tumbles, new views, and fireworks

tumbles:

as if i needed more of a push to jump into the aerobatic arena, the RI airshow was this weekend. we had a big tent that we set up and i worked the whole weekend. it was such a wash. the rain came down in buckets some of the time, other times it was just a spit. either way, flying action was kept at a minimum. however, my idol, sean tucker did go up a few times each day. since the clouds were so low he couldnt do his normal routine, so he improv'd the whole thing, and narrated while he did it. some people sit back and watch this stuff and say "wow, that guys is nuts" or at the very least a "holy shit." some people actually get nauseous watching it. ive done it, and i love it, so i sit back and say "goddamn, i gotta do that."

so im gonna.

aerial advantage in nashua, nh is gonna teach me how. muahahahahaha.

new views:

dont know where this came from but ive decided, or realized, that i have an unconcious but definite solid idea of what it takes for love to manifest. i realized today that its total bullshit. it takes nothing and everything all at the same time. i can only surmise that there are keywords, as opposed to items, that need to be able to be used in describing whatever it is that is going on between two people for love to manifest. they are: cooperation, respect, desire, compromise, trust, faith, honest, and want. yes i know some of those are interchangeable, but i think each one has its own qualites which demand inclusion. as i always say, what is not written is as important if not more important than what is written. please note the absence of the following words: devotion, need, pride, and unconditional


fireworks:

im coming to boston for the fourth. roofdecks or horse or harry's or whatever i dont care. monday night til wednesday morning.

too close for comfort

most of you know that i went to Oshkosh last year, the worlds biggest airplane get-together type thang. one of the performances was by a group known as the "stars of tomorrow." its basically a young aerobatic group started by and under the tutelage of famed pilots mike goulian and sean tucker. it consisted of nick nilmeyer, eric tucker, and jessy panzer. so they went up and basically dueled for the crowd. it was great but it pissed me off. these kids were my age...flying at OSH. its basically like playing baseball in high school and getting invited to play in the mlb all star game.
i was staying late at work...again (didnt mind, stupidly) and i was done with everything that had to be done. i was reading something about another acro pilot when zeke (boss) poked his head in and asked if i was reading up about the pilot that died.

what?

i jumped online to see if i could find out what happened to who. sure enough: "Nick Nilmeyer was tragically killed March 21, 2006 while landing his airplane following a practice session."

gasp. nausea. shake.

ill admit to being rather melodramatic at times. ive perhaps made mountains out of molehills. in my last flying related post, i talked about being happy to be alive, i was never in any danger of anything, just to clarify. the only danger that was there was that i would make a stupid decision, which i didnt because im not a moron. all melodrama aside, reading this shook me up a bit.

richard bach wrote/writes about parallel universes and how one is born each time we make a decision; about how there are an infinite number of ourselves, each leading different lives based off of those decisions. nick nilmeyer was certainly my doppleganger that started flying younger. an article about him talks about having posters of airplanes on his walls as a kid, and bugging his dad to take him to airshows and always having his eyes turned skyward. i was no different. he was leading the life that i am so tirelessly trying to get to. and he died.

you hear about people dying in crashes. it is somehow an accepted part of flying. everyone knows someone that crashed at some point. at the very least, youve heard that story about the guy that did such and such over at that airfield and died or something. as i said, its somehow an accepted part of the culture. ive romanticized this aspect of it in the past. its that threat of utter destruction that keeps you honest and perfect and careful; its that aspect of flying that is most thrilling. all that is true, until you hear something like this where you can remember talking with someone, watching them fly, watching the blood flow through their veins, watch them light up a million sets of eyes with their airplane, and then know that they augered in and were snuffed out so innocently and so quickly, without fanfare, or headlines or even so much as a puff of smoke. there is no glory in it, wont be any memorial set aside, and life resumes the next instant just the same as it did before he died.

