Sound and Fury

  • by Drew

Me and my 7 year old, we chat. It’s the word he came up with many months ago when we started. See, after the addition was finished, I no longer had to put the two boys to sleep on an airbed in a half-demolished room with thoughts of the morning clean up before the crew arrived. Now, they have their own rooms with their own doors and and beds that don’t require 5 minutes attached to a pump for proper comfort.

The routine has evolved to this: teeth brushing, final potty break, bathing, story in the story chair, 4 year old tucked in, 7 year old chat before tucking. And oh, how we chat. We talk Cub Scouts and Summer Camp and Zero gravity remote control cars and assorted action figures and perler beads and watercolors and so much more.

Tonight, as he found a cough from this on again off again thing that is starting to suggest a need for allergy relief more than cough suppressant, we talked literature. We talked about telling stories, loving to tell stories. I told him he was lucky to figure out that his favorite thing (and this is more or less a quote) is writing…writing stories.

Hell, it took me more than 30 years to figure out that the single common element that binds all things I enjoy most is about the same aspect – telling stories. Be they stories in song or on the written page or even with photos or doodles…it is that creative act – coming up with the story and somehow sharing it. That is where I find the most fun, the most joy, the most…you know.

It’s pretty good to be a smart 7 year old, I guess.

Oh, but here’s what I was getting at with the whole chat thing. Tonight, after getting beyond the shared love of storytelling, he told me he is wrestling with his current story about a Nerf dart war. At 4 pages, it is “SOOOO much longer” than his last major work, a 3 page autobiographical piece entitled My Busted Eye.

The problem, he told me, is that there are a lot of capital letters in the Nerf story. Too many, he insisted, and for some reason I cannot totally fathom, it is hanging him up toward the end of page 3.

So I told him that famous apocryphal story about Faulkner and his editor. Upon reading a manuscript, the editor told Faulkner he must do a better job of using punctuation and such as his work was too dense and difficult to decipher – read Absalom, Absalom and you’ll know what he meant. Faulkner’s response was to send his editor several pages of typewritten periods, commas, and other punctuation marks with a note that more or less said “put these wherever you want them.”

“Don’t worry too much about the capitals,” I told him. “Tell your story and you can always fix those little things later.”

Used Lit

  • by Drew

We’ve had a couple of book sales at local libraries recently, and I love them. I love picking up second hand books for a buck or less, giving them a good home where they will be loved and read over and over. And it’s great for the kids, especially my second grader, who is both an avid and an accomplished little reader.

I love pawing through the texts, discovering little gems I never knew existed. Maybe even better is finding the books I read as a kid. Often a little musty smelling, and in the same editions I read back then. But who cares – Superfudge is Superfudge. What could be better?

And I can’t help thinking about the little old ladies who were probably relatively hot young Moms when I was reading Encyclopedia Brown and The Three Investigators. Now they’re loading their grown kids’ old books into boxes with Aerobics videotapes and the best personal budget software on Apple-formatted floppy disks that 1987 had to offer.

It’s a great big giant ass circle, ain’t it?

Sick Sucks

  • by Drew

I am now a virtual expert on what killed Three’s Company star John Ritter. And when I say virtual, it’s not some cutesy cyber-wiki-geek reference. I literally know more about what killed John Ritter than most first year med students.

Why so well-versed in aorta aneurysms you ask? (See, I wasn’t just blowing smoke.)

Actually, someone very close to me is in the ICU at Westchester Medical Center right now. She’s been there for a couple of days, following a couple of days at Phelps Memorial. Yes, it’s been a long week. And I’ve been surrounded by the family and close friends of similarly afflicted – or, if not similarly afflicted, no less tragically ill. Heart failure, mesothelioma, brain damage, third degree burns, respiratory failure. Cancer of everything.

And the John Ritter aorta aneurysm? That’s what we’re dealing with. Except it started with a tear instead of the expected outright burst, so there was anemia and fatigue before the pressure on the trachea led to loss of oxygen and heart failure. Then there was CPR and paddles and intubation and ventilators.

