I Might Argue We Should Be Able to Carry in Our Urban Parks

For Pith, I spent my lunch hour looking at how dangerous the rural parks in Nashville are. I honestly don’t care if people can carry guns in our parks or not. But I do care that parks that are demonstrably very, very safe are being singled out for an exception to our “no guns in parks” rule because they’re so rural.

I mean, if they’re less dangerous than urban parks right now, what exactly is it about those parks that warrant needing to be able to carry a gun in them?

It’s not the crime, of which there is, basically, none.

So, what? The people? Rural people suck so bad that, if you’re going to go to a rural park, you need to be able to shoot them, if necessary?

Fuck that.

Either there are guns in parks or there are not. Don’t single out the rural parks like they or the people around them are some particular problem when they’re not.

Blue Moon of Kentucky

One of the greatest moments in American music is the beginning of The Stanley Brother’s version “Blue Moon of Kentucky.”  The backup singers come in first, all “Blue Moon,” “Blue Moon,” and you can guess that it’s a country song because the stringed instruments are a little twangy, but there is literally nothing to prepare you for how I assume it’s Ralph’s voice come crackling across the top of the song, like a weak point in a sheet of ice, finally giving way.

And the way he sings “Bloo Mooooon of Kin TUK eh” is just… I don’t even know, just fucking genius.  If you were floating in outer space on the far end of the moon, you’d still hear that “TUK” clear up there.

Everything about the performance assumes you already know the song. No one’s really enunciating, so much as almost scat singing their way through the song, or doing it in the style of the coon hounds. But every time I hear it I feel lucky to live in such times.

Alaska, Damn It. Are You Trying to Make Me Cry?

If you love dogs and getting teary-eyed, click this link. Otherwise, don’t.

Google Wave

I got my coveted Google Wave invite yesterday. Not that I had any idea what Google Wave really was, but whatever. When the future comes knocking, you don’t sit around wondering if you will need the future in the future, you know?

Anyway, it’s neat. It like instant messaging and email tied in with some blogging functions (like the ability to post pictures and maps and polls) all in an environment where everyone working in a particular wave can collaborate at any time.

I don’t yet see how it will work with friends. That’s probably a failure of imagination on my part. Obviously, I’ve been testing it out on friends. But I don’t really experience it with them as anything more than just a really robust email program.

But when I start to think about using it at work… If I could force everyone in my office to get on Google Wave tomorrow, I would.

I don’t think that’s feasible right yet. There needs, for instance, to be a way to send regular emails as well as participate in waves, so we could, for instance, all have a discussion about a project internally and then the one of us who is responsible for contacting the outside vendor could do so through traditional email. Or maybe not. Maybe you’d just have a two-person wave.

I don’t know.

I just know that I will be shocked if we are not all using this or something similar at work very shortly.

One Benefit of Getting Older

Jesus, people, this has been a weird and, in many ways, sucky week. I’m hoping that’s not an omen for my trip to the doctor, but I am a superstitious fool and it’s hard for me to not read into these things.

I tried to write about it last night, but the suck is related to things off-limits to Tiny Cat Pants, and my vague distress was all pretty cliched.

I have noticed, though, as a benefit to getting older, that when you have crappy days that make you question the whole direction of your life, it no longer feels like “Oh I suck. Oh my life sucks. Boo hoo hoo.” but “I’m fucking doing the best I can here. Why are these people ruining it?!”

It’s nice to have terrible days that are not also plagued by self-doubt.