The Eagle Has Left Us.

It's been a bad week be an Armstrong. First Lance got his seven Tour de France titles stripped, and now Neil, American hero and transcendent human, has died at 82. (And who knows, maybe Louis' reputation will suffer a crippling blow after the public once again decides that jazz is the devil's music.) After being shot into the sky in a metal tube filled mostly with a highly explosive substance, hurdling through a freezing vacuum with radioactive particles whizzing by, landed the damn thing on an object 238,900 miles away, then brought it back, all with less technology than a modern graphing calculator, Armstrong died of complications from heart surgery, a reminder that all our bodies will eventually give out, no matter how many awesome things we do with them. This is back when computers still had front doors, TVs were black and white, and America was still getting to know its good friend the microwave oven. A loaf of bread probably cost a nickel or something. But Neil Armstrong, his sidekick Buzz Aldrin, and the intrepid folks at NASA said "fuck it, we're not going to let any of that stop us," because the people who brought you Tang and pudding cups can do anything. I'm not sure if it was a special kind of madness or just confidence in what he was doing, but to go up there where there is no hope of any kind of rescue if the slightest thing goes wrong takes some serious stones.

It's hard to imagine what it would be like to be alive when it happened. I grew up knowing that people had been to the moon. But to be sitting in your living room, watching it happen in (almost, thanks to light-lag) real-time on your tiny black and white TV must have been an experience. And obviously I can't speak for the mood of the time, but I think Neil Armstrong made everyone really proud to be human. I suppose Bolt makes us feel good that a human can run really fast and Phelps makes us proud that a human with mild Asperger's can swim really fast, and that crazy Kazakh woman showed us that human beings can lift really heavy things. Shakespeare, Picasso and Beethoven made us proud of what can come out of a human's brain. The pyramids and Ankwar Wat make us proud of what humans can do when they work together. But one of our own using a contraption complied from various bits and pieces of the earth to leave it and land on another rock floating around in space, that's just remarkable.

I'll use no hyperboles, I won't say it's the most remarkable thing a human has ever done, or that it's the crowning achievement of our species. But what Neil Armstrong and his forgotten sidekick Buzz Aldrin did is something that can inspire us all to be better humans, better sentient entities, and better celestial voyagers as we travel aboard God's Spaceship Earth.

A Photo Album (In Words and Phrases)

"Where do we go from here

When there's nowhere else to go but down?"

-Nightmare River Band, Where do we Go?

As if Mark Zuckerberg weren't already enough of a dick, now he's making you depressed. According to researchers at Utah Valley University (where they apparently don't have much to study), the more time you spend on facebook, the less satisfied you are with your own life. This is presumably because on facebook, one sees only photos of the good moments, the ones they want people to see. Because no one is going to post that picture where they're puking their liver into a herpes-infested toilet.

Unfortunately, I cannot reverse this trend with an album full of photos of me at my most mundane or pathetic. But, if I could, this is what an album depicting the last few months would contain:

