man! this is one, long song

I was listening to the Sound Opinions podcast on my walk to work this morning and as they were discussing the agreement to remove digital rights management (DRM) software from iTunes-purchased music, my mind start to wander back in time. What interested me was the conflation of digital music capabilities and their relationship to singles and albums created by artists and marketed by big record companies. Way back when, as a ten-year old haunting the corridors of Omaha’s Westroads mall, about 1975, I remember endlessly buying 45s for $.79 - $.99. Each song was lovingly selected after having listened to AM radio (WOW and KOIL in Omaha back in those days) and remembering just which songs Kasey Kasem played on the countdown the previous Sunday night. The “record buyers” back in those days primarily bought 45s and eschewed the LPs that were marketed and pushed on FM radio – you had to be driving a 1970 yellow Chevelle SS to be someone who actually bought complete albums on vinyl or 8-track: 10cc, Steely Dan, Stevie Wonder, Aerosmith, ELO, Blue Oyster Cult, and the Steve Miller Band. Record sale profits were based on the sale of millions of singles and dozens of one- or two-hit single releases from artists; seriously, take a gander at the top singles of 1975 (1976 was even more amazing for pure singles):

Love Will Keep Us Together – Captain and Tennille (saw them twice in concert!)
Rhinestone Cowboy – Glen Campbell
Philadelphia Freedom – Elton John
Before the Next Teardrop Falls – Freddie Fender
My Eyes Adored You – Frankie Valli
Shining Star – Earth, Wind, and Fire
Fame – David Bowie
Laughter in the Rain – Neil Sedaka
One of These Nights – The Eagles
Thank God I’m a Country Boy – John Denver

I owned all of them on single except Freddie Fender (my brother had the album…on 8-track…in his Chevelle), and Fame by Bowie. I’d guess that if you were a music buyer back then you might have owned a couple of them on LP. My point being this: we’ve been through entire eras where music was purchased primarily as singles and not albums. At some point in the late 1980s sales seems to move full force toward full-length albums; about the time near the tail end of cassettes (awful!), the birth of CDs, and the industry’s opportunity to eliminate singles – they no longer provided a format for singles sales. By that time music had become much more compact to carry and people didn’t much seem to care that they had to buy the $18 CD just to get the two or three songs they wanted. But, we’ve always been a singles species even through we passed through that bit of history where they weren’t available for purchase. How do I know? How about the 71 volumes of NOW! That’s What I Call Music in the UK and 29 volumes in the U.S? The UK version has been around much longer (they are even more singles oriented than the U.S. – see, Top of the Pops) but when the U.S. version launched in 1998 it proved very successful. All of the U.S. Now CDs have gone platinum and almost half have gone to #1.

What this sort of proves, via my twisted logic, is that the idea behind selling singles on iTunes – and the “sky is falling because no one buys full albums anymore” argument –is a false ideal. The industry has known forever that singles are what props up the whole building and they even spent the entire 1990s proving the premise true once again by cramming endless singles bands down our throats: Britney, Backstreet Boys, N*Sync, Destiny’s Child, Hanson, Christina Aguilera, Hootie, blah blah blah. I can safely assume that no one has ever uttered this phrase “Man, that new Backstreet Boys album really connects with me. The B-side was such a surprise after the smooth musicianship of the A-side.”

The shock of the DRM implementation decision was that the record companies (it’s always been their requirement, not Apple’s…although they certainly didn’t suffer) felt the need to limit the movement of legally-purchased digital music. It almost seemed as if they were saying that since they couldn’t rely on the big dollars for selling albums as a single unit that they needed to figure out a way to place limitations on the singles that people were picking-and-choosing from the iTunes store. They feigned amazement when they watched as people purchased only the song Delilah by the Plain White T’s instead of dropping ten bucks for the rest of that crappy album. They have for two decades been essentially getting $12-$20 for one song – now they only got $.99. They are, after all, the ones who trained us to love singles and it was forty years spent getting us ready for the digital music era that no one apparently foresaw arriving. Suddenly, they were lost.

DRM was something that was simply a petulant child’s reaction to losing money – taking a ball and going home. It only caused consumers to react poorly when confronted with the idea that legally-purchased music was limited in its digital use for the purchaser. DRM wasn’t ever going to stop pirating or free downloading any more than naming a drug czar was going to stop drug use – it was just a stupid, knee jerk reaction. The vast majority of music lovers will pay a reasonable price for music. For those of use that buy full albums we might pay something like $5 at emusic.com (yours truly), or $16 at a local record shop. It depends – if emusic doesn’t have the release then I’ll go to Melody Records and buy the CD. What I won’t do, for whatever reason, is buy a 12-track full-length release from iTunes for $10 if there are going to be restrictions. And, in my guilt-by-association mindset, I won’t buy a single from iTunes for $.99 for the same reason – restrictions.

I don’t see any of this as directly related to piracy or the flow of free music: that’s another issue to me (hey, I hadn’t read the slate article before I starting spouting off). All of my music is paid for because I think the artists deserved the money. What DRM did was force consumers to try to separate the artist from the company and the artist always ended up getting punished by the deeds of the industry. It was too hard to figure out if Prince or Sony was being the jerk in the process because the end result was simply that we were paying too much, living with restrictions, and fighting back against the entire beast.

I think I’ll let you go. If you got this far, well done; if not…well, you’re not reading this so I have nothing to say to you.

dork meter

Every year the NYTimes publishes a Year in Review quiz that I find utterly fascinating; it's a Brunswick Stew of everything you might find in the news throughout the year. I did all right this year getting 50 out of 118 - I know that might seem poor but you'd better give it a go before grading my attempt. What this entry is really about is the portion of the review that isn't really numbered as a question but merely titled "Red State/Blue State" that asks you to remember two things about the fifty states and the District of Columbia: did it go Dem or Republican in the election and how many electoral votes does each carry. There are two compartments in my brain that gave me serious hope about my success: the 2008 election that seems as if it were yesterday (to include my endless reading), and the game Landslide that I played in my youth. I vividly remember Landslide and all its election iterations -picture a geeky kid memorizing electoral votes even though I didn't know a wit about the Electoral College. It simply seemed like math and a big old conundrum as I was trying to get elected President of Brookside Dr. in Omaha, Nebraska. Right. I tuck into the table, stick my tongue out to enhance my deep thought, and have at it. I'm quite proud of my results - and I'll pass them along since you asked.

1. I got 50 of 51 states (and the District of Columbia) correct on the Democrat/Republican vote. I misfired on Michigan even though Obama won that baby by 16%. I guess I got a bit crazy staring at the table and still had Michigan as a battleground state in my head. That's a bad miss on my part...just saying.

2. I got 14 of the 51 exactly right on electoral votes and 15 within one. Overall, 40 (of 51) of my number were within three. My average miss - on the 37 that were wrong - was 3.08 votes.

3. My biggest gap was NY which I imagined as 47 electoral votes but is actually only 31. I was also off by 8 votes on Texas and Michigan. It seems like once you get into the big numbers it all gets a bit blurry.

4. Having said that, I nailed California and its 55 electoral votes.

Maybe I'll apply to be a political savant - not a strategist - because I'm apparently only good at memorizing inane facts. I bet if there were somewhere I could be quizzed on Monopoly properties, rents, and hotel fees....

If only.

jai ho

Not that I need the Hollywood Foreign Press and their Golden Globes to validate my tastes, but between Mickey Rourke stumbling up to win best actor and Slumdog Millionaire winning best picture, it's a good opening to the season. I finally found the closing dance scene from Slumdog. The movie may not be for eveyone but it is fantastic.

t

just a little nip

Who exactly are the senior members of Al Qaeda? I don’t have the time to go back and sort the exact number of senior members that have been killed but I don’t think “senior member” means much anymore. Aren’t those positions just reloaded with the next guy in line? Aren’t all these senior members just calling themselves senior members like program managers call themselves program managers? I’m certainly not impeaching the work the military and CIA are doing – I’m merely chuckling at the Administration(s) that always act as if they’ve got the eye chart that outlines who’s who in a terrorist organization.

