History finally stopped reschuduling our intimate lunch date, for today I finally walked through the inviting doors of the Salt Museum in Liverpool, New York. It is only one room, so I walked out 12 minutes later a changed man. I don't know that the Salt Museum and I will see eachother again, but I know we'll always have that one magical cup of coffee together. And someday, when I've found another museum, maybe something in that museum will make me smile, and think of the good times I once had staring down at a large assembly for evaporating brine.
Here's what I learned.
A Brief History of the Syracuse Salt Industry
15,000,000 B.C.-5,000,000 B.C.: Herds of dinosaurs with sodium-induced high blood pressure suffer a series of massive heart attacks while migrating through the swamps over modern-day Syracuse. Their bodies sink to the bottom of the marshes, and then salty glaciers, possibly made from the tears of dinosaurs mourning their dead relatives, plow those remains into the ground, where they decompose, leaving behind rich brine wells.
1710 A.D. - 1820 A.D.: Missionaries and settlers bring back to the coasts stories of Native Americans in the upstate region with remarkably good pickles and pastrami, and as the New York City Jewish population grows, demand for these products leads to the construction of the Erie Canal.
1848: Drunken prospectors, mistaking the Syracuse region for California, begin sinking shafts along the shores of Lake Onondaga and discover rich saltwater deposits. Powerful salted meat barons purchase the claims and begin planning extensive salt mining operations, but improvements to child labor laws over the next decade make those operations economically untenable. Kids are such sissies.
1861-1865: Plans to plow salt into the fields of the Confederacy lead to an explosion in the demand for high quality salt. Facilities which produce salt by evaporating brine are established along the entire shoreline of Lake Onondaga. Ambitious attempts to fill the lake with enough pollution to then set it on fire, thereby producing a LOT of salt, are halted halfway when someone realizes the lake is actually fresh water.
1875: Unnatural disaster strikes as more than 200,000 deer descend on the Syracuse region, tongues wagging, and begin attacking salt warehouses. More than 5,000 people are gored to death. This really happened. It was like "The Birds," but with deer. I swear.
1895: The city produces a factory to enter the lucrative salt water taffy industry. When local salt unions attempt to strike for higher wages, the Pinkertons are called in; 15 union members turn up drowned, deliciously, in taffy vats three weeks later. Other union members are beaten repeatedly with bags of salt, and taffy is used to pull out their fillings. The union retaliates by burning the factory, and the sweet dreams of thousands of young children, to the ground.
1920s: Improvements in refrigeration technology and the discovery of better salt deposits in the west crush the Syracuse salt industry. Operations are dismantled. After a series of widely publicized salt-eating conests are unable to eliminate excess inventory, mountains of salt are quietly shipped to the Midwest and dumped on farms there under cover of darkness. This causes the Dust Bowl.
1970s: The Salt Museum is opened in Liverpool, New York, firmly establishing the Syracuse region as the crown jewel of the Upstate New York Greater Tourism region. Millions of visitors flock there each year. Maybe billions. I mean, I counted 4 on a Friday afternoon, so you do the math.
There's not too much left for a man in Syracuse after he sees the Salt Museum, so on Saturday I hopped into my car and got my mind off higher gas prices by driving 150 miles to Buffalo. YEAH! I did some sightseeing, if you can call these things sights.
Forest Lawn Cemetery
I can now finally say I went to Forest Lawn. Hopefully the conversation will end there, because if anyone says, "the one in California with all the movie stars?" I will have to answer, "no, the one in Buffalo. With Millard Fillmore." And after that they'll probably excuse themselves to top-off their already full drink. Please note this entire scenario assumes I was invited to a party, which is unlikely, but go with it.
Our 13th president and his two dead wives have a pretty nice spot on a hill, along with a swank obelisk and the requisite presidential flag pole. It wasn't the fanciest presidential spread, but it DID have a fence, which means people might care enough about Millard Fillmore to one day defile his grave. So that's flattering, right?
It was a stroke that put Fillmore in ground. The more interesting story belongs to first wife Abigail -- according to the volunteers at the Millard Fillmore house in East Aurora (south of Buffalo a bit), she became ill while standing outside during the 1853 inaugural of Franklin Peirce, who spanked her husband in the 1852 election. Nice kick in the teeth, huh? The country tells you ON PAPER that you're unpopular, then your wife dies watching another man take your job. I'm sure she's sharing a laugh with William Henry Harrison in heaven right now.
The East Aurora house is the only surviving residence of Millard, who lived there from 1826-1830 with Abigail right after they got married. There are a few neat artifacts -- his desk, his bed, some old prints of campaign posters, and a lock of his hair from which we can undoubtedly clone a new Millard Fillmore once the country is in its hour of greatest need. But mostly it just reinforces the fact that he came from humble origins, because it's tiny (bigger than the log cabin he was born in, though). More than anything, my visit shored up the "salt of the earth" mystique that makes Millard Fillmore one of the most beloved and respected figures in American history.
The house has a bigger history than just Fillmore, though. After they left, it was rented out and fell into disrepair over the years, until it caught the eye of artist Margaret Price. She convince her husband, the mayor of East Aurora, to make the home into her studio, so she had the whole structure moved to its current site, spruced it up a bit, and removed the second-story floorboards to let in more light.
BOOOOOOOORING? Not quite! Margaret Price was one of the co-founders of Fisher-Price (her illustrations and children's books helped shape the look of many of the original toys). The company headquarters is in East Aurora, and I went to see their "Toy Town" museum. Sadly, no Millard Fillmore toys, but still fun to see the beige tape-recorder of my youth.
But back to Forest Lawn! One of the best things about my day trips, which look horrible on paper (if you're a normal human being), is that you stumble on some surprises. Toy Town, for example, was a surprise to me. But Forest Lawn had the one thing that made my day. In that fine cemetery, maybe an eighth of a mile from the 13th president of the United States ...
And what the heck, while we're sharing awsome photos, here's a sculpture in a field near one of the Forest Lawn mausoleums.
