<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><rss xmlns:atom='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom' xmlns:openSearch='http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/' version='2.0'><channel><atom:id>http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13827517/posts/full</atom:id><lastBuildDate>Mon, 04 Dec 2006 14:46:54 +0000</lastBuildDate><title>Roads, mills, laps</title><description></description><link>http://www.duncanlarkin.com/</link><managingEditor>duncan.larkin@lmco.com (Duncan Larkin)</managingEditor><generator>Blogger</generator><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>15</openSearch:itemsPerPage><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13827517/posts/full/112132355058135268</guid><pubDate>Thu, 14 Jul 2005 04:54:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2006-12-05T16:05:50.994-05:00</atom:updated><title>Pizza Pirate, video games, and their direct correl...</title><description>&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Pizza Pirate, video games, and their direct correlation to un-American activities.

2 workouts today.  Recovery workouts and very slow.  Overall, nothing worth writing about other than I felt like doo and didn't really want to run today.

1st run = 45 minutes

2nd run = 33 minutes.

300 crunches on the ground underneath my parent's pergola.  100 bells while watching my dad try to flush the radiator of his 1983 Toyota truck with a garden hose plugged into some mechanical device he installed from a kit.  There was water coming out of all orifices and the car was painfully churning over pleading to be put out of its misery.

Gorged myself on Pizza Pirate pizza tonight.  Pizza Pirate is practically a historical landmark in Benicia.  I volunteered to buy the pizza for the family and drove down to pick it up.  I was surprised at how little this fine establishment has changed in 25 years as I opened its oaken, nautical door.

You still have the 16-18 year old pimply-faced teenagers slaving away in the kitchen as well as the manditory big screen TV showing some sports event.  Above the cash register are the numerous pictures of sponsored sports teams with faceless children sitting cross-legged in between bookends of parents.   In the right corner of the restaurant you have the family of 4 with the baby chair waiting for their pizza drinking from the same, ubiquitous pitchers that one finds in any pizza joint.   The dad is gingerly doling out pizza pirate tokens to the kids as they run to the 4 or 5 video games in the left corner of the restaurant.

Pizza Pirate was one of the first places in Benicia to have video games after the Benicia city fathers, anachronistic curmudgeons that they were, reluctantly allowed only Pizza Pirate and the Benicia Skate Shop to place Pac-Man and Dig Dug on their premises - in the back room.

Going to play a video game was like entering a speakeasy.  You needed code words, go-betweens, bribes, and lots of quarters to get in on the action.

Kids from all over town would enter these places, place quarters in a serpentine queue, and await their turn to plug and play the future.

And so, it was in Pizza Pirate that I learned on Dig Dug that if you keep hitting the fire button, you actually blow up the animal things that you are trying to 'get.'   It was also in Pizza Pirate that I learned how to steal a free game of Ms. Pac-Man by slamming your palm in a precise location on the machine.

Free video games, good pizza, unchanged locales, and evil town fathers are good mental fodder on boring recovery runs.

Tomorrow is my last full day in Benicia and on Friday, my daughter and I fly back to reality which for me entails driving, working, sleeping, running, and more driving.  Vacations must come to an end.  Salt mines need workers.   Hamster wheels aren't entertaining without hamsters.   Here I go.&lt;/div></description><link>http://www.duncanlarkin.com/2005/07/pizza-pirate-video-games-and-their.html</link><author>duncan.larkin@lmco.com (Duncan Larkin)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13827517/posts/full/112352318894173661</guid><pubDate>Mon, 08 Aug 2005 23:34:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2006-11-29T21:22:05.763-05:00</atom:updated><title>When Green Day Came to Play

You aren't human if y...</title><description>&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">When Green Day Came to Play

You aren't human if you don't have a story to tell about the time you ran into some celebrity. I have two such stories. The first one is banal. It involved seeing Huey Lewis walking down the streets of Zermatt, Switzerland. I had dropped my glove and was too stubborn to tell anyone that I had dropped it so I was in a perpetual Napoleonic stance keeping the ungloved hand tucked in my jacket at 10,000 feet. I skied all day as Napoleon and managed to probably convince some onlookers that I was a poor handicapped skier sans hand.

Huey had just crossed the street. It was 1989, and he and "The News" were just starting to wash up on the billboards of the world. He was probably on a three day coke binge. He didn't want to be seen or recognized. He probably thought he was getting away to a quiet village in the Alps that just happens to have one of the highest Americans per-capita ratio of anywhere in Switzerland.

