The Parable of the Mixed Metaphor

This was going to be about Groundhog’s Day and may well yet end up going there. But I have to go back to yesterday to do that, so if you don’t appreciate history go play Angry Birds or something for two shakes of a lamb’s tale.

I assumed it would be transparent to everyone who stopped by yesterday that I was offering my version of ‘cast your bread upon the water’ or ‘Mrs. Paul ain’t the only one who knows about loaves and fishsticks.’ (for the record, mein schatz, es war fisch sticks nicht was anderes, okay? ), but I forget the Feast  of the Assumption is 15 August and any other day you do so, you’re doing it at your own peril.

I had way too many phone calls and email from people concerned about ‘your car’ and, in some instances slightly hurt that I hadn’t asked for their help at that time. Again as I kept explaining, with diminishing results yesterday: there was nothing wrong with my car. I was attempting to say something entirely different. If you didn’t see my point, it’s because I was wearing my ski-cap (in honor of the Winter X Games, dude) and for that I apologize. 

I appreciated the thoughtfulness of the various offers of assistance, to include the one for a ride which came via email von den alten heimat. I guess we would have had to keep the windows rolled up when we hit the Pond. Glad I gave up smoking and thrilled you left the dog at home (she calls shotgun all the time).

So that’s out of the way, okay? When a family member  calls me before she goes to work to make sure ‘none of this really happened’ I need to sign up for the Bravo TV show, “Bowling for Participles with the Real English Teachers of the Carrier Clinic.’ While I’m neatening up loose ends, there’s no hard feelings or confusion left over from Buzz Lightyear and Newt Gingrich? Poor Ralph. Talk about a target rich environment. Who called shotgun in the rover? (Three guesses and the first two don’t count.).

In honor of another nearly mythical character today we have a custom to honor a belief no one actually shares, Punxsutawney Phil.  I have a very enlightened attitude on his relationship to winter-as long as whatever has created our current situation continues, he can see Ken Howard if he’d like. (Make it Ron; Hell, a herd of Winnebagos-we’re givin’ ‘em away.) As for me, I’m thankful for the pretext this gives me to revisit a favorite tune. Very thankful. Amazing.   

-bill kenny

Light and Sound

The cold snap we had ten days ago sidelined my car. When I went out into the garage to start it and head for work, the engine wouldn't turn over so I called our auto club. It was a busy morning for roadside service guys and gals and it took about twenty for someone to call me back and offered to trouble shoot what was going on, or not going on, under the hood.

Based on my seconds of professional automotive experience (and I did not stay at a Holiday Inn Express  the night before), I told the mechanic it was the starter. He wasn't nearly as impressed with my automotive acumen as I was and suggested I go back out to garage, turn on the headlights, and then try to start the car. I explained to him as slowly and as evenly as I could that  I'd already checked the battery by honking the horn and it was fine. I repeated my suspicions about the starter.

There was a discernible pause on the phone before he repeated, yet again, what he'd just told me to do: go back out to the garage, turn on the headlights and then attempt to start the engine. I decided it was pointless to argue with him, and besides, in two minutes he'd have to agree with me anyway so I went out to the car as directed, turned on the headlights, turned the key in the ignition and and less than nothing happened.

Actually something did happen-the two points of illumination on the garage wall in front of the car, the reflection of the headlights, dimmed  as I tried to crank the engine. The car still did not start. I went back inside and explained to the mechanic on the phone that the starter was shot.

No, he said, it was the battery that had spit the bit. I was incredulous and, quite frankly, angry. How, I demanded to know did he come to that conclusion since I had checked on the battery by honking the horn and it sounded loud and clear.

I'm sure it did, he said, but you told me yourself your headlights dimmed when you tried to start the car. That means the culprit is a weak battery, no matter how loud your horn is. He explained it takes more energy to be a light than to be a horn.

For just a moment, I wasn't sure if we were still talking about cars on cold winter mornings or if we had moved on to the larger and more important topics in life. A week and a half later, I'm still not sure, but I'm thinking it was probably the latter and have decided everything I learn after I think I know it all is also knowledge.
-bill kenny

Where Is Jeremy?

I’m enslaved, by a habit that’s not just part of my daily shopping routine, but the best part. You'll know it when you read it. On my way home every afternoon, I swing by my local grocery and avail myself of their make-your-own-damn-salad bar as I prepare my healthy lunch for the following day. 

