Ingmar, we hardly knew ye

That's Ingmar Bergman, a Swede who directed some of the most probing, layered films ever. He died Monday.

No, he's not related to actress/beauty Ingrid Bergman. And he wasn't all that pretty.

Most of you have never heard of them, but he's a giant, up there with Kurosawa and Eisenstein. Then again, most of you have never heard of them either.

Wild Strawberries and The Seventh Seal are rich films, and essential for any cinemaphile. The dream sequences alone in Strawberries defy description. When the young Crusader in Seal knocks the pieces off the chessboard, Death shrugs and reminds him that he knows where they all sat.

Yes, they're all in Swedish with English subtitles. No, you won't drift off after five minutes.

August at DCMI

Since it isn't my place to complain about the SNP firings publicly - aside from "How can you fire Garth? If this is about the strippers at the Christmas after-party, remember, he's only human."

So instead, while I am whittling away a few last health plan profile updates between now and my weekend, here's a quick preview of what's to come on Ye Olde Ishmael Weblogge:

* Big 3-0 arrives shortly. A little fun, a little drinking and a fish heap of soul-searching ensues.

* Full Moon Bluegrass Friday tonight. Bill Melville and his mandolin will be sighted in public for the first time.

* The Simpsons Movie: Will I rave or pan it as "so Season 14?"

* half-written columns: Nostalgia for my old job is your gain.

* what I'm listening to: hint three albums from The National are in steady rotation, surrounded by an army of Dave Owen bootlegs.


There you have it. And now, enrollment numbers and premium revenues need an update. End communication.

The Grim Feline

If he's curling up next you, watch out --- you have around four hours to live. That's Oscar, the harbinger of doom for dementia patients at a Provident, R.I. hospice. And he's made the New England Journal of Medicine.

I'm sure this will do wonders in converting Every Two Weeks into a cat-tolerator (one step at a time).

But keep your eyes open - Maybe ACN will bring a similar cat into the SNP offices.

If the cat sits in your chair or curls up on your desk, you've got four hours before the corporate types declare your job superfluous. Animals just know.

Tour de Titans

Few are the days when a tour has the chance to open a door and interrupt Jeff Fisher's daily workout.

But one glare from the Tennessee Titans coach let it be known that all smart-ass Pacman Jones questions better go unasked.

And we went no further than the weight room door, intent not to further disturb the coach already shooting daggers at us.

Ric, a new friend from work, went to Auburn with Mike Keith, "The Voice of the Titans," and arranged a tour through their training facility, which sits a stone's throw from our office.

Off the lobby, just inside the security door, is an ATM. I wouldn't want to find myself in line behind any of the players.

The locker room was positively posh, and since the players hadn't arrived for training camp yet, it lacked that delightful locker room musk.

We passed offensive coordinator Norm Chow in the hallway, and allegedly QB Vince Young was in an interview when we passed the auditorium. The practice field under the bubble dome was an amazing sight, the rubberized field turf more comfortable to walk on than grass. Comfort came at a price, as my shoes were loaded with tiny rubber chunks from the turf.

Of course, I ran back an invisible kickoff, rolling down 80 yards for a nonexistent 6 points at a super-slow motion speed. But I ran.

We saw the locker room, the training room, the three full practice fields and all facilities except the offices and the War Room, where all the covert ops of an NFL team unravel. Surprisingly, the mail room did not sport a box full of subpoenas for Pacman Jones. The Vince Young fan mail parade had not started yet for the season either.

I grew up a Browns fan and will have no football peace till they win a Super Bowl, but man, it might be hard to root against the Titans. They've got quite a set-up.

I am a little upset we missed the weight room and only got Mike's brief description to flesh it out in our minds.

But I'm not about to trade it for an angry Jeff Fisher look I'll likely remember until my senile days.

Long-buried thoughts on the Worthington shooting

I was dealing with people on both sides of this too much at the time - and too disinterested in my job to write about the shooting. Now that I've stepped back, here's my pro-wounded-teen rant:

Davis defenders arrive too late
By Bill Melville
July 18, 2007

Since his incarceration, Allan Davis has more friends and defenders than ever before.
To gain them, he only had to open fire on a group of high school girls.
Nearly a year after shots rang out on Milton Avenue, the shooting of Rachel Barezinsky has polarized Worthington.

