The Stall of America

The newest destination for Twin Cities tourists is the airport restroom made famous by the arrest of Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) in a sex sting. “People have been going inside, taking pictures of the stall, taking pictures outside the bathroom door — man, it’s been crazy,” said Gee Butler, who shines shoes at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Another airport employee said she was asked directions to the “Larry Craig bathroom” four times in the first 15 minutes of her shift Friday.

The Washington Post

September 17th

Football hall-of-fame inductee George Blanda is 80 today. I’m surprised he doesn’t suit up. Blanda played his last game on January 4, 1976, the 1975 AFC Championship. He was 48.

Supreme Court Justice David Souter is 68.

Coach Phil Jackson is 62.

Elvira, Mistress of the Dark is 56. That’s Cassandra Peterson. It’s Elvira’s voice that tells me “You have mail.”

Rita Rudner is 51. Some Rudner-isms:

  • “Before I met my husband, I’d never fallen in love. I’d stepped in it a few times.”
  • “I got kicked out of ballet class because I pulled a groin muscle. It wasn’t mine.”
  • “I know I want to have children while my parents are still young enough to take care of them.”
  • “I love to shop after a bad relationship. I don’t know. I buy a new outfit and it makes me feel better. It just does. Sometimes I see a really great outfit, I’ll break up with someone on purpose.”
  • “We’ve begun to long for the pitter-patter of little feet — so we bought a dog. Well, it’s cheaper, and you get more feet.”

Ken Kesey was born on September 17, 1935. The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media has a great little essay that you should just go read. It begins:

Ken Kesey … was born on this day in La Junta, Colorado (1935). He was a champion wrestler in high school and voted most likely to succeed. He married his high school sweetheart and almost went to Hollywood to be an actor and then accepted a fellowship in creative writing at Stanford, where, as part of a VA experiment, for $75 a day, which was good money, he became one of the first Americans to be exposed to a new drug called LSD.

The 15th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Warren Burger, was born 100 years ago today.

David Dunbar Buick was born on September 17th in 1854. Didn’t know Buick was someone’s name did you?

Hey Good Lookin’

Hiram Williams was born on this date 84 years ago. We know him as Hank.

Hank Williams is an inductee of both the Country Music and Rock and Roll halls of fame.

Hank Williams’s legend has long overtaken the rather frail and painfully introverted man who spawned it. Almost singlehandedly, Williams set the agenda for contemporary country songcraft, but his appeal rests as much in the myth that even now surrounds his short life. His is the standard by which success is measured in country music on every level, even self-destruction.

— Country Music Hall of Fame

The words and music of Hank Williams echo across the decades with a timelessness that transcends genre. He brought country music into the modern era, and his influence spilled over into the folk and rock arenas as well. Artists ranging from Gram Parsons and John Fogerty (who recorded an entire album of Williams’ songs after leaving Creedence Clearwater Revival) to the Georgia Satellites and Uncle Tupelo have adapted elements of Williams’ persona, especially the aura of emotional forthrightness and bruised idealism communicated in his songs. Some of Williams’ more upbeat country and blues-flavored numbers, on the other hand, anticipated the playful abandon of rockabilly.

— Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Hank Williams died in the back seat of his Cadillac. He was found and declared dead on New Year’s Day 1953. He was 29.

Party Time

Historian Jill Lepore has an excellent review essay in The New Yorker on the 1800 election. Here’s her description of the candidates:

To size up the candidates, what you need, for starters, is the word on the street—or, since the United States in 1800 is an agrarian nation, the word on the cow path. Adams: a Harvard graduate and Massachusetts lawyer who helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris in 1783 and served two terms as Washington’s Vice-President before his election to the Presidency in 1796. Distinguished, disputatious, short, ugly, hot-tempered, upstanding, provincial, learned (president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences). Very clever wife. Suspected of wanting to be king. Loves England. Thinks his diplomats have to tread carefully with Napoleon. Signed into law the Sedition Act in 1798; depending on your point of view, this was either so that he could have anyone who disagreed with him thrown in jail or so that he could protect the country from dangerous anarchists.

