March 2004 Archives

Note to self:
Heath Bars are an under-appreciated and under-consumed candy. Please redouble efforts to improve this situation.
K-

A friend emailed me a bunch of "aging" jokes. Most I'd heard. This one made me laugh:

Just before the funeral services, the undertaker came up to the very elderly widow and asked, "How old was your husband?"

"98," she replied. "Two years older than me."

"So you're 96," the undertaker commented.

She responded, "Hardly worth going home is it?"
K-

Just got a phone call from A- here at work. I thought I detected a trace of excitement in his voice but I couldn't be sure.

"Daddy, what's your email?"
"What do you want to know that for?"
"I found a picture on the web and I want to show it to you."
"Do you really need to send it to me now?"
"Yes, I really want you to see this picture."

I figured it had something to do with his just-closed production of The Will Rogers Follies. I gave him my email.

"Can you access your email from work?"
"Sure. I'll check it now."

I hit the "Send/Receive" button. Nothing.
I hit it again. Still nothing.
I hit it a third time. "Incoming," I told him.

He wanted me to see this.

The big gun has spoken. UVA - his putative first choice - was the one school we thought would be most difficult for him to get into. Seems we needn't have worried.

We heard from Virginia Tech and James Madison over the weekend. We heard from Michigan and Maryland earlier. He's five for five.

Words can't express how happy I am for my son.
K-

I'm a big old movie fan. So is my mother. When I was a kid, she and I would spend Sunday afternoons watching "Bill Kennedy at the Movies" on Channel 50 in Detroit. Bill was this flamboyant, sort of tipsy, ex-actor who professed to know everyone and everything in Hollywood. He would show these great old movies and, during the commercials, he would spout more Hollywood trivia than anyone I've every seen. What he didn't know about the movies my mother did. My love of old movies is due primarily to them.

Sunday as I recuperated from my bout with the stomach virus, I had an opportunity to catch a couple of old movies on Turner Classic Movies. The first - Mr. Deeds Goes to Town - stars two of my favorite actors, Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur and is one I had seen before. It's a 1936 Frank Capra classic. Most people know who Gary Cooper is. Fewer know Jean Arthur but she is one of my favorites. She is perhaps best remembered as the mother in Shane. But she cut her teeth as a comedienne in silent films and starred opposite Cooper in Mr. Deeds and James Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

The second - On The Waterfront - I hadn't seen. Made in 1954, it stars a young, quirky, and very good Marlon Brando. ("I coulda been a contender... I coulda been somebody.") Elia Kazan directed this controversial movie. (The controversy arises because Kazan cooperated with McCarthy and the HUAC during the Hollywood communist witch hunts of the 50s. The movie attempts to vindicate a misfit who cooperates with authorites.)

It brought back old memories to be able to watch two great old movies on a Sunday afternoon.

If only Bill Kennedy had been there to provide the trivia.
K-

I sit here working at the computer. My attention flags. I gaze stupidly out the window. Usually life doesn't give me much to blog about simply watching the neighborhood.

Today is different.

I see a tree in the yard two doors down. It's just beginning to bud. Small children swarm about the tree like angry bees about a hive. The kids in the yard have managed to get their soccer ball stuck in the tree. The ball sits there nestled in the branches about 12 feet up.

There is a soccer ball stuck in a maple tree. They can't get it down.

The ball mocks them. You can tell. "Nyah, nyah, nyah. You can't get me," singsongs the ball. The taunting of the ball enrages the children.

They throw balls, shake the tree, wag a broomstick at it. Nothing works. An adult has to come and extricate the ball from its aerial perch.

I am amused beyond repair.
K-

The Good Lord blessed me with a stout constitution. So far I've managed to avoid major maladies and I don't get colds or the flu very often. Thursday night my winning streak ended.

My stomach, which is invariably made from cast iron, decided that everything in it had to get out - and in a big fat hurry. Said effluvia sought ready egress in all possible directions bypassing the more preferred conventional means. It's been more than 20 years since I've experienced the kind of stomach distress of Thursday night. I'd forgotten how rude the whole process is.

Presumably I caught the bug at Wednesday's performance of The Will Rogers Follies. The Thursday night show had to be cancelled because too many cast members, including Will, were down with the same malady.

Friday my stomach stopped all its gyrations leaving me tired and achy. I'm better today but still not 100 percent. I was forced to cancel the camping trip D- and I were attending at Valley Forge.

Let's hope that's the last time for that.
K-

There are no small parts, only small actors.

So says Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. The show last night was wonderful. (Could it be anything less?) A- had a small part in the ensemble where he sang, danced, and twirled girls. He's no budding Fred Astaire but he held his own. I know I could never have done what he was doing when I was his age.

