spare change?

I remember taking both macro and micro economics during my foray at the University of Iowa: I hated them both, but for different reasons. All you need to know about my micro economics class was that it was in the basement of a very old university building at 7:30am two days a week.

"When we add an additional trillion dollars to the debt, the burden of the taxpayer, sooner or later there's got to be a reckoning," said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala), ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee.

I’m onboard with Sen. Selby – and I think I’ve seen him during various hearings and no doubt laughed at his generally horrible behavior. I’m only letting him participate in this entry because he has said it best. Not only that, remember last month when Freddie and Fannie were in “trouble” and the government passed a bill that only authorized a government takeover “if” it was needed for the two mortgage giants? Everyone pretended that authorizing the use of force was not the same as actually saying you could use force. Wait, wrong fuck up. What they said was it was only an authorization to move further into Freddie and Fannie if needed. No worries they said, it won’t be needed. I could be forgiven for thinking that we were reckoning this out six weeks ago but there’s no way that authorization wasn’t going to be used. Shoot, if they send me a credit card with a $20,000 limit there’s no way I’d actually use it, right?

What we’ve got now is another reckoning. In the most basic economic terms I can sort out, it comes down to a proposed ~$700 billion Treasury buyout of mortgage and mortgage-related failing investments. The breadth of the buyout is limited to Wall St. banks and corporations and not specifically to individual buyers and mortgage holders – call them ‘the people’. Sec. of the Treasury Paulson wants a quick and clean move to get this rolling line of credit up and running. Some in the Congress, on both sides of the aisle, appear to be pushing back against a straight, uninhibited, no oversight, limited control, three-quarter of a trillion dollar check. For differing reasons (the fighting Republicans dismiss it as a bailout; the fighting Democrats want more oversight and more help for ‘the people’) I think it’s probably a solid idea to hold off and take the time to bang more heads together until there’s a much more solid piece of work. I see how desperate everyone on the Hill seems to be but why is it that suddenly, beginning on a Friday afternoon and carrying through Sunday meetings, did everyone decide that we were in a 60-hour time warp where we’d just discovered the problem? Wasn’t it clear over two years ago that the housing and mortgage sector was collapsing? Haven’t I listened to endless talking heads discussing whether or not we were in a recession yet because the official term ‘recession’ can’t be used until two consecutive quarters of a crappy economy have happened? What worries me most about Paulson in particular is what the hell has he been doing since he was appointed? It looks like he’s been sitting in his office playing minesweeper and watering the plants. Imagine someone who actually was taking steps as the problems arose and attempting to sort out solutions in a serial manner. Instead we get everyone running around over a weekend with their hair on fire as if this was all a surprise.

You know what? I don’t have the solution. I know that’s pretty obvious. But…I’m not paid to have the solution. If you want me to kick some ass on PowerPoint, I’m your man. I’m all for the reckoning that’s coming and I know it’s going to hurt…a lot. This is an opportunity while we’re standing in dire straits for someone to come out and say the words I long to hear, “This son of a bitch is going to hurt for a good long time. You might need to lock down that seatbelt and get ready for a rough, rough ride.” And I want them to mean it. I want them to quite blowing smoke up my skirt. We aren’t children.

And the next time a pile of politicians come out for a press junket and stand line abreast like they’re a stern and supportive looking YMCA basketball team, I’m going to kick them all in their shins. Nothing says “we’re so confused and useless” then a flight of unblinking, alleged leaders.

Ah. Monday.

t

humdinger

Regardless of your political leanings, I think everyone should go out and canvass for a political campaign. The Eleven spend a beautiful Saturday heading into D.C. to pick up some G’town law students and then driving down to South Fairfax county to canvass for Obama. What the process gives you, and what you’ll realize if you take up the challenge, is a chance to interact and be a part of a process that’s horribly broken and left on the side of the road. We were together for our walk sheet, knocked on doors, and had some great conversations with undecided voters, Obama supporters, and homes with a bit of both McCain and Obama present. We were nervous at the outset as we sorted our goods and got parked to begin: how would we present ourselves? What stories did we have that might convince people to just talk? What would they think of a couple of newly-minted political campaigners? You know what? For the most part, whether they agree or not with your candidate, most are perfectly happy to stand on the porch and talk about what’s important to them – and just as often, what’s important to us. It’s a wholly different view of the process than the yelling and screaming you hear across the rest of the landscape. You know what? There are a lot of people out there that are struggling to decide who they’ll vote for in November. There’re a ton of issues pulling everyone this way and that. There are, hopefully, a few dozen that are happy that someone who cared came knocking on their door on a September Saturday to talk honestly about where we are and where we’re headed. I found that much like every other volunteer activity I’ve added to my life over the last two years, people care that you’re there. Obama has registered over 250,000 new voters in Virginia in 2008. If nothing else, getting everyone to the polls is something no one can argue against.

I headed to the 9:30 Club last night to catch another Old Crow Medicine Show concert. I happened to be first in line and meandered to the best seat in American music: upper level, dead center, with my can on one of the club’s eight or so barstools. I love the Crows but their 2006 show at the 9:30 was very disappointing; both for the sound of the performance and the shitty crowd. Last night was a whole new ballgame – they were on fire and the crowd was so much stronger. They ran about two hours with a 15-minute break and screamed through most of the new CD (out next week, but in my hot, little hands) and a good bit of the back catalog. What they’ve become is a band with enough material to not have to rely on playing everything from every album – they can pick-and-choose what’s to come. In fact, they didn’t play at least six songs that I was expecting to hear yet I didn’t miss any of them. With the exception of a few slow moments, the show was stunning. As I was standing outside before the show, Ketch (singer, writer, harmonica, fiddle player, banjo player, guitar player) was walking to the tour bus with his mother, who was visiting D.C. to see her son and last night’s show. I don’t know if his performance was that much more inspired but he was fantastic. If only I could do any of that stuff. Considering the dip that’d taken after the last outing, last night’s gig put them right back up at the peak of live bands.

Apparently there’s a cat coming to live with us tomorrow morning. I’ll see if I can get to the farmers’ market on a pass before the feline invades my life.



t

calling all cars

The D.C. Examiner is one of the two free morning papers handed out at Metro stops all about the D.C. area. It’s the more conservative of the two (the Express being the liberal, WaPo-published rage) and it has some columnists I enjoy reading so I pick it up along with the Express and work through them on the to-and-fro bus rides. One of the indicative traits of any Metro commuter (bus or train) is arriving at work with a copy of either or both papers – it’s some kind of species identification technique. Anyway, I was reading in yesterday’s Examiner about an “incident” at the Columbia Heights Metro station. This link is to a follow-up story at the dcist.com Web site that further explains some details and has a picture. But, here’s the text of the Examiner story that also included a picture of the stunt:

“The Columbia Heights Metro station was closed for nearly two hours Tuesday morning for the D.C. bomb squad to investigate a weird sight: A stuffed polar bear costume leaned up against a garbage can. The arctic reproduction, clothed in worn pants and a threadbare jacket, was posed to appear as if it were digging through the trash, leading to speculation that the display was street art to protest global warming’s destruction of the polar bear’s habitat. Not everybody got the point, and police were alerted around 10 a.m. The Metro station remained closed and trains were not allowed to stop there while authorities cordoned off the area and sent in the bomb squad. Investigators cut open the bear but found nothing dangerous.” (my italics)

Let me tell you a little something: If I’m in need of hiding something suspicious I’m not hiding it in a life-sized polar bear. I can’t even imagine the discussion that took place between the police while they took two hours to sort out what to do. I understand the police have a tough job and I think Greenpeace more often than not goes overboard when demonstrating, but cutting open the suspicious bear to make sure there was nothing dangerous? Brilliant.

hey

t

obama

married white couple

It’s my duty to report on X and her genus. The most recent sighting of her type occured in a mysterious parking lot down Springfield way: an exchange of Chinese-based, yet Delft-like pottery. She was looking for something to sit in our entry way on the Hilltop and hold the myriad umbrellas that seem to wander to and fro. It was another Craigslist hook-up that involved the exchange of laundered money and blue/white goods that ended with this riposte while X attempted to load the first item (a vase) onto the backseat of Galactica, “On the floor…the floor! Vases and cakes on the floor!” she declared to X. Right. Cakes.

