My Thoughts on The Force Awakes - WITH SPOILERS

Before you start reading this you should know something:  this discussion of the new Star Wars movie contains spoilers, some of them of the mega spoiler variety.  It is intended for people who have either seen the movie or will never, ever, see the movie because movies or the Star Wars franchise itself is odious to them. 

Yes, you may find it hard to believe, but there are few people out there who really hate Star Wars.  Not many, I’ll grant, not many.  Most people prefer Star Trek or at least kind of ambivalent about Star Wars, but I know one man who went to see Episode IV in 1977 and walked out of the theatre after 10 minutes, and he will still contend with you that Star Wars ruined American cinema.  Ruined it. 

I won’t bore you with a summary of the plot, because I am now assuming that if you have gotten this far you have already seen the film or you simply don’t care.  But here are my thoughts, in the form of a short catechism:

Overall, what did you think?  It was extremely enjoyable and quite good.  And it was fun!  I think the CNN reviewer said that this feels more like an Indiana Jones movie than a past George Lucas film, and I’d have to agree with him (or her).  There are more quips and one-liners intended to draw a laugh, and from me they got a smile.  I thought overall the dialogue was good, and I thought the actors all did really quite well within the limits set for them.  The John Williams score tied it all together.   Felt like getting back together with an old friend, who has been gone for a long time and has come back at long last.

Oh, and Stormtroopers are people again, reversing what I thought was one of the most damnable things about Episodes I-III.  The First Order seems to have settled on armies of indoctrinated soldiers, perhaps a mix of volunteers and people pressed into service.  They do seem to shoot a little better. 

Was it the greatest movie in the world?  No. 

Was it great in proportion to its marketing?  I don’t think so, no. 

An “overwhelming experience”, as the initial reviews suggested?  Nah.  But it put a smile on my face, and that ain’t easy to do.  I enjoyed it.  It gets a solid A in my book, though it doesn’t quite make it to an A+ level (which is really hard to do – I don’t like movies very much).  Go and see it.

What surprised you the most?  I was actually surprised at how central the role of the old characters was.  I thought that we’d kind of see them, they’d say “hey kids, how’s it going?” and they would kind of slip away.  A passing of the torch to a new generation.  Not so.  Han Solo had a huge role in this film.  Princess Leia less so, but she still figured in an important way.  And Luke?  We don’t see him till the end when Rey has found him and is holding his lightsaber out to him (I TOLD YOU THERE WOULD BE SPOILERS!!!!) and it’s clear that he will figure greatly in any future film.  He has to. 

Luke Skywalker really fucked things up, didn’t he?  Seems so.   It’s a shame Episodes I-III were so lousy, for if they had been better they may have seen wider release and maybe he’d know that bad things happen when Jedi Knights fall in love.  The movie doesn’t really say so, but I THINK that Rey is his daughter, and for that to happen he had to have fallen in love or at least, as my wife so charmingly says, “boinked” somebody.  Clearly she was British, because Rey has a beautiful accent. 

Oh Luke….I know it’s so hard to keep the old wibbly wobbly in the Hackensack when the gin and bubble is all apples and bears, but for the good of the galaxy couldn’t you have taken the bishop up to Exeter on the 5:11?  For the good of the galaxy.  Now look what you have done. 

Captain Phasma?

One real disappointment out of two for the movie.  The galaxy is a more diverse place, and that is definitely for the better.  Women are now allowed to pilot X-wing fighter craft and, apparently, be the commander of the First Order’s Stormtroopers.  But we never see her face, never hear her story, and she is the one who, at gun point, lowers the shields that allow the resistance fighters to attack “The Weapon”, which is just a very, very large Death Star that has actually been built into a Planet.  The First Order is a fanatical regime, they feel kind of like Nazis, and I imagine that any one that fanatical would rather have died then live with the shame of both being captured and lowering the shields.  It’s the one part of the movie where I was like “Come on!”  Equally inexplicably Finn and company don’t kill her after she has lowered the shields.  A friend called Captain Phasma a wasted character, and I’d have to agree with her. 

She at least LOOKS important.  Look!  The Stormtroopers have formed Square!

Disappointment the Second?

I don’t honestly think much of Kylo Ren – yet.  We live in age of television and film where there are no real heroes and no real villains, everyone has shades of light and dark.  That may be realistic, but it’s disappointing here in a world where giant furry things converse effortlessly with Droids.  I like my villains to be pure evil.  Best villain ever?  Jason Isaacs portrayal of Colonel Tavington in “The Patriot”, which is on the 5^th watching a really horrible film but Colonel Tavington is an equally horrible person, down to his core, and he is played ever so well by Isaacs.  Only thing that makes the movie still worth watching.

Kylo Ren is just a kid.  How he has he been given so much power by this Lord Snook person who looks kind of like Voldemort with a nose (and, for my money, Kylo Ren with the mask off sort of looks like a young professor Snape) I do not know.   He is not master of his own emotions, his anger explodes in violent outbursts, and he is an extremely conflicted young person.  All you maybe need to get him on the side of good is a couple sessions of good therapy and maybe a 20ml dose of anti-depressants.  The Weapon is on a cold and dark planet – maybe he has Seasonal Affective Disorder (aptly abbreviated as SAD).  Maybe a move to a nicer planet would bring about positive change.  I read some reviews that thought his mercurial character could be exploited in interesting ways in the future; I on the other hand would rather him get his shit together and be the villain I want him to be.

And granted – Darth Vader of Episodes IV-VI also showed conflict, but these were little pinpricks of light against darkness.  Love eventually overcame hate in the man’s stoic heart, and it was a Romantic triumph of the spirit over the power of darkness.  By contrast, it’s hard to say what is going to come out of the angst-ridden soup of Kylo-Ren’s soul.   Could be anything, and in some ways I think that makes his own conflict less meaningful, at least as a movie character.  It certainly would make any victory of good will less impressive.

Final Thoughts?

Love BB-8.  Wouldn’t mind seeing the last of C-3P0.  Looking forward to the next installment.  

The Oatmeal's Black Cat Analogy

I saw this on facebook about a week ago.  The Oatmeal may not have come up with the "Black Cat Analogy" but they did make it cute.

Of course, most people quoting the analogy omit the curseword at the end, but it does give a further emphasis on the perceived superiority of science to these other modes of seeking the truth, and how dumb it is to pursue different understandings of the world.  It seems to say that we have the tools to learn the truth about the world around us if you would only get of the couch, get out of your Church, grab a flashlight, and go.  To insert the word "fucking" in there makes Science the final straw.

What an incredibly limited view of reality that is.

Okay, so I grabbed my flashlight, I went into the dark room, and I found a Cat.  Scientific inquiry has just proven to me that there is a Cat in this dark room.  That's great, that's wonderful, we shouldn't discount that in anyway.  It is the true.  

Now what do I do with it?

Science has very little more to offer on the subject.  I may ask "How did it get here?" Maybe I do some more scientific inquiry with my flashlight and find that the window into the room was left open, and the cat must have crawled inside.  There had better be something -- if there are no windows and doors, then I am left asking how the cat got there in the first place, and Science may not have a great answer for me.

Then I am left asking what should I do with the cat?  Do I keep it?  Do I turn it over to the SPCA?  Do I just throw it back out of the house?  These are questions that have no scientific answer, it's all ethics and values. Those tend to come from somewhere else.  You can bring as much science as you want into the decision making, but in the end you have to make a choice as to what you are going to do with the cat, and some form of ethical decision making is required.

Philosophy can help with that (ethics). Theology perhaps can as well, as it points to a being that we need to respond to and that being may have some thoughts on what should be done.  And if the cat just suddenly appeared in a room without windows and doors where before there was none;  well, my friend, it seems maybe we need a little metaphysics in our life after all.  Not a lot, but a little.

This happens a lot in our national debates over this issue or that issue.  Science tells us that the world is getting warmer, and probably that humans are the cause.  What do we do about it?  Science has allowed us to create clones and examine the genome, perhaps modify the primordial soup of our very beings so we can be...well, better.  What do we do with that information?

Putting your faith blindly in science and assuming it has all the answers is, in my opinion, just as intellectually bankrupt as assuming that one's religion is infallible.  Scientists, philosophers, theologians, and even maybe a few metaphysics guys, all need to be working together to paint a larger picture of the reality that surrounds us and how best it is that we move through it.

