Category Archives: Total trivia

Finishing Thoughts

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Subhead: "If You Use the Term ‘Thoughts’ Loosely"

This definitely goes under the heading of something you wouldn’t confess if you didn’t have a blog.

I am a notoriously slow reader, and one of the stupider reasons for that is that I can’t seem to read any small grouping of words — a headline, a bumper sticker, a quote — without adding some nonsensical something to "finish the thought."

Take The New York Times today. Please. I found myself composing "subheads" for several of the headlines.

Actual headline: "Europe to Offer Iran Conditional Incentives"
My subhead: "’You Don’t Blow Us Up, We’ll Do Business’"

Actual headline: "Lens Cleaner is Recalled Worldwide"
My subhead: "Household Product Stirs Fond Memories"

Actual headline: "U.S. Urges Jurors to Punish ‘Lies’ at Enron"
My subhead: "12 Bars of Soap Handed Out by Judge"

Actual headline: "Most Bush Holdings Listed as Real Estate"
My subhead: "Democratic Response: No, it’s FALSE Estate"

OK, I’ll go away now.

Hayden as top spook? Are we mad?

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Hayden? We’re actually considering Haydon to head our secret intelligence service? No way!

Sure, there was none better at humint, and we need that sort of thing these days. But what is that beside the fact that we’ve known ever since the ’70s that Haydon was the mole Gerald, the mostHayden famous double-crossing traitor in spy literature?

Are we to supposed to think it’s someone else because of a slight change in the spelling of his name?

George Smiley, sure. Toby Esterhase, maybe. Even that pipe-smoking Alleline would be more trustworthy, though he’s an idiot. Peter Guillam probably has the seniority by now.

But Hayden? What kind of Circus are we running around here?

How about, “Let’s Beat Up Burnett and Beckerman?”

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You know that stuff that Sweet Virginia needed to scrape right off her shoes (sorry, no links, you have to get it)? They must have been hip-deep in it when they thought up this one.

By far the most unlikely star of a prospective fall situation comedy
is that still-active lead singer of the Rolling Stones, who has signed
on to an ABC pilot for its fall schedule. Just to increase the degree
of unlikelihood, Mr. Jagger shot his scenes for the New York-based
pilot in a hotel room in Auckland, New Zealand, last week.

That
was the culmination of a saga at least as whimsical as the premise of
the show, which, for now, anyway, is titled "Let’s Rob Mick Jagger."

The writing team that came up with the idea, Rob Burnett, long David Letterman’s
executive producer, and his partner, Jon Beckerman, had previously
created the NBC comedy-drama "Ed." As Mr. Burnett outlined the tale in
a telephone interview, he and Mr. Beckerman "wondered if there was a
way do a serialized comedy — something like a comedy version of ‘Lost’
or ’24.’ "

Hatched in numerous meetings, the concept centered on
a janitor for a prominent New York building, to be played by the
character actor Donal Logue.
Down on his luck, the janitor sees a celebrity on television wallowing
in his wealth during a tour of his new Manhattan penthouse. Enlisting a
crew of similar ordinary but frustrated accomplices, the janitor
conceives a plot to rob the big shot’s apartment, a story line that
would unfold over a 24-episode television season.

Well, for one thing, serial comedy’s been done. Check the original BBC version of "The Office," which is highly unlikely to be topped by this high-concept freak.

For another thing — and this is the awful part — if I thought Mick would be nearly as much fun in this as he was in "Freejack" (which is on a list I haven’t yet completed of "Top Five Cheesy Movies that are Fun to Watch"), I might even tune in. For the pilot, anyway.

Morbid curiosity will take one a long way. Television counts on that.

