Category Archives: Total trivia

That guy’s a governor? You’re kidding, right?

SenatorJonCorzine

One thing you’ve got to hand to Mark Sanford — he  looks like a governor, even though he has generally not acted like one. This is a key to his electoral success.

I remember back before he was elected — I guess it was about this time in 2001 — he sent out Christmas cards with pictures of himself with his family. As soon as he received his, Sen. John Courson said to me (and you’ve got to imagine that booming bullfrog voice of his saying it), “Faaahhhn lookin’ family! Kennedyesque…” and said that on the basis of that picture, he expected Sanford to be our next governor.

Anyway, I’m reminded of that today, having just seen a picture of Jon Corzine for the first time (this was on the front of the WSJ). As I previously noted, unlike the national media, I don’t pay attention to state elections in other states because they have nothing to do with me. People elect their governors for their own reasons (sometimes things as superficial as how they look, although of course that’s not the only reason South Carolinians went for Sanford in 2002), reasons that I cannot infer meaningfully from afar, so I don’t try to do so.

Anyway, my reaction on seeing this guy for the first time as he was on his way out (having lost yesterday, for those of you who pay even less attention than I do), was this: “What? This guy is the governor of an actual state? You’re kidding. He looks like a college professor, and maybe not even an American college professor at that. He looks more like Leon Trotsky than a guy who could get elected in this country.” And what’s that he’s got in the back in this picture? Is that a ducktail?

I realize that standards of political pulchritude vary from state to state, that we would elect people in South Carolina that New Jerseyites (or whatever you call them) would never take a second look at, and vice versa. But if I had tried to imagine somebody who could get elected up there and not down here, I would have pictured a guy who would have looked at home hanging around in front of Satriani’s Pork Store with Tony Soprano. Yeah, I realize such stereotypes are the bane of New Jerseyians, who deserve better, but that I could have believed in. Whereas this Corzine guy … if Tony had shown up for his first therapy session and his shrink had looked like this instead of like Lorraine Bracco (and that’s the only role I could imagine a guy who looks like this filling on that show about north Jersey), he would have turned around and walked out.

No wonder this Trotsky-looking character lost. That Christie looks like a regular guy, a guy you might actually imagine being in the, uh, sanitation business.

Man named Monday finds he’d rather spend weekdays reading books than burning them

Yesterday, I had Health & Happiness at Rotary again, and my performance was… forgettable.

Rather than publish my routine here the way I usually do, I thought I’d tell you about a much better presentation recently by Ann Marie Stieritz.

It was an audience-participation thing, and I must admit that many of those sorts of attempts leave me kind of cold. I am, at best, a grumpy participant… What? You want me to get up and what? I’m not a pep rally guy, for instance. Unlike Andre Bauer (and, I recently learned, Mark Sanford) I could never have been a cheerleader.

But Ann Marie pulled me in by appealing to one of my worst features — the desire to show off the few quirky talents I have. So it was that when she talked about the faux-lit phenomenon of Twitterature, and gave the following examples, I was the obnoxious first person (or shared that distinction with someone) to call out the titles of the books they summarized:

  • Hero constantly spied upon by someone claiming to be older sibling. When he complains, finds himself with head in cage of rats.
  • Rich kid thinks everyone is fake except for his little sister.  Has breakdown.
  • Bloke takes boat trip in search of long-missing colleague who may well be impossible to find. Ends up wishing he hadn’t.
  • Group of teenagers adopt incomprehensible jargon, drink milk and discuss Beethoven before terrorising the community. All society’s fault.

Not much of a talent, really. The thing is, after writing headlines for a living, it would be pretty lame if I couldn’t recognize the headlinized versions of 1984, The Catcher in the Rye, Heart of Darkness and A Clockwork Orange, I’d be in trouble. Especially the last, all about Alex and his droogs peeting moloko plus to sharpen them up for a bit of the old ultraviolence in their platties of the night. Yes, a book about horrible people doing horrible things, but a wonderfully inventive use of language.

Some other good ones:

  • If you thought California was land of milk and honey, think again. Hard-working family could suffer and starve out in its golden valleys.
  • Dozen kids abandoned on desert island. Scene soon resembles 10-year-old’s birthday party, but worse.
  • Couple of drinkers with literary pretensions decide to travel across country, without plan or route. Not much happens. Which is the point.

