The daughter speaks..(her monthly blogpost has arrived)

The daughter, as a lot of you know, is in Peru. My wife recently returned from a visit with the daughter filled with the luxury of a great visit. The daughter is really an adult, but as you parents know, they’re always your kids, and that emotion you feel may not really be labelled ‘worry’, but the concern is always present, especially when the kid is half a world away living in a house with dirt floors with little running water. Other than the obvious prayers and wishes for her good health and safety, I want her to find meaning and discover her passion.

This excerpt from her all-too-rarely updated blog* gives me great hope…

This is the part that I find amazing. More then half the time the principal cancels the class due to lack of organization. The kids refuse to leave. They tell me to come anyways, and they sit in their desks, in a now empty school waiting for their english class. I love these kids so much. I don’t know what happens but once I enter the classroom, I just feel like I am in my element, like everything in the world makes sense. I love teaching them, and seeing their smiling faces, and trying to talk to the really shy ones. It just feels real.

Read the rest…

*i’m channeling my inner-jewish-mother

Salem’s Lots Hijacked!

While John is in the bathroom having a naked men party (hey-it’s cool, we’re at the Mothership), the 2 lovliest ladies in Nashville have hijacked Salem’s Lots. No, it’s not Kate O and Brittney, silly! It’s Ginger and Ivy!

John is now listing words we are not allowed to say. Amongst them are the “c” word, the “f” word, and of course, because John is a big, pansy liberal, we can’t say the “n” word. Which is fine with us. What we were surprised to hear we weren’t allowed to say is “Puff, the Magic Dragon”, because it always makes John cry!

We discovered Ginger can tie a cherry stem in a knot with her tongue in less than 5 seconds. Pretty impressive, eh? We discovered Ivy can put her entire fist into her mouth. No, seriously. We can. A great team, are we not? Aren’t you sorry you didn’t come out to the Mothership today?

Well, now that John is laying on the floor after having a massive coronary because he witnessed these 2 feats, we must go. But keep on the lookout for other blogs we may hijack in the future. You never know what might happen.

Can the RIAA smell the Brylcream*, or, trouble in paradise

I’m sitting here in Centennial Park on an incredibly beautiful, if not perfect day. I’ve got the breeze, the sun, the water fountains, the kids feeding the ducks and broadband courtesy of our city fathers (and mothers). I’m listening to my favorite radio station on the planet – Radio Paradise. You won’t find Radio Paradise on your AM/FM dial..it’s a virtual station located only on the intertubes. The playlist is almost indescribable. You don’t get much hard-core rap or thrash metal, but pretty much everything else is game. At this exact moment they are playing Buddy and Julie Miller…right before the Millers was the Postal Service, preceded by Imogene Heap. Wait a few minutes and you might get Coltrane or Bartok or Corinne Bailey.

But, if the incredibly short-sighted folks at the Recording Industry Arts folks have their way, Radio Paradise will be as lost as John Milton’s sight. Back in the 70s, the RIAA rose up in anger over the potential of the blank cassette. They wanted them banned because, egads, someone could actually RECORD music and play that music. Of course, somebody had to actually BuY the music to record in the first place, but unlike the Ford Motor company they wanted a piece of the re-sale action. My GoD, it could be the end of the recording industry they wailed to congress. And congress listened, and did what they do so well, added a tax/levy on the purchase of a blank cassette tape, so that the industry and the struggling artist could be paid for their work. The actual amount of $$ the struggling artists receive from this booty is laughable and perhaps best left for a post from an actual artist.

The real point here is that RIAA has never embraced new technology. The Phillips and the Steve Jobs of this world get there first, lap the field and the RIAA is still trying to deliver vinyl. Instead of embracing the digital revolution (music distribution via digital), the RIAA concentrated on putting kids in debtors prison for illegally downloading songs.

I don’t think one should download songs for free or without some kind of license (e.g. Napster) , but for the love of the 21st century, music delivery is streaming thru the computer, not the crumbling towers of CDs and tape.

The RIAA has once again lobbied the powers that be to make internet radio stations pay an onerous and HIGHER rate of royalty than over the air radio stations. They appear to be winning the fight. They are so stupid on this issue my head hurts.

Internet radio is doing more to inform listeners of new and varied music than any 10,000 Clear Channel stations. If you want to break out of the American idol chicken pop pablum reeking from mass market radio, there are a few good over the air outlets, but if you want to hear it all, you gotta get to the internet radio stations.

