Steve Buckellew (1968-2008)May the wind take your troubles away...

Stephen Hunter Buckellew, 39, passed away Tuesday evening, April 22, 2008, after a brief illness. Memorial service: 11 a.m. Friday at Roberston Mueller Harper. Memorials: In lieu of flowers, consideration of contributions to The WARM Place, 809 Lipscomb St., Fort Worth, Texas 76104, www.thewarmplace.org, in Steve's memory, is suggested. A native and lifelong resident of Fort Worth, Steve was the son of Cleveland Oren "Buck" Buckellew Jr. and Pamela Ann Hunter Buckellew. He graduated from Southwest High School in 1987 and Texas A&M University before receiving his M.S. from the University of Texas at Arlington. Steve was an intellectual with varied pursuits spanning literature, music, movies, politics, blogging, crossword puzzles, woodworking, photography, food and sports. He was also a highly talented pool player. Above all, Steve was friend to countless who will treasure the many good times enjoyed and lament the lost opportunities to share in his company. He will be deeply missed. Survivors: Steve is survived by his wife, Mary Jane Richardson; mother and stepfather, Pam and Al Esquivel; brothers and sisters-in-law, Phil and Lisa Buckellew and Bruce Hervey and Katie Barber; grandmother, Christine Wesley; parents-in-law, Jim and Ann Richardson; brother-in-law, James Richardson; and many throughout Fort Worth and beyond whom he called friends.

Published in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on 4/24/2008.

Hellscape: Iran

I know I've gone quite far with the Orwellian metaphor relating to the Bush administration. But to put things into perspective, I've been doing a little research on Iran. Iranians are very poor, despite the oil-wealth of the nation, and they have terrible drug problem with Afghani opium. Yet, they have this group called the Basij, which is basically a Hitler Youth to enforce the fundamentalist Islamic moral code.

These young folks were orignially recruited as cannon fodder in Iraqi minefields during the Iran-Iraq war of the eighties. Their role has changed quite a bit in peacetime. While they have some legitimate responsibilities like disaster relief, they mostly man checkpoints where they make sure women aren't wearing makeup, are dressed in proper hijab, and are accompanied only by male relatives. They also do other wonderful things like suppress student protests for freedom, break up mixed-gender parties, and tear down satellite dishes.

Sucks to be in Iran. So lets go bomb them to bring freedom. (Also see this article on the Iranian drug problem. We have to realize that they are frail people, just like us, despite the monolithic fundamentalist talk from our government.

The Unfortunate Mr. Quest

Stumbled on this article today while reading the news. Richard Quest, CNN International reporter, was busted in Central Park last night. From the NY Post:

CNN personality Richard Quest was busted in Central Park early yesterday with some drugs in his pocket, a rope around his neck that was tied to his genitals, and a sex toy in his boot, law-enforcement sources said.

You think he'd like a do-over? The Post, never known for being subtle, goes on:

He was reportedly once offered a position for the English-language version of the controversial Al Jazeera network, but said he turned it down because being gay and Jewish, he didn't think it would be a good fit.

This bespeaks a monolithic fundamentalist view of the middle-east (Iran has one of the biggest drug-abusing populations in the world.) But in light of current events, maybe it was the right call.

Main Street Arts Festival

The biggest and coolest festival in the Metroplex is going on this weekend. They use tickets for beer and food so you don't realize you're paying usurious prices. But I don't give a fuck. I love festivals. It's an opportunity to become anonymous in a crowd and check out the zeitgeist (as far as FW can be a gauge of the zeitgeist.)

Here's some major themes I took away from the festival:

• Obesity - everyone is fat now, and I'm no exception.
• Dogs - they are now carried, not walked, mostly by dickless men. (see first bullet)
• Beer - still very popular (see first bullet)
• Hot chicks - must have been elsewhere, I thought I was in Chicago (see first bullet)
• Tattoos - still don't get it. Ugly. Crutch for something, maybe vapidity.
• Live music - still the best, I don't really care what they're playing. I enjoyed the 65 year old men playing "Funky Cold Medina."
• Art - as it should be, a matter of taste. Original art is expensive...as it should be. As a knuckleheaded woodworker, it took several days/weeks to make a piece worthy of using in my own house. What am I worth per hour? (Ladies?)
• Food - I'm exclusive to Schmidt's. They throw down great Brats and other sausages. One ticket extra for kraut. (see first bullet)
• Babies - ubiquitous. I saw a two-year-old on a five-point leash.
• Overall - can't think of a better way to spend an afternoon.

Blog News

My friends over at the West & Clear site generously asked if I would begin contributing to their site from time to time. The first post appeared today and can been read here. Thanks to their heightened sense of style, they added some appropriate art to my post.

