A Plague of Blogs

What does it take...

2008-07-16T10:31:00.005-04:00

...to bring a blogger out of semi-retirement?

Something like this. Warning: do not view this if you are prone to nightmares where you're being chased by someone or something or if you have eaten an entire Bloomin' Onion right before going to bed.

This is some seriously weird s---t.

(Writethru) == Being unable to help myself, I just watched it again. The opening shot reminds me of something in the third Star Wars film. I expected to see an Ewok aboard this thing, throwing rocks at Stormtroopers.

A 'Running' Gag

2008-01-21T15:56:00.000-05:00

Had my longest training run yet today in preparation for the Flying Pig Marathon in my native Cincinnati May 4. Colder than hell outside today (no idea what the real temperature was when I left. Does it really matter when it's below freezing?) and the six-mile segment on northbound Tidewater Drive was about as enjoyable as being hit in the face repeatedly, which is what the icy north wind was doing to me the whole time. I'd like to say the westward turn that followed was a refreshing relief, but as the kids at schools say, "I ain't gon' lie." The last couple miles were a slog and there's nothing worse than finishing your route by walking home in the cold with wet clothes. A late lunch and a hot shower seem to have me in better spirits at the moment. I'm hoping the Ibuprofen I took keeps them that way.

Anybody besides me love Sniglets? I guess I never really let go of the craze when it ended (did it every really begin?) in the late-80's. Since then, I've enjoyed coming up with words that combine at least two other words in a meaningful or humorous way. Ask my English students; they'll tell you that I've been speaking my own language - one they don't understand - for years. When they allude to this, I usually want to reference Jodie Foster's "Nell," but they don't need motivation for another round of blank looks.

Anyway, I'll start a list of ones I've come up with recently. I'll ride this thing 'til the wheels fall off.

SNOCALYPSE: Snow Apocalypse. This is one I hope will catch on, especially in parts of the country where, like here, they don't get much of "The White Stuff." For example, starting on Thursday of last week, the weathercasters began talking about a coastal storm coming our way that was supposed to dump 3-6 inches of snow on us on Saturday/Sunday. This did not happen. If it had, things'd be pretty well f-ed for about a week. There probably wouldn't even be school tomorrow. I'm not even kidding. I'm sure there was a run on food staples at the store, though didn't see it here firsthand (a store in Richmond on Saturday evening was packed as the snow began to fall, though). This is what happens when your annual snowfall is less than 3 inches. And it's indicative of how seriously people take snow around here. It's as if they fear it. That's certainly the way they act when they're on the road and it starts to fall from the sky.

Editor's Note: My wife takes issue with this one, but I like the way it sounds.

SPAGHETTIQUETTE: I heard Martha Stewart answer a question today on her TV show about whether it's cool to use a spoon to twirl one's spaghetti at the table. She answered by saying, "FUCK NO!", or something to that effect. In a drunken, drug-fueled tirade, she told that questioner that you shouldn't need a spoon. Instead, she recommended twirling small portions with a fork before shoveling them into your piehole.

Anyone have good ones? Leave them in comments if so.

Another Reason My Wife is the Funniest

2008-01-02T19:56:00.000-05:00

Email #1 from today.....

Pictured: A Frosty the Snowman cookie I put in her stocking this year for Christmas.

Email #2 from today......

Subject Line: Oh No!

At My School, This is How We Roll

2007-11-25T20:34:00.000-05:00

Welcome, cold and flu season...

Allow me to introduce you to my friends, hand sanitizer and a king-sized roll of TP heisted from the teacher's restroom.

A Redneck Tank Top

2007-10-28T17:16:00.000-04:00

Thanks for this to my friend Marissa, who once forwarded the legendary series of photos that included the dude (at the Martinsville, Va., NASCAR track) with Dale Earnhart's #3 shaved into his back hair.

All Children Left Behind

2007-10-28T15:15:00.000-04:00

Hidden in The Washington Post's excellent story today about the failures of the No Child Left Behind Act was the following passage about Como Elementary School in Mississippi:

More than a third of Como's 32 teachers are new this year, and five of those have been hired with an "emergency license" because they lack full teacher training. At least three of the new teachers had been dismissed or released from other schools. One resigned after just a few weeks when he was found hiding from the third-graders in his class who were throwing papers at him.

Reactions:
- How can you say you have national standards when a state like Mississippi meets expectations so much lower than everyone else?
- Those Como kids roll HARD ("Another worksheet? I got something for you, teacher man.")
- 33% makes the 10% we lost this year (after a VERY rough year in 06-07) look puny.

Synchronicity

2007-10-07T19:39:00.000-04:00

On TBS, the Cleveland Indians are dismantling the N.Y. Yankees in the A.L. playoffs.

Meanwhile, over on AMC, half-blood Indian fighter Daniel Day-Lewis is performing a hatchet job of his own against the Brits in "The Last of the Mohicans."

Coincidence?

Running Up a Tab at 'The Office'

2007-10-07T11:05:00.000-04:00

Ever fantasized about running over your boss with a car? Perhaps a coworker? Or one of your employees?

If you do it on the job, it could cost the company as much as $450,000 from the ensuing lawsuit, depending on actual medical expenses, according to Julie Elgar, a labor and employment attorney at the law firm of Ford & Harrison in Atlanta who's taken it on herself to critique the NBC TV show "The Office" from her perspective as a lawyer representing management in companies that have been sued by their employees and former employees. Her blog title: "That's What She Said," after a really lame job told by office chief Michael Scott, above.

In a recent posting, she referenced the season premier, in which Scott, the leader of a branch office of fictional paper distributor Dunder Mifflin, ran over one of his subordinates, Meredith, in the parking lot, then used the woman's exposure to a bat (also on company property, but that's another story) to exculpate himself.

Elgar writes:

Add to that Michael’s admission to his boss that the accident was caused by his “negligence,” and Meredith has the beginnings of a nice little lawsuit. Maybe this would be the time for Dunder Mifflin’s attorneys to remind Michael of my favorite saying: “If you can’t be good, then, for the love of God, just be quiet.”

Still Going Strong...

2007-10-02T20:51:00.001-04:00

Unlike the Bengals, who are 1-3 after getting their pee-pees caught in their zipper last night against the Patriots, the bulletin board still stands in immaculate condition.

Pity, perhaps?

A Classic Andy Griffith Moment (one not involving Don Knotts)

2007-09-09T14:45:00.000-04:00

In honor of the first Sunday in the NFL.

Also, I want it on the record that I have finished with my Cincinnati Bengals bulletin board at school. Here's a picture, for insurance purposes. I have no doubt that at some point, some snot-nosed, pubescent wanker Steelers/Browns/Ravens fan will come along and have his/her way with it. Triflin'.

Shedding Our 'Summer Skin'

2007-09-04T20:34:00.000-04:00

So summer is over and school is back in session. Labor Day, indeed, came and went and now these poor souls find themselves sitting opposite the likes of me. A perfect time for a lovely sad song.

Wonder if the kids feel this way...

Summer Skin
Death Cab For Cutie

Squeaky swings and tall grass
The longest shadows ever cast
The water's warm and children swim
And we frolicked about in our summer skin

I don't recall a single care
Just greenery and humid air
Then Labor day came and went
And we shed what was left of our summer skin

On the night you left I came over
And we peeled the freckles from our shoulders
Our brand new coats so flushed and pink
And I knew your heart I couldn't win
Cause the season's change was a conduit
And we'd left our love in our summer skin

Things We Learn on the Evening News

2007-09-04T20:29:00.001-04:00

I watched the NBC evening news and saw a piece about efforts to fight global warming and save some animal species native to Australia. Good on ya, mate.

Among the creatures to be saved: koalas, wolves and, yes, emus.

I only hope they're not too late....

Once Upon a Time in Mexico

2007-08-15T16:32:00.000-04:00

"Once upon a time, there was a young boy from Newport News by the name of Ron Mexico..."

God bless the men of Deadspin and their creative Photoshop'pers for their ever-amusing coverage of the ongoing Michael Vick saga. VD infecting, pot smuggling, leg stomping, gun brandishing -- Who do the Vicks think they are? The Iversons? Remember the days when Michael Vick was the good one?

Soon our long national nightmare will come to an end (possibly by the end of the week, when the last of Vick's co-defendants cops a plea to federal dogfighting charges).

BTW, do you know where the phrase "long national nightmare" originated?

This will come as a great relief to The Correspondent, who, despite the assignment of the case to federal court in Richmond, has nonetheless been sucked into the Vick vortex. In a story of hers that made national newspapers, including USA Today, she went to the N.N. neighborhood where Vick grew up and talked to his former neighbors, who put him somewhere between Mother Teresa and Jesus. The man loved his dogs, one guy said. It turns out that Vick also provided air conditioners for people in the project who didn't have any to get them through our sticky Virginia summers. He has also donated school supplies and athletic uniforms to local kids. These acts make the man known to locals as "Ookie" innocent of dogfighting charges. Period.

As I'm listening to this, I'm thinking (and smirking), "Wait, someone who has done something good could NEVER do anything bad, right?"

On The Campaign Trail

2007-08-14T19:45:00.000-04:00

Tuning around the cable this evening, I saw a re-run of a C-SPAN2 piece from Monday, a John Edwards campaign rally at a pizza place somewhere in rural (isn't it all?) Iowa.

First of all, let me say that I believe that this guy could be president. He's electable. He knows his shit; says all the right things. On the economy, can anyone out there disagree with what Edwards says about the dichotomy that exists? On education, he recommends shit-canning NCLB and, instead of punishing under-performing schools, would focus on giving schools what they need to succeed. On Iraq, he said if the war is still going on when he's elected, he'll immediately start bringing troops home. January 2008 is a long time off. Likely, some of the men/women serving over there will be on their way home by then. And, for the most part, isn't the war over now anyway? More and more, it seems to me we're a country (yes, even Bushies) looking for a way out while saving varying degrees of face. Like I said: Smart.

Best of all, that smug look Edwards sometimes wears was noticeably absent. Perhaps the heat in the pizza parlor, which he decried several times during his speech, melted it off his face like so much mozzarella.
One thing that bothers me about Edwards, though, is the deal with his wife. Granted, I cheered when she got it on with Anne Coulter on Hardball. But there's something really odd about the role of Elizabeth Edwards, a breast cancer patient, and how much she is a part of her husband's campaign. This could be because the woman has a gravity all her own. The pizza parlor people talked to her as much as they did her husband during the Q-n-A, wishing her well, talking about a time when the Edwardses together will take up residence in the White House.

Let me now speak frankly. From what I read, Mrs. Edwards' situation is not good. She is an ill woman with not a lot of time on her hands. Check out the story in that link and see all the stuff she's doing on her husband's behalf...and that of her kids, now that I think of it. Her schedule's almost as brutal as her husband's, even at this early state in the campaign. I look at her condition and weigh it against the lot she's been handed with her husband running for president and all and I have to say it just doesn't make sense to me.

Not that I expect them to be holed up in North Carolina, the entire family gathered 'round, waitin' for mama's time to come. The refusal to do so can easily be seen as honorable and it's played out the same way every day in homes across the country. Most of us know somebody who, when given a choice whether to fight or just suffer, chooses the more righteous path. But if all this running around causes Elizabeth Edwards to get sick, which in her shape could be really bad, how will that make him feel about having asked her to do some of the things she's done? How will their kids feel?

All the creepiness I feel about this, I think, extends from the idea -- and I have to stress this is only something I'm imagining -- that somewhere along the line there was a conversation between John and Elizabeth Edwards where they looked at her life expectancy and then looked at his chances for the presidency in 2008. Combined with his experience from 2004 and what they inevitably see as a weak field, it would appear that they decided to commit themselves to what I can only assume is the ultimate goal of any politician. I find that to be incredibly sad and, I'll admit, more than a little inspiring.

You Won't Have 'Boy Genius' to Kick Around Again

2007-08-13T15:03:00.000-04:00

This one has been knocking around in my head for awhile

Chris wrote recently that it was time to call a spade a "stupid fucking shovel" (channeling a really old joke that I can't remember the rest of there) in regard to our current president. Don't get me wrong. I totally agree and always have. I'm constantly amazed at the words, as Chris Tucker would say, that are coming out of Bush's mouth. I wonder what his final 18 months in office will be like without the man behind the curtain. My guess: quiet. He'll be generating his own half-witted policies for a change. How could things possibly be worse than WITH Rove?

So it was very interesting when, on the occasion of the Barry Bonds record-breaking home run, that Bush waxed eloquent about the effect on Bonds' record should he eventually be convicted of what everyone and their brother suspects he's done -- use illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

So after the record fell, Bush called Bonds to congratulate him. Fairly innocuous stuff: “You’ve always been a great hitter and you broke a great record,” according to Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman. The president did not mention steroids.

But in a subsequent interview with Fox News, Bush spoke about steroids: “There is a lot of speculation about Barry Bonds, and my only advice for people is to just let history be the judge,” Bush said. “Let’s find out the facts, and then everybody’s opinion, one way or the other, will be verified or not verified.”

Substitute Saddam Hussein for Bonds and WMD's for steroids and, well, have fun. What struck me most about Bush's words were the thought that went into them. Clearly, this idea is one that has survived loneliness long enough to congeal into some sort coherent pattern, emerging in rounded form. So what does it say about a president when THIS is the issue that renders the most logical response of anything he's been faced with in months, years, terms? It means he's dim, right? Not so fast.

It should be said that I'm a sports fan. I watch them. I follow them in the papers. I play them...some better than others. I think they are a valid reflection of the societies that value them. I think they say as much about the fans as they do the athletes and the games themselves. So, I feel strangely that a moron like Bush chooses something I value on which to stand and raise an intellectual flag. I guess I'm thankful there IS a light on in that house, even if it's a dusty 15-watt bulb.

'Full House' at Pierce's

2007-08-06T21:21:00.000-04:00

Seen last night at Pierce's Pitt Bar-b-Que along I-64 outside Williamsburg...

Who knew? They looked much skinnier to me on "Entertainment Tonight."

Bruthas From Another Mutha

2007-07-31T21:54:00.001-04:00

British "American Idol" winner Paul Potts....

and Pol Pot, deceased ruler of the Khmer Rouge

Juvenile Humor Hour

2007-07-30T11:42:00.000-04:00

Sign seen on the highway:

Underpass Under Construction

Same sign, two weeks later, as lights in the first "A" started to fail:

Underpuss Under Construction (YEA...a new cartoon character!)

Same sign, another week after that:

Underpiss Under Construction (Where's a Flomax commercial when you need one?)

Now THAT is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

The National Pastime

2007-07-23T15:02:00.000-04:00

Wait, how many T's in pastime?