If the RIAA has it’s way, the revised royalty standards will finish off all but the most corporate of internet radio (AOL, Yahoo). When corporations rule the music world, you get corporate rock. They built this city and good grief, did it sound shitty.

If you want to read more from an articulate and obviously biased source, read THIS from the creator of Radio Paradise. Bill ain’t making a bundle, but he’s living his passion and we get to share. It’ll be a shame if the music dies…again.

*reference to a great line from the Sopranos Uncle Junior – ‘that FBI guy has his head so far up my ass he can smell the Brylcream’. I love the Brylcream reference. It fits the mindset of the RIAA when it comes to new musical technology.

What she said..(Ginger)

If you haven’t read Henri Nouwen*, you should. Ginger did. Wow.

*Yeah, Nouwen is a Christian priest and writes about Christianity. I don’t care if you believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Buddy Holly or Satre/notmuch, he’s worth reading, esp. the ‘Wounded Healer‘.

I’m not all a’twitter, or, it’s just another mundane monday

Jason got his taxes done. Neil is considering shaving his head. Kashlove may be watching television, but I’m not sure considering her entire post consists of the word ‘television’.

I realize I’m probably late to the game here, but something called ‘Twitter‘ has been popping up on blogs and is apparently creating some kind of buzz in hipper parts of the world than I’m allowed to enter.

Twitter is kind of a mini-blog that allows you to post 140 character or less messages from your phone, from IM or from the web, if you didnt already know that. I guess there is some purpose here if you wanna let family or friends know what is going on and don’t want to call all everyone to let them know that you’ve finished your laundry, folded your laundry and are now heading to the Tin Roof for drinks with Melissa who is twittering at that exact moment wondering whenthehell are you ever going to show up.

Is there no thought or demi-thought left not worth communicating to someone? I realize some people I care about are twittering away, but for the life of me, what most of us think between the gems would basically bore the socks off the patron saint of patience, doncha think?

Maybe it’s just me. Oh, btw, if you are reading this in Tucson, Buzzjoy says, ‘Tuscon traffic stinks’. Thanks, B-joy.

Did I ever tell you that my cherry tree looked nice before the blossoms dropped, or that I’m wearing a pair of really really comfortable padded athletic socks….whoops that reminds me..LAUNDRY.

Putting the Salem back into Salem’s Lots

A little over 2 and 1/2 years ago, my wife and I sold our home in the greater Green Hills area (not the posh side, believe me!) and moved into a brand new house in a little-known neighborhood called Salemtown. The way I identified my new environs to my friends was (and still occasionally, but less and less) is that neighborhood directly to the north of Germantown.

We were excited about the move. Our kids had flown and we were ready for something different. We got different: sidewalks, front porches, occasional gun shots (the only gun shot I heard in the old hood was the starter’s pistol at Lipscomb’s track which was directly below my old house). We swallowed hard a few times, but we really never regretted the move.

Suddenly we had a block of neighbors, most of them glad for a renewal of interest. One of those neighbors was doing something called ‘blogging’. I’d heard of blogging of course, but never gave it a second thought. S-townMike was actually writing about the neighborhood and what goes into the development of community.

Michael inspired me. I started to blog and naturally pretty much tried to copy what he was doing. Imitation being flattery, and all that. I soon realized that I was no Michael. He IS the hyper-local blogger for this part of the world, and no one appreciates that fact more than me.

I still make the occasional blog-foray into Salemtown, but if you wanna know about this neighborhood – ENCLAVE.

Our thriving neighborhood association (Salemtown Neighbors) evolved from that blog. Our neighborhood is quickly evolving as well. I don’t hear the gunshots much anymore. New houses are springing up all around….many of which we welcome.

Which finally brings me to the real point. Salemtown is a diverse neighborhood. Our sidewalks, front porches and mostly single-family dwellings are conducive to community. As stated above, developers have noticed the attractiveness of Salemtown. Some of them have contributed beautiful, well-designed homes, relatively affordable considering the prices due south. Others have decided that our part of the world is prime ‘duplex-dump’ territory.

I’ve got nothing against duplexes as long as they are part of the fabric and not the dominant face of the community. Lynn and I moved into Salemtown not for a quick way to make money in a burgeoning neighborhood, but because we wanted to make this place our home for many years. Most of our neighbors, new and old, feel the same way.