And no, I didn’t remember them all or take notes that fast; I just asked Ann Marie yesterday to send me her notes from her presentation. I enjoyed this bit at the end, which shows what Odysseus would have written had he been on Twitter (as are the authors of Twitterature):

Calypso is the suxor for real. Seven years ago

Nice island (B). Anyone know how to get off this? Seven years ago

THNX for the raft! Laters! Four years ago

Just found new island.   Naked chicks.  FTW! Four years ago

Caught Demodocus show at dome.  GREAT!  Any one have vid? Four years ago

Just saw a dude with one eye! Four years ago

Circe is hot.  All my bros turned into pigs.  LULZ! Three years ago

Hot singing chicks! KTHXBAI Two years ago

Wrecked the boat.  Totaled.  Everyone dead.  FAIL Two years ago

Back Home!  Who r all these random dudes? Five minutes ago

Aaaahhh! They’re out of pumpkins already!

I don’t often get the urge to consume sweets. I drink my coffee black, and of course I’m allergic to most of the things that drive most sweet teeth (tooths?) — cake, cookies, ice cream and such.

But sometimes it hits me, and it happened today after Rotary. So I got this great idea — Halloween is over; why not bop into Food Mellowcreme_pumpkin2Lion and pick up some pumpkins at half price? And no, I’m not talking about the things you make jack-o’-lanterns from. I mean those wonderful little candy things, about 3/4 inch in diameter, into which sugar is packed with a density approaching that of a black hole. Specifically, Brach’s Mellowcreme Pumpkins.

I go all year without these — sort of like the way I don’t let myself have cotton candy except at the State Fair; it’s a personal rule that’s easy to follow because it would be extra work to break it — but during the season, I’ll eat them by the handful. Which kind of grosses out my wife, a big fan of chocolate (which I am not) and other sweets who nevertheless finds more than one pumpkin just a bit too intense.

I’m even kind of a pumpkin connoisseur. You may think they’re all alike, but they’re not. I don’t know if they’re made at different factories or what, but there’s a wide variation in quality from bag to bag. If the orange color is just a little too dark, move on — they’re not going to taste right. And then there’s consistency. The ones that are sort of crumbly and drier are far better than the chewy, moist ones that you sometimes get. The first almost melt in your mouth, the others go down hard and tend to lead to indigestion if you eat far too many of them (and if you’re not going to do that, what’s the point?).

The one in the illustration at right, by the way, is a good one. I can tell from the photograph. Nice shape (often the shorter, flatter ones you see aren’t nearly as good), not too dark, and without that oily-moist sheen that warns of a taffy-like consistency. There’s a little gloss to the finish, but not too much, which is important (using the term “important” loosely, of course).

I’m on my second bag of them this season, but the bag was at home, and I really wanted some pumpkins now.

So I went to Food Lion, as I said. And they were out. Oh, they had loads of Candy Corn left, and you may say it’s the same thing, but it isn’t. Pumpkins are round, and orange, and I like to bite off the little green stems before attacking the main body. It’s entirely different. As for those pumpkin-shaped Peeps — I am a man of principle, and one only eats Peeps at Easter. (And they should be yellow, and shaped like chicks, as if you didn’t know.) No wonder they had plenty of those left.

So maybe I waited a little too long. Maybe the last of them sold out Sunday, or even sooner. But I’d appreciate knowing if anybody has seen any today, because half that bag at home is gone, and it’s a long time before the Halloween displays go up again…

bud rates everybody, 1 to 10

I was intrigued by this list that bud shared back on this post — so much so that I thought I’d promote it to its own post, as a conversation-starter:

I ranked a collection of organzitions from the ones I least respect (1) to the ones I most respect (10). Here’s the entire list. As it relates to this I am completely indifferent to the various illegal aliens issues. If we fund health care for illegals, ok by me. They’re humans with health needs too. And they probably contribute more to the well-being of society than most people.

I could live with or without funding of abortion. But if we don’t fund it then don’t fund it for anyone, including those who want an abortion in cases of rape.

As for the insurance industry I’d just as soon let them go under as keep them.

