The day of nothing

Wie geht's?

Jade gave me this terrific children's book for Christmas. Micol Ostow has fused together a plethora of Seinfeld escapades into a storyline about something.

Basic premise is that Jerry's mom tells him off for wanting to do nothing, so Jerry goes along with Elaine's desire to see a friend's baby (You've got to see the baby).

I loved it and offered to read it to Jacky, but she was disinclined to acquiesce to my suggestion. I believe she said something along the lines of "No thanks, I don't really like Seinfeld". Sharp intake of breath!

I'm not sure, but could that be grounds for divorce right there?

I don't get it - how can anyone not like Jerry? He's so adorable.

What I do get is how annoying I am with quotes and references to popular culture. 

Seinfeld scenes and lines leap into my brain on many occasions - some appropriate, some not. Not only that but my brain keeps a constant barrage of song lyrics on tap. Not only that but films, poetry, old adverts and other pulp media references are loitering just below the surface in my brain at all times. They rise to the top layer and speed themselves on their merry way to my mouth with alarming regularity.

Either that or I grin, or worse, laugh. Forget about a resting bitch face, those are my default settings.

Super annoying. I get it. Is it shallow (that 'pool' line from Elaine* just came to me - see what I mean)? Is that wrong? Should I not do that?

This is something I've been aware of for a very long time (like using song lyrics for titles). Here's a poem I wrote a long time ago:

Warren Peace (symbol) 1994

a complicated pun which like the sloping vase in the picture in our bedroom defies gravity every day of its life i nonetheless like it because it contains the enigmatic dichotomy which is in fact my life or has been for the last thirtysomething lifetimes it is existing in a sea of contradictions of yin yang on a global scale that sustains me during the long nights when the wolf howls and so back to the pun which clues the reader into the basic personality of diplomatic friend protecting the near and dear ones i am the man with the unorthodox style which is nevertheless successful nevertheless is itself an interesting expression containing the same contradiction where positive and negative live together in close proximity and harmony i digress again why is it i wonder i cannot keep my mind from fracturing into tiny shards of song lines what i really wanted to leave was a reminder of who i am and why i was here there and everywhere i guess i have done so in my own inimitable fashion still the warren peace symbol haunts me it demands further thought but that is what the future is for comma

Love and peace - WNP

* Elaine to Jerry - 'Sometimes when I think you're the shallowest man I've ever met, you somehow manage to drain a little more out of the pool'.

If they make Tony Adams captain we could all go screaming in the park (Joe Strummer)

In one of my happy places

Wie geht's?

For the most part, I'm a happy sort of bloke. A colleague and I were discussing happiness recently and she offered to lend me some of Gretchen Rubin's books.

These are The Happiness Project and The Four Tendencies (which I'll write about in the Baggy Trewsers blog).

Why am I generally a happy bloke? 

According to current research cited in Gretchen's book - its mainly about your genetics, so I have my parents to thank for 50% of my predelection for happiness (age, gender, ethnity, marriage status, income, health, occupation, religious affiliation make up to 20% and the other 30% is a product of how I think and act).

So thanks to Dulcie and Graham, Jacky Purdy (she's beautiful inside and out), and me - I'm a happy bloke. 

It also helps that I'm a teacher on a good wage who lives on a few acres in the country with no neighbours to speak of.

I'm pretty sure my other 30% comes from my love of music (15%) and English (reading and writing - 15%).

Here are the things that are currently adding to my happiness:

• It's autumn (I LOVE autumn) and we had our first frost yesterday (so good!)
• Music and reading (on the day I wrote this post I finished a Desmond Bagley adventure story, started another Anne Tyler novel, dipped a toe into The Happiness Project while listening to Brand X albums in the warmth of our Garden Room while the dogs slept at my feet)
• Writing (I worked on some posts to four of my blogs)
• I enjoy menial tasks like hanging out washing, picking up horse poo, baiting rat traps (rats don't like winter so they start casting around for some warmer lodgings)
• Following Arsenal F.C. - we play Liverpool overnight so I'm forever hopeful (if they lose I'll be momentarily less happy)
• Looking at my record collection and posting photos on the Facebook vinyl group I belong to (the Brand X live album is great so I needed to share that today)
• Listening to MNAC albums and writing about them (Herman Dune was the latest band I never would have discovered without Alex, Lew and Tom's input) 
• Seinfeld (the show - it figures in my daily life in many ways - quotes come to mind and Pinterest groups have stills that instantly make me smile)
• The Beatles posters in my music room (as well as my other decorations in there - they bring me joy everytime)
• Watching Asher interact with his mum and us (Papa and Mema) is a real source of happiness!

Love and peace - Wozza

Okay, I'm gonna take the suit, and the shoes, and the hat (Kramer)

Wie geht's?

