Monsoon's New U2 Album Review
As U2 releases its latest studio album, No Line on the Horizon, tomorrow, I got to thinking about how long I’ve been a fan of the band.It turns out it was spring 1984 when I first heard and saw them—it was a clip from Under a Blood Red Sky, their concert film.I was immediately hooked, and have been a devotee for 25 years now.
Twenty-five years.In that time—more than two-thirds of my life—U2 has been there with me for events great and small.(Perspective: only a handful of the very first students I taught were alive when I became a U2 fan.)In the 80s I purchased my U2 albums on cassette (supplemented by vinyl records), and in the 90s I bought it all (including what I’d previously gotten on cassette) on CD.Now I’m in the process of ripping the CDs to mp3 files for the computer and (someday) an iPod.
Before I provide a brief review of their new album, I thought I’d share some reminiscences of how U2 has impacted my life...
I heard “Pride (in the Name of Love)” when it was released in 1984, and was changed.It wasn’t just the music—soaring, sweeping, passionate—it was the discovery.Thanks to my dad and his legendary vinyl collection, I had already been steeped in the music of the 1950s and 1960s in myriad genres: from the Beatles to the Mothers of Invention, from Cream to Captain Beefheart, from Black Sabbath to Jethro Tull, from Jimi Hendrix to the Mahavishnu Orchestra.And my friend Mark Shewchuk had begun getting me into the Red Hot Chili Peppers and punk bands like Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys.But U2 was, for me, a discovery.I felt as though I had stumbled onto something truly unique, something transformative.In a middle school Industrial Arts class during a printmaking unit, when we had to choose a mast to print at the top of a notepad, I blocked out “U2 – Bono Vox.”My teacher, Mr. Eckel, was as perplexed then as he was when I just couldn’t seem to figure out how to make a goddamned jewelry box.
I bought The Unforgettable Fire as soon as it came out in late 1984 and was captivated by its moody soundscapes, interspersed with epic compositions like “Pride,” “Bad,” and “A Sort of Homecoming.”I listened to the cassette constantly, and I can vividly remember sitting alone on the balcony of our motel in Ocean City, NJ in the summer of 1985, looking out at the sea on a gloomy day, listening to the album’s atmospheric, instrumental cuts on my Walkman as though something heavy was on my mind.I was emo before there was emo, baby.
When The Joshua Tree was released in 1987 to rave reviews, wild popularity, and eventually a Best Album Grammy award, I was ecstatic.It was like a brilliant, talented friend had finally gotten the recognition he deserved.I consumed every bit of U2-alia I could: magazines, books, interviews, b-sides.(The b-side singles released with this album are among the best b-sides I’ve ever heard—songs like “Spanish Eyes,” “Silver and Gold,” and “Walk to the Water” could have made on The Joshua Tree or even Rattle & Hum.)The album is not only the best in U2’s impressive catalog, it’s one of the best ever made—the deepest, the most resonant.Two of my favorite songs from the album are lesser-known: “Red Hill Mining Town” and “Trip Through Your Wires.”The former is special because I remember excitedly playing the song for my father—who grew up in Red Hill, PA, though the song is about a Red Hill in Ireland—during a particularly difficult time for our family.And I remember stating with absolute certainty while playing the latter for my mom, “This is the first U2 song to ever feature harmonica.”(I think that’s so, but still—what a dork.)
In 1988 when U2 released the Rattle & Hum album, I remember going to the movie theater with a huge group of people to see the film.It was like a concert, with people singing along and hanging around for a long while afterward.
U2 left the stage for a few years to, in Bono’s words, “dream it all up again.”In 1991 they released the long-awaited Achtung Baby.My new roommate at Albright, Dave, and I had bonded over our mutual love for U2, so we hurried out to the record store on the day it was released (I believe it was Record Revolution in Reading, R.I.P.) and brought it back to the dorm room to give it a listen.From the first treble-heavy, feedbacking guitar riffs, we knew we were in for something different.We looked at each other quizzically as we forwarded from track to track to track, searching for something familiar, something that was instantly recognizable as U2.The only song that was instantly palatable to both of us was one of the great U2 songs of all-time, “One.”
