Dwight D. Eisen-who? Ronald Ray Gun? Franklin Hose For Belt?

Forty percent of the U.S. has known only a Bush or Clinton in the White House.

We grew up with our dad starting every trip with "We're on our way with LBJ." Jimmy Carter was still in his grace period when I was born, he already charted his course for one-term territory when Joe came along in May 1980, and my sister was a Reagan baby. Those are just names to a large minority. It's a little disconcerting that at 30, that much of the population is younger than me.

The problem with one family dominating an executive office is it become a birthright, a family business. Democracies or republics don't function that way - monarchies do. With a little pushing, so do dictatorships.

While I'm an Edwards guy, I fear that won't change in my lifetime. If Hillary wins, wait for the inevitable throwdown with Jeb Bush in 2012. Chelsea has remained out of the spotlight, but expect hear from the next generation before long - George P. Bush, Jeb's son whose half-Hispanic. Does anyone think The Royal Family will give him a choice on future careers?

In 2008, America's presidency could officially become a feud of Hatfield-McCoy proportions.

Admit it - You're giddy bout the EMF reunion

Another one-hit wonder - with a highly annoying hit at that - returns to their stage. Wake me up when they're in MTV's attic again. But onto music I actually care about - or wanted to. The new releases keep on pounding, so I'm trying to keep pace. I'll save tracks for next week.

One hell of a hound

With The Shepherd’s Dog, Iron & Wine completes the move away from its delightful low-fi folk. Main man Sam Beam tilted in this direction since I&W’s 2005 Woman King EP, but sacrifices nothing intimate in the shift to a larger sound. Driving vocals and African percussion inflect “White Tooth Man” dragging along piano and a guitar line somewhere east of Crazy Horse. Beam stamped “Lovesong of the Buzzard” with The Band, but pushes enough of himself forward to prevent the song from turning derivative. Then the studio magic submerges Beam’s voice in icy waters on “Carousel.” It sounds off the mark initially, but ultimately fits the sparse song. The changes in sound are myriad.

The instruments that fill out Iron & Wine's sound explore the space well and never grow cumbersome. “The Devil Never Sleeps” is fueled by juke joint piano funneled through a broken speaker. Only on “Peace Beneath the City” does Beam fall flat, with a clichéd riff way too common in his discography. Lead single “Boy With a Coin” also layers itself on a simple guitar line, but it’s a stomper that never eases up.

Raising The Shepherd’s Dog a little higher on my charts is a two-song bonus disc with two songs (“Arms of a Thief” and “Serpent Charmer”) easily good enough for the album.
The Shepherd’s Dog closes the door on Beam’s low-fi past. Don’t bother looking for Beam strumming in a lonely bedroom– he escaped to the front porch where every friend has an instrument in hand.

Little Fight in the Foos
The Foo Fighters could have given Echoes Silence Patience and Grace the subtitle "There is Nothing Left to Reuse." Six albums in, the Foos toss out a solidly disjointed effort and the chances of them ever leaving musical rut they perpetually mine grow ever fainter.
The instrumental Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners feels totally misplaced, "Summer's End" carries on the good vibes that radiated from the acoustic disc of In Your Honor, where the band dared to branch out with some shockingly good results. Almost none of that carries over.
The jaunty fun of "For the Cows" or even "Monkeywrench" is sorely absent among the slow-build arena rock anthems that could be interchanged with any on their past four rock albums. Let's call it a letdown and move on.


Lean, Mean Solo "Scene"
After a blast of fuzz on the opening track of Spirit If ..., Kevin Drew tones down Broken Social Scene's everything plus the kitchen sink brand of noisy rock. First in a series of almost-solo records from the Canadian music collective, Drew stays in the parent band's vein - with so many member cameos peppered throughout the record, it's hard to avoid. None of that works against the album - the mellow chaos fans out nicely.

Closing Time
Ricky Gervais and Steve Merchant picks great tunes for their shows' theme songs. Cat Stevens' "Tea for the Tillerman" - all 61 seconds of it - winds down the blissfully uncomfortable Extras in grand fashion.

Hollywood justice once again

Phil Spector. Mistrial. Visions of O.J. and Robert Blake dance in my head.

You can pull a gun on John Lennon or The Ramones ... but a jury cannot decide your fate if a B-movie actress lies dead from a pistol wound in your house? I won't speak for Spector's sanity (the evolution of wigs through the proceedings already scream it out), how do you not arrive at the conclusion that he killed her?

