Mr. Christian goes to Augusta

My Metro Spirit press badge offers me rare glimpses into the inner workings of local government. OK, so anyone can attend the meetings, but cut me some slack, OK? My badge really isn't good for much other than opening doors when I'm locked out (that lamination is first-class). But regardless, this photo is an interesting study in local government at work.

Pictured, left to right: Joe Bowles, Betty Beard, Don Grantham and Alvin Mason. Ass only, behind Beard, is Sylvia Cooper, working on her City Ink column.

Vienna sausage, anyone?

No...that's not a canned meat treat, it's my left pinkie toe. Getting up off the couch yesterday, I smacked it on the ottoman as I was walking. Thinking I had just stubbed it, I walked it off. But then I looked at it, to check it for blood and noticed it was bent at a weird angle. After the waves of nausea passed, I called my doc to get it reduced. Went in 45 minutes later, but he didn't want to take a chance with it and referred me to my sports med guy. So I've been dealing with a bent, swollen toe for about 18 hours now, but an appointment in 6 hours to get it fixed.

Hopefully, I can get that 2 hour trainer ride in tonight.

It's the mini-marsmallows, honey, I swear

So last night, I'm on the Soul Bar message board looking for info about Sky City's pre-opening tonight. Amy comes over from where she's been watching What Not to Wear (which explains why I was on the internets--I'm not that gay...I don't care what anyone tells you).

"Whatcha lookin' at?", she asks.

"Soul Bar message board. Looks like they're open tomorrow," I cleverly retort.

"Cool." she says, walking into the kitchen.

I follow her in, always hungry at that time of night. I'm standing behind her as she reaches up into the cupboard...

...and pulls out coco(a).

Kind of a Freudian pick, I think.

Which is it?

So do I get four sticks with chicken on it? Or a stick with four chickens? Seriously, I'm imagining pulling up to the drive-thru window and them handing me a broom handle with four entire birds, and then gnawing on it two-handed while driving down Washington Rd. steering with my knees.

And, probably, with a window rolled down and a chicken-or-two sticking out. Getting cold fast.

Party's over before it began

This guy totally busted it riding the wrong way on W. Buena Vista in North Augusta, carrying two cases of Bud Light on his bicycle. If my phone shot video, you'd hear the decidedly family-unfriendly words coming out of his mouth as he gathered the runaway beers up. Oh...and did I mention this was just after 7 in the AM? Probably lots of lessons to be learned here, kids. Not the least of which is always wear a helmet when transporting 48 beers the wrong way in traffic.

F*cked up

So, browsing through my triathlon blog I found this jem. It's in there, if I remember, because it predates this one. Guess I'm gonna have to scour it for other gems.

From May 2006:

So Amy sent out an e-mail yesterday to a bunch of people asking how they relieve stress, for some story she's working on. She said be creative. I said does creative = truthful, and she said "of course not." So I started writing, only to later find out she wanted brevity. I'm not so much with the brevity so, long story short (ironically), she's not using it. Which means I can post it here.

(fictional work to follow)

Being a trauma surgeon can be very stressful. I'm presented with emergent cases and many, many times I am the only thing between those critically-injured peoples' lives and deaths. In any given night I may see gaping head injuries, gunshot victims with sucking chest wounds, little kids who've been mauled by pit bulls, impalements, amputations and everything else you can imagine. And some things you can't.

And the thing is, the patients aren't people to me. They are just injuries. I focus on their vital signs and what's bleeding, and that's about it. My only concern is to stabilize them and fix what's broken, torn or severed. It sounds harsh at best and inhuman at worst, but trust me--it's the only way to do my job. If I get caught up in them as people, then I'm distracted. And if I'm distracted, well, game over. So I never hear their stories. Oh sure, I sometimes hear about how they got to be in the condition in which they are presented: the drive-by shooting, the fall from a ladder or the car accident. But I don't hear about their families, their jobs or their problems. I don't get to hear those stories.

