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Tennessee Votes to Thin Population

In an overwhelming majority today, the Tennessee Senate voted 23 to 9 to allow people who have a permit to carry a concealed handgun into an establishment that serves alcohol.  They did not include the amendment in the House version of the same bill which seeks to define what is a bar vs. what is a restaurant based on the amount of food served (and who wouldn't like to see that equation being worked out?  Is it a per meal thing, or just contents of food delivery trucks offloaded measured against what ends up in dumpsters out back?  If you hang enough bags of chips behind the bar, is it suddenly a restaurant, or do you have to start in making funky sandwiches in the back until you attract the attention of Guy Fieri?) but then, they may not have to, if they can wrangle the House into changing their version to match this one.  If they can, it'll be open season on drunk Tennesseans, and I would imagine we could even institute some annual time and limits on tourists, too.  Specifically those fucks who come in for the Country Music Festival - I'd like to murder some of those cowboy-hatted clots on Broadway in a 2nd Avenue bar (or restaurant), I don't mind telling you.

Of course, this NRA supported bill seems to live in ambiguity - we had it once already, brought in over the veto of our gun-owning Governor, and it got slapped down last year because it was successfully argued that almost no one drunkenly walking the streets with their spurs jangling in the wind off the Cumberland would know which establishments were legal for them to enter while packing heat. The only thing worse than armed drunken people all over Tennessee is confused armed drunken people. (Okay, there's also confused racist inbred stupid hillbilly scary ignorant paranoid violent vigilante hair-trigger angry armed drunken people, but I think that kind of gets too obviously to the root of my point, and I'm trying to keep it behind the feather boa, subtle and shit.) One attorney arguing for the bill pointed out that people could "just ask," referencing something called "common sense" in her argument.  And without a trace of fucking irony, too.

So the question is whether or not this will make any difference in terms of people shooting one another while drunk.  Will we have a return to an era of people getting killed in card games for cheating?  Will there be fabulous pink gunfights outside the Lipstick Lounge?  Will people exit life at the Exit/IN?  Could you be rushed to surgery after a visit to the Gold Rush?  If you get shot at the Red Door (either one), would anyone be able to tell?

I thought I had more of those, but I don't, really.  Some people really do wear spurs here, though.

Friday Night Fun

It started with me burning my hands making Cuban sandwiches at about 10 'til 4.

I toast the sectioned, loaved bread in the oven on "broil" setting, then load them up with salami, ham, turkey, swiss, pickles, mustard and a light buttering, then I flatten 'em out on the countertop griller for about five minutes.  They're delicious that way, and I sliced up some fruit (strawberries and grapes) and veggies (cukes and carrots) to go next to them, and we were eating within minutes of my father-in-law Ron's arrival.  I also made a banana bread, though this was pulled off earlier in the day.  I've been enjoying making those lately.  After a quick and very early dinner, he went to help C get her keys out of the car, and Max changed into his white T-shirt for the play.  C & Ron got back by 5:10 or so, and Max & I left to go to the community center within 15 minutes or so.  We got there at 5:40, and Max hit the green room.  I helped fold programs in the lobby before the show.

At 7, Abby, C & Ron got there and video was set up.  I took pics, but this is very hard without flash photography.  Many of them are blurry impressionistic representations of the play.  Schoolhouse Rock LIVE Jr. went through the first of its three weekend performances with only one hitch that I noticed, and that hitch wasn't Max's.  He Elvised up his solo in "Circulation," did a good job as the Number 9 in "Three is a Magic Number," and as the planet Mercury in "Interplanet Janet."  He carried the AND boxcar in "Conjunction Junction," and was the President who signs the bill into law in "I'm Just a Bill."  He was onstage as part of the chorus for the whole play, and had lines in a couple of other songs.  The whole thing was really great - I had a good time watching, even though I've been sitting through (or reading outside during) practices and rehearsals for the better part of a month.  I wake up with Schoolhouse Rock songs in my head these days.

