Tuesday 2/4/25
I was checking out at the Golden Goose, wearing a BC sweatshirt (and shorts; someone earlier had inquired if I could feel my legs; I could), when a man in the line behind me asked, "Do you know what happened at Boston College fifty-seven years ago?"
I replied, "I believe you graduated."
He said, "Correct. Before Doug Flutie."
I put in, "Considerably," to which he concluded, "Considerably indeed."
Roughly, there are good people, people who are not good people, and bad people. People in the middle category don't plot how to hurt others--generally--but in order to be a good person, one must actively be trying to help other people and thinking of them first; the good person's attitude is one of, "What can I do for this other person?" Nor is this a light switch type of conceit; it's how they are all the time.
The sister in Severance is a bit on the annoying side. Who "accosts" someone for coffee? For some reason, she made me imagine Andy Warhol's reaction to such a person, as extrapolated from the spirit evident in his diaries.
He describes being at this Christmas party and just wanting to be home on his own instead, finding people insufferable for a host of reasons, big and small, but when there are so many small reasons, and they don't seem to let up, what does small really mean anyway?
I have seen the first season now, though, and the premise is smart. (The music, meanwhile, reminds me of Satie's Gnossiennes.) The story is prescient--this is where we're headed, to chips in brains, as I've been saying for years--and it's well-plotted. That's a heady--no pun intended--device at the end of the season to have three of main characters on the outside without their memories. And it plays out on the clock, too, so to speak; that's a good technique.
As for the season itself--you have elements of 1984, Nazi Germany, Orson Welles's The Trial, The Twilight Zone, Lost, Laurel and Hardy's Brats, cults, and of course our own age of broken people who can't handle reality and opt whenever they get the chance--not that you ever really do--regardless of how bad it is for them. People make the mistake of thinking cults are necessarily small, or at least not indicative of a majority. That's not true--there is the cult of the internet, for instance. That's cult culture. And it's as bad for people in terms of how most of them use it.
Downloaded two very cool bootlegs: Dinosaur Jr. playing a "gig" in their Hampshire College dorm on April 5, 1986, and My Bloody Valentine at Maxwell's in Hoboken on February 6, 1989, with Dinosaur Jr.'s J Mascis handling the sound--in other words, it's an even louder than usual MBV. Audience recording, and a very good one.
I have attempted to make a list of the best Grateful Dead shows and it has not gone well--after a fashion--because there are so many shows on it.
Grabbed the band's three late March shows from the Avalon. These are thought to be soundboards, but I don't think so. They could be quasi-audience tapes done with band assistance. But it's a very physical, "in the room" sound.
Watched the mini-series Masters of the Air about WWII air force pilots. I was both much moved and inspired. It picked me up in my own life with things I've had to do that I've not wanted to do.
Also downloaded the full allotment of episodes of the Cape Cod Radio Mystery Theater. As I discussed on the radio one time, "The Buoy" is a modern classic of horror radio, which isn't to say the program was horror driven, but it could go in that direction at times. ("The Caller on Line One"--which I also discussed on the radio; it's somewhere in the On air section--is another example of horror from the program, and quite unsettling.)
The Pro Bowl is goofy. Drake Maye making it is sillier than Mac Jones making it the year he did, and my feelings on Mac Jones aren't exact a mystery. Stuff like Pro Bowl selections matter for a player's resume and things like the Hall of Fame. You can't completely cheapen it.
The Luka Dončić trade isn't the end-all shocker that people want it to be or think that it is. That they regard it as such speaks to how little they know about sports history and how disinclined they are to think at all. This guy is in bad shape--for a professional basketball player--at age twenty-five. He expects to be paid what I would imagine is going to be the highest contract in the sport's history. He could also leave in free agency. I would have doubts about him and the Mavericks obviously did.
For straight-up shock spectacle, it's tough to top the Gretzky trade. Like so much pertaining to Wayne Gretzky, it stands out as its own thing.
I've been very inconsistent in my workouts. Some of that stems from the nature of winter, but all of it is on me. It's not close to good enough. Today during my workout I was contacted by someone who was bringing problems into my life. I have enough. I don't need anyone adding any. The other night, someone texted me, which I noticed upon awaking, but I opted not to read the text until I woke up for good because this individual always slips some digs in.
I don't know if they realize they're doing so, if envy gets the better of them without their awareness, but I am aware, for I am always aware. I chose not to say anything, and responded as if this wasn't what they were doing, but it's a pattern. I will never enter someone's day and make it worse out of the blue. I don't say the wrong thing, I don't do the wrong thing, I don't take anything out on anyone, I don't slip pebbles under the saddle as irritants. I just don't do that. Yes, I will light you up if you're up to fuckery and evil, but I wouldn't describe that as me acting out of blue. I would describe it as you had it coming and left me no choice.
The other night, Brian Scalabrine suggested that Celtics brass should tell Jayson Tatum to go out and score fifty, as if that was just this option for him--to take over, as it were. I'm doubtful that it is. He doesn't really have monster games. The big scoring game for him is thirty-five points. He's typically around the same mark, in the same range. It may sound counterintuitive, but I think it's harder to have monster games when so many of your points come from the three-ball. Monster-game guys are guys who go to the bucket when they feel like doing so and hit their mid-range jump-shots, with threes mixed in. And they get to the line. That's how you get to fifty.
BC and BU both won easily last night. Going to be an Eagles-Terriers Beanpot final.
Sunday marked 3129 days, or 447 weeks, without a drink.

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