Archives from Trivia Blurbs

It has been a long time since I last blogged about anything. I had originally expected to go a month without writing so that the review of the plays might get some traffic. Thanks for reading!

I should have posted again on August 12th. I got busy.

I thought I would catch up by posting a few comments to wrap up the summer. I post a daily trivia blurb each day for friends, enemies, family and strangers. Below is a small collection from one year ago that you might enjoy. (Yes, it's a cop-out...what can ya do?)

8/25/09
I don't want to come off as an intellectual snob, but I must shift some serious gears from yesterday's discussion of Night at the Museum 2 for today's commentary. I hadn't expected to watch another film last night; the chance just sort of presented itself so we watched it. And let me tell you, if you have not seen The Kite Runner, I suggest you do so within the next 24 hours of your life. It is an incredible story about a culture that we don't fully understand, and a tale of people who were mere victims of history - people who we might pass on the street as immigrants who took advantage of our "system," but are really people who just like us needed a chance. It reflects upon those things we take for granted - and I mean that in both a negative sense and a positive sense. And it celebrates the best of what makes us all human - regardless of heritage, national boundaries, faith and even past mistakes. The beauty of the film is that it does not smack you over the head with these issues like some dogmatic documentary. It is subtle, half story-driven, half character-driven, and it winds around a simple, honest plot. In a word, wow! This is a wonderful film.

8/21/09
Yesterday, I promised you the second in a two-part series about my identity. I recently learned that I almost wasn't! Not by some weird surgery or transference of anything inappropriate to list here, but by religion itself. Huh? A few weeks ago, I was at my mom's house as she was organizing photos for a scrapbook gift idea she has for Christmas this year. (Whatever, right?) I began sifting through the myriad of photos strewn upon her table, thus disrupting her organizational system in the process. I came across one photo of a young man dressed in a classic priest's frock - I am talking the long, black, thick, old woolen kind. The photo was obviously dated by a number of years. I asked mom, "Who is this?" She gazed up, "Oh, that was your grandfather." (Insert movie screech sounds of stopping.) "WHAT?!?" I asked. It turns out that my maternal grandfather was planning to become a priest, and had actually entered the seminary but was forced to leave due to The Depression. His mom needed him to return home to work to help his family. (You would have guessed disgrace and dishonor before God in my family, right?) So, between learning I am 3% British and that history itself provided me my life, I have been reconsidering my existence in a whole new manner.

8/20 / 09
In part one of a two-part series, we will discuss Dan's latest revelations in his own life. (NO, I am not gay so relax!) (And shut up with the dumb jokes.) In the great (and I do use the term great in its truest form - not the flim-flam throw-off way that so many use it today to describe anything from cereal to movies) Broadway musical Les Miserable's, the main character Jean ValJean struggles with his identity between his past life of poverty and necessary-to-survive crime and his current life of redemption and sacrifice for others. He laments in song about this issue by asking "Who Am I?" the convict or the father-figure? Well, I now struggle as well. For 39 years I have thought that I am 50% German and 50% Irish, but I am not! I recently learned that there is a dash of British tossed into my American salad. How devastating this has been to me. I will hope (and tell everyone with yet another parenthetical comment) that I am 50% Irish, 47% German and apparently 3% British. (Which finally answers the question of why my paternal grandmother always claimed some connection to Royalty.) Anyway, if you have come so far as to actually read this much, please know that I am about 3% English and not very happy about it...

8/14 /09
In order to understand our place in life, we must know our history. This is not a new notion but rather one that has been told by teachers, thinkers, historians and even moms and dads. And it is true. Quite simply, Cicero taught us that to not know what happened before you were born is to forever be a child. Yesterday, we were reminded of where a lot of our favorite musicians came from, and by extension where a lot of our best times originated. Les Paul passed away at the age of 94. Who was Les Paul, you ask? Well, that is a fair question because not many people know of the name anymore. He invented the solid-body electric guitar. To keep it simple - had it not been for Les Paul's work, we would never have heard the work of Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Eric Clapton, Eddie Van Halen (and so many others), as well as all of the up and coming guitarists of today who blaze their path along the trail that Les Paul began over 50 years ago. If you like rock and roll music, thank Les Paul. His work changed music history. Oh wait, I forgot -- the King of Pop died, and somehow that is more important. Follow history, friends. Even rock history has one and Les Paul is much more important than Mikey Jackson.

