Rainy Day Blog #12 &35: Best of Seinfeld

No blogger should be expected to produce timely posts all the time, so I decided to pen this one for such a drought. Certain episodes of Seinfeld get all the praise, the radar of popular culture often misses the biggest bleeps on the screen.
I haven’t seen sunlight since Thursday and a stormy weekend drowned my prospects, so here’s my list, without the Soup Nazi, the Contest, or Keith Hernandez spitting on Kramer.

“The Airport”
My gateway episode to the show. A Cheers fan through and through, I was a late comer to Seinfeld. Then I saw this one, and never looked back. Two airports, tales of first class and coach, Kramer seeking out rent money from an old roommate, George heckling a murderer.
Try not to laugh when Kramer pops out of the baggage claim carousel.

“The Caddy”
George gets ahead by leaving his car at work, so his superiors believe he’s putting in extra hours. Elaine nemesis Sue Ellen Mischke debuts by wearing a bra for a top, leading into Jerry and Kramer wrecking George's car, then a fun O.J. trial parody.
The best Frank Costanza line ever comes in the voice mail: “Jerry, this is Frank Constanza. Mr. Steinbrenner is here, George is dead. Call me back.”

“The Jimmy”
Bill likes this episode a lot. Bill might have to watch it tonight. If you’ve seen it, you know why Bill shifted into the third person.
Mel Torme serenades Kramer at a benefit for the mentally handicapped. That alone sells this one. Tim Whatley’s adults-only dental office - and Jerry’s belief that Whatley and his assistant undertook some libidinous pursuits while he was out from the gas - is the icing on this cupcake.

“The Old Man”
This gets better all the time. Our heroes adopt seniors and all run into problems with theirs. Kramer and Newman try to get rich quick by selling old records. Jerry’s old man causes trouble for everyone. Great George line: “I want to cover my bald head in oil and rub it all over your body.” Or something like that. All the more reason to watch it now.

“The Gum”
Lloyd Braun returns, Kramer does everything to convince Braun he isn't crazy, Jerry dons glasses of increasing thickness and the John Voight car meets its fiery end. George’s hunt for a $20 bill with lipstick on Andrew Jackson leads him into an Henry VIII costume. Just a few friends sitting around, having a chew.

Runner-up: Tempted as I was to include “The Fatigues” because of Eddie from the J. Peterman mail room and Frank Costanza’s Korean War flashbacks, a lame mentoring subplot spoils this post-Larry David effort.
“The Couch” almost made the cut, but one scene makes that episode – Poppy voiding himself on Jerry’s couch . For a top five, I wanted well-rounded episodes.
That’s the great thing about this show – after time away, it’s easy to forget two or three strong stories weave together in a 22-minute show. Ten years after one of the worse send-offs in television history - no program this creative should have bowed out with a glorified clip show - it remains remarkably undated.

Exhibit A: Why I Stick to Beer and Wine

Courtesy of the Associated Press....

The agave worm in mezcal seems a lot more palatable now, eh?



Well, they do everything bigger in Texas, so drinking rattlesnake vodka could be a new symbol of testosterone-fuel Texas manhood.

If it weren't illegal.

Seeing how this crime occurred in Texas, the biggest offense is selling liquor without a license. The man responsible, who owns a snake farm west of Fort Worth, apparently marketing to Asian immigrants, for whom the snake is something of an aphrodisiac.

Just plain awesome.

Dr. Pepper will give away free can to everyone in the U.S. if Axl Rose finally gets Chinese Democracy on the shelves in 2008.

We've had SNL alumni nominated for Academy Awards (Bill Murray is the only name coming to mind), but Al Franken could be the first to seek a U. S. Senate seat. And since it's only been a decade since Minnesotans elected Jesse The Body Ventura as governor, don't laugh him off yet.

Somehow, I think the odds were better when Taco Bell dropped a round target into the Pacific Ocean and promised everyone in America a free taco if a piece of the Mir Space Station hit it.

Stick around, folks. We've got a lot more coming up this week. First I'll hammer out some record reviews later this week (Drive-By Truckers, She and Him, Raconteurs).

There's a review of the Stars concert at Nashville's Belcourt Theatre posted at Dave's local music site.

The world media continue their collective lovefest with the Boston Red Yanks .... er, Sox, I might have to remind them a few other teams might actually show up for 162 games this season. Baseball isn't inspiring me this season. With the Indians entering their 60th season without a World Championship, maybe I'm just tired of rooting for this prick tease of a baseball team. They choked away a chance at the World Series last year, might not even win their division this year and their best pitcher in a generation is almost certain to flee for the big bucks.