The only thing about his performance that took me by surprise was this curious thing he kept doing with his mouth. After the second or third time I noticed it, I turned to S- and said "What's he doing with his mouth? What's wrong with his mouth? I've never seen him do that before."

"That? He's smiling." Because of copyright issues, we weren't allowed to take pictures during the show. I'm sure he'll deny ever doing it.

The main characters - especially the kids who played Will, Betty Blake, and Clem - really were first rate. I couldn't act my way out of a brown paper bag so I always admire those who can. What a talent.

A- has three more performances. The show closes Saturday night. A short run.

I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.
K-

A new experience... my oldest son - or an amazing replica - has his acting debut tonight!

A few months ago, I noted here that A- must surely have been kidnapped by gypsies and replaced by someone totally different. This new person announced he was trying out for his high school's spring play. Imagine... a White proclaiming his intention to act, sing, and dance on stage in front of hundreds of people. Why it's unprecedented. Clearly an impostor had wormed his way into my house.

Well tonight we'll see how the impostor does. Because after dozens of rehearsals, countless hours twirling a lasso, and the purchase of a pair of cowboy boots off eBay, A- (if it is indeed my son) struts his stuff in the premiere of Mt. Hebron High School's Spring 2004 production of The Will Rogers Follies.

Break a leg, A-, break a leg. I can only hope that Max Bialystock isn't the producer.
K-

Yesterday while driving home, I saw a bumper sticker (on a mini-van of all things) that rubbed me the wrong way.

The sticker itself was normal bumper sticker size. The left half displayed an American flag. The right half had 3 words stacked on top of one another:

POWER
PRIDE
PEACE

Early in the last century, the US adopted policies combining elements of power and pride that resulted in a belligerent foreign policy not well-received in all quarters. Jingoism and "gunboat diplomacy" it was called. I suppose the driver in front of me was indicating his support of a hardline stance against terrorism (Is there any other?) and his vote of confidence for the war in Iraq (My grudging support is still intact but I also think societies in that part of the world are utterly incapable of sustained democracy.) However I think there's evidence in the historical record that foreign policies strongly based on POWER and PRIDE do not always result in the expected PEACE.
K-

I'm still here. I just haven't had anything substantive to blog about. (Don't you think "substantive blog" is an oxymoron?)

I will say there seems to be more and more spam barbarians at the gate. Too much spam forced me to shut down my email-de-blog, 'kemwhite@kemwhite.com'. Right before I killed it I was getting 100 or more spams a day. Debt consolidation, male enhancement products, and porn seem to be spammers bread and butter. And even though Plugs and Dottles has been using MT-Blacklist for a couple of months, spam comments keep getting posted. (Interestingly, the spam commenters seem to pick on the same few blog entries for their hateful spew. This post seems to draw the most comments from spammers.) Yesterday MT-Blacklist denied 29(!) spam comments.

I keep hoping the video game purveyors come out with a game where a harried, tired, middle-aged blogger stalks smoky back rooms in Singapore and Rumania with an AK-47 blasting hackers, virus writers, and spammers.

I think it would be a hit.
K-

Happy St. Patrick's Day from someone who is only 1/8 Irish.

I have no particular ethnic identity. While growing up, my family had no big, fat Greek weddings; no Seder dinners; no Italian Godfather celebrations to clutter up my humdrum suburban life. Only my last name is more white bread than I am.

About the closest I come to any sort of ethnic identity is Irish. My great-great-great-grandfather, Samuel Fisher, was born in Donegal, Ireland, about 1806. He left Londonderry with his wife and family on February 18, 1847 at the height of the great potato famine. And believe it or not, he arrived in Philadelphia today - March 17 - exactly 157 years ago onboard the Superior. He moved to Wilmington, DE, to work for the DuPont Company manufacturing gunpowder for $16 a month. In 1863, DuPont was an early defense contractor busily manufacturing a much needed commodity for Union forces. But this was also in the days before OSHA. Samuel Fisher, his son, Samuel Jr., and 11 other men were killed in a powder explosion at the Hagley Mill in February 1863. (If you ever find yourself on the banks of the Brandywine, the Hagley Museum and the restored mill town surrounding it are very interesting and well worth a look.)

His male progeny all dutifully married Irish women. (Evidently my great-grandmother, Bessie Clarke Fisher, was an Irish force to be reckoned with; her brogue was as bad as her bite.) That is until my grandfather, Harlan Fisher, encountered a countrified Scotswoman from Cecil County, Maryland, ending the all-Irish line of descent.

I'll toast my Irish forebears with a pint o' Guiness tonight. What ethnic identity I have comes - distantly - from them.
K-

Bringing D- home from Confirmation Class tonight, he cracked open a bag of Cheetos, which was the snack du jour for the class.

