#38– Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

Hornby has written another one. It’s brilliant, probably the best book he’s penned since “High Fidelity” and possible even better than it, although I’d like it better if the ending had felt a bit more resolved.

We follow Duncan, who is a manic fan of Tucker Crowe, a semi-Dylan, semi-Springsteen, semi-Leonard Cohen, semi-imaginary creation of Hornby. Crowe apparently experienced a life changing epiphany in a Minneapolis bathroom in 1986 and disappeared. Duncan runs an Internet site dedicated to studying Crowe’s every belch, whimper and fart, and the new rumors of same.

I have to break off here to say that yes, this does ring somewhat true in my own life. I am an equally semi-obsessive Dylan fan. Or maybe was. I can, or at one time could, listen to a few seconds of a version of “All Along the Watchtower” and probably tell you what year it was from. Maybe what tour. Probably who was playing on it. Likely even recommend a better specimen from the same time frame. I have a box of probably over 1,000 Dylan CD-Rs under a spare bed at my house. I certainly own all his albums, I’ve read a good deal of the meaningful books about him, have seen him live something like 16 times, and have spent way too many hours driving other perfectly sane people crazy about Bob Freaking Dylan.

Duncan’s longtime girlfriend and object of his Crowe-worship-torture, Annie, tries to tolerate his obsession. When Crowe releases a “new” album of old demos, it is Annie who hears what is really going on in the music. Partially to spite Duncan, she posts a review on the website. Lo and behold, about the time a cranky Duncan is taking up with a new woman, Tucker Crowe e-mails Annie and appreciates her insight into his work.

I won’t go through the rest of what happens. Even Crowe, who is Dylanish in his inability to take responsibility for his social failures (see Joan Baez, also secret marriage and child/ren, etc), comes off as an amazingly likeable character. I usually want to punch at least one of Hornby’s characters in the face. Not this time. And if I did, it would probably be Duncan.

Again, stepping back in, there was a big “guilty pleasure” factor in this book. I would laugh at the ridiculousness of Duncan’s behavior, and then think, “well, there was that one time when I dd such and such…” and realize that I wasn’t THAT much less ridiculous myself.

This was a very impressive book. Hornby just gets the male psyche. If we can’t BE Bob Dylan or Tom Brady or Barack Obama or whomever, we have to know EVERYTHING about them, and “understand” them completely. It’s utterly pathetic. And accurate. He also gets the female psyche. I like Annie as much as I like any character he has ever written. I’m heartbroken for her failures and problems and wish that just once, he’d broken out happily ever after for her. Maybe when they make it a movie.

Joe

#37- My Cold War by Tom Piazza

I’ve previously reviewed Piazza’s novel “City of Refuge” within the 50 new books for 2009. My wife and I heard him read from that book in Oxford, Mississippi last year, and were struck by the power of his story. “My Cold War” was his first novel and I picked up a remaindered copy from Barnes & Noble for a few bucks.

Piazza’s novel contemplates a middle aged history professor, who is failing in his efforts to work up a new book on America’s cold war heritage, and is failing in his marriage and his efforts to connect with his own painful history of his own family. I do give him mega props on one specific chapter in the book which is about Dylan plugging in at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. By far and away, this was my favorite part of the book, and makes me think that Piazza might be the one who should write the Cold War book.

Our hero eventually goes to Iowa to try to reconnect with his estranged brother, who ends up having befriended some lovely neo-Nazi style racists (sarcasm on the “lovely”, of course). This is where the book gets convoluted. I couldn’t help but feel like Piazza put his hero in a boat, rowed him out into the middle of lake and stopped the book right there.

I can’t recommend this one like I did “City of Refuge”. It’s certainly not a waste of time, as Piazza is an intense and skilled writer, but he’s improved with age. If he continues, the next one should be one for the ages.

Joe

7 1/2 weeks of parenting

Last week, my daughter slept through the night. She’s really and truly done this once, but we’ve had two more 11 PM to 6 AM sleepings, so she’s certainly doing well in that department. She’s also soiled herself mercilessly and cried a lot. She is showing signs of her own personality. Lots of smiling, starting to stick her tongue out if you put yours out at her, making very occasional happy baby noises, and starting to exert the sort of stubbornness that I don’t see how she can avoid, if biology or environment have any effect on us.