Nazis 1
Al Qaeda 1
Taliban 1
NAMBLA 1
Ku Klux Klan 1
Health Insurance Industry 2
Bush (Jr.) Administration 2
Soviet Communism 2
Hezbolah 2
Catholic Church 2
Conservative Talk Radio 2
Birthers 2
Pro-Lifers with exceptions 2
Creationist “Science” 2
Tea Baggers 3
FOX News 3
PLO 3
Southern Baptist Church 3
Republican Party 3
NRA 3
Slavery Reparation Movement 3
Isreal 4
Iran 4
“Mainstream” Media 4
Illegal aliens 5
US Military 5
Methodist Church 5
Global Warming Movement 5
Scientology 5
Libertarian Party 5
National Teachers Association 5
Pro-Lifers without exceptions 6
Obama Administration 6
Democratic Party 6
Liberal Talk Radio 6
Labor Unions 6
ACORN 7
Unitarian Church 7
Nudists 7
PETA 8
Peak Oil Movement 8
Vegetarians 8
Pro-Choicers 8
ACLU 8
Green Peace 9
Sierra Club 10
Audibon Society 10
SPCA 10
NORML 10

It’s an imperfect scale (should Nazis get a point at all? shouldn’t they be in the negatives?), but it’s an interesting exercise. It makes you think. (For instance, you might think at the end there, what’s bud been smoking?). So using the same list — no additions or subtractions — and the same rules, here’s my shot at it:

Nazis 0 (I just couldn’t give them a point; I don’t care what the rules are)
Al Qaeda 1
Taliban 1
Hezbolah 1
NAMBLA 1
Ku Klux Klan 1
Soviet Communism 2
PLO 2
Birthers 3
Tea Baggers 3
FOX News 3
Conservative Talk Radio 3
Liberal Talk Radio 3
Iran 3
Scientology 3
Libertarian Party 3
NORML 3
Nudists 3
“Mainstream” Media 4
Health Insurance Industry 4
Bush (Jr.) Administration 4
Creationist “Science” 4
Republican Party 4
NRA 4
Slavery Reparation Movement 4
National Teachers Association 4
Democratic Party 4
Labor Unions 4
ACORN 4
Unitarian Church 4
PETA 4
Pro-Choicers 4
ACLU 4
Greenpeace 4
Illegal aliens 5
Southern Baptist Church 5
Peak Oil Movement 5
Methodist Church 5
Catholic Church 6
Pro-Lifers with exceptions 6
Pro-Lifers without exceptions 6 (I didn’t really understand these categories)
Obama Administration 6
Vegetarians 6
Sierra Club 6
Audubon Society 6
Israel 7
Global Warming Movement 7
SPCA 7
US Military 9

So, do I really think that Iran and nudists are morally equal? Or that the U.S. military is by far the most wonderful thing in the world? No, I wasn’t really comparing them, but considering each on its own – negatives? Positives? Where does that leave me? The post-Vietnam military, which was in pretty bad shape, would have gotten a low score. But the military today as an institution, judged as to how well it does what it’s called on to do, is way up there.
Do I think the military is better than the Church? No. But when you say “Roman Catholic Church,” are you talking the Body of Christ, in which case 10-plus, or do you mean the troubled human institution that most of you, my readers, are thinking of? So I average out at 6.
And yes, while I still have a somewhat favorable view of the Obama administration, I do have a better impression of Israel.
Hey, as I said, it’s an imperfect system bud came up with, but I found it an interesting exercise.

Top Five books that should have been made into movies by now

My birthday was three weeks ago (and thanks again to the many of you who wished me a happy on Facebook), and I had a good day. My wife and one of my daughters and I participated in the Walk for Life (where we ran into Mayor Bob), and the weather was perfect for it, then my wife — who had several gift certificates she had never used — took me to Barnes & Noble for coffee (as you know, my favorite leisuretime activity) and to let me pick out a couple of books. Then that night we had dinner over at my parents’ house.

The actual party was the next day, and as usual it was a joint one with my son, whose birthday is three days later. The twins (who are 21 months now) kept wishing us “Happy Day.” Then after awhile the one sitting next to me started pushing her dinner away from her and saying “Happy DAY!” with an increasingly testy tone. I finally realized that “Happy Day” is their term for cake, and they felt like they’d been waiting for it long enough. It was sitting right there in front of them, after all.

Anyway… I got several books that had been on my wish list, such as the second Flashman book, and a new biography of Trotsky, and a really good one I’m currently reading about Nelson’s navy called The War for All the Oceans. But one that I picked out myself at B&N was one I had read several times before; I just wanted my own copy so I could read it again any time I wanted: High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby. It is wonderful. It is the best, funniest, truest book about differences between men and women (and guys don’t come out looking too good) that I’ve ever read. That just sounded like a chick book, but it’s not. It’s written from the guy perspective, but from a guy who knows how lame we can be.

If you haven’t read the book but saw the movie, you sort of have the idea. But the book was much better. Nick Hornby is a genius.

