Not that I really get to pick racial spokespeople..

As soon as I saw the first Youtube of Michael Richards racist outburst, I knew that Jesse Jackson would somehow enter stage left into the story. I really don’t think anyone elected Jesse to be ‘Jesse Jackson – racial spokesman’ and I’m certainly not stupid enough to believe that all black folks think any one way about anything including who gets to be the self-proclaimed racial spokesman, but Jesse has somehow managed to maintain his lofty post for many many years. Personally, I think he’s ‘played’ and a lot more interested in Jesse-promotion than much else, but then again, I don’t have my own radio show.

If I was in charge of picking racial spokesperson for my race, I think I’d look in the blogger toolbox for an Abramson, a Coble, a ‘B‘ or possibly Sarcastro. If I got a vote for African-American racial spokesperson, I would not vote for Jackson, or even Sharpton. I’d have to cast my ballot for a Dork….He’s a lot more interesting.

My serious point is this: When something newsworthy happens to a white person that doesn’t involve racial issues, there isn’t a WHITE GUY or WHITE WOMAN that the media flocks to for an opinion. Why then, in a supposedly more enlightened era, does the media cling to the canard that a single black person speaks for his or her race? Isn’t this just a thinly guised version of the ‘all black people are ____________’ (fill in the blank with your favorite stupid racial stereotype).

Speaking for me, I’d like to revive an old political slogan..Run, Jesse, Run…and keep running til the TV cameras can’t find ya.

Apparently they got the tree on Dickerson Road…

According to my wonderful friend Ivy’s Christmas tree post, Ivy has a very special, if somewhat expensive method of decorating the family (I’m not sure the word family actually applies here) Christmas tree:

“I put hookers on the ornaments”. I always knew that Ivy was persuasive…..

Most people put the ornaments on the hookers (i’ve HEARD), but then again, I’ve hung out with that Lavergne crowd and they are a special breed.

Hmmm, I would expound further, but I just got a GREAT idea for the city tree down at the courthouse…Mayor Purcell, oh Mayor Purcell……

That’ll show him, or, Depriving Lil’ Kim of his toys..

I’m reading that the U.S. government is taboo-ing exports to North Korea if the item can fit into pee-wee Dictator Kim’s playhouse. No IPODs for YOU. No more sippin’ Hennessey while listening to The Game’s 808s.

Who are we kidding? Does anyone seriously think that Kim is going to be deprived? I think we should take a different tack. Send the little killer a gross of Zunes and a dozen or so of those 42″ Phillips Plasmas TVs. Personally, I’d be willing to send him a complete OIC Variopoint 2110 copier.

Death by copier, or, learning how to use our new copier is going to make my head explode

There is a team of copy machine engineers installing the machine pictured above in our office. Don’t let that picture fool ya. That sucker is 12 feet long. I’m not kidding. We had to move a guy out of his cubicle and tear down a wall in order to accommodate the new behomoth.

Here’s the kicker. We are going to receive a SIX HOUR TRAINING CLASS on how to use the damn machine. !geezer alert! I remember in the old days when you’d take a sheet of paper you wanted copied, slap it down on the glass, close the lid, hit the numeric keypad and then hit a button named ‘COPY’ or ‘START’ and wham, bam, thankumaam, the copy(ies) would appear in one of several trays. Back in those days, you could actually pull/twist/punch one button/switch and you could turn on a TV…blah blah blah..

To tell the truth, my machine profiency level peaked with PONG. I got that game. Modern video games befuzzle me. I hate the idea that I have to actually ask a secretary-type-person to make copies, but the odds are, they’ll understand the damn machine.

Hey, is Matlock on???

O little town of Bethlehem, how clear..WAIT, What are you doing with Brighty, and where the hel..uh, where the heck is Ernie the camel…

There are so MANY aspects of this story that need to be addressed. Seems PETA complained to this church about their ‘live’ nativity, thinking that ‘live’ meant animals. The church responded and stated that no animals could possibly be hurt in their nativity because they didn’t use live animals.

PETA may have a general point, if their stories about animal abuse and even rape (I’m not sure I wanna know any more about THAT story) are true..