Meet Ray. 

He was a character from Seinfeld's The Statue episode. You remember - the psycho cleaner, boyfriend of the kooky Russian writer, Rava, who kinda steals the statue that Kramer has to get back by pretending to be a old school cop.

Got it?

Ray is also the name I gave to Jerry's would be canine companion. An Aussie cattle dog. But then Ray, true to Seinfeld namesake and Aussie battler stereotype, went all batshit psycho and attacked two other dogs at the vets (after having a spat with Jerry and being put in his place) so Ray has been returned to the dog ranger, from whence he came originally.

Poor Jerry.

The search for a companion goes on.

Love and peace - Woz 

I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form (Bob Dylan)

I struggled to buy some Isopropyl Alcohol recently.

Went down on a coffee run from work and popped into the chemist for some contact lens cleaning stuff and...oh yeah - could I have a big bottle of Isopropyl Alcohol please?

Being the professional school teacher that I am, I was, of course, dressed in my customary shirt and tie holding a tray with two take out coffees on it.

I must have looked dodgy.

Suddenly the shop went quiet, the nice lady serving me looked at the floor and a man in a white coat approached me from his platformed area behind the counter.

BTW - I'm with Seinfeld on this. Why do they need to be higher than us? And what's with the white coat anyway? Are they performing such delicate operations up there they need to be dressed in sterile white coats?



My dad (a pharmacist) would have liked that!

Anyway - he walked purposefully towards me and sizing me up as a potential deviant, asked what I wanted the Iso..A for!

Clearly he thought my shirt and tie and coffees were an elaborate cover.

"Um - it's for...um...er...cleaning records", I eventually offered.

Apparently the stuff can be used for other purposes!! Who knew?

He smiled, so I managed to score three bottles of the stuff. 

Spent today cleaning up a stack of vinyl I got from a local second hand dealer (among all the dusty Val Doonican, Ivan Rebroff, James Last and Nana Mouskouri there were a few pearls that he let me have for my appraisal) and now they are playable at least. 

Jobriath (a pretty cool find) is a little crackly but hasn't stuck yet and the crackles add a layer of character. 

Thanks Mr Chemist!

Love and peace - Wozza

Up to my neck in you (Mark Kozelek)

Keegan surprised me with a lovely gift recently - a Vandelay Industries T shirt.

On quite a few levels - that is so cool! That someone somewhere decided to actually make one and that Keegan would know about it somehow and that he would get one for me. All very cool!



Love and Peace - Bob Sacamano

Good morning, good morning, good morning ah* (The Beatles)

I've always maintained that three things define my interests: Star Wars, The Beatles and Arsenal F.C.

It's high time that holy three was formally expanded.

Seinfeld - the greatest T.V. show of all time, has been a constant since the first time I saw it. It hooked me immediately (for the record, 1992, - it was Season 4, episode 1 - The Trip - when Jerry and George try to find Kramer in Hollywood).

Of the four - The Beatles is the earliest obsession (Ed Sullivan Show as a pre teen in the sixties), followed by the Arsenal (1971 and Charlie George), and Star Wars (1977 at a cinema in downtown Auckland).

That covers many of my interests - T.V., film, sport and music. I'm a simple guy.

My children know these things well. Samantha sent me a fantastic yellow submarine cup and saucer set for father's day (as she lives in SF I get two pressies per year - wahoo) and Jade gave me that Easter egg a while back. We opened it and scoffed it down on the weekend.

Jade also sent me this wonderful link to the Seinfeld set.

Which brings me to cereal. Jerry loves cereal. I have always loved cereal.

Growing up it started with basics cos we didn't have much to choose from: Weetbix and porridge was about it until Mr Kellogg discovered there was a market other than America for his corn flakes.

Trips to Sydney as a youngster were eye openers. They had things like Fruit Loops and Skippy Corn fakes and Frosties. Amazing!

These days I cobble together some gluten free cereals into a delish breakfast or dinner: 

• Raspberry and Maple Nut Nograin-ola
• Vogel's Cafe Style Light Berry
• Gluten Free Granola from Adam and Eva.

Mix that lot together and it's a heavenly cocktail.

Mmm - can't wait until breakfast tomorrow now!

Love and peace - Wozza

* A bonus for you - one of the Kellogg's adverts that helped inspire John Lennon's Good Morning Good Morning on Sgt Peppers:

Hey you! Don't help them to bury the light (Pink Floyd)

Media watch: Recently, I've had a blast on Twitter finding my favourite media personalities and places. It's made me especially media conscious of late so here's a brief run down on what I'm reading, listening to, and watching.

Words: I'm in between Mojos (new one must be close) so I've been reading a heap of things at once: 

I'm enjoying Malcolm Gladwell's David and Goliath book. It's subtitled Underdogs, misfits and the art of battling giants. Gladwell's style of writing is very conversational, which makes it easy to pick up from time to time.