Nor do I want to. Those stories, the things that make them who they are simply don't factor into the equation I must solve in order to fix them. But I save their lives regardless. When I do, it's intensely rewarding. I'm the hero, almost Godlike, at least in their eyes.

Sometimes--too many times--however, they don't make it. Their injuries are just too severe, they'd lost too much blood before they got to my OR. For whatever reason, sometimes they just die. And when they die we have the unimaginable task of telling their families.

And that's when it becomes real. That's when, all of a sudden, their lives mean something to me. Gone is the surgical field, replaced by this group of people, pleading with their eyes and their words to give tehm any semblance of good news. BUt when ther eisn't any, there's this pat speech I use, along the lines of "Your son/daughter/wife/husband was critically injured. He was brought to the ER where we did everything we could to stabilize him/her. But his/her heart stopped and despite our best efforts, he/she died. I'm very sorry."

And I've delivered that speech to those shocked, disbelieving family members so many times it has become rote. Inside, I'm distant as I repeat it, dissasociated. I do it with apparent compassion, but in reality it's cold and unfeeling. Because, unlike other doctors, I have no relationship with these people, apart from their now-dead loved ones. I've never met them before this moment, yet I am required to deliver this horrific news. And it's hard. You have no idea how hard.

People in my profession deal with this stress in many different ways. A lot of us play golf, run, paint, play music. Usually to obsessive levels. Some of us find solace in religion. Some of us drink too much, or seek out the companionship of similarly nameless, faceless souls. Just to feel their warmth; to embrace something living.

But not me. I guess you could say I follow a different path. Not often, but once in a while, when all of that stress mounts to the breaking point, I relieve it by going downtown, late at night. And savagely murdering homeless people.

I think Amy sort of regrets sending me that e-mail.

Lost in translation (I hope)

So this morning on Stacy's blog, there's a comment from "bobo81" on one of her posts. Actually, it's sort of an uncomment, because this person said literally nothing. But, being the curious person I am, I click the link to his profile and discover (which you already know if you clicked the link associated with his blogger name) that he has more than a few blogs. Among them such fascinatingly disparate topics, like: "star war", "south beach diet", "cat t-short", "ornish diet", "Russian hi-tech shock" (wtf?), "Amazing free sex stories", and "fish catalogue."

Five bucks says you can't guess which one I clicked first. Ok, it was "Russian hi-tech shock" (apparently an homage to bobo81's computer mouse collection--I want to party with this guy), and after that "fish catalogue" (including a post titled "My cat eat golden fish!"--the post in it's entirety reading "My cat Putin eat my gold fish!." Damned good for nothing Putin.). But after that i was drawn like Porkchop to his food bowl to "Amazing sex stories." And I swear, finer erotica has never been written. Take this excerpt (warning...not for the feeble):

An apartment is one-room, but a room is very large, all of walls in shelvings, windows are curtained off. From furniture only the large polished dinner-table and bed, it is defiantly empty, in spite of the fact that can contain persons five. Suddenly from a bathroom a scream is heard. Max and Denis exchange glances. Taking initiative in the hands (only in an order to pass, rocking thighs), sent in a bathroom. I open a door. Our third friend is Dmitry, upright under a shower, voraciously sucks the papillae of young girl. It looks years seventeen.

I need to read further to see if Dmitry eats her golden fish.

Life lessons at the world's greatest mexican restaurant

So yesterday, after the ING marathon my aunt and uncle took Nola, Amy and I to this Mexican restaurant out somewhere west of Roswell (Georgia...not where the aliens crashed). A little blip in a tiny strip mall, smack between a dry cleaners and a Tae Kwon Do studio, Vallarta was totally unremarkable in appearance. I asked Uncle Joe how he found it, in such a random location a pretty good distance (even for Atlanta), from his house. He said it was his poker buddy Grover's favorite place. Joe said Grover could never play poker on Friday nights, because Friday was margarita night. Then, laughing, he said he always thought "margarita night" was a euphemism for Grover getting...and then he stumbled, realizing our 7 year old was along for the ride. I rescued him saying "yeah...we know what you thought Grover was getting."

