Dignity.

Nothing says “Dignity” like vomiting on the beach.

That was my main lesson during Memorial Day weekend. We were on the beach when this group of 20-somethings set up camp right next to us. After awhile, this one train wreck was lying on the beach and started throwing up right into the sand. I had my back to them and my iPod on so I wasn’t aware of anything. All I saw was Steve staring at me and mouthing “Dignity.” I guess the guy buried the upchuck in the sand because I didn’t see it.

This was at about 1 or 2 p.m. I’ve been hung over, too, but I’ve never done the liquid laugh while on the beach. I guess there weren’t too many options for this guy because once you need to throw up, you pretty much have no choice. The beach was very crowded so there was nowhere isolated to go to puke in private.

Still: Eww. Also, thanks. This was after these people set up their towels right up on us. I uprooted my umbrella and moved it because they were so close. I absolutely fail to understand why some people have no boundaries in public settings. The beach was crowded but we weren’t packed like sardines and there were more places these people could go.

This has happened before. I was on the beach once in relatively deserted Fenwick Island and this family decided to set up a huge canopy right next to my elbow. There was plenty of space and they could have gone anywhere. Do you not fucking see me sitting here? Am I a person? I didn’t want to move because I was there first and it’s a pain to set up an umbrella again. I figured I’d just linger and if the family was uncomfortable with me sitting there while their kids were playing, it was their own goddamn problem for setting up close enough to read my book over my shoulder.

Man, I hate that. I like the beach because it’s tranquil and a break from the ratrace and claustrophobia of life. I don’t need to be isolated but I thought there was a generally acceptable radius between you and strangers. It’s like how at the movie theater, if it’s not crowded, keep an empty seat between you and strangers and move in only when it becomes too crowded not to. Christ, can’t I read my book or try to nap without hearing your conversation six inches from my face?

It was a minor annoyance for us but I felt worse about this couple on the other side of the vomiting guy. This crew set up camp literally six inches from this couple’s towels. They were so close that if the vomiting guy and his friends had not been there, there still would have been an appropriate amount of space between us and the other couple. It was like we kept an appropriate following distance from the next car but someone got between us and made it unsafe. Anyway, this couple saw this guy blowing chunks into the sand and moved somewhere else in disgust.

Again: Dignity.

Avengers Assemble

I saw the Avengers movie and was very happy with it. I was able to enjoy it without worrying too much about how the movie deviated from the continuity in the comics. I have a tendency to nitpick comic movies for mistakes. (“The Juggernaut is not a mutant! Nooottt a muuutaaaaant!”)

Since I’ve been reading the Avengers for 30 years, I can be a continuity snob about the team. When I heard of the cast, I was a little dubious that the founding members of the team in the movie were not the same as in the comic. In the movie it’s Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, the Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye. In the comic it’s Thor, Iron Man, the Hulk, Ant-Man and the Wasp. I realize they changed the cast out of necessity, since if you wait for the rest of the Avengers to find Captain America in suspended animation in the ice after their founding, it would take too long to introduce the character, although it does have more resonance if it’s the Avengers, not SHIELD, who find him. I also understand that Ant-Man and the Wasp are not well-known characters and might not translate onto the screen. But it’s a shame not to include them, especially the Wasp, who has been the heart of the team in many ways (and whom a lot of people online want to include in the sequel).

Joss Whedon’s movie nailed a lot about the spirit of the Avengers team. He deftly captured the bickering of the members, which has been a constant since 1963. That may have been why Marvel’s heroes always appealed to me more: They act like real people, not always getting along, in contrast to the sometimes bloodless heroes of DC. There were nice allusions to Cap’s tension with Iron Man and the Black Widow and Hawkeye’s fling. There was a great montage at the end of the news footage of the destruction of New York, showing how the citizens of the Marvel Universe sometimes distrust their heroes.

I absolutely loved the post-credit sequence with the Avengers eating silently in a ruined diner after saving the world. It captured the tentative beginnings of friendship among the six members.

