LA-X-tra long wait (with updates)

Planes beckon outside LAX's Tom Bradley International Terminal but none will fly me to Sydney. I waited too long to book a flight out of Knoxville to LA (via Atlanta) and am suffering the consequences: loooong layovers. Mom dropped me off at Knoxville's Tyson-McGee airport at 6:30 am for my 7:30 flight to Atlanta, which landed at 8:30. Two-and-a-half hours later I was flying west, landing at LAX at 12:30 pm left coast time and leaving me with a ... {gulp} ... 11-hour wait for the flight to Sydney. Asked an airport employee where she would spend 11 hours at LAX; she immediately answered 'Tom Bradley'. Good call. Spent an hour devouring a perfect dish of chicken parm over linguini at Daily Grill and now have the laptop plugged into a Samsung kiosk while I battle the effects of being up since 3 am and tap-tap-tapping gently so as not to wake dozing travelers seated nearby.
UPDATE: This disparate melange of colors greets my uplifted eyes in the now darkened terminal:
UPDATE 2: Writing now from Gate 48, a familiar holding pen for Aussie-bound blokes and sheilas. Every one of my six LA to Sydney flights has originated from this circular purgatory of faded blue carpet and fake leather seats. On this trip, a sprinkling of Aussie voices is an appetizer of home after three weeks of deep-fried Dixie twang.

Arriving five hours before departure paid off in spades for this 6'4" flyer: exit row, aisle seat. Boo-yah! The kindly ticket agent worked keyboard magic to levitate me through levels of airline seat discomfort, from a wretched non-aisle-crippler to a slightly less horrific aisle-mangler to a mildly luxurious middle-exit-row to a coveted aisle-exit-row throne of pleasure. Travel tip: Never hesitate to compliment a ticket agent's elaborately painted fingernails.

Though I'm wearing the same clothes as when I cleared security without incident in Knoxville, I received full-potential-terrorist-treatment here in LA. Best part was when the Andy Kaufman lookalike 'personal screener' asked, mid-patdown and in a voice so sincere I'd swear he was auditioning for a daytime soap, "You're so patient with me ... you must be a doctor."

Let that sink in a moment. Now imagine the man saying it is passing a metal detector wand over your genitals and speaking in a voice that's part Mister Rogers, part Ted Bundy. While just to your right an old woman in a wheelchair is similarly having a metal-detector wand passed over her frail bones by a female personal screener.

You might understand what happened next as I drifted into a Starbucks. Words failed me. The barista, no doubt immune to the dull stares of air travelers, waited patiently. When language finally snaked its way through the sludge of my sleep-deprived and lunatic-assaulted psyche, I said, "America is losing its mind." Without a moment's hesitation and with a smile whiter than cappuccino foam, she answered, "A little bit more every day!"

Mornin' vittles.

Mom and I took a ride to Knoxville to do a little shopping this morning. First stop, Cracker Barrel for biscuits & gravy (above). It's a Southern thing.
Gay Street in downtown Knoxville.
The stately Tennessee Theater.
The main drag of Knoxville's 'Old City'.

Southern Saturday.

I count my blessings every day. I'm married to a remarkably beautiful woman. I have a warm, wonderful family. I have friends I've known all my life. I have a curiosity to know the places I visit, not just see them.

So when I'm in East Tennessee on an autumn Saturday, my wife is 16,000 kilometres away, the Vols are playing for the SEC title and my mom is asleep in front of the television ... I unabashedly go to Hooters.

There's no challenge in poking fun at a place that promotes itself as "delightfully tacky, yet unrefined." Its business model is sexist. Its interiors have the charm of dorm basements. Its customers range from beer-bellied soccer dads to toothless yokels. For a guy looking for a place to catch a college football game, however, it's got Dos Equis on tap, tasty chicken wings, a dozen plasma TV screens and -- yes -- pretty girls in criminally revealing outfits.

The woman above is Brittany. She's a bartender at Alcoa Hooters and a student at Carson-Newman College. She has a sweet smile and relaxed demeanor. Today, as the Vols took on the Kentucky Wildcats, her workplace looked like this ...
... so it goes without saying she was a sight for sore eyes.

So long, Johnny.

One of the Bush administration's staunchest cheerleaders has been given the boot. John Howard, Australia's Prime Minister for the past 11 years, has been trailing his opponent Kevin Rudd for months, so yesterday's landslide victory was no surprise. Most Australians have chafed at Howard's acquiescence to Bush/Cheney doctine -- a potted plant could have beaten Howard and his insufferable hatchet man, Peter Costello in this election.

Black Friday

Drove mom to work at 5:30 am this morning (she's a nurse at a dialysis clinic -- patients await even before the sun rises) and took a ride by Maryville's big stores afterwards. Not surprisingly, the Wal-Mart lot was packed and both Staples and Target had long lines of bundled shoppers braving the cold to be there for door-opening sales. The "biggest shopping day of the year" in the US is called Black Friday because retailers herald it as the day their businesses begin to turn a profit (out of the red, into the black); in other words, capitalism's high holy day.

