Recent Events

What a run of twists and turns the world has thrown at us.

Ed McMahon died, but that wasn't a major surprise. He'd had health problems the last few years. He was the best sidekick to the best late night host of all time. He hosted Star Search, which has somehow been forgotten in TV history. It was a good show, and have you checked out the list of people who performed on it? And of course, McMahon was the face of Publisher's Clearinghouse, which led you to wanting him appear on your doorstep unexpectedly. His was an eclectic career, and as they say, "We will not see his like again."

Farrah Fawcett died today, which was also no surprise, as she had been dying of cancer for a while. Growing up, "Farrah Fawcett" was one of those "names" that I heard ALL THE TIME, even before I had any idea who she was. It was along the lines of "Farrah Fawcett = beauty." She was a reference point for hotness.

The biggest story--and the biggest surprise--is that Michael Jackson died today. I need not tell anybody who gets notified of a new blog post what it was like growing up at a time when he was the biggest star in the world. Not just the most popular singer, but probably the most well-known person on the planet. He came from a musical family, was a child prodigy singer in a very successful group, and then hit even greater heights going solo. He could moonwalk!

Somebody asked what some memories of him are, and I came up with these: 1) Seeing "Captain Eo" at Disney World (in 3-D, no less). 2) Hearing people say, "I remember when Michael Jackson was black." (you know how when you search for something on youtube and it has some suggestions as you type in the keyword? Once I got to "Michael Jackson o", it automatically suggested "Michael Jackson over the years", which is what I wanted to search for. People have typed it in so much, it's an autofill suggestion now) 3) The beat to "Smooth Criminal". 4) The "Thriller" video scared the crap out of me (not linking to it, because if you haven't seen it, you ain't never gonna see it). 5) Weird Al doing "Eat It" and "Fat" parodies of "Beat It" and "Bad."

Jackson was a guest voice on the "Simpsons" back in Season 3, playing Leon Kompowsky, a man who claimed to be was Michael Jackson. Note #1: They're in Season 20 now. Note #2: By my count, of the celebrity guest stars who have appeared on the Simpsons, Michael Jackson is at least the 21st to die. Ed McMahon was the 20th. I could be wrong on the count, but I'm not interested in going through to see if anybody from Sonic Youth has died lately. I counted at least 21.

And now: sports!

The Mighty Tigers of LSU defeated Texas to win their sixth NCAA College World Series championship. As a former participant in the Skip Bertman Baseball Camp at LSU, I feel like I deserve a little credit for the program's success. Three years ago, LSU fired a coach who was running the program into the ground and hired Paul Mainieri from Notre Dame, who had actually taken a Northern team to the CWS. For reference, the eight teams in this year's CWS were LSU, Texas, Arizona State, Cal State Fullerton, Arkansas, Southern Miss, North Carolina, and Virginia. Teams from the West Coast, Southeast, and Southwest tend to dominate the sport, so taking Notre Dame there is impressive.

Mainieri recruits well, seems like a really nice guy, and manages his players very well. Here's to him sticking around for a long time.

I won't bore you with a lot of names of who played well, but I will mention this one player: Jared Mitchell. Mike Patrick, Orel Hershiser and Robin Ventura spent a good portion of each game talking about his "tools." Mitchell is also a wide receiver on the football team who was drafted by the White Sox in the first round. He's a great athlete, and the announcers couldn't say enough about his tools, his tools, and his tools. The first two games of the 2 of 3 finals, I played a game where I had to do a shot every time they mentioned "tools" in reference to Jared Mitchell. The bottle didn't even make it to the third game.

In international soccer, the U.S. defeated Spain 2-0 on Wednesday to advance to the finals of the Confederations Cup. Spain is ranked #1 in the world, had won 15 matches in a row, and had not been beaten in 35 matches. The U.S. will face Brazil in the title game, after a late goal put them past South Africa. ESPN2 is showing the replay of that game, and I managed to catch the national anthem of South Africa. Listening to it, I was wondering if it would be in Zulu, Afrikaans, or English. The answer is "yes" with two others thrown in. It runs through Xhosa, Zulu, Sesotho, Afrikaans, and English. You can see the video here. If you ever watched the Shaka Zulu miniseries on TV--and I know you did--you heard the word "nkosi" a lot. The song translated it as "lord", but I tended to understand it as "king" on the show.

Note #3: Brazil's national team is known as the Seleção ("the select"), while South Africa are Bafana Bafana ("the boys"). A list of notable team names can be found here. Among my favorites:

The Eagles of Carthage (Tunisia)
Indomitable Lions (Cameroon)
Super Eagles (Nigeria)
War Elephants (Thailand)
The Clockwork Orange (Netherlands)

It's an Interesting World

Quite a few people had driven down from Natchitoches to attend, a testament to his popularity.

Father Roy could be very strident in his opinions on any topic. He would stop by the house unannounced and have dinner. If you invited him for a Thursday, he'd tell you he'd be there Saturday. He sat in Daddy's chair and commandeered the remote. He called people by nicknames that nobody else thought of using for that person. It was tough to hold a conversation with him, because at any point in your side of things he would break in and just talk right over you. All of this makes it sound like he was hard to get along with or even unlikable. So why was the cathedral standing room only?

a) He told the greatest stories you ever heard, in the most entertaining way you ever heard them. He had a great Mansura, LA accent. I don't know how to describe it, but it was really fun to listen to. He would dominate the conversation, but you'd be laughing so hard that it was okay. He was willing to make fun of himself along the way. He said that when he moved to a new town, the first thing he did was make 21 friends. That way, he could eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at a different place each week.

He hated the song "Amazing Grace." I remember him saying that a funeral he conducted had the "Singing Fontaine Sisters", who "sang all 48 verses of Amazing Grace", who "couldn't find key in A1 lock factory", and "should have been singing tenor--ten or twenty miles away."

He was going to take a helicopter tour in Hawaii, but they charged extra for anyone over 250 pounds. He didn't mind paying the regular price, but when he weighed himself that morning, "the scale said 'To Be Continued.'"

b) Whatever he said or how he acted, you could tell that there was no malice in him. I can't begin to imagine how hard that is to pull off. He was a genuinely good man, and that made him a popular priest.

Back to the funeral. Like I said, I don't usually get upset. I would have been fine, but at the end his brother (also a priest) came out to thank everyone for coming and to say goodbye. And his brother sounded...just...like him! I don't mean that in the "yeah, they must be related" or "they must be from the same place" kind of way. I mean he spoke and sounded EXACTLY like Ken Roy. He started talking, and I actually said, "Wow" out loud. My mom said I should have seen the look on my face. The sound, the tone, the accent, the mannerisms--everything was the same. Listening to him was like experiencing a Ken Roy homily, from the sounds to the way he read from the paper in front of him, to the way he adjusted his glasses, down to how he ended his sentences. I have never seen or heard anything like it, and it really got me.

Just My Luck

Last Sunday I went to St. Louis Cathedral for 11 o'clock Mass. It's a nice place, and is featured in tons of photos of Jackson Square, which it overlooks. It's been a long time since I've been there, and it's a bit smaller than I remember. It's always neat to me whenever a bishop is doing the service and at the point where a regular priest would be saying a prayer for "Sam our bishop" or whatever the bishop's name is, the bishop says, "and me, your humble servant" or something similar.

The second reading was from the fifth chapter of Galatians, and was a very ironic one for my first weekend living in New Orleans. The section in question deals with sins of the flesh. You don't have to stretch your imagination to guess the writer's position. Let's just say that witchcraft, drunkenness, orgies (there goes Tuesday), and selfish ambition are out (joke's on them--I don't have ANY ambition, much less ambition of the selfish variety) and love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control are in. I think I can handle up to eight of those.

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In case you missed one of my previous facebook statii, here it is:

My N.O. driving experience so far:

"S***!" "
"Aw, son of a b****!"
*maniacal laughter*
"I'll turn around he--no, that's a one-way street, damn."
Garmin: "Recalculating . . ."
"Was that a stop sign? I can't see anything."
"Can I go? Can I go? What does that line mean? I'd like to go. Can I go?"
"S***!"

