From the Chris Budget Office

Announcing the Chris White Lifestyle Overhaul Plan six months ago, I sent a clear, prudent message: any plan costing more than $27.50 would not fly. "I have $27.50 in my checking account right now," said Chris White, "and to burden me with crippling debt would be unconscionable."

Well, the numbers are in. And they look great.

Some question the housing provisions. They say a 237-room gilded mansion and theme park are unrealistic in these troubling times. But figures from the Chris Budget Office show that over a 10-year budget window, Frugal Manor and Responsibility Land will cost only $1.50 -- the cost of a happy-hour cocktail purchased in 2019, the napkin for which will hold the blueprints. By committing to this 50-year plan today, we assure future generations of Chris White awesome housing at a pittance. And in no way will this commitment force Chris White to stop living rent-free with his parents, if he chooses to do so, until Frugal Manor opens.

Some fret over entertainment costs. But note that spending on leisure activities is now under the Chris White Comprehensive Wellness and Boredom Alleviation Program, an entirely different account. Reassigning these resources not only saves $7,231 in the Lifestyle Plan, it also allows us to increase entertainment spending to $253 million, creating jobs in the U2 sector when they are paid up front in 2018 to play the opening of Responsibility Land, on my birthday in 2021. There will also be ponies.

Some imply that user fees on friends of Chris White -- reasonable levies on anyone gleaning the benefits of interacting with such an inspiring creature -- might be a disincentive to be friends with Chris White. To which I say: Chris White is going to have his own amusement park. Those taller than the cardboard pirate's hand will be his friend. $2.4 billion in revenue over 10 years is conservative.

And to those who suggest that Chris White will not marry money in 2014, hit the MegaMillions Jackpot in 2016 or trip on the beach in 2017 only to discover a magic lamp with a wish-granting genie -- resulting in $253 trillion in revenue and obviating the need for employment, or cuts to other programs -- I say this: you are exactly the kind of person who will be denied admission to the lunar branch of Responsibility Land.

This is no time for politics as usual. History calls!

Tags: politics

You.See. Berkeley

You know the First Thanksgiving: weatherbeaten Pilgrims sit down with generous Indians, and two vastly different peoples share the fruits of their labor and let celebration bridge the vast gaps between them.

WRONG!

America's REAL First Thanksgiving took place before the pilgrims even landed. On December 4, 1619, not far upriver from Virginia's Jamestown, John Woodleaf led ashore two score settlers from the good ship Margaret. They knelt to the ground and gave their thanks to divine providence. There were no Indians; there were no buckle hats. Per their charter they would celebrate that landing each year, in the settlment at the modern-day site of Berkeley Plantation.

It was a glorious and poignant tradition that survived all the way to 1622, when they sort of had to stop because Indians massacred about a third of the white people in Virginia. The moral here is that a little pumpkin pie goes a long way toward making Indians happy.

Still, even if Massachusetts got it right, Virginia got it first. And any true history buff knows that FIRST IS WHAT MATTERS! Berkeley celebrates the Original Thanksgiving with a festival the first Sunday of every November, and I was able to use that awesome pretext to trick some friends into visiting the birthplace of ... wait for it ...

WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON! See, you thought this was about Thanksgiving, but I turned it into a president thing. You'd think you'd learn.

But first we gotta talk about this festival. When I say "festival," you're thinking big, right? Maybe some kind of food pavilion? Maybe someone on a horse? Maybe kids carrying balloons, and local artistes trying to sell ugly homemade jewelry at an endless series of booths, and clowns painting faces?

Well you could not be more wrong. A festival is 30 people sitting in folding chairs under a tent in the rain, watching the following program:

• Some kind of choral thing.
• A "re-enactment" of the original Thanksgiving landing, minus any kind of boat. Now, if you just got off an (invisible) boat carrying 40 people after two months, you'd be pretty excited, right? You might hump a tree, or at the very least convey unbridled joy through your voice, right? Nope! I now know from the reenactment that the first thing you do when you land is take attendance, then stand in a line talking in a monotone until the guy in the minister hat tells you to kneel. I'll say this: those guys kneeled in the mud, in period costumes that are probably dry-clean only. That's love.
• A speech from a retired Virgina state senator. I liked this guy.
• A guy playing "Taps" while hidden behind a bush (more on this in a minute). Why was he behind a bush? I'm not exactly sure. Maybe the acoustics were better, or the guy was really ugly. I just don't know. The bush was blocking my view.
• A raffle drawing.
• Indian dancing. I wasn't paying too much attention at this point, so I did sort of miss how the "friendship dance" fit into the storyline of Indians killing so many people that the settlement had to be abandoned. But I am generally pro-friendship.

They had more planned at some point. Mike of the James River Black Powder Club not only gave us a fine demonstration on period weaponry, he also gave us the straight dope: the rain had sent a few people packing. Crowds were light thanks to a steady downpour for most of the morning, so some of the other "living history" stuff was shut down once the media was gone. Given the chance to make my own rag doll, or perform an amputation without administering anesthesia, I might have had a blast; as it was, I had a fine time, but I don't think I'd plot a return visit until the 400th anniversary in 2019. That party is going to be OFF THE CHAIN. Really, they're going to have the blacksmithing demonstrators make a chain, then take the party off it.