Thankfully, not every place in town is a madhouse. I'm sitting in a spectacular cafe in Maryville's downtown called Capitol Coffee. It's within the refurbished lobby of an old Capitol Theater lobby, and includes an art gallery next door and party room upstairs. The owner (and resident artist) Heath Claiborne was telling me they're in the process of refurbishing the old theater. If I wasn't returning to Australia next Tuesday I know for sure I'd be at the restored Palace Theater down the street on December 22nd when they screen It's a Wonderful Life, the greatest Christmas film ever made.
Outside.
Inside the cafe.

Thanksgiving defined.

When my Aussie family and friends ask, "What is Thanksgiving?", I'll direct them to this post. Above is my first helping of the feast Kevin spent the day preparing. My brother cooks with the easy temperament of a world-class surfer; even more, his mastery is self-taught. To the holiday checklist we go:
Roaring hearth? <check>
Lovely table & family (note my mom in her Aussie jumper)? <check>
Photo ops of family in front of roaring hearth? <check>
Big ol' dogs on the porch to pet when we leave? <check>
And let's not even mention dessert ....

Give thanks, y'all.

All is right in my world this morning: I'm in Tennessee, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is on TV, mom's making pies and, unlike last year, I'm not at work. It was counter-intuitive to awake on this morning a year ago and trudge into ResMed, my employer at the time, and .... work. I brought some sort of Thanksgiving-like food -- a pie, maybe? -- to share with co-workers. They offered kind words about my 'American' holiday but it was just another day at the office.

As someone who's traveled to Tennessee to spend Thanksgiving with my mom since she moved here in 1987, Thanksgiving is anything but another day.

A hearty, happy Thanksgiving to my family and friends around the world.

Pilgrims

Rage against illegal immigrants was once only an applause line in the Republican field manual, but in the time since I moved to Australia it's become a metastasizing tumor:

• On ABC (American) News an insipid Republican presidential candidate (Mitt Romney) just proudly contrasted himself with an opponent by boasting that he, in fact, voted AGAINST tuition breaks for children of illegal immigrants while his opponent voted FOR such sinister legislation.
  
• The other day I saw a pudgy white guy driving a Ford pickup with a "Where's the fence?" bumper stiicker on its cab window.
  
• Saddest of all, the two lovely mothers pictured above with their kids became increasingly uncomfortable posing for this photo taken along an autumn-painted river walkway in downtown Maryville. Amanda and I were deep in conversation when the oldest boy said hello to us -- that's all I needed to want a photo. Almost immediately the mother on the right asked why. It wasn't until she asked a second time that I connected her concern with anti-illegal fervor. Of course her hesitation was justified ... and so goddamned sad.

Two- & four-legged familia

My brother Kevin & sister-in-law Ruth sip chai I made using sasurma's recipe & spices packed in Australia by Aradhna. As their attire shows, it was cold (26 F) yesterday morning for the yard sale held in mom's driveway.

More photos ....
A neighbor's horse nibbles on autumn leaves.
Mom's (ahem) husky (ahem) cat, Sam.
Kevin with Lily, one of his many dogs.
Two of Kevin's other dogs, Tony & Ruby, survey their domain.
Beside the pond on Kevin's property sit Amanda, Tony & Cocoa, the hillbilly cat.
This horse, spotted on a hillside down the gravel road from Kevin's place, raced up to my car when I stepped out to snap its picture. Unfortunately, I was without sugar cubes or carrots.

Wal-not-so-sMart

The assault on English spills over to an icing-covered battlefield -- a special occasion cake from Wal-Mart:

Some people that work here had a going away party the other day for a woman that is leaving. One of the supervisors called a Wal-Mart and ordered a cake. He told them to write "Best wishes Suzanne" and underneath that write "We will miss you". Here’s the cake that was delivered.

Pointless, but therapeutic.

Though few forums offer as little satisfaction as online comment sections, I couldn't resist responding to a reader named vatownsend's bleating about an EJ Dionne column in today's WaPo:

"You liberals had better get to work bashing conservatives, since the election of 2000 you all have become quite good at it, and it seems the only thing you do."
--Yes, vatownsend. All us crazy liberals do is 'bash' Bush. We don't pay attention to the damage this nation has suffered under the most corrupt and anti-American administration in history. It's left to conservative patriots like yourself to point out the heroic deeds of our brilliant Republican leadership ... oh, wait ... you didn't mention their successes ... didn't explain why you support an administration that's been abandoned by a great number of conservatives ... you didn't even defend the administration from Dionne's column ... you simply 'bashed' those who think for themselves and react to the 'reality' world, not the packaged propaganda favored by flag-waving chest-thumpers. Like yourself. I wish I could be more like you. Damn my functioning brain!

