I have hope for Detroit yet. Bossy’s Excellent Road Trip — one blogging woman’s lap of America to meet her blog readers — has a corporate sponsor, and it’s a GM brand:
JohnC, if your wife had anything to do with this, excellent viral product placement, which I am happy to amplify. At least now we know why she’s stopping in Detroit, eh?
4dbirds said on March 4, 2008 at 11:46 am
Bossy’s first stop is DC and we’re (her DC acolytes) currently ‘conferencing’ on the perfect place to meet her. We are a whiney, needy group. It must be smoke-free, metro accessible, not too loud, blah blah blah.
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Sue said on March 4, 2008 at 12:35 pm
4db: Same thing happening for the Chicago and Madison WI groups. Right now the discussion in Chi revolves around City or burbs. I’m sad – I can’t make either Chicago or Madison. If I could, I would also meet Suburban Kamikaze – if you haven’t checked out her blog, you should, just for the “sex in the suburbs” section. I can’t believe I didn’t make the cut for Bossy’s road trip. I offered to do her laundry, for crying out loud. And take her to the Mine Shaft, largest restaurant/bar in Washington County, Wisconsin – correction, largest restaurant/bar in Wisconsin, period.
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Adrianne said on March 4, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Nance, you’re cited in the New York Times today – the corrections column. The article Saturday on Tim Goeglein misidentified the hometown of Nancy Nall, the blogger who first discovered the plagiarism. She lives in Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich. – not in Frot Wayne, where she was once a columnist for the same newspaper.
Just for the record – are you going by Nancy Nall, or Nancy Nall Derringer in cyberspace?
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nancy said on March 4, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Adrianne, I face the problem of women everywhere — I have no idea what my name is from day to day. I decided to take Alan’s name in my private life a few years ago, right around the time the blog was born, but I didn’t change my column sig and all the solutions for making the switch online seemed to suck. I applied for my fellowship under my legal name, so when that came through, it seemed time to start the transition. Now I have what I always vowed I’d never do — a 19th-century lady-painter, three-part byline, and nobody knows what the hell to call me. I answer to everything, up to and including “bitch.”
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Dexter said on March 4, 2008 at 1:55 pm
This is all foreign to me. But I did buy a copy of Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charley ” at a yard sale years ago.
Anyway, glad to see someone is finding a reason for a road trip.
A little while ago someone at NYT tried to duplicate Kerouac’s start when he chronicled “On the Road”. It was different, so much so as to be nearly impossible.
Ron Bennington of “The Ron & Fez Show” (XM 202) recently was lamenting the end of the “Sunday Drive”, as around NYC no one in their right mind would drive for pure pleasure any more.
“Fly-over country” , is what New Yorkers call our Midwest.
And without Saturn sponsoring Bossy,would she do this? All the encouragement we get to reduce our carbon footprint means nothing to a cross country driver with a mission, I guess. Still, for the average, non-sponsored driver, driving has ceased to be a passion. Hope she has fun
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michaelj said on March 4, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Frot Wayne. Secret code for Fort Wayne, where the women are stealthy and the fellas all look like the well known dentist Dr. John Patterson.
I never got On the Road. It always reminded me of somebody that thought getting high was better than being high. I have come within about 25 pages of finishing it, but there are Joseph Heller, Ken Kesey and V to reread. Not to mention McGuane.
The big stomp on the carbon footprint would be Archer Daniel, and all those Bob Dole plane-rides paid off. The ethanol carbon footprint is around -7:1, and if you shop for vegetables, the impact is already clear. Starving the masses will most likely be more effective than making it expensive for them to drive.
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michaelj said on March 4, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Dexter,
Travels With Charley is one superb book, in my estimation. I always thought David Byrne was talking about the midwest when he sang “I wouldn’t live there if you paid me”, but otherwise sounded nostalgic in The Big Country. Of course, the real Big Country was a way better band than Talking Heads.
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nancy said on March 4, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Of course, the real Big Country was a way better band than Talking Heads.
Them’s fightin’ words.
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Connie said on March 4, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Nancy, I find myself in the same position regularly. Having retained my distinctively ethnic (not just Dutch, but Friesian) name I still constantly have to explain myself, and we will have our 30th later this year. My kid has the same last name as my husband, and I once had to make it very clear to a 2nd grade teacher that I was not a step mother. I gave birth to this girl!
