tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65065789992770139582024-03-12T18:28:34.260-04:00A Stroll Through the ApocalypseWhereby our intrepid adventurer goes places, sees...um...stuff, and roundly mocks everything, himself most of all. Usually.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger335125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6506578999277013958.post-65360686890182770612023-09-24T14:18:00.003-04:002023-09-24T21:10:13.399-04:00234 Miles of I-26<span style="font-family: georgia;">Drive drive drive</span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Three lanes to two lanes </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">the corridor of Pines </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Police has pulled one over</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">everyone over to the left </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">drive drive drive </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">brake lights all ahead </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">jump off at the exit if you can. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">A 30-minute detour is always </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">better than being parked for five. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">As you approach The Hot Place </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">the road undulates. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">widen back to three </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">malfunction junction </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Then the Chapin construction canal. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">White Knuckle for 20 miles. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Next marker is the split off at Clinton. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Not too much farther down </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">on a clear day </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">you can start to see the mountains. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Pray you breeze through Spartanburg </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">you're almost there </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">last wee bit of South Carolina has cheap gas </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">and then as you cross the border </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">the cell phone coverage has gaps </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">and your audiobook pauses. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">And then up up up </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">past the lumbering big rigs on the right </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">and you weave and up and down a bit </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">and, boom!, off you go: the exit</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">and you roll the window down </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">and you smell the mountain smell </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sweet Air </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">and up the Steep Chisholm Hill </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">around the bend the tire thumps </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">as it drops from asphalt to dirt and gravel </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">down the driveway </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">parked in Incline </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">step out and breathe deeply </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">and raise your hands </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">over your head to stretch</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Home</span></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6506578999277013958.post-12858040374837426722023-03-23T23:46:00.004-04:002023-03-25T13:59:31.854-04:00A SMAWG (Southern Middle-Aged White Guy) Opines upon "All the Pretty Horses" Over 30 Years After Its Publication<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> I bought a paperback compilation of Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy from The Killarney Bookshop in Killarney, County Kerry in 2002, when I was 22 or 23 and on a brief vacation there from my duty station of Bamberg, Germany. My finger hurt. I had (I thought) jammed the hell out of my ring finger catching a football during PT the morning before I flew. Turned out I had broken it and I took too long on vacation and when I got back to Bamberg, they couldn't fix it and now that finger is fused and, because of that, I'm technically a disabled veteran. So I have that going for me. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I was deeply and passionately in love with film, with cinema, even, as a young man. I wrote a screenplay in college; filmed 70% of it during spring break. I wanted to make movies. But I knew that career, along with being a writer, is a statistical idiocy of a plan, so off I went being responsible. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Hell with responsibility. Next life, if I can't be my first choice (independently wealthy), I'm going for poverty and writing or directing. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">My introduction to Cormac McCarthy as a sometimes sophisticated, but normally oblivious, college kid, was Billy Bob Thornton's 2000 adaptation of All the Pretty Horses. I'd not read a lick of McCarthy to that point. But I was getting a degree in Classical Studies and my father is an English Professor. So I viewed the film altogether differently than, apparently, the rest of the movie-going public, who collectively yawned as it quickly left theaters. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">A quick pause...if you're reading this and haven't read a 31-year-old novel nor seen the 23-year-old movie, I'm not going to give you a plot synopsis and I'm not going to spare you from spoilers. Don't be a dodo. Go away and watch the movie and/or read the book.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">____________________________________________________________________</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">So, I loved that movie. It was clear it wasn't a scene by scene adaptation (which is virtually impossible) and so I couldn't be sure the book did what the movie did, but I will tell you my gigantic takeaway of the movie is that it ultimately was clearly about the soul making its journey to judgment after death. The movie repeatedly has characters talk about Heaven. "Not everyone thinks heaven is a ranch in west Texas" is an early line (or thereabouts) that sticks with me all these years later. In the movie, there didn't seem to be a realistic world where John Grady Cole could have survived the stabbing he took, and so from that point forward seemed like his soul's journey to understand his death. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">He had to deal with the loss of those around him and they speak to him as though funerarily, and at the end of his long and trying journey back to west Texas (Heaven), an old judge with a great white beard listens to his confession and absolves him. Seemed pretty damned obvious to me. Also, anything with year 2000 Penelope Cruz is going to get my utter praise. What a woman.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">_____________________________________________________________________</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Around 2012, my college roommate, gargantuan bibliophile that he is, handed me a copy of Blood Meridian and I took a look at the first sentence and thought to myself, "This son of a bitch just intellectually challenged me." Blood Meridian is Biblical and hellish and sparse yet dense and it is less read than studied or concentrated upon. Within a year, I also read The Road, and what a completely different experience. Flew threw it. Not nearly so difficult. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">But that's the thing. Cormac McCarthy is an artist. Yes, he's a writer, but he's an artist first and foremost. An artisan is someone who creates for others to enjoy and, usually if they can do it, for money. An artisan can create something that is monumentally difficult, but that's not the separation between artist and artisan. Michelangelo couldn't do an airbrush painting on a t-shirt. Difficulty is not the mark of an artist. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">What is the mark of an artist? "MUST" is the mark of an artist. Because the art, whatever it is (painting, sculpture, play, manuscript, etc) must be. It simply must. "I must" is the refrain of the artist, not "I want". And the artist goes about releasing it. Sometimes, the artist can create with intention; though it's my experience that the core comes out as it must and then an artist garnishes/molds/shapes it with flourishes of intention so that the final result is a blend of the core "must" and the artist's desire ("I want"). Failed art is when the "I want" overrides the must.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Michelangelo carved the David. You see it in person and it stands out because the head and hands and feet are too big. It gives the hero the feeling of a puppy that will one day be a ferocious attack dog. Young and not yet what he was to be, but what he must be at the time he needed to be. It's a gigantic thing. In fact, the piece of marble it was carved from had been called "Il gigante". And Michelangelo said David was always inside of Il Gigante, he just freed the statue from the encasing stone. So an artist is a blend of intent and submission to a greater creative drive that is beyond the artist's control.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I took a terrible opportunity to look at some youtube reviews of All the Pretty Horses after I read it. Tried to read some written reviews. The reviewers are not artists. Most of them are unfortunate simpletons. For them, style and plot are the hallmarks of great writing. And, yes, they can be, of course, but they are not the end all/be all when it comes to a work of art. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Michael Crichton plots are put together like a swiss watch. You've got your foreshadowing, your twists and turns, your clever double back to upend expectation. Hell of a writer. Before his death, Hollywood used to say he had half a billion dollars of ideas just floating along in his head. But I'm not altogether sure he was an artist. Which is fine. Bob Dylan's not a poet. Bob Dylan is a song-writer. He's great at that. Fantastic. Michael Crichton was a thriller writer and he was amazing at it. But he wasn't an artist. Cormac McCarthy is not a thriller writer. He's an artist. And he's a Biblical artist, from what I've read so far.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">And I say that because I heard one reviewer lament that McCarthy didn't have a set style. Of course he doesn't. He is hyper-talented and bends himself to the must of the work . And I heard/ read others who lamented that All the Pretty Horses has a very basic plot. Good God, man. The plot is the foundation for the art. These people are used to a crayon set with a red, green, and blue, and can't see the full spectrum. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">So I'm not giving a review, because that's beside the point. Here are thoughts on the novel. Not theses. Thoughts. Do with them what you will. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">1. This book is about mirrors. For example</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Names: <b>J</b>ohn Grady <b>C</b>ole (<b>J</b>g<b>C</b>) is a Christ-like figure. Christ descended to Hell for three days; this book takes place over three seasons (starts in late spring, goes through summer, ends in fall just before winter)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Alejandra is the Spanish version of Alexandra. Alex=defenderAndr--=man (think Android, a manlike robot). At any rate, she's a defender of mankind, like Christ was. She's a mirrored version of JGC.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Jimmy Blevins (John the Baptist): the boy has taken the name of an actual holy man, we discover. But he leads the way to death for JC.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Don Hector: not biblical, but in The Iliad, Hector has the epithet, "Breaker of Horses." Except, he's not the actual Breaker of Horses, JGC is. See what good that Classical Studies degree did for me?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Lacey Rawlins: Lacey, his "pardner", is who JGC would be without his compassion and greatness. Lacey speaks with truth, and wisdom. He pretty much predicts the negative outcomes that will, and do, come to play out throughout the novel. JGC's compassion will not allow him to step away from situations, even if he "should." Lacey is JGC without the faults/negatives that JGC gets from his compassion, but also without the greatness. He can do things with horses, but he's no master. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">2. Speaking of this mirrored idea: Texas and Mexico are mirrored versions of each other. Texas is heaven for him; the mexican hacienda/estate is a paradise. Also, JGC and Alejandra's families are amazingly similar, just JGC is farther along the time line. For people who don't know such things, if you read the book, the opulence and size of the mexican hacienda would leave you to think that JGC is a poor shmuck and Alejandra is nobility. Not so. The JGC ranch that he should have been heir to, had his mother not chosen to sell it, was 18000 acres. The hacienda is 11000 hectares. 11000 hectares is 27000 acres. Larger, yes, but not at any size that would be a real class divide. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">3. Alejandra's mother, like JGC's mother wants nothing to do with the land. But the land is in Alejandra's father's family and in JGC's mother's family. If JGC's father were the inheritor of the ranch, JGC and Alejandra would be on equal footing, but JGC never would have been driven out to find her.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">4. JGC's family had the turmoil and death and success, but they stayed true to the land, until JGC's mother. Alfonsa's family may have gone down the same route had Alejandra's great aunt, Alfonsa, inherited the land instead of her brother. She was cosmopolitan and had those big ideas and was not tethered to the land, per se, though her injury resigned her to it, it appears.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">5. One of the reviewers, being very self-congratulatory and white, lamented how Alejandra was yet another cliche of the enigmatic latin lust object as white male authors write latin women. Alejandra has blue eyes, for one (not what one typically associates with "hispanic"); the great landowners were of Hidalgo stock and would have been racially and class horrified to be considered too much like the people; they would have considered themselves European before common Mexican. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Regardless of that, the idiot reviewer didn't consider JGC from Alejandra's perspective. He's equally as enigmatic from her perspective. Here's a younger man, clearly of a different stock than the others, even his also-white friend; he didn't fawn. He didn't overly pursue. He was laconic. Compared to how others treated her, he must have been a bolt of lightning. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">6. The book allows the reader to run with their own prejudices. JGC is a bumpkin from Texas. He's at a Mexican estate and he's out of his social element and shouldn't dare go beyond his station. Except he's not, as I've said. Alphonsa can tell there's something innate in him, but never discovers what he really is. But she tests him. She's been educated in the greatest schools in Europe. He beats her in the first game of chess. Of course, he gets that talent from his father; not the one with the American landowning heritage, so that's a bit of a dig at the pretentiousness of chess. Still, she's been playing for four to five times longer than he's been alive and he beat her. And because of her arrogance, she never thought to discover who he really was. She takes clear pride in her education; she insists on speaking English to show how intelligent she is, but she takes no note that he speaks fluent spanish and he's a master with horses and he is fluent in compassion above all. His compassion is the source of his humility and his mastery.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">7. He can win (and usually does) when allowed to compete. He is defeated when he is not given an opportunity. Don Hector chooses pool for their competition and beats JGC without the boy having a turn (if memory serves). Alfonsa's last game is her diatribe telling him it's over with Alejandra. He laments that she won't let him speak. If she had, if she had listened, she might have been won over. Alejandra won't really let him have a chance. She goes to him at the end; they have their Indian Summer, as it were, but she will not entertain being with him. She doesn't know what kind of man he is, she says. Sweetheart, you probably ditched the best man you'll ever know. That said, I do believe THAT would have been hard for JGC to express because of his humility. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">8. The locomotive in the beginning of the novel bores out of the east, emitting light that mars and disrupts. The novel ends with JGC on horse going into the reddening west. Instead of emitting, he accepts light that matches him to the rest of nature; the proof he is there is his shadow. Anna Karenina ends with the train of modernity destroying the old ways. All the Pretty Horses starts with that train and ends with the main character embracing the old ways despite modernity. Also, the alternate title for Blood Meridian is "The Evening Redness in the West" and JGC rides past unconcerned indians on his way to that redness. Not sure what any of that means, but it's a nice throughline on the location.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">9. JGC is his grandfather reborn, which is why it starts at grandfather's death. There should have been a chain of grandfather to father to JGC, but the father was not the direct link.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">10. Don Hector and the brother of the blevins-slain man (the charro) are cowards, unable to act despite their desire. Don Hector was a supreme coward in his failure to confront jgc on any level that is fair. Jgc confronts all equally, on their ground (even the horses) the whole book. His refusal to kill the captain was a mercy and not a cowardice and the potential burden of having to be responsible for the captain's death was something the land relieved him from. JGC will not act with aggression until he is forced to do so.