nobody asked…

Listening to a drive time filler segment on 104.5 The Zone, Nashville’s premier Sports Talk Radio, gave me the idea for this post. They invited listeners to call in and name their two or three absolute must see before you die sport venues. Since my audience is tremendously more intellectual than The Zone’s, though relatively diminutive in size, I decided to expand the question to include places to go, things to see, or experiences to have before you check out. I will not put the meme label on this by anointing others as Winston’s chosen few, but sincerely hope that one or more of you enjoy the idea enough to voluntarily pick up the torch and run the next mile.

NEYLAND STADIUM on the University of Tennessee campus in Knoxville, on a crisp autumn afternoon when the Volunteers are playing a major rival like Florida, Alabama, or Georgia. If you are a football fan, this is truly a slice of nirvana. There is nothing more exciting than being in the midst of 107,000 screaming Orange-clad fans. If football is not your bag, there’s plenty of people watching to do, cheerleader and dance teams to see, and the usual battle of the bands. From pre-game festivities and tail-gating, visiting the pubs and shops and restaurants up and down Cumberland Avenue, to post-game parties, this makes for an exciting and fun-filled day and weekend. Especially when the Vols win!

MID-TOWN MANHATTAN DURING THE HOLIDAYS can be an absolutely unique fairyland experience. Stay at one of the elegant hotels on Central Park South, take a horse-drawn carriage ride in the snow with your honey, dine at some of the world’s best restaurants, and cap the evening with drinks under the huge Christmas tree at rinkside in Rockefeller Center, watching children and lovers of all ages gracefully gliding across the ice. Take money. Lots of money! And plastic…

SIMULTANEOUS MUTUAL ORGASM with someone you love deeply is something that exists in cheap pulp novels and the minds of dreamers. And on extremely rare occasions, it actually happens. Some couples learn to speed up or delay the arrival of la petite mort, but that works only momentarily for most. Traveling different circuitous routes, it takes a lot of luck and perhaps divine intervention, for lovers to arrive at the top of the hill at the same instant. There are no words to describe the feeling. Everyone should be skilled enough or lucky enough to experience it once.

SAN FRANCISCO is a quaintly modern American city that offers a few sights and delights not found elsewhere. Midst the neat shops and boutiques there are numerous bakeries pumping out fresh sourdough bread as long as people will line up to buy it. As a morning treat with fresh creamery butter, honey if you like, and a nice cup of robust coffee, or later in the day as an accompaniment to cheese and wine, it is better here than anywhere else I’ve been. Just a few blocks away is Ghiradelli Square where the aroma of rich chocolate permeates everything. And of course you must do the touristy things while there, like the Golden Gate Bridge, a trek through wine country, at least a short ride on a cable car, and the guided tour through Alcatraz.

CREATE SOMETHING, ANYTHING, THAT IS UNIQUELY YOU. Each of us has the ability to create an expression of ourselves. It may take the form of artwork, crafts, a house you designed yourself, music, a sound, a look, a feel. Writing, including a blog, can be a perfect expression of our individuality and uniqueness. Even the most challenged of us, including children and adults with special needs, have it within themselves to conceive and give birth to an expression that is theirs alone. Little in this life is more satisfying than the culmination of the creative process, looking back at our handiwork and realizing that, yes, that was and is me.

Those are a few of the experiences I think everyone should have before checking off the planet. If you have others you would like to share, go blog your own and link back here. Alternatively, spill it in a comment below.

“On March 17, 2003 President Bush issued the warning: “Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict commenced at a time of our choosing,” yet now thanks to a transcript leaked to the Spanish newspaper El Pais, we learn that more than three weeks prior to that Bush had told former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar that “The Egyptians are speaking to Saddam Hussein. It seems he’s indicated he would be prepared to go into exile if he’s allowed to take $1 billion.” When confronted about the leaked transcript yesterday, Whitehouse spokeswoman Dana Perino did not dispute its accuracy.”