Some characterizations were spot on, like the idealism of Captain America and lonely darkness of the Hulk, nicely captured by Mark Ruffalo. Samuel L. Jackson is good in anything. Others were not so accurate. Thor didn’t have quite enough bluster for me. I needed more scenes of him throwing Mjolnir and screaming “I say thee nay!” The character of Hawkeye (sexy, sexy Jeremy Renner) was wasted. Hawkeye has the most distinctive personality of the team but he spent half the movie brainwashed and was blah the rest of the time. His portrayal should have been more of a smartass douchebag like Tony Stark (and Iron Man in the comic is not really like he is in the movie) but I guess there was only room for one smartass douchebag on the team. I really liked Scarlett Johansson. The Black Widow is a fantastic character and she nailed her badass portrayal. I would love a solo movie.

There were a few missed opportunities as I would have loved some subtle Easter eggs nodding to the Avengers’ rich history. They could have had a scientist named Dr. Pym, a socialite named Janet Van Dyne or SHIELD agent Carol Danvers. These would have been little things to put a smile on the faces of longtime fans.

The constant turnover of membership has always been a theme of the Avengers comic and I’m wondering who they’ll add for the sequel. My top choice is Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch. She was my favorite character in comics but the way they treated her a few years ago bothered me enough that I mostly stopped reading comics. The Scarlet Witch was one of the pillars of the team with a long track record of heroism but the Avengers author had her betray the team in a way that really defamed her character so a movie portrayal would be some nice redemption. Anyway, I would also love to see the aforementioned Wasp, Hank Pym as Ant-Man or Giant Man, Ms. Marvel, the Vision, the Black Panther or Photon. The Avengers have had dozens and dozens of members so the opportunities are endless.

My favorite little scene was the one near the end where all the Avengers assembled into a circle before fighting Loki’s demons. As the camera panned 360 degrees around my childhood idols, I was a kid again, buying comics at the 7-Eleven for 60 cents each.

Disco Never Dies

If I’d been born a decade earlier, I might have been a Donna Summer fan like I’m a Madonna fan now. I was not much more than a casual fan of Summer’s music, although before her death I was thinking, “She was pretty good. Why do I not have her on my iPod?” I’ve heard so much of her music over the years that it’s almost in the background and taken for granted.

So I listened to Steve’s copy of On the Radio after she died. Summer was deeply talented and went beyond just disco to flirt with other genres like rock and new wave. “Hot Stuff” is still nasty with a tangy synth sound. “Bad Girls” is pretty catchy for a song about whores. I like the wistful sound of “Heaven Knows” and “On the Radio” is fun. “Love to Love You Baby” still sounds lush and lusty. “I Feel Love” is, even after 35 years, hypnotic and pristine and prescient.

There was some Donna Summer music I never cared for. “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)” is too gay for me and I am gay. Barbra Streisand will not appear on my iPod unless it’s “Barbra Streisand” by Duck Sauce. Summer’s wailing vocals and convincing performance can pull off “MacArthur Park” but that song is still laughable. I’m sure that cake in the rain is a symbol but it’s too stupid to ponder. I just assume the song is either by drugs or about drugs. “Last Dance” is well constructed and undeniably catchy but it’s cliché now. It’s every wedding you’ve ever been to. I don’t want to play this at our reception. If people really want to hear it, fine; but you’ll hear it as the first song of the evening.

Songs like “Last Dance” sound cliché until you realize, “But it was new then.” It’s a little like Casablanca where you’ve heard “Here’s looking at you, kid” so often that you groan when Humphrey Bogart says it until you realize this was the first time anyone had heard it. I think that’s part of Donna Summer’s legacy. She had been around for so long and her songs were such a part of the radio and dance floor that maybe I never really looked it her.