It was inevitable

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I got this from a certain former newspaperman-turned-bureaucrat who’s too chicken to put his name on it.  But then, as he admits, he didn’t write it himself. The joke is obvious, but this takes it beyond the obvious, and is therefore somewhat creative:

George:   Condi!  Nice to see you.  What’s happening?
Condi:   Sir, I have the report here about the new leader of China.
George:   Great.  Lay it on me.
Condi:   Hu is the new leader of China.
George:   That’s what I want to know.
Condi:   That’s what I’m telling you.
George:   That’s what I’m asking you.  Who is the new leader of China?
Condi:   Yes.
George:   I mean the fellow’s name.
Condi:   Hu.
George:   The guy in China.
Condi:   Hu.
George:   The new leader of China.
Condi:   Hu.
George:   The main man in China!
Condi:   Hu is leading China.
George:   Now whaddya’ asking me for?
Condi:   I’m telling you, Hu is leading China.
George:   Well, I’m asking you.  Who is leading China?
Condi:   That’s the man’s name.
George:   That’s who’s name?
Condi:   Yes.
George:   Will you, or will you not, tell me the name of the new leader
of China?
Condi:   Yes, sir.
George:   Yassir?  Yassir Arafat is in China?  I thought he’s dead in
the Middle East.
Condi:   That’s correct.
George:   Then who is in China?
Condi:   Yes, sir.
George:   Yassir is in China?
Condi:   No, sir.
George:   Then who is?
Condi:   Yes, sir.
George:   Yassir?
Condi:   No, sir.
George:  Look Condi.  I need to know the name of the new leader of
China.  Get me the Secretary General of the U.N. on the phone.
Condi:   Kofi?
George:   No, thanks.
Condi:  You want Kofi?
George:   No.
Condi:   You don’t want Kofi.
George:  No.  But now that you mention it, I could use a glass of milk.
And then get me the U.N.
Condi:   Yes, sir.
George:  Not Yassir!  The guy at the U.N.
Condi:  Kofi?
George:  Milk!  Will you please make the call?
Condi:  And call who?
George:  Who is the guy at the U.N?
Condi:   Hu is the guy in China
George:   Will you stay out of China?!
Condi:   Yes, sir.
George:   And stay out of the Middle East!  Just get me the guy at the
U.N.
Condi:  Kofi.
George:  All right!  With cream and two sugars.

Y’all ain’t talkin’ right, feller

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Why is it that when people who are not Southern try to talk or write Southern, they frequently make the gross mistake of using "y’all" as a second-person singular pronoun?

Case in point: Today’s cartoon by Australian Pat Oliphant. He’s a brilliant cartoonist, and normally pretty good with dialects. But he really fell flat with today’s piece. What? You haven’t seen it? You don’t have a print copy of the paper? Well, that’s your fault. Everyone should subscribe, so don’t whine to me.

But I’ll describe it to you: The ghost of LBJ appears at the bedside of George W. Bush. The first words out of his mouth are, "Y’all are too young to remember, li’l feller." And yes, he is addressing one person — the current president.

I see this kind of thing all the time. Am I the one who’s wrong here? Is there a variety of Southern dialect that, against all reason, uses the contraction of "you all" other than as second-person plural? (Actually, in the very worst cases, misguided Hollywood Yankees have uttered "you all" — something I never hear people say in real life — as a singular reference. I guess it’s their way of saying they assume we’re stupid, and speak in a nonsensical manner.) If there is such a place, where is it — some obscure corner of Texas?

If so, I’d have to hear it to believe it.

What’s “ABC Columbia?”

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I just left the room where the boob tube resides because local TV news was on, and my wife had the remote. I can’t bear local TV news. Never could, but it does seem to get worse as time passes.

Anyway, before I left the room, I noticed that the station I had labeled as WOLO when I set up our tube years ago is now identifying itself — repeatedly, to the point of being really monotonous about  it — as "ABC Columbia."

What’s that all about? What did I miss? Whatever it is, it sounds really generic, as though the station itself has no sense of identity.

Oh, yeah. Now I remember reading about this. Wow. As bad as local TV news can be, it’s even worse when you know it’s not even local.

But wait — it seems they came back. Whatever. In any case, back to my original question: Why is it "ABC Columbia?" Their Web site doesn’t explain. In fact, it doesn’t even use that term.

Wikipedia mentions it, but doesn’t explain. It’s implied that this is another bright idea of this Bahakel guy, or rather of the company that bears his name. They seem to have a lot of such "bright ideas."

Anyway, I think I’ll go back and see if something else is on.