“Just last week we learned from former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan that the real reason behind the war in Iraq was oil , and now we are finding out that the entire war could have been averted for letting him get away with $1 billion. That’s just than one tenth of 1% of what this insane invasion and occupation of Iraq, that continues claim the lives of our country’s bravest men and women, has now been forecast to cost. Think about that just for a second. Every single death, Iraqi and American coalition alike, could have been saved and Bush could have had Saddam’s oil, but apparently he didn’t even seriously consider it. Topping that, he then lied in public to the entire world about it just so he could have his war regardless. How’s that for compassionate conservatism?”

Those two paragraphs from Crooks and Liars. They also have a video and some interesting supporting information. It is amazing that Greenspan is acknowledging now what so many of us have known for years — that Iraq was all about oil from the get-go. Even humble ol’ Winston said it here in June, 2005, within a month after starting this blog.

The United States would be in serious trouble if we just had an incompetent fool for a President. Fortunately, that is not the case. We would also find ourselves in deep distress if our President was simply greedy and evil. That is also not the situation here. And just think of the horrible morass we would find ourselves in if we had a do-nothing Congress that had apparently sold out to the dark side for their own greedy, selfish purposes. What we have is an unfortunate convergence of all the above.

We find ourselves stuck with a President who is an incompetent fool driven by greed and evil, and allowed to run amok by a Congress frozen into inaction by their own selfish objectives. The rest of the world nervously watches with horror as the United States of America, the former global  power, leader, and champion of progress and values and peace, is destroyed from within.

This came from a despair.com ad. If you don’t know Despair, you should. You’re probably familiar with the rah-rah, pump it up, feel good, company, Successories, that has stores in malls around the country. They market all those wonderful posters and calendars and mugs that motivate us to give more than we have to achieve more than we are capable of. Well, Despair is a hilarious antithetical parody of that, recognizing our daily human struggles and limitations for what they are — a pain in the arse. They present their demotivators with tongue firmly planted in cheek, making them my kind of guys.

Go. Visit. Buy. Enjoy.

Original source unknown, but H/T to my friend PITA.

When the title for the previous post came to me, I re-read the lyrics and listened to John Lennon’s original. Like its author, and indeed like much of his music, Imagine has many detractors. Most of those do not go below the surface of the words and envision, perchance to dream, of Lennon’s imaginary world of peace, love, and harmony. Drug induced vision? Perhaps. Idealistic? Sure. Impossible? Of course. Worth working toward? Absolutely.

If you take the time to really read the words, all of the words, and think about the world that Lennon talked about, Imagine depicts a human state that is quite close to that espoused by all the great religions of the world. John Lennon became a lightning rod for peace during the Vietnam War. Consider what has happened to our world since 2000. Then read the verses again. We need a lightning rod for peace and sanity in this world gone mad. Imagine…

Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

The utopian world that John Lennon envisioned and immortalized in Imagine, his definitive work, does not include the thought or words in the title of this post. Peaceful loving people were at the center of his world and his music. No, the vision delivered by the title comes from the antithesis of peace and love.

On the Beach has long been one my favorite movies since seeing the original not long after it’s 1959 release. The cold war was raging, the USA and USSR were seriously threatening to blow each other off the face of the globe, and very easily could have. Many in-the-know political and military people since then have acknowledged that on multiple occasions both sides were dangerously close to launching all out nuclear attack. Unlike the many books and movies that portrayed the emotional chess match that was the cold war with all its stalemates and stand-downs, or others that dealt with the horrors of a nuclear war, On the Beach explores the peaceful passing and extinction of mankind on a planet gone mad. Imagine half the great cities of the world obliterated by the entire collective arsenal of nuclear weapons. Imagine the other half being slowly engulfed by radioactive fallout, slowly but surely annihilating all life. Imagine cities and towns and villages left unmarked and intact… and empty. Imagine there’s no people…

This is one of the few movies I have re-watched multiple times over the years, so you can imagine my delight in finding there was a remake in 2000. Why I did not discover this until 2007 will be the central theme of a case study in deterministic unconsciousness during our next session. Anyway, it was a eureka moment for me — discovering the remake on the shelves at Blockbuster recently. Oh, yeah, it’s gonna be a Blockbuster night.