I’ve started reading the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series. L, who’s read just about every series of children’s/fantasy books, declares the Olympians series to be her favorite. As a reference, the Harry Potters are down around fifth and the Gregor the Overlander series is in at around number 3. I’m sure she’s my kid because she creates her own power lists. I’ve decided that the best birthday gift this year will be Kindle with some book buying coupons included. She’s the perfect test bed since she’s always carrying around books and rereads just about everything. Once she gets that thing loaded up she’ll be in heaven...and noncommunicative.

I was thumbing through my Concise Oxford English dictionary just now and as I fluttered through the pages I came across an index word (?) at the top of a page: doch an dorris. I thought to myself, “What the hell is that?” and stopped to take a gander. Here’s what is said at the entry: variant spelling of deoch an dorris. Ah, I see. Hold on a second and I’ll be right back…

A deoch and doris is a 17th century Scottish and Irish term for a “final drink taken before parting; a ‘drink at the door.’” I know I won’t get a straight answer when I get X cornered at home because she’ll have already read this entry; but, based on the freakish nuggets of information that cling to the dusty corners of her brain (along with her pub expertise), I’ll bet she knew what it meant. She’s so lovurly.


I just got an e-mail from Jill Biden. I know I should have been able to produce the first name of Joe Biden’s wife – I saw her at the final celebration in Chicago – but I had absolutely no idea. I did riddle it out before opening the e-mail so I should get points for that, right?

paper cut

X swung by the library after piano lessons last night to pick up a few books she had on hold. You might imagine she’d have reserved some mysteries for bedtime reading, maybe a gardening book, or possibly a compilation of poetry. Nope, nope, and nope. She needed The Complete Book of Sharpening and another volume on Japanese Woodcutting, or some such. What I learned just before slipping off to sleep was that the most important thing to avoid when working a high carbon blade is overheating. Did you know that? I didn’t think so. This book is no pamphlet; it’s more than 200 pages of sharpening, science, and the cutting of stuff. If I were manly I would already know everything in the book – in fact, I might actually read the book. I’ll stick with my cooking tomes, pre-assigned Global knife sharpener (and the ceramic configured “V” for the German swords), and Sur Le Table catalogs. I think the second chapter of the book opens with something like this, “If you thought we’d continue without a chapter on physics, you’re horribly mistaken.”

We started to try to sort out summer plans. I think L will be here for a month between mid-July and mid-August with everyone spending a week at some cabin, in some northern area, near some water. We’re also trying to get her summer camping plans in order for D.C. – I wonder if Sidwell camps (which she attended last summer) are going to be more crowded now that “the girls” attend during the school year? Maybe I should get cracking.

We learned this morning that G's math teacher took a good, long look at confused children and decided they actually need to learn how to do long division. Really? You mean the little circles and squares they were taught as a "system" is actually worthless. Shocked. SHOCKED!

t

jules

I know I've been delinquent and probably been blabbing on about hockey too much, but here I go again...quickly. The Flyers are in town tonight and the Eleven will be there together trying to fight off irritating Philadelphians. I give you one of the great skits ever done - it's the mentality the Caps need against the Broad St. Bullies tonight.



t

sport on ice

They played 50 years of Bears’ games at Wrigley Field. It’s been home to the Cubs since 1916. Yesterday, it hosted the NHL Winter Classic which showcased the 701st game between the Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Blackhawks. Both teams wore throwback uniforms and lit the red light 10 times. The picture above makes it look a bit more impressive than it did on TV: I think the area around the rink looked shoddy, the camera tower angle wasn’t great, the stands in the outfield were to far away, and a baseball stadium probably isn’t the best choice for hockey. There’s talk of the Capitals being involved next year and that’d be great. I propose a temp ring and temp seating for about 20,000-25,000 on the National Mall…at night. Illuminate the Capitol, the monuments, and have at it. There are tons of Metro stops nearby and no one would need to drive and park. The only issue would appear to be rain; makes ice slushy. Otherwise, the temperature isn’t much of an issue (they’ve played hockey outdoor in Vegas) – and it’s been plenty cold the last few days. I don’t think you need to manage 40,000 – 70,000 for a hockey game. Get the stands and fans right up against the glass (didn’t happen yesterday) and make it more intimate. As an addition, the Caps won their 10th game in the last 11 last night at Verizon Center. The Rangers and Flyers are on deck over the next five days.

Pumpkin – the large cat - has decided that he needs to remind us every morning at about 6:30am that he’ll be wanting some food to get him through the day. He puts his huge head against the crack at the bottom of the door and loudly mewls. As we were getting ready to leave this morning he also pointed out that he’d like some more cool fresh water in his bowl; day-old water wasn’t good enough for his delicate tastes. This is what the house has turned into.

In a related story, apparently we're having pumpkin soup for dinner. Go figure.

Happy New Year to all.

booked

Even if you haven’t heard from me for awhile everything here is going very well. We’ve swapped children in the house: two boys out, one girl in.

We had a very nice Holiday with folks coming and going. Wondertwin #2 and family came over Christmas Eve for something resembling a big English roast: roast of Sirloin, roasted veg, sweet potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, gravy, dessert, etc. Gift opening was after dinner and the kids did stockings on Christmas morning. The cats evacuated the house while the screaming, paper, and pile of activities were in full swing.

Yesterday afternoon L. and I headed into the Library of Congress to meet and chat with the Librarian of the Children’s Literature Center. I found out during my volunteer training session at the LOC that she enjoys, and welcomes, having kids come back and visit even if the library’s rules are fairly strict on the 16 year-old age limit to get into the reading rooms. I called her in the morning and she graciously invited us in for the afternoon. She’s been there for twenty-five years and absolutely loves the job – I love the job. The reading room is beautiful designed and she gets to spend her days doing what she truly loves. She’ll be the first to tell anyone that she has the greatest job in the World and couldn’t imagine doing anything else. She’s an absolutely joyful person. (Here’s a blog entry from someone in Minnesota that perfectly describes not only Sybille Jagusch, but the library as a whole. We, too, saw the paper globe.) Toward the end of our personal visit she looked at me and mildly chastised me for not planning ahead with her. She let it be known that when L. comes back this summer we need to send her a list of books we’d like to see and she’ll gather them up for another get together.

After our lovely visit we grabbed some coffee and hot chocolate and walked north to Union Station for a little browse. The beautiful station has been remodeled in the last five years or so and reminds one of a European station: nice shops, restaurants, cafes, and the perfectly large and glamorous arrival/departures board. We strolled around talking about taking a train to NYC this summer – I picked up some magazines since RR stations are the best places for periodicals – and we then headed over to K St. to meet X for a dinner date. She recommended The Iron Gate and we enjoyed a fab meal in a restaurant quiet on a Monday night during the Holidays (no congressional staffers around these days). X did a few appetizers, I had a tagine, and L, as expected, had salmon and gratin. A shared date pudding with rum sauce finished the meal. It was a nice end to a lovely day.

This afternoon we 're heading back to the city one more time to grab lunch at the café in the Museum of the American Indian and to visit the newly reopened American History Museum. L. will be toted to the airport at the break of dawn tomorrow and flown back to Omaha – school begins anew on Monday. I’ll work through Saturday to cover my time off over the last week and then we’ll begin a New Year.

