Soup to Nuts Bowl

I’m not a fan of American football.  When I was young enough to be able to play it, I wasn’t very good at it and now I’m old and brittle and don’t see a great deal to relate to in watching it. In theory the Super Bowl is different because, well, because it’s the Super Bowl, dadgumit!

I would have watched this year, what with living in New England and having grown up in the state the Giants should call home, New Jersey. When did East Rutherford become the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim? The Maras and Steve Tisch give us a hard time about changing the name they can load up their Jimmy Hoffa body bags, get on the PATH trains and go back to Journal Square.

Like I said, I was gonna watch except Cloo had a House Marathon and there’s a few episodes I hadn’t yet seen 200 times. I really like House and not just because I remind people of him, as I've been told. But I can see the similarity; I speak English and Hugh Laurie is English. I’m short and squat and he’s tall and lean. We both have bald spots. He always has a three day growth and I have no idea how to do that or I’d have one too. He walks with a cane but uses the wrong hand to hold it. My teeth are better and my own. I win.

Only in the USA, Home of Hyperbole, could you take a sporting event that only one other nation plays seriously, and what Canada has ain’t what we do, and make it into the Greatest Show on Earth and then TOP that with elaborate commercial interruptions that are supposedly the reason for the presentation of the sport in the first place but that have taken a position of prominence Hank Stram and Vince Lombardi could have never imagined.

Speaking of those commercials, I am assuming Elton got to use his own shoes in the Pepsi spot, you too? The Go Daddy spot carried on their tradition of looking like a high school A/V club made it. The Dannon Oikos spot reminded me the Greeks have bigger worries than the Euro crisis and nearly all the car commercials, except for the Camaro, were meh. I just learned that word from Facebook and looked it up here so I hope I used it correctly. 

Actually I enjoyed the Twinkies and the rain of frogs in the Silverado spot, but have problems with the Fiat 500 Abarth spot. And it’s not just explaining to my wife why one of those (the four wheel version) is sitting in the garage so much as rationalizing the invoice for all those Rosetta Stone Italian lessons. Do you think she’ll believe Topo Gigio is making a comeback and needs a roadie? Oh Eddie….

-bill kenny

Partners in this Cosmic Dance

If it takes all kinds of people to make a world, I've always wondered how many are needed to make a city the place you want to come home to? And, more importantly for each of us on where we've chosen to live at this moment, might be how well are we doing in that pursuit where we choose to be in the here and now?

I believe that's called a rhetorical question, and, thankfully, involves no math (I hate word problems: 'if a train leave from Peoria at eight in the morning and travels at .....) because I'm terrible at math. And spelling. And history. And punctuation; especially punctuation.  

Anyway. (I know: 'a comma not a period!') With the calendar and weather outside in disagreement over how much winter there really is or there is left, it's nevertheless a great week of indoor activities in a variety of arenas of engagement here in Norwich. If we were called Norwuch, I could leave a blank between the "w" and the "c" to remind all of us, that Norwuch needs "U." (Unless we were a bakery and then it would be kneads. Wow, this is going nowhere very quickly, let's hurry and fall farther behind.)

This morning at 8:30 in their offices in the Norwich Business Park, it's a regular meeting of the Executive Committee of the Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments. Judging from the agenda, further efforts at regionalization are continuing at an ever increasing pace.

Tonight at seven thirty in Council chambers in City Hall, it's a regular meeting of the Norwich City Council and a glance at their agenda suggests a little something for everyone, ranging from uncollectible personal property and vehicle taxes (a nice chunk of change) through appointments to a plethora of panels and boards, expansion of the scale and scope of  the "Cit" Ouellet Recreational Facility to yet perhaps final Council action on the Reid and Hughes building. I'm assuming that demolition account for the two schools still has money in it; I'm just not sure why that's not the topic of discussion.

Tuesday afternoon at 3:30, it's a regular meeting of the Board of Education Policy Committee. I wish you all the luck in the world in finding minutes of any of their past meetings. Here's where they should be, but aren't.

At six, in the Norwich Public Utilities offices on Golden Street, it's a special meeting of the Board of Public Utilties Commissioners and the Sewer Authority, complete with 'strategic presentations' (the budget for fruit punch is running low; I think this is a good change of pace).

Wednesday is a pretty active day beginning with a (probably) regular meeting of the Rehabilitation Review Committee at a quarter of nine in the Planning Department's conference room, at 23 Union Street. It looks like they last met ten months ago, in April 2011.It's hard to figure out if they're not good at meetings or not good at minutes. Or both.

At 4:30 in their offices at 10 Westwood Park, it's a regular meeting of the Housing Authority, whose meetings are posted in a somewhat haphazard manner on line (this time last year they weren't posted at all so I guess 'baby steps is a good mantra).