so what do you do? almost everyone says "it wont happen to me, i wont make that mistake." but deep down you have a certain amount of fear that you will and you question whether or not its worth it. is it? at the end of the day i packed up my bag and headed out. i was still thinking about nilmeyer, asking myself that very question. it was late, the sun was low in the sky. pulling the clouds with it as it sank, turning them whatever pink and orange and yellow it could throw at them but leaving the rest of the sky that deep deep blue that every pilot is in love with. even if it isnt worth it, it sure does put up one hell of an argument.

another nothing post

i really just felt like writing something, so here we go.

i should do a state of the union address type of entry. leaving boston was built up and up and up and then i kid of let it fall flat, as least in terms of blog stuff. so for those who are wondering how i am doing down here in the isle of rhodes here's the update:

i wake up and go to work for 9, sometimes i get there early, by as much as an hour or so. i work pretty much straight through all day and then leave, usually anywhere from a 30 minutes to hour after i should. now then, the old me would be pissing and moaning about this all over the place, about how im not built for this and life should be more than this and what not. youre not going to hear that this time. here's why. i talk to people all day about flying. if i want to, i can walk into one of our hangars and touch a wingtip, i can head outside and watch some planes come in or leave. students consider me a type of authority, almost like the uber student. its great. i dig it heavily. i have to work all weekend, and i cant wait. weird huh?

so thats at least the work portion of RI. thumbs up on that one. how about the rest of it?

nnmmmmmmmggggggg.

tonight there was a massive lightening storm that was flowing just north of my house. i noticed it as i driving back from jj's house. a flash caught my rear view mirror just right. there was no rain. not even any thunder for awhile. just flashes of light coming from behind faceless clouds. and then the light sky lights up like a birthday cake and all at once you see all these clouds that didnt even exist a second earlier. and they they are gone as soon as the lightening hides away again. but for that one split second, everything was clear as day. remarkable. it stretched it self to the ground, across the sky, branched into rakes, and dissappeared again. it was marvelous.

ambig.ui.ty

As soon as I got the physical imperative to find out exactly, exactly where to come from in my spirit when I make music; as soon as I got that, everything else was a side project.”

- jeff buckley

its still faster than driving....

to get your commercial pilots license, one of the things you have to do is complete a 250 mile flight. this means that you have to pick a spot 250 miles away from where you start, fly there and back. i did mine on saturday...or at least half of it. after some consultation with my boss, i decided to go to tangier's island in Virginia. its a small little strip on this teeny little island, known for the best crab cakes this side of the world. its a little further than 250nm, but hey what the hell.
saturday morning i take off out of TF Green in RI and head for long island. i got "cleared direct kennedy" which basically means i flew right to JFK for navigational purposes. from there i turned souther wester, crossed through jersey and into delaware. delware drops off into maryland. at this point, i was watching to see how much gas i had left. the needle was showing less than half a tank and i still had to go quite a ways further. i opted to land at Salisbury Airport in Maryland for some gas. my 250 mile trek was still valid, as this place was already 250nm away. so i flew in, had a fantastic landing, and gassed up. stretched my legs for a bit, walked around the field, and hopped back in the plane to head into virginia.

okay, master switch on, fuel pump on, mixture rich, throttle cracked 1/4 inch, and ignition. set to 1000rpm okay good. whats next on the checklist...okay avionics.....VVRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMmmmmmm pidda pidda pidda pidda pidda VVVRRRROOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmm pidda pidda pidda pidddddddaaaaaa pppppiiiiiiidddddaaaaa puf.

shit.

basically my engine got taken over my some kind of demon that wouldnt let the damn thing run right. i started her back up and the same thing happened again, uncontrollable throttle. i could get it up to take off power, but it was reluctant to do so. now what? im in goddamn maryland. RI is three hours back the other way. shit.

i called the school up, told them what was going on, talked to our mechanic, his exacts words were "well, sounds pretty dead to me." great. zeke (boss) says he'll fly down inthe twin comanche (twin engine plane, lovingly referred to as the twinco) and be there around 6. it is 2pm at this point. great. i gotta kill some time.