Karl Pilkington's The Meaning Of Life was a present from Jade for Father's Day. He's weird man and he's a weird man but he makes disturbing sense disturbingly regularly - "They say having kids is a life changing experience but so is losing a leg". WHAAT???

If you read my Baggy Trousers blog http://baggytrewsers.blogspot.co.nz/
then you already know I'm hooked on Velocity by Ahmed/Olander - it's a m a z i n g! I'm rereading it before giving it to a friend to read.

Finally - I've started reading Dr Ian Hunter's Imagine (what Wedgwood, Da Vinci, Mozart, Eiffel, Disney and many others can teach us about innovation). The doctor is a recent acquaintance- he gave me a copy of his book when I saw him recently- much appreciated Ian!
 
Sounds: As you all know I can't live without music. Currently I've been listening to a pile of new CDs - Steven Wilson, Pineapple Thief, Jack White, Dungen, Anathema, Mastodon, Shearwater, Opeth, Ray LaMontagne, Jake Bugg and some old Pink Floyd albums.

If you read my music blog http://googoogarjoob.blogspot.co.nz/ you also know that I'm working my way through my singles collection - currently up to Wilson Pickett.

Views: I've had a yearning to watch Samuel L Jackson movies of late so Snakes On A Plane (a terrific film), Shaft, Coach Carter and others. TV series - The Mentalist season five has just been completed and as regular readers know I'm working my way through Seinfeld again - up to season 7 now. It IS the greatest sitcom ever!

Love and peace - Wozza
 

Master of the house, doling out the charm (From Les Miserables)

I love Seinfeld. Again - this is not news, I'm aware of that.

I've started watching it again from Season One - I think Jade and I last did this when we were living in Stratford so it's past due. Unfortunately Jade isn't home these days to share this experience, and SWMBO doesn't get Seinfeld so I'm watching a few episodes each day before school when she's asleep.

After a shaky pilot (billed as The Seinfeld Chronicles) it quickly got into a more natural stride and gave hints of the greatness to come. Season One was quite short - only five shows.

I'm currently in Season Two (thirteen shows) and I've laughed out aloud during every episode so far (and I know these episodes well - trust me!).

There were some iconic Seinfeld moments in Season Two: I had a pony (The Pony Remark); Elaine's father and Jerry's monologue about fathers - The hell with the world, I can make my own people (The Jacket); I'm never eating here again (The Busboy); thin ice George - very thing ice (The Baby Shower); the George rendition of a Les Mis song (also in The Jacket); my mothers making a roast o potatoes (The Statue); maybe the dingo ate your baby (The Stranded); and you know we're living in a society (The Chinese Restaurant) are only a few.

This clip from The Chinese Restaurant episode in Season Two tells you all you need to know about why I love George Costanza, Jerry Seinfeld and the show itself.

The comic timing by Jason Alexander is superb. My laugh aloud moment - George beckons Jerry over and says after a pause - If anything happens here, can I count on you?




Love and peace - Wozza

Ketchup, pretty name for a girl (Jerry Seinfeld)

Sadly Waffles has not returned home. It's been over two weeks since we last saw him. We have no clue what has happened to him but clearly something bad has. 

We're searched Red Phoenix farm and all the roads around us, contacted all the neighbours to check if they've had any locked buildings, reported his disappearance to the SPCA and nothing.

Being somewhat resigned to the inevitable, SWMBO and I decided to rescue another cat with the open plan idea that if the Waf returns we'll have two cats from the Waipukurau SPCA to look after and so... please welcome Seven to the whanau.

Seven is very like the cat we had before Wafi - a smokey grey and white female - which we called Soda.

Why Seven? Simple - watch the following clip from Seinfeld.



In the same episode Soda emerges as George's second favourite name so given the similarity in the cats' colours - Seven seemed like a perfect choice. 

Watch out for Ketchup (or Mug) next time!

Oh, my special little guy has a sweetheart (Marge Simpson)

Big special congratulations to Adam and Ashleigh who have just announced their intention to ratify their nuptials. Yes they are engaged.

Being 2013 they announced via Facebook rather than the old school notice in the paper. I sent them a message back and used the word fiancé and my brain immediately went into Seinfeld mode.



I've discussed this with Jade before - Seinfeld has relevancy for EVERY situation and I'm not even kidding.

Any relationship, any shopping expedition, any human endeavour - there is a phrase or a line, a joke or a situation from the show that will fit.

Like The Beatles. You'll have long noticed that I use lines from songs (or pop culture in general, like the Simpsons) to title my posts. I could easily just use Beatle lyrics every time. they are often the first things that come to mind.

