Author: Kent

COME TOGETHER

They took down the gay.com billboard at 5th Street at Juniper this week. It was a beautiful picture of two extremely buff men with open shirts, arm in arm in front of an American flag. The caption read:

COME TOGETHER: gay.com

Before the “Come Together” billboard, 5th Street was graced by another gay.com ad that featured two muscle-bound shirtless football players with perfect hair and oiled chests. In perfect timing for football season, this one was up from the time we moved here, November, till about March. Its caption read:

PLAY HARD: gay.com

They replaced it with some bullshit ClearChannel “Look at these new homes in the low $800s!!” ad. This is a great loss for Midtown and Atlanta.

Back from Boston

I got back last night from a conference in my old home of Boston yesterday. I had hoped to make continuous updates to the site from my hotel, since at $145 a night I expected free high-speed internet access. No dice. I supposed I could have charged the 33 cents a minute to the fine people of Georgia along with everything else, but my conscience got the better of me and I toughed it out with no internet. It was horrific.

Here’s some highlights of my trip:

  1. A lady on the plane told me about the weather, and how bad it has been. She said, “It’s been raining so long that it has really taken a toll on people’s moods.” I commented that the general mood of New Englanders is pretty lousy to begin with. She took slight offense until she found out I had lived in Salem and Medford and told me I was allowed to tell the truth about New England since I had lived there. However, it began a little North-South battle. She then pointed out the kid sitting a row ahead of us and said, “That kid must be from the South, he’s in his barefeet.” Which in fact he was, having taken off his flip flops. I countered with “I bet he’s from New England since he’s got his feet up on the seat in front of him. He’s got New England manners.” When he turned around we both saw the Red Sox cap. I was the victor.
  2. Tedi Bruschi is doing great, I stopped by his house on the way to the hotel from the airport to see how he was doing and to drop off a peach cobbler that Warrick Dunn gave me to give to him. That Warrick is a great cook, and all around nice guy. Tedi says he will play next season and will continue to be my favorite Patriot.
  3. I went out to Harvard Square to meet JS, a friend from library school. We stopped by the Harvard Bookstore where David Sedaris was doing a book reading. It reminded me that despite its terrible weather, crabby people, and expensive rent, Boston is a pretty cool place to live. They broadcast the book reading on speakers to the street, and quite a crowd showed up when Sedaris started talking about “cocksuckers,” “fucky-fucks”, and lesbian pornography. Funny, when he was reading a fable about a baboon and a cat, no one that was walking by stopped to listen.
  4. Every male from the ages of 15-35 in Boston wears a Red Sox cap. I saw no less that 7 life-size cardboard stand-ups of Johnny Damon around town.

Atlanta Jazz Festival

Yesterday afternoon I took a walk up to Piedmont Park to see what the Atlanta Jazz Festival was like. It was actually quite nice. Piedmont Park is a great set-up for music festivals, with a wide flat green for the stage, surrounded by hills with barbeque pits.

The upper area was full of tents and families barbequeing; walking through them reminded me of the neutral ground on St. Charles during Mardi Gras. It smelled delicious. The lower area was filled with umbrellas and lawn chairs. I was there early, so it wasn’t quite full yet, but there were still a good bit of people there. A couple of park security guards were walking around telling people that they couldn’t stick their umbrellas directly in the ground. But instead of making them take them down, they had the festival-goers cover up the base of the shafts with bags or coolers so you couldn’t see the umbrella was stuck in the ground. I was a little taken aback by the reasonable behavior. I guess I’m just not used to that.

The only band I saw was the Peachtree Ridge High School Jazz Band from Smyrna, Georgia. They were cute, and rocked the Blood, Sweat & Tears and Dave Brubeck. It reminded me of my high school days in the Brother Martin Jazz Band. They were pretty nervous at first, but by their last song, they actually sounded really good. They finished their set list early, and played their opening number again at the end of their set. It was a huge improvement over the first time they played it. They had earned the festival opening spot by winning 3rd place in a Youth Jazz Band competition. Not bad for a school that has only been open for two years. The band leader reminded me of the band leader we had at Brother Martin: young, formerly hip, not yet completely jaded.

I’d like to go back and see the Tito Puente, Jr Orchestra tonight at 8:30, but its raining now, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to get anyone interested in going.

One for the Bills fans

Oh, Henry: Adams says Titans want ex-Vol – Thursday, 05/26/05
“We’re interested in Henry,” Adams said yesterday from the NFL Meetings in Washington, D.C. “He wants to get out of Buffalo. We think he has a lot of ability. We think he has four good years left. Because of where he went to college I think he’d be real popular with the fans. I think he’d be a real good addition.”

The Titans and Bills first began discussing a trade involving the former University of Tennessee star during last month’s NFL Draft, and the two sides continued dialogue on the subject into last week.

The Bills haven’t moved away from their demand for a third-round pick in next year’s draft in exchange for Henry. So far the Titans haven’t been willing to go that high. They offered a fifth-round pick for Henry on draft day.

Does Tennessee want to start Henry though? I thought they were going with Chris Brown. I always thought that Henry’s attitude problem stemmed from the fact that he wanted to be a starter.

He’d have the same problem in Tennessee, it seems.

Just because you are walking…

“Just because you are walking doesn’t mean you have the right to hold up fucking traffic!” – shouted at me as I crossed 5th Street at Spring Street, with the crosswalk signal indicating walk.