Love to all.

hey, psst

I was heading out of the shops the other night and strolled through the men’s section which had classic holiday gifts for men on display: slippers and dopp kits. (There was also a table full of nail clipper/tweezer/shoe shine kits. I don’t include them on the classic gift avenue – they’re just junky.) A few things to point out; ideas that might clarify the problem with both gifts. Let’s take a look at slippers. Women get cold feet (not wedding cold feet – lack-of-blood cold feet) and for some reason they assume we get cold feet. That doesn’t actually happen unless we’re hanging out at Everest base camp. The slippers generally make our feet hot but we try to wear them, regardless. The dopp kit (feel free to look that up if you aren’t up with the vernacular of youth) doesn’t actually work anymore. We are way to metrosexual to run with a dopp kit, primarily because all our lotions and potions tend to leak if they end up in cargo. You’d be better off giving us a box of Ziploc freezer bags…really. Here’s my take on gifts for guys, and I know this might fly in the face of the slipper discussion, but we like mostly the same stuff you like…if you’re wondering. A cashmere sweater, a nice watch, a good book. I swear, if you give me more slippers or something that isn’t a Ziploc bag…

I’m the midst of compiling my best albums of 2008 list that is due, and required, to my music group by Christmas. I’m torn on a number of entries but only because I was less inquisitive this year than most. For the first time I’m thinking of going with only five nominations – all of which are strong – and not padding the nums to get to the magical ten. Once again, Minneapolis will be well represented.

I think we’ll have a tree by this evening. X and H are working the sales lot and this appears to be the day it finally happens. We’ll get out the crazy Wisconsin-designed tree stand and get it vertical. I’m not much for decorating so I’ll leave it to the wood nymphs.

catching up, keeping up

I didn't find the song(s) I was desiring but you can watch Mexico City from Jolie Holland's new album.

a remembered review

This little vignette came flush into my head while I was rereading an entry from last year that detailed my created superhero, Door Man. (I only reread entries when the sitemeter shows me that someone ended up googling a strange combination of words that led to some entry from long ago. I'm always interested in which entry busted down the door.) A few weeks ago I was heading back home from D.C. on the Orange Line (probably after a hockey game) and as the train pulled into East Falls Church the crowd readied for the mass departure. A few "excuse me's", light shoving, bag banging, and newspaper leaving behind, and everyone was safely onto the platfrom and heading off to their own cocoons. But then....just as the door closing ding-ding is heard, it is mirrored by calls coming from the distant innards of the seats - "Oh my! Someone left their Blackberry! It's hers, it's hers!" (the crowd is pointing feverishly through the window at Blackberry Lady; innocently walking toward the stairs.) The younger man at the door turns just in time to see the Blackberry flying through the air as the doors start to close behind him. With decisive action, he catches the Blackberry with his right hand and jams his left arm through the closing door. In the slow motion action that followed, he turned to the five inches of open door that was trying to eat his arm, yelled out "Hey lady! Your Blackberry!", crossed his right hand to the opening, and pitched/slid her device across the surface of the East Falls Church platform. To cheers from the commuter crowd he extracted his appendage and raised his arms in victory. Victory indeed!

What little Christmas shopping to be done will be done tonight. I venture out in hope that my return is assured.

Maybe you'll get more later, maybe not. I did find a Jolie Holland video that I'll add when I get home.

t

film fest

I’ll confess to the world that I bailed out of the house yesterday prior to the kids’ birthday party and reptile show. I don’t much care for lots of kids running about or reptiles. It seemed like the best option.

I drove down to the Shirlington neighborhood in Arlington and took in Slumdog Millionaire – which was about the only movie I’d seen advertised in the last six months that I was interested in seeing. The basic premise is this: and kid from slums of Mumbai is on the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire and ends up answering the questions based on knowledge from his life’s experiences. You’ll need to either go to the theatre or await its release on DVD to sort out the rest of the story. A word of warning: it’s directed by the same man who directed Trainspotting (Danny Boyle) so it has its share of violence. What amazed me about the film is how seamlessly Boyle and cycle between violence, comedy, a love story, suspense, heart-rending emotion, joy, and misery. And still kick you out of the theatre feeling happy, yet beaten in ways. All of the acting is outstanding, the soundtrack is awesome, and the final video during the credits give you a happy nudge as you leave your seat and wander into the cold. Looking back at the movies I’ve seen in the last five years, I’d definitely put this in the top three. Of course, there were a few previews (The Wrestler and Gran Torino) that look promising – is this the time of year when all the good stuff shows up? It seems like we’re a few months past my normal “good movie” season.

I’m going to take a look around the Web this evening and see if I can find at least some audio links, if not videos, of two songs from the newest Jolie Holland CD. The reason this is vitally important is because both Corrido Por Buddy and Your Big Hands are both perfect examples of songs I love. I’m not saying they are my favorite songs of all-time, I do quite like them, but they would certainly answer the question “If Todd could explain exactly what he likes in a song, what would he say?” The answer would be these songs. The jingle of both is perfect. I realized while we were driving home over Thanksgiving that Your Big Hands was the perfect song outline for me…Corrido Por Buddy came along later and jumped into the same canoe.

Our weather is undecided – cold and windy, warm and windy, cold and still. It’ll sort itself out soon enough.

t

sick and tired

Our cats are in the depths of two catuations: ailments and the new Windoor®. Lemon came down with a cold, and the associated fits of sneezing, a few weeks ago. She managed to shake it off with few ill effects but did succeed in passing it along to Pumpkin. It’s hit him a bit harder and I took him to the vet the other night because his breathing was a little labored. After a nice visit with the friendly doctor we came home with some medicine that’ll run its course twice-a-day for ten days. There’s little more interesting work in this world than giving medicine to an animal. They also gave us some medicinal spray to put on their food; allegedly, it’s a more preventive script that might keep the cold from spreading back to Lemon. I think we’d all like to have a little talk with the animal medicine engineers who continue to believe that putting any type of medication in a pet’s food will actually work. I have never had a pet of any ilk (dog, cat, rat) that isn’t fully aware of some crap that’s been “hidden” in their chow. Now, humans? That’s another case.

The Windoor (creative marketing, eh?) has been installed in our kitchen window for cat use. The previously jerry-rigged escape hatch was an old dog door with the door portion removed (too heavy for little cat heads) and towels and blankets acting as cover. It works well when the weather is a lovely, autumnal 75 degrees. Not so well when we’ve got 30 degrees, sleet, howling winds, and a mostly sans insulation house. We installed the new windoor over the weekend and I think we may be near the point of getting our blockhead cats using it. Maybe they’re just being difficult but it’s not such a hard to master. If nothing else, the fact that we pitch them out the windoor three times a day might be getting the point across. Last night, for the first time, we put both of them out as we were heading to bed around 10:30pm and, lo and behold, both critters were back in the house this morning mewling for breakfast.

The Caps game went well last night – we handled the conference-leading Bruins with aplomb. I’d like to claim that my mere presence over the last two seasons has vaulted the Caps to the upper echelons (they are 13-1-2 in games I’ve attended), but I think I merely walked in on a pretty good team shaping up. WonderTwin 2 can now come to games again after the Florida loss in which she was not present – I’ve validated now that it wasn’t her bad karma…or the gold scarfy-thing being worn over her Ovechkin shirt at a hockey game.

Enough.

t

slapshot

Friedman nails it today in words better than I could manage. Since I believe the only way forward for American auto companies is to undertake a serious overhaul – this would have been a grand idea for them to latch onto way back when – this op-ed finally blasts the big, bright light across just how horrible an idea this cash injection/loan is unless the industry provides the necessary mea culpa. Buying typewriters and record albums, that’s brilliant.