There's so much more to Berkeley than festivals, though! It's one of the oldest estates in America, and as such, everything interesting in United States history happend there first. Such as:

Taps. Dan Butterfield wrote "Taps" while at Berkeley during the Civil War (McClellan camped the Union army there around 1862). The tune, meant as a sorrowful expression of what a huge sissy McClellan was, has survived through the decades. As a former Boy Scout bugler, I can testify that this song is so mournfully powerful, that merely playing it will have many a grown man shout: "Dave, why is your damn kid playing the ****ing bugle at 7 in the morning?"

Bourbon. The first bourbon whiskey in America was made at Berkeley.

There you have it. The two most important firsts in U.S. history, at Berkeley.

And let's not forget the Harrisons, who turned that godforsaken hellhole into a thriving center of commerce. Benjamin IV built the fine mansion, and Benjamin V (buried on site!) manned up as a public servant and signer of the Declaration of Independence. William Henry, who spent a great deal of his life avenging the massacre of 1622, was born in the mansion, probably in an upstairs room. He left Virginia at a young age for the raw, wild sensuality of Ohio and Indiana, but the house (restored in the 20th century to its 1700s appearance) still has some nice tokens from his life, like a paisley shawl. You might say, "how could a military hero wear a paisley shawl in public?" And you'd be right to say it, because Harrison didn't. With a little less pride, he might have bundled up in 1841 and not died.

According to our guide, WHH might have actually been at Berkeley to compose the Inauguration Day speech that famously killed him. But I'm not going to list that as a fact, because our guide was terrible. He admitted he hadn't given the tour in a few months, he completely blanked out on about six occasions (in a FOUR ROOM TOUR), and then gave up in every instance with: "Oh well. Any questions?" I did have questions, but I'm not too confident the answers we got. The guide mentioned that the home had brick walls three feet thick. When I asked why, he said "protection from Indians." You know, Indians, with their heavy artillery. Did I mention this was a $10 tour?

Still, the house is nice if unspectacular. It was visited by every president 1 through 10, not to mention Lincoln. And it's rare these days to find a plantation tour that is willing to completely ignore slavery. I particularly enjoyed the portrait of young William hanging downstairs. He was movie-star handsome in his early years, and the portrait showed him in the uniform of a Lt. Major General. The problem is, he wasn't that rank until a much later age. Apparently he did not like sitting for portraits, so when he refused to do so later in life, they got the painter to Photoshop an older portrait. He slapped the fancier uniform right on top of the old one. Heh.

Then on the way home we ate at Cracker Barrel. History is awesome.

Tags: presidents

Hey Everybody,

Sorry for light updates in the last week. There are only so many hours in the day, and crying takes up so many of them.

Parking Grrrrrrage

With so many world-class free museums in my fair city of Washington, it's easy to overlook the little guys: scrappy attractions that have to be a little bit more daring to lure tourists away from the sexy displays on the mall. The National Building Museum has chosen to go with parking garages.

Really!

The point of the exhibit is that parking garages don't have to be an ugly and boring afterthought to our existence. It's a nice concept, except for the many pictures of ugly and boring garages. There are lots of sketches showing how awesome garages can be, but they all have the notation that the garages shown were never built. AND THEY NEVER WILL BE. We'll all be switching to Segways within the decade.

But let's get away from the museum for a second and talk about something a little more serious: parenting. I am not a parent, but I have two and I know several others. And through observation, I know that parents have a social obligation to bore their children on occasion. You have to take them to historical sites and dull ceremonies and hokey cultural crap, on the off chance that something might interest them and put them on the path to the presidency, or a the very least a janitor in a library. Yes, it's a long shot, but you have to do SOMETHING every few months. It's your job.

Well, apparently this sort of thing is now sorted out on a listserv, because every parent with a 3-year-old in the universe was at the Building Museum a few weekends ago, for a display on parking garages. Yes, there are dinosaurs and spaceships in free museums less than a mile away, but some people thought that their 3-year-olds might enjoy a reading-intensive display on parking garages. The resulting screaming and noise was enough to make you want to abandon a kid in a parking garage.

At first I thought: crappy parents. They dragged their kids to something their kids could NEVER like.

Then I remembered the "job" aspect and I thought: crappy people. They KEPT their kids in that exhibit and ruined it for everyone else.

Then I figured that was too harsh, and I thought: broken parents. Maybe they don't like being parents, they're tired of never getting to do the things THEY like, and they were so beaten down that they don't even hear the screaming anymore.

But I settled on: broken people. You have a million free attractions in the city, and the one time a week you drag your kids out and inflict them on the public, you're living it up by looking at parking garage exhibits? How did you ever manage to have kids in the first place?

Now me, I'm going for the irony. Yeah. That's it.

Beat the Clock

The trouble with modern parenting is that we don't have enough iron-clad standards. If 1960s China has told us anything, it's that the one way to become a major international player is to replace the traditional family structure with draconian, brutal authoritarian measures from the government. How can people possibly raise their kids right, when 95 percent of people are stupid? And don't tell me that number is high. You've been stuck in line at CVS. You know what I'm saying.

We can kick the tires on this with the Baby Shot Clock. Here's how it works: every restaurant or museum gallery is equipped with a 35-second shot clock. When a temper tantrum starts, anyone in the room can go over, hit a switch and start the timer. If the screaming hasn't gotten under control by zero, then the parent has to take their kid and walk away.

