learning to like books, 1983.

Other voices

Father's Day edition. For some reason, my dad gave me this picture today. It's been around all my life and I'm not sure why he elected to remove it from his wall now.

My grandfather, late 40s, Phoenix, somewhere off of 22nd Street and Earll.

He was busy. Born on a farm in Crocker, Iowa, he ran away from his abusive father at 15, lied about his age and joined the Navy. A couple of years later, he went AWOL. Something about a girl. WWII started and he re-enlisted under an assumed last name. He worked on a frigate in the South Pacific and the only "war story" I know of is he was in a bar brawl somewhere and had a chair smashed over his face, which put his front teeth through his lip. He wore a mustache for the rest of his life. His actual identity was discovered by the Navy a couple of years later and he was dishonorably discharged. He spent a couple of years rodeoing, met a girl, divorced her (she lives in Prescott, still uses his last name), started a roofing company, got rich, starting a trucking company, got richer, put on airs, bought planes, and was never seen out of a three piece suit again. He was set up on a blind date with my grandma in Santa Fe, married her, moved the operation back to Phoenix, had four children, was out more nights than he was home, divorced her. After that he moved to Denver, married an old mistress, had two more children, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, went insane, died. Did I get it all? This summary leaves out human drama like laying out a private eye my grandma had hired (to track him) or chasing his last wife around their home with a decorative sword (brain tumor).

Actually, he was diagnosed with that tumor ten years earlier when still married to my grandmother. He didn't tell anyone. When the family doctor proposed the idea of removal surgery to him, he said, "No. Fuck it." The doctor told this story to my grandmother 30 years later when they ran into each other after mass at St. Francis.

Incidentally, all that money was embezzled by his lawyer while he was going through the motions of dying. He insisted on going to work still, but was much altered by the growing insistence of the tumor. He'd wreck the car on the way home or leave it running in the garage and go inside to bed. This was the lawyer's cue to steal a lot of money, the rest of which went to pay off some extravagant bills. In the end, my dad got a tiger's eye ring, and my uncle got a money clip. The two younger kids? Apparently not fully vested yet - no inheritance. The estate tried to recover a car he had purchased for my grandmother, which would have spelled doom for the now-impoverished, full-time working single mother of four. She was only able to keep it when a kindly old woman at the dmv pulled a fast one with a title transfer. Someday I'll try to ponder how she managed to send all the shits to Catholic primary and high school.

The end!

Oh, the Rosson is all done up for the Fourth of July with some wind-flapped bunting.

And the canna lilies are looking especially jungley. They are self-propagating, lush and tall, with great leaves the size of an elephant's ear. And they like it hot. Good Arizona foliage.

I am researching an early Phoenix family who lived in the Rosson at the turn of the century. For whatever reason, they're the least documented family to have lived there (before 1915. after that, it's every man for himself). It might even involve in-person research. there might be microfiche involved. this sounds both exciting and dreadful. I haven't used a microfiche viewer since uh, mostly never, but my only experience was in the early 90s. I remember giving up almost instantly. Luckily I am a grown ass man now and it is likely that I will persist.

I love this flickr set. Mom's World.

Lots of everyday shots and staged shots from the early 50s. The photographer or subject of most of the photos is a striking blonde who is still around to provide thoughtful commentary or stories about almost all of the photos. Some of the stories are charming and some are deeply touching and tragic.

Make room, Norma Jean. Dizamn!



I also like all of the interior shots. Having spent my childhood with grandmothers who had acquired most of their furniture and home effects in the 1950s and never saw fit to replace them, the style is comforting to me.

When you know that things have gotten bad at work.

44th St. theme song

Emilia Bunhart

My best cousin, childhood bully and fellow teenaged goth is 30! How the time does fly.

Yeah, yeah, it's a photo of a photo.

What in the fuck!

Yeah, I was...not aware of this. Here is a younger and more metal performance here: Judas Priest - Diamonds and Rust 1982

I hope this turned some acne'd young 80s metal guys on to JB, and I hope it freaked them the fuck out.

1975

One of my favorite songs, by one of the most interesting and admirable people ever. The song is about her weird relationship with Dylan.

All around town with Heloise

Completely different flowers this time. I haven't done any embroidery in a year or something, but was pleased to remember lazy daisies and french knots. When I was a kid, I was incapable of learning the french knot. Oh how far we have come.

At first I thought this installation at Windsor was yet more contrived hipster bullshit (and it is), but it is pretty amusing to read them as you wait for the bathroom. They're all from the 80s and prior.

I've been meaning to find a ridiculous old stereo at Goodwill or something so that I can listen to my tapes again. I could get rid of almost anything, but I have held steadfastly to my tape collection. Can't get rid of any of them. After I moved, I tried to take an assessment. Lots of weird shit in there, and seventeen Cure tapes.

Anita and Kaveh's melted bricks in Albuquerque.

This is where my dad lived when he was a small child. This is a poor shot taken at noon, not very good. Except for the fence and the landscaping, it's just as it was in the 50s, and so I've always had a half-assed idea to sneak in and get some decent shots, since we have early photos of the house after it went up.