At six (the city's web site says five but I've been told 'that's wrong') in Room 319 of City Hall it's a regular meeting of the Emancipation Proclamation Commemorative Committee, whose event last week at Norwich Free Academy was very well received. It would appear if you want to know what's going on with the preparations for the anniversary celebration, you'll have to attend a meeting in person since there are no meeting minutes on the city's website at all.

Also at six, and we're about four months (plus minus a week) away from Opening Day at Dodd Stadium, in Room 210 of City Hall, it's a regular meeting of the Norwich Baseball Stadium Authority. It would seem, based on a review of online archives, their last meeting was in November.

The Public Safety Committee meets at seven in the offices of American Ambulance. Sorting through their minutes and agenda on line, it seems they last met (would be different folks from before the Council election) in September. I still felt very safe regardless of the meeting frequency and hope you did as well, Kenneth.

Also at seven, and Chief Pudge should smile since he's been telling me this for weeks, is a regular meeting of the Republican Town Committee which may, or may not, be in Room 319 of City Hall.

The final meeting I know about this week, complete with location, is the One City Forum on Saturday morning at nine in the Greeneville Fire Department (bring you own Dalmatian, trust me on this one), which is yet another chance for those of us who live here to learn to work together a bit better than we have sometimes in the past. We have too much in common to let our differences keep us separated.

You name it, we have it. So we may as well use it to our advantage. Oh a whirling dervish, and a dancing bear. Or a Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. Or a teenage rocker or the girls in France; Yes, we all are partners in this cosmic dance. Nice, nice, very nice.
-bill kenny

It's Good to Be the King

Really happy you stopped by on your way to the Super Bowl. I knew all this hype had gotten out of hand when the "pre-game" show on NBC started last Tuesday. I'm surprised, in light of Florida athletes' prominence in the SEC that the Republicans didn't move their primary because it might have been a distraction (on the other hand, considering the choices, a  distraction might have been a small mercy).

I am so ancient I can remember the first Super Bowl, also on NBC and carried simultaneously on CBS (we had two leagues, not conferences back then: the National Football League and the upstart American Football League and each had its own TV network who carried the games). It was held in the Los Angeles Coliseum and it was not a sell-out by any means. And if you were a fan of the Kansas City Chiefs (Len Dawson at quarterback and Fred "The Hammer" Williamson at defensive back), it wasn't very much of a game, either.

But through the years, the Super Bowl has become the ultimate triumph of style over substance, packaging over product, Siskel over Ebert and Laurel over Hardy (I didn't think that would ever end). We've all seen the sneak previews of the commercials that will air later, at a cost per insert, in the millions (how'd you like to be someone who shelled out three or more million bucks for an availability in the fourth quarter and the game is a blowout? It happens) and that doesn't include the expenses of making the ad. Bets that Matthew Broderick made more money from Honda than he ever saw from Ferris Bueller?

I've watched the Super Bowl in recent years for the half-time entertainment. Bread and circuses and all that comes with it springs to mind which is why I think the game should always be played in the LA Coliseum and the Commissioner of the NFL gets to go thumbs down on the losing team and this huge massacre takes place at game's end near the fifty yard line while the music swells and the credits roll. Try being the show on NBC after that feces hits the ventilator later tonight.

I've sat through execrable half-time performances by Bruce Springsteen (and I adore his music), the Rolling Stones, what's left of The Who (seriously guys, you still need the money?). Was it last year the Black Eyed Peas were there and sucked? God, they were awful and that guest solo with Slash? Why? I wasn't watching Justin and Janet so I may well be the only man in the United States who's never seen her nipple (a true statement before Super Bowl Sunday as well), so you can probably imagine how excited I am that Madonna is performing.

I appreciate her 'no wardrobe malfunction' promise realizing at her age with physiology and gravity being what they are, we'd only have a problem of breast exposure if she took off her knee-high boots. But so much for the goings-on  between the hash marks, and speaking of hash, and all foods in general, Super Bowl Sunday is the second greatest gorging day in the US (Thanksgiving being first). Over a billion and a quarter chicken wings? What do they do with the rest of the bird?

It's not that we've forgotten about the scourge of world-wide hunger, but we don't want to hear about it today or see any reminders. In the hours before kickoff, as we're figuring out which salsa goes on avocados and if we've purchased enough antacids (the answer is 'no!'), we'll have trouble enough squeezing in the time to go to church unless the sermon is on how Brady/Manning is the Second Coming of You Know Who.