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">11. Dude, it's different in the book, but he gets absolution from an old judge. C'mon. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">12. JGC has three significant deaths occur for him (even beyond Blevins and the assassin): his grandfather, his father, and the grandmother (abuela). She was not his blood, but by everything you unpack throughout the novel, she was more involved in his life than his blood parents were. He waited to leave until after his Grandfather's funeral at the start of the novel and waited to head into the redness until after Abuela's funeral after the end.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">__________________________________________________________________</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">If the plot and run-on sentences are what you're taking away from All the Pretty Horses, go enjoy your airbrushed t-shirt.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br></span></div><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br></span></p><p><br></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6506578999277013958.post-23951556458627335172022-06-30T07:40:00.006-04:002023-03-23T23:48:08.277-04:00Lara Kennedy Lawson May 11, 1982- June 25, 2022<span style="font-family: georgia;">Brilliance, mischief, mayhem, and fun. The older I get, the more I believe that there are people you simply like and then you fill in the reasons after the fact. You don't need a reason. You like them. That's enough.</span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">When we first met, Kennedy and I could not be more different, excepting for the fact that we both are loud. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">She: Blonde-haired, blue-eyed, liberal, atheist, small.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Me: None of those things.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">And yet, I came to absolutely adore her. And she me. We played extremely well together. Minds dancing and sparring in equal measure. Our great commonality our sheer ludicrousness and ferocity. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Aside from that, we deeply trusted and confided in one another. We loved each other, sans romance, which irritates me to qualify, as if it were a lesser form, but, for those who didn't know us, I wish to stanch lascivious assumption. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">A decade ago, there was a break. Though not a vicious or malicious one. Things could not be as they had been. We reached out to each other casually in these intervening years but never returning to the depth that we had been before. Despite the distance, I thought of her fondly and wrongly assumed there would be a time for more. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I remain. She does not.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I love you, Kennedy.</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKLMA6KR47_wiRQjYzHA0i1NgYmik0-3I92yuLAgAPdhj5xa55Fb5pXbqpXKwShi6kL2aHxRCXocdtN2ck704g51czVaDDWVY1q9LgeTDW39hK7MitwXIjCP7NMQ4V07nKZZR-noHzIO_d7odMS3r_AaWT9AmnzIKdH5uJMGt0tcMVeT-oF-yq4nwj/s604/1923318_532917816288_5822_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="604" data-original-width="453" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKLMA6KR47_wiRQjYzHA0i1NgYmik0-3I92yuLAgAPdhj5xa55Fb5pXbqpXKwShi6kL2aHxRCXocdtN2ck704g51czVaDDWVY1q9LgeTDW39hK7MitwXIjCP7NMQ4V07nKZZR-noHzIO_d7odMS3r_AaWT9AmnzIKdH5uJMGt0tcMVeT-oF-yq4nwj/s320/1923318_532917816288_5822_n.jpg" width="240" /></a></div></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnP4O9VWd4ZobslyDGzW1LoXtGoUV7fiAtGCZajpEMZsqnhWJuR1y3PvB9NIc98--tGpKxbfaS0jt22k_-6m-ugsKPBEs0Nx4WBzvI6XFMBwjY0P-zoiM1EPDXfubPKnFeIl6cp3PnaFghenpikJ5ePVxc-txGtvXOo183qdsIq3IeLnJlVTyKSLIX/s604/1928810_532917282358_8741_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="453" data-original-width="604" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnP4O9VWd4ZobslyDGzW1LoXtGoUV7fiAtGCZajpEMZsqnhWJuR1y3PvB9NIc98--tGpKxbfaS0jt22k_-6m-ugsKPBEs0Nx4WBzvI6XFMBwjY0P-zoiM1EPDXfubPKnFeIl6cp3PnaFghenpikJ5ePVxc-txGtvXOo183qdsIq3IeLnJlVTyKSLIX/s320/1928810_532917282358_8741_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6506578999277013958.post-75243345201009560552020-04-21T14:18:00.001-04:002020-04-21T14:20:41.140-04:00Cooking and the Perpetual Bachelor<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty of it, but I don't cook. I just don't see the point in wasting that much time. Why, when I can make a terrible turkey sandwich in 32 seconds and pop a multivitamin?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But I'm trapped at my place during this COVID-19 nonsense, and I have a kitchen, so sure. Why not?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I wanted Indian food. It's not a terrible turkey sandwich, but I like it fine. I'll make it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The point of this is not whether I ended up making it. Spoiler alert: I made it. It was fine. Nothing to talk about there.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">However, I have some thoughts on the experience of making it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">1. WHY DO SPICES COST SO MUCH! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What in the living hell is Cardamom and why does a thimble-full of it cost the GDP of a sub-saharan banana republic? Da Gama sailed around the Cape of Good Hope to find a way to get spices cheaper. Columbus accidentally found a new world on his journey to find a way to get spices cheaper. Indian food is eaten by, um, Indians, who on a per-capita basis are some of the poorest people on earth, and yet just the spices to make a dish that's a part of every cheap Indian restaurant buffet on six continents requires that I take out a home-refi loan. I have a job, a good one, so I buy the damn spices, but I'll be eating this damned Chicken Tikka Masala until at least the autumnal equinox just to make sure I get my money's worth. If I ever get extra money again, I'm investing in spices. This is ludicrous.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2. Knifework</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If someone breaks into my house or an animal comes at me in the woods, I know what to do with a knife. Pointy end goes into problem. Repeat until no more problem. Easy peasy. But finely chop onions or mince fresh garlic and ginger? Oh my dear God. I feel like I'm eight and back learning how to painstakingly write in cursive. How am I this slow at this?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">3. Timing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I've tried to cook before. In my twenties. That also went fine. But I knew that I was bad at timing. I recall that I'd end up eating whatever I cooked in stages. As in, oh crap, I finished the protein but haven't started the vegetables, so I guess I'll eat the pork chop as I make the squash casserole. Piecemeal eating would take hours. Now that I think of it, I bet that's where the word "piecemeal" came from in the first place. Part of me picking Chicken Tikka Masala is because it's effectively one dish. But I hadn't counted on how slow I am with that damned knife. I allotted an hour for prep time. It took closer to two. And then I was so focused on the chicken and sauce that I forgot to start the rice steamer. So I ended up eating three hours later than I intended.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">4. Portions</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This recipe says it feeds 3-5 people. Bullshit. Just this batch will last me two weeks if I eat five meals of it a day. I barely have enough tupperware to freeze the gallons this damned recipe created. But now I have iceberg-sized ice-blocks of Tikka Masala taking up my freezer. And, let's not forget that I have two billion dollars in spices left on my shelf to use up.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">5. Smell</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I love Indian food. Really. I do. And I like going to Indian restaurants. But I've never walked out of an Indian restaurant wondering if I'd ever smell anything but cumin and coriander and turmeric ever again. It's the next day and the smell from the clothes I was wearing as I was cooking last night has permeated through the laundry basket and swallowed my bedroom. My hair smells like spices. My blanket smells like spices. My kitchen, of course, smells like spices. I can only imagine that as I heat up the next 136 days of this meal, this smell will continue.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sometime in September, I'm going back to terrible turkey sandwiches and multivitamins.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6506578999277013958.post-43867343545557325022019-04-22T07:54:00.001-04:002019-04-22T09:26:56.604-04:00Arya and Gendry: Real Talk<p dir="ltr">Arya (creepy stare): You make that weapon I designed yet?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Blacksmith (apprentice): Yes.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Arya (creepy question): How many women you you knock dem boots with?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Blacksmith Apprentice (remembering she's phenomenal with weapons and he just handed her a huge one): Gee, how does one remember such things?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Arya (mega creepy): you know...tell me</p>
<p dir="ltr">Blacksmith Apprentice (calculating the number that will not get his throat slit if he says the wrong one): Three? Yeah. Three. I have all of my (straight) teeth in medieval times. I'm not covered in rickets and rampant malnutrition. I have a job and I grew up and live in Whore Central.  I'm played by an attractive person who waxes his chest, so definitely...three.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Arya: Great. I've thought you could get it since I met you.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Blacksmith Apprentice: Since back when you could successfully pass as a boy and were still processing watching your pop's head get cut off?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Arya: I kill people all the time; have I mentioned that again in the past 30 seconds?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Blacksmith Apprentice: Um, I too have always wanted you since the moment I laid eyes on you when you were just a crossdressing preteen riddled with PTSD.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Arya: So,  I kill people all the time; have I mentioned that? But I ain't been 'bout that sex yet, and we gon' die so I wanna know what it feels like.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Blacksmith Apprentice (quickly, under his breath):  It's probably going to feel like VD transmission and unplanned pregnancy.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Arya: What was that?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Blacksmith Apprentice: I said that I would love to enact the sex at the psycho munchkin rich girl, who I'm easily four points ahead of on a ten point scale, in a foundry where I've been wearing leather pants (and no underwear) next to a blazing forge. We have zero chemistry, but, you know, I'm into that. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Arya:  Check this out. Not only am I super pale, I'm covered in grisly, massive, purple scars.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Blacksmith Apprentice:  Thank God. There's no way I could perform if you were not.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Arya:  Have I mentioned that I cut people's faces off and wear them?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Blacksmith Apprentice:  Your words are like verbal viagra. Truly.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Arya:  And remember, we can't make this last forever because we have an army of undead descending on us to cut us into little pieces and the pieces that aren't cut up will reanimate to go kill other people, so you're gonna need to be quick about it.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Blacksmith Apprentice: So you want me to speed through pseudo forcible sex at an awkward virgin on itchy-ass hay?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Arya: Yes. That.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Blacksmith Apprentice: I'd love to make this last hours, but I'll figure out how to get this over with as quickly as possible.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Arya: Also, we gotta do this sober</p>
<p dir="ltr">Blacksmith Apprentice: FFS. FML.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Arya: What was that?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Blacksmith Apprentice: YOLO?</p>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6506578999277013958.post-84923656098424499782018-11-08T14:41:00.001-05:002019-12-12T17:22:19.323-05:00The Observer Effect (originally published in The Charleston Mercury; July 2018)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The observer effect<br>
<br>
By Ajax Carpenter<br>
<br>
<br>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Come
one, come all! Come on down, y’all! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Welcome to the
Holy City™.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We have
restaurants and ghost tours. How about one of those carriage rides; you want
one? Oh, and don’t you worry; we have bars galore.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We’ve got
everything this famous town is known for. Of course, there are the palmetto
trees, sweetgrass basket-weavers, museums, and churches.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Welcome to this
sleepy little place, off in a crook of this vast expanse of a country, down
where time doesn’t pass. Look at Rainbow Row! Look at the Calhoun Mansion!
Ain’t everything grand?! Ain’t everything just so <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">historic</i>!?!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thank God for the
Board of Architectural Review, the mayor and Charleston City Council, who, lo
these many years, have protected our skyline and the character of the city.
Thank God monstrous hotels and condos and the ever present cranes aren’t blighting
our postcards and pictures and just general quality of life. Just focus down
low, down where the restrictions on doing any work on any building whatsoever
make it so cost-prohibitive that all but the ludicrously wealthy got fed up
long ago and said “It might be nice to live out on John’s Island; maybe
Wadmalaw, even.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Don’t mind the
three-hundred-dollars-per-thirty-seconds* parking meters that are monitored
twenty-five-hours-a-day*, or the potholes, flooding and legendarily bad
drivers. Bring your car. Join the fray. Come to get away from it all, but, if
you get homesick for back where you’re from, where it’s not so sleepy and time
moves so fast, jump in your car and get that slice of Up North or From Off. We
have all the traffic you can handle. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">If that doesn’t
remind you of home, just wait; you’re gonna love the prices. We’re trying to
get them up to Manhattan levels for you. It embarrasses us that you’re not able
to pay $17* for a bland margarita.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Do you like our
districts? We learned a thing or two from the Florida theme parks. Disney’s
Magic Kingdom has TomorrowLand, AdventureLand and Main Street USA; we have
South of Broad, the French Quarter, and Wraggborough. Think of the horse-drawn
carriages like they’re our monorail. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Spill off the
sidewalks. Walk in the streets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cars
aren’t really supposed to be there any way. They’ll stop. They’ll wait. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Ask the questions.
You know you want to. All of y’all do. Titter as you say aloud: What’s a
Huguenot? (Ha!) What is a grit? (Hilarious!)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We want you! You’re
hardy folk. Way back when we only had 847 million visitors a year* (instead of
the current annual count of 74 Trillion*), they’d peter out and leave us be for
the real hot of summer. But not you! 143 °* and 138%* humidity for July and
August, and still y’all pour in here. Charleston can count on death, taxes, roaches
the size of compact cars and this relentless parade of “treasured guests.” If
you're sweltering, might I suggest a refreshing bland margarita?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Rarer than a
ghost, you might just see a local. They’ll be one of the slightly befuddled
older folks (always older; ever older), polite if you ask them a question,
helpful, of course; but often with a consternated look as though they’re still
trying to figure out what happened.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Downtown used to
be full of locals. Children played in the streets. The houses had lights on at
night because folks actually lived in them (they weren’t just trophy vacation
homes back then). They worked and shopped there and played bridge and had book
clubs and threw cocktail parties and actually attended all these churches. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Look at all the contractors. There are more of those than
locals. That’s for sure.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">But enough about
them. That’s not why you’re here. You’re here for the nightlife and the
beaches. Get a sunburn and then get to Upper King. Mill about. Spend your
money. We’d prefer it if you wouldn’t drink and drive, or shout and fight, but
you be you. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Try not to notice
the homeless folk that have materialized in the past couple of years, sitting
heads down, arms outstretched. But, if you do, don’t they add a little extra
flavor?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">That guy
complaining that everything has changed? Don't mind him. He’s not a local even
though he insists he is. That's Gary. He moved here from Dayton three years
ago. Don't know which of the guys complaining is Gary? Don't worry. They're all
Gary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Sure, this place
isn't what it used to be. It’s not a place very many real people live anymore.
Any old place can be that. It’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">better</i>!
It’s CharlestonWORLD: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the Premier Adult
Museum, Shopping and Restaurant Park.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Don’t you like
this?! Isn’t it enchanting?! Spend and enjoy! Tell your friends and family!
Bring them! Bring them ALL! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Why leave? You
never have to leave. We can just make more Charleston, expand it up and out.