Brighty the donkey, snatched from a nativity scene in Virginia and beaten by three young men. Ernie the camel fled a creche in Maryland but was struck and killed by a car. Two sheep and a donkey had to be euthanized after a dog mauling at a manger scene in Virginia.

I’m all against abusing animals on any level (step away from the sheep..), but I’ve gotta wonder who is looking out for the people in these creche scenes. In the nativity scene mistakenly fingered by PETA, they actually have a camel puppet and a guy who wears a ‘cow hood that is really quite scary’. I don’t know about you, but if I had to hold my arm up behind a fake manger wearing a camel puppet for hours without talking to my fellow masochists celebrants, I might be having less than kind thoughts about the baby Jesus, and I might even be tempted to wish the visitors a ‘HAPPY HOLIDAY’.

I say civil, you say sectarian, I say Rumsfeld, you say all Iraqis are contrarians..

I would say that I’m enjoy the debate and fingerpointing going on in pundit-world and politico-world about whether or not Iraq is in the midst of a civil war and just exactly who is to blame for the mess over there.

I would be enjoying this, like I said, except the last two months of the war have been the deadliest for Iraqi civilians yet. The latest place to point the finger is towards those darn Iraqis because they just don’t seem to want to do what they have to do to foster a democracy.

The neo-cons are blaming the generals. The generals are blaming Rumsfeld. I don’t know who Rumsfeld is going to blame, but I suggest that he spend a good amount of time in front of the mirror each day.

And, American soldiers continue to die. Lotsa blame to go around. Me, I gotta believe the buck stops at the top. I firmly believe that this President will be remembered for making one of the worst foreign policy mistakes in our history. I also believe that hating the President is useless and polarizing.

Mostly I believe that the finger pointing needs to move towards pointing towards a way to get us out of Iraq. Our soldiers have done a good job there, but our policy has been a clear and utter disaster.

After the election was over, and the country delivered what seems to be a clear mandate against this war and the way it has been waged, it feels like we all kind of relaxed and retreated into a cocoon of belief that we had accomplished something and were now ready to move on to the next issue. We got a good start at least, in delivering a message to the President and his administration, but I believe we need to keep the hammer down and not rest on our ephemeral laurels.

Attention Tennessee travelers, Starbucks open at Manchester exit..

I go back and forth from Chattanooga a LOT. Traveling over Smiley’s mountain (aka Monteagle) on the way back from Chattanooga (on I-24) is sometimes a nerve-wracking experience when the weather is less than nice and the roads are slick and there are 6,324 large trucks racing down the mountain alongside your vehicle (my vehicle of choice is the low-bid state car I regularly get assigned to me: stinky Dodge Stratus, as opposed to the Taurus or the Prius).

After recovering from today’s downhill travail, I stopped off at good old exit 114 where there have always been a buncha fast foods and cheap gas. But now, the latest addition to the grandeur of Exit 114:a brand spanking new Starbucks featuring the same overpriced coffee found at all their other locations. I’m willing to over-pay. because I like their coffee and, it’s the antidote to the jimmy-legs I get driving a Dodge Stratus over Smiley’s mountain. I’m glad to see coffee shops at key interstate exits. I wish that local folks could afford interstate exit prices, but the bite of reality is that Starbucks is probably the only game in town (at least in Tennessee) willing to pay the price.

If they would just put a coffee joint at the Waverly/Lobeville/Loretta Lynn exit going west and Harriman going east, all my travel needs would be satisfied…

New ending for the Titan-ic…

Wow! Vince Young could probably be elected mayor after today’s performance or maybe co-mayor. How often have the Titans scored 24 points in one quarter? That would be NEvER until today. Thanks to a couple of giant Giant bungles, the predatory Titans led by Vince ‘hopefully forever’ Young pulled a rabbit, a moose, and several miracles out of his hat this evening to lead our team to one of the more improbable victories of this and any other year.

It was a tale of two halves. First half, the Titans were bungle in the jungle, fumbling their way to what looked like a blow-out. Somehow, Young decided to channel his mentor McNair in the second half to pretty much carry the team on his Bunyonesque shoulders. Pacman took a couple of big steps towards redemption with two big interceptions followed by some rather arabesque-type maneuvers.

