The best eight years of my life

On February 18, 2004, we welcomed a new addition to our house. Today, Peter's a whopping EIGHT years old, which seems impossible to believe. But what an amazing little man we've created!

Happy birthday, Peter!

40.

…So long time, no post. As the last entry probably indicated, it’s been a rather rough year for us. We’re dealing with everything that’s happened and getting on with our lives, but admittedly, it’s a long haul for everyone, losing two parents from the family in less than 2 months. It's a cliche, but sometimes cliches are true: Everything has changed.

Somewhere in there, I turned 40. We buried my wife’s father on a Monday, and by that weekend, we were off to Sydney, Australia, for a long-planned holiday arranged well before all the funerals and such we’ve deal with this year.

I turned 40 and we spent the day in the sunshine at Manly Beach, on gold sand and warm water, and we went out for dinner at a fine little Italian restaurant where I ordered a proper steak for the first time in eons. Sydney is one of my favourite places, and it didn’t disappoint this time. All in all, it was a good way to get a year older – I thought I’d like to make the 40th something to remember, and it was.

And now 2011 is nearly over – I’m usually a fairly positive fella, but it’s been a year with a lot more bad in it than good. Good riddance to it, and hoping for a better 2012.

Happy 70th birthday, Bob Dylan - and 10 of my favorites

The beautiful thing about Bob Dylan for me is that you never quite get to the bottom of him. After a casual Dylan fandom for years, I dove whole-heartedly into the world of Dylan obsessiveness about five years ago. I haven't quite come up for air yet. Today, the man turns 70.

So in honor of Mr. Dylan's 70th, here's a list. Of the hundreds of Dylan's songs that are out there, my favorites are constantly changing. Here's what my 10 top Bob Dylan songs are today. Tomorrow, they could be entirely different. That's kind of the beauty of Bob; everybody's Dylan is a different one. Happy birthday, Mr Zimmerman!

Blowin' in the Wind: This was probably my first exposure to Bob Dylan; I remember singing it in class in third or fourth grade during music lessons. It stuck in your head, instantly. I think I'd assumed it was some 100-year-old standard, not knowing it was written less than 10 years before I was born. Some of Dylan's songs kind of seem like they always existed, excavated from the earth at just the right time.

Not Dark Yet: Is this 1997 song from "Time Out Of Mind" the most depressing one Dylan ever wrote? Perhaps, but there's something so beautiful about this mournful ode to the end of love and the end of one person's world, it's like a particularly stunning tombstone. Hushed and elegaic, this song is proof rock stars can grow old with superb dignity.
 
Maggie's Farm (live at the Newport Folk Festival, July 1965): It seems hard to imagine these days that Dylan going "electric" stirred up so much fuss once. But listen to this raw molten blast of sound from the Newport Folk Festival where Dylan blew a crowd of Peter, Paul and Mary fans to bits. I love the song, but I love this particular performance of it found on the "No Direction Home" soundtrack even more -- it's a giant middle finger by Dylan, who sings the lines "I AIN'T gonna work on Maggie's farm no more" like his life depended on it. Maybe it did.
 
Tombstone Blues: Off all Dylan's madcap surrealistic lyrics, this is the one I've always loved the most -- from "Highway 61 Revisited," a rollicking, quite funny tour of whimsy and tragedy. I couldn't begin to tell you what it's actually about, but the way young Bob reels off lines like "The geometry of innocent flesh on the bone / Causes Galileo's math book to get thrown" is just vastly entertaining, like a drunken carny rattling off his spiel to anyone who'll listen.
 
Subterranean Homesick Blues: Did Bob Dylan invent rap? Honestly, if you listen to this classic, you have to at least give him a few nods in that general direction. Free-wheeling and hip, it's a mash-up of Beat poetry and talking blues that pretty much invented a handful of genres of music. And let's not forget that classic film clip of Dylan flipping cue cards to the tune from "Don't Look Back" -- a giant step towards MTV and the video revolution, too.
 