The Caps are back in D.C. tonight to take on the Bruins at Verizon Center. My pal Buzz has once again managed to show up for “work” during a Capitals home stand – suspicious? Just so you know, and I know you’re interested , NHL teams carry 23 players on their active roster and as of this morning the Caps have eight of the opening-day players out with injury – and they’ve been out for mostly 12-14 games. The fact that they’ve cobbled together a team made up of one-third minor leaguers recalled from Hershey, and remained in first place, is quite a feat. Hopefully, everyone’s back by the New Year and they can get on a roll through the spring.

One more NYTimes piece today – an art/coffee love affair story. Blueberry bagels…genius.

I also don’t think it’s a good day for you, Mr. Governor, when you have Patrick Fitzgerald all in your business. Having Patrick Fitzgerald showing up to “ask around” is like having Christiane Amanpour show up to do “some reporting” from your village. “What is Christiane Amanpour doing here?”

Love to all

t

play, acting

This is an application I like. I like it like I like iTunes.

I was listening to some Cokie Roberts commentary on NPR yesterday and I suddenly realized just how much I don’t care for Cokie Roberts commentary. She used to seem like a benign voice in the news world but the fact is that she’s quite poor at analyzing or reporting anything. Of course, it certainly doesn’t help that I don’t much care for her views. What triggered it was her “reporting” of Obama’s naming of Eric Shinseki as the Secretary of Veteran Affairs. Her “analysis” was that this move seemed like a poke in the eye of the Bush Administration. (If you don’t recognize the name, Gen (ret.) Shinseki was the Army Chief of Staff who testified before Congress – before the war – that we would need hundreds of thousands of troops to occupy Iraq after the war. Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld ran him out for speaking truth to power.) Anyhow, Shinseki served in the Army for 38 years, obviously served at the highest level, was wounded in Vietnam, and may well be the perfect choice for a very high profile and amazingly important position. Imagine someone choosing a qualified person for a job…dang, pinch me. I don’t think the future President is much for sticking things in people’s eyes; I’m pretty sure that the future President cares very little about anything that is thought of the current Administration. Of course, Roberts is too shallow to even imagine it possible – she is effectively belittling Shinseki’s qualifications and service in order to make a high school point. This being only the most current of her Monday morning blah-fests that amount to nothing of import and zero insight.

I won’t dawdle too much on the car bailout. Suffice it to say that I’m against it unless there are very, very stringent rules. Very stringent.

X invited me to spend about 90 minutes in a Benetton store the other night. I, of course, accepted.

I hit the Keegan Theatre for last Sunday’s matinee of Glengarry Glen Ross. I was quite a fan of the movie and I think the performance was just as good. There were a few reviews that didn’t much care for Mark Rhea’s performance as Ricky Roma but I thought it was excellent. The problem with that role is that Al Pacino played it in the movie and Al Pacino overacts (or over- Pacinos everything). Pacino is a caricature of himself (much like Sean Connery and Charleton Heston). I would think that if you’re reprising the role you’d find yourself doing a Pacino imitation…it’s too easy. Rhea, who is the founder (?) and board member (?) of the theatre, seemed to wander into Pacinoland for a few seconds at a time before pulling himself back from the brink. Everyone else gets straight As. One thing I also realized toward the end of the show was just how much I think David Mamet and Neil LaBute have in common. Maybe on another day we can talk more.

T

i walked to school uphill, both ways!

I’ve had some good, long discussions with people about education. Since I have a blog and have read some books, I’m an expert. That’s how it works. Of course, I have no training in education aside from my actual education through secondary school and my desire to enter a Chemistry teaching program at George Mason University in August. My primary concern has always been the primary and secondary public education system – I don’t even have the heart to delve into the insane college and university systems that run rampant all across the country.

I don’t think you need to be an expert to know that No Child Left Behind is a horrible program. It’s difficult to understand why any one believes that standardized testing is the way to measure the education of our children. There might be rumblings from behind the curtain that it’s the only way we know of to sort data, but that doesn’t mean it’s right or needed. Most of us have an understanding that SATs, ACTs, LSATs, GREs, and etc. are used as guides to measure the possibility of success in future endeavors, and somewhat as measures of the past, but they aren’t definers of a person’s actual ability to function in society. Here in Virginia there’s an annual test call the Standards of Learning (the SOLs…what a great acronym…) that I’ve watched both boys prepare for each year. Their classroom work ceases for weeks prior to the testing and the teachers simply teach to the test in order to pad the numbers and freak out. I’m pretty sure a good portion of the SOL results carry into the NCLB data pool. My question is this: If the kids are in school seven hours a day for an entire year, what are they learning? Why the need to for the “test teaching” for two weeks? Shouldn’t the basic math, reading, and writing skills have been covered already? Shouldn’t the test be an actual measure of how well the school – and its teachers – are performing? If you read David Brooks in today’s NYTimes you’ll see what brought about this crazy talk on the blog. I’ve been following the Mayor Fenty / Michelle Rhee doings since he won the mayoral election and I’m generally onboard with Rhee’s burn-and-rebuild ideas. (There are some personal vendettas and asides that bother me about her work, but I think the whole is much stronger than those issues.) Merit pay? Yes. If you do your job better than others; you get paid more. If you stink – you get fired. I don’t want anyone to get the impression that I think a complete educational overhaul is easy or cheap. Like anything else in this World worth fixing it’s going to take time, money, and a consolidated effort from the top. We should pay teachers way more than we do, we should finance the schools, we should either figure out how to better manage the money or we should redistribute revenues (or increase them) to make sure the educational system is truly functional. One more thing on NCLB, and something that made it even more laughable when it came into being: if there are fewer than x number of an ethnic or other NCLB grouping in your school, the program doesn’t even count either a baseline educational standard or any improvement year-to-year. Let’s say you have 12 Native Americans at your school – there’s a very good chance that any educational process under NCLB will be moot or ignored. It’s something I learned about while living in the mixed-bag community of Northern Nevada. I think that would qualify as left behind.

The second thing that triggered this all was X’s parent-kid-teacher conference at the New School today. What they’ve managed to do in their little corner of the educational process is get the kids to understand that there’s a program of learning and the program is owned by them. The teacher had the conference run by H. and he was fully able to discuss where he was having problems, where he wasn’t, and how he could improve – and it was dead-on with what the middle school head had learned from his teachers. Wow. What a concept – getting children to understand that their schooling is important and that they need to crackdown and learn. When you see, or hear, about the success of varying systems – about the parents, the schools, and the kids working together – it become clear why there’s so much failures: our inability as parents and adults to convince the kids that they are going to go school, they are going to learn and work hard, and that the work they do now will come back ten-fold as both young adults, professionals, and parents. That’s something that’s truly missing in society.

Fine. You can leave.

malled

I blame this opening on Mary Chapin-Carpenter who I’ve enjoy on-and-off for years. She was scheduled for an interview on NPR yesterday – one I didn’t listen to – to discuss her new Christmas album. Who buys Christmas albums? I think I’ve picked up a few CDs over the last few years when I knew there’d be visitors but they came from the $.99 bargain bin and were merely compilations of Bing Crosby, Elvis, Jim Nabors, and some instrumentals. The last original I bought was probably the Mannheim Steamroller CD back in the late 80s or early 90s. Every year artists seem to trot out Christmas units and I’m baffled by the appeal. There haven’t been any new standards written, right? And if the artists are adding in newer songs they consider worthy of yuletide repeat then it seems a huge risk – most of us want the basics. I sort of see this as the equivalent of performers releasing compilations of great patriotic songs in July: the Star Spangled Banner, God Bless America, etc. If I’m going to even consider listening to those performances of the National Anthem then I’m looking for the best singers ever, not Beyonce or Michael Bolton. There isn’t a singer on my list of favorites who could put out a Christmas CD that I would even consider buying, ever.