So I called out to him with 1 arm outstretched like I was hailing a cab on the way to the Battle of Austerlitz, "Hey Huey!" "That's Huey Lewis!"

Huey crossed the street, looked both ways and whispered to me in his characteristic deep baritone voice looking down from his Ray Ban Wayfarers, "Shhh. Hey man hows it going?"

I stumbled, mumbled and forced out a courteous cliche', "Goin' good man.  Goin' good."

In an effort to make quick small talk banter, he then asked me how the skiing was at one of the runs that was visible from where we were standing. Napoleon had not been on that run, but I couldn't tell him that. So I lied and told him it was the best runs in the Alps. He thanked me and went to shake my hand at which time I offered my left glove then realized my error and came out of my Napoleon stance with my right hand. Quick picture and Huey was gone.

A very non-story indeed.

The other story is much more entertaining. I choose to write about it today because I noticed that Green Day premiered a video for their "Wake Me Up When September Ends" song. In the video, we see the tired and worn story that goes back to Homer - boy and girl fall in love - boy joins the military and goes to war - girl cries - boy grits teeth as he fights his demons.

Way back in 1989 after returning from my Swiss exchange, I came back to Benicia. I left good friends that innocently skateboarded, listened to the Red Hot Chili Peppers before they were big, called their parents for rides, and dreamed of getting a kiss from the senior girl . I returned to changed friends. My friends now had girlfriends, cars, stories jucier than a kiss from the senior girl, and more importantly connections to the East Bay blossoming grunge scene. In one short month, I went from mueslix to mosh pits.

Friday nights were no longer spent skating away from cops and sneaking into construction sites to steal lumber. They were spent instead driving to concerts at THE place to catch a good show - Gilman Steet.

Gliman Street was 4 graffitied, stained, sticky, sweltering walls and a roof located conveniently at 924 Gilman Street in Berkely . It was called 'Gilman.' Going to Gilman meant that you were in for something you'd never see on the quiet streets of suburban Benicia. - body piercing before it was cool and overdone, mohawks, chains, screams, and anything else revolutionary you can imagine. Most importantly for us angst-filled pubescent budding men was the mosh pit.

So as with all human connections regardless if they involve politicians or punks, my friends and I entwined ourselves in a web of friends that traced themselves to a growing, hot new band from the East Bay - Green Day.

We followed Green Day from show to show. Wherever their characteristic VW bus with spray painted letters went, so we went. As a short caveat, allow me to footnote that the use of the phrase 'we' is not quite true since I was in Switzerland when this groupie activity occurred. Nevertheless, Green Day played everywhere from basements to garages to VFW halls to Swimming Pools. But their best concert was the night we got them to play at TC's house.

In a spontaneously patriotic or desperate moment, TC decided to join the Army. TC was the oldest of our friends (not counting his older and legal brother MC. who was our Mickey's 40 ounce beer supplier), and as such, TC was the first of the friends to leap from the nest.

Seeing a good friend grow up and go into the Army even before 9/11 and Iraq, was a wakeup call to the crew. Enlisting in the Army called to mind &lt;span style="font-style: italic;">Stripes&lt;/span>, IQs of 2, southern drawls, penchants for watching hunting shows, desperation, and worse - getting shot. Accordingly, we wanted to send TC off on his Odyssey with a bacchanalian backslap. We wanted beer, girls, and Green Day.

So we reached out to the Gilman network. A friend of a friend was dating a guy that was friends with a girl that knew Billy Joe, Green Day's lead singer. These were during the days before email and cell phones, so all network activity was conducted with a horde of dimes at the Raley's pay phone. We used every connection we had. We offered favors and dropped names.

We got Green Day.

Well, kind of. Their drummer, John (not the current drummer) decided that he was going to conscientiously object from playing a free concert for a kid going into the Army.

Green Day's appearance at TC's was pronounced with the metallic sputter of their VW van. Like the Pied Piper of Hamlin, the VW van was followed by tens of Trout cars that surrounded the VW van like remora. Trout are what Billy Joe like to call his girl harem of groupies that followed him around the Bay Area. Apparently the nodding of the heads up and down reminded Mr. Joe of trout. Seconds afterwards, MC turned the corner in his Pinto back from the local Indian-run Superstop store with an entire backseat full of Mickeys 40 ounce beer.

Within 1 minute, we had beer, girls and Green Day.  Bacchus shined upon us and we owed him an offering.

I don't remember much about the concert other than it was really loud.

