The Jennifer Dispatches IV: Tim Sequiturs

Jennifer reports to me the following:

Tim woke up from a nap and started to wave his left arm around wildly like he was looking for an alarm clock to shut off.

When Jen asked what he was doing with his arm, Tim said "I'm trying to think of all of the simple classifications of flowers."

Jen giggled quietly and asked him if he knew what he had just said.

"Sure. Yes." he replied, as though she was the crazy one, and then: "I don't knooooooooooooow."

Then he went back to sleep.

Later, Tim had no memory of any of this.

The Jennifer Dispatches III: Tim's Face

Jennifer tells me that, once, while in bed with Tim, he sat bolt upright, clutching his face in both his hands.

He cried out: "My face is too SMALL! I feel like I have a DOLL'S FACE!"

I asked Tim what happened. He said the feeling just went away eventually.

The Rear Window (of Section 17, Row 21)

At the Jazz game the other night, the guy sitting next to Tim (middle aged, ugly like a bridge troll) has binoculars around his neck.

But he never used them except when the cheerleaders came out to do a routine.

The guy's wife didn't seem to care at all.

We Are the Guy Fieri We've Been Waiting For

Me: Why is there so much Guy Fieri?

Tim: Every generation gets the Guy Fieri they deserve, Jeff.

Me: But the bleached blond blowout and the bowling shirts. He is the sort of person who has a mancave - and calls it that.

Tim: Don't forget about his Ritz cracker cheesesteak sliders.

Me: Is that a real thing?

Tim:

Me: Jeeeeeeeeeeeesus.

Tim: You're going to eat those and watch old Superbowls in your mancave, Jeff

Me: Have you seen the thing he does with his sunglasses?

Tim: You mean where they are on the back of his head?

Me: Yeah. They should put him on Mount RushBro.

Hit Me with Your Best Soup

Stepping out of the car this morning at the gas station (happy to get a brief respite from the pungent smell of tomato soup that Tim carries with him every morning; a smell-scarf he wraps around his head before he leaves the house), I walked past an enormous tan-colored Chevy Suburban with Wyoming plates idling in the parking space in front of the little convenience shop.

In the driver's seat was a burly, cowboyish fellow, late thirties/early forties. Wafting from the vehicle, like the smell of soup off of a Tim, was Pat Benetar's "Hit Me with Your Best Shot."

I went into the little shop and bought some window washing fluid. I paid and then made my way back to my car, all the while being implored to "fire away-ay!"

While I was filling the reservoir under the hood, I had a chance to hear most of the song. When it finally faded away, I waited with pronounced interest to find out what this guy would be listening to at full volume next. To my surprise, it was Pat Benetar's "Hit Me with Your Best Shot."

I finished refilling the fluid in my car, closed the hood, and crawled back into the driver's seat where I was greeted with a nearly palpable rush of soup. (what IS that, anyway?)

iPod Roulette with Tim

So. For this installment of iPod roulette I got my brother-in-law, Tim, to subject his randomized music library to our scorn or vicarious embarrassment or whatever. The results, I think you'll see, were quite different from Eric's, a fact which will make Eric the saddest man in America this Holiday season, I'm sure.

Jeff: Okay. So now we're on the record, Tim. Do you have the iPod--do you have it on shuffle yet?

Tim: I haven't yet.

Jeff: Okay, do it now.

Tim: Want me to push 'shuffle songs?'

Jeff: Yeah. Like, start a new shuffle.

Tim: Here we go.

Jeff: Okay. Tell me what the first song is and then pause it.


Tim: The first song is . . . is Charles Brown.

Jeff: What's the song?


Tim: The song is 'Lonesome Feeling.'


Jeff: 'Lonesome Feeling.'

Tim: And I have never heard this song before.


Jeff: (Laughter) Well, you have headphones there, right?


Tim: Yeah.

Jeff: So listen to it; see if you recognize it. I'll take a minute. You listen to some of it.


Tim: Okay. (Pause for about thirty seconds) Yeah. Never heard it before.


Jeff: (Laughter)


Tim: But it's off his record Driftin' Blues. And, uh--

Jeff: (Laughter) Wait a minute. I am reasonably certain that you only have that album because I gave it to you. And so, what? You never listened to it? Cuz I have that album and I don't necessarily remember that song, but I love Charles Brown.

