Random Notes from a Crank

This Thanksgiving was the first one for me without both my mom and dad. Back when they still lived in their house, they'd always have the same argument. My mom would want my father to cut the turkey right away, and my dad, being a man who knows many things about meat, would always blow her off and say, "The meat has to rest." My mom would stomp off angrily, and after a short while Virg would mosey into the kitchen to cut the bird. 

I've tried and tried, but I just can't seem to like green bean casserole. I like green beans, but the casserole is just so damn bland. There has to be a way to make this concoction better. 

Over the past couple of weeks, I've bought some turkeys cheap from our local grocery store. If one uses the market's "max card," the turkey is $ .39 a pound. I got a couple of turkeys for later use. 

Instead of eating them at the holidays, people need to eat turkey all year round. You read that turkey industry, I"m trying to promote your birds for the whole year? Why don't you throw some sponsorship money my way? Write the check to "cash." 

I read an article in Utne about philosophical therapy, but it originally appeared in the UC Observer. In "Move Over, Freud," the author talks about a trend in therapy in which folks with a strong background in philosophy help others work through important questions and quandaries in life. 

The practice makes a lot of sense to me because I have gotten much more out of reading philosophical works than studying psychology, especially Fred, who has now become an intellectual anachronism in psychology, a guy often used by scholars in the humanities to support lame-ass analyses of this or that. 

Here are some stats from the the November and December versions of "Harper's Index":

• Estimated number of voters purged from Georgia's voter rolls from 2008 to 2012: 750,000
• From 2012 to 2016:  1,500,000
• Percentage change from 2000 to 2017 in US consumer spending on music: +25
• Percentage of music-industry revenue that is received by musicians: 12
• Percentage of US teenagers who "often" find their parents distracted by their phones during conversations: 14
• Who "sometimes" do: 37
• Number of counties in which no local newspaper is available: 176
• In which only one is available: 1,449
• Estimated number of US newspaper jobs lost since the year 2000: 241,000
• Amount of FEMA funding that has been transferred to ICE this year: $9,800,000
• Minimum number of US cities that have announced plans to establish supervised drug consumption sites: 5
• Estimated minimum number of cities that have such sites worldwide: 100
• Number of people who have ever died of an overdose at one of those sites: 0
• Percentage of interviews with professional baseball players that feature a variation of the phrase "one game at a time": 7
• That feature a variation of "a heck of a game": 50

From the stats above, the one that disturbs me most is the purging of the voter rolls in Georgia, which stole the election for Kemp along with minor mismatches between signatures such as Quin Nasty and Quintilian Nasty. 

The lack of local newspapers is also a problem because the fifth estate even in those small towns keep on eye on what's going on locally whether it's the local city council or local sports. 

Bunny Colvin's idea of "Hamsterdam" in whatever season of The Wire that was was right. Supervised sites makes sense. 

I know Andrew Luck is having an outstanding, comeback season this year so far, but I'll offer him a bit of advice for the hirsute among us. He needs to shore up his beard game. I get that he wants to grow a beard. I've grown one since my dad's funeral. However, Luck needs to shave his neck to make his beard look more presentable, more kept. Step up your beard game, Luck.

Random Notes from a Crank

This entire holiday season I did not once say, "Merry Christmas." Fuck you, FoxNews. 

On my way back from Iowa yesterday, I listened to the "E Street Shuffle" on E Street Radio. Springsteen fans voted on the top 100 Springsteen songs. I'm a fan of the "Boss," but it's always bothered me how in some of his songs he adopts a Southern drawl. He's from New Jersey for God's sake. 

If there were any American songwriter to win the Nobel, it should be Springsteen, not Bob Dylan. 

If you need a good piece of nonfiction to read, I highly recommend Sherman Alexie's You Don't Have to Say You Love Me. It's a fantastic book, people. 

Speaking of the Nobel Prize for Literature, why not Sherman Alexie? 

Random Notes from a Crank

Sunday we finished putting up our outside Xmas lights. So did the neighbors. For the most part, we're pretty traditional. We have some frosted bulbs outlining the front expanse of the house that I put up on Friday, and Mrs. Nasty placed the garland and lights around the front porch. We have a couple of smaller lighted outdoor knick nacks dotting the front yard. Nothing garish but only celebrating the season. Our neighbors across the street, on the other hand, have some of those damn inflatables: one monstrous penguin with a Santa cap that's probably at least seven-feet tall, another large inflatable of Santa and his sleigh, some large lighted presents, and SpongeBob with a Santa hat. SpongeBob, for God's sake. 

In the spring we will put our house on the market. My daughter, a well-known hater of change, informed us the other day that's she's going to "sabotage" the selling of our house. Her tentative plan is that she's going to plant all kinds of bugs throughout the house, so people won't buy it. Who knows if we'll actually sell it because a) we have to find a buyer and b) we have to find a house in the Charleston metropolitan area we like enough to move to something different. I'd like a home with either a pool, a pond, or a barn. I doubt any of those will happen, but we will not buy a new house without a basement. We saw the destruction a tornado can do when we visited Tuscaloosa last fall. I also need space for some manner of a garden, so we'll see what the market brings this spring. 

The start of December marks the time when the kids and I get into high gear quoting lines from the movie A Christmas Story. We'll recite some lines from that flick from time to time throughout the year, but when December hits, it's ON, baby. Below is the scene we act out most often. 



The Old Man: [angry muttering] Don't you touch that. You were always jealous of this lamp. 

