...to the gut

My summer concert series kicked off Friday night with The Punch Brothers at the 9:30 Club. Lord, I was tired but the show’s vibe made up for the long day. The deal with these five musicians, as one, is that instead of feeling as if they are pushing something out at the crowd instead they are pulling us along – something that’s never happened at shows I’ve attended. For the first haIf dozen songs you felt like the band was climbing a mountain and we were along for the ride, and the back side roll was going to be something. The Brothers were loaded from the get-go with Chris Thile letting the crowd know how long he’d waited to bring “this band to this club.” The music, including an early 9-10 minutes instrumental, was stunning – how five guys can create such a din is beyond me. This band is tight – and at least 10x better live than on CD; and the CD is exceptional. Their ability to move easily between classic bluegrass and some version of a pop/jam band is a thing of beauty; pure and simple talent. Having a chance to see this pinnacle of the decade long re-mapping of young string bands made for quite an evening. Well done to the band. I’m ecstatic to have seen them in a club before the onslaught of bigger shows over the coming years. Based on what I’ve seen with this new generation of bands the growth of fans and venues will be exponential; nothing but festivals on the docket for the coming summer and autumn.

In a rare confluence of events (if you know my background feelings about 9:30 shows), the crowd was the best I’ve experienced there, and the sound was impeccable. Between the band and the house system they perfectly balanced all the instruments and vocals which seems to happen only once every ten shows. Also, the club has taken to allowing the first 30 or so patrons into the basement bar and then letting us in at door time before the rest of the folks lined up outside. I got there about an hour before doors, had a beer, and cleared with the guy at the ‘front/stairs’ that I was heading up to the upper bar and a stool whist he was going for the center of the stage – always declare intentions. We were both happy with the outcome.

The only downside? I got hit was a 2 x 18 on the way home: a full 18-minute wait for the Green Line at Cardozo, followed by another full 18 at L’enfant Plaza. Sometimes you get a kick in the teeth, sometimes it doesn’t even hurt.

freeze

I’ve changed my opinion on guns over the last few years. There was a time when I wanted all handguns banned; if you have a handgun and you aren’t law enforcement then you are arrested. What to do about shotguns and rifles used for sport? I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now; that’s another issue. The change I’ve made is this: if you feel you need a gun in your house for protection then I’m okay with that idea. If you want 50 guns in your house, have at it. I’d rather not feel that way but I’ve been convinced. What I don’t want are handguns outside your house. Period. You may feel that you are skilled enough to judge when to pull out a gun and shoot someone – but you are wrong; more than likely you are wrong 99.99% of the time. More guns, even inside your own home, are the worst possible answer to the problem, but it doesn’t seem like common sense will prevail. If you want guns in your house then I can avoid an encounter with you and your arsenal by not going into your house. As a favor to me and society, don’t bring you guns to the village green. I’ll take my chances with the criminals. That’s all I have to say on that.

i'll need you to rip that shit out

The week kicked off with my use of ‘traffic cones’ in the morning meeting, “It seems the only traffic cones that might present a problem are…” We’ll give it a bit of time to percolate and see what kind of run it gets by end of the week.

I also reconfigured my cube to a standup desk fashion runway. Down to one massive monitor and a purpose-built riser that moves everything up to my level – it’s like I’m a circus clown around here. I’ve already ordered an ergo mat for the floor so that will only add to the curiosity of others. I’ve decided there are too many people I’d like to be around for awhile, and dying of a heart attack because I sat on my arse for years would, quite frankly, be embarrassing.

Over the weekend we moved forward with stripping a 6 x 40 (?) foot area from the front of the yard; it’s now garden in a near complete state. The issue was getting rid of the grass before turning the rock hard Virginia clay with leaf mold. The old timey method involves me, a spade, and twelve hours of my time. The less old timey way involves the use of this:


Now, that guy is overdressed for the job; and that hair is something. I actually think the ‘sod cutter’ label is in the wrong place – that should be pointed at dude’s head. You know that happens without guy to kick that damn thing around the yard? Nothing. It’s wood and metal. It’s parts. Unfortunately, the gas powered beast wouldn’t fit in the Merc wagon so me and the rental tool staff were laughing about how much work I had ahead of me on a lovely Saturday. Funny. While my dear was completing the paperwork for the enhanced sod removal device, a landscaper (with a truck) walks in and volunteers to bring the real thing to the house, gratis. And pick it up. And give us about $50 of high-quality mulch. I don’t know how she does it. I asked him if this tool/lawn/nice guy thing was his chosen superhero trait. Makes you hope for society, doesn’t it. Anyway, I ended up with something like this instead, which took about 40 minutes of my time to clear the desired area:


I don’t want you to get any ideas in your head about this being simple. Running this beast, with my little experience, sort of feels like this:


I got my eight seconds and called it a day.

(Speaking of me and machinary or mechanics, if you haven't heard my story on changing the oil on my Geo Metro, circa 1998, you might not understand.)

The front yard, with my lovely gardeness working endless hours, is looking very nice. I’ll get a picture tonight.

i heard them all

This will be my last music entry for awhile; for some reason I’ve been in my music backyard for a few weeks and that’s what you end up hearing about. (Sorry, "Dan".)