I ran across this web site and cracked up looking at all these old baseball cards, some of which I remember owning before I lost them in a colossal card-flipping throw-down on the front porch of my parents' house when I was 10 years old. The rest met their maker on the front spokes of my Huffy one-speed.

Anyway, this guy is great with the one-liners for each card, part of his "Worthless Card Collection."

A sample....

Three weeks after this picture was taken, Jerry Don set a Tigers team record when he took the field on August 3, 1990 with his pants just 9 inches below his chin.

Check out the rest of the collection here.

Shock! Horror!

2007-07-19T10:13:00.000-04:00

Scripps to shutter Cincinnati Post, Kentucky Post on Dec. 31

The decision by Scripps to cease the Post newspapers' publication comes three years after the company was notified by Gannett -- owner of the Cincinnati Enquirer -- that the joint operating agreement wouldn't be renewed. Scripps COO Rich Boehne says: "The investment that would be needed to continue publishing a daily newspaper that could successfully compete in a marketplace with so many media alternatives would be prohibitive."

Comments from the Post editor are here.

I awoke this morning with the news that half of my hometown newspapers will be shutting down at the end of the year. This is not a surprise; the Post was always said to be dead meat when the Joint Operating Agreement between it and The Cincinnati Enquirer -- in which the two papers shared production facilities and advertising staff -- expired in 2007. I guess inside I always wondered if it really would happen.

This is a bittersweet post for me. My first job in newspapers was taking Friday night football scores in the Covington, Ky., office of The Kentucky Post in 1985. I left the next year, but returned as an obituary clerk in 1989. After a couple months, I managed to land a full-time job as a library aide across the river at The Cincinnati Enquirer, where I worked until 1994.

I can tell you that there will be much hand-wringing in Northern Kentucky about the post-Post era (tee-hee). Though the Enquirer beefed up its Kentucky presence a few years ago, there is still some mistrust about their commitment and a longstanding feeling that they're not in it for the long haul. That, plus the fact that I'll bet that The Ky. Post still writes more about Ky. than the Enquirer. It will be interesting to see what happens now. My cousin, who got me that football job and still writes sports for The Ky. Post, will be out of a job come December. I wonder if The Enquirer will swoop in and snatch up some of The Post's people in a credibility grab.

When Becks Met Bush

2007-06-29T06:04:00.001-04:00

This is what happens when futbol meets football.

Frankly My Dear, I Don't Care for Flan

2007-06-29T05:21:00.000-04:00

I get a kick out of watching broadcast versions of theatrical films and enjoying the myriad ways censors eliminate cursewords, etc., from the films' dialogue.

For example, in "Smokey and the Bandit," Jackie Gleason's character says the word "sum-bitch" about 400 times. In the broadcast version of the film, shown just about every other weekend on TBS, the censors thought it sounded better to have the character say "scum-bum." Trivia tidbit: The broadcast voice-over of Gleason's Buford T. Justice character was done by the guy who replaced Alan Reed as the voice of Fred Flintstone when Reed died in 1977.

Another one I love is in the George C. Scott film "Hardcore," where he plays a father searching for his runaway daughter who's working in the adult film industry. Anyway, Scott, posing as a casting director, conducts a series of interviews of porn stars until he finds one, a guy called Jim Sloan, who he thinks can help him find his daughter. In the theatrical version, the character introduces himself: "The name's Jim Sloan. Sometimes they call me Jizzum Jim." TV censors, in their infinite wisdom, thought it better to go without an overdub, so that, when you see it on American Movie Classics (does it not amaze everyone the SHIT that shows up on a channel purported to show CLASSICS?) you hear the character say, "The name's Jim Sloan. Sometimes they call me _________ Jim," where the blank is simply left blank (p.s. You can read the guy's lips clear as day).

So I ran across the broadcast version of "The Big Lebowski"last night, which features a scene where John Goodman destroys a car while yelling "This is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass, Larry." In its place, somebody thought it wise and, I might add, SENSICAL, to have Goodman say: "This is what happens when you FIGHT A STRANGER IN THE ALPS, Larry." Swear to god.

Good Things CAN Happen When You're Awake in the Middle of the Night

2007-06-28T09:46:00.000-04:00

So I'm lying in the hospital Tuesday night after gallbladder surgery. Can't sleep a wink and the hospital's cable is, shall we say, limited. And then I come across these guys on the Carson Daley show, of which I couldn't even tell you the name. This saved an otherwise dismal night.

The OTHER Class of 2007

2007-06-22T09:44:00.000-04:00

The local community access channel has been showing videotapes of graduation ceremonies from the city's five high schools this week, including the one I attended (not by choice). I have to admit I can't get enough of these things. Not because they're exciting viewing. Precisely the opposite.

I like watching teachers in the background falling asleep while the superintendent delivers his speech in the foreground. I like watching the senior class officers hustle through what I'm sure is a speech that took them hours to compose. I like watching them straining for meaning, trying so hard to make it a speech that everyone will remember. I like watching them fail. No lie: All the inspirational facts I took from one of our officers was that she was: A) brought to this country as a child from China; and B) not a native English speaker. I gathered this was salient detail of her speech because she repeated them about 3 times each. I'm not asking much. Throw me a freakin' bone.

So I'm proposing that commencement speeches be done away with. Here's why. Even the speech delivered this year by our friend G was, forgive me, a dud. If ever conditions were ripe for a speech that had some relevance, this was it. He was at the center of a situation that got Megan and Erin banned from the flippin' graduation ceremony, for heaven's sake. And he steps up there and talks about the importance of trust and being true to your word, etc. Noble thoughts, to be sure. But NOT what I was looking for. I understand this graduation was about the kids, not G, and this was not the forum to publicly flay the school adminsitration. But how about saying a few words to the kids about the importance of loyal friendships? The importance of distinguishing between public/private behavior? If there ever was a teachable moment, this was it. The results were underwhelming.

Funny thing: Among all this thought about graduations, this "graduation" video turned up on the network news. "And now, will all the members of the Class of 2007 stand and, with their right hands, move their tassels from the right to the left. By the power vested in me by Allah, I declare you graduates of Afghanistan's most prestigious terror training camp."

Fare Thee Well, Hiawatha

2007-06-21T18:03:00.001-04:00

So we packed up Megan's stuff Monday and she's off to a better life in Michigan.

It's always tough losing a friend, so I nursed my sorrow in a mug of beer when I got home.

I'm not a big believer in signs, but this one told me everything is as it should be.....

Good Luck Movin' Up 'Cause I'm Movin' Out....

2007-06-18T15:22:00.000-04:00

The school year is over and summer vacation has begun. Still waiting for this fact to sink in, though I’ve taken serious advantage of the extra sleep time. Not sure whether this is due to the fact that the sleep time is available to me or the # of post-school-year parties and the abundance of alcohol at said parties. Let’s just say it’s been a loooong time since I’ve had two hangovers in the same long weekend.

Now begins the delightfully silly season of household tasks, vacations, etc. And moving friends who are leaving the school where I teach. A few words about this: This year has not been an easy one. From the beginning, there have been assorted grumblings that, from the start, were not indistinguishable from any other year. I think the tone was set by our principal who, at the welcome breakfast held by the PTA, told the teachers to make sure they pushed in their chairs when they left. Something has been lost in the translation; as I type these words, they sound so harmless. But I remember thinking, is this the type of thing that an adult (even one who’s in charge) should be saying to another group of adults?

Well, I’m leaving out a lot – most of which has been written about elsewhere – but suffice to say that was only the beginning of the end. But I knew things were taking a bad turn when the school’s #1 ass-kisser, the type who always raises her hand at the end of staff meetings when everyone else wants to go home, got fed up with all the data-collecting we all have been asked to do this year and asked the principal to cut back on his expectations. Reportedly, he told her he would gladly supply her with the paperwork if she wanted to apply for a transfer to another school. Ouch.

So cut to the chase: Now the year is done and the exodus, the “rapture,” as The Mayor has called it, is occurring. Not sure of the actual body count, but I can think of at least a dozen teachers I know personally who won’t be returning next year. Among the casualties (it’s hard to call it that when one believes they’re actually going to a better place – see? the metaphor holds up!) are friends: Megan, The Mayor, G and Erin. Granted, three are leaving the area with spouses/significant others. The other is moving on to a neighboring school district. But none are coincidental to the toxic atmosphere at the school. As time has gone by, this has become more difficult to handle, not easier. Not that I begrudge them for upgrading. Heaven knows I’ve been shopping myself around. But right about now, I feel like, paraphrasing John Kerry here, the last man to die for a lost cause. What will become of Cogan’s Thursday, I can’t be sure. We’ll try to keep the flame alive.

Gettin' My Colonization On

2007-05-12T18:12:00.000-04:00

If you live anywhere near our part of Virginia, you might have heard that this weekend is the 400th anniversary of the settlement of the Jamestown Colony, the first permanent English settlement in the New World. Suck on it, Plymouth....

It's only about 40 miles west of where we live, so I went up there to have dinner with the correspondent Saturday night. She's deployed up there for a couple days.

I don't know what I really expected, but she reports that the event is no better/worse than a county fair. Funnel cakes were sighted; no word on whether they had a barbecued turkey leg stand or not. Also waiting to hear whether they had airbrushed t-shirts for sale.

Headlining the show tonight are local boy Bruce Hornsby and Ashland, Ky.'s own Ricky Skaggs.

Anyway, here are some other memorable items from the Jamestown 2007 schedule:

William the Conjuror
Penn Russell from Williamsburg presents a 16th & 17th century illusion and manipulation show featuring magic and costuming authentic to the time period.

Nothing witty comes to mind about magic in the 15-1600's. However, I'm wondering how wacky this show would be if he did tricks from around the time of the REAL William the Conqueror.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, I will have this woman drawn and quartered." Or, "For my next trick, I'll make the Saxons disappear."

Richmond Indigenous Gourd Orchestra
A band from Richmond, VA who grows gourds, make instruments from them and create their own unique music. Tables will be set displaying dozens gourds, with instruction on how to grow them and how to make instruments etc.

Thank God someone is keeping us safe from all those IMPORTED gourd orchestras.

Flute Frenzy
A 16 member youth flute choir from Williamsburg, VA performs original works, classical music and folk and popular tunes.

Take it away, Ron Burgundy.

Why is it.........

2007-04-29T15:58:00.000-04:00

whenever I hear the name of...

Gen. David Petraeus...

I think of ..........

Dr. Zaius from "Planet of the Apes"?

Livin' on the Air in Cincinnati

2007-04-25T19:27:00.000-04:00

So this college kid decides it's his goal to visit ALL 119 NCAA Div. I football stadia in this great land of ours. Decides to document the trip on his blog. Yes, everybody had one now.

So what do you suppose he finds when he visits the University of Cincinnati, the alma mater of The Mayor and First Lady of Colonial Place, on a recent snowy morning?

Is it possible this could be fake? I wanna believe...

2007-04-15T20:45:00.000-04:00

All Hail the Trunk Monkey

2007-03-18T20:38:00.000-04:00

Trunk Monkey = a security device sold as an accessory by the Suburban Auto Group of Sandy, Ore.

Prepare to "lose your shit."

St. Patty's Day Leftovers...

2007-03-18T20:26:00.000-04:00

Overheard at Saturday's St. Patrick's Day Parade in Norfolk's Ocean View neighborhood.

(as carload of old men passes by with a "Pearl Harbor Survivors" sign on the side)

Drunk guy #1: How old are they?

Drunk guy #2: Hmmmmm. 1942...They must be some old sum-bitches.

then, later...

(as a church float passed by with some rock musicians aboard and a huge "Jesus" sign taped to the side)

Drunk guy #2: Hey, do you guys know any Nickelback?

Outbreak, For Rizzle

2007-03-12T18:13:00.000-04:00

Some uncomfortable moments Monday during an orientation session for a tornado drill we're having Tuesday (Not much of a drill if you're warned about it, eh?)....

During a faculty meeting today, we watched a training video, which featured reenactments of people taking cover from storms in several locations. In slo-mo, people huddled beneath steps or in bathrooms. One dude even hunkered down in a roadside ditch when he saw a tornado from his car.

Pause for a Youtube interlude...

Anyway, I remembered something that I haven't experienced since I saw "Twister" in 19-whatever: That scenes of people taking shelter when a killer storm is bearing down on them makes me really squirmy.

I attribute this to having spent what seemed like a really long time huddled with my family underneath a pool table in our basement on April 4, 1974 - the "Super Outbreak" of tornadoes across the Midwest. Check out the map above; a couple of the damned things came sort of close to where I grew up in Northern Kentucky. One devastated the county seat of the place where The Mayor grew up.

Warning: "Super Outbreak," not to be confused with Super Breakout, a lame-ass video game, or "Outbreak," the lame-ass Dustin Hoffman movie.

Spring Training

2007-03-12T17:45:00.000-04:00

Sitting here in this hell called the three days before the NCAA Tournament begins......

Amused myself this afternoon by reading awesome sports bloggers Deadspin. To wit....today's item highlighting reasons to love the Big Red Machine (or the Hyundai Accent that is today's facsimile of the 75-76 World Champs). In it, I found this bit about former Red and current ESPN talking head Rob Dibble:

Once Rob Dibble spit tobacco juice or something he was chewing that looked pretty nasty within an inch of me and then refused to sign my baseball card because it incorrectly identified him as "Ron" Dibble. "I don't sign errors," Dibble said, before waving his hand to dismiss me, "Lesson learned, kid." I was 10. Yeah, the lesson is you're a dickhead, Ron.

PLAY BALL!

Overheard at the Barber Shop

2007-03-05T17:41:00.000-05:00

Is there any better place for eavesdropping on good dialogue than waiting your turn at the neighborhood barber shop?

Cast:

Father, about 5-8, 230 or so with an extremely, shall we say, high forehead

Son, about 8 years old, perched atop a little pillow so the barber can cut his hair without stooping; the son fidgets in the barber chair

Father (to son): Jacob, sit still or you'll wind up with a bald spot.

Son (without missing a beat): You mean like you?

The father also came in with a handwritten list of instructions from his wife on how exactly to have the kid's hair cut: #2 clippers on the sides, just enough on top to comb over, bangs angled to avoid a typical bowl cut. Mr. D. took it all in stride, something that the other guys lined up along the wall could not handle. The list was a source of great amusement for us, but the father laughed right along with us, so I guess it was all good.

The guy went too far, though, when emboldened (or emasculated to the point where he had nothing to lose) enough that he took it upon himself to admit that he had been to the spa a couple doors down for a pedicure...TWICE. TMI, dude. Not that there's anything wrong with a pedi every now and then. You just have to know your audience. No word on whether he enjoys a cocktail while watching Oprah in the afternoon.

Cannon Fodder

2007-02-26T18:42:00.000-05:00

Any many who sticks by his woman after a "horrific cannon accident" is a man to be admired.

