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| Amigos: Hyperliving (RIP) Beaumont Flickr The Knoblr Tammy and Mandy EK Little Blog HeightFiveSeven See You Next Thursday Hendo Bendo Blog Bonanza Mengelmier's Carnival Songs Save Lives Blue Coyote Jeff & RB's "A Ride A Day" Popomoho IRAFRIEDMAN LoveBryan" Live Wrong and Proper Sweeeetheart Fever Ringo Have a Banana! |
| Music/Culture Chatter: Stereogum I Love Music Split Infinitives S/FJ Cowboyz n' Poodles Brooklyn Vegan |
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Thursday, January 28, 2010 VENOMOUS LOINS DEAL WITH IT jaychampionvinyl: your life is full JeffreyBeaumont: i am a fucking sadist JeffreyBeaumont: well a masochist anyway jaychampionvinyl: no jaychampionvinyl: you were right jaychampionvinyl: you love inflicting pain jaychampionvinyl: on humans jaychampionvinyl: and watching them writhe in agony JeffreyBeaumont: hahahahaha JeffreyBeaumont: with my tongue-twisting fake language jaychampionvinyl: yes jaychampionvinyl: your forked tongue and your venomous loins JeffreyBeaumont: FUCK YEAH VENOMOUS LOINS Labels: BEAUMONT, IMs, lolgore posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 1/28/2010 04:10:00 PM 0 comments Sunday, January 17, 2010 Support Jeffrey Beaumont and Social Media Week  So as I am a general wunderkind of the event planning variety, I often step down from my ivory tower of non-profiteering to lend a hand to up-and-coming organizations in need of some consultation and execution assistance. One such group that I'm working with right now is a fine little project called Social Media Week, founded by the inestimable Toby Daniels, and what they've got on the docket is pretty rad. Social Media Week is a weeklong meta-conference from February 1-5 exploring its title in literality: a week of citywide activities devoted entirely to the appreciation and understanding of social media and its inherent power. With thirty-five events running across New York over the course of the week, Social Media Week (SMW) is without doubt ambitious in scope...except that in addition to New York, SMW will also deploy concurrently in five other cities worldwide: Toronto, Sao Paulo, San Francisco, London and Berlin. Seriously. Each city will operate their own SMW with a fair degree of autonomy, so to be fair Toby is chiefly responsible for his New York baby, but the widescale organization of these events is impressive to say the least. I have been brought on by Toby to manage seven of the events (to be disclosed soon!) and so far, so good. I'll share more on what i'm working on in the weeks ahead, but for now check them out here and go here to check out the week's schedule for New York. There's a ton of shit going on, and it's all FREE, so please do Toby and I a favor and sign up and check-out anything that seems interesting. Holla! posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 1/17/2010 10:31:00 PM 0 comments Contemplated Thoughts With Hole In Mouth Things I need to write about, as thought up while sitting in my office on a Sunday night avoiding work:
That should cover it for the time being. posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 1/17/2010 10:04:00 PM 0 comments Wednesday, January 13, 2010 I Love The Shit Out Of This Man, Forever And Always  Jeffrey Beaumont Life Hero David Lynch is at it again, not with a new film but an exploration of the America he loves so dearly in his "Interview Project" video series. Learn about the Interview Project from David here or go here directly to watch the videos of characters discovered across his world. Love this man. Labels: BEAUMONT, heroes, la cine, LYNCH, videos posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 1/13/2010 01:22:00 AM 1 comments 1
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Wednesday, December 09, 2009 What Happens Next?  JeffreyBeaumont: gonna pass that 10k last.fm barrier soon JeffreyBeaumont: 99348 jaychampionvinyl: holy jesus jaychampionvinyl: what awaits you jaychampionvinyl: on the other side? jaychampionvinyl: the King of Music jaychampionvinyl: will call you jaychampionvinyl: and kiss your forehead Labels: BEAUMONT, case studies, curiosities posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 12/09/2009 01:52:00 PM 0 comments Monday, December 07, 2009 A New Day Upon Us: Slang Editorial, Version 3.0 Friends: 2009 is nearly over and, 609 posts later$$$, I'm still here, blogging away. It's been a long time coming, but as any of you reading this via the old-fashioned website method (vs. a post-guts-only RSS feeder like Google Reader) can see, after ten months of Slang v. II, I'm pleased to present the next and newest incarnation: Slang Editorial v. 3. Thanks goes to The Royal Scourge for the design, which I think does a fantastic job distilling 2009 Slang Editorial to a bare essence. What the fuck I would do in life without friends like these, I just don't know. Since we're about to start looking forward, I thought it might be fun to take a last quick look back on what was... A Brief History of Slang Editorial Slang Beta The original Slang was a simple Blogger template at the address slangeditorial.blogspot.com, begun in May 2004 during senior year finals week by Alex Hot Doorknobs himself as a place for him and JonKK to dash off musings on rap music, the Yankees and basketball. 9 posts and four months later, and the rest of the team--Ezruh, StepfatherFactory and myself--were invited on-board and things started taking off###. I wish I had some snapshots of this era of Slang because I have absolutely no memory of what it looked like. Slang v. 1:  About 18 months and 217 posts later, in March 2006 we decided to get all fancy and buy our own domain at SlangEditorial.net. Ezruh did a nice spiffy site design--including the cute and fun 'tapes n tapes banner' above--and we launched on March 18, 2006, bringing us into the future (and further away from Blogger). This was sadly the tail end of the golden first wave of Slang Editorial, as nearly all of us began posting far more sporadically or even not at all. Ezruh continued writing a few times a month, but gone were the days of Slang as group forum. Slang output slowly trickled to a halt, and, after a brief attempt by me to start things up again in Fall '07, a unknowingly final*** post went up on December 18 and the lights more or less went out on Slang for good after a measly 97 posts.  Hyperliving:  As many of you know, I got back into the blog game at the beginning of 2008 as I decided to embark upon my Hyperliving weekly activity project at Hyperliving.blogspot.com. Learn more about that project here. Hyperliving was a great success both on the personal development/goal accomplishment and the me writing regularly fronts, but I aborted the project in July and more or less stopped writing. I tried once again to get going with Slang in October 2008, but after 12 posts I was done again by the end of November. As 2009 rolled around and I began to want to go back to writing, I decided to pick Hyperliving up again in February and try it as a monthly activity. As a ceremonial way to bring me back home to the heart of where I ultimately wanted to be, I made the first month's goal to write every day and start posting again here at SlangEditorial.net. Happily to say, I had little trouble "getting back in the swing of things", as I wrote 40 posts in February and felt good doing it@@@. But most significantly, I was finally able to achieve a goal I'd set for myself four and a half years earlier and had never quite reached--really writing nearly every day of the week, even if only in the form of short blurbs here and there. I don't know how or why it took me so long but I'm just happy I've finally gotten here. Slang v. 2:  With the new writing and the fact that Slang was now fully a J. Beaumont solo effort (plus executive ghostmastering from Jayson Greene), I decided that it would make sense to revise the site to reflect both the fact that Slang was getting a fresh start and to incorporate that this start was coming out of the development of Hyperliving. I dumped on the text "Slang Editorial V II" (which, gah, sans "." after the V led many to think I had written the Roman numeral for seven rather than "version 2") and added the Hyperliving brick wall to replace the formerly orange Slang background, and boom, I had myself something new and old at the same time. Slang v. 3: Slang v. 2 was definitely a step in the right direction, and a very necessary change, but finally this fall, after proving to myself for sure that I was in it to win it in the Slang game, I decided I was ready for a fresh start and contacted my good friend The Royal Scourge about helping me come up with something new. We chatted briefly about what I wanted and what to look for and Mike kicked some things around for a bit, but now, finally... Here we are. And feeling good for the road ahead. ------------ I have no idea how long I'll keep doing this stuff, honestly. There have now been 923 posts published on Slang Editorial, and at some point in the next few months I look forward to hitting 1000. I will always have a desire to tell stories and to create because it's who I am, but for the time being I blog because I can make the time and I have the brain power. I think I've got a while left though, and I look forward to seeing where 2010 and beyond takes me. And Alex, Jon, Steppie, Ezruh: I salute you. NOTES: $$$ - Seriously, this is my 609th published post on SlangEditorial.net in 2009! ### - Honestly, I can't really believe the first post I ever wrote was about Tim Fucking Westwood. *** - A final, TERRIBLE post. @@@ - Including, perhaps most notably, providing Mark Jaffe with the inspiration to coin them term "deprarious", which is without question my word of 2009. Labels: BEAUMONT, case studies, VICTORY posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 12/07/2009 01:46:00 AM 1 comments 1