Blown Away
Of the many fine people who have made significant contributions to American History, Leon Czolgosz probably has the name that's hardest to spell. But did he let it stop him? NO! Here's where he had his one shining moment, on Sept. 6, 1901:
That's the approximate spot where Czolgosz introduced himself to William McKinley, by shooting him. Today it's a pretty nice looking neighborhood in Buffalo, built on the site of the Pan-American Exposition McKinley was attending; specifically, McKinley was at the Palace of Music when he got shot, and so scores of proud Americans honor his memory each year by shooting other proud Americans outside of nightclubs.
The marker is on a median strip. Fifteen feet away, a middle-aged guy was mowing his lawn with his shirt off when I stopped there. As I was leaving, I saw in the rear-view mirror that he was mowing the median around the rock. I can't decide if this is patriotic or not.
If you ask people from Syracuse what to do when you visit Syracuse, they will tell you to go to the mall. Then, after you give them a hard time for suggesting something crass and commercial and bland as a mall, which by the way you already read about online and are totally pumped to visit, they will tell you to go to Dinosaur Barbque.
It's a BBQ joint! It's a blues bar! It's a BBQ joint! It's a blues bar! It's a BBQ joint! It's a blues bar! SHE'S MY DAUGHTER AND MY SISTER!
The point is, it's both. And it's wildly popular; to get in at the busy times you might have an hour wait. Faithful readers know that I choose not to wait in line for an hour for anything that's not super cool (like the Supreme Court), and so I decided to ditch the blues part and just eat there. I went Sunday afternoon with fellow comedian and all-around swell guy Eric Lyden, shown here with a nice rack. And some ribs, too. BLADOW!
I generally do not like eating meat off the bone, because I prefer not to know my victims. Also, I spend a lot of money getting my nails did, and I don't like them messed up by sauces, or finger-licking. But this was some high-quality stuff. I had half a chicken, three ribs, cornbread, coleslaw and french fries. Our very nice waitress saw the empty plate and said I "went to town." As long as she wasn't envisioning a town named Fat Pig Junction, I'm taking that as a compliment.
If you want to work off that meal, take a nice stroll a few blocks south and check out Syracuse's world-famous monument to the 24-second shot clock. It changed the NBA, and I daresay all of our lives, forever until the end of time. Verily.
Walk It Out
After a huge meal, people sometimes want to take a walk to "work off" the meal. A person my size would burn about 350 calories an hour walking 17-minute miles. I probably ate around 1,800 calories at lunch. I'd have to walk five hours to zero that out.
I don't have five hours after a meal, because then the walk would start cutting in on my next meal. That's why after my usual heavy lunch or dinner, I head straight to the pool and push a wheelbarrow up stairs underwater.
What better way to honor the memory of Rick James than by coming on out to Happy Hour Trivia on Wednesday? Get to the DC Improv Lounge between 6:30 and 7 to sign up. I don't want to say it'll be the best trivia night in recorded history, but with Rick James looking down on us it's going to be close.
We're going to have a video round. We're going to have a brand-spanking-new "Top 10" round. We're going to have a straight-up Q and A round. PLUS we'll have some improv comedians on hand to help you out with the answers, and you'll get to see the world premiere of the latest video from the White History Project.
And then you get to go watch the show in the main showroom. Plus there's booze. Folks, if you're having more fun on a Wednesday than that, then you are probably a regular on the Craig's list personal ads.
Chester Arthur is best known as "The Father of Civil Service," and that pretty much gives you the baseline for the excitement level of his presidency. It's dull.
It started with a bang, though! Specifically, when Charles Guiteau shot James Garfield in a Washington, D.C., train station, and then announced, "I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts! Arthur is president now!" He also did the cabbage patch.
The thinking was that Vice President Arthur, a Stalwart Republican with a reputation for liking the patronage system, would be so grateful for his promotion that he'd pardon Guiteau and then give him the hook-up. This would have made for some really awkward office conversation.
SUPERVISOR: Charles, could you please file this paperwork?
CHARLES GUITEAU: I'm sorry, I didn't hear that. Could you speak into this gun?
SUPERVISOR: We've been over this. Do you need to talk to HR again?
CHARLES GUITEAU: How about I talk with Assistant Supervisor Johnson instead?
From a marketing perspective, that's not the best way to kick off your time at the top, so Arthur changed his tune and helped pass civil-service reform. And the rest is boring, boring history. The guy did well enough in office to leave the White House with a reputation for integrity and competence, and now he even has a pretty swank grave in Albany Rural Cemetery. Check it:
Yes, that's an angel dusting his sarcophagus. When the heavenly hosts are keeping your resting place dust-free, that's saying something. Not the biggest presidential grave, and not the sexiest location (though Albany Rural Cemetery is very pretty, and probably a nightmare for whoever has to mow the lawn), but Arthur's marker is the most distinctive one I've seen so far. Kudos, Chester.
Arthur is kickin' it (post kicking it) in Albany because his professional life was spent in New York; he was a lawyer who was named head of the New York Customs House by President Grant. Although he was supposedly a scrupulous man, he did know that the Stalwart Republican machine was buttering his bread, and he played the game by giving party hacks some cushy jobs. That's what got him fired by President Rutherford B. Hayes.
Two years later he was the vice president, even though Garfield hated his guts, because Republicans figured the Stalwart faction should have SOMEONE on the ticket and he was the only guy who seemed interested. One assassination later, and blammo! From utter disgrace to leader of the United States in three short years. So don't worry if you're stuck behind the counter at a Wendy's. Good things can happen if you keep your head down and keep plugging.
FUN ARTHUR FACTS!
Arthur commissioned Louis Comfort Tiffany to redecorate the White House in all the latest styles, although Congress blocked all attempts to make it non-white after Labor Day.
Known as Elegant Arthur for his refined taste, fastidious dress, and great gams.
Changed pants several times a day, not because he was a clothes horse, but because he had kidney problems. Cough.
