…pigeon forge, gatlinburg and sevierville.
i try to avoid ever going there and tonight i was reminded why, despite the very pleasant company.
i’m not a culture snob. i like lots of campy and even totally trashy spots all over the globe. but this little corner of my own world makes my head feel like it’s going to explode.
I’ve always wondered who pays for those black billboards with messages from God like, “What part of ‘Thou Shalt Not’ did you not understand,” and “You think it’s hot here?”
Well, it turns out that it’s a multistate PR campaign, featuring 10,000 of these billboards all over the country. The whole thing is funded by an anonymous donor in coordination with local outdoor ad agencies.
And a new batch of the billboards are about to launch with all new info from above. Some of the new sayings will include:
“As my apprentice, you’re never fired.”
“If you must curse, use your own name!”
“Life is short, eternity isn’t!”
and my favorite,
The real Supreme Court meets up here!
Two years in, we are finally getting a first look at some of the images of the war dead previously embargoed by the Pentagon.
Not one single request to a judge for a wiretap was refused in 2004. In fact, wiretaps in general increased 19% last year, and this does not include ANY terrorism-related investigations.
Tonight I spent $200 getting my hair made unpurple. Only now, it’s orange. It’s awful. It looks like that guy’s from The Flaming Lips (maybe his is no longer orange, but you remember, right?) It’s sort of salmony orange — very bad.
My regular colorist guy was on vacation, so I entrusted the job to an underling. Big mistake. And I am such a pleaser that I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that my hair is not RED, but ORANGE.
How I am going to get this fixed before Saturday night, when I am going to a party, I do not know. And before this party, I have work, a horse show, dinner in another city, and I am supposed to do something on TV tomorrow afternoon…
If it isn’t too rainy, I’ll be downtown tonight for the Sundown in the City concert with Buddy Miller. Even if you can’t make it down there, though, you can now get a birdseye view of everything going on in Market Square with the new Sundown in the City Cam
After slacking on my knitting for the past 8 weeks, I am now almost finished with this project. I did it in citrine colored ribbon yarn - very easy to work with… Much easier than regular yarn, actually.
Now if the weather would warm up, I can actually wear it.
Making 80s CDs for party and stumbling on many of my old pop records I’d forgotten, including:
Zeitgeist (this band’s first record, on dB, was really terrific. Called “Translate Slowly” — they reincarnated as “The Reivers” but I still love the Zeitgeist songs…)
White Animals (I wasone of the dozens of underage preppy hipster girls dancing to this record at Cantrells in N’ville in ‘83-’85)
Jesus Chrysler (listen to the MP3 by clicking on the link and scrolling down the page)
dBs - Stands for Decibels
My first grader, Elliot, has a pal, Caleb, who lives up the street from us and is the son of one of my best friends. Caleb and Elliot have launched a club, which meets about twenty feet up in a tree in our backyard. The name of the club is “The Democratic Geniuses.” Last night, they had an extended meeting of the DGC that involved them repeatedly asking me to send snacks up to them in the tree via a pulley and bucket they’ve rigged up. Because I was so nice about it, they told me I could be the club mascot. I asked what the club mascot is and they said they were going to get me a puma costume.
???????
Nation building isn’t going so well, but Lame’a Abed Khadawi deserves recognition as a a hero.
One of my best and oldest friends just got shipped off to end up in Afghanistan or maybe Iraq. He’s a fifty year old lawyer and father of five. He’s been in the reserves for years, ever since he retired from the Army about fifteen years ago. And that’s how desperate we are getting for troops to send to the war zone; we are now calling up fifty year old lawyers.
Ayelet Waldman’s new piece in Salon about the haphazard application of statutory rape laws is spot-on. It’s an issue fraught with inequities based on race, sexual orientation, gender and class.
I had a relationship with one of my teachers when I was in high school. He was 22-23 and I was 16-17. I knew exactly what I was doing and there was nothing criminal about it in the least. If he had been a year younger and I had been a year older, we might have met at a frat party at Sewanee instead of in my classroom. But technically, it was illegal.
It was illegal in the same way that a 26 year old man involved with a 13 or 14 year old girl is illegal, although to me, there is a clear qualitative difference, yet the law makes no distinction.
And as Waldman points out, these cases are far more likely to be prosecuted when they involve homosexuality or interracial relationships.
It’s a very interesting piece and leaves me wondering how we can draw a bright line that protects children and prevents adult abuse of power against adolescents, but allows for the fact that teenagers are sexual beings.
Question of the day: do I or don’t I take a date with me to my Webb School high school reunion this weekend? I have someone fun in mind, and the party itself should be superfly (I helped plan it and am the DJ for the evening, and the whole thing is happening at my little brother’s very cool house in Bell Buckle). But maybe it would be more entertaining to go solo… Not sure. Haven’t ever been to a reunion thing.
Have you been to a school reunion? Was it a good time? A terrible time? Did you take a date? Did you wish you hadn’t? Did you hook up with an old flame? Did you wish you hadn’t?
Post your reunion thoughts below and if you are willing, I may contact you for an article I’m writing for a magazine on best and worst reunion tales.
I’m hoping my own 80s era event doesn’t resemble the similar party in Grosse Pointe Blank… (which, if you haven’t seen, you should rent right away)
Huge congrats to my good friend Ann Casady on having one of her ponies, “Lee Hill Hollywood” qualify for Devon in only their first year in the smalls. Ann started her own barn only a year ago and is doing so well. I am really proud of her and her kids. Qualifying for Devon is a huge, big deal.
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