to the beef, ate it, ate the chicken, and then ate the shrimp.

Then I gave him just beef and chicken (because that was clearly the next logical step in the scientific process).

He ate the chicken and then walked away from the beef.*

As you can tell, the results of the experiment were inconclusive.

But Beans definitely knows that I love him.

*Note: The dog was very happy about this.

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Filed under  //   beans the kitten   cats   dogs   experiments   hal   hibachi   japanese food   meat   science  

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January 5, 2009

My Roommate

Hal has been a raving madman tonight.  He talked about hiring the wrong people, the milk business, Hilton and Jonesy (his favorite employees ever), the Department of the Interior, snowmobiles, Indira Gandhi, how you have to pretend to be tough when you're an officer in the military, the United Nations, and, as always, Nelson Rockefeller.

Then he decided he'd had enough.

Shit I gotta go to bed.  I should quit this talking.

And off he walked.  Not anther word.

He came back to ask me if I'd deal with the dogs tonight and remind me to remind him to do a few things tomorrow, but the dramatic effect of the exit was top quality.

(Give an executive producer credit to LMW for this post.  It wouldn't have happened without her.)

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Filed under  //   bedtime   dramatic exits   hal   lmw   roommates  

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December 25, 2008

Here's to Hal's Last Sip of Lonely Mount Gay Rum

The guests were about to arrive.  Hal the grandfather realized that we had no Coke for the rum.  Amory the cousin had just walked through the door, toward me, and into Hal's eyeshot.  Hal pulled out his wallet, threw a bill, and told us to be back with Coke and Ginge as soon as possible.  I grabbed the mix that Parker (Amory's little brother) had just given me.  Amory and I raced to Hal's car.

Track three came on.  Amory stopped mid-sentence and reached for the volume.

Amory: I love this song.  You know it?  Steve Forbert.
Jake: No.  Never heard it.  P gave it to me today.
Amory: Dude you're gonna love it.

That's all I need to hear.

Steve Forbert's Midsummer Night's Toast is track 2 on Alive on Arrival.  More importantly, it's track 3 on what's turning out to be a totally excellent Christmas present.

  
(download)

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Filed under  //   amory dingle   christmas presents   hal   mixtapes   mount gay rum   music   music introductions   parker   steve forbert  

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December 13, 2008

On Mousetrapping and Uncooperative Kittens

I think they've built a better mousetrap.  And I think cheese, the old school bait, the one they use in cartoons, does slightly more efficient work than peanut better.



8 traps set. 

4 cheese.  4 peanut butter.

4 old school style.  4 newfangled.  Peanut butter and cheese evenly distributed between types.

3 caught mice. 1 old school with cheese.  1 newfangled with cheese.  1 newfangled with peanut butter.

2 had their bait taken without snapping.  1 old school with peanut butter.  1 newfangled with peanut butter.

1 snapped but caught nothing.  An old school trap with cheese.

2 went untouched. 1 old school with peanut butter.  1 newfangled with cheese.  They were clearly placed on the wrong shelf and will relocate tonight.

I should have graphed or tabled that.  But that might have been a little overkill for a mouse catching experiment.  Oh well.  Maybe next time.

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Filed under  //   animals   beans the kitten   cheese   experiments   hal   mice   mousetraps   peanut butter   poop   the startup life  

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November 26, 2008

A Pump Fake

The stories were plentiful on the drive to North Carolina. One started with one of my favorite opening lines of all time:
 
I outran a cop here once...
 
Sadly (and almost inexplicably, actually), the story went nowhere from there, but man did that line have me drooling.

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Filed under  //   hal   opening lines   police   pump fakes   storytelling  

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November 25, 2008

New Old Material

Eight and a half hours in the car with my grandfather tomorrow, and I want new stories.

I've heard millions.  Hal and I have been close for longer than I can remember.  But I know there are more.

And, tomorrow, I hope, they're mine.

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Filed under  //   hal   road trips   storytelling  

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November 24, 2008

Leave a Trail

My grandfather has been relentless over the past month. 

Hal: Your site online yet?
Jake: Not yet.
H: When?
J: We're close.  Just finishing a few things.  You'll be the first to know.
H: Do you have a date?
J: Next week maybe.  Maybe the week after.
H: So you don't have a date?
J: No. I don't have a date...

At least twice a day with that conversation.  At least.

This past Friday, finally, mercifully, it stopped.  We put up the beginnings of the beta community space, and I'm off the hook with Hal.  For the moment.

Now he'll go make up stories about what the website is and does, spread them around the YMCA in downtown Wilmington, DE,* and confuse everyone he can.