Developers who have curried favor with us individually and collectively are short-sighted if they believe our initial support will continue if their view is of $alemtown as a dumping ground for duplex complexes that affords the fast buck, but leaves us with the long-term cost of more transitory sojourners and devalued homes.

Fortunately for us, the Metro Planning Commission agrees with us.  A recent attempt by the developer of Salem Gardens to rezone the property to build all duplexes was rebuffed.  The developer (correctly, imo) was given permission to build a mix of single-family homes and duplexes.

Our neighborhood association has come together and is petitioning the Metro Council to heed the word of the Planning Commission.  A lot of us are writing council members individually.

The small point here is that we are fighting a battle we need to win.  The larger point is that the house amidst a collection of houses we moved into more than 30 months ago is part of something bigger…a NEIGHBORHOOD called Salemtown.

Just as I am, or, waiting on that Fred Thompson altar call..

First of all, does James Dobson not have anybody in his organization that can take the man behind closed doors and testify:

ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR BONEY-ASS POWER-HUNGRY EAR-BLEEDING MONO-MANIACAL MIND?

I say that based on what I first picked up in Krumm-ville about Dobson claiming that Fred ‘Gasm’ Thompson isn’t a Christian in the particular Christian ghetto currently sheltering the ‘world leader pretend’. Apparently sycophants-r’-us supplies Mr. D with his aides-d-camp.

I kind of like old Fred. He’s an honest plain-spoken man who seems to be enjoying his flirtation with the elephant race that seems like it started about three minutes after the last election. Part of his appeal right now is that he is not the other guys and doesn’t have to stake out any positions or say much of anything other than dispensing judicial folk-medicine on a weekly basis on Law and Order.

All of that is to say I noticed something extremely interesting in the defense proffered by Thompson’s spokesman after Dobson’s dictum.

“Thompson is indeed a Christian,” he said. “He was baptized into the Church of Christ.”

Considering that I am a product of the church of Christ for lo, many many many years, I’ve got insight that all you non-saved heathens* might not understand.

Being baptized in the traditional church of Christ (I think things have changed in many C of C’s.) back in the day was one scary experience for most of us. The culmination of the experience was walking the aisle up to the front of the auditorium with everybody staring and then being immersed after donning a gown suitable for the occasion.

But, this was, as I said, the culmination. The C of C doesn’t believe in infant baptism. Nope…you gotta choose it yourself when you reach the mysterious ‘age of accountability**’. That magical age may be reached at age 9 for the really precocious bible -snappers or as late as age 16 for someone who really really didn’t like being pressured.

After you are deemed to have reached the age of accountability, the older women who gave you candy during the pre-accountible years are suddenly giving you ‘those looks’ during the invitation song that occurs after every freaking sermon. If you were unlucky enough to be trapped after the service by one of these drive-by biddies, you were implored to consider the consequences of not heeding the call***.

As the age of accountibility grew long in the tooth and the call went unanswered, the looks, the stares, the admonishments, and those horrid gospel meetings stretched endlessly until every waking church-related moment seemed to be a movie where the protagonist is trapped in one of those houses where the doors have been hermetically sealed and every creak is as ominous as a scream in the basement.

Needless to say, I caved. I did want to do the ‘right thing’, so I made a pact with several of my teenage-lifeboat crew..we’d all go down the aisle together. Luckily for me, a meteor did not tear into the roof of the church setting me and my fellow procrastinators ablaze before we made the necessary vow.

All of this is to say, that you get a LOT of attention BEFORE you make that committed walk down the aisle. Once you’ve made the leap, you get the smiles and the warmth, but you are no longer a point of focus. The church brigade now has other fish to de-bone.

I don’t know if it’s going to take the 15th verse of ‘Just as I Am’ for Fred to come strolling down the aisle, but I do know that if Fred’s C of C life was anything like mine, the pressure he is feeling now is certainly reminiscent of an earlier day.

You want to do what is right, but you just have to wonder if there’s not a better way to do it….you know what I mean?

One thing that Thompson’s spokesman may not realize is that the C of C doesn’t really believed in the ‘once saved, always saved’ doctrine. You can screw the pooch and drop out of the salvation bucket. Of course, you can always go forward again…but, I think we’ve already covered that one.