Young found his own Mason, namely Bobby Wade. He already had a ‘Wycheck’, Bo Scaife, former teammate from Texas. But, Young discovered something even more important…if you lead, the team will follow. Young will still make rookie mistakes and the team might not win many more games this year, but for the second time in two weeks, there is a very large, rather odd-throwing light at the end of the tunnel….

Only in the movies, or, Cut the red wire, NO, the BLACK WIRE, BOOM!!!

Nostalgia Central came up with a great list of 40 things you only see in the movies.

I could have come up with a few of the items on this list, such as:

Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, it will not be necessary to learn to speak German. Simply speaking English with a German accent will do. Similarly, when they are alone, all German soldiers prefer to speak English to each other.

But, my favorite is a variation of their 7th item:

7. All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red digital displays so you know exactly when they are going to explode

Here’s my variation. Someone who does not have any idea how to defuse a bomb will be the only person who can get to the bomb in time to defuse it. They will be able to reach someone on the phone who knows how to defuse the bomb. Inevitably the instructions will be straight forward until they get to the final 3 wires: a red one, a black one, and a white one. For some reason the expert will not be sure which one needs to be clipped for the bomb to be defused. Inevitably our hero will select the correct wire..whewwww. My movie dream is that the amateur de-fuser picks the wrong wire..BOOOOM..movie over.

Culture Club, or, it’s the Scotch-Irish in me..

A few weeks ago, we were in the middle of being enthralled by ‘The Departed‘ (Scorcese’s wonderful and violent movie about the intertwinings of the Irish mob and the FBI in Bawhston) when this song jumped off the soundtrack and kicked me right in the arse – turns out the song is by ‘The Drop-Kick Murphys, a somewhat inebriated Irish band from Bawhston as well. The song is ‘I’m Shipping up to Boston’, and it kinda sounded like The Pogues on steroids. Actually, after I purchased ‘The Warriors Code’ (the CD containing ‘Shipping up to Boston), I decided that if the Clash were born in Boston and were totally Irish, this is what they WOULD have sounded like. Well..the Clash with Bagpipes. Drop-Kick Murphys totally kick ass.

In the same vein, if the Pogues wrote detective novels starring their alcoholic lead singer Shane MacGowan, they would read something like the ‘Jack Taylor’ series penned by Irish-noir writer Ken Bruen. My favorite fictional detectives in the current scene are all alcoholics: Jack Taylor, Matt Scudder (from the brain of Lawrence Block) and Dave Robicheaux (James Lee Burke). Not sure why, but something about the conflict makes for crime novels with brawn and sinew.

Bruen’s voice is unique and his stories aren’t easy. No hugs, tied-up bows or endlessly discussed codes of honor (ahem, the last 10 Spenser novels). They are, however, highly recommended. Start with ‘The Guards‘, and if you’re like me, you won’t stop. James Crumley (maybe the best crime novelist living) says:

“The Guards is an astounding novel, a poetic account of a desperation as deep as the North sea, retribution and resurrection. It�s so good I can�t think of it as a crime novel. Its a fine book with some crime.”

You know what would taste good after all that turkey?…BARBECUE

Anybody up for some Mothership today, circa 12:30-1:00ish? MMMMMMMMM

Update: Well, what the lunch crowd lacked in quantity was more than made up in quality. The one and only Smiley showed up right when I pulled up. A person couldn’t ask for a better lunch (and probably dinner) companion. Good times…

I managed to make it over to Grimey’s after lunch and I picked up the new ‘Hold Steady’ CD which is most excellent. Following some really boring errands which left me in the midst of the greater Green Hills area, I was drinking coffee outside reading a book when I spotted Kat and Tim. Always good to be around the Kat…

Plus the weather today was like the Werewolf of London’s hair when he sauntered into Trader Vic’s – PERFECT!