Oscar Thoughts......

2007-02-25T21:32:00.000-05:00

Gwyneth Paltrow's dress and Gary Oldman's costume from Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula....separated at birth?

Jennifer Hudson's dress and the flyin' monkeys' getup from The Wizard of Oz?

In Search Of....

2007-02-17T19:34:00.000-05:00

In the words of the immortal 80's supergroup Survivor, "The search is over."

You have read in this space and other superior blogs about the flyers for parties, or "jump offs," we teachers at my high school are continually finding about our classrooms when students leave them behind along with the day's classwork. Mostly, you've read about the progenitor of these parties, our school's answer to P. Diddy, a chap named Omar. Perhaps you joined me in my admiration for Omar and his organizational skills and his disdain for drama and beefs of all kinds. Around the time Rodney King said, "Can't we all get along," I'm convinced Omar was born into this world and found his calling. Here is a true uniter in a sea of dividers.

So I was standing outside my door the other day with a couple students and I heard one say, "Hey, Omar," as a group of kids walked by on the other side of the hall. "Is that THE Omar," I asked, "from the party flyers?"

A pause. Both the students standing nearby looked at me. "You know about the parties?"

"Of course. I find them along with your soda cans and candy wrappers on the floor under your desks when you leave."

I looked quickly down the hall to size up this local legend. He's a smallish kid, looked like a junior or sophomore, wearing the typical student getup...black nylon bomber jacket, baggy jeans, white t-shirt. He spoke with a squeaky, dare I say effeminate, voice. In short, he looked like any other kid you see in the hall between classes.

My illusion was crushed. Megan and I have talked about this and we both had Omar pegged as a twentysomething kid who went to our school at some point, but just can't let go, devoting himself to throwing parties.

We couldn't have been more wrong. Turns out he's just a kid...albeit a kid with unlimited cell phone minutes. Also, I'm told there's always some sort of drama going on at the allegedly drama-free parties. Who's surprised about that at any gathering of high-schoolers.

Here's a summary for all you visual learners out there:

What was I expecting?

What did I find?

Do you blame me?

Trying to live with the disappointment,

Your Humble Author

Carrying the Cross

2007-02-07T17:13:00.000-05:00

"Fucking bloggers."
- The Correspondent

And yes, I'm quoting. It's been an interesting couple of weeks for everyone's favorite AP correspondent. First, she gets sent to William and Mary to report on the removal of a cross from the college's famed Wren Chapel. Then she has to go cover a debate featuring a noted conservative talking head. Then, to make matters worse, she gets called out by a fellow blogger.

Hint: You know you're in for a reaming when the author starts out thusly:

The story of the Wren Chapel cross finally made it to the wire services yesterday, and I was so glad to see it... until I saw that AP writer Sonja Barisic had searched high and low and somehow found a student who is not only an orthodox Jew, but an orthodox Jew from Israel, who was willing to be quoted as saying "that as an Orthodox Jew he was uncomfortable when he and other freshmen were taken to the chapel during orientation."

Say it with me now: OH, NO YOU DIDN'T!!!!

The Mayor asks: Can reporters have beefs (the same way rappers can)? And if so, will there be a banking (what we old-timers called a rumble)? And if so, will the reporter be called on to cover her own rumble?

Good question. But, it seems that in the end it was all worth it. Her second foray into podcasting. Eat it, Adam Curry.

Side note: the Wren story with her name on it turned up 67 times in Google News just now.

That's what we call "Gettin' it done."

Blue Monday

2007-02-04T20:58:00.000-05:00

So tomorrow at my school there's a huge series of staff meetings, during which we are to meet with our respective, ulp, DATA teams. School administrators are coming around to visit our meetings to make sure we're not mixing cocktails and eating canapes when we should be finding new ways to capture our students' learning in numerical form.

But first, let's re-wind. Since the beginning of this year, all teachers at my school have gone from working from a curriculum and having quite a bit of latitude in how they teach what's on that document to collaborating with other teachers at our grade levels on the exact questions on a test in each unit. Then we were to have students fill out the same Scantron sheet for the purposes of scanning their tests into the computer, then crunching the numbers on which students did best, which questions they answered with the most success, etc.

Tomorrow, we're supposed to hammer out, in line with the curriculum, what we're doing EACH DAY and exactly how we're doing it. That's right....all teachers will be doing the same lessons on the same days in the same way. Oh, yeah.....this has to be done for all the teachers' preps through the END OF SCHOOL in June. That bubbling noise you hear is my boiling blood.

All this leads to a bad feeling I've been having ever since this mess started. I laugh when I say it (because I'd cry or tear my hair out if I didn't), but perhaps what we're going toward is growing teachers on a stalk, Matrix-style, so that we're all drones dispensing knowledge to our students. All we need is for them all to have outlets built into the backs of their heads, so we could just hook them up to a cable and do away with the whole classroom management issue.

I wonder if the "rapture," as the Mayor calls it, will be further hastened by this. Apparently, there are quite a few teachers already planning their departures next year. Will our fearless leaders be chastened by an exodus? Or will they see it as less resistance to their evil plan?

Maybe I'll just chill and take the blue pill...

Holy Crap....

2007-02-01T21:08:00.000-05:00

Once in a while, one stumbles upon greatness. More on this later, but during my presentation today on Black History Month, I ran across the following musical offering: Nina Simone singing "Strange Fruit."

In a word, haunting.

A Diamond in the....

2007-01-26T06:40:00.000-05:00

Some night when it's really dark, I might wonder why I majored in nonfiction creative writing or why I even went back to college in the first place.

When that happens, I'll think about this article. Moments like these are why writers write.

From Details magazine's take on Dustin Diamond, (Kipling, forgive me), the Man Who Would Be Screech, but who instead turned to a life of thievery and, gasp, PORN. Diamond and his girlfriend, _________ Misner, speak:

Eighteen years ago Rob Lowe practically sabotaged his career by filming himself having sex with a woman and a 16-year-old girl. Today a sex tape does more for your career than a good agent. Pam Anderson, Tommy Lee, Kid Rock, and Paris Hilton all benefited from hitting the record button. America is still the land of opportunity, but it helps if you’ve got a huge rack. “Pam Anderson’s hot, and people wanted to see her cootch,” says Diamond. “People wanted to see her cootch getting slammed. I did. Playboy had her topless, but we wanted to see her get slammed. Paris Hilton? It was to see her bob a knob. That’s all it was. And hell, yeah, it was worth 20 bucks. I don’t know what the deal is with mine—I think it’s to see the size of the wang.”

Well, yeah, that or the fact that Diamond performs the “Dirty Sanchez,” widely regarded as one of the vilest, most rarely observed sex acts. In the realm of homemade porn, it’s like seeing Bigfoot. This sense of disbelief—Screech? A porno?—is shared by some of his costars on Saved by the Bell. “I only worked closely with Dustin in his adolescent years,” says Lark Voorhies, who played Lisa Turtle, Screech’s unrequited love interest on the show, when asked about the tape. “I hadn’t believed it was true until this moment. I’ve never seen anything in him that was perverse.”

According to Diamond, the tape was made in an attempt to win a bet with some buddies who were competing to document their most outrageous sexual exploits. “I was just doing what was necessary to get the points,” he explains. Misner is sitting next to us on the couch wrapping gifts, and it feels uncomfortable talking about the tape in front of her, but Diamond insists it’s okay. “People have made it more than it really is. They make it sound like the girl is covered in poop, but yeah”—and here, he looks sheepishly over at his girlfriend-manager-agent-publicist-bouquet buyer—“there is poop in the video.”

Diamond still doesn’t know how the tape made it into the hands of David Hans Schmidt, an agent who has peddled sleazy photos of everyone from Gennifer Flowers to Colin Farrell, but thanks to a deal Diamond brokered with porn distributor Red Light District, he’s at least making money off it (though Diamond says he doesn’t know how much).

And then there’s the matter of the “wang.” The legend of Diamond’s penis started during his June 13 appearance on Howard Stern to hawk his T-shirts; at one point, he revealed he was packing more than 10 inches. Not having seen the entire sex tape, I have to ask whether this is true. Misner momentarily stops her gift-wrapping, bulges her eyes, and smiles.

My point is this: You can't make up stuff this bizarre.

Which Book are You?

2007-01-21T19:55:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Megan for the book quiz idea.

You're Babar the King!

by Jean de Brunhoff

Though your life has been filled with struggle and sadness of late,
you're personally doing quite well for yourself. All this success brings responsibility,
though, and should not be taken lightly. Life has turned from war to peace, from damage
to reconstruction, and this brings a bright new hope for everyone you know. These hopeful
people look to you for guidance, and your best advice to them is to watch out for snakes.
You're quite fond of the name "Celeste".

COMMENT: Dammit... the name I use at The Wave has been blown!

COMMENT #2....I'm a children's book about a freakin' elephant?

COMMENT #3.....Actually, there's some truth to this.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

A Vick Family Foto Album

2007-01-21T16:20:00.000-05:00

Good times in the parking lot of the Suffolk McDonald's.

People say Marcus will walk over anyone to succeed.

Michael Vick announces partnership with the TSA to advertise guidelines for gels and liquids in carry-on luggage. In related news, he'll be also the host of a Nickelodeon MacGyver marathon.

There's a Place for Us..........

2007-01-15T20:56:00.000-05:00

Thought I'd post for a change....I've got some Christmas fotos I've been meaning to run. I can't do it justice, so I'll just say they're fotos from Tudor's Biscuit World, a favorite haunt of mine on our many trips home to Cincinnati. Every kind of sandwich you can think of....served on a biscuit. If you're ever on the WV Turnpike, check it out. The chain runs about as far south as Beckley and as far north as Hurricane. BONUS: If Biscuit World is closed, you can saunter over to Gino's, its sister restaurant, serving fine Italian fare. Never eaten there, I have to admit. Our favorite location, mostly because its about halfway home, is in lovely Marmet, W.Va. (Hee-Haw reference alert.....) SAAAAAAAAAA-lute.

Let the photo album begin:

Your humble author digs into a "Thundering Herd," a big ol' fried egg with bacon and cheese on a biscuit the size of a Frisbee.

The Correspondent's favorite, the "Peppy," pepperoni and cheese sauce on a biscuit. Note the glob of sauce on her thumb. Wondering if she daintily wiped that off with a napkin or...

How can you NOT love decor like this?

Trying to be all things (if all you eat is pizza and biscuits) to all people.

I Have Been to the Holy Land...

2006-12-31T08:33:00.000-05:00

If U2, Bruce Springsteen or Aerosmith could get fans to pay $15 a carload, then line them up 60 cars at a time to hear three prerecorded songs, do you think they'd gladly, as Steve Miller once sang, "Take the Money and Run"?

That's what's happened to the artist formerly known as Carson Williams. He's the Cincinnati-area guy I wrote about a couple weeks ago who set his Christmas light display to music. Really....scroll down if you missed it.

Anyway, whilst home to Cincinnati over the holidays, we piled my sister-in-law and husband, their four kids and my wife and me into their Chevy Suburban and shuffled off to Mason, Ohio, Heritage Oak Park: a 30-mile drive, but well worth it when all is said and done. I posted some video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Il4PmW5NFg.

More professional video is here.

Sweet, right?

Guilty pleasure alert: We plunked down our $15 and waited more than an hour to make our way through the park, then queued up with our group of 30 cars to watch Christmas lights on a mock-up of Williams' house, which stood out in the middle of a ballfield.

Apparently, we were part of the heaviest night of the holiday season to that point. According to the Mason Pulse-Journal:

Christmas may be over, but Mason's Christmas in Lights is keeping the holiday spirit alive until the end of the year.

Carson Williams' light display at Heritage Oak Park on U.S. 42 seems to be gaining popularity as the holiday season nears its end.

Williams' display at his home in Deerfield Twp. last year became an Internet sensation and was featured in a Miller Lite beer commercial.

"We're up to a little over 8,000 cars now," said Tom Kaper, president of Festivals of Mason Inc., which is overseeing the display. "We're really starting to stuff them in over the last couple of weeks. It's going great."

The display nearly reached its capacity Saturday night when 792 carloads of people came out to see the lights synchronized to some favorite Christmas songs. The show can accommodate 800 cars a night on weekends.

Kaper and Williams won't get much time to catch a breath once the lights blink off Dec. 31. Discussions for next year's display we'll start in January — and Kaper said they've already got some ideas of how to make the show bigger and better.

Do the math: $15 per car x 8,000 cars. That's a cool $120,000. Granted, there was probably one HELL of an electric bill that went with this deal. Question: Can they re-use the house facades?

And let us not be unduely cynical. It was a serious rush hearing the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "Wizards of Winter," the song that made Williams famous, blasting from the stereo while watching lights dance across a house-sized wooden truss. Sounds stupid, right? Guess you had to be there.

Happy Christmas to All.....

2006-12-23T12:32:00.000-05:00

A holiday present to you all....

Just try and keep a dry eye through this.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5028755

Interesting guy, this John Henry Faulk. According to the NPR site:

He was blacklisted in 1957, but with support from Edward R. Murrow, won a
libel suit against the corporation that branded him a Communist. Faulk's
book,
Fear on Trial, published in 1963, chronicles this experience.

This Jay-merican Life

2006-12-18T21:25:00.000-05:00

I can't believe this is still on the Web....

Three years ago, my only foray to date into radio came on the public radio show With Good Reason. At the time I was teaching college classes -- Ah, the good old days -- and agreed to read a story I wrote on the program, which highlights the expertise and work of faculty at Virginia's higher education institutions.

From their archives:

On this special holiday edition of With Good Reason, we feature an assortment of songs, stories and thoughts about Christmas. Jazz pianist John Toomey (ODU) plays his rendition of several Christmas classics. Essayist Sharon Hoggard (NSU) reminisces about how her mother's annual traditions. Writer Jay Lidington (TCC) explains how his father's struggle with Alzheimer's has affected the selection of his gift. Cameroon native Peter Tahsoh (VSU) contrasts America's Christmas traditions with those of his homeland. Poet Peter Meinke (ODU) reads three poems inspired by the season. And we end the show with a real treat - the 12 Days of Christmas as interpreted by the Gentlemen of the College, the oldest a capella group at the College of William and Mary.

RealAudio of the show is available on the Web at: http://www.withgoodreasonradio.org/rams/2003/december/christmas.ram

Lighting Up Christmas

2006-12-09T15:16:00.000-05:00

As I was putting up our Christmas lights last weekend, I couldn't help think about the lengths we go to for the holiday season. It's not uncommon to see houses in our 'hood with the icicle lights hanging from their porches. Some people opt for the blow-up snow globes with Santa inside, getting pelted with a blizzard of plastic pellets. I'm mighty proud, I have to say, of my HUGE old-school Christmas lights, which I have hung from the eaves of our house for the last few years. It's hard to describe the feeling I get at the top of my aluminum extension ladder when I'm clipping those things to the second-highest part of our house. Mostly, it's accompanied by an internal monologue that goes something like this: "Shit, I forget how HIGH this is" and "I hope a good gust of wind doesn't come along and blow me into the neighbors' pine tree."