Second prize is TWO trips

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My colleague Mike Fitts (whose checkered past includes having once been The State‘s national editor) and I sometimes express our envy of Pulitzer Prize-winner Nicholas Kristof‘s constant world travel. You see, it’s been years since our department has had any travel budget at all. Mike and I only got to go to the national political conventions in 2004 (he went to Boston; I went to New York) because I caught the publisher in a very weak moment, after a very good month in the paper’s advertising revenue.

Well, now there’s an opportunity to engage in something you might call a sort of journalists’ Fantasy Camp. The New York Times is giving away a free trip to Africa with Mr. Kristof. It sounds really worth entering. Trouble is, it came a few decades too late. Turns out only journalism students are eligible.

But it gives me an idea. I think we should hold a contest, too. In fact, I’m just going to go ahead and do it. Here are the rules: Write an essay of no more than 700 words spelling out your game plan for how the Unparty can break the two-party stranglehold on South Carolina and the nation.

The lucky winner will get:

A free trip to Irmo with Brad Warthen!

Imagine prowling the teeming streets of that local trouble spot with a three-time winner of the S.C. Press Association’s coveted E. A. Ramsaur Award. With Mr. Kristof, you could meet the heads of nations engaged in genocide. With me, you could meet my cousin TEC Dowling (if it’s OK with him), who presides over the take-no-prisoners madness
of District Five. You and Mr. Kristof could search for the source of the Nile. You and I could search for Irmo’s elusive downtown.

Insert your entries as comments on this post. And good luck.

The ad for the Kristof contest quotes a letter from him saying, "I’m looking for a masochist."

So am I. Do you have what it takes?

Hal makes a statement

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I thought this was sort of interesting: I was sending a link to my last post to someone via e-mail, and in my note I referred to the straight majority using the shortcut "heteros."

Guess what the spell checker on Outlook wanted to change it to? "Haters." Actually, it suggested several alternatives (such as "heaters," "hereto," "meteors," "hectares," etc.), but that was its first choice.

So was the programmer of that tool trying to make a political statement, or did the boola-boola logic (or whatever in the world drives those things) just lead inevitably to that word? I believe it’s the latter, but I could see how some folks would suspect the former.

Could it be? Could Hal the devious laptop be trying to tell us all something? Nah.

He DOES have a suit!

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Sanford_tuxI was looking for a recent picture of either Andre Bauer or Mark Sanford — or preferably both together — to adorn my last post. I didn’t find any of Andre (sorry), but I did run across this AP photo from Feb. 26. The caption says: "South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford arrives with his wife Jenny at the
annual State Dinner for the Nations Governors at the White House in
Washington, Sunday, Feb. 26, 2006."

So you see he CAN get dressed up, for the right occasion.

But I’ll mention it here

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A colleague and I were having lunch today with Tom Davis, whose title I’m always forgetting but who was described in a recent news story as "the governor’s deputy chief of staff and his top liaison to the
General Assembly" (see why I forget it?).

Most of it dealt with the rough couple of weeks he had had with the blowup between Gov. SanfordDavis and House Republicans over his spending cap, and the defeat Sanford forces suffered over the billboard issue.

But it strayed when he admired my discipline (after all, it’s a Friday in Lent, and he and I are both Catholic) in not only abstaining from meat, but forgoing dessert. Unwilling to take undeserved praise, I reminded him of my severe food allergies, and he said something about how I was kind of like Meg Ryan’s fiance in "Sleepless in Seattle." I suppose that’s right. (You ever notice how often allergies and asthma are used in the movies as shorthand to indicate weakness of character or lack of attractiveness as a mate, which is how it was used in this one — completely at odds with my own experience, I might add? Let a character take a quick puff on an inhaler, and you know that sooner or later, he will be found wanting.)

Anyway, Tom (shown above, in a photo that doesn’t do justice to his Pullmanesque qualities, but is the only picture I have) then mentioned something about that character having been played by Bill Pullman. At that point, I  exercised great restraint by not observing how much Tom looks like that actor. I was proud of myself. I mean, you never know — Tom might have been insulted. I would never, ever wish to embarrass him or make him feel awkward in public over such a trifle.

Of course, the blog is another matter.

Distraction

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Well, here I stand, in the same spot where I stood when I wrote this, and in complementary circumstances. Consider this one a bookend to the other.

