to my bored reader(s) and neighborhood thieves

i recently received some blunt criticism regarding the 17 point scale. a loyal reader frowned and said "your blog hasn't been very good lately." and that's it. no request for expanded seahawks coverage or spicier cooking tips. no call to cut out the photography. not a mention of how i might ammend my errant ways. well, what the crap do you want me to write about?

and speaking of crap, why would someone steal a tent pole from my backyard? thanks for leaving the tent, but what are you going to do with a single tent pole?

oh, and has anyone seen my headlamp? in any case, i'm leaving for saskatchewan on thursday--with or without my tent pole (and head lamp). thus, i won't be posting until i return next week.


andrew david. "the rejects 2: hand jive; our casa complex; a fence; the way; untitled #43" yelapa, mexico.

the colors in 'our casa complex' are not digitally altered. i don't know where the greenness came from...

'untitled #43' was a picture that i really liked. i played with it for awhile, but i couldn't find a good crop. another interesting idea that just didn't work...

packing list (part 1)

beth and i are driving from seattle to saskatoon, sk. what should we bring?
1. razor
2. shaving cream
3. toothbrush x2
4. toothpaste
5. deoderant x2
6. clothes (boxers x7, swim trunks, jeans x2, casual wedding garb pants & shirt, t-shirt x6, socks x7, belt, sweatshirt x2, coat, shoes, sandals)
7. atlas
8. other notes re: instructions and campgrounds
9. camera x2
10. camera charger
11. ipod
12. ipod fm transmitter
13. laptop x2?
14. tent x2?
15. sleeping bag x2
16. pillow x2
17. headlamp


andrew david. 'the rejects 1: keeping current; observing the surf; oncoming traffic; hot day' yelapa, mexico.

back page: cherry

VI.
cherry by mary karr

10/19/04
"yet another 'messed up girl grows up' memoir. i think it left me feeling sentimental and that 'cherry'-- [i think that's the main character]-- is really missing the point (of life). i guess i [just] find it hard to relate to her. it may have been well written [it seems that i was afraid to say one way or another] and includes some objectionable content."

i rarely mark on the front or back covers of books. it's unsightly and somehow discourteous. however, after concluding cherry i apparently felt free to scribble messages to past reviewers:

frank mccourt: "she's a poet and there are passages in her writing that glitter."
andrew david: "i probably agree."
sunday times: "...she writes with wonderful exactness and candour about sexual experiment and girlish desire."
andrew david: "...and this is probably why i don't relate."
caroline gascoigne: "this frank account of a wild texas girlhood is the most unbeatable read of the year...."
andrew david: "this frank account of a messed up texas girl is...."

if you read my blog as closely as i do, you'll notice that my book reviews tend to appear in alphabetical order by author's last name. today marks the end of that tradition. after unknowingly bumping into karr last week, i felt it was only fitting to conclude her time on this blog with a back page review. as my editorial marks attempt to highlight [i.e., these boxy brackets, the pesky pets of overly attentive editors], i didn't have much to say about this book. i'd just finished janet fitch's white oleander, so i was on troubled-girl-overload. still, i wonder if my response would change had i known that karr was a recent (?) convert to catholicism. would i have embarked on a wild goose chase, searching for a subtle message of redempton whereby i could exclaim, "ah hah! i told you she was a christian"? would i at least find some nugget to dissuade me of karr's pointless vision of life? maybe one of you will read it and tell me...

andrew david. 'wimps die 1 & 2' yelapa, mexico.
the guidebooks claim that there are no roads in or out of yelapa. however, any andrewesque wanderer who journies beyond the cemetary, up a dusty trail, and past the occasional clothes line may find a most marvelous sight: a nonexistent road. and maybe, if this window is particularly portentious, one may find this same vehicle, still waiting the return of its daring dead owner.

h2oj

everyone has morning rituals. i myself start each work day with a styrofoam cup full of orange-water juice. it's a refreshing reminder that i'm awake. this blog, the 17 point scale, is a lot like that orange-water juice.

point one: orange-water juice is a cheap alternative to full-on regular orange juice. it costs half as much! likewise, in contrast to other fine literature (which may require a costly visit to some used bookstore or online vendor), the 17 point scale costs half as much! well, actually, like most blogs, it's free.

