Charles Theatre: "5 Easy Pieces" Final Show Tonight!
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Kevin Dayhoff Soundtrack: http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/ = http://www.kevindayhoff.net/ Kevin Dayhoff Art: http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/ or http://kevindayhoffart.com/ = http://www.kevindayhoff.com/ Kevin Dayhoff Westminster: http://kevindayhoffwestgov-net.blogspot.com/ or http://www.westgov.net/ = www.kevindayhoff.org Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevindayhoff Twitpic: http://twitpic.com/photos/kevindayhoff Kevin Dayhoff's The New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/ = www.newbedfordherald.net Explore Carroll: www.explorecarroll.com The Tentacle: www.thetentacle.com
Living and loving in the age of asparagusor
Mary Katherine Ham to Alicia Silverstone: Go Hunting
October 3rd, 2007
Although I have spent a large portion of my life as a vegetarian; as I grew older and life got particularly hectic, I gave it up – for now anyway. Who knows, tomorrow, I may go back. Whatever.
A number of years ago, as I was attempting to reason with an unreasonable person and losing miserably, a colleague said to me:
“You know what your problem is?”
“Ugh.” I really did not need advice at that particular moment; however, I prized his friendship and sheepishly asked: “What?”
“It's a dog eat dog world out there, and you're a vegetarian!"
We solved that by going out to a sub shop where I gave up the anorexic bliss of salads and voraciously scarfed down a cheese-steak sandwich.
It was a road to
I still lose miserably with folks who accept narcissistic fiction as fact, however, I am bigger now and I figure that if I am to be eaten alive, I might as well give folks a flavorful super-sized meal.
Then again, to be candid, I was never good at being a vegetarian. I never stopped eating animal crackers and every once and awhile at Moms, I’d dive into a steak – and I can rarely remember missing turkey at Thanksgiving.
I have a number of colleagues and some family members who are, at the moment, practicing vegetarians - and I respect that choice. Besides, I really like vegetables. Then there are folks who don’t like vegetables or are otherwise broccoli intolerant. To them I say, ya really ought to “give peas a chance.”
A member of my family, who is an avid vegetarian, recently gave some seafood a try.
Bold.
Writing for the Washington Post, Joel Achenbach says:
“Certain kinds of seafood, such as lobster, clams and crabs, are honorary forms of meat, but a small filet of a low-fat white fish should be viewed as essentially a vegetable. Raw oysters are manfood, as is any fish served with the head on and the mouth gaping in horror.
Me, I could live off of Dr. Pepper, coffee and grits. Hey, don’t knock the cooking with Dr. Pepper book. There are some great recipes in there.
I never tried the “vegan” approach. I often wondered how the term came about. When I was quite young I had a great deal of confusion over the term “vegetarian.” If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?
Mr. Achenbach calls to our attention a savior for vegans, who every once in awhile, go Jonesing for a milkshake – “soy cows.”
In the column he was initially singing the praises of his new “Fabulator 5000.”
What is a “Fabulator 5000?” I am so glad you asked. I was fascinated about this development since I am still using the Fabulator model No. 1953.
I’ll let Mr. Achenbach ‘splain:
“I love my new food printer, the Fabulator 5000, which makes the previous food printers look not just clunky but positively medieval. There's no more click-and-point nonsense on the screen, no more waiting five or six interminable minutes for the food to print. You just tell the Fab 5 what you want. The food comes out in about three or four seconds, complete with garnish and a complementary wine.”
Oh, the “soy cows?” Apparently Mr. Achenbach recently “took the kids … to Homewood Farm to see a good old-fashioned agricultural enterprise…”
“I got a look at the new soy cows, grazing in the large field just north of the orchard. The USDA apparently felt that soy milk could be produced much more efficiently if it came from cows made of soy. These cows are so green they nearly blend into the landscape. They say the soy milk is a lot better tasting (not as beany, somehow) than the stuff derived from plants, and the soy burgers are more tender. But you've probably read about how the soy cows dry up badly in drought conditions -- they literally wilt -- and even catch fire. Bored teenagers have been blamed for setting some of the cow fires.”
There is much to be appreciated by the vegetarian lifestyle; nevertheless my goal was to not be evangelical about it all.
But – and ya know there was going to be a “but” in here soon – I’ve never been fond of PETA’s Strindbergian gloom and bleakness approach to advocacy.