And night after night of wondering if they hadn’t sent her home from an empty ER in the first place, an ER that was recently renovated to accept dozens of patients…if the insurance companies weren’t so restrictive about the length of stay and what they consider appropriate care and how much they will actually reimburse the facility…well…I wonder.

I have a Barry Crimmins album from the early 90s that dealt with Bush I, and you could listen to it during the reign of Bush II and it was entirely too relevant. All you had to do was add the middle initial. At one point he says something like (and I admit to paraphrasing because I’m just too tired to dig up the exact quote) –

Whoever decided to combine the healing arts and the profit motive was an evil evil person.

The Carrot Seed

  • by Drew

Jake’s first grade class joined with a third grade class (there is a mentoring deal between the two years in their school) to put on a performance of a pretty original play based somewhat loosely on the book The Carrot Seed. It was pretty rollicking good fun, I must say. And I had the dubious honor of being asked to help with the music. The kids sing a bunch of songs, mostly reworked classics that thematically fit. Well, sort of.

I was supposed to play some guitar along with his teacher’s husband, but I made up my mind pretty quickly that it would be easier to record the basics and give the kids a CD to practice with…and perform with. So I ended up laying down drum machine, bass and guitar with a few sonic cues built in. I triggered the CD at the performance,  and the husband played along live, a lot of lead-ish bits that helped the kids sing together and in tune.

It was fun and entertaining, and I must say, it was one of the better looking crowds I’ve seen in a while. No big hair, not too many big arms. You ever hear it said that when you’re in a card game you should look for the sucker and if you can’t find him it’s probably you? I was starting to think like that tonight at the play. Like, if you look around and can’t find the person most likely to be reading the liporexall reviews, it’s probably you. So, maybe tonight it was probably me?

I mean, I’m not feeling huge lately or anything, but I haven’t been eating too well what with the construction and the lack of sleep and the incessant need to sneak to the next town and go dancing with Chris Penn and Lori Singer so Reverend Moore played by John Lithgow won’t find out and…wait, that’s Footloose. I’ve been watching a lot of movies to help me fall asleep. I just might need a nap.

Where have all the flowers gone?

  • by Drew

We watched the Punisher War Zone movie last night. It’s recently out on DVD, and I had some hopes for it. Not high hopes, but hopes. I mean, I loved the Punisher comic in the old days. The short stretch when I actually collected comics in the 80s was right around the release of the original Punisher mini-series, a pretty awesome release for the time.

When he finally got his first regular series in the subsequent years, I embraced the title and tried to love it. And even though they softened his edges, I enjoyed it…but not enough to keep collecting. I mean, I found girls and fast lost interest in good old funny books, and though it was one of the last titles I continued to read, it didn’t last long.

I must say, I greatly enjoyed the Tom Jane Punisher movie from a couple years ago. Dark and gritty, and certainly violent, but the retelling of his back story made sense, and the movie was a nice, solid, action stomp.

But this new thing…what garbage. I mean, lousy performances, some of the worst accents I’ve EVER heard, and simply gratuitous violence. I feel like they skipped over some moments where they could have actually improved the script in favor of showing splashing blood and pulpy meat. It was violence so extreme that it became cartoonish.

And it didn’t need to be that way. There were certainly artful moments, touches of Ang Lee and John Woo and Luc Besson, but these only represented a fraction of the parts, and the whole they contributed to, well, lacked.

I know this was heavily influenced by the new generation Punisher, heavily driven by Garth Ennis material. Actor Ray Stevenson as the Punisher certainly lived up to this. He had the trademark slicked-back hair and physique bespeaking many many hours on elliptical and nautilus machines. He even did a decent menacing whisper.

I liked a lot of the film processing and color too. There were certain moments that were excellent visual representations of comic book artistry on film. One scene in particular, a church interior that did radiate a bit neon, as observed by Carol, but still, in its way, really looked like a comic book representation of a church interior. It made visual sense to me and I liked it for that.

But all the splashy blood, like so much Cherry Slurpee flying from necks and foreheads and chests and varied stumps… That is the kind of thing that may play in a still frame of a comic book, but on screen it makes me think of a first-person shooter that involves zombies, vampires, aliens or overzealous cheerleaders.