Soon, though, we both came to love the album for its daring cosmopolitan flavor, and went to see them in concert (with the Trabants hanging from the rafters).Dave “slept out” for tickets at Boscov’s with his girlfriend at the time.Four of us went to the concert—Dave and his girlfriend, and her friend, and me.(I was already “attached” to my beloved by then, so it wasn’t a double date.)I remember that the four tickets we got were in different parts of the same section—two here, two there.Instead of sitting with his girlfriend, Dave sat with me, leaving his girlfriend and her friend to spend the concert in bewildered exile in another part of the section while Dave and I belted out song after song side by side, basking in each other’s friendship and the headiness of the night.
Subsequently, U2 had some strange experiments (Zooropa; Passengers) that had as many moments of self-indulgent bombast as they had moments of brilliance.They went back to straight-ahead rock in 2000’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind and 2004’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, the stronger of which, by far, was Atomic Bomb.
U2 has been there, marking life—its passage, its meaning, its milestones—in many more ways, ways I haven’t even considered.Sure, I’ve sometimes cringed a bit when Bono seems to linger a bit too long in his superhero tights.But for twenty-five years, I have found them to be the most captivating band there is.(That, and I think I would honestly pee in my pants and scream like a little girl if I ever met Bono.)
A little “brush with greatness” tale with a twist: a few years back my mother-in-law returned from Hershey, where she had traveled for a conference and stayed in a nice hotel. She said, “Oh yeah, hey, I rode up the elevator with that guy you like.What’s his name—Boner?”I don’t recall if I ever peeled myself off the ceiling long enough to explain this to her, so: Con, it’s “Bono” (nee Paul Hewson) and he’s only the lead singer of the greatest band in the world!!!
For now, allow me to present my exclusive Monsoon Martin ranking of the U2 oeuvre from most accomplished to least (and the lowest U2 album is still better than most of the rest of what’s around):
1. The Joshua Tree (1987) – as I said above, this is one of the best albums of all-time.From the first chiming notes of “Where the Streets Have No Name” to the furious “Bullet the Blue Sky” (which has only gotten better in concert), from the rueful “Running to Stand Still” to the infectious “In God’s Country,” this is a classic.
2. Achtung Baby (1991) – Bono was at his peak lyrically here, and the band took chances by incorporating sparer compositions and more distortion of the instruments. The risks paid off, with some of their greatest songs: “One,” “Love is Blindness,” “Mysterious Ways,” “Until the End of the World,” and on.
3. War (1983) – it was close for second place between Achtung and War.This album saw the lads find their voice as rockers with a conscience.Best songs are, of course, “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “New Year’s Day,” but lesser-known but no less accomplished are “Drowning Man” and “Two Hearts Beat as One.” There’s not a stinker in the bunch.
4. Boy (1980) – U2’s first studio album; best songs, “Out of Control,” a celebration of youthful exuberance, and “Shadows and Tall Trees,” which takes its name from a chapter in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies.
5. The Unforgettable Fire (1984) – it was critically panned, but I liked it, and still do—mainly because it’s the first studio album of theirs I bought.It’s when they first collaborated with Brian Eno to expand their sonic landscape, and the effect was uneven, but tremendous.There are well-known cuts from their catalog like “Bad” and “Pride,” but songs like “Homecoming,” the title track, and “Indian Summer Sky” stand the test of time too.(The 1985 EP Wide Awake in America had nice live versions of a couple of Unforgettable songs, as well as two very good b-sides, “Love Comes Tumbling” and “The Three Sunrises.”)
6. How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (2004) – this album is a burst of furious energy—creative, musical, lyrical—from a band that had been together already for 25 years.“Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own” is a moving, riveting song; “City of Blinding Lights” was used by the Obama campaign right after his nomination speech; “Miracle Drug” and “One Step Closer” are other standouts.Even rollicking flirtations with 100+ beats per minute like “Vertigo” and “All Because of You” are gratifying.And the concert I attended (again with Dave) when they were touring in support of this album is one of the best I’ve ever seen.