We've got four training weeks left till Runner's Christmas (Music City Half Marathon) and the first-ever race within walking distance of my house. I can almost see the starting line from my front window, so there will be no excuses for sleeping in ... or crashing back to sleep 30 minutes after I finish.

Easter goes solo

Easter lacked something this year – its good friend, Passover. Easter celebrations are over, the chocolate eggs have been discounted and Passover is still a month away.

As a little kid, I looked at the calendar, and always wondered how Passover fit in. No one in my house explained its role in Jewish tradition – except ABC-TV, which dutifully showed “The Ten Commandments” every pre-Easter Saturday.

For me, Passover and Easter were crossed fingers and friends with similar fates – they belonged together. Let’s face it – Jesus and his 12 buddies were celebrating Passover. They used their last meal together to celebrate a Jewish tradition while beginning another.

But I come not to bury Easter. It’s always been my favorite Christian holiday. I love the path of redemption and resurrection. It demands a sacrifice every year – abstain from something you enjoy for 40 days. And we all know who anathema sacrifice is to modern American life.

Aside from the deluge of candy, Easter doesn't fall prey to the crass commercialism that owns the last eight weeks of the year. I probably enjoy that more than anything - the break from the retail bullies, not the candy.

The Resurrection also fits pretty well with the start of spring. But I’m sure that’s just coincidence, like with the birth of Jesus and the winter solstice falling so closely together. Yes, coincidence … which as you’ve already guessed, I’ll have plenty of time to discuss in Hell.

I’ve always been disappointed that my favorite day on the Christian calendar requires a mathematician to decipher every year.

With all the ways Easter gets tossed around the calendar, the two will overlap again in 2009. As they should.

Best-Ever Beer Guys Strike Again

Good weather sparked up the Thursday tradition of beers on Isaac's front porch. It was brief, good conversation over a couple of Yuenglings. March in Nashville is so temperate, and with uncomfortable, humid days on the horizon, nights like that cannot be wasted on paperwork.

What really sent the night off the rails was the second call of the night. One of the employees at my favorite beer store, Grand Cru, wanted me to know the shop received a number of samples for new beers it planned to stock.

They invited me to come in run through the lineup. I couldn't refuse.

Chief among them -or god of them, if you will - was Deus, a Bieres Brut from Flanders. Made with a champagne yeast and pouring like one, the 11.5 percent brew was pretty close to divine. I worry that my $40 bottle of Melville Pinot Noir started a trend I cannot afford, since I must have a bottle of Deus for a special occasion - what occasion, I don't know yet.

Of note were the Harviestoun Brewery's cask-aged series - they mature the ales in scotch whiskey casks. They simple number them 12, 16 and 30 to indicate the number of years the casks were used to mature whiskey. The two from younger casks were OK, but the 30-year casks really whipped up the flavor on the last one. It was a mammoth, complex ale.

The other names were mostly familiar - to me at least: Kwak, Urthel, St. Feuillen. Meantime's Scotch Ale was a mighty brew reminiscent of whiskey in its complexity. So many ales, so little time.

No beer/wineseller has ever extended me such a courtesy before. I knew stopping in a few times a week would pay dividends.

It's What You Take From It

Until Tuesday, no one I knew ever committed suicide.

I didn't know someone did until Wednesday afternoon.

For all the times I thought about it through my teens and twenties, I never imagined the impact. God, it's drastic.

Rather than dwell on the shock and disappointment, I found myself starved for inspiration.

To find it, I only need to walk into a department store to pay my bill.

At a counter in the men's department stood a older man, strangely stooped over and shuffling slightly.

Getting through all five syllables of "Do you some help?" was a herculean task for him.

Whether he suffered from a stroke's effects, a speech impediment or a neurological disorder, he fought it, his Southern accent still shining through. I'm going with a stroke, because the left hand of his body slouched unnaturally, and he relied solely on his right hand.

But one-handed or not, he ran that register. A few other employees circulated past the counter as he helped me, aiding him in a way that let him maintain control of transaction.

Whether picking up a stapler or punching the register keys, he struggled but his body language radiated determination. Life didn't beat him, and he soldiered on. A debilitating condition only held him back so far.

Only when he quietly indicated he couldn't staple the receipts together did I offer any assistance. I think it would have been refused.

As I turned to leave, I heard "Come back and see us" from the same fracture voice.

I translated it as, "I'm not going anywhere."

A night after a troubled former reporter checked out way too soon, that was refreshing.

My turn ...

