Blood And Thunder

In a discussion on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” about taxing the middle class to shrink Obama’s budget deficit, Treasury Secretary Geithner said “We can’t make these judgments yet about exactly what it’s going to take.”  I looked that phrase up in my Politician-to-English dictionary, and it means “Get your checkbook ready.”

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A report from England’s House of Commons warns that the reputation of NATO, who has commanded troops in Afghanistan since 2003, could be – I’m quoting here – “damaged without fairer burden-sharing between member states *cough*France*cough*.”

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(Music: Eine Klein Nachtmusik. And finally,)

Two harpsichord concertos composed by an eight-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart were played this weekend for the first time in nearly two hundred and fifty years. Experts say the works show a talented young composer quote “running riot”. Let’s listen:

(Tag: “YOU!  YOU GOT WHAT I NEEEEEEEEEED!” etc)

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At new-technology trade show Campus Party, much of the focus this year was on robots designed to help humans cope with illness.  The star was a humanoid robot that dances to “Billie Jean” in an effort to calm or cheer up people suffering from memory loss and dementia.  I’m no doctor, but is a dancing robot Michael Jackson the best thing to give the psychiatrically disturbed?

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After the FCC launched a weekend investigation into why a Google Voice app was denied access to the iPhone app store, Google CEO Eric Schmidt was deleted from Apple’s Board of Directors, permanently and unrecoverably.

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IRS receipts are on pace to drop eighteen percent this year.  Like you, my first thought was, (Muntz: Ha ha!)  And like you, my second thought was (”D’oh!”), because the IRS is going to get a bailout, too. 

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After the Russian Health Ministry told fans not to go to Wales for the World Cup qualifier due to the swine flu, Russian soccer fan clubs countered with their own advice: Drink whisky to ward off the virus.  Now, I’m no doctor, but this advice makes so much sense I’m implementing it immediately.

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A new report finds that twenty-seven million Americans are on anti-depressants, and, as someone who follows world events closely on a daily basis, I think I speak for all of us when I say “That’s it?”  

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A belated happy birthday to President Obama, who brought cupcakes to the White House Press Room yesterday to celebrate the birthday he shares with veteran journalist Helen Thomas.  The President turned forty-eight, while Thomas celebrated the big two-oh-oh.

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(Music: My Kind Of Town.  And finally,)

Following complaints of members being threatened for not supporting the stimulus, Congressman Darrell Issa sent a letter to Rahm Emanuel saying quote “While this type of scare tactic may work in Chicago, it will not work to intimidate me.”  I admire your stand, Congressman Issa. You will be missed. (”…myyyyyyyy kiiiiiiind of tooowwnnnnnn…”)
 
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Former President Bill Clinton negotiated the release of two jailed female journalists from North Korea.  He made his wife look silly and ineffectual, made himself look good, and scored two babes.  Big guy’s still got it!

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Children born in 2008 will cost over two hundred twenty thousand dollars to raise to the age of 18. Housing makes up the largest part of that cost, followed by food, childcare, useless crap with Spongebob Squarepants on it, and education. 

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If funding shortages force fewer patrols and decreased municipal security, an Alabama sheriff may call in the National Guard to help maintain order.  Oh, sure, Alabama.  NOW that YOU want something, you can’t call the National Guard fast enough. 

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The US Marine Corps has banned Twitter from its networks.  The decision was unpopular, and many Marines are defying the order, saying “This is my Twitter. There are many like it, but this Tweet is mine.”

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Hugh Jackman, who has repeatedly talked of his desire to star in a movie musical, will finally get his wish in “The Greatest Show On Earth”, a film account of the life of P.T. Barnum.  And if that doesn’t put those gay rumors to rest, I don’t know what will.

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Help for states hurt by auto-industry layoffs is expected to intensify over the next nine months.  There were no specifics, but given the nine-month timeframe, it sounds like it has something to do with what laid-off workers are doing with their extra time.

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A Republican senator wants the White House to suspend a new project that asks citizens to flag “fishy” claims about President Obama’s plans, arguing that it chills free speech.  And I have to say, I (obvious edit/blatant new voice) do not share his concerns about the efforts of our fine Presidential administration, which I admire very much.

