.....imagine...

"It was the beginning and the end of imagination, all at the same time"
-historian David McCullough, about the creation of the assembly line (narration in Seabiscuit)

it is tuesday night...a tropical depression has set in across eastern
kentucky.  it was very strange looking at the weather radar today
and seeing rain coming up from southeastern kentucky instead of heading down into it. 



but i have a little trouble with the term "tropical depression". 
if you are in the tropics, how can you be depressed?  i think the
only thing that would cause a tropical depression would be running out
of ice for your beer.



but that's just me.



i just had another beautiful weekend with rebecca.  the last 3
weekends have been so incredible...willie and bob...families and
dumplings...football and moving furniture.



i truly feel like the two of us could start a revolution...change the
world...make a difference.  we sat together this weekend and
discussed everything, from the joys of red meat, to how we could work
together to promote art in eastern kentucky.  i absolutely love
every minute that we get to spend together. my mind and my soul feel
completely alive....and it is a wonderful feeling.



i had a message on my answering machine from my Granny...she was asking
what a blog was...which means the word is out..she knows!!  and
somehow, though it should be technically impossible, she will manage to
find a way to infect my website with a virus. (just kidding,
granny......just don't click on anything!!)



i watched the movie Seabiscuit tonight.  it was a really good
movie, but there was one part in particular that got me thinking. 
at one point, the narrator talks about how workplaces all across the
nation closed early just so people could listen to the big match race
between War Admiral and Seabiscuit.  i just thought about that for
a while...a horse race...bringing a whole country together...shutting
down business as usual.



i know that it was a harder time...the country was trying to fight its
way out of a depression, and hope was pretty scarce...i know that we've
come a long way in so many different areas...but what have we
sacrificed?



kids don't play outside after dark anymore...



cartoons have become so watered down that they don't even make sense...i mean, what the frig is a Pokemon??



if you cut someone off in traffic, you might get a gun pointed at your
head, instead of a friendly wave that acknowledges that you've done the
same thing yourself...or probably will.



every time we turn on the television, we either see bad news, or a bad
Applebee's commercial...you know...the ones where they take an old song
and redo it with lyrics that sing the virtues of their food.  like
the latest one.."riblets, riblets, riblets...", in the style of the
theme from Rawhide, "rollin', rollin', rollin'." 



that really pisses me off...it quite possibly is my biggest pet peeve.



but i've gone off on a tangent now...sorry...



it just feels like we've lost sight of everything that really
matters.  we've sacrificed creativity in favor of "the proven
formula"...if you don't believe me, just turn to Fox.  hell, just
turn on your TV this fall.  there are THREE versions of CSI...3
versions of Law and Order...and a host of other shows that build on the
same premise...NCIS...Hawaii...Medical Investigator.  not that i
don't like these shows...but you have to wonder...what show got the axe
so that we could get CSI: New York??



reality shows, which i thought would be a quickly passing fad, dominate
the schedule.  again...i don't want to come across like i don't
enjoy some of these shows, because i do.  i somehow always manage
to get hooked on Survivor...and who doesn't like watching "The Donald"
tell someone, "You're Fired!". 



but last fall, Fox cancelled a fantastic little series called
Wonderfalls on Friday nights, and chose to air a rerun of Temptation
Island in its place.  Wonderfalls was well-written...it had a
great little cast that just fit right into their roles...hell, it even
had a lesbian couple, which should've been right up Fox's alley. 
but they pulled it...to show a rerun..from a show that is about
tempting couples to cheat on each other.  perhaps market research
showed that people with half-a-brain don't stay home on Friday nights.



i don't know why i'm complaining about all of this.  i guess i
just liked the idea that something as simple as a horse race could
raise everyone's collective spirit across this country.  could
rally everyone...bring everyone together...make them dream...or forget
all their troubles.



even if it was only for a couple of minutes.