Thursday, May 31, 2012

"Drunken Poet's Dream", Ray Wylie Hubbard

Ray Wylie Hubbard is performing live tonight at the Tractor Tavern in Seattle.  Here, he is singing one of my absolutely favorite songs, co-written with Hays Carll...

"I got a woman as wild as Rome/
She likes being naked and gazed upon."

Drunken Poet's Dream...


IBL:mm


"904 First Avenue South, Seattle, Washington"

An original IBL photograph taken May 8th, 2012.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Six Shot Today in Seattle, at Least Four of Them Dead...

... the first five at a very cool little cafe/bar about fifteen blocks away from us.  In truth, there have been a few shootings this week - unrelated to this one today as far as I know - including one in which a stray bullet killed a father of two who was running errands prior to a family vacation.  My sense is that people are upset and worried about this increasing level of Seattle violence, and they should be. But it also occurred to me that I wasn't, and that the reactions here in Seattle struck me as somewhat different than San Francisco responses to similar events (though this is hardly a scientific study, by any means).  So I had to sit back a moment and puzzle that out, at least for myself.

When I lived in San Francisco, our place was just outside the Tenderloin, which is notorious for drugs, squalor, a fair amount of violence and, in truth, some truly stunning food, be it Burmese, Indian, Thai, Chinese or what have you.  One night I was in Frank's 21 Club at the Ground Zero intersection of Turk and Taylor with Geoffrey Bankowski having a few drinks.  We departed 11ish, and by maybe three a.m. a gentleman wearing body armor was shot in the head outside the front door.

Danielle and I routinely walked our dogs (during the day, only) at Jefferson Playground, which is right on the edge of the Western Addition and across from the Eddy Rock Projects.  During the time we lived there at least three or four people were shot to death in that park, though in general after dark when we were long gone (there was one mid-morning exception which I did not witness but came upon after the fact, when the scene was under police control).

My absolutely favorite neighborhood in San Francisco is the Mission District, and it is a battleground for the Norteno and Sureno gangs (and if I knew how to add a tilde on each of those "n"s I surely would have).  There are shootings in the Mission that occur on a pretty frustratingly regular basis, including one a few years back that happened outside the fine Taqueria Cancun at 19th and Mission.

Shit, just a couple of months before we left San Francisco a man was shot in the back room of the coffee shop one block from our house, a coffee shop where Danielle and I have enjoyed mochas and crepes and the Saturday morning paper more than once.

My point being this - the violence or threat of violence didn't keep me out of the park, or out of the Mission, or away from the 21 Club, or out of the Tenderloin (my walk to and from work, five days a week, was directly down O'Farrell in the TL), and that's not because I'm a tough guy or I'm a brave guy - it has nothing to do with that.  Instead, it had everything to do with the fact that they were simply places that we went.  It was our city, and these places made us happy, we enjoyed the people we would see there; they were part of the fabric of our neighborhood, part of what it meant for the two of us to call San Francisco home.  And because of all that, because we weren't going to radically alter our routines to accommodate this very small chance of danger, I think in some way we incorporated that threat of danger/violence into what San Francisco meant to us, the way we defined the City, all its good, all its flaws.  Which is another way of saying we got used to it.  Gun violence was something that happened - awful every time, no doubt - but it did happen and, likely, sooner or later, it was going to happen again, possibly on a street corner with which we were intimately familiar.

So, in fact I do think it's good people are upset and worried by this kind of thing in Seattle.  Going forward, I intend to try and take these incidents a little more seriously myself, not take them for granted, or as inevitable.  But I will also be returning to the Cafe Racer, fifteen blocks away.  The bartender was very welcoming the time I stopped in, and I walk past it whenever I'm doing my volunteer work at the University Food Bank, or shopping at the Trader Joe's further down Roosevelt.  I've always meant to return - it's a cool, funky spot with art on the walls and jazz on Sunday nights, board games, a tasty-looking menu and a full bar.

And I will go back, no doubt.  Why wouldn't I? It's my neighborhood.  It's my city.
 

IBL:mm

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Danielle and Michael's 13th Wedding Anniversary Today

Yes, somebody actually married Your Humble Narrator, for which I am, of course, eternally grateful and, well, humbled.  That was thirteen years ago today, in the sprawling, twenty acre backyard of Deniece and Edward McArthur, in the town of Springville, California (an hour north of Bakersfield or, if you like, 80 miles (give or take) south of Fresno (but, either way, slightly east and getting up into the Sierra foothills)).  Robert Winant and Geoffrey Bankowski drove down with me from San Francisco the prior Thursday on a 100 degree Central Valley day (Danielle had taken the train earlier in the week; also along on our drive was Le Chat Gibson, lost to us at just shy of age 19 in January, 2007).