Between breaks, I recall swigging beer with Mike the bassist in the C kitchen and all I remember is that I used deep insightful phrases such as "that last set was really good dude." I remember Billy Joe. He had his characteristic eye shadow and starched hair. He would swim into the kitchen and back out in loops looking like a young Robert Smith from the Cure. Just a hair's breadth away from him were his trout trying to catch their elusive mate.

The most memorable part of the evening was when TC's parents had it.

I could write an entire essay alone about the C family. Suffice it to say, we had talked Mr and Mrs. C into sequestering themselves in their upstairs bedroom during this concert and after 2 police visits at 12am, they had had enough.

Mr. C stormed onto the makeshift stage next to last year's Xmas tree and grabbed the Mike away from Billy Joe. It looked like something you'd see in the 60s with the police storming a stage of hippies at Woodstock. Mr. C was met with boos, bananas, cigarettes and other things. He looked like Chris Farley with a tight brown bowling shirt and a beard.

The mic wailed and screeeched and all we could decipher was, "Can I get a break HERE?" "MY WIFE HAS A JOB. OK. SHE HAS TO GET UP IN 1 HOUR. CAN YOU PLEASE DISPERSE? CAN I GET A BREAK HERE?"

Any question asked to a bunch of drunk punks, skaters and trout is sure to be a rhetorical one.

More objects were flown and Mr. C persisted.

"LOOK. PEOPLE. THIS IS MY HOUSE? AND IN MY HOUSE WE HAVE MY RULES OK? YOU ALL HAVE TO LIVE BY MY RULES. PLEASE, MY WIFE HAS TO GET UP IN AN HOUR. I NEED YOU TO GO HOME NOW!"

During his desperate pleas, Billy Joe was looking at him down condescendingly from his darkened eyes, shaking his head, and soliciting reaction from the mob.

After about 2 more encores, Green Day packed up and left on their terms -- doors closing, high fives, and then the characteristic rattle-rattle of the VW bus followed by a long chain of the trout's red taillights.