Diagnosed with a fatal kidney ailment before becoming president, although as an Irishman kidney damage was probably in his future no matter what.
Fired everyone in Garfield's cabinet, except for "lucky charm" War Secretary Robert Todd Lincoln, who was present when Garfield was shot.
"Arthur" is considered the most inaccurate biopic ever made.
In only our third edition of Happy Hour Trivia, we already have repeat champions. The Golden Triangle Gun Club smoked the competition once again, scoring a 21 out of a possible 30. Behold their wrath:
Coming in second was Team Redundancy Team (19) and rounding out the winners' circle was the Dewey Ducks (18). Round one was movie trivia -- teams had to list the top 10 U.S. box office hits of all time (inflation-adjusted, of course). Not as easy as you might think. Round two was another video (check it out below). And round three was standard Q and A. Since the show in the main showroom was improv, we had three improvisers, Katie, Katie and Dan, help us out ... they worked the right answers into a couple of classic improv games. Thanks, guys!
Here's the video round, as promised; it's called "Fantastic Fours," and the instructions are part of the video. I truncated this to five questions for the web (there were 8 on the full version). Take a look right here for the answers..
Hey everyone, pumped for the Olympics? Excited for a bunch of fundamentally unwatchable sporting events where the margin of victory is hundredths of a second? Ready for a bunch of Olympic profiles on people who aren't all that inspirational and have very limited real job skills? And I bet you can't wait to watch tape-delayed events that you already read the results to online!
There's nothing quite like the national pride that swells in your chest from knowing that your countryman is the world's best slalom kayaker. Olympic fever -- CATCH IT!
Signs of the Apocalypse
I forgot to mention this last week, but when you drive into Buffalo on I-90, you pass a sign that says: "Buffalo, an All America City." There doesn't seem to be any obvious space where an "n" fell off.
Oh, and they have statues of buffalo on some of the grassy areas along highway on ramps. That I actually dug. If you ever get the chance to drive I-90 in the summer, it's very pretty. It has all those nice rolling mountains, and then every 100 miles or so you get to enjoy a small, industrial burn-out of a city. All the way from Buffalo to Boston! It's neat.
Dutch Wonderland
Martin Van Buren was tiny, but his house was honkingly huge:
That's Lindenwald you're looking at, and it's where MVB grew potatoes. In his spare time, he ran two presidential campaigns and tried to be a domineering political puppetmaster, but if you want to keep up a nice spread like that, you gotta focus on the potatoes. It's where the money is!
If you've got a soft spot for historic redheads, then you owe to yourself to get to the Dutch settlement of Kinderhook for the full Martin Van Buren Experience (thought sadly not in theme park form): he was born there, he lived there, and he's buried there. Beginning at the beginning ...
He was born on December 5, 1782, the son of a tavernkeeper. This is honored today with a sign on someone's front lawn. Growing up around drunks helped him deal with Andrew Jackson's friends later in life.
There are no signs marking where he became a lawyer or politican, forged the prototype of the modern political party, rose to national prominence as a senator and managing Jackson's presidential campaign, served as secretary of State and vice president, and then was Jackson's hand-picked successor.
But then there's Lindenwald! When Van Buren was a kid, it was the estate of some local big-shot judge and the top status symbol in town; Van Buren bought it for his post-presidency estate to let everyone know that he was the biggerest shot. According to the excellent Park Service guide, MVP probably had a bit of a chip on his shoulder from growing up relatively poor; this explains not only the purchase of the farm, but the money bin and the 24/7 dancing girls on the front lawn.
He bought it with something like 18 rooms, and by the time he was done it was up to 36, with an Italian-style tower, which would help you keep a lookout in case a mob of poor people ever tried to rush the place. The house is sprawling, airy, high-ceilinged ... and luxurious. Here's one of the parlors:
It's very green. The color green was first invented in 1836, so at the time this would have been a VERY expensive room. The pieces they have in there now aren't too overstated, but you do get the idea that Van Buren liked the finer things. He had a reputation as a dandy and the Italian-made ironing press to back it up; he was enough of a gadget freak to have a coffeemaker, which wasn't a standard appliance in the 1830s; and he actually had a flush toilet, though the flushing mechanism involved four Irish servingwomen, a rubber hose and a considerable amount of cursing. He entertained all the Albany big shots and anyone else who would care to stop by; from his library he actually ran twice more for the presidency, falling short both times.
MVB had a good 20 years in the place, and he built rooms for all his kids to come visit (Van Buren was a widower from his early 30s and never remarried); plus it worked as a functioning farm. That land is mostly sold off, so now all that's left is the house, but it's definitely worth it for that alone. Because you get to see his bed!
That's a Craftmatic adjustable, the first one ever sold in the states, and if I'm remembering the tour correctly Van Buren died in it. The hickory cane you see there was a gift from "Old Hickory" Andrew Jackson; each knob on the cane has a letter on it, spelling Jackson's name. The way the room is set up today, there's also a picture of Jackson on MVB's bedroom wall, directly opposite his bed. It's refreshingly creepy.
Of course, they couldn't leave him there forever, and so he's now buried about two miles away in the Kinderhook Reformed Cemetery. It's a pretty modest marker -- just a small obelisk with some worn engraving. After seeing the house, I was expecting something a little more brazen, but No fog machines, no laser light show, no nothing. Sigh.
One final note: if you have the chance, always talk to the park rangers. At Lindenwald, a brief conversation with the guy in the visitor center uncovered the fact that he has tried to do stand-up comedy at a local open mic AS MARTIN VAN BUREN. He tried both period jokes ("What is the deal with William Henry Harrison?") and some of Van Buren's takes on modern politics. Folks, that takes BALLS. God willing a tape of this will surface one day. Internet, do my bidding!
FUN VAN BUREN FACTS!
Lindenwald is just down the road from the schoolhouse where Jesse Merwin taught. Merwin is believed to be the inspiration for Ichabod Crane in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."
Believed in the Jeffersonian ideals of limited federal power, a strict interpretation of the Constitution, and a doctrine of absolutely no fat chicks.