It's been much better lately. It's not that people drive crazily or traffic is terrible, because neither has been true so far. I just often don't have any idea what I'm doing. As one of my coworkers pointed out, "You can't take a left turn anywhere in the city, but you can U-turn the hell out of it."

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I was chatting with a friend from high school the other day and stated that Hulu is much more dangerous than youtube. Hulu can give you videos of a much higher quality, the videos aren't limited to ten minutes, and they have permission to publish copyrighted material. If I miss Simpsons, Bones, or Chuck, I can just check Hulu. Lately I've been looking at a veritable tresure trove of old SNL skits. After indulging in the Celebrity Jeopardy skits (Suck it Trebek), I'm currently looking at at older, pre-1995 skits. The Chris Farley motivational speaker video had me laughing out loud, at least until I realized that 40% of the cast in that video, Farley and Phil Hartman, no longer set mortal foot upon earthly soil.

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I'm not doing a bunch of souvenir shopping in New Orleans, but there is one thing that I'm looking for:


I saw this handsome devil in a souvenir shop in the French Quarter in Spring 2005. I wanted to buy him, but didn't think I could conveniently transport it back to D.C. by plane. I ducked into probably half a dozen shops this afternoon, but nobody has anything close. I will find you one day, Mr. Skull. I will.

Note: this was in the days I was still getting my hair cut by the nice Korean lady who had a setup on the ground floor of my apartment building in Alexandria. Same haircut every time. More her idea than mine, but I didn't mind.

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In my last movie post, I forgot to mention Come Drink With Me, considered an important classic of Chinese martial arts movies. Cheng Pei Pei plays Golden Swallow, who must defeat the bad guys in order to save her brother. The movie was produced by the Shaw Brothers, who owned a huge studio they used to film all sorts of movies. The fighting is a little jerky, but they do some interesting things.

CDWM comes to us from 1966, the same year that gave us A Man for All Seasons (one of the all-time greats), Alfie, The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming (intriguing title, no?), The Sand Pebbles, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? It's usually interesting to sort through some of the old Oscar nominations to see what was going on. Best Cinematography for that year went to Fantastic Voyage, a film where a submarine is shrunken down and inserted into a diplomat's bloodstream in an attempt to save his life. The Simpson did a takeoff on it in "Treehouse of Horror XV", titled "In the Belly of the Boss."

New Orleans

On May 28th I moved down to New Orleans for the summer. My graduate program requires that we have a heritage-related internship this summer, so I'm working for Save Our Cemeteries. The work is good, the people are nice. I've already traipsed into St. Louis Cemeteries 1 and 2 and Lafayette Cemetery 1. I'll see a few more before I'm done. The SOC office is a few blocks away from the French Quarter, where I ate lunch every single day this week. Johnny's Po Boys, Viola, Coop's Place, and someplace I'm forgetting right now. My parents were in town over the weekend, and I had a roast beef po boy at Mother's, the Pork Tchoup with jambalaya at Ye Olde College Inn, and a ham omelet at the Camellia Grill.

Note: There's a street named Tchoupitoulas, which is where the Tchoup gets its name. Some people just say "Tchoup" instead of "Tchoupitoulas."

I've also had pretty good pizza at a place called Reginelli's near my apartment. I'm in a good neighborhood in uptown, close to Audubon Park and Audubon Zoo.

Of the nicknames associated with New Orleans--the Big Easy, the Crescent City--my favorite is "The City that Care Forgot." I like it because it sounds sort of easygoing, but it's also a little ambiguous. Does it mean that the rest of the world doesn't care about New Orleans? Does it means that New Orleans doesn't care? Actually, I could see some people thinking it's a bit depressing. But I think it does a good job of expressing something about New Orleans that I've noticed for a long time: New Orleans lets you be who you are. You can be as uncommon or eccentric as you like, as long as you don't hurt anybody with it. And if you get a little extreme in your eccentricity, that's okay.

Jazz musician Ernie K-Doe may have died in 2001, but "thanks to his wife, he maintained a schedule of public appearances via a life-size, fully costumed, look-alike mannequin. Mrs. K-Doe referred to the mannequin as "Ernie." Link. If you want to experience New Orleans from afar, there's no better way to do it than reading the columns of Chris Rose in the Times-Picayune. Here's his story on Antoinette K-Doe's funeral.

Movies, Movies, and more Movies

When I posted about Iron Man last time, my intention was to do a post for each of the movies I'd seen recently. Change of plans. Instead I'll just do a short bit on each one. This will save you some reading time, as well as allow me to start writing about New Orleans sooner.

After Iron Man came Incredible Hulk, which was okay. Hulk movies have the same problem as Superman movies, in that it's tough to create real drama because you never doubt that the Hulk is going to smash the bad guys in the end. Ed Norton is solid, Liv Tyler is about as good ("meh" good) as Jennifer Connelly was in the Hulk movie they made about half an hour before this one. One advantage the prior movie had was its inventiveness with the screen, where they split it up to make it look more like a comic book. I did like William Hirt as the scheming-yet-probably-not-altogether-evil general. Tim Roth acted the part of the Hulk's opponent well, but I've seen The Legend of 1900 too many times to see him as anything but a piano player.

After Hulk came Get Smart. Expectations were low, as I'd watched and enjoyed the TV series when it ran on Nick at Nite ages ago. The show was quirky and funny, with a good deal of inventiveness to offset the standard Cold War storylines. I just didn't think the movie version would measure up in any way. I was wrong.

They managed to plug in just enough homages to the old show--shoe phone, "Missed it by that much!", "Would you believe . . ." while at the same time updating the storylines and character attitudes for today's audience. You wouldn't have had to see the old show to enjoy the movie, but you would have enjoyed it more. The villains aren't scary or malicious, but Get Smart isn't a seriously intense world. Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway are good as Maxwell Smart and Agent 99. I was very pleasantly surprised with Carell, who managed to meld the Don Adams original Max with his own quirks and personality. It was marvelously done, in fact. I laughed and laughed.

For a period of time, one of my movie buddies in DC was a college friend who enjoyed going to the theater as much as I did. One more than one occasion we doubled up and saw two movies in a day, and on one memorable day we saw not one, not two, but three movies on one day. I think one was a Star Wars movie and another a Scooby Doo. The third escapes me at the moment (and likely for eternity). After she left for another part of the country, my cousin Catie became my movie buddy. This greatly helped her case in being named my favorite cousin. (though I don't think we ever doubled up. She had things like "a life" and "friends" to take care of...)

Alas, I am 1200 miles and a whole time zone away from her now, so I've had to find a new buddy. Or in this case, buddies. Three of my Sylvester cousins are remarkably reliable on short notice when asked "Hey, do y'all want to see Wolverine this afternoon?" So off we went. In short, it's all right. I think they massaged some of the timeline to update it, but I'd have to look into it to be sure, and I don't feel like, and it's not terribly important anyway. The fight scene at the end is pretty good, and I wish it could have lasted a bit longer.

Note: I just can never buy Ryan Reynolds as a tough guy. I've seen Smokin' Aces (and regrettably heard a girl on the metro say, "That was such a good movie." No, it wasn't. It was good for four minutes, then bad for the next five. Good for three, bad for four. Good for four, bad for three. You get the point. It could've been so much better) and Blade: Trinity, and I just don't buy it. If the ladies and alternate lifestyle gentlemen want to rave about his abs, that's fine. I just don't feel the tough guy.

I Netflixed The Departed and was prepared for a solid movie that went nuts at the end. This was based on the buzz and commentary I'd heard about it. The commentary was right. "Wha...??" I don't mind twists and yowza moments to wind down a film, but my gripe is that they should always make sense within the context of what's come before. You don't have to tell me it's coming, but I should be completely blindsided by someone who's been on screen for maybe 120 seconds till now and suddenly shows up to change the whole world, either.