One of the ways in which the protagonists and his fellow guys express their creativity, their superficiality and their encyclopedic knowledge of popular culture is by challenging each other to construct esoteric Top Five lists — Top Five side one track ones, or Top Five pop songs about death — and then critiquing each others’ choices. (Derisively, in the case of Barry.)

Anyway, inspired by having just reread the book, and having run across something on the internet where someone was complaining about a certain book having never been made into a movie, I’ve decided to draft a Nick Hornby tribute, a list of the Top Five Books that Should Have Been Made Into Movies by Now:

  1. Stranger In A Strange Land — This is the one I found the complaint about online (can’t find it now, though). Definitely number one. An entire generation would buy tickets to see this, if it were any good at all. The sex stuff toward the end might have been a barrier in the 60s, but not now. I remember once in the early 70s hearing that it was being made into a movie starring David Bowie, but that turned out to be something else. Since nobody else seems interested, I’ve thought about trying to write the screenplay myself, but only if Hollywood would let me be in it. I would have been a natural for Ben Caxton when I was younger, but now I’d probably have to audition to be Jubal Harshaw. Of course, the soundtrack would have to include the Leon Russell song of the same name.
  2. SS-GB — Not Len Deighton’s best book (that distinction belongs to The Ipcress File, which was made into a creditable, although not very faithful, movie), but easily the most cinematic alternative-history books ever. The images it invokes — of the Scotland Yard homicide detective working for the SS after the Germans invaded England and won World War II — are just made for the big screen. Another book that I didn’t like as much but which seemed to me a cross between this and Gorky Park (the plot involved a German investigator living in 1964 in a Third Reich that had survived the war and was now engaged in a Cold War with the U.S., rather than the Soviet Union) was made into a movie. It was Fatherland, and the made-for-TV film starred Rutger Hauer. SS-GB would be much better.
  3. Guns of the South — OK, Barry in High Fidelity would probably take away points for my listing two alternative history novels, but this one would ALSO work great on the screen. I mean, come on, ragtag Confederate soldiers wielding AK-47s — could action get any better than that? But you know, I suspect there’s a reason Hollywood doesn’t often tackle this sort of plotline — people know so little about history, they’re afraid their audiences wouldn’t get the point.
  4. Rose — I mentioned Gorky Park, which was made into a really disappointing film (worst part, William Hurt as Arkady Renko; best part, Lee Marvin as the villain). The author of that book is a master of recreating a world and putting the reader in it. And possibly his most readable novel ever is a mystery about an American mining engineer and African explorer in the 1870s who is sent to a dismal English coal-mining town to figure out what happened to a curate who disappeared. The imagery in it is compelling; it begs for cinematic treatment. I’d go see it — although only if the casting of the main character was right. No more William Hurts, please.
  5. The entire Patrick O’Brian Aubrey-Maturin series. Yes, “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” was a very enjoyable film. I own it on DVD, and have watched it a number of times. But the Aubrey-Maturin series deserves a more extended treatment. The perfect format would be a high-quality series (with better casting this time, please) on HBO or the BBC — one two-hour episode for each of the 20 books. Maybe you wouldn’t watch them all, but I certainly would.

Look at those cavemen go…

Ever since I watched the start of “Life on Mars,” as previously mentioned, I’ve had Bowie’s song of that name stuck in my head.

It’s not that the tune is so great, when you hear it in isolation. And I find the original Bowie video visually off-putting (I’d forgotten glam went that far, but it does help me recall why I wasn’t into it).

But the way it was used in the TV program — as the background for the pivotal moment when the protagonist is transported back to 1973 — is really effective. I complained that the series disappoints in some ways, and it does, but that was a really good bit.

By the way, that scene bridges this clip and this one on YouTube. Word in your shell-like, to again use a phrase I picked up from the show…

Am I cut out to be a Mad Man?

madmen_widescreen

When Kathryn corrected me on the title of the TV show “Mad Men” (and she was right; it was two words), I went to the official site to check — and ran into a thing where you can build your own Mad Men avatar.

So, being unemployed, I did. Well, there’s more to it than that. Being unemployed, and having recently taken a couple of mild forays into consulting in the advertising field (in fact, I’m sitting in the offices of an ad agency as I type this), I thought I’d see how I looked in that milieu.

Not so great, as it turned out. But I did manage to get myself into a scene with Joan Holloway, if only in caricature…

Christina Hendricks: Our Mrs. Reynolds is back!

Joan Mad Men

Not being a guy who watches much TV — I tend to watch shows after they’re canceled, on DVD — I was very pleased when I started watching “Mad Men” (which hasn’t been canceled yet, but with me watching it it’s only a matter of time) and saw Christina_Hendricks“Joan Holloway.” And pleased for reasons other than the obvious.