Oh, and The Oatmeal.  Normally quite funny, if a little "wrrrrpppp???".  I have seldom been disappointed with a visit to their site.  I just think here they are wrong.

And why am I linking to them?  They are huge!  You can like buy stuff from them and shit.  They certainly don't need my help.  If anything they should be linking to me, a little nobles oblige.

Mourinho's Waterloo

I was at work today when Chelsea played Leicester City in the EPL.  I obviously couldn't watch the game at work, but I was able to follow it by checking in on the Guardian's minute by minute blog coverage, which is sometimes just as good...it's what I imagine it was like getting dispatches in baseball games via telegraph ages ago, everyone hanging on for news of their favorite team playing miles away...

As the news came in over the wires it was not good for Chelsea.  Jamie Vardy scored in the 34th minute and Mahrez made it 2-0 right after the break.  

Mourinho, seemingly out of options, made a final substitution of Fabregas on for Terry.  Chelsea would finish the game in a 3-5-2.  

It seemed to me a desperate last gamble in the context of the season, as if finally Mourinho had no other options, and I found myself thinking of Napoleon sending in the Old Guard at Waterloo in one final attempt to break Wellington's line.  The attack wavered and was repulsed, sealing the allied victory over their French nemesis.  

Here Fabregas made a difference, and Chelsea mounted pressure and earned a goal.   But Lecister wouldn't break, they closed down the game's final moments,  and in the end Chelsea picked up their ninth loss, another twist in the most shambolic and perplexing title defense in many, many years.

This was Mourinho's Waterloo moment.  It feels like this is the end of something at Chelsea even if Mourinho hangs on to his job for the rest of the season.  

It's not a perfect analogy;  John Terry represents the CFC old guard if anyone does, and Fabregas has been in wretched form whereas the Imperial Guard had never been beaten prior to being tossed into battle at Waterloo.  But nevertheless, both were a gamble not quite enough, and I think this is one of those results that we will remember, when its repercussions reverberates through the next several seasons.

This one, for some reason, just feels important. 

Donald Trump is....Not Good.

It is amazing to me....just amazing....that a man who sights as his inspiration two of the darkest chapters in American history, the internment of Japanese Citizens during World War II and Operation Wetback, is still leading the polls for the GOP nomination.  It's astounding.  Just astounding.  

And there are really no other words.  Volumes and volumes have been written and will be written about this political cycle where one man has broken every rule of presidential electoral politics and thus far remained seemingly invincible to his own vacuity.  

But I'll tell you this Donald J. Trump:  I will never, ever vote for you.  

And my vote is cheap!  I was willing to give it away to Romney for a couple dozen fresh (not fundraiser) Krispy Kreme donuts.  But for you?  No amount of donuts will do.  Not three dozen, not five dozen.  Not ten.  You could even up the quality, fly them in special from New York, get your own personal chef to guild them with gold flake in the shape of little boats and geese and get Katy Perry and Anne Hathaway to serve them to me in a palatial Mansion by the sea and I still would proudly, proudly say "No!"

No, Donald Trump!  No.  I won't do it.   

So that's what I think of Donald Trump.  It's on record, it's out in the ether, and I needn't discuss this again.

Books You May Not Like: The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger

Listen:  Henry de Tamble has become unstuck in time.

No, not like Billy Pilgrim.  This is different.  Henry has some kind of disease where his entire body and soul suddenly gets transported to a different time.  He'll be sitting there drinking coffee with you, suddenly complain that he will feel nauseous, and POOF!  he's gone.  Only his body goes.  Anything foreign (clothes, shoes, fillings, contacts, glasses) gets left behind.  So you are sitting there drinking coffee with a pile of clothes.  

If you are Clare de Tamble, you may merely shrug.  This is something your used to.  Henry has been a part of your life since you were 6, when you met Henry for the first time in a clearing.  As he kept traveling back in time, you fell in love.  Then you met Henry in the present where he works in Chicago in some high-falutin laboratory, and you got married.  It was weird -- you knew him very well, but the Henry you met in the present did not know who you were.  The Henry you have met before is a little older, a little wiser, a little less of a douche.  

Where did Henry go?  More likely than not in the past, and more likely than not to a place near his own past. He tends to stick to his own continuum.  He revisits traumatic events in his past quite often.  Very rarely does he go into the future.

Can he control it?  No.  It happens, and he's gone.  He has no say as to where he goes.  He does not know how long he'll be gone.  He winds up naked and with nothing in whatever place he ends up, and he steals what he needs to survive. Henry has some kind of disease, you see, that allows him to time travel...

When will he back?  Who knows.  Could be a few minutes, hours, days.  One thing is for sure...time seems to elapse slower in the present.  If he is gone for spends a few hours in the past it will be minutes in the present.  Days are like weeks.

What is it like to live with a guy who keeps disappearing all the time?  It's hard.  It's been hard to have a child (but after two dreadful miscarriages you finally had one, and she is afflicted with the same....affliction.  damn.).  Plus, Henry knows how and when he will die.  And when it happens...wow.  It's sad.  

So its a sad book.  Kind of about living with dignity against our own finiteness.  That seems to be how Henry grows.  When we meet him, as I said, he's a real douche.  He sleeps around, he has stupid 90's hair, he's kind of an asshole.  Being with Clare kind of helps him lose some of that assholery, and as he approaches the end there are moments where he behaves with real human dignity.  He gives his father, who grieves over the horrific death of his mother by taking to alcohol, a chance as well to redeem himself when he tells him that he will teach his daughter to play the violin.

Is it a good book?  Sort of.  I think its a wonderful, wonderful idea.  What a great premise.  And Niffenegger writes with great power, at times approaching a syntax that is almost poetic.  She laces this book with a wide range of emotions, from the beautiful to the nauseating to the downright tragic.  And that is impressive.

The one problem I have with the book is that Clare's character seems to be a bit too autobiographical.  This is probably because we get a long description of her red air, and if you look at the dust jacket of the book you see that that is a trait Niffenegger shares with her protagonist.  There are other things as well (they both live in Chicago, they both are artists). 

And I don't know....when you read of Clare "courting" Henry in early 1990's Chicago, it just feels like the author has packed a lot of her own experience into the book.  You'd expect that - everyone writes from their own experience, and its a first novel so you'd expect it even more so.  But the intimacy and the length of the section just make me feel like we are a little too close to the author here, and for some reason I found it to be uncomfortable.  

If Clare had had brown hair, maybe things would have been different. 

But at any rate, an enjoyable work.  I have a feeling I will try Niffenegger again.  She has a name, for sure, that is impossible to forget.

My Favorite Frank Beamer Story....Which isn't Really About Frank Beamer at all, but Rather Begins with a Bunch of Rocks.

Even if the Hokies lose this weekend to UVA it may not be Super Franlkie Beamer's last football game; at 5-7 the well supported Hokies could still end up in the Diamond Walnut Weedeater Bowl or something like that.  However, in celebration of Frank Beamer's last regular season game and his final trip to Charlottesville in anger, I want to tell my favorite Frank Beamer story,  which is less about Frank and more about the Appalachian Trail.  And its long, and its dumb, but this my blog, so....yeah.

So, in the beginning....

When I thru-hiked the AT 10 years ago I had a small radio, equipped with AM/FM/TV and weather bands.  When I started the hike I thought that I wouldn't be listening to it too much, seeing as I would be communing with nature and getting down with the trees and birds and shit and didn't want anything to interfere with that.  I'd listen to it at night sometimes or in the mornings, to check the weather and get some news of the world, but as I made my way down the trail my heart and mind was full of the silent sublimity of nature. I really had no need to listen to the radio.  

Then I ran smack dab into Pennsylvania.  

Pennsylvania is just a terrible place to hike.  It's where the glaciers from the last ice age stopped, and that glacial boundary is marked with millions of small rocks poking up out of the ground.  For two days out of the Delaware Water Gap I walked on the points of these rocks jutting out of the ground for miles and miles and miles and at last, with my mind numb and my feet sore and my nerves going all a jingle-jangle, I finally pulled out the radio and clipped it to my pack, stuck in the earbuds, and never looked back.  For the rest of the hike if I was walking I was listening to the radio.  Nature be damned.

How'd you like to commune with this?

Saturdays became my favorite days.  I'd listen to weekend edition on NPR and then listen to the rest of their Saturday programming, which was usually things like "Wait wait don't tell me" and "This American Life". Then, in the evenings, I would listen to college football broadcasts.