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Friday, December 04, 2009 REBLOG: Symbologists I don't typically do straight reblogs but sometimes KJ just makes me lose my shit. This piece of amazingness comes from her great blog Debauched Sloth and I recommend highly that you all check it out and add to your Google Reader as soon as you are able if you haven't yet. Sent to you by Jeffrey via Google Reader: Und so weiter... JeffreyBeaumont: that's amazing KJ: She Hate Me and i decided all your children will be born with mathematical symbol tattoos ShrimpCracker: can they find photos of babies ShrimpCracker: and photoshop symbols onto them ShrimpCracker: and make a fake Jeffrey Beaumont Xmas card ShrimpCracker: hahahhaha JeffreyBeaumont: i will have to inquire about that ShrimpCracker: its amazing just thinking about it Labels: art, BEAUMONT, Beaumont Nerderati, case studies, curiosities, IMs, lolgore posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 12/04/2009 05:37:00 PM 1 comments 1
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Saturday, November 28, 2009 Sound Advice For Nonsensemongers JeffreyBeaumont: lately i've been feeling odd JeffreyBeaumont: two more friends got engaged in last two weeks JeffreyBeaumont: and coming home, the few people i've seen all seem hellbent on having settled down, grown-up lives JeffreyBeaumont: meanwhile i live with my little sister and i'm throwing dodgeballs and organizing scavenger hunts EKLittle: we are at an age where people are starting to take on more responsibilities EKLittle: but you live in NYC EKLittle: you can play dodgeball and put on scavenger hunts until you're 40 EKLittle: but ignoring the fact that we are getting older is bad too EKLittle: i think its just important to always bring yourself back to reality and to the rest of the world EKLittle: its like, play dodge ball but recognize "I am playing dodgeball right now, but will go home and pay my bills" JeffreyBeaumont: !!! JeffreyBeaumont: wow Labels: BEAUMONT, exercise, fucktactics, live, lolgore posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 11/28/2009 12:23:00 AM 1 comments 1
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Monday, November 16, 2009 Give It A Day (Or Four, Really)  Well, the arc of work craziness is nearing its apex as the big event approaches on Wednesday. In celebration, I have spent the past sixteen and a half hours in the office. And by "in the office", I mean that I haven't set foot outside of the building since I arrived here at 7:30 this morning. Gah/blah/mah. I am ready to go home. And, now, finally, it seems that tiredness is starting to hit me, I think. Labels: BEAUMONT, deprarious, work posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 11/16/2009 11:59:00 PM 0 comments Saturday, November 14, 2009 Anatomy of a Haircut          posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 11/14/2009 12:43:00 PM 0 comments Friday, November 13, 2009 I Destroy Romantics, Actors --- KILL IT! "I have never felt better in my life" --Mark E. Smith, "The Classical" I am a bit hobbled and certainly fucking exhausted right now, but I'm Labels: BEAUMONT, plans, quickthoughts posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 11/13/2009 08:10:00 PM 0 comments Monday, November 09, 2009 My Face Of Peace  "La Visage de Paix", by Pablo Picasso posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 11/09/2009 07:36:00 PM 0 comments Sunday, November 08, 2009 BRAINPLOTTING.... Massive, Massive Success  Clue: "Lick a Live Baby" So I am proud to say that yesterday's Brainplotting scavenger hunt went better than anyone could possibly have imagined. We had 45 participants, making up 12 teams, and everyone played about as seriously as you could imagine--including not one but THREE people who went for the gold and got actual tattoos for +10 bonus points (no one was foolhardy enough to actually get "Brainplotting" tattooed on their bodies though). Overall it was a fucking great time and I can't say much more about it other than, "WOOOOO!!! Awesome!!!". Here's some photos from the day, with more to come. Living loving Mariah Pariah holla.  Clue: "Recite Shakespeare's 'Sonnet 116' to a Stranger"  Clue: "Solve a Moderately Difficult Math Problem" (+3 for doing in underwear)  Clue: "Take a Photo Of Jeffrey Beaumont Eating Pizza"  Clue: "Do a Downward Dog In A Gas Station Parking Lot"  Clue: "Take a Photo Of An Animal Other Than A Dog On A Leash"  Clue: "Find a Pair of Pink Spray-painted Shoes And Throw Them On Telephone Wire Labels: BEAUMONT, Beaumont Nerderati, Chairmen of the Bored, fun, Lil Beau, photography, quicksnaps, VICTORY posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 11/08/2009 04:07:00 PM 1 comments Friday, November 06, 2009 Live Wrong And Prosper: Beaumont Edition So you all know about my love for Live Wrong and Prosper, the devilishly funny blog that poses the question "What would you do for $1,000,000?" Most everyone who reads Live Wrong And Prosper has surely said to themselves at one point or another, "I know what I would do for a million bucks;" well, today you can find out what Jeffrey Beaumont might do for $1 mil, as I am today's guest blogger for the site. Check out my entry here and give Kali some love. Labels: BEAUMONT, thoughts, VICTORY posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 11/06/2009 06:39:00 PM 0 comments BRAINPLOTTING / SORRY MA / LIFE FACTORY NONSENSE  Four posts in one week is deprarious nonsense for me as you know. Friends, I apologize: I have a huge event to put on in less than two weeks and a scavenger hunt in less than 24 hours to execute. A few brief sentiments: a) Come to the Scavenger Hunt. There are already 40-50 people set to attend and I can promise that it will be the fucking jam. Email me at the address in the poster above to RSVP. b) More words will come soon, I promise. c) More photos will come soon too, including from our time learning to shoot rifles and our trip to Bannerman Island Remember two things: 1) The people in your life need reminders from you that you love them. Let love grow and flourish. In the form of Halloween candy or phone calls or back rubs or on the seat of your bike while you pedal (learn how here). 2) Love the fuck out of life and enjoy every goddamn minute of it. Labels: BEAUMONT, Chairmen of the Bored, plans, VICTORY posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 11/06/2009 04:20:00 PM 0 comments Saturday, October 31, 2009 Mark Your Calendars For The Most Fun Ever: Saturday, Nov. 7  Thanks to the amazing Ted Angelilli for the inspirational work above and to Mike Desutter for photo assistance Ok amigos, this is it: the greatest scavenger hunt ever planned by humans**: The Chairmen of the Bored present...Brainplotting! (a scavenger hunt) When: Saturday, November 7, 3-5pm Where: Meet in front of the The Dog Run in McCarren Park. Click here for directions. Please RSVP to: Jeffrey Beaumont at the phones and emails in the poster above. To be followed by a crunk party at the home of one of the Chairmen TBD. The game will be played in teams of 2-4. You may RSVP for a group of folks as a team, or else individually and we will put you on one. The point of this exercise is to: --have incredible amounts of fun --meet new dudez and reconnect with old previously known ones --be silly and go crazy --find strange and weird shit in Williamsburg --high-five life I hope that you will join us all for a day of madness and merriment. Invite friends and holla at me if you got any questions! Please share this shit on yr Google Readers! love, Jeffrey B Labels: BEAUMONT, fun, nerdcore, VICTORY posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 10/31/2009 04:37:00 PM 2 comments 2