As a 16 year old punk, I thought this scene was hilarious, but as I grow in age and wisdom and think back on this memory, I feel more and more sympathy for Mr C and his brown bowling shirt. With the exception of the horribly rich and spoiled Green Day now reaching into their late 30s, the rest of us have to create rules in our households. We have spouses with jobs, sleeping children, and a pathetic order to maintain so that we can keep our sanity.
&lt;/span>&lt;/div></description><link>http://www.duncanlarkin.com/2005/08/when-green-day-came-to-play-you-arent.html</link><author>duncan.larkin@lmco.com (Duncan Larkin)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13827517/posts/full/116380677855680711</guid><pubDate>Fri, 17 Nov 2006 23:39:38 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2006-11-17T18:39:39.156-05:00</atom:updated><title>Fight Club - Where is my mind - The pixies
Testcas...</title><description>&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">&lt;b>Fight Club - Where is my mind - The pixies&lt;/b>
&lt;object width="425" height="350">&lt;param name="movie" value="http://youtube.com/v/SH_IDH656Hk">&lt;/param>&lt;embed src="http://youtube.com/v/SH_IDH656Hk" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350">&lt;/embed>&lt;/object>&lt;br>Testcase for youtube linkage. P.S. I love Marla Singer and the Pixies.&lt;/div></description><link>http://www.duncanlarkin.com/2006/11/fight-club-where-is-my-mind-pixies.html</link><author>duncan.larkin@lmco.com (Duncan Larkin)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13827517/posts/full/116379417116408162</guid><pubDate>Fri, 17 Nov 2006 20:08:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2006-11-17T15:09:31.206-05:00</atom:updated><title>Take note: This whole site has moved here because ...</title><description>&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">Take note: This whole site has moved &lt;/span>&lt;a href="http://www.duncanlarkin.com/roads/">&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">here &lt;/span>&lt;/a>&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">because blogger.com sucks.&lt;/span>&lt;/div></description><link>http://www.duncanlarkin.com/2006/11/take-note-this-whole-site-has-moved.html</link><author>duncan.larkin@lmco.com (Duncan Larkin)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13827517/posts/full/116379100459969452</guid><pubDate>Fri, 17 Nov 2006 19:02:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2006-11-17T14:17:41.943-05:00</atom:updated><title>For Whom the Liberty Bell Tolls. . .</title><description>&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">. . . It tolls for me.&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">My daughter woke up with a 102.4 fever today. Her voice is all shot up and scratchy and so we agreed that communication will be her ringing the little Liberty Bell age-group gimcrack thing that I won in the Philly Marathon last year.&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">It works pretty good; I'm convinced it's the only piece of practical race bauble that I own. &lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">But I now know what it's like to be a 19th Century servant or a modern day flight attendant: it's not much fun having a bell summon you. I think I'll stick to my current career path: making charts while dressed in business casual, spinning the hamster wheel of life a few more times, watching the sun rise and set, forming tall shadows off of my cubicle prison at differing angles.&lt;/span>&lt;/div></description><link>http://www.duncanlarkin.com/2006/11/for-whom-liberty-bell-tolls.html</link><author>duncan.larkin@lmco.com (Duncan Larkin)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13827517/posts/full/116370641709278833</guid><pubDate>Thu, 16 Nov 2006 19:22:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2006-11-16T21:40:29.313-05:00</atom:updated><title>The City of the Brotherly Boxing Glove</title><description>&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">I'm running the Philamaniac Marathon this weekend.&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">I'm out of shape; I'm recovering from a sinus infection and have no expectations for anything other than a mediocre finishing time.&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">The elite coordinator is nothing shy of an incompetent boob. He let me in with a comp'ed entry but it took:&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">1. An official application submitted on time. I met the standards for a free entry by three minutes.&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">2. 10 emails to various people running the marathon asking them for a status--all unanswered except one.&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">3. A call to the marathon office: the voicemail was full (shocker!).&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">4. An email from a local USATF official on my behalf.&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">5. A letsrun thread.&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">He made it seem like he was doing me a favor after all I put him through. We always seem like we are inconveniencing these people, us, the pathetic genetic apes who run a million miles in the day and night just to make the entry standard, this is what we get for our year-long efforts--a fucking clown with a smeared frown, giving us the mother of all guilt trips: lovely.&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">The marathon committee has decided to try out a last-minute half marathon to boot (more$ x lotsacattle = $$$$$). The route was just decided upon and it sounds like a royal clusterfuck of Cyclopean proportions. I hear you have to double back 100 feet at the end of it; I hear the fast marathoners are going to get caught up with the half-marathon cattle, swishing away in a 'yay-me!' pose to the Lion King soundtrack; I hear that finishes themselves are all mixed up too. &lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">People are going to all over the fucking place. Gu will mix with Jellybeanxballz; underarmour pantaloons will collide with Adidas Adistarclimacool short shorts; earbuds will wrap around six-shooter fluid holsters. Skinny people's ribs will bounce off fat people's jellyrolls, throwing the 2:15 marathoners out of balance, off to the side of the road, into the woods where the broken crack vials and singed pieces of tin foil have collected over the years, where a hundred years of inebriated urination have painted the surrounding vegetation a Nigerian, yellow-cake-like hue. &lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">The whole circus will come to a momentary halt as everyone sticks together all clingey-like; it will be like the Schuylkill Expressway during rush hour; elbows will fly; f-bombs will detonate. The&lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fattypuffs_and_Thinifers"> fattypuffs will flip off the thinifers&lt;/a>.&lt;/span>

