hot biscuits & country ham

hot biscuits & country ham, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Well, we made it to Nashville. We also made it to the Loveless Cafe, as you can see above ... the biscuits and ham are really good. In fact, everything down here tastes better than any food I've ever eaten. And it's not that we're eating all sorts of new food -- the produce is insane. The tomatoes? Perfect. You've never eaten such good peaches either. It's as if God himself were tending to the Back 40 and bringing everything to His Farmers' Market on Saturday mornings.

Though it might be Scratch himself who's doing the gardening, because the heat is more akin to Hades than, say, Chanhassen. It's the same kind of weather we had in St. Louis, so I can't say that I'm surprised, but it will take some getting used to all over again. I'd rather have this than -20º F in January, but I wonder if the locals take vacations in Canada in July, because everyone went south for the winters back in Minnesota.

People are terribly friendly, and I've found myself practicing "sir" and "ma'am" as punctuation for almost every sentence. Our neighbors are sweet and open. We've already found ourselves invited onto their porches for evening drinks, which seems to be the thing to do in this neighborhood. Also, people drive golf carts. Lots of people drive golf carts. It's a lot like living in a world inhabited only by Priuses -- they're dead silent until they're right on your butt. 

On the whole, I'd say Nashville is all good so far.

hey, you know what?

originally uploaded by pr9000.

We're leaving Minnesota tomorrow morning.

It's just now hitting me -- especially after reading Big Daddy Avelis -- that Amina and I will be packing up our cars later today to make the two-day drive to Nashville.

We're leaving Minnesota.

It's been about a month since I've written here, and I certainly will do more once I get to NashVegas (as one of Amina's former coworkers dubbed the place), but it's been a month between posts mainly because we're moving, which is busier than you can imagine.

Well, if you've moved, you don't have to imagine. You know the drill ...

About a month out, you think you've got time, so you work, but not too hard because, hey, you've got! four! weeks! until you move. You might do some throwing away of junk, some organizing, shuffling a few boxes around ... you've got time.

Then it's three weeks out, and you start to hear the moving truck way off in the distance. You reshuffle some boxes and lightly pack your DVDs. This, my friends, is progress.

When it's two weeks out, you start to get "serious" about this moving thing, and tackle the rooms that have the least amount of hard work to them -- the guest room, the other bath, that one cabinet in the garage. This is much better progress than the progress you made last weekend, so go ahead -- take Sunday off. You've earned it.

When it's one week out, your sphincter tightens because the movers are coming and you're just not ready. How did this happen? You worked so hard and there's still too much to do? What do you mean, "You could have donated more, done more yardwork, gotten the sprinklers fixed and sorted the two racks of shoes in the garage?" Who knew the movers would actually come ... to pack ... my stuff? I mean, we signed contracts, we circled dates on the calendar, but seriously -- who could have predicted that the moving company would do what it said it would do, on the scheduled you set for them to do it?

Finally, the loading day arrives and the 37-man crew sent to load your stuff cranks it out in about three hours ... which leaves you the false security that you're a day ahead of schedule. You don't exactly start slacking off, but you do work less frantically. You can get the house cleaned in a few hours, and the new owners will be gracious and thrilled that the house is cleaner than it ever was when you lived there.

Three arguments, two more boxes of stuff you forgot to pack and one back-breaking marathon cleaning session later ... the house is ready to be handed over. You remember thinking that you couldn't possibly get everything done in time, and yet there you are, and it's all pretty much done.

That's how it works. As I said to Big Daddy ... if it's the journey, and not the destination, that counts, be prepared that the journey won't be smooth. But you'll get where you're going nonetheless.

tulip at sunset

tulip at sunset, originally uploaded by pr9000.

I took this at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska, about five minutes from our house, late in the afternoon last Sunday. The arboretum has a fantastic tulip display and I got there at the tail end, hoping to capture it before it disappeared in the June heat. (Here's a link to all my arboretum shots, if you're so inclined.)

I should have gone earlier ... in fact, I should have gone years ago. We just got our membership last fall, so this was the first -- and, it turns out, the only -- spring I was able to shoot there. 

Yes, the rumors are true: Amina and I are moving south, to Nashville.

Of all the places we've lived together, this felt the most like a real home to me. Chicago, though awesome, was just too big and impersonal. St. Louis was a brief interlude, and I feel more nostalgic for it as the distance between me and University City increases. The Twin Cities has friends, family and coworkers I actually enjoyed seeing outside the office. Our neighborhood is filled with incredible families and friends, plus more mosquitos than you've seen south of the Boundary Waters. Our church has introduced us to fantastic people, and gotten us closer to God ... close enough to understand that someone had to be driving this decision to leave, because it was all too smooth and miraculous to be given to chance, luck or coincidence.

