So far, I’ve worked on a “creative exploration” for a growing bank in the region; rewritten a direct-mail piece I thought was “done” months ago; drafted new copy for an ad touting a certain industrial complex’s “green” features (which, honestly, are few); filled out tax forms; perused eBay for a power source, which is lacking from the otherwise fine Apple display on my desk.

I’ve also wondered whether or not I have a truly original, truly interesting “campaign” in me… and, if I do, will any of our relatively conservative clients go for it?

On Saturday, Shelley was having some girls over, so I decided that, when I got off work, I would go have a beer at Entourage (a weird upscale club stuck in Bowling Green) before I went home.

The best laid plans of men…

First, work took longer than usual; I got out at about 10 ’til midnight. I walked to Entourage, where I was informed there was a $5 cover — despite the fact that there was nothing special going on! Weird. Only slightly daunted, I decided to walk across the street to a place called Utley’s… not really my style, but it’s owned by a sales rep I deal with (he works for a local foodservice company), so I figured I’d give it a go.

I walk in, and there are at least 300 people crowded like sheep to slaughter inside this place. A bit more daunted, but determined nonetheless, I made my way through the circus and managed to get a Stella Artois, one of my favorite beers. Of course, I didn’t want to be inside with the clowns and clownettes inside — the boys dressed like they’d just finished mowing the grass, the ladies like they were planning to audition for Hugh Hefner — so I went to head outside.

Except it was midnight by then, and for some reason it’s unlawful to sit on the sidewalk with a beer at 12:01, but not at 11:59.

I finished my beer quickly — and didn’t much enjoy it with all the foolishness going on — and headed off to go home, thus completely daunted at this juncture. And that’s when I heard someone yelling my name.

I turned around, and it was this dude Tony. Tony is maybe 23, at most, and has been a huge Foxhole fan for many years; his bands have always kind of sucked, but at least he tries (?), and he’s got a decent heart. So I sat down on the sidewalk to talk with him for a moment; he and a friend were grilling me for Foxhole info: When will we play again? When will our new album come out?

I told him I had no idea if we’d ever play again, and highly doubted, against my best hopes, that another album would ever get finished. I told him how one-third of the band now live in Texas, how I have a wife and two kids, one with autism. I told him that there’s not much interest, since we never play shows and haven’t released a thing in more than three years. He and his friend wouldn’t hear it — “You gotta see it through!” they said, “You have to finish your dream!”

The conversation has stuck with me, obviously, but I have no way to explain to Tony that dreams are just that. They’re little glimpses of a perfection that won’t be found, and that even were we to record the album with our producer of choice — which strictly speaking is impossible at this point, since we’ve asked him three or four times and been rejected at every turn — the “dream” wouldn’t be nearly so sweet as we’d like to hope. It’s hard to write music… we manged to finish, mostly, that part. It’s hard to schedule six people in one place for a week or more, it’s hard to carve out the time even if you can schedule it. It’s hard to share a room with those people for so many hours, listening to/playing over and over and over (Glenda, are you reading this?) the same blanking guitar riff, waiting for it to come out just right.

Who would buy it? Not very many people, not now. Who would publish it? Maybe Scott at Burnt Toast, our label, would, but only because he’s a super nice guy with disposable income.

Yep, every question comes with an unsatisfactory answer. Every question, that is, except this one: What would it mean to me?

And that’s where Tony has it right. Because despite the fact that I have no time, no energy, no vibrant excitement about such an endeavor, and despite the fact that there are five other things in my life that are more important and which do and SHOULD take precedence… it would, if it were possible, mean the world to me.

“The world” is a big place… a dreamy place. When you get a glimpse at it, grab it. But we can’t just overboard, because it’s not only our world, but everyone else’s, too. And so the final Foxhole album remains a dream to me. And there’s nothing wrong with dreaming.

THINGS THAT WORK

Me, at least 70 hours a week at this point (and many times well over that)

Communion of the Saints

The espresso machine, thank God

Falafels

Hot baths

The stop lights in downtown Bowling Green… all the time, even when there’s not more than two cars driving within a ten-block radius of one another

Faith

My lawn mower, half the time

THINGS THAT DON’T WORK

My DVD player.

The big milk fridge at Spencer’s

Getting to bed before 11 p.m.

Reason

The preferences in iWork ’08

My lawn mower, half the time

The hero as a young man

He was born with a simple — and popular for the ’80s — name: Justin, meaning just, fair, righteous. His true first name was Roy — king — and the world could certainly use some just kings, both then and now. He was a bright child, but a dark cloud hung low in his skyline. He could never put a name to it, nor a meaning, nor a reason. But there it hung, all the same.

He grew into a wise (if not entirely success-driven) young man, but the cloud lingered still. It took various forms: despair, malice, apathy, conceit. Justin was never fully in its grasp, but he couldn’t escape the feeling that an encounter with true disaster lie swiftly ahead. He took up many careers: journalist, author, restauranteur. None fulfilled, and none did anything to shake the uncertain feeling that played the role of parasite in his tumultuous heart. He stayed near enough to his birthplace, an hour-and-a-half out, far enough to avoid constant contact with family, but close enough to allow him access when his soul needed repair or his belly needed that particular salve that comes only through a mother’s meals. This was his life, one which was discontented yet oddly comfortable.

The hero during dark days... but the worst was yet to come.

It came quickly: Out for a walk in the cool night air, he saw a mysterious light, peeking through a crack in the wall of the flophouse down the street. He feared to go in, knowing the time of night and the sordid affairs taking place within… but his curiosity knew no bounds. He turned the knob slowly, opened the door swiftly (this was his time-tested method of going into a place without causing a stir — nay, turning nary a head, even in the quietest jaunts).

