Did you know that the official name of Rhode Island is Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations? What else is out there that I didn’t know?

Do you guys have any interesting tidbits about the WDC area? Let’s share.

The world is a little less weird today, and all the poorer for it.

Michael Joseph Jackson

1958 - 2009

A theocracy that requires the military to enforce its policies against the will of its electorate is, by definition, not a democracy. Give the people what they want.

I drove past him on the way to work this morning. Inner loop near Route 50. He was a twenty-something dressed in shorts, a t-shirt and brown flip-flops. His car was on the side of the road with a flat tire. Nothing out of the ordinary except that the tow truck operator was putting the crank for his jack together for him. This appalled me.

He was apparently unable to change his own flat tire. Are young men in Washington DC so coddled that they can’t or won’t get their hands greasy? Perhaps he simply didn’t know how to change a tire – equally bad. Maybe his daddy didn’t teach him how. Our gender has apparently become so tender, so dependent upon service industries that we can’t do something as basic as change a tire.

Our gender is supposed to be rougher, tougher, able to fix things. Yes, yes, I know – this is a stereotype. It is, I agree.

So, men of Washington DC (and any other city that happens to be reading), I have a list of things that you should be able to do. Some of them are dirty, greasy, and undesirable. Do them anyway. Others are a pain in the butt. Do them anyway. Some are esoteric. Do them anyway. You are a man, after all.

• Change a tire. This should go without saying. Take a look in the back of your Beemer and find the jack, find the tire iron. Jack your dainty little car up and remove a tire once so you know how it works. You’ll probably get a little black stuff on your hands. Don’t worry – dirt is good for the soul.
• Change your oil and oil filter. Read you owner’s manual. It’s not hard.
• Change a diaper. If you’re going to breed, eventually you will have to change a diaper. Society being what it is, you won’t have to change too many but you should still know how to do it.
• Give a toast. I have done this well and I have done this poorly. Either way, I don’t back down when asked.
• Tie a bow tie. It’s like tying your shoes. Tie it up and play with it until it looks like you want it to. Practice makes perfect.
• Polish your shoes. You can get the shoe polish and brush at your local Safeway. Scuffed shoes look sloppy.
• Make a drink. It’s not just about beer. Start simple: vodka and tonic. Fill the rocks glass half full of ice. Pour in one ounce of vodka (about one third of the glass). Squeeze in a slice of lime. Fill with tonic water. Stir gently with the backside of a spoon. Voila. Now you’re ready to tackle something more complicated, like a cosmopolitan.
• Select a wine. Red for beef, white for chicken and fish. And for christsakes don’t get chardonnay. That’s just lazy. Take some time to learn what goes with what.
• Plant a tree. Dig the hole deep enough so that the top of the rootball is visible when placed into that hole. Not too deep and not too narrow. Fill in with soil, tamp down gently, water.
• Drive a nail. Hold the nail in one hand, pointy side toward the wood. Tap once, maybe twice with the hammer to get it to stick. Now grasp the back of the handle to get maximum leverage pound it like you mean it. Don’t hold the hammer half way up and tap the nail seventeen times. Hit it.
• Do the dishes. Don’t tell anyone.
• Own up. Be a man and admit your mistakes. Now move on. Don’t dwell.
• Get comfortable being alone. You don’t need to be on your iPhone all the time. Be comfortable crawling around in the vast attic that is your mind.
• Understand that the ultimate in cool is genuinely not caring what others think.
• Have style, even if it is not what GQ says it is. Embrace it.
• Hold the door. Don’t think about it, just do it.
• Adore women. Be faithful to yours.

Languages throughout the world have different ways of indicating differing sounds. Swedish, for instance, has the umlaut as used in my friend Björn’s name. These glyphs added to different letters generally serve to change the sound value of those letters. They aren’t used very often in English, at least in American English, with some obvious exceptions. Façade, with the cedilla, is pronounced with a soft c sound, as in “fah-sahd” and not “fah-kade.” In the word Café, one pronounces the final e. There is currently a McDonalds ad campaign entirely based on the pronunciation of the final e. Even Pokémon has the accent over the e when spelled properly.

Sometimes they are indicators of use for homophones. In French the word là means “there” as in an answer to the question, “Where is it?” On the other hand, “la” is an article meaning “the.”

I propose that we could use these for an entirely different reason. They could be used as a more discreet way of showing mood or perspective. Of course, we already have emoticons to indicate sense of humor, or that the writer is just kidding by josh. Using this new system, emoticons would be viewed as simplistic when compared to these much more subtle uses.

As the owner and user number one of these new rules, I propose that the tilde (~) be used to show disdain. Yes, that’s right: the Tilde of Disdain.

The script of almost any Seinfeld episode would contain the line, “Hello, Newmãn.” That way Jerry would know to deliver the line dripping with disdain, as he did so well.