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YEZZIR: Throwback Edition  Unabashedly still a kid and lovng itLabels: BEAUMONT, HAIRS OF GLORY, YEZZIR posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 10/31/2009 10:22:00 AM 1 comments Wednesday, October 28, 2009 Always Running  I am getting tired of running. Once again today I found myself literally running from the F train platform at Rockefeller Center to my office, as I was for the Nth time a few minutes late for a meeting I've already been warned to be on time for. If I possess one pathological behaviour not inherited from my father, it's being late. It seems that no matter what, I am always and insistently late for whatever it is I'm supposed to do next. Often it's just by a matter of minutes but the lateness is scaled proportionally based on circumstance--so that if it is only a few minutes, then those minutes were probably crucial; if not, the my tardiness will be longer to reach some longer level of crucial failure. The worst thing about being late is that most of the time it could be generally prevented if I just got my shit together. Today I am going to be late to a staff meeting at work because the L train was delayed 10 minutes, but truly had I gotten to work early this wouldn't have been an issue. I believe my problem is threefold: 1) A willful desire to add (unnecessary) riskiness and challenges to my life 2) ADHD makes it challenging to unfocus from the last thing i'm doing and move on to the next 3) Greed of wanting to continue enjoying whatever it is i'm engaged in I do want to overcome my battle with punctuality, but it's not easy overcoming 27 years of rooted behavior. Labels: BEAUMONT, case studies, deprarious posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 10/28/2009 12:11:00 PM 0 comments Tuesday, October 27, 2009 "So A Bunch Of Sissy Pacificists Walk Into A Pistol Range..."  Larger here. Some scenes from this past weekend's terrific and massively fun visit to the West Side Pistol & Rifle Range. Surprisingly--or perhaps not at all--KJ (in photo at bottom) was probably the best marksmen of us all--her target sheet was obviously ridiculously good. I was very easily the worst or second worst out of our group of nine. So there's that. Tally Ho! Labels: BEAUMONT, curiosities, lolgore, photography, quicksnaps, YEZZIR posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 10/27/2009 10:48:00 PM 0 comments Friday, October 02, 2009 On My Own  "A Strangely Isolated Place", by Marcelo Halmenschlager. Available here. I'm always fascinated by the ways and circumstances in which people decide to share private, sensitive information with others. Sometimes it's standing up on national television and sometimes it's just blurting out thoughts to whichever stranger happens to be nearby... Right now I'm at a cafe near my home waiting for a waffle and I'm overhearing a barista telling a woman he clearly doesn't know well about how on Monday he has to go to jail for not paying child-support. The calmness with which he's retelling his story, with laughter and sighs even, is jarring almost to the point of belying the absolute tone of gentle sincerity in his voice. There is no doubt that he carries an weary uneasiness about himself, but also a resigned steadiness against the acknowledgement of his plight and a true expression of a man offering some kind of honesty to the world. I do not know this man, nor have I ever seen him before, but right now all I can think about is how sad I am that this has happened to him and how fucked everything is and how I'm sure he's been wronged in some grave way, if only by a world that couldn't possibly ever work out for him. I don't honestly know of course if he is Guilty--or even guilty--of crimes deserving of the punishment he's about to receive. Some people are slick, and others so delusional of their relationship to the world as to be unforgivably irresponsible to themselves and those around them. But I know that for whatever reason, my heart goes out to this poor stranger, and I wish that I could hold him and let him know that everything will be all right.* --- ...Or sometimes it's just through a hardly read, mostly unknown-enough-to-not-even-exist blog. As a semi-tangential digression, I repeat this last sentence on the barista to myself and recognize the degree to which my feelings about him speak to my own plight, as a man (historically) far more interested in caring for and assisting others than himself. I've spoken at length recently about possibly adding a canine to my life, and in response a close friend encouraged me to do so because--while admitting that he would never feel this way about most people--he was convinced that being responsible for a dog's well-being would cause me to in turn take better care of myself. How does one take on this duality of love and neglect? It's unfortunately all too easy to see how many people are able to care for themselves and neglect those around them, but it's a bit harder and more complicated to understand the reverse. For me this distinction was rooted for a long time in a lack of self-confidence and self-definition--summarized best by saying that I did not know how to "dare to dream"--which was significant enough that even in the absence of being able to "help others" I didn't know what to do with myself. Now I finally seem to have made enough strides to have figured out my identity and get a better sense about the things that I feel I want and need in my life... but somehow the emptiness of Who Am I? has been replaced by a strange and steely I Live To Live that is somehow just as resultantly neglectful. I have been thinking quite a bit about this topic since Wednesday evening, when some friends were over and, through the course of many cigarettes and glasses of wine, we somehow touched on the topic of death and the fear of dying. "I just couldn't do ___," said one friend, "I am just too afraid of the possibility of death to let it go like that." And then another followed by saying, "I am afraid of a lot of things, of course. But in fact, what I really fear is that I might get to a point where I no longer fear death, which is the most terrifying idea of them all." But I, as an insouciant late-twenty something, arrogant in his beliefs in the great possibilities of the world, firmly stated that "I do not fear death at all. I am ready to walk out my door right now and be struck down forever, if that is what is to be." Despite my occasionally macabre attitude and the name of my online "handle", I do not believe that tossing around statements like these are casual (or forceful) acts of nihilism, nor are they a sign of some kind of degradation of my cares for the world or the value of my life. It's really just so simple that despite the many things in life I have been afraid of, I don't really know how to fear death. I have spent far too much time and energy in my life anxiety-ridden dwelling on overimagined outcomes of seemingly very real sequences of possibility, and the ways these outcomes could represent the crumbling of a life I'd worked hard to put together for myself. Largely these digressions into fear-world produced, at best, wasted hours or days or weeks, and at worst led to legitimately self-destructive behavior that actively brought on an unnecessary reality of the very fears I had lost sleep over wanting to avoid. Luckily I am largely past this kind of brain-tracking now, but only as long as I am on-guard against their attacks and always keeping in mind that for me, the wolf will always be at the door. BUT: as destructive and unhelpful as those fears always were, at least they were rooted in some kind of understanding of a possibility that, however remote it may have been, was an extrapolation of the potential of me understanding the way things might someday be. In contrast, thoughts on death, however, bring no sensation of the sort--to die would be not to live, which would mean the end of outcomes and possibilities; if I am dead, then there can be no painful reactions, no terrible consequences to deal with. Death means [STATIC NOISE], [silence]. All of which is to say that in my years of confusion and non-happiness, I have gained an acute understanding of what it means to fear the outcome of being alive and living badly, and so the thought of living in fear of no longer being able to feel seems almost laughable. As strange as it may sound, all of this is actually a good thing, I think. I spent a solid 15 years of adolescence and early adulthood incapacitated by my anxieties