Man About Murfreesboro - blog - funny - politics

It's Friday the 13th, if any of you are superstitious. Personally, I'm not. I'm amazed at how much of it I run into every day, though. I've witnessed grown people do things in order not to "jinx" themselves. They laugh it off with a shrug of the shoulders, but they still do it. Every. Time.

Avoid cracks in the sidewalk. Throw salt over their shoulders. Wish upon a star. Avoid walking under ladders. It's all part of the same fear of tempting fate, as if fate were an entity that could be charmed by quaint rituals.

Speaking of tempting fate, another Republican has been caught up in a sex scandal. This one, a Florida Rep in the state house who, you may have guessed, sells himself as a conservative, anti-gay, law and order, family values guy. In fact, John McCain made him co-chair of his Florida campaign (which, you may recall, is the swingingest of swing states)

This guy, oh let's call him Bob Allen, was arrested a couple of nights ago for offering to perform a sex act on an undercover office for $20. According to the police report, he followed the guy into a bathroom at a public park and offered him the money to allow Bob Allen to give him a hummer. That makes Allen a prostitute.

Allen was the author of Florida House Bill 1475 the "Lewd Or Lascivious Exhibition Act" had it passed, it might have been another charge as it sought to make it illegal to mastubate in front of another adult, even if that adult consents.

More rumors are coming out of the Sen. Vitter case. Someone down south tracked down the prostitute with whom he allegedly had an 11-month affair. Some industrious busy bee matched the time codes on the phone calls to House sessions and discovered that at least twice, Vitter got calls from the D.C. Madam during roll call votes.

Also in the wings, a rumor that Vitter went to the Canal Street Brothel because he liked to wear diapers. It's only a rumor, mind you, but I'm sure plenty of reporters are hard at work trying to verify it.

One quick point about the Libby commutation. Bush said he felt the 30-month sentence for obstruction of justice was too severe so he reduced it to zero. The judge in the case, a Bush appointee named Reggie Watson, said he didn't understand how that could be so, since he was following the guidelines set out by the Bush Administration. These are the same guidelines that the Republicans are trying to make mandatory so that judges won't have the option to practice leniency.

So, we've got a Republican Bush appointed judge, a Republican special prosecutor appointed by Ashcroft and sentencing guidelines established by the Bush administration. So where to the right wing pundits get off on calling this a Democratic witch hunt?

I stopped this morning at McDonald's for a $1 chicken biscuit. What an age we live in. As I slinked my way through the drive through, I was reminded of my own experiences as a fast food employee. Years ago, I worked for a string of fast food places, but the first was Wendy's in Shelbyville.

It was a nice enough job, I guess. I worked in the back washing dishes or on prep assembling burgers. It was all dinner shift, which meant that there wasn't ever a "rush" of any kind. I remember back in high school there was this one girl who would today be called "alternative." She was way into new wave music, wore a rat tail and too many ear rings. Her dad was a cop and she was all about rebelling against the man.

She worked at Wendy's as well, only on the day shift. She had worked there long enough to be a crew chief. One week, she moved to the evening shift and, since I knew her from school, I assumed we were all buddies. Not so, little man. Now that she had gotten a taste of power, she became the company hard ass. She was no longer interested in bucking authority because she was the authority. Suddenly she cared about things like charging employees 15 cents if they use a Wendy's cup for a free Pepsi or how much product was being moved each hour.

She was way scarier as authority figure than an Annie Lennox-worshiping alternative girl.

I left Wendy's and took a job at Captain D's. If you're not familiar with the chain, it's a fish joint, meaning you stand over huge vats of hot shortening and one slip can severely ruin your day. This was easily the worst job I'd ever had (and had since). It involved a lot of scrubbing very greasy pans in cold water.

That's right. They made me use cold water to wash dishes so that they wouldn't run out of hot water when they were scrubbing down the place at closing time. They also required me to either wear the grody and somewhat stained polo shirt every day or a white oxford shirt and tie. That's right. They wanted me to wear a white shirt and tie while scrubbing grease coated pans with cold water.