A short story: as we all know, Old Crow Medicine Show has been a part of my life for about eight years. I stumbled upon them, literally, on the Sunday of Hardly Strictly Bluegrass back in 2004. I was camped out at the Arrow Stage holding for Gillian Welch later in the day. OCMS came out third that day and I was hooked – in fact, when they started playing the then unknown-ish Wagon Wheel, the hundred around the stage went a bit mental. I saw them again about six weeks later at the Borderline in London with X – the best live show I’ve ever seen; man, I loved those guys. I’ve seen them since (twice in D.C. and once more in S.F. at the Great American Music Hall) and it’s never quite held up to those first two experiences. Probably never could have. I’ve got all the albums, I love the songs, but eventually you move on. The band has changed significantly in the last year or so and they aren’t the same live – at least not what I’ve seen.

Last month at the memorial concert for Warren Hellman, who founded and graciously paid for Hardly Strictly Bluegrass every year, they played a number of songs and it was all quite hallow. Maybe it was the crowd, maybe the event, maybe…I don’t know. I’m not sure of the rock n’ roll break-up story behind the recent changes, nor does it matter, but they aren’t the same. What immediately came to my mind was a blurb in the liner notes to a fantastic album of my younger days, Billy’s Live Bait by the Gear Daddies (also a massive favorite of mine). Critic Jim Walsh, who I think wrote for the St. Paul paper back then, wrote this about the end of the Gear Daddies, “For as long as I live, I will never, ever love a band the way I love the Gear Daddies.” I kind of feel that way about the Crows even though it’s my time to move along.

pivot

I am so tired of mindless meeting speak. Most of my co-workers know this fact because of how much I laugh and rail at their attempts at fitting in with pathetic vocabulary. Every single person here works this amateur vocabulary into everything they say. In this job a lot of the vernacular comes from the military but there are enough non-military folks that oftentimes business lingo hops over the moat. Yesterday morning, in a two sentence opening by one person, I wrote down the following phrases: pillars, stovepipes, lanes of the road, fidelity, cart/horse, and show the math. Stunning. I’ve been particularly harsh on the users (and it’s everyone) of “lanes of the road,” it may be the most overused phrase since “it is what it is.” Which, by the way, makes you sound like a moron.

My game for the next month is to try to get everyone using crazy terms that I’m going to simply pull from (almost) thin air: One phrase per week that I’ll use at least once a day in our various meetings and strolling discussions. I’ll have to be careful because anything too random will signal to the lemmings that it’s not a serious phrase. At the same time, it has to have some pull to those unable to actually speak normally; my first thought was to try out ‘widdershins’* but I don’t think it’ll do anything but make people wonder, “Right, I see your point, but let’s go widdershins around the table. Bob?” I think I’ll have to grab an idea from the world of traffic and somehow make it work, I'm contemplating some version of either 'on ramp' or 'off ramp'.

Any suggestions are welcome.

*** I'd never heard of, or used, widdershins until X brought it up last week. Fantastic word.

my mates

I’ve been listening to Mountaintop for many months. I must have first hit upon Mates of State about 7 or 8 years while wandering around in San Francisco and buying CDs at Amoeba. With the weather turning warm and windows dying to be opened, the Mates are as good a reason as any to turn up the volume and enjoy the weather. They also remind me, often, of just why I love good pop music so much – my kind of pop music, not Mr. Bieber. I didn’t know which video to give you, so you get both. Who knew they were on Letterman last year? And, if they come over for an intimate dinner party they can play like they do at the Tiny Desk Concert. Oooohhh ooohhh ooooohhh ooohhhh, ooohhh ooohhh ooohhh…

hitler

I don't know what to say. I glanced at my cutting board and there sat morels, garlic, and shallots. What to do? In the voice of an Englishman, "that's a nice risotto." Damn if it ain't. Add some butter around, a dash of argen oil (handcarried back from Morocco by my killer barber!), salt, black pepper, a dash of Saint Angel cheese, and we will be lovers. Actually, I haven't tasted it yet; holding while X whips up a sorrel soup. She's so lovely. We obviously hit the farmers market this morning and the damn greens are exploding, as we like this time of year: sorrel, rainbow chard, spinach, ramps (ramps! they will go on pizza tomorrow night), chives, garlic greens...stunning. The best bit of the stroll was my stop at the mushroom guy; I walked into the midst of a discussion of morels, "a bit early for morels in this area, isn't it?" asked the sly man at the table. "Not really, I might question that," the seller replied. To which the buyer queried, "Well, where did you find them?" (Everyone steps back.) You don't ask a man that...ever. It was quite a parry because one of two things was in play: an innocent question which intended no theft, or a valiant attempt to discover the cache of morels in northern Virginia - a pirate move. No quarter. My mushroom man laughed at the Captain Black attempt and merely continued regaling us with his find of "maybe a pound, a bit more. Nothing like the 30 or 40 pounds a good find in the Midwest might provide." I snatched my basket like that weird little fuck in Lord of the Rings grabs the ring, and headed off for the fresh eggs and yoghurt.

There's a kid's homework assignment sitting at this computer desk as I type: "Collage of Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of Germany." I have a few questions before we continue. First, a collage? I don't think anyone puts Hitler and collage together, ever. "Dear Adolf, I'm sorry I couldn't make it there for the Holidays. But, I've created this lovely collage for you..." Is that off-base? Also, most people don't use the phrase "Chancellor of Germany" when discussing Adolf Hitler. Let's do a mental game; I say Adolf Hitler and you say what? I'll bet it's not, "Oh wait, the Chancellor of Germany?"

The weather is fine. A massive home-buying-spring-cleaning is ongoing. Two kids return tomorrow morning: I don't know which two.

Justin Earle has bypassed his father's talent. I think I might have pointed this out before, but if not, I do so now. The new album, clocking in at ten songs and thirty minutes, is fantastic.