The four of us stopped fifteen minutes from our final destination in downtown Porterville for a beer and, I think, Geoff may have made a quick visit to and purchase in a thrift shoppe (Porterville, CA - home to, among other things, Elizabeth Hiatt's parents AND the Mecca Club (a sign outside the Mecca read "air cooled by refrigeration", but we discovered only three electric fans inside (the beer, Olympia, cold))).  The next day, Friday, the temperature hit the mid 90s but, when Saturday the 29th rolled around, the thermometer topped out at 85 and with a breeze (aka it was an absolutely perfect day).

One year ago today we celebrated number twelve in San Francisco, just two and a half weeks prior to packing up the dogs and the car and leaving that fabulous city, which had been my home for eighteen years, and Danielle's for fifteen or so.  And so it goes that tonight my Lady Love and I will be enjoying dinner in our new fabulous city of Seattle, at Tulio, a fine Italian restaurant downtown and kitty-corner to the (somewhat) new public library.

 And here's the pretty girl now...
















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Monday, May 28, 2012

"Cross"

Original IBL art - chalk and ink on coaster, 3.5 x 1 7/8 inches, 5/27/12.

"My Blue Window"

Original IBL art - chalk, crayon and scoring (scissors) on coaster, 3.5 x 2 1/8 inches, 5/27/12.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Excerpts from the Journal of a Country Music Fan

7/4/82 - Very excited about this movie E.T. which came out last month.  Didn't read the reviews because what do they know and they can spoil the story I've found.  Should have read the reviews.  Would have discovered movie was not about Ernest Tubb, but a little puppet alien that is adopted by these kids and it turns out they can fly.  That's on me I didn't know better.  But I think it would be alright, flying like they did.  Saw it on a matinee at the mall for a bargain ticket so there's that.  Got an Orange Julius and some fries after and then home and to bed for a few hours before my shift. 


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Friday, May 25, 2012

"When I'm in Seattle, I Hang at the Sorrento!"

Original IBL art - ink on Sorrento Hotel note paper, 5.5 x 4.25 inches, 5/10,11/12.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Celebrating My Father's 105th Birthday

My father, William Paul Murray, who died at age 79 on March 9th, 1987, would have turned 105 on Friday, June 1st, 2012.  We will be celebrating/commemorating the occasion of his birth at the Little Red Hen in Seattle's Green Lake neighborhood that evening - food and drink, yes; also country music from the Sammy Steele Band.  If you are interested in joining us please contact me via this space, or Facebook, or e-mail; or, if you know me really well, you can simply hit the IBL button on your phone...

IBL:mm

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Electrified Fences for Fanatical Right Wing Christians

"I figured a way out, a way to get rid of all the fanatical right wing Christians but I couldn’t get it past the Congress – build a great big large fence, hundred; 50 or a hundred mile long. Put all the women who is fanatical right wing Christians in there, fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing with all the men who is fanatical right wing Christians. And have that fence electrified so they can’t get out.  And you know what? In a few years they will die out. You know why? They can’t reproduce."

Next up - join us in our 50 State Crusade (tm) to define marriage as the union betwixt one man and one woman unless they happen to be fanatical right wing Christians.  More details on signature collection, lobbying strategies, and how YOU TOO can participate in the wording of each particular state amendment as they become available...


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Electrified Fences for the Queers

Perhaps you have read and/or heard about Pastor Charles Worley (a Baptist - I know, what a shock!) of North Carolina who has some interesting things to say about our lesbian and gay brothers and sisters.  If you have not seen it, you can find it here, second video clip on the page...

But this is the crux of his suggestion, and why some people are a wee tad grumpy with him - 

"I figured a way out, a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers but I couldn’t get it past the Congress – build a great big large fence, hundred; 50 or a hundred mile long. Put all the lesbians in there, fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals. And have that fence electrified so they can’t get out.  And you know what? In a few years they will die out. You know why? They can’t reproduce."

(I guess the notion of dropping in some food is somewhat Christian, although I have to wonder if it's a one-time deal (also, no word on healthcare or even access to the Cooking Channel)).

