(e:Jim) and I had a BBQ for the Buffalo flickr group yesterday.

The rules went like this

We provide meat, buns, and condiments you folks provide side dishes and beverages. Only one person told us they would be bringing anything before the day of the BBQ, so here is what I made on the fly.

Fake Tapenada
tomatoes, black olives, green olives, garlic, and parsley whirled up in my beloved food processor toped on sourdough bread toasted with butter.

time: eight minutes

Everything but the kitchen sink salad
Romaine, carrots, cucumber, croutons, capers, parmesan cheese. Bottled caesar dressing (home made creamy dressings gross me out to make.)

time: six minutes

Not Just cow hamburgers
80% lean chop meat, worcestershire sauce, oats, garlic, cayenne pepper, more salt than you really should use, 2 eggs.

time: five minutes

let me tell you, there is nothing as disgusting as mixing six pounds of chop meat and eggs in an aluminum bowl. The bowl chills with the meat in it and cold metal and meat is just gross.


Well, folks showed up, and they brought stuff in abundance in a delightful uncoordinated way. We have four bags of tortilla chips, a gallon of salsa, and so much beer. OH so much beer. Most of the beer is gone now. Through we did get a mini-keg of Heineken which went largely untouched to to its late arrival. I am not much for light beer and Jim doesn't drink the stuff. So if you want it, it is yours.

Alternatively, we could have a nacho and light beer party.

yum,

Hi,

Over the last month or so I have been rehashing reports about how backwards Russia is on Gay rights. Backwards, my history training tells me, is both a word considered insensitive as well as often heard in reference to Russia. And while smuggling a radioactive agent across several borders to poison a states enemy is pretty hot shit, where as having fat bearded priests gathering hordes of dull eyed ass midgets to harass gay people at a meeting place is backwards. Yes, not permitted to love in public we will fuck on the fringes of society. That is how it works Mr.Bishop. Sorry it happened to be a shrine. Boo hoo.

backwards Russia, backwards.

Say it with me, backwards.

But then, something like this happens and for some reason two guys can have hot oral sex in public with a cheering crowd around them.

And Russia, I have to think that maybe you aren't all bad.

Nostrovia

I love Metafilter.


It means that if I find a good link I can waste the better part of an afternoon. In this case though, it was a comment on a question in which the person didn't know what he was talking about. An irrelevant introduction to what I am talking about: the goons.

Before there was Money Python there were (WIKIPEDIA - The_Goon_Show). A comedic trio, deadpan BBC announcer, and a live band. The show was broadcast before a live audience on radio in the early 1950's and had a very brief incarnation as a TV program.

The show lives on the sort of absurd puns that made Python iconic and which influenced generations of comedians. For example:

There is the reoccurring villain the Red Bladder. Or in the riding hood sketch a nervous elderly noblewoman asks her stage coach driver "where are we" to which he replies "Riding in a coach madam." Which, on its own isn't that funny but each line in the show is a rhythm of set up and punch line. The collective chuckle of each mediocre joke gets a weigh of immense hilarity. It is the sort of writing and performance that is at a break neck pace. You wonder how the heck anyone could have the stamina to do this.

The three principle comedians involved are Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe, and Peter Sellers of Being There and [i]Pink Panther[i] fame.

The show makes heavy use of special effects. The sort of sureal noises created in a lab and used in really strange context. Stranger still are the various voices the actors use. A beloved retarded man who when asked a question replies "hold on, I have it written down on a piece of paper" even when asked 'what time is it' or 'who are you?' it is a reoccurring character. You just wet yourself when you hear it.

And you should hear it. There is a streaming podcast, which is getting me through work today. Check it out.

Howdy,

Doesn't talking about tax bases and city planning just get your week off to a lovely start? And now for something completely different....


its


James Burke.

One of my favorite TV shows has been posted on youtube until some copyright privateer ruins the party. Connections by and staring James Burke was a BBC show in which Burke began with something very simple and shows how that one invention was a trigger for immense historical change. I have a few books from grad school all about such triggers, and let me tell you, James Burke delivers it in a much more enjoyable way.

For example.

In one episode he shows a village square full of medieval peasants laughing, feasting, playing music, and dancing. The camera angle is from the ground looking straight up and Burke says "Now, I want you to do me a favor, look up the ladies dresses. Yup, that is right, the trigger for historical change is frilly knickers" and 20 minutes in the program later you have the computer.

The show is wonderful. When/if I become a social studies teacher I hope to do a James Burke routine with a few topics. Hear that? He is inspirational. That is a damn good show.

Anyway, here is the first part of the first episode. All of them are on youtube, all of them are cut up into five, ten minute bits. All are wonderful. Enjoy them while you can.

Politicians don't get me hard.

Oh ya, those young left leaning kids love Obama, and certainly he is spreadable like butter. But no hard on, just limp with missed expectations.

And activists? Unless you want to add Emma Goldman's face to Mt. Rushmore, well, you might as well just smell like patchouli and volunteer for NYPIRG.

But then, there is Kevin Gaughan.

Kevin is not a politician. Yes, he has run for mayor, but not being a gear in the local machine he missed out.

Kevin isn't a 'all wet but no boner' activist. He isn't saving Pandas or documenting the east side as it crumbles into memory. The man has done research, crunched his numbers, has lifted a veil, and he has a plan to stick it to the bride.

This, is The Cost.

A site in which Kevin has tabulated the cost of running the local governments and compares them to a comparable city. The findings are absurd.

It is like this. Decades ago Atlanta was the sort of city you were as likely to find a McDonald's as you were to be having sex with your first cousin. That is to say, it was a place you wouldn't want to live. But as corporations moved down and took the population of New Jersey with them the city grew. As the city expanded so did the city line. Atlanta ate hamlets and villages and all became one big city with a normal rate of web-toed incest babies.

Buffalo never has.

Kenmore is a good place to start. It has 15,555 people living there and six elected officials. Buffalo has a population of 279,745 with 24 elected officials. That means, if Buffalo had the same ratio of people to elected officials there would be 90 members of the common council instead of 10.

The figures in his report jump off the page and makes us wonder just why the hell we are spending so much money on government. How many officials do we need to pick up the trash anyway? If Kenmore were to become apart of Buffalo we could save over $600,000. And that is just dinky Kenmore. Imagine what would happen if villages like Sloan or Brant were incorporated into municipalities? Not necessarily Buffalo, but a greater Williamsville, or Amherst.

How does all this stack up to the comparable cities. This is a real hoot.

What Kevin is calling greater Buffalo has 439 elected officials and 45 governments. Somehow New York City with ten times the population manages to get by with one government and half the elected officials. Indianapolis, which has a similar population to us has 14 governments and half the elected officials.

Gaugen solution isn't as draconian as the research suggests. The hatchet sounds really nice to me, but Kevin is nicer than me. He proposes that local governments each drop two elected officials by attrition, for a total of 84 politicians.

That doesn't sound to bad, does it?