The last one was written two or three weeks after I started the blog. It reflects energy and excitement at playing with my new medium. It also reflects the fact that I was just beginning my caffeine fixation at the time, and a single grande cup of Starbucks House Blend could set my brain into creative (or at least, fanciful) overdrive. Also, that earlier flight of fancy was an attempt to distract my mind from the fact that I was here because this is where my mother-in-law lived, and she had just a few days before fallen and hit her head and gone into a coma.

As I write this one, I am weary. I’m still pretty much devoted to the blog, but without that initial excitement. Caffeine has become a thing I need to function, rather than a rare treat. I just finished my second grande of the day, and there is no creative rush. The problem with my shoulders (perhaps intensified by the caffeine) has become a more-or-less constant pain, which becomes worse when I lie down, making a full night’s sleep nigh impossible. I just took a muscle relaxer, which I washed down with coffee, but I still remain self-deceptive enough to hope it works. And yesterday, we buried my mother-in-law, whom I loved very much.

But I’m not here to write about that. I’ll continue the Hemingway thing to that extent. (As Jake said to Lady Brett near the end — and I just went to the bookstore’s shelves to check the quote — "You’ll lose it if you talk about it," to which she responded, "I just talk around it.") Since I was not alive to be there on June 6, I have to say that yesterday was my Longest Day. It will take some time for me to digest the years of profound experience packed into those few hours. The digesting, and the unpacking of the memories, will be something for me and my closest loved ones, not for a public blog.

No, I’m here to distract myself. So I went skimming the New York Times site, and ran across this. Which brings up the question, was or was not David Lynch’s "Dune" the worst film in history? I mentioned this point in passing in a previous post — this seems to be a self-referential day for this blog — but the topic didn’t really take off that time.)

I’m quite sure it was, but I’m open to any interesting — and distracting — arguments to the contrary. If it was NOT, in your mistaken opinion, the worst film ever, tell which one you think was, and give me the reasons why. (And I’ll be glad to elaborate later as to why Lynch holds the title.)

Better yet, to return to an earlier, abortive attempt to start a new and fun category, give me your Top Five Worst Movies Ever, with short explanations on each. After you’ve jogged my memory a bit, I’ll come back with my own list. And yes, you may include "Plan 9 From Outer Space," if you insist. But don’t you think that one’s a bit obvious?

Sure, this is silly, but work with me here. If you want substance, go back to this one. Cindi’s doing substance for me today. I’m doing trivia.

Drawn breath

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What barren D?

Sorry. Mike Cakora just distracted me (in commenting on a recent post) by saying the letters in my name could be rearranged to say either "when drab art" or "brawn hatred."

He signed off, "I make a rock."

Har-de-har.

I had never explored those possibilities. I am more than aware, however, of the various ways Microsoft Word wants to spell "Warthen." There’s "War then," which is actually how it’s pronounced. Then we have:
Wart hen
Earthen (which has a reassuring solidity to it)
Wathena
Warden
Writhen
And the ever-popular "Wart hog."

The last may be my favorite, as I’ve always thought the A-10 was a fine aircraft. The Air Force hates it, but it provides fearsome ground support, and they’re almost impossible to shoot down.

The spell-checker on Netscape e-mail adds "Wrath" to the list. That’s pretty cool.

Unimaginatively, Outlook adds "War" and "Wart" (like young Arthur in The Once and Future King).

Typepad, the fanciful and perpetually irritating software I’m using at the moment, comes up with:
Warren
Marthena
Within
Weather
Athena
Athene
Heathen
Wrathing
Then
Warn
Waylen
Wharton (very popular with humans who misspell it)
Worth
Withe
Withing
Waken
Whether
Worthier
Farthing
Northern
Worthies
Warner
Worthy
Wither
Wooten
Worden
Whiten
Withed
Withes
Worsen
Whither

"Northern!" Prepare to defend yourself, suh!

And why Waylen, but not Waylon?

And what’s a Wathena?