I like words, I truly do.  I love looking at them, reading them, and moving them around into different shapes and patterns.  So, rather than get myself all worked up over this particular round of bigotry and hatred, bigotry and hatred that appears to be both anti-Christian as well as anti-American, I decided to play with words - the ones you are reading now, for starters, and the ones you can read in the post directly above this should you care to visit there now...


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Activist Judges on the Political Right Redux

An article passed along to me by my learned friend (far more learned than I) Paul Romano, written by Ronald Dworkin in April, 2010, from the New York Review of Books.  (Paul, would you care to say a few words about Mr. Dworkin? I can say that he is a constitutional law scholar who is a professor at NYU, and has also taught at the University of Oxford and Yale; that in a survey taken by the Journal of Legal Studies he was regarded as one of the most important American legal scholars of the 20th century (this from a quick Wikipedia gloss).) It's on the long side, I'm not going to kid you, but it's a follow-up to yesterday's post titled Activist Judges on the Political Right, and I wanted to highlight two brief excerpts.

First, and the bolding is mine, to show that Mr. Toobin is not the only one presenting the simple facts of this judicial activism, a paragraph from near the beginning of the essay -

"In the 2008 presidential primary season a small corporation, Citizens United, financed to a minor extent by corporate contributions, tried to broadcast a derogatory movie about Hillary Clinton. The FEC declared the broadcast illegal under the BCRA. Citizens United then asked the Supreme Court to declare it exempt from that statute on the ground, among others, that it proposed to broadcast its movie only on a pay-per-view channel. It did not challenge the constitutionality of the act. But the five conservative justices—Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas—decided on their own initiative, after a rehearing they themselves called for, that they wanted to declare the act unconstitutional anyway."

And, also -

"The Supreme Court of Canada understands the difference between these different goals. Creating 'a level playing field for those who wish to engage in the electoral discourse,' it said, '…enables voters to be better informed; no one voice is overwhelmed by another.'”

No one voice overwhelmed by another - more speech in terms of the electoral process is always going to be good for our democracy, and isn't our democracy the point? The rich candidate bitching about campaign finance spending limits violating his or her 1st Amendment rights is still going to be heard all across the country.  They are not going to be silenced.  There will simply be the possibility of competition in the marketplace of ideas, and the voter-consumer can then choose the product they best prefer.  But, of course, these same wealthy candidates who are almost always staunch "champions of the free-market" don't really want that competition - corporations are people, money equals speech. 

And here's the link to the entire article should you be so inclined...

Everybody in, nobody out.


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Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Activist Judges on the Political Right

Should you be interested, I would like to direct your attention to Jeffrey Toobin's article in the May 21st New Yorker, which should be on news stands now, or perhaps you have it about the house somewhere.  It discusses the Citizens United case which was brought before the Supreme Court in 2009 and, then, a second time in 2010.  You might remember this Supreme Court decision as one that allows corporations to spend buckets of money on political campaigns ("Corporations are people, my friend") and, in essence, equated money with speech, when one might have naively believed that speech should be equated with speech (but I digress).

In any event, what you might not know is how Chief Justice Roberts took an extremely narrow challenge to the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law and finagled the final outcome of the Citizens United case into something utterly and completely different, wide-reaching and all-encompassing, that nobody was challenging.  That's right, Chief Justice Roberts, with a healthy assist from Justice Kennedy, got a little judicially active.  Anyway, my point is only this - the next time you hear the phrase "activist judge" being tossed around by somebody on the political Right (and you will hear it in the next five months, I suspect, over and over and over again, true or otherwise), it might be handy to have this in your back pocket.  Then you could inquire, if you were so inclined, as to why this specific instance of judicial activism was not a problem.


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Friends of Infection By Light...

... is a new page I've added, and you can see it off to the right there.  Links are in place to three very different blogs belonging to (alphabetically) Bryan Daniel, Steve Goldstein and Rochelle Short.  If you have a moment take a peek.

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"Take Shelter", 2011, Written/Directed by Jeff Nichols

For whatever reason, I don't often use this space to recommend movies, but I'm going to do that today.  I recently saw Jeff Nichols' second feature, Take Shelter (2011) starring Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain on DVD, and I thought it was pretty remarkable.  Nichols' first film was Shotgun Stories (2007, also starring Shannon) which I haven't seen; this year will see the release of his third, Mud.  Suffice to say that I will be taking a look at these other two movies.

