I Must Be Good With My Hands

Stupid goddamn CD player I got for sixty bucks at Fred Meyer's at Christmas two, three years ago.



Seized up on me on Saturday, right after I got back from the library with half a dozen things I grabbed. Six-CD carousel, and I already had in SAP by Alice In Chains, Dio's THE VERY BEAST OF DIO, and Soundgarden's DOWN ON THE UPSIDE. I put in Seattle Public's copies of ALL DAY MUSIC by War, TWELVE by Patti Smith, and ROCKET TO RUSSIA by The Ramones. Hit play, and nothing happens. It'd had some trouble reading CDs the last week or so, but this was ridiculous. Tried skipping to the next CD, but it wouldn't go along with that. So I hit Open...and it wouldn't do that, either. Went upside its head a few times, just to show who had the more aggressive posture, but it didn't take. What a fucking time to go out! Saturday afternoon, with My Crazy Roommate free to prattle on, without any sort of soundtrack to carry me through. I can be comfortable in silence, but I prefer sensory input. I remember as a kid, when I was sent off to bed (which I always resented, by the way), I always could hear the television in the living room as one or both of my parents dozed off in front of the set. On one rare occasion, the TV wasn't on and the house was dark and silent. I couldn't fall asleep, had to go out and turn on the TV with the sound fairly low--just enough to be a sonic nite-lite.

What I'm saying is, I like sounds, music in particular. Loading up six CDs and spending a few hours on the sofa having coffee, doing my Games magazine, and laptopping is a fine way to spend part of an afternoon. I've always been one for sensory overload, much to My Crazy Roommate's consternation. She can barely carry on a conversation if the television is on, as she can't divide her attention. Here's where my OCD is complicated by my ADHD: I have to have several things going on at once. I just do. I'll have the TV on (muted), the stereo going with loud, obnoxious music (or easier stuff, depending on my mood--), a slice of pizza and a beer, Games magazine on a clipboard, and three sessions running on my laptop: gmail, porn site, and surfin' window (New York TIMES, Seattle TIMES, IMDb, blogs, et al.). To be reduced to a single CD at a time through my DVD player became an annoyance--I just had to get something. So I ran over to Pawn Exchange on Aurora, see what they had. Sure enough, they had a 5-CD player going for $30. Next better one was $70, so I was willing to take a chance, since they have a 7-day money-back policy. Whole thing was a waste of time, though, since I got it hooked up and all, tried to put a CD in...wouldn't take. Thing wouldn't work at all. Hateful. Took it back the next day, got my cash back no problem. Started pricing CD players at all the retail outlets. And here's where things went from bad to worse.

Maybe I'm the last one to realize this, but no one makes CD players anymore. Everything out there is a 5-DVD player going for several hundred dollars, or else it's an iPod station. I don't have an iPod, so this doesn't bode well for me. Apparently I have several hundred CDs that are going the way of cassette tapes. I guess I'll have to break down an get an iPod at some point, or at least some form of downloaded or digitally stored media, but it's more than just the paradigm shift that depresses me.

I have a cheap MP3 player I got at K-Mart on sale for $60. Only holds about 145 songs or so, which I understand is paltry by iPod standards. But I kind of like it for just that reason. I have an affinity for off-brand, irregular, or low-end products. It's not because I'm cheap, so much; I think I just identify closely with the not-top-shelf merchandise out there. So: even if the entertainment system of the future is here, and we don't have to fuck around with five-inch plastic discs anymore, we can program all our music from stored memory...I still want my six-CD carousel. No, it isn't as programmable, or nearly as extensive. But it's what I want anyway, and that ought to count for something.

So I decided to perform surgery, see if there was anything I could do for my beloved (though, at the moment, resented--) stereo. Granted, I was as much after the trapped CDs as I was about seriously fixing it, but I thought what the hell: I couldn't much break it any more than it already was, if it was inoperable, and I had to rescue those CDs, the library ones if nothing else.

Three screws on each outer side, and four at the rear. That allowed me to remove the upper casing.