I heard the news today, oh boy, and I didn’t understand a word, and somehow it didn’t matter…

Major network newscasts have been losing viewers by the millions. I’ve got a solution that is guaranteed to boost ratings and gain that all important 12-year-old to 90-year-old male demographic. Her name is Melissa Theuriau and she reads the news for some French TV network.

It doesn’t matter if we don’t speak French. Really. She’s on the TV, I’m watching. Here’s a compilation of Melissa Theuriau’s finest moments:

I love the fact that some guy took the time to compile these broadcasts and added a porn soundtrack what I imagine a porn soundtrack would sound like if I indeed had ever heard a porn soundtrack.

You put this woman on ABC or NBC and it’d be ‘Katie’ who?? She could be broadcasting the onset of World War III and I’d be sighing contentedly while ensuring that my digital video recorder was getting EVERY moment.

FT: Clicked

All in the family…what movie are we gonna see

I said it recently and I’ll say it again..Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. We get someone else to cook the turkey (Bro’s on Charlotte – a MEAN deep-fried turkey) and my mom cooks the veggies (she’s a pretty ‘mean’ cook herself) and my sister and her family come from St. Louis. My sister (and family) are ardent Republican-types. My mother is a Fox-News-loving Republican-type which leaves my family as the odd-ball Demo-types. We learned several years ago that we can have a wonderful, warm, loving thanksgiving if a certain someone shuts the hell up about politics (that someone would be me).

If we omit George Bush, Iraq, Fox News, progressive income tax and the death tax from the dinner conversation, all goes swimmingly. In fact, the only controversy swirling these past few Thanksgivings is the Friday after Thanksgiving movie choice..

It’s getting harder and harder to satisfy teenagers, grandmother, and four theoretically adult types AND come up with a movie that everyone hasn’t seen. This year we had to split up. The grown-ups went to see ‘Queen’ and the kids went to see James Bond. Needless to say, I totally enjoyed Casino Royale.

I really thought the Bond franchise was moribund, but these guys brought it back to life. Two thumbs WAY up.

Not to mention, the two thumbs up for Thanksgiving and family and all that sappy stuff.

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro*

I’ve been tagged, twice, by Newscoma and Sista. They want to perpetuate the weirdness chain, as in list six weird things about yourself….hmmmm.

1. When I walk down stairs, I whistle. Problem is, I really can’t whistle. I blow some notes. I feel sorry for the people in the vicinity of the stairs, especially in the concrete echoing staircases at work, because they probably think that someone is either in pain or a small train is descending the staircase above them. Oddly, I never whistle when going up stairs.

2. I have to sit on the LEFT end of the couch. Maybe it’s because I’m left-handed, but I feel disconcerted not sitting on the left end. If one of my favorite teams is playing on TV, I will move you in order to sit on the left end because it is very important to the fate of ‘my’ team that I am ‘in position’.

3. When I’m attending a basketball game and ‘my ‘ team (usually Vandy) has two free throws, I clap three times after the first free throw, if the free throw is made. This ‘habit’ has enabled Vanderbilt to win on many occasions.

4. I share a love of parallel parking with Newscoma. If they paid people to parallel park, I might be able to afford that summer home in Taos we’ve always dreamed about. I’m a pretty good driver, but to paraphrase Rainman, ‘I’m an excellent parallel parker, I’m an excellent parallel parker’

5. When I look at myself in my bathroom mirror, I channel the voice of Barry White except he is laughing his ass off and saying, BABY, oh, BABY. I don’t think I”M baby oh baby. It’s like I’m on some odd sit-com and the soundtrack jokingly plays this phrase when the dishevelled sleepy-faced big-headed person slaps water on their fact in order to wake up. Oh damn, I think that was my out-loud voice.

6. Speaking of big heads. I have a very large head. Sadly, when I was a child, my head grew to adult proportions. None of my peers made fun of it though, except in grades 2-12. A sampling of my nicknames:
Basketball head, atomic head, mushroom head, ultra head, fat head, giganto-head, world-class head….I could go on, but I’d need an extra counseling session.

I hearby tag, Sam AND Lynette Davidson, Thomas McKenzie, Parlancheq, Malia, and Ginger.

*quote is from the late great Hunter S. Thompson.