This is all too sappy, so I'll just end it here ...

your humble photographer

your humble photographer, originally uploaded by pr9000.

roberto clemente ... or barack obama?

barack obama bobblehead ... or maybe clemente?, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Amina and I went to Pittsburgh to see a Pirates game in early September, 2001. We stayed at (and I mean this literally) the gayest bed and breakfast in all of Pennsylvania, somewhere in the Mexican War Streets neighborhood. The Bucs game on Saturday night was Roberto Clemente bobblehead night, and I managed to get three bobbleheads. I never opened them, thinking that I'd someday be able to retire after selling them on eBay -- which, incidentally, I'm just about to do. 

The selling on eBay part, not the retiring part. Though the auction hasn't started yet, so who knows?

Anyway ... as I opened one up today for the eBay/craigslist photo shoot, the face really amazed me -- it looks an awful lot like Barack H. Obama. Doesn't it? If you can look past the bad white point (I shot them all in jpg, which I don't usually do), you get the idea of what Obama would look like if he had been a baseball player from the 1960s.

Si, se puede indeed.

roberto clemente ... or barack obama?, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Pantheon™ ... Springfield, KY edition

So let's open the "Simpsons" wing of the Pantheon™ and take a look at those guest stars who deserve Pantheon™ status for their outstanding work on the show.

We must start with Albert Brooks, who was the original guest star and the only guest whose dialog is improvised. He wins for Cowboy Bob, manager of Cowboy Bob's RV Roundup, and for Hank Scorpio, CEO of the Globex Corporation.

Hank: Uh, hi, Homer. What can I do for you?
Homer: Sir, I need to know where I can get some business hammocks.
Hank: Hammocks? My goodness, what an idea. Why didn't I think of that? Hammocks! Homer, there's four places. There's the Hammock Hut, that's on third.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Hank: There's Hammocks-R-Us, that's on third too. You got Put-Your-Butt-There?
Homer: Mm-Hmm.
Hank: That's on third. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot... Matter of fact, they're all in the same complex; it's the hammock complex on third.
Homer: Oh, the hammock district.
Hank: That's right.

Danny DeVito, as Homer's brother Herb

Barry White ... "I love the sexy slither of a lady snake."

Leonard Nimoy, for saving the day in "Marge vs. The Monorail"

George Harrison ...

George: Hello, Homer! I'm George Harrison.
Homer: [incredulous] Oh my God. Oh my God! Where did you get that brownie?
George: Over there. There's a big pile of them.
Homer: [Laughs crazily, then devours a whole bunch]Oh, ma-an...
George: Well, what a nice fellow.

Robert Goulet, for singing the Batman verison of "Jingle Bells" in Bart's casino

more to come later ...

goodbye

originally uploaded by pr9000.

I had to say goodbye to my beloved little red convertible yesterday. I know it sounds horribly snooty to bemoan the loss of a BMW -- like I need to pahk the cahr on haaahvahd yaaahd snooty -- but that car was very special to me.

I took it on a long road trip last fall, going from Minneapolis to my parents' house in Ohio, then across to Dayton, up to Chicago and back to Minneapolis. I think I knew that was my last, best chance to open it up on the winding roads of Appalachian eastern Ohio, so I took advantage of a lax employment situation, an understanding wife and gas prices below $3 a gallon.

We bought it in St. Louis, not long after Amina had a harrowing experience on an airplane that convinced her that life was too short not to enjoy it in the present. It was our "wedding car," and I still have the "Just Married!" sign in our garage ... my best man, John D. Carroll, and I "laminated" it with dry cleaner plastic the day before the wedding. We drove it to the Ritz in Clayton after the wedding (we = me and Amina, not me and John) and later went all over Missouri's wine country in it, with the top down and the heated seats turned on.

It was a good car, but more importantly, it represents a great part of my life. I'm sad to see it go, but its departure marks the beginning of a new chapter, and I'm terribly excited about that.

grass, and worse

originally uploaded by pr9000.

This story about a drug bust at San Diego State University reminds me of the time I was inadvertently caught up in a drug issue at Denison ...

I was stage managing "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," and my light board guy was a senior Kappa Sig who was known for behaving very erratically. In fact, he had a small but important part in the mainstage production before "Liaisons," and his role called for him to strangle an actress while the lights were down -- it's the central hook behind "The Mousetrap," the venerable Agatha Christie play.

So this actor (I'll call him "Escobar") was to come on stage when the lights were down, "strangle" the actress -- a very well known, famous TV/movie/more famous husband actress -- and then leave before the lights came back up.

Except that Escobar didn't "strangle" her ... he actually came damn close to strangling her.

Why? He was coked out of his gourd.

So a few months later, after he was almost kicked out of the theatre department, Escobar was given a last chance, by earning some technical credits by being my light board guy.

I didn't do a great job stage managing that production, and it was beset with all sorts of insane bad luck -- the guest director, who was a Jeopardy champion, was called out of town until tech week, during which he decided to change the sets and the blocking of my crew ... well, anyway, my light board guy was a massive cokehead and I had no way to control his more-erratic-by-the-day behavior. I had to do the lights a few shows myself, and by the final performance, I was ready to leave technical theatre behind.

I also was editing the daily newsletter on campus, and in that role I'd get all sorts of juicy tips that I couldn't really do anything with ... so I wasn't shocked when, a few weeks later, several Kappa Sigs -- but not Escobar -- were busted for dealing drugs. Apparently the house was the center of a massive on-campus drug ring, not unlike the one described in the story above.