7. No Line on the Horizon (2009) – see review below.
8. Rattle & Hum (1988) – it came off as too self-congratulatory and redundant to be a classic U2 album, but there are highlights here.“Van Diemen’s Land” showcases the Edge’s strong (and underused) tenor, and live versions of “Silver and Gold” and “All Along the Watchtower” are stirring.“Angel of Harlem” is a nice one, too.And two of my favorite U2 songs of all-time are “Heartland” and “All I Want is You,” either of which would have been right at home on The Joshua Tree.
9. Zooropa (1993) – this bit of euro-trash contains the only U2 song I always fast-forward past: “The Wanderer” featuring Johnny Cash. It also contains Bono’s ill-advised extended foray into falsetto (“Lemon”) and the silly, monotone “Numb.” High points include “Dirty Day,” “The First Time,” “Stay (Faraway, So Close!)” and the title track.
10. Pop (1998) – this is the nadir of the band’s glitzy Mephisto period, and on this tour they emerged from a giant, mirrored lemon onstage.They’d lost control of their own caricatures.There are some high points—“Gone” and “Do You Feel Loved” among them—and some interesting ideas like “Miami” and “Please,” but over all, they blew it.(I’ll also comment here on Passengers: Original Soundtracks I, which was an avant-garde release that contained music predominantly by U2.I remember reading somewhere that drummer Larry Mullen was particularly peeved about this foray into Eno-land.There are a couple of good songs—“Miss Sarajevo” and “Your Blue Room”—but otherwise it’s an amorphous, incoherent waste of time.)
11. October (1981) – this album was a rush job during a turbulent period for the members of the band—spiritually and interpersonally.Best songs are “I Threw a Brick through a Window,” “Tomorrow,” and the sparse piano-and-vocals piece “October.” Almost every U2 song has a special place in my memory, but you can safely skip “I Fall Down” and “Is That All,” which are subpar.
12. All That You Can’t Leave Behind (2000) – I can’t really explain what I don’t like about this album.It does have its finer points, like “Beautiful Day” (in moderation) and “Walk On” (there’s a remix that’s better than the album version).But for an album that was, according to Bono, U2’s application for the job of “best band in the world,” it felt a little forced and designed for broader appeal.Songs like “Wild Honey,” “Kite,” and “Grace” seem intentionally harmless and lack the “bite” of the best U2 work.
The new album, No Line on the Horizon, is an interesting departure of sorts for the band.On the one hand, it’s very different from the taut, straight-ahead commercialism of the previous two albums this decade.On the other hand, its elements are unmistakably U2, just bent in a different direction.There are high and low points, as with any album. The ridiculously titled “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight” and “Get on Your Boots” are subpar, with too modern and derivative a sound, and they're almost out of place on this mostly meditative, sweeping album.“Stand Up Comedy” is a delightful surprise with witty lyrics like “stop helping God across the road like a little old lady.”“Fez – Being Born” begins with sound samples and little too much Eno, but becomes something lovely and piano-driven (like a lot of this album).The title track marries the guitar riff from “The Fly” with the slinky philosophy of Atomic Bomb’s “Original of the Species” to interesting effect.
But the best four songs on the album are the ambitious, lovely “Magnificent”; “Unknown Caller,” which sounds as though it could have been lifted from October but with a sharper, distorted guitar; the spare, folk-inflected, Mark Knopfler-esque “White as Snow”; and “Cedars of Lebanon,” the almost spoken-word final song describing the life of a journalist in a war-torn area.The lyric “this shitty world sometimes produces a rose” is at first blush heavy-handed, but has a resonance in this song that delves beneath the hackneyed.It also contains what might be Bono’s best lyric of the decade: “The worst of us are a long, drawn-out confession / The best of us are geniuses of compression.”
So am I recommending No Line on the Horizon? Of course; it’s a U2 album. Which edition—the digipak, the CD only, the magazine, the box set? It’s all bells and whistles. Just get the bonus tracks and skip the DVD film by the pretentious, overblown Phil Joanou (I haven’t seen it, but he directed Rattle & Hum, so one can only imagine). The cover image alone—by Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto—is a gorgeous, minimalist achievement.