Has nostalgia for the Wall of Sound influenced those two jurors impeding a unanimous decision? Spector produced personal favorite All Things Must Pass, but accomplishments cannot obstruct justice.

The weird lands of Los Angeles once again show off how easily doubt can shroud a murder case with all crosshairs on the same suspect.

Burned out, faded away - but still kicking

Admit it, the name Roky Erickson means nothing to you. I won't even ask about the 13th Floor Elevators.

Once you've seen Erickson fall asleep to the cacophony of cartoons, scanners, feedback and radios, you'll never forget him.

No one could forget the childlike way in which he shuffles along his mother's porch with a Mr. Potato Head and asks, "Can I have this?" From your first meeting, he cuts an undeniable impression.

This man's voice ushered in psychedelic rock. When the flashbacks end the movie's intro, we see the weight of unkind years upon his face.

You're Gonna Miss Me intertwines both Erickson's sporadic musical career with his mental illness struggles and his youngest brother's quest to restore some normalcy to Erickson's life.

The barn-burning acid blues voice drifted into a mental institution, and the man who emerges only functions in spurts, living in a junk-cluttered apartment.

The documentary never give its viewers too much leash; surprises abound, and the struggle to improve Roky's health is painful and human. A family tears at the seams because of the actions the younger Erickson undertakes. Vilified at times, his mother Evelyn is given ample room to defend the overprotection of Roky.

Much of Erickson's pain is self-inflicted - copious amounts of LSD and heroine aided the rise of his schizophrenia. He performed sporadically in subsequent decades, but has throttled back, performing at the Austin City Limits Festival and touring.

By all accounts, he stands on his sturdiest footing in four decades.

Maybe F. Scott Fitzgerald wouldn't have said, "There are no second acts in American lives" if he lived past age 44.

Skip Nashville Concerts at Your Own Risk

Fifty dollars for nosebleed seats at two Bob Dylan shows seemed too steep a price.

Nashville hasn't been kind to my sensibilities - lacking a good 1,000-2,000 capacity venue, medium-size bands skip it for Atlanta, Memphis and Louisville on instinct.

The Dylan Factor played a larger role. For a decade or more, fans debate which Dylan will show up on stage - the unconquerable man whose fire discounts his age, or the smoke-beaten voice struggling for inspiration among rearranged classics.

Now, that Ulysses S. Grant ranks as a bargain. Apparently the Ryman Auditorium brings out something extra in Dylan and his high-profile guests.

This bunch was more than a few second-stringers from the Grand Ole Opry.

Following opener, Elvis Costello joined the tour early with acoustic set. Legendary songwriter plays unannounced - The Other Paper handed out tickets last time he played Columbus; I vowed to pay to see him

New Nashville resident Jack White, content to let bandmate Meg sort out the anxiety that canceled their tour, joined Dylan on stage - for both shows. Musicians habitually show up for onstage cameos 'round these parts, and White quickly joined the rotation.

Each night, they played a song Dylan never before performed live - Meet Me in the Morning (of Blood on the Tracks) and Outlaw Blues (from Bringin' It All Back Home). Plus, they sang White (and Melville) favorite "One More Cup of Coffee." It earned a Rolling Stone write-up and a hundred "Why didn't I drop the change and go?"

Rather than complain, I'll guess about who might have joined him on a theoretical third night - Emmylous Harris? Lyle Lovett? Zombie Johnny Cash? Hank Jr., Hank III and Zombie Hank Williams?

It's Nashville. You never can tell who'll show up.

Somewhere, a fan in a retro Kosar jersey and a Dawg mask weeps

Baseball has been in my sports driver's seat for months, but on Sundays, I find myself increasingly drawn to the Tennessee Titans.

Blame it on the tour of their training facility. Blame on head coach Jeff Fisher scowling at our tour group while rolling through bicep curls. Blame on Vince Young's uncanny routine of weak quarterback numbers while bringing home one for the win column.

Or blame it frustrating mythic collapses of the old Browns and the losing culture that permeates the new.

Tennessee's sole mythic performance, The Music City Miracle, defied reality; its Super Bowl loss, when Joshua Dysart fell one yard short of the end zone as time expired, could have been crafted for Cleveland.

Call me a hometown traitor, but I nearly forgot how exhilarating NFL Sundays and Monday nights can be when you're team isn't perpetually Paper Bag on the Head bad.