Tim: Yeah, I mean, it's saxophone rich and so, I'm sure it's . . . good.

Jeff: (Laughter) What, does that drive you into the corner?


Tim: No, no, no. I think it's . . . it's good.

Jeff: Well, so, here's what you have to do immediately after this interview: put Charles Brown on your damn playlist. Cuz, he's cool. It's soulful.


Tim: I'll do it.


Jeff: All right. So, what's the next song on--that your shuffle comes up with.

Tim: The next song is by Swan Lake. The name of the song is 'Shooting Rockets.'


Jeff: Okay, I've never heard of Swan Lake.


Tim: Swan Lake is a collaboration between Dan Bejar and, uh . . .

Jeff: Yes. No, I have heard of this. And the guy from Wolf Parade, right?

Tim: Yeah. What's his name?

Jeff: Spencer . . .

Tim: Spencer Krug.

Jeff: Krug. Right. Yeah.

Tim: And the other guy from Spencer Krug's old band, the fat kid, the fat guy.

Jeff: (Laughter) That I don't know.


Tim: Frog Eyes. That guy.


Jeff: I got nothing, but okay.

Tim: So, you know. A Canadian power--indie power--group.


Jeff: (Laughter)

Tim: But the album for me kinda fell flat. It has a couple good songs--


Jeff: Do you remember this song in particular?


Tim: Uh. Let me listen to it really quick, just to remember.


Jeff: Yeah.


Tim: Hold on.

Jeff: Yeah.

Tim: (Pause for about thrity seconds) Okay.

Jeff: So?

Tim: Yeah, I do remember.


Jeff: And?

Tim: And it's--it's not anything worth remembering.


Jeff: It's just there.


Tim: You know, Dan Bejar--

Jeff: You went to that Destroyer concert with me, right?

Tim: I did.


Jeff: Yeah. That was cool.

Tim: It was fun.

Jeff: Yeah, all right.

Tim: It was good.

Jeff: Okay, so, uh--but not good enough to make a, uh, a Swan Lake record anything.

Tim: Yeah, I mean . . .

Jeff: All right. What are you gonna do?

Tim: They're at their worst--


Jeff: I gotta say, so far your iPod seems pretty nonplussed with you.


Tim: I know.


Jeff: All right, so what's third?

Tim: Huh?


Jeff: What's third? Third thing on your shuffle. You get five.


Tim: Okay. It is, um . . . John Coltrane. 'Autumn Serenade.'


Jeff: Oh, see, that's--that's a good one.

Tim: And I have heard this one before.

Jeff: Yeah, I hope so.


Tim: And . . . it's good. I like John Coltrane. I'm not a big--I'm not a big jazz person, but there're some things that I like and I do like John Coltrane.


Jeff: Oh, man. You should just go home and listen to John Coltrane until your ears bleed.

Tim: Yeah.


Jeff: You know?

Tim: Anyway, yeah. I like John Coltrane. He's a good guy.

Jeff: (Laughter)


Tim: And this is off the album John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman.


Jeff: So, okay. You have nothing more to say other than "it's good," you bastard? This is, I mean you should be able to wax philosophic about 'Autumn Serenade,' it seems to me.


Tim: (Silence)


Jeff: (Laughter) Okay. Good answer. You win. So what's next? What's fourth?


Tim: Next one?

Jeff: Yeah, fourth.

Tim: Okay. Next one is by the Buena Vista Social Club. 'Orgullecida.'


Jeff: God, all right. I wish my Spanish were better. We should ask Nate what that means.


Tim: Orgullecida. I dunno.

Jeff: Do you remember which one that is?

Tim: Yeah. It's um, the one that's called 'Orgullecida.'


Jeff: (Laughter)

Tim: (Sings) "Orgullecida!"

Jeff: (Laughter)

Tim: Yeah, you know. It sounds like that.

Jeff: Did you see the movie? The documentary about the making of the album?

Tim: Yeah. This really--this album made me really like Cubans.

Jeff: (Laughter)

Tim: So, you know.


Jeff: It did what all those posters of Che could never do for you.


Tim: Yeah.

Jeff: So, did you also see that they released a live recording, I think from that New York concert from the end of the documentary. I think that's the concert they just released as a live album and on Metacritic it's like one of the best reviewed albums of the year.


Tim: Hmm.


Jeff: Yeah. Even though it's, I think, the same songs that you already have, so . . .