*uh, that would be some church of Christ sarcasm. There’s an old chestnut of a joke that when St. Peter is giving the tour of heaven to the newly inducted that he asks them to be quiet and tip-toe when they pass a certain room. When asked why, he explains that the room is for the church of Christ folks, and he doesn’t want to spoil their illusion that they are the only ones who made it.
I suspect that there is a similiar Southern Baptist joke.

**That may be a protected trademark phrase..not sure.. Sorry if I’ve infringed on anything.

***Not heeeding the call could possible mean perishing in an untimely fiery car wreck, the flames of which could be a foreshadowing of the heat to come. Or, God could choose to end the world while you were looking at that copy of Playboy you had stashed under your mattress and THEN where would you be??.

I had a dream, along with FEARLESS Idol predictions..

I won’t belabor my illness any further, at least beyond this post, but I’m asking any of you who watched American Idol last night (I THINK I did):

Did Frederico Fellini take over the contest and somehow make Sanjaya’s head look like something out of a bad Patti Labelle hair look-a-like contest? I may have been delirious what with the meds I’m taking, so even though I know that nothing at this point could get Sanjaya voted off of this stupid show, I am pretty sure I was hallucinating, right??

I’m pretty sure I was dreaming because Idol seemed to showcase an artist from the 21st century, an oddly demure Gwen Stephani, who actually seemed to give people pretty decent advice, which was also seemingly ignored. Couldn’t they find Billy Ocean or Billy Idol or Pablo Cruise?

Anyway, I was fully awake to hear Haley butcher a great Cindie Lauper tune, and to hear Chris ‘I may be going home tonight’ Sligh miss pretty much every possible beat on the Police chestnut, ‘Every Little Thing’, with the key word being TRAGIC instead of MAGIC.

Melinda is a better ballad/torch singer than an uptempo singer, but even with that fact, Jack, she still stood out, towering over the rest with a great rendition of Donna Summer’s ‘Heaven Knows’.

The singer pulling up on the outside of the track is Gina..she did the Pretenders well last night, and I think she deserves to stick around for a while, that is, if the carnival of the absurd doesn’t make peacock-head Sanjaya the ‘la dolce voca’ of American idolatry.

Finally, IRON-CLAD PREDICTION: Either Chris Sligh or Haley will go tonight. Sanjaya is safe for another day and another whack. Where’s David Copperfield when you need him?

If you’re ever laying around too weak to get off the couch or switch the channel, and this movie called London comes on, and you think,….oh, Jessica Biel…don’t bother.

Everyone knows that your standard of acceptable TV watching dips into the sub-Maury levels when you are on your not-quite-spinning sick bed. Food and drink do not tempt, but the TeeVee gapes…I’m only typing this as a warning to all you youngsters out there..I don’t care if you do drugs or drop out of school, I implore you, DON’T WATCH this movie called “London” starring Jessica Biel. Yeah, Jessica is not hard on the eyes, and no, I haven’t yet figured out if she can act or not, because I’m kind of still looking for clues, but for the love of all that is decent and plot-worthy, watching two guys wax philosophic over cocaine drippings in an pretentiously infinitely mirrored bathroom is what I’m kinda guessing a stage in hell might seem like.

This is a train wreck of a movie, dropping I’m guessing straight to video or digital or whatever movies drop to these days when they bypass the cine-e-ma. I don’t want to waste much more time even writing about this and I’m starting to feel woooooz-ey again about right now, but I do believe in the cautionary-post, if not tale.

It’s a boy meetz girl meetz drugs loses girlz takes more drugz kinda winz girl back movie that finishes up at the airport. Let me just say – any director or writer that would actually show a guy in a car, parking said car at the front entrance of the airport, and leaving said car parked AT the front entrance of the airport without even a tra-la-la from the airportpolicenazis, should have his screen guild card voided. This movie was made in freaking 2005. Does anybody eeeevan care anymore?

Back to bed…

I used to hate being sick because..

well, number 1…being sick is not a whole lot of fun, especially when you are really really sick and having to spend time in the hospital.

Another obvious reason is that one is not feeling good enough to enjoy any good thing that may be passing you in the street of life, and then there’s the work thing.  I love my job.  When I go back there after missing a day or two (i’m up to two days now), it feels overwhelming…everyone is in the middle of some project or meeting that i should supposedly be up on, but now it just feels like one of those dreams where things keep happening and you just can’t ‘get there’.

