Tuesday, 4/9

Is it weird that I've never been on a passenger train? Or is that one of those things that makes me uniquely American?

I can't quite decide.

In two weeks I'll be riding on the first passenger trains of my life, first heading from Berlin to Leipzig and then a few days later from Leipzig to visit Loraine's friends in Weissenfels (and, of course, back both ways). And while passenger train ridership is nothing out of the ordinary for Europeans—in fact, it's part of their everyday life—for Americans train ridership is something very unique, something so extraordinary that people look at you the same way they'd look as if you told them you came from another planet.

You know, the kind of looks I get a lot.

Of course, part of that has to do with the way we live vs. the way Germans (in this case) live. They have a well-funded train system that runs on time, and gets them where they need to go almost as quickly (and in some cases quicker) than an airline would. We have a woefully underfunded train system that only goes certain places at certain times, and even then only has something like a 40% shot of getting there when it's supposed to. Just because of that I can see why Germans ride trains and why Americans avoid them like black flies at a summer beach.

But it wasn't always that way.

Study enough history and you know that for a big chunk of America's lifetime trains were the only way to get from here to there. In fact, up until the 1960s passenger trains even pulled into and out of Marquette several times a day. But with the advent of both the interstate highway system and commonplace air travel train ridership plummeted, and in the case of a place like here, totally disappeared. Traveling by train is now about as common as sending a telegram to someone...assuming, of course, you can still send telegrams.

That might be a blog for another day.

Germans, of course, embrace mass transit as a way to cut down on air pollution, while Americans don't seem to give a rip about that. But cities in Germany are a lot closer together than they are in the US (the distance between Berlin & Leipzig, for example, is about the same as the distance between Marquette & Houghton), and unless you have the high speed trains available in the rest of the world train travel between any major US cities just takes too long. I can see why flying or driving makes more sense.

It's just too bad we've given up on it.

Anyway, it should be a fun time, and a very unique experience. So unique, in fact, that I doubt that more than a handful of people (if even that many) reading this can welcome us to the club.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Monday, 4/8

I just realized that Andy Williams warped my life.

Now, before I get to the “how” of how the singer of “Moon River” and the star of a long-running 60’s TV variety show warped my life, let me get to the “why” of discovering it. One of the books I recently finished reading was a fascinating tome entitled “I Hate Myself And Want To Die”, written by a perceptive young man named Tom Reynolds. Despite its title, it’s an hilarious book about the 52 most depressing, maudlin, and just plain bad songs ever written. One of the songs he talks about is the immortal “MacArthur Park”, first sung by Richard Harris and later disco-fied into a number one hit by Donna Summer. He mentions many other people who’ve tackled one of the most bizarre songs ever written, and it was then that I realized Andy Williams warped my life.

You see, Andy Williams was one of the people who recorded “MacArthur Park”. And when I was a very young kid, I used to listen to the 8-track of the song over and over and over again (yes, my parents had an 8-track player and yes, they actually had an Andy Williams 8-track tape which, in hindsight, may explain a lot about how I turned out). I never listened to the beginning and the end of the song; that was just Andy Williams singing “Park” the same was in which he sang “Moon River” and all his other hits (like, uhm, “Moon River”). It was the middle section of the song that I listened to over and over.

Imagine this--Andy Williams is singing “MacArthur Park” the same way he sang “Moon River”. Then, the bridge (the middle) of the song starts. Andy fades out, and something really REALLY strange starts happens. What sounds like an 80-piece orchestra kicks in, along with a wa-wa disco guitar and disco-like drums, meaning the song goes from “Moon River” to something that sounds like the bad soundtrack to the worst “Shaft” movie ever made. Then, after two minutes of the Andy Williams Disco Orchestra, it goes back to “Moon River”.

Don't believe me? Listen starting at 2:20 into the song--

I hadn’t thought about that piece of music for, gosh, 30 or so years, until I came across it in that book and everything just came flooding back to me. I went to iTunes and, proving it may be the single greatest cultural aid (or single biggest time-waster) in modern history, they had “MacArthur Park” by Andy Williams (they also had “Moon River”, but I skipped that one). I downloaded it, listened to the middle of it, listened to the middle again (much like I did when I was a kid), and realized something.

You see, I’ve always liked songs with horns and strings in them; witness the fact that I think Earth, Wind, and Fire’s “September” is the greatest song ever recorded. I never knew WHY I like songs with horns & strings in them; I just always have. And that’s when I realized how Andy Williams warped my life. You see, the first song I can ever remember really paying attention to that had horns & strings in it (albeit overblown horns & strings) was his version of “MacArthur Park”.