Tim: (Silence)

Jeff: No strong feelings about that, though . . .


Tim: I think, out of--I mean, there's some other, some better songs, but I think that entire record that they made was--


Jeff: It is really listenable.

Tim: I listen to it every summer.


Jeff: Yeah, I agree.


Tim: I listen to it at, you know, barbecues and--

Jeff: No, it is really listenable. It does always sound good. Did you ever buy any of the spinoff albums by the different people who were in . . .

Tim: Yeah. What's the old guy's name?


Jeff: They're all old, dude. That's kind of the gimmick.

Tim: (Laughter) The guy who's the singer, what's his name?

Jeff: Oh, I do know his name, but now I can't remember it. As soon as we're being recorded I . . . go blank. Ah, it doesn't matter. But you have that one, too?


Tim: Yeah, I do. What's his name? I don't remember.

Jeff: If I think of it later I'll pretend you remembered it in the written version of this.

[Editor's Note: I didn't so pretend and his name is Ibrahim Ferrer.]


Jeff: So, right. Okay. Last one. Last one. Big number. Let's hope it's more embarrassing than any of these have been.

Tim: Yeah, okay. So the last one is . . . drumroll.


Jeff: Drumroll.


Tim: Okay, it is the Pixies.

Jeff: Ah, you fucker. How come every song you've gotten has been totally defensible and good? All right, what song, what song?


Tim: 'Nimrod's Son.'

Jeff: Oh yeah, sure. That's even a good one. Fuck you.

Tim: Yeah. It is good. So, I started listening to the Pixies not too long ago; maybe--no, that's not true. Kind of a while ago. I'm trying to think. Where was I? I was on--I'm trying to remember.

Jeff: It better not be because of, you know, Fight Club. Else I'll come over there and slap you.

Tim: What does it have to do with Fight Club again, I'm sorry.

Jeff: There's that Pixies song 'Where is My Mind' in the end of Fight Club and after that, suddenly people liked the Pixies, you know, who didn't like the Pixies before and I . . . I had to slap all of them.

Tim: Really?

Jeff: Yes. Fuck you.

Tim: I think it was after that. I think it was like 2002. Fight Club was like 2001, right? 2000?

Jeff: Actually, yeah, I don't remember. It might have been before that.

Tim: Yeah, I think it was 2002. I think, yeah, I think I got into them in the end of 2002. I listened to Surfer Rosa. And it's like--It's like one of those--it's only happened a couple of times where, like, you listen to a artist, like, for the first time really and you're kind of just blown away?


Jeff: Yeah. Yeah.

Tim: It's like, I remember the first time I--

Jeff: Changed your life.

Tim: Or like, not really listened to David Bowie, but like, really listened to it, you know?

Jeff: Yeah.


Tim: Yeah, it was incredible. I think Surfer Rosa was the first one I listened to. No! Doolittle. It was like the whole album--


Jeff: Yeah. I know what you mean. It's true. You don't get very many of those, you know?


Tim: And then I listened--shortly after that I listened Surfer Rosa, but I didnt listen to this one, Death to the Pixies until--


Jeff: Death to the Pixies, that's the greatest hits, right?


Tim: Is it?

Jeff: Yeah. I think.


Tim: I didn't listen to this until like 2006.

Jeff: I see. Well, all right. I will tell you this much: the person who is going to be the most angry at you after I publish this blog is gonna be, uh, Eric.


Tim: (Laughter) Why?


Jeff: Who you are going to see soon enough, because he's visiting here for the holidays, and he's probably gonna--oh, he's probably gonna dump a vat of something noxious on you.

Tim: (Laughter)


Jeff: Because he had five songs, and he did not get a single one he was happy with, you know? Yeah, I mean he was like--his iPod was like out to cock-block him on a date or something.

Tim: (Laughter)

Jeff: It was determined to make a fool of him. It was like--it was clearly--compared to this? I mean you got five songs in a row that I think are all--not only mostly--not only are four of these five easily defensible great songs, but the fifth one, which is maybe that Swan Lake song is, you know, it's cool because it's so obscure and--

Tim: It's not a very good album. It is cool I guess because it's obscure, I guess, but it's not--


Jeff: But that was Eric's dream, was to get a bunch of obscure things he didn't really like and pretend that he did.


Tim: Yeah.


