Life of Pie

Thanksgiving is a SERIOUS contender for the top spot of my favorite holiday every year, which is why I'm so annoyed when people seem hell-bent on passing over it to get straight to Christmas. No real fuss about Thanksgiving, no need to go out and buy presents for everyone (although that's fun in its time), just show up, watch some football, and literally eat yourself into a tryptophan-induced coma with family. You can't beat it.

One of the best traditions we've adopted over the past couple years has been the Thanks 4 Giving 5k/10k fun-run in our very own hometown of Lowell, MA. It's a pretty fantastic get out of guilt free excuse for all the shameful calories we're about to consume later on. We knew LOADS of people who'd left the comfort of their warm beds this morning to brave the cold, and here's just a partial record of our adventures with them all this morning! 

The E-Streeters are ready to run!

Clan Cassidy (plus one), the poster family of this year's race

This is seeming less and less a good idea as we're getting closer to the start

Boston Marathon teacher buds

A shameless start chute selfie (now repeat 5x fast)

Out on the course, a water stop courtesy of the STATE CHAMPION Lowell High Red Raiders XC team. Whatever they put in their water, believe me, you want some.

E-Streeters Barry Scanlon and John Piekos, the latter fresh off his adventures on the wilds of the African Savannah. No zebras here, John, just turkeys.  

When you've run 26.2, it's all smiles for a mere 10k

Ms. Heather Spence came all the way from the West Coast to run this. Hopefully we didn't disappoint!

Our own Ms. Heather Cook, on loan from Stonehill College for the week, seen here WISHING that she was on the West Coast and not slogging through a cold morning 5k

And now, a rarity: a literal step-by-step anatomy of a finish line photobomb. Children, take notes.

Step 1: The picture is set up. The photobomber is given a (frightening) verbal warning.

Step 2: The photobomber exits the picture, lulling his victims into a false sense of security. Some (Heather Cook) remain wary.

Step 3: Inevitability

Basically, we do these things for the food at the end

And now, the most important shot of all: in some circles, this is called the money shot, but we'll settle for pie!! (Insert geometry joke here about circle circumference and Pi... I'm an English major, we don't know these things)

My other favorite thing about Thanksgiving is that it reminds everyone to step back and reflect on and appreciate everything they've been given in life; no-one's is perfect, but the health to power through a 5k on a beautiful November morning surrounded by a core group of friends like this... yeah, it's not bad. THANK YOU, everyone in my extended circle, for making my world one that I wouldn't trade for anything -- know that you're in my thoughts and well wishes as I tuck into my plate(s) of turkey later.
Happy eatings, all!!

Sherlock's Home

Earlier in the month, the E-Streeters, the informal but take-a-bullet-for-you loyal friend group of my Dad's, lost a member from their fold. Martin Brewer, the English E-Streeter who was a proud dual-citizen native of his native UK and his adopted US, passed away after a short but brutal fight with a brain tumor. Martin was a Springsteen fanatic, a rock'n'roll historian, a Whovian, and, as an English teacher, a love of all things literary... yes, he and I had a lot to talk about in our many conversations. He was also one of the nicest, most genuine people I've ever met, with the single greatest zeal for life that I've ever encountered. If he wanted to go somewhere on a trip, he went; if he wanted to see a movie or a play or a concert, he went; didn't matter who else went with him, if anyone at all, the point was that he recognized how precious this world is, and wanted to experience as much of it as he could. It's a philosophy that I think a lot more of us would do well to adopt for ourselves.

Martin's best friend here in the states, Barry Scanlon, announced that he'd be flying over to England for Martin's funeral services, and my Dad and I felt it'd be our honor to tag along with him. If you had taken a look at my travel bucket list a few weeks ago, you'd have seen England sitting right there at the very top, but I'd have given anything to alter the circumstances of this trip. Given the occasion, the three of us had a historic, absolutely unforgettable time over there, meeting Martin's friends and family, taking in all the local sights, and frequenting one or two (or three or four) of Martin's favorite watering holes. They can drink, those English can. Most of it's better left unsaid, but I' want to dedicate this post and the next one to detailing some of the more lighthearted moments of the trip, all done and experienced in Martin's honor.

First off, a bit of a surreal experience for your humble blog writer, in ye olde London town. One of those mentioned areas that Martin and I shared in common was a love of The Great Detective -- that's Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. I've read every single one of Doyle's original mysteries, and won't embarrass myself here by admitting how much time I've spent in watching derivative adaptations, from Basil Rathbone to Jeremy Brett to, most recently, Benedict Cumberbatch (I'm actually off later tonight to a local theater to watch Ian McKellen, Gandalf, take his turn in the deerstalker). When I found out that the London hotel we'd booked was an eight minute walk from BAKER STREET, Sherlock's very own digs... come on. There's no such thing as a coincidence that convenient.

