The Random Facts meme...

I'm taking this one upon myself, as I feel a common sense of detachment from blogging, a la Hayden Childs. I have not been tagged, but this seemed like an interesting exercise in introspection - or at least a chance to talk up my brushes with fame.

1) My first meeting with anyone famous was with Bobby Short - he'd been a student at the primary school that I had attended, and he was still close friends with the principal of said school. She'd invited him to play at a school assembly at which I was named "Best Boy Citizen," so it was my privilege to get to shake this man's hand, even though I had no earthly idea who he was (other than being a formidable singer, amply demonstrated by his rendition of "White Christmas" moments before I was introduced to him). To my 5th grade mind, this was all but a matter of course. Now, I would have truly appreciated the opportunity.

2) I think every male of the human species remembers when he was first smacked, flicked, kneed, swatted, punched or had otherwise had his genitals violently treated. Mine was during same 5th grade year, when I was a member of the Triple-A Safety Patrol. I don't know what the big deal was, but it was supposed to be some sort of honor to be chosen to arrive super-extra early and to don a reflective orange belt, for the sole purpose of blocking traffic while other students used the crosswalk. I was at the corner of English and Gilbert in Danville, IL and another member of the Elite Traffic Squad put hands on my shoulders and raised his knee square into my crotch. I don't remember what I said to him to precipitate this sequence of events, but I do remember the shuddering pain - as well as the black bruise on my glans. Yeee. Ouch.

3) My first big rock concert was seeing Hall & Oates on the Big Bam Boom tour. General Public was the opening act, and I had traveled to Tulsa, OK to see this show. I think I was the only person who came away more impressed with General Public than the main act. To this day, of everyone involved in that tour, I would have loved to have met Dave Wakeling.

4) My biggest fear is needles. I suppose that this qualifies as "white coat syndrome," but as the 5th grade seems to inform most of my adult life today, I had received a measles booster in school. I remember really having a lot of anxiety about it, and when I finally got to the front of the line to get the shot in my left arm, I vaguely recall thinking, "Gee, that wasn't so bad." From what I recall, I was able to walk from the basement of the school all the way back into my afternoon class before I was completely overcome by swirling black & yellow spots. I remember the look of my canvas shoes and being asked, "Where are you going?" before passing out cold. I hold the scent of smelling salts in my nose to this day - and I still can't get so much as a finger prick before displaying signs of shock. I can't even watch other people being poked or prodded, and seeing an IV is about enough to send me back on my heels. I pray I never develop insulin-dependent Type I diabetes.

5) If I could do any single one thing, irrespective of my physical condition, it would probably be to trek from Lukla along the Dudh Khosi to the south-route Everest Base Camp on the Khumbu Glacier. No matter how many times I see stuff about Everest expeditions, I am always enthralled by the stories of the people who choose to put their lives on the line for a chance at the summit. Perhaps George Leigh Mallory was onto something when he quipped, "Because it's there." Now, I wouldn't ever dream of climbing the mountain itself - I think that would be absolutely beyond my ability or ambitions... but I'd at least like to see the sumbitch up close, and with my own eyes, and on the power of my own two feet. (After the bout of altitude sickness I had at 10,000 feet this summer, I think that's about all the ambition that my alveoli can handle.) And if I could ever meet David Breashears or Ed Viesturs or Jon Krakauer or Jamling Tenzing Norgay or Araceli Segarra or Sir Edmund Hillary, well, I'd about be overcome. Fat chance of meeting them here in the relative flatlands.

6) I get a lot of compliments from total strangers about my hair. Right now, it's a mess of salt-&-pepper curl, and it hardly reaches my collar. Think Help!-era John Lennon with a Jew-fro. I am, however, not Jewish - and I had stick-straight hair growing up. I kinda don't get what the fuss is about, but the positive reinforcement has me holding off a wig-busting for the time being. I've long wondered how I would look with longer hair, although I still think that it's more likely that I'll wind up looking like Buddy Miles rather than Eddie Vedder.

7) I met the governor of Tennessee - Phil Bredesen - at a local McDonald's. I was sorely tempted to deal him a cockpunch. Sorta like an inverse meaning of "shaking hands with the governor."

8) The most wealthy person I've ever eyeballed at an arms' length is Rupert Murdoch. I had been working for this little startup company called America Online as a temp, and he'd come to this little corner of the Chicago Tribune tower to see these piddling things called The Internets. His cologne bore the faintest strain of sulfur.