&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">The Civil War that we have all been waiting for will finally start. It's all going to go down this weekend--mark my words. &lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">Keep yer powder dry and listen for the call of the thinifer minuteman! &lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">-------------------------&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">To add to this surrealistic insanity, I am going to be getting a ride with a guy who is giving &lt;a href="http://www.bostonmarathon.org/images/HalfMarathon/Photos/SamuelNdereba.jpg">this guy&lt;/a> a badly needed ride, down to probably win the 8K. He needed a ride down there? WTF?&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">Don't worry, I'll let him know about it all.&lt;/span>&lt;/div></description><link>http://www.duncanlarkin.com/2006/11/city-of-brotherly-boxing-glove.html</link><author>duncan.larkin@lmco.com (Duncan Larkin)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13827517/posts/full/116372272013356985</guid><pubDate>Fri, 17 Nov 2006 00:17:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2006-11-16T19:19:54.643-05:00</atom:updated><title>"Poverty may be the mother of crime, but lack of g...</title><description>&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;em>"Poverty may be the mother of crime, but &lt;/em>&lt;a href="http://www.kontraband.com/show/show.asp?ID=4946&amp;NEXTID=0&amp;amp;PREVID=4940&amp;DISPLAYORDER=20061115184923&amp;amp;CAT=movies&amp;NSFW=2&amp;amp;page=1&amp;genre=0&amp;amp;rating=nsfw_sfw">&lt;em>lack of good sense&lt;/em>&lt;/a>&lt;em> is the father."&lt;/em>&lt;/span> &lt;span style="font-size:85%;">~Jean de la Bruyere
&lt;/span>&lt;/div></description><link>http://www.duncanlarkin.com/2006/11/poverty-may-be-mother-of-crime-but.html</link><author>duncan.larkin@lmco.com (Duncan Larkin)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13827517/posts/full/116361323199864905</guid><pubDate>Wed, 15 Nov 2006 17:27:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2006-11-15T23:38:07.280-05:00</atom:updated><title>I'm Unelectable*</title><description>&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">In 1984, I ran for 8th Grade Class President. I gave a speech to a gymnasium full of disinterested, pubescent ingrates (i.e. juvenile boys with an overflow of testosterone--those viscous men-in-waitings, sprouting Teutonic Forests of public hair: pimply half-guys clad in French Foreign Legion hats and Member's Only jackets with one-track minds about confused fumblings in dark bedrooms with sticky magazines and copious wads of toilet paper). &lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">I started the speech like Mark Anthony's in Shakespeare's &lt;u>Julius Caesar&lt;/u>. I waved my hands from side to side, doing my very best at horrid melodrama. The room went momentarily silent, but about three campaign promises into this disastrous speech, spitballs and heckling began to fly. I stepped down from the dais, holding back tears and subsequently received a whopping 19 votes in the election. The council of elders felt sorry for me and so they made me an 'Unelected Representative' that next year. I got to hang out with the popular folks early in the mornings, when 'student council' convened; I got to consult Robert's Rules of Order like the golden children did. I was one of them, but not really. They were popular: I was a hanging chad.&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">I never 'ran' for any office since then. (I was elected as my high school's Senior Class Treasurer, but that didn't count because the campaign was orchestrated by my mom and my &lt;a href="http://www.myspace.com/jutsnider">best friend&lt;/a> while I was living as a Swiss expat. with my host father, Jurg and his merry band of 12-monkey ecoterrorists. They used a picture of me running in some Zuerich &lt;em>Silvesterlauf&lt;/em> 10K as my campaign poster: get it?) &lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">Morals of the story: Don't run for anything; if you have to, don't have anything to do with it and have someone else tell the masses who you are, using running as a theme. (Also don't lecture pedantically like a plotting Roman to a stinky slice of idiot America. The simians wanted fart noises and hot teacher upskirt views, not Heston-like melodrama. )&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">I just don't do well in populist democracies; I thrive instead in tyrannical juntas and cabals. I like revolutions with megalomaniacs standing from atop their bullypulpits, casting down bombast, inciting the masses of nach0-fed cattle to burn down the walls of their neighboring McMansions and storm North Disgrace's Bastille--crying for the overthrow of the vain celebrity runners, pleading the unsuspecting Walter Middies to put an end to this unjust &lt;em>ancien' regime&lt;/em>. &lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">So I don't think I'm going to Kenya because I'm no democratic politician; I wear no campaign buttons and don't part my Trent Lott-meets-BillyBobFrist-helmethair to the side ; I have no 'har hars' and can't pump a fist; I'm not out to fill my resume up with me-me charitable acts. I can't be a superterrific champion of superhero fakeness. I offer few encomiums; I'm the furthest thing from Harvard's final list of kickass-n'save-the-world candidates. I'm too ugly and too mean for a reality show casting call. I'm can't even smile straight: I'm doubting while I'm doing it, because it never lasts. &lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">Don't vote for me. I despise popularity and consider myself completely unelectable; I offer no rubber chicken to put into your pot. All I've got is what you read.&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">-------------------------&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&amp;q=unelectable">Google it&lt;/a>; please don't click on the first thing that comes up or else the NSA Gestapo and their Army-equivalent cover-for-status, shadyboy bretheren will come back to read up on me.&lt;/span>&lt;/div></description><link>http://www.duncanlarkin.com/2006/11/im-unelectable.html</link><author>duncan.larkin@lmco.com (Duncan Larkin)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13827517/posts/full/116365095146931384</guid><pubDate>Thu, 16 Nov 2006 04:19:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2006-11-15T23:23:18.320-05:00</atom:updated><title>Now Listen To It</title><description>&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">Here: listen to&lt;a href="http://www.duncanlarkin.com/media/07_Down_Rodeo.m4a"> this&lt;/a>.&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">and &lt;a href="http://www.duncanlarkin.com/media/03_Vietnow.m4a">this&lt;/a>.&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">Get pumped; get educated.&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">Overachieve.&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">Run quarters and throw your arms up at the sky.&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>&lt;/div></description><link>http://www.duncanlarkin.com/2006/11/now-listen-to-it.html</link><author>duncan.larkin@lmco.com (Duncan Larkin)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13827517/posts/full/116364851896994653</guid><pubDate>Thu, 16 Nov 2006 03:41:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2006-11-15T22:54:20.583-05:00</atom:updated><title>Rage Against The Machine - Guerilla Radio

