III

When I moved back home after college, I hung out with him. He was my brother's friend, possibly his best friend, but my brother was in Atlanta, so I guess he was looking out for his partner's younger sibling. It is that kind of town.

We used to eat at this restaurant. We'd walk in passing the hostess, to whom he would give a nod, and just choose a table and have a seat. Before long, the head chef would emerge from the back and welcome him as though he was the owner, although he was not. We'd laugh and talk, and the chef would ask what he was having. Inevitably he say "Surprise me," in a bright voice that was reminiscent of Southern Gentleman of some refinement, which I guess he was. Shortly thereafter, food would emerge, piping hot from the kitchen and we would eat. At the end of the meal he would have find someone to pay on occasion, as no one would accept payment for the food and alcohol of which we would have indulged. We were treated like that a number of places.

This was almost twenty years ago. He eventually got married, had children, life was good, the cotton was high, and people were just good folks waiting to happen.  

Lately he'd been going through some things.

Last Sunday he was found dead.

I will remember the good times, the jokes, the grand plans and the food. The rest will fade shortly, as time has a tendency to erase those memories of moments of weakness that diminish a good soul.

It is my hope that he finds peace.

Now Hiring - Entry Level Postions

Requirements: 25 years experience cranial microsurgery, 5 years of restaurant management experience and at least 5 years using the 2014 Cyberdyne Accounting XX Resource Management System. Conversational fluency in Spanish, Mandarin and Mid-Seventeenth Century English dialects, good with kids. Applicants should have an Oscar, a Tony and a Grammy and a full understanding of dark matter, string theory as well as my family's secret barbeque sauce. Must be able to multitask.

Top secret security clearance preferred.
Space Shuttle Flight certification required.

 $10.00 per hour. 

Welcome to the Wild Wild East

This is a political post.

I went out a few months ago to a friends birthday party at a little spot called the Buckhead Bottle Bar,
which looked a lot more impressive in the photographs. That and the waitress took so long I thought she had to drive to the liquor store to get the alcohol for my drink. Okay, maybe I'm a little old for that spot, but the news today suddenly brought back a memory of that evening. Aside from the look I got from the doorman, I had to submit to a pat down before entering.

Normally I don't do a spot that has to pat you down. It generally means the people running the spot know that their crowd has a tendency to get ornery, which really isn't conducive to a good night out at my age. As such, I paused at the door and asked him if it was "like that" in the establishment. He indicated that no, it wasn't, but due to the liberal gun laws in my state of residency, guns had become more prevalent than ever. He informed me that even the nicer restaurants, the places that look like movie backgrounds, are festooned people packing personal weaponry.

Where have I been?

Now I realize that there is a little town just outside of Atlanta that requires gun ownership (strange how conservatives didn't scream that government mandate violates any rights, now isn't it?) but the city of Atlanta proper and all it's associated city-lites aren't crazy dangerous. Are they? I mean, I live in a theoretically sketchy part of town, and I don't feel the need to be armed. It's not like I'm stumbling across bodies in the street on the way to the grocery store. I can leave the house after dark, just like in most of America, so I'm confused as to why Governor Deal felt the state needed better protection for dealing with roving bands of ...I'm guessing ghosts, here.

I mean, do the people in Buckhead, Brookhaven and Vinings need to walk around ready for a High Noon showdown? Or do teachers need rifles to hold off the natives until the menfolk get back from the fields? Because we live in the 21st century. At least I did.  What I find most disturbing about the bill is the specific inclusion (revisions of section 1-5) that removes the prohibition allowing guns into places that serve alcohol, because I like to think we're all fairly sure that alcohol impairs judgement. Am I to understand that drinking and driving is bad, but drinking and guns are okay? Apparently there is some study somewhere I missed that indicates alcohol does not impair judgment if you have a gun on you. Probably NRA sponsored.

This is really just an expansion of GA's Stand your Ground Law, which rests on the principle of allowing a person (usually not a minority) to shoot someone whom you feels threatens you in any place you're allowed to carry a gun. This expands the area you can legally carry one. Since we're now adding alcohol to the mix, I can uncomfortably predict this will not end well. A few drinks, an argument and suddenly everyone swears they're the hero in a Quentin Tarantino film. As the default threat - i.e., a black male - I find it more than a little worrisome. Here's to hoping I'm Django.

Happy Easter!!