Meanwhile, for "Cakora" we have:
Capra (love your movies, man!)
Cara
Cora
Kora ("Kora Kora Kora")
Caria
Clara
Camera
Caro
Kara
Okra (my favorite vegetable)
Kira
Korea
Cake
Cobra (That’s bad, Mike. As in "good." Like "phat.")
Cairo
Accra
CARE
Care
Cari
Carr
Cori
Cork (faith and begorra)
Cory
Kore
Kori
Kory
Coca (so that‘s where he gets the energy to write like that)
Core
Corr
Cookery

And now, ladies and gentlemen, we’ll go over and take a look at the view from our…

Okra Ike Cam.

Hubba-hubba on the obit page

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I was really glad to see our front page follow up on the death of the former pin-up girl out of Myrtle Beach.

My eyes really lit up when I saw the image at rightJewel_evans_2 Wednesday. I’ve been in this business more than three decades now, and I had never seen anything like that on an obit page. My first reaction was, well, sort of like in those old cartoons, when Bugs Bunny’s or Porky Pig’s face turns into a reasonable facsimile of the Big Bad Wolf, complete with drawn-out whistle, eyes bugging, and tongue hanging.

My second reaction was, "What happened? She looks plenty healthy to me."

My third was to realize that this was a 1940s style pinup, of the type that used to appear as nose art on WWII bombers — an art form I’ve always appreciated. I wasn’t alive then, but somehow my tastes — with regard to some things — seem to be very compatible with that period. Some of my ideas do, as well. I was extremely disappointed
when 9-11 failed to produce the kind of nonpartisan national unity that Pearl Harbor did. I’ve always wanted to experience that.

Anyway, back to the pinup: My next reaction was to go to the Web and see whether this woman really had been a big-time pinup. In my haste, I typed "’Jewel Evans’ pinup" instead of using what was apparently her maiden name, "Jewel FLOWERS." The first search pulled up an entirely different sort of image, the kind I won’t link to on a family blog.

I did find her, in connection with Vargas-style artist Rolf Armstrong. The image reproduced above seems to have been the favorite, although others can be found.

If I had been one of those WWII soldiers (something which, if reincarnation is for real, I probably was) who wrote to her, I probably would have told her I liked her better than Betty Grable. I think that’s because Betty’s most famous pose tends to call attention to assets beyond her legs, while Jewel’s is all about her pins (well, and her face, which was also more attractive than Betty’s). You see, I disagree entirely with Jerry Seinfeld, who famously said:

"A leg man? Why would I be a leg man? I don’t need legs. I have legs."

Not like those you don’t, Jerry.

And you thought Vegas couldn’t get any tackier…

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I’ll give you a little rest from writing your own captions. Here’s a real-life photo and caption from AP. Leave it to an operation with Myrtle Beach ties to teach tacky to Las Vegas. Maybe this could be taken to the next level if they made a "reality" TV show about it, but that’s about the only way I can think of.

Hooters

Bartenders gather at the bar area for training at Hooters hotel-casino
in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Feb.1, 2006. Hooters’ first ever
hotel-casino, featuring 696 rooms and a 30,000 square foot casino with
more than 200 Hooters Girls, officially opens on Friday. (AP Photo/Jae
C. Hong)

This thing’s gone far enough

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OK, I should probably admit to you where I was going when I drove by the girl who was talking on the phone while jogging. I mean, if I don’t face up to my problem, how am I ever going to get better?

I was on my way to … well, to this place again. What’s so bad, or noteworthy about that? Well, this was the first time ever that I left work and drove halfway across town and back for no other purpose than to fetch myself a cup of coffee. In the past, it’s always been, "Hey, I think I’ll go book-browsing," or, "I have an errand to run in Five Points," or, "I need to go to a hotspot to do some blogging" — and pretty much always on a weekend.

(Oh, and for those of you keeping score on my time management: Except for that 20 minutes, which substituted for a lunch hour, I was very productive the rest of the day. Especially after that last coffee. So judge not, lest ye also become a blogger.)

This time, I didn’t even pretend there was an excuse. I had been thinking about my next cup of coffee ever since I had my last one, at breakfast (unless you count that half a cup I got at mid-morning, after begging the guy in the downstairs canteen to open back up just for me to get a refill, and then draining what little was left in the insulated carafe thingie). So first chance I got between meetings and such, I put on my coat, muttered something about "an errand or two to run," and drove straight there.

