Lindsay vs. Megan -- Five Years Ago

Lindsay and Megan in a dance-off; sort of.

One Night in Morrison

On Saturday night, I ventured up to Morrison.  No, it was not to see a show at Red Rocks or to hang at the Speedway.  I was going to a wine competition.  The competition was at an attorney’s house and was a fundraiser.  Each guest was to bring a bottle and pay a $5 fee.  The bottle was put in a brown paper bag and then people would taste it and score it.  Ultimately each voter was to pick his/her favorite wine.

I thought this would last a couple of hours max.  The first indication that this was something more came as I drove up to the house.  It was in a development across the street from Red Rocks Country Club.  There were actual red rocks in the development.  As  I came near the house, I saw a string of cars and parked about a 1/4 mile away.  I saw this one gorgeous house with people on a stunning deck looking at the incredible city views.  I soon discovered that this gorgeous house was where the party was.  When I entered, I was in for another surprise.  This house was a modernist masterpiece in rustic Colorado.  Fine art adorned the walls; the finest of wood for the wooden floors; sub-zero appliances in the kitchen; stone sinks in the guest bathroom; two decks and a patio area.  Well, you get the idea.

There were about 80 people in all and for the first hour we had wines and heavy hors’d’oeurves.  Yes, the drinking would contaminate our palettes but no one seemed to care.  How could you care with a a jazz band playing in the background and the finest in catered food.

The people were incredibly friendly.  A New Yorker who worked on a hedge fund and his real estate broker wife (they flew in from Manhattan for this).  Neighbors who ran their own businesses when they were not golfing at the country club.  An attractive blonde who met the host at a wine event a couple of weeks ago.  The ages ranged from twenty-something to sixty-something and they all mixed well.  I even ran into an old associate from Acme Law.

After a couple of drinks, the tasting began.  46 wines in all.  I did not try all of them but did try most.  I, of course, heeded the host’s requests to take small pours, but others were pouring like it was grape juice.  The white wines were almost universally avoided. Chatter about the best wines abounded.  I sought to verify my choices with the wine experts I had identified.  Everyone submitted a ballot.  Much to my shock, there was only one high end wine in the top 4 (high-end is a relative term since there was a $35 limit on the bottle) – a Malbec (the one I had picked).  There were a couple of shiraz wines in 2nd and 3rd – one brought by one of the wine experts I had identified.  The winner was not a classic by any means – in fact, its sensationalist name, Ménage-a-trois, a not-so-subtle indication of its quality.  The winner had actually finished last in the competition last year.

Now, it was time for the worst wine.  The results left a funny feeling in my stomach; what happens if my wine was adjudged the worst?  But I had picked a Spanish Alicante wine which was rated between 88-95 by various sources, and Spanish wines were fast becoming the equal of many of their French counterparts.  Sure enough, my wine was picked the worst.  I had to acknowledge who I was and walk up to the front.  At least there was a consolation prize, a wine from the host’s cellar and a hope that I could pull a last-to-first next year.  After getting some ribbing from a fellow lawyer I knew – the one who brought the Shiraz, I quickly picked up some pointers for next year.  First, focus on crowd-pleasers not quality; the year before a Yellow Tail won (beating out among others a French Burgundy).  Two, select a blend so that you are bound to hit on someone’s taste palette.  Finally, secretly promote your own wine.  The guy who came in second, and apparently has placed every year, was going around saying Wine 11 was the best.  Guess what? Wine 11 was his wine.  Once the buzz was created, it self-perpetuated.  Next year, I should bring a really low-quality wine and create some buzz about it and see if I do better.

At any rate, I got a chance to drown my sorrows in fine wine as the host broke out some fine wines in his cellar including some $100 plus bottles.  Of course, having the best wine at the end is somewhat counter-productive as people would not appreciate it as much.  Next came “Club Snoopy” (named after the hosts’ dog; name of dog changed to protect the innocent).  I was excited because the dj was going to be from NYC.  I thought given the band, that this dj would also be a professional.  Turns out it was the real estate broker with an iPod.  Nevertheless she played some good music – old school hip-hop, MJ tributes, and some Kid Rock (ok, maybe not all was good).  The “club” was in the hosts’ home theater room with an incredible sound system.  The female-to-male ratio was 2:1 and while many of the females were coupled up throughout the party, they did not act that way on the floor particularly these two thirty-something women in baby doll summer dresses.  They were barefoot and gyrating around the room and then gyrating with their date.  I was dancing with a cougar (remember that cougar could be a relative definition based on the age of the prey; for instance a cougar for my age would be in the 60s – and amazingly enough most of my readers of my blog on another site are in that age range – but I define cougar in the more common sense, i.e., a 40-something).  I should have been more flirtatious but I had taken a Chaser Plus earlier on and that always seems to inhibit my ability to get a buzz.  So I just danced away blowing my chance.  But there is always next year – both for my chances with the cougar and with the wine competition. I left at midnight, my ball had ended, and I had to return to the real world.