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Rupert Murdoch announced plans to charge for the content of Fox News websites, saying, “Quality journalism is not cheap.”   In a related story, USA Today dot com (Perez Hilton dot com, TMZ dot com, whatever) remains absolutely free. 

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Sixty-one year old Steven Tyler of Aerosmith is in good condition after being airlifted to a hospital following a fall from the stage during a concert.  Issuing a statement from his home in 1978, thirty-year-old Steven Tyler of Aerosmith called the incident “humiliating”, adding, “I should have hung it up YEARS ago.”

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Stimulus projects nationwide are delayed due to “Buy American” rules, as workers wait for waivers to buy needed parts not made in the US.  Among the critical imports: bolts, manhole covers, and water filters.  Whose idea was that policy? The only things America *doesn’t* import these days are pop stars, goat cheese, and crack.  

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According to an administration official, the US is no longer conducting a “war on terrorism”, since that term will not be used by the Obama White House.  Other big developments?  We’re no longer in a recession, but “on a money diet”, health care reform will be called “awesome free everything”, and Rahm Emanuel is now known as “Professor Friendly”.

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Microblogging service Twitter was knocked offline by a malicious cyberattack for several hours yesterday. The attack is said to resemble one from July in which North Korea was suspected.  This vicious cyberterrorism has to be stopped.  If I can’t tell a bunch of people I don’t know what I’m doing every ten minutes, the terrorists have won!

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In an effort to attract hip young viewers, NBC has booked Rihanna, Kanye West and Jay-Z for the premiere of Jay Leno’s new show.  Leno himself was signed to host the show in an effort to retain the old square viewers he already had in droves. 

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John Hughes, who had a hand in virtually every 80’s comedy worth quoting, died yesterday at the age of fifty-nine of an apparent heart attack.  In lieu of flowers, his family requests that you donate anything you can to save Ferris.

At a wedding in Seattle last weekend occurred one of maybe the five proudest moments of my whole life, in a mere two-sentence exchange:

Line at the bar. Girl I do not know — or rather, do not know that I know — requests two glasses of wine, and immediately begins to chug the first one. When she’s about eighty-five percent through, I say

“If you do that with the other one you’re my new hero.”

Girl finishes, looks at me, and says

“Nuh-uh. I’ve heard about you.”

Good news: I think I have the fastball back.

Bad news: I’m in tryouts and throwing it over another plate right now.  (Cross your fingers, light a candle, rub a Buddha, whatever, for me.) 

Other news: The Vegas Report is under construction.   Going to be a long one.  But a very good one.

In the meantime, let’s try a little stress test: The request line is open.  No one denied.   Hit me.

On Day Six, we got up to have breakfast with j.pal and Big Man at the Harrah’s buffet. I’m not going to say “No stars” or anything like that, because it was fine for what it was, which was a clever riff on the complimentary breakfast buffet at a Jameson Inn outside Youngstown. For fourteen bucks, you could eat your weight in vaguely familiar-looking, slightly squashed pastries with the toothsomeness of Play-Doh. Which was a weird culinary experience, because the diner’s childhood experiences lead one, when met with that familiar dense chewiness, to also anticipate Play-Doh’s deep saltiness, not cloying sweetness. A clever juxtaposition, I thought. I believe Thomas Keller and Ferran Adria consulted.

They to the airport, we back to bed. Time passed while our bodies rebuilt. Then to Angel Park.

I am aware few of you enjoy talk of golf. Of course, it’s my blog. So you are lucky that I do not yet enjoy talking about golf, just playing.

I will tell you, however, that we arrived at Angel Park on Baby Rabbit Day, and you people are lucky Luna did not die of joy right there. She would have been very happy to. For three hours, around every corner sat a half-dozen tiny rabbits. (’Handbunnies’, in Lunese.) It was fun, but eventually got a little unsettling. If they had turned on us, we would have been swiftly swarmed under and dispatched. At least Lovegood would have died happy.

Wouldn’t that be the most extraordinary epitaph?