We have another lamp that sits on an end table and was procured via the List. For this exchange the two met in the Whole Foods parking lot in Falls Church – the deepest, dankest, darkest corner of the drug trade. Based on what was occurring with the planning of the above transaction – a thought of exchanging in the same parking lot if able – I figured she’d be busted for some type of illicit Delft activity in the suburbs: piles of high-end fancy cars and various bits of ceramic. In the end, she made it home safely from the Whole Foods (last time) lot without a felony on her record.

The last incident, though it fell between the other two, was the purchase of something I’ll call the porn chair. Her father purchased something referred to as “the ultimate chair” – something that requires a second mortgage to acquire. Anyhow, X found a twenty year-old version of the same chair on the List. For cheap. I hadn’t seen “the chair” prior to its arrival in our living room: if I could make the sound of the Shaft theme song via typing, I would. The rest of our living room is purely Victorian and it looks at the new starlet with some serious disgust…as if. We’re looking around for some swingers.

The humidity is too much. The temperature is fine.

Ah.

t

sporty and spice

Congratulations are in order for Sebastian Vettel of Toro Rosso who became the youngest winner of a Formula 1 race. Not only the youngest, but he’s driving for a lower-tier team that’s supported by the Red Bull Team and Ferrari. He qualified on pole in the rain at Monza and then lead the race to the end; he also allowed the championship to tighten up to one point with four races to left; go Ferrari. Well done.

Valentino Rossi won his fourth straight race in MotoGP at Indianapolis today…in the rain! Shoot, NASCAR can’t run in the rain but the cyclists simply change tyres and go and go until there’re but a few left on wheels. Rossi is the greatest rider of our lifetimes and will wrap up his sixth 500cc title, and 8th overall, next week.

The Brewers have decided, in the absence of Cubs games, to simply lose. I think we’re eight up in the loss column with sixteen to go…and leading tonight.

The Eleven hit the D.C. Jewish Community Center Theatre (DCJCC) to see Sandra Bernhard last night (WaPo review here). She’s doing fifteenish shows over three weeks and even though I was never a Bernhard guy, I thought it’d be something different than me dragging X along to see all my twang shows. Sandra does a singing, commentary, comedic turn that’s very enjoyable for a couple of reasons. First, it’s over-the-top to sit in the JCC with the older Jewish community while laughing at barbs ending in fu*&er, motherfu&#er, and I’ll kick her ass. Second, it was cathartic to hear her absolutely rant at the state of political affairs – the state of affairs as of that morning. It certainly made me feel better by the end of the night. As she pointed out, maybe Obama can’t say it out loud but she certainly can. She also has a band up on stage that rolls through a half-dozen great songs, harkening to the ‘80s, with Sandra belting out lyrics that become comical when she delivers them with a dose of sanity and distance. In the end, she ripped passed two hours with not a slow moment on display. I’d imagined her as a tireless entertainer and she definitely hammered home that ideal.

The final issue of the entry; when someone does some Little Red Corvette, as Bernhard did last night, you’ll be singing it for weeks…weeks. Think about it, “pocket full of Trojans, some of them used…’’

(clap clap)

t

dead and buried

I’ve tried, truly, I’ve tried but I have to put at least one match to the tinder. The McCain campaign has become a debacle. I support Obama because I believe far more in the Democratic platform than the Republican. I also believe that he is a once-in-a-generation leader that will serve us all. In the last few weeks I’ve become even more impressed by his ability to hold his steel and not devolve into the swill that is prevalent in the McCain campaign. McCain, who eight years ago seemed a reasonable politician, has pissed away whatever good will and hope that any centrist or independent person might have for a long-serving Republican. If you support McCain, I wish you luck with the blinders you’re wearing. There isn’t one iota of substance that his campaign is offering, not one bit of integrity, nor any chance that he and his administration could lead our country. Even if you dislike Obama there’s no way you can possibly not see how amateurish the McCain campaign has become and wonder just what it might be like to have another single term of blind, dangerous, and sophomoric leadership. I understand that it's the way of the political world to disagree on the issues but it is never acceptable – success or not – to blatantly lie about your opponent and yourself. If you buy into the elitist tag that’s been tattooed to Obama, feel free to use that to support mindless verbiage with absolutely no basis to support all the junk you read and hear. Take a serious look at what has swayed you toward the McCain campaign and decide if what’s taken you down that dank path is not only true, but whether it’s worth high-jacking the country with deceit that McCain sits upon. If you’re happy with how McCain has decided to run his race, well done – you and he have absolutely no political integrity left on your plate. I wish you well.

T

my heart will go on

(photos: Washington Post)

On Monday evening we met some of my old work mates for dinner at a very nice Greek/Turkish/Lebanese place in D.C., Zaytinya. Actually, there were supposed to be eight of us but only four showed up – we had a huge eight-person round top in an alcove that would have been perfect if the rest of the inconsiderate hacks had shown up. It ended up being Sue, Johnny B. (of upper NY and guest of honor), and the Eleven; a grand time all around the piles of mezze, wine, and pricey martinis. This is all merely a short back story and this isn’t meant as a “quick as a bunny” tale. I thought we should spend some time together at the blog and let the people know that we do in fact go out to dinner on occasion. As I was doing some research on the restaurant and parking, we’d decided to drive into the city (yes, we got a ticket…go figure), I realized that the one and only Celine Dion was playing at the Verizon Center a mere two blocks from our soiree. If you do the math on our 6pm reservation and the 8pm show time we were worried about two things: one, was the area going to be mobbed? Two, what if people thought we were going to the Celine Dion show? You can deal with the mobbed parking situation and streets easily enough, but the idea that some unknown person hanging around the city thinks you’re a Celine Dion fan is simply too much to bear. I think I may have tipped my hand, and rightly so, in order to continue the story.

I dug up the concert review at the WaPo online and gave it once over yesterday afternoon (you may not be able to read it unless you sign up for the “free” membership). The reviewer, who is the main WaPo concert and music critic, didn’t take much effort to hide his near hatred of Dion. I found the review fit my overall opinion of her and I think his description of her histrionics was dead accurate. This review led to a discussion at home last night about the responsibility of critics. Is there any point in sending a critic to a show if that person is wholly predisposed to not enjoying the show or being unable to put themselves in the shoes of the fans? I almost think that swinging either way – too great a fan or too much a hater – would then become an issue with just about every review. Do reviews fall under news or op-ed? I think that some of the best reviews I’ve read or heard were prefaced with the “I don’t much like this type of music (or this band), but this was a really good show (or record)…” Obviously, the counterbalance to that would be someone slagging off an artist they care deeply about – I know, I’ve done both when talking to people about shows and CDs. It seems that if you believe there shouldn’t be predisposition in a review then you’d have to find either a completely middle-of-the-road music fan/critic or you’d have to have every review open with a declaration of position. Or, I guess you could have a pure, idealistic person who can sit through the schmaltz of Celine Dion and keep that infection from the review. I’m not clear on which I’d vote for but after we debated it last night I realized that this review, though hilarious to me, was probably a little over the line when taking into account the whole of her career and not focusing on this particular show. Maybe a little insight into how the crowd reacted both during and the after the show would have given some depth to the review.

