Syntax of Things

Mood: Almost Happy

My dad can't watch an Alabama football game.  He'll wash the car, cut the yard, trim the hedges, rewire the house.  Anything but actually sit down and watch the game.  Sure he keeps tabs on what's going on, making sure he knows the score at all times.

Well, the nut didn't fall far from the tree.  I don't think I ever saw more than 1/3 of any of the Braves' playoff games.  I'd do anything but sit there and wait for the next pitch.  One playoff series, I think against the Cubs, I decided that sit-ups were a good idea.

Tonight, I cleaned the carpets in our house. 

I've finished cleaning the carpets.  This one is over.  All but the LEFT coast.

We almost have!

Flashback

One good thing about having a blog all these many years is that I can look back to what I was doing last time there was a presidential election.  In 2004, I lived in a red county (San Diego) of the blue state of California.  Looks like this year, I might live in a blue county (Wake) in a blue state, or if nothing else, a blue county in a barely red state.  Anyway, here's what I posted on election day 04.  Seeing old Hannah brought a tear to my  eye.

******

We Voted!

I voted with my left hand.

Hannah supports stem cell research and wants reform of the three-strikes law.

Homer ate the ballot.

Canvas

After weeks of never hearing from the Obama GOTV people, we've been visited every day since Friday.  Even in the miserable weather we're having today, a woman rang my doorbell just hours after I'd voted.  I was hoping she was bringing me another cup of free coffee, but she just wanted to make sure that I voted.  When I said yes, she knew it was one more in the Obama column (we have a bumper sticker).

By the way, I didn't have time to canvas this year, but I'm no stranger to canvassing.  A few years out of college with few immediate job prospects, I spent a few months working for Citizen Action, a distant cousin of PIRG.  That was during the 1996 presidential campaign.  I had the honor of walking neighborhoods in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana and Cleveland, Ohio, the latter during one of the snowiest Novembers in Cleveland history.  While we weren't officially campaining for candidates, we weren't discouraged from doing some GOTV.  I usually did my part, except I skipped mentioning Clinton during a visit to one neighborhood plastered with David Duke signs, four years after Duke's previous run for elected office.

One benefit of working in Ohio was attending the acceptance speech of this guy.  That was before anyone save Clevelanders knew him.  I recall being blown away.  And drunk.

All that just to say thanks to all of the canvassers, both those who walked the streets and those who burned the phonelines.  It's hard work and hopefully in a few hours you'll see all of your labor pay dividends.

Mood:  Impatient; optimistic; nervous.

Long Line

I found the long line.  Starbucks.  I wanted my free "I Voted" coffee and it seems everyone else did also.  Ten minute wait and lots of cars with Obama bumper stickers in the parking lot.

Mood:  Optimistic but nervous.

Coffee:  I got a venti for free instead of the tall.  Yes I Did!

Crash Test

If you're on your way to vote, be careful.  According to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, you are about 18% more likely to die in a traffic accident on presidential election days than on any other Tuesday.  Why? 

One explanation is increased traffic, but other factors might contribute. A 4% increase in average speed, for example, could yield an 18% increase in deaths even with no increase in average travel distance. Additional factors might include distraction (driver inattention), rerouting (unfamiliar pathways) enforcement (decreased police presence), and demographics (mobilizing unfit drivers).

Man, I love scientific research.

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Yes We Can!

Not even 8am here in North Carolina. It's raining today, not the symbolic blue skies I'd hoped for. M y wife and I went in two shifts to vote.  Neither of us stood in line.  In fact, my total time from leaving to returning to the house was a smidge over 15 minutes.  Usually this would be a disappointment seeing as Obama's hopes in this state probably rely on high voter turnout, but I think he's locked in such a large number of early voters that today the rain may benefit him.  Of course, it's still early and we don't live in a highly populated area of Raleigh, so take my polling observation for what it is.

Still, I'm optimistic.  We'll know more in about 14 hours or so.

Tomorrow Nears

Sometimes I wonder what I would have been like if certain things hadn't happened in my life, if instead of where I'm at now (and where I've been) I would have remained in Alabama in the same small town in which my parents still live, if I'd chosen a path that most people I knew in high school chose.  I wonder what tomorrow would be like for me, if I would have this same feeling I have now, this same hope of possibility, this same nervousness that we've come this far and we can't lose now.  I wonder if I would have the same fear that my parents and many like them have, a fear that masks something else (he's Muslim, he's got a weird name, he's a socialist), and we all know what that something is.