My next restaurant job was as a bus boy at the Shelbyville Inn Restaurant. This was actually a pretty sweet gig, in that it didn't require a great deal of work, the staff was fun to work with (with a few minor exceptions) and my boss was my best friend's mom. During the Walking Horse shows, however, it became something of a nightmare. The place was always empty during the shows themselves, but afterwards, the place was packed for the midnight buffet, which would occasionally spill over into the breakfast shift.

Suffice it to say I'm glad to be a professional now and able to look back on these things with some perspective. I really thought I had some big, insurmountable problems then, but now they all seem so small and insignificant. One wonders how I'll look back on this time in my life 30 years from now.

The thunder could be sign of relief from the drought, or it could be the construction site across the street. They're building a new music school and the jackhammers are vibrating my chair, desk and fillings.

The bruises on my head are fading. Not quite fast enough to suit me, but they grow fainter each day. One thing I've noticed is that no one asks about them. No one even acknowledges them. My boss looked straight past them and didn't say a word. I finally brought them up, so I could explain why I had big red and purple spots on my head. He assumed I was ill and had had some sort of procedure.

Another co-worker suggested I add more bruises because "polka dots are in right now." Heh.

Republican Senator David Vitter of Louisianna is not a dumb man. He graduated from Harvard, got his law degree from Tulane and was a Rhodes Scholar. He ran for Senate to fill Bob Livingston's seat when he resigned during the Clinton impeachment because Larry Flynt had found out Livingston had had an affair.

But Vitter is also a jackass. After ranting about the sanctity of marriage and calling for Clinton to resign because, since he lied about an affair, he was morally unfit to serve in public office, we learn that Vitter's number is in the phone records of the D.C. Madam.

All over the blogosphere, people have been racing to dig up quotes from his past to best highlight his hypocrisy. I'll not bother. Just read his statement:

That's an elligant piece of spin. He says he's guilty of a sin, not of breaking the law. We're all sinners, right? So we should forgive him. He says he's asked and received forgiveness from his wife and God, that they have been to counseling and everything is cool now.

Funny thing, though, when Clinton finally came clean about his affair, he said pretty much the same thing – he'd prayed about it, asked his wife and family for forgiveness and had been going to counseling. But that cut no ice with Vitter.

You can argue that Clinton was forced to come clean and had lied about the affair, while Vitter owned up to his, but that's specious. For one thing, Vitter only came clean when it was discovered that his phone number was in the records. Also, several years ago when he was running for governor of Louisianna, he dropped out of the race just before allegations surfaced that he was a client of a madam in New Orleans. At the time, he called the allegations untrue and said it was just "crass Louisianna politics."

It has been rumored that Bush is bringing in historians and philosophers to discuss his legacy. Suddenly, he's wondering about how future generations will see his administration. I believe that Iraq will certainly be a big part of it, but domestically, I believe that Bush's legacy will be his systematic politicalization of executive entities that were, by traditionn and necessity, free from politics.

Wow. Don't give your support to the Special Olympics because the Kennedy family might somehow benefit? Don't talk about the dangers of second hand smoke? Mention Bush three times on each page of every speech? Read the story. It's just sad.

Let's just get to it, shall we? I did something stupid and utterly embarrassing. Yet, for some reason, there was never any doubt that I would post pictures of it here. What does that say about me?

Anyhoo, the kids spent Saturday night at my mom's house. When this happens, they always come back loaded down with little gifts and things. This time, Rozzy brought home a little basketball hoop with suction cups and a sponge ball.

The suction cups come off and the kids were playing around with them and I decided to get into the act. I put the suction cups on my head because 1) I wanted to see if they'd stick and 2) I thought they'd find it funny. They did on both counts. So I did it again and generally made a spectacle of myself for my children's entertainment. Then Max chimed in.

"Your head is turning purple." Uh-oh. I went to the bathrooom mirror. Well, @#$)$&)*>.

I know. I'm a genius. Max called me "hickey head." That's a good one. I also like bowling ball head.

When it happened, I showed Dollie who, as you might expect, laughed at me. I told her that doing something this stupid meant I was going to have to post photos.

"It does?" she asked.

"Yeah, it really does."