If the Hokies were playing?  Double Bonus, because when I hiked the trail I loved the Virginia Tech Fighting Gobblers more than I ever had before or have since.

Two reasons for this, as best as I can figure.  First, when you hike, when you actually spend your day walking for miles and miles, something weird happens to your brain - I think its because you are getting so much exercise that you have excessive amounts of Dopamine and other hormones to contend with.

For me, this was manifested in being extremely emotional.  Listening to Country Music was the worst.  I'd hear one song about Mama and how after Dad died she flew his F-14 into Libya and the plane got hit and the dog had to eject over the desert sands and we never could find him and now she's sitting there in her rocking chair knitting a pair of Christmas shoes for when Aunt Deb goes to meet Jesus and wondering about what happened to the dog and I'll tell ya - I would cry. Tears streaming down the cheeks and sniffles sniffling up the nose, a few hushed sobs.

But then the next song would be about the farmer's daughter with a predisposition to tequila who likes to go skinny dipping after she is done milking the cows and she has a tattoo somewhere on her body of what doing something to who and then she walks off to Bible Study with a tray of biscuits winking at you because when she made them she was buck nekkid (okay, she was wearing an apron, because otherwise it would simply be unsanitary) and all these old Church ladies will be eating her buck nekkid biscuits and it gives her little subversive heart so much joy, and did I mention she has huuuuuge tires on her truck and her dog is just awesome, like a little Boswell to her Samuel Johnson, going where ever she does and making little notes on her life so that one day the dog can publish her story and it will be not quite a best seller but that's pretty good for a dog, and he'll get to New York City to see if those city slickers ever learned how to make a decent salsa. And I would cheer-up, like, immediately.

So I was in love with the Hokies because I was sort of messed up and pretty much in love with everything.

Second, the Hokies, they reminded me of home.  Walking the AT at the time represented both the farthest and the longest I had been away from Blacksburg, and I was maybe a little home-sick.  Just a little.  So when I heard news of the Hokies or listened to their games, I felt like a little piece of me had gone back home, was hanging out spiritually in the town I grew up in with the people I loved, and that was cool man.  I could dig it, you know?

Sure you do.

Anyways, the story.  Around Halloween of 2005 I had actually reached Pearisburg, and my family pulled me off the trail for a week to rest, relax, and do some slack packing, where they would drive me to point A, I'd walk for about 25 miles or so and get picked up at the end of the day at point B by my parents.  They'd drive me home, I'd get to eat a nice big meal and sleep in a regular bed.

After a week of this I was finally out of range, and it was finally time to start hiking again for reals.  I was driven out to somewhere near Marion in a truck and dropped off with a full load of food, some fresh socks, and a new pair of trekking poles, and there I was again, back in the woods.  Mixed emotions.  Mixed emotions.  Happy to be back on the road, sad to leave those I loved behind so I could go finish the hike.

But it was Saturday, and I had the Hokies to buoy my spirits, yeah?  It has been a great season for Tech, despite the fact that they were lead by Marcus Vick (Marcus Vick!).  They had begun the season ranked 8th in the nation and had steadily improved their standing as they destroyed all other opposition.  They beat big named teams.  Looking at the college football landscape today it is almost impossible to believe, but there was a time when #3 VT met #18 Boston College at Lane Stadium and Beamer's Boys put their adversaries to the sword in front of a sold out crowd.

My how times have changed.

Any ways, on November 5th, as a I sat huddled in a dark shelter not too far from Burke's Garden, the #3 Hokies hosted the #5 Hurricanes at Lane Stadium, and it grew dark, and I fell asleep listening to the game, and I woke up around 11:30 to the sound of Frank Beamer saying that we should give Miami all credit, they're a great football team, you know, and.....

They had lost, 7-27.  'Twas a schlacking.

The next morning I penned a hasty note in the trail register, a notebook left at the shelters that people write in, either to share news on trail conditions or just have a laugh, let people know that you were at this particular place.  I was feeling plucky, so I wrote a sarcastic note stating that upon hearing that the Hokies had lost my spirit was so mortally wounded, my heart was so broken, that it was not possible for me to continue, and I was getting off the trail.  Laughing to myself, I kept on a'chooglin down the line.

Fast forward about a month and about 500 miles later.  I'm at the Walayisi Outdoor Center in Neels Gap, GA, the last stop before the AT's southern terminus in Springer mountain.  There is an outfitter there, and the people who work it are used to seeing people going north who have just logged in their first 70 miles of the trail and maybe their first 70 miles of backpacking ever in their lives.  Many of them have no idea what they are doing and desperately need gear changes and advice.  It is a PERFECT place for an outfitters.

I was standing there, eyeing a pocket rocket stove, and one of the people working the outfitters saw me. "Those are sweet little stoves, man."

"Yeah, they look it."

"What are you carrying?"

"Oh, I have a whisperlite."

"Ha!  You mean a 'whisperheavy'?  You know, we got a sale going on right now, if you are looking to upgrade."

I gave him a sour look, or at least the sourest look I could manage, which wasn't very sour because like I said earlier I was pretty much in love with everything.  "That's okay.  I've managed to schlep it for 2,000 miles.  I think I can manage the last 77."

But hey, he wasn't all bad.  He gave me and Bad Cheese and Stale Crackers (the two people I finished the hike with) the number to Domino's pizza.

And as I sat there, eating a lovely medium pizza that was mine and only mine, these two hikers walked in who I had never seen before, but they knew someone I had gone to high school with and who is now a yoga princess or something like that (really.  It's actually pretty cool).  Bad Cheese and Stale Crackers introduced themselves, and when I told them who I was they were flabbergasted.

They had read my post after the Miami loss, and they thought I had actually, really, had gotten off the trail because of it.

And that's my story.

And yeah, it isn't that great, which is why any effort I've made to write about the Trail and my hike have met so often with frustration.  For me there was no great spiritual epiphany or insight.  I didn't meet any bears.  I didn't fall in love with nature or anything or anyone else.  When I got back my life followed the same arc that it was already on before I did my hike. The AT was a grind, a long day in and day out moderately dangerous adventure.  But it was beautiful, and I was happy, and it has molded my sensibilities, and I am ever so grateful to have done it.

But I think if this story tells anything, it shows what Frank Beamer had built at Virginia Tech, and what it meant to so many people.  These guys actually thought that a VT football loss had been the final straw that finally forced me to hang up the trekking poles and call it a walk; that they actually believed I would do such a thing shows what power the program had over us, how much a part of our lives it was.

Frank Beamer in happier times.  I'll leave it to the shirt and the hat to give away the year, but it was a very, very long ago.

So thanks, Frank, for giving so many people something they have held so dear, a decent college football team, and occasionally a great college football team.  There are more important things in this word, I suppose....but the Hokies gave so many of us something to project a bit of meaning onto, a reason to put one foot in front of the other towards the Fall season and towards Saturday and Thursday nights in Blacksburg, and a reason to eat Turkey Legs that are just way to large to be natural.      

And now, I am going to get me some of those buck-nekkid biscuits.
 

Defiance

For the past week I haven't really known how to respond to the terrorist attacks in France, though I suppose it is kind of ridiculous to think that I should have to respond to them in any way, aside from being upset. No one, I am sure, has been waiting by the computer to see what I think about it.

But you may have been surprised to see that I didn't superimpose the Tricolor over my Facebook profile picture or anything like that.  I mean, it is true that I have eaten the brie and have sometimes walked out of the house with a scarf to go see paintings made by the great French artist's, including Renoir.

But that makes me no more a Frenchman than eating with chopsticks makes me Chinese.  John McCain may get up and say something like "today, we are all French," but the truth of the matter is I am not.  But I also felt bad about suddenly having a huge public display of grief for France when there have been very few similar lamentations for Syria over the past four years during its cataclysmic civil war.  I understand we are closer to France nationally and culturally, but the time to cover oneself in sackcloth and ashes is long since past.  

Still, this morning I finally came down off my high horse and watched video of French and British singing La Marseillaise before a France/England friendly and I found myself near tears.

It is such a defiant song, written in 1792 after volunteers were called on to rally to France's defense during the War of the First Coalition, when France's despotic neighbors sought to end the Revolution or at least keep it from spreading.  The troops from Marseilles sang the song as they marched through Paris on their way to war, and it was soon adopted as the French anthem.