Of Reunions and Blog Tag

Courtesy of this post, which was a bit of a shaming after my promise in comments related to this post, I am catching up in my all-too-typical very-remiss fashion. Mea culpa.

And your post comes at an interesting moment in time, Mr. Childs. This nostalgia jag is at a crossroads with this year, 20 years from when I turned 18, which is coincidentally the year of my 20-year high school reunion.

I'm not going. I haven't been to Coffeyville in nearly that long, and I'm thinking that it's not nearly long enough. I have tried a few paths to nostalgia, from being involved in the class reunion page at Yahoo! Groups to penning a few letters to former classmates. I am not exactly sure who remembers the years between 1983 - 1987 in Coffeyville, KS with much fondness, but I will readily cop to disaffection for much of the experience. The times in that interval which I do remember fondly often has strong connections to music, but seldom any of the #1's to have hit the charts. I recall having a class notebook which had better cover-art detail than the notes kept within, and I similarly recall that 1987 was the year I discovered Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, Psychocandy, Big Lizard in My Backyard, and got into Never Mind the Bollocks for the first time.

As regards the reunion of the class of 1987: One of the central events planned is a large-ish tailgating event for a football game with still-traditional rivals from nearby Independence. I don't know exactly how that idea got developed, but that sounds like the sort of thing that would set the Wrong Tone for the entire weekend. No thank you. I never liked the whole sports scene much in the first place, so I can't imagine being whisked off into some positive frame of mind. Being surrounded by modern-day high-schoolers in close proximity to the people with whom I'd gone through the "high school experience?" That sounds like a recipe for the sort of dysphoria that might take me four or five years of electroconvulsive therapy to overcome.

Case in point: The number 1 song when I turned 18 was January 24 - February 6: At this Moment - Billy Vera and The Beaters.

Having completely forgotten what this song must have sounded like (and I know that I knew it, since all that was available in a 4-state region was AOR or Top 40 radio), I went to the iTunes Store for a refresher, if you could call it such.

Oh, dear God. Maudlin, blue-eyed "soul." I remember that now. I'd tried to shut it from my consciousness, but now I am recalling slow dances at the local VFW for the senior prom; me, resplendent in full-white tux with black tie & cummerbund. Guh.

Well. With that setting the tone, let's dive in and see what else we have. Following Hayden's example, I'm going to investigate from the bottom up on this page.

68. Why Can't I Be You - The Cure. OK, now this isn't quite so bad. Boy, did I ever like The Cure. That seems like a guilty admission by my current standards, but by my lights at the time, The Cure was something of a revelation. I think this was the first "new" album they'd done since I'd purchased Standing on the Beach/Staring at the Sea on cassette from a Camelot Records in Topeka. My wont was to peruse the cassettes in alpha order. I just stopped anywhere I saw a name that sounded interesting, and "The Cure" sounded interesting. For the price, this comp was a natural. Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me was their foray into Top 40'dom, and this was the first single. If I listen to anything by The Cure these days? It's more likely from Faith or Seventeen Seconds (which I had known as the Happily Ever After release).

61. Touch of Grey - Grateful Dead. This was more or less my introduction to The Dead. I didn't get it then, and I still don't get it to this day. Hippie-dom was rampant in the years to follow, and many people have come and gone who've tried to convince me of the genius of Jerry Garcia, and I have yet to have the epiphany. Still - cool video.

32. Where The Streets Have No Name - U2. Although The Joshua Tree was the high-water mark for U2, I didn't quite know it at the time. I still recall splitting the wrapper off of this release on the day that it came out, and I spent a lot of time with it in the coming months (that is, when I wasn't wrapped up in Rodney Anonymous and his skewed take on human existence). Still, I listen to the chugging, soaring, heavily delayed guitar of The Edge which opens this track, and I can vaguely see Bono's supercilious mug taking front stage atop that Los Angeles building, and I can't help but smile. I don't recall ever loving big-time rock stars like I'd loved U2. To this day, though, I have yet to see them in concert.

24. Brass Monkey - Beastie Boys. I didn't like this song in high school. I thought Beastie Boys were awful, unserious, and one-hit wonders. I didn't pay attention until Ill Communication. So the relationship I have to the BBoys has always contained an element of lost time for me.

7. Oh Yeah - Yello. The theme to Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Ah, John Hughes movies. Lighthearted, hackneyed romps through the world of teen alienation, reaching embarrassing levels of both phony and maudlin - and I have seen them all. What more need be said about 1987?

Regarding the Death of Jerry Falwell

A charlatan is dead.

