Highs and Lows of Last Week

From the 17th to the 22nd, there were some major highs and lows in the Bittnerverse.

On the 17th, we brought Brielle back home from a visit to NJ (sorry, friends--we had no time to visit; besides which, Kat and I were both mildly sick with colds). We checked in with a neighbor couple who also have a newborn daughter--we were working on doing a nanny-share with them--only to find that they were pulling out. They had made alternate arrangements. That left us without any help for Brielle... and we were going back to work the next day.

Not a good time at all. We patched together babysitters for the week (including the couple who'd backed out on us), but were in a jam: we literally had no plan to get us past the 25th (Memorial Day). So we started thinking and came up with some possibilities. We contacted one, a friend of ours, and it turned out she was willing to watch Brielle into the summer.

That was a huge relief.

On Tuesday, we had the news we'd been waiting for: there was a spot for Brielle in the day care in my building as of June 1.

Enormous relief.

We met with the day care staff on the 21st and realized (happily) we were all on the same page. I've started bringing supplies to put away for Brielle and she begins "transition week" this Monday.

It's really scary not knowing what you can or will do with your daughter. Interviewing strangers, looking for babysitters or in-home day care and having no idea what these people are like... it can be bad. Lucky for us we had a friend who could bridge us over this week or so, and that an angel for Brielle came through (her name's Agnes) and worked her magic to get Brielle into day care.

This is not the hardest or worst challenge we'll face as parents but it is a challenge. Now we just have to see about getting Brielle settled into a whole new environment...

I'll let you know how it goes.

Joined Facebook

Hey gang- I joined Facebook this past week. Look me up under "Drew Bittner" and it shouldn't be hard to find me. Two days later, I have 62 friends. Wow!

I'll add a link to my profile later today.

Fighting the Good Fight

My former boss' husband received truly bad news--he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Their blog discusses the start of treatment, the struggles they've gone through, and words of encouragement from friends, family and colleagues.

The most tragic part? He's not even 30 years old.

To judge from the blog posts, his and Jen's spirits are quite strong and optimistic. I'm glad about that; attitude can be one of the most crucial aspects of healing. And lots of community support doesn't hurt, either, so I hope you'll join Kat and me in praying for Kurt Owen's quick and total recovery from this illness.

Talk talk

Some times, the things you do come back around in an odd way.

This past weekend, a friend shared with me that a former acquaintance had been "bothered" by how I handled a goodbye to my former LCS. This person seemed to think I was "enjoying it too much" and that I was gratuitously hurting someone's feelings.

Not true, from my point of view. I was extraordinarily uncomfortable about the circumstances and found the necessity of going back to the store--after I'd made a rather final exit--to be darkly humorous. It probably didn't come off that way. But nevertheless, it bothered someone... and I guess they are still talking or thinking about it.

You know what? It doesn't matter.

The person who was bothered by what I did never bothered to talk with me about it. Instead, a friend took the risky step of passing along what others were apparently gossiping about (months after the fact), to let me know. While I appreciate their willingness to take that chance, it isn't precisely a teaching moment for me because:

a. the person upon whom I supposedly inflicted harm (or this person's friend, the nameless gossip) never addressed me about it; and
b. what, I'm supposed to listen to or be schooled by some nameless gossip?

No.

That's what separates a friend from an acquaintance, IMO. A friend takes a chance on telling you something you might not want to hear; an acquaintance-- especially one that doesn't mean you well-- gossips about it behind your back.

I can tell you which of the two I'd prefer to hang out with.

Absent Friends: John McLoughlin

I lost a friend about a year and a half ago.
Even though I hadn't seen him since 1991, I considered him one of my best friends, and part of my circle--that group you have when you're a teenager and finding out who you are and all of that.
Like I said, hadn't seen him for years... but when I heard he was gone, I wrote the following.
Don't know why I'm posting it now, except that things like this are transitory-- and I don't want to forget what my friends-- past, present or future-- have meant to me.
Here goes.
************
Who was John McLoughlin to me?

Writing something like this is never easy. In fact, it’s some of the hardest writing there is. How do you capture, in a handful of words, someone who was such a singular person? John McLoughlin was someone who defies easy description and completely demolishes classification or categorization. He was like no one I've ever known.

I'll start at the beginning, which for us would have been 1977.

I met John through Peter Nixon. Peter and I had discussed shooting our own version of Star Wars with action figures, or maybe even some live action. John, a friend of Peter’s, wanted to play Chewbacca. The project never came to anything but it did introduce me to John.

