The Eagle Has Landed and The Final Frontier

36 years ago today, Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, and Michael Collins went to the moon.

Click here and zoom in all the way: Moon

"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone..."
JFK, 1962

Today, Montgomery Scott made his final voyage.

"Admiral! There be whales here!"

Godspeed, Scotty.

Random Rock Star Moment # 13: Social Distortion

Social Distortion at The Cubby Bear in Chicago, 1988. Pic by miatomic

My brother and The Ramones' Rocket To Russia got me started on punk, but Social Distortion hooked me. See, I had a crush on this boy named Dean. He was a junior at my high school and I was just a freshman. He gave me a copy of a Social D poster that he'd made in graphics class. And I got one of my friends to drive me to Atomic Records so I could buy the LP. So it all started because I liked a boy...

I got over that crush pretty fast, but I never really got over Social Distortion. I tried to see them at Cafe Voltaire (or maybe by that point it had changed names and become the Odd Rock Cafe) in Milwaukee. It was 1988 -- Prison Bound was released.

When I got to the show, Mike Ness was outside lighting firecrackers. My friend's band opened, and then the place was busted by some bored cops who saw a bunch of kids hanging out. They told everyone to leave, that we were over capacity. They kicked us out, chased kids through the parking lot and made plenty of arrests. Lucky for me, I had been returning some borrowed equipment to Social Distortion's van and was hanging out with Dennis Danell when the arrests began. They didn't get to play.

About 2 weeks later, we drove to the Cubby Bear in Chicago. Sham 69 opened. It was incredible. I palled around with Dennis after the show and we had a blast.

In 1992 I saw them open for the Ramones -- and I paid back the punk rock karma by taking my brother backstage.

Prison Bound

I spent last night on Alcatraz.

I was hoping for some major paranormal activity. But nothing could have prepared me for this:

Those ghosts must just love Wild Boys...

A bunch of us decided to sleep in D Block. I was in cell 17. D Block is said to be the most haunted place in the prison — probably because cells 9-14 were for solitary confinement, and they're nicknamed The Hole. Robert "Birdman" Stroud used to sleep in cell 42. Hey...isn't 42 the answer to the ultimate question?

When we went into Birdman's cell one of the lights started to make this weird buzzing sound...like a bug was trapped in it.

I fell asleep around 11:30 — and slept soundly until about 2:00 am when I woke from a nightmare that Al Capone (maybe he was mad that I went into his cell and sat on his toilet) was standing over me. Fell back asleep until 3:45 when three of us needed to make a bathroom run.

The bathrooms are outside of the main prison, next to the crumbling warden's house. While waiting near the bathroom, I heard a dog barking. But there were no dogs on the island. And it was not a seagull that sounded like a dog. But that barking would explain the animal tracks I discovered at 6:30 this morning in the isolation ward of the hospital.

Why was I awake so early, you ask? At 5:45 my nose detected coffee! Brilliant, I thought. Someone actually got up before me and made a pot of coffee. I sat up, swung my feet off my cot, slipped into my adidas, stepped out of my cell and quietly (so I wouldn't disturb the other prisoners) headed down the stairs, turned left, walked passed the Hole and into the library. It was then I realized that I could no longer smell coffee. I also realized that even if someone had made coffee in the staff break room, that smell would not have traveled all the way to D Block.

Ah, those wily Alcatraz spirits. It made me smile, and to no one in particular (as every other sane person in the prison was still sleeping) I said, “Nice trick, guys.”

Then I got my camera, went outside to watch the sun rise over San Francisco, and spent the next hour wandering the prison in my pajamas.

Time travel

I had this dream that I traveled back to 1967 to see The Yardbirds.

I was sitting on the floor in the venue with a group of people -- we were all wearing velvet pants and ruffled shirts. I coudn't let anyone know that I was from the future, but I kept telling myself over and over that I had to be careful that no one found out.

Someone handed me a 45 of Shapes of Things and started telling me something about Jimmy Page.

I held the 45 in my hand, looked at the person who gave it to me, and said something like, "Jimmy's next band is going to be huge."

Me and Joe Strummer

I often have dreams about Joe Strummer...this is one I had a year ago today.

So, Joe and his 13 year old daughter, Barbara — who looked just like the Eliza Dushku character in James Cameron’s True Lies — were renting a cottage on my cousin’s property in Santa Rosa. He had a white pick-up truck...I think it was a Dodge.

We were all planning on driving to Lake Winnebago for the weekend (this is place my family vacationed in every summer). Joe’s truck was parked next to my Civic out in front of the cottage — and it looked like someone dinged one of his headlights, so he was asking me if I knew who hit his car. I didn’t know. We were trying to decide who was going to drive to the lake.

I was living in the attic of my cousin’s house and apparently I was spending a lot of time with Joe and his kid.

So, it’s the night before we’re supposed to leave for Lake Winnebago. My cousin Patsy has made this amazing dinner — and the huge dining room table is set for like 20 people. I’m trying to get people seated — and I put Meredith next to someone (can’t remember who) and I save three seats next to her — for me, Joe and Barbara — so that we can all sit by Meredith.

So Patsy comes in with this platter full of what looks like beef medallions in a rich sauce — it looks delicious. And she’s like, “the platter’s really heavy!” So I help her set it down on the table, some of the juice spills onto the white tablecloth. And she tells me to get everyone to the dinner table so that we can eat.

I go upstairs to what turns into my Godparent’s house in Elm Grove, Wisconsin. I yell, “dinner’s ready!” and I start walking back down the stairs. I hear another cousin, who’s in one of the bedrooms, start to say something, but I just keep on walking. I then go outside, into the woods, and walk toward the cottage. For some reason, I put on my purple bicycle helmet.