My cousin called yesterday to invite me to Church this morning. I intended to go, but the five more minutes turned into ten more minutes turned it as long as I'm up by...you see where this is going. So I need to apologize, or at least explain to my cousin, why I didn't make it. It's a nice church too.

Sigh.

My Easter dinner this year will be rice and gravy (I had to go buy these), early peas (I had to buy this too) and some cubed steak like mom used to make (they only sell this in family packs). I've got a sweet potato to candie and will wash this old fashioned meal down with some new school Crystal Light. Yes, it's like super-sizing it and ordering a diet Coke, but it's a holiday. I find it both odd and refreshing I had to buy all this food because the food I do have is much healthier than this mess. Of course my other cousin who is South Carolina, and with whom I formerly could share defensive lineman duties, now claims to be down to a 38 waistline and shrinking, so I need some even healthier food than what I have. And it's back to the gym, on regular schedule this time.

I'm thinking this spring, provided it ever actually gets here, is time for some personal refreshing. I'm getting stale, feeling sluggish and starting to enjoy clicking links on the internet just a bit too much. The TV tropes site alone...ugh. It's for research for my writing, stuff to try avoid, but you get on a tangent so easily over there.

And yes, I realize I haven't finished the last personal update - law school, new career, etc, - but, why wait? I'm relatively young and still semi-good looking. In the right light. If you're not looking directly at me. It's a stop waiting for the moment, make the moment kind of thing. Bing bang boom.

Barkeep, it's all milk and cookies. It's a holiday.

The Last of King Joffery

Ramblings Post #261
I don't watch a whole lot of TV. Most of it is badly written, but not on purpose like say Archer. And I'm not a big fan of badly written series shows, where you have to watch every episode to know what's going on. But if it's written well, and like stays faithful to the source material, then a series show can be a thing of beauty. Like say Game of Thrones.

Via AV Club via HBO via Westeros

Was it wrong that I cheered when Game of Thrones character King Joffery died?

The actor who played him, Jack Gleeson, deserves an Emmy and although the show doesn't qualify for it, an Oscar, for creating a character so palpably despicable. He wasn't a character you loved to hate, you just hated him. I haven't read the books, but I have read the Wikipedia synopsis so I knew what was coming. And since the showrunners have moved some things around in the line for clarity or dramatic purposes, I actually thought they might save the King's Wedding until the second to last episode or something. But seeing it start, I suddenly ran to the kitchen get snacks so I wouldn't have to move again, and prayed it wouldn't be a two part episode.  

Is it wrong I want to watch the episode again, just to watch him die again?

Although it would have been fascinating to watch the reign of King Joffery before he inevitably strangled his queen, or had her beheaded for looking at him funny or sighing too loudly or something, this seems to be more fitting. Karma wise. That and I hate stories where the villains, and make no mistake I see the Lannisters as the bad guys of this tale, get so absurdly powerful that the writer has to create something so ridiculously implausible for the hero to accomplish to balance out the tale. That both sides have ups and downs, that the smaller side players affect the story (WARNING: this link may spoil the story for you) feels more organic.

There is a bunch more story to tell. This all happened in book three of the "theoretical" seven part series, and with most of the principals of the first few seasons dead, you have wonder where all this going.

Don't mind me. Just going back to watch the episode again. For um, you know what, I just want to see that damned character die again!

Barkeep. Let me get some of the good good.   

Bar chatter

Bar chatter #28
Sometimes it ain't enough to equal a whole post, but still needs to be said.... it's bar chatter. 

It's been a long time since I did one of these, (2012, really?) but this I have to say....

I didn't really watch How I Met Your Mother a lot. I watched some of the first season, then law school and so now I catch re-runs. But I thought the original premise was cool: A long story about how this guy met his kids mother. I also realize that because TV is a tricky medium with renewals and cast changes, so getting to that titular moment was going to be teased out.

More than few episodes were neatly written. The characters familiarly kooky. The situations just different enough to be fresh. It was a fairly good show.

Then Monday the series ended. And the main character runs to be back with the chick he met in the first episode. Who was not the mother. When the story was supposed to be about meeting the mother. The term McGuffin comes to mind. They could have just called it Friends II if this was the plan, and since they shot the ending nine years ago, it was. I wish the actress playing that "friend" had quit so they would have been forced to do something different, something better.

What would have been better you ask? The whole last season with Ted and the Mother (Tracy) getting to know each other. And the change of the dynamic and the growth of the characters. Instead, we get the a finale that could have been written by M. Night Shyamalan.

It makes me glad it's gone...sorry ass writers.