Now turn to Page LMMMVII in your hymnals and join us in singing "Jesus is My Wide-Out." And tell that kid in the back, near the nave, Tebow, to get on his feet and quit goofing around. That's my job.
-bill kenny  

It’s the Grill not the Radio

I’m an amateur carnivore-that is to say, I eat meat but don’t get paid for it. I’m thinking of those guys on the cable niche stations who are willing to eat the most amazing crap stuff ever televised (until the next show).  I believe in my entire life, I’ve not (yet) known a vegan but have known a vegetarian, though I didn’t like his rationale for his lifestyle. 

It wasn’t so much that he didn’t like to eat meat, I believe, but that he hated plants. I used to think of him and smile while emptying the grass clippings bag on my lawnmower, 'add oil and vinegar; serves six!'. I’m not nearly as brilliant and brazen when he’s around but give me half a world of separation and I’m fearless.

I thought about this whole Meat the Beatles when I came across this story on pink slime. You’re probably wondering what kind of marketing/ manufacturing people call something by that name. It is, I submit, a vast improvement over its original name, ammonium hydroxide. If you’re someone who has always been disquieted by Red Dye #40 (any relation to WD-40?), this is close to one of those ‘sell my clothes, I’m already in heaven’ moments. I guess Soylent Green had been trademarked.

There’s a subplot deep inside Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 where Yossarian tells Milo Minderbinder about Corporal Snark putting mashed up bars of GI soap in the sweet potatoes at the chow hall to prove the men  are Philistines who couldn’t tell the difference and Minderbinder assumes they most certainly could only to learn from Yossarian such was not the case at all. Funny how life imitates art.

Mom used to say ‘don’t ask the question if you can’t stand the answer’ and the more you wonder and worry about pink slime, the more reasons you discover you ain’t heard nothing yet. We call them “Kitchen Secrets” for a reason and if you think otherwise, try a heaping helping of this and take as many napkins as you’d like. You’ll probably need more. Seems to add a whole new dimension to ‘you are what you eat’.

-bill kenny

Madam I'm Adam

When you grow up in a large family keeping track of your siblings’ birthdays becomes a major undertaking. You can cheat when you still live at home because Mom worries about all of that-and in this case, probably still does-but once you’re gone, you can never come back when you’re out of the blue and into the black.

We grew up under one roof, or more precisely a series of different roofs, as six children in the same family but closer to being two clusters of three children reasonably close together with a pregnant pause (pun intended) in the middle (that may get me a pop on the nose from one or more of my brothers and sisters). 

Evan Dolores, Kelly Christopher, Kara Melissa, Jill Marie and Adam. My mother hadn’t run out of middle names by the time she got to Adam, but the check engine light on whimsy was burning brightly. Mom loves to tell of the day Adam, whose birthday we celebrate today, was being baptized and Father Stosh expressed (mild) surprise at his having but one name. Our mother explained to the good priest ‘he was God’s first and he’s my last. Pour the water.’

I’m not sure any of us kids gave any of that a moment’s thought. Adam was another Kenny Kid to be piled into the Chrysler Newport station wagon that was eventually replaced by a Ford Country Squire because in the pre-fab sprout era of America, what else could hold that many children? 

I am inordinately fond of my youngest brother and make no apologies for it. I have my reasons and they’re not mine if I tell you. We look nothing alike but I suspect people guess easily that we are brothers (so much for the element of surprise). I'm the more handsome but also the more modest, while he has the talent and the wisdom (to not argue about the looks and modesty). 

Adam has all the brains some of us older children suggested might be genetically possible without actually realizing. We were the promise, he was the performance. He was my wingman at Rutgers College-too young, yet, for school himself, I took him with me to courses sometimes every day for a week or more. I never asked him what he made of his first college experience (he is a devoted RU football fan, despite being a CU Buffalo Alum) or what, if anything, he got out of listening to music on eight track cartridges in my Pinto, at max vol, rushing cross-town in New Brunswick (before its renaissance) to classes on the various campuses.

I lied to him later, not so much a lie as pulling his leg, when I promised him an armadillo when I was going to Air Force basic training in San Antonio, Texas, or later, as I assured him I’d bring him back a penguin from my assignment in Greenland (I think he had long known penguins were found only at the other pole; I learned that only after having purchased a pigeon in a tuxedo six months after arriving at Sondy.)

The six of us kenny kids are a rambling, shambling assortment of aspiration, inspiration and perspiration but as long as we all continue to practice respiration we’ll never lack for company. I'm not sure what our spouses make of us and we rarely enough ever get together so the danger of that is minimal. Adam and Margaret are still getting used to living in a house with an echo, which is what parents everywhere earn as a result and reward of doing their jobs. That might make today’s birthday a little different in terms of third-party help when it’s time to blow out the candles, but I think my youngest brother will do just fine. Take a deep breath and have a Happy Birthday, Adam!

-bill kenny 

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