I have spent much time thinking about this, and never thought writing about it immediately after the shooting was appropriate. Too many letters on both sides burned with rage of the shooting – some at how Davis just started shooting, some at children of privilege pushed Davis, a man bullied his whole life, to finally push back.
I published most of them, except for the bigoted screeds that kicked down all boundaries of common sense (Andy Darnbrough, I'm looking at you).

The way some people transformed these girls into scapegoats for decades of “Spooky House” visits by Worthington teenagers is disappointing and woefully off-base. I’m tired of hearing how the rich beautiful children intimidated the poor recluse. That label works for their teenage forebears, but not for these girls.

I wonder if any of those defending Davis were among those who hazed him during his Worthington school days. By all accounts, he was an eccentric child, and that he was victimized for his differences is a shame – it undoubtedly molded him as an adult.

While that offers some insight into Davis’ motives, it cannot excuse how he acted upon them.
Few among us have not felt the wrath of bullies or cool kids who turned their noses at anyone unlike them. But how we bear those childhood wounds defines us. Davis crossed the breaking point and never looked back. His WBNS-TV interview smells of someone who felt justified. Remorse never even came up.

The girls only stepped onto the Davis property, nor committed any criminal acts. Even the trespassing charge feels dubious. They never came closer to his house than the right-of-way. If they tore up the lawn, smashed items on the porch or vandalized the home, I might give Davis leeway.

He was already primed, and the girls made the mistake of picking the night he loaded his rifle with all that aggression at past indiscretions of Worthington teenagers. For all their posturing, teenagers are still children and prone to mistakes, like assuming the overgrown house across from the cemetery was abandoned.

In any event, the terror at watching a teen rite of passage unfold into gunfire was punishment enough for the girls. While Davis gets released in 19 years, the 18-year old Barezinsky’s life reset that August night – he defined everything she does from this point.

Worthington Police had not heard anything from the Davis house in a decade. Even if the police fail to follow up on the trespassers, a police report creates a paper trail.

Hell, even a warning shot into the summer sky would have been excusable.
There are many valid ways to handle harassment.
Allan Davis chose none of them.

I spoke with the victim’s mother about the luck that kept her daughter alive. People who survive wounds from such ammunition are rare.

If Davis’ aim moved millimeters from where his shots struck Barezinsky, he’d be waiting to exhaust his appeals in a cell on Ohio’s death row.

The girls sought a teenage scare, while Davis aimed to kill and only the grasp of fate stopped him from becoming a murderer.

Every time I try to leave, Ohio government pulls me back in

The interns are ruling the henhouse, methinks. Two months after splitting Ohio, I get a letter from the state, telling my SS# was in the briefcase entrusted to some political science major/virgin without explaining the importance of what it contained.

Or maybe it was, and this loser took off with it.

I didn't expect state government to be run like ACN Columbus -- i.e., giving nimrod interns high profile gigs. Go ahead, ask the Upper Arlington city staff, they know that brand of torture.

As for me, I'm signing on for the free year with the account guardian service the state offered. They couldn't protect our info, so they have to pay a contractor to handle it for them.

Clocked at 19 mph

That would be me at 5:30 a.m., cruising past a speed trailer on my bike. Yeah, I was on a slight incline, but that raw Alberta air felt great as the sun eased away from the sheltering hills.

At that hour, I woke up dogs across The Nations (the name of my hood). I pass a house and from the porch comes a limber hound or shepherd dashing for the fence, barking all the while.

Sadly, there were no attention-craving bulldogs noisily trotting through the dew-covered grass, just the chow/shepherd mix that tries to run me down every time I pass his house. Even as I passed him licking himself in the middle of 52nd Avenue North, he sprang up with an alert snarl and only ended pursuit at the stop sign like he always does.

The rooster I swore I heard when nearing home woke up on its own.

It's been five of six days for me under my own power, and I forgot how much I missed the old Yukon (the brand is Giant, not Ford). Propped against the sealed fireplace in my bedroom, it threatened to become a piece of furniture as the heat sapped away desire for anything but white ale and daytime naps.