I would encourage you to not read up on this movie in advance - ignore the back of the box (have I just dated myself?) and/or the Netflix sleeve.  All I have to say about the film is that it's beautifully shot, Shannon's performance is pretty Goddamn brilliant, and Chastain matches him step for step.  Also this - some people, I believe, can watch and appreciate movies, go out to dinner and discuss them afterward, then come home and have a fine night's sleep, regardless of whether the movie was funny, sad, violent, or whatever.  If that is not you, however, I would recommend you have all your emotional ducks in a row (so to speak) before watching what I think is a very powerful film.

The ending will need to be discussed, of course, and I'd like to do that here when you've seen it.

Finally, I rarely give five stars to a movie the next day (after a period of reflection, perhaps; maybe with a second screening), but I went five on this one, even though I had one or two minor quibbles.


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Sunday, May 20, 2012

"Oops I Did It Again", Richard Thompson

On occasion here at IBL, we like to visit re-makes of songs that are markedly different than the originals.  On 12/10/11, for instance, we first saw Dolly Parton's Jolene, then a version by White Stripes; on 1/14/12 we saw the White Stripes doing their original number 7 Nation Army, then a version by the Oak Ridge Boys; on 1/26/12 the Small Faces doing If I Were a Carpenter.

And, so, I give you Richard Thompson covering Britney Spears, and I'm going to make the radical assumption you are already aware of the original, so no need to include that here.

(Oh, don't let the 4:39 run time scare you - the song clocks in at 3:20.)

Oops I Did It Again...


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Friday, May 18, 2012

"Fuck All Those Perfect People", Chip Taylor and the New Ukrainians

And so off to the right someplace there is a Decorum page, and it talks about Civility and Civility's relationship to this blog.  One might wonder, then, with a Civility mandate in place, how IBL could feature a song with a title such as this, and it's a fair point to discuss, and I have a few things to say on the subject.  However, I want to hold off on that discussion until posting Fuck You Anita Bryant by David Allen Coe, which will likely be early next week.  I think any further comments will be more appropriate then.

In the meantime, what we have here today is, to my mind, a lovely and gentle song.  It is attached to what I can only imagine is the official video (though I'm not sure which network would be featuring it), and I would, of course, be curious to hear people's thoughts on the song and, also, how it relates or (if you think so) doesn't relate to the video.

(Quick Chip Taylor trivia - brother of John Voight, which makes him Miss Jolie's uncle.  Also, wrote Wild Thing (!) and Angel of the Morning, among other songs...)

"Sleepy eyes, waltzing through/No, I'm not talking 'bout you."

Fuck All the Perfect People...


IBL:mm

Thursday, May 17, 2012

True Blood and the Little Red Hen

So perhaps you watch the television show True Blood, or maybe you don't.  If you don't watch True Blood, this post is likely not for you...

But so then Danielle and I are living in San Francisco and, among other things (many other things), thinking about a move to Seattle and, also, watching the HBO program True Blood.  We became especially enamored of the opening credits, kind of sexy and scary at the same time, and overall very appropriate for what followed on a weekly basis.  And I remember thinking this clearly - I wonder what it would be like to have a drink in that bar; you know, the bar where the lovely woman dances provocatively and, then, is writhing about on the floor (0:54 and 1:02 on the link below).

So Danielle and I make a trip to Seattle in May/June 2010 and decide that, yes, this is the place for us and, upon our return to San Francisco, we began to make preparations for the move in earnest.  Having fallen in love with the Little Red Hen in Green Lake during our visit (a true honky tonk with country music five nights a week), we planned to live as close to the bar as possible.

Time passes, we watch another season of True Blood and, then, begin our long and winding move to Green Lake via Tacoma.  The Little Red Hen becomes not just a place to see live music in the evening but our after work local as well (five minute walk, maybe; if I look out my living room window now to the north I can see the top of the building through the trees).  And, then, one evening somebody says to me, "Hey, you watch True Blood? You know they filmed part of the opening credits here."  In fact, that was something I did not know, even though I'd been going to the bar regularly for three or four months.