I was able to get all the CDs out except one, SAP by Alice In Chains, since it was under the player mechanism. I tried to work the carousel, see if it'd move. It did, but ground on its plastic gears. On a whim, I decided to see if that kind of nudging maybe shook loose whatever bug had seized it up. Sure enough, when I plugged it in and hit the eject button on the front, it kicked out like nothing was ever wrong.

I replaced the casing, hooked it back up, and gave it a chance to redeem itself. Well, it did have trouble reading two of the CDs, but at least it wasn't seizing up. I can eject at will. Even if it's temperamental about what it'll play (and so far, it's been much more agreeable than not--), this is no time for me to be shelling out $60 or more if I can get by otherwise. My car just ate up several hundred dollars in a new carburetor, emissions adjustment, and a new distributor ICM.

It'll be a while before I upgrade my stereo, so long as it'll serve me well. I know it'll start to have more problems as time goes on, but for now I'm sticking by this bargain basement player.

"It's too bad she won't live. But then again, who does?"

Email to BopVito, 9/01/07

I check everybody's blog daily, and notice you haven't touched yours in years. And if it's one thing I can't abide in this world, it's a Jew with writer's block.
So: write about that time you stumbled into the kitchen at noon to make breakfast, and while you were reading the pancake recipe from the side of the Bisquick box ('cause you never can remember how much milk and how many eggs) you noticed that on the top flap it says "Do Not Sift", and that in the blur of your hangover you said "Nobody fuckin' tells *me* how to make pancakes!" and dug around in the bottom drawer til you found that old flour sifter Boucher left behind when he moved. So you beat the egg, added the milk, whisked it thoroughly, and then *sifted* the goddamn Bisquick, thus eliminating all the annoying lumps. Made for smooth batter, things were going well, you just about had the coffee going when you noticed that funny kind of light coming from the flour sifter. Turns out the sifting had ripped open a hole in the space-time continuum--you always can tell when it's a space-time rift, since the effusion is black with those green gridlines they always use when illustrating the space-time continuum in any kind of documentary computer animation.
It was growing at a steady rate, you barely had time to hurl the goddamned Bisquick box into the rift before it consumed everything on the counter, which was mostly the bowl of pancake batter anyway, but that was one of your biggest and best spoons. Still, it continued its expansion til you realized you still had the pancakes on the range, so you grabbed the frying pan and threw that into the anomaly, at which point it collapsed into a singularity that popped out of existence with a stereotypical "pop". And that you wrote to General Mills demanding a new bowl, spoon, and frying pan, but they never responded, since Bisquick is put out by Betty Crocker. I tried to tell you, but you wouldn't listen. Remember, I was there--but I wasn't hung over (a claim that nobody would believe coming from me, but if you wrote it they might).

My day in court

So I'm a legal assistant at Sound Transit. The legal department has eight attorneys, one paralegal, and two assistants. It was three assistants, but the legal secretary to the general counsel retired last month and I'm not sure if they're going to hire a replacement. That, and the other legal assistant is on vacation this week. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised that, in addition to handling the department's invoices and helping out with the public disclosures, that I'd be doing more work for the general counsel (that's the top attorney for the agency, and the head of the department).

He's been calling me in on minor research and proofreading for the last few days, but today things took a bizarre turn. First he wanted me to write up some notes for today's court hearing. Apparently, there are some people out there who don't believe in Sound Transit's mission of bringing light rail to the area. I shouldn't be talking about the particulars of it, so I'll let THE STRANGER do that part--

http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/09/sound_transit_sued_again

Anyway, so after I drew up exhibit lists and created folders for everything, he told me that he wanted me to come to the hearing, get a feel for what it is I'm supposed to be assisting with. Well, that's a vote of confidence (I'm only just beginning to not feel like I'm still a temp around the office). Had I known I was due in court today, I would've worn something better than a khaki sports shirt, black jeans, and sandals--the general counsel and the other two attorneys were in suits and ties (I don't own a suit, but I'm pretty sure I have a tie in my closet somewhere...). Also, I wouldn't have been out bar-hopping last night, finally getting to bed around 3:30am.

