Joe Blog: Where Joseph Kirkland Blogs

The love of my life turns 1 today. Dan blogged about...

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:38:05 -0700

The love of my life turns 1 today. Dan blogged about it.

“Cool For Cats” by Squeeze from Cool For Cats (1979).

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JONES!

Ladies and gentlemen, today, the 10th of June 2009 is Jones Pritchard’s first birthday. And this is her favorite song.

In case you are planning on buying her a present, here is a short list of things she’s been asking for:

A glass crystal food bowl.

A hammock.

A cell phone.

A pair of summer pants.

A long-haired wig.

A baby.

I’m going to get her hair elastics! Shh, don’t tell.

Jones’s birthday party will be held this weekend at Liz and Maura’s beautiful new apartment. Details to follow.

(Pictured: Auntie Liz & the birthday girl. Note her bionic arm. Jones’s, not Liz’s.)

So if you run into Jones today, don’t forget to wish her the best first birthday ever. And feel free to call her by one of the following nicknames:

Jonsie

Bunny

Bunz

Lil’ Boosie

Boosie

Boos

She has more nicknames than ODB!

(Pictured: Lil’ Boosie — too cool for cats.)

No, no, Peter Gabriel - it’s Joe, Peter Gabriel!...

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:41:00 -0700

No, no, Peter Gabriel - it’s Joe, Peter Gabriel!

Here’s something Dan and I came up with:

thisismyfavoritesong:

“Sledgehammer” by Peter Gabriel from So (1986).

That’s so Peter Gabriel.

That’s faux Peter Gabriel.

That’s phở, Peter Gabriel.

That’s so Raven.

Is that so, Peter Gabriel?

(A poem with pictures by Dan Samiljan & Elizabeth Czyzewski.)

Powel Crosley

Sat, 09 May 2009 21:38:05 -0700

The last thing I posted had to do with records - remember? I was saying that I understood record shopping now and was becoming a collector? What the heck is this thing popping up on the right side of the tumblr interface every time I type a question mark? Let people answer this?!? That’s weird. Who likes cats as much as I do? Who’s in the mood for food but are not sure what kind? Anyway, it took me from February up until now to read the little information/product pamphlet that came with my record player. Most people throw these things out, but I like to keep them around until I have a chance to read them - and it’s a good thing I did! Oh my GOD. I can’t find it! I was just going on about how I’ve had this thing around since February and when I actually need it, I have no idea where it is!! Wow. I looked again. No luck. I guess I am just going to have to see what Wikipedia has to say about him.

Actually, all I really wanted to say about him was what he achieved. Here’s the list:

Pioneered the idea of the “money back guarantee.”
Helped make radios affordable for the mass market.
Invented the second car radio and the first push-button radio.
Owned most powerful radio transmitter ever and a radio station to go along with it, WLW.
Created some of the earliest soap operas.
Founded a TV station, WLWT-TV.
Invented the Icyball, a non-electrical refrigerator.
Introduced the idea of shelves on the door of refrigerators with the Shelvador (as I was typing that, Shelvador Dali popped into my head).
Bought the Cincinnati Reds.
Renamed the stadium Crosley Stadium.
Held the first night baseball games, lit with electric lights.
Owned and built airplanes but never had a pilot’s license.
Was a renowned fisherman.
Owned several yachts with powerful engines.
Owned an island in Canada called Nikassi and another off South Carolina called Bull Island.
Owned houses in the Caribbean and Havana and a retreat in Indiana that is now called the Crosley Fish and Wildlife Area.
Crosley Motors, Inc. invented a small, affordable automobile.
Crosley Corporation manufactured the proximity fuze, which, after the atomic bomb and radar, was the most important product development during WWII.
Introduced the first car to have disc brakes.
Invented the first fax machine.
Was responsible for the first radio broadcast from an airplane.
Invented X-ervac, a device that supposedly stimulated blood flow in the scalp through massage and thus countered baldness.

Are you as surprised as I am that you hadn’t heard of him before? The only thing more surprising than all of Crosley’s achievements is the fact that I can’t find the pamphlet I was going to use to blog with. That dog in the picture up there is named Bonzo and he was Crosley’s answer to the RCA dog. There’s even a paper maiche Bonzo at the Smithsonian. He was so cute that his likeness was put on ashtrays, pincushions and candy, to name a few.

