Kansas City with the Russian Accent

Lip Service

m.v. — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:39:06 +0000

I hate fund-raising and charities. One sure-fire way to get on the ever-expanding list of people who annoy me is to roll up to my desk with some overpriced cookie dough, wrapping paper, trash bags, or some weird raffle for your kid’s after school activities. If you don’t know where my desk is, there are plenty of other opportunities to piss me off like facebook charity actions, radio fund drives, #twestivals, or even meeting me in person in front of WalMart.

I guess I am getting soft because I decided to join my friend Chimpotle in his fight against prostate cancer by developing a mustache-like growth on my upper lip. There are several reasons for my change of mind, none of them have anything to do with prostate cancer and charity.

It’s the laziest charity ever, no physical activity is needed;
I don’t need to buy and donate stuff;
I can annoy all the people who annoyed me with their fund-raising for years;
I can grow a mustache for the first time in my life without causing suspicion or attention from the neighborhood watch;
No small child will ever thank me for saving her life;
I might think of moreasons (get it? moreasons for movember) later.

However this campaign will be conducted with my hatred for charities in mind:

There will not be any begging and constant reminders here or on FB and Twitter;
There will be no photos of rotten prostates;
There will be no sob stories or guest posts or other tear-jerking BS.

Instead:

There will be a badge installed on the left side of this blog, in case you feel overly generous;
All the Google Ad income starting today and ending on the last day of November will be donated to the cause. I can’t ask you to click on the ads, but some of the clicks are worth a buck or more. You know what to do;
If you joined, clicked or even donated, just comment on this post to be entered into a raffle for the brand new KC Chiefs hoody shirt;
Another shirt will be given to the highest donor;
I may award a magazine subscription while I am in a good mood;

Other fund-raising methods:

Kisses for cash. No one ever called me a great kisser but it’s for the charity. Mustache may never grace my face again. By appointment only. Comes with a free after-kiss mint. Price is negotiable, male surcharge of $500 is to be paid ahead of time;
Dates for cash. Once in a lifetime chance to be swept up and experience my wit and weird sense of humor in person. I will also dazzle you with exciting stories from my previous life, humorous anecdotes and an ability to chew with my mouth closed. Price is negotiable, male surcharge of @200/hr is to be paid ahead of time. If you had a date with me in the past 3 years you probably wouldn’t want one anyway;
Other random acts of kindness will be considered, such as home-cooked dinner, etc. No male surcharge for this, bring your own beer.

So to conclude: I will be growing a mustache in the month of November, I will not be annoying you or guilting you into giving money, there will be prizes in case there is a glimmer of kindness still alive in your heart.

Old Photos: Revolution Parade In The Red Square

m.v. — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:24:13 +0000

If you are a long-time follower of this blog, I am sure you already know that today is the day to fly your red flag to celebrate another anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution – a holiday no longer celebrated in Russia where people for some reason blame it for 70 years of crappy life. I am not going to repeat my previous posts on the subject, so this year we will celebrate with another batch of old photos taken at the Moscow’s Red Square on this day in 1962.

On this photo we see the current leadership of the USSR – Comrade Khrushchev is the 5th from the right next to Comrade Brezhnev. In a few years, acting exclusively in the interest of saving Comrade Khrushchev’s health Comrade Brezhnev will replace him while he will be away on vacation.

These people are happy, just imagine their faces when they are not.

Remember spending some quality time in a bomb shelter? That’s why…

Vostok-4.

The rest of the photos is here.

It’s For The Charity!

m.v. — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:43:31 +0000

I sacrificed my lip so you don’t have to. Donate!

20 Years Without The Iron Curtain:Military Draft

m.v. — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:05:49 +0000

Last year I wrote about the day I was drafted in the military. I tried to convey the atmosphere of that day, the feeling of getting into something scary and unknown, leaving one’s home and family, and realizing that there is no way back after one crosses the gate. Yesterday, when the photos of a modern day military draft in Ukraine went around the Internet, I realized that besides the new uniform not much has changed since the day when I showed up at the draft processing location.
The military didn’t allow to keep the civilian clothes, so whatever possessions we had were either thrown away or taken by older soldiers who were allowed to bend the rules a little. I thought I was being clever when I showed up with a short but not bald haircut, like some of the recruits on this photo. Clever wasn’t one of the desired qualities in the military, so I was told to cut my hair again.

Here we see a group of “fresh meat” and a group of soldiers already processed. Typical barracks on the left.