over what could possibly torture me while being alive (situational irony alert), and now that I am free of those bounds, the idea of being tortured by nothing is just a conversational "whatever" (... or maybe not, judging by the length of this post). Still... to bring it back to my earlier thread: I know that there is a connection between not fearing death and not taking good enough care of myself, and I do think the root lies in the continuing to be true fact that I just don't know what the fuck I'm doing with myself. I'm fairly convinced that I've made important changes to put myself on a good path, and that not being preoccupied with life-constricting generalized anxiety is an important measure of progress to hold onto right now... but at some point not far down the road I know it will be time to take another couple of steps, and I'm sensing that that time is steadily approaching. Perhaps with a little more concrete understanding of not just who I am but what I want, perhaps then I will worry a little bit more about ceasing to exist. And frankly, I don't think a dog is going to be much of a savior here--I just need to keep looking out, looking within, and experiencing life on a day-by-day basis. LISTEN: Ulrich Schnauss - "On My Own", from A Strangely Isolated Place## Nina Simone - "Isn't It A Pity", from Emergency Ward%%% Gogol Bordello - "Through The Roof N' Underground", from Multi Kontra Culti$$$$ Brian Eno - "An Ending (Ascent)", from Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks^^^^^ NOTES: * -- Trust me, I know that most likely this is the last thing he needs right now. ## -- Someday I hope to get around to writing about this record, one of the warmest and strangest pieces of electronic music I've heard. My associations with this record are deeply intertwined with my real-life goings-on at the time when I picked it up in spring 2003 (Carmiel, where are you?), but other no record I've ever heard so closely resembles the humid cloud-must of a waking-life fever dream. %%% -- Yes, I called on this one once before already. And I will certainly do so again at some point. $$$$ -- I discovered this tremendously sweet little curio of a song as a backdrop to a quirky and mediocre-but-still-interesting indie film called Wristcutters: A Love Story. Though flawed in all sorts of ways, there was still a nice spirit of light "c'est la vie, and so it goes" that I appreciated tremendously and which this song represents precisely. ^^^^^ -- This is literally the endpoint of all ambient (not ambient) music. Nothing there could ever possibly get better that this. Labels: BEAUMONT, JB screeds, mp3, plans, quickthoughts, thoughts posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 10/02/2009 11:52:00 PM 0 comments Wednesday, September 30, 2009 Doing It The Hard Way, Always  On the topic of fairly random and unhelpful statistical lumpings, one such category would be absolutely meaningless "_____ greatest by a player who bats righty, throws lefty." Why? Basically NO ONE bats righty and throws lefty. Like, really, NO ONE. You would think out of only six possible batting/throwing combos (right/left/switch batting x right/left throwing) there would be a decent dispersion of players in all categories, and there is... in the other five. But of the righty swingers lefty throwers category there has really just only been a strange small handful -- literally 25. Steve Treder of The Hardball Times earlier this year did us the service of evaluating and ranking all twenty-five of them, which you can read here. A glimpse through the names yields but five that present any note to me: 5) Brian Hunter (the stocky first-baseman, not the light-hitting CF speedster Brian Hunter holds a bit of note to me as he was responsible for sharing first-base duties in the early 90s Braves Dynasty with Sid Bream (whoa, that name doesn't even sound real anymore) before Fred McGriff was brought on-board in July 1993 and my entire world exploded. As the Braves have been my favorite team for the past twenty seasons, all of their various men have meant something to me at one point or another and Hunter is no different. However, at his peak--which lasted about two seasons--he was a decent platooon player, but no more 4) Jason Lane A recent supporting player on the Houston Astrosin the earlier part of this decade. I am familiar with his exploits. 3) Cody Lane A recent supporting player for the Florida Marlins. I am not familiar with his exploits but I have heard his name mentioned before. 2) Ryan Ludwick A legitimately good player who had an excellent past two seasons for St. Louis before this year's relative mediocrity (though he has been coming on stronger as the year comes to a close). And of course, our top dog: 1) Rickey Henderson Literally the only player on this list to have a great or arguably even good career, The Rickey is The Man when it comes to Bats Lefty, Throws Righty. Once again, Rickey, like with everything else he's done, stands alone. Of course, this entire topic is of slightly greater note to one Jeffrey Beaumont, because ... drum roll... like all of these men, he too bats righty, and throws lefty. Which probably makes me the twenty-ninth greatest Bats Righty, Throws Lefty ballplayer ever (hey, I could throw 74 mph when I was in 9th grade). Seriously though, this is not something I choose--and according to Treder, of all the six possiblities is the least physically advantageous combination I could have been (Still, thanks, Dad!). And doesn't this description more or less define my entire existence: So here we've got athletes displaying enough ambidextrousness to bat one way and throw the other. Yet not only do they eschew the switch-hitting option (which admittedly is far easier to do in theory than in practice), these guys find themselves in the least advantageous circumstance both offensively and defensively. One hopes it came about through some manner of unusual and immutable brain wiring, because to the extent that deliberate decision-making might have been involved, these guys got it double-wrong. It's so perfectly deprarious I couldn't have dreamt it better myself. Me and Rickey, down by the schoolyard. Labels: baseball, BEAUMONT, case studies, curiosities, deprarious, lolgore posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 9/30/2009 06:49:00 PM 0 comments Monday, September 28, 2009 One Anecdote Testifying As To Why Bank of America (Like All Banks) Is Fucking Awful  [WARNING: This is one of those terrifyingly long Beaumont posts (tagged hereafter as "JB screeds"). And actually, it's two long stories, but well, I don't feel like separating them from one another. So, yes. Sorry?] PART I: Bank of America, I Would Like To Completely Obliterate You And Demand That You Take Reverse TARP-Funding After a wonderful and lengthy (but not long enough) visit, last week my visitor is now gone, off to see more of the world on her long, strange world tour--seriously, her voyage will last SEVENTY-SEVEN DAYS and is touching down on six countries on three continents--but I had a great weird ten days wandering around parts of the greater New York environs and amazing seeing things that I've either never seen before or saw long ago and have since taken for granted. The whole experience last week of "time off at home" was truly fantastic, EXCEPT for one financially-related blip having to do with my entire world of funding (two bank accounts and a credit card) having been frozen due to some overzealous Bank of America "fraud preventioneering". The issue was triggered on Monday Sept 14 when I headed with Lil Beaumont to go pick up a new bike from a girl in the heart of Bushwick. As she temporarily had only limited dollars, I agreed to cover her purchase temporarily. I went to the ATM to withdraw funds from my credit/debit card but accidentally added an extra digit in attempting to get money from my account (therefore going over the limit) and was rejected. I then attempted to withdraw the correct amount from my account on the same ATM but was again rejected. Trying once more (thinking perhaps i'd mistyped something) but this time even less funds, I was declined a third time. I then received an automated call from Bank of America asking me to approve three potential fraud transactions, which I did, but then I immediately called the Bank to make sure that in doing so they didn't think I'd actually withdrawn any money from the account. "Hi, thank you for calling Bank of America. I look forward to helping you today." A rep on the phone confirmed for me that nothing had been taken out and said he'd help me make sure the fraud lock is lifted if I'd just wait a second. In the meantime though I was warned by the person on the line when asked a variety of security questions that despite having opened my account at a Fleet Bank in Saratoga Springs in 2001, my account now stated that it had been opened at Rockefeller Center in some time more recently...also apparently my "user account phone password" is "customer", which I also got wrong. I'm assuming that BofA chose this for me since I have to believe that I would have never chosen such a hilariously terrible password (I would have at least gone with "password" if I was going to go the ridiculous route). Finally, after being placed on hold, I was for a second time sent to the automated fraud removal line. I groaned--and probably shouted out loud--but went through the prompts yet again and then went home without attempting to use my card again. After going Tuesday without using my card, on Wednesday, I went to work and managed to use the card three times as a credit card at a Duane Reade and to get food at a nearby eatery--seemingly without problems. I did not attempt to withdraw any cash from an ATM though.  