Todd Stadler's blog

Things don't go

I'm not scared of my parents' house anymore, it seems, and that saddens me. It used to be that coming home was a scary event until I was under the covers, well past any reasonable young age. Someone was always trying to sneak into the garage, so I had to lock everything up quickly. Someone was always peeking in the window next to the front door. Someone was always down the hallway as I crossed from my bathroom to my room. All those people with thier murderous intents, my constant companions through high school and beyond, are gone. Have I grown up, or even lost some imagination? I hope not.

I go home tomorrow. And I'm actually a bit sad about that. And not just because I have to work the day after that.

Fun + intervention = funtervention

Tonight was my last night in Richardson. Those of us who still keep in touch from high school hung out at a fairly low-grade pool hall in north Dallas. And yet, with the tame crowd there and a beer selection only an Oregonian from Texas could love (Miller, Bud, and Shiner...um, I'll have Shiner), it was a good time.

We flirted with the bartender - okay, mainly, that was Ajay. We played songs loudly with the bartender's help. We sang those songs loudly without anybody's help. And we even danced a little on the bar (well, Wendy did, and Ajay did until he hit his head).

And Ajay practically demanded we continue the evening at his house after they kicked us out of the bar at 2am. Of course, they only did so grudgingly - the bartender said we could come back any time later for 50% off drinks if it was her shift. These sort of things happen around Ajay.

Back at his house, it was chips and salsa and infomercials. And nothing else would have hit the spot like that combination. Most memorable was Univision, with its ever-present beautiful women in slinky clothes accompanied by a chunky Santa who couldn't assemble a Razor scooter, some woman in a scary reindeer costume, and a very scary, very unexplained cut to what appeared to be someone in a snowman costume.

We also saw a commercial for, and I wish I was making this up, Budget Casket. Yes, budgetcasket.com, even. I kept waiting for it to be a joke. But no. I suppose this is what late-night TV is all about.

Driving home, it occurred to me that all the trees were heavy and glistening with ice. The trees glowed very pretty in the sodium vapor lights, as unpoetic as that sounds.

Home, pensive for the holidays

I'm at home in Richardson, TX this week.

I find myself increasingly aware of two paths in my life, two sides to me. One side gets amazingly short shrift, time and energy-wise, it would seem. That's the side that thinks about my parents, shows them love, and thinks of others. It's the side that gives of myself. The one that thinks of God and tries to please him by doing good. It's the side I put forth when I'm at home, but not the side I feel is the "real me" maybe. I mean, it is, but I spend so much time on the other side...

Which isn't, as you might expect, the evil side, as such. It's the side where I think about myself a lot, what I want. I work on my projects. It's just a selfish side. One that gets angry more than it should. And doesn't think much about others, except what they can give me. It's amazing I get along in life living so much on that side. And that anyone likes me.

This whole trip has made me start to think that I need to rearrange my priorities. I've done this before, deciding to spend less time socializing and more time working on my projects. But it's glaringly obvious that there are even more important things. But they're really tricky things. Things without a good payoff. Like spending time with potentially annoying people, or at least those who are not as interesting or fun. Helping out at church. Doing stuff for other people. I mean, this stuff should be done. But something about being a young single person has put me in the mind to avoid this, and not too many people have questioned that. So where do I find time for it all, then? I don't know. Maybe I don't.

It's been good being home, though. I forgot how important my parents are. I'm really wondering for the first time what it means to be so far from them. I've heard several times at church how happy my mom is to have me home. I never realized it was such a big deal. It seemed like such a duty thing to come home. I kind of forgot what it meant to them.

We have a really nice family - I'm blessed beyond comprehension to have a family so gifted spiritually, financially, with talents and love to spare. And yet, I sometimes think, maybe being the only child with no siblings to put things into perspective, I don't know what family means so much. It's a burden, but it's more than that, of course.

Women. God. Parents. Love. People. Church. Home. Priorities. Wow. Not in that order.

Another modest proposal

I had this idea to replace the health care system with a beefed-up legal system. We could abolish Medicare, HMOs, and the whole mess. That would save a lot of money.

And in place of all that, we just let people sue whenever they aren't well. If you have a cold, sue the guy who passed you the germs. Don't know who it was? Sue 'em all, let the court figure it out!

This seems to be a natural extension of what we have, except the lines of accountability would be cleaner. Instead of suing your doctor for some vague notion of malpractice, just sue him because you feel icky.

This way, everyone gets their fare share, without the money-grubbing health industry taking a cut. It just makes sense.

This message paid for by the Oregon Bar Association

A phone conversation with Gerry Toll

Me: Do you want to eat in an hour, then?