By 8:45 we were back home, having briefly stopped for frosty chocolate milkshakes with whipped cream and cherries.  Eight year olds do not drink champagne.  C & I went into our room and got gussied up for prom.  Yep.  I went to prom for her seniors last night, from about 9:30 to 11:40, and that was only because they got shut down early due to impending tornadoness.  Proms are kind of awesome now.  They had simulated gambling - roulette & blackjack - to go with their "Casino Royale" theme, Black Eyed Peas, Pitbull & GS Boyz up on the big screen, a DJ (up on the drum riser), food and beverage, and all in a converted factory space festooned with lights, giant playing cards, disco ball - the woiks.  I actually had a good time, since I was removed from the function of the evening enough to be able to just shake hands with people, yell comments, and people watch.  C was beautiful in curls and heels and apparently adored by her students, many of whom stopped by to hug, shake hands, introduce dates, and greet her with a booming, "C-RO!" her nickname.  A couple of kids promised to work on a hand sign to go with that when I asked about it.

We have more dramatic performances and inclement weather on tap for the rest of the weekend, and I'll put up more play pictures either here or on my FB page.

This Is Important.

 Max & I were driving back from his play practice last night - Schoolhouse Rock LIVE, next weekend, come check it out - and we got into a conversation that's not over yet, and we mutually decided that the very important subject matter from which it was made needed to be exposed to a wider audience, and that we needed to throw this thing open to the public, inviting your conjecture and potentially myriad points of view.

The issue at hand is this: Werewolves, Vampires, and Zombies - the only transmittable monsterisms Max & i could think of.  Frankenstein's monster doesn't go around making abominations with his saliva, right?  (old school Aliens don't count, either, they just use us as incubators to be left behind after new species birth, and Max hasn't seen District 9.)  They all bite folks and turn them into more of the same, failing killing the bitten outright.  So...

When a person becomes a werewolf, they change at the full moon and go out and tear stuff & people up, yeah?  You all know the werewolf drill.  And not these poor bastards with the extra fur faces - fucking werewolves.  Okay, so - if a werewolf (presumably while in human form during the majority of a given month) is bitten - and not killed, natch - by a vampire, does he then become a werewolf/vampire hybrid?  Does he get extra mileage?  Does he go out during a full moon, kill folks by ripping them asunder with his wereclaws and then, obeying a sudden additional urge, lap up all their blood that's now lying around, cooling in the darklight of mother Luna?  The big QUESTION then, is which biological urge does he obey, or is it both?  Also, is he now a slave to the vampire who turned him?  Recent vampire fiction seems to have abandoned this, but Max and I decided we liked hypnotism, super strength, flight, and healing, and we threw out garlic, crosses, shape-changing and twinkly skin and stupid.

Now, my wife posits that the inverse of the above situation (WereVamp combos) is impossible, and makes an additional assertion.  She thinks that the transformation to vampire from normal human involves the actual death of the individual, and then there is a kind of re-birth as the undead bloodsucker.  This transition would burn out all pre-existing conditions (like it fucking does in fucking Twilight) rendering the person true vamp, cured and stopped at whatever age.  So this process would remove the were-curse, as such.  By the same token, any vampire bitten by a werewolf (assuming a bloodborne pathogen is in play) would not become a werewolf, since his blood is just a frequently recycled placeholder anyway.  I'm not certain I buy this last part, but it's certainly interesting.

If that's true, it would act the same way on the Zombie thing, which we're all taking as a virus, comparable to an STD.  (With Max we compared it to a cold, in case you were phoning up Child Protection.)  Or would it?  Is a vampire's physiology more powerful than zombie virus, or does zombie virus win out and covert the vampire to a zombie vampire?  Zombie jogger still jogs in Dawn of the Dead, so maybe zombieism is just a viral lack of higher brain function.  Max describes a mad scientist, who, having procured all three conditions as viruses, mutates them to maximum strength, and then releases them, vaporized, into a sealed container which has within also a healthy subject.  He proposes letting them fight it out that way, since it removes older, more powerful vampires from the equation, and also the rotting factor that comes with zombies.  I pointed out the massive human rights violations inherent in this experiment, and Max's response was, "He's a MAD scientist, I said."