It won Best Picture, though I thought The Queen was better. Scorcese won Best Director, but a lot of people said it was more of a lifetime achievement award than for this one. the story's a little shaky, but on the plus side, I felt like it was extremely well-acted. It's tempting to dismiss Leonardo DiCaprio as an actor because we may think of him as a pretty boy, but he's been really good in some really good movies, going back to at least What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Note: DiCaprio's IMDB page shows 21 titles "under development" for him at the moment. Is that high? I have no idea. Anyway, one of them is titled "Akira." As we all know, Akira is one of the classics in anime film, based on a manga of the same name. The movie is great. If they're remaking it or making a live version, they'd better strap themselves in, because they've got their work cut out for them.

Additional note: A FB friend of mine (who I didn't speak to or even know the whereabouts of for at least the last 20 years, and don't speak to now except to comment on a status update or posting--you know the drill) posted a list of movies that have remakes planned:

Alien, Predator, Vally Girl, Romancing the Stone, Karate Kid, Cliffhanger, Red Dawn, Fright Night, True Grit, The Thing, The Crow, and Total Recall.

I strongly advise against trying to tackle the following:

Alien: it's a classic of sci-fi horror and doesn't need "updating" with any special effects, and you're not going to improve on the story. You'll only confuse things if you try.

Predator: You'll never be able to replicate its Arnoldness.

Romancing the Stone: Come on! You think you can make a better romantic adventure movie than Douglas/Turner/Devito? I repeat: Come on!

Karate Kid: The ghost of Pat Morita will haunt you. Besides, there's no Japanese actor who can pull it off right now. Ken Watanabe? Too big. Mako? Dead.

Red Dawn: Don't you dare. Don't you bleeping dare. What are you going to do, have terrorists take over the town of Calumet, Colorado? I enjoyed this note from wikipedia (some of which might be accurate):

"Red Dawn was the first movie to be released with a Motion Picture Association of America PG-13 rating.^[1] At one time, Red Dawn was considered the most violent film by the Guinness Book of Records and The National Coalition on Television Violence, with a rate of 134 acts of violence per hour, or 2.23 per minute."

Really? Red Dawn as the most violent movie? Nightmare on Elm Street came out the same year, Texas Chainsaw Massacre ten years before, Friday the 13th in 1980, and thousands of war movies before that. And Red Dawn was the most violent movie?

The Thing: Already been remade once. My dad tells the story of going to the theater in Natchitoches in 1951 (he was 7) to see the original. When he got home, he latched onto the housekeeper's leg and wouldn't let go.

The Crow: Cursed. Jason Lee will haunt you.

Wrapping up The Departed, I noticed that Mark Wahlberg was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, and as far as I can tell, it's for his ability to curse in rhythm whenever he's on camera. Thank goodness for Alan Arkin in Little Miss Sunshine.

I went to see Star Trek the weekend before I left Natchitoches. Good movie. Probably a really good movie. It does a great job of setting up characters and their relationships. Like Get Smart, it includes a good bit of the catchphrases people want to hear. They even have the throwaway guy go on a mission with Kirk and Sulu, so you can guess what happens to him. (I always heard him described as the "Ensign Johnson" character. "We're sending an away team to battle the hordes of man-eating monsters on Chronos 9. The team is Kirk, Spock, Bones, Chekov, and...Ensign Johnson." Guess who gets eaten?)

It's smart, funny, and enjoyable. The villains aren't terrifying, but that's sort of a secondary element in a movie like this. They did a pretty good job of tying things together without being herky-jerky about it.

Finally, Angels and Demons. I hadn't planned on seeing it, but the Sylvesters texted me at 9pm one night asking if I wanted to see the 9:30 show. As I was only busying myself by bowling perfect games on the Wii, I agreed to go. Solid movie. I don't think you'd need to have read or seen the DaVinci Code to get it, but it might help to be familiar with the Robert Langdon character. It moves quickly and doesn't get bogged down with symbolism out the wazoo. Well-acted for the most part, and it manages to use our assumptions about character types and turn them against us. It's got a good amount of excitement and daring-do to keep you entertained.

That should be it with the movies for a while, though I hear that Up is outstanding.

Iron Man

I've seen a few movies lately, thanks to Netflix and the Parkway Cinema in Natchitoches. It was a little predictable and yet nostalgia-inducing to find that in the 20-something years (I'm estimating) since Parkway Cinema opened, they haven't changed anything about the original four theaters. They have added two theaters with stadium seating, but the original four still contain thirteen rows of fourteen seats each. If you sit in the seventh row, seventh seat, you're pretty much in the center of the room. Prime position. Seven-seven is the key to the theater. The Greeks knew it. The Carthaginians knew it. Now, you know it.

Anyway, not a theater viewing but a Netflix rental, Iron Man was rather good. It's held back a little due to one of the iron laws of pro wrestling: the good guy is only as good as the bad guy is bad. The villains are unimpressive, so Robert Downey, Jr.'s victory in the end isn't thrilling or dramatic in any way. However, it does do a good job of going through the origin of the character and his relationships, which is really the purpose of the film. I'd heard from several sources when it was out that it was surprisingly good, and I guess I'll agree with that. I really like Gwyneth Paltrow, even though she's in a decidedly subordinate role. I hope she sticks around for later movies.

As in all the recent Marvel movies, Stan Lee makes an appearance, this time playing Hugh Hefner surrounded by beautiful women (technically, he's referred to as playing himself and Toy Stark mistakes him for Hefner). I sort of like the way they just drop him in in different roles from film to film. Starting with X-Men in 2000, he's been in about ten cameo roles.

All in all, it's a good movie that sets things up for sequels, and I get the feeling that the sequels will actually be better.

End of Semester Grumblings, Recountings, and Elations

We'll be talking about quite a few things in this post: basketball, New York City, fried chicken, and New Orleans.

Basketball

Back in April, the North Carolina Tar Heels defeated the Michigan State Spartans 89-72 to win the NCAA Tournament championship. UNC led by 21 points at halftime, a margin they had achieved just ten minutes into the game. MSU's largest lead was 1 point. UNC's largest lead was 24 points. If my eyes and math do not deceive me, the smallest UNC lead of the second half was 14 points. The game was never in doubt from the start. To give the Spartans credit, they managed to lose by less than half as many points this time than the last time the played the Tar Heels. In case you were wondering, it was earlier the same season on December 3rd, when they lost by 35 points at the same site (Ford Field). At the time, people said that MSU had some injuries and was in the middle of a brutal stretch of their schedule.

I like North Carolina. If they're not playing NSU or LSU (who they actually did beat in the second round), then I'll pull for them against anybody. Love the tradition, love Dean Smith, really like my cousin Roy as the coach. So I'm glad they won the title.

BUT...

This is another example of why the NCAA Tournament is about finding a champion, rather than finding out who the best team is. Not that UNC wasn't the best team, because I think they were. They're an awesomely efficient offensive team that defensively clamped down on both the 3-point shot and on shots near the goal. They're worthy of hoisting the trophy. But did beating Michigan State for a second time really prove that? In two games, they beat them by a combined 52 points. If LSU's football team beat Texas by 35 points, the all things being equal, there's no way Texas would be allowed a second shot at the Tigers for the national title. Oh, it's mathematically possible, but the voters would bury the Longhorns so far down in the polls that their BCS ranking would end up too low. Nobody wants to see a previous blowout matchup as the national title game.

New York City

We wandered up to New York for spring break and had a really good time. We stayed at a hotel across the street from the World Trade Center site. Friday night we ate at a French restaurant near the hotel. Saturday night we ate at a Greek restaurant and went to see "Wicked" on Broadway, which is really good. I love the whole "Popular" scene. Sunday night was an Italian restaurant in Little Italy. So that's it for the dining and entertainment portion of the trip.