as you may know, i'm cheap. but h2oj is the result of more than everyday economic obsessive compulsiveness. as much as i love orange juice, it has a decidedly acidic aftertaste. frankly, it's a bit much for my tastebuds. thus, i decided to go half-and-half, to combine fresh water from the VA fountain with low pulp tropicana.

there are many ways to relate this process to my blog. for instance, each post blends photos and prose. the blog fuses religion with art, literary commentary with mouth-watering recipes, pseudophilosophy with random goofiness.

better yet, the 17 point scale splashes somewhere between confessional and detatched. i share about my life, but i choose not to bore everyone with my daily activities (except making h2oj of course). this isn't a blog where you'll find sylvia plath with her head in an oven or --

holy goose! i hate to interrupt our regularly scheduled blog like this, but i just happened upon something a little bit crazy. you see, i was hoping to say something like: " [another famous confessional poet] poetically recounting the acrimony of her sex life," but i couldn't think of a good poet to fill-in-the-blank. so, as any frenzied blogger would do, i turned to google. there i typed "confessional poet sex." instead of finding robert lowell (did he write about sex?), anne sexton, or (thankfully) some strange and artsy porn site, i found mary karr...to everyone but beth (?) this may seem ho-hum-who-cares? but, beth, isn't this the girl that wrote that essay you were having me read tonight? the essay that some single-initialed literary type forwarded to greg wolfe at image? maybe not, but it sure sounds the same. and, if so, this is the girl who wrote cherry, that coming of age memoir that i was telling you about! crazy, eh?

errrrrrr...okay, so i'll write more about this blog's battle with confidentiality in some later post. sorry, good night.


andrew david. "view from our casa" yelapa, mexico.

life gets in the way of blogging yet again

friday - hot tubbed in portland
saturday - mocked rose paraders, tried to climb an elephant, shopped at powell's, ate pietro's pizza, played sardines
sunday - ate barbeque, river frolicked, and played horseshoes at the oines bungalo on puget island
monday - dined at the mountain something cafe, watched my first free movie from blockbuster online (munich)
tuesday- no plans
wednesday - no plans
thursday - no plans
friday - go out of town?


andrew david 'loot' yelapa, mexico.

i'm not quite sure what i mean by loot. i didn't have a chance to rummage through their contents. probably contraband of some kind, but that unknown is part of the mystery that i hoped to convey. however, i obviously didn't frame the picture very well. when looking at this one, my eyes go directly to the boring blue sky and then they're lost. can anyone think of a good crop? also, the boxes mimic the hills in the background, and rather than compliment one another, this proves counter productive. still, i really like the sand shadows in the foreground.

google searches & house tour

my cyberpet, the statcounter, attempts to track how many people visit my blog and their method of doing so. during the last 100 visits, there were 5 visitors who arrived by google and 2 by yahoo. here are their queries:

	4 visits	36.36%	the 17 point scale
	2 visits	18.18%	http://the17pointscale.blogspot.com
	1 visits	9.09%	interracial photo sessions
	1 visits	9.09%	failed blog
	1 visits	9.09%	god laughs and plays
	1 visits	9.09%	lekkerman
	1 visits	9.09%	history of church on yelapa

failed blog! hah. i have no interracial photo sessions to share, so i thought i'd share another little chunk of my mexico photos instead. by the way, after a few months worth of posts, i'm finally nearing the end of the good photos from that trip. anyway, here's a tour of our $95 accomodations in yelapa (that's right, only $95 bucks! crazy ridiculous good deal; in case you're wondering, this is at casa isabel):


a view from beth's bed; a view of beth, angie, and our front porch; a view of beth's bed and the kitchen from my bed


a view of of beth, the kitchen, and some ladders to the girls' rooms; angie's bed; the bathroom sitting room

my bed and views from my bed
the shower (well, kinda')
the bathroom (kinda)

this is a litle tale about sleeping

once, long ago, a whirling bit of cosmic dust, an almighty deity, or some cosmic accident resulted in this thing we know as humanity. whatever our origin, us bipedal primates were designed to spend half of our lives sleeping.


indeed, the bed is the great equalizer; even honeymooners and dudes on death row must sleep.


finding this sleeping business a bit tedious (and an utter waste of time), beth, angie, and i planned our escape. we traveled deep into the sun soaked land of mexico.


once we reached the coastal village of yelapa, we sidestepped the bed bugs for an hour or so by joining a candle-lit dance party. the locals were a peculiar blend of hippee, tourist, and native, but the dj's fondness for cheesy eighties music made us retreat to our jungle bungalow.


and it was there that we succumbed to that inevitable sign of human weakness--we slept.


like any holy grail quest, our search was in most ways a failure. despite its two dollar margaritas, roaring iguanas, and tropical beach, yelapa could offer us no antidote to the night. still, our sleep was far from boring. as you may or may not have noticed, these beds are covered in netting AND, better yet, they hang: we were safe from all those nasty jungle critters while hanging suspended in mid-air. it was as if the bed itself was a physical representation of our sleep state; that night we hovered happily in our dreams. how can sleep get cooler than that?

