4th of July Weekend

I didn’t post last weekend as I was traveling all day Saturday to the Crescent City. I spent a couple of days there eating several different kinds of pork served in several different ways. I also presented at a conference with my good friend K.
I remember the entrance to Bourbon Street differently, of course I was last in NOLA in 1987 and my trips to the French Quarter usually involved the consumption of copious amounts of alcohol. Regardless, I recall the buildings fronting Canal Street as being taller and taking up more of the block. In the 80’s a lone saxophone player greeted people with an open case while attacking his horn with a bluesy wail, echoing off the buildings. And I don’t remember the streets being so narrow in the Quarter. Two grown men could place one hand on the wall of the buildings on each side and nearly touch hands in the middle of the street. When I shared the last bit with my partner she reminded me that I was smaller back then (around 50 lbs smaller, but I was smoking thank you very much). I did remember the food, music and architecture correctly. All are as varied and wonderful as the groups of people who first settled the area. It was hot, 98-degrees-in-the-shade hot. You can’t walk down the street at a Northwest pace in that kind of heat. You won’t last an hour. It’s best to travel on the shady side of the street and shuffle with a you-get-there-when-you-get-there pace.
On the way home we caught a shuttle to the airport from the convention center with a driver who gave a quick tour of the city. He pointed out where the post-Katrina waters had breached the levy and caused the most damage. They had standing water in some spots for over 3 months and the worst damage was in the poorest parts of the city. He handled the subject with grace and humor and expressed gratitude for the help of people outside of NOLA, needless to say it was a sobering ride to the airport.

Although the dog reminded me of the new service animal law in our state (apparently one can argue that their pet iguana or beta fish is a service animal and permitted in any facility), I left her at home and took the light rail to the airport yesterday to meet J. He was returning from the east coast and I wanted the check out a more reasonable way to travel to/from Seatac.
It takes around 10 minutes from the ferry to the bus tunnel on 3rd, then 30 minutes to the airport with another 5 minute walk to the terminal. All for $2.75 as opposed to $35 in a limo or $45 by cab. I wish we had light rail going across the lake as well, but a handful of rich people (whose sole purpose is to get even richer) oppose the project. If you asked me they are little more than selfish, short-sighted a-holes. One caveat for them, karma is a bitch!

It’s hot today, not NOLA hot, but hot nonetheless. The dog has been searching for shady spaces as I work in the yard on projects that have been postponed for way too long. Taking care of some firewood, cleaning out the cars, wiring the raspberries up so they don’t fall into the neighbor’s yard, but pacing myself as is expected of a man at my station in life.

The dog and I are watching:
Spartacus: Sand and Gravel, Season One
Actually the real title of the Starz show is Spartacus: Blood and Sand. This is very different from Kubrick’s Spartacus, much more graphic than Gladiator, the presentation is closer to Zack Snyder’s 300 (in which a force of 300 men fight the Persians at Thermopylae in 480 B.C.). In Spartacus there’s lot’s of political maneuvering by the owner of a gladiator training facility (think Don King without the tux and Viagra-influenced hair) attempting to improve his lot in life. Lot’s of blood and gore in the fight scenes, lot’s of nudity and regular copulation, in other words, everything you’d want in a TV series. However, I suspect that the writers have taken liberty with the historical accuracies.

And we enjoyed an especially humorous episode of South Park called T.M.I.
Cartman thinks the school has posted the boys penis sizes on the bulletin board at school.

The dog and I have been groovin' to:
What we like to call New Soul. Which is newer artists doing their best to honor and pay tribute to those who’ve come before and embrace that retro sound with their interpretation of Soul and R&B.

Raphael Saadiq – Stone Rollin’
He’s stepped his game up a bit from The Way I See It and included more of a Rock sound on this disc.

Mayer Hawthorne – Impressions: The Covers
Cardigan and Buddy Holly glasses aside, this guy can sing.

Fitz & The Tantrums – Pickin’ Up the Pieces
Think Hall & Oates at their peak.