Enjoy!
Nothing Neither Way?
It’s been a season of near-misses, with lots of storms either heading to our north or to our south, and few direct hits. (Actually, shouldn’t the term be “near-hit”? I present this George Carlin monologue to honor his recent passing and celebrate his unassailable logic.)
Here's one they just made up: “near miss.” When two planes almost collide, they call it a “near miss.” It’s a near hit. A collision is a near miss.(WHUMP!)“Look, they nearly missed!” ... “Yes, but ... not quite.”
The storm has taken a turn well to our south, so I don’t even think we’ll see a whole lot of cloud cover—let alone any precipitation—for Valentine’s Day.The next good chances of a snow event are Monday and Thursday.See below for details.
Today will be partly to mostly sunny with those high winds subsiding by late morning or so.High in the mid 40s, low in the low 20s.
Valentine’s Day looks partly cloudy with a high in the low to mid 40s and a low again in the low 20s.
Sunday will bring more of the same: seasonably cool weather and plenty of sunshine with highs in the mid 40s and lows in the mid 20s.
Presidents Day could bring some snow late—though it’s looking increasingly as though that system will also slide to our south.I will let you all know if that changes.For now, let’s call is partly to mostly cloudy and colder with a high of 37 and a low of 20.
Tuesday will be partly to mostly sunny and seasonable: high in the upper 30s, low in the mid 20s.
Wednesday will be mostly cloudy with a chance for sleet and snow, particularly late and overnight into Thursday.High 34, low 28.
Thursday may begin with some snow showers or flurries; remaining cloudy and windy for the day.High 37, low 24.
Friday will see the beginning of a trend toward colder-than-normal conditions: windy with perhaps a lingering snow shower or flurry; a high only in the low 30s, a low in the upper teens.
Next weekend (the 21st and 22nd) is looking interesting weather-wise, particular toward the latter half, which holds the chance for snow and sleet.
Beyond: seasonably cold with highs in the upper 30s to low 40s; lows generally in the mid 20s.Next good chance for snow is Tuesday the 24th.
We Want the Bunk! Gotta Have that Bunk! (ow)
Habari mori,
The purpose of this post is twofold: to update you regarding my thinking about the potential storm next week, and to update you about the growth of The Bunk.Starting, then, with the most important news of
the two...
Bunk just turned five months old on January 24th and is filling out nicely. He’s every bit the delight he was when he first came into our lives two months ago, and his training continues to go swimmingly. (He’s mastered “sit” and “down” and is working on “stay,” “come,” and “leave it.”)
I thought I’d share some new pictures of Bunk, who now weighs 32 pounds—he was around 22 when we got him—and will apparently not stop growing until sometime this summer!In the first picture, Bunk is happily stretched out on the rug in our bathroom; in the second—an action shot—Bunk is furiously trying to bite the hot air that is being blasted from the hair dryer by his cruel daddy. And the final picture is a close-up of Bunk’s sweet face as he sleeps serenely at the end of the couch.
The Bunk at 5 months
The Bunk at Rest
The Bunk vs. Hair Dryer
An update about the Nor’easter that could affect our weather on Monday and Tuesday: the models continue to be out of agreement, but trends suggest this is going to be a bust.We’re still nearly 48 hours from the event (or at least the part of the event that could be interesting), so a lot can happen between now and then, but here’s what I’m thinking as of now...
Monday will bring rain showers by late afternoon continuing into the overnight hours, with a few snowflakes mixing in.Maybe as much as a coating to a half-inch by Tuesday morning, but nothing to worry about.High 41, low 33.
Tuesday will see some snow showers and increasing wind, but since the low looks to be positioning itself off the coast, the storm will track to the east of what was originally thought, the amount of moisture will be less, the foot-plus snow dump will be averted.High 34 low 18.
Wednesday will see some lingering flurries, high winds, and much colder conditions.High 26, low 14.