At the rate at which I make and eat salads, I should be so healthy I glow in the dark. I eat salad because I’m told it’s good for me; I have no idea or proof of truth and have even less interest in finding out. I do believe if there is a just and merciful God S/He could have had broccoli taste like chocolate, thus making those created in Her/His image very happy. And healthy.

There’s not a lot of variation in how I assemble the salad-lettuce, peppers, those goofy small tomatoes that explode everywhere when you cut them into smaller pieces (but they’re too large to not cut), some spinach, pieces of pineapple, a few sliced strawberries, cranberries and some pieces of white meat chicken all go in the aluminum foil and I pop a plastic lid on top (so the salad can see where we’re going?).

I use the self-checkout register because it’s almost always open and there’s no line, especially after I not too softly whisper “I own you now” after every purchase crosses the scanner. You'd be surprised how quickly people find other lines. The self-checkout has The Voice encouraging me to use my market’s preferred shopper card and then thanking me for so doing. If I have bar-coded items, all of that merchandise goes first. I put the things in those terribly thin plastic bags which are impossible to separate so you end up with hundreds of landfill-choking plastic bags you can never use for anything else and you dare not throw away.

Yesterday I also bought eggs as we had none at home. Every home should have an eggscess of eggs. I can't understand why that slogan still hasn't caught on. Your loss. I buy HUGE eggs but there’s always one I forget to check that’s welded to the bottom of the cardboard container by escaped egg insides which have now hardened. This means for the price of twelve eggs I purchase eleven. I do this with a consistency I no longer find funny. I blame the chickens for the broken eggs; perhaps that why I eat my salad with chicken pieces, but never chicken salad. Perhaps not.

Anyway. The salad doesn’t have a bar code (yet), so when I place it on the scanner/scale, I have to touch the screen display for produce and The Voice explains “touch the item to purchase.” That, of course, is crap. What I have to do is touch the image on the touch screen showing a salad (not unlike the one I made). Touching the salad itself accomplishes nothing. I know this because I do it at least once every day, more often if there’s no one behind me. Every time I do as The Voice directs, and nothing happens, I go “no?” in a tone of wounded surprise that sounds genuine even though I know it’s not. And I smile because I just crack myself up with this routine every single day.   

Why am I telling you this? Because if you’re a resident of Florida and are voting today in your state’s Republican presidential primary, I was hoping to distract you from so doing since I’m pretty well convinced, despite history to the contrary, there are worse things that can happen to us than a hanging chad. And three of your choices have the same number of letters in their first name.  May I offer you a lightly used egg?  

-bill kenny

Learning to Fly

It's difficult to believe the first month of the new year is almost over. So far, so good; so what? Not sure what we accomplished in the first thirty days but I'd hope it sets us up in good position for what's left of the year, starting with whatever's going on in your hometown this week.

Around here, here being Norwich, Connecticut, The Rose of New England (though based on my honker you might better have guessed 'Nose of New England') we have a full week of meetings of all kinds and sizes as citizens volunteer not only make a difference but try to be the difference. We are all better for their helping hands.

This afternoon at five in Room 210 of City Hall it's a special meeting of the Redevelopment Agency, and for background on the Vibrant Communities Initiative, which is what the Cecil Group is all about, visit here.

Tuesday afternoon at 2:30 in Room 335 of City Hall is something called C.O..O.L. Directions. This is all I could find out about it, but it's a start and if you go and share what you find out, we're all better off.

At 5:30 in the Latham Science Center on the campus of the Norwich Free Academy it's a special meeting of the Board of Trustees. The item of greatest interest on the agenda is (for me) #4, NFA's next budget, which will directly impact next year's tuition payment by the Norwich Board of Education which will be funded within the next city budget and paid for by all of us. My point: I, too, 'don't have kids at NFA anymore', but still care about the school and so, too, should you. Something about no man is an island, though whether it's Block or Coney is always unclear to me.

And at 6:30 in Council Chambers in City Hall, it's a training session for the members of the Council on Zoning Rules and Regulations (and all this time I thought just like the old NBA, we had to play man-to-man defense. Live and learn, preferably in equal amounts).

