Tonight on Conan

Alice in Chains will be performing "Check My Brain" on the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien tonight. .

Grandma Tepher

The baby in the picture is my YaYa. She's in the arms of Mildred "Grandma" Tepher (Tepfer?), a resident of Lisa's hometown of Sturgis, MI. She doubled as a surrogate grandmother to my wife while Lisa's family lived there in the 1970's.

Lisa took me to meet her prior to our wedding, and I found her a friendly soul who still kept momentos from Lisa's early childhood. Before Mildred's death in the middle part of this decade, Lisa and her Mom took YaYa to meet her too. Whereas on my trip we dined at the local Big Boy's, YaYa got the special treatment: they journed across the border to Indiana to eat at a restaurant she liked.

Mildred, RIP - you're still missed.

A Quiet Flame

A Quiet Flame is the fifth in Phillip Kerr's Bernie Gunther series, a set of 'noir' mysteries set in and around Hitler's Berlin. But now the war is over and Gunther, a long-time adversary of Nazism, has been misidentified as a war criminal. He escapes to Peron's Argentina, where he joins a large contingent of exiled Nazi's living under assumed names.

Gunther's investigative skills pique the interest of an Argentinian officer who offers him a deal: find the missing daughter of a prominent man, and in exchange Peron's own doctor will cure Gunther of his early stage cancer.

Along the way Gunther also takes the case of a beautiful Jewish woman who is looking for her missing relatives, and as the cases become intertwined it becomes obvious that Argentina hides a secret as dark as anything in Europe.

Noir often becomes boring to me, with its endless obsession with darkness and tragedy. Kerr is an acknowledged master of the form, and so I managed to avoid that fate. Instead Kerr failed in setting up and then resolving the mystery at hand. In the end it is resolved in a single, off-hand conversation, as if the facts were off-stage the whole time. He obviously wished our attention to be focused on the social and historical crimes of the era, and not the wanderings of a single young woman, but so what? He could have - he should have - done both.

2.5 out of 4.

Why we call him Smiley

Here's my son with his cousin Caitlin, who he calls "Kay-Kay"











Naw, the nickname doesn't fit at all. :)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Ken Follett once wrote a wonderful piece in The Writer on how he believes 'high' and 'popular' literature differ. He says 'popular' literature is built around an idea or action, while 'High' literature is often concerned with the internal dilemmas of the character at the expense of plot or story.

Well, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button certainly has a neat idea behind it, that of a man who is born 'old' and slowly grows 'younger' as years pass. And it does carry Fitzgerald's name, so you'd expect some artistic merit. Is this the rare combination of both style and substance?

Eh, not so much. Keep in mind two things. One, the movie took the germ of the story from Fitzgerald and concocted a very liberal adaptation. And two, somehow they managed to take a movie that should hinge largely on an original, intiguing storyline and made it a strictly character driven film.

I liked the movie. No, I did, I swear. But I liked it in the same way I enjoy sitting down with an old man and listening to him tell the tale of his life. That, in a nutshell, is what this film offers: the rather mundane but well told memories of an average joe.
Is he born 'old'? Yes. Does he grow 'younger'? Yes. Does it miraculously seem to have no bearing on the plot or the shape of his life? Yes. You could remove the age gimmick from the movie and sell it, as is, as a bittersweet lifelong romance. He grows up in a nursing home, but it appears to be no different of an upbringing than that of any other child whose parent is a live-in nurse. He un-ages while serving on the high seas, but it's brushed away with a two sentence exchange with his captain. He spends a large amount of time onscreen as standard-age Brad Pitt. And so on.

To repeat, I liked the movie and don't regret a minute I spent watching it. But a masterpiece or high art it was not.

3.0 out of 4

Happy Birthday YaYa!

There's not much time to post today, but I wanted to make sure to stop by and wish my oldest a Happy 8th Birthday! Everyday with her has been a blessing, even the lousy ones, and I hope she has a blast today!

We love you YaYa!

Books Read 2002 - some spoilers

1.The ten thousand : a novel of ancient Greece by Michael Curtis Ford. (a yawner when compared to Gates of Fire)

2.Bums by Peter Glockenbock

3 Lost Soldiers by James Webb

4 The Eye of The World by Robert Jordan (as seen by the next 8 entries, I’m hooked!)

5 The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan

6 The Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan

7 The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan (best of the bunch)

8 The Fires of Heaven: by Robert Jordan

9 Lord of Chaos: by Robert Jordan

10 A Crown of Swords: by Robert Jordan

11 The Path of Daggers: by Robert Jordan

12 Winter’s Heart by Robert Jordan

13 Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden (excellent!)

