March 31, 2003
I'LL NEVER FORGET THE
YEAR I TRAVERSED THE
BREATHING COTTON PANEL MASSIF
I see London, I see France, I see Andes underpants.
SADDAM AND GONNORHEA
"I offer myself to Saddam in exchange for world peace.
I would do it holding my nose and closing my eyes.
I would do it for peace."
-- Italian porn star "La Cicciolina," taking a tactic the U.N. never thought of.
THAT BOY IS AS DULL
AS A BOWLING BALL
Sometimes, when I'm feeling insecure, I fear that Side Salad comes dangerously close to this level of insight.
March 30, 2003
WOOF
This idea smacks of some scam a Korean restaurant came up with so it could have an unlimited supply of fresh meat.
Then again, I'm a bit of a pessimist.
By the way, notice how many rabbits are on the island.
It's just an observation.
ASS BACKWARDS
UN's said he's mad.
Human's sad side.
He damns Saudis.
Had damn issues.
Dead in U.S. smash?
Hissed: "Damn USA!"
He's Saddam Hussein. In anagram form, of course.
March 29, 2003
THERE'S A REASON THE NAVY
CALLS IT SHORE LEAVE
As regular readers may remember, Side Salad adopted a mascot a while back: the loveable, dependable dolphin.
We're rethinking this stance now that Takoma the bottlenosed war dolphin has gone AWOL.
Yep. Seems the slippery mammal had better things to do than poking his nose around wet places for the Navy.
My favorite part of this story is a quote from his handler:
Petty Officer Whitaker had tempted fate by saying: "Why would they go missing when they have the best food and daily spruce-ups and health checks?" Two hours later Takoma had gone AWOL. "Twenty-four hours is not unusual," a nervous Petty Officer Whitaker said. "After all, he may meet some local company."
My guess is that he indeed found the aforementioned local company and decided he liked that a whole helluva lot better than getting blown up.
March 28, 2003
WATCH WHERE YOU POINT THAT THING
The fact that my milk comes from the other end of this gives me no solace at this time.
AND NOW, YOUR MOMENT OF ZEN
With so much turmoil in the world, I hereby present a moment of purity.
Hard to resist a rabbit, isn't it?
IRONICALLY, MANY MEMBERS ALSO BELONG TO "GOOFY BASTARDS OF AMERICA"
My advice: Switch to Sanka, Brent.
March 27, 2003
GIVE PIECE A CHANCE
My favorite part of this product's sales pitch:
Super soft high end woven elastic trim
I should hope so.
SURPRISE, SURPRISE
First Saddam launches Scuds he said he didn't have. Now this little morsel:
British military interrogators claim captured Iraqi soldiers have told them that al-Qaeda terrorists are fighting on the side of Saddam Hussein's forces against allied troops near Basra.
At least a dozen members of Osama bin Laden's network are in the town of Az Zubayr where they are coordinating grenade and gun attacks on coalition positions, according to the Iraqi prisoners of war.
What's next? We find out he was Deep Throat?
MARTHA, MARTHA, MARTHA
Saw this story in the New York Times today:
Martha Burk intensified her campaign to force Augusta National Golf Club to admit women as members yesterday by invoking the war in Iraq, saying that women can serve in the armed forces and die in combat but cannot join the home of the Masters.
"It's an insult to the 250,000 women serving in the United States military," she said at a news conference outside City Hall.
No, it's an insult that you would try to leverage war in order to gain a tee time, Martha. It's also an insult when you consider the war that you're trying to use for your own personal gain is being fought in a country where rape is expected and sexual discrimination is part of the religion, not just a societal tic. The Big Berthas in your bag will get more exposure to the sun in one afternoon than a million women's faces will in Iraq this year.
Your point may have been valid when you started this, but that moment grows increasingly distant in the rear-view mirror with every stunt like this.
It's at this point that I'm reminded of a line Dennis Miller said. The issue isn't that women should be included or excluded.
It's that there are some bullshit male rituals that women shouldn't want to be a part of.
Aim higher, Martha. Your windmill is losing steam.
I HATE WHEN I ACCIDENTALLY AID TERRORISTS
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You say Al Qaida, I say Al Qaeda.
