Birth via AI

If you haven't heard, this trumpet intro constitutes the birth of jazz. Of course it's Louis Armstrong's West End Blues:

Historians, upon analysis of musical styles, genres, innovations, feel that this is the moment...when jazz, as a separate and distinct musical genre, was born. 

Yours truly has been doing a lot of experimenting/communicating with AI of late, namely Gemini, Deep Seek, and Grok (via X), and it has been fascinating the level of depth I get in return from conversations about theology and philosophy. So on my lunchtime run I began thinking about Louis Armstrong and the birth of jazz, probably prompted by a Conversations With Christian (McBride) - a kindof History of Jazz in real time - where a veteran jazzer talked freely about Charles Mingus and his exploits. I still love the part in Ken Burns' Jazz, where one historian tells the story of Sydney Bechet pulling out a pistol during a gig...something akin to cutting your losses..."But not Bechet!"

I could go on.

Anyhoo, I ingeniously (he said with a sheepish grin) combined the two: let us try to see if AI can find the moment in time when something is born. In this case, let us not go with a genre, but with an artist. 

The question would be something like this: based on your analysis of music, when, at what musical moment in time did, let us use Eric Clapton to start, Eric Clapton stop emulating other players and idols and create the first musically Eric Clapton moment? 

So now, I'll go over to Gemini and ask and report back. 

Check it out: https://g.co/gemini/share/353200f3675e

How To Kill Your New Running Shoes

 Been running for over 20 years and I've never before killed a pair of new running shoes. 

From my pain you shall prosper.

Maybe not prosper, but perhaps you won't suffer as I have, the grief of just a couple of runs from a $100 pair of running shoes. (And with inflation, $100 is on the cheap for a decent pair of running kicks)

As they like to say, "It's not the heat, it's the humidity."

I inaugurated my new shoes on a morning 7 miler down in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Circa 5am, probably 70 degrees, but about 80% humidity. Yes, 80%...at 5am.

About 5 miles in my shorts are soaked with sweat, and for the next two miles, the sweat from above all proceeds to collect in my shoes. My new shoes. 

I skipped a day and ran a shorter run with less humidity and the shoes, while much looser and, for lack of a better word, squishy, still had enough feel to run. 

Cut to the end of vacation, back in Rhode Island for my long run 10 miler, and you guessed it, humidity. So about 5 miles of sweat collected in my shoes and by the end of the run it felt like running in Army boots. (No disrespect to Marine, Navy, or Air Force boots.)

Shoes = dead. 

No life left. The sweat just took all the stability out, soaked it to death. 

So I got three runs from a new pair of Mizuno Wave Riders. 

My advice? Run when it isn't humid. Or if you must run in the humidity, be prepared to open thy wallet. 

Luv you dad.

Well here we are faithful Heavy Levity blog follower, September 21, 2021 and yours truly is now fifty and one years of age. As the religious say in america, holy shit. 

First the facts: I'm a mess mentally...and have been for a long time. Angry, bitter, incompetent, lazy, not too bright, unintelligent, redundant, with a touch of pedant at best and a slap across the face at worst. But on the bright side, I completed a half-marathon on Saturday morning with a time of 1:46:53. (My last half was in 2017 and I finished in 1:51:17.)

Tis funny because I think platonic dualism is the cause of much suffering but in a Leibnizian fashion, my mental suffering helps my almost best of all possible worlds running.

I kid.

Second the fun: my coworkers presented me with a card and sang a lively happy birthday. When I told them it was reminiscent of how they used to sing it at Chi Chi's...NONE of them even knew of Chi Chi's.

Funny haha and funny old-as-hell. I didn't think it was like I was talking about a printing press or a phonograph machine but I guess I went and dated myself.

Third the love: The fam didn't have time to celebrate over the weekend with all the activities and I was happy my wife gave me the four plus hours to get out in the morning, run, and not get back until around 10 or so, while she took all the tots to gymnastics and baseball. And today doesn't bode well because I am gone from about 8 to 8 and the mornings being absolute chaos trying to get everything and everyone together and out the door on time.