White House hostess duties were handled by his daughter-in-law Angelica Singleton, who greeted guests from an elevated platform and at such a distance they could not touch the hem of her dress. She would also have every third guest flogged for good measure.
MVB owned a walking cane made from the timber of the U.S.S. Lawrence, whose famous battle flag read, "Don't Give Up the Ship, Except For Use as Walking Cane Stock."
Van Buren bragged that the potatoes from Lindenwald were the finest in the country. Those who disagreed were beaten with a bag of potatoes.
The Panic of 1837 (the worst economic crisis until the Great Depression) hobbled Van Buren's presidency from the start, and could not be stopped by the Good Solid Smack of 1838 or the Big Honking Valium of 1839.
He decorated his library with political cartoons that mocked him, but only because "Ziggy" hadn't been invented yet.
The only president to speak English as a second language. His first language? Ass-kickings.
Nicknamed "The Little Wizard" thanks to his tiny stature (he was 5'6") and insistence on animal sacrifice before every meeting of the Senate.
The campaign of 1840 saw the creation of Old Kinderhook Democratic Clubs, or "O.K. Clubs," in support of Van Buren's re-election. This is often cited as the popularization of the slang term "O.K." Even with the clubs, Van Buren was unable to defeat William Henry Harrison, who relied on the venerable tradition of giving away free booze.
Despite their vastly different lives, Van Buren built a long partnership with Jackson around their mutual guilty love of chili cheese fries.
Often credited as the organizer of the first national political party. So the next time you're watching "Countdown," remember: it's Van Buren's fault.
You might have noticed a slight uptick in presidential stuff over the last week, and if that's not your thing (BETHANY), I promise that regularly scheduled programming will return next week. This write-up on the Adams boys clears out the backlong from my trip last week, so there shouldn't be anything TOO presidential for a while.
Although the renovations on James Madison's Montpelier end in September. And I never did visit Wilson's D.C. home. And the Eisenhower ranch in Gettysburg is just a short drive away ...
I'm getting the shakes just thinking about it. That's normal, right?
The Adams Family
John Adams has his own mini-series, on the same newtork that brings us that show about the Bunny Ranch, and for that alone we should respect him. John Quincy Adams was featured in that mini-series a little bit, plus he was in that "Amistad" movie, so we should respect him too.
For these guys, it's one-stop-respectin' when you visit the Adams National Historic Site in Quincy, Massachusetts, which thanks to the efforts of the Adams boys has had the freedom to engulf their historic homes. Back in the day it was all farm land, but now the birth houses, for example, are on a wedge of grass between two busy roads, right across from a bank. Yes, history and convenient banking side by side! This is a great country.
The birth homes are both what you'd call a "New England saltbox" -- big sloped roofs so the snow can slide off, a central chimney, and walls made from large bricks of solid salt. That's not practical for wet weather, but New Englanders like it rough; it builds character. The relatively tiny house where JA was born features the room where Deacon John (JA's father) held town meetings; supposedly a young and studious JA was turned off from becoming a minister when he witnessed the trial in that room of a minister who had strayed a bit from the Puritan path, probably by buckling his shoes or hat in such a way as to invite the seductions of Lucifer upon his congregation. It also has JA's first law office -- where he botched a case about a cow trespassing on someone's proprety by goofing up the paperwork. That fateful cow served as a searing reminder of hubris, and so John Adams never lost a case ever again, ever, or something along those lines. In fact, if you jaunt next door to the JQA birthplace (where Adams moved with his wife Abigail), you can see the law office he used while defending the British soldiers from the Boston Massacre, a case which made him the Johnny Cochran of his day, only slightly less black (but apparently as annoying). The whole building is a bright orangish-yellow, which apparently would have been considered a great advertisement for Adams' law practice, because only the truly wealthy can afford to have awful taste.
From there it's back on the Park Service trolley and over to Peacefield. JA bought the mansion in 1787 while living in London; he and his wife were delighted to find that it was a run-down dump on their return to the states, and so Abigail pimped it out a bit while JA was on the road as vice president and then president. What's standing today is fascinating -- the house stayed in the Adams family for four generations before they handed it off to the government, under the condition that the government not change a thing. NOT EVEN THE BRITA FILTER! So you aren't seeing the house from John Adams' time, or John Quincy Adams' summer home; instead, you're getting four generations of history crammed into one mansion. Each room has four or five layers of history to it.
And there is some seriously cool (to me) stuff: JA's library, complete with the ugly wingback chair (like something your grandparents would own) where he sat on his last day on Earth; the dining rooms and parlor where they entertained thousands of guests over the years; an unbelievably rare print of the Declaration of Independence presented to JQA, now hanging on the wall like the Led Zeppelin posters your or I might have in our hallways. Especially impressive is the Stone Library, built in 1870 to house the family's papers; it's a separate structure with something like 14,000 books and working desks of both presidents. I looks like the kind of room they could use in "National Treasure 3."
You get moved through the sites fairly quickly, because they need to make room for the next wave of dork tourists; I still give it high marks, because it's the Park Service, and those guys have their routines down cold and answer your questions. It's definitely worth a visit. And if you want something a little more subdued, after you're dropped back at the visitor center, go about 100 yards to the United First Parish Church. They'll give you a rundown on the parish's history and the Adams' involvement with the church. Me and buddy Don got this while sitting in John Quincy Adams' pew (back them it was like owning really good season tickets).
Then they'll take you downstairs to the crypt where John, Abigal, John Quincy and Louisa Catherine Adams are all resting, in very simple sarcophagi. You're really right there next to them -- no bars, no red velvet ropes, no burly guys in leather vests telling you that you aren't on the list. Awesome.
Fun Adams Facts!
John Adams had the physique of a bag of potatoes, an abrasive, argumentative personality and a profound distaste for his line of work. And he still found love. Don't give up hope, reader!