Absorb the other townships and islands. Stack and build. Stack and build. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Come and see. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Come and see. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Come and see. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Come and see!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">*Numbers are
estimates, only, but you never can tell when satire will morph into reality.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6506578999277013958.post-54809895877249441972018-01-31T00:03:00.004-05:002018-01-31T11:58:29.176-05:00Achilles and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This whole thing is spoilers and won't make a lick of sense if you haven't seen the movie, so go away if that's the case.</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />What's <i>The Iliad </i> about? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Trojan War, right? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">No. Achilles? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">No, not really. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It's about rage. About doomed and ruinous anger. It's an anger of Achilles, but he does not control it. It controls him and controls the work as a whole. It is directly because of his rage that his beloved friend is killed. It is because of his rage that foes and friends alike die. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Watching <i>Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri</i>, I was struck by the explosive rage of the two characters, Mildred Hayes and Jason Dixon, both of whom use later excuses to justify giving into their pre-existing fury.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Mildred is a single mother in a dead end job. Her husband was abusive and then left her for a girl barely older than their daughter. That's a life of justifiable rage. Then her daughter is raped and murdered.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Mildred's rage was there prior to her daughter's death. It was evident in her scream of "I hope you do get raped!" the last time she saw Angela. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Mildred harms the innocent. She wounds the pastor who comes to talk to her with her words. She drills a hole in the dentists thumb(nail) (though it seemed as though he were trying to harm her with the drill, she could simply have left). She kicks teenagers in the groin without knowing if they were the ones who threw a drink at her car. She harms her friend and boss by allowing her rage to get her friend/boss thrown into jail and held without bail.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Of course, the main person she harms in the movie is Sheriff Willoughby. She wounds him on a level of honor, for not catching her daughter's killer. He was not the killer and there was nothing more he could do. He's an innocent. Not only is he an innocent, he's dying. Her anger does not care. She must rage, and so, even after his death, the billboard that was burned down goes back up with his name on it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Chief Willoughby is her contrast. He too has reasons to be furious, first and foremost being his terminal cancer despite having a young wife and small children. He has every reason to be angry that Mildred has attacked him as he's dying, knowing there's nothing he can do. After he has his episode and coughs blood on her face and has to be taken away by ambulance, his last official words as a sheriff are "let her go." Unlike Mildred, he chooses to let go. Not only does he choose to stop fighting her, he helps her, by paying for the billboard for another month (which is also, as he says, a chess move, but I do believe he sincerely hoped his gesture would help allay her rage). Unlike Dylan Thomas' exhortation to Rage against the dying of the light, he makes his peace with what rightly could have made him angry and moves past it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Mildred, of course, didn't learn from or accept his magnanimity; she can't. After he died, she gives in to her unadulterated rage and tries to burn down his office. At that point, she's beyond thought. There is no positive aspect to her torching the station; in fact, were it not for Jason Dixon's action, her daughter's file would have been destroyed (perhaps including the DNA evidence they did have of the killer). Getting justice is not her goal. Raging is all she has.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">______________________________________________________</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Jason Dixon is a fool and a racist and a bully. He's also a closeted gay man who lives with a domineering mother. He has a life of rage that, while not justifiable, is understandable. Then the man who believed in him died.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Chief Willoughby says at one point, "If you got rid of every cop with vaguely racist leanings then you’d have three cops left and all o’ them are gonna hate the fags so what are ya gonna do, y’know?" A way to look at that is that in the rankings for who's lower in society, the closeted gay man must assert himself above the "persons of color", which he has apparently done off screen in an incident referred to as torture. He might be gay, but at least he's better than the blacks, he might justify to himself. (Obviously pointing out what he's doing is not condoning the behavior.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Dixon most probably tortured an innocent black man. He routinely attempts to bully or attempts to intimidate others, though a point that isn't noted by many is that his intimidation and bullying don't actually work. The billboard painter mouths off to him and spits at him at the beginning of the film. Red stands up to him at the bar and in his office (prior to the great exception, of course) and Mildred bursts in and calls him a fuckhead and he just takes it. He's a stupid little man who reads comic books and whose mother puts any real thoughts in his head and everyone there knows it. And he knows they know it. He's impotent, that we see, but it's clear that he's furious about his impotence.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And then Willoughby dies and Dixon uses that to justify finally acting. And so he grotesquely assaults Red and Red's assistant. But his rage only works against the weak and he's not actually changed. Minutes later he's shamed and fired and he's back to his impotence.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Dixon's counter is Red, as we see at the hospital. Red is a frail, weak, stupid man, but, unlike Dixon (ordinarily), he stands up for himself and will not allow himself to be badgered or disrespected. The chief and desk sergeant try to get him to back down and he refuses. Dixon drunkenly bullies him at the bar and he insults Dixon right back. After what Dixon does to him, Red had every right to be furious and, since this is a film about explosive rage masquerading as revenge or justice, he could have harmed Dixon right back in the hospital. Instead, like Chief Willoughby, he lets it go and chooses not to be defined by his anger.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">____________________________________________________</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have seen reviews that claim that Jason Dixon and Mildred Hayes get redemption by the end of the film. No. They are not redeemed. They are still just as flawed and awful at the end of the movie as they were at the beginning. I did not see a movement away from rage at the end of the movie, a requirement for any talk of redemption. What I saw was that the two furious characters were incapable of stopping their anger, so they end the movie contemplating pointing it in a direction where it might serve some function, where it will harm the person or persons who "deserve" it rather than be responsible for harming the innocent.<br /><br />Near the end of the movie, Mildred torches the "midget" and never fixes it. It is important to understanding her character that she does not fix things with him. She could not fix things with him even as, moments later, she stood up for her ex's ditzy girlfriend. And I believe that was because she could use her rage to protect the ditz. Her ex-husband was trembling when she approached them. Her rage could not fix what she did to the "midget." As for Jason, he was going to kill himself (raging against himself) and it was only when he considered going with her, so he could focus his rage externally and, perhaps, positively, that he gave up on shooting himself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Obviously murder or killing vigilantism is a large step for either Jason or Mildred. Mildred is the angrier of the two, but Jason appeared willing to kill himself, so who's to say what he'd be willing to do once he'd reached that point. For her it's a level higher than she's gone yet, but that does not lead me to believe she won't. Particularly knowing that she's going to recognize the stranger and remember him threatening her. Why was he several states away in the middle of nowhere Missouri when he's from Idaho? When he was telling the story to his compatriot at the bar, he says there were two others with him. Perhaps one of them has the elusive DNA? Are his accomplices his perfect alibi since the authorities don't know they're looking for three men and not one? The stranger confronts her after Willoughby's death, but the incident at the bar happens at least weeks if not months later (Dixon's wounds have scarred by then). Why was he back in Ebbing, Missouri? Killers coming back to the scene is a known trope. I do not think it a great stretch to think that Mildred would do the stranger great harm and that Jason, bolstered by her, wouldn't do the same.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">_____________________________________________</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri</i> is not <i>The Iliad.</i> In <i>The Iliad</i>, the scene of Priam, a grieving father, coming to his greatest enemy, Achilles, and asking for the corpse of his slain son Hector is such a touching human moment that it breaks Achilles' anger and the work can end once we see the final result of that ruinous anger in the funeral of Hector. If <i>Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri</i> were similar, if Mildred Hayes and Jason Dixon were to be redeemed, it would have ended at Willoughby's funeral, after Mildred and Jason got his final messages. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But it didn't end that way, because their continuing rage wouldn't allow it.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6506578999277013958.post-14347293274642876562018-01-11T22:10:00.000-05:002018-01-11T23:04:58.119-05:00If "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" were given "The Last Jedi" Treatment<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">(I feel bad for you if you're reading this and you didn't understand there will be spoilers, but I have a low opinion of humanity so here this warning is anyway. Spoilers. Spoilers. Spoilers.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I didn't like Star Wars: The Last Jedi. I thought it was inappropriately funny. That was simply irksome. What made me actively dislike the movie was that they may as well have called it "Millenial Star Wars: The But Actually." My head hurt as I went back and read the stellar reviews I'd seen, but skipped reading, prior to seeing the movie. "Brave!" "Bold new directions!" "Subverts all conventions!"</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">No. What I saw was as obvious and lazy as what DC is doing with their disaster of a cinematic universe. They started with a plan and when it got pushback, they simply addressed the pushback on whatever the next film was going to be regardless of what that did to story or logic. "People complained about collateral damage in the last one. Make someone say this city has no people in it!" "People thought it was too serious! Make the new one funny even though it doesn't fit and the jokes arent, you know, funny."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In Last Jedi, they subverted everything that had been done not just by The Force Awakens, but by the canon. Why do I call it "Millenial Star Wars: The But Actually"? Because I imagine writer/director Rian Johnson excitedly telling producers, "So, General Hux is set-up as the rival to Kylo Ren in Force Awakens. But, actually, he's just a bumbling fool who sputters his way through a severely out-of-place phone-on-hold joke. And he turns into a slapstick piece later." And the producers must have been like, "Well, the big complaint in the last one was that everything was a retread of the A New Hope, so that definitely doesn't make him look like the reincarnation of Grand Moff Tarkin any more."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And then Rian Johnson said, "Right! Right! And Poe Dameron!He's the quippy, hot-shot pilot! He's like Han and the flying parts of Luke! Right? But, actually, he's an incompetent hot-head glory-hound who gets a bunch of people killed and his big seize-the-moment save-the-day gambit just fails." And the producers weren't sure that's how they wanted to market the sexy guy in the movie, but, you know, sure. Why not? No one's going to say they saw that coming.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And then Rian Johnson said...</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">Look. I can do this for the entire damn movie. It's not brave or bold. It isn't a new direction, so much as an opposite. And subverting is asinine for this franchise. Why?</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">Because Star Wars, famously, is about the archetypal hero's journey. It just is. You can tweak that. You don't subvert it. Otherwise it stops being Star Wars. Strident fans of The Last Jedi will argue otherwise, but, as we know, people are idiots.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">The Last Jedi sucked. It was someone on stage at an improv theater yelling "no" when everyone knows the rule is "yes and" and gunking up the works. That's not brave. That's being an asshat.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">To subvert consistently every time means to destroy character and story-logic. To demonstrate, I will do the same to another beloved franchise that is built atop an archetypal structure. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">I give you Millenial Star Wars: The But Actually version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">*************************************************************************</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On the opening page, we find that Hermione's actually been sneaking a muggle device, a "kindle reader", under her robes, loaded with notes from an OCD prior valedictorian muggle-born graduate. You thought Hermione was plucky and smart. But, actually, she's a damn cheatery cheater-face.</span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And then we run into Harry and Ron and you think, those two are the sorta-daft-but-plucky-chosen-one and his definitely-daft-and-cowardly-sidekick. But, actually, Harry's not the chosen one. He's just some sorta-daft-but-plucky kid who was only plucky because Dumbledore told him he was the Chosen One. Luckily, Snape walks by Ron, Harry, and Hermione's car on the train to Hogwarts and says, "Potter, you're not the chosen one. Your parents didn't die protecting you from an evil wizard. Your actual parents are your terrible aunt and uncle and they carved that idiotic thing into your forehead because they hate you." And Harry's like "OhEmGEE! I knew it!" and immediately loses all his pluck and still is sorta-daft and Ron's like, "I wasted a year sucking up to you and you're a nobody" and he doesn't leave, because he *is* a coward, but he isn't Harry's sidekick anymore.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And so Cheatery Cheater-Face and Sorta Daft and Cowardly arrive and ooooooohhhh, a mystery comes up! So of course our heroes are going to solve it! But, actually, they're perfectly reasonable twelve-year-olds and they're like, "Kids are being frozen stiff or killed. I'm staying in my room until this blows over."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So you think that Cheatery Cheater-Face and Sorta Daft and Cowardly will eventually get off the schneid and start trying to figure out this mystery, but, no. Snape wasn't being a liar. Harry really isn't anyone in particular. And without Harry having that as his drive, Hermione and Ron have no reason to get involved. So they just sit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Luckily, we have a real go-getter in the form of Albus Dumbledore! And Albus is in his little tower thinking up how he's going to solve this Chamber of Secrets thing when the Basilisk punts him out the window and he falls to his brutal, grisly, splattery death in the courtyard below.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But! But! But!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">After a moment of looking at his very dead corpse, one eye rolls back across the courtyard and jumps back into its socket and then the blood seeps its way back in and the organs arrange themselves back into functioning order and the bones knit perfectly and the skin unrends and he flies back up to the tower, through his window, down the stairs, into the infirmary, and he lies down to take a lengthy nap without explaining what the hell just happened to anyone. Because it's magic, you plebeians. Don't get your panties in a wad just because you've never seen anyone do that before.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And everyone is perplexed as to what to do. Snape is in charge, but he says "we can't stay here in the castle, so we're going to wander the grounds." McGonagall tells Snape that walking kids through a dangerous set of fields, forests, and gardens filled with magic monsters and kung-fu trees is a supremely stupid plan, and in no way a real plan, but he tells her she's a hot-head who's always trying to be in charge and she doesn't know his plan and he isn't gonna tell her, so take that! So McGonagall gets Hagrid and, I don't know, the incompetent seer teacher and Dobby to go to Burton-on-Trent to find a Herpetologist to help them figure out how to stop this mean-ass Basilisk because while stupid, it's better than walking the grounds.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">So, now we focus on defeating that Basilisk, right? Nope. We go to Burton-on-Trent with Hagrid and bad seer and Dobby they go on a brewery tour of Bass Brewery and they bitterly complain about the vagaries of alcoholism and tada! they see the Herpetologist, but they get arrested and thrown in brewery jail, but, luckily, there's an Irish man in Brewery jail too. And everyone knows that Irish guys are not to be trusted since they are alcoholics too, but everyone knows that they hate snakes, so Hagrid and bad seer and Dobby escape from jail with Irish guy and they get him to the Chamber of Secrets and he's like "hahahaha! You should never have trusted me. I don't like snakes, but I love beer. And these basilisky people paid me in beer so hahahaaha."</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Meanwhile, McGonagall is freaking out because Snape's leading a bunch of idiotic wizard kids outdoors amongst killer spiders and whomping willows and who knows what else and she's like "Enough!" And she starts to pull out her wand when Dumbledore shows up and he's like "NOPE!" and Expelliarmuses her. And then Dumbledore says to Snape "Great to see you. Let's not talk about me being invincible without my wand." And Snape says back, "Of course. And you're going to be magically cool with my plan I didn't tell anyone about, which resulted in most of the slower kids being picked off by various apex predators, because, guess what! I led us to Hagrid's hut!"</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">And McGonagall's like, "Why didn't you just say that's what you wanted to do? I mean, I would have told you that an entire school couldn't fit in there and I'm not sure that it will keep out a basilisk, but at least it could have been a conversation."</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And Dumbledore's like, "You need to learn you're not always the one with the answer."</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And Snape says to Dumbledore about McGonagall, "I like the cut of her jib."</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And so Dumbledore and Snape lead McGonagall and the thirty kids left to Hagrid's place.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But as they're doing that, the basilisk starts shooting random darts of poison out at them right in front of Hagrid, Bad Seer and Dobby and those damn kids just aren't going to make it. Hell, Basilisk takes out at least ten in ten seconds.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Meanwhile, in the Chamber of Secrets, as Basilisk is shooting poison at those twit wizardlings, we finally lay eyes on duh duh duh Tom Riddle/Voldemort! The villain!</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But, actually, when he's all talking to the Basilisk about killing Hagrid, the Basilisk just bites Riddle's head off. So he's dead. For sure. And we don't know squat about Riddle: who he was, why he put this plan in motion, why he loosed a basilisk.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But, actually, that's not important.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But then Snape's all like, "Fret not colleagues and children! I am mighty!"</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And Snape sets himself on fire and then wingardum leviosa's himself at the Chamber of Secrets so hard that he splits it in half and topples three of the towers, while, of course, he dies a very splattery death that he will not be recovering from because only Albus can do that. Maybe.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And McGonagall's like, "Whoa. That was badass. But couldn't he have just set the whomping willow alight and flung that at it? I mean, noble sacrifice and all, but if we can just launch flaming stuff at folks, that would have been the common sense move."</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But whatever, because the ten kids left and McGonagall and Dumbledore and somehow Hagrid and Dobby and bad seer all make it in to Hagrid's hut, so problem solved.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But, like, actually just because Snape wrecked the castle, that didn't mean that he actually killed the basilisk or the, I dunno, basilisky people with it and they're outside and they're pissed. So Dumbledore's like, "Dude, we got some rusty garden shears. We gotta get ready to fight."</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And Basilisk is a fan of overkill so it got a legitimate medieval battering ram on some sort of rolling frame and he's gonna use it to knock Hagrid's hut right the hell over, and it looks bad. But Dobby decides to sacrifice himself by cutting one of the legs of the battering ram off with the rusty garden shears he was given, which in no way was going to work, but whatever.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But actually, then bad seer snatches him away and kisses Dobby and the basilisk and basilisky people don't kill them, which is supposed to be their basilisky plan, and Dobby and Bad Seer go back in the hut and man everyone is screwed because there's no way out.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So then Dumbledore appears in front of the hut and says "Basilisk, quit being a punk!" Which makes Basilisk mad so Basilisk rushes forward and kills the hell out of Dumbledore, and I mean kill kills him.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But, actually, that was Dumbledore's brother Aberforth who is an inkeeper and looks like him and it's cheap, and I don't think Aberforth had been introduced into the series yet, but hey, it needed to happen. And while all that's going down Hagrid's like, "wait, Aberforth is dying on purpose because he knows there's a way out of this hut. Except he doesn't. At all. Like he legitimately has never been here. Ever. But fine. I have rats and I never figured out how they got in and out. Holy crap. Turns out I have a cellar!"</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And so real Dumbledore and McGonagall and Hagrid and I guess bad seer and Dobby and, it turns out, Cheater-face and Sorta-Daft and Cowardly and two other kids (we'll make one of them Draco who you think is bad, but actually has been working on his self esteem and is pretty cool it turns out) and they get to the back of the cellar and there's no way out but Harry's like "Well, my name's on this so it turns out that even though I'm sorta daft and I don't have training and my parents were nobody who weren't killed by a super-villain wizard, I'm the best boss ass wizard ever so um 'We gone' and he apparates everyone the hell out of there and they all cram into his possessed flying car and off they go to find a new school.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Boom! That's some dope stuff right there!</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">*********************************************************************</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The whole idea of a trilogy, which these new Star Wars movies are supposed to be, is that a common thread runs through and the characters progress in logical, somewhat linear fashion throughout so they can come to a conclusion at the end of the third one. Now everything's all willynilly and they have to cram way too much in the third movie to get it to where the good guys win, because, guess what? The good guys are going to win. That's what it is. But it's not going to be cohesive nor, most likely, very good.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We're not going to get what could or should have been Star Wars' Prisoner of Azkaban or Goblet of Fire or Order of the Phoenix or Half Blood Prince or the Deathly Hallows because Rian Johnson screwed up the series' Chamber of Secrets so badly.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6506578999277013958.post-17523701886009880642017-07-07T13:35:00.000-04:002017-07-07T13:35:51.275-04:00Presidential Prescience<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
My first (unpublished) novel was (in some ways) about a reality TV star president named Donald, married to a former supermodel, who unfortunately happened to preside at the coming of the apocalypse. He filled his cabinet with not-so-qualified folks. <br /><br />I started that novel in 2007 and finished it in 2010.<br /><br />Who knew, right?<br />
<br />
And then in 2012, I figured it was time to get back on my horse and start writing again. And the plot was going to be a billionaire who purposely ran the most confounding, antagonistic campaign ever, and it somehow led to him nearly getting elected. I worked out a treatment and nailed down the plot points and all that I had to do was actually write the damn thing. <br /><br />And then life happened. And, honestly, I made the super mistake of talking about the project, which many writers will tell you dooms it because then you get the satisfaction of the project without, you know, actually having to write it. <br />
<br />
Anyways, it was to be a satire and farce, of sorts, and I did write the prologue that set the motion in action. I wrote this back in 2012. <br /><br />Anyways, here's another who knew:<br /><br />____________________________________________________________<br /><br />"Candidate: Prologue<br /><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
It all began, as happens more often
than not in the world of politics, with a scandal. Of course, as political scandals occur with
such regularity as to be nearly routine, one could be forgiven for being jaded and
rather ho-hum ordinarily. This
particular incident constituted no ordinary scandal though. This was the name changer; such a to-do that
all subsequent scandals would be cast against it, just as, up to then, every
preceding had been labeled and compared to Watergate. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
In
fact, it was a complex of controversies on top of each other and mashed
together in an inextricable national miasma: a debacle, wrapped in a disaster,
inside a catastrophe. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
You
see, it would not be out of the ordinary for a politician to be shot. Someone tries to shoot the Big Guy all the
time. No one's ever tried to shoot a
First Lady though.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
Thus
it was that the world's attention was transfixed when First Lady Annabelle
White survived an assassination attempt, though only in the technical sense of
the word "survived." The .50 caliber bullet, fired from over a
half-mile away, had been blown off target by a fortuitous (?) gust of wind and
so struck her left shoulder instead of her chest, effectively severing her arm
from her torso. A hasty field
cauterization had stanched the torrent but she'd still lost entirely too much
blood and, by the time she'd been rushed to the hospital and they'd frantically
squoze nearly three quarts into her, she was miraculously physically alive and
unmiraculously quite brain dead.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
Of
course, it was quite expected that a Right to Die discussion would erupt in the
media, particularly when the President fired the Head of the Secret Service for
not simply failing to protect his wife, but instead for his agents not abiding
the First Lady's Do Not Resuscitate.