(it can't.)

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. what if we're stuck in seattle? should we avoid the boredom of sleep and advocate our friends and roommates to do the same?

2. speaking of roommates, what is one to do if his (or her) roommate serves as a roadblock for this pursuit of waking life? for example, let's say that at 9pm someone intends to delay the call of sleep by watching a hit tv show (e.g., 24) with his girlfriend, but that his roommate says, "no, i have to work early in the morning; i'm going to bed now, and the tv is too loud." what should one do?

3. okay, okay. so assuming that one does the polite thing and lets his or her roommate drift safely to sleep, what if the roommate also says "yep, i've decided that i need more sleep, i'm gonna start going to bed about this time every night. maybe you could use the tv friday nights..." what now? sure, mark needs his sleep, but what about my right to occasionally watch a movie on my big screen tv?

(i was going to ask a sex question related to hanging beds, but then i remembered that i was annoyed about our small house, so alas, i asked no sex question. now it's too late.)

on the road: figure eight [1.0]

this january i unveiled a series of new features to the 17 point scale. one of these ideas was a segment called 'on the road reviews.' i explained that:

these posts will hopefully bear the fruit of my most dangerous new idea (and perhaps my sole idea) concerning that i-5 stretch of verdant wasteland between seattle and portland. the recipe for my new idea is really quite simple; in fact, it only takes a few key ingredients: one or more full length music albums, a device with which to play said cds, a pen, and a post-it note pad. the stickies that survive the ride shall then serve as the song-by-song foundation for my 'on the road reviews.' as an aside, i suddenly (as in a few minutes ago) became intensly interested in origins. that is, where did this idea come from? (i don't know). why did i choose this title? (to begin, i did not intend hurtle my way into the company of jack kerouac or willy nelson. in fact, having never finished 'on the road' or listened to the verses of 'on the road again,' i can't even claim an artistic birthright to their sense of these words, so there is no connection. none. i liked the aliteration; that's it).

joel's blog and an occasional article in paste magazine is about my only exposure to the world of legitimate music reviews. still, from what i've seen, my vision of a track-by-track album analysis seems rather unique. this surprises me. maybe my method is overkill, perhaps it's too unpolished, but the overall effect seems like an interesting blend of analysis and subjectivity.

in any case, despite all the hoopla that surrounded my initial announcement of on the road reviews, it's been almost six months and i have yet to post a single on the road review. frankly, i'm a little hesitant to embark upon this path. mostly i'm afraid that it will prove too exhaustive and uninteresting for readers that lack the album that happens to be my flavor of the day. and, unfortunately, i obviously can't post links to the songs that i discuss. also, these thoughts are scribbled on little scraps of paper as i drive from portland to seattle: they tend to be rather scattered. thus, i'm open to feedback. here's a sample of how an on the road review might read:

I.
figure eight by elliot smith

1. 'you're just somebody that i used to know.' the chorus says it all. an implicit indictment of the 'you.' the song attacks her but does so oh so pleasantly. still, at first listen, the song is blessedly ambiguous. we can't quite swallow what elliot's preaching; we only half believe that she's really 'just somebody' that he used to know...

2. 'something's happening. don't speak to soon...son of sam?' i like the piano. i like the phrase 'acting under orders from above...you fall down.' i don't know what the song is saying, but i like the succession of parallel-looking words like 'under' and 'order.' moreover, this line seems like a microcosm for the album: to some degree, his words take us down (under) and then up (above) and then down again (down).

8. "stay with me / hanging around at the lost and found...don't go home, angelina...i'm alone, most of the time / but that's okay..." there's a constant sense of 'it seems this way.' nothing is concrete. also, the song (and album) seems to shift places between happiness and sadness, companionship and solitude, staying or leaving. the main lyric is somehow ironic. and the song has a weird unconnected 30 second instrumental postlude.