• My housemates and I watching six seasons of How I Met Your Mother in two and a half weeks. The look on my face is a mixture of existential despair and "what's that whacky Barney Stinson gonna do next?"
• The strange substance that came out of my nose at the end of my weeklong sinus infection, the eighth in almost as many months.
• My hands in mid-gesture, the kind I make when I'm trying to beat writer's block. Apparently the words are somewhere out there in the air and I just have to wave my hands around until I bump into them. Maybe they're in a different room. Maybe they're on facebook...
• Our laundry machine leaking, set among the miscellaneous bike parts, paint cans, and busted furniture that populates our little cement backyard.
• Me doing the dejected Charlie Brown walk, away from the closet where I have put away my running shoes for the last time.
• Me eating carrots in a seminar. There's a little drool coming out the side of my mouth, and I'm probably chewing with my mouth half open.
• Me taking nyquil so I can go to sleep.
• My half filled-out Peace Corps application, with visible crumple marks.
• Me playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
• Me playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 several hours later.
• Me checking my email for the seventeenth time in one day.
• An series of photos that depict me stealing various condiments from restaurants.
• Me doing a handlepull in the parking lot of Downtown Disney.
• Me slumped uselessly on the couch, with my laptop. I might be watching the discovery channel, it's hard to tell from this angle. (There are many photos like this one.)
• Me standing with all the nothing I caught while fishing at Lake Cachuma. I am tired because some very loud bros drove up to our campsite at four thirty in the morning.
• A celebratory meal of Ling-Ling potstickers and bin candy. I'm using some sort of filter on instagram to make it look more delicious.
• Me holding up my ticket stub from the Tacoma Glass Blowing Museum. THIS is what I came all the way to Tacoma for!
• My friend and I beta-testing a drinking game for the computer game Civilization IV at some ungodly hour of the morning.
• Me spilling a five dollar pitcher of PBR in a crowded bar. Whatever, it's only five bucks and a I'll never see these people again.
• The look in my face as I try to explain to some kid that as your tutor, I can help you write your essay, but I cannot dictate an essay to you.
• A picture of me being broke because no one wants to hire an ethical writing tutor.
• My hand reaching out from behind the bathroom door, being handed a roll of toilet paper. This also has some kind of artsy instagram filter and/or border on it.
• Easy Mac! So much Easy Mac!
• Playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 yet again. Shit, what time is it?
• Minute three (out of five) of deciding what I want from a vending machine.
• Me drinking alone.
• Arguing with my roommate over dubstep. Despite his assurances, it has not grown on me. Turn that shit off!
• Me pounding three emergen-C packs and five ibuprofen tablets to get through my midterm with yet another sinus infection.
• Me spilling a Jamba Juice as I walk into class late.
• A sequence of photos taken as I make a five hour drive listening only to Mariachi and Norteño music on the radio cause my tape deck don't work.
• Me inspecting myself for bedsores after I have only got up only to eat and relieve myself for the past three days, for no real good reason.
• Me at a coffee shop, four coffees deep and not a single word of material.
• My phone showing no new text messages.
• Me eating the free food at the meeting of some sort of club or organization, which I couldn't name for the life of me.
• Me trying to wash a dish in a sink that is literally overflowing with dirty dishes. Fuck it, I'll get it later.
• Me cleaning my housemate's blood out of my sweatpants. Because things get a little rowdy around here sometimes.
• My roommate and I holding up several mice we have just either bludgeoned to death or shot with an airosoft rifle.
• Me drinking four bottles of two-buck chuck, all to myself, as I watch the x-files, because "this is the only way I can reconcile myself with myself."
• Guys? How long has this been in the fridge?
• Me after two consecutive all-nighters, fueled by four monster energy drinks, five cups of coffee, one redbull, several doses of adderall, and God knows how many cups of tea, surrounded by a whole cart's worth of library books and candy bar wrappers.
• Me playing real-world Tetris, trying to throw all my stuff into my car after we basically got evicted.
• Me seated between a morbidly obese man and a man who smells as though he's decomposing, on a flight to Detroit, of all places.
• Me overdressed at Lou's Coney Island (evidently some sort of chain restaurant) with my great uncle Bob, a Seventh Day Adventist who comes here because "their hotdogs are all beef!"
• Me getting drunk in an airport bar with my mom.
• Me downing my emergency flask at 12:30 in the afternoon on public transportation, then one of me subsequently losing my glasses.
• Me making a mess trying to mix all four flavors of Jack in the Box dipping sauces together on the little foil thing that your burger comes wrapped in.
• Me using my inhaler, because I'm cool like that.
• Something representing my laziness about learning html, like, for example, the layout of the Ozone Shack.
• Me sitting at the computer, on facebook, wondering why everyone else seems to have such eventful lives.

Feel better now? Because let's face it, most people aren't that interesting most of the time.

And Now Something About Myself...