By saying this, I probably doomed the Titans to a complete meltdown and a 2-14 finish.

You can take the Cleveland fan away from Browns Stadium, but you cannot tear down his pessimism for the home team.

Window on the wild dogs

The end of triple-digit temps has allowed fresh air back into the Delaware Avenue homestead, and put a cat back onto the windowsills.

He's lost his old habit of pushing out the screens, but watches the yard with his hunter's patience. Most of what he tracks is harmless --- cardinals, a squirrel teasing him from the tree, the orange cat who slouches on the front walk to watch Percy squirm behind the screen.
This cat is a hunter caged indoors; if he imagines, it's of himself spitting out feathers or tail fur. He's the alpha predator - he eats enough bugs for me to see that. This is his turf.

Until the rough dogs of midnight arrive.

Now, apparently the unwritten laws of my neighborhood state all residents must exert little or no effort to keep their dogs leashed or in the yard. I run, then I run faster when collars jingle behind me; even on the bike, I pass dogs sitting in the road, waiting to push their stamina against mine.

But these short-haired brutes know where there's a cat with high ground, his ghost-face easily when press against the screen. Random dogs traipse pass all the time, but early last I saw this pair in the yard and again in the intersection sometime after 3 a.m.

Friday morning I saw those dense, football-shaped terrier heads as the cat rigidly monitored their approach. Mouths agape, they walked up entranced by their natural enemy.

I don't want to judge the pair solely by their looks - any dog can be friendly and gentle. Perhaps they wandered away from bad owners.

However, as with people, holding vigil at my bedroom window at 2 a.m. doesn't sing high praises of the midnight mongrels.

Granted, the window sits 8 eight feet off the ground, so my 12-pound cat can enjoy his Mexican standoff with two 80-pound strays waiting for a pre-dawn meal.

A tired mind courting fate

Just when you start to think exercise sharpens your mental state .... everything goes haywire.

In the span of a few hours, I went from an day with a 10-mile bike ride, a 5K run in the day's hottest hour and a walk for a soft dip to breaking driving laws on every road the rubber touched.

Let's review the evidence:

Driving home in the early evening, I didn't just blow through a stale yellow - I lurched from a stop when I thought I saw green when the light stayed red. A signal change three blocks up the road; my mind processed nothing but green and tapping the gas. I hit no one, missed out on a traffic ticket and spent the rest of my drive muttering, "What the hell is wrong with me?"

I hadn't found an answer when I reached my street, where flashed my brights at an oncoming pickup truck while fumbling for the left-turn signal. Answers were in no greater supply.


The crescendo came later, following an outdoor party. I decided to try a shortcut home, turned too soon for the entrance ramp and ended up in the wrong direction on the unlit exit ramp.

For the first time since The Publisher's Last Ride, my heartbeat fell to a slow, ugly tempo.

The problem with the wrong way on a highway ramp is their design limits access; I had no choice but to see it through and hope no one wanted the Trinity Lane exit. None did, and a passing driver honked when I reached the bottom. I straightened out, sighed every wisp of air from my lungs and went home.

So where did I lose all common sense on Saturday? Estimates place it somewhere during the final mile of the I Run for the Party 5K, when 30 minutes of baking on the unshaded Nashville streets left me overdone.

At the finish line, my feet felt burned; perhaps the heat denatured some brain proteins that govern common sense.

Now that I can show my glee, don't tase me, bro!

My old Cleveland Indians swept the Detroit Tigers right out of contention for the American League Central crown this afternoon. For most my life - and my father's - they been bred for something tougher than triumph (losing hopelessly for decades, in case you need a refresher).

I've let the Farrago write about the Reds while quietly waiting for a time to rejoice. Well, barring an unprecedented collapse - losing their final 10 games - the Indians failed to choke away the season and are headed for their first playoff appearance since 2001.

Led by Cy Young hopeful C.C. Sabathia, they've been the quiet contender this fall. Outside of Ohio, they rarely merit a line in the best team debate. The media's Yankee-Red Sox infatuation sweeps all other suitors out of the conversation.

Besides, few cities deserve a bright spot more than Cleveland. Its air rivals that of Gary, Indiana, a town resembling Sauron's industrial nightmarish vision for Middle Earth. Its residents are poor, its murders arrive too frequently, its politicians cover their own asses and little else.