That sparked its own maelstrom of criticism and calls for the
President's removal because it made virtually no sense and so he must have been
incapacitated by grief. That was, until
the FBI finally captured the shooter, a former Marine Corps sniper turned CIA
assassin, who it turned out had been ordered to kill Mrs. White by the
government of the United States. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
At
first, it was thought to be the specific command of the CIA Director, George
Herbert, but upon his arrest, the bureaucrat released an audio recording
revealing the order had come from the embattled Mr. White himself.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
No
sooner had that revelation come to light than the former Secret Service Chief,
in a breathtaking violation of his multitudinous oaths of secrecy and
confidentiality, revealed that the First Lady had been actively maneuvering to
file for divorce.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
Rumors
had long abounded of the President's profligacy, but the thought that a First
Lady would file for divorce still managed to shock. Any President's infidelity had long since
been assumed as de facto and tacitly understood as part and parcel of any
political marriage. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
The,
by then, incarcerated (!) former President refused to explain himself or admit
what he'd done that would have driven a woman who, to that point, had been
viewed as cold and calculating and as politically driven as Lady Macbeth to
nuke the Presidency. Surely whatever it
was had to be beyond the pale, which is an extravagantly distant boundary for
the most powerful man in the world.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
It
took a bit, but the explosive truth was finally discovered when the FBI and
Secret Service jointly, due to fear of a cover-up by either, searched the First
Lady's effects and found her diary. A
shrewd, paranoid woman, she'd written in code but the FBI's computers made
short work of the decryption. The newly
elevated former Vice President, now President Smythe, had insisted on absolute
transparency with the investigation, going so far as to allow embedded
reporters with the investigative teams, so as to prevent even the hint that a
cover-up could exist. However, once the
diary had been decoded, the first official to read the transcript went
wide-eyed and called the acting President.
Within minutes, all reporters were expelled, the diary and all
decryptions were declared "Absolutely Secret" by Executive Privilege
due to National Security concerns, and the documents were moved to the most
secure vault in the world, Fort Knox.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
That
set off a firestorm that saw President Smythe impeached, convicted, and removed
from office for refusing to turn over the documents to Congress. The Speaker of the House, being of the
opposing party, the Republicans, flatly refused to ascend to the Presidency unless
the documents were released <i>before</i> he took the oath of office. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
All
the cabinet members, terrified of what the documents could possibly hold,
resigned en masse so as not to have to authorize their release for the
Executive Branch. In fact, each
Undersecretary also resigned until Bennie Richards, Undersecretary of
Education, mercifully ended that portion of the travesty, assumed the
Presidency, ordered the documents released without reading them, immediately
resigned, and had the Secret Service drop off the shortest tenured President in
American history at the closest bar.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
The
Director of the Bullion Depository duly complied with former President
Richards' order, walked out of the front door of Fort Knox with the documents
in hand, and immediately read the contents to the country (and world) from the
podium that had been set upon the steps for that very purpose.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
And
so it was that the whole world discovered that the First Lady, well aware of
her husband's philandering and concerned about what the old horn-dog might do
if unsupervised during the State Visit of the Russian President and, more
specifically, his statuesque, former swimsuit model of a First Lady, barged
into the Oval Office in the middle of the night when she'd woken and noted his
absence from their bed and, sure enough, caught him in flagrante delicto with
the Russian.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
But
not the female Russian.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
And
that was why, after a series of the most spectacular scandals in the history of
the world since, at least, the Caesars, that included an assassination attempt,
a Right to Live/Die debate, a cover up, the criminal arrest of a sitting
President, another cover up, the empeachment/conviction/removal of a President,
a series of resignations, and the most public revelation of state secrets of
all time, all future political controversies would forever thence be appended
with the suffix <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
-odomy."<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6506578999277013958.post-23017907188462031742017-04-04T14:50:00.000-04:002017-04-25T14:54:36.388-04:00London 2017: Day 3 and Finale<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Day 11, April 2nd</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, 2017-Day 12, April 3rd, 2017</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I toss and turn and wake up feeling like a git for my behavior yesterday. I piddle around on my computer as I wait on Alex and Aurora to get up. It's an extremely lazy morning, as it should be after the big day we'd put in. Once we wander into the kitchen for breakfast, I apologize and they graciously shake it off. <br /><br />I'm leaving in the evening and it's a lovely day out, but we're feeling sluggish, so Alex suggests a movie. We walk along, stopping briefly at a realty shop and peruse the multi-million pound properties. "Oh, I think I'll have this one." "Not me; too small! I need much larger! If it's not 10 million, it's rubbish."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">After the movie, we wander about, basking in the sunshine. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> London in spring is lovely, but I'm of an age that big-city-life, no matter the beauty, simply can't be done. Alex and Aurora are 24 and the world's their oyster. Big-city-life is precisely where they should be. But not for me. Fortunately, I live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. I can be on a sailboat and cavorting about the harbor.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I want to go home. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><br />But that is later and this is now, and now it's time to head back so I can pack and be on my way. They escort me on the bus to the train station and then we say our goodbyes and I'm off to Gatwick. Goodbye, London. Til next time.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Irish customs is as indifferent as before. I stop at the general shop in the airport to pick up another plug adapter because I somehow misplaced the one I got the last time I came through less than two weeks ago. <br /><br />It's been a long day and I feel like hell. I'm of no mood to catch a cab into town and then try to figure out a hotel at 9:45 on Sunday night. I walk over to the airport hotel, happily fork over the way-too-much they want for the room and collapse on the bed to sleep, blessed sleep.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I wake up, get breakfast in the dining room, pack up, and head out. I drop my key-card off at the desk and, on my way out the front door, I pat my pocket to make sure I have my passport. I don't. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I remain calm. It must be in the room. That's why I check my pockets, after all. Things happen.<br /><br />I turn around and grab the key-card I just dropped off at the desk. I head back to the room and search. It's nowhere to be found. I calmly go to the front desk and ask the woman to check to see where the clerk the night before put my passport, because I must have left it at the desk when I was checking in. She looks around and says there is no passport.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Now, I panic. I race back to my room and this time, I toss it, like the FBI does in a movie. There is no passport. It's now two hours until my international flight. I have to get over to the airport.<br /><br />As I walk over, I make sure I have my wallet. It's got my driver's license and my military ID. Surely, I can sweet-talk my way over to the US with those. Still, I'm nervous.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Once in the airport, I head to "Information" and ask the man behind the counter that, if I dropped my passport somehow last night, who would it get turned into. I explain that I had to have had it to get in through customs last night. I think it must have fallen out of my pocket when I bought the adapter. <br /><br />He makes a phone call to security to see if they have it. While we wait, I ask him what I do. He tells me that since I came in last night, a scan of my passport should be on record with the airline so that probably will get me through US customs. Probably. I gulp, nervously.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But, Praise Be! Security did have my passport. I make it on the plane.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And then it's a long flight and then a longer layover in NYC because of storms and by the time I land in Charleston, it's 1am when mom picks me up. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And instead of dropping me off at my boat, she just takes me back to her house, and though it's a guest room, I'm back where I'm supposed to be: home.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mJVNQEHM-Vs/WP-aQF3R5vI/AAAAAAAAF7c/qPxmOCekoWwfIWqnZXtw4pVYvX_VuIy7wCLcB/s1600/20170402_164443.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mJVNQEHM-Vs/WP-aQF3R5vI/AAAAAAAAF7c/qPxmOCekoWwfIWqnZXtw4pVYvX_VuIy7wCLcB/s320/20170402_164443.jpg" width="180" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Irish folks drink and drive?!?</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6506578999277013958.post-85244238282215908162017-04-03T17:46:00.000-04:002017-04-05T09:05:22.224-04:00London 2017; Day 2<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Day 10, April 1<sup>st</sup>, 2017<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We have a lazy morning and an English breakfast
and though we have no plan other than a comedy show tonight, we head out just
after noon, but not before cracking a beer.
We walk along the Thames and spring’s in the air and it’s warm and
lovely.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We spot a pub and Aurora needs to use the loo, so
we head towards it. There’s a very drunk
forty-something-year-old woman sitting outside at a table with three guys and
she asks me if I’m Crocodile Dundee, because, though I ditched the poncho, I’m
wearing the Australian model cowboy hat.
We briefly chat and I perform a bit, but I also don’t want to get roped
into it with people who are hammered drunk by 1pm, so we make our excuses and
head inside. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I get us a round and Alex and I are chatting when
the woman (we’ll call her Kelly) comes in and asks to sit with us and then she’s
telling me how I’m fascinating and I’m like, all right, here we go. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And though we slept, I’m still just sorta worn out
tired from the trip and we did it up the night before and I go to push again
and it’s improv with folks who have no idea again, but something goes wrong, as
it sometimes does, and I’m not hitting the notes right, and I’m being a bit of
an ass. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The key to improv is the very basic, but crucial,
dictum “yes, and…” whereby you go positive.
But tired and drinking, from time to time I’ll get on a bad angle and
then I’m negative and crap on people’s good time because the meta of being a
bummer is amusing to me in that condition and whelp that’s where we are. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So Kelly is very drunk and hadn’t been to bed
last night. She and her friends just kept it going. She’s not getting that I’m being straight-faced
ridiculous and I’m saying things like “Well, you know you shouldn’t feel bad
about staying out drinking because, at the end of all this, we’re all going to
be dead and nothing means anything. Babies die of cancer. Jerks make billions
of dollars. Nothing’s fair.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">She pauses and says, “Are you single?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">To which I say, “Of course. Always. People are
awful.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Kelly wanders off to use the Loo and Aurora says, “I
think she likes you. She asked if you were single.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And round about the time Kelly returns from the
loo, her mates come in and here we go. They sit down and join us and they’re a
rough bunch, but pretty darn friendly.
And one of them, a forty-something Jamaican DJ, takes a shine to me and
he and I banter and I ask him if he’s as good a DJ as Paris Hilton and he
pauses and sizes me up and laughs and laughs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And then I see if I can bum him out and go back to
the negative well and finally Alex has to say, “Yeah. Ha. That’s getting a bit
old.” Which, if you know how polite the British are, means I am being a
shit because he had to say it. I try to curb my behavior, but
fail. Mea culpa.</span><br />
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<!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And they buy us a round and they tell Aurora and
Alex that they’re a good-looking couple and the DJ says, “You know how I can
tell you’re rich? It’s the teeth.” His teeth
are jacked up; as are Kelly’s; as are the two other drunk guys. My teeth are middle-class messed up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Somehow the drunk folk ask about guns, but I
explain that guns are tools and it’s really the willpower is what matters. I
shake the empty pint glass in my hand and say, “My go-to is the Old
Crack-and-Stab!” as I pretend to break the glass and stab the DJ with it and he
howls with laughter. “The Old Crack-and-Stab! Hahahaha!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">They want to do more beer, but I have no interest
in letting strangers hijack our day and I can already tell I’m being too much,
so I apologize and tell them we have to meet people and off we go. Kelly is
heartbroken.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We walk along and have to go by Parliament and Big
Ben, where there was recently a terrorist stabbing, and there’s a huge crowd out
in front of the McDonalds. There are lots of tourists, but then also immigrants, and I see many women in hijabs. I don’t
like crowds at all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We walk on past the crowded areas and find another
pub. We get a pint and have a seat and then I turn into the bummer guy, but not
because I’m trying to ruin Alex and Aurora’s day, but because I’m tired and in
a way and we had enough beer to put me in a mental rut and I’m really
displeased with my behavior. It’s sunny in London! And I’m being a bummer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We leave and find their friends at an outdoor
market and there’s more drinks and I’m pushing again and being way too much.
This time I’m trying to pretend I’m a Kiwi. Then it’s more drinks as we head to
the comedy club and then it’s more drinks and we kinda, sorta, forgot to eat
lunch or supper and I’m being, in a word, obnoxious. I even tell a few folks my
goal is to be obnoxious up to the point of being punched. Because that’s a
great way to behave with folks. “It’s meta!” I slur.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The comedians are funny, but my hat gets me called
out by the MC and then I make a particularly loud groan at a joke and get
called out again and not great. Not great.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And then we head to another place, but, by this
point, my go-to move has kicked in and I’m just exhausted and I’m falling
asleep any time we sit for longer than a few moments. This time, it is not
sleep, blessed sleep. It’s “Wake up. We’re
leaving.” And we get back to their place and I pour into the bed and I am not real proud of myself; I can tell you that. It's April Fools' Day. I'm the April Fool.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6506578999277013958.post-78254899677529418142017-04-03T16:53:00.001-04:002017-04-04T09:01:33.025-04:00London 2017; Day 1<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Day 9; March 31<sup>st</sup>, 2017<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I finally just get pissed off because the horrid
harpies talked for so long and then after they finally went to sleep, one of
them turns into a chainsaw. At 1am, I
pack up my things, hike it over to the parking garage, and proceed to crunch
the back bumper into a concrete support that I didn’t see because I’m tired and
the $!#%ing back window is the size of a postage stamp. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The drive is loooooonnnnngggg and I’m so tired
that I have to pull over several times to sleep for thirty minutes a pop, just
to make sure I don’t drift off the road.
I get back to Faro and I’m wondering what scratching the bumper’s gonna
cause, but they just say “you paid for the coverage; you’re fine.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I try to sleep in the plane to London, and do a
bit, but it’s really hot on the plane for some reason. I am sound asleep when we make the hardest
landing I’ve ever been on and I wake up thinking the chair is going to break
and that my spine has just compressed three inches. I figure out a bus to get into the city to a
metro hub that will then get me to Victoria Station where I’m meeting my friend,
Aurora.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">*****************************************************</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I started this trip by going the wedding of
friends of mine I made through playing trivia. I met Aurora at trivia as
well. She was an 18yo College of
Charleston freshman and she was a waitress at O’Malley’s and she was nice and
super friendly and we made friends with her.
She went off for semester abroad in England her sophomore year and I
kept in touch (I having lived in England as a child and then in Germany whilst
in the Army and enjoying living vicariously through other people doing the
same). There, she met Alex, a
horrifically good-looking, tall, athletic, smart, nice student at the
University of Nottingham. Aurora also
being horrifically good-looking, tall, smart, and nice; they started dating.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When she came back to the states, she joined the
trivia team from time to time instead of slinging beer at us and when Alex came
to visit, he joined in too. They are
easy to get along with and they travel a bunch.
