First breath of fall

Somewhere in the middle of every season, there's a moment where I can feel the next one coming on in the air. In winter, it's a night that, despite the cold, ice and snow, there's a warmth in the air that ultimately won't be denied.

Earlier tonight, while driving out to Harleysville to Rita's, I felt the first such moment of the summer: the onset of fall. It was just a moment of chill air on the breeze, and it only lasted a couple seconds, but somehow, in combination with the deep purples and oranges in the western sky, it felt like the advance guard of autumn.

Such moments are always reassuring. Summer may be at its peak, but fall is waiting right behind it.

AOL Welcome Screen Headline of the Week

The best AOL welcome screen headlines reveal new layers of meaning with repeated readings, and this week's winner is no exception:

Man Mocked on Internet Burns Down Rival's Trailer

Someday I'll post my long critical paper on WALDEN...

...in the meantime, though, there's this (Click on panel to enlarge it):

...and now, a word from our sponsor.

It's been years since I saw an episode of THE FLINTSTONES, but I swear to God, when they used to run on channel 48 after school, I never saw one of THESE....

Great moments from M*A*S*H - 2

This rapid-fire exchange between Klinger and Colonel Potter comes at the end of the episode Commander Pierce, in which Hawkeye takes command of the 4077th while Potter goes to Seoul for a "conference." Potter doesn't even look up from his paperwork the whole time Klinger speaks.

Klinger: (promenades into Potter's office; sets a vase of flowers on Potter's desk) Colonel, I missed you!
Potter: No.
Klinger: About my heart murmur, sir--
Potter: --No.
Klinger: My double vision is coming back--
Potter: --No.
Klinger: I've fallen in love with a goat--
Potter: --No.
Klinger: (resigned) Glad to have you back, sir. (takes flowers back, turns and leaves office)

And a great exchange from the episode Payday, while Hawkeye dances with Nurse Baker in the officer's club:

Baker: Captain Pierce, you dance divinely.
Hawkeye: My parents made me take divine lessons.
Baker: Smart parents.
Hawkeye: It broke my heart to leave them back there on Krypton.

AOL Welcome Screen Headline Of The Week

Last week was kind of a lame week for AOL welcome screen headlines. (Oh. I'm sorry. It's ALWAYS a lame week for AOL welcome screen headlines.) There was Cell Phones Dirtier Than Toilets (Monday July 16)... and Skier Hits Gate With Groin (Wednesday July 18)... and the oddly lyrical Did Jon Lovitz Pummel Andy Dick? (Thursday July 19; of course, the only reason that this story got ANY play was because journalists seek any excuse they can find to work the word DICK into a headline). There was also the usual assortment of breathy teasers for otherwise uninteresting stories (Does this fashion ad go too far? What Did Britney Say? Who took the baby girl? Who wants to condemn Bush?).

But when the best headline you see during the week is on Yahoo, fercryinoutloud (Thursday's Swedish Woman May Have Fastest Residential Internet Connection), you know that there's no deserving winner.

So... three lame runners-up. Sigh.

Stay tuned though: it's only Monday, and already AOL has treated us to Liza Minnelli Forgets To Wear Pants.

Comedy Cleanup Time

All right... so I'm now reduced to posting quotes, jokes and emails from friends. There's a lot going on in my life at the moment and I'm kind of sort of sorting it all out... in the meantime, I might as well try and make everyone laugh.


* First, there's this, from my friend David (the cartoonist behind DOCTOR FUN):

Is it my imagination, or is Jim Thorpe playing football with Abe Lincoln in this picture? Who is to say it couldn't have happened?
http://www.cmgworldwide.com/sports/thorpe/photo10.htm

To which I responded: If only Lincoln had worn one of those helmets to OUR AMERICAN COUSIN.


* And second, a joke I heard on a Jackie The Jokeman CD I picked up for six bucks last weekend at the Q-mart. Probably everyone who clicks on this blog has already gotten my e-mail with this joke, but I post it here for prospective future employers who googled me searching for a reason to not hire me.