In honor of the one year anniversary of my blog, I posted on someone else’s blog.

Sat, 09 May 2009 20:50:44 -0700

In honor of the one year anniversary of my blog, I posted on someone else’s blog.

The Ronettes “Be My Baby”

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:18:34 -0800

The Ronettes “Be My Baby”

Little Symphonies for the Kids

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:18:00 -0800

I’ve always had friends who were really into records. Sometimes they suggested we go record shopping. I always went along with it but in my head, thought, “RECORD SHOPPING?!?!?! I HATE RECORD SHOPPING.” I thought record shopping was the most boring thing on the face of the planet, save watching my friends play Super Smash Brothers, the official most boring thing I could bear witness to. Sure, I have my collection of hardcore 7” from high school that I haven’t listened to since and I have a bunch of records that were my parents’, but I never really “got” records. I get it now. Man, oh, man do I get it. Thanks to a few friends who are big into that sort of thing, not only do I go out multiple times a week to scour the records at Amoeba and such, but I get excited about certain releases and certain labels and mono and things like that - things about which I’m still learning but I’m sure will only obsess me more as my knowledge and understanding grow. In the spirit of “getting” record shopping and searching for the ever-elusive Ronettes record that I’ll probably never have, I’m going to blog about Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound.

In the autumn of 1961, Spector co-founded Philles Records with Lester Sill, which boasted The Crystals, The Ronettes and Darlene Love, among others.
During this period, the early to mid-60s, Spector pioneered a production technique called Wall of Sound, which is well-suited to being played over AM radio or jukeboxes.
Most, if not all, of these recordings were done at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles.
Wall of Sound recordings are “dense and layered,” a sound Spector achieved by assembling a mass of musicians playing all sorts of orchestral instruments and musical arrangements with musicians playing acoustic and electric guitars parts in unison.
Microphones recorded the singers and musicians in the recording studio and then sent the signal to an echo chamber in the basement, where the sound was brought in through the speakers then bounced (reverberated) off the walls of this room, was captured by the microphones and then was transmitted to another room where it was recorded onto tape.
Spector referred to this technique as “a Wagnerian approach to rock & roll: little symphonies for the kids.”
He often used the same musicians as part of his group - Glen Campbell, Carol Kaye, Hal Blaine, etc. They became known as The Wrecking Crew and, later, Wreckx-n-Effect. (JK but I did dance to a Wreckx-n-Effect song in my 3rd grade talent show)
Sonny Bono and Jack Nitzsche helped Spector with these performances, and he worked with popular song-writing teams of the time.
Spector preferred singles to LPs, calling the latter “two hits and ten pieces of junk,” and mono to stereo, insisting that stereo recordings took control of the sound away from the producer and put it in the listener’s hands.
Basically, the main vocalist is not necessarily the focus of Wall of Sound recordings; it doesn’t sound like the vocalist in the foreground and the instruments somewhere behind that - everything comes at you from relatively the same point in space.
Here’s a good quote: “…he buried the lead and he cannot stop himself from doing that…if you listen to his records in sequence, the lead goes further and further in and to me what he is saying is, ‘It is not the song…just listen to those strings. I want more musicians, it’s me.”– Jeff Barry, quoted in Williams 1974, p.91
Phil Spector tried to resurrect his “Wall of” idea during his trial 2 years back with the debut of his “Wall of Hair.”

He didn’t think it went over well, so he switched to a more toned down approach.

Surprise! The verdict came in and the jury LOVED it. So much so, that there’s going to be another trial, just to see what else he’s got up his sleeve.

Listen to the song above as an example of one such recording.

A Sign of The Times

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 19:40:00 -0800

thisismyfavoriteblog.tumblr.com

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:03:00 -0800

I wrote this in commemoration of Dan’s 100th blog post. It’s a transcript of a conversation had by 2 friends exactly 100 days ago.

#1: Hey.

#2: Oh, hey. I didn’t see you standing there.

#1: I’ve been here for a little bit.

beat

#2: What? I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.