Defiance is at the core of Liberty, and it is a heroic virtue not only in France but here as well.  Our country is the one where our forefathers defied the world's greatest military power over principles and a few pennies tax.  It is the country of Rosa Parks and so many like her who sat down and sat in and marched through the streets singing "we shall overcome" in defiance of institutionalized hatred.  It is the country whose flag Brig. General McAuliffe fought under, who when asked to surrender Bastogne to German forces during the Battle of the Bulge simply replied "Nuts!!", and held out until reinforcements arrived four days later.  These are all celebrated events in our nation's history, all great examples of the American "can-do" spirit.

Which makes our nation's response to these attacks all the more damning.  We're cashing in our principles for national security when we talk about watching certain mosques and creating databases of Muslim individuals.  If we are too scared to help others in need and would rather shut our doors to people trying to flee war, oppression, and tyranny, then the terrorists have already won. 

We make a big deal in this country about the bravery of our men and women in uniform, stationed all over the world defending our freedom.  I've often heard people say that they do what the rest of us could never do.  

Well, with all due respect to our military personnel (who are indeed extremely brave), I think that's bullshit.  The rest of us do and should have the courage to defy those who seek to do us harm and destroy our way of life.  We should start by not letting them stop us from doing what is right and taking in the 10,000 Syrian refugees our country has already pledged to take,  and then go further and take in even more.  

It should be done safely, of course, and carefully.  But it must be done, and we must boldly be our best selves if we are to continue to play a part in this world with any leadership and dignity at all.

Defiance.  Defiance of tyranny, Defiance of terror, Defiance of the tendency to be our worst selves.  This is what America should be on the world stage.  We should be, to borrow the Navy's latest recruitment phrase, "a force for good".  That takes all of us.  Don't be surprised to see me without a tricolor over my Facebook photo....but don't be surprised if you see me whistling La Marseillaise as I march into sunlight on my way to the cheese shop.

In Which Nick Reads "Blood, Tin, Straw", By Sharon Olds

It's unusual for me to read a book of poetry cover to cover.  I tend to skim, read a few pages, pick it up again a few days later, read a few more.  Eventually it goes back to the library, half finished.

And, in all honesty, I kind of did that with Blood, Tin, Staw, a collection of poems by the celebrated Sharon Olds.  But I did actually make the effort to read most of this book, and I did read it more or less all at the same time.  It's the first time I have really done that with a poetry book.  It was a fascinating experience, one that I would compare to sort of wondering through an art expedition with unlimited time to take everything in.

The great poet Sharon Olds

It's fitting that it should be Ms. Olds, as she is one of the first poets I read during my single creative writing class in college and it was a relevation, not in terms of form or of thought but of boldness.  This is the woman, after all, who wrote a poem about the Pope's penis.  Her poems can be erotic, at times unsettlingly celebratory of utter decadence; but they are also bold, and raw, and I thought that if she could write with that freedom about such subjects, well, what does it matter if I drop an F-bomb here or there?  It gave me the freedom to start writing with my own voice, or at least what I thought was my own voice.

All that said, with this book I found myself skipping a few poems here and there.  That is because a great many of Sharon Olds' poems are about sex, or about childbirth, and at times it can be a bit much.  There are times when I feel that maybe Olds' (at least in her current incarnation) is at her best when she focuses on other things. There are poems about her family, poems about the end of life (or at least preparing for it), and one poem about the Challenger explosion written probably several years on, which is excellent.

But what I value now about Olds is the way that her words feel.  This is a poet who writes more with the heart than with the head, her poems are visceral.  She describes in one poem, called "The Remedy" opening a honey jar (what she is going to actually do with the honey I will leave to the interested reader), and she describes how grainy the honey gumming up the jar lid is, and how hard it is to finally get it moving, and you can feel that, you've experienced it, and it adds a sort of depth to her poems because they are so real, it puts you in the midst of whatever it is she is trying to convey.  It makes her poems very accessible, and that gives a sort of power.

And that is pretty cool.

Thank you, Sharon Olds.  You are pretty great.  And I like your hair.

Frank Beamer ist Kaput!

Ha ha!

My friends, it has been a horrible sports weekend.  Chelsea lost 3-1 to Liverpool, showing an utter lack of fighting spirit (it is almost as if Jose Mourinho pulled his players back and played with the 1-0 lead to try and prove to everyone that they can still do it...but a 1-0 lead is simply not a safe one for Chelsea, Special One or no).  Australia lost the Rugby World Cup to the entitled and favored All Blacks.  And yes, the Cleveland Browns did find another way to lose in a wonderfully awful way, but Pittsburgh did the same.

But then out of Blacskburg comes some fantastic news.  Not only do the Hokies walz into Boston and defeat Boston College, but Frank Beamer also announces his retirement.

Hasta La Vista, Frankie.

My friends, I welcome this news with open arms. Frank Beamer is a wonderful man and he really made Virginia Tech football something.  But I think the program has lost the plot over the last five years and I am glad that the man at the helm has finally realized he has lost the power to steer the ship to where it needs to go.  It's a shame that he can't leave at the top of the game, but the time has come and I applaud the decision.

Of course, I wonder what Frank will do next?  Hopefully he'll finally polish off the highly anticipated sequel to Turn Up the Wick! (many copies of which, I am sure, are still in the warehouse of the Tech Bookstore), which I understand is a three volume history of the French-Indochina War, in which he posits the theory that maybe the French would have been more successful if they had supplied their troops with Gatorade, because it's very hot in the jungle and hydration is a key to victory.

Of course gatorade was invented in 1965 and the French had left Vietnam long before.  Still, it is a cogent argument, and if the French had developed the sports drink first instead of spending so much time on wine and fucking bread maybe they would have won a few wars here and there.

Then I imagine the man will try and open a successful restaurant in the Tidewater region, which thus far he has failed to do. I know it bothers him, I know it does.  There is a space in his office reserved for the certificate he will get when he wins a Daily Press Choice Award for "Best Restaurant".  Beamer's, he thought, would really work.  But the unsettling juxtaposition of fanciness and football really doesn't work for the Hercules of the Hokies;  something far more down to earth is surely required.  I'm thinking breakfast, I'm thinking pancakes, I'm thinking grits, I'm thinking gravy, and most of all I am thinking ham.  Lots and lots of ham, with a nice pepper relish on the side.

Oddly, no Turkey legs.  I'm sure Frank has seen enough of them.

And what's next  for the Hokies?  Will Bud Foster finally get his chance to go ape-shit for reals for reals?  Or will Shane Beamer continue the Beamer dynasty?  Or will Tech look farther abroad for their next coach?

If it was me....I'd hire Sylvester Stallone to just kind of pretend to be a coach.  You know.  Head down to the field with his ball cap on, have the team chase some chickens around, mumble some mumbo-jumbo about fighting and victory and how he never stopped asking you to stop being a woman so please don't ask him to stop being a man and maybe how if I can change, and you can change, then maybe everyone can change.  The play calls?  Those can be left to the coordinators, the bench coaches.  A head's coaches job is to inspire, and nothing is more inspiring than old man hopped up on HGH who once pretended to be a boxer, a veteran, a mercenary, and now a football coach.

And, if Frank's recent performance is anything to judge from, a head coach is also supposed to look sort of bemused whenever his team totally and completely mess up, or a call goes against them, or what have you. You may be wondering if I think Stallone actually has the acting ability left to handle that.  Well, I do, and I think he would do a damn fine job of it too.  

Yes, it would be something to see!
 

In which I read (and read, and read, and read....) the Count of Monte Cristo.

Happy Halloween, everyone.

So I finished reading this book about a week ago, and I when I sat down to write my book report for the internets (because that is what I guess I do for fun these days) I found it really hard to do so.

It's hard, because this book is oh so very long.  Its a quick read, relatively speaking; I managed to down the 1400 page brick in about three months, which is a pretty good clip for me.  But it is also incredibly complex and convoluted, full of complicated character interactions and romantic plot twists (most of which involve Edmond Dantes, Master of Disguise, dressing up as a priest or an eccentric English billionaire to go places where even the well monied Monte Cristo dare not tread).

So a synopsis is beyond me, though if you have seen the movie you get the general idea.  Edmond Dantes, nautical prodigy and betrothed to the beautiful Mercedes, is falsely accused of being a Bonapartist by two of his associates and is condemned by the prosecutor of Marseilles in order to protect his own father (who actually is a Bonapartist for reals).  And so Dantes goes to the dreaded prison of the Chateau D'If, where he languishes for years and then meets the old Abbe in the next cell over.