Things I’m REALLY trying to be thankful for..

The guy who dropped off the state car that I picked up late Wednesday for my trip to Chattanooga next week. He left it empty. When you return a state car you are supposed to at least leave it 3/4ths full. He has no idea who I am and probably didn’t think about it much. No big deal but it made me realize that my actions do affect other people in ways I don’t realize.

The fact that one of the lenses in my prescription sunglasses popped out while I was walking down the marbled halls at work. It helps me remember that stupid things happen to me that don’t SEEM to happen to others making me somewhat unique. Also thankful that nobody in those marbled echoing halls seem to mind when I said SHIT quite loudly (based on the amount of laughter involved).

Thanks for the guy on I-440 I let in front of me who didn’t give me ‘the wave’ showing his gratitude. Helps me remember to say thank you to all those folks that make life better for me.

Thanks to that doc who accidentally hit a blood vessel during a routine biopsy causing me to lose a lot of blood and land in the intensive care unit at Baptist a few weeks ago. Life is precious and you tend to really remember that when you are heading the ‘other’ way.

Thanks to my counselor for describing me as somewhat irascible (counselor talk for somewhat asshole-ish). The appellation stung, but that’s what happens when you ask for the truth.

Thanks for the mediocre sushi at a certain place downtown (not Sam’s or Koto’s). Makes me appreciate Samurai Sushi that much more.

Thanks for the worst spinach pie ever at a certain Greek-ish joint downtown. Made me appreciate ‘The Greek Touch’ (in the arcade) spinach pie all that much more.

Thanks to CBS for cancelling ‘Joan of Arcadia’ last year. It was the one show that ‘got’ it about how we are asked to do things for reasons we can’t understand and how it all makes sense, even if that ‘sense’ is pretty damn painful. Actually I’m not thankful at all they cancelled that show. But, I am thankful for a brief shining moment, we had that show.

I’m also thankful for all those folks NOT reading this blog today…means you’re doing something far more important!

The best Thanksgiving movies, or, channeling the inner Del Griffith

Thanksgiving is the one holiday that hasn’t been screwed up yet (ok, I guess that Arbor day is in good shape despite the fact that the state of Tennessee does not see fit to give me the day off to go plant a tree). The Christmas tsunami has long ago overtaken the Thanksgiving holidays, what with the day after Thanksgiving becoming the true day of thanks for mall operators.

Anyway, to me, Thanksgiving is an island of respite in the commercial storm. Also there really aren’t any good Thanksgiving songs (at least in secular-land). I love Christmas music (in its place which is in DECEMBER), but I like a holiday that hasn’t been overcome with anything other than family gatherings and family feuds…good times.

Unlike Christmas, which has had and continues to have myriads of movies (mostly blah with some excellent exceptions), Thanksgiving has a few wonderful films centering on the day, and of course, inevitably (sorry for the obvious cliche) a few turkeys.

The best comedy and my favorite Thanksgiving movie: Hands down, Planes, Trains and Automobiles. I’ve seen this movie or parts of it at least a dozen times. I still laugh every time and I still get misty-eyed by the ending even though I know EXACTLY what is coming. Martin and Candy are a great team, and the decency of Del Griffiths in the trappings of an awkward doof is inspirational. It’s truly a great road movie, as well.

Best non-comedy movie about a family, but not a family movie: Hannah and Her Sisters. This Woody Allen movie is worth watching just for the lighting and the editing. This film was part of the second wave of great films from Allen, and is bracketed by two Thanksgiving dinners. It has a great cast featuring Michael Caine, Max Van Sydrow, Barbara Hersey, and Allen himself. Allen has not reached the point where he looks silly dating younger women, and Michael Caine is note-perfect.

Best uplifting movie about the typically disfunctional family: Pieces of April, starring the now-insane-female-half of TomKat (Katie Holmes, thankfully before the outside world became a Scientology Potential Trouble Source). Pieces of April is obviously a low-budget movie, with a wonderful cast. The movie has a couple of irritating sub-plots, and the filmmaker clearly ran out of money before he could really finish the film, but, despite all that, if you want to see grace and forgiveness eloquently displayed in the incredible acting of Patricia Clarkson, Oliver Platt and Holmes, this is the movie to watch.