We went to Chinatown on Easter Sunday, which was quite a bit of fun. I bought a Chinese shirt and pants, and my mom and sisters got me the shoes and hat to go with it. The hat even has a ponytail braid attached, which is a nice touch, and the shoes are ridiculously comfortable. Plus, I look smashing in the ensemble.

Saturday we went to the New York Public Library, which I was looking forward to seeing. I'm sure other people will say "Well duh..." to this, but I walked in, looked around, and wondered, "Hey, where are the books?" I wanted to see rows and rows of stacks upon stacks. Nuthin'. Apparently all the real books are spread out among their satellite libraries. So what are those lion statues supposed to be guarding?

After that it was off to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I'll say this for it: it's big. Enormous. We all split up and went our separate ways for about 90 minutes. At the end, we'd ask "Hey, did you see this?" "No." "How about this?" "Nope." We'd all seen different stuff. I saw Greek stuff from the temple of Artemis at Sardis, a bunch of Egyptian stuff, and Americana from the 19th century.

We wandered down to Battery Park on Sunday and ate at some deli place with pizza and a hot bar. If I lived in New York City, I'd eat a lot of pizza. I forget if it was Saturday or Sunday, but we spent some time in Central Park and went into FAO Schwartz, too. I got to see that big piano thingy* (technical term) they used in Big.

*If I could've found a better vid, I'd have linked to it, trust me.

New York's fun. I'm sure there's things I'm forgetting. But I couldn't be there unless I was scheduled to do something. It's not a place I could just hang around.

Fried Chicken

Oprah is dead to me. It boggles my mind why anybody would go to KFC when there's a Popeyes around. Oprah is in Chicago. There's plenty of Popeyes in Chicago, probably around fifty or so. She's got no excuse to team up with a place whose chicken suuuuuuucks. Besides, "KFC" doesn't even stand for "Kentucky Fried Chicken" anymore. They changed it a few years ago so that "KFC" just means . . . "KFC." Oooh. They said they didn't want to be associated with just fried chicken. As a man who loves being associated with friend chicken, I find that reprehensible. Come on, Oprah. Tell people the truth. You're rich enough to get away with it.

New Orleans

I'm fine with a lot of things, and I like a lot of things, but I don't actually want a whole lot of things. I'm fine with grad school right now. I like walking down Front Street in Natchitoches and eating and drinking at a local spot. But one of the things that I've wanted for quite a while is to live in New Orleans by myself for an extended period of time. I first thought about it several years ago. I'd just like to live there and get into the rhythm of the city for a bit. It looks like that's going to happen.

I have a summer internship with Save Our Cemeteries, an organization whose mission should be self-explanatory. The work I'll be doing coincides with both my interests and my project thesis, so it's a good match. Did I mention that I'll be living in New Orleans for the summer? Some might quake at "New Orleans" and "summer" in the same sentence, but not I. Bring it on, baby. A hot, wet blanket being draped over me right when I step outside? That what I live for.

Somebody asked a classmate (who is also down there this summer), "How many days in a row can you go around and explore New Orleans?" I answered for her, "Oh, I dunno--A MILLION?" I can eat at a good restaurant one night, go see live music the next, hang out at a cool joint the next. I don't get excited about many things. I mean really excited. But I'm excited about this, so wish me well.

Knowing

A few things before I get into telling you how bad I think Knowing was:

I almost screamed like a little girl when I saw this: http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/tauntaun.html

The NCAA has hosted a women's basketball tournament since 1982. In every single one of these, Tennessee has reached the Sweet 16. Coming into this year, they were 27 for 27 in that department and had won eight titles. In their 19 tournament losses, none came to a team seeded lower than fourth. So it was unheard of when they lost in the first round of this year's tournament to a twelve seed. Not just any twelve seed, but a Ball State team that had never been in the tournament at all. The baseball poets tell us that every time you watch a baseball game, you have a chance to see something you've never seen before. This year, that sort of thing happened in women's basketball. It would be like me beating Tiger Woods in eighteen holes of golf.

On March 19 in men's college basketball, Syracuse beat Connecticut in six overtimes. The thing that jumped out at me first when I saw the box score was the half-by-half breakdown. It usually looks something like this:

1 2 T
34 33 67
29 30 59

This game's breakdown looks like this:


1 2 OT 2OT 3OT 4OT 5OT 6OT T
34 37 10 6 11 6 6 17 127
37 34 10 6 11 6 6 7 117

(It looks fine when I type it in, but screwy when I do the preview, so you may have to use your imagination)

Consider some of the numbers from this game:

In their previous matchup, Syracuse attempted 60 shots and 12 free throws, UCONN 48 shots and 22 free throws. In this game, Syracuse attempted 103 shots and 51 free throws, UCONN 106 shots and 42 free throws. Six players had double-doubles. Three players from UCONN had 14 rebounds each. Syracuse guard Jonny Flynn played 67 minutes--more than a game and a half. Eight players fouled out. After the end of regulation, 102 more points were scored.

Oklahoma's women's basketball team recently lost to Louisville in the national semifinals. Their famous relatives are very sad. You may not recognize the last name of Courtney and Ashley Paris, but their father, Bubba Paris, was an offensive lineman who won three Super Bowls blocking for Joe Montana. The next two names might be more familiar: Abi Olajuwon and Carlee Roethlisberger. The first is Hakeem Olajuwon's daughter and the second is Ben Roethlisberger's sister. That's some pretty heavy pro sports family power.

On to Knowing, which I think is terrible. I'm inclined to look favorably on it, since it was co-written by the daughter of a former Scholars' College professor. I take my Natchitoches connections where I can get them. Somebody accused me of sounding like a critic (actually, like most critics) when I said that Nicolas Cage completely mailed in a lousy acting job, the writers littered the film with disconnected motifs, and the film had absolutely no central structure to work around. I'm fine with a movie that's about randomness, but it shouldn't just be a compilation of random scenes that don't have any sort of connecting thread running through it. Then it's just nonsense on screen.

I'm not saying that the film has to tell the viewer everything, explaining it to them like they're a simpleton. And I'm not saying that the viewer shouldn't have to do any thinking, or even do any serious thinking. I just believe that when the viewer does think critically about the movie, then things pretty much make sense. I didn't get that, and neither did the people I watched it with. Plus, the acting was so bad that it was hard to take too much of it seriously, which really ruins my suspension of disbelief. I think the premise of the story is a good one and could have made for a good movie. Unfortunately, everything else messed it up. Reminds me of "Langoliers" on ABC from several years back. I really liked the story, but the execution was just awful.

If you're looking for something to fill your free time--laugh uproariously here--then I recommend Academic Earth, which gives you access to lectures on a range of topics from some of the more highly-regarded universities.

Mardi Gras

Down in New Orleans
Where the blues was born
It takes a cool cat
To blow a horn
On LaSalle and Rampart Street
The combo's there with a mambo beat

The Mardi Gras, mambo, mambo, mambo
Party Gras, pambo, mambo, mambo
Mardi Gras, mambo-ooh
Down in New Orleans

Those are the opening lyrics to the "Mardi Gras Mambo", which is quite catchy.

I had thought about telling you what a good time I had at Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Instead, I believe a brief story will suffice:

We left Friday morning and came back Monday afternoon. Around 5pm Monday, I poured myself a glass of water. I walked up to my mom and said, "Watch this." I took a sip of water. I said (in my remaining hoarse half-voice), "I think that's the first water I've had since Thursday."
We stayed with some friends who are Marianites of Holy Cross. They are all wonderful and very strong women who are a lot of fun to hang around. Some of their Sisters stake out an area each morning on the corner of St. Charles and Washington, which is very convenient.