Here I am acting all bemused at the idiosyncracies of youth (my last post) one minute, then the next I’m standing in a long line of them waiting for a caffeine fix. I listen to them rattle off elaborate, absurdly complex orders that sound like litanies chanted in a foreign tongue — with repetitive responses intoned by the help behind the counter — and edge forward, waiting for when I can order my "plain coffee." The lad in front of me actually asks, "What do you have?" The reply is, "Depends on whether you want hot or cold." Everyone — except me — is hugely entertained when he asks for something in-between, and is informed that’s one thing they don’t have.

By the time he removes his inconvenient self and I belly up, I’ve scrapped plans for "just a small one," and order the "grande." The counterman overfills it — no objections from me there — and I ruin a perfectly good dress shirt and pair of gray pants trying to drive back. Ah, but it’s worth it. It tastes lovely. I even find myself tearing away the insulating wrap to savor the inanity of "The Way I See It No. 49." I am utterly lacking in discrimination at this point.

This is madness. I managed to quit Vicodin when I had taken it day and night for weeks after I broke my ribs kickboxing several years back. (And believe me, I felt its pull. No wonder it’s the favorite addiction of TV writers, from "House" to "The Book of Daniel.") So what’s with this? Why does this dark brew charm me to greater foolishness each day?

Well, I’m going to summon what shreds of self-respect I have left. Tomorrow, one coffee with breakfast. A big one. But that’s it. Or maybe another small one, if they’re just going to dump it out anyway. But no more mad, mid-day quests.

Today I hit rock-bottom. There’s only one way to go now.

Talking the walk

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I saw a new thing today.

You’ve probably noticed, when you drive through the USC campus, that about 50 percent of the kids walking from class to class have mobile phones glued to their ears.

Well, today I saw a girl running — as in, jogging, not hurrying — through the walking, talking crowd, holding her phone to her ear. I’m not talking headset or one of those fancy Bluetooth dealies that are now all the rage, but holding the actual handset to her head with her right arm while her left pumped dutifully back and forth to the rhythm of her pace.

I don’t get it. And I’m not just talking about the fact that at my age, if I ran in such an awkward, asymmetrical position I’d get a crick in my neck that would last for weeks.

When I was their age, I enjoyed solitude. OK, let’s face it; I was a little antisocial, even Raskolnikov-like. But not to a seriously abnormal degree (I don’t think).

I just appreciated peace and quiet, whenever I could get some. And I cherished being incommunicado most of the time. That is, I would have cherished it if I could have imagined that I would live in a future in which such a state was unattainable.

I actually enjoyed thinking. How do you ever get to experience that, much less find out whether you like it or not, if you’re always chattering?

In the interest of fairness

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OK, now that I’ve filed a post criticizing the governor’s rhetorical style (but not his substance, please note, Lee‘s non sequitur about my reviewing his speech in advance notwithstanding), let’s detail some of my own gaffes in the course of this day preceding the State of the State. (I’d go ahead and tell you something of the substance of the speech, but it’s embargoed.)

How many ways can one man screw up in one day? Let us count them. Or some of them — I’ll let myself off the hook on a few things:

— I was late for the annual pre-speech briefing for editorial page editors. Not my fault, but then you have enough such incidents that "aren’t your fault" and you develop a certain kind of reputation anyway. I have one of those reputations. In fact, my boss, the publisher, has mandated that I have a weekly session with our VP for human resources, one of the most organized people I have ever met, in an effort to straighten myself out. At our last meeting, my coach said my assignment for the next meeting would be to think about what I want to get out of these meetings. This caused me to make a note to myself not to spend the next meeting free-associating.

— Anyway, I comforted myself with the thoughts that the luncheon was set for 11:30, and no one would actually start eating that early, and in the past these things have featured 20 or so minutes of standing about with drinks (generally soft in recent years, despite the guest list) before getting down to business. Also, I recalled that at the first such meeting after his election, lunch had been buffet-style, which gave me a little more wiggle-room. I was wrong, as you’ll see in a moment.