Worst non-uplifting movie about a disfunctional family: Myth of Fingerprints. Actually this movie is well-made and has the best cast of any of the four films in this post. The darkness and disfunctionality never get dispelled though, and the film seems to revel in it’s depression. Worth watching..but be warned!

Other Thanksgiving Films worth mentioning: Ice Storm, Nobody’s Perfect and Home for the Holidays. Most of these films seem to center on disfunctionality which is a weird, but probably realistic way of saying thanks.

Bill O’Reilly is an asshat

Ha, Ha, I’m protected. Wait a minute, that’s just a California decision…whooops. Bill O’Reilly is just a misunderstood HIPAA violator..

We wanted Kramer, but we got Michael Richards…a few really uncomfortable moments on Letterman

I was watching Letterman tonight because Seinfeld was on, and I figured that there HAD to be some convo about the Michael Richards meltdown, and I was really curious what Seinfeld had to say about the whole deal.

Little did I know..Michael appeared via satellite with Jerry on the show. Along with the audience, I really wasn’t sure if he (Richards) was going for funny or really wanted to apologize seriously. There were long pauses and nervous laughter and Jerry telling the audience that it really wasn’t funny and Kramer Richards being offended by the audience laughing and Jerry trying to explain to Richards that the audience was seeing KRAMER, and man, was it really really uncomfortable.

Richards is clearly distraught. I kept waiting for him to do one of those Kramer shimmies and fall over backwards in his chair symbolically pratfalling into the arms of forgiving fans. I still don’t totally understand what happened that night, and I really don’t know if he’ll ever recover his career.

It was mesmerizing to watch, even if painful and discomforting. I kept wanting to forgive the hipster doofus..it’s gonna be a little harder to forget the verbal pratfalls of Richards.

Update: Here is a link to the video of Richards on Letterman. Despite much speculation, Richards did not blame his tirade on alcohol, upbringing or anyone else, other than a rather disjointed statement about race relations in America.

Update 2: Michael over at Chez Bez has some good words on this subject. I agree with his statement about the nervous laughter in the audience. I don’t think they were laughing at his apology. I think they desperately wanted to laugh at KRAMER.

Update 3: This guy (Good Copy blog) thinks the apology was a disaster and stage-managed by Seinfeld for economic reasons. I wanna think that Seinfeld was helping a friend, but this guy has some good points.

I understand the mindset of an actor who loses control on stage. I’ve studied acting, and I know how naked you feel when your act goes very, very wrong. I’ve bombed so badly in an audition that I wanted to hit random people in the throat. But you are responsible for your actions and must control yourself at all times!

Towards the end, Letterman says, preciently, “I certainly hope you don’t have regrets about being on the show.” I bet he does, and should.

As a black individual, I am offended by Richards’ words, and to a lesser degree, by Seinfeld’s (probably business-driven) attempt to stage-manage his apology. If the man can’t speak clearly for himself, I don’t need Seinfeld translating for him.

Update 4: Shakespeare’s Sister has some interesting observations on this story as well, including insights on passive vs. active racism.

If I catch that damn alarm clock…it’s gonna be sorry it was ever manufactured …

Somehow I think of Coble when I see this Harry Potter-esque flying alarm clock which is actually for sale in England.

“You’ll have to get up when this little baby starts, because it takes off and flies round the room, making a really annoying noise like a mosquito,

so you’ll have to find it first, before you can turn it off. Even if you hit the snooze button, it will take off again, so it will undoubtedly get you out of bed, though of course it might smash the place up a bit before you catch it, and if you sleep with the windows open you might find yourself running round the garden in your jimjams (no way to wake up) and may frighten the neighbourhood dogs.”

FT: Clicked

Was that wrong? Should I not have done that? I tell you, I gotta plead ignorence on this thing……..

because if anyone had said anything to me at all when I first started here that that sort of thing is frowned upon… you know, cause I’ve worked in a lot of offices, and I tell you, people do that all the time.

Bambi weeps…