Vocal flyover…what a great line.

t

roses are red

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

This is how another little interaction with X jumped to the fore on Saturday afternoon. As we were standing on our front porch and thinking about making a dash through the torrential downpour from the remnants of Hanna, X recites this motto perfectly as she curses our yet-to-arrive postman. The reason I call it a curse is because she was waiting – on day three of the wait – for a check to arrive in the post. The lack of a postman provided the opportunity and Hanna provided for use of the motto. What I found so, dare I say comical, about her recitation was that it took me a few minutes to realize that she’d actually delivered the entire thing verbatim. If I’d tried to make my distaste for rain and mail known I would have said something like “You know, rain, sleet…all that stuff. Where’s my mail?” because I don’t actually know the entire song. To get an idea of why something like this is so strange yet so familiar, you need to know that there’ve been hundreds of times she’s turned to me and said things like…

“We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.”

“Oh…who said that? It’s a rondeau, you know….a rondeau….who was it?”

To which I always reply, “What’s a rondeau?”

She has a mind that’s latched onto just about every bit of poetry-like text she’s ever read and it often bubbles to the surface when she’s doing something like…curling her hair. I, on the other hand, have absolutely no poetry knowledge; I’ve tried because it seems something I should know but it never sticks. In fact, I don’t think I could recite even one poem if you offered me $100.

Of course, when we were at the Post Office about thirty minutes later she was suddenly looking about claiming “it should be posted somewhere in here….” I’d completely forgotten the postal creed by then so I wasn’t too sure what she was on about: posted? what? where? As she dodged between rows of postal boxes, looking along the walls and columns, I thought she’d gone mad. In truth, I thought she was looking for something posted about umbrella rules since I was, at that very moment, gathering up my umbrella and readying for our exodus into the swale. Umbrella rules? Right.

what's that buzzing?

I’m going to work backwards through the musical portion of the weekend. The Eleven was at the Birchmere last night to see Steve Earle and Allison Moorer. I’ve seen him through most of his musical forays over the last decade and enjoyed them all. This was X’s first Earle show and she seemed impressed enough with his musical prophet songwriting and performance. I’ve read quite a few reviews of this tour and there are some unimpressed with his use of a DJ during the latter part of the show as he plays guitar and rolls through songs from his newest album; people want to hear the hard-rocking, loud Steve Earle and the Dukes…all the time. I’d disagree with some of the unfavorable reviews and put forth that his ability to shift between the pure acoustic presentation of his older stuff, some of which I’d never heard him perform live (Devil’s Right Hand and Ellis Unit One), and more modern sounds shows an amazing amount of flexibility and musical intuition. The show represented exactly what I expect of a Steve Earle show – professional, great songs, powerful storytelling, and political commentary. And now, my forward pitch into the abyss. Allison Moorer opened the evening with about eight songs primarily from her latest album, Mockingbird. At the risk of irritating Moorer, and possibly Earle fans (they are married…Earle and Moorer, not the fans), she is a wholly uninteresting solo acoustic performer. I could have heard that type of performance by any busker hanging around the World’s subways. Don’t get too wound up – there are some great buskers all across this great World. I just found her guitar playing, voice, delivery, and overall presence to be a complete blank slate – muzak to get me to the main event; picture an elevator where you’re staring at the numbers and counting floors until you can get off – I was counting songs. Since my primary exposure to her has been via video and live late-night performances with Steve, I had an inkling that she’d be much better as part of the later show when she joined him on stage for songs from Washington Square Serenade. That portion of the show, when she danced a bit and harmonized, were a much better representation of where I think her talent lies. Am I condoning here to life as a background singer? Maybe. Even though I love someone like Neko Case, who has a stunning voice, I’ve always been more impressed with her when she’s performing as part of the New Pornographers than when she’s done solo work. Sometimes voices and performers are like that and I’d put Moorer in the supporting role.

On Friday night my friend Sue and I hit the State Theatre to see The Gourds. This show was aces all around. Eight or so albums into their career and they just keep getting stronger. I’ve long posited that there’s nothing better than a live band that really knows its craft; the solo acoustic performer has a very tough row to hoe with any crowd. The Gourds are a five-piece, multi-vocalist contraption that runs you down the road of a crazy folk, bluegrass, country, rock n’ roll, and twang atlas. The sound they create is perfect salve for a long, hard week and they’ve mastered the live show – it’s not merely a CD recreation but an actual performance. They don’t wander down rabbit holes, they don’t make you wonder just how long you’ll be there, they don’t have poorly mixed sound, and they don’t make you think they’re just going through the motions. The State was perfectly suited to their show and the crowd was excellent. In addition to the Todd Snider show last year (a solo acoustic dealio, go figure) it was the best show I’ve seen since moving to the D.C. area in 2006.

I’ll give you a quick update on the doings at the farmers market and the U.S. Postal Service motto when we next meet.

t

three alarm fire

The small place across the street from us is going to be torn down tomorrow and the owners have been working for a few months to pull out whatever is salvageable before the claw attacks. They're planning on building a story-and-a-half house that will fit into the neighborhood much better than the horrid ego mansions that seem to pop up every other lot. Being as the final destruction is tomorrow, the owners coordinated with the fire department to come over today and play fire fire fire: busting in the door repeatedly, breaking all the windows, setting part of attic ablaze, breaking through the roof...all the stuff you see on Rescue Me. I honestly didn't know people did this house volunteer work with the fire department until X was giving me the rundown this evening. She was outside working on gardening and weeding (are those the same thing?) while the fire boys were playing their game of destruction. She was working specifically on two large pots of lavender that had turned south over the Summer. Apparently, based on her testimony, the firefighters showed quite an interest in her lavender. 

Ah, my child. Firefighters loooooovvvvveeeee lavender.

She's still cute.

t

i knew that

The Eleven was driving to Trader Joe’s yesterday and having a discussion about H.’s new school when he pointed out that he had someone, a teacher maybe, with a last name he’d never heard of before. He thought it strange – new names and all – and pointed out that even a strange surname like Turvey had been represented by two people in his school back in England. X immediately pointed out that Turvey is a quite popular name in England because “those who used to cut peat in England were known as ‘turveys’”. What the heck? I looked at her as she was driving Galactica, as this little nugget of wisdom was hanging in the air, and murmured a bit too loudly “What the hell do you mean? How would you possibly know that?” But thankfully, just as my query was posed, yet before I could fully poke fun at this new bit of trivia, H. pipes up from the backseat with “What’s peat?” I now think the quiz show is diverted a bit while I continue to contemplate the Turveys of England because I know the peat definition will be more simplistic. But before I have a chance to recover from turvey I'm hit with “peat is like loam.” Ah, problem solved…loam! Peat is like loam, young man. I was now totally lost in a discussion about loam, a word or description of a thing ,of which I’ve never heard. It did however make me think of foreign language teachers who explain one foreign word with another foreign word; you don’t often get too far. In my love’s defense, she has a mind like a trap, especially when it comes to nuggets like turvey and loam and she was merely relating a story from an Englishmen name Turvey who’d explained where the name originated. I, of course, relayed my deep knowledge of names like Baker, Smith, and Shoemaker.