The remainder of the week looks sunny, seasonably cold, and dry: highs around freezing and lows in the low 20s.
The weekend looks cloudy and milder with highs in the upper 30s to near 40, and lows just below freezing.
The following week is looking a bit colder; I’m still looking at the 13th and 14th for something interesting...
Bunk is a star!!
Yes, Bunk was featured on NBC10 this morning in a segment called "Take This Job" in which Terry Ruggles goes to area businesses and learns about the job. Bunk attends doggy day care at Total Dog and a Little Cat in Adamstown, where Jon and Lori take great care of him. (I know: we are those people, as in, I can't believe those people who lavish so much attention on their dogs and pamper them like they're actual human beings. Never thought it would happen, but Bunk came along and changed all that...)
Anywho, Bunk is at the beginning of the video trying to climb up the gate (and barking), and he's pictured at about the 42-second mark milling around on the floor. ("Little Bunk"--so named because he has the same coloring as Bunk and the two are constantly palling around together at Total Dog--can be seen at Bunk's feet.) That's Bunk's tail at about the 10-second mark too.
Enjoy!
Monsoon's Complete Weather Update for Monday, 29 December 2008
Greetings to all during this fantastically lengthy holiday break!
We are having a fine holiday season and enjoying the fuzz-ball—aka BUNK—as he brings his sweetness and energy to our home.Bunk just turned 4 months old and is growing by leaps and bounds (and, is leaping and bounding all around the house).Below are two recent pictures of Bunk: in the first, he rapturously gnaws on the chew toy his Aunt Megan got him for Christmas; the second features Bunk in a recumbent pose on the hassock, looking just as cute as the day is long.
On to the weather, which has been screwy of late: a high of 67 at my house on Sunday, and the low on New Year’s Eve will be in the teens.I’m currently looking at three potential snow/ice events for the region: Friday 1/2, Tuesday 1/6, and Friday 1/9.See details below and stay tuned for updates...
The weather:
Weather narrative: Enjoy these next couple of days in the 40s, because it’s the last time we’ll see temperatures this high until about the third week of January.Very late Tuesday night a system will move through to our north, and it may clip us with some snow showers into Wednesday, but nothing really to worry about there.Watch out for high winds and powerful gusts on Wednesday.
Friday’s system is a bit more intriguing, in terms of the amount of moisture and temperature levels.I’ll send an update later in the week as that comes into clearer focus, but it could evolve into an accumulating storm.
The next issue looks to be Tuesday, with a potentially unpleasant mixture of snow and ice that could cause a disruption in our school schedule.The Friday after we return is looking snowy, too, but I’ll leave that speculation until we get closer to the event.At the very least, it looks like we’ll be very cold by then, so it doesn’t appear we’ll have to worry about mixed precipitation with that storm.
Beyond the forecast: Continued cold with a significant storm possible for mid-January...
Flashback: Monsoon Martin's "Change Up, Gentlemen!" Forecast
Dear readers,
I wanted to share this selection from the early days of my forecasting/writing, well before I was a "blogger"--I just sent out my ruminations and prognostications via email. This one's from October 2005, and it's all about one of my favorite teachers/coaches of all time, Joe Scott. Please to enjoy.
Monsoon Martin’s “Change Up, Gentlemen!” Forecast
Tuesday, 11 October 2005
Quite a lot of rain we got Friday and Saturday, huh?Whoo-ee!Adamstown received nine and a half inches of rain, widespread flooding in Lancaster and Berks Counties.And I’m sorry to report that we’ve got more rain on the way this week—but fortunately, not in the amounts we saw over the past weekend.It looks like we’ll be drying out toward next weekend, but stay tuned.I’ll keep you posted on the vicissitudes of the weather...
That word—vicissitudes—takes me back to a time of cracking voices, growth spurts, the discovery of acne, the emergence of the first precious wisps of hair under the arms and on the upper lip, and all holy hell breaking loose with the reproductive system.Yes, my friends, I speak of puberty.And this blossoming wonderment begins in that hormone petri dish known as middle school.