The light knocked him to the ground, and as quickly as it came, the light went out.

***

He woke in another place, a metropolis filled with traffic and noise and smog and such neon that he’d never before seen. It was grim and gritty and full of souls like his.

Or, we should say, how his once was. Because when he arose, naked, from the hotel bed, he knew something had changed. He was different, he was utterly another.

He put on his clothes — jeans, casual-cool shoes and long-sleeve T, his veritable uniform as of late — and stepped into the hotel hallway. He reached out to the elevator’s call buttons, and was drawn to push the wrong one. He was going UP, not down, although he couldn’t have told you why.

Into the elevator, he kept going up: Penthouse floor, do not pass go, do not collect. When the bell rang and the carcass carrier opened its mouth to allow him passage, he walked directly to a set of steel doors — NO EXIT | NO ADMITTANCE. But still he went, and with the stealth he’d used throughout his troubled existence.

Up a flight of stairs, out onto a rooftop. This was a landscape completely foreign to him, but one he suddenly realized had been calling him his entire life.

And that’s when the light returned, the exact instant that Roy Justin became Quantum, the teleporter:

Inspired by my friend Greg, and a few moments thinking about the state of my heart:

Exactly who will

I be, when there is no one

Else around to see?

You know you've made it when you're on the outside layer of an authentic Russian matryoshka... we have one with President Clinton on the outside — and Monica Lewinsky in the middle.

Amid the hustle and bustle of the newsroom on such a historic (and if all goes well, profitable in terms of newspapers sold) day, it’s hard to focus on what today really means. I’m hit with a sense of hope — cliche, of course, but it truly is a monumental moment in our nation’s history. I’m also burdened by my pragmatism, knowing that President Obama is just a man and will most certainly not acheive as much as his more ardent supporters expect him to… and am feeling a bit Jon Stewart-like in my reaction to the overly fawning, overly “the dream has arrived!” coverage of TV news.

So, today, I’ll simply point you to the best takes on the moment… my deeper reflections on the meaning of this presidency are HERE, and I suggest you read (or re-read) it, as it’s probably the best thing my brain will ever produce. (NOTE: I’ll be updating this throughout the day.)

“Race in America” — Politico’s Arena feature pulls many great thinkers together for a dialogue on the moment.

“I Wish You Were Here” — New York Times columnist Bob Herbert’s look at some of the people who paved the way for a black president, people who didn’t live long enough to see it.

“What to Pray for a New President” — Christianity Today offers some truly transcendent advice on a historically transcendent day.

“A Smarter Stimulus” — The New Yorker takes a look at why Obama’s stimulus plan, despite criticism from all sides, is more likely to work than anything else we’ve come up with in recent years.

Apologies to my many non-sporting readers, but I have to explore something just a bit here. 

My friend Joe took this pic. (Photo by Joe Imel/Bowling Green Daily News)

As of this writing, the NFL Playoffs have seen every single home team lose to their lesser-ranked visitor… the barely-in Eagles (No. 6 seed out of possible 6) just trounced the Super Bowl champion and No. 1 seed Giants, and yesterday my beloved No. 1 Titans dominated nearly every portion of their game against No. 6 Baltimore, but made a crucial mistake every time they got close to scoring, losing 13-10 — the exact score of their regular-season win over Baltimore, who themselves dominated that game only to lose at the last moment.

This is the housing crisis! This is broken-home syndrome. After this season — and especially if the No. 2 Steelers lose tonight’s game to the No. 5 Chargers and their 5-foot-6, 180-pound running back Darren Sproules — we may have to retire the notion of “homefield advantage.” Fans will give up their season tickets, instead buying maybe two games’ worth of tickets and travel fare to out-of-town games. Stadiums will become war zones, with home-team fans simply surrounding the grounds but not going in, taunting and throwing beer at those out-of-town fans making their way into the gates to see their visiting team knock the socks off the homers.

It’s entirely anti-logical… why, this postseason, is every team blowing the advantage of positive fans, amped up that their team is one of 12 (out of 32) in the playoffs?

UPDATE: So I was wrong about the Steelers… maybe homefield advantage works a bit better when the visitor is from sunny San Diego and your locale has blistering cold and constant snowfall.

As of this moment — not even noon on my 28th birthday — about 20 people have “written” on my “wall” to wish me a happy one. That is more people, I feel confident, than ever called me on the phone between my 1st and 27th.

I really have to apologize — mostly, perhaps, to myself — for being such a slacker on the blog front in recent weeks. There are lots of reasons, but it still pains me to suddenly realize I haven’t written in a week, and that I have nothing substantial to add to anyone’s discussion. 

That hasn’t changed today. But, in lieu of actual thought, I’d like to give you a few glimpses at the things that are making me tick right now.

A Palestinian man wails over the dead body of a Hamas security officer Saturday. (This is the version we ran in the paper, CLICK for the uncropped, much more gruesome version.)

1.) Pictures of dead people. That sounds weird, I’m sure. But today’s Israeli attack on Hamas — the bloodiest single event in decades of the conflict — has me thinking about fallen man in fallen world; and how in the world we, America, can presume to know anything about these people in a land far, far away; and how thankful I am to live in such a peaceful place; and how spoiled I am to live a life so detached from the real struggles being dealt with by most of the rest of the world.

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I think it’s a combination of the economic meltdown (my 401k lost 25% this year) and my general stress level. Whatever it is, it’s making me take stock of my life and attempt to blow away the chaff.

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