Let's turn the bulletin board off.
THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR SCOOTCHING YOUR BUTT
There are few times that I can't decide whether to laugh maniacally or sob like a toddler getting a booster shot.
This would be one of those times.
March 26, 2003
BLOOMIN' ONION
Pages from my Onion desk calendar:
"Motor Trend" Car Of The Year Stripped Of Title
After Appearing As "Hot Rod" Centerforld
Mason-Dixon Line Renamed IHOP-Waffle House Line
March 25, 2003
BRIDGE WORK
When is a bridge more than a roadway?
When a crazy-assed photographer climbs them in order to make some art.
BRAIN FART
There are times when I wish I could shake my head, Etch-a-Sketch-style, and make disturbing images disappear.
This method would work for me, too.
SPRING ROLES
In that same vein, here's a great lead written by Tom Verducci from Sports Illustrated's baseball preview issue:
Hope, Aristotle divined, is the dream of the waking man. America, at midwinter in a post 9/11 world, challenged that notion last week.
Hundreds of bits of a spacecraft still lay strewn along miles of the Bible Belt. Duct tape, the classic punch line of handyman humor, suddenly became a serious staple of civilian defense against dirty bombs that might come from unknown agents of war. And the words weapons of mass distruction rolled too easily off the tongue, included in the foreboding drumbeat of news from the Middle and Far East. While much of the country listened for diversionary sounds of encouragement, the too-familiar scrape of a snow shovel upon the driveway or the chattering of teeth against February's chill only mired them in a deeper state of blue.
And just then, last Friday, on Valentine's Day morning as it happened, hope, as Aristotle knew it, made its presence felt in Mesa, Ariz. The Chicago Cubs' pitchers, whose degree of wakefulness in recent years could be questioned by philosophers of absolutely no repute, began their first workout of spring training. Hey, with hope - as with love, charity and a good full-bodied red wine - no helping is too modest or too insignificant to nourish the spirit.
In groups of a half-dozen or so, the Cubs climbed a conjoined strand of mounds and, before tossing baseballs, began snapping hand towels. The pitchers held the towels in their throwing hands, wound up as if delivering a pitch and, without letting go of the cotton cloth, snapped it on the mitt of a kneeling catcher at the foot of the mound. The towel snapped only when the pitcher properly extended his arm motion. It was one of those crazy sights you see only in spring training.
What a fitting start: the Cubs actually working on throwing in the towel.
WHERE HAVE YOU GONE, BIFF POCAROBA?
There's great danger in elevating sports into something that would suggest that it has mythic importance.
I can tell you firsthand, it has no such qualities.
But there are moments that it can help someone forget who they are and where they are on this earth. And certainly that has to be worth something. Nothing heroic or cut from the cloth of Homer's "Odyssey," but temporarily transforming nonetheless.
Some could argue that a great passion for sports and competition is more indicative of arrested development.
Well, so what. So is the 58-year-old woman who has a house full of dolls or the 78-year-old geezer who spends more time with his garage train set than he does with his grandchildren.
For me, baseball holds a fair amount of allure. Don't know why. I played the game as a kid and covered it a little as an adult. There's something about baseball that keeps my interest in a way that, say, the 27th game of the season for Gonzaga's basketball team does not.
The peripheral attractions of baseball, like the ones mentioned here, are the sorts of things that keep my attention. I mean, I'll constantly be amazed when someone like Derek Jeter backhands an overthrown ball to the plate to preserve the win in Game 3 of the 2001 American League Divisional Series. I watch baseball just in case I am privledged to see something superhuman like that again.
But few things in life are as much fun as rooting through your baseball card collection and finding you still have your Biff Pocaroba from 1981.
March 24, 2003
MY BAD
Okay, now I'm regretting my decision to commit massive financial relief to a beleagured auto industry as a protest against the Hollywood ego machine.
I just read that Dave Barry was one of the writers who came up with jokes for Steve Martin.
I think Steve Martin is the funniest person on the planet. I memorized all of his albums as a kid. I even bought the book "Cruel Shoes." Everytime one of his stories appears in The New Yorker, I swallow it whole. I even paid to see "The Lonely Guy" in the theaters.