im laying under the wing of my defunct airplane, head on the tire, getting eaten alive by bugs, when these three cool looking planes come in. one was a biplane and he stayed at the far end of the field, one was a regular cessna, and the last one was a bright red cessna 140. 140's are antique cessna's that i slightly have a love affair with. so i followed to plane to its hangar and the old guy pilot hops out. i waved, he waves and i yell "you just made my day! i got a broken airplane and i love 140's so thanks!" he says "wanna beer?"

ladies and gents, i now present to you ken lennox: airplane bum

ken is old, but probably younger than he looks, has the 140 and a Zodiac, a plane he built. he has a hangar for both of them which doubles as his own maintenance area. i opted for a soda seeing as how i might still fly later. he leads me through the hangar, out the other side where he parked his winnebago. now im not saying that he lives in this thing, but im not saying he doesnt either. he tosses me a root beer, cracks open a yiengling for himself and we sit on some chairs he's got in his hangar. some other airplane bums join us and soon im sitting in the middle of a bunch of old guys trading stories that are so absurd its tough to believe them.....until they show the scars to prove them. a few hours go by, the airplane bums start to wander off to tinker on their own planes, i bid ken farewell, wish him luck with this stinson restoration and head back to my airplane.

even getting stuck somewhere with flying isnt so bad.

zeke finally shows up at 6 as promised and checks out the airplane. of course now it runs fine, but he doesnt want to risk flying it, i sure as hell dont. we bring the plane to the hangar i was able to arrange for the night, say goodnight to her and walk away. we piled into the twinco and shoved off back to RI while the diamond (airplane i flew down) sat on the ground in maryland, waiting to get fixed. ill admit, watching the airfield shrink into the distance was a little sad. my poor little airplane.

coming back north was amazing. i just saw the ugly side of flying. i was put into a situation where other people have decided to chance it, they made the opposite decision i made. maybe they lived, but im sure some of them died as a result. i was happy with myself for not being stupid, but still, you feel kind of small. almost like a coward. just as im feeling weird about this whole scenario, happy with myself, but kind of let down, but happy to be alive, but wishing i was good enough to overcome this thing....just when im caught in this fog, the sun started glowing a deep red. the water below reflected back a thousand suns, ive seen this all before of course, but just like the first time, and just like the last time, it was the most beautiful thing ive ever seen. we landed back at tf green around 9:30pm, a full 8 hours after i landed in maryland. providence to maryland to providence, in 11 hours. its still faster than driving.

of course i have to go back to maryland to get the plane and fly her back to RI.

sweet.

"words, and line, and verse, and in order..."

i know more lyrics than you do. its just the truth. i just remember them....easily. so which ones stand out? which are the best? ladies and gentlemen, the poot presents its top 5 lyrics of all time: *please note, this was extremely difficult to come up with. it took hours. seriously.

1) Jeff Buckley - Lover you should have come over

Its never over
my kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder
its never over
all my riches for her smiles when i slept so soft against her
its never over
all my blood for the sweetness of her laughter
its never over
she's the tear that hangs inside my soul forever

the most perfect display of love ive ever heard. but its not over the top. its sincere, and delicate, with just enough desperation to hint at a longing and a need, without being desperate or dependent. buckley said he wasnt a great lyricist and he is right, he is oftentimes overly ambigious and impressionistic. this however, is beyond brilliant.




2) Bob Dylan - Its alright ma..

"its alright ma, its life and life only."

life and life only. this of course comes at the end of a 7 minutes of rapid fire ranting about problems with government, love, the world. but in the end, it doesnt matter. no, no, its ok. fuck it. its courageous and brave and defiant all at once. stand in the face of the worst aspects of the world, give it the finger, smirk, turn your back and walk away whistling a tune. the greatest writer of our time at his best and most prolific.



3) Rolling Stones - "You cant always get what you want"

while the title and subsequent line of "but if you try sometimes, you get what you need" is the obvious pick for this tune, i choose the following couplet:

"she was practiced at the art of deception
i could tell by her blood stained hands"

paints a picture so sinister and raw that it sticks with you. its brutal. i love it.




4) Bob Dylan - "Like a Rolling Stone"

i was going to try to dig a little deeper than the obvious, but there is just no denying this line. so simple, so honest, so down and dirty but hopeful.