We Love Our Storms

As this past week has proven in spades, we North Texans are subject to some of the most violent weather in the world, and it comes at a moment's notice. Typically tornadoes give you maybe five minutes warning. What a load of shit! We're by god cheated out of a decent gallows party. When the air raid sirens go off, I barely have time to pour a scotch on the rocks, much less margaritas for the multitudes. People on the gulf coast at least have a few days notice to get down to the liquor store for some tequila and maybe hit the grocer for a modest cheese plate or something.

And it seems that the ripest time for foul weather also includes late afternoon at the office. You'd have to keep a hip-flask of Cuervo and some margarita mix in your desk while watching the beast come hither through your 25th floor western exposure. A 55 cent bag of Dorito's out of the machine doesn't do justice to the massive destructive power of a Texas-style thunderstorm.

But, yet, we North Texans love our thunderstorms. The worse the better. It's a strange kind of schadenfreude where we sit glued to the TV or the internet just hoping a tornado is going to drop somewhere. We run with a strange dour glee from office to office telling one another about the funnel cloud that was spotted just north of Weatherford as the leading edge sheets of rain alight on our plate-glass office windows.

Long time Fort Worthians see major storms as mile-markers in life; they are points of inflection. The big April hailstorm back in 80 that caused 60 million bucks worth of damage and everyone got a new roof, and the Mayfest hailstorm in 95 where fathers were jumping on top of their children to protect them, along with the colossal downtown tornado in 2000 that turned a proper office tower into a plywood obelisk for the next three years or so.

We know the cost of storms in both blood and treasure, but we have persevered and thusly wear them as a badge of honor and with a sense of humor. It's a lot like racing, we watch to see the big crash and hope everyone walks away safely.

Movie Night

I guess tonight is movie night. I've been scouring teh internets for clips from some of my favorite flicks, culling out only the best to provide to the dear reader. Here's an incredibly relevant Elizabeth Taylor in the awesome, yet jarring, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf".

The Hustler

I was chatting with a friend recently about how Oscars are sometimes given for good-not-great roles or movies, because they are making up for mistakes in the past. Scorcese winning for The Departed is a good example. It's a good movie, but it's no Goodfellas, Raging Bull, or Taxi Driver. The other example, for me, was Paul Newman winning for The Color of Money (coincidentally directed by Scorcese). I haven't looked at the list of nominees for Hud, Cool Hand Luke, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Butch Cassidy, or The Sting, but as anyone who has seen these movies surely know, he's more than a pretty face.

Predictably, my favorite Newman movies are Hud (Texas, Larry McMurtry, etc.) and The Hustler (Pool). I ran across this fantastic clip of the climax of The Hustler. Total spoiler if you haven't seen the movie which is a four-star absolute must watch movie. But if you have seen it, take ten minutes and watch the interplay between Newman, Gleason, and George C. Scott (as the embodiment of evil).

Petraeus Hypocrisy?

I saw a good bit of the Senatorial grilling of General Petraues and Ryan Crocker, and a fair bit from the House. The General (as he will be referred to, because I'm not too confident typing his last name) responded to bipartisan grilling about when we can extract our troops. His refrain, for two days, was that it will depend on the "conditions". He could never define these conditions, yet he introduced some great new terms like battlefield geometry and politco-milatry calculus.

In the end, we're still left with the same ol' open ended military commitment that could last for John McCain's 100 years. There was no shortage of catastrophizing what would happen if more than the surge troops were withdrawn (apparently conditions for this have been met.) But one thing stuck out. What if things get worse? The General said that he could not foresee adding anymore troops. This sound like a serious flaw in his "conditions based" logic.

What if the battlefield geometry and politico-military calculus called for another surge? In his testimony, he said adding more troops wasn't going to happen. So what of his lofty "condition based" theorizing? Smells like political bullshit to me. If I'm boiling some pasta and it's boiling over the pan, I turn the heat down; If it's not boiling, I turn the heat up. To me, this is "condition-based decision making". But Petraeus is apparently OK with undercooked pasta.

Not that I want more troops, I'm just trying to illustrate his logical flaw. Any day, it might be happening how, the Mahdi army could call off the cease fire and restoke the civil war against the Badr Brigades and the Sunnis. Any day the Sunni militia could get a better offer than the $10/day we're paying them to keep quiet. This seems a very tenuous peace and our General Officer seems to have his lips firmly attached to a Republican butthole.

Cuss-O-Meter

I think these cocksuckers don't know a fucking shit-ass thing, dickless shit-ass pussies.



Created by OnePlusYou

Thanks for the Link

Thanks to the folks over at The Whited Sepulchre for noticing my travails over the weekend and giving me possibly the weirdest summary title ever: Briskets, Semicolons, Trial and Error.

If you haven't checked this page out, you should. They're right leaning libertartians who manage to really crank out well-written, well-thought posts that I occasionally agree with, in part, sometimes. Oh, and they have a cool banner as well.

