Author: johnbrandall

John Randall is a writer living in Missouri. His interests include camping, running, walking, cutting and burning wood, messing around with magnets, foraging, and listening to podcasts, many of them about baseball.

Trip Up East 2016

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September 3, 2016.

He and I are laid up, stuck, at Lambert.  Our flight was scheduled for 11:05, pushed back to 2:25p.  The plane is detained in Oklahoma City for maintenance.  There was an earthquake north of there this morning, about seven o'clock.  Some in St. Louis—my mom—said they felt the tremor.  B and I were running, felt nothing.

I went and got us coffees, long line at Starbucks.  There is TV noise, there are children, there are many aboard the blunderbuss of airport confusion.  The board is clean except for our flight.  Bad luck, bald luck, bad eagle.  It's been awhile since I've had an unpleasant flight experience, not since a layover in Miami coming back from The Mexico in 2010.  I can't recall what amount of time that required.  There's a lady from my eventual flight on her phone, talking away.  One call after the next, as if her talking keeps the phone charged.  She's telling people the flight was canceled, and rescheduled.  Not true.  Alarmist.  Unruly kids, agitated mother.  I'm not long for this seat...


The story continues...

Untitled Late 2016

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1al Qaeda in the desert magrebtrump in the desert casinohail red hail black hail brightalt right alt country control alt delete2I used to write likethis in bed, in thedark, by sense,umami, inhalingthe darknostrilI used to have somethingto say, now I amquiet, in fear ofthe fashion police,the reprimanders,They know I'm wrong,not my-self,bag-eyed,trumpet-minded,stuck in my throat,brisk on … Continue reading Untitled Late 2016

Trip Up East 2011

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October 3, 2011

10:55 eastern time.

I have moused this little notebook from a cupboard at work.  The market is bouncing again this morning: first down 95, then up 30, then down 90, now down 62.  The S&P 500 is at 1125.  I will wait until it hits 1080 to buy again.

My dad and I leave tomorrow to travel northeast.  We will fly into Boston, spend one night in Ludlow (MA), drive up to Vermont for the Contrary Opinion Forum (three nights, Tues-Thurs), then return to Ludlow for four more nights.  B—and my sister!—fly into Hartford on Saturday the ninth.

I am worried that the market (1) will fall—it's already been such a crummy three-month stretch; and (2) will hit my buy tripwire while I'm gone.  I am also worried about ongoing furnace and AC installation/replacement while I'm away...


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The Ones that Needed Telling (Spring Farm 2015—Thursday Only)

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I was my usual, edgy self Thursday morning.  The night before we ate sushi, the maguro and the sake both so...not just good...better than good: exquisite.  I had two of the big Sapporo, from glass though they are better out of those cold, impenetrable cans.  From there to Walgreens.  I bought a six-cans of Modus and a twelve of Kraftig.  The plastic six-ring holding the Modus cans together failed and two of the six Modus skittered across the floor.  My instinct was to exclaim, "I'm not drunk!"  B will want me to say Walgreens was her idea, and it was.  Dierbergs, earlier, had been a warm beer can fail.  For camping I want to start out with warm cans.  If you have more than about one-and-a-half your expected first-night's volume of beer taking up room in your cooler you aren't packing the cooler efficiently, I have realized...



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Air Methods

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He had asked her to help him get a few rocks for the fire.  He had concocted what sounded to her like an elaborate idea for what she knew he was envisioning in his head would become not just his best fire yet, but the ultimate fire—a perfect fire, the perfect fire.  He had brought with them a bag of sticks he had picked up throughout the neighborhood in the weeks leading up to this little trip.  He was adamant about kindling and newspaper and turned up his nose at lighter fluid.  She appreciated the purist in him, theoretically, but every once in a while he was craft a fire design that choked on itself, smoking a lot, but never really becoming a fire.  Lighter fluid, for him, was just too easy.