MJ: A Conflicted Legacy

While we celebrate the memory of MJ as an artist, it is hard not to think of his eccentricities in life.  If it was just eccentric behavior there would be no lasting tarnish.  But it is hard for me to eliminate the doubts raised by the numerous molestation allegations.  True, we can infer nothing from his “settlements” of the claims and, yes, he was not found guilty of anything, but his willingness to pay millions to end these cases stretches beyond the realm of litigation avoidance.  Somehow I suspect that after the immediacy of his death wears off, information will start to seep out, and maybe one day a rudimentary take on the puzzle will develop.  And while it may not corroborate the claims, it may raise serious concerns.  Because there was something not right in Neverland.

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

While aware of the band, I had not heard a song by them until they appeared on Saturday Night Live this spring.  I was floored.  Pop in its perfect form delivered with a refreshing energy.  Not only did they score a coveted music slot on SNL, they played three songs which is reserved for the best of bands. 

So, of course, when their concert was announced I decided to attend.  I got there just as they got on stage; I quickly downed two Red Stripes (no Jager for me tonight).  They started of with a bang with two of their singles.  They featured a big sound with a percussionist supplementing the drummer and three guitarists.  The sound veered to a europop dance but some rock and jammish tendencies as well.  Hard to pigeonhole their sound.

Midway through the set, a guy in front of me asks me if I would mind if he “burned one down” and after I said that I didn’t care, he politely asked all others around him; a conscientious pothead – who would have thought?  Of course, I wished there was such a thing as odorless pot as his path to nirvana left me smelling like a joint.

After the show ended, outside the Bluebird, there was one drunk guy so high from the show or the liquor he imbibed that he insisted that I high-five him and celebrate the drummer who he termed a “bad-ass” drummer.  So it was a night where there was as much entertainment from the crowd as the band.

MJ -- The Male Anna Nicole?

According to his attorney:

Most interestingly, though, Oxman says that Jackson was in fine physical condition, but that he had a very serious problem with prescription medication, and that the people that were surrounding him were enablers. Oxman went on to say, "If you think the case with Anna Nicole Smith was an abuse, it's nothing in comparison to what we have seen taking place in Michael Jackson's life."

It’s Cougar-ific

It was bound to happen; a cougar prowling in the Real World.  Real World-Cancun opened with a bang as one of the cast made out with a cougar who looked like Sharon Osbourne’s twin.  In a twist, the cougar’s daughter was in the same night club.  And in the ultimate twist, the cougar’s daughter was making out with another cast member.  Must have made for a great family dinner table discussion the next night.

Meanwhile, we had the requisite cast member with a pre-existing significant other cheating on said other.  He didn’t even last one day.  And another cast member with a significant other is on the ropes.  Moral of the story – never let your significant other go on the Real World.

Finally, they showed clips from the coming season and, of course, there will be meltdowns – both drug-induced and anger-induced.

99 Balloons

I saw this on the Today Show today. A heartbreaking story but an inspiring one as well. Today, the couple has a healthy 9 mos. old girl and the memories of a wonderful little boy.

She is Amazing!!!

Triumph at Bonnaroo Part II

Triumph at Bonnaroo

How I danced with a cougar and other tales

It was supposed to be an early night; the Penguins unexpected seventh game would not disrupt that.  I would watch the game at a bar, head home right after that, and get up at 7:00 am for my long Saturday.  I did not, however, anticipate that the Pens would win and that turned the whole night around.  Not only did they win, but they led most of the game, so that enhanced my beer consumption.  But even after the joyous victory, and high-fivin’ the Pens fans, the plan was to go home.  But then I met the two guys and a woman who were also cheering on the Pens.  The two guys were brothers who were from Mt. Lebanon which is in Pittsburgh, and the woman was one of the guy’s wife.  We got to reminiscing about Pittsburgh and then they asked me to do a Jaeger shot with them.  And one led to another and another.  Then they said they were going to hang out for the dancin’.  It then dawned on me that LoDos had dancing on Friday nights.  I had never been there on a Friday night and never suspected that they would have dancing as this was in Lone Tree.  I thought everyone would be home and asleep by ten. 

Well not only did they have dancing, but the female to male ratio was 2-1, and I had two wingmen (the guy’s wife headed home as she had to work the next day).  Of course, since this was my first night with these wingmen, I was like Sid Crosby with two rookies from Saskatchewan.  Instead of targeting one group of women, the lead wingmen ventured into the land of the All-Stars.  I decided to hold back with the puck knowing that that rush was doomed to failure.  So I hung out at the blue line, and then one woman dancing with another woman, complimented me on my Pens jersey.  I took that as an invitation to dance and I made an odd man rush.  It ended up being one-on-three as their friend joined.  And then they started to play Thriller.  At that point I knew I needed reinforcements, and one of the guys had mentioned he was a Michael Jackson fan back in the day, so I went and pulled him.  Alas, Thriller ended (I never thought I would be sad at a MJ song ending), and the ladies vacated the floor.