See Pre...</title><description>&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">&lt;b>Rage Against The Machine - Guerilla Radio&lt;/b>
&lt;embed src="http://youtube.com/v/B_zwmBbs4GI" width="425" height="350" type="application/x-shockwave-flash">&lt;/embed>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">See Previous Post. Read about the Beautiful People and the plastic and the me-me, consumeristic, vainglorious fakery there: see them here. Here's one giant Third World educational hors d'ovre for ya. Turn that shit up. (Good intervals music, too.)&lt;/span>&lt;/div></description><link>http://www.duncanlarkin.com/2006/11/rage-against-machine-guerilla-radio.html</link><author>duncan.larkin@lmco.com (Duncan Larkin)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13827517/posts/full/116347055142638885</guid><pubDate>Tue, 14 Nov 2006 01:25:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2006-11-14T03:31:08.263-05:00</atom:updated><title>Orwellian Moments of Guilt</title><description>&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">Tonight I got the impulse to drive 100mph to Barnie and McNobles and buy Orwell's &lt;u>Down and Out In Paris and London&lt;/u>. I don't know why I was looking for a book; I'm only half-way through Sedaris and 15 pages into Heller's &lt;u>Catch 22&lt;/u> (Yes, I'm reading two books--slowly, mind you--at once.)

I was looking for Orwell's book about his own poverty as well as Graves' &lt;u>King Jesus.&lt;/u> There were too many stacks of Da Vinci this and Da Vinci that and so the latter was MIA. They didn't even have Grave's &lt;u>Goodbye To All That&lt;/u>, for Chrissakes. They used to have Graves' autobiography, back in 1995, back when I first got attracted to disillusionment, but too much time has passed since then; Anne Rice and Dan Browne have too much to say nowadays--fuck 1918 and those old war poets, those black and white photographs of dead men, survivors of WW1, pushing up poppies (not in Flanders in some gray English cemetery) they have nothing to teach us about wasted wars and the greedy military industrial complex!

As I was checking out, the woman asked if I wanted to donate a book, another copy of this book, to a shelter for poor women and children. &lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">I looked down at the book, the black and white photograph, out of focus showing a bobby under some sad bridge. I gripped it tightly and got a whiff of guilt; I stared at the sad checkout lady with the puppy dog eyes.&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">But I said, "No thanks."&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">Down and out people need to find their own damn down and out books. I found mine; they can find theirs. When I worked in a shelter, they had Oral Roberts to read. I think he's better to get them out of there; Orwell may force them to stay in the shelter waiting for another classic.&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">---------------------------&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">I found out today that I am the finalist in &lt;/span>&lt;a href="http://www.chasingkimbia.com/">&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">this contest.&lt;/span>&lt;/a>&lt;span style="font-size:85%;"> I'm honored that I made the cut; I mean I have no PhD; I am no 2:18 marathoner; I don't work in an inner city school lifting up the downtrodden; I don't fancy myself as an altruistic champion of whatever. I'm just me--livin' in McWorld, driving a hypocritical largeass truck in the middle of a sea of Philashit n' Streetblimps, fightin' the yentas and doing my part to push the (censored for economic reasons) further into the black: chart by pretty chart.&lt;/span>

&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">I'm the little man in a Cyclopean world, but I'll put my best 1000 words forward and maybe I'll convince the panel to understand that a man down and out in McWorld can best tell it like it is in the most misunderstood continent--the land where the majority live below the poverty line, where those that run fast also live hard. &lt;/span>&lt;/div></description><link>http://www.duncanlarkin.com/2006/11/orwellian-moments-of-guilt.html</link><author>duncan.larkin@lmco.com (Duncan Larkin)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13827517/posts/full/116312197851312354</guid><pubDate>Fri, 10 Nov 2006 00:41:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2006-11-10T08:13:56.456-05:00</atom:updated><title>Apologies to Nabokov's &lt;em>geist&lt;/em></title><description>&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">I'm going to change his quote around a bit; I made one substitution, but it's all good: the &lt;u>Lolita&lt;/u>-penning butterfly man will grant me the license from the grave, I hope. Having nothing in the legs can equate to stupidity sometimes, I suppose.