We got to know each other better when we started playing Dungeons & Dragons. John wore an Army fatigue shirt almost all the time—that’s one of the things I remember best about him, from those early days. He was also a big fan of all things military, which included Robert Heinlein’s book Starship Troopers; he believed Heinlein’s somewhat right-wing philosophy was really on to something. And he might not have been all that wrong. He had a spent LAW anti-tank weapon in his garage and a German shepherd that he loved fiercely.

John had a way of calling things the way he saw them. He was unflinching in saying how he felt and what he thought. That didn't sit well with some, but he was honest. Say what you like, I never knew John to say anything he didn't really (at some level) believe. He had integrity I can only admire.

We played D&D a lot that first year. We also played Risk up in John’s room. John was a tough competitor; the only person who really gave him competition was [his brother] Tom. They had a turbulent relationship, to put it mildly; Tom was the only one who could make John absolutely crazy.

John had me over at his house for sleepovers several times, and me likewise. Once, when he was at our house, I was freaking out over a TV commercial for the movie Dawn of the Dead. John laughed about it and convinced me that my fear (of a TV ad!) was pretty ridiculous.

He was a regular at Paul Skeen’s and Peter’s homes, and at mine, but we spent a lot of time in John’s home as well. I remember the GI Joe he kept hanging from his light fixture. Dark humor, certainly, but that was John.

He was generous to a fault and already building up the persona that we'd come to know in high school. In many ways, John was larger than life. He was the John Belushi of our circle, the guy who was always doing something. Life around John was never dull or lacking things to talk about.

When John had a fistfight—in Paul’s driveway—the only one I ever saw him in, I was there. I didn't want to be but John was my friend and I supported him. The fight came to nothing and John wasn't hurt. To this day, I don't know what the fight was about-- but I think he ended up friends with the kid he was fighting.

John’s hairline began to recede after his fifteenth birthday. To make up for it, he started doing his best to grow a beard—and when he succeeded, he wore it always after that. With his beard, high forehead and brawn/bulk built up from his Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) training, he was a teenager who looked like he was going on 40... but he never seemed to age for years after that. And, though maybe this shouldn't be said, he rarely had trouble getting served in bars.

He came to visit on an overnight at Rutgers my first year there—part of a large group that included my sister Beth, her friends Kelly and Diane, Paul, Stephanie and Dwain Smith. It was quite an evening; John was one of the few who wasn't running around half-crazed, thrilled and neurotic about being loose on a college campus.

I could tell a lot of stories about John. If there was a wacky anecdote from my teen years, odds are good John was in it somewhere. He was “As Du Valant,” a French Gran Prix driver, in a memorable incarnation sometime around his senior year in high school, and he was Tristan of Lochmoor for many years in the SCA. It’s telling that his self-given name was included in his obituary; I believe that in many ways, he found himself through this kind of singular reinvention.

My mom’s favorite memory of John is him sitting at our dining room table, making chain mail and describing how it was done. He made some beautiful pieces and took pride in being a craftsman. He also brewed mead, though I don't know if that effort was as successful.

He had a wide circle of friends. D&D introduced him to the Carroll sisters, which led to the SCA. He was the lead techie in the Drama Club [at Monmouth Regional High School] and pushed hard for tech workers to be accorded “varsity letter status” along with the performers. He always drove as many people as could fit into his family’s green Vista Cruiser—perhaps the best-known vehicle from the Drama Club years at Monmouth Regional—and never left the cast parties before they were over, often in the early hours of the morning. He knew everyone and everyone knew him.

A couple of anecdotes weren't so wacky. When Peter collapsed at Rutgers, coming to visit me on his first day home from McGill, John was there... and he drove Peter’s car back from New Brunswick, after we grabbed dinner together. We'd seen Peter to the hospital safely—I was the one who called the family and made sure they knew where he was—but it was John who brought his car back to Tinton Falls.

John was rough-and-tumble but always there when he was needed. He came to my dad’s viewing and, if he didn't actually send the condolence card, he bought one.

We saw each other once in awhile as he finished college and spent more time in Philadelphia and south Jersey than in Tinton Falls. I'd graduated and was working, so I had less time to catch up. Our lives were on diverging paths but we made time every now and then. We hung out at Paul’s shared house in Atlantic City one weekend and at his dorm room another time, where John said his floor (he had the job of watching his floor that year) had given him the nickname “Eage”—short for “Eagle,” off his receding hairline. He had a boken (a bamboo practice sword) with which he enforced peace on his floor, which seems appropriately.

The last time I saw him was Christmas Night, 1991. He came to my mother’s last holiday party, before she gave the house to Beth and Glenn and I moved on. We never spoke again and I don't know why. Maybe it was distance, that we were both moving around... or maybe it was that we were both moving on.