"if you aint got nothin, you got nothin to lose."

when i was young, there were certain songs or lines in songs that my dad would point out to me when they came on the radio. literally, he would point at the radio when it came on, a habit that ive inherited. this was one of those moments.


5) martha wainwright

"ive got no reason, to be alive oh give me one."

sorry, i couldnt help it. in addition to trying to avoid the obvious, ive tried to boil the delivery away from the lyrics, leaving just the lyric itself. with this final entry though, i couldnt help but think of the moment of delivery. when this is sung, a hook is driven into your chest and lifts you up out of your seat and places you on a pedestal. you hang precariously for a moment but she lets you down so very easily and comfortably. if an entire song was comprised of these ten seconds, i would listen to it end on end.



the first vlog entry will be coming shortly. stay tuned.

de-gloved

ever notice that sticking to your guns sucks? the moment you decide youve been wronged you are immediatly setting yourself up to bring someone else down. its viscious. there really wont be any clearly defined winner in whatever battle has now been preordained to happen (phrasing error, i know) to take place. at least not with me. why?

because i am a wuss.

and a sucker.

it happens to me all the time. actually, in addition to wuss and sucker, we might also have to add push-over. anyway, no matter the situation, i always feel like i did something wrong afterwards, really wrong. wrong to the point where i was wrong even to think the way i did in the first place. but, i try to remember how i felt in the first place and then maybe i dont feel so wrong afterwards. but then the in the first place me has no idea how the afterwards me will feel once some type of discussion has taken place. usually, i feel in the wrong. not wronged, in the wrong. i think i have an overflowing amount of morality and, dare i say, selflessness. i generally will always put someone else first in the hierarchy of emotional satisfaction than my self. sometimes, it gets reciprocated, sometimes i feel like santa forgot me on christmas when i was 4. and then killed my bunny. and ate it. twice. but seeing as how i put other people first, at least santa got a meal. twice.

new resolution: have the in the first place me have a nice little chat with the afterwards and reach some type of consensus. cut back on morality and selflessness.

as phil collins once said "this is the land of confusion."

welcome welcome.

wow, i suck.

i just went back and read journal entries i posted dating back to early 2004. some of you may have been loyal readers since that time, but ill bet thats not typically the case. either way, it became quite clear to me, quite quickly at that, that the quality of my writing has dwindled. i dont think its too bold to say that i used to write some fairly bombastic entries, not to be confused with flagrant. im not sure what caused the change. my mind has switched gears. it used to be functioning on a creative basis 24/7. now it is more mature, more clouded with aspects of "real life" which is to be read as bills, money, job, and utter crap.
i used to go off on long tangents about love and romance and what it means, exploring every region of me and whatever was going on at the moment. the simple explanation as to why those have stopped is because that aspect of living has simply stopped pouring into my life. im not spiteful of that, i wouldnt even say regretful. as i wrote on some previously glorious day, the world is just more colorful when you have someone, even if you are just calling them up to share some minute little detail with them, because you know theyll care. that is something that is just nice to have.
that being said, i came across this little paragraph that i wrote. "too many people claim love whereas its just a result of convenience and satisfaction. thats not real love. thats settling for something. give me the struggle, give me the proof that this is something of a divine nature, it was meant to be...it seems to me that people are afraid to believe in their own personal truths, rather taking the safe middle ground, umcommited to anything or anyone. but in doing so, are you ever really living? are you ever caring? will you ever know real joy or perhaps real sorrow? dont be afraid to stand for what you believe in people. it might just mean the difference between a life worthwhile and a life dismissed as trite and unremarkable."

i will stand by that as much as i did the day i wrote it.

so how hard should it be to find? ive always entertained the thought that she, whoever that may be, certainly isnt in rhode island. the idea that they are somewhere else, leading a completely different life, experiencing completely different things, knowing different roads, is exciting. if you consider that it is inevitable that one day we'll meet, well its enough to send me to bed, comfortable and not at all alone. as long as we have the same dreams, not even now, or tomorrow, but eventually.