Jefferson: former governor of Virginia, onetime Ambassador to France, Washington’s Secretary of State. Eminent, brilliant (president of the American Philosophical Society), surpassing prose stylist, author of the Declaration of Independence (with help from Adams), unrivalled champion of liberty, slave owner, grieving widower, rumored to have fathered children by one of his slaves. Tall, humorless, moody, zealous, cosmopolitan. Artistic. Loves France, not so worried about Bonaparte. Ardently opposes the Sedition Act. Reputed atheist.

It’s fascinating to see both how much and how little we’ve changed in 208 years. Take a look.

Offensive

A good short essay on the Larry Craig matter by Hendrik Hertzberg in The New Yorker includes this:

Besides snark, the overriding theme of public discussion of the Craig case has been hypocrisy. “I’m not gay,” the Senator insists, and if gayness is an identity as well as an innate predilection he may be right. He is, however, evidently homosexual. Yet he supports permitting job discrimination against homosexuals, opposes letting them serve in the military, favors a constitutional amendment forbidding them to marry, and voted for an Idaho ballot measure that proscribes gay civil unions. He is like the many politicians who have smoked marijuana themselves but oppose legalizing it even for medical use. Hypocritical? Yes. But, in both cases, the fundamental moral problem is not the inconsistency between private actions and professed beliefs. The problem is the professed beliefs.

Constitution Day

220 years ago today the delegates to the Constitutional Convention met for the last time to sign the document and send it to the 13 states for ratification.

Mike Wilkins Preamble

Click image for larger version of Mike Wilkins’s Preamble, 1987, painted metal on vinyl and wood, 96 x 96 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Nissan Motor Corporation in U.S.A. Wilkins ordered the plates from each of the states.

Why coaching is so difficult

Emily and Jill, official daughters of NewMexiKen, are coaching a soccer team for three-to-five year-olds. (There are two Sweeties® on the team.)

Emily is the head coach, and so spends the game on the field prompting the kids — our goal is that end, don’t pick up the ball, that kind of thing.

Jill is the assistant coach, so her job is to coordinate on the sidelines making certain there are four players on the field at any given time and that everyone of the eight kids on the team gets to play. When Jill noted how difficult that was, and how she worried about whether every kid got enough playing time, Byron, her husband, reacted like most men would. He said she just needed a plan for substituting, “Write it down, put down the times, and then just stick right to the plan.”

But Jill wonders how one plans for some of the substitutions that became necessary during yesterday’s second half. One child came out twice because she was scared of the wind. Another was sent out of the game because she said the other team “stinks,” and a third was expelled for throwing punches. One child was happy to enter the game whenever asked, but then refused to move so much as a foot from her chosen spot, regardless of whether the ball was within fifty feet of her. And then there’s Aidan, who with a few minutes left in the game simply walked off the field, sat down, and removed his shoes. He was done.

Nothing much

I heard a caller yesterday on a sports radio talk program say that if the NFL had been serious about Belichick and the Patriots cheating, they would have taken the W away. Amen.

Tiger Woods is just unbelievable. If you’re not a fan, you should be. He is the greatest most dominant athlete of our times. A new championship (the FedEx Cup) and $11 million and change on the line and Woods has the best four rounds of his already unbelievable career. (He shot a personal best 257 for a 72-hole tournament, 23 under par.)

High school reunion

NewMexiKen’s high school reunion is next month — they come in 5 year increments when you get to my age. It’s in Tucson and I considered going but have decided against it. I haven’t been to any of the others and I didn’t leave much in high school I’ve ever wanted to re-visit.

But I did think about going and I did think about the whole concept of reunions and how many when they go back so desperately want to impress their high school friends — well actually, they want to impress their high school enemies — in fact, who they really want to impress are those classmates that ignored them altogether. Rent a fancy car, buy an expensive new dress, have “work” done — I’ve heard of people doing all those things to prepare for a reunion.

But it occurred to NewMexiKen that the ultimate coup is to take a hot partner to your reunion to make all those who didn’t know you well, wonder what they might have missed.

So, my question to you is:

Who, alive today, would you want to accompany you to your high school reunion to make everybody wish they’d been your friend? (Better yet, to regret it if they never were your friend.)

I thought of a few myself.

In fact, this all came up when I mentioned I had seen Jody Foster on TV the other day and thought she was impressive and I’d go to my high school reunion if she would go with me. Someone immediately said, “But Jody Foster’s a lesbian.” All the better as a conversation piece I thought.