Seriously, though, I think it has a lot to do with honoring some sort of family tradition. The big C-9 lights are ripped straight from the pages of my mental holiday Christmas album. I only wish I still had the giant golden Santa head my folks used to hang on our front porch. I mean, this thing was about four feet high. They'd stick it up there and shine a huge floodlight on it. It was like some gargantuan Incan idol up there. True, garish...but I used to love it.

Another thing I thought of last weekend was my boy Carson Williams. You'll remember his work, if not his name. He's the suburban Cincinnati computer engineer who made it big last year (if you call a Miller Lite commercial BIG) when he synchronized the Christmas lights on his house to music, specifically "Wizards of Winter" by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Refresh your memory or just rock out (there just aren't enough Christmas songs out there that invite, nay, DEMAND, air guitar treatment) here.

There's something about this idea that really moves me. Is it wrong to call it art? I find it exciting and ingenius. I've watched it about a hundred times. I especially dig the mini grove of little light-up Christmas trees in the yard that change colors. Like, who thought of this?! Carson Fucking Williams, that's who. This guy is the Mack Daddy of do-it-yourselfers. Dude has his own page on Snopes.com. Let us bow down to his greatness. The thing I love the most about the video is the outrageous amount of light emanating from Williams' front yard; watch the shadows cast on the wooden fence to the right. God, his neighbors must have hated him.

Did they! They basically shut him down about midway through the holiday season. Traffic tie-ups in suburbia don't sit well with the soccer moms. Credit Williams with having the scruples (or the lack of a second home) to comply with their wishes.

So what's he up to this year? Truth be told, this IS big. According to Wikipedia, Williams has taken his Internet fame and started a custom animation lighting business, ConsarLights.com, which is in business to provide custom-designed holiday lighting. Last month, Williams created a new show in Denver, Colorado. Created with the help of Parker 3D, the show at Northfield Stapleton features over 250,000 LED lights drawing 150 amperes of electric current. "Symphony In Lights" is a free show that runs through the month of December. On the home front, a public park not too far from where Williams lives has erected a replica of the facade of his house, which he has decorated with lights and, yes, set the whole thing to music. His soccer mom neighbors no doubt were the first ones in the park.

Adventures in Airline Travel

2006-12-03T20:46:00.000-05:00

Another cruise note...

We flew to Florida on Southwest Airlines, an interesting experience to say the least. It had been several years since my last dealings with them, mostly because I was overcome by the cornball humor of the flight attendants and was disgusted after sitting for 90 minutes face-to-face with a dude who ate a giant Zero's sub with onions on it (this was back in the day when SWA had facing rows; thankfully, that's over and done with).

The flight was pretty uneventful, save for the pilots' having to return the plane to the gate in Orlando after a gauge failed. Amen, brothers. Equipment not workin' for ya? Let's get it fixed. Nothin' but the best for you...as long as I'm ridin' wit' ya.

One intriguing thing happened. My wife and I, being tall sorts, were successful in landing ourselves in the exit row on both flights. I've been in this row on just about every airline and every type of plane and SWA and their 737's offer the most preternaturally wide exit rows I've ever seen. Probably two people could stand side-by-side facing out the window. I'm not kidding. There's so much space that you have to lean forward to use your tray table. Not a complaint, just an observation.

Here's the catch -- when we sat down and the flight attendant came around to make sure we understood our obligations, she added in that by sitting there were agreeing to help evacuate the plane. That means, we gathered, that, though we were sitting right by the door, we were to help everyone else get out before leaving ourselves. I haven't found any background on this, but it's hard to imagine such a thing could be enforced. My wife made the comment that it was probably a CYA thing for Southwest in case someone stays behind and the plane explodes and the survivors sue. I have to admit, if a plane I'm flying in crash-lands and I'm sitting by the door, there's going to be a contrail behind me as I run screaming out the door after opening it for my fellow travelers (and my wife, of course). Sorry, dude sitting next to me with your fat rolls taking up the armrest. You're a swell guy, but.........

Adventures in Gels and Liquids

2006-11-27T20:53:00.000-05:00

Returned today from a Thanksgiving cruise with my in-laws to the Bahamas. Had never been on a cruise before, let alone slept on a boat overnight, so I was fairly uncertain what to expect while at sea in a couple of respects. Motion sickness can be an issue with me (have I mentioned that before?), so I was REALLY wondering how that was going to work…being out on the rolling waves with no escape if things got really bad. As it turned out, I felt pretty decent until the last night of the cruise. More on that later.

For their part, my wife’s family behaved themselves. But I became aware of a reason why, for all of its expansion into a four-day weekend (every grownup I knew worked the day after Thanksgiving when I was growing up), this holiday will never grow beyond what it is now. If people spent, say, five days with relatives and houseguests, the murder/suicide rate in this country would SKYROCKET.

This trip was the first time I had flown since the Sept. 26 ban on gels and liquids in carry-on bags, so I was an interested observer of, as well as a participant in, the process. Before our departure, I vetted and double-vetted every item in my toiletry bag to make sure it meets the Transportation Safety Administration’s Watch List of Terrorist Health and Beauty Aids. As you’ve read, each G&L in one’s possession has to be a 3-ounce-or-smaller container and must be carried in a quart-sized zip-top baggy. I did some serious soul-searching as I packed. What does one really need to bring with them on a trip anymore? The wife and I have already eschewed checked bags because of that screening situation. This time, I left behind about a half-dozen items that I would ordinarily take, but couldn’t fit into the baggy. For the record, the TSA site is really murky on the whole solid deodorant thing. For what it’s worth, I carried a big thing of Speed Stick original scent OUTSIDE of my baggy and nobody said shit.

So there I am at the airport Thursday morning, my Baggy of Beauty and boarding pass/passport in one hand, my shoes and belt buckle in the other, waiting to see what happens. Everything is going fine and, to their credit, the Norfolk airport people are way prepared, handing out quart-sized bags to people who don’t have them. To those who needed the bags, I say verily unto them: WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU PEOPLE BEEN SINCE SEPT. 26????? How did they miss the news reports? Or did they forget? Not sure on the thought process there.

So I get up to the conveyor and the surly security woman looks down at the bins holding my stuff, picks up my baggy, inspects it, and proclaims my packing an “A-plus-plus” effort. Then she looks at my wife and asks if she helped me do it. Now, I ask you again…how big a moron would I be if I needed help packing plastic bag of freaking toiletries? I’m not 90, for heaven’s sake. Oh wait, I forgot. Men are helpless. Just check out a TV ad for Sears tools, Hardee’s (Without us, some guys would starve) or Home Depot. Puh-leeeeeeeeeeeeeze.

Turns out it was a moot point anyway. The cruise ship had a full selection of toothpaste, lotion, razors, etc., in each room, plus big dispensers of shower gel and shampoo in each shower stall. Nice.

More to come…………..

Glad Someone's Paying Attention...

2006-11-19T20:47:00.000-05:00

My 12th-grade English class is working on presentations for their research papers. We did our first batch last week and one of the students discussed his in-depth findings on Malcolm X and why he is a heroic figure.

On my scoresheet, the student got a 22/25, losing points on his visual, which was a sloppily thrown together PowerPoint slideshow. The rubric I gave them (the same one given all the 12th-graders for this assignment) only allowed criticism of the visual, their vocal volume, enthusiasm, eye contact and the length of the speech. So imagine my discontentment with my poorly planned grading scheme when the student proceeded to use the phrase "Know what I'm sayin'?" about 150 times (or so it seemed) during his presentation. Nowhere to go to subtract points, and, outside of his adventurous verbal forays, his "jank" was pretty squared away.

If students weren't involved in a presentation, they were to put together grading sheets on the students who WERE. So, I also have a stack of grading sheets with students' grades of students' presentations. One observant lad, who gave the Malcolm X the full 25 points, noted that he also used "Know what I'm sayin'?" 25 times in a 5-minute presentation. The moral: If you're going to do something, "go hard."

Training Day

2006-11-12T14:48:00.000-05:00

It's raining and windy as hell here and I'm feeling pretty cheeky about having run my 6 miles yesterday, when it was sunny and about 80 degrees. Best decision I've made in a long while.

This is to point out that the Mayor and I will shortly begin training for the Shamrock Marathon in March (Training sked is here). This'll be the longest race I've run; I ran the Rock-n-Roll Half Marathon in September 2005 and didn't care for that much, mostly because of the 20,000 people around me. I ran the Shamrock 10K last year and, though it was colder than a witch's tit in a brass bra out there on the V.B. Boardwalk, it was less crowded and I appreciated not knocking elbows with someone every couple of feet. Plus, running/training is much more enjoyable here in the fall/winter when one does not have the feeling that the heat is trying to kill him.

Now, that's not to say I'm not without apprehension about the race. The Half was not easy for me and I had to walk a good portion of the way. Not sure if that was because I didn't train enough in the runup to the event or train correctly (more runs at longer distances). Whatever the cost, I'm feeling stronger now because I have another full year of training under my belt and that's got to make me a better runner. Here's hoping.....

Suck On It

2006-11-08T15:14:00.000-05:00

Though it came at approximately the same time as yesterday, today's sunrise was a little more glorious. Somehow, the sun seemed a little brighter, the air a little more fresh. My heaping bowl of Fiber One tasted a little more flavorful, this morning's office Maxwell House, a little less bitter.

Yep, it's about closing time for the Republican-dominated Congress. With only a few more votes to be counted, then recounted, in the Commonwealth of Virginia, it's all over but the shoutin'.

So how do you feel today, G.W.? What became of that "political capital" you so smugly referred to when reelected in 2004? How's that account doin' for ya today? I think the balance went the way of the Enron investors' portfolios or the lost accounts of the savings and loan debacle some years ago. No wonder you looked a little bitter during your postmortem, I mean post-election , press conference. How you avoided swallowing your tongue when you said "I thought we'd do fine in the election" escapes me. What polling data were you looking at? Of course, you ignored just about everyone who said going into Iraq and staying the way we did was a bad idea. Why this -- the scads of talking heads predicting a Democratic sweep of power -- would be any different is anyone's guess. Did you watch any TV the last couple of weeks? Surely you had to see a little Tim Russert, etc., inbetween episodes of "America's Funniest Home Videos."

And the remarks you read from when announcing Rumsfeld's departure -- f'ing priceless. Man up, my friend. You can do a little better than that what you offered up on C-Span today. Shit tasted a little sour, huh? Your posture and delivery barely concealed the look of "FUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCKKK" in your eyes. Tonight, when you're hunched over your bed, saying your prayers, I hope you take a minute and think about the way in which you've zeroed out that account of yours. Think about how it fairly overflowed on 9/12/2001. That was its high point, not the morning after the 2004 elections. But little by little, you frittered and wasted the goodwill we accumulated to the point where we were feared and hated, rather than helped, by our neighbors. Lastly, I hope you think about the people who have died while you stayed the course and refused to listen to points of view other than your own. What's to become of their accounts, invested by their willingness to do what you said was right? They're no more likely to be restored than your own. Unfortunately, there's more than enough bankruptcy to go around.

A Letter to My Nephew

2006-11-05T20:54:00.000-05:00

A letter to my nephew, who's in the ROTC at the University of Kentucky.

2 November 2006

Dave,

Here are some stickers that I found in our guidance office. I know you're not at West Point, but a cool sticker is its own reward.

How is your semester going? Taking any good English classes?

I was wondering what your reaction might be to the John Kerry thing. Besides the obvious political problems you might have with him, I found his remarks interesting. First off, I wonder if the comments were a botched joke about Bush's intelligence deficit, as Kerry said. The way it came out, about the lesser-educated shouldering the load in Iraq, was too convenient, I thought.

I wonder how many of the guys on the ground in Iraq would consider themselves "smart." I don't think everyone over there is "stupid," or whatever the language was that Kerry used, but I do think that lesser-educated kids who find themselves in the military do find themselves with the worst duties. Maybe that's walking some sort of shitty patrol or poking around for roadside bombs. Granted, there are my misgivings about why people are over there anyway. That said, I think it's a real shame and I feel bad that some people -- I think we can agree on that word, "some," right? -- who lack some degree of education are over there doing the dirty work. Maybe it's just the way the world works. Everyone has to know their roll.

Hope things are going well for you.

Sincerely,

UJB

Your City Guv-ment at Work

2006-10-31T16:59:00.000-05:00

I wish I had been a better citizen. Perhaps I could be sitting out on my porch tonight, tripping on on the cool little kids' costumes as they come around for their treats.

Alas, I am not. I did not read up on the City of Norfolk's Halloween law, which states that trick-or-treaters must be 12 or under to lawfully take part in the festivities, Satanic or otherwise evil as they may be. Sadly, I also don't even know how long this law has been on the books. Sadly, I won't be around to notice whether or not it does any good. I'll be upstairs with the lights off or somewhere else around town. Why? Read my previous entry. It seems I'm not the only one bummed about the lack of legitimate participants. Either that or the city leaders don't want hords of adolescents out skulking around the 'hood, trolling for candy.

Read the City of Norfolk's Halloween law here.

A Possible Explanation

2006-10-30T21:33:00.000-05:00

One possible explanation for recalcitrant hairdressers and their ilk objecting to Halloween could be they're just too young.....

to remember these:

This is how you rock Halloween. Yes, I once had one of these of the Batman variety, complete with plastic mask with pointy ears. The mask would kind of rough up the skin around my eyes and leave little blisters, but you looked SO FREAKIN' COOL, you didn't care. After the first hour of trick-or-treating, a film of sweat and one's breath would eventually condense and start to drip down onto the front of the suit. Again, we just didn't care.

Have a field day here.

A Halloween Tale

2006-10-29T21:18:00.000-05:00

When I moved to Virginia in 1996, one of the first indications that I wasn't in the real world anymore came around this time of year when I went to have my hair cut at a local salon. This was before I came to my senses and started spending my tonsorial dollar in a reasonable fashion. I had been going to the same stylist since we arrived in town and thought I had a sensible business relationship with this sensible woman, who we'll call Sandy.

Well, it was a few days before Halloween and I knew Sandy had a couple kids, so I asked what I thought was an innocent question: What are your kids dressing up as for Halloween? At the time, this was a big deal to me as, then, I still enjoyed sitting out on my front porch and passing out candy to the kids who came around the neighborhood. This was before my neighborhood was overrun with grocery-bag-toting teenagers without costumes who just about killed my enthusiasm for the day. More on that some other time.