(Note to said prospective employers: If that's indeed the case, don't bother calling me to arrange an interview. You're not the kind of person I'd want to work for anyway.)

The joke:

Cletus and Homer are ready to spread manure on their field, except... the manure delivery truck crashes. (The joke could almost end there). "What're we gon' DO, Homer?" Cletus says.

Homer thinks for a while, then his face lights up. "Cletus, I'll TELL ya what we can do. You know that ol' outhouse Granny's been complainin' about since forever? Well, we'll set a few sticks'a dynamite under it... blow that sucker up... it'll spread everything down in the hole all across the field... we'll solve two problems at once."

So they get a few sticks of dynamite and put them under the outhouse, and just as they light the fuse and run for cover, Granny comes out of the kitchen and down to the outhouse. She opens the door and goes in and just as she sits down...

KABOOOOOOOOOM! The outhouse goes sky-high, everything goes flying over the fields, and Granny soars 50 feet through the air and lands in the middle of the strawberry patch. Cletus and Homer run over to her. "Granny! You OK?"

And Granny says "I'm fine, fine," and then she shakes her head and looks at them. "I'll tell ya what, though, boys... it's a good thing I didn't let THAT one just slip out in the kitchen!"

Writerly quote du jour

This is a great quote about revising from singer-songwriter-novelist Jimmy Buffett, in the July 16, 2007 issue of TIME magazine (10 Questions, p. 4):

Q: When you're writing your books, do you do a lot of revising, or does it just come out nearly the way it ends up?
A: Oh, no, it's edit, edit, edit. It's almost like getting a boat ready to go to sea. You've still got a countless number of things left to fix, but you've just got to go, "O.K., everybody get on the boat. We're going, ready or not."

AOL Welcome Screen Headline Of The Week

For the week ending Friday, July 13, 2007:

Were Pele's Arms Sold for Crack?

Great Moments In Irony

On the one hand, I wanted to take a picture, but on the other hand, describing it will test my Writerly Mettle, so...

On the way into work today, I detoured through Blue Bell, down Cathcart Road near the college, to drive over to Super Fresh (and Bucks County Coffee) for a cup-o. Cathcart Road is lined with homes from the 50s and 60s: suburban single-family homes on big, wooded lots, shaded by 150-foot-tall-and-taller oaks and other old growth trees. In the middle of one of these huge stands of trees, there was a stone access road cut into the lot, the beginning of what will be a mini-development featuring "3 custom homes" (according to the roadside sign). (As an aside, don't you just love how these yuppie palaces are always called "homes" and not "houses"? As if calling it "home" will make it FEEL like "home." But I digress.)

If you saw the size of the lot, you'd know exactly what those three "homes" are going to look like: 80000 square feet each, with 15 feet of lawn between them.

Anyway, as I passed this morning, The Land Rape had already begun: lying on its side was a 30-foot long section of oak trunk, at least 4 feet across at its base, with the remainder of the tree and its companions piled in three 20-foot-tall mounds of wood chips next to the trunk.

And the aforementioned sign next to the access road, a few feet away from those slaughtered trees, proudly trumpeted the name of the development:

TALL OAKS
of
BLUE BELL

Really, you can't make this shit up!

Max's Photo Album - Page 1

Going through pictures and saved cartoons on my hard drive... found these few, which I had to post here.

* A great BOONDOCKS. God, how I miss my daily dose of BOONDOCKS. (Click on the strip to see a larger, READABLE version of the 'toon) :

* A photo of the storefront of my favorite record store, Record Connection (in Ephrata, PA), with a subtle advertisement for other Product the place traffics (or may once have trafficked) in at one time in its rich history. (As I told a friend who said "I don't get it," read in colors, vertically.)

* Then there's this subtle masterwork. The cutline says it all. "He became literate," eh?

Stay tuned here for more photos and 'toons as I clean up the joint.

Of gooks and hoods and coffee...