Lay Lady Lay: One of Dylan's cheesiest songs, perhaps, from the "Nashville Skyline" era where his voice suddenly took on a surprisingly silky crooner's tone. And "Nashville Skyline" is a rather slight album compared to the masterworks that came before it, but I love it all the same - a simple homage to hearth and home, gorgeously produced and one of his biggest hits. Sure, it ain't political or surreal, but it's just a mighty pretty song, and Dylan's written plenty of those for the ages, too.
 
Idiot Wind: From love to heartbreak -- from "Blood On The Tracks," this is a blistering trip into the eye of the storm of a relationship crumbling to bits. There's a breathtakingly honest anger and plain meanness to this song, which is almost like reading someone's secret diary. It's so intimate it's uncomfortable, as Dylan spits out lines like "One day you'll be in the ditch / flies buzzing around your eyes." But it's a powerhouse because it feels so true.
 
You Ain't Goin' Nowhere: I have a specific memory attached to this song, of a favorite restaurant/hangout back in Oxford, Mississippi, and the night it closed its doors. A ton of local musicians, including members of the band Wilco, sung the night away to bid the cafe farewell, and a shining highlight was a merry singalong of this Dylan tune. It's hardly one of the deepest of Dylan's catalogue, but it's a song that seems to celebrate being alive, getting out of scrapes and surviving to sing the night away.
 
Hurricane: For my money, the best Dylan "protest song," although there have been many great ones. An older Dylan takes the raw talent of his youthful songs and adds the indignant outrage that comes with age and experience as he takes on the case of convicted murderer, boxer Rubin Carter. Did "Hurricane" Carter do it? Even if you think he did, by the time the 8 roaringly angry minutes of this song go by you might well have changed your mind. That's what a truly great protest song can do.

I'm Not There: From the legendary "Basement Tapes," most of which have never seen official release, this haunting number was released on the soundtrack of the Dylan homage movie of the same name a few years back. It's Dylan at his spookiest Weird America best, hushed and sounding like he's singing from a million miles and years away.
 

If the devil is six, then God is seven

So apparently I've been doing this blog thing for SEVEN YEARS as of today. Which is like nearly one-sixth of my LIFE. Good god. That's a lot of bloggery. Blogging is such a relatively recent phenomenon that there's no real determination of its life span yet. Do blogs live forever? There's probably not a blog out there much more than 10 years old at this point. Am I at the end of its life or the midpoint? If a blog falls in the forest does anyone hear?

I dunno. Like most people who've been doing this for more than a year or two I've had a love-hate relationship with the blog, sometimes, even going so far as to take a long hiatus last year. But I'll keep on keeping on at least until we develop the technology to beam my ramblings directly INTO YOUR MIND. Sure we've got Facebook and Twitter to play with as well, but can I go on about old Peter Sellers movies, concert reviews and mix tapes for 1000 words at a time on there?

Also, I've recently changed the url or address of this site to my own goshdarned name, so it's now nikdirga.com -- although the old address works just as well. I mainly wanted to scoop up my own domain so the thousands of speculators out there eyeing it don't steal it first. You also may need to update RSS feeds/bookmarks accordingly!

And as always, thanks to those of you who keep reading my occasional scribbles. Thanks!

Man, I just cannot believe this boy is 7 years old today.

Seriously, how does this happen so fast?

Happy birthday, Dad!

Happy birthday to my dear old dad, who turns 70 today.

Birthdays are one of the times I really feel the distance of being on the other side of the world from my family, unfortunately, but with the Internet and phone we do what we can. I still remember him coming home from work when I was a kid, wearing his Air Force uniform, his keys jingling. The smell of Brut aftershave always reminds me of my Dad.

Ever since I had a boy of my own the immensely hard job of being a dad has been revealed to me more and more each day. It's a job that you don't apply for, but it's harder in its way than any other job you'll have. It humbles the heck out of you as you discover all the things you'll do wrong, but it also has moments of the highest pristine clarity that will become the highlights of your life. Working in the media I am sadly exposed every day to huge screw-up wastes of fatherhood who abandon, abuse and hurt their kids, and I know I'm doing better than all of them.

