Ah, racin'

I wrote recently about the fantastic trip Chris and I took to the Lancaster Speedway on a Saturday night. The recent fiasco of NASCAR moving the labor day race from Darlington caused me to rethink my experience in Lancaster.

I have seen video of old Southern 500's that are run in Darlington, SC. They have been running these Labor Day races since 1950. I remember telling Wendell and Chris that I wish I could travel back in time and attend a race at Darlington in the 50's or 60's. It looked to me to be very raw and exciting and so very southern.

Now, as I reconsider my trip to the Lancaster Speedway, I realize I witnessed what it was like to be in Darlington in the 1950's. Yes, friends, seeing a dirt track race in South Carolina is equivalent to being at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn.

The treachery of the TV dollar

There hasn't been a heist of sports history of this magnitude since Los Angeles lured the Dodgers to leave Brooklyn.

No woman, no interview

Of course after telling everybody I know about how excited I was about the prospective job in Washington I was not offered a face to face interview.

I did receive a lot of encouragement from the manager of the reference department I wanted to work for and she did recommend I apply for some jobs that are going to open this summer in their regional libraries. I guess it wasn't a total loss.

You know a job market is tight when the interviewers tell you how wonderful you interviewed and still tell you to stay home.

Man, I really wanted that job.

What the hell, how about another Neal Pollack quote?

"Personally, I see nothing wrong with examining documents based on 25-year-old spy materials and using them to arrest people in secret in the middle of the night and subsuquently hold them indefinitely without charges. Falsifiers of the truth, like Cassel, still seem unwilling to realize that we're at war, facing a faceless enemy without name. Any one of her friends, or enemies, or someone she sees at the store, could be a terrorist who wants to kill her. No amount of paranoid dissembling is going to change that reality. "

A short piece

There were six people on the beach that night. They were laying on their backs staring up at the sky. Lake Michigan was nearly silent. The only sound from the inland ocean was a soft plopping of the surf that was barely noticeable like the soft breathing of a sleeping cat. There was no wind and temperature was around 72 on this July night. I remember it being what I like to think as a 'the perfect temerature.' The conditions you are thinking of when you refer to room temperature. It was the kind of weather that you could work all day in and not sweat too much yet you could still wear shorts at night. That is July in northern Michigan.

This night has always been fuzzy in my head. I was less than ten years old and we were laying on the beach waiting for shooting stars. I don't know if this was taking place during a regularly scheduled meteor shower or if we just ended up on our backs. I do know the activity was suggested and coordinated by my step-mother's parents. Were the adults drinking? I don't know. All I remember is being half asleep most of the night because it was real late. It doesn't get dark up there in the summer until after ten pm. I am drifting in and out of sleep and occasionally I see a white streak pass among the gazillion of starts that have always blazed just beyond our reach.

Soft spoken announcements emit from each of us. "There's one." "Another one, there!" "Oooh, that was a good one." "I just saw two!"

Living up to expectations

Ever read about a live show that is an event? A happening? One of those cool shows that has the potential to be a landmark? Ever been to one? Me neither.

A few weeks back I heard about the Stooges reuniting for a big festival in California called Coachella. I was especially excited when I learned that Mike Watt of the Minutemen was going to be on bass. Boo Yaa! Sounds like fun.

So, being poor, I naturally couldn't go to California for a festival even if it did have the Stooges and the White Stripes on the bill. I saw a few pictures of the show, read a couple of reviews of it and that was that. Seemed to me like everyone had a good time.

Lo and behold, a few days ago the show pops on a bootleg newsgroup. I was ecstatic. I downloaded and burned it without even previewing it. I didn't care about the sound quality, I just wanted a little taste of the event. How does the show sound? It sounds great. A little heavy on the bass but the crowd is appreciative and Iggy is just being Iggy. Musically the Stooges are not Zeppelin but they do know how to lay down a groove that Iggy can howl over.

I knew it was going to be special and this recording proved it, dammit.

Fuck the poor

From duh NY Times: The majority leader's defiance of the White House reflected growing frustration among conservatives about pressure from the administration to provide a benefit to millions of minimum-wage families who pay little or nothing in federal income taxes. (Found this via Tom Tomorrow)

Concentrating on what's really important

And what's the first merchandise supporters can buy to celebrate Charlotte's new NBA team?

Another diplomatic brain fart, screw up, fumble and botch job

How can anybody think that this is a good idea or will repair our already shitty world reputation? Who the fuck is in charge of PR for these dill holes, anyway?

You gotta wonder why these people are still being held when you read shit like this: "After the detention center opened in January 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld called the detainees ``among the most dangerous, best trained, vicious killers on the face of the Earth.'' But, after lengthy interrogation, many are thought to be low-level former Taliban fighters and unlikely prospects for commission trials."

You have to admire the gall of this adminstration when they preach peace and wage war and extoll our freedoms yet run a concentration camp in Cuba.

blog quote

Liberal or conservative, politicized food just gives me gas.