Apparently, Andy Williams is responsible for the type of music I listen to and like even today.

I think I’m gonna go sit in a corner for awhile, think about it, and decide whether to laugh or to cry. . .

(jim@wmqt.com)

(ps--don't forget that I may or may not have jury duty tomorrow.  If you don't see anything new here you know the drill!)

Friday, 4/5

Today, two things that are entirely unrelated.

The first has to do with a phone call I received at work yesterday, when someone rang me with a question about the movie “Nacho Libre”. After I answered it (specifically, who starred in it), I got to thinking. And that, as we all know, can be a very dangerous thing. Of what was I thinking?

That no one in the U.S. seems to know about one of the best “worst” movies of all time.

“Nacho Libre” is the story of a masked wrestler, played by Jack Black. What you may not know is that masked wrestlers have been a HUGE part of of Mexican pop culture for years, so much so that a series of films mashing up wrestling and horror movies popped up in the mid 60s, the “best” of them being the immortal flick “Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy”.

Yes, that’s the actual name of it.

I first saw the flick when I was visiting Mexico at age 14, and it’s been stuck somewhere in the dim recesses of my head ever since. I’ve seen it in both English and Spanish and, frankly, it’s better in Spanish, especially if you don’t speak the language, because then you can make up your own plot in your head. Not that there’s much of a plot to follow; basically, it involves an evil mummy springing to life and battling the women who dropkick it back into the netherworld. The action, costumes, acting and, most importantly, plot are so ludicrous that I’m surprised Quentin Tarantino hasn’t tried to remake it yet.

If you EVER see it playing on some obscure cable channel or find it floating around in your Netflix queue, check it out for a great laugh. It’s called “Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy” starring, in alphabetical order, the Aztec Mummy and some wrestling women. You WON’T be disappointed.

***

Secondly, it’s my mom’s birthday today, and I certainly can’t let that go without some kind of notice. I’ve had several of you mention to me over the years that it seems as if you’ve come to know (and sympathize for or with) her, what with me mentioning assorted items as to how I've made her life a living heck, including (but not limited to) how I was actually born a month past my due date, how I once tore open dozens of boxes of cereal in a grocery store, causing the whole family to eat nothing but Corn Flakes for several weeks, and how I once would only eat bananas and milk for months and then one morning spewed them all over the kitchen, refusing--to this day--to ever eat another banana again.

Yes, I was a special kid. But then she was a special mom to put up with all that, and with everything that my sister and brother threw at her, as well. So I’m sure all of us--her kids, as well as you guys, who’ve come to know her over all these years--wish her another year of health, happiness, lots of painting, and, perhaps most importantly, extra strength in putting up with my dad and his shenanigans.

Happy birthday, Mom. . .from all of us!!

Love,

(jim@wmqt.com)

(p.s.--if you haven’t visited her painting website recently, just  click here. You'll be stunned and amazed, in a good way!)

Thursday, 4/4

Wanna see where I'm gonna be in three weeks?

Well, technically, Loraine and I should, if things go to plan, be arriving in Leipzig three weeks from today. We won't be paying a visit to this temple (the picture of which was shot off of our TV last weekend), known as Red Bull Arena, for another two days after our arrival in that fair city.

But let's just call it three weeks and leave it at that.

And actually, if you wanna be really technical, this magenta circle on the next version of the picture shows EXACTLY where Loraine and I will be three weeks and two days from today--

We chose those particular seats for a couple of reasons—one, they're across the field from the team benches, which means that we can keep an eye on the comings & goings of the RB Leipzig team and their coaching staff during the match. The seats are also near the end zone “Fan Zone”, where the team's most passionate fans spend the entire match pounding on drums and singing soccer songs, and we kind of wanted to experience what that would be like.

We'll just have to make sure we bring Tylenol with us for the headache that's sure to ensue after spending two hours sitting near singing & drum playing soccer fans.

The final reason we're sitting in those seats also has to do with the “Fan Zone”. After the match is over the team walks over to that end of the stadium and salutes the people who gave them energy, cheered for them, and (hopefully) propelled them to victory. While we won't be as close as some people, we're hoping for a glance of the players we've watched the past couple of years.

That's why we're sitting where we're sitting.

And we're hoping they do win. Leipzig is currently in third place in the Bundesliga (coming off a 5-0 shellacking of Hertha Berlin), while the team they're playing, SC Freiburg, is sitting in 11^th. Believe it or not, Five Thirty Eight, the website that forecasts US elections and sporting events, also does European soccer matches, and the last time I checked there was a 67% probability that Leipzig would win (as well as a 22% probability the teams will draw). So that gives us an 89% probability that we won't walk away from those seats totally bummed.