14 Gallow’s Thief by Bernard Cornwell

15 Little Grandpa by Dan Slapczynski

16 Old Polish Legends by F.C. Anstruther

17 City of Bones by Michael Connelly

18Warning of War by James Brady (so-so. pretty weak and predictable)

19 The Marines of Autumn by James Brady (poetic and tragic, yet horribly pro-Marine, anti-GI; yet another reminder that an author sometimes intrudes on his own work)

20 American Empire: The Center Cannot Hold by Harry Turtledove

21 Jolie Blon’s Bounce by James Lee Burke (scary. What a great bad guy!)

22 Sharpe’s Company by Bernard Cornwell

23 The Moment She was Gone by Evan Hunter (excellent. It really hit home and I’ve passed the book along to others)

24 Bad Boy Brawly Brown by Walter Mosley

25 Sharpe’s Sword by Bernard Cornwell

26 Acid Row by Minette Walters (very good book. I may have found a female author worth reading)

27 To Catch a Spy by Stuart Kaminsky (Cary Grant vs the Nazis. Fun book)

28 Mortal Prey by John Sandford (where’s the terror that made the series so powerful?)

29 Code Sixty-One by Donald Harstad (a nice, quirky change of pace)

30 The Shape of Snakes by Minette Walters (yup, a female author worth reading)

31 Twice Dying Neil Mchmahon (ok)

32 The Echo by Minette Walters

33 Eleven Days by Donald Harstad (his first, and so far the best, book)

34.American Gods by Neil Gaiman (winner of the Bram Stoker Award for best novel of 2001; a fine read, even if I lost interest in the home stretch)

35 The Fifth Sorceress by Robert Newcomb (plain jane style, decent story. Enjoyable)

36 Known Dead by Donald Harstad (the 2nd of the series; much more relaxed and readable than the first in the series or the newest one. Wonder if deadline pressure caused him to slip backwards with Code-Sixty-One?)

37 Blood Double by Neil McMahon (goofy plot about DNA and evil corporations. I can’t really see a genuine reason for the protagonist to get involved, but heck, what do I know? Still a decent read.)

38 Hardfreeze by Dan Simmons (deliciously violent and unrepentant. Much better than the first in the series! It also features a discussion dissing the recent Spenser novels. A blast.)

39 Street Boys by Lorenzo Carcaterra (awful. What a fall from grace from his last work. Not only is the plot predictable and amateurish [the German soldier has the hero at his mercy, yet chooses to brag about it before the kill – and suddenly, the hero is saved from a shot out of nowhere! – about a dozen times]. Italy is also given a free pass in WWII [ah, sure we sided with Hitler at first. But, uh, now we don’t], and every German is a Nazi. Geesh. If it wasn’t the only book I had over Labor Day, I’d have dropped it like a block of cement.)

40 Why We Fight: Moral Clarity and the War on Terrorism by William J. Bennett (a solid and well written thesis arguing for continued American action in response to 911. I agreed with most of his thoughts, but felt many to be too obvious to deserve a detailed discussion. Because of that, some parts failed to catch my interest).

41.Dads and Daughters: How to Inspire, Understand, and Support your Daughter when she’s growing up so fast by Joe Kelly (a pretty good book dealing with a variety of issues in a girls life. Some of it is gobbldy-gook, but most of it is very valuable)

42. Among the Heroes: United Flight 93 and the Passengers and Crew who Fought Back by Jere Longman (the heroic and inspiring story of the only American’s who struck back on 9-11)

43 The Walkaway by Scott Phillips (a funny and effective mystery. A joy to read.)
44 The Collection by Bentley Little

45 The Revelation by Bentley Little

46 Shrink Rap by Robert B. Parker (good read, as expected, but Parker needs to see a shrink of his own to get over his obsession with both psychiatriy and homosexuality. Everyone in his latest books is either gay, screwy, or both)

47 From a Buick 8 by Stephen King (may be wrong, but didn’t see much of a plot here)
48 The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty (every bit as terrifying – if not more so- than the movie. And I very much like Blatty’s style).

49 BFI Modern Classics: The Exorcist by Mark Kermode (a British critique of the film)

50 The Ninth Configuration by William Peter Blatty (not a very good book, and short to boot)

51 Legion by William Peter Blatty (a sequel of sorts to the Exorcist. Mainly a mystery with long discussions of philosophy thrown in. Still a good read though.)

52 The Stand by Stephen King (very good – very long – book)

53 The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger by Stephen King (I suppose its deeply metaphorical. Or boring. Depends on your outlook).

54 The Shining by Stephen King (deeply unsettling. Not a book to read while working night audit at a hotel)

55 Gerald’s Game by Stephen King (very good. An excellent example of how to say ‘no’ to your characters)

56 The Green Mile by Stephen King (a very enjoyable, very good book)

57 Bag of Bones by Stephen King (ok – it started out very strong and then took a crap. King was a child of the sixties, and sometimes the sensibilities of the time overwhelm his work. Aside from turning the departed wife into a saint (when you were at first made to believe she was having an affair) he makes the whole thing into a statement on race. Which is fine, but having read several of his books in a short time, I see a pattern. He paints every African-American as someone put-upon and abused at the hands of the redneck majority. This is certainly true in some cases, and it was pertinent in The Green Mile, but here???? What happened to Sara Tidwell was atrocious and disgusting. That said, I REFUSE to justify a century of child murder OR see her as anything but a damned soul - both the opposite of what King seems to portray. Children are innocent. For her to take her revenge on them is as wrong as the crime that killed her. In whole, a mediocre work)

58 Vagabond by Bernard Cornwell. (A sequel to Archer’s Tale. A very engaging novel of the Hundred Years War)

59 Fat Ollie’s Book by Ed McBain (wonderful! As expected a sharp, witty book that dances with the grace of Astaire. Full of snide little jibes at his own legacy, his fictional creation – and even his world famous disclaimer! Plus Fat Ollie finally gets a shot at center stage. What a joy!)

