Mobtown Blues

Day 21: Happy MLK Day

 
Yessir. Nothing honors Martin Luther King's legacy more than half-price sliders.

Oh, wait.  I can think of something that might.  Check out Barack Obama's MLK Day speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

Day 20: dananananananana FUEL-MANNN!!!

 

I don't know.   I just like robots.

Day 19: Bolton Hill

 

The Baltimore neighborhood of Bolton Hill has some of the most striking Victorian architecture on the East Coast.  The layout of Eutaw Place, the site of these rowhomes, was based on the Champs Elysees.

Day 18: gelato and a smile

 
Last Friday our friends introduced us to Peter's Inn on Ann St.  From the outside, it looks like your standard Fells Point neighborhood bar.  Come to think of it, from the inside it looks like your standard Fells Point neighborhood bar also.  But the food is far from the Reuben-with-fries fare that one might expect given the setting.  I had a duck leg confit that all but melted in my mouth, K enjoyed the tuna tartar with seaweed salad and scallion pancakes, and we started off with some of the best steamed mussels I've ever tasted.  Best of all?  None of our entrees was priced higher than $14.

After dinner we took an evening stroll and perhaps managed to walk off one or two calories, which we promptly put right back on again with a stop at Pitango on Broadway Square for gelati.  I chose the hazelnut, which I found creamy, silky, and sweet without being too sweet.  The service was refreshingly courteous and friendly, as if the women behind the counter actually enjoyed interacting with their customers. 

In between our first bottle of wine and my last cup of cafe Americano, the conversation spanned the gamut from Ellen Carey to Tila Tequila.

I've had worse evenings.

Day 17: This is the poem of the air

 
I was so excited by the first real snowfall of the season the other day.  As soon as the flakes started to come down in earnest, I put on my coat and hat and went for a long walk around Mt. Vernon Place, relishing the way the snow turned the world white, knowing that it wouldn't last.

Searching for a fragment of text to pair with this image, I came across this uncharacteristic poem by Longfellow.

Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.

from 'Snow-Flakes'
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Day 16: In Memory of Davey Allison

 
I've driven past this mural for years.  To the extent that I thought about it at all, I guess I figured that Davey Allison was a local boy who did some stock car racing, that perhaps he was a relative of whoever owns the adjacent gas station.  It turns out that he was something of a NASCAR legend.  Shows what I know.

From www.daveyallison.net:

"David Carl Allison was born on February 25,1961 in Hollywood, Florida. He was the son of racing great Bobby Allison and his wife Judy. Davey was born on the eve of Bobbys first Daytona 500. He was the eldest of four children, sister Bonnie, brother Clifford and sister Carrie. In 1963 Bobby moved his family to Hueytown, Alabama, which was later dubbed the 'biggest little racing town in the land'.

"...Davey had some friends and accompanied him to races. They became known as the peach fuzz gang. On April 22, 1979 the peach fuzz gang along with Bobby Allison and a couple of his workers accompained Davey to his first race in Birmingham. Davey finished 20th. His first win came after six starts at Birmingham on May the 5th.

...1987 was the turning point in Davey's career. He raced for Ranier-Lundy's Winston Cup team starting only 22 of 29 races. He gave a new meaning to the word rookie and there has not been a rookie to match his rookie season to date. Davey became the first rookie to sit on the front row for the Daytona 500 qualifying second at 209 mph. With only 10 career Winston Cup races to his credit and in only the second race of the season he scored his first pole position. He racked up five pole positions and three outside polls for an unprecedented eight front row starts. He won his first Winston Cup race at Talladega and followed with a second win two races later at Dover to become the only rookie drive to win two super speedway races in a rookie season. Davey almost won three more races that season only to finished second by less than a second, one second and two seconds. He finished the season 21st in points earning Rookie of the Year and holds the record for rookie earnings.

"...Davey was tradgically injured in a crash while trying to land his helicopter at Talladega Superspeedway on July12 ,1993.  David Carl Allison 32,died on July 13, 1993.  Leaving an emptiness in the sport of Winston Cup Racing and an emptiness in the hearts of race fans across the world."