I will take this as an opportunity to commemorate his death with more anger than sorrow -- and for a man who heaped scorn upon the least of his brethren at every opportunity, this seems at the very least to be consistent with the man's example. Not that his is an example that I would take as commandment to follow, mind. You get the point, I hope, dear readers. (Job 4:8)

It is without the least twinge of irony that I make the following disclaimer:

Speaking ill of the dead was Jerry Falwell's stock in fucking trade, so anyone with a pious instinct upon reading this is officially required to spare me the outrage.

***

I've heard much about divine reward and divine punishment, and I've read that people reserve the judgment of Falwell to his Creator. If there's justice to be meted out, the argument goes, then let it be so. He'll get his now, if he didn't get his before his death. And deserved or not, he's gone on to a better place.

I say, "Fuckabuncha that otherworld nonsense."

Falwell had every opportunity to direct his earthly energies into making this a more accepting world, a more humble world, a world more in awe of The Divine Truth. But did he? No. He fearmongered, and wagged his pudgy fingers in our faces, and callously dismissed the legitimate suffering of thousands (AIDS pandemic, 9/11 to name a couple) to push his narrow interpretation of a Bronze Age text on a largely credulous public. He was a criminal, unfairly and unrepentantly abusing his tax-exempt status as "holy man" to pour dollars into a coordinated campaign to blur the distinction between *his* church and *our* state, vandalizing the very notions upon which the latter was founded.

And now we have power-brokers of all stripes sucking up to the many who follow in his wake, each trying to out-capitulate and out-pander the other, each drooling at the prospect of tapping that ample voter file.

The well is deeply poisoned.

***

Of course, the litany goes, how dare any of us who were offended by this man's mission dare utter an unkind word about all of that. He leaves behind a family, suffering a loss.

To this?

He got to die with his "reputation" intact, such as it is. The only time you see these scumbags humbled and repentant is when they're caught and exposed for the hypocrites that they are. Ted Haggard. Jimmy Swaggart. Jim Bakker. That's the only justice we ever could have hoped to have, and now that opportunity is gone forever. His legacy of creeping theocracy remains, however.

I would have rejoiced if he'd been reedemed in life -- the only life that any of us can ever know.

A charlatan is dead.

His family is suffering now? You ask me, he got off easy.

***

There are those among you who would say that I celebrate this man's death. Far from it.

There's nothing here to celebrate.

From an unidentified right-wing apologist, shedding crocodile tears for the now-convicted felon, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby:

I am so sad today. This is utter madness.

No, utter madness is a sham perjury rap for getting a consensual blowjob while in office.

I know that there are those who would liken US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald to the rogue Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr (and we can all thank David Souter for usurping Starr's once-intended federal appointment), but to me, that's comparing Elliott Ness and his techniques of law 'n order to Tomás de Torquemada.

Oh, there are those who'd still have you believe that Fitzgerald is bent on destroying Republicans, what with his "wanton prosecution" of disgraced IL governor George Ryan, but then they'd be left to puzzle over why Fitzgerald had pursued prosecution of IL governor Blago's (D) benefactor Antoin Rezko or his "partisan pursuit" of Mayor Daley's jobs chief James Laski in the Chicago "Hired Truck" scandal.

No Saturday Night Massacres forthcoming in this case, I'm afraid.

However, I assume, as do many others, that the ink was dry on the pardon paperwork this afternoon before you could say "Elliott Abrams."

Justice by the half-measure... guess I'll settle.

Tourette De Force

Shit. So some fuckin' cunt is getting all pissy because some cocksucker swears like a motherfucker?

That really gets on my tits.

Completism

Typically, when I get into something in the way of music, I tend to want to hear every note of every recording ever done by said artist.

My latest completist jag - the music of Jorge Ben Jor. Most of what he's done is rare, out of print, and foreign to boot.

The penultimate was The Kinks. Gee, they only had, what... a couple dozen studio albums?

Oh, not to mention Guided By Voices and assorted side projects of Robert Pollard, Tobin Sprout, and the Tobias Brothers (Keene Brothers, Lifeguards, Go Back Snowball, Airport 5, Cobra Verde, Doug Gillard, Acid Ranch, Hazzard Hotrods, etc. etc. etc.). Only about a metric ton of stuff there.

Why don't I ever do this the easy way?

Good Habits Are Hard To Start

Get me on a bad habit any day.

Awright. One Reporter's Opinion, part trois or so.

Hey... didja know that Al Gore has a big house? And that this house uses electricity? And that this is news?

Sheesh.

So, let me get this straight.