Let's just hope fivethirtyeight forecasts the game better than they did, say, the 2016 election.

So that's where we'll be in three weeks and two days. I'll be writing more about the trip as a whole; in fact, one of my hoped-to-be-completed projects this weekend is a preview blog for our trip site, which I'll also post here (assuming I ever get it done). But because several of you were curious following the whole epic adventure of procuring those seats last week, I figured I'd share this now.

Three weeks. Two days!!!!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Wednesday, 4/3

It was interesting. It really was. But I'm glad I was given some time back.

My jury duty duty was limited yesterday; I was one of the people left not yet questioned after the jury was locked down. So I was able to go back to work, undo all the work I had taken care of Monday, and spend the rest of the day as I normally would.

So it wasn't too painful. Except, of course, for having to undo the work I did Monday. Maybe I'm weird, but I don't necessarily enjoy doing something Monday, then re-doing it Monday after being informed I have jury duty, then re-doing the re-doing Tuesday after I'm not selected for the jury. But maybe that's just me.

Of course, I'm still not off the hook yet. I still have two more Tuesdays ahead of my trip that I may be called in, and it is making it kind of hard to set things up. Twice yesterday I had someone ask if I was available for a meeting or get-together for next week, and twice I had to conditionally say I’d be there. I felt rather bad for one of those, as someone called me first (out of a group of 6) to set a time for something, trying to work around my schedule because it’s usually the wackiest, and here I had to apologize because I have no idea what my wacky schedule for next week will look like until next Monday afternoon.

Sigh.

I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m whining about my jury duty, because that’s not my intent. Like I wrote last month, I’ll happily do my civic duty. And I actually found the whole process of jury selection yesterday fascinating; the questions both sides ask, the determinations a judge has to make, as well as the collective breath held by those not yet chosen when the judge asks if the lawyers are happy with the jury they've chosen. It was really interesting. I just wish things could be a little more...firmly set, instead of prospective jurors having to call every week this month to find out if their schedules for the next day--indeed, for the immediate future--gets thrown out like a 3-week old piece of leftover lasagna.

But..what are you gonna do, right? In the end, I know I’ll suck it up and do what needs to be done, even if it happens to occur two more times in the next two weeks. I mean, I'm hoping it doesn't, but you gotta do what you gotta do, right? Especially if you want to fulfill your part of living in a participatory constitutional republic.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 4/2:

Well, guess who has jury duty today?  Yup.  Details and the story tomorrow.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Monday, 4/1 (no foolin')

Well, today’s the big day. Actually, the first of three big days, if you want to be technical, but today’s the day that starts it all off.

This afternoon between 3 and 430 I have to make a phone call to the 96^th District Court in Marquette. What the recorded voice that answers my call says between 3 and 430 this afternoon determines my fate for tomorrow. If the voice tells me something has been canceled, I’ll be fine with that. However, if the voice tells me to report to court tomorrow morning at 8:15, I’ll know I’m stuck on jury duty for a while, and my life as I know it gets turned upside down.

Like I mentioned last month, I’m on call for jury duty for each of the next 3 Tuesdays, the first of which is tomorrow. So if I don’t get stuck on jury duty tomorrow, I’m still on the hook for the next two weeks as I'm diving into the hard work of getting ready to leave for Germany the fourth Tuesday of the month (a date for which I've been excused from jury duty, thankfully). So if I don’t get called in tomorrow, I still could in the coming weeks.

Oh well. It's the price you have to pay for living in a semi-functioning democracy, right?

As I said, I have no idea if I’ll be stuck performing my civic duty starting tomorrow, so I, in all honesty, have no idea what my schedule’s gonna be like. I have, however, devised an easy way for YOU to know what’s going on in Jim-land. If you come back here tomorrow and find a blog, you’ll know the voice on my recorded phone call told me I’m free for the next week, and you can celebrate (or mourn) in any way your personal feelings dictate. However, if you show up here tomorrow and see the words “Jim’s on jury duty”, you’ll know that my life’s temporarily turned upside down, and you can then mourn (or celebrate) in any way your personal feelings dictate.

And, if you want, you could wish me luck at the same time, because between jury duty, trying to keep things running at work, and doing whatever else I need to do with the rest of my life (like getting ready to travel a quarter of the way around the planet), I have a feeling it’ll be an interesting few weeks.

So stay tuned. And keep your fingers crossed the recorded voice tells me I’m safe for a day.

(jim@wmqt.com)