Now in the book the Abbe does not teach Edmond swordsmanship, but he does tell him about the hidden treasure on the deserted isle of Monte Cristo in addition to giving him a world class education.  Edmond escapes the prison, finds the treasure, and then goes off to reward his friends and punish his enemies.

The book is actually very different from the movie.  For one, there are many, many more characters, all of them intertwined in betrothals and affairs and past interactions.  For another, Edmond never actually crosses swords with any of his enemies.  He rather uses elements from their own past (all have a stain of dishonor upon their record, of one sense or another) and engineers a situation which brings about their downfall, only revealing his true identity when they are, one by one, truly ruined.  There are four men involved in the Dantes conspiracy;  two die, one goes mad, the final one is financially ruined and briefly held captive by a band of Italian bandits (which appear to be at the service of Edmond), but is ultimately forgiven by an Edmond Dantes who is horrified at the collateral damage wrought by his revenge, which is extensive.

Edmond also doesn't get the girl in the book.  Mercedes has become an old woman in her unhappy marriage to Fernando, one of Edmond's principal enemies, and while Edmond still loves her he is a little ambivalent (and rather lacks understanding) about her perceived disloyalty towards him, his former betrothed.  She ends up in a convent.  In a twist which is kind of creepy these days, Dantes instead falls in love with his Greek slave Haydee, whom Dantes rescued from the Ottomans and has raised as sort of his own daughter....it's hard to place his feelings for her, but in the end they realize they love each other not as father and daughter or co-conspirators (she has an interest in seeing at least one of Dante's enemies fall), but rather as co-people.

It is at times a burdensomely romantic book, full of exotic stories and Italian smugglers, brave men and fainting women, faked deaths and drug usage, twists and turns and comings and goings.  There is a certain joy in reading it, and it is interesting to think about revenge in Dante's context (he truly believes he is the instrument of a vengeful God, though finally love for his fellow man softens his lust for restitution) and whether or not its justifiable, but ultimately I am not sure it signifies much.

Ted Cruz and Bad Renoirs

Two Things:

First, I must officially announce the end of the Ted Cruz Magical Mystery Tour.  Congratulations Senator Cruz: you have broken my will.  On the Alpe Duez that is the 2016 Presidential Campaign I have cracked and am heading back towards the team cars for a snack while I watch you doggedly grind on to try and catch Trump and Carson, who look surprisingly good in their tight fitting bike shorts.  It’s easy to see where Trump gets his confidence from.  He's got really nice calves.

It was a nice idea, I think, to try and capture the hum drum day to day movement of a man on campaign. But in practice it turned out to be a lot of work – trolling through Twitter feeds, logging miles, calculating distances, estimating the amount of chicken eaten at this event or that event;  it all turned out to be a little too much for me.  If I had been able to keep track daily that would have been one thing, but I got two kids at home and I’m holding down a job at the candy factory and Chelsea FC are in crisis and there just isn’t any time.

So we return the bus back to the Merry Pranksters, dispose of the rest of the marijuana at the Colorado state line, and with heavy hearts say farewell to the mystery tour.  We hardly knew thee.

But it also gives me more time and space to follow the campaign in general.  It is interesting, if not also down right fucking scary.  Yes, Trump and Carson are ahead in the polls (though dismayed by the appeal of Trump I understand it, though Carson….wow, I mean, I just don’t know what people see in him), but look at my boy Cruz down there.  Poll numbers stubbornly persistent around 7 – 10%, biding his time, staying out of the lime light, raising tons and tons of money and basically right now just trying not to lose, so that if and when Trump and Carson lose their appeal he is the next man up, the anti- establishmentarian who has in fact been a part of the establishment, who understands the levers of power and therefore is best positioned to destroy it.  Look out my friends.  Look out.
Second, a half-hearted boo to the Renoir Sucks At Painting (RSAP) movement.

Look…Renoir isn’t my favorite either.  There are other painters I enjoy more, but there are also plenty I enjoy less.  I think when Renoir is on he is excellent – it is hard for me to have any problems with his Luncheon of the Boating Party, I love his portrait of Monet, and I think these show that he can be quite good.  I think the problem with Renoir is, perhaps, that he can be sublime and shambolic in the same canvas.

Renoir Eats Lunch on a Boat

Take for example one of my favorite paintings, A Bar at the Folies- Bergere:

Fun Fact:  The Oranges signify that this woman might actually a be a prostitute.

I love this painting.  I love the fact that Renoir captures the movement around the busy Parisian bar, the people mingling over their drinks, the eyes of the barmaid with their sort of sad look, signifying the loneliness that one can feel in the midst of a bustling hedonistic paradise.  And look, there in the corner? That is a bottle of Bass Beer, with its signifying red triangle trademark.  Delightful!
But ah, the mirror in the background.  We see the barmaids back, with her disappointing squirrel tail haircut, and I suppose that we are the man in the top hat, talking to her.  But the problem is that by the laws of physics that perspective in the mirror should not be -

Wait, what?  This is a painting by Manet?

Manet?? Really??

Huh.

Okay, so maybe Renoir sucked at painting after all.   Still, I’m not going to traipse around the country with a sign that says “God Hates Renoirs” like a trooper in some kind of artsy-fartsy wing of the Westboro Baptist Church.  I have more important things to do with my time, one of which is definitely NOT following every movement of Ted Cruz as he continues to ask people for large amounts of money so that he can become leader of the Greatest Country on Earth and then refuse to govern it effectively with the obstinacy of a stubborn child denied desert because she didn’t eat all of her carrots, and yet still refuses to eat the carrots based on principle alone.

Plus, art is subjective.  Who can say what is good, and what is bad?  Lots of people thought Van Gogh was horrible painter when he was alive, it was only near the end of his life that the critics finally started to see what we think we see today.  And it’s not like everything Van Gogh did is a masterwork.  Van Gogh is my favorite painter, but there were some days were clearly there was too much brandy in his coffee and the results were slap dash and crappy, and in general his portraits often leave something to be desired.  Mr. Geller is right that we shouldn’t just assume that something is good because we’ve been told for years that it is so, but then what right does he have to tell people who love Renoir that his art is the worst art of all art?  He has no right.  He’s just a blowhard who has latched onto this one “cause”, garnered a following, and will probably try to spin it into a book or a movie or a You Tube channel or something.  I believe he is genuine, that he hates Renoir with all the gall and vitriol at his command, but 50 years ago he’d just be an eccentric man fuming in the corner of a coffee shop, chain-smoking cigarettes and writing letters to the editor, and we’d give him a wide berth rather than embrace him.

And so, I will do the same.

It Almost Made it Worth It.

It was, at least for me, an awful weekend.  Just terrible.  One of those weekends that all parents probably have every once in a while, where you feel like there are just too many people cooped up inside in a house that is just a little bit too small filled with just a little bit too many toys.

It sort of started earlier in the week with the story of Hurricane Joaquin and the Inferiority of US Forecast Modeling.  On Wednesday afternoon the storm track was going literally right over my house. Right over my house!  Pretty much everyone but the Europeans were predicting the storm would make landfall somewhere between the Carolinas and New Jersey.  Trish bought soup and water, New Jersey fretted about a repeat of Super Storm Sandy, and Jim Cantore pinched his nipples in delight as we all wondered just where the rapidly strengthening storm would go.

Then on Thursday the storm track was a little further to the East, a little off the coast but still dangerous.  But on Friday we were all breathing a sigh of relief as the new storm track took it out to sea.  Turns out the European model was right.  I read a news story in the New York Times suggesting the model is better because the Europeans possess more computers and have better storm initial input files - I think it simply may be because they use the metric system.  As for me, the National Hurricane Center has failed me for the last time....The Government used to be good at predicting the weather, it was the one thing they could do well.  Now, I am not so sure.

Either way, the storm was threatening enough to cancel a whole raft of planned activities.  My parents cancelled a major cousins re-union in Sandbridge, and the Newport News Fall Festival was scrapped.  We lost power at work and they were going to shut it down over the weekend to fix it so coming in on the weekend to work on some stuff was impossible.

That left me with the charming prospect of sitting around with the house with the kids all weekend.

