This post has been a long time coming.  I was in Seattle for a week or so over Christmas, and then I was house- and pet-sitting for a couple of friends, which was really fun but those two things kept me away from my computer and blogging possibilities for almost three weeks.  I did manage to capture a funny video of two of the cats doing what is lovingly referred to by their owners as Le Suck Fest.  It starts innocently enough with these two cute sisters grooming each other, but then it quickly escalates into them essentially making out.  I’ve had cats my whole life, and I’ve never seen that before.

Isn’t that adorable and strange?  (Adorable & Strange. . .hmmm.  I think I sense a new blog in my future!)  I wish I had made a video of the cats at feeding time, because the three of them instantaneously transform from lovable balls of fluff into whirling little hurricanes, and that happens at every single meal.  Love ‘em.

Anyway, on to the Best Of.  I love doing these each year, since it gives us the chance to revisit some of the things that may have receded into the shadows.  Some of them are a bit on the lengthy side, as you can imagine, so grab a snack and your beverage of choice, and enjoy the most beautiful, the funniest, the saddest, and the truest entries from this past year.

Brrrrrains!

calling all sausage packers

fifth and sixth

mountains and molehills

auditions

one in a million

How was YOUR day?

one in a million, part two

How do you say ‘dopamine’ in Chinese?

the pillow incident

Enigma  -  Enigma and Otis  -  Enigma and Fire

jindiggots

Monty Python Day

World Accordion Day

more than just a halo

they’re not for me

a strange evening

homemade Pac-Man

the cloths of heaven

As always, thank you for reading, and for sticking with this crazy blog thing into its fifth year of existence.  There is more to come.

Well, huzzah.

Beautiful, Funny, Sad & True is celebrating its fifth anniversary today, and I’d like to take the opportunity to thank you for sticking around and reading.  I realize that updates and stories have been a little sporadic around here lately; I’m working on rectifying that situation.  Five years is a long time to keep a blog.  Actually, including the previous incarnations of BFS&T on Blogger and that other social network, it’s been more like eight years, which is a bit mind-boggling.

Here are some updates I can provide you with, and I’ll divide them into the quadrants that create the name of this place.

beautiful:  My friend and I started writing and recording an album together a year ago, and it’s getting very close to completion.  We’re aiming for a release date this spring.  We’re thrilled to finally have a bassist (who also plays a number of other instruments) on board with us, and an excellent drummer is in the works as well.  Exciting times!

funny:  I could split hairs and wonder if this means funny/strange or funny/ha-ha, but either way I’m at a bit of a loss on this one.   Well, okay, here’s a little joke.

JOHN:  Ask me if I’m a truck.

PAUL:  Are you a truck?

JOHN:  No.

Ha ha.  Don’t worry if you don’t get it; there’s really nothing to get.  It’s just absurdist, and you either like it or you don’t.  I happen to like it.

sad:  Holidays are tough.  I tend to get the blues around this time every year.  It’s not seasonal affect disorder, I just find myself ruminating a lot about the things in my life (or even in myself) that are missing or lacking.  That’s about all I’ll say on the subject here, but I thought I’d let you know that’s what I’m dealing with at the moment.

true:  I went to visit my dad a couple of weeks ago, and came home with two big boxes of LP records.  Almost all of them are classical, and many are the same ones that I grew up listening to.  Some I know by heart, like the Glenn Gould piano recordings and Bach organ recordings, while others are ones I wasn’t familiar with back then but am totally interested in now.  There were a few surprises in there, too, like Johnny Cash’s greatest hits (from the 1960′s! and a couple of Moody Blues and Chet Atkins records that I doubt have ever been listened to.  I certainly don’t remember hearing that stuff in our house when I was growing up.  Certainly am glad to have them now, though.  I’m totally looking forward to plowing through all of them and giving them the attention they deserve.

So that’s what’s happening on this Very Special day.  Here’s to another five years!

When I was in high school, one of my friends had a reputation for being a prankster. Sometimes I found myself guilty by association, and sometimes I was an actual accomplice. He went through a phase during which he liked to find pictures of nude or scantily clad women and post them in friends’ lockers or Pee-Chee folders, so that when the person would open the folder, he’d have a little surprise waiting for him.

He actually got in a bit of trouble when he did that to a girl in our choir. The girl had red hair, you see, and so did the girl in the picture, and the picture was exceptionally lewd, so the girl reported my friend to the teacher. By way of a reprimand, the teacher famously told him, “Now, I like to look at a Playboy every now and then—”, which still makes us laugh, even all these years later. Hindsight being twenty-twenty, my friend thinks that was a cruel thing to have done to the girl, and if he could do things differently, he would. He also has daughters now, and that tends to make people grow up real quick, as well as to make them much more sympathetic to the tribulations that girls often experience in school.