Anyway, apparently Vallarta is the home of the bottomless margarita. They had like five different sizes on the menu, from small to "fishbowl," but apparently, if you're in the know you just order "margarita" and they bring you a glass. And as soon as you half-way empty it, up shows the waiter with a pitcher who refills it. And that repeats until you slur "no mas."

And even then, they give you more. Bueno.

Add to that a free bowl of chicken soup and free desert at the end with perfectly edible food in the middle and I can't believe these guys are still in business. But this wet dream of spice and liquor wasn't without its quirks--both nestled neatly in the menu. No...not the food. The food was pretty standard stuff. What was interesting was the lunch menu (and the lunch special on the board). Both notable for the fact that they are only open from 5pm during the week and 4pm on Saturdays. Maybe there's some secredt lunch cabal at Vallarta. Who knows. It's weird what you think about after your fifth glass of limey-tequilla-y goodness.

Then there were the instructions for eating Mexican food, at the bottom of the menu page describing what tacos, burritos and enchilladas are. I haven't seen that in years, and figured that by now, people just knew. I've also seen before, and also not in years, that sentence saying it's cool to pick a taco up with your hands. I mean, seriously, does anyone go all George Costanza-with-a-Snickers-bar and try to slice into a crunchy taco with a knife and fork? I've never seen it. I'd like to, but I haven't. But what was interesting about this disclaimer was what was apparently lost in translation:

"It is perfectly acceptable and expected to teach tacos with your hands."

Cause, ya know, spare the rod and spoil the meat in a tortilla and all.

Tired

Corey Pein recommended me to write Land of the Blind when he left for the gloomier, but arguably greener pastures of Portland, Oregon. And when he did, man was I flattered. I mean, Corey's the man...before he's done he'll have a Pulitzer or two in his backpack (cause I'm pretty sure they don't have mantels at whatever youth hostels he's staying at). Now, I'm starting to think he either doesn't like me very much or is just kind of a sick bastard that finds some pleasure in inflicting misery on his friends.

Because this column is becoming a burden of Atlasian proportions.

OK, it's not that bad, but I'm in a hyperbolic mood today, so humor me. I should have seen the signs, though. Before he left, when he was still writing the column, he told me more than once that he hated it. I thought he was kidding, because, c'mon...a forum where you get to screw with the media establishment, and weekly at that?

Well, it sounded pretty awesome.

Corey never elaborated on why he hated writing it, and I never asked him. Mainly because I was afraid he was serious. I told myself that he was just overburdened, and needed to have some of the weight lifted. Nine months later, I know he hated it. Here's the thing. It was pretty cool, at least at first. Especially for an ordinary person with bare minimum qualifications (i knew that journalism minor would pay off some day). It was fun, taking the best of the worst Augusta Chronicle columns and shredding them to pieces. What no one told me was there was this reputation that went along with it. And while Joan Jett may not care about her bad reputation, turns out I kind of care about mine.

Lately, I've taken a whipping at the hands of the folks all over town. I've been called "sanctimonious" and "negative" by people who've never met me. And, normally, that wouldn't bother me a lick. Get to know me, and I might change your mind. But what does get me is when people who *do* know me tell me that what I write doesn't reflect the person I am. That may be a subtle distinction, but man. It hurts a little; it tells me I'm not being true to who I really am.

I mean, I know I've got this sarcastic streak, but I swear I try to use it in a good-natured way. In print, though, it's hard to pull off sarcasm in a good-natured way. You can't see the upturn of my mouth into a half-smile. You can't see my eyebrows raise as I try to get a rise out of you. You can't hear me laugh a little. If we're having a beer together, you get to take my words in context with my tone, inflection and gestures. You don't get those luxuries when reading my words.

