issued August, 2009
Have we learned anything? It’s just too easy to demonize and condemn. Where I live, virtue is defined by how readily you express, “Sucks to be you.” Even if not in those exact words.
I ask the question today that I asked exactly twenty years ago tonight: When is our turn?
My companion has worked through a number of commercial feeds. We are now able to offer reviews of some of these products. Kibble and water are available at all times. Bob gets canned food twice a day, or upon request. My search for exotic pet food started when this former stray simply did not recognize chicken, turkey, beef, or fish feline-feed blends as food.
In a Facebook group featuring a recitation of acts which played at Tewligan’s Tavern or the myriad other guises of the building at 1047 Bardstown Road, 40204. These are comments by several people in a few discussions arranged in hopes of providing context. Anyone you recognize here, appeared either before or after their career. With one exception. read more…
Go back to March, 2003. What were you doing? Who were you loving? Where did you live?
The month the United States admitted its presence in Iraq. You remember? In my world, this was a more devastating time than the eighteenth month previous. If I could, I would send an e-mail to Stan in that time and tell him how it has all worked out so far. Most critically I would send along a photo I’ve just now googled up.
Stan, here is a picture of the next President of the United States:
The 44th President of the United States
and you wouldn’t believe who is in the senate. Be absolutely certain to go see Al Franken when he comes to town next year. All of the changes and bollocks you might believe we have to go through so that a man of this countenance becomes President is underway. It is as hard as you think it will be, although not particularly violent.
As long as I’m here, you might think it’s a good idea from time to time, but do not allow Jane out on the patio. Just take my word for it.
As we are upon the 40th anniversary of the premiere of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, consider yourself lucky that I am not pontificating about the program.
I am not among the Americans who see the original series, and the associated records, as surreal and deliberately incomprehensible. With the tiniest knowledge of British culture one realizes the program was the most brilliant and sophisticated social satire of its age. Indeed, to date.
My only regret is being forced to credit KERA, a Texas-based television station, for bringing the show to North America in the first place. I recall the testimony of Steve Martin, yes that Steve Martin, returning home angrily sober and switching on Los Angeles public television to think, oh look the guys who did those Monty Python records got a TV show. Then becoming stunned. Let me state that the appearance of MPFC in the US was a more significant exchange than that business with The Beatles.
Anyways, in this more sophisticated and international world, I encourage you to find and watch the original series. It’s even more brilliant than the guys who went to your high school and played D&D thought it was. You might have to hit Wikipedia a little more than you’re accustomed but its worth it.
Considering the effect of this program on such American institutions as the proper Saturday Night Live, you really deserve to see it as an adult. Oh, and should you gentlemen actually see this; thank you and please don’t sue me.
Mr. Gilliam: Do you any extra space for an aspiring American expat?
- 1½ cups rice (2 cups in the rice-cup measure)
- 6 Tbsp. lentils (½ cup)
- 6 Tbsp. shoyu or tamari (½ cup)
- 3¾ cups water (5 cups)
- ½ – 1 chopped white onion or to taste
Clean your rice, Whitey. I didn’t do it either, and burned through four of those $20 rice cookers in six years. Dump the rice in a bowl which is far too large and rinse. Just to annoy the Chinese and Japanese wash your rice four times. It’s clean when no shells or bran come out of the water. The water must be clear. My white friends consistently compliment my rice texture and it’s taken a year to work out that it’s because I clean my rice.
Lentils don’t attract quite as much filth as rice, but wash them anyway.
Dump your water in the pot, add whatever “soy sauce” you have around for good distribution. Then you can dump in your onion, rice and lentils. Yes, that’s a lot of shoyu. Deal with it.
The result is heartier than rice alone. The onion wilts or dissolves in the cooking process distributing its flavor. It’s still pretty bland so serve with something interesting. Ginger chicken, perhaps?
May I recommend the Sanyo ECJ-N55W, the standard by which all current-production rice cookers are judged. It makes a great pot of oatmeal, too.
Although planned since the early 1980s, “a different kind of car company” did not ship its first vehicles until the 1990 model year. Saturn used its own platform, the vehicles were covered in dent resistant plastic panels and they used distinctive engines. Saturn did not emphasize their connection to GM. The dealerships used a fixed-price model. This aspect alone drove many buyers to this new American car company. read more…
As the twentieth century dawned, popular music as we comprehend the idea today was in its infancy. Waxing and waning since before Shakespeare, formal popular entertainment would prove a permanent fixture in Western Civilization. Significantly, African-influenced syncopation permanently altered the evolution. Three categories came into existence, Classical, Folk, and Popular. There is more than a little crossover. These categories are endlessly subdivided with new categories presenting themselves more quickly than casual observers can cope.
