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For years I've listened to friends who love music the way I do describe what it feels like to pass that tipping point when they are suddenly consumed by the urge to be rid of some of their records. And I've shuddered each time, possessed by the conviction that such a move may lead to harder stuff, like dispensing with one's entire collection because it seems "redundant" in the era of digital media. Tonight, though, as I contemplated the sixteen boxes that comprise the vast majority of my CDs, I found myself identifying with that impatience towards material goods. "What would it be like," I thought, "to sell or donate all of this stuff?" It was like being tempted by the serpent. In fact, I found it much easier to imagine dispensing with my entire collection than sorting through it to figure out what I could bear to part with. But then I realized that what I was really contemplating was abandoning everything about my identity that was the result of conscious self-fashioning. It's hard to conceive of a spookier prospect, given the way I've lived my life since I was a teenager. Perhaps that's why I was momentarily seduced by its allure. Tags: analysis, autobiography, music
Current Location: 85704
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When I was in grade-school, I lived in a part of Pennsylvania that was remarkably rural despite its proximity to the I-95 corridor. Even trips to the nearby Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton metropolitan area felt like expeditions, because the circuitous backroads my mother and father favored maximized the changes of scenery I'd see en route. At the same time, though, the antenna on our roof enabled us to pull in television stations -- this was long before cable arrived in that area -- from both Philadelphia and New York. I had the best of both worlds, in a sense, with the ability to wander aimlessly through the acres of dense woods surrounding our former farm house and still make it back in time for the programming I wanted. Because I had the most stereotypical boyish interests imaginable -- sports, cars and war -- my televisual desires expressed themselves a love of auto racing of any stripe, dedication to the WWII show Baa, Baa, Black Sheep, and, above all else, a deep affection for baseball on the tube. My father was -- and is -- the kind of Yankee fan who should be above reproach from even the most passionate haters, someone who had stuck with his team through the bleakness of the post-Mantle years. Besides, if your favorite pinstriped player was Joe Gordon, who began his career alongside Lou Gehrig, you should get a pass on principle. For my part, though I rooted for the Yankees out of solidarity in most cases, I was first and foremost a Phillies fan. My favorite player was their second baseman, interestingly, the underrated Dave Cash. When I first started paying attention to baseball, both teams were showing major improvement after years of languishing amid the also-rans. Or worse, if you consider the 1972 Phillies. I attended my first Phillies game in 1974 and then typically saw a few games each year at the Vet, despite the ninety-minute commute to get there. Because I spent a week with my dad's older sister's family in Astoria every summer from the time I was five until we moved to Maryland, I also has the opportunity to catch plenty of games at both Yankee Stadium and Shea with my much-older cousin Donnie, who was a dedicated sports fan and every bit as loyal to the Yankees as my father. Both the Phillies and the Yankees made the playoffs in 1976. Although the powerful Big Red Machine swept them both, dreams of Phillies-Yankees World Series ran wild in my head. I was sure that it would be the best sporting event of my life. Each of the following two years, though, I was terribly disappointed to watch my Phillies go down in defeat to the Dodgers, even as the Yankees returned to the Fall Classic and went on to beat L.A. in some memorable contests. We moved to Maryland in the summer of 1979. My father remained the same Yankees fan he had always been, even if he couldn't watch his team on Channel 11 anymore. And I remained a Phillies fan, getting rewarded with their first World Series victory over the Royals in 1980. Over time, though, my childhood dream of a Phillies-Yankees World Series took a back seat to other concerns. The Phillies spent most of the 1980s and 1990s being not very good, though I had cheered them on in 1993. I still pulled for the Yankees on my father's behalf in 1996, when they were underdogs against the Braves and prevailed on an October 26th that was special for other reasons. And I could never muster the animus against them so prevalent among my friends even at the height of their free-spending arrogance. That's why I'm delighted to finally see my wish come true. The Phillies may only be my second-favorite team now -- I converted to being a Giants fan shortly after living in the Bay Area for a while -- and the Yankees may be a team that I mostly refuse to root against, instead of rooting for, unless they are playing a team I hate like the Angels -- see Rally Monkeys and 2002 for my entirely reasonable rationale -- yet I will still savor the games. I'm looking forward to watching C.C. Sabathia, who grew up in the town of Vallejo, CA and starred at Vallejo High when I was playing pick-up basketball games across the street, take on his former Indians teammate Cliff Lee. I'm looking forward to seeing how Ryan Howard measures up with Alex Rodriguez. And I'm looking forward to watching Derek Jeter in the Series again, as much as it may pain some of my friends for me to admit that. Because his rookie season culminated on the fateful October night in 1996, his presence comforts me. Mostly, though, I'm just excited to be able to talk to my dad about the games. I wish I could watch them at his side. Tags: analysis, autobiography, sports