Fortunately, I've been a misfit all of my life, so the whole fish-out-of-water feeling is old hat to me. I'm underdressed and don't know what the hell is going on or what to expect? Story of my fuckin' life. So I just grabbed a legal pad and a pen, and the paperwork that I had drafted, and walked with the attorneys up the street to the courthouse. In addition to our two Sound Transit attorneys, there was also our outside counsel from K&L Gates, and attorneys from the prosecutor's offices of King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties (since it's the prosecutor's office that approves the final ballot proposal titles and explanatory statements).

The plaintiff was a nice enough guy, I'd met him a few months ago when he filed a public disclosure request for agency records on the drafting of the ballot title and statements--ammunition for this lawsuit, in other words. When requesters come by to review the documents, I have to sit with them and make sure they don't deface or destroy anything; but I can't do any department work while sitting in front of them, so essentially I'm being paid $21.54/hour to do the puzzles in the agency library's copy of the Seattle TIMES, frequently for hours at a time. Worse ways to round out a forty-hour week, I suppose.

As I had been warned by one of our attorneys on the walk over, these hearings can be less than thrilling. I'll admit that there were a few points where I was beginning to fade out, my sleep deficit catching up with me. I had to fight back laughter at one point, though: the plaintiff said that he wasn't bound by the time limit for filing his petition, since the statute had recently been amended (recodified), and no longer referenced the appropriate paragraph. Basically, I thought to myself, he's arguing that, since the library has misplaced its copy of MOBY DICK, that Melville never wrote it in the first place. [Note to self: that's not bad, tell that one to Desmond tomorrow.]

The judge set off something of a scramble, when he questioned the agency's estimate that the .5% sales tax increase would cost the average taxpayer about $69 more a year in taxes. He quickly did the math, and concluded that would mean that the average taxpayer then spends $13,800 a year on sales taxable goods and services ($69 divided by 0.005 = $13,800). Didn't that seem a little low? I didn't want to speak up, of course, but I actually thought the opposite: dividing that number by 12 on my calculator watch, I saw that would come to $1,150 a month would be spent on taxable items. Rent isn't subject to sales tax, neither is food in this state, or gasoline. I fall right into the actuarial middle of their average taxpayer salary ($44,000-$46,000), so I was flattered that they thought I spent over a grand a month on taxable items. They think I take my paycheck straight to Best Buy or something? If I had a grand to throw around every month, I'd start dating again.

This line of questioning kept our side fairly busy for the better part of ten minutes--and the hearing was scheduled for one hour: right in front of the judge's bench was a prominent red digital clock, hours-minutes-seconds, which only displayed when the court was in session (while in recess, it went -- -- --). I thought the judge was leaning pretty hard on the agency: he didn't challenge the plaintiff much at all, that I could tell. I heard on the walk over that the odds were very good that the petition wouldn't get very far. There was even a hope that the judge could rule right away, though he has a reputation for being deliberative. The three county attorneys each asked for the judge to rule on this no later than the next day, since they each had to get their ballots printed soon in order to be ready for the November election.

At the end of the hour the judge called a ten minute recess--at the end of which he would render his decision. Seems it would happen pretty quickly after all. Talked with the lawyers, they seemed interested in my impressions of how things were going. I have to admit, I wasn't sure how the judge was going to rule, since he seemed to pick apart the agency's position while leaving the plaintiff alone. So I was pleasantly surprised when, upon returning, the judge ruled against the plaintiff on all counts. "Petition is dismissed, with prejudice." That meaning that he couldn't bring the suit again (as opposed to "without prejudice", which would mean that the judge didn't rule on the validity of the suit itself). All in all, an overwhelming victory for the agency.