Some notes:

We passed through Rhode Island on a family trip to Hyannis Port on the Cape in 1991.

Texas deserves an asterisk for so many things, but I only spent a few hours at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. I haven't actually visited, but I'm counting it anyway.

As for Hawaii, my father worked overseas in the early 1990's - in China, to be exact. On the way back one year, we hopped through the islands.

In 1998, the family drove across the Mississippi from Memphis just to add Arkansas to the list. The Welcome to Arkansas sign read "Home of Bill Clinton" while the Welcome to Tennessee sign read "Home of Al Gore." That always stuck with me for some unknown reason.

Oklahoma was crossed off similarly; when visiting a friend in Joplin, Missouri, about seven years ago, we took a daytrip to some rural locales in Sooner Territory, including a stop in Miami (pronounced "Miam-uh").

I don't have a date yet, but Southwest flies into Spokane, so I plan to rent a car from there and zigzag through the upper mountain and plain states before dropping the car off in Chicago and flying home. That will leave me with Alaska, Delaware, New Mexico, Louisiana, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

I might save Oregon for a trip to Crater Lake.

But someday I will fill in this map.

In brief....

Yesterday the running jumped to nine miles. Today, the soreness increased tenfold. I don't expect to leave my desk much today. But training now lies just 4.1 miles from the finish line with five weeks to go. I can't wait.

Other random bits:

I locked my keys in the car Saturday, and the locksmith's handiwork now means I can only open my driver's door from the outside. Unfortunately, Nashville sees too much rain for me to go the Duke boy route with the Corolla, so it might have to be fixed.

Go watch "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford." Now. Brad Pitt is a great, menacing Jesse James, but Casey Affleck is even better as the man willing to gun down his idol in pursuit of fame and glory.

My sister considers me unready for a move to the big city, but urged me not to unload the cat whose favorite pasttimes are 1. biting me; 2. clawing me; 3. swatting me; 4. pouncing on me; and 5. eating bugs.

I'm staying dry for St. Patricks' Day. In honor of the 9-mile run, I drank a fine bottle of microbrewed stout from St. Louis last night and quit while still far ahead. If you must drink, by all means skip the putrid green beer trend - there's not a trace of Irish in it, just copious amounts of food coloring.

On St. Patrick's Day stick to a simple rhyme - "if it's brown, drink it down, if it's green, vent your spleen."

I'll leave you with two reasons to go for Guinness - it has only 120 calories a bottle, as much an average light beer, and is only 4.3 percent alcohol by volume, so you can imbibe a lot without getting rip roaring drunk.

Placing Blame on Minimal Pain

Whenever I've undergone dental work, I get excessive in my impulses.

It's rooted in the giant filling that accounts for most of my upper left molar. The decay came close to the nerve and the tooth, almost seventy percent silver, is destined for a crown. After the Novocaine's bliss faded, the sharp pain started, intent on a long stay.

Six months after the Gentle Dentist went a'drillin', the nerve still fired rhythmically whenever I ate, drank, breathed deeply, coughed or breathed normally.

Since then, I expect every filling to nag for months, and they've only given me token pain for a few hours.

Last night's indulgence came at the wine & spirits store. I've been avoiding the wheat and barley in favor of a nightly glass of the grape, and thought to restock my little wine rack. It had a few too many vintage bottles of Trader Joe's Two Buck Chuck ($3.37 Chuck for the Ohioans out there).

I'd found a nice primitivo and was looking for a second bottle when I found this pinot noir. Then I noticed the price tag and put it back down.

Then I picked it up again, with those excessive impulses now in the driver's seat. With a name like that, the vineyard had to produce exquisite vintages. For $40 a bottle - about 4 times my usual price limit for wine - it damn well better.

I hemmed, hawed and eventually brought it to the counter. Excess won again.

But excess and the well-named pinot noir will sit for a special occasion.

I can't empty such a bottle listening to Calexico and teasing the cat with a laser pointer.

Concert Review: Black Mountain Has its Peaks

You can also read this here:


A lazy observer could write off Black Mountain as a pile of classic rock clichés – just call them “Zeppelin and Sabbath riffs crossed with the synthesizers from Wish You Were Here” and be done with them. But stamping them with the stoner rock label merely marginalizes the many ways this Vancouver quintet pulls from its 70’s influences and never sounds contrived.

In 75 minutes at the Exit/In Monday, Black Mountain defied all those labels. The influences might be obvious, but they don't blur the band's focus or dumb it down into a glorified Sabbath tribute.

