Eve of Destruction

From the Superdome...

It's not like last time.  This time, there's no foolish bravado, only fear.  People are packing up and moving out, some for good. 

Saturday night, normally one of the five or ten busiest weekends of the year;  Most restaurants are closed, most hotels are boarded up.  Bars are open, but the crowds are thin.   Sunday morning, and the streets are deserted-- we close up the Ambassador Hotel and hit the road.

We're driving to Natchez, Mississippi, where we operate a Country Inns and Suites.  Contraflow starts on I-10, extends on I-55 up to McComb, and the traffic is still bumper to bumper.  We should have taken Highway 61, but lessons learned.  There's nothing to do but creep along and drink.  It's 10am.

On the Road...

The Drinking...

The Peeing...

Who Dat?

I had been to the Superdome before... Tulane played their home games there (except for Homecoming, which commences in Tad Gormley Stadium in city Park, which is small and altogether unimpressive.  Go figure.)  But I had never been to a Saints game before--

Conchetta and I

Jeana, Conchetta, and Abby

Abby and I

Myself, Abby, Coach Wayne, and Conchetta

Sure, it was just a preseason game.  And the seats were pretty far back in the nosebleeds.  And the Saints lost to the Dolphins, who are apparently one of the worst teams in the league and therefore this game doesn't bode well for the rest of the season...  But the tickets were free, and the company was great.  We went to Dino's (where else?) after-- it was a good time.

The City of New Orleans

For the time being, I've gone home.  I left Tennessee via train on Wednesday and headed down to New Orleans.  This is the first time I've trained for such a long distance in years, and, whenever possible, will be my choice in modes of travel.  There's lots of leg room, the seats are large and comfy, and this train in particular wasn't particularly crowded-- hopefully that's the norm.  

Apparently, however, despite the imminent fun of Southern Decadence, I've chosen a bad weekend to visit-- with Hurricane Gustav, the weather is going to get bad.  We'll see.  I didn't know of this until I was on the train halfway here, but probably would have come anyway.  

Anyway, I've been offered a position with New Orleans Boutique Hotels similar, although not quite the same, as the position I held right before my departure.  That is a stroke of luck-- now all I need is to find a room somewhere in the Marigny or the Quarter I can rent for a month or two.

It's great to be back-- to see the old haunts and the old faces.  To stay out past two and eat great food.  Plus Southern Decadence is this weekend-- God knows what trouble I'll get into then.  But anyway, I think I'm staying here through Halloween.

The Recipe Corner

I haven't posted anything in the while, because when I'm in Clarksburg I seldom do anything worth posting about.  I sit a home, watch TV, drink and eat.  So, I'll share these awesome recipe with everyone.  They are, possibly, the best things ever.

Greek Pork Loin--

What you need:

A pork tenderloin (9-11lbs)

roasted red sweet peppers

feta cheese

olive oil

a few green olives

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, grease a baking dish with the olive oil.  Make a slit through the middle of the tenderloin, and rub the whole thing with olive oil and a little salt/pepper if you want.  Stuff the peppers and the feta into the slit in the pork, tie it up with bakers twine so everything doesn't fall out and put the whole thing in the baking dish.  Lie the peppers and the olives alongside the meat, and then toss it in the oven.  Let it cook for about an hour and fifteen minutes, and once it's done, eat that delicious shit.

Crawfish Etouffee--

What you need:

one stick of butter

a green pepper

a red onion

a tomato

several mushrooms

three stalks of celery

three tablespoons of cajun seasoning (more or less to taste)

two tablespoons of minced garlic

a couple of bay leaves

Alright, chop the vegetables and throw all the above ingredients in a pan.  Sautee everything until the onions, celery and such are tender.  Add 1 cup of water and 2 cups of crawfish tail meat to the pan, cover, and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring ever so often.  After ten minutes, remove from heat, stir in a tablespoon of flour and let sit uncovered for another ten minutes to thicken.  Serve over rice.

Stuffed Tilapia--

What you need:

four nice tilapia filets

a bag of seasoned croutons

an egg

3/4 cup of milk

1 1/2 cups grated parmesan cheese

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1 tablespoon choice seasoning

Preheat oven to 'broil' setting.  Crust your tilapia with as much of the cheese as necessary to get a good coating.  Crush the croutons by hand (if you use a blender, the crumbs will be too fine), throw them in a bowl and add the egg, the milk, the garlic, the seasoning and the rest of the cheese.  Mix it together, and place a generous amount of the concoction on top of each fish filet.  Place the stuffed fish onto a baking sheet and broil in the oven for 4-6 minutes, until fish is done and flakes when pierced with a fork.

New Century Of Cinema: Children of Men

(This is a new, fairly regular column I'm going to try to keep posted, where I examine and review my choices for the best films 

of the first decade of the new century. I don't get to watch movies particularly often, but I'll add to this list as I can.)

