O’Henry twist

It’s not quite The Gift of the Magi – but both of us received DVD sets for Christmas – and last night our DVD player gave up the ghost.

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We didn’t pay much for our DVD player. We bought the thing at ASDA – a supermarket chain owned by WalMart. We bought it because once during a trip to the dump I found about 30 ring binders full of porn DVDs. Clearly a local production company was having a clear out. Now, I have to say I’m not a big fan of porn or the porn industry but also not being one to sniff at dumpstery-goodness, I thought – this must be a sign. A sign to get a DVD player. Because up until that point the Vol-in-Law was having a one-man boycott on DVD players because of the the artificial segmentation of the global market into DVD regions through a mere twist of code – just to extract the maximum consumer surplus. Code which some poor Swede went to jail for cracking.

But when you’ve got 2 binders full of dumpster porn (we randomly selected two – it just wouldn’t be right to have a whole shelf of the stuff – that would be trashy) you gotta have something to watch it on. So we bought a cheap DVD player and 8 Mile with Eminem which was super discounted.

Thanks goodness Mr Marshall Mathers. It turns out that they weren’t porn DVDs at all, but rather CDs storing files of porn movie cover art and promotional materials.

And I really enjoyed watching 8 Mile. And we returned the nasty promotional materials whence they came.

How’s that for an O’Henry twist?

California emissions standard

I used to love to watch The Price is Right with VolBro – especially sitting in the easy chairs in my grandparents bedroom – but anywhere really. VolBro was a natural – he was usually right – even when he was a little tiny kid with no money or shopping experience of his own.

He was very good on guessing the price of cars – often guessing what I thought was quite high. When I’d voice my doubts, he’d pipe up in his little 6 year old voice “you can’t forget the California emissions – that always makes it higher.” And he was right.

I can’t say that I built my life around TPIR (as my grandmother sometimes did), but I really enjoyed it.

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When I moved to the UK, I had to leave behind TPIR. Well, sorta. There is a British version of the show, but it’s only a half an hour. There’s no showcase showdown – the showcase contestant competes against a randomly selected margin of error (though of course, one can never go over on the price). There’s no reminder to spay or neuter your pets. California emissions do not come as standard – and there’s no Bob Barker.

Sure, there’s Plinko and the other little games I knew and loved. But there’s no Bob Barker. And I can’t but watch the show without thinking “Hey, this guy isn’t Bob Barker.” The show has since been cancelled and I can’t help but think – without the refined dignity of Bob Barker (the British version always seemed kinda sleazy) – it’s no wonder that it didn’t work out.

Now America will have to watch TPIR with the interior monologue running “Hey, this guy isn’t Bob Barker.” Although, there’s some speculation that folks may be saying “Hey, this gal isn’t Bob.”

Bob retired this month – his last show airing on Friday. It makes me a little sad.

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My cousin Blake won a car on TPIR. He gave it to his mother. It had California emissions standard.

Goodbye friend

We’ve all had them. And if you haven’t had one, I’m sorry for you. Maybe there’s one out there in the your future. The vehicle that you love beyond reason.

For me, it was the 1975 Ford Granada. I loved that car. Beyond reason. It was my first car and it was a piece of crap. I had to pour gas on the carburetor to get the thing started on cold mornings. (I’m not sure I could find the carburetor in my car now) It was bought new by my grandparents and traded back and forth between them and my parents and probably my aunt and uncle, too – and then when I turned 16 – it was mine.

Nothing on it worked consistently. Nothing. Not the engine, steering, radio, AC or brakes. But it was sturdy, it was built like a tank. You could stand on the hood and sit on the roof. And it actually seemed to respond to my pleas and mental vibes. “Please start, please start. Good car. Good, good car.”

Like any much loved vehicle, it had a nickname. The Shit Mobile. I didn’t choose that. I prefered the simple and classy moniker “The Granada”. But my brother once took some white spraypaint and wrote SHIT on her blue hindquarter. His contribution to mine and a friend’s effort to decorate her for high school homecoming (the Granada, believe me, was not a part of any official celebration). My mom discovered the act before the paint had fully dried and wiped the Granada down with a Kroger bag. There was a big white smear and if you squinted and in the right light, you could still read SHIT.