Coney Island sign, from behind train station entrance I was under the impression at this point that everything was fine, until on Thursday Mia and I went to Coney Island. Immediately after getting there I decided to get some cash so I could show her the wonders of corn dogs and fried clams (amazing honestly, being able to give someone a first experience on that stuff). However, when I attempted to withdraw $60 from my account I was given an "external decline" message and told to contact my bank. Sure enough, within minutes I received yet ANOTHER call from the automated fraud prevention line asking me to sanction potentially fraudulent activity. I did not go through the prompts this time though, and immediately hung up and dialed customer service because I was so angry that simply attempting to withdraw reasonable amounts of money from random ATMs throughout the CITY I LIVE IN would signal the "fraud preventioneers" and wanted to talk to someone immediately to straighten things out. After getting someone on the line and explaining my situation (including the desperate plea NOT to be sent again to the automated line), I was put on hold and then... sent back to the automated line. Increasingly frantic in my desperation for dollars and annoyance at BofA bullshit, I dialed them back once again and this time insisted on speaking to a human who could help me. They finally transferred me to a "fraud prevention specialist" who said he could take care of things. This is where things went rapidly downhill: he asked me my security word ("customer") and my social security number, fine, but then the question of the age of my account came up. He asked if my account was older than five years. Obviously it is based on what I mentioned above, but to make sure I was clear to him I said, "Yes, it is. My account was opened at a Saratoga Springs, NY Fleet Bank location in 2001 or 2002, but I have been told that it may now say Rockefeller Center and I have no idea therefore what year you have listed." Long pause. He then asked if I have any direct deposits set-up (yes, my work). He asked me the amount it was for. Mind you, I'm standing on a boardwalk at Coney Island starving and staring at corn dogs. I have absolutely no idea what the amounts of my direct deposit are, only that each paycheck is a slightly different amount because of my health insurance deductions. Long pause. He then asked if I had any regularly scheduled monthly payments (yes, credit card and a checking-to-savings swap). Did I know the exact amounts though? No. Longest pause. Speaking slowly, he said, "I'm sorry sir, but since you have not been able to pass the security requirements I'm going to have to ask that you go in person to a Bank of America to verify the account." I couldn't believe it. I had more or less answered all of his questions and could provide exact detail on a variety of things he didn't ask. I then pleaded we him if there was anything else we could do to get the fraud prevention removed and he said no, and so I then asked for his BofA ID # so I could file a complaint against him and asked to speak to his supervisor. He then paused again and said hold on and then the line was disconnected. gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. So after spending about 25 minutes of me being on and off hold and answering question after question, I had accomplished nothing. Or so I thought. I called back once more, resolved to get things taken care of, only to find out that my friendly Bank of America attendee had put a lock on my account so that the only way it could be reopened would be to physically go into a Bank somewhere. Thanks a lot, dude.  Coney Island Boardwalk (near "Shoot the Freak") Again, we were in Coney Island and my friend was just visiting. I think there may have been a bank somewhere nearby but I didn't want to waste Mia's time so I just decided to go to the one in Williamsburg when I got home. We spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon exploring, taking photos and counting the trash cans and crazy people (seriously, there are innumerable amounts of them both) and then headed back to the Burg around 3. We got home at 4 and I headed immediately to the BofA on Graham Ave expecting I had plenty of time, but sure enough, blammo, the office had closed at 4 and I was fucked, immediately, and for the next 17 hours. Since not just one but all of my accounts were locked, I had literally no access to funds (note to anyone: here's one good reason to use multiple banks for different accounts). This wasn't inherently the end of the world, as I could certainly borrow dollars from Mia, but the next day was Friday and we planned to be gone the entire day visiting Storm King upstate and had plans again early Saturday morning--meaning that if I wanted any funds before Monday, I would need to get into a Bank of America the next morning before heading to Storm King. Unfortunately, the lone bus to Storm King leaves each day at 10am...meaning that we needed to be there by 9:40 to ensure we would have enough time to get a ticket and make it onto the bus.... leaving us but 25 or so minutes to "make it happen" at Bank of America and then rush from the location on 44 St & 7 Av to the Port Authority bus terminal. We woke up earlyish the next morning and began getting our stuff together before finally leaving the house (late) at 8:45. We got out of the train at 42 & 7 at 9:15 and I almost ran fullspeed to Bank of America from there. Upon entering, I quickly grabbed the attention of salesperson and relayed to her my plight. "Ok, come with me Sir. I can help you," she said, leading me into an office. I walked in and "handed" my identification to her (which was admittedly more of a "forced my identification on her"). "Ok, great, I can help you," she said, repeating herself, "Just have a seat and let me get a representative on the phone to help you with your issue." Scrrrrrreeeeecchhhhh! [insert phonograph needle skating across vinyl] "Umm...," I said, "Why do you need to get someone on the phone? They told me I had to come in here so you could unlock the account and then it would be fine." "I'm sorry sir, but actually, I'm only able to verify your identity for a representative who can help you with your issue." At this precise moment I was torn between my rapidly increasing need to get out of the bank and over to Port Authority to catch our bus and my urge to pick up the now dialing telephone and throw it as hard as possible at the glass window behind me. Probably the intense confusion of feeling at this moment actually saved me, because rather than barking at the in-store attendant and causing her to stop what she was doing, I simply sat there, too stunned to move or say anything until the voice of yet another Bank of America phone operator cut the silence. "Hi, thank you for calling Bank of America. I look forward to helping you today." I then had to for the fourth time explain my situation, whereby the skeptical sounding woman then requested to speak with a BofA rep who could attest to my identity claims. I then called another attendant in, who verified I was indeed Me, and I thought it was finally over but then I heard the woman on the phone ask him for some kind of special authorization code. "Seriously?" he said, "Can't I just give my employee ID#?" No. The man left the room and was gone for a bit before finally returning a few minutes later during which time my anxiety-stricken brain began to assume that there was no way that the call wouldn't somehow be dropped and we'd have to start all over again. GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. But instead he gave her the code, handed me back the