My insights are still limited to the fact that parenting is very difficult and very rewarding. Now that she’s starting to get interested in things, we’ve got to be a little more interactive. While she still likes “Radio Nowhere” a lot, I think it’s falling behind “Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes” in the grand scale of things. Which is fine. I don’t want to end up with a pop culture junkie… just a happy little girl.

Back to work comes soon for Julie, so the time at home for her is winding down. Working with a kid, without usurping the mother’s role here because I certainly can’t speak for that, is a strange mixture of freedom and fret. It IS nice to get away from screaming and dirty diapers for a few hours. It’s bad to know that somewhere out there, your child is growing up, and you’ll get to see some more of it when the pile of papers on your desk disappears.

That said, as adults, we are destined to live our own lives, and our children are destined to live theirs. Maybe the shift comes at 9 1/2 weeks, when Mom goes back to work, or at five when little girl goes to school, or at 18 when “adult” girl goes to college. Whenever it is, it is a bittersweet time, as the world starts to interject itself and make us not the only important part of our daughter’s life. But I’m not that stressed about it. There are a million bonds already that will keep us an important part of her life. Hopefully, she’s as happy about that as I am.

Joe

Book #29- Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs

This is the first A.B. book I’ve read (after birth). Fortunately, Chuck Klosterman is basically an irrepressable smart ass who writes about pop culture in a funny, entertaining way. The book is a collection of essays. Some get a little ponderous (like his essay on Vanilla Sky), some are more than a little absurd (Saved by the Bell), and some are so dead on that you can’t help but agree (country music).

Klosterman is probably not for everybody. That said, if you’re between 25-40, have a strong interest in the pop culture of the ’70s and ’80s, and/or have strong opinions about things, you’d probably dig it. I think there’s something in here to offend the sensibilities of everybody, but also something that we can all remember and agree with. Plus, it does have a fun title.

Joe

An update from the land of parenting

So, I haven’t posted so much. Having a newborn baby and going back to work have taken up lots of time. We also just traded vehicles, callously abandoning Julie’s old Civic despite its 130 or so thousand miles of efficiency. Somewhat bizarrely, the new vehicle has a cassette deck. Yes, it’s a 2006, and I know I hadn’t bought a tape for many years before that. But oh well… I’ll be breaking my Hammer cassettes back out soon.

I have realized that the 50 new books is likely not happening, but I am still reading, and am not totally abandoning the project. I have finished one and have another in close proxymity to completion. Who knows- 40-45 might still happen.

Parenting is very intense and challenging, and very rewarding. I would say so far the hardest part is dealing with a crying baby who you know has no legitimate (i.e. hungry, dirty, sleepy) reason to cry. Chuck Berry and Springsteen seem to generally help my little girl. Which is good. God knows they’ve helped me too.

The best parts? I guess you really have to experience them. I am partial to when she nuzzles her head into my neck and tickles the crap out of me. Or her funny faces and smiles, which are becoming more regular these days.

I’ll post a little more… hope everybody out there hasn’t forgotten me and is getting along well.

Joe

She’s here.

On Friday morning at 6:19 AM, I became a Dad. She is a wonderful, healthy amazing little girl, and I am humbled and amazed by her. My wife went through pain that I can’t fathom and generally kept an astoundingly good attitude. I definitely married up, and am very much glad I did.

And I’m really sleepy and a complete emotional train wreck. Is there some kind of postpartum father’s thing? If not, some day sleep deprived, confused, weepy Dads everywhere may have Cox Disease.

It’s been great to experience the support and love of friends and family. It takes a village, and it probably takes a country when I’m the Dad, but know it is appreciated, folks. If you’re a facebook friend, I will have pictures up shortly. Crying baby has pretty much occupied the 26 or so hours since we’ve been home. Just wanted to pass the news along for those who might not have known. Thanks for your support, friendship, readership, and prayers. Don’t stop any of them; particularly the last.

All the Best,

Joe

A goodbye

I generally keep this blog very light. I like to tell funny stories, or talk about books or movies, or share restaurant tips or memories. Unfortunately, sometimes the real world interferes.