John was the author of the oldest functioning constitution in the world, for the state of Massachusetts. He also wrote America's first "list of people who were mean to me during the Revolution who will one day get theirs."
John Quincy Adams could speak seven languages and read 13, but he never learned how to express his feelings through the exquisite language of power ballads.
John Quincy is the only president to serve in the House after leaving the White House, and he died of a stroke suffered on the House floor in 1848. His request to be mummified and propped up in a corner of the House chamber was denied.
What up peeps. I was in Philadelphia over the weekend to celebrate my brother Dave's birthday with my whole family. (You can see him in "Apocalypse Soon" over at the video page. He's a great actor, better than me, even.) It's rare that we can all get together in one place anymore, but you have to make the effort, especially when the effort means that your parents are picking up the tab for a swank dinner and a baseball game.
Restaurant Review: Morimoto's
Dave likes Japanese things, so we went to Morimoto's in center city Philadelphia. Morimoto is from the show "Iron Chef," but sadly they would not use the secret ingredient that we brought along (PIGUUUUUUUU KNUCKLEUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!), and so we were forced instead to eat off the menu.
I had a tempura appetizer (Japanese for "fried to the point of heart disease") and some sushi. I am not a huge seafood fan, but I find that I can definitely get sushi down. All it takes is about half a bottle of soy sauce for each piece, and if that isn't enough you just rub a little wasabi on your gums. It's delicious!
The restaurant actually looked pretty cool, too -- it had a wooden ceiling that was rippled, like an ocean wave, the length of the room. Plus all the booths were some kind of see-through plastic that kept changing colors. I think those minor cosmetic features could improve any restaurant. I'm looking at you, Fuddruckers.
Phillies Fever
On Sunday we enjoyed balmy mid-60s August weather (with a tornado warning) as we waited out a two-hour rain delay and then watched the Phillies beat the Pirates at Citizens Bank Park. It's a great stadium, with great fans. I haven't seen a game in Philadelphia in a few years, and I had forgotten about the joys of booing the people on your own team. Nationals fans, you could learn so much.
Hot Necking Action
My trip last month to the Northern Neck ended up being grist for the latest White History Project video. Check it out!
I saw "Superman" on the National Mall last night as part of the annual "Screen on the Green" festivities. I had forgotten what a great movie this is.
As Superfriend Jared Stern points out, Jor-El is the Al Gore of Krypton. If only he had put together a slide show, maybe they would have evacuated that planet.
Lex Luthor's evil plan involves buying worthless land at exorbitant prices, then destroying California to increase the value of his real estate holdings, even though, as the man who destroyed California, he would have probably have no legal way to keep that land.
Lex Luthor, the greatest criminal mind on the planet, has a master plan that hinges on wigs and a large-breasted woman creating enough of a distraction so that a moron can reprogram a nuclear missile. Also, the plan relies on no one bothering to double-check the targeting system on that missile before a nuclear warhead test.
Lois wins Clark's heart by being indisputably awful and rude to him from their very first meeting.
Superman has the ability to reverse time, and he uses this ability to save Lois Lane from suffocating. Not to prevent the nuclear strike a few minutes earlier which leads to Lois' suffocation, mind you. Just to save Lois. In saving Lois, he also presumably lets Lake Mead drain.
The premise of the movie requires you to accept that an alien sent to our planet gets superpowers from the yellow sun. And yet there are still about five moments where you have to say, "Well that's a load of crap." That takes some doing. Great stuff.
A Note to the Frisbee Guys ...
... on the National Mall last night. It's nice that you can catch a frisbee between your legs, and backwards, and by leaping even when you don't have to. But you'd be MORE impressive if you didn't repeatedly throw the frisbee into groups of strangers, and also if you wore shoes. The thing about throwing a frisbee is this: YOU ARE THROWING A FRISBEE. You're hitting the maximum possible respect level once it's clear you can throw in a straight line. Divert your energy to hydroponic farming. Do some good in the world.
First and foremost, I am a philanthropist, and so I offer you my latest charitable cause. My thanks to Jared Stern, who threw his big-time celebrity muscle behind this worthy, noble project.
It's Friday! I'd say it's time to relax but I haven't worked that hard this week. Relaxing might slow my heartbeat down to complete stop.
What Brown Did For Me
I ordered my first ever set of photos from Snapfish this week. I was a little late to the digital camera craze, relying on a hand-cranked, diesel-motor camera with hand-held exploding flash bulbs until early 2008. It was impractical, and it took up a lot of space in the jalopy, but the flappers seemed to love it.
But I'll wired for sound now! And so I had about 150 priceless memories committed to contact paper at the very reasonable price of 9 cents a print. Either computers or a Chinese sweatshop were handing this order, because it must have shipped about 30 seconds after I placed it. Here's how it arrived at my house:
I was working at my desk when I heard a thud outside, like something being thrown on the ground. I went to the window and saw a UPS guy crossing the street to his truck. Since no one rang my doorbell, and I couldn't see a package on the doorstep from my window, I went back to work. I figured he delivered something next door.
Then, there was a really nasty thunderstorm. After the rain, I went outside to check on the front 40, and hey! There's a package on my doorstep. It was the photos, in a cardboard box which was soaked almost all the way through. So, the UPS guy came to my house but didn't knock or ring the bell; opted not to use my mailbox even though the non-water-resistant cardboard box would have fit and there was a thunderstorm coming; and then decided to top things off by throwing or dropping the package.
The photos were OK, but from a customer service perspective, yikes. This ranks up there with the time when I caught a FedEx guy, after ringing the doorbell and then waiting about five seconds for an answer, getting ready to leave a pacakge in my recycling bin, thinking that I would naturally check for packages there. Because I always sort through the garbage for my mail! It's the first place I check! You never know when the latest issue of empty beer-bottle monthly might show.
United We Stand!
It's almost convention week! When people with a strong affinity for buttons, ugly hats and an irrational faith in representative democracy can finally blow off four years of steam and actually get lucky discussing policy in a Ramada Inn bar. Huzzah.
