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Back in Dallas, after a much more traffic-laden trip back than normal. (Well, duh.) Listened to the usually inconsistent Studio 360 along the way. If you haven’t heard it, Studio 360 is Kurt Andersen‘s little foray into public radio. Kurt’s brilliant, of course, but I’m not sure he’s a perfect match for the medium; his words look better on paper than they do in his awkward phrasing, and the thematic setup of the show is a little odd. But tonight’s show, on the role of secrets in the arts, was great.
The main guest was Teller, the silent half of Penn & Teller. (And yes, he talks when he’s not on stage. It wasn’t an hour of radio mime.) He’s a very smart guy, speaking intelligently about the way P&T play with the idea of a magician’s secrets on stage (by revealing tricks as they go along) and about his book about his father‘s secret life as a hobo/cartoonist as a youth.
In a Penn & Teller performance, the giganto Penn does all the (booming, high-decibel) talking, while meek little Teller stands mute off to the side. But Teller’s the real genius of the act. He’s actually considered one of the top four or five magicians of the last century by those in the know; unlike most, who simply modify tried and true illusions, Teller’s actually invented new tricks. (I’m not one of those “in the know.” I just read a terrific profile of Penn & Teller by Calvin Trillin a few years back. It’s in his [amazing] compilation, American Stories.) Anyway, the show’s worth a listen this week.
Note to self: check to see if something really can be “usually inconsistent.”

I love unproductive vacations. Every time I get some time off, I give myself a long list of tasks to complete. This time, they ain’t getting done. I’m just kicking back, doing a lot of reading, watching too much History Channel, and taking many naps. (And doing Utah research for the Olympics. “Did you know Theodore Roosevelt once took a bath beneath the Rainbow Bridge?” asks the author of “Utah: A Guide to the State; Compiled by Workers of the Writer’s Program of the Work Projects Administration for the State of Utah,” 1940. No, I did not.)
Tonight continues the Parade of Ex-Girlfriends, as I go hang out with Lauren, who I dated for a few months in high school. (That parade concludes next weekend when I see college girlfriend Fiona in Boston, where I’m going for a conference. Fiona is, by the way, the latest reader of crabwalk.com. Hi, Fiona! Feel free to leave nasty comments below.)
Fiona and Lauren have never met, but together they define the most disturbing trend in my life, which is: date me and you get cancer. Not long after I went off to college and stopped seeing Lauren, the docs found cancer in her thyroid. (She’s fine now — who needs a thyroid, anyway?) And Fiona got diagnosed about a year and a half ago with malignant melanoma; she just finished up a successful year of treatment.
Honestly, what are the odds of two women I dated, at the time aged 18 and 24, getting cancer? I am seriously bad luck. To anyone out there who might consider dating me: stay away, for your own health! (Then again, both of them were fine when they were actually going out with me. Maybe it’s stopping going out with me that’s the culprit. Yeah, that’s it.)

Ah, those were the days — when airplane hijackers could still be considered folk heroes. Tomorrow will be the 30th anniversary of the famous D.B. Cooper hijacking. Anybody 45 or over knows what I’m talking about, but those my age probably need a refresher.
Cooper got on a plane from Portland to Seattle and, in between draws on his cigarette, told a flight attendant he had a bomb. (Whether or not he did is questionable; it is certain he had a bunch of scary-looking wires in a briefcase.) He had the pilot land at Seattle, evacuated all the passengers, then had his demands met: $200,000 in used $20s and four parachutes. He then ordered the plane back into the air, headed for Mexico. He told the pilots to fly below 10,000 feet with the flaps partially down to decrease air speed. After about 40 minutes, he jumped out with the cash. That was the last anyone ever heard from D.B. Cooper.
He became something of a cult figure, almost Robin Hoodesque. There were D.B. Cooper sitings all around the country. Tips flooded FBI offices. But no trace of D.B. Cooper was ever found until 1980, when an 8-year-old boy found $5,800 of Cooper’s loot.
The common wisdom has always been that Cooper died from his jump. One of the two parachutes he took down with him was defective and wouldn’t have opened. Jumping out of a 727 at that height and speed would have meant a wind chill of about 70-below. (The temperature that night was -7; there was a nasty storm with freezing rain. Cooper was jumping into a heavily forested area, miles from anywhere, in just a business suit and loafers.)
But last year, a woman in Florida claimed that her husband had told her, on his death bed, that he was D.B. Cooper. (Check out the photos.) Maybe the ol’ rascal survived after all.

I want your feedback on an idea I had a while back. Let’s say, hypothetically, I created a mix CD every month of music I like. And let’s say I’d send you a copy of this mix CD each month if you sent me a mix CD of music you like. Would you be interested? If enough people are, I think it could be a good way to get to hear something new once in a while. Let me know, via comments or email.