We saw nine parades in three days: Tucks, Krewe d'Etat, Morpheus, Iris, Thoth, Mid-City, Bacchus, Dionysus, and Hermes. Of those, Bacchus is the biggest, but Krewe d'Etat is the most entertaining. They focus on making fun of local and national political figures. (one of their floats was themed "WTFWJD?" It would have been ten parades had we gone to see Endymion Saturday night, but we lost our spot because the church we sit in front of was closed down (or something like that). Endymion isn't technically the most important parade. That title would likely go to Rex, whose king is the King of Carnival. The king decides on that year's Mardi Gras theme and is involved in important traditions, such as toasting the King of Zulu. Rex also declared purple, green and gold to be the official colors of Mardi Gras. Endymion is the largest parade, however, and their motto is "Throw Until It Hurts." I can attest that one can really clean up at an Endymion parade. Zulu was founded as the black Krewe. There are a few female krewes, like Iris and Muses. "Carnival season" technically lasts from the end of Christmas (remember, there are twelve days of Christmas) until Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday.

Some people are under the impression that the City of New Orleans puts on Mardi Gras. That's why there were comments in 2006 that said the city should not hold parades and the like in the wake of Hurrican Katrina. As far as I can tell, the city does three things for Mardi Gras: issues parade permits, pays the cops, and cleans up the trash. Everything else is a private endeavor. The parades are put on by krewes, private organizations with paid memberships. Members pay for their own costumes and beads, doubloons, cups, etc. (these are collectively known as "throws"). I'd say that New Orleans "hosts" Mardi Gras instead.

Every now and then someone asks me how to catch a lot of beads. My two suggestions: 1) stand next to kids and old people and snatch what comes their way; 2) stand next to a guy with a girl on her shoulders. His hands are busy holding on to her, and her hands are busy holding her shirt. This is probably a good time to note that the majority of every parade route is not filled with drunken perverts, but families and others who behave themselves. I certainly don't deny the shenanigans that take place, especially since I've stood on a balcony across the street from Playboy's balcony suite. Beads that usually travel from balcony to street were then going the other way.

Anyway, I really enjoy Mardi Gras. It gets a lot of attention for New Orleans and Louisiana. Listening to the radio on the way home Monday, we heard caller after caller talk about what a great, special, and meaningful event Mardi Gras is for people. Transplants from other parts of the country tell their friends that they have to come see it. Their friends ask if it's really that good, and they just say, "You have no idea."

Sunday morning before Mass we stopped in at a Popeyes promptly at opening time. The manager was a lady named Helen, and she was kicking butt and taking names behind the counter.
Helen: "Larry! How we doin', Larry!"
Larry: "We're good, Miss Helen, we're good."
Helen:"We ain't good! If we were good, this gentleman wouldn't still be standing here, would he?"

Helen: "If I don't see some flour on some chicken and some chicken in the fire, there's gonna be some hands stuck in some grease! Let's go, y'all got to help me make my money today. I'm too old to be making it by myself."

She was something to watch.

Finally, a word about youtube. As you are probably aware, youtube makes recommendations for videos you might like based on what you've been watching. Well, somebody sent me this video, "New Orleans Mardi Gras 1941 in color". Since I watched it, youtube figured I would also like this one, "MGM - 1940 - Swing Social". Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Mama's

I mentioned in this post that I was looking for a place to spend my Saturday nights now that Sign of the Whale was no longer an option. For a while I was considering the Ducournau, which was right on Front Street. It was a good restaurant and had a nice, quiet bar. Notice that I said "was" twice. It closed in January. Happily, I have found someplace else.

Mama's is just up the street from the Ducournau and has three things that I find very attractive: a long bar, TVs set on ESPN, and bartenders that I can chat with. It also does not have one very important thing: people that I hate. I don't mean that in a way that pinpoints a particular person or persons. It's just that there's a place out on the bypass called Antoon's that I've been two a few times, and every time a guy walks in the door, it's somebody I want to punch in the face. I don't even know any of them. I just have this gut reaction that I really don't like whoever they are. This does not happen at Mama's.


I think they serve extra-strength Crown & Diet drinks, as I can really only have two if I expect to be able to drive home safely. A big bonus is that Mama's is only about a mile and a half from my house, so I can easily (and safely) walk home should the need arise. Chalk up advantage number one over SOTW. The other big advantage is the food. The burgers at SOTW are excellent, but overall the food at Mama's blows it away. I recommend the alligator (fried or blackened) if you're ever in town.

Alas, though I do like the bartenders I've had, it's just not the same experience chatting with them. Sandy, Liz, Brian, Misty, and Crystal were all around my age range, probably within 3-4 years at the most. They called me either "Scotty", "buddy", or some variation of "sweetie." Talking about the week we had was easy.

In contrast, my last bartender at Mama's looks half my age, wears braces, and calls me "Sir." (I am also informed by someone that she has a baby and doesn't know who the father is, but that's beside the point) Now, I have no objection to being called "Sir" or "Mr. Williams." I like being called "Mr. Williams." But not by my bartender. Most of the staff is either in high school or undergrad and what am I going to talk about with them? There is a bartender on Saturday night I get along well with, so that's nice. Another girl who works there is taking my dad's class, so he and I make sure to tease her mercilessly.

In the long run, I have very high hopes for Mama's. Various family members pop in from time to time to relax and occasionally pick up my tab. C'est nice. I never went out like this when I lived here before, so it's a pleasant new experience for me.

The Title Is: "This Post Has No Title"

Saturday, February 14, 2009 was a beautiful day for baseball here in Natchitoches.

Oh, so you went to a baseball game? Who won?

Um, no...

What did you do?

Actually, I went to the library to study, and took an hour off to go watch NSU women's tennis. It was a little strange, since they play all the matches at once. It's tough to keep track of six or seven matches at the same time. I had no idea who was winning or what the status of each match was. I later learned we lost 6-1, but I have to say that I still enjoyed the whole thing a lot. It's not Wimbledon or anything like that, where each court has its own set of stand watching. There's four courts on one side, and four more on the other side. You can sit on bleachers and watch either side. Or you can walk back and forth in the aisle between the two sides and watch a point here and a point there. It was very strange.

Then why did you open with the line about baseball?

Because that's what Harry Caray used to say when it was nice day out, jerkface, so leave me alone while I talk about football.

The Pittsburgh Steelers recently won their sixth Super Bowl when they put together a late drive and defeated the Arizona Cardinals. A few weeks earlier, the Florida Gators won their third national championship when they beat Oklahoma in the BCS title game. Arizona was a Cinderella story, as they had won a weak NFC division with a 9-7 record. They hosted an 11-5 Atlanta team in the first round, beat Carolina thanks to a complete implosion by Jake Delhomme in the second round, and hosted 9-6-1 Philadelphia in the NFC title game. Their appearance in the Super Bowl led some to say that a great story like that could never happen in college football, where the lack of a playoff wouldn't allow for such a thing. I think they're partially correct, but only because college football and the NFL are after two different things.

The thing that bothers me most about BCS bashing is that people aren't willing to admit that their goal is not to determine who the best team is, but to crown a champion. If you're looking for a champion, then a tournament (or playoff, whichever term you prefer to use) is absolutely the way to go. But if your goal is to find out who the best team is, then there are definite risks to holding a playoff. The most obvious is that the best team could lose.

NOTE: The dirty little secret of the NCAA tournament is that the NCAA hopes for upset the first weekend in order to build the drama and the Cinderella stories, but wants the traditional powerhouses to make it to the Elite 8 and the Final Four. As big a story as it was for George Mason to make it to the Final Four a few years ago, nobody is going to watch them play Butler in the title game.

Arizona finished first in a lousy division (NFC West), but still got to host a playoff game against a team that was two games better than they were in the regular season, along with playing in a tougher division (11-5 Atlanta from the NFC South). The last six weeks of the season Arizona was 2-4, with the four losses coming by margins of 12, 28, 21, and 40 points. Am I expected to believe that a system that allows a team like this to play for the championship is really interested in finding out who the best team is?

