New Home

Alright, folks, it's as up as it's gonna be.  It's a bit simpler and cleaner, and after a few days of looking at it and wondering, I've decided I like it enough.  Update your links and your, well, whatever brings you here (there).

http://dipsochronicles.wordpress.com/

It's the Words

It occurs to me that any shared experience might be a bit less shared than it seems, because we're doing different things with the input.

I am a words guy.  With passing and light things like music and other fictions, I don't mind being a bit less infatuated with the underlying meaning in order to have a little tryst with the words themselves.  It's why I have a hard time reading non-fiction, I think.  In non-fiction the writing is there as a little servant to the subject, and that's all backwards as far as I am concerned. The word must be lord and master.

Music is a different challenge.  You have the words, the meaning, the story, and the actual music. I don't mind admitting that some of my favorites would be scoffed at by the music "purists" club, or whatever they call themselves. And you just know they have something that they call themselves.  It's not a very good club, otherwise.  I realize that the word "club," as such, is a mighty aptly named thing - who wants (to be in) a club that you can't beat someone with?

So people rummage through youtube by searching first for Rolling Stones, and then chasing links in order to stumble upon some obscure wonder that they have never heard of, but they can post and pretend to have been enjoying for years. Or at least since before you ever heard of them, that's the important part.

Some time ago, a friend and I were settled somewhat uncomfortably in a lounge in Vegas, wondering at all the kitsch and recreational flim-flam, and having a discussion with our lovely others about music.  They've known us a long time.  "You're a couple of pleasant enough fellows," they said.  "You live well and have families, and don't go all dark on us like some emo cry babies.  So why do you seem to like so much depressing music?"

Easy.  It's not depressing.  It's the words.  The music is plenty good, too, and I don't have a need to be sad, feel sad, or crave sadness in order to enjoy a well-played song with expertly written lyrics.  A song about suicide can be a perfectly uplifting thing, when it has lines like this one:

Angels lay their odds on you,
Know not quite what they should do,
Only that they can't quite tear themselves from the view.

Likker Jimmy Does it Again, or, "Hey, Cut That Out!"

Likker Jimmy.  That's what I have taken to calling Lileks sometime in the past 9 seconds or so.  I'm a nickname guy, and always have been.  The Army helped me out with it a bit, but it was there before.  I tend to lean towards mafia-style nicknames.  Here's a few people I know:  Jimmy Viggs.  Terry Pockets.  Johnny Cookies.  Johnny Hi-beams.  Hubble.

Now, Likker Jimmy is welcome to tell me to suck sod and never call him that again, but I don't expect he'll ever know what's going on, so I will do what I always do:  Continue on in insultingly smug fashion until I am confronted and forced into an apologetic pantomime.  How the hell does a mime say "I'm sorry?"  I don't know, but I'll send one to Lileks as soon as he starts yelling at me.


The reason I bring it up at all is because we seem to be tumbling along in some sort of cosmic slipstream together.  It's probably more like a clothes dryer, with me as the lint screen.   While we have never communicated with each other in any way, and I am certainly not charmed enough to be able to boast of collaborating with him, I do believe I have highlighted three occasions in the past in which our ideas passed eerily close to each other.  This morning I hop over to The Bleat to see that he has decided to do the Truffle Shuffle all over my plan to write about hair cuts.  I should just write first, then go to the webbernets.  It would save me a lot of anguish.  Alas, I take a slightly different tack, so this whole vainglorious introduction is just my insecure way of saying "Like, listen, man.  I'm totally not tryin' to mellow Likker Jimmy's vibe by hornin' in on his goods.  I was totally gonna write about this, anyway."

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I'm sorry.  Somebody get me a mime, because I am just soooo sorry.  I haven't risen up against the soul-blanching incursion of chain barbershops by finding the last vestige of old-school tonsorial arts in my condo-laden urban death nest.  Indeed, I eschew them for the very reason men seem so keen on desiring them:  The camaraderie.  I am not a talker.  Not a small talker, anyway.  I have no knack for chatting it up or chewing the fat.  When questioned, I give short answers that leave little room for elaboration or follow up.