"Mmmmm.... I love Cheetos," D- said.

"I like them every once in a while but I don't like how you get all that orange cheesy stuff stuck to your fingers while you're eating them. I have to go wash my hands every time I'm done eating them."

"Nuh, uh. You just lick your fingers clean!"

I sputtered. "But after you do that, don't you have to...? I mean, aren't your fingers all coated in...? Don't you find it gross to bathe yourself by lick...?"

I just gave up.
K-

I found out today that I'm living with a Mt. Hebron High School Student of the Month. Well bust my buttons.

D- just called to tell me the good news. He received it from his English teacher. He gets a certificate and a special doughnut breakfast. (It's the breakfast - not the doughnut - that is special.) I get a bumper sticker.

He was Student of the Month in his math class two months ago.

Way to go D-!
K-

I've been done in. Done in by what has to be the most tediously boring book I've read in a long, long time. Master and Commander is only the second book in the last 20 years that I've given up on simply because I don't like it. (Not to be confused with books I haven't finished reading yet. I have several with bookmarks firmly wedged midway between the covers. And while these books remain unfinished, I have every intention of returning to them one day.)

With most books, I scrutinize the dust jacket, read portions in the bookstore, look at the preface, and so on before making the purchase. Consequently, I'm almost never burned by a book. If I decide to buy it, I rarely have to give up on it. My skill at (in this literal instance) judging a book by its cover has become nearly inerrant. And it irks me to have to give up on a book that I've chosen to read: all that time and money wasted.

Master and Commander was an impulse buy. I had looked through it and the others in the series (There are 20!) at various times but never could get excited by them. It wasn't till I saw the movie trailer that I decided to get it. I figured if the trailer looked that good then the book couldn't be half bad.

Boy was I wrong. The book - at least the 200 pages I've read - is all bad. I don't read many novels. And when I do I have a particular fondness for novels that take place in times gone by. I like to be immersed in the cultures and societies of long ago while some ripsnorting yarn takes place. Witness my love of Sherlock Holmes.

On the surface, Master and Commander would appear to fit the bill. It takes place onboard the HMS Sophie of the British Royal Navy during the early 19th Century at the height of Britain's sea power. The two main characters - Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin - are personable enough. But the author has chosen to pack this book to the brim with the peculiar cant and jargon of sailing ships and sailors. For page after page we learn about the various names of the sails, ropes, timbers, and rooms and cavities onboard sailing vessels. Sails go up, sails go down. Men pull on this rope, men haul on that rope. The ship goes 1 knot faster, the ship goes 1 knot slower. Enough! Even the companion dictionary I bought - which is much more entertaining than the book it explicates - hasn't helped. There are just too many words to look up, too many terms to keep straight, to make reading this book anything but a chore. The author, Patrick O'Brian, exhibits a pedantry in his writing I've rarely encountered before. Together with the (so far) near absence of anything interesting or exciting happening dooms this book to the recycling bin. (Sorry but bookshelf real estate in my house is too valuable to waste on a paperback I know I'll never finish.)

Guess I'll just have to wait for the DVD.
K-

Driving to work today I trailed behind someone with a Maryland vanity tag. The tag was for an organization called "Pearl Harbor Survivors". I can only assume that one of the membership requirements for this organization is participation at the attack. The driver also had one of those magnetic US flags stuck to the trunk of his car.

He was driving a Toyota Avalon.
K-

Knowing I'm an inveterate birder (please... not birdwatcher), my officemate sent me this story from today's BBC website.

Seems a hapless American robin from the "southern" US found its way all the way across the Atlantic Ocean landing in Great Britain, in Grimsby in point of fact, on the eastern North Sea coast. The very sight of a robin-redbreast got the "twitchers" in England in such a lather that they forthwith repaired themselves to this dreary corner of Central England to see this prize bird. ("Twitcher" is a somewhat pejorative term for a birder who travels about looking for rarities simply for the satisfaction of adding the bird to his or her life list.)

Evidently, as they stood awestruck at the sight of a bird we take for granted, a sparrowhawk (must be a British bird, we don't have a bird so named in North America) swooped down in front of them all and devoured the errant creature.

"It was a terrible moment," said one birder from the British Trust for Ornithology. Not for the sparrowhawk I should think.

Yum... American cuisine.
K-

I'm not the kind of guy who keeps stuff around the house. Some people have an aversion - almost a psychosis - about not throwing stuff away. "I might be able to use that someday," they will say. "That might come in handy," is another common rationalization for keeping all manner of useless trash around the house.

