Woodman's

My sister-in-law, R. is in town to meet the J-Dawg. After I got home from my 20 mile run yesterday morning, we were kicking around lunch ideas when R. declares that she must have fried clams. Who can argue that? Certainly not me.

We don't really have any place in mind, so we get on the computer and somehow come up with the North Shore town of Ipswich. We all pile into the Jaspermobile and head up 128. Ipswich is a quaint little town. We saw a couple of 15 year old girls protesting the war in town square: "Make levees, not bombs." About 10 feet from them were a bunch of boys counter protesting: "Honk for Bush." I know who's not gonna get very far with the levee girls at homecoming.

There are lots of cute homes and curio shops, but seemingly no place to get clams. We drive around town for about 30 minutes before we are dizzy from hunger and decide to head toward Gloucester. Surely, fried clams will await us there.

We start down a backroad to Gloucester, when we stumble across Woodman's. It all comes back to me now. I used to live next door to a guy who drove a white mid 80's vintage Chevy Caprice with a bumper sticker that proclaimed Woodman's of Essex as the inventor of the fried clam.

Who invents fried clams? It's not like this guy had a lab like Edison and had failed at other things like fried rocks and fried twigs. According to the website, the inventor's name is Lawrence "Chubby" Woodman. Chubby Woodman?!?! That's dirrrrty.

It's a great old style seafood shack. We got a large bucket of fried clams, onion rings and clamcakes. The clams were awesome. Not too greasy and the clams were of very high quality. They were great with a bit of Frank's Hot Sauce. Onion rings were, well, onion rings. Nothing remarkable. The clam cakes rocked. They were like hush puppies infused with clams. They reminded me of my beloved conch fritters back home in Florida. Definately worth the drive.

Can Calgon take you away at 6AM? Do they have a shuttle bus?

Yesterday morning was, to put it mildly, a bit insane. Jasper woke us both up around 5:45 and was making all sorts of fuss to be fed. Jen then asks me to go make up a bottle of formula for him in the bathroom.

I don't turn on the lights in the hall, as I've done this three times a night for a while now, and on my way to the bathroom, I skid through cat poop. Yes, Roxy has left me and my bare feet a little present. I'm not sure if he's just jealous of Jasper and that he doesn't get as much attention anymore, or if he's just getting old. Anyhow, I make a horrified sound and yell "Cat poop!" back into the bedroom.

I jump in the tub to wash off, as I hear Jasper start to cry. I hurriedly mix up the formula and then rush back into the darkened bedroom. I toss the bottle into the bed like a live grenade and get downstairs to get the mop and bucket. By the time I get back upstairs, Jen says to me, "Where's the formula?" I guess she hadn't seen me toss into bed next to her.

I go inform Mr. Cat of the unacceptability of this situation and get started cleaning. After I've cleaned up the mess, Jen says to me, "You really released the bouquet of cat shit there." I am puzzled, as I believe I've got the situation under control.

After putting away the cleaning supplies, I come back into the bedroom to spend some quality time with Jasper. It is now that I realize that my lovely wife had not been smelling cat shit, but rather, fresh baby shit. This cracks Jen up as I go to change the little man's diaper.

Finally, with all my doody duties complete, I sit on the bed to have some quality time with the J-Dawg. He's very alert and playful. We play a little Superman and I give him little kisses and make cooing noises at him. Suddenly, he regurgitates the formula he was just fed... into my mouth. Clearly, yesterday was not my day.

The Delta

According to sadlyno.com, a German news reporter witnessed a completely staged George Bush photo op.

Anchorwoman: For the latest live from Biloxi, Christine Adelhardt:

Christine Adelhardt: The President drove by here in his convoy 2 minutes ago. What happened today in Biloxi however is truly unbelievable. Rescue teams suddenly appeared, recovery vehicles were suddenly here, one hadn't seen them here over the course of the entire day. And this in an area where it really wasn't necessary to clean up much because pretty much nobody lives around here. The people are further away into the city. The President travels with a press pool, the pool has thanks to this very nice pictures which should say the President was there and help is on the way. The extent of the natural disaster shocked me. But the extent of the staging [Inszenierung] today shocks me at least as much. With that, back to Hamburg.

Sadlyno.com has a link to the video of the broadcast, in case any German speaking readers want to verify this translation. (I'm looking at you, Mrs. Advice Pig)

After I saw this, I was so angry and sad that this is the leader of our country, playing us for fools, letting people die.

Shortly after I read this, I got into my car to drive to lunch. The Sex Pistols came on the FM, screaming "NO FUTURE" during "God Save the Queen." I started wondering why we don't have this kind of angry protest music any more. We've got all this emo, belly button examining stuff. You'd think with a name like Deathcab for Cutie would right about something other than sadboy love. Don't make me buy an amp and write the angry songs myself.

This weekend, I managed to catch U2's performance of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" at the original Live Aid. The words never rang so true with me before: "I can't believe the news today. I can't close my eyes and make it go away. How long? How long must we sing this song?" It's been 20+ years and we still must sing this song.

If there are such things, I hope the ghosts of New Orleans roam the White House halls tonight.

Chaos in New Orleans

I'm sure there's some optimist out there that says, "There's looters? That must mean there are survivors!" It sounds like everyone's worst nightmare. Possibly, thousands of dead. Streets are flooded. Police can't stop the looters.

People are stranded. There are an estimated 20,000 people waiting to be bussed from the Superdome to the Astrodome in Houston. How many school buses are you gonna need to do that? 400 buses? Where are they gonna get that much gas at this point? You can't just declare an evacuation, you figure out the logistics.

Why didn't these people flee before the storm? Many of these people were among the poorest in New Orleans. They had no cars. What were they supposed to do, take the city bus out of town?

President Bush cut his vacation short two days. (Considering it was 6 weeks long, that like you or I cutting our vacation short by 4 hours.) He flew 30000 feet over the devestated area in Air Force One. If there's a better symbol of detachment, I don't know what it is.

I'm rambling. I'm mad, sad and bewildered. My heart goes out to those in Louisana and Mississippi. I hope you all find your way.