“Vicissitudes” was a favorite word Mr. Joe Scott used to embody the mutability of life, the ups and downs, the inevitable changes that characterize any of our experiences.And through these vicissitudes (I can’t stop using it, so deep is my affection for the word), Mr. Scott was our anchor, our mentor: our gym teacher.
Each day we would arrive at the gymnasium of A. D. Eisenhower Middle School in Norristown, and we would encounter a sign on the locker room door: “Change Up, Gentlemen!” This was an indication that we were to retire immediately to the locker room and don our gym uniforms of blue shorts and a white short (blue and white being the school colors; our mascot, the Eagle). After changing, we’d repair to the gymnasium, where we were greeted by large pieces of paper hung high on the walls, hand-lettered by Mr. Scott. The one that stands out in my mind’s eye is “Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You!” (He always capitalized, and frequently used exclamation points: such was the urgency of his message.)
[Eisenhower Middle School, where Monsoon spent his sixth, seventh, and eighth grade years. The building is shown here as Eisenhower Senior High School, from which Monsoon’s mother graduated.]
Once inside the gym we’d arrange ourselves into rows, in Squad Sitting Position, indicating that we were ready to begin class.Squad Sitting Position was a manner of seating that seemed designed to maximize the pain delivered to the buttocks.We would sit with our legs out in front of us, half-bent, knees together, as if we’d just completed a sit-up.And until Mr. Scott took attendance (“Mr. Martin?”“Present.”“Mr. White?”“Unh.”“Mr. White?Is Mr. White here?”“Present.”), we would remain in Squad Sitting Position.
What strikes me about Mr. Scott’s gym classes is the fact that he addressed us by our last names, and as a group we were “gentlemen.”We weren’t merely a bunch of kids named Kendall and Andy and Glen running around and getting sweaty in gym; we were Mr. Meade, Mr. Talone, and Mr. Martin—mature gentlemen engaging in purposeful athletic pursuits.It lent an air of gentility and respect to the proceedings.
As luck would have it, Mr. Joe Scott wore many hats in his position at Eisenhower Middle School.Not only was he the gym teacher; he was also the health teacher, the basketball coach, and the baseball coach.In Health, we twelve-year-olds swaggered in, flush with the dawning of a new physiological day, and Mr. Scott guided us in our first tentative steps toward understanding our bodies.(There was no fifth-grade assembly for boys explaining the havoc that would be wrought on every aspect of our young selves, so we were grateful for any information that came our way—legitimate or otherwise—in middle school.)In addition to the Our Changing Bodies theme of the class, Mr. Scott also injected some life lessons into the mix.Most vividly I remember him admonishing us to avoid the fate of some, who end up “sitting on the street corner, drinking wine and eating Jolly Rogers.”Uproarious laughter greeted that little gem, but I think the message sank in.To this day, I don’t know what Jolly Rogers are, and I don’t want to know.Not much of a wine connoisseur either.Street corners make me nervous, too...
Occasionally in gym class, we’d take to the field outside and play a friendly game of soccer.Inevitably there would be some infraction or another committed, and Mr. Joe Scott would come striding across the field—his center of gravity when running was so low as to make this activity look almost comical—blowing his whistle and declaring that a “free kick” would be attempted.Now, if you’re not familiar with soccer (soccer buffs, feel free to correct me), a free kick is when a player from the opposing team sets up the ball at the corner of a box in front of the goal area.In between this player and the other team’s goal and goalie stand several (four? six?) players from the goalie’s team, trying to make it more difficult for the opposing player to score.Putting them directly in the line of fire of a kicked soccer ball. Mr. Scott had sage advice for those unlucky fellows chosen for this free kick “wall”: “Protect the head and genitals at all times, gentlemen!Protect the head and genitals!” And he would lock one arm—fist clenched in vigilance—in place in front of his face, the other arm locked in front of his genitals.It was a ridiculous pose, but not one boy on that wall balked at conscientiously mimicking this stance.
[These soccer players are approximating Mr. Joe Scott’s strategy of protecting the head and genitals—evidently having decided that their genitals are more precious and irreplaceable than their faces.]