And it just sounds like the college environment I knew and loved:

Danielle Patterson, a sophomore sorority member, said she was awake cramming for finals when agents raided an apartment behind her building, pounding on doors and marching boys down the block to the college arena, where they were questioned.

"I never thought something like that would happen here," she said. "To think they think drugs are such a big issue here, it's ridiculous."

Parents joined students at a campus rally Wednesday calling for more drug-abuse treatment instead of tougher enforcement.

"This heavy hand coming down is not going to change drug use on campus," said Gretchen Burns-Bergman, whose son is a month away from graduating. "There's not going to be a shortage of drugs on campus."

Stupidity apparently is hereditary -- for the frat guys too, apparently:

They apparently made little effort to launder their spoils. One fraternity brother arrested Tuesday drove his Lexus directly from a $400 cocaine sale on campus to a nearby bank, where he deposited the cash, according to court papers.

Ah, good times, good times ...

The Pantheon™ of Great Actors

, originally uploaded by pr9000.

In a thread over at Slev's house I mentioned that Alex Rocco is in my Pantheon of Awesome Actors™ for being both Moe Green in "The Godfather" and Roger Myers Jr., maker of "Itchy and Scratchy," on "The Simpsons." I decided to expand the Pantheon™ a bit.

The logic of this list must be respected; it might not make sense to you, and if it doesn't, then go make your own Pantheon™. This one's mine, and I'm going to break it out by categories in separate posts.

First up:

Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together
These are actors who have done something worthy of being Pantheoned™ by virtue of being great in more than one movie, TV show, etc., or just something else to enhance their Pantheonicity™ ... and I'm trying to avoid the big names like DeNiro, Pacino, etc., because you can just assume they're there already. And I'm allowing people to enter the Pantheon™ even if their multiple works come from the same director -- for example, I've got John C. Reilly for his work in "Boogie Nights" and "Magnolia," even though both are from the same director.

Alex Rocco (Moe Green, "The Godfather" and Roger Myers Jr., "The Simpsons")

Paul Sorvino (Paul Cicero, "Goodfellas" and Mira Sorvino)

Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian, "The Empire Strikes Back," and himself on "Scrubs")

Angelica Huston (Etheline Tenenbaum, "The Royal Tenenbaums" and Marcia Fox, "Manhattan Murder Mystery)

John C. Reilly ("Boogie Nights" and "Magnolia" -- two of my favorite movies, BTW)

Harrison Ford (Han Solo and Indiana Jones)

Clint Howard (Ron's little brother has been in every other movie since 1978)

John Goodman ("Raising Arizona" and "The Big Lebowski")

Craig T. Nelson (for the first two years of "Coach" as well as "The Incredibles")

Holly Hunter ("Raising Arizona" and "The Incredibles" as well)

Bill Murray (for his SNL skit where he's the lounge singer in the shower, and Mr. Bloom in "Rushmore")

Philip Baker Hall (Jimmy Gator in "Magnolia" and "Mr. Bookman" from "Seinfeld" -- every librarian, in his deepest heart of hearts, wants to be like Mr. Bookman)

Conan O'Brien (Writers Division) ... the man who brought you "Homer Goes to College" and The Masturbating Bear. Such range!

There will be more to come.

the full bikini wax

chan sunset, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Normally, late April/early May is a great time for photography in Minnesota, as the last vestiges of winter fade away with warmer afternoons and evenings.

I say "normally" because today's high was about 40 degrees, and just two days ago we had snow on the grass. So "normal" isn't exactly happening in 2008.

My plan was to start posting some of favorite shots from Minnesota, so I guess I'll start with this sunset from July 2005. I remember this storm because it was quick and violent, and before it was over, you could see that just out west there was some quick clearing.

I ran outside with my old Kodak point-and-shoot -- my first digital camera -- and took a few shots. I actually posted this one to Flickr, I think because of that stray white cloud in the foreground. I think this "new" one is far better.

Having "waterfront" property was quite a treat when we first moved here, until I realized the amount of work it takes to keep the shore free of weeds. Enough sediment makes its way to the shore to deposit lots of soil between the pebbles that make up our "beach," and there are three ways you can go:

(1) Let nature take its course -- which some neighbors have done. It's a nice effect, but you have to plan it somewhat, or you'll just have a bunch of crappy weeds

(2) Patrol the living hell out of it -- which was the path I took. It requires constant vigilance, lest the weeds take over. It's the equivalent of the full bikini wax

(3) Find some middle ground, usually involving chemicals -- which was a path I took at one point. I don't like nuking nature, but it's a hell of a lot easier than working. I left what I called Frog City -- a little patch that the bullfrogs kept as a home base -- all alone, but the rest of it? Looked like Tokyo in 1945, and I liked it that way.

Maybe the best idea is (1), and I might just plan that this year. If my "natural" water plant decoration skills match my interior decorating skills, I might be best to leave it alone altogether.