I wonder if the Alabama me would wake up early in the morning and stand in line in the rain for godknowshowlong and for the first time in his life vote with absolute conviction and pride.

I wonder if I would have ever read Langston Hughes or be thinking of Langston and Ralph and James and Richard and Zora tonight. I doubt it.  But maybe... I can't wait for tomorrow. 

******

Daybreak in Alabama

by Langston Hughes

When I get to be a composer
I'm gonna write me some music about
Daybreak in Alabama
And I'm gonna put the purtiest songs in it
Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist
And falling out of heaven like soft dew.
I'm gonna put some tall tall trees in it
And the scent of pine needles
And the smell of red clay after rain
And long red necks
And poppy colored faces
And big brown arms
And the field daisy eyes
Of black and white black white black people
And I'm gonna put white hands
And black hands and brown and yellow hands
And red clay earth hands in it
Touching everybody with kind fingers
And touching each other natural as dew
In that dawn of music when I
Get to be a composer
And write about daybreak
In Alabama.

Buzz

I'm allergic to bees, but not this one.  Belated Happy Halloween to all of you. 

Time

I figured out what has to be the best barometer of just how little spare time I have these days:  Ron Rash's new novel has been at the top of my TBR pile for over a month.  And what have I been reading instead? you ask.  A lot of stuff like this.  Hooked I am.  I guess because the baseball season was an utter flop and football has turned out to be even worse, I'm left watching politics as if it were some sort of fantasy sports league.  It's never good when you lose sleep when your preferred candidate drops a point in some obscure daily tracker.

Just another reason why this election can't come soon enough.

I Found My MTV

Sorry I've been slacking. My time is limited more than ever, but that doesn't mean I won't waste a few minutes looking for memories.

King Missile |MTV Music

I'm Straight

...and I'm still alive, thank you for asking.   And Marlie picked up her kiddie harmonica today and I showed her a Bob Dylan video on YouTube and now she knows who Bob Dylan is.  She also knows that Barack Obama is the next president, thank you very much.

Now it's all about naming the twins, and that's easier said than done.   Especially when nostalgic people get offended.  Nostalgia is the opium of the people who can't remember tomorrow.

Here's my favorite song today:

By the way, Im done with ads. 

Baby Photo Friday x2 (w/ Bonus Video)

Baby Girl:

Baby Boy:

Marlie at Monkey Joe's:

XX/XY

For those of you who had "a boy and a girl" in the Syntax of Things Guess the Gender of the Twins pool, you can collect your winnings.  We found out this morning.  I can now put my "sex change for dad" fund that I had started in case they were both girls toward the diapers-for-two fund.

By the way, I've been more slammed than I'm normally slammed the last few weeks, meaning all of those other claims of being slammed were mere warm-ups to the actual slammedness that I'm experiencing right now.  I hope to be less slammed come this weekend and assuming that I don't get trampled by a runaway pony or slammed by a greased pig at the North Carolina State Fair, then I'll be back to a somewhat more regular posting schedule, including, finally, an update on the books that I've actually had time to read the last few months in between moments of being slammed.

Speaking of slammed...Go Rays!

Until then...

Not Rotting

The University of Central Arkansas, already home to the great Oxford American magazine, has added Andrei Condrescu's Exquisite Corpse to its roster of publications.  UCA will transition the Corpse from its current online-only format with a 150-page annual to hit bookstores in 2009.  The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette chatted with Condrescu about this decision:

Q. How and why did the University of Central Arkansas become the center of earnest literary enterprise in this country ? Have you seen the place yet ? Did Warwick Sabin promise you a nice office ?

A. Mark Spitzer, one of the Corpse’s most formidable assistant editors at Louisiana State University, is now a professor at UCA. He suggested bringing the publication there because they already had the Oxford American, and having the Corpse too would simply propel the school into the big leagues. At least the literary publishing ones. I met with some well-meaning people there, English professors, deans, some administrators, and they all seemed keen on the idea. They promised me nothing: no money, no office, not even a lifetime supply of barbecue, but on the other hand we get to stay completely independent, publish whatever we like, keep ownership of the journal, and stop the relationship anytime we want. They get credit for their association with “the New Yorker of the avant garde,” as a mean critic once called us, and we get to be in a physical body again.

Mob

In case you were wondering:

How Bad Is It?

