Laughing Sparrow Died

Recently the MySpace Music page of an artist I really liked disappeared on me. If you are fortunate enough to have heard of McFadden's Parachute, consider yourself oh so lucky. If you do, can you name all the members? Well, they can be counted on a very blind butcher's hand-Dagwood McFadden is the only member; a sort of musical jack-of-all-trades who plays every single instrument on the Parachute's records, thanks to that elven magic known as overdubbing. His song 'Silver Days And Purple Nights' was one of the hallucination induction engines that kept me sane during my second and summer semesters as a junior. Apparently this guy was a kid in the late 60's and early 70's, which makes me just a little jealous. After all, he grew up to a lot of great music; not just the popular sounds of the era, but also local bands from his Rochester, NY hometown that specialized in acid garage. Groovy. I hope he's not done with music; if he is, then the world will just go a little more gray for me. If I could just hear 'Silver Days And Purple Nights' just once more, I think I could die happy. I got to thinking of someone else who had fallen off my radar in recent months; a girl I went to Penn Ken with. Fall semester of my freshman year-we had an Honors English Comp class together. She was in the honors program like everyone else in the class; I was just good enough on the placement test to be allowed to schedule it. We never really talked though; me having just come out of homeschooling through high school and being socially inexperienced as a result. Still, she was always quiet herself, but sweet too-not to mention tall, slender, pretty brown hair to her elbows and always wearing long sleeves, as memory recalls. I admit to having a serious crush on her for the rest of that first year at Penn Ken, and all through the next year as well. After moving to State College to finish my degree, I was afraid I'd lose contact with her altogether. But she came up as well; I ran into her one day at the bus stop, and we chatted until my bus came. Sadly, that was the last I saw or heard from her. I recently looked her up in the Penn State directory; she's not listed anymore. I have her PSU e-mail address; but if she's no longer with the university, she'll never get anything I send her. My only hope is to see if she has a page on Facebook and/or MySpace, and pray to God she remembers me. It's depressing, painful even, when a friend steps outside your life like that. It's going to happen to me again at the end of next semester; my friend Emily is, I believe, going back to Harper's Ferry, WV to work at the National Historic Site and resume her internship of last summer with the Park Service. (I did suggest to her, tongue quite within cheek, that she should give working at the Steamtown NHS in Scranton a try; but she rolled her eyes at the idea, being much less of a train buff than me.) Or like my friend Jenny from Honors English; she's in Ireland right now, spending a semester abroad. My friend Stoner Tim is in China, and apparently has a kid there. My friends Mike, Matt, and Jonathan are still back in Pittsburgh, due to Matt and John working jobs right now and Mike taking a major only available at Penn Ken. Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes, turn and face the strain; pretty soon you're gonna get a little older..........

Then It Gets Much Much Worse As The Day Goes On

Ignore the previous post. I've just discovered some kind of error on Blogger whereby the post regarding the Adult Swim anime bumpers failed to register its labels under 'Thematics' after I deleted an early draft of the post. And to boot, the damn thing won't register the same labels if I change that post to a draft.

SHIT.

In a way, this reminds me of an obscure anecdote from the history of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The electrified rail lines from New York City to Washington D.C. were their territory while they were in business; one of the electric locomotive they operated was known as model P5a. Let me focus on their running gear-the important bit of this story. These engines had three large-wheeled drive axles between two pair of load-bearing axles with much smaller wheels.

The center pair of drivers was blind (had no flange) so that these locomotives could use tighter curves than otherwise intended. Thus, without proper alignment, the center wheels ran the risk of derailing and causing general havoc. Large pins were used to hold said wheels within the proper tolerances.

Well, these things wore out (and fell out or broke) more often than was expected. On occasion, a P5a would come into the shops, I believe, at Enola, PA missing a pin or two. Instead of putting in a new pin and making the locomotive serviceable for another few months, the shop men would dig up a dead D-cell battery, about the same diameter of the pin; hammer it into the pin hole with a mallet; slap some grease over it and pray that there wasn't a Federal Railroad Administration inspector for about a hundred miles. All in order to get 'one more run' out of the locomotive before it really needed to come in for a scheduled inspection or needed more work.

Sure is confidence inspiring, isn't it?

Technical Difficulties

Please Stand By

Tommorow Morning You'll Wake Up With The White Noise

Has anybody else noticed those strange pre-show intro bits Adult Swim airs after the anime begins? They are really odd. So much so that I've enjoyed watching them as much-if, God forbid, not more-than the actual programming. I can't tell whether they're a photograph or a frame from a film; or whether they're real subjects or models. They feature a scene-it varies wildly; from high above an intersection between several freeways, to trackside on the Alaska Railroad, to inside some hotel with a decidedly industrial-looking freight elevator (I think). They're all slightly disconcerting and deja-vu inducing, filling me with restlessness and heartache. I don't even know why.

