While I’m Here

Woo hoo! All right, so now that means that Adam will be there tonight. And I heard PJ O’Rourke on Forum this morning so he’s in town and I’m guessing will be there. Who’s the third?

See ya at the show - I’ll be somewhere in the cheap seats, probably behind a column.

Good luck hooking up with your friends. Don’t you have an iPod Adam? Shouldn’t all your contacts be on it? Just checking…

No problem, Adam.

Just give the DHS a call and ask for the contact info for your buds and budettes. I’m sure all of that info is in the personal dossier they have for you.

Just a helpful hint.

Margaret Th., I recently worked on a DVD called “Screaming Masterpiece” about the alternative music scene in Iceland. (Highly recommended to y’all when it comes out in a few…weeks, months, I’m never sure about the production and distribution times.) And from what I saw, I think I can answer your question. You Icelanders are more nuts. Wonderfully, fabulously, fantastically, ruggedly, creatively nuts. Keep up the good work!

Have fun in Berkeley, everyone! Maybe the local crowd can kidnap Adam for an impromptu Felberpalooza 2007!

David, sorry about all the Texas Mojo I’ve been sending. I forgot to turn it off after the ‘Gators won.

I sincerely hope the fact that they’re taping Adam TONIGHT (and maybe P.J. too) doesn’t mean that tomorrow night, when I have tickets, there will be some inferior panel of players WITHOUT him/them. Adam, you are doing both nights, aren’t you??

Does pig Latin count?

Any fans of Tom Tomorrow? http://www.workingforchange.com/comic.cfm?itemid=21959

gillian, thanks for the Tom Tomorrow link.

I was there! It was great. I was way up in the cheap seats, but I swear I smelled bourbon when the panelists came on stage.

So, Adam, where are we drinking tomorrow pre/post show?

Just a little raging jealousy from down here on the edge…
of the Green Swamp. Many, many moons ago I shared that driving desire to move to San Francisco. But at least I spent 2 years in NY/NJ. We Southerners are culturally bipolar from conception onward, as William Faulkner’s works capture so densely. W, on the other hand, is one of those strange phenomena in which two cultures cancelled each other out, leaving essentially a cultural non-entity which believed it was a Texan.

Vinnie is, of course, a cultural icon. Vinnie, can you take care of this insane rush to war with Iran? Your country will be forever in your debt.

Stop a war in Iran, sure. No problem. (Whose leg do I break?)

Adam, check your email. I sent you my and Kristin’s cell numbers, as well as Mike Carroll’s. Of course you should call us, but you should really call Mike, as he’s getting married next Saturday so this is about your last chance to talk to him as a single man. His fiancee is a very nice woman, we’re not sure what she sees in Mike

Allison, I think the show they’re taping tonight will be one of the history-themed shows that they play during holiday weeks. Maybe we’ll hear it around Prez Day.

Hehe - yeah, our names are a mile long (and have been known to make hotel clerks cry) and we have to learn at least !!! 3 languages…but I like to study languages…so I know all in all - 5 languages and I know how to be polite in Russian and Chinease (Since they are both nuke countries - good to know how to be polite to them But I think out nuttieness comes from the fact we have only had independance for 60 years and we still haven’t figured it out how to act responsibly. Our political system is weird (more then yours - we have a multi party system (at the moment we have 5…no, wait…6…or is it still only 5 politcal parties? - there are at least 2 being formed these days). We are only 300.000 and since the land was settled A.D 847, there have been about 1 million Icelanders. We are manic about our image towards the rest of the world - so if we are insulted - we cheer !!! since bad publicity is better than none.
And I can’t believe that you guys knew about Icelandic school system !?!

Awwwww, and here I thought Adam was talking to his imaginary friends again.

Vinnie, take your pick, starting with the new secdef (if you omit the d, it’s feces backwards). Also remember the neo-con “think” tanks and pro-war editors and publishers (but don’t work over any innocent journalists). The list is long and slimey. Thanking you in advance on behalf of a grateful nation and a lot of soldiers who won’t have to die.