Current Location: 85704
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My years on Live Journal have brought plenty of pleasure and pain, far more than I'd bargained for when I began to post, after many months of passively reading, in the hopes of putting my ideas about personal blogging to the test. Lately, though, as the active participants on my "Friends" list have dwindled and some of my long-time stalwarts have vanished, I've been finding it harder and harder to muster the enthusiasm to continue. I could go on a vacation, as I have advised others to do. But I'm fairly certain that, once I got out of the rhythm of posting regularly, I'd lose the sense of responsibility that motivates me to make personal blogging an integral component of my everyday life. Friends have suggested that I seek out new folks for my "Friends" list in Live Journal communities. I've found a few I really like there over the years, so it's a good idea. I'm just not sure I have the mental strength to keep posting in a time of diminishing returns. I use Facebook now, which satisfies some of my need for socializing, on a daily basis. As much as I love to connect and reconnect there, however, the ephemeral and brief nature of most of the content people post can't replace the sense of continuity that Live Journal provided. I love the fact that I can go back in my archives and relive periods -- even ones that were largely negative -- through my entries about them. Facebook just doesn't offer that sense of historical depth. And that's what I want or maybe even need from the labor I expend in crafting posts. I don't know. Maybe I'm just being silly. Recent events have me feeling unsteady on my virtual feet. Perhaps I should just worry less and do more. Tags: analysis, autobiography, blogging, everyday
Current Location: 85704
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Skylar is changing so fast these days. It's almost like when she was about to turn one and started talking and walking. As someone who has spent a great deal of time thinking about aesthetics, I'm especially intrigued by the sudden metamorphosis of her palate. Less than a year ago she was still eating the same basic foods that she preferred as a two-year-old and remained fairly insistent about their not touching each other. Then she started to show an interest in sources of protein other than salmon, cheese and beans, exemplified by a surprising enthusiasm, abetted by the musical Sweeney Todd, for what she likes to call "priest." Soon she was asking for a little sauce to go with her pasta and asking to try foods that would once have made her turn away in revulsion. And then came this afternoon. I was trying to make use of some leftovers, including two Ziploc bags of rice, with the help of the roasted Anaheim chiles I picked up at Safeway -- they were doing a fundraiser for cancer research -- and an andouille sausage. What I ended up with smelled promising but looked, well, like olive drab and tan camouflage. "What's that?" she asked me, peering into the frying pan. "Dirty rice," I replied, quickly summoning the vocabulary that comes from reading cookbooks all the time to give the dish a positive spin, "Do you want to try it?" I was sure she'd say no, given how it looked. Indeed, because it was obviously going to be pretty spicy, I was hoping she'd decline, lest I incur her wrath for exposing her to pain. But, without skipping a beat, she said, "Sure!" I hesitated, then decided I'd give her a bowl and let her figure out from the first bite that it wasn't her kind of food. And then I went in the other room, in the hopes of getting some distance from the indignation I was sure she'd express. After a few minutes of checking scores, though, I returned to the dining area to discover that she had already polished off most of the bowl. "Isn't it spicy?" I asked. "Oh, yes, Dad, it is. I had to drink my whole glass of milk. Would you pour me another so I can eat the rest?" I was stunned. And practically teary-eyed with the peculiar pride parents feel when their children achieve another developmental milestone, not to mention the realization that all of the reading I've assimilated on the relationship between biology and taste had been dramatically validated. It might not seem hugely important to most of you, but in my world this constituted a Very Big Deal. Later in the afternoon Skylar also pressed to go play softball, which we hadn't done in a long time. Back in second grade she had shown real promise as a