This was the only time I had ever seen her other than her two appearances on the tragically short-lived “Firefly,” as “Our Mrs. Reynolds” — a.k.a. Saffron, a.k.a. Bridget, a.k.a. Yolanda — and “Trash.”

So my reaction on seeing her in the current series was to think, “Where’s she been?” Turns out she was on TV all the time.

Her specialty is playing a “bad girl” with a certain amount of wit. For instance, she’s the only actress I can think of offhand who can pull off a line like “But I’m really hot!” (spoken to Capt. Mal Reynolds) in a way that makes you laugh and agree with her at the same time (and yell at the TV, “Look out, Mal!”). Anyway, I’m glad to see she’s working…

Get right to the point, why don’t you…

Just now cleaned out my junk e-mail folder, and I think this sets a record for brevity in the genre:

Greetings

I am Mr Peter T. C Lee, C.E.O of Hang Seng Bank Ltd{www.hangseng.com} in Hong-Kong.I have a CONFIDENTIAL business worth US$25,500,000 to be consumated between you and i,please consider as urgent and contact me STRICTLY on this e-mail address for details:-

Email:- ptlee09@aol.com

Kind regards,
Peter T. C Lee

Most of these (and there were several in my junk folder from the last few days) take a little time to gain your confidence and reel you in, such as this one:

ENDEAVOUR TO USED IT FOR THE CHILDREN OF GOD

Mrs Susan fernando.
I am the above named person from Kuwait. I am married to Dr SAZON FERNANDO who worked with Kuwait embassy in Ivory Coast for nine years before he died in the year 2005.We were married for eleven years without a child. He died after a brief illness that lasted for only four days. Before his death we were both born again Christians.Since his death I decided not to re-marry or get a child outside my matrimonial home which the Bible is against.When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of 18Million Dollars (eighteen Million United State Dollars) with one finance/security company in Amsterderm-Netherlands. Presently This money is still with the Security Company. Recently my Doctor told me that I would not last for the next three months due to cancer problem. Though what disturbs me most is my stroke sickness. Having known my condition I decided to donate this Fund to church or better still a christian individual that will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct here in. I want a church that will use this funds to fund churches orphanages and widows propagating the word of God and to ensure that the house of God is maintained. The Bible made us to understand that Blessed is the hand that giveth. I took this decision because I don’t have any child that will inherit this money and my husband relatives are not Christians and I don’t want my husband’s hard earned money to be misused by unbelievers. I don’t want a situation where this money will be used in an ungodly manner. Hence the reason for taking this bold decision. I am not afraid of death hence I know where I am going. I know that I am going to be in the bosom of the Lord. Exodus 14 VS
14 says that the lord will fight my case and I shall hold my peace. I don’t need any telephone communication in this regard because of my health and because of the presence of my husband’s relatives around me always. I don’t want them to know about this development. With God all things are possible. As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the Finance/Security Company in Amsterderm-Netherlands. I will also issue you a letter of authority that will prove you as the original- beneficiary of this Funds. I want you and the church to always pray for me because the lord is my shephard. My happiness is that I lived a life of a worthy Christian. Whoever that wants to serve the Lord must serve him in spirit and truth. Please always be prayerful all through your life. Any delay in your reply will give me room in sourcing for a church or christian individual for this same purpose. Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I stated herein. Hoping to hearing from you. I have set aside 20% for you and for your time and 10% for any enpense if there is any . Remain blessed in the name of the Lord. Yours in Christ Mrs. susan fernando

But hey, if you want to give me $25 million, I say get to the point — don’t leave me hanging…

Are these critters weird, or what?

cicada-closeup

They sound weird, and they look like they’re from another planet.

That’s about all I’ve got to say about these things, except to explain that I was happy with the way the autofocus on my camera actually focused on what I wanted it to for a change, so that I could blow this up and still have it look like something.

Also, I figured y’all were tired of looking at that picture from the Sanford press conference, hence the new header…

Did it! I’m John Adams

Just took a “Which Founding Father are You Quiz” — and no, I didn’t give them my phone number this time — and managed to answer the right questions to have it come out as follows:

John Adams

Visionary – John Adams was one; you are too. You are very critical and you are a perfectionist. Where you find faults, however, you have good suggestions on how to fix them or make them better. You are extremely intelligent, and an excellent judge of character and situation. Your causes are often altruistic, and you have a clear vision of what the future will be like. However, people have the annoying habit of not believing you, even though you always seem to be right. You also seem to never get the credit you deserve. People often find you to be ‘obnoxious and disliked.’ Never fear! Your ideas will come to fruition, and one day you shall be remembered beautifully for your efforts. Just keep at it!