phone and we proceeded. "Ok, Sir," the woman said, "Now I can begin to help you with your issue." Duh-what????? "We're all set now, right?" I asked hurriedly, adding, "I'm late for a bus and need to get going." "Sir, I need in order to assist you with this fraud-related issue I need to ask you a few security questions about your account." Stunned silence from me, followed by, "... Uh. [sigh] Ok." "First can you please verify the following transaction..." and she proceeded to ask me about the Coney Island ATM withdrawal which I'd already verified twice to the automated teller, twice to a human on the phone, and once to the in-store bank attendant. Umm. O. ... K. ... "Ok. Now can you please tell me what were the last three purchases made on the card and the exact amounts they were for." .... !!!! ... !!!! There do not exist words or punctuation to describe my feeling at that very moment. Only the knowledge that I could potentially drop the call and have to start all over again prevented me from slamming the phone repeatedly onto the table and my own face. I drew a deep breath and spoke slowly: "Ma'am. Wow. I honestly have NO IDEA what my last three purchases were on this card, and I definitely have no idea what the amounts were. The account has been locked for over 24 hours now and moreover, I'm not sitting in front of a computer screen where I might be able to review this information and share it with you***. In fact, I'm currently in an actual Bank of America where I was told I could come in and show my identification to prove that I am who I say I am and get this all taken care of. I'm pretty sure that I made two purchases at Duane Reade, for amounts totaling less than $20 in each purchase. But I couldn't tell you what the dollar figures were, or what the third transaction was. Please, please, stop asking me questions and let me get my money so I can go try and catch a bus that your bank seems hellbent on making me miss." Pause. "Sir, I'm sorry, but I need you to answer these questions in order to remove the fraud security lock from your account. Can you please tell me the amounts of these purchases?" At this point I shouted "Hold on, one second" and then raced out of the room to the attendant standing in the hallway. "Please, dear god," I said, "Tell this woman on the phone that I am who I say I am. I have no idea what my recent transactions were. I only know that I have done everything that should be necessary to prove my identity and that I am on the verge of missing a bus that will ruin one day out of my friend and I's vacation. Please, please help me." The attendant then followed me into the office and put the receiver on speakerphone. "Ma'am, this is [name], [title] of the Times Square Bank of America branch again. Mr. Beaumont has provided enough evidence to remove the fraud lock from his account. Let's please wrap this up." It's 9:48am. "Ok, I am just making sure that we have answered all the necessary questions. We are all set now and you may use your account immediate--- [CLICK]" I threw the phone back on the receiver and dashed out the door, grabbing Mia by the shoulder and saying, "Run!" She handed me a cigarette she'd rolled for me and we raced off toward Port Authority, whispering, "I have donuts and a New York Times" in my ear. Ten Morals Of The Story (WITH CONVENIENT BOOKEND POINTS): 1) Fuck you Bank of America. 2) CONSIDER USING A BANK OTHER THAN BANK OF AMERICA 3) I am deprariously lackadaisical when it comes to doing things promptly or carefully, and could have easily avoided a lot of this absurdity by being on top of my shit a little more. 4) We are near the endpoint in our civilization when humans serve no purpose but to annoy each other and make babies. 5) There is already almost no way to avoid these kind of braincrushing commercial interactions. 6) For every action, there is an opposite and actual reaction. 7) Coney Island is more fun to take a visitor in the fall on a weekend when all the action is open. 8) Banks are destined to grow more and more powerful. 9) If my skin were made out of money, I could avoid these kinds of issues by shaving dead layers off into people's hands in the form of currency. 10) FUCK YOU BANK OF AMERICA. THANKS. PART II: Storm King, After I Found You, You Provided Me With Rich Excitement And Assuaged My Feelings Of Weltschmerz Epilogue: After arriving at Port Authority, we tore up the stairs frantically looking for the ticket booth, and upon finding it, I attempted to bribe the woman in front of the line with a fiver to cut her (she demurred and let us pass gratis). We bought our tickets (the ticketeer had no smiles to give) and rushed over to the departure gate. When we got there the gate attendent was gone already and so we burst through the exit, just to see the bus closing its doors. I ran to the bus and banged once before the driver opened and let us on. Exhale--until two seconds later my heart dropped as I saw that every seat on the bus was taken except for two singles in the back; for a moment it suddenly occurred to me that after all this malarkey we'd have to spend a 90 minute bus ride sitting apart from each other. These fears were almost immediately allayed, however, as Mia quickly offered gummi bears (gummibärchen!) to one of the singles in exchange for his seat. Phew. Yes. Of course.  Bus booths, Newburgh Bus Terminal parking lot Fairly Tangential Epi-epilogue: After all of this craziness Mia and I were so relieved that we rather depariously somehow failed to exit the bus when it reached Storm King. Despite seeing a location that looked very much like what I had imagined Storm King to be, we didn't hear the driver announce anything [he was apparently using his throat and vocal cords rather than amplified microphone to broadcast his voice??] and so we didn't get off until about 15 minutes later Mia said, "Umm.... did we miss the Storm King?" We had, in fact, missed it (I'd thought since it only went there once a day that Storm King was actually the end of the line and that we wouldn't be able to miss it). The driver let us off at the Newburgh Bus Terminal, which my iPhone told me was 8.9 miles away from Storm King, and found out almost immediately from a near-laughing ticketeer that there was no "next bus to Storm King". I burst into maniacal laughter and wandered outside for a cigarette, wondering how much a cab driver would gouge me to take us there, and how I might go about finding one. I crossed my fingers it would be less than $50. But much to my delight, upon exiting, I heard two middle-aged women on a nearby bench talking say the words "Storm" and "Museum". I wandered over to them and asked if they were by chance going to Storm King. To our luck, they were. Meaning... !!!!!! (this did not in reality merit four exclamation points). They immediately asked if I wanted to split the cab and I pumped my fist unnecessarily and sat down to enjoy my cigarette. 10-15 minutes later a yellow minivan pulls up with reggaeton BLASTING out the windows. I attempt four times to open the side door before the driver finally reaches over and throws it open. Mia and I quickly climbed into the back and the cabbie looked at the two women as the entered and barked, "Hola. Que tal? Donde vamos?" Seriously. He also had not turned the music down, so they looked at each other and then began shouting in English to him. "Que Uds dicen?" he asked$. I began to see steam coming out of their ears and began attempting to communicate in pidgin Spanish, which was enough to get the car moving (but not the music lowered). For whatever reason, after everything that had happened, this situation seemed not remotely annoying but instead entirely hilarious. The driver then began speaking muy rápidamente into his radio, asking for directions and saying something to the effect of "What the fuck is Storm King and where the fuck is it?" The women in front of us began alternating between feelings anger over the loud volume of the music and concern over the fact that the driver appeared to have absolutely no idea where he was going. After turning around for the second time, I busted out my iPhone and pulled up directions from its Google Maps GPS%%%. I then started shouting directions while simultaneously assuring the ladies that everything would be fine and we'd be there shortly. When we finally got there--which honestly was only about 10-15 minutes later--we got out of the car and the driver said, "Ok sí, $10, gracias." We all looked at each other in disbelief--$10! For a nine mile trip! In NYC that would have cost a minimum of $25, and I was just expecting it would be more here. Nope. Topping it off, the women stunned me by then speaking in Spanish with the driver to arrange for him to pick them up again in the same spot at 5pm. And then I looked ahead, and there we were, finally: Storm King. And the rest is history.  Andrew Goldsworthy Wall, Storm King Art Center Cut Copy - "Autobahn Music", from Bright Like Neon Love NOTES: ***-- Ok, ok. Yes, Mom, to be fair, if I balanced my checkbook like old people do, I probably could have pulled it out of my briefcase and recited the figures back to her and avoided a lot of these troubles. But it's 2009, and I feel like I don't want that to be the lesson of this whole thing. I guess I would hope it wouldn't have to come to that by now. And anyway, sheesh. $$$--Or something like that. Paraphrasing, obviously, because I don't remember and I don't really speak Spanish. %%%--Aside: yes, a world without cell phones would be great, but also, really: fuck that, right? Bring on the future! Labels: BEAUMONT, deprarious, FAIL, fucktactics, JB screeds, lolgore, mp3, OLD PEOPLE MAKE IT HARD NOT TO SIGH SOMETIMES, thoughts posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 9/28/2009 11:54:00 PM 2 comments 2
