Saturday 3/29/25
I know someone who typically uses the word "lady" instead of "woman" which makes it sound like he lives in 1870 or else as though he's trying to implement a new feature in his language and hasn't quite mastered it yet. I think this came about because he would refer to his wife as "my girl" and I said that he needed to stop doing this because he sounded some Dorchester bro day drinking on the stoop of the triple-decker. "What should I call her?" he asked, to which I replied that he could use the term wife. Somehow we got to talking about how people favor the word "partner," and I have to give him credit, because he was bang-on correct when he said that that was fucking stupid and even worse.
Beware of people--it's usually women--who make a point of saying "on my terms" or "blah blah blah by choice." As in, "I'm single by choice" or "I ended it on my terms." They are almost always crippled-inside, sub-individuals who are cowards, broken, desperate for control, manipulative, incapable of connection, dishonest, performative, excel at lying to themselves, and are among the least reliable of narrators. Note how they'll work this language into ostensibly any situation or conversation, no matter how irrelevant to that situation or conversation it is. They cannot take accountability for anything. Which is in part really why they are alone and are also lost to themselves, so alone in that way as well.
These old men on social media who are too dumb--and lonely, yes, but also nasty--to figure out what's a bot account is something else. It's like you could trick these guys with the worst ruse in history. Every goddamn time. I went to the profile of one of these guys out of curiosity and read through his catalogue of comments. Want to see some? Here we are:
ware do you live (maybe she lives in Ware, MA and he's trying to do wordplay?)
lets get crazy and get some love (invites the question: Is getting some love really so crazy?)
lot's of kisses all over your body (nice cutting-edge use of the apostrophe)
I sent you a message on Instagram (hold that breath!)
sent message on telegram (hold that breath! 2x)
let's start the family and get a house you probably want a garden (obviously riffing on Voltaire's dictate)
do want some candy I have a big sucker (Linus was a big fan if you remember from It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown; just mind the leaves)
when asked to send money when you have never met or been with is a scam (hmmm...ironic)
are you interested in a older guy
what a beautiful and talented delicious lady (what? Would you rather taste bad?)
let's be together and find each other (like a Zen koan!)
let's be kind to each other
what a beautiful delicious woman
that's nice beautiful and a composer of love (could just as easily be referring to Richard Strauss; sounds like a solid compliment to me)
I'm 66 probably to old for a young babe like you
ware do you live beautiful (another Ware lass)
you are a pretty baby
do you want to build a beautiful life with ultimate love (hey, at least he didn't say "penultimate" which many people think means "extra ultimate," right?)
let's have a lost weekend and build a future (must be a classic film fan with the Ray Milland reference, though a weekend of blackout drunkenness might not be for the romantic best)
a big tasty popsicle
are you interested in a older guy (still hasn't mastered that a/an thing; it is tricky)
let's go to the fun park (okay, so this one has a ring of "horror/beheading awaits at an abandoned 1950s fairground," but give the man a chance)
can you visit me for some beautiful pationet love (it could kind of look like that if you were sounding it out and only mispronounced it by like twenty percent)
what a sweet toung
Smooth and smart!
(Also: I just used some gross, dumb old guy's comments to make something better than anything you could ever read from one of these MFA people.)
People don't care what they get attention for--just that they get it. You see so many women, for instance, posting photo after photo after photo of themselves on Instagram. Guys will fuck a hole in a rusted bucket. It's all that many of them think about. They're not taken with these women and what they say--which is often nothing--and they don't respect them, but these women play to that gallery, for those likes--and it can be people of all ages, all body types--every day of their lives. They could be anyone, so long as they're female and there's the bathing suit or the cleavage up close or what have you. What does that do for you in posting those photos to get those likes? It'd make me want to open up my wrists that I was someone who needed that and who, presumably, had nothing else.
The work I'm doing is like nothing that has ever been done, as work--that is, the works--and as work. The way I'm commanding language. Plugging away at "Five Blocks," "Still Good," "By Water," "Just Pants," and "Hero of Mine" in recent days. These eleven stories would be enough on their own for people to look at and say, "Yep, no other artist ever got in a lifetime of work to what this guy did with these eleven stories." You can put them up against any body of work and it won't be close. And they are just a dip in this body of work.
Been working on a half dozen new things in my head. Children's fiction. Knew I wanted to, so took a bit of time and just started coming up with them one after another in a single sitting. Now they're in my head and I'll let them do their thing there.
Ran five circuits of stairs in the Monument on Wednesday and Thursday and then 3000 stairs at City Hall yesterday morning because I had a matinee performance of Mozart's Requiem from the BSO to get to at Symphony Hall. Not being consistent of late with the push-ups and will set about rectifying that today.
Listened to a podcast discussing Francis Marion Crawford's "The Upper Berth," a rousing ghost story set at sea with a very manly narrator named Brisbane who likes to remind you that he's an old sailing man--he's thirty-five--who knows a lot stuff and has seen much, but never saw anything--or smelled or heard or touched--like that one time.
Been listening to some cuts by the Kinks that served as sort of dry-runs for "You Really Got Me," before they figured out that particular song, which I should write something about. Also ought to do a feature on the Yardbirds' "Heart Full of Soul," which was such an important song from a guitar perspective for its time. Beck's guitar was the showpiece part of the number--the riff, the solo. I love how Keith Relf sings it. He's one of my favorite singers of all-time. Typically he's knocked a lot. I don't think those people have a clue. Same goes with Ian Brown during his Stone Roses stint. Another all-time favorite singer of mine. I can go from listening to Ella Fitzgerald to Ian Brown to Keith Relf to Shane McGowan and love all of their voices.
