Some Friendly Advice

It's summer. There's nothing new on television besides "Rescue Me" and baseball. You, having discriminating taste, wouldn't sink to watch any of the non-scripted crap the networks are passing off as entertainment these days. So what do you do if you want to watch TV?

You get this.



Yes, I know. The clothes, the soundtrack, the BMWs--they're all so...dated. Forget about that and remember that this is one of the best shows ever aired on network television. It's so good that people are imitating it poorly 20 years later.

It's like the formula for Coca-Cola. Whoever the first person is to find it and reproduce it will make a damned fortune.

One thing is for certain. It beats the hell out of "America's Got Talent."

More Advertising Questions

--Here's the scene: It's a young man with a short haircut playing pool with his dad. They're having one of those Talks that fathers and sons have on television--earnest, honest...one of those moments they're both going to remember for years.

The light shines into the room in such a way that it makes the air itself visible. It's amber. It's timeless.

He's telling Pops about how he wants to be part of something more important than just himself. Dad looks concerned--doubtful, even, but not in an angry way. He asks, "Well, is there training?" And the son smiles. He's got Dad thinking his way now.

"Dad...It's the Army."

Fade to slogan, "HELP THEM FIND THEIR STRENGTH" and fade to black.

And then we return to our movie here on AMC, "M*A*S*H".

Someone booked time during the most devastating anti-war satire in cinema history for Army recruitment ads. Not just any army recruitment ads, either, but ones aimed at nervous Vietnam-era parents queasy at the thoughht of their kids enlisting into a war without end. You thought Altman was cynical. This is cynicism minus zero, no limit.

Actually, they probably just bought blocks of time on the network thinking it was going to get slotted into "The Green Berets" or some other man's-gotta-do-what-a-man's-gotta-do picture. But couldn't someone have caught this?

--The ads here in New England for Dunkin' Donuts all have music written and performed specially for them by They Might Be Giants.

I have mixed feelings about this. My opinion on "selling out" has been made pretty clear. On the other hand, these guys aren't the Who. They aren't exactly rich and ad money is great. Also, it isn't like they're selling their back catalog for DD to use--and even if they were, are any of their songs really so beloved that using them for an ad would be a betrayal?

Ultimately, what saves the Giants here is the fact that the ads are pretty good. They're clever, like the band. The music they wrote is catchy and, as mentioned, new. You get a pass, TMBG.

--Every drug ad on the air aimed at guys these days seems to hold out the promise of regular, strong, on-demand...urine. Bladder control is the new erection. Now granted, in about twenty years I'm sure I'll be thrilled that someone created these little miracles. Right now, though, I'm too busy rolling around on the floor at drug names like Flomax.

Eulogy For A Guy I Didn't Know--With An Update

Randy Walker, head football coach at Northwestern, dead at 52.

I didn't know him as an actual human being, only as a sideline presence, so I can't talk about the man he was. However, looking back, he was a better coach than I gave him credit for being. In many ways, he was the exact opposite of his predecessor Gary Barnett--he expressed hopes instead of guarantees, desires instead of demands. He always let the school and its alumni community know that Northwestern was where he wanted to be. And the guy won.

Under his stewardship, Northwestern was able to maintain a Division I football program that is not only NOT a national joke, but seems to be able to make a splash once every few years. There's only one guy alive now who can make that claim, and he's completely burned through the good will of Northwestern alumni, Colorado alumni, and the entire female gender.

So here's to Randy Walker, who died way, way too young.

AN ADDENDUM:

Talking to my friend T this morning, he reminded me that Randy Walker coached the single greatest college football game in yours or my lifetime--the 54-51 win over Michigan in 2000.

It so happens that I attended that game. It was a total freak coincidence--I hadn't been back for a game since graduation and T offered me a couple of tickets, so what the hell? I flew back and happened to see history. 650 yards of offense for NU alone. Anthony Thomas--All-American, future NFL back--fumbling the football with 46 seconds left. Sam Simmons in a play that lives forever, crossing from the 11 yard line for the winning touchdown.

I'm not kidding you when I say that day, in total, is one of the ten best of my life. And it sure wasn't just the game that made it a great day, but the game is what puts it on the list.

Thanks, Randy.

An Old Song, But Let's Sing It Again

Oh, good. Here we go again.

The GOP wants to keep the House by focusing on abortion, guns, and gay marriage. We're in the middle of a "boom" with record low consumer confidence, record high foreclosures, and real income in the same place they were the last time a Bush was president. We're in an absurd, ill-advised war that the GOP's leader says has no chance of ending while he's in office. New stories emerge every week about violations of our civil liberties, one after another with such frequency that they don't have time to fully register before being replaced with a new horror. But abortion, guns, and gays are the issues that the Republican party feels should be in the front of our minds when we vote.

Q: How stupid do the Republicans think I am?

A: They don't care how stupid you are. They aren't talking to you.

Get it? It doesn't matter how stupid you are. All that matters is that there are stupid people out there. They exist in a certain number and, if they're eligible to vote and motivated to do so, are capable of swinging elections great and small. That's why Republicans aren't even bothering to try and sway you with real ideas and policies.

All they have to is get the small percentage of stupid people off their couch while you stay on yours. It doesn't matter why you stay on your couch--disgust with "all the bums in Washington," or apathy, thinking your vote doesn't matter. It just matters that you do. The whole game depends on low (but targeted) voter turnout.

That's why Republicans are the most craven power-grabbers you can imagine. Because even if they really do believe what they're selling--that unregulated gun ownership is vital to a republic and that abortion is murder and gay people do threaten a moral way of life--the very fact that they prioritize these lesser issues in face of genuine crisis shows an unbelievable cynicism. It shows us what they're willing to do to win.

This, I want to believe, is the way for Democrats to take back the country. Stand up and point to abortion and gun control and gay marriage and flag burning and say, "At this moment in our history, this is what they feel is important. As for the rest of your world, there is absolutely nothing about which they feel is even worth speaking. Abortion, guns, and gays are not just their family values, they are their ONLY values."

We need to overwhelm the stupid people with voters interested in self-preservation.

Republicans like to say that Democrats have no ideas, save blind opposition. Well, when things are as bleak as they are right now, the party in power has to have some ideas, too. And they'd better come up with something better than a flag-burning amendment.

Sox Rant

The New York Mets are coming to town. This wouldn't normally be that big a deal, but three things are making this series extra-special fun, and there's an air of nostalgia here in New England.