hitter, thanks to her superb hand-eye coordination. More recently, though, she often struggled to make contact. I was hoping that the tide might turn, but rather pessimistic. Thankfully, though, the simple realization that her eyesight has deteriorated enough to make glasses necessary for picking up the path of a ball thrown from only twenty-five feet away led to a dramatic resurgence in her slugging. She hit balls all over the place, farther than she ever had before. Some of them were line drives with an impressive amount of zip, too. This delighted me, of course, as did her insistence -- no one wants to pitch to me -- that I throw the ball up and hit it at full strength. Being rusty from years of barely swinging the bat, I kept getting under the ball, which made for arcing flies that impressed her but frustrated me. But then, on my last swing, I was rewarded with the capper to a great day by hitting the ball just right. It leapt off the bat so fast that I didn't even realize at first how well I'd hit it. When it disappeared over a utility shed and then bounced on the neighboring tennis courts, though, I grasped that I'd hit a softball farther than I ever had before without the assistance of a pitcher's velocity. It felt good, a personal lagniappe to a day when the baker's first six dozen were testaments to my daughter's inevitable yet still remarkable passage into a new stage of personhood. Tags: autobiography, daughter, everyday, sports
Current Location: 85704
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Maybe it's all the driving I've been doing, or the way my schedule seems to demand the greatest concentration early in the morning and late at night, but I've been having a hard time maintaining a steady pace through my days. Sometimes I'm overwhelmed with a desire to sleep so strong that it's all I can do to keep my eyes open. But then just a few minutes later I get another burst of energy as I get excited about all the projects I have going. It's complicated, this relationship I have with my will, as they say on Facebook. Earlier tonight, after I'd brought Skylar home from her last night of basketball practice, I could visualize getting vast amounts of work done before morning. And then, after I finally put some food in my stomach, I just wanted to curl up with a book. Now I'm torn between the conviction that I better get out on my bicycle for a late-night ride soon -- it has been weeks since I mustered the motivation to hurl myself into the darkness -- and the nagging sense that what I really need is the sleep I've been deprived of during this challenging semester. Tags: analysis, autobiography, everyday
Current Location: 85704
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My task tonight was to put all the books back on the shelves that were moved for the latest round of house painting. I was careful to box them up in an organized way, so that unpacking would be as easy as possible. But I'm finding it hard to muster the energy for the job. Or courage. At this point, I'm not so sure that the distinction between those two concepts matters. You see, every time I pick up a book I haven't looked through in years, I run the risk of getting swept away in the white water let loose when it became temporarily unbound. Perhaps it's silly to act as though inner and outer life mirror each other. Or maybe my malady inheres in lacking what it takes to police the boundary between those two realms with sufficient force. What I do know is that the empty white shelves to which I've turned my back to write this are a powerful reminder of how easily the order we impose in the world can turn into the infinite possibilities of freedom, a freedom that stimulates me even as it summons my deepest fears. While I had vowed to put the books back exactly where they were before the room was dismantled, I know that the impulse to do something new might be too strong to ignore. And even if I manage to keep that promise to myself, more or less, I will still face the painful moment of deciding, as I take each book in my hand, whether to break with the past. Does it even make sense to rebuild a dam that has been breached? They tried it in Johnstown, with disastrous consequences. Sometimes one really does have to go with the flow. Tags: analysis, autobiography, everyday
Current Location: 85704
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I bet if you asked people who know my musical interests whether Jim Carroll was more important to me than Mary Travers, the vast majority would respond with a derisive "Yes." But the truth is that, for all of my appreciation for Carroll's words, Travers mattered a thousand times more. Because my mom was in college in the early 1960s, when folk music was a big deal with brainy twenty-somethings, the popular music she listened to back them was by artists The Weavers, The Kingston Trio, Theodore Bikel and Peter, Paul and Mary. And that meant that the popular music I listened to as a grade-schooler was by those same artists. When my father was home we listened almost exclusively to classical music, particularly opera. But when he was away on a business trip or maybe stopping at the store on the way home from work, my mom would trot out her