Day 15: Cox Street

 

I've taken so many pictures of Hampden, you'd think that I lived there.

Day 14: The Secret to a Happy Marriage

 

I'd love to find this sticker for a friend of mine.  He is like the emperor of not wearing pants.

Blogging the Debate: Where the midget strippers at?

New drinking game: every time the Democratic presidential candidates invoke the name, legacy, or memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. during this debate, take a swig.  We're just a few minutes in, and already I need a refill.

Look, I respect Sen. Edwards.  I like Sen. Edwards.  I voted for Sen. Edwards in 2004.  But let's face it, his time has come and gone, at least as far as running for president is concerned.  He's been talking as if South Carolina is his 'firewall,' to use the political euphemism du jour, but who's he kidding?  He stands to be humiliated in his home state's upcoming primary; the best he can hope for is to do better than expected, and after that he doesn't have a leg to stand on when the race goes national. 

Regarding the candidates' proposals for an economic stimulus: is $500 or $650 cash money in each American household really going to reverse the slide toward recession?  I mean this as a serious question.  I'm not an economist, but I really am having trouble seeing how essentially a reprise of the Bush tax cuts could have a causal relationship to national economic revitalization.

So much for CNN's "honor system" when it comes to the duration of candidates' responses.  Oh, well.  At least it's shaping up to be a more spirited Democratic debate than the one in Las Vegas last week.

Obama is consistently rocking the applause-o-meter tonight.  He's really hitting the Clintons back hard in response to their attacks over the past few days.  It's a difficult balancing act: if he doesn't respond to their salvos, he just allows himself to be pummeled.  If he rolls up his sleeves and gets too aggressive, he risks losing some of that statesmanlike sheen he's been coasting on since his campaign started.

Yikes.  The gloves are off and the claws are out.  Obama just referred to Clinton's past as a "corporate lawyer sitting on the board of Wal-Mart."  Clinton responded by making an allusion to Obama's work on behalf of "corporate contributor [alleged slumlord Tony] Rezko."  Now we see the Clinton oppo machine at work.  I can't imagine that either the Obama or Clinton campaigns expected this level of acrimony from their respective candidates tonight.  I've never seen Obama so angry. 

This is getting totally out of control.  I blame Blitzer.  A better moderator -- Jim Lehrer, say -- wouldn't have let this thing devolve into the catfight it's turned into.  Sen. Edwards might as well just take a seat in the audience, since his rivals are sucking all the air out of the room.

Now Edwards is, predictably, acting as the voice of reason.  Being an also-ran at this point, it's easy for him to take the high ground here.  Consequently, his gripe about how the frontrunners' squabbling won't help children in need of health care comes off as a bit of a cheap shot. 

Ah, now Edwards is back on point, talking about fighting predatory financial and housing practices that adversely impact African-Americans.  He knows his stuff when it comes to this subject.  If he sticks with this tone , he may just end up siphoning some votes from Clinton in South Carolina.

Given the opportunity to respond to Clinton's remark about Rezko, Obama did a fair job of dialing back the vitriol, sliding instead back into his customary, above-the-fray pose.

I can't believe that Clinton is painting herself as the underdog here.  Listen, Senator, you can't have it both ways: you can't be the candidate of experience and incumbency on the one hand, and then play the victimized insurgent on the other.  Or you can, but it's still pretty cynical.

Clinton just said that Obama doesn't take responsibility for anything.  Given the boos the remark just got from the crowd, perhaps that wasn't the best tactical move on her part.  If the press plays that audio clip with the same regularity that it did Howard Dean's infamous scream back in '04, that could seriously hurt her chances of winning the nomination.

Now she's moved onto criticizing Obama's voting records in the Illinois legislature, which I feel is a totally low blow.  Knowing something about how labyrinthine the floor action in state legislative politics can be, the comment is pretty obfuscatory.  Now Edwards is piling on, suprisingly.  Obama's explanation about the nuanced technical aspects of voting in the state Senate is getting lost in the kerfluffle.