He didn't attend the weddings of any of our high school group, that handful of events where we were all together again. Those gatherings were incomplete without John.

The last any of us saw of John might have been 1995 or 1996, when Paul and Stephanie saw him in the stadium parking lot at a Grateful Dead concert. But that isn't my story to tell. As of 2003, Paul heard that John was working in Philadelphia doing construction and was starting to teach computers.

I like to think—I hope—he found tremendous happiness and joy in life, that he had a large circle of newer friends who loved him the way we older friends do. I'm sure they had many stories to tell and miss him just as deeply. All I know is that I regret how nearly sixteen years passed since we last spoke. Maybe John and I hadn't seen each other in a long time, but I knew he was out there somewhere. Knowing now that he’s gone, I miss him even more profoundly.

One last anecdote: in 1980, Peter Nixon came to my door to go to school, teary-eyed. “John’s dead,” he blurted out. My mind reeled. “John McLoughlin?” I asked. “No,” he said, puzzled. “John Lennon.” John got a smile out of hearing that story.

Twenty-six years later, almost to the month, Peter brought me news that John was gone. This time, I got the name right. And I really wish I hadn't.

Mourning Friends' Losses

I'm overdue on some condolences.
There have been two losses among close friends in the last two weeks.
Our friends Ulysses and Jackie suffered a loss in their family; likewise our friends Dan and Lisa.
Kat's and my hearts go out to them, and they are in our thoughts and prayers.

Field Report on Bruce in NJ, by Paul Skeen

Hey folks,
Paul Skeen, one of my oldest and best friends, saw Bruce's rehearsal show in Asbury Park. He also had a bit of extra luck when it came to the Boss, as his email describes...

I have very interesting Bruce story for you. Tuesday night my friend Rich asked if I could go with him to the Tuesday rehearsal show in Asbury.

Having seen the show the night before and the $100 price , I thanked him but said I'd have to hold off. The next day I asked if he was able to get rid of the ticket. He said he had,in a way.

He traded that ticket for 2 tickets to the Friday rehearsal show at the Meadowlands. His wife would then be able to get to see the show. Well, on Thursday his wife discovered she would not be able to go. He offered me the ticket for free.

Hmmm.

Free Bruce Ticket/the Arena was not charging for parking/3500 people in a 20,000 seat Arena.

I'm not an idiot.

The difference between Monday's show and Friday's was unbelievable. The sound was much improved, the band was tighter . The only thing they need to fix is a couple song transitions, which I know they will. The feeling of being in a 20,000 seat arena that only had about 3000-3500 people was surreal.

About 10 minutes before they came out they allowed everyone to go to the floor. We opted to move over a section and down about 7 or 8 rows. They only sold the side sections on the lower level for reserved seating and not that many general admission tickets.

To say the least, you are going to see a great show.

Here's the setlist:

• Radio Nowhere
• Ties That Bind
• Lonesome Day
• Gypsy Biker
• Magic
• Candy's Room
• She's the One
• Livin' in the Future
• Promised Land
• Town Called Heartache- Duet w/Patti
• Reason To Believe
• Darlington County
• Born in the USA
• Devils Arcade
• The Rising
• Last to Die
• Long Walk Home
• Badlands
• Waitin' on a Sunny Day
• Thundercrack
• Born to Run
• American Land w/ Larry Eagle & Lisa Lowell from Seeger Sessions Band

I have to say this. "Reason to Believe" was one of the best songs I've ever seen him do. I really hope you get it at your show.

Thanks for the heads-up on the Bruce show, Paul. Being the longtime fan you are, your opinion carries a lot of weight with me and Kat. Hope we'll see you and Belinda soon!

In Memoriam: Luray Hodder

UPDATED 9/21/07
Musician Luray Hodder-Kuca, 39, of Portland, OR, died by carbon monoxide asphyxiation on Sept. 6, 2007. Her husband John Kuca committed suicide with her; their daughter Ruby, 5, found with them, was the victim of homicide according to Portland police.

An anonymous commenter to this blog has reported that police have not yet closed this case and have not ruled Luray's death a suicide. On that basis, my text has been amended and any conclusions stated herein are retracted, with my apologies to any who may have been offended or alarmed. (It appeared to me that the media reports were calling it a suicide, but if the police have not made a determination, it is more responsible to report it thus.)

Luray attended Monmouth Regional HS for some of the years I spent there. She was part of the Drama Club and was part of an extended circle of kinda-sorta-friends; we didn't visit each others' houses or anything but when the Drama Club went out after a performance, both of us were usually there.