But this baseball town is two wins from the mirth that can only come with October baseball.

Alright, I'm done. Put the taser down ...

A page from St. Francis

From the moment I saw it at the thin white line, I had no choice.

I had to start my work day by saving a turtle from the retention pond.

This box turtle, poised to leave the bike lane, would take one small step for terrapins and leave one giant stain on the road when the a.m. maniacs failed to see him.

I wasn't going to have that stain on my conscience.

He shrugged away as I approached then clamped up his shell as I walked him across the road. Not to get too anthropomorphic, but it must be petrifying when a strange giant creature grasps a little turtle from the (somewhat) safe earth.

I could only think of Steinbeck's symbolic chapter in Grapes of Wrath, when a lone turtle crossed a treacherous highway toward a
One driver swerves to avoid it, another purposely nicks it, sending it scuttling to the edge of the road. It survives, reemerges and goes on.

He crafts a cliff-hanger rarely equaled in American literature. The turtle stood in for the Joads, the average people soldiering on after losses inflicted by the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. They stood a shot on the roads of the Thirties. Today's roads are less friendly than ever to the ill-starred.

Steinbeck's second driver drove me to set him at the edge of the marshy runoff from the Cumberland River. He might have crossed alone, but too many passing cars would not spy the ambitious box turtle. Too many more would have seen him as an easy target.

Tracks while waiting for a big Tuesday

In eight days, Iron & Wine, The Foo Fighters and Jose Gonzalez drop new discs. I'll be poor and have plenty of music to run down.

Meanwhile, here a few key tracks, acquired legally or in the free, grayer regions of music trading:

"Challengers," The New Pornographers: This indie rock supergroup's light up a room before almost immediately fading from consciousness - see "My Rights Versus Yours" or " Myriad Harbor." It's smooth, hook-laden pop that for whatever reason, will not stick. This quieter offering from the New Pornos smells of a long-player destined for myriad listens to finally sink in.

This forgetful quality skips over the Neko Case tracks, which complement the folk-country murder ballads from her solo records. Backed with the barest of instrumentation, Case aches her way through the title song,instantly fostering demand for more.

"Ordinary People," Neil Young: This track will be the single unreleased oldie dusted off for Young's Chrome Dreams II due next month.

Thanks to Archives Be Damned, a 5-disc fan collection of Neil rarities and bootlegs spurred by the slow speed at which Neil cleaned out the vault, I had my album preview all along.

The soundboard-quality track is one of those castoffs that grows in stature over time for virtue of never appearing on a proper album. Nineteen years later, its stature has not eroded.

Young recorded this 12-minute monster Aug 27, 1988 in Wantagh, N.Y.. The horn section is a perfect flourish for a slow burner like this. Think "Rockin' in the Free World" or "Crime in the City" on mild sedatives with a sultry jazz streak.

"July! July!" The Decemberists: This dizzying pop number from their first full-length crops up innocuously on a night full of Picaresque and Crane Wife dominance.

The song has an undeniable purity ... and smirking-inducing lyrics like "I say your uncle was a crooked French-Canadian" that travel gruesomely into the margins (the same has to stop his innards from spilling out after a shot to the stomach). Recorded March 27, 2007, Upper Darby, PA, this pristeen concert comes from a radio broadcast, a great avenue for otherwise illicit live music.

When prowling for someone to blame, I just bumped into myself

A little cautionary tale for you - it's best to appraise everything on a bicycle as fragile and easily ruined by a hostile world.

To combat Nashville's pedestrian unfriendliness - sidewalks will only usher you so far without someplace to walk to - I ride my bike for errands. Rather than take the one-mile roundtrip to my local Kroger, I chose one about 2.5 miles away; I needed to exercise.

As I hurried through the aisles with cat food and canned vegetables precariously tucked in my arms, I had no idea how much exercise awaited me.

Five minutes, when I returned with bags in hand, the rear tire sagged from its rim like turkey waddle. Short of pummeling the rim on concrete and shredding the tire, the bike wasn't holding anyone.

That makes three flat tires in about 16 months - plus two more on the car. It also made for two-plus miles home late at night. On a busy five-lane road, I walked alone the entire way; a mist of rain drove all of them inside.

It was far from terrible, except when the cumbersome bike lurched the wrong way and pedal edges scraped my legs, leaving no need to exfoliate anytime soon.