Did we miss anything or any other transmittable monsters?  What do you think?  Observations and insights are required here - inquiring minds and all.

Friday Morningtime

Still bleary from a bad/weird dream I had somewhere in the five o'clock hour this morning, I was in the midst of my now-normal morning routine, making breakfast for three people, and lunch for one.  With peanut butter, pancakes, coffee and stuff swirling around the kitchen, I had been quickly cajoled into giving my daughter a packet of Phineas & Ferb fruit snacks since I had just included one next to the actual fruit in Max's Spider-Man lunchbox.  I tore it open and handed it to her, and within a few minutes, a complaint broke out.

"Daddy, Max ruined my fruit snack bag!"

With Max claiming innocence and the two of them about to get into it, I managed to calm the situation by saying, with proper dramatic effect, "Well, Abby, if you continue in your as-yet unfounded fruit snack bag mutilation allegations against your one and only brother, he will likely be shackled in cuffs and irons and dragged away by Johnny Law in the back of a high-security vehicle, his view of us getting smaller and smaller in the distance and blocked by bars of steel. He will, no doubt, persist in his exhortations that he is innocent - perhaps even getting an underground publisher on his side -  which is the surest way to get yourself brought up on charges of a fruit snack hate crime.  People who have never even met Max will come forward, accusing him of tampering with all manner of snack containers, and the fruit growers of the world will also likely become involved, if only to distance themselves, since there's no fruit in the product in question, and after the evidence, including the bag, the snacks, your pajamas and the dining room table are all gathered and examined by forensic experts, I can only assume this thing goes to the Hague, the only body I can think of impartial enough to rule on such an important issue, the question brought before the world stage: Did Max have anything to do with the ruination of Abby's fruit snack bag?"

By this time, Max was rooms away, groaning at me and brushing his teeth, and Abby looked at me for a moment longer, turned, flattened out the bag and said, "Okay, Daddy.  I fixed it."

That's some parenting right there.

Not Yeti

 I don't know what you guys think a Yeti should look like, but I certainly hope it's not this pathetic creature shown here.

What the fuck?  Who wakes up on a Wednesday, checks a little news expecting to find reports of a captured Yeti?  I was excited, at first - see, to me a Yeti is just a big white snowbound Sasquatch, and I loves me some Sasquatch.  But then I saw the article and watched the "video," and clearly you've got some kind of rodent/cat in a pink cage, there.  The Yetis in my imagination barely fit into Hercules aircraft, much less a fucking carry-on bag sized container.  Think Rudolph's Bumble, or that thing from Empire, and you begin to get the size.  More like Marvel Comics' Wendigo.  I was pretty disappointed by the "Yeti" these people claim to have caught, and so, it seems is the vast majority of the international press.  I do think it's funny that they plan to ID the animal from its DNA - by comparing it to other Yeti DNA already on file?  From when Yukon Cornelius pulled all of his teeth that time?

Then the news takes turn for the weird, when you learn that people are drinking shit coffee.  Not the coffee you get at institutional gatherings, clubhouses or police stations, that's shitty coffee.  This is actual shit coffee, ground from beans passed through the rectum of the civet, one of the things people think this "Yeti" probably is.  Worst job ever - Kopi Luwak harvester.  Some of you likely already knew this was happening, and I thank you for not telling me.  Clearly, I'm not watching enough Anthony Bourdain.

Funnier than assholes shelling out mucho dinero for shit coffee, though, are Yahoo's suggestions when you type in "yeti."  "Yeti Olympics," for one.  I would totally watch blanket coverage of that shit, whether Bob Costas was covering it or not.  I'd like to see them fit two Yetis in a luge.  Or Yeti Hockey?  Imagine the fights, man.  Yeti Curling?  Awesome.  Yeti figure skating probably leaves a little to be desired, but it'd be worth it just to get the big hairy fucker into a leotard.  "Yeti Golf" also came up, and Tiger probably needs to go up against a Yeti right now - might be good for him, until he gets ripped in half and eaten out by the 15th hole.  "Yeti Crabs" are an actual, scary-looking thing, though.