And that sounded pretty good, at first.  Two weeks ago I was away from home whitewater rafting on the Upper Gauley.  Last weekend we were in Staunton to celebrate my wife's grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary.  50 years!  Another congratulations to them, by the way.

But the weekend went awry.  The kids were kind of...bonkers.  Elizabeth wanted to build forts from furniture and blankets all weekend.  She didn't listen particularly well.  Rosalyn was her normal active self, taking naps at odd times (or no naps at all!), trying to get into all sorts of things she isn't supposed to get into.  I cooked and cleaned and then cooked again and then cleaned again and then cooked again. And then cleaned again. Our dishwasher is broken, needs replacing, and I refuse to take the easy way and go further into debt to get it replaced.  We did go to Church today, but Church....eh, it doesn't do it for me.  I go.  But it just doesn't do it for me these days.  Chelsea lost.  Virginia Tech lost.  Alles ist kaput.

By Sunday night, my nerves were frayed.

But then Elizabeth, she builds a huge pile of  stuffed animals on the living room floor, burrows into them, and then pops out of the top, her arms stretched overhead and a huge smile on her face.

"Daddy," she said.  "Do you know what that is like?"

"No," I said.

"It's like I snuck into a birthday cake, and then just before the candles were blown out I popped out of the top!"

My mouth dropped open.  "Where did you think of that?" I asked.

"It came from my brain."

I'm sure.  I don't think it's my fault.  The only two things I have watched where strippers pop out of cakes in recent years is one episode of Cheers where Diane pops out of Sam's cake and then that scene in Under Siege where the girl pops out of a cake.  How they smuggled her onto the ship I will never know.

But Cheers is something we watch at night and Under Siege....I saw it once, ages ago, before Elizabeth was born, and that was enough.  So I am not sure where she got that idea from.  It's not something that one really thinks of on their own, I would think.  I am sure there is a fairly innocent explanation....either that, or she has been learning more than I bargained for at public school.  Those liberals artsy fartsies and their Common Core.

Anyways.  It almost made the weekend worth it.  It's a funny story, one of those cute things that kids say.

But now that the kids are finally all asleep I am looking forward to the vanilla pudding I made for myself that I secretly laced with rum.

Rum.  Rhymes with yum.

Rum.



 

Debate Minute by Minute, at Least for the First One Hundred Forty Seven.

Happy Roberto Clemente Day everybody!  What better way to spend it than by watching a bunch of right wing blowhards talk about how they are going to keep people out of our great nation.

So here we are, the candidates are being lead to the stage.  Jeb Bush, Trump, the only men opting for not red ties; Carly Fiorina in a rather electric blue suit.

They take their places at the Podium, CNN is predicting (hoping for) a rather fiery debate.  All eyes are on Donald Trump, can he do anything to increase his lead or will the other candidates on the stage attack and try to bring him down?

Meanwhile the Pirates actually ARE playing at home on Roberto Clemente Day against the Cubs, in a game with playoff implications.  It looks very exciting!  If you want to watch that, then by all means be my guest...I am rather torn myself.

Photo ops.  Shake hands, all smiles now.  The second tier candidates have left the stage and the front runners are at the podium and here we go!  Jake Tapper explains the rules.  Nice hair Jake.  Nice hair.

ANYTHING could happen, he says.  Anything!  Or nothing.  My money is on the latter.

Opening Statements.  Ron Paul is short and succinct.  Huckabee says that anyone on the stage is better than any of the democrats.  The A Team!  Mr. T!  I pity the Fool!  Ah.....Mr. Trump is Mr. T.  I get it.  Very clever.  Rubio stumbles....makes a joke about water that gets no laughs....Cruz looks kind of a sad clown that has just ejaculated, and I get the feeling maybe he's been enjoying too much chicken on the road....Carson still looks to me not so presidential, and I am mystified as to why he is rising out of the pack in second...Trump on the other hand looks like a Grouper fish with bad hair.....Bush is wearing a very nice suit....Scott Walker would fit in well in some old gangster land movie, either as the gangster or the cop who stop at nothing to catch him....Fiorina does not say her name but rather points to her rags to riches story, which I think is not as common as we would all like to believe....Kasich tries to channel Regan.....and Christie asks the audience some pressing questions, rather cleverly turning the tables where HE is supposed to answer questions, not the audience.  Clever lad.

Opening question to Fiorina about Donald Trump, inviting her to attack.  Will she rise to the bait??  She deftly kind of side steps the question but Tapper presses forward, now invites Trump to defend himself, who immediately shits all over Rand Paul and talks about how awesome he is at everything he has ever done.  Rand Paul says he is sophomoric, which is a pretty low blow (though I think actually probably the smartest thing he has ever said).  Trump counters with a sucker punch to the groin.

Can Trump be commander in chief?  He's been good at everything else he's ever done, so why not?  Sure.

I hold my head in my hand.  Very tired talking about Trump.

How is the baseball game going??  Still tied 0-0, bottom of the 5th, Pirates have a man on.  Let's take a deep breath and return to the shit storm...

I think Walker and Bush have made an agreement to attack Trump.  Trump has little grace under pressure and just bristles at the notion that he many not be who he says he is.  All the candidates actually look infuriated.  I think there will be lots of fire works, but I don't think we are going to get a lot of substance here. Kasich seems to tap into that, and wants to make the point that he'd probably rather watch the baseball game himself.

So now we are going to talk about politicians and their shifting view.  Christie tells a nice joke and proceeds to talk about his record.  I get up to feed the cat.

Tapper is not doing a great controlling the debate, but maybe that's his intention.  He's like a soccer ref, letting the game flow, reluctant to show any cards just yet.

So now more talking about Trump, and how he is independently wealthy.  Is Jeb Bush a puppet, beholden to his donors?  No.  But is he a real boy?  Not sure about that either.

There are a number of candidates who I think have actually yet to speak.  So far Cruz is maintaining a stoic silence, trying hard probably simply not to lose.  He's been too cozy to attack Trump and so perhaps he feels necessary at this point to wait, and bide his time, until we start talking about Iran.

Okay, let's talk about Russia, who recently started placing military equipment in Syria.  Can Trump get Russia out of Syria?  He would reach out to Putin and maybe try to solve some of these problems.  Becuase he is awesome.  Rubio would.....what, go to war?  With the Russians?  Or should we win the war in Syria to keep the Russians out?  Good luck with that...Fiorina would basically put us back on a Cold War footing.  The irony of this (and I hate to say this), is the best way to defeat ISIS probably is to prop up Assad...
Fiorina will not listen to Tapper.  Tapper shows a red card.

Now we talk about Iran, and the question goes to Cruz, predictably.  It is an issue of sovereignty.  Kasich's point about the fact we are out of touch with our allies is kind of odd, as many of our allies have been involved in brokering the deal.

CNN is asking each candidate questions couched in the form of statements by others to try to invite attack.  It's clear they are spoiling for a fight.  Meanwhile Paul actually gives a pretty rational answer to the whole foreign policy line of questioning.

Wow.  It's only 8:44.  I am not sure I can continue.  Huckabee is talking about Iran as enemy numero uno, so if you want to be in combat with Iran with six months vote for him..  I get the sense that Huckabee knows he cannot be the president, will not be the president, and is rather charging his colleges to do what is right in his own eyes.

So then why is he here?  Probably looking to sell another book.

Now Jake Tapper turns the questioning over to some guy on the Salem Radio Network, who sort of looks like Garrison Keillor's nephew.  So now this guy is saying that we should have gone to War in Syria, which probably would have gone really really well.  Have we really learned nothing from the last 14 years of war?
Paul seems again to have the most rational answer to this question, saying that use of force may have been unwise.  He's looking better here.  The others look like they are trying to show strength, but Paul is actually showing some smarts.

Tapper has lot control of the debate.  He's trying to throw a question to Dana Bash but the candidates will not let him.  He shouldn't have kept the cards in his pocket.  I think ESPN's around the horn does a better job of controlling debate.

So here we go, the gay marriage debate.  Huckabee rolls over all Tapper when he tries to shut him up and move things along.

Dana Bash asks a question about Planned Parenthood and is it worth shutting the government down (which Ted Cruz is threatening to do).  Blah blah blah, blah blah blah.

Blah?

Blah blah.

Now we turn to Cruz.  Is he going to shut down the government?  He clearly wants to.  Dana Bash is trying to get him off the soap box, but he will not relinquish.  CNN's team is having a tough time here,  a really tough time, keeping the lid on this debate.  But I can't say that I am surprised.