But really, for the heterogeneous man, I think Angelina Jolie would be the best reunion date. I’m not a particular fan, though I did think she was excellent in A Mighty Heart. It’s just she has a reputation — deserved it seems — as a world-class sexual predator. If you showed up at your reunion with Angelina Jolie, everyone in the place would wonder what you had going for you that was better than Brad Pitt.

(I’d really only want to take a living person with me to my reunion, but it did occur to me that just before she died Princess Diana would have had the desired effect on my classmates. So, Diana might have been a good choice a couple of reunions back.)

Of course, it wouldn’t have to be strictly a “date.” For example:

“My spouse/partner/significant other couldn’t make it tonight, so I’d like you to meet my best buddy Bill Clinton.”

From what I’ve heard, Clinton lights every room he enters and even most of his political enemies enjoy his company and marvel at his personality. But then I thought, taking someone like Bill Clinton to a high school reunion might be dangerous. Clinton would so stand out that at the end of the evening all my old classmates would be saying, “Wow, I never thought Clinton would be there. Who’d he come with again?”

No Clinton would dazzle them and I’d be forgotten. Better yet, the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama is known everywhere, is considered by millions to be an actual divinity, and is said to have a presence that causes people to sense his holiness. And, of course, the Dalai Lama’s humility would guarantee that I would get the reflected attention that I desired.

I have one other possibility, but before I conclude I want to encourage you to suggest your choice(s) in a comment:

Who would you like to accompany you to your high school reunion so your classmates would say “I never knew he/she was so cool, I should have eaten lunch with them more often/gone out with them/been their best friend”?

My number one choice would be Osama bin Laden. You show up with bin Laden at your high school reunion and you are immediately marked as a person of vast resources and contacts — and power. He’d be the ultimate conversation piece.

And afterwards, before turning him over to the FBI or Larry King or whomever, I’d take him on a very, very personalized tour of New York City Fire Houses.

Best line of the day, so far

“How bad was it? It was Gila Bend in July.”

Greg Hansen in the Tucson Arizona Daily Star on last night’s loss by Arizona at home to the New Mexico Lobos 29-27.

“How bad was it? With 13 minutes remaining, the large video scoreboard displayed its weekly ‘Hit of the Game.’ It was a highlight from the little leaguers who scrimmaged at halftime.”

[In 3¼ seasons Arizona coach Mike Stoops is 9-24 against I-A opponents.]

Riley B. King

… is 82 today. Should be a freakin’ national holiday if you ask me. Many more B.B. Many more.

Elsewhere, Lauren Bacall is 83. Miss Bacall was nominated for best actress in a supporting role for her performance in The Mirror Has Two Faces.

Elgin Baylor is 73.

Had Elgin Baylor been born 25 years later, his acrobatic moves would have been captured on video, his name emblazoned on sneakers, and his face plastered on cereal boxes. But he played before the days of widespread television exposure, so among the only records of his prowess that remain are the words of those who saw one of the greatest ever to play.

NBA.com

Robin Yount is 52.

Robin Yount was a productive hitter who excelled in the field at two of baseball’s most challenging positions – shortstop and center field. Playing his entire 20-year career with the Milwaukee Brewers, he collected more hits in the 1980s than any other player and finished with an impressive career total of 3,142. An every day major leaguer at age 18, Yount earned MVP awards at two positions and his 1982 MVP campaign carried the Brewers to the World Series.

National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

Mickey Rourke is 51.

Jennifer Tilly is 49. Tilly received an Oscar nomination as best supporting actress for Bullets Over Broadway. Better yet she was the voice of Celia, Mike’s love interest, in Monsters, Inc.

Marc Anthony is 38.

Speaking of National Parks

NewMexiKen reader Cat’s Mom Tanya sent along a link to a one-minute video produced by her dad, the supervisory ranger at Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC. I thought it was fun — an upbeat and different way to bring people out.

Without the hat, Smokey might look even more like Vince (Adrian Grenier) I thought.

(Extra credit trivia: Smokey Bear, a native New Mexican, has no middle name. His name is NOT Smokey THE Bear.)

Canyonlands National Park (Utah)

… was authorized on this date 43 years ago. From the National Park Service:

Canyonlands

Canyonlands National Park preserves a colorful landscape of sedimentary sandstones eroded into countless canyons, mesas and buttes by the Colorado River and its tributaries. The Colorado and Green rivers divide the park into four districts: the Island in the Sky, the Needles, the Maze and the rivers themselves. While the districts share a primitive desert atmosphere, each retains its own character and offers different opportunities for exploration and learning.