Tempering my enthusiasm with the knowledge that remakes almost always fall short of expectations, I popped it into the DVD player, grabbed the armload of remote controls, and assumed my I’m-ready-to-be-entertained position. Not only did the remake not disappoint, in many ways it surpassed the original. Nevil Shute’s original plot and story line were updated to the world we now know, direction was superb, emotional impact was at least equal to the original, and the acting was believable. Armand Assante delivers a powerful performance as submarine commander Towers, and Rachel Ward is … how do I say this in a politically correct way … as deliciously magnificent as always. Purists will be disappointed that the ending was changed to deliver a romantic exclamation point to the strong attraction between Capt. Towers and Moira, Rachel Ward’s character. Being the romantic that I am, I was thrilled that they chose to end all together.

We once again find ourselves living in a world ripped with strife, and led, or misled if you will, by heads of state who seem intent on destroying us all just because they can. George Bush’s knee-jerk nuculer holocaust scare’s the hell out of me on several levels. I believe he is brash enough and arrogant enough to push the button. I do not believe he is intelligent enough to really understand that a nuclear war has no end, but most likely is the end. The end of all we know. The end of life. The end of us… the end of you and me. Imagine…

A person who can’t lead and won’t follow makes a dandy roadblock. — Author Unknown

Sometimes we find out that we don’t really know people as well as we thought we did. Even people we know well can pull a punch that knocks us out. Such was the case when a good long-time friend and client laid me out on the floor laughing my arse off.

You see, he comes across as very straight and conservative, always serious about his lifework of financial analysis and investments. Serious at least until he donned a rhinestone studded jacket and cowboy hat, grabbed his guitar, and cut a tune that was posted on YouTube and has received favorable press coverage by The New York Times, USA Today, Reuters, Fox News, The Guardian (London), The Telegraph (London), and many finance industry web sites in the U.S. and abroad.

Enough of me yakking about it. Just go and see and listen to my friend Merle Hazard for yourownself.

And remember… next time you look at a neighbor or friend or close business associate, stop and think… do you really know them? Do they have an inner country singer just scratching to get out?

The best way to show that a stick is crooked is not to argue about it or to spend time denouncing it, but to lay a straight stick alongside it. — Dwight L. Moody (1837 - 1899)

While Eric is touring Belgium in search of the perfect chocolate…

And Elsie is catering and entertaining the masses…

And MaryB makes her debut on a Broadway stage…

And Jean is titillating…

And Frank is addressing the British Parliament…

And the other Jean has flown the coop on a pilgrimage…

And Mick anticipates his virtual Second Coming…

Winston slaves away, continuing the 12-hour day habit that has interfered with my blogging time for the past few weeks. It had been 24 12 x 7 until Monday, when I actually took a day off and stayed home for much needed R & R of Labor Day. Unfortunately, Roomie’s accumulated list of chores for me was enough to force me back to work on Tuesday to get rested up. There were two bright spots on Labor Day. First, the temperature was not over 100 as it had been for about 3 weeks — it was only 97. And secondly, I grilled to perfection, hers and mine — quite different objectives, a couple of filet mignon(s?) that turned out as outrageously delicious and tender as they were expensive. Then I capped the evening by annointing the sculptured area rug and my new chair with red wine (a nice little inexpensive Australian Shiraz by Yellow Tail) .

Until my return to daily spewing here, please visit the fine bloggers highlighted above or any of the ones from my sidebar. Soon…

Especially when you’re talking about skis…

From Joy’s collection.

While doing research for the previous post, I discovered an interesting fact. The 34 star U.S. Flag shown here was the official flag at the beginning of the American Civil War. Even after the Southern states seceded, President Lincoln would not allow a reduction of the number of stars. He figured they would be back, voluntarily or kicking and screaming. Wise man, that Lincoln…

Another interesting tidbit is that despite their acceptance of slavery, four states, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri, did not secede and join the Confederacy. The populace and politicians in these border or buffer states had divided loyalties, but generally provided troops, supplies, safe passage and haven to the Confederacy.

Tennessee was the last state to pull out of the Union and join the Confederacy, and if not the first, one of the first to officially rejoin the Union following collapse of the Confederacy. As a kid growing up in West Tennessee, I also remember learning that my home county, Carroll County, never went along with secession and voted to remain loyal to the United States under President Lincoln. I have not been able to confirm that bit of lore, but like to believe that it is in fact true…