K just said that she feels that she needs a fact-checker for this debate.  I agree.  Maybe the fact-checker can repair my bullshit detector, which exploded somewhere back around minute 27.

I'm so angry at CNN right now.  This sort of Springer-esque slugfest is representative of the lazy, sleazy, lowest common denominator journalism of which the network has become the chief excretor in recent years.

Obama just snuck in a reference to what Mitt Romney likes to refer to as "Hillarycare," just after definitively stating that undocumented workers would not be covered by his proposed health care plan.  Both points must warm some Republican hearts.  Party like it's 1993, y'all.

Edwards just bashed Obama and Clinton for taking money from Big Pharma and Big Insurance, respectively.  Clinton is gazing at the former senator from South Carolina with an "I will crush you like a BUG" glare.  When members of Congress start pointing fingers at each other over the sources of their campaign contributions, we're getting into serious pot/kettle territory.

Edwards just made a veiled comparison between Obama and President Bush, which to my mind violates some kind of variant of Godwin's Law. 

Obama might have fumbled the health care question.  But hey, who's paying attention to the issues at this point?

What, there's a war on?  Oh, yeah.  I had totally forgotten about that.  Clinton didn't get the ovation she should have when she hit her "bring the troops home" talking point.  I think the crowd's a little upset at the candidates right now, and understandably so. 

The candidates are back on message and things have simmered down a bit as we move into the second half.

Blitzer just announced that, after a commercial break, "all the [debate] rules will go away."  Marvelous.  What's he going to do, give the candidates two-by-fours with nails sticking out of them?  Again, this just goes to show the type of retarded, divisive shock-tainment that characterizes CNN these days.  I'm waiting for Wolf to bring out the midget strippers and start fielding audience questions from teenaged baby-mamas.

...Aaaannndd, we cut to commercial.  Thank goodness.  After the last hour, I'm in the need of another beer.  Or perhaps some horse tranquilizer, if we have any left.

Blitzer is asking Obama about Charlie Rangel's recent comment that African-Americans should vote for what is best for the nation, rather than what "feels good."  This should be a softball for Obama.  And it is.  Smiles and applause all around.

Edwards just got asked about how voting for a black presidential candidate might change perceptions about African-Americans, and of African-Americans about themselves.   It's a tough, if not unfair question, but he fielded it pretty well, by saying that he has no responsibility telling African-Americans what to consider when they vote, and then steering the conversation back to his home turf of fighting poverty.  Clinton's picked up the anti-poverty thread, invoking how great the Clinton presidency was for poor people and African-Americans.  Um.  Welfare reform, anyone?   Now Obama's bringing up his street cred as a community organizer and civil rights attorney.  Yeesh, the crowd really isn't picking up on the expected applause lines.

Ah, there's one, with Obama hitting on the theme of moving past the racial divides perpetuated in part by "the media."  And he gets in a funny, too, referring to the groundbreaking nature of a presidential race in which voters have a choice between "an African-American...a woman...John..."

Now Obama is being asked whether Bill Clinton was, in the words of Toni Morrison, "America's first black president."  What an inane freaking question.  "Er... yes?"  "Er...no?"  "Er...screw you?"  What sort of answer does one give to that?  Obama handled it deftly, saying that he would like to check out Clinton's dancing ability before passing judgement on whether or not the former president is, in fact, "a brother."

Whoa.  Clinton just made two MLK references and dropped a Frederick Douglass quote.  Chug!  Chug!  Chug!  Now she's taking a page from the Obama playbook, talking about post-partisanship and bringing the country together.  I don't doubt her sincerity, but she just doesn't pull off that sort of rhetoric as well as Obama does.

Obama, remembering where he was, announced that he would like to strengthen the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, to sizable applause from the largely African-American audience.  The CRD hasn't exactly covered itself with glory over the past eight years.  Clinton followed up by pointing out that the Republicans aren't talking about stuff like race, which, while true, is not exactly a revelation.