This is probably the fanciest house they had in Phoenix. It's on Central & Bethany, about the third house south of Bethany. It's goddamned gigantic and my grandma hated it. She came from a farm and had simple tastes. It wasn't the unnecessary sprawl of the house, or the need for hired help to keep it clean due to four children under the age of six, but the swimming pool. She was convinced that there would be a drowning unless they moved. My grandfather wouldn't put a fence around it because he felt that pool fences looked like shit.

Bear lives nextdoor to my grandma. Anyone looking for a sweet tween-aged Rottweiler? Bear's owner is a piece of shit. The dog is always outside. When I first saw him, he was friendly and desperate for attention. The last time I was there, when these photos were taken, he cowered as I approached. At ME, who has met him, and was approaching slowly while talking to him in my dog-voice. Motherfucker.

The owners are rarely home and the yard, which they share with my grandmother, is protected by a short fence that doesn't lock, so, yanno. Just saying, Bear is available for easy re-homing. I would probably take him myself, but I currently live in a small apartment with no yard. Oh, and three pre-existing animals, none of whom will be at all hospitable to this oafy playful dog.

I spent my entire day reading this blog from the beginning. I haven't made it out of 2008 yet.

My American-Iraq Life

I go through a two-part cycle when it comes to how I accept information into my life. Sometimes I'm a voracious newshound, reading all the time, raging and fretting, bring it up when people just want to joke around, and judging and dismissing people who don't care about what I think is important. And if I'm really comfortable with someone or already dislike them, I will feel free to attack them about it.[1]

And other times I completely check out. Completely. I only hear about the most grievous of events as little chirps and hamfisted discussions catch my attention at work. I was in one of these blackouts last year when Haiti was devastated by the earthquake. I found out something like THREE DAYS LATER. My ability to ignore the world around me is strong.

When I inevitably cycle back into being on full alert about world events, I look back on what I was doing the prior week ("20 minute internet searches for pictures of Esmond Romilly? Really?" or exhaustive research about Queen Victoria's first daughter for no apparent reason other than I wondered if she was a bitch like her mother, and looked like her), then I start to feel guilty. I feel like I'm wasting my time, and like not paying attention to events is perpetuating the problems that created them, even if my only reaction to them would be to later get in a fight at work about it.

And that's about it! I see no end to this cycle. I have to assume that my blackout periods are regulated by my brain to keep me from going absolutely insane. Victimization of people by the government, big business, human rights violations, kidnap and murders of overseas journalists, dog fighting, strip mining, femicide still happening in Juarez, American vet soldiers killing themselves on the steps of VA hospitals! I take the distress of these things on completely. If I was flipping out about these things full time, I would die of stress-induced heart complications while still in my 20s.

Anyway, the above linked blog is very fascinating and certainly started a nice guilt spiral about being another do-nothing baby with nothing to bitch about but my various luxuries. Enjoy! No, really. Do read it, it's an interesting slice of life about her experience as an enlisted female in the army, serving in Iraq, and dealing with it later.

[1] Last week I watched the Pat Tillman documentary. I was in a state afterward, outraged at the implications, and plagued by descriptions of his veins making a sound "like a drinking fountain" as they expelled all of his blood once one of his platoon had shot his head off. Soon after, poor soul, my mother called me and began to talk about an interview she had watched recently with Paris Hilton and her stupid bitch mother. I lost it, screeching in all caps into the phone some shit about defiling oneself by the information we take in - I can be a real dick, but I don't give a fuck, 'cause I still think I'm right and haters gonna hate, after they watch the Hangover 2.

Now, please ignore the irony of the post beneath this one in which I cry about not being able to wear costumes 24/7.

Wish I was an Edwardian baebe

If only I could spend my time alternating between lying/flouncing around in lacy tea dresses, lawn dresses, and other drippy, cream colored garments, but being alive in the modern world is a dirty business, and it simply isn't practical. Me, crawling out of my car in a long skirt with a 24" circumference. Me, getting caught in doors by my sleeves, or waving the cat away as she tries to bat at them. Me, frantically dabbing coffee out of a 96 year old bodice - it's just not viable.

Unfortunate.

This fashion era, although admittedly awkward at times, is one of my very favorites, if not my main favorite. No other bygone period of fashion is as charming or flattering. Victorian wasp waists are a little disgusting, and bustles look grotesque. Remember the two nasty sisters from Disney's Cinderella? And the reality of so many layers and sleeves to your wrists is less romantic than is typically imagined. Have you ever tried on or seen a 19th century dress in person? Two words: sweat stains.

Another eminent fashion favorite is the 1920s in which everyone envisions some boyish model in a fringey dress. The reality? Shapeless dresses that double as potato sacks, drop waists, rolled stockings! Rolled stockings. Also, cloche hats look like shit on me.

Yeah, Edwardian fashion (the Romanovs, the Titanic, Julia Ormond in Legends of the Fall for those who don't view history as a chronology of dresses) is the best. Modernized but pretty and romantic. Less bullshit than prior periods, fewer skirts, no corset, enough lace to keep French maiden aunts busy for a century, and the jewelry is refined and classical - no jet or reliquaries and other heavy shit if you are not into that.

Oh and if you like to swim (I don't - auction's all yours): About as modest as you can get with your knees exposed.