On Memorial Day you really can't do better than Ray Charles at his absolute best. Here's his outstanding arrangement of America the Beautiful :

O beautiful, for heroes proved

In liberating strife,

Who more than self their country loved

And mercy more than life!

America! America! May God thy gold refine,

Till all success be nobleness, and ev'ry gain divine!

We have nice weather here at Berea-Rose for this long weekend. Lots of baseball last week -- right up until Saturday's mid-day game out on the hot sun at Groza field. Alane got a sunburn but Cookie's team picked up a win. He even got a hit! Mojo had a practice session over at the other field, and we could have gotten him there following Cookie's game but everyone was over-heated from having been in the sun that long -- especially Mojo himself (who had been at the playground most of the time).

I gotta get some baseball pictures posted here...

What's this? I take a hiatus from the blog and Frylock has nothing to say? What a bum. Not much going on around here, though Da Chimpz now have their baseball season under way. Cookie has a game tonight. He did pretty well on the field on Saturday, picking up some grounballs and getting the ball over to first. It was rainy and got cold; hopefully tonight's weather will be nicer.

Week before last I spent some time in bed with some crazy flu-like malady -- which gave me time to watch that classic film Fatso on DVD. Yeah, we're going to miss that great comedian. Steve is correct when he says "everything about that movie is fantastic." Quite true.

Alane used the Alston Brown recipe for carrot cake this weekend to make me a birthday cake. Came out pretty good. Guido professed surprise to hear that I liked carrot cake, and it made me wonder how I ever started eating the stuff (sounds like something I would avoid even trying). I'm pretty sure it goes back to high school when Andre and I would find ourselves at the cashier at Death Valley deli on the corner of 6th and 16th. On the cluttered counter, near the stack of black and white cookies, there would be small individually wrapped blocks of Nemo's cakes. For some reason we'd buy the carrot cake and it turns out I liked the stuff.

And the rest is history. That deli is still there (is really called Blue Valley, though).

Happy Cuatro de Cinco (tha'ts how you say it in Austrian). I think I'm recovered from watching that movie last night.

This eyedrop regime is getting tiresome. Next week I go back to find out if the mal-occhio has subsided. I sure hope so.

I don't watch a lot of movies, and now that I'm sitting here watching The Happening I'm remembering why. This movie is really really bad. I mean, yeah, considering the socio-political direction northeastern states have followed in recent decades it's hardly implausible to imagine the population being gripped by urges to self-destruction.

In fact, the longer I watch this movie the less my own will to live. How did this even make it to theaters?

Anyway, Cookie had a baseball practice tonight -- a practice game against another team. Went okay. Got chilly as the game progressed.

Had to look through some records today to find some paperwork. Came across my college degree, the official certificate. It had a lot of stains on it from spending a few years on my refrigerator -- had it there with magnets like a school award. Then I found my J.D. -- and if the friggin thing wasn't so big I'd put it on my refrigerator now. I mean, it's not like I'm going to spend money to frame it or anything.

Wow, this movie is bad. "We've become a threat to this planet," was the dopey line just uttered.

No: this movie is a threat to the planet.

Oh, and in case it wasn't clear from the previous post, Andre and I were the only two to attend wearing jeans. What the hell -- we'd spent the afternoon chasing hot-rod Barbie-car girls and pushing around huge piles of compost (well, Andre shoveled compost while I stood alongside and pretended to be finding a way to make myself useful).

And a bit more on Beer Vampire, the Black Death CD that Hagevik made and passed to us on Saturday... Here's a comment I found this in the Phoenix New Times a few years ago

Anyway, Black Death's new CD is called Beer Vampire, and, I gotta admit, I really like this group of cretins. At times I don't think they are the sharpest knives in the deck, but that makes them all the more charming and fun.

In other words, great stuff. Not sure I'd use the word "charming" but as I apparently commented as the MC of Hagevik's very first on-stage drum performance back in the Xavier High School gym in 1984 "thank you for that rousing rendition of feedback and distortion."

I don't actually recall saying that as they ran down the curtain on that particular spectacle fo mayhem, but Hagevik assured me he still has an audio tape proving it. So, yes, we laughed our asses off on Saturday night.

And now I'm back in Ohio, no longer laughing my ass off. Well, maybe I should be:

So the first words we hear from the guy we haven't seen in 25 years was "Fuck you two, I knew I should've dressed down and not worn a suit!"

It was like picking up right where we left off -- we even went up to the Commons and parked our asses in the same spot we used to sit each morning, smoking and drinking coffee while complaining about the homework and studying we should have been doing.

Yeah, it was a great reunion. I stole the pic from Mike's facebook account; Kelly was the photog and she was fantastic -- totally one of us.

Oh, and the music. Not at the event (there wasn't any, Mike's protests notwithstanding). After the event Andre and I listened to Dan's most excellent punk CD as we drove back. Wow. It's all I can say. Wow.

And yes, we listened to the whole thing.

Got back to Berea-Rose this afternoon. Alane was wondering why the first thing I did when I got in was refill the ice trays.