So I come home and track down the opening credits on YouTube and are you fucking kidding me? My local is now the bar where the lovely woman is first dancing provocatively and, then, writhing about on the floor.  I needn't ever wonder again what it might be like to have a drink there.  In retrospect, I imagine I had not recognized LRH as that bar in the credits because we had missed the next season of True Blood and said credits were not fresh in my mind by a good 12, 13 months; though, also, those cuts are pretty quick - I might have missed it anyway.  There are a few others shots in the back pool room beginning around 0:49, but I'm sad to report the pool table is gone, replaced by a MASSIVE television screen (to my mind too massive).

In any event, this bonus - at 1:06 on the video, very briefly, one man shoves another.  If you freeze that moment and follow the curve of the bar to the left all the way to the wall (four or five stools only, the wall is mirrored), well, that's where Danielle and I generally sit.  Hey, you could too...

True Blood opening sequence...


IBL:mm

Monday, May 14, 2012

President Obama - NOT a Muslim

Cody, the 17 year old brother of my Seattle friends Shorty and Ro, to their mother, Michel, yesterday - "Well, we know for sure Obama isn't Muslim now - he came out for gay marriage."

And, with that, we can finally lay another controversy to rest.

Cheers, Cody!

IBL:mm

Trayvon Martin Shooting Targets (or, Why We Are Crap - Another In A Long Line of Examples)

An unidentified gentleman (patriot?) who wanted to make money off the Trayvon Martin "controversy" created paper targets with an image of the 17 year old boy framed in cross hairs.  The unidentified gentleman (patriot?) claims he sold them out in two days.  Which means that Americans are potentially using the image of an unarmed, 17 year old boy for their - I'm just going to say it - racist target practice - and, yes, I understand that "target practice" as something of an inanimate object/concept cannot, itself, be racist.  I also understand that almost certainly some people (heroes?) bought these as a "collector's item" (like, you know, Little Black Sambo salt and pepper shakers), hoping they would increase in value.

Link below shows the target should you care to see it.

If you didn't already, I just thought you should know.

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/05/11509/virginia-firm-sells-gun-targets-resembling-trayvon-martin


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"Cross"

Original IBL art - ink, raspberry, and Wild Turkey 101 on coaster, 3.5 x 3.5 inches, 5/13/12.

Friday, May 11, 2012

"Les Boys", Dire Straits

This came out when I was, I think, a junior in high school.  For some reason - and I can't imagine why - it's been rolling around in my head the last couple of days...

Les Boys do cabaret/Les Boys are glad to be gay...

IBL:mm

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Saluting President Obama for his Support of Same-Sex Marriage

People smarter than I (and, I'm sure, a fair amount who are not) will have buckets to say about this; I'll keep my thoughts brief.

It's no secret that we here at Infection By Light support equality for all, and we salute the president for his support of same-sex marriage.  It may well sink him in November, I have no idea, but, for the first time in nearly four years, I was proud of my 2008 vote for Barack Hussein Obama, truly proud - I could literally feel it in my body.

And, then, I was picturing in my mind some kid somewhere (and likely in more than one somewhere) questioning his or her sexuality (or perhaps absolutely certain), afraid to talk about it with family or friends or at school or at their church, and then they see the President of the United States on network television standing up for inclusion, respect, and equality, standing up for them.  Important words to someone feeling isolated and alone.

Once again - Cheers, Mr. President.

(Also, Joe Biden just ahead of the curve - who knew!)

Everybody in, nobody out.


IBL:mm

Forever Stamps - 20th Century Poets

So I was in the post office on 1st Street in downtown Seattle yesterday prior to the Tigers/Mariners game because, for one thing, I had to mail a few items and, for another, I had to pick up some stamps.  And there was no line! I mean that alone could justify this entire entry but, wait, there's more - I took a glance at the stamp possibilities and there they were: a sheet of 20 Forever stamps featuring 20th Century poets.  The first one I notice is Elizabeth Bishop which excites me greatly because (as has been earlier reported in these pages on 2/19/12) Danielle adores EB and I can't wait till she finds out EB got her own stamp.  But there are others, too: ten poets in all (two stamps for each).  As far as the ladies go, in addition to Miss Bishop we have Gwendolyn Brooks, Sylvia Plath (bitch could write) and Denise Levertov.  The men? Well, how about Joseph Brodsky, William Carlos Williams (love him), Robert Hayden, Wallace Stevens, Theodore Roethke and, happily, E.E. Cummings.  In short, scansion in the house.

Forever Stamps, 20th Century Poets - An IBL Purchase Recommendation (tm).