Silence. A long silence. Then she said, "They don't have costumes. We'll probably just go up the harvest festival at church."

Looking back on it, this should have been an enormous, truck-stop-sized red flag. But, clueless lad that I am, I continued.

"Do they have trick-or-treating up there," I asked.

Another pause. "We don't celebrate Halloween. It's the Devil's birthday."

Talk about a conversation killer. She went on to tell me how she didn't believe in the death and evil that Halloween promotes and that she cared far too much for her children to allow them to be exposed to such nonsense.

I sat dumbfounded and silent. I had heard about these people, but had never been in close proximity to one. By steering clear of their natural habitat -- Christian bookstores, churches, CBN viewing parties -- I thought myself safe. Hah! I wonder if the Christian Coalition's master plan of populating seats of power with their own kind included hairdressers?

I never went back to that stylist.

Of course, anyone who's lived in the South for very long can tell you that churchgoing is a team sport here, with recruiters and coaches waiting at every turn. I long ago lost track of the number of people who have asked me where I went to church. When I indicated that I hadn't been in a long time, many would look on me with gleeful pity and suggest that my wife and I attend THEIR church. Come, you'll really enjoy it. There are some really cool people. We tried this exactly once. F-ing liar!

Growing up in the Midwest, one's church habits were more like golf; you may play with other people, but, essentially you're essentially doing your own thing. And, heavens, people didn't ask you where you went. They'd nod politely, then go back to their friends and talk about what a slacker you are in the way God intended -- behind your back.

You Got Served!!!!!!!!

2006-10-18T20:29:00.000-04:00

So I had a conversation last week with a friend who's in the same creative writing program from which I graduated. She's contemplating giving up on the program, at least on the poetry emphasis she's currently working towards, and working on nonfiction instead, the rationale being that nonfiction is a more profitable field. The worst thing, she said, would be writing for other poets, which is what happens when a beginning poet publishes a book of poems and it sits on the shelves, gathering dust. And, she said, she looks at the work of her colleagues and feels that theirs is better than hers, or, at least, they think theirs is better. So, wanting to avoid this whole situation, she is contemplating going another direction.

Too bad I couldn't tell her about this...

Occasionally, poetry does go up for public consumption. A week or so ago, when I read about the dedication of the renovated Fountain Square in my hometown of Cincinnati and the celebration featuring music acts including Los Lobos, I remember thinking, "Uh-oh," when I saw that Nikki Giovanni was one of the performers. She was scheduled to read a poem called "I am Cincinnati," which she wrote for the occasion

Turns out that the poem, duh, was not the touchy-feely ode that some lame-brained chamber of commerce wife thought it would be.

In the text, which was read aloud at the Saturday celebration, Giovanni called fellow Cincinnati native, former U.S. Treasurer and Ohio gubernatorial candidate Kenneth Blackwell a "political whore" and a "son of a bitch." The poem also made reference to the shooting of a black man in Cincinnati's Over the Rhine neighborhood by the city police.

The exact Blackwell quote:

I am not a son of a bitch like Kenny Blackwell…I will not sell my soul for my ambition…I do not use the color of my skin to cover the hatred in my heart…I am not a political whore…jumping from bed to bed to see who will stoke my need

Other reactions, according to The Enquirer:

Officials from Cincinnati City Center Development Corp. (3CDC) said in a statement Monday that Giovanni's remarks, which drew gasps and some applause from the audience, were "completely inappropriate" for the event.

Giovanni isn't happy about the criticism or controversy. But she's not apologizing, either.

"All I have is my voice," she said. "I don't want it silenced. We were on (Fountain Square) where the Klan gathered to speak. I'm not sure as many people called to complain about what the Klan had to say as what I said."

Giovanni said Fountain Square has a long history as a place where controversial and sometimes unpopular issues are voiced.

"There's never an appropriate place," she said. "The square is a place for free speech and public dialogue."

Further:

The reference to Blackwell wasn't the only part of the poem that drew ire.

Keith Fangman, vice president of the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police, was unhappy about a line in the poem that referred to police shootings of young black men. He called the reference "inflammatory."

"What a great way to welcome the cop-hating, racist element back to Fountain Square," he said sarcastically.

Fangman said (city chamber of commerce) leadership was to blame for the "PR nightmare" created by Giovanni's remarks. "Any imbecile should have known that Nikki Giovanni is an ill-tempered, foul-mouthed, left-wing, political militant and should never have been invited to speak at this celebration."

So, all you promising poets out there, this is where the rubber meets the road. I'm no fan of Blackwell, a Republican, and the fact that he got served in public by a poet from Virginia Tech tickles me to no end. But the fact that this moment was delivered by the written/spoken word just goes to show that it's not "just for other poets."

Finding that audience, well, that's another story.

Even more fun has been the reaction to the poem in the editorial pages of the hometown paper. Understand this: Cincinnati put the "pro" in provincial. The paper's opinion leaders did not disappoint:

Free speech vs. bad manners

It's always surprising when talented people suffer from self-inflicted wounds. Nikki Giovanni's classless diatribe on Fountain Square Saturday was a bullet to her credibility.
Good poets use words to help us see the nuances of the world in front of us. But there was nothing nuanced about Giovanni's performance. She acted like a bully and delivered a verbal sucker punch when she used the rededication of the square for an assault on gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell.
Giovanni is a talented poet, raised in Greater Cincinnati. It was because of that talent that she was invited to participate in what was supposed to be a celebration of the city and an open-armed invitation for people to come downtown.

And this from one of the readers:

Giovanni missed out on manners class
I rarely concur with The Enquirer's editorial positions, and even rarer are the occasions I agree with Bronson. But just as we have snow on Opening Day in Cincinnati, it happens. Both the paper and Peter Bronson nailed it in regards to Giovanni's "poem": utter rudeness. How pathetic that a self-proclaimed activist would squander an opportunity for positive impact, electing instead to politicize and divide. How chic is it to be rude, Ms. Giovanni? Do not flatter yourself - that kind of banal publicity-mongering doesn't even warrant controversy. We do value our manners here in CincinnatiManners do not preclude discourse, do not preclude passion for our issues, past and present. Manners are what let us come together without fear of name-calling, to celebrate even that which is controversial. Giovanni apparently missed that class in "activist" charm school.

Kathryn Brown
Loveland

Again, young poets, I ask you...are you eager to reach and serve this audience? Methinks such things are better screamed out, even in a soft voice, in public spaces where everyone can hear.

More Books!!!!! Yeah!!!!!

2006-10-15T21:17:00.000-04:00

One of the things I love most about Virginia in the fall is the weather (like today, sunny with a high in the low-60s) and our annual trip to the Green Valley Bookfair.

Though it's open at five other times throughout the year, Sonja and I tend to make this a part of our wedding anniversary trip. There's something about the fresh mountain air that makes a body go crazy for new books at bargain prices.

Among today's acquisitions:

Chain of Command, Seymour Hersh
Wait....the Bush Administration misled the American public on the War in Iraq? Where does this guy come up with this stuff?

At Home in the Heart of Appalachia, John O'Brien

Jump the Shark, Jon Hein
Ted McGinley=the kiss of death

Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson
Love this guy's work.

Paris to the Moon, Adam Gopnik (large print)
I heard it was good and with my eyesight, I figure I'd better get used to these editions

A Vast Conspiracy, Jeffrey Toobin
The Clinton impeachment saga revisited

The Kingdom by the Sea, Paul Theroux
More Anglophilia

Mad Ducks and Bears, George Plimpton
Did you know that Plimpton wrote a book about the Truman Capote in his "In Cold Blood " period?

The Faber Book of America, Christopher Ricks and William Vance, eds.

2006-10-05T02:51:00.000-04:00

Bush Bloody Bush

I'm probably behind the curve on this, but I ran across this clip today on my favorite web audio feed at www.appalshop.org. Enjoy!

Hitting The Skids

2006-09-25T20:46:00.000-04:00

Further proof that U2 remains one of the coolest bands ever...

I listened to the pregame festivities for Monday Night Football tonight and heard the band and Green Day do a medley of songs featuring "When September Ends," "Beautiful Day" and a song I had never heard before.

Further proof that the internet is a godsend to music fans -- I came home, punched in the only lyrics I could understand on the radio broadcast and found the following lyrics from a band called The Skids:

The Saints Are Coming
I cried to my daddy on the telephone
how long now
Until the clouds unroll and you come home
the line went
But the shadows still remain since your descent
your descent

The saints are coming, the saints are coming
No matter how I try, I realise there’s no reply
The saints are coming, the saints are coming

A drowning sorrow floods the deepest grief
How long now
Until a weather change condemns belief
The stone says
This paternal guide once had his day
Once had his day

The saints are coming, the saints are coming
No matter how I try, I realise there’s no reply
The saints are coming, the saints are coming

Words: Richard Jobson
Music: Stuart Adamson

Great stuff, what with the reopening of the New Orleans Superdome and all. Interesting credit on the music. 80's music fans will remember Stuart Adamson as the late lead singer of the band Big Country.

TAG! You're It

2006-09-24T21:17:00.000-04:00

Thanks, Megan, for tagging me. As soon as The Mayor gets his HUGE jank online, I’ll tag him, too. Perhaps the correspondent will correspond, too.

Here goes:

A Book That Has Changed Your Life: The Death and Burial of Poor Cock Robin by H. L. Stephens

When one is about 5 years old and hasn’t seen many books, or at least read them on his own, picking one up at the elementary school library and seeing a picture of a dead bird with an arrow sticking out of its chest, it makes an impression.

Looking back on it, my main question is: What kind of sick animal snuff comic book is this? At the time, though, I couldn’t put it down. I can’t recall a prior instance of such graphic imagery in my reading life. That could be because I don’t recall much of anything before that point.

Bonus points for the trippy artwork elsewhere in the book. There’s something creepy about anthropomorphized animals.

A Book That You Have Read More Than Once: (tie) The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald/The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

I read these two in high school, like a lot of other high-schoolers, but it wasn’t until I read them in a grad-school lit. class that I really understood them.

I think for one to really get Gatsby, they must have loved and lost. Who can really say that in high school? But among adults, who can’t? Guys, who hasn’t gone to great lengths to get a girl or anything else for that matter, only to find out the thing/person you wanted wasn’t what you thought it would be? In Gatsby’s case, his quest ends with him floating around in his fabulous pool with a bullet hole in his head. How’s that for an indictment of the American Dream?

I didn’t feel Hemingway in high school, either. Again, surviving hard times creates a deeper understanding of this book. And makes an excellent case for/against alcoholism. Hang in there, Jake Barnes. Maybe that next drink will be the one that makes you feel better. And Romero the bullfighter, who gets his ass beat by Jake’s friend Cohn, still goes out to fight bulls the next day. Sometimes getting back up isn’t the answer.

A Book That Makes You Laugh: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction by Jon Stewart and the writers at The Daily Show

Hauled this one down from the shelf to get the following quote in the introduction by Thomas Jefferson:

“P.S. Is it true Halle Berry is once again single? If so, I’d be forever in your debt if you would put in a good word for T.J. Oh how I loves the mochachina.”

A Book That Makes You Cry: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

The written word doesn’t usually get me going the way a sad film does (ask my wife. I can’t control myself when I run across Forrest Gump on TV and Forrest comes to visit Jenny and finds little Forrest watching TV in the family room and asks if he’s smart). But the scene where Jane’s little friend dies and she finds her dead in the bed and, grief-stricken, Jane crawls into bed next to her friend kills me.

What can I say? Been listening to too much John Mayer.

A Book You Wish Had Never Been Written: anything by Ann Coulter or Bill O’Reilly

Books You Are Currently Reading:

The Best American Sports Writing 2005: Mike Lupica, editor

The Best American Essays 2005: Robert Atwan, editor

Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After Sept. 11 by Thomas Friedman

Love this guy, though he doesn’t sexually excite me like he does Charlie Rose

Witness to Gettysburg by Richard Wheeler

Was JEB Stuart really a fuck-off? Let’s find out!

Imperial Hubris by Anonymous

Am I going to be on a watch list for checking this out at the public library?

The Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley

A Book You Have Been Meaning To Read: Confederates in the Attic (ever since I moved to Va.). Coincidence it wasn’t at the library when I went Saturday? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

2006-09-21T02:15:00.000-04:00

Famous Inventions Throughout the Ages

1750 -- The first glue patent was issued in Britain for a glue made from fish.

1831 -- Virginia's own Cyrus McCormick invents the first commercially successful reaper

Early-1900s -- Lee Deforest invents AM radio, creating a home for wackos with a phone and no life.

2006 -- A bunch of dudes from the Midwest discover you can make art by shooting cans of Milwaukee's Best Light out of an air cannon at household objects and then filming it.

If There is a God........

2006-09-20T21:04:00.000-04:00

...John Mayer's appearance on CSI tonight will conclude with him on a slab.

"Your body is a wonderland...." ACK!

William Petersen can start at my house when looking for the trigger man.

Suggested headline revision on this picture: John Mayer, Grammy Wiener.

Notes from an Italian Train

2006-09-11T21:48:00.000-04:00

Sept. 12, 2005

Sept. 12 and my thoughts are of America. This morning’s Italian papers spoke briefly in front-page articles about remembrances of Sept. 11 at Ground Zero, but the day itself passed in Florence and Rome without a public nod. Why should it?

Silly, isn’t it, to think anyone here cares? The Italians know from terrorism from the days of the Red Brigade, when the Carabinieri -- the Italian police paramilitary -- was ridiculed as stupid and ineffectual. An Italian friend tells us there were jokes at the time poking fun at the organization when the Red Brigade struck without warning or punishment. I wonder how long it will be – if ever – until there are jokes about the CIA or military intelligence in this country, if there aren’t already and I just don’t know it. Wounds are still too close to the surface for that, I think.

We know the face of fear, if not the faces of our enemies. But even if we don’t know who the attackers will be, they are familiar to us, as the Italians know. They can be us – or the British in London or Spaniards in Madrid or Balinese in Bali or Michiganders in Oklahoma City.

My type of fear is that of a worried traveler on a crowded subway in Rome on Sept. 11, pressing the flesh unwillingly with that seems like a thousand strangers packed into shiny metal boxes in a tube deep in the ground. I wear my backpack on my chest and my money and credit cards in a little cotton pouch against my chest under my shirt.

I feel for hands touching me, but feel none probing for my wallet in what the travel guides call “a city of 24-hour entertainment…restaurants, bars and petty thievery.” Every face is a suspect to me. The fellow by the door was a wandering eye, I notice. The old woman next to me as a light hold on the handrail, ready to let go and fall against me and steal me blind if the train comes to a sudden stop.