Mom: [feigning innocence] Jealous of a plastic lamp?

The Old Man: Jealous ... jealous because I WON.


The Old Man: [angry] GET the glue.

Mom: [resolutely calm] We're OUT of glue.

The Old Man: [Indecipherable angry noise] You used up all the glue ... on PURPOSE!"


In other fine media matters, new episodes of Clubhouse Confidential have started. C[C] is one of finest sports-related programs around. 

And wow, what about the Doug Fister trade, huh? The Nationals appear to have done very well for what they gave up for Fister. Here's a detailed analysis of the trade from MLB Trade Rumors.  And here's an acerbic analysis by Fangraphs titled "Nationals Steal Doug Fister from the Tigers." 

Music Friday: "The New Year" & "The Sound of Settling"

I'm later than usual for my Music Friday post because we're here in my hometown visiting my parents, but here are a couple of songs from Death Cab for Cutie that should help you ring in the new year. 

Random Notes from a Crank

Food Porn Alert

What you see above is the eleven-pound bird I lovingly basted every thirty minutes on Christmas Eve day.

We travel to see my parents on the 27th, but I'm bringing part of the bird with me. Virg always loved the neck, so I'm bringing it with. Darby, our dog, got the turkey's heart, and I get the liver. Huzzah offal. 

Speaking of Darby, it's safe to say she may sometimes dread the holidays.

One of my favorite characters in American cinema is the father in A Christmas Story. He's known affectionately as "The Old Man." 

I got an Eddie Bauer clearance catalog this week, and I turned to the pages where this coat is advertised. It's a great coat if you want to look like a ribbed condom. For her pleasure. 

I remember reading about one of those questions that's supposed to tell you something about your personality. It's whether you're a Beatles person or a Rolling Stones person. From those two choices, for me it's Stones all the way. 

I've trolled a number of best albums of 2012 lists to see how mine compares to others. When I do this, I discover new artists. One album you might want to check out is John Fullbright's From the Ground Up. Fullbright, a native of Okemah, OK (birthplace of Woody Guthrie), put out a fine album this year. The genre is Americana and all the loose connotations that category entails. Todd Mathis at Twangville compares him to Jason Isbell in his review, but I think he's more like a cross between John Hiatt and Joe Pug. Although I'm an agnostic, I enjoy the religious imagery in the lyrics, and he also plays a good harp.

The Hunt Was On

Here are some live action photos of the kids finding loot the Easter Bunny left in the front yard on Sunday morning.

Eleven and a Half Hours

December 23, 2008 will go down as a day of infamy for the Nasty family.

That's the day we drove west to Indianapolis to stay the night before we flew to Florida. We gassed up at Casey's on the east part of town and left the parking lot at 11:45 am. Eleven and a half hours later we finally arrived at the Hyatt Place near the airport.

It was the ice storm. A damn ice storm. 

When we left Chucktown, freezing rain was coming down, but it wasn't too bad. But as we drove farther, it got horrible. 

On I-70 we went slow, with me driving in the range of 25 to 40 mph depending on the nature of the road. It was slick in many spots, and it was apparent that the salt trucks hadn't been out much, if at all.

As we ventured into Indiana, Mrs. Nasty called her work friend who has connections with the tv station based in Terre Haute. Her friend relayed that she had been told that part of I-70 had been shut down because the interstate was so icy that the big rigs could get up the hills. So the friend suggested that we take Indiana highway 40 East and then cross over to I-70 at Plainfield. 

Terre Haute's roads weren't too bad, but past Brazil, IN it got really messy with frequent stops as cars and semis went up hills in packs. Some couldn't make it up the hills, and cars dotted the ditches. 

After we passed over a number of gauntlets of ice-slicked hills, we stopped for good at the top of a hill right next to the Putnamville Correctional Facility. We sat there for a good two hours. Most of us just sat, but some cars crept up and u-turned. After we got confirmation that I-70 was "open," we turned around also, ventured back to Brazil, grabbed some grub, and headed south to I-70.

But is was deja vu all over again. We went for maybe a mile until we hit gridlock. We sat on I-70 for two and a half hours. And then the our icy journey went forward in spurts and pervasive tension.  

When we finally got past the Cloverdale exit, things opened up. I-70 East was like much easier sledding with less traffic. But as we drove though, I noticed that I-70 West was packed, bumper-to-bumper, from Cloverdale exit to I-465, which is 32 miles. 

It was the worst driving experience of my life: constant stress and tension as I drove a car that I seemed to control, but occasionally it slipped and slid depending on the road as I had to worry about those in front of me and back of me. I've never seen so many semi-trucks in one day.  

Music Friday (Tuesday): "It's a Wonderful Life (Gonna Have a Good Time)"

PlannedOb's usual Music Friday post will be early since this week since the Nasty family is heading down to Florida. My Mac will stay behind. 

But click HERE for a classic song by Fishbone, one of the best "alternative" bands in the 80s and early 90s. The Reality of My Surroundings and Truth and Soul are two excellent albums when Fishbone was at its musical apogee.

This video, however, comes from their earlier days if I remember correctly. 

Happy Yule season, folks.

The Ancient Origins of the Holiday Season

For all the nitwits who decry "the war on Christmas," the first two pages of this concise description of the development of Christmas should be instructive.

The early Christians simply capitalized on the time of the year for Yule time (the Norse) and Saturnalia (the Romans). 

Click HERE for holiday reading.

Halloween Photos

For Halloween, Hannah went as Sharpay from High School Musical, and Quinn was Elvis.