When I was a practicing vegetarian, invariably, some folks would suggest some linkage to me, a vegetarian, with PETA’s in-your-face humorless lactose intolerant militancy. An approach which often seems more oriented to being obnoxious and annoying instead of being compelling and persuasive to what is otherwise, a perfectly fine lifestyle, vegetarianism, for which PETA routinely does an injustice....
At a local government - social event, a local elected official’s wife was horrified that I was a vegetarian. “How can a big strapping former Marine be a vegetarian,” she gasped.
I solved that in quick order. She was a dog lover and the owner of a huge
I asked her if she had ever eaten dog. When I was in the Marines, a South Vietnamese ranger once cooked-up a mess of dog.
It tasted like chicken.
I suggested to my scowling friend that her
Recently Alicia Silverstone did an ad for PETA that has garnered a great deal of attention. I can’t believe that it is winning over any converts to vegetarianism, but it has attracted attention to PETA.
Whether it is really the sort of attention that an advocacy organization wants is a bigger issue for which there is not right or wrong, it just isn’t my cup of tea.
Nevertheless, in age of so much strife and discord, I yearn for a time when peas will rule the planets, and love won’t be such a fuss. I long for the dawn of the age of asparagus.
Enter stage right, Mary Katherine Ham. Ms. Ham has done a spoof on the Ms. Silverstone ad that is a real crack-up.
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No animals were hurt in the writing of this column.
E-mail him at: kevindayhoff AT gmail.com
His columns and articles appear in The Tentacle - http://www.thetentacle.com/; Westminster Eagle Opinion; http://www.thewestminstereagle.com/ and Winchester Report.
Pearls and a cigarette
“Pearls and a cigarette” December 19, 2008 Kevin Dayhoff
20081219 Pearls and a cigarette
Thank Goodness Its Friday: David Bowie in the man who fell to earth part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0-8SY7DVNo
May 28, 1976 by Nicolas Roeg
The novel was written by Walter Tevis in 1963. The screenplay adaptation was written by Paul Mayersberg.
The music was by John Phillips (Yes that John Phillips of “The Mamas and the Papas,”) and Stomu Yamashta.
Starring David Bowie.
20081031 19760528 David Bowie in the man who fell to earth part 1
Among my most prized possessions are words that I have never spoken
Perhaps Kevin Dayhoff is still working in landscaping. Regardless, Westminster residents deserve better than the manure he shoveled in his column in The Westminster Eagle ("Be critical of spending, but MML has been worthwhile"), Sept 17.
“La Policía”Carroll County’s reputation for low crime and an aggressive approach to public safety is not a recent phenomenon.
Over 80 years ago on July 16, 1925, the editor of the American Sentinel newspaper in Westminster, Joseph D. Brooks wrote that many “years ago Carroll county was known to criminals all over the state as an ‘open door to the penitentiary,’ and many there were who entered by way of that door.”
However, as one can imagine when a community determines any public policy to be of paramount importance there are bound to be impassioned conflicts and dramas.
Writing for the Historical Society of Carroll County in 2001, Jay Graybeal noted in his introduction of the 1925 newspaper article, “Why the Listlessness of the Sheriffs of Carroll County?”; that it seems that Mr. Brooks had become unhappy with the Carroll County sheriff and state’s attorney and was letting them know that in no uncertain terms.
Carroll County history is replete with colorful conflicts, many of operatic proportions, between the Carroll County board of commissioners, the Carroll County delegation to Annapolis, the state’s attorney’s office, and the sheriff.
In the most recent act of this ongoing opera, on October 4, 2007 the Carroll County board of commissioners opted to move forward with a plan to form a county police department headed by an appointed chief of police.
Not willing to disappoint future historians, troubadours from far-flung regions of the Carroll County Empire then entered the stage and chaos ensued. I read several of the news accounts with the soundtrack of “Les Misérables” playing in the background.
The only disappointment is that Victor Hugo, the author of the classic 1862 novel, is not available to write about it.
Just as with any good storytelling, “La Policía” the current epic Carroll County constitutional conflict over the future of the police in Carroll County has many layers, story lines, strong personalities, and plot twists.
