Yesterday I was talking to our neighbour, a young single woman who moved in last spring, and she was quite concerned. It seems that the previous night, someone had pulled the screen off her back window in an attempt to gain entry into the house. She was at home at the time, and didn't hear anything, but came out in the morning to find the following mysterious clues:
1) Bend window screen
2) Cigarette butt on the front walk, piece of torn 5 dollar bill
3) A dropped passport, with another piece of a (different) five dollar bill
Now, the passport does take the Inspector Poirot mystery out of the equation in one sense. I mean, call the police and give the name. But the twist was that it belonged to the 20-something son of the previous owners, a very nice couple in their early 60s who had moved to a condo nearby. Why would their son Chris be coming back to break into his old house in the night? Or had the passport been there over the course of the year and uncovered by wind or something? There's no question he's a chronic underachiever (to put it charitably, as like many vaguely artistic potheads he's quite a nice guy), but he sure didn't strike me as a B&E type unless he'd being trying something new. I told my neighbour I knew who it was, and would follow up with his mother Wendy by email.
Wendy's initial response was disbelief, but quickly updated to "Uh oh, yup it was him." His story was that he had gone out with friends, had gotten caught up in some sort of hard core drinking and passed out. He woke up confused and wandered back to where he used to live and tried to get in. He was terribly embarrassed, Wendy and Chris's father David were appalled, and called my neighbour to come over and set things right.
Anyway, my neighbour was nice about it (although she said anything like that again, and the cops will be there pronto), and I assume that Chris will pay for a new screen.
It left me thinking that please God don't ever let me have to accompany my 28 year-old son to someone's house to apologize for behaviour like this, and never allow me to be so naive to believe that it was just alcohol that led to behaviour like this. Please.
Awhile ago I posted about Campbell moving up a division, as it were, into senior house league for a game. This week, as it's March Break and all the teams are short of players, Leighton agreed to come out and play for Campbell's Junior House Team. This was not a small thing, as he'd already refused once, so I was really proud of him for taking the plunge. I wasn't worried about him not keeping up physically because even at six he's a better skater than some of the 8 year old kids on Campbell's team, but I was worried he'd feel lost out there in terms of positioning and the overall pace etc. And one thing about Leighton: he's in, or he's out. No grey areas. The worst case would be he would just sit on the bench and refuse to continue playing.
Wonderfully, not only was he "in" but at one point he passed the puck to Campbell, who put it into the net for a goal. Oh my, brother-to-brother playmaking! I literally jumped up and down I was so thrilled. There are two angles to this, beyond just being a garden variety (rink variety) proud Dad; I was delighted to see Leighton find some success out there; but I was especially thrilled to see them accomplish something together. It's not easy, this family thing and especially for two boys only two years apart, but I think the positive bonds that form over time come from the successes you shared through collaboration. I'm not sure that will be a magic tonic for all the other stresses of two brothers who are very different, but for that moment, watching them both skate back to the bench elated, it was magic.
Good old Little Steven. The Porktrashers will do more covers, I promise!
Advice for young bands: "I spent half my life convincing young bands to not skip that club phase, because they're all skipping it now. The Beatles were a bar band for, what, four or five years? I tell bands, are you better than them? How do you learn how to play songs? If you can't play someone else's songs you can't learn how to write songs. You can't learn from listening to the fucking radio these days. You can learn how to be mediocre. That's what we need! More mediocrity. Not only were the Beatles a bar band, they did covers for five albums after that! Stones too. People need to get a grip on how to do that. It's a craft. It has to be learned. You aren't born with it. Nobody is born great. Nobody. All of a sudden you have an entire two generations that don't do it. They suffer for it. Once you don't learn, you don't learn. You may get better at your thing, but you'll never be great."