Man.  I can't stand Donald Trump.  I don't know if I could watch him be a President.  No one will stick to a question.  Everyone wants to jump off to other subjects.  It's the worst debate I have ever seen.  Tapper needs to put someone in a penalty box, but he's not strong enough.  He's just not strong enough.

Ah ha!  Now we get to the question about Fiorina's face.  Tapper inviting once again inviting Fiorina to attack, and she simply lays it all on Trump and says "look at what he said." with a very cold look in her eyes. This gets her the loudest applause of the night.  Trump rather sheepishly simply says that she is a beautiful woman, which gets scattered applause.

Commercial break.  Water and orange slices.

Ugh, but it wasn't long enough.  Not long enough.  We are back.  And we are going to talk about immigration.  Trump wants to build a wall, then deport the bad dudes.  Takes credit for making immigration an issue in this campaign.  His plan (or at least his discussion) does not get any appluase lines.  Which is very interesting.  Though it is not a very raucous crowd.  Rather sedate.

Dana Bash brings Jeb Bush's wife into this, which is again CNN trying to make this thing more than it is.  Jeb demands an apology.  On the spot.  But he won't.  Trump won't apologize.  Jeb actually is more optimistic about immigration, and wants to be more merciful.  Trump kicks Jeb in the shin with a swift mention of common core.  Should Jeb Bush speak Spanish  on the trail? Trump kind of says yes, we need to assimilate. The way he says "English" reminds me of someone who is trying to speak English too someone who cannot.  Rubio takes the reigns and starts talking about his parent's immigrants story, though defends the use of Spanish actually rather well.  Good for mister Bush, good for mister Rubio.  I think mister Trump is looking like a grumpy spoiled child.

Carson....he still, just seems a step behind everyone else.  He seems like a nice guy, but hardly Presidential.

But then, wow, do any of these people seem presidential?  Rubio maybe does.  Yeah, I think he kind of does.  I think on immigration here he's making the most sense.  He certainly looks the best, he certainly seems to have said the most common sense things.

Fiorinia proving to being very adept at shifting focus, not answering questions, and not listening to Jake Tapper's please to stop talking and get back on track.

Huff.  Now we are going to talk about birthright citizenship.  I think there is something rather beautiful about the fact that we allow this, but I also understand that it is a burden on the state.  Still, we are at our best when we are generous....

The Economy now.  Fiorina's record at HP is checkered, and it was rough, but she had a tough time there. Trump is really trashing her record at HP and Lucent.  So now it is a he said she said and Fiorina is striking back at Trump's records.  But it's also ludicrous to suggest that running a business is the same as running a country.  Christie refuses to be interrupted by Fiorina, and wants to bring it back to the middle class and such. I think that this debate would make a great Saturday Night Live sketch, everyone jumping all over each other.

Huckabee?  He sits quietly.  Waiting.  Waiting.  Eats a ham sandwich.  Reads a few Bible versus.  He looks bored.  So am I.

Baseball.  Cubs have a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the 8th.

Huckabee wants to tax consumption, which is hardly fair.  Carson will have us all Tithe, Trump says we should progressively tax (which I find is the one thing I am agreed with him on).  I think the flat tax is....not smart.  Carson is maybe going to do a flat tax, maybe do a consumption tax, he's not sure.  Not sure.  Great. Good.

You know what?  I am done with this particular minute by minute.  Life is simply too short to continue to engage in such stupidity.

And........Click.

Oh no, Pumpkin Spice Latte! Not this time!

I suddenly realized last year, as I drank my first Pumpkin Spice Latte of the fall, that I really don't like Pumpkin Spice Lattes.  I don't!

I don't!

But I thought I did.  I really thought I did.

I think a lot of it is associative.  Fall is my favorite season.  I find the cooler air a relief after a long Tidewater summer.  I like the waning days a little, the feeling that the days are being more properly ordered into night and day, but it's not like you are guaranteed to get to work in the darkness and leave in darkness - you still get to see the sun a little bit.  A little bit.

And there is a feeling of newness.  It's a new football season, it's a new EPL season, it's a new school year for the kids.  Life suddenly has structure again, there are things to graft meaning onto.

And here is the Pumpkin Spice Latte, virtually the first sign that summer is ending and fall is close around the corner, and I've always thought "wow, I really love Pumpkin Spice Lattes.  I think I will have one."  But it has it's problems, namely that the aftertaste reminds me of pledge and if you get any on your shirt it will stain it orange and whenever that happens I find myself asking:  what in the bloody hell is in this shit?

Why have I allowed myself to be deluded for so long?  I think it's because the drink is associated so closely with something I love.  As a case in point:  my boss loves, loves, loves the movie "One Crazy Summer".  Never heard of it?  I can't say I am surprised.  It stars a very young John Cusak and a very young Demi Moore and the John Cusak guy wants to be a cartoonist and some old guy wants to tear down some old lady's house and put up a seafood restaurant but the teenage kids give him what for save the day.  I've seen it.  I didn't think it was very good.  In fact, I thought it was awful.

But he LOVES it.  And I don't think it's because it's a good movie, but I think maybe instead it's because it came out in 1986 and something awesome must have happened to him that year.  Maybe he met his wife or something like that.  It's a good year, he associates it with the movie, and so he thinks it's really quite good.

It's the only possible explanation for why he could love such a terrible movie.

So, my love of Pumpkin Spice Late, or at least what I thought was love, is really just associated with the fall. It's the only explanation of why I could love something so terrible.

Not this year though.  Not this year.  I'll stick to the tall Pike's Place, and find another way to enjoy the fall. Maybe get a nipple pierced or something like that.  

 

...And it was Kinda Beautiful.

So I just watched the first episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and, before I read anyone else's reaction to it I just wanted to put my thoughts on paper...or computer....or whatever it is.  The Ether.

It wasn't what I thought it would be.

Sure, it was funny.  And yes, it was smart.  But I never really imagined that it would be kind of beautiful, particularly the last few minutes.

The beginning of the show was good, the obligatory monologue was good, and the opening gambits behind the desk were funny and reminiscent of the old Colbert Report.  I've gathered that most of his old staff is with him and you can see the style, even if they are writing for someone who is no longer playing a "narcissistic conservative pundit", in Colbert's words.

George Clooney's time on the stage was awkward, but I think honestly that that is what they were going for. It didn't really work for me, but nothing is perfect.

But in the interview with Jeb Bush, in a few video clips with rival Jimmy Fallon, and in a musical number with John Batiste's band ("Different Strokes" with a number of musical guests including Mava Staples, Ben Folds, and Colbert himself) Colbert struck a chord of unity.  He wasn't too hard on Jeb Bush, he asked him a few good questions, but he didn't lampoon him as his past character may have done and he even said "there is a non-zero chance I will actually vote for you", recognizing difference but a willingness to listen.  Of course, non-zero numbers include negative numbers, but Stephen Colbert isn't a math major so I am not sure he remembers that from way back.  One of the last images of the show was the band and guests singing "We gotta live together" over and over and over again.

It was almost like after spending 9 years being part of the media machine that has so divided the country, Stephen Colbert tried yesterday to make amends and set a different tone with this new show.  And it was, well, kinda beautiful.

Now the real work begins.  Let's see if he and his team can keep it up.  I have a feeling that they can make it last as long as they care to.

   

Stephen Colbert Rides in On His White Horse and.....

Tomorrow begins a new era in late night when Stephen Colbert hosts "The Late Show" on CBS.  I have been looking forward to it for months, and thanks to recent profiles in The New York Times and GQ my hopes are sky high; So high that I am actually worried that maybe they are pitched a little to close to the sun, and fiery disappointment is inevitable.

Huh.  There was actually a picture of Stephen Colbert riding a horse online.  Huh.

At the best I'm hoping for something sublime....and as I write this I realize that I will probably not get  it.  But I am hoping that maybe Colbert can find a sweet spot between smart and funny that is really hard to find.