Downloaded a mess of BBC Sherlock Holmes radio productions with Carleton Hobbs as Holmes and Norman Shelley as Watson. Strange to think that this show, which began in the 1950s, lasted until 1969. Bit of culture shock there.
Should be a Beatles piece out tomorrow. Really good one--film piece.
Red Sox look about as I expected them to. Mediocre at best start from their newly acquired "ace" who is not an actual ace, followed by a shit start from last year's would-be ace. Trevor Story is 1 for 7, Tristan Casas is 1 for 8 with 3 strikeouts, Alex Bregman is 1 for 8, and Rafael Devers, he of the roly-poly physique and bad attitude, is 0 for 8 with 7 strikeouts. You couldn't do much worse if you'd taken his at-bats. I wonder how many hotdogs he eaten in the clubhouse as the games are going on. Yum yum yum.
Wilyer Abreau has been the whole of the Red Sox' offense through two games. Duran has looked like he looked last year, I'd say. He could replicate that season or get close to it with the shape he keeps himself in, how hard he plays, and given that this is his prime. Kristian Campbell is also off to a nice start at second base. Story does have two stolen bases, same as Duran, so they're running.
Letter to a friend the other day:
Watched the selection show yesterday. We could have Maine and UConn again in round two. I think Bentley has a real shot to trip up BC and I wouldn't be surprised at all if the Eagles don't make it out of that bracket. A trend with the national tournament in recent years that I've noticed: Deeper, older teams with strong goaltending tend to win and often not the teams with the most NHL draft picks. Teams that are heavy on the puck, play a disciplined system. Women's national title game from yesterday will be hard to beat as the game of the postseason. Tied up no a penalty shot with nineteen seconds to go, and then the same player won it for Wisconsin in OT.
BC did indeed have their hands full with Bentley, who could have beat them. Was a toss up, but BC got the winner from James Hagens with less than a minute and a half to go. A few observations. Greg Brown as a coach: clueless. He's no better than he was last year. He's just throwing the pucks out there. Doesn't make the adjustments he should make. He's simply a guy standing on the bench with a bunch of talented players.
As for Hagens: Yes, he scored the winner as I noted, but I would not draft this kid. He's been a big-time disappointment here in his freshman season at BC. He entered the year as the favorite to be the first pick in the June NHL draft. He won't be that now and he shouldn't be close to it. We all saw what Macklin Celebrini--who was younger--did last year at BU, and Hagens isn't close to Celebrini. You're supposed to be the first pick in the NHL draft and you can't do better than a point a game in Hockey East? This kid won't shoot the puck. He's always over passing, trying to create a tap-in for someone, and that's not how it works. Fire the fucking thing. He makes one more too many more often than not.
The 2024-25 men's Boston College Eagles are not long for this hockey world. They can't score, they power play is bad. Now, Bentley had a few things going for them in this game. BC had been off for a while, thanks to gagging that home game against Northeastern in the first round of the Hockey East tournament. They had nothing to lose, no pressure. Until yesterday, BC had never beaten Bentley. True, they'd only played twice, but those games were in recent years.
The ice was terrible. The puck wouldn't stay settled. Think of that like bad weather in a football game. The rain and the much and the sleet gives the lesser team a better chance. Then the net kept coming off its pegs. There were a ton of whistles and seemingly no sustained stretches of play. A choppy, arrhythmic game. Ugly game. Took two hours to get through two periods.
I don't see BC getting any further. They're next opponent is Denver, the team that outclassed them in last year's national championship game, and they have a lot of the same key players and the same stopper of a goalie. You never know and I certainly could be wrong here, but my expectation is that Denver wins that game.
Maine got eliminated. Won that Hockey East tournament, and then ousted in the first round of the big tournament as a number one seed. BU was in a tight one, then loaded on the goals late. The 8-3 score was misleading. Massachusetts and UConn won. Providence had it handed to them by Denver 5-1. Denver can repeat. They have what you want to have in order to get that done.
I think BU, UMass, and UConn all have a great chance of making the Frozen Four. In theory, BC does, too, as the number one team in the country. Watch BC make it and none of the others. Or none of the Hockey East teams. But it's not unreasonable to think you could have an all Hockey East Frozen Four, which I'd like to see. That would be pretty cool.
Patriots did sign Diggs. I think it's a mistake. Again, could be wrong. But it's about percentages, and I wouldn't bet on it.
I order a copy of Lucy M. Boston's The Children of Green Knowe for my niece Lilah for her ninth birthday and told her mom to just hold that for me until then--it's next month--if she would. Save in rare situations--like with my sometimes buddy Amelia because she's so young--I won't get anyone a gift that they can't use for the rest of their life. It's my gift rule.
The Grateful Dead are not less efficient with their harmonies than the Beach Boys are. They use those harmonies differently, and they also use them in more styles than any other group does, not just the Beach Boys. People don't talk about it enough, but the Dead make for a hub of great singing.
Watched 1943's Son of Dracula with Lon Chaney miscast as the Count for an Easter thing I'm doing.
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