Time for that 19th nervous breakdown: Mick Jagger released a new album last week. So did Robbie Williams. On the first day of his album’s release, Williams sold 73,000 copies in the U.K. Mick Jagger sold 954. (Thanks, brandhast.) Yep, three digits. That’s got to sting.
Albums that would sell more than 954 copies on the first day of release: *Nsync, Justin Timberlake Hums Indiscriminately With Britney In the Next Room; Garth Brooks, Early Recordings: Lil’ Garth Makes Armpit Noises, 1972-1974; U2, All We’ve Left Behind: Bono Speaks Out on Third World Debt Relief; various artists, Now That’s What I Call Arbor Day!

Well, we know that at least two people have something to be thankful for today. Congrats, you crazy kids.
Today, I went to Crowley — which I’d call the nearest town of any significant size, if only it was of any significant size — to pick up my grandpa. He lives in an old folks home there; when I left to pick him up, my grandmother uttered the memorable words: “Make sure he remembers his teeth.” Then we picked up food at Chef Roy’s, Rayne’s finest restaurant. I had the seafood platter — shrimp, oysters, stuffed shrimp, catfish, crab cakes, and (not technically seafood, I suppose) a fried frog leg. (Yep, tastes like chicken.)
Of course I’m thankful for all the usual things: family, friends, health, continued employment, etc. But at the moment I’m particularly thankful for all of you people who read this mess every day (all four of you), and all the great people I’ve met through this page. Happy thanksgiving.

I like the Brits as much as any right-thinking quasi-Frenchman could, but that dry Oxbridge sense of humor can get annoying. (Via kaus. The Economist — inhouse motto: “Simplify, then exaggerate” — is just about the most overrated magazine around. Hell, I’m agreeing with Andrew Sullivan! Shoot me now!)

Want to convince Aunt Jolene that the time-tested two-table Thanksgiving system should be upgraded to three (the adult table, the kiddie table, and the freak table, just for you)? Try putting Colonel Jeffrey Pumpernickel on the CD player during your turducken carving. What an odd compilation of indie rockers obscure (The Minders, Howe Gelb), really obscure (Weird War, Goldcard), and not so obscure (Guided By Voices, Stephen Malkmus). It’s that weariest of old ideas, a concept album. (Although at times it appears the concept is limited to, “Hey guys, let’s all make a concept album.”)
Underwater fire battles, the great animals vs. robots debate, Oedipal complexes, severe allergies: it’s all in there. Spotty, and a bit too odd at times, but always interesting, and in the Ann Magnuson/Dave Rick tune “Dr. Mom,” it might have the oddest song of 2001. (It details, among other things, bedwetting, muhajadeen guides, an encounter with John Entwistle, spawning salmon, and the trouble with playing with baby bears.)
Switching topics, I don’t watch much TV back in Dallas, but I always catch up when I’m in Rayne where, to be brutally frank, there ain’t much else to do. So my first (and likely last) television review of the new season: that Ed show is pretty darned good. Wow, that blonde is pretty damned hot. But the true star (I hope at least, after viewing part of one episode) is Michael Ian Black. I have no idea if he’s any good as Phil, but he was brilliant at the English-challenged Johnny Bluejeans on the late, lamented Viva Variety.

Only a few hours to Thanksgiving, so it might be a little late, but I feel that as a Cajun Activist, I must alert you all to my people’s contribution to Turkey Day: the Cajun deep-fried turkey. (I’ve never actually had it, but I’ve heard rave reviews. Of course, eating it means instant death. And maybe preparing it too: the recipe starts off with these words of warning: “You must cook this turkey outside. You should wear goggles and gloves. Also have a fire extinguisher on hand. Remember – your safety is the first step in this recipe.” Other safety hints mentioned: “You want to wear some old shoes that you can slip out of easily and long pants, just in case you do spill some oil on you…Avoid frying on wood decks, which could catch fire, and concrete, which can be stained by the oil…don

All of you are lucky there are miles of fiberoptics between us, because I need to strangle someone right about now. My company laptop — the same one that’s died and been “fixed” three times before — died again, in exactly the same way it has before. Except this time, it took a 1,500-word story with it, which meant I had to rush over to my uncle’s place to use his 1991-era Compaq to rewrite the damned thing.
(The computer used to be mine back when it was cutting-edge technology, so it was a brief little time warp. All my high school papers. All my college application essays. Letters to girlfriends. All still on the hard drive. I hadn’t typed “dir/w” at a command line in ages. The computer’s in horrible shape. The ctrl key has long been severed from its mother keyboard, which is encrusted in that yellowy dirt layer old computers get. The monitor on/off button is broken, so you have to stick a toothpick (!) into the monitor for it to work. The system boots into Geoworks Ensemble, a bizarre proto-Windows that crashed and burned soon after my computer teacher started evangelizing for it.)
Anyway, I rewrote about half of it at 6:30 a.m. this morning, then that computer too met its maker. I must have the IT equivalent of a black thumb today. So I waited until 8 a.m. for the Rayne library to open. The staff knows me well from my childhood, but now they know me well as the guy who rushes to the library computers in a panic everytime he’s in town because his company laptop has broken and he has to get something done quick. The story’s done and emailed off. I’m off to see if I can track down a laptop for the next few days. And if I can get the old clunker to work again, to look at my old high school essays and laugh at the 16-year-old me.