Keeping tabs on their adventures, be they sailing the Greek islands in
the Aegean or backpacking around Southeast Asia, has been fun (and frustrating,
because I want to be doing that). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">They’re engaged to be wed later this year and if
it’s a hop, skip, and a jump, I figured I’d visit them in their stomping
grounds. Also, Alex is very successful
and comes from a good family, so he and Aurora live in a flat next to a castle,
looking out over the Thames in Chelsea. That's not a bad way to visit London. He won’t say it, but I’m not altogether sure Alex won’t be the Prime
Minister or Emperor or something by the time he’s 30.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<o:p><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> ***************************************************</span></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Completely whupped, I find her and, yup, that’s
Aurora. As always, she’s smiling and in
a good mood and we take a bus to their flat and she apologizes and makes me
promise not to judge them for living in a really nice place. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“You can try hard and succeed; you can try hard
and fail; you can be lazy and fail; you can be lazy and succeed. If something good happens to you; you don’t
need to apologize for it. Embrace it and
enjoy it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Aurora’s no slouch in the success department
herself, mind you. She graduated with a
degree in marketing from CoC and she’s starting a prestigious internship at a
well-known international firm. Maybe she’ll be the Empress and Alex can be her
Prime Minister.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We get to the flat and, yup, it’s very nice. I
have a chance to shower, which I need because I look like
half-a-can-of-wet-ass, or maybe a whole can, and I slug a coffee and then we’re
off out the door to go out and have a damn Friday night.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’m exhausted and I am loaded up on caffeine and I
know I have to keep up with 24yos. So I
push. When I push, it’s like making
myself perform. I decide I’m going to be
a super-American braggart. Sure, it’s
annoying, but if it works, it’s something to talk about or react against, for
good or ill. Long form improv with an unknowing audience. So I wear my poncho and we get beers and we’re
headed to an underground arcade, of sorts, that has a mini-golf course and bars
in it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We meet up with Alex’s little brother, Guy, who’s
also horrifically good-looking, tall, athletic, smart, and nice. I, of course, tell them I’m the best and
there’s never been another better and they really should all just go ahead and
give up before we even start. And then we play and Guy wins because that’s what
I get for running my mouth like an ass.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And then we head to a block nearby that is all
Indian restaurants. They have different
fronts, but they share a kitchen, so it doesn’t matter, really, which one we
get in, but Alex knows which one’s the one we want to sit in and in we go.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And, yeah, Indian food in London is amazing and
Alex and Aurora say they’re impressed because they thought I’d have fallen on
my face by now. I’d warned them that my go-to exhausted move when I’m drinking
is to quietly go to sleep sitting somewhere in public, but somehow I stay
up. Then it’s back to their house and we
put on The Big Lebowski on the tv and crack open the bottle of Irish whiskey I
brought them and we do some pretty serious damage to it and Aurora and Guy fall
asleep on the couch and, fine, he beat me at putt-putt, but I’m better at
drinking! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I don’t know that I want to be better at drinking than a college
senior, but here we are.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6506578999277013958.post-11595983998647949792017-04-03T16:00:00.001-04:002017-04-03T16:03:56.267-04:00Portugal 2017; Day 4<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Day 8; March 30<sup>th</sup>, 2017<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I do the morning walk and David the tour guide’s
English isn’t as good as Nuno’s but he takes us through the old part of the
city and points out the best place to get the city’s dish, franceshino, which
apparently is a croque-monsieur on steroids with about a billionty extra
calories due to layers of sausage and a fried egg.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">After the tour I have a little time to look around
but then I’m off meeting up for the Port wine tour. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The odd thing about Port wine is that it is produced in a valley over a hundred miles away, and then it is stored in cellars in the city across the river from Porto, Gaia, but it got called Port because that’s where the customs house was when it got shipped out around the world and everyone saw the customs stamp of Porto and here we are.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We do seven tastings and the weather goes
from sunny and 70 degrees to 55 and pouring rain as it finishes.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But I’m in Gaia and it’s raining and I don’t have
an umbrella and I'm wearing shorts and boat shoes and I’m pumped because this is going to suck and I head out into
the downpour and get thoroughly soaked and walk the three miles across the
bridge and up the hill to the hostel and I shiver and I slosh and slide in my
shoes and it’s great.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My flight is at 10am tomorrow and I have to drive
300 miles down the country, so my plan is to go to bed around 8pm and wake up
at 2am to make the drive. I get in bed,
but then the downside of hostel staying happens and the horrid, inconsiderate
harpies in the room with me decide that the room is where they want to cackle
and converse and I toss and turn and finally start loudly coughing and grunting
to get the point across and they finally get quiet around 11pm. I get very
little sleep, blessed sleep.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6506578999277013958.post-88146244360281470982017-03-31T10:46:00.001-04:002017-04-01T04:23:24.501-04:00Portugal 2017; Day 3<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Day 7, March 29<sup>th</sup>, 2017<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I get the car and head north. I would be so, so, so screwed trying to get
out of Lisbon if I didn’t have the built-in GPS in the car. How did people attempt
this before GPS? The Portuguese are like
the French in that the signs are put in the perfect places if you already know
how to get where you’re going.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The landscape becomes hillier along the drive and
finally, they get proper trees, instead of the scrub brush looking sad little
things pretending to be trees. I think these proper ones are cork trees.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Getting into Porto is Chaos, but I get parked and
to the hostel, right in the downtown area.
I have time to sign up for a walking tour, dinner at the hostel, and a
port tour tomorrow and then I’m off for the walking tour. The guide, Nuno, is gregarious and he takes
us through the various sites of the more modern part of the city (the morning
tour does the medieval part, the afternoon does the 19<sup>th</sup> century
forward). He explains how Portugal has
had legal abortion for 80 years (ever since their dictatorship took over) and
gay marriage since 2001 and decriminalization of drugs for twenty years or some
such.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’ve not mentioned it so far, but I’ve been
hassled about “smoke? Marijuana? Cocaine?” throughout being here. Nuno says that those people are selling fake
crap, and then offhandedly mentions that the park we’re in, The Plaza of
Virtue, is where people get the real stuff. Ha.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Then he finishes the tour by showing us a statue
of Henry the Navigator and revealing that history books don’t tell the full
truth, but that Henry was openly homosexual.
Then the tour is over and Nuno insists on a hug. Real progressive place they
got here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I wander a bit, but I saw a doner kebap shop on
the main square, and even though I’m doing the hostel dinner at 9pm, I say hell
with it and get a doner and a beer and enjoy sunset. I had a doner kebap stand around the corner
of my flat in Germany (Doner by Klaus!). Life has its moments.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Then it’s back to the hostel and they have draft
beer in the lobby and I have some pints and chat with folks and then the dinner
happens and there are more pints and a group is going out on a pub crawl, but I
have no interest in feeling like hell tomorrow when I know I have a lot of
walking, so I wander back to my bunk and sleep, blessed sleep.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6506578999277013958.post-58287247935925120302017-03-29T03:42:00.002-04:002017-03-29T03:43:24.021-04:00Portugal 2017; Day 2<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Day 6, March 28<sup>th</sup>, 2017<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I got up and I got after it. My plan was to
attempt to get to eight or nine different sites that require twelve miles of
hiking to get to in the shortest route.
There’s not a lot to say other than that I ended up walking maybe half
of that and taking buses, subway and a taxi to get to seven of them. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It was a big day, to the point that when I
got back to the hostel at 6:30pm, I cracked open a few beers and spent time
contemplating my throbbing feet and wondering if they hurt because of the leg
injury from a couple years ago, the weight I’ve carried the past couple years
after the injury, or that I’m just getting old and the miles are piling
up. I suspect all three.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">No fado for me. I crawled into my bunk relatively
early and sleep, blessed sleep</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6506578999277013958.post-54766764081202596282017-03-28T04:34:00.000-04:002017-04-03T17:46:28.978-04:00Portugal 2017; Day 1<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Day 5 of trip: March 27<sup>th</sup>, 2017<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ireland was literally cool. I land in Faro, in the south of Portugal, and
it is warm. Not as warm as Charleston, but nice. I pick up the cherry red hatchback from the
car rental place and I’m off. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is country 34. This is the largest of the western countries
that I’ve not been to (other than Scandinavia).
I became sorta fascinated with Portugal years ago. Even started reading their epic poem <i>Os Lusiadas</i>, about De Gama’s voyage to
India. I’d heard that Portuguese has a
verb tense that doesn’t exist in English (the future subjunctive, whereby you
say what you will do if something happens, but it might not).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But that was all back before I got on the ground
and into a car and got right into the middle of it. I know some Spanish,
Italian, French and German. I have a
damn degree in Latin. I have no idea what’s going on with Portuguese. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Portuguese is what happens when Spanish and
Gibberish have a baby with down syndrome and then that down syndrome baby has a
stroke. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My little rental car is a Renault, which I figured
would be crap, but it’s surprisingly peppy and it’s got all the amenities save
for leather seats. I Bluetooth music
from my phone as I barrel along the A2 highway.
Driving in Portugal is easy; even if I don’t know what the words are.
Street signs are the same all over Europe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And then I get to Lisbon and Oh. My. Sweet.
Jesus. There’s construction everywhere
and the roads are one way and the ones that aren’t don’t necessarily have hard
and fast lanes and pedestrians do whatever they want and streets change names
every few feet and everything curves and it’s all on hills and I have no idea
where I’m going and Oh. My. Sweet. Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxi05rSzbOHhVh8roFwomWCOy9RLAc72pPkI_Hl9S6RojLd9uED_7Y0O_MOEiesDlfXWQmQVJN6TGakmM9JVg' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;"> (Yes, I'm filming and driving; I waited until it wasn't bad to even try)</span></span></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I finally pull over and wander around with my
phone out, hoping to find some fool’s open wi-fi. I have a 15 year old Lonely Planet Guidebook
that has a couple of useless maps of Lisbon in it. I’m trying to find the main
thoroughfare, the Avenida de Liberdade and I have no idea where I am. I can’t get the wifi to work. I get back in the car, trusting that I’ll somehow
get a vibe and miraculously find my way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But before I trust my instinct, I hit the nav
button on the car. I didn’t pay for GPS
when they offered it to me, so I figure it won’t work, but I’ve learned my
lesson after tahat Carrick on Shannon screw-up.
Low and behold, they tried to sell me a GPS when the car had nav built
in. Boom! I enter the address I’m trying
to get to and I’m there in under five minutes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I was looking for a hostel from an old guidebook,
so when I saw a different hostel in the same area and the guy working the
counter told me the price, I said, “Sold!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I could stay at a hotel; I’ve got the money for it
(sorta; I have much less after my Irish mistake). But I didn’t come to Lisbon
to see the four walls of a hotel room. I plan on being out and about for 12 to
14 hours each day. It’s getting late by the time I get all my stuff put up and
then out I go.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I talked to an Australian girl and an English girl
in the hostel kitchen and they said that a place called The Pink Road is where
the night life is supposedly. I’ve seen
my fair share of night life at this point, but I don’t feel like staying in the
hostel. I want to explore. I plug Rua
Rosa into my phone and off I go.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Lisbon is enchanting. The sidewalks are mosaic
tile. The street lights bounce a warm
glow off of the stone buildings. The
streets are wonderful as a pedestrian, though, having driven, I’m wary of some
silly tourist running me over.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I say it’s enchanting, and it is, but I also am
wary about these tight, windy corridors. I feel like here, I might fall in love
or get mugged and stabbed and left in some corner somewhere. It’s hard to tell which feeling is stronger.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I find The Pink Road and it’s a tiny walking
street they literally painted pink. It’s got a strip club and an assortment of
bars. I go into one called Espumantaria
and order some sort of wine/liquor drink that’s their specialty.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iceaTiFzd0Q/WNofDs8zjEI/AAAAAAAAFd8/doAQTG3y5OQam2ZdQCB_c4eCvm9PEW2FACLcB/s1600/20170327_160807.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iceaTiFzd0Q/WNofDs8zjEI/AAAAAAAAFd8/doAQTG3y5OQam2ZdQCB_c4eCvm9PEW2FACLcB/s320/20170327_160807.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PM2W7MQNCWQ/WNofDzqNY0I/AAAAAAAAFeA/uvNMCn8Z9Uwvraq4OqUIsmIk_G1TdmZrwCLcB/s1600/20170327_161247.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PM2W7MQNCWQ/WNofDzqNY0I/AAAAAAAAFeA/uvNMCn8Z9Uwvraq4OqUIsmIk_G1TdmZrwCLcB/s320/20170327_161247.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ueFnMoRfSSY/WNofEIPTChI/AAAAAAAAFeE/YJzQ1Tf84yAfuRImdKOYmkkf1vKIfV7fACLcB/s1600/20170327_161305.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ueFnMoRfSSY/WNofEIPTChI/AAAAAAAAFeE/YJzQ1Tf84yAfuRImdKOYmkkf1vKIfV7fACLcB/s320/20170327_161305.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<o:p><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<o:p><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My friend Jason shoots me a message about a hidden
gem of a Fado music place that I absolutely must go to. I ditch the Pink Road to find it. After a mile’s winding walk through the
narrow corridors of the old city, I find it and discover it’s closed until Thursday. Alas.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-p8I65Hbh-Ns/WNofNu53a0I/AAAAAAAAFeI/5FwNjMNqOJIUK_VgQutuN85dnjs1XcyZQCEw/s1600/20170327_165957.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-p8I65Hbh-Ns/WNofNu53a0I/AAAAAAAAFeI/5FwNjMNqOJIUK_VgQutuN85dnjs1XcyZQCEw/s320/20170327_165957.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">However, along the walk back, I hear Fado playing
in another restaurant. If I want to
enter, I have to spend 15 euro. Fine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Fado music is fantastic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxwOpkEpsLBKJ3emgDw7FouxiSGxufd345ot9doJ08udHP-hWPfABO8ED6C4u1yIGuXCsndmlps4Kz4ioMh0g' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I could get rowdy, but I have a full day of hiking
and sightseeing tomorrow, so I get back to the hostel and crawl into my bunk
and sleep, blessed sleep.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6506578999277013958.post-34444883099632787212017-03-27T04:40:00.006-04:002017-03-27T04:59:38.853-04:00Ireland 2017; Day 4<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Day 4, March 26<sup>th</sup>, 2017<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I wake up, pained and angry, to the smell of
sausages cooking. I glance at my phone to get the time. Why the hell is she
cooking breakfast an hour early? I try to go back to sleep, but somewhere in
the lizard part of my brain, the only one that is working at all (the higher
functions being ruined from alcohol and getting to bed at 4:45am), reminds me
we went through European Daylight Savings time last night so I’m actually late
for breakfast. I cuss for the full amount of time it gets me to get up and get
dressed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I try to put a good face on things down at
breakfast, but it’s clear to Margaret, as well as the other guests, that I’m in
a bad way. They quickly depart the dining room.
I eat, angry, and mostly skip the coffee in hopes that I can perhaps go
back to sleep for a couple hours before I must check out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But there’s too much to do. I clean up the catastrophe of a room and pack
up. I get in touch with my friends, who
had said they were heading to Galway today in their rental car and they’d be
glad to give me a ride.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Unions can go to hell. I’m a Southerner, so that position is no
great surprise. I doubly hate unions
whilst traveling. Years ago, the damn
Italian museum workers struck while I was there. I didn’t go to Italy for the gelato, dammit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Two days ago, the damn Irish bus union
struck. My entire plan of not driving
and figuring out movement was based on having access to all public
transportation. Still, if Rob and
Kristina can get me to Galway, I can get myself to Shannon. I had already looked to get an idea and even
if I had to uber/rideshare the entire way from Westport, it would be 128 Euro. That’s far worse than the 27 euro the buses
cost, but so be it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I arrive at their B&B and they are in a worse
way. Not that they drank more nor went
to bed later. They’re reasonable people who don’t have experience with that
level of next-morning misery. I
basically know the moment I lay eyes on them that they aren’t going
anywhere. I start looking up train
information.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sure enough, they can’t go to Galway in their
condition. I unceremoniously leave them and start walking for the train
station. There’s no train direct from
Westport to Shannon. When I plugged it
in the Irish Rail website, I go from Westport to Dublin to Carrick on Shannon.
So, to go two hours south, I have to head three hours east and then three hours
southwest. The train alone to Dublin is
43 Euro. Fine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I try to nap in the station. I finally get on board at 1pm. This entire journey is supposed to take until
9pm. This is going to be a long,
unpleasant day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’d been told 100 school children were going to be
in cars D and E, so I go to A. I avoid
the 100 school children but get the 30 month old boy in a porkpie hat whose
parents allow him to scream and run up and down the aisle for several hours. Had I any ability whatsoever, I may have
committed infanticide.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At Dublin, I have to take the local tram to
another train station to get to Carrick on Shannon. I am irked that the Irish can’t just get on
board with one damn name for things.
