You Go Girl

Yesterday I saw Barack Obama speak at the National Press Club in D.C.



This man is a badass. We've all heard of the black senator from Illinois with the funny name, but I'm confident this man will be short-listed to run for president in 08. His speech yesterday was an eloquent rejoinder to Bush's social security privatization scheme, and thanks to an authoritative "SENATOR!" from Peter during the crowd rush after the event we got to shake the good senator's hand. Later, as we were lingering in the lobby of the building, he even waved goodbye to us.


Unfortunately it looks like he's giving us the finger, but trust me: we're insiders now.

Tomorrow I will leave for Gambier, Ohio to visit my beloved alma mater and pick up a future roomate.





I've also recently been offered a job in the Africa region of the World Bank, yet have no details whatsoever on the start date or pay.

Tuckahoe Public y'all.

Due to interior renovations over the past week I've been having to go to the public library to check my email. Only a douchebag updates a blog while others wait in line.

In other news, Kisses from the Confederacy is now up and running. Initially concieved over a bottle of cheap wine and burdened with the hope of being mentioned at least once in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, we'll be following the politics, policy, and above all the bullshit hype that is this year's race for the right to occupy the Governor's mansion (which was, incidentally, renovated by Bob Villa six years ago).


/someday....

Photo Confetti pt. II

My friend recently returned from a trip to Colorado and brought me back some old photographs he found at a junk shop in the mountains somewhere. Here's some.


This guy doesn't fuck around: You order a beer, sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up. Written on the back:
"Dear Mr Mead- Walt Hall's Bar, Rapid City, So Dakota. -J. Silverman"
After a little research I discovered that this man's descendants donated money to erect a statue of James Monroe in Rapid City's downtown Presidential Walk sometime in the 1990s. That's SO Dakota. But really, how about that.



"Dick taken at Gettysburg." Film at 11.





At first glance this seems like a staid portrait of a typical midwestern home in the early part of this century. But wait-- There, next to the bush!!!
.
.

/not that there's anything wrong with that





I happen to adore this photograph. A classic representation of boyhood innocence, pastoral simplicity, even overtures of the American Dream itself.



ha ha weirdo.





Look closer.


Yeah.
/cheap


--but-----


This photo disturbs me. It's something intangible; the moment I looked at it I just got a bad feeling. At first it looks like a normal sunset w/ sailboat scene, but something's not right.

I've seen quite a few sunsets over water in my time, and never has it appeared stained. Also the light in the sky doesn't correspond to the object-as-sun, as the source of light is obviously beyond the upper limit of the frame. The only other thing I can think of is the first millisecond of a nuclear blast, but this is hardly likely. It's almost as if the negative emulsion itself was intentionally scratched off here. Moreover, that isn't a sailboat in the distance.

It's a lighthouse, and you know that makes it a bit creepier. I can't say why.

Thanks for the nightmares, Pete.

Requiescat In Pace Domini

My little friend passed away several hours ago. He will be remembered with love and affection.


/inheriting the earth.

Playing God

WARNING: If you do not want to see enlarged pictures of baby mice, do not proceed. Seriously.



I love daylight savings time. In the autumn you gain an extra hour to fuck around in the evening, and in the spring you get a free bonus hour of daylight just when the weather starts to turn nice. All winter you've been thinking of fun interesting things you ought to be doing, and God finally says "let's see it then, tough guy." You say "sho' nuff, sir" and go outside to spend a pleasant evening in the park.

Almost. He was up to the challenge this afternoon. Through a series of unfortunate events involving a dog, Brother Cliff, a rather girlish scream and a bunch of boxes out back I became the surrogate father of three baby mice.

But by baby mice, I don't mean fluffy little munchkins nibbling on cheese and squeaking cutely. Instead imagine tiny pink hushpuppies with no eyes and several tiny blood wounds. Even so, only an asshole would let them dry in the sun. So with quick action and a little homespun tenderness, I soon had them feeling right at home:


Not quite, apparently. They paid no attention to the lettuce and I later realized that the porcelain plate lowered their body temperature too quickly, not to mention making the whole affair resemble some twisted plat du jour. Sadly, two of them soon expired. I wished I was in the park riding my bike.


It was the only flag I could find.

The third one, however, is a tough little motherfucker. Trying to nudge lettuce down his throat with a pair of tweezers just didn't feel right, and I decided to seek expert advice via teh intarnet. A few mouseclicks [ha] later I was racing to the pet food store for kitten formula, the salvation army for a heat lamp, and then to several pharmacies who didn't appear to believe me when I said the syringe was for a baby mouse. I would have rather spent that time laying in the grass at the park.



No, this mouse doesn't have a name. He has to prove to me that he's tuff enuff 2 stay alive for at least 24 more hours before I'll bestow that honor [read: become too invested]. And I'm pretty sure it's a him; baby mice apparently have a hard time shitting by themselves, so you have to prod their hindquarters with a q-tip soaked in warm water. Unformed and rudimentary, but plain to see. I could have been hanging out with hot girls in the park.



I have no idea where I get off hand-raising a baby mouse, but I believe the scaly material on his fur is normal. Also he's a bit more lively than he appears in these pictures, and I hope his eyes open soon because the effect is a bit disturbing. When I'm feeding and fawning over him it all seems exciting and fun, but then I go to dinner and separate myself from it for awhile, only to come back to find a squirmy little creature living on my dresser. Still, when all is said and done, I suppose I'm glad I never went to the park.


/not dead, just resting.

[gratuitous entry]

Sorry folks, but absolutley nothing interesting has happened to me this week. Because I need to apologize and write about it.