To do that most efficiently and effectively, however, he needs a URL, and, this morning, he requested one. 

He pulled a scissor-trimmed quarter section of an index card out of his wallet and asked me to write www.carrotproject.com on the back.

"What's on the front?" I asked, as I took the card and flipped it to have a look.

A quote.  A quote that Hal has been carrying for more than sixty years.

Do not go where the path may lead,
Go instead where there is no path
and leave a trail.
-R.W. Emerson

Feels good to get to share a piece of index card with that.

*Hal, 87, spends about two and a half hours a day at the Y, mostly talking Delaware politics, naked, in the locker room.

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Filed under  //   carrot project   delaware   dudes and websites   hal   launch   nudity   people that go by three names   ralph waldo emerson  

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October 8, 2008

Before the Sharks Smelled the Blood

Charlie Dean died in Laos in 1974.  A few months earlier, he had been living just west of Cairns, Australia, with my uncle Kim and Kim's best friend Richie on Rosebud Farm, the commune that Kim and Rich had started a few years earlier.

Louella Bryant, wife of Harry Reynolds, who went to high school with Kim and Charlie, just wrote a book about Charlie, and, a few hours ago, she drove up to my grandfather's house, where she's spending the next two nights.

When Hal, my grandfather, handed me the book a few weeks ago, he directed me to one chapter in particular.  It was set on the Great Barrier Reef, and Hal wanted to see how well I thought the author had described it.

I read:

Eager for a swim, they took turns jumping overboard with speargun and snorkel, careful not to brush up against the hard limestone corals - a gash could be disastrous.  Those aboard watched for sharks and box jellyfish, whose tentacles inflicted fatal stings.  The blue-ringed octopus, the size of a golf ball with a poisonous beak sharp enough to pierce a wet-suit, could kill a man in minutes.  All of the fifteen species of sea snakes on the reef had small fangs with lethal venom, and the barbs on a stingray's tail would cut deep.  If any any of the men was adept enough - or lucky enough - to spear a fish, there was real threat of shark attack.  So, the trick was to keep out a wary eye, and if you hit your mark, head back to the boat and climb aboard with all haste before the sharks smelled the blood.

Not well I told him.  Sensationally.  Hyperbolically.  And totally unnecessarily so.

One of the first things I found out tonight, of course, was that Hal had passed my review immediately back to the author, and, as soon as she connected me to the objection Hal had brought up with her, she wanted to hear more.

Luckily for me, as soon as I started explaining, Hal interrupted, told a ridiculous and tenuously tangential story, derailed the train of thought, and accidentally rescued me.

So I stayed quiet and listened.  Louella talked about Charlie, Kim, writing, and the questions she had been asking audiences on her book tour, and Hal, the archetypal 87 year old ex-politician, raved on about Vietnam and India and philanthropy and government, paying little attention to questions asked or subjects under discussion.

And, quietly, off to the side, I developed a little theory.

Louella Bryant, an author quite distant from the story she's telling, has gathered her events and settings and characters from people like Hal.  She has built her book on material collected from incorrigible storytellers, from entertainers whose language sprays out sticky from the sap of their overflowing imaginations.  She is embellishing upon embellishments, and, when she describes the dangers of diving on the Reef at least, she drifts a dangerous distance from the truth of actual experience.

Maybe.  It's the beginnings of a theory anyway.

I started to tell her about it when I walked her to her room, and we'll discuss again tomorrow night I'm sure.

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Filed under  //   australia   embellishment   exaggeration   fear   great barrier reef   hal   kim   sharks   writing  

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August 5, 2008

Crazy as a Billygoat

A couple of plans changed this afternoon, and I found myself at the Phillies' game with my grandfather.  First time I've done that in a while. 

Great little nostalgic moment as we had our traditional pregame conversation.

Hal: You got your raingear?
Jake: I'm pretty sure it's not going to rain.
Hal: It might rain.
Jake: Yeah it might.
Hal: And if it does, you'll be sorry you didn't bring raingear.
Jake: Nah. I'll be alright. I don't mind getting wet.
Hal: Suit yourself, but, if you ask me, you're crazy as a billygoat.

And equally great text message from one of my cousins during the game.

My grandfather's seats are about 10 rows back between first base and home plate, and when left handed hitters come up to the plate, and the TV people put that little banner across the bottom of the screen that says Jimmy Rollins, 2-3, 2B, SB, 2R, people watching TV can see whoever's sitting in the seats.

Beginning of the second inning, Parker texts:

Guy in the maroon next to you is a goon.

A goon he was.  A goon with a totally sweet mustache.

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Filed under  //   baseball   challenges   facial hair   goons   hal   metaphors   parker   raingear  

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