I felt like this was a screenplay written by comic book writers, and maybe this same story would have worked better in that format. The story itself was not awful, and with a few modifications probably could have been as effective and involving as the last Punisher film. But the direction was poor and focused more or the depiction of brutality and violence than the telling of a potentially interesting story. After all, like every classic comic hero, Frank Castle has a motivated back story that drives him to become a murderous vigilante. There’s no reason why you can’t have a bloody action flick with a little character growth and plot. I wish they’d pulled it off here.

Maybe the Wolverine movie will be better.

Who dat?

  • by Drew

I’ve noticed something lately – a lot of cars, in addition to the silliness of a vanity license plate now have a big personalized sticker on the windshield. I’ve been seeing things like “Kathy’s Hummer” and “Jen’s Truck” and such. Sometimes, the particularly lucky and creative have matching windshield sticker and license plate. It’s just wacky to me.

Maybe it’s because I’m afraid that if people knew which car was mine they’d be more likely to key the paint or something. I don’t know, it just seems…frivolous.

I understand certain personalized things. Jake has a cute half-sized guitar with his name embroidered on the gig bag. It’s cute. And it’s not like it’s a backpack and some stranger might use knowledge of his name to get him into a van with no windows. I mean, if some dude at the club after the gig is like, “hey, you must be Jake,” I think he’ll be rock star enough to deal with the windowless van.

I like personalized books too. I still have one from when I was a kid. It’s about this cool alligator who comes to my house on my childhood street and became my friend. That was pretty cool. Plus, it helped me learn how to spell Susquehanna.

Has My Faith Been Restored?

  • by Drew

Last night, as the clock rolled past midnight, we came into a new day both literally and figuratively. I saw the labors of thousands bear fruit. I saw the dreams of millions become a reality. It was a remarkable feeling.

There is a lot of talk about the younger generation as a prime driver of this dramatic political and social shift. I remember the last time they described an election in similar terms, driven by the young vote. I am proud to say that I was a part of that happening. It was my first vote, and the change in policy and philosophy resulted in, perhaps, the most significant period of growth in our nation’s history.

This nation was founded by people of vision and courage. They were smart, strong-willed, unbending, and most of them were very young. They wanted something better for themselves and their children. They were full of hope.

But this event, this success, this triumph should not be diminished by statistical nonsense or rhetoric about race or age or gender. This is a victory shared by all Americans, regardless of age, race, religion, sexual orientation or political affiliation because the system worked. It was a difficult campaign with, much of the time, spite, accusation and invective. Mud was slung. Nasty things were said. But in the end, the people of this nation took advantage of their right, in fact, they embraced their responsibility and made a selection. The system worked.

During the primary race, I wondered if the United States as a whole was ready for what the Democrats had to offer – a black man or a woman. Could we, as a nation do it? Honestly, I wasn’t sure. Over the last few weeks in the campaign, as I saw repeated examples of ignorance and intolerance, I found myself questioning the integrity of the American people. I found myself with very little faith in the American people.

But last night, as a man made his concession speech, and a handful of his supporters embarrassed themselves and disrespected their candidate, I realized something. Perhaps those ignorants and the intolerants, though vocal and loud and adept at making themselves visible, perhaps their numbers are smaller than I feared. Perhaps, even, a lot smaller.

A long time ago I wrote a pretty trite line in a song…Change is good, even when you feel it. It may not be particularly insightful, but it is true. Tom Waits said it even better. If it’s worth the going, it’s worth the ride.

So what does this philosophical wank all really mean? Am I getting warm and fuzzy and Yankee Doodle Dandy in the George M. Cohan style? Not really.

And to answer the titular question, has may faith in the American people been restored?

Truthfully? No. But my hope for the American people has been. And looking at some of the moments in time that brought us to this very new morning – the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Second World War – all predicated on the hopes and dreams of the American people, I will take hope over faith any day.

poop

  • by Drew

Every once in a while when I’m typing my email address or web address I accidentally write poopstreet. It always makes me laugh.