First, the Sox have won nine games in a row, the last two on walk-off hits by David Ortiz in a manner which can only be described as God-like (Greek-Roman, not Judeo-Christian). This has everyone in a good mood to start with.

Second, it's the twentieth anniversary of the 1986 World Series--that notable affair where something happened in Game 6, something else happened in Game 7, and the Mets became the first championship team whose cocaine dealer had a page in their media guide. There are more specific memories I could share here, but I'm alone here right now and...let's just say it's better not to talk about it anymore.

(You'd think that after 2004, the memory of '86 wouldn't be as hard to cope with. Bullshit. It still hurts. And it's not Mets fans doing it, it's us.

Do you know that WEEI ran the entire Game 6 broadcast yesterday, but with an alternate ending? Mookie Wilson hits a pop fly to Buckner--Sox win the '86 series. Joe Castiglione recorded a new ending to a game he broadcast 20 years ago.

Why, Joe? Why? You got to call the game where the Sox really won their first Series since 1918. Why did you feel the need to do a second take on Game 6?)

Finally, the series this week also features the return of Pedro Martinez to Fenway Park. Pedro, in his days here, was unquestionably the best thing about baseball. He was unhittable. Every start was an event--a rare loss was like an earthquake.

But the thing is, with Pedro, you always knew who he was. He never pretended any loyalty to anyone but himself. As his time went on, the AL caught up to him and he proved incapable of pitching more than 6 innings a game, but his ego would not allow him to believe that Curt Schilling was more important to the 2004 team that he was. He took the team's pursuit of Schilling--and the fans' adoration of Schilling--personally. That was the end, and we knew it.

He left, joined the Mets (not the Y***ees as we feared he might), and now routinely pitches complete game shutouts in the National League. The hitting isn't as good and he gets three free outs a game, but he's still a hell of a pitcher. He isn't Pedro anymore, though. He's not the guy you fear to your core. He's just a big personality with an insane breaking ball.

Like Damon, he ran his mouth on his way out of town, which is why I think he's going to get an ugly reception. Whether he deserves it is another matter. He's not like Damon--he went to a neutral club. And he meant so much to people for so long that you have to recognize it. Still, the crap about how he supposedly got no respect and the stuff he said about the fans... I'd have to clap twice and then sit on my hands.

My boss is a Met fan. He actually has happy memories of the '86 Series. He has proposed a bet--four of them, actually. One for every single game of the series and one for total runs scored in the three games. My brother has suggested adding homeruns for Ortiz/Ramirez vs. Beltran/Delgado, and that sounds good to me.

My question is...what are the stakes? Nobody needs booze, and I refuse to bet cash on the Sox. We aren't on the same coast, so it isn't like we can do the "wear the opposing team hat for a week" thing. I can't ship clam chowder.

In fact, I'm pretty sure even if I could that he wouldn't want any.

Traffic Report

One person found this blog by Googling "Ruby Tuesday's turkey burger." Another with "alaska congressman democrat."

In other news, New Haven keeps checking in. There are a few other newbies, but New Haven's a regular. New Haven, it turns out, may not even be New Haven. They may be nearby, but using an internet server in New Haven.

So, if you live near New Haven and use DSL.net as your internet provider, leave a comment below or send me an e-mail at hwy61rv AT gmail.com. You know what to do with the AT.

There's a reason I keep on about this stuff. This blog is the closest thing I have to a journal and I'd like to sort of know the people who are reading it regularly. If you find it by accident, that's great. Just tell me who you are and how you found this site. That way I feel like I can have a real relationship with my readers, complete with all the anger and lack of true intimacy of my other relationships.

Thanks.

An Offer I Can Refuse

My brother showed me his newest Playstation game a few days ago, Godafther: The Game. I watched the intro, which featured the actual voice of Marlon Brando in what was probably his last performance.
I saw two animated figures speaking with the voices of James Caan and Robert Duvall--there they were, doing a scene with each other as Sonny and Tom for the first time since 1972. There was Fredo, there was Clamenza. Abe Vigoda showed up as Tessio. And this was just the first five or ten minutes.

I had two impulses and had to make choice as to which one to follow:

1)I could find the people responsible for this game and hunt them down, one by one, using the movie they defiled as a template to ruin their lives until they begged for an end to their pain.

Or

2)I could sit and play the game for 80 straight hours.

I don't mind telling you, it was close. Suffice it to say, the fuckers who did this to The Godfather are still walking the earth. And I can't seem to get past Enforcer.

The game is your basic Grand Theft Auto ripoff overlaid onto 1940's New York City. In the "story," you're a low-level mob thug who keeps running into important events from the first Godfather movie. You're there when Don Corleone gets shot, you're there when Clamenza offs Paulie, you leave the gun and take the cannoli. You're like an Italian Forrest Gump.

The map you're playing in is immense, with five neighborhoods all fully rendered. The idea is you're supposed to extort businesses, kill people, and work your way up to become the Don. The further you go in the game, the more money and power you accumulate, and you can afford the better weapons. Of course, if you don't want to use them you can always choke someone to death with your bare hands--and listen to their neck snap with a satisfying click.

The reason I'm stuck at enforcer is because it takes fifteen fingers to play. You have four buttons in front, eight on the pad, two omni-directional joysticks, and two triggers. Going upstairs is like trying to pilot the Enterprise. One wrong move and the camera angle starts spinning and suddenly in the middle of a gunfight you're staring at the back of your own head. It's a pain in the ass.

Since you're asking, the game's scariest feature is the clock which is on you at all times. It will tell you exactly how many hours, minutes, and seconds you've wasted playing. It forces you to see this information. It simply won't not tell you.

However, it is a lot of fun to play. Hand-eye workout, subconscious venting of aggression, whatever. You get to drive around and shoot people. You get to beat up innocent immigrant shopkeepers and rob their till. Even so, the experience is ruined every time you're reminded that this is the world of The Godfather.

Keep in mind here, Mario Puzo is dead and Francis Ford Coppola was firmly against the idea. There you have it--the two people who created The Godfather would not or could not participate. That should be enough to never make the game. But if you're going to have to make one, use the mob premise. Use the design, okay? But at least have the decency not to use the characters from the film.

This game sprays Brando and Caan and Duvall all over the place, spouting dialogue that Patrick Swayze wouldn't be caught delivering. Al Pacino, God bless him, turned them down. When you meet Michael Corleone, he doesn't look or sound anything like Michael Corleone.