But get this: I'm walking my daughter from the car to the check-in table at daycare and I ask her, "You gonna do a good job today?" And in just the cutest fashion in the world, as only she can say it she says, "Yes." But she hangs on that s for just a little bit and it comes out with an unmistakable yesss. So cute and endearing. But it gets better.

Then, she says, "Luv you Dad." Oh man, I lit up like an xmas tree. Totally unprompted but totally accepted and completely needed. 

And with four words, I tell you, one of the best birthdays ever.

In Pursuit of Pursuit

This hit me so hard the other day. https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2014/07/11/billy-mills-olympics Clearly, Billy Mills' pursuit of Olympic Gold and helping others, saved his life. As I continue to battle through my mid-life crisis, I listened to this and thought: What to pursue? I have pursued things and dreams in life and achieved some things and even met some goals...but now, with life half over (I'm a realist) and children to raise and help provide for, what to pursue? What are you pursuing? As Will Hunting asked in Good Will Huniting, "What winds your watch? Because time is ticking.

Dear Diary

My midlife crisis is, I guess, good for my physical health. I ran a 6:28 mile on Sunday and did a one and a half off the diving board. But still, the malaise of M's radiates and hums: Mid-life Marriage Mental Health Money all under the umbrella of Mortality...and the fact that I'm finite. I end. I am bound. Up in this world, with you people. What would I do without you though?

Thanksgiving in October

Celebrated Thanksgiving in October. Thanks Rona. Nothing says Turkey and Mashed Taters like Monday off for Indigenous People's day. All snark aside, I'm thankful that my fam and I are healthy in what is shaping up to be a pretty shitty 2020. And weeeeee're back with the snark. I missed snark; after, let's count em', 20 words. Not bad for me.

I've missed you too blog, but I've been quarantined and parentined without enough booze-filled canteens. Plus I'm teaching three courses and taking one and blah blah blah, only 24 hours in a day. 

Can I tell you that running in the dark at 5am blows? I can. I did. It does. Don't do it. This Monday the entire run was in the dark. 

Which brings me to where I am in life, having recently celebrated a half century of life/existence: 

IN. THE. DARK.

But I know there's light. 

It's gotta be around here somewhere.

"Here boy! 

(whistle sound) 

Gotta be around here somewhere."

I'm alive enough to keep looking...and for that I'm thankful...in October.

Some Things...Have...Happened

Whoa.

Some things have happened dear readers.

For one birth has happened, for the third time.

Wait, what was the middle part again?

For two, birth happened in the form of Scarlett Sol.

Truth be told I wanted Sol from this George Carlin bit:

So I’m not getting a ton of sleep but it comes with the territory. Speaking of territories, what all came with the Gadsden purchase?

Did I mention we moved about two months before the birth?

We like to have all of our stressful life events at the same time. More efficient this way. I do the same with sit-ups. I do 1000 right in a row and I am good for the year.

Been reading some books on male friendship. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t exist.

Been trying to keep up with the running and 15 miles a week feels like 150 at this point. My legs were so dead after four miles yesterday we had a wake for them right there at the Y treadmill. I keep reminding myself like Dory in Finding Nemo: just keep running, just keep running. 

I know someday the tots will be able to dress, feed, and hygiene themselves and I’ll be able to ramp up the miles in lieu of friendships or guitar slinging.

You might like this guitar slinging but you might not. Either way, my hits on SoundCloud just went up. Sucker.

Busker Wants You To Appreciate Jazz and Rats on Your Run - This Is Your Nation's Capitol

Visited the nation's capitol this past week with the fam.

Good trip: the boys loved the zoo and the museums and the hotel pool.

I thought the National Gallery of Art was outstanding - on a par with Getty.

Two highlights (or lowlights depending upon your prerogative):

1. Upon leaving the National Museum of American History we strolled by a busker blowing his sax. My ears did not deceive me when I heard jazz. My eldest pokes his head out from the bottom tier of the stroller and says "You're doing great!"

