Spitball Army

An in-store performance by Ben Kweller, at Laser’s Edge Compact Discs in Birmingham, Alabama, on 22 April 2004.  Ben pauses midway through “Walk on Me” to point out the Led Zeppelin boxed set sitting on the rack.

Cherry on the sundae: Ben quotes MC Hammer (below).

This long sought-after¹ single² by Smiley Joe Omohundro³ was unearthed from a box of items that had been in my father’s house.  I think.  It may have also come from my maternal grandmother’s home.  No kidding.  She had a great sense of humor; sweet as they come, but she could also appreciate a “colorful” joke.

¹ Not really.
² Backed with “I Bet on a Horse Called Douche Bag and Got Cleaned.”
³ Omo the Lobo to his friends.

(photo: spitballarmy.com)

This just proves that you don’t have to be going fast to be cruisin’.

I snapped this photo quickly on 16 December 2008 while idling at the red light, waiting to turn onto Old Highway 101 in Oceanside, California.  The 101 Cafe is a terrific retro joint with booths and a fountain counter (though there was no actual soda fountain that I remember seeing).  I’ve had a handful of good meals there when visiting my hometown, including an amazing Ortega green chile omelet.

I’m not one to post rants on my weblog. In fact, I take pains to avoid writing them, as I don’t particularly enjoy reading them. Nasty, bile-filled, hateful rants – those are the kind I am talking about. The truth is, my distaste for ingesting rants may have fueled the reaction in me that has produced this missive, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

I was emotionally moved this week, as apparently many others were, to hear of the death of Senator Ted Kennedy. Growing up Catholic in the 1960s, as I did, made Kennedy and his entire family iconic to me. There was a pen-and-ink drawing of John Kennedy hanging on the wall of the convent parlor next door to my grade school, where I clocked many waiting minutes in its thrall, just gazing at it and thinking about it. I was also raised with a healthy respect for what we considered and called democratic or liberal ideals: social responsibility, compassion, community awareness, the fostering and value of education, volunteerism. Of course, these aren’t ideals that are necessarily exclusive to people who vote Democratic, or who more often than not support Democratic Party candidates in elections. But, for me, they happened to coincide with my political leanings. I suppose that the bedrock of all of these views was the impossible striving to be Christ-like. I had that over-arching credo embedded in my brain through twelve years as a student at Catholic schools.

That’s what a Catholic school education can do to you. It can infiltrate and infect your young mind with the belief that part of your life’s mission on earth is to not only feel compassion for others, but also to show it. You could do a heck of a lot worse than being brought up to value the acts of visiting the sick, honoring the dead and – sounding as if it originated in the ‘60s decade from which I sprouted – performing random acts of kindness. I was feeling a resurgence of these lessons within me as I watched the news, listened to the radio broadcasts, and grieved the passing of one of my role models.

“Role model.” I know it sounds strange to hear me use that phrase in reference to a notorious person whom I never knew. Though I did shake Teddy’s hand once – at the dedication of the JFK School of Government in Cambridge – I did not know him personally. But, through the news, I know that he made mistakes, as we all do. His example was in his pushing past those mistakes and constantly striving to achieve some of the goals that matched his ideals. And it seemed that his ideals came close to matching mine. I’ve always respected his perseverance, and his humanity. Surely, the last thing I would expect one of my role models to do is to come to a complete stop after stumbling, never to rise and charge forward again.

I also understand that there are people who have demonized this man throughout his life, people who hold him in low esteen because of his privilege, his wealth, his opportunity, and his politics, people who hold him in contempt to the same degree (perhaps more so) that I revere him. These are some of the same people who would have you believe that Bill Clinton is a criminal, an unredeemable and morally-corrupt man – not merely a human being like themselves. “Let he who is without sin throw a stone,” etc., to paraphrase and abbreviate the biblical text. (Note that this is one of the few times you will ever hear me come close to quoting the Scripture.) It may never have occurred to many of his critics that Ted Kennedy acted as a mirror, showing them not only the best, but also the worst, in themselves.

But now he has died, and the life lessons I have learned dictate that I honor him by celebrating the good I have learned from him.

These somewhat temperate thoughts came smashing toward the front of my mind yesterday as I confronted head-on the 21st century ugliness festering in the comments section of my local newspaper’s website.  al.com had posted a midday story describing the Saturday morning funeral of Kennedy in Boston. Nothing elaborate, just a photograph and a description of the eulogies given by Teddy Jr. and President Obama with a few other details.  [Read more →]

(photo: spitballarmy.com)

As of 18 December 2008, the date of this photograph, the De Wolfs were apparently still dancing.  This life marker was seen at the cemetary of Mission San Luis Rey in Oceanside, California.