10. another indictment of a girl: "it's all about taking the easy way out for you i suppose..." elliot smith seems pretty good at conveying a bitter yet seemingly logical analysis of his ex's. he paints a familiar picture (i.e., as someone with ex's, his lyrics and tone resonate with me) that somehow manages to remain uncliche.

more? stop this insanity?

andrew david 'free advertising' yelapa, mexico.

les miserables

tonight i skimmed part of practical photography while strolling through barnes and noble. reading that magazine kind of erodes my sense of the spontaneity of photography. the editors strongly encourage photographers to plan their photo sessions or, worse yet, to stage their photographs. this makes pratical sense, but somehow i'm afraid that it dulls the creative juices and cheapens the magic of a good photograph. oh, well.

i also saw les miserables. if you ask me about it, i might tell you some things. otherwise, i'm going to bed.


andrew david 'quintessential picture of a donkey and a palm tree' yelapa, mexico.

duncan and driscoll

a while ago i almost posted something like this:

my girlfriend and i happen to be huge fans of david james duncan. his book 'the brothers k' is nearly a perfect novel. in any case, last month he visited seattle, promoting his new book God laughs and plays: churchless sermons in response to the preachments of the fundamentalist right.

during the last few weeks i've been meaning to share about the brilliance and so-so-ness of duncan's visit. my experience with authors has recently been like watching ray and walk the line in quick eye-blink succession. in the space of two weeks, i heard both anne lamott and duncan--two quasi-christian, anti-bush authors who use their talent to push political agendas. duncan (and lamott) had good things to say, but i suspect that i'm something of a purist. give me fiction, i say, screw politics.

my response to these authors is similar to attending a service at mars hill church. this trendy yet word-based church is an odd phenomena in seattle: it's growing. it's growing so much that following a 8:30am service in the ballard sanctuary (the first of the day), pastor mark driscoll's voice is thrown into the back of a van (on dvd, of course) and driven thirty minutes north to a 9:45am service. all told there are seven services between these two locations. now, pastor mark's voice has cool things to say. driscoll seems dedicated to preaching straight from the text. however, he also seems to have pet issues. i can't recall a sermon where he didn't refer to gender roles--a man does this, a woman does this. personally, i teeter-totter back and forth in my opinion of gender and the church, but week after week i don't need someone like driscoll jumping on the teeter-totter with me. give me the gospel, i say, screw gender.

okay, i know: i'm insane (aggggggahawwwwwwwwwaaa!), but david james duncan has become a literary (and liberal) mark driscoll.

ummm...anyway, duncan also read some really interesting passages. and, to his credit, it totally makes sense that he writes about his passions. i really should shut up and applaud his efforts.

andrew david 'shaman for hire' yelapa, mexico. there's no connection between pastor mark driscoll and this shaman. while driscoll drinks beer i doubt he chews peyote or practices ancient huichol customs. also, this list was for a sign-up sheet for one-on-one healing; despite the title, i don't think people actually had to pay the shaman for his services. in any case, it was a wee bit odd staying in the same jungle as mr. shaman. the thing that i really like about this picture is the cork and other periphereal items. i think that they give the picture a lot more character.

back page: notes from underground

V.
notes from underground by fyodor dostoevsky

7/9/03
"starts slow, ends fast. sometimes as i drown in the underground intellectual rants, i wonder if there's anything to these tirades that i read over and over again, searching wildly for some meaning. powerful soliloquy. drama."

as the title might suggest, notes from underground is a rather slim work. still, it's a bit of a puzzle. in fact, i might have to titrate down my daily dose of risperidone if i hope to empathize with dostoevsky's narrator. ah, yes. this is what i love about russian literature: the unsettling character sketches of the lonely and less than lucid. maybe i'm with modest mouse and steve van selus on this one: "i like songs about drifters [e.g., crazy russian blokes], books about the same / they both seem to make me feel a little less insane."

in any case, i'm back from nyc. i promise to share photos from my visit to the big apple soon. it was a blast! matt and jacinda are truly gifted at sharing their lives (and city) with others. they are amazing hosts.

sooooo...i've got a lot of great things planned for the 17 point scale (i.e., don't laugh, but i have several blog drafts in progress), but i might be a bit slow in uploading those changes...


andrew david. 'mysterious bathroom guest.' yelapa, mexico.

this bugger is apparently known as a canclo.

a 17 point scale absence

i'm going to nyc this weekend to visit matt and jacinda. hoooray!