My brother used to sing the song from the old Batman…Na-na Na-na Na-na Na-na Shit-mobeeeel. It was kind of infectious.

They sold that car when I was a freshman in college. I’m sure the Granada is long ago scrap. I haven’t been behind the wheel of the shitmobile in about 20 years, but I still have her ignition key in my jewelry box. Just in case I see her and we can ride away.

Genderist has lost Harrison, the pick up truck.

random images

Random images that I’ve been scanning in today…

I put this together on the beach. I think I was trying to be artistic. I don’t remember where or when this was. Probably somehwere in Ireland.

We took a road trip through Ireland. On a tiny country lane in the border country of Northern Ireland, these lambs approached our car. Somebody had clearly been hand feeding them. As soon as they realised I didn’t have any treats, they began to move off and by the time I managed to get my camera out they were nearly away.

This was Otis. Our first kitten together and the Vol-in-Law’s first mammal pet(he’d had some goldfish). They were very close. He was more of a man’s cat. He got run over when he was just around 2 years old. It was devastating.

This was an advertisement for some kind of Sheffield specialty. It’s kinda like Worcestershire sauce, but a bit nastier. When I lived in Sheffield, I wanted to like it.

scattered pictures and double-eared corn

I’ve been going through some old photographs – don’t know why really – as I have many other things I should be doing. I’ve noticed there are lots of pictures from the beginning of our marriage – then hardly any. This is partly because my camera broke and I couldn’t afford to replace it with a camera I liked.

In the past couple of years I’ve been taking loads of pictures, but they’re all digital. I’ve been trying to make sure I put stuff from trips into photo books (I did our trip to France and Christmas visit to Tennessee) and annual retrospectives – like A Year in the Garden 2006 rather than just leave them in digital files. And I should probably get my blog printed up and bound into a book – just for posterity.

Anyway, it’s interesting looking back on our lives. And I’ve separated the photos into

• Please scan and make into a photo book
• Not very good, but can’t bear to throw away (the biggest pile)
• Throw away (this is the smallest pile)

I’ve noticed that we were a lot younger and thinner when we first got together. Some of us had more hair. We look quite happy.

I found some old letters, too and managed to avoid the temptation of actually reading them. Many of them are from my grandfather who died almost four years ago and who were planning to name the soon-to-arrive baby after. My grandfather used to send me pictures regularly, too. And clippings from The Tennessean or the Lawrence County Advocate or wherever that he thought might interest me.

For example, I found this snippet of Wilson County News –

The Neal family farm near Tuckers Crossroads is one of just three farms in the state chosen for an important experiment in improving forage for cattle and cutting the farm’s dependence on hay for feed, Agriculutral Extension Services Agent Jon Baker said. Baker added that if the proer kinds of grasses are developed for pastures, it will mean less work for the farmers and reduced costs for consumers. As Baker said “Cows are designed to eat forage, not grain.” – WARREN DUZAK.

taped to this picture:

On the back of the picture, it’s written in my grandfather’s scrawl

This is a picture of the water damage in our shop recently. Insurance has pd all damage but $500 which we are asking the roofers to pay.

I do not know if this in Lawrenceburg – where my grandfather rented antique selling space on the square or if it was in Nashville or Franklin – where over time he had also rented space.

I do not know why the story about experimental forage on the Neal family farm was attached to it. That may be an accident of proximity and tape and time.

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I do know why he sent me the snippet on agriculture. We are kin to the Neals. My great grandfather’s mother’s maiden name was Neal, his given name was Neal and he and his brother Ben were raised in the home of William Haskell Neal, his maternal uncle, after their father died.

Haskell Neal, as he was known, developed Neal’s Paymaster Corn (read more if you’re interested about his induction to the Wilson County Agricultural Hall of Fame). This was the first reliably double-eared open pollinated corn. Haskell developed it through selective breeding. My grandfather told me that his daddy remembered harvesting corn with his Uncle Haskell and that Haskell kept a special sack for double eared corn – which he would use for seed corn the following year.