On top of all this, is the blog thing.  The blog world revolves a couple of times around, and you miss a cycle or two, and whatinttheworld is everyone talking about.  I’d like to stay upright and read about it, but the world is starting to spin again and the stomach is making fun of my up-right-ness again.    I just hope I didn’t pass this on to anyone I can into contact with over the last 48 hours………later.

Rocking the joy in Ashland City, or, I’m seeing a lot less of Slartibartfast these days..

Friends, let me testify. Those scales that Slarti keeps showing on his blog are accurate. The man is disappearing before our very blog-eyes. He really is nearly at fighting weight. If his thick hair keeps growing it may soon outweigh his torso!

We saw ‘his’ band last night. Little group of about 73 people (uh, actually there were nine, but they sound BIG). The band is called ‘X-Alt‘, which is a pretty clever despite the fact that maybe one of the ‘kids’ in the band is from Generation X (not that everyone else on stage is dino-saur-ish!) and they really don’t play alternative music, but what they do is exalt, with some Memphis-style horns, a couple of keyboards, some stinging guitar, and a ton of good vocalists.

This is the third time I’ve heard these guys. I’m not a big Christian music kinda guy. I grew up in an era where a lot of schlock was passed off as music and labelled Christian or praise, and it was somehow OK, because of the ‘brand’. I know the industry has grown up quite a bit since those days (yeah, probably a lot more than I’ve grown up), but my prejudice still is woven neatly into my sleeve.

These guys play great music. If the music blows, the message suffers. I know the message is really the true medium for X-Alt, but they know better than me, if the songs aren’t popping, the ‘go ye into all the world’ bit isn’t going to make it out of the driveway.

Our diminishing buddy Slarti got more vocals last night than the previous times I’ve heard the band. Slarti’s voice has a little more grit and growl than anybody else up there. He’s the one that can do the upbeat Stax-rumble and make it work along with those punctuating horns behind him. He especially shines on his own tune, ‘Piggyback Ride’ (uh, Slarti, your passion is showing).

My wife pointed out to me last night that the reason the song ‘Oh Happy Days’ works so well for these guys is that they don’t play it dirge-speed. They actually SOUND happy. Yeah, they do a lot of standards from the 60s, either leaving them alone lyrically to convey the message: Lean on Me, He ain’t Heavy, Put a Little Love in Your Heart*, or twisting the lyrics a bit to make sure we know WHERE the love’s coming from, e.g. Slarti’s take on the Sam and Dave ‘Soothe Me‘. The soothing here is heart-ward, and a little more to the ‘north’ than perhaps the original.

I don’t want to denigrate or neglect the rest of the band, especially the vocals. They truly have more lead singers on one stage than Van Halen and The Band put together. But, I”ve just gotta say that last night, Katy Seale was ON. She sings right on the edge of Americana, blues and torch just enough to make you realize you’d drive all the way to Ashland City for her featured songs alone. Throw in the amazing harmonies, the tight horns, the stinging guitar, and an occasional poignant flute, and you have good times, even if you doubt the Source of their inspiration.

And, oh yeah, Slarti threw in a little go-go dancing last night that almost cleaned out my nasal passages with espresso. Somewhere, someone needs to get that on ‘YouTube’.

*my one piece of advice is to drop ‘Put a Little Love in Your Heart’ and pick up another Memphis style song like some Dusty Springfield or the Isaac Haye’s chestnut: “If something is wrong with my baby…”. Too many good vocal chops in that band to not serve up some more grit.

Going to Ashland City tonight…More cowbell with Slartibartfast

I’m heeding the call Were heading up to Ashland City to hear Slarti’s band (X-Alt) play tonight at the GBH Coffeehouse, right smack dab in downtown Ashland City. Slarti is promising that he’ll be snging more lead tonight..Slarti has a ROCK n’ ROLL voice. The band is actually loaded with great voices, but I like Slarti’s the best. GBH coffeehouse is pretty much the anti-Starbucks of coffee houses, with the exception that they too, have good coffee..other than that, if something could be called anti-designer-house, this place fits the bill. All in all, really comfortable and a fun place to hear some tunes. Love to see you, and maybe, YOU.

The show starts at 8:00.  Not sure about a cover…last time it was $5.00, and well worth it.

The Alberto Gonzales ‘smell test’..