I have avoided inserting much of myself into the writings on The Ozone Shack recently. That's how it should be. That's how all blogs should be, but it is a hallmark of the era we live in that nothing actually happens to you until you post something about it on the internet. I'm going to post something I allegedly wrote over a year ago when my friend essentially asked "what comes next after running?" I wrote this:

Nothing has to "come next" after running. If you want to do something competitive - swimming or cycling or triathlons or biathlons or telethons or midget tossing - you can go at it with all due vigor to try and replace it. If you want to stay fit you can lift or climb or box or even just carry a 35 pound cinder block with you at all times, something that would give you more functional strength than most weight room routines. There are a million things you can do with your life, from building bridges that cure cancer to copious drug use. What's "next" is you take what you've learned from running - dedication, pain tolerance, attention to perfection, patience, perseverance, delaying gratification, focus, tawny hamstrings, etc. - and apply it to whatever else God has in store for you. You don't get a refund when you're done, you cash out all the experience points you've been logging in the bank this whole time. Because nothing is wasted time; everything you do prepares you for the next thing you do. You won't find the next activity to replace it because nothing else will replace it. A lot of things are coming next, and I would tell you to get ready, but you already are.

 But still, I can't help but wonder if all I did was waste the meaningful third of the first 21 years of my life.

The Ozone Album Book Club

There's a new thing we're doing that I've wanted to get started for a while but never got around to: The Ozone Album Book Club. There are no books involved. But there are albums involved. One every week. It will be announced every Tuesday on our facebook page, or by following us on twitter.

There isn't a particular methodology used to select them, they're just albums that I think merit appreciation. We're getting the ball rolling with Pearl Jam's Yield. You and the rest of Ozone Nation can listen to it on Grooveshark here.

Hello Ozone Nation

I am here. I am still alive. I have things on my mind, most of which are centered around how I cannot write and why being tired makes me nauseated. Maybe this has something to do with gluten, or lack thereof, which I am cutting from my diet for three to four weeks to see if I am allergic to gluten. Gluten-free bread is scary. It sizzles for some reason when you pull it out of the toaster, and were Winston Churchill exposed to it, he probably would have had something colorful to say. But he was not. World War II was won with gluten in the belly of every soldier, except the ones in the Bataan Death March.

Please write your congressman or congresswoman or congressrobot about this situation. I need federal funding to beat my writer's block. Also ask them to send me clubs designed to beat back demons and a pair of hoverboots. And French fries. I like French fries, and so do you.

An Edible/Audible Tribute to Eric Clapton

Today is Eric Clapton's birthday, and since he's been in enough bands to get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame thrice, he merit's his own installment of Edible/Audible, the game for foodies and music lovers with bizarre forms of synesthesia. And to tie it together, they all need a common ingredient. I have decided that by virtue of its versatility, the peanut will be Eric Clapton. Let's see where this one goes.

The Yardbirds - Cracker Jack
Not just about the peanuts, also the big break for caramelized things. First packaged snack. Crispy and crunchy sound, now has a very old-school feel about it.

Cream - Curry with Peanut Sauce
If this is made right, the sheer volume of capsaicin will have your senses and your GI tract tripping for hours.

Blind Faith - Payday Bars
An underrated candy that should get more credit for what it is - a hard rocking salty blues band with a caramel center.

Derek & the Dominos - Peanut Butter, Banana, and Bacon Sandwich
Comfort food made up of an all-star lineup for when the love of your life loves the one person in the world who's cooler than you. Something we can all relate to. Also, the most likely food to have parts of it, namely the cholesterol-loaded piano coda, written by a schizophrenic.

Solo Career - Spoonful of Peanut Butter
Stays in your mouth for five minutes when you only really want it to last for about three.

My Springsteen Moment (The Tacoma Aroma)

You don't have to go to Jersey to get a quintessentially Springsteen moment. You can apparently find it in Tacoma, at Point Defiance State Park.

I think I've made my peace with Springsteen and all associated fandom. The factoid about music history that generally gets tossed around when discussing Springsteen is that by writing lyrics that people could relate to he saved rock from extravagant songwriting and lyrics about wizards and dragons. There is a problem with this. I don't relate to people, and sometimes, I don't even like people. And I like fifteen minute suites primarily in 7/8 about wizards with screaming guitar riffs, oftentimes way more than I like hearing about actual people and their actual lives.