Jeff: Okay. So that said, I guess I still should give you the same thing that I gave Eric, even thought it isn't fair to Eric, but I should give you an alternate. Is there a song that, like, you really wish had come up cuz it would have made you seem the way, you know, the way that you wish you seemed?

Tim: Uh . . .


Jeff: Not really?


Tim: Lemme think. I mean, it was pretty fair. I guess.


Jeff: (Laughter) Sure.

Tim: Um, let me think . . .


Jeff: You know, I know that you have, on your iPod, you have songs that you made - how embarrassing would it have been if one of those had come up?


Tim: Embarrassing.


Jeff: Oh, it would have been really--

Tim: Well, I dunno if there would have been much conversation since I'm the only one who has really heard them.

Jeff: Yeah, but I would have pilloried you.


Tim: You would have pilloried me?


Jeff: (Laughter) Yes. It's a word.


Tim: What's that mean?


Jeff: (Laughter)


Tim: (Laughter) What's it mean?


Jeff: Oh geez. You're only doing this now because you know it's getting into the transcript and will make me look worse than you.

END

Teddy Roosevelt and I Cut Our Hairs

Among the many things Teddy Roosevelt and I have in common is our mutual phobia of haircuts.

I’ve never - ever - had a haircut that I liked when I left the salon. I usually like a haircut less once I’ve gotten it home where I can get a look at it. I sustain a kind of low-grade haircut hate for the next few weeks and then, from nowhere, I’ll get a three week period of terrific hairdays - like the eye of the cowlick. From there it is a pretty steady decline into shaggy and frizzy and so back to the salon to take my medicine.

I always assumed it was like this for everyone until I met Tim, who gets a haircut every two or three weeks. Tim is happiest with his haircut at the salon the very moment after it is shorn and - like a car driven off the lot - it almost immediately declines in value as soon as he leaves. Every millimeter of growth kills his perfect head of hair a little bit more.

Me, I have to come home and have Chiara perform haircut triage, snipping and trimming the peculiar topography, trying to salvage what we can from the debacle.

Still, I think Tim denies himself something. I think he denies his hair its natural life cycle. A haircut begins as a tight laced, buttoned down, wide-eyed kid and becomes, over time, a confident individual. It then, inevitably, goes too far off the deep end and ends up a crazy mountain man.

It’s a weird character arc, I admit.

I have only once had the courage to go beyond this third stage and discover what lies beyond the shag. It was a wild ride, but I wouldn’t go back (much like Burning Man).

Anyway, it’s a long, indulgent read for one man’s haircut neuroses. I promise the next time I compare myself to Teddy Roosevelt, I’ll just turn in a short paragraph about our endearing love of the pince-nez.

Cancun: Tim Orders an Odd Dessert

“Tim’s breath always - always - smells of corn.”

This from my sister during a brief pause in the conversation last night at dinner.

“Except when he eats creamed corn. Then it doesn’t smell like anything at all,” she added after a moment’s scrunch-nosed thought.

This was presumably a segue from the discussion of one of Tim’s more surprising actions of the evening: ordering the corn ice cream off the dessert menu.

When it arrived, it came inside an actual cornhusk and was the creamy color of French Vanilla. I guessed it would be less bizarre than, at first blush, it seemed it would be. After all, I reasoned, cornbread is sweet - after a fashion.

This ice cream smelled strongly of raw corn and, delighted at our trepidation, Tim dug in with gusto.

“It’s not bad,” he said. “exactly."

After another spoonful and a moment of thought: "It tastes like corn.”

We pressed him.

“Well, it doesn’t taste like cornbread as much as corn juice.”

This brought a joyful horror to all of us.

Tim ate about half of the stuff before giving a kind of full-body shiver that started from his head and moved down his arms. He set his spoon quietly down on the table and pushed the plate of ice cream away from him.

I got up to go to the restroom and stumbled on the leg of my chair to everyone’s delight.

“It’s an old tequila injury,” I explained. “Acts up sometimes - always tells me when I’m drunk.”

Tim’s breath, it was reported to me later, had not even the faintest trace of corn-smell after eating the corn ice cream.

Cancun: A Difficult Dinner

Dinner last night began in the same way it so often does - with me feigning indignation for comedic effect.

My mother had ordered a bottle of pinot grigio for herself and, after receiving it and tasting it, declared that it was pretty good. My father asked to see the bottle and when he took it from my mother I leaned over Chiara to have a look at it myself.