My two traveling companions kindly kept their concerned glances to themselves as I all but skipped down Baker Street the night we arrived in London, newly refreshed with a hearty pint of real English ale after a long flight. I stopped a few passersby on the street for some directions, and they asked if I was looking for a tube (subway) stop; after all, what would be the point in looking for the home of a fictitious, made-up character?
Get away, heathens.
We walked along down Baker Street, which, hysterically enough, is the location of the only Dunkin Donuts in all England (it was Dad's turn to skip all of a sudden), and ticked down the addresses from 400 to 300 to 250, before finally, there it was. 221B.

IT'S REAL! IT'S REALLY REAL!

Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson had retired for the night, I expect, but that didn't stop me from knocking on their door like the grinning idiot I was.

For any other Holmes enthusiasts like myself wondering just what this Mecca is actually like, you can get very cheap tickets to go upstairs into the actual rooms of 221B itself -- Holmes and Watson are out chasing down London's criminal underworld, so it's just the rooms, alas, but still pretty fantastic. We unfortunately didn't have enough time during our cruelly-brief stay in London to make the trip upstairs, but some other time in the future: bet on it. Downstairs, there's a Sherlock Holmes museum and store, and your intrepid blogger walked out of it with a purchase of every item available for sale on the shelves (and a few perhaps that weren't). And if all of this near-religious experience tires you out, luckily, Hudson's Deli is the next door over for some nourishment. She's a landlady, not a housekeeper.

We were able to make a second trip over in the daylight, and on the way grabbed an incredible lunch at a pizza parlor a stone's throw away from Sherlock's digs.

As you can see from the decor in the background there, these people know how to capitalize on a target demographic

For anyone wondering the depths of my fandom, yes, that t-shirt I'm wearing there is in fact the entire printed Adventures of Sherlock Holmes text, in wearable form. It's part of a fantastic brand of clothing called Litographs, t-shirts that print whole classic novels for you to wear around. If you're a lit. geek like me, it's pretty much the universe's way of telling you your bookworminess is now socially acceptable. For anyone interested, you can check out the whole incredible line of them here: http://www.litographs.com/collections/t-shirts.

I wear a deerstalker now, deerstalkers are cool (sorry, wrong British fandom)

There was even a constable out front on loan from Scotland Yard to pose with (and provide that hat, which sadly wasn't mine). Inspector Lestrade, your best men are on the case.

A very, very cool moment in life, I'll be perfectly honest, and one that I know Martin would have appreciated more than anyone else. Next up: some runs for the ages!

Doctor's Orders

The Fall TV season is picking up now, with a slew of new shows about to take to the air, and some of you are maybe wondering about which ones deserve your precious time for a tune-in. If the opinion of this humble blog writer is worth anything, a show you should maybe check out isn't new at all -- it's about to begin its fifty-second year, and is still one of the single most worthwhile things you can populate your TV (laptop) screens with. "What?? What??" you're asking... Nope. It's "Who..."

Shameless pun opportunity, taken, thank you very much.

Thing is, I think it's safe to say that everyone nowadays has at least HEARD of Doctor Who... has that friend who raves ad nauseam about it, maybe, has walked past big displays in mall windows, has seen it pop up in the Netflix cue. The general awareness is there in the periphery, but a lot of people still haven't made the jump to actually watching an episode. It's quirky, yes, and British, and can be heavy on the sci-fi side, but those things usually don't break the deal for most people. In my opinion, the problem is that a lot of people just don't know where to start. I said it myself earlier, the show's been around for fifty-two years -- A) How is that even possible, you're thinking, and B) How am I just gonna hop in now when there's that kind of a back catalogue I might need to catch up on? Add in the fact that, confusingly, there never seems to be the same actor in the main role, and it's no wonder that a lot of people just go no thanks and move on to the next show. But stay calm. I've got you covered.