My dad taught me much of the best of what I do. We've had our disagreements as all fathers and sons do, but they've haven't been that bad. Moving down here 6000 miles away four years ago, one of the hardest things was knowing I'd be so far away from my own family, and with the only grandson too. My parents have always supported every move I've ever made, and we haven't actually really lived in the same town for long in 20 years now. But there's a lot of difference between a few hours' drive and an ocean.

Happy Birthday to you Dad, and thanks again for all the good lessons.

A present with a tail

So, today's my birthday (#37 if you're counting -- which I have decided to no longer do, frankly), and to celebrate, I decided to get an unusual present for myself -- meet Bowie,* the new cat in our household. I spent much of yesterday afternoon over at the Auckland SPCA auditioning cats to be our new animal, always a tricky process. It'd been 13 years since I last did this for our wonderful Kudzu cat, who couldn't come with us from the US. It's never easy to look over lovely little animals and try to choose just one, knowing they all need a new home. But this little fella -- well, she just seemed right, somehow, from the way she began loudly purring as I took her out of her cage and her calm but not sullen disposition. Hopefully the boy doesn't drive her insane.

Speaking of which, Peter was so excited you'd have thought the cat was his birthday present. Bowie seems really affectionate but not too squawky (she barely meowed at all during the car ride home), and I have to admit, after two years or so without, I'm really going to dig having a fuzzy little cat in our lives again. Makes New Zealand feel a little more like home.

*The names were tricky; "Twist" was suggested by the SPCA after her bent left ear, while we considered such names as Iggy, Tardis (too geeky even for us) and Fantastic Birthday Cat (um, that one was Peter's). In the end I went to homage my favorite musician but also picked a name that's kind of cute and short and not too hard to say.

Now we are four

Egad, can you believe that it's really been four years since I began this blogging business? That's right, on April 8, 2004, I took a hit off the blogging crack pipe and lordy, I ain't never laid down that wicked drug since. Blogs are addictive, kids.

I started this as an editor at a medium-sized paper in rural Oregon, with a bouncing baby boy just a couple months old; I plod on 48 months later living clear on the other side of the globe in New Zealand, still working in newspapers, with that bouncing baby now a rampaging 4-year-old and all in all, it's been quite a wild trip.

Nothing too much to belabor the day or overstate here, but four years in blogging years is like 10 in the "real world" (many of the blogs I read back in 2004 no longer exist, I think). I've come and gone with the inspiration, and definitely post less often than I used to, but I still enjoy sharing my random thoughts on life Down Under, music, movies and books with those of you who stumble on by. Thanks to all the more constant readers who leave comments, as you're the fire that keeps the blogging crack pipe alight (last time I use that metaphor, I swear).

Heck, in honour of Spatula Forum's Fourth, we'll have a little contest – it's been many moons since I had one of those. Here you go -- leave a comment below and you're automatically entered. In a week or so I'll randomly pick one of you out of a hat and send you something nifty from New Zealand. Deal? Deal. Cheers, and thanks again for reading, mates!

Happy Birthday To Me

...Well, if you're in New Zealand, anyway, where it's already the 11th. Otherwise you have to wait hours yet! ...Anyway, 35 is halfway to 70, which is a bit depressing because in theory I could be middle-aged now if the genetic cards aren't lucky. Urk. Of course I'd prefer if I don't reach the midspan of my life until, say, 52 or so.

But at least things have changed quite a lot in the past year which is always one of the benchmarks you use for a birthday - I'm in a new country, jobless and uncertain of what's ahead. On the down side, I'm jobless in a strange country and uncertain of what lies ahead. To quote Steve Zissou, "it's an adventure."

LIFE: Peter is two (and a HALF)

LIFE: Peter is two (and a HALF)

Someone had his half-birthday yesterday! Peter is now precisely 2 1/2, and pretty much not a baby anymore as he keeps telling us. We just happened to have a half-cake in the freezer (because who doesn't?) and it was highly appropriate for a half-birthday. He gets so excited over birthdays and cakes (the other week he nearly burst just at the idea of helping open his uncle's birthday presents), so we figure, why not have two a year?