I know, I know. Don't hate the game, hate the players. Those actors had a choice not to piss on the memory of their most acclaimed roles and they took the money instead. Blame them. And don't worry--I do. They're all on my list of people who no longer Deserve Respect (which is keeping all of them up at night, I know).

So there's nothing to be done. The game is out there. I've seen it and played it and want to keep playing it even though I know it's evil--evil in its conception and evil in its production (and you know, the bloody, ruthless depiction of mass murder isn't exactly God's work either).

My brother has been very sympathetic of my dilemma. He has offered me a loan to get me past this--his Playstation, the Godfather game, and MLB 2005. Apparently, he feels like I no longer need food or sleep to function. He's a good friend, isn't he?

A Correction

It's late, and this isn't going to be a real post, but I felt the need to correct an error from my account of Wednesday's Sox game.

The Sox as of Wednesday were 7-1 in interleague play, not 8-0 as I reported. There was a loss in Philadelphia last month.

However, tomorrow they play Philly again, and recently alleged wife-beater Brett Myers is on the hill for the visitors. He pulled his wife by the hair and hit her in the face in the shadow of Fenway Park. She bailed him out of a Boston jail a few hours before game one of the series.

Tomorrow ought to be fun.

The Hajj

I apologize for the late post today, but I was out late last night. I went to temple. Not the Jewish one--MY temple. Temple B'Nai Ortiz. Fenway Park.

My uncle H takes a share in a set of season tickets that are so ludicrously good that they actually ruin your idea of what good seats are. You know how when you tell someone you're going to a game, they always ask, "You get good seats?" Well, the seats that you said "Yes" about before...not after these tickets.

They can alter your memories of other sporting events. You think, "Dude--(I don't say dude. This is an example.)--Dude, can you imagine seeing that game from The Seats?" Or, "Yeah, that game was pretty good, but we were like fifteen rows back." They're that close.

The last game I saw from The Seats was a twelve-strikeout classic from Pedro Martinez against the Mariners about five years ago, or 3 B.C. (Before Championship). Needless to say, when H called and offered to take me to another game, it was not something that required a great deal of consideration.

We parked in Brookline--which is almost an oxymoron--and took the T in. You would want to do this for a few reasons. One, it's a gorgeous late afternoon and you feel a natural high just by being outside and going to the ballpark. Two, it's more convenient in that you don't have to spend a half-hour looking for a space. Three, parking can run you $35.

You did not read that wrong--$35. Here, I'll put in check form: Thirty-five Dollars and xx/100 cents. To park your car for three hours. The average ticket price in the major leagues last year was 21 dollars. It is literally more expensive for your car to get to a game than you.

(My uncle and I were at the T stop when my brother called to tell us that the Sox have finally been cought up in the steroid/HGH scandal. Paxton Crawford, who once claimed the most laughable excuse for injury in memory (he "fell out of bed and cut his abdomen on a broken glass"), admitted to using steroids and HGH and is threatening to take down the entire clubhouse. We know the Sox are no purer than any other team. We know the scandal was coming home eventually. But this chucklehead? This guy with 6 decisions in his entire career? Come on.)

Fenway is a lot nicer than I remember it. They close down a section of the street around the park and set up beer gardens, food stands, and souvenir tables for people to mill around at before the game. And man, is it cleaner than it used to be. The whole place, as old as it is, just felt refreshed.

Then you go out to The Seats and the field is right there. It's seventy-five degrees out with a light breeze and there's a moment where you realize that if The Seats were an apartment, the rent would be higher than you're paying right now. But it would be worth it, because The Seats are clearly the place from which all Good flows.

As for the game itself...well, wow. I was convinced that the Sox, 8-0 in interleague play and winners of five in a row, were due to drop one and it was naturally going to be the game I attended. That turned out not to be the case.

Jon Lester is for real. He pitched six innings of three hit ball, walked two, and struck out ten. His pitch count got up there early because the Nationals were working him pretty well, but he never felt like he was losing control. His last two starts have been high-quality and this is something to feel very good about as the season goes on.

And then there was David Ortiz. Ortiz, who has been Ruthian since he got out of Minnesota last week, clubbed a grand slam in a second inning where every runner got on base with two down. It was out to centerfield--not the deepest part of the park, but deep enough to be be really impressive. As it left the field, I looked at my uncle because I couldn't believe it had happened. He, who attends 14 games a season, couldn't believe it either.

We got to see Manny and Varitek knock in RBI hits, the team racked up 16 hits, and the game was never in doubt. It was, if not a Perfect Game, a perfect game.

As we walked down Beacon Street (and I mean ON Beacon. We were walking in the left lane of traffic), I looked at the buildings--all brick and brownstone--and the lights from Fenway and it's so God-damned NICE out in June and the Sox just won their sixth straight and I tried to think of a reason not to quit the fucking TV business and move here forever. But in the end I realize that it's just a night, and it's not always this nice out and the Sox will drop 15 of 20 in August and this feeling will probably pass.

But what a great night.

So...

...that ought to just about do it for soccer in this country, don't you think?

The Owner's Box

The Miami Heat won the NBA championship last night, beating the Dallas Mavericks in 6 games. Here's why you should have been paying attention:

....(crickets)....

Okay, there is one reason:

Marc Cuban would be interested in buying the Pittsburgh Pirates, if they were for sale.

Marc Cuban owns the Mavericks. He is a mad genius. He sees things and doesn't ask why, or even why not. He just kicks your ass.

You have to understand, at the height of the NBA's popularity in the late 80's and early 90's, the Mavericks sucked. Their best known player wasn't known for basketball, he was known for repeated cocaine arrests. Watching professional basketball in Dallas became a punishment used by old-school Texas judges looking for creative sentencing. Until Marc Cuban.

He turned the stadium in Dallas into one of the best in the league. He attracted free agents by lavishing creative perks on his players. He made the people of Dallas believe that more than being the owner, he was the biggest Maverick fan on the planet, one who wanted to win every bit as much as they did.

More than anything, though, what Marc Cuban did was be accessible to his customers. He blogs every day. He's got an e-mail address posted--write him with a serious concern and you'll more likely than not get a personal response. Run into him at the stadium or on the street and he'll love talking basketball with you. Basically, he's like you or me, but smarter and with a shitload of money. (Oh, one more difference--he likes professional basketball.)

The commissioner of basketball hates Cuban, because he runs his mouth off like a fan. He's been fined millions of dollars for complaining about the same things that real basketball fans complain about. The commissioner of baseball should be watching all of this--and he should make sure Cuban gets the Pirates.