The music is good too.

The first picture is one I can more easily dissect than anyone else, I bet. That's an Alaska Railroad GP-series locomotive from EMD, probably a GP40; pulling a Rader Railcar product built for a 'railcruise' company operating trains across Alaska's natural beauty, for which tourists are supplied by means of a cruise ship. Come on, people, there is such a thing as the AlCan Highway. *shoulda been a railroad*The next is a total mystery. This is where I begin to wonder if these aren't skilfully built dioramas, equally skilfully lit and photographed (better than I did with the tevelision, capturing these fleeting images). This 'Last Chance Saloon' is straight out of some Smokey and the Bandit ripoff, I know it; I just know it! Like it was supposed to be blown up in this 'f4k3rz' S&B and they either forgot, made a spare, or never filmed that bit out of sheer apathy. I can't remember what kind of music is playing in either of these; they both seem to have been some kind of spooky lullaby or something, not particularly remarkable but pleasant and evocative of nighttime themed moods. Or mooded themes. I dunno.
Now comes the one with the really cool music; this cool cat has a really nice bluesy jive to it-something I like to call smoky club music. The smog of fifty or so cigarettes; plenty of minor chords on bass and not particularly overdriven guitar and a simple alternating drum line make for an urbanely spooky atmosphere. Probably the reason I think this one represents a hotel. The music seriously ranks up there with 'Have Love Will Travel' by the Black Keys. Cool tools. I think the carpet pattern has something to do with the 'hotel' theory too.


There are a few more of these; one with a big red cargo ship; two, like a hot-air balloon ride over the city, providing views of a shopping district and a major convergence of important highways; one with a battleship; one with a grond level vieew of a highway interchange; one with two backhoes and an aluminum trailer; and one I missed my opportunity in photographing last night, containing a lake in the background, train tracks in the foreground, and between some kind of transmitter tower and a small outbuilding. Gotta get me the rest of these.

What the real mystery is to me is that 'ACTN' logo with all the katakana above it and the odd symbol to the right. A clear closeup of this would be most appreciated, if it's to be found anywhere. The best view of it I have is in the 'hotel' picture. What exactly is ACTN? How does it relate to Adult Swim and Cartoon Network? Why am I geeky enough to pay more attention to the filler between shows than the shows I stayed up to watch? Do these things really have that much meaning to them, or am I just a lonely, empathetic loser? Will our hero be dashed to bits on the jagged rocks below?

Salesman Where You Gonna Go Sell All Of Your Goods Today

Songs I like that have subsequently ended up in commercials:

'C'mon C'mon' by the Von Bondies: Chevy sale commercial.
'Alive & Amplified' by the Mooney Suzuki: Suzuki commercial.
'Jerk It Out' by The Caesars: iPod commercial.

I know there's more, but can't think of them now. I could've rattled off a very long list about two hours ago, before class, however.

I wonder if 'Piece of Crap' by Neil Young will ever make it into a commercial. If I ever have the power to pick music for a commercial, I think that's what I'm gonna use. No parts with lyrics; just the music. Mostly to see if anybody recognizes it. And to see how pissed off Neil will get for my asking. Hopefully that'll inspire him to make a new album as kickass as side B of good'ol Rust Never Sleeps...

By now you might have guessed that the overwhelming majority of my blog posts are going to have relatively obscure music lyrics for titles. Like that's original.

Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends

Well, November is upon us, and since I signed up for a blog of the same name last year but have lost the password (think of it as the same blog for all practical intents and purposes) I guess I'd better start writing. With all the other mathoms in my life, whose purpose is beyond my guess,this blog has rested empty; like some used boxcar, purchased by a shortline railroad, all traces of its former identity painted over in a fresher dab of its original colors, but stored vaguely serviceable in a weed-infested and forgotten siding due to the tragic loss of an important customer.

But no more! Up comes this post, with all the rusty innocence of a chop-nosed, weatherbeaten ex-Illinois Central GP10 still in orange and white; with its old roadnumber and a small stencil of its owner's reporting marks. Bang go the couplers; the hiss of airbrakes pervades the atmosphere as the brake line is linked and the handbrake comes off; with a toot on a Leslie three-chime airhorn, the staccato bark of the enduringly supercharged 16-cylinder 567C engine block revving up, and all the corroded creaking and groaning of an empty, aged freight car trundling down the rails, this train of thought rolls on.