The giddy cute-boy smile on his face is almost enough to make me forget that in a two-hour span of time Thursday, Peter managed to throw a toy train at my head, grind very-bright orange curry into a clean blue carpet, break into the bathroom and rub skin cream into his hair, and throw half a roll of toilet paper into the half-full bathtub. Ah, toddlers...

Hey, don't forget to throw me a Worst Band Name ever if you're interested in my Burn To Shine 3 DVD contest giveaway in the last entry!

Happy Blog-iversary to Me

Happy Blog-iversary to Me

That's right – party down with Elvis (in Baghdad no less), it's my blog-iversary! It's been a whopping 2 years since I finally decided to take the plunge and start the blog thing, and to my surprise, I'm still here. I've written 585 posts since my gloriously inept first post April 7, 2004... not every day, but at least a few times a week. It's been fun, and I hope the handful of you that like reading it have dug it. And to the dozens of viewers a week looking for Nicole Kidman pictures and "Dawn of the Dead" stills, my most popular Google searches, I salute you. (Oddly, nobody ever looks for "Nicole Kidman as a zombie" photos.)

Like most bloggers, I think, I didn't quite know what I was going to do when I started this egocentric pastime... Personal journal? random media rants and raves? comics reviews? cute photos? All of the above, it turns out, plus thanks to the good folks at BlogCritics, I found a venue to spread some of my more polished (well, somewhat) writing to even bigger audiences. I've surprised myself by how much I've written, actually – I wasn't sure what I'd do, since my day job also involves words and the media. But the blog has actually helped me produce writing for work, such as my movie reviews and music reviews. See, blogging helps your job! I don't know how much longer I'll keep this up -- until it feels like hard work, I guess -- but hopefully will continue on as we get ready to move to New Zealand this fall.

So to celebrate the day, I've got a challenge for you, the reader. I don't really do this for the kudos; I've been writing since I was knee-high to an ant, and this is just one of the outlets I use to fend off Demon Boredom, but it is nice to get the feedback. Those of you who make regular comments are the icing on the cupcake of my blog, so to you reg'lars and any of those "lurkers" out there who read but never comment, here's your chance to blog me — feel free to leave a comment right down below and lurk no more!

And, for incentive, I will randomly pick a couple of winners from anyone who comments below to receive incredibly cool prizes, such as a CD of My Favorite Songs I've Heard In 2006 So Far and.. um... other stuff. So comment away, and thanks again for reading.

LIFE: Peter is 2!

LIFE: Peter is 2!

NEVADA CITY, Calif. -- So the first of the vacation blogposts begins. Hurray for Peter! He's having a good second birthday, with lots of car toys and wagons and books to play with, "dandma" and "gandad" to visit with, and a cake that had a train on it. We made it down here to my parents' house in California last night (after a stop in Redding to visit our friends Rob and Becky and their kids; gratuitous shout-out and thanks for the dinner!). The 7 1/2-hour drive was perfect, nice clear weather until the final 15 minutes of the drive when it began sleeting. And this is what we found when we woke up this morning:

Peter's first actual snow! A good 4-5 inches, not enough to shut the town down (it snows often enough in Nevada City in winter for it not to be a total shock, but February is a little late in the year for it) but enough to make everything real purty and white. The sun is now out and skies are blue so it's quite a fine mid-winter day. Hard to imagine we will be in Auckland in a few days where it's been in the 70s, it's the equivalent of August or so down under right now. Season whiplash!

Our little man P is 2 years old today, we can officially no longer call him our baby, which is kind of sad. It's great that he's older now and able to communicate in his pidgin English, but the notion that our cuddly boy is going to one day be gone for good is kind of a hard one to swallow. At least for several years to come we can enjoy his toddler-hood. The "terrible twos" haven't been bad so far; he's generally a good-natured bloke except when he's tired. Hopefully he'll stay that way for a while...

Happy birthday, Mom!

Mom & me, 1971. Geez, I was a funky-looking little monkey, wasn't I?