Eldridge Gravy and the Court Supreme – Us Is What Time It Is
Is it Funk with Soul or Soul with Funk? Who cares, just turn it up.

Cee Lo Green – The Lady Killer
Unless you’ve been living on the moon you’ve heard Cee Lo’s F**K You song and seen the sign language interpretation on You Tube. The whole disc is great. Check out Bright Lights, Bigger City.

What I’m reading to the dog:
The Financial Lives of Poets by Jess Walter
A rather humorous perspective on a man who is out of work with limited savings, the bank is about to foreclose on his house and his wife may be cheating on him. He takes it in stride and wrangles his way toward a solution to all his problems.

The dog and I loved also enjoyed Walter’s Citizen Vince,
A noirish tale about a relocated witness living in Spokane, WA.

E's B-day and A's Shower.

It's E's B-day and A's Shower.

The dog and I are groovin to:
Death Cab for Cutie - Codes and Keys. Melodic and stable as one would expect from Ben and the boys.
Joan Armatrading - Live at Royal Albert. I’ve seen Joan four times and this is not the usual set list, but how many times can she play Willow? Nicely done.
Treme – Soundtrack. Music from the HBO series created by the producers of The Wire. The show features post-Katrina New Orleans and the stories of those who made it through and those who returned. The music helps tell the story.
Raphael Saadiq - Stone Rollin. Once again Raphael hits it out of the park with a truly retro, Motown sound that is sure to get the stodgiest curmudgeons tapping their toes.
Jason Isbell - Here We Rest. Former Drive By Trucker put together a solid collection of Folky/Country/Rock tunes.

I'm enjoying the 3rd season of True Blood (although too scary for the dog). Not as good as season one, but better than season two.
We recently saw the first talking version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931, Paramount, Directed by Rouben Mamoulian, starring Frederic March and Miriam Hopkins). Best Actor Oscar for March. Extremely racing and artsy for 1931! And we learned that there are 54 film versions of that story including a musical from 2001 with Mr. Cheeseburger/Baywatch, David Hasselhoff.

I'm a little over one third of the way through Scribbling the Cat: Travels With an African Soldier by Alexandra Fuller. An English born, Rhodesian raised journalist living in Montana returns to Zambia to travel to Mozambique with a born-again, soldier-turned-banana-farmer so he can face his demons. It’s non-fiction, you can't make that shit up. It's very good so far.

We spent last weekend in Vancouver, BC celebrating another year of patience, tolerance and understanding by my wonderful partner. The dog wasn’t able to come. She had a lot on her agenda. That city has miles and miles (kilometers and kilometers) of dedicated bike lanes and trails. The entire waterfront is a wide bike/walk/jog/rollerblade path.
We watched cricket on the green, but understood very little, and lawn bowling. They asked us to join the club. There was an ancient woman who couldn't bend over the pick up the balls (she used a stainless steel, cane-like hook), but man could she bowl. However, no roller derby or people balancing rocks on the beach this year.
Vancouver was bubbling over with Canucks fans full of Stanley Cup fervor, or is it fervour? Once the game started the typically polite and reserved Canadians were beginning to mimic their more obnoxious, sports-fan, cousins to the south. And the game was on everywhere we turned. Granville was shut down for blocks with thousands in the streets watching on giant TVs. We saw an altercation between two guys. After watching them posture and maneuver for position, I couldn’t help but think that even the fights are more polite in Canada. I was in Barcelona in 1982 for the opening ceremonies of World Cup Soccer. That was wild, but it pales in comparison to watching hockey with a bunch of liquored up Canadians, eh.

A question my partner and I have been pondering and sharing with others, “Who, in your community, inspires you?” This led to a discussion of criteria for inspirational efforts. We talked about some level of sacrifice being present and that a person’s act/s led to some action by you. So, “Who, in your community, inspires you?”

Recent solar flare activity has increased the dog's suspicion of the squirrels in our back yard. She’s on high alert as there’s no telling what new nadirs of sordidness squirrels will seek when the sun’s acting up.