Going for a Spin

Normally I don’t read Spin Magazine. I’m not into the grunge rock and punk music, and that’s what they seem to focus on. I think it’s great that some of these kids have a shot at a singing or performing career, but since I don’t have college age kids I just can’t get my head into what they are singing about or how they look. The extreme hair and makeup, the tattoos, the piercings - it’s so boring. Really boring. What I’d like to see is kids that are clean and groomed and take music seriously along the lines of lyrics meaningful to more than just 13 and 14 year old spoiled brats.

But I do like reading the ads in this magazine. You can learn a lot about a variety of things in today’s pop culture by reading the ads. Especially if you have an interest in liquor and electronics. You’ll read about things you aren’t exposed to in any other popular medium. That’s the downside of targeting ads to narrow demographics. The slick marketing pros in NYC and LA don’t always get it right.

Sandcastles

Two of my brothers live in a beach town. They are roomies and are very close in age and interests, and I’m glad they have each other around to help out and look after one another. They are too far away for me to visit very often, and there’s not much in this town to attract either one of them to visit here unless it was a business conference or convention that they were required to attend, and that hasn’t happened in over 15 years, so I’m not holding my breath.

On the other hand, it was a business trip that took me to their town a few years ago, so I’m not faulting them. When I knew I would be arriving on a particular date, I sent my brother an email and told him which days I would be there and asked when he would like to get together for dinner and set our plans around that.

After a great seafood dinner in a little place overlooking the Atlantic, we decided to walk for a few blocks on the beach and appreciate the sunset while we chatted about family things and shared memories. That was really nice - quality time.

On the beach, a young man was working pretty hard on something very large, and as we got closer I could figure out that he was making a sand castle of sorts in the sand. This was not child’s sandcastle with plastic pails and gelatin molds. This was a serious sand sculpture and was very well done. Turns out he was doing this project as a way to make money. There was a little bucket and handprinted sign that asked for “donations” and almost everyone who walked by was dropping in a couple bucks to help him out. I suspect at the height of tourist season this venture is very lucrative.

Interesting in that the homeless and the beggars in my town pretend to play guitars on the downtown sidewalks and sing country songs that everyone recognizes, with a hat or guitar case on the ground for donations. Here at the beach, they make sandcastles.

Baby Boom

This month has been a baby boom in my little circle of family and friends. Interestingly, there were two births so far, and both have been girls. The last baby in my circle of family and friends was also a girl. There is an old wife’s tale that a boom in the birth of baby boys foretells an upcoming war and that a boom in the birth of baby girls foretells a period of peace. So I very much hope that is true and that this country and the rest of the world is due for a long period of peace and perhaps even prosperity.

My brother’s son and daughter-in-law just gave birth to a little girl. She was born over a month premature but seems to be doing OK. She only weighed a bit over 4 pounds at birth. that is really very tiny and I hope that she can gain weight and stay healthy enough to go home with her parents very soon. It is odd to think of my younger brother as a grandfather already. He is 10 years younger than me and yet he beat me to that milepost of grandfather-dom.

The other baby girl is was just born to a good friend of mine who immigrated here with his beautiful wife from Russia several years ago. This couple is very hardworking and serious about embracing America and our culture. They both adopted Americanized first names and they’ve named their new daughter Elizabeth. I did not know that Elizabeth was a name familiar to Russians, but there is a Russian spelling for this name and they plan to call her Liz. She was born right on time and is a healthy weight, although I have to admit that the announcement came in with her weight as kg and I had to find a metric conversion tool on the internet to figure out that her birthweight was just under 7 pounds.

George Carlin

It was a shocker when George Carling died last month. I expected that old codger to be around for years, hobbling around on a gnarled up walking stick and waving his arms around while he grumped and fussed. He has been a comedy fixture my whole life. I listened to some of his comedy routines when I was a kid and watched most of his HBO specials.

He came to town a few years ago and did a standup routine for about an hour. I got great seats because of connections at the radio station. But to be honest, he came off as a bitter, twisted old man who wasn’t funny anymore. I was terribly disappointed in the entire show and wondered if it was me not being in the right frame of mind that night? Or has he lost his funny touch?

I read the other day that he had just done another show with new material and that his children are releasing it on DVD to try to milk a few more dollars out of their old man’s estate. I sure hope the show was funny this time. I really did like the guy and am sorry that he’s gone.

Internationally Yours

When you work for an international company you must develop an increased awareness for the holidays and celebrations in other countries. As American’s we are used to the banking-type holidays, when the banks, the post office, government buildings and sometimes school will all be closed for the day. Then there are the cultural holidays, like Mother’s Day, Flag Day, even Thanksgiving, that are celebrated in America on certain dates but perhaps not observed in other countries on the same dates, if at all.

A good example is Father’s Day. In America, Canada, and the U.K. we all honor our fathers by celebrating Father’s Day on the third Sunday in June, every year. However, in Australia, Fathers Day is celebrated on the first Sunday in September.

With Father’s Day just a little over a month away, our friends in Australia are already shopping for gifts and planning their celebrations. A great site to shop for Fathers Day Gifts is DadShop.com.au and it’s not bad for ideas for Christmas gifts, either. Check it out. I can be Australian for the day if the urge to buy me something overcomes you!