To boil it down to a simple book report version for you: the eponymous Doctor -- no surname, it's not Mr. Who, M.D., his name is just "The Doctor" -- is a centuries-old alien who's stolen a time machine and uses it to travel across the universe for kicks, accompanied by "companions" who assist him on all his adventures. That time machine, the TARDIS, is the blue police phone box you've seen everywhere, and is famously "bigger on the inside" than the outside. Due to his alien biology, every time the Doctor suffers injuries serious enough to be fatal, he "regenerates" into a new body -- literally, every cell of his person changes and he becomes an entirely new individual. There have so far been twelve Doctors (and another incarnation who refused to call himself "The Doctor," but here I go again confusing you...), and it's for this reason that the show's been around since 1963; basically, regeneration is one of the most ingenious plot devices in TV history, since the show can find itself a new lead anytime the old one wants to move on, meaning it can carry on indefinitely. Its first episode was actually almost bumped off the air by news coverage of President Kennedy's assassination, but it's managed to overcome that rocky beginning to since become one of the most iconic television institutions in global history.

A baker's dozen Doctors. Pointy guy in the middle there with the angry eyes is the current Doctor, played by Scottish actor Peter Capaldi

The irony isn't lost on me that the "simplified version" I just gave took a whole lengthy paragraph to explain, but it's why most "Whovians" have learned to tell their friends with a wry smile "Just watch it. Trust me. Just watch one episode." The most agreed-upon starting point for newcomers is a 2007 standalone episode named "Blink." Strangely, the Doctor (played in this incarnation by David Tennant, who most people will recognize as the tongue-twitching Barty Crouch Jr. from the Harry Potter series) only appears in this episode for a few minutes, shouting worriedly from a TV screen. But it's the first episode I watched myself, and in all the years since, it still stands as one of the most brilliant hours of television I've ever watched. It utterly, utterly hooked me, and I have a suspicion it might just do the same to you.

The episode is also one of the best examples of a headlining feature for Doctor Who: the monsters on this show have been sending kids flying behind their couches or beneath their pillows for the last fifty years. The Doctor's travels bring him into contact with some truly nightmare-inducing species, from the robotic Cybermen to the genocidal Daleks. "Blink" introduces the Weeping Angels, statues who move whenever you're not looking at them and who entered the pantheon of all-time classic horror creations from their very first appearance.

"Don't blink. Blink and you're dead. Don't turn your back, don't look away, and don't blink."

No-one will deny that the show's production values haven't always been exactly...cutting edge, so to speak. The reason the Daleks look like trashcans turned upside down with a plunger sticking out is most likely because those were the resources on-hand in the BBC production shed when they were introduced back in 1963.

Silly or no, they've become one of the most recognizable pop culture symbols in history, with their synthetic EX-TER-MIN-ATE squawk resounding from global playgrounds for the last half century

The reason this exists is because...Well... I actually don't really know what this is, to be honest

But the show's really stepped up its game in the modern era, producing special effects on a weekly schedule to rival any Hollywood space epic

So that's a great hero, some iconic bad guys, and cutting-edge sci-fi writing that geniuses like Stephen Hawking have credited for sparking their imaginations (no, seriously); add on the fact that the "sandbox" to play in here is all space and time, with historical figures from Robin Hood to Van Gogh to Agatha Christie making the occasional guest appearance, and it's sounding like a pretty sweet pot. What I think is most poignant and worthwhile about this show, however, is its grasp of how the universe and everything in it is fleeting, and that's what makes it all more beautiful in the end -- just because you know something won't last forever doesn't mean you can't enjoy it while it lasts. If anything, the opposite should be true! For all its sci-fi geekiness, Doctor Who isn't afraid to explore these sadder, deeper themes, whacking its fans hard in all the feels.

Companions who die, or get trapped in alternate timelines, or simply move on with their lives, and the Doctor's regenerative biology being what it is, means that you'll get very attached to these characters before having to part ways with them in just a few short seasons.
But trust me. You're in for a heck of a ride through it all. All of time and space awaits...Geronimo.

40 Years Down the (Thunder) Road

FINALLY sitting back down here at the keyboard, after what's been about a month-long hiatus now. My apologies for not chronicling the remaining escapades of the Cook family on their Western voyages, but at this point, I'd say it's time to move on to greener pastures. For anyone still wondering how we fared in Yosemite National Park and the City by the Bay, keep a watchful eye on my dad's A Wicked Good Blog - you're probably in better hands over there anyway, they don't call him the Blogfather for nuthin'.

Besides blogging, there's a slew of other things the two of us also overlap on: running, comic book geekiness, and dashing good looks (just to name a few), but one particular area of shared interest is celebrating a milestone birthday today, and that's just what I'm here to talk about. 