I've moved the spot I write from since those two paragraphs above; this started in the stairwell/vending machine congress of the Joab L. Thomas Building on the Pennsylvania State University campus. Much of this space is formed by one quarter-circle wall featuring several tall windows whose sills are big enough to use as benches; curl up in one and you have the perfect spot to hide form the world in-especially the far one behind the snack machine; to read, write, use the campus wireless internet, or even sleep. I was here, for the second time and the same reason: Spanish class, 002 this time. Over the summer it was 001, with a really cool crew and an awesome professor named Erin. The next step across is taught in my section by a tall and middle-aged, good-natured profesora from Spain, with heavy (but arousing) accent and a penchant for thong underwear (I could tell. We'll leave it at that.). Putting this thought far, FAR aside, this class also rosters Danielle, a capitvating brunette with a wonderfully talented artistic side and a refreshingly individual sense of fashion. I really like her; in our few after-class chats (including the ones from Spanish 001, her being a charter member of said cool crew) she's revealed herself to be an interesting and attractive person, not defined as just another but worthy of her pretty face.

But no, now it is after class, a 9.something-or-other-of-10 on a brief composition on my non-existent high school routine in Spanish, and another, quite long chat with the lovely Danielle (whose last name I do not know) that I sit at Canyon Pizza, on Beaver Street, State College, PA 16801 that I continue this essay. This place is the cheapest meal in State College-no exaggeration. Certainly not terrible quality, or they would have been shuttered a long time ago. Then again, nobody expects too much from a $1.50 slice of pepperoni or sausage. Does the job and how. Tonight the chick who lost her bikini top while working in the September heat, multiplied by all those great big pizza ovens, isn't here; more's the pity. I admit I can't well describe her topless, having not been there to see this momentous event, but even as tattoo'd and pierc'd as she is, she's a sight for sore eyes. Serves a mean slice of pepperoni too. Alternate as a girl can get without creeping me out at all, green-hoodie-over-
a-red-and-white-bikini-top-what-has-an-addiction-to-gravity pizza shop babe, I heart you. My mind revs up to sexy thousand rpms and redlines; my body follows on like a homemade flatbed trailer, rattling and bumping along helplessly.

On the way over to this temple to the urbanity of Italian cuisine, I passed a delivery car for another favorite culinary cathedral of mine; Wings Over Happy Valley. Not to issue a chicken fatwah here, but these are the greatest wings I've ever had.
Hands-and feet-among other things-down. If manna from heaven and the nectar of the gods made hot, sweet, beautiful love; then these wings would be their bratty, mischievous love child. I'm not a big bone-in wings fan, however; I usually get their boneless wings (read: glorfied chicken tenders). Damned if these things aren't huge; they're more like whole boneless chicken breasts. Chicken breasts from the Gianna Michaels of chickens. And the sauce-Oh! What joy! In the form of 20 varieties available. I'm not brave (or rich) enough to try them all; some appear to be unfit for human consumption. But the kickin' BBQ and honey BBQ are totally worth the heartburn.

I just wish I had a group of friends I could better share all this with; it's surprisingly lonely on a campus of 42,000. I only know a few people; most of them people I knew from the PSU New Kensington branch, 20 miles northeast of Pittsburgh (but located in Upper Burrell). People like Matt who is as big as me (not my good railfan buddy Matt, who's the youngest and tallest of y railfan bunch back home); Brian, a Pittsburgh Penguins fan and all-around good guy, famous for picking me out of a crowd of 300 in astronomy class, and introducing Guitar Hero to the uncultured savages; Shane, my friend Mike's former high school metalhead friend, the only one of the group of Mike's friends from high school to come up here; and Emily, an awesome punky girl who likes Tiger Army and only comes up to somewhere between my shoulder and elbow whom I have lunch with quite often. The people I've met here, a very short list, is made up of Danielle and a few others I don't talk to anymore.

Still, this is a unique experience; one I don't appreciate one iota. Oh, don't get me wrong; I love being on my own. But Penn State is giving me problems. Right now I'm failing two classes; Lately I've begun to think the problem was my choice of major. What happened was one day I was flipping through the catalog of majors I was given as part of registration and happened to notice the word 'Railroads'. Going all gooey over someone else realizing that not all vehicles have rubber tires and a steering wheel, a screw and rudder, or wings and jets; I immediately signed up for Supply Chain & Information Systems, not realizing until last week that I would probably have been better suited to my alternate choice of journalism. Didn't figure that out 'til it was too late. Sometimes, like this, my geekiness gets the better of me.

Well, I better pack it in. It's 20 til 7, the tiresome U2/Green Day ripoff band playing next door is really getting on my nerves, and even though the sun has gone down and brought the streetlights on, I still have my prescription shades on.

Ah hell. I think I'll leave them on.