Lindsey McCoy passed away on Saturday. Lindsey was 25 years old. She was the sister of Dustin McCoy, a good friend of mine over the years. She was beautiful and vibrant and funny and so alive. I feel very much unequal to the task of trying to paint any kind of picture for anybody who didn’t know her. She was a very special young woman, and she beat cystic fibrosis for 25 years. I never even knew she had it.

It has been a very bittersweet last few days. My daughter is actually due today, and should be born anytime. I suppose it is only natural that the circle of human life takes away when it gives. I believe that God has a plan for all of us, and that when that plan seems uncertain or incomprehensible, we have to believe even more. I think of the worlds of a near death Johnny Cash, who when asked if he entertained religious doubt after his beloved wife’s death, said simply, “My arms are too short to box with God.” I think of the little girl I haven’t met yet, and how I hope and pray for her health and safety and happiness, and how I have to acknowledge that I can’t assure her of any of those things.

Life can be perilous and short. I hope that I, and you, and my unborn daughter, can find the strength and the faith to live our own lives in the shadow of our weaknesses and frailties as well as Lindsey McCoy did. It’s a great task, but I hope we can do it.

Joe

Book 27 and the life of an expecting father

27. Land of Lincoln by Andrew Ferguson

Hands down, Ferguson’s book is one of the best I’ve read yet in my quest for 50 new books in 2009. He writes, not about the nuts and bolts facts of Lincoln, but more about what Lincoln means to people, and more specifically, what he is redefined into by people.

Ferguson goes to a conference of skeptics tearing down Lincoln as well as a convention of Lincoln impersonators. He talks with memorabilia collectors who have searched out pieces of hair and bits of blood from the assination of honest Abe and historians who build museums around Lincoln. He even goes on a vacation along the Lincoln Trail with his own family. His results are searching, insightful, funny and honest.

Surprise, surprise. Everybody has an agenda. Men who hate their wives (including Carnegie, the original self-help king) see him as a saint for dealing with that shrew Mary Todd, southern sympathizers think Abe was a closet racist and a nincompoop, historians see him in the bland politically correct terms of their modern historical movement, Ferguson’s children apparently think he was pretty boring. Ferguson tells us more about ourselves and our age than he does about Lincoln; history, he seems to say, is transfigured into a mirror, and whoever looks inside sees something that looks a lot like them.

But the book is a lot more fun than I’m letting on. He tells stories like that of a Lincoln historian and his wife in the 1930s or 1940s, trying to visit Mary Todd’s old Lexington, KY home. Now, it’s a nice museum. Then, it was a working whorehouse. I also could have laughed for hours at his depictions of the “humor” within the Lincoln impersonators convention– samples included an Abe plopping down in a booth for lunch and exclaiming, “Normally, I would try to avoid a Booth.” and tales of looking for a particular Abe at the convention and having another impersonator describe him as “the tall fellow, with the beard and the top hat.”

I really, really liked this book. There are a million books about that “What?” of Lincoln’s life. This is one about the “Why?” of his legacy. I recommend it.

T minus six days on the baby expected date. Starting to look like a late arrival could well be a possibility.

Also, I made my own hot chicken tenders yesterday. I nearly lit my internal organs ablaze. I’ll try to take pictures next time (of the chicken, not of my organs. Not another colonoscopy post!)

Joe

There’s nothing medium about either pregnancy or hot chicken

The dueling threads of my life– domesticity/parenthood and the raving idiot’s love of hot chicken were battling last night. First, the legendary David Vance and I went for some medium Prince’s Hot Chicken. I’m generally a mild hot chicken guy, but I wanted David to have the full experience. As we sat there with tears streaming down our cheeks and snot steadily threatening to pour out, I realized I had definitely reached that goal. I wondered if I was killing David for awhile, but then he hit his second wind and had every last bite of that incredibly tasty and ridiculously hot chicken. And it is ridiculous. I eat Insane wings at Zaxby’s to try to stay in training, but there’s no comparison. It was all it should be. I also credit David for the best insight yet into the hot chicken, as he said basically that if I approached it as others might approach a good bender– every once in a while, but not all the time– it might not kill me. Hopefully.