The Pittsburgh Pirates are the baseball equivalent of the Mavericks. Even better--they're Cuban's hometown team, the one he grew up rooting for. I guarantee you, if you give him this team, they'll win again. More than that. They'll win fun. You'll enjoy watching them.

Baseball, like football and unlike basketball, is known for its colorful owners. Unfortunately, those owners are colorful in a "look at my money" kind of way. You get douchebag extortionists like Steinbrenner or racists like Marge Schott, who played populist but lived far above her clientele. Cuban would be the real thing--an owner who cared about his fans and cared about baseball.

Sure, the commissioner might have a few headaches as he listens to Cuban tell America exactly what he needs to fix about his sport. It's a small price to pay for someone who gets people excited about baseball again in a non-prosecutorial way. Though that may be the problem.

He won't just get people excited about baseball in Pittsburgh, though God knows they could use it. He'll get them excited in Kansas City. And Colorado. And Baltimore. And every other city with a perennially losing team, where owners make an annual profit by milking their markets and slashing their payrolls. And the fans in those cities will ask--why aren't you doing what Marc Cuban does? Why don't we matter?

The current owner in Pittsburgh has made a lot of money by keeping a tight leash on his baseball operations while enjoying a taxpayer-funded new stadium. It's people like him that SHOULD be afraid of Marc Cuban. He'll never sell.

It's safer to keep him on the sidelines with Mavericks. Let him be David Stern's hassle.

Restraurant Watch 2006! Stop #1

Ruby Tuesday's

If you're looking for a lede to this restaurant review, let it be this: I can honestly say that eating at this Ruby Tuesday's has fully restored my will to live.
-----------------
The first thing you'll notice about Ruby Tuesday's is that it isn't the Outback Steakhouse. I know that I said Outback would be first, but I wanted lunch and the Outback isn't open until 4:00p. I had to go hunting for a new place. It was a long 75 feet to get to Ruby Tuesday's.



Gaze, gaze upon my work, ye mighty, and despair.

The inside could be described as the result of a three way head-on collision between a sporting-goods store, a comic book shop, and the opening credits of "Cheers." The place reeked of manufactured atmosphere and canola oil.

I had missed the lunch rush, so there were plenty of seats available. My server, Ryan, showed me to a mini-booth and gave me my first laminated menu of the tour.

It was extremely helpful, containing many vivid, colorful pictures of the dishes--I always appreciate that, as I don't like to tax my imagination trying to remember what a hamburger looks like. The descriptions were also useful, since they told me not only what was in the food but how I was supposed to feel about it. The appetizers were "Awesome Appetizers," while the steaks were "Savory Steaks."

My favorite menu item was "LuLu's Turkey Burger" which promised to be the best, juiciest turkey burger I'd ever eat. "Just ask LuLu!" Really? I can ask LuLu about her burger? Is LuLu here? Is she in the back? Well, bring her on out here! Tell her that her nephew Matthew's in town!

I ended up ordering the Hickory Chicken Sandwich on wheat, side of fries. I politely declined Ryan's offer of two sides for the price of one if I wanted to "kick it up." No, thank you. Not for me, sir. About four minutes later, Ryan apologized for taking so long and brought me this:

The main word I would use to describe this sandwich is...soft. The whole thing was just like a handful of cloud, but not a fluffy, happy cloud--more like a cloud made of Crisco. It tasted exactly like the barbeque sauce that it was coated in, though I know there were other ingredients in the sandwich. The fries followed the Chili's model of really giving the customer a high sodium value for their dollar. They sure taste good when you put them together with blood pressure medication, though. Mmm-mmm.

It was a quick meal, clocking in at about a half-hour. It seemed longer because of the two teenagers at the booth next to me who were grabbing lunch before cheerleading practice and talking (I shit you not) about Myspace.

Ryan's service was excellent. He did his multi-national parent corporation proud. Well done, sir.


Well done, indeed.

As for my will to live--when you're a hypochondriac like I am, you possess a very real fear that every meal you eat might be your last. Ending one's life with a stomach full of Ruby Tuesday's would be very much like having the last piece of music you ever hear be "Take On Me" by A-Ha. Tragedy of a Biblical scale.

I need to live, live for at least one more meal. Live!!!!

World Cup Smackdown

Every year in December, you hear a lot of people griping about how complicated the NFL Playoffs scenarios are. How if Arizona beats an out-of-contention Detroit team, that means Chicago plays at home in the first round and Minnesota drops out of the playoffs altogether--crap like that.

Well, take a look at what it's going to take for the US to advance in the World Cup.

The US needs to beat Ghana AND one of the following has to happen:

1. Italy defeats the Czech Republic.

2. Italy ties the Czech Republic 0-0 or 1-1 AND the United States beats Ghana by at least four goals.

3. Italy ties the Czech Republic 2-2 or with a higher score AND the United States beats Ghana by five or more goals.

4. Italy ties the Czech Republic 2-2 or with a higher score AND the United States beats Ghana by four goals AND the U.S. team scores at least three goals more than the Czechs do in their tie.

5. The Czech Republic beats Italy AND the total combined margin of victory for the Americans and Czechs is six or more.

6. The Czech Republic beats Italy AND the total combined margin of victory for the Americans and Czechs is five AND the U.S. team scores at least three goals more than the Italians do in their loss.

7. The Czech Republic beats Italy AND the total combined margin of victory for the Americans and Czechs is five AND the U.S. team scores exactly two more goals than the Italians do in their loss AND the Americans win a drawing of lots by FIFA.

Simple, isn't it? I mean, I'll have to ask my lawyer, but it seems like we have a shot.

My Pledge To You, Gentle Reader

My brother came down south a few nights ago to check out the apartment I'm staying in, and maybe catch the Sox/Twins game over dinner. Well, the cable was up and running so the game wasn't going to be an issue, but food was scarce. We were going to have to leave The Waiting Room and eat out. He drove.

We hung a left onto RI Route 2 and looked for a restaurant. It didn't take long--on the first block there were two, a Ruby Tuesday's and an Outback Steakhouse. As neither one of us felt like eating at a chain place, we kept going. That's when we realized that, without noticing it, we had entered Hell.

One block goes by. Denny's and a Ninety-Nines. Another block. Appleby's, Lowe's, Guitar Center. Another. Chili's, Men's Wearhouse. Another. TGI Friday's, Home Depot, Ethan Allen Furniture. A mile and a half of major thoroughfare and not a single local business. Just a parade of national chains. And the above list is woefully incomplete. If you can think of a national chain, it was on that mile of Rte. 2.