It was all Canadian onstage, with openers Nordic Nomadic
and Bon Iver. The latter overcame minimal instrumentation with aid from Justin Vernon’s soaring vocals that at times recalled a gruffer, earthier Chris Martin. The pleasant, if sometimes slight, folk held promise, but Bon Iver isn't quite ready for headlining. Near 11 p.m., the opening chords to Black Mountain’s “Stormy High” quickly scorched away any trace of the openers.

For as monolithic a sound as the band appears to produce, the show displayed their facets well. The acoustic waltz “Stay Free” broke up the menace shining through the rest of Black Mountain’s set. Its loose feel was welcome, and a sign laying off the distortion for another song or two might have broken up Black Mountain’s set better.
The bands’s selections leaned on In the Future, their just-released sophomore outing. As it was, picking out songs from their albums was simple – anything from their debut sounded like musicians trying to outplay each other, but newer songs meshed more organically.

Seamless harmonies from Amber Webber widened Black Mountain’s sonic palette. When she took the lead on the gorgeous “Queens Will Play,” the
Sabbath specter fades for a Grace Slick/Sandy Denny vibe. When supporting singer/guitarist Stephen McBean, Webber sacrifices none of her vocal punch.

Even when the tempos eased up, the songs continue their slow burn and never shed a strand of muscle. All their droning dirges stayed fresh past their five minute marks. The epic “Tyrants” never dragged; it leaves the audience wondering how those eight minutes blew by so quickly. A blistering three-song encore felt much the same - the tightness and flow of the music never faltered.

Black Mountain’s lyrics land squarely in Middle Earth on most tunes. But no one came to hear them for extra credit in poetry class. These psychedelic revivalists draw a crowd for the riffs, the epics and the synths. On Monday, they delivered an avalanche of all three.

Friendly Neighborhood Bat Rays

This was probably my favorite moment from my trip's last day - the ray pool at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. Everyone flocks to the shark touching pool, but the rays flock to the humans at the edge of their tank.

Yeah, a version of these guys did in The Crocodile Hunter, but when exposed to people regularly, they're not too far away from dogs begging for more head scratches.

While the slimy leather of the rays' skin is a far cry from man's best friend, they served as an interesting marine surrogate.

Several surged out of the water in quest of a quick rub, from the scarred brown bat ray who couldn't get enough to the shy shovelnosed guitarfish (who named this animal?). They vigorously splashed at observers if ignored for more than a few seconds.

I spent about 20 minutes just watching them skim the surface for gentle hands.

Eight Miles Down

You might have noticed running blogged about with lessening frequency this year.

Well, with only two 5K's so far, I didn't expect anyone wanted to read about the latest training - nor did I want to write about it.

Since it's about to become my focus outside of work until May, it's going to become a lot more common. I'm not going to dog it through the Country Music Half Marathon, and so far, training has gone well.

I've mentioned the folks I'm training with, my buddy from work, his wife and his brother. They have run the half marathon before, and mapped a route through suburban Brentwood for training. By adding loops to the normal course, we're up to eight miles with seven weeks till the big morning.

Until that morning, every weekend must include at least one ordeal. My training comes in two doses. During the week, the Cumberland River Greenway is my new evening running spot, with four-nights-a-week jogs starting in the 5K/4-mile range and building to six miles in the coming weeks.

On the weekend, the long run is critical to increased endurance. Yesterday marked the move to 8 miles, which Ric, my buddy from work, had already done several times.

Two days earlier, Nashville received its first real snowfall since I arrived; snow still clung to the shady spots, but couldn't combat the shift to 50-degree afternoons.

My improved endurance from the weekday runs showed yesterday, as I didn't sputter until the final mile, when a combination of leg cramps, sore tendons and hunger pains (don't ask me why) forced me into mini-interval mode.

I might lurch down the hallways at work with Frankenstein's gait, but in late April it will be worth it.

Give Cruel and Unusual Punishment a Chance

In the Bill of Rights, there are many pieces people think should go. Most of them are wrong. People always want to limit free speech, take guns away from hunters or in the case of the Supreme Court, widen the scope of eminent domain.

My problem lies with the ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Why? Creativity. The Greeks gods knew how to punish people in Hades, and good old fashioned American sadism could do the same. You might arrive at better results with more Sisyphean-style labors.

Exhibit A: Tripp Isenhour.

My recommendation: Bind his arms and legs, then place him in an enclosure with a flock of raptors and no other food source for 24 or 48 hours. No blindfold for this rich goober - he would get to see what great natural weapons they have in talons and beaks ... for as long as he could still see. It would be a akin to tossing Michael Vick into the dogfighting pit with some of his prize winners. All those cowards who didn't speak up while this primate shot balls at the hawk would be made to watch.