And when I return, the cat dutifully rubs his cheeks against the tire treads, eager to steal whatever road scents he can.

Atlant-notes

Actually, I never came closer than 10 miles to Downtown. Our Braves game outing never happened --- Braves-Pirates is no baseball fan's idea of a rousing matchup, and an hour after gametime, the downpour started and never let up on us at the Sandy Springs' Residence Inn.
But here are some observations:

Live Free or Die Hard was the same experience as Rocky Balboa - familiar, likable character who's way too old to be doing this stuff is dumped into the same impossible set-up, and it's hard to feel disappointed when the credits flow. However, we won't go for the triptych next year with John Rambo.

My Dad and I can finish an 18-pack of Miller High Life Lite and analyze 40 years of family history (warts and all) in less than 3 hours (some of those details will be posted in the near-future).

For the first time in years, I got the horn from a tailgater - and I was cruising at 80 in a 55 zone, no less. More surprising was that he had time to honk, since he passed me like I was idling.

Fate dropped my parents at their second consecutive house at the end of a cul-de-sac, in another cold, lifeless subdivision at the end of suburbia. If five years, of course, suburbia will have filled in every empty lot.

Atlanta to Nashville is a solid 3.5 hour drive, even when traffic spurs drivers to go 80 mph without a thought. Nashville to Atlanta is a solid 4.5 hour drive because of the time zone crossing west of Chattanooga.

I need to spend some time around Chatt-city. The Tennessee River is gorgeous, the list of attractions runs long.

Papa Ratzi - Who's he?

My brain nearly atrophied as I ate breakfast this morning, while the Today Show blared a discussion about paparazzi going too far. A publicist whined about her clients' right to privacy, a paparazzi agency chief swore his photogs knew their "limit," which weren't too restrictive.

On this commuter's radio, another paparazzi said their coverage of David and Victoria Beckham amounted to following them on every moment they spent outside their Beverly Hills mansion.

When it comes to celebrities, I could care less. Maybe it stems from an embarrassing episode from my childhood, when my whole family beer out the windows of my van while Paul Newman walked in and out of an auto parts store to buy floor mats.

Yes, we sat in the parking lot for 10 minutes on a hot August day because of floor mats.

Behind sunglasses he wore a digusted look, undoubtedly aware of the greenhorns pressed against their van's windows.

Newman lives in the same town as my grandparents. Prior to our star-gazing, the family had other Newman stories - he and my grandfather docked boats near each other, and talked occasionally. Of course, not a word was said about Hombre, Cool Hand Luke or the Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - they were New England boaters, so the talk stuck to boats and seagulls vandalizing their decks.

And to catch them around town was not an oddity - his wide, Joanne Woodward, was artistic director of the Westport Country Playhouse for years. Without the Newmans, it wasn't Westport; they were part of its fabric. If I saw them today, I'd keep on walking.

Americans like to pretend they don't understand the British fascination with their Royal Family; all the while, our Hollywood-oriented culture created an ersatz aristocracy out of actors, musicians and socialites.

As for the paparazzi, they're as American as Wal-Mart -- another cultural staple people complain about then frequent. If no one wanted photos of celebrity babies (Cruise/Holmes, Brangelina ---- see, you don't have to care about this sick fascination to absorb the details), these guys wouldn't stake them out.

Even when they're just buying floor mats.

Nashville Byline

For the record, (pausing to catch my breath) Columbus is flat.

Nashville straddles the Cumberland River, then lurches to the small ridges surrounding it. Those little peaks have proven how I fooled myself into thinking those years of cycling built up endurance.

I assure you, they did not. But my knees needed their break from running and I needed a break from the recliner.

Last night, the hills are alive with the sound of grunting, lowering gears and a carload of teenagers cursing toward me as I inched up hill after hill, scanning for a road across the Cumberland to complete my route. I found the Rock Harbor Marine, a few concrete plants and even more dead-end streets. It was a painful journey, encompassing more than six or seven miles.

Of course, it was worth every moment. A ribbon of thin clouds split the sunset, casting everything on the final miles in ambient red light. Somehow, the pain of the hills stayed in the hills ... until I trace them again tonight, that is.