David, I think all political sarcasm ist verboten, so we here are all in imminent danger. Also, trying to weed out the “innocent” journalists would be equivalent to Lot finding righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah. Maybe I’m wrong, but that seems to be asking a lot of Vinnie. (No offense, Big Guy.)

Eiour, I was going to suggest that might be the case, but I’m sometimes accused of cynicism (hard to believe, I know), so I was holding out for another - possibly positive - reason. Call me Pollyanna.

Cooper you have a Red-cockaded Woodpecker as a yard bird?!

I’m booking a flight. You do have a guest room, right? Preferably, one right under the gutter.

(@>

(That’s the best I can do for making a woodpecker head on the keyboard, but I think that it does capture the crazed look in the eye.)

It maybe on the early side, but he may be drumming to announce territory and scare the other males away, and won’t start trying to get a sweetie until later.

(@> definitely captures the soul of those whackers, siobhan Differentiate for me the red-cockaded from the pileated. Which do we likely have as our intermittent yard bird, both here on the edge of the Green Swamp and at the family homestead in Goldenrod, that little community affectionately known as the cultural hub of the Occident. I will google those birds and see if it helps - after WWDTM, which is up in 8 minutes. Hope Adam is on his game.

cooper, my childhood neighbor had a gutter whacker that almost put him over the edge.

“Delightfully Succinct One Word Answer To NASA Query Brings The House Down In Berkley!” That’s the lead headline in the San Francisco Chronicle, right? Good job, Adam - though I didn’t get to hear the whole program, since my Adam was trying to negotiate use of the car (HELL, NO!) to go to a tattoo convention in Winston Salem. (You going, dee?) Adam did talk Alyson into letting him use her (My!) car, however. I told him No Tattoos!

BTW, here’s a little bit of horror for all parents out there with teens. Adam said a recruiter from the Army National Guard came by the house last week while he was home alone and talked to him for 30 minutes about what great things the Army can do for his future. The Sgt. left his card, so I gave him a call the next day and told him to bugger off; that I did not want my son caught up in that foolishness
in Iraq. Sgt. Hensley told me not to get defensive, he was just doing his job. I assured him I was not getting defensive, I was getting offensive and that a warrior, such as himself, should appreciate the difference. He said he’s take Adam off the list. SeattleDan &Tammy, defend your boy! All you others, too.

Siobhan, I’m not a bird expert, so I got out my book and checked. What I have is a Downy Woodpecker drumming (at 6:00 AM). Sorry for the mix-up.

Hey all - what DAY is it? Oww my head.

Well, I felt like a total fanboy and even though Siobhan wouldn’t go down to the front with me I stepped up to get an autograph and say hi to our gracious host. The fanboy feeling went away quickly as Kat (my wife) and I spoke with him and the others. Adam pretended to know me and invited us out to drinks at the House of Curry with our host Tommy Chong. We had a fabulous time and would really like to see another gathering of FA’ers sometime soon and preferably on the left coast.

Thanks for a great show Adam and everyone on Thursday, I’m sorry to have missed the Friday show but I think I was still working off that hangover.

Adam’s a swell guy, isn’t he Landis? Very gracious, clean, thrifty, disobediant, irreverant, and FUNNY! - all the things you want in a pal.

Cooper, nobody has said anything bad about Iceland? OK, that ends here:

Hakarl.

(Not to be confused with “Hot Carl”, but almost as appetizing.)

cooper@39, SeattleTony started receiving recruitment letters when he was 16, promising him a watch and a hat. Yeah, we are being very careful. With recruiment offices right next to the store, we are especially careful. Tonight he told us that the Marine recruiter was after him earlier this week. SeattleTammy is going to slap that guy around. Now anyone who has seen my son will instantly know that the military isn’t in the mix for his life. But we do worry. At the very least, if the draft is re-instituted, my brother and sister-in-law are now living in Toronto.

Landis, dinner with both Adam and Tommy Chong? SeattleTammy is green, so to speak, with envy.

Tommy Chong is, if anything, wiser and funnier - the man has a sense of humor that resonates.