— An aside: I should count myself lucky that the guard outside let me pull my disreputable ’89 Ranger through the gates at all. I’ve come to appreciate the mere fact of actually getting into the governor’s mansion ever since one evening in 2002, just before the election. I was at the time a member of the Columbia Urban League board. It was the night of the CUL’s biggest event of the year, and as a minor part of the festivities I was to be honored with the organization’s John H. Whiteman Award for "outstanding leadership" as a board member (sort of a nice going-away present, really, since I was about to cycle off the board). Gov. Hodges had agreed to hold a reception at his place before the banquet out at Seawell’s. The guards looked at my invitation, heard my name, and said I wasn’t on the list, so I couldn’t come in. I remonstrated, and they made a phone call, and told me I definitely was not to be let in, and that I could take it up with the governor’s office in the morning, if I were so inclined. Worse, they wouldn’t let Warren Bolton in, either, apparently because he was with me. Well, I was cool and mature about it. I decided we should stand just outside the gate, and give a straight answer to any arriving or departing guests who asked us why we were standing there. They all shook their heads in apparent disbelief. It didn’t stop them from going in, though, as I recall.

— Anyway, after I pulled into the grounds, another guy in a Smokey the Bear hat waved me into a space. I hopped out and headed in. He said, "Your license plate is expired." I said, "What?… Oh… yeah… I think that sticker’s at the house somewhere." He told me he didn’t mean anything bad by telling me: "I’m just trying to save you fifty bucks." OK, uh, thanks, I said as I kept going toward the front door, but then I slowed down as it occurred to me that it was an ethical violation on my part to accept such a discretionary reprieve when I was a guest of the governor. I was about to turn around when I remembered: These governor’s Protective Detail guys dress like Highway Patrolmen, but they’re not actually troopers, and don’t have powers to enforce highway laws anyway. That is, I don’t think they do. I went in. I was late enough.

— And even though I couldn’t have been more than 15 minutes late, I’m sure, they were
already well into the salad course — everyone seated at the formal
dining table — and in mid-conversation regarding the governor’s
agenda. The only good thing was that I slipped in quietly enough that
the governor didn’t notice me until I had asked my first question, well
into the main course.

— Of course, my question turned into one of those mini-debates with the governor, which went on an embarrassingly long time before I could make myself stop arguing with his answers. Meanwhile, everyone else sat quietly waiting to ask their questions, and probably thinking about what an ass I was making of myself at their expense. I don’t know why I do that, but I do it everywhere I go. I can’t just make like a reporter, write down the answer, and shut up. But I should. Sometimes I should.

— I almost left the digital recorder I had turned on and slid down the table, but the governor called out, "Somebody leave a recorder out here?" Mine. Thanks. At a previous such lunch during the Hodges administration (before I was barred from the grounds), I had left my recorder. I never saw it again. This one was its replacement.

— To make up for my performance inside, I decided to make friends with the governor’s dogs on the way out. One consented to be petted; the other stood off and regarded me with healthy suspicion. Warren and Cindi Scoppe, who had come in a separate car in order to be on time, waited for me. I finally realized they were waiting because we needed to have a quick huddle to decide what, if anything, we wanted to say about the speech for the next day (to avoid interfering with the production of the news pages, our pages need to be done well before time for the speech), and they knew I was planning to go to Harry Lightsey’s funeral at 2:30. I told them I had time to meet them back at the office and discuss it there before heading for Trinity Cathedral. Then I stepped over to my truck, and realized I didn’t have my keys.

— Warren and Cindi waited while I barged back into the mansion without knocking (the faux pas just keep piling up, don’t they?) and searched around under the dining room table while the staff was clearing it. They said they hadn’t found anything. I guessed the answer to the mystery on my way back to the truck. Yep, my keys were in the ignition. Don’t even ask why I had thought it necessary to lock my truck
inside these well guarded grounds, because I don’t have an answer.

— Fortunately, Warren and Cindi were still waiting — they know me well — and we had the opportunity to fully discuss the next day’s editorial while I rode in Warren’s back seat back to the office. I had explained the situation to the guard at the gate, and he said it would be OK to get the truck later. I knew there was an extra set of keys in my desk.