“Actually, sir, I am crossing protected by the lights, so yes it does. I’m not going to run across the crosswalk so that you can make your right turn on red quicker.” – what I should have said.

“Up yours!” accompanied by the finger – what I actually said.

DG would have been disappointed that I let slip an opportunity to yell “Suck my shit!”

This makes me feel better

ESPN.com – NFL – West Coast offense: Saints owner keeps options open

This is a Len Pasquarelli column that recaps Benson’s meeting on Tueday with the NFL owners. He seems pretty sure that the Saints aren’t moving.

He does also mention the ticket sales figures that Dave has been concerned with:

Saints fans, among the league’s most loyal and long-suffering, have purchased only 26,000 season tickets for 2005. More significant, there is a sense of ennui surrounding the ongoing battle between the team and Gov. Kathleen Blanco, who inherited a bum deal that was negotiated by her predecessor.

There is, for sure, a danger here: During all the bad seasons, and all of the incompetent performances of the past, Saints fans have mostly remained passionate about their team. But in the wake of the political brinksmanship being currently waged, some emotion has waned, and the fan base has taken a hit.

Benson on Tuesday deflected suggestions that slumping ticket sales reflected a backlash from the fans, preferring to assign the slippage to the economy of a severely blunted city and state. But economics have always been a compelling issue for the Saints, and could be the component that eventually opens the exit door for Benson and his team.

Star Wars Episode III Review

Leslie and I went to go see the new Star Wars movie last night. I loved it. Finally, George Lucas came through.

I’ll do my best to not spoil any of the plot here.

Star Wars is such a part of my childhood, as it is for most people my age. I can name all the characters, and recite all the lines. I’m a nerd. I admit it. All the distinctive sounds are permantly burned in my brain: the Tusken Raiders’ howl, the sound R2D2 makes when his circuits are fried, the Ewok song at the end of Return of the Jedi, Chewbacca’s sad groan. I do a pretty good imitation of a lightsaber lighting up, if I do say so myself.

Episodes I and II were a disappointment to me, like they were for a lot of people. Poor acting, overly childish humor, bad writing. Of course, we held them up to such high standards, its partly our own fault for expecting too much. We set ourselves up for a disappointment.

Episode III is such a vast improvement over the two previous films, however. It actually felt like a Star Wars movie. The others had their moments of Star Warsishness, but Revenge of the Sith keeps it up through the entire film. Lucas obviously spent a good deal of time making this movie connect to the original triology. There are early X-Wings, Imperial Capital Ships, TIE Fighters, Imperial Shuttles. Scout Troopers and speeders, and the Emperor’s red-cloaked guards. Even the Correllian Cruiser featured in the opening scene of Episode IV is there. I admit, the stark whiteness of the interior of that ship made me tingly inside when I saw it reproduced in the MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies that I played for awhile, and it gave me the same feeling when I saw it again in Revenge of the Sith.

More than the story or the characters, I enjoyed the seeing the evolution of the Star Wars universe in the movie. Even the musical score was well done, mixing the choral arrangements of Episode I with the familiar melodies from the original films. As Revenge of the Sith progressed, the music evolved more and more towards the Imperial March and Luke’s theme on Tatooine. If I had my druthers, Revenge of the Sith would be Episode I and we could watch the Empire evolve from the beginnings of Darth Vader in Episodes II and III. There have been rumors that there will be a TV series based on the time period between Episodes III and IV. I’m hesitant about that though. I don’t really trust television as a medium for quality.

All in all, Lucas planned his new Star Wars series out well. The third film makes the other two better. I would have preferred of course, that the other two could stand on their own merit, but which film of the original triology can stand on its own? Only Episode I. The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi both require a knowledge of the what has come before to appreciate the story and characters. Its almost as if Episodes I and II require a knowledge of what comes after to be appreciated.

There goes the neighborhood

Well, ok not really.

In one of those moments when you realize that some kind of metaphysical laws are chugging away behind the scenes, the neighbor’s car was broken into last night. These laws never explain anything, really. They just manifest themselves as vague coinincidences. This is the neighbor who parks in our driveway without asking for permission or even acknowledging that we are sitting on the porch. She’s got car karma.

At 5:30am this morning, a car alarm went off. Over and over and over and over. Leslie checked if it was ours (since it sounded like a weak Asian car horn), and we struggled to go back to sleep, complaining about the idiot who let it run on and on.

This morning I ran into B on the porch (what’s up with this guy’s work schedule? and when is he going to return our heating pad?) . He told me that the neighbor’s car was broken into. Her door was previously dented, and the window couldn’t be rolled all the way. We agreed that that was probably the reason that her car of all the rest was singled out. All they took was an iPod charger. They left her shoes. I guess they didn’t fit.

Odd that just last night, a cop patrolled down our street for the first time since we moved in. I feel perfectly safe in our neighborhood. We were just discussing this with DG on our way home from trivia Tuesday night.

B was very concerned about who did it; he was full of theories. He was sure it was the guy who goes through the trash in the alley. I could care less who did it. There’s no way of knowing. We haven’t had a car break-in since we’ve been here. Probably because there haven’t been any dumbasses leaving their windows rolled down.

Destroyed

Once again, we held first place going into the final round at trivia night.

Once againg, we screwed up the final question:

What 1933 movie is ranked highest on the AFI’s greatest American movie list that did not recieve any Acadamy Award nominations?

Answer in the comments.

Needless to say, we got it wrong, and dropped from first place to way below third.