Back then, however, the picture prank was something he did somewhat regularly. Once, he went to the library and found a National Geographic magazine with a story about Tahiti, which was full of half-naked women, so he pulled out a page and kept it for his own nefarious purposes. We sat next to each other in choir class, which meant that we shared a music folder. On that fateful day, when we sang the song “The Cloths of Heaven,” I opened the music and found the picture of a half-naked Tahitian woman. Ha ha. Then, when we finished the song, we put the music and the picture back into the folder, never to be looked at again, since the two of us learned and memorized music faster than most people. I only mention that fact because it’s apropos to the story. We had the song memorized from that day on, so we didn’t use the music anymore.

Three or four months later, our choir drove to a college an hour or so away, in order to participate in a somewhat prestigious regional music festival. I don’t remember much about the trip, to be quite honest with you (it’s been almost twenty-five years now), but I do remember that we did well enough during the afternoon performance to qualify for the finals later that evening, and one of the songs we performed was “The Cloths of Heaven.” At some point between the afternoon show and the finals, a couple of people came up to my friend and me, saying, “That wasn’t funny, you guys,” or, “Not cool.” We were mystified, and had no idea what they were referring to.

That night at the finals, it was our choir’s turn to take the stage. We filed onto the risers in our robes and awaited the announcer, who walked out a moment later. “Interesting story about this next choir,” the announcer told the audience of several hundred. He explained to them that the judges got quite a shock when they opened the music for “The Cloths of Heaven” and found a picture of a half-naked Tahitian woman inside. Our choir director was unaware that this had happened, but he had no doubt about who was to blame for this disgrace. He glared furiously at the two of us as we realized what had happened and tried unsuccessfully to suppress our giggles. Our surprised choirmates turned to each other, saying, “Who did that?” and others turned to us and asked, “Was it you guys?” as the entire audience erupted into laughter.

Our director was really angry, and after our performance he pulled my friend and me aside into a rehearsal room. He was convinced that we had done it on purpose, to prank the festival. We had to explain to him that no, this was just a private thing, and that we hadn’t used the music for months. We’d long since forgotten about the Tahitian. Out of the seventy numbered music folders our choir used, each one of which contained one or two copies of “The Cloths of Heaven” (our folder had two, one for each of us), the teacher’s aide had unluckily grabbed OUR numbered folder, and THAT copy, to turn in to the judges. I don’t think the director believed us at first, but eventually he had to admit that the circumstances were pretty funny, and we got off with a Well, Don’t Do It Again.

Oh, and our choir won the competition, by the way, so there you go. Apparently, sex sells.

I just woke from a dream of the most epic and colorful proportions.  It took a long time to stitch together the details, but I hope I can convey the scale and beauty of it all.

* * * * * *

I’m walking on the street in what appears to be a smallish medieval English town.  A young woman walking in the opposite direction catches my eye, and after a few moments I decide to follow her and say something, so I turn around and head in her direction.  She turns down a narrow alley into a sort of marketplace that is teeming with people, and I lose her in the crowd.  As soon as I cross into the marketplace, I notice that I’m wearing different clothing, including a long, flowing robe and a multi-colored shirt underneath it.  Other people are dressed in a similarly elaborate fashion, but I seem to have the finest quality clothing.

Everyone’s clothing, while elaborate, is very much related to their job and social status.  The people selling their wares in the marketplace dress in a certain style, as do the customers and townspeople.  There is a film crew on the scene, and they too have their own distinctive style of clothing.  There are groups of teenage girls wearing garish clothing tinged with neon colors.  I’m the only one wearing a robe, however, and everyone seems to recognize me, as if I’m some sort of royalty.  This makes me very uncomfortable at first, and I try to protest, but then I decide to keep quiet and use the intimation of royalty to my advantage somehow, if I can, and to have some fun with it.

The film crew are filming the goings-on at the marketplace.  Nothing is staged or fictionalized; they are there to simply capture whatever happens, and on this particular day, they get very lucky indeed.

I see three friends of mine in the marketplace—J and B (longtime bandmates in real life), and S, a close female friend of many years—and I walk over to join them.  We start to explore the market, but a skirmish breaks out and we are separated.  The skirmish escalates and escalates until weapons are drawn.  They aren’t the usual weapons like guns or knives, either, but antiquated and homemade weapons, such as slingshots and catapults.