Gators 64 - Wildcats 61 at Rupp Arena. Anybody who knows the SEC knows this is huge. But trust me, we do not yet have swelled heads. Too much roundball to go for that. Seattle Dan, is it going to be my Gators and your Bruins again? cooper, my Gators and your Tarheels?

Actually, I believe it was not THAT Tommy Chong, but a reference to a hotel desk clerk. I hate when people say “you had to be there” but - you had to be there (at the taping, I mean). But Landis was there (at the bar, I mean) and I wasn’t so …

Cooper, I figured there was a chance of mis-identification, but I also figured there was a chance that you actually did have one since you’re at least within the realm of possibility, geographically speaking. Maybe by the time I make my great southeastern birding trip, you will have one on the gutters.

Their not my Tarheels, David. I went to State.

Having met cooper, there’s not much I can imagine him saying with a voice that could freeze the crepe myrtles in July. The above sentence, however, definitely fits the category.

dee, I was already planning to cover the crepe myrtles come summer when I read cooper’s post. I was sort of banking on general in-state team support, but that would not be applicable here. Glad you’re in your more philosophical phase, cooper, and I didn’t just open mouth, create an enemy.

Seattle Dan, back in those days, because I was kind of aware that both the coach and the team were so deserving of respect as human beings, I rooted for your Bruins. Your personal experience confirms who I thought they were.

Does anyone know what became of Pete IVDL? John Howard has jumped into the US presidential race as as head-of-state commentator and said that Barack Obama as president would make the terrorists, especially in Iraq, really happy. Dear John Howard, go Cheney yourself, you Down Under Pissant.

To all you worried about the military recruiters three simple words got me off the list in high school.

I am gay.

Works everytime and they sure don’t want you to prove it. Sometimes prejudice can work for you.

Tom Toles is probably the only guy I could love.

February 2, 2007

Dear Diary,

As you may have guessed, I’m still stateside. Still not satisfied my craving for Blue Marlin with Pineapple Brochettes. My mouth waters like a Pavlovian Pomeranian each time that new Red Lobster commercial comes on the radio that’s playing background music in the next office. The dipshit political appointee is gone and his door has been replaced. I found it particularly satisfying to kick it in (I felt wearing my snakeskin cowboy boots, Stetson, and bolo tie added immensely to the effect) and that did make for a dramatic entrance, though the Maintainence Supervisor hinted I may want to use the door knob from now on. Once I get that bureaucrat’s replacement up to speed, I’ll bolt for the airport and begin my thorough and protracted study of the beach renourishment needs of Maui. They are crying out for my help. Really.

SeattleDan/Tammy/Ann/Jay et al in the Puget Sound vicinity, David Ossman is directing a play he’s adapted - Seven Keys to Baldpate -at the Whidbey Island Center for the Arts. The info is below. I’m not sure how far away this is for you, but this should be great fun, if you can make it.

http://www.wicaonline.com/06-07%20Season/TS%20-%20Seven%20Keys%20to%20 Baldpate.html

Murray, okay, I deserved the duck story, I admit it. Yes, I know I need to look elsewhere for tattoos, but I’ll have to be clandestine about it - a cursury look as he emerges from the shower, check out his legs when he switches back to wearing shorts every day, which shouldn’t be much more than a week or so.

Thanks for the Ossman link, coop. It’s not that Whidbey is far away, certainly not as the crow flies. (Saw plenty of them around today). It’s the ferry schedules…we’d probably have to stay over night. But maybe we could get Dave to put us up and then we could tell him “if we lived here we’d be home by now”.

Having been unable to post last night due to a friend’s birthday party (great party: 3 regular guitars and a slide guitar, 2 autoharps, a mandolin and a kazoo, and at least 3 copies of Rise Up Singing, and people who sing Thirties Socialist folksongs from memory) - I finally have time to say that I thoroughly enjoyed Friday night’s taping and meeting Adam afterwards; and I now have a signed copy of The Book. Adam was gracious enough to say that he liked my blog. (Yow!)