Not me. There's no sentiment lost on me. If I can think of no reasonable, near-term, earthly use for an item, then I'll get rid of it. "Yes I know they're all the birthday cards your grandmother ever got but now they're just sitting in a box down in the basement. Why can't we pitch 'em?" "Yes I realize they're your favorite cassettes from when you were a teenager but we don't have a cassette player any more. What's the point of keeping them around?"

The biggest reason I don't keep odds, ends, and other things around the house is that I forget that I have those things. So many times I've gone to the hardware store to get something I thought I needed only to subsequently discover that I already had it. But it had just slipped my mind.

Yes, I have absolutely no problem with getting rid of stuff.

That is with the exception of one thing.

I can't seem to dispose of empty containers that might usefully hold something. Empty mayonnaise jars, olive bottles, salt water taffy boxes, potato salad containers are all kept in abundance down in my basement. I think it would be impossible for me to throw away an empty Altoids box. I mean look at the thing... It's just so damn useful! Today I had this big beautiful tin can with a snap-on top. I was heading it toward the recycling bin when I thought better of it.

You never know... it might come in handy some day.
K-

I got a new CD yesterday. It contained Khachaturian's Piano Concerto and a couple of his suites. The first movement from his Gayaneh Ballet Suite is something everyone has heard at least once in their life. It's the Sabre Dance.

I played it for my kids last night wondering what they thought of it. As soon as it came on, they cried out in unison "Circus Music!". Of course they had no clue who composed it or where it came from. All they knew is that knife-jugglers and plate-twirlers have been performing their acts to the toe-tapping sound of this old war horse since time immemorial.

I wonder if I could work with it playing loudly in the background?
K-

As I sit here blogging about Maryland's primary day, I have my window open. I can hear spring peepers singing. It's one of my favorite sounds.

They're a bit early this year.
K-

So it's Super Tuesday in Maryland. BFD. To vote in the Maryland primaries, you must be affiliated with a political party. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out which party I'm affiliated with.

I've opined previously that Maryland has zero - I repeat, zero - impact on the national presidential election. So I wasn't particularly enthused about voting for any of the remaining candidates. (Lieberman would have been my top choice if he were still in the hunt.) But we also had to vote for a US senator (incumbent and foregone conclusion), our congressional representative (another incumbent and another foregone conclusion), male and female delegates to the Democratic National Convention, and Board of Education.

As I approached the voting booth (actually Maryland's brand new and way cool system using the AccuVote-TS electronic voting machines) I found myself in a bit of a quandary: I was either going to vote for offices on which I would have absolutely no impact (Democratic nominee, senator, congressman) or for offices that I couldn't vote intelligently for because I didn't know the candidates (convention delegates and board of ed). So I adopted a strategy. I either voted for people I knew personally or for people who had the same last name as characters in the Sherlock Holmes stories.

It worked for congressman (Cummings) and several of the delegates (Tobias, Watson, Hamer) so I was able to vote for them. It didn't work for senator or board of education so I left those parts of my ballot blank.

The strategy also worked for Democratic presidential nominee. If you're a Sherlockian, you'll know who I voted for right away. If not, I commend your attention to The Valley of Fear.

I imagine I'll actually know what's going on come November and have a more robust strategy for casting my vote. But, hey, my Sherlockian strategy isn't any less intelligent than the strategies used by all those people who voted for Bush43.
K-

One of my favorite musicians was born on this date. Doc Watson turns 81 today.

Born in North Carolina as Arthel Lane Watson, Doc Watson is one of America's finest guitar players. He's best known for his acoustic guitar flatpicking. I suppose people think of him as a bluegrass artist but it's a disservice to restrict him like that.

I've had the pleasure of seeing Doc and his Gallagher guitar perform in concert three times. Both Doc and Merle played at the first concert I saw. That was in St. Louis. I've seen him perform in Washington at the National Theater along with the Seldom Scene. What a show that was. The last time I saw him was at a little club in Baltimore where I sat not 6 feet in front of him. If you've not heard him play, Doc Watson's Guitar Album might be the place to start. His signature song - if he has one - might be Tennessee Stud.

He's a definite American Treasure.
K-

I took down the Christmas wreath we had hanging on our front door this morning.

About time don't you think?
K-

It rained softly just before dawn. By the time I got out for my morning run the rain had stopped. The rainwater must have been very cold or too acidic or something because everywhere I ran, there were millions and millions of worms. So many, in fact, that it was kind of gross to tromp on them as I jogged. They were all over the sidewalks and streets all wriggling and squirming. It was very strange.
K-

Well, not astronomically but here in Maryland we usually don't have to worry about more snow once we hit March 1. Oh, sure, we can get it (in 1996 we had a fairly substantial blizzard during March's second week) but generally the rapidly lengthening days make extended periods of cold something to look forward to next year. Before I know it I'll be out mowing my lawn.

I hate mowing my lawn.
K-