It's a sad ending to a life. What makes it monstrous is that their daughter was murdered when Luray and her husband died. I can sort of imagine being so distraught that you'd want to kill yourself if your wife had terminal cancer (as Luray did); I can't under any circumstances imagine wanting to take your only child with you into the Great Beyond.

Kat and I extend our thoughts and prayers to her family and her husband's.

More here.

...and Have Fun!

Hey, it was a great Fourth of July this year.

First up for me was seeing "Live Free or Die Hard." Despite being encumbered with the worst, clunkiest title for a movie I've seen in ages, the movie rocks pretty hard. The pitch sounds silly-- John McClane vs. cyberterrorists--but they pull it off. And the premise is not-so-silly when you think about it. Wonder if Roderick Thorp ever thought his character would be taken to this extreme?

Strong points: Bruce Willis still kicking butt in his fifties, Justin Long being *far* less annoying than he is as Mac-guy, Mary Elizabeth Winstead showing she's more than just a pretty face (along with having one of the three or four best lines) and Timothy Olyphant (why can't I get past "Girl Next Door" with this guy?) who makes the mastermind a bundle of frustrated rage and misplaced aggression.

Weak points: the fighter jet chewing up an overpass with rockets and machine gun fire was not exactly, ahem, believable. It was a glaring "what the F?" moment in a movie (in a series) that prides itself on being *somewhat* in the real world.

Then I hiked from the AMC Hoffman to Old Town, where Brooke and Matt found me in a Starbucks, reading Mike Carey's new novel. (It's good, folks.)

We went and met Kat for dinner at O'Connells (located on lovely King Street, near the waterfront), then wandered down to said waterfront and walked. And walked. Heck, we walked up as far as Braddock Metro. We found a good spot with a view of the DC skyline, noticed it was about 8:15, and figured what the heck, we'd watch some fireworks. Kat and Brooke both had to call the restaurant to ask about items they'd forgotten but all was well-- the staff was on the ball.

Cue the fireworks. Kat had her MP3 player with her, so we could listen to the Capitol Fourth broadcast on radio, which was pretty nice. After the show, we wandered back to King Street, sharing tales of Fourths gone awry, and reclaimed our stuff from the restaurant. Then we had ice cream, and Matt gave us a lift home. (Thanks again!)

All in all, a great day. Hope you all had as much fun as we did. Write a comment and let me know!

I know, I know...

I haven't posted in awhile. That's because I've been putting energy and thought into a new blog, which is a community project-- that community being the Big Monkey Regulars. We're doing "Bugle's Planet" and it'll be a blast.
Expect a link here when we're up and running.

Overheard at Big Monkey...

I'm putting this out now but plan to fill it in tonight.

Wednesday night at Big Monkey is like Callahan's bar for comics fans: a handful of regulars sit around shooting the breeze for hours on end, as customers drift in and out (then sometimes stop to talk awhile). In the course of this breeze-shooting, things get said.

Often they are outrageous things. Hilarious things. Heck, if we could podcast it, we would.

All of which is to say, I plan to bear a few of these bon mots back to my blog and share them with you. Maybe it'll urge you to come to BMC Wednesday evenings and hang out yourself.

You Just Had to Be There...

Y'know, taping a TV show is one of those things that seems so easy, but takes so much work. For instance, there we were yesterday at DCTV, taping an episode of "Fantastic Forum," my friend Ulie's show about comic books. I did two of the three shows-- and in the second, one of my co-panelists, Roberto, digressed rather... um, spectacularly.

Can't remember how it happened, but Roberto began talking about Puerto Rican girls. I won't deprive you of the experience of watching this for yourself (keep an eye out for upcoming "Fantastic Forum" showings!), but suffice to say that Roberto has strong feelings regarding his community's distaff side. We were dumbstruck... and our host, Sherin, was at a loss for how to continue, even though we all laughed about it afterward.

On the down side, we're all afraid Roberto will never be safe in New York City ever again.

In other news, we had some good one liners crop up here and there. Notably:

• "No name necessary!" (John Brooks)
• "If we were the cast of HEROES, I'd be..." (a lot of us)
• "I've got the hammer now!" (Ulysses Campbell)

C'mon, some of you reading this post where there. Help me out-- what were some other great lines? It was like Wednesday at Big Monkey on steroids. Definitely a blast was had by all.

Be safe, Roberto.

Pictures!!

Kat spent a big chunk of last night uploading a bunch of photos we shot while doing a friend's TV show (which should be online soon [or maybe even now]).
Here's the link!
Take a look and let us know what you think-- we get a little wacky.