Happy Easter to all. I hid some eggs in your backyard...go find them.

you May

I have no idea why Spring is the hot-Toddy tour time in this area. Maybe spring is simply when artists hit the road in unheated, dilapidated vans so it’s the same everywhere else. I’m not sure I can make it all work but it appears as if I’ve hit the jackpot for shows in May. I’ve got all my bases covered with the following: Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen; Justin Townes Earle; The Polyphonic Spree; and Chuck Prophet and the Mission Express. In late April there is the Punch Brothers, and in early June I’ve got Dawes. The whole mess is a spectrum from bluegrass through Americana, bombastic pop, rock n’ roll, and California dreaming. This may all be make up for two years of classes and little time at night. I won’t regale you with full-on links from here, but you can wander off at your own discretion.

Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen (p.s. Frank is also a chef and will come to your house, cook a massive one-pot for 50, and then play a set. Dreams.) doing an after-dinner gig in the living room.

JTE doing Mama’s Eyes live, which I’ve posted before.

Chuck Prophet and Mission Express doing his latest, also live at KEXP.

The Polyphonic Spree doing Hold Me Now. They are gigging at the historic Sixth & I Synagogue – it’ll be fantastic.

The Punch Brothers messing with Radiohead’s Kid A and then rolling into Wayside.

Dawes doing When My Time Comes.

ExtraExtra!!!!

The drive down to Warm Springs on Saturday afternoon was scenic. It was also long and convoluted. The GPS (“Eddie”) was programmed to the Warm Springs city center but instead dumped us out in the wilds of Bath county about 20 miles north of the town. I had my suspicions when Eddie routed us straight west after passing Harrisionburg – therefore bypassing Staunton, VA, which had been a landmark – and sending the new Donner party up and over Highland county. At said dumping point, the Eleven quickly decided to access the World and determine our best route to our vacation getaway. What’s that you say? No 3G coverage out here? Fine, pull up the Google/live traffic enabled GPS and we’ll be gold. No reception out here? Fine, get the map. What? No. Map.

(AP) Harrisonburg, VA – Virginia State Police report they have located two lost Northern Virginia liberal voters in the area surrounding the lower Allegheny Mountains in northwest Virginia. After reports that they hadn’t e-mailed or texted anyone for over two hours, the State Police dispatched a search team that included one vehicle, one trooper, a map, a sandwich, and large WaWa coffee. Sgt. Deke Slaton described the search as simple, “We were told they were heading down toward Warm Springs for two nights at some posh inn that apparently delivers breakfast to your room in a picnic basket. I don’t know how that works, but warm scones and coffee in bed doesn’t sound half bad.” Sgt. Slaton decided that the best search pattern was to head due south along State Highway 220 from his office in Monterey, VA, “The way I figured it, “ said Slaton, “the cell service is dead between Monterey and Hot Springs so the natural place to hunt for these yahoos was along 622 where outdoor types tend to fish and hunt.” After about six miles Slaton located the 2001 Gold Mercedes E320 parked on the side of the road. The vacationers were shaken, but safe, having just finished the last of their carrot and yoghurt meze, simits, and a split sparkling lemon soda. “They were in the process of figuring out what they were going to do next when I came upon them,” Slaton reported. “Frankly, it was a little embarrassing. They seemed to be walking around holding their iPhones in the air. The woman was picking flowers and complaining how there was no way that the 1.9Ghz towers weren’t able to hit the phone. There was some other blather about backhaul. The guy was rambling on about how high-speed rail should be built in the area and something about timetables and poor planning by the localities. Anyhow, I gave them half of my sandwich and told them to drive five more miles and they’d be at the Inn. They had ¾ of tank of gas so I’m not really certain why they were concerned.” The couple was reported to have checked into their hotel about 15 minutes later. They were napping five minutes later.

The weekend went swimmingly. We spent two nights out yonder so the driving was well space out over the three days. We did accidentally stumble into an artist/co-op/studio on Sunday morning that hit X over the head and took her wallet. I, as the strong boyfriend, defended her by carrying all the loot to the car.

We are back home; all the kids are gone. The peace of two adults and one mewling cat…

let it sit a bit

I spent about 2 ½ hours last evening at a talk on food fermentation with Sandor Katz. You might wonder how a person finds himself in that position, but it was by choice. Katz has been a leading light in the fermentation revival as a response to what he calls the clearly failed experiment of the factory food industry. He’s one of those people you rarely (unfortunately) come across who gives you the feeling that a type of life or society is better than others. X once pointed out while we were driving through Vermont with its open spaces, friendly people, and good ideas that it's all “total bullshit. Who’d want to live like this…” She’s funny. After spending the evening with Katz that joke ran through my mind: living like that would be so horrible, wouldn’t it?

The auction for L.’s school last weekend went well. I think the Parents’ Association made about $25k from the event, so that’s a lot of activities to promote. We managed to get all the food done over 10 hours spread across Thursday night, Friday night, and Saturday morning/afternoon. From what I could tell by the number of trips made for new platters of food everyone ate and drank well. By the time I got home Saturday night I was beat; X kept everyone away as I partook of a four hour Sunday nap. I’m just about back to normal.

The kids are vacating the area over the next few days for spring breaks across North America. The Eleven is once again heading down to the Jefferson Pools in Warm Springs for a long weekend; we’re actually stealing Monday off in order to make it a two-night deal.

