Author: J T. Ramsay

J T. Ramsay http://jtramsay.com

Headed to Outer Banks, NC

I was just read­ing a post I wrote last year about OBX and I chuck­led. Sure, the shop­ping is a mess and the tv pack­ages may not be up to snuff, but I can’t tell you how much I’m look­ing for­ward to being down there again, espe­cial­ly after every­thing that hap­pened with Irene. The thought of the Out­er Banks being swept away was more than I could bear. When I try to think of a suit­able replace­ment my mind goes blank. I can’t think of any­where at the Jer­sey Shore being near­ly as relax­ing and remote.

I’m mak­ing a few prepa­ra­tions for the trip. I’m going to try the Mapquest app for nav­i­ga­tion, ditch­ing the native Maps app because with­out voice noti­fi­ca­tions, I’m lost. There’s no way I’m going to be ref­er­enc­ing my phone the entire trip. A quick scan reveals that there will be no such func­tion­al­i­ty added when iOS 5 rolls out lat­er this year, which is a dis­ap­point­ment. I’m a lit­tle gun­shy about Mapquest based on my expe­ri­ences with the ser­vice some ten years ago. All it took were some bad direc­tions on a par­tic­u­lar­ly stress­ful U‑Haul dri­ve and I’d had enough. Mapquest has been syn­ony­mous with bad, dan­ger­ous direc­tions ever since. I’m glad I can laugh about it now, but veer­ing across traf­fic to exit Rt 78 to an access road in a steady down­pour is not my idea of a good time.

I’m look­ing for­ward to an unevent­ful dri­ve and a very relax­ing week at the beach. I may even do a lit­tle read­ing while I’m down there!

In Praise of Spoon

I know peo­ple have cooled on their steely grooves, but I don’t know how I would’ve got­ten through 2002–2007 with­out steady dos­es of Spoon. Two songs in par­tic­u­lar that gal­va­nized my will when it was bent near the break­ing point: “That’s the Way We Get By” and “The Underdog.”

Can’t lis­ten to either of these tunes with­out being trans­port­ed back in time. The for­mer reminds me of a sweaty sum­mer spent in Brook­lyn, punch­ing F5 on craigslist or inter­view­ing for jobs for which I was but one of hun­dreds of appli­cants. I’d turn this all the way up as I sat on my futon, scrap­ing by on adjunct lec­tur­er’s wages and what­ev­er was left on my stu­dent loans. The lat­ter takes me to a bet­ter place: final­ly back on the job after near­ly a year out of work. It was their brand new album at the time and I had a hard time believ­ing that “The Under­dog” was­n’t my per­son­al anthem that summer.

A few years on and I keep find­ing myself com­ing back to these records. I can’t think of a band whose body of work has more close­ly fit my moods over more than a decade of fandom.

A Few Thoughts on That Thurston Moore Gig

First, I love Demol­ished Thoughts. I feel like I’m get­ting to that age where I’m com­fort­able enjoy­ing albums by my ’90s heroes unapolo­get­i­cal­ly, despite know­ing in my ratio­nal mind that they’re sad imi­ta­tions of their Great Works. To me, Demol­ished Thoughts is a great Sun­day morn­ing album, and last I checked, there are lots of Sun­day morn­ings where that brand of acoustic strum is absolute­ly necessary.

Last night’s show was also very good in that way Thurston Moore shows are good: he’s this dopey man­child with a real thirst for knowl­edge. He’s pre­ten­tious to a fault and last night was no excep­tion. The inter­sti­tial poems I could’ve done with­out, but by the same token, his hilar­i­ous­ly over­wrought poet­ry took me back to the place when I first start­ed lis­ten­ing to Son­ic Youth. His brand of dorky pater­nal­ism, i.e. the “I, char­ac­ter in this song, will pro­tect you, afflict­ed puta­tive­ly female char­ac­ter of song, from these dumb jock mis­cre­ants.” It’s cute in this total­ly hack­neyed I‑can-still-regur­gi­tate-assort­ed-gen­der-stud­ies-talk­ing-points sort of way. I mean, I remem­ber the ’90s, too, and some­times I’m embar­rassed for how I act­ed then. I think Thurston feels this way, too.

When it was over I was most­ly sad­dened that he played “Bene­dic­tion” with­out men­tion­ing Jack Rose, for whom the song is sup­pos­ed­ly writ­ten. Maybe I can blame Byron Coley for the bad poetry.

Hurricane Irene Made for a Hectic Weekend

Here’s how I fought Hur­ri­cane Irene last week­end in Philadel­phia, PA:

  • Drove wife and son to be with fam­i­ly in north­ern Va as they pre­pared to vaca­tion in, gulp, Corol­la, NC this week.
  • Watched news at moth­er-in-law’s house. Won­dered if Out­er Banks would still exist.
  • Slept.
  • Drove home to Philly at 6 AM. Caught in traf­fic twice behind ter­ri­ble acci­dents. Won­dered if I’d be stuck in traf­fic for hours both times.
  • Upon arriv­ing home, made per­func­to­ry ges­tures at shoring up base­ment storage.
  • Ate hot dog lunch in a light rain at Mem­phis Tap­room Beer Garden.
  • Ratch­eted up pan­ic by watch­ing nation­al and local news outlets.
  • Did­n’t eat din­ner. Drank a pitch­er of daiquiris instead while watch­ing Bourne Suprema­cy with friends.
  • Hid in bath­room, then base­ment dur­ing tor­na­do watch.
  • Fell asleep around midnight.
  • Awoke to howl­ing rain at 2:43 am.
  • Checked base­ment and ceil­ings. Found no leaks.
  • Tried falling asleep. Couldn’t.
  • Stayed awake until dawn when storm relented.
  • Walked over to friend’s house for coffee.
I still can’t believe that my house made it through rel­a­tive­ly unscathed. Watch­ing Twit­ter and Face­book I read a litany of things going wrong at friends’ homes through­out the region and I just could­n’t believe my house — which has leaked repeat­ed­ly — would be spared. (Here’s where I take a moment to praise Reit­er Roof­ing, as well as Port Fish­ing­ton’s rel­a­tive high ground for a river­ward community.)
I slept like the dead last night. I still feel com­plete­ly exhaust­ed. Helen and Char­lie will be in the Out­er Banks tomor­row morn­ing. I can’t wait to join them on Friday.

I Went to the Gym

Not earth-shat­ter­ing news by any stretch of the imag­i­na­tion, but for this dad, a major step toward get­ting back in shape after an ardu­ous two-year hiatus.

Now that Char­lie’s sleep­ing more nor­mal­ly, I’ve decid­ed to hit the gym three times per week in the evenings. I’m not quite ready to give up the addi­tion­al sleep that I just recov­ered, so I’ll hold off on wak­ing up ear­ly to run for the time being.

Feels great to be back in the gym, even if I feel like a stranger there. I kept try­ing to remem­ber my reg­i­men from, um, sopho­more year of col­lege to no avail. If you have rec­om­men­da­tions of a decent work­out pro­gram, be in touch!