There have been so many disco divas since Donna Summer’s heyday that they all owe her something. Summer was such a trailblazer that without her work in dance music, I don’t know what Madonna would sound like today, let alone God knows how many other dance artists. And I think Madonna knows that since she opened the Confessions Tour with a brilliant medley of her own “Future Lovers” and “I Feel Love.”

Summer had an astounding run of hits in the late ‘70s and in 1979, her hits were overlapping each other on the chart to the point where she had more than one hit in the top 10 at once, which is really hard to do. The mainstream hits petered out after that but she never stopped having club hits. Between 2008 and 2010, she had four number 1 hits on the dance chart to add to her total. I think that’s astounding for someone who had been around since the ‘70s to get strong club play in a genre that is constantly moving on to the next new thing. It seems like the clubs never forgot Donna Summer.

People sneered about disco in the early ‘80s and it’s true that while there was a lot of crap in that genre, there was plenty of good disco like Summer and the Bee Gees. I never thought disco died. It was underground for awhile but you can hear echoes of it in every hit in the clubs. It’s funny that some people saw disco as disposable and forgettable but nobody ever forgot songs like “Last Dance” or “Staying Alive.”

People still sneer at dance music and yes, there is a lot of terrible dance music out there and yes, if you read the lyrics on paper, they are often nothing profound. But I find that dance music at its best — “Enjoy the Silence” by Depeche Mode or “I’m Addicted” by Madonna or “Dancing on My Own” by Robyn or “We Found Love” by Rihanna — has a quality that’s almost hymn-like, with an uplift that’s almost spiritual. If you can make music to get people who don’t even speak the same language to shake their collective ass on the dance floor, that’s no small accomplishment. It’s close to profound.

Spring in Elsmere

Ahhh … spring in the bucolic hamlet of Elsmere. It’s a time when you can open your windows to the feel of a balmy breeze and take in the sounds of nature that the winter shut out. It’s also a time when you can hear all the cars with dysfunctional engines and people walking around having loud conversations.

The latest thing in our neighborhood is the kid walking around with a shopping cart. Those wheels sure do make a pleasant noise on the blacktop while I’m trying to watch TV. I believe pushing around a shopping cart when you’re nowhere near a store is the international symbol for “white trash.” There should be a sign with a silhouette of someone pushing a cart in a residential neighborhood to indicate this.

I don’t understand why people take so long to fix their cars. All winter someone was driving around a car with some kind of fucked up engine or transmission so even through the closed windows, we would hear this automotive whine that was just unhealthy. We haven’t heard that noise in awhile so I guess it’s fixed but the other night there was a minivan with bad brakes. It woke me up and in my half-asleep state, it sounded like a drunk driver in an out of control car screeching down the street and all I could think of was it would hit Steve’s parked car. Luckily, it was just someone who put off repairs to the car. Our block isn’t long enough to lose control of your car and screech out of control.

That’s why it kills me when people gun the engine between stop signs on our short block: They have to slam on their brakes in 50 feet anyway. Our block is a dead end at one end and at the other end it starts going one way so everyone has to turn. It’s impossible not to slow down. They’re not accomplishing anything but wasting gas so what’s the point?

When it was warm in March and I slept with the windows open, a fun loud conversation woke me up. Some girl was standing on the corner sobbing and screeching into her phone about how she didn’t know where she was. I guess someone had dropped her off in an unfamiliar neighborhood and she didn’t know where to tell the person on the other end to pick her up. I guess this was annoying but was there any reason to have a meltdown? There are ways to find out where you are. We have street signs and the firehouse is in walking distance and they will tell you where you are. We are part of civilization. It’s not like someone locked her in the trunk and dropped her off in the middle of the desert.

The high-volume fun is not limited to spring. Last winter they were doing utility work down the street in the middle of the night. It didn’t appear to be an emergency so there was no reason to do anything that late. I didn’t hear it but it kept Steve up. Luckily it was only one night because if they continued, I would have marched down the street in my pajamas and tell them I’d call the cops for making noise so late. We do have noise ordinances. Even if they had permission to do so, I was mad enough that I wanted to make their work night a little more inconvenient.

