I am not exaggerating

One blog post back and the same old tired criticism emerges from Dolberry's cadre of cantankerous critics ... "too much pointless alliteration" ... "too negative" ... "too positive" ... "too in between negative and positive" ... et cetera.

The most hurtful criticism is the one that claims Dolberry is prone to hyperbole.  If anything, I'm guilty of placidbole when it comes to my recent equivalating of Chicago weekend traffic to childbirth.  Here's one of Dolberry's favorite moments from our summer's vacation ... a fat guy running down the Eisenhower Expressway smoking a cigar in the middle of crawling Friday afternoon rush hour traffic.

We left Naperville about 1a that Friday morning and got to Cellular Field in time for the 7th inning stretch.

I'm ready. I'm ready for the laughing gas.

Dolberry watched the U2 documentary "From the Sky Down" about the making of Achtung Baby last Friday.  I think I've recounted this before on the DCV, but the first time I listened to that album was literally one of the most disappointing experiences of my life.  Dolberry remembers it like it was yesterday.  TbKMD, Lynne our Billiken Friend, and Dolberry were headed from Chicago to St. Louis for the weekend.

It strikes me that this particular drive is sort of a metaphor for life ... getting out of downtown Chicago on a Friday night is a task at least as hard as escaping the birth canal.  That traumatic experience is followed by a prolonged period of alternating bursts between going 70 mph and being stone-dead-stopped through the suburbs (ages 1 day to 21 years).  Then you get a mind-numbingly long stretch of dull routine where your best hope is to steal small moments of joy at ridiculous Illinois town names before you recidivate into barest minimal consciousness (ages 21 years until retirement).  Then there's the really scary part where you go thru East St. Louis and hope you don't get killed (death).  Then, finally after all that you get to St. Louis (heaven ... well ... heaven if heaven smells like mashed grain and the sky's kinda slate gray).

Anyway, Dolberry had armed himself for that particular drive by going to a record store (look it up) and buying the latest cassette (look it up) from Bono, Edge, Adam, and Larry.  As soon as we hit that part of the drive where you could put it in cruise control ... I took the tape out of its pristine and as-yet-unbroken case (generally cassette tape cases were meticulously designed to break after approximately 2.8 uses on average ... their structural integrity depended upon the sparsest prong of plastic that the record companies could engineer w/ late '80s technology) and loaded in Achtung Baby with an anticipation that rivaled my wedding day ... which technically hadn't happened yet ... and never would've had ... had I acknowledged the above sentiment at any point prior to the aforementioned wedding day.

In the documentary, Bono notes that the band went into the studio smarting from the reaction engendered by their previous album ... "Rattle and Hum" ... which was generally viewed as uncool Americana, pretentious, and "overly earnest".  Musically, their strategy was to sample more of the industrial German rock that was prevalent in Europe at the time.  Stylistically, they decided that if they were going to be branded as pretentious anyway ... they'd play it to the hilt and thus Bono went ubiquitous w/ the sunglasses, dropped the mullet for sideburns (sniff), and added a few tablespoons of swagger to his already large personality.  The theme of the movie is built on one of Bono's quotes about the making of the album ...

"You have to reject one expression of the band, first, before you get to the next expression, and in between you have nothing, you have to risk it all."

So, as the Achtung Baby tape whirrs its first sounds ... an instantly disconcerting discord of noise that sounds like the 2nd shift at an assembly line leading into "Zoo Station".

Bono: "I'm ready.  I'm ready for the laughing gas."
Dolberry: What the WHAT?!?

Driving on the flat expanse of I-55, the rest of my Achtung Baby experience went downhill faster than the steepest slopes coming out of Joshua Tree National Park.  With the exception of "The Fly", which sounded passably enough like actual rock and roll to warrant another play, the rest of the experience was a Volquezian disaster.