college albums, even though they had been, in her words, "played to death" and therefore forbidden fruit as far as my father's stereo was concerned. He worried that they would damage his needle. Sometimes, out of deference to this legitimate if somewhat hysterically expressed concern, my mom would play her records on my little sister's record player. But every now and then she would let her rebellious streak rise to the surface and put them on the stereo, defects and all. I enjoyed all of her records. I still do. But it was Peter, Paul and Mary that made the biggest impression on me. The most obvious reason was that I loved the animated Puff the Magic Dragon special that would air periodically on television. But I also loved the way their harmonies blended together. And I had a schoolboy's crush on Mary, not only because she was pretty -- back then I was captivated by big, strong blondes -- but because her voice conveyed a mystery out of proportion with the band's material. I could pick it out of the mix with ease, despite the delicate smoothness of the band's vocal aesthetic. In later years, after I'd developed my own tastes in popular music, I sometimes got the urge to lock my affection for Peter, Paul and Mary up in a box. Nevertheless, when their television special came on during PBS pledge drives, I came out to watch. And when my parents took me to Wolf Trap to see them perform, I was excited. I remember getting pissed off at Mary during one show for making a cutting remark about Sting, trying to win over her audience by expressing smug disapproval of newfangled culture. I understood why she did it, given the demographics of the aging crowd. Still, her eagerness to please at the expense of younger generations left a bad taste in my mouth. Fifteen years later, though, when I became a parent, Peter, Paul and Mary was one of the bands I most wanted my daughter to hear. When we first moved to Tucson and had to navigate the tedious construction zone on River between First and Campbell, a tape of the band's first album, with songs like "Lemon Tree" and "500 Miles" rapidly moved into heavy rotation. And then, a little later, when I swapped it out for a tape of the band's Album 1700, my two-year-old's love of their sound became much more intense. Skylar especially loved "Leaving on a Jet Plane," which Mary Travers stole from John Denver just as Aretha Franklin had stolen "Respect" from Otis Redding. Over and over we'd rewind the tape to play just that track. But I never grew tired of it. My daughter's joy was as contagious then as it is now, which explains why I've had a blast watching High School Musical films with her, have spent countless hours discussing the finer points of the Harry Potter series, and have even consented to wear outlandish hats and accessories at her behest. Perhaps it was the timing of her pre-school fixation on "Leaving on a Jet Plane" that made it reach the innermost reaches of my being. We were still new in Tucson and were terribly homesick for the Bay Area, a sensation powerfully enhanced by the fatal illness of Skylar's "Uncle Grandpa," one half of the gay couple that rented the bottom floor of their house to us for many, many years, but were as close as our own families. And I was still recovering -- hell, I still am recovering -- from the brutal case of pneumonia that had felled me the previous November, right after the 2000 Presidential election that also added to the traumatic intensity of everyday life. I was still physically weak and pretty unhappy, too. In March of 2001, right before we were supposed to leave for another trip to the Bay Area -- we went there a lot during our first few years in Arizona -- we realized that our wonderful twenty-year-old cat, who had still been feisty at Christmas, had reached a critical point in her fight with cancer. Having her put to sleep was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, made even worse by her fighting spirit. And then early the next morning we left on a jet plane. We decided that we wouldn't tell Skylar until we got back home, so she could grieve in a familiar environment. But that helped make our "vacation" deeply stressful, along with a series of strange complications. When we arrived at the motel in Mendocino where my parents had traveled to join us, we learned that there was no crib for Skylar and, worse still, that we couldn't get one at a reasonable price anywhere nearby. I ended up having to drive all the way to Santa Rosa and back to get a porta-crib. Shortly after that lengthy trek, I was supposed to drive down to San Francisco to see Stephen Malkmus play at the Fillmore. But I came down with a horrible stomach bug that made it hard for me spend even a few minutes away from a bathroom. Somehow, though, I found the will to get myself to the show and then, after a couple I was great friends with let me crash at their place for a spell, drive all the way back -- we're talking about a trip of nearly four hours here -- to Mendocino. I mention this driving because even though I'd brought plenty of music on the trip, I listened almost exclusively to the CD-version of Peter, Paul and Mary's Album 1700 I'd picked up for Skylar in small Mendocino shop. The car didn't