My New Band

Okay, so here’s what we’re going to do.  I need three to twenty-seven people, we’ll figure that out later.  It will not only be an awesome band but also an artistic collective, just like that band that was an artistic collective a few years back that had that hit and then possibly killed themselves and rode a spaceship/meteor/asteroid to another galaxy.  You remember them - they wore robes and everyone thought they were great for a while.

We’ll call ourselves Arrowsmith, not as a tribute to Aerosmith but, rather, as a nod to Sinclair Lewis.  But that will be the ONLY nod to Sinclair Lewis.  Nothing additional.  This is largely because one of the few things I know about Sinclair Lewis is that he wrote a novel called ‘Arrowsmith’ which had nothing to do with sweet emotions or toys in the attic.

I suppose we’ll need to tour so anyone with a full-size tour bus is welcome, regardless of musical ability.  Also, anyone who has snacks is welcome.

We kick this off either this weekend or next or maybe in March or this Summer, depending on everyone’s schedules.

Get back to me.

My Career as a Weatherman

First off, I had no career.  I applied and was never contacted. 

When I saw that a local TV station needed a new weather personality, I thought I could probably fill that position.  I know some types of clouds.  I am pretty good as guessing when it is going to rain (or not.  Take today for example - I guarantee it will not rain today).  I also know how to read a map.

I can talk about stupid local events and whatnot.  I like kids, in general (but not the particularly loud ones).  Come on, why would I NOT be in contention for a weatherman position?

I said all of this in my cover letter and I figured I’d at least get a turn in front of the green screen.  At the very least I’d get a call.  But nothing.  No call, no email, not even a letter.

So blah on you, local station which is still looking for a weatherman.  You could have had that position filled by now if you had just given a shot to the untrained, inexperienced, unproven amateur who sent you his resume.  Lest we forget - that’s exactly how Maya Angelou got HER job as America’s favorite poet.

END

Autumn

Whilst working on an article about Congaree National Park earlier today, I couldn’t help but get a little overwhelmed by the coming of autumn.  As our half of the Earth continues its gentle tilt away from the sun, I catch myself filled with a sense of optimism about days to come.

There are a few good reasons, of course.  First, it’s cooler, which is great.  I spend a lot of time in the summer purposefully overexerting myself out in the heat, in an attempt to show off exactly how tolerant I am of the heat and humidity.  As a matter of fact, I’d like that on my tombstone after I eventually collapse and die while attempting to display that fortitude.  “William Mancke, too young to die, too overly confident of his ability to overcome the summer heat while carrying a bear cub on his back to live.” Anyway, I lot my train of thought there so let’s agree that cool weather is awesome weather.

Second, I like the fact that we get a new bunch of animals hanging around.  Not that there’s anything wrong with the usual summer creatures but I like new ones on occasion, especially birds.  I get really, really, really, really excited to see different birds show up.  Other than starlings.  I hate them.

Third, autumn brings with it the best holidays in the whole dang calendar.  Halloween, anyone?  And how about Thanksgiving?  The very best holidays are the ones when you don’t really have to do anything or give any gifts or go anywhere.  Every Thanksgiving, I give thanks for Thanksgiving.  Also, United Nations Day is in there which I don’t think anyone really celebrates, though I do, largely because it falls on my birthday and I like to feel important.  There used to be a lot of trouble in the world but now that we have the United Nations, that’s pretty much fallen to the wayside.

The fair also comes to town in autumn.  As a matter of fact, a lot of outdoor stuff starts up around here, largely because it is finally cool outside.  I, of course, as I mentioned above, adore the heat (or pretend to adore the heat though honestly, I don’t know anymore if its an act or for real, much like my love for Foreigner). 

Jeez.  Okay, well, back on track.  The South Carolina State Fair is the best.  They have all sorts of ridiculous food and there are TONS of weirdos wandering around that place.  Then, when you get those weirdos involved in eating the food it just goes crazy.  Also, there are rides, which I don’t ride anymore, largely because I am terrified of them.  You can get some free milk occasionally but people seriously, deeply, honestly LOVE free milk so you gotta get there early.  Also - pig races and, occasionally, an elephant tied to a post which seems to be crying constantly. 