#1: I said that I’ve been standing here for a little while now.

#2: Oh.

beat

#1: What’s up?

#2: Nothing.

#1: That’s cool.

#2: What?

#1: I said that’s cool.

beat

#1: Are you wearing headphones?

#2: Yeah.

#1: Why? They’re not plugged into anything.

#2: I was listening to songs on my computer before.

#1: Where is your computer?

#2: In the living room.

beat

#2: In the kitchen, I mean. It’s in the kitchen.

#1: Oh, okay. Why do you still have the headphones on, then?

#2: I’m not sure.

#1: Were you listening to your computer out here or were you listening in the kitchen?

#2: I was listening in the kitchen and then I unplugged the headphones and came in here to sit down. The chair in there wasn’t comfortable.

beat

#1: What were you listening to?

#2: Snoop Dogg.

#1: Snoop Dogg?

#2: No.

#1: No?

#2: No. I was listening to songs on my friend Dan’s blog.

#1: Dan…do I know him?

#2: No, I don’t think so.

#1: How do you—-

#2: Oh wait, yeah you’ve met him. He had that sailor hat on at that party we went to.

#1: The really tall kid?

#2: No, the other one. With the brown hair and the beard.

#1: Oh yeah. He seemed cool.

#2: Yeah, he’s cool.

beat

#2: I have to tell you something.

#1: What?

#2: I lied to you before. I wasn’t listening to songs on my computer…I don’t even have a computer.

#1: So you weren’t listening to Dan’s blog?

#2: No, Dan doesn’t even have a blog.

#1: Oh. Why did you tell me that?

#2: I don’t know. I thought you’d think it weird if I had headphones on for no reason.

beat

#2: Actually, there is a reason I am doing this.

#1: What?

#2: My ears are cold.

#1: How can that be? It’s summer and your house is hot.

#2: Okay, I lied again. I don’t have ears.

#1: I feel like I’ve seen you with ears before.

#2: I used to have them.

#1: What happened to them?

#2: I’m not sure.

beat

#2: I think I’ll tell Dan that he should start a blog.

Of Human Mail

Thu, 25 Dec 2008 09:43:19 -0800

While on the topic of stowaways, let’s delve a little further into the little explored, oft ignored topic of human mail. I always took the idea for granted - people sending themselves off in the guise of a package - but it’s as real as the the hair on your head or the cat in my house.

Henry “Box” Brown, pictured above, was a slave who mailed himself in a dry goods box from Virginia to abolitionists in Philadelphia.
The trip took 27 hours and cost Brown $86, which was half of his life savings, but surely that was a small price to pay for a lifetime of freedom.
His first words upon emergence were, “How do you do, gentlemen?” Brown then proceeded to sing a psalm.
Brown went on to become an abolitionist speaker, but had to move to England after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.
There, he became a showman with his moving antislavery panorama called “Mirror of Slavery” (I’m not sure if they mean moving as in emotionally touching or moving as in it literally moved), then a mesmerist, a conjurer, a magician, and, lastly, a singer.

In 2003, Charles McKinley, 25, wanted to visit his parents but didn’t have $300 to pay for the airfare from New York to Dallas.
Cunning McKinley decided to mail himself there and charge the $600 or so shipping fee to his employer.
The box was labeled as containing 350 lbs. of clothing and computer equipment and departed on a plane from Newark Airport.
McKinley made it all the way to Texas where, as he was in a delivery truck en route to his parents’ house, he foolishly decided to remove his covering and was found out by the delivery man, Billy Ray ~~Cyrus~~ Thomas.
Thomas described seeing “a pair of eyes eyes between the slats of the crate,” which he thought belonged to a corpse until McKinley kicked the crate open and popped out (surprise!).
McKinley proceeded to shake the delivery man’s hand and thank him. What manners have these stowaways!
Thomas called the cops. Truth be told - I don’t think I would have. It ended up that McKinley had 3 outstanding warrants for his arrest. He was taken to jail.