Fail to walk away in time, and you lose posession of your kid.

Simple and fair!

Please come back later in the week where I issue a standardized rate card for disciplinary measures. Some people have said that 40 lashes with a willow switch is a bit harsh for running indoors, but then again, some people just don't love their kids enough to teach them how to be good people.

Tags: museums

Let's Go to Prison

If you've never been to Eastern State Penitentiary, it's easy to find. Just go to the middle of Philadelphia and look for the huge evil castle. If you hit the oil refineries you've gone too far.

It should come as no surprise that such an evil building is a product of the most evil sect to ever walk the Earth: the Quakers. The plan was to co-opt the Philadelphia prison system as a means of getting cheap labor for their oat factories. By isolating each prisoner through solitary confinement, they could break the spirit of each worker within days, rendering them into ruthlessly efficient milling machines. The profits from this evil enterprise were the financial foundation of the Richard Nixon campaign, the keystone in the Quaker plot to open our nation to Chinese economic takeover. I'd explain the dark alliance between the Chinese and the Quakers, but you're smart enough to figure out anything THAT obvious.

In summary, Eastern State is the sort of building that looks haunted in the daytime, so imagine how much better it is at night, with 50 people jumping out at regular intervals to make you cry! "Terror Behind the Walls," which runs every fall, is billed as the best haunted house in the country, and why not? It's big, it's naturally spooky and they produce the hell out of it. You work your way through different parts of the prison (processing, the infirmary, oddly enough not the showers), and between the fog machines, lighting effects, hidden panels and people popping out of nowhere, you're going to scream once or twice. It's like a football game where an offense is going to run, and the opponent knows it, and the offense steamrolls ahead anyhow. You know what's coming and you can't do much to stop it. A hallway of eight guys in prison jumpsuits plus a strobe light equals scary (unless you're at the grand opening party of an Urban Outfitters, in which case it equals douchey).

It wasn't terrifying, exactly -- for that you'd have to have an empty, quiet and dark prison -- but even my brother, who could kill me with his bare hands and has probably considered doing so on several occasions, yelped a couple of times. My girlfriend, who daily faces the horror of a future with me, also gave the whole experience a thumbs up. Only 361 shopping days to Halloween -- start budgeting for Eastern State now.

Seriously, budget. It costs a ton. The Quakers are up to something.

Fear Factor

I've never been much of a haunted prison kind of guy. Family legend has me losing my mind on the Haunted Mansion ride at Disney World. And my dad can't stop telling the story of how I hid behind the couch when watching "Alien." He leaves out that I was about 9 years old and shouldn't have been allowed to watch "Alien," but why let the facts get in the way of humiliating your son in front of your friends? No, movies and pageantry have never really been my cup of scary tea. Call me old fashioned, but I like my horror delivered through traditional means.

Bank statements and pregnancy tests.

Tags: history

Hockey Time!

Hey Phillies fans! If you're feeling down, remember that there's always a silver lining: the right field camera from Game 3 just got a 6-year, $150 million contract from the Mets. On the other hand, Alex Rodriguez putting on a World Series ring is actually the beginning of the Mayan prophecies, so we only have three more chances to win the championship before the world ends. Thanks for ending the world, Yankees.

As always, I hate to see the Phillies go, but you can't say it wasn't fun. If you told me in March that ...

• their leadoff hitter would have 2/3 of an awful season
• their No. 2 starter on opening day would miss most of the year
• their best left-handed reliever would miss most of the year
• their No. 1 starter would pitch like a No. 4 starter most of the year
• their closer would have the worst season by a closer, ever
• their third baseman would become a black hole where offense goes to die
• their bench collectively would have a really bad year
• every pitcher not named Cliff Lee would go into a funk around September 1

... I'd say, "Cliff Lee isn't a Phillie, you moron." But I'd NEVER guess that the team would be a few lucky bounces and sober Fox cameramen from winning it all. Every year when the season ends, I think about whether all the time and money spent going to games, listening to games and reading about games was worth it. The parade in 2008 was great, but in the grander scheme of things, getting there is 98 percent of the fun. The surprises and the drama are what keep you coming back. That and the $7.50 beers.

Looking to the offseason, the Phils are going to need a new third baseman, and I'd like to point out that I'm available. I've always dreamed of being the next Mike Schmidt, and I showed a lot of promise with the glove in the Lansdowne Boys Club. Admittedly, I never got a hit in three years of baseball, but at age 32 I am at my physical and mental peak. I think a few weeks in the batting cages should get me up to speed. I've got fresh legs and I'll work for the league minimum. Phillies: you cannot afford to pass up this offer.

But I think the No. 1 priority has to be finding someone to die and inspire the team in 2010. Charlie Manuel's mom got the job done in 2008. Harry Kalas tried his best in 2009 (I was at the game where he died), but he passed away too early in the season for the magic to last. We clearly need is someone iconic with Philadelphia ties to keel over around August 20, 2010, giving the team focus down the stretch.

Steve Jeltz, destiny is calling.

Buck Shot!

I think I've asked this before, but is there ANYONE in the world who likes Joe Buck? Anyone at all? If you exist, please e-mail me. I have a 5,000-word essay I can send back to you that proves you're wrong.