When Democrats are wealthy, they're not supposed to talk about poverty if they live in a big house. When Democrats live in a big house, they're apparently not supposed to use public utilities to heat it or to provide light.

However, when you're a Republican, you can talk about restoring honor and dignity to the White House even if you allow male escorts in the press pool, you appoint people to rig federal procurements, you destroy the careers of US covert assets, you pay journalists to pimp your policy agenda, or you waste billions of borrowed dollars and thousands of lives on a lie.

This is simply the pearl-clutching Republican version of class warfare. Any person who lives in a mansion who doesn't vote Republican is a "wealth traitor" and these blibbering bumblers of the punditocracy can't help but tut-tut and tsk-tsk and scream "hypocrisy."

(Which is ironic in and of itself, since hypocrisy is oxygen in the GOP political biosphere.)

Continuing the pay-it-forward meme scheme developed by Leonard Pierce, here's my capsule interview with Hayden Childs...

1. What's your favorite show you've seen at the Ryman?

Oooh, you are already establishing yourself as a tough interviewer. I would have to say the 2004 show featuring Elvis Costello and the Imposters, where they were touring behind their release of The Delivery Man. Costello really showed up for that show, which he so often does when he's in Nashville. One of the most memorable moments was when he sang "A Good Year for the Roses" without any amplification. I was sitting in the rear of the balcony and heard every note.

Runners up would include Wilco in 2003, Steve Earle & the Original Dukes 25th Anniversary of Guitar Town reunion/concert, Merle Haggard in 2002, and the Johnny Cash public memorial.

(There's a quick top five instead of one. I love many of the shows there for many reasons.)

2. What was the point of telephone deregulation with the benefit of hindsight? Does it have a future?

Well, the point of it was to provide universal, cheap access to communications and information services. At least, that was the public face of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. There were some positives there, including the establishment of the Universal Service Fund and of e-Rate, so that schools could take advantage of the emergent Internet. That, in and of itself, would have been enough.

However, the point was not as dramatic as the outcome. The outcome, of course, was the re-consolidation of big incumbent local exchange carriers. That was helped along greatly by the robber baron philosophy of Bernie Ebbers -- and as the robber that he was, he wound up being sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud.

Now, what we are witnessing in the industry today is the death of long distance and the emergence of IP. The two most lucrative markets left: 1) wireless, and 2) broadband access.

This is a much abbreviated history.

But in answer to the second question, the short answer is "yes." I think that regulation has a future, and its name is "net neutrality." I don't think that it has much of a future, but I must commend Commissioner Adelman and Commissioner Copps for standing up to AT&T and making sure that NN provisions were attached to the BellSouth merger as a precondition.

3. Do you have a favorite place to take photos?

I try not to limit myself, but I find myself taking most photos when on hikes. Trees, flowers, birds, sunsets, landscapes. I probably don't take as many pictures of people as I could, unless I'm at a concert.

As far as a single favorite, I'd have to say that Alaska has really captured my imagination. This year's vacation will be to Galápagos, however, so we'll see if that remains at the top of the list.

4. Mike Watt & The Pair of Pliers (Watson/Meghrouni) or Mike Watt & the Black Gang (Baiza/Lee)? Why?

Black Gang -- but the version of the Black Gang that I saw (on the "puttin' the opera to bed" tour) was Bob Lee and Nels Cline.

And now that you know that, I think the answer should be obvious. That's the show that made me a Nels Cline fanatic.

I'd still probably lean towards Baiza & Lee if that was my only choice. As long as Watt's in the mix, though, it's all good.

5. Will the Dems take Tennessee in 2008? Which Presidential candidate has the best shot and why?

Depends on what the Dems are attempting to "take" in Tennessee. The senate seat, currently held by Lamar! Alexander is going to be tough to take back. Right now, the D's have a majority in House seats (5 of 9 of TN's districts), they hold the governorship (nominally, since Bredesen is such a sellout), they continue to hold the TN House, and are within a couple of seats of taking back the Senate. Since the governor's office isn't vacated until 2010... I'd say they hold 5 seats in the House delegation unless Davis (TN-4th) runs for Lamar's seat.

Among presidential contenders in TN... hm. Let's just go with who I think will win the prez primaries, given who's in right this moment: McCain (R), Obama (D). I don't think there's much chance for Hillary to win here unless she is riding a huge wave, and even then, it'll be tough.

Growing pains?

This year, I have come to be acquainted with two people who've gone to prison.

Having gone almost 40 years in my life, I don't think I've ever really even tangled with anyone who went to jail, much less prison.

(That time that my dad got busted for fireworks possession hardly counts.)