Clinton was just asked whether Bill's gone too far with the bad-cop routine he's been pulling.  She steered it back to her qualifications to be president, which had the effect of diffusing the question.  Yawn.  Now Obama's being asked for his response.  Take the high road, take the high road, take the high road...ach.  He's got to drop those sour grapes.  Okay, now he's back on message, talking about "expanding the scope of the electorate" and swiping at Bush/Cheney.

Interesting.  Edwards just predicted that John McCain would win the GOP nomination, and then talked about his (Edwards') ability to compete more effectively than his rivals againts McCain in non-urban areas.   It's a fair point, but it obscures the fact that, no matter who the eventual Republican nominee is, the general election will be the Democrats' to lose. 

I know that this is almost certainly unintentional on the part of Obama and Edwards, but every time they refer to Clinton by her first name, it carries a whiff of sexism, instead of mere collegiality.  The dynamics of race and gender hover like a cloud over this election.

Obama is taking aim at Clinton's perceived superiority on national security issues, saying that "we need to overcome the politics of fear in this country," a comment which generated some mild applause.  This is the area in which he is seen as being the weakest, rightly or wrongly, so it's good that he's addressing it.  Unfortunately, from my perspective at least, he's unlikely to outflank Clinton on that subject.

Another asinine question from Blitzer: "If Dr. King were alive today, why do you think he'd endorse you?"  (Chug!  Chug!)  Obama's unexpected response: "I don't think Dr. King would endorse any of us...he'd hold us accountable."  Well said.  Clinton fired back with a stodgy realpolitik comment about the "marriage of idealism and politics," i.e., LBJ was the chocolate to MLK's peanut butter.

And that's a wrap.  It'll be interesting to see how the ramifications of this donnybrook get parsed over the next few news cycles.  I don't think that either Clinton or Obama pulled ahead of the other tonight, but I'm sure that once the spin gets spun, one of them will be annointed the victor. 

K's comment?  "I have to admit, it was kind of fun seeing the white male [candidate] as irrelevant."  Dr. King might have agreed.
 

Day 13: In America, there's a magazine for every subculture.

 
Years ago, I used to read 'Details' magazine on a semi-regular basis.   I'm not talking about the current Fairchild Publications incarnation, but rather the slightly different 90's version, the one that featured articles on Matt Dillon and Chris Eigeman, reviews of the latest albums by Fun Loving Criminals and Sebadoh, a fashion guide ("Shirt Tails: In or Out?"), and a sidebar showing that 73% of readers thought that Bill Clinton was more likely to judge a wet t-shirt contest than Dole.

I'm not sure why I read it, really.   Thumbing through its pages just reinforced my insecurities over not having a flat stomach, a square jaw, nine pairs of Diesel jeans, or the desire to spend $20 on a cover charge and some beverage made with Midori and Curacao.   I'll admit that I did buy the debut CD from Brooklyn Funk Essentials based on a 'Details' review.   Good album, that.

Anyway, 'Relevant' magazine reminds me of 90's-era 'Details,' minus the 'Ask Anka' sex column, plus Jesus.  In addition to a cover article on Gen-X megachurch pastor Rob Bell, the latest issue has an article on a socially conscious fashion concern, a sidebar on rapper Nas, an ad for a t-shirt line called "Twice Born," a guide to the 2008 primary season (a plurality of readers proclaimed Barack Obama "most likely to succeed," best dressed," "most likable," and "most athletic"), and a laudatory item on a new CD by an artist named Matthew Good.   So convincingly 'Details'-esque is 'Relevant,' that in the midst of my marveling at all the small-pored, angular-jawed, white-toothed young people in the photographs, I was startled to turn the page and find an advertisement for the NKJV Study Bible.

As with 'Details,' in years gone by, I'm afraid I'm far too unhip to read 'Relevant' on even a semi-regular basis.  But who knows?  If Shane Claiborne starts writing a sex column for the mag, I may end up subscribing.