There have been a few other notable instances:

In January 2007, a 28-year-old German prisoner climbed into a cardboard box in the mailroom of the prison and was loaded onto the mail truck, where he made a hole in the box and ran out of the truck. The empty box was discovered and they traced it back to him, though I’m not sure if he was reincarcerated.
Another such incident occurred a month prior when an Austrian prisoner hid in a box that was supposed to contain lamp post parts.
This just in: BOTH ESCAPEES REMAIN AT LARGE, but that was as of 2 years ago.

Untitled Post #8

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 13:49:07 -0800

As I write this, I’m enviously watching the lady sitting in front of me eat her delicious McDonald’s fries while I’m stuck with a lame tomato and mozzarella sandwich on bread that may well be the worst bread I’ve ever had in my life. I hate ciabatta, focaccia, artisan bread - all of that stuff. This bread fits into one or more of those categories. The lady eating fries just looked back at me. Braggart. I’m in Chicago right now at the airport. On the way in, I saw lots of snow, leafless trees and a handful of red neon signs (and 2 green ones) dotting the winter landscape. It’s 0 degrees here. I wonder what Joe Kirkland’s family is doing right now. Had I been blogging about 30 minutes ago, this post would have been much better, as I was still on the plane, having just awoken from a dream in which Dan was wearing high heels (the same ones I have on). Now, after eating an unsatisfying sandwich, I’ve become super aware of the fact that the socks I’m wearing, made for people with diabetes (I don’t have diabetes) and bought at CVS, are way too tight and are hurting my legs. The reason I wore them today, actually, is because a sticker on the socks advertised them as being great for wearing on planes. Good news – there are a lot of Polish people around. This whole day got me thinking. Thinking about stowaways in wheel wells of airplanes.

The way a stowaway usually gains entrance into a plane’s wheel well is he hides, then runs out to the plane, undetected, as it’s stationary before takeoff, maneuvers himself up the landing gear and into a recessed area and, providing he doesn’t fall off as the plane departs, stays there as the wheels and such retract into the plane.
Since 1947 (as of 2007), there have been 74 known stowaway attempts aboard aircraft. Of that lot, only 14 survived.
It seems that most stowaways do so to gain freedom from oppression or other such undesirable circumstances or, according to wikipedia, to get from one place to another without having to pay, which seems a little extreme. Even more extreme than that are those who do it just for a thrill.
According to a study I link to below, 2 common planes to stow away on are the Boeing 707 and the Douglas DC-8.
They also report the highest cruising altitude at which a stowaway has been to be 39,000 ft.
All the subjects cited in the report are male (2 are unknown).
The most common causes of death seem to be hypothermia and falling. Imagine stowing away with another person who doesn’t make it, while you do?!
One of the flights was from San Diego to New York!
One of the first things a stowaway experiences is hypoxia, or lack of adequate oxygen supply. Keep in mind that the wheel well is an unpressurized atmosphere.
Accompanying the onset of hypoxia is heat that emanates from the friction the wheels had just experienced during takeoff.
I’m not going to do the conversion because I don’t know it offhand, but temperatures that accompany the standard cruising altitudes range from -43 to -63 degrees Celsius. (If you figure 0 degrees Celsius is freezing, that should give you some sort of idea).
As altitude increases, pressure decreases and at cruising altitudes, it is below that required to maintain brain consciousness. It is guaranteed that all stowaways, at cruising altitude, are unconscious.
Nitrogen gas embolism and decompression sickness (DCS) also plague stowaways.
As the plane descends, the well returns to a more normal pressure and the temperature increases. If his heart hasn’t failed, he hasn’t frozen to death, his brain hasn’t been severely damaged or a few other things, the stowaway will regain consciousness during or after landing.

With all of that to consider, it’s amazing that there is a survival rate at all among stowaways. Think about it - you may still not be fully conscious as the plane lands - if you move the wrong way, you can easily fall out.

Some specific cases:

In July of 1999, 2 stowaways, traveling from Conakry, Guinea to Brussels, Belgium, froze to death. They were boys and “were carrying a letter, written in imperfect French” which was widely published.
In June of 2005, the remains of a stowaway were found on a plane that landed in JFK from Johannesburg via Senegal.
In January of 2007, a 17-year-old boy’s remains were found on a plane in Los Angeles, but he’d actually been a stowaway on the previous flight, to Cape Town. They just hadn’t found his body there.
In July of 2007, a man’s body was found in the wheel well of a plane in San Francisco that had arrived from China.