60 Under the Eagle by Steve Scarrow (a Sharpe-like adventure of the Roman invasion of Britain. The author has potential, but he’s still rough around the edges. And lay off the British slang, eh? How many times did a centurian yell “Bloody Bastards!”

Pulling teeth, wiping up poo, and gas

For all of you too weak to walk to the corner paper box, or too cheap to shell out three bits, here's a link to my column "Blessings amid Recession".

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Yesterday was a pip. Immediately after dropping the girls off at school I headed off to the dentist for an extraction.

Once I was in the chair, the dentist took a look and said the tooth was badly infected. He launched into a long explanation as to why this meant pulling the tooth was a no-go, something about acid and base and the anesthetic being rendered weak. Blah-blah. I asked him what he wanted me to do.

"You should go home, take antibiotics for a week to ten days, and then come back for an extraction," he said.

"But?" I said.

"But . . . you have a good tolerance for tooth pain. I would forgo ten days of constant pain, deal with pulling the tooth now, and take a few minutes of bad pain in exchange for feeling nothing at all in a half hour. But you will feel some of the extraction."

So we went for it.

The extraction was one-two-three, but the tooth did break, costing us a few minutes.
"It boke?" I said, after he quietly cursed.

"Of course it did. Why should my day be easy?" the dentist said, lacking a wee bit of perspective.

Yeah, the extraction hurt more than normal, but it wasn't anything compared to living with the thing. I'm A-OK now, and was fine within minutes of the pull.

Afterwards, I filled a prescription at Walgreens, where I sat and talked to an old man named Zimmerman visiting from Whitewater. He was named after his uncle, the former sports editor of the L.A. Times, and had volunteered to sit with his ill son-in-law while his daughter was at work. The in-law in question was a Vietnam vet, but he also mentioned having a son-in-law who fought in Korea.

"Korea?" I said. "That's almost sixty years ago. Was he much older than your daughter?"

He had to be; a Korean vet, even one that caught the tail end in '53, would be at least seventy-six. Mr. Zimmerman was in his mid to late eighties, but not much older.

"Oh yes, he was. But he's passed away now."

Huh. There are great stories to be found everywhere, if you just keep one ear open.

When I got home, a (bad) surprise. The gas company, which has been tearing the hell out of my lawn for weeks laying pipe, needed access to the house. They were turning the gas off, and once it was back on they wanted to verify all the pilots were re-lit. That meant they needed to go on all three levels of the house (we have two furnaces), which meant . . well, it meant I had a couple hours to get three floors of a house whipped into passable shape. That . . . wasn't fun.

Worse yet, just before the guy showed up Ginger shat her pants, then scooped it out and rubbed it into her hands, face, blanket, and bedroom furniture. I'm talking 'mud bath'/Al Jolson coverage here.

Disgusting little kid.

Then, a complete reversal of the days weather. The sun came out, temperatures were in the sixties, and it was a pleasant reminder of summer. I took the opportunity to cut the grass, which might have been overdoing it for the day, as it wiped me out. The rest of the day was grocery shopping, dinner, baths for the kids, a bit of the Phillies clinching the NLCS, and of course, Glee.

And after that: the first uninterrupted nights sleep in weeks. Heaven!

Thank You for the Birthday Wishes!

Thanks for all the birthday wishes! Spent the AM w/ Smiley at the pumpkin farm fieldtrip, early afternoon napping, and Danny made beef roast w/ potatoes for dinner, yum. Kids sang happy birthday and we ate chocolate cake. Received a new blender (margaritas!), and lots of kisses and hugs. A good birthday. :) Thanks for dinner the other day too mom :)  - Lisa 

Lisa's Birthday, and another column in the Journal-Sentinel

Lisa's birthday was low key but went well. She went with Smiley on his class trip to the pumpkin farm, and then we just chilled out at home. No one offered to take the kids off our hands, killing our plans for a dinner out, so I popped a roast and potatoes in the oven. It *should* have been ready by six, but finally finished around nine. Oopsies, Chef. Because of this, the kids wound up eating frozen corn dogs and chocolate cake. In the end, not so bad an outcome, because it left the roast to be enjoyed by grown-ups later in the night.

Happy Birthday Lis!

* * *

Seven and a half hours until the dentist pulls this piece o' pain out of my jaw. Hot dog!

* * * *

A column of mine appears in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel today. The editor wrote me the following after she read my submission:

Dan, what a wonderful column! I read it start to finish in seconds because I kept wanting to read the next line and find out where you were going. It just brought a little light to my day.

As you can imagine, I was very touched by her words. Go on, buy a copy dangnabbit!