But anyway...I digress.

Seinfeld.

I was having a discussion with some students this morning about how randomness may have gathered negative connotations.

What pops into my mind?

This.



Love and peace and hurrah to A/ A - Wozza

I'm a dancing fool (Frank Zappa)

Some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you.

As you can tell - the bear was eating me in that last posting. But as Frank Sinatra says - that's life!

However - The unexamined life is not worth living according to Socrates (not the Brazilian footballer).

Okay - that's Sinatra and Socrates done and dusted in two paragraphs.

To lift the mood (don't wanna bring y'all down and to cheer myself up) I thought I'd try an experiment. Namely - whatever song was next on my ipod shuffle would be the title for the post and then I'd find a clip from Seinfeld to relate to it. So the song was Zappa's Dancing Fool and the clip just picked itself.

Enjoy!



Love and peace - Wozza

Update 32 and Inspiration 5

Hey everyone - it's been a funny old week (and a half) with not a lot of obvious highlights. But I suppose that's to be expected in a week where one of my teachers is arrested and charged with three counts of indecent assault on two of my students! I hope you weren't drinking a cup of coffee while reading that - it's probably all over the screen now! Why can I tell you that? Because he didn't get name suppression, nor did my school so if you google Stratford High School these days you'll get a news report I'm sure. This'll explain why the update's a tad delayed too - I've been otherwise preoccupied!

Anyway here I am finally...obviously it's been a testing week but there were highlights - Jacky and I visited Orewa last weekend and saw dad, Ross and the rest of the northern Purdys, as well as Adam and Keegan in Hamilton. Jade got some replacement cats for Ellie from the SPCA (names - Squeeze and Soda), fathers' day was the best ever - Jade gave me the boxed set of Seinfeld season 8, Samantha rang and the boys gave me CDs. Wahoo. Adam's two CDs were of him playing all the instruments and pretty snazzy it is too. Keegan's were of the Mats Morgan Band and Naked City. They were great too. Clearly both outfits are Zappa devotees of the Hot Rats era. Me too! In sport - Arsenal had a great win 4-0 at Blackburn then 3-1 away at Bolton; Manchester United (aka the scum) Spurs (aka old scum) both lost last weekend. Double wahey!! The All Blacks beat the aussies to take both the Bledisloe Cup and Tri-Nations. I'm never that bothered with the tri-nations thing but I'd hate it if we lost the Bledisloe (for the puzzled - this is the annual competition between Australia and NZ). As for music - while in Auckland I visited Real Groovy and picked up some Porcupine Tree and Dream Theater CDs.

Nature watch: two more lambs born healthy yesterday but three lambs (triplets) didn't make it last week unfortunately. The weather is starting to get milder with less rain and the grass is shooting away. It's light now until after 6pm.


Inspiration time and boy did I need it this week. My inspiration for this post is ESCAPISM. Ever since I was young boy I played that silver ba...ahem...ever since I can remember I've escaped! For a start it was sport, books and comics, then TV and radio as well as sports, books and comics, then from about 1970 onwards increasingly it's been through film and music and yes I really am that shallow. At this stage of my life it's Seinfeld, Dream Theater, blogging and currently I'm reading Edward Rutherfurd's 'London'. 700 pages down and a hundred to go.

I've just had a think about things and realise that (duh) escapism isn't inspirational, it's...um..escapism. While the above thoughts stand - Spiderman, Seinfeld etc don't exactly inspire me. I love them but I don't aspire to have spidey like powers or do stand-up. But music does continue to inspire me so instead I'll go with a picture of Lennon for the gallery on the left. The inspired bit comes from his example (of soul laid bare honesty, humanity, and coruscating talent). The luminous talent comes out obviously in his songs. Top 3 - 'Don't let me down' (as you know), 'Across the universe', and 'Yer blues'.



I'll also name check as inspirations my favourite writers - William Goldman (on the right) and Nick Hornby. I've still only ever written one fan letter in my life and it was some years ago and it was sent to William Goldman. His screenplays are great (Butch Cassidy, All the President's Men, Princess Bride and many more) but I love his novels and non-fiction books ever more. The amazing 'Adventures in the Screen Trade' and 'The Colour of Light' are worth seeking out. For Nick Hornby it was like finding my long lost twin brother- he was also born 1957, also is an Arsenal obsessive and also was an English teacher (okay that's where similarities end but you get the drift). He also writes like a dream. I read his stuff and instantly both get it and wish I'd written it. Give his blog (on the left) a try and you'll see what I mean. 'Fever Pitch' is in my top 5 all time and his 'About a Boy' was a great book and outrageously an even better film!!

Okay - it's Monday - another day in paradise. Have a good 'un, we have two weeks holiday coming after this week - that should fire me up!

Love and peace out - W