But check out the road sometime - all that glass and debris shed by passersby ends up wedge between my tire treads sooner or later.

In Columbus, try the bike lanes along Shrock Road - you could reconstruct a car from the amount of auto parts committed to the void.

Naked without the notebook

I fumbled for something to write on in my coat pocket, then remembered I no longer needed it.

For once, there was no fear of a P.R. type whisking the media crew off to a small room away from the stage to jockey with TV crews for a single pull quote from a councilman still flush-cheeked from electoral climax.

At the Karl Dean for Mayor election night gathering, I could clap, drink, be merry and never hold myself to the standards of old.

It was nice to shed the old skin for a night. Nothing forced me to stand around frozen in a neutral expression, wait for quotes or wade through the crowd with a laptop, as did the political bloggers.

This is was not the Columbus Democrats or Mayor for Life Mike Coleman whomping yet another slate of Republican also-rans. Walking into the Adventure Science Center (Nashville's COSI), the outcome was still obscured. It could have been decided by a recount, considering how closely the two run-off candidates sparred during the last month.

But former law director Dean bested ex-Congressman Bob Clement, ex-Congressman and son of a beloved governor, in a race less close than anyone predicted. Actually, Dean's victory marks another Yankee triumph in Music City - he's the third consecutive transplant mayor, born in the Northeast and lured to Nashville by law school.

I won't insult the rejected, but the crowd visibly harbored deeply-rooted ill for Clement. Whispers of "Lil' Bob" and "Baby Bob" snuck out from the ambient crowd-roar.

They howled through much of 's bizarre concession speech, its loudest moment coming when insisted "I couldn't be negative if I wanted to be" (this after a election night speech in August where he excoriated Dean for everything except pouring a cure for cancer down the drain).

Dean was upbeat and plain-spoken in victory, an admitted Simpsons and South Park fan who'd never lack for pub conversation.

We got few seconds to talk to the exhausted new mayor after the TV flock scattered for carrion elsewhere. His demeanor was consistent from the podium to the parking lot, a skill unknown to many politicos.

Nearly two years of coverage of weekly coverage passed before Mayor Mike found my name on his own, so I won't expect Dean to recall our brief exchange about being the only people wearing orange ties.

Blackbeard the bin Laden

Fine, he's alive. I rescind that proclamation, but not the logic behind it - I drew that conclusion after years watching Zawahiri, his chief adjutant, speak to the masses via videotape, when The Sheik uttered not a peep.

Now, we can say it loud ... Bin Laden's back, black-bearded and proud. That Grecian formula number he wore in the video virtually reaches out to dust its viewers. Apparently, times change and bin Laden grew bored with gray streaked with white.

Maybe it helps him to blend into wherever he managed to avoid detection for the past six years. If the odd soldier catches him on the street, he'll look no different than any other 6'6" Saudi with a $25 million "dead or alive" price tag.

Or he's just hitting his midlife crisis and soon to be caught driving around the Pakistani tribal regions on tricked-out Harley or a Porsche.

Suspicions live on with a beard so unnaturally dark. With no changes to his facial structure, the video cannot be denied. It's him. The possibility of bin Laden look-alikes remains ... slightly higher than zero.

Even I doubt the Pakistani tribal region has plastic surgeons skilled enough to nip and tuck al Qaida grunts into bin Laden decoys.

Look at Saddam - he wasn't churning out doppelgangers while squashed into the spiderhole where he spent his last free days.

The twists that no others can claim

We have to cling to our own quirks when the abyss looms close; mining for the unique is sufficient rationale for the soul to trudge onward.

Here's the nugget that kept me going on a weekend when every scrap of human contact was no better than an apathetic clerk or drivers helping themselves to the bike lane:

I am believe I am the first person on the planet to follow up Superbad with Rashomon.

At least they're a huge divide between. How could I forget when Jonah Hill raped the samurai's wife and bested the swordsman in a duel? Hey, the characters have their perspective, and if understand Kurosawa, I'm allowed walk away with my own.

Crazed and insignificant? True enough. But if no one else wants to jump in the boat, it's just as well that I cast off the charts and go with my own course.

If it were any other baseball card

Honus Wagner was an all-time baseball great, but his card becomes greater every time a millionaire buys it at auction.

Because its purchase price ballooned by a half-million dollars in a few months, the media has to tell us the mythic tale of how tobacco pouch giveaway turned into the world's most expensive cardboard rectangle.

