Sunday, November 25, 2007

war damn eagle!!!


(and I still don't think John Parker Wilson scored, and I know Jonathan Wilhite wasn't guilty of pass interference - just saying)

Thursday, November 22, 2007

happy thanksgiving from the garden state

I believe this is the twelfth year in a row for T-Day in New Jersey (that's only an educated guess). something, of course, I would never have expected.

but there's a long, long list of those (never expecteds).

and it's as warm here as it's been in weeks. which is fine by me.

there will be food. I am most partial to the leftover of all leftovers, the Turkey Terrific sandwich. the short explanation would be Thanksgiving dinner between two slices of rye bread. and that's definitely a New Jersey acquisition. I expect I'll eat three of those on Friday alone.

Saturday (7 p.m. EST) is Alabama at Auburn on ESPN. Auburn had last week off (an effort good enough to put them back in the Top 25, the only four-loss team in there) and Alabama lost at home to the University of Louisiana-Monroe.

let's do that one more time: and Alabama lost at home to the University of Louisiana-Monroe.

thank goodness it's only Nick Saban's first year (thereby earning an almost free pass), otherwise he might've had a brick thrown through his office window (Bill Curry, who left Alabama to coach at Kentucky) or had a moving van sent to his house (too many coaches to mention). of course, almost all will be forgiven if he beats Auburn, thereby stopping Tommy Tuberville's current streak of five wins in a row over Alabama (which'd pretty much mean that Auburn fans would send him a Welcome Wagon basket upon his arrival in College Station, Texas). and that makes them dangerous (as if I needed a reason to watch).

I plan on returning to the city in order to watch The Game in the privacy of my own home where I can exhale exhortations of disgust and glee without self-consciousness or interruption. this much I deserve.
besides, my Christmas present (merry Christmas to me, merry Christmas to me, merry Christmas displaced Southern boy, merry Christmas to me) is back at the apartment waiting on me to give it some attention. and on Sunday (for most of the day if I get my Michelle Shocked piece done), that's exactly what it shall receive.

other college football thoughts: the Tigers of Baton Rouge should be the most thankful for Vandy's last minute field goal miss against Tennessee (boy, I wish they had won, or rather that Tennessee had lost) as LSU should easily handle the Vols in the SEC Championship game. which will put them in the BCS title game.
if Tennessee had lost, then Georgia would've played LSU in Atlanta. and while I can't vouch for the Bulldog defense, their offense has really come together here at season's end and is likely, currently, the most balanced in the country. and could've really given LSU fits.
we can only hope that Oklahoma will take care of the Kansas-Mizzou winner in the Big 12 Championship because I'm just not sure that either the Jayhawks or the Show Me State Tigers belong up there with the big boys (of course, if Kansas goes undefeated you have to give it to them). but I think it will happen. which means that, assuming Tennessee beats Kentucky on Saturday (and they will after their close call against Vandy), then LSU will play West Virginia for the national championship.
hmm.

Saturday, November 17, 2007

I feel awful again

(or did),
but still better (lowercase 'b') (I suspect) than George Osmond (born in Etna, WY), The Fabulous Moolah (born in Tookiedoo, SC) and Norman Mailer (born in Long Branch, NJ), who have all passed on since my last post.

(trivia: Mailer was married six times, The Fabulous Moolah five times and George Osmond, of course, only once)

turns out that I've read much more Mailer than I, or probably anyone else, would've guessed thanks (or no thanks) to a graduate seminar on the works of Mailer and Saul Bellow (I didn't enjoy it and my innate truculence regarding such matters helped bring about the lowest grade of my graduate career).

count 'em: The Naked and the Dead, Barbary Shore, The Deer Park (at least a couple of times, but that shouldn't count as a recommendation), Advertisements for Myself, An American Dream (at least a couple of times, and that may count as a recommendation), Why Are We in Vietnam?, Armies of the Night, Miami and the Siege of Chicago, The Executioner's Song, Tough Guys Don't Dance and Harlot's Ghost.

whew!

Executioner's Song and Harlot's Ghost (in hardback at least) clock in at over a thousand pages each. and if memory serves they were both worth it (particularly Executioner's).

last book read: something nearly as long as the aforementioned, and certainly the lengthiest tome I've finished in quite some time, Selwyn Raab's Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires. over seven hundred pages (again, a hardback count), but worth it.

Friday, November 9, 2007

I feel better


but notice that's definitively a lower case 'b'.

as in, I don't feel all that good; just better.

everything's relative.

two more posts in the Voice this week (that's after the Black Lips post), both on Phosphorescent, one in print and one blog only (watch the video! download the mp3! tell all your friends! I hate exclamation points!).

it's not a dog run, but I thought it was a rather nice setting and "Wolves" s definitely one of my favorite songs of the year.

Monday, November 5, 2007

I feel awful


I have a fever
chills
my whole body's sore (though the neck/shoulders get bonus points for screaming the loudest)

I am moaning audibly

I am a sight
a mess
a womder to behold

which means that a discussion of interesting things that occur when one moves from an iPod on a Windows platform to an iPod on a Mac will have to wait.

but there is some free reading to mention -

the latest Possibly 4th Street to post, the Black Lips (see above), went live today (Phosphorescent will hit both print and blog on Wednesday and the Deadstring Brothers (assuming this recent illness isn't my last) is currently scheduled for this Friday).

and my future (current?) editor, David Barker (editor, founder and daddy to all 33 1/3 books), has a blog entry at Powells.com as part of Powells' "buy two 33 1/3, get one 33 1/3 free" promotion.
a really good deal if you've got some catching up to do.

music I'm catching up with: The National's Boxer
except when I'm listening to the album recommended to me just this afternoon: Raising Sand by Robert Plant & Alison Krauss (which is currently #1 on Amazon's sales chart; hey, look Ma, I'm listening to something popular!)