NewMexiKen

As my seven regular readers may have noticed, I stopped writing about the national parks on a nearly daily basis some time ago. It seemed too many were coming around again and again. Now, as I’ve just proven in the two posts preceding this one, NewMexiKen is not above redundancy and repetition — indeed, I approve of it. I just thought it was silly with the parks and monuments. Anyone want them back?

(I went ahead and did Canyonlands for today.)

Oh, and I’ve been wondering if anyone reads the little history vignettes I write. I do those mostly for myself (enjoying the research more than the writing), but I’ve been curious if anyone reads them.

And, later this morning, I’m out of here for the rest of the week without a computer.

You better kiss me
‘Cause your gonna miss me when I’m gone

H(enry) L(ouis) Mencken

… essayist and editor, was born on September 12th in 1880. I’ve posted many of these before, but Mencken has some great lines that I never tire of reading:

  • Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.
  • A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.
  • It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.
  • The first kiss is stolen by the man; the last is begged by the woman.
  • It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry.
  • Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.
  • No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.
  • Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
  • I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.

100 Photographs That Changed the World

NewMexiKen seems to post this every September 12, so no need to be different this — the fifth — year. Here’s what I wrote a year ago:

View 28 of the 100 Photographs that Changed the World, originally from Life magazine. NewMexiKen has posted this link each year on this date and I hesitated this morning. I mean, why repeat it for the fourth time?

I then went and looked at the 28 photos and said to myself, “Oh, that’s why.”

Life Books has all 100.

September 12th

George Jones is 76.

In many ways Jones is one of country music’s last vital links to its own rural past—a relic from a long-gone time and place before cable TV and FM rock radio and shopping malls, an era when life still revolved around the Primitive Baptist Church, the honky-tonk down the road, and Saturday nights listening to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio. The fact that Jones himself has changed little over the years, and at times seems to be genuinely bewildered by the immensity of his own talent and the acclaim it has brought him, have merely enhanced his credibility.

Like Hank Williams before him, Jones has emerged—quite unintentionally—as an archetype of an era that most likely will never come around again. He is a singer who has earned his stature the hard way: by living his songs. His humble origins, his painful divorces, his legendary drinking and drugging, and his myriad financial, legal, and emotional problems have, over the years, merely confirmed his sincerity and enhanced his mystique, earning him a cachet that, in country music circles, approaches canonization.

Country Music Hall of Fame

Maria Muldaur is 64. Muldaur, famous for “Midnight at the Oasis,” has an album of Shirley Temple songs (2004).

Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson is 26 today.

Jesse Owens was born on September 12th in 1913. ESPN.com ranked Owens the sixth best athlete of the 20th century:

For most athletes, Jesse Owens’ performance one spring afternoon in 1935 would be the accomplishment of a lifetime. In 45 minutes, he established three world records and tied another.
 
But that was merely an appetizer for Owens. In one week in the summer of 1936, on the sacred soil of the Fatherland, the master athlete humiliated the master race.

How good was Owens? This also from ESPN.com:

On May 25 in Ann Arbor, Mich., Owens couldn’t even bend over to touch his knees. But as the sophomore settled in for his first race, he said the pain “miraculously disappeared.”

3:15 — The “Buckeye Bullet” ran the 100-yard dash in 9.4 seconds to tie the world record.

3:25 — In his only long jump, he leaped 26-8 1/4, a world record that would last 25 years.

3:34 — His 20.3 seconds bettered the world record in the 220-yard dash.

4:00 — With his 22.6 seconds in the 220-yard low hurdles, he became the first person to break 23 seconds in the event.

They’d die for that much speed in Ann Arbor these days (though Owens competed for Ohio State).

Owens died from lung cancer in 1980.

Best line of the day, so far

Brewers manager Ned Yost inadvertently ran his team out of a scoring chance last week when he tried to slap a mosquito on his cheek — causing his base runner to try an ill-fated steal of third base.

Diamond historians immediately declared it the most misconstrued signal since the 2005 U.S. Congressional Softball Game, when Idaho Senator Larry Craig stomped on a spider and touched off a suicide squeeze.

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