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LAMary said on March 4, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Is Frot Wayne the home of frottage? When I lived in NYC I learned that frottage on the subway is against the law. As far as I could tell, that didn’t stop anyone from doing it.
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michaelj said on March 4, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Nancy, you take a brilliant guitar player that can make the box sound like bagpipes, mix in some Cinnamon Girl and Shane McGowan Celtic sensibility, you get Stuart Adamson. With the notable exception of Once in a Lifetime, Talking Heads never came close to this sort of inspiration. Big Country is like the Call, Screaming Blue Messiahs, Jeffrey Lee Pierce and Tonio K. Nonpareil and sui generis. And not only was the real Big Country a better band than Talking Heads, they blow U2 all to hell. Of course, so does REM and Mike Stipe isn’t a pompous ass.
LAMary: What makes the subway great is that nobody can stop anybody from doing anything. Humanity uninterrupted. Actually, the real subway in Boston is far more interesting than it’s younger cuz in NYC. Don’t make eye contact.
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Dexter said on March 4, 2008 at 5:02 pm
I was so “into” Byrne and the ‘Heads, when “Radiohead” became famous (and I’m knocking any group that gives their latest album away for free on the internet) , I thought the reference was to the great Talking Heads song, “Radio Head”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag2Z_F5oPeA
Oh, it really is a song AND a group.
“Radio head…the sound of a brand new world!”
http://www.mp3lyrics.org/t/talking-heads/radio/
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brian stouder said on March 4, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Don’t make eye contact.
hahahaha!!!!
You know – I rode the subways in NYC, 34 years ago; and my New Yorker cousin Frankie (son of Uncle Frank, and Aunt Fannie) gave me only one piece of advice – “Don’t make eye contact!”. And being an impressionable 12 year old, I believed him then…and all the way up until moments ago, it still seemed true. But now, I think he was funnin’ me!
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michaelj said on March 4, 2008 at 5:24 pm
No joke, I like Talking Heads. And as for Radiohead, they do to, since they plagiarized the name for their band from a David Byrne song. And, Once in a Lifetime segues fairly perfectly into There, There. “You may ask yourself, how did I get here?” and “just because you feel it doesn’t mean it’s there”.
And giving the album away was brilliant. It’s like the Motown Revue for five bucks for two days.
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del said on March 4, 2008 at 5:35 pm
I’m leaning towards Michaelj as far as Big Country. I’ve got The Seer and Big Country and it is good stuff. And though it’s different I wouldn’t say it’s sui generis . . . was recently thinking there’s gotta be a word for a celtic style of rhythmic music that tends towards repetition and crescendo. (Anyone?) Think The Proclaimers, and, to really piss someone off, Dexy’s Midnight Runners.
My wife kept her lovely Italian name despite coming from a very traditional home. At family gatherings, when her Italian-born grandma was still alive, I’d get a charge out of grandma by making a sad face and slowly looking down at my plate muttering, “but Pam . . . didn’t . . . take my name.” Rascal I am.
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Dexter said on March 4, 2008 at 5:43 pm
michaelj: Did you hear about the Boston “T” worker who ripped off and re-sold ride-tokens for a side job? When they went to a pass only system , he was left holding the bag..a bag of THOUSANDS of “T” tokens, which in the waning days of their value, he attempted to cash in. Not too bright a light bulb burning there. He did time.
Here’s a link to the history of “Charlie” , the new system, and the poem about the original Charlie, who never got off the “T”, because they raised the price and he didn’t have the extra nickel to get off…
http://blog.bigbigdesign.com/?p=52
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michaelj said on March 4, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Ach, the Proclaimers. I get it when they haver.
a word for a celtic style of rhythmic music that tends towards repetition and crescendo
That’s Gaelic, and it’s Ravellian. O’Bolero. I’m thinking of the Pogues and Black 47, who do this well, but are also great at just bashing away from the getgo, like Bottle of Smoke and Maria‘s Wedding</a.
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Wally Wilson said on March 4, 2008 at 6:25 pm
I originally read the first sentence as “[…] one blogging woman’s lapSE of America […]” and thought, hey, that’s me! Well, minus the woman part.