I swung over to the Galleria today (yes, it’s just as upscale as it sounds) to return some of X’s J. Crew purchases. She prepped me with a quick “stand firm on the trousers if they give you a hard time” script. It wasn’t required in the end as the store was perfectly happy to take back everything and give back all the dollars. What I did notice, as a small aside, is that every girl working the counter ran about 5’1” and 98 pounds. I could have taken the whole crew if a fight had broken out – it would have looked like a bunch of kindergartners hanging off the legs of the gym teacher at recess as he walks back to the building.

I’m off to the Caps game tonight (vs. the Islanders) and the rest of the crew will be doing some scouting activities throughout the evening.

I know. Life isn’t always interesting.

t

p.s. my kitty has a cold. thought you should know.

the road

During our stroll through Portland on Friday we ended up in a two-level, downtown storefront that served as home to five different businesses: a tattoo shop, a comic shop, CD store, video rental, and gelateria. With all those under one roof I have little need to go anywhere else. I spent time in a real, live CD store for the first time in ages and was dreaming about how much I missed actual interaction with CDs and people in real-life shops. I picked up the new Todd Snider, Sigur Ros, and Rose Hill Drive: folk, pop-tronica, and jam music, respectively. Check, check, and check.

Our drive back went well – to Middleton, NY on Saturday and to Falls Church yesterday. The only traffic issues we had over the weekend came up yesterday. The first was an “incident” along I-81 east of Harrisburg, PA that had our flow backed up for about five miles (and the eastbound joining I-78 from Allentown backed up another six miles). X pulled out her handy BlackBerry and we managed to hop off I-81 and backtrack on I-78 a few miles to SR-22 and then run east to Harrisburg. (I’m only adding in the mappy stuff for those that love to trace my life on google maps.) The last bit of fun was the I-95 to I-495 beltway merge northeast of D.C. A couple of renegades had collided whilst changing lanes and pissed off every holiday traveler. Regardless, we made it home in a respectable amount of time and were able to relax for three or four hours before bed.

The cats tried to play hard to get when we walked in the house but only managed to keep up the disgust long enough for the fire to be lit.

We all yanked ourselves out of warm beds this morning and headed off in the cold rain for work and school. I sense a good laundry and an early evening as darkness falls today.

T

eat drink

Our drive through eight states was a grand success: Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine. Normally, where I was raised, 660 miles might get you two or three states – eight was a number that required flight. We cut the trip down the middle and spend Wednesday night in Middleton, NY, appropriately enough. We arrived at the farm in Gray, ME at 1pm sharp and walked into Christian’s full-fledged Thanksgiving cookery show. My attempt to jump in upon arrival – as planned in my own little mind – was thwarted by my forgetting to score the chestnuts before roasting. What you get in that type of situation is the first exploding nut causing everyone to hit the ground in avoidance of shrapnel. X immediately recognized the sound – experience teaches – and Chris pulled the pan out and immediately covered the ammo with a towel. There was much exploding and chestnut guts on the kitchen floor. We managed to save more than was needed and had a good laugh at my well-deserved expense. Chris flew through the Turkey, mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, roasted mushrooms, parsnips, and beets, gravy, brussel sprouts with green beans, pumpkin and cherry pie, a beautiful apple crisp, and lord knows what else. I did the apple and chestnut stuffing along with a way too big pan of oyster stuffing. Christian’s mother brought along a fantastic pile of pearl onions and the homemade cranberry sauce to finish out the spread. I think that covers it all but I’m making no guarantees. Amongst the eight of us sitting around the Norman Rockwell farm table we might have damaged about 10% of the product.

We all headed into Portland this morning for shopping, tea, and menu planning – as if we need more food. Christian and I parted with the rest of the crew and he showed me the dreamy food shopping available in the city. We have five live lobsters that we’ll (he…with my oohing and ahhing) turn into fresh stuffed lobster pasta that he’s throwing onto of the lobster bisque. I’m going to try to put together a lobster-spinach pizza thing as an opener for the clan when they start sniffing about the kitchen.

Our last stop on the way out of town was at an Italian shop (restaurant and personal shopping) where I stocked up on a bunch of stuff I can haul home for the kitchen. But, the most awesome part of the joint was the baker who presides over his oven and goods. He does primarily fresh bread and pizza that come out on 30-minute intervals indicated by signs that keep the folk away from the artist. We waited for the bread train for about twenty minutes and grabbed a half-dozen loaves of the most amazing bread I’ve ever eaten. There was some idea of driving back to the farm with hot, fresh bread in the backseat – and we did drive to the farm – but one loaf was quickly devoured by those in the front seat.

It’s a bit cold. It’s November. It’s Maine.

Happy belated Thanksgiving to all.

t

on the road

Here’s a brief interview with the man responsible for designing the “O” Obama logo. Like many of the people that posted comments, I’d like to see some of the other original options – just as historical perspective. Maybe the older folk remember political logos or buttons that were memorable but I don’t have any to ponder from my voting lifetime; certainly nothing so preeminent or pervasive (is that redundant?). I also found it horribly interesting that so many people didn’t see the logo, initially, as an “O”, but merely as a sunrise over the red-and-white stripes which were meant to represent the country as a whole. That’s the sign of some good work, isn’t it? I actually had a hard time not seeing it almost purely as the letter “O” was other bits added for accent.

I’ve sorted out our drive map from Falls Church to Portland, Maine for this week’s journey. Apparently, we’re taking the “man’s” route that will swing us out through Harrisburg, PA and shoot us across a portion of New York state and through Harford, CT before we turn and scream north. We’re planning on driving about halfway on Wednesday night before stopping for a bit of a sleep and finishing up Thursday morning. The trip back will be one long run on Sunday that will hopefully avoid any major traffic as we’ll be bypassing any traffic danger amongst the New Jersey / NYC vortex. We’ve been loaned one of those automatic toll tags so I’ll have my first long trip where I’ll be able to zip through toll booths like a regular. I know it might seem like small potatoes to many in my readership but it’s exactly the kind of thing that provides my mind with more trivial details to ponder as I drive through our little section of America. I’m easily entertained, as you know.

I have some cooking / menu planning to do tonight. Maybe I’ll be the stuffing guy once I get up there and put together a few pans of chestnut and oyster stuffing. Mmmm.

t

sevens around

(Chef/owner Morou)

We managed to sort ourselves out and get together at Farrah Olivia in Alexandria for a double celebration dinner last night. Corey and I joined the WonderTwins to toast X's successful Mass Bar result and we all toasted the November 4th election victory. I think we were waiting on big, fat paychecks before unleashing the fury of used plates, silver, and wine glasses upon the fine staff at our newest favorite restaurant. In the face of better judgment we decided to order the 7-course menu that included not only jewels of food served in a well-timed symphony but accompanying wine tastings to match what the chef imagined in his "I'll served many things with foamed acoutrements" head. You don't generally think that seven small courses (appetizers, openers, main, dessert) is going to much of a problem because if he's willing to chuck a 14-course option on the menu (reserve ahead of time) then the seven must be perfectly nice. And it was. It also put a few of the party over the edge: X couldn't even muster the willpower to dip into her creme brulee (it was fantastic) or touch the final dessert pieces (truffles, petite cookies, and peppered jellies). The truffles, wraps and all, ended up in someone's purse. The wine selections were excellent, all the food was amazing, and the service outstanding. We wound up our perfectly lovely 7pm reservation at 10:30pm and headed home. There was much groaning, meek complaining, and shaking of tiny fists in the car at the silliness of attempting the seven-course engagement. Of course, we'd all do it again if properly warned.