The rhythms of Sousa, Joplin and Berlin were castigated by the aficionados of what became known as “Classical” music.
Those raised on the sounds of march and ragtime, made no sense of the hot rhythms and informality of jazz and the big bands.
The big-band fans decried the crudeness of rock-and-roll music.
The generation of the Motown Sound and The Beatles condemned a later rock-oriented generation. “Music” which represented either an attempt to damage electrical instruments while they were still plugged in or the infuriating simplicity of a bleep-bloop-bleep variety made possible by needlessly new technology. In this era, the riff, as opposed to the tune, was the thing.
This is kinda where I come in. I once thought I might be better than this. I am not.
As a member of the generation that created and allegedly made sense of especially simple music, I am shocked the current generation of popular music is as comprehensible as Metal Machine Music would to a student of Irving Berlin. All I hear are two guys fighting over a parking space in close proximity to more than two overloaded washing machines.
In other words, it’s too loud and I’m too old. Not a bad feeling, actually.
This Texas Summer has proved especially loathsome. Here is the breakdown:
The first 100-degree day, using the official NOAA numbers for Austin, Texas, was especially late this year. June 13. Typically we have something of a heat wave in April or so and just happen to hit 100 for no more than two days.
Aside from the occasional partly-cloudy (read: sunny, if you are not in Texas) day, the daytime highs did not drop significantly below 100 until about three weeks ago. Weeks hovering around 105 were the norm.
The low temps hovered around 75 most of that time; the high-low temperature for the year was on July 29 at 81 degrees. This is a good sign. It means the heat isn’t building up as typically happens. I have suspected people are driving less even if that isn’t making headlines, and the low-temperature record supports that hypothesis. That is, less particulates in the lower atmosphere causes less heat retention. We don’t really have any industry around here to pollute. It’s all cars and the occasional barbecue.
Last night the overnight-low temperature was 62. The sky was overcast all day. If we were somewhere else it would have been thunderstorms, but the clouds were burning off from above. By the time the sun would have come out, dusk fell. Folks wore sweaters in an arctic 81 degrees. The tea and prepared-soup sections of the grocery were hit especially hard.
I may be typing within the night which officially drops below 60 for the first time since May 4. This is a statistical anomaly, but down here you take what you can get. We allegedly shall find the magic moment under 55 degrees somewhat early. I shall be deprived of that night with a high in the upper nineties after a week of hundreds and a magical, mystical night of 54 degrees in which literally every object permanently outdoors releases its heat in visible, tactile waves.
You get on your bicycle and ride, as you do in the summer, gently with lower gears and more slowly. Curiously, the heat does not build up. Your corporeal manifestation has adjusted to a reality in which heat must never be retained in the interest of survival. Your skin begins to chill. The heart pumps. The blood flows through vessels unaccustomed to significant pressure. The heat rises to the surface and miraculously flows into the air. Perspiration works as advertised. You are not alone. In a town where they roll up the sidewalks at 2 AM, you are one among dozens, perhaps hundreds throughout the town. Between three and five in the morning a brotherhood emerges, if only for a night. Serottas and Waterfords. Giants, Jamises and Treks. Chicago Schwinns and Wal-Mart Schwinns. Kents and Huffys. At least one Maruishi. You may peek down any block and see several more blinking taillights. Some of your new friends hoot and holler. Very few are actually going anywhere. This fraternity recognizes no age, faith, ethnicity, social or financial status. The town is ours … and a few sanitation engineers and delivery drivers.
Once back to the house, you take a cool shower anyway. The body is thus chilled and may be in a state of hypothermia. If your living situation does not forbid it, you remain naked with as many windows open as possible. You are authentically cold. It may as well be a new sensation.
Within two hours the sun will be up. Before six hours pass the air-conditioning will come on because it is 85 in the house and 90-or-so in the world. The street becomes an enemy again. If you go anywhere further than the mailbox you do so within your assigned cage.
Key:
- 55F = 13C
- 62F = 17C
- 75F = 24C
- 81F = 27C
- 90F = 32C
- 100F = 38C
- 105F = 41C