They often ignore Wagner's status as the greatest of National League player of baseball's deadball era - a quiet, gentle yet tough shortstop who stood in stark contrast to talented louse Ty Cobb.

But card's story has legs much less bowed than those of old Honus. Only 50 or 60 ever survive from the T206 set from the American Tobacco Co. The card in question goes through round after round of Musical Millionaires because of its mint condition - a century later, that little strip of cardboard is mighty flawless.

Many stories surround why Wagner wanted his card out of the set. Surprisingly, he didn't do it so 50 years after his death, rich men would jockey for it.

The feel good version: The non-smoking Wagner didn't want children buying tobacco to get his card, and demanded its removal from circulation.

The "that sounds more like the truth" version: American Tobacco didn't pony up enough scratch and Wagner had them pull the card.

Everytime someone new snags the card, it's a mini-media blitz. In the 1990s, hockey great Wayne Gretzky scored it for $451,000. Since he sold it, the Mint Wagner has been seven figures and up.

Here's a figure rarely mentioned in any of those stories - $10,000, the top salary Wagner earned in baseball.

The world of what ifs

An interesting thought stuck with me while reading The Other Paper's cover story about the Ohio House Democratic Leader refusing to go along with restrictions on payday lenders.

But for a quirk of fate, I could have been the P.R. flack issuing half-answers and blocking journalistic bullets for the minority leader.

Tug on a string, and the tapestry pulls apart.

I interviewed for that job in early April on an ugly, blustery day when the minority leader's delay forced her staff and I travel around the world of Ohio politics while waiting for the interview. Once she arrived, the affable grilling barely passed the five-minute mark.

Then I forgot about it. My career as a P.R. flak was stillborn; I had no stomach for a brutal job that would quickly grind me into a fine dust.

As I packed the boxes bound for Nashville, the rejection letter arrived in the final mall call on Arbor Village Drive. Much like the minority leader, bureaucracy drove its delay.

After all, it was Plan D. Nashville was A, followed by the Farm Bureau and ADAMH, in case you wondered (By deluge of comments, I can tell you do).

Short quips from a long trip

* I spotted this exercise in excess on 65 North in Kentucky - a Winnebago towing a Hummer. I wonder which giant vehicle gets the better gas mileage. By all accounts, they'd be better off driving the Winnebago around .

* Indiana's state motto should be "The state's highest point is wherever you happen to stand at the moment."

* The Nashville-Chicago route lacks a smooth alternate to the interstate, making me sorely miss taking U.S routes from Columbus to Chicago in the past. As a consolation prize, I noticed this - in Indiana, Nashville and Columbus border each other. So I'll give The Hoosier State a little credit.

* Anything from Neko Case, early-era Fairport Convention or The Basement Tapes is all the soundtrack needed for a driver crossing Indiana.

* It was strange to gulp down bottles of Pilsner Urquell with the album jacket to Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot across the Chicago River. The album photo is a stark, sepia-tone shot of twin condo towers that rise in contrast to the mid-20th century skyscrapers nearby.

* Chicago's long, mighty shadow: If city could impress upon me the small stature of Nashville, it was the Windy One. Plus, you can travel faster on a bicycle than in a car.

Sept. 4 - a rough day for adventurers named Steve

Exactly one year later, Steve Fossett might have just joined Steve Irwin.

Irwin, who everyone on the planet expected to meet his end in a crocodile's maw, frightened a stingray into a defensive pose - the rest is well-documented.

Now, man for all records Steve Fossett has gone missing on a routine flight in the Nevada desert, scouting for a site to break the land-speed record. Rescuers have had no visual contact and Fossett wasn't required to file a flight plan, but optimism is not heavy.

This comes after he survived all those balloon flights and circumnavigating the world alone in a plane, places where brushes with death have a few more bristles. Fossett was a throwback - with few unexplored acres of Earth, humanity is forced to pursue other records. Our adventurers and innovators rarely stray from the laboratory today.

But daredevils in any field rarely die tempting fate.
Tightrope walker Charles Blondin crossed Niagara Falls and Victorian-era spans many times, but he still managed to die in bed.

Apparently, those who risk their lives for glory often leave this world through mundane means.

Reel not found ... at least, not yet

A turbulent September work schedule and a great hectic weekend leaves with tremendous mound of stories to unsort ... so I'll piece together this strange tapestry in the next 48 or so.