I've been on a bit of a Nicolas Cage tear lately. I saw "Matchstick Men," "Ghost Rider," "The Weather Man," and I've got "Wickerman" in the DVR awaiting a viewing. I'm not sure why, but I'll do that sometimes – watch clusters of films starring the same actor.

I like Nicolas Cage. He's a brilliant actor and a comic book fan. He doesn't seem to take himself too seriously.

As stupid as sticking suction cups to you scalp is, it's not nearly as stupid as what former NFL player and Fox Sports broadcaster Bill Maas did over the weekend. He got in his Hummer with a passenger, a gun, marijuanna, cocaine and 28 pills of Ecstasy. During a "roadside safety check" Maas acted nervous.

He agreed to a search of his car.

Here's the thing, folks. The reason cops ask permission to search your vehicle is because without it and absent some form of probable cause, they're not allowed to do it. The 14th Ammendment against unreasonable search and seizure guarantees it, even in Bush's America.

So forget how stupid it was to pack your gun and your drugs in your car and go for a spin. It was much more stupid to agree to a search when you knew what the cops would find. Here's a tip:

Be polite and just say no. "No, officer, I do not agree to waive my rights under the 14th Ammendment."

The courts have long held that asserting your rights does not equal probable cause. Now, suppose the officer decided to pull him out of the car, arrest him and search the vehicle anyway? Well, then Maas' lawyer can get the drugs and gun charges thrown out because the search was illegal and the results of the search wouldn't be allowed into evidence.

It is important to know your rights regardless of your situtation. Even if you aren't a criminal like Maas, you shouldn't automatically agree to a search of your vehicle. If the cops push the issue, don't argue. Remain calm and respectful and refuse the search. Sure, you may get cuffed and stuffed, but when you get before the judge, it's the cop who will have to answer for it.

In Max's latest issue of National Geographic for Kids, they list 30 things you should do before you grow up. I'm sad to say that there are a lot of them I haven't done yet, including start my own business, swim near a coral reef and read the Harry Potter books.

Ever had one of those mornings where you can't seem to remember basic stuff? My ability to focus this morning has gone out the window. I was typing an email to a client today and, for the life of me, couldn't figure out where on the home row of the keyboard my fingers were supposed to go.

The weekend was going so well, too. Then it all went wahoonie-shaped. We took the kids to see "Ratatouille." I was completely blown away. The animation coming out of the Pixar studios just gets better and better. The film is wonderful. It's heartwarming, funny, compelling and makes you want to get into the kitchen and cook. Or at least eat.

The reviews I read were universally positive, which normally means I'll hate it. But I had a great time. The reviewer for Slate said he was moved to tears when the food critic tasted Remmy's dish. I have to admit, I felt it, too. It was a sweet, tender moment, made all the more miraculous by the fact that it was all done with pixels on a computer.

There was a short film in front that involved an alien abjuction. It, too, was very good. Rozzy said it was her favorite part.

That's the thing. We took the kids to the Higgins Moonlight Drive-In to see the show. It started at dusk, which was about bed time for Rozzy. She was all "When will it start? When will it start? When will it start? Whenwillitstart?" Then it started and she was all "When are we going home? When are we going home? Whenarewegoinghome?"

On the other side of the spectrum, I saw "Ghost Rider" last night. I like Nicolas Cage, I love comic books, so it would seem like a natural. I've never been a big reader of Ghost Rider. I knew the background of the character, Johnny Blaze and the nature of his curse. But that was about it. The film wasn't all that bad, really. It just wasn't all that great either. I'm certainly glad I waited for the DVD.

But the majority of the weekend was devoted to a home improvement project. We have some people coming over for the 4th and Dollie wanted to fix the stairs leading up to the second-floor deck. The stairs aren't covered, so the years of rain and weather have pretty much done them in.

It seemed simple enough. We would pull up the treads and handrail and replace them with composite decking material. This stuff is expensive, but well worth it. It cuts like wood, but wears like plastic because it is made from recycled plastic bags and wood pulp. It never needs sealing or treating and it doesn't splinter.

Ugh. It's never a "fairly simple" job. When the handrail came off, it appeared we also needed to replace the balusters. When we started pulling up the treads, the stringer started coming apart with it. The deck was built with nails instead of screws, so the act of prying off the treads was destroying the stringers. So, we decided just to tear the whole thing out and build an entirely new stairway.