My brother drove from my apartment to the immense mall down the road and we couldn't find a single place to eat that didn't serve some kind of cheese popper with signature margaritas. It was maddening.

In the end, the game was on and we were hungry. We capitulated. We gave in and allowed ourselves to be carried away by the tsunami of homogenization that had sanitized Rte. 2 of anything remotely original. We chose Chili's--the burgers aren't bad and the decor is less deliberately tacky than the other places.

Anyway, the game was torture (the Sox blew a lead in the 12th) and the food mediocre (the fries were so salty, they seemed to actually dehumidify the room). The company saved the evening, of course, but when I got home I thought about how, without driving miles away into a city I don't know, this was it.

Short of cooking (which I can do), these are my options. No Square One Dining, no Doughboys, no Cafe Angelino. It's laminated menus and spiral-bound dessert picture-books for the next six months.

Now, if that's how it's got to be, then that's how it is. But--if that's how its got to be, then I'm going to make something out of it.

I pledge to you, my faithful readers, that I will eat at every single one of these places between now and my departure. Every Rte. 2 chain between Exit 8 and the Warwick Mall is on the list. A tasteful, restrained review of each establishment will follow. I eat at TGI Friday's so you don't have to.

We start tomorrow at the Outback. G'day, mates.

Dear Red Sox Nation...

The word you're looking for is--

Freefall.

Your comrade,

Matthew

Mario

My father was never a fan of Mario Cuomo. He had his reasons, many of them good-- manufacturing in Central New York dried up and blew away during Cuomo's tenure as governor, taxes skyrocketed, while the budget increasingly was spent tending The City and ignoring everything north of Rockland County.

Still, my father always admired the man's social policies. Cuomo vetoed the death penalty every year he was in office (a stand which may have cost him his job). He had a unquenchable desire for social justice and a clear idea of the government's role in achieving it. Mario Cuomo, my father would say in any conversation about him, should be a Supreme Court Justice. That would be the part he was born to play.

I would ask why, and he always finished his argument with the same phrase.

No-knock.

Mario Cuomo would protect people from bullying police tactics like no-knock searches. This was a conservative pet project that would represent the ultimate in unconstitutional intrusion into our private lives. We needed justices like Cuomo to protect us from no-knock.

Imagine my disappointment in reading this headline today.

It's here, guys. No-knock is here and it's here to stay.

I'm moving to Canada. Who's with me?

Rhode Island! The Musical

One of my favorite George Carlin routines is about doctors. To paraphrase, somewhere in the world is the world's worst doctor. And the scary thing is, someone has an appointment with him at 2:00.

He's right. Somewhere in the world, there is a doctor who is worse than all of the others. In a finite universe, everything can be quantified and ranked. Which brings us to Rhode Island.

Early on in my residency here, it aggravated me immensely that the drivers seemed to be moving at about half the speed that you would move at if you actually wanted to, say, get somewhere. Forty on the highway. Twenty on the street. Right turns that take an entire fiscal year.

When I got to my brother's place, I launched into what was going to be a Homeric-length complaint about the drivers in this town. He stopped me about three sentences in.

"You've been bitching about the drivers in LA for ten years. You bitch about them there, and now you bitch about them here. You can't complain about the drivers here. You've only been here three days."

Too true. Well, now I've been here 10 days. These people should not be allowed to drive.

Never mind that I watched a man die just trying to get onto a highway here. In the past three days, I've seen the aftermaths of no fewer than seven accidents on the roads here. Keep in mind that, not having a clue of where I am, I have exactly three routes--to work, to my apartment, and to my brother and sister-in-law's place. That's it. Fifteen miles of road, three days, seven accidents, one fatality.

Now I realize it--just like the doctor in Carlin's routine, the drivers in Rhode Island are the worst in the world, and I have an appointment with them every day for the next six months. We're not talking about defensive driving anymore, we're talking justified paranoia.

No more changing radio stations, no more sodas. I can no longer assume that everyone on the road has the same overly-aggressive disregard for life that I have on the highways--that's Massachusetts. No, these people have no regard for anything at all. Imagine a Broadway show where every single person on stage is doing their own special dance, with no sense of where anything else on stage is. That's Rhode Island.

When I first drove in New York City, I jockeyed for position with all the cab drivers and thought to myself, "Finally. Some worthy opponents." They were the best in the world at what they did, and that was getting from point A to point B. These people are feebs.

That's it for now. I have to go to work early in the morning. It's four miles away. Wish me luck.

This Is Important

This is going to seem boring, but bear with me here. There's a huge, explosive action scene at the end. You just have to wait for it.

Net Neutrality. Learn these words. It's a big fucking deal. A deal wherein the country's telecommunications companies stage a hostile takeover of the First Amendment.

Right now, if you log onto a web site like Google, or Buzzflash!, or even this one, you're using an Internet Service Provider to do so--more than likely, that's a cable company or a phone company. They control how the data gets from the web servers to your computer. As of today, they can't prioritize that data.

They can't say, "Hmmm... We have a deal with Yahoo! so from now on, it will load faster than Google."

They can't say, "Hmmm... We are direct competitors with Time Warner in most cable markets, so CNN's web site is going to run verrrry slow in June."

They can't say, "Hmmm... Atrios's website contains political views that make us extremely nervous, and since we're all of course participating in a War on Terror, we should watch what we say. Atrios's website is not appropriate for our customers. You can't read Atrios."

As of today.

That may be changing in the very near future. Telecom companies, who since the 1996 Telecom Act have had an almost unimpeded ability to write the legislation that affects their industry, have gone back to the trough for another dive.

AT&T/Time Warner/BellSouth don't see why they should provide the wires to carry their competitors' content at full speed. They see money in deals to make some websites "first class" and some "economy." They see money in providing two or three-tier web access to their customers--some will get unfettered access to all sites (for a hefty fee), some will not. One CEO actually compared his vision of internet pricing to an airline.

I repeat--a telecommunications executive wants his business to be able to price their service like an airline. Does ANYONE in the world want this?

The House of Representatives had a debate on Net Neutrality before deciding that it wasn't worth protecting. That debate was designed to go under the radar--it lasted 20 minutes. The entire future of the greatest information provider that humanity has ever known was given 20 minutes on the floor of the House before it was shot down like a rabid dog. But there's still hope.