Here’s what a Works Progress Administration 1939 survey of the State of Tennessee said about it:

Corn always has been the leading crop in value and volume. For more than 50 years the State has had a yearly average of three million acres in corn. In 1935 the crop amounted to more than 60 million bushels. One third of the corn grown is the high-yield variety known as Neal’s Paymaster. It is interesting to note that until 1904, when W. H. Neal of Lebanon developed this variety, most Tennessee farmers had been growing the same type of corn planted centuries before by the mound builders. The major part of the Tennessee crop is consumed in the region of its production.

I recently told somone about this, just kind of casually mentioned it – I’m not sure why but it was vaguely relevant. This person seemed distinctly unimpressed. But it was a really big deal. This effectively doubled yields in a time when many people went hungry.

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Events have conspired lately to make me think of Haskell Neal and his Paymaster Corn. I was listening to a radio show about pacifist farming communes in England during World War II and one of the former residents was talking about how they strove to improve yields – and how if they could only produce twice as much corn (this actually probably means wheat) from the same acreage what a difference that would make to the world. I thought of Haskell Neal. He did that.

And last night, I was watching a show about genetic modification and some foodie journalist was absolutely appalled by the selective breeding efforts of livestock farmers to produce some really big beef cattle – Belgian Blues. He seemed to think selective breeding was some kind of new fangled invention, somewhere along the lines of Frankenstein food. How freaking ignorant. How could someone who is supposed to write about food know so little about how food is produced? A biologist on the show pointed out that so long as we have had agriculture we’ve had selective breeding. I thought about my great-grandfather and Haskell Neal’s sack of double-eared seed corn.

Could arming up have prevented a massacre?

Kat Coble has posted about Jonestown after watching a documentary about it. I did that, too – not long ago.

People of a certain age (and if I remember correctly, she’s nearly exactly the same age as me – born May 1970) will have Jonestown imprinted on them as their first memory of newsworthy tragedy.

If you’re a wee eight year old, and 900 people “commit suicide” by drinking a Kool-Aid like substance and Kool-Aid, is the object of much desire for this 8 year old, (my parents did not provide me with anything like what I considered an adequate amount of the sweet, colored drink) – you’re going to remember it. Plus nearly a thousand people died and news reports showed body after body, many of them kids your age, piled on top of each other and rotting on the jungle floor.

But her long term reaction…

I believe in guns because of Jim Jones. I believe in the ineffectuality and haphazardness of government because of Jim Jones. I believe in being a Discerning Believer because of Jim Jones. One of the more fun things about ideas is being able to trace the growth of one of your deeply-held beliefs to the source. I’ve been able to do that more in recent years as pop culture digs up “nostalgic” events from my childhood.

…and my long term reaction are very different. I’d say my overriding feeling has been that people are crazy and can be induced to do even crazier things. They can be convinced to kill their kids, kill their neighbors, kill themselves – and all it takes is a loudspeaker, sleep deprivation and a little peer pressure. In fact, you can do it without the sleep deprivation.

I will say that I agree with her 100% on the importance of scepticism (i.e. the Discerning Believer). When you’re in a big old group of people, who are all being told the unbelievable or the unlikely or the downright disgusting, and they’re all raring to go – it might be a good thing to question those in authority. But then again, it might be too late. But I suppose one take some comfort in saying: I told you these guys were crazy, I had a feeling that this would all end badly. I know that it would make me feel better to be able say “I told you so,” even as the bullet bit. But that’s just me.

As to the ineffectuality of government the massacre at Jonestown was triggered by a visit from Congressman Leo Sayer, but it had been practiced and practiced well before his trip had been thought of – and if so many discerning believers hadn’t asked to leave with the congressional delegation then the mass murder-suicide probably wouldn’t have happened for another week or so. But, I can’t say that’s a lesson I took away in 1978. I only recently learned about his role. I so understand the sentiment, I’ve worked in the public sector for almost all my adult life, so I’ve seen a lot of ineffectuality in my day – and even perpetrated some. But I’ve seen a lot of good done, too – especially the basic and thankless work of organising infrastructure and managing the collective work (public health, transportation, education) that has brought our society to the point it is today. And one thing I’ll say for those working for the public is that most of them mean well. I’ve hardly ever met anyone who entered public service (in the US or UK) because they wanted to do ill to their fellow man.