I've heard that tone is set by the writer, but I believe that's only a half-truth. Yes, you can try, and probably better writers than me can pull it off successfully. But, ultimately, unless you're having discourse, tone is set by the reader. You make of the writer's words what you will. You bias them with your experiences or expectations. If you didn't, there wouldn't be classes in school where you try to get at the writer's true meaning. There wouldn't be debates about what Melville's whale really symbolized. Not that I'm putting myself in that category, but if the true meanings put forth by good writers are constantly in question, why would it be expected that I would do any better?

So, Like Atlas and Ahab, I have this burden.

You want cheese with those quackers?

Se went and had Mexican last night at Teresa’s on Boy Scot road—Nola loves it because there’s this pond out front full of ducks and geese, and the girl loves the birds. So we were eating, and all of a sudden the geese, probably 8 of them, parade up the driveway going who-knows-where. So, as we’re leaving, we see all the geese and by now a bunch of ducks, all waddling around in this big field. And, of course, it looks like a party, so I start singing “ain’t no party like a goose par-taaaaayyyy…” And I’m trying to figure out why it sounds so familiar…but then I figure out it’s because there ain’t no party like my Nana’s tea party.

Hey.

Ho.

A man of several words

So I'm in a hurry a couple of days ago to pick Nola up from school. I've left work a bit late, and so I'm scrambling trying to make red lights and avoid trains on the way. I *hate* being late. So, cruising down Laney Walker and I'm happy because there are no trains in the distance. Thanks the iron gods!

But that happieness is shattered soon enough when the giant Escalade in front of me lumbers to a crawl in advance of the first set of tracks. I try to cut right, into the other lane to get around the guy, but there's a school bus stopped there, the driver apparently looking both ways. So my attention is focused on the big shiny truck. Finally, he inches across and speeds up. But for literally 2 seconds, because there are more train tracks to come. Brake lights. Blood pressure rising. C'mon! You're driving a huge truck!, I think. But my telepathy doesn't register with him so he continues inching his way across the second set of tracks.

And by now, even though I'm being delayed mere seconds, I'm seriously getting angry. And if you know me, you know that's something I just don't do. Unless, maybe, I have to pick up dog poop at 5:30 in the AM (but that's another story).

But angry I am, and especially so because I know there's still one more treacherous set of parallel iron bars set into the asphalt for this guy to navigate. So when his brake lights come on yet again, I've had it. Down goes my window, and out comes this:

"Goddammit...you're driving a huge truck! Not...eh. Not...uh..... Not...um, not something that can't withstand the stress of driving over railroad tracks at a decent rate of speed!"

Needless to say, my window went back up.

Nola say what?

"Daddy...don't come in here. It might make you sick. I'm doing the monkey one."

Taken out of context, those are words that don't deserve to come out of a seven-year-old. Unless, possibly, it's the progeny of Britney and K-Fed you're talking about. But, when said in reference to Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz, it makes perfect sense.

Note to journalists: this is why it's evil to take quotes out of context.

Shut your trap

Over on my triathlon forum, there was a thread started by a guy who had a disagreement with his swim coach. Coach told him to do thing "A", guy wanted to do thing "B." Coach told him to shut his trap and do thing "A." Oh, and by the way, the coach is my wife the guy said. Not surprisingly, the consensus from the group was "shut your trap and do what your coach/wife tells you."

So that brings me to today's hilarity. I'm in the unique position of having an editor who's also my wife. OK, maybe it's not unique, because I'm sure somewhere in the universe there exists someone in a similar position. But at least it's an interesting situation. So anyway, I submit my column this morning with the following request:

"Not to question your editorial prowess, but can we keep the bolded headers? So much easier on the readers…"

To me, it makes sense. I write a column that often features short, unrelated snippets. Without bolding the first few words of each paragraph, the unassuming reader thinks (naturally) that it's all related. But then they see this rapid shift of topic and they think they're either missing something or I'm an idiot. Regardless, it trips them up, and tripping up you're readers is never a good thing. Like elementary school students and Michael Bay film fans, once you've lost their attention, there's no getting it back.

This is the e-mail I got in response:

"Writers do not get to make demands of the editors. Have I not made this clear?"