Likewise, if I sent out an email response that said, “I can’t go barhopping on Friday, Crystal.” It would mean that I was telling Crystal that I was unavailable for a pub-crawl on Friday. But if the same email said, “I can’t go barhopping on Friday, Crystãl,” then she would know for sure that not only am I unavailable, but that I wouldn’t be found dead in her company, not if she was the last person available for a trip to the boozer, honey! Take the hint! Not this Friday, not next Friday, not any Friday!

It could be used in business: “Don’t call us, We’ll call yõu!” Take that, irritating customer who drags your undisciplined brats into my high-end salon! Or “We Appreciate Yõur Business!” really means, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!”

The uses are endless! Just imagine the revolution. One could be both assertive and passive aggressive all at the same time.

So, go ahead and try it out. Let me know if it works for yõu.

Robb & Lips from the band Anvil were on the radio recently pimping a movie about their band Anvil, a film cleverly titled “Anvil – The Story of Anvil.” Have no doubt, I will definitely see this movie. One of the things that came across clearly in the interview is what these guys themselves call a “relentless pursuit” of their passion, in this case the glory that is Old School Metal.

They are held up as the progenitors of modern thrash as currently brought to the metal-hungry masses by the four horsemen of thrash metal: Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeath. All great bands whose members invariably hold up Anvil as the first among them. To a man, members of these four bands wonder why their band made it but Anvil did not. The world is an unkind place, my friends.
But this relentless pursuit… their dedication and ability to persevere in the face of great odds is inhuman. It’s genuinely awesome. I have never pursued anything as relentlessly as they have and frankly don’t know anyone who has, ever.

I get the warm fuzzy hearing this story from that particular milieu. In any other circumstance, the phrases “thrash metal” and “relentless pursuit” might seem like a non-sequitor. Not here; this fits. This is the karma bank in action. These guys have made the deposits into the karma bank for decades and now they’re getting a giant withdrawal all at once. Good on ‘em. I hope they sell a gazillion CDs and tour with the greats again.

Hey Gang:

I’m considering making all my novels available here for the Kindle DX for free. That’s right; I said all three novels for free. Anyone interested? Let me know. Of course, donations will be gladly accepted…

Dear Brian May and Roger Taylor:

Please please please do not hire Adam Lambert.

Sincerely,
Chris Moreau, Queen fan for decades

Despite the fact that I have XM in my truck, I listen to Elliot in the Morning on DC 101 each morning on my way to work. I like his take on life – not too serious about anything - and I like the crew he has surrounded himself with. They entertain me on my commute.

One morning this week, he had some guests on talking about a new book. The subject matter of the book is a mother’s (ultimately successful) struggle to save her son from addiction. Turns out that the son was a world-class junkie that would spike just about anything into his veins, up his nose or into his lungs.

The story was moving, but in the end it felt remarkably like the story told by a father / son pair that were on the same radio show a few months ago with the same story. Son spins out of control, parents let it happen, guilt, remorse, divorce, kid in rehab again and again, kid finally bottoms out and decides he needs to get help. Kid gets clean, parent writes book, duo tours. Not to detract from the story, but it’s pretty much a stereotype, is it not?

One of the things that struck me on hearing this latest story is how the junkie kid (now a young man) is able to talk about his exploits in a totally dispassionate manner, as though he is speaking of an entirely different person. It was the same for the last interview. Elliot asks direct questions, saying to his face that the kid was a POS when he was using and the kid invariably agrees and responds with something like, “Yep, that was me.” But the measured tone of voice tells me otherwise, that the kid thinks of that junkie persona as a different being, someone else entirely.

And the parent, in this latest case the mother, “admitting” that she’d made mistakes; telling whoever will listen that while she was essentially absent as her son careened toward self-destruction, she eventually got it together and saved him son and so can you. There’s always hope. The careful cadence of the conversation and selection of words… it all felt very contrived.

Surely (Don’t call me Shirley) it is a success that this mother was able to drag her son back from the depths of despair but it feels skeevy to me to hold up something so personal for the world to see.

I once heard an interview of one of the producers of “Behind the Music,” a series that used to run on VH1 (“… and then tragedy struck…”). He indicated that washed up rock stars, one hit wonders that never again tasted the success of their original hit, famous bands, infamous duos, all came sniffing around once the show gained an audience. “Well, he’s a recovering heroine addict,” the faded star’s publicist would pitch. The producer’s response, predictably, was, “So what? What else you got?”

Addiction is nothing new. It’s never pretty and I wholeheartedly applaud the success this mother had in getting her son back. Still, it felt to me like the mother and son were chasing fame and trying to disguise it as a feel-good, back from the brink, look-what-love-can-do story.

Hey Gang:

I have a bunch of stuff to post over the next few days but having problems getting the spare time to put it up. More brilliant prose is on its way. Soon. I promise. Like this afternoon. Really, I’m here for you.