Oh, death in life, the work fashions that are no more

Blink, and your habits shift.

Today, I wore a tie and blazer for the first time since my starting day, and dress pants for the first time since Memorial Day week.

I'm considered inside staff and don't have to deal with the public, so jeans cover it five days a week. I have closet stuffed with dress clothes rarely worn now that the tie drew some laughs.

Anyone who remembers me pacing between large conference room and my desk during Election Season knows how out of place that outfit feels at times.

I actually feel more productive with the ornate corporate noose back around my neck. Even when the phone just stares at me in mocking silence ... and the necessary sources in Kansas delete my messages before I even spit out my name.

The Nashville Thompsonian

Since the first rumbling of a Fred Thompson candidacy for president shook up the race, The Tennessean has scoured every story angle on the actor/senator

If I didn't know all I do about journalistic objectivity, I might suspect severe favoritism for a native son. A Republican native son too - the paper shoves any talk of Al Gore in 2008 deep into the main section, well behind the exploits of Music City no-names.

This shameless pandering has now scraped into the ground where the barrel's bottom once sat ... for a guy who's yet to officially enter the race. Thanks to the Nashville Thompsonian, I know more about a guy who might run than a dozen fringe candidates from both parties. I know how Nixon viewed Thompson the Watergate Investigator, who he represented as a lobbyist and how often his abortion views shifted to suit the audience in front of him.

A friend involved in Tennessee politics told me she's not counting on Thompson to sign up. Despite the myth that has risen about Thompson crisscrossing the Volunteer State in his red pick-up truck, Thompson never needed to campaign hard to swat away the gnats the Democratic Party ran (My view - if John McCain's ends his sputtering campaign, Thompson joins the race).

How will Thompson balance the good old boy routine with the no-nonsense Hollywood actor side, the main attraction of his candidacy for most Americans? The pick-up truck can't be flown into every campaign stop, nor would renting an old red truck at every whistle stop feel especially authentic.

But unlike The Thompsonian, I'll wait until Thompson actually takes the truck out of storage before weighing his odds.

The world's foremost Sam Elliot voice impersonators

Trust me, everything is funnier when said the guttural drawl of The Big Lebowski's narrator (or for the unenlightened, the guy from the "Beef ... It's What's for Dinner" commercials). My Dad and I discovered it this weekend when I visited him in Sandy Springs, Ga., a northern Atlanta suburb. A work friend said through their children, he met Elliot.



But work is crushing right now. So practice your Old West baritones and expect updates later in the week.

I'm Slowly Turning Into You Pt. 1

Today, the Don't Call Me Ishmael Hero Parade shines the spotlight on the loneliest man in any office ....

I'm feeling sympathy for you, former co-worker who had to tell everyone that no one would return their calls on deadline (It isn't just one because newsrooms always have their resident complainer, who expects news to break on their desk; SNP had a whole succession of them).

Almost everyone who works in Kansas and Missouri healthcare decided that with July 4 on a Wednesday, they'd go ahead and take off the whole week. Everyone who didn't told me they'd handle my interview request this week ... while neglecting to mention their own vacation, which secretaries across the Plains have filled me in on in the meantime (check out all those prepositions ... I'm expecting the Grammar Police to deliver a Rodney King session any moment). I have 7,500 words due today, have turned in a third of it and can count the sources on one hand. I'll have to hire a mathematician to sum up all the voice mails, indifferent p.r. people and e-mails that landed in the digital dead letter office.

That's why I salute you, Mr. "Why Won't Anybody Call Me Back" Guy, because in the past two weeks, I've never felt more like you.

Honeymoon's grateful end

While it doesn't approach the disaster of my parents actual honeymoon in 1973 (blown tire knocks bus off road on Spanish coast, lots of scars and broken bones followed), my grace period in Nashville is over - because there's very little grace to go around.

So far, that new salary has only illustrated the great divide between Columbus and Nashville cost of living. Hand-to-mouth is still the way of life. Wasn't supposed to go down that way.

As before, I aim for modest goals. All I want to save for is a sectional couch, because it looks like the WUC (World's Ugliest Couch), its slipcover and my lounge chair will be evicted to the curb because of the infestation.

