Month: June 2004

(Based on the discarded boxes outside the liquor store around the corner from where I live, which caters to the under-$3 crowd)

No surprises here, folks. Mad Dog 20/20, Dark Eyes vodka, Lord Calvert, and Wild Irish Rose wine. I think the Wild Irish Rose may have been the “white label” variety, which is even more disgusting than their red wine. There was also an unlabeled box. I’m guessing Thunderbird must arrive in unlabeled cartons, because the bums drink the hell out of it and I’ve never seen any empty boxes with that name outside the liquor store. For the non-bums, there were empty cartons of Smirnoff vodka and Jim Beam.

Friday night I will be attending a reception for my friend Danita Beck’s exhibit “Biopic – A Narrative in 25 Images” at Universal Art Gallery, 111 G.E. Patterson near the corner of Main. Not only is Danita an accomplished artist, but she’s also the chair of Mpact’s Community Involvement Pillar. Please come out and support her! The reception lasts from 6 to 9 pm.

Edited to add: I just found out that Automusik is playing at the Butler Street Bazaar. I am definitely there! Please come check them out. Not only Automusik, but the Bazaar itself if you’ve never been. There are over a dozen vendors offering photography, homemade foods, vintage clothing, works of art, records, books, one-of-a-kind items, you name it. Great place to buy birthday presents. In particular, check out the last booth on the left – my friend and budding artist, Wendy Melton.

Saturday I will start my third year as a Memphis Orientation Leader (MOL) for Mpact. What this means is, another MOL and I will take a group of corporate interns on a tour of downtown. These interns come from FedEx, AutoZone, First Tennessee, International Paper, the Redbirds, the Grizzlies, and other large and medium-sized companies. Many of the interns are from out of state, and this is a way for them to see more of Memphis than their office and their apartment. Throughout the summer we will be taking our interns on various activities – a Redbirds game, a business lunch, a movie, an after-hours at a local hangout – to allow them to get the true feel of the city. It’s very rewarding to show these people what we love about Memphis, and we hope some of them will eventually relocate here.

The intern event should wrap up by early afternoon. After that I may head over to Italian Fest at Marquette Park, at the corner of Park and Mt. Moriah. This is one of the few outdoor festivals I have never had the chance to attend, and I’m looking forward to it.

On Sunday afternoon, the Pinch district is having a party at Cafe Francisco. It’s sponsored by Uptown Memphis, and people will be on hand to provide information on this hot new neighborhood just north of downtown. The event runs from 1 to 5. I’ll probably stop by Sleep Out Louie’s at noon and have my usual Sunday bottle of champagne before heading up there.

That’s how the weekend is shaping up. Perhaps I’ll see you out!

In this post I will discuss my opinion of our president, George W. Bush. Been wanting to write this for a while, but I thought to myself, my e-mail address is on my business card. Now that I’m in sales, I wondered, what if a potential client hits my website and decides not to buy from me because my political views are different from his/hers? But, after thinking about it some more, ah, screw it. I’m not going to stop being me because of a job.

In the election of 2000, toward the end of the primaries there were four candidates still standing. Bush, John McCain, Al Gore and Bill Bradley. At the time, I would have been very happy to support McCain, Gore, or Bradley for president. Bush, I thought, just didn’t seem to have the intelligence to be president. I also worried about his lack of foreign policy experience.

But, Bush got elected. I thought to myself, maybe he won’t be so bad. He may not have a lot of foreign policy knowledge, I thought, but he has Dick Cheney as his vice-president and Colin Powell in his cabinet, two people with backgrounds in foreign policy – and he could always turn to his dad as a trusted advisor.

Then 9/11 happened. Maybe he could have done more to prevent it, maybe not. We’ll never know, because all we can do at this stage is apply hindsight. I don’t hold 9/11 against him.

And then he decided to invade Afghanistan, to drive out the Taliban who provided the 9/11 terrorists a place to train. No problem with that. We had to show the world that terrorism would not be tolerated.

A year later, he decided to invade Iraq. Now, I agree that Saddam needed to go; in fact, I wish Bush’s dad had finished the job 10 years ago. And now that we’re over there, I support our troops 100% and am very proud of them for defending our freedom. What I have a problem with is the way Bush handled the Iraq situation.

Around this time, I began to notice something else about Bush, something that disturbed me even more than his lack of intelligence. He seems to have a mindset of I’M RIGHT, and if you disagree with me, I don’t even have to bother to listen to you, to try to understand your point of view, because I’M RIGHT and YOU’RE WRONG. That is a very dangerous mindset to have. It can close a person off so that he ignores valuable information, and leave him vulnerable to being manipulated. I’ve always believed it’s extremely important to listen to the other side’s argument with an open mind before forming an opinion. Bush doesn’t seem to do that.