Gerry: Yeah, that's fine, I should be hungry by then. Are you hungry now?

Me: Yeah, I'm actually extremely hungry, but I can wait. I'm...well, I'm punishing my body.

Gerry: Okay.

Me: Yeah, it didn't perform as well as I'd hoped it would, so I'm punishing it by waiting to eat.

Gerry: Oh, um...what did it do wrong?

Me: Well, it couldn't lift up a car. You know how they say a mother can lift up a car when her child is pinned under it because she's under a lot of stress and all full of adrenaline? Yeah, that didn't work for me. There was this kid pinned under a car, and I tried to lift it up, but I couldn't. See, I think the thing was - it wasn't my kid.

Gerry: Whose was it?

Me: There was this really hot lady I saw - it was her kid. ... Actually, he wasn't so much pinned under my car as run over by it. Lemme explain - see, I see this really hot woman as I'm riding down the street, right? And I'm thinking to myself - quickly, that's how I think - why not pin her kid under the car and then lift it up in my duress and save him, in the process also earning her everlasting respect and love? Makes sense, right? But see, the problem is, I couldn't actually lift the car up when I acted out the plan.

Gerry: Did you stop to think she could have been married?

Me: Yeah, well, I didn't see a man around her, so I figured she was single, but if I had, I could have run over him, too, and then just "accidentally" not been able to lift the car up, you know...

Gerry: Like what actually happened with the kid.

Me: Sure, but, you know, that's why I'm punishing my body by waiting an hour to eat. I figure that'll be enough to correct for my actions. The Oregon Department of Corrections may have different ideas, but hey, I'm my own man!

Gerry: Right.

Punks teach old man lesson, man bites dog

I just wanted to say thanks to the kids. Those handful of punk kids at the show tonight.

See, I went to see the Blue Meanies tonight, with the Pinehurst Kids opening. I wondered how full the show would be, given that I've never seen the Meanies headline before, and they are two style changes away from ska now, even though they still get pegged with that label by stupid alt.weeklies who hear horns and assume it's ska. Ska isn't exactly the biggest seller anymore.

Things first went south when we showed up at the Pine Street Theater ("changing names with the seasons") fka Thrasher Presents on Pine Street fka The Paradigm fka the Womb fka La Luna. There was nobody there. No sound even. But there was a sign on the door - the show had moved to Meow Meow. Later rumor had it that Everclear (Portland's less-than-secret shame) was filming a video at the Pine Street, pulling rank as it were on our friends the Meanies. It'd better not be true, or I'll never buy an Everclear album again ha ha ha.

Over at Meow Meow, there weren't that many more people than at the Pine Street. Sigh. Why do so few people get how cool this band is? Maybe it stems from the fact that nobody knows how to set levels for a band with horns. The mix was awful! This isn't all that surprising, though, considering the lock that indie rock has on Portland. ("What do you mean you have non-stringed instruments?")

But the punk kids at the show, they didn't care. They strutted about like punk kids do, flailing all over. At first I thought they looked silly. But then I compared them to the other kids there - the indie statues, immobilized in their sweaters and corduroys, seemingly oblivious to the wall of sound. And I realized I'd much rather look stupid than, ahem, cool.

So I bopped around with abandon, neck popping, arms flailing, screaming, kicking. And it was good. I was part of the music, and I didn't care about anything else. I just wanted to thank a handful of stupid kids for reminding me of that.

Geez, what an old person thing to say.

Slow news day

It is no longer clear why I felt compelled to write an entry today.

As usual, I got up late. This didn't used to be usual for Sunday mornings, but since I've been without car (thanks to the wonderful drivers in Portland, Oregon!), I've been skipping church. Almost not intentionally, but I do keep forgetting to call the other church I mean to go to and find out when their service is. So I never know when to wake up. Sigh.

Some lunching, some newspaper-reading. You know.

And then suddenly, some napping. I like sleeping, but it's such a waste of time. It's not like I'm doing anything. Except, um, sleeping.

So in a vain attempt to justify today, I spent some time working on this webpage, and wrote this entry. Let's see, tomorrow's Monday. Great. I'm fulfilled.

Feeling down, downtown

Ah, well, it's better than last night. Quasi was to be playing at Berbati's, and in a strange fit of spontaneity and interpersonal gusto, I asked this girl at work if she wanted to go to the concert with me and my friends. If you knew what work was like, you'd know how rare it is for me to find a girl there my age, much less one I'd like to hang out with. Cursed engineering!