Nothing beats last spring’s open-window late-night spectacle. Someone up the street backed his truck into his shed and destroyed it. I awoke to a loud cracking noise and could hear all my neighbors saying “what the hell” from their houses. What killed me was even once this guy realized he hit something, he kept going until he was in his parking spot. His daughter came out and yelled at him and he said, “I never had any use for the shed anyway.” They took it down the next day.

God, I can’t wait til we close the windows and turn on the central air.

I had the most athletic dream

I dreamed I was drafted as the new quarterback for the Steelers. We were in some kind of warehouse and there were coaches and such all around so there was no doubt that it was the actual Pittsburgh Steelers and not just some JV team with the same name.

There were these plastic trays, the kind on which you stack bread and buns, and the trays were piled very high. The trays all collapsed and people got their necks stuck in the holes, like seals with six-pack rings wrapped around their necks. I calmly removed the trays from people’s necks.

Anyway, the quarterback thing. They were trying to find me a uniform and helmet with my number. I was running around in my underwear until they did. I practiced a few football moves in the warehouse.

This is the most far-fetched dream I’ve ever had because I am not an athlete, not even a little bit. I don’t think I’ve played football since touch football some time in grade school. I will watch sports until the cows come home but I am completely incapable of playing them.

The last time I had to do an organized athletic event was years ago at a company picnic when we played baseball. I was reluctant but did it. I am exceedingly uncomfortable with that sort of thing. It’s why I run on the treadmill in our basement and not outside. I don’t want anyone to see me.

The only sports I ever did as a kid were swimming and Little League. I was an OK swimmer but never learned how to dive (still can’t) so I would jump in the pool and never actually won anything. In baseball, I played right field and would swing at every pitch. The only time I made it to first base was after getting hit by a pitch.

I am incapable of throwing anything to people. Here’s a typical scene …

You (from 10 feet away): Just throw the car keys to me.

Me: Oh … uh … alright …

Brian throws the keys and they fall into the sewer grate, lost forever. They have no way home from the campsite.

This is why I assume the dream Steelers season was 0-16 and they ran me out of Pittsburgh on a rail.

Can’t talk now. Too busy looking at tuxes and wedding cakes.

So I’m happy that President Obama supports gay marriage but also cautious. It’s reassuring to know that, whatever actual influence the president has on state laws, someone in high office has your back. On the other hand, this could turn into a shitstorm before the election, since Mitt Romney opposes gay marriage.

Of course, Obama could have condemned gay marriage, which would have been a source of despair. So it could have been worse.

I am dreading the prospect of gay marriage turning into a tornado of discussion for the next six months. This isn’t just a political issue for us; so many aspects of life hinge on whether or not we can marry. Marriage or civil union affects practical issues like end of life decisions, inheritance and taxation and also intangible issues like the pride of being able to call someone your husband.

This is why it kills me when people argue that gay marriage would destroy the country or whatever. It has no tangible or intangible effect whatsoever on people if Steve and I, who have been in a relationship for almost a decade, want to declare our vows on the beach in Rehoboth. However, if we are barred from doing that, it would definitely have a harmful effect on us. What do you want us to do, cancel everything? I don’t know what to tell ya.

Anyway, that’s why I say, if you are opposed to gay marriage, then don’t marry someone of the same sex, but don’t forbid me from doing so. People argue about protecting the institution of marriage and that’s noble. But being in your own marriage or relationship is enough work that we all have our hands full trying to protect our own unions without worrying about anyone else’s. If we all just worried about strengthening our own bonds, and didn’t worry about the Joneses, then maybe the world really would be a better place. In other words, there’s no need to Save Marriage. Just save your marriage.

I’m wary of this issue, which is so personal, becoming a political football but I suppose I should get in line with everybody else to complain. Pretty much every personal issue, from civil rights to religious freedom to reproductive issues, has been a political football. So I’ll join the club.