This link leads to a great column by Barry that gives a glimpse into the process of crafting Oscar jokes.
Here's an example of one of the jokes they didn't use:
''Halloween 8 came out. I thought it was the best Halloween ever. It made Halloween 7 look like Halloween 5.''
See what I mean. Damn. Should have watched the opening monologue.
SCHLOCK AND AWE
I didn't watch the Oscars last night. I was too busy trying to replace a Jeep Grand Cherokee that clearly had intentions of automotive suicide for the better part of a year. I know I'll show my age with this war-related remark, but if it could have poured a can of gasoline over it's hood and immolated itself monk-style at the intersection of Dale Mabry Highway and Kennedy Boulevard, I'm sure it would have done so. Or maybe I'm just projecting what I would have done. Whatever.
Anyway, I was committing to the expenditure of thousands of dollars over the next 60 months for no money down at 2.9 percent instead of watching the Academy Awards. Based on what I read about the show, I could have ponied up a few million more at loanshark rates with the lives of my family and friends pledged as collateral and it would have been a bargain to have missed the public display of self-aggrandizement.
From what I read, the fulcrum of the show's weirdness came when Michael Moore, who won for his documentary, "Bowling for Columbine." denounced President Bush as a "fictitious president" who is "sending us to war for fictitious reasons."
Interesting comments coming from a man who conveniently rearranged parts of his heralded recession-era film "Roger and Me" to suit the angle of his movie and then had the giant, jumbo, elephantine coconut balls to first deny the charges and then maintain it still met the criteria of a factual documentary.
How big were the lies? Film Comment's Harlan Jacobson pointed out the number of 1986 GM layoffs in Flint was about 5,000, not the 30,000 implied in the film, which transpired over a greater range of time. The commercial projects, intended to revive Flint, all opened and failed before the 1986 layoffs, but Moore suggests they resulted from the GM cuts.
If anyone knows about fictitious, it's Michael Moore.
The New York Times, of all publications, wrote a subtle but scathing article that pricked the ribs of the self-appointed moral barometers in Hollywood. (You have to register at the site before you can read the article.)
Here's a great passage:
In good times movie stars are an agreeable reflection of our own yearning for youth, wealth and beauty. In a crisis they can become projections of everything we like least about ourselves — privileged, pampered, self-absorbed. It didn't matter what the politics were; it was the presumption.
Ouch.
Call it irony or coincidence, but on this day in Memphis in 1958, Elvis Presley arrived with his parents at the draft board on South Main Street to be inducted into the army. He became U.S. Army Private 53310761, and his income dropped from $400,000 a year to $78 a month.
He gave up everything in order to serve his country. Stardom. A revolutionary music career. Millions in potential earnings. Connection with a mother that he clearly needed in order to keep his appetites in line. He was paraded for the press, which watched him as he got his head shaved and as he stood in his underwear to be measured and weighed and more or less paraded like a village loon.
But he did it. And he did it with his mouth shut. He finished his tour of duty, collected his adolescent fiancee and then went home to Memphis.
I shudder to think of the infantile shrieks that would emerge from Michael Moore's prickly pear head if he ever received an induction notice. Then again, maybe it would be just another excuse to exploit public misery - like layoffs, high-school shooting sprees and war - for his own personal edification.
March 22, 2003
THE BIG NIGHT OUT THIS MONTH
Jay Mohr plays the Improv in Tampa tonight.
I've been a fan for years, ever since I saw him do some standup on Comedy Central. I don' t think he did his best work on "Saturday Night Live." If anything, he's been funnier since he left the show. He's had an ESPN show that didn't get much of a chance, and he did a show named "Action" that was a little too much for mainstream TV. Then there was his work in Jerry McGuire .
But what he's really known for is his impersonation of Christopher Walken.
Click here and go to the multimedia section to listen to Mohr tell a funny story about the time he spent on the set shooting "Suicide Kings" with Walken.
March 21, 2003
TODAY'S HEADLINE
From The Onion day-at-a-glance calendar on my desk:
Miracle Of Birth Occurs For 83 Billionth Time
IT'S BEER. HOORAY BEER.