Wyeth Oh Wyeth

I don't know art, but I know what I like. And I enjoy paintings of burning seagulls.

If that's what you like, then do yourself a favor and get to the Brandywine River Museum. Jamie Wyeth's "Seven Deadly Sins" series shows all those vices through seagulls, and one of the studies he painted while preparing is a seagull, on fire, flying directly at you out of a huge fireball. Sadly, there were no prints of this study available in the gift shop, or it would be hanging over my bed right now.

Nothing says "it's go time" like a burning, screaming seagull. Trust me, I'm a romantic.

Art museums are your friend when you travel a lot and work at night, and over the last few years a few artists have really stuck with me. I have an N.C. Wyeth print (from Portland, Maine) hanging over my TV and an Andrew Wyeth print (from Toledo, Ohio) in my dining room; about two years ago I pointed out Rockwell Kent as a neat guy.

And yet somehow, I had never visited a museum 30 minutes from my parents (I drive past it every time I go home) that is dedicated to the Wyeths, who have been the economic engine for Chadds Ford, Pa., for about a century. The exhibits are great. The N.C. Wyeth gallery includes all the illustration paintings he did for "Treasure Island," and even the biggest art skeptic has to enjoy a large painting of man with a knife in his teeth. The Andrew Wyeth collection has plenty of the usual muted, detailed and oddly compelling temperas that are his signature; the guy knew how to make a captivating image and he wasn't a carbon copy of his dad. And of course, Jamie Wyeth painted burning seagulls, which is awesome. If you ever feel uncomfortable with your family, imagine being the untalented Wyeth at Thanksgiving dinner.

For me, the highlight had to be the special exhibit: Rockwell Kent. I was impressed by a few arctic seascapes I saw in Portland, but here they had a sampling of his entire career and a little more back story. Turns out, he was a raging a-hole! The general pattern of his life: paint for a bit, have a minor mental breakdown (often brought on by womanizing and the resulting divorce), flee to some remote and very cold spot (Greenland, Alaska, etc.) until the heat dies down, and then settle in to paint the stuff from his last vacation. You could call it "being a man's man," except Rockwell was also an anti-Semetic, and at the end of his life he ended up donating most of his work to the Soviet Union. I don't know if he ever met Ernest Hemingway, but I can definitely see them choking eachother on the floor of a bar.

But a-holes can have talent. Kent did some really swank painting and illustration work, and I was blown away by his inked illustrations for a deluxe edition of "Moby-Dick." I wasn't impressed enough to actually read "Moby-Dick," but the thought did cross my mind for about four seconds. And that, right there, is the power of art.

Here's my favorite non-Kent thing on display, N.C. Wyeth's "In a Dream I Met General Washington." The Wyeths and the museum are from Chadds Ford, home to Brandywine battlefield, so George figures into the local history. When I meet General Washington in my dreams, he is playing right field for the Phillies, but I respect N.C.'s artistic vision nonetheless. I think it's young Andrew at his feet.

Get It On

OK, I want to compile a list of great art prints to hang over your bed. Send your ideas to chris@dcstandup.com. I'll start the fun:

Saturn Devouring His Son

Tags: museums

I Will Never Go Down the Drain

This weekend, in need of a little getaway, the girlfriend and I hopped in the car and drove to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe:

Your eyes don't lie -- that's Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood! We were in Pittsburgh for a family event, and WQED (the nation's first public TV station, where all the episodes were filmed) just happened to have the set on display for one weekend only. And sadly, next weekend it will all be leveled to put up the Luxury Condo Towers of Make-Believe. X the Owl was tased five times when he refused to unchain himself from the tree. Daniel Tiger mauled three construction workers. UGGA MUGGA NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I kid! I watched Mr. Rogers quite a bit when I was a kid, before children's television started slumming for that 1-3 A.D.D. demographic (the kids with all the money). This struck me as something that would be fun to see. Apparently the same thought struck about 4,000 other people in the Pittsburgh area, because it was packed. We got there at 9 to find a line snaking around the parking lot. Since it was 70 degrees, we decided we'd wait for awhile.

And wait. And wait.

It took about two hours to get into the building, which isn't to say the parking lot wasn't entertaining. Most people were on great behavior, but there was a white trash family ahead of us who, facing the choice between scratch-off lotto tickets and medicating their kids, went for the gold. Taking their ownership stake in "public" television very seriously, we watched the kids trample several flowerbeds and then dry-hump a small statue of a dinosaur near the entrance of the building. Yes, on Nov. 8, 2009, I saw a young boy grind on the tail of a T-Rex (dressed like Fred Rogers) for about three minutes. You often wonder when you're going to see the birth of a new fetish, and I look forward to the Discovery Health special dedicated to this kid in 2025.

Also entertaining: Purple Panda, Mr. Rogers' attempt to reach out to the children of 1970s acid users, walked through the parking lot. Most kids were OK with it, but one girl (dressed in purple, oddly enough) had a complete breakdown. She started screaming to her dad how she wanted the panda to go away, for about five minutes. This both confirmed my long-held belief that Purple Panda was freaky and amused me a great deal. Everybody wins!