I was trying to relay this morning how I find this lottery craze being a bit mispresented by the mathletes. I understand the 1-in-175,000,000 data that is based on tickets sold, etc. What I find strange is that there is no caveat to the number, something along the lines of how every person has an equal chance. A long shot chance, but equal nonetheless. Normally we are bombarded by percentages, probabilities, and statistics that are relative to some other input: 1-in-123,000 high school basketball players make it to the NBA; only 1.5% of children from single-parent families on the south side of Chicago will earn a 4-year college degree. These are numbers that are referential to some other variable. They sort of make sense because we can manipulate them in our minds and build a picture. The lottery? Even Steven. Same odds for everyone. My point is, if you want to drop $5 on the lottery have at it because the odds aren’t for or against you in relation to anyone else. There isn’t much in life where that applies. If you’re kid plays high school basketball you don’t tell him, “Listen, Preach, you has just as good a chance as Jimmy of making it to the NBA. The odds are 1-in-123,000 – every kid is equal and has the same chance. In fact, no need to practice or work hard from here on in. Equal is equal.” That would be insane. The lottery? It’s a flyer, have fun.

I have nothing else to say.

deed is done

On Wednesday AiW hosted its quarterly portfolio show at the National Building Museum in D.C. – graduation for the students this quarter is actually in June, but we’ve all wrapped graduation requirements and the show is the final step. The NBM main hall is impressive and the school has it sectioned off with red curtains for the individual student tables. The far end of the above picture is filled with all the graphic design, gaming, advertising, and fashion students. The near end is where the culinary and pastry students who are exhibiting; about 50 of us. The process of getting the final Capstone class completed, and prepping for the show wasn’t much fun. But, on the day, it was quite enjoyable. The museum is open its normal hours so the public can wander through shortly after the judges, employers, family, and instructors complete their rounds. We all prep 48 servings of our product (about 2 oz.) for people to taste and we set up our tables in varying states and degrees of decoration. Mine was fairly straightforward with a black-and-white service. I did spanakopita and tzatzki as a sample of my menu; many thanks were in order from the vegetarians who showed up, as well as those that started with the baking/pastry displays (more than half the grads) and needed something savory. As expected, a huge hit with dishes that I’m well versed on. My restaurant plan, in three sentences:

A vegetarian, communal seating, Mediterranean-based restaurant serving various fixed menus for dinner service. A rotating and seasonal menu that’s published online three weeks in advance and your ‘menu selection’ is based on the service for that evening. On Monday it may be a five-course Greek dinner, Tuesday is Moroccan, Wednesday is Spanish, Thursday is Egyptian, Friday is Italian.

It’s an idea that would work in a large city like D.C., but would struggle in a smaller area. I am, after all, telling you that the set menu for the night is all that is on offer. We’d have 130 items but focus on only five for a given day: better focus, fewer workers, better food.

One last item on the culinary world of students (and instructors) before I depart the arena. There is a lot of talk among students and instructors that healthier eating, better products (local), and vegetarian options are on the rise, and in their plans. But, based on my experiences it’s a nothing but hot air. Eat and cook as you please, and cooking and eating at home is always better than anything, but the talk of better and local food is simply talk. When you walk the exhibits, and listen to student ideas for their dream restaurants, it’s little different than meat, meat, meat, baking, baking, and baking. There is still a long way to go before we are at a point where putting a risotto on a menu meets more than the mandatory ‘veg’ option. Take that for what it’s worth. Maybe I can take the last of my money and go to Ireland to learn more cooking.

The last cooking battle, and it’s been quite a week, is finishing the catering for L.’s school auction on Saturday. We’ve planned for awhile and finally started the prep last night. I managed to make it a fully Greek and Italian set up this year for the food. (It’s not a sit down dinner, more of a strolling, eating, and drinking configuration): spanakopita triangles, tyropita, small grilled lamb chops, gigantes, tzatziki, pita, and baklava on the Greek side; two raviolis, three sauces (smoked tomato, basil/arugula pesto, and alfredo), grilled beef skewers, and biscotti on the other. Oh, I also broke the bank for them with six cases of wine – a little over the top. It’ll be nice and raises loads of money for the school. I consider the wine to be a wallet lubricant. I’ll sneak out from my cave tomorrow night and get some pictures.

drawing on life

At least twice on my evening commute home I’ve come across this older gentleman who spends five or ten minutes sketching various commuters on the Orange Line. Both times he’s shown a process that involves finishing whatever he hasn’t read in that day’s Post before pulling out a started sketch from the morning, digging his pen from his jacket, and spending about three stops adding some the evening commuters to fill out his morning scene. When his stop comes he takes one last glance around at the people, folds the sketch inside his newspaper, and heads home – hopefully to a warm house and small dinner with his wife.

He reminds me a lot of Cub, someone who wasn’t a grandparent, nor uncle (actually my second cousin), but who was a very important part of my life. This man is about the same age as Cub was when I was younger – as if I’ve grown and aged but he’s stayed forever 65. Cub was an artist who commuted via bus for about billion years to his work, drawing maps I believe, for Cook County in Chicago. He’d spent earlier parts of his life as a traveling musician and troubadour at Wrigley Field. He’d spent a good part of his life helping to raise and entertain my mother. He spent what seemed his whole life with Juanda in Chicago – at least the life I can remember. I always imagined him sitting on the bus heading north on Sheridan Drive in the evenings, doodling a bit, before getting off at W. Melrose and walking the block-and-half home…probably whistling. He was like that; a happy man in a happy life.