Back at Lowe's, we bought a pair of 2x12x16-foot boards made of pressure-treated lumber, some composite balusters, a 4x4 post, various brackets, a framing square, a couple of concrete footers and some hardware. Since we couldn't buy pre-cut stringers longer than 5 steps, we had to build our own. This required math and a circular saw.

These boards were very heavy and getting them home in Dollie's short-bed pickup was tricky. So Dolls and I moved the first of the 2x12s to the back yard and, as we were putting it down, I dropped my end. Dollie, who was carrying her end behind her, lost her grip and this heavy board fell, scraping along the back of her leg and taking off several layers of skin. Suddenly, my jobsite foreperson was bleeding into her pink workboots.

I get her patched up and the truck unloaded. Once she feels up to it, we moved on to the construction phase. I set up tables, sawhorses and work benches. Then it was my job to hold the planks, trace the framing square and plug and unplug the half dozen different saws Dollie used to make all the cuts.

Just as we were getting a good head of steam, the heat pump started making a funny noise. A quick check inside found that the unit was pumping hot air into the house.

We shut the breakers off and went back to work. About the time we got the second stringer cut and hung, a thunder storm drove us inside.

I washed dishes while lightning and thunder frightened my children. We made a third trip to Lowe's while the rains subsided. In the end, we managed to get the treads placed, the support posts attached and footed and peat gravel under the stairs. We still need to put the handrail and balusters in.

The problem with having an eventful weekend that was full of things like fun family movies, home improvement projects, personal injuries and a busted AC is that the first thing people ask when you get to work on Monday is "Did you have a good weekend?"

I usually just say "Not bad," and leave it at that. But that doesn't quite cover it today. So, I either explain everything to everyone, ignore the question or smile and say "Great and yours?"

Dolls called a little while ago to say the AC was fixed. Evidently it was the flux capacitor.

Springfield, Tenn. is on the short list to host the premier of "The Simpsons Movie." The Simpsons, see, live in Springfield. There are more towns named Springfield than any other, so the producers had a promotion where towns could pitch themselves to host.

The Tennessean has a story today about how our Springfield has gone a little Simpsons crazy. The city hall has a replica of the living room where you can sit on the couch with the Simpsons and have your photo taken. The Chamber of Commerce director painted the door to the building Simpsons yellow. The local donut shop is producing Homer's favorite donut -- pink icing with sprinkles. You get the idea.

The story had a photo of the chamber director holding a Krusty the Clown doll. It struck me as funny because of the way she's holding it. If you're familiar with the character, you can almost hear his "hyuck-hyuck hyuck" laugh as he makes a rude comment and leering gesture.

Springfield, Tenn. is one of 14 Springfields around the country competing for the premier. Each town produced a 5-minute video about their own Springfield, which will be posted to the USA Today web site on Sunday. People get to vote on which town should host the premier.

The Simpsons hype hasn't really kicked into full gear yet. I'm expecting it to really get going soon. The clips I've seen from the film look great and I'll do my best to get there opening night. It's hard to believe I've been watching this show for 17 years. More than that if you count the three years it ran as a short on "The Tracey Ullman Show."

The show has won the Emmy and Peabody awards. In 1999 it was named by Time Magazine as the best show of the 20th century. Like every show, it will end someday and that will be a sad, sad day for me. But for now, I'm giddy with anticipation of the film and will be voting for Springfield, Tenn.

My boss is looking to move us to a new location. It can't happen soon enough. Fred Thompson has decided to establish his preliminary campaign office in the building. He's supposedly wandering around the place now, checking it out. They've been polishing up the place in anticipation.

I'm not into confrontation, so I'll keep quiet and out of the way. Had I more stones, I'd seek out an autograph and mention that I really loved him in "Curly Sue." Or maybe that he hit his peak as the rude boss on "Roseanne."

Cheney is facing some interesting turbulence coming out of the Senate. Dick Durbin, senate majority whip, has warned that if Cheney doesn't comply with the executive order, he may lose the funding for his office in the Executive Office Building.