I never looked this good, nor was I ever a fan of walking around naked around people I don’t know. When I was taking my pre-draft medical test, I was lined up together with 5 or 6 more recruits in front of the table with several doctors; we were told to drop our pants down all at once. I guess they were trying to see that all of us had correct equipment down there, they were sitting a few yards away and couldn’t have possibly determined anything else. The arrow-sign on the wall says “doctor”.

In this shot the recruits are united with their new long underwear. In summer it was usually blue boxers and who-knows-what-color tank top. Winter season came with long underpants and long-sleeve undershirt. Every week at the showers the dirty underwear was taken away and the clean underwear was brought in a big stack. If you were slow you’d end up with a wrong size underwear for the whole week or even worse – see the streaks from the previous owner.

Somewhere along the way they were issued a piece of soap.

Now on to the uniform.

Boots are a definite improvement from what I had to wear.

Hats stayed the same but there is mo emblem on the front.

Last look at the old life.

And now all ready to go. I have no idea what’s in these boxes.

What stands out in all these images is a scared look in these kids’ eyes. Some things never change.

Commence Upper Lip Hair Growth

m.v. — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 03:45:10 +0000

*Click for MO’ information.

Olathe Is Safe From Ghosts Today

m.v. — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:48:10 +0000

Local Ghostbusters outpost is on duty:

Who Are The Ad Wizards Who Came Up With This One?

m.v. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:27:06 +0000

Billboards entertain me on the way to and from work. Some are plain ads and not so interesting, some are stupid, others advertise a religion, fake marriage proposals, or talk about your wife.
Today I put my life in danger to bring you these photos:
WTF? Really?Really?

Is this a play on the word “homo’s”?

I bet you do!

I wish I could be at the sales meeting where some Ad Wizards (who apparently roll their own) were selling this campaign to Houlihan’s:

Ad Wizard: We are going to use the acronym WTF plastered next to your company’s name!

Houlihan’s: WTF?

Ad Wizard: Take a hit, we roll our own!

Houlihan’s: Sold!

My advice – hire this lady before “hummus among us” make your life miserable.

*electronic billboard located on I-35 S, before Antioch St. exit.

Old Photos: One Day In The Soviet School

m.v. — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:49:24 +0000

Continuing with the old Soviet photos, the next batch was taken at a typical school.
Wood-shops were very popular in schools even in my day, not to mention 30-40 years before that, when people were still rebuilding after the war.
In this photo the kid is learning pyrography or wood burning. Many parents received these works of charred art as presents, but due to my lack of talent and patience my parents had to satisfy their decorating skills elsewhere.

Another tool for patience development was a coping saw (I had to look this up in the dictionary). Hours of trying to follow the intricate ornaments usually ended with an ugly piece of plywood with holes and a pile of sawdust.

I don’t want to get repetitive here but I sucked at the wood lathe as well.

This looks like a biology or natural sciences classroom. Sometimes there was a fish tank or a pet hamster to add to the atmosphere of learning.

By the time I was going to school the uniforms changed to a less military style but the pioneer ties and bows in girls’ hair remained.

This looks like the 1st or 2nd grade…

…4th or 5th…

and this is probably the 8th grade.

After-school pioneer meetings were pretty common, but for the life of me I can’t remember what we discussed. Another type of a meeting was a “political minute” when kids presented current news and world events, usually positive happenings from our socialist friends and exploitation news from the capitalist countries.

Musical schools were separate from the general education and required mostly talent-based admission, so the music lessons in a regular school were mostly singing and learning about composers.

Nurse’s office:

Some extra-curricular activities:
Chess was huge, Soviet chess champions were treated as national heroes and people closely followed and replayed championship matches.

Dancing:

Although I entered the school in 1976 it’s amazing how relatively little the things have changed since the 50’s. I still learned to use an abacus and a slide rule, and ballpoint pens were still considered an enemy of good penmanship. Mine was probably the last generation to get a complete Soviet school experience.

Kids

m.v. — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:28:58 +0000

A little while ago my friend Josh had an interesting post with the same title. I replied along with a few other people (all guys) and both sides had pretty compelling arguments for and against having kids, but the whole discussion got me thinking what having a kid means to me.

The thought came back to me when my daughter participated in a concert few weeks ago. Usually I go to school concerts to make fun of other kids lazily producing fart-like-noises to their parents’ enthusiastic applause. When my kid told me she will be playing with Mark Wood, I immediately complained about the $10 ticket price (who does this Mark Wood think he is to charge for the concert), then I whined about the need to buy uniforms, and about having to sell 10 tickets and when I was done bitching I just said “whatever, Mark Wood, Schmark Schwood, here is my 10 bucks”.