He fancies Dennis Kucinich a short-busser, when, in fact, he's just a good ol' fashioned bomb thrower. Every presidential election needs their Ron Pauls and Al Sharptions and Dennis Kuciniches who are willing to speak unvarnished truth to the masses. They never have the cash or the party-backing, but they can get folks' thinking.

I'll defer to the owners, but I'm thinking of a Whited Sepulchre as a line in Heart of Darkness. We'll let them elaborate....

Rock, Chalk, Jayhawk

Fitting, it is. Every year I go over my NCAA bracket and I'm always tempted by the perfumed inner-thigh of Kansas. I've been a Kansas fan since Danny Manning's squad bested the unbeatable Billy Tubbs' Oklahoma team in 88. I loved Roy Williams, and Jacque Vaughn, and Paul Pierce, Kirk Hinrich and all the small white guys that could shoot threes with thier eyes closed.

But they always disappointed me in the tournament. I'd pick 'em high every year and they would inevitably fail me. So this year I did something different. I knocked 'em out early. It might have cost me my bracket, but bracket be damned.

I know getting into x's and o's is boring, but I think Kansas made a big error in the second half, after having the momentum throughout the first half, in going to zone defenses. The box-and-one against CDR didn't work and sparked one hell of a run from Memphis that left Kansas dead meat down 9 with two minutes to play. I really can't explain the rest, other than that Memphis' traditional poor foul shooting caught up with them. KU hit the clutch three to kick it into OT where they never looked back.

This was one of the best NCAA tourneys I've seen in years culminating in a fantastic up-and-down game with plenty of lead and momentum changes. Excellent way to spend a Monday evening.

Meat: Epilogue

Do you have any idea how much liquor it takes to sit outside and smoke a brisket for nigh on 24 hours? As soon as that internal temp hit 190, I wrapped it in foil, threw it in the oven to rest, and passed out. I stuck it in the fridge Sunday morning and forgot about. This ordeal had left me withered and crapulous. I spent Sunday laying around watching the two basketball games I had missed the night before and whatever I had recently recorded off Discovery or History. I didn't even open my laptop.

So it wasn't until today that I saw what I had created. Upon my initial inspection of the exterior, it looked like a proper brisket, and it smelled like a proper brisket. I located the grain direction and cut a few perpendicular slices. Proper red smoke ring, check, perfect meat color elsewhere. It was hard to cut because the damn thing was cold; I'll chalk that up to a lesson learned. And I'll be damned if the sumbitch didn't taste like a proper Texas brisket ready for a sandwich near you. I sliced up the flat (lean) part of the brisket, then roughly trimmed and chopped up the point (more marbled) to be used for chopped brisked at a later date.

After all that hard work, I'm happy to say it was a success. I've only learned about 1500 things I'd do differently, but, by god, it worked.

Semicolon Update

I'm apparently not the only soul who's about had it with the semicolon. I came by a link today, from and article last Friday, that showed some very incisive commentary on this vestigial punctuation mark. Read it here.

Meat III

This shit is wearing my tired ass out. 24 hours later it appears that the brisket is within five degrees of being done. I've learned alot in the process. I've also drank a superhuman quantity of vodka and listened to a shitload of good music. The ribs cooked flawlessly in just a few hours. But the brisket will be the piece de resistance. More later.

Adventures in Meat Smoking II

Well, last night's attempt at smoking a brisket was fraught with error. I apparently need to go down to the supermarket and shanghai some tow-headed boy scout in hopes that he can impart to me the rudiments of fire (or shall I offer a sacrifice to Prometheus?)

The smoker apparently is allied with the Bush administration in its moral absolutism. Last night, it knew only two temperatures: 7000 degrees or ice cold. My inexperience with the smoker and my experience with Tito's Vodka surely weren't helping.

I chunked a couple of logs on before I logged off for the evening about 3:30 or so. I checked it at 9am and it was stone cold, so all my internal temp measurements were thrown into a giant shitspin. I've had it going again all day and I'm still not at my desired internal temp.

There are silver linings, however. The smoker did a bang-up job of heating up some hot-links. Of course the microwave could have knocked this out in about 45 seconds, but it would be lacking the crispy exterior. And I've got a rack of ribs on, for which everything has gone very well and look and smell tasty.

I've yet to taste any of the food yet, so look forward to episode III.

Adventures in Meat Smoking

So I got this smoker. I've been wanting to start smoking briskets, ribs, pork shoulders, etc for years. Now I have the means. And tonight I'm putting words into action, by god. My wife picked up a good looking brisket rub at Pendery's today. I went to Costco to grab up a cryovac Brisket, but apparently everyone in the metroplex is smoking briskets this weekend and they were stone out. So on to Albertson's where they only had two left. I picked, of course, the biggest.