Other things also happen in the fall.  There’s football, which I sometimes get interested in.  TV starts back for a couple of weeks until baseball erases the memory of what happened in those first few episodes.  I just don’t care for baseball anymore. 

There are generally elections going on, which is exciting, mostly for the people getting elected.  And oysters come back into season which also doesn’t really affect me because I only eat oysters deep fried.   

And that, my friends, is the rest of the story.

Good day.

The Peace Has Been Broken

For the past few months, the cats and the skink have peacefully co-existed.  I liked to believe there was a sort of detente between them.  The cats lived their lives on the air-conditioned, cozy and secure indoor side of the back door and the skink existed in the wild world beyond that door.  Occasionally, they would align on opposite sides of the border and regard one another but the peace held firm.

But like so many delicately balanced arrangements, that peace collapsed today when the skink, in the same vain as a drunk soldier stumbling across the East German border in the old days, wandered into a world in which he was not welcome.

All restraint was broken and the cats, their lines-of-sight having fallen on the skink, let loose with all the force they had restrained for so many months.

As the U.N. peacekeeper of the house, I was called into action to separate cat from lizard and try my best to return the latter to his homeland. 

The cats are still running around like little maniacs, searching for the missing intruder.  The skink is back outside, breathing heavily and hopefully capable of finding a place to hole up while his wounds heal.  The wild world is referred to as such for a reason and I have a feeling that our briefly encountered alien visitor might just become something’s dinner tonight.

So now we’ll settle back into routine and forget the fact that, occasionally, the line is going to be crossed.

The cover for the aforementioned ‘Rainstorms’ album. 

The cover for the aforementioned ‘Rainstorms’ album. 


From my 1978 mellow folk singer songwriter phase.  This is the rarely heard demo recorded in a kitchen in Gstaad.

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Writing Things

So, it appears that I ought to be writing more things.  I do it sometimes but I understand that I should do it more.  I understand that I could even make money writing about things.

Occasionally, I tell people that I do a little freelance writing and they seem impressed.  This is like being impressed at a tax accountant or a plumber.  It’s not that those aren’t important positions but they do those things because they can.  And I do what I do because I can.  If everything was perfect, I’d be good at something else, like heart surgery but those aren’t the cards I got dealt. 

Like anything, one’s craft must be perfected.  I can’t type well.  I tend to digress.  My brain has some sort of weird lateral thinking tendency which will allow a straight story about buying cheese to end up including three paragraphs about the song about the blue corn moon from Pocahontas.  Which is why I need to refine.

And in 20 years, everyone can buy a copy of William Mancke: A Life Less Extraordinary.

Hang onto your butts.

I rolled the dice and decided to upload the first pic that came up.  Just look at everything going on in this image!  I remember that i was really proud that I could download episodes of ‘The Office’ on my sweet new iBook.  This is apparently Christmas 2005.

I rolled the dice and decided to upload the first pic that came up.  Just look at everything going on in this image!  I remember that i was really proud that I could download episodes of ‘The Office’ on my sweet new iBook.  This is apparently Christmas 2005.


Good Night, Sweet Princes

And then, there were none.

It is with great sadness that I relate the tale of the life and death of one of the finest collections of yard pond fish ever to swim the waters of this earth.

When my wife and I originally began setting up our new household, we were delighted to find that there was a garden pond in the back yard.  We drained, cleaned and prepared this magical find and, after much preparation, began filling it with life.

The first inhabitants were a collection of mosquito fish.  These little guys are awesomely awesome as they eat mosquito larvae, which can be a problem when you have a giant, 40 gallon water-filled hole in your back yard.  They were accompanied by a small brim and a crawdad.  Over the course of the following year, the mosquito fish multiplied and grew to sizes I have never seen in the wild.  The brim go up to his own mischief.  The crawdad, just as my father had warned, spent his days kicking up crud from the bottom of the pond. 

I bought all sorts of pumps and hoses, familiarizing myself with the basic plumbing required to ensure healthy circulation or water and Oxygen production.  There were occasional small mistakes, of course.  Every once in a while, the hose which circulated the water would get knocked out of place on its little plastic waterfall and I would not catch the error until the pond had drained most of its water into the yard.  There was the mysterious disappearance of the crawdad, who had enjoyed a brief period of celebrity when I found that he had grown from just over and inch long to about five inches long.  He spent a few weeks getting fished out for guests to see and then he was gone.  He possibly just packed his bags and moved on to greener pastures but he probably just died or got himself eaten.  I still entertain myself thinking about him sparring with the brim in a miniature version of the giant squid/sperm whale battles which seemed to have a part in my childhood science studies.

This past spring, our little ecosystem got some new members.  The wife and I decided that it was tome for something a little more interesting than pond fish and stepped into the world of Coi.  We bought two, named them Goldie Hawn and fish Winston (after our cat, Winston) and let them loose.  When they survived, we added two more, named Tojo (he had a rising sun on his side) and Tug Baker (after Tug Baker, who needs no introduction).  And all was well with the world.

Things went along swimmingly (ha!) for a long time.  Coi exist in a realm between your average little fishbowl goldfish and those big carp which occupy lakes and rivers.  They do have a tendency to nip at competition sized fish, which eventually gave the brim and nervous breakdown, leading to the establishment of the Mancke Memorial Cemetery for Marine Life (the MMCML). 

I am sad to say, the MMCML has just added four new members.

What happened was a failure to properly manage what should have been a simple task.  It is summertime and, as a result of the warming water and ample sunlight, the pond had developed a massively healthy collection of algae.  I have been considering grabbing some snails from the river to address this issue but it had not happened yet and the algae level was high. 

So I decided to change the water.  Just drain it down to about 15% then refill with clean, clear, fresh water. 

Everything went smoothly at the start.  I drained the water down then put the hose in and started to refill.  As the water rose, I watched the fish swimming all around, darting through the water.  I had been looking at them through green, thick water for a while so I was impressed to see how they had grown and how colorful they had become.  I left them to enjoy their new water and went inside to cook dinner.

Ten minutes later, I looked out the window.  Tojo was floating. 

I ran out and tried to help somehow.  He was still breathing but weakly paddling around on his side.  As I tried to figure out the deal, his little sister, Goldie Hawn, started to act in a similar fashion.  I ran inside but tried to control my panic.  I worried that somehow the oxygen was too low and I brought out a bowl of water and started transferring everyone.  By now, all four fish were acting off.  A quick web search recommended a salt bath, which we quickly prepared.  Each fish was helped along, pushed through the water which was supposedly a miracle cure for shocked fish.  There was no positive result.

Around this point we realized the culprit was not Oxygen levels but the temperature of the water.  I had pumped out all the deep, cool water where the fish could regulate themselves and refilled it with warm water from the hose.  I was far out of the three degree range fish can handle. 

All four were transferred back into the pond, which I helplessly packed with ice, hoping to get that temperature back down but this was just desperation.  The patient was dead.  I could attempt as many techniques as I wanted to make myself feel better but that fact was clear.

The final technique was to shuttle the fish into the refrigerator, in an attempt to shock their systems back into functioning.  I assume this should work like the ice cube technique employed on OD’d drug users.

At approximately 7:10 p.m., on July 29, 2010, I pronounced all four fish dead.  They were laid to rest at the top of the recently built waterfall which feeds the pond.  A few lines from I Corinthians were read, as well as the prayer for the burial of the dead from the Book of Common Prayer (I get very involved with this sort of thing).  For some reason, a Viking funeral never crossed my mind.  Now I think that is because it might be too silly and, dang it, I actually had some feelings for those fish.

And now, the pond sits silent.  The mosquito fish passed on in the night.  Utility players, they never had names but I mourn their loss as well. 

And now, we must rebuild.  We must embrace the lesson we have learned and move on.  New fish will be procured, I will monitor water temperature, and the pond will live anew.

And I will just have to deal with the fact that, like J. Robert Oppenheimer said, for one afternoon, I became death, destroyer of worlds.

The Weather

It is currently raining.  Cats are tucked away somewhere.  Reminds me of traveling to Tokyo.  I think I’ll listen to Aladdin Sane whilst remembering fondly the exploits of Sheriff Lobo and overcoming my deep-seated personal fears regarding flash flooding.  Oh, and then I’ll contemplate the rivalry between VHS and Beta.

See previous post.