But, in my education that is preparing me for a long and distinguished career in the unemployment line (subject matter that was definitely covered by Styx and not necessarily Springsteen, even though the former is seen as indulgent pretentious and the other is seen as real and authentic music for unemployed people) I just finished taking a class called "The Music of Literature and the Literature of Music," where we spent an excessive amount of time writing poems about the death of John Bonham. The consensus, of course was: "it made us all very sad." And although, like any discussion about music with people who have never been good at making music usually goes, we focused mostly on what the music sounds like instead of how it sounds - in spite of this - I was able to get past the philistine opinions of Mainstream (Mainstreet?) America and realize that maybe, at some level, he's a legitimate musician who made some pretty good music, separate from whatever cultural, anti-intellectual trends he might represent. (Because of course, if I simply discredited his music for this reason, for what it represents, I would be going against my one rule of rock appreciation.) And if the Gaslight Anthem likes him, he can't really be bad at all.

But I made my peace not in Jersey but in Tacoma. Tacoma is Oakland of Seattle, the retarded stepsister of a cosmopolitan city, filled with cranes, overshadowed by its more glamorous neighbor. I've been here almost a week, and I'm starting to wonder if it's ever sunny for more than a few hours. Point Defiance State Park is located at the north end, and in addition to a scenic drive where you can look out at the sound, there is a depressing gravel parking lot next to some batting cages and a go-kart track. They also have a cheaply constructed nine hole miniature golf course, obviously made in the proprietor's garage. For two bucks you get to play the nine holes twice, and my friends and I decided we couldn't refuse a deal like that. So we played, with the evening overcast sky slowly darkening and a couple large Filipino families using the batting cages. And over a pair of tinny speakers they were blasting a local classic rock station, and what else comes on but Born to Run. I don't really like the song. His voice sounds like the dick of a fifty something who has taken just enough Viagra to get it at half-mast, and the piano sounds schmaltzier than Billy Joel's overplayed greatest hit named after the same instrument. But as I looked out at the empty gravel parking lot and this little patch of land that passed for entertainment, I realized this is exactly what it felt like to be Bruce Springsteen.

If only I really had been born to run, maybe I wouldn't be in this mess. But more on that later.

Ten Albums Living in Another Album's Shadow

Because I like to listify things to constantly prove that I know -ish about music, here are ten albums that had to play second fiddle to something else. One can only speculate how things would have been different...

1) Paul Simon – Rhythm of the Saints
Unfortunately had to come right after Graceland, using Brazilian musicians instead of Ladysmith Black Mambazo. It might not have the hooks of Graceland, but he's had more time to perfect his songwriting craft.

2) Michael Jackson – Off the Wall
This album had the unfortunate fate of being just another album by the artist who had the best selling album of all time. Tough break.

3) The Beatles – Beatles for Sale
This might not count, since it wasn’t overshadowed by one album, but gets lost in the shuffle caused by the discrepancy between US and UK discographies.

4) Bob Marley – Rastaman Vibration
The only track that got remembered off this followup to Natty Dread was Night Shift, which doesn’t get as much radio play as the rest of Marley’s singles catalog.

5) Pearl Jam – Ten
Nevermind got all the attention, but the songwriting and guitar work on Ten proves that Eddy Vedder and Company were the real Johann Seattle Bach.

6) Sonny Rollins – Saxophone Colossus
For the album that essentially introduced calypso music to the North American mainland, this album doesn’t get nearly as many mentions as 1955′s Tenor Madness. Contains one of the greatest improvised solos in terms of motific development.

7) The Animals – The Animals
Were it not for all the buzz surrounding “Meet the Beatles,” these guys would have been leading the charge of the British Invasion.

8) Bad Religion - The Empire Strikes First
This got eclipsed by its retarded cousin, American Idiot, which came out the same year and stole all the attention. This album, however, does a better job of protesting the Bush Regime protocol, and, as always, with Bad Religion, does it in as high-brow a manner for punk rock.

9) Every album released in 1983
More casualties of Thriller Includes Synchronicity by the Police, U2′s War, and ZZ Top’s Eliminator. For some reason, it's just enough for people to remember that this was the year of Thriller.

10) Steely Dan – The Royal Scam
Came right before double platinum Aja and critics darling Gaucho. Now remembered as having a song that was sampled in a Kanye B-Side.