This makes me laugh so hard, milk shoots out my nose.
Even when I'm not drinking any.
(Once you subject yourself to a birthdate frisking, click on the beer bottle to get to the video selections.)
IT WASN'T A PROTEST...
They probably just ate some bad camembert.
San Francisco protesters stage a 'vomit in'
Bay City News -- Thursday, March 20, 2003
In a unique form of opposition, some protesters at the Federal Building staged a "vomit in,'' by heaving on the sidewalks and plaza areas in the back and front of the building to show that the war in Iraq made them sick, according to a spokesman.
POETRY DU JOUR
In a previous life, I majored in English and considered becoming a poet. I even studied under a brilliant poetry teacher named David Kirby.
But that was before I decided that making money would help further my career as a consumer of food, housing and petroleum products. I remain big fans of those products, so here I remain, well-fed, well-sheltered and on a full tank, compensated handsomely for chronicling the weirdness of normal daily life.
But every now and again, I remember that I used to be 20 and that I spent time reading poetry about cows playing baseball and popes chanting the phrase "Hot dog, you bet."
Back when I was unencumbered by life's fishnets of mortgages, matching shoes and sobriety, I used to read a lot of beat poetry. I once saw Allen Ginsberg in the quad of the student union at Florida State University recite from his epic poem "Howl."
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machin-
ery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
contemplating jazz...
There was something beyond surreal about seeing him all hairy and long-sleeved in the hot Florida afternoon recite these amazing words, while tie-dyed freaks sat cross-legged and comatose on the ground and sorority girls in tank tops and striped Dolphin shorts scurried past. I'll never forget how much hair spilled out of his head. It just seemed to billow from his scalp and his chin and god knows where else. His face seemed like it was peeking through this hair curtain, there was so much of it.
I've grown up now and moved on to less serious verse. Cowboy poet and former large animal veterinarian Baxter Black is my cup of tea these days.
Each day, Keillor talks about various writers and poets and then offers a poem that usually has nothing to do with anything of significance on that day.
Today's offering is "Dog," by beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti. It's one of my favorites.
Dog
The dog trots freely in the street
and sees reality
and the things he sees
are bigger than himself
and the things he sees
are his reality
Drunks in doorways
Moons on trees
The dog trots freely thru the street
and the things he sees
are smaller than himself
Fish on newsprint
Ants in holes
Chickens in Chinatown windows
their heads a block away
The dog trots freely in the street
and the things he smells
smell something like himself
The dog trots freely in the street
past puddles and babies
cats and cigars
poolrooms and policemen
He doesn't hate cops
He merely has no use for them
and he goes past them
and past the dead cows hung up whole
in front of the San Francisco Meat Market
He would rather eat a tender cow
than a tough policeman
though either might do.
And he goes past the Romeo Ravioli Factory
and past Coit's Tower
and past Congressman Doyle of the Unamerican Committee
He's afraid of Coit's Tower
but he's not afraid of Congressman Doyle
although what he hears is very discouraging
very depressing
very absurd
to a sad young dog like himself
to a serious dog like himself
But he has his own free world to live in
His own fleas to eat
He will not be muzzled
Congressman Doyle is just another
fire hydrant
to him
The dog trots freely in the street
and has his own dog's life to live
and to think about
and to reflect upon
touching and tasting and testing everything
investigating everything
without benefit of perjury
a real realist
with a real tale to tell
and a real tail to tell it with
a real live
barking
democratic dog
engaged in real
free enterprise
with something to say
about ontology
something to say
about reality
and how to see it
and how to hear it
with his head cocked sideways
at streetcorners
as if he is just about to have
his picture taken
for Victor Records
listening for
His Master's Voice
and looking
like a living questionmark
into the
great gramophone
of puzzling existence
with its wondrous hollow horn
which always seems
just about to spout forth
some Victorious answer
to everything
March 20, 2003
THIS DAVE IN HISTORY
The CBS network's Web site has a feature on its "Late Show With David Letterman" wing: This Dave In History.