I got separated from the group on the elevator rides down, ended up walking back to the office with the media relations guy, who is also very cool. He said everyone was headed over to The Elysian on First, where they were holding some kind of event to kick off the election push for Proposition 1. The mayor would be there, along with all the major local media, and a lot of the higher-ups from the agency. He cordially suggested that I come along, but I wasn't feeling up to it. I had planned on seeing THE DARK KNIGHT at the Cinerama, as it was in its last week there, and I wasn't sure if I was up to a work-night out. So I just went back up to my desk, caught up on email and messages, started writing this post. Then went up to Shorty's, ordered a Long Island Iced Tea, drank it in less than a minute, then went over to Cinerama and caught DARK KNIGHT. And it was fucking *excellent*. Best movie I've seen so far this year. And I honestly think Heath Ledger may win Best Supporting Actor. Came home to find that my crazy roommate had slipped on the bus, and had severely injured her foot. What a day.

The next day the general counsel called me into his office to talk about my experiences at the hearing, what I thought of it all. We talked for quite a while, me telling him that most of my familiarity with the legal process came from watching LAW AND ORDER, which he said he never watched. When I said my favorite movie about lawyers was REVERSAL OF FORTUNE, he said he hadn't seen it, but he studied at Harvard Law and had met Alan Dershowitz...and Klaus von Bulow. Cool.

Forty Is the New Thirty-Nine

So yeah, I turned 40 on July 20th. Didn't do anything too special, just went down to Shorty's on that Saturday, rented one of my favorite movies, THE RIGHT STUFF, and on Sunday (my birthday proper) I went to Tacoma, took my mother and my crazy roommate out to dinner at The Keg, had prime rib. Turning 40 is supposed to be all about getting old and mid-life crisis and all that, but not for me, I guess. Maybe it's because I never liked being young, I always wanted to mature. Well, it's happened. Can I stop getting carded now?

Best birthday present I could've asked for, though: I got a job! Yes, I joined Sound Transit's legal department, where I'd been temping on and off for the last two years. I am now a legal assistant, supporting the paralegal. Mostly I'm responsible for the invoices the department receives from outside law firms: auditing, routing them for approval by the attorneys, coding them for accounts payable...pushing paper, for the most part. In addition to that, I assist in public disclosure requests, and there are a lot of those. What with a rampant interest in public transportation improvements, the tightening economy, and the fact that Seattle has a lot of taxes as it is and Sound Transit has a proposition on the November ballot that seeks a .5% increase, a lot of people are very interested in what the agency is doing and how all the money is being spent. All in all, it's a good job, not a lot of stress, pays about what Marathon was giving me when I left, and has an excellent benefits package (government jobs are apparently the only ones left that have decent health coverage anymore). Also, I get a FlexPass, good for all the buses and trains in four counties, so I'm not driving as much as I used to.

Which is good, since my car has been in the shop. I had a new carburetor put in a few months ago, and it's been running fairly well, but stalls when it hasn't warmed up. I took it in for the needed emissions test when I renewed my tabs--and it failed. That's a first. So I took it back to Walt's on Aurora, and they worked on it. Passed emissions (they'd had the car for almost two weeks), was running good. Then, on Monday, I was taking my mother out to dinner in Federal Way when the car gave out. We were in the parking lot of the Sea-Tac Mall, and the car wouldn't start. Spent Wednesday morning rescuing the car, getting it towed back to Walt's. They're pretty good, actually, done a lot of good work on my car, so I'm optimistic. See what comes of this.

Another nice thing about Sound Transit: I got into Bumbershoot for free, and saw my heroes, Stone Temple Pilots. Email went around a few weeks before, asking for volunteers to staff the Sound Transit information booth on the midway. Volunteers get a pass for the day, so before or after your shift you get full access to the festival. I quickly jumped on the first shift for Sunday, when STP were playing the Main Stage (after Black Keys), at 9:15. All I had to do was sit in a booth for four hours starting at 11:00am, and answer questions for folks. How hard could that be?

I'll admit, I didn't read the Essential Knowledge For Event Booths packet til I got on the bus going downtown that morning, having dragged my overindulgent ass to bed somewhere around 4:00am, after a Saturday night of much Red Hook and pinball and general knocking around Belltown. I soon realized that I was way out of my depth, should anyone ask anything detailed on any of the rail projects, or the provisions of Proposition 1. Fortunately, there were two full-time event workers along with another Sound Transit volunteer on the same shift, so there was enough cover. All in all, it wasn't a bad way to spend a late summer afternoon.