I grip my bag tightly against me and pray I’m not victimized when the flood of passengers pouring off the train meets the river flow of bodies trying to get on before the doors close.

Assume you are being stalked, our favorite travel book says. The same one says thieves have taken to disguise themselves as tourists with sport sandals and maps or as businessmen in suits. I look over thoroughly the people around me. Any one of them would be ready to take from me. Any – or none.

I notice that none of them looks at me. Do they notice me at all? Is my fear conspicuous? Does their guilt bring me shame? Do they mean harm? Or are they just silent Americans heading off to the local tourist sites or Romans off to dinner, taking notice of the day? It is hard to know where danger lies, camouflaged in the uniform of everyday clothes; not in the garments of evildoers, but in ourselves.

This Explains It

2006-09-10T13:05:00.000-04:00

So I think this explains why a student hears me "mispronouncing" the name of Jay-Z when I'm talking about N-Sync.

High/Low Point of the Week

2006-09-09T13:51:00.000-04:00

I had to wait until Friday, but the apex and the, um, opposite of the apex, of Week 1 went as follows:

The 10th-graders started on their grammar unit, which began with coordinating conjunctions, which you might remember from 10th-grade English as the conjunctions spelled out in the acronym F.A.N.B.O.Y.S. (for, and, nor, etc.). Well, I constructed this extended (some might say stretched to the point of breaking) metaphor where the FANBOYS were a hot new boy band, complete with a comma as their bodyguard (he always goes in first, just like the comma before the coordinating conjunction). "So," I said, "instead of Justin Timberlake, Lance Bass and J.C. Chasez of N'Sync, remember the FANBOYS."

Then I overhear one of my future Rhodes Scholars say loudly to her neighbor, "Uuuuunh. He doesn't even know how to say his name right."

I pause, but then decide I can't leave this one alone. I'm insulted because it's obvious she didn't heard a thing I said because I beat the FANBOYS horse for a good 10 minutes or so. What she heard was, "Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla J.C. Chasez Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla ." To top it off, she's impugning my limited but concrete knowledge of the boy-band ouvre. I know jack-crap about N'Sync, but for some reason I know the names of these three. So, I pursue it.

What?

----You said his name wrong.

J.C. Chasez?

----Yeah.

How?

----It's pronounced Jay-Z.

Then, on cue, the friend leans over and whispers something in her ear. Suddenly, my critic is quiet. I savor the moment, then move on. Tiny victories.

Starbuck's: Corporate Succubus or Supporter of the Troops?

2006-09-07T21:36:00.000-04:00

I know they're horrible rapists of local economies, but I had to pass along the following note of Starbuck's interest. Anytime I can debunk a good urban myth, I generally do it, even if it's to the benefit of a global economic superpower. And this one's right up there with the one about the African-American kids named Lemonjello and Oranjello (I had someone today try to tell me some shit about how their husband had a pair of twins named thusly in a class he taught).

Our friends at Snopes.com took care of the Starbuck's thing here.

Starbucks' Military Employees Get Special Blend of Support
By Samantha L. Quigley
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7, 2006 – Starbucks didn't just wish then-Army Capt. Matt Parkinson well when he was activated to serve in Iraq as part of the Washington National Guard.
Instead, the company went above and beyond what the federal law requires employers do for activated reserve-component personnel, Parkinson said. The company made up the difference between his civilian and military pay and maintained his benefits while he was activated, between November 2003 and February 2005.

He said his supervisors and friends within the company offered him any support he needed, whether it was personal or job related.

"It's not just me," Parkinson, who's now a major in the Army Reserve, said. "That's how they treat any other partner. It's an amazing place.

"Starbucks is a company with soul," he added.

More than 200 of Starbucks' military partners, as employees are called, have been the beneficiaries of that soul since the beginning of the global war on terrorism, Dave Pace, executive vice president of partner resources, said.

That soul, along with morale-boosting shipments of coffee and mugs to his unit in Iraq, also prompted Parkinson to nominate Starbucks for a Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award. The company is one of 15 employers to receive the award, given by the National Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, a Defense Department agency.

Pace said the company is thrilled with the award and appreciates the recognition, but doesn't help its military employees for the recognition.

"We do this with our military partners, but it really goes to who we are as a company," he said. "Our whole philosophy is, 'How do we take care of our people?' Because we're confident that if we do the right thing for our people that it'll build loyalty and it'll build commitment."

Parkinson said he's come to know during his seven-year tenure with the company that it does the right thing just because it's the right thing. "For example, (Starbucks) provides health care benefits to part-time workers," he noted. "That's something that in no way benefits me directly. However, it definitely is something that gives me tremendous loyalty to this company.

"It's very soothing to your conscience, going to work every day knowing that you're part of a truly great organization," he said.

For Pace, whose brother is a Marine Corps major and served in Iraq, the award has special, personal meaning, he said. "It was important for me to (support) our guys here," he said. "It was a way for me to indirectly support my brother and his colleagues."

Starbucks will receive its award during a ceremony in Washington on Sept. 21.

An Existential Moment

2006-09-06T19:58:00.000-04:00

Having an existential moment today: I'm on the South Beach Diet and longing for Cogan's Thursday (and its attendant pizza and beer), which isn't until tomorrow evening. I guess the comraderie there means that that longing isn't totally without meaning. Looks like another round of Diet Coke and a chicken salad for me!

The first two days of school have been a challenge. Mostly because I'm not used to working for 7 hours straight through (mostly). During the summer it was work at one thing or another for an hour or so -- cleaning or doing laundry, etc. -- then take a leisurely hour-long break with warmed-over coffee and Regis and Kellie. That hour would sometimes stretch into two or three, then I'd have lunch and run errands. This may only embolden the halfwits who say teachers don't work hard year-round, and they're right to a degree. But the thing about the profession I've come to realize is that it's not as tough as diggin' a ditch, but the pace is a killer. Going again from a life of leisure to riding herd over 125 16-18-year-olds has been a shock, indeed.

If I Didn't Laugh, I'd Cry

2006-09-03T16:05:00.000-04:00

Kudos to a kindred spirit over at "Not the Country Club."

An Israeli recently arrives at London's Heathrow airport. As he fills out a form, the customs officer asks him: "Occupation?"

The Israeli promptly replies: "No, just visiting!"

See the rest of these funny/not funny jokes here.

It's That Time of Year.........

2006-09-02T20:12:00.000-04:00

Today I spent one of my last free weekend afternoons the way such a beautiful day should be spent...watching a high school football game. School begins Tuesday and soon there will be papers, tests and quizzes to grade, lesson plans to write, assinine paperwork to complete. For the record, the home team (my school) was defeated by a team from the other side of the harbor, 25-17, though our boys were in the game most of the first three quarters.

It is quite something to attend a game at which one knows many of the players. Our varsity football lineup is like a veritable English 10/11 all-star team from my classes last year. To have been through a year with them and struggled, at times, along with them through various academic difficulties forms a sort of bond of which I was not aware until today. Truth be told, I never thought I had a great relationship with the football kids. Save for a couple, they were among the most challenging students I had in classes. Not coincidentally, they also came the most challenging backgrounds. One kid, who I saw returning punts today, had his father die during the 05-06 school year. He and his buddy, who starts in the defensive backfield, were always problematic in my sixth-bell class. No surprises there, I guess.

But it was definitely fun to sit up there and cheer on players whose names I heard announced from the press box. And for those who play football, I can say from the one game I attended last year, they seem to appreciate the support. And I came to appreciate having something in common with them after enduring their eye-rolling when I tried to engage them for the umpteenth time about James Bond films.

Though it's hard to get poetically romantic about colorful leaves, cheerleaders, marching bands, etc., at any football game at which one gets sunburned, it made made me think about how different h.s. football is in Virginia, compared to "back home" in Greater Cincinnati. Fewer people in the stands here; more, shall we say "theatrical" marching band performances here; about twice as many players on the field here, compared to the small high school I attended in Erlanger, Ky.

But I couldn't help think about the most beautiful football poem I know, which reflects on the Ohio h.s. football thing, which isn't that different from the Kentucky football thing. Only difference: The Ohio teams always kill the Kentucky teams when they play. But seriously, the damned thing gives me chills every time I read it. It speaks to the intersection of football and life in a small town, which I don't think this area has. Besides the football parents, I don't know anyone in our city who lives and dies with the local high school football teams.

I give you.....

Autumn Begins In Martins Ferry, Ohio
By James Wright

In the Shreve High football stadium,
I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville,
And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood,
And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,
Dreaming of heroes.

All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home.
Their women cluck like starved pullets,
Dying for love.

Therefore,
Their sons grow suicidally beautiful
At the beginning of October,
And gallop terribly against each other's bodies.

Meet the Big Macaca

2006-09-01T11:53:00.000-04:00

Here's a picture of Virginia Sen. George Allen, whose name you might have seen in the news recently. He's the simian (maybe he DOES have a shot at the presidency!) ass-clown in the center of the frame, next to a certain AP correspondent. Speaking to the media throng is former N.Y.C. Mayor Rudy Giuliani. The two politicos were in town to discuss security at the port of Hampton Roads.

No, in this picture, Allen has not just grabbed my wife's behind, though you'd never know from the s--t-eating grin on his stupid mug.

You've Got to Be a Football Hero...

2006-09-01T11:43:00.000-04:00

One of my sisters in the Pacific Northwest sent this article about her son, the football/track wiz. Yes, there is some athletic talent in our family.

2006-08-31T18:09:00.000-04:00

Monty Python - Johann Gambolputty

Why is it the world will never remember the name of one of its most famous composers?

Next Thing You Know, She'll Have "People"

2006-08-16T19:53:00.000-04:00

A certain AP correspondent was on the airwaves AGAIN today when Accomack County officials ruled in favor of the family of Abraham Cherrix, left, the Eastern Shore 16-year-old who sought the right to have a say in his treatment for lymphoma.

Keeping a close watch on that head of hers...

Like When I Realized Casey Kasem Was The Voice of Shaggy

2006-08-14T13:31:00.000-04:00

There's a tab you can pick up around Norfolk called The Downtowner. In the most recent issue, I ran across the following column. Promising writer. I hope things work out for her.

Corporate Rock-n-Roll Camp

2006-08-14T09:11:00.000-04:00

Buried on page A7 of today's Wall Street Journal is an ad for something called the Corporate Rock-n-Roll Fantasy Camp, coming to a "city near you" soon. "Live the fantasy," the ad says.

See? I'm not the only one!

Sept. 10 in Columbus, campers will perform in a "Battle of the Bands" with Teddy Andreadis of Guns-n-Roses (who?), Simon Kirke of Bad Co. ("Shooting Star," the best of the dead rock star anthems), Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, far left, of the Doobie Brothers (Thank-You Jesus, no Michael McDonald -- he's the prick in the center) and Kelly Keagy of Night Ranger. The winners of the battle will serve as the opening act in a concert by Def leppard and Journey. Score!

In February 207 in Hollywood, a special five-day camp will feature Mickey Hart of The Grateful Dead (BYOS -- Bring Your Own 'Shrooms). A similar camp in May in London features Jack Bruce of Cream (if he's still alive by then; dude is like 80).

Shame on camp organizers for hiding the candy, so to speak. Other counselors include Peter Tork of The Monkees and Kip Winger of the seminal hair band Winger.

Pat Prays for Israeli Victory

2006-08-10T13:42:00.000-04:00

Well, this explains all the added rocket fire into Israeli territory in the past couple of days....................

Pat Robertson Prays for Israeli Victory

The Associated Press
Wednesday, August 9, 2006; 7:05 PM

JERUSALEM -- U.S. televangelist Pat Robertson said he joined hands Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to pray for victory in Lebanon.

"I'm here to say I love Israel. I'm here to say evangelical Christians in America stand with Israel in their struggle," Robertson told reporters. "For all our sakes, they cannot lose this struggle."

Say It Ain't So

2006-08-09T17:09:00.000-04:00

In honor of Joe Lieberman's primary defeat and subsequent filing of papers to run in the fall as an independent, I reluctantly bring you this oldie-but-goodie leftover from the, ulp , ill-fated 2000 presidential election.

AN OILY ALLEGORY

2006-08-07T22:39:00.000-04:00

In a mythical town in Alaska, there is a bakery. Let's call it BP -- Bakery Products…LLC.

And suppose that, one sunny day, the baker there discovers that he has left the lid off the flour buckets and that some worms had gotten into the flour. Or maybe he discovers that the flour has been dumped out on the factory floor, ostensibly ruining his supply. This writer expects that, in the latter case, the owners of BP would, instead of getting new flour, scoop the old stuff up and continue with the baking. Then they'd tell you that there had been a hurricane or something and that, due to unforeseen circumstances, the price of bread would go up exponentially and apologize in a written statement read on CNN by the bakery's CEO. But, I digress.

The baker, having discovered the worms, would say "Oops, I have made a mistake." The baker's superior would, no doubt, be upset when he realized he would have to shut down production of the bakery until the problem was sorted out. And, if in the process of cleaning up the plant, the manager discovered that the lids on ALL the flour buckets were defective, the plant would need to be shut down for some time. Who would pay for the new lids at the bakery? If this WAS bread-making, the manufacturer would probably, ahem, eat the cost of the lids. If they tried to pass the costs on to the consumer and, instead of $1.29, BP bread now cost $4 a loaf, there would be no French Revolutionary riots. People would simply switch brands or go on another Atkins kick and stop eating bread altogether.

And what if, sometime before that, BP had begun adding crack cocaine to their bread to make it irresistible to their customers. People would become addicted to the stuff. They would HAVE TO HAVE their BP Bread. People would be lining up around corners to get it. People would be dying for it. And, in the same breaths with which they decried the cost of a loaf, people would say that we should be thankful. People in Europe pay a much higher amount for a kilo of bread, they'd say in grave tones, though they really don’t even know how much a kilo is. But all the while, they would grow more bloated and gassy from the bread they have already eaten, while plotting from whence their next loaf would come.

If bread were that addictive, would there be any limit to how much BP could charge us for a loaf? A slice?

Godspeed, John Glenn

2006-08-02T07:05:00.000-04:00

A certain AP correspondent I know (well) recently went to Jamestown to report a most unique story.

As the AP puts it:

In May 2006, a piece of history set sail. The Godspeed -- a replica of one of the three ships that carried the first settlers to Jamestown in 1607 -- set off on an 80-day tour of the East Coast. The AP toured the vessel as it made its way up Chesapeake Bay.

Check out the link below. Scroll down until you spot the Godspeed photo. Then, shout out, "Ahoy."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/fronts/US?SITE=TXBAY&SECTION=HOME

Kids' T-shirts Say the Darnedest Things

2006-08-01T08:58:00.000-04:00

T-shirt I saw on a camper this morning:

Rehab is for Quitters

A Good Day at the Ballpark is Better Than….

