Barking Carnival

“How can you come here and not drink beer?”
I am assuming this question is either theoretical or rhetorical; it certainly wasn’t thrown out to seek any relevant information. But that’s the kind of place this is. “This” of course could be any place in America, but in this case it is the bar in [...]

We learn much from airline magazines, all in neat digestible 300-word bites. The ads interest me more than the articles, vitally informing us of America’s finest steakhouses and the rolling carry-on that will, indeed, completely change the way you feel about business travel. But the vacation ads rock the hardest. Yes, I am convinced that [...]

The bitterness fades with each bite of jambalaya. This version comes from a seventh-generation and self-described coonass from Slidell. He throws in some outrageous venison sausage—the herd’s got to be thinned out right?—and I washed it down appropriately. I’ve already lost one bet to the Florida fan in attendance: Alabama plus ten losing by eleven [...]

At least the BCS renewed my passion for AM radio. The Jones family took in Missouri/Kansas through the magic of the internet, with the 30-second refresh adding intensity and anticipation to a game that was exciting enough in real time for those who actually saw it. We made due with Zach’s call from the back [...]

We improve things far beyond their utility in this country. That’s my thought while I watch a vending machine slowly engage an elevator device, moving both horizontally and vertically, carefully select a 16 ounce bottle of Dasani water and gently bring it down to the vending window. Heaven forbid a bottled water drop too violently [...]

Miserable. My word for Sunday morning described not any result on the field—my team won easily—but rather that run-over-by-a-truck, what-did-I-do-to-deserve-this?, I’d-rather-be-strapped-to-a-chair-watching-Hee-Haw-reruns feeling. This may have happened because I missed the flu shot clinic at work a couple of weeks ago because, naturally, one of my kids was sick. Feeling a little better on a Monday [...]

“The new president wants to end the BCS.”
This from the backseat, offered up by the thirteen-year-old future constitutional law scholar.
“Yeah, well that is what he said.” No denying this, at half-time of Monday Night Football, for the love of Pete, the junior Senator from Illinois was asked the most pressing problem in sports. His opponent [...]

Too much red wine, that’s the epigram for November 1, 2008 in the Jones household. Serves a variety of purposes, red wine. Purpose one was relaxation on this Saturday night. Then we moved to stress relief, then local anesthetic. The second half brought out the joyful qualities. It even fueled buoyant celebration, the kind brought [...]

My grandfather loved Shakespeare. Grandad was convinced that psychology, a discipline he actually taught at the college level, was unnecessary; Shakespeare had already figured it all out. The conflicts between children and parents, the battle of id and ego, the reviled among us speaking the most eloquent truths, the dangers of pride (and women), tragedy, [...]

Enchiladas y Mas used to be a Mexican joint; that’s when it was in the tiny brick building at Dean Keeton and I-35, adjacent to the Roadway Inn, which was one of the places folks stayed for college football weekends back when folks stayed in motels and could easily afford tickets for a family of [...]

The blood rushed straight to my head; it came with a searing pain moving from both of my ears in a sprint colliding in the center of my skull. I think a ghost hit me with a frying pan. That’s the moment I blacked out. For a brief second, all I saw was a bright [...]

“I dreamed I felt the presence of God last night.”
“You probably were in the presence of God.”
“No, it was just a dream; it wasn’t real life.”
“Dreams are real life. They belong to you.”
The voice says East Texas. The vocabulary says Vanderbilt. No wonder I fell in love. She ordered a Bass Ale on our first [...]

Deer do not eat Burford Holly. Or at least they don’t enjoy it, Burford Holly being sharp, overly chewy, bitter, poorly paired with red wine and generally deer-resistant. Every piece of landscaping advice I have sought in my career as a homeowner lists Burford Holly in the deer-resistant column. The deer in my neighborhood are [...]

Climbing hills taxes a man. I’m speaking physically, not metaphorically. The aptly-named Mountainclimb Drive bisecting my neighborhood provides such a test. I need about six minutes to get up it at a decent pace. By “decent” I mean fast enough to think well of myself at the top, but not so fast I suffer cardiac [...]

The Duke sweatshirt went missing years ago. The last tangible proof that I went to grad school there, other than the diploma I guess, it was classic old school style with the white cut-out block letters in all caps sewn onto the dark blue front. I don’t know if they make them like that anymore. [...]

Boss and Charlie should be two characters in a Howard Hawks movie. Instead, the two boys, ages four and three, sit quietly at the bar with their dads. Reasonably quietly anyway; there is only so much quiet a Sonic kid’s meal can guarantee. Boss goes by “Boss” because his full title is entirely too complicated [...]

If, as I believe, God has a sense of humor, so then does Steve Jobs. Some in our culture think that they are the same person, but I will leave that rather complicated sociological exploration for another day, week five perhaps. The divine God/Jobs humor sings to me, literally, through the vagaries of my iPod. [...]

Remember when you could smoke cigarettes in football stadiums? I liked the world better that way. I am neither virulently libertarian, nor am I a member of any sort of modern day Christian temperance movement. My vices are documented in these pages, for better or worse (they include caffeine, Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey older than [...]

The summer doldrums, my favorite time of the sports year. Listless, despondent, stagnant. Flavorful as Coors Light. Left open. In the sun for a couple of hours. The land of regular season baseball, Roger Federer, interchangeable Russian women playing tennis, Tigerless golf and the NBA draft, where my San Antonio Spurs will no doubt take [...]

“There must have been some magic in the old felt hat they found, for when they placed it on his head, he began to dance around…”
OK, so the holidays are long over. Frosty has melted away and, unless you are spiritually tuned into Twelfth Night, you have by now packed up the tree, the wreath, [...]