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Wednesday, September 23, 2009 Autumnal Grace: 2504 And Counting  Richard Serra, "Schunnemunk Fork (Part II of four)", from Storm King Arts Center The last day of summer concluded last night with the setting of the sun and it's now autumn. And now, finally, after riding 35 miles today I have reached and passed my goal of riding 2500 miles by the end of summer (more or less). All it took was 115 bike rides (to and from work counting as one "ride") since March The best part, honestly, is that I'm not suddenly "done" now either--nothing, in fact, is any different for me tomorrow than it was today or last week: just keep on rolling them tires until winter makes me housebound. I guess I'll just have to see where I am at then too on the mileage front. But, for a man who most of his life has lacked profoundly any internal drive resembling the term "discipline", this feels like a pretty solid life victory. HOLLA! Labels: BEAUMONT, biking, Hyperliving, plans, VICTORY, YEZZIR posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 9/23/2009 11:37:00 PM 1 comments This Dog Has A Cool Attitude And I Like It  His name is Kuna and I found him online. I'd post the link but I'm afraid someone else might steal him first. I'm really, seriously, contemplating adding this friend to my life. I am also looking into acquiring a dog sidecar attachment. posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 9/23/2009 04:45:00 PM 0 comments Tuesday, September 15, 2009 2410 And Bikes And Shit I'm vacationing in New York this week to spend time with a friend in town visiting. She went off on her own yesterday and so I started my day with a fast-paced 40 mile ride (or 64 kilometers, as I told her) before heading into the office for a few hours for some unavoidable meetings. Those 40 miles put me over the 2400 mile threshold and I'm now 90 miles away from my "goal" of 2500. As my friend will be here from now until September 22, I'm not sure there's any way I'll be able to reach 2500 by the end of summer, but it's nice to know that I'm so close and I'll be there shortly. I feel like, just as I "came a long way" from the beginning of 2008 through the end, the same can be said for my "progress" in 2009, as a human and of course specifically as a human who also enjoys channeling his life-energy through the pedaled wheels of a bicycle.  On the crazy/ok/"New York I hate you and love you" front, on Sunday I received a call from Lil' Beau that her bike, a 43" 2007 Fuji Track SE had been stolen from outside of her friend's house in Manhattan in broad daylight. It was of course locked, but not with the kind of heavy duty security that I use to prevent theft. I've had seats and lights and fenders and even Presta-to-Schrader converters stolen, but never (yet) a whole bike... gone! And one that poor Lil' Beau had just purchased last fall. It was a real bummer, and especially so since she's still an impoverished student just trying to get by in the world, to whom a purchase such as a new bike is a huge financial commitment (ok, the same is true for me but that's probably due more to my own financial irresponsibility than the impossiblities of adult purchasing). And of course, beyond the dollar damage, there is also the issue of the fact that the bike--as I mentioned, a 43" track bike--is of a rare size that almost literally NO other bike manufacturers produce. Lil' Beau is only 5'1 and let me tell you that finding a nice bike for a girl that size is a challenge and I half--I probably took her to 15-20 bike shops last year looking for a bike, desperately leaving my card with requests to call me if anything even in the remote similarity of size appeared. She finally found her Fuji champion on, of all places, the List of Craig, where she was able to snatch up a more or less brand new 43"er for $400 from a girl who'd realized she hadn't actually wanted to commit to a track bike after all. With this in mind, it was with heavy heart that I came home to console her on Sunday night, with the thought that between dollars and inches, it would be some time before Lil' Beau would be mounting a new chariot. So convinced was I that she wouldn't be riding anytime soon that my Visitor and I began cruising Williamsburg for open pet shops in the hope that if I brought a new cat home it would distract her from the sting of the lost bike. Yes, desperate measures, times etc. But, of course, this is New York and fuck yes, I underestimated her beastly resolve to remedy any situation within moments of becoming unperfect. By the time I got home, Lil' Beau had already gone straight to The List and BOOM, sure enough found a 2008 version of the exact same bike she'd just had stolen [see photo above]... for the exact same discounted used price she paid for her last one. What the fuck, right? Though she was nervous about how she might pay for the bike, she set up an appointment for last night to go check the bike out... and then, of course, BAM!--after getting to the office, an envelope appeared on my desk for her (sent to me for security reasons) from her summer internship... with a check for $500. And now, here it is on Tuesday, a mere 36 hours since her bike was stolen, and there's a new, prettier version of the exact same bike in our house. New York, You Fucking Dick, I Love You. Labels: BEAUMONT, biking, fucktactics, VICTORY posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 9/15/2009 10:20:00 AM 2 comments 2
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Tuesday, September 08, 2009 A Fortnight Passed: The Heart Beats. Say "Good Bye" Probably the most fun week of my many weeks of Hyperliving in 2008 would have to be Rock Band Week, when I set out to write and record a few songs with my friends. While we only finished two songs in their entirety (one great, one more or less nonsense), the whole experience was really awesome and made me feel like king of the world for a minute. These two videos I found tonight while poking through my archives from around then in March 2008. The top one is pretty much total silliness--the end of vocal recording for lone completed track "Umm Don't Mean I Love You". The second is our best take stab at Jayson's song, sans vocals. Enjoy (or not)--I sure did. Labels: BEAUMONT, lolgore, music, VICTORY, videos posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 9/08/2009 02:11:00 AM 0 comments Monday, August 31, 2009 Death Becomes Us  Oneonta backroads (from here) The father of my best childhood friend passed away yesterday. He was one of those capital M Men(sch) whose life was simultaneously as complicated and yet empirically as simple as possible. He was a man who loved the hunger of life, and yet respected a need to keep things responsibly in order so that he could maximize his throttle-pushing opportunities when he got the chance. Harry "Buddy" S**** was the kind of man that I, at the age of 13, both failed to understand and yet got completely. So unlike my father--a man who in every minute of his existence kept things restrained, measured, safe--Buddy seemed to understand that life was best experienced by laying out parameters and then, occasionally and with focus and concentration, stepping beyond them. I had friends' dads who were like my own, and even more who were the opposite--careless, selfish, with agendas on their own from their families. But almost none were like Buddy, with caution, care, and responsibility so carefully intertwined with a willful desire to push the pedal to the floor and go go go. I've already used two speeding car metaphors--well, it's hard not to with Buddy because he certainly