The major Sunday mission is procuring a new cat entry/exit window install so we can remove the towel-covered makeshift door to the back porch. I think the cold winter draft and desire to have even more light into the living room makes it essential. I'm not sure how happy the royalty will be if they have to walk all the way around the house in order to patrol the back jungle. They'll either manage it or they'll complain enough that we breakdown and give them everything they desire. Oh wait, we already do that...

t

500

There was a dead spot sometime in 2005 or 2006 where I didn’t do much posting or my numbers might be even more spectacular. I’m not much for milestones but the fact that I’ve bored people, yelled at the public, harassed the government, laughed at Alberto Gonzales (often), pushed my candidates, passed along my school yard adjudication skills, and generally done nothing more than typ-type away for a few years - and that it’s amounted to a vast and honestly wasted field of ones and zeros that make up 500 entries- amazes me. I hate writing, or at least I did when I started this endless chore. In fact, my lack of love for writing is how this came to be – it seemed easier to write one blurb about my life than it was to e-mail everyone with the same story sent to the inboxes of the World. I know, it comes to your inbox anyway – or your Google reader – so I haven’t actually done anything to save time or effort. Except for the fact that I can now easily get away with a standard form letter that needs no personalization; and, I don’t have to make sure I didn’t forget anyone in the to: address line. I often say to X, “refer to my blog” when I start recounting my ideas about Scalia, Bud Selig, music, 7-11, or any other matter of great import to the citizenry.

There have been some entries that were merely links to stories, pictures, videos, or whatnot, but I’ve tried to mostly blab on about what’s going on in my little life-neighborhood and the deep, deep thoughts that run through my mind…laugh at will when considering my ‘deep’ thoughts. If this became nothing more than passing along anecdotes or purely a venue for venting then I’d quit doing it.

I’ve totally made up my own grammatical rules while writing. I could look up the proper uses of colons, semi-colons, dashes, ….. , and italics but that would make this more work than it’s worth. (I often look up grammar but not for blogging.) I wanted everything to a bit more free flow with some personal writing – or speaking – intricacies included. My proofreading isn’t always the best but that’s based on the proportional relationship of how much I’m getting paid. I think my most basic writing skills have gotten better over the years and I’d guess that blogging can stand as a substitute for the olden days of diaries and journals: practice makes writing easier and smoother. We should all write more often because these days we’ve been forced into the communication vortex controlled by the evil triad of e-mail, PowerPoint presentations, and Word documents, so we need the practice in order to get better at putting thoughts to ‘paper’...and to avoid pissing me off as I sit through your horribly constructed presentation.

Sorry, I couldn’t help it.

There’s a beta-version Web site that will analyze the ‘type’ for your blog. This is what came back when I chucked the Paddle into the mixer:

“The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don´t like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves.

They enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions.”

Stick around awhile and I’ll dance for your entertainment. I'm not so sure about the soft fabrics result.

Love to all.

t

broken axl

Back in May of 1992 I spent a long Saturday standing on the field at (the old) Wembley Stadium for the Guns n’ Roses show. The openers that day were Skid Row and Nine Inch Nails – nothing like some Seb Bach and Trent Reznor to put someone to sleep whilst trying to remain standing. I think this must have been Reznor’s early days and his portion of the show was horrid. Of course, even when NIN hit their heyday I didn’t much care for the music. That weekend was a few short days before the release of Use Your Illusion I and II – two albums that would have been a better single issue.

What brings this all up today is Chuck Klosterman’s review of Chinese Democracy in this week’s Onion. Chinese Democracy? Really? Let’s see if I can put together a short history of how we got here. After Use Your Illusion was released the band ran a long World Tour and then basically imploded. It’s hard not to completely blame lead singer / songwriter Axl Rose for the dissolution of the band; he’s a huge pain-in-the-ass, always has been, always will be. The rumor of the great Chinese Democracy album must have started sometime in 1993 and its ‘sightings’ floated in and out of the media over the next five or six years as Rose tried to corral band members, songs, mixing, labels, his screwed-up personality, and anything else you could possibly imagine. The hushed rumors continued until the early 2000’s as Rose occasionally showed up in public and sang a few songs; a mix of old and new. His lead guitarist is/was a guy named Buckethead who’s allegedly a damn good player even if he chooses to wear a KFC-like chicken bucket on his head. (I had thoughts of thrashing him for the bucket-on-head wardrobe when I suddenly realized that Slash pretty much wore a bucket on his head all those years…even it was actually a hat.) The last I thought about Chinese Democracy or Axl Rose was sometime back in 2003 when he showed up on TV looking like a cross between Bo Derek, George Hamilton, and Joe Piscapo (in the muscle days). And yet, I open up the Onion today and find Klosterman reviewing Democracy? (He gives it an A-.) It can’t be. What the hell is this thing going to sound like if Rose has finally mastered the perfection he was chasing when he started the project 15 years ago? Maybe I’ll go home tonight and crank up some G n’ R and see if those albums from so long ago still hold up today. I suspect they will. I’ll also presume that even though we’ve heard nothing like them over the airwaves in 15 years there will be a number of strong cuts. Will I buy it? Nope. Do I want to hear it? Sure.

Back in ’92 we waited an extra two-plus hours for Axl to get his shit together and start the show. We knew his personality quite well by then and the delay was expected – I’m sure he must have been doing one part spiritual stuff and two parts drinking and/or irritating me. But when they did finally crank it up, they were incredible. Aside from the original drummer who’d been gone for quite awhile, this was the greatest line-up they ever had. If I put together a 15-song compilation of the best the band had to offer it’d be a screamer. Do we think I can get away with blasting some G n’R from the Merc as I drive around suburban Virginia? I’ll let you know.

Man, I was still in my late-20s when this all started…just a kid. I’m in my early 40s, I’ve been married and divorced (again), I’ve retired from the military (I still had 13 years to go when I saw that show), I’m living in Virginia (what?), and we have a black man as President. That’s some change. And all Mr. Rose has given us is one album?

t

mezzo review

I’ve got a few under my belt and I can make a broad assessment: a lot of time passes while little happens. You could wrap up the events of an opera in a 15-minute infomercial if your feet were to the fire. The six-word version of what happens in any opera is this – they met, they loved, and death. I defy you to find an opera that doesn’t follow that storyline; feel free to fill in the middle bits with whatever you find interesting. While you’re building your masterpiece you need to remember that at the stroke of death…the curtain drops, no carrying on allowed. As X pointed out, this isn’t like Hamlet where there’s death overflow until no one’s left standing: Polonius, Ophelia, Claudius, Queen Gertrude, Laertes, and Hamlet. That play drags on and on – there’s no single DeathCurtain moment. The opera doesn’t play that game and I fear that about a hundred years ago all the ideas had been mined:

(imagine a street outside a cigarette factory)

Bizet: Ciao, Giacomo. I’ve written another opera.
Puccini: Georges! Fantastico! Tell me of it.
Bizet: Ah, yes. A guy meets a girl in the opening scene. Let’s call her something diminutive like…Carmencita.
Puccini: Bellisima! Tell me more!
Bizet: They fight all the time. Every single scene. Long, drawn out arguments that devolve into much declaring of love and hatred. Ah, amour!
Puccini: Buono! What happens next?
Bizet: Well, they’ll be forced, or maybe they’ll choose, to live in exile on an island, or in the mountains, or maybe in a cold artists’ studio in a European city.
Puccini: Scintillante! How does it end?
Bizet: Maybe he dies. Maybe she dies. Curtains!
Puccini: Brillante! You should add some lengthy songs in French. Maybe songs that reflect such indecisions as love, fear, warmth, or death.
Bizet: Extraordinaire!