The big issue for Democrats going into Denver was whether Hillary Clinton would have her name nominated on the convention floor, in recognition of her historic campaign. Historic, in that she spent the entire GDP of some third world nations and still managed to lose to a guy with almost no experience, ties to a crazy religious leader and no policy positions discernibly different from her own. That's never been done before.
And oh yeah, she's also a lady! It has been a groundbreaking campaign for the Democratic party, and much of the broken ground was picked up and thrown at other Democrats. To a lot of people, if you don't like Hillary, you're a sexist, and if you don't like Obama, you're a racist. And therein lies the beauty of this campaign. It's brought us all together.
The conventional wisdom in the minds of a lot of Democrats, at least the self-righteous ones around DC, is that if you're a racist or a sexist, then you're also a Republican. A Republican who just sits around oppressing people, twirling your monocle, sloshing champagne on your waistcoat, kicking the orphans who gave you a bad shoe shine. Or a Republican who loves guns and owns at least one Dale Earnhardt shirt. It's quite the power bloc we've formed in the GOP.
Well, now we know for a FACT, that the Democratic party has just as many racists and sexists as any other party. We have the primary polling results to prove it! Tons of Democratic primary voters pulled a lever, not because of a sincere analysis of candidate's qualifications, but because of their particular hatred of, or affinity for, a gender or race. And in a time when Democrats and Republicans can't agree on taxes, or oil, or the war on terrorism, isn't it good to know that there's some common bond to build on? Bigotry and sexism aren't Republican problems, or Democratic problems. They're American problems. United we stand!
Ageism, however, is pretty much exclusively a Democratic party problem. Republicans did the noble thing and nominated an old white guy to show their support for the gray horde. Get with the program, donkeys.
The Dream Begins to Die
If you're in a political mood, you can also read this neat Washington Post article about people "energized" by the Obama campaign getting smacked around by the Democratic party establishment when they try to run for D.C. government posts.
JFK inspired a generation of people to public service, and once that generation became firmly stuck in the swamp that is government bureaucracy, their dreams were choked out. Those people became the dispirited, bitter government employees whose lethargy and bitterness prevented anything of value from happening at a federal level for decades to follow, as other people made an actual difference in the private sector or through direct charity.
I'm glad to hear that Obama is restocking the streams! We are the ones we've been waiting for!
The IOC is supposedly one of the most corrupt international organizations in existence. It exists primarily so commissioners can get nice bribes. This is a public secret. But I guess they have SOME credibility to lose. Huh.
If you're following this story at all, then you probably know deep in your heart that the Chinese cheated, because, oh yeah, THEY'RE EVIL. Those little girls aren't at fault, but the Chinese government is a pseudo-Stalinist propaganda machine that invested all of its national pride in the the Olympics and enjoys getting in pissing contests with the West. Chances are no one is going to mess with them, though. They have the numbers.
In conclusion, Nastia is the most unfortunate name in Olympic competition since Irina Slutskaya.
Suit Up
Michael Phelps is great and all, but it's sort of hard to be THAT impressed when he breaks the world record every single race. The big difference from years gone by is the suit, made from baby seals, which has less resistance in the water than skin.
This is a definite case of clothes making the man, and I feel that we all should be given specially designed outfits to improve our job performance. For example, I could use a unitard that makes me look like a 22-year-old Mexican woman with crossover appeal. I'm pretty sure I'd have an agent within a week with that outfit. If the suit could also decrease my resistance to begging for work, that would be great.
Sadly, NASA isn't really focusing on this sort of thing, and so I guess for now, I'm stuck with the classic push-up bra and a smile. Yowza.
See how I put "deal" in all caps? That means it's IMPORTANT!
I am performing at the Baltimore Comedy Factory this weekend, Thursday-Saturday. The headliner is Bob Levy, who is a regular on Howard Stern's show.
Here's the cool part -- if you want to come out, when you make the reservation, tell them you're coming to see me and you want the drink special. That means that for $17, you get your admission, PLUS all you can drink (top-shelf liquor excluded, sorry hard-core drunks). Make sure you mention my name. The number for reservations is 410-547-7798.
You should be there! If not I'll be sad.
Movie Review: Tropic Thunder
I am a professional comedian, and I endorse this movie. I could give you a lengthy explanation about people playing to well-defined comedic roles (as opposed to the directionless mugging in many modern comedies), but instead, I will just tell you that Tom Cruise dances in a fat suit.
I laughed out loud about ten times. There's a 20-minute stretch near the beginning that's a little flat, but after that it's all gravy. GO! I COMMAND YOU!
I'll probably end up on a government blacklist for posting this, but here are some looks at the hard truths about Martin Van Buren. Assisting me are Jared Stern and Michael Graham.
After consulting with the high priests, we have finally set a date for the next installment of my dynamic, overwhelming, hilarious, and most importantly affordable ($10) show, I Take Requests.
I'll be back at the DC Improv on Saturday, Oct. 11. The show will feature two new stand-up challenges (I'm working on them now), a new grand finale, some new videos for the opening package, and of course a new trivia contest. There's something for everyone. Bring friends!
You can get access to the ticketing site by clicking on the I Take Requests link on any page of this site.
Challenge Accepted: Blackberries
One of the new subjects in October will be ... Blackberries, as suggested by Brian and Brenda Ruf. They sent their idea along while waiting in the audience for the start of I Take Requests 3 back in July. And they sent their idea via Blackberry. Heh.
I'll try to have this thing done by mid-September.
Trivia on September 3
Also fast approaching: TRIVIA NIGHT! The fun is a week from Wednesday. Three new rounds of questions are ready to go: "I Voted for Kodos," "Hot Chile," and our video round, "Back to School." It's gonna be a good time. The headliner is Pablo Francisco, so go over to the DC Improv site, buy a ticket and we'll see you next week.
There are three distinct approaches to love set forth in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona": practical (Vicky), painful (Cristina) and nihilistic (bowl cut guy from "No Country for Old Men"). Each character gets what they profess to want, and each character ends up wanting something different.