Finally, in the true spirit of everything that Mr. Rogers taught, we saw a woman get into a shouting match with a security guard when he tried to keep her from joining the line (the exhibit closed at 5 and she wasn't going to get in). Who could forget the great Mr. Rogers song, "I Drove 4 Hours for This, Go to Hell!" Sometimes, it takes a special event like this to bring out the child in all of us.

The set itself was cool -- I was surprised how much I had forgotten, and how quickly it all came back. I enjoyed one kid yelling at the Rocking Chair factory, hoping that Corny would come out and talk to him. I apprecitated that kid's enthusiasm. I also appreciated that he was too old to think that a puppet was a living, thinking creature. Looking back on the whole day, I think the number one lesson learned is: kids are stupid.

The number two lesson learned is that my girlfriend is awesome, since she agreed to stand in line with me and my brother despite almost no interest in Mr. Rogers. We made sure to reward her with a trip to another fine Pittsburgh institution:

You are staring at an order of large fries from "The O," a legendary eatery in Oakland (where Pitt is located). The extra large fills a whole cafeteria tray. But it's not just the french fries -- it's the attitude. The guy behind the counter really gave the impression that he would have been OK with me bursting into flames. I wasn't even holding up a line. He just wanted me to die on the spot. That's the kind of professionalism I expect from greasy spoons. Well done, you hateful man.

As to the delicious fries: Many cities have signature food items; Pittsburgh has settled on disgusting amounts of fries, sandwiches with french fries in them (Primanti Brothers) and crappy cheap beer (Iron City). That pretty much tells you everything you need to know about Pittsburgh. It's a great town.

Thanks to brother Dave for being a great host and taking these fine pictures!

Book Review: The Election of Andrew Jackson

If you're in the market for an out-of-print book about an election that took place 200 years ago, I gotta recommend this one.

It's neat! High school history glosses over stuff between the Revolution and the Civil War, but the election of 1828 gave us the political system we have today. Martin Van Buren oversaw the organization of the modern national political party, which coordinated activities in every state.

All the stuff we hate about modern politics really took off in 1828. We grouse about media bias now; back then it was just good sense to pay off as many newspaper editors as humanly possible. People complain about candidates with no real positions and empty promises made on the stump -- Jackson's campaign was built by promising everything to everyone. They made politics into a referendum on personality.

It's fascinating stuff, but you aren't going to read the book and I'd like to have another rum and coke, so let's call it quits. Excelsior!

Book Review: The Bomb Party

Graham Greene is a good writer, and this is a very short book. It's about greed. So if you like greed and short books, why not pick up "The Bomb Party"?

Tags: Pittsburgh

Can We Use a Man Like Herbert Hoover Again?

Archie and Edith made this idea famous; now I'm trying to break in down with science in my latest McSweeney's column.

The source material this time out (aside from my keen animal instincts): a visit to Camp Rapidan, and a copy of Herbert's memoirs for the cabinet and White House years. If you like hiking, I definitely recommend Camp Rapidan. If you like fun, I definitely recommend not reading Hoover's memoirs. He's not much of a writer.

But I suffer so you don't have to! Enjoy the column, and let me know what you think!

Tags: presidents

Movie Review: Pirate Radio

Did you know that in the 1960s, the British government BANNED ROCK AND ROLL FROM THE RADIO? And that it took an AMERICAN to show them how to rock again, by STICKING IT TO THE MAN?

Only, rock and roll was never banned, the pirate stations operated largely under the purview of the law, and the Brits had plenty of hard-drinking lowlifes to do their own rocking. The commercials for "Pirate Radio" (based on actual events, sort of!) also play up Philip Seymour Hoffman and January Jones, probably on the calculation that Americans won't see a movie about British people. You know, because of the language difference. January Jones has one scene, and Hoffman isn't really important to the plot.

Technically, NO ONE in the movie is important to the plot, because there isn't a plot. Here's the movie: an 18-year-old is sent to live on a "pirate radio" ship by his mom. We don't know anything about him or what he was like before he got to the ship, but it doesn't really matter, because there's no actual character development for anyone in the movie. It's not clear what the 18-year-old actually DOES on the ship, but he does meet all the radio personalities, who are zany and crazy and bang lots of chicks (whenever the chicks come aboard).

Pirate radio is legal, but a few guys in the British government don't like it much and want it shut down. They never have any direct confrontation or interaction with the pirates, and for 85 percent of the movie everything they do is completely ineffectual. The pirates never have any indication that they are threatened, so there's no actual drama or battle with authority. There's just a bunch of scenes where they do stuff on the ship.

But somewhere in there, some fishermen fall of a boat in the North Sea and have their distress call blocked by a pirate radio signal. They die. So the government bans pirate radio over what could be seen as legitimate safety concerns. [SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT] But the pirates decide they're GOING TO KEEP ON ROCKING! This plan involves broadcasting illegally and on the move, even though that means they'd need fuel and would be caught within a week. Good thing their engine blows up! The boat sinks, but the fans of the station come pick them out of the water, so apparently rock triumphed.

What's the point? Beats the hell out of me! There are some entertaining scenes and a few funny lines, but don't waste your money. I don't know why people would produce a movie with no plot or conflict, but I guess money is easy to come by these days.

Oh, Rape, You Kill Me!