The second part of this enlightenment doubleheader took place as we were reading before bed (me: The Great Derangement / she: Forfeit) and I asked her about Dick Francis and his horse books: Were there chase scenes while riding horses? People running on track with the horses? Horses involved in the murders? Jockeys riding races with guns? You know…the basic stuff. I find out that racing, in general, is the backdrop but everything else is your stock mystery stuff. She tells me he was a jockey when younger. I reply with what seems a normal response, something like, “Oh, he was a jockey?” to which she says “Of course, he was Queen’s Champion!” As if one would know that Mr. Dick Francis (CBE) was a former Queen's Champion jockey and not a turvey in his previous life…

She’s lovely.

t

american evolution

In the great tradition of American Labor Day we headed out to buy school supplies and rat food. There you have it. I vaguely remember going out with my mother to purchase supplies but it seemed more a matter of some trapper keepers, one binder, and pens and pencils from the Rexall drug down in Rockbrook Village. Actually, as an elementary student I don’t ever remember getting anything – it wasn’t until junior high at Valley View that supplies became necessary. The schools across northern Virginia are hardcore when it comes to “The List”. The kids need very specific stuff like low odor dry erase markers, Kleenex, college-ruled paper, yellow highlighters (yellow!), four 1” white vinyl three-ring binders, two glue sticks, and erasable pens (I hate erasable pens). What I realized at the checkout is that every school is saving about $75 a kid. If nothing else, the college-ruled paper seems fishy; no one uses college-ruled paper until…college. Are they worried about kids writing too large and sneaking less than what they consider a full-page essay entitled "What I Did Over the Summer"  into the homework box? It wasn’t so long ago that I did some research on the whole college-ruled vs. wide-ruled paper. I was overly interested in the term and exactly what started the battle of the ‘ruled. (As an aside, I might also have been some research into pica vs. elite font from my junior high school typing class days.)

The rat food isn’t so interesting; the rat needed some food.

The boys and X have settled back into the house. That basically means the boys can run all about, enjoy their own rooms, and not worry about anything. For X it means I’ll cook her food and give her kisses – what’s a boy to do?

I’m adding an embed of Ricky Gervais doing a bit on evolution. If you don’t know, Gervais created and starred in The Office in England. He’s a consultant on the American version that came years later. I gave the American version a go when it first started but seemed to miss out on the funny. His original version is still, to me, the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.



and this clip from the show about his office doing training...

"go get my guitar..."

not to throw stones

Mayor Nagin of New Orleans has ordered the evacuation of New Orleans by noon tomorrow - one side of the city by 8am and the other side by noon. Buses will be running through midnight tonight to get folks out and will then resume at 6am tomorrow. Why can't they run all night? Planes? Military airlift? Anything? Jesus Christ, could somebody please roll the military in and get everyone out without a six-hour gap? I'm f&*^ing amazed. I'm sure President Bush has some kind words from his front porch down in Crawford or wherever he might be. Bush is a jackass.

pick me! pick me!

I’m not going to bore you with the exact details of this statistical thing dubbed something like value over next selection – I don’t hardly understand it. Apparently, this is a theory that the numbers folk fully understand but knuckleheads like me never considered. The reason I’m throwing it out is because I used to for a fantasy football draft last night and the results were pretty stunning in relation to how good my team ended up being. What you need to understand are two things: first, all I’m doing when my pick comes up during the draft is run this mathematical chart and take the position player who gives me the greatest advantage over the next same position player who will be available when I next pick. Second, fantasy football players have a grand vision of themselves that shows us as somehow knowing something that others don’t: it’s a stupid, guy thing. What this ego tends to do is get in the way of facts and sludge up just about any event which a man is involved and supposedly using his mind to sort. The results of the draft, using this theory, when projected for each team gives my squad an advantage of 8% to 18% over every other team. Right…so now you have that in mind, let’s get to the rub.

During every draft (they are almost always done on-line with little chat windows available) there are invariably at least a dozen chat entries sent that say “good pick”; normally they come from the highest of the highest self-appointed fantasy stud. What became so funny to me last night in the situation I was in, using a straight forward mathematical model, was that there was no such thing as a “good pick” – there’s only one pick – the right one. What does “good pick” really mean? It’s one yahoo validating another yahoo’s choice by confirming that, indeed, we are two mental giants playing in the same league. It’s so completely random that ‘Hank’ might have picked the player that ‘Jeff’ was considering a “good pick” that it reminds of when someone honks at you because you’re driving the same car. You know what they’re thinking, “Hey, that guy in the Reliant K car is awesome, just like me. No one else gets it.” If the recipient of the “good pick” pat-on-the-back has gone completely bonkers and made a choice that doesn’t match at all with the numbers I’m using then it’s simply a bad pick. When the math is right in front of you it’s fairly clear the correct answer. I can just imagine some college kid turning to another kid in his algebra class and saying “good answer” when he correctly solves the problem. Really? There’s a good answer and a bad answer? No, but there is a right answer and a wrong answer where math crosses our lives - nothing more, nothing less. When professors dole out the treasured partial credit on long math problems it’s because the process was correct and you simply came up with the wrong answer. Professor Mathenstine never writes on the paper that your process was wrong but you get partial credit for a “good answer”. In truth, I didn’t trust the process until I looked at the final results this morning. There we so many players that I would have chosen using my seat-of-the-pants technique that I passed on simply because I stayed true to the experiment.

Of course, it’s just fantasy football and most of the determining factors are luck and avoiding injuries. Men are strange.

The Cubs have won seven straight games, ten consecutive series’, and the future is very bright indeed.

t

tickets please

Not only did the mail bring me my National Opera season tickets today, it also delivered my Washington Capitals season ticket. I know they don’t quite align to my liberal life; what’s more amazing is the first event for both is on the same night. Granted, it’s the Caps first pre-season home game and it’s real opera, but I think you get the point.

It rained here this morning like it can only rain here when it cuts loose – I never knew just how hard it comes down when you live within 50 miles of the coast, in the mid-Atlantic, and near (or on) what is basically a swamp.

The long weekend is near, my baby’s coming home, things are lovely.

t

and the dressing on the side

I remember scanning newspaper ads and looking for jobs back in the early 1980s – I was most interested in working as a waiter. What you find out pretty quickly in the waiter otherworld is that every single ad – or posted sign – includes “experience required”. I never ended up being a waiter, crushed dreams and all, because I could never get either myself or the employer beyond the “experience required” roadblock. I’ve been a host, a busboy, and short-order cook but never a waiter. The reason this comes up is because I find the political idea of “experience” to be almost comical; I’ll get to it in a minute. Wouldn’t it be nice to own a restaurant and have the World’s most experienced and successful waiter walk in my door one day? No doubt. The flip side of that equation is that you hired an “experienced” waiter he turns out to be a fool, experience or not. In fact, aren’t you simply eliminating a massive pool of possibly very good workers – maybe even the future ‘greatest’ – by demanding completely pointless qualifications? Based on my dining out history, I’d say that about 30% of waiters are completely useless, 60% manage to not be useless, and about 10% are very good. If you accept my math, and you should, then what we have in our required hiring pool is that 90% of the bad and mediocre ‘experienced’ waiters running around applying for jobs that only they can possibly manage. You won’t often get a shot at the great 10% because they probably write their own tickets. I don’t want everyone to get all hot-and-bothered if you’ve been, or are, a waiter: it’s grueling work, the pay is for shit, and I don’t know if I would have been any good at it. I understand that…I’m making an analogy. I also know some pretty put together people who failed miserably at the job. If I’m the boss and I’m hiring waiters then I’m going to give just about everyone a good look. You’re always best to remember that everyone started somewhere – even the experienced waiters.