have a cassette player and she was desperate to hear her favorite song. As it turned out, though, so was I. I must have heard the album at least a dozen times in less than a week. At the time, I didn't make the connection between the subject of "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and our abrupt and psychologically devastating departure from Tucson. Now, though, I can see that something inside me was bent on commemorating our cat's death, as well as our former landlord's, by playing the song that was most tangled in the pain of my first months in Tucson. I played the song for the first time in ages tonight, in Mary's honor. It brought tears to my eyes, though I rarely cry. I was transported back to the winter of 2000-2001, not to mention my grade-school years. I'm not sure I wanted to go there. But I know I don't want to stay here, a place bound up with a history I refuse to compulsively repeat. Tags: autobiography, music, nostalgia
Current Location: 85704
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I had no intention of playing basketball yesterday. I had coughed violently the previous night, for some reason, and only went to the JCC to use the steam room, which is a great help when I'm in respiratory distress. But all four courts were free, without the divider lowered, and I couldn't resist. Although I eventually had to share the space with a large -- but mellow -- family, I got in twenty minutes of shooting in solitude. And it felt great, even though my legs were heavy and my range was off. I have enormously fond memories of shooting outdoors in the snow as a teenager, wearing just shorts and a T-shirt. And at the school in Hamburg, during my first month in Germany, when I barely understood any of the language and each trek through my Eppendorf neighborhood was like anthropological research. And in Vallejo, at the junior high, when the Laotian kid would sometimes show up and ask why I was studying English if I already knew it so well. But the court I was on yesterday, at the JCC is hallowed ground too, though my associations with Tucson are less than positive as a whole. This is where I'd bring two-year-old Skylar to play on the mats; where I shot even in the grip of pneumonia that made walking up stairs feel like mountain climbing; where I played one-on-one every week with my improbable novelist friend even though my right knee was in such bad shape that it would take me five minutes to get out of my seat at the movies; where I played with sixty-year-olds and ten-year-olds, sometimes in the same game; where former U of A player Corey Williams ever so politely declined the screen I was trying to set for him, saying it was the fundamentally sound thing to do but would hinder his freedom driving to the hole, all while dribbling on the wing; and where Skylar made her first turnaround off the glass from the low block, the shot I taught her so she'll have a go-to move when the going gets rough. There are some things about Tucson I won't miss a bit and many others for which my melancholy will be mild at best. But the big gym with the excessively hard wood floors, hot and oppressive as it can be, is one place I will miss terribly, all the more so because it's unlikely that I'll get to visit it again after I move. I'm sure I'll be back for the mountains and cactus, for Sonoran hot dogs and Raging Sage, but the likelihood of taking the time to go shoot hoops on a trip, not to mention finding someone to get me in on a guest pass, is not great. That's why I'm making it a point to savor my JCC experiences now, because there's always a chance that I'll be somewhere else next year and a much greater chance that I'll have moved in a couple years. Tags: autobiography, everyday, nostalgia, sports, tucson
Current Location: 85704
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Name: Charlie Bertsch
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You're looking at content from my Live Journal, which I have been keeping since 2003. I consider it a personal blog, though it lacks stream-of-consciousness revelations that typify that genre.
That said, if you manage to discern the confessional mode within entries that are superficially tight-lipped, I will reward you handsomely. Or at least pretend to do so.
In addition to reflections, however mediated, on my daily activities, De File features periodic excavations of material from my "files," a revelation sure to disturb anyone who has seen my garage. It's an experiment in integrating past and present, perhaps with a little redemption along the way.
Politics is always on my mind, but rarely explicit here. I’m working on a theory about what personal writing like this does to literary identification and why some people resist its pull so powerfully. But my goal is to make that theory dissolve in my practice, a density in liquid.
You'll note that I have links to blogs not on LiveJournal directly above, as well as assorted websites of note. The blogs I read regularly on LiveJournal itself fall under "FRIENDS" at the top, for those of you unfamiliar with LJ’s workings.
You can write me. I'm "cbertsch" before the circle-a and "comcast.net" after it. |
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