This study has much more information on the matter.

Teamsters in Hollywood

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 15:47:00 -0800

I’ll say it, though I know it’s not true across the board: teamsters in Hollywood give teamsters a bad name. In my past experiences, they’ve been rude and made me feel like I was doing something wrong even if it was my golf cart they were sitting on or even if I had just as much a right to be eating lunch as they did. I’ll spare you the stories, as they’re not that great, but suffice it to say that I’d rather be standing in line with Alan Arkin, making a fool of myself with nonsense small talk, then a teamster, no matter how big a beard that teamster may have.

The term teamster originally meant one who led a team of horses, mules or oxen (draft animals) who pulled a wagon.
It was commonly used on the American frontier during the US/Mexican and Indian wars (19th-early 20th century).
Today teamsters are truck drivers and there is a labor union, The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, one of the largest in the United States.
Founded in 1903, the union was originally called The International Noise Conspiracy.
JK, it was originally called The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America.
The prominence of teamsters in the movie business came about during the Great Depression, when the industry was booming and work was lacking elsewhere.
Sure, it was good to have a job while so many others were out of work, but teamsters in Hollywood were exploited, paid very little and were very replaceable, as there were so many others lined up, waiting to take one’s place if he complained.
Faced with such circumstances, 180 men organized themselves into Teamsters Local 399 in April of 1930.
Today, over 4,000 people boast membership in the Motion Picture & Theatrical Trade Division. Animal wranglers are included in this division, as are a few other non-truck driving positions.
Teamsters are important and they know it - if they went on strike, the industry would shut down, but I feel like sometimes some teamsters exploit that fact, case in point with my lame, vague anecdotes.

Facts About Amish People

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 19:34:00 -0800

My family vacationed near Lancaster, PA one year. I bought a postcard on which was a photograph of an Amish boy rollerblading. I couldn’t believe it - rollerblading! Wasn’t that too modern or technologically advanced for an Amish boy to be doing? Those were my thoughts at the time.

Founded in Switzerland by Jakob Ammenn in the late 17th century, the Amish lifestyle is based in the Anabaptist Christian religion.
The Amish came to PA in the early 18th century to escape the persecution they suffered abroad.
Common ancestry is Swiss-German and the Amish still speak a German type of language.
No Amish remain in Europe, but North America boasts a population of 227,000.
They live simply, dress simply and avoid modern conveniences (rollerblading seems like such a convenience, does it not?).
Amish people don’t call themselves “Amish people.” Instead, they refer to themselves as “plain folk.”
The Amish don’t join the military, accept government assistance or participate in the whole social security nonsense. They don’t buy insurance either.
Membership to the Amish church doesn’t begin until age 18-21, when the person is baptised (omg, I almost wrote naptised).
Their society is governed by strict rules but teenagers are often not bound by such, as they’ve not yet been baptised and thus involve themselves in a period of “running around” called rumspringa (though not all church districts allow this).
Believe it or not, only a small number of Amish kids choose not to remain Amish after the period of rumspringa comes to a close. (Isn’t rumspringa the name of a lame punk band or something?)

Speaking of differences between different groups of Amish, some drive black automobiles and some are not allowed to; some have, for instance, less pleats in their bonnets than others or wear a different number of suspenders than those in another group. Seemingly inane discrepancies versus those that appear to make a bit more sense.
Excommunication and shunning are different - if one is shunned, it is hoped that they’ll be shamed into repenting and rejoining the church. Excommunication is final.
The Amish consider cigarettes “worldly” and though they can smoke tobacco, they cannot smoke it as a cigarette.
Modern technology is not considered evil and bishops meet annually to discuss whether use of certain types may be permitted. Solar panels are an example of such.
Neil Armstrong was Amish and returned to Lancaster after his trip to the moon - the reason he was allowed to engage in such a technological mission was because he was the smartest man in the United States when it came to space. Both the world and the Amish community realized that if they didn’t make that exception, progress would be stunted to the detriment of the world.
I just read a paragraph about Amish dress. The word “cape” was used (as in, Amish girls wear capes) and my stomach turned because I got so excited.
Amish children don’t wear shoes in the summer - not even to school!
INTERESTING - men over 40 and those who are married grow beards. Mustaches are forbidden, as they are associated with militarism.