Anyhow, she joined us in our travails at the Brazen Bean and later at some sushi place. You'd think that between the martinis, sake, cute girl, and impending aural happiness, things would have been going swimmingly, but they were, in fact, going quite weirdly. Perhaps some people had had too much to drink. Perhaps people communicate differently. Something like that.

By the time we were at the concert and Quasi started playing, I had holed up in my own little world, completely focused on the music. Which was fine. Although Sam's antics at Quasi concerts have become somewhat predictable ("oh, look, he can't remember how another song goes and has become frustrated again"), they are for now still amusing, and the songs themselves are just good. Music is good. That's my theme.

So things tonight were confusing. I wish that wasn't also a theme of mine.

But you can't hug a song

It's times like these that make me think it would be easiest to label myself as manic-depressive (whoops... "bipolar") and be done with it. Because, you know, once you've found a label for your problems, that's it. Problem solved. You can tell your friends and everything. Makes for good talk at parties.

Speaking of parties, I'm supposed to be going to several tonight. We'll see about that. It's been a pretty lousy day today, but for now, I'm excited. I just got out of the shower and shaved, so I feel a lot better. I'm wearing blue jeans, a white undershirt, and my favorite buckle shoes (from my trip to Barcelona, ooh la la), dancing around listening to Man Ray. It's just a moment that works. In fact, I just called up Jshrall to let him know how ridiculously happy I am that he gave me this album. He's a great guy. This album just rocks. I'm not sure why, really, as it could be considered just another post-grunge exercise in guitars. Something about craftsmanship.

But I'm not thinking about that. I'm just enjoying the moment. Things weren't so great today, but music obliterates all that. It's like liquid emotions. And it's always the same, doesn't change, doesn't disappoint. Sometimes, it's a lot better than friends. I don't want to think about what happens when this CD ends, though.

In fact, I'm wondering if the parties can measure up to this moment at all. I don't want to interact with really annoying people. Sigh. People are just trouble. And yet I suppose it's all about them, ultimately. Besides, I'd feel lame just staying home listening to music. I guess this moment is all about potential. If I didn't have anywhere to go, anyone to have showered and shaved for, then it wouldn't be so cool. Oh, foul emotions!

My dinner with Ajay

Ajay was here. With Dave!. And while the last leg of the Todd Tour Two-Thousand wasn't as rock-starred as previous ones, it was good. I suppose some 'splainin's in order.

Ajay I know from high school. I think he met me first, so I'll be Todd #1, aka Portland Todd, aka Odd Todd. At the very same high school, Ajay and I met Todd #2, aka LA Todd, aka...hmm, I don't know what his Todd Handle is. Oh well. Most of my conversations with Todd #2 back then consisted of "Hi, Todd" "Hi, Todd". Great stuff. I keep meaning to write a novel about it. Besides this one. Ajay went to college with Todd #3, aka San Francisco Todd, aka Tpodd. I met Tpodd through a completely orthogonal route, being that he works at the same company as and is now dating Xy, for whom I once had a "thing". All very clear.

So Ajay decided to visit all us Todds. There was some business reason behind it all, but that's not important right now. But there was, as Ajay might put it, a Zenny bonus: Dave! joined in the TT2K as well. And yes, his name is, in fact, written with an exclamation point appended to it. This would make sense if you ever met Dave!, as there is very little about him that is not spoken with exclamations.

Anyhow, a time with Ajay and Dave is a good time. We wore cowboy hats to Club 21. We potentially harassed waitresses (who were potentially harassing back) at the Cadillac Cafe. We sang the national anthem in three-part harmony (that at times verged on microtonal, but hey) to no one in particular except a statue of Abraham Lincoln. And we ran around in desperate search of a nice place to look at the sunset each evening.

In short, we were silly. So silly that the whole visit, in retrospect, plays out like some montage of silly acts that people rarely do, all set to some upbeat 80's rock tune by an artist with a reputation for being silly himself, in a movie about friends who are silly. Yes, that silly.

And it made me think. About why I tend not to be so externally silly when I'm by myself. About why certain people bring out such qualities in me. About friends, and leaders, and followers. All manner of deep introspection, none of which is probably interesting, and it certainly isn't silly. So I'll stop it.

And even though I cannot personally say that I was picked up by two girls at a bar just because I seemed "cute", was taken to their house with some other, duller, male, whereupon they both proceeded to make out with me and each other at different times, and was given money for some coffee and a bus ride back to my friend's house, which I pocketed and decided to walk instead, remembering only that said house was between a giant rotating loaf of bread and a giant rotating milk carton... even though I cannot personally claim to have experienced any of that, I had a good time. And I won't name names.