Home At Last

My first night in my first house was nearly my last.

Overly exhausted from the stress and excitement of the move — a house and two condos into one — I couldn’t sleep. I got up in the middle of the night and hauled empty packing boxes to the basement.

On my second or third trip, I slipped and fell down the steep flight of steps.

The back of my neck grazed a concrete abutment during the fall.

As I lay on the floor at the bottom of the stairs, I immediately thought of a friend of Joanie’s who had a similar accident just weeks before. His head crashed against an abutment. He went into a coma, soon to pass away.

I was grateful to be alive. And unscathed.

Has The Apocalypse Arrived At Valhalla?

Is this what the apocalypse looks like? Is Valhalla, Louisville’s premier sports venue for the autumn, finally living up to its name?

I’m compelled to ask after observing the reaction of Louisville upon receiving the news that He Who Would Be The Tiger won’t be coming to the Ryder Cup.

Matzogate ‘08 — An Unleavened Conspiracy

What I am about to discuss regards a conspiracy, I am so sure, of the highest order. Egypt, ironically, isn’t the only place where the citizenry is inclined to riot over the lack of bread. That what I’m about to discuss deals with the unleavened variety makes it that much more important.

Read on.

My sweetie — you know her as The Film Babe — doesn’t panic in emergency situations. She is stalwart. So when, in a palpable tizzy, she called while out running errands last Saturday afternoon, it was obvious there was an exigency of consequence at hand.

There were but a few hours left before sundown, when Passover commenced. She was gathering the last necessary items for the Seder. Normally unflappable, she was beside herself.

“There’s no matzo to be had in this town.”

Super Bowl Is A Chip Shot Away

We will gather. Yes, of course, we will.

It is our annual rite. Our right inalienable.

We will eat chips. Tons of chips. Corn. Potato. And dips. Guacamole, lots of guacamole. So much that one of us, the guy in the corner with green dribbles down his sweater, will mention how there’s more avocados sold this weekend than the rest of the year combined. Or something like that.

The Yearbook Photo That Still Haunts

For a moment let’s simply suppose we’ve never seen the photo before. For this exercise’s sake, let’s forget what we’ve read about Robbie Hawkins.

Erase from memory how he walked into an Omaha mall the week before last. How he took the escalator to the third floor of the tony department store Von Maur filled with holiday shoppers being serenaded by the store’s signature live pianist. How he then pulled out an AK47 and started spraying bullets around the room. How he killed eight very innocent people and then aimed the rifle’s nozzle at himself, ending the carnage and his own misery.

B. Young Lesson For Cards In Vegas

It is the nature of the place, Las Vegas. With arid desert sprawling in all directions and a grand canyon in one of such magnificence it’s hard to fathom it was created in just one day, the area was discovered to be an oasis centuries ago by Spaniards traveling north from Tejas. The area has always been about survive and advance.

The Vegas of dumbfounding excess, the Vegas that turned the seven deadly sins into a design for glitzkrieg business success, that Vegas the world has come to know is but 50 years old.

What About A Real Music Festival?

Richard Thompson has a new album out.

But here’s my question about this generally under appreciated rock & roll superstar. How come he’s not playing the Belvedere at a real Louisville music festival? Instead the city gets a bunch of wannabes who think that dressing up and singing like John Lennon is craft?

Hubris In The Triangle, Part Deux

Things seem to be heating up in the Triangle. Frankly it is rarely otherwise when big developer with grande plans buys desolate property in a historic preservation district. Neighbors are wary. Developer wants his/her way.

Hubris in D.C. & The Triangle

It’s not an especially valiant character trait to be proud that one totally forgot Dub’s state of the union address was last night. But I’ll own it nonetheless.

When my sweetie and I got home from the movies — a trenchant view of former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin — I did what I usually do. Turned on a ballgame.

“Guess what dear? We missed the president’s speech.” We both smiled and thought nothing of it.