The ultimate sign of progress is that we’re able to have a civil union. To people who are opposed to this, I guess I say, “Can’t talk now. Too busy looking at tuxes and wedding cakes.”

Is the Feel-Bad Era Back?

Are Philadelphia sports fans just negative by nature? Last weekend I was expressing my frustration with several of our local teams and Steve said something to the effect that I was pessimistic. I replied that I’m a Philly sports fan and this is just how we are since we’ve seen a bunch of crap over the decades. Maybe it’s just me being negative, which is part of my personality. (Sometimes when I’m a pessimist, events later prove me right.)

I’m trying to be positive here. All four teams have had relatively good runs since around 2000 and I’d like to remember that and keep the faith. After the Phillies won the 2008 World Series, I had thought the era of negativity was over because the albatross of not winning the big one was gone. But was that just a momentary reprieve from fans being Debbie Downers? Is the feel-bad era back?

I am trying to have faith in my Phillies but it has been a frustrating month. After five seasons at the top, it’s mortifying to be in last place. I know, I know: It’s early and it’s still a tight division. But the team just doesn’t look good. I was especially disgusted with Monday and Tuesday night’s games with the way they blew leads. The team used to have regular late-inning comebacks but now they just roll over. I can be positive and join people in hoping that the return of Chase Utley and Ryan Howard will right the ship but I think management is foolish if that’s their strategy. People forget that when Utley comes back, we’ll still be getting back a player with two chronically bad knees. I really hope Howard and Utley hit one home run after another and make me look like an idiot but I just can’t look at this season with rose-colored glasses and assume they’ll win the division again just because they have since 2007.

At some point, the Phillies’ run will end. I believe they’ve changed the culture in that now players want to come here, so the team won’t ever be mired in the basement in the National League East forever, like they were for periods of time in the past. I think they’ll be in contention for some years to come but we have to face the fact that they won’t win the division for 20 years in a row.

And I think I’d be OK with that. It would hurt to see this run end eventually but I’ve been a Phillies fan for as long as I can remember so I certainly won’t stop if the division titles stop. I went to a lot of games at the Vet when nobody was even considering they would make the playoffs so I’ve seen worse than this and still managed to root for them.

I’m irritated with several of our other teams. Last season was the first in many years that I felt like I wasted my time with the Eagles. There were no playoffs and even though in previous years they didn’t go all the way, I at least had some fun memories for my troubles. There were no memorable games last year, unless you count all the catastrophes. I don’t have much technical knowledge so I don’t know how to fix the team but I also have no faith at all anymore in the Eagles’ management, especially not after that farce where Jeff Lurie said everything about Andy Reid’s performance was “unacceptable” and he still retained him. If my job review said “unacceptable” 17 times, I’d expect to be fired at the end.

Even if a team doesn’t win the playoffs, you can look back on your memories and smile. Despite their season-ender last night, there were plenty of fun moments of what I saw of the Flyers’ season so I feel it was worthwhile. I also was disappointed at how the Phillies’ season ended last year but it was very enjoyable regular season so I tried to focus on that. Still, it’s awful when your team goes out of the playoffs early, especially when you look back through the years and see how often it’s happened. You follow them for months and they climb almost to the top and then get knocked off the ladder. Then you have to start the slog all over again the next year. I was livid when the Phillies lost the NLDS because they excelled over 162 games, had the best record in baseball and couldn’t score one lousy run in the final game.

One thought that really gets me is this: In my adult life, exactly one of our team’s seasons has worked out: The 2008 Phillies. All the other teams have played in their respective finals but since I was 9 years old, the Phillies have been the only ones to seal the deal. It’s enough to depress a fan if he dwells on it.

So I guess I shouldn’t dwell on it. I should take the games for what they’re meant to be: Games that are a pleasurable way to fill a lazy summer afternoon or a snowed-in winter night. I don’t want to go back to being the typical Philadelphia sports cynic who assumes that disaster is always around the corner and that my team will blow it in the end.