The entry for today features a great moment from Letterman's days at NBC. It was one of the funniest things I think I've ever seen on TV::
1984: Chris Elliott debuts his "Comparison Test" during a viewer mail question. Tonight, he tries to determine which is lower in cholesterol -- Peanut Oil or Corn Oil -- by drinking a pint of each. "No difference, Dave."
March 19, 2003
IS THIS A PROMISE OR A THREAT?
By MICHAEL KUCHWARA
AP Drama Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - CBS will expand its coverage of the 2003 Tony Awards, devoting three hours to the June 8 show, honoring the best of the Broadway season.
A GOAL FOR THE DAY
I might have to make me a set of these, now that I know how to.
Then again, maybe not.
HANGING THE RED LANTERN
Your Last Iditarod Update for 2003.
Call it a race; Russell Bybee has made it to Nome and won the Red Lantern.
Russell's 44th-place time was 15 days, five hours, 30 minutes and 53 seconds. Considering that the first Red Lantern winner in 1973, John Schultz, completed the race in 32 days, Russell has plenty to be proud of. They say in aviation that every safe landing is a good landing. So goes mushing. Every trip across the Iditarod finish line is a good finish.
If you're wondering where all those dogs go at the end of the race, take a look for yourself. It's a Web cam posted at the top of the town newspaper's office, the Nome Nugget.
If you get a daytime shot, you can see a circle of specks on the white ice of the frozen Bering Sea. Those are all dogs staked to the ice. There they are fed and bed down on straw until an airplane is available to fly them back home.
In case you're wondering, that's the main drag in Nome. The ribbon of snow down the middle is what they've left for the mushers to bring their dogs into town.
Oh, and there's only one parking meter in town.
Here's a little clearer shot that shows the finish chute with snow, the burled arch and some of the surrounding buildings on Front Street.
To get a little better sense of how weird the ceremonial start of the race in Anchorage is, here are several pages of photo galleries taken along Fourth Avenue. In some of them you can see the blue and gravel facade of my old newspaper, The Anchorage Times.
March 18, 2003
MMMMM- MMM- MY STAPLER
If you haven't seen the movie Office Space, you owe it to yourself to do so.
Especially if you hate your job.
YOUR IDITAROD UPDATE FOR TODAY
Hey, Russ Bybee how's it feel to be the last man in Alaska mushing dogs at the moment?
That's right, Bybee is the odd's-on favorite to take the Red Lantern in the Iditarod.
Yesterday's laggard, Ellen Halverson, quit the race in Shaktoolik with 11 dogs still running, sort of.
Bybee is likely to finish the race, considering he's at the second to last checkpoint White Mountain, and has only 77 miles to go.
But if Bybee can't finish, Ben Stamm, who is already in Nome, would take the prize as the last musher to finish.
Here's a list of the previous dubious winners.
Here's how Dogsled.com (I am not making this up) explains the tradition:
In the early pioneering years of Alaska, dog teams were used to carry freight and mail between the Anchorage, Seward and the interior. Along the way, roadhouses were set up as rest stops and shelter. The mushers made their way across the Alaska wilderness in all types of weather. To help them, a kerosene lamp was hung outside each roadhouse as a beacon. These lamps helped the mushers find the roadhouses, and served as a notice that a musher was out somewhere on the trail. The lamp was left to burn until the musher was safely at his intended destination.
In 1986, to address and continue the tradition, Chevron USA hung a Red Lantern on the burl arch in Nome. The lantern is lit at the beginning of the race every year, and it burns brightly until the last musher crosses the finish line. The last musher across the finish line puts out the lamp, officially signifying that the Iditarod Sled Dog Race has come to a close. This practice has identified the last musher in the race as the Red Lantern musher.
It's also customary for the Iditarod winner to stay in Nome long enough to greet the final musher at the line.
The Red Lantern is kind of like Alaska's version of Motel 6: They'll leave the light on for you.
Just to show you how weird things get, this Anchorage Daily News story details the finish of the final musher in the 2002 race, David Straub:
Nome -- Star-crossed musher David Straub finally finished his first Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on Sunday. And like the race's winner, Martin Buser, he did it in record time.