Everything’s labeled in English and Gaelga (Irish Gaelic). I type in Shannon on the Irish Rail website
and Carrick on Shannon comes up. Why can’t they just stick with the obvious
one? No one flies into Carrick on Shannon airport. It’s Shannon. Sheesh.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have a couple hour wait at the other station so,
after I buy a 37 euro ticket to CoS, I go in the station pub and browse the
internet and drink a couple of beers. I
have about an hour to go when I have a horrible realization.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I look up Carrick on Shannon, just to be
sure. In my beleaguered state, I
accepted that it was the same thing as Shannon. Nope. Completely different part
of the country. The rail doesn’t go
direct to Shannon, so the website filled in the closest thing to what I was
searching for. I’m now on the other side
of the country from where I need to be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’d love to tell you I got mad or upset. I’ve been
doing this a long time though, so being stupid isn’t a novel experience. I resign myself and engage the new plan. I go to refund the train ticket (we’ll see if
they approve my request) and hop on the airport “express” (which stopped every
forty feet in Dublin). When I arrive, I
head to Budget Car Rental. I pay for the extra insurance and then I’m hungover,
exhausted, and driving a wrong-sided car in the dying light of day in damnable
Ireland.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The buses from Westport to Shannon were 27 euro. Taking an uber, which would have been
ridiculous, would have been 128 euro The trains, tram, airport shuttle, car
rental (with a 90 euro refundable fuel reserve fee), and then fuel top-off is about 250 euro. You have to pay for real experiences.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Having destroyed any semblance of a budget, when I
arrive at 10:30pm, I say hell with it and pay 85 euro to stay at the hotel
across from the airport. I don’t have an adapter and all my electronics
die right before I go to sleep, blessed sleep.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6506578999277013958.post-36421865222725399522017-03-26T05:38:00.002-04:002017-03-26T05:39:28.631-04:00Ireland 2017; Day 3<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Day 3; March 25<sup>th</sup>, 2017<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’m writing this from the future. In this future,
it’s after the wedding and I’m going to die. This isn’t a hangover. It’s a
trauma. It’s a medical concern. A catastrophe, really. I feel all the miles of my veins and arteries
and capillaries. This is how I end; I know it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But Day 3 was lovely. Probably too much so.
Definitely too much so. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We were taken to the venue, a hotel
overlooking the inlet and it was spectacular. </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Xs6Na965poo/WNeLaEjUzUI/AAAAAAAAFUo/cVgFNG-ZRpY6X4DyXR8F0oldFXIQO_D6QCLcB/s1600/20170325_094224.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Xs6Na965poo/WNeLaEjUzUI/AAAAAAAAFUo/cVgFNG-ZRpY6X4DyXR8F0oldFXIQO_D6QCLcB/s320/20170325_094224.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TcS3PFvg2ps/WNeLaGLuJwI/AAAAAAAAFUs/wn7J4N8zjaEPKwgPqfBWmoBXqGP5Xr8eACLcB/s1600/20170325_094226.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TcS3PFvg2ps/WNeLaGLuJwI/AAAAAAAAFUs/wn7J4N8zjaEPKwgPqfBWmoBXqGP5Xr8eACLcB/s320/20170325_094226.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MXFptIbcOeE/WNeLfXM8TZI/AAAAAAAAFUw/Jo8iYHQaTPcIA5NXNQ6HU3tDev8qE_eQgCLcB/s1600/20170325_120628.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MXFptIbcOeE/WNeLfXM8TZI/AAAAAAAAFUw/Jo8iYHQaTPcIA5NXNQ6HU3tDev8qE_eQgCLcB/s320/20170325_120628.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And then there was Rob and Breege’s
wedding, and it was as it should be.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-U_jfnKe6-XE/WNeLqKLMbhI/AAAAAAAAFU0/308tecpEQnwitncBouLxNhXUlzLOoLITgCLcB/s1600/20170325_102616.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-U_jfnKe6-XE/WNeLqKLMbhI/AAAAAAAAFU0/308tecpEQnwitncBouLxNhXUlzLOoLITgCLcB/s320/20170325_102616.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I’ve been to dozens of weddings at this
point and I remain impressed. There are literally millions of them a year, if
not hundreds of millions of them, and they’re still miracles.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My parents had each been married twice by my age. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The longest I’ve dated a girl has been two months.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Seven billion people. How on earth do you find the
one you’re going to get along with and want to marry? It’s a miracle, I tell
you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nZXRH7CmgGE/WNeL4Jhb_pI/AAAAAAAAFU4/1vTUcG_iGq0KvtKRvzaawxbO-mSkBJcLgCLcB/s1600/20170325_141414.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nZXRH7CmgGE/WNeL4Jhb_pI/AAAAAAAAFU4/1vTUcG_iGq0KvtKRvzaawxbO-mSkBJcLgCLcB/s320/20170325_141414.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The speeches were lovely and heartfelt and not
overdone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And then there was food.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And then there was dancing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Obviously, by fact I’m going to die while typing
this, there was drinking.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We were not shuttled home until past four in the
morning. I can’t do this anymore, I told myself. It will kill me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I was right.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When we left, the father of the bride was still on
the dance floor, crushing it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And daylight savings time, Ireland version, hit
us, so I get/got to lose an hour sleep and that’s not helping my dying either.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That was a perfect Irish wedding. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">May I never see another. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">May I live to see another.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Sj6dShhGCnA/WNeMBL2e6VI/AAAAAAAAFU8/Vh4NABmTr38nsItVrMuIFtISAnFtynHDACLcB/s1600/20170325_184635.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Sj6dShhGCnA/WNeMBL2e6VI/AAAAAAAAFU8/Vh4NABmTr38nsItVrMuIFtISAnFtynHDACLcB/s320/20170325_184635.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6506578999277013958.post-43599320856798017272017-03-25T04:39:00.000-04:002017-03-25T04:40:33.166-04:00Ireland 2017; Day 2<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Day 2, March 24<sup>th</sup>, 2017:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Margaret, the B&B wife, is preparing
breakfast. I come down to the dining
room from my bedroom and she asks me if I want a traditional Irish breakfast. I’m
tempted to tell her it’s too early to drink whiskey, but instead I say, “Sure.
What’s Irish breakfast?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Out comes ham, sausages, fried cherry tomatoes,
and an egg on top of a potato waffle. Hmm. Okay. Also, I have wheatabix for the
first time in thirty years. So that’s something. Then we chat as I drink coffee and she gets around
to asking me about Trump.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Then we get talking about refugees and whatnot and
whothehellknows and howdidIgetropedintotalkingaboutthis? It’s chilly but sunny and she tells me that
there’s a nice greenway walk that will take me down to the harbor. Perfect, I say. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My friends are getting into town roundabout three
and the greenway is a short walk so I take my time being lazy in the morning.
Then I head to the greenway. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is fully
paved the entire way, though, yes, there’s plenty of green all around and the 2<sup>nd</sup>
half of the mile and a half walk is next to meadows and reeks of sheep and cow
poop, which, unexpectedly, is perfect. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At a little playground built along the path, a
mother is feeding her toddler and I am unaware until that exact moment that an
Irish child, with that sing-songy little lilt, saying “banana” is somehow the
cutest thing that’s ever been said out loud.
But I look a vagabond so I say nothing and smile to myself and keep on
my way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’m deposited at the harbor and I understand now
when Margaret finds my question earlier, about the port being open still, as
strange. The tide is so low that I’d be
concerned with running a skiff through there.
But it’s very scenic, the water with hills and an honest-to-goodness
mountain around it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I find a beer garden
next to the water, and though it’s 53
degrees, in the sun it’s warm, so I order a beer or two and drink in the
sunshine and life is not so bad sometimes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It’s time to get back into town finally, so I take
a different route back and discover that every other building in the area is a
B&B. Westport has about 5000 people.
If the tourists stop coming, this place will implode. The buildings that aren’t
B&Bs are mostly bars. The very few
places that aren’t B&Bs or bars are weird hybrid shops, like the taxi and
mortuary service shop and the grocer and ironmonger. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I look into the supermarché and their cheese
area is called “cheesemonger.” I believe there have been points in my life when
I could be described as one of those.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have a light lunch and meet up with my friends
back on the greenway, because they were told that’s a nice thing to do. So I
repeat my day. Down the greenway, sheep-poop in the air, beer in the sun, past
all the B&Bs and bars and taxi/mortuary and grocery ironmonger and then it’s
dinner time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And we go to an Indian restaurant inside a
desanctified former church and the waitress is insane and sassy, so I match her
and she’s perplexed and my friends are shaking their heads.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Waitress: For here or takeaway?<br />
Friend: Here.<br />
Waitress (smiling): You want a table, you gotta pay for it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Me (smiling): I have a knife.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Waitress: In that case, no charge. Follow me,
please.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Friends: Um.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And then we’re to meet other friends so we head to
Matt Molloy’s again because, apparently, I’m in some sort of cycle where I do what
I’ve done again and we wait to meet up and the other friends say they have to
eat so they say they’re going to find food but will be back and we wait for
them and drink beer and recite poems at each other and locals ask to take
pictures wearing my poncho and hat and buy me a beer because I’m such a great
guy for letting them take photos with my poncho and hat and then our friends
who were supposed to meet up have been waiting at a different bar to get food
for over two hours and I’m tired and I don’t feel like being out all night if
we’re going to be at a 12 hour wedding celebration the next day so I wander
back to the B&B and sleep, blessed
sleep.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6506578999277013958.post-19783684892352337632017-03-24T08:09:00.002-04:002017-03-24T08:20:09.492-04:00Ireland 2017; Day 1ish<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Day 1(ish) March 22nd/23rd, 2017:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Do you know what’s awesome about international
travel at age 37?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Nothing. It’s expensive and uncomfortable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I got flagged for an explosives search at the
Charleston airport on my way out. The
bag I’m taking is one I got in Afghanistan.
I’ve flown with it with no problem before, but I can’t say for certain
there isn’t explosives residue on it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I should mention here at the start, that I purposely look like a vagabond. Beat-to-hell boat shoes, cargo pants, a Peruvian
poncho, and an Australian-model cowboy hat.
I also haven’t touched up the facial hair in a week.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Of course I got flagged for an explosives
check. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">No, officer. I don’t have anything sharp or
weapon-like in the bag (as I do the mental check to make sure that I didn’t
leave a pair of scissors in my dop-kit). I have a compass in there. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Turns out the machine didn’t like my lonely planet
guidebook. Officer says it shows up as excessive “organic material” in the
machine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And I’m off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What is there to say about a flight from
Charleston, SC to New York? Nothing. It’s
uncomfortable. I told you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’m 6’2”(ish; probably shrinking after a lifetime
of mashing on knee cartilage). I got put
in a window seat. I’m squished.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I get to JFK and discover that the gate I exited
is the gate I’ll enter in 7 hours. I lug
my stuff over to a charging station they have set up that includes free iPads
to use. Then I discover that I can have
food and beer delivered to me at the charging station. I get a beer and a burger and with the
delivery fee and tip, it costs $34. For
NYC, I consider that a steal. Plus, I didn’t have to move. Once that’s done with, I have four hours to
go.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Eventually, I realize the concession stand next to
me isn’t just slinging soft-drinks. Up
starts the tab and by the time I’m fairly well toasted, they’re seating for my
flight to Ireland and I’ve just bought 4 large beers for $60 (and then a tip on top
of that). I pour myself into the plane
and my window seat. There’s a lovely Irish housewife seated next to me (by which
I mean she’s a nice person, not sexy one).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The back-of-the-seat entertainment panel has
movies. I turn on Fight Club, wondering how they’ll edit it since movies that
have plane crashes in them get replacement scenes shot so that airlines will
buy them. Not Fight Club. I watch Edward
Norton fantasize about being ripped from his seat and flung out into the great
beyond.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What is there to say about a flight from New York to
Shannon, Ireland? Nothing. I’m uncomfortable. I sleep maybe an hour, but I’m
awake to watch a deep orange sunrise just before we land. It’s three in the morning US time and it’s 4
hours ahead in Ireland.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Customs is a joke. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Me (worried): “They didn’t give me a landing card.”
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Customs lady: “No worries. We Irish are the modern-day masters of white
terrorism. We’d smell you a mile away.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Okay, she didn’t say that. She just smiles at me,
glances at my passport, asks how long I’m here for, and then says “have fun.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’m here for friends’ wedding in Mulranney, just
outside of Westport. To get to Westport, I <i>could</i>
drive, but hell no. When I came to
Ireland in ’03, driving was so terrifying I said I’d never do it again. It’s not the wrong side of the road thing; it’s
the small back roads that were barely big enough for two cars to pass by each
other, let alone the massive tour buses that came roaring along. And many of those back roads are effectively
in ditches, so when you try to get as far over as you can, your side mirror
scrapes grass on the slope of the ditch.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So my plan is buses or trains. I say “plan”,
but there is no plan. I haven’t researched squat. I don’t believe in it. The stress of planning
is more than the stress of trusting that I’ll figure things out. I used to
plan. Now I don’t. My method is only effective because I’m traveling solo and
can handle if things don’t go well. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But everything goes well, other than the fact that
I’ve been awake twenty hours and sobered back up and I’m exhausted. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What is there to say about a bus ride from Shannon Airport to Galway? Quite a
bit, actually.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A bus that will take me to Galway comes very
quickly. I’m quite pleased with my
figuring things out. The bus has power
for charging computers and phones and free wifi. I’m pleased as punch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Then we head off. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is when I realize I have made a crucial
error.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It was scary when I drove in Ireland 14 years
ago. It’s scarier when the Irish bus
driver drives. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I should have known when I got on board. What the hell
kind of bus has seatbelts? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Then it’s all: OMIGOD! HE’S LITERALLY CUTTING CORNERS AND TAKING TURNS 5-10MPH
FASTER THAN HE SHOULD! THE BUS IS LEANING!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’m having to put my hand on a grip whenever we
turn to keep from being slung out of my seat.
The driver is disinterested in his mayhem. He’s wearing sunglasses on an overcast
morning and mostly seems annoyed he’s having to drive folks anywhere. He spends his time fidgeting with his
headphones and whatever’s in the bag next to him. What’s happening on the road
seems incidental. We swerve all over our lane and the bus’ automated system
beeps at him constantly to warn him he’s too close to the edge of the road; he
looks up from his bag and jerks the wheel to get us back straight.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The only thing worse than being on this bus is if I happened to be a car in the
other lane with this damn thing careening towards me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On their version of the interstate, even though
there’s an unbroken median wall that’s gone on for miles, I see a sign on the
other side of the wall telling drivers they’re on the wrong side of the
road. I can’t decide if that sign is for
confused Europeans and Americans or for drunken Irishmen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I escape the bus in Galway and have a layover for
a few hours. I try to sleep and do, in fits and starts, but it’s not great,
sleeping whilst sitting. It’s cold; under
forty degrees. A pigeon has found his way into the waiting room and has placed
him/herself next to the radiator. </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I4xDK3ygg2Y/WNUL6AkneSI/AAAAAAAAFFM/VGMh4sdI4zUzr5Ksz_9D_okrYARSCwtmACLcB/s1600/20170323_064115.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I4xDK3ygg2Y/WNUL6AkneSI/AAAAAAAAFFM/VGMh4sdI4zUzr5Ksz_9D_okrYARSCwtmACLcB/s320/20170323_064115.jpg" width="180" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I don’t try to shoo him/her out. Eventually, a very annoyed employee comes in
and does it for me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What is there to say about a bus ride from Galway
to Westport? Nothing, thankfully.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I arrive and my plan has been that wifi is
everywhere so I’ll just use my phone or computer when needed. I use the tablet
at the local corner store to call the B&B owners (Google Voice is massively
useful. Cost me $0.02/minute.). The
husband arrives and gets me all set up. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I facebook chat my friends who are elsewhere in Ireland to figure out when they’re
coming in town and get their advice that I should, as I feared, power through
and not take a nap. The B&B husband
(no idea his name since he never introduced himself even when I introduced
myself) tells me which pub to head to so off I go.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WMFDDSiR5vc/WNUMBcWvQUI/AAAAAAAAFFQ/kv8z977FbDghQlf7wsFDj_RWDYpe9BjFwCLcB/s1600/20170323_121627.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WMFDDSiR5vc/WNUMBcWvQUI/AAAAAAAAFFQ/kv8z977FbDghQlf7wsFDj_RWDYpe9BjFwCLcB/s320/20170323_121627.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What is there to say about an Irish pub? It’s
lovely. Quaint. Perfect, really. Matt Molloy’s pub. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OlI-ifuzf_0/WNUMLWoH4ZI/AAAAAAAAFFU/fWoVLvRq4f0E6eNy-MGYPvwV8bv78UDIgCLcB/s1600/20170323_123731.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OlI-ifuzf_0/WNUMLWoH4ZI/AAAAAAAAFFU/fWoVLvRq4f0E6eNy-MGYPvwV8bv78UDIgCLcB/s320/20170323_123731.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I drink beer. My plan is
to write. I’m hoping I can make serious headway on a novel while I’m traveling.