Politics. Are we so completely lost that we’ll just sit on the couch and pick-and-choose our representatives based on something called experience? At what? Being a Governor with no foreign-policy background? Being a Senator for some number of years? An actor and Governor? Experience at being President? What exactly is the issue, and why are we suddenly so selective? Somebody said on the talking radio box the other day that they didn’t need a President with experience they needed a President to lead. Lead. Simple concept, isn’t it? Let me carry over some math from the previous word problem: 30% of experience politicians are completely useless, 60% avoided being useless, 10% are pretty damn good. I feel that the further someone moves into the political otherworld the worse they get. I’d certainly love for one of those 10% to walk into my living room and tell me he wants to work for me. Even if they don’t walk through the door, I’m certainly going to give everyone a good, long look and I’m not adding something stupid like “experience required” to my ballot.

It’s a ramble, it’s probably not worth much, but it woke me up last night.

t

call of the track

There was a time, let’s say it was between about 1998 and 2004, when the Ferrari F1 team had impeccable performance. Those were the days of Schumacher, Bryne, Todt, and Brawn. What so amazed me during a decade of success was the reliability of the Ferrari cars throughout the season; there must have been an almost two season stretch when Michael Schumacher didn’t suffer a single failure. Even during the 1998 and 1999 seasons when Mika Hakkinen won titles for McLaren, the Ferrari was the more reliable on the grid. Every season during those Ferrari – McLaren battles played out the same: the Newey-designed McLaren was faster to start the season and the Bryne-designed Ferrari was bulletproof from day one. What this ended up producing was early results for Ferrari that often buoyed their campaign through the middle of the season as the McLaren team finally got their cars to stop blowing up every weekend. It seemed that every circuit produced at least one fast, on fire, and smoking McLaren. There were at least a few Schumacher titles (he won five straight 2000-2004) that were built on those early season successes and reliability of the beautiful, red prancing horses. I don’t know how many times I was reminded of the saying "one hundred percent of short putts don’t drop" when watching a race. For McLaren in those days, if didn’t matter how fast their cars were because they often didn’t make it to the finish line. The reason I bring this up, and I know you’re dying to find out, is that Ferrari over the last few years has seen a significant increase in car failures – two in the last two races. Last year they were able to overcome those problems as Kimi Raikkonen won the title, in equal parts, based on his driving ability and the McLaren drivers’ shortcomings in pressure situations. Even though the Ferraris are quick this year, the most important statistic - getting to the finish line - may well be their downfall.

Consider yourselves informed.

no idea what's on in denver

I noticed that the 9:30 Club in D.C. is selling tickets to “An evening with the Black Crowes” on October 23rd…and 24th…and 25th. Just saying. I saw the Black Crowes back in about 19 and 93(?) on the Southern Harmony and whatever tour. They were damn good back then: I wonder what it’s like to do one-and-a-half great albums and then wander the dust for the next 15 years? I’ve nothing against them…that stuff was great. If you might be too young to remember the two years prior to mediocrity…here you go.



I just brought up the Convention on CNN online and it appears to contain a ton of crazy delegates sort of dancing to some rock n’ roll. Actually, it’s a bit embarrassing. Funny how Caroline Kennedy is referenced as a "niece of Senator Ted Kennedy" - I'm going to go with daughter of President John F. Kennedy.

You might want to just go back and watch the Crowes again. Apparently they had the Democratic Convention in Denver in 1908. That must have been a scream.

Oh, the Cubs are rolling…

t

vote and get a free gift

(photo: Sunday (London) Times)

Based on what I can ascertain from the “schedule” for tonight’s opening of the Convention in Denver, Michelle Obama will be on sometime between 7pm and 9pm MDT. Assuming things run a little long – and not assuming that I live on the East Coast – I’m guessing I’ll need a nap if I’m to watch her around 10:30pm local. I feel old. I’ve got to believe that this will be the moment she either convinces the America that hates her; I don’t see another chance. I’m not fully sure why the wife of a candidate is so important – didn’t the public just loath First Lady Clinton? – but, it’s become vastly more important over the last 20 years. I haven’t heard a potential, or serving, First Lady give any kind of speech that mattered but I think that may change tonight. Love her or hate her, I think you should watch.

On the way to work this morning I noticed a big green banner hanging over the top story of a small bank near Dunn Loring. It offered up “completely free checking…and a free gift”. Back in the late 1970s there was a sort independent Omaha-area bank, Southwest, that offered free gifts. At the time, their free gift cache and marketing campaign was “Thumbody loves you!” Apparently, the bank LOVED me! I only has some little passport savings account with about ten bucks in it but I got lots of stickers, bags, posters, and assorted crap with a stupid thumb print on it. I wonder if this little local bank has the remaining Thumbody stash from Omaha. Even without that, what is a bank giving away as a free gift these days? Since banks suck on all accounts (no pun intended), they better be giving me a brand new G3 iPhone and one year’s paid service. Free gift, right?

Isn’t there some unwritten rule about not giving a woman an appliance for her birthday, Christmas, anniversary, and/or Valentine’s Day?

hey to all...

kick in the teeth

There’s a great sport commentary in the Sunday Times (London) today. As I was reading I realized that what was before me was a slap down at every sport supporter whose favorite team doesn’t do well. Endless hope. This commentary dealt specifically with the England national team and just how horrid they’ve become. Believe me, I can substitute my team into the article – with parallel players and coaches – and come to the same point as the writer. As an example, the England nation football team didn’t even qualify for this summer’s European Championship. For a nation that wholly believes that their team is one of the elite footballing nations, it’s a sad situation. England won the World Cup in way back in 1966 while serving as the host country and nothing since WWII is more ingrained in the consciousness of the English than that great moment. It’s the sole time that nation lifted the Cup and it’s carried through generations of English fans. Since then, four other countries have won at least two World Cups (Brazil has won three) yet England still consider themselves to be part of that elite group of national teams. England has never even reached the final of the European Championship yet there's a often a feeling of divine right and success. You know, I don’t want to get a bunch of e-mail cursing my name from England fans around across the globe, I lived in England for ten years and I suffered through tough times cheering for the team, so just bear in mind that I’m a Cubs fan I can match every excuse and poor choice that’s ever been made by a team.

Rubbish. That says it all about fans as much as it does about teams.

t

'splosion

For some unknown reason I was up about 7:30am on a Saturday and out the door to the Eastern Market in SE. I don’t know about where you live, but the end of August and beginning of September is obscene at the D.C. area farmers markets (farmer’s markets? farmers’ markets?). The entire Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Delaware grower’s region has gone over-the top. The peaches, strawberries, cantaloupe, greens, herbs, tomatoes (the damn tomatoes!), melons, raspberries/blueberries, flowers, and cheese (granted, not particularly seasonal) are in full force. Just walking down the stalls is absolutely overwhelming. I have a peach tart I want to make but no one here to eat it; what are the odds? You could score with a hot chick if you had a good peach tart. What I have done is started a tomato sauce with five lbs. of the most incredible heirlooms tomatoes, fresh basil, garlic, and onions. The selection of heirlooms was both impressive and yet somehow almost too scientific for me. I sense I’ll need a good sit down with the love when she gets home – no doubt she has some heirloom ideas. It probably goes hand-in-hand with her lesson on how sourdough starter was carried through generations and across the great trails of young America. A good starter is apparently worth its weight in gold. Who knew? I leave the baking to the lady folk.