I know one thing - if I ever see a Yeti in the woods, I hope I have Matt Olson with me.  And a frying pan.

15 Books

 From a Facebook Meme: "Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes."

1. Watchmen - (this story is already in here, so you can look at this one of two ways; either I have officially become the old man who repeats his fucking stories until you fall out on the carpet clutching your brains and wishing that you had accepted that invitation to watch paint dry, or I am doing you a Franciscan kindness by not making you look through the archives for it.)  I read this at age 10, in complete paperback volume, while stuck in a rainy timeshare condo with my Church of Christ relatives in Destin, FL.  My brain changed, and they didn't suspect a thing.

2. Knots & Crosses - the first Ian Rankin Rebus book I read (and the first of the series), purchased from Booked for Murder in Madison, WI on a recommendation from the counter help there.  I think this was 2002, and I was managing Budget Signs during a not-very-busy period, and was by myself a lot, and wandered into the mystery bookstore, apparently directionless enough that she decided to help me.  I gave her a little background, and she gave me this.  I have since read all of the award-winning and highly acclaimed Rebus books, in order, because they are awesome.  You should, too.

3. Clockers, The Incumbent, & Trinity - Yes, there are 3 books here, so I cheated.  Fuck you, there will be more cheating.  The books included on this list are mostly ones I remember due to circumstances surrounding them, and not necessarily because of their inherent worth.  They're all great books, but the experience of reading them is enhanced and set in stone because of external happenstance.  These three are, respectively, the book I was reading when my friend Jonathan died (1994), the one I was reading when my son was born (2001), and the one I was reading when my daughter was born (2006).

4. Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - Read when I was in the 4th Grade, late in the school year.  I remember the bloom of Spring, for instance.  I think every kid who becomes interested in history in any way has a point from which they begin on a timeline and travel in both directions.  How do you understand what's happening now unless you learn about WWII and what happened since?  How do you understand the war properly until you learn its causes?  I learned about what man was capable of from this book, and used it as a springboard to start getting a perspective on human history.  I also gained a valuable insight for a Reagan-era schoolboy about the USSR and what a war with them might entail.

5. Soon I Will Be Invincible & Heart-Shaped Box - both read at Matt & Cayce's house. HSB in May of '08, and SIBI while I was there for Thanksgiving, also in '08.  Matt & Cayce do an outstanding job of making their home seem like a sanctuary away from the shit you're vacationing from in the first place, and if it weren't for the personal touches that remind you that you're among friends, you'd swear their place was a bed and breakfast with dogs and gourmet food.  That sense of timelessness accentuates a good book, and I had the good fortune to have these available.

6. Galapagos - My first Vonnegut, read in 1995 at the behest of my wife.  We were broke and hadn't discovered the Sarasota library yet, so I pored over our newly-combined book collection looking for new reads.  I found this, and she recommended it highly.  Soon after, I began to read everything Kurt Vonnegut ever wrote, by scanning shelves of various libraries, and with the help of Dug MacDonald, who does not look Scottish, but who turned me onto Sirens of Titan & Blackbeard, among others.

7. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books - Doy.  I bet this makes everyone's list.  They are phenomenally good, and if you don't know that already, then you are obligated to get and read them.  Supposedly, there is to be a sixth one soon?  

8. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones - The first religion/philosophy book I really enjoyed reading, as opposed to just getting something out of it, or plowing through because I knew it was good for me.  Borrowed from Josh Heling's collection in 1996 or 1997, and he eventually just gave it to me.  It now resides in a proud place on a kind of Zen shelf.  Thanks, Josh.

9. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind - Read originally in 1993 as it was referenced in the Psychology textbook from an elective class I had.  Read again while under the influence of a massive dose of hallucinogens, mid-1994.  I was sitting on my bed in my room at my folks' house, listening to the Orb's Blue Room (the 40-odd minute version), drinking Cheerwine out of a frosted mug with lights in the bottom (which made the soda look like blood), and tripping my testicles right off my body.  My friends were fucked off at me because I was angry and sad all the time, and I had chosen that night to take drugs and then - read a book at them.  Heh.

10. Totem and Taboo - given to me by Jonathan Broad, a small Freudian volume read in the bright sunlight of St. Armand's Key on my breaks from my during the early Summer of 1995.  My first Freud.  Thanks, JB.

11. the Preacher Series - Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon's blasphemous tale of treachery, love, regret, honor, violence and standing tall came along for me in 1999, four years after it had begun naturally.  I had to wait for subsequent volumes, so I read Preacher stretched out from '99 to '01.  This was just when I needed to know that some of my points of view were not mine alone, and also was primed to greatly enjoy an epic and cataclysmic story told in graphic format.  Also very useful for getting non-comics readers to read fucking comics.

12. The Cask of Amontillado  - "Hell, yeah!"  I actually said this out loud in the library when I first finished this story.  I didn't really enjoy Poe until I read this.  I found the poetry of the language impenetrable, and the meandering a little hard to take.  But the meandering is this whole story, and what a fucking story it is.  Still my absolute favorite Poe, and I often contemplate the fate of Fortunado alighting upon my enemies. 

13. Ender's Game - the main reason I didn't learn any Spanish in Spanish class.  I snuck this book into class and read it behind my folder at Sra. Grace while she chirpily made us run through buying shoes and finding the hospital, and got mindfucked right there in Spanish class.  After that, I kept bringing books into her class.  When I wasn't sleeping.  No habla.

14. Blindness - Started reading this during the idyllic Christmas of 2005, at Jesse's sort of recommendation.  This book makes you feel uncomfortable, grimy, rotten, and despondent about the human condition.  Add to this Saramago's distinctive "no-quotes" style of streaming narrative and a truly unique plotline, and you can't put the fucking thing down.  Thanks, Jesse.

15. Good Omens - Now slightly dated, but who cares?  Given to me in high school, and read by me half a dozen times since, one of the best portrayals of the Four Horsemen you'll ever fucking see in a book.  Hilariously funny, and with awesome characters.  Stands up in a line with the Hitchhiker's books, easily.  There are times when I would have cracked under the world if not for hiding behind a book, and this was one of those.

So I made the initial list in far less than 15 minutes, took far more to explain it, and included nearly thirty books.  Hope you're inspired to tell me about yours, or to read some of mine.

Spring Breakdown

Many of you know by now that due to changes we made back in January,  I am now a stay-at-home dad.  It's pretty awesome, and while not without some downsides, I wouldn't have had it any other way, especially recently.  These past two (count 'em - TWO) weeks have been my son Max's Spring Break, a gross overabundance that will apparently be cleared up on next year's district calendar, as they lengthen Summer and pare down Spring.  Kind of a shame, I liked having two weeks with him where neither of us had major daytime responsibilities, but you can also kind of see where they're coming from - it's going to be a bitch getting him back in the previous groove, and he has to be pried out of bed on a normal morning with a demo crew and crowbars.

Our family used the two weeks to great effect, I think.  My wife's Spring Break was two weeks ago, so that had all of us at home for the first week.  She kicked it off by staying out crazy late the first night, while the kids and I slept on couches watching movies and having popcorn.  We libraried the next day, and she caught up on her grading, as Abby and I stopped trying to do anything like a normal daytime schedule.  We hung out and played the first part; Monday and the first part of Tuesday - Max finished a series of books and made progress on a new one, and his play practices were canceled that week, too.  We had one risotto and cheesecakextravaganza with another family we've befriended here in the 'Boro, and Mer came over for trivia and Lucy Liu's accordion.  And also beers.