Ladies and gentlemen, Bruce Springsteen's landmark Born To Run album turns the big 4-0 today... yes, that's four whole decades since Columbia Records released one of the most iconic pieces of Americana ever created by the music industry into the hazy heat of a late August afternoon in 1975. The world's become a different place since then, and the man behind that album has changed and grown accordingly with the times; nevertheless, something about this particular album was lightning in a bottle, and I'm gonna try here to find out why. Now, I get it: to most people my age, Springsteen is A) the title of a crazy popular country song that I've never personally been a fan of but has spawned infinite Instagram captions regardless, or B) that guy your dad listens to at barbecues with friends where everyone's wearing their best pair of dad jeans (any bespoken dads offended by that, just trust me, I'm on your side here). But don't go away just yet - this is a story both personal and epic in its scope, and I have a feeling it's gonna be a good one...

Let me set the scene: it's early 1975, and at this point, Bruce has released two studio albums. He's an unshaven, rag-tag Jersey shore tramp, with a backing band of similar origin (and appearance). His first album was created largely with the use of a rhyming dictionary, to be honest, and even though the second album was critically hailed as genius, it was a big commercial flop. In other words, that's two strikes; in the music business, that's one strike away from oblivion.
So, Bruce takes pen to paper, and after making a few key lineup changes in the band, composes eight songs that put his personal troubles and anxieties on full display for the listening public. This is it - it's his "last chance power drive," a Hail Mary full-court press that will either make him or break him. He bought his first guitar at age thirteen from a pawnshop, and now, at age twenty-six, he has no plan B. Either this album succeeds, or the dream that's consumed literally half of his life thus far comes to a crashing end. Forty years later, we're lucky enough to say the rest is history.

The E-Street Band, circa 1973 - a bunch of Tramps if ever there were any

The E-Street Band, circa 1975. 

The E-Streeters gang, circa 1988 -- but wait, my bad, this is a different group of guys. Looking at you, Patrick Cook et al. To be honest, these guys look like the shadiest of the entire lot.

The album's set in a nameless (read: any) factory town in New Jersey with the bright, glittering lights of the Manhattan skyline beckoning from across the Hudson, hailing from the same universe as Marlon Brando's On the Waterfront or Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets; mobsters, waifs, and perfumed beauties continuously drift in and out of the lyrics. Musically, "guitars flash just like switchblades," there are sweeping piano riffs, and the whole thing is held up by the earth-shattering saxophone notes of the Big Man, Clarence Clemons. If such thing as a cinematic album exists, this is it.
The veneer of the album centers on efforts to escape, get out, leave this confining hometown environment behind, and I actually wrote my college application essay on this subject. Lowell has the kind of blue-collar background that Springsteen would appreciate, and the 17 year old kid about to embark on his college adventures empathized with this "time to see the world" mentality. But now that I'm HAPPILY back in Lowell (and plan to be for a while) and a few years wiser, I think I have an even better appreciation of the album beyond its preliminary "we gotta get out of this place" ambition. At its core, I think Born To Run is about passion. Not "passion" in the *adopts French accent* "ma cherie... my love for you... it is a flame... A BIG, ROARING FLAME," kinda way, but in the sense of "that thing that you were put here on Earth for."
Springsteen's passion, the thing that literally got him out of bed every morning - and still does, probably - was music, and he imbued the recording sessions for BTR with every possible ounce of energy and effort he could muster; he had a spark, and he was gonna keep it alive at all costs. Hearing some firsthand eyewitness accounts, he was an utter taskmaster and a nightmare to anyone who got in the way of that vision. But all that taskmastery (yes, it's a word, I've decided) was simply another manifestation of all the times in his lyrics where he tries to leave the factory life of New Jersey behind: an attempt to keep this passion alive. To stay or to settle is to have it crushed, to become just another cog in the machine, to have his dreams sacrificed... now that's something anyone can sympathize with.

Bruce would go on to write about what happens if these dreams aren't realized: in Darkness on the Edge of Town and The River, he learns to make do with "adult" life, living for the weekend, as it were, and later stuff like Nebraska and Born in the USA makes beautiful art out of bleakness. But for Born To Run, Springsteen's optimism is still there (if only just), riding into the sunset in a blaze of glory. "If I play my chips just right," he seems to hope, "and if I have the right person there in the passenger seat with me, then maybe, just maybe, this dream's still got a chance. Let's ride."