The first thing I noticed was that it was not, strictly speaking, a pinot grigio at all, but rather a blend of chardonnay and pinot grapes. I slammed my fist down onto the table in mock disgust and cried out “A blend!? Mother, how could you!?”

I then asked my father where the wine was from. He read the back of the bottle and informed me it was from Vera Cruz. Again I slammed my fist down on the table, rattling the flatware.

“Vera Cruz!?” I shouted in faux consternation.

“What’s wrong with you?” my father asked me.

“Nothing,” I replied quietly. “I’m feigning indignation.”

“Why?”

“For comedic effect.”

Stare. Silence.

Later, while discussing the adoption of Children, Tim impressed upon me the importance of a child having a cool name.

“Like Kobe or LeBron?” I asked. “Yeah,” said Tim.

I offered to call an adopted son LeJeff or LeKobe. Somehow or other this led to a more earnest discussion of potential baby names. Jennifer volunteered that she and Tim had already selected baby names for their theoretical children. The top boy name? Finnegan.

I said I thought it was a terrible name with a great nickname: Finn.

My dad said it was a terrible name because it was Irish.

This, as you might have expected, was the screeching turntable of the evening and rather upset my sister. It also rather perplexed the rest of us.

We pursued the topic with abandon.

Turns out my father believes that an Irish name dooms a child to a life of prejudicial treatment because, and i quote:

“Everyone knows that the Irish are a bunch of drunks and criminals” and “No one would ever think an Irish name was anything but low-class.”

It should be noted, for the record, that mine is, of course, an (ethnically) Irish family. Indeed, my father's actual surname is O'Brien.

We tried to explain to my father (over Jennifer’s mild protestations) how dashedly pretentious and upper-crusty a name like Finnegan actually was, but he wouldn’t have it. Instead he insisted over and over again that we must be incredibly ignorant if we didn’t know what people thought about "the Irish."

Tim asked him if he still called it a paddy wagon.

You can guess how this all went over.

Later, my sister offered up the middle ground (and perfectly true) position that words and names change their meaning with time and use. She mentioned the etymological history of her own name ‘Jennifer’ and how it came originally from ‘Guinevere’ who, according to my sister, was a slut.

This really caught in my father’s craw for some reason.

“How was Guinevere a slut!?” he demanded in far too loud a voice.

“Uh, because she slept with someone who wasn’t her husband!” my sister replied, pitched over the table and pointing a fork at my father.

“A knight!” he replied, red in the face, bubbling with anger. “You can’t be a slut for sleeping with a knight of the Round Table!”

“Of course you can! Especially if you are married to King Arthur!”

Here I tossed in that maybe she felt neglected because he was always off somewhere with Merlin, playing cards and whatnot. Tim smirked and, looking down, stirred the food on his plate in ever-tighter circles.

From here things got progressively more ridiculous until, almost as if the weight of the conversation caused itself to collapse, the whole thing just fizzled away leaving little more than a smell of burnt ozone and a cloud of steam.

We ate more or less silently for the remainder of the meal.

Park City: My Father and the Steak Diane

One of the things you do when visiting the family for the Christmas holiday is to bring your family out into public so that you can feel embarrassed not just at home, but in a variety of places.

While dining the other night at a restaurant in Park City, my father spotted Steak Diane on the menu. Like a bite of Proust’s madeleine, this sent him into a kind of reverie.

“It was while your mother and I were living in Northridge,” it began.

“We were driving to Sequoia or somewhere. Anyway, we were near Modesto or Fresno and we were hungry.”

“We were driving through this small town at night, and on either side of us there were scores of car dealerships - and I mean fancy car dealerships - Lincoln, Cadillac, Oldsmobile . . .”

(Chuckles from my sister and I. My father oblivious.)

“We followed the road until we found a little restaurant and stopped for dinner. We both ordered the Steak Diane. Maybe that was the first time I ever had it. The waiter brought it to the table on a cart and it was served flambé. He rolled up the sleeves of his tuxedo jacket and cut our steak right there at the table. It was decadent and it was just delicious. I always remember that.”

Later, after Tim and Chiara had been convinced (how?) by this story to order the Steak Diane, my father lamented the inferiority of the Steak Diane served to them - which did not come flambé.

“This just isn’t Steak Diane,” he said with a shake of his head.