As I mentioned earlier, Mr. Joe Scott was the middle school baseball and basketball coach as well, so I decided to avail myself of his mentorship by participating in these interscholastic pursuits in both seventh and eighth grades.And what disparate experiences these turned out to be.In basketball, we had an excellent team and compiled a winning record in 1985-86, then went undefeated in the 1986-87 season.As the only non-African American player on that team, I recall making every effort to be accepted.Some of the efforts that come to mind: singing and dancing along to “Brass Monkey” by the Beastie Boys in the locker room; making pitiful attempts at break dancing (I could plant my hand on the ground, and perfected the final pose, but everything in between was a tragic floundering of knees and feet, lacking as it did the fluidity and grace of my peers’ performances); and having my number (20) shaved into the back of my head.
In baseball, however, our team realized somewhat less success.More specifically, we did not win a single game in either the 1986 or the 1987 season.Painfully often, the “mercy rule” was applied, which dictates that if one team is leading the other by ten runs by a certain point in the game, it was (mercifully, hence the name) stopped to stanch the suffering.We were—as we had decided all we could do was embrace our record of futility—“defeated,” since we had won no games.I remember playing a great many positions for that team, including pitcher, and given our record, it should be obvious that my basketball prowess far outpaced my abilities on the baseball diamond.(See our 1987 team photo, below.)
I also remember a teammate of mine named Dave Borzillo. Quirky kid. Used to break out in a single refrain time and again, at idle moments during practice or game, and no one knew if what he was singing was actually a song: "God damnnn this traffic jam! How I hate to be late ... hurts my motor to go so slowwwww." In my research for this forecast, I actually confirmed that the song does exist. It's a very bad song by the normally reliably good James Taylor called "Traffic Jam." So Dave wasn't crazy, he just had questionable taste.
And admirably, Mr. Joe Scott's coaching methods were not measurably different for the undefeated basketball team and the "defeated" baseball team. If we had tried our best, he taught us, we could be satisfied with the outcome. (Now that I think about it, we couldn't really say we had given it our "all" after some of the baseball games. But it's the message that matters.) And Mr. Scott's problem-solving was, like him, simple and kind. Once I was struck in the upper thigh (OK, groin) by a baseball. Mr. Scott was instantly striding toward me, low to the ground, cat-like, dispensing the same advice he offered for any injury: "Rub the area gently, Mr. Martin! Rub the area gently!"
[Eisenhower Middle School's "defeated" baseball team, Spring 1987. From top left: Joe Scott, Eddie Carr, Monsoon, David Borzillo, Tony Womack. Regrettably, Monsoon cannot recall anyone else's name. Update in 2026: Oh! #98 is Dave Wingate.]
Protect the head and genitals!
Monsoon's Forecast Contrition Haiku for Friday, 19 December 2008
Inconceivable
Too warm for frozen precip
Rain / snow line crept north
Said bye yesterday
And yet here we are again
A little awkward
Another blown call
Monsoon hangs his head in shame
Happy holidays!
Monsoon Martin's Forecast Contrition Haiku
I present the first-ever (and surely, not the last) Monsoon Martin Forecast Contrition Haiku. I chose the form haiku (in its English incarnation, consisting of three lines with five, seven, and five syllables) because the original Japanese form sought to explore the inscrutable essences of nature and its processes. Since that is what I do—try to make sense of the mysteries of meteorology—it seemed appropriate. Please to enjoy:
Besieged weatherman
Gave colleagues hope for delay
Here we [bleep]ing are
Considered quitting
But I’ll stay to forecast on
If you will have me
Break in the action
Drizzle when I took Bunk out
“Tail end” is lagging
Mild temperatures
Stayed mid to upper 30s
No snow, no pellets
Cold air battles warm
Warm dominates surface temps
Cold hangs head in shame
Morning snow showers
May have students clamoring
Dream on, my young friends
Next Thursday, Friday
Monsoon still holds out some hope
Accumulations
Looking ahead now
Snow 24th, 25th?
Hope for White Christmas
Take care and stay tuned for updates...