I don't mean to pile on the Arizona (formerly Phoenix, formerly St. Louis, formerly Chicago) Cardinals. They have nothing to apologize for and deserved to win all the playoff games they did. But they got as far as they did because of a system that also allowed an 8-8 San Diego Chargers team to host a playoff game against a team that finished four games better than they did in the regular season (and who beat them head-to-head), the 12-4 Indianapolis Colts. The Chargers made the playoffs over another team who finished three games ahead of them in the regular season, 11-5 New England.

So if you want to criticize the BCS for being a strange way to determine a champion, that's fine. But if you want to criticize the BCS for being a lousy way to determine who the best team is, then you should probably take a look at the flaws in the NFL playoff format first. The purpose of the BCS is to pick two teams at the end of the regular season to play for the championship. One of the writers over at CFN argues that this actually comes closer to determining the "best" team than a playoff does.

I'm not against a college football playoff. What I'm against is people being stupid and hypocritical about what they're after (which is entertainment and a champion, not finding the best team), especially stupid hypocrites who don't watch college football.

Of course, the fact that LSU has won two championships in the BCS era might be coloring my perception. Maybe.

The Demon Called "Introspection"

There's a book out there somewhere called "The Lesser Key of Solomon", which supposedly contains instructions for summoning any of the 72 demons of hell to do one's bidding. Among them:

• Agares, who can make runaways come back, cause earthquakes, and teaches languages
• Vassago, who can discover hidden and lost things
• Furfur, who can cause love between a man and a woman

In true demonic fashion, I'm sure that there's some unintended consequence to using their services that wreaks terrible chaos on the summoner.

In my experience, there's a 73rd demon out there who tends to go unnoticed, and I sometimes feel that I'd rather face all 72 others simultaneously than this one alone. I speak of the demon known as "Introspection", who appears unsummoned and unwanted.

His power is to make long journeys quiet and uneventful. No turbulence. No jammed landing gear. No gremlin on the wing. Peace and quiet leaves no outward commotion to grab the traveler's attention. This forces the traveler to direct his attention inward. And when said traveler is moving across long distances around the holidays, it can lead toward introspection and the consideration of one's current circumstances. Where do I stand with the people I am now leaving? With the ones I am going to? What on earth am I going to do about so-and-so? And the dreaded "What am I doing?" (or even worse "What am I doing with my life?").

I hate asking these questions. I hate trying to figure out the answers, if there even are any. I can fall asleep on a plane pretty easily. This past trip he managed to make sure I got a good (and I mean really good) night's sleep beforehand so I wouldn't be too tired to think. He's a tricky devil, I have to admit.

DC Activities

I was very happy to be able to spend the New Year's holiday in and around some of what I'm starting to think of as the "old places": Smithsonian Museums, Pentagon City, the tunnels beneath Crystal City, Sign of the Whale and some other spots have received a great deal of my time and attention over the last nine years, and it was nice to get back to some of them.

I got into BWI on Sunday and met Kathy and Adam at Union Station. They are wonderful people. Dinner at Carlyle restaurant was chicken paillard. Very nice.

Monday I went to the Pentagon's 9/11 memorial, which opened just before I moved. This was the first time I had seen it. It's a series of 184 benches, each dedicated to a victim. The benches are arranged according to the birth year of the victim. The youngest was born in 1998, the oldest in 1930. There were at least two sets of spouses that I saw. A spouse's bench also includes their husband or wife's name and year of birth so you can find them as well. The year 1947 had the most victims with 11.
Benches facing towards the Pentagon represent people who were on the plane. Those facing away from the building represent people in the building. It's definitely not flashy, and I don't find it particularly moving. I guess it's more interesting than anything else. There's a lot of trees but little greenery. I'm not disappointed in it myself, but I imagine that other people are.

After that I wandered over to the recently-reopened American History Museum, which had been closed for two years until November. The line out back stretched to and down the sidewalk. The line out front was even longer, but moved pretty quickly. I'd heard they were going to change the interior layout to make it easier to get around, but I didn't see anything like that other than a new entryway.

Something I liked but didn't get to see too much of was a stage set up for singers to perform old songs and standards. These were theater or Broadway-type singers, and they were good. It occurred to me that there are probably 50 understudies on Broadway who actually sing better than just about every recording star in America, but just don't have all the extra stuff that goes with stardom. After the museum it was off to help Cousin-sama move some stuff, then a custody transfer to my friend Melanie, where I stayed the next three nights.

Tuesday I finally paid a visit to the George Washington National Masonic Memorial. I say "finally" because I lived two metro stops away from it for six years and got off at King Street Station a hundred times (or more) without even looking at it. It was more interesting than I had figured, and I'll probably go back and take the official tour one day.

Someone had told me about something at the National Gallery, but I couldn't remember what it was, so I wandered around for a while. I like the religious triptyches and ships at sea.

NOTE: "Triptych" is one of my favorite words. Anyone thinking of producing a "word of the day" calendar in the future should seriously consider it for entry.

It turned out that what I was looking for was the exhibition on Pompeii and the Roman Villa, which was pretty good. I had lunch with some former coworkers again, then plans for seeing a movie fell through. Soooooo...what does one do in D.C. with a couple of hours to kill? I thought you'd never ask.

Terry Pratchett talks about Samuel Vimes knowing where he is in his city by the feel of the cobbles beneath his boots. He also talks about the policeman's walk, an efficient stride that a seasoned policeman can maintain all night. Walking from Chinatown to Sign of the Whale felt just like that. I've approached SOTW from the South/Southeast hundreds of times. The exact route varies from time to time, but the general pull is the same. Sort of like turtles using magnetic north to navigate their way across the oceans. The passing of the city blocks was a trancelike blur until I got close.

On my way out, Vito recognized me and said, "You're back!" I always liked Vito for rescuing the Whale from the spawn of Satan that was going to turn it into an Irish pub, but I never really spoke with him until a few months before I moved. So it was nice to be remembered. Dinner at Noodles and Company and a trek to Crystal City, then konked out on the couch. Thus endeth the Tuesday.

Wednesday I went back to the National Gallery to do something I never had before: pay for those audio devices that tell you about parts of the exhibits. So I plopped down the five bucks for the Pompeii stuff. I learned a good deal, though I can't promise that I remember anything. Back to SOTW for lunch with Cousin-sama, then Gran Torino. Melanie and I ordered pizza that evening before heading to Bobby McKey's for New Year's.

Bobby McKey's is a dueling piano bar owned by the former owner of my former company. It's nice, the piano players are good, and I hope it does well.

I'm never going there again.

It's in an inconvenient location, the crowd is boring, I couldn't sit at the bar, and the check I got averaged out to $14 a drink. Just for the record, that's more than 60% more than I would get charged at SOTW, and there I frequently paid for only 60% of what I drank anyway. My impressions of the place the next morning were filled with profanities. What a great way to start the year.

New Year's Day was spent as it should always be: sitting in front of a TV watching bowl games. If we ever stop doing this, the terrorists have already won. My trip back home on the 2nd was smooth and uneventful, for which I am grateful. I owe a big debt of gratitude to my friends for letting me stay with them during my visit, which makes travel so much more convenient (and affordable).

In my next post, we'll go over one of the great hazards of traveling long distances, which is being confronted by a very overlooked Demon of Hell: He Who is Named...



...Introspection.

cue dramatic music, lights fade to black

Gran Torino

On New Year's Eve I visited one of my old haunts, the Regal Gallery Place movie theater in DC's Chinatown. If I had to do it over again, I probably would have gone to the AMC theater at the Hoffman Center on Eisenhower Avenue, since I spent much more time there when I lived in Alexandria. Alas.

I went to see Gran Torino, starring Clint Eastwood and a bunch of people you've probably never heard of. I say "probably" because it's just within the realm of possibility that you may recognize John Carroll Lynch, who played Drew's brother on the Drew Carey Show. When reviewing an older movie, I often say something like "XXXX was the year that brought us Movie A, Movie B, and Movie C." However, 2008 is a little too recent for that. So before going into the movie itself, let's do a brief review of some of the things Eastwood has accomplished, film and otherwise.