andrew david 'bird and boat' yelapa, mexico.

united 93

beth and i saw united 93 tonight. one might think that a post-9/11 film might be a great date movie, but i'm here to say that despite the nearly empty theater, the atmosphere was a bit too somber for making out. and obviously date movies are only worthwhile if there is kissing. still, i would have liked to see a couple more couples turn out to see this film. after all, it's only been a week since opening day – i'm a little surprised that beth and i got two rows to ourselves for such an important movie.

in any case, you can read good reviews elsewhere. in short, i don't see how someone could have made a better film about this tragedy. united 93 was poignant without being preachy; it was touching without being (overly) dramatic. perhaps the greatest testament to the emotional punch of this film is that our audience of 20 left the theater silently. indeed, the hush reminded me of a maundy thursday service or compline at st. mark's. it was a holy quiet.


andrew david 'five pictures' yelapa, mexico. (yes, i know. it's a little odd to include pictures of a mexican cemetery in a post about a US historical film. still, they seemed somehow appropriate. also, aesthetically i didn't feel they were worth a post of their own. by the way, i doubt you find many pictures of the yelapa cemetery elsewhere; it's a little off the beaten path.)

real life gets in the way of blogging

monday - watched 'friends' and built a chair
tuesday - mark and i ran a record 1.6 miles; beth and i built three chairs and a table
wednesday - played basketball, ate at romio's, and talked sex/jobs (that's NOT sex jobs) with nathan; spoke to beth for 27 minutes
thursday - relaxed with mark; went to 'church' at the kangaroo and kiwi
friday - in a homecoming of sorts, beth and i will go out on a double-date (and a half?) dinner with anya and mike at the woodinville las margaritas; perhaps i can convince beth to go for a night swim in cottage lake...
saturday - play tennis (if my thumb heals) and poker (if the crew can be assembled) with skeith
sunday - go to church, finish my pg-13 post


andrew david 'gourmet' yelapa, mexico.

a pg-13 post [1.5]

[prologue to part two]
thank you everyone. your impatience for the conclusion of this posting has been like peanut butter gnutella for the ego. i don't mind if you spread it thick. still, i'm no charles dickens. i doubt i can handle the stress of writing serial posts like this. ironically, i am paralyzed by your great expectations (i couldn't resist). this condition is compounded by my general ineptitude for endings. don't believe me? check my computer; the final draft of my 2003 travel essay is saved as 'dumbest ending ever.'

sorry for this detour; i know that some of you are antsy to discover beth's fate--what ghostly specter haunts the corners of her mind? will she survive her encounter with the dumpy newspaper-strewn house that andrew calls home?--i understand your anxiety, but aren't you even a little bit curious about that dumb ending?

well, this blog is about me, and i was curious, so i double-clicked the document and scrolled quickly to page eleven. here are the final two sentences:

'like the old tortoise, i finally made it. i’ve been stumbling, bumbling, teetering, and generally miss-stepping from one place to the next, but despite rick steves and in spite of myself, here i am.'

sucky, right? this mawkish attempt at a conclusion is the result of more than a year's worth of brain kneading, or, to quote myself, a year's worth of 'stumbling, bumbling, teetering, and generally miss-stepping ' my way 'from one place to the next.' that's right!--you're witnessing an interactive epiphany--maybe my travel essay is really just a heroic similie, an extended metaphor for the creative process we call writing! though i long ago left this essay for dead, perhaps this emphasis could cause a wild transformation; perhaps there is yet hope for my endings...


(i thought this picture was fitting; i'm taking a break from my story, and wheelbarrow guy is just plain taking a break.)

andrew david 'siesta' yelapa, mexico.

tomorrow i'll eat pietro's pizza and mint tuxedos

nothing of substance in this post. instead, i responded to comments from beth, whoopee, becky, mari, and chadius (3/9, 3/23, 4/12, 4/13, and 4/18).

here's a little something from my blog cemetery. a few weeks ago, i was going to write a satirical gothic post about dreams, gothic novels, and the gre. i never got around to it. here's my rough, rough, rough draft in poetic form and embedded in a photograph:

GOTHIC by andrew

a dark, cavernous
parking garage

a gre, a feast
i come home
as imaginary spiders
crawl all over me

a bed, and i
drift off to sleep

later i see a spider

andrew david 'not quite a spider but two times as poisonous' yelapa, mexico.