When I get to the cottage, Joe’s having a punk-rock party. There’s a couple of guys out front. One of them is pretty drunk and he has spikey platinum hair. He’s like, “do you like my ring?” And he shows me this gold ring that he wearing on his right hand. It’s not round like a regular ring, it’s octagonal, gold, and has these green stones on each flat edge. The guy standing next to him says something about it, and the platinum guy says something about it being a ring that ancient people wore or something like that. And I’m thinking about how stupid I must look with this purple helmet on my head.

The guys tell me that Joe made dinner for the people at the party — scrambled eggs and rice!

So I figured that Joe won’t be joining us for dinner and I walk back through the woods wondering if scrambled eggs and rice is a typical English dinner :)

And I wake up with the song Tommy Gun in my head...

Euro 2004

22 June 2004
My brother and I arrived after what seemed like a shockingly long flight from Chicago to Madrid and then finally to Lisbon. First class was pretty rad though...thanks to George and all his frequent flier miles! On our way out of immigration we were both handed some pamphlets and small foil-wrapped packages. George was like, “What’s in the wrapper?” And I’m like, “I think it's gum.” When I took a closer look...those foil wrappers contained condoms! And the pamphlet gave advice on how not to contract AIDS while visiting Portugal for the tournament. I advised my brother against having sex with strange men in the bathrooms at the football stadiums and not to worry about getting AIDS from a toilet seat. I couldn’t tell if he looked relieved or annoyed.

Since we didn’t have tickets to tonight’s game, we took a cab to the fan park — set up at the Palace de Nationales, site of the 1998 World Expo. The fan park is a huge area with pitches for 5-a-side games, lots of football activities and an Adidas area with the scooters from the Road To Lisbon adverts. I think the only reason George had his pic taken on Beckham's scooter is because I took Zidane's.

We sat with a couple hundred other people and watched the match on one of the big screen teles. Most hated team of the tournament = Italy (followed closely by Germany). Having once been an Italian fan, this bothered me for only a brief second, as I secretly wanted them to lose. Spectators held signs reading "spaghettis go home" and "Nordic victory 2-2" (as a draw would advance both Denmark and Sweden to the quarter finals). And in the 89 minute that's exactly what happened! Sweden's Mattais Jonson scored a truly beautiful goal and the fans went mad! Hey Italy, see ya!

We tooled around the next day looking for cool football gear that’s unavailable in the US (which was pretty much everything). Ate some free food at the free hotel (thanks again to my brother and all his Mariott points!). Caught a cab with some nice German fans and headed out to Jose Avalade stadium (home of Sporting Clube) for the Germany v. Czech Republic game. Germany lost.

24 June, the big day…We've got tickets to the England v. Portugal game at Luz Stadium (home of Benfica). All day I was like, "I’m going to see Michael Owen, I’m going to see Michael Owen, I’m going to see Michael Owen." I jumped up and down with glee. I grabbed my brother’s arm and slowly said "Michael Owen". He responded with, "My sister is a dork." Indeed.

We're sitting about 30 yards behind the goal – with some extras from a Guy Ritchie film behind us. Game starts, 2 minutes in…Owen's running toward the goal…he gets the ball, spins 180 degrees in the air and finds the back of the net! Thousands in the stadium leap to their feet screaming! That collective energy…whoa. It seemed like a win, until the 89 minute when Helder Postiga scored the equalizer and the game went to nail-biting extra time, and then penalties. David Beckham? Whatever. I imagined my father throwing his hands in the air, muttering under his breath in Serbian…just like he did every time I put the ball over the goal.

Since Portugal won, we hi-tailed it out of the stadium in hopes of returning to the hotel before the whole city went completely mad. I should mention that sidewalks end abruptly and for no logical reason in Lisbon. We found a main road and a sidewalk. We thought it would lead us to the hotel.
After a few minutes of walking our conversation went something like this:

G: "I don’t think this is a sidewalk."
M: "Sure it is. Keep walking."
G: "We’re really close to the freeway."
M: "So?"
G: "I think this is a drainage ditch."
M: "It’s a sidewalk."
G: "It’s a drainage ditch."
M: "No. It’s a sidewalk."
G: "No. It’s a drainage ditch."

By this point we’d stopped walking. I looked around. Yipe! Being about a yard away from speeding cars carrying drunken Portuguese fans celebrating their victory seemed like certain death. We retreated to higher ground (i.e. up the embankment and over a fence.) And then we had to ask two police types for directions to the Mariott. In the hotel elevator I was nearly accosted by a drunk German…I went back to the room and requested my brother's protection at the hotel bar. I ordered a Corona. The bartender smiled at me and said I made a good choice.

25 June, France v. Greece.
We set out to find food and cruise around the city before the game. It was hot. We ate next to a group of French fans who sang, in broken English, accompanied by street musicians playing accordions. We were treated to such timeless hits as, When The Saints Go Marching In, The Boxer, and Blowin' In the Wind. Then the Frenchmen danced in the street with a group of Greek fans.
Game time. Holy merde! Our seats were so close to the field…we could clearly see Zidane and Henry. Everytime Zidane moved I became more convinced that he's not human. He glides across the pitch and effortlessly dribbles the ball around opponents. After one amazing fake, George and I looked at each other and were like, "How did he do THAT?!" I guess that's why he's the best footballer in the world.

And my brother made a new friend: Kinas. The Euro mascott is rumored to have been born with the knowledge and craft of all great footballers, past and present. And yeah, we did do a bit of sightseeing…like we went to the Castle of St. George. But this trip was all about football…and it really is a beautiful game.