Vicky is a snooty graduate student studying "the Catalan identity"; she's engaged to a by-the-books finance guy from New York and seems intent on living a predictable, stable life. But given the chance to study in Barcelona for a summer, she jumps at it. She brings along her best friend Cristina, an artsy and slutty type with the belief that true romance has to be tortured and painful. She can't say exactly what she wants, but she "knows what I don't want." (If you ever hear a significant other say this, run.)
Enter the painter Juan Antonio, who introduces himself to the girls in a cafe by offering to fly them to a nearby town so they can have a threesome all weekend. If it were possible to run up to the screen and high-five the guy, you'd do it. He believes (or at least says he believes) in living for the moment, enjoying life's pleasures as the come, since for the most part life is hard and dull.
The natural pairing seems to be Juan Antonio and Cristina, but there's also an attraction between Vicky and the painter; as Vicky's plodding married life draws nearer, Juan Antonio has a sudden wild appeal that Vicky can't seem to resist. Cristina gets the bohemian, passionate romance she'd always been searching for -- but it might be the search itself that she lives for, not the romance. And Juan Antonio, for all his talk about free and passionate love, turns out to have a psychotic ex-wife with more of a hold on him than he'd care to admit.
These are people who live in their minds, free of the bothers of the everyday grind; like in most Woody Allen movies, they use that freedom to think their way into unhappiness. In relationships we spend a lot of time looking for "the right way" to do things, but here are characters who discover that the right way they believed in gives them no peace of mind. Their experiences don't fit as neatly into categories as they would like. You can take it all as a mockery of the intellectual life, but in the back of your head, you'll probably be thinking: "I dated that once."
Plus the scenery is nice and Scarlett Johannson is SMOKING HOT. Seriously, it's the best she's ever looked on screen. Yee.
When your product is, ostensibly, rational ideas, who would you like for a sales force:
A) Glassy-eyed people wearing strange hats, holding signs, dancing awkwardly, cheering like elementary school students and generally looking like DVD bonus footage from "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple," or ...
B) Anyone else
If you think the answer is B, you don't understand politics!
Listen to the Music
Ronald Reagan chose "Born in the USA" as a campaign song, even though it's actually about the horrible mistreatment of veterans. So today, Meslissa Ethridge goes onstage at the Democratic National Conventions and sings ... uh, "Born in the USA." Stupidity knows no party! Also, at one point between speakers, C-SPAN showed people in the conventional hall dancing and singing along to "Chain of Fools," which was especially amusing since the closed-captioning guy was going crazy typing the verse over and over again as they panned around the arena. Finally, after Bill Clinton's speech: "Addicted to Love." No, really. And people plan these things in advance.
Just Win, Baby
High political content. Avoid if you don't like this stuff.
Barack Obama is supposed to lead the country into some sort of post-partisan, cooperative, world-changing era, right? Based on what, exactly?
When George W. Bush ran in 2000 as "a uniter, not a divider," he at least had some success under his belt with the Texas government. He did manage to get through tax cuts and education reform (for better or worse) before the wheels fell off. Barack Obama, the anti-Bush, has done ... what? He has a voting record as partisan as anyone in the Senate, an undistinguished record in Illinois, and the primary support of only about half his party.
So the attitude can be different, right? The convention, where Obama's people undoubtedly have some pull, has been a parade of the standard Republican bashing and Democratic talking points. It's not really any different from 2004 (or what you'll see next week in St. Paul going in the other direction). They're kicking off a supposed era of new civility by slamming and disparaging their opponents, on a personal and professional level, at every turn. There's some talk about a new approach to international relations, but it's actually an old approach -- it's not that different from Clinton-era diplomacy (which might have made Bush-era diplomacy necessary, but that's another story).
It's all the same. How often can you trot out auto workers from Michigan, have them complain about how their state stinks and then say that your the party that will do something about it? At what point do you admit that NO party can do much about a globalized economy and that, oh yeah, sometimes life is unfair? At what point do parties stop promising a list of benefits for voters and start making hard choices -- even if it means political suicide, because it's the right thing to do? There aren't any fresh ideas on how to solve socials ills or reduce government debts; there's no serious principled statments on a coherent philosophy of government.
That would be actual change. What we have now is a bunch of people (Republicans and Democrats both) desperate to win. All civility means in this context is crushing the other side so badly that you can dictate terms.
For the last 31 years I've been a big supporter of walking: it's affordable, it's convenient, and it seems to get you where you're going.
Well, NO MORE! Kick it to the curb, walking! I have travelled to tomorrow, and I have done so not on two feet, but on wheels of glorious rubber, which were in turn attached to a glorious Segway. There was even some sort of glorious bag attached to the handlebars to hold my glorious bottled water. Which reminds me: Kick it to the curb, tap water!
I rode this magnificent beast as part of a D.C. Segway tour last weekend, for which my girlfriend had a gift certificate. And once I save up $3,000, I will never, ever walk again. It's no contest.
Learning. It takes babies 9 to 18 months to learn to walk. To learn to Segway, I watched a three-minute video in which a stick figure fell off a Segway and landed on its neck about 43 times. Then I practiced on a sidewalk for five minutes. At that point, I was qualified to move at top speed through city streets -- even city streets choked with slow, stupid pedesdtrians. Advantage Segway.
Headgear. Walking requires no helmet. Segways require a helmet, which could easily be personalized with racing stripes, flame decals or nicknames like "Segs Machine" or "Roll Model." Advantage Segway.
Speed. Average walking speed is 3.5 miles per hour. Segways can break the sound barrier, though for safety's sake, those on the tour were regulated to about 12 miles per hour. Still, advantage Segway.
Fuel. A Segway can go 25 miles on an electric charge. A walker, charged with the same amount of eletricity, will simply twitch and flop in agony, hardly moving forward at all, instead wasting their energy to yell, "Please stop, why are you doing this to me." Advantage Segway.