Yes, I answered the questions honestly, but there were a couple of times when I could answer honestly more than one way, and I chose the one that sounded like Adams. Once or twice, though, I bowed to accuracy and answered in a way that I thought was more Jeffersonian — but it turns out that for the purpose of the quiz, they counted those as Adams as well (I think). This of course reinforces my impression that he was the one I’m most like — particularly his more annoying, negative traits.

Anyway, I’m pleased with the result, since — whether I’m like him or not — he’s my fave.

Bothering seagulls

My wife and I were walking on the beach this afternoon, and we saw this flock of seagulls — the birds, not the guys with the weird hair — snoozing on the dry sand, up above the tide line. It was cool walking into the wind, warm walking with it.

My wife mentioned that if Morgan were with us, she'd be scattering the gulls. That was one of her favorite activities. You remember Morgan — I wrote about her back here. Best dog ever.

Anyway, the gulls seemed to be in such a torpor there in the sun that I thought they might let me get really close with the camera. Which they did, although their patience had a limit.

No, I didn't hurt them, so get outta my face. I just thought they were beautiful, and wanted to photograph them. Is that so wrong?

By the way — a few feet away from the gulls was this concentrated pile of shells. They could not have collected this way on their own. My wife's theory is that someone, probably a child, had accumulated this collection in a pail, but had brought them back to the beach and deposited them here.

Giving back to the beach — I liked that thought.

I spent everything I had for this hat

Finding myself at the Surfside Pier this afternoon, and having forgotten to bring a hat (having the sun glaring down in the gap over my shades drives me nuts), it occurred to me that I had never, in all these years, bought a hat that said "Surfside Beach."

And "all these years" is a lot of years. My grandfather bought two lots down here in about 1957. He built a little cottage on one of them. In about 1968, he built a house on the other lot, which is on a freshwater lake about two blocks from the ocean. He sold the other one to a friend of the family, and the lady lived there for about the next 30 years. Then it was sold and torn down to make way for TWO houses of the tall, skinny, stilted variety that started cropping up around here about 15 years ago. Here's a coincidence for you — Tim Kelly has stayed in one of those houses, which are right across the street from the "new" house. Very small world.

Anyway, needing a hat, I spotted this beauty. I hope you like it, because it cost $8.99 plus tax (see the price tag still on it, my little tribute to Minnie Pearl), and I only had a sawbuck in my wallet.

In fact, I had to take $2 out of my wife's purse to buy coffee at this coffee shop so I could come post this. I didn't want the coffee, but you have to have cover. Speaking of cover, as I've mentioned before, this coffee shop is actually sort of a front. The real business is a commercial bakery in the back. Zoning rules required that it be a retail business, so they put in the coffee shop as a sort of retail fig leaf. A few minutes ago, the young counterwoman said she was leaving, but I didn't have to leave; I should just let the guy in the back know when I leave. Very casual. I'm glad I'm not keeping her, the way the old man did the waiter in "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place." She had enough on her mind because she was trying to keep tabs on a little boy out in front of the cafe, in the bright sunlight. She had to keep telling him to get out of the street. She had been sitting in the sun in front of the place when I arrived, and it was easier to keep track of the boy that way, so I felt bad that she had to come in on my account. I felt worse that she had to brew decaf for me. She said she didn't mind. But it occurs to me that she would have been perfectly happy if I had just come in to use the internet connection rather than insisting on buying something. Since the main business is in the back and all.

She's getting married soon, so I congratulated her.

By the way, I didn't really come in just to post this. I came in to get my column ready to post tomorrow. What, you think I don't have better things to do?

My band’s playlist

 

You know that event over the weekend I mentioned attending back here? It was a fund-raiser for Hand Middle School over at Gallery 701. And while a lot of folks did come up and converse with me about newspaper business, our dialogue was somewhat constrained by the fact that it was hard to talk over the sound of the band.

The band was a group of local lawyers who call themselves The Sugardaddys, as in the candy. That, of course, is not nearly as cool a name as what one of the band members told me they thought about calling themselves, which was “Lawyers, Guns and Money.” That band member, by the way, was bassist James Smith, also known for his nonmusical work at the S.C. House and in Afghanistan with the National Guard.