Worse, a couple of his key cabinet members share this I’M RIGHT, YOU’RE WRONG mindset – Cheney and Don Rumsfeld. Bush seems to be ignoring people like Colin Powell who are more inclined to consider all sides of an issue. Not sure how much he goes to his father for advice.

So, my problem with Bush is not that he invaded Iraq, but that he didn’t listen to the many nations that opposed the invasion. I’m not saying that he had to agree, but he should have made more of an effort to meet with them and listen to what they had to say. Ever talked to someone and just knew you were wasting your breath, that they weren’t listening at all, or that they were merely pretending to listen to be polite and they really didn’t care what you had to say? It’s not a pleasant feeling, is it? That’s the way Bush made those citizens of all those countries feel. In two years, he managed to turn world opinion of the U.S. from a country everyone sympathized with (following 9/11) into the Evil Empire.

More recently, I’ve noticed another mindset of Bush (and Cheney and Rumsfeld) that is equally scary – that the end seems to justify the means at any cost. Did you see my journal entry a couple of days ago, where Bush is pushing a bill through Congress to reinstate the draft? He’s waiting until after the November election, of course. It makes me wonder which countries he plans on invading next. Iran? Syria? North Korea? If he’s not planning on invading anyone else, is the draft a sign that he’s made a bigger mess in Iraq than he’s willing to admit? The draft will affect ages 18-26, and women as well as men. It’s frightening to think that I might be dating someone 25 or 26 this time next year, and suddenly she could be shipped off to Iraq against her will to fight a war she may not even believe in.

I’m really, really afraid of what will happen if we give this man four more years in office. Nuclear war seems like a definite possibility. I worry that historians will look back and see Bush’s second term as the beginning of the fall of the United States.

So, I’m supporting Kerry for president.

It’s not a Democrat/Republican thing. I try to make my voting decisions based on the issues, rather than political affiliations. In my adult life there has not been a Republican presidential candidate I have supported, but I would consider it if the right person ran – McCain perhaps, or Powell. If I still lived in Arkansas I would vote to re-elect Mike Huckabee, a Republican, as governor because I think he has done an excellent job.

It’s not even a liberal/conservative thing in the traditional sense. On most social issues I tend to take the liberal point of view, whereas I tend to be centrist to conservative on fiscal issues. But let’s take a look at the record. When Clinton was president, we had a balanced budget. Bush, on the other hand, adds hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt every year, with seemingly no concept that the next generation is going to have to pay for the mess he has made. Or possibly he thinks to himself, “Well, if the debt gets out of hand, we’ll just default. We’re the United States of America, we can do that.” I really don’t think the consequences have occurred to him, or perhaps he doesn’t care because his term will be over by then. So, who’s the real fiscal conservative here? Sure doesn’t seem like it’s Bush.

So, in summary, I’m really frightened by the thought of four more years of a Bush presidency, and therefore I’m voting for Kerry.

I know that some people will read this and disagree with what I have written. And, if you wish, I will be happy to discuss it, to listen to you and do my best to see things from your point of view.

Which, I think, is more than our current president would do.

First Wednesday at The Brooks. If you’ve never been, it’s a monthly party with music, food, and drinks. I like First Wed. because it attracts a diverse crowd age-wise. The majority of people who go are probably “young professionals,” but you get everyone from teenagers to longtime museum supporters in their 80s, and everyone mingles and has a good time. I haven’t made it to First Wednesday in about 6 months, but I guarantee you I’ll be there tomorrow – they’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of rock’n’roll, and my favorite band The Dempseys will be performing.

$5 cover, free if you’re a member of the Brooks. Hope to see you there.

Picked this up from The Homeless Guy’s blog: There are bills in Congress to reinstate the draft. Of course, Bush and Rumsfeld are waiting until after the election to do it. Could happen as soon as June 2005. So if you’re between the ages of 18 and 26, or if you have friends or children who are, this is cause for alarm. It will be much harder to get deferments than it was the last time we had the draft, and this time women will be eligible as well as men.

Read the article and draw your own conclusions. And don’t forget to VOTE in November!

Last night a storm blew through Memphis, damaging several downtown buildings. I have a story, a story of a restaurant with good people, a story of how downtowners (people who live there and work there) take care of each other.

I had been out most of the day. Just after 8:00 pm, I stopped at Sawaddii, a Thai place on Union between Main and Second, and ordered the pad prik, a spicy dish, to go. They told me there would be a 30-minute wait, because a lot of people had come in right before me and the kitchen was backed up. However, 9 minutes later, my order came up, bagged up in a paper sack and ready to go. “We know you live downtown,” they explained. “There’s a huge storm headed this way, so we told the chef to hurry your order up, so you’d have time to make it home.” I made it home. Not long after, the bottom fell out.

So, eat at Sawaddii. They’re the good guys. And they have good food too.