"How've you been?"

"Pretty good."

"What've you been doing since your last time in?"

"Not much."

"What's going on with this weather?  Can't seem to figure out what it wants to do."

"Yep."

"Should I just shut up and cut your hair?"

I do remember the smells and the feel of the old school, man version of the barbershop.  But those memories are mostly from childhood, when I sat up on a worn, wooden plank that Mick laid across the arms of the chair.  Cliches:  Blue barbicide, lab coats, man-banter.  Cliches, yes.  But damned comfortable cliches.  

Army barbershops, even the ones off-post, were mostly assembly line deals that didn't give you much in the way of nostalgia.

"High and tight, please."

"Mmm-hm."

I like it, I get it.  I understand the appeal, the pared down simplicity of the all macho experience.  It's like a tree fort with a No Girls Allowed sign.  But I like girls.   I like pretty girls.  I especially like pretty girls doing things for me, and to me.  So I found me a place that calls itself a Gentlemen's Barbershop.

Ohh, you'll hate me for this.  Yes, my barber is a girl.  I think she may have even gone to some "Stylist Academy."  The shop is a small place designed for men.  Men's magazines, sports on a flat-screen, classic literature on the shelves, straight razors and shaving kits on display and for sale.  Fat leather chairs in the waiting area, and dark, polished wood all around.   My haircut is too expensive, it includes a hot towel on the face, a straight razor on the neck, and a shampoo (you sissy!), and most of the other guys in there are executive types on a lunch break.  Mad Men sorts of fellows, I gather, but this is Seattle, so Mad Men without the credible masculinity.  But my barber is a pretty girl who takes my coat and offers me a coffee  or a water when I walk in, takes interest in my family, chats just enough that I don't have to do much chatting of my own, and she gives me the best damned haircut I've ever had, every single time.  Of course I go back, and of course I pay too much, and of course I tip too well on top of that - I walk out of there feeling like King of the World.

Semi-Social Experiment the First: Will You Love Me More?

Will you love me more if I say "Kill that liberal?"
Will you keep me in your blogroll?
Will you love me more if I link some pundits?
Should I bait the hook for trolls?

I've tried to be a rueful boor.
I've quaffed the partisan dreck.
I got my toddler the three disc set
Of  lectures by  Glenn Beck.

Sure, she still needs help getting dressed,
And tinkles on the floor,
But you've said as much of our President,
And even called his mom a whore.

But if you'll love me more I'll say "Kill that liberal"
Because my child needs her Dad
To be the frothing, seething, hatred-spewing (But, totally, like eloquent, and well-informed - not like the liberals who just make up whatever they want and shout it from their community-college-educated soap boxes)
Role model I never had.

Everything Must Go!

I have been given the privilege of guest posting at Jaded Haven.  Most - if not all - of you are aware of Daphne's lovely site, and are probably there on a daily basis as it is.  If not, get thee hence!  It'll do you good, especially now that she has an anonymous guest blogger classing up the joint a bit.  Something's amiss here...

Here's how it works, and you'll know why I am bothering with this in a sentence or two:  She sent me a login so that I am an author on her blog.  For the last couple of days I have been over there, getting accustomed to the format, and nervously pulling and reposting all kinds of trash.  In the process I learned this:  I like wordpress, and I am moving.

Some time last year I gave it a quick go, and didn't like what I saw.  Whether something has changed since then I do not know, but I like the smell of the fire over there now, and am going to be moving this Gypsy wagon to the new camp.  In a few days I will post a new url, which will look an awful lot like this one, and you can start reading me at the new site.  It is just a matter of cleaning up and tweaking things over there now.

As far as I can tell, this site will still be here at blogspot, too.  It just won't be getting updated.

There's a very, very good chance that this has more to do with my inability to sit still than anything else.  Peace in the Middle East.  I'm Audi 5000.