Mom and I laugh and walk on but a couple of steps when I hear the busker say:

"Yeah I'm doing great. But none of you have the common sense to give me a dollar!"

He was truly upset but I rolled laughing. Johnny Jazz blowing diminished scales is irate because the tippers want to hear Brittney Spears and Mmm Bop.

2. Sunday morning at 5am I stroll out of the hotel for a run. It was still dark out as I ventured down 10th street for the National Mall when I quickly learned I would have to dodge fat, bulbous bottomed, greasy tailed rats on most of 10th -at least until E street.

On the plus side, my pace was a little faster than usual.

This Means, The End

I am near the end of Stanley Elkin’s The Franchiser.

I started the book because I learned that David Foster Wallace was heavily influenced by it.

I’d read Elkin had Multiple Sclerosis. The Franchiser suffers from M.S. and near the end Elkin writes:

“I almost forget my teeth have goose bumps.”
“Goose bumps?”
“This M.S. is no respecter of feelings. It blitzkriegs the nerves, gives your hair a headache. You think there are splinters in your eyes and the roof of your mouth has a sunburn…

And this reminded me of Heidegger. Who would have thought that I would get so much mileage out of Being And Time –a book I read in the Spring of 1992!? -for an Existentialism Course.

I remember the professor for the course stressing the point that we often look past things, like tools, until they break down and we have to look at them, not as a means but as the end.

Heidegger provided this distinction: ready-at-hand and present-at-hand

I like the Alan Dix’s description here:

ready at hand — when you are using the tool and it is invisible to you, you just focus on the work to be done with it

present at hand — when there is some sort of breakdown, the hammer head is loose or you don’t have the right tool to hand and so start to focus on the tools themselves rather than on the job at hand

Your hair, doesn’t usually have a headache.

We use our bodies as means to ends –to get us here and there, to lift this and that.

We never, well, rarely, look at it or treat it as the end.

But it is.

And we do take it as the end, when it starts to break down. The Elkin passage shows just when you, we, might start to take account of our body.

Remember the year I read Being and Time?

1992

I was 22.

I am now 46.

I have, recently, had to take account of my body. Good lord I have taken account of my body.

I try to work out consistently. I ran a half-marathon in late April, and under two hours.

Not bad for a biped like me.

Then, about two weeks later, two gluttonous weeks of “sure, I’ll have another bowl of Dark Cocoa Karma before bed, why not?” I felt a little twinge in the ole lower back.

Don’t worry about it, a little twinge. What would Dad do? He’d go to work.

So I kept going.

Then there was the morning I could barely put on my shoes.

Then another week of pain.

And thoughts/images on an infirm me, unable to play with my kids start rummaging around up there; unable to chuck the apple? Unable to rassle or epic tickle fest?

I think not.

Vigilant I will be. Observant of my intake and output.

Because my body is more than a means.

I mean it.

The End.

Running On Empty

So I finished…with a whimper.

Having run many a half-marathons this one was the second most difficult with my first being the most.

Why?

One reason is understandable: All of my training was on a treadmill so about mile 10, I really began to feel sore in my legs.

But, there’s always a but, sometimes there’s even a but abutting another but, but I digress, the second reason is mysterious.

The morning’s chain of events had me on a school bus headed to the starting line around 7am, and after arriving at the starting line, was able to empty my bladder well before the start time of 8am for the half.

Did not drink a drop. Scout’s honor.

Feel great, pace is under an 8 (good for me) and I’m relaxed.

Around mile 5 I have to, you know, urinate. Never before have I had to do this for a half.

Stop at the port-o-let at mile 5 aid station and, of course, someone is in there.

Not waiting, keep going.

Mistake, me thinks. Next port-o-let at mile 7, about 17 minutes later.

But at least its empty…and after about two minutes my bladder is finally empty.