Walls

  • by Drew

I don’t really like the new PC commercial that takes a shot back at the Mac ads with the tubby PC guy. I think it’s a milder form of political-style nastiness, and frankly, I think it lacks creativity. There’s so little creativity in advertising. There’s so much lazy copy. There’s so much imitation. Couldn’t they come up with something better than a united colors of Benetton slew of characters saying “I’m a PC.”

Unfortunately, I’m a PC. I have to be. When the majority of my customers’ users are on PCs, that’s what I have to design for. But it is and always will be the inferior platform. Windows is not the inferior operating system. Why? Because Windows is not an operating system. It is an application running on DOS. DOS is the actual operating system. DOS is the OS developed something like 30 years ago and more or less hijacked by Mr. Gates. Windows is the application that sits on top, and by virtue of being an application, it is far more of a resource hog than a true OS, such as the Mac sports.

I’m not saying Bill Gates is not clever. Despite his porn obsession (he should be in a 12 step program with David Duchovny) he was a very smart man. Smart, devious – whatever you want to call it. In the end, he is the winner by percentage.

The thing that really annoys me about the PC platform (other than this ridiculous concept that the machine with the greatest distribution is the better machine – after all, George Bush did apparently have the most votes, twice, but he is hardly a man at all) is the ridiculous amount of fluff. The computer I use at work just had an upgrade to Office 2003 (yes, that would be the still unstable application release from 5 years ago) the box has more or less ground to a halt. I am getting constant I/O errors, I have to restart multiple times a day to free my RAM cache, and I’m still not XP, not the memory-hog we know and love as Vista. Even the Help Desk techs at work say I need a memory upgrade.

And here’s what bugs me the most – Microsoft is touting this tagline: Windows; Life without walls. Um, I know that from a distance that may sound mildly poetic, but let’s analyze that a bit. See, if you don’t have walls, you don’t need freaking windows. This is what I mean by lazy copywriting. If you’re going to try and create a mood or a metaphor, at least work out the details. Right?

Excelsior! (as told by Daring Drew)

  • by Drew

My friend Ted and I were putting together a case of nice wine to lay down for drinking in 5 plus years. We have different experiences and preferences, so we were making selections together so we’d each have some new and unexpected treats to enjoy at some point down the line. We came across an inexpensive bottle of South African Cabernet Sauvignon called Excelsior that I’ve tasted before. It is very different from California Cab. Somewhat dark cherry fruity with a clear dose of that charred thing that so many South African reds have. Definitely worth a try for less than ten bucks I told him.

He laughed and said his Aunt had a friend Stanley that she’d known many years. Quite a few years ago he met her after lunch with this friend in the city. Turns out the friend in question was none other than Stan Lee of Marvel comics fame. You know, the guy who created Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, Daredevil, Iron Man, etc. etc. etc. A lifelong comics fan, Ted freaked. Then he calmed down and over time, has built a relationship with Smilin’ Stan.

Marvel comics fans will know that Stan Lee is well known for exclaiming “Excelsior!” somewhat frequently. So Ted bought a bottle and said he’d send it to Stan, giving my name for having made the recommendation. Cool, maybe I’ll get lucky and get a signed photo or something, I thought. Well, I got something even better.

Stan Lee sent me a signed photo, and boy did he sign it. He turned it into a veritable work of art! He also gave me a new nickname that I must insist gets frequent use by all friends, family and acquaintances. Daring Drew. That’s right. Daring Drew. Call me Daring Drew.

Many thanks to Titanic Ted for helping me secure this treasure, and many thanks to Stan Lee for giving me a cool nickname. (According to Titanic, Stan the Man has given others less cool nicknames – I could have been Droopy Drew or something.)

Without further ado, I share a link to a photo of the photo, taken by Captivating Carol (now I’m handing out nicknames) right over here.

By the way, for the winos out there, our cellar selections included Frog’s Leap Cab, BR Cohn Olive Hill Cab, Dry Creek’s Mariner Meritage, and Joseph Phelps Napa Cab.

Excelsior!

© 2026 Drew Bancroft. All rights reserved. Totally.