2006-07-31T15:42:00.000-04:00

After Saturday's 16-hour marathon of cat herding with the Runamok campers Saturday in D.C., I took a break from camp Saturday and took in the Orioles vs. the hated Chicago White Sox in Baltimore.

I'm not installing myself as a ballpark expert because I haven't seen them all or even many of them, but I have seen a few and I may have found the best one. Fittingly, it was the first of the new retro parks of the early-90's: Baltimore's Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

Now, of that generation of parks, the only one I have to compare it to is Cleveland's Jacobs Field, which previously was the nicest one, IMHO, and Cincinnati's Great American Ballpark. All of those, along with just about any stadium since 1992 -- when Camden opened -- were designed by the Kansas City architectural firm of Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum. But of all their parks, Camden Yards remains the state of the art.

What makes it so good? Any number of things, including:

* The B&O Railroad Warehouse that was made a part of the development and dominates the view in right field;

* The air-conditioned club level that rings the stadium. Even the commoners sitting in the sun-baked outdoor seats can take refuge inside, where rich woodwork and stone tile floors suggest a mall or a tavern, rather than a ballpark concourse.

* The blocked-off part of Eutaw Street that runs along the front of the warehouse. Countless varieties of microbrews and food are there, as well as souvenir stands and the O's team shop.

* Boog Powell's BBQ on the right-field plaza in front of the warehouse, which serves up piles of grilled meat in platter- or sandwich-sized portions with beans and slaw. Top it all off at the condiment stand across the way, where you can smother your spread with spicy barbecue sauce or ketchup or dig into sliced onions or pearly piles of horseradish.

* Camden Cares: The Orioles really know how to take care of their fans. On a recent humid-96-degree Saturday, they had stations giving out cups of free ice and a mist station.

May All Your Dreams Die Peacefully

2006-07-24T18:42:00.000-04:00

An old dream bit the big one today, one I didn't realize I had. Like anyone who sings in the shower or in the car along with the radio, I always assumed I could sing passably and wouldn't it be great if, one day, I had my own rock band. I'd fantasize about names for my band (Jif and the Choosy Mothers was my favorite). It's all part of my rock-n-roll fantasy to be a jukebox hero.

Well, today at camp, I was supervising a group of campers in their dorm when one of them hauls out his electric guitar, a small amp and a book called "The Greatest Rock Guitar Fake Book," from which he has learned the power chords to "Crazy Train," "Rock You Like a Hurricane" and the like. Well, he starts playing "Smoke on the Water" (duh-duh-DAH, duh-duh-da-DAH) and I walk past the room and stop. I urge a couple of the kids to sing along and they won't and the player says, "C'mon, I've got the words right here in the book." When no one jumps up, I take that as an an invitation and walk over and pick up the book.

To put it mildly, I sucked. I was beyond bad. It even shocked me how bad I was. The room cleared quicker than a fire drill before I even got through the first verse. To sing in the shower is one thing, but to actually sing with someone playing along is another matter. Old dreams die hard, but it was a peaceful death. In my next lifetime, however, I hope it will be different.

Funny moment today in writers workshop: Students did interviews of their partners as an ice-breaker. We had an odd # students, so I interviewed a kid from D.C. who goes to St. Albans. One of the questions I put on the board asked, "Something that would surprise people about me is ______________." The kid thought a long time and answered that he was on a swim team. Whoopee.

The last question was "What's the coolest thing you've seen?" He answered, "Andrews Air Force Base."
Me: "Really! Do you have relatives in the service or did you take a tour?"
"No," he said, "I've been there with my grandma."
Me: "Your grandmother. Cool. What does she do at the base?"
"Nothing. I had to go there to get on Air Force One with her to go to New York."
Me: "Wait a minute...Air Force One? Why was she on Air Force One?"
"She used to be secretary of state under President Clinton."
Pause.
Me: "Your grandmother is Madeleine Albright?"
"Yep, we see her all the time."

Yep. Apparently the kid had been on the plane with Granny Albright and met and had his picture taken with Bill Clinton in the Oval Office. The kid's brother also was there at the time and got to climb through a trap door that exists under the president's desk. Two thoughts: 1) I hope the brother was wearing protective gear when he went under there and 2) even in its inappropriateness, this was probably one of the more appropriate things to have gone on under that desk.

According to the kid, Granny is mighty pissed off about the Israeli conflict. She told him she worked hard to get things straightened out over there during her time, he said, and the Bush administration has pissed it all away (my phrasing).

Blackhawks Down...

2006-07-23T20:05:00.000-04:00

Kudos to the governor of Pennsylvania Avenue for cluing me in on the term "blackhawk" in reference to mothers, especially of the sports variety, who hover over their childrens' every move. Today saw an aerial assault of Somalian proportions as the young creative writers finally descended on our mountainous location.

The kids hadn't even unpacked when the drama began. One mom made a point of seeking me out after a general introductory meeting just to introduce herself and make sure I knew who her son was. Another mother tried unsuccessfully to switch roommates when the camp administrator had purposefully tried to separate the woman's daughter from her best friend because the two live 5 miles apart. Ironically, another mother bustled into her daughter's room and started rearranging her roommate's things to accommodate the daughter (who had registered as a resident camper, withdrew, then signed up again as a resident) while the kids were down the hall doing some sort of team-building activity. Awkward moment when the roommate walked in on them. On the flip side, kudos to the parents of one girl who sent their daughter ALONE on an airplane from Seattle to our secure, undisclosed location. They'll never fit in if they try to one day join the blackhawk fleet.

Funny moment this morning when a group of Japanese ESL (English as a second language) campers living elsewhere in my dorm nearly fell at my feet when I got up from this computer, allowing them to resume their role-playing computer game. Damned if I say for sure what this game is except to say that when they play it, they're hootin' and hollerin' to beat the band. Dem jenks must be sweet, yo.

Anyway, the little video crackheads practically tripped over themselves to get into position as I left the room and, in perfect English, I heard one of them say, "Mister, I love you."

Tenting Tonight...........

2006-07-21T22:45:00.000-04:00

The next few Plague dispatches will be from Camp Runamok (not its real name), a summer retreat for young writers ages 10-14 at a ritzy private school somewhere on the Eastern seaboard. Traffic around a certain megalopolis about 3 hours from home was fucked up as usual, but I still beat the Google maps time by 60 minutes. What the hell is that pyramid on the east side of I-95 near Quantico?

The dorm where I'm staying is basically empty and quiet as hell right now, but starting on Sunday this place will be crawling with kids. The actual teaching, which I'll be doing, begins on Monday. My subject area: short fiction -- another genre for which I was prepared by 10 years of newspaper reporting.

I'm gonna try and dial up Jon Stewart on the satellite in the student lounge before heading off to bed. Planning day tomorrow, followed by another meeting and dinner at the new Irish pub in town, where I'm told they feature the Dogfish family of microbrews. YES! Exactly how Irish that makes the bar, I'm not sure.

Another beer note: If you go to a bar, say, in Ocean View, and order a pint of, say, Anchor Steam and they serve it in a pint glass with a big Guinness logo on the side, should you feel like you're doing something wrong?

Utah Journal Pt. II

2006-07-12T21:21:00.000-04:00

Utah is a place of great natural beauty, no doubt. So I'm definitely not talking about the women with huge implants (modestly covered with multiple layers of clothing, of course). We had brunch at Robert Redford's Sundance resort just up the road (it was fabulous) and enjoyed the scenic Wasatch mountain range, including views of the imposing Mount Timpanogos, left. I capped off my visit with a hike up the side of the famous (to me at least) Y Mountain near the Brigham Young University campus. It's the mountain you can see from the football stadium with the Y painted on the side.

Here it is from far away:

Here from up close (look close and you can see people walking on it):

This is another of the sports pilgrimages I've made, most of which most people wouldn't give a crap about (walking the Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland, peering inside the gate at the U.S. Tennis Center in NYC, sneaking into Cameron Indoor Stadium at Duke, sitting in the endzone at Michigan Stadium). What can I say other than it's fun to see in person places I've seen on TV a hundred times.

From a distance, the Y doesn't look like much, but up close you can see that the thing is 380 feet high, a bed of concrete over rock that has been painted white. People also were walking across the face of the Y, which I wouldn't recommend, considering I practically busted my ass climbing the last 30 steep yards of the walking trail up to the letter. Closer inspection reveals that pieces of the rock have been weathered away and the trail below the letter is littered with chunks of rock that are, um, rock colored on one side and white on the other. Question: Is it illegal to take artifacts from a state park if the artifacts have been defaced with white paint?

The Utah motto "hydrate or die" was definitely worth following. I was mighty glad to have my water bottle with me, even given the pre-dawn time frame of my hike. I hadn't hiked at altitude before and by about the second 100 yards, I was gassed. I caught up with a family visiting from Arizona, who told me that breathing hard, even on a modest uphill climb like this one, doesn't necessarily mean one is out of shape. I thought I was in pretty good condition from my running regimen, but afterwards I wasn't so sure. It took about an hour of moderately difficult hiking to get to the top of the Y, but nature has a way of repaying you for making an effort. The Utah Valley at sunrise was a sight. That's Utah Lake in the frame, not the great salty one everybody hears about.

Plus, the July Fourth festivities continued that morning with a hot air balloon race (check out the balloons in the middle of the frame), so by the time I made my descent, they were everywhere.

As I made my way home across the BYU campus, I had the sunroof open and I heard what I thought was a REALLY loud lawn sprinkler and looked up to see the basket of one of the balloons about a hundred feet above me. Made a quick turn into a parking lot and took this shot.

Who Thought THIS was a Good Idea?

2006-07-12T21:06:00.000-04:00

Bizarre Beer Brief of the Day: Energy Beers Boost Brewing Industry

World Cup Wrap-Up

2006-07-09T21:11:00.000-04:00

I interrupt my Utah travelogue for this World Cup note. Italy topped France today in the WC final on penalty kicks after 90 minutes of regulation play, two 15-minute overtimes.

PKs are a poor way to decide a world championship, by the way. The teams choose five of their best players and then they take turns peppering the other team's goalie with shots and whoever makes the most wins. All this can be complicated when your goalie -- France's keeper Fabien Barthez, for example -- goes down easier than an old French whore, left, allowing shot after shot to find the net.

In this critical phase, France was without its best player and penalty kicker, Zinedine Zidane, far left, who was sent off for headbutting an Italian player during the second overtime. Damnedest thing I've ever seen. The guy was in line for sainthood, if you listened to the announcers who called the game, the second coming of the second coming, if you will. Then, in his last World Cup game before retirement, he gets into a scrum with the Italian guy and turns around and BAM, nails the guy in the middle of the chest with his head, knocking his opponent ass-over-applecart. Folks, that's an automatic red card for a flagrant foul and just like that, France is down one player. The team seemed like it had been kicked in the noisettes from there. End of story. The cup now resides in Italy. We should all be so lucky. And if you read the Euro press on the matter, Zidane finishes his career in disgrace.

Utah Pt. I

2006-07-05T16:58:00.000-04:00

Returned last night from Utah, celebrating the Fourth (albeit early) and visiting a couple of friends of ours.

Decided to sit out the Hampton Roads fireworks celebrations Tuesday night; we had seen two displays already, one Monday at the Orem Owlz rookie-league baseball contest with Idaho Falls (HOOT!) and a HUGE one, titled "Stadium of Fire," Saturday night at a sold-out Brigham Young University football stadium.

Let's first deal with Saturday's event as a whole. I'm told that Provo, where BYU is, is the most conservative city in the U.S., so there was plenty of flag-wavin', troop-huggin' and tissue-clutchin' going on to begin with. There were a blue million cheerleaders, a flag corps, skydivers, a choir, a flyover of F-16's and a tank that joined in the festivities by firing a shot during the national anthem. No, Lee Greenwood wasn't on the bill, but there were appearances by country singer Lee Ann Womack, American Idol winner Taylor Hicks (in his first public concert appearance) and a battle of the bands featuring Queen, Abba and Beach Boys tribute acts.

I'm not a nouveau country fan at all, so Womack did nothing for me going in and I've never seen an entire episode of American Idol, though, god help me, Hicks has been featured in this blog simply on his trademark hair color (see "Gray is the New Black" below). I was supremely stoked about the tribute bands and, surprisingly, concert organizers found a way to screw that up.

The Queen act was a sight. I had wondered which Freddy Mercury era the lead singer would go for and, yep, we got the "safe" Freddy (sans bondage gear) of the early 90s, though it appeared the corpulent chap singing Mercury's part had recently eaten a couple of the original bandmembers. The guy playing lead guitar wore a fucked up afro wig in an effort to look like Brian May. Yes, they played "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" and, no, the band did not play the gay anthem "We Are The Champions" after "We Will Rock You." Conspiracy?

The Beach Boys act was passable, though they were so bad it seemed they were imitating the incarnation of the group still plugging away on the state fair circuit. The winners should have been the Abba tribute, who had some in the crowd singing along with their version of "Dancing Queen" and other hits. Each group played two songs and, when it came time for the Beach Boys ultimate number, to my shock and horror, the other two bands joined in and hugged and swayed to "Good Vibrations." Puke. There would be no winner in this battle. It was amusing to see Fat Freddy arm-in-arm with the Abba girls. I thought art imitated life.

Spooky moment when Taylor Hicks began his three-song performance with the Doobie Brothers' "Takin' It To The Streets," confirming my suspicion that the new blue-eyed soul crooner (WHOOOOOOO! SOUL PATROL!) and former Doobie Michael McDonald are the same person. It's the hair. And the voice. Hicks' performance style mirrored Elaine Benes' dance moves: a full-body dry heave set to music. In a few years, no one will remember who the fuck Taylor Hicks is and he, too, will be playing the summer concert circuit, sodomizing 60's soul music the way McDonald does today.

Speaking of Frogs

2006-06-28T17:04:00.000-04:00

Speaking of Frogs

Went searching for content and found this gem, a blast from my past. Enjoy the wry social commentary. Or just the music.

The Summer of Al

2006-06-27T11:21:00.000-04:00

Going tonight to see the Al Gore film "An Inconvenient Truth." Truth be told, this is one I probably wouldn't be going to of my own accord; friends invited my wife and me to come along with them. In fact, she was shocked when I told her I accepted the invitation, owing, I think, to my pained reaction (Yawn, another Al Gore lecture) when we saw the trailer before "A Prairie Home Companion." (OK, raise your hands if you saw PHC and are planning on seeing the Gore film. Theatres might as well make this a double feature for all the liberal NPR synergy here)

Extra points will be given if Gore says the word "lockbox" or does the Macarena.