Wednesday afternoon at 5:00, it's a regular meeting of the Emancipation Proclamation Commemorative Committee whose meeting minutes remain missing. Remember: history rhymes with mystery. Now roll up for the tour.

At 5:30 in the Kelly Middle School Library it's a regular meeting of the Norwich Public School's School Building Committee. This is where the minutes of the previous meeting would be, if they were but they're not, so they aren't. Subject to your questions, that will conclude my briefing.

At six, in the community room of the Greeneville Fire Department, it's a Matryoshka doll meeting (of sorts) with a regular session of  the Greeneville Neighborhood Revitalization Committee; you'll find their December meeting minutes, in draft form, here. The Matryoshka part comes from a second meeting inside this one-aimed at residents of the  "Greeneville/Taftville villages" (but the rest of us are welcome as well) soliciting input to update the City of Norwich Plan of Conservation and Development. If you're going, read this; if you're not going, why not? Whose job do you think it is to redesign where we live, if not ours?

And at seven, in Room 335 of City Call, it's a regular meeting of the Republican Town Committee. I wonder if they're going to solicit for volunteers for Newt Gingrich's moon colony? I'll bet their brethren across the aisle already have a nominee.

Thursday evening at seven, in the conference room of the Planning Department at 23 Union Street, it's a regular meeting of the Inlands Wetlands, Watercourses and Conservation Commission. You'll find their January meeting minutes here.

And that is that for this week in these parts, as far as public meetings go. That doesn't mean you get to sit at home and mutter about all the situations in Norwich you're unhappy about. The person to best affect change is staring back at you in the mirror. Do something and then do something else; as a mater of fact, keep doing something until it becomes a habit. Anytime you think you've thought of everything, think again and learn to fly. See you at something?
-bill kenny

Killing the Muse in Music

Unless you're lactose intolerant, like me, you probably like ice cream. We may have flavors, chocolate chip or mocha swirl, we like more than others, and perhaps a few we're not enthused about, pistachio, I'm talking about you, but when asked we plead guilty to liking ice cream.

I'm the same way about music. I just like it-and I don't spend a lot of time labeling it though sometimes that does help, I suppose. I will admit I'm not a big fan of Rastafarian Country and Western and genres like crunk and death-metal don't do much for me (each sounds like a cat dropped in a blender, but I'm showing my age).

When I worked in broadcast radio I was always impressed by how many different idioms we could create to explain separate nuances of the same expression, all the different charts ranking song popularity in Billboard Magazine-while at the same time, the speaker in the car dashboard or sitting on the book shelf let the music flow.

Before any of us, okay, most of us, walked the earth, people figured out how to attract more ears to their respective radio stations, by playing music more, not fewer, people liked. This attracted audience, in turn, was delivered to advertisers who bought air time on those radio stations to sell us products. It stood to reason some of us would really like some of what we heard on the radio and would go to a brick and mortar shop to buy it to play at home (remember, this was a long time ago; if you're under thirty: think downloads but without a mouse or double clicking).

We had other people who would count how many of which songs sold, per week, per day, per hour in some cases, as if that meant anything and from all of that evolved the various charts, trend trackers, and other measurement devices that now allow us to do just about everything imaginable these days with music except enjoy it.

We have a variety of awards programs for different musics, though my genre, the 'dumb white guy with the bald spot, sliding his feet a little bit arrhythmical and humming off key' doesn't yet have a show (a boy can dream) but the Really Big Show is the Grammys (are the Grammys?) coming on 12 February. Maybe.

Starting this year the show will be streamlined as The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (thank goodness pomposity isn't a crime, eh?) slimmed and trimmed the multitudinous plethora of categories to a not-quite-so-large number. Fewer categories means fewer winners, and less exposure (in theory) and fewer opportunities to slap stickers on CD's that say "Grammy Nominated." Oh, you just said, this is about commercial advantage. Yeah, actually it is.Oh, I forgot to mention-they did this pruning back in April of last year. Check the calendar and now practice your look of surprise.

The Reverend Jesse Jackson's olfactory sense has detected injustice and perhaps oppression and he's decided to weigh in on this whole abridgment of expression of individual rights. My gratitude knows no bounds . I keep praying, play on words, Kirk Franklin intercedes and persuades him to turn his time and talents to something more in need of Divine Intervention. Otherwise, how long before the folks from the other side of the ideological swamp show up and there's so much yellin' and screamin', we'll have lost sight of the music we wanted to honor in the first place.