It was recently pointed out to me that this weblog isn't personal enough, i.e. a diary of sorts where I bitch and whine about my mundane problems like all the other crappy blogs you see on this site. I suppose that's true. So here you go.

Here's my dog.


And I'm leaving for the beach in an hour.


That's pretty personal.

Stay tuned next week for a movie about surfing, fireworks, and de-winterizing an outboard motor.

Have a nice weekend.

Postage Stamps from the Periphery, part I

Everyone needs to collect something. My mother collects bunny rabbit statuettes, my friend Kellan collects ridiculously large knives, and this one guy I knew in college collected his toenail clippings in a little model train car. I'm not about to wax philosophic about what drives people to collect things of a genre, however obscure or idiosycratic it may seem to others. Over the past few months I've begun a small collection of stamps initially focused on certain island states that I've had a weird fascination with since childhood; the focus of my collection has now expanded to include other tiny little countries and special economic zones around the globe.

I present the fruits of my philatelistic labors, starting with...




Poor little Nauru. Labelled on maps as "Pleasant Island" when it was discovered in the late 1700s, this small Pacific nation happened to be sitting atop the single purest source of phosphates in the world. The boom started around 1921 after it gained independence from Britain, and because of the phosphate mining the per capita GDP of the population was soon second only to Saudi Arabia. Now as those phosphates are becoming exhausted, Nauru's once beautiful interior has been transformed into a barren wasteland, never to be reclaimed and beset by packs of wild dogs. Heart disease has become the leading cause of death among modern Nauruans, often linked to obesity. The government of Nauru has tried one ridiculous scam after another to maintain its economic health, including a one-plane airline, a series of spurious international loans on which it has now defaulted, and now serving as a legally dubious refugee processing point for Third World nations as far-flung as Cuba, Afghanistan and Rwanda.






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Discovered by Captain James Cook, the small volcanic island was named for the Duchess of Norfolk in 1789. Serving as an important resupply point and penal colony for the British Navy over the next two centuries, Norfolk Island is best known for the pine trees that bear its name today. These trees were of great importance to the nautical trade, as their height and strength made them ideal mast replacements. The island is now administered by Australia.

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The Pitcairn Islands have the distinction of being one of the least-populated states in the world, with a population hovering around sixty. Moreover, the majority of these inhabitants are descended directly from the marooned mutineers from Captain Bligh's ill-fated expedition on the HMSBounty. Pitcairn is one of the last true socially "remote" islands in the world; the men of the island still row out to passing ships to collect mail and sell their goods (including stamps, most of which are extremely valuable), and many still retain the surname "Christian" after Fletcher Christian, the alleged leader of the mutiny. An amazing study of the mutiny and Pitcairn's history can be found here. The United Kingdom continues to retain Pitcairn as a colony of the Empire. The envelope pictured below is from the first release date of these stamps, complete with a postmark from the island. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night afraid that I spent way too much money on this. Whatever, it's fucking sweet.



/...and a handsome devil.

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Ascension is technically one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world at roughly 800 miles from its nearest neighbor in the South Atlantic, St. Helena. The name comes from its discovery on Ascension Day (it's religious) in 1503 by Alfonso d'Albuqurque. Napoleon was temporarily exiled to Ascension in 1815, and over the next few decades the island became a key supply point for ships engaged in the suppression of the African slave trade. In 1899 the Eastern Telegraph Company used Ascension as a stopping point for a direct cable link between Britain to South Africa, and later laid the first trans-atlantic cable from the same station. The Company later became Eastern Cable and Wireless, and to this day employs the majority of Ascension's population (many serve parallel positions as company employees and government administrators). There is also a small US Air Force base on the island, as well as a NASA/ESA satellite tracking station. These are some of the older stamps that the government issued in the 1930s, although many of the more recent issues include pictures of satellite dishes and whatnot. God damn it I want to go there.


/the first cable comes ashore on Ascension.
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This one is self-explanatory, and look up the history yourself because I'm tired of typing.
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My stamps are awesome.

I'm gwhn'na Nashville

I spent this past week visiting Brother John in Nashville, TN, self-proclaimed home of country music and sundry weirdness. Over the past 5 days I've purchased roughly $50 worth of fireworks, spat out fireballs of whiskey as big as my torso, almost been run over by a train, and gotten accosted by a 13-year-old whore wearing braces trailed by her wheelchair-bound pimp. No pictures on the last one, it just didn't seem proper. But here are some others.


First night there, and a wonderful introduction to the Nashville bar scene. This is in fact the orginial Coyote Ugly, there are in fact brassieres hanging from the ceiling above the bar, and those are in fact swarthy rednecks and the occasional confused Asian businessman.


John relaxes after an invigorating day gluing together guitars.


The Nashville skyline as seen from street-level.


My cairn by the lake. It took 15 minutes to build and .125 seconds to collapse about 3 seconds after this picture was taken.


Hallelujiah, Globalization arrives at the Nashville railyard!


Hallelujiah, it's the [quite expensive] Country Music Hall of Fame!


Hallelujiah, we're at the top of the Draper Valley where Mary Draper was kidnapped by native Americans in the 1700s and taken to Ohio to live with them, only to be found 15 years later by her husband and dragged back to Virginia against her wishes!


And there it stood, gleaming like a giant white church on the side of the interstate, flashing her neon into the night like a beacon for all true believers. Oh God it was beautiful.


The Crown Motel, or "Tom Waits Motor Lodge", in lovely White Pine, TN. Rooms come with a free Bible and a bar of that "Sweet Bouquet" soap.


The drive back was entirely on state routes, allowing a visit to Appomattox Court House, site of General Lee's surrender to the Union Army in 1864. Closes at 5pm.

No, we didn't see Rocky Top.