I will be absolutely astounded if the pineapple incident makes it on air - no. It can’t. Not possible. But it shut down Zellerbach Hall for about 5 minutes while everybody laughed until their ribs hurt. Paula Poundstone was red in the face laughing (I couldn’t see expressions because we were in the nosebleed seats and I forgot my binoculars). For those who missed it, the lead up is almost irrelevant, but the punch line was that, on one occasion, Ronald Reagan is reputed to have said the he “felt like he just cr**ped a pineapple.” Now - imagine an ASL interpreter signing that…

When are they taping here again?

Ah, yes. I remember my Navy recruiter. He was based in the next city over (Wilkes-Barre). One day he called and asked if I had received the packet of information he had sent me earlier in the week. I told him no, I hadn’t, but the mail hadn’t arrived yet, so it still might be showing up. He replied “That’s odd. Our mail was delivered a half-hour ago.”

When I was toying with the idea of joining the Navy during one of my low points in the early ’70’s, I took the tests, physicals and what-not that was required. After ala that was tabulated, the recruiter smiled at me and said I could be anything in the Navy I wanted to be. I thought for a moment and said “I want to be an Admiral.” The interview spiralled downhill from there…

Ann makes a very good point. I felt the same way when there was a big whoop-de-doo over Eminem’s anti-gay lyrics. Everyone at the Grammy’s was tripping over him- and herself to say that while of course they didn’t agree with what he said, in the interest of “free speech” he had a right to say it. Well, hell, of course he did. Didn’t mean we had to listen or showcase him at our awards show. Any performer who takes a stand runs the risk of alienating all or part of the audience. That’s the risk you take. If it’s important enough to you, maybe the voice of your conscience will override that of your accountant.

Ann, I disagree somewhat. I think I am looking at it from a combination of our popular sense of free speech as a cultural norm (which admittedly has a checkered history) and the extent to which one of the Bush administration’s defacto agencies, Clear Channel, went to attack the Dixie Chicks. Yeah, Natalie opened her mouth and they took her chances, but Clear Channel, which owns the majority of radio stations in this country, systematically prevented airing of Dixie Chicks music (Country Music Television did not knuckle, and instead played both Dixie Chicks and Toby Keith videos) and organized events at some of their radio stations to destroy Dixie Chicks cds. While I agree with you from the standpoint of the Constitution and the law, nonetheless the Declaration and the Preamble, which are not law - unless the Declaration can be viewed as the first attempt at fostering the notion of international law - are extremely important statements regarding what we are about as a nation and have a quasi-Constitutional role in our culture. And I do see great value in what was done to reassert the viability of artists who would dare challenge the President. Remember also that Clear Channel “urged” their stations not to play “Imagine” after the 9/11 attacks.

I don’t think the line is completely distinct between the strict legal notion of protected speech and the popular (populist?) notion of the right to speak one’s mind without having one’s songs censored from the publicly owned airwaves, even if those airwaves are leased to private corporations. This is not the same as someone having the right to refuse to buy an artist’s records. It would be if record stores refused to sell Dixie Chicks cds, or drug stores refused to fill certain types of prescriptions.

I don’t know the criteria for showcasing an artist. Is it sales, attendance at the artist’s concerts, or the wishes of the board? I do think the community of music professionals, especially as given voice by Don Henley, viewed the honors bestowed on the Dixie Chicks as a way of saying singers/songwriters, who in significant measure depend on getting a fair shake in getting their music played on radio stations, must not be blacklisted by the likes of Clear Channel, which is making a fortune off the public airwaves.

My only disappointment would have been if the awards to the Dixie Chicks could not also stand on the musical merits of the album.

Rambling David now slides his little cyber-soapbox back into its virtual cabinet.

hedera, there’s a fascinatingly arbitrary aspect to Fanny’s antics. Has the same democratic quality as some of my experiences with various bureaucracies. We get mistreated without regard to race, creed, national origin, political affiliation, or relative degree of coherence.

Having seen Ann’s Tattoo, I can attest that it is very nice.

Back almost 20 years ago my youngest son insisted on getting an earring. I told him that once he turned 16, if he still wanted one, he could have it. By that time he had already met my now daughter-in-law and he is glad it hadn’t happened, because she said she wouldn’t have gone out with him if he had.