A handful of people come toward me and stand very close.  I can’t tell if they’re attempting to protect me or if they’re seeking protection for themselves by being near me.  Perhaps it’s both.  By this time, I’ve decided to play the role they seem to have cast me in.  A young man with his face painted like a fox tells me, somewhat nervously but determinedly, that he would very much like to meet me because he thinks I’m “perspicacious and very handsome.”  I laugh to myself, then shake his hand and say, “Thank you, brother.”

The fighting escalates again, and our little group is forced to dissipate.  I duck behind a low metal table that is used to prepare food.  A man with a gruesomely loose eyeball is standing by the table with a large stick in his right hand.  He’s not from our town, he’s from the small but fierce group of invaders who are attempting to take over the town by first conquering the market.  He raises his stick toward me, and tells me that he intends to take one of my eyes.  He looks me in the face for a long moment, and suddenly a look of recognition crosses his own countenance.  His expression changes, ever so slightly, and instead of hitting me with the stick, he hits the table.  Hard.  He hits it again and makes a strange hand gesture that tells me I should ‘play along’ with his little ruse.  The next time he slams the stick onto the table, I shout out as if in pain, so as to fool his cronies into thinking that he’s actually doing some damage to our side.  After a few more hits, he stops and motions for me to do the same.  I say to him, in a very deep and serious voice, “Brother, thank you.  You have done a very noble thing today.”  By way of a response, he scoffs and makes a sort of spitting motion with his head, which causes his loose eyeball to pop out and fly towards me.  I wish him good luck and bid him adieu.

An older gentleman appears just then, who also seems to recognize me, but not in the vaunted way everyone else does.  He seems to know me from my ‘normal’ life as a musician.  I greet him with a “Hello, brother,” and he shakes my hand warmly and genuinely.  An explosion happens very nearby, and the crowd scatters.  Panic and pandemonium prevail.  In the middle of the marketplace is a circular stage in the round, with a thick velvet curtain around it.  For some reason I decide that I’ll be safe if I can get there, so I run across the square to the stage, pull back the curtain a little, and crawl inside.  I find myself standing on a short wooden walkway, surrounded by velvet curtains, completely unable to see what’s happening outside.  I hear the sounds of fighting, but I feel very vulnerable in my hiding place.

The walkway I’m on suddenly begins to spin, and as it does, the curtain billows out enough that I can look for my various friends and acquaintances.  I see J and B (but not S), and jump off the metal walkway near where they’re sitting.  They and the people they’re sitting with appear to be high on something, and their little group is laughing hysterically, completely oblivious to the mayhem happening all around them.  I ask them if they’ve seen S, and J responds, “Oh. . .I thought she was with you!” which makes everyone else but me burst into uncontrollable fits of laughter.  I walk away in annoyance.

The fighting in the marketplace has reached its highest level of tension by now, and everyone is a state of utter panic.  Tables are turned over, there are fist fights and all manner of strange weapons and warfare are happening.  People are running through the market, beating up the vendors, and looting their booths.  Suddenly, two policemen from our town wearing black riot gear with the words ‘HAZARD TEAM’ emblazoned on the back appear out of nowhere and run into the middle of the meleé.  Everyone else stops, and we hear round after round of gunfire.  We realize that the presence of guns takes this skirmish to a whole new level, and we decide to get out of there.

Many other people and I run on the narrow cobblestone street that is the exit of the enclosed market area.  Just then, I see the old man sitting along the road by himself.  He appears to be begging for money and food.  I stop, hand him some money, and say to him, “Brother, you remember me.”  His face lights up in a gigantic smile, and I turn back to continue to run out of the market, waving over my shoulder to the old man as I leave.  As the group of us runs through the arch that designates the boundary of the market area, I take a look at the town for the first time.  It is one of the colorful and picturesque towns that I’ve ever encountered.  The beauty actually brings tears to my eyes.  I think to myself that I need to capture this scene somehow, and share it with other people.  I make broad painting motions with my arms, wishing I had a sketch pad so that I could draw the Tudor-style architecture and sloping rooflines of the village’s buildings, the entire sides of which were covered with brightly colored streamers and a myriad of tiny lights.  The town was having a celebration, and although I didn’t know what the occasion was, the town was mesmerizing to behold.  I also noticed that I was wearing my normal street clothes again, instead of the voluminous robe.