Let’s start with the pure legal truth. I’m going to use Nathan Moore’s quote on this issue as a touchstone:

The US Attorney fiasco makes me sick only because it was completely unnecessary. Nothing was done wrong – these are all political positions. You really don’t even need a reason to fire a US Attorney. No investigations are warranted, and no law, rule or creed has been violated.

Nathan is exactly right. But. When politicians we don’t care for, expecially presidents, cross the line, blur the legal limits or plunge over the line, the phrase – we live in a nation of laws – takes center stage. As well it should. No man, woman, child or wildebeest is above the law. That’s one of those wonderful concepts and precepts that keeps this country on the right foot and away from banana-land.

We don’t always live up to that standard. Granted.

But, when U.S. States Attorneys across the nation are relieved from their duties because of a lack of loyalty to a President (in this case, were they loyal Bushies?), then aren’t we saying that man is more important than the law, IF, the attorneys were doing their job and prosecuting efficiently, and cleanly, unswayed by political influence?

If it is all so easy, clean and straightforward, then why in the world is the Bush team handling this so ineptly (in fairness to Nathan, he does castigate the Bush folks for handling this so poorly)? If firing these folks is just another day at the office, why did Gonzales lie about being in on it. When the going gets tough in the White House, Bush and Gonzales both looked across the room.

Why the secrecy? Why don’t they come out and say what Nathan said above? If these are ‘political’ jobs, then they serve at the whim of the leadership and they can be whimmed right outta there.

Of course, some Democrats are going to try to make some political hay. But, if the story was so simple and straighforward, where would the traction come from on the Democratic side? If it were this easy, there would be no story, no stonewalling, no need to go to court for documentation, and Gonzales would be seen as just doing his job.

The fact is, there IS a story here, and one aspect of the story is that Gonzales won’t have THIS job much longer.

I’ve said this before, and I get to repeat because this is my blog:  If you go back in time into the early to mid nineties, and imagine a conversation between Ted Kennedy (or any liberal bete’ noire) and the White House, wherein Kennedy asks for an Attorney to be fired because he wasn’t going after Republicans hard enough, I think we’d see some ire from a corner that is currently not living in Ire-land.

Where in Nashville – Part III

I posted this one before as well, before I realized I could re-size pics in WordPress (d’oh!). Previous winners (Ceeelcee and my son, Josh, who despite innuendo from certain circles did not win the contest based on nepotism) may guess the location but are not eligible to win until July 1, 2007 when the new state fiscal year begins.

As always, the first person to identify the house by either giving me a street name or submitting their own pic of the house will win a complete full-course meal from Mothership bbq, courtesy of ME.

The only hint for this one: the house IS in Davidson County.

Update:: ok, a better hint – This house is 4.25 driving miles from the Germantown Cafe at 5th and Madison. 

I can’t even talk about it….but, it was a great year..

Good times, Vandy…good times. I’m really going to miss Mr. Byars.

What rocks!!*..I’ll take 32-24 at the half..

Vandy came into tonight’s game with Georgetown mighty as a lion, and though their roar subsided, they didn’t leave the first half like a lamb.

I get way too nervous watching the big games that Vandy plays.  I guess the cumulative rooting of 45 years helps make this matter more than it probably should, but I just don’t care.  You know..I just don’t care that I care too much.

I didn’t have Vandy winning this game on my bracket.  I picked with my head.  My heart is beginning to believe that ‘we’ have a chance to win this game.  Yeah we have an 8 point lead at the half, but believe me that 8 point lead can evaporate like support for Mitt Romney if Big Fred makes the announcement.

Georgetown’s nickname, if you didn’t know, is the Hoyas, which roughly translates in Latin to ‘WHAT!.  Georgetown back in the day had a baseball with the nickname of ‘stonewall’.  Some quirky Latin nerd scholar exclaimed ‘hoya saxa’  (what rocks!)after a particularly stalwart defensive play, and at least part of the name stuck.  Oddly, the ‘WHAT’ part stayed and the rock part rolled away…go figure.

Yikes..back to the nervous second half.

Learning to read, or, A VERY special cattle call..

