Just when you think that maybe, just maybe, this ridiculous state can’t get any more ridiculous …
“Officials consider English-only graduation speeches”
Apparently, a Vietnamese valedictorian at a Terrebonne Parish high school said two sentences in her native language during her speech, partially to be inspirational but mostly for the benefit and appreciation of her parents. And the school board goes nuts, trying to enact official legislation that states that all graduation speeches be in English. All because of two sentences … and she explained what they meant after she said them.
“I don’t like them addressing in a foreign language. They should be in English.” This is the quote from one parish official, which has been picked up by the AP and, just today, by the New York Times. And the state takes yet another giant step backwards in advancing out of the 20th century …
Today is our 13th year anniversary. So there.
I have never been a big fan of the self-portrait photographs, mainly because they are usually quite terrible and horribly composed
(LL’s being the exception) but sometimes you just hafta. This is the second time that I have ever used the self-portrait setting on the camera since obtaining it in March of 2006.
June 29th, 2008
11:18 pm
Music
Today is CRC Day. And a Happy CRC Day to all of you!
Err …
Whaddaya mean “What the heck is CRC Day?”
CRC stands for Central Rock Company, the greatest musical product to come out of Richmond, KY since Exile. Consisting of Kurt Adams and Shay Quillen, these two, along with a backup band usually referred to as The Dismembers (regularly featuring Chris Staples on drums and Jeff Holland on guitar), recorded and performed a variety of original and cover material, including their signature a capella rendition of Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love”, the JLK-penned parody song “We’re Not Gonna Play It”, and CRC originals “Sitting in My Room,” “Polka de Pineapple,” “Can You See Yourself,” “I Hate Cool People,” the rock opera “Upon Hearing That Supergirl is Dead”, and “Stephanie.” Both Shay and Kurt shared vocal duties. Their wacky antics were chronicled in the thankfully-unreleased film “CRC: The Movie” (three scenes are pictured to the left). The group drifted apart in the summer of 1987, as other teenage interests began to interfere with the production of music. Shay went on to further musical success with such acts as Brandon String Trio and Pomme Frites. Kurt, alas, did not.
It is in the song “Sitting in My Room” that the immortal line was uttered: It’s the 29th of June / I’m Sitting in My Room. It is from this lyric that the date of June 29th was designated CRC Day, and that date was immortalized in the anals of music history with the legendary CRC Day Concert of 1986, held in Shay’s backyard, where the boys (along with Jeff Holland on electric guitar and Chris Staples on drums) performed a seven song set in utter darkness, and then the cops showed up after noise complaints from the neighbors. It was, of course, a rousing success. The performance does start off a little choppy, with the introductory “We are CRC” taking a little too long in the intro with the Model High School Band cadence on the drums, and “Holy Moley” doesn’t really work without the keyboards, but the group kicks it into high gear with the blazing guitar work of Mr. Holland on “I Hate Cool People” and “Sitting in My Room,” punctuated by Shay’s alarmingly terse vocals (probably fueled by frustration with Kurt who constantly left the “stage” to go sit with his girlfriend in the audience). The show is capped off with a hott rendition of “Stephanie,” lead in by Kurt’s girlfriend shouting out the intro “once, twice, 3-4-5-6-7″ and Holland trying desperately the end the song on three separate occasions. It was a fantastic show, and one that (thankfully) had not been attempted again.
Although we did try … in 1994, Jeff, in his capacity as whatever-the-hell-he-was-doing-at-the-time at WRFL, UK’s alternative radio station, arranged a CRC Day show that would feature Kurt Adams as the headlining act. We had discovered that Kurt was back in Lexington, and Jeff made contact with him, and somehow talked him into doing the show. Jeff would supply guitar, and would also serve as one of the opening acts. We’d also somehow convinced Retrovirus and Opportunistic Infection to show up and, if necessary, so would JLK Semicolon Etcetera. The magical day arrived, and … Kurt never showed up. We called his house. We were told he had gone to play golf. What the heck? How could Kurt miss this opportunity for stardom? Apparently, the musical community of Lexington felt the same way, because only one other person, ol’ “Stinky” Pete Hrabak, bothered to attend. RV and OI did materialize, and they did a rousing tribute to CRC that still brings tears to my eyes when I listen to the tape. I later ran into Kurt and confronted him about not showing up, and he said that he thought that we weren’t serious. C’mon, Kurt, after everything we’ve been through, didja really think that we weren’t serious? Well, actually …
Anyway, over 20 years later from the first, original CRC Day event, those of us who still remember (and still care) mark the occasion of CRC Day by sitting in our rooms, hating cool people, and seeing ourselves. Well, mostly. Amazingly, Kurt still remembers … he wrote me a message on my Facebook wall this morning commemorating the day …
Other links:
The Unusual Kentucky blog remembers CRC Day.