For some unknown reason I spoke on the phone with all of the Vermont family children today...yet none were anywhere nearby. I only mention that as an oddity. Kt came over for dinner because she was foraging, X is still on vacation….la dee da, and the young one is cursing sun and palm trees in his new locale. I support the overall hatred of sun more than two days a week.

Not only is the market superior, the weather here in the swampland is stunning for late August. No heat or humidity to speak of, brilliant skies, lovely days, sleepy nights. Just in case you were wondering.

In order to flex my manliness, I’ll say these things: the Cubs are still rolling, my fantasy football team is solid, the Cornhuskers will surprise everyone as they roll out from the plains, and I have some really nice shoes.

That’s all.

t

spinning vinyl

I’m old. I do my best. I go to shows. I love music. I love those that can do it, because I can’t, I have no talent; I only have ears…

In order to fight the old bit, I’ve gone to faceBook after an invite from one of my most admirable old supervisors. Come to find that tons of us jumping on in order to keep in touch with others we deployed and suffered with for all those years. It’s cool to see where everyone’s at and how their lives have developed. It was a much more interesting and demanding time than high school.

Today I got a ‘wall’ post from a kid named Jason Eady. We worked in the same office for a bit and eventually headed off our separate ways: he left the AF and I moved to the States. He went to a Steve Earle and the Del McCoury band show in London with me when I had an extra ticket and I found out that he played music and used to sit in on various late-night and festival jam sessions back in Mississippi. Now he’s living in Austin, Texas and has two CDs out – the music is amazing. I feel like I had a brush with greatness. His Web sites are here and here. Give it a go, I think you’ll like it. I’m glad I got to know him at all.

I had a bunch of Robbie Williams videos lined up for you to watch but when I got to him doing Suspicious Minds I realized you only need this: a two-minute song and a four-minute shake...stick with it.



I'm going to shave and get my 'chops in order.

t

submission

Here’s the market for you, scars and all. There’s not much more to say than that I don’t fell you can argue with northern Nevada market and numbers. As I said about a year ago, I still think its real estate gauntlet is running almost two years ahead of the rest of the country. I’m sticking with summer 2010 as the overall bottom of the crash. Granted, the extremes in the size of the bubble and the burst will no doubt be greater in Nevada but the effects will be felt everywhere. In June 2005 I put my home in Fernley, NV on the market at $299,000 – I was about a quarter late in listing it or it probably would have sold for something close to asking price. After a year of absolutely no activity or offers I had brought the price down to $250,000 in May of 2006. I finally found a buyer – by dumb luck I’d gotten the name of a California company buying Fernley property from a property manager and we spoke on the phone about my house. It sold and closed the last week in May 2006 as I was packing up to move to the D.C. area. So,, I was wondering this morning how the Reno and Fernley markets were doing, and I do, and I went to the realtor that built and sold me the house, and who resold it three years later for me, and lo and behold my old house is back on the market two years after I sold it for $250,000. Feel free to take a look at some pictures of the place (click here and page over two pages...look for the listing at 1017 Pepper Lane) and ponder just what’s happened. It’s now listed for sale at $134,900. I knew back in ’06 how lucky I was to find a buyer and get out when I did – I just didn’t know how my life would have been hammered (even more) if I had two more years to serve before trying to sell and move on.

I almost want to buy the house back, fix up the lawn, pull up the carpets and put down some wood, and hold it as a vacation home. I can probably get it for $125,000 and everyone can use it when they want. Looks like with nothing down we could swing taxes and insurance for about $1,000 – who’s in with the good credit. I’ll pitch in $500 a month for the mortgage payment and go hike at Tahoe and spend the Holidays in the high desert.

t

come together as one

I have issues with roads, lines, merging, and the overall ideals of the roadway. Today I’m feeling a little…irritated. I honestly believe that merging from a ramp or entrance lane should be the easiest thing in the World. Maybe it’s my race driving training (Brands Hatch, 2002), my vast experience (driving since February 1981), or my lack of impression with my road mates (always). The Eleven has covered this on numerous occasions, we aren’t generally yell drivers, and it always raises its ugly head when people either coming from or going onto a ramp don’t declare and maintain: declare and maintain. We aren't talking about the “construction ahead, left lane ending, merge right” high school debate; that’s a different issue for a different time. This is simply your everyday, driving to work, and merging often scenario. The example used today envelops a two-lane main road – very busy – that receives two merging veins (arteries? I guess it depends if you’re coming to or going from the heart) entering from the right in a short-ish distance. What you have to make yourself aware of, and you should be getting some aware in your diet if you’re driving, is that the first merge from my right actually becomes a third lane. (See the google map below…zoom in, zoom out, enjoy. I’m driving from SE to NW on the blue line. The big road we’re crossing is the Beltway.) The first merging jokesters are entering from the Beltway (and probably not getting back on the Beltway) but they’ll immediately slow down to a near standstill while the gears work in their little brains. Unfortunately for me, I’m actually trying to slot myself into their lane because I need to be over there in a few blocks. They never declare and maintain – if they’d just keep up the speed and acceleration I’d slide right over. If I know that a missile is moving at x speed then I can adjust. If you stop, start, stop, start, worry, have a sandwich, stop, start, we’ll get nowhere. Once we’re over the Beltway there’s little to concerned anyone's mind aside from the cloverleaf exit back onto the Beltway which is pretty simple and affects no one. But, just after passing under the small road you get another batch of mergers coming in from the (inner) Beltway. Say your damn prayers here. That wee ramp scoots in on my right and adds the fourth lane to the road – people who are going nowhere but straight on: you don’t even have to merge…the lane never ends! Ah, too simple. You see, I now need to get over into that new lane because I’m turning just after the big hotel complex. This second merge is the worst; since no one is actually in dire need of getting over (left) immediately they should be smart enough to just keep pace, the lane never ends: please, let me solve the merge and your issues...move!.

I wondered this morning if there was a standard for merging. I hit the internets and came up with a few nuggets on merging from the DMV.org – here a few of the greatest hits:

Still, the procedure requires extreme awareness because the last thing you want to do is have the driver in the vehicle that you are merging in front of end up in your passenger seat. Nor do you want to go into a panic and wander off from the acceleration pedal and land onto the shoulder. Here are some tips to help you become a major league merger.

Merging is designed to permit vehicles to enter and exit a highway without causing disruption in the flow of traffic. Highways are equipped with on-ramps and off-ramps, which generally connect to acceleration and deceleration lanes.

The idea behind this is when you pull onto the entrance ramp, you slowly begin building velocity. At the point where you can make eye contact with the highway, you need to immediately start assessing the gaps and the speed of existing traffic. From here, you should turn on your signal to reflect your intent to other drivers to merge onto the roadway.

Then use the acceleration lane to match the speed flow, and ease your vehicle into an appropriate gap before the acceleration lane ends. Some highways give you slabs of asphalt that are long enough for a jet to take off; others, especially on the East Coast, are so short you will need to make quick decisions or yield. A successful merge entails you entering the highway almost at or at the speed limit, while causing no disturbance in the speeds of the vehicles behind you.

And in rush hour, just in case you're about to pull out that ticket,

Sometimes [the bottleneck] is simply due to the sheer number of vehicles trying to enter or leave the road on a single stretch of asphalt utilized both as a deceleration and acceleration lane. But, you can also bet there is some improper merging going on, causing the entire system to break down into the proverbial bottleneck.