Southern exposure I

Remember kids, when satisfying your smoked meat needs, be sure to buy in bulk. [A friendly message from the National Association of Cardiologists.]

Summon the heavens!

There are almost too many ways to satirize this story. So I'll just play it straight: The seriously determined man in the photo above is Georgia governor Sonny Perdue. Like the rest of the Southeast, Georgia is suffering through a terrible drought. Perdue is leading a prayer service on the steps of the Georgia capital. Here's how he began the service: "We've come together here simply for one reason and one reason only: To very reverently and respectfully pray up a storm."

They're beseeching their god for rain. In public. Without shame or embarrassment.

Who needs to govern, who needs to cut back water usage, who needs to control rampant over-development ... after all, the Lord is in charge!!!

Editors of The Onion must find their jobs becoming more and more unnecessary in this country.

Dutch's shame

On the advice of my brother Kevin, mom and I watched a movie from 1999 called The Hurricane last night. Denzel Washington is typically outstanding as Rubin Carter, an aspiring boxer set up by crooked Paterson cops in the mid-60s. A powerful, if slightly altered, telling of Carter's brutalization by naked racism.

Film also offered perspective on the recent attempted whitewashing (literally) of former US president Ronald Reagan's sad civil rights record. Bob Herbert smacks down a Times colleague who recently wrote that Reagan's campaign visit to Philadelphia, Mississippi in 1980 was, if anything, an 'innocent mistake'. Anyone not sucking on a Republican crack pipe understands that intoning 'states' rights' in the place where 3 civil rights workers were massacred in 1964 is like poking a beaten dog in the eye with a stick.

Keep this in mind as GOP candidates invoke Dutch's with mystical reverence. Republican campaigns have always -- and will always -- emit a dog whistle to ears longing for racist harangues. In 2007, 'illegals' is the new bark-bringer. Plus ca change, plus c'est le meme chose .........

Southern comfort

The two great Southern pastimes are college football and eatin'. As the Vols bore me to tears, I'm shoving comfort into my face at every opportunity. Spending this rainy Tuesday afternoon in drought-bedeviled eastern Tennessee at Maryville's Panera Bread (shown above), where I met my niece Amanda for coffee & a sweet before she went to work. Unsettling to watch someone you held as an infant drive away in their Jeep ... ...
Amanda showing off her new necklace, a gift from Mr & Mrs Sharma.
Mom and her beloved Dawn.
Oh, the indignities of being a spoiled dog ......
Fall foliage as seen in the back of mom's house ....
... striking sunset as seen in front.

Sydney's soul

As I visit friends & family here in the States, I'm sometimes at a loss to explain why Aradhna and I are moving from Sydney to Melbourne next month. Yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald provided a mini-primer on the shortfalls of Australia's most iconic city. Its headline: All Arteries and No Pulse.

Bingo.

Sydney's lovely to behold, is surrounded by many wonderful neighborhoods and is home to an array of ethnicities ... but in a banquet hall of great cities, teeters on the stilettos of a drunken trophy wife.

Drive-by Trucker

Sunny Friday morning at my mom's place in Maryville. Arrived at 7:00 last night after 2 days of driving, first north from the Jersey shore to my dentist in Ramsey, then south for the 900-mile haul to Dixie and through autumn-colored Appalachia (shown above).Wednesday morning, U-Haul loaded and ready to roll.
My route south cut through the Shenandoah, Blue Ridge and Smokie Mountains.
Typically graceless gas stop in Virginia.
Long hauls like this make one appreciate a trucker's life.
Homestretch, closing in on Knoxville at dusk.

Asbury Park

Heading to North Jersey this morning to pay an unfortunate visit to Bob Boff, my former dentist. Aging kicks ass! Will then point the loaded moving truck south and head to Tennessee. My fixation with Asbury Park hasn't abated, as the photo above of the view across Cookman Avenue from America's Cup coffee shop and the following demonstrate.For generations of Jersey Shore visitors, this view across Wesley Lake from Ocean Grove took in Palace Amusements.
Construction abounds along Ocean Ave.
AP's new desired demographic is a far cry from the days when I bought my place, which could have been described as "Not afraid to live here? Come on in!"
This lovely view across Sunset Lake hasn't changed in decades.
Neither has this one, looking east from the Sunset Lake bridge.
The dilapidated Metropolitan Hotel recently escaped the wrecking ball, but could be a pile of rubble by this time next month.
Progress was inevitable, but does it have to be as goddamn horrific as these townhouses along Wesley Lake?
The Steinbach building, Monmouth County's shopping hub when my mom was a little girl growing up in Neptune, has been restored. Amazing.
The old ...
... and the new.