There's a bill before the Senate at this very moment to protect Net Neutrality. So far, it has the unqualified support of 12 senators. And that support is bipartisan, by the Republican definition of the term--ONE of them is a Republican. Olympia Snowe of Maine helped write the bill. 4 senators have come out to explicity oppose Net Neutrality--all of them Republican. (Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska is one of them. It's possible that he is the single worst person occupying a seat in the US Senate. That may seem like a cheap shot, but his public statements and voting record show that he is against everything Good and in favor of everything Evil.) Every other senator is Weighing Their Options, including people like Ted Kennedy and Dianne Feinstein, who you would expect to want to protect their constituents.

Here's where you call. You write. You corner your representatives at town meetings. This isn't something where you can say, "Oh, I'm in California. I know my senators will do the right thing." You can't rely on anyone except the 12 people on THIS list.

Do it. Do it now.

(Here comes the action scene...)

BBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!!!

(Wow. That was something, wasn't it? Did you see how those cars....? And that rocket....? Shit, man. Shit.)

A Quandry! Developing...

What do we do about Matt Drudge?

Drudge, you probably know, is the proprietor of the Drudge Report (find it yourself), the number one news site on the internet. Actually, it's not a news site so much as a constantly updating page of headlines from around the world--some slightly editorialized with that right-wing Drudge flair. To wit:

Dailykos Conventioneers Wear Tinfoil Hats!

Congressman: Democratic Majority Means More Money for District; 'I'm going to earmark the s**t out of it'...

(Please note the complete lack of context.)

It's an incredibly valuable site. If anything important happens, it's up there first. He can even lead the networks because he has no editorial oversight--so while the other guys are doing quaint errands like (for example) checking their facts, Drudge has a headline up with a police siren telling you to Stay Tuned! Since he's not tied to any one source, he can post numerous views of a breaking story instantly. It was a brilliant idea and he's a millionaire many times over for having had it.

He also has an enormous amount of control over the discourse in this country. Matt Drudge is the first site that hundreds of thousands of computers log onto every day. Many of those computers belong to talk radio show producers.

If you listen to a full day of AM talk radio, you get a full sense of Matt Drudge's influence. Not just the occasional story, but every story, goes directly from Drudge to the radio. And I'm not just talking about the news of the day that would automatically make the news. I'm talking about a small-town press story about a school that "bans" patriotic clothing.

So Drudge posts it. It becomes "news" and then goes onto the radio within hours, thereby becoming "fact." The next day, it's a Talking Point on Bill O'Reilly and on page three of the New York Post. Soon, the right-wing harangue machine asks--why isn't this getting coverage in the Mainstream Media? All of this before anyone takes the time to see whether or not the story is, um, true.

Sometimes, Drudge will publish blatant falsities and out-of-context slurs as a Vendetta. He has several--Hillary Clinton is his arch-nemesis, but he also loathes Michael Moore, Harry Reid, and Al Gore. Any negative stories about his Liberal Bugaboos will invariably end up on the page, then on talk radio, etc.

Oh, and one more thing. Despite the fact that numerous reputable publications have outed him repeatedly over the years as a (rather inept) gay man, Drudge not only continues to deny it, he hands his links over to the most virulent bigots the Republican party has to offer.

Drudge has tried to expand his empire several times--writing a book, starting a Fox News show, hosting a Sunday night call-in show on Clear Channel radio--but none of them took. The book was quickly forgotten and the low rated TV show ended when even Roger Ailes drew an ethical line in the sand. The radio show remains, but no one listens. So why does all of this other stuff fail while the web site is a record-breaking money printing machine? The other stuff has one thing the web site doesn't--Matt Drudge.

You need to see this guy. He fancies himself a modern day Walter Winchell--right down to the snap-brim fedora with the press card tucked into the side. He's got a voice like a sarcastic chihuahua and face of a small-town copier salesman. In other words, he is unpleasant to look at or listen to. To see him on television is to know in your soul that this is a man you would not like.

SO. What do we do about Matt Drudge? He is the fountain from which Republican lies spring to life. He is a juggernaut. How do you make a man like this go away?

I don't have a plan. I'm asking sincerely. How?

Death In The Afternoon

Had kind of an interesting day today. Thus, the mid-day post.

What happened? Well...we had our first shoot day today and I saw a guy get killed.

I was on the 295 on-ramp from Route 6 in Johnston, RI. There's another access road that merges with the on-ramp before it joins the highway, but the traffic was pretty light. We were only moving at 40 mph or so. Anyway, out of the corner of my left eye, about eight cars ahead or so, I saw a semi-truck with one of those open-bin trailers coming down the access road.

The exact thought I had was..."That truck is moving pretty fast." And it was. It took the corner hard--the cab stayed up, but the bin rolled. It hit the ground on its side and slid toward the guard rail separating the on-ramp from 295. A cloud of what turned out to be roof shingles filled the air. That's when someone died.

Another truck, this one a semi towing an empty flatbed, was in my lane right behind the accident. He couldn't stop. He hit the overturned trailer full force.

The eight cars between me and the accident all stopped for a second. Then something weird happened--they slowly drove around the wreckage and moved onto 295. A few cars closer to the actual crash had pulled over up ahead and some people were running toward the crushed cab to see if the driver had survived, but by and large traffic just kept going.

I pulled over directly behind the empty flatbed with the crashed cab attached to it and got out. The air smelled like burning oil. People were climbing up to the driver's door using a pile of roofing tiles that had been wedged between the truck and the guard rail. One guy asked if I had dialed 911 (yes) and then looked into the window.

He came off the pile and held up his hand.

"The guy's gone, man. He's gone."

And he was.

A woman who was at least six months pregnant stood near the bottom of the pile, looking up at all of the people looking in. She's a cop, she said. We should all stay and be ready to give a statement. She let us all know that she wasn't climbing up to take a peek. I didn't blame her. Neither was I.

Fire and rescue crews started making their way to the scene from all directions. It was pretty clear my car was going to be in the way, so I started it and tried to move off to the side. The driver of another car stuck behind the accident saw me driving toward her and screamed so loud, I heard it through both of our windows.

"Motherfucker! What are you trying to do? Motherfucker!"

I yelled that I was only trying to get out of the way. She turned her head and saw the approaching fire trucks, then back at me, before nodding apologetically.

The driver of the other truck wandered around in a bright orange Teamsters T-shirt, looking at people but saying nothing. I didn't even know he was the other driver until I saw him asking Fire Department guys to go back into his cab for some stuff. He didn't look like anything bad had happened to him--or because of him. In fact, he looked like he was just there to watch.