I have been known by so many nicknames in my lifetime that I tend to respond most quickly to “free food” or “free beer.”
This is not my beautiful house. 🙂 One of my favorite things to say.
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sue said on March 4, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Oh, Wally, you’re going to fit right in here…
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Julie Robinson said on March 4, 2008 at 7:00 pm
I am a feminist. My family name is Pigott. Just plain Robinson sounded great to me.
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michaelj said on March 4, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Dexter:
If I had the price of a token for every ride I’ve taken on the T, I’d still be living on Hilton Head but I wouldn’t be suffering fool clients gladly. The T is wickid cool, and provides an alternate life separate from home, work, friends and family.
I was riding the Mass Ave. bus one time. (Generally, the bus is a lot more potentially interactive than the train, and you really need to avoid eye contact.) Some old black guy decided to regale a group of black kids with guesses about their African origins, based on his interpretations of their facial features vis a’ vis tribal characteristics. (I couldn’t make this up.) The kids weren’t taking Pops seriously, but they were good-natured. Eventually one of the kids pointed at me, the token caucasian, and said “Where in Africa he from?”
I couldn’t help myself. I said “South Africa”. This was considered pretty hilarious.
When you’re on the T, it can seem like normal life is in complete abeyance, and the travel time is a distinctly other, separate existence. Like Benny Profane yo-yoing. “The division of the world into two domains, one containing all that is sacred and the other all that is profane—such is the distinctive trait of religious thought.” (Citation: Emile Durkheim.) I don’t think mon ami was talking about public transportation, but I swear most times it was as weird as Mitch Albom running into whackjobs in dyspeptic heaven.
Plagiarism? Well it’s kinda connected to running America by Pretzeldential Daily Briefs for Dummies.
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michaelj said on March 4, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Y’all on Nall are mostly about the written word, but if your cable company has Turner Classic, The President’s Analyst is on tonight at 10p est. This is one of the most sublimely caustic and hilarious movies ever made. It’s almost never on TV. I have to wonder whether this programming has anything to do with retroactive immunity. James Coburn is incomparable, even better than the Fllint movies, and Godfrey Cambridge used to be a national treasure. This is a great movie.
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alex said on March 4, 2008 at 7:37 pm
In the Chicago subway/el system there was a guy who became known as “the burned guy.” A man whose face had been disfigured by fire. He panhandled on the trains. He was a regular whom everybody eventually came across, and eventually when a journalist — can’t remember who now — rallied people to the cause of getting him some surgery, people contributed so generously that he’d have been taken care of with money to spare.
But he wouldn’t do it. Subsequent stories revealed his career as a beggar was too lucrative to give up and urged the public to quit giving on the train.
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alex said on March 4, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Not to bring us back to Doe, a deer…
But I suspect what helped Mr. Goeglein get on so well with the rich and famous, as well as in his job dealing with implacable demagogues, is the gift of schmooze:
http://indiana.typepad.com/fwob/2008/03/tim-goeglein-on.html
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joodyb said on March 4, 2008 at 11:04 pm
thanks for tip re the President’s Analyst. sob. i didn’t know in time and i’m at work. mebbe it will play again sometime before nov. 4. infinitely more fun to catch on broadcast than to possess.
fwiw, david byrne’s lyrics of that day usually aped the yuppie/artistes he sat next to on planes, among other highly risible types.
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ashley said on March 5, 2008 at 3:07 am
Stuart Adamson, while a member of The Skids, wrote the New Orleans anthem “The Saints Are Coming“, as covered by Green Day and U2.
So, regardless of how many times the Talking Heads got me laid, I have to pick Big Country.
See no matter how I try I realize there’s no reply.
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Sue said on March 5, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Ok, I’ve been waiting for someone else to do it but I guess I have to: Ashley, how many times DID Talking Heads get you laid?
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ashley said on March 6, 2008 at 6:19 pm
I’m not proud of this, but when I was in a band in college, we played “Burning Down the House”, and that particular song, according to a ‘fan’, got me laid at least once.
So, I guess the answer is, “once”. Which is good enough for me, and more that when we tried to cover “In a Big Country”.
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