Interesting C-SPAN moment over the weekend. I was flipping around and found video of Gore's book signing at a D.C.-area bookstore a couple weeks ago. So there's Al signing his heart out with people coming up and telling him they voted for him in 2000, etc. Then, who walks up but Ralph Nader!! If I had seen this anywhere but C-SPAN, I'd think it was rigged. This was something you definitely wouldn't trust if you saw it on a reality TV program. So Ralph apparently bought a book and brings it up to have it signed. Gore stands up and shakes the man's hand and asks how he's been. Then there was some unintelligible dialogue, then Gore sits down and signs the book. They shake hands again and then Nader shuffles away.

So I'm thinking, "What the fuck was that about?!" I would've given about a million dollars to be inside that wooden head of Gore's just then. If his eyes were darting around to see if the cameras were still on, I didn't catch it. At very least, I'll bet under his breath he cursed Nader's mom.

So after that I was thinking about Gore's charm offensive with the book and the movie, book signings, talk shows, etc. Could it be he's positioning himself among a presently weak 2008 Democratic candidate crop? Granted, the interviews I've seen with Gore have been pretty sharp. He rips Bush for being incurious across the board: global warming, long-term effects in Iraq, etc. Of course, maybe that's just piling on at this point. He's also demurred when it comes to his candidacy -- probably a smart move for anyone at this time. At any rate, he came across as classy, understated and intelligent.

Flashback: Remember the days when people chose the "unintelligence" and steadfastness of Bush over the slick smugness of Clinton/Gore? Seven years after the 2000 election, who among the voting public still feels like Bush is trustworthy?

But when I see Gore, I can't get past that patrician air of his. I think it's his nose. The guy looks like Roman sculpture from the neck up (below, not so much). And the problem is, I think people who are undecided, or would be, won't vote for this guy just because -- because they remember his petulance from 2000, because he still looks like a snob, because they still associate him with Bill Clinton. (Remember Gore's disappearing act during the Clinton impeachment trial? In those innocent days, a "secure undisclosed location" was anywhere Clinton wasn't).

I hope the party can do better.

What'd You Do This Summer?

2006-06-25T16:15:00.000-04:00

So what do teachers do during the summer?

Everything they can't do during the school year because they're grading your kids' crappy research papers and worksheets.

Personally, I've been filling my time by sleeping in late, rebuilding up miles on my running regimen and watching World Cup soccer. And, I've resolved to catch up on all the films I've meant to see but haven't over the past year. This includes re-viewing some of my favorites from the recent past and there's no better place for this than one's local public library. The library system here in Norfolk is blessed with a pretty good DVD and VHS collection. You get them for a week and they're absolutely free. So, if you want to see "American Beauty" again, but can't justify the rental to yourself or others, or if you really can't decide if you want to commit financially to "Paradise Now," this is perfect.

Along these lines, we re-viewed "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" last night. If you missed it in 2004, check it out. It's worth the price of a rental at your locally owned video store (NO film is worth going to Blockbuster). If you liked Jim Carrey as Ace Ventura, rent that instead. He's great in "Sunshine" and understated, even by "Truman Show" standards. Practically everyone else in the cast is good too: Kate Winslet, Tom Wilkinson, Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo (shout out to Virginia Beach's First Colonial HS, Mark's alma mater), Elijah Wood, David Cross.

This is a drastic oversimplification, but the plot goes like this: Carrey plays sadsack Joel, who meets and falls in love with Winslet's Clementine. They have a falling out and she pays a doctor to erase Carrey from her memory. Everything's fine until Carrey finds out, gets pissed and decides to have HER erased from his mind, only to remember why he loved her in the first place and then trying madly to hang on to the memories of her even as the doctor (Wilkinson) and his colleagues are doing their work. (Great Dialogue: Joel: Is there any risk of brain damage? Doctor: Well, technically speaking, the operation IS brain damage, but on a par with a night of heavy drinking. Nothing you'll miss.)

Beyond that, suffice to say that the rest of the film consists of the characters' present-day selves reappearing in Joel's memories as they are falling apart or disappearing. It's really touching stuff, especially for those who have loved, lost and wanted to scrub their consciousness of certain people. Would you if you could? The film says that even if you did, certain things can't be erased. Wilkinson's character at one point had an affair with Dunst's and her memory was erased, but she is STILL attracted to him. Joel and Clementine, in a twist that disappointed some on the movie critic site rottentomatoes.com, end up together because they realize they were in love at some point.

God Save the Queen!

2006-06-25T13:37:00.000-04:00

Just finished watching England's 1-0 triumph over Ecuador in the World Cup. This sets up a probable quarterfinal matchup between the men of St. George, including Wayne Rooney, left, and the Netherlands, provided the Dutch can get the job done later today. Note: the English haven't made it to a World Cup final since 1966, so let's not upset Cubs fans everywhere with talk of how long-suffering English soccer hooligans are.

The match was an example of everything I love about the World Cup and soccer in general. Two pretty good teams (at this point in the Cup matches, they're all pretty good by virtue of surviving the round-robin portion of the draw), a lively crowd (soccer fans are the only ones I have seen who sing LOUDLY during a match -- nothing better, by the way, than a rousing chorus of "God Save the Queen" by 50,000 or so fans. I figure you have to be pretty damn loud to be heard on a TV broadcast) and spirited play all around.

A few words about England's David Beckham: No, he's not the soccer stud he once was, but he can still deliver on occasion. Witness his stellar free kick in the second half. The thing went up and over a group of defenders, then down quickly, curving away from the goalkeeper as it found the back of the net. Still, the weak-ass American announcers made a big deal until then of saying how Beckham didn't belong on the field and that he slowed the game down too much. But still, there he was bringing home the breakfast meat for his side. Even after that point, the commentators kept up their assault. Beckham is still too old and slow, despite remaining a threat during set plays. Pity the man who's considered washed up in his thirties!

It'd be interesting if, as I've heard a few times recently, Beckham retired from his club team in Madrid and came to play in the states. As said before, he's not the player he once was and, if anything, he's now a more consistently known pop culture figure than a world-class football star. My guess is the American celeb watchers (I just can't call them the PRESS) would have a field day with Becks and his wife, the former Posh Spice, but can anything top the tabloidal bashing these two have received in their home country? See the following story, titled "Beckham orders pink mobile phone." Link: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=32448. Regardless of its full meaing, check out the last sentence: "Becks has history with mobile phones, of course. His steamy text messages to Rebecca Loos eventually turned her into a pig-pleasuring media star." Even Inside Edition wouldn't do this type of thing.

End-of-Year Fun

2006-06-11T19:53:00.000-04:00

Fun is pretty hard to come by this tie of year, so you take it pretty much where you can find it.

For example, I'm grading personal essays written by my 10th-grade English class, and I come across one about one of my favorite topics: music. The kid writing it is pretty cool by 10th-grade standards and we've had many short conversations about AC/DC, Zeppelin, etc. I was heartened as I read that he also likes bluegrass and his dad gave him an old Rickenbacker guitar.

OK, so he's writing this time about his flirtation with grunge music, which I think is pretty funny for someone who's 16 years old. In other words, he was in diapers the first time Eddie Vedder rolled his eyes back in his head. So I'm reading along and I come upon the following phrase:

"Me and my friends would just sit around and listen to Temple of the Dog, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Screaming Trees and Sonic Youth. We used to go around with long hair, plaid shits (sic) and Converse All-Stars."

Now, I never met any of those bands, but in pictures they all LOOKED like they smelled a little funky. Now I know for sure.

I've also had a good time recently reading student evaluations of my teaching. Some of my more senior colleagues have apparently given up doing this because when I asked for samples of a form I could use, they just shrugged their shoulders. Kudos to my history and English peeps who came through for me.

Notable responses thus far:

Q: What should your teacher do LESS of?
A: Look funny

Q: Did you find this class challenging and/or interesting?
A: No, because it was to (sic) easy.
Apparently a little TOO easy!

Q: What should your teacher do MORE of?
A: Sit down and take a chill pill.

Same question, but different response from another student...
A: Tell unfunny jokes
Note to self: make sure to break out A-list material next year. I'll start with "The Aristocrats"

It All Started Here

2006-06-05T20:29:00.000-04:00

One of the coolest things about the part of Virginia where we live is the high concentration of historical sites. Within an hour's drive, one can check out the beginning of the colonial period -- where English settlers landed at Cape Henry and the first permanent English settlement in the New World at Jamestown -- and the end of the colonial period at the Yorktown battlefield, where George Washington (sorry, Mr. Holman) finished off the Brits in the Revolutionary War. Note to our British friends...sure, we had help from the French. But we still kicked your collective ass.

In case you've been living under a rock for the past few months, next year marks the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown. A certain Associated Press correspondent recently waxed poetic on the topic of the quadricentennial for AP's travel Podcast series: http://www.idiotvox.com/Travel/PodCast_Review_AP_Travel_Tips_and_Trips__13730.html

What a voice! I think I'll marry her.

And she makes a good point: the reason Plymouth, Mass., gets all the pub for being the first settlement, despite being founded 13 years AFTER Jamestown, is because it's a sexier story. They have the whole religious freedom thing going for them, along with the first Thanksgiving and charming pilgrims in funny hats and buckled shoes. Jamestown was pretty much a commercial venture. And while people know the story of John Smith and Pocahontas, that tale -- albeit a tall one -- never resonated with people the way Plymouth did.

Gimme a Break!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-06-04T20:55:00.000-04:00

Basic cable on the weekends can be a hit-and-miss affair. But there's always something interesting on C-SPAN2, which on Saturdays and Sundays turns its programming over to BookTV and its continuing series of conversations with nonfiction authors on all sorts of topics. Favorite programs they've done in the past include Tim O'Brien and Sarah Vowell.

Ordinarily, I'll give a few moments during my strobe-like channel flipping if I see someone I recognize (today I saw "Blackhawk Down" author Mark Bowden being interviewed wearing sport sandals and an open-collared shirt. Has this guy not been cashing his advance checks?). But I stuck around anyway yesterday when I looked in and saw Super Tool John Stossel of ABC's 20/20. If you don't know who he is, consider yourself fortunate. But maybe you do anyway. He's the creator of the "GIMME A BREAK" segments seen on that show. They routinely feature Stossel and his Tom Selleck castoff mustache shedding light on scams and schemes that are fleecing Americans of their hard-earned dollars. The 'stache, I suppose, gives him some sort of gravitas with the 75-and-over set who watch 20/20. They're thinking Clark Gable; I'm thinking Magnum P.I.

And the guy has written not one, but two books. The latest is called "Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel—Why Everything You Know is Wrong." This should have been my first clue to find something else. Clue No. 2 -- the lecture on his book was given at the Cato Institute. But watch I did. Stossel was making a point about how the education system needs to be more like the business world; competition would make our kids smarter and our schools better. Seldom does something I see on TV leave me slack-jawed, but the following passage did so:

Another myth is that teachers are underpaid. Under what? What does that mean in a free society? In America, you have 5-10 applicants for every teaching job. Teaching isn't underpaid. It's a joyous job. Lots of people want to do that. You get to help children. Plus teachers make $7,000 above the average wage in America. And don’t forget they get lots of time off. They get the summers off, so the government says that if you do an hour-by-hour comparison, teachers make more than chemists, psychiatrists, registered nurses, computer programmers.

Pay particular attention to the blue part. I'm not sure about how many people apply for teaching jobs these days, but is he kidding about teaching salaries? Lots of time off? For someone who purports to be busting myths, he's subscribing to a whopper of a misconception that people have about teaching. Granted, at one point I shared his view before I took up the calling. And sure, on paper it looks like long, luxurious summers of rest and relaxation. But what doesn't show up in Stossel's calculation or those done in the minds of the public at large are the hours I and my colleagues spend at home at night and on weekends, writing lesson plans and grading essays and other assignments. Trying really hard not to play the martyred teacher here, but it really irks me when people flat-out get things wrong about what goes on inside schools like mine. Unless those registered nurses are rolling their patients home in their hospital beds and the chemists pack their beekers and Bunsen burners home on the weekends, as far as I'm concerned there is no comparison. I'm not seeking sympathy or special attention on this, nothing save for simple accuracy. It's this simple: at the end of the year, when you weigh the nights and weekends against the summer, it all comes out in the wash.

Apparently, Stossel's readers aren't the only ones who need to read "Why Everything You Know is Wrong."

The rest of the Stossel screed is available in MP3 and RealAudio streaming formats at: http://www.cato.org/events/060523bf.html.

As Mayor of the Chocolate City.................

2006-05-21T19:28:00.000-04:00

With Ray Nagin securing victory in the New Orleans mayoral election and given his pledge to rebuild it as a "chocolate city" as the Katrina cleanup continues, one wonders if an influx of Oompah-Loompahs can be far off. And would anyone in the French Quarter even bat an eye?

I always thought the Mississippi looked a little chocolatey where it flows past the Crescent City. And try to tell me you wouldn't love to see Nagin in this.................... Surely George W. would.

A Horse is a Horse.............

2006-05-21T13:47:00.000-04:00

I didn't see the Preakness live, but the clips of Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro from yesterday's race brought back some memories - bad ones, truth be told. If you missed it, the Associated Press put it this way:

Barbaro breaks down as Bernardini wins Preakness

BALTIMORE -- Barbaro was rarin' to go. The unbeaten Kentucky Derby winner gave jockey Edgar Prado every indication he was set for the race of his life.

The strapping bay colt was bucking in the starting gate at Pimlico Race Course and actually broke through early. All seemed well after Prado reined him in and returned to the No. 6 gate for a second start.

About 12 seconds later, the question was no longer whether Barbaro would win the Triple Crown but whether he would survive at all.

After galloping only a few hundred yards in the Preakness, Barbaro's right rear leg flared out and he veered sideways while eight rivals passed him.

The record crowd of 118,402 watched in shock as Prado pulled the powerful horse to a stop and jumped off. With Barbaro still on the track and running on three legs, there wasn't much enthusiasm for the finish, especially with many of the fans in tears.

Bernardini won the $1-million US race, beating Sweetnorthernsaint by 5 1/4 lengths.

The story reminded me of one from around 1975 or so, when a horse named Ruffian went down in a match race with Foolish Pleasure.As if the sight of a horse hobbling along the track wasn't enough, I was shocked to find out that horses often didn't, ahem, recover from injuries like Ruffian's.

Equinenet has an excellent account of Ruffian's breakdown. Check it out; the similarities are striking: http://www.equinenet.org/heroes/ruffian.html

UPDATE: Barbaro in surgery today. The Daily Racing Form reports:

Surgery for Barbaro, the Kentucky Derby winner who was seriously injured in the Preakness Stakes on Saturday at Pimlico, began shortly after 12:30 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday at the George D. Widener Hospital for Large Animals at the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center in Kennett Square, Pa.

Barbaro updates: http://www.drf.com/