Maybe I’m not crazy.


View Larger Map

baby baby baby

I’d say I have no idea how this started but I’d be fibbing. I saw a link to a Japanese game-show version of mocked-up people doing We Are The World – it was awful and there’s no way I’d get through it. What it did was lead me down the youtube path that immediately got completely out-of-hand. I had no idea that this damn song was over seven minutes long; I could have done with more Bruce and Cyndi Lauper. What can you do? Take a little trip back to 1985 with me and a little get together managed by Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones after that year’s Grammys. My hair is mouss-ing up as you click:



Of course, this led me immediately to the Band Aid anthem, Do They Know It’s Christmas, written and run by Bob Geldof. I was only kidding about the hair in the first video – this is hair….all hair. They were all so young.



Oh, look! I’ve found a 20th anniversary recreation of Band Aid with new artists. Bingo! I can’t name but a few of them and it’s good to see Bono back. More importantly, Robbie Williams. Anything Robbie Williams does is wickedly cool.



Back to the long songs that came up earlier: I immediately thought of the longest #1 song in history, the first song I ever learned the lyrics to (I was 7 and living in Minneapolis), and still my all-time favorite diddy. This is a live version from back in ’72. Go ahead, you want to sing along.



And since you asked, here’s the first song I air-guitared to in the same downstairs bedroom in Edina, Minnesota in the first grade…with a ukulele. Damn, I was good. I wanted to be Neil Diamond. I couldn’t find a quality version with a kicking bass player and back-up singers…



I’ll let you go. I am what I am….

Hugs to all.

t

.....oh i love my rosie child....

my ad

One more little entry on Mad Men.

As I wrap up the first season on DVD – I know, I’m behind the times – I think it’s imperative that my feelings are known. The main character, Donald Draper, is very good. I wasn’t around in 1960, but I’ll guess a bit, and say there were a lot of Drapers around (“I think he’s a bit too dashing”). Sorting out the rest of the excellent cast is more difficult…yet, I can’t help but believe there are two that stand out above the rest. The first is Joan Halloway, (Christina Hendricks) who is not only perfectly cast as the siren of the early ‘60s but fully lives up to the role. I wonder how long they had to look to find the perfect Playboy-like actress to step in and take the role of the leader of the visiting team: in turf wars, you may or may not like her but she’s solid. The second is Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) who inhabits the role of the worst kind of co-worker. You’d have to go a long way down a dreary road to find anyone as good a Kartheiser. I would punch Pete Campbell in the face if I saw him…seriously. I want to compare the character to Al Swearengen in Deadwood but I’d at least want to have a drink with Al before the knife fight; Campbell is an absolute loser. At the beginning of the show I wondered if I was to feel sympathy or hatred for him – some kind of flawed character? He’s not flawed, he’s a jackass. If Kartheiser gets through a second season without winning an Emmy, I’d be horribly surprised.

Now you know.

t

so are you

I’ve got the Rick Warren sessions to fully explore this week, I’ve only seen a bit of Obama’s session, so I shouldn’t be too hard on William Kristol. The main thrust of his opinion this morning comes to this – and ‘this’ is the main problem with the lack of understanding many have of Obama’s position:

Warren asked whether evil exists and if it does, “do we ignore it? Do we negotiate with it? Do we contain it? Do we defeat it?”

Obama and McCain agreed evil exists and couldn’t be ignored. But then their answers diverged.

Obama said that “we see evil all the time” — in Darfur, on the streets of our cities, in child abusers. Such evils, he continued, need to be “confronted squarely.” And while we can’t “erase evil from the world,” we can be “soldiers” in the task of confronting it when we see it.

But, Obama added, “Now, the one thing that I think is very important is for us to have some humility” as we confront evil. Why? Because “a lot of evil has been perpetrated based on the claim that we were trying to confront evil.” After all, “just because we think our intentions are good doesn’t always mean that we’re going to be doing good.”

It’s nice to see a liberal aware of the limits of good intentions — indeed, that the road to hell is paved with them. But here as elsewhere, Obama stayed at a high level of abstraction. It would have been interesting if Warren had asked a follow-up question: Where in particular has the United States in recent years — at home or especially abroad — perpetrated evil in the name of confronting evil? Hasn’t the overwhelming problem been, rather, a reluctance to effectively confront evil — in Darfur, or Rwanda, or pre-9/11 Afghanistan?

John McCain appears to think so. Unlike Obama, he took the question about evil to be in the first instance about 9/11. McCain asserted that “of course evil must be defeated,” and he put “radical Islamic extremism,” Al Qaeda in particular, at the top of his to-defeat list. In this context, McCain discussed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and concluded by mentioning “the young men and women who are serving this nation in uniform.”

So it appears to me, using Kristol’s chosen extracts, that Obama believes very strongly that our determination of evil is almost always seen through American optics. Those optics are oftentimes right but just as often wrong or misguided. Instead of assuming we’re reading the tea leaves correctly at every fork in the road we might want to measure our actions against a larger canvass of World events. In response to Kristol’s desired follow-up question, I’d say this: Abu Gharib and Guantanamo Bay. As for his bit on our reluctance to confront evil as the greatest problem, wasn’t Sen. McCain present in Senate leadership throughout the Rwanda, Darfur and pre-9/11 Afghanistan? Is Kristol actually using that statement to posit the evils that Sen. McCain didn’t deal with over the last 15 years is somehow a measure of his abilities?

Sen. McCain’s response, again selected by Kristol, is like a checklist of what’s so wrong with those who blindly campaign and spew the three pillars of fear. I’ll break down McCain’s response…let me know if I miss anything in the paraphrase:

1. Defeat evil
2. Radical Islamic extremism
3. Men and women in uniform

If that is considered a nuanced response to what was a very good question, and if that is an answer that Kristol and his ilk find winning or in-depth, then there’s little hope in reaching into the conservative movement or McCain supporters come November.

t

a boot in the behind

We all know that we don’t have actual TV running on the Hilltop; we’ve got a big 36” Sony and the DVD player for entertainment. I’ve got nothing much to say about TV in general but I do have something for NBC: you suck. NBC has kommissar rights to the Olympics and allegedly have a Web presence where one could, if NBC’s online site was worth a shit, watch a few select events from Beijing: some swimming, cycling, track events, etc. I’ll get to scheduling in a sec, but first - to the NBC Webmaster: I think you must be part-time myspace or facebook high school sophomore. The layout and navigating is horrid, the system requirements don’t seem to matter, and content is for junk. I’ve checked all of my system components and they meet ‘requirements’ yet I endlessly get nothing but a ‘system requirements for operation’ message that gives me no actual input. I’ve ended up watching what I can on X’s old Vaio which plays the videos just fine. Back to NBC in general: they are kidding, right? I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on time zones, and whatnot, but this video broadcast selection is miserable. They’ve got a miserly plan that appears to ensure no video of available on-line videos until the event has been broadcast on terrestrial TV – including the junior high commentary and studio management presented by Jim Lampley and Bob Costas. My sports writing in the Valley View Junior High School paper in 1979 was purely Roger Angell-like compared to this hack production. I think I used to like the up close and personal pieces and sap-o-meter crammed down my throat when I was eight; I hate it now. A good example of immature commentary was Lampley summarizing the British team’s stunning success at the velodrome where they’ve won 4 gold, 2 silver, and 2 bronze so far: “Now if the Olympics only had snooker, cricket, and darts!” Ha ha ha…that IS hilarious. The British program has really put a ton of effort into cycling and his comment was completely bush league. (I’m watching TV today while working the USO so I can finally cringe while watching. Hey Jim Lampley, wouldn’t it be great if you actually had any other sports job during the normal calendar and weren’t merely the overnight janitor on NBC’s broadcast?) What is NBC thinking? If I watch online, where they can format my screen and make me watch ads, why would they make me wait 12-18 hours, sometimes longer, to see anything that happens at midnight stateside? Why can’t I watch Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps either live or on video immediately after the event? If I had TV, I’d boycott NBC for the next year – total incompetence. Their Web skills are a sorry reminder of just how far afield the music industry was when trying to deal with technology – they must have signed some old Arista music executives.