The view from the booth.

Knocked off at 3:30pm, got the bus home to shower off, change into my rockshow clothing (denim shorts, Iron Maiden shirt, sneakers with thin socks--laced tight and triple-knotted, lanyard holding my glasses on snugly, flannel shirt tied at the waist, all loose pocket items--watch, phone, money, ear plugs, ID, ATM card, car key, chewing gum--in a small Ziploc bag in my right hip pocket), get a bite to eat, a Red Hook jump start, and get back down to Seattle Center to hit a few beer gardens before the show. It wasn't as crowded as I'd thought: I'd heard that if you wanted to get in, you had to be there well in advance of the crowds. I went in around 7:30pm, and wasn't too intimidated. So I went over to Michaelangelo's at the Center House, eased into things. Was in a much better mood when I returned just before 9:00pm, got at the back of the floor crowd.

I saw Iron Maiden in July down at the White River Amphitheater, courtesy of my friend Aeryk the Hippie and his wife. The tickets were for the second level, however, so it was more of a spectator evening: I was up in the stands, spectating, when I really wanted to be down rushing the stage. No going between sections at that one, though, so I got to watch most of it on the Jumbotron screen on my left.


Watching Iron Maiden on TV, while at the show.

This show would be different. The floor was open, not seated like at most of these pathetic venues. A rockshow is supposed to be visceral, a heaving, mindless mass of fanatic musical transport, not some regimented, orderly procession. If Pearl Jam wants to play Benroya Hall, that's beautiful, but I'm not buying a ticket. It's been a long time, I guess, since Eddie Vedder took that stage dive in their "Evenflow" video, taped at the Moore Theater. I wanted that experience again.

And I wasn't to be disappointed this time around. They started the show with "Big Empty", which wasn't exactly kicking things off with a bang. Very unusual choice, letting the crowd go wild to a slow number, gave things a nostalgic feel, 'we're glad to be back' kind of thing. The crowd was genial, for the most part younger than me. And here I was, at 40, ready to rush the stage.


The view from the back.

Notice how each of these shots will get progressively closer. One of the cool things about being a six-foot, 225 lb. American Indian who never smiles is that if I want to get to the front of the crowd, it happens. Chief Bromden never had it so good.




Going into some Zeppelin-like freeform during "Creep".


One of my favorites: "Lounge Fly".

By this point I'm in the pit, for real. And not only was I holding my own, I could still thrash with the rest of them. It was liberating. "Crackerman" and "Trippin' On a Hole In a Paper Heart" had me moshing around in a mid- '90s frenzy. Here's the last shot I got before they launched into "Sex Type Thing", at which point I was close enough to the stage that, at the end when Scott Weiland leaned out into the crowd with his bullhorn to the microphone, I was just out of arm's length. That was a mad crush.



Right after an encore, of "Dead and Bloated".

I was practically at the rail at this point. But I'd had to work for it: I got a good pummeling in the process, and I was sore in a few places for days--though, oddly enough, I didn't bruise at all. I came home Sunday night limping, wondering if I'd broken a few toes (I hadn't, but they were crushed). Ribs, arms, legs, my left foot...even my jaw. My chest, too, though that may have been from that one guy, right when we were near the stage at the end: guess he thought I was being too pushy or something, he turned around and punched me square in the sternum. Not too hard, more of a back-the-fuck-off kind of hit. I didn't even feel it, it bounced right off. I just shrugged at him: "What? It's a mosh pit, c'mon...." You generally don't want to start a mosh fight, those can get violent. Not that this was too hardcore a scene, and he seemed like he was satisfied he made his point. Comes with the territory.

Got home in a total adrenaline buzz. Chilled in a cool bath for a while with a Red Hook to bring myself down, then watched Comedy Central for a few hours before finally relaxing enough to go to bed.

Now that's a fuckin' rockshow.