Auf Wiedersehen!

My brother, his wife, and their sons will be flying back to Zurich this evening. Today, we'll hang out at the Ancestral Homestead in the Bronx with an assortment of cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends. I'm going to miss the family, but we had a great time together for the past two weeks. So, to all the fambly, Danke Schoen:





I, uh, have to confess that I used to think that Rocking Around the Christmas Tree and Danke Schoen were sung by the same person for a long, long time. I just learned that I was partially right, but the prospects of setting up a date on the telephone with a twenty-something Brenda Lee and having a twelve year old Wayne Newton answer the door would be quite the freakout...

That Awkward Adolescent Phase

I almost tripped over this little critter before it took wing and perched on a nearby branch:





I didn't use the zoom on my 2 megapixel phone camera- the boid just sat on it's perch within three feet of my meaty paw. I don't know if it was too young to fear me, or too much of an aeronautical n00b to get the hell away. The spots on the breast of this American robin (Turdus migratorius) indicate that it is a juvenile. The American robin, not to be confused with the European robin (a variety of non-related birds share the name "robin" in the Anglophone world), is a thrush, so if you encounter one cracking snail shells while rock-climbing, look for secret doors in the cliff face.

I'm an Awful, Awful Person...

I didn't write anything about the demise of chanteuse and cautionary tale Amy Winehouse. I've always been a Winehouse agnostic, I think she was a talented singer who had the great good fortune of collaborating with a world-class backup band. If she hadn't shuffled off this mortal coil at such a young age, she would have descended inexorably into late-night punchline status. Since her death, her album sales have charted again, and her music is being played with regularity on the radio. Being an irreverent smartass, I've had a twisted little earworm crawling around inside the mazy confines of my brane all week:


They tried to make me grow a meat slab,
I said, "No, No, No."
Told me, "Make a clone, steak without a bone!"
"No, no, no!"


Yeah, I'm pretty much an awful, awful man.

Forgive Me, Dear Readers

Having recently posted my 500th post, I see that there is a glaring, appalling lack of posts regarding The Buzzcocks, whose name (oddly enough) is not a not-so-thinly-veiled vibrator reference. The Buzzcocks had a huge influence on the English punk scene, and subsequent independent rock and power pop. Personally, my purchase of Singles Going Steady on vinyl (sigh) in an independent (sigh) record shop (sigh) while in high school was a milestone in my music consumption habits. I had my first exposure to punk and new wave while still in grammar school, having discovered the storied WLIR on a transistor radio I'd received as a birthday present. While I had a good grounding in the music, it wasn't until I discovered an eccentric record store that I was able to purchase a record like Singles Going Steady. The record opens with the hilarious Orgasm Addict and doesn't let up for its entire length (heh). Lead singer Pete Shelley's high-pitched vocals were tailor-made for conveying tales of romantic yearning, nascent sexual identity, uncertainty in relationships, and the giddiness of a new love. One of my favorite Buzzcocks' tunes (apparently, it's also Henry Rollins' favorite) is Harmony In My Head, which features guitarist Steve Diggle's growl instead of Pete Shelly's warble:





Crank the speakers up to the proverbial "11", people- this is pretty much the soundtrack for my not-necessarily misspent yute. It's amazing how well the music holds up- it's not just the rosy glow of nostalgia.

Dead Zoo Part 2: Mesozoic Boogaloo

The visit to the American Museum of Natural History (is there an American Museum of Natural Hostelry?) kicked serious ass, like I knew it would. I renewed my membership, and had the pleasure of wandering the halls with some tiny tots. There's something magical about hearing a Very Small Boy rattle off such tongue-twisters as Pachycephalosaurus, Corythosaurus, and Protoceratops with nary a stumble. Dinosaur names are the child's arcana, a recondite body of wisdom largely forgotten by most adults (although some of us are in on the secret). Intone them, and the magical formula transports you to a more dramatic, more fascinating time, a time when the planet was just more thrilling. Wow, the little guys made me extremely proud.

The museum had a special exhibit on the sauropods, complete with interactive displays and a "dig pit"... sheer heaven! We spent a good amount of time wandering the fourth floor of the museum, one of my favorite places on earth. My absolute favorite fossil in the museum's collection is in the "Mammals and their Extinct Relatives" hall. It's the skeleton of the synapsid Cotylorhychus (which, hilariously, means "cup snout"). It's an ungainly, unlovely animal with an absurdly small head. How can you not love this big, dopey-looking brute?





The "finback" sharing the display case with my pathetic cup-snouted friend is Edaphosaurus, another distant relative of ours.

After we left the museum, my brother had to re-enter to make a "pit stop" and I was outside with the boys. The little guy started to fuss (he's a very good-natured fellow, but it was a long hot day that involved a lot of walking), and a lovely young lady made a fuss over him so he'd stop crying. I asked her where she was visiting from, and she told me that she was from Istanbul. She was a very nice, caring person, and all of her friends, ranging from teenagers to adult chaperones, were really a great bunch of people. She especially loved seeing the Statue of Liberty, and was planning on taking the group for a picnic lunch in Battery Park. I have to say, I fell in love with this young lady- to all the Islamophobes out there, I'd rather have her and her charming friends as neighbors than to live next to a bigot like Pammycakes. New York City's awesome- you can hang out, shooting the breeze with people from all over the planet, and some of them will even help you out with a little free baby-sitting

The Dead Zoo

I actually composed this post yesterday. Today, I'm heading down with my brother, Sweetums, and my nephews to one of my all-time favorite places on the planet, a zoo in which the majority of the animals are dead. Of course, I'm a big old dinosaur freak, always have been. The boys share my enthusiasm. In a previous post, I mentioned that I used to be pissed off that the Hall of Vertebrate Paleontology was named after one of the Koch brothers. I now think that it's an appropriate moniker- its a hall filled with the fossils of extinct animals, bearing the name of a fossil who made his money on fossil fuels, and who is doing his damnedest to back policies which are sure to hasten the currently on-going extinction event. What could be a more fitting tribute for the evil old coot?

Armagaydon

It's the first day after the first same sex couples legally married in New York state. I'm putting up a quick post before heading out through the smoking ruins of civilization to make a last stand at the ancestral homestead in the Bronx. Hearing the rallying cry of the busybody:





I decided that I have to check up on the children grimly eking out an existence in the ruins of Gaytoplolis, formerly the thriving City of New York, specifically my nephews and (hopefully) my baby cousins. If he's there, I'm hoping on giving some swimming pointers to my cousin **REDACTED**'s younger son, the feisty **REDACTED**.

Wish me luck, the landscape is crawling with gangs of fabulously mutated gay bikers, and the background levels of gaydiation are causing my Gayger counter to "ping" in a most danceable manner.

NOTE: Checking the post, I noted a fortuitous typo- I typed "Gaytoplolis", instead of "Gaytopolis". Given the intent of this post, I think the typo is better than the intended coinage. Congrats to all of the couples who have gotten married, or are planning on doing so. It's about human rights, it's about everyone having the same shot at a little happiness, it's about time.