After this, it was on to shopping at Babies R Us for a bunch of stuff we needed. The highlight of that was that I found a mirror that you can stick in your car so you can watch your rear-facing baby in its carseat without wrecking. This was a particular thrill, as I managed to allay one of my wife and my 472,637 fears of parenting. Next week, I’ll be removing all electricity from the house and setting fire to all our books so that the baby can’t papercut herself on one.

Anyway, that’s the news from here on Walton Mountain where John Boy is battling explosive stomach cramps and trying to stockpile baby goods at the same time. T minus 13 days to the due date.

Joe

A memorable Fourth of July

I began my Cuatro de Julio celebration with a trip to the Nashville Hot Chicken Festival. Re-check my post about Prince’s if you need to be reminded of my passion for the fiery pollo, but anyway, suffice it to say that I love it enough to travel about an hour and a half and stand in a line in the sun for about as long to enjoy it with a community of like minded folk. David Vance, a friend of mine since the bygone WKU era, joined me for the hot chicken sampling, and a good chickening was had. It’s always a good time to visit with David, and we spent a lot of the day bemused at our oncoming old-manness, which manifests itself in things like the way that we don’t make new friends and develop propensities for doing nothing. Although the latter of those probably isn’t new, at least in my case.

Shortly after the hot chickening was concluded and I was leaving Nashville, I turned on the radio to learn of the shocking death of Steve McNair. McNair, the long time Tennessee Titans QB, was a much beloved figure in Nashville, and was probably one of the city’s most recognizable personalities. He also was shot and killed in an area of town I drove through twice today.

Sports talk radio has spun on and on and on already about McNair. News slowly trickled out that another woman was present and had been killed. At first, it was suggested that this other woman may be McNair’s wife, Michelle, but by tonight, it has instead been indicated to be another lady friend of McNair. While no one is saying it, the circumstances of the event seem to point toward a murder/suicide from the lady friend, although again, I don’t know anything except what I hear, and no one is willing to say this in so many words.

McNair was a Nashville icon, a hero to many, a good guy to nearly all. And now, at the end of his life, the questions will emerge. The circumstances in question suggest an extra-marital affair (Again, reserving the caveat that all I know is what I read and hear, and no one is saying that in so many words) with a woman who was stopped for a DUI on Thursday morning with McNair in the car which he co-owned with her. On the same evening that fans recall McNair’s clutch playmaking, his civic awareness, his positive reputation, a dark cloud falls over all of this. Maybe it was all an act. Maybe the real Steve McNair was a womanizer who cared only for himself, and behaved irresponsibly to the point of causing pain and suffering within his own family. Or maybe not.

It seems significant that this all comes down on July the 4th. America is, above all else, a nation built upon principles of human behavior, fundamental rights and liberties, a contract between the governing body and its constituents. Celebrity or fandom can also seem to present a similar contract. We the fans give our money, our time, and our support, and wear jerseys and make banners, and grieve the now departed because of a way they do their jobs, a fundamental code of human decency. A quarterback who plays through pain, who spends his own time and money to help those less fortunate, who takes great care to involve himself in his home community is a hero to millions.

And what happens when those contracts break down? What happens when the Patriot Act goes into effect, or when millions of innocent Japaneese are herded into World War II prison camps, or essential freedoms are ignored by our own government because they are inconvenient? What happens when the great quarterback appears to have forgotten his morality and forsaken his family? Where is the breaking point?

And the answer to that is an individual one. I hope that America, for all its flaws, is trying to move toward its idealized calling. I hope that McNair’s death can and will be explained in a way that does not make us all question and ultimately reject his entire moral fiber. And I hope that we all realize that part of America’s promise is the demand on its own citizens, NFL quarterbacks, lawyers, librarians, or whatever, that we have our own contracts– with our Maker, with our country, with our spouse and our friends and with humankind at large. We generally can’t control when our lives end, but the cost of freedom is the opportunity to succed or to fail. Our decisions today, individually and collectively, cannot help but define the way we will be viewed tomorrow and for ever therafter.

It’s not fireworks and it’s not fun, but it is important. Where Thomas Jefferson left off, maybe Steve McNair helped me remember today.