In "Pirate Radio," the sort-of hero wants to lose his virginity, so a DJ comes up with a plan: the DJ will get a groupie naked and ready to sleep with the DJ, then shut off all the lights. At that point the hero will come in and have sex with the woman in the dark, before she realizes the switch.

Except for the fact that it's rape, that's HILARIOUS!

Tags: movies

My Peers

The District of Columbia is filled with young people who feel very passionate about government and doing the right thing. They will tell you at any party, or even on a street corner, how much they care about government and doing the right thing. Some will insist you are a bad person if they think you do not care about government or doing the right thing. And they often express their love of government and doing the right thing in two ways:

1) They never register their car in D.C. so they can commit insurance fraud, or they never get a D.C. driver's license.

2) They never change their registration so they can vote in their home state.

So it's like they don't live in D.C. at all! Take out convicted felons and the jury pool for D.C. is about 327 people, to satisfy the needs of something like 527 different federal and local courts. Which is why I have been summoned for both the U.S. District Court and the D.C. Superior Court in the last few weeks.

Thanks, jerks.

Tags: jury duty

The LaRouchies are Back!

The LaRouchies are back! I don't know if you get them in other cities, but in D.C., every few months, you'll be leaving a subway station, and there it is: a sign about the New Deal. Or some kind of international financial system. Or Obama with a Hitler moustache. If you read more than two words of the sign, you will have a glossy-eyed kid moving in on you within five seconds.

If you don't get out of there within 10 seconds of his pitch, you will be secretly tagged as a "person of interest," and later that evening a van will scoop you off the street. You will then be taken to the secret LaRouche reprogramming facility, where promising young people are broken down (through repeated beatings with unsold copies of "Children of Satan") and convinced that the best way to change the evils of the world is by standing near public transportation and agressively yelling about international finance.

And maybe, if you are a lucky, attractive female, you will be chose as the vessel for the seed of the Great Leader, and through you the prophecy shall be fulfilled! The child shall be named BRETTON WOODS JR. and his GAZE ALONE shall melt the chains of TYRANNY! When the world has been pacified, the savior shall teach us all BETTER LIVING THROUGH THE ARTS AND CRAFTS and also maybe TELEPORTATION! From there we bring economic order to THE MOON, first by building a subway there, then waiting outside the entrances for EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL LIFE to visit on vacation! THE STARS THEMSELVES SHALL FALL TO THE GREAT LAROU ...

Whoops. Never mind all that stuff. But if you want to learn some interesting things about current events, I have some pamphlets I can give you! Just meet me at the dumpster behind the 7-11 and wear something that we can slip a burlap sack over.

Tags: politics

Utah on My Mind

"Hey Chris, where ya been?"

UTAH! You're impressed. Don't act like you aren't. I came here for weekend shows at Wiseguys, but I left with a deeper appreciation of the vast tapestry that is America. Or at least the part of the tapestry that is Mormon and outdoors.

Temple Square

Mormons will be in open control of 75 percent of the government by 2015, so I take every opportunity to learn more about our future latter-day masters. If you've never met an enthusiastic Mormon, they're like car salesmen, but for god! Some back story:

The Mormons leave Illinois, on account of no one wanting them to be there. Prophet Brigham Young leads them west, and when they come through the mountains and see the Salt Lake before them, he announces "this is the place." Then he goes for a stroll, sticks his cane in the dirt and says, "this is where we're building our temple." They build the temple, and all of Salt Lake City. Then John Stockton sets the record for assists.

The inspirational tale is neatly spelled out at the Temple Square complex, which is a holy site, a historical site and a sales pitch all rolled into one. Unlike most major religions, the Mormons are a modern marketing MACHINE -- they're multimedia, they're very conscious of P.R., and they're relentlessly positive. They're young, they're hungry, and they want to get you into a new religion today. In other words, they're corporate! Check out the picture to the right -- in the background is the Temple, one of the holiest sites in all of Mormonania, and in the foreground is the Church's much, much larger office tower. I believe they call that synergy.

Non-Mormons can't see the inside of the temple, which is yet another tantalizing lure to convert, as I'm pretty sure they have water slides inside. But there's still stuff to do. The Joseph Smith Memorial Building has a 68-minute movie on ... uh, Joseph Smith. (I did not see it, but I was advised that it is "totally awesome.") You can catch organ recitals at noon in the Tabernacle (and you should, because the organ there IS awesome). Or you can buzz over to the Beehive:

That's the home of Brigham Young, a man who was, at the very least, interesting. Not many people in American history have had 27 wives, and most of those who did never found the time to build a city, govern a territory, run a religion or start a small war with the United States government. His symbol was the beehive, a reminder of how industrious he expected Utahans to be. Or maybe it was a symbol of how many honies he made time with. It's a symbol of something, at least.

I got a 20-minute tour from two Mormon "sisters" that was a little light on the history but very pleasant. The Beehive served as Brigham's office, sleeping quarters and parlor -- he had thousands of guests, from Mark Twain to U.S. Grant, and you never know when the Angel Moroni might need a place to crash. Since he was also the governor of Utah Territory, it was the executive mansion. But you want the real skinny. The real dirt. The real mystery: What happens when 27 women have to decorate a house together?

We'll never know, becuase Brigham kept most of the ladies (and kids) next door at the Lion House, his other swank pad. Only his most favored wife (his first "multiple") set up shop at the Beehive. She did a hell of a job, though. The place is all wood paneling, bright colors and fine furniture -- definitely a notch above a few of the mid-19th-century homes I've seen in the past.