Straub, a 41-year-old carpenter who lives in Willow, finished last in style, becoming the fastest last-place finisher in the race's 30-year history. He earned the annual Red Lantern award by being the final musher -- 55th overall -- to arrive in Nome. Straub completed the 1,100-mile race in 14 days, 5 hours, 38 minutes, 12 seconds. Straub beat Brad Pozarnsky's previous mark of 14:05:42:04 by just under four minutes.
Straub apparently had enough. He didn't enter this year's race.
Gotta love a race that congratulates the loser for losing in record time.
Beautiful.
TA TA FOR NOW
Saddam, Farewell, Auf Weidersehen, Goodnight
By Dana Milbank and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 18, 2003; Page A01
President Bush vowed last night to attack Iraq with the "full force and might" of the U.S. military if Saddam Hussein does not flee within 48 hours, setting the nation on an almost certain course to war and denouncing countries that refuse to support him.
March 17, 2003
SADDLE UP
Here's a photo caption you don't see every day. You'd almost think it came from The Onion.
The photo just came across the wire showing a long line of cars driving toward rolling mountains:
Visitor's to Great Smoky Mountains National Park travel through Pigeon Forge, Tenn., in this April 26, 2001, file photo. Scientists believe the Smoky Mountains were named because of the haze of isoprene, a visible hydorcarbon emitted from trees.
New research suggests trees play a more complicated role in air pollution than previously thought, with some species shown to worsen smoggy conditions that pose a health risk to humans.
CRYING OVER THE ONION
Tribune Pop Culture Diva Kim MacCormack was kind enough to give me a day-by-day tear-away calendar for Christmas written by the folks who write The Onion.
Here are some sample headlines for this week:
Home-Schooled Student Opens Fire On Breakfast Nook
U.S. Dept. Of Retro Warns: "We May Be Running Out Of Past"
Freak Accident Paralyzes Man From Waist Up
YOUR IDITAROD UPDATE FOR TODAY
Russell Bybee is once again the last man in the race.
Ellen Halverson scratched from the race sometime during the night.
Having parked himself in the village of Elim since about 7 a.m. Eastern time, Bybee is only 123 miles from Nome. Only three other mushers remain on the trail ahead of him. All three - Frank Sihler of Wasilla, AK; Kelly LaMarre of Geneva, Ill.; and Ben Stamm of Argyle, Wisc. - are checked in at White Mountain, the second-to-last checkpoint on the trail. Of those three, Sihler has already left.
If Bybee makes good time - and his average speed of 7.57 miles per hour indicates his dogs are healthy - he could be in Nome by Tuesday.
PAGING SPONGEBOB
Click your mouse anywhere inside this box, and trail the strange pattern around. It has an underwater quality to it.
MY SWEET LORD
If and when I decide to refresh the design of Side Salad, I think I'll have to download the George Harrison handwriting font.
March 16, 2003
PHOTO FINISH
What's the difference between victory and defeat?
About .002 seconds.
Ricky Craven and Kurt Busch beat on each other for two laps of the Darlington 1.366-mile superspeedway before they slid across the finish line with the left front corner of Craven's No. 32 Tide Pontiac ahead of Busch's Rubbermaid Ford by inches.
The official margin of victory was .002 seconds, which officials tagged the closest finish in NASCAR since electronic scoring came into use in 1993. It might have been the closest ever.
YOUR IDITAROD UPDATE FOR TODAY
Looks like theback of the pack has broken up.
The Red Lantern candidate now looks to be Ellen Halverson.
She had been traveling with Adam Scott Gibler and Russell Bybee, but Gibler scratched and Bybee went ahead.
There are only six mushers left on the course, all of whom are rookies. Halverson is in Unalakleet, about 260 miles from Nome.
My guess is that with 11 dogs, she could make it to the end by, say, Wednesday.
Which is an eternity in Iditarod years. She's going on the two-week point in the race.
This is the hell portion of the trip. Once you get near two weeks on the trail, every hour feels like a month.
ANOTHER ALASKA TALE
This kind of remarkable stuff happens all the time in Alaska. It's what made it such a fun place to be a reporter. Rarely a day went by without some sort of "holy shit" story to tell in the paper.
Today's comes from The Anchorage Daily News. They have a story about a bear that was captured in 2001 and repeatedly released further and f