It's not simply a matter of Jon Stewart having exited stage right (Though I actually felt that as he got closer to calling it quits his snark often got the better of him).  Consider the other options:  John Oliver does ever so well but a weekly show leaves him in short supply and I don't get HBO in anycase; Men in Blazers are great but very niche; Jimmy Fallon is very funny and fun and his interviews are very personable, but they lack substance to me, and you can only watch Danny DiVito play flip cup so many times.  That leavse Jimmy Kimmel....well, you know, I've never really watched Kimmel, but I remember "The Man Show" and I've always assumed his late night show is the same without the girls on trampolines or that guy who played piano who could just down a whole beer down his gullet.  Those were the two reasons to watch the show, as far as 14 year old Nick Marickovich was concerned,  and so I haven't bothered.  No one talks about Kimmel so I am also assuming I'm not missing too much...

So here comes Stephen Colbert, free to be himself at last, a person who seems capable of being humorous and deep by turns, capable of speaking to both politicians and musicians, capable of capturing the zeitgeist of our days...

Na na na....There I go again.  Reel it back in.  Maybe part of my hope is that I feel no one is more prepared to open the show than Mr. Colbert could be.  For many months he and a large staff have been writing, filming, revamping sets, doing all those things that a show must do to be a success.  Add to that the years that Colbert has been working, from touring around the country in a smelly van with Second City to taking "The Colbert Report" to the troops in Iraq, and you have a man with immense experience that has lead to this moment, where at last maybe we will all see who this man actually his.

Hopefully it is going to be great.  Give you joy of your success, Mr. Colbert!  I'll be watching, maybe, if I can stay awake that long.

At they very least, I'll DVR it and watch it the next day.  If I remember.

Books - A History of the World in 6 Glasses

This book has an interesting premise that ultimately falls short of what is promised but is nevertheless a smart, fast, good read with plenty of facts that will make you sound like a know-it-all around the office.

Here is the idea:  The history of world viewed through the prism of six glasses, specifically six drinks - beer, wine, spirits coffee, tea, and cola.  These six different beverages inform or symbolize an important aspect of world history (or at least western history).  Beer is partly responsible for the rise of agrarian communities, the foundation of civilization itself, offering an easy way to purify and store water, the mild intoxicating effect but a pleasant by-product.  Wine was an important part of establishing patterns of western thought, drank at Greek symposia, parties where men gathered to discuss politics and philosophy that occasionally degenerated into orgies with serving girls, dancers, and probably each other.  Spirits (notably rum) symbolic of exploration and exploitation, as distilled alcohol could be carried long distances on ships and was an important part of fueling the slave trade.

All that's very interesting, but where the book truly shines is when the author talks about coffee and tea.

Alcohol features in three out of the six glasses.  If you have ever read about colonial fare (where you start the day with a tankard of hard cider to go along with your bacon and eggs...cider being safer to drink than water) it's hard to imagine the good people of this country not going around half shot in the ass about half the time (see this charming post on 6 Pounds of Flour on trying to drink like a colonial)....and here comes coffee, the great soberer.  It embodies the spirit of the enlightenment, of reawakening, of thinking and questioning.  Many coffeehouses became places of business (one, in Britain, actually became Lloyd's underwriters) where people joined together to share news.  The author is correct in saying that coffeehouses with their caffeine fueled exchange of information were the "internet" of the 1600 and 1700s.

But it almost didn't happen, and it's because of that old villain of History, The Church Triumphant.

Coffee got its start as a drink in Yemen, and it spread quickly throughout the middle east.  It was brought back to Europe by enterprising traders and The Church was immediately sceptical, feeling that as Muslims had turned their back on Christ by banning wine God had cursed them by supplying them with Coffee, a black, vile, bitter drink.

There were some that disagreed, and finally the matter was referred to none other than Pope Clement VIII, who found that it actually kept him awake during interminable masses and plays put on by the Second String Friar Tuck Theatrical society.  So it's use was condoned, and coffee quickly took hold in Europe.

So that was cool.

The rest of the book:  Britain conquered the world in no small part because they really, really liked tea, and coca-cola followed in America's wake as our nation established itself as a world power.

So is it a "complete" history of world.  Hardly.  But let's not quibble.  This book was a fun little book, and is worth a read.

Weekly Rundown: Cruz, Debates, and the EPL is Back!

So much is happening that I could write three blog posts!  But I think in the interest of brevity (at least for me, maybe not for you) I will combine all three into a weekly rundown that will probably never be repeated.
So, the weekly rundown.

Cruz!

The Ted Cruz Magical Mystery Tour parked the bus in Washington for the past couple of weeks as Cruz found himself fighting against the twin evils of Iran and Planned Parenthood...which is not such a great joke because there are plenty of people around who actually do think that Iran and Planned Parenthood are Evil.  Still, he found time to make bacon with a machine gun.  This from a man who wants to be leader of the free world. Our attitudes towards guns makes us the laughing stock of the entire world.  But, it has given Cruz nearly 800,000 views in four days.  He has his viral video.

Later, Rachel Maddow rather joyously pointed out that Ted Cruz wasn't actually using a "machine gun" to cook bacon, but rather a semi-automatic AR-15, as if he didn't understand that himself.  Who cares. The elitest left really does little to make the progressive agenda more palatable with crap like that.

So...he's in Washington, but then the Senate braked for its August recess.  How a body that is supposed to be emblematic of all that America is can subject itself to the odious European practice of the August vacation is beyond me.

However credit to Cruz:  instead of departing for the nearest nude beach with a basket full of stinky cheese sandwiches and mineral water he actually flew to Cleveland (CLEVELAND!) for the first debate of the Republican primary season.  In my opinion he did not distinguish himself on a stage shared with 9 other front runners, but on the other hand he didn't do anything to torpedo his campaign, and his tough talk on ISIS may garner him some additional support.

Now Cruz finds himself on his first Bus Tour of the Campaign, winding his way comfortably through the southeastern states that are most likely to garner his support.  Maybe if he can win them over, others will
follow.

Magical Mystery Tour Stats:

Days on Campaign: 139

Days on the Road: 73

Miles traveled:

Lbs of Chicken Consumed:44890

Debate!

I confess, I watched the debate only because Trump was in it, solely for the entertainment value.  Clearly he stole the show, but I really don't believe he is going to win the nomination.  If he does, I don't see how he could win.  But I'm sure people said the same things about Jesse Ventura in Minnessota and we all know how that went.  Sometimes crazy things happen.

As to the others:  I guess I have to agree with the talking heads.  Kasich impressed me with his compassionate conservatism...the prospect of him and Rubio joining forces on a ticket intrigues me.

But aside from those guys I don't think I could throw my support behind any of the other Republican contenders; they are all simply too far to the right.  I'm wary of anyone who suggests we could defeat ISIS in 90 days (one does not simply walk into Mordor) and I was also alarmed by how much many of the Candidates waxed about religion influencing their decision making.  I could go on and on about that, maybe one day I will.  But for now let me simply say that while I have no problem with one's religion forming the ethical basis for their decision making I do have a problem suggesting that Jesus would be rather proud of  our New American Empire built on a military industrial complex with vast consumption of goods at its capitalistic heart. I'd like to know how the Candidates figure on that, as Jesus took a rather flippant view of the great Empire of his day and its treatment of the poor and the oppressed.

Anyway, as long as Trump is in the debates I must admit I will probably keep watching.  Otherwise I'll catch the eventual nominee in the presidential debates later on next year.  Next year!  Ugh....

Premier League!

It's back!  Oh Glorious Day its back!  As I write we are currenlty 15 minutes into the first game of the new Premier League season, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur currently locked in a 0-0 draw.  Few things make me happy consistently as settling in to watch a match, and the fact that the Men in Blazers show has also returned makes the new season only sweeter.

But there is one dark cloud on the horizon.  Mr X, our resident Cleveland Browns fan, has just "decided" to become a football fan and has "decided" without much consideration to follow Arsenal. To prove that his blood bleeds red and white (which I guess it actually does, come to think of it, red and white blood cells and what have you....)  he printed out a couple of articles on the history of the club, which I don't think he actually read, and showed them to us at work to burnish his credentials.

This alarms me greatly.  If he actually watches the games and gets informed, becomes an actual supporter of Arsenal, well, then more power to him.  Welcome to a wonderful new world.

But I doubt he will do that.  He will not watch the games, get updates on his phone, and just use it as an opportunity to further insinuate his never-ending stream of bullshirtery into my life.

I have the sense that if a real Arsenal supporter was to walk into the office and talk for football with Mr. X for a few minutes, Mr. X would probably receive a punch in the face for daring to call himself a fan.

Well, we'll see.  For now, to the football!