But where I really digress in experience and sentiment is on the guns. No. I don’t think having more guns would have made a blind bit of difference in Jonestown. There were guns there. But those guns will have only been in the hands of those who plotted evil or blindly followed. Guns can’t prevent craziness. In Jonestown, they only helped precipitate craziness. (The shooting of Leo Sayer and members of the delegation was used by Jones to tell his followers that their utopia was coming to a crashing end and that they would all be carted off and split up – so they were better off dead at their own hand.) And how would you have got guns in the hands of the Discerning Believers? Who would have doled them out? The Government? Why would most of the people there think that they needed guns – they largely believed they were part of a radical and loving experiment that could change the world for the better.

But more importantly, I just don’t believe that guns are the key ingredient, the critical success factor for a responsible, respectful society. Responsibly held and largely unused weapons in the hands of citizens is something you see because there is a mature relationship between state and citizen (government by and of the people, where citizens exercise their responsibility to participate) and where there is largely a feeling of trust between citizen and fellow citizen. The feeling of trust, the mature relationship doesn’t occur as a result of folks being armed to the teeth.

Maybe I’ll agree that weapons are a bellweather. If you’re a responsible, calm and largely non-violent person and you have to ask “Why can’t I have a gun?” – then you have to wonder what’s going on in the relationship between the people and the power. But you don’t even need guns to ask that question – in Jonestown, questions with similar answers (Why can’t I leave? Why do I have to hand over all my money and property?) could have been asked.

The questioning of power and the engagement of the responsible, free citizen in governance prevents the abuse of power, not tooling up. After all, those in power will always be able to out-purchase and out-gun an individual.

Quinoa for peace and security

I was once in a swanky Westminster bar advising a senior civil servant – the one who was responsible for the UK drugs strategy – what to do regarding opium growing in Afghanistan.

The problem was: he said – the farmers in Afghanistan depend on the income of the opium poppy. The solution was: a replacement crop or source of income. But the problem is: what? He elaborated that Afghanistan is actually a pretty tough growing climate, and poppies do really well there.

I said. “Friend, I’ve got two words for you. Specialty grains.”

He looked at me as if I were mad or drunk. (To be fair, I was at least one of these.) I elaborated – quinoa, grown in the Andes (a landscape like Mars) has all kinds of health benefits, but it’s hard to find and people will pay a premium for the stuff. Same could be said for amaranth. I explained how they could introduce the crop, set up co-operatives and promote these grains in the UK and US markets – which could really take off as people start to become more health concious. And sure, it’s not quite as glamourous or lucrative as opium poppies, but it would be a pretty good source of income with a little forethought and support.

And what happened? Nada. Bupkiss. Zip.

And Taliban heroin has flooded the global (and especially European) markets.

I really should be in charge.

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I flashed back to this incident because of Kathy’s quinoa recipe post.

Wrong number

My first apartment was in Fort Sanders in the student slums of Knoxville. Along with my first digs, I got my first very own phone number. Only, of course, someone else had had that phone number before me. Her name was Michelle and a lot of people called for her. In fact, it’s only just occurred to me that maybe Michelle was in the habit of giving out my phone number. Who knows?

Anyway, she got around. And when I say she got around, I mean, I think she had a lot of boyfriends. Boyfriends she didn’t treat very well. Boyfriends who had greater depth of feeling for her than she did for them. They sounded pretty desperate and heartbroken anyway.

Oh, did I mention that apparently I sounded a lot like Michelle? I sounded so much like Michelle that some of those young men didn’t believe me when I informed them that I wasn’t Michelle. I had to hang up on several poor fellows.

Time moves on and there are new methods of communication, but there are still wrong numbers. Misdirected messages. Crossed wires.

The reason that I mention this is that Girl from the South gets other people’s emails. And it’s pretty funny or pretty tragic depending on whose misdirected messages come her way.