Damn! I sure got the smack-down. Of course, she meant it as a joke (what better than a snarky wife?), but she's right. We've had this discussion many times before. And I get it: Writers write, editors edit. Now, were I to have a different relationship with her (namely, if she were not the woman I often have sex with), that would totally be the end of it. Oh sure, we might have some respectful, possibly even scholarly conversation about the merits of my point of view, versus the pointlessness of hers. Like "if we did that for you, we'd have to do it for everybody" or "it's a style thing for which we have no flexibility" (cause style is so much more important than substance).

But, being that my relationship is so much more, well, familiar, I can be more to the point. As I was with this follow-up email:

"Did you not see the punctuation? That was a question. For reference, this is a demand: Shut it!

Clear?"

If I weren't her husband, that kind of backsass would get me canned in about three seconds. But since I have a different relationship, I can send her crap like that with no fear of retribution.

Until I get home, of course.

O'mazing Gray

Crack in the communion wafers? Why yes I will have some!

Rhetorical question

So I've fallen asleep on the couch, watching the third episode of the night of Veronica Mars, from the 1st season DVD Amy got me for Christmas (awesome). I'm just waking up, and Amy comes over and picks up the remote to turn it off so we can go to bed:

A: How does this work?

J: Press the "stop" button.

A: (irritated) I know how it works!

Robot overlords, pt.2

LotB #27

It’s no secret that the Augusta Chronicle has a conservative bent, and that’s of course readily apparent on the editorial pages. You can find evidence elsewhere in the paper, but you usually have to dig. That wasn’t the case, though, on the Dec. 30 front page, amidst the “Faces of 2007” collage. Amongst the 38 photos represented, the republican and democratic presidential candidates were all there, but the placement was questionable. I’m sure it was just a coincidence that the republicans were at the top left, right under the banner, while the democrats were relegated to the very bottom right, below the fold. On a positive note, they actually did represent Ron Paul.

Along those lines, there’s a lot of buzz about how the media is not only ignoring Paul, but that they are actively suppressing information about him. Charges have been levied both against Fox News and ABC, for example, for ignoring polls in which he has done well, and he’s being left out of debates left and right. All of this despite his evident popularity and the fundraising records he’ setting. A quick check of the Chronicle archives shows that Paul has been mentioned in stories in the paper exactly twice in the last month: once in the above-mentioned “Faces of 2007” and once noting that he actually won a straw poll in Aiken county. And where was that presented in the paper? Way down at the bottom of the “Across the Area” section. By comparison, Rudy Giuliani (who Paul beat handily in the Iowa caucus), showed up in five stories. Time will tell, of course, whether all this will hurt, or possibly actually help Paul. He was strong in Iowa, and it seems like the more he’s ignored by the press, the more it emboldens the Paulistas.

Bizzarely, the Chronicle webforums were taken down for a good two days after what seemed to be a robot porn attack. You’d think I’d talk here about how that break may have actually given Barry Paschal some time to devote to his actual job, but no. Because there may be something more insidious afoot. Now, I’m not normally much of a conspiracy theorist, but pornbots attacking webforums, coupled with a Houston Chronicle story about the future of sex and relationships with robots makes you think about the inevitable. Soon, robots will make us their bitches. Stage one: distract the humans with robot sex. Next: rule the world! The only question is whether it will be a benevolent or oppressive robocracy to which we will succumb.

So the R. Kelly show scheduled for at the James Brown Arena last week actually went off as planned, without one of the late cancellations that has been plaguing the venue of late. That’s good news, since it shows that the coliseum authority actually has the ability to pull off headliner shows. I haven’t heard, though, whether or not any underage girls on sitting in the front row needed rain coats.

Note to everyone: Jason Barron is not to be referred to by the name “Jason Barron”, without Jason Barron’s permission. Jason Barron must only be referred to as ”Suzuki Man.” Alternatively, you may refer to Jason Barron as “The Jason.” Never, ever call Jason Barron “Jason Barron”, unless you want to incur the wrath of Jason Barron.

Jason Barron.