loved to step on the gas pedal. How fast can we get to the ski mountain today from home? If we go fast enough over that bump will we actually feel our hearts hit our throats? Yeah, Buddy loved to race. But we also all knew not to think for a second that the car wouldn't be going anywhere if someone's seatbelt were unbuckled. Classic Buddy story@@: He once got pulled over after driving on Interstate-88 for only one exit. He had just purchased a new pride and joy, a Audi A6, and decided to test it out by stepping on the gas when he went up the interstate on-ramp and let go when he exited a mile down the road. He got up to, I believe, 108 mph. And yet somehow, because he was Buddy, a charming man for whom the word charisma was created, he got off with a ticket for 78 and a warning to be more careful next time. I've met plenty of folks who had charisma and charm like that who were also full of shit--two-faced fakers who cared more about impressing those outside of their lives than taking care of those within. But this wasn't Buddy either--Buddy was as bullshit-free as they come. He was a man who was refreshingly honest and so blunt and to the point at times as to be brutal. But for him, beating around the bush was a waste of his time and yours, time that could be better spent living and learning and figuring out how to do things better the next time. As might guess, Buddy was sort of a father to me, or at least a significant male role model--he was the man I never realized that I always needed my father to be: a brash, ballsy, charming man who picked flowers for the ladies and talked his way into whatever he wanted, but all the time respecting and caring for those around him, sacrificing his own needs and desires to help his family and friends. That Audi? As much as it was his pride and joy, he let his wife use it as her primary car. And the nice Volvo he gave to his son when he got his license. Buddy instead chose to drive a beatup '84 Volvo he'd taken from a scrap heap and restored slowly. It ran terribly and often died in the winter, but he knew that outside of the moments he'd set aside to live large, he didn't need anything more than simplicity to get by with the rest of his life. And that was it: for a man who seemed to need to make time to catch some of life's proverbial Big Air, he seemed to understand that he'd be able to enjoy it more if he balanced it with tons of slow cruises down the green circle slopes that, in reality, make up most of life's trails***. This dichotomy of living was something that I think I struggled to appreciate intellectually as a kid, mostly because kids have no idea how hard it is for adults to find a good balance as they age between youthful wild action/indiscretion and the cautious conservatism of parenthood and old age. I know that Buddy too had some demons--he drank too much, he struggled a bit figuring out how to raise his first child, he sometimes couldn't put the cap back on the bottle if the good times had been unleashed and he was having too much fun. But they were admissible outcomes in the life of a man who seemed to have figured out the magic secret for living large for those of us with neither the skills of the pro nor the bank account of the rich man. He put a lot of thought into what he knew made him happy, and figured out how to invest the time, energy and money he had wisely into those endeavors and not waste it on the rest. Because of the way he which I was in his son's life--through sports teams and science projects, I got to see the full-throttle Buddy constantly. On some strange, unexpected level, he taught me how to be a man more than even my own dad, or at least to be the man that I am now: find the meat of life you most want to eat and then sink your teeth into it and chew tenaciously, savoring every bit like it's your last (while of course remembering to share with others if they depend on you). Sadly, the last time I saw Buddy was probably five to seven years ago--I can't remember if I was out of college or not. And really, since his son and I grew apart in high school (he looked through microscopes and saw amoebas; I saw swirling kaleidoscopes of lysergic nothingness), my last period of spending a lot of time with him was probably 10th grade. But from age 12-15, few people in my life impacted me as much weight as he, and his simple-but-devoted thoughts and ideas posited on life resonate with me still today. Of all these things in particular is road bicycling, which both he and his son were into when I was in their lives and which I completely hated. At the time, road biking seemed to me like an entirely masochistic endeavor, akin to running as something that no one could possibly enjoy even if they did it well$$$$. Buddy laughed it off though and told me that I was being a baby and had no idea what I was talking about--when you bike, you are a machine, he said, and there's isn't much in life that can feel more beautiful and meditative than that. And the one thing he told me that I think of literally every single time I mount a bike is that, as an extension of the man-as-machine idea, your goal for getting on a bike should be to determine what your ideal pedaling RPM should be (cadence) and then stick to it, for the entire ride--shifting gears as necessary but never pedaling any more or less than the chosen rate. Know thyself, sparrow, and know it well, and ye shall find the God within. Oddly enough, in the midst of my miserable eleven hour God-must-hate-me ride to Montauk on Saturday, I thought of Buddy a lot. At no point in all of the biking I've done in 2008 or 2009 did I feel more unsatisfied and not wanting to be on a bike as I did Saturday, but to stay on the bike and keep going I just kept thinking of Buddy and repeating the word "cadence" to myself, over and over again. I decided somewhere around mile 80 that I would write Buddy a very short letter when I got home that said,
And like everything else about dipshit 27 year olds living in New York, I forgot when I got home that night and passed out instead. And then next day, it didn't matter. So: Dear Buddy, I'm writing this to you now even though it's too late: you are an amazing man, and you can't possibly know how important you were to me in helping me learn about how I might become the sort of person I should want to be. I'm sorry that I probably never made that clear enough to you when I was a dumb teenager hanging around your home, but I hope that somehow you knew anyway. I love you forever, and hope that your soul rests easy wherever it decides to go. love always, Benjamin Scheim LISTEN: Tom Waits - "A Good Man Is Hard To Find", from Blood Money NOTES: @@ -- I have no doubt that i've gotten some of the exact details in some of these stories wrong, so if you were there and know I missed something, sorry, but the spirit remains true regardless. *** -- Not on the actual ski slope, of course--for an old man, he certainly loved letting it rip, and was the only parent of any of my friends (besides my ski coach) who I enjoyed skiing with $$$$ -- While I still feel this way about running, I admit now that it's possible i'm wrong on this one too. Labels: BEAUMONT, friends, memories, old flames posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 8/31/2009 08:54:00 PM 2 comments 2
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Thursday, August 27, 2009 Got Nuffin (To Lose)  Strange days, lately. End of summer always brings odd tidings. Sometimes I get really sick, sometimes depressed, something things just don't seem to add up. Sometimes it's nothing more than a strange wind that keeps me looking over my shoulder and a little more restless than normal. On Saturday, bike pal Mike and I are completing a summer of high RPMing with a second 2009 ride to Montauk, this time not the 100 but in fact the full 145 New York City to Montauk bonanza. I have never biked more than 115 miles at once (the Montauk 100 last May) so I truly have no idea what I'm in store for, but it should be interesting to say the least. Sadly, while the heat looks to be not a problem, I guess we're expecting a little rain now: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Yeah. As you know, I don't mind a little rain, but eleven straight hours of rain will push the boundaries I set before myself between fun and masochism. Let's hope it don't come to that. ------- Finally, if you haven't listened yet, please do. Cannot for the life of me get "Got Nuffin" out of my head. And that's a good thing. Labels: BEAUMONT, biking, quickthoughts, Spoon, thoughts posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 8/27/2009 02:16:00 PM 0 comments |
GET BEHIND ME DEAD MAN
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