Certain amount of fed-up-ness with narcissistic infantile prima donnas, right 'chere.

CW: Work 5% harder & be 5% nicer. But don't take shit from anyone.

If I'd been smart, I would bought a job-lot of green bandannas about 10 days ago

CW: Shut up and listen.

CW: Don't cop attitude unless you've manifestly better chops than anybody else in the room.

Too few of these young'uns get that excellence not only defeats mediocrity--it's also EASIER.

CW: Heed your elders.

You pay for that truck yourself? Pay your school bills for yourself? Pay your own rent? No? Than get back to me when you're a man, son.

Times when I think bicycle is only thing keeping me from committing mayhem.

CW: Creativity is Not a left-brain activity. Preparation IS.

CW: get up early.

Hate $4/gal gas? Read Family of Secrets on Bush oil ties to House of Saud & then resolve to ride a bike!

Love watching fraternity guys primping: 'specially the way they blush like little girls when you catch 'em at it.

Grocery lines: Harvey Pekar had it right.

CW: learn to work with adrenaline.

CW: experience is more valuable than theory. Much more valuable.

CW: the best moment in any meal is the one just before the first: Gratitude.

Never gonna be a W Texan: insufficient tolerance for "visitin'. "

Echoes of Spring: seasonal bike-shop visit & hang. Birds singing, cold wind blowing.

Finally reading Family of Secrets (history of Bush fam secret dealings). Confirms what we all suspected: we're ruled by multi-national oil barons.

CNN talking heads on tsunami toll: to paraphrase Hannah Arendt, the is the "evil of banality."

You hang out in bars, you meet the kind of people who hang out in bars.

I would happily travel multiple hundredsof miles to find a bartender who actually pulls a competent pint of Guinness. Don't expect to find one.

Sat before Patrick's Day: Amateur Night.

NM: 400 years now, the flatboats have been fighting their way up this big old River against the current of the Spring rains.

Lady, the tanning booth doesn't make you look healthy or buff: it makes you look like a bleached-blonde raccoon, complete with the dark roots.

Combine arrogance, ignorance, and fear in balanced ratio to yield = modern GOP.

Big Bill said "Fellow citizens, this is the Continental Congress of the working class." I think Madison might just be its rebirth.

Depressing to see how much certain senior scholars, decades later, remain stuck in their unselfreflective hubris.

THREE giant rolly-bags apiece? You bimbos are kidding, right?!?

Reminded of Tim Robbins line in Bull Durham: "Jesus, that was beautiful! What the hell did I do?!?"

3rd fanboy moment: Tom Riis (N CO) says "have your ears been buzzing?" & solicits minstrelsy MS for AMS monographs series.

2nd fanboy moment: Dale Cockrell (Demons of Desire) volunteers apology for missing paper, asks if we can meet later for coffee. Ummm...yes, sir?

Fanboy moment: Scott DeVeaux (Bebop, Giddins/DeVeaux history) says "Yours was the best paper I've heard this conference."

NM: leashed boxer turns corner, encounters skateboarder: mutual incomprehension.

Show-offy self-regard.

Why are so many eminent humanities academics so unconscious of their stagy nerd-dom?

Gorgeous old Steel-belt buildings. From the days when this country actually built things.

This fuckin' nation: giant tsunami throughout Pacific, USA Today headline: "Americans squeezed by gas prices."

Look, I know you're lost in your self-important walking-and-talking iPhone bubble but would you kindly get the fuck out of my way?!?

Of COURSE American "can't locate a jet-bridge driver"!

DFW

TX UIL choir competition: the big hair/big ego Matrix is upon us.

NM: mockingbird returned to front-yard maple, singing his fool head off: Spring.

Tuesday before Spring Break and the little brats are already starting to bail.

NM: mandarin-orange sun coming up through dusty eastern dawn, over cotton-field stubble.

Brock-McGuire headin' all up outta this joint.

NM: toddler waves goodbye to band as Mama leads her out of concert hall.

NM: front goin' through, weather change on the South Plains, Brock-McGuire Band floating through open church doors.

NM; buds opening on the dogwoods. Spring.

As always, damned proud of my guys.

Ain't nothin' but spoiled chirrun all up in hiyah.

NM: the pure cathartic rage of Richard Thompson's guitar--"Can't Win (Live)."

Hey, sorority bimbos: if you want to "do something for charity", try WORKING.

Vast majority of Americans don't have enough brains to walk & chew gum, much less drive & text.

Spring Break season; spoiled sorority bimboes teeter-tottering (eg having fun) for charity.

NM: no rain since October. Parched sparrows drinking from campus fountain.

Warm day on Quad: springtime wardrobes.

Dharmonia: "Damn! Singers are gone on tour; place is quiet as the grave!"

Weer in ur kids' hds, teachin critical thinkin.

NM: Grief unites. Or should.

CW: Take care of the young'uns.