"My loathings are simple: vapidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music."

I ran a 5-mile tempo today. I went out at 5:20 pace and fizzled into 5:40s, throwing my arms akimbo like some washed-up Circus-Circus clown on a bad acid trip. As luck would have it, I stumbled across &lt;/span>&lt;a href="http://www.flocasts.com/flotrack/speakers.php?sid=2">&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">this interview&lt;/span>&lt;/a>&lt;span style="font-size:85%;"> today* and, upon watching it, I immediately felt a sense of commonality with Deena. So I'm thinking of doing what she did to overcome malaise and that poopy feeling that comes with throwing your body out on the streets day in and day out, that pounding of your fibias(sic), that suscepting of your &lt;/span>&lt;a href="http://www.eorthopod.com/images/ContentImages/ankle/ankle_anatomy/ankle_anatomy_tendons04.jpg">&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">lateral malleoli&lt;/span>&lt;/a>&lt;span style="font-size:85%;"> (If you have time and are so inclined, check my Latin plural here and report back with your findings on that as well as every grammatical mistake honing in on dangling participles, brazen typos with wanton disregard for blooger.com's shitty spellchekr, malapropisms, and every WW1 historical fallacy since this blog's inception, please.) to an endomorphic 170-pounds of &lt;/span>&lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankle_Bone_Shooting">&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">Mongolian ankle bone shooting.&lt;/span>&lt;/a>&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">

I'm going to do the subelite wannabe equivalent, the single dad-living-in-a-van-down-by-the-river equivalent. . .&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">I'm going to write:

(Picture McWorld behind you with a few yentas peering out from their windows---with their eyebrows crinkled voyeuristically seeking a vicarious life--for a backdrop, not some Mammoth Lakes mansion in the woods with a million square acres of pristine forest-for-a-lot backdrop.)

&lt;strike>I was over in Europe getting ready for my track seaon&lt;/strike> I was over in my cubicle, smelling the 'redolence' of half-digested lard--squeezed out from between pimply, sweaty-with-lots o' sticky hair-buttcheeks--wafting across the open-space work environment, staring at the local 5K schedule on my monitor. (...censored)