Few days before the show were spent rehearsing; she came home every day gushing how cool it was, how Mark personally met and coached all the kids, how the uniforms were changed to rock concert attire, how she was picked to play upfront and how she couldn’t wait to go back. On the day of the concert the auditorium was packed. Several school string orchestras were on stage and some younger kids were in the aisles. When the lights went off and Mark Wood appeared on stage we were in the middle of a real rock-concert. It was mind-blowing and awesome. Even today, several weeks after the event, I still feel the beat, feel the excitement, feel the energy -- all the words normally absent from my everyday vernacular.

For every song several kids where called to the front to play one of Mark Wood’s electric instruments. When it was my daughter’s turn I only had one thought in my head: “That’s my kid!”. That’s the only thing I could think about during the whole song (apparently I can’t have to simultaneous thoughts, because that’s the only song I didn’t record). My daughter was playing at the front of the stage, with the world-renowned musician next to her, flashing rock-lights and the audience going wild.

With “That’s my kid!” constantly pounding through my head I thought of something else. I thought about an amazing chain of events that led to my child calmly playing a tune in front of hundreds of people. Events like my Dad surviving in a ghetto and my Mom being born in evacuation, living through hunger and hard times; my own childhood, school, Army; a day when I first saw my future wife on the first day at a new job; a day when we got off the plane at the Kansas City airport with a few bags and couple of hundred bucks; a day when I found out my wife was pregnant; a night when we drove to the hospital after going to a riverboat the same evening; the first sound, the first diaper, the first step, the first word… Everything had to happen just right for my daughter to be at that concert, thousands of our ancestors being born, meeting each other, falling in love, dying; happiness, drama, love and tragedy of all the previous generations culminated in that performance. For a non-religious person this was a pretty striking experience.

There are many reasons why one shouldn’t have a kid, from personal, to financial to medical. But if I croak tomorrow I will do it knowing that part of me lives on, and not only me but everyone who came before me and her Mom, and as screwed up gene combination as this may be, it’s probably worth propagating. I laugh when she makes fun of the stupid people as I recognize my parenting contribution, and I like when she smiles like her Mother. I am pretty sure all of our ancestors would be proud of who was on stage that night.

I know, teen years are still ahead of us and then it never ends with college, marriage and whatever happens next, but if I could go back to the bathroom at the moment when my wife was throwing her birth-control pills into the toilet, I would only help her flush them down.

The song was over and my daughter went to the back of the stage, but even there the spotlight followed her and for the rest of the concert I could see her rocking out and going crazy highlighted by the strobes.

When the show ended I stood in the hallway waiting for my daughter to get her concert poster autographed. Still overwhelmed I couldn’t help but think that none of this would have happened if some 13 years ago my wife would’ve listened to all my logical reasons why we should wait to have a kid.

And then I spent $20 on a concert DVD…

Old Photos: One Fine Day In The USSR

m.v. — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:56:58 +0000

One day browsing through the Google Life Photo Archives I discovered a treasure trove of some old photos taken in the USSR sometime before 1956, when Stalin’s portraits were still hanging on many walls. These photos are pretty interesting, as they captured many small details of the Soviet life after the World War II, but even more interesting is the seemingly unlimited access granted to the photographer. Usually foreigners were strictly supervised and allowed access only to pre-approved showpieces of the Soviet achievement. Even in the 1980’s many foreigners were still guided to my school, one of the best in town, where kids met them all dressed up for the occasion and tried to strike a proper English conversation.
I thought I’d try something different this time: I tagged the photos with my own comments. This is the first experimental batch and then we’ll see how it goes. Let me know if you are interested in seeing more of these with or without comments, since it takes some time and I’d could easily waste it somewhere else.

On this photo you will notice a wood-burning stove next to the gas stove that doesn’t seem to work and has another burner standing on top. There are some photos showing gas stoves being loaded and moved to it’s probably a time when the whole apartment building was being converted to natural gas.

“Ushanka Hat” is explained here and may even get aired out at some Halloween Party; here you will find more information about the “Kirza Army Boots”.

Even in my day you still could buy bulk milk and that’s the purpose of the milk vessel below. We owned several and sometimes used it for kvass, other people took them to the beer taps.

Wood burning water heater below is very familiar to me. We had one and some bath days started with me and my Dad looking for the firewood in the middle of the city. Then my Dad had it converted to the diesel fuel and we had to call the fire department to put it out when we tried it for the first time. This method could only be used on the lucky days when we had running water. On the unlucky days the tank served as a nice storage for water to flush the toilet.

Possibly to be continued…

Kansas City with the Russian Accent

Lip Service

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