They dance around the unsavory (by modern standards) parts of Brigham's life, and they will try to get you on their mailing list at the end of the tour. But they also, per Brigham's custom, give you a lemon drop. So I'd say it's worth a visit. And while you're in the neighborhood, pop up the street to Brigham's grave. Considering he was a massively important political and religious figure, you'd think he'd have a nice spread. But you'd be wrong:

The little park with the grave was locked, so this pic is from the outside looking in. But the lot is on a residential street and right behind an apartment building. Why the gate was locked, I can't say. But maybe they weren't keeping me out. Maybe they were keeping Brigham in.

Yeah.

I had an added bonus for my visit to Temple Square, as there were a number of disturbing Nativity scenes set up around the plaza. For example, if you've ever wondered what it would look like if Jesus were a cartoon eskimo, WONDER NO LONGER!

Finally, I would like to point out that the Mormon Tabernacle, a miracle of acoustic engineering, is not soundproofed well enough to block out the noise of a leafblower. Oh, and if you are attending a concert in a hall with amazing acoustics, EVERYONE CAN HEAR YOU WHISPERING TO YOUR WIFE AND YOUR UGLY KIDS. You know who you are.

Utah Capitol

In Utah, if you have to do something as excruciating as serving in state government, at least you have an awesome view:

The Capitol is on the side of a mountain (a short walk uphill from Temple Square), and while the building itself is pretty standard capitol fare, the setting is astonishing. You have the whole city in front of you, mountains on the horizon and mountains behind you. YOU LEGISLATE AS THE GODS THEMSELVES, FROM ON HIGH! AND NO ONE SHALL QUESTION THE MIGHT OF RONDA MENLOVE, REPUBLICAN FROM DISTRICT 1!

Yes, Ronda Menlove.

The inside ain't bad, either. It's painted with scenes from Utah's history (the Golden Spike, the birth of Karl Malone) and it features a statue of perhaps the greatest Utahan -- nay, person -- to ever set foot on this earth.

That's Philo Farnsworth, inventor of the TV set.

One particularly neat feature of the Capitol: in the frontier spirit, if you defeat the governor in an Indian leg-wrestling contest in the rotunda, you can decree the law of your choice. He takes on all comers from 12 to 2 on Saturday afternoons. If I had stretched properly, maybe Utah would have video poker today; as it turns out, I now have to return in 2010 for three weeks of unpaid labor at a Morton Salt facility. Remember: always stretch. It's important.

Tags: Utah

Salt of the Earth

I rounded out my Saturday with a leisurely 220-mile drive to see salt. In my defense, I only thought it would be about 150-miles round trip, but I forgot to check the maps.

The Bonneville Salt Flats are the remains of an ancient lake. They are made of salt, and they are flat. Hence the name, "salt flats." That's the extent of my scientific knowledge. But anecdotally, they're flatter and whiter than the U.S. Women's Gymnastics team! HEYOOOOOOOOOOO!

Seriously, they're very, very flat, which makes them ideal for driving obscenely fast. You may recall that a number of land speed records were set on the Bonneville Salt Flats, often times in rocket cars. They didn't have any rocket cars left at Alamo, so I had to do my best with a Chevy Aveo. Anything over Mach 3 would have voided the rental agreement, so I tried to keep it under 320.

[A question: What's the point of rocket cars? Some "hobby" technology ends up having practical benefits, but we haven't seen too many public uses of land-based vehicular rocket propulsion. So let's all be practical, and lobby the government to install rocket car lanes on all Interstate highways. It will create jobs, and it will allow me to accomplish my life-long dream of driving to Los Angeles in under 5 hours. If you don't like this idea, then you do not want America to be great.]

The racing season is in the summer, so I didn't really have a chance to challenge anyone for the right to their old lady. I did get in a few photos, but only a few, because it was cold. Very cold. Desert in the winter with a biting wind cold. It's strange to be that freezing, look out at a white lanscape, and know that it's not snow. I have therefore determined that they only race in the summer, because if they had to plow the salt flats, the trucks would never know when to stop.

My only regret is that I did not go all the way to the middle, where all you can see to any side is white, and supposedly the curve of the Earth is visible. But on the other hand, had I done that, there's a good chance I'd be writing this while huddled in the back seat of a Chevy Aveo with no gas praying for death, since no one else in their right mind would visit the Bonneville Salt Flats in November.

So I guess it worked out OK. And don't worry -- I licked the ground to make sure it's salt. It was delicious.

Tags: Utah

Just for Spike

On May 10, 1869, at Promontory, Utah, 10,000 Chinese guys became unemployed. And they commemorate this with a National Park site:

On that fateful day, the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads completed a phenomenal engineering project with a flourish: golden and silver spikes were driven into a ceremonial railroad tie, the track linking Omaha to Sacramento was completed, and the American West was open for business. Not five minutes later, cattle cars filled with Midwestern prostitutes steamed through to Reno. Everyone celebrated, except for Indians, who were hosed.