No one could move for about twenty minutes. We all sat in our cars and watched as the fire department cut open the top of the truck, first pulling the fiberglass apart with their hands, then with axes, then saws. Eventually there was enough of an opening for a man to crawl into the cab. One did. They passed up a defibrillator.

A couple of minutes later, they passed it back down again.

We were waved around the fire trucks and drove away. Slowly.

Baseball Tonight

The Sox took a Big Game tonight from the Y***ees, 9-3. One of the nice things about tonight's matchup, besides the fact that Gary Sheffield is having surgery on his wrist, was that it was the last time these two teams will meet for two months.

A point here, and forgive me for quoting George Will (who I believe was quoting Walt Whitman), but the unbalanced schedule sucks monkey shit. It does, and not because it dilutes the rivalry. It makes every single game too important.

I'm a big believer in baseball as a calendar. As Giamatti said:

I was counting on the game's deep patterns, three strikes, three outs, three times three innings, and its deepest impulse, to go out and back, to leave and to return home, to set the order of the day and to organize the daylight.

Giamatti knew that you set your year with baseball, a marathon building to a sprint. Playing the Y***ees and Toronto 19 times apiece is too stressful. It makes every night feel like it should be September and frankly, I'm getting tired. My baseball clock has been thrown off completely.

So farewell for now to you, Y***ees. When next we meet, Jason Grimsley's testimony may mean even more change to your roster. Perhaps it'll be "Jenny Craig" for all of you this July, just in time for some of you to go before a congressional committee. Either that or the pinstripes will be extra slimming this year. Whatever.

Until August, adieu.

Traffic...

Another traffic report, another mystery guest.

Just so our Australian friend doesn't think there was anything personal, I'm calling out New Haven, Connecticut. Someone there has been a frequent visitor here. And I don't know anyone at Yale.

Leave a comment. Who are you and how did you get here? It's just idle obsessive curiosity, promise. Same goes for anyone else that I don't know directly.

Remember, there are no strangers here, just people I haven't harangued out of anonymity.

A True Story. I Mean It.

"Wow. Is it that hot out?"

An obvious question to ask a guy soaked from the top of his head to the bottom of his shirt, if you happen to run into one. Unfortunately, I was just such a guy, having thrown about a gallon and half of cold water on my head in the restroom a second ago. The stout little man asking the question stood at the counter of this fast food place and looked at me like I had just walked in from a road production of "The Day After."

"Yeah. It's bad," I replied as I eyed the icemaker near the soda fountain.

Don't give him a shake of your head. Or a smile. Or anything to suggest that you're amused by this heat and want to discuss it further.

"What's the matter? Air conditioner broken?"

So we were talking now. That's how it was going to be.

I took a full five seconds to see who this person was. Thirty-something, healthy, hair cut short to hide a receding hairline. He wore standard issue Casual--light blue shirt, tan chinos, and matching baseball cap. Probably the same outfit they gave him with his real estate license.

"The radiator is having a tough time. I'm just going to get a soda."

I threw a couple of singles in front of me and the girl behind the counter handed me a cup. She gave me the largest one they had--a hard, purple, plastic thing that was, according to a sign on the window, supposed to be collectible.

My partner in the conversation chuckled. To him, I was just another Angeleno who had wandered too close to the sun. I hated him utterly.

The girl looked at me for a second and then at him. Right before I had walked in, it had just been her and Chinos. He wasn't eating, so I assumed he was talking to her about something only he had been interested in, like the stock market or a motivational seminar he had recently attended.

"Do you live here?" I asked. "I mean, here. Palm Springs. Indio. The low desert."

"Yes, sir. I do."

"I'd like to ask you a question, and I hope you don't mind if I'm a little personal."

He stared--still genial, still game--at a drop of water rolling down one of the lenses of my eyeglases.

"Shoot."

"Given the choice between here...and anywhere else in the entire fucking world BESIDES here...why in God's name would you ever choose to live in any spot that even for one second reminded you of this place?"

I turned to fill my Collectible Cup with Diet Coke, so I missed the smile leaving his face. He was on the defensive now. Good.

"Well, you gotta understand. It's only like this four months a year. The other eight months are amazing. Eighty degrees every day. You don't live here for July. You live here for January."

"Live in San Diego. Live in Los Angeles. Live near those places. All those people can talk about is how great the weather is. You're living on the upper rack of God's convection oven."

He nodded.

"Sure, it's okay. Los Angeles, you know. But remember, it rains an awful lot in Los Angeles."

And there it was. The end of the discussion. Because once you get actual proof that the person you're talking to is absolutely barking mad, there's no point in continuing. I snapped the lid on my soda.

"Los Angeles...has too much rain for you."

"I like it dry. What can I say?"

"Say...goodbye."

I pushed the door open and the heat hit me in the face like an unwelcome wave of bad news. My lungs sucked in a breath of hot air and it hurt a little.

It took twelve steps and the push of a button to get back behind the wheel of the car, but my hair was already back to where it was fifteen minutes ago. I rolled the windows down and took a long sip from the Cup. Patted my Honda softly on the dashboard.

Just get me to Albuquerque, buddy. One more time. You and me.

I don't want to be stuck here. Ever.

The Big One

Finally, in one place for two nights in a row.

I'm in my corporate housing, a huge development among several other huge developments in a small town that's getting bigger just outside of Providence. You can see the construction everywhere--car dealerships, medical buildings--all the signs of a community that's turning from a Village into a Bedroom Community. These cookie-cutter apartments are another sign.

The place I'm actually staying in is fine. Quite nice, actually. I've described it to people as the nicest doctor's office that I've ever stayed in. It's all off-white and every single fixture in the apartment feels Standard. All in all, not a bad space in which to kill a few months.

The rest of the drive here was fun. Some of you may have read in the news that while I was blogging in Tulsa, Oprah Winfrey was also in town crashing some weddings for her show. Presumably we weren't in the same hotel or if we were, I didn't see any signs of her.

Oklahoma is pleasant enough to drive through. I've stopped here before, at the memorial for the Oklahoma City bombing victims. The memorial is well done, as far as those things go. It's 151 empty chairs, one for each victim, standing along a reflective pool between two gates marked with 9:03 and 9:04. The idea being, of course, to demonstrate what can change in one fateful minute. On the day I visited, it was virtually empty and deathly quiet until a moment when a nearby church's bells sounded and it all finally seemed to live its purpose.