Watching the movie and dodging Bono's fusillade of f-bombs, it dawned that the character sometimes known as Dolberry has become overly earnest ... dull ... and maybe even a little pretentious.  More responsibilities at work and church, while welcomed, have shaved a little off the bounce in the step.  It took 10 minutes of purposely frivolous thinking to even summon Dolberry to the blogwriting table tonight.  How does one balance the need for seriousness ... and wanting to accomplish things of meaning ... with the need to remain joyful in the present or near-present?  Is there a secret to enjoying the rural-Illinois stretch of mid-life (short of pharmaceutical cheating)?

In retrospect ... Dolberry superappreciates what a kicktuckus album that Achtung Baby is.  Two of the songs would probably find their way into Dolberry's Top 10 of all time ("Until the End of the World", "The Fly"); one of the songs is really good if you're in a sap-tacular mood ("One"); and at least two of them rock out solidly live ("Ultraviolet" and "Even Better than the Real Thing").  Maybe there's a life lesson here.  Maybe it's ok to be overly earnest at times while being overtly non-earnest elsewhile?  Maybe it's ok if people think you're full of crap at times.  Maybe if you embrace it.  Maybe if you have the greatest alter-ego in the world, it's ok to let me loose at times.

Stuff fell from the sky that should not have

 

So last Saturday, central North Carolina experienced one of its worst tornado outbreaks in known history.  Dolberry and crew were thankfully unaffected, but it was pretty amazing to watch on TV. 

Knew it was going to be a BIG weather day when the Storm Prediction Center put us in a "high" risk zone ... apparently for the first time since 1984.  (Honestly, I had no idea they'd been doing the daily severe risk thing that long.)  We'd started our day w/ a run w/ some of the Grace Christian XC team at the surprisingly alpine Lake Johnson and the weather had a decidedly non-severe feel (cool and damp).  But by 2p ... after some HeroClix fun in which the guy shown to the right went 0 for 3 games ... it was ominously warm and windy.

By the time we got home, the tornadoparazzi was already at ToRCoN 8 with reports of twisters to the northwest of Durham.  Dolberry and APD were glued to the Doppletron 5000 and had our eyes affixed to a cell SW of Apex near Carthage which appeared to be a supercell beginning to hook.  Not long afterward, a tornado warning was issued for the storm as it touched down just south of Sanford.  Extrapolating the storm's path to the northeast appeared to bring it awfully close to Apex but maybe just to the south. 

It got pretty scary as the storm headed closer and the NWS issued a tornado warning w/ the first location listed as being impacted Apex, but as it got closer it became more certain that it was going to go to our south.  We had the pillows all ready to get into the interior closet.  (We actually went in for about 30 secs when the wind started to gust and the hail reached dime size, but it was a clear false alarm from a panicky Dolberry.)

After the all clear, we exhaled w/ relief and watched the storms ravage areas to our east.  WRAL showed the mesocyclone (w/ a rain-wrapped tornado hidden inside) approach downtown Raleigh from the 36th floor of a skyscaper.  It's bizarre to be able to watch such devastation on live TV.  The Raleigh tornado stayed on the ground an amazing 63 miles ... the longest of the 28 in NC that day.  (As large as the outbreak was ... it only had ~ 20% of the tornadoes of April 3rd, 1974 and there were no F4 or F5s.)

The next day was amazing.  All through Apex/Cary, including our backyard, there were damp gobs of yellow insulation scattered around ... presumably from ripped up roofs and buildings upwind.  At my softball game, there was a pizza-box-sized piece of jagged roof w/ a curved nail in it.  Who knows how far that thing was thrown?  We drove across the tornado path on Tuesday to get to softball in south Cary.  Storm was only a F0 at that point, but there were several roofs damaged and many large branches down.

The videos of the storms were plentiful and impressive.  One very cool one was from a 12 year old from Apex from his iPhone on I-95 heading down to FL.  The most hysterical tornado video of all time was shot near Wilson NC.  I have links to both on the right.  Both camera operators had no clue how strong a tornado is ... and were pretty amazed when the thing ultimately bore in on them.  Amazing that they both survived, but maybe that's a nice way to approach the storms that affect all of us in life.  They're just twistin'.