I haven’t misled anyone, right? I enjoy the opera. I enjoy all live performance because it’s become something so foreign to people. There’s either a lack of availability in some areas, the cost is prohibitive, or the cable box / dish owns the entertainment attention. Last night’s show was pretty good but not stunning. As so often happens, there were secondary male and female characters or actors, Escamillo and Micaela in this case, that outperformed the leads. Being that we didn’t have Denyce Graves playing Carmen it’s hard to judge the outcome of the real Carmen v. Micaela duel. If nothing else, Bizet managed to write some famous and memorable diddies for this opera. There must have been at least five pieces I recognized but didn’t know came from a single opera. I bet all the other opera writers thought his stuff was too poppy sounding. Maybe they considered him a sellout – his stuff would have been used in Ford and Apple commercials back in the day.

Our next outing will be Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross at the beloved Keegan Theatre. I thought of watching the movie again before seeing the stage rendition but I don’t want to dull the drama of competing for a Cadillac, steak knives, or your job.

58

It looks like that’s the number for today; Alaska Senator Ted “No!” Stevens has apparently lost his bid for reelection. This leaves only two undecided Senate races from Election Day: Minnesota and Georgia. Georgia law provides for a rerun if neither candidate earns 50% of the vote and it will take place on December 2nd. The Obama campaign has contributed a portion of its Presidential ground game in Georgia to support the election of Jim Martin. Minnesota began the recount today in a race between Sen. Norm Coleman and Al Franken: it starts with a 215 vote difference among the 2.9 million votes cast. These two races could provide a filibuster-proof 60-member caucus now that the Democrats have decided not to seriously crackdown on crazy Joe Lieberman. Even though Lieberman certainly wasn’t helpful during the campaign, the fact remains that we have a short memory: the Democratic Party abandoned him and installed a Democratic challenger as their selection for his seat in 2006 (ironically enough, as punishment for his support of the Iraq War and President Bush). Lieberman kicked them in the shins and ran as an independent and secured his seat as an outsider. I don’t much like Lieberman but the caucus needs him and they already welcomed him back, once, back in January 2007. I think they made the right choice in not stripping him of his chairmanship because it would have seemed petty when measured against what Obama is trying to push in Washington. I don’t think Lieberman has any illusion that he’ll spend the rest of his term on double-secret probation.

I’m more interested in the Eric Holder nomination as our new Attorney General than I am the Hillary Clinton move at State. Until the Clinton offer becomes more certain, I’m withholding my thoughts. I like Holder on first look. What is interesting to me is the conservative gnashing of teeth at Holder’s ‘nomination’ because he’s a “Clintonista”. It’s a built-in, knee-jerk reaction from the ‘refuse to scratch the surface’ crowd. Holder was appointed to the D.C. Superior Court by Ronald Reagan, he served as Acting Attorney General of the U.S. under Bush 41 prior to Ashcroft’s confirmation, and then served as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia and Deputy Attorney General under Clinton. He’s been in private practice since 2001 and now appears to be our next Attorney General. I’m onboard.

As the incoming Administration is being built and vetted I keep looking to the title of a new CD that I’m digging. Why it runs parallel to the happenings in D.C. is because I remember Obama’s reply to an interview question about being elected President as the house of cards is falling around our collective feet – how he probably never thought winning an election would immediately insert him into the middle of an extremely difficult time in history. He smiled and told the interlocutor that it was the hard times that you ask for when you want to prove yourself – a time to be tested and a time to succeed. Isn’t that when you want to be President? Anyway, the title of Atmosphere’s new CD should be our new motto:

When life gives you lemons, you paint that shit gold.

Maybe some opera review later.

t

kick in the teeth

Do you know what I love? Meetings. Meetings that are allegedly scheduled for a given time that start late and then devolve into an unmoderated, heaping pile of junk. It happens all the time: 90% of the meetings held in the business casual environment are completely unnecessary. And, if you’re going to ‘hold’ a ‘meeting’ you need to have an ‘agenda’ published ahead of time. “Hey guys, let’s get together and blindly say words and communicate via incomplete sentences concerning fragmented thoughts while staring at poorly constructed PowerPoint slides. It’ll be great!” Today I’ll be hostage to a telephone conference / meeting. Nice.

I’m back from my week out West and have settled into some cooking, a comfortable bed, and the cool weather of the greater Metro area.

The Eleven is off to the Opera tonight to see Carmen. The mezzo-soprano, Denyce Graves, is apparently the “greatest Carmen of our time” but we won’t see her – the understudy is doing two shows and one of them is tonight. We have horrible luck with these opera gals – Angela Gheorgiou (La Boheme) ditched us on closing night at the Met in NYC last Spring, and now this. We’ll be riding the Metro and then the Kennedy Center shuttle after learning last outing that parking is $17. At those kinds of prices they could charge $700 for occlusal guards.

Speaking of occlusal guards, my dentist came up with a cost of $719 for a pair. I went in yesterday for the taking of molds – imagining that plastic teeth guards that prevent grinding – and thinking it would run me something like $200. As they are in the middle of doing my uppers the office manager comes in to “let me know” how much it’ll cost and whether or not I want to have the guards fabricated. Apparently, the cost to them is about 15 minutes of time because they send the molds off to be made for $570. There’s also a mysterious $150 lab fee that isn’t covered at all by my insurance. She tells me the lab fee is for some type of special molding-canoodling that makes the guards more comfortable to wear at night. What? They are made for nighttime wear…shouldn’t that be standard. “Anyway, we can give you these night guards but they’re made of wood splinters. If you want them to actually be comfortable we’ll be needing some extra money.” I called back this morning and cancelled the whole thing. I’ll put a bullet between my teeth at night and call it good. Of course, I fell for the same old dentist junk: always ask and agree on cost before Dr. Doolittle gets you in the chair. Unfortunately, most that I’ve come across in the last two years are some shady financial characters.

I’m thinking of putting in for some government bailout money. Has anyone found the application forms online?

T

what is this magic transmission?

I’m off to the great Northwest tomorrow morning and will fly back to the D.C. area on Friday. X is very concerned about a number of things: who will feed her, who will pet Lemon every night, who will keep her warm through the dark nights of Autumn. I left a few canned goods, I had a little talk with the cat, and I added a blanket to the bed. Deed done.

The Eleven took in the Caps v. Rangers game last night – her first hockey game – and I had to quell her “I think the Rangers are better, more organized, and I love their goalie” commentary. Of course, I couldn’t take seriously her organization argument because the first thing she threw out before the game was, “I don’t think the Zamboni drivers have a plan,” as if she’d know a Zamboni from a goat.

A few weeks ago she sent off for some digital TV converter boxes after trying to sort out the over-the-air / broadcast TV signal. We grabbed one at Target a week ago – using our socialist $40 coupon – and hooked that baby up yesterday. We suddenly have about 12 channels and another 20 sub-digital channels and are perfectly happy. I’m watching football in passing. We’re bona fide.

It’s turned cold here on the Hilltop and we’ve got the fire burning. Stop by if you’re in the neighborhood.

t.

frittering while it burns

All the tired seems to finally be wearing off and I’m almost recovered from a very long Tuesday – a twenty-hour day takes much more out of you at 43 then at 29. It also takes much more out of you when you’re massively out of shape. I’ll begin to remedy that very soon.

My old pal Buzz came to town last night and we plopped ourselves down in the front row of the club section at the Verizon Center for the Capitals v. Hurricanes game – he’s a ‘Canes fan; not much can be done about that. No talk of politics, just a hockey game and an exciting finish with the home team winning on a great goal with ten seconds remaining. When Alexander Semin scored the winner the place erupted and I sensed that all of D.C., so intense and divided over the last two years, was plenty happy to just cheer for a home team and not worry about anything for a few hours. It was quite nice.