I get it trimmed up, and get the rub on, and now it's time for the fire. In reality, it was time for the fire well before this other stuff. It's the fire that's killing me. I've chopped up a bunch of pecan that fell over my fence from my neighbor's tree, so I'm good on fuel. But I'm aiming for a fire at about 225 and this son of a bitch was hot enough to forge metal. It's been burning for hours and it's still too damn hot. Of course I already put the brisket on 45 minutes ago.

Now I'm just hoping that thing will cool off a bit and I can add another log before I go to bed in a few hours.

Any advice is more than welcome... As I'm sure all the readership will be waiting with bated breath to hear about the condition of my meat, I'll shoot an update tomorrow.

Semicolon

I'm puttin' the word out on a matter of the utmost importance to the population. Urgent reply requested. Does anyone feel rock-solid certain and comfortable in the use of a semicolon? It's apparently an important enough punctuation mark to warrant not having to hit the shift key, while the lowly colon requires a shift. I don't know about you, but I'm on pretty firm ground with the colon.

The semicolon is an enigma to me. When I feel it may be called for, I fall into a morass of self-analysis; evaluating my writing in terms of dependent and independent clauses, transitional words, etc. I usually end up just starting a new fucking sentence.

What use is the semicolon? And why does it merit such prominent placement on a keyboard?

Again, this is truly urgent. And did I use it correctly in the second paragraph, second sentence? I have no clue.

REM Accelerates

I saw REM on Colbert last night promoting their new album Accelerate (I think that was the name). It was not the jangly McGuinn-Rickenbacker sound that Peter Buck (Tom Petty, The Plimsouls, and others) made a living off of. Although Peter was playing a fine-looking six-string Rick. McGuinn always favored the twelve-string, as I recall (and my recollection is mostly of the live shots of Tambourine Man for which he admitted stealing the beat from the Beach Boy's "Don't Worry Baby").

All that is beside the point, I was an REM fanatic in their 85-90 college radio greatness. I could probably still warble every note from Murmur, Reckoning, Fables, Pageant, Document, and Dead Letter Office (which was a compendium of B-sides and their first EP Chronic Town). They started really losing me on Green, and by Out of Time or Monster (can't remember the order), I was out of patience. I've mentioned on more than one occasion that I'm an "old shit" kind of guy, but in the case of REM, the 80s shit was way better than the 90s shit.

At long last, to the point. The new album rocks. No elaborate production. Short songs. No massive strings. Ripping guitar. See, I like to rock. And finally, it seems like REM might like to rock as well. Accelerate doesn't rock like, say, Pageant, which rocked all the way through with the exception of Swan, Swan and Flowers of Guatamala, but it definitely does rock. Cheers to them, the spirit of Bill Berry is back.

And as a bonus, I learned something. When I download from iTunes, I typically go for single songs. This is the first album I've downloaded in a long time. And what used to be my greatest complaint about iTunes and albums is now resolved. Now you get a PDF doc with all the album art and liner notes. Big step forward.

Now if I could just find an iMax theatre that had the new Scorcese-Stones movie without having to drive to Dallas.

Poll Summaries

I sincerely want to thank everyone that voted in the polls. I know some polls were slightly frivolous, while others were dead serious. I wouldn't ask for your response if I was genuinely interested in your response. I've recently made this blog public. That may or may not increase traffic, but I'll still be posting anonymous polls (and they are completely anonymous, I have no idea on anyone's votes unless I ask.) So now to the results....most important first:

Bigfoot: Vote tightened toward the end. We're inside the margin of error, so I don't think we're going to be breaking news on the Bigfoot front, despite my purposely vague question. I know we had at least one Phd in Biology or some such vote against. We also had one guy that watched a very compelling show on the Sci-Fi channel vote for. So that balances out.

Guns for Students: I think we can safely infer that, among our demographic, college kids shouldn't be packing heat.

Grandparents vs. Drinkers: by 2:1 people would rather run the gauntlet of folks that my have had a couple of pops than octagenarians.

Gladiators vs. Clean Athletes: by 2:1 folks would rather see clean athletes than cheaters. Good luck. I guess Hollywood stars shouldn't have plastic surgery either.

Hillary at first was clearly electable, but the more she threw her kitchen sink at Obama, the worse her electability numbers, ending up about 50/50 in this demo. As an anti-Republican and an Obama supporter, I think she and her husband are carrying too much baggage. Recent polls say the same. It's becoming more and more evident that with her this is a campaign of ego and destiny rather than what's best for America.

Obama is a little less than 2:1 electable. There's still a block out there that doesn't feel like he can pull it off. Anecdotally, my conversations with Democrats still think that America won't vote for a black man.

We've got a couple still open, so please participate.