America was conceptually way more fun in the Victorian era, when things were both fancier and dirtier. Sure, we've made social progress, and indoor plumbing is nice. But there's something elegant about people who wore neat hats and had a complete disregard for human life. Especially when it came to building stuff: there were no environmental impact studies, or planning commissions, or eminent domain cases. There were just big dreams, cheap immigrant labor and high explosives.

That's how you play the game, son!

Here's your history: in 1863 Congress (or at least the Northern half) decides to subsidize a transcontinental railroad, paying companies for each mile of track laid. After the war, the Central Pacifc (starting in Sacramento) and the Union Pacific (starting in Omaha) gear up the race to the middle -- the Union Pacific following the Mormon Trail across the plains, and the Central Pacific cutting (insanely) through the Sierra Nevadas.

By law, the track can never have more than a 2 percent grade, so each company has to blow apart the landscape. Temporary bridges span scary chasms, tunnels are ripped through mountains (by the 10,000 Chinese immigrants hired by the Central Pacific), ditches are filled with rubble and the bodies of dead laborers to make the ride as smooth as possible. And since they're paid by the mile, both companies work as quickly as possible with minimal safeguards.

When both companies reach Utah, the race accelerates. There were only so many miles left to claim, so the "grading crews" work ahead of the track-layers; for about 200 miles, the two companies work on parallel grades, sometimes within shouting distance of eachother, until Congress finally decided that Promontory would be the meeting place. The track-layers meet up in May, and locomotovies from each end of the track bring the leaders of the companies to the ceremony. That morning, they hotwire hammers to the telegraph cable, so that each blow would go out to telegraph stations around the country. In a true d-bag CEO moment, both presidents miss their swings, but the foremen finish the job.

And then there was much rejoicing! America was never the same -- settlers could now get to the West in days, with relatively little cannibalism. The "hell on wheels" towns that workers threw up as winter camps sometimes flourished into the greatest American cities -- Reno, for example. Freight and supplies could cross the continent in record time, allowing merchant mariners to avoid the huge boulders thrown by the Patagonian giants. And as I said before, Indians were screwed.

I made the 90-mile drive to the middle of nowhere (north of Salt Lake) on Sunday, to check out the Golden Spike historical site. The tracks aren't original (they were recycled when a shorter route over Salt Lake made them redundant). The spikes aren't there (a few museums have them). The visitor center is a little threadbare (especially compared with Steamtown in Scranton, Pa.). But if you have some historical imagination it's worth the trip. They have the ceremonial spot marked, they have an OK video in the visitor center, and if you're there in the warmer months you can see two replica locomotives (the Jupiter and the No. 119, which brought the railroad presidents to Promontory) get up a head of steam.

I was there in the middle of a snow storm, so I got to go down to the engine house, see the trains up close and chat with one of the mechanics. He had a great moustache and some good information. My kind of guy.

Then I stopped on my way out at the "Big Fill" trail -- a 1.5 mile loop along the grades that the Union Pacific and Central Pacific carved out. You can appreciate how pretty the landscape is, then see how they tore it to shreds (the remains of bridge abutments, rock cuts and massive fills are all very obvious).

And then, if your trip is like mine, the snow storm will hit. I think it dropped down to the high 20s, with a pretty good wind and white out conditions -- it was more like a snow fog. I was walking back directly into the wind, my jeans soaked with snow, for about half a mile. Truly, I felt a great connection with the Chinese tunnel-diggers whose shacks were caught in avalanches and died crushed and freezing at the bottom of a ravine, with no one finding their bodies until the spring. Our suffering was the same. Exactly. The. Same. Here's a comparison shot -- this is the same sign, at a 40 minute interval.

I don't know what it says about me that I considered this storm to make the visit extra fun.

FUN GOLDEN SPIKE FACTS!

• Chatting with the mechanic about National Parks, he related this story: a man comes up to a ranger in Yellowstone. "I only have about two hours," he says. What should I do with my time?" The ranger thinks. "You only have two hours? Then you should probably go stand in that corner and cry."
• Chinese tunneling crews would sometimes go days without seeing daylight, and often could advance no more than 8 inches a day. But they were rewarded for this hard work with insitutional racism.
• In keeping with the standards of the Victorian era, the locomotives had elaborate paint jobs and fine detailing. After every run, teams of towel boys would wipe the blood of the poor off of the cowcatchers.
• The men responsible for making "cuts" in the landscape were "double-jackers" and "powder monkeys," because back then you could still have "monkey" and "jacker" in your job title. Face it, the 19th century ruled.

Tags: Utah

Trivia Recap 11/25

The night before Thanksgiving, we emulated the pilgrims and sat down for some pre-feasting trivia. We started out with "Full House" -- teams had to list the top 10 countries in terms of population. "Giving Thanks" had questions based on the holiday (what dance craze did Dee Dee Sharp start?) and "Kids' Table" focused on famous kids (who starred in the 1960s remake of "Kid Galahad"?). Then, the crowd was not thankful for "Bus School," which turned out to be the toughest video round EVER. It was rebus puzzles with a pop culture twist, and while I had a fine time putting it together, it was much tougher than I had guessed. The high score (out of 10) was 4, and the average score was a tick over 1.

Live and learn! Schadenfraude managed a 30 out of 40 for a first-place finish. Let's Get Dangerous scored a 27 for second place, and the Menonites landed in third with a 21. Here they are in order of finish, and thanks to everyone who came out!

Tags: trivia