It is the year 2027 and no children have been born anywhere in the world for more than eighteen years.  Without a future, society is on the brink of annihilation; most nations have crumbled, Britain soldiers on.  Suicide drugs are free, immigrants are caged into unspeakable camps to await deportation or death, and fascism and terror battle for the upper hand.  Yet, in the midst of the blackness, even at the end, there is hope.  That is the premise of Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men, a stunning film of remarkable emotion and visceral impact.

Clive Owen plays Theo Farron, a one-time political activist now consigned to apathy.  One day he is kidnapped by a militant activist group headed by his ex-lover (Julianne Moore).  She asks him to use his influence to procure transit papers for a young refugee, Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey); it is pivotal she be allowed to move unencumbered towards the coast.  He obliges.  After a sudden assassination that couples the realization that Kee is pregnant and in great danger, he becomes her protector.  Together they flee from the government and the radicals, winding up in Bexhill Refugee Camp where they're to meet a ship that will transport Kee safely out of Britian.

Cuaron's vision of mankind at the end of days is enthralling.  There are times when we are so engrossed we forget that we're seeing sets and special effects; we mistake this London for a real place. Children of Men works so well because it doesn't opt to reinvent the wheel.  There are no towering CGI effects--it takes little stretch of imagination to see the world coming to this in twenty years.  The production designers (Jim Clay and Geoffrey Kirkland) have peppered their cityscape with government propaganda reminiscent of New York's anti-terror campaign (I was also reminded of the wanted posters in Cuaron's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban).   Everything looks much as it does now, but older and less cared for.  Stray animals roam the streets, unoccupied with the troubles of man.  The refugee camp is a brilliant achievement,  effectively evoking Polish ghettos in World War Two.  There are beautiful scenes in an abandoned grade school that linger long after the credits roll.

I have made the film sound as if it is only a visual achievement, but it succeeds on all levels.  It is, above all, an action film and it has sequences so taut and brutal it makes the animated theatrics of Michael Bay seem like a Nickelodeon cartoon.  Shooting in long, unbroken takes, these scenes have an urgency that the audience responds to with a teeth-clenching physicality.  A chase down a tree-lined highway is terrifying, because it shows us for the first time of what the film is capable.  Theo's ascent in a war-torn, bullet-riddled apartment complex is unbearable, because we know how much is at stake.  Using all the tools at his disposal-- CGI, editing, cinematography-- Cuaron has created a thriller for the ages.

What elevates Children of Men from standard issue sci-fi action and ultimately makes it a masterpiece, however, is that it never allows the human aspect of its tale to take second stage to the visuals or the action, and the film has scenes so powerful that they moved me to tears.  In the beginning, all faith in humanity is drained from this picture.  Then, slowly and assuredly, in tiny gestures in the unlikeliest of places, it returns.  The result is an undeniable emotional response that subconsciously swells within us, breaking the surface in breathtaking moments that leave us gasping.  It is pivotal that we believe these characters are real people struggling for meaning in times that do not invite it, and we do.  The performances are indicative of this-- low key and pitch perfect.  Julianne Moore and Michael Caine (as an aging hippie) have small roles, but they leave an impression.  As the everyman, Clive Owen is great at projecting an ordinary guy in extraordinary circumstances.  And Clare-Hope Ashitey grounds scenes simply with her presence.

Yes, this future is bleak, but this film is not hopeless.  By dragging us so breathlessly through all this fear and dread and asking us to examine a stunningly rendered future world that is almost unbearable, Cuaron helps us  to appreciate the beams of goodness in his vision of the end of humanity.  And despite all this darkness, there is so much light.

Return to the Digital Age

Yes, it's true.  I have sold out.

Upon my arrival in Clarksburg, what happened other than the abrupt forcing upon me of a damnable cellphone?  A Samsung BlackJack... what the hell is this nonsense?  My parents demanded I take the thing-- no! I cried--  It shall meet the same watery fate as my last phone.  It shall be cast into the brown depths of the Mississippi river, never to annoy or bother again.

But, wait-- I can access e-mail from here.  And sort of surf the web.  And man, aren't text messages swell...

Oh well, I'll save my rebellion for some other day.

That Greyhound isn't gray...it's red!

"TORONTO - A 40-year-old man who witnesses said stabbed and beheaded his seat mate on a Greyhound bus in Canada made his first court appearance Friday, while police offered no motive for the savage attack against the 22-year-old carnival worker. " --from the Associated Press Well, allow me to offer a motive. This is every Greyhound passengers dream. Sitting that close to someone, probably for 14, 15, 16 hours, unable to sleep due to the seat configuration and the noise and the constant stops and speeches by the driver is enough to drive anyone to savagery. The richest people on a Greyhoud are those with two seats to themselves. I've witnessed two verbal altercations on Greyhounds, altercations where an entire busload of people shit forth their anger and frustration onto one unlucky, inconsiderate, damnable bastard. These buses make people uncontrollably, incurably angry. I almost wish I had been on this particular bus when the particular incident occured. I bet the head fell into the floor and rolled towards the toilet in the back. I wonder if I could have kept from giggling.