I’m sure it’s not as fun to be Amish as I imagine it to be (based, silly as it may sound, solely on the way they dress), but sometimes I think it seems cool to be Amish.

There aren’t that many great pictures of Amish people.

Q: "Let’s talk about 'Star Trek.'" Nimoy: "Why? Is this really necessary?"

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:34:00 -0800

After reading the Trader Joe’s Holiday Brochure, I still had a full cup of coffee and some vitamins to take. Seeing as how the living room was cold and Jones was nowhere to be found, there was no reason for me to be there. I decided to go to my room to post something new and wouldn’t you know - no sooner did I sit down then Jones jumped on my chair, tried to go behind my computer, almost knocked some stuff down and then stepped on my vitamins (causing me to touch her metal (!) stitches).

If you’ve not yet been to the Griffith Observatory, you should definitely go, if for no other reason than to watch the short movie in the Leonard Nimoy Theatre (actual name: the Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon). Not surprisingly, Leonard Nimoy hosts this 15 (or so) minute masterpiece. It had me (and my sister) in stitches the entire time. Who knew Leonard Nimoy was so funny! I had to know more about him, so finally, after 1 year and 4 months, I’m taking that step.

Born on March 26, 1931 in Boston to Yiddish-speaking, Jewish Russian parents, Nimoy began acting at an early age, studied photography at UCLA, graduated from Boston College and received an MA in education from a university in Ohio.

Jones was putting her head in a plastic bag so I had her leave the room.

As everyone surely knows, Leonard Nimoy played Dr. Spock on Star Trek. I am neither hip to the terminology nor do I care to learn more, so I’m going to gloss over the specifics of that.
He invented the hand gesture so familiar to Star Trek fans worldwide. It’s based on a Jewish blessing, as is the “Live long and prosper” part of it.
Nimoy acted a bunch before moving into directing. His credits include the most successful Star Trek movie to date and THREE MEN AND A BABY (is this news to everyone? it’s news to me).
He wrote 2 autobiographies: I Am Not Spock in 1977 and I Am Spock in 1995. In the former, Nimoy wanted to remind the public that he and Spock were not the same person. In the latter, Nimoy essentially said that he and Spock were the same person, he just didn’t realize it at first.
Nimoy released 5 albums which included songs about Star Trek and covers of pop hits. See below for a video of one of the songs.
In 2003, Nimoy announced that he was retiring from acting in order to concentrate on his photography.
One of his favorite subjects: nudes.
What kind of nudes? BBW.
What does BBW mean? Big Beautiful Women.

Nimoy states that BBW is a subject that interests him because it is unusual and rarely represented in commercial photography and advertising. There’s a social interest for this type of thing as opposed to it being degrading or voyeuristic.
If I’m not mistaken, Leonard Nimoy is currently married (his 2nd wife) to Michael Bay’s aunt, Susan.
He contributed $2,300 to Barack Obama’s campaign. That’s a mere $2,275 more than me!

I fall more and more in love with Leonard Nimoy the more I read about him. The list is growing! (The list of my favorite people). So far, its roster includes Jimmy Carter and Leonard Nimoy.

If you’re interested: here is an interview with Leonard Nimoy where I got some of the information about his photography. Unfortunately, the reporter seems fixated upon the subject of Hollywood and insists that every other word out of Nimoy’s mouth is a jab at Hollywood, thus biting the hand that fed him or whatever. Nimoy dismisses this by saying he’s not really part of Hollywood anymore. The interviewer persists.

Video

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:31:48 -0800

Henry Andrews Cotton, 1876-1933

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:21:00 -0800

Thanks to Cathleen, my blog is once again worth reading.