I’d meant to post earlier this month on the 25th year of Juanda’s passing; Cub left us about a decade ago, but I didn’t have the heart. Last night's encounter was a nice reminder that maybe some goofy kid comes to visit important people in his life, here D.C., every summer. He probably wanders around the city planning a life far into the future. He’s probably pretty happy with that…

life, or otherwise

I’ve listened to my share of This American Life. I’d consider myself a fan; I also saw Mike Daisey’s show The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs when it first ran here in D.C. about a year ago. The apparently volatile combination of the two on an episode of TAL has turned both his one-man monologue and TAL into strange bedfellows.

First, it’s clear that Daisey used a considerable amount of embellishment/fibbing/lying when creating his script. In particular, Ira Glass and crew question the following (we know this from the Retraction episode last weekend): he didn’t go to 10 factories, he went to either 3 or 5; he didn’t talk to anyone who was poisoned by some type of industrial cleaner (though admittedly, that did happen); he didn’t talk to any underage kids (Daisey maintains that he did talk to a 13-year old); and that there were no guards with guns at the Apple factory he visiting in China. As theater, Daisey should admit fully that his monologue is taken from his visit, news reports, and Apple reports. He should simply say that in theater the picture he is weaving is true even if these things didn’t happen directly to him. As he attempted to point out in last week’s episode, he was creating the arc of a story. Unfortunately, for both TAL and Daisey, this is all pretty sour; TAL will survive because it’s a stronger brand; Daisey may not.

About TAL – Ira Glass and crew, who readily admitted twice during the last episode that they were wrong to not kill the story, really come off as complete assholes. If their decision was to kill the first episode, but then begin to investigate Daisey and his facts, I consider that fair game. But Glass’ repeated admissions to not upholding the vetting and fact-checking of TAL for this story rings hallow as they simply grill Daisey and his work. Instead of simply starting any episode with a retraction that could have filled 3-5 minutes, they decided that the better path was to try to get Daisey to defend himself, which he couldn’t, and put that out there as some sort of detraction (an hour long detraction…) from their error. No matter what Glass says, it was a purely vindictive move; a move he knew that Daisey would take a bite at if offered.

When Glass finally enters part III of the episode and brings in the experts from the NYTimes, what we hear is that the arc of the story is correct: the long work hours, the deaths and injuries (via explosions and failure to stop them), the bad living conditions, etc. What Daisey created via the story was true – and Ira’s NYTimes sleuth confirmed that by explaining to Ira the conditions and how they relate to what we as Americans consider harsh. That was the story.

I haven’t listened to the initial episode they aired with Daisey, but I saw the show. I’ll go back and listen to TAL’s story in a minute. But, what I didn’t hear at all in the Retraction episode was an overview of how in the monologue Daisey takes you from his fucking absolute love of Apple products to the point where he has to decide whether those conditions supported by American consumers, in fact created by American consumers (per Ira’s NYTimes pal), are worth the harsh conditions of Apples factories overseas. And in that production, Daisey did a fantastic job.

Both Daisey and TAL are on the hook for this 15 minutes of fame. Since I consider TAL to be a story-weaving show, regardless of Ira Glass’ declaration of journalistic integrity, Daisey had woven a story. If TAL is seriously going to stand tall and declare that they’ve never embellished a story for emotional effect then I’d be very surprised. What this all stinks of to me is TAL using the heft of their history to use Daisey as an excuse for their failed process, and to simply exact revenge for what they consider a hoodwinking.

I can defend Daisey’s story, but he’s a bit harder to stand up for without questions. I understand the theatrical aspect of the monologue, I arrive at the same place he does at its conclusion, and I wish he’d be more forthright in the details. But, I won’t crucify him for it. Ira Glass will, and that is more bothersome than the fact that Daisey’s question as posed is actually correct.

use the force

There’s a fairly long trail of tears concerning school lunches in America. I don’t need to rehash those details here, I’m sure everyone is capagoogle of finding that data.

One of the massive problems with my school is that they prey on young folks who want to learn cooking and the industry, but can ill afford to pay the tuition cost in their post-graduate lives. As a ‘private’, for-profit school (owned at least partly by Goldman Sachs), the Ai umbrella of schools charge an exorbinent amount of money for a two-year culinary arts degree: somewhere around $64,000, not including housing if you are taking 14 credits per quarter with labs fees, etc. That’s an expensive degree for a career field that will start you out at $10/hour. I could send L. to a lot of high-end universities for $32k per year in tuition.

How about this: some program that offers newly minted culinary graduates a partnership with schools districts in northern Virginia? Between Arlington and Fairfax counties there are only about a gazillions public schools that might be interested in a program that provides them qualified culinarians for enhancing their school meals. Stage two is that the graduates work for X number of years while their loans are frozen. When they complete three years of employment, the loan is paid off, or forgiven (or amnestied – just to rile up the conservatives).

It wouldn’t be easy, but if you think about a 20- or 21-year old grad (two years, post-H.S.) entering the FCPS system at US-10 to US-12 pay, then a three- or four-year commitment isn’t horrible – they can be done at between 23-25 years old, have experience and no debt. Part of that pay would in include health insurance for a full-time employee who’d make about $44k per year from the county. Based on a wage in their hands of $35k per year (remember, no loan payments), there’s $9,000 per year that goes to the program, with the remainder being covered by the county, state, federal government, or forgiven directly from the school. If all four combined, each would ‘contribute’ between $1,750 and $2,250 per year – a pittance, really. What the schools get are employees who may stick with the district for years; the students get to work off their loans/tuition; and kids get food that isn’t complete shit. Truth be told, based on how huge schools function it would be a long road. They’d have to buy in to renegotiating food service contracts so they’d have fresh ingredients. They’d have to cook from scratch. They’d have to menu plan. They’d need cost control. But, as much as I might badmouth certain aspectsof my school, some of the top grads who’ve paid attention are capable of doing all those things. The hope would be that they wouldn’t be tucked off in a corner, angry, mad, and underutilized for three years.

