@7:19PM

He and She Who Begat Me, on Their Wedding Day:

36 years ago yesterday.

Incidentally, I found out over Christmas that they didn’t, as I’d always thought, buy our first house because they were having me. Turns out they bought it because they were trying to get custody of Duncan, and their lawyer told them they’d have a better shot as homeowners. They were unsuccessful, and my dad didn’t get to participate all that much in raising his first kid. The two of them sure participated the shit out of raising me, though.

Anyway, they left the party in this here photo to go off and get horizontal, and they’ve been getting horizontal ever since. Happy anniversary, you crazy kids. Here’s to hoping you’re knockin boots for another 36.

GPOYW: Big Brother Turns 40 Ed.  Damn.

When this picture was taken, I think our father must have been about 40.  A lot has changed from that 40 to this 40, like: 

• Duncan doesn’t have that gap in his teeth anymore, though he still wears purple shirts;
• He doesn’t listen to KISS anymore, though he sometimes still listens to YES; 
• He’s not on the wrestling team anymore, though he threatens to put on the singlet every now and again.

But most of what’s changed from that 40 to this one remains mysterious to me, because I barely knew that gap-toothed kid Dad didn’t get custody of after the divorce.  I barely knew the teenager who showed up for a few days every few months to watch MTV in our basement or the one I helped Dad move into the dorm at Brown or the Buddhist who harangued me for choosing the Naval Academy.  I barely knew the man on television singing “Barely Breathing”.

I have no memory of Duncan turning ten or twenty or thirty.  I wasn’t there.  I didn’t know that person.

But though there are times when he doesn’t make it easy, and times when I don’t, I’m awfully glad to know him today.  At 31 and turning 40, we’re tighter than that pudgy little kid up there with the mushroom head ever thought he’d be with his big brother, and that makes me smile inside and out. 

Love you, Dunc.  Then and always and at 7:19 PM on your birthday.

You gotta love the gems my “Duncan Sheik” Google Alert unearths.

It’s true!  This happened.  Video coming soon.

Brother always says, “Don’t worry about what it costs.  We’ll deal with it.”  Or some version thereof.

Again last night.

He can’t escape that kind of knee-jerk generosity anymore than he can escape “Barely Breathing”, yet I feel at once over-hyped and unworthy—past fuck-ups, monolithic and minuscule, devalued my worth on the open market; if you’d spent the last decade continuously shorting me, you’d have made a killing, Jim Cramer—so, quite obviously, I need to work on this, get my mind right, act instead of react to the nothings that never happen because I’m too scared to move.  Maybe then I’ll be able to muster more meaningful rejoinder to these offers than, “thanks, man”.

Anyway, I’m not there yet.  Thanks, D.  That was awfully nice of you.

Photo from 1992’s Brown University graduation and accompanying blather brought to you @ 7:19 PM, when I turned another day older.

GGBMBAW (Gratuitous Go Buy My Brother’s Album Wednesday) - Whisper House edition

Duncan’s playing the MTV EXIT (End Exploitation and Trafficking) concert here on December 7th.  The venue certainly is easy on the eyes.

itsbedtime:

Angkor Wat temple

Will Hubbard from This Recording is NOT crazy about Spring Awakening OR Duncan.  He’s right though that there’s no “Five Hundred Twenty Five Thousand Six Hundred Minutes” in SA.  I know I’m not the first to say this, but thank fucking god. 

And thank you, Will Hubbard, for not calling my bro a “small Scottishman”. 

thisrecording: In Which Microphones Are Pulled From Every Conceivable Orifice