Things I Dig

• The Wire, the best television series ever made
• Mad Men and Deadwood, damn close to being the best television series ever made
• Hearing my wife say hi at the other end of the phone
• Hearing my wife say goodnight before we fall asleep
• Bobby Keys' saxophone solo on "Brown Sugar"
• My recliner
• Whenever my brother Rob does an imitation of my nana or my Uncle Tony
• DeNiro and Scorcese together
• Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee together in Do The Right Thing
• The Coen Brothers and anybody (although the one with Tom Hanks didn't work so well)
• Annie Hall
• Hearing my father recount the plot of any episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm"
• Paris in late spring or early summer
• Anthony Bourdain - on TV and in print
  
• Playing the bass and jamming with friends
• Otis Redding singing "These Arms of Mine"
• TEVA sandals
• Stand-up comedy live at a comedy club with a fake brick backdrop on the stage
• Wilson Pickett's cover of "Hey Jude"
• The Black Keys cover of "She Said She Said"
  
• Medium rare rib eye with a baked potato
• Turner Classic Movies
• Steely Dan
  
• The first cup of coffee
• Cargo pants (sad but true)
• San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood
• Hell, every neighborhood in San Francisco
  
• The perfection that is nine innings with three outs per side and 90 feet between home plate and first base
• Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail. Nobody nails down Nixon quite like the good Dr. Thompson
  
• Red Rocks Amphitheater
• Blue cheese (Gorgonzola and Stilton especially)
• Salman Rushdie
  
• Greenwich Village
• The sound of my nieces and nephews singing Christmas carols
• Kalamata olives
• All manner of Japanese cuisine, be it sushi, sashimi, teriyaki, soba, or tempura
• High quality bourbon (especially this one and this one) served neat or with a splash of club soda
• My wife's fried chicken
• Junot Diaz' amazing novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
• Cheeseburgers from 5 Guys
• Dinner out - especially if we are going here, here, here, here or here
• The "Restaurant Wars" episode of Top Chef
• Extra thick chocolate milkshakes
• Richard Ben Cramer's What It Takes (extraordinary political reporting and writing)
  
• The sound of a 12-string Rickenbacker and two-part harmony
• Any music that is designed to remind the listener of "Paperback Writer" or The Byrds' version of "Chimes of Freedom"
• My Kindle
• Buying Girl Scout cookies from plucky little salesgirls who set up card tables in front of the King Soopers
• Any opinion column written by the legendary Christopher Hitchens

That ought to do for now.

Happy Valentines Day

Yeah I know I'm late. Been busy. Please forgive me. Settle in, pour a glass of pinot noir, snuggle up to the one you love and enjoy one of the greatest slow jams ever.

Our Nation's Capital

Spent a weekend in Washington DC - a city that gives new meaning to the phrase urban renewal. Seems like every time I'm there another section of town is in the midst of a gentrifying renascence. My close friend Dave lives there and my Christmas gift from my fabulous wife was a President's Day weekend trip to visit. Short but enjoyable. We spent lots of time in Dave's living room having a few cocktails and playing records. Other highlights:

• Taking in the sold-out Drive By Truckers show at DC's legendary 930 club - they played a tight, energetic set of music that I enjoyed but Dave thought was too much "jam band noodling"

• Following up the rock show with a couple of half-smokes with chili at Ben's Chili Bowl on U Street - a DC institution famous for its catering to tipsy concert goers in need of greasy sustenance. (For the uninitiated - a half-smoke is a smoked beef sausage)

mmmm....chili

• An afternoon at the extremely well-worth visiting Newseum, which is Nirvana for a news junkie. Beautiful facility located right off The Mall and really terrific interactive exhibits and artifacts that help tell the story of American journalism - warts and all. My favorite exhibit was the collection of historic newspapers going back to the Colonial Era.

a history of the United States told by the front page

• An evening spent in the Capitol Hill neighborhood dining at the spectacular Ted's Bulletin on 8th St. SE. Really cool 1930s pharmacy interior mixed with high end home-cooking. I ate roast chicken with a side of the most delicious brussels sprouts ever made. Yeah I said brussels sprouts and delicious in the same sentence. Of course, they were made with bacon and a bit of Maytag blue cheese

John F. Kennedy famously poked fun at DC - calling it a "model of Northern charm and Southern efficiency" It doesn't deserve that reputation and hasn't for some time. It is hip and fun to walk around in and truly beautiful to look at - with one of the best public transit systems in the US. Perfect for a quick weekend.

Boston

I don't apologize for how much I love this band - even though it has been fashionable to make fun of them for years. This was the first rock album I bought with my own money. I play it regularly even today and am surprised at how catchy the tunes are and how well produced a record it is. Boston sounds goods. While grading papers during a planning period, I was enjoying a little Don't Look Back when a student came in my office for something. He asked who I was listening to and I told him. He took note of it and went on his way. Today - almost a month later - he wore the t-shirt with the above logo. Guess it took

Whatever happened to...

The Smithereens? I always thought they were one of the great power pop bands of the 80s, which was a golden age in many ways for catchy melodic rock and roll that sounded like The Beatles and Cheap Trick had a baby. I once saw them play to 35 people in Greenville, SC supporting their greatest hits album. They had just played the same town and the same club three months before and, mysteriously to all concerned, were booked there again. In spite of the sparse crowd, they played their hearts out. They opened with a blistering version of this song - my favorite from them hands down

Tonight at The Mayan

A month-long Scorsese film festival kicks off with his first great film, Mean Streets. I'm looking forward to seeing this on a large screen. I haven't seen a great DeNiro performance in a movie theater in years. His choice to become a buffoon (and not a particularly amusing one) saddens me a bit. I think I'll have more to say on that later.