8/13 / 09
Last evening, I had a fun moment with a van full of kids (our 3 and friend's 2) where we were all singing at the top of our lungs. One of the kids said, "Hey, Dan, blast it!" So we did. It is a song with a deep message that is somehow fun to sing along to. And it got me thinking. You have probably heard (and perhaps enjoy) the song. It goes, "I went skydiving, Rocky Mountain climbing. I spent 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu..." and "Live Like You Were Dying" is its title. I think by Toby Keith, but I could be wrong. The lines that struck me as interesting are: "I gave forgiveness I'd been denying," followed later by "I watched an eagle as it was flying." Here's the thing. I have never gone skydiving - want to, but I bet I would chicken out - and I would probably die while climbing in The Rockies. However -- I DID NOT NEED A SONG TO TEACH ME THE VALUE OF LIFE! I was laughed at and called "nerd" for watching a hawk fly during a baseball game once. I was called a nerd for even discussing the simple joy of forgiveness. If you need a song to teach you that life is about the small things, then you probably haven't yet lived

8/5 / 09
The differences between football and baseball are many, but the main reason we love football is a simple question of supply and demand. They give you just enough that you want more and cannot miss a single game. With baseball, you have all summer to follow or ignore the team. The Pirates lost last night (no surprise there), dropping them to a dismal season low of 16 games under the .500 mark. A football season is only 16 games long in its entiety! Only the lowly Detroit Lions were able to reach a mark of 16 games under .500 by going 0-16 last year. Numbers are funny, but keep in mind that had the Pirates simply won 8 more games they would be even for the year with a record of 53-53, instead they are 45-61. The insurmountable number of 16 seems larger to make up as opposed to those 8 they have already let slip during this soon-to-be-seventeenth consecutive losing season. I'll say what everyone else has been telling me since June: "Pittsburgh: City of Champions...and the Pirates." Oh well, there is always next year!

8/4 / 09
I know that I am addicted to Rush and their music and their philosophy. They say the first step to recovery is admitting there is a problem. I do not see it as a problem. However, it may have become a sickness today for the first time. I never thought I would find a way to connect Rush (the Canadian art rock power trio - not the bombastic loudmouth ultra-conservative radiohead) to Michael Jackson...but I have. On the way to school this morning I listened to a 22 year old album (on CD of course), and was struck by how poignantly Rush had summed up the life of superstars and movie heroes who we might hope to be like...sort of...while realizing we would not want to be them at all. And in the end, Michael Jackson fits this description quite profoundly. I do not mean to bash him. I honestly never liked his music. It's just not my style - not a note, not a single dance beat. But how ironic that Rush in their visionary lyrics sort of defined his life when they sang: "If their lives were exotic and strange, they would likely, if gladly, exchange them for
something a little more plain, maybe something a little more sane." (Rush, 1987)

7/20/09
Eh, why not? Everyone is talking about it. For those of us who are under 40, the moon landing is literally history. We knew about it in grade school and never questioned whether it happened or not -- well, maybe a few people wondered. It wasn't revolutionary as much as it was fascinating. We always knew that man had been to the moon. When we looked up at it, it was part of our neighborhood, an extension of our planet. But what always concerned me were the Moonites. How scared those microscopic citizens of the moon must have been to see these giant humans approaching on a giant ship with intentions of taking giant leaps upon them. Sad, really, how scared the Moonites must have been. Regardless, Happy 40th Anniversary, America - the 40th Anniversary of ruining the Moon for the Moonites!

7/7/09
I understand today is Remember the 80s day, or some insipid thing like that. For those who do recall the 1980s, please help spread the truth. The decade was not as glorious as people would let on. We tend to romanticize the past and dread the future. As I recall, the 80s exposed the underbelly of American greed, uncovered rampant drug abuse in sports, the workplace and small town America, and the music was awful. Come on - from the recently deposed Michael Jackson to ridiculous pop sounds to hair metal bands, the music was not the cultural watershed many make it out to be. It was quick hits, big money, simple chords and basic rhythms. The fact that we were suckered into buying it does not make it great. As for movies - okay, maybe they saved the pop culture of that decade, but all in all it wasn't that great of a time. In short, the 80s are overrated, as I guess each passing decade is in our rose-colored rearview mirror. To once again quote Billy Joel: "The good old days weren't always good, tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems."

Until the next post...