The band was pretty good, and in fact their opening number was one I think I’ll add to my band’s playlist — The Band’s “The Weight.” That song would fit right into my band’s ouevre, or idiom, or what have you.

Oh, you don’t know about my band? Well, it’s just in the planning stages, where it’s been since about, oh, 1971. The thing is that first I’ve got to come up with a cool name for it. I mean, you’re not going to see me settling on something like “Sugardaddys” just to move things along. No, I’m taking my time; I want to get this right. For awhile there I was sort of enamored of “Wireless Cloud” as a name, but I’ve moved on. Suggestions are welcome (up to a point). I may end up with the one that a friend suggested many years ago, after inadvertently learning my first name: “Donnie B. and the All-Night Newsboys.”

But I did draft a preliminary playlist of cover songs a couple of years back. I meant to post it on the blog, but didn’t get around to it or something. I ran across it the other day, and here it is:

  • Don’t Look Now
  • Can’t Be Too Long
  • Paint It Black
  • I’ve Just Seen a Face
  • Simple Kind of Man
  • Bring It On Home
  • Mustang Sally (but only if I can line up the Commitmentettes)
  • Knocking on Heaven’s Door
  • Hard-Headed Woman
  • Soldier of Love
  • Lawyers, Guns and Money (hey, it was on the list before James mentioned it)
  • The Pretender
  • Desperado (Don’t know how this got on here)
  • One More Cup of Coffee

This list, now that I look back on it, is WAY incomplete and poorly thought-out. For instance, as I say, I don’t know how Desperado got on there (watching too much Seinfeld, maybe). If I went with anything Eagles-related, it would have to be Don Henley’s “Dirty Laundry.” And when it comes to Beatles covers, I’d do “I Should Have Known Better” way before the one listed above — or “Eight Days a Week.”

And this doesn’t even get into my original material (perhaps mercifully).

Anyway, once the name is set and the playlist is all worked out, I’ll see about trying to line up some actual musicians. Oh, and a manager. Don’t be bugging me with gig requests; that’s for the manager to deal with. All in good time.

The UnParty’s big (hypothetical) opening

Did you see that Ted Pitts might run for lieutenant governor? Do you realize the implications?

Ted Pitts is MY representative. So theoretically, it's time to make my move and run for office on the UnParty ticket. This is my big chance.

Except, of course, I can't. Newspaper editors aren't allowed to run for office, not if they want to keep on being newspaper editors. And I can't sing or dance, so I'll have to put the campaign plans on hold.

Dang.

If 2 of your 3 Republicans are from Maine, does it count?

Sort of underlining the fact that the Senate stimulus bill lacks the broad, bipartisan support I was advocating in my Sunday column, note that 66.7 percent of GOP support is from one state: Maine. There's Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and Arlen Specter.

And is Maine even a real American state? Somebody go check with Sarah Palin. I mean, it's got L.L. Bean, but otherwise isn't it almost like the same thing as Canada? And don't some people in Canada speak French? Must give us pause.

Seriously, this is disappointing. Now we have one of the two major parties invested in the failure of the stimulus. And that's never a good thing…

Grooving on that way cool Obama poster

The other day, looking for art appropriate to go with this Inauguration Day editorial, I settled on the 
now-famous Shepard Fairey poster.

In preparing it for publication in PhotoShop, I happened to change my view to "actual pixels," and went, Whoa! I had no idea of the depth of texture in the image, having only seen photos of it on T-shirts, etc. It put me in mind of that guy in "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" who drove everybody nuts with his constant running comment on a mandala he was grooving on. That guy would really have gone to town over this Obama poster.

So I thought I'd show it to you this way, with some detailed blow-ups, so you can groove on it, too.

 

And should you want to get a little deeper, no need to drop any Owsley Blues. Just go to this site, which my friend Cheryl Levenbrown at The New York Times turned me on to, where you can create your very own Obama-like poster, to wit (no, it's not nearly as detailed, but it's fun):

We’re nowhere near Barstow, but the drugs have begun to take hold

Just glanced out my window while cross my office to my desk, as the sun was setting, and could have sworn the 101st Airborne Division, circa 1944, was drifting down from the sky over the Congaree River.

Turns out, upon a double-take, it was just some small scraps of dark cloud that happened to be roughly WWII-era parachute-shaped, in the same sense that the beacon at Castle Anthrax was grail-shaped ("Oh, wicked, bad, naughty Zoot!")

More about the drugs later. And yes, the headline is a Fear and Loathing reference.

They threw away my Obama bottle!