I spent the best part of last Tuesday emptying our $75/month storage unit back in Nashville.  We distributed its contents across the land, borrowing vehicles to transport stuff and selling things (thank you Dyers & Hansels), giving things away, and basically making a more manageable version of our stuff.  (Shannon, your things are in the garage of someone you don't know.  We'll talk about this.)  Wednesday was Treasure Hunt day, where I actually took some cool stuff (Book for Max, bubble blower for Abby, massage appointment for Mom) and buried it in Tupperware out in the yard behind our apartments. I then gave the kids and my wife rhyming clues in mock pirate speak to send them on a quest. They started in the house, being sent from room to room, and then outside, to the playground, gazebo, clubhouse, and gardens.  It was warm and tempers frayed, but it worked out.  On Thursday night after morning cleaning and afternoon grocery shopping (and taking my kids our for fish dinners), my mother-in-law came for her visit.

We had a good time while she was here, showed her around, did a nature walk, and hit the Discovery Center.  Also the Cannonsburgh Yard Sale, which was a huge letdown.  I will go back and check out the historic village area there, though.  There was much conversation and play, and a good time was had by all.  Lots of cooking during this period, it seems like in retrospect, culminating with C's delicious cinnamon raisin pancake breakfast on Sunday morning, and my newly-mastered peanut chicken that night after C's rehearsal.  Monday morning C went off to school, and Carolyn back to P'cola.  We remaining three spent a good part of Monday cleaning and putting things away, but not to completion.  Too much playing going on.

Tuesday was the day Max had an appointment with his friend Allison.  We met at the theater across the street (lots of excuses to walk places seems to come up when the weather's nice) to see How to Train Your Dragon, in the three dimensions, which I thought was quite good, and pushed the envelope in ways kids' movies haven't lately.  For me.  Whatever.  Less action, more drama.  Nice change.  Then we snagged some ice cream and burgers and headed out - Max to play, Allison to gymnastics.  We all really liked Allison, and a good time was had by all.

Wednesday was the Visual Scavenger Hunt, wherein Max and Abby were given 52 pictures of commonplace items around out apartment complex, red pens, and told to find.  I followed them around for the better part of three hours, and they finally found them all.  Thursday went bumpier, with the kids fighting a lot, so there was more quiet time.  It was also package day - boxes from my mom and the Silvermen arrived that day.  The evening began when C came home, bringing friends with her, and wine drinking ensued.  We also had Max's friend Steven over that night, and Taco Night was in full effect with Max making 'Nacos.'  We hit the next morning full on (after the boys were up until 1:30) and after we blew up some soda with Mentos (thanks, Joe), Steven went home and I took both kids back to the Discovery Center to hang out with Allison and her mom for a while.

Last night we went camping with Mer at the Cedars of Lebanon State Park, Abby's first overnight camping experience, and the same place that we hit back in November with Brian and Ron.  It was a wonderfully chill time, and a good near-end to the break.  We set up and got the fire going, made the s'mores and ate the hot dogs, roasted potatoes and put the kids to tent at about 10, staying up for a while longer to hear the musically inclined campers battle it out with their stereos.  It was all very good and fun, beer and whiskey did flow, and I slept better than I ever have on a camping trip, awakened this morning at 6:12 by the patter of rain, shoes crunching by on the trail, and birdsong.  The rain eventually canceled our eggs and bacon over the fire plans, and we drove back home and had a full eggs, bacon, toast, strawberries and C's roasted spuds breakfast.  Mer hung out most of the day.

My house is a wreck right now.  Backpacks and dirty laundry, dishes, unmade beds, boxes, movies and books, actual trash overflowing, and the absence of organization.  The tent is hanging on the porch, drying (probably dry).  My camp stuff needs to be stowed away, and tomorrow morning, we dye eggs in honor of me not having to leave my house on major Christian hat-wearing holidays.  Chocolate rabbits will be eaten, to the confusion of Christ himself, one might assume.  On Monday, we get back on our normal schedule, and I will bring forth order out of chaos.

But that was some good chaos, yo.