I admit, I'm borrowing a little from the punishment doled out to Prometheus in Greek myth. The birds might not hurt him ... too much.

But if you knew you'd end up in that predicament for killing an endangered bird, I doubt you'd be so quick to chop golf balls at one.

Cease the wonders

As I burrow through things you don't want to know about - prescription drug formularies of the major insurers - here's some debris from the past few days.

In case you're interested in the likely source of my brother's mental retardation (face it, autism is a purely PC term), check this article out.

In case you wondered why my little vacation posts stopped, well, it didn't seem right to waste my last precious California days writing about it. Why blog when the beach beckons? The Aquarium of the Pacific rocks, especially the bat rays, who behaved much like dogs in their open tank by begging to be petted.

In case you wondered why the beer blog hasn't been update in months, here's a taste.
My microbrew tour of Long Beach had only two stops, but each proved fruitful. In a chalice, Rock Bottom served up the Oxidizer, a double IPA that sidestepped the trappings of the style. Belmont Brewing Company offered the best microbrewed Belgian white I've had, left me to stagger back to Alicia's Euclid Avenue apartment on Monday.

In case you wonder about where America is headed, I give you the words of this pet store pundit/clerk imparted to me: "People really amaze me. That woman [walking out of the store] got home, discovered her $1.99 fish died, then drove the 20 miles back here to demand a new one. It cost her more in gas than she paid for the fish. Now, a $10 fish? Sure. But for a $1.99, you let it drop."

In case you wondered why Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas doesn't include Zyprexa on its formulary .... wait, you didn't I did. And now I need to figure out why.

Off vacation topics: I knew it

Buy your Plant/Krauss tickets now, because the Led Zeppelin reunion will not pass by soon. Robert Plant isn't board, just as he hasn't been since Bonzo died.

Thanks to Rolling Stone for this:
According to the U.K.’s Sunday Mirror, Robert Plant turned down £100 million, or around $200 million, to participate in a full Led Zeppelin reunion tour. A “band source” reportedly said that despite Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones‘ eagerness to take their reunion on the road, Plant “wanted to leave last year’s concert as their legacy.” Plant is scheduled to embark on a joint tour with Alison Krauss in April.

Drenched yet quenched

From Ohio to Nashville to South California, I cannot evade overcast days.

The sun hid behind a thick marine layer pushing in from the Pacific on Friday, casting a chill on the kayak trips we took through Newport’s back bay and its protected waters.

Alicia covered the Newport beat long enough to know places that the average visitor (me) could overlook. We were the only people renting kayaks from the Newport Aquatic Center that morning.

We paddled out against the incoming tide, with only about eight inches of kayak plastic separating me from the brackish. After a few minutes, all fear of dumping into the bay faded, and my balance returned.

Low marshy islands dotted the estuary, and their sensitive status meant no first-time kayaker could even drop a foot on them. We passed a few hundred feet from John Wayne’s former mansion along the water as planes above us departed John Wayne Airport. Wayne, the symbol of American machismo and icon for two generations of Republican presidents, departed nearly 30 years ago.

Of greater interest were the bird species ruling the banks and skies. Kent, Alicia’s boyfriend and a newspaper photographer, staked out the ospreys living in the area, but they were elsewhere on Friday. The estuary still sheltered a great diversity of species, from pipers to gulls to white-striped black ducks. They avoided the yellow kayaks like the plague, sticking to their shores and exiting the water whenever we paddled close.

While the aquatic center attendant seemed to wonder why we wanted to hit the water on such a day, it proved to be that moment of relaxation every vacation needs. Baptized in the estuary’s waters and limbs coated in salt, I felt reloaded.

No records were set during that hour of paddling awkwardly, but upon my return, I’m going to see how well a canoe might perform on the wide, mighty Cumberland.

Due south we wandered along Crystal Cove Beach, where magnificent boulders below the tide line housed thriving tidal pools filled with anemones, mussels, hermit crabs and the occasional fish. The sun punched through by this hour, just as we reached the Beachcomber restaurant and clutch of rustic beach cottages below the massive cliffs.
This was a novelty place, where a decent albacore sandwich and the world’s smallest soup (they actually served it in a demitasse cup) will set you back almost $15.

The walk back along Crystal Cove and its surging tides helped me to forget the tiny helping of tomato bisque.

As we reached the top of the cliffs, my eyes began to turn toward Joshua Tree, which would fill Saturday (more scrapes and bruises to come).