So I lost two minutes using the restroom but the real bummer is that for some reason, after this I could never straighten up. Just felt a side stitch for the remaining 6 miles every time I tried to run tall or elongate my stride. Bummer.

Then of course the treadmill training really reared its ugly head around mile 10 and the pain caused my pace to drop way…way down. Below sea level down.

But the wife and kids were right before the finish so I perked up a little but as you can see, 

the back half was brutal.

At one point, this always happens, I thought they forgot a mile marker. This one was the mile 11 marker… “where the hell is it?”

Crossed the finish line and hobbled to a tent for water and bananas but didn’t even stick around for 2 free beers so you know there was some pain involved.

All in all clocked in at 1:51:05 for a pace of 8:29 and may even do another one in the fall.

Maybe.

Half-Marathon

I am supposed to run a half-marathon on Saturday.

I paid to run a half-marathon on Saturday.

I trained to run a half-marathon on Saturday.

It will be my first half-marathon since my eldest was born [gulp] 2011.

Have I trained enough?

Probably not.

And not one single mile of training was on a road. My parenting and career responsibilities requires me to train on a treadmill. I don’t like to run in the dark so this means the YMCA treadmill at 5m on weekdays. On the weekends I take the tots to the YMCA where they can play in the family center but this means I cannot leave the facility…so all long runs have been on [gulp] a treadmill.

They call it pounding the pavement for a reason. 

I am nervous. Or am I anxious? Am I scared, frightened, worried, upset, beguiled or just all out of whack? I am never all out of whack as I keep a little bit in the downstairs bathroom in case of an emergency.

Was thinking it would be nice to have my tots see me finish but Ima (totally a word) little scared I will look like a mess of skin and bones hobbling over the finish line due to under-training. My long run was 12 which is legit (thanks Hammer!) but my weekly mileage isn’t quite up to snuff and again, treadmill miles are a different animal. Which gets me thinking, how is Different Animal not a band name?

Anyhoo, Imascaret!

But there is beer at the finish line so…

Means To An End

Well the weekend was a blur but here is your update since you fret as if you can’t manage your day without news from me:

How can it take a woman a full four minutes to order from a Dunkin Donuts drive thru and why would pointing at the outside menu help her in anyway? “I want the munchkins, right there [points at drive-thru menu board as if DD employee inside donning an audio headset can see], right there!” She was in no way responsible for me being late to class. No way.

Made a full-fledged gumbo complete with an authentic roux. So many inauthentic rouxs [note to self – learn how to make roux plural – probably some inane French grammar rule] out there and you know me, the existentialist, authentic is important. Anywhoo, the gumbo was much earthier in taste than I thought it would be…much different from a jambalaya. I followed a Cook’s Illustrated recipe for the roux and riffed a bit. For me, the highlight was the andouille sausage. And per the usual it tasted better the next day after the flavors had a chance to meld. In the future I will substitute chicken thighs for shrimp and whowouldathunk that my two year old would gobble up andouille like it was his job. 

An important run for me on Sunday - I ran for an hour at an 8 minute pace.  I knew I didn’t have all day to run as I had my little guy in child care and other domestic responsibilities on tap so I got on the treadmill and dialed her up to 7.5. Right off the bat the lungs were working harder than usual though my heartrate was only near 200bpm so I knew I was teetering on capable. About 4 miles in I was starting to feel it in my legs, feet, back, and will to live. But I pressed on and realized that this mere hour of running was important because if I want to do a half in the spring I will need to be ready to run for two hours and some of that will have to be at a decent clip – like an 8 minute pace. Why? Because I know I can’t train like I am single as the little guys are swimming, running track, and busting chops all over so I have to run faster if I am going to even get close to the training miles necessary for a half.

I got through it (the run) but I have to say I was more than a little disappointed in myself when I didn’t jump with my toddler at the trampoline park later that day. First time I have ever said no to a physical activity with him and I hope it is the last. Sure I want to run a half but it is merely a means to an end that is overall fitness and health and my overall fitness and health is compatible with jumping on trampoline’s with my son.

Lesson learned.