I was watching an old episode of M*A*S*H last night, "L.I.P. (Local Indigenous Personnel)," in which Hawkeye tries to help a fellow soldier cut through Army regs and marry the (Korean) mother of his child so that they can fly back to the states as a family. The subplot was Hawkeye's attempt to bed down a nurse (Nurse Able or Baker or Campbell or something... progressive as it was, M*A*S*H was notorious for giving its nurses generic names, at least early in the series): Hawkeye sets up a date with the nurse, only to find himself detained by a C.I.D. (Army intelligence) officer investigating the marriage request.

When Hawkeye finally makes it over to the nurse's tent, he tries to explain why he was late for their date, and the beautiful, lusty, desirable nurse whose neck and lips he is nibbling says something like, "So... you were late because you were trying to help one of our people marry a gook?"

It was a beautifully crafted scene, and totally believable, because it reflects something that happens repeatedly in life: someone you admired or held in high esteem says something or does something --sometimes it's just one word, like gook-- that, while "right" to them, reveals a side of their personality that just makes you want to run for the exits... thus shattering your illusions about them forever.

I had such a moment during my trip to Vermont last weekend. I was in Montpelier at a cafe (ok, it was Capitol Grounds), which, on the one hand, I've always liked and I always try to visit (they roast their own beans; nothing like drinking a cup of coffee from beans that were roasted on the premises the same day), but, on the other hand, always had SOMETHING about it that put me off.

From my journal:

At Capitol Grounds. I'm sitting here at the counter that faces out onto State Street. To my left is a girl studying from an anatomy and physiology book; to my right, a guy pounding away email on a laptop. Neither one of them has coffee. (The girl, in fact, was drinking water from a Nalgene bottle --m) Meanwhile, there was a group of about 5-6 high school kids, a couple of them dressed really punky, in black, with piercings, spiked wristbands, torn jeans, etc, sitting at one of the two sidewalk tables in front of the cafe. Not making a scene; not bothering anyone; just talking and laughing and enjoying the sunny day, like high school kids do. But: no coffee.
Now... guess who's still sitting where, and guess whose presence drew out the owner to chase them away?

Like the nurse's use of the word gook, that little episode explained and revealed a lot. I'm sure 9 out of 10 shop owners would take the side of the cafe owner: he'd say that it "doesn't look right" to have punky-looking non-paying-customer high school kids hanging out in front of your store.

Still, as Hawkeye discovered when he tried to go back and kiss those lips that had uttered that epithet, the coffee didn't taste quite the same to me after I saw him chase those kids off and leave the studying, typing yuppies alone.

Words That Are Only Used In AOL Welcome Screen Headlines - 2

JACKO
referring to Michael Jackson (although other online news services use this too).

Does ANYONE actually use the nickname "Jacko" when discussing Michael Jackson in normal conversation?

Phinally Pheel a Connection - addendum

This column expresses what I was talking about in my previous post about the Phillies; Phil Sheridan says it so much more eloquently than I did, though. I suppose that's why he's a columnist for the Philly INQUIRER and I'm sitting here in a college library, blogging.

I'm glad, though, that it "wasn't just me" seeing a sudden flash of character in this episode.

In a flash, Phillies showed their character
By Phil Sheridan
Inquirer Columnist
July 10, 2007

The Phillies help the Colorado Rockies grounds crew wrestle with a wind-blown tarp during a storm at Coors Field in Denver.The players and coaches rushed out to help Sunday after gusts lifted several crew members into the air and under the tarp.

One of the great things about sports is the way competition reveals character. Through triumph and defeat, through adversity and success, we can learn something real about people.

The Phillies took that to another level Sunday in Denver. As we hit the pause button on the baseball season, it's worth taking a moment to recognize what happened when a freak gust of wind turned the routine of covering the infield with a tarp into a dangerous, scary situation.

With no time to consider how it would play on SportsCenter, with no public-relations consultants whispering in their ears, with no regard for the risk of injury, the Phillies ran onto the field and helped the Colorado Rockies' grounds crew get the tarp safely under control.