I’ll lighten up a bit and turn to my very little fashionista leanings. Here’s another great Johnston & Murphy ad featuring a shoe I need. The last time they got me this fired up about a shoe was a Johnston & Murphy ad that featured Lyle Lovett a few years ago.


The Cubs hung 8 runs on the Marlins in the seventh inning today – looks like the streak is up to seven series without a loss and six straight won. Fingers are crossed for the rest of the season.

smoke 'em if you got 'em

I just got through the first disc from the first season of Mad Men. My Mom recommended it to me when we were down over Christmas – I think it was as much her working history, in the early 1960s, as anything – so I gave it a go. I used to think that my all-time favorite band, Slobberbone, were smoking fools; apparently in about 1960 the rest of America would blaze them under the table. I mean, I’ve watched Jess Barr smoke an entire pack during each set – while playing guitar. Nothing’s quite as cool as smoking and playing guitar. Nothing except washing dishes with gloves…and smoking. Being pregnant…and smoking. Working…and smoking. Talking…and smoking. Was it really like that?

Give me a whiskey in my office while I smoke and work.

By the way...great show.

Awesome.

i'll play along

I’ve discovered the staff photo from my first summer as a junior counselor in 1981 (here's the link to the photo. It's larger and you can zoom). It was a gloriously long season at YMCA Camp Foster on East Okoboji during the heyday of smoking cool haircuts and great AM music. I was but a 16 year-old and vividly remember earning a whopping $200 for the 11-week overnight camp: we got paid $67 every three weeks. I’d been a camper for two years prior to my decision to spend my summer managing, wrangling, and corralling 8-16 year-old overnight campers (if you must know 8 and 16 year-olds were the easiest...10 year-old the worst). I also spent the summer of 1982 at the camp and was grateful for the $50 raise I got as a returning counselor. This was the summer before my sophomore year in high school and I vaguely remember somehow sneaking onto the staff even though I was actually a year too young to be a junior counselor. My older sister was also working on staff as a (real) counselor and she earned a massive $600 for the summer – you know, older, wiser, soon-to-be college student. In fact, she'd been there in 1980 and put in a good word for me. What amazes me is that I can remember most of the names and ‘personalities’ of just about every single person in the photo: eleven weeks of living together will do that to you. I can link up every ‘couple’ that hooked up over the summer – sometimes with more than one other staff member…it’s a long summer – and all the messy break-ups that seemed to rear their ugly heads on our only off nights: Saturdays spent in Arnolds Park and Spirit Lake. I don’t want to worry my mother too much but every Saturday consisted primarily of heading into town to do a week’s worth of laundry, eat dinner, and generally drinking beer and play Cardinal Puff. Hey, the drinking age back then was only 18…wait, never mind. Occasionally we’d slip over into the Park for the rollercoaster or Fun House but often didn’t have enough time or the money to spend on fees. Sometimes we’d crash at the house of another staffer who lived in the area - I don't remember where we slept the when that didn't happen. On rare occasions we’d catch a band (Three Dog Night, 1982) at the legendary Roof Garden at the Park. The Okoboji area of the 1980s was something to see – straight out of a movie about a small town and the summer tourists that completely overrun it. I was thinking that my night would ruined while I searched the dusty files trying to think of the two bars we always hung out at, but it won’t happen this evening: the one in Spirit Lake for Cardinal Puff (and hanging in around while our laundry rolled about in the laundr-o-mat was Sportsman’s Pub…It's still there;


and the Regal Beagle was the dance place in Arnolds Park. Just think about all the great 1981 hits you could dance to at the Beagle:

Top Ten of 1981

1. Bette Davis Eyes, Kim Carnes
2. Endless Love, Diana Ross and Lionel Richie
3. Lady, Kenny Rogers
4. (Just Like) Starting Over, John Lennon
5. Jessie's Girl, Rick Springfield
6. Celebration, Kool and The Gang
7. Kiss on My List, Daryl Hall and John Oates
8. I Love a Rainy Night, Eddie Rabbitt
9. 9 To 5, Dolly Parton
10. Keep On Loving You, REO Speedwagon

I’m getting a little teary-eyed thinking about the whole thing.

I guess I should also point out, not using actual names since I’ve been caught out by Google on that before, I met my first girlfriend that summer of 1981. If you know me, you’ll find me. If you knew her, you’ll find her.

I’m going to listen to some Rick Springfield and rip on my air guitar tonight.

t

kick and kick and kick

I heard the expected scientific / oceanography story about Michael Phelps on NPR last night. I get it – he’s like a dolphin. Whenever there’s someone who dominates an event, and I’m considering the swimming competition as a single even, there’s normally some or many genetic contributors that clarify a good bit of the puzzle. Phelps has shorter legs (less drag), big feet (propulsion), a longer torso and arms (better reach), and very little body fat. The dolphin kick that’s used on starts and turns has been very good to him; the undulating body and whip of the feet that he can manage for all 15 meters of allowable distance. According to Rowdy Gaines, most world-class swimmers can manage the kick but not for as long as Phelps. Just to pop a cherry on his sundae, Phelps also has fantastic lung capacity. He also probably trains as hard as anyone else in the pool. What he’s done – 6 golds, 2 bronze at the 2004 Olympics; 5 golds and a silver at the 2005 World Championships; 7 golds at the 2007 World Championships; and 5 golds so far in Beijing, is mind-boggling. Based on what I can manage, he’s won 22 of the 24 events he’s entered since the 2005 World Championships including the last 17 in a row. The four-year run from Athens to Beijing is unlike anything swimming has ever seen and Phelps is clearly the greatest swimmer of all time. We can hold off on the “Greatest Olympian” debate that NBC seems so intent on bestowing upon him. I’ll reconsider when he wins eight gold medals at this Olympiad. Also, he says he’ll swim in London in 2012 but not on this scale (eight events) anymore. Maybe he’ll do a couple of relays and two individual events – we could write in maybe three more golds to get his total to 17 over three Olympics (the all-time record was nine before this onslaught). Then I’d definitely say he was the Olympics’ greatest American athlete. I don’t think he’ll ever overcome Jesse Owens in 1936 simply because the man and times were so much greater than what we experience today.

The Brewers are on another 8-game winning streak, their second in two months, but have made up little on the rolling Cubs. Since the All-Star break the Brewers are 18-8 and the Cubs are 16-9 – they’re holding there own so far with five consecutive series wins and six straight series without losing one. I think there are nine games coming up that they need to dominate against weaker opponents before the schedule closes with a tough 20 or so game run. I’d love to see a six-game lead.

The weather here has been stunning since my return: high 70s to low 80s, down into the 60s at night, blue and partly cloudy skies. Ah….D.C. in the early autumn.

Base on my phone call with X this morning, I think we’re both planning on scrubbing houses and working on gardens and yards today. Funny thing how that happens.

t