Forty years later, and the ride hasn't stopped for Bruce. Born To Run transformed him into a household name, especially on the merit of his live shows; a kind of catalogue of epic tall tales surround Springsteen's concert career over the decades, from the time he "broke a stadium" in Sweden for packing in too many people and playing too hard, to the time he allegedly "ended communism" in Germany by playing a concert to both the East and West factions (these all may or may not be true, depending on which rock historian you talk to). It's believed that The Boss burns about 5000 calories per concert; with sets that last about four hours or so, it's not hard to see why. I saw him play in Orlando back in 2008 on an ordinary Tuesday night, to an audience that was full but not quite sold out (Florida's never been Boss central...their loss); in short, it would have been pretty understandable if he had simply played to par. We had seats one row behind the stage, so we were able to see him exit once he'd finished for the night. Springsteen emerged from beneath the stage literally dripping sweat, his eyes shut, all but stumbling down the tunnel to his room. To an unremarkable Tuesday night crowd, he had just emptied his tank 1000%, left it all out there for everyone to see, and was utterly spent now because of it. THAT is passion, ladies and gents. THAT is the thing that he was hoping for back in the summer of 1975, and that's kept him going all these years later.

I had a professor at school who saw him in 1975 promoting Born To Run - in his words, "It was like nothing I'd seen before. He was James Dean with a guitar."

Now. This has all been very long-winded and pedantic, some of you may be thinking. Heck, it's probably even delved into a bit of hero worship. But what started as an heirloom interest from my dad has turned into something that's significantly shaped my own worldview. I and several million other wide-eyed, idealistic graduates have recently entered into "the real world," every one of us nourishing our own little passions and dreams. Well, "the real world" can be a nasty, harsh place - I think Born To Run knows that, deep down. But you don't have to like that fact, or accept it. Dreams are some of the most important things worth having, and they need to be fought for.  It's very easy to be cynical, or pessimistic, and more often than not, "Just give up and lie down, it's easier" seems to be the prevailing viewpoint.  But BTR is a celebration, a last call to arms, for passion, to show enthusiasm for that thing (whatever it may be) that matters to you more than anything else in the world. Dress that message up with the most lavish wall of sound this side of Phil Spector, and THAT'S something I can (and do) buy into - in Springsteen's own words, "THAT's rock'n'roll!!"

Sprung from cages out on highway 9, 

Chrome wheeled, fuel injected, and steppin' out over the line 

Oh-oh, Baby this town rips the bones from your back 

It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap 

We gotta get out while we're young 

`Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run 

Westward Ho! (Part 3) - Cowboy Up

"I couldn't do that. Could you do that? How can they do that? Who are those guys?"

It was time for us four city slickers to embark on the adventure that had caused the most excitement before we had even left Massachusetts: horseback riding! With very little to absolutely no prior experience on a horse, we weren't exactly sure how this would turn out -- but hey, we'd seen it in the movies, right? How hard could it be?
Returning to Zion -- which actually served as the shoot location for the Hole in the Wall hideout of Mr. Cassidy and Mr. Kid (above) --  we were sized up by the horse wranglers and saddled with our noble steeds.

WAIT A SECOND - HOW DO YOU DRIVE THIS THING?!?!?

Being so green, we were expecting detailed instructions, complete with charts and diagrams, about how to steer our animals (ok, maybe not charts and diagrams. But DETAILED, anyways). Once we were seated, the wranglers kindly told us, " 'Right, turnthiswaytogoleft, thiswaytogoright, kicktogoforward, pullbacktostop, LET'S RIDE!!" WAAAAIIIIITTTTT!!!!

In a trial by fire -- or water, actually -- our horses waded right through a stream within the first hundred yards, where a photog nabbed these profile-pic worthy snapshots. Presenting:

Calamity Heather, riding Kitten

Sheriff Andrew, riding Fancy

Jolly Jackie, riding Charlie

Outlaw Pat, on H.B. (He maintains to this day that the initials stand for Hell Blazer)

We have several friends who are horse owners/lovers who had told us before the trip how much we'd enjoy this particular outing; within the first half hour of riding, I knew exactly what they'd been on about. I put my hand on Fancy's flank once, and it was just a solid wall of muscle. Yet, for all their incredible power, these were some of the calmest, most tame animals I've ever been around, and it wasn't hard to form a connection with them before long. 

We did our cowboy thing for several hours, riding up and down through Zion as the sun (and the heat index) got higher, and it was everything we'd imagined it would be. The horses rode in single file line just feet from the rear of the rider before them; whenever a gap started to form, we were instructed to give the horses a little nudge to speed them up and close the space. I decided to hold Fancy back for a second at one point, before breaking into a gallop to see what it was like. For an answer, you should ask my mom and Heather, the two riders behind me, who broke into similar gallops and who are still on strained speaking terms with me.

"Riders of Rohan! What news from the Mark?!"

So yeah, we're all basically full-on cowboys/cowgirls now, in case you were wondering. Sorta. At the very least, I get why all those old Western heroes walk bow-legged now. One for the history books, for sure!

Next up: the City of Sin. We're coming for you, Terry Benedict.