The state of Oklahoma has a lot of which one can make fun. There's their senator, Tom Coburn, who is a doctor and once advocated the death penalty for his colleagues who perform abortions. There's the musical which painted the people here as a bunch of simple hayseeds. There's the fact that Oral Roberts has his name on one the state's most respected institutions of higher learning. Anyway, there's enough so that when I saw multiple billboards along I-44 advertising winery tours in Oklahoma (Barrels of Fun!), it didn't faze me that much.

As I thought about it, though, urban sophisticates like you and me give Oklahoma a lot of shit for being a rural backwater. It seems to me that a move toward developing a taste for so-called "finer things" like wine is something we should admire about Oklahoma. Making fun of Oklahoma wine basically puts them in a no-win situation. We make fun of them for being country rubes, then make fun of them for trying to grow wine grapes in a dust bowl. It isn't fair. We have to pick one or the other. I say we make fun of them for being country rubes and leave the wine alone.

Missouri wasn't as interesting, but it had some moments. At one point, a truck carrying large rolls of sod lost one of them on the highway. It fell in such a way that it unfurled perfectly onto the asphalt. Cars started driving around this little patch of beautiful lawn in the middle of I-44. There's a metaphor in there somewhere.

The other thing I'll remember about this trip through Missouri is the eighteen different billboards with the single word "JESUS" on them. They were all in different fonts and designs, which led me to think that there were eighteen different sponsors buying the ad space. But there was no message--just "JESUS."

What's the point? Is it a reminder? ("What was that guy's name again? J-something...Oh, yeah!") A brand awareness campaign to keep people from patronizing the other deities advertising in Missouri? It just seemed like a huge waste of money to me. If you're the kind of person who's so insecure in your faith that you actually need to see the name of your god every 4.6 miles, you really have to re-examine your religious choices.

Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia. All exactly as I remember them.

I will say this about West Virginia, though. It's astoundingly gorgeous. The whole thing is amazing. You want to talk about a state being misjudged, let's talk about West Virginia.

They're desperately poor, near the bottom in everything from education to indoor plumbing. They've been shit on by companies who have raped their resources for two hundred years. They've been ridiculed as Appalachian sister-fuckers (if I was the governor of West Virginia I'd declare a fatwa on the entire cast and crew of "Deliverance"). It's still achingly beautiful.

Huge, lush mountains with rushing rivers and unbelievable views every direction you turn in. Drive through, and every time you come to the crest of a hill you're treated to a landscape painted by God. Then you go up to the next hill and there's another one that's even better. As I spent a few hours gazing at all of this majesty, I couldn't take my mind off of one thing.

Palm Springs.

Palm Springs is the ass end of the earth. There's absolutely no reason why anyone in their right mind would spend a single second more than is mandated by a federal statute there. The only positive thing about it is that they've harnessed wind power there, and even that is a sign of how bad things are--they literally reap the whirlwind.

The fact that they waste the water to grow golf courses in Palm Springs is crime against humanity. In twenty years, we're going to be selling Washington state to Canada for clean water, but Palm Springs is sucking us dry so that people can golf in 115 degree weather.

The amount of wealth in Palm Springs could probably buy and sell West Virginia ten times over. For what a Palm Springs condo complex costs to build, you could buy half of Wheeling. There is no justice in this. None.

Anyway, I got to see my family in Washington, which was great. My cousin's totally counter-intuitive new boyfriend seems like a nice guy. I got to Providence the next day, despite a two hour delay through New York City on the George Washington Bridge. Nothing to do except sit and stare at the Bronx. Yup, heaven.

So I'm here now and I thank all of you for your patience. I'll be writing regularly again, so please pipe up with any...thing.

Made It...

Safe and somewhat sound.

Regular (read:daily) blogging to recommence tomorrow.

Sleep now.

Greetings From Tulsa...

There's this crap in the air. It's kind of wet, but not really. The desk clerk tells me it's something called "humidity."

Well, there's a whole week to catch up on, but tough shit--you're only getting the last two days. Next week, I'll talk about my first-ever trip to Disneyland. There are even pictures.

First off, a huge thank you to everyone at Square One Dining for a great last meal. They even gave me a muffin and a brownie for the road. (Confidential to YES!: The brownie did NOT melt on my seat. I ate it, and the crumbs melted on my shirt. The result is like a Rorschach test made out of chocolate.)

Now, the trip. Some friends and I asked ourselves a question the other night: when you're driving out of town, what's the spot you consider to be "out?" In other words, precisely when do you leave LA? The answer, it turns out, is never.

The traffic leaving LA was non-stop until Palm Springs. That means even if I was moving, there was not a single moment where my car was not boxed in on all sides by other vehicles. It was...unpleasant.

As to the question--in my opinion, until I get some space, I'm still in Los Angeles. That put my out point at, roughly, Phoenix.

My car, which as you all know is the best thing in the entire world, has been a cause of concern for me when planning this trip. You see, it has a crappy radiator. (I blame myself--several years ago it was replaced and I never checked to see what part was used.) This means that the engine tends to heat up a bit, but only in very narrow conditions. Those conditions? Up very steep, protracted ascensions in very high heat. Basically, desert mountains. Good thing I was only going through to New Mexico.

The outside temperature was 109 degrees in Palm Springs. I ended up turning off the air conditioning an hour and half into the trip. It was so hot that it felt like a relief to blink. Three hours in, I had the heat on to relieve the engine. Ten hours in and I was hallucinating. Seriously. I think I had dinner at Rick's Cafe from "Casablanca."

I went through eight 20 oz bottles of water and three of soda by mid-afternoon, but the car never red-lined once. The sun went down, and since it did, the engine has remained comfortably below the mid-line--no matter how high the AC is on. I love my car.

Day two was totally uneventful. Like I said, the car is fine now. New Mexico is beautiful, Texas is boring (save for the largest cross in the Western Hemisphere, which was closed for remodeling), and Oklahoma is OK.

It looks like West Virginia tomorrow, Washington DC the next day, and Providence on Monday. The more direct route would get me there by Sunday, but I'm visiting some family.

A couple of other notes:

--Is it possible to listen to "Abbey Road" without feeling like something is ending? I know it was planned that way, but every time I hear it, there's this nebulous sense of loss. I'm not sure if it's the album itself or the circumstances surrounding the album's creation.

--I ate something very bad tonight at a Sonic here in Tulsa. It was a chicken sandwich on very thick "toast" with mayo. If you want to know exactly how bad that might be for you, imagine an incredibly rich coffee cake with about 4000 calories and using eight sticks of butter. Now imagine another one.

That's it for now. More tomorrow.