Watch the video and it's remarkable. As soon as it became apparent there was a crisis - several members of the hardworking, underappreciated grounds crew were trapped in the wildly lurching tarp - the entire Phillies dugout emptied.

Denver Post columnist Terry Frei, calling it a "bench-clearing squall," marveled at the sight of the reigning National League MVP, Ryan Howard, using his home-run hitting strength to yank on the tarp and help hold it in place.

In the one moment that mattered, the Phillies, to a man, did the right thing. The Rockies, except for one man - reliever LaTroy Hawkins - did what most baseball teams would do. They retreated to the clubhouse to wait out the rain delay.

The Phillies' actions won't win them the Congressional Medal of Honor. Heck, they won't win any baseball games. They won't change the makeup of the bullpen or restore health to some of their injured pitchers. All the Phillies' selflessness will change is the way people see the players as men.

That is no small thing in these days of steroids and growth hormones, of dogfighting rings and gunfights outside strip clubs, of pouting superstars demanding trades. Even basically decent professional athletes operate behind a carefully built wall that separates them from the fans who make those lucrative contracts and wonderful lifestyles possible.

Occasionally, there will be a press release about a charity event or an appearance at a hospital. Maybe the player is raising money for a foundation dedicated to fighting a particular illness or helping a worthy cause. These events generally feature photo opportunities.

Now, there's plenty of good in all of that. Don't read this as criticism of well-meaning athletes doing perfectly admirable deeds. The point is that these events are carefully controlled and designed to present a buffed and polished image of the player. They are more stagecraft than a true glimpse into a player's character.

Sometimes you get a flash of real insight during a game, whether it's good (Aaron Rowand running into the fence to catch a ball) or bad (Carmelo Anthony punching an opponent, then running for his life) or open to interpretation (Terrell Owens' touchdown celebrations).

Moments like the one in Denver on Sunday, when an unexpected occurrence requires a pass/fail test of human nature, are the rarest of all.

It was a little over four years ago that 13-year-old Natalie Gilbert forgot the words to the national anthem before an NBA playoff game. Sixers coach Maurice Cheeks, then with the Portland Trail Blazers, stepped in, offering a steady hand and a shaky voice in support. Cheeks saw a kid in need and reacted. The world saw a completely honest, unrehearsed act of simple human decency.

Simple doesn't mean common. The reaction to Cheeks' kindness - national TV coverage, newspaper columns, more attention than he ever got for coaching the Trail Blazers - suggests we don't expect to see anything that genuine from a professional sports figure.

The Phillies rushed the field Sunday with the same pure, instinctive decency. Shane Victorino threw all of his body weight into dragging the tarp back into place. Jimmy Rollins was in the thick of it. So was Adam Eaton, the Phillies' starter that day. Abraham Nuñez helped throw sandbags into place to secure the tarp. Coach Jimy Williams, who is 63, led the charge.

Granted, it isn't as though they rushed a machine-gun nest. But in a sport where players can miss weeks or months with a strained oblique muscle, it was most assuredly a case of selfless concern for the grounds crew outweighing personal interests.

You watch these Phillies - Rollins and Howard, Rowand and Chase Utley, Victorino and Carlos Ruiz - and you can't help thinking they are basically a good bunch of guys.

Now, you know.

Contact columnist Phil Sheridan at psheridan@phillynews.com.
Read his recent work at http://go.philly.com/philsheridan.
Copyright c 2007 Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc.

Words That Are Only Used In AOL Welcome Screen Headlines - 1

RACY

Great moments from M*A*S*H - 1

I'm not much of a TV or DVD person, but probably one of the best things I ever did was splurge last winter and buy the complete series of M*A*S*H on DVD: 11 three-disc sets with some of the best TV comedy ever created. I bought them a set at a time, on Amazon (I don't think I paid more than $20 for any one set), although the entire series is available in a big boxed set entitled MARTINIS AND MEMORIES or something like that.

