Friday Rules

“Pretty soon now

Y’know I’m gonna make a comeback.”

    “I’m the Man,” Joe Jackson

 

Journeyed to Michigan to watch grandson Anthony “Lights Out” Lane star in defeat in freshman soccer.  I was so proud of him for not getting demoralized once his team got down a couple goals to a far superior opponent.  He’s his father Phil’s son, that’s for sure.  Afterwards Alissa and Josh Leffingwell, who looked tan from kayaking last week, joined us at Chili’s across from our hotel.  They have a new Prius whose doors open and whose engine starts when one has the key nearby.  Phil cracked up describing scenes in the 1987 comedy “Raising Arizona.”  My favorite character was Nathan Arizona (T.J. Kuhn), whose baby gets kidnapped.  When a cop asks him to describe what he had on, he says, “I don’t know – they were jammies!  They had Yodas and shit on ‘em!”  When an FBI agent asks why he changed his name from Nathan Huffheins, he replies, “Would you shop at a store called Unpainted Huffheims?”  After he gets the baby back, Nathan says, “All right, boy, I guess you got a reward coming. Twenty-five thousand dollars. Or, if you need home furnishings, I can give you a line of credit at any of my stores. In fact, that's the way I'd rather handle it. Tax reasons.”  Frances McDormand and John Goodman also shine in supporting roles.

Earlier Phil and Delia had dropped Miranda off at her Grand Valley State freshman dorm.  Phil admitted to misting up.  Miranda texted that she hoped we could visit, and we were planning to do so but she was tied up most of Thursday with orientation functions. 

Chris Young enjoyed the Traces article I gave him on Underground Railroad sites in Indiana, including one in Merrillville.  Since many escaped slaves crossed the Ohio River from Kentucky, there were numerous stations where guides took fugitives for safety on their way to Michigan and then Canada. 

Writing on August 24, 1917, from a picturesque French village frequently shelled by Germans, John Dos Passos wrote in a diary, “Death, that should come tranquilly, like the dropping of an over ripe pear, brimming with sweetness, why should it come in the evil shriek of a shell?”

No undergraduates signed up for my Topic in History course on Diaries, Memoirs, and Journals.”  It was saddled with a 400 number at the tail end of the course offerings, and after five years I had no following among current majors.  I’m looking into teaching the three grad students for free.

Referring to the Russian punk band whose members received jail sentences for a brief anti-Putin demonstration, Ray Smock wrote, “I'd like to see a reporter ask Romney what he thinks of the Pussy Riot situation. I'll bet the guy would blush and stutter. I think we should bring Pussy Riot to America and let them work their magic with our politicians. The Tea Party would act just like Putin, and want them in jail.”  It would be great if protestors with masks like Pussy Riot wore descended on Tampa, where the Republican convention starts on Monday. 

I emailed Ray: “The Tampa police are preparing like it is 1968 in Czechago.  Let’s hope a hurricane hits and gives them something to do.  I notice that Mike Huckabee is scheduled to speak at the convention, even though he has come out in defense of Rep. Todd Akin, but that Romney has shied away from inviting the “going rogue” pitbull Sarah Palin. Romney’s handlers told a Denver reporter that she couldn’t ask the candidate any questions about abortion.  Romney’s latest excuse for not releasing tax returns is that is he does not want to brag about how much he has given to charities, albeit, Mormon ones.  I suppose I’ll watch the repugnant Republicans next week just to see how Mitt the Shit is being marketed as a kinder gentler version of himself.  While (to paraphrase Lindy Boggs) Romney himself may not be as bad as I think he is,” he is beholden to really dangerous folks.

“Hit and Run” had several things going for it, including Kristen Bell, who played Sarah Marshall in “Get Him to the Greek,” and Tom Arnold, who was a hoot as an inept federal marshal.  In one scene Kristen and her boyfriend think they are entering their motel room only to find a half-dozen naked aging swingers inside.  Later the bad guys do the same thing. I didn’t notice whether they were with different partners.

I met Ryan and Henry Farag at T. J. Maloney’s in Merrillville to discuss marketing Henry’s “The Signal” as an Ebook.  Ryan will design a website that will have links to Henry’s Canterbury Productions and the Calumet Regional Archives.  We’re hoping that it will be the first in a series that will include other former Steel Shavings publications such as “Tales of Lake Michigan” and Louis Vasquez’s “Weasal.”  Ryan was wearing a clever t-shirt purporting to be from a Saudi Arabian travel agency touting such activities as boating, fishing, hunting, and camping in the woods.  I told him about playing a round of gold on a course that was all sand except for the greens.  You carried a square of AstroTurf to put under your ball when it was in the fairway.

The final song on Joe Jackson’s “I’m the Man” album, “Friday,” is about a former flower child now stuck in a crap 9-to-5 job.  To her Friday, pay day, is a “magic day (when) bells will ring and you’ll go out and play, spend your money, pass the bottle.  Friday rules.”