Maneuverability. Segways cannot travel on rough surfaces, steep slopes, slippery surfaces, sticky surfaces, uneven surfaces, or over the prone bodies of civilians who prostrate themselves before the glory that is your Segway. You could walk on many of these things, but honestly, why are you walking up the side of a sticky mountain? What do you have to prove, you snot? And do you even have a gyroscope in your hips? I didn't think so. Advantage Segway.
Respect. As a pedestrian, I often would describe Segway riders as "tools," "losers" or "lazy." Now I understand that I was acting out of unreconciled jealousy, and that all those bound to the lowly earth must have nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for the gods that glide six inches above it. For example, in 31 years of walking, no one has every seen me go by and asked if I was having a good time. In two hours of Segway riding, I was asked this five times. The proper answer is "Silence, plebian!" Advantage Segway.
Stop, Drop, Roll
I really did enjoy the whole Segway experience, possibly because I didn't fall. I suppose it's possible that face planting while moving forward at 12 miles per hour might put a damper on the day. And according to the safety video, it is a sensitive device. A Segway will tip over or stop ...
On steep, slippery or uneven surfaces.
When the user attempts to exceed the maximum advisable speed.
If anyone within 50 feet has a disparaging thought about your manhood when spotting you on Segway.
When your weight distribution suddenly changes, perhaps from arousal caused by the knowledge of how good you look in an extra large bike helmet.
Should you take the name of Dean Kamen in vain.
When you collide with a curb, an automobile, or someone pushing a stroller.
Around the music of Neil Diamond.
The minute you stop believing in the power of you.
For the last month or so laptop headaches kept me from doing the DC Improv Podcast, but it's back, baby! And in a big way, as this time out I got to interview one of my favorite comedians, Dave Attell. We only had about 10 minutes before he had to go get ready for his show, but I was still glad to have the chance to chat with him.
The first time I went to a comedy club (about 9 or 10 years ago), it was to see Dave Attell at the DC Improv. That was before "Insomniac" and "The Gong Show" -- back when he was just a guy I saw on cable and found hilarious. It was neat to see him perform again in the same club a decade later; even after six years of being bludgeoned with comedy, I still think Dave Attell is a genius.
All the fun is posted at the Podcast page, and there are also instructions there on how to subscribe through iTunes. Next week I'm scheduled to talk to Pablo Francisco.
Adams
I got some photos developed at great personal expense, so you could finally see what John Adams' crypt looks like.Thanks to superfriend Don for visiting the places with me. You may remember him from some Mount Vernon photos as well; he's trying to see the presidents in order. Two down, amigo! If you want these pics in context, go read the John Adams/JQA Dead Presidents page.
That's the Adams birth house. The JQA site is right next door. They had quite the "Everybody Loves Raymond" setup going. As you can see, Don is pumped, or at least very good at faking that he's pumped.
This is the exterior of Peacefield. You can't take pictures on the inside, so you'll have to go to Quincy if you want those terrible secrets.
Me, John and Abigail. It's sort of a neat flourish that the flags are period specific -- the one on Adams' sarcophagus has 15 stars and 15 stripes, since only Vermont and Tennessee had been tacked on in his day.
And finally, Don and JQA. You can see they abandoned the stripe plan, which is a shame, because if we had a 50-stripe flag, everyone would HAVE to know how great our country is, because it would be huge.
Legal Stuff: If you have questions about this Web site, why? You should spend your time questioning the moral nature of any god who would let Chris White exist. But anyhow ... copyright 2009, Chris White Sucks Inc.
1861-1865: Plans to plow salt into the fields of the Confederacy lead to an explosion in the demand for high quality salt. Facilities which produce salt by evaporating brine are established along the entire shoreline of Lake Onondaga. Ambitious attempts to fill the lake with enough pollution to then set it on fire, thereby producing a LOT of salt, are halted halfway when someone realizes the lake is actually fresh water.
The point is, it's both. And it's wildly popular; to get in at the busy times you might have an hour wait. Faithful readers know that I choose not to wait in line for an hour for anything that's not super cool (like the Supreme Court), and so I decided to ditch the blues part and just eat there. I went Sunday afternoon with fellow comedian and all-around swell guy Eric Lyden, shown here with a nice rack. And some ribs, too. BLADOW!
It started with a bang, though! Specifically, when Charles Guiteau shot James Garfield in a Washington, D.C., train station, and then announced, "I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts! Arthur is president now!" He also did the cabbage patch.
He was born on December 5, 1782, the son of a tavernkeeper. This is honored today with a sign on someone's front lawn. Growing up around drunks helped him deal with Andrew Jackson's friends later in life.
Of course, they couldn't leave him there forever, and so he's now buried about two miles away in the Kinderhook Reformed Cemetery. It's a pretty modest marker -- just a small obelisk with some worn engraving. After seeing the house, I was expecting something a little more brazen, but No fog machines, no laser light show, no nothing. Sigh.
FUN VAN BUREN FACTS!
John Adams has his own mini-series, on the same newtork that brings us that show about the Bunny Ranch, and for that alone we should respect him. John Quincy Adams was featured in that mini-series a little bit, plus he was in that "Amistad" movie, so we should respect him too.
From there it's back on the Park Service trolley and over to Peacefield. JA bought the mansion in 1787 while living in London; he and his wife were delighted to find that it was a run-down dump on their return to the states, and so Abigail pimped it out a bit while JA was on the road as vice president and then president. What's standing today is fascinating -- the house stayed in the Adams family for four generations before they handed it off to the government, under the condition that the government not change a thing. NOT EVEN THE BRITA FILTER! So you aren't seeing the house from John Adams' time, or John Quincy Adams' summer home; instead, you're getting four generations of history crammed into one mansion. Each room has four or five layers of history to it.
I rode this magnificent beast as part of a D.C. Segway tour last weekend, for which my girlfriend had a gift certificate. And once I save up $3,000, I will never, ever walk again. It's no contest.
August 2009: Jefferson.
Fall 2009: comic interviews on the podcast. 