M*A*S*H was my favorite TV show in high school --I started really watching it just as it crossed over into syndication, and for a couple years, in addition to new episodes every Monday night, there were reruns... I think at one time, M*A*S*H was running five times a night on three different stations in my area.

From M*A*S*H I learned about crisp, funny dialogue and comedic timing, plot construction, conveying a serious message with a sense of humor, how to work with recurring characters... all sorts of writerly things that, given my strange aversion to reading, I had to learn SOMEWHERE. And all of these things have permeated my own work.

Thus, a recurring theme in this blog: great lines and moments from M*A*S*H. As I watch them, I'll add them.

Today's is a little exchange between Colonel Potter (4077th commanding officer) and Radar O'Reilly (his company clerk), from the 4th season episode "The Price of Tomato Juice:"

Colonel Potter: A two-day pass for Corporal Klinger? Why?
Radar: Why?
Potter: I asked first...
Radar: Well... he put in for one, sir.
Potter: That's ridiculous! He's gone AWOL four times this month. He's forever digging, wriggling, sidling... tunneling out of here. A pass? He needs a pass to get into the place!

A final note: Not to plug product, but one nice feature of the DVDs is that you can TURN OFF THE LAUGH TRACK. I always thought that the laugh track in M*A*S*H and other filmed comedy shows (SCTV springs to mind) was an annoying distraction (some call it an "insult to the audience," like viewers have to be prompted), and am grateful that the discs allow you to view sans canned laughter. Stripped of the laugh track, the episodes really run like short feature films. The aforementioned timing and dialogue come across as never before. Also, really, a lot of times, the laugh track "missed" what was really funny, and punched up lines that WEREN'T all that great.

Question

Why is the background music in the KFC (aka: Kentucky Fried Chicken) commercials "Sweet Home Alabama"?

Phinally pheel a connection

I am living in suburban Philadelphia (for the time being) (eight more weeks, but who's counting?) and I'm a lifelong Phillies fan... oddly enough, though, I have felt virtually no connection to this current Phillies team. It's not their place in the standings (I am also an Orioles fan, and they suck more than the Phillies, yet I feel a connection to that team); I don't know what it is. Odd, because the Phillies are stocked with likeable, young, quality players: Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, Cole Hamels, Aaron Rowand...

But till today, nothing.

Today, though, this Phillies team finally made a connection. As I wrote in an email to a friend, "they're playing in Colorado, and there has been thunder and lightning around the field all afternoon... and a few minutes ago, the skies over Coors Field finally broke open... a biblical deluge, with heavy whipping winds. The umps called play and the grounds crew came out onto the field as the teams ran for the dugout... and as the crew started to spread the tarp over the infield, the edge of it flipped in the wind and two or three of the crew members went under it.

"As soon as the tarp flipped, the Phillies bench CLEARED (while the Colorado -home team- players stayed on the bench) and the Phillies players and coaches ran out onto the field and lined the edge of the tarp, helping the grounds crew, tugging and pulling at the tarp, working the edge out from underneath so that it could be spread out... then standing on the edges to weigh it down, and then, when it was finally laid out, helping the grounds crew toss sandbags onto the edges.

"Game is official, by the way, with the Phillies leading. They didn't HAVE to do that.

"That's the kind of team I can feel proud rooting for. Sounds stupid, but they finally got me."

First post

I've resisted this for long enough...

This blog is a catch-all for writing that doesn't fit into my other blogs. One of those is a music blog (Revolver); another (e-pistolary) is a sort of workshop wherein I test out story ideas and character voice through emails written "by my characters"; the third consists of excerpts from the novels I have either completed or am working on.

And then there's this one. I still don't know exactly what will end up here, but if past experience is any indicator, it will end up being as self-indulgent, ennui-littered, and pretentious as all of the blogs I swore I'd never create another of.

I'll try not to make it hurt too much.

Email me anytime. maxshenkwrites@aol.com

Now... let's get started on this thing.