Like everything else parasitic, fleas are exceedingly tough to kill. A simple drowning in warm soapy works best. Plus, there's added perverse pleasure of watching their legs thrash uselessly before the water consumes them and they drift to the cup's bottom.

I look at the change in Percy's behavior since we arrived ... even before the fleas, lethargy from the heat overtook him. The fiery kitten who refused give me a moment alone on Arbor Village Drive now splits his time between the bedroom hardwood and the bathroom tile. Oh yeah, and even with the Frontline stuff, it's nothing but scratching and gnawing once he's there.

When pounces at my arms, I let him bite, claw and puncture till it bores him. It's the least I can do so long as the Frontline fails to kick in.

Down with the Sicko

At long last, Michael Moore won over this confirmed fat liberal hater, who skipped Fahrenheit 9/11 after Moore's borderline cruel interview of an Alzheimer-suffering Charlton Heston as a "climax" to Bowling for Columbine.

Sicko is a different beast, one in which Moore generally stays out of his own way, sticks to narrating and lets his subjects' stories push the story forward. Since healthcare movies rarely hit the big screen, it was an excuse for a work fieldtrip. This trip, of course, made me feel quite dirty for covering an industry so devoted to its bottom line that its has been caught dumping those who couldn't pay into cabs, some times with IVs still in their arms, who speed them off to city shelters.

Moore's massive form treads delicately here. After a prologue with the uninsured forced into drastic steps (the man who had to choose which finger to reattach, the ring finger for $12,000 or the middle one for $60,000), he dives into the greater crisis of people with insurance.

For most of the movie, I found myself plotting to find work in Europe, feeling discomfort at the tales or woe and laughing out loud at the depths of the industry's efforts to fight care for all (One favorite nugget: a 1950's propaganda record featuring Ronald Reagan's fierce denouncement of socialized medicine).

Too easily confused is Moore's purpose - this isn't a documentary, but a commentary. Only healthcare's whistle-blowers spoke to him, he never discusses any ills of the healthcare in Canada, France, Britain or Cuba, the latter a pure stunt to show up the U.S. system. The search for fair and balanced ends with the previews.

Maybe Moore simply picked an easier target; in the U.S., you either don't have health care or suffer the greater slings and arrows of fighting the company over every doctor visit.

But in the eyes of this Moore skeptic, he's rarely been more effective.

How in the world do I end up in Nashville ...

And this old friend remains stuck in Calgary?

I redacted his personal info so no late no drunk-dials are made to Alberta as a result - Country Music's Best Kept Secret needs his rest.

He wouldn't stay a secret if he moved here. Then again ...

Long gone bin Laden?

Does anyone else find it intriguing that as W's approval rating has plummeted, the Western World's nemesis has not bothered to write or drop off an audio tape or cave-produced video at al-Jazzerra?

With al-Qaida's latest stab at coordinated attacks across England (all those busts earlier in the week only missed what became a burning car in Glascow) plus the ever-crumbling scenes in Iraq and Afghanistan, it strikes me as odd that the Sheik did not take the time to offer his infidel penpals a little extremist rhetoric.

So I have to wonder if he's dead. French intelligence reported typhoid got him last year, but no one substantiated it elsewhere. Maybe the boogeyman of the Western World just needs a new tape deck or video camera.

Or maybe the millionaire Islamic revolutionary has grown content with the simple life of Pakistan's mountain region, farms only for subsistence and has left oversight of future attacks to his eager deputies ... nah, probably not.

Not that the whereabouts of bin Landen amount to much.

At this point, his death would impact America's terror war standing as much Saddam hanging at the gallows turned around Iraq.

If a blog falls in the woods and no one posts a comment....

Comments are like crack --- until a blogger gets one, they've no idea how badly they needed that fix.

Sometimes those one-liners make my day. Really. Sad, eh?

When the blogger migrates to a new city, he wonders if anyone still reads, with only a few posts from the NCE (New Commentary Editor) and e-mails from the non-registered. Perhaps my posts mummified in the new heat, and thud with a boredom I can't hear over the typing.

If my daily rants and ruminations have grown as exciting as a house decorated in flood-damaged furniture, I need to know, dear readers. I'm not ready to lose my edge, or even let it dull.