IBL:mm

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Monday, May 7, 2012

(Untitled Original IBL Art)

Pen and crayon on coaster, 3.5 x 3.5 inches, 5/6/12.

Sunday, May 6, 2012

"Demon Preparing to Eat"














Original IBL photograph, 5/3/12, Seattle.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Belated Birthdays - Willie Nelson and Pete Ham

There were a couple of birthdays last week that I wanted to briefly bring to your attention.  First, Willie Nelson turned 79 on April 30th.  Not much I need to say about Willie, his career speaks for itself.  I would, however, urge you to see him in concert if you get the chance.  Danielle and I have seen him three times I think, and he and his band were outstanding on each occasion.  He's constantly touring all over the country, so there's a pretty good chance he'll be coming to a venue near you.  And, you know, he's 79.

Second, Pete Ham, vocalist, guitarist and songwriter for Badfinger would have turned 65 on April 27th; Ham committed suicide on April 24th, 1975 (his bandmate, bassist Tom Evans, followed that same path in 1983).  I have spoken about Badfinger in this space before, on 8/4/11, and on 9/7/11 I drew your attention to Baby Blue, which is my favorite 70s pop song.  Ham wrote several hits you are likely familiar with, including Without You (co-written with Evans) which was a smash for Harry Nilsson in the early 70s.  Here's another look at the band in their prime.

Day After Day, live from 1972...

IBL:mm

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Matt Kemp, CF, Los Angeles Dodgers

Of course it's true that IBL has TWO baseball allegiances, the Detroit Tigers in the American League and the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National. And if I can spend paragraph after paragraph writing about the Tigers' release of Brandon Inge, a .100 hitter at the time, I can CERTAINLY spare a few words for the Dodgers' current center fielder, Matt Kemp, and the month he just completed, namely April 2012 -
  • a .416 batting average, which leads the league.
  • a .490 on base percentage, which is second in the league (by like four points).
  • 12 home runs which leads the league.
  • 25 runs batted in which leads the league (though Ethier of Los Angeles is right behind him with 24).
  • an .893 slugging percentage which leads the league.
Holy crap is all I can say.

IBL:mm

Brandon Inge (3B) Makes Debut w/ Oakland A's Yesterday, 4/30/12...

... and goes 1-3 with a walk.

As was recently recounted in a 4/27/12 post, IBL are HUGE Brandon Inge fans from his many years with the Detroit Tigers, and we wish him all the best with his new team...

IBL:mm


Two From Danielle McArthur - "Storm Over Green Lake" and "He is risen. He is delicious."















The first, appropriated birthday cake frosting on coaster, 3.5 x 3.5 inches, 4/29/12.

The second, appropriated birthday cake frosting and ink on coaster, 3.5 x 3.5 inches, 4/29/12.


Apparently these crosses are contagious.

John Edwards Was My Top Choice in the 2008 Democratic Primary...

 ... though, as I recall, by the time it was California's turn to vote, he was already out of the race.  Why did I like him? Well, I thought he was charming, articulate, and actually gave a shit about the poor (to be fair, all these things could STILL be true, I guess).  He seemed like he had a nice family, loved his wife and children, blah blah blah.  He's been in the news again of late as his criminal trial progresses and I just wanted to revisit a couple of the particulars, if I could, from this New York Times article dated June 3rd, 2011 -

Earlier in the day, a federal grand jury indicted him on charges that he violated federal campaign finance laws by “secretly obtaining and using” contributions from wealthy benefactors to conceal his mistress and their baby while he was running for president in 2008.

For the record, these contributions totaled about $1,000,000, and came from two donors.  The legal total on these contributions would have been something like $4,600, though I'm pretty clear that, one way or the other, concealing "mistress and their baby" wasn't listed in any of the campaign literature.  (Edwards is denying any wrongdoing.)
 
Plus, "mistress and their baby".

Also -

The grand jury, which has been investigating the case for two years, indicted Mr. Edwards on six counts — one involving conspiracy, four involving illegal payments and one involving false statements. If he is found guilty, Mr. Edwards, 57, faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison and $1.5 million in fines.

Then, because why not, toss in one more from the "hell of a guy" column - cheating on dying wife -  and sprinkle liberally with sex tape.

Yes, we have a civility policy here at The Popular IBL Studios (tm), but I'm not feeling very civil toward Mr. Edwards right now, I have to say, regardless of whether or not he is found guilty of these charges.

Disgraceful.

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