He's got five Oscars, though none as an actor: 2 for directing, 2 for producing, and 1 lifetime achievement award. How many people win a regular one nine years after their lifetime achievement award? He's played two iconic screen characters, the Man With No Name and Dirty Harry. He was the mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea for two years, and carried a loaded pistol to city council meetings. He's been on the cover of Time Magazine.

Back to the movie.

Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, a Korean War vet who loves America (or what he thinks it used to be) and uses racial slurs at frequent rate, especially against his Asian neighbors. He gets involved with them in spite of his feelings, and the story goes from there. I recommened to someone, "Go see Gran Torino. Walk over dead bodies and hot coals if you have to." It's really, really good, and comes with my Scotty Williams #1 Grade A recommendation. I loved it. I came way, way closer to crying at this movie than I ever would for something like The Notebook. Movies about strength humbling itself for other people always get me. Throw in Eastwood pulling off the grizzled, tough old guy to perfection, and it's fantastic.

Sometimes the slurs are used to give a portrait of his character, and other times they're used for comic effect. The movie has a few cliche elements, most notably a mentor/apprentice relationship, but it's done well enough to be easily forgivable. Be warned that the movie has A LOT of bad language even without the racial stuff. It's very raw and doesn't bother to sugarcoat anything. It starts early and doesn't really let up.

There are times when you can tell that most of the Hmong characters haven't acted before, but this was done on purpose to give things a more authentic feel. I don't think they've got too much to apologize for.

NOTE: The Notebook is a good movie. I'm not banging down any doors to see it again soon, but still good. A little predictable, but that's okay when the predictable thing is well done. At one point I said something would happen and it happened. I turned to my viewing partner and said, "I haven't seen this movie, but I've seen a lot of movies." Well-written and acted, good-looking cast who knows what they're doing, and it's got most of the elements of a good love story. I can see why so many girls list it as their favorite movie, though I would of course recommend to all of them, "You should see more movies."

Smiles und Sunshine

"We Germans aren't all smiles und sunshine."
-- Simpsons episode 8F09, "Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk"

Saturday December 27th, 2008 was a bright, sunshiny, pleasant day with clear skies and a gentle breeze wafting through the tree limbs. It was a fine, fine day to be out and about with friends and loved ones, and there was nothing at all to mar the experience. Smiles und sunshine, indeed.

Now, it may just so happen that one day you will run into someone who was in Natchitoches that day and will call me a loon, a liar, or something even worse. "Is he stupid? It was raining cats and dogs that day! It was awful! It dropped 30 degrees from noon to nightfall once the rain started, and we were lucky to get the fireworks in? What is he thinking?"

I'm thinking that that person didn't have the company I had. Because any day spent with my friend Sandy is full of smiles und sunshine, and no mere trifle of weather phenomenon can change that. Many moons ago we went to school and worked at camp together and were forged in the same fires, and it is the value of shared experience that means so much to me, both with her and with so many other friends. We caught up on what happened to so-and-so and whatever became of you-know-who. We swapped stories back and forth with another friend, some of them new to me. It is something I get to do much too rarely these days, and I murmur a word or two of thanks to God in His Heaven for making it happen.

I even got to meet a few new people along the way in the form of our friend's family. Her mother is an amiable spitfire of a lady who could probably chew me up and spit me out seven times before breakfast without breaking a sweat, and yet was gracious enough to accept me at her table for dinner, dessert, and very pleasant conversation. Her first words to me: "I hear you're a Williams."

I must have it tattooed on my forehead or something.

NOTE: Before I start to sound "woe is me" about it, it does occur to me that there are probably very few people who are consistently around the (non-family) people they experienced a certain stage of life with, and that it probably decreases the older they get. So I'm hardly alone in this regard. I'm also pretty sure that there are plenty of old friends I'd like to see on a much less frequent basis, so maybe a little absence isn't so bad after all.

The Day Scotty Stood Still

We'll start by me saying that the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still isn't as good as the original, but that's pretty obvious. I still enjoyed seeing Gort, but there was too much blah-ness that overrided anything good. The original came out in 1951, the same year that brought us such notable films as An American in Paris (probably my second-favorite opening scene, behind Patton), A Place in the Sun (reviewed by me here), and A Streetcar Named Desire (not to be confused with "A Streetcar Named Marge". On to more pleasant things:

People here in Natchitoches keep telling me that it must be such a big change going from the big city to back home. I suppose it is, but honestly I don't feel any sort of culture shock at all. I did live here the first 22 years of my life, and came back a few times a year for visits or other purposes. So it's not like I didn't know what to expect. The two biggest differences are driving and Saturday night.

I can't shake the feeling that I'm not as good a driver as I used to be. After not even having a car when I lived in VA, I'm used to just being carried along, rather than bearing any responsibility for the caring. I find myself staring a little too long at things on the side of the road that grab my attention, or being a little lackadaisical about certain things, expecting that they're just going to happen instead of making them happen.

As for Saturday night, there is of course no Sign of the Whale here. And if there were, it wouldn't be THE Sign of the Whale. I need to find a place where I can just sit and relax. Wish me luck.

I am very happy to report, however, that Natchitoches recently got a Dairy Queen (specifically a Dairy Queen Grill and Chill). For decades I wondered why we didn't have one. It seemed like Texas had a state law mandating that all towns of at least 500 people had to have one. Why couldn't we? Well, now we do, and the Snickers Blizzard is marvelous.

LSU's football season did not go the way most hoped or expected. There were weaknesses at the beginning of the season (secondary, LB, QB) that remained weaknesses all season long and didn't get any better. That's a bit of a surprise, but a much bigger surprise was the play of LSU's lines. I would have said (and probably did) at the start of the year that LSU had as good a matched set of lines as you would find in the country. I feel like both the offensive and defensive lines dramatically underperformed this season. The epic failure of the co-defensive coordinators didn't help things, either.

I am very happy to say that I got to go to two LSU home games this season. I hadn't been to Tiger Stadium in probably over 20 years, and I saw them play Tulane and Alabama in consecutive weeks. The Tulane week was a bit blah, but the tailgating for the Alabama game was something I shall not soon forget. I took a very long walk around campus, and I never ran into an area that was not partied upon. It was really something.

Now that my first semester of Heritage Resources grad school is over, I'm looking forward to visiting D.C. for New Year's. I miss some people and places and can't wait to see them again. The American History Museum has reopened, the Pentagon 9/11 memorial is up, It's really nice that I have free places to stay. I love you people.

This is my first post in a while, and it's a bit haphazard. I'll do better next time.

Paul Newman

There's got to be some post limit or date of expiration for old posts on this blog, because when I did a search for mentions of Paul Newman, I only came up with this one. I just can't believe that I haven't talked about more than one movie with Paul Newman in it. Running through his IMDB bio, I know I've seen Road to Perdition, Hudsucker Proxy, Slapshot, The Sting, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Cool Hand Luke, The Hustler, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Those last six are probably as impressive a list as anybody else can throw out there, and that's just the ones I've seen.

One is the greatest scam/heist movie ever. One is one of the funniest sports movies (I would say THE funniest, but I'd probably get run over by a Caddyshack fan tomorrow). One is one of the greatest westerns. One is one of the greatest prison movies. One is the greatest pool movie ever, and is also a great personal drama/tragedy film. And the last is one of my favorites because it has so much raw emotion packed into every scene.

I Know, You Know I Know, But I Know You Know I Know

They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Last night LSU and Auburn renewed their SEC West rivalry with an exciting and much-too-tense-for-me football game. All LSU-Auburn games for the last decade or so have been nail-biters than leave the caring viewer exhausted and trembling when it was all over. The game even has its own Wikipedia entry (arbiter of all that is true and right). The home team had won eight in a row, and the four most recent games had been decided by a total of 14 points. LSU fans hate this game, mostly because there have been times when LSU was ranked higher and favored to win, only to come up on the short end.