It'll be a miracle, another play on words (I am so on a roll!), if we get to hear any music at all on the night of the awards over the politics and posturing. Music, like other forms of expression, can build bridges between dissimilar people and bring them closer together. Or it can used to build walls to keep them apart. One note  at a time.
-bill kenny          

Jip, Jip, Jorge!

Joe Dimaggio, who was the Yankee Clipper decades before he was Mr. Coffee, was famous for saying “I want to thank the Good Lord for making me a Yankee.” Tuesday afternoon, another Boy of Summer from a different decade of dominance, Jorge Posada, took his leave from the N. Y. Yankees and professional baseball and the Almighty deserves at least a tip of the cap.

Seventeen seasons, seven World Series and enough championship rings for a hand, to include the thumb, and the Core Four, Jeter, Petite, Posada and Rivera, are now the Dynamic Duo, Derek and Mo. When you’ve rooted for the Yankees your entire life, suggested a friend in Germany a lifetime ago, it’s like cheering General Motors (or applauding Consolidated Edison). In this case, fans feel like they've known these guys their whole (public) lives because they have.

No one, sorry FC Barcelona, Manchester United, AC Milan, Montreal Canadiens, or Boston Celtics, no one in professional sports has the tradition of continuous competitive excellence and success of the Bronx Bombers. I’m not a kid anymore, despite a degree of childishness some find disturbing, but following the Yankees is something I, as an old man, share with the boy I once was. They are like breathing out and breathing in-and if you root for a baseball team, any team, your aspiration and respiration are the same.

Jorge Posada was one of the homegrown players harvested from the Yankees farm system, transplanted to the most inconspicuous place in the entire media universe, The House that Ruth Built, who bloomed brilliantly and allowed a legendary franchise that had suffered a decade long doldrums through the early nineties to blossom once again.

Baseball, beneath all the myth and romance of “The Show” and “Field of Dreams” is a business. That’s why we fans can love Yogi Berra and Johnny Pesky while the owners fear Scott Boras (and why the latter is far more influential than the former in our National Pastime). Only in professional sports is a forty-year old man considered old and Jorge Posada is forty. His time for leaving had come and gone.

Pitchers and catchers will report for spring training in three weeks. This year Jorge Posada will join us in a bleacher seat somewhere while we root, root, root for the home team even though every time someone of his caliber leaves the field for the final time it gets just a little harder to remember when we were all kids at the sandlot and harder still to remember we were gonna play this game forever.  

-bill kenny

Seriously? Seriously!

I realize this is piling on and I don't blame you for being angry about what will, for all intents and purposes seem to be an egregiously cheap shot, except I swear the guy broke the branch off himself, whittled it down to a strong switch, put it in my hands, took two paces back, dropped his britches and begged me to wail away.

Newt Gingrich. I know, again. This time colonizing the moon and granting that colony statehood before his second term as President is over. I take back all the mean things I said about him just the other day (okay, now I'm lying, but Gingrich started it). I love this frickin' guy! Tell you who else does, too-Barack Obama, that's who.

Half a year ago, to hear people tell it, my Aunt Tillie could've whupped the incumbent President in an election. And now? Tillie is staying on the porch and the goofiest group of stuffed suits since the last Republican Presidential primary are playing whack-a-mole with one another as they roll across these, on occasion, United States.

Rick Sanctorum, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, each of them have a special brand of crazy but nobody but Newt has the moon. Not just barking at it, my brothers and sisters, building a settlement on it, a second Plymouth Colony if you will. Someplace where the illegal aliens are us, again dammit! Sure, there are treaties and agreements about the moon and colonization; ask the Native Americans how well the US Government keeps its agreements. Help yourself to a blanket for your trouble. Take one home for the little lady, too.

The guy I visualize leaving an oil slick when he goes underwater in a swimming pool, that Newt Gingrich, is going to take up JFK's mantle--turns out they already had so much in common and now, to the moon, Alice. I can hear  Joe Cocker warbling at the Johnson Space Center already. Makes me thirsty just thinking about it. Can I offer you some Tang?
-bill kenny