The other guy was back at the table waiting on a pizza.  I chastised him on his lack of priorities and directed him towards this group of cougars clearly desirous of dancing.  Well, he chatted them up, and lo and behold, we were on the floor with a couple of cougars (of course, cougar is a relative term, since they were in their mid-40s, but clearly they were looking for young prey and instead they got us).  I must say they still had quite a bit of purr in them as one did the shimmy to the ground move and back up.  They ended up playing some hip-hop song which ended the dancing and sent us back to our respective tables.  At that point, I returned to my senses, had a couple of cups of coffee and decided I better head home since I had to be up at 7:00.

Once I got home, I took my patented hangover cure (The Cure for a Hangover – created by a couple of CU grad students – you can buy it online).  I did get up at 7:00, but even the hangover cure could not completely rid my hangover.  I went to my meeting at 8:00, then headed over to Parker for their town fair.  You may ask why I would head to the Parker town fair, especially early on a Saturday, when I was hungover.  Well, I had volunteered to man the Douglas County Democrats booth.  I ended up being the first worker there, and I had to open the booth.  The other guy showed up 30 mins later.  They had ironically located us next to a hunting knife booth whose proprietor asked us why we were not satisfied with controlling the country and why did we want more.  We also had a bigoted guy come up who made some crude immigrant jokes clearly not figuring out that I too was an immigrant.  At any rate, we managed to sign up a few people.

Then it was off to pick up my son.  We had lunch at Chic-fil-a, and then we went to the religious ed class I teach.  It runs from 1:30 to 4:30 and my class is 1st grade-3rd grade so yes you could imagine the impact on my headache.  After the class, it was off to Burger King for dinner, and I then dropped my son off.  Finally I made it home, and finally I slept!!!

Letterman's Wit Is Still Piercing

Chief Justice Roberts . . .

. . . is of the opinion that the Court's recent recusal ruling will undermine confidence in the judiciary. Somehow he seems to think a judge not recusing himself in a case in which said judge received $3 million in campaign contributions from a party and then casting a deciding vote in the case in favor of said party has not already done that. This case should have been a no-brainer 9-0 decision. Sure it requires a discretionary standard but the ethics rule requires discretion as well, that does not mean we should scrap it.

Meet one of the newest members of the . . .

. . . European Parliament. I presume no horses were harmed in the taking of this picture.

Defining Torture

Per the NY Times, John Yoo, in a 2002 memorandum, defined torture as “only pain equal to that produced by organ failure or death qualified as torture.”  Does not leave much breathing room does it?

The Fall of the House of Banking Revisited

You may recall that when the subprime loan market literally turned both the real estate market and stock market upside down, some tried to paint it as an issue of lack of personal responsibility on the part of the low-income buyers who took on mortgage loans they knew they had no hope of repaying and Congress which “prodded” banks to do such lending in these previously redlined markets.

A lawsuit in Baltimore, chronicled in the Sunday Times, against a major retail bank bolsters, however, the argument that it was the banks’ greed that propelled the house of cards.  One of the bank's loan officer admits in an affidavit that the bank created a mid-Atlantic office to market the most expensive refinancing loans on African-American customers including those living in poor areas.  The loans were referred to as “ghetto loans” and minority customers were indiscriminately termed as “those” people who have bad credit, “those” people who don’t pay their bills, and “mud people.”  The bank offered bonuses for subprime loans issued to minorities.  Sales people were instructed to deliberately push minorities who qualified for prime loans into subprime loans.  Some loan officers wrongly claimed that buyers with good credit and supporting documentation did not want to provide documentation which automatically made these loans subprime.  Other times, loan officers would cut and paste credit reports from one customer to that of another.

These actions actually commenced as early as 1997 so it would have proceeded much of the deregulation which the Democrats purportedly hoisted on the market.  Yes, many of these people should not have taken on these loans, and Congress should not have eased regulation, but the real bad actors were the unscrupulous actors and institutions who saw low-income areas as a new area to exploit. The case is in a nascent stage and the bank still has not responded, and still has a chance to exonerate itself. Of course, the work of some actors in not meant to impugn all of the banking industry, but clearly there were unscrupulous actors who sought to exploit this market.

ADVENTURELAND

Pittsburgh.  The 80s.  An amusement park.  And, yes, a mix tape (although it is much more marginal as compared to its role in Nick & Norah; but used for the same purpose – a way to provide insight into the psyche of its maker at the same time birthing wonderful music in the world around).  I am talking of Adventureland, a truly rhapsodic, nostalgiac gem of a movie.  It is about a college graduate whose post-graduate dreams of a summer trip to Europe are derailed by his father’s job loss.  And his grad school tuition hangs in the balance as well unless he can earn enough money during the summer.  Majoring in comparative literature gets him nowhere in a job search in the real world so he ends up working in the artificial fantasy land that is the amusement park. 

Of course, there is a love story involved, and one of the protagonists is the utterly sublime Kristen Stewart, she of Twilight fame.  It is nothing more and nothing less than the tale of a wispy summer; a movie where the ride obscures the destination.  The characters are bold, unique, vulnerable; reflecting their decade.  The artful writing translated into evocative dialogues and scored by the soundtrack of an era.  Every once in a while a truly special movie comes along that makes you feel more complete than before you watched it.  Adventureland is such a movie.