About Me

After realizing that I had no real idea how to begin this process of blogging, I did what comes naturally to me - nothing. For a month. Nice New Year's Resolution. A pal of mine suggested that I write a list of things about me I would like people to know. My first reaction - how boring. Upon further review - it is better than doing nothing. On that note...

1. I teach US History and US Government at a large public high school in suburban Denver. It's as good a job as I've ever had and I've several. I've been teaching for 10 years. Prior to that I was in human resources for several large companies
2. I don't know if I'm good at my job. I try real hard to do all the right things and I am constantly improving my methods of instruction, content knowledge and my rapport with students. yet, teaching is a field where one gets little to no reliable feedback. The evaluation process is a joke, the kids either love you or hate you and can't articulate why, and I rarely see any other adults in my classroom. There are many people I work with who are outstanding educators - several close friends of mine. I don't think I'm as good a teacher as they are.
3. I do know I'm better than many of the people who teach at my school - especially those who number worksheets by days and hand them out to the kids every class. I support eliminating teacher tenure and improving the evaluation process for teachers simply because I can name several teachers who should get new careers, but won't.
4. My worst day teaching in a high school classroom (and there have been several) was still better than the best day I ever had in a cubicle. It is true - the times when a teacher can see progress and learning in individual students really are fabulous.
5. That commercial that shows how wonderful high schools would be if package delivery companies ran them really pisses me off.
6. I am married to the best person I know and the best friend I've ever had. We'll celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary in August. Thinking about her even for a second makes me smile. She keeps me sane, humble, grounded, and laughing. No one has done more to make me a better human being than my wife.
7. I love steak - REALLY love it and would eat it daily if possible. It seems these days I'm one of the few people I know who feel this way. I know, I know - the corporate meat industry is evil and trying to kill us. That is probably true (I've read Michael Pollan). Doesn't take away from the fact that a medium-rare rib eye is one of life's greatest pleasures.
8. Nearly every morning, I pour my wife's first cup of coffee and bring it to her (along with the paper) in bed before I leave for school. This doesn't make me a saint. It makes me reasonably courteous.
9. As a kid, I would stand in front of the mirror and perform Side 1 of the album "Bill Cosby is A Very Funny Fellow - Right!" in its entirety, using a wooden spoon for a mike and wearing a clip-on tie.
10. On four occasions, I performed stand-up comedy at open-mike nights. The first two times I killed. The third time was OK. The fourth time was so horrible it cured me of ever wanting to to anything like that ever again.
11. I've been fortunate to see many of the greatest stand-up comics live. Nobody was better than Chris Rock and Sam Kinison. Nobody was more disappointing than George Carlin at the end of his career.
12. I don't understand anybody who doesn't read for pleasure. Matter of fact, those people worry the shit out of me.
13. I usually have two books going at a time. My Uncle Mike (God rest his soul) used to have four going at once - one in each bathroom, one in the nightstand, and one next to the recliner in the den. I am an underachiever.
14. I hate airports and the rigamarole one goes through to get on a friggin' plane. My wife's chief worry is that the next time will be when I'll go over the edge, get even more caustic than I usually am with the snippy TSA people and end up in airport jail. But I do love to travel.
15. If I could make my speaking voice sound like anybody else's, I'd choose Samuel L. Jackson's. If that happened, I would use the word "motherfucker" even more than I do now.
16. If a book, film, or TV program is centered around a police precinct in any urban area, it immediately has my attention
17. I sing in the shower - usually standards or Motown.
18. Lee Ann and I have a formal agreement we both take very seriously. I am in charge of all dead animal removal and she handles the live ones. When the chipmunk and field mouse ran into the house and scurried behind the furniture, that's Lee Ann's gig. When we discovered a 10 lb. fish lying in front of our house (in Des Moines, no less) or the dead mouse in my comfy slipper, those jobs belonged to me.
19. I used to volunteer at a public radio station in Spindale, NC as a DJ - doing the alternative rock show Fridays from 11 pm to 2 am. I would take a thermos of coffee with me to keep from falling asleep - which led me to play Tales of Brave Ulysses, Layla, and Suite Judy Blue Eyes nearly every week so I could go pee.
20. I am 45 years old. That means I'm at the tail end of the last generation that relies on newspapers as their primary source of news. I am a unabashed fan of newspapers; I read The Denver Post and The New York Times every day. Although I enjoy both papers online and electronic versions, I still dig the dead tree version the most.
21. I hate what's happening to the newspaper industry. I understand it and know what the root causes are, but it still breaks my heart.
22. We have no children. Can't. Decided not to pursue it beyond that point. However, I am one of the world's great uncles. Case in point: this past December, my nephew coaxed his schoolmates to sing the following lyrics to a holiday standard at his Christmas show "you better not pout I'm telling you why, Uncle Joe is coming to town."
23. Watching your parents age is no fun.
24. Watching your kid brother raise two rambunctious, precocious kids is hysterical.
25. I worry more than I should about almost everything. Call me "Mr. Anxiety"
26. I grew up on Long Island, went to college and spent my twenties and early thirties in South Carolina, then lived in Des Moines Iowa before moving to Denver. Despite all that movement I retain a strong accent.
27. This New York accent of mine is both my calling card and a curse. It makes saying "Happy Birthday" sound like a threat.
28. My life goals - to read everything, laugh constantly, be the husband my wife deserves, show my family and friends how much I love them each day through my behavior, improve my attitude and my aptitudes, and to spend as much time in movie theaters and listening to music as humanly possible.