Top 5 “lazy train” / bottle of wine albums:

Okay, youre home alone, there isn’t anything going on, youre slightly apathetic to the world at the moment. You might open a bottle of wine (shiraz preferably) or just lay down and relax. This is what you should listen to. Note that the criteria for these selections is fairly harsh, as the entire album has to be good enough to require a complete listen.

1) Jeff Buckley – Live at Sine’
he pours through sadness, anger, devotion, love, heartbreak on the disc. It is still the best live album I have ever bought, and its just him and his guitar. I cant count how many times this album has landed on one of my lists, but when youre this good, its expected. Key moment on the album; listen to “sweet thing” , close your eyes, put your head in between the speakers.

2) Charlie Haden and Pat Metheny – Beyond the Missouri Sky
I picked this up because it has the best artwork on an album I have ever seen. Some of you might know that I have this thing about the Midwest, I don’t know, I just think its beautiful. The album cover catches that. musically, it is without question the best acoustic guitar playing I have ever heard. The tones, melodies, atmosphere, and taste of the album is nothing short of brilliant. Its like velvet.

3) Aretha Franklin – Chicago meets the Delta
Aretha. That voice. Maybe not so much now, but back in the 60’s? I dare you to find someone that was better connected to whatever it is that causes emotion like this. Call it mojo, call it God, call it bob, it doesn’t matter. The woman lays down some of the best blues singing ever recorded here. She gets jumpy, she gets down and dirty, but she never falters. And anytime someone can distort a microphone just with the volume of their voice….yeah.

4) kylie minogue
just kidding.

4) radiohead – kid a
somber enough for the wine, raucous enough to make you dive in and look for a way out…reluctantly. Find your way through the layers only to find out that you haven’t found your way out of anything, it just keeps going. Highlight: how to disappear completely. There is a spot in this song, towards the end, where Yorke just hangs on one note, all the other instrumentation, orchestral mostly, falls always, going from a major to a minor and it just sucks the breathe out of your lungs. Ive said it once and Ill say it again, radiohead is so good that it pisses me off.

5) Sigur Ros – ()
I know people who have said that this album saved their life. I can understand why. Its beautiful beyond description, but quiet enough to be accessible. Go find a live video of them playing track 1 (none of the songs have titles, at least not on the album) and watch his vein pop out of his neck at the end. Bravado. See them play 8 live and try not to make fists with your toes as they wind there way through the Appalachian crescendo at the end. Just listen to try to figure out how someone could write something this good.

Honorable mentions (a first for the top 5’s): nine inch nails – the fragile; sigur ros agaetheus bryjum; beck – sea changes; bela fleck – tales from the acoustic planet vol 1; pink floyd – dark side (I know I know, but ya know what? Its so good that everyone knows this, so it didn’t make the top 5.)

the hyprocrite strikes back

yes, i know that that entire last post was one giant complaint about people complaining. im going to choose to call it a commentary, as opposed to a complaint. so there, im still smarter than you.


das it fo now

good luck and goodbye

how many conversations have you had recently that are solely based on complaints? oh this person sucks, government sucks, this band blows, im single, my ex sucks blah blah blah blah blah. i will gaurantee you any amount of money that in the past week at least 70% of all the conversations you have held in a non-professional setting have been based on some type of complaint or dissatisfaction with some element of your life, no matter how big or small.

fuck that.

you know why everyone complains about shit? do you know why it is that everyone is bitching about everything all the time? because its goddamn easy to, thats why. its easier to be unhappy than it is to be happy, of course it is. how easy is it to go around saying that nothing is right, nothing is good, everything sucks as opposed to being happy with where you are with everything. e-x-p-o-n-e-n-t-i-a-l-l-y. i think it has a lot to do with keeping yourself out of something, staying noncommital. figure that once you say you are happy with something or something, you are setting a precedent. you are expected to remain happy with this thing until a) you die or b) it ends and you end up heartbroken or at the very least, back to square one, squabbling in a puddle of dissappointment, smelling like piss. so if you follow the logic, and assimilate dissatisfaction with fear, you could basically then deduce that most people are goddamn cowards.

suck it up folks.

wuss.