Chicks With Sticks
Long before I was a restaurant guy, (but after I was a musician guy) I was a marketing guy. Right now, I am doing some freelance PR work. My newest client is
these women. You may have seen them on ESPN. I'm handling all the PR and media relations for the rest of the year, and this week is the US Open, which is in Providence, RI. I'm going up there tomorrow. I'll be there two nights. I'll be hanging out with The Black Widow and The Striking Viking and The Duchess of Doom.
Dig it.
Sometimes we get it right
The
Ghost Ballet is up on the East Bank. After making fun of it for a year or so, now that it is up, I don't hate it. In fact, I like it. I didn't realize that it was going to loom over the terminus of Broadway as you come over the hill. That is pretty cool. (Although, while discussing options on where to take a blind date in Nashville the other day, a woman actually said, "When are they going to open that roller coaster they're building downtown?") I think it will grow on us as a city. I'm also glad it isn't
a big guitar, which was one of the finalists in the sculpture submission process. At least the Ghost Ballet doesn't say, "Nashville - still a town full of redneck, boot-scootin' sexy-tractor-lovin' hayseed rednecks!"
But there is a new billboard in town that I think helps to dispel that image beautifully. It is a photo of Todzilla from the funk band Jones World, welcoming the world to Music Row. I don't know who put that up, and who is paying for it, but I want to personally thank them for not having a guy wearing a cowboy hat in the picture. I know Toddzilla, I love his band, and I love how the billboard says "Music Row - we ain't just Country and Western no more!"
Under Pressure
Exactly eight years ago, my ex-brother-in-law, Joe, damn near lost his foot. He was victim of a pressure washer incident.
Joe and his buddy, Rex, were riding jet skis in the canals that criss-cross that particular pocket of hell known as South Florida. I never participated in their jet ski and skiing activities because those canals are just nasty. And gators sun themselves on the banks. Big gators. I guess that keeps you from falling. So they finished up and were cleaning off the jet skis, because that canal water is just nasty, and Joe, in a fateful moment of inattention, shot his foot with the pressure washer. It made a small hole in the top of his foot, maybe a half-inch around. He didn't think much of it. The next morning, me and the ex were called over to their abode on that nasty canal in Boca Raton to baby sit the niece and nephew. Seems that Joe's foot had swelled halfway up to his knee, and he and the missus thought it might be wise to go seek medical attention. as he was leaving, I made a joke about them just amputating the damn thing.
well, they almost had to amputate the damn thing. Joe spent over a month in the hospital with a severe infection, brought on by all that nasty canal water getting into the little hole in his foot. There were skin grafts and surgeries involving words like scraping and pus, and it was touch and go as to whether he was going to get to keep the bottom of his leg. They managed to save it, but he's got a helluva scar on top of his tootsie.
So I found myself today standing on my back deck for several hours wearing flip flops, pressure washing the deck around the pool. (I didn't know the deck was cream colored. I thought it was black.) And I thought about Joe's foot, and the fact that it was exactly eight years ago, and I was very careful in my pressure washing technique. I'm happy to report there have been no pressure washing injuries thus far today.
So how do I know it was exactly eight years ago? Because we were called over to baby-sit while Joe went to the hospital on the Sunday of the British Open at Carnoustie, which saw the greatest meltdown in all of golf history, Jean Van de Velde's seven at the 18th when he needed a six to win. And I remember it because while history was being made on the television, I was trying to watch it while being forced to gleefully cheer on the dance routine choreographed by two five-year-old girls to Hanson's "Mmmm-bop".
Scene Food Blog
The Nashville Scene has a new
food blog. Its logo looks like this:
I'm sure local bloggers will be reminded of a long-time Nashville pop culture blogger, the biting, witty and charming
Trashley, whose logo looks like this:
Now, one could accuse the Scene of ripping off Trashley, who has been around for a year, but we all know that the Scene doesn't acknowledge local blogs as worthwhile, much less being worth ripping off.
Bend it like what's his name
Pele came to play in America, and he was going to single-
handedly raise the popularity of soccer to the same level here as the rest of the world.
Brandi
Chastain whipped off her shirt and was thereby going to single-
handedly raise the popularity of soccer to the same level here as the rest of the world.
The
MLS came along and that was going to single-
handedly raise the popularity of soccer to the same level here as the rest of the world.
Mr. Spice is here to single-
handedly raise the popularity of soccer to the same level as the rest of the world. For a quarter of a billion dollars.
I'm pretty fired up that the first NFL
pre-season weekend is less than a month away. Soccer? Er, not so much.
Perhaps I just don't understand the intricacies involved in playing to a nil-nil tie.
My Healthcare Solution
Michael Moore is making the rounds again. I don't pay attention to him. Never have. I guess now he's taking on the evil health care industry.
I will agree with people who say that our health care system is messed up. But you want to get the government involved in running it? That's where I gotta draw the line.
I have a theory about it. I am convinced that the reason our health care system is such a mess is that people use their insurance to go to the doctor. The $10 co-pay is the most ridiculous idea since the invention of capitalism. That's like using your car insurance to get your oil changed. Doctors are highly educated professional specialists. Paying ten or 25 dollars to see them is just stealing.
The only argument I've ever heard that comes close to making sense is that the insurance companies would rather have a person use preventive tactics than wait until the last minute. It's easier and cheaper to remove a suspect mole than treat someone for advanced melanoma, I suppose. But still, ten bucks? People pay more than that to get their palms read.
To me, the co-pay is dumbing the system down. That's why the emergency room is filled with folks with the sniffles. Imagine what the emergency room would be like if "the government" paid for everything.
I don't go to the doctor unless my guts have actually fallen out of my body. Even when I had a co-pay, I didn't run to a doctor every time I felt a little sick. I don't think it is unreasonable to pay more for a yearly physical than you would to tune up your car, or get new tires. Right now, I don't have a co-pay. I am self employed. I have catastrophic-only insurance. I pay about a hundred bucks to see a doctor. But my doctor is a freaking DOCTOR, fercrissakes. That seems fair to me.
Fosters is the new Sudoku
A study by
neuroscientists released in Australia reports that drinking may actually be good for your brain. It rebukes the myth that we are born with a certain amount of brain cells and cannot grow new ones.
Queensland Brain Institute director Professor Perry Bartlett says the report shows drinking alcohol does not kill off brain cells - and that drinking up to four standard glasses of wine a night might be beneficial.
I've been to Australia. You can have your Germans and your Greeks and your Canadians and your other big-time drinking societies. Those Aussies can drink. They put the rest of the drinking world to shame. I hope this isn't a situation of the tail wagging the Austrailian Neuroscientist dog.
Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! Oy, Oy, Oy!
I am officially starting an unsubstantiated rumour
Bookmark this page. I'm going to be the first to say it.
Ladies and Gentlemen.
The 2008 head coach for the Tennessee Titans.
Jon Gruden.
Playing the Ponies
On Friday, me and my six-year-old jumped in the truck and drove up to Louisville for one of the last days of the 2007 spring meet at famed Churchill Downs. I love, love, love me some horse racing. I went to high school in Louisville, and me and my buddies would regularly go over to Churchill after school for some good, clean, wholesome gambling.
I let my kid pick her own bets. She got paid on six of the eight bets she picked. She was making mostly $8 place bets, based on either the horses name, or which one looked "fast and feisty" in the paddock. In the fifth race she switched to a $6 win pick. Just for variety, I suppose. The horse won and paid 96 bucks. My cut was 86.
Hey, she can't make the bets without me. Plus I had to cover all the crap exacta boxes I kept losing on. She walked with 20 bucks and a new Churchill Downs purse to put it in.