The ancient and long-defunct CRC Online website has a page devoted to CRC Day, with the entire concert in streaming RealAudio. Beware, this site is on Tripod, so arm your popup blockers.
So I’m typing up the monthly menu for the lady who runs the local soul food diner, and every time she offers okra and tomatoes, she has written down “orka and tomatoes” and this is just putting weird images into my addled brain.
OK, it was funny to me …
June 26th, 2008
10:19 pm
Web
Internet body approves domain name big bang
I imagine that the porn sites are rejoicing. But it also looks like this will put an end to the infernal practice of cybersquatting …
Happy the Day-After-the-Calendar-First-Day-of-Summer to everyone!
(This pic is actually from the car after it sat in the parking lot outside the Grand Theater in Alexandria, LA. But it makes for a good photo op nonetheless …)
June 19th, 2008
10:50 pm
KY2008
One of the primary highlights of any visit to Lexington is going back to our favorite restaurants and foodplaces. One of our criteria is that we like to go to places that we cannot go to in Louisiana … for example, what is the point of traveling almost 900 miles just to eat at Wendy’s? With Lexington being the bustling metropolis that it is, there is an almost infinite number of different and new selections in the food department. Unfortunately, we have a limited amount of time, and there is a small handful of places that we must visit at least once …
Our trips to Kentucky are always bracketed with visits to Perkins … on the night that we arrive, and on the morning that we leave. I usually attempt to conquer the Tremendous Twelve on the first night (and usually fail, damn pancakes). It helps immensely that Perkins is open 24 hours.
Of course, on any visit to Lexington, we will visit a Ramsey’s. In many cases, at least more than once. Sometimes three times. Once, a record four times. And it is a given that, whenever I visit a Ramsey’s, I will always choose the same thing … on the first visit, a Hot Brown (because, really, why visit Kentucky if you aren’t going to have a Hot Brown … that’s like going to New Orleans and not having gumbo) … on the second visit, the Country Fried Steak with a small salad with blue cheese and green beans (and if it is for dinner, then add the fried apples) … on the third visit, the Chicken & Dumplings (which they used to serve only for lunch but have recently added to the dinner menu) … and on the fourth visit, it would probably have to be their Evil Breakfast, which is even more unconquerable than the Tremendous Twelve in that it contains five eggs and real hash browns (but I’ve only done this once and cannot say with certainty that this would be the absolute selection on the fourth visit).
We also visited Tumbleweed, Movie Tavern, Lynagh’s, Alfalfa, and #1 China Buffet. Click on the images to the left for the stories of what happened at those establishments. As you can see, our tastes are fairly varied and just a little bit wacky. It should be noted that this is array of restaurants is certainly not representative of what Lexington has to offer.
And then there are the places that we didn’t quite get around to visiting. Fusion Cafe, home of some fine Vietnamese food (especially since Pete’s Wok closed) and the best avocado shake in the world. Tolly-Ho, home of the Super Ho with Cheese. White Castle, for obvious reasons. All of those places were on the list of restaurants that we intended to go to, but just didn’t quite make it. Oh, sure, we probably didn’t have to go to Ramsey’s for that third time, but hey, that’s how it goes …
June 18th, 2008
10:18 pm
KY2008
Egads. 856 total photos and videos taken on this last trip.
Once I go through all of them and crop out what I need and process the rest, how many will be salvageable and viewable? Probably about 70.
Watch the Flickr!
June 18th, 2008
11:29 am
KY2008
This blog post is brought to you by the state of Mississippi, whose wi-fi connection at their Welcome Center provided the internet for this posting.
We hope you enjoyed it.
ETA: 