It’s to be a nasty, mean-spirited thing. I have Thus Spake Zarathustra with
me. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ec226H4DRQo/WNUMTjftyeI/AAAAAAAAFFY/hbueMe0_fpQjzWI2CvmT7RGIx5I9hlOZACLcB/s1600/20170323_123641.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ec226H4DRQo/WNUMTjftyeI/AAAAAAAAFFY/hbueMe0_fpQjzWI2CvmT7RGIx5I9hlOZACLcB/s320/20170323_123641.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’m reading the introduction and
sipping a Guinness when an Irishman walks by me with a book in his wool-coat
pocket. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I ask him about the book and it turns out he’s not
Irish at all. He’s a twenty-five-year-old from Buffalo who is pleased as punch
that I mistook him for a native. He’s a
self-admitted lazy drunk on vacation with his family. I tell him that’s not so
bad. We chat. It turns out, while he’s
impressively astute with his self-analysis, he’s not very bright. I fear most
of my words are large and scare him.
Still, he seems to enjoy being confused and it’s warm in here and there’s
beer after all, so why not keep chatting?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Eventually, he wanders off to find his family, and
then, an hour later, his sisters and mother and brother-in-law arrive and shake
their heads when I say he’d been in here for hours and went to look for them.
The mom says he’s pretty much a lazy drunk but that he usually can fend for
himself, so, oh well, she hopes they find him before they leave tomorrow. I confuse
the family for a bit and then I’ve had my fun and I’m exhausted and I’m ready
to go to bed. It’s still daylight, but barely.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But instead of walking straight back, I’m in Ireland,
dammit. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to walk down a street full of pubs and
only go into the one I was recommended to. So I wander in one and there’s a
poor bartender who’s an Irishman who’s just returned from 25 years in NYC and
can’t handle the lack of stimulus. Westport is too small. He moved back because
his wife wanted the kids to have an Irish childhood. He’s miserable yet
resigned. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If I wanted to think about being miserable and
resigned, I’d ponder my own life. No one tells you, but your thirties are a
bridge between the no-responsibility of your twenties and the eventual success
and financial stability (hopefully) of your forties. In between is a blech time
of having to put your nose to the grindstone and crank it out and pay off debt.
Sorry, kids. That’s just how it is.
Unless you inherit early, of course.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So I wander to a different pub and have a fun time
insulting American beer with an older bartender. So far, every pub has had Budweiser on tap.
Two of the three have had Coors Light. Must we Americans infect everything?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Tgzz_PMGz9A/WNUMdAzwrBI/AAAAAAAAFFc/4DU2nsVdSl0re58MpXxNkVVFw70IRL1fgCLcB/s1600/20170323_123807.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Tgzz_PMGz9A/WNUMdAzwrBI/AAAAAAAAFFc/4DU2nsVdSl0re58MpXxNkVVFw70IRL1fgCLcB/s320/20170323_123807.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">By the time I get back to the B&B it’s 9pm and
I’ve only had a couple hours of sporadic sitting-up sleep and I’m into my cups
and I’m warm and sleep, blessed sleep.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0Ireland53.1423672 -7.692053600000008448.292207700000006 -18.019202100000008 57.9925267 2.6350948999999915tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6506578999277013958.post-37235176612977057932017-01-14T07:47:00.001-05:002017-01-17T08:01:40.879-05:00The Reason I Don't Talk Politics Is<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Walking in, I spent years reading about and studying the Crusades, the abuses of the medieval Church, both the reformation and counter-reformation, the Thirty Years War, the Treaty of Westphalia and its effects, the rise of the modern nation-state and then colonial empires, the </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">revolutionary period, industrialism, the Franco-Prussian War, the Treaty of Versailles, the Weimar Republic, the Marshall Plan, the Cold War, the reintegration/post-partition, 9/11, and the rise of postmodern nationalist populism.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You read a huffpo article.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">About Veganism.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">By Lena Dunham.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The argument is about how to improve the local school system.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Neither of us have kids.</span></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6506578999277013958.post-61852317447965398812017-01-11T15:05:00.000-05:002017-01-11T15:06:14.980-05:00Why I Am a Skeptic<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">“Everything
that can be invented has been invented.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">--Charles Duell,
US Patent Office Commissioner (1899)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormalCxSpLast" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">“Reports that
say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we
know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know
there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do
not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't
know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free
countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">--Donald
Rumsfeld, Secretary of the US Department of Defense (2002)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">“Nobody
knows much of anything and we’re all going to die.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">--Me<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> I find it somehow both fascinating and boring that we
live in what is currently being described as a “post-truth” world. Indeed, “post-truth” was selected by the
Oxford dictionary as the 2016 word of the year.
I am fascinated because people seem to finally be clueing in to how much
of the world is swimming in, for lack of a better term, bullshit. But I am
bored because even the slightest scratching beneath the surface of those that
are referencing post-truth shows that they are still bullshitters themselves,
stuck in the endless chamber of “Your tribe is the worst! My tribe is the best!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> Humans do not handle uncertainty. Humans want
control. This extends to ideas and
knowledge. In my life, I have seen that the
most difficult thing for otherwise intelligent people to say is “I don’t know.” I’ve never heard a one say “I <i>can’t</i> know.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> It’s not that I don’t have strong feelings, opinions, or
beliefs. No one who’s spent a few moments talking to me would say that. It’s just that behind every single one of
them, other than my religious ones, is “except if it turns out I’m 100% wrong,
I won’t be <i>that</i> surprised.” I’d say I have, at best, 95% conviction about
the things I’m certain about. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> What I particularly am fascinated yet bored with is
people’s religious worship of “science”, particularly the non-religious who
mock faith. 97% of scientists agree on
climate change!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> Hold on. I’m not going to do the climate thing. Not yet,
anyways.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">You
should listen to your doctor. You absolutely should. I’m not saying otherwise. He
or she is doing the absolute best based on the information he/she has at the
time to do what’s best for your health, as he/she understands it. I’m just saying that you need to understand
that he/she might very well not really know what he/she is talking about. And
it’s not his/her fault. It’s reality.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">We
live in 2017. This is not the Neolithic or even Medieval times. We know
complicated things. Of course we know the simple things. Of course we do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">Did
you know that in 2013, a completely new ligament was found in the knee? (<a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/13/a-surprising-discovery-a-new-knee-ligament/?_r=0">http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/13/a-surprising-discovery-a-new-knee-ligament/?_r=0</a>
) Galen didn’t discover that in 200A.D. Leonardo didn’t in the 1400s. 2013.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">Did
you know they found (or rediscovered) an entire freaking <i>organ</i> within the past few weeks?
Yeah. The Mesentery. <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/04/health/new-organ-mesentery/">http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/04/health/new-organ-mesentery/</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">Did
you know until less than a year ago, the brain did not really connect to the
lymphatic system? Well, of course it
did, but we didn’t know about it:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> (<a href="https://news.virginia.edu/illimitable/discovery/theyll-have-rewrite-textbooks">https://news.virginia.edu/illimitable/discovery/theyll-have-rewrite-textbooks</a>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">And
then, did you know that your immune system affects your social interactions and
perhaps even controls them, because it was only a few months after that
brain-lymphatic connection that UVA researchers discovered that as well:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">(<a href="https://news.virginia.edu/content/shocking-new-role-found-immune-system-controlling-social-interactions">https://news.virginia.edu/content/shocking-new-role-found-immune-system-controlling-social-interactions</a>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">Except,
guess what? You can find a study to support nearly everything. UVA posits the brain lymphatic system, but
until it’s replicated and confirmed, who knows?
I certainly don’t. Neither do you. And that’s the issue.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> Nearly every day you can find a study that will say something
shocking (you will definitely find boring ones) that supports or upends your
beliefs. And guess what?? Who cares?! <i>A</i>
study isn’t science. Confirmation and consensus is science. But that’s boring and takes forever.
Headlines grab attention.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> In 2011, articles popped up stating that CERN scientists
had discovered neutrinos that broke the speed of light. Which isn’t actually what happened at
all. Their data indicated that, but they
were investigating because anything faster than the speed of light upends
physics. But that was long and decidedly
non-sensational, so the articles didn’t state that. And the articles didn’t do much when it was
discovered later that there was a fiber-optic cable issue that accounted for
the timing of the neutrinos. The
scientists, following scientific protocol, found that of their own
investigation, which is to their credit. (<a href="http://nautil.us/issue/24/error/the-data-that-threatened-to-break-physics">http://nautil.us/issue/24/error/the-data-that-threatened-to-break-physics</a>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> And sometimes, there’s consensus and confirmation, except
it turns out there is consensus and everyone assumed confirmation but no one
actually confirmed, which is, apparently, what happened when it turned out that
daily flossing your teeth has no real scientific basis. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/03/health/flossing-teeth-cavities.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/03/health/flossing-teeth-cavities.html</a> Of course, that doesn’t say flossing <i>doesn’t</i> protect your teeth, either. Just
that the studies don’t specifically show it. So floss. Or don’t.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> Everyone likes to have firm opinions on big things, so
from time to time, I get someone who will lean in conspiratorially to confirm
that I, of course, agree with them that vaccines are/are not effective. And I make both camps equally furious when I
say, “I don’t know.” Because I don’t. And they don’t either.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> I tend to assume that vaccines work. I know that polio wasn’t a fear for me the
way it was for my parents, and, without looking into it, I figure that’s from
vaccines. But I have no idea. Because I
haven’t done any research whatsoever.
And then, if I ever do, I will have to figure out if the information I’m
looking at is legitimate. Because most of it’s not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> I do have 4/5ths of an anthrax vaccine I was forced to
receive as an adult when I was in the army.
I wasn’t willing to risk court martial refusing it, so here I am. Was that vaccine good? Was it fraudulent? I
have no idea. It appears there isn’t, nor ever was agreement. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">(<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthrax_Vaccine_Immunization_Program">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthrax_Vaccine_Immunization_Program</a>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> Anyways, I don’t have kids, but when I do, I’ll look into
it. My medical friends have looked at me like I’m a blithering dolt when I didn’t
jump to agree with them that of course vaccines are effective, but then I think
about new knee ligaments and new organs and I smile and nod until they get it
out of their systems.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> Okay. Climate Change. Global Warming. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">I
dunno. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">I know
that I’ve been to Thermopylae. And when I looked out on the famous “Hot Gates”
which were so narrow that 300 Spartans (and thousands of allies) could hold
back the Persian Hordes, I saw that if you replicated the battle today, the
Spartans would be annihilated quickly, because the water is way, way away from
where it was 2500 years ago.
Troy/Ilium/Hisarlik is <i>miles</i>
away from the waters of the Aegean whence it was 3500 years ago.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> At the South Carolina Aquarium here in Charleston, there’s
a map that shows the coastline was 70 miles farther out 17,000 years ago, and
if you do the math on that (70 miles = 70*5280 feet= 369,000 feet, which you
then divide by the 17,000 years) you end up with about 21 feet of rise per
year, on average, since then. As sea
level hasn’t risen by even half a foot in my lifetime, I dunno.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> But 97% of scientists agree that climate change is real! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">Let’s
make sure we’re talking about the same thing when we talk about that 97%. Because that’s not all scientists, it’s
climate scientists, which makes sense, because what the hell does a biologist
or chemist really know about climate trends?
But it turns out that 97% isn’t simply all climate scientists. It’s
either from a “random” poll of climate scientists who belonged to two meteorological
societies (which one could argue is akin to asking the National Republican
Party or National Democrat Party for the consensus opinion of the American
people), or it’s from a cursory review of abstracts of papers submitted on
climate change or global warming (11,944 such papers), but only those that
endorsed a position (97.1% of 4,014 of them). An overwhelming number of the
abstracts that discussed global warming or climate change did <i>not</i> endorse a position (the remaining
7,930 of 11,944). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> However, of course, just like Big Tobacco being
responsible for all those ads and studies over the years where scientists and
doctors said that smoking was fine or perhaps even good for you, Big Oil and
Coal and who-have-you can very much be throwing false science into the mix to
create a false argument. Of course. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> However, climate science is big business unto
itself. I got stuck in an argument with
a big climate change supporter and when I asked him about the University of
East Anglia scandal, he scoffed and said he didn’t know about any “Community
College of East Bum(screw)” but “anyone with a brain” knows that climate change
is real. Which was pretty much the
moment I realized we were having a discussion where he heard himself talk.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> If you don’t know, the small (to Americans) university in
Norwich has what is probably the world’s foremost climatology department, known
as the Climatic Research Unit <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">(<a href="http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/about-cru">http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/about-cru</a>). So influential is the CRU that it has been involved
heavily with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Change, “probably
more than anywhere else relative to the size of an institution” according to
the CRU itself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> (<a href="http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/about-cru/history">http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/about-cru/history</a>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> Except, there was Climategate<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy</a>)
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> Wherein someone hacked the email servers of the CRU and
published them and seemed to show that there was a concerted effort to
manufacture data to support their positions. Climate Science is a multi-billion
dollar “industry” where tax dollars and donations evaporate if it’s proven that
man doesn’t affect the environment, mind you.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> Here’s an outraged article reaming against the scandal: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">(<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6679082/Climate-change-this-is-the-worst-scientific-scandal-of-our-generation.html">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6679082/Climate-change-this-is-the-worst-scientific-scandal-of-our-generation.html</a>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> Here are two articles saying that there is no scandal and
the outrage was hokum spun up by climate deniers:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> <a href="https://www.skepticalscience.com/Climategate-CRU-emails-hacked.htm">https://www.skepticalscience.com/Climategate-CRU-emails-hacked.htm</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/fight-misinformation/debunking-misinformation-stolen-emails-climategate.html#.WHaIAfkrJOQ">http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/fight-misinformation/debunking-misinformation-stolen-emails-climategate.html#.WHaIAfkrJOQ</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> You know what I know? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> I know that both the climate change believers and deniers
can’t even agree on the known knowns.
They refuse to acknowledge known unknowns, let alone the possibility of
unknown unknowns. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> So at the end of this, what’s my position?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">I don’t
have one. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">I don’t
know. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">I know
there is bias in all kinds of media. I
definitely don’t trust nearly anyone who prattles on about it; that’s for sure.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">Is it
easy to have to question and look at everything? Of course not. But if you're
going through life using the easiest route, you're probably doing it wrong. It is 100% okay to stay quiet and observe; there
is tremendous value to not adding noise to the echo chamber.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">You
know why I love that Patent Commissioner’s quote I put at the start of all
this? Duell never really said that. According to this website (<a href="http://patentlyo.com/patent/2011/01/tracing-the-quote-everything-that-can-be-invented-has-been-invented.html">http://patentlyo.com/patent/2011/01/tracing-the-quote-everything-that-can-be-invented-has-been-invented.html</a>),
it was a misattribution from a comedy magazine.