— What I also knew, but forgot until we got all the way back to the office, was that I also carry yet another spare key to the truck’s doors in my wallet, for just such emergencies. Sure enough, as I found standing stupidly back in my office and rummaging around through credit cards, there it was. In my pocket all the time. Great. No one would have ever had to know, if I had just remembered that.

— So I had to ask my boss, the publisher,…

Oops, just realized that if I don’t run home NOW, I’m going to miss the State of the State itself. I have to watch to make sure he actually delivers the speech we’re commenting on tomorrow. Have to finish this tale of serial humiliation later…

New category! Top five lists

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So I was reading our special section last week on this year’s "20 Under 40," and thinking what a fine, upstanding groups of youngsters this was, when I got sidetracked — I started checking out what they listed as their "favorite movie," and suddenly the popular-culture snob in me came out for a romp, and I started looking only at that criterion, and began to judge them much more harshly.

Note that I realize full well that what this illustrates is shallowness and misplaced priorities on my part, rather than reflecting negatively upon our 20 honorees. Obviously, these folks spend their time and energy on more serious matters. This is why they are on a "20 Under 40" list, and I never was.

But indulge me here (which, come to think of it, is something you do every time you waste valuable time reading this blog). I mean, don’t get me wrong; I enjoyed "Red Dawn." I’m not one of those left-wingers who dismiss it as mere right-wing Cold War paranoid propaganda. (Of course, it was right-wing Cold War paranoid propaganda, but that was part of its charm; it wasn’t afraid to be what it was.) But favorite movie of all time? I don’t think so. Still, this young gentleman should get points for taking a risk with his pick (something I utterly fail to do with my own list below, I’ll admit), and that’s worth something. But risky choices need to be defensible.

Far more impressive was Mary Pat Baldauf‘s esoteric selection of "A Face in the Crowd." Now there’s a film buff. I mean, even though I’ve heard great things about it, I haven’t even seen it myself (although I just got it from Netflix and hope to watch it this weekend), but it’s got great snob appeal. Think about it — Andy Griffith, before he was famous, shining in a serious, dark role. And don’t forget it’s got Patricia Neal in it. So way to go there, Ms. Baldauf. And please note, she dared to list "old movies (especially from the 1950s and 1960s)" as a personal passion, which raised the bar on the discriminating reader’s expectations. So this was quite a high-wire act, and she pulled it off beautifully.

I would applaud Cynthia Blair‘s choice of "The Usual Suspects" (although, being more obvious, it’s not as cool as Ms. Baldauf’s), but it’s listed as "last movie," rather than "favorite," which just doesn’t count for as much.

So where am I headed with this? Well, as an ardent admirer of Nick Hornby‘s masterful High Fidelity — and as one who also thoroughly enjoyed the film adaptation (in spite of their having moved the setting from London to Chicago, it was rescued by a stellar cast, with Jack Black turning in a mind-blowing performance as Barry) — I have been tempted for some time to start a "top five" category on this blog.

What’s stopped me? Well, fear, I suppose — fear of being savaged by the real pop culture snobs, because I know my own tastes are fairly pedestrian, truth be told. There are an awful lot of Barrys out there ready to tear into my picks the way the original Barry dissed Rob’s and Dick’s. But ultimately, as a reader-participation exercise, this could be fun. So let’s do it.

I had wanted to start this with something less obvious, such as "top five movie endings," or "top five cover songs that feature the original artist singing backup," or some such. But since I just got on the under-40 crowd about favorite movies, let’s start with that very vanilla sort of list:

1. "It’s a Wonderful Life."
2. "The Godfather."
3. "Casablanca."
4. "The Graduate."
5. "High Noon."

Or maybe number four or five should have been "Saving Private Ryan" or …

Yes, I know. I’m stretching the concept of "vanilla" until it screams. Barry would call that list "very …". Well, never mind what Barry would call it, since this is a family blog. But hey — the best movies of all time are obvious, if they’re really the best. I could have thrown in "Life is Beautiful" or "36 Hours" or "Office Space" or something that had a little individuality to it. But I had to be honest.

I promise to do something a little more intriguing the next time I visit this category.

Meanwhile, I’m anxious to know what y’all think — not only your own "top five movies," which I’m sure will put mine to shame. I’d also like your suggestions for future lists.

Assuming, of course, that you dare…