If I dug around I could find evidence of contracts for school lunches that include nothing but ingredients made fresh every day. A betting man will say that the costs involved to districts is either equal to, or just more, than the crap contracts they have in schools now.

And, for those that think kids won’t eat good food, asks X about her position on kids and eating.

And for parents who think by giving your kids only good food at school is some violation of your constitutional rights? Zip it. You’re only embarrassing yourselves….

brackets

I sense my withdrawal program is complete.

Even though I’ve watched probably 5-6 periods of Caps’ hockey since Thanksgiving, it’s a foreign thing to me now. I still know I’d enjoy hockey – as sport – but I’ve never been a watching-for-watching sake kind of person. Being that the brackets are everywhere today, and I have no idea about college basketball, I feel nothing. The truth of the matter is that I was never going to top my 1984 bracket victory – back when we still filled them out on paper and manually tallied the scores each round.

Since we are on the topic of the bracket, and more widely the NCAA, let me get down in writing something I’ve been thinking about quite a bit since last year. I refuse to believe that the NCAA survives this decade; I’d prefer it to disappear in the next five years. There are two factors that contribute to my hatred, and predicted demise: it’s an arbitrarily concocted, wholy illegal band of jackasses. And, secondly, the member schools have no need for the NCAA and their illegal band of jackasses. The NCAA, for whatever its history may be, is an association that has zero legal authority in this world. They don’t have ‘subpoena’ authority, they don’t have any legal basis for anything they do, they conduct closed, mysterious investigations using shitty fact patterns, and they punish/sentence players or schools based on some concocted scale of ‘imprisonment’. Why any school or university would voluntarily agree to this stuff is beyond me. One of the great cases was a kid named Jeremy Bloom who played football at Colorado and was also a professional, freestyle skier – and the NCAA came down on his football career as if they had some grand moral compass. As for the need for having the NCAA around flexing it’s smoothbrain tactics: the schools don’t need them. The two biggest (public) functions that NCAA performs are the ‘bowl season’ and March Madness. As for the bowls, the BCS (which rules the championship landscape) and it’s not linked in any true way to the NCAA. The mass amounts of money and selection process are done beyond the NCAAs reach. The tournament isn’t anything special that can’t be recreated. What? Someone can’t handle the logistics of scheduling venues for regional games years in advance? I’m pretty sure it could be handled.

At some point the damn will break and it’ll take only one, bold, BCS conference team. They will be the martyr for sure, and may pay a heavy price to open the departures, but they’ll be hailed in the end. Maybe an entire BCS conference will agree to walk away. Once either of those things occur the house of cards will disappear in a blink of the eye.

Don’t confuse my disgust of the NCAA with any type of support for college ‘scholarship’ athletics. I’d just as soon be rid of them all.

russian bear

I meant to add this about a month ago. Every year just before the Holidays, the founder/headmaster at L’s school dresses up as Santa and takes at least one picture with every student. It tends to not be the posed “Santa in a chair” situation. He’s also a profession photographer (you can see his work here) and has a studio set up in his offices at the school. L. was supporting her friends in a Russian-themed exhibition for her European History class at the end of the semester, hence the Russian looks and drawn moustaches.

mind the gap

I have no idea why I’ve read the Washington Examiner. Well, I do. I saw the headline about commuting costs and grabbed a copy to see if it addressed my ongoing advice/rant to people about the costs of living, proximities, and the ‘walking dead’-like life beyond the beltway. At the same time, I wanted some numbers that might enlighten my fellow Metro riders when the endless debates –revived every time there’s a WMATA budget announcement – about fare hikes explode. As a preface: I think WMATA is probably one of the most poorly run organizations you can find. The safety issues, infrastructure failures, and big step increases in fares, for less service, are problematic. But, you could live in Birmingham, Alabama or Nashville, Tennessee and be paying more to commute on average than you do here.

According to the story, the average monthly cost for commuting in the DC area is about $12,644 per year. I’m assuming that for a household and not a single person. If you’re young, single and living near a Metro station, even one beyond District bounds, you’re paying about $1,700 a year to commute in and out of the city at rush hour, per working adult. Are the delays? Does L’Enfant sometimes smell of fish? Are tourists a problem? Yes to all. Then again, you don’t have to deal with traffic, the system can function far better than cars in bad weather, and you’re paying about a quarter the cost of the average car living knucklehead. Ask those Leesburg commuters about that 16 hour hell-commute from two winters ago. You’re saving $9,000 per year just on commuting - $750 per month that can go to rent or a mortgage payment. This was all quite obvious even before the article, but people didn’t want to hear it. I had fellow students (young ones) who commuted 25-40 miles per day to go to class – aside from their work schedule – because the horrid suburban garden apartment they are sharing with a little known, trashy roommate was $150 cheaper per month. That ‘benefit’ disappeared when you drove your first 200 miles each month – or three days of class. Add in parking and the time you’ve wasted and this deal went south the moment you signed your lease.