For some moronic reason, last night I decided to check on how my 401(k) is doing.  Granted, there's not a whole hell of a lot in there in the first place, but what was there is now less, by a margin of some 25 percent.  And now, Margaret Atwood is writing about the economy? 

I'm doomed.

Word(s) to the Wise

What happens to someone who has read the entire 20 volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary?  Here's what happened to Ammon Shea who over the past year did just that:

"I think it turned me into a blithering idiot," he laughs, admitting he often becomes tongue tied and unable to remember the simplest of words, such as – incredibly enough – "milk."

"I would end up stumbling and ask the guy around the counter, 'Where's the white stuff, the white liquid,'" he says.

Three for Monday Morning

1.  Mel Tillis and Harry Crews have been recommended for the 2009 Florida Artists Hall of Fame by the Florida Arts Council.  Interesting combination to say the least.

2.  Ron Rash's new novel, Serena, hits store shelves this week.  Here's Mr. Rash discussing the book at Powells' From the Author site.

3.  The On the Road scroll has landed in Chicago where Columbia College will host a series of events centered around the book and Beat influence on the arts.

Do as the Boss Says

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Rotten Butter

Debate

Didn't it start sounding as if one of the debaters tonight was relying on her notes and talking points, never straying from them and bringing every question back to those notes at all cost?  Eventually, I started thinking of William S. Burroughs.

Homer Simpson Votes

Lazarus

The Globe and Mail profiles Nick Cave, who, it appears, has just finished work on a novel:

The book, which Cave finished mere days ago, is called The Death of Bunny Munro, and it grew out of a screenplay that never got made. Munro is "just not a good guy," Cave says.

"But I've always liked things like those Jim Thompson novels, where you've just got [a protagonist who's] flat-out evil. But there's always something a little endearing about him. And Thompson would draw you, chapter by chapter, into this vortex, where your sympathies are stretched finer and finer. I've always found that interesting in his books."

Curiously, Cave says the biggest difference between songwriting and novel writing is that "I find the writing of novels and stuff easier. It's because you're pursuing one idea for a sustained amount of time.

"My problem always is coming up with the original idea - that 'What am I going to write about?' And you have to do that over and over and over again with songs. Every time you finish one, you just have to work out what the next one will be. What's your theme?

"To write a novel, you only need to get a basic idea and run with it. It's the same with scriptwriting. Scriptwriting is even easier, because in most cases you're supplied your theme. Someone says. 'Will you write an Australian western?' Well, yeah, why not? It's not rocket science to do that - you get some archetypes, stick 'em on their head, and do this and that with them.

"But songwriting - I mean, the amount of times I've rung up my friends and said, 'Right, look, will someone tell me what to write a song about?' And someone will go, 'Well, what about trains?' And you go, 'Oh, all right.' "

Heartbeat Away

I know it's probably not the best idea to go political on a blog not about politics, but I'm done with silence on this matter.  Whatever one thinks of McCain and his rightful place as far as the future of this country is concerned, that's fine.  McCain isn't the worst possible presidential candidate the Republicans could have nominated and he's definitely better than what we've had the last eight years, but that's not much of a compliment.  However, I start getting really nervous when I think of the possibility of his running mate ascending to the highest office if something should happen to McCain.  It's not just a momentary lapse of concentration anymore.  Not an isolated incident. And this whole narrative of blaming the media and the "gotcha" journalism shows how desperate the campaign is to cover for her inadequacies. We're dealing with someone who, let's face it, is not qualified to be president of the United States.  The Republicans want to cast her as the average Jo(e), "Joe six-pack" and that she may be, but in these difficult times, we need much better than average leading this country, even from the #2 position. We need someone who won't be stumped by the Katie Courics of the world, and someone who when stumped won't blame the questioner.  We need someone who has been around the block and around the world and who knows how to answer a question, even if long-winded, but can answer it for crissake.

It's not hard to find a moment over the last few weeks that not only made me shake my head but actually petrified me when thinking of the possibility, actually kept me up more than one night with a clinched stomach thinking that this country could be put in the hands of this person.  I think it really hit me when I think about how our decision this November might affect not just the country but also how it might affect the life of my daughter and the twins.  That's why I can't keep silent anymore.

That and what I saw tonight.  Her mistakes and gaffes are many, but this one made me lose my appetite.   I don't know how much sleep I'll get tonight after this.

Colin Meloy's Cousin Oliver

If a band can jump the shark, then this seems to me to be the first steps toward the tank.

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