My brother, who will be 50 on his next birthday, still complains about the tremendous financial reversal he suffered when Mom threw out his baseball cards.

Well, I can top him on that: I returned from vacation, and the new cleaning people who started here last week had thrown out my Barack Obama water bottle! So much for my best opportunity to get rich on E-Bay.


You may or may not be aware that all things Obama are hot. You would definitely know this if you 
worked here and saw the people lined up in our lobby to buy copies of the Nov. 5 front page pictured at right. And that was just a reproduction of a page ABOUT Obama.

So just imagine how much I could have gotten for a water bottle with actual Obama DNA on it. I had picked it up when I was gathering up my stuff from the table after our editorial board interview on Jan. 21 of last year. Actually, I wasn't entirely clear on whether it was HIS water bottle or MINE. But then, the photographic evidence indicates I was drinking coffee, while he was drinking water (from my special Initech cup from "Office Space"), not water, so it was most likely his (of course, I also have a photo below in which he had no water bottle before him, but what are you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?). The photo above, by the way, is a blown up detail from the wider shot back on this post.

Anyway, I had left it on a credenza on the other side of my office, and it had sat there unmolested for 11 months. Every once in a while I'd look at it and wonder what I should do with it, then promptly forgot about it.

When I went on vacation Dec. 26, I cleaned up my office. My desk was spotless. There was no debris apparent anywhere — except for that old water bottle, which I no longer noticed. But obviously our new cleaning people did. They were getting paid to clean the office, and that was the only thing that looked out of place to them. Just my luck. (I only realized it was gone when I used a water bottle to water a dying plant — which I see the cleaning people or somebody had also trimmed back from where it had been trailing on the floor, and started to leave the bottle next to the plant, but thought that wouldn't be tidy, and happened to think of the Obama bottle…)

Weirdly, they left an empty water bottle on my window sill that says "Galivants Ferry Stump, May 1, 2006" on it. I guess it was more obviously a souvenir.

Of course, it might not have been the cleaning people. But I don't think my Mom has a key to my office, so they're at the top of the list. And there's nothing I can do about it, because they have a perfect comeback — it looked like trash. In this sort of dispute, the authorities never side with the pack rat…

Now we’re REALLY in trouble: The WSJ quotes ME on the economy

Just this morning, after taking two days off, I pondered my three-day growth, and the overused disposable razor by the sink (I really need to buy some more this weekend), and thought this would be a perfect time to grow the beard back, just in time for Christmas. But then I thought it might confuse the twins as to who I was, and no amount of convenience was worth that.

So I shaved, and then came in to work, to find that my boss, Publisher Henry Haitz, had e-mailed me a story from The Wall Street Journal, which started like this:

Growth Area: Beards on Laid-Off Executives
Released From Staid Offices, More Men Free Their Facial Hair; the Professorial Look vs. ZZ Top

By CHRISTINA BINKLEY
    Call it the face of freedom.
    After Jorge Hendrickson lost his job at a Manhattan hedge fund three weeks ago, he stopped shaving. "I’ve shaved for so long, and it’s nice to be able to look at the positive side" of losing a job, says Mr. Hendrickson, 24. "I’m changing my lifestyle while I can."…

This, of course, is not the kind of message you want to receive from your boss after taking a couple of days off (and almost deciding to grow your beard back), on the same day you read that David Stanton — the only person at WIS I could name, a guy who went to work there the same year I joined The State — has been unceremoniously laid off.

But then I saw Henry’s note at the top of the e-mail, which read "Assuming you saw this in wsj yesterday, 4th para from the bottom….." Here was the graf to which he directed me:

Ben Bernanke’s furry jawline gives the Fed chairman the look of a trustworthy intellectual. But Brad Warthen, editorial page editor for The State, a Columbia S.C., newspaper, recently pondered what would happen if Mr. Bernanke were to shave. "Could this be the bold stroke that is needed to jolt the economy back to where it should be?" Mr. Warthen posited in his blog.

So now you know the economy is really, really in trouble. The collapse of credit markets, the swan dive of the Detroit Three automakers, the apparent refusal of consumers to spend on Christmas, on and on –all that was just preliminaries.

It has now come to this: The venerable Wall Street Journal quoting my meanderings about what the Fed chairman’s facial hair might mean in terms of the world economy’s future direction. Sure, Bernanke is from South Carolina — from the Pee Dee in fact, just like me — and that gives me special insight, but still…

The time has come to curl up into a ball and pull the blanket over your head. It’s the only rational response…