Cotton believed that mental illnesses were the result of chronic infections in areas such as teeth and tonsils (this was based on the observation that mentally ill patients would offer have a high fever and hallucinate).
So how do you cure infections like that pre-antibiotics? As the medical director of the New Jersey State Hospital at Trenton from 1907-1930, he implemented this theory by removing teeth, sinuses, tonsils. If the patient was still mentally ill after this, then more “infected” organs would be removed, such at stomachs (which I don’t understand how you survive without a stomach), colons, uterus, and testicles.
Even though Cotton reported an extremely high success rate (85%), most patients died after the procedure from (you guessed it) postoperative infection.
In 1925, hearings in the New Jersey State Senate began over Cotton’s practices, however, numerous physicians and surgeons testified that New Jersey State Hospital was one of the most progressive institutions for the mentally ill. Cotton retired in 1930 but his medical procedures were continued until the 1950s.

[Note: There’s a golfer that bears the name Henry Cotton, so that is a picture of him up there, not Henry Cotton the doctor.]

Kombucha

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 10:01:00 -0800

I drink Kombucha once a week. It’s a new thing. Today I drank it after eating 2 hashbrowns. It’s a cure-all (or so I hear). A panacea, if you will. There was only one setback in my newfound routine - not being able to place what, exactly, Kombucha tasted like and then upon hearing that someone thought it tasted like vinegar (and realizing it does), getting over that so I could continue what I had started.

According to the $5 bottle, “Kombucha is a handmade Chinese tea that is delicately cultured for 30 days.”
According to Wikipedia, Kombucha “has been fermented using a macroscopic solid mass of microorganisms called a ‘kombucha colony.’”

In skimming the article on wikipedia further, I spot the words “grib,” “toxicity,” and “urine.” Interesting. Further: “liver complications” and “replacement for beer.”

That’s all the time I have for now. L8r.

I Forget the Question, but the Answer is "James Carville."

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:20:00 -0800

Briefly:

First name: Chester.
Born in Georgia, now resides in New Orleans.
Son of a school teacher/ door-to-door encyclopedia salesman and a postmaster/ general store owner.
Irish-Cajun.
Law student, litigator, Marine, high school teacher.
Political consultant, pundit, sports enthusiast, producer, author.
Flawless.
Married to Republican pundit, Mary Matalin.
Led Bill Clinton to victory against George Bush, Sr.
Advisor to Hillary Clinton in this past campaign.
Actor (in Mad About You and 30 Rock, among other things).

I’ll leave you with this:

“You can call the dogs in, wet the fire, and leave the house. The hunt is over.” (Carville on Obama winning the White House)

2 Years Ago Today, I Finally Removed a Lock That Had Been Stuck on My Laptop for a Week

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 15:00:27 -0700

Jones was a feral kitten and she has the smallest voice I’ve ever heard.

20 weeks ago, Jones was born, a tiny tortoiseshell kitten with an orange and white striped arm.
12 weeks ago, Morgan brought her home and named her after the cat from Alien.
10 weeks ago, Jones stopped hiding under Morgan’s bed and started being more social.
9 weeks ago, the little magenta sock monkey that had been in my room for years disappeared and resurfaced as Jones’ new favorite toy.
8 weeks ago, I tried to give Maura a felt gift-card holder from Starbucks, which she obviously did not want. I felt bad throwing it out, as it was felt and had rhinestones on it. I gave it to Jones and that became her second favorite toy.
2 weeks ago, Jones became obsessed with my plant and killed it.
1 week ago, I woke up to a roll of toilet paper that she had unraveled in the hall.
1 day ago, I looked at Jones and, for the first time, thought, “She’s not a kitten - she’s a cat!”
6 hours ago, Jones played a trick on me and acted like she had gone into the kitchen but as soon as I opened my door, ran into my room and jumped all over my bed (I didn’t want her in my room because I was going to leave for work).

Interesting, cats cats.

After Killing My Plant, Jones Discovered Toilet Paper

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 18:30:00 -0700

18 days - has it really been that long? Forget it, let’s talk about the Blue People of Kentucky. There was a show on Discovery Health about people whose skin is a bluish/ silver color, but that was due to a medicine containing some sort of silver that those people had taken. This is entirely different.

