Fuck Irving Berlin

That is a quote from JG, said on the 4th of July. It was said in response to Mrs. O's criticism leveled at the people who couldn't remember the words to "God Bless America." But now I'm getting ahead of myself.

First, last week was ass, not to put too fine a point on it. Normal end of the month nonsense was made excruciating because of new additions to staff who are not quite up to speed yet. I anticipated this, though not to the extent of pain at which it actualized. Fortunately, that anticipation allowed me to put in for a couple of days off to be tacked onto this long weekend. It is helping.

Friday night, I made the trip down to Alexandria to hang out with Mr. O and JG. We hit one our usual spots, Bugsy's, and settled in for an evening of boozing and storytelling, the latter mostly done by Mr. O, recounting his recent trip to Las Vegas. It sounded like a blast and I look forward to going there myself some day.

Saturday was spent in the company of my mother and youngest sister out in Maryland (pronounced "Murrriland"). We did a lot of shopping and walking about in Annapolis, before going back to my mom's spot to watch a movie and relax. The movie, for those interested (and lord knows, why wouldn't you be?), the movie was Coach Carter. Or, as I like to call it, Lean On The Titans. I was just waiting for Sam-Jack to bust out a "if you're going to kill yourself, do it expeditiously!" That movie was a baseball bat away from outright theft.

Sunday was not much of anything. I spent much of that day transferring files from my old laptop to my "new" PC. I also got some new software installed on it, so everything is square as far as my starting to work on my portfolio. This, people, is a good thing.

Monday was the 4th. I woke up late (nice), did a little bit of nothing (also nice), got some food from the ghetto chinese place near me. Then I called JG and made arrangements to get down to his spot for the Independence Day celebration. You know, I love this town, I really do. But tourists are fucking it up. They'd be a lot more tolerable if they just observed one or two rules of etiquette. But that is never the case. Fortunately, I've already done the downtown 4th celebration a few times, so I have no further inclination to endure it in person. I did, however, endure it over the airwaves, getting a much better look at Barry Bostwick's mullet. Nice try, Barry, but bigger hair won't disguise the fact that you're starting to pack it on. Making the suffering even worse was a group that had the audacity to call itself The Beach Boys despite the fact that all of the talented ones are dead or insane. Mike Love needs to give it up. His voice was flat and just too worn down to return to its former glory. So, we wound up playing cards while merely listening to the performances, which was much better. We did make it a point to watch "The Singing Egg" Ronan Tynan. After the performance, The O's left, while I stayed behind a bit so I wouldn't have to endure the clogged arteries of the Metro system. We wound up watching a show on airline disasters that he had recorded on the DVR. After that, I made my way home without incident. We timed it very well.

Today has been free of activity with two exceptions: this morning, I got up "early" and went down to the Hirshhorn Museum to take in the Visual Music exhibit with Jamy, and after, I went to a bookstore and picked up The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History Of The Porn Film Industry. I haven't cracked it just yet, but it seems like it could be a decent read.

Back to the Visual Music exhibit, I really enjoyed it, particularly the works of the Whitney Brothers. I did have a problem isolating the works from their popular context, and I'm thinking a lot of people might have that same problem. For instance, something like John Whitney's Permutations is probably more recognizable as a screen saver on your computer, or a visualization on your media player. The light shows suffer from the same problem, as they immediately conjure similar associations, as well as the more popular psychedelic connection that we make with the images. These associations are distracting, but does not render the exhibit a failure. I would recommend it.

(As stated in the comments, this post was originally published in less than complete form. Now it is complete. It doesn't make much of a difference, but my lizard brain feels better having done it.)