The frenzied operatic moments are reminiscent of what a collaboration between the famous 19th-century composer Richard Wagner and his father-in-law, Franz Liszt, would have looked like; with the emphasis of folks attempting to promote a plan for the future that cannot escape the past.
The very first act of La Policía is borrowed from Les Misérables. As the curtains rise, the scene before the bewildered citizen audience is the barricaded Carroll County office building.
It’s August 7, 2008 and the commissioners have just voted 2-1 to not move forward with the October 4, 2007 police plan.
As the smoke rises from the stage, there is a break in the action as members of the Carroll County Sheriff’s Department are storming the barricades.
Blinking red and blue police lights reflect back and forth in the fog of the smoke.
In the background, the delegation to Annapolis forms the chorus and is softly singing.
The three commissioners are standing on top of the barricades. Commissioners Mike Zimmer and Dean Minnich are on either side of Julia Gouge, holding her steady as she waves an oversized Carroll County flag.
Office building employees have broken out the windows and are showering the storming sheriff’s deputies with office furniture.
The stage is littered with burning newspapers as the local media has shelled all the participants with folded newspapers shot from makeshift artillery.
Off to the side, Channel 13 news reporter Mike Schuh is attempting to interview Westminster Police Chief Jeff Spaulding. The only thing is - the chief has the 1971 Led Zeppelin classic, “The Battle of Evermore,” coincidentally, the title of the first act of La Policía, cranked-up so loud on the car stereo, no one can hear a thing.
Inside the office building the receptionist, Kay Church, is serving cookies, answering the phones and has armed herself with a salad shooter and big bag of carrots.
Ted Zaleski, the director of management and budget is huddled off to the side with Vivian Laxton, the public information administrator as they try and figure out who is playing what character from Les Misérables.
All of the sudden there is silence on the stage as famed local historian; Jay Graybeal emerges from the fog as a narrator, smiles and begins to softly tell the story of the history of the sheriff’s department.
“When Carroll County was founded in 1837, one of the first tasks…” of the newly formed government was to elect a sheriff. As with many aspects of early American government, its origins date back to the history of mother England.
According to some undocumented notes, “1200 years ago, England was inhabited by Anglo-Saxons. Groups of a hundred would ban together and form communities known as a “tun,” from where we get the word, “town.”
Every group of a hundred, or “tun,” as led by a “reeve,” which was the forerunner of what we now know as a chief of police.
According to Mr. Brooks, the reeve was “charged with the execution of the laws … and the preservation of the peace, and, in some cases having judicial powers. He was the King’s reeve, or steward over a shire … — a distinctive royal officer, appointed by the king, dismissible at a moment’s notice…”
Groups of “tuns” banned together to form a larger form of government known as a ‘Shire’” – what we now know as a county; and my old notes reflect that in order to distinguish the leader of a “Shire,” from a leader of a tun, the more powerful official became known as a “Shire-Reeve.”
Which is where we get the modern word “sheriff.”
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20080807 “La Policía” © by Kevin Dayhoff
Julia Child part of WWII era spy ring
August 14, 200820080811 Manic Monday Massive Attack Dissolved Girl
Manic Monday: Massive Attack - Dissolved Girl
August 11, 2008
It’s been Monday all day. Word has it that it will be Monday for quite a few more hours… At least I have two of my three columns due for this week filed. Right now I need a snack and a nap…
Massive Attack Dissolved Girl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OT8QT4BEOTo
David Sylvian - Orpheus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2dgMNm64Mg
More: Art Music electronica Massive Attack
Art Music electronica
Art Music electronica Sylvian – David Sylvian
Untold - A Pretty in Pink Trailer
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5dSFgY7ro4Y
For fans of the movie, “Pretty in Pink,” this YouTube is a video about “Pretty in Pink,” with Massive Attack’s “Teardrop,” for the soundtrack.
The poster, fayzabeam wrote:
This is DEFINITELY the last Pretty in Pink video for the time being! I wanted to experiment with using some dialogue from the film in a video, to see if it actually was possible to represent a slash subtext using the actual script. I had to be creative here, but I think it works! The song, whilst not contemporary to the film, works well as a backing track; the footage itself was built around one long, slow clip of James Spader that I'd forgotten to include in the previous videos and I desperately wanted to give a home to! Oh, one thing - there is some *strong* language in this video, because it has dialogue - consider yourself warned!
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