Methemoglobinemia is a disorder in which one has an abnormally high level of methemoglobin (metHb) in the blood.
Methemoglobin is a type of hemoglobin that does not bind with oxygen.
Through process of oxidization, lack of a certain enzyme and such, the red blood cells become overwhelmed and the ferrous ion is oxidized to the ferric state. (I cut a lot out of there but what does it matter, right?)
Hemoglobin becomes methemoglobin and people turn blue (though the blood in their veins is dark brown).
The disorder can be treated with methylene blue.

The Fugates were a family that lived in rural Kentucky in the early 19th century.
The man of the house, Martin, was of French descent and carried the recessive gene that causes methemoglobinemia.
I bought a french press today.
Martin married a lady who carried the gene as well.
He was an orphan. She was a redhead. Neither were blue.
Coincidentally, the family that lived nearby, the Smiths, also carried the gene. (Note: “The Smiths” - it wasn’t lost on me, don’t worry. I’m just not going to say anything more about that, a very common last name.)
There was intermarriage between the two clans, resulting in 25% of their progency being blue and 50% being asymptomatic carriers. (To be fair, I wouldn’t call it inbreeding. There were 2 different families and how are you to get around if no roads run by your house?!?!)

Appalachia! Love of my life, Appalachia! Geez, who would have thought? I would, I guess. By that, I mean I’m not surprised. People tell me that Appalachia isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. No one’s told me that, actually, I always knew it. It was always a thought in the back of my mind.

The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:12:00 -0700

I don’t know if you’re at all familiar with the Discovery Health channel, but a lot of their shows have really literal names: ”The Man Whose Arms Exploded” or “The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off” or “The Girl with No Face.” Things like that. Senior year of college, that’s all we watched. We learned about harlequin fetuses, skin turning silver, mermaid babies, a boy with tumors on his face (who, sadly, died a few weeks before the show aired - that was revealed in a epilogue sort of thing because where the show left off, he was alive and well!). Anyway, I’m going to post about the boy whose skin fell off.

Jonny Kennedy was born in Britain in 1966 without skin on the lower part of his right leg.
He had a genetic condition called Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB).
Skin is composed of 2 layers - the edpidermis (outer layer) and the dermis, which is beneath it. The two layers are held together so that one layer does not move independently of the other. This is not so for people with EB.
Anything that comes in contact with the skin and causes friction moves the top layer and causes a blister or sore, which can become an open wound.
Babies with EB are sometimes referred to as “Cotton Wool Babies.”
At the time of Jonny’s birth, there was no prenatal EB test. He is quoted as saying if he were to have a child and he knew this child had EB, he would abort the pregnancy - EB is something that disables a whole family.
His mom, Edna, was the one who primarily took care of him. His father didn’t like Jonny being an object of curiosity and more or less tried to hide him.
Since his vocal tissues were scarred, Jonny’s voice remained high and he never went through puberty. Though he lived to be 36, he appeared and sounded boyish.
Each day, Jonny’s mom had to dress his sores, replace bandages and such, which was an extremely painful, lengthy process.
In 2002, he was diagnosed with a rare, fatal form of skin cancer and decided that the rest of his life was going to be “extraordinary.”
Jonny’s lifelong goal was to fly a glider and he did so before his death. Other goals were to have a housewarming party and visit 10 Downing St. which is where the Prime Minister lives.
In one scene, he was planning his funeral with his mom and decided that he wanted to have a tiger and a picture of a Heinz beans label carved into his coffin. “It doesn’t mean anything but it will get them talking,” Jonny said of the Heinz label. Why the tiger?
Says mother Edna, “Nine months before his death he laid a trail of paper paw marks in the house leading to a life-sized stuffed tiger with a note: ‘There’s still a lot of tiger left in me’. The tiger was his mascot.
Kennedy died in September 2003 on the way home from 10 Downing St.
Going further with the tiger thing: The day after he died, his mom went to his safe and found a note inside: ‘Do not be sad for I am free. I could not have done so much with my life were it not for you. I leave you with a symbol of my strength and all my love’. She opened a package to find “a large gold brooch of a tiger with a ruby for an eye that he had had commissioned. I could have murdered him that he had gone to such bother.”

How heartwarming is that? He was a funny guy and this article tells the story better than I just did.