The budget calls for Cheney's operation to receive $4.75 million from Executive Branch funds, but if Cheney contends he's not part of the Executive Branch, then he may not get it.

Reason No. 147 why teachers are leaving the profession: teacher tantrum videos. Dollie was warned about this in one of her last faculty meetings. Aparently, students are provoking teachers into throwing fits in class and using their phones to videotape it for posting on YouTube.

You really have to feel for a group of professionals who's clientele are a bunch of teenagers finding any way possible to game the system and barring that – make you look foolish.

Max and Rozzy have been obsessed with a show called "Pucca" since they saw it on vacation. I say "obsessed" but that's an exageration. They like the show. This is "obsessed."

Pucca is a Chinese girl who works or lives in a noodle house (I'm a bit shaky on the details). She is in love with Garu -- a ninja. It gets a little silly from there. It's actually produced by a South Korean company and is shown on Disney's Jetix programming via a Canadian studio.

It is somewhat shocking to me that we have to have congressional hearings and court cases to decide if the Office of Vice President is actually part of the Executive Branch. That's where we are headed. Bush ammended an Executive Order declaring that all entities in the Executive Branch provide an annual accounting of their classified documents.

The Information Security Oversight Office within the National Archives is charged with inspecting the agencies within the Executive Branch to make sure they are complying with all the relevant laws. Cheny's office refuses to submit to inspection on the grounds that the executive order doesn't apply to him because he's not an entity in the Executive Branch.

The rather novel argument is that, since he also has a role in the Legislative Branch (as president of the Senate and caster of tie-breaking votes) Cheney holds a special role in government that allows him to . . . uh. . . just do whatever the hell he wants.

And Bush is agreeing with him. Actually, what Bush's mouthpiece said was that everyone should just trust that both he and Cheney are complying with the law.

No sir, not after Cheney outed a CIA agent. Not after Bush declassified part of the Iraq NIE to bolster his bad decision to invade Iraq. No sir.

Here's the kicker. Not only did Cheney not comply with the order, he then attempted to have the order rewritten to specifically exempt his office and to get rid of the ISOO, so that he wouldn't be subject to inspection. He's a mean SOB.

Rahm Emanuel, the No. 3 Dem in the Senate said over the weekend that if Cheney isn't in the Executive Branch, then the Senate needs to stop funding his office through the Executive Branch. My own take is that if Cheney isn't an entity within the Executive Branch, then he can't claim Executive Privelidge in order to hide his activities such as who was on the Energy Task Force and who visits the official residence.

The Washington Post is currently running a series on how Cheney has become the most powerful vice president in history, even going so far as to invent his own classification of documents.

Guess what! That's not a legitimate reason to classify a document. That's politics and if the White House would have the entire Justice Department serve as a political tool, why should we be surprised that they'd use the classification system as well?

I saw an episode of "Cash Cab" on the Discovery Channel. It's a gameshow that takes place during a cab ride. The driver and host asks questions of the passengers as he takes them where they're going. If they get the answers right, they win money, if they get three wrong, he dumps them on the street whereever they happen to be.

Contestants/Passengers get two lifelines: a cellphone call and a street shoutout. In the street shoutout, the cab pulls over and the contestant/passengers ask the question to a passerby.

Once you arrive at your destination, you're given the option of taking your winnings or risking double or nothing on a final question in which you are shown a video and asked a question based on what you saw.

It's a neat show and the host is very charming and personable. In the current wasteland that is television in the summer, it's nice to see something the whole family can watch.

I don't watch "The View" and I'm not a huge Rosie O'Donnell fan. But she's such a target of the right-wing blow holes like Hannity and O'Reilly, that I cannot help but pull for her. Upon leaving "The View" the show lost more than 400,000 viewers.

CBS tried to get her to host "The Price is Right" but she didn't want to move to Los Angeles, so no dice.

This is an incredible moment for her, considering her humble beginnings at a stand up comic with a bad haircut.

In family news, Rozzy has had strep throat for the last several days. She's been a little ray of sunshine, too. We've been subjected to her grunting and pointing to her neck, coupled with constantly repeating "ow" with every exhale.