1. &lt;strike>Cancel entire track season&lt;/strike> Cancel Barnie Fife Run 4 The Cure/gimmiecrack corn 5K season. Let the first place, 16:XX spoils go to some wannabe Quentin Cassady collegian who's out to heelstrike his feet into a closet full of plastic bauble, who's out to pump his pubescent BO-wafting arms into a scrapbook full of unread local newspaper rags .
2. &lt;strike>I went on a little vacation to Italy with my husband&lt;/strike> I went on a little vacation down to my cinderblock basement with my Id, my pan of Goya brand eggrolls, as well as my case of Heineken (&lt;a href="http://www.duncanlarkin.com/2006/05/12-miles-at-716-pace.html">purchased in the dark cavern from the shifty man with the baseball bat&lt;/a>).
3. &lt;strike>When I got back I really went to the 'grindstone?' of acupuncture, chiropractor, massaging, stretching, ice baths twice a day. . . basically the entire day was filled with trying to getting &lt;span style="font-size:180%;">ME, ME-ME-ME &lt;/span>to feel better and get my legs back under &lt;span style="font-size:180%;">ME.&lt;/span>&lt;/strike> When I went back upstairs, it was 6am (wow was I hungover and bloated with MSG-infused saturated fat!) and I really went to the 'grindstone!' of making my daughter's breakfast, walking the dog and picking up his shit, off in the condo association's official '&lt;/span>&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">green-space,' in a Wegmans' brand plastic sack so that the dilligent yenta police don't report me to the Gestapo or to &lt;a href="http://www.duncanlarkin.com/2006/08/yentas-plenta.html">Mr.Wiggins&lt;/a>&lt;/span>&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">, paying the bills, driving slowly across a backed-up sea of cellphone-wielding Philamaniacs and Dunkin Donuts-pimping streetblimps, and smelling my cubemate's farts while listening to him discuss that damned Eaglez' dropped ball vis-a-vis his fantasy football team's prospects. . and so I did everything to get my legs back under me at 11pm, doing my 6-mile double, &lt;a href="http://www.duncanlarkin.com/uploaded_images/DSC00181-706589.JPG">staring at my little white wall&lt;/a>.&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">4. &lt;strike>And then one day I had a great run at the Lakes basin(sounds sexy as hell)&lt;/strike>. One day I had a great run on a treadmill in the middle of Philashit, but the next day I felt terrible again where it&lt;/span>&lt;span style="font-size:85%;"> was filled with trying to get &lt;span style="font-size:180%;">me-me&lt;/span> to realize that I won't feel better, because I have come to realize that this sport is nothing but feeling shitty and acting &lt;span style="font-size:180%;">selfish&lt;/span>--that running vapidity can equal stupidity.&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">------------------------------&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">*Fantastic website, by the way (&lt;a href="http://www.flocasts.com/flotrack/speakers.php?sid=3&amp;f=3">watch Goucher doing his very best Tang Soo Do&lt;/a>** impression, as well as &lt;a href="http://www.flocasts.com/flotrack/speakers.php?sid=3&amp;amp;f=12">Salazar moving about like a Family Circus cartoon&lt;/a>***.)&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">**See Chuck Norris or &lt;a href="http://www.redtangsoodo.com/page2.html">this nifty site with a nifty MIDI for details about all things Tang Soo Do.&lt;/a>&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">***&lt;a href="http://www.brunching.com/images/blaircircus.gif">This is what I mean&lt;/a>.&lt;/span>&lt;/div></description><link>http://www.duncanlarkin.com/2006/11/apologies-to-nabokovs-geist.html</link><author>duncan.larkin@lmco.com (Duncan Larkin)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13827517/posts/full/116313057013708887</guid><pubDate>Fri, 10 Nov 2006 03:49:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2006-11-09T23:27:22.476-05:00</atom:updated><title>I don't care that this site is turning into a bunc...</title><description>&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">&lt;b>I don't care that this site is turning into a bunch of youtube links; you need to watch this one. . .&lt;/b>
&lt;embed src="http://youtube.com/v/V2tVublax0k" width="425" height="350" type="application/x-shockwave-flash">&lt;/embed>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">Because Radiohead is good for stuck marathoners. The balding, disheveled running man who goes hands-to-ground after his anerobic work; I mean the guy with the wife-beater tee shirt and the matches that have the fetus on the cover, him, he represents me, us--taking it to his mortality, that fucked-up pursuing car symbolizing life's stagnant PRs, life's finality, with a blanched, sickly Thom Yorke playing the part of the angel of death in the back seat.&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">Keep running, everyone.&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">&lt;/span>
&lt;span style="font-size:85%;">Don't give up; you aren't done yet.&lt;/span>&lt;/div></description><link>http://www.duncanlarkin.com/2006/11/i-dont-care-that-this-site-is-turning.html</link><author>duncan.larkin@lmco.com (Duncan Larkin)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13827517/posts/full/116312414552600972</guid><pubDate>Fri, 10 Nov 2006 02:02:25 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2006-11-09T21:02:25.553-05:00</atom:updated><title>Going to a 5:40 after a 5:20 at mile 3 calls for m...</title><description>&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">&lt;b>Going to a 5:40 after a 5:20 at mile 3 calls for my favorite movie of all time&lt;/b>
&lt;object width="425" height="350">&lt;param name="movie" value="http://youtube.com/v/rWjXBJf3fGo">&lt;/param>&lt;embed src="http://youtube.com/v/rWjXBJf3fGo" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350">&lt;/embed>&lt;/object>&lt;/div></description><link>http://www.duncanlarkin.com/2006/11/going-to-540-after-520-at-mile-3-calls.html</link><author>duncan.larkin@lmco.com (Duncan Larkin)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13827517/posts/full/116312388109761757</guid><pubDate>Fri, 10 Nov 2006 01:58:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2006-11-09T20:59:16.646-05:00</atom:updated><title>Vapid 5-mile tempo calls for Wildcat
</title><description>&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">&lt;b>Vapid 5-mile tempo calls for Wildcat&lt;/b>
&lt;embed src="http://youtube.com/v/XGGX9mKQwls" width="425" height="350" type="application/x-shockwave-flash">&lt;/embed>&lt;/div></description><link>http://www.duncanlarkin.com/2006/11/vapid-5-mile-tempo-calls-for-wildcat.html</link><author>duncan.larkin@lmco.com (Duncan Larkin)</author></item></channel></rss>