I wondered what our commuter financial hit came to so I did some maths. According to AAA’s driving costs, which include things like insurance, maintenance, gas, etc., it costs us about $.78 per mile to drive Galactica. X runs 19 miles per day (20 days per month) for $300. L rides the WMATA bus to school for $60 per month. My walk/bus/Metro/bus/walk commute is $200 per month. The boys walk their bags of bones to the school bus everyday for nothing. Even taking into account L’s ‘commute’, we only come to about $560 per month / $6,700 per year. I can’t imagine how commuting sucks away the cash for those paying twice what we pay. There are no doubt there are those who are yanking that average up and area paying upwards of $18,000 per year just for commuting. And, quite truthfully, since my company gives me $200 for commuting each month (straight cash, no taxes), and L.’s commute shouldn’t really count, we are at something like $3,600 per year.

I’m glad we staying in our area when we bought. I think we make lots of money, but another $9,000 needed for commuting would be pretty difficult to pull off.

what i did over vaca

Right. I'm going to tried to draw on my olden mind and cover what I've done since, well, since, then.

We've moved into the house. That was December 31st after closing on December 23rd.

We hired a gentleman who I'll call "Shaun Witt" to patch our floors, sand-stain-finish, patch walls, tear down a small closet, smooth out some weird stucco ceilings, and generally do work. He didn't. He tore down a closet, patched half the floor (poorly, after Corey did half), did a shitty job on the ceiling and dry wall, and fucked up the floors. He did manage to tear down a closet. Well done.

We paid another huge hunk of money to have some professionals come in and strip the floor down to bare wood, again. They stained and poly'd and it looks fantastic. The evidence is above. The dark, hot fudge, jackassery you see is Mr. Witt's skills on display - that's the finished "it looks good" room. The professional wood finish is, well, the professionals. (Nothing has been doctored and no animals were hurt in the making of that photo.)

I'm in my last quarter at school. My final exhibition show is in March at the National Building Museum in D.C. (Graduation is June at the same locale, but I won't be attending.) I'm finished the day I walk out of the museum in March. It's been a good program, overall. Some real high points, lots of middle-of-the-road stuff, and some real low points - mostly due one horrid instructor. Horrid. Regardless, 25 classes, 24 A's and one B+.

I saw a woman at the bus stop the other night with an actual Discman. She was changing CDs. Wow. This isn't horribly important I'd just thought I'd add it for texture.

How about that GOP race?

My work is stilling going well. I really like what I do even if I had a week or two where I had to simply destroy (or attempt to destroy) people for incompetence. I try, I really do. What I've learned is that as a contractor I actually am not suppose to do that - I'm there to just play along. I hate that. Regardless, everything is going fine.

We've booked the summer vacation already for Stowe in last July. It cannot get here soon enough.

About three weeks ago I decided I wanted to take my music off my iPhone and use an older iPod for music. I don't have to explain myself. Anyway, I plugged in my external harddrive (who knows why...you see what's coming), 'selected' the music folder on my 'phone', selected all, and hit delete. "Do you want to delete all?" my computer asks. Hell yes! (click). (Enter the sound of my external harddrive that holds all my music clicking, zipping, and smoking.) It seemed like hours as I panicked and tried to stop what I had wrought...I finally yanked out all the cords. It was about 40 seconds, at best, but everything was gone (daddy gone). I stared at nothing. 25 years of my CDs which I don't have anymore. Loads of memories of good times and bad - gone. For about an hour I just consoled myself by saying that I'd just start anew from this point - not regathering the music...just new music. It's okay, right? I finally called my computer dude in Arlington, explained the situation, and he simply said, "Well, I can get that back, no problem." What?!? I'm not going to explain the process and how computers work, suffice it to say that he did recover it. It cost me a few bills, plus a new external harddrive, but it's back. 16,000 songs that somewhat track my life.

(As an aside, and sort of in my defense, the first album on both my iPhone and my music library were the same - Adele [zip it!]. So, as I was looking at my 'phone' and saw Adele, I assumed I'd selected the phone and not the entire 65 Gbs of my library.)

Christmas was nice. We had the Northerners down to celebrate and help pack out the old house. Phil, somewhere in his vast past, packed homes as some type of Johnny Tremain apprenticeship, so he instructed everyone (mostly Laurel) in proper wrapping and packing techniques. He claimed he'd never had a broken glass - and he's still 100% since nothing we had was damaged. Ms. M packed like a...packer, and cleaned, and cooked, and entertained. It would have been a nightmare without that help. Corey ripped out walls, patched floors, and Kt ran the drum sander (how badass is that?) to get the floors ready for Shaun's eventual fuck up. With three movers hired on the 31st, Corey came over and between the five of us we managed to get everything from point A to point B by about 4pm. X and L cleaned the entirety of the old house and we escaped by about 11pm.

I've been reading Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest by Wade Davis, and The Long Walk by Sławomir Rawicz. I can't seem to do only one book - makes progress slower but what can we do? I've gone completely to the Nook tablet since before the new year. The Times and New Yorker are up-and-running with good software so I can unburden myself of most print items.

I saw Holly Twyford (again) in Time Stands Still at Studio Theatre. Excellent, as always.

We've run the birthday gauntlet since January 1st. Henry turned 16 (dinner at Greek Taverna with Cuban cake...go figure), Amy turned '18' with a visit to the Textile Museum and then drinks and dinner in D.C. Everyone took me for my 21st to Sunflower Cafe...very nice.

Nothing new on the music front.

Cats are well - and adjusted to the new place. No fighting required since the new 'hood doesn't appear to have any other cats.

I'm vaguely obsessed with Breaking Bad.