Of course, I haven’t looked into the nuts and bolts myself, so, as ever,
all I can tell you, with any certainty whatsoever, is that nobody knows much of
anything and we’re all going to die.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6506578999277013958.post-27523996387266185602016-10-15T09:35:00.004-04:002022-01-29T11:07:02.801-05:00The Kim Kardashian Interview<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I can make these fuckers dance. Words, I mean. I've
been awarded, you know. And now I'm here to sell you Kim fucking Kardashian.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You understand this is an insult to everyone
involved, right? But her team, and her, really, thinks (and at this point let's
credit them and say "knows") there can't be bad publicity, so here we
are. A self-involved literaturist and Kim K. Internally, I howl in disdain,
veering on hatred. Externally, I have resting bitch face. Or whatever that is
on a man.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And yet, do you have any idea what they're paying
me for this? $34,000 for an interview-centered thinkpiece. They have to be
hoping it's a hit job. That's the only thing that makes sense. Some snob bashes
Ms. Talentless and it rallies her hordes of failures, the ones who watch her
show, and buy magazines featuring her, and play her phone game where
I-don't-know-and-refuse-to-look-up-anything-about-it-on-principle. Kim
Kardashian is a pet rock come to life. But then it just kept sitting there,
being a pet rock, but breathing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And yet. And Yet. AND YET. Who am I? Because her
whole "deal" is offensive to me and people like me because it doesn't
just feel like a repudiation, it *is* the repudiation of our entire self-value.
Intelligence and accomplishment? Meh. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Can I be honest? Like savagely chauvinistically
honest? Fuck it, I’m doing it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">She’s some weird gestalt. She’s her ass. She’s her
tits. She’s her face. She’s her flawless complexion. She’s her hair. She’s her
uptilted voice. She’s her goddamned family. So she’s her sister, and her other
sister (you know, the tall one), and her half-sister and the other half-sister
and now her brother and her brother’s pregnant Blac Chyna. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I swear that when I wrote the words Blac Chyna, one of my
awards disintegrated on the mantelpiece.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But, anyway, she’s all of those things, plus,
somethingorother, plus kanye goddamned west. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Oh, Jesus Christ, I just remembered Kris
Humphries. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What important in my mind got pushed out so I
could hold on to Kris Humphries? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That’s probably why I hate Kim Kardashian: her
insipid bullshit has stolen valuable brain real-estate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But who is she? And who cares? I mean, who really
cares?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have a bazillion-ty IQ. I’ve been published in
Harper’s Weekly and the New Yorker. My great-great-grandfather is the Rhodes
from the Rhodes Scholarship (let’s gloss over his racism, svp). I got kicked
out of prestigious boarding schools and went and did drugs and joined the Marines
and wrote that hard-hitting book (you know the one) that made the
intelligentsia swoon (I didn’t use punctuation! On purpose!) and then I wrote that
play that bombed and tried my hand at screenwriting and then my second novel
had punctuation and sold dick and then I was a columnist and then my third
novel was fine, but only fine, and then…and then…and now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So I’m here and I’m me and I’m waiting for Kim
Kardashian to appear and I don’t like her because of course I don’t like her.
Do we really have to do this?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There are only so many ways that this can even go:<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">1.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: -0.25in;">
</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">She shows up and is boring and of course</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">2.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: -0.25in;">
</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">I’m flabbergasted that she’s an astute and
clever businesswoman, the depths to her cleaving me to my core</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">3.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: -0.25in;">
</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">I hit on her to make her uncomfortable because
all of this triggers some dormant ape-dominance gene and I want to assert that
I have value and who the hell does she think she is?</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">4.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: -0.25in;">
</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">Words come out of her mouth and does it matter?
Does anything matter at this point? Did it ever? Why, God? Why.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">5.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: -0.25in;">
</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">We talk about whatever it is she wants to sell
because that’s why I’m here and I am a sarcastic asshole because I really want
to do this one please.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">6.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: -0.25in;">
</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">We talk about whatever it is she wants to sell
because that’s why I’m here and I steal the $34,000 by recording what she says
and later typing it, verbatim, with no commentary, and I pray the
intelligentsia thinks, again, that a gimmick is brilliant.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">7.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: -0.25in;">
</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">We tear each other’s clothes off and have
furious, vengeful, disappointing sex. I acknowledge the disappointing part is
my fault. I’m a balding, out-of-shape,
middle-aged writer. What?</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Why
did I have to bring sex up? “Have to”. I had to. Seriously. Ray J. Silver
paint. Playboy. Break the Internet. Selfies. Had to. </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What’s
she going to do when her sexual currency dries up? Will it?</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Why
in the hell is she popular?</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That’s
the question. At least, for folks like me. For the others, it’s not a question;
it’s nonsensical. She’s popular because she’s popular. It’s the Law of Inertia.
Objects in motion stay in motion. Duh.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">She’s
a mother and a person and why for any and all of this? WHY?</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What’s
the point?</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Could
she disappear, even if she wanted to? Why wouldn’t she want to? She can’t want
to, right?</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I say
I’d take the multi-millions (she has to be over 100 million by now and acknowledging
that makes me want to stab things) and slink off, but I’ve made considerably
less than that, but still good money (and inherited a decent amount; thanks,
Cecil), and I’ve refused to slink off myself. Hell, I’m a remora at this point,
aren’t I?</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And
now I’ve been flown to Paris for this. I’ve literally had to pay for my own gas
to drive to Des Moines to sign books at a Barnes and Noble, and that goddamned
book (the fine third one) took years of my life and a piece of my soul and now
Hearst Magazines paid for me to fucking fly to fucking Paris for this. And they
paid for the hotel and gave me a reasonable per diem.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Buy
Cosmo.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">More.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Can
you believe I’ve made it this far and I haven’t mentioned Paris Hilton yet?</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Or Orenthal James?</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But I’m
in this room. It’s a hotel room. Why a hotel room for these things? There are other private places that don’t
have a bed. </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’m a real sexist bastard for the sex thing to keep popping in my head, right?</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">:/ (Shrugs)</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Oh,
Christ. She makes money off emojis or some such, doesn’t she?</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’m
not looking anything up for this interview; they can go to hell. Who can go to
hell? They all can. All of them.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What
are we going to talk about? Maybe that’s my opener: “So, Miss Kardashian…or Mrs.
West…or Kim…or what the hell do I call you because I don’t actually know you,
even though me and everyone else has taken possession of you because you’re
everywhere and a part of our lives even though some of us don’t want you to be,
have I mentioned I hate you, and, oh wait, what are we going to talk about?”</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I brought
a notepad for this. Because I’m a professional. But I’m using it to write this
out, now aren’t I?</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But I’m sitting here in this Parisian hotel room (of course it’s overlooking
the Champs) and I’m writing this and I’m waiting on Bruce/Caitlyn’s (former) stepdaughter and I hate this and I hate myself for being here, but you bastards
didn’t buy those last two books, so I hate you too. My play wasn’t that bad.
Fuck.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Do I get to meet Kris Jenner? I want to meet her. Just for a second. Just to
brush up against pure evil. She has to be, right? The multimedia mogul
matriarch. Do I have to explain this? She had money. So none of this is for
that. Why push her daughter into the limelight? Y’all have heard the “theory”
that she sold the sex-tape to Vivid through an intermediary for plausible
deniability to drum up publicity for the upcoming show </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Keeping Up with the Kardashians</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, right? Because…well, because… And then she’s pushing the young ones into
the limelight. I think. How the hell would I know?</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Will
I be able to smell the fear of death on her? It has to reek. Like a widow’s
perfume (Kris is a widow, after all). That’s what I assume. For that much
chutzpah, that much brazen insecurity, well, she has to be terrified of aging
and death. Has to be. She’ll look plasticine in real life, won’t she? Whatever.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’ll
keep it to Kimberley Noel Kardashian. Kimberley Humphries. Kimberley West.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I did it. I just used my phone and looked up something for this and now I know
she was married to a guy named Thomas from 2000-2004. So, Kimberley Thomas. Oh,
and that Ray J sex tape was from 2003, so legally, that’s adultery, huh?</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Can I hate her? Can I please hate her? I don’t know why I feel like I truly
need approval for this, but I do.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When
she walks in, am I going to notice her butt because it’s noticeable or because
it’s the thing I’m supposed to notice?</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Oh!
The door’s opening. I have to set this down.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Okay, back. To meet the contractual requirements, this has to be a 1500-word piece
about Kim Kardashian and it must include dialogue from our interview. </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">She walked in the room and said “Hello” and then other things.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]-->
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6506578999277013958.post-74615957171329935392016-10-07T10:19:00.002-04:002016-10-07T12:29:19.124-04:00The Weather Channel Internal Memo for All On-Air Talent<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A cousin of mine works at TWC and passed this along:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;">From: TWC Management</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;">To: All On-Air Talent</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;">RE: BROADCAST REQUIREMENTS</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;">Talent,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;">We are thankful and appreciative of your routine efforts, however, we are a business, and all our market research and tracking shows that we don't make money based on your average, everyday forecasts. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;">Advertisers pay beyond what they would for virtually no viewers on a day-to-day basis on the regular occurrence of a catastrophe that we can massage.<br /><br />We have a country that spans a continent. There is a weather event we can work with on AT-LEAST a weekly basis.<br /><br />So, TWC requires that you and your production teams MUST:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;">1. </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-large;">USE YOUR I</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">MAGINATION.</span></span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"> Look. Let's be blunt. We love you and so we hired you and continue to pay you, but TWC is not the pinnacle of a broadcasting career. If you want to get back on track, you're going to need stand out. Take some risks, be a trifle ridiculous, go for it. Maybe don't go so overboard that you go viral and it hurts you down the road, but we will NEVER tell you to turn it down. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;">2. </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">DRAMATIZE.</span></span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"> Do so to the point of being ridiculous. People will roll their eyes, but they will still watch. AND THEY WILL KEEP TWC ON ALL DAY if the event impacts them. Do you have any idea what Red Lobster pays during even a tropical depression?! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;">3. </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">OVERSTATE.</span></span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"> Add 33% to the impact area AND the effects. Hell, add 50% if you think you can remotely justify it. Did you find someone willing to support a S.W.A.G. (Silly Wild Ass Guess)? Put them on air and see if you can brow beat them into hyperbole. You can do it. We believe in you. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;">4. </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">DEADLY-FY.</span></span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"> If a tree branch can fall on a baby, without a storm, you can explain the dangers of rain! and wind! and debris! and tides! and waves! and dust! and fill-in-the-blank! Always appeal to the danger to children and the elderly. ALWAYS.</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"><br /><br />5. </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">GET WET.</span></span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"> Wade in the surf; have someone off-camera spray you with a garden hose. We don't care. We get a spike in viewership if y'all look miserable, courageous, and endangered.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"><br />6. </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">LIFE INSURANCE WILL PAY OFF QUADRUPLE IF YOU DIE ON AIR.</span></span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"> Only to the first one to take us up on this. We retain rights to your l</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;">ife story and your death story.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;">7. </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-large;">INSIST THIS ISN'T LIKE THE LAST TIME WE DID THIS.</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"> Can't preach this enough. Find any minute difference in situations and explain how the current "threat" must be taken seriously. DEADLY SERIOUSLY. Then do what you always do.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;">8. </span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">D</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">ON'T SPEAK TO JIM CANTORE UNTIL JIM CANTORE SPEAKS TO YOU. </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">DON'T LOOK JIM CANTORE IN THE EYES.</span></span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;">He's a god. You're not.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6506578999277013958.post-39658809602844669972016-09-02T07:30:00.004-04:002016-09-02T07:35:37.201-04:00Notes Whilst Storm Prepping<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Whilst house-and-dog-sitting, ordinarily, my duties are to keep the dog and plants alive and to ravage the pantry. This time we have a tropical storm/depression rolling through. I'm in the midst of a bout of insomnia whereby I begrudgingly fall asleep at 2-3am and then pop awake, against all desire otherwise, at 5-6am. These are my thoughts as I get the house in order:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">1. The tiny, yapping dog does not understand why the furniture that gets used twice a year (screened-in back porch) and the furniture that gets used never (open front porch) are coming in to live with the furniture that gets used all the time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2. Neither do I.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">3. The tiny, yapping dog thinks I'm really bad at this new furniture placement and that I'm really %$#!ing up the feng-shui. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">4. He's not wrong.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">5. Note to self: as with the lessons learned from moving a bajillion times in life, never have a thing you don't use once a month, at least. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">6. You can make do without. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">7. Diogenes got down to only having a bowl in his life, until he saw a pauper drink water by cupping his hands; then he got rid of the bowl.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">8. Anti-materialism is commendable, but Diogenes was a bit of a prig.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">9. The dog does not understand why the plants that live on the porch must come in.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">10. That's no surprise because, even before the storm/plant movement, the dog did not understand why plants, which are designed to be outdoors are kept outdoors, on the porch, but in a place where they must be watered.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">11. Neither do I.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">12. Note to self: nothing living that can't contend for itself should be in my future home. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">13. Strikes out plants, pets, and babies. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">14. Probably a trophy wife too. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">15. My home will be a cold, stark fortress. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">16. But it will be a monument to self-sufficiency.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">17. It takes a week for the dog to think its loving masters are dead and I, the heartless humanoid who dutifully fills bowls and opens doors (yet shows zero affection whatsoever) am, if not the life giver, the life-allower. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">18. After which, he follows my every movement by walking a micron next to/under me, just to make sure I don't abandon him too. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">19. This is not helpful when lugging unwieldy, dripping plant pots indoors.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">20. Big Green Eggs<span style="line-height: 107%;">™ </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">are wondrous. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 21.4px;">21. </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Until I have to lug one, by myself, with a tiny yapping dog underneath my feet, into a garage through a narrow side door. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">22. A narrow side door with an 8 inch lip. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">23. Then, Big Green Eggs</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">™ </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">are 100+lbs ceramic monstrosities without handles and if I drop or chip this one, my life will be over, because the sort of people who buy them (in this case, my mom's husband) are *that* serious about grilling.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">24. Storm Prep for the boat was so much easier.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">25. Checked the lines.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">26. Cut the power to the boat.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">27. Raised a prayer to the Almighty to either let the <i>Argo</i> come through without a scratch or to mercilessly sink it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">28. Disaster is if it gets beat beyond recognition but still floats.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">29. If I were homeless, I'd figure out how to get to Key West or Hawaii. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">30. They don't have soup kitchens for the homeless in hot places, right? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">31. Soup's too warm for hot places.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">32. Cucumber sandwich kitchens?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">33. I hate cucumbers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">34. Tomato sandwich kitchens!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">35. I wonder what mayo they'd use?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">36. Dad's family is a Duke's</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 21.4px;">™ family.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 21.4px;">37. Mom's family is a Hellman's</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 21.4px;">™</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 21.4px;"> family.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 21.4px;">38. I'm 37 and I haven't definitively chosen yet.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 21.4px;">39. That makes me some sort of Southern heretic, I'm pretty sure.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 21.4px;">40. Okay; I'm choosing: I'm going Hellman's</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 21.4px;">41. Well, maybe I should find a neutral third one. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 21.4px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 21.4px;">42. Then I'm not back to being an 8 year old and having my parents make me choose between them again.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 21.4px;">43. Well, that was a dark joke.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 21.4px;">44. I could go hipster and make my own mayo; it's just vinegar and egg whites, I think. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 21.4px;">45. Obama's the 45th president, right?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 21.4px;">46. I need to get some sleep.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 21.4px;">48. I'm not making much sense anymore.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 21.4px;">34. When was the last time I really made sense anyway.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 21.4px;">4012. tgaklg2415@#%^^NA$! zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzz </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 21.4px;">zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz</span><br />
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