This morning when I was perusing your and my Tennessean, I was reading the restaurant column and I came across a story about a new franchise heading into East Nashville called Hamburger Mary’s.   I thought I read they were serving gay-friendly hamburgers, and I must admit, my curiosity and general lack of knowledge about cattle farming let me to think that I had missed a whole new development in cattle husbandry.    I realize I”m not totally up on gay cultural evolution, but I began to imagine a straight-burger backlash, with Red Meat for Red Staters burger emporiums springing up in right-thinking neighborhoods everywhere, and then I realized (ok, I read the story again after that special second cup of coffee) that the restaurant  (Hamburger Mary’s) has a gay-friendly vibe.   The burgers themselves, I suppose, are neutral.

Nearly barefoot in Nashville, or really, where do they go..I mean really..

This one is really for the Home-Ec 101 women. This one has been the subject of every two-bit-brick-wall-lame comedian that has ever appeared on the comedy channel. Where do the socks go?

Some of this story may relate to the fact that my wife has been missing from the house for over a week (she knows where she is…). Not that she is supposed to be keeping up with my laundry, but the thing is..I’ve had more time on my hands than usual lately and I decided to take on the sock issue..

I normally do the laundry. Over the years, socks began disappearing during the laundry cycle at some indiscernible point. Tonight, while watching my basketball bracket begin to bleed (Texas A and M losing to Memphis), I decided to do a complete sock audit…gather em’ all up in one pile..launder them and attempt to sort them out. I now have 19 single socks that have no hope of a mate…kinda like singles night at the Battle Star Galactica clubhouse..

I can’t comprehend this. I don’t go places and take off my socks unless by some odd chance I’m actually within walking distance of an ocean, and even then, I don’t throw my socks into the waves. I don’t take my socks off at work, I don’t roll them off eating lunch at the arcade, I don’t slip them off for the walk home after work and I don’t toss them on the front lawn upon my arrival home. When I take them off I do what every red-blooded American does..I throw them on the floor. And then I put them in the laundry hamper (those last two actions aren’t necessarily linked closely by any space-time continuum). They always eventually get into the hamper. Eventually, I take the hamper downstairs to the laundry closet.

I don’t take the laundry out in the back, and I don’t take the laundry hamper for rides in my car. I dump the clothes into the washer. After the washing is done, the socks along with their clothing kin go into the dryer. After they are dried, they go into the laundry basket, where things are either folded or mated. There is no variation here, there is no alternative route.. Yet..socks continually disappear..not both socks in the pair..just ONE sock in the pair.

Yes, I realize that this is an age-old cliche and prosaic problem, but I remain buffaloed, befuddled, and bemused.

Yeah, I do have friends that pin their pairs of socks together before washing, but good gravy, washing is mundane enough without adding that chore before the chore. Is there any other trick, is there any other ploy?

I need hep.

signed, Somewhat sock-less in Nashville .

.

ah, to be with you, in Machu Picchu, or, arrrrghh, green-eyed in Nashville

My wife and sister-in-law have been spending a lot of quality time down in Peru visiting our daughter (serving in the Peace Corps in a town called ‘Bataan Grande’ – try to find THAT on your Google Earth!). I’m trying not to be gobbled by the green-eyed monster, but it has been difficult. Barbecue, basketball, and the color TV in general have pulled me through, but as much as I love Nashville, and each and every one of you (ok, a whole LOT of you), I wanna be down south…waaaaaay south.

A brief history of Presidential Privilege

Early 1970s: Nixon in throes of Watergate. Privilege absolutely necessary say the Nixon-ites. How can we do bizness if the public knows our secret inner workings?

Republicans: Hell ya!

Democrats: Hell NO.

Supreme Court in U.S. v. Nixon: Not so fast there, tricky Dick

Mid 90s: President Clinton invokes privilege vis’ a vis’ Whitewater and the Lewinsky scandal – Needed to do government business

Democrats: Hell ya!

Republicans: Hell No!

Current Day: President Bush from the beginning of his administration (Karl Rove and his Gang ‘O Energy policy) to today’s discussion about judicial firing – We need it to do government business.

Republicans: Hell ya!

Democrats: Hell NO!

Presidents have been invoking Presidential privilege since Washington.  The Supreme Court since Marshall have agreed that ‘the Privilege’ exists, but is not absolute.  The Court in U.S v. Nixon  continued the denial of the notion that Presidential privilege is absolute.

My advice to Bush:  Give it up.   The truth is going to get out there…see Nixon on Watergate, and  Clinton on Lewinsky.
Good handle on this: This guy