X and I have started lifting weights at the gym on weekends. One good session every week makes quite a difference. She's calling squats this week. She seems frail-ish sometimes; she's not.

book it

The Eleven had a discussion about bookstores at almost the same moment that Manjoo (or David Plotz) hit the ‘post this article’ button at Slate. Within days of our discussion, and not directly related, X commented on the overall crappiness of Amazon’s recommendations engine, particularly for books. If you gather nothing else from my input, know this: Manjoo is so wrong about the quality of Amazon’s ability to recommend to me another book based on my previous searches or purchases.

I remember trying to relate to X the parallel between what I heard from a local bike shop owner years ago, and the super bookstores (Border’s and B&N). What drew this attempt was a conversation between a good friend of mine and the ‘wrench’/owner of a higher end bike shop in Omaha. That conversation was driven by my friend’s observation that there were quite a few more quality bike shops that had opened in town over the last decade, and that there must be a load more people riding bikes. Said owner pointed out, based on his 30 years in town, that there were no more people actually riding bikes than there were ten years ago – more shops didn’t indicate more riders. Now, I don’t know why people were opening more shops if the size of the pie wasn’t growing, but I might put forth that there was a growth in the visibility of cycling (they’d just opened a wonderful city-wide set of bike paths) and entrepreneurs wanted to get in on the initial rush of excitement. The big bookstores strike me as a similar phenom: they overran the landscape because they felt there were more people reading (why? I’m not sure). Regardless, I never felt people were reading more books post-Border’s/B&N building explosion than they were prior. I’d bet that most of us can see that in ourselves, probably in our families, and if you ask around at work or your friends, the amount of book reading is probably way down across the country.

Amazon, bookwise, is simply another step up the accessibility ladder for book buying – a new rung, but not an actual representation of an increase in reading (any more than digital music delivery indicates that person A actually listens to more music). They no doubt have data that show an increase in book buying, though I’d be curious to really have someone get deeper access to the data’s “who” and “what”, before I’d be totally convinced that reading has exploded. Even with the Kindle and/or Nook, I don’t actually buy the premise that people who don’t read will suddenly become bookworms because of electronic access. Most people don’t even have the time or desire to read long-form journalism; and what of books? Probably not. Access doesn’t necessarily correlate to doing. I also wonder if Amazon’s other businesses props up the bookstore portion of their revenue.

Now, independents. I’ve long missed the local record store, and this is pretty much the same path, different medium. As we decided during our talk about independent bookstores, we both like having those people that love books to do some of the filtering for us. If it’s a store that doesn’t fit our style we can always go to a different local. That filtering is far better, at least for me, than trying to maze my way through Amazon in search of a nugget that might appeal to me. On a trip to Richmond earlier this year I bought four books at two different shops that were are all excellent, and I didn’t know anything about them prior to grabbing them from the shelves. But, that’s not the biggest plus for me. What I miss from record stores and smaller bookshops is actual human gathering – even if we don’t ‘talk’ to each other, the engagement with the clerk, or some other person, is far preferable to an online life. And for that, I’m willing to pay more.

As David Plotz aptly pointed out while discussing this on the podcast, if your position is that Amazon does it for cheaper, delivers to your house, and ‘picks’ books for you, then fine – they win hands down. I have no argument. But, when I think about books I will always choose to hang around the old Olsson’s books in D.C., Kramarbooks, or a Powell’s before a Barnes and Noble, or shopping via Amazon.

stolen from an andrew sullivan reader

"I appreciate the comparison you highlighted between the gay vet who confronted Mitt Romney and the black veterans in history observed by Ta-Nehisi. I am a former soldier, having served in the US Army from 1985 until 1989 before being discharged after a witch hunt. My sister is a retired soldier and my son is currently serving. We have a tradition of military service going back to at least the Second World War. It is my father, who fought with the storied 761st Tank Battalion (the Black Panthers) and his generation for black soldiers and airmen that I want to talk about briefly.

On my mother’s side, there were three Tuskegee Airmen.

My father, as I said, was a tanker. Before WWII, both my father and my uncles had lived every day of their lives in either Louisiana or Alabama, respectively. My father joined the Army the week following the attack on Pearl Harbor because the Army would let him fight as either infantry or a tanker but the Navy would have had him shining shoes or being a cook. My father wanted to fight.

He spent four years in the Army, was decorated with the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. When he came home at the end of the war, he went to college where he met my mother, who had spent the war building airplanes as a ‘Rosie’. Because my father served, he and my uncles got the GI Bill that allowed them to go to college. World War II made my father who he was.

My parents stayed in Alabama, where I was born, until 1968 when they moved us to California. The 1968 election was the first time my father ever cast a vote in the nation he had fought and bled for. When I joined the Army my father was very opposed to it - partially because my sister had joined four years earlier, partly because of his memories of serving in a segregated military. To convince him that my reasons were good, I told him that it takes a special kind of man to go and fight for a country that does not consider him enough of a human being to go to school where he wishes, to vote in elections, to live where he can afford and to work in any job he is qualified for. That generation of black men who signed up and served knowing that they would return home and not be able to vote were very special men.

When I think of the generations of gays and lesbians who served in our military, I think that whether the likes of Romney (or a non-trivial swath of the GOP for that matter) realize it or not, they are in the debt of these folks and are in the presence of the very best of America.

I am not trying to blow my own horn. This is not about my service. I went in because I felt that I had grown up in a nation that did consider me an actual citizen and if my father could put on the uniform when he was, at best, a second-class citizen I could do no less. I just want us, as Americans, to acknowledge that gays and lesbians have served and continue to do so and that these are the very best of our nation. They get up and they do their duty knowing that the man or woman they love back home is not considered their actual, wedded spouse and yet they do it anyway. We should honor them as the exceptional Americans they are."