I kept walking and admiring the sights, but I soon found that the town got less and less beautiful the further I walked.  In fact, it started to look a bit like a movie set.  As I was entertaining that thought, a woman walked by and said something snide about me and the town, which brought my sense of diminishing wonder about the town to a swift end.

* * * * * *

Despite the fact that I was able to remember much more of this dream than I originally thought I would, there are a couple other scenes in the middle of it that are continuing to elude me.  There also was an actual ending scene.  If I do remember them, I’ll be sure to add them.

I cooked chicken last night, and beef a few nights ago.

That may not seem like big news, per se, but I was vegetarian for a long time, and some habits die hard, or are difficult to explain to other people.  I made the switch around fifteen years ago, after listening to a radio interview with Howard Lyman, a former rancher who had become an advocate against the egregious practices performed by the meat industry, and who eventually chose the ultimate middle-finger salute to the industry by becoming a vociferous vegetarian.  I found that compelling, as well as poetically hilarious, and decided to follow suit.

I gave up meat for probably seven or eight years, until I started spending lots of time with a woman (it always seems to come down to that, doesn’t it?) who was mostly vegetarian, but would occasionally eat teriyaki chicken or something, which always smelled amazing and renewed cravings that I’d forgotten or buried.  That choice worked for me.  Eating meat every once in a while could be okay, and was probably good for my body, too.  I started to incorporate meat back into my diet again, slowly.  I would sometimes order a burrito with chicken on it, or get curried chicken at a Thai restaurant, maybe one or two meals a week.  Maybe once or twice a year, I’d have a burger.  And not a veggie burger, either, but a BURGER burger.  I didn’t have to tell myself I couldn’t have any of that stuff—nothing makes you want something more than when you tell yourself you can’t have it—I just didn’t want it, and it took a while to develop a taste for it again.S

One of the interesting things about making the switch to a vegetarian diet and then back to an omnivorous one is that there are still habits that I find myself clinging to that are hard to explain, or simply don’t make any sense.  I have a hard time watching someone pull a turkey leg off and eat it, for example.  It kind of grosses me out to watch the tendons pull and everything.  For a long time, I wouldn’t cook meat in my kitchen, I would only order it when I was eating in a restaurant.  I have a couple of formerly vegetarian friends who are the same way, so I don’t feel like a freak, at least not in that respect. Ha ha.

My family members were kind of mystified by all of these changes.  It took years for them to understand my decision to become vegetarian, and once they finally got it, I gave them The Old Switcheroo and started eating meat again.   Many of my friends and family members are excellent cooks (a few are even at the professional level), and I would always try whatever they made, which led to some confusion on their part.  “Hey,” I heard more than once, “I thought you were a vegetarian, but you just ate pulled pork.”  “That’s right,” I would smile mischievously and say, “because you spent a whole day laboring over it and barbecuing it to perfection, and I’m sure it’s the most amazing pulled pork I’ll have in my whole life.  I’m not gonna miss out on that.”

These days, I pretty much eat everything—albeit in moderation—though I do try to get organic, free-range, naturally fed meat instead of chickens who’ve been crammed into tiny cages and force-fed ground chicken beaks and eyes and stuff.  It’s easy to make choices like that living in Portland, since the quality of restaurants here is famously high, and demand creates a good supply.  I’m sure if I lived in pretty much any part of the rest of the country, it would be much more difficult—not to mention expensive—to eat this way.  I should mention that this kind of thing is what the rest of the country finds quaint (if they’re being kind; ‘precious’, if they’re not) about Portland.  There’s a famous scene in the TV show “Portlandia” that takes concern for the welfare of animals (while still ultimately choosing to eat them, it should be noted) to new and funny heights.

I told you all that to tell you that I set a new standard this week, by cooking beef AND chicken in my kitchen.  It felt very strange and funny to be shopping in the meat section again.  As I was preparing dinner (stir-fried beef, green peppers, and green onions over Japanese noodles) I wrote on Twitter, “For the first time in years, I just stir-fried actual beef, in my actual home, to be actually eaten by the actual me.”  For the record, it was delicious.  What I had forgotten, however, is the extraordinary length of time that the smell of beef lingers in the places where it’s been cooked.  I went out the next day to run some errands, and when I got home, the bovine smell was still pretty overwhelming, and it stuck around until yesterday, which was three days after I cooked that meal.  I don’t imagine I’ll be doing that very often.

So there you have it.  I pretty much eat everything, and now I even cook it at home sometimes, too.  But I do still have some quirks to deal with.  Actually, I have rather a lot of quirks, but you’ll have to wait until some not-so-distant point in the future in order to read about them.