Now, about baseball. I’ve made little secret of my lack of respect for the performance of Bud Selig as commissioner of baseball. Unfortunately, my calls have not been heeded and Sire Bud is still sitting in the commish’s office in NYC. Is my blog not powerful enough to bring down anyone? What we’re dealing with now is the endless ‘for sale’ sign hanging off the façade of my beloved Wrigley Field. It’s no surprise that the politburo of baseball owners would feel threatened by Mark Cuban’s ownership of the Cubs. Why? Because there’s not a single one of them that has any idea how to market the game, bring back the fans, or kick Bud Selig in the shins. Did anyone watch the World Series? Would I want to hang out with Cuban at the house on a Friday night? Nope. Would I want him to own the Cubs and re-energize MLB? Damn right. Under whatever rules exist (or were written by the oligarchy in charge) in baseball, there is a requirement for two-thirds owner approval before a team can be sold; Selig and his Great Lakes boys, who took over the game in the early 90s, can certainly hold off any real chance of Cuban winning the bidding war. Don’t think for a single minute that Selig isn’t the driving force behind keeping Cuban out of the club. David Stern can handle Cuban in the NBA after years of butting heads with him; Stern is a very smart man and could easily see that he’d have to find middle ground with the Mavericks owner. Selig isn’t smart enough to do that and he’d rather not have to use his limited skills in dealing with an aggressive and very successful owner. I don’t know what’ll happen in the end – maybe Chicago’s own Jerry Colangelo will win the beauty contest – but the Cubs and baseball will be worse off for not having Cuban in the league. Of course, Selig’s modus operandi is to do everything he can to ruin the game while making money. Nothing new. I’ll miss not seeing Baby Steinbrenner yapping at Cuban during some Winter meeting and getting smacked down for being a fool…I can dream, can’t I?

In the mass of birthdays (WonderTwin2 and G.), elections, traveling readiness for the boys, I neglected to mention that my lovely was notified on Monday night that she successfully passed the Massachusetts Bar. Much like the excitement shown by Pinnochio upon realizing he was real, I think she took a look at herself and realized she was finally, and in fact of letter, a real lawyer. And not a minute too soon as her partner in the firm had already dubbed her impertinent.

t

and finally...

A wrap from the Hilltop the afternoon after that beautiful moment just after 11pm when the election was decided, once and for all time.

Tuesday seemed to go on forever, particularly after the 6-10am flood of voters in my precinct. We maxed out at a wait of about 1 hour and 15 minutes during that time and it receded to no line for the remainder of the day. When looking at the absentee / early voter list, which included about 15% of my precinct's voters, we realized that by 10am the deed was done – there was no massive pile of voters left to descent upon us later in the day. I’d say that 99% of the voters were in grand spirits and happy enough to get to the booths in a fairly reasonable amount of time. There were dozens of get out the vote, freedom of vote, and voting rights members outside the polling place and everyone got along swimmingly. The new building manager at my polling center was fabulous – he supplied coffee and water to voters all day long, got us fans and A/C units when it got hot, and welcomed voters with balloons and kind words throughout the long day. The entire day was much more exciting and different from the normal Election Day drag, and that’s always a good thing.

The result? The Eleven was on the couch and watching PBS reporting on the returns and speeches into the late hours. We heard about Ohio coming in as we drove home from the elections office – soon followed by Pennsylvania and then Virginia (!!!) being declared after we made it home. Shortly after 11pm EST, California was called and it was over…finally. Florida came home later with Iowa and Nevada in tow. The scenes in Grant Park as our elected President arrived on the stage were stunning. His speech couldn’t have been better, more generous, more humble, or more welcoming to all of America. I sensed that he felt a massive weight had been lifted from his shoulders – it was over. Deep down I think even he was amazed that after two years of campaigning, and four years since he burst on the scene, he was finally standing before 100,000 people as President of the United States. I had tears in my eyes. As the camera panned the crowd we caught glimpses of Jesse Jackson; I could almost feel, seeing his stoic face during the speech, that maybe he felt as if he was watching what he believed was his calling and that it had passed unfulfilled. Maybe some envy. By the end, as the Obama and Biden families took the stage, we had a last glance at Jackson. Regardless of your feelings about Jesse Jackson’s politics, successes and failures, that picture – of Jackson with tears streaming down his face – was the symbolic moment of the night. He laid a lot of the groundwork for Obama’s rise and there he stood, in his city, finally seeing the fulfillment of a dream he’s carried for over forty years.

I disagree with a lot of the pundits when they put forth the idea that it was the economic crises of the last two months that put Obama over the top. The reason I’ve been so passionate about him is simple: he’s a leader. Beyond that, everything else falls away. He inherits a morally bankrupt country: not people, country. We’ve allow ourselves to stand idly on the sideline while our Constitution, civil liberties, and dreams have been crushed by an Administration that is guilty of violating American law, International law, and committing war crimes. The remedy to that misery is the ideal that we are so much better than what we’ve allowed to happen over the last eight years. Christine and I decided – driven by fear of standing by on the sidelines – that we needed to get out and walk the streets to do our part in bringing about that change and leadership. If you've follow Obama at all then you know that as he delves into the morass left behind he’ll inquire, study, assess, and then decide upon a course of action that serves as many as possible. None of us will agree with everything he pushes to the Congress. But what we do know is that we now have a thoughtful, inquisitive, curious, stable, and dedicated leader. Those are characteristics that went extinct over the last eight years. Obama is our next President because people craved leadership that defines us, not leaders that desert us.

And so it is.

todd

Yes.

Beyond the personal aspects of my life, it's the greatest moment I'll ever know.

(photo: Justin Hankins @ justinhankins.com)

Yes. We. Can.

Vote.

you kids be quiet!

Our cats either decided to lay down the law over the weekend or other cats on the Hilltop determined it was time to test the newest neighbors. I don’t remember if this was mentioned before but there’s a biggish black cat that decided a few weeks ago to hang around inside our house during the night. We ran him off two mornings in a row and he hadn’t been back since. At about 3am Sunday morning a massive cat fight started in our living room. It sounded like some ultimate fighting (I know, I’m supposed to call it MMA…) under card that startled us awake. As I leapt from the bed in the dark of night and bolted for the bedroom door with cat-like quickness, I realized I can’t actually see anything without my glasses – nor in the dark. In my role of Mr. Magoo I was left to give X a quick “baby, I can’t see crap and the cats are dying” call for help. I managed to find my specs as she kicked down the door and let out the worldwide recognizable cat-fight-stopping call of “Shooo! Get out!” which managed to shuttle the intruder and our larger, de-clawed (we didn’t do it) cat out the chute and into the dark of night. The smaller, clawed version – better known as my girlfriend, Lemon – eventually came out from the front of the house with a puffy tail and her fighting twitch on display. Neither cat seemed worse for the wear after round 1 but round 2 took place last night around 11pm when I think Lemon once again engaged the enemy in our backyard. Christine again deployed the “Shooo! Get out! Knock if off!” technique successfully from the dark of the back deck. Lemon showed up a bit later with another damaged ear, a well-scratched and swollen eye, and a very dirty coat. She seemed a little better this morning when we left for work but I suspect there’s at least one more round before everything gets sorted. Unfortunately, Pumpkin has the size and strength to fight but has been sentenced to only being able to scare the other cats away until such a time as they realize he has no claws. Now, if we called “no scratching” to the rest of the cats, he could do some damage.

I see that Starbucks is giving away free brewed coffee to anyone who votes tomorrow. What this immediately begs is this: why not simply have everyone vote at Starbucks? There are more Starbucks than there are polling place – walk through, place your order and vote, pick up your coffee. Deed done. “Yes, I’ll have the double decaf skim latte and a vote for Obama.”

Another 36 hours or so and it’ll be over.

t