Anyhow. Another postgolf cupcake, and by this point it was late afternoon. Showers, fresh clothes, and it was finally time for dinner. We had successfully secured a reservation at B&B, which we’d been looking forward to for approximately eight months. I was a little disappointed in the choices on the menu, but notin the food. It turns out that the menu is confusingly but intentionally understated. Example: “Salad with pancetta” is a composed green salad with crispy bits of pancetta and dressed with a very soft-cooked duck egg. “Pork trotter”, which I had, was a disk of something extraordinary covered in panko and fried. The star of the meal was beef cheek ravioli, which produced one of my life’s great pairing-wine-with-food memories.

Generally, I’m not a Wine Person the way I am a Bourbon Person or a Rum Person or a Barbecue Person. I can tell and appreciate the difference between five-dollar wines and twenty-five dollar wines, and I think they both have a place in the world. But only maybe four times in my life have I had a glass of wine where I thought, “Oh. Well. This one makes me totally understand how a person would pay any sum for something like this.” Of those four times, three of those occasions have come while drinking Italian reds from the Piedmont. (Amarone, Barbera, Barolo.) So at least I’ve picked out a pattern. And happily, making beef cheek ravioli would give me a chance to buy a bunch of Barolo. Because the one we had at B&B — Damilano “Lecinquevigne”, 2003 — was a revelation.

The Fontana Lounge was brought to my attention by Paisana, who had talked about it having a great view of the Bellagio Fountains. She undersold it. Might be the best view of them you can get without booking a room. We sat on the patio and drank Champagne and watched the fountains for a very long time.

At some point one of us looked straight down off the ledge and noticed that there is a small colony of ducks living in the Bellagio Fountains. If you had asked me that morning if there was any way to make Luna love the Bellagio Fountains more, I would have said “No”, and I would have been wrong.

And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Crossposted from Facebook, for those of you not caught up to 2006 yet.

1) Every since I made it a Facebook update, it’s difficult for me to change my subsequent Facebook updates without internally singing “Basketball Jones”. (The remake, I mean. The original is more uncomfortable than watching a performer in blackface.) Come on, you cheerleaders!

2) “SORRY!” is my least favorite board game of all time. It might crack my top ten list of Least Favorite Things Ever. Some people are lucky enough to only have flashbacks to ‘Nam.

3) My favorite years of the past twenty, in no particular order: 1993, 2007, 1998, 2000, 1991.

4) If I try to write, I often cannot. It’s when I’m not trying that it flows. This goes triply for trying to write something for which I might get paid. Which has a fairly negative impact on the next item.

5) I have approximately one and a half complete books, cumulatively, or three in various stages of completion, if you prefer having them measured out that way. And ever since I decided it might be time to seek something like an agent or an editor or a publisher, I have been at a dead standstill on all of them.

6) I find Rod Blagojevich’s insane Thermopylaean defiance of basically everybody majestic and inspiring. Molon labe!

7) Speaking of heroic last stands, I am starting to think that the time may have come to take my remaining hair out behind the barn and shoot it. Watching it stagger and limp around like this has become too painful, and I think the razor really might be the kindest thing.

The kindling — and rekindling — of contact with you people Facebook catalyzes is a source of delight and pleasure. People from past jobs, cousins, old friends, more regular updates on current-but-distant friends….my God. Do we appreciate this magic thing enough?

9) By my system of measurement, George W. Bush is likely to be the greatest President of my lifetime. If we must anoint our highest official a god-king, I would prefer that god-king be hated and feared. If we-the-people love them, they can get away with way too much.

10) Actually, I prefer all authority be of the hated and feared variety. Suspicion and distrust I can handle. But I am uncomfortable when people have warm feelings about anyone with power.

11) After three years of traveling, self-employment, bicoastal living, sleeping on floors, sleeping in my old room, moving thrice, and getting a cat, I still have the oddest, last-episode-of-”Newhart”-style feeling that at any moment I might wake up on the sixth floor at 930 North in Oak Park and hop the train for WLS, just like I do every day.

12) You know what’s awesome? “Party & Bullshit”. Have sound.

13) I think something bad happens to me, brainwise, ‘twixt the end of Daylight Savings and about the Super Bowl.

14) I am dazzled, every day, by the career path Luna has taken and the gift she has for it. Surprised, but So. Proud.

15) I am intensely envious of people who — for whatever reason — have the decision of whether or not to reproduce made for them.

16) But not as intensely envious as I am of people who can dunk.