LSU won 26-21 in another great game with a late drive that featured aggressive playcalling and good execution. There's a couple of scoring plays for each team I want to talk about that concern Auburn's defense being so familiar with LSU's offense. (You can see an LSU-based recap of the game here)

The first was an awful play by Jarrett Lee late in the first half. He double- and triple-clutches on a flare pass out left to Keiland Williams, an Auburn DE makes a nice play to intercept it, and he brings it back for a touchdown. Last year, Keiland Williams burned Auburn bad on this same play, which can be seen here. So when Auburn sees Lee in the shotgun with Williams to his left, they're ready. Even before the hesitation by Lee, about five Auburn guys are headed over to cover Williams. The pass never should have been thrown, but it was still a nice play by the defender to gather in the pass and head in for the score. It was a case of Auburn knowing what LSU knew.

Later on in the game, LSU knows that Auburn knows what they know. LSU seems to run a particular play with Keiland Williams about once a game. The formation includes a fullback in front of Williams. Hike, and the QB fakes a dive handoff to the fullback, then pitches it out the other way to Williams. The first time I remember seeing this play was from San Diego with LaDanian Tomlinson a few years ago. Some teams use it regularly. LSU seems to use it more often than most, and Keiland Williams gets it more than anyone else. Auburn knows this well.

So when LSU is down on Auburn's 22 yard line and Williams is lined up behind a fullback, Auburn is ready again. Fake dive handoff, pitch outside to Williams. But instead of running with it, Williams gathers it in and throws a halfback pass to a moderately-open Demetrius Byrd, who had gotten behind two defenders. LSU was able to use Auburn's knowledge of the play against them, showing them something they'd seen, then showing them something else. Nicely done.

Women's Soccer

I was a season ticket holder for all the seasons that the Washington Freedom were in the WUSA before the league folded days before the 2003 Women's World Cup. After the first year the team drafted Abby Wambach out of Florida. Lost in the finals the second year, won the title the third year. The league will be replaced by Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) in 2009. Player allocation of National Team members was a few days ago, and Wambach is back with the Freedom, which makes me happy.

The Freedom are the first and only team I've ever had season tickets to, so I feel like the connection I have to them is different than any of the other teams I root for. Definitely not stronger, but different in a way I kind of like. I think I'm going to get season tickets again, even if I can't go to any games. I'll try to find a way to make one or two, though how I'm going to get to the Germantown Soccer-plex is beyond me. RKF it ain't. I'll probably send someone the tickets to had out as they wish for the games I don't get to.

Interesting note: The NBA logo features a silhouette of Jerry West. The new WPS logo will feature a silhouette of Mia Hamm. That's a nice touch.

By the way, the Chicago team is called the Red Stars. Doesn't that sound like it should be an old Soviet team?

At another level of women's soccer, I've had the chance to attend a few Lady Demon soccer games recently. They're held at the Demon Soccer Complex, which may have been in its infancy when I was a student. It's turned out to be really nice, and is much nicer than any place I ever played. I'm very pleasantly surprised at the crowds that turn out for the games. I told my dad that if you added up all the people who ever watched my league teams play, they wouldn't equal the crowd there. Where did all these people come from? I used to feel like I knew pretty much everybody in town who was interested in soccer. Verily, things have changed.

Come on, ship...Come on, ship...Come on, ship...Come on in.

The biggest news story in this part of the state the last few months has centered around a geologic formation known as the Haynesville Shale. It's really far underground and contains natural gas. Lots of it. Maybe enough to be the fourth-largest deposit in the world. It was long considered too hard to access, but a new drilling technique has opened things up. So if you own a few acres in the right place, you could be looking at a nice chunk of change. If you own more than a few, you could probably retire. Consider (with the warning that I may have no idea what I'm talking about):

Say you own a section of land, 640 acres. You get paid a fee per acre just for the company to drill. I've heard of fees ranging from eight thousand to twenty-five thousand dollars (not too many people own a whole section, I think).

The price of natural gas is based on per thousand cubic feet produced in a section. Recently the price has been about $7 per thousand cubic feet. Some of these wells can produce more than ten million cubic feet per day.

You get a percentage royalty of the overall production, around 16-25% (one-sixth to one-fourth royalty).

Let's do some math with relatively conservative numbers. The exception is owning a whole section. I don't know an example of anyone who does, though I'm sure they're out there.

640 acres with a $8,000 per acre leasing fee: $5,120,000
7 million cubic feet per day at $7 per thousand cubic feet: $49,000 per day
$49,000 per day times 30 days: $1,470,000 per month
$1,470,000 times 12 months: $17,640,000 per year
$17,640,000 with a 1/6 royalty: $2,940,000 per year

The leasing fee is yours, independent of any royalty. You still have to pay taxes on all this, somewhere in the neighborhood of 42%. Whatever the details, good luck to all the landowners who are in line to take home a nice piece of cash. Some of these people have only ever owned land and not had any money to go along with it. Those are the ones I feel pretty good for.

Two week notice

It's been an interesting couple of weeks lately. I started my graduate assistantship, where I am scheduled to work all day Monday/Wednesday and half a day Friday. The first week the mayor gave us Friday off. Then Monday was Labor Day. Classes and the office were closed Tuesday and Wednesday due to Gustav. Thursday and Friday I was out of town for a wedding in Florida. So I was basically on a week, off a week. We got sent home early today because of Ike. I walked in at 1 and they told me to go home.

Going to the beach we stayed north for a while and went through Natchez, MS, then on down to Hattiesburg before hitting the coast. On the way back we came through Slidell (north of Lake Pontchartrain, for those of you not familiar with Louisiana geography), over to Baton Rouge, and then on up. For fifty miles outside of Baton Rouge, we saw downed power lines, telephone poles hanging over the highway, collapsed or damaged buildings, and flooding on either side of the road. And this was with Gustav not being as bad as feared. If Ike had taken the same path, he would have been serious trouble for a part of the state that had already been hit hard.

Scotty Williams Health Update: The Monday after we got back from the beach, a voodoo queen exacted a measure of revenge on behalf of some old enemy of mine. I don't know which one. Sitting down to dinner, my back started to itch from should blade to shoulder blade. Not the kind of itch that you can scratch and it goes away. But a deep, intense, mind-numbing itch that consumes 100% of your attention and mocks any attempt at relief. It was likely an allergic reaction to something at the beach, but I don't know what. Other people complained of some sort of reaction. I don't think they had it as bad as I did, though.

As I was lying in bed facedown, trying to relax and get to sleep, the Marie Laveau wannabe went to work, and my right shoulder would jerk back suddenly. Then my left. On and on till 4 in the morning. If we were living in a different age, they'd have called an exorcist. Living as we do now, we went to Walgreens. But as John Astin used to say on Night Court, "I'm feeling much better now."

One of the ladies I work with used to live in Alexandria, VA. So did yours truly. She asked me if I ever hung out in Adams Morgan. "Nah, I mostly hung out at a place on M Street called Sign of the Whale." "Oh yeah, I've been there a lot!" she said. So I moved back to Louisiana to find someone who used to live in the same city and hung out at the same place. It's a crazy world.

I went to the Texas A&M Commerce/NSU game last weekend and had a great time. It had been a while since I'd sat in Turpin Stadium and yelled at the people on the field. Mostly griping about NSU coach Scott Stoker's decision to punt on 4 and 1 inside the opponent's territory in the first quarter. Fortune favors the bold, coach.

In the second half I felt like getting nachos, so I went to the concession stand. The item list said "Nachos: $3.00". THREE DOLLARS!! I almost started to cry. I can't get spat on at RFK or the Verizon Center for three dollars. I thought about getting four orders of nachos just because I could.

There's a story on ESPN about three Saints starters who will miss the game this week against the Washington Redskins. Roman Harper has a pulled right hamstring, and Randall Gay has a pulled left hamstring. Can't they just strap the two injured legs together and compete as a single player, sort of like a three-legged race in the secondary?