They scavenged rocks from remnant fire rings at various vacant tent sites not far from the cabin.  He expected her to know exactly which rocks he wanted her to pick up.  But she didn't know, how could she inherently know something like that, what were his criteria?  Who knew?  She stood there, perhaps with her hands in her pockets, looking off at the river, as he tried to get at least two rocks in each hand.

Full story here...

Meramec Cabin

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6.11.16.

It is just shy of three in the morning on Saturday.  I am here with B and our dog June.  It was warm out yesterday, 91° or so, and it'll be warm soon enough here again today.  I've got the AC going, set to 74° but the thermometer I've got has it at 75.9° in here.  We brought a box fan along with us, and that's going, back in one of the bedrooms where B and June are sleeping.  I couldn't really sleep or I just don't want to sleep.  I like being awake when everything else is so quiet.  I can take a nap today if I want.

We've camped here in the Park a couple of times before.  This time we wanted to bring June and stay in a cabin.  I can't sleep even a little at these temps in a tent.  It's a little buggy in here.  I know it's not a hotel room but within minutes of getting into the cabin I noticed a large spider clinging to the wall between the door and the sink cupboard...

Full travelogue here...

Portland

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I.  Sitting in His Apartment.  

I have my old things, my talismen, my curios and artifacts, croutons of life dropped along the way, telling my story.  Roy does, too.  I can spot them, uncoached, in this two-bedroom place of his and Joyce's in Portland, a.k.a. Fog City, Raintown, CoffeeShopLand.  Cronos the dog is eight.  He is mellow and sweet, curled up on his pillow, waiting for the others to rise. I was there on Shenandoah in St. Louis the first weekend Roy had gotten him.  I've always thought Cronos remembered that, held an affinity for me because of it.  Or maybe he's just a sweet happy dog who can love everyone without condition or reason.  

Roy's got a few of our paintings.  A blind portrait I did of him in November 2005 (I just checked to see if the date was on the back, otherwise I wouldn't've known it).  Then there's the collaboration he and I did in his Allen apartment, a painting we dubbed "C.E. Gogh," consisting first of a sketch he did of me, with us then painting in the room scene all around it.  In that painting is a table and one of a set of four orange chairs that Roy has had forever, and which are here, having meaning to me but appearing to be underemphasized...    

Full travelogue and more photos here...

Baseball Transcription Number 01

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J   Players that: there's the category: it's players that we can relate to one another without saying their name, meaning we have a nickname for them.

E   Yeah, it could be physical, it could be a mix of, ah, physical actions.

J   Features.  Physical actions, characteristics, things we've seen them do.

E   Distinctive.  So who was the first?

J   You said "The Licker" ?

E   The Licker...

J   That's Mike Pelfrey...

Full dialogue here...

New Orleans 2016

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Wooden doors.  French doors.  Lockbar, cord sheath.  Dormers, slate roofs—lots of slate roofs.  Slate mulch for trees on Esplanade.  Fluorescent plastic straws, a few pennies.  Failed mortar.  Church bell. If I had started counting from the top I would know what time it was.  Gum wrappers, gum.  Cracks.  A red substance—wax?  Wrought iron.  Gas lamps, flickering flames.  Cool breeze.  The neck of a glass bottle.  Spigots lacking handles.  Woebegone cigars.  Sheathes now for the downspouts.  Tender aluminum?  Spit, phlegm, leaves.  Trumpet playing on Jackson Square.  Heels on these pavers, dog snuff, bags being rolled along their luggage wheels burning and turning.  Feathers, sparkles, glints, sequins.  Buttons.  Shadows.  This building I'm leaning on improved by the Works Progress Administration, 1935-1